{"id": "pg19_000", "title": "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2145", "tokens": 65536, "chars": 270107, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nThe Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length,\nand so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to\na caterpillar crawling from the south to the north. Standing on\nits red-and-white cliffs, and looking off under the path of the\nrising sun, one sees only the Desert of Arabia, where the east\nwinds, so hateful to vinegrowers of Jericho, have kept their\nplaygrounds since the beginning. Its feet are well covered by\nsands tossed from the Euphrates, there to lie, for the mountain\nis a wall to the pasture-lands of Moab and Ammon on the west--lands\nwhich else had been of the desert a part.\n\nThe Arab has impressed his language upon everything south and\neast of Judea, so, in his tongue, the old Jebel is the parent of\nnumberless wadies which, intersecting the Roman road--now a dim\nsuggestion of what once it was, a dusty path for Syrian pilgrims\nto and from Mecca--run their furrows, deepening as they go, to\npass the torrents of the rainy season into the Jordan, or their\nlast receptacle, the Dead Sea. Out of one of these wadies--or,\nmore particularly, out of that one which rises at the extreme end\nof the Jebel, and, extending east of north, becomes at length\nthe bed of the Jabbok River--a traveller passed, going to the\ntable-lands of the desert. To this person the attention of the\nreader is first besought.\n\nJudged by his appearance, he was quite forty-five years old.\nHis beard, once of the deepest black, flowing broadly over his\nbreast, was streaked with white. His face was brown as a parched\ncoffee-berry, and so hidden by a red kufiyeh (as the kerchief of\nthe head is at this day called by the children of the desert)\nas to be but in part visible. Now and then he raised his eyes,\nand they were large and dark. He was clad in the flowing garments\nso universal in the East; but their style may not be described\nmore particularly, for he sat under a miniature tent, and rode\na great white dromedary.\n\nIt may be doubted if the people of the West ever overcome the impression\nmade upon them by the first view of a camel equipped and loaded for\nthe desert. Custom, so fatal to other novelties, affects this feeling\nbut little. At the end of long journeys with caravans, after years of\nresidence with the Bedawin, the Western-born, wherever they may be,\nwill stop and wait the passing of the stately brute. The charm is\nnot in the figure, which not even love can make beautiful; nor in\nthe movement, the noiseless stepping, or the broad careen. As is\nthe kindness of the sea to a ship, so that of the desert to its\ncreature. It clothes him with all its mysteries; in such manner,\ntoo, that while we are looking at him we are thinking of them:\ntherein is the wonder. The animal which now came out of the wady\nmight well have claimed the customary homage. Its color and height;\nits breadth of foot; its bulk of body, not fat, but overlaid with\nmuscle; its long, slender neck, of swanlike curvature; the head,\nwide between the eyes, and tapering to a muzzle which a lady's\nbracelet might have almost clasped; its motion, step long and elastic,\ntread sure and soundless--all certified its Syrian blood, old as the\ndays of Cyrus, and absolutely priceless. There was the usual bridle,\ncovering the forehead with scarlet fringe, and garnishing the throat\nwith pendent brazen chains, each ending with a tinkling silver bell;\nbut to the bridle there was neither rein for the rider nor strap\nfor a driver. The furniture perched on the back was an invention\nwhich with any other people than of the East would have made the\ninventor renowned. It consisted of two wooden boxes, scarce four\nfeet in length, balanced so that one hung at each side; the inner\nspace, softly lined and carpeted, was arranged to allow the master\nto sit or lie half reclined; over it all was stretched a green\nawning. Broad back and breast straps, and girths, secured with\ncountless knots and ties, held the device in place. In such manner\nthe ingenious sons of Cush had contrived to make comfortable the\nsunburnt ways of the wilderness, along which lay their duty as\noften as their pleasure.\n\nWhen the dromedary lifted itself out of the last break of the wady,\nthe traveller had passed the boundary of El Belka, the ancient\nAmmon. It was morning-time. Before him was the sun, half curtained\nin fleecy mist; before him also spread the desert; not the realm\nof drifting sands, which was farther on, but the region where the\nherbage began to dwarf; where the surface is strewn with boulders\nof granite, and gray and brown stones, interspersed with languishing\nacacias and tufts of camel-grass. The oak, bramble, and arbutus\nlay behind, as if they had come to a line, looked over into the\nwell-less waste and crouched with fear.\n\nAnd now there was an end of path or road. More than ever the camel\nseemed insensibly driven; it lengthened and quickened its pace, its\nhead pointed straight towards the horizon; through the wide nostrils\nit drank the wind in great draughts. The litter swayed, and rose\nand fell like a boat in the waves. Dried leaves in occasional beds\nrustled underfoot. Sometimes a perfume like absinthe sweetened all\nthe air. Lark and chat and rock-swallow leaped to wing, and white\npartridges ran whistling and clucking out of the way. More rarely\na fox or a hyena quickened his gallop, to study the intruders at\na safe distance. Off to the right rose the hills of the Jebel,\nthe pearl-gray veil resting upon them changing momentarily into\na purple which the sun would make matchless a little later.\nOver their highest peaks a vulture sailed on broad wings into\nwidening circles. But of all these things the tenant under the\ngreen tent saw nothing, or, at least, made no sign of recognition.\nHis eyes were fixed and dreamy. The going of the man, like that of\nthe animal, was as one being led.\n\nFor two hours the dromedary swung forward, keeping the trot\nsteadily and the line due east. In that time the traveller never\nchanged his position, nor looked to the right or left. On the\ndesert, distance is not measured by miles or leagues, but by the\nsaat, or hour, and the manzil, or halt: three and a half leagues\nfill the former, fifteen or twenty-five the latter; but they are\nthe rates for the common camel. A carrier of the genuine Syrian\nstock can make three leagues easily. At full speed he overtakes\nthe ordinary winds. As one of the results of the rapid advance,\nthe face of the landscape underwent a change. The Jebel stretched\nalong the western horizon, like a pale-blue ribbon. A tell, or hummock\nof clay and cemented sand, arose here and there. Now and then basaltic\nstones lifted their round crowns, outposts of the mountain against the\nforces of the plain; all else, however, was sand, sometimes smooth as\nthe beaten beach, then heaped in rolling ridges; here chopped waves,\nthere long swells. So, too, the condition of the atmosphere changed.\nThe sun, high risen, had drunk his fill of dew and mist, and warmed\nthe breeze that kissed the wanderer under the awning; far and near\nhe was tinting the earth with faint milk-whiteness, and shimmering\nall the sky.\n\nTwo hours more passed without rest or deviation from the course.\nVegetation entirely ceased. The sand, so crusted on the surface\nthat it broke into rattling flakes at every step, held undisputed\nsway. The Jebel was out of view, and there was no landmark visible.\nThe shadow that before followed had now shifted to the north, and was\nkeeping even race with the objects which cast it; and as there was\nno sign of halting, the conduct of the traveller became each moment\nmore strange.\n\nNo one, be it remembered, seeks the desert for a pleasure-ground.\nLife and business traverse it by paths along which the bones of things\ndead are strewn as so many blazons. Such are the roads from well to\nwell, from pasture to pasture. The heart of the most veteran sheik\nbeats quicker when he finds himself alone in the pathless tracts.\nSo the man with whom we are dealing could not have been in search\nof pleasure; neither was his manner that of a fugitive; not once\ndid he look behind him. In such situations fear and curiosity are\nthe most common sensations; he was not moved by them. When men are\nlonely, they stoop to any companionship; the dog becomes a comrade,\nthe horse a friend, and it is no shame to shower them with caresses\nand speeches of love. The camel received no such token, not a touch,\nnot a word.\n\nExactly at noon the dromedary, of its own will, stopped, and uttered\nthe cry or moan, peculiarly piteous, by which its kind always protest\nagainst an overload, and sometimes crave attention and rest. The master\nthereupon bestirred himself, waking, as it were, from sleep. He threw\nthe curtains of the houdah up, looked at the sun, surveyed the country\non every side long and carefully, as if to identify an appointed place.\nSatisfied with the inspection, he drew a deep breath and nodded,\nmuch as to say, \"At last, at last!\" A moment after, he crossed\nhis hands upon his breast, bowed his head, and prayed silently.\nThe pious duty done, he prepared to dismount. From his throat\nproceeded the sound heard doubtless by the favorite camels of\nJob--Ikh! ikh!--the signal to kneel. Slowly the animal obeyed,\ngrunting the while. The rider then put his foot upon the slender\nneck, and stepped upon the sand.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nThe man as now revealed was of admirable proportions, not so tall\nas powerful. Loosening the silken rope which held the kufiyeh on his\nhead, he brushed the fringed folds back until his face was bare--a\nstrong face, almost <DW64> in color; yet the low, broad forehead,\naquiline nose, the outer corners of the eyes turned slightly upward,\nthe hair profuse, straight, harsh, of metallic lustre, and falling\nto the shoulder in many plaits, were signs of origin impossible\nto disguise. So looked the Pharaohs and the later Ptolemies; so\nlooked Mizraim, father of the Egyptian race. He wore the kamis,\na white cotton shirt tight-sleeved, open in front, extending to\nthe ankles and embroidered down the collar and breast, over which\nwas thrown a brown woollen cloak, now, as in all probability\nit was then, called the aba, an outer garment with long skirt\nand short sleeves, lined inside with stuff of mixed cotton and\nsilk, edged all round with a margin of clouded yellow. His feet\nwere protected by sandals, attached by thongs of soft leather.\nA sash held the kamis to his waist. What was very noticeable,\nconsidering he was alone, and that the desert was the haunt of\nleopards and lions, and men quite as wild, he carried no arms,\nnot even the crooked stick used for guiding camels; wherefore we\nmay at least infer his errand peaceful, and that he was either\nuncommonly bold or under extraordinary protection.\n\nThe traveller's limbs were numb, for the ride had been long and\nwearisome; so he rubbed his hands and stamped his feet, and walked\nround the faithful servant, whose lustrous eyes were closing in calm\ncontent with the cud he had already found. Often, while making the\ncircuit, he paused, and, shading his eyes with his hands, examined the\ndesert to the extremest verge of vision; and always, when the survey\nwas ended, his face clouded with disappointment, slight, but enough\nto advise a shrewd spectator that he was there expecting company,\nif not by appointment; at the same time, the spectator would have\nbeen conscious of a sharpening of the curiosity to learn what the\nbusiness could be that required transaction in a place so far from\ncivilized abode.\n\nHowever disappointed, there could be little doubt of the stranger's\nconfidence in the coming of the expected company. In token thereof,\nhe went first to the litter, and, from the cot or box opposite\nthe one he had occupied in coming, produced a sponge and a\nsmall gurglet of water, with which he washed the eyes, face,\nand nostrils of the camel; that done, from the same depository he\ndrew a circular cloth, red-and white-striped, a bundle of rods,\nand a stout cane. The latter, after some manipulation, proved to\nbe a cunning device of lesser joints, one within another, which,\nwhen united together, formed a centre pole higher than his head.\nWhen the pole was planted, and the rods set around it, he spread\nthe cloth over them, and was literally at home--a home much smaller\nthan the habitations of emir and sheik, yet their counterpart in\nall other respects. From the litter again he brought a carpet or\nsquare rug, and covered the floor of the tent on the side from\nthe sun. That done, he went out, and once more, and with greater\ncare and more eager eyes, swept the encircling country. Except a\ndistant jackal, galloping across the plain, and an eagle flying\ntowards the Gulf of Akaba, the waste below, like the blue above\nit, was lifeless.\n\nHe turned to the camel, saying low, and in a tongue strange to the\ndesert, \"We are far from home, O racer with the swiftest winds--we are\nfar from home, but God is with us. Let us be patient.\"\n\nThen he took some beans from a pocket in the saddle, and put them\nin a bag made to hang below the animal's nose; and when he saw the\nrelish with which the good servant took to the food, he turned and\nagain scanned the world of sand, dim with the glow of the vertical\nsun.\n\n\"They will come,\" he said, calmly. \"He that led me is leading them.\nI will make ready.\"\n\nFrom the pouches which lined the interior of the cot, and from a\nwillow basket which was part of its furniture, he brought forth\nmaterials for a meal: platters close-woven of the fibres of\npalms; wine in small gurglets of skin; mutton dried and smoked;\nstoneless shami, or Syrian pomegranates; dates of El Shelebi,\nwondrous rich and grown in the nakhil, or palm orchards, of Central\nArabia; cheese, like David's \"slices of milk;\" and leavened bread\nfrom the city bakery--all which he carried and set upon the carpet\nunder the tent. As the final preparation, about the provisions he\nlaid three pieces of silk cloth, used among refined people of the\nEast to cover the knees of guests while at table--a circumstance\nsignificant of the number of persons who were to partake of his\nentertainment--the number he was awaiting.\n\nAll was now ready. He stepped out: lo! in the east a dark speck\non the face of the desert. He stood as if rooted to the ground;\nhis eyes dilated; his flesh crept chilly, as if touched by\nsomething supernatural. The speck grew; became large as a hand;\nat length assumed defined proportions. A little later, full into\nview swung a duplication of his own dromedary, tall and white,\nand bearing a houdah, the travelling litter of Hindostan. Then the\nEgyptian crossed his hands upon his breast, and looked to heaven.\n\n\"God only is great!\" he exclaimed, his eyes full of tears, his soul\nin awe.\n\nThe stranger drew nigh--at last stopped. Then he, too, seemed just\nwaking. He beheld the kneeling camel, the tent, and the man standing\nprayerfully at the door. He crossed his hands, bent his head, and\nprayed silently; after which, in a little while, he stepped from\nhis camel's neck to the sand, and advanced towards the Egyptian,\nas did the Egyptian towards him. A moment they looked at each other;\nthen they embraced--that is, each threw his right arm over the\nother's shoulder, and the left round the side, placing his chin\nfirst upon the left, then upon the right breast.\n\n\"Peace be with thee, O servant of the true God!\" the stranger said.\n\n\"And to thee, O brother of the true faith!--to thee peace and\nwelcome,\" the Egyptian replied, with fervor.\n\nThe new-comer was tall and gaunt, with lean face, sunken eyes,\nwhite hair and beard, and a complexion between the hue of cinnamon\nand bronze. He, too, was unarmed. His costume was Hindostani;\nover the skull-cap a shawl was wound in great folds, forming a\nturban; his body garments were in the style of the Egyptian's,\nexcept that the aba was shorter, exposing wide flowing breeches\ngathered at the ankles. In place of sandals, his feet were clad\nin half-slippers of red leather, pointed at the toes. Save the\nslippers, the costume from head to foot was of white linen. The air\nof the man was high, stately, severe. Visvamitra, the greatest of\nthe ascetic heroes of the Iliad of the East, had in him a perfect\nrepresentative. He might have been called a Life drenched with the\nwisdom of Brahma--Devotion Incarnate. Only in his eyes was there\nproof of humanity; when he lifted his face from the Egyptian's\nbreast, they were glistening with tears.\n\n\"God only is great!\" he exclaimed, when the embrace was finished.\n\n\"And blessed are they that serve him!\" the Egyptian answered,\nwondering at the paraphrase of his own exclamation. \"But let us\nwait,\" he added, \"let us wait; for see, the other comes yonder!\"\n\nThey looked to the north, where, already plain to view, a third\ncamel, of the whiteness of the others, came careening like a ship.\nThey waited, standing together--waited until the new-comer arrived,\ndismounted, and advanced towards them.\n\n\"Peace to you, O my brother!\" he said, while embracing the Hindoo.\n\nAnd the Hindoo answered, \"God's will be done!\"\n\nThe last comer was all unlike his friends: his frame was slighter;\nhis complexion white; a mass of waving light hair was a perfect\ncrown for his small but beautiful head; the warmth of his dark-blue\neyes certified a delicate mind, and a cordial, brave nature. He was\nbareheaded and unarmed. Under the folds of the Tyrian blanket which\nhe wore with unconscious grace appeared a tunic, short-sleeved and\nlow-necked, gathered to the waist by a band, and reaching nearly to\nthe knee; leaving the neck, arms, and legs bare. Sandals guarded\nhis feet. Fifty years, probably more, had spent themselves upon\nhim, with no other effect, apparently, than to tinge his demeanor\nwith gravity and temper his words with forethought. The physical\norganization and the brightness of soul were untouched. No need to\ntell the student from what kindred he was sprung; if he came not\nhimself from the groves of Athene', his ancestry did.\n\nWhen his arms fell from the Egyptian, the latter said, with a\ntremulous voice, \"The Spirit brought me first; wherefore I know\nmyself chosen to be the servant of my brethren. The tent is set,\nand the bread is ready for the breaking. Let me perform my office.\"\n\nTaking each by the hand, he led them within, and removed their\nsandals and washed their feet, and he poured water upon their\nhands, and dried them with napkins.\n\nThen, when he had laved his own hands, he said, \"Let us take care\nof ourselves, brethren, as our service requires, and eat, that we\nmay be strong for what remains of the day's duty. While we eat,\nwe will each learn who the others are, and whence they come,\nand how they are called.\"\n\nHe took them to the repast, and seated them so that they faced\neach other. Simultaneously their heads bent forward, their hands\ncrossed upon their breasts, and, speaking together, they said\naloud this simple grace:\n\n\"Father of all--God!--what we have here is of thee; take our thanks\nand bless us, that we may continue to do thy will.\"\n\nWith the last word they raised their eyes, and looked at each other\nin wonder. Each had spoken in a language never before heard by the\nothers; yet each understood perfectly what was said. Their souls\nthrilled with divine emotion; for by the miracle they recognized\nthe Divine Presence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nTo speak in the style of the period, the meeting just described took\nplace in the year of Rome 747. The month was December, and winter\nreigned over all the regions east of the Mediterranean. Such as\nride upon the desert in this season go not far until smitten\nwith a keen appetite. The company under the little tent were not\nexceptions to the rule. They were hungry, and ate heartily; and,\nafter the wine, they talked.\n\n\"To a wayfarer in a strange land nothing is so sweet as to hear his\nname on the tongue of a friend,\" said the Egyptian, who assumed to be\npresident of the repast. \"Before us lie many days of companionship.\nIt is time we knew each other. So, if it be agreeable, he who came\nlast shall be first to speak.\"\n\nThen, slowly at first, like one watchful of himself, the Greek\nbegan:\n\n\"What I have to tell, my brethren, is so strange that I hardly\nknow where to begin or what I may with propriety speak. I do not\nyet understand myself. The most I am sure of is that I am doing a\nMaster's will, and that the service is a constant ecstasy. When I\nthink of the purpose I am sent to fulfil, there is in me a joy so\ninexpressible that I know the will is God's.\"\n\nThe good man paused, unable to proceed, while the others, in sympathy\nwith his feelings, dropped their gaze.\n\n\"Far to the west of this,\" he began again, \"there is a land which\nmay never be forgotten; if only because the world is too much its\ndebtor, and because the indebtedness is for things that bring to men\ntheir purest pleasures. I will say nothing of the arts, nothing of\nphilosophy, of eloquence, of poetry, of war: O my brethren, hers is\nthe glory which must shine forever in perfected letters, by which\nHe we go to find and proclaim will be made known to all the earth.\nThe land I speak of is Greece. I am Gaspar, son of Cleanthes the\nAthenian.\n\n\"My people,\" he continued, \"were given wholly to study, and from them\nI derived the same passion. It happens that two of our philosophers,\nthe very greatest of the many, teach, one the doctrine of a Soul\nin every man, and its Immortality; the other the doctrine of One\nGod, infinitely just. From the multitude of subjects about which\nthe schools were disputing, I separated them, as alone worth the\nlabor of solution; for I thought there was a relation between God\nand the soul as yet unknown. On this theme the mind can reason to\na point, a dead, impassable wall; arrived there, all that remains\nis to stand and cry aloud for help. So I did; but no voice came\nto me over the wall. In despair, I tore myself from the cities\nand the schools.\"\n\nAt these words a grave smile of approval lighted the gaunt face\nof the Hindoo.\n\n\"In the northern part of my country--in Thessaly,\" the Greek\nproceeded to say, \"there is a mountain famous as the home of the\ngods, where Theus, whom my countrymen believe supreme, has his\nabode; Olympus is its name. Thither I betook myself. I found a\ncave in a hill where the mountain, coming from the west, bends to\nthe southeast; there I dwelt, giving myself up to meditation--no,\nI gave myself up to waiting for what every breath was a prayer--for\nrevelation. Believing in God, invisible yet supreme, I also believed\nit possible so to yearn for him with all my soul that he would take\ncompassion and give me answer.\"\n\n\"And he did--he did!\" exclaimed the Hindoo, lifting his hands from\nthe silken cloth upon his lap.\n\n\"Hear me, brethren,\" said the Greek, calming himself with an effort.\n\"The door of my hermitage looks over an arm of the sea, over the\nThermaic Gulf. One day I saw a man flung overboard from a ship\nsailing by. He swam ashore. I received and took care of him.\nHe was a Jew, learned in the history and laws of his people;\nand from him I came to know that the God of my prayers did\nindeed exist; and had been for ages their lawmaker, ruler,\nand king. What was that but the Revelation I dreamed of? My\nfaith had not been fruitless; God answered me!\"\n\n\"As he does all who cry to him with such faith,\" said the Hindoo.\n\n\"But, alas!\" the Egyptian added, \"how few are there wise enough\nto know when he answers them!\"\n\n\"That was not all,\" the Greek continued. \"The man so sent to me\ntold me more. He said the prophets who, in the ages which followed\nthe first revelation, walked and talked with God, declared he would\ncome again. He gave me the names of the prophets, and from the\nsacred books quoted their very language. He told me, further,\nthat the second coming was at hand--was looked for momentarily\nin Jerusalem.\"\n\nThe Greek paused, and the brightness of his countenance faded.\n\n\"It is true,\" he said, after a little--\"it is true the man told\nme that as God and the revelation of which he spoke had been for\nthe Jews alone, so it would be again. He that was to come should\nbe King of the Jews. 'Had he nothing for the rest of the world?'\nI asked. 'No,' was the answer, given in a proud voice--'No, we are\nhis chosen people.' The answer did not crush my hope. Why should\nsuch a God limit his love and benefaction to one land, and, as it\nwere, to one family? I set my heart upon knowing. At last I broke\nthrough the man's pride, and found that his fathers had been\nmerely chosen servants to keep the Truth alive, that the world\nmight at last know it and be saved. When the Jew was gone, and I\nwas alone again, I chastened my soul with a new prayer--that I\nmight be permitted to see the King when he was come, and worship\nhim. One night I sat by the door of my cave trying to get nearer\nthe mysteries of my existence, knowing which is to know God;\nsuddenly, on the sea below me, or rather in the darkness that\ncovered its face, I saw a star begin to burn; slowly it arose and\ndrew nigh, and stood over the hill and above my door, so that its\nlight shone full upon me. I fell down, and slept, and in my dream\nI heard a voice say:\n\n\"'O Gaspar! Thy faith hath conquered! Blessed art thou! With two\nothers, come from the uttermost parts of the earth, thou shalt see\nHim that is promised, and be a witness for him, and the occasion of\ntestimony in his behalf. In the morning arise, and go meet them,\nand keep trust in the Spirit that shall guide thee.'\n\n\"And in the morning I awoke with the Spirit as a light within me\nsurpassing that of the sun. I put off my hermit's garb, and dressed\nmyself as of old. From a hiding-place I took the treasure which I\nhad brought from the city. A ship went sailing past. I hailed it,\nwas taken aboard, and landed at Antioch. There I bought the camel\nand his furniture. Through the gardens and orchards that enamel\nthe banks of the Orontes, I journeyed to Emesa, Damascus, Bostra,\nand Philadelphia; thence hither. And so, O brethren, you have my\nstory. Let me now listen to you.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nThe Egyptian and the Hindoo looked at each other; the former waved\nhis hand; the latter bowed, and began:\n\n\"Our brother has spoken well. May my words be as wise.\"\n\nHe broke off, reflected a moment, then resumed:\n\n\"You may know me, brethren, by the name of Melchior. I speak to\nyou in a language which, if not the oldest in the world, was at\nleast the soonest to be reduced to letters--I mean the Sanscrit\nof India. I am a Hindoo by birth. My people were the first to\nwalk in the fields of knowledge, first to divide them, first to\nmake them beautiful. Whatever may hereafter befall, the four\nVedas must live, for they are the primal fountains of religion and\nuseful intelligence. From them were derived the Upa-Vedas, which,\ndelivered by Brahma, treat of medicine, archery, architecture,\nmusic, and the four-and-sixty mechanical arts; the Ved-Angas,\nrevealed by inspired saints, and devoted to astronomy, grammar,\nprosody, pronunciation, charms and incantations, religious rites\nand ceremonies; the Up-Angas, written by the sage Vyasa, and given\nto cosmogony, chronology, and geography; therein also are the\nRamayana and the Mahabharata, heroic poems, designed for the\nperpetuation of our gods and demi-gods. Such, O brethren, are the\nGreat Shastras, or books of sacred ordinances. They are dead to me\nnow; yet through all time they will serve to illustrate the budding\ngenius of my race. They were promises of quick perfection. Ask you\nwhy the promises failed? Alas! the books themselves closed all\nthe gates of progress. Under pretext of care for the creature,\ntheir authors imposed the fatal principle that a man must not\naddress himself to discovery or invention, as Heaven had provided\nhim all things needful. When that condition became a sacred law,\nthe lamp of Hindoo genius was let down a well, where ever since\nit has lighted narrow walls and bitter waters.\n\n\"These allusions, brethren, are not from pride, as you will\nunderstand when I tell you that the Shastras teach a Supreme\nGod called Brahm; also, that the Puranas, or sacred poems of\nthe Up-Angas, tell us of Virtue and Good Works, and of the Soul.\nSo, if my brother will permit the saying\"--the speaker bowed\ndeferentially to the Greek--\"ages before his people were known,\nthe two great ideas, God and the Soul, had absorbed all the forces\nof the Hindoo mind. In further explanation let me say that Brahm\nis taught, by the same sacred books, as a Triad--Brahma, Vishnu,\nand Shiva. Of these, Brahma is said to have been the author of our\nrace; which, in course of creation, he divided into four castes.\nFirst, he peopled the worlds below and the heavens above; next,\nhe made the earth ready for terrestrial spirits; then from his\nmouth proceeded the Brahman caste, nearest in likeness to himself,\nhighest and noblest, sole teachers of the Vedas, which at the same time\nflowed from his lips in finished state, perfect in all useful knowledge.\nFrom his arms next issued the Kshatriya, or warriors; from his breast,\nthe seat of life, came the Vaisya, or producers--shepherds, farmers,\nmerchants; from his foot, in sign of degradation, sprang the Sudra,\nor serviles, doomed to menial duties for the other classes--serfs,\ndomestics, laborers, artisans. Take notice, further, that the law,\nso born with them, forbade a man of one caste becoming a member of\nanother; the Brahman could not enter a lower order; if he violated\nthe laws of his own grade, he became an outcast, lost to all but\noutcasts like himself.\"\n\nAt this point, the imagination of the Greek, flashing forward\nupon all the consequences of such a degradation, overcame his\neager attention, and he exclaimed, \"In such a state, O brethren,\nwhat mighty need of a loving God!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" added the Egyptian, \"of a loving God like ours.\"\n\nThe brows of the Hindoo knit painfully; when the emotion was spent,\nhe proceeded, in a softened voice.\n\n\"I was born a Brahman. My life, consequently, was ordered down to\nits least act, its last hour. My first draught of nourishment;\nthe giving me my compound name; taking me out the first time to\nsee the sun; investing me with the triple thread by which I became\none of the twice-born; my induction into the first order--were all\ncelebrated with sacred texts and rigid ceremonies. I might not walk,\neat, drink, or sleep without danger of violating a rule. And the\npenalty, O brethren, the penalty was to my soul! According to the\ndegrees of omission, my soul went to one of the heavens--Indra's the\nlowest, Brahma's the highest; or it was driven back to become the\nlife of a worm, a fly, a fish, or a brute. The reward for perfect\nobservance was Beatitude, or absorption into the being of Brahm,\nwhich was not existence as much as absolute rest.\"\n\nThe Hindoo gave himself a moment's thought; proceeding, he said:\n\"The part of a Brahman's life called the first order is his student\nlife. When I was ready to enter the second order--that is to say,\nwhen I was ready to marry and become a householder--I questioned\neverything, even Brahm; I was a heretic. From the depths of the well\nI had discovered a light above, and yearned to go up and see what\nall it shone upon. At last--ah, with what years of toil!--I stood\nin the perfect day, and beheld the principle of life, the element\nof religion, the link between the soul and God--Love!\"\n\nThe shrunken face of the good man kindled visibly, and he clasped\nhis hands with force. A silence ensued, during which the others\nlooked at him, the Greek through tears. At length he resumed:\n\n\"The happiness of love is in action; its test is what one is\nwilling to do for others. I could not rest. Brahm had filled\nthe world with so much wretchedness. The Sudra appealed to me,\nso did the countless devotees and victims. The island of Ganga\nLagor lies where the sacred waters of the Ganges disappear in\nthe Indian Ocean. Thither I betook myself. In the shade of the\ntemple built there to the sage Kapila, in a union of prayers\nwith the disciples whom the sanctified memory of the holy man\nkeeps around his house, I thought to find rest. But twice every\nyear came pilgrimages of Hindoos seeking the purification of the\nwaters. Their misery strengthened my love. Against its impulse to\nspeak I clenched my jaws; for one word against Brahm or the Triad\nor the Shastras would doom me; one act of kindness to the outcast\nBrahmans who now and then dragged themselves to die on the burning\nsands--a blessing said, a cup of water given--and I became one of them,\nlost to family, country, privileges, caste. The love conquered! I\nspoke to the disciples in the temple; they drove me out. I spoke\nto the pilgrims; they stoned me from the island. On the highways\nI attempted to preach; my hearers fled from me, or sought my life.\nIn all India, finally, there was not a place in which I could find\npeace or safety--not even among the outcasts, for, though fallen,\nthey were still believers in Brahm. In my extremity, I looked for\na solitude in which to hide from all but God. I followed the Ganges\nto its source, far up in the Himalayas. When I entered the pass at\nHurdwar, where the river, in unstained purity, leaps to its course\nthrough the muddy lowlands, I prayed for my race, and thought myself\nlost to them forever. Through gorges, over cliffs, across glaciers,\nby peaks that seemed star-high, I made my way to the Lang Tso, a\nlake of marvellous beauty, asleep at the feet of the Tise Gangri,\nthe Gurla, and the Kailas Parbot, giants which flaunt their crowns\nof snow everlastingly in the face of the sun. There, in the centre\nof the earth, where the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmapootra rise to run\ntheir different courses; where mankind took up their first abode,\nand separated to replete the world, leaving Balk, the mother of\ncities, to attest the great fact; where Nature, gone back to its\nprimeval condition, and secure in its immensities, invites the sage\nand the exile, with promise of safety to the one and solitude to\nthe other--there I went to abide alone with God, praying, fasting,\nwaiting for death.\"\n\nAgain the voice fell, and the bony hands met in a fervent clasp.\n\n\"One night I walked by the shores of the lake, and spoke to the\nlistening silence, 'When will God come and claim his own? Is there\nto be no redemption?' Suddenly a light began to glow tremulously\nout on the water; soon a star arose, and moved towards me,\nand stood overhead. The brightness stunned me. While I lay upon\nthe ground, I heard a voice of infinite sweetness say, 'Thy love\nhath conquered. Blessed art thou, O son of India! The redemption\nis at hand. With two others, from far quarters of the earth,\nthou shalt see the Redeemer, and be a witness that he hath come.\nIn the morning arise, and go meet them; and put all thy trust in\nthe Spirit which shall guide thee.'\n\n\"And from that time the light has stayed with me; so I knew it\nwas the visible presence of the Spirit. In the morning I started\nto the world by the way I had come. In a cleft of the mountain I\nfound a stone of vast worth, which I sold in Hurdwar. By Lahore,\nand Cabool, and Yezd, I came to Ispahan. There I bought the\ncamel, and thence was led to Bagdad, not waiting for caravans.\nAlone I traveled, fearless, for the Spirit was with me, and is\nwith me yet. What glory is ours, O brethren! We are to see the\nRedeemer--to speak to him--to worship him! I am done.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nThe vivacious Greek broke forth in expressions of joy and\ncongratulations; after which the Egyptian said, with characteristic\ngravity:\n\n\"I salute you, my brother. You have suffered much, and I rejoice\nin your triumph. If you are both pleased to hear me, I will now\ntell you who I am, and how I came to be called. Wait for me a\nmoment.\"\n\nHe went out and tended the camels; coming back, he resumed his seat.\n\n\"Your words, brethren, were of the Spirit,\" he said, in commencement;\n\"and the Spirit gives me to understand them. You each spoke particularly\nof your countries; in that there was a great object, which I will explain;\nbut to make the interpretation complete, let me first speak of myself and\nmy people. I am Balthasar the Egyptian.\"\n\nThe last words were spoken quietly, but with so much dignity that\nboth listeners bowed to the speaker.\n\n\"There are many distinctions I might claim for my race,\" he continued;\n\"but I will content myself with one. History began with us. We were the\nfirst to perpetuate events by records kept. So we have no traditions;\nand instead of poetry, we offer you certainty. On the facades of\npalaces and temples, on obelisks, on the inner walls of tombs,\nwe wrote the names of our kings, and what they did; and to the\ndelicate papyri we intrusted the wisdom of our philosophers and\nthe secrets of our religion--all the secrets but one, whereof I\nwill presently speak. Older than the Vedas of Para-Brahm or the\nUp-Angas of Vyasa, O Melchior; older than the songs of Homer or\nthe metaphysics of Plato, O my Gaspar; older than the sacred\nbooks or kings of the people of China, or those of Siddartha,\nson of the beautiful Maya; older than the Genesis of Mosche the\nHebrew--oldest of human records are the writings of Menes, our\nfirst king.\" Pausing an instant, he fixed his large eves kindly\nupon the Greek, saying, \"In the youth of Hellas, who, O Gaspar,\nwere the teachers of her teachers?\"\n\nThe Greek bowed, smiling.\n\n\"By those records,\" Balthasar continued, \"we know that when the\nfathers came from the far East, from the region of the birth of the\nthree sacred rivers, from the centre of the earth--the Old Iran of\nwhich you spoke, O Melchior--came bringing with them the history\nof the world before the Flood, and of the Flood itself, as given\nto the Aryans by the sons of Noah, they taught God, the Creator\nand the Beginning, and the Soul, deathless as God. When the duty\nwhich calls us now is happily done, if you choose to go with me,\nI will show you the sacred library of our priesthood; among others,\nthe Book of the Dead, in which is the ritual to be observed by the\nsoul after Death has despatched it on its journey to judgment.\nThe ideas--God and the Immortal Soul--were borne to Mizraim over\nthe desert, and by him to the banks of the Nile. They were then\nin their purity, easy of understanding, as what God intends for\nour happiness always is; so, also, was the first worship--a song\nand a prayer natural to a soul joyous, hopeful, and in love with\nits Maker.\"\n\nHere the Greek threw up his hands, exclaiming, \"Oh! the light\ndeepens within me!\"\n\n\"And in me!\" said the Hindoo, with equal fervor.\n\nThe Egyptian regarded them benignantly, then went on, saying,\n\"Religion is merely the law which binds man to his Creator:\nin purity it has but these elements--God, the Soul, and their\nMutual Recognition; out of which, when put in practise,\nspring Worship, Love, and Reward. This law, like all others of\ndivine origin--like that, for instance, which binds the earth\nto the sun--was perfected in the beginning by its Author. Such,\nmy brothers, was the religion of the first family; such was the\nreligion of our father Mizraim, who could not have been blind to\nthe formula of creation, nowhere so discernible as in the first\nfaith and the earliest worship. Perfection is God; simplicity is\nperfection. The curse of curses is that men will not let truths\nlike these alone.\"\n\nHe stopped, as if considering in what manner to continue.\n\n\"Many nations have loved the sweet waters of the Nile,\" he said\nnext; \"the Ethiopian, the Pali-Putra, the Hebrew, the Assyrian,\nthe Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman--of whom all, except the\nHebrew, have at one time or another been its masters. So much\ncoming and going of peoples corrupted the old Mizraimic faith.\nThe Valley of Palms became a Valley of Gods. The Supreme One was\ndivided into eight, each personating a creative principle in nature,\nwith Ammon-Re at the head. Then Isis and Osiris, and their circle,\nrepresenting water, fire, air, and other forces, were invented.\nStill the multiplication went on until we had another order,\nsuggested by human qualities, such as strength, knowledge, love,\nand the like.\"\n\n\"In all which there was the old folly!\" cried the Greek,\nimpulsively. \"Only the things out of reach remain as they\ncame to us.\"\n\nThe Egyptian bowed, and proceeded:\n\n\"Yet a little further, O my brethren, a little further, before I\ncome to myself. What we go to will seem all the holier of comparison\nwith what is and has been. The records show that Mizraim found the\nNile in possession of the Ethiopians, who were spread thence through\nthe African desert; a people of rich, fantastic genius, wholly given\nto the worship of nature. The Poetic Persian sacrificed to the sun,\nas the completest image of Ormuzd, his God; the devout children of\nthe far East carved their deities out of wood and ivory; but the\nEthiopian, without writing, without books, without mechanical\nfaculty of any kind, quieted his soul by the worship of animals,\nbirds, and insects, holding the cat sacred to Re, the bull to\nIsis, the beetle to Pthah. A long struggle against their rude\nfaith ended in its adoption as the religion of the new empire.\nThen rose the mighty monuments that cumber the river-bank and the\ndesert--obelisk, labyrinth, pyramid, and tomb of king, blent with\ntomb of crocodile. Into such deep debasement, O brethren, the sons\nof the Aryan fell!\"\n\nHere, for the first time, the calmness of the Egyptian forsook\nhim: though his countenance remained impassive, his voice gave\nway.\n\n\"Do not too much despise my countrymen,\" he began again. \"They did\nnot all forget God. I said awhile ago, you may remember, that to\npapyri we intrusted all the secrets of our religion except one;\nof that I will now tell you. We had as king once a certain\nPharaoh, who lent himself to all manner of changes and additions.\nTo establish the new system, he strove to drive the old entirely\nout of mind. The Hebrews then dwelt with us as slaves. They clung\nto their God; and when the persecution became intolerable, they\nwere delivered in a manner never to be forgotten. I speak from\nthe records now. Mosche, himself a Hebrew, came to the palace,\nand demanded permission for the slaves, then millions in number,\nto leave the country. The demand was in the name of the Lord God\nof Israel. Pharaoh refused. Hear what followed. First, all the\nwater, that in the lakes and rivers, like that in the wells and\nvessels, turned to blood. Yet the monarch refused. Then frogs came\nup and covered all the land. Still he was firm. Then Mosche threw\nashes in the air, and a plague attacked the Egyptians. Next, all the\ncattle, except of the Hebrews, were struck dead. Locusts devoured\nthe green things of the valley. At noon the day was turned into a\ndarkness so thick that lamps would not burn. Finally, in the night\nall the first-born of the Egyptians died; not even Pharaoh's escaped.\nThen he yielded. But when the Hebrews were gone he followed them\nwith his army. At the last moment the sea was divided, so that the\nfugitives passed it dry-shod. When the pursuers drove in after them,\nthe waves rushed back and drowned horse, foot, charioteers, and king.\nYou spoke of revelation, my Gaspar--\"\n\nThe blue eyes of the Greek sparkled.\n\n\"I had the story from the Jew,\" he cried. \"You confirm it,\nO Balthasar!\"\n\n\"Yes, but through me Egypt speaks, not Mosche. I interpret the\nmarbles. The priests of that time wrote in their way what they\nwitnessed, and the revelation has lived. So I come to the one\nunrecorded secret. In my country, brethren, we have, from the\nday of the unfortunate Pharaoh, always had two religions--one\nprivate, the other public; one of many gods, practised by the\npeople; the other of one God, cherished only by the priesthood.\nRejoice with me, O brothers! All the trampling by the many nations,\nall the harrowing by kings, all the inventions of enemies, all the\nchanges of time, have been in vain. Like a seed under the mountains\nwaiting its hour, the glorious Truth has lived; and this--this is\nits day!\"\n\nThe wasted frame of the Hindoo trembled with delight, and the\nGreek cried aloud,\n\n\"It seems to me the very desert is singing.\"\n\nFrom a gurglet of water near-by the Egyptian took a draught,\nand proceeded:\n\n\"I was born at Alexandria, a prince and a priest, and had the\neducation usual to my class. But very early I became discontented.\nPart of the faith imposed was that after death upon the destruction\nof the body, the soul at once began its former progression from\nthe lowest up to humanity, the highest and last existence; and that\nwithout reference to conduct in the mortal life. When I heard of the\nPersian's Realm of Light, his Paradise across the bridge Chinevat,\nwhere only the good go, the thought haunted me; insomuch that in\nthe day, as in the night, I brooded over the comparative ideas\nEternal Transmigration and Eternal Life in Heaven. If, as my\nteacher taught, God was just, why was there no distinction\nbetween the good and the bad? At length it became clear to\nme, a certainty, a corollary of the law to which I reduced\npure religion, that death was only the point of separation at\nwhich the wicked are left or lost, and the faithful rise to a\nhigher life; not the nirvana of Buddha, or the negative rest of\nBrahma, O Melchior; nor the better condition in hell, which is all\nof Heaven allowed by the Olympic faith, O Gaspar; but life--life\nactive, joyous, everlasting--LIFE WITH GOD! The discovery led to\nanother inquiry. Why should the Truth be longer kept a secret for\nthe selfish solace of the priesthood? The reason for the suppression\nwas gone. Philosophy had at least brought us toleration. In Egypt we\nhad Rome instead of Rameses. One day, in the Brucheium, the most\nsplendid and crowded quarter of Alexandria, I arose and preached.\nThe East and West contributed to my audience. Students going to\nthe Library, priests from the Serapeion, idlers from the Museum,\npatrons of the race-course, countrymen from the Rhacotis--a\nmultitude--stopped to hear me. I preached God, the Soul, Right and\nWrong, and Heaven, the reward of a virtuous life. You, O Melchior,\nwere stoned; my auditors first wondered, then laughed. I tried\nagain; they pelted me with epigrams, covered my God with ridicule,\nand darkened my Heaven with mockery. Not to linger needlessly,\nI fell before them.\"\n\nThe Hindoo here drew a long sigh, as he said, \"The enemy of man\nis man, my brother.\"\n\nBalthasar lapsed into silence.\n\n\"I gave much thought to finding the cause of my failure, and at\nlast succeeded,\" he said, upon beginning again. \"Up the river,\na day's journey from the city, there is a village of herdsmen and\ngardeners. I took a boat and went there. In the evening I called\nthe people together, men and women, the poorest of the poor.\nI preached to them exactly as I had preached in the Brucheium.\nThey did not laugh. Next evening I spoke again, and they believed\nand rejoiced, and carried the news abroad. At the third meeting\na society was formed for prayer. I returned to the city then.\nDrifting down the river, under the stars, which never seemed so\nbright and so near, I evolved this lesson: To begin a reform,\ngo not into the places of the great and rich; go rather to those\nwhose cups of happiness are empty--to the poor and humble. And then\nI laid a plan and devoted my life. As a first step, I secured my\nvast property, so that the income would be certain, and always at\ncall for the relief of the suffering. From that day, O brethren,\nI travelled up and down the Nile, in the villages, and to all the\ntribes, preaching One God, a righteous life, and reward in Heaven.\nI have done good--it does not become me to say how much. I also\nknow that part of the world to be ripe for the reception of Him\nwe go to find.\"\n\nA flush suffused the swarthy cheek of the speaker; but he overcame\nthe feeling, and continued:\n\n\"The years so given, O my brothers, were troubled by one thought--When\nI was gone, what would become of the cause I had started? Was it to\nend with me? I had dreamed many times of organization as a fitting\ncrown for my work. To hide nothing from you, I had tried to effect\nit, and failed. Brethren, the world is now in the condition that,\nto restore the old Mizraimic faith, the reformer must have a more\nthan human sanction; he must not merely come in God's name, he must\nhave the proofs subject to his word; he must demonstrate all he says,\neven God. So preoccupied is the mind with myths and systems; so much\ndo false deities crowd every place--earth, air, sky; so have they\nbecome of everything a part, that return to the first religion can\nonly be along bloody paths, through fields of persecution; that is\nto say, the converts must be willing to die rather than recant.\nAnd who in this age can carry the faith of men to such a point\nbut God himself? To redeem the race--I do not mean to destroy\nit--to REDEEM the race, he must make himself once more manifest;\nHE MUST COME IN PERSON.\"\n\nIntense emotion seized the three.\n\n\"Are we not going to find him?\" exclaimed the Greek.\n\n\"You understand why I failed in the attempt to organize,\" said the\nEgyptian, when the spell was past. \"I had not the sanction. To know\nthat my work must be lost made me intolerably wretched. I believed\nin prayer, and to make my appeals pure and strong, like you,\nmy brethren, I went out of the beaten ways, I went where man\nhad not been, where only God was. Above the fifth cataract,\nabove the meeting of rivers in Sennar, up the Bahr el Abiad,\ninto the far unknown of Africa, I went. There, in the morning,\na mountain blue as the sky flings a cooling shadow wide over the\nwestern desert, and, with its cascades of melted snow, feeds a\nbroad lake nestling at its base on the east. The lake is the\nmother of the great river. For a year and more the mountain gave\nme a home. The fruit of the palm fed my body, prayer my spirit.\nOne night I walked in the orchard close by the little sea. 'The world\nis dying. When wilt thou come? Why may I not see the redemption,\nO God?' So I prayed. The glassy water was sparkling with stars.\nOne of them seemed to leave its place, and rise to the surface,\nwhere it became a brilliancy burning to the eyes. Then it moved\ntowards me, and stood over my head, apparently in hand's reach.\nI fell down and hid my face. A voice, not of the earth, said,\n'Thy good works have conquered. Blessed art thou, O son of Mizraim!\nThe redemption cometh. With two others, from the remotenesses of\nthe world, thou shalt see the Saviour, and testify for him. In the\nmorning arise, and go meet them. And when ye have all come to the\nholy city of Jerusalem, ask of the people, Where is he that is born\nKing of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the East and are\nsent to worship him. Put all thy trust in the Spirit which will\nguide thee.'\n\n\"And the light became an inward illumination not to be doubted,\nand has stayed with me, a governor and a guide. It led me down the\nriver to Memphis, where I made ready for the desert. I bought my\ncamel, and came hither without rest, by way of Suez and Kufileh,\nand up through the lands of Moab and Ammon. God is with us, O my\nbrethren!\"\n\nHe paused, and thereupon, with a prompting not their own, they all\narose, and looked at each other.\n\n\"I said there was a purpose in the particularity with which we\ndescribed our people and their histories,\" so the Egyptian\nproceeded. \"He we go to find was called 'King of the Jews;'\nby that name we are bidden to ask for him. But, now that we\nhave met, and heard from each other, we may know him to be\nthe Redeemer, not of the Jews alone, but of all the nations\nof the earth. The patriarch who survived the Flood had with him\nthree sons, and their families, by whom the world was repeopled.\nFrom the old Aryana-Vaejo, the well-remembered Region of Delight in\nthe heart of Asia, they parted. India and the far East received the\nchildren of the first; the descendant of the youngest, through the\nNorth, streamed into Europe; those of the second overflowed the\ndeserts about the Red Sea, passing into Africa; and though most\nof the latter are yet dwellers in shifting tents, some of them\nbecame builders along the Nile.\"\n\nBy a simultaneous impulse the three joined hands.\n\n\"Could anything be more divinely ordered?\" Balthasar continued.\n\"When we have found the Lord, the brothers, and all the generations\nthat have succeeded them, will kneel to him in homage with us. And\nwhen we part to go our separate ways, the world will have learned\na new lesson--that Heaven may be won, not by the sword, not by\nhuman wisdom, but by Faith, Love, and Good Works.\"\n\nThere was silence, broken by sighs and sanctified with tears;\nfor the joy that filled them might not be stayed. It was the\nunspeakable joy of souls on the shores of the River of Life,\nresting with the Redeemed in God's presence.\n\nPresently their hands fell apart, and together they went out of\nthe tent. The desert was still as the sky. The sun was sinking\nfast. The camels slept.\n\nA little while after, the tent was struck, and, with the remains of\nthe repast, restored to the cot; then the friends mounted, and set\nout single file, led by the Egyptian. Their course was due west,\ninto the chilly night. The camels swung forward in steady trot,\nkeeping the line and the intervals so exactly that those following\nseemed to tread in the tracks of the leader. The riders spoke not\nonce.\n\nBy-and-by the moon came up. And as the three tall white figures sped,\nwith soundless tread, through the opalescent light, they appeared like\nspecters flying from hateful shadows. Suddenly, in the air before\nthem, not farther up than a low hill-top flared a lambent flame;\nas they looked at it, the apparition contracted into a focus of\ndazzling lustre. Their hearts beat fast; their souls thrilled;\nand they shouted as with one voice, \"The Star! the Star! God is\nwith us!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nIn an aperture of the western wall of Jerusalem hang the \"oaken\nvalves\" called the Bethlehem or Joppa Gate. The area outside of\nthem is one of the notable places of the city. Long before David\ncoveted Zion there was a citadel there. When at last the son of\nJesse ousted the Jebusite, and began to build, the site of the\ncitadel became the northwest corner of the new wall, defended by\na tower much more imposing than the old one. The location of the\ngate, however, was not disturbed, for the reasons, most likely,\nthat the roads which met and merged in front of it could not\nwell be transferred to any other point, while the area outside\nhad become a recognized market-place. In Solomon's day there was\ngreat traffic at the locality, shared in by traders from Egypt\nand the rich dealers from Tyre and Sidon. Nearly three thousand\nyears have passed, and yet a kind of commerce clings to the spot.\nA pilgrim wanting a pin or a pistol, a cucumber or a camel, a house\nor a horse, a loan or a lentil, a date or a dragoman, a melon or\na man, a dove or a donkey, has only to inquire for the article at\nthe Joppa Gate. Sometimes the scene is quite animated, and then\nit suggests, What a place the old market must have been in the\ndays of Herod the Builder! And to that period and that market\nthe reader is now to be transferred.\n\nFollowing the Hebrew system, the meeting of the wise men described\nin the preceding chapters took place in the afternoon of the\ntwenty-fifth day of the third month of the year; that is say,\non the twenty-fifth day of December. The year was the second of\nthe 193d Olympiad, or the 747th of Rome; the sixty-seventh of\nHerod the Great, and the thirty-fifth of his reign; the fourth\nbefore the beginning of the Christian era. The hours of the day,\nby Judean custom, begin with the sun, the first hour being the\nfirst after sunrise; so, to be precise; the market at the Joppa\nGate during the first hour of the day stated was in full session,\nand very lively. The massive valves had been wide open since dawn.\nBusiness, always aggressive, had pushed through the arched entrance\ninto a narrow lane and court, which, passing by the walls of\nthe great tower, conducted on into the city. As Jerusalem is\nin the hill country, the morning air on this occasion was not a\nlittle crisp. The rays of the sun, with their promise of warmth,\nlingered provokingly far up on the battlements and turrets of the\ngreat piles about, down from which fell the crooning of pigeons\nand the whir of the flocks coming and going.\n\nAs a passing acquaintance with the people of the Holy City, strangers\nas well as residents, will be necessary to an understanding of some\nof the pages which follow, it will be well to stop at the gate and\npass the scene in review. Better opportunity will not offer to get\nsight of the populace who will afterwhile go forward in a mood very\ndifferent from that which now possesses them.\n\nThe scene is at first one of utter confusion--confusion of action,\nsounds, colors, and things. It is especially so in the lane and court.\nThe ground there is paved with broad unshaped flags, from which each\ncry and jar and hoof-stamp arises to swell the medley that rings\nand roars up between the solid impending walls. A little mixing\nwith the throng, however, a little familiarity with the business\ngoing on, will make analysis possible.\n\nHere stands a donkey, dozing under panniers full of lentils,\nbeans, onions, and cucumbers, brought fresh from the gardens\nand terraces of Galilee. When not engaged in serving customers,\nthe master, in a voice which only the initiated can understand,\ncries his stock. Nothing can be simpler than his costume--sandals,\nand an unbleached, undyed blanket, crossed over one shoulder\nand girt round the waist. Near-by, and far more imposing and\ngrotesque, though scarcely as patient as the donkey, kneels a\ncamel, raw-boned, rough, and gray, with long shaggy tufts of\nfox- hair under its throat, neck, and body, and a load\nof boxes and baskets curiously arranged upon an enormous saddle.\nThe owner is an Egyptian, small, lithe, and of a complexion which\nhas borrowed a good deal from the dust of the roads and the\nsands of the desert. He wears a faded tarbooshe, a loose gown,\nsleeveless, unbelted, and dropping from the neck to the knee.\nHis feet are bare. The camel, restless under the load, groans and\noccasionally shows his teeth; but the man paces indifferently to\nand fro, holding the driving-strap, and all the time advertising\nhis fruits fresh from the orchards of the Kedron--grapes, dates,\nfigs, apples, and pomegranates.\n\nAt the corner where the lane opens out into the court, some women\nsit with their backs against the gray stones of the wall. Their dress\nis that common to the humbler classes of the country--a linen\nfrock extending the full length of the person, loosely gathered\nat the waist, and a veil or wimple broad enough, after covering\nthe head, to wrap the shoulders. Their merchandise is contained\nin a number of earthen jars, such as are still used in the East for\nbringing water from the wells, and some leathern bottles. Among the\njars and bottles, rolling upon the stony floor, regardless of the\ncrowd and cold, often in danger but never hurt, play half a dozen\nhalf-naked children, their brown bodies, jetty eyes, and thick\nblack hair attesting the blood of Israel. Sometimes, from under\nthe wimples, the mothers look up, and in the vernacular modestly\nbespeak their trade: in the bottles \"honey of grapes,\" in the\njars \"strong drink.\" Their entreaties are usually lost in the\ngeneral uproar, and they fare illy against the many competitors:\nbrawny fellows with bare legs, dirty tunics, and long beards,\ngoing about with bottles lashed to their backs, and shouting\n\"Honey of wine! Grapes of En-Gedi!\" When a customer halts one\nof them, round comes the bottle, and, upon lifting the thumb\nfrom the nozzle, out into the ready cup gushes the deep-red\nblood of the luscious berry.\n\nScarcely less blatant are the dealers in birds--doves, ducks, and\nfrequently the singing bulbul, or nightingale, most frequently\npigeons; and buyers, receiving them from the nets, seldom fail\nto think of the perilous life of the catchers, bold climbers\nof the cliffs; now hanging with hand and foot to the face of\nthe crag, now swinging in a basket far down the mountain fissure.\n\nBlent with peddlers of jewelry--sharp men cloaked in scarlet\nand blue, top-heavy under prodigious white turbans, and fully\nconscious of the power there is in the lustre of a ribbon and\nthe incisive gleam of gold, whether in bracelet or necklace,\nor in rings for the finger or the nose--and with peddlers of\nhousehold utensils, and with dealers in wearing-apparel, and with\nretailers of unguents for anointing the person, and with hucksters\nof all articles, fanciful as well as of need, hither and thither,\ntugging at halters and ropes, now screaming, now coaxing, toil the\nvenders of animals--donkeys, horses, calves, sheep, bleating kids,\nand awkward camels; animals of every kind except the outlawed swine.\nAll these are there; not singly, as described, but many times repeated;\nnot in one place, but everywhere in the market.\n\nTurning from this scene in the lane and court, this glance at\nthe sellers and their commodities, the reader has need to give\nattention, in the next place, to visitors and buyers, for which\nthe best studies will be found outside the gates, where the\nspectacle is quite as varied and animated; indeed, it may be\nmore so, for there are superadded the effects of tent, booth,\nand sook, greater space, larger crowd, more unqualified freedom,\nand the glory of the Eastern sunshine.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nLet us take our stand by the gate, just out of the edge of the\ncurrents--one flowing in, the other out--and use our eyes and\nears awhile.\n\nIn good time! Here come two men of a most noteworthy class.\n\n\"Gods! How cold it is!\" says one of them, a powerful figure in armor;\non his head a brazen helmet, on his body a shining breastplate and\nskirts of mail. \"How cold it is! Dost thou remember, my Caius,\nthat vault in the Comitium at home which the flamens say is the\nentrance to the lower world? By Pluto! I could stand there this\nmorning, long enough at least to get warm again!\"\n\nThe party addressed drops the hood of his military cloak, leaving\nbare his head and face, and replies, with an ironic smile, \"The\nhelmets of the legions which conquered Mark Antony were full of\nGallic snow; but thou--ah, my poor friend!--thou hast just come\nfrom Egypt, bringing its summer in thy blood.\"\n\nAnd with the last word they disappear through the entrance.\nThough they had been silent, the armor and the sturdy step\nwould have published them Roman soldiers.\n\nFrom the throng a Jew comes next, meager of frame, round-shouldered,\nand wearing a coarse brown robe; over his eyes and face, and down\nhis back, hangs a mat of long, uncombed hair. He is alone. Those who\nmeet him laugh, if they do not worse; for he is a Nazarite, one of\na despised sect which rejects the books of Moses, devotes itself to\nabhorred vows, and goes unshorn while the vows endure.\n\nAs we watch his retiring figure, suddenly there is a commotion in\nthe crowd, a parting quickly to the right and left, with exclamations\nsharp and decisive. Then the cause comes--a man, Hebrew in feature\nand dress. The mantle of snow-white linen, held to his head by\ncords of yellow silk, flows free over his shoulders; his robe\nis richly embroidered, a red sash with fringes of gold wraps his\nwaist several times. His demeanor is calm; he even smiles upon\nthose who, with such rude haste, make room for him. A leper? No,\nhe is only a Samaritan. The shrinking crowd, if asked, would say\nhe is a mongrel--an Assyrian--whose touch of the robe is pollution;\nfrom whom, consequently, an Israelite, though dying, might not\naccept life. In fact, the feud is not of blood. When David set\nhis throne here on Mount Zion, with only Judah to support him,\nthe ten tribes betook themselves to Shechem, a city much older,\nand, at that date, infinitely richer in holy memories. The final\nunion of the tribes did not settle the dispute thus begun.\nThe Samaritans clung to their tabernacle on Gerizim, and,\nwhile maintaining its superior sanctity, laughed at the irate\ndoctors in Jerusalem. Time brought no assuagement of the hate.\nUnder Herod, conversion to the faith was open to all the world\nexcept the Samaritans; they alone were absolutely and forever\nshut out from communion with Jews.\n\nAs the Samaritan goes in under the arch of the gate, out come three\nmen so unlike all whom we have yet seen that they fix our gaze,\nwhether we will or not. They are of unusual stature and immense\nbrawn; their eyes are blue, and so fair is their complexion that\nthe blood shines through the skin like blue pencilling; their hair is\nlight and short; their heads, small and round, rest squarely upon necks\ncolumnar as the trunks of trees. Woollen tunics, open at the breast,\nsleeveless and loosely girt, drape their bodies, leaving bare arms\nand legs of such development that they at once suggest the arena;\nand when thereto we add their careless, confident, insolent manner,\nwe cease to wonder that the people give them way, and stop after they\nhave passed to look at them again. They are gladiators--wrestlers,\nrunners, boxers, swordsmen; professionals unknown in Judea before\nthe coming of the Roman; fellows who, what time they are not\nin training, may be seen strolling through the king's gardens\nor sitting with the guards at the palace gates; or possibly they\nare visitors from Caesarea, Sebaste, or Jericho; in which Herod,\nmore Greek than Jew, and with all a Roman's love of games and\nbloody spectacles, has built vast theaters, and now keeps schools\nof fighting-men, drawn, as is the custom, from the Gallic provinces\nor the Slavic tribes on the Danube.\n\n\"By Bacchus!\" says one of them, drawing his clenched hand to\nhis shoulder, \"their skulls are not thicker than eggshells.\"\n\nThe brutal look which goes with the gesture disgusts us, and we\nturn happily to something more pleasant.\n\nOpposite us is a fruit-stand. The proprietor has a bald head,\na long face, and a nose like the beak of a hawk. He sits\nupon a carpet spread upon the dust; the wall is at his back;\noverhead hangs a scant curtain, around him, within hand's reach\nand arranged upon little stools, lie osier boxes full of almonds,\ngrapes, figs, and pomegranates. To him now comes one at whom we\ncannot help looking, though for another reason than that which\nfixed our eyes upon the gladiators; he is really beautiful--a\nbeautiful Greek. Around his temples, holding the waving hair,\nis a crown of myrtle, to which still cling the pale flowers and\nhalf ripe berries. His tunic, scarlet in color, is of the softest\nwoollen fabric; below the girdle of buff leather, which is clasped\nin front by a fantastic device of shining gold, the skirt drops to\nthe knee in folds heavy with embroidery of the same royal metal;\na scarf, also woollen, and of mixed white and yellow, crosses\nhis throat and falls trailing at his back; his arms and legs,\nwhere exposed, are white as ivory, and of the polish impossible\nexcept by perfect treatment with bath, oil, brushes, and pincers.\n\nThe dealer, keeping his seat, bends forward, and throws his hands\nup until they meet in front of him, palm downwards and fingers\nextended.\n\n\"What hast thou, this morning, O son of Paphos?\" says the young\nGreek, looking at the boxes rather than at the Cypriote. \"I am\nhungry. What hast thou for breakfast?\"\n\n\"Fruits from the Pedius--genuine--such as the singers of Antioch\ntake of mornings to restore the waste of their voices,\" the dealer\nanswers, in a querulous nasal tone.\n\n\"A fig, but not one of thy best, for the singers of Antioch!\" says\nthe Greek. \"Thou art a worshiper of Aphrodite, and so am I, as the\nmyrtle I wear proves; therefore I tell thee their voices have the\nchill of a Caspian wind. Seest thou this girdle?--a gift of the\nmighty Salome--\"\n\n\"The king's sister!\" exclaims the Cypriote, with another salaam.\n\n\"And of royal taste and divine judgment. And why not? She is more\nGreek than the king. But--my breakfast! Here is thy money--red\ncoppers of Cyprus. Give me grapes, and--\"\n\n\"Wilt thou not take the dates also?\"\n\n\"No, I am not an Arab.\"\n\n\"Nor figs?\"\n\n\"That would be to make me a Jew. No, nothing but the grapes.\nNever waters mixed so sweetly as the blood of the Greek and\nthe blood of the grape.\"\n\nThe singer in the grimed and seething market, with all his airs\nof the court, is a vision not easily shut out of mind by such\nas see him; as if for the purpose, however, a person follows\nhim challenging all our wonder. He comes up the road slowly,\nhis face towards the ground; at intervals he stops, crosses his\nhands upon his breast, lengthens his countenance, and turns his\neyes towards heaven, as if about to break into prayer. Nowhere,\nexcept in Jerusalem, can such a character be found. On his forehead,\nattached to the band which keeps the mantle in place, projects a\nleathern case, square in form; another similar case is tied by\na thong to the left arm; the borders of his robe are decorated\nwith deep fringe; and by such signs--the phylacteries, the enlarged\nborders of the garment, and the savor of intense holiness pervading\nthe whole man--we know him to be a Pharisee, one of an organization\n(in religion a sect, in politics a party) whose bigotry and power\nwill shortly bring the world to grief.\n\nThe densest of the throng outside the gate covers the road leading\noff to Joppa. Turning from the Pharisee, we are attracted by some\nparties who, as subjects of study, opportunely separate themselves from\nthe motley crowd. First among them a man of very noble appearance--clear,\nhealthful complexion; bright black eyes; beard long and flowing, and rich\nwith unguents; apparel well-fitting, costly, and suitable for the season.\nHe carries a staff, and wears, suspended by a cord from his neck, a large\ngolden seal. Several servants attend him, some of them with short swords\nstuck through their sashes; when they address him, it is with the\nutmost deference. The rest of the party consists of two Arabs of\nthe pure desert stock; thin, wiry men, deeply bronzed, and with\nhollow cheeks, and eyes of almost evil brightness; on their heads\nred tarbooshes; over their abas, and wrapping the left shoulder\nand the body so as to leave the right arm free, brown woollen\nhaicks, or blankets. There is loud chaffering, for the Arabs are\nleading horses and trying to sell them; and, in their eagerness,\nthey speak in high, shrill voices. The courtly person leaves the\ntalking mostly to his servants; occasionally he answers with\nmuch dignity; directly, seeing the Cypriote, he stops and buys\nsome figs. And when the whole party has passed the portal, close\nafter the Pharisee, if we betake ourselves to the dealer in fruits,\nhe will tell, with a wonderful salaam, that the stranger is a Jew,\none of the princes of the city, who has travelled, and learned the\ndifference between the common grapes of Syria and those of Cyprus,\nso surpassingly rich with the dews of the sea.\n\nAnd so, till towards noon, sometimes later, the steady currents of\nbusiness habitually flow in and out of the Joppa Gate, carrying with\nthem every variety of character; including representatives of all\nthe tribes of Israel, all the sects among whom the ancient faith\nhas been parcelled and refined away, all the religious and social\ndivisions, all the adventurous rabble who, as children of art and\nministers of pleasure, riot in the prodigalities of Herod, and all\nthe peoples of note at any time compassed by the Caesars and their\npredecessors, especially those dwelling within the circuit of the\nMediterranean.\n\nIn other words, Jerusalem, rich in sacred history, richer in\nconnection with sacred prophecies--the Jerusalem of Solomon,\nin which silver was as stones, and cedars as the sycamores of\nthe vale--had come to be but a copy of Rome, a center of unholy\npractises, a seat of pagan power. A Jewish king one day put on\npriestly garments, and went into the Holy of Holies of the first\ntemple to offer incense, and he came out a leper; but in the time\nof which we are reading, Pompey entered Herod's temple and the\nsame Holy of Holies, and came out without harm, finding but an\nempty chamber, and of God not a sign.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nThe reader is now besought to return to the court described as\npart of the market at the Joppa Gate. It was the third hour of the\nday, and many of the people had gone away; yet the press continued\nwithout apparent abatement. Of the new-comers, there was a group\nover by the south wall, consisting of a man, a woman, and a donkey,\nwhich requires extended notice.\n\nThe man stood by the animal's head, holding a leading-strap,\nand leaning upon a stick which seemed to have been chosen for\nthe double purpose of goad and staff. His dress was like that of\nthe ordinary Jews around him, except that it had an appearance\nof newness. The mantle dropping from his head, and the robe or\nfrock which clothed his person from neck to heel, were probably\nthe garments he was accustomed to wear to the synagogue on\nSabbath days. His features were exposed, and they told of fifty\nyears of life, a surmise confirmed by the gray that streaked his\notherwise black beard. He looked around him with the half-curious,\nhalf-vacant stare of a stranger and provincial.\n\nThe donkey ate leisurely from an armful of green grass, of which\nthere was an abundance in the market. In its sleepy content,\nthe brute did not admit of disturbance from the bustle and\nclamor about; no more was it mindful of the woman sitting upon\nits back in a cushioned pillion. An outer robe of dull woollen\nstuff completely covered her person, while a white wimple veiled\nher head and neck. Once in a while, impelled by curiosity to see\nor hear something passing, she drew the wimple aside, but so\nslightly that the face remained invisible.\n\nAt length the man was accosted.\n\n\"Are you not Joseph of Nazareth?\"\n\nThe speaker was standing close by.\n\n\"I am so called,\" answered Joseph, turning gravely around; \"And\nyou--ah, peace be unto you! my friend, Rabbi Samuel!\"\n\n\"The same give I back to you.\" The Rabbi paused, looking at\nthe woman, then added, \"To you, and unto your house and all\nyour helpers, be peace.\"\n\nWith the last word, he placed one hand upon his breast, and inclined\nhis head to the woman, who, to see him, had by this time withdrawn\nthe wimple enough to show the face of one but a short time out of\ngirlhood. Thereupon the acquaintances grasped right hands, as if to\ncarry them to their lips; at the last moment, however, the clasp\nwas let go, and each kissed his own hand, then put its palm upon\nhis forehead.\n\n\"There is so little dust upon your garments,\" the Rabbi said,\nfamiliarly, \"that I infer you passed the night in this city of\nour fathers.\"\n\n\"No,\" Joseph replied, \"as we could only make Bethany before the\nnight came, we stayed in the khan there, and took the road again\nat daybreak.\"\n\n\"The journey before you is long, then--not to Joppa, I hope.\"\n\n\"Only to Bethlehem.\"\n\nThe countenance of the Rabbi, theretofore open and friendly,\nbecame lowering and sinister, and he cleared his throat with\na growl instead of a cough.\n\n\"Yes, yes--I see,\" he said. \"You were born in Bethlehem, and wend\nthither now, with your daughter, to be counted for taxation,\nas ordered by Caesar. The children of Jacob are as the tribes in\nEgypt were--only they have neither a Moses nor a Joshua. How are\nthe mighty fallen!\"\n\nJoseph answered, without change of posture or countenance,\n\n\"The woman is not my daughter.\"\n\nBut the Rabbi clung to the political idea; and he went on,\nwithout noticing the explanation, \"What are the Zealots doing\ndown in Galilee?\"\n\n\"I am a carpenter, and Nazareth is a village,\" said Joseph,\ncautiously. \"The street on which my bench stands is not a road\nleading to any city. Hewing wood and sawing plank leave me no\ntime to take part in the disputes of parties.\"\n\n\"But you are a Jew,\" said the Rabbi, earnestly. \"You are a Jew,\nand of the line of David. It is not possible you can find pleasure\nin the payment of any tax except the shekel given by ancient custom\nto Jehovah.\"\n\nJoseph held his peace.\n\n\"I do not complain,\" his friend continued, \"of the amount of the\ntax--a denarius is a trifle. Oh no! The imposition of the tax is\nthe offense. And, besides, what is paying it but submission to\ntyranny? Tell me, is it true that Judas claims to be the Messiah?\nYou live in the midst of his followers.\"\n\n\"I have heard his followers say he was the Messiah,\" Joseph replied.\n\nAt this point the wimple was drawn aside, and for an instant the\nwhole face of the woman was exposed. The eyes of the Rabbi wandered\nthat way, and he had time to see a countenance of rare beauty,\nkindled by a look of intense interest; then a blush overspread\nher cheeks and brow, and the veil was returned to its place.\n\nThe politician forgot his subject.\n\n\"Your daughter is comely,\" he said, speaking lower.\n\n\"She is not my daughter,\" Joseph repeated.\n\nThe curiosity of the Rabbi was aroused; seeing which, the Nazarene\nhastened to say further, \"She is the child of Joachim and Anna of\nBethlehem, of whom you have at least heard, for they were of great\nrepute--\"\n\n\"Yes,\" remarked the Rabbi, deferentially, \"I know them. They were\nlineally descended from David. I knew them well.\"\n\n\"Well, they are dead now,\" the Nazarene proceeded. \"They died in\nNazareth. Joachim was not rich, yet he left a house and garden\nto be divided between his daughters Marian and Mary. This is one\nof them; and to save her portion of the property, the law required\nher to marry her next of kin. She is now my wife.\"\n\n\"And you were--\"\n\n\"Her uncle.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes! And as you were both born in Bethlehem, the Roman compels\nyou to take her there with you to be also counted.\"\n\nThe Rabbi clasped his hands, and looked indignantly to heaven,\nexclaiming, \"The God of Israel still lives! The vengeance is his!\"\n\nWith that he turned and abruptly departed. A stranger near by,\nobserving Joseph's amazement, said, quietly, \"Rabbi Samuel is\na zealot. Judas himself is not more fierce.\"\n\nJoseph, not wishing to talk with the man, appeared not to hear,\nand busied himself gathering in a little heap the grass which\nthe donkey had tossed abroad; after which he leaned upon his\nstaff again, and waited.\n\nIn another hour the party passed out the gate, and, turning to the\nleft, took the road into Bethlehem. The descent into the valley of\nHinnom was quite broken, garnished here and there with straggling\nwild olive-trees. Carefully, tenderly, the Nazarene walked by the\nwoman's side, leading-strap in hand. On their left, reaching to\nthe south and east round Mount Zion, rose the city wall, and on\ntheir right the steep prominences which form the western boundary\nof the valley.\n\nSlowly they passed the Lower Pool of Gihon, out of which the\nsun was fast driving the lessening shadow of the royal hill;\nslowly they proceeded, keeping parallel with the aqueduct from\nthe Pools of Solomon, until near the site of the country-house on\nwhat is now called the Hill of Evil Counsel; there they began to\nascend to the plain of Rephaim. The sun streamed garishly over the\nstony face of the famous locality, and under its influence Mary,\nthe daughter of Joachim, dropped the wimple entirely, and bared\nher head. Joseph told the story of the Philistines surprised in\ntheir camp there by David. He was tedious in the narrative,\nspeaking with the solemn countenance and lifeless manner of\na dull man. She did not always hear him.\n\nWherever on the land men go, and on the sea ships, the face and\nfigure of the Jew are familiar. The physical type of the race has\nalways been the same; yet there have been some individual variations.\n\"Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly\nto look to.\" Such was the son of Jesse when brought before Samuel.\nThe fancies of men have been ever since ruled by the description.\nPoetic license has extended the peculiarities of the ancestor to\nhis notable descendants. So all our ideal Solomons have fair faces,\nand hair and beard chestnut in the shade, and of the tint of gold in\nthe sun. Such, we are also made believe, were the locks of Absalom\nthe beloved. And, in the absence of authentic history, tradition has\ndealt no less lovingly by her whom we are now following down to the\nnative city of the ruddy king.\n\nShe was not more than fifteen. Her form, voice, and manner belonged\nto the period of transition from girlhood. Her face was perfectly\noval, her complexion more pale than fair. The nose was faultless;\nthe lips, slightly parted, were full and ripe, giving to the lines\nof the mouth warmth, tenderness, and trust; the eyes were blue and\nlarge, and shaded by drooping lids and long lashes; and, in harmony\nwith all, a flood of golden hair, in the style permitted to Jewish\nbrides, fell unconfined down her back to the pillion on which\nshe sat. The throat and neck had the downy softness sometimes\nseen which leaves the artist in doubt whether it is an effect\nof contour or color. To these charms of feature and person were\nadded others more indefinable--an air of purity which only the\nsoul can impart, and of abstraction natural to such as think much\nof things impalpable. Often, with trembling lips, she raised her\neyes to heaven, itself not more deeply blue; often she crossed\nher hands upon her breast, as in adoration and prayer; often she\nraised her head like one listening eagerly for a calling voice.\nNow and then, midst his slow utterances, Joseph turned to look\nat her, and, catching the expression kindling her face as with\nlight, forgot his theme, and with bowed head, wondering, plodded on.\n\nSo they skirted the great plain, and at length reached the elevation\nMar Elias; from which, across a valley, they beheld Bethlehem,\nthe old, old House of Bread, its white walls crowning a ridge,\nand shining above the brown scumbling of leafless orchards.\nThey paused there, and rested, while Joseph pointed out the\nplaces of sacred renown; then they went down into the valley to\nthe well which was the scene of one of the marvellous exploits of\nDavid's strong men. The narrow space was crowded with people and\nanimals. A fear came upon Joseph--a fear lest, if the town were\nso thronged, there might not be house-room for the gentle Mary.\nWithout delay, he hurried on, past the pillar of stone marking the\ntomb of Rachel, up the gardened <DW72>, saluting none of the many\npersons he met on the way, until he stopped before the portal of\nthe khan that then stood outside the village gates, near a junction\nof roads.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nTo understand thoroughly what happened to the Nazarene at the khan,\nthe reader must be reminded that Eastern inns were different from the\ninns of the Western world. They were called khans, from the Persian,\nand, in simplest form, were fenced enclosures, without house or\nshed, often without a gate or entrance. Their sites were chosen\nwith reference to shade, defence, or water. Such were the inns\nthat sheltered Jacob when he went to seek a wife in Padan-Aram.\nTheir like may been seen at this day in the stopping-places of\nthe desert. On the other hand, some of them, especially those\non the roads between great cities, like Jerusalem and Alexandria,\nwere princely establishments, monuments to the piety of the kings\nwho built them. In ordinary, however, they were no more than the\nhouse or possession of a sheik, in which, as in headquarters,\nhe swayed his tribe. Lodging the traveller was the least of\ntheir uses; they were markets, factories, forts; places of\nassemblage and residence for merchants and artisans quite as\nmuch as places of shelter for belated and wandering wayfarers.\nWithin their walls, all the year round, occurred the multiplied\ndaily transactions of a town.\n\nThe singular management of these hostelries was the feature likely\nto strike a Western mind with most force. There was no host or\nhostess; no clerk, cook, or kitchen; a steward at the gate was all\nthe assertion of government or proprietorship anywhere visible.\nStrangers arriving stayed at will without rendering account.\nA consequence of the system was that whoever came had to bring\nhis food and culinary outfit with him, or buy them of dealers in\nthe khan. The same rule held good as to his bed and bedding, and\nforage for his beasts. Water, rest, shelter, and protection were\nall he looked for from the proprietor, and they were gratuities.\nThe peace of synagogues was sometimes broken by brawling disputants,\nbut that of the khans never. The houses and all their appurtenances\nwere sacred: a well was not more so.\n\nThe khan at Bethlehem, before which Joseph and his wife stopped,\nwas a good specimen of its class, being neither very primitive\nnor very princely. The building was purely Oriental; that is\nto say, a quadrangular block of rough stones, one story high,\nflat-roofed, externally unbroken by a window, and with but one\nprincipal entrance--a doorway, which was also a gateway, on the\neastern side, or front. The road ran by the door so near that\nthe chalk dust half covered the lintel. A fence of flat rocks,\nbeginning at the northeastern corner of the pile, extended many\nyards down the <DW72> to a point from whence it swept westwardly to\na limestone bluff; making what was in the highest degree essential\nto a respectable khan--a safe enclosure for animals.\n\nIn a village like Bethlehem, as there was but one sheik, there could\nnot well be more than one khan; and, though born in the place,\nthe Nazarene, from long residence elsewhere, had no claim to\nhospitality in the town. Moreover, the enumeration for which he\nwas coming might be the work of weeks or months; Roman deputies\nin the provinces were proverbially slow; and to impose himself\nand wife for a period so uncertain upon acquaintances or relations\nwas out of the question. So, before he drew nigh the great house,\nwhile he was yet climbing the <DW72>, in the steep places toiling to\nhasten the donkey, the fear that he might not find accommodations in\nthe khan became a painful anxiety; for he found the road thronged\nwith men and boys who, with great ado, were taking their cattle,\nhorses, and camels to and from the valley, some to water, some to\nthe neighboring caves. And when he was come close by, his alarm\nwas not allayed by the discovery of a crowd investing the door\nof the establishment, while the enclosure adjoining, broad as\nit was, seemed already full.\n\n\"We cannot reach the door,\" Joseph said, in his slow way. \"Let us\nstop here, and learn, if we can, what has happened.\"\n\nThe wife, without answering, quietly drew the wimple aside. The look\nof fatigue at first upon her face changed to one of interest. She\nfound herself at the edge of an assemblage that could not be other\nthan a matter of curiosity to her, although it was common enough\nat the khans on any of the highways which the great caravans were\naccustomed to traverse. There were men on foot, running hither and\nthither, talking shrilly and in all the tongues of Syria; men on\nhorseback screaming to men on camels; men struggling doubtfully\nwith fractious cows and frightened sheep; men peddling bread and\nwine; and among the mass a herd of boys apparently in chase of a\nherd of dogs. Everybody and everything seemed to be in motion at\nthe same time. Possibly the fair spectator was too weary to be long\nattracted by the scene; in a little while she sighed, and settled\ndown on the pillion, and, as if in search of peace and rest, or in\nexpectation of some one, looked off to the south, and up to the\ntall cliffs of the Mount of Paradise, then faintly reddening under\nthe setting sun.\n\nWhile she was thus looking, a man pushed his way out of the press,\nand, stopping close by the donkey, faced about with an angry brow.\nThe Nazarene spoke to him.\n\n\"As I am what I take you to be, good friend--a son of Judah--may\nI ask the cause of this multitude?\"\n\nThe stranger turned fiercely; but, seeing the solemn countenance\nof Joseph, so in keeping with his deep, slow voice and speech,\nhe raised his hand in half-salutation, and replied,\n\n\"Peace be to you, Rabbi! I am a son of Judah, and will answer you.\nI dwell in Beth-Dagon, which, you know, is in what used to be the\nland of the tribe of Dan.\"\n\n\"On the road to Joppa from Modin,\" said Joseph.\n\n\"Ah, you have been in Beth-Dagon,\" the man said, his face softening\nyet more. \"What wanderers we of Judah are! I have been away from\nthe ridge--old Ephrath, as our father Jacob called it--for many\nyears. When the proclamation went abroad requiring all Hebrews to\nbe numbered at the cities of their birth-- That is my business\nhere, Rabbi.\"\n\nJoseph's face remained stolid as a mask, while he remarked, \"I have\ncome for that also--I and my wife.\"\n\nThe stranger glanced at Mary and kept silence. She was looking\nup at the bald top of Gedor. The sun touched her upturned\nface, and filled the violet depths of her eyes, and upon her\nparted lips trembled an aspiration which could not have been to\na mortal. For the moment, all the humanity of her beauty seemed\nrefined away: she was as we fancy they are who sit close by the\ngate in the transfiguring light of Heaven. The Beth-Dagonite saw\nthe original of what, centuries after, came as a vision of genius\nto Sanzio the divine, and left him immortal.\n\n\"Of what was I speaking? Ah! I remember. I was about to say that\nwhen I heard of the order to come here, I was angry. Then I thought\nof the old hill, and the town, and the valley falling away into\nthe depths of Cedron; of the vines and orchards, and fields of\ngrain, unfailing since the days of Boaz and Ruth, of the familiar\nmountains--Gedor here, Gibeah yonder, Mar Elias there--which, when\nI was a boy, were the walls of the world to me; and I forgave the\ntyrants and came--I, and Rachel, my wife, and Deborah and Michal,\nour roses of Sharon.\"\n\nThe man paused again, looking abruptly at Mary, who was now looking\nat him and listening. Then he said, \"Rabbi, will not your wife go\nto mine? You may see her yonder with the children, under the leaning\nolive-tree at the bend of the road. I tell you\"--he turned to Joseph\nand spoke positively--\"I tell you the khan is full. It is useless to\nask at the gate.\"\n\nJoseph's will was slow, like his mind; he hesitated, but at length\nreplied, \"The offer is kind. Whether there be room for us or not\nin the house, we will go see your people. Let me speak to the\ngate-keeper myself. I will return quickly.\"\n\nAnd, putting the leading-strap in the stranger's hand, he pushed\ninto the stirring crowd.\n\nThe keeper sat on a great cedar block outside the gate. Against the\nwall behind him leaned a javelin. A dog squatted on the block by\nhis side.\n\n\"The peace of Jehovah be with you,\" said Joseph, at last confronting\nthe keeper.\n\n\"What you give, may you find again; and, when found, be it many\ntimes multiplied to you and yours,\" returned the watchman, gravely,\nthough without moving.\n\n\"I am a Bethlehemite,\" said Joseph, in his most deliberate way.\n\"Is there not room for--\"\n\n\"There is not.\"\n\n\"You may have heard of me--Joseph of Nazareth. This is the house\nof my fathers. I am of the line of David.\"\n\nThese words held the Nazarene's hope. If they failed him, further\nappeal was idle, even that of the offer of many shekels. To be a\nson of Judah was one thing--in the tribal opinion a great thing;\nto be of the house of David was yet another; on the tongue of a\nHebrew there could be no higher boast. A thousand years and more\nhad passed since the boyish shepherd became the successor of Saul\nand founded a royal family. Wars, calamities, other kings, and the\ncountless obscuring processes of time had, as respects fortune,\nlowered his descendants to the common Jewish level; the bread\nthey ate came to them of toil never more humble; yet they had\nthe benefit of history sacredly kept, of which genealogy was the\nfirst chapter and the last; they could not become unknown, while,\nwherever they went In Israel, acquaintance drew after it a respect\namounting to reverence.\n\nIf this were so in Jerusalem and elsewhere, certainly one of the\nsacred line might reasonably rely upon it at the door of the khan of\nBethlehem. To say, as Joseph said, \"This is the house of my fathers,\"\nwas to say the truth most simply and literally; for it was the very\nhouse Ruth ruled as the wife of Boaz, the very house in which Jesse\nand his ten sons, David the youngest, were born, the very house in\nwhich Samuel came seeking a king, and found him; the very house\nwhich David gave to the son of Barzillai, the friendly Gileadite;\nthe very house in which Jeremiah, by prayer, rescued the remnant\nof his race flying before the Babylonians.\n\nThe appeal was not without effect. The keeper of the gate slid\ndown from the cedar block, and, laying his hand upon his beard,\nsaid, respectfully, \"Rabbi, I cannot tell you when this door first\nopened in welcome to the traveller, but it was more than a thousand\nyears ago; and in all that time there is no known instance of a good\nman turned away, save when there was no room to rest him in. If it\nhas been so with the stranger, just cause must the steward have who\nsays no to one of the line of David. Wherefore, I salute you again;\nand, if you care to go with me, I will show you that there is not\na lodging-place left in the house; neither in the chambers, nor in\nthe lewens, nor in the court--not even on the roof. May I ask when\nyou came?\"\n\n\"But now.\"\n\nThe keeper smiled.\n\n\"'The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be as one born among\nyou, and thou shalt love him as thyself.' Is not that the law,\nRabbi?\"\n\nJoseph was silent.\n\n\"If it be the law, can I say to one a long time come, 'Go thy way;\nanother is here to take thy place?'\"\n\nYet Joseph held his peace.\n\n\"And, if I said so, to whom would the place belong? See the many\nthat have been waiting, some of them since noon.\"\n\n\"Who are all these people?\" asked Joseph, turning to the crowd.\n\"And why are they here at this time?\"\n\n\"That which doubtless brought you, Rabbi--the decree of the\nCaesar\"--the keeper threw an interrogative glance at the Nazarene,\nthen continued--\"brought most of those who have lodging in the house.\nAnd yesterday the caravan passing from Damascus to Arabia and Lower\nEgypt arrived. These you see here belong to it--men and camels.\"\n\nStill Joseph persisted.\n\n\"The court is large,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes, but it is heaped with cargoes--with bales of silk, and pockets\nof spices, and goods of every kind.\"\n\nThen for a moment the face of the applicant lost its stolidity;\nthe lustreless, staring eyes dropped. With some warmth he next said,\n\"I do not care for myself, but I have with me my wife, and the night\nis cold--colder on these heights than in Nazareth. She cannot live\nin the open air. Is there not room in the town?\"\n\n\"These people\"--the keeper waved his hand to the throng before the\ndoor--\"have all besought the town, and they report its accommodations\nall engaged.\"\n\nAgain Joseph studied the ground, saying, half to himself, \"She is\nso young! if I make her bed on the hill, the frosts will kill her.\"\n\nThen he spoke to the keeper again.\n\n\"It may be you knew her parents, Joachim and Anna, once of Bethlehem,\nand, like myself, of the line of David.\"\n\n\"Yes, I knew them. They were good people. That was in my youth.\"\n\nThis time the keeper's eyes sought the ground in thought. Suddenly he\nraised his head.\n\n\"If I cannot make room for you,\" he said, \"I cannot turn you away.\nRabbi, I will do the best I can for you. How many are of your party?\"\n\nJoseph reflected, then replied, \"My wife and a friend with his\nfamily, from Beth-Dagon, a little town over by Joppa; in all,\nsix of us.\"\n\n\"Very well. You shall not lie out on the ridge. Bring your people,\nand hasten; for, when the sun goes down behind the mountain, you know\nthe night comes quickly, and it is nearly there now.\"\n\n\"I give you the blessing of the houseless traveller; that of the\nsojourner will follow.\"\n\nSo saying, the Nazarene went back joyfully to Mary and the\nBeth-Dagonite. In a little while the latter brought up his\nfamily, the women mounted on donkeys. The wife was matronly,\nthe daughters were images of what she must have been in youth;\nand as they drew nigh the door, the keeper knew them to be of\nthe humble class.\n\n\"This is she of whom I spoke,\" said the Nazarene; \"and these are\nour friends.\"\n\nMary's veil was raised.\n\n\"Blue eyes and hair of gold,\" muttered the steward to himself,\nseeing but her. \"So looked the young king when he went to sing\nbefore Saul.\"\n\nThen he took the leading-strap from Joseph, and said to Mary,\n\"Peace to you, O daughter of David!\" Then to the others, \"Peace to\nyou all!\" Then to Joseph, \"Rabbi, follow me.\"\n\nThe party were conducted into a wide passage paved with stone,\nfrom which they entered the court of the khan. To a stranger the\nscene would have been curious; but they noticed the lewens that\nyawned darkly upon them from all sides, and the court itself,\nonly to remark how crowded they were. By a lane reserved in the\nstowage of the cargoes, and thence by a passage similar to the\none at the entrance, they emerged into the enclosure adjoining\nthe house, and came upon camels, horses, and donkeys, tethered\nand dozing in close groups; among them were the keepers, men of\nmany lands; and they, too, slept or kept silent watch. They went\ndown the <DW72> of the crowded yard slowly, for the dull carriers\nof the women had wills of their own. At length they turned into\na path running towards the gray limestone bluff overlooking the\nkhan on the west.\n\n\"We are going to the cave,\" said Joseph, laconically.\n\nThe guide lingered till Mary came to his side.\n\n\"The cave to which we are going,\" he said to her, \"must have been\na resort of your ancestor David. From the field below us, and from\nthe well down in the valley, he used to drive his flocks to it for\nsafety; and afterwards, when he was king, he came back to the old\nhouse here for rest and health, bringing great trains of animals.\nThe mangers yet remain as they were in his day. Better a bed on\nthe floor where he has slept than one in the court-yard or out by\nthe roadside. Ah, here is the house before the cave!\"\n\nThis speech must not be taken as an apology for the lodging offered.\nThere was no need of apology. The place was the best then at disposal.\nThe guests were simple folks, by habits of life easily satisfied.\nTo the Jew of that period, moreover, abode in caverns was a familiar\nidea, made so by every-day occurrences, and by what he heard of\nSabbaths in the synagogues. How much of Jewish history, how many\nof the many exciting incidents in that history, had transpired in\ncaves! Yet further, these people were Jews of Bethlehem, with whom\nthe idea was especially commonplace; for their locality abounded\nwith caves great and small, some of which had been dwelling-places\nfrom the time of the Emim and Horites. No more was there offence\nto them in the fact that the cavern to which they were being taken\nhad been, or was, a stable. They were the descendants of a race of\nherdsmen, whose flocks habitually shared both their habitations and\nwanderings. In keeping with a custom derived from Abraham, the tent\nof the Bedawin yet shelters his horses and children alike. So they\nobeyed the keeper cheerfully, and gazed at the house, feeling only\na natural curiosity. Everything associated with the history of David\nwas interesting to them.\n\nThe building was low and narrow, projecting but a little from\nthe rock to which it was joined at the rear, and wholly without\na window. In its blank front there was a door, swung on enormous\nhinges, and thickly daubed with ochreous clay. While the wooden\nbolt of the lock was being pushed back, the women were assisted\nfrom their pillions.  Upon the opening of the door, the keeper\ncalled out,\n\n\"Come in!\"\n\nThe guests entered, and stared about them. It became apparent\nimmediately that the house was but a mask or covering for the\nmouth of a natural cave or grotto, probably forty feet long,\nnine or ten high, and twelve or fifteen in width. The light\nstreamed through the doorway, over an uneven floor, falling\nupon piles of grain and fodder, and earthenware and household\nproperty, occupying the centre of the chamber. Along the sides\nwere mangers, low enough for sheep, and built of stones laid in\ncement. There were no stalls or partitions of any kind. Dust and\nchaff yellowed the floor, filled all the crevices and hollows,\nand thickened the spider-webs, which dropped from the ceiling\nlike bits of dirty linen; otherwise the place was cleanly, and,\nto appearance, as comfortable as any of the arched lewens of the\nkhan proper. In fact, a cave was the model and first suggestion\nof the lewen.\n\n\"Come in!\" said the guide. \"These piles upon the floor are\nfor travellers like yourselves. Take what of them you need.\"\n\nThen he spoke to Mary.\n\n\"Can you rest here?\"\n\n\"The place is sanctified,\" she answered.\n\n\"I leave you then. Peace be with you all!\"\n\nWhen he was gone, they busied themselves making the cave habitable.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n\nAt a certain hour in the evening the shouting and stir of the\npeople in and about the khan ceased; at the same time, every\nIsraelite, if not already upon his feet, arose, solemnized his\nface, looked towards Jerusalem, crossed his hands upon his breast,\nand prayed; for it was the sacred ninth hour, when sacrifices were\noffered in the temple on Moriah, and God was supposed to be there.\nWhen the hands of the worshippers fell down, the commotion broke\nforth again; everybody hastened to bread, or to make his pallet.\nA little later, the lights were put out, and there was silence,\nand then sleep.\n\n* * * * * *\n\nAbout midnight some one on the roof cried out, \"What light is that\nin the sky? Awake, brethren, awake and see!\"\n\nThe people, half asleep, sat up and looked; then they became\nwide-awake, though wonder-struck. And the stir spread to the\ncourt below, and into the lewens; soon the entire tenantry of\nthe house and court and enclosure were out gazing at the sky.\n\nAnd this was what they saw. A ray of light, beginning at a height\nimmeasurably beyond the nearest stars, and dropping obliquely\nto the earth; at its top, a diminishing point; at its base,\nmany furlongs in width; its sides blending softly with the\ndarkness of the night, its core a roseate electrical splendor.\nThe apparition seemed to rest on the nearest mountain southeast\nof the town, making a pale corona along the line of the summit.\nThe khan was touched luminously, so that those upon the roof saw\neach other's faces, all filled with wonder.\n\nSteadily, through minutes, the ray lingered, and then the wonder\nchanged to awe and fear; the timid trembled; the boldest spoke\nin whispers.\n\n\"Saw you ever the like?\" asked one.\n\n\"It seems just over the mountain there. I cannot tell what it is,\nnor did I ever see anything like it,\" was the answer.\n\n\"Can it be that a star has burst and fallen?\" asked another,\nhis tongue faltering.\n\n\"When a star falls, its light goes out.\"\n\n\"I have it!\" cried one, confidently. \"The shepherds have seen a\nlion, and made fires to keep him from the flocks.\"\n\nThe men next the speaker drew a breath of relief, and said, \"Yes,\nthat is it! The flocks were grazing in the valley over there to-day.\"\n\nA bystander dispelled the comfort.\n\n\"No, no! Though all the wood in all the valleys of Judah was brought\ntogether in one pile and fired, the blaze would not throw a light so\nstrong and high.\"\n\nAfter that there was silence on the house-top, broken but once\nagain while the mystery continued.\n\n\"Brethren!\" exclaimed a Jew of venerable mien, \"what we see is the\nladder our father Jacob saw in his dream. Blessed be the Lord God\nof our fathers!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n\nA mile and a half, it may be two miles, southeast of Bethlehem,\nthere is a plain separated from the town by an intervening swell\nof the mountain. Besides being well sheltered from the north winds,\nthe vale was covered with a growth of sycamore, dwarf-oak, and pine\ntrees, while in the glens and ravines adjoining there were thickets\nof olive and mulberry; all at this season of the year invaluable\nfor the support of sheep, goats, and cattle, of which the wandering\nflocks consisted.\n\nAt the side farthest from the town, close under a bluff, there was\nan extensive marah, or sheepcot, ages old. In some long-forgotten\nforay, the building had been unroofed and almost demolished.\nThe enclosure attached to it remained intact, however, and that\nwas of more importance to the shepherds who drove their charges\nthither than the house itself. The stone wall around the lot was\nhigh as a man's head, yet not so high but that sometimes a panther\nor a lion, hungering from the wilderness, leaped boldly in. On the\ninner side of the wall, and as an additional security against\nthe constant danger, a hedge of the rhamnus had been planted,\nan invention so successful that now a sparrow could hardly\npenetrate the overtopping branches, armed as they were with\ngreat clusters of thorns hard as spikes.\n\nThe day of the occurrences which occupy the preceding chapters,\na number of shepherds, seeking fresh walks for their flocks, led\nthem up to this plain; and from early morning the groves had been\nmade ring with calls, and the blows of axes, the bleating of sheep\nand goats, the tinkling of bells, the lowing of cattle, and the\nbarking of dogs. When the sun went down, they led the way to the\nmarah, and by nightfall had everything safe in the field; then they\nkindled a fire down by the gate, partook of their humble supper,\nand sat down to rest and talk, leaving one on watch.\n\nThere were six of these men, omitting the watchman; and afterwhile\nthey assembled in a group near the fire, some sitting, some lying\nprone. As they went bareheaded habitually, their hair stood out in\nthick, coarse, sunburnt shocks; their beard covered their throats,\nand fell in mats down the breast; mantles of the skin of kids\nand lambs, with the fleece on, wrapped them from neck to knee,\nleaving the arms exposed; broad belts girthed the rude garments\nto their waists; their sandals were of the coarsest quality;\nfrom their right shoulders hung scrips containing food and\nselected stones for slings, with which they were armed; on the\nground near each one lay his crook, a symbol of his calling and\na weapon of offence.\n\nSuch were the shepherds of Judea! In appearance, rough and savage\nas the gaunt dogs sitting with them around the blaze; in fact,\nsimple-minded, tender-hearted; effects due, in part, to the\nprimitive life they led, but chiefly to their constant care\nof things lovable and helpless.\n\nThey rested and talked, and their talk was all about their flocks,\na dull theme to the world, yet a theme which was all the world to\nthem. If in narrative they dwelt long upon affairs of trifling\nmoment; if one of them omitted nothing of detail in recounting\nthe loss of a lamb, the relation between him and the unfortunate\nshould be remembered: at birth it became his charge, his to keep\nall its days, to help over the floods, to carry down the hollows,\nto name and train; it was to be his companion, his object of thought\nand interest, the subject of his will; it was to enliven and share\nhis wanderings; in its defense he might be called on to face the\nlion or robber--to die.\n\nThe great events, such as blotted out nations and changed the\nmastery of the world, were trifles to them, if perchance they came\nto their knowledge. Of what Herod was doing in this city or that,\nbuilding palaces and gymnasia, and indulging forbidden practises,\nthey occasionally heard. As was her habit in those days, Rome did\nnot wait for people slow to inquire about her; she came to them.\nOver the hills along which he was leading his lagging herd, or in\nthe fastnesses in which he was hiding them, not unfrequently the\nshepherd was startled by the blare of trumpets, and, peering out,\nbeheld a cohort, sometimes a legion, in march; and when the\nglittering crests were gone, and the excitement incident to\nthe intrusion over, he bent himself to evolve the meaning of\nthe eagles and gilded globes of the soldiery, and the charm of\na life so the opposite of his own.\n\nYet these men, rude and simple as they were, had a knowledge and\na wisdom of their own. On Sabbaths they were accustomed to purify\nthemselves, and go up into the synagogues, and sit on the benches\nfarthest from the ark. When the chazzan bore the Torah round,\nnone kissed it with greater zest; when the sheliach read the text,\nnone listened to the interpreter with more absolute faith; and none\ntook away with them more of the elder's sermon, or gave it more\nthought afterwards. In a verse of the Shema they found all the\nlearning and all the law of their simple lives--that their Lord\nwas One God, and that they must love him with all their souls.\nAnd they loved him, and such was their wisdom, surpassing that\nof kings.\n\nWhile they talked, and before the first watch was over, one by\none the shepherds went to sleep, each lying where he had sat.\n\nThe night, like most nights of the winter season in the hill\ncountry, was clear, crisp, and sparkling with stars. There was\nno wind. The atmosphere seemed never so pure, and the stillness\nwas more than silence; it was a holy hush, a warning that heaven\nwas stooping low to whisper some good thing to the listening earth.\n\nBy the gate, hugging his mantle close, the watchman walked; at times\nhe stopped, attracted by a stir among the sleeping herds, or by\na jackal's cry off on the mountain-side. The midnight was slow\ncoming to him; but at last it came. His task was done; now for the\ndreamless sleep with which labor blesses its wearied children! He\nmoved towards the fire, but paused; a light was breaking around\nhim, soft and white, like the moon's. He waited breathlessly.\nThe light deepened; things before invisible came to view; he saw\nthe whole field, and all it sheltered. A chill sharper than that\nof the frosty air--a chill of fear--smote him. He looked up;\nthe stars were gone; the light was dropping as from a window\nin the sky; as he looked, it became a splendor; then, in terror,\nhe cried,\n\n\"Awake, awake!\"\n\nUp sprang the dogs, and, howling, ran away.\n\nThe herds rushed together bewildered.\n\nThe men clambered to their feet, weapons in hand.\n\n\"What is it?\" they asked, in one voice.\n\n\"See!\" cried the watchman, \"the sky is on fire!\"\n\nSuddenly the light became intolerably bright, and they covered\ntheir eyes, and dropped upon their knees; then, as their souls\nshrank with fear, they fell upon their faces blind and fainting,\nand would have died had not a voice said to them,\n\n\"Fear not!\"\n\nAnd they listened.\n\n\"Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,\nwhich shall be to all people.\"\n\nThe voice, in sweetness and soothing more than human, and low and\nclear, penetrated all their being, and filled them with assurance.\nThey rose upon their knees, and, looking worshipfully, beheld in\nthe centre of a great glory the appearance of a man, clad in a\nrobe intensely white; above its shoulders towered the tops of\nwings shining and folded; a star over its forehead glowed with\nsteady lustre, brilliant as Hesperus; its hands were stretched\ntowards them in blessing; its face was serene and divinely beautiful.\n\nThey had often heard, and, in their simple way, talked, of angels;\nand they doubted not now, but said, in their hearts, The glory of\nGod is about us, and this is he who of old came to the prophet by\nthe river of Ulai.\n\nDirectly the angel continued:\n\n\"For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior,\nwhich is Christ the Lord!\"\n\nAgain there was a rest, while the words sank into their minds.\n\n\"And this shall be a sign unto you,\" the annunciator said next.\n\"Ye shall find the babe, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lying in\na manger.\"\n\nThe herald spoke not again; his good tidings were told; yet he\nstayed awhile. Suddenly the light, of which he seemed the centre,\nturned roseate and began to tremble; then up, far as the men could\nsee, there was flashing of white wings, and coming and going of\nradiant forms, and voices as of a multitude chanting in unison,\n\n\"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards\nmen!\"\n\nNot once the praise, but many times.\n\nThen the herald raised his eyes as seeking approval of one far off;\nhis wings stirred, and spread slowly and majestically, on their upper\nside white as snow, in the shadow vari-tinted, like mother-of-pearl;\nwhen they were expanded many cubits beyond his stature, he arose\nlightly, and, without effort, floated out of view, taking the\nlight up with him. Long after he was gone, down from the sky fell\nthe refrain in measure mellowed by distance, \"Glory to God in the\nhighest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men.\"\n\nWhen the shepherds came fully to their senses, they stared at each\nother stupidly, until one of them said, \"It was Gabriel, the Lord's\nmessenger unto men.\"\n\nNone answered.\n\n\"Christ the Lord is born; said he not so?\"\n\nThen another recovered his voice, and replied, \"That is what he\nsaid.\"\n\n\"And did he not also say, in the city of David, which is our\nBethlehem yonder. And that we should find him a babe in\nswaddling-clothes?\"\n\n\"And lying in a manger.\"\n\nThe first speaker gazed into the fire thoughtfully, but at length\nsaid, like one possessed of a sudden resolve, \"There is but one\nplace in Bethlehem where there are mangers; but one, and that is\nin the cave near the old khan. Brethren, let us go see this thing\nwhich has come to pass. The priests and doctors have been a long\ntime looking for the Christ. Now he is born, and the Lord has\ngiven us a sign by which to know him. Let us go up and worship\nhim.\"\n\n\"But the flocks!\"\n\n\"The Lord will take care of them. Let us make haste.\"\n\nThen they all arose and left the marah.\n\n* * * * * *\n\nAround the mountain and through the town they passed, and came to\nthe gate of the khan, where there was a man on watch.\n\n\"What would you have?\" he asked.\n\n\"We have seen and heard great things to-night,\" they replied.\n\n\"Well, we, too, have seen great things, but heard nothing. What did\nyou hear?\"\n\n\"Let us go down to the cave in the enclosure, that we may be sure;\nthen we will tell you all. Come with us, and see for yourself.\"\n\n\"It is a fool's errand.\"\n\n\"No, the Christ is born.\"\n\n\"The Christ! How do you know?\"\n\n\"Let us go and see first.\"\n\nThe man laughed scornfully.\n\n\"The Christ indeed! How are you to know him?\"\n\n\"He was born this night, and is now lying in a manger, so we\nwere told; and there is but one place in Bethlehem with mangers.\"\n\n\"The cave?\"\n\n\"Yes. Come with us.\"\n\nThey went through the court-yard without notice, although there\nwere some up even then talking about the wonderful light. The door\nof the cavern was open. A lantern was burning within, and they\nentered unceremoniously.\n\n\"I give you peace,\" the watchman said to Joseph and the Beth\nDagonite. \"Here are people looking for a child born this night,\nwhom they are to know by finding him in swaddling-clothes and\nlying in a manger.\"\n\nFor a moment the face of the stolid Nazarene was moved; turning away,\nhe said, \"The child is here.\"\n\nThey were led to one of the mangers, and there the child was. The\nlantern was brought, and the shepherds stood by mute. The little\none made no sign; it was as others just born.\n\n\"Where is the mother?\" asked the watchman.\n\nOne of the women took the baby, and went to Mary, lying near,\nand put it in her arms. Then the bystanders collected about\nthe two.\n\n\"It is the Christ!\" said a shepherd, at last.\n\n\"The Christ!\" they all repeated, falling upon their knees in worship.\nOne of them repeated several times over,\n\n\"It is the Lord, and his glory is above the earth and heaven.\"\n\nAnd the simple men, never doubting, kissed the hem of the mother's\nrobe, and with joyful faces departed. In the khan, to all the people\naroused and pressing about them, they told their story; and through\nthe town, and all the way back to the marah, they chanted the refrain\nof the angels, \"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,\ngood-will towards men!\"\n\nThe story went abroad, confirmed by the light so generally seen;\nand the next day, and for days thereafter, the cave was visited\nby curious crowds, of whom some believed, though the greater part\nlaughed and mocked.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\n\nThe eleventh day after the birth of the child in the cave,\nabout mid-afternoon, the three wise men approached Jerusalem by\nthe road from Shechem. After crossing Brook Cedron, they met many\npeople, of whom none failed to stop and look after them curiously.\n\nJudea was of necessity an international thoroughfare; a narrow\nridge, raised, apparently, by the pressure of the desert on\nthe east, and the sea on the west, was all she could claim to\nbe; over the ridge, however, nature had stretched the line of\ntrade between the east and the south; and that was her wealth.\nIn other words, the riches of Jerusalem were the tolls she levied\non passing commerce. Nowhere else, consequently, unless in Rome,\nwas there such constant assemblage of so many people of so many\ndifferent nations; in no other city was a stranger less strange\nto the residents than within her walls and purlieus. And yet these\nthree men excited the wonder of all whom they met on the way to\nthe gates.\n\nA child belonging to some women sitting by the roadside opposite\nthe Tombs of the Kings saw the party coming; immediately it clapped\nits hands, and cried, \"Look, look! What pretty bells! What big\ncamels!\"\n\nThe bells were silver; the camels, as we have seen, were of unusual\nsize and whiteness, and moved with singular stateliness; the trappings\ntold of the desert and of long journeys thereon, and also of ample\nmeans in possession of the owners, who sat under the little canopies\nexactly as they appeared at the rendezvous beyond the Jebel. Yet it\nwas not the bells or the camels, or their furniture, or the demeanor\nof the riders, that were so wonderful; it was the question put by\nthe man who rode foremost of the three.\n\nThe approach to Jerusalem from the north is across a plain which\ndips southward, leaving the Damascus Gate in a vale or hollow.\nThe road is narrow, but deeply cut by long use, and in places\ndifficult on account of the cobbles left loose and dry by the\nwashing of the rains. On either side, however, there stretched,\nin the old time, rich fields and handsome olive-groves, which must,\nin luxurious growth, have been beautiful, especially to travellers\nfresh from the wastes of the desert. In this road, the three stopped\nbefore the party in front of the Tombs.\n\n\"Good people,\" said Balthasar, stroking his plaited beard,\nand bending from his cot, \"is not Jerusalem close by?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered the woman into whose arms the child had shrunk.\n\"If the trees on yon swell were a little lower you could see the\ntowers on the market-place.\"\n\nBalthasar gave the Greek and the Hindoo a look, then asked,\n\n\"Where is he that is born King of the Jews?\"\n\nThe women gazed at each other without reply.\n\n\"You have not heard of him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, tell everybody that we have seen his star in the east,\nand are come to worship him.\"\n\nThereupon the friends rode on. Of others they asked the same\nquestion, with like result. A large company whom they met going to\nthe Grotto of Jeremiah were so astonished by the inquiry and the\nappearance of the travellers that they turned about and followed\nthem into the city.\n\nSo much were the three occupied with the idea of their mission that\nthey did not care for the view which presently rose before them in\nthe utmost magnificence: for the village first to receive them\non Bezetha; for Mizpah and Olivet, over on their left; for the\nwall behind the village, with its forty tall and solid towers,\nsuperadded partly for strength, partly to gratify the critical\ntaste of the kingly builder; for the same towered wall bending\noff to the right, with many an angle, and here and there an\nembattled gate, up to the three great white piles Phasaelus,\nMariamne, and Hippicus; for Zion, tallest of the hills, crowned\nwith marble palaces, and never so beautiful; for the glittering\nterraces of the temple on Moriah, admittedly one of the wonders\nof the earth; for the regal mountains rimming the sacred city round\nabout until it seemed in the hollow of a mighty bowl.\n\nThey came, at length, to a tower of great height and strength,\noverlooking the gate which, at that time, answered to the\npresent Damascus Gate, and marked the meeting-place of the\nthree roads from Shechem, Jericho, and Gibeon. A Roman guard\nkept the passage-way. By this time the people following the\ncamels formed a train sufficient to draw the idlers hanging\nabout the portal; so that when Balthasar stopped to speak to\nthe sentinel, the three became instantly the centre of a close\ncircle eager to hear all that passed.\n\n\"I give you peace,\" the Egyptian said, in a clear voice.\n\nThe sentinel made no reply.\n\n\"We have come great distances in search of one who is born King\nof the Jews. Can you tell us where he is?\"\n\nThe soldier raised the visor of his helmet, and called loudly.\nFrom an apartment at the right of the passage an officer appeared.\n\n\"Give way,\" he cried, to the crowd which now pressed closer in; and as\nthey seemed slow to obey, he advanced twirling his javelin vigorously,\nnow right, now left; and so he gained room.\n\n\"What would you?\" he asked of Balthasar, speaking in the idiom of\nthe city.\n\nAnd Balthasar answered in the same,\n\n\"Where is he that is born King of the Jews?\"\n\n\"Herod?\" asked the officer, confounded.\n\n\"Herod's kingship is from Caesar; not Herod.\"\n\n\"There is no other King of the Jews.\"\n\n\"But we have seen the star of him we seek, and come to worship him.\"\n\nThe Roman was perplexed.\n\n\"Go farther,\" he said, at last. \"Go farther. I am not a Jew.\nCarry the question to the doctors in the Temple, or to Hannas\nthe priest, or, better still, to Herod himself. If there be\nanother King of the Jews, he will find him.\"\n\nThereupon he made way for the strangers, and they passed the gate.\nBut, before entering the narrow street, Balthasar lingered to say\nto his friends, \"We are sufficiently proclaimed. By midnight the\nwhole city will have heard of us and of our mission. Let us to\nthe khan now.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\n\nThat evening, before sunset, some women were washing clothes on\nthe upper step of the flight that led down into the basin of the\nPool of Siloam. They knelt each before a broad bowl of earthenware.\nA girl at the foot of the steps kept them supplied with water, and\nsang while she filled the jar. The song was cheerful, and no doubt\nlightened their labor. Occasionally they would sit upon their heels,\nand look up the <DW72> of Ophel, and round to the summit of what is\nnow the Mount of Offence, then faintly glorified by the dying sun.\n\nWhile they plied their hands, rubbing and wringing the clothes\nin the bowls, two other women came to them, each with an empty\njar upon her shoulder.\n\n\"Peace to you,\" one of the new-comers said.\n\nThe laborers paused, sat up, wrung the water from their hands,\nand returned the salutation.\n\n\"It is nearly night--time to quit.\"\n\n\"There is no end to work,\" was the reply.\n\n\"But there is a time to rest, and--\"\n\n\"To hear what may be passing,\" interposed another.\n\n\"What news have you?\"\n\n\"Then you have not heard?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"They say the Christ is born,\" said the newsmonger, plunging into\nher story.\n\nIt was curious to see the faces of the laborers brighten with\ninterest; on the other side down came the jars, which, in a\nmoment, were turned into seats for their owners.\n\n\"The Christ!\" the listeners cried.\n\n\"So they say.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Everybody; it is common talk.\"\n\n\"Does anybody believe it?\"\n\n\"This afternoon three men came across Brook Cedron on the road\nfrom Shechem,\" the speaker replied, circumstantially, intending\nto smother doubt. \"Each one of them rode a camel spotless white,\nand larger than any ever before seen in Jerusalem.\"\n\nThe eyes and mouths of the auditors opened wide.\n\n\"To prove how great and rich the men were,\" the narrator continued,\n\"they sat under awnings of silk; the buckles of their saddles were\nof gold, as was the fringe of their bridles; the bells were of\nsilver, and made real music. Nobody knew them; they looked as if\nthey had come from the ends of the world. Only one of them spoke,\nand of everybody on the road, even the women and children, he asked\nthis question--'Where is he that is born King of the Jews?' No one\ngave them answer--no one understood what they meant; so they passed\non, leaving behind them this saying: 'For we have seen his star in\nthe east, and are come to worship him.' They put the question to\nthe Roman at the gate; and he, no wiser than the simple people on\nthe road, sent them up to Herod.\"\n\n\"Where are they now?\"\n\n\"At the khan. Hundreds have been to look at them already, and hundreds\nmore are going.\"\n\n\"Who are they?\"\n\n\"Nobody knows. They are said to be Persians--wise men who talk\nwith the stars--prophets, it may be, like Elijah and Jeremiah.\"\n\n\"What do they mean by King of the Jews?\"\n\n\"The Christ, and that he is just born.\"\n\nOne of the women laughed, and resumed her work, saying, \"Well,\nwhen I see him I will believe.\"\n\nAnother followed her example: \"And I--well, when I see him raise\nthe dead, I will believe.\"\n\nA third said, quietly, \"He has been a long time promised. It will\nbe enough for me to see him heal one leper.\"\n\nAnd the party sat talking until the night came, and, with the help\nof the frosty air, drove them home.\n\n* * * * * *\n\nLater in the evening, about the beginning of the first watch,\nthere was an assemblage in the palace on Mount Zion, of probably\nfifty persons, who never came together except by order of Herod,\nand then only when he had demanded to know some one or more of the\ndeeper mysteries of the Jewish law and history. It was, in short,\na meeting of the teachers of the colleges, of the chief priests,\nand of the doctors most noted in the city for learning--the leaders of\nopinion, expounders of the different creeds; princes of the Sadducees;\nPharisaic debaters; calm, soft-spoken, stoical philosophers of the\nEssene socialists.\n\nThe chamber in which the session was held belonged to one of\nthe interior court-yards of the palace, and was quite large\nand Romanesque. The floor was tessellated with marble blocks;\nthe walls, unbroken by a window, were frescoed in panels of\nsaffron yellow; a divan occupied the centre of the apartment,\ncovered with cushions of bright-yellow cloth, and fashioned in\nform of the letter U, the opening towards the doorway; in the\narch of the divan, or, as it were, in the bend of the letter,\nthere was an immense bronze tripod, curiously inlaid with gold\nand silver, over which a chandelier dropped from the ceiling,\nhaving seven arms, each holding a lighted lamp. The divan and\nthe lamp were purely Jewish.\n\nThe company sat upon the divan after the style of Orientals,\nin costume singularly uniform, except as to color. They were\nmostly men advanced in years; immense beards covered their faces;\nto their large noses were added the effects of large black eyes,\ndeeply shaded by bold brows; their demeanor was grave, dignified,\neven patriarchal. In brief, their session was that of the Sanhedrim.\n\nHe who sat before the tripod, however, in the place which may\nbe called the head of the divan, having all the rest of his\nassociates on his right and left, and, at the same time, before him,\nevidently president of the meeting, would have instantly absorbed\nthe attention of a spectator. He had been cast in large mould,\nbut was now shrunken and stooped to ghastliness; his white robe\ndropped from his shoulders in folds that gave no hint of muscle\nor anything but an angular skeleton. His hands, half concealed\nby sleeves of silk, white and crimson striped, were clasped upon\nhis knees. When he spoke, sometimes the first finger of the right\nhand extended tremulously; he seemed incapable of other gesture.\nBut his head was a splendid dome. A few hairs, whiter than fine-drawn\nsilver, fringed the base; over a broad, full-sphered skull the skin\nwas drawn close, and shone in the light with positive brilliance;\nthe temples were deep hollows, from which the forehead beetled like\na wrinkled crag; the eyes were wan and dim; the nose was pinched;\nand all the lower face was muffed in a beard flowing and venerable\nas Aaron's. Such was Hillel the Babylonian! The line of prophets,\nlong extinct in Israel, was now succeeded by a line of scholars,\nof whom he was first in learning--a prophet in all but the divine\ninspiration! At the age of one hundred and six, he was still Rector\nof the Great College.\n\nOn the table before him lay outspread a roll or volume of parchment\ninscribed with Hebrew characters; behind him, in waiting, stood a\npage richly habited.\n\nThere had been discussion, but at this moment of introduction the\ncompany had reached a conclusion; each one was in an attitude of\nrest, and the venerable Hillel, without moving, called the page.\n\n\"Hist!\"\n\nThe youth advanced respectfully.\n\n\"Go tell the king we are ready to give him answer.\"\n\nThe boy hurried away.\n\nAfter a time two officers entered and stopped, one on each side\nthe door; after them slowly followed a most striking personage--an\nold man clad in a purple robe bordered with scarlet, and girt\nto his waist by a band of gold linked so fine that it was pliable\nas leather; the latchets of his shoes sparkled with precious stones;\na narrow crown wrought in filigree shone outside a tarbooshe\nof softest crimson plush, which, encasing his head, fell down\nthe neck and shoulders, leaving the throat and neck exposed.\nInstead of a seal, a dagger dangled from his belt. He walked\nwith a halting step, leaning heavily upon a staff. Not until\nhe reached the opening of the divan, did he pause or look up\nfrom the floor; then, as for the first time conscious of\nthe company, and roused by their presence, he raised himself,\nand looked haughtily round, like one startled and searching for\nan enemy--so dark, suspicious, and threatening was the glance.\nSuch was Herod the Great--a body broken by diseases, a conscience\nseared with crimes, a mind magnificently capable, a soul fit for\nbrotherhood with the Caesars; now seven-and-sixty years old, but\nguarding his throne with a jealousy never so vigilant, a power\nnever so despotic, and a cruelty never so inexorable.\n\nThere was a general movement on the part of the assemblage--a\nbending forward in salaam by the more aged, a rising-up by the\nmore courtierly, followed by low genuflections, hands upon the\nbeard or breast.\n\nHis observations taken, Herod moved on until at the tripod opposite\nthe venerable Hillel, who met his cold glance with an inclination\nof the head, and a slight lifting of the hands.\n\n\"The answer!\" said the king, with imperious simplicity,\naddressing Hillel, and planting his staff before him with\nboth hands. \"The answer!\"\n\nThe eyes of the patriarch glowed mildly, and, raising his head,\nand looking the inquisitor full in the face, he answered,\nhis associates giving him closest attention,\n\n\"With thee, O king, be the peace of God, of Abraham, Isaac,\nand Jacob!\"\n\nHis manner was that of invocation; changing it, he resumed:\n\n\"Thou hast demanded of us where the Christ should be born.\"\n\nThe king bowed, though the evil eyes remained fixed upon the\nsage's face.\n\n\"That is the question.\"\n\n\"Then, O king, speaking for myself, and all my brethren here,\nnot one dissenting, I say, in Bethlehem of Judea.\"\n\nHillel glanced at the parchment on the tripod; and, pointing with\nhis tremulous finger, continued, \"In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus\nit is written by the prophet, 'And thou, Bethlehem, in the land\nof Judea, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out\nof thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel.'\"\n\nHerod's face was troubled, and his eyes fell upon the parchment\nwhile he thought. Those beholding him scarcely breathed; they spoke\nnot, nor did he. At length he turned about and left the chamber.\n\n\"Brethren,\" said Hillel, \"we are dismissed.\"\n\nThe company then arose, and in groups departed.\n\n\"Simeon,\" said Hillel again.\n\nA man, quite fifty years old, but in the hearty prime of life,\nanswered and came to him.\n\n\"Take up the sacred parchment, my son; roll it tenderly.\"\n\nThe order was obeyed.\n\n\"Now lend me thy arm; I will to the litter.\"\n\nThe strong man stooped; with his withered hands the old one took\nthe offered support, and, rising, moved feebly to the door.\n\nSo departed the famous Rector, and Simeon, his son, who was to be\nhis successor in wisdom, learning, and office.\n\n* * * * * *\n\nYet later in the evening the wise men were lying in a lewen of the\nkhan awake. The stones which served them as pillows raised their\nheads so they could look out of the open arch into the depths of\nthe sky; and as they watched the twinkling of the stars, they thought\nof the next manifestation. How would it come? What would it be?\nThey were in Jerusalem at last; they had asked at the gate for Him\nthey sought; they had borne witness of his birth; it remained only\nto find him; and as to that, they placed all trust in the Spirit.\nMen listening for the voice of God, or waiting a sign from Heaven,\ncannot sleep.\n\nWhile they were in this condition, a man stepped in under the arch,\ndarkening the lewen.\n\n\"Awake!\" he said to them; \"I bring you a message which will not\nbe put off.\"\n\nThey all sat up.\n\n\"From whom?\" asked the Egyptian.\n\n\"Herod the king.\"\n\nEach one felt his spirit thrill.\n\n\"Are you not the steward of the khan?\" Balthasar asked next.\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"What would the king with us?\"\n\n\"His messenger is without; let him answer.\"\n\n\"Tell him, then, to abide our coming.\"\n\n\"You were right, O my brother!\" said the Greek, when the steward\nwas gone. \"The question put to the people on the road, and to the\nguard at the gate, has given us quick notoriety. I am impatient;\nlet us up quickly.\"\n\nThey arose, put on their sandals, girt their mantles about them,\nand went out.\n\n\"I salute you, and give you peace, and pray your pardon; but my\nmaster, the king, has sent me to invite you to the palace, where he\nwould have speech with you privately.\"\n\nThus the messenger discharged his duty.\n\nA lamp hung in the entrance, and by its light they looked at each\nother, and knew the Spirit was upon them. Then the Egyptian stepped\nto the steward, and said, so as not to be heard by the others,\n\"You know where our goods are stored in the court, and where our\ncamels are resting. While we are gone, make all things ready for\nour departure, if it should be needful.\"\n\n\"Go your way assured; trust me,\" the steward replied.\n\n\"The king's will is our will,\" said Balthasar to the messenger.\n\"We will follow you.\"\n\nThe streets of the Holy City were narrow then as now, but not so\nrough and foul; for the great builder, not content with beauty,\nenforced cleanliness and convenience also. Following their guide,\nthe brethren proceeded without a word. Through the dim starlight,\nmade dimmer by the walls on both sides, sometimes almost lost\nunder bridges connecting the house-tops, out of a low ground\nthey ascended a hill. At last they came to a portal reared\nacross the way. In the light of fires blazing before it in two\ngreat braziers, they caught a glimpse of the structure, and also\nof some guards leaning motionlessly upon their arms. They passed\ninto a building unchallenged. Then by passages and arched halls;\nthrough courts, and under colonnades not always lighted; up long\nflights of stairs, past innumerable cloisters and chambers,\nthey were conducted into a tower of great height. Suddenly the\nguide halted, and, pointing through an open door, said to them,\n\n\"Enter. The king is there.\"\n\nThe air of the chamber was heavy with the perfume of sandal-wood,\nand all the appointments within were effeminately rich. Upon the\nfloor, covering the central space, a tufted rug was spread, and\nupon that a throne was set. The visitors had but time, however,\nto catch a confused idea of the place--of carved and gilt ottomans\nand couches; of fans and jars and musical instruments; of golden\ncandlesticks glittering in their own lights; of walls painted in\nthe style of the voluptuous Grecian school, one look at which had\nmade a Pharisee hide his head with holy horror. Herod, sitting upon\nthe throne to receive them, clad as when at the conference with the\ndoctors and lawyers, claimed all their minds.\n\nAt the edge of the rug, to which they advanced uninvited, they\nprostrated themselves. The king touched a bell. An attendant\ncame in, and placed three stools before the throne.\n\n\"Seat yourselves,\" said the monarch, graciously.\n\n\"From the North Gate,\" he continued, when they were at rest,\n\"I had this afternoon report of the arrival of three strangers,\ncuriously mounted, and appearing as if from far countries. Are you\nthe men?\"\n\nThe Egyptian took the sign from the Greek and the Hindoo,\nand answered, with the profoundest salaam, \"Were we other\nthan we are, the mighty Herod, whose fame is as incense to the\nwhole world, would not have sent for us. We may not doubt that\nwe are the strangers.\"\n\nHerod acknowledged the speech with a wave of the hand.\n\n\"Who are you? Whence do you come?\" he asked, adding significantly,\n\"Let each speak for himself.\"\n\nIn turn they gave him account, referring simply to the cities and\nlands of their birth, and the routes by which they came to Jerusalem.\nSomewhat disappointed, Herod plied them more directly.\n\n\"What was the question you put to the officer at the gate?\"\n\n\"We asked him, Where is he that is born King of the Jews.\"\n\n\"I see now why the people were so curious. You excite me no less.\nIs there another King of the Jews?\"\n\nThe Egyptian did not blanch.\n\n\"There is one newly born.\"\n\nAn expression of pain knit the dark face of the monarch, as if\nhis mind were swept by a harrowing recollection.\n\n\"Not to me, not to me!\" he exclaimed.\n\nPossibly the accusing images of his murdered children flitted\nbefore him; recovering from the emotion, whatever it was,\nhe asked, steadily, \"Where is the new king?\"\n\n\"That, O king, is what we would ask.\"\n\n\"You bring me a wonder--a riddle surpassing any of Solomon's,\"\nthe inquisitor said next. \"As you see, I am in the time of life when\ncuriosity is as ungovernable as it was in childhood, when to trifle\nwith it is cruelty. Tell me further, and I will honor you as kings\nhonor each other. Give me all you know about the newly born, and I\nwill join you in the search for him; and when we have found him,\nI will do what you wish; I will bring him to Jerusalem, and train\nhim in kingcraft; I will use my grace with Caesar for his promotion\nand glory. Jealousy shall not come between us, so I swear. But tell\nme first how, so widely separated by seas and deserts, you all came\nto hear of him.\"\n\n\"I will tell you truly, O king.\"\n\n\"Speak on,\" said Herod.\n\nBalthasar raised himself erect, and said, solemnly,\n\n\"There is an Almighty God.\"\n\nHerod was visibly startled.\n\n\"He bade us come hither, promising that we should find the Redeemer\nof the World; that we should see and worship him, and bear witness\nthat he was come; and, as a sign, we were each given to see a star.\nHis Spirit stayed with us. O king, his Spirit is with us now!\"\n\nAn overpowering feeling seized the three. The Greek with difficulty\nrestrained an outcry. Herod's gaze darted quickly from one to the other;\nhe was more suspicious and dissatisfied than before.\n\n\"You are mocking me,\" he said. \"If not, tell me more. What is to\nfollow the coming of the new king?\"\n\n\"The salvation of men.\"\n\n\"From what?\"\n\n\"Their wickedness.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"By the divine agencies--Faith, Love, and Good Works.\"\n\n\"Then\"--Herod paused, and from his look no man could have said\nwith what feeling he continued--\"you are the heralds of the Christ.\nIs that all?\"\n\nBalthasar bowed low.\n\n\"We are your servants, O king.\"\n\nThe monarch touched a bell, and the attendant appeared.\n\n\"Bring the gifts,\" the master said.\n\nThe attendant went out, but in a little while returned, and,\nkneeling before the guests, gave to each one an outer robe or\nmantle of scarlet and blue, and a girdle of gold. They acknowledged\nthe honors with Eastern prostrations.\n\n\"A word further,\" said Herod, when the ceremony was ended. \"To the\nofficer of the gate, and but now to me, you spoke of seeing a star\nin the east.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Balthasar, \"his star, the star of the newly born.\"\n\n\"What time did it appear?\"\n\n\"When we were bidden come hither.\"\n\nHerod arose, signifying the audience was over. Stepping from the\nthrone towards them, he said, with all graciousness,\n\n\"If, as I believe, O illustrious men, you are indeed the heralds\nof the Christ just born, know that I have this night consulted\nthose wisest in things Jewish, and they say with one voice he\nshould be born in Bethlehem of Judea. I say to you, go thither;\ngo and search diligently for the young child; and when you have\nfound him bring me word again, that I may come and worship him.\nTo your going there shall be no let or hindrance. Peace be with\nyou!\"\n\nAnd, folding his robe about him, he left the chamber.\n\nDirectly the guide came, and led them back to the street, and thence\nto the khan, at the portal of which the Greek said, impulsively, \"Let us\nto Bethlehem, O brethren, as the king has advised.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" cried the Hindoo. \"The Spirit burns within me.\"\n\n\"Be it so,\" said Balthasar, with equal warmth. \"The camels are\nready.\"\n\nThey gave gifts to the steward, mounted into their saddles,\nreceived directions to the Joppa Gate, and departed. At their\napproach the great valves were unbarred, and they passed out\ninto the open country, taking the road so lately travelled by\nJoseph and Mary. As they came up out of Hinnom, on the plain\nof Rephaim, a light appeared, at first wide-spread and faint.\nTheir pulses fluttered fast. The light intensified rapidly; they\nclosed their eyes against its burning brilliance: when they dared\nlook again, lo! the star, perfect as any in the heavens, but low\ndown and moving slowly before them. And they folded their hands,\nand shouted, and rejoiced with exceeding great joy.\n\n\"God is with us! God is with us!\" they repeated, in frequent cheer,\nall the way, until the star, rising out of the valley beyond Mar\nElias, stood still over a house up on the <DW72> of the hill near\nthe town.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n\nIt was now the beginning of the third watch, and at Bethlehem\nthe morning was breaking over the mountains in the east, but so\nfeebly that it was yet night in the valley. The watchman on the\nroof of the old khan, shivering in the chilly air, was listening\nfor the first distinguishable sounds with which life, awakening,\ngreets the dawn, when a light came moving up the hill towards\nthe house. He thought it a torch in some one's hand; next moment\nhe thought it a meteor; the brilliance grew, however, until it\nbecame a star. Sore afraid, he cried out, and brought everybody\nwithin the walls to the roof. The phenomenon, in eccentric motion,\ncontinued to approach; the rocks, trees, and roadway under it shone\nas in a glare of lightning; directly its brightness became blinding.\nThe more timid of the beholders fell upon their knees, and prayed,\nwith their faces hidden; the boldest, covering their eyes, crouched,\nand now and then snatched glances fearfully. Afterwhile the khan and\neverything thereabout lay under the intolerable radiance. Such as\ndared look beheld the star standing still directly over the house\nin front of the cave where the Child had been born.\n\nIn the height of this scene, the wise men came up, and at the gate\ndismounted from their camels, and shouted for admission. When the\nsteward so far mastered his terror as to give them heed, he drew\nthe bars and opened to them. The camels looked spectral in the\nunnatural light, and, besides their outlandishness, there were\nin the faces and manner of the three visitors an eagerness and\nexaltation which still further excited the keeper's fears and\nfancy; he fell back, and for a time could not answer the question\nthey put to him.\n\n\"Is not this Bethlehem of Judea?\"\n\nBut others came, and by their presence gave him assurance.\n\n\"No, this is but the khan; the town lies farther on.\"\n\n\"Is there not here a child newly born?\"\n\nThe bystanders turned to each other marvelling, though some of\nthem answered, \"Yes, yes.\"\n\n\"Show us to him!\" said the Greek, impatiently.\n\n\"Show us to him!\" cried Balthasar, breaking through his gravity;\n\"for we have seen his star, even that which ye behold over the\nhouse, and are come to worship him.\"\n\nThe Hindoo clasped his hands, exclaiming, \"God indeed lives! Make\nhaste, make haste! The Savior is found. Blessed, blessed are we\nabove men!\"\n\nThe people from the roof came down and followed the strangers as\nthey were taken through the court and out into the enclosure;\nat sight of the star yet above the cave, though less candescent\nthan before, some turned back afraid; the greater part went on.\nAs the strangers neared the house, the orb arose; when they were\nat the door, it was high up overhead vanishing; when they entered,\nit went out lost to sight. And to the witnesses of what then took\nplace came a conviction that there was a divine relation between\nthe star and the strangers, which extended also to at least some of\nthe occupants of the cave. When the door was opened, they crowded in.\n\nThe apartment was lighted by a lantern enough to enable the strangers\nto find the mother, and the child awake in her lap.\n\n\"Is the child thine?\" asked Balthasar of Mary.\n\nAnd she who had kept all the things in the least affecting the\nlittle one, and pondered them in her heart, held it up in the\nlight, saying,\n\n\"He is my son!\"\n\nAnd they fell down and worshipped him.\n\nThey saw the child was as other children: about its head was neither\nnimbus nor material crown; its lips opened not in speech; if it heard\ntheir expressions of joy, their invocations, their prayers, it made\nno sign whatever, but, baby-like, looked longer at the flame in the\nlantern than at them.\n\nIn a little while they arose, and, returning to the camels,\nbrought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and laid them\nbefore the child, abating nothing of their worshipful speeches;\nof which no part is given, for the thoughtful know that the pure\nworship of the pure heart was then what it is now, and has always\nbeen, an inspired song.\n\nAnd this was the Savior they had come so far to find!\n\nYet they worshipped without a doubt.\n\nWhy?\n\nTheir faith rested upon the signs sent them by him whom we have\nsince come to know as the Father; and they were of the kind to\nwhom his promises were so all-sufficient that they asked nothing\nabout his ways. Few there were who had seen the signs and heard the\npromises--the Mother and Joseph, the shepherds, and the Three--yet\nthey all believed alike; that is to say, in this period of the plan\nof salvation, God was all and the Child nothing. But look forward,\nO reader! A time will come when the signs will all proceed from\nthe Son. Happy they who then believe in him!\n\nLet us wait that period.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK SECOND\n\n    \"There is a fire\n  And motion of the soul which will not dwell\n  In its own narrow being, but aspire\n  Beyond the fitting medium of desire;\n  And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,\n  Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire\n  Of aught but rest.\"\n\n  Childe Harold.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nIt is necessary now to carry the reader forward twenty-one years,\nto the beginning of the administration of Valerius Gratus, the fourth\nimperial governor of Judea--a period which will be remembered as\nrent by political agitations in Jerusalem, if, indeed, it be not\nthe precise time of the opening of the final quarrel between the\nJew and the Roman.\n\nIn the interval Judea had been subjected to changes affecting her\nin many ways, but in nothing so much as her political status. Herod\nthe Great died within one year after the birth of the Child--died\nso miserably that the Christian world had reason to believe him\novertaken by the Divine wrath. Like all great rulers who spend\ntheir lives in perfecting the power they create, he dreamed of\ntransmitting his throne and crown--of being the founder of a\ndynasty. With that intent, he left a will dividing his territories\nbetween his three sons, Antipas, Philip, and Archelaus, of whom\nthe last was appointed to succeed to the title. The testament was\nnecessarily referred to Augustus, the emperor, who ratified all its\nprovisions with one exception: he withheld from Archelaus the title\nof king until he proved his capacity and loyalty; in lieu thereof,\nhe created him ethnarch, and as such permitted him to govern nine\nyears, when, for misconduct and inability to stay the turbulent\nelements that grew and strengthened around him, he was sent into\nGaul as an exile.\n\nCaesar was not content with deposing Archelaus; he struck the people\nof Jerusalem in a manner that touched their pride, and keenly wounded\nthe sensibilities of the haughty habitues of the Temple. He reduced\nJudea to a Roman province, and annexed it to the prefecture of Syria.\nSo, instead of a king ruling royally from the palace left by Herod\non Mount Zion, the city fell into the hands of an officer of the\nsecond grade, an appointee called procurator, who communicated with\nthe court in Rome through the Legate of Syria, residing in Antioch.\nTo make the hurt more painful, the procurator was not permitted to\nestablish himself in Jerusalem; Caesarea was his seat of government.\nMost humiliating, however, most exasperating, most studied, Samaria,\nof all the world the most despised--Samaria was joined to Judea as\na part of the same province! What ineffable misery the bigoted\nSeparatists or Pharisees endured at finding themselves elbowed\nand laughed at in the procurator's presence in Caesarea by the\ndevotees of Gerizim!\n\nIn this rain of sorrows, one consolation, and one only, remained to\nthe fallen people: the high-priest occupied the Herodian palace in\nthe market-place, and kept the semblance of a court there. What his\nauthority really was is a matter of easy estimate. Judgment of life\nand death was retained by the procurator. Justice was administered in\nthe name and according to the decretals of Rome. Yet more significant,\nthe royal house was jointly occupied by the imperial exciseman, and all\nhis corps of assistants, registrars, collectors, publicans, informers,\nand spies. Still, to the dreamers of liberty to come, there was a\ncertain satisfaction in the fact that the chief ruler in the palace\nwas a Jew. His mere presence there day after day kept them reminded\nof the covenants and promises of the prophets, and the ages when\nJehovah governed the tribes through the sons of Aaron; it was to\nthem a certain sign that he had not abandoned them: so their hopes\nlived, and served their patience, and helped them wait grimly the\nson of Judah who was to rule Israel.\n\nJudea had been a Roman province eighty years and more--ample time\nfor the Caesars to study the idiosyncrasies of the people--time enough,\nat least, to learn that the Jew, with all his pride, could be quietly\ngoverned if his religion were respected. Proceeding upon that policy,\nthe predecessors of Gratus had carefully abstained from interfering\nwith any of the sacred observances of their subjects. But he chose\na different course: almost his first official act was to expel\nHannas from the high-priesthood, and give the place to Ishmael,\nson of Fabus.\n\nWhether the act was directed by Augustus, or proceeded from\nGratus himself, its impolicy became speedily apparent. The reader\nshall be spared a chapter on Jewish politics; a few words upon\nthe subject, however, are essential to such as may follow the\nsucceeding narration critically. At this time, leaving origin\nout of view, there were in Judea the party of the nobles and\nthe Separatist or popular party. Upon Herod's death, the two\nunited against Archelaus; from temple to palace, from Jerusalem to\nRome, they fought him; sometimes with intrigue, sometimes with the\nactual weapons of war. More than once the holy cloisters on Moriah\nresounded with the cries of fighting-men. Finally, they drove him\ninto exile. Meantime throughout this struggle the allies had their\ndiverse objects in view. The nobles hated Joazar, the high-priest;\nthe Separatists, on the other hand, were his zealous adherents.\nWhen Herod's settlement went down with Archelaus, Joazar shared\nthe fall. Hannas, the son of Seth, was selected by the nobles to fill\nthe great office; thereupon the allies divided. The induction of the\nSethian brought them face to face in fierce hostility.\n\nIn the course of the struggle with the unfortunate ethnarch,\nthe nobles had found it expedient to attach themselves to Rome.\nDiscerning that when the existing settlement was broken up some\nform of government must needs follow, they suggested the conversion\nof Judea into a province. The fact furnished the Separatists an\nadditional cause for attack; and, when Samaria was made part of\nthe province, the nobles sank into a minority, with nothing to\nsupport them but the imperial court and the prestige of their\nrank and wealth; yet for fifteen years--down, indeed, to the\ncoming of Valerius Gratus--they managed to maintain themselves\nin both palace and Temple.\n\nHannas, the idol of his party, had used his power faithfully in\nthe interest of his imperial patron. A Roman garrison held the\nTower of Antonia; a Roman guard kept the gates of the palace;\na Roman judge dispensed justice civil and criminal; a Roman\nsystem of taxation, mercilessly executed, crushed both city\nand country; daily, hourly, and in a thousand ways, the people\nwere bruised and galled, and taught the difference between a\nlife of independence and a life of subjection; yet Hannas kept\nthem in comparative quiet. Rome had no truer friend; and he made\nhis loss instantly felt. Delivering his vestments to Ishmael,\nthe new appointee, he walked from the courts of the Temple into\nthe councils of the Separatists, and became the head of a new\ncombination, Bethusian and Sethian.\n\nGratus, the procurator, left thus without a party, saw the fires\nwhich, in the fifteen years, had sunk into sodden smoke begin to\nglow with returning life. A month after Ishmael took the office,\nthe Roman found it necessary to visit him in Jerusalem. When from\nthe walls, hooting and hissing him, the Jews beheld his guard\nenter the north gate of the city and march to the Tower of\nAntonia, they understood the real purpose of the visit--a full\ncohort of legionaries was added to the former garrison, and the\nkeys of their yoke could now be tightened with impunity. If the\nprocurator deemed it important to make an example, alas for the\nfirst offender!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nWith the foregoing explanation in mind, the reader is invited to\nlook into one of the gardens of the palace on Mount Zion. The time\nwas noonday in the middle of July, when the heat of summer was at\nits highest.\n\nThe garden was bounded on every side by buildings, which in\nplaces arose two stories, with verandas shading the doors\nand windows of the lower story, while retreating galleries,\nguarded by strong balustrades, adorned and protected the upper.\nHere and there, moreover, the structures fell into what appeared\nlow colonnades, permitting the passage of such winds as chanced to\nblow, and allowing other parts of the house to be seen, the better to\nrealize its magnitude and beauty. The arrangement of the ground was\nequally pleasant to the eye. There were walks, and patches of grass\nand shrubbery, and a few large trees, rare specimens of the palm,\ngrouped with the carob, apricot, and walnut. In all directions the\ngrade sloped gently from the centre, where there was a reservoir,\nor deep marble basin, broken at intervals by little gates which,\nwhen raised, emptied the water into sluices bordering the walks--a\ncunning device for the rescue of the place from the aridity too\nprevalent elsewhere in the region.\n\nNot far from the fountain, there was a small pool of clear water\nnourishing a clump of cane and oleander, such as grow on the\nJordan and down by the Dead Sea. Between the clump and the pool,\nunmindful of the sun shining full upon them in the breathless air,\ntwo boys, one about nineteen, the other seventeen, sat engaged in\nearnest conversation.\n\nThey were both handsome, and, at first glance, would have been\npronounced brothers. Both had hair and eyes black; their faces\nwere deeply browned; and, sitting, they seemed of a size proper\nfor the difference in their ages.\n\nThe elder was bareheaded. A loose tunic, dropping to the knees,\nwas his attire complete, except sandals and a light-blue mantle\nspread under him on the seat. The costume left his arms and legs\nexposed, and they were brown as the face; nevertheless, a certain\ngrace of manner, refinement of features, and culture of voice decided\nhis rank. The tunic, of softest woollen, gray-tinted, at the neck,\nsleeves, and edge of the skirt bordered with red, and bound to the\nwaist by a tasselled silken cord, certified him the Roman he was.\nAnd if in speech he now and then gazed haughtily at his companion\nand addressed him as an inferior, he might almost be excused, for he\nwas of a family noble even in Rome--a circumstance which in that\nage justified any assumption. In the terrible wars between the\nfirst Caesar and his great enemies, a Messala had been the friend\nof Brutus. After Philippi, without sacrifice of his honor, he and\nthe conqueror became reconciled. Yet later, when Octavius disputed\nfor the empire, Messala supported him. Octavius, as the Emperor\nAugustus, remembered the service, and showered the family with\nhonors. Among other things, Judea being reduced to a province,\nhe sent the son of his old client or retainer to Jerusalem,\ncharged with the receipt and management of the taxes levied\nin that region; and in that service the son had since remained,\nsharing the palace with the high-priest. The youth just described\nwas his son, whose habit it was to carry about with him all too\nfaithfully a remembrance of the relation between his grandfather\nand the great Romans of his day.\n\nThe associate of the Messala was slighter in form, and his\ngarments were of fine white linen and of the prevalent style\nin Jerusalem; a cloth covered his head, held by a yellow cord,\nand arranged so as to fall away from the forehead down low over\nthe back of the neck. An observer skilled in the distinctions of\nrace, and studying his features more than his costume, would have\nsoon discovered him to be of Jewish descent. The forehead of the\nRoman was high and narrow, his nose sharp and aquiline, while his\nlips were thin and straight, and his eyes cold and close under\nthe brows. The front of the Israelite, on the other hand, was low\nand broad; his nose long, with expanded nostrils; his upper lip,\nslightly shading the lower one, short and curving to the dimpled\ncorners, like a Cupid's bow; points which, in connection with the\nround chin, full eyes, and oval cheeks reddened with a wine-like\nglow, gave his face the softness, strength, and beauty peculiar\nto his race. The comeliness of the Roman was severe and chaste,\nthat of the Jew rich and voluptuous.\n\n\"Did you not say the new procurator is to arrive to-morrow?\"\n\nThe question proceeded from the younger of the friends, and was couched\nin Greek, at the time, singularly enough, the language everywhere\nprevalent in the politer circles of Judea; having passed from the\npalace into the camp and college; thence, nobody knew exactly when\nor how, into the Temple itself, and, for that matter, into precincts\nof the Temple far beyond the gates and cloisters--precincts of a\nsanctity intolerable for a Gentile.\n\n\"Yes, to-morrow,\" Messala answered.\n\n\"Who told you?\"\n\n\"I heard Ishmael, the new governor in the palace--you call him\nhigh priest--tell my father so last night. The news had been\nmore credible, I grant you, coming from an Egyptian, who is of a\nrace that has forgotten what truth is, or even from an Idumaean,\nwhose people never knew what truth was; but, to make quite certain,\nI saw a centurion from the Tower this morning, and he told me\npreparations were going on for the reception; that the armorers\nwere furbishing the helmets and shields, and regilding the eagles\nand globes; and that apartments long unused were being cleansed\nand aired as if for an addition to the garrison--the body-guard,\nprobably, of the great man.\"\n\nA perfect idea of the manner in which the answer was given cannot\nbe conveyed, as its fine points continually escape the power behind\nthe pen. The reader's fancy must come to his aid; and for that he\nmust be reminded that reverence as a quality of the Roman mind was\nfast breaking down, or, rather, it was becoming unfashionable.\nThe old religion had nearly ceased to be a faith; at most it was\na mere habit of thought and expression, cherished principally by\nthe priests who found service in the Temple profitable, and the\npoets who, in the turn of their verses, could not dispense with the\nfamiliar deities: there are singers of this age who are similarly\ngiven. As philosophy was taking the place of religion, satire was\nfast substituting reverence; insomuch that in Latin opinion it was\nto every speech, even to the little diatribes of conversation, as\nsalt to viands, and aroma to wine. The young Messala, educated in\nRome, but lately returned, had caught the habit and manner;\nthe scarce perceptible movement of the outer corner of the\nlower eyelid, the decided curl of the corresponding nostril,\nand a languid utterance affected as the best vehicle to convey\nthe idea of general indifference, but more particularly because\nof the opportunities it afforded for certain rhetorical pauses\nthought to be of prime importance to enable the listener to take\nthe happy conceit or receive the virus of the stinging epigram.\nSuch a stop occurred in the answer just given, at the end of the\nallusion to the Egyptian and Idumaean. The color in the Jewish\nlad's cheeks deepened, and he may not have heard the rest of the\nspeech, for he remained silent, looking absently into the depths\nof the pool.\n\n\"Our farewell took place in this garden. 'The peace of the Lord go\nwith you!'--your last words. 'The gods keep you!' I said. Do you\nremember? How many years have passed since then?\"\n\n\"Five,\" answered the Jew, gazing into the water.\n\n\"Well, you have reason to be thankful to--whom shall I say? The\ngods? No matter. You have grown handsome; the Greeks would call\nyou beautiful--happy achievement of the years! If Jupiter would\nstay content with one Ganymede, what a cup-bearer you would make\nfor the emperor! Tell me, my Judah, how the coming of the procurator\nis of such interest to you.\"\n\nJudah bent his large eyes upon the questioner; the gaze was\ngrave and thoughtful, and caught the Roman's, and held it\nwhile he replied, \"Yes, five years. I remember the parting;\nyou went to Rome; I saw you start, and cried, for I love you.\nThe years are gone, and you have come back to me accomplished\nand princely--I do not jest; and yet--yet--I do wish you were\nthe Messala you went away.\"\n\nThe fine nostril of the satirist stirred, and he put on a longer\ndrawl as he said, \"No, no; not a Ganymede--an oracle, my Judah.\nA few lessons from my teacher of rhetoric hard by the Forum--I\nwill give you a letter to him when you become wise enough to\naccept a suggestion which I am reminded to make you--a little\npractise of the art of mystery, and Delphi will receive you as\nApollo himself. At the sound of your solemn voice, the Pythia\nwill come down to you with her crown. Seriously, O my friend,\nin what am I not the Messala I went away? I once heard the\ngreatest logician in the world. His subject was Disputation.\nOne saying I remember--'Understand your antagonist before you\nanswer him.' Let me understand you.\"\n\nThe lad reddened under the cynical look to which he was subjected;\nyet he replied, firmly, \"You have availed yourself, I see, of your\nopportunities; from your teachers you have brought away much\nknowledge and many graces. You talk with the ease of a master,\nyet your speech carries a sting. My Messala, when he went away,\nhad no poison in his nature; not for the world would he have hurt\nthe feelings of a friend.\"\n\nThe Roman smiled as if complimented, and raised his patrician head\na toss higher.\n\n\"O my solemn Judah, we are not at Dodona or Pytho. Drop the oracular,\nand be plain. Wherein have I hurt you?\"\n\nThe other drew a long breath, and said, pulling at the cord about\nhis waist, \"In the five years, I, too, have learned somewhat.\nHillel may not be the equal of the logician you heard, and Simeon\nand Shammai are, no doubt, inferior to your master hard by the Forum.\nTheir learning goes not out into forbidden paths; those who sit at\ntheir feet arise enriched simply with knowledge of God, the law,\nand Israel; and the effect is love and reverence for everything\nthat pertains to them. Attendance at the Great College, and study\nof what I heard there, have taught me that Judea is not as she\nused to be. I know the space that lies between an independent\nkingdom and the petty province Judea is. I were meaner, viler,\nthan a Samaritan not to resent the degradation of my country.\nIshmael is not lawfully high-priest, and he cannot be while the\nnoble Hannas lives; yet he is a Levite; one of the devoted who\nfor thousands of years have acceptably served the Lord God of\nour faith and worship. His--\"\n\nMessala broke in upon him with a biting laugh.\n\n\"Oh, I understand you now. Ishmael, you say, is a usurper, yet to\nbelieve an Idumaean sooner than Ishmael is to sting like an adder.\nBy the drunken son of Semele, what it is to be a Jew! All men and\nthings, even heaven and earth, change; but a Jew never. To him\nthere is no backward, no forward; he is what his ancestor was\nin the beginning. In this sand I draw you a circle--there! Now\ntell me what more a Jew's life is? Round and round, Abraham here,\nIsaac and Jacob yonder, God in the middle. And the circle--by the\nmaster of all thunders! the circle is too large. I draw it again--\"\nHe stopped, put his thumb upon the ground, and swept the fingers\nabout it. \"See, the thumb spot is the Temple, the finger-lines\nJudea. Outside the little space is there nothing of value? The\narts! Herod was a builder; therefore he is accursed. Painting,\nsculpture! to look upon them is sin. Poetry you make fast to your\naltars. Except in the synagogue, who of you attempts eloquence?\nIn war all you conquer in the six days you lose on the seventh.\nSuch your life and limit; who shall say no if I laugh at you?\nSatisfied with the worship of such a people, what is your God\nto our Roman Jove, who lends us his eagles that we may compass the\nuniverse with our arms? Hillel, Simeon, Shammai, Abtalion--what are\nthey to the masters who teach that everything is worth knowing that\ncan be known?\"\n\nThe Jew arose, his face much flushed.\n\n\"No, no; keep your place, my Judah, keep your place,\" Messala cried,\nextending his hand.\n\n\"You mock me.\"\n\n\"Listen a little further. Directly\"--the Roman smiled\nderisively--\"directly Jupiter and his whole family, Greek and Latin,\nwill come to me, as is their habit, and make an end of serious speech.\nI am mindful of your goodness in walking from the old house of your\nfathers to welcome me back and renew the love of our childhood--if\nwe can. 'Go,' said my teacher, in his last lecture--'Go, and,\nto make your lives great, remember Mars reigns and Eros has found\nhis eyes.' He meant love is nothing, war everything. It is so\nin Rome. Marriage is the first step to divorce. Virtue is a\ntradesman's jewel. Cleopatra, dying, bequeathed her arts, and is\navenged; she has a successor in every Roman's house. The world is\ngoing the same way; so, as to our future, down Eros, up Mars! I am\nto be a soldier; and you, O my Judah, I pity you; what can you be?\"\n\nThe Jew moved nearer the pool; Messala's drawl deepened.\n\n\"Yes, I pity you, my fine Judah. From the college to the synagogue;\nthen to the Temple; then--oh, a crowning glory!--the seat in the\nSanhedrim. A life without opportunities; the gods help you! But\nI--\"\n\nJudah looked at him in time to see the flush of pride that kindled\nin his haughty face as he went on.\n\n\"But I--ah, the world is not all conquered. The sea has islands\nunseen. In the north there are nations yet unvisited. The glory\nof completing Alexander's march to the Far East remains to some\none. See what possibilities lie before a Roman.\"\n\nNext instant he resumed his drawl.\n\n\"A campaign into Africa; another after the Scythian; then--a legion!\nMost careers end there; but not mine. I--by Jupiter! what a\nconception!--I will give up my legion for a prefecture. Think of\nlife in Rome with money--money, wine, women, games--poets at the\nbanquet, intrigues in the court, dice all the year round. Such a\nrounding of life may be--a fat prefecture, and it is mine. O my\nJudah, here is Syria! Judea is rich; Antioch a capital for the\ngods. I will succeed Cyrenius, and you--shall share my fortune.\"\n\nThe sophists and rhetoricians who thronged the public resorts of\nRome, almost monopolizing the business of teaching her patrician\nyouth, might have approved these sayings of Messala, for they were\nall in the popular vein; to the young Jew, however, they were new,\nand unlike the solemn style of discourse and conversation to which he\nwas accustomed. He belonged, moreover, to a race whose laws, modes,\nand habits of thought forbade satire and humor; very naturally,\ntherefore, he listened to his friend with varying feelings; one\nmoment indignant, then uncertain how to take him. The superior\nairs assumed had been offensive to him in the beginning; soon they\nbecame irritating, and at last an acute smart. Anger lies close by\nthis point in all of us; and that the satirist evoked in another\nway. To the Jew of the Herodian period patriotism was a savage\npassion scarcely hidden under his common humor, and so related\nto his history, religion, and God that it responded instantly to\nderision of them. Wherefore it is not speaking too strongly to say\nthat Messala's progress down to the last pause was exquisite torture\nto his hearer; at that point the latter said, with a forced smile,\n\n\"There are a few, I have heard, who can afford to make a jest of\ntheir future; you convince me, O my Messala, that I am not one\nof them.\"\n\nThe Roman studied him; then replied, \"Why not the truth in a jest\nas well as a parable? The great Fulvia went fishing the other day;\nshe caught more than all the company besides. They said it was\nbecause the barb of her hook was covered with gold.\"\n\n\"Then you were not merely jesting?\"\n\n\"My Judah, I see I did not offer you enough,\" the Roman answered,\nquickly, his eyes sparkling. \"When I am prefect, with Judea to\nenrich me, I--will make you high-priest.\"\n\nThe Jew turned off angrily.\n\n\"Do not leave me,\" said Messala.\n\nThe other stopped irresolute.\n\n\"Gods, Judah, how hot the sun shines!\" cried the patrician,\nobserving his perplexity. \"Let us seek a shade.\"\n\nJudah answered, coldly,\n\n\"We had better part. I wish I had not come. I sought a friend and\nfind a--\"\n\n\"Roman,\" said Messala, quickly.\n\nThe hands of the Jew clenched, but controlling himself again,\nhe started off. Messala arose, and, taking the mantle from the\nbench, flung it over his shoulder, and followed after; when he\ngained his side, he put his hand upon his shoulder and walked\nwith him.\n\n\"This is the way--my hand thus--we used to walk when we were\nchildren. Let us keep it as far as the gate.\"\n\nApparently Messala was trying to be serious and kind, though he\ncould not rid his countenance of the habitual satirical expression.\nJudah permitted the familiarity.\n\n\"You are a boy; I am a man; let me talk like one.\"\n\nThe complacency of the Roman was superb. Mentor lecturing the\nyoung Telemachus could not have been more at ease.\n\n\"Do you believe in the Parcae? Ah, I forgot, you are a Sadducee:\nthe Essenes are your sensible people; they believe in the sisters.\nSo do I. How everlastingly the three are in the way of our doing\nwhat we please! I sit down scheming. I run paths here and there.\nPerpol! Just when I am reaching to take the world in hand, I hear\nbehind me the grinding of scissors. I look, and there she is,\nthe accursed Atropos! But, my Judah, why did you get mad when I\nspoke of succeeding old Cyrenius? You thought I meant to enrich\nmyself plundering your Judea. Suppose so; it is what some Roman\nwill do. Why not I?\"\n\nJudah shortened his step.\n\n\"There have been strangers in mastery of Judea before the Roman,\"\nhe said, with lifted hand. \"Where are they, Messala? She has outlived\nthem all. What has been will be again.\"\n\nMessala put on his drawl.\n\n\"The Parcae have believers outside the Essenes. Welcome, Judah,\nwelcome to the faith!\"\n\n\"No, Messala, count me not with them. My faith rests on the rock\nwhich was the foundation of the faith of my fathers back further than\nAbraham; on the covenants of the Lord God of Israel.\"\n\n\"Too much passion, my Judah. How my master would have been shocked\nhad I been guilty of so much heat in his presence! There were other\nthings I had to tell you, but I fear to now.\"\n\nWhen they had gone a few yards, the Roman spoke again.\n\n\"I think you can hear me now, especially as what I have to say\nconcerns yourself. I would serve you, O handsome as Ganymede;\nI would serve you with real good-will. I love you--all I can.\nI told you I meant to be a soldier. Why not you also? Why not\nyou step out of the narrow circle which, as I have shown, is all\nof noble life your laws and customs allow?\"\n\nJudah made no reply.\n\n\"Who are the wise men of our day?\" Messala continued. \"Not they\nwho exhaust their years quarrelling about dead things; about Baals,\nJoves, and Jehovahs; about philosophies and religions. Give me one\ngreat name, O Judah; I care not where you go to find it--to Rome,\nEgypt, the East, or here in Jerusalem--Pluto take me if it belong\nnot to a man who wrought his fame out of the material furnished him\nby the present; holding nothing sacred that did not contribute to\nthe end, scorning nothing that did! How was it with Herod? How with\nthe Maccabees? How with the first and second Caesars? Imitate them.\nBegin now. At hand see--Rome, as ready to help you as she was the\nIdumaean Antipater.\"\n\nThe Jewish lad trembled with rage; and, as the garden gate was\nclose by, he quickened his steps, eager to escape.\n\n\"O Rome, Rome!\" he muttered.\n\n\"Be wise,\" continued Messala. \"Give up the follies of Moses and\nthe traditions; see the situation as it is. Dare look the Parcae\nin the face, and they will tell you, Rome is the world. Ask them of\nJudea, and they will answer, She is what Rome wills.\"\n\nThey were now at the gate. Judah stopped, and took the hand gently\nfrom his shoulder, and confronted Messala, tears trembling in his\neyes.\n\n\"I understand you, because you are a Roman; you cannot understand\nme--I am an Israelite. You have given me suffering to-day by convincing\nme that we can never be the friends we have been--never! Here we part.\nThe peace of the God of my fathers abide with you!\"\n\nMessala offered him his hand; the Jew walked on through the gateway.\nWhen he was gone, the Roman was silent awhile; then he, too, passed\nthrough, saying to himself, with a toss of the head,\n\n\"Be it so. Eros is dead, Mars reigns!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nFrom the entrance to the Holy City, equivalent to what is now\ncalled St. Stephen's Gate, a street extended westwardly, on a\nline parallel with the northern front of the Tower of Antonia,\nthough a square from that famous castle. Keeping the course as\nfar as the Tyropoeon Valley, which it followed a little way south,\nit turned and again ran west until a short distance beyond what\ntradition tells us was the Judgment Gate, from whence it broke\nabruptly south. The traveller or the student familiar with the\nsacred locality will recognize the thoroughfare described as part\nof the Via Dolorosa--with Christians of more interest, though of\na melancholy kind, than any street in the world. As the purpose\nin view does not at present require dealing with the whole street,\nit will be sufficient to point out a house standing in the angle last\nmentioned as marking the change of direction south, and which, as an\nimportant centre of interest, needs somewhat particular description.\n\nThe building fronted north and west, probably four hundred feet\neach way, and, like most pretentious Eastern structures, was two\nstories in height, and perfectly quadrangular. The street on the\nwest side was about twelve feet wide, that on the north not more\nthan ten; so that one walking close to the walls, and looking up\nat them, would have been struck by the rude, unfinished, uninviting,\nbut strong and imposing, appearance they presented; for they were of\nstone laid in large blocks, undressed--on the outer side, in fact,\njust as they were taken from the quarry. A critic of this age would\nhave pronounced the house fortelesque in style, except for the\nwindows, with which it was unusually garnished, and the ornate\nfinish of the doorways or gates. The western windows were four\nin number, the northern only two, all set on the line of the\nsecond story in such manner as to overhang the thoroughfares below.\nThe gates were the only breaks of wall externally visible in the\nfirst story; and, besides being so thickly riven with iron bolts\nas to suggest resistance to battering-rams, they were protected\nby cornices of marble, handsomely executed, and of such bold\nprojection as to assure visitors well informed of the people\nthat the rich man who resided there was a Sadducee in politics\nand creed.\n\nNot long after the young Jew parted from the Roman at the palace\nup on the Market-place, he stopped before the western gate of the\nhouse described, and knocked. The wicket (a door hung in one of\nthe valves of the gate) was opened to admit him. He stepped in\nhastily, and failed to acknowledge the low salaam of the porter.\n\nTo get an idea of the interior arrangement of the structure,\nas well as to see what more befell the youth, we will follow him.\n\nThe passage into which he was admitted appeared not unlike a narrow\ntunnel with panelled walls and pitted ceiling. There were benches\nof stone on both sides, stained and polished by long use. Twelve or\nfifteen steps carried him into a court-yard, oblong north and south,\nand in every quarter, except the east, bounded by what seemed the\nfronts of two-story houses; of which the lower floor was divided\ninto lewens, while the upper was terraced and defended by strong\nbalustrading. The servants coming and going along the terraces;\nthe noise of millstones grinding; the garments fluttering from\nropes stretched from point to point; the chickens and pigeons in\nfull enjoyment of the place; the goats, cows, donkeys, and horses\nstabled in the lewens; a massive trough of water, apparently for\nthe common use, declared this court appurtenant to the domestic\nmanagement of the owner. Eastwardly there was a division wall\nbroken by another passage-way in all respects like the first one.\n\nClearing the second passage, the young man entered a second court,\nspacious, square, and set with shrubbery and vines, kept fresh and\nbeautiful by water from a basin erected near a porch on the north\nside. The lewens here were high, airy, and shaded by curtains\nstriped alternate white and red. The arches of the lewens rested\non clustered columns. A flight of steps on the south ascended to\nthe terraces of the upper story, over which great awnings were\nstretched as a defence against the sun. Another stairway reached\nfrom the terraces to the roof, the edge of which, all around the\nsquare, was defined by a sculptured cornice, and a parapet of\nburned-clay tiling, sexangular and bright red. In this quarter,\nmoreover, there was everywhere observable a scrupulous neatness,\nwhich, allowing no dust in the angles, not even a yellow leaf\nupon a shrub, contributed quite as much as anything else to the\ndelightful general effect; insomuch that a visitor, breathing the\nsweet air, knew, in advance of introduction, the refinement of the\nfamily he was about calling upon.\n\nA few steps within the second court, the lad turned to the right,\nand, choosing a walk through the shrubbery, part of which was in\nflower, passed to the stairway, and ascended to the terrace--a\nbroad pavement of white and brown flags closely laid, and much\nworn. Making way under the awning to a doorway on the north side,\nhe entered an apartment which the dropping of the screen behind\nhim returned to darkness. Nevertheless, he proceeded, moving over a\ntiled floor to a divan, upon which he flung himself, face downwards,\nand lay at rest, his forehead upon his crossed arms.\n\nAbout nightfall a woman came to the door and called; he answered,\nand she went in.\n\n\"Supper is over, and it is night. Is not my son hungry?\" she asked.\n\n\"No,\" he replied.\n\n\"Are you sick?\"\n\n\"I am sleepy.\"\n\n\"Your mother has asked for you.\"\n\n\"Where is she?\"\n\n\"In the summer-house on the roof.\"\n\nHe stirred himself, and sat up.\n\n\"Very well. Bring me something to eat.\"\n\n\"What do you want?\"\n\n\"What you please, Amrah. I am not sick, but indifferent. Life does\nnot seem as pleasant as it did this morning. A new ailment, O my\nAmrah; and you who know me so well, who never failed me, may think\nof the things now that answer for food and medicine. Bring me what\nyou choose.\"\n\nAmrah's questions, and the voice in which she put them--low,\nsympathetic, and solicitous--were significant of an endeared\nrelation between the two. She laid her hand upon his forehead;\nthen, as satisfied, went out, saying, \"I will see.\"\n\nAfter a while she returned, bearing on a wooden platter a bowl of\nmilk, some thin cakes of white bread broken, a delicate paste of\nbrayed wheat, a bird broiled, and honey and salt. On one end of\nthe platter there was a silver goblet full of wine, on the other\na brazen hand-lamp lighted.\n\nThe room was then revealed: its walls smoothly plastered; the ceiling\nbroken by great oaken rafters, brown with rain stains and time; the\nfloor of small diamond-shaped white and blue tiles, very firm and\nenduring; a few stools with legs carved in imitation of the legs\nof lions; a divan raised a little above the floor, trimmed with\nblue cloth, and partially covered by an immense striped woollen\nblanket or shawl--in brief, a Hebrew bedroom.\n\nThe same light also gave the woman to view. Drawing a stool to\nthe divan, she placed the platter upon it, then knelt close\nby ready to serve him. Her face was that of a woman of fifty,\ndark-skinned, dark-eyed, and at the moment softened by a look\nof tenderness almost maternal. A white turban covered her head,\nleaving the lobes of the ear exposed, and in them the sign that\nsettled her condition--an orifice bored by a thick awl. She was\na slave, of Egyptian origin, to whom not even the sacred fiftieth\nyear could have brought freedom; nor would she have accepted it,\nfor the boy she was attending was her life. She had nursed him\nthrough babyhood, tended him as a child, and could not break\nthe service. To her love he could never be a man.\n\nHe spoke but once during the meal.\n\n\"You remember, O my Amrah,\" he said, \"the Messala who used to\nvisit me here days at a time.\"\n\n\"I remember him.\"\n\n\"He went to Rome some years ago, and is now back. I called upon\nhim to-day.\"\n\nA shudder of disgust seized the lad.\n\n\"I knew something had happened,\" she said, deeply interested.\n\"I never liked the Messala. Tell me all.\"\n\nBut he fell into musing, and to her repeated inquiries only said,\n\"He is much changed, and I shall have nothing more to do with him.\"\n\nWhen Amrah took the platter away, he also went out, and up from\nthe terrace to the roof.\n\nThe reader is presumed to know somewhat of the uses of the\nhouse-top in the East. In the matter of customs, climate is a\nlawgiver everywhere. The Syrian summer day drives the seeker of\ncomfort into the darkened lewen; night, however, calls him forth\nearly, and the shadows deepening over the mountain-sides seem veils\ndimly covering Circean singers; but they are far off, while the\nroof is close by, and raised above the level of the shimmering\nplain enough for the visitation of cool airs, and sufficiently\nabove the trees to allure the stars down closer, down at least into\nbrighter shining. So the roof became a resort--became playground,\nsleeping-chamber, boudoir, rendezvous for the family, place of\nmusic, dance, conversation, reverie, and prayer.\n\nThe motive that prompts the decoration, at whatever cost,\nof interiors in colder climes suggested to the Oriental the\nembellishment of his house-top. The parapet ordered by Moses\nbecame a potter's triumph; above that, later, arose towers,\nplain and fantastic; still later, kings and princes crowned\ntheir roofs with summer-houses of marble and gold. When the\nBabylonian hung gardens in the air, extravagance could push\nthe idea no further.\n\nThe lad whom we are following walked slowly across the house-top\nto a tower built over the northwest corner of the palace. Had he\nbeen a stranger, he might have bestowed a glance upon the structure\nas he drew nigh it, and seen all the dimness permitted--a darkened\nmass, low, latticed, pillared, and domed. He entered, passing under\na half-raised curtain. The interior was all darkness, except that on\nfour sides there were arched openings like doorways, through which\nthe sky, lighted with stars, was visible. In one of the openings,\nreclining against a cushion from a divan, he saw the figure of a\nwoman, indistinct even in white floating drapery. At the sound of\nhis steps upon the floor, the fan in her hand stopped, glistening\nwhere the starlight struck the jewels with which it was sprinkled,\nand she sat up, and called his name.\n\n\"Judah, my son!\"\n\n\"It is I, mother,\" he answered, quickening his approach.\n\nGoing to her, he knelt, and she put her arms around him, and with\nkisses pressed him to her bosom.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nThe mother resumed her easy position against the cushion, while the\nson took place on the divan, his head in her lap. Both of them,\nlooking out of the opening, could see a stretch of lower house-tops\nin the vicinity, a bank of blue-blackness over in the west which they\nknew to be mountains, and the sky, its shadowy depths brilliant with\nstars. The city was still. Only the winds stirred.\n\n\"Amrah tells me something has happened to you,\" she said, caressing\nhis cheek. \"When my Judah was a child, I allowed small things to\ntrouble him, but he is now a man. He must not forget\"--her voice\nbecame very soft--\"that one day he is to be my hero.\"\n\nShe spoke in the language almost lost in the land, but which a\nfew--and they were always as rich in blood as in possessions--cherished\nin its purity, that they might be more certainly distinguished\nfrom Gentile peoples--the language in which the loved Rebekah\nand Rachel sang to Benjamin.\n\nThe words appeared to set him thinking anew; after a while, however,\nhe caught the hand with which she fanned him, and said, \"Today, O my\nmother, I have been made to think of many things that never had place\nin my mind before. Tell me, first, what am I to be?\"\n\n\"Have I not told you? You are to be my hero.\"\n\nHe could not see her face, yet he knew she was in play. He became\nmore serious.\n\n\"You are very good, very kind, O my mother. No one will ever love\nme as you do.\"\n\nHe kissed the hand over and over again.\n\n\"I think I understand why you would have me put off the question,\"\nhe continued. \"Thus far my life has belonged to you. How gentle,\nhow sweet your control has been! I wish it could last forever.\nBut that may not be. It is the Lord's will that I shall one\nday become owner of myself--a day of separation, and therefore a\ndreadful day to you. Let us be brave and serious. I will be your\nhero, but you must put me in the way. You know the law--every son\nof Israel must have some occupation. I am not exempt, and ask now,\nshall I tend the herds? or till the soil? or drive the saw? or be\na clerk or lawyer? What shall I be? Dear, good mother, help me to\nan answer.\"\n\n\"Gamaliel has been lecturing today,\" she said, thoughtfully.\n\n\"If so, I did not hear him.\"\n\n\"Then you have been walking with Simeon, who, they tell me,\ninherits the genius of his family.\"\n\n\"No, I have not seen him. I have been up on the Market-place,\nnot to the Temple. I visited the young Messala.\"\n\nA certain change in his voice attracted the mother's attention.\nA presentiment quickened the beating of her heart; the fan became\nmotionless again.\n\n\"The Messala!\" she said. \"What could he say to so trouble you?\"\n\n\"He is very much changed.\"\n\n\"You mean he has come back a Roman.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Roman!\" she continued, half to herself. \"To all the world the\nword means master. How long has he been away?\"\n\n\"Five years.\"\n\nShe raised her head, and looked off into the night.\n\n\"The airs of the Via Sacra are well enough in the streets of the\nEgyptian and in Babylon; but in Jerusalem--our Jerusalem--the\ncovenant abides.\"\n\nAnd, full of the thought, she settled back into her easy place.\nHe was first to speak.\n\n\"What Messala said, my mother, was sharp enough in itself; but,\ntaken with the manner, some of the sayings were intolerable.\"\n\n\"I think I understand you. Rome, her poets, orators, senators,\ncourtiers, are mad with affectation of what they call satire.\"\n\n\"I suppose all great peoples are proud,\" he went on, scarcely\nnoticing the interruption; \"but the pride of that people is\nunlike all others; in these latter days it is so grown the\ngods barely escape it.\"\n\n\"The gods escape!\" said the mother, quickly. \"More than one Roman\nhas accepted worship as his divine right.\"\n\n\"Well, Messala always had his share of the disagreeable quality.\nWhen he was a child, I have seen him mock strangers whom even Herod\ncondescended to receive with honors; yet he always spared Judea.\nFor the first time, in conversation with me to-day, he trifled\nwith our customs and God. As you would have had me do, I parted\nwith him finally. And now, O my dear mother, I would know with more\ncertainty if there be just ground for the Roman's contempt. In what\nam I his inferior? Is ours a lower order of people? Why should I,\neven in Caesar's presence; feel the shrinking of a slave? Tell me\nespecially why, if I have the soul, and so choose, I may not hunt\nthe honors of the world in all its fields? Why may not I take sword\nand indulge the passion of war? As a poet, why may not I sing of all\nthemes? I can be a worker in metals, a keeper of flocks, a merchant,\nwhy not an artist like the Greek? Tell me, O my mother--and this is\nthe sum of my trouble--why may not a son of Israel do all a Roman\nmay?\"\n\nThe reader will refer these questions back to the conversation in\nthe Market-place; the mother, listening with all her faculties\nawake, from something which would have been lost upon one less\ninterested in him--from the connections of the subject, the pointing\nof the questions, possibly his accent and tone--was not less swift\nin making the same reference. She sat up, and in a voice quick and\nsharp as his own, replied, \"I see, I see! From association Messala,\nin boyhood, was almost a Jew; had he remained here, he might have\nbecome a proselyte, so much do we all borrow from the influences\nthat ripen our lives; but the years in Rome have been too much for\nhim. I do not wonder at the change; yet\"--her voice fell--\"he might\nhave dealt tenderly at least with you. It is a hard, cruel nature\nwhich in youth can forget its first loves.\"\n\nHer hand dropped lightly upon his forehead, and the fingers caught\nin his hair and lingered there lovingly, while her eyes sought\nthe highest stars in view. Her pride responded to his, not merely\nin echo, but in the unison of perfect sympathy. She would answer\nhim; at the same time, not for the world would she have had the\nanswer unsatisfactory: an admission of inferiority might weaken\nhis spirit for life. She faltered with misgivings of her own powers.\n\n\"What you propose, O my Judah, is not a subject for treatment by\na woman. Let me put its consideration off till to-morrow, and I\nwill have the wise Simeon--\"\n\n\"Do not send me to the Rector,\" he said, abruptly.\n\n\"I will have him come to us.\"\n\n\"No, I seek more than information; while he might give me that\nbetter than you, O my mother, you can do better by giving me\nwhat he cannot--the resolution which is the soul of a man's soul.\"\n\nShe swept the heavens with a rapid glance, trying to compass all\nthe meaning of his questions.\n\n\"While craving justice for ourselves, it is never wise to be\nunjust to others. To deny valor in the enemy we have conquered is\nto underrate our victory; and if the enemy be strong enough to hold\nus at bay, much more to conquer us\"--she hesitated--\"self-respect\nbids us seek some other explanation of our misfortunes than accusing\nhim of qualities inferior to our own.\"\n\nThus, speaking to herself rather than to him, she began:\n\n\"Take heart, O my son. The Messala is nobly descended; his family\nhas been illustrious through many generations. In the days of\nRepublican Rome--how far back I cannot tell--they were famous,\nsome as soldiers, some as civilians. I can recall but one consul of\nthe name; their rank was senatorial, and their patronage always sought\nbecause they were always rich. Yet if to-day your friend boasted\nof his ancestry, you might have shamed him by recounting yours.\nIf he referred to the ages through which the line is traceable,\nor to deeds, rank, or wealth--such allusions, except when great\noccasion demands them, are tokens of small minds--if he mentioned\nthem in proof of his superiority, then without dread, and standing\non each particular, you might have challenged him to a comparison\nof records.\"\n\nTaking a moment's thought, the mother proceeded:\n\n\"One of the ideas of fast hold now is that time has much to do with\nthe nobility of races and families. A Roman boasting his superiority\non that account over a son of Israel will always fail when put to\nthe proof. The founding of Rome was his beginning; the very best\nof them cannot trace their descent beyond that period; few of them\npretend to do so; and of such as do, I say not one could make good\nhis claim except by resort to tradition. Messala certainly could\nnot. Let us look now to ourselves. Could we better?\"\n\nA little more light would have enabled him to see the pride that\ndiffused itself over her face.\n\n\"Let us imagine the Roman putting us to the challenge. I would\nanswer him, neither doubting nor boastful.\"\n\nHer voice faltered; a tender thought changed the form of the argument.\n\n\"Your father, O my Judah, is at rest with his fathers; yet I\nremember, as though it were this evening, the day he and I,\nwith many rejoicing friends, went up into the Temple to present\nyou to the Lord. We sacrificed the doves, and to the priest I gave\nyour name, which he wrote in my presence--'Judah, son of Ithamar,\nof the House of Hur.' The name was then carried away, and written\nin a book of the division of records devoted to the saintly family.\n\n\"I cannot tell you when the custom of registration in this mode\nbegan. We know it prevailed before the flight from Egypt. I have\nheard Hillel say Abraham caused the record to be first opened with\nhis own name, and the names of his sons, moved by the promises\nof the Lord which separated him and them from all other races,\nand made them the highest and noblest, the very chosen of the\nearth. The covenant with Jacob was of like effect. 'In thy seed\nshall all the nations of the earth be blessed'--so said the angel to\nAbraham in the place Jehovah-jireh. 'And the land whereon thou liest,\nto thee will I give it, and to thy seed'--so the Lord himself said\nto Jacob asleep at Bethel on the way to Haran. Afterwards the wise\nmen looked forward to a just division of the land of promise; and,\nthat it might be known in the day of partition who were entitled\nto portions, the Book of Generations was begun. But not for that\nalone. The promise of a blessing to all the earth through the\npatriarch reached far into the future. One name was mentioned in\nconnection with the blessing--the benefactor might be the humblest\nof the chosen family, for the Lord our God knows no distinctions\nof rank or riches. So, to make the performance clear to men of\nthe generation who were to witness it, and that they might give\nthe glory to whom it belonged, the record was required to be kept\nwith absolute certainty. Has it been so kept?\"\n\nThe fan played to and fro, until, becoming impatient, he repeated\nthe question, \"Is the record absolutely true?\"\n\n\"Hillel said it was, and of all who have lived no one was so\nwell-informed upon the subject. Our people have at times been\nheedless of some parts of the law, but never of this part. The good\nrector himself has followed the Books of Generations through three\nperiods--from the promises to the opening of the Temple; thence to\nthe Captivity; thence, again, to the present. Once only were the\nrecords disturbed, and that was at the end of the second period;\nbut when the nation returned from the long exile, as a first\nduty to God, Zerubbabel restored the Books, enabling us once\nmore to carry the lines of Jewish descent back unbroken fully\ntwo thousand years. And now--\"\n\nShe paused as if to allow the hearer to measure the time comprehended\nin the statement.\n\n\"And now,\" she continued, \"what becomes of the Roman boast of\nblood enriched by ages? By that test, the sons of Israel watching\nthe herds on old Rephaim yonder are nobler than the noblest of\nthe Marcii.\"\n\n\"And I, mother--by the Books, who am I?\"\n\n\"What I have said thus far, my son, had reference to your question.\nI will answer you. If Messala were here, he might say, as others have\nsaid, that the exact trace of your lineage stopped when the Assyrian\ntook Jerusalem, and razed the Temple, with all its precious stores;\nbut you might plead the pious action of Zerubbabel, and retort that\nall verity in Roman genealogy ended when the barbarians from the\nWest took Rome, and camped six months upon her desolated site.\nDid the government keep family histories? If so, what became of\nthem in those dreadful days? No, no; there is verity in our Books\nof Generations; and, following them back to the Captivity, back to\nthe foundation of the first Temple, back to the march from Egypt,\nwe have absolute assurance that you are lineally sprung from Hur,\nthe associate of Joshua. In the matter of descent sanctified by\ntime, is not the honor perfect? Do you care to pursue further?\nif so, take the Torah, and search the Book of Numbers, and of\nthe seventy-two generations after Adam, you can find the very\nprogenitor of your house.\"\n\nThere was silence for a time in the chamber on the roof.\n\n\"I thank you, O my mother,\" Judah next said, clasping both her\nhands in his; \"I thank you with all my heart. I was right in not\nhaving the good rector called in; he could not have satisfied me\nmore than you have. Yet to make a family truly noble, is time\nalone sufficient?\"\n\n\"Ah, you forget, you forget; our claim rests not merely upon time;\nthe Lord's preference is our especial glory.\"\n\n\"You are speaking of the race, and I, mother, of the family--our\nfamily. In the years since Father Abraham, what have they achieved?\nWhat have they done? What great things to lift them above the level\nof their fellows?\"\n\nShe hesitated, thinking she might all this time have mistaken his\nobject. The information he sought might have been for more than\nsatisfaction of wounded vanity. Youth is but the painted shell\nwithin which, continually growing, lives that wondrous thing the\nspirit of man, biding its moment of apparition, earlier in some\nthan in others. She trembled under a perception that this might be\nthe supreme moment come to him; that as children at birth reach out\ntheir untried hands grasping for shadows, and crying the while, so his\nspirit might, in temporary blindness, be struggling to take hold of\nits impalpable future. They to whom a boy comes asking, Who am I,\nand what am I to be? have need of ever so much care. Each word in\nanswer may prove to the after-life what each finger-touch of the\nartist is to the clay he is modelling.\n\n\"I have a feeling, O my Judah,\" she said, patting his cheek with\nthe hand he had been caressing--\"I have the feeling that all I\nhave said has been in strife with an antagonist more real than\nimaginary. If Messala is the enemy, do not leave me to fight him\nin the dark. Tell me all he said.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nThe young Israelite proceeded then, and rehearsed his conversation\nwith Messala, dwelling with particularity upon the latter's speeches\nin contempt of the Jews, their customs, and much pent round of life.\n\nAfraid to speak the while, the mother listened, discerning the\nmatter plainly. Judah had gone to the palace on the Market-place,\nallured by love of a playmate whom he thought to find exactly as he\nhad been at the parting years before; a man met him, and, in place\nof laughter and references to the sports of the past, the man had\nbeen full of the future, and talked of glory to be won, and of\nriches and power. Unconscious of the effect, the visitor had come\naway hurt in pride, yet touched with a natural ambition; but she,\nthe jealous mother, saw it, and, not knowing the turn the aspiration\nmight take, became at once Jewish in her fear. What if it lured him\naway from the patriarchal faith? In her view, that consequence was\nmore dreadful than any or all others. She could discover but one way\nto avert it, and she set about the task, her native power reinforced\nby love to such degree that her speech took a masculine strength and\nat times a poet's fervor.\n\n\"There never has been a people,\" she began, \"who did not think\nthemselves at least equal to any other; never a great nation,\nmy son, that did not believe itself the very superior. When the\nRoman looks down upon Israel and laughs, he merely repeats the\nfolly of the Egyptian, the Assyrian, and the Macedonian; and as the\nlaugh is against God, the result will be the same.\"\n\nHer voice became firmer.\n\n\"There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations;\nhence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about\nit. A people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves\nor at the hands of another, who, succeeding to their power,\ntake possession of their place, and upon their monuments write\nnew names; such is history. If I were called upon to symbolize\nGod and man in the simplest form, I would draw a straight line\nand a circle, and of the line I would say, 'This is God, for he alone\nmoves forever straightforward,' and of the circle, 'This is man--such\nis his progress.' I do not mean that there is no difference between\nthe careers of nations; no two are alike. The difference, however,\nis not, as some say, in the extent of the circle they describe or\nthe space of earth they cover, but in the sphere of their movement,\nthe highest being nearest God.\n\n\"To stop here, my son, would be to leave the subject where we began.\nLet us go on. There are signs by which to measure the height of the\ncircle each nation runs while in its course. By them let us compare\nthe Hebrew and the Roman.\n\n\"The simplest of all the signs is the daily life of the people.\nOf this I will only say, Israel has at times forgotten God,\nwhile the Roman never knew him; consequently comparison is\nnot possible.\n\n\"Your friend--or your former friend--charged, if I understood you\nrightly, that we have had no poets, artists, or warriors; by which\nhe meant, I suppose, to deny that we have had great men, the next most\ncertain of the signs. A just consideration of this charge requires a\ndefinition at the commencement. A great man, O my boy, is one whose\nlife proves him to have been recognized, if not called, by God.\nA Persian was used to punish our recreant fathers, and he carried\nthem into captivity; another Persian was selected to restore their\nchildren to the Holy Land; greater than either of them, however,\nwas the Macedonian through whom the desolation of Judea and the\nTemple was avenged. The special distinction of the men was that\nthey were chosen by the Lord, each for a divine purpose; and that\nthey were Gentiles does not lessen their glory. Do not lose sight\nof this definition while I proceed.\n\n\"There is an idea that war is the most noble occupation of men,\nand that the most exalted greatness is the growth of battle-fields.\nBecause the world has adopted the idea, be not you deceived. That we\nmust worship something is a law which will continue as long as there\nis anything we cannot understand. The prayer of the barbarian is\na wail of fear addressed to Strength, the only divine quality he\ncan clearly conceive; hence his faith in heroes. What is Jove but\na Roman hero? The Greeks have their great glory because they were\nthe first to set Mind above Strength. In Athens the orator and\nphilosopher were more revered than the warrior. The charioteer\nand the swiftest runner are still idols of the arena; yet the\nimmortelles are reserved for the sweetest singer. The birthplace\nof one poet was contested by seven cities. But was the Hellene the\nfirst to deny the old barbaric faith? No. My son, that glory is\nours; against brutalism our fathers erected God; in our worship,\nthe wail of fear gave place to the Hosanna and the Psalm. So the\nHebrew and the Greek would have carried all humanity forward and\nupward. But, alas! the government of the world presumes war as an\neternal condition; wherefore, over Mind and above God, the Roman\nhas enthroned his Caesar, the absorbent of all attainable power,\nthe prohibition of any other greatness.\n\n\"The sway of the Greek was a flowering time for genius. In return\nfor the liberty it then enjoyed, what a company of thinkers the\nMind led forth? There was a glory for every excellence, and a\nperfection so absolute that in everything but war even the Roman\nhas stooped to imitation. A Greek is now the model of the orators\nin the Forum; listen, and in every Roman song you will hear the\nrhythm of the Greek; if a Roman opens his mouth speaking wisely\nof moralities, or abstractions, or of the mysteries of nature,\nhe is either a plagiarist or the disciple of some school which had\na Greek for its founder. In nothing but war, I say again, has Rome\na claim to originality. Her games and spectacles are Greek inventions,\ndashed with blood to gratify the ferocity of her rabble; her religion,\nif such it may be called, is made up of contributions from the\nfaiths of all other peoples; her most venerated gods are from\nOlympus--even her Mars, and, for that matter, the Jove she much\nmagnifies. So it happens, O my son, that of the whole world our\nIsrael alone can dispute the superiority of the Greek, and with\nhim contest the palm of original genius.\n\n\"To the excellences of other peoples the egotism of a Roman is\na blindfold, impenetrable as his breastplate. Oh, the ruthless\nrobbers! Under their trampling the earth trembles like a floor\nbeaten with flails. Along with the rest we are fallen--alas that\nI should say it to you, my son! They have our highest places, and\nthe holiest, and the end no man can tell; but this I know--they\nmay reduce Judea as an almond broken with hammers, and devour\nJerusalem, which is the oil and sweetness thereof; yet the glory\nof the men of Israel will remain a light in the heavens overhead\nout of reach: for their history is the history of God, who wrote\nwith their hands, spake with their tongues, and was himself in all\nthe good they did, even the least; who dwelt with them, a Lawgiver\non Sinai, a Guide in the wilderness, in war a Captain, in government\na King; who once and again pushed back the curtains of the\npavilion which is his resting-place, intolerably bright, and,\nas a man speaking to men, showed them the right, and the way\nto happiness, and how they should live, and made them promises\nbinding the strength of his Almightiness with covenants sworn to\neverlastingly. O my son, could it be that they with whom Jehovah\nthus dwelt, an awful familiar, derived nothing from him?--that\nin their lives and deeds the common human qualities should not\nin some degree have been mixed and  with the divine? that\ntheir genius should not have in it, even after the lapse of ages,\nsome little of heaven?\"\n\nFor a time the rustling of the fan was all the sound heard in the\nchamber.\n\n\"In the sense which limits art to sculpture and painting, it is\ntrue,\" she next said, \"Israel has had no artists.\"\n\nThe admission was made regretfully, for it must be remembered\nshe was a Sadducee, whose faith, unlike that of the Pharisees,\npermitted a love of the beautiful in every form, and without\nreference to its origin.\n\n\"Still he who would do justice,\" she proceeded, \"will not forget that\nthe cunning of our hands was bound by the prohibition, 'Thou shalt\nnot make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything;'\nwhich the Sopherim wickedly extended beyond its purpose and time.\nNor should it be forgotten that long before Daedalus appeared in\nAttica and with his wooden statues so transformed sculpture as\nto make possible the schools of Corinth and AEgina, and their\nultimate triumphs the Poecile and Capitolium--long before the\nage of Daedalus, I say, two Israelites, Bezaleel and Aholiab,\nthe master-builders of the first tabernacle, said to have been\nskilled 'in all manner of workmanship,' wrought the cherubim of the\nmercy-seat above the ark. Of gold beaten, not chiseled, were they;\nand they were statues in form both human and divine. 'And they\nshall stretch forth their wings on high, .... and their faces\nshall look one to another.' Who will say they were not beautiful?\nor that they were not the first statues?\"\n\n\"Oh, I see now why the Greek outstripped us,\" said Judah, intensely\ninterested. \"And the ark; accursed be the Babylonians who destroyed\nit!\"\n\n\"Nay, Judah, be of faith. It was not destroyed, only lost, hidden\naway too safely in some cavern of the mountains. One day--Hillel\nand Shammai both say so--one day, in the Lord's good time, it will\nbe found and brought forth, and Israel dance before it, singing as\nof old. And they who look upon the faces of the cherubim then,\nthough they have seen the face of the ivory Minerva, will be ready\nto kiss the hand of the Jew from love of his genius, asleep through\nall the thousands of years.\"\n\nThe mother, in her eagerness, had risen into something like the\nrapidity and vehemence of a speech-maker; but now, to recover\nherself, or to pick up the thread of her thought, she rested\nawhile.\n\n\"You are so good, my mother,\" he said, in a grateful way. \"And I\nwill never be done saying so. Shammai could not have talked better,\nnor Hillel. I am a true son of Israel again.\"\n\n\"Flatterer!\" she said. \"You do not know that I am but repeating\nwhat I heard Hillel say in an argument he had one day in my\npresence with a sophist from Rome.\"\n\n\"Well, the hearty words are yours.\"\n\nDirectly all her earnestness returned.\n\n\"Where was I? Oh yes, I was claiming for our Hebrew fathers the\nfirst statues. The trick of the sculptor, Judah, is not all there\nis of art, any more than art is all there is of greatness. I always\nthink of great men marching down the centuries in groups and goodly\ncompanies, separable according to nationalities; here the Indian,\nthere the Egyptian, yonder the Assyrian; above them the music of\ntrumpets and the beauty of banners; and on their right hand and\nleft, as reverent spectators, the generations from the beginning,\nnumberless. As they go, I think of the Greek, saying, 'Lo! The\nHellene leads the way.' Then the Roman replies, 'Silence! what\nwas your place is ours now; we have left you behind as dust\ntrodden on.' And all the time, from the far front back over\nthe line of march, as well as forward into the farthest future,\nstreams a light of which the wranglers know nothing, except that\nit is forever leading them on--the Light of Revelation! Who are\nthey that carry it? Ah, the old Judean blood! How it leaps at the\nthought! By the light we know them. Thrice blessed, O our fathers,\nservants of God, keepers of the covenants! Ye are the leaders of\nmen, the living and the dead. The front is thine; and though every\nRoman were a Caesar, ye shall not lose it!\"\n\nJudah was deeply stirred.\n\n\"Do not stop, I pray you,\" he cried. \"You give me to hear the\nsound of timbrels. I wait for Miriam and the women who went\nafter her dancing and singing.\"\n\nShe caught his feeling, and, with ready wit, wove it into her speech.\n\n\"Very well, my son. If you can hear the timbrel of the prophetess,\nyou can do what I was about to ask; you can use your fancy, and stand\nwith me, as if by the wayside, while the chosen of Israel pass us at\nthe head of the procession. Now they come--the patriarchs first;\nnext the fathers of the tribes. I almost hear the bells of their\ncamels and the lowing of their herds. Who is he that walks alone\nbetween the companies? An old man, yet his eye is not dim, nor his\nnatural force abated. He knew the Lord face to face! Warrior, poet,\norator, lawgiver, prophet, his greatness is as the sun at morning,\nits flood of splendor quenching all other lights, even that of the\nfirst and noblest of the Caesars. After him the judges. And then\nthe kings--the son of Jesse, a hero in war, and a singer of songs\neternal as that of the sea; and his son, who, passing all other\nkings in riches and wisdom, and while making the Desert habitable,\nand in its waste places planting cities, forgot not Jerusalem which\nthe Lord had chosen for his seat on earth. Bend lower, my son!\nThese that come next are the first of their kind, and the last.\nTheir faces are raised, as if they heard a voice in the sky and\nwere listening. Their lives were full of sorrows. Their garments\nsmell of tombs and caverns. Hearken to a woman among them--'Sing\nye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously!' Nay, put your\nforehead in the dust before them! They were tongues of God, his\nservants, who looked through heaven, and, seeing all the future,\nwrote what they saw, and left the writing to be proven by time.\nKings turned pale as they approached them, and nations trembled at\nthe sound of their voices. The elements waited upon them. In their\nhands they carried every bounty and every plague. See the Tishbite\nand his servant Elisha! See the sad son of Hilkiah, and him, the seer\nof visions, by the river of Chebar! And of the three children of\nJudah who refused the image of the Babylonian, lo! that one who,\nin the feast to the thousand lords, so confounded the astrologers.\nAnd yonder--O my son, kiss the dust again!--yonder the gentle son\nof Amoz, from whom the world has its promise of the Messiah to\ncome!\"\n\nIn this passage the fan had been kept in rapid play; it stopped\nnow, and her voice sank low.\n\n\"You are tired,\" she said.\n\n\"No,\" he replied, \"I was listening to a new song of Israel.\"\n\nThe mother was still intent upon her purpose, and passed the\npleasant speech.\n\n\"In such light as I could, my Judah, I have set our great men\nbefore you--patriarchs, legislators, warriors, singers, prophets.\nTurn we to the best of Rome. Against Moses place Caesar, and Tarquin\nagainst David; Sylla against either of the Maccabees; the best\nof the consuls against the judges; Augustus against Solomon,\nand you are done: comparison ends there. But think then of the\nprophets--greatest of the great.\"\n\nShe laughed scornfully.\n\n\"Pardon me. I was thinking of the soothsayer who warned Caius Julius\nagainst the Ides of March, and fancied him looking for the omens\nof evil which his master despised in the entrails of a chicken.\nFrom that picture turn to Elijah sitting on the hill-top on the\nway to Samaria, amid the smoking bodies of the captains and their\nfifties, warning the son of Ahab of the wrath of our God. Finally,\nO my Judah--if such speech be reverent--how shall we judge Jehovah\nand Jupiter unless it be by what their servants have done in their\nnames? And as for what you shall do--\"\n\nShe spoke the latter words slowly, and with a tremulous utterance.\n\n\"As for what you shall do, my boy--serve the Lord, the Lord God of\nIsrael, not Rome. For a child of Abraham there is no glory except\nin the Lord's ways, and in them there is much glory.\"\n\n\"I may be a soldier then?\" Judah asked.\n\n\"Why not? Did not Moses call God a man of war?\"\n\nThere was then a long silence in the summer chamber.\n\n\"You have my permission,\" she said, finally; \"if only you serve\nthe Lord instead of Caesar.\"\n\nHe was content with the condition, and by-and-by fell asleep. She\narose then, and put the cushion under his head, and, throwing a\nshawl over him and kissing him tenderly, went away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nThe good man, like the bad, must die; but, remembering the lesson\nof our faith, we say of him and the event, \"No matter, he will\nopen his eyes in heaven.\" Nearest this in life is the waking\nfrom healthful sleep to a quick consciousness of happy sights\nand sounds.\n\nWhen Judah awoke, the sun was up over the mountains; the pigeons\nwere abroad in flocks, filling the air with the gleams of their\nwhite wings; and off southeast he beheld the Temple, an apparition\nof gold in the blue of the sky. These, however, were familiar\nobjects, and they received but a glance; upon the edge of the\ndivan, close by him, a girl scarcely fifteen sat singing to\nthe accompaniment of a nebel, which she rested upon her knee,\nand touched gracefully. To her he turned listening; and this\nwas what she sang:\n\n  THE SONG.\n\n  \"Wake not, but hear me, love!\n    Adrift, adrift on slumber's sea,\n    Thy spirit call to list to me.\n  Wake not, but hear me, love!\n    A gift from Sleep, the restful king,\n    All happy, happy dreams I bring.\n\n  \"Wake not, but hear me, love!\n    Of all the world of dreams 'tis thine\n    This once to choose the most divine.\n  So choose, and sleep, my love!\n    But ne'er again in choice be free,\n    Unless, unless--thou dream'st of me.\"\n\n\nShe put the instrument down, and, resting her hands in her lap,\nwaited for him to speak. And as it has become necessary to tell\nsomewhat of her, we will avail ourselves of the chance, and add\nsuch particulars of the family into whose privacy we are brought\nas the reader may wish to know.\n\nThe favors of Herod had left surviving him many persons of vast\nestate. Where this fortune was joined to undoubted lineal descent\nfrom some famous son of one of the tribes, especially Judah, the happy\nindividual was accounted a Prince of Jerusalem--a distinction which\nsufficed to bring him the homage of his less favored countrymen,\nand the respect, if nothing more, of the Gentiles with whom business\nand social circumstance brought him into dealing. Of this class none\nhad won in private or public life a higher regard than the father\nof the lad whom we have been following. With a remembrance of his\nnationality which never failed him, he had yet been true to the\nking, and served him faithfully at home and abroad. Some offices\nhad taken him to Rome, where his conduct attracted the notice of\nAugustus, who strove without reserve to engage his friendship.\nIn his house, accordingly, were many presents, such as had\ngratified the vanity of kings--purple togas, ivory chairs,\ngolden pateroe--chiefly valuable on account of the imperial\nhand which had honorably conferred them. Such a man could not\nfail to be rich; yet his wealth was not altogether the largess\nof royal patrons. He had welcomed the law that bound him to some\npursuit; and, instead of one, he entered into many. Of the herdsmen\nwatching flocks on the plains and hill-sides, far as old Lebanon,\nnumbers reported to him as their employer; in the cities by the sea,\nand in those inland, he founded houses of traffic; his ships brought\nhim silver from Spain, whose mines were then the richest known;\nwhile his caravans came twice a year from the East, laden with\nsilks and spices. In faith he was a Hebrew, observant of the law\nand every essential rite; his place in the synagogue and Temple\nknew him well; he was thoroughly learned in the Scriptures;\nhe delighted in the society of the college-masters, and carried\nhis reverence for Hillel almost to the point of worship. Yet he\nwas in no sense a Separatist; his hospitality took in strangers\nfrom every land; the carping Pharisees even accused him of having\nmore than once entertained Samaritans at his table. Had he been a\nGentile, and lived, the world might have heard of him as the rival of\nHerodes Atticus: as it was, he perished at sea some ten years before\nthis second period of our story, in the prime of life, and lamented\neverywhere in Judea. We are already acquainted with two members of\nhis family--his widow and son; the only other was a daughter--she\nwhom we have seen singing to her brother.\n\nTirzah was her name, and as the two looked at each other, their\nresemblance was plain. Her features had the regularity of his, and\nwere of the same Jewish type; they had also the charm of childish\ninnocency of expression. Home-life and its trustful love permitted\nthe negligent attire in which she appeared. A chemise buttoned upon\nthe right shoulder, and passing loosely over the breast and back and\nunder the left arm, but half concealed her person above the waist,\nwhile it left the arms entirely nude. A girdle caught the folds of\nthe garment, marking the commencement of the skirt. The coiffure\nwas very simple and becoming--a silken cap, Tyrian-dyed; and over\nthat a striped scarf of the same material, beautifully embroidered,\nand wound about in thin folds so as to show the shape of the head\nwithout enlarging it; the whole finished by a tassel dropping\nfrom the crown point of the cap. She had rings, ear and finger;\nanklets and bracelets, all of gold; and around her neck there was\na collar of gold, curiously garnished with a network of delicate\nchains, to which were pendants of pearl. The edges of her eyelids\nwere painted, and the tips of her fingers stained. Her hair fell\nin two long plaits down her back. A curled lock rested upon each\ncheek in front of the ear. Altogether it would have been impossible\nto deny her grace, refinement, and beauty.\n\n\"Very pretty, my Tirzah, very pretty!\" he said, with animation.\n\n\"The song?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes--and the singer, too. It has the conceit of a Greek. Where did\nyou get it?\"\n\n\"You remember the Greek who sang in the theatre last month? They\nsaid he used to be a singer at the court for Herod and his sister\nSalome. He came out just after an exhibition of wrestlers, when the\nhouse was full of noise. At his first note everything became so quiet\nthat I heard every word. I got the song from him.\"\n\n\"But he sang in Greek.\"\n\n\"And I in Hebrew.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. I am proud of my little sister. Have you another as\ngood?\"\n\n\"Very many. But let them go now. Amrah sent me to tell you she will\nbring you your breakfast, and that you need not come down. She should\nbe here by this time. She thinks you sick--that a dreadful accident\nhappened you yesterday. What was it? Tell me, and I will help Amrah\ndoctor you. She knows the cures of the Egyptians, who were always\na stupid set; but I have a great many recipes of the Arabs who--\"\n\n\"Are even more stupid than the Egyptians,\" he said, shaking his\nhead.\n\n\"Do you think so? Very well, then,\" she replied, almost without\npause, and putting her hands to her left ear. \"We will have\nnothing to do with any of them. I have here what is much surer\nand better--the amulet which was given to some of our people--I\ncannot tell when, it was so far back--by a Persian magician. See,\nthe inscription is almost worn out.\"\n\nShe offered him the earring, which he took, looked at, and handed\nback, laughing.\n\n\"If I were dying, Tirzah, I could not use the charm. It is a relic\nof idolatry, forbidden every believing son and daughter of Abraham.\nTake it, but do not wear it any more.\"\n\n\"Forbidden! Not so,\" she said. \"Our father's mother wore it I do\nnot know how many Sabbaths in her life. It has cured I do not know\nhow many people--more than three anyhow. It is approved--look,\nhere is the mark of the rabbis.\"\n\n\"I have no faith in amulets.\"\n\nShe raised her eyes to his in astonishment.\n\n\"What would Amrah say?\"\n\n\"Amrah's father and mother tended sakiyeh for a garden on the Nile.\"\n\n\"But Gamaliel!\"\n\n\"He says they are godless inventions of unbelievers and Shechemites.\"\n\nTirzah looked at the ring doubtfully.\n\n\"What shall I do with it?\"\n\n\"Wear it, my little sister. It becomes you--it helps make you\nbeautiful, though I think you that without help.\"\n\nSatisfied, she returned the amulet to her ear just as Amrah entered\nthe summer chamber, bearing a platter, with wash-bowl, water,\nand napkins.\n\nNot being a Pharisee, the ablution was short and simple with\nJudah. The servant then went out, leaving Tirzah to dress his\nhair. When a lock was disposed to her satisfaction, she would\nunloose the small metallic mirror which, as was the fashion\namong her fair countrywomen, she wore at her girdle, and gave\nit to him, that he might see the triumph, and how handsome it\nmade him. Meanwhile they kept up their conversation.\n\n\"What do you think, Tirzah?--I am going away.\"\n\nShe dropped her hands with amazement.\n\n\"Going away! When? Where? For what?\"\n\nHe laughed.\n\n\"Three questions, all in a breath! What a body you are!\" Next\ninstant he became serious. \"You know the law requires me to follow\nsome occupation. Our good father set me an example. Even you would\ndespise me if I spent in idleness the results of his industry and\nknowledge. I am going to Rome.\"\n\n\"Oh, I will go with you.\"\n\n\"You must stay with mother. If both of us leave her she will die.\"\n\nThe brightness faded from her face.\n\n\"Ah, yes, yes! But--must you go? Here in Jerusalem you can learn\nall that is needed to be a merchant--if that is what you are\nthinking of.\"\n\n\"But that is not what I am thinking of. The law does not require\nthe son to be what the father was.\"\n\n\"What else can you be?\"\n\n\"A soldier,\" he replied, with a certain pride of voice.\n\nTears came into her eyes.\n\n\"You will be killed.\"\n\n\"If God's will, be it so. But, Tirzah, the soldiers are not all\nkilled.\"\n\nShe threw her arms around his neck, as if to hold him back.\n\n\"We are so happy! Stay at home, my brother.\"\n\n\"Home cannot always be what it is. You yourself will be going away\nbefore long.\"\n\n\"Never!\"\n\nHe smiled at her earnestness.\n\n\"A prince of Judah, or some other of one of the tribes, will come\nsoon and claim my Tirzah, and ride away with her, to be the light\nof another house. What will then become of me?\"\n\nShe answered with sobs.\n\n\"War is a trade,\" he continued, more soberly. \"To learn it thoroughly,\none must go to school, and there is no school like a Roman camp.\"\n\n\"You would not fight for Rome?\" she asked, holding her breath.\n\n\"And you--even you hate her. The whole world hates her. In that,\nO Tirzah, find the reason of the answer I give you-- Yes, I will\nfight for her, if, in return, she will teach me how one day to\nfight against her.\"\n\n\"When will you go?\"\n\nAmrah's steps were then heard returning.\n\n\"Hist!\" he said. \"Do not let her know of what I am thinking.\"\n\nThe faithful slave came in with breakfast, and placed the waiter\nholding it upon a stool before them; then, with white napkins upon\nher arm, she remained to serve them. They dipped their fingers\nin a bowl of water, and were rinsing them, when a noise arrested\ntheir attention. They listened, and distinguished martial music\nin the street on the north side of the house.\n\n\"Soldiers from the Praetorium! I must see them,\" he cried,\nspringing from the divan, and running out.\n\nIn a moment more he was leaning over the parapet of tiles which\nguarded the roof at the extreme northeast corner, so absorbed\nthat he did not notice Tirzah by his side, resting one hand upon\nhis shoulder.\n\nTheir position--the roof being the highest one in the\nlocality--commanded the house-tops eastward as far as the huge irregular\nTower of Antonia, which has been already mentioned as a citadel for\nthe garrison and military headquarters for the governor. The street,\nnot more than ten feet wide, was spanned here and there by bridges,\nopen and covered, which, like the roofs along the way, were beginning\nto be occupied by men, women, and children, called out by the music.\nThe word is used, though it is hardly fitting; what the people heard\nwhen they came forth was rather an uproar of trumpets and the shriller\nlitui so delightful to the soldiers.\n\nThe array after a while came into view of the two upon the house\nof the Hurs. First, a vanguard of the light-armed--mostly slingers\nand bowmen--marching with wide intervals between their ranks and\nfiles; next a body of heavy-armed infantry, bearing large shields,\nand hastoe longoe, or spears identical with those used in the duels\nbefore Ilium; then the musicians; and then an officer riding alone,\nbut followed closely by a guard of cavalry; after them again,\na column of infantry also heavy-armed, which, moving in close\norder, crowded the streets from wall to wall, and appeared to\nbe without end.\n\nThe brawny limbs of the men; the cadenced motion from right to left\nof the shields; the sparkle of scales, buckles, and breastplates\nand helms, all perfectly burnished; the plumes nodding above the\ntall crests; the sway of ensigns and iron-shod spears; the bold,\nconfident step, exactly timed and measured; the demeanor, so grave,\nyet so watchful; the machine-like unity of the whole moving mass--made\nan impression upon Judah, but as something felt rather than seen.\nTwo objects fixed his attention--the eagle of the legion first--a\ngilded effigy perched on a tall shaft, with wings outspread until\nthey met above its head. He knew that, when brought from its chamber\nin the Tower, it had been received with divine honors.\n\nThe officer riding alone in the midst of the column was the other\nattraction. His head was bare; otherwise he was in full armor. At his\nleft hip he wore a short sword; in his hand, however, he carried\na truncheon, which looked like a roll of white paper. He sat upon\na purple cloth instead of a saddle, and that, and a bridle with a\nforestall of gold and reins of yellow silk broadly fringed at the\nlower edge, completed the housings of the horse.\n\nWhile the man was yet in the distance, Judah observed that his\npresence was sufficient to throw the people looking at him into\nangry excitement. They would lean over the parapets or stand boldly\nout, and shake their fists at him; they followed him with loud cries,\nand spit at him as he passed under the bridges; the women even flung\ntheir sandals, sometimes with such good effect as to hit him. When he\nwas nearer, the yells became distinguishable--\"Robber, tyrant, dog of\na Roman! Away with Ishmael! Give us back our Hannas!\"\n\nWhen quite near, Judah could see that, as was but natural, the man\ndid not share the indifference so superbly shown by the soldiers;\nhis face was dark and sullen, and the glances he occasionally cast\nat his persecutors were full of menace; the very timid shrank from\nthem.\n\nNow the lad had heard of the custom, borrowed from a habit of the\nfirst Caesar, by which chief commanders, to indicate their rank,\nappeared in public with only a laurel vine upon their heads.\nBy that sign he knew this officer--VALERIUS GRATUS, THE NEW\nPROCURATOR OF JUDEA!\n\nTo say truth now, the Roman under the unprovoked storm had the\nyoung Jew's sympathy; so that when he reached the corner of the\nhouse, the latter leaned yet farther over the parapet to see him\ngo by, and in the act rested a hand upon a tile which had been a\nlong time cracked and allowed to go unnoticed. The pressure was\nstrong enough to displace the outer piece, which started to fall.\nA thrill of horror shot through the youth. He reached out to catch\nthe missile. In appearance the motion was exactly that of one\npitching something from him. The effort failed--nay, it served to\npush the descending fragment farther out over the wall. He shouted\nwith all his might. The soldiers of the guard looked up; so did the\ngreat man, and that moment the missile struck him, and he fell from\nhis seat as dead.\n\nThe cohort halted; the guards leaped from their horses, and hastened\nto cover the chief with their shields. On the other hand, the people\nwho witnessed the affair, never doubting that the blow had been\npurposely dealt, cheered the lad as he yet stooped in full view\nover the parapet, transfixed by what he beheld, and by anticipation\nof the consequences flashed all too plainly upon him.\n\nA mischievous spirit flew with incredible speed from roof to\nroof along the line of march, seizing the people, and urging\nthem all alike. They laid hands upon the parapets and tore up\nthe tiling and the sunburnt mud of which the house-tops were for\nthe most part made, and with blind fury began to fling them upon\nthe legionaries halted below. A battle then ensued. Discipline,\nof course, prevailed. The struggle, the slaughter, the skill of\none side, the desperation of the other, are alike unnecessary to\nour story. Let us look rather to the wretched author of it all.\n\nHe arose from the parapet, his face very pale.\n\n\"O Tirzah, Tirzah! What will become of us?\"\n\nShe had not seen the occurrence below, but was listening to the\nshouting and watching the mad activity of the people in view on\nthe houses. Something terrible was going on, she knew; but what\nit was, or the cause, or that she or any of those dear to her\nwere in danger, she did not know.\n\n\"What has happened? What does it all mean?\" she asked, in sudden\nalarm.\n\n\"I have killed the Roman governor. The tile fell upon him.\"\n\nAn unseen hand appeared to sprinkle her face with the dust of\nashes--it grew white so instantly. She put her arm around him,\nand looked wistfully, but without a word, into his eyes.\nHis fears had passed to her, and the sight of them gave\nhim strength.\n\n\"I did not do it purposely, Tirzah--it was an accident,\" he said,\nmore calmly.\n\n\"What will they do?\" she asked.\n\nHe looked off over the tumult momentarily deepening in the street\nand on the roofs, and thought of the sullen countenance of Gratus.\nIf he were not dead, where would his vengeance stop? And if he\nwere dead, to what height of fury would not the violence of the\npeople lash the legionaries? To evade an answer, he peered over\nthe parapet again, just as the guard were assisting the Roman to\nremount his horse.\n\n\"He lives, he lives, Tirzah! Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers!\"\n\nWith that outcry, and a brightened countenance, he drew back and\nreplied to her question.\n\n\"Be not afraid, Tirzah. I will explain how it happened, and they\nwill remember our father and his services, and not hurt us.\"\n\nHe was leading her to the summer-house, when the roof jarred\nunder their feet, and a crash of strong timbers being burst away,\nfollowed by a cry of surprise and agony, arose apparently from the\ncourt-yard below. He stopped and listened. The cry was repeated;\nthen came a rush of many feet, and voices lifted in rage blent\nwith voices in prayer; and then the screams of women in mortal\nterror. The soldiers had beaten in the north gate, and were in\npossession of the house. The terrible sense of being hunted smote\nhim. His first impulse was to fly; but where? Nothing but wings\nwould serve him. Tirzah, her eyes wild with fear, caught his arm.\n\n\"O Judah, what does it mean?\"\n\nThe servants were being butchered--and his mother! Was not one\nof the voices he heard hers? With all the will left him, he said,\n\"Stay here, and wait for me, Tirzah. I will go down and see what\nis the matter, and come back to you.\"\n\nHis voice was not steady as he wished. She clung closer to him.\n\nClearer, shriller, no longer a fancy, his mother's cry arose.\nHe hesitated no longer.\n\n\"Come, then, let us go.\"\n\nThe terrace or gallery at the foot of the steps was crowded with\nsoldiers. Other soldiers with drawn swords ran in and out of the\nchambers. At one place a number of women on their knees clung to each\nother or prayed for mercy. Apart from them, one with torn garments,\nand long hair streaming over her face, struggled to tear loose from\na man all whose strength was tasked to keep his hold. Her cries\nwere shrillest of all; cutting through the clamor, they had risen\ndistinguishably to the roof. To her Judah sprang--his steps were\nlong and swift, almost a winged flight--\"Mother, mother!\" he\nshouted. She stretched her hands towards him; but when almost\ntouching them he was seized and forced aside. Then he heard some\none say, speaking loudly,\n\n\"That is he!\"\n\nJudah looked, and saw--Messala.\n\n\"What, the assassin--that?\" said a tall man, in legionary armor\nof beautiful finish. \"Why, he is but a boy.\"\n\n\"Gods!\" replied Messala, not forgetting his drawl. \"A new philosophy!\nWhat would Seneca say to the proposition that a man must be old before\nhe can hate enough to kill? You have him; and that is his mother;\nyonder his sister. You have the whole family.\"\n\nFor love of them, Judah forgot his quarrel.\n\n\"Help them, O my Messala! Remember our childhood and help them.\nI--Judah--pray you.\"\n\nMessala affected not to hear.\n\n\"I cannot be of further use to you,\" he said to the officer.\n\"There is richer entertainment in the street. Down Eros, up Mars!\"\n\nWith the last words he disappeared. Judah understood him, and,\nin the bitterness of his soul, prayed to Heaven.\n\n\"In the hour of thy vengeance, O Lord,\" he said, \"be mine the hand\nto put it upon him!\"\n\nBy great exertion, he drew nearer the officer.\n\n\"O sir, the woman you hear is my mother. Spare her, spare my\nsister yonder. God is just, he will give you mercy for mercy.\"\n\nThe man appeared to be moved.\n\n\"To the Tower with the women!\" he shouted, \"but do them no harm.\nI will demand them of you.\" Then to those holding Judah, he said,\n\"Get cords, and bind his hands, and take him to the street.\nHis punishment is reserved.\"\n\nThe mother was carried away. The little Tirzah, in her home attire,\nstupefied with fear, went passively with her keepers. Judah gave\neach of them a last look, and covered his face with his hands,\nas if to possess himself of the scene fadelessly. He may have\nshed tears, though no one saw them.\n\nThere took place in him then what may be justly called the wonder\nof life. The thoughtful reader of these pages has ere this discerned\nenough to know that the young Jew in disposition was gentle even\nto womanliness--a result that seldom fails the habit of loving and\nbeing loved. The circumstances through which he had come had made\nno call upon the harsher elements of his nature, if such he had.\nAt times he had felt the stir and impulses of ambition, but they\nhad been like the formless dreams of a child walking by the sea\nand gazing at the coming and going of stately ships. But now, if we\ncan imagine an idol, sensible of the worship it was accustomed to,\ndashed suddenly from its altar, and lying amidst the wreck of its\nlittle world of love, an idea may be had of what had befallen the\nyoung Ben-Hur, and of its effect upon his being. Yet there was no\nsign, nothing to indicate that he had undergone a change, except\nthat when he raised his head, and held his arms out to be bound,\nthe bend of the Cupid's bow had vanished from his lips. In that\ninstant he had put off childhood and become a man.\n\nA trumpet sounded in the court-yard. With the cessation of the\ncall, the gallery was cleared of the soldiery; many of whom,\nas they dared not appear in the ranks with visible plunder in\ntheir hands, flung what they had upon the floor, until it was\nstrewn with articles of richest virtu. When Judah descended,\nthe formation was complete, and the officer waiting to see his\nlast order executed.\n\nThe mother, daughter, and entire household were led out of the\nnorth gate, the ruins of which choked the passageway. The cries\nof the domestics, some of whom had been born in the house, were most\npitiable. When, finally, the horses and all the dumb tenantry of the\nplace were driven past him, Judah began to comprehend the scope of\nthe procurator's vengeance. The very structure was devoted. Far as\nthe order was possible of execution, nothing living was to be left\nwithin its walls. If in Judea there were others desperate enough to\nthink of assassinating a Roman governor, the story of what befell\nthe princely family of Hur would be a warning to them, while the\nruin of the habitation would keep the story alive.\n\nThe officer waited outside while a detail of men temporarily\nrestored the gate.\n\nIn the street the fighting had almost ceased. Upon the houses\nhere and there clouds of dust told where the struggle was yet\nprolonged. The cohort was, for the most part, standing at rest,\nits splendor, like its ranks, in nowise diminished. Borne past\nthe point of care for himself, Judah had heart for nothing in\nview but the prisoners, among whom he looked in vain for his\nmother and Tirzah.\n\nSuddenly, from the earth where she had been lying, a woman arose\nand started swiftly back to the gate. Some of the guards reached\nout to seize her, and a great shout followed their failure. She ran\nto Judah, and, dropping down, clasped his knees, the coarse black\nhair powdered with dust veiling her eyes.\n\n\"O Amrah, good Amrah,\" he said to her, \"God help you; I cannot.\"\n\nShe could not speak.\n\nHe bent down, and whispered, \"Live, Amrah, for Tirzah and my mother.\nThey will come back, and--\"\n\nA soldier drew her away; whereupon she sprang up and rushed through\nthe gateway and passage into the vacant court-yard.\n\n\"Let her go,\" the officer shouted. \"We will seal the house, and she\nwill starve.\"\n\nThe men resumed their work, and, when it was finished there,\npassed round to the west side. That gate was also secured,\nafter which the palace of the Hurs was lost to use.\n\nThe cohort at length marched back to the Tower, where the procurator\nstayed to recover from his hurts and dispose of his prisoners. On the\ntenth day following, he visited the Market-place.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nNext day a detachment of legionaries went to the desolated palace,\nand, closing the gates permanently, plastered the corners with wax,\nand at the sides nailed a notice in Latin:\n\n\"THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF THE EMPEROR.\"\n\nIn the haughty Roman idea, the sententious announcement was thought\nsufficient for the purpose--and it was.\n\nThe day after that again, about noon, a decurion with his command of\nten horsemen approached Nazareth from the south--that is, from the\ndirection of Jerusalem. The place was then a straggling village,\nperched on a hill-side, and so insignificant that its one street\nwas little more than a path well beaten by the coming and going of\nflocks and herds. The great plain of Esdraelon crept close to it\non the south, and from the height on the west a view could be had\nof the shores of the Mediterranean, the region beyond the Jordan,\nand Hermon. The valley below, and the country on every side, were\ngiven to gardens, vineyards, orchards, and pasturage. Groves of\npalm-trees Orientalized the landscape. The houses, in irregular\nassemblage, were of the humbler class--square, one-story, flat-roofed,\nand covered with bright-green vines. The drought that had burned\nthe hills of Judea to a crisp, brown and lifeless, stopped at the\nboundary-line of Galilee.\n\nA trumpet, sounded when the cavalcade drew near the village, had\na magical effect upon the inhabitants. The gates and front doors\ncast forth groups eager to be the first to catch the meaning of\na visitation so unusual.\n\nNazareth, it must be remembered, was not only aside from any great\nhighway, but within the sway of Judas of Gamala; wherefore it should\nnot be hard to imagine the feelings with which the legionaries were\nreceived. But when they were up and traversing the street, the duty\nthat occupied them became apparent, and then fear and hatred were lost\nin curiosity, under the impulse of which the people, knowing there must\nbe a halt at the well in the northeastern part of the town, quit their\ngates and doors, and closed in after the procession.\n\nA prisoner whom the horsemen were guarding was the object of curiosity.\nHe was afoot, bareheaded, half naked, his hands bound behind him. A thong\nfixed to his wrists was looped over the neck of a horse. The dust\nwent with the party when in movement, wrapping him in yellow fog,\nsometimes in a dense cloud. He drooped forward, footsore and faint.\nThe villagers could see he was young.\n\nAt the well the decurion halted, and, with most of the men,\ndismounted. The prisoner sank down in the dust of the road,\nstupefied, and asking nothing: apparently he was in the last\nstage of exhaustion. Seeing, when they came near, that he was\nbut a boy, the villagers would have helped him had they dared.\n\nIn the midst of their perplexity, and while the pitchers were\npassing among the soldiers, a man was descried coming down the road\nfrom Sepphoris. At sight of him a woman cried out, \"Look! Yonder\ncomes the carpenter. Now we will hear something.\"\n\nThe person spoken of was quite venerable in appearance. Thin white\nlocks fell below the edge of his full turban, and a mass of still\nwhiter beard flowed down the front of his coarse gray gown. He came\nslowly, for, in addition to his age, he carried some tools--an axe,\na saw, and a drawing-knife, all very rude and heavy--and had evidently\ntravelled some distance without rest.\n\nHe stopped close by to survey the assemblage.\n\n\"O Rabbi, good Rabbi Joseph!\" cried a woman, running to him.\n\"Here is a prisoner; come ask the soldiers about him, that we may\nknow who he is, and what he has done, and what they are going to\ndo with him.\"\n\nThe rabbi's face remained stolid; he glanced at the prisoner,\nhowever, and presently went to the officer.\n\n\"The peace of the Lord be with you!\" he said, with unbending gravity.\n\n\"And that of the gods with you,\" the decurion replied.\n\n\"Are you from Jerusalem?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Your prisoner is young.\"\n\n\"In years, yes.\"\n\n\"May I ask what he has done?\"\n\n\"He is an assassin.\"\n\nThe people repeated the word in astonishment, but Rabbi Joseph\npursued his inquest.\n\n\"Is he a son of Israel?\"\n\n\"He is a Jew,\" said the Roman, dryly.\n\nThe wavering pity of the bystanders came back.\n\n\"I know nothing of your tribes, but can speak of his family,\" the\nspeaker continued. \"You may have heard of a prince of Jerusalem\nnamed Hur--Ben-Hur, they called him. He lived in Herod's day.\"\n\n\"I have seen him,\" Joseph said.\n\n\"Well, this is his son.\"\n\nExclamations became general, and the decurion hastened to stop them.\n\n\"In the streets of Jerusalem, day before yesterday, he nearly\nkilled the noble Gratus by flinging a tile upon his head from\nthe roof of a palace--his father's, I believe.\"\n\nThere was a pause in the conversation during which the Nazarenes\ngazed at the young Ben-Hur as at a wild beast.\n\n\"Did he kill him?\" asked the rabbi.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"He is under sentence.\"\n\n\"Yes--the galleys for life.\"\n\n\"The Lord help him!\" said Joseph, for once moved out of his stolidity.\n\nThereupon a youth who came up with Joseph, but had stood behind\nhim unobserved, laid down an axe he had been carrying, and,\ngoing to the great stone standing by the well, took from it a\npitcher of water. The action was so quiet that before the guard\ncould interfere, had they been disposed to do so, he was stooping\nover the prisoner, and offering him drink.\n\nThe hand laid kindly upon his shoulder awoke the unfortunate\nJudah, and, looking up, he saw a face he never forgot--the face\nof a boy about his own age, shaded by locks of yellowish bright\nchestnut hair; a face lighted by dark-blue eyes, at the time so\nsoft, so appealing, so full of love and holy purpose, that they\nhad all the power of command and will. The spirit of the Jew,\nhardened though it was by days and nights of suffering, and so\nembittered by wrong that its dreams of revenge took in all the\nworld, melted under the stranger's look, and became as a child's.\nHe put his lips to the pitcher, and drank long and deep. Not a word\nwas said to him, nor did he say a word.\n\nWhen the draught was finished, the hand that had been resting upon\nthe sufferer's shoulder was placed upon his head, and stayed there\nin the dusty locks time enough to say a blessing; the stranger then\nreturned the pitcher to its place on the stone, and, taking his\naxe again, went back to Rabbi Joseph. All eyes went with him,\nthe decurion's as well as those of the villagers.\n\nThis was the end of the scene at the well. When the men had drunk,\nand the horses, the march was resumed. But the temper of the decurion\nwas not as it had been; he himself raised the prisoner from the dust,\nand helped him on a horse behind a soldier. The Nazarenes went to their\nhouses--among them Rabbi Joseph and his apprentice.\n\nAnd so, for the first time, Judah and the son of Mary met and parted.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THIRD\n\n  \"Cleopatra.... Our size of sorrow,\n  Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great\n  As that which makes it.--\n              Enter, below, DIOMEDES.\n                            How now? is he dead?\n\n  Diomedes. His death's upon him, but not dead.\"\n            Antony and Cleopatra (act iv., sc. xiii.).\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nThe city of Misenum gave name to the promontory which it crowned,\na few miles southwest of Naples. An account of ruins is all that\nremains of it now; yet in the year of our Lord 24--to which it is\ndesirable to advance the reader--the place was one of the most\nimportant on the western coast of Italy.[1]\n\n    [1] The Roman government, it will be remembered, had two harbors in\n        which great fleets were constantly kept--Ravenna and Misenum.\n\n\nIn the year mentioned, a traveller coming to the promontory to\nregale himself with the view there offered, would have mounted\na wall, and, with the city at his back, looked over the bay of\nNeapolis, as charming then as now; and then, as now, he would\nhave seen the matchless shore, the smoking cone, the sky and\nwaves so softly, deeply blue, Ischia here and Capri yonder;\nfrom one to the other and back again, through the purpled air,\nhis gaze would have sported; at last--for the eyes do weary of the\nbeautiful as the palate with sweets--at last it would have dropped\nupon a spectacle which the modern tourist cannot see--half the\nreserve navy of Rome astir or at anchor below him. Thus regarded,\nMisenum was a very proper place for three masters to meet, and at\nleisure parcel the world among them.\n\nIn the old time, moreover, there was a gateway in the wall at a\ncertain point fronting the sea--an empty gateway forming the outlet\nof a street which, after the exit, stretched itself, in the form of\na broad mole, out many stadia into the waves.\n\nThe watchman on the wall above the gateway was disturbed, one cool\nSeptember morning, by a party coming down the street in noisy\nconversation. He gave one look, then settled into his drowse\nagain.\n\nThere were twenty or thirty persons in the party, of whom the\ngreater number were slaves with torches, which flamed little\nand smoked much, leaving on the air the perfume of the Indian\nnard. The masters walked in advance arm-in-arm. One of them,\napparently fifty years old, slightly bald, and wearing over his\nscant locks a crown of laurel, seemed, from the attentions paid\nhim, the central object of some affectionate ceremony. They all\nsported ample togas of white wool broadly bordered with purple.\nA glance had sufficed the watchman. He knew, without question,\nthey were of high rank, and escorting a friend to ship after a\nnight of festivity. Further explanation will be found in the\nconversation they carried on.\n\n\"No, my Quintus,\" said one, speaking to him with the crown, \"it is\nill of Fortune to take thee from us so soon. Only yesterday thou\ndidst return from the seas beyond the Pillars. Why, thou hast not\neven got back thy land legs.\"\n\n\"By Castor! if a man may swear a woman's oath,\" said another,\nsomewhat worse of wine, \"let us not lament. Our Quintus is but\ngoing to find what he lost last night. Dice on a rolling ship is\nnot dice on shore--eh, Quintus?\"\n\n\"Abuse not Fortune!\" exclaimed a third. \"She is not blind or\nfickle. At Antium, where our Arrius questions her, she answers\nhim with nods, and at sea she abides with him holding the rudder.\nShe takes him from us, but does she not always give him back with\na new victory?\"\n\n\"The Greeks are taking him away,\" another broke in. \"Let us abuse\nthem, not the gods. In learning to trade they forgot how to fight.\"\n\nWith these words, the party passed the gateway, and came upon the\nmole, with the bay before them beautiful in the morning light.\nTo the veteran sailor the plash of the waves was like a greeting.\nHe drew a long breath, as if the perfume of the water were sweeter\nthan that of the nard, and held his hand aloft.\n\n\"My gifts were at Praeneste, not Antium--and see! Wind from\nthe west. Thanks, O Fortune, my mother!\" he said, earnestly.\n\nThe friends all repeated the exclamation, and the slaves waved\ntheir torches.\n\n\"She comes--yonder!\" he continued, pointing to a galley outside\nthe mole. \"What need has a sailor for other mistress? Is your\nLucrece more graceful, my Caius?\"\n\nHe gazed at the coming ship, and justified his pride. A white\nsail was bent to the low mast, and the oars dipped, arose,\npoised a moment, then dipped again, with wing-like action,\nand in perfect time.\n\n\"Yes, spare the gods,\" he said, soberly, his eyes fixed upon the\nvessel. \"They send us opportunities. Ours the fault if we fail.\nAnd as for the Greeks, you forget, O my Lentulus, the pirates I\nam going to punish are Greeks. One victory over them is of more\naccount than a hundred over the Africans.\"\n\n\"Then thy way is to the Aegean?\"\n\nThe sailor's eyes were full of his ship.\n\n\"What grace, what freedom! A bird hath not less care for the\nfretting of the waves. See!\" he said, but almost immediately\nadded, \"Thy pardon, my Lentulus. I am going to the Aegean;\nand as my departure is so near, I will tell the occasion--only\nkeep it under the rose. I would not that you abuse the duumvir\nwhen next you meet him. He is my friend. The trade between Greece\nand Alexandria, as ye may have heard, is hardly inferior to that\nbetween Alexandria and Rome. The people in that part of the world\nforgot to celebrate the Cerealia, and Triptolemus paid them with\na harvest not worth the gathering. At all events, the trade is so\ngrown that it will not brook interruption a day. Ye may also have\nheard of the Chersonesan pirates, nested up in the Euxine; none\nbolder, by the Bacchae! Yesterday word came to Rome that, with a\nfleet, they had rowed down the Bosphorus, sunk the galleys off\nByzantium and Chalcedon, swept the Propontis, and, still unsated,\nburst through into the Aegean. The corn-merchants who have ships\nin the East Mediterranean are frightened. They had audience with\nthe Emperor himself, and from Ravenna there go to-day a hundred\ngalleys, and from Misenum\"--he paused as if to pique the curiosity\nof his friends, and ended with an emphatic--\"one.\"\n\n\"Happy Quintus! We congratulate thee!\"\n\n\"The preferment forerunneth promotion. We salute thee duumvir;\nnothing less.\"\n\n\"Quintus Arrius, the duumvir, hath a better sound than Quintus\nArrius, the tribune.\"\n\nIn such manner they showered him with congratulations.\n\n\"I am glad with the rest,\" said the bibulous friend, \"very glad;\nbut I must be practical, O my duumvir; and not until I know if\npromotion will help thee to knowledge of the tesserae will I have\nan opinion as to whether the gods mean thee ill or good in\nthis--this business.\"\n\n\"Thanks, many thanks!\" Arrius replied, speaking to them collectively.\n\"Had ye but lanterns, I would say ye were augurs. Perpol! I will\ngo further, and show what master diviners ye are! See--and read.\"\n\nFrom the folds of his toga he drew a roll of paper, and passed it\nto them, saying, \"Received while at table last night from--Sejanus.\"\n\nThe name was already a great one in the Roman world; great, and not\nso infamous as it afterwards became.\n\n\"Sejanus!\" they exclaimed, with one voice, closing in to read what\nthe minister had written.\n\n\n\"Sejanus to C. Caecilius Rufus, Duumvir.\n\n\"ROME, XIX. Kal. Sept.\n\n\"Caesar hath good report of Quintus Arrius, the tribune. In particular\nhe hath heard of his valor, manifested in the western seas, insomuch that\nit is his will that the said Quintus be transferred instantly to the East.\n\n\"It is our Caesar's will, further, that you cause a hundred triremes,\nof the first class, and full appointment, to be despatched without\ndelay against the pirates who have appeared in the Aegean, and that\nQuintus be sent to command the fleet so despatched.\n\n\"Details are thine, my Caecilius.\n\n\"The necessity is urgent, as thou will be advised by the reports\nenclosed for thy perusal and the information of the said Quintus.\n\n\"SEJANUS.\"\n\n\nArrius gave little heed to the reading. As the ship drew more plainly\nout of the perspective, she became more and more an attraction to him.\nThe look with which he watched her was that of an enthusiast. At length\nhe tossed the loosened folds of his toga in the air; in reply to\nthe signal, over the aplustre, or fan-like fixture at the stern\nof the vessel, a scarlet flag was displayed; while several sailors\nappeared upon the bulwarks, and swung themselves hand over hand up\nthe ropes to the antenna, or yard, and furled the sail. The bow was\nput round, and the time of the oars increased one half; so that at\nracing speed she bore down directly towards him and his friends.\nHe observed the manoeuvring with a perceptible brightening of the\neyes. Her instant answer to the rudder, and the steadiness with\nwhich she kept her course, were especially noticeable as virtues\nto be relied upon in action.\n\n\"By the Nymphae!\" said one of the friends, giving back the roll,\n\"we may not longer say our friend will be great; he is already great.\nOur love will now have famous things to feed upon. What more hast thou\nfor us?\"\n\n\"Nothing more,\" Arrius replied. \"What ye have of the affair is\nby this time old news in Rome, especially between the palace and\nthe Forum. The duumvir is discreet; what I am to do, where go to\nfind my fleet, he will tell on the ship, where a sealed package\nis waiting me. If, however, ye have offerings for any of the\naltars to-day, pray the gods for a friend plying oar and sail\nsomewhere in the direction of Sicily. But she is here, and will\ncome to,\" he said, reverting to the vessel. \"I have interest in\nher masters; they will sail and fight with me. It is not an easy\nthing to lay ship side on a shore like this; so let us judge their\ntraining and skill.\"\n\n\"What, is she new to thee?\"\n\n\"I never saw her before; and, as yet, I know not if she will bring\nme one acquaintance.\"\n\n\"Is that well?\"\n\n\"It matters but little. We of the sea come to know each other\nquickly; our loves, like our hates, are born of sudden dangers.\"\n\nThe vessel was of the class called naves liburnicae--long, narrow,\nlow in the water, and modelled for speed and quick manoeuvre. The bow\nwas beautiful. A jet of water spun from its foot as she came on,\nsprinkling all the prow, which rose in graceful curvature twice\na man's stature above the plane of the deck. Upon the bending of\nthe sides were figures of Triton blowing shells. Below the bow,\nfixed to the keel, and projecting forward under the water-line,\nwas the rostrum, or beak, a device of solid wood, reinforced and\narmed with iron, in action used as a ram. A stout molding extended\nfrom the bow the full length of the ship's sides, defining the\nbulwarks, which were tastefully crenelated; below the molding,\nin three rows, each covered with a cap or shield of bull-hide,\nwere the holes in which the oars were worked--sixty on the right,\nsixty on the left. In further ornamentation, caducei leaned against\nthe lofty prow. Two immense ropes passing across the bow marked the\nnumber of anchors stowed on the foredeck.\n\nThe simplicity of the upper works declared the oars the chief\ndependence of the crew. A mast, set a little forward of midship,\nwas held by fore and back stays and shrouds fixed to rings on the\ninner side of the bulwarks. The tackle was that required for the\nmanagement of one great square sail and the yard to which it was\nhung. Above the bulwarks the deck was visible.\n\nSave the sailors who had reefed the sail, and yet lingered on the\nyard, but one man was to be seen by the party on the mole, and he\nstood by the prow helmeted and with a shield.\n\nThe hundred and twenty oaken blades, kept white and shining by\npumice and the constant wash of the waves, rose and fell as if\noperated by the same hand, and drove the galley forward with a\nspeed rivalling that of a modern steamer.\n\nSo rapidly, and apparently, so rashly, did she come that the landsmen\nof the tribune's party were alarmed. Suddenly the man by the prow\nraised his hand with a peculiar gesture; whereupon all the oars\nflew up, poised a moment in air, then fell straight down. The water\nboiled and bubbled about them; the galley shook in every timber,\nand stopped as if scared. Another gesture of the hand, and again\nthe oars arose, feathered, and fell; but this time those on the\nright, dropping towards the stern, pushed forward; while those on\nthe left, dropping towards the bow, pulled backwards. Three times\nthe oars thus pushed and pulled against each other. Round to the\nright the ship swung as upon a pivot; then, caught by the wind,\nshe settled gently broadside to the mole.\n\nThe movement brought the stern to view, with all its garniture--Tritons\nlike those at the bow; name in large raised letters;\nthe rudder at the side; the elevated platform upon which the\nhelmsman sat, a stately figure in full armor, his hand upon the\nrudder-rope; and the aplustre, high, gilt, carved, and bent over\nthe helmsman like a great runcinate leaf.\n\nIn the midst of the rounding-to, a trumpet was blown brief and\nshrill, and from the hatchways out poured the marines, all in\nsuperb equipment, brazen helms, burnished shields and javelins.\nWhile the fighting-men thus went to quarters as for action, the\nsailors proper climbed the shrouds and perched themselves along\nthe yard. The officers and musicians took their posts. There was\nno shouting or needless noise. When the oars touched the mole,\na bridge was sent out from the helmsman's deck. Then the tribune\nturned to his party and said, with a gravity he had not before\nshown:\n\n\"Duty now, O my friends.\"\n\nHe took the chaplet from his head and gave it to the dice-player.\n\n\"Take thou the myrtle, O favorite of the tesserae!\" he said. \"If I\nreturn, I will seek my sestertii again; if I am not victor, I will\nnot return. Hang the crown in thy atrium.\"\n\nTo the company he opened his arms, and they came one by one and\nreceived his parting embrace.\n\n\"The gods go with thee, O Quintus!\" they said.\n\n\"Farewell,\" he replied.\n\nTo the slaves waving their torches he waved his hand; then he\nturned to the waiting ship, beautiful with ordered ranks and\ncrested helms, and shields and javelins. As he stepped upon\nthe bridge, the trumpets sounded, and over the aplustre rose\nthe vexillum purpureum, or pennant of a commander of a fleet.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nThe tribune, standing upon the helmsman's deck with the order of\nthe duumvir open in his hand, spoke to the chief of the rowers.[1]\n\n    [1] Called hortator.\n\n\n\"What force hast thou?\"\n\n\"Of oarsmen, two hundred and fifty-two; ten supernumeraries.\n\n\"Making reliefs of--\"\n\n\"Eighty-four.\"\n\n\"And thy habit?\"\n\n\"It has been to take off and put on every two hours.\"\n\nThe tribune mused a moment.\n\n\"The division is hard, and I will reform it, but not now. The oars\nmay not rest day or night.\"\n\nThen to the sailing-master he said,\n\n\"The wind is fair. Let the sail help the oars.\"\n\nWhen the two thus addressed were gone, he turned to the chief pilot.[2]\n\n    [2] Called rector.\n\n\n\"What service hast thou had?\"\n\n\"Two-and-thirty years.\"\n\n\"In what seas chiefly?\"\n\n\"Between our Rome and the East.\"\n\n\"Thou art the man I would have chosen.\"\n\nThe tribune looked at his orders again.\n\n\"Past the Camponellan cape, the course will be to Messina.\nBeyond that, follow the bend of the Calabrian shore till Melito\nis on thy left, then-- Knowest thou the stars that govern in the\nIonian Sea?\"\n\n\"I know them well.\"\n\n\"Then from Melito course eastward for Cythera. The gods willing,\nI will not anchor until in the Bay of Antemona. The duty is urgent.\nI rely upon thee.\"\n\nA prudent man was Arrius--prudent, and of the class which,\nwhile enriching the altars at Praeneste and Antium, was of\nopinion, nevertheless, that the favor of the blind goddess\ndepended more upon the votary's care and judgment than upon\nhis gifts and vows. All night as master of the feast he had sat\nat table drinking and playing; yet the odor of the sea returned\nhim to the mood of the sailor, and he would not rest until he\nknew his ship. Knowledge leaves no room for chances. Having begun\nwith the chief of the rowers, the sailing-master, and the pilot,\nin company with the other officers--the commander of the marines,\nthe keeper of the stores, the master of the machines, the overseer\nof the kitchen or fires--he passed through the several quarters.\nNothing escaped his inspection. When he was through, of the community\ncrowded within the narrow walls he alone knew perfectly all there was\nof material preparation for the voyage and its possible incidents;\nand, finding the preparation complete, there was left him but one\nthing further--thorough knowledge of the personnel of his command.\nAs this was the most delicate and difficult part of his task,\nrequiring much time, he set about it his own way.\n\nAt noon that day the galley was skimming the sea off Paestum.\nThe wind was yet from the west, filling the sail to the master's\ncontent. The watches had been established. On the foredeck the\naltar had been set and sprinkled with salt and barley, and before\nit the tribune had offered solemn prayers to Jove and to Neptune\nand all the Oceanidae, and, with vows, poured the wine and burned\nthe incense. And now, the better to study his men, he was seated\nin the great cabin, a very martial figure.\n\nThe cabin, it should be stated, was the central compartment of the\ngalley, in extent quite sixty-five by thirty feet, and lighted by\nthree broad hatchways. A row of stanchions ran from end to end,\nsupporting the roof, and near the centre the mast was visible,\nall bristling with axes and spears and javelins. To each hatchway\nthere were double stairs descending right and left, with a pivotal\narrangement at the top to allow the lower ends to be hitched to\nthe ceiling; and, as these were now raised, the compartment had\nthe appearance of a skylighted hall.\n\nThe reader will understand readily that this was the heart of\nthe ship, the home of all aboard--eating-room, sleeping-chamber,\nfield of exercise, lounging-place off duty--uses made possible by\nthe laws which reduced life there to minute details and a routine\nrelentless as death.\n\nAt the after-end of the cabin there was a platform, reached by\nseveral steps. Upon it the chief of the rowers sat; in front of\nhim a sounding-table, upon which, with a gavel, he beat time\nfor the oarsmen; at his right a clepsydra, or water-clock,\nto measure the reliefs and watches. Above him, on a higher\nplatform, well guarded by gilded railing, the tribune had his\nquarters, overlooking everything, and furnished with a couch,\na table, and a cathedra, or chair, cushioned, and with arms and\nhigh back--articles which the imperial dispensation permitted of\nthe utmost elegance.\n\nThus at ease, lounging in the great chair, swaying with the motion\nof the vessel, the military cloak half draping his tunic, sword in\nbelt, Arrius kept watchful eye over his command, and was as closely\nwatched by them. He saw critically everything in view, but dwelt\nlongest upon the rowers. The reader would doubtless have done\nthe same: only he would have looked with much sympathy, while,\nas is the habit with masters, the tribune's mind ran forward of\nwhat he saw, inquiring for results.\n\nThe spectacle was simple enough of itself. Along the sides of the\ncabin, fixed to the ship's timbers, were what at first appeared\nto be three rows of benches; a closer view, however, showed them\na succession of rising banks, in each of which the second bench\nwas behind and above the first one, and the third above and behind\nthe second. To accommodate the sixty rowers on a side, the space\ndevoted to them permitted nineteen banks separated by intervals of\none yard, with a twentieth bank divided so that what would have\nbeen its upper seat or bench was directly above the lower seat\nof the first bank. The arrangement gave each rower when at work\nample room, if he timed his movements with those of his associates,\nthe principle being that of soldiers marching with cadenced step in\nclose order. The arrangement also allowed a multiplication of banks,\nlimited only by the length of the galley.\n\nAs to the rowers, those upon the first and second benches sat,\nwhile those upon the third, having longer oars to work, were suffered\nto stand. The oars were loaded with lead in the handles, and near the\npoint of balance hung to pliable thongs, making possible the delicate\ntouch called feathering, but, at the same time, increasing the\nneed of skill, since an eccentric wave might at any moment catch\na heedless fellow and hurl him from his seat. Each oar-hole was\na vent through which the laborer opposite it had his plenty of\nsweet air. Light streamed down upon him from the grating which\nformed the floor of the passage between the deck and the bulwark\nover his head. In some respects, therefore, the condition of the\nmen might have been much worse. Still, it must not be imagined that\nthere was any pleasantness in their lives. Communication between\nthem was not allowed. Day after day they filled their places\nwithout speech; in hours of labor they could not see each other's\nfaces; their short respites were given to sleep and the snatching\nof food. They never laughed; no one ever heard one of them sing.\nWhat is the use of tongues when a sigh or a groan will tell all\nmen feel while, perforce, they think in silence? Existence with\nthe poor wretches was like a stream under ground sweeping slowly,\nlaboriously on to its outlet, wherever that might chance to be.\n\nO Son of Mary! The sword has now a heart--and thine the glory!\nSo now; but, in the days of which we are writing, for captivity\nthere was drudgery on walls, and in the streets and mines, and the\ngalleys both of war and commerce were insatiable. When Druilius won\nthe first sea-fight for his country, Romans plied the oars, and the\nglory was to the rower not less than the marine. These benches which\nnow we are trying to see as they were testified to the change come\nwith conquest, and illustrated both the policy and the prowess of\nRome. Nearly all the nations had sons there, mostly prisoners of\nwar, chosen for their brawn and endurance. In one place a Briton;\nbefore him a Libyan; behind him a Crimean. Elsewhere a Scythian,\na Gaul, and a Thebasite. Roman convicts cast down to consort with\nGoths and Longobardi, Jews, Ethiopians, and barbarians from the\nshores of Maeotis. Here an Athenian, there a\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}
{"id": "pg19_001", "title": "Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21249", "tokens": 65537, "chars": 277063, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nCHAPTER ONE.\n\nBOOK ONE--HIS VOCATION.\n\nTHE LAST OF A SCHOOLBOY.\n\nEdwin Clayhanger stood on the steep-sloping, red-bricked canal bridge,\nin the valley between Bursley and its suburb Hillport.  In that\nneighbourhood the Knype and Mersey canal formed the western boundary of\nthe industrialism of the Five Towns.  To the east rose pitheads,\nchimneys, and kilns, tier above tier, dim in their own mists.  To the\nwest, Hillport Fields, grimed but possessing authentic hedgerows and\nwinding paths, mounted broadly up to the sharp ridge on which stood\nHillport Church, a landmark.  Beyond the ridge, and partly protected by\nit from the driving smoke of the Five Towns, lay the fine and ancient\nTory borough of Oldcastle, from whose historic Middle School Edwin\nClayhanger was now walking home.  The fine and ancient Tory borough\nprovided education for the whole of the Five Towns, but the relentless\nignorance of its prejudices had blighted the district.  A hundred years\nearlier the canal had only been obtained after a vicious Parliamentary\nfight between industry and the fine and ancient borough, which saw in\ncanals a menace to its importance as a centre of traffic.  Fifty years\nearlier the fine and ancient borough had succeeded in forcing the\ngreatest railway line in England to run through unpopulated country five\nmiles off instead of through the Five Towns, because it loathed the mere\nconception of a railway.  And now, people are inquiring why the Five\nTowns, with a railway system special to itself, is characterised by a\nperhaps excessive provincialism.  These interesting details have\neverything to do with the history of Edwin Clayhanger, as they have\neverything to do with the history of each of the two hundred thousand\nsouls in the Five Towns.  Oldcastle guessed not the vast influences of\nits sublime stupidity.\n\nIt was a breezy Friday in July 1872.  The canal, which ran north and\nsouth, reflected a blue and white sky.  Towards the bridge, from the\nnorth came a long narrow canal-boat roofed with tarpaulins; and towards\nthe bridge, from the south came a similar craft, sluggishly creeping.\nThe towing-path was a morass of sticky brown mud, for, in the way of\nrain, that year was breaking the records of a century and a half.\nThirty yards in front of each boat an unhappy skeleton of a horse\nfloundered its best in the quagmire.  The honest endeavour of one of the\nanimals received a frequent tonic from a bare-legged girl of seven who\nheartily curled a whip about its crooked large-jointed legs.  The ragged\nand filthy child danced in the rich mud round the horse's flanks with\nthe simple joy of one who had been rewarded for good behaviour by the\nunrestricted use of a whip for the first time.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nEdwin, with his elbows on the stone parapet of the bridge, stared\nuninterested at the spectacle of the child, the whip, and the skeleton.\nHe was not insensible to the piquancy of the pageant of life, but his\nmind was preoccupied with grave and heavy matters.  He had left school\nthat day, and what his eyes saw as he leaned on the bridge was not a\nwilling beast and a gladdened infant, but the puzzling world and the\nadvance guard of its problems bearing down on him.  Slim, gawky, untidy,\nfair, with his worn black-braided clothes, and slung over his shoulders\nin a bursting satchel the last load of his schoolbooks, and on his\nbright, rough hair a shapeless cap whose lining protruded behind, he had\nthe extraordinary wistful look of innocence and simplicity which marks\nmost boys of sixteen.  It seemed rather a shame, it seemed even tragic,\nthat this naive, simple creature, with his straightforward and friendly\neyes so eager to believe appearances, this creature immaculate of\nworldly experience, must soon be transformed into a man, wary,\nincredulous, detracting.  Older eyes might have wept at the simplicity\nof those eyes.\n\nThis picture of Edwin as a wistful innocent would have made Edwin laugh.\nHe had been seven years at school, and considered himself a hardened\nsort of brute, free of illusions.  And he sometimes thought that he\ncould judge the world better than most neighbouring mortals.\n\n\"Hello!  The Sunday!\" he murmured, without turning his eyes.\n\nAnother boy, a little younger and shorter, and clothed in a superior\nuntidiness, had somehow got on to the bridge, and was leaning with his\nback against the parapet which supported Edwin's elbows.  His eyes were\nfranker and simpler even than the eyes of Edwin, and his lips seemed to\nbe permanently parted in a good-humoured smile.  His name was Charlie\nOrgreave, but at school he was invariably called \"the Sunday\"--not\n\"Sunday,\" but \"the Sunday\"--and nobody could authoritatively explain how\nhe had come by the nickname.  Its origin was lost in the prehistoric\nages of his childhood.  He and Edwin had been chums for several years.\nThey had not sworn fearful oaths of loyalty; they did not constitute a\nsecret society; they had not even pricked forearms and written certain\nwords in blood; for these rites are only performed at Harrow, and\npossibly at the Oldcastle High School, which imitates Harrow.  Their\nfellowship meant chiefly that they spent a great deal of time together,\ninstinctively and unconsciously enjoying each other's mere presence, and\nthat in public arguments they always reinforced each other, whatever the\ndegree of intellectual dishonesty thereby necessitated.\n\n\"I'll bet you mine gets to the bridge first,\" said the Sunday.  With an\ningenious movement of the shoulders he arranged himself so that the\nparapet should bear the weight of his satchel.\n\nEdwin Clayhanger slowly turned round, and perceived that the object\nwhich the Sunday had appropriated as \"his\" was the other canal-boat,\nadvancing from the south.\n\n\"Horse or boat?\" asked Edwin.\n\n\"Boat's nose, of course,\" said the Sunday.\n\n\"Well,\" said Edwin, having surveyed the unconscious competitors, and\ncounting on the aid of the whipping child, \"I don't mind laying you\nfive.\"\n\n\"That be damned for a tale!\" protested the Sunday.  \"We said we'd never\nbet less than ten--you know that.\"\n\n\"Yes, but--\" Edwin hesitatingly drawled.\n\n\"But what?\"\n\n\"All right.  Ten,\" Edwin agreed.  \"But it's not fair.  You've got a rare\nstart on me.\"\n\n\"Rats!\" said the Sunday, with finality.  In the pronunciation of this\nword the difference between his accent and Edwin's came out clear.  The\nSunday's accent was less local; there was a hint of a short \"e\" sound in\nthe \"a,\" and a briskness about the consonants, that Edwin could never\nhave compassed.  The Sunday's accent was as carelessly superior as his\nclothes.  Evidently the Sunday had some one at home who had not learnt\nthe art of speech in the Five Towns.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nHe began to outline a scheme, in which perpendicular expectoration\nfigured, for accurately deciding the winner, and a complicated argument\nmight have ensued about this, had it not soon become apparent that\nEdwin's boat was going to be handsomely beaten, despite the joyous\nefforts of the little child.  The horse that would die but would not\ngive up, was only saved from total subsidence at every step by his\nindomitable if aged spirit.  Edwin handed over the ten marbles even\nbefore the other boat had arrived at the bridge.\n\n\"Here,\" he said.  \"And you may as well have these, too,\" adding five\nmore to the ten, all he possessed.  They were not the paltry marble of\nto-day, plaything of infants, but the majestic \"rinker,\" black with\nwhite spots, the king of marbles in an era when whole populations\npractised the game.  Edwin looked at them half regretfully as they lay\nin the Sunday's hands.  They seemed prodigious wealth in those hands,\nand he felt somewhat as a condemned man might feel who bequeaths his\njewels on the scaffold.  Then there was a rattle, and a tumour grew out\nlarger on the Sunday's thigh.\n\nThe winning boat, long preceded by its horse, crawled under the bridge\nand passed northwards to the sea, laden with crates of earthenware.  And\nthen the loser, with the little girl's father and mother and her\nbrothers and sisters, and her kitchen, drawing-room, and bedroom, and\nher smoking chimney and her memories and all that was hers, in the stern\nof it, slid beneath the boys' down-turned faces while the whip cracked\naway beyond the bridge.  They could see, between the whitened\ntarpaulins, that the deep belly of the craft was filled with clay.\n\n\"Where does that there clay come from?\" asked Edwin.  For not merely was\nhe honestly struck by a sudden new curiosity, but it was meet for him to\nbehave like a man now, and to ask manly questions.\n\n\"Runcorn,\" said the Sunday scornfully.  \"Can't you see it painted all\nover the boat?\"\n\n\"Why do they bring clay all the way from Runcorn?\"\n\n\"They don't bring it from Runcorn.  They bring it from Cornwall.  It\ncomes round by sea--see?\"  He laughed.\n\n\"Who told you?\"  Edwin roughly demanded.\n\n\"Anybody knows that!\" said the Sunday grandly, but always maintaining\nhis gay smile.\n\n\"Seems devilish funny to me,\" Edwin murmured, after reflection, \"that\nthey should bring clay all that roundabout way just to make crocks of it\nhere.  Why should they choose just this place to make crocks in?  I\nalways understood--\"\n\n\"Oh!  Come on!\" the Sunday cut him short.  \"It's blessed well one\no'clock and after!\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nThey climbed the long bank from the canal up to the Manor Farm, at which\nhigh point their roads diverged, one path leading direct to Bleakridge\nwhere Orgreave lived, and the other zigzagging down through neglected\npasturage into Bursley proper.  Usually they parted here without a word,\ntaking pride in such Spartan taciturnity, and they would doubtless have\ndone the same this morning also, though it were fifty-fold their last\nwalk together as two schoolboys.  But an incident intervened.\n\n\"Hold on!\" cried the Sunday.\n\nTo the south of them, a mile and a half off, in the wreathing mist of\nthe Cauldon Bar Ironworks, there was a yellow gleam that even the\ncapricious sunlight could not kill, and then two rivers of fire sprang\nfrom the gleam and ran in a thousand delicate and lovely hues down the\nside of a mountain of refuse.  They were emptying a few tons of molten\nslag at the Cauldon Bar Ironworks.  The two rivers hung slowly dying in\nthe mists of smoke.  They reddened and faded, and you thought they had\nvanished, and you could see them yet, and then they escaped the baffled\neye, unless a cloud aided them for a moment against the sun; and their\nephemeral but enchanting beauty had expired for ever.\n\n\"Now!\" said Edwin sharply.\n\n\"One minute ten seconds,\" said the Sunday, who had snatched out his\nwatch, an inestimable contrivance with a centre-seconds hand.  \"By Jove!\nThat was a good 'un.\"\n\nA moment later two smaller boys, both laden with satchels, appeared over\nthe brow from the canal.\n\n\"Let's wait a jiff,\" said the Sunday to Edwin, and as the smaller boys\nshowed no hurry he bawled out to them across the intervening\ncinder-waste: \"Run!\"  They ran.  They were his younger brothers, Johnnie\nand Jimmie.  \"Take this and hook it!\" he commanded, passing the strap of\nhis satchel over his head as they came up.  In fatalistic silence they\nobeyed the smiling tyrant.\n\n\"What are you going to do?\"  Edwin asked.\n\n\"I'm coming down your way a bit.\"\n\n\"But I thought you said you were peckish.\"\n\n\"I shall eat three slices of beef instead of my usual brace,\" said the\nSunday carelessly.\n\nEdwin was touched.  And the Sunday was touched, because he knew he had\ntouched Edwin.  After all, this was a solemn occasion.  But neither\nwould overtly admit that its solemnity had affected him.  Hence, first\none and then the other began to skim stones with vicious force over the\nsurface of the largest of the three ponds that gave interest to the\nManor Farm.  When they had thus proved to themselves that the day\ndiffered in no manner from any other breaking-up day, they went forward.\n\nOn their left were two pitheads whose double wheels revolved rapidly in\nsmooth silence, and the puffing engine-house and all the trucks and gear\nof a large ironstone mine.  On their right was the astonishing farm,\nwith barns and ricks and cornfields complete, seemingly quite unaware of\nits forlorn oddness in that foul arena of manufacture.  In front, on a\nlittle hill in the vast valley, was spread out the Indian-red\narchitecture of Bursley--tall chimneys and rounded ovens, schools, the\nnew scarlet market, the grey tower of the old church, the high spire of\nthe evangelical church, the low spire of the church of genuflexions, and\nthe crimson chapels, and rows of little red houses with amber\nchimney-pots, and the gold angel of the blackened Town Hall topping the\nwhole.  The sedate reddish browns and reds of the composition, all\nnetted in flowing scarves of smoke, harmonised exquisitely with the\nchill blues of the chequered sky.  Beauty was achieved, and none saw it.\n\nThe boys descended without a word through the brick-strewn pastures,\nwhere a horse or two cropped the short grass.  At the railway bridge,\nwhich carried a branch mineral line over the path, they exchanged a\nbrief volley of words with the working-lads who always played\npitch-and-toss there in the dinner-hour; and the Sunday added to the\ncollection of shawds and stones lodged on the under ledges of the low\niron girders.  A strange boy, he had sworn to put ten thousand stones on\nthose ledges before he died, or perish in the attempt.  Hence Edwin\nsometimes called him \"Old Perish-in-the-attempt.\"  A little farther on\nthe open gates of a manufactory disclosed six men playing the noble game\nof rinkers on a smooth patch of ground near the weighing machine.  These\nsix men were Messieurs Ford, Carter, and Udall, the three partners\nowning the works, and three of their employees.  They were celebrated\nmarble-players, and the boys stayed to watch them as, bending with one\nknee almost touching the earth, they shot the rinkers from their stubby\nthumbs with a canon-like force and precision that no boy could ever hope\nto equal.  \"By gum!\" mumbled Edwin involuntarily, when an impossible\nshot was accomplished; and the bearded shooter, pleased by this tribute\nfrom youth, twisted his white apron into a still narrower ring round his\nwaist.  Yet Edwin was not thinking about the game.  He was thinking\nabout a battle that lay before him, and how he would be weakened in the\nfight by the fact that in the last school examination, Charlie Orgreave,\nyounger than himself by a year, had ousted him from the second place in\nthe school.  The report in his pocket said: \"Position in class next\nterm: third;\" whereas he had been second since the beginning of the\nyear.  There would of course be no \"next term\" for him, but the report\nremained.  A youth who has come to grips with that powerful enemy, his\nfather, cannot afford to be handicapped by even such a trifle as a\nreport entirely irrelevant to the struggle.\n\nSuddenly Charlie Orgreave gave a curt nod, and departed, in nonchalant\ngood-humour, doubtless considering that to accompany his chum any\nfarther would be to be guilty of girlish sentimentality.  And Edwin\nnodded with equal curtness and made off slowly into the maze of Bursley.\nThe thought in his heart was: \"I'm on my own, now.  I've got to face it\nnow, by myself.\"  And he felt that not merely his father, but the\nleagued universe, was against him.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWO.\n\nTHE FLAME.\n\nThe various agencies which society has placed at the disposal of a\nparent had been at work on Edwin in one way or another for at least a\ndecade, in order to equip him for just this very day when he should step\ninto the world.  The moment must therefore be regarded as dramatic, the\nfirst crucial moment of an experiment long and elaborately prepared.\nKnowledge was admittedly the armour and the weapon of one about to try\nconclusions with the world, and many people for many years had been\nengaged in providing Edwin with knowledge.  He had received, in fact, \"a\ngood education\"--or even, as some said, \"a thoroughly sound education;\"\nassuredly as complete an equipment of knowledge as could be obtained in\nthe county, for the curriculum of the Oldcastle High School was less in\naccord with common sense than that of the Middle School.\n\nHe knew, however, nothing of natural history, and in particular of\nhimself, of the mechanism of the body and mind, through which his soul\nhad to express and fulfil itself.  Not one word of information about\neither physiology or psychology had ever been breathed to him, nor had\nit ever occurred to any one around him that such information was\nneedful.  And as no one had tried to explain to him the mysteries which\nhe carried about with him inside that fair skin of his, so no one had\ntried to explain to him the mysteries by which he was hemmed in, either\nmystically through religion, or rationally through philosophy.  Never in\nchapel or at Sunday school had a difficulty been genuinely faced.  And\nas for philosophy, he had not the slightest conception of what it meant.\nHe imagined that a philosopher was one who made the best of a bad job,\nand he had never heard the word used in any other sense.  He had great\npotential intellectual curiosity, but nobody had thought to stimulate it\nby even casually telling him that the finest minds of humanity had been\ntrying to systematise the mysteries for quite twenty-five centuries.  Of\nphysical science he had been taught nothing, save a grotesque perversion\nto the effect that gravity was a force which drew things towards the\ncentre of the earth.  In the matter of chemistry it had been practically\ndemonstrated to him scores of times, so that he should never forget this\ngrand basic truth, that sodium and potassium may be relied upon to fizz\nflamingly about on a surface of water.  Of geology he was perfectly\nignorant, though he lived in a district whose whole livelihood depended\non the scientific use of geological knowledge, and though the existence\nof Oldcastle itself was due to a freak of the earth's crust which\ngeologists call a \"fault.\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nGeography had been one of his strong points.  He was aware of the rivers\nof Asia in their order, and of the principal products of Uruguay; and he\ncould name the capitals of nearly all the United States.  But he had\nnever been instructed for five minutes in the geography of his native\ncounty, of which he knew neither the boundaries nor the rivers nor the\nterrene characteristics.  He could have drawn a map of the Orinoco, but\nhe could not have found the Trent in a day's march; he did not even know\nwhere his drinking-water came from.  That geographical considerations\nare the cause of all history had never been hinted to him, nor that\nhistory bears immediately upon modern life and bore on his own life.\nFor him history hung unsupported and unsupporting in the air.  In the\ncourse of his school career he had several times approached the\nnineteenth century, but it seemed to him that for administrative reasons\nhe was always being dragged back again to the Middle Ages.  Once his\nform had \"got\" as far as the infancy of his own father, and concerning\nthis period he had learnt that \"great dissatisfaction prevailed among\nthe labouring classes, who were led to believe by mischievous\ndemagogues,\" etcetera.  But the next term he was recoiling round Henry\nthe Eighth, who \"was a skilful warrior and politician,\" but \"unfortunate\nin his domestic relations;\" and so to Elizabeth, than whom \"few\nsovereigns have been so much belied, but her character comes out\nunscathed after the closest examination.\"  History indeed resolved\nitself into a series of more or less sanguinary events arbitrarily\ngrouped under the names of persons who had to be identified with the\nassistance of numbers.  Neither of the development of national life, nor\nof the clash of nations, did he really know anything that was not\ninessential and anecdotic.  He could not remember the clauses of Magna\nCharta, but he knew eternally that it was signed at a place amusingly\ncalled Runnymede.  And the one fact engraved on his memory about the\nbattle of Waterloo was that it was fought on a Sunday.\n\nAnd as he had acquired absolutely nothing about political economy or\nabout logic, and was therefore at the mercy of the first agreeable\nsophistry that might take his fancy by storm, his unfitness to commence\nthe business of being a citizen almost reached perfection.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nFor his personal enjoyment of the earth and air and sun and stars, and\nof society and solitude, no preparation had been made, or dreamt of.\nThe sentiment of nature had never been encouraged in him, or even\nmentioned.  He knew not how to look at a landscape nor at a sky.  Of\nplants and trees he was as exquisitely ignorant as of astronomy.  It had\nnot occurred to him to wonder why the days are longer in summer, and he\nvaguely supposed that the cold of winter was due to an increased\ndistance of the earth from the sun.  Still, he had learnt that Saturn\nhad a ring, and sometimes he unconsciously looked for it in the\nfirmament, as for a tea-tray.\n\nOf art, and the arts, he had been taught nothing.  He had never seen a\ngreat picture or statue, nor heard great orchestral or solo music; and\nhe had no idea that architecture was an art and emotional, though it\nmoved him in a very peculiar fashion.  Of the art of English literature,\nor of any other literature, he had likewise been taught nothing.  But he\nknew the meaning of a few obsolete words in a few plays of Shakespeare.\nHe had not learnt how to express himself orally in any language, but\nthrough hard drilling he was so genuinely erudite in accidence and\nsyntax that he could parse and analyse with superb assurance the most\nmagnificent sentences of Milton, Virgil, and Racine.  This skill,\ntogether with an equal skill in utilising the elementary properties of\nnumbers and geometrical figures, was the most brilliant achievement of\nhis long apprenticeship.\n\nAnd now his education was finished.  It had cost his father twenty-eight\nshillings a term, or four guineas a year, and no trouble.  In younger\ndays his father had spent more money and far more personal attention on\nthe upbringing of a dog.  His father had enjoyed success with dogs\nthrough treating them as individuals.  But it had not happened to him,\nnor to anybody in authority, to treat Edwin as an individual.\nNevertheless it must not be assumed that Edwin's father was a callous\nand conscienceless brute, and Edwin a martyr of neglect.  Old Clayhanger\nwas, on the contrary, an average upright and respectable parent who had\ngiven his son a thoroughly sound education, and Edwin had had the good\nfortune to receive that thoroughly sound education, as a preliminary to\nentering the world.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nHe was very far from realising the imperfections of his equipment for\nthe grand entry; but still he was not without uneasiness.  In particular\nthe conversation incident to the canal-boat wager was disturbing him.\nIt amazed him, as he reflected, that he should have remained, to such an\nadvanced age, in a state of ignorance concerning the origin of the clay\nfrom which the crocks of his native district were manufactured.  That\nthe Sunday should have been able to inform him did not cause him any\nshame, for he guessed from the peculiar eager tone of voice in which the\nfacts had been delivered, that the Sunday was merely retailing some\nknowledge recently acquired by chance.  He knew all the Sunday's tones\nof voice; and he also was well aware that the Sunday's brain was not on\nthe whole better stored than his own.  Further, the Sunday was satisfied\nwith his bit of accidental knowledge.  Edwin was not.  Edwin wanted to\nknow why, if the clay for making earthenware was not got in the Five\nTowns, the Five Towns had become the great seat of the manufacture.  Why\nwere not pots made in the South, where the clay came from?  He could not\nthink of any answer to this enigma, nor of any means of arriving by\nhimself at an answer.  The feeling was that he ought to have been able\nto arrive at the answer as at the answer to an equation.\n\nHe did not definitely blame his education; he did not think clearly\nabout the thing at all.  But, as a woman with a vague discomfort dimly\nfears cancer, so he dimly feared that there might be something\nfundamentally unsound in this sound education of his.  And he had\nremorse for all the shirking that he had been guilty of during all his\nyears at school.  He shook his head solemnly at the immense and nearly\nuniversal shirking that continually went on.  He could only acquit three\nor four boys, among the hundreds he had known, of the shameful sin.  And\nall that he could say in favour of himself was that there were many\nworse than Edwin Clayhanger.  Not merely the boys, but the masters, were\nsinners.  Only two masters could he unreservedly respect as having acted\nconscientiously up to their pretensions, and one of these was an\nunpleasant brute.  All the cleverness, the ingenuities, the fakes, the\ninsincerities, the incapacitaties, the vanities, and the dishonesties of\nthe rest stood revealed to him, and he judged them by the mere essential\nforce of character alone.  A schoolmaster might as well attempt to\ndeceive God as a boy who is watching him every day with the inhuman eye\nof youth.\n\n\"All this must end now!\" he said to himself, meaning all that could be\nincluded in the word \"shirk.\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nHe was splendidly serious.  He was as splendidly serious as a reformer.\nBy a single urgent act of thought he would have made himself a man, and\nchanged imperfection into perfection.  He desired--and there was real\npassion in his desire--to do his best, to exhaust himself in doing his\nbest, in living according to his conscience.  He did not know of what he\nwas capable, nor what he could achieve.  Achievement was not the matter\nof his desire; but endeavour, honest and terrific endeavour.  He\nadmitted to himself his shortcomings, and he did not under-estimate the\ndifficulties that lay before him; but he said, thinking of his father:\n\"Surely he'll see I mean business!  Surely he's bound to give in when he\nsees how much in earnest I am!\"  He was convinced, almost, that\npassionate faith could move mountainous fathers.\n\n\"I'll show 'em!\" he muttered.\n\nAnd he meant that he would show the world...  He was honouring the\nworld; he was paying the finest homage to it.  In that head of his a\nflame burnt that was like an altar-fire, a miraculous and beautiful\nphenomenon, than which nothing is more miraculous nor more beautiful\nover the whole earth.  Whence had it suddenly sprung, that flame?  After\nyears of muddy inefficiency, of contentedness with the second-rate and\nthe dishonest, that flame astoundingly bursts forth, from a hidden,\nunheeded spark that none had ever thought to blow upon.  It bursts forth\nout of a damp jungle of careless habits and negligence that could not\npossibly have fed it.  There is little to encourage it.  The very\narchitecture of the streets shows that environment has done naught for\nit: ragged brickwork, walls finished anyhow with saggars and slag;\nnarrow uneven alleys leading to higgledy-piggledy workshops and kilns;\ncottages transformed into factories and factories into cottages,\nclumsily, hastily, because nothing matters so long as \"it will do;\"\neverywhere something forced to fulfil, badly, the function of something\nelse; in brief, the reign of the slovenly makeshift, shameless, filthy,\nand picturesque.  Edwin himself seemed no tabernacle for that singular\nflame.  He was not merely untidy and dirty--at his age such defects\nmight have excited in a sane observer uneasiness by their absence; but\nhis gestures and his gait were untidy.  He did not mind how he walked.\nAll his sprawling limbs were saying: \"What does it matter, so long as we\nget there?\"  The angle of the slatternly bag across his shoulders was an\ninsult to the flame.  And yet the flame burned with serene and terrible\npureness.\n\nIt was surprising that no one saw it passing along the mean, black,\nsmoke-palled streets that huddle about Saint Luke's Church.  Sundry\nexperienced and fat old women were standing or sitting at their cottage\ndoors, one or two smoking cutties.  But even they, who in child-bed and\nat gravesides had been at the very core of life for long years, they,\nwho saw more than most, could only see a fresh lad passing along, with\nfair hair and a clear complexion, and gawky knees and elbows, a fierce,\nrapt expression on his straightforward, good-natured face.  Some knew\nthat it was \"Clayhanger's lad,\" a nice-behaved young gentleman, and the\nspitten image of his poor mother.  They all knew what a lad is--the feel\nof his young skin under his \"duds,\" the capricious freedom of his\nmovements, his sudden madnesses and shoutings and tendernesses, and the\nexceeding power of his unconscious wistful charm.  They could divine all\nthat in a glance.  But they could not see the mysterious and holy flame\nof the desire for self-perfection blazing within that tousled head.  And\nif Edwin had suspected that anybody could indeed perceive it, he would\nhave whipped it out for shame, though the repudiation had meant\neverlasting death.  Such is youth in the Five Towns, if not elsewhere.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE.\n\nENTRY INTO THE WORLD.\n\nEdwin came steeply out of the cinder-strewn back streets by Woodisun\nBank [hill] into Duck Square, nearly at the junction of Trafalgar Road\nand Wedgwood Street.  A few yards down Woodisun Bank, cocks and hens\nwere scurrying, with necks horizontal, from all quarters, and were even\nflying, to the call of a little old woman who threw grain from the top\nstep of her porch.  On the level of the narrow pavement stood an immense\nconstable, clad in white trousers, with a gun under his arm for the\nkilling of mad dogs; he was talking to the woman, and their two heads\nwere exactly at the same height.  On a pair of small double gates near\nthe old woman's cottage were painted the words, \"Steam Printing Works.\nNo admittance except on business.\"  And from as far as Duck Square could\nbe heard the puff-puff which proved the use of steam in this works to\nwhich idlers and mere pleasure-seekers were forbidden access.\n\nDuck Square was one of the oldest, if the least imposing, of all the\npublic places in Bursley.  It had no traffic across it, being only a\nsloping rectangle, like a vacant lot, with Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood\nStreet for its exterior sides, and no outlet on its inner sides.  The\nbuildings on those inner sides were low and humble and, as it were,\nwithdrawn from the world, the chief of them being the ancient Duck Inn,\nwhere the hand-bell ringers used to meet.  But Duck Square looked out\nupon the very birth of Trafalgar Road, that wide, straight thoroughfare,\nwhose name dates it, which had been invented, in the lifetime of a few\nthen living, to unite Bursley with Hanbridge.  It also looked out upon\nthe birth of several old pack-horse roads which Trafalgar Road had\nsupplanted.  One of these was Woodisun Bank, that wound slowly up hill\nand down dale, apparently always choosing the longest and hardest route,\nto Hanbridge; and another was Aboukir Street, formerly known as Warm\nLane, that reached Hanbridge in a manner equally difficult and\nunhurried.  At the junction of Trafalgar Road and Aboukir Street stood\nthe Dragon Hotel, once the great posting-house of the town, from which\nall roads started.  Duck Square had watched coaches and waggons stop at\nand start from the Dragon Hotel for hundreds of years.  It had seen the\nDragon rebuilt in brick and stone, with fine bay windows on each storey,\nin early Georgian times, and it had seen even the new structure become\nold and assume the dignity of age.  Duck Square could remember strings\nof pack-mules driven by women, `trapesing' in zigzags down Woodisun Bank\nand Warm Lane, and occasionally falling, with awful smashes of the\ncrockery they carried, in the deep, slippery, scarce passable mire of\nthe first slants into the valley.  Duck Square had witnessed the slow\ndeclension of these roads into mere streets, and slum streets at that,\nand the death of all mules, and the disappearance of all coaches and all\nneighing and prancing and whipcracking romance; while Trafalgar Road,\nsimply because it was straight and broad and easily graded, flourished\nwith toll-bars and a couple of pair-horsed trams that ran on lines.  And\nmany people were proud of those cushioned trams; but perhaps they had\nnever known that coach-drivers used to tell each other about the state\nof the turn at the bottom of Warm Lane (since absurdly renamed in honour\nof an Egyptian battle), and that Woodisun Bank (now unnoticed save by\ndoubtful characters, policemen, and schoolboys) was once regularly\n`taken' by four horses at a canter.  The history of human manners is\ncrunched and embedded in the very macadam of that part of the borough,\nand the burgesses unheedingly tread it down every day and talk gloomily\nabout the ugly smoky prose of industrial manufacture.  And yet the\nDragon Hotel, safely surviving all revolutions by the mighty virtue and\nattraction of ale, stands before them to remind them of the\ninterestingness of existence.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nAt the southern corner of Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street, with Duck\nSquare facing it, the Dragon Hotel and Warm Lane to its right, and\nWoodisun Bank creeping inconspicuously down to its left, stood a\nthree-storey building consisting of house and shop, the frontage being\nin Wedgwood Street.  Over the double-windowed shop was a discreet\nsignboard in gilt letters, \"D.  Clayhanger, Printer and Stationer,\" but\nabove the first floor was a later and much larger sign, with the single\nword, \"Steam-printing.\"  All the brickwork of the facade was painted\nyellow, and had obviously been painted yellow many times; the woodwork\nof the plate-glass windows was a very dark green approaching black.  The\nupper windows were stumpy, almost square, some dirty and some clean and\ncurtained, with prominent sills and architraves.  The line of the\nprojecting spouting at the base of the roof was slightly curved through\nsubsidence; at either end of the roof-ridge rose twin chimneys each with\nthree salmon- chimney-pots.  The gigantic word `Steam-printing'\ncould be seen from the windows of the Dragon, from the porch of the big\nWesleyan chapel higher up the <DW72>, from the Conservative Club and the\nplayground at the top of the <DW72>; and as for Duck Square itself, it\ncould see little else.  The left-hand shop window was alluringly set out\nwith the lighter apparatus of writing and reading, and showed\nincidentally several rosy pictures of ideal English maidens; that to the\nright was grim and heavy with ledgers, inks, and variegated specimens of\nsteam-printing.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nIn the wedge-shaped doorway between the windows stood two men, one\nmiddle-aged and one old, one bareheaded and the other with a beaver hat,\nengaged in conversation.  They were talking easily, pleasantly, with\nfree gestures, the younger looking down in deferential smiles at the\nelder, and the elder looking up benignantly at the younger.  You could\nsee that, having begun with a business matter, they had quitted it for a\ntopic of the hour.  But business none the less went forward, the shop\nfunctioned, the presses behind the shop were being driven by steam as\nadvertised; a customer emerged, and was curtly nodded at by the\nproprietor as he squeezed past; a girl with a small flannel apron over a\nlarge cotton apron went timidly into the shop.  The trickling, calm\ncommerce of a provincial town was proceeding, bit being added to bit and\nitem to item, until at the week's end a series of apparent nothings had\nswollen into the livelihood of near half a score of people.  And nobody\nperceived how interesting it was, this interchange of activities, this\nebb and flow of money, this sluggish rise and fall of reputations and\nfortunes, stretching out of one century into another and towards a\nthird!  Printing had been done at that corner, though not by steam,\nsince the time of the French Revolution.  Bibles and illustrated herbals\nhad been laboriously produced by hand at that corner, and hawked on the\nbacks of asses all over the county; and nobody heard romance in the\npuffing of the hidden steam-engine multiplying catalogues and billheads\non the self-same spot at the rate of hundreds an hour.\n\nThe younger and bigger of the two men chatting in the doorway was Darius\nClayhanger, Edwin's father, and the first printer to introduce steam\ninto Bursley.  His age was then under forty-five, but he looked more.\nHe was dressed in black, with an ample shirt-front and a narrow black\ncravat tied in an angular bow; the wristbands were almost tight on the\nwrists, and, owing to the shortness of the alpaca coat-sleeves, they\nwere very visible even as Darius Clayhanger stood, with his two hands\ndeep in the horizontal pockets of his `full-fall' trousers.  They were\nnot precisely dirty, these wristbands, nor was the shirt-front, nor the\nturned-down pointed collar, but all the linen looked as though it would\nscarcely be wearable the next day.  Clayhanger's linen invariably looked\nlike that, not dirty and not clean; and further, he appeared to wear\neternally the same suit, ever on the point of being done for and never\nbeing done for.  The trousers always had marked transverse creases; the\nwaistcoat always showed shiningly the outline of every article in the\npockets thereof, and it always had a few stains down the front (and\nnever more than a few), and the lowest button insecure.  The coat,\nfaintly discoloured round the collar and fretted at the cuffs, fitted\nhim easily and loosely like the character of an old crony; it was as if\nit had grown up with him, and had expanded with his girth.  His head was\na little bald on the top, but there was still a great deal of mixed\nbrown and greyish hair at the back and the sides, and the moustache,\nhanging straight down with an effect recalling the mouth of a seal, was\nplenteous and defiant--a moustache of character, contradicting the full\nplacidity of the badly shaved chin.  Darius Clayhanger had a habit, when\nreflective or fierce, of biting with his upper teeth as far down as he\ncould on the lower lip; this trick added emphasis to the moustache.  He\nstood, his feet in their clumsy boots planted firmly about sixteen\ninches apart, his elbows sticking out, and his head bent sideways,\nlistening to and answering his companion with mien now eager, now\nroguish, now distinctly respectful.\n\nThe older man, Mr Shushions, was apparently very old.  He was one of\nthose men of whom one says in conclusion that they are very old.  He\nseemed to be so fully occupied all the time in conducting those physical\noperations which we perform without thinking of them, that each in his\ncase became a feat.  He balanced himself on his legs with conscious\ncraft; he directed carefully his shaking and gnarled hand to his beard\nin order to stroke it.  When he collected his thoughts into a sentence\nand uttered it in his weak, quavering voice, he did something wonderful;\nhe listened closely, as though to an imperfectly acquired foreign\nlanguage; and when he was not otherwise employed, he gave attention to\nthe serious business of breathing.  He wore a black silk stock, in a\nstyle even more antique than his remarkable headgear, and his trousers\nwere very tight.  He had survived into another and a more fortunate age\nthan his own.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nEdwin, his heavy bag on his shoulders, found the doorway blocked by\nthese two.  He hesitated with a diffident charming smile, feeling, as he\noften did in front of his father, that he ought to apologise for his\nexistence, and yet fiercely calling himself an ass for such a sentiment.\nDarius Clayhanger nodded at him carelessly, but not without a\nsurprising benevolence, over his shoulder.\n\n\"This is him,\" said Darius briefly.\n\nEdwin was startled to catch a note of pride in his father's voice.\n\nLittle Mr Shushions turned slowly and looked up at Edwin's face (for he\nwas shorter even than the boy), and gradually acquainted himself with\nthe fact that Edwin was the son of his father.\n\n\"Is this thy son, Darius?\" he asked; and his ancient eyes were shining.\n\nEdwin had scarcely ever heard any one address his father by his\nChristian name.\n\nDarius nodded; and then, seeing the old man's hand creeping out towards\nhim, Edwin pulled off his cap and took the hand, and was struck by the\nhot smooth brittleness of the skin and the earnest tremulous weakness of\nthe caressing grasp.  Edwin had never seen Mr Shushions before.\n\n\"Nay, nay, my boy,\" trembled the old man, \"don't bare thy head to me ...\nnot to me!  I'm one o' th' ould sort.  Eh, I'm rare glad to see thee!\"\nHe kept Edwin's hand, and stared long at him, with his withered face\ntransfigured by solemn emotion.  Slowly he turned towards Darius, and\npulled himself together.  \"Thou'st begotten a fine lad, Darius! ... a\nfine, honest lad!\"\n\n\"So-so!\" said Darius gruffly, whom Edwin was amazed to see in a state of\nagitation similar to that of Mr Shushions.\n\nThe men gazed at each other; Edwin looked at the ground and other\nunresponsive objects.\n\n\"Edwin,\" his father said abruptly, \"run and ask Big James for th' proof\nof that Primitive Methodist hymn-paper; there's a good lad.\"\n\nAnd Edwin hastened through the shadowy shop as if loosed from a\ncaptivity, and in passing threw his satchel down on a bale of goods.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nHe comprehended nothing of the encounter; neither as to the origin of\nthe old man's status in his father's esteem, nor as to the cause of his\nfather's strange emotion.  He regarded the old man impatiently as an\naged simpleton, probably over pious, certainly connected with the\nPrimitive Methodists.  His father had said `There's a good lad' almost\ncajolingly.  And this was odd; for, though nobody could be more\npersuasively agreeable than his father when he chose, the occasions when\nhe cared to exert his charm, especially over his children, were\ninfrequent, and getting more so.  Edwin also saw something symbolically\nominous in his being sent direct to the printing office.  It was no\naffair of his to go to the printing office.  He particularly did not\nwant to go to the printing office.\n\nHowever, he met Big James, with flowing beard and flowing apron,\ncrossing the yard.  Big James was brushing crumbs from the beard.\n\n\"Father wants the proof of some hymn-paper--I don't know what,\" he said.\n\"I was just coming--\"\n\n\"So was I, Mister Edwin,\" replied Big James in his magnificent voice,\nand with his curious humorous smile.  And he held up a sheet of paper in\nhis immense hand, and strode majestically on towards the shop.\n\nHere was another detail that struck the boy.  Always Big James had\naddressed him as `Master Edwin' or `Master Clayhanger.'  Now it was\n`Mister.'  He had left school.  Big James was, of course, aware of that,\nand Big James had enough finesse and enough gentle malice to change\ninstantly the `master' to `mister.'  Edwin was scarcely sure if Big\nJames was not laughing at him.  He could not help thinking that Big\nJames had begun so promptly to call him `mister' because the foreman\ncompositor expected that the son of the house would at once begin to\ntake a share in the business.  He could not help thinking that his\nfather must have so informed Big James.  And all this vaguely disturbed\nEdwin, and reminded him of his impending battle and of the complex\nforces marshalled against him.  And his hand, wandering in his pockets,\ntouched that unfortunate report which stated that he had lost one place\nduring the term.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSIX.\n\nHe lingered in the blue-paved yard, across which cloud-shadows swept\ncontinually, and then Big James came back and spectacularly ascended the\nflight of wooden steps to the printing office, and disappeared.  Edwin\nknew that he must return to the shop to remove his bag, for his father\nwould assuredly reprimand him if he found it where it had been untidily\nleft.  He sidled, just like an animal, to the doorway, and then slipped\nup to the counter, behind the great mahogany case of `artists'\nmaterials.'  His father and the old man were within the shop now, and\nEdwin overheard that they were discussing a topic that had lately been\nrife in religious circles, namely, Sir Henry Thompson's ingenious device\nfor scientifically testing the efficacy of prayer, known as the `Prayer\nGauge.'  The scheme was to take certain hospitals and to pray for the\npatients in particular wards, leaving other wards unprayed for, and then\nto tabulate and issue the results.\n\nMr Shushions profoundly resented the employment of such a dodge; the\nmere idea of it shocked him, as being blasphemous; and Darius Clayhanger\ndeferentially and feelingly agreed with him, though Edwin had at least\nonce heard his father refer to the topic with the amused and\nnon-committal impartiality of a man who only went to chapel when he\nspecially felt like going.\n\n\"I've preached in the pulpits o' our Connexion,\" said Mr Shushions with\nsolemn, quavering emotion, \"for over fifty year, as you know.  But I'd\nne'er gi' out another text if Primitives had ought to do wi' such a\nflouting o' th' Almighty.  Nay, I'd go down to my grave dumb afore God!\"\n\nHe had already been upset by news of a movement that was on foot for\ndeferring Anniversary Sermons from August to September, so that people\nshould be more free to go away for a holiday, and collections be more\nfruitful.  What!  Put off God's ordinance, to enable chapel-members to\ngo `a-wakesing'!  Monstrous!  Yet September was tried, in spite of Mr\nShushions, and when even September would not work satisfactorily, God's\nordinance was shifted boldly to May, in order to catch people, and their\npockets well before the demoralisation incident to holidays.\n\nEdwin thought that his father and the mysterious old man would talk for\never, and timorously he exposed himself to obtain possession of his\nsatchel, hoping to escape unseen.  But Mr Shushions saw him, and called\nhim, and took his hand again.\n\n\"Eh, my boy,\" he said, feebly shaking the hand, \"I do pray as you'll\ngrow up to be worthy o' your father.  That's all as I pray for.\"\n\nEdwin had never considered his father as an exemplar.  He was a just and\nunmerciful judge of his father, against whom he had a thousand\ngrievances.  And in his heart he resentfully despised Mr Shushions, and\ndecided again that he was a simpleton, and not a very tactful one.  But\nthen he saw a round yellow tear slowly form in the red rim of the old\nman's eye and run crookedly down that wrinkled cheek.  And his impatient\nscorn expired.  The mere sight of him, Edwin, had brought the old man to\nweeping!  And the tear was so genuine, so convincing, so majestic that\nit induced in Edwin a blank humility.  He was astounded, mystified; but\nhe was also humbled.  He himself was never told, and he never learnt,\nthe explanation of that epic tear.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.\n\nTHE CHILD-MAN.\n\nThe origin of the tear on the aged cheek of Mr Shushions went back\nabout forty years, and was embedded in the infancy of Darius Clayhanger.\n\nThe earliest memory of Darius Clayhanger had to do with the capital\nletters Q W and S.  Even as the first steam-printer in Bursley, even as\nthe father of a son who had received a thoroughly sound middle-class\neducation, he never noticed a capital Q W or S without recalling the\nWidow Susan's school, where he had wonderingly learnt the significance\nof those complicated characters.  The school consisted of the entire\nground floor of her cottage, namely, one room, of which the far corner\nwas occupied by a tiny winding staircase that led to the ancient widow's\nbedchamber.  The furniture comprised a few low forms for scholars, a\ntable, and a chair; and there were some brilliant  prints on the\nwhitewashed walls.  At this school Darius acquired a knowledge of the\nalphabet, and from the alphabet passed to Reading-Made-Easy, and then to\nthe Bible.  He made such progress that the widow soon singled him out\nfor honour.  He was allowed the high and envied privilege of raking the\nashes from under the fire-place and carrying them to the ash-pit, which\nash-pit was vast and lofty, being the joint production of many cottages.\nTo reach the summit of the ash-pit, and thence to fling backwards down\nits steep sides all assailants who challenged your supremacy, was a\nprecious joy.  The battles of the ash-pit, however, were not battles of\ngiants, as no children had leisure for ash-carrying after the age of\nseven.  A still greater honour accorded to Darius was permission to sit,\nduring lessons, on the topmost visible step of the winding stair.  The\nwidow Susan, having taught Darius to read brilliantly, taught him to\nknit, and he would knit stockings for his father, mother, and sister.\n\nAt the age of seven, his education being complete, he was summoned into\nthe world.  It is true that he could neither write nor deal with the\nmultiplication table; but there were always night-schools which studious\nadults of seven and upwards might attend if business permitted.\nFurther, there was the Sunday school, which Darius had joyously\nfrequented since the age of three, and which he had no intention of\nleaving.  As he grew older the Sunday school became more and more\nenchanting to him.  Sunday morning was the morning which he lived for\nduring six days; it was the morning when his hair was brushed and\ncombed, and perfumed with a delightful oil, whose particular fragrance\nhe remembered throughout his life.  At Sunday school he was petted and\ncaressed.  His success at Sunday school was shining.  He passed over the\nheads of bigger boys, and at the age of six he was in a Bible class.\n\nUpon hearing that Darius was going out into the world, the\nsuperintendent of the Sunday school, a grave whiskered young man of\nperhaps thirty, led him one morning out of the body of the Primitive\nMethodist Chapel which served as schoolroom before and after chapel\nservice, up into the deserted gallery of the chapel, and there seated\nhim on a stair, and knelt on the stair below him, and caressed his head,\nand called him a good boy, and presented him with an old battered Bible.\nThis volume was the most valuable thing that Darius had ever possessed.\nHe ran all the way home with it, half suffocated by his triumph.\nSunday school prizes had not then been invented.  The young\nsuperintendent of the Sunday school was Mr Shushions.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nThe man Darius was first taken to work by his mother.  It was the winter\nof 1835, January.  They passed through the marketplace of the town of\nTurnhill where they lived.  Turnhill lies a couple of miles north of\nBursley.  One side of the market-place was barricaded with stacks of\ncoal, and the other with loaves of a species of rye and straw bread.\nThis coal and these loaves were being served out by meticulous and\nhaughty officials, all invisibly, braided with red-tape, to a crowd of\nshivering, moaning, and weeping wretches, men, women and children--the\nbasis of the population of Turnhill.  Although they were all\nendeavouring to make a noise they made scarcely any noise, from mere\nlack of strength.  Nothing could be heard, under the implacable bright\nsky, but faint ghosts of sound, as though people were sighing and crying\nfrom within the vacuum of a huge glass bell.\n\nThe next morning, at half-past five, Darius began his career in earnest.\nHe was `mould-runner' to a `muffin-maker,' a muffin being not a\ncomestible but a small plate, fashioned by its maker on a mould.  The\nbusiness of Darius was to run as hard as he could with the mould, and a\nnewly, created plate adhering thereto, into the drying-stove.  This\n`stove' was a room lined with shelves, and having a red-hot stove and\nstove-pipe in the middle.  As no man of seven could reach the upper\nshelves, a pair of steps was provided for Darius, and up these he had to\nscamper.  Each mould with its plate had to be leaned carefully against\nthe wall and if the soft clay of a new-born plate was damaged, Darius\nwas knocked down.  The atmosphere outside the stove was chill, but owing\nto the heat of the stove, Darius was obliged to work half naked.  His\nsweat ran down his cheeks, and down his chest, and down his back, making\nwhite channels, and lastly it soaked his hair.\n\nWhen there were no moulds to be sprinted into the drying-stove, and no\nmoulds to be carried less rapidly out, Darius was engaged in\nclay-wedging.  That is to say, he took a piece of raw clay weighing more\nthan himself, cut it in two with a wire, raised one half above his head\nand crashed it down with all his force upon the other half, and he\nrepeated the process until the clay was thoroughly soft and even in\ntexture.  At a later period it was discovered that hydraulic machinery\ncould perform this operation more easily and more effectually than the\nbrawny arms of a man of seven.  At eight o'clock in the evening Darius\nwas told that he had done enough for that day, and that he must arrive\nat five sharp the next morning to light the fire, before his master the\nmuffin-maker began to work.  When he inquired how he was to light the\nfire his master kicked him jovially on the thigh and suggested that he\nshould ask another mould-runner.  His master was not a bad man at heart,\nit was said, but on Tuesdays, after Sunday, and Saint Monday, masters\nwere apt to be capricious.\n\nDarius reached home at a quarter to nine, having eaten nothing but bread\nall day.  Somehow he had lapsed into the child again.  His mother took\nhim on her knee, and wrapped her sacking apron round his ragged clothes,\nand cried over him and cried into his supper of porridge, and undressed\nhim and put him to bed.  But he could not sleep easily because he was\nafraid of being late the next morning.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nAnd the next morning wandering about the yards of the manufactory in a\nstorm of icy sleet a little before five o'clock, he learnt from a more\nexperienced companion that nobody would provide him with kindling for\nhis fire, that on the contrary everybody who happened to be on the place\nat that hour would unite to prevent him from getting kindling, and that\nhe must steal it or expect to be thrashed before six o'clock.  Near them\na vast kiln of ware in process of firing showed a white flaming glow at\neach of its mouths in the black winter darkness.  Darius's mentor crept\nup to the archway of the great hovel which protected the kiln, and\npointed like a conspirator to the figure of the guardian fireman dozing\nnear his monster.  The boy had the handle-less remains of an old spade,\nand with it he crept into the hovel, dangerously abstracted fire from\none of the scorching mouths, and fled therewith, and the fireman never\nstirred.  Then Darius, to whom the mentor kindly lent his spade,\nattempted to do the same, but being inexpert woke the fireman, who held\nhim spellbound by his roaring voice and then flung him like a sack of\npotatoes bodily into the slush of the yard, and the spade after him.\nHappily the mentor, whose stove was now alight, lent fire to Darius, so\nthat Darius's stove too was cheerfully burning when his master came.\nAnd Darius was too excited to feel fatigue.\n\nBy six o'clock on Saturday night Darius had earned a shilling for his\nweek's work.  But he could only possess himself of the shilling by going\nto a magnificent public-house with his master the muffin-maker.  This\nwas the first time that he had ever been inside a public-house.  The\nplace was crowded with men, women, and children eating the most lovely,\nhot rolls and drinking beer, in an atmosphere exquisitely warm.  And\nbehind a high counter a stout jolly man was counting piles and piles and\npiles of silver.  Darius's master, in company, with other boys' masters,\ngave this stout man four sovereigns to change, and it was an hour before\nhe changed them.  Meanwhile Darius was instructed that he must eat a\nroll like the rest, together with cheese.  Never had he tasted anything\nso luscious.  He had a match with his mentor, as to which of them could\nspin out his roll the longer, honestly chewing all the time; and he won.\nSome one gave him half a glass of beer.  At half-past seven he received\nhis shilling which consisted of a sixpenny-piece and four pennies; and\nleaving the gay, public-house, pushed his way through a crowd of tearful\nwomen with babies in their arms at the doors, and went home.  And such\nwas the attraction of the Sunday school that he was there the next\nmorning, with scented hair, two minutes before the opening.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nIn about a year Darius's increasing knowledge of the world enabled him\nto rise in it.  He became a handle-maker in another manufactory, and\nalso he went about with the pride of one who could form the letters of\nthe alphabet with a pen.  In his new work he had to put a bit of clay\nbetween two moulds, and then force the top mould on to the bottom one by\nmeans of his stomach which it was necessary to press downwards and at\nthe same time to wriggle with a peculiar movement.  The workman to whom\nhe was assigned, his new `master,' attached these handles, with strange\nrapid skill, to beer-mugs.  For Darius the labour was much lighter than\nthat of mould-running and clay-wedging, and the pay was somewhat higher.\nBut there were minor disadvantages.  He descended by twenty steps to\nhis toil, and worked in a long cellar which never received any air\nexcept by way of the steps and a passage, and never any daylight at all.\nIts sole illumination was a stove used for drying.  The `throwers'' and\nthe `turners'' rooms were also subterranean dungeons.  When in full\nactivity all these stinking cellars were full of men, boys, and young\nwomen, working close together in a hot twilight.  Certain boys were\ntrained contrabandists of beer, and beer came as steadily into the\ndungeons as though it had been laid on by a main pipe.  It was not\nhonourable even on the part of a young woman, to refuse beer,\nparticularly when the beer happened to arrive in the late afternoon.  On\nsuch occasions young men and women would often entirely omit to go home\nof a night, and seasoned men of the world aged eight, on descending into\nthe dungeons early the next morning, would have a full view of\npandemonium, and they would witness during the day salutary scenes of\nremorse, and proofs of the existence of a profound belief in the\nhomeopathic properties of beer.\n\nBut perhaps the worst drawback of Darius's new position was the long and\nirregular hours, due partly to the influences of Saint Monday and of the\nscenes above indicated but not described, and partly to the fact that\nthe employes were on piece-work and entirely unhampered by grandmotherly\nlegislation.  The result was that six days' work was generally done in\nfour.  And as the younger the workman the earlier he had to start in the\nmorning, Darius saw scarcely enough of his bed.  It was not of course to\nbe expected that a self-supporting man of the world should rigorously\nconfine himself to an eight-hour day or even a twelve-hour day, but\nDarius's day would sometimes stretch to eighteen and nineteen hours:\nwhich on hygienic grounds could not be unreservedly defended.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nOne Tuesday evening his master, after three days of debauch, ordered him\nto be at work at three o'clock the next morning.  He quickly and even\neagerly agreed, for he was already intimate with his master's rope-lash.\nHe reached home at ten o'clock on an autumn night, and went to bed and\nto sleep.  He woke up with a start, in the dark.  There was no watch or\nclock in the house, from which nearly all the furniture had gradually\nvanished, but he knew it must be already after three o'clock; and he\nsprang up and rushed out.  Of course he had not undressed; his life was\ntoo strenuous for mere formalities.  The stars shone above him as he ran\nalong, wondering whether after all, though late, he could by\nunprecedented effort make the ordained number of handles before his\nmaster tumbled into the cellar at five o'clock.\n\nWhen he had run a mile he met some sewage men on their rounds, who in\nreply, to his question told him that the hour was half after midnight.\nHe dared not risk a return to home and bed, for within two and a half\nhours he must be at work.  He wandered aimlessly over the surface of the\nearth until he came to a tile-works, more or less unenclosed, whose\nprimitive ovens showed a glare.  He ventured within, and in spite of\nhimself sat down on the ground near one of those heavenly ovens.  And\nthen he wanted to get up again, for he could feel the strong breath of\nhis enemy, sleep.  But he could not get up.  In a state of terror he\nyielded himself to his enemy.  Shameful cowardice on the part of a man\nnow aged nine!  God, however, is merciful, and sent to him an angel in\nthe guise of a night-watchman, who kicked him into wakefulness and off\nthe place.  He ran on limping, beneath the stellar systems, and reached\nhis work at half-past four o'clock.\n\nAlthough he had never felt so exhausted in his long life, he set to work\nwith fury.  Useless!  When his master arrived he had scarcely got\nthrough the preliminaries.  He dully faced his master in the narrow\nstifling cellar, lit by candles impaled on nails and already peopled by\nthe dim figures of boys, girls, and a few men.  His master was of\ntaciturn habit and merely told him to kneel down.  He knelt.  Two bigger\nboys turned hastily from their work to snatch a glimpse of the affair.\nThe master moved to the back of the cellar and took from a box a piece\nof rope an inch thick and clogged with clay.  At the same moment a\ncompanion offered him, in silence, a tin with a slim neck, out of which\nhe drank deep; it contained a pint of porter owing on loan from the\nprevious day.  When the master came in due course with the rope to do\njustice upon the sluggard he found the lad fallen forward and breathing\nheavily and regularly.  Darius had gone to sleep.  He was awakened with\nsome violence, but the public opinion of the dungeon saved him from a\ntorn shirt and a bloody back.\n\nThis was Darius's last day on a pot-bank.  The next morning he and his\nwent in procession to the Bastille, as the place was called.  His\nfather, having been too prominent and too independent in a strike, had\nbeen black-listed by every manufacturer in the district; and Darius,\nthough nine, could not keep the family.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE.\n\nMR. SHUSHIONS'S TEAR EXPLAINED.\n\nThe Bastille was on the top of a hill about a couple of miles long, and\nthe journey thither was much lengthened by the desire of the family to\navoid the main road.  They were all intensely ashamed; Darius was\nashamed to tears, and did not know why; even his little sister wept and\nhad to be carried, not because she was shoeless and had had nothing to\neat, but because she was going to the Ba-ba-bastille; she had no notion\nwhat the place was.  It proved to be the largest building that Darius\nhad ever seen; and indeed it was the largest in the district; they stood\nagainst its steep sides like flies against a kennel.  Then there was\nrattling of key-bunches, and the rasping voices of sour officials, who\ndid not inquire if they would like a meal after their stroll.  And they\nwere put into a cellar and stripped and washed and dressed in other\npeople's clothes, and then separated, amid tears.  And Darius was\npitched into a large crowd of other boys, all clothed like himself.  He\nnow understood the reason for shame; it was because he could have no\ndistinctive clothes of his own, because he had somehow lost his identity.\nAll the boys had a sullen, furtive glance, and when they spoke it was in\nwhispers.\n\nIn the low room where the boys were assembled there fell a silence, and\nDarius heard some one whisper that the celebrated boy who had run away\nand been caught would be flogged before supper.  Down the long room ran\na long table.  Some one brought in three candles in tin candlesticks and\nset them near the end of this table.  Then somebody else brought in a\npickled birch-rod, dripping with the salt water from which it had been\ntaken, and also a small square table.  Then came some officials, and a\nclergyman, and then, surpassing the rest in majesty, the governor of the\nBastille, a terrible man.  The governor made a speech about the crime of\nrunning away from the Bastille, and when he had spoken for a fair time,\nthe clergyman talked in the same sense; and then a captured tiger,\ndressed like a boy, with darting fierce eyes, was dragged in by two men,\nand laid face down on the square table, and four boys were commanded to\nstep forward and hold tightly the four members of this tiger.  And, his\nclothes having previously been removed as far as his waist, his breeches\nwere next pulled down his legs.  Then the rod was raised and it\ndescended swishing, and blood began to flow; but far more startling than\nthe blood were the shrill screams of the tiger; they were so loud and\ndeafening that the spectators could safely converse under their shelter.\nThe boys in charge of the victim had to cling hard and grind their\nteeth in the effort to keep him prone.  As the blows succeeded each\nother, Darius became more and more ashamed.  The physical spectacle did\nnot sicken nor horrify him, for he was a man of wide experience; but he\nhad never before seen flogging by lawful authority.  Flogging in the\nworkshop was different, a private if sanguinary affair between free\nhuman beings.  This ritualistic and cold-blooded torture was infinitely\nmore appalling in its humiliation.  The screaming grew feebler, then\nceased; then the blows ceased, and the unconscious infant (cured of\nbeing a tiger) was carried away leaving a trail of red drops along the\nfloor.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nAfter this, supper was prepared on the long table, and the clergyman\ncalled down upon it the blessing of God, and enjoined the boys to be\nthankful, and departed in company with the governor.  Darius, who had\nnot tasted all day, could not eat.  The flogging had not nauseated him,\nbut the bread and the skilly revolted his pampered tastes.  Never had\nhe, with all his experience, seen nor smelt anything so foully\ndisgusting.  When supper was completed, a minor official interceded with\nthe Almighty in various ways for ten minutes, and at last the boys were\nmarched upstairs to bed.  They all slept in one room.  The night also\ncould be set down in words, but must not be, lest the setting-down\nshould be disastrous...\n\nDarius knew that he was ruined; he knew that he was a workhouse boy for\nevermore, and that the bright freedom of sixteen hours a day in a cellar\nwas lost to him for evermore.  He was now a prisoner, branded, hopeless.\nHe would never be able to withstand the influences that had closed\naround him and upon him.  He supposed that he should become desperate,\nbecome a tiger, and then...\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nBut the following afternoon he was forcibly reclothed in his own\nbeautiful and beloved rags, and was pushed out of the Bastille, and\nthere he saw his pale father and his mother, and his little sister, and\nanother man.  And his mother was on her knees in the cold autumn\nsunshine, and hysterically clasping the knees of the man, and weeping;\nand the man was trying to raise her, and the man was weeping too.\nDarius wept.  The man was Mr Shushions.  Somehow, in a way that Darius\ncomprehended not, Mr Shushions had saved them.  Mr Shushions, in a\nbeaver tall-hat and with an apron rolled round his waist under his coat,\nescorted them back to their house, into which some fresh furniture had\nbeen brought.  And Darius knew that a situation was waiting for his\nfather.  And further, Mr Shushions, by his immense mysterious power,\nfound a superb situation for Darius himself as a printer's devil.  All\nthis because Mr Shushions, as superintendent of a Sunday school, was\nemotionally interested in the queer, harsh boy who had there picked up\nthe art of writing so quickly.\n\nSuch was the origin of the tear that ran down Mr Shushions's cheek when\nhe beheld Edwin, well-nourished, well-dressed and intelligent, the son\nof Darius the successful steam-printer.  Mr Shushions's tear was the\ntear of the creator looking upon his creation and marvelling at it.  Mr\nShushions loved Darius as only the benefactor can love the benefited.\nHe had been out of the district for over thirty years, and, having\nreturned there to die, the wonder of what he had accomplished by merely\nsaving a lad from the certain perdition of a prolonged stay in the\nworkhouse, struck him blindingly in the face and dazzled him.\n\nDarius had never spoken to a soul of his night in the Bastille.  All his\ninfancy was his own fearful secret.  His life, seen whole, had been a\nmiracle.  But none knew that except himself and Mr Shushions.\nAssuredly Edwin never even faintly suspected it.  To Edwin Mr Shushions\nwas nothing but a feeble and tedious old man.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIX.\n\nIN THE HOUSE.\n\nTo return to Edwin.  On that Friday afternoon of the breaking-up he was,\nin the local phrase, at a loose end.  That is, he had no task, no\nprogramme, and no definite desires.  Not knowing, when he started out in\nthe morning, whether school would formally end before or after the\ndinner-hour, he had taken his dinner with him, as usual, and had eaten\nit at Oldcastle.  Thus, though the family dinner had not begun when he\nreached home, he had no share in it, partly because he was not hungry,\nand partly because he was shy about having left school.  The fact that\nhe had left school affected him as he was affected by the wearing of a\nnew suit for the first time, or by the cutting of his hair after a\nprolonged neglect of the barber.  It inspired him with a wish to avoid\nhis kind, and especially his sisters, Maggie and Clara.  Clara might\nmake some facetious remark.  Edwin could never forget the Red Indian\nglee with which Clara had danced round him when for the first time--and\nquite unprepared for the exquisite shock--she had seen him in long\ntrousers.  There was also his father.  He wanted to have a plain talk\nwith his father--he knew that he would not be at peace until he had had\nthat talk--and yet in spite of himself he had carefully kept out of his\nfather's way during all the afternoon, save for a moment when, strolling\nwith affected nonchalance up to Darius's private desk in the shop, he\nhad dropped thereon his school report, and strolled off again.\n\nTowards six o'clock he was in his bedroom, an attic with a floor very\nmuch more spacious than its ceiling, and a window that commanded the\n<DW72> of Trafalgar Road towards Bleakridge.  It had been his room, his\ncastle, his sanctuary, for at least ten years, since before his mother's\ndeath of cancer.  He did not know that he loved it, with all its\ninconveniences and makeshifts; but he did love it, and he was jealous\nfor it; no one should lay a hand on it to rearrange what he had once\narranged.  His sisters knew this; the middle-aged servant knew it; even\nhis father, with a curt laugh, would humorously acquiesce in the theory\nof the sacredness of Edwin's bedroom.  As for Edwin, he saw nothing\nextraordinary in his attitude concerning his bedroom; and he could not\nunderstand, and he somewhat resented, that the household should perceive\nanything comic in it.  He never went near his sisters' bedroom, never\nwished to go near it, never thought about it.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nNow he sat idly on the patchwork counterpane of his bed and gazed at the\nsky.  He was feeling a little happier, a little less unsettled, for his\nstomach was empty and his mind had begun to fix itself with pleasure on\nthe images of hot toast and jam.  He `wanted his tea:' the manner in\nwhich he glanced at his old silver watch proved that.  He wished only\nthat before six o'clock struck he could settle upon the necessary\nchanges in his bedroom.  A beautiful schooner, which for over a year,\nwith all sails spread, had awaited the breeze in a low dark corner to\nthe right of the window, would assuredly have to be dismissed to the\nsmall, empty attic.  Once that schooner had thrilled him; the slight\nrake of its masts and the knotted reality of its rigging had thrilled\nhim; and to navigate it had promised the most delicious sensations\nconceivable.  Now, one moment it was a toy as silly as a doll, and the\nnext moment it thrilled him once more, and he could believe again its\npromises of bliss--and then he knew that it was for ever a vain toy, and\nhe was sad, and his sadness was pleasure.  He had already stacked most\nof his school-books in the other attic.  He would need a table and a\nlamp; he knew not for what precise purpose; but a table and a lamp were\nnecessary to the continuance of his self-respect.  The only question\nwas, Should he remodel his bedroom, or should he demand the other attic,\nand plant his flag in it and rule over it in addition to his bedroom?\nHad he the initiative and the energy to carry out such an enterprise?\nHe was not able to make up his mind.  And, moreover, he could not decide\nanything until after that plain talk with his father.\n\nHis sister Clara's high voice sounded outside, on the landing, or\nhalf-way up the attic stairs.\n\n\"Ed-_win_!  Ed-_win_!\"\n\n\"What's up?\" he called in answer, rising with a nervous start.  The door\nof the room was unlatched.\n\n\"You're mighty mysterious in your bedroom,\" said Clara's voice behind\nthe door.\n\n\"Come in!  Come in!  Why don't you come in?\" he replied, with\ngood-natured impatience.  But somehow he could not speak in a natural\ntone.  The mere fact that he had left school that day and that the world\nawaited him, and that everybody in the house knew this, rendered him\nself-conscious.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nClara entered, with a curious sidelong movement, half-winning and\nhalf-serpentine.  She was aged fourteen, a very fair and very slight\ngirl, with a thin face and thin lips, and extraordinarily slender hands;\nin general appearance fragile.  She wore a semi-circular comb on the\ncrown of her head, and her abundant hair hung over her shoulders in two\ntight pigtails.  Edwin considered that Clara was harsh and capricious;\nhe had much fault to find with her; but nevertheless the sight of her\nusually affected him pleasurably (of course without his knowing it), and\nhe never for long sat definitely in adverse judgement upon her.  Her\ngestures had a charm for him which he felt but did not realise.  And\nthis charm was similar to his own charm.  But nothing would have so\nsurprised him as to learn that he himself had any charm at all.  He\nwould have laughed, and been ashamed--to hear that his gestures and the\nplay of his features had an ingratiating, awkward, and wistful grace; he\nwould have tried to cure that.\n\n\"Father wants you,\" said Clara, her hand on the handle of the thin\nattic-door hung with odd garments.\n\nEdwin's heart fell instantly, and all the agreeable images of tea\nvanished from his mind.  His father must have read the school report and\nperceived that Edwin had been beaten by Charlie Orgreave, a boy younger\nthan himself!\n\n\"Did he send you up for me?\"  Edwin asked.\n\n\"No,\" said Clara, frowning.  \"But I heard him calling out for you all\nover.  So Maggie told me to run up.  Not that I expect any _thanks_.\"  She\nput her head forward a little.\n\nThe episode, and Clara's tone, showed clearly the nature and force of\nthe paternal authority in the house.  It was an authority with the gift\nof getting its commands anticipated.\n\n\"All right!  I'm coming,\" said Edwin superiorly.\n\n\"I know what you want,\" Clara said teasingly as she turned towards the\npassage.\n\n\"What do I want?\"\n\n\"You want the empty attic all to yourself, and a fine state it would be\nin in a month, my word!\"\n\n\"How do you know I want the empty attic?\"  Edwin repelled the onslaught;\nbut he was considerably taken aback.  It was a mystery to him how those\ngirls, and Clara in particular, got wind of his ideas before he had even\nformulated them definitely to himself.  It was also a mystery to him how\nthey could be so tremendously interested in matters which did not\nconcern them.\n\n\"You never mind!\"  Clara gibed, with a smile that was malicious, but\ncharmingly malicious.  \"I know!\"\n\nShe had merely seen him staring into the empty attic, and from that\nbrief spectacle she had by divination constructed all his plans.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nThe Clayhanger sitting-room, which served as both dining-room and\ndrawing-room, according to the more primitive practices of those days,\nwas over one half of the shop, and looked on Duck Square.  Owing to its\nnorthern aspect it scarcely ever saw the sun.  The furniture followed\nthe universal fashion of horse-hair, mahogany, and wool embroidery.\nThere was a piano, with a high back-fretted wood over silk pleated in\nrays from the centre; a bookcase whose lower part was a cupboard; a\nsofa; and a large leather easy-chair which did not match the rest of the\nroom.  This easy-chair had its back to the window and its front legs a\nlittle towards the fireplace, so that Mr Clayhanger could read his\nnewspaper with facility in daytime.  At night the light fell a little\nawkwardly from the central chandelier, and Mr Clayhanger, if he\nhappened to be reading, would continually shift his chair an inch or two\nto left or right, backwards or forwards, and would also continually\nglance up at the chandelier, as if accusing it of not doing its best.  A\ncommon sight in the sitting-room was Mr Clayhanger balanced on a chair,\nthe table having been pushed away, screwing the newest burner into the\nchandelier.  When he was seated in his easy-chair the piano could not be\nplayed, because there was not sufficient space for the stool between the\npiano and his chair; nor could the fire be made up without disturbing\nhim, because the japanned coal-box was on the same side of the\nhearth-rug as the chair.  Thus, when the fire languished and Mr\nClayhanger neglected it, the children had either to ask permission to\nstep over his legs, or suggest that he should attend to the fire\nhimself.  Occasionally, when he was in one of his gay moods, he would\nhumorously impede the efforts of the fire-maker with his feet, and if\nthe fire-maker was Clara or Edwin, the child would tickle him, which\nbrought him to his senses and forced him to shout: \"None o' that!  None\no' that!\"\n\nThe position of Mr Clayhanger's easy-chair--a detail apparently\ntrifling--was in reality a strongly influencing factor in the family\nlife, for it meant that the father's presence obsessed the room.  And it\ncould not be altered, for it depended on the window; the window was too\nsmall to be quite efficient.  When the children reflected upon the\nhistory of their childhood they saw one important aspect of it as a long\nseries of detached hours spent in the sitting-room, in a state of desire\nto do something that could not be done without disturbing father, and in\na state of indecision whether or not to disturb him.  If by chance, as\nsometimes occurred, he chose to sit on the sofa, which was unobtrusive\nin the corner away from the window, between the fireplace and the door,\nthe room was instantly changed into something larger, freer, and less\ninconvenient.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nAs the hour was approaching six, Edwin, on the way downstairs, looked in\nat the sitting-room for his father; but Darius was not there.\n\n\"Where's father?\" he demanded.\n\n\"I don't know, I'm sure,\" said Maggie, at the sewing-machine.  Maggie\nwas aged twenty; dark, rather stout, with an expression at once\nbenevolent and worried.  She rarely seemed to belong to the same\ngeneration as her brother and sister.  She consorted on equal terms with\nmarried women, and talked seriously of the same things as they did.  Mr\nClayhanger treated her somewhat differently from the other two.  Yet,\nthough he would often bid them accept her authority, he would now and\nthen impair that authority by roughly `dressing her down' at the\nmeal-table.  She was a capable girl; she had much less firmness, and\nmuch more good-nature, than she seemed to have.  She could not assert\nherself adequately.  She `managed' very well; indeed she had `done\nwonders' in filling the place of the mother who had died when Clara was\nfour and Edwin six, and she herself only ten.  Responsibility,\napprehension, and strained effort had printed their marks on her\nfeatures.  But the majority of acquaintances were more impressed by her\ngood intention than by her capacity; they would call her `a nice thing.'\nThe discerning minority, while saying with admiring conviction that she\nwas `a very fine girl,' would regret that somehow she had not the\nfaculty of `making the best of herself,' of `putting her best foot\nforemost.'  And would they not heartily stand up for her with the\nsuperficial majority!\n\nA thin, grey-haired, dreamy-eyed woman hurried into the room, bearing a\nnoisy tray and followed by Clara with a white cloth.  This was Mrs\nNixon, the domestic staff of the Clayhanger household for years.  Clara\nand Mrs Nixon swept Maggie's sewing materials from the corner of the\ntable on to a chair, put Maggie's flower-glasses on to the ledge of the\nbookcase, folded up the green cloth, and began rapidly to lay the tea.\nSimultaneously Maggie, glancing at the clock, closed up her\nsewing-machine, and deposited her work in a basket.  Clara, leaving the\ntable, stooped to pick up the bits of cotton and white stuff that\nlittered the carpet.  The clock struck six.\n\n\"Now, sharpy!\" she exclaimed curtly to Edwin, who stood hesitatingly\nwith his hands in his pockets.  \"Can't you help Maggie to push that\nsewing-machine into the corner?\"\n\n\"What on earth's up?\" he inquired vaguely, but starting forward to help\nMaggie.\n\n\"_She'll_ be here in a minute,\" said Maggie, almost under her breath, as\nshe fitted on the cover of the sewing-machine.\n\n\"Who?\" asked Edwin.  \"Oh!  Auntie!  I'd forgotten it was her night.\"\n\n\"As if anyone could forget!\" murmured Clara, with sarcastic unbelief.\n\nBy this time the table was completely set.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSIX.\n\nEdwin wondered mildly, as he often wondered, at the extremely bitter\ntone in which Clara always referred to their Aunt Clara Hamps,--when\nMrs Hamps was not there.  Even Maggie's private attitude to Auntie\nClara was scarcely more Christian.  Mrs Hamps was the widowed younger\nsister of their mother, and she had taken a certain share in the\nsupervision of Darius Clayhanger's domestic affairs after the death of\nMrs Clayhanger.  This latter fact might account, partially but not\nwholly, for the intense and steady dislike in which she was held by\nMaggie, Clara, and Mrs Nixon.  Clara hated her own name because she had\nbeen `called after' her auntie.  Mr Clayhanger `got on' excellently\nwith his sister-in-law.  He `thought highly' of her, and was indeed\nproud to have her for a relative.  In their father's presence the girls\nnever showed their dislike of Mrs Hamps; it was a secret pleasure\nshared between them and Mrs Nixon, and only disclosed to Edwin because\nthe girls were indifferent to what Edwin might think.  They casually\ndespised him for somehow liking his auntie, for not seeing through her\nwiles; but they could count on his loyalty to themselves.\n\n\"Are you ready for tea, or aren't you?\"  Clara asked him.  She\nfrequently spoke to him as if she was the elder instead of the younger.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.  \"But I must find father.\"\n\nHe went off, but he did not find his father in the shop, and after a few\nfutile minutes he returned upstairs.  Mrs Nixon preceded him, carrying\nthe tea-urn, and she told him that his father had sent word into the\nkitchen that they were not to `wait tea' for him.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN.\n\nAUNTIE HAMPS.\n\nMrs Hamps had splendidly arrived.  The atmosphere of the sitting-room\nwas changed.  Maggie, smiling, wore her second-best black silk apron.\nClara, smiling and laughing, wore a clean long white pinafore.  Mrs\nNixon, with her dreamy eyes less vacant than usual, greeted Mrs Hamps\neffusively, and effusively gave humble thanks for kind inquiries after\nher health.  A stranger might have thought that these women were\nstrongly attached to one another by ties of affection and respect.\nEdwin never understood how his sisters, especially Maggie, could\npractise such vast and eternal hypocrisy with his aunt.  As for him, his\naunt acted on him now, as generally, like a tonic.  Some effluence from\nher quickened him.  He put away the worry in connection with his father,\nand gave himself up to the physical pleasures of tea.\n\nAunt Clara was a handsome woman.  She had been called--but not by men\nwhose manners and code she would have approved--`a damned fine woman.'\nHer age was about forty, which at that period, in a woman's habit of\nmind, was the equivalent of about fifty to-day.  Her latest photograph\nwas considered to be very successful.  It showed her standing behind a\nvelvet chair and leaning her large but still shapely bust slightly over\nthe chair.  Her forearms, ruffled and braceleted, lay along the fringed\nback of the chair, and from one negligent hand depended a rose.  A heavy\ncurtain came downwards out of nothing into the picture, and the end of\nit lay coiled and draped on the seat of the chair.  The great dress was\nof slate- silk, with sleeves tight to the elbow, and thence,\nfrom a ribbon-bow, broadening to a wide, triangular climax that revealed\nquantities of lace at the wrists.  The pointed ends of the sleeves were\npicked out with squares of velvet.  A short and highly ornamental\nfringed and looped flounce waved grandly out behind from the waist to\nthe level of the knees; and the stomacher recalled the ornamentation of\nthe flounce; and both the stomacher and flounce gave contrasting value\nto the severe plainness of the skirt, designed to emphasise the quality\nof the silk.  Round the neck was a lace collarette to match the\nfurniture of the wrists, and the broad ends of the collarette were\ncrossed on the bosom and held by a large jet brooch.  Above that you saw\na fine regular face, with a firm hard mouth and a very straight nose and\ndark eyebrows; small ears weighted with heavy jet ear-rings.\n\nThe photograph could not render the clear perfection of Aunt Clara's\nrosy skin; she had the colour and the flashing eye of a girl.  But it\ndid justice to her really magnificent black hair.  This hair was all her\nown, and the coiffure seemed as ample as a judge's wig.  From the low\nforehead the hair was parted exactly in the middle for about two inches;\nthen plaited bands crossed and recrossed the scalp in profusion, forming\nbehind a pattern exceedingly complicated, and down either side of the\nhead, now behind the ear, now hiding it, now resting on the shoulders,\nnow hanging clear of them, fell long multitudinous glossy curls.  These\ncurls--one of them in the photograph reached as far as the stomacher--\ncould not have been surpassed in Bursley.\n\nShe was a woman of terrific vitality.  Her dead sister had been nothing\nin comparison with her.  She had a glorious digestion, and was the envy\nof her brother-in-law--who suffered much from biliousness--because she\ncould eat with perfect impunity hot buttered toast and raw celery in\nlarge quantities.  Further, she had independent means, and no children\nto cause anxieties.  Yet she was always, as the phrase went, `bearing\nup,' or, as another phrase went, `leaning hard.'  Frances Ridley\nHavergal was her favourite author, and Frances Ridley Havergal's little\nbook _Lean Hard_, was kept on her dressing-table.  (The girls, however,\naverred that she never opened it.)  Aunt Clara's spiritual life must be\nimagined as a continual, almost physical leaning on Christ.\nNevertheless she never complained, and she was seldom depressed.  Her\ndesire, and her achievement, was to be bright, to take everything\ncheerfully, to look obstinately on the best side of things, and to\ninstil this religion into others.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nThus, when it was announced that father had been called out\nunexpectedly, leaving an order that they were not to wait for him, she\nsaid gaily that they had better be obedient and begin, though it would\nhave been more agreeable to wait for father.  And she said how beautiful\nthe tea was, and how beautiful the toast, and how beautiful the\nstrawberry-jam, and how beautiful the pikelets.  She would herself pour\nsome hot water into the slop basin, and put a pikelet on a plate\nthereon, covered, to keep warm for father.  She would not hear a word\nabout the toast being a little hard, and when Maggie in her curious\nquiet way `stuck her out' that the toast was in fact hard, she said that\nthat precise degree of hardness was the degree which she, for herself,\npreferred.  Then she talked of jams, and mentioned gooseberry-jam,\nwhereupon Clara privately put her tongue out, with the quickness of a\nsnake, to signal to Maggie.\n\n\"Ours isn't good this year,\" said Maggie.\n\n\"I told auntie we weren't so set up with it, a fortnight ago,\" said\nClara simply, like a little angel.\n\n\"Did you, dear?\"  Mrs Hamps exclaimed, with great surprise, almost with\nshocked surprise.  \"I'm sure it's beautiful.  I was quite looking\nforward to tasting it; quite!  I know what your gooseberry-jam is.\"\n\n\"Would you like to try it now?\"  Maggie suggested.  \"But we've warned\nyou.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't want to trouble you _now_.  We're all so cosy here.  Any\ntime--\"\n\n\"No trouble, auntie,\" said Clara, with her most captivating and innocent\nsmile.\n\n\"Well, if you talk about `warning' me, of course I must insist on having\nsome,\" said Auntie Clara.\n\nClara jumped up, passed behind Mrs Hamps, making a contemptuous face at\nthose curls as she did so, and ran gracefully down to the kitchen.\n\n\"Here,\" she said crossly to Mrs Nixon.  \"A pot of that gooseberry,\nplease.  A small one will do.  She knows it's short of sugar, and so\nshe's determined to try it, just out of spite; and nothing will stop\nher.\"\n\nClara returned smiling to the tea-table, and Maggie neatly unsealed the\njam; and Auntie Clara, with a face beaming with pleasurable\nanticipation, helped herself circumspectly to a spoonful.\n\n\"Beautiful!\" she murmured.\n\n\"Don't you think it's a bit tart?\"  Maggie asked.\n\n\"Oh no!\" protestingly.\n\n\"_Don't_ you?\" asked Clara, with an air of delighted deferential\nastonishment.\n\n\"Oh _no_!\"  Mrs Hamps repeated.  \"It's beautiful!\"  She did not smack her\nlips over it, because she would have considered it unladylike to smack\nher lips, but by less offensive gestures she sought to convey her\nunbounded pleasure in the jam.  \"How much sugar did you put in?\" she\ninquired after a while.  \"Half and half?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Maggie.\n\n\"They do say gooseberries were a tiny bit sour this year, owing to the\nweather,\" said Mrs Hamps reflectively.\n\nClara kicked Edwin under the table, as it were viciously, but her\ndelightful innocent smile, directed vaguely upon Mrs Hamps, did not\nrelax.  Such duplicity passed Edwin's comprehension; it seemed to him\npurposeless.  Yet he could not quite deny that there might be a certain\nsting, a certain insinuation, in his auntie's last remark.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nThen Mr Clayhanger entered, blowing forth a long breath as if trying to\nrepulse the oppressive heat of the July afternoon.  He came straight to\nthe table, with a slightly preoccupied air, quickly, his arms motionless\nat his sides, and slanting a little outwards.  Mr Clayhanger always\nwalked like this, with motionless arms so that in spite of a rather\nclumsy and heavy step, the upper part of him appeared to glide along.\nHe shook hands genially with Auntie Clara, greeting her almost as\ngrandiosely as she greeted him, putting on for a moment the grand\nmanner, not without dignity.  Each admired the other.  Each often said\nthat the other was `wonderful.'  Each undoubtedly flattered the other,\nmade a fuss of the other.  Mr Clayhanger's admiration was the greater.\nThe bitterest thing that Edwin had ever heard Maggie say was: \"It's\nsomething to be thankful for that she's his deceased wife's sister!\"\nAnd she had said the bitter thing with such quiet bitterness!  Edwin had\nnot instantly perceived the point of it.\n\nDarius Clayhanger then sat down, with a thud, snatched at the cup of tea\nwhich Maggie had placed before him, and drank half of it with a\nconsiderable in-drawing noise.  No one asked where or why he had been\ndetained; it was not etiquette to do so.  If father had been `called\naway,' or had `had to go away,' or was `kept somewhere,' the details\nwere out of deference allowed to remain in mystery, respected by\ncuriosity ...  `Father-business.' ...  All business was sacred.  He\nhimself had inculcated this attitude.\n\nIn a short silence the sound of the bell that the carman rang before the\ntram started for Hanbridge floated in through the open window.\n\n\"There's the tram!\" observed Auntie Clara, apparently with warm and\nspecial interest in the phenomena of the tram.  Then another little\nsilence.\n\n\"Auntie,\" said Clara, writhing about youthfully on her chair.\n\n\"Can't ye sit still a bit?\" the father asked, interrupting her roughly,\nbut with good humour.  \"Ye'll be falling off th' chair in a minute.\"\n\nClara blushed swiftly, and stopped.\n\n\"Yes, love?\"  Auntie Clara encouraged her.  It was as if Auntie Clara\nhad said: \"Your dear father is of course quite right, more than right,\nto insist on your sitting properly at table.  However, do not take the\ncorrection too much to heart.  I sympathise with all your difficulties.\"\n\n\"I was only going to ask you,\" Clara went on, in a weaker, stammering\nvoice, \"if you knew that Edwin's left school to-day.\"  Her archness had\ndeserted her.\n\n\"Mischievous little thing!\" thought Edwin.  \"Why must she deliberately\ngo and draw attention to that?\"  And he too blushed, feeling as if he\nowed an apology to the company for having left school.\n\n\"Oh yes!\" said Auntie Clara with eager benevolence.  \"I've got something\nto say about that to my nephew.\"\n\nMr Clayhanger searched in a pocket of his alpaca, and drew forth an\nopen envelope.\n\n\"Here's the lad's report, auntie,\" said he.  \"Happen ye'd like to look\nat it.\"\n\n\"I should indeed!\" she replied fervently.  \"I'm sure it's a very good\none.\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nShe took the paper, and assumed her spectacles.\n\n\"Conduct--Excellent,\" she read, poring with enthusiasm over the\ndocument.  And she read again: \"Conduct--Excellent.\"  Then she went down\nthe list of subjects, declaiming the number of marks for each; and at\nthe end she read: \"Position in class next term: Third.  Splendid, Eddy!\"\nshe exclaimed.\n\n\"I thought you were second,\" said Clara, in her sharp manner.\n\nEdwin blushed again, and hesitated.\n\n\"Eh?  What's that?  What's that?\" his father demanded.  \"I didn't notice\nthat.  Third?\"\n\n\"Charlie Orgreave beat me in the examination,\" Edwin muttered.\n\n\"Well, that's a pretty how d'ye do!\" said his father.  \"Going down one!\nYe ought to ha' been first instead o' third.  And would ha' been,\nhappen, if ye'd pegged at it.\"\n\n\"Now I won't have that!  I won't have it!\"  Auntie Clara protested,\nlaughingly showing her fine teeth and gazing first at Darius, and then\nat Edwin, from under her spectacles, her head being thrown back and the\ncurls hanging far behind.  \"No one shall say that Edwin doesn't work,\nnot even his father, while his auntie's about!  Because I know he does\nwork!  And besides, he hasn't gone down.  It says, `position _next\nterm_'--not this term.  You were still second to-day, weren't you, my\nboy?\"\n\n\"I suppose so.  Yes,\" Edwin answered, pulling himself together.\n\n\"Well!  There you are!\"  Auntie Clara's voice rang triumphantly.  She\nwas opening her purse.  \"And _there_ you are!\" she repeated, popping half\na sovereign down in front of him.  \"That's a little present from your\nauntie on your leaving school.\"\n\n\"Oh, auntie!\" he cried feebly.\n\n\"Oh!\" cried Clara, genuinely startled.\n\nMrs Hamps was sometimes thus astoundingly munificent.  It was she who\nhad given the schooner to Edwin.  And her presents of elaborately\nenveloped and costly toilet soap on the birthdays of the children, and\nat Christmas, were massive.  Yet Clara always maintained that she was\nthe meanest old thing imaginable.  And Maggie had once said that she\nknew that Auntie Clara made her servant eat dripping instead of butter.\nTo give inferior food to a servant was to Maggie the unforgivable in\nparsimony.\n\n\"Well,\" Mr Clayhanger warningly inquired, \"what do you say to your\naunt?\"\n\n\"Thank you, auntie,\" Edwin sheepishly responded, fingering the coin.\n\nIt was a princely sum.  And she had stuck up for him famously in the\nmatter of the report.  Strange that his father should not have read the\nreport with sufficient attention to remark the fall to third place!\nAnyway, that aspect of the affair was now safely over, and it seemed to\nhim that he had not lost much prestige by it.  He would still be able to\nargue with his father on terms not too unequal, he hoped.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nAs the tea drew to an end, and the plates of toast, bread and butter,\nand tea-cake grew emptier, and the slop-basin filled, and only Maggie's\nflowers remained fresh and immaculate amid the untidy debris of the\nmeal; and as Edwin and Clara became gradually indifferent to jam, and\nthen inimical to it; and as the sounds of the street took on the softer\nquality of summer evening, and the first filmy shades of twilight\ngathered imperceptibly in the corners of the room, and Mr Clayhanger\nperformed the eructations which signified that he had had enough; so\nMrs Hamps prepared herself for one of her classic outbursts of feeling.\n\n\"Well!\" she said at last, putting her spoon to the left of her cup as a\nfinal indication that seriously she would drink no more.  And she gave a\ngreat sigh.  \"School over!  And the only son going out into the world!\nHow time flies!\"  And she gave another great sigh, implying an immense\nmelancholy due to this vision of the reality of things.  Then she\nremembered her courage, and the device of leaning hard, and all her\nphilosophy.\n\n\"But it's all for the best!\" she broke forth in a new brave tone.\n\"Everything is ordered for the best.  We must never forget that!  And\nI'm quite sure that Edwin will be a very great credit to us all, with\nhelp from above.\"\n\nShe proceeded powerfully in this strain.  She brought in God, Christ,\nand even the Holy Spirit.  She mentioned the dangers of the world, and\nthe disguises of the devil, and the unspeakable advantages of a good\nhome, and the special goodness of Mr Clayhanger and of Maggie, yes, and\nof her little Clara; and the pride which they all had in Edwin, and the\nunique opportunities which he had of doing good, by example, and also,\nsoon, by precept, for others younger than himself would begin to look up\nto him; and again her personal pride in him, and her sure faith in him;\nand what a solemn hour it was...\n\nNothing could stop her.  The girls loathed these exhibitions.  Maggie\nalways looked at the table during their progress, and she felt as though\nshe had done something wrong and was ashamed of it.  Clara not merely\nfelt like a criminal--she felt like an unrepentant criminal; she\nblushed, she glanced nervously about the room, and all the time she\nrepeated steadily in her heart a highly obscene word which she had heard\nat school.  This unspoken word, hurled soundlessly but savagely at her\naunt in that innocent heart, afforded much comfort to Clara in the\naffliction.  Even Edwin, who was more lenient in all ways than his\nsisters, profoundly deplored these moralisings of his aunt.  They filled\nhim with a desire to run fast and far, to be alone at sea, or to be deep\nsomewhere in the bosom of the earth.  He could not understand this side\nof his auntie's individuality.  But there was no delivery from Mrs\nHamps.  The only person who could possibly have delivered them seemed to\nenjoy the sinister thraldom.  Mr Clayhanger listened with appreciative\nand admiring nods; he appeared to be quite sincere.  And Edwin could not\nunderstand his father either.  \"How simple father must be!\" he thought\nvaguely.  Whereas Clara fatalistically dismissed her father's attitude\nas only one more of the preposterously unreasonable phenomena which she\nwas constantly meeting in life; and she persevered grimly with her\nobscene word.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSIX.\n\n\"Eh!\" said Mrs Hamps enthusiastically, after a trifling pause.  \"It\ndoes me good when I think what a _help_ you'll be to your father in the\nbusiness, with that clever head of yours.\"\n\nShe gazed at him fondly.\n\nNow this was Edwin's chance.  He did not wish to be any help at all to\nhis father in the business.  He had other plans for himself.  He had never\nmentioned them before, because his father had never talked to him about\nhis future career, apparently assuming that he would go into the\nbusiness.  He had been waiting for his father to begin.  \"Surely,\" he\nhad said to himself \"father's bound to speak to me sometime about what\nI'm going to do, and when he does I shall just tell him.\"  But his\nfather never had begun; and by timidity, negligence, and perhaps\nill-luck, Edwin had thus arrived at his last day at school with the\nsupreme question not merely unsolved but unattacked.  Oh he blamed\nhimself!  Any ordinary boy (he thought) would have discussed such a\nquestion naturally long ago.  After all, it was not a crime, it was no\ncause for shame, to wish not to be a printer.  Yet he was ashamed!\nAbsurd!  He blamed himself.  But he also blamed his father.  Now,\nhowever, in responding to his auntie's remark, he could remedy all the\npast by simply and boldly stating that he did not want to follow his\nfather.  It would be unpleasant, of course, but the worst shock would be\nover in a moment, like the drawing of a tooth.  He had merely to utter\ncertain words.  He must utter them.  They were perfectly easy to say,\nand they were also of the greatest urgency.  \"I don't want to be a\nprinter.\"  He mumbled them over in his mind.  \"I don't want to be a\nprinter.\"  What could it matter to his father whether he was a printer\nor not?  Seconds, minutes, seemed to pass.  He knew that if he was so\ninconceivably craven as to remain silent, his self-respect would never\nrecover from the blow.  Then, in response to Mrs Hamps's prediction\nabout his usefulness to his father in the business, he said, with a\nfalse-jaunty, unconvinced, unconvincing air--\n\n\"Well, that remains to be seen.\"\n\nThis was all he could accomplish.  It seemed as if he had looked death\nitself in the face, and drawn away.\n\n\"Remains to be _seen_?\"  Auntie Clara repeated, with a hint of startled\npain, due to this levity.\n\nHe was mute.  No one suspected, as he sat there, so boyish, wistful, and\nuneasily squirming, that he was agonised to the very centre of his\nbeing.  All the time, in his sweating soul, he kept trying to persuade\nhimself: \"I've given them a hint, anyhow!  I've given them a hint,\nanyhow!\"\n\n\"Them\" included everybody at the table.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSEVEN.\n\nMr Clayhanger, completely ignoring Edwin's reply to his aunt and her\nsomewhat shocked repetition of it, turned suddenly towards his son and\nsaid, in a manner friendly but serious, a manner that assumed\neverything, a manner that begged the question, unconscious even that\nthere was a question--\n\n\"I shall be out the better part o' to-morrow.  I want ye to be sure to\nbe in the shop all afternoon--I'll tell you what for downstairs.\"  It\nwas characteristic of him thus to make a mystery of business in front of\nthe women.\n\nEdwin felt the net closing about him.  Then he thought of one of those\n`posers' which often present themselves to youths of his age.\n\n\"But to-morrow's Saturday,\" he said, perhaps perkily.  \"What about the\nBible class?\"\n\nSix months previously a young minister of the Wesleyan Circuit, to whom\nHeaven had denied both a sense of humour and a sense of honour, had\ncommitted the infamy of starting a Bible class for big boys on Saturday\nafternoons.  This outrage had appalled and disgusted the boyhood of\nWesleyanism in Bursley.  Their afternoon for games, their only fair\nafternoon in the desert of the week, to be filched from them and used\nagainst them for such an odious purpose as a Bible class!  Not only\nSunday school on Sunday afternoon, but a Bible class on Saturday\nafternoon!  It was incredible.  It was unbearable.  It was gross\ntyranny, and nothing else.  Nevertheless the young minister had his way,\nby dint of meanly calling upon parents and invoking their help.  The\nscurvy worm actually got together a class of twelve to fifteen boys, to\nthe end of securing their eternal welfare.  And they had to attend the\nclass, though they swore they never would, and they had to sing hymns,\nand they had to kneel and listen to prayers, and they had to listen to\nthe most intolerable tedium, and to take notes of it.  All this, while\nthe sun was shining, or the rain was raining, on fields and streets and\nopen spaces and ponds!\n\nEdwin had been trapped in the snare.  His father, after only three words\nfrom the young minister, had yielded up his son like a burnt sacrifice--\nand with a casual nonchalance that utterly confounded Edwin.  In vain\nEdwin had pointed out to his elders that a Saturday afternoon of\nconfinement must be bad for his health.  His attention had been directed\nto his eternal health.  In vain he had pointed out that on wet Saturday\nafternoons he frequently worked at his home-lessons, which therefore\nmight suffer under the regime of a Bible class.  His attention had been\ndirected to the peace which passeth understanding.  So he had been\nbeaten, and was secretly twitted by Clara as an abject victim.  Hence it\nwas with a keen and peculiar feeling of triumph, of hopelessly cornering\nthe inscrutable generation which a few months ago had cornered him, that\nhe demanded, perhaps perkily: \"What about the Bible class?\"\n\n\"There'll be no more Bible classing,\" said his father, with a mild but\nslightly sardonic smile, as who should say: \"I'm ready to make all\nallowances for youth; but I must get you to understand, as gently as I\ncan, that you can't keep on going to Bible classes for ever and ever.\"\n\nMrs Hamps said--\n\n\"It won't be as if you were at school.  But I do hope you won't neglect\nto study your Bible.  Eh, but I do hope you'll always find time for\nthat, to your dying day!\"\n\n\"Oh--but I say--\" Edwin began, and stopped.\n\nHe was beaten by the mere effrontery of the replies.  His father and his\naunt (the latter of whom at any rate was a firm and confessed\nreligionist, who had been responsible for converting Mr Clayhanger from\nPrimitive Methodism to Wesleyan Methodism) did not trouble to defend\ntheir new position by argument.  They made no effort to reconcile it\nwith their position of a few months back, when the importance of\nheavenly welfare far exceeded the importance of any conceivable earthly\nwelfare.  The fact was that they had no argument.  If God took\nprecedence of knowledge and of health, he took precedence of a peddling\nshop!  That was unanswerable.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEIGHT.\n\nEdwin was dashed.  His faith in humanity was dashed.  These elders were\nnot sincere.  And as Mrs Hamps continued to embroider the original\ntheme of her exhortation about the Bible, Edwin looked at her\nstealthily, and the doubt crossed his mind whether that majestic and\nvital woman was ever sincere about anything, even to herself--whether\nthe whole of her daily existence, from her getting-up to her down-lying,\nwas not a grandiose pretence.\n\nNot that he had the least desire to cling to the Bible class, even as an\nalternative to the shop!  No!  He was much relieved to be rid of the\nBible class.  What overset him was the crude illogicality of the new\ndecree, and the shameless tacit admission of previous insincerity.\n\nTwo hours later, as he stood idly at the window of his bedroom, watching\nthe gas lamps of Trafalgar Road wax brighter in the last glooms of\ntwilight, he was still occupied with the sham and the unreason and the\nlack of scruple suddenly revealed in the life of the elder generation.\nUnconsciously imitating a trick of his father's when annoyed but calm,\nhe nodded his head several times, and with his tongue against his teeth\nmade the noise which in writing is represented by `tut-tut.'  Yet\nsomehow he had always known that it would be so.  At bottom, he was only\npretending to himself to be shocked and outraged.\n\nHis plans were no further advanced; indeed they were put back, for this\nSaturday afternoon vigil in the shop would be in some sort a symbolic\ntemporary defeat for him.  Why had he not spoken out clearly?  Why was\nhe always like a baby in presence of his father?  The future was all\naskew for him.  He had forgotten his tremendous serious resolves.  The\ntouch of the half-sovereign in his pocket, however, was comforting in a\nuniverse of discomfort.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT.\n\nIN THE SHOP.\n\n\"Here, lad!\" said his father to Edwin, as soon as he had scraped up the\nlast crumbs of cheese from his plate at the end of dinner on the\nfollowing day.\n\nEdwin rose obediently and followed him out of the room.  Having waited\nat the top of the stairs until his father had reached the foot, he\nleaned forward as far as he could with one hand on the rail and the\nother pressing against the wall, swooped down to the mat at the bottom,\nwithout touching a single step on the way, and made a rocket-like noise\nwith his mouth. He had no other manner of descending the staircase,\nunless he happened to be in disgrace.  His father went straight to the\ndesk in the corner behind the account-book window, assumed his\nspectacles, and lifted the lid of the desk.\n\n\"Here!\" he said, in a low voice.  \"Mr Enoch Peake is stepping in this\nafternoon to look at this here.\"  He displayed the proof--an unusually\nelaborate wedding card, which announced the marriage of Mr Enoch Peake\nwith Mrs Louisa Loggerheads.  \"Ye know him as I mean?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Edwin, \"The stout man.  The Cocknage Gardens man.\"\n\n\"That's him.  Well ye'll tell him I've been called away.  Tell him who\nye are.  Not but what he'll know.  Tell him I think it might be\nbetter\"--Darius's thick finger ran along a line of print--\"if we\nput--`widow of the late Simon Loggerheads Esquire,' instead of--`Esq.'\nSee?  Otherwise it's all right.  Tell him I say as otherwise it's all\nright.  And ask him if he'll have it printed in silver, and how many he\nwants, and show him this sample envelope.  Now, d'ye understand?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Edwin, in a tone to convey, not disrespectfully, that there\nwas nothing to understand.  Curious, how his father had the air of\nbracing all his intellect as if to a problem!\n\n\"Then ye'll take it to Big James, and he can start Chawner on it.  Th'\njob's promised for Monday forenoon.\"\n\n\"Will Big James be working?\" asked Edwin, for it was Saturday afternoon,\nwhen, though the shop remained open, the printing office was closed.\n\n\"They're all on overtime,\" said Mr Clayhanger; and then he added, in a\nvoice still lower, and with a surreptitious glance at Miss Ingamells,\nthe shop-woman, who was stolidly enfolding newspapers in wrappers at the\nopposite counter, \"See to it yourself, now.  He won't want to talk to\n_her_ about a thing like that.  Tell him I told you specially.  Just let\nme see how well ye can do it.\"\n\n\"Right!\" said Edwin; and to himself, superciliously: \"It might be life\nand death.\"\n\n\"We ought to be doing a lot o' business wi' Enoch Peake, later on,\" Mr\nClayhanger finished, in a whisper.\n\n\"I see,\" said Edwin, impressed, perceiving that he had perhaps been\nsupercilious too soon.\n\nMr Clayhanger returned his spectacles to their case, and taking his hat\nfrom its customary hook behind him, over the job-files, consulted his\nwatch and passed round the counter to go.  Then he stopped.\n\n\"I'm going to Manchester,\" he murmured confidentially.  \"To see if I can\npick up a machine as I've heard of.\"\n\nEdwin was flattered.  At the dinner-table Mr Clayhanger had only\nvouchsafed that he had a train to catch, and would probably not be in\ntill late at night.\n\nThe next moment he glimpsed Darius through the window, his arms\nmotionless by his sides and sticking slightly out; hurrying in the\nsunshine along Wedgwood Street in the direction of Shawport station.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nSo this was business!  It was not the business he desired and meant to\nhave; and he was uneasy at the extent to which he was already entangled\nin it; but it was rather amusing, and his father had really been very\nfriendly.  He felt a sense of importance.\n\nSoon afterwards Clara ran into the shop to speak to Miss Ingamells.  The\ntwo chatted and giggled together.\n\n\"Father's gone to Manchester,\" he found opportunity to say to Clara as\nshe was leaving.\n\n\"Why aren't you doing those prizes he told you to do?\" retorted Clara,\nand vanished, She wanted none of Edwin's superior airs.\n\nDuring dinner Mr Clayhanger had instructed his son to go through the\nSunday school prize stock and make an in_ven_tory of it.\n\nThis injunction from the child Clara, which Miss Ingamells had certainly\noverheard, prevented him, as an independent man, from beginning his work\nfor at least ten minutes.  He whistled, opened his father's desk and\nstared vacantly into it, examined the pen-nib case in detail, and tore\noff two leaves from the date calendar so that it should be ready for\nMonday.  He had a great scorn for Miss Ingamells, who was a personable\nif somewhat heavy creature of twenty-eight, because she kept company\nwith a young man.  He had caught them arm-in-arm and practically hugging\neach other, one Sunday afternoon in the street.  He could see naught but\nsilliness in that kind of thing.\n\nThe entrance of a customer caused him to turn abruptly to the high\nshelves where the books were kept.  He was glad that the customer was\nnot Mr Enoch Peake, the expectation of whose arrival made him curiously\nnervous.  He placed the step-ladder against the shelves, climbed up, and\nbegan to finger volumes and parcels of volumes.  The dust was\nincredible.  The disorder filled him with contempt.  It was astounding\nthat his father could tolerate such disorder; no doubt the whole shop\nwas in the same condition.  \"Thirteen Archie's Old Desk,\" he read on a\nparcel, but when he opened the parcel he found seven \"From Jest to\nEarnest.\"  Hence he had to undo every parcel.  However, the work was\neasy.  He first wrote the inventory in pencil, then he copied it in ink;\nthen he folded it, and wrote very carefully on the back, because his\nfather had a mania for endorsing documents in the legal manner:\n\"Inventory of Sunday school prize stock.\"  And after an instant's\nhesitation he added his own initials.  Then he began to tie up and\nrestore the parcels and the single volumes.  None of all this literature\nhad any charm for him.  He possessed five or six such books, all gilt\nand chromatic, which had been awarded to him at Sunday school, `suitably\ninscribed,' for doing nothing in particular; and he regarded them\nwithout exception as frauds upon boyhood.  However, Clara had always\nenjoyed reading them.  But lying flat on one of the top shelves he\ndiscovered, nearly at the end of his task, an oblong tome which did\ninterest him: \"Cazenove's Architectural Views of European Capitals, with\ndescriptive letterpress.\"  It had an old-fashioned look, and was\nprobably some relic of his father's predecessor in the establishment.\nAnother example of the lack of order which prevailed!\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nHe took the volume to the retreat of the desk, and there turned over its\npages of  illustrations.  At first his interest in them, and in\nthe letterpress, was less instinctive than deliberate.  He said to\nhimself: \"Now, if there is anything in me, I ought really to be\ninterested in this, and I must be interested in it.\"  And he was.  He\nglanced carelessly at the clock, which was hung above the shelves of\nexercise-books and notebooks, exactly opposite the door.  A quarter past\nfour.  The afternoon was quietly passing, and he had not found it too\ntedious.  In the background of the task which (he considered) he had\naccomplished with extraordinary efficiency, his senses noted faintly the\ncontinual trickle of customers, all of whom were infallibly drawn to\nMiss Ingamells's counter by her mere watchful and receptive appearance.\nHe had heard phrases and ends of phrases, such as: \"No, we haven't\nanything smaller,\" \"A camel-hair brush,\" \"Gum but not glue,\" \"Very\nsorry, sir.  I'll speak firmly to the paper boy,\" and the sound of coins\ndragged along the counter, the sound of the testing of half a sovereign,\nthe opening and shutting of the till-drawer; and occasionally Miss\nIngamells exclaiming to herself upon the stupidity of customers after a\ncustomer had gone; and once Miss Ingamells crossing angrily to fix the\ndoor ajar which some heedless customer had closed: \"Did they suppose\nthat people didn't want air like other people?\"  And now it was a\nquarter past four.  Undoubtedly he had a peculiar, and pleasant, feeling\nof importance.  In another half-minute he glanced at the clock again,\nand it was a quarter to five.\n\nWhat hypnotism attracted him towards the artists' materials cabinet\nwhich stood magnificent, complicated, and complete in the middle of the\nshop, like a monument?  His father, after one infantile disastrous raid,\nhad absolutely forbidden any visitation of that cabinet, with its glass\ncase of assorted paints, crayons, brushes and pencils, and its\ninnumerable long drawers full of paper and cards and wondrous perfectly\nequipped boxes, and T-squares and set-squares, with a hundred other\ncontrivances.  But of course the order had now ceased to have force.\nEdwin had left school; and, if he was not a man, he was certainly not a\nboy.  He began to open the drawers, at first gingerly, then boldly;\nafter all it was no business of Miss Ingamells's!  And, to be just, Miss\nIngamells made no sort of pretence that it was any business of hers.\nShe proceeded with her own business.  Edwin opened a rather large wooden\nwater-colour box.  It was marked five and sixpence.  It seemed to\ncomprise everything needed for the production of the most entrancing and\nmajestic architectural views, and as Edwin took out its upper case and\ndiscovered still further marvellous devices and apparatus in its\nbasement beneath, he dimly but passionately saw, in his heart, bright\nmasterpieces that ought to be the fruit of that box.  There was a key to\nit.  He must have it.  He would have given all that he possessed for it,\nif necessary.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\n\"Miss Ingamells,\" he said: and, as she did not look up immediately, \"I\nsay, Miss Ingamells!  How much does father take off in the shilling to\nauntie when she buys anything?\"\n\n\"Don't ask _me_, Master Edwin,\" said Miss Ingamells; \"_I_ don't know.  How\nshould I know?\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" he muttered, \"I shall pay full price for it--that's all.\"\nHe could not wait, and he wanted to be on the safe side.\n\nMiss Ingamells gave him change for his half-sovereign in a strictly\nimpartial manner, to indicate that she accepted no responsibility.  And\nthe squaring of Edwin's shoulders conveyed to Miss Ingamells that he\nadvised her to keep carefully within her own sphere, and not to make\nimpertinent inquiries about the origin of the half-sovereign, which he\ncould see intrigued her acutely.  He now owned the box; it was not a box\nof colours, but a box of enchantment.  He had had colour-boxes before,\nbut nothing to compare with this, nothing that could have seemed magical\nto anybody wiser than a very small boy.  Then he bought some\ncartridge-paper; he considered that cartridge-paper would be good enough\nfor preliminary experiments.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nIt was while he was paying for the cartridge-paper--he being, as was\nindeed proper, on the customers' side of the counter--that a heavy\nloutish boy in an apron entered the shop, blushing.  Edwin turned away.\nThis was Miss Ingamells's affair.\n\n\"If ye please, Mester Peake's sent me.  He canna come in this\nafternoon--he's got a bit o' ratting on--and will Mester Clayhanger step\nacross to th' Dragon to-night after eight, with that there peeper\n[paper] as he knows on?\"\n\nAt the name of Peake, Edwin started.  He had utterly forgotten the\nmatter.\n\n\"Master Edwin,\" said Miss Ingamells drily.  \"You know all about that,\ndon't you?\"  Clearly she resented that he knew all about that while she\ndidn't.\n\n\"Oh!  Yes,\" Edwin stammered.  \"What did you say?\"  It was his first\npiece of real business.\n\n\"If you please, Mester Peake sent me.\"  The messenger blundered through\nhis message again word for word.\n\n\"Very well.  I'll attend to it,\" said Edwin, as nonchalantly as he\ncould.\n\nNevertheless he was at a loss what to do, simple though the situation\nmight have seemed to a person with an experience of business longer than\nEdwin's.  Just as three hours previously his father had appeared to be\nbracing all his intellect to a problem that struck Edwin as entirely\nsimple, so now Edwin seemed to be bracing all his intellect to another\naspect of the same problem.  Time, revenging his father! ...  What!  Go\nacross to the Dragon and in cold blood demand Mr Enoch Peake, and then\nparley with Mr Enoch Peake as one man with another!  He had never been\ninside the Dragon.  He had been brought up in the belief that the Dragon\nwas a place of sin.  The Dragon was included in the generic\nterm--`gin-palace,' and quite probably in the Siamese-twin\nterm--`gaming-saloon.'  Moreover, to discuss business with Mr Enoch\nPeake...  Mr Enoch Peake was as mysterious to Edwin as, say, a Chinese\nmandarin!  Still, business was business, and something would have to be\ndone.  He did not know what.  Ought he to go to the Dragon?  His father\nhad not foreseen the possibility of this development.  He instantly\ndecided one fundamental: he would not consult Miss Ingamells; no, nor\neven Maggie!  There remained only Big James.  He went across to see Big\nJames, who was calmly smoking a pipe on the little landing at the top of\nthe steps leading to the printing office.\n\nBig James showed no astonishment.\n\n\"You come along o' me to the Dragon to-night, young sir, at eight\no'clock, or as soon after as makes no matter, and I'll see as you see\nMr Enoch Peake.  I shall be coming up Woodisun Bank at eight o'clock,\nor as soon after as makes no matter.  You be waiting for me at the back\ngates there, and I'll see as you see Mr Enoch Peake.\"\n\n\"Are you going to the Dragon?\"\n\n\"Am I going to the Dragon, young sir!\" exclaimed Big James, in his\nmajestic voice.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER NINE.\n\nTHE TOWN.\n\nJames Yarlett was worthy of his nickname.  He stood six feet four and a\nhalf inches in height, and his girth was proportionate; he had enormous\nhands and feet, large features, and a magnificent long dark brown beard;\nowing to this beard his necktie was never seen.  But the most\nmagnificent thing about him was his bass voice, acknowledged to be the\nfinest bass in the town, and one of the finest even in Hanbridge, where,\nin his earlier prime, James had lived as a `news comp' on the\n\"Staffordshire Signal.\"  He was now a `jobbing comp' in Bursley, because\nBursley was his native town and because he preferred jobbing.  He made\nthe fourth and heaviest member of the celebrated Bursley Male Glee\nParty, the other three being Arthur Smallrice, an old man with a\nstriking falsetto voice, Abraham Harracles, and Jos Rawnpike (pronounced\nRampick).  These men were accustomed to fame, and Big James was the king\nof them, though the mildest.  They sang at dinners, free-and-easies,\nconcerts, and Martinmas tea-meetings.  They sang for the glory, and when\nthere was no demand for their services, they sang to themselves, for the\nsake of singing.  Each of them was a star in some church or chapel\nchoir.  And except Arthur Smallrice, they all shared a certain\nelasticity of religious opinion.  Big James, for example, had varied in\nten years from Wesleyan, through Old Church, to Roman Catholic up at\nBleakridge.  It all depended on niceties in the treatment accorded to\nhim, and on the choice of anthems.  Moreover, he liked a change.\n\nHe was what his superiors called `a very superior man.'  Owing to the\nmore careful enunciation required in singing, he had lost a great deal\nof the Five Towns accent, and one cannot be a compositor for a quarter\nof a century without insensibly acquiring an education and a store of\nknowledge far excelling the ordinary.  His manner was gentle, and\nperhaps somewhat pompous, as is common with very big men; but you could\nnever be sure whether an extremely subdued humour did not underlie his\npomposity.  He was a bachelor, aged forty-five, and lived quietly with a\nmarried sister at the bottom of Woodisun Bank, near the National\nSchools.  The wonder was that, with all his advantages, he had not more\ndeeply impressed himself upon Bursley as an individuality, and not\nmerely as a voice.  But he seemed never to seek to do so.  He was\nwithout ambition; and, though curiously careful sometimes about\npreserving his own dignity, and beyond question sensitive by\ntemperament, he showed marked respect, and even humility, to the\nworldly-successful.  Despite his bigness and simplicity there was\nsomething small about him which came out in odd trifling details.  Thus\nit was characteristic of Big James to ask Edwin to be waiting for him at\nthe back gates in Woodisun Bank when he might just as easily have met\nhim at the side door by the closed shop in Wedgwood Street.\n\nEdwin, who from mere pride had said nothing to his sisters about the\nimpending visit to the Dragon, was a little surprised and dashed to see\nBig James in broadcloth and a high hat; for he had not dreamed of\nchanging his own everyday suit, nor had it occurred to him that the\nDragon was a temple of ceremoniousness.  Big James looked enormous.  The\nwide lapel of his shining frock-coat was buttoned high up under his\nbeard and curved downwards for a distance of considerably more than a\nyard to his knees: it was a heroic frock-coat.  The sleeves were wide,\nbut narrowing at the wrists, and the white wristbands were very tight.\nThe trousers fell in ample folds on the uppers of the gigantic boots.\nBig James had a way of sticking out his chest and throwing his head back\nwhich would have projected the tip of his beard ten inches forth from\nhis body, had the beard been stiff; but the soft silkiness of the beard\nfrustrated this spectacular phenomenon, which would have been very\ninteresting to witness.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nThe pair stepped across Trafalgar Road together, Edwin, though he tried\nto be sedate, nothing but a frisking morsel by the side of the vast\nmonument.  Compared with the architectural grandeur of Mr Varlett, his\nthin, supple, free-moving limbs had an almost pathetic appearance of\nephemeral fragility.\n\nBig James directed himself to the archway leading to the Dragon stables,\nand there he saw an ostler or oddman.  Edwin, feeling the imminence of\nan ordeal, surreptitiously explored a pocket to be sure that the proof\nof the wedding-card was safely there.\n\nThe ostler raised his reddish eyebrows to Big James.  Big James jerked\nhis head to one side, indicating apparently the entire Dragon, and\nsimultaneously conveying a query.  The ostler paused immobile an instant\nand then shook his insignificant turnip-pate.  Big James turned away.\nNo word had been spoken; nevertheless, the men had exchanged a dialogue\nwhich might be thus put into words--\n\n\"I wasn't thinking to see ye so soon,\" from the ostler.\n\n\"Then nobody of any importance has yet gone into the assembly room?\"\nfrom Big James.\n\n\"Nobody worth speaking of, and won't, for a while,\" from the other.\n\n\"Then I'll take a turn,\" from Big James.\n\nThe latter now looked down at Edwin, and addressed him in words--\n\n\"Seemingly we're too soon, Mr Edwin.  What do you say to a turn round\nthe town--playground way?  I doubted we should be too soon.\"\n\nEdwin showed alacrity.  As a schoolboy it had been definitely forbidden\nto him to go out at night; and unless sent on a special and hurried\nerrand, he had scarcely seen the physiognomy of the streets after eight\no'clock.  He had never seen the playground in the evening.  And this\nevening the town did not seem like the same town; it had become a new\nand mysterious town of adventure.  And yet Edwin was not fifty yards\naway from his own bedroom.\n\nThey ascended Duck Bank together, Edwin proud to be with a celebrity of\nthe calibre of Big James, and Big James calmly satisfied to show himself\nthus formally with his master's son.  It appeared almost incredible that\nthose two immortals, so diverse, had issued from the womb practically\nalike; that a few brief years on the earth had given Big James such a\ntremendous physical advantage.  Several hours' daily submission to the\nexact regularities of lines of type and to the unvarying demands of\nminutely adjusted machines in motion had stamped Big James's body and\nmind with the delicate and quasi-finicking preciseness which\ncharacterises all compositors and printers; and the continual monotonous\nperformance of similar tasks that employed his faculties while never\nabsorbing or straining them, had soothed and dulled the fever of life in\nhim to a beneficent calm, a calm refined and beautified by the\npleasurable exercise of song.  Big James had seldom known a violent\nemotion.  He had craved nothing, sought for nothing, and lost nothing.\n\nEdwin, like Big James in progress from everlasting to everlasting, was\nall inchoate, unformed, undisciplined, and burning with capricious\nfires; all expectant, eager, reluctant, tingling, timid, innocently and\nwistfully audacious.  By taking the boy's hand, Big James might have\npoetically symbolised their relation.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\n\"Are you going to sing to-night at the Dragon, Mr Yarlett?\" asked\nEdwin.  He lengthened his step to Big James's, controlled his ardent\nbody, and tried to remember that he was a man with a man.\n\n\"I am, young sir,\" said Big James.  \"There is a party of us.\"\n\n\"Is it the Male Glee Party?\"  Edwin pursued.\n\n\"Yes, Mr Edwin.\"\n\n\"Then Mr Smallrice will be there?\"\n\n\"He will, Mr Edwin.\"\n\n\"Why can Mr Smallrice sing such high notes?\"\n\nBig James slowly shook his head, as Edwin looked up at him.  \"I tell you\nwhat it is, young sir.  It's a gift, that's what it is, same as I can\nsing low.\"\n\n\"But Mr Smallrice is very old, isn't he?\"\n\n\"There's a parrot in a cage over at the Duck, there, as is eighty-five\nyears old, and that's proved by record kept, young sir.\"\n\n\"No!\" protested Edwin's incredulity politely.\n\n\"By record kept,\" said Big James.\n\n\"Do you often sing at the Dragon, Mr Yarlett?\"\n\n\"Time was,\" said Big James, \"when some of us used to sing there every\nnight, Sundays excepted, and concerts and whatnot excepted.  Aye!  For\nhours and hours every night.  And still do sometimes.\"\n\n\"After your work?\"\n\n\"After our work.  Aye!  And often till dawn in summer.  One o'clock, two\no'clock, half-past two o'clock, every night.  But now they say that this\nnew Licensing Act will close every public-house in this town at eleven\no'clock, and a straight-up eleven at that!\"\n\n\"But what do you do it for?\"\n\n\"What do we do it for?  We do it to pass the time and the glass, young\nsir.  Not as I should like you to think as I ever drank, Mr Edwin.  One\nquart of ale I take every night, and have ever done; no more, no less.\"\n\n\"But\"--Edwin's rapid, breaking voice interrupted eagerly the deep\nmajestic tones--\"aren't you tired the next day?  _I_ should be!\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Big James.  \"I get up from my bed as fresh as a daisy at\nsix sharp.  And I've known the nights when my bed ne'er saw me.\"\n\n\"You must be strong, Mr Yarlett, my word!\"  Edwin exclaimed.  These\nrevelations of the habits and prowess of Big James astounded him.  He\nhad never suspected that such things went on in the town.\n\n\"Aye!  Middling!\"\n\n\"I suppose it's a free-and-easy at the Dragon, to-night, Mr Yarlett?\"\n\n\"In a manner of speaking,\" said Big James.\n\n\"I wish I could stay for it.\"\n\n\"And why not?\"  Big James suggested, and looked down at Edwin with\nhalf-humorous incertitude.\n\nEdwin shrugged his shoulders superiorly, indicating by instinct, in\nspite of himself, that possibly Big James was trespassing over the\nsocial line that divided them.  And yet Big James's father would have\ncondescended to Edwin's grandfather.  Only, Edwin now belonged to the\nemploying class, whilst Big James belonged to the employed.  Already\nEdwin, whose father had been thrashed by workmen whom a compositor would\nhesitate to call skilled--already Edwin had the mien natural to a ruler,\nand Big James, with dignified deference, would submit unresentingly to\nhis attitude.  It was the subtlest thing.  It was not that Edwin\nobscurely objected to the suggestion of his being present at the\nfree-and-easy; it was that he objected (but nicely, and with good\nnature) to any assumption of Big James's right to influence him towards\nan act that his father would not approve.  Instead of saying, \"Why not?\"\nBig James ought to have said: \"Nobody but you can decide that, as your\nfather's away.\"  James ought to have been strictly impartial.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\n\"Well,\" said Big James, when they arrived at the playground, which lay\nnorth of the covered Meat Market or Shambles, \"it looks as if they\nhadn't been able to make a start yet at the Blood Tub.\"  His tone was\nmarked by a calm, grand disdain, as of one entertainer talking about\nanother.\n\nThe Blood Tub, otherwise known as Snaggs's, was the centre of nocturnal\npleasure in Bursley.  It stood almost on the very spot where the jawbone\nof a whale had once lain, as a supreme natural curiosity.  It\nrepresented the softened manners which had developed out of the old\nmedievalism of the century.  It had supplanted the bear-pit and the\ncock-pit.  It corresponded somewhat with the ideals symbolised by the\nnew Town Hall.  In the tiny odorous beer-houses of all the undulating,\ntwisting, reddish streets that surrounded the contiguous open spaces of\nDuck Bank, the playground, the market-place, and Saint Luke's Square,\nthe folk no longer discussed eagerly what chance on Sunday morning the\nmunicipal bear would have against five dogs.  They had progressed as far\nas a free library, boxing-gloves, rabbit-coursing, and the Blood Tub.\n\nThis last was a theatre with wooden sides and a canvas roof, and it\nwould hold quite a crowd of people.  In front of it was a platform, and\nan orchestra, lighted by oil flares that, as Big James and Edwin\napproached, were gaining strength in the twilight.  Leaning against the\nplatform was a blackboard on which was chalked the announcement of two\nplays: \"The Forty Thieves\" (author unstated) and Cruikshank's \"The\nBottle.\"  The orchestra, after terrific concussions, fell silent, and\nthen a troupe of players in costume, cramped on the narrow trestle\nboards, performed a sample scene from \"The Forty Thieves,\" just to give\nthe crowd in front an idea of the wonders of this powerful work.  And\nfour thieves passed and repassed behind the screen hiding the doors, and\nreappeared nine times as four fresh thieves until the tale of forty was\ncomplete.  And then old Hammerad, the beloved clown who played the drum\n(and whose wife kept a barber's shop in Buck Row and shaved for a\npenny), left his drum and did two minutes' stiff clowning, and then the\norchestra burst forth again, and the brazen voice of old Snaggs (in his\nmoleskin waistcoat) easily rode the storm, adjuring the folk to walk up\nand walk up: which some of the folk did do.  And lastly the band played\n\"God Save the Queen,\" and the players, followed by old Snaggs,\nprocessionally entered the booth.\n\n\"I lay they come out again,\" said Big James, with grim blandness.\n\n\"Why?\" asked Edwin.  He was absolutely new to the scene.\n\n\"I lay they haven't got twenty couple inside,\" said Big James.\n\nAnd in less than a minute the troupe did indeed emerge, and old Snaggs\nexpostulated with a dilatory public, respectfully but firmly.  It had\nbeen a queer year for Mr Snaggs.  Rain had ruined the Wakes; rain had\nruined everything; rain had nearly ruined him.  July was obviously not a\nmonth in which a self-respecting theatre ought to be open, but Mr\nSnaggs had got to the point of catching at straws.  He stated that in\norder to prove his absolute _bona fides_ the troupe would now give a scene\nfrom that world-renowned and unique drama, \"The Bottle,\" after which the\nperformance really would commence, since he could not as a gentleman\nkeep his kind patrons within waiting any longer.  His habit, which\nemphasised itself as he grew older, was to treat the staring crowd in\nfront of his booth like a family of nephews and nieces.  The device was\nquite useless, for the public's stolidity was impregnable.  It touched\nthe heroic.  No more granitic and crass stolidity could have been\ndiscovered in England.  The crowd stood; it exercised no other function\nof existence.  It just stood, and there it would stand until convinced\nthat the gratis part of the spectacle was positively at an end.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nWith a ceremonious gesture signifying that he assumed the young sir's\nconsent, Big James turned away.  He had displayed to Edwin the poverty\nand the futility of the Blood Tub.  Edwin would perhaps have liked to\nstay.  The scenes enacted on the outer platform were certainly tinged\nwith the ridiculous, but they were the first histrionics that he had\never witnessed; and he could not help thinking, hoping, in spite of his\ncommon sense, that within the booth all was different, miraculously\ntransformed into the grand and the impressive.  Left to himself, he\nwould surely have preferred an evening at the Blood Tub to a business\ninterview with Mr Enoch Peake at the Dragon.  But naturally he had to\nscorn the Blood Tub with a scorn equal to the massive and silent scorn\nof Big James.  And on the whole he considered that he was behaving as a\nman with another man rather well.  He sought by depreciatory remarks to\nkeep the conversation at its proper adult level.\n\nBig James led him through the market-place, where a few vegetable,\ntripe, and gingerbread stalls--relics of the day's market--were still\nattracting customers in the twilight.  These slatternly and picturesque\ngroups, beneath their flickering yellow flares, were encamped at the\ngigantic foot of the Town Hall porch as at the foot of a precipice.  The\nmonstrous black walls of the Town Hall rose and were merged in gloom;\nand the spire of the Town Hall, on whose summit stood a gold angel\nholding a gold crown, rose right into the heavens and was there lost.\nIt was marvellous that this town, by adding stone to stone, had upreared\nthis monument which, in expressing the secret nobility of its ideals,\ndwarfed the town.  On every side of it the beer-houses, full of a\ndulled, savage ecstasy of life, gleamed brighter than the shops.  Big\nJames led Edwin down through the mysteries of the Cock Yard and up along\nBugg's Gutter, and so back to the Dragon.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TEN.\n\nFREE AND EASY.\n\nWhen Edwin, shyly, followed Big James into the assembly room of the\nDragon, it already held a fair sprinkling of men, and newcomers\ncontinued to drop in.  They were soberly and respectably clothed, though\na few had knotted handkerchiefs round their necks instead of collars and\nties.  The occasion was a jollity of the Bursley Mutual Burial Club.\nThis Club, a singular example of that dogged private co-operative\nenterprise which so sharply distinguishes English corporate life from\nthe corporate life of other European countries, had lustily survived\nfrom a period when men were far less sure of a decent burial than they\nwere then, in the very prosperous early seventies.  It had helped to\nmaintain the barbaric fashion of ostentatiously expensive funerals, out\nof which undertakers and beer-sellers made vast sums; but it had also\nprovided a basis of common endeavour and of fellowship.  And its\nrespectability was intense, and at the same time broad-minded.  To be an\nestablished subscriber to the Burial Club was evidence of good character\nand of social spirit.  The periodic jollities of this company of men\nwhose professed aim was to bury each other, had a high reputation for\nexcellence.  Up till a year previously they had always been held at the\nDuck, in Duck Square, opposite; but Mr Enoch Peake, Chairman of the\nClub, had by persistent and relentless chicane, triumphing over immense\ninfluences, changed their venue to the Dragon, whose landlady, Mrs\nLouisa Loggerheads, he was then courting.  (It must be stated that Mrs\nLouisa's name contained no slur of cantankerousness; it is merely the\nlocal word for a harmless plant, the knapweed.)  He had now won Mrs\nLoggerheads, after being a widower thrice, and with her the second best\n`house' in the town.\n\nThere were long benches down the room, with forms on either side of\nthem.  Big James, not without pomp, escorted a blushing Edwin to the end\nof one of these tables, near a small raised platform that occupied the\nextremity of the room.  Over this platform was printed a legend: \"As a\nbird is known by its note--\"; and over the legend was a full-rigged ship\nin a glass case, and a pair of antlers.  The walls of the room were dark\nbrown, the ceiling grey with soot of various sorts, and the floor tiled\nred-and-black and sanded.  Smoke rose in spirals from about a score of\nchurchwarden pipes and as many cutties, which were charged from tin\npouches, and lighted by spills of newspaper from the three double\ngas-jets that hung down over the benches.  Two middle-aged women, one in\nblack and the other checked, served beer, porter, and stout in mugs, and\ngin in glasses, passing in and out through a side door.  The company\ntalked little, and it had not yet begun seriously to drink; but,\nsprawled about in attitudes of restful abeyance, it was smoking\nreligiously, and the flat noise of solemn expectorations punctuated the\nminutes.  Edwin was easily the youngest person present--the average age\nappeared to be about fifty--but nobody's curiosity seemed to be much\nstirred by his odd arrival, and he ceased gradually to blush.  When,\nhowever, one of the women paused before him in silent question, and he\nhad to explain that he required no drink because he had only called for\na moment about a matter of business, he blushed again vigorously.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nThen Mr Enoch Peake appeared.  He was a short, stout old man, with fat\nhands, a red, minutely wrinkled face, and very small eyes.  Greeted with\nthe respect due to the owner of Cocknage Gardens, a sporting resort\nwhere all the best foot-racing and rabbit-coursing took place, he\naccepted it in somnolent indifference, and immediately took off his coat\nand sat down in cotton shirt-sleeves.  Then he pulled out a red\nhandkerchief and his tobacco-box, and set them on the table.  Big James\nmotioned to Edwin.\n\n\"Evening, Mr Peake,\" said Big James, crossing the floor, \"and here's a\nyoung gent wishful for two words with you.\"\n\nMr Peake stared vacantly.\n\n\"Young Mr Clayhanger,\" explained Big James.\n\n\"It's about this card,\" Edwin began, in a whisper, drawing the\nwedding-card sheepishly from his pocket.  \"Father had to go to\nManchester,\" he added, when he had finished.\n\nMr Enoch Peake seized the card in both hands, and examined it; and\nEdwin could hear his heavy breathing.\n\nMrs Louisa Loggerheads, a comfortable, smiling administrative woman of\nfifty, showed herself at the service-door, and nodded with dignity to a\nfew of the habitues.\n\n\"Missis is at door,\" said Big James to Mr Peake.\n\n\"Is her?\" muttered Mr Peake, not interrupting his examination of the\ncard.\n\nOne of the serving-women, having removed Mr Peake's coat, brought a new\nchurch warden, filled it, and carefully directed the tip towards his\ntight little mouth: the lips closed on it.  Then she lighted a spill and\napplied it to the distant bowl, and the mouth puffed; and then the woman\ndeposited the bowl cautiously on the bench.  Lastly, she came with a\nsmall glass of sloe gin.  Mr Peake did not move.\n\nAt length Mr Peake withdrew the pipe from his mouth, and after an\ninterval said--\n\n\"Aye!\"\n\nHe continued to stare at the card, now held in one hand.\n\n\"And is it to be printed in silver?\"  Edwin asked.\n\nMr Peake took a few more puffs.\n\n\"Aye!\"\n\nWhen he had stared further for a long time at the card, his hand moved\nslowly with it towards Edwin, and Edwin resumed possession of it.\n\nMrs Louisa Loggerheads had now vanished.\n\n\"Missis has gone,\" said Big James.\n\n\"Has her?\" muttered Mr Peake.\n\nEdwin rose to leave, though unwillingly; but Big James asked him in\npolite reproach whether he should not stay for the first song.  He\nnodded, encouraged; and sat down.  He did not know that the uppermost\nidea in Big James's mind for an hour past had been that Edwin would hear\nhim sing.\n\nMr Peake lifted his glass, held it from him, approached his lips\ntowards it, and emptied it at a draught.  He then glanced round and said\nthickly--\n\n\"Gentlemen all, Mester Smallrice, Mester Harracles, Mester Rampick, and\nMester Yarlett will now oblige with one o' th' ould favourites.\"\n\nThere was some applause, a few coats were removed, and Mr Peake fixed\nhimself in a contemplative attitude.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nMessrs. Arthur Smallrice, Abraham Harracles, Jos Rawnpike, and James\nYarlett rose, stepped heavily on to the little platform, and stood in a\nline with their hands in their pockets.  \"As a bird is known by its\nnote--\" was hidden by the rampart of their shoulders.  They had no\nmusic.  They knew the music; they had sung it a thousand times.  They\nknew precisely the effects which they wished to produce, and the means\nof production.  They worked together like an inspired machine.  Mr\nArthur Smallrice gave a rapid glance into a corner, and from that corner\na concertina spoke--one short note.  Then began, with no hesitating\nshuffling preliminaries nor mute consultations, the singing of that\nclassic quartet, justly celebrated from Hull to Wigan and from\nNorthallerton to Lichfield, \"Loud Ocean's Roar.\"  The thing was\nperformed with absolute assurance and perfection.  Mr Arthur Smallrice\ndid the yapping of the short waves on the foam-veiled rocks, and Big\nJames in fullest grandeur did the long and mighty rolling of the deep.\nIt was majestic, terrific, and overwhelming.  Many bars before the close\nEdwin was thrilled, as by an exquisite and vast revelation.  He tingled\nfrom head to foot.  He had never heard any singing like it, or any\nsinging in any way comparable to it.  He had never guessed that song\nheld such possibilities of emotion.  The pure and fine essential\nqualities of the voices, the dizzying harmonies, the fugal calls and\nresponses, the strange relief of the unisons, and above all the free,\nnatural mien of the singers, proudly aware that they were producing\nsomething beautiful that could not be produced more beautifully,\nconscious of unchallenged supremacy,--all this enfevered him to an\nunprecedented and self-astonished enthusiasm.\n\nHe murmured under his breath, as \"Loud Ocean's Roar\" died away and the\nlittle voices of the street supervened: \"By Gad!  By Gad!\"\n\nThe applause was generous.  Edwin stamped and clapped with childlike\nviolence and fury.  Mr Peake slowly and regularly thumped one fist on\nthe bench, puffing the while.  Glasses and mugs could be seen, but not\nheard, dancing.  Mr Arthur Smallrice, Mr Abraham Harracles, Mr Jos\nRawnpike, and Mr James Yarlett, entirely inattentive to the\nacclamations, stepped heavily from the platform and sat down.  When\nEdwin caught Big James's eye he clapped again, reanimating the general\napproval, and Big James gazed at him with bland satisfaction.  Mr Enoch\nPeake was now, save for the rise and fall of his great chest, as\nimmobile and brooding as an Indian god.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nEdwin did not depart.  He reflected that, even if his father should come\nhome earlier than the last train and prove curious, it would be\nimpossible for him to know the exact moment at which his son had been\nable to have speech with Mr Enoch Peake on the important matter of\nbusiness.  For aught his father could ever guess he might have been\nprevented from obtaining the attention of the chairman of the\nproceedings until, say, eleven o'clock.  Also, he meant to present his\nconduct to his father in the light of an enterprising and fearless\naction showing a marked aptitude for affairs.  Mr Enoch Peake, whom his\nfather was anxious to flatter, had desired his father's company at the\nDragon, and, to save the situation, Edwin had courageously gone instead:\nthat was it.\n\nBesides, he would have stayed in any case.  His mind was elevated above\nthe fear of consequences.\n\nThere was some concertina-playing, with a realistic imitation of church\nbells borne on the wind from a distance; and then the Bursley Prize\nHandbell Ringers (or Campanologists) produced a whole family of real\nbells from under a form, and the ostler and the two women arranged a\nspecial table, and the campanologists fixed their bells on it and\nthemselves round it, and performed a selection of Scotch and Irish airs,\nwithout once deceiving themselves as to the precise note which a chosen\nbell would emit when duly shaken.\n\nSingular as was this feat, it was far less so than a young man's\nperformance of the ophicleide, a serpentine instrument that coiled round\nand about its player, and when breathed into persuasively gave forth\nprodigious brassy sounds that resembled the night-noises of beasts of\nprey.  This item roused the Indian god from his umbilical\ncontemplations, and as the young ophicleide player, somewhat breathless,\npassed down the room with his brazen creature in his arms, Mr Enoch\nPeake pulled him by the jacket-tail.\n\n\"Eh!\" said Mr Enoch Peake.  \"Is that the ophicleide as thy father used\nto play at th' owd church?\"\n\n\"Yes, Mr Peake,\" said the young man, with bright respect.\n\nMr Peake dropped his eyes again, and when the young man had gone, he\nmurmured, to his stomach--\n\n\"I well knowed it were th' ophicleide as his father used to play at th'\nowd church!\"  And suddenly starting up, he continued hoarsely,\n\"Gentlemen all, Mr James Yarlett will now kindly oblige with `The\nMiller of the Dee.'\"  And one of the women relighted his pipe and served\nhim with beer.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nBig James's rendering of \"The Miller of the Dee\" had been renowned in\nthe Five Towns since 1852.  It was classical, hallowed.  It was the only\npossible rendering of \"The Miller of the Dee.\"  If the greatest bass in\nthe world had come incognito to Bursley and sung \"The Miller of the\nDee,\" people would have said, \"Ah!  But ye should hear Big James sing\nit!\"  It suited Big James.  The sentiments of the song were his\nsentiments; he expressed them with natural simplicity; but at the same\ntime they underwent a certain refinement at his hands; for even when he\nsang at his loudest Big James was refined, natty, and restrained.  His\ninstinctive gentlemanliness was invincible and all-pervading.  And the\nreal beauty and enormous power of his magnificent voice saved him by its\nmere distinction from the charge of being finicking.  The simple sound\nof the voice gave pleasure.  And the simple production of that sound was\nBig James's deepest joy.  Amid all the expected loud applause the giant\nlooked naively for Edwin's boyish mad enthusiasm, and felt it; and was\nthrilled, and very glad that he had brought Edwin.  As for Edwin, Edwin\nwas humbled that he should have been so blind to what Big James was.  He\nhad always regarded Big James as a dull, decent, somewhat peculiar\nfellow in a dirty apron, who was his father's foreman.  He had actually\ntalked once to Big James of the wonderful way in which Maggie and Clara\nsang, and Big James had been properly respectful.  But the singing of\nMaggie and Clara was less than nothing, the crudest amateurism, compared\nto these public performances of Big James's.  Even the accompanying\nconcertina was far more cleverly handled than the Clayhanger piano had\never been handled.  Yes, Edwin was humbled.  And he had a great wish to\nbe able to do something brilliantly himself--he knew not what.  The\nintoxication of the desire for glory was upon him as he sat amid those\nshirt-sleeved men, near the brooding Indian god, under a crawling bluish\ncanopy of smoke, gazing absently at the legend: \"As a bird is known by\nits note--\"\n\nAfter an interval, during which Mr Enoch Peake was roused more than\nonce, a man with a Lancashire accent recited a poem entitled \"The Patent\nHairbrushing Machine,\" the rotary hairbrush being at that time an\nexceedingly piquant novelty that had only been heard of in the barbers'\nshops of the Five Towns, though travellers to Manchester could boast\nthat they had sat under it.  As the principle of the new machine was\neasily grasped, and the sensations induced by it easily imagined, the\nrecitation had a success which was indicated by slappings of thighs and\ngreat blowings-off of mirth.  But Mr Enoch Peake preserved his\ntranquillity throughout it, and immediately it was over he announced\nwith haste--\n\n\"Gentlemen all, Miss Florence Simcox--or shall us say Mrs Offlow, wife\nof the gentleman who has just obliged--the champion female clog-dancer\nof the Midlands, will now oblige.\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSIX.\n\nThese words put every man whom they surprised into a state of unusual\nanimation; and they surprised most of the company.  It may be doubted\nwhether a female clog-dancer had ever footed it in Bursley.  Several\npublic-houses possessed local champions--of a street, of a village--but\nthese were emphatically not women.  Enoch Peake had arranged this daring\nitem in the course of his afternoon's business at Cocknage Gardens, Mr\nOfflow being an expert in ratting terriers, and Mrs Offlow happening to\nbe on a tour with her husband through the realms of her championship, a\ntour which mingled the varying advantages derivable from terriers,\nrecitations, and clogs.  The affair was therefore respectable beyond\ncavil.\n\nNevertheless when Florence shone suddenly at the service-door, the\nshortness of her red-and-black velvet skirts, and the undeniable\ncomplete visibility of her rounded calves produced an uneasy and\nagreeable impression that Enoch Peake, for a chairman of the Mutual\nBurial Club, had gone rather far, superbly far, and that his moral\nascendancy over Louisa Loggerheads must indeed be truly astonishing.\nLouisa now stood gravely behind the dancer, in the shadow of the\ndoorway, and the contrast between her and Florence was in every way\nstriking enough to prove what a wonderful and mysterious man Enoch Peake\nwas.  Florence was accustomed to audiences.  She was a pretty, doll-like\nwoman, if inclined to amplitude; but the smile between those shaking\ngolden ringlets had neither the modesty nor the false modesty nor the\ndocility that Bursley was accustomed to think proper to the face of\nwoman.  It could have stared down any man in the place, except perhaps\nMr Peake.\n\nThe gestures of Mr Offlow, and her gestures, as he arranged and\nprepared the surface of the little square dancing-board that was her\nthrone, showed that he was the husband of Florence Simcox rather than\nshe the wife of Offlow the reciter and dog-fancier.  Further, it was his\nrole to play the concertina to her: he had had to learn the concertina--\npossibly a secret humiliation for one whose judgement in terriers was\nnot excelled in many public-houses.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSEVEN.\n\nShe danced; and the service-doorway showed a vista of open-mouthed\nscullions.  There was no sound in the room, save the concertina and the\nchampion clogs.  Every eye was fixed on those clogs; even the little\neyes of Mr Peake quitted the button of his waistcoat and burned like\ndiamond points on those clogs.  Florence herself chiefly gazed on those\nclogs, but occasionally her nonchalant petulant gaze would wander up and\ndown her bare arms and across her bosom.  At intervals, with her ringed\nfingers she would lift the short skirt--a nothing, an imperceptibility,\nhalf an inch, with glance downcast; and the effect was profound,\nrecondite, inexplicable.  Her style was not that of a male clog-dancer,\nbut it was indubitably clog-dancing, full of marvels to the connoisseur,\nand to the profane naught but a highly complicated series of wooden\nnoises.  Florence's face began to perspire.  Then the concertina ceased\nplaying, so that an undistracted attention might be given to the\nsupremely difficult final figures of the dance.\n\nAnd thus was rendered back to the people in the charming form of beauty\nthat which the instinct of the artist had taken from the sordid ugliness\nof the people.  The clog, the very emblem of the servitude and the\nsqualor of brutalised populations, was changed, on the light feet of\nthis favourite, into the medium of grace.  Few of these men but at some\ntime of their lives had worn the clog, had clattered in it through\nwinter's slush, and through the freezing darkness before dawn, to the\nmanufactory and the mill and the mine, whence after a day of labour\nunder discipline more than military, they had clattered back to their\nlittle candle-lighted homes.  One of the slatterns behind the doorway\nactually stood in clogs to watch the dancer.  The clog meant everything\nthat was harsh, foul, and desolating; it summoned images of misery and\ndisgust.  Yet on those feet that had never worn it seriously, it became\nthe magic instrument of pleasure, waking dulled wits and forgotten\naspirations, putting upon everybody an enchantment...  And then,\nsuddenly, the dancer threw up one foot as high as her head and brought\ntwo clogs down together like a double mallet on the board, and stood\nstill.  It was over.\n\nMrs Louisa Loggerheads turned nervously away, pushing her servants in\nfront of her.  And when the society of mutual buriers had recovered from\nthe startling shameless insolence of that last high kick, it gave the\nrein to its panting excitement, and roared and stamped.  Edwin was\nstaggered.  The blood swept into his face, a hot tide.  He was ravished,\nbut he was also staggered.  He did not know what to think of Florence,\nthe champion female clog-dancer.  He felt that she was wondrous; he felt\nthat he could have gazed at her all night; but he felt that she had put\nhim under the necessity of reconsidering some of his fundamental\nopinions.  For example, he was obliged to admit within himself a\nlessening of scorn for the attitude toward each other of Miss Ingamells\nand her young man.  He saw those things in a new light.  And he\nreflected, dazzled by the unforeseen chances of existence: \"Yesterday I\nwas at school--and to-day I see this!\"  He was so preoccupied by his own\nintimate sensations that the idea of applauding never occurred to him,\nuntil he perceived his conspicuousness in not applauding, whereupon he\nclapped self-consciously.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEIGHT.\n\nMiss Florence Simcox, somewhat breathless, tripped away, with simulated\ncoyness and many curtseys.  She had done her task, and as a woman she\nhad to go: this was a gathering of members of the Mutual Burial Club, a\nmasculine company, and not meet for females.  The men pulled themselves\ntogether, remembering that their proudest quality was a stoic\ncallousness that nothing could overthrow.  They refilled pipes, ordered\nmore beer, and resumed the mask of invulnerable solemnity.\n\n\"Aye!\" muttered Mr Enoch Peake.\n\nEdwin, with a great effort, rose and walked out.  He would have liked to\nsay good night to Big James; he did not deny that he ought to have done\nso; but he dared not complicate his exit.  On the pavement outside, in\nthe warm damp night, a few loitering listeners stood doggedly before an\nopen window, hearkening, their hands deep in their pockets, motionless.\nAnd Edwin could hear Mr Enoch Peake: \"Gentlemen all, Mester Arthur\nSmallrice, Mester Abraham Harracles, Mester Jos Rampick, and Mester\nJames Yarlett--\"\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ELEVEN.\n\nSON AND FATHER.\n\nLater that evening, Edwin sat at a small deal table in the embrasure of\nthe dormer window of the empty attic next to his bedroom.  During the\ninterval between tea and the rendezvous with Big James he had formally\nplanted his flag in that room.  He had swept it out with a long-brush,\nwhile Clara stood at the door giggling at the spectacle and telling him\nthat he had no right thus to annex territory in the absence of the\noverlord.  He had mounted a pair of steps, and put a lot of lumber\nthrough a trap at the head of the stairs into the loft.  And he had got\na table, a lamp, and a chair.  That was all that he needed for the\nmoment.  He had gone out to meet Big James with his head quite half-full\nof this vague attic-project, but the night sights of Bursley, and\nespecially the music at the Dragon, and still more especially the\ndancing at the Dragon, had almost expelled the attic-project from his\nhead.  When he returned unobtrusively into the house and learnt from a\ndisturbed Mrs Nixon, who was sewing in the kitchen, that he was\nunderstood to be in his new attic, and that his sisters had gone to bed,\nthe enchantment of the attic had instantly resumed much of its power\nover him, and he had hurried upstairs fortified with a slice of bread\nand half a cold sausage.  He had eaten the food absently in gulps while\nstaring at the cover of \"Cazenove's Architectural Views of European\nCapitals,\" abstracted from the shop without payment.  Then he had pinned\npart of a sheet of cartridge-paper on an old drawing-board which he\npossessed, and had sat down.  For his purpose the paper ought to have\nbeen soaked and stretched on the board with paste, but that would have\nmeant a delay of seven or eight hours, and he was not willing to wait.\nThough he could not concentrate his mind to begin, his mind could not be\nreconciled to waiting.  So he had decided to draw his picture in pencil\noutline, and then stretch the paper early on Sunday morning; it would\ndry during chapel.  His new box of paints, a cracked T-square, and some\nindia-rubber also lay on the table.\n\nHe had chosen \"View of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame Paris, from the Pont\ndes Arts.\"  It pleased him by the coloration of the old houses in front\nof Notre-Dame, and the reflections in the water of the Seine, and the\nelusive blueness of the twin towers amid the pale grey clouds of a\nParisian sky.  A romantic scene!  He wanted to copy it exactly, to\nrecreate it from beginning to end, to feel the thrill of producing each\nwonderful effect himself.  Yet he sat inactive.  He sat and vaguely\ngazed at the <DW72> of Trafalgar Road with its double row of yellow\njewels, beautifully ascending in fire to the ridge of the horizon and\nthere losing itself in the deep and solemn purple of the summer night;\nand he thought how ugly and commonplace all that was, and how different\nfrom all that were the noble capitals of Europe.  Scarcely a sound came\nthrough the open window; song doubtless still gushed forth at the\nDragon, and revellers would not for hours awake the street on their way\nto the exacerbating atmosphere of home.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nHe had no resolution to take up the pencil.  Yet after the Male Glee\nParty had sung \"Loud Ocean's Roar,\" he remembered that he had had a most\nclear and distinct impulse to begin drawing architecture at once, and to\ndo something grand and fine, as grand and fine as the singing, something\nthat would thrill people as the singing thrilled.  If he had not rushed\nhome instantly it was solely because he had been held back by the\nstronger desire to hear more music and by the hope of further novel and\nexciting sensations.  But Florence the clog-dancer had easily diverted\nthe seeming-powerful current of his mind.  He wanted as much as ever to\ndo wondrous things, and to do them soon, but it appeared to him that he\nmust think out first the enigmatic subject of Florence.  Never had he\nseen any female creature as he saw her, and ephemeral images of her were\ncontinually forming and dissolving before him.  He could come to no\nconclusion at all about the subject of Florence.  Only his boyish pride\nwas gradually being beaten back by an oncoming idea that up to that very\nevening he had been a sort of rather silly kid with no eyes in his head.\n\nIt was in order to ignore for a time this unsettling and humiliating\nidea that, finally, he began to copy the outlines of the Parisian scene\non his cartridge-paper.  He was in no way a skilled draughtsman, but he\nhad dabbled in pencils and colours, and he had lately picked up from a\nhandbook the hint that in blocking out a drawing the first thing to do\nwas to observe what points were vertically under what points, and what\npoints horizontal with what points.  He seemed to see the whole secret\nof draughtsmanship in this priceless counsel, which, indeed, with an\nelementary knowledge of geometry acquired at school, and the familiarity\nof his fingers with a pencil, constituted the whole of his technical\nequipment.  All the rest was mere desire.  Happily the architectural\nnature of the subject made it more amenable than, say, a rural landscape\nto the use of a T-square and common sense.  And Edwin considered that he\nwas doing rather well until, quitting measurements and rulings, he\narrived at the stage of drawing the detail of the towers.  Then at once\nthe dream of perfect accomplishment began to fade at the edges, and the\ncrust of faith to yield ominously.  Each stroke was a falling-away from\nthe ideal, a blow to hope.\n\nAnd suddenly a yawn surprised him, and recalled him to the existence of\nhis body.  He thought: \"I can't really be tired.  It would be absurd to\ngo to bed.\"  For his theory had long been that the notions of parents\nabout bedtime were indeed absurd, and that he would be just as\nthoroughly reposed after three hours sleep as after ten.  And now that\nhe was a man he meant to practise his theory so far as circumstances\nallowed.  He looked at his watch.  It was turned half-past eleven.  A\ndelicious wave of joy and of satisfaction animated him.  He had never\nbeen up so late, within his recollection, save on a few occasions when\neven infants were allowed to be up late.  He was alone, secreted, master\nof his time and his activity, his mind charged with novel impressions,\nand a congenial work in progress.  Alone? ...  It was as if he was\nspiritually alone in the vast solitude of the night.  It was as if he\ncould behold the unconscious forms of all humanity, sleeping.  This\nfeeling that only he had preserved consciousness and energy, that he was\nthe sole active possessor of the mysterious night, affected him in the\nmost exquisite manner.  He had not been so nobly happy in his life.  And\nat the same time he was proud, in a childlike way, of being up so late.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nHe heard the door being pushed open, and he gave a jump and turned his\nhead.  His father stood in the entrance to the attic.\n\n\"Hello, father!\" he said weakly, ingratiatingly.\n\n\"What art doing at this time o' night, lad?\"  Darius Clayhanger\ndemanded.\n\nStrange to say, the autocrat was not angered by the remarkable sight in\nfront of him.  Edwin knew that his father would probably come home from\nManchester on the mail train, which would stop to set down a passenger\nat Shawport by suitable arrangement.  And he had expected that his\nfather would go to bed, as usual on such evenings, after having eaten\nthe supper left for him in the sitting-room.  His father's bedroom was\nnext door to the sitting-room.  Save for Mrs Nixon in a distant nook,\nEdwin had the attic floor to himself.  He ought to have been as safe\nfrom intrusion there as in the farthest capital of Europe.  His father\ndid not climb the attic stairs once in six months.  So that he had\nregarded himself as secure.  Still, he must have positively forgotten\nthe very existence of his father; he must have been `lost,' otherwise he\ncould not but have heard the footsteps on the stairs.\n\n\"I was just drawing,\" said Edwin, with a little more confidence.\n\nHe looked at his father and saw an old man, a man who for him had always\nbeen old, generally harsh, often truculent, and seldom indulgent.  He\nsaw an ugly, undistinguished, and somewhat vulgar man (far less\ndignified, for instance, than Big James); a man who had his way by force\nand scarcely ever by argument; a man whose arguments for or against a\ngiven course were simply pitiable, if not despicable.  He sometimes\nindeed thought that there must be a peculiar twist in his father's brain\nwhich prevented him from appreciating an adverse point in a debate; he\nhad ceased to expect that his father would listen to reason.  Latterly\nhe was always surprised when, as to-night, he caught a glance of mild\nbenevolence on that face; yet he would never fail to respond to such a\nmood eagerly, without resentment.  It might be said that he regarded his\nfather as he regarded the weather, fatalistically.  No more than against\nthe weather would he have dreamed of bearing malice against his father,\neven had such a plan not been unwise and dangerous.  He was convinced\nthat his father's interest in him was about the same as the sun's\ninterest in him.  His father was nearly always wrapped in business\naffairs, and seemed to come to the trifling affairs of Edwin with\ndifficulty, as out of an absorbing engrossment.\n\nAssuredly he would have been amazed to know that his father had been\nthinking of him all the afternoon and evening.  But it was so.  Darius\nClayhanger had been nervous as to the manner in which the boy would\nacquit himself in the bit of business which had been confided to him.\nIt was the boy's first bit of business.  Straightforward as it was, the\nboy might muddle it, might omit a portion of it, might say the wrong\nthing, might forget.  Darius hoped for the best, but he was afraid.  He\nsaw in his son an amiable irresponsible fool.  He compared Edwin at\nsixteen with himself at the same age.  Edwin had never had a care, never\nsuffered a privation, never been forced to think for himself.  (Darius\nmight more justly have put it--never been allowed to think for himself.)\nEdwin had lived in cotton-wool, and knew less of the world than his\nfather had known at half his years; much less.  Darius was sure that\nEdwin had never even come near suspecting the miracles which his father\nhad accomplished: this was true, and not merely was Edwin stupendously\nignorant, and even pettily scornful, of realities, but he was ignorant\nof his own ignorance.  Education! ...  Darius snorted.  To Darius it\nseemed that Edwin's education was like lying down in an orchard in\nlovely summer and having ripe fruit dropped into your mouth...  A cocky\ninfant!  A girl!  And yet there was something about Edwin that his\nfather admired, even respected and envied ... an occasional gesture, an\nattitude in walking, an intonation, a smile.  Edwin, his own son, had a\npersonal distinction that he himself could never compass.  Edwin talked\nmore correctly than his father.  He thought differently from his father.\nHe had an original grace.  In the essence of his being he was superior\nto both his father and his sisters.  Sometimes when his father saw him\nwalking along the street, or coming into a room, or uttering some simple\nphrase, or shrugging his shoulders, Darius was aware of a faint thrill.\nPride?  Perhaps; but he would never have admitted it.  An agreeable\nperplexity rather--a state of being puzzled how he, so common, had\nbegotten a creature so subtly aristocratic ... aristocratic was the\nword.  And Edwin seemed so young, fragile, innocent, and defenceless!\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nDarius advanced into the attic.\n\n\"What about that matter of Enoch Peake's?\" he asked, hoping and fearing,\nreally anxious for his son.  He defended himself against probable\ndisappointment by preparing to lapse into savage paternal pessimism and\ndisgust at the futility of an offspring nursed in luxury.\n\n\"Oh!  It's all right,\" said Edwin eagerly.  \"Mr Peake sent word he\ncouldn't come, and he wanted you to go across to the Dragon this\nevening.  So I went instead.\"  It sounded dashingly capable.\n\nHe finished the recital, and added that of course Big James had not been\nable to proceed with the job.\n\n\"And where's the proof?\" demanded Darius.  His relief expressed itself\nin a superficial surliness; but Edwin was not deceived.  As his father\ngazed mechanically at the proof that Edwin produced hurriedly from his\npocket, he added with a negligent air--\n\n\"There was a free-and-easy on at the Dragon, father.\"\n\n\"Was there?\" muttered Darius.\n\nEdwin saw that whatever danger had existed was now over.\n\n\"And I suppose,\" said Darius, with assumed grimness, \"if I hadn't\nhappened to ha' seen a light from th' bottom o' th' attic stairs I\nshould never have known aught about all this here?\"  He indicated the\ncleansed attic, the table, the lamp, and the apparatus of art.\n\n\"Oh yes, you would, father!\"  Edwin reassured him.\n\nDarius came nearer.  They were close together, Edwin twisted on the\ncane-chair, and his father almost over him.  The lamp smelt, and gave\noff a stuffy warmth; the open window, through which came a wandering\nair, was a black oblong; the triangular side walls of the dormer shut\nthem intimately in; the house slept.\n\n\"What art up to?\"\n\nThe tone was benignant.  Edwin had not been ordered abruptly off to bed,\nwith a reprimand for late hours and silly proceedings generally.  He\nsought the reason in vain.  One reason was that Darius Clayhanger had\nmade a grand bargain at Manchester in the purchase of a second-hand\nprinting machine.\n\n\"I'm copying this,\" he replied slowly, and then all the details tumbled\nrashly out of his mouth, one after the other.  \"Oh, father!  I found\nthis book in the shop, packed away on a top shelf, and I want to borrow\nit.  I only want to borrow it.  And I've bought this paint-box, out of\nauntie's half-sovereign.  I paid Miss Ingamells the full price...  I\nthought I'd have a go at some of these architecture things.\"\n\nDarius glared at the copy.\n\n\"Humph!\"\n\n\"It's only just started, you know.\"\n\n\"Them prize books--have ye done all that?\"\n\n\"Yes, father.\"\n\n\"And put all the prices down, as I told ye?\"\n\n\"Yes, father.\"\n\nThen a pause.  Edwin's heart was beating hard.\n\n\"I want to do some of these architecture things,\" he repeated.  No\nremark from his father.  Then he said, fastening his gaze intensely on\nthe table: \"You know, father, what I should really like to be--I should\nlike to be an architect.\"\n\nIt was out.  He had said it.\n\n\"Should ye?\" said his father, who attached no importance of any kind to\nthis avowal of a preference.  \"Well, what you want is a bit o' business\ntraining for a start, I'm thinking.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course!\"  Edwin concurred, with pathetic eagerness, and added a\npiece of information for his father: \"I'm only sixteen, aren't I?\"\n\n\"Sixteen ought to ha' been in bed this two hours and more.  Off with\nye!\"\n\nEdwin retired in an extraordinary state of relief and happiness.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWELVE.\n\nMACHINERY.\n\nRather more than a week later, Edwin had so far entered into the life of\nhis father's business that he could fully share the excitement caused by\nan impending solemnity in the printing office.  He was somewhat pleased\nwith himself, and especially with his seriousness.  The memory of school\nwas slipping away from him in the most extraordinary manner.  His only\nschool-friend, Charlie Orgreave, had departed, with all the\nmultitudinous Orgreaves, for a month in Wales.  He might have written to\nthe Sunday; the Sunday might have written to him: but the idea of\nwriting did not occur to either of them; they were both still\nsufficiently childlike to accept with fatalism all the consequences of\nparental caprice.  Orgreave senior had taken his family to Wales; the\nboys were thus separated, and there was an end of it.  Edwin regretted\nthis, because Orgreave senior happened to be a very successful\narchitect, and hence there were possibilities of getting into an\narchitectural atmosphere.  He had never been inside the home of the\nSunday, nor the Sunday in his--a schoolboy friendship can flourish in\nperfect independence of home--but he nervously hoped that on the return\nof the Orgreave regiment from Wales, something favourable to his\nambitions--he knew not what--would come to pass.  In the meantime he was\nconscientiously doing his best to acquire a business training, as his\nfather had suggested.  He gave himself with an enthusiasm almost\nreligious to the study of business methods.  All the force of his\nresolve to perfect himself went for the moment into this immediate\nenterprise, and he was sorry that business methods were not more\ncomplex, mysterious, and original than they seemed to be: he was also\nsorry that his father did not show a greater interest in his industry\nand progress.\n\nHe no longer wanted to `play' now.  He despised play.  His unique wish\nwas to work.  It struck him as curious and delightful that he really\nenjoyed work.  Work had indeed become play.  He could not do enough work\nto satisfy his appetite.  And after the work of the day, scorning all\nsilly notions about exercise and relaxation, he would spend the evening\nin his beautiful new attic, copying designs, which he would sometimes\nrise early to finish.  He thought he had conquered the gross body, and\nthat it was of no account.  Even the desolating failures which his\ncopies invariably proved did not much discourage him; besides, one of\nthem had impressed both Maggie and Clara.  He copied with laborious\nardour undiminished.  And further, he masterfully appropriated Maggie's\nticket for the Free Library, pending the preliminaries to the possession\nof a ticket of his own, to procure a volume on architecture.  From\ntimidity, from a singular false shame, he kept this volume in the attic,\nlike a crime; nobody knew what the volume was.  Evidence of a strange\ntrait in his character; a trait perhaps not defensible!  He argued with\nhimself that having told his father plainly that he wanted to be an\narchitect, he need do nothing else aggressive for the present.  He had\nagreed to the suggestion about business training, and he must be loyal\nto his agreement.  He pointed out to himself how right his father was.\nAt sixteen one could scarcely begin to be an architect; it was too soon;\nand a good business training would not be out of place in any career or\nprofession.\n\nHe was so wrapped up in his days and his nights that he forgot to\ninquire why earthenware was made in just the Five Towns.  He had grown\ntoo serious for trifles--and all in about a week!  True, he was feeling\nthe temporary excitement of the printing office, which was perhaps\nexpressed boyishly by the printing staff; but he reckoned that his share\nof it was quite adult, frowningly superior, and in a strictly business\nsense justifiable and even proper.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nDarius Clayhanger's printing office was a fine example of the policy of\nmakeshift which governed and still governs the commercial activity of\nthe Five Towns.  It consisted of the first floor of a nondescript\nbuilding which stood at the bottom of the irregularly shaped yard behind\nthe house and shop, and which formed the southern boundary of the\nClayhanger premises.  The antique building had once been part of an\nold-fashioned pot-works, but that must have been in the eighteenth\ncentury.  Kilns and chimneys of all ages, sizes, and tints rose behind\nit to prove that this part of the town was one of the old manufacturing\nquarters.  The ground-floor of the building, entirely inaccessible from\nClayhanger's yard, had a separate entrance of its own in an alley that\nbranched off from Woodisun Bank, ran parallel to Wedgwood Street, and\nstopped abruptly at the back gate of a saddler's workshop.  In the\nnarrow entry you were like a creeping animal amid the undergrowth of a\nforest of chimneys, ovens, and high blank walls.  This ground-floor had\nbeen a stable for many years; it was now, however, a baker's storeroom.\nOnce there had been an interior staircase leading from the ground-floor\nto the first-floor, but it had been suppressed in order to save floor\nspace, and an exterior staircase constructed with its foot in\nClayhanger's yard.  To meet the requirement of the staircase, one of the\nfirst-floor windows had been transformed into a door.  Further, as the\nstaircase came against one of the ground-floor windows, and as\nClayhanger's predecessor had objected to those alien windows overlooking\nhis yard, and as numerous windows were anyhow unnecessary to a stable,\nall the ground-floor windows had been closed up with oddments of brick\nand tile, giving to the wall a very variegated and chequered appearance.\nThus the ground-floor and the first-floor were absolutely divorced, the\nformer having its entrance and light from the public alley, the latter\nfrom the private yard.\n\nThe first-floor had been a printing office for over seventy years.  All\nthe machinery in it had had to be manoeuvred up the rickety stairs, or\nput through one of the windows on either side of the window that had\nbeen turned into a door.  When Darius Clayhanger, in his audacity,\ndecided to print by steam, many people imagined that he would at last be\ncompelled to rent the ground-floor or to take other premises.  But no!\nThe elasticity of the makeshift policy was not yet fully stretched.\nDarius, in consultation with a jobbing builder, came happily to the\nconclusion that he could `manage,' that he could `make things do,' by\nadding to the top of his stairs a little landing for an engine-shed.\nThis was done, and the engine and boiler perched in the air; the shaft\nof the engine went through the wall; the chimney-pipe of the boiler ran\nup straight to the level of the roof-ridge, and was stayed with pieces\nof wire.  A new chimney had also been pierced in the middle of the roof,\nfor the uses of a heating stove.  The original chimneys had been allowed\nto fall into decay.  Finally, a new large skylight added interest to the\nroof.  In a general way, the building resembled a suit of clothes that\nhad been worn, during four of the seven ages of man, by an untidy\nhusband with a tidy and economical wife, and then given by the wife to a\npoor relation of a somewhat different figure to finish.  All that could\nbe said of it was that it survived and served.\n\nBut these considerations occurred to nobody.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nEdwin, quite unaware that he was an instrument in the hands of his\nAuntie Clara's Providence, left the shop without due excuse and passed\ndown the long blue-paved yard towards the printing office.  He imagined\nthat he was being drawn thither simply by his own curiosity--a\ncuriosity, however, which he considered to be justifiable, and even\nlaudable.  The yard showed signs that the unusual had lately been\nhappening there.  Its brick pavement, in the narrow branch of it that\nled to the double gates in Woodisun Bank (those gates which said to the\ncasual visitor, `No Admittance except on Business'), was muddy,\nlittered, and damaged, as though a Juggernaut had passed that way.\nLadders reclined against the walls.  Moreover, one of the windows of the\noffice had been taken out of its frame, leaving naught but an oblong\naperture.  Through this aperture Edwin could see the busy, eager forms\nof his father, Big James, and Chawner.  Through this aperture had been\nlifted, in parts and by the employment of every possible combination of\nlever and pulley, the printing machine which Darius Clayhanger had so\nsuccessfully purchased in Manchester on the day of the free-and-easy at\nthe Dragon.\n\nAt the top of the flight of steps two apprentices, one nearly `out of\nhis time,' were ministering to the engine, which that morning did not\nhappen to be running.  The engine, giving glory to the entire\nestablishment by virtue of the imposing word `steam', was a crotchety\nand capricious thing, constant only in its tendency to break down.  No\nmore reliance could be placed on it than on a pampered donkey.\nSometimes it would run, and sometimes it would not run, but nobody could\nsafely prophesy its moods.  Of the several machines it drove but one,\nthe grand cylinder, the last triumph of the ingenuity of man, and even\nthat had to be started by hand before the engine would consent to work\nit.  The staff hated the engine, except during those rare hours when one\nof its willing moods coincided with a pressure of business.  Then, when\nthe steam was sputtering and the smoke smoking and the piston throbbing,\nand the leathern belt travelling round and round and the complete\nbuilding a-tremble and a-clatter, and an attendant with clean hands was\nfeeding the sheets at one end of the machine and another attendant with\nclean hands taking them off at the other, all at the rate of twenty\ncopies per sixty seconds--then the staff loved the engine and meditated\nupon the wonders of their modern civilisation.  The engine had been\nknown to do its five thousand in an afternoon, and its horse-power was\nonly one.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nEdwin could not keep out of the printing office.  He went\ninconspicuously and, as it were, by accident up the stone steps, and\ndisappeared into the interior.  When you entered the office you were\nfirst of all impressed by the multiplicity of odours competing for your\nattention, the chief among them being those of ink, oil, and paraffin.\nDespite the fact that the door was open and one window gone, the smell\nand heat in the office on that warm morning were notable.  Old sheets of\nthe \"Manchester Examiner\" had been pinned over the skylight to keep out\nthe sun, but, as these were torn and rent, the sun was not kept out.\nNobody, however, seemed to suffer inconvenience.  After the odours, the\nremarkable feature of the place was the quantity of machinery on its\nuneven floor.  Timid employes had occasionally suggested to Darius that\nthe floor might yield one day and add themselves and all the machinery\nto the baker's stores below; but Darius knew that floors never did\nyield.\n\nIn the middle of the floor was a huge and heavy heating stove, whose\npipe ran straight upwards to the visible roof.  The mighty cylinder\nmachine stood to the left hand.  Behind was a small rough-and-ready\nbinding department with a guillotine cutting machine, a\ncardboard-cutting machine, and a perforating machine, trifles by the\nside of the cylinder, but still each of them formidable masses of metal\nheavy enough to crush a horse; the cutting machines might have served to\nillustrate the French Revolution, and the perforating machine the Holy\nInquisition.\n\nThen there was what was called in the office the `old machine,' a relic\nof Clayhanger's predecessor, and at least eighty years old.  It was one\nof those machines whose worn physiognomies, full of character, show at\nonce that they have a history.  In construction it carried solidity to\nan absurd degree.  Its pillars were like the piles of a pier.  Once, in\na historic rat-catching, a rat had got up one of them, and a piece of\nsmouldering brown paper had done what a terrier could not do.  The\nmachine at one period of its career had been enlarged, and the neat\nseaming of the metal was an ecstasy to the eye of a good workman.  Long\nago, it was known, this machine had printed a Reform newspaper at\nStockport.  Now, after thus participating in the violent politics of an\nage heroic and unhappy, it had been put to printing small posters of\nauctions and tea-meetings.  Its movement was double: first that of a\nhandle to bring the bed under the platen, and second, a lever pulled\nover to make contact between the type and the paper.  It still worked\nperfectly.  It was so solid, and it had been so honestly made, that it\ncould never get out of order nor wear away.  And, indeed, the\nconscientiousness and skill of artificers in the eighteenth century are\nstill, through that resistless machine, producing their effect in the\ntwentieth.  But it needed a strong hand to bestir its smooth\nplum- limbs of metal, and a speed of a hundred an hour meant\ngentle perspiration.  The machine was loved like an animal.\n\nNear this honourable and lumbering survival stood pertly an Empire\ntreadle-machine for printing envelopes and similar trifles.  It was new,\nand full of natty little devices.  It worked with the lightness of\nsomething unsubstantial.  A child could actuate it, and it would print\ndelicately a thousand envelopes an hour.  This machine, with the latest\npurchase, which was away at the other end of the room near the large\ndouble-pointed case-rack, completed the tale of machines.  That\ncase-rack alone held fifty different founts of type, and there were\nother case-racks.  The lead-rack was nearly as large, and beneath the\nlead-rack was a rack containing all those \"furnitures\" which help to\nhold a forme of type together without betraying themselves to the reader\nof the printed sheet.  And under the furniture rack was the `random,'\nfull of galleys.  Then there was a table with a top of solid stone, upon\nwhich the formes were bolted up.  And there was the ink-slab, another\nsolidity, upon which the ink-rollers were inked.  Rollers of various\nweightiness lay about, and large heavy cans, and many bottles, and metal\ngalleys, and nameless fragments of metal.  Everything contributed to the\nimpression of immense ponderosity exceeding the imagination.  The fancy\nof being pinned down by even the lightest of these constructions was\nexcruciating.  You moved about in narrow alleys among upstanding,\nunyielding metallic enormities, and you felt fragile and perilously\nsoft.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nThe only unintimidating phenomena in the crowded place were the\nlye-brushes, the dusty job-files that hung from the great transverse\nbeams, and the proof-sheets that were scattered about.  These printed\nthings showed to what extent Darius Clayhanger's establishment was a\nchannel through which the life of the town had somehow to pass.\nAuctions, meetings, concerts, sermons, improving lectures, miscellaneous\nentertainments, programmes, catalogues, deaths, births, marriages,\nspecifications, municipal notices, summonses, demands, receipts,\nsubscription-lists, accounts, rate-forms, lists of voters, jury-lists,\ninaugurations, closures, bill-heads, handbills, addresses,\nvisiting-cards, society rules, bargain-sales, lost and found notices:\ntraces of all these matters, and more, were to be found in that office;\nit was impregnated with the human interest; it was dusty with the human\ninterest; its hot smell seemed to you to come off life itself, if the\nreal sentiment and love of life were sufficiently in you.  A grand,\nstuffy, living, seething place, with all its metallic immobility!\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSIX.\n\nEdwin sidled towards the centre of interest, the new machine, which,\nhowever, was not a new machine.  Darius Clayhanger did not buy more new\nthings than he could help.  His delight was to `pick up' articles that\nwere supposed to be `as good as new'; occasionally he would even assert\nthat an object bought second-hand was `better than new,' because it had\nbeen `broken in,' as if it were a horse.  Nevertheless, the latest\nmachine was, for a printing machine, nearly new: its age was four years\nonly.  It was a Demy Columbian Press, similar in conception and movement\nto the historic `old machine' that had been through the Reform\nagitation; but how much lighter, how much handier, how much more\ningenious and precise in the detail of its working!  A beautiful\nedifice, as it stood there, gazed on admiringly by the expert eyes of\nDarius, in his shirt-sleeves, Big James, in his royally flowing apron,\nand Chawner, the journeyman compositor, who, with the two apprentices\noutside, completed the staff!  Aided by no mechanic more skilled than a\nday-labourer, those men had got the machine piecemeal into the office,\nand had duly erected it.  At that day a foreman had to be equal to\nanything.\n\nThe machine appeared so majestic there, so solid and immovable, that it\nmight ever have existed where it then was.  Who could credit that, less\nthan a fortnight earlier, it had stood equally majestic, solid, and\nimmovable in Manchester?  There remained nothing to show how the miracle\nhad been accomplished, except a bandage of ropes round the lower pillars\nand some pulley-tackle hanging from one of the transverse beams exactly\noverhead.  The situation of the machine in the workshop had been fixed\npartly by that beam above and partly by the run of the beams that\nsupported the floor.  The stout roof-beam enabled the artificers to\nhandle the great masses by means of the tackle; and as for the\nfloor-beams, Darius had so far listened to warnings as to take them into\naccount.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSEVEN.\n\n\"Take another impress, James,\" said Darius.  And when he saw Edwin,\ninstead of asking the youth what he was wasting his time there for, he\ngood-humouredly added: \"Just watch this, my lad.\"  Darius was pleased\nwith himself, his men, and his acquisition.  He was in one of his moods\nwhen he could charm; he was jolly, and he held up his chin.  Two days\nbefore, so interested had he been in the Demy Columbian, he had actually\ngone through a bilious attack while scarcely noticing it!  And now the\nwhole complex operation had been brought to a triumphant conclusion.\n\nBig James inserted the sheet of paper, with gentle and fine movements.\nThe journeyman turned the handle, and the bed of the machine slid\nhorizontally forward in frictionless, stately silence.  And then Big\nJames seized the lever with his hairy arm bared to the elbow, and pulled\nit over.  The delicate process was done with minute and level\nexactitude; adjusted to the thirty-second of an inch, the great masses\nof metal had brought the paper and the type together and separated them\nagain.  In another moment Big James drew out the sheet, and the three\nmen inspected it, each leaning over it.  A perfect impression!\n\n\"Well,\" said Darius, glowing, \"we've had a bit o' luck in getting that\nup!  Never had less trouble!  Shows we can do better without those\nFoundry chaps than with 'em!  James, ye can have a quart brought in, if\nye'n a mind, but I won't have them apprentices drinking!  No, I won't!\nMrs Nixon'll give 'em some nettle-beer if they fancy it.\"\n\nHe was benignant.  The inauguration of a new machine deserved solemn\nrecognition, especially on a hot day.  It was an event.\n\n\"An infant in arms could turn this here,\" murmured the journeyman,\ntoying with the handle that moved the bed.  It was an exaggeration, but\nan excusable, poetical exaggeration.\n\nBig James wiped his wrists on his apron.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEIGHT.\n\nThen there was a queer sound of cracking somewhere, vague, faint, and\nyet formidable.  Darius was standing between the machines and the\ndismantled window, his back to the latter.  Big James and the journeyman\nrushed instinctively from the centre of the floor towards him.  In a\nsecond the journeyman was on the window sill.\n\n\"What art doing?\"  Darius demanded roughly; but there was no sincerity\nin his voice.\n\n\"Th' floor!\" the journeyman excitedly exclaimed.\n\nBig James stood close to the wall.\n\n\"And what about th' floor?\"  Darius challenged him obstinately.\n\n\"One o' them beams is a-going,\" stammered the journeyman.\n\n\"Rubbish!\" shouted Darius.  But simultaneously he motioned to Edwin to\nmove from the middle of the room, and Edwin obeyed.  All four listened,\nwith nerves stretched to the tightest.  Darius was biting his lower lip\nwith his upper teeth.  His humour had swiftly changed to the savage.\nEvery warning that had been uttered for years past concerning that floor\nwas remembered with startling distinctness.  Every impatient reassurance\noffered by Darius for years past suddenly seemed fatuous and perverse.\nHow could any man in his senses expect the old floor to withstand such a\nterrific strain as that to which Darius had at last dared to subject it?\nThe floor ought by rights to have given way years ago!  His men ought\nto have declined to obey instructions that were obviously insane.  These\nand similar thoughts visited the minds of Big James and the journeyman.\n\nAs for Edwin, his excitement was, on balance, pleasurable.  In truth, he\ncould not kill in his mind the hope that the floor would yield.  The\ngreatness of the resulting catastrophe fascinated him.  He knew that he\nshould be disappointed if the catastrophe did not occur.  That it would\nmean ruinous damage to the extent of hundreds of pounds, and enormous\nworry, did not influence him.  His reason did not influence him, nor his\npersonal danger.  He saw a large hook in the wall to which he could\ncling when the exquisite crash came, and pictured a welter of broken\nmachinery and timber ten feet below him, and the immense pother that the\naffair would create in the town.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nNINE.\n\nDarius would not loose his belief in his floor.  He hugged it in mute\nfury.  He would not climb on to the window sill, nor tell Big James to\ndo so, nor even Edwin.  On the subject of the floor he was religious; he\nwas above the appeal of the intelligence.  He had always held\npassionately that the floor was immovable, and he always would.  He had\nfinally convinced himself of its omnipotent strength by the long process\nof assertion and reassertion.  When a voice within him murmured that his\nbelief in the floor had no scientific basis, he strangled the voice.  So\nhe remained, motionless, between the window and the machine.\n\nNo sound!  No slightest sound!  No tremor of the machine!  But Darius's\nbreathing could be heard after a moment.\n\nHe guffawed sneeringly.\n\n\"And what next?\" he defiantly asked, scowling.  \"What's amiss wi' ye\nall?\"  He put his hands in his pockets.  \"Dun ye mean to tell me as--\"\n\nThe younger apprentice entered from the engine-shed.\n\n\"Get back there!\" rolled and thundered the voice of Big James.  It was\nthe first word he had spoken, and he did not speak it in frantic,\nhysteric command, but with a terrible and convincing mildness.  The\nphrase fell on the apprentice like a sandbag, and he vanished.\n\nDarius said nothing.  There was another cracking sound, louder, and\nunmistakably beneath the bed of the machine.  And at the same instant a\nflake of grimy plaster detached itself from the opposite wall and\ndropped into pale dust on the floor.  And still Darius religiously did\nnot move, and Big James would not move.  They might have been under a\nspell.  The journeyman jumped down incautiously into the yard.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTEN.\n\nAnd then Edwin, hardly knowing what he did, and certainly not knowing\nwhy he did it, walked quickly out on to the floor, seized the huge hook\nattached to the lower pulley of the tackle that hung from the roof-beam,\npulled up the slack of the rope-bandage on the hind part of the machine,\nand stuck the hook into it, then walked quickly back.  The hauling-rope\nof the tackle had been carried to the iron ring of a trap-door in the\ncorner near Big James; this trap-door, once the outlet of the interior\nstaircase from the ground floor, had been nailed down many years\npreviously.  Big James dropped to his knees and tightened and knotted\nthe rope.  Another and much louder noise of cracking followed, the floor\nvisibly yielded, and the hindpart of the machine visibly sank about a\nquarter of an inch.  But no more.  The tackle held.  The strain was\ndistributed between the beam above and the beam below, and equilibrium\nestablished.\n\n\"Out!  Lad!  Out!\" cried Darius feebly, in the wreck, not of his\nworkshop, but of his religion.  And Edwin fled down the steps, pushing\nthe mystified apprentices before him, and followed by the men.  In the\nyard the journeyman, entirely self-centred, was hopping about on one leg\nand cursing.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nELEVEN.\n\nDarius, Big James, and Edwin stared in the morning sunshine at the\naperture of the window and listened.\n\n\"Nay!\" said Big James, after an eternity.  \"He's saved it!  He's saved\nth' old shop!  But by gum--by gum--\"\n\nDarius turned to Edwin, and tried to say something; and then Edwin saw\nhis father's face working into monstrous angular shapes, and saw the\ntears spurt out of his eyes, and was clutched convulsively in his\nfather's shirt-sleeved arms.  He was very proud, very pleased, but he\ndid not like this embrace; it made him feel ashamed.  He thought how\nClara would have sniggered about it and caricatured it afterwards, had\nshe witnessed it.  And although he had incontestably done something\nwhich was very wonderful and very heroic, and which proved in him the\nmost extraordinary presence of mind, he could not honestly glorify\nhimself in his own heart, because it appeared to him that he had acted\nexactly like an automaton.  He blankly marvelled, and thought the\nsituation agreeably thrilling, if somewhat awkward.  His father let him\ngo.  Then all Edwin's feelings gave place to an immense stupefaction at\nhis father's truly remarkable behaviour.  What!  His father emotional!\nHe had to begin to revise again his settled views.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.\n\nONE RESULT OF COURAGE.\n\nBy the next morning a certain tranquillity was restored.\n\nIt was only in this relative calm that the Clayhanger family and its\ndependants began to realise the intensity of the experience through\nwhich they had passed, and, in particular, the strain of waiting for\nevents after the printing office had been abandoned by its denizens.  The\nrumour of what had happened, and of what might have happened, had spread\nabout the premises in an instant, and in another instant all the women\nhad collected in the yard; even Miss Ingamells had betrayed the sacred\ncharge of the shop.  Ten people were in the yard, staring at the window\naperture on the first-floor and listening for ruin.  Some time had\nelapsed before Darius would allow anybody even to mount the steps.  Then\nthe baker, the tenant of the ground-floor, had had to be fetched.  A\npleasant, bland man, he had consented in advance to every suggestion; he\nhad practically made Darius a present of the ground-floor, if Darius\npossessed the courage to go into it, or to send others into it.  The seat\nof deliberation had then been transferred to the alley behind.  And the\njobbing builder and carpenters had been fetched, and there was a palaver\nof tremendous length and solemnity.  For hours nothing definite seemed\nto happen; no one ate or drank, and the current of life at the corner of\nTrafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street ceased to flow.  Boys and men who had\nheard of the affair, and who had the divine gift of curiosity, gazed in\nrapture at the `No Admittance' notice on the ramshackle double gates in\nWoodisun Bank.  It seemed that they might never be rewarded, but their\ngreat faith was justified when a hand-cart, bearing several beams three\nyards long, halted at the gates and was, after a pause, laboriously\npushed past them and round the corner into the alley and up the alley.\nThe alley had been crammed to witness the taking of the beams into the\nbaker's storeroom.  If the floor above had decided to yield, the noble,\nnegligent carpenters would have been crushed beneath tons of machinery.\nAt length a forest of pillars stood planted on the ground-floor amid the\nbaker's lumber; every beam was duly supported, and the experts\npronounced that calamity was now inconceivable.  Lastly, the tackle on\nthe Demy Columbian had been loosed, and the machine, slightly askew,\npermitted gently to sink to full rest on the floor: and the result\njustified the experts.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nBy this time people had started to eat, but informally, as it were\napologetically--Passover meals.  Evening was at hand.  The Clayhangers,\nlater, had met at table.  A strange repast!  A strange father!  The\nchildren had difficulty in speaking naturally.  And then Mrs Hamps had\ncome, ebulliently thanking God, and conveying the fact that the town was\nthrilled and standing utterly amazed in admiration before her heroical\nnephew.  And yet she had said ardently that she was in no way amazed at\nher nephew's coolness; she would have been surprised if he had shown\nhimself even one degree less cool.  From a long study of his character\nshe had foreknown infallibly that in such a crisis as had supervened he\nwould behave precisely as he had behaved.  This attitude of Auntie\nHamps, however, though it reduced the miraculous to the\nordinary-expected, did not diminish Clara's ingenuous awe of Edwin.\nFrom a mocker, the child had been temporarily transformed into an\nunwilling hero-worshipper.  Mrs Hamps having departed, all the family,\nincluding Darius, had retired earlier than usual.\n\nAnd now, on meeting his father and Big James and Miss Ingamells in the\nqueer peace of the morning, in the relaxation after tension, and in the\ncomplete realisation of the occurrence, Edwin perceived from the\ndemeanour of all that, by an instinctive action extending over perhaps\nfive seconds of time, he had procured for himself a wondrous and\napparently permanent respect.  Miss Ingamells, when he went vaguely into\nthe freshly watered shop before breakfast, greeted him in a new tone,\nand with startling deference asked him what he thought she had better do\nin regard to the addressing of a certain parcel.  Edwin considered this\nodd; he considered it illogical; and one consequence of Miss Ingamells's\nquite sincere attitude was that he despised Miss Ingamells for a moral\nweakling.  He knew that he himself was a moral weakling, but he was sure\nthat he could never bend, never crouch, to such a posture as Miss\nIngamells's; that she was obviously sincere only increased his secret\nscorn.\n\nBut his father resembled Miss Ingamells.  Edwin had not dreamt that\nmankind, and especially his father, was characterised by such\nsimplicity.  And yet, on reflection, had he not always found in his\nfather a peculiar ingenuousness, which he could not but look down upon?\nHis father, whom he met crossing the yard, spoke to him almost as he\nmight have spoken to a junior partner.  It was more than odd; it was\nagainst nature, as Edwin had conceived nature.\n\nHe was so superior and lofty, yet without intending it, that he made no\nattempt to put himself in his father's place.  He, in the exciting\nmoments between the first cracking sound and the second, had had a\nvision of wrecked machinery and timber in an abyss at his feet.  His\nfather had had a vision far more realistic and terrifying.  His father\nhad seen the whole course of his printing business brought to a\nstandstill, and all his savings dragged out of him to pay for\nreconstruction and for new machinery.  His father had seen loss of life\nwhich might be accounted to his negligence.  His father had seen, with\nthat pessimism which may overtake anybody in a crisis, the ruin of a\ncareer, the final frustration of his lifelong daring and obstinacy, and\nthe end of everything.  And then he had seen his son suddenly walk forth\nand save the frightful situation.  He had always looked down upon that\nson as helpless, coddled, incapable of initiative or of boldness.  He\nbelieved himself to be a highly remarkable man, and existence had taught\nhim that remarkable men seldom or never have remarkable sons.  Again and\nagain had he noted the tendency of remarkable men to beget gaping and\nidle fools.  Nevertheless, he had intensely desired to be able to be\nproud of his son.  He had intensely desired to be able, when\nacquaintances should be sincerely enthusiastic about the merits of his\nson, to pretend, insincerely and with pride only half concealed, that\nhis son was quite an ordinary youth.\n\nNow his desire had been fulfilled; it had been more than fulfilled.  The\ntown would chatter about Edwin's presence of mind for a week.  Edwin's\nact would become historic; it already was historic.  And not only was\nthe act in itself wonderful and admirable and epoch-making; but it\nproved that Edwin, despite his blondness, his finickingness, his\nhesitations, had grit.  That was the point: the lad had grit; there was\nmaterial in the lad of which much could be made.  Add to this, the\nfather's mere instinctive gratitude--a gratitude of such unguessed depth\nthat it had prevented him even from being ashamed of having publicly and\nimpulsively embraced his son on the previous morning.\n\nEdwin, in his unconscious egoism, ignored all that.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\n\"I've just seen Barlow,\" said Darius confidentially to Edwin.  Barlow\nwas the baker.  \"He's been here afore his rounds.  He's willing to\nsublet me his storeroom--so that'll be all right!  Eh?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Edwin, seeing that his approval was being sought for.\n\n\"We must fix that machine plumb again.\"\n\n\"I suppose the floor's as firm as rocks now?\"  Edwin suggested.\n\n\"Eh!  Bless ye!  Yes!\" said his father, with a trace of kindly\nimpatience.\n\nThe policy of makeshift was to continue.  The floor having been stayed\nwith oak, the easiest thing and the least immediately expensive thing\nwas to leave matters as they were.  When the baker's stores were cleared\nfrom his warehouse, Darius could use the spaces between the pillars for\nlumber of his own; and he could either knock an entrance-way through the\nwall in the yard, or he could open the nailed-down trap door and patch\nthe ancient stairway within; or he could do nothing--it would only mean\nwalking out into Woodisun Bank and up the alley each time he wanted\naccess to his lumber!\n\nAnd yet, after the second cracking sound on the previous day, he had\nbeen ready to vow to rent an entirely new and common-sense printing\noffice somewhere else--if only he should be saved from disaster that\nonce!  But he had not quite vowed.  And, in any case, a vow to oneself\nis not a vow to the Virgin.  He had escaped from a danger, and the\nrecurrence of the particular danger was impossible.  Why then commit\nfollies of prudence, when the existing arrangement of things `would do'?\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nThat afternoon Darius Clayhanger, with his most mysterious air of\nbusiness, told Edwin to follow him into the shop.  Several hours of\nmiscellaneous consultative pottering had passed between Darius and his\ncompositors round and about the new printing machine, which was once\nmore plumb and ready for action.  For considerably over a week Edwin had\nbeen on his father's general staff without any definite task or\noccupation having been assigned to him.  His father had been too\nexcitedly preoccupied with the arrival and erection of the machine to\nbestow due thought upon the activities proper to Edwin in the complex\ndailiness of the business.  Now he meant at any rate to begin to put the\nboy into a suitable niche.  The boy had deserved at least that.\n\nAt the desk he opened before him the daily and weekly newspaper-book,\nand explained its system.\n\n\"Let's take the `British Mechanic,'\" he said.\n\nAnd he turned to the page where the title `British Mechanic' was written\nin red ink.  Underneath that title were written the names and addresses\nof fifteen subscribers to the paper.  To the right of the names were\nthirteen columns, representing a quarter of the year.  With his\ncustomary laboriousness, Darius described the entire process of\ndistribution.  The parcel of papers arrived and was counted, and the\nname of a subscriber scribbled in an abbreviated form on each copy.\nSome copies had to be delivered by the errand boy; these were handed to\nthe errand boy, and a tick made against each subscriber in the column\nfor the week: other copies were called for by the subscriber, and as\neach of these was taken away, similarly a tick had to be made against\nthe name of its subscriber.  Some copies were paid for in cash in the\nshop, some were paid in cash to the office boy, some were paid for\nmonthly, some were paid for quarterly, and some, as Darius said grimly,\nwere never paid for at all.  No matter what the method of paying, when a\ncopy was paid for, or thirteen copies were paid for, a crossing tick had\nto be made in the book for each copy.  Thus, for a single quarter of\n\"British Mechanic\" nearly two hundred ticks and nearly two hundred\ncrossing ticks had to be made in the book, if the work was properly\ndone.  However, it was never properly done--Miss Ingamells being short\nof leisure and the errand boy utterly unreliable--and Darius wanted it\nproperly done.  The total gross profit on a quarter of \"British\nMechanics\" was less than five shillings, and no customers were more\nexigent and cantankerous than those who bought one pennyworth of goods\nper week, and had them delivered free, and received three months'\ncredit.  Still, that could not be helped.  A printer and stationer was\ncompelled by usage to supply papers; and besides, paper subscribers\nserved a purpose as a nucleus of general business.\n\nAs with the \"British Mechanics,\" so with seventeen other weeklies.  The\ndaily papers were fewer, but the accountancy they caused was even more\nelaborate.  For monthly magazines there was a separate book with a\nseparate system; here the sums involved were vaster, ranging as high as\nhalf a crown.\n\nDarius led Edwin with patient minuteness through the whole labyrinth.\n\n\"Now,\" he said, \"you're going to have sole charge of all this.\"\n\nAnd he said it benevolently, in the conviction that he was awarding a\ndeserved recompense, with the mien of one who was giving dominion to a\nfaithful steward over ten cities.\n\n\"Just look into it carefully yerself, lad,\" he said at last, and left\nEdwin with a mixed parcel of journals upon which to practise.\n\nBefore Edwin's eyes flickered hundreds of names, thousands of figures,\nand tens of thousands of ticks.  His heart protested; it protested with\nloathing.  The prospect stretching far in front of him made him feel\nsick.  But something weak and good-natured in him forced him to smile,\nand to simulate a subdued ecstasy at receiving this overwhelming proof\nof his father's confidence in him.  As for Darius, Darius was delighted\nwith himself and with his son, and he felt that he was behaving as a\nbenignant father should.  Edwin had proved his grit, proved that he had\nthat uncommunicable quality, `character,' and had well deserved\nencouragement.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nThe next morning, in the printing office, Edwin came upon Big James\ngiving a lesson in composing to the younger apprentice, who in theory\nhad `learned his cases.'  Big James held the composing stick in his\ngreat left hand, like a match-box, and with his great right thumb and\nindex picked letter after letter from the case, very slowly in order to\ndisplay the movement, and dropped them into the stick.  In his mild,\nresonant tones he explained that each letter must be picked up\nunfalteringly in a particular way, so that it would drop face upward\ninto the stick without any intermediate manipulation.  And he explained\nalso that the left hand must be held so that the right hand would have\nto travel to and fro as little as possible.  He was revealing the basic\nmysteries of his craft, and was happy, making the while the broad series\nof stock pleasantries which have probably been current in composing\nrooms since printing was invented.  Then he was silent, working more and\nmore quickly, till his right hand could scarcely be followed in its\ntwinklings, and the face of the apprentice duly spread in marvel, When\nthe line was finished he drew out the rule, clapped it down on the top\nof the last row of letters, and gave the composing stick to the\napprentice to essay.\n\nThe apprentice began to compose with his feet, his shoulders, his mouth,\nhis eyebrows--with all his body except his hands, which nevertheless\ntravelled spaciously far and wide.\n\n\"It's not in seven year, nor in seventy, as you'll learn, young son of a\ngun!\" said Big James.\n\nAnd, having unsettled the youth to his foundations with a bland thwack\nacross the head, he resumed the composing stick and began again the\nexposition of the unique smooth movement which is the root of rapid\ntype-setting.\n\n\"Here!\" said Big James, when the apprentice had behaved worse than ever.\n\"Us'll ask Mr Edwin to have a go.  Us'll see what _he_'ll do.\"\n\nAnd Edwin, sheepish, had to comply.  He was in pride bound to surpass\nthe apprentice, and did so.\n\n\"There!\" said Big James.  \"What did I tell ye?\"  He seemed to imply a\nprophecy that, because Edwin had saved the printing office from\ndestruction two days previously, he would necessarily prove to be a born\ncompositor.\n\nThe apprentice deferentially sniggered, and Edwin smiled modestly and\nawkwardly and departed without having accomplished what he had come to\ndo.\n\nBy his own act of cool, nonchalant, unconsidered courage in a crisis, he\nhad, it seemed, definitely proved himself to possess a special aptitude\nin all branches of the business of printer and stationer.  Everybody\nassumed it.  Everybody was pleased.  Everybody saw that Providence had\nbeen kind to Darius and to his son.  The fathers of the town, and the\nmothers, who liked Edwin's complexion and fair hair, told each other\nthat not every parent was so fortunate as Mr Clayhanger, and what a\nblessing it was that the old breed was not after all dying out in those\nnewfangled days.  Edwin could not escape from the universal assumption.\nHe felt it round him as a net which somehow he had to cut.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.\n\nTHE ARCHITECT.\n\nOne morning Edwin was busy in the shop with his own private minion, the\npaper boy, who went in awe of him.  But this was not the same Edwin,\nthough people who could only judge by features, and by the length of\ntrousers and sleeves on legs and arms, might have thought that it was\nthe same Edwin enlarged and corrected.  Half a year had passed.  The\nmonth was February, cold.  Mr Enoch Peake had not merely married Mrs\nLouisa Loggerheads, but had died of an apoplexy, leaving behind him\nCocknage Gardens, a widow, and his name painted in large letters over\nthe word `Loggerheads' on the lintel of the Dragon.  The steam-printer\nhad done the funeral cards, and had gone to the burial of his hopes of\nbusiness in that quarter.  Many funeral cards had come out of the same\nprinting office during the winter, including that of Mr Udall, the\ngreat marble-player.  It seemed uncanny to Edwin that a marble-player\nwhom he had actually seen playing marbles should do anything so solemn\nas expire.  However, Edwin had perfectly lost all interest in marbles;\nonly once in six months had he thought of them, and that once through a\nfuneral card.  Also he was growing used to funeral cards.  He would\nenter an order for funeral cards as nonchalantly as an order for\nbutterscotch labels.  But it was not deaths and the spectacle of life as\nseen from the shop that had made another Edwin of him.\n\nWhat had changed him was the slow daily influence of a large number of\ntrifling habitual duties none of which fully strained his faculties, and\nthe monotony of them, and the constant watchful conventionality of his\ndeportment with customers.  He was still a youth, very youthful, but you\nhad to keep an eye open for his youthfulness if you wished to find it\nbeneath the little man that he had been transformed into.  He now took\nhis watch out of his pocket with an absent gesture and look exactly like\nhis father's; and his tones would be a reflection of those of the last\nimportant full-sized man with whom he had happened to have been in\ncontact.  And though he had not developed into a dandy (finance\nforbidding), he kept his hair unnaturally straight, and amiably grumbled\nto Maggie about his collars every fortnight or so.  Yes, another Edwin!\nYet it must not be assumed that he was growing in discontent, either\nchronic or acute.  On the contrary, the malady of discontent troubled\nhim less and less.\n\nTo the paper boy he was a real man.  The paper boy accepted him with\nunreserved fatalism, as Edwin accepted his father.  Thus the boy stood\npassive while Edwin brought business to a standstill by privately\nperusing the \"Manchester Examiner.\"  It was Saturday morning, the\nmorning on which the \"Examiner\" published its renowned Literary\nSupplement.  All the children read eagerly the Literary Supplement; but\nEdwin, in virtue of his office, got it first.  On the first and second\npages was the serial story, by George MacDonald, W. Clark Russell, or\nMrs Lynn Linton; then followed readable extracts from new books, and on\nthe fourth page were selected jokes from \"Punch.\"  Edwin somehow always\nbegan with the jokes, and in so doing was rather ashamed of his levity.\nHe would skim the jokes, glance at the titles of the new books, and look\nat the dialogue parts of the serial, while business and the boy waited.\nThere was no hurry then, even though the year had reached 1873 and\npeople were saying that they would soon be at the middle of the\nseventies; even though the Licensing Act had come into force and\npublicans were predicting the end of the world.  Morning papers were not\ndelivered till ten, eleven, or twelve o'clock in Bursley, and on\nSaturdays, owing to Edwin's laudable interest in the best periodical\nliterature, they were apt to be delivered later than usual.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nOn this particular morning Edwin was disturbed in his studies by a\ngreater than the paper boy, a greater even than his father.  Mr Osmond\nOrgreave came stamping his cold feet into the shop, the floor of which\nwas still a little damp from the watering that preceded its sweeping.\nMr Orgreave, though as far as Edwin knew he had never been in the shop\nbefore, went straight to the coke-stove, bent his knees, and began to\nwarm his hands.  In this position he opened an interview with Edwin, who\ndropped the Literary Supplement.  Miss Ingamells was momentarily absent.\n\n\"Father in?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\nEdwin did not say where his father was, because he had received general\ninstructions never to `volunteer information' on that point.\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\n\"He's out, sir.\"\n\n\"Oh!  Well!  Has he left any instructions about those specifications for\nthe Shawport Board School?\"\n\n\"No, sir.  I'm afraid he hasn't.  But I can ask in the printing office.\"\n\nMr Orgreave approached the counter, smiling.  His face was angular,\nrather stout, and harsh, with a grey moustache and a short grey beard,\nand yet his demeanour and his voice had a jocular, youthful quality.\nAnd this was not the only contradiction about him.  His clothes were\nextremely elegant and nice in detail--the whiteness of his linen would\nhave struck the most casual observer--but he seemed to be perfectly\noblivious of his clothes, indeed, to show carelessness concerning them.\nHis finger-nails were marvellously tended.  But he scribbled in pencil\non his cuff, and apparently was not offended by a grey mark on his hand\ndue to touching the top of the stove.  The idea in Edwin's head was that\nMr Orgreave must put on a new suit of clothes once a week, and new\nlinen every day, and take a bath about once an hour.  The man had no\nceremoniousness.  Thus, though he had never previously spoken to Edwin,\nhe made no preliminary pretence of not being sure who Edwin was; he\nchatted with him as though they were old friends and had parted only the\nday before; he also chatted with him as though they were equals in age,\neminence, and wealth.  A strange man!\n\n\"Now look here!\" he said, as the conversation proceeded, \"those\nspecifications are at the Sytch Chapel.  If you could come along with me\nnow--I mean _now_--I could give them to you and point out one or two\nthings to you, and perhaps Big James could make a start on them this\nmorning.  You see it's urgent.\"\n\nSo he was familiar with Big James.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Edwin, excited.\n\nAnd when he had curtly told the paper boy to do portions of the\nnewspaper job which he had always held the paper boy was absolutely\nincapable of doing, he sent the boy to find Miss Ingamells, informed her\nwhere he was going, and followed Mr Orgreave out of the shop.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\n\"Of course you know Charlie's at school in France,\" said Mr Orgreave,\nas they passed along Wedgwood Street in the direction of Saint Luke's\nSquare.  He was really very companionable.\n\n\"Er--yes!\"  Edwin replied, nervously explosive, and buttoning up his\ntight overcoat with an important business air.\n\n\"At least it isn't a school--it's a university.  Besancon, you know.\nThey take university students much younger there.  Oh!  He has a rare\ntime--a rare time.  Never writes to you, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No.\"  Edwin gave a short laugh.\n\nMr Orgreave laughed aloud.  \"And he wouldn't to us either, if his\nmother didn't make a fuss about it.  But when he does write, we gather\nthere's no place like Besancon.\"\n\n\"It must be splendid,\" Edwin said thoughtfully.\n\n\"You and he were great chums, weren't you?  I know we used to hear about\nyou every day.  His mother used to say that we had Clayhanger with every\nmeal.\"  Mr Orgreave again laughed heartily.\n\nEdwin blushed.  He was quite startled, and immensely flattered.  What on\nearth could the Sunday have found to tell them every day about _him_?  He,\nEdwin Clayhanger, a subject of conversation in the household of the\nOrgreaves, that mysterious household which he had never entered but\nwhich he had always pictured to himself as being so finely superior!\nLess than a year ago Charlie Orgreave had been `the Sunday,' had been\n`old Perish-in-the-attempt,' and now he was a student in Besancon\nUniversity, unapproachable, extraordinarily romantic; and he, Edwin,\nremained in his father's shop!  He had been aware that Charlie had gone\nto Besancon University, but he had not realised it effectively till this\nmoment.  The realisation blew discontent into a flame, which fed on the\nfurther perception that evidently the Orgreave family were a gay, jolly\ncrowd of cronies together, not in the least like parents and children;\ntheir home life must be something fundamentally different from his.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nWhen they had crossed the windy space of Saint Luke's Square and reached\nthe top of the Sytch Bank, Mr Orgreave stopped an instant in front of\nthe Sytch Pottery, and pointed to a large window at the south end that\nwas in process of being boarded up.\n\n\"At last!\" he murmured with disgust.  Then he said: \"That's the most\nbeautiful window in Bursley, and perhaps in the Five Towns; and you see\nwhat's happening to it.\"\n\nEdwin had never heard the word `beautiful' uttered in quite that tone,\nexcept by women, such as Auntie Hamps, about a baby or a valentine or a\nsermon.  But Mr Orgreave was not a woman; he was a man of the world, he\nwas almost _the_ man of the world; and the subject of his adjective was a\nwindow!\n\n\"Why are they boarding it up, Mr Orgreave?\"  Edwin asked.\n\n\"Oh!  Ancient lights!  Ancient lights!\"\n\nEdwin began to snigger.  He thought for an instant that Mr Orgreave was\nbeing jocular over his head, for he could only connect the phrase\n`ancient lights' with the meaner organs of a dead animal, exposed, for\nexample, in tripe shops.  However, he saw his ineptitude almost\nsimultaneously with the commission of it, and smothered the snigger in\nbecoming gravity.  It was clear that he had something to learn in the\nphraseology employed by architects.\n\n\"I should think,\" said Mr Orgreave, \"I should think they've been at law\nabout that window for thirty years, if not more.  Well, it's over now,\nseemingly.\"  He gazed at the disappearing window.  \"What a shame!\"\n\n\"It is,\" said Edwin politely.\n\nMr Orgreave crossed the road and then stood still to gaze at the facade\nof the Sytch Pottery.  It was a long two-storey building, purest\nGeorgian, of red brick with very elaborate stone facings which\ncontrasted admirably with the austere simplicity of the walls.  The\nporch was lofty, with a majestic flight of steps narrowing to the doors.\nThe ironwork of the basement railings was unusually rich and\nimpressive.\n\n\"Ever seen another pot-works like that?\" demanded Mr Orgreave,\nenthusiastically musing.\n\n\"No,\" said Edwin.  Now that the question was put to him, he never _had_\nseen another pot-works like that.\n\n\"There are one or two pretty fine works in the Five Towns,\" said Mr\nOrgreave.  \"But there's nothing elsewhere to touch this.  I nearly\nalways stop and look at it if I'm passing.  Just look at the pointing!\nThe pointing alone--\"\n\nEdwin had to readjust his ideas.  It had never occurred to him to search\nfor anything fine in Bursley.  The fact was, he had never opened his\neyes at Bursley.  Dozens of times he must have passed the Sytch Pottery,\nand yet not noticed, not suspected, that it differed from any other\npot-works: he who dreamed of being an architect!\n\n\"You don't think much of it?\" said Mr Orgreave, moving on.  \"People\ndon't.\"\n\n\"Oh yes!  I _do_!\"  Edwin protested, and with such an air of eager\nsincerity that Mr Orgreave turned to glance at him.  And in truth he\ndid think that the Sytch Pottery was beautiful.  He never would have\nthought so but for the accident of the walk with Mr Orgreave; he might\nhave spent his whole life in the town, and never troubled himself a\nmoment about the Sytch Pottery.  Nevertheless he now, by an act of sheer\nfaith, suddenly, miraculously and genuinely regarded it as an\nexquisitely beautiful edifice, on a plane with the edifices of the\ncapitals of Europe, and as a feast for discerning eyes.  \"I like\narchitecture very much,\" he added.  And this too was said with such\nfeverish conviction that Mr Orgreave was quite moved.\n\n\"I must show you my new Sytch Chapel,\" said Mr Orgreave gaily.\n\n\"Oh!  I should like you to show it me,\" said Edwin.\n\nBut he was exceedingly perturbed by misgivings.  Here was he wanting to\nbe an architect, and he had never observed the Sytch Pottery!  Surely\nthat was an absolute proof that he had no vocation for architecture!\nAnd yet now he did most passionately admire the Sytch Pottery.  And he\nwas proud to be sharing the admiration of the fine, joyous, superior,\nluxurious, companionable man, Mr Orgreave.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nThey went down the Sytch Bank to the new chapel of which Mr Orgreave,\nthough a churchman, was the architect, in that vague quarter of the\nworld between Bursley and Turnhill.  The roof was not on; the\nscaffolding was extraordinarily interesting and confusing; they bent\ntheir heads to pass under low portals; Edwin had the delicious smell of\nnew mortar; they stumbled through sand, mud, cinders and little pools;\nthey climbed a ladder and stepped over a large block of dressed stone,\nand Mr Orgreave said--\n\n\"This is the gallery we're in, here.  You see the scheme of the place\nnow...  That hole--only a flue.  Now you see what that arch carries--\nthey didn't like it in the plans because they thought it might be\nmistaken for a church--\"\n\nEdwin was receptive.\n\n\"Of course it's a very small affair, but it'll cost less per sitting\nthan any other chapel in your circuit, and I fancy it'll look less like\na box of bricks.\"  Mr Orgreave subtly smiled, and Edwin tried to equal\nhis subtlety.  \"I must show you the elevation some other time--a bit\nlater.  What I've been after in it, is to keep it in character with the\nstreet...  Hi!  Dan, there!\"  Now, Mr Orgreave was calling across the\nhollow of the chapel to a fat man in corduroys.  \"Have you remembered\nabout those blue bricks?\"\n\nPerhaps the most captivating phenomenon of all was a little lean-to shed\nwith a real door evidently taken from somewhere else, and a little\nstove, and a table and a chair.  Here Mr Orgreave had a confabulation\nwith the corduroyed man, who was the builder, and they pored over\nimmense sheets of  plans that lay on the table, and Mr Orgreave\nmade marks and even sketches on the plans, and the fat man objected to\nhis instructions, and Mr Orgreave insisted, \"Yes, _yes_!\"  And it seemed\nto Edwin as though the building of the chapel stood still while Mr\nOrgreave cogitated and explained; it seemed to Edwin that he was in the\ncreating-chamber.  The atmosphere of the shed was inexpressibly romantic\nto him.  After the fat man had gone Mr Orgreave took a clothes-brush\noff a plank that had been roughly nailed on two brackets to the wall,\nand brushed Edwin's clothes, and Edwin brushed Mr Orgreave, and then\nMr Orgreave, having run his hand through the brush, lightly brushed his\nhair with it.  All this was part of Edwin's joy.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"I think the idea of that arch is splendid.\"\n\n\"You do?\" said Mr Orgreave quite simply and ingenuously pleased and\ninterested.  \"You see--with the lie of the ground as it is--\"\n\nThat was another point that Edwin ought to have thought of by himself--\nthe lie of the ground--but he had not thought of it.  Mr Orgreave went\non talking.  In the shop he had conveyed the idea that he was\ntremendously pressed for time; now he had apparently forgotten time.\n\n\"I'm afraid I shall have to be off,\" said Edwin timidly.  And he made a\npreliminary movement as if to depart.\n\n\"And what about those specifications, young man?\" asked Mr Orgreave,\ndrily twinkling.  He unlocked a drawer in the rickety table.  Edwin had\nforgotten the specifications as successfully as Mr Orgreave had\nforgotten time.  Throughout the remainder of the day he smelt imaginary\nmortar.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.\n\nA DECISION.\n\nThe next day being the day of rest, Mrs Nixon arose from her nook at\n5:30 a.m. and woke Edwin.  She did this from good-nature, and because\nshe could refuse him nothing, and not under any sort of compulsion.\nEdwin got up at the first call, though he was in no way remarkable for\nhis triumphs over the pillow.  Twenty-five minutes later he was crossing\nTrafalgar Road and entering the school-yard of the Wesleyan Chapel.  And\nfrom various quarters of the town, other young men, of ages varying from\nsixteen to fifty, were converging upon the same point.  Black night\nstill reigned above the lamplights that flickered in the wind which\nprecedes the dawn, and the mud was frozen.  Not merely had these young\nmen to be afoot and abroad, but they had to be ceremoniously dressed.\nThey could not issue forth in flannels and sweater, with a towel round\nthe neck, as for a morning plunge in the river.  The day was Sunday,\nthough Sunday had not dawned, and the plunge was into the river of\nintellectual life.  Moreover, they were bound by conscience to be\nprompt.  To have arrived late, even five minutes late, would have spoilt\nthe whole effect.  It had to be six o'clock or nothing.\n\nThe Young Men's Debating Society was a newly formed branch of the\nmultifarous activity of the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel.  It met on Sunday\nbecause Sunday was the only day that would suit everybody; and at six in\nthe morning for two reasons.  The obvious reason was that at any other\nhour its meetings would clash either with other activities or with the\nsolemnity of Sabbath meals.  This obvious reason could not have stood by\nitself; it was secretly supported by the recondite reason that the\npreposterous hour of 6 a.m. appealed powerfully to something youthful,\nperverse, silly, fanatical, and fine in the youths.  They discovered the\nascetic's joy in robbing themselves of sleep and in catching chills, and\nin disturbing households and chapel-keepers.  They thought it was a\ngreat thing to be discussing intellectual topics at an hour when a town\nthat ignorantly scorned intellectuality was snoring in all its heavy\nbrutishness.  And it was a great thing.  They considered themselves the\nsalt of the earth, or of that part of the earth.  And I have an idea\nthat they were.\n\nEdwin had joined this Society partly because he did not possess the art\nof refusing, partly because the notion of it appealed spectacularly to\nthe martyr in him, and partly because it gave him an excuse for ceasing\nto attend the afternoon Sunday school, which he loathed.  Without such\nan excuse he could never have told his father that he meant to give up\nSunday school.  He could never have dared to do so.  His father had what\nEdwin deemed to be a superstitious and hypocritical regard for the\nSunday school.  Darius never went near the Sunday school, and assuredly\nin business and in home life he did not practise the precepts inculcated\nat the Sunday school, and yet he always spoke of the Sunday school with\nwhat was to Edwin a ridiculous reverence.  Another of those problems in\nhis father's character which Edwin gave up in disgust!\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nThe Society met in a small classroom.  The secretary, arch ascetic,\narrived at 5:45 and lit the fire which the chapel-keeper (a man with no\nenthusiasm whatever for flagellation, the hairshirt, or intellectuality)\nhad laid but would not get up to light.  The chairman of the Society, a\nlittle Welshman named Llewelyn Roberts, aged fifty, but a youth because\na bachelor, sat on a chair at one side of the incipient fire, and some\ndozen members sat round the room on forms.  A single gas jet flamed from\nthe ceiling.  Everybody wore his overcoat, and within the collars of\novercoats could be seen glimpses of rich neckties; the hats, some\nglossy, dotted the hat-rack which ran along two walls.  A hymn was sung,\nand then all knelt, some spreading handkerchiefs on the dusty floor to\nprotect fine trousers, and the chairman invoked the blessing of God on\ntheir discussions.  The proper mental and emotional atmosphere was now\nestablished.  The secretary read the minutes of the last meeting, while\nthe chairman surreptitiously poked the fire with a piece of wood from\nthe lower works of a chair, and then the chairman, as he signed the\nminutes with a pen dipped in an excise ink-bottle that stood on the\nnarrow mantelpiece, said in his dry voice--\n\n\"I call upon our young friend, Mr Edwin Clayhanger, to open the debate,\n`Is Bishop Colenso, considered as a Biblical commentator, a force for\ngood?'\"\n\n\"I'm a damned fool!\" said Edwin to himself savagely, as he stood on his\nfeet.  But to look at his wistful and nervously smiling face, no one\nwould have guessed that he was thus blasphemously swearing in the\nprivacy of his own brain.\n\nHe had been entrapped into the situation in which he found himself.  It\nwas not until after he had joined the Society that he had learnt of a\nrule which made it compulsory for every member to speak at every meeting\nattended, and for every member to open a debate at least once in a year.\nAnd this was not all; the use of notes while the orator was `up' was\nabsolutely forbidden.  A drastic Society!  It had commended itself to\nelders by claiming to be a nursery for ready speakers.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nEdwin had chosen the subject of Bishop Colenso--the ultimate wording of\nthe resolution was not his--because he had been reading about the\nintellectually adventurous Bishop in the \"Manchester Examiner.\"  And,\nalthough eleven years had passed since the publication of the first part\nof \"The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined,\" the\nColenso question was only just filtering down to the thinking classes of\nthe Five Towns; it was an actuality in the Five Towns, if in abeyance in\nLondon.  Even Hugh Miller's \"The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an\nOld Field,\" then over thirty years old, was still being looked upon as\ndangerously original in the Five Towns in 1873.  However, the effect of\nits disturbing geological evidence that the earth could scarcely have\nbeen begun and finished in a little under a week, was happily nullified\nby the suicide of its author; that pistol-shot had been a striking proof\nof the literal inspiration of the Bible.\n\nBishop Colenso had, in Edwin, an ingenuous admirer.  Edwin stammeringly\nand hesitatingly gave a preliminary sketch of his life; how he had been\ncensured by Convocation and deposed from his See by his Metropolitan;\nhow the Privy Council had decided that the deposition was null and void;\nhow the ecclesiastical authorities had then circumvented the Privy\nCouncil by refusing to pay his salary to the Bishop (which Edwin\nconsidered mean); how the Bishop had circumvented the ecclesiastical\nauthorities by appealing to the Master of the Rolls, who ordered the\necclesiastical authorities to pay him his arrears of income with\ninterest thereon, unless they were ready to bring him to trial for\nheresy; how the said authorities would not bring him to trial for heresy\n(which Edwin considered to be miserable cowardice on their part); how\nthe Bishop had then been publicly excommunicated, without authority; and\nhow his friends, among whom were some very respectable and powerful\npeople, had made him a present of over three thousand pounds.  After\nthis graphic historical survey, Edwin proceeded to the Pentateuchal\npuzzles, and, without pronouncing an opinion thereon, argued that any\ncommentator who was both learned and sincere must be a force for good,\nas the Bible had nothing to fear from honest inquiry, etcetera,\netcetera.  Five-sixths of his speech was  by phrases and modes\nof thought which he had picked up in the Wesleyan community, and the\nother sixth belonged to himself.  The speech was moderately bad, but not\ninferior to many other speeches.  It was received in absolute silence.\nThis rather surprised Edwin, because the tone in which the leading\nmembers of the Society usually spoke to him indicated that (for reasons\nwhich he knew not) they regarded him as a very superior intellect\nindeed; and Edwin was not entirely ashamed of the quality of his speech;\nin fact, he had feared worse from himself, especially as, since his walk\nwith Mr Orgreave, he had been quite unable to concentrate his thoughts\non Bishop Colenso at all, and had been exceedingly unhappy and\napprehensive concerning an affair that bore no kind of relation to the\nPentateuch.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nThe chairman began to speak at once.  His function was to call upon the\nspeakers in the order arranged, and to sum up before putting the\nresolution to the vote.  But now he produced surprisingly a speech of\nhis own.  He reminded the meeting that in 1860 Bishop Colenso had\nmemorialised the Archbishop of Canterbury against compelling natives who\nhad already more than one wife to renounce polygamy as a condition to\nbaptism in the Christian religion; he stated that, though there were\nyoung men present who were almost infants in arms at that period, he for\nhis part could well remember all the episode, and in particular Bishop\nColenso's amazing allegation that he could find no disapproval of\npolygamy either in the Bible or in the writings of the Ancient Church.\nHe also pointed out that in 1861 Bishop Colenso had argued against the\ndoctrine of Eternal Punishment.  He warned the meeting to beware of\nyouthful indiscretions.  Every one there assembled of course meant well,\nand believed what it was a duty to believe, but at the same time...\n\n\"I shall write father a letter!\" said Edwin to himself.  The idea came\nto him in a flash like a divine succour; and it seemed to solve all his\ndifficulties--difficulties unconnected with the subject of debate.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nThe chairman went on crossing t's and dotting i's.  And soon even Edwin\nperceived that the chairman was diplomatically and tactfully, yet very\nfirmly, bent upon saving the meeting from any possibility of\nscandalising itself and the Wesleyan community.  Bishop Colenso must not\nbe approved beneath those roofs.  Evidently Edwin had been more\npersuasive than he dreamt of; and daring beyond precedent.  He had meant\nto carry his resolution if he could, whereas, it appeared, he ought to\nhave meant to be defeated, in the true interests of revealed religion.\nThe chairman kept referring to his young friend the proposer's brilliant\nbrains, and to the grave danger that lurked in brilliant brains, and the\ninability of brilliant brains to atone for lack of experience.  The\nmeeting had its cue.  Young man after young man arose to snub Bishop\nColenso, to hope charitably that Bishop Colenso was sincere, and to\ninsist that no Bishop Colenso should lead _him_ to the awful abyss of\npolygamy, and that no Bishop Colenso should deprive _him_ of that unique\nincentive to righteousness--the doctrine of an everlasting burning hell.\nMoses was put on his legs again as a serious historian, and the subject\nof the resolution utterly lost to view.  The Chairman then remarked that\nhis impartial role forbade him to support either side, and the voting\nshowed fourteen against one.  They all sang the Doxology, and the\nChairman pronounced a benediction.  The fourteen forgave the one, as one\nwho knew not what he did; but their demeanour rather too patently showed\nthat they were forgiving under difficulty; and that it would be as well\nthat this kind of youthful temerariousness was not practised too often.\nEdwin, in the language of the district, was `sneaped.'  Wondering what\non earth he after all _had_ said to raise such an alarm, he nevertheless\ndid not feel resentful, only very depressed--about the debate and about\nother things.  He knew in his heart that for him attendance at the\nmeetings of the Young Men's Debating Society was ridiculous.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSIX.\n\nHe allowed all the rest to precede him from the room.  When he was alone\nhe smiled sheepishly, and also disdainfully; he knew that the chasm\nbetween himself and the others was a real chasm, and not a figment of\nhis childish diffidence, as he had sometimes suspected it to be.  Then\nhe turned the gas out.  A beautiful faint silver surged through the\nwindow.  While the debate was in progress, the sun had been going about\nits business of the dawn, unperceived.\n\n\"I shall write a letter!\" he kept saying to himself.  \"He'll never let\nme explain myself properly if I start talking.  I shall write a letter.\nI can write a very good letter, and he'll be bound to take notice of it.\nHe'll never be able to get over my letter.\"\n\nIn the school-yard daylight reigned.  The debaters had already\ndisappeared.  Trafalgar Road and Duck Bank were empty and silent under\nrosy clouds.  Instead of going straight home Edwin went past the Town\nHall and through the Market Place to the Sytch Pottery.  Astounding that\nhe had never noticed for himself how beautiful the building was!  It was\na simply lovely building!\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"I shall write him a letter, and this very day, too!\nMay I be hung, drawn, and quartered if he doesn't have to read my letter\nto-morrow morning!\"\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.\n\nTHE LETTER.\n\nThen there was roast goose for dinner, and Clara amused herself by\nmaking silly facetious faces, furtively, dangerously, under her father's\nvery eyes.  The children feared goose for their father, whose digestion\nwas usually unequal to this particular bird.  Like many fathers of\nfamilies in the Five Towns, he had the habit of going forth on Saturday\nmornings to the butcher's or the poulterer's and buying Sunday's dinner.\nHe was a fairly good judge of a joint, but Maggie considered herself to\nbe his superior in this respect.  However, Darius was not prepared to\nlearn from Maggie, and his purchases had to be accepted without\ncriticism.  At a given meal Darius would never admit that anything\nchosen and bought by him was not perfect; but a week afterwards, if the\nfact was so, he would of his own accord recall imperfections in that\nwhich he had asserted to be perfect; and he would do this without any\nshame, without any apparent sense of inconsistency or weakness.  Edwin\nnoticed a similar trait in other grown-up persons, and it astonished\nhim.  It astonished him especially in his father, who, despite the\nfaults and vulgarities which his fastidious son could find in him,\nalways impressed Edwin as a strong man, a man with the heroic quality of\nnot caring too much what other people thought.\n\nWhen Edwin saw his father take a second plateful of goose, with the\ndeadly stuffing thereof--Darius simply could not resist it, like most\ndyspeptics he was somewhat greedy--he foresaw an indisposed and perilous\nfather for the morrow.  Which prevision was supported by Clara's\npantomimic antics, and even by Maggie's grave and restrained sigh.\nStill, he had sworn to write and send the letter, and he should do so.\nA career, a lifetime, was not to be at the mercy of a bilious attack,\nsurely!  Such a notion offended logic and proportion, and he scorned it\naway.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nThe meal proceeded in silence.  Darius, as in duty bound, mentioned the\nsermon, but neither Clara nor Edwin would have anything to do with the\nsermon, and Maggie had not been to chapel.  Clara and Edwin felt\nthemselves free of piety till six o'clock at least, and they doggedly\nwould not respond.  And Darius from prudence did not insist, for he had\narrived at chapel unthinkably late--during the second chant--and Clara\nwas capable of audacious remarks upon occasions.  The silence grew\nstolid.\n\nAnd Edwin wondered what the dinner-table of the Orgreaves was like.  And\nhe could smell fresh mortar.  And he dreamed of a romantic life--he knew\nnot what kind of life, but something different fundamentally from his\nown.  He suddenly understood, understood with sympathy, the impulse\nwhich had made boys run away to sea.  He could feel the open sea; he\ncould feel the breath of freedom on his cheek.\n\nHe said to himself--\n\n\"Why shouldn't I break this ghastly silence by telling father out loud\nhere that he mustn't forget what I told him that night in the attic?\nI'm going to be an architect.  I'm not going to be any blooming printer.\nI'm going to be an architect.  Why haven't I mentioned it before?  Why\nhaven't I talked about it all the time?  Because I am an ass!  Because\nthere is no word for what I am!  Damn it!  I suppose I'm the person to\nchoose what I'm going to be!  I suppose it's my business more than his.\nBesides, he can't possibly refuse me.  If I say flatly that I won't be a\nprinter--he's done.  This idea of writing a letter is just like me!\nCoward!  Coward!  What's my tongue for?  Can't I talk?  Isn't he bound\nto listen?  All I have to do is to open my mouth.  He's sitting there.\nI'm sitting here.  He can't eat me.  I'm in my rights.  Now suppose I\nstart on it as soon as Mrs Nixon has brought the pudding and pie in?\"\n\nAnd he waited anxiously to see whether he indeed would be able to make a\nstart after the departure of Mrs Nixon.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nHopeless!  He could not bring himself to do it.  It was strange!  It was\ndisgusting! ...  No, he would be compelled to write the letter.\nBesides, the letter would be more effective.  His father could not\ninterrupt a letter by some loud illogical remark.  Thus he salved his\nself-conceit.  He also sought relief in reflecting savagely upon the\nspeeches that had been made against him in the debate.  He went through\nthem all in his mind.  There was the slimy idiot from Baines's (it was\nin such terms that his thoughts ran) who gloried in never having read a\nword of Colenso, and called the assembled company to witness that\nnothing should ever induce him to read such a godless author, going\nabout in the mask of a so-called Bishop.  But had any of them read\nColenso, except possibly Llewellyn Roberts, who in his Welsh way would\npretend ignorance and then come out with a quotation and refer you to\nthe exact page?  Edwin himself had read very little of Colenso--and that\nlittle only because a customer had ordered the second part of the\n\"Pentateuch\" and he had stolen it for a night.  Colenso was not in the\nFree Library...  What a world!  What a debate!  Still, he could not help\ndwelling with pleasure on Mr Roberts's insistence on the brilliant\nquality of his brains.  Astute as Mr Roberts was, the man was clearly\nin awe of Edwin's brains!  Why?  To be honest, Edwin had never been\ndeeply struck by his own brain power.  And yet there must be something\nin it!\n\n\"Of course,\" he reflected sardonically, \"father doesn't show the\nfaintest interest in the debate.  Yet he knew all about it, and that I\nhad to open it.\"  But he was glad that his father showed no interest in\nthe debate.  Clara had mentioned it in the presence of Maggie, with her\nusual ironic intent, and Edwin had quickly shut her up.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nIn the afternoon, the sitting-room being made uninhabitable by his\nfather's goose-ridden dozes, he went out for a walk; the weather was\ncold and fine.  When he returned his father also had gone out; the two\ngirls were lolling in the sitting-room.  An immense fire, built up by\nDarius, was just ripe for the beginning of decay, and the room very\nwarm.  Clara was at the window, Maggie in Darius's chair reading a novel\nof Charlotte M. Yonge's.  On the table, open, was a bound volume of \"The\nFamily Treasury of Sunday Reading,\" in which Clara had been perusing\n\"The Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family\" with feverish interest.\nEdwin had laughed at her ingenuous absorption in the adventures of the\nSchonberg-Cotta family, but the fact was that he had found them rather\ninteresting, in spite of himself, while pretending the contrary.  There\nwas an atmosphere of high obstinate effort and heroical foreign-ness\nabout the story which stimulated something secret in him that seldom\nresponded to the provocation of a book; more easily would this secret\nsomething respond to a calm evening or a distant prospect, or the\nsilence of early morning when by chance he looked out of his window.\n\nThe volume of \"The Family Treasury,\" though five years old, was a recent\nacquisition.  It had come into the house through the total disappearance\nof a customer who had left the loose numbers to be bound in 1869.  Edwin\ndropped sideways on to a chair at the table, spread out his feet to the\nright, pitched his left elbow a long distance to the left, and, his head\nresting on his left hand, turned over the pages with his right hand\nidly.  His eye caught titles such as: \"The Door was Shut,\" \"My Mother's\nVoice,\" \"The Heather Mother,\" \"The Only Treasure,\" \"Religion and\nBusiness,\" \"Hope to the End,\" \"The Child of our Sunday School,\" \"Satan's\nDevices,\" and \"Studies of Christian Life and Character, Hannah More.\"\nThen he saw an article about some architecture in Rome, and he read: \"In\nthe Sistine picture there is the struggle of a great mind to reduce\nwithin the possibilities of art a subject that transcends it.  That mind\nwould have shown itself to be greater, truer, at least, in its judgement\nof the capabilities of art, and more reverent to have let it alone.\"\nThe seriousness of the whole magazine intimidated him into accepting\nthis pronouncement for a moment, though his brief studies in various\nencyclopaedias had led him to believe that the Sistine Chapel (shown in\nan illustration in Cazenove) was high beyond any human criticism.  His\nelbow slid on the surface of the table, and in recovering himself he\nsent \"The Family Treasury\" on the floor, wrong side up, with a great\nnoise.  Maggie did not move.  Clara turned and protested sharply against\nthis sacrilege, and Edwin, out of mere caprice, informed her that her\nprecious magazine was the most stinking silly `pi' [pious] thing that\never was.  With haughty and shocked gestures she gathered up the volume\nand took it out of the room.\n\n\"I say, Mag,\" Edwin muttered, still leaning his head on his hand, and\nstaring blankly at the wall.\n\nThe fire dropped a little in the grate.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Maggie, without stirring or looking up.\n\n\"Has father said anything to you about me wanting to be an architect?\"\nHe spoke with an affectation of dreaminess.\n\n\"About you wanting to be an architect?\" repeated Maggie in surprise.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Edwin.  He knew perfectly well that his father would never\nhave spoken to Maggie on such a subject.  But he wanted to open a\nconversation.\n\n\"No fear!\" said Maggie.  And added in her kindest, most encouraging,\nelder-sisterly tone: \"Why?\"\n\n\"Oh!\"  He hesitated, drawling, and then he told her a great deal of what\nwas in his mind.  And she carefully put the wool-marker in her book and\nshut it, and listened to him.  And the fire dropped and dropped,\ncomfortably.  She did not understand him; obviously she thought his\ndesire to be an architect exceedingly odd; but she sympathised.  Her\nattitude was soothing and fortifying.  After all (he reflected) Maggie's\nall right--there's some sense in Maggie.  He could `get on' with Maggie.\nFor a few moments he was happy and hopeful.\n\n\"I thought I'd write him a letter,\" he said.  \"You know how he is to\ntalk to.\"\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n\"What d'ye think?\" he questioned.\n\n\"I should,\" said Maggie.\n\n\"Then I shall!\" he exclaimed.  \"How d'ye think he'll take it?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Maggie, \"I don't see how he can do aught but take it all\nright...  Depends how you put it, of course.\"\n\n\"Oh, you leave that to me!\" said Edwin, with eager confidence.  \"I shall\nput it all right.  You trust me for that!\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFIVE.\n\nClara danced into the room, flowing over with infantile joy.  She had\nbeen listening to part of the conversation behind the door.\n\n\"So he wants to be an architect!  Arch-i-tect!  Arch-i-tect!\"  She\nhalf-sang the word in a frenzy of ridicule.  She really did dance, and\nwaved her arms.  Her eyes glittered, as if in rapture.  These singular\nmanifestations of her temperament were caused solely by the strangeness\nof the idea of Edwin wanting to be an architect.  The strange sight of\nhim with his hair cut short or in a new neck-tie affected her in a\nsimilar manner.\n\n\"Clara, go and put your pinafore on this _instant_!\" said Maggie.  \"You\nknow you oughtn't to leave it off.\"\n\n\"You needn't be so hoity-toity, miss,\" Clara retorted.  But she moved to\nobey.  When she reached the door she turned again and gleefully taunted\nEdwin.  \"And it's all because he went for a walk yesterday with Mr\nOrgreave!  I know!  I know!  You needn't think I didn't see you, because\nI did!  Arch-i-tect!  Arch-i-tect!\"\n\nShe vanished, on all her springs, spitefully graceful.\n\n\"You might almost think that infernal kid was right bang off her head,\"\nEdwin muttered crossly.  (Still, it was extraordinary how that infernal\nkid hit on the truth.)\n\nMaggie began to mend the fire.\n\n\"Oh, well!\" murmured Maggie, conveying to Edwin that no importance must\nbe attached to the chit's chittishness.\n\nHe went up to the next flight of stairs to his attic.  Dust on the table\nof his work-attic!  Shameful dust!  He had not used that attic since\nChristmas, on the miserable plea that winter was cold and there was no\nfireplace!  He blamed himself for his effeminacy.  Where had flown his\nseriousness, his elaborate plans, his high purposes?  A touch of winter\nhad frightened them away.  Yes, he blamed himself mercilessly.  True it\nwas--as that infernal kid had chanted--a casual half-hour with Mr\nOrgreave was alone responsible for his awakening--at any rate, for his\nawakening at this particular moment.  Still, he was awake--that was the\ngreat fact.  He was tremendously awake.  He had not been asleep; he had\nonly been half-asleep.  His intention of becoming an architect had never\nleft him.  But, through weakness before his father, through a cowardly\ndesire to avoid disturbance and postpone a crisis, he had let the weeks\nslide by.  Now he was in a groove, in a canyon.  He had to get out, and\nthe sooner the better.\n\nA piece of paper, soiled, was pinned on his drawing-board; one or two\nsketches lay about.  He turned the drawing-board over, so that he might\nuse it for a desk on which to write the letter.  But he had no habit of\nwriting letters.  In the attic was to be found neither ink, pen, paper,\nnor envelope.  He remembered a broken quire of sermon paper in his\nbedroom; he had used a few sheets of it for notes on Bishop Colenso.\nThese notes had been written in the privacy and warmth of bed, in\npencil.  But the letter must be done in ink; the letter was too\nimportant for pencil; assuredly his father would take exception to\npencil.  He descended to his sister's room and borrowed Maggie's ink and\na pen, and took an envelope, tripping like a thief.  Then he sat down to\nthe composition of the letter; but he was obliged to stop almost\nimmediately in order to light the lamp.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSIX.\n\nThis is what he wrote:\n\n\"Dear Father,--I dare say you will think it queer me writing you a\nletter like this, but it is the best thing I can do, and I hope you will\nexcuse me.  I dare say you will remember I told you that night when you\ncame home late from Manchester here in the attic that I wanted to be an\narchitect.  You replied that what I wanted was business experience.  If\nyou say that I have not had enough business experience yet, I agree to\nthat, but I want it to be understood that later on, when it is the\nproper time, I am to be an architect.  You know I am very fond of\narchitecture, and I feel that I must be an architect.  I feel I shall\nnot be happy in the printing business because I want to be an architect.\nI am now nearly seventeen.  Perhaps it is too soon yet for me to be\napprenticed to an architect, and so I can go on learning business\nhabits.  But I just want it to be understood.  I am quite sure you wish\nme to be happy in life, and I shan't be happy if I am always regretting\nthat I have not gone in for being an architect.  I know I shall like\narchitecture.--Your affectionate son, Edwin Clayhanger.\"\n\nThen, as an afterthought, he put the date and his address at the top.\nHe meditated a postscript asking for a reply, but decided that this was\nunnecessary.  As he was addressing the envelope Mrs Nixon called out to\nhim from below to come to tea.  He was surprised to find that he had\nspent over an hour on the letter.  He shivered and sneezed.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSEVEN.\n\nDuring tea he felt himself absurdly self-conscious, but nobody seemed to\nnotice his condition.  The whole family went to chapel.  The letter lay\nin his pocket, and he might easily have slipped away to the post-office\nwith it, but he had had no opportunity to possess himself of a stamp.\nThere was no need to send the letter through the post.  He might get up\nearly and put it among the morning's letters.  He had decided, however,\nthat it must arrive formally by the postman, and he would not alter his\ndecision.  Hence, after chapel, he took a match, and, creeping into the\nshop, procured a crimson stamp from his father's desk.  Then he went\nforth, by the back way, alone into the streets.  The adventure was not\nso hazardous as it seemed and as it felt.  Darius was incurious by\nnature, though he had brief fevers of curiosity.  Thus the life of the\nchildren was a demoralising mixture of rigid discipline and freedom.\nThey were permitted nothing, but, as the years passed, they might take\nnearly anything.  There was small chance of Darius discovering his son's\nexcursion.\n\nIn crossing the road from chapel Edwin had opined to his father that the\nfrost was breaking.  He was now sure of it.  The mud, no longer brittle,\nyielded to pressure, and there was a trace of dampness in the\ninterstices of the pavement bricks.  A thin raw mist was visible in huge\nspheres round the street lamps.  The sky was dark.  The few people whom\nhe encountered seemed to be out upon mysterious errands, seemed to\nemerge strangely from one gloom and strangely to vanish into another.\nIn the blind, black facades of the streets the public-houses blazed\ninvitingly with gas; they alone were alive in the weekly death of the\ntown; and they gleamed everywhere, at every corner; the town appeared to\nconsist chiefly of public-houses.  He dropped the letter into the box in\nthe market-place; he heard it fall.  His heart beat.  The deed was now\nirrevocable.  He wondered what Monday held for him.  The quiescent\nmelancholy of the town invaded his spirit, and mingled with his own\nremorseful sorrow for the unstrenuous past, and his apprehensive\nsolicitude about the future.  It was not unpleasant, this brooding\nsadness, half-despondency and half-hope.  A man and a woman, arm-in-arm,\nwent by him as he stood unconscious of his conspicuousness under the\ngas-lamp that lit the post-office.  They laughed the smothered laugh of\nintimacy to see a tall boy standing alone there, with no overcoat,\ngazing at naught.  Edwin turned to go home.  It occurred to him that\nnearly all the people he met were couples, arm-in-arm.  And he suddenly\nthought of Florence, the clog-dancer.  He had scarcely thought of her\nfor months.  The complexity of the interests of life, and the\ninterweaving of its moods, fatigued his mind into an agreeably grave\nvacuity.\n\n\n\nVOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.\n\nEND OF A STRUGGLE.\n\nIt was not one of his official bilious attacks that Darius had on the\nfollowing day; he only yielded himself up in the complete grand manner\nwhen nature absolutely compelled.  The goose had not formally beaten\nhim, but neither had he formally beaten the goose.  The battle was\ndrawn, and this meant that Darius had a slight headache, a feeling of\nheavy disgust with the entire polity of the universe, and a\ndisinclination for food.  The first and third symptoms he hid as far as\npossible, from pride: at breakfast he toyed with bacon, from pride,\nhating bacon.  The children knew from his eyes and his guilty gestures\nthat he was not well, but they dared not refer to his condition; they\nwere bound to pretend that the health of their father flourished in the\nhighest perfection.  And they were glad that things were no worse.\n\nOn the other hand Edwin had a sneezing cold which he could not conceal,\nand Darius inimically inquired what foolishness he had committed to have\nbrought this on himself.  Edwin replied that he knew of no cause for it.\nA deliberate lie!  He knew that he had contracted a chill while writing\na letter to his father in an unwarmed attic, and had intensified the\nchill by going forth to post the letter without his overcoat in a raw\nevening mist.  Obviously, however, he could not have stated the truth.\nHe was uncomfortable at the breakfast-table, but, after the first few\nmoments, less so than during the disturbed night he had feared to be.\nHis father had neither eaten him, nor jumped down his throat, nor\nperformed any of those unpleasant miraculous feats which fathers usually\ndo perform when infuriated by filial foolishness.  The letter therefore\nhad not been utterly disastrous; sometimes a letter would ruin a\nbreakfast, for Mr Clayhanger, with no consideration for the success of\nmeals, always opened his post before bite or sup.  He had had the\nletter, and still he was ready to talk to his son in the ordinary grim\ntone of a goose-morrow.  Which was to the good.  Edwin was now convinced\nthat he had done well to write the letter.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTWO.\n\nBut as the day passed, Edwin began to ask himself: \"Has he had the\nletter?\"  There was no sign of the letter in his father's demeanour,\nwhich, while not such as to make it credible that he ever had moods of\npositive gay roguishness, was almost tolerable, considering his headache\nand his nausea.  Letters occasionally were lost in the post, or delayed.\nEdwin thought it would be just his usual bad luck if that particular\nletter, that letter of all letters, should be lost.  And the strange\nthing is that he could not prevent himself from hoping that it indeed\nwas lost.  He would prefer it to be lost rather than delayed.  He felt\nthat if the postman brought it by the afternoon delivery while he and\nhis father were in the shop together, he should drop down dead.  The day\ncontinued to pass, and did pass.  And the shop was closed.  \"He'll speak\nto me after supper,\" said Edwin.  But Darius did not speak to him after\nsupper.  Darius put on his hat and overcoat and went out, saying no word\nexcept to advise the children to be getting to bed, all of them.\n\nAs soon as he was gone Edwin took a candle and returned to the shop.  He\nwas convinced now that the letter had not been delivered, but he wished\nto make conviction sure.  He opened the desk.  His letter was nearly the\nfirst document he saw.  It looked affrighting, awful.  He dared not read\nit, to see whether its wording was fortunate or unfortunate.  He\ndeparted, mystified.  Upstairs in his bedroom he had a new copy of an\nEnglish translation of Victor Hugo's \"Notre Dame,\" which had been\nordered by Lawyer Lawton, but would not be called for till the following\nweek, because Lawyer Lawton only called once a fortnight.  He had meant\nto read that book, with due precautions, in bed.  But he could not fix\nattention on it.  Impossible for him to follow a single paragraph.  He\nextinguished the candle.  Then he heard his father come home.  He\nthought that he scarcely slept all night.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTHREE.\n\nThe next morning, Tuesday, the girls, between whom and their whispering\nfriend Miss Ingamells something feminine was evidently afoot, left the\nbreakfast-table sooner than usual, not without stifled giggles: upon\noccasion Maggie would surprisingly meet Clara and Miss Ingamells on\ntheir own plane; since Sunday afternoon she had shown no further\ninterest in Edwin's important crisis; she seemed, so far as he could\njudge, to have fallen back into her customary state of busy apathy.\n\nThe man and the young man were alone together.  Darius, in his\nsatisfaction at having been delivered so easily from the goose, had\ntaken an extra slice of bacon.  Edwin's cold was now fully developed;\nand Maggie had told him to feed it.\n\n\"I suppose you got that letter I wrote you, father, about me going in\nfor architecture,\" said Edwin.  Then he blew his nose to hide his\nconfusion.  He was rather startled to hear himself saying those bold\nwords.  He thought that he was quite calm and in control of his\nimpulses; but it was not so; his nerves were stretched to the utmost.\n\nDarius said nothing.  But Edwin could see his face darkening, and his\nlower lip heavily falling.  He glowered, though not at Edwin.  With eyes\nfixed on the window he glowered into vacancy.  The pride went out of\nEdwin's heart.\n\n\"So ye'd leave the printing?\" muttered Darius, when he had finished\nmasticating.  He spoke in a menacing voice thick with ferocious emotion.\n\n\"Well--\" said Edwin, quaking.\n\nHe thought he had never seen his father so ominously intimidating.  He\nwas terrorised as he looked at that ugly and dark countenance.  He could\nnot say any more.  His voice left him.  Thus his fear was physical as\nwell as moral.  He reflected: \"Well, I expected a row, but I didn't\nexpect it would be as bad as this!\"  And once more he was completely\npuzzled and baffled by the enigma of his father.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFOUR.\n\nHe did not hold the key, and even had he held it he was too young, too\ninexperienced, to have used it.  As with gathering passion the eyes of\nDarius assaulted the window-pane, Darius had a painful intense vision of\nthat miracle, his own career.  Edwin's grand misfortune was that he was\nblind to the miracle.  Edwin had never seen the little boy in the\nBastille.  But Darius saw him always, the infant who had begun life at a\nrope's-end.  Every hour of Darius's present existence was really an\nastounding marvel to Darius.  He could not read the newspaper without\nthinking how wonderful it was that he should be able to read the\nnewspaper.  And it was wonderful!  It was wonderful that he had three\ndifferent suits of clothes, none of them with a single hole.  It was\nwonderful that he had three children, all with complete outfits of good\nclothes.  It was wonderful that he never had to think twice about buying\ncoal, and that he could have more food than he needed.  It was wonderful\nthat he was not living in a two-roomed cottage.  He never came into his\nhouse by the side entrance without feeling proud that the door gave on\nto a preliminary passage and not direct into a living-room; he would\nnever lose the idea that a lobby, however narrow, was the great\ndistinguishing mark of wealth.  It was wonderful that he had a piano,\nand that his girls could play it and could sing.  It was wonderful that\nhe had paid twenty-eight shillings a term for his son's schooling, in\naddition to book-money.  Twenty-eight shillings a term!  And once a\npenny a week was considered enough, and twopence generous!  Through\nsheer splendid wilful pride he had kept his son at school till the lad\nwas sixteen, going on seventeen!  Seventeen, not seven!  He had had the\nsort of pride in his son that a man may have in an idle, elegant, and\nabsurdly expensive woman.  It even tickled him to hear his son called\n`Master Edwin,' and then `Mister Edwin'; just as the fine ceremonious\nmanners of his sister-in-law Mrs Hamps tickled him.  His marriage!\nWith all its inevitable disillusions it had been wonderful, incredible.\nHe looked back on it as a miracle.  For he had married far above him,\nand had proved equal to the enormously difficult situation.  Never had\nhe made a fool of himself.  He often took keen pleasure in speculating\nupon the demeanour of his father, his mother, his little sister, could\nthey have seen him in his purple and in his grandeur.  They were all\ndead.  And those days were fading, fading, gone, with their unutterable,\nintolerable shame and sadness, intolerable even in memory.  And his wife\ndead too!  All that remained was Mr Shushions.\n\nAnd then his business?  Darius's pride in the achievement of his\nbusiness was simply indescribable.  If he had not built up that\nparticular connexion he had built up another one whose sale had enabled\nhim to buy it.  And he was waxing yearly.  His supremacy as a printer\ncould not be challenged in Bursley.  Steam!  A double-windowed shop!  A\nforeman to whom alone he paid thirty shillings a week!  Four other\nemployees!  (Not\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}
{"id": "pg19_002", "title": "Sons and Lovers by David Herbert Lawrence", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/217", "tokens": 65536, "chars": 261453, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nPART I\n     1.   The Early Married Life of the Morels\n     2.   The Birth of Paul, and Another Battle\n     3.   The Casting Off of Morel--The Taking on of William\n     4.   The Young Life of Paul\n     5.   Paul Launches into Life\n     6.   Death in the Family\n\n     PART II\n\n     7.   Lad-and-Girl Love\n     8.   Strife in Love\n     9.   Defeat of Miriam\n     10.  Clara\n     11.  The Test on Miriam\n     12.  Passion\n     13.  Baxter Dawes\n     14.  The Release\n     15.  Derelict\n\n\n\n\nPART ONE\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS\n\n\"THE BOTTOMS\" succeeded to \"Hell Row\". Hell Row was a block of thatched,\nbulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There\nlived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away.\nThe brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small\nmines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded\nwearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were these\nsame pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II, the\nfew colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth,\nmaking queer mounds and little black places among the corn-fields and\nthe meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and pairs\nhere and there, together with odd farms and homes of the stockingers,\nstraying over the parish, formed the village of Bestwood.\n\nThen, some sixty years ago, a sudden change took place, gin-pits were\nelbowed aside by the large mines of the financiers. The coal and iron\nfield of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was discovered. Carston, Waite\nand Co. appeared. Amid tremendous excitement, Lord Palmerston formally\nopened the company's first mine at Spinney Park, on the edge of Sherwood\nForest.\n\nAbout this time the notorious Hell Row, which through growing old had\nacquired an evil reputation, was burned down, and much dirt was cleansed\naway.\n\nCarston, Waite & Co. found they had struck on a good thing, so, down the\nvalleys of the brooks from Selby and Nuttall, new mines were sunk, until\nsoon there were six pits working. From Nuttall, high up on the sandstone\namong the woods, the railway ran, past the ruined priory of the\nCarthusians and past Robin Hood's Well, down to Spinney Park, then on to\nMinton, a large mine among corn-fields; from Minton across the farmlands\nof the valleyside to Bunker's Hill, branching off there, and running\nnorth to Beggarlee and Selby, that looks over at Crich and the hills of\nDerbyshire: six mines like black studs on the countryside, linked by a\nloop of fine chain, the railway.\n\nTo accommodate the regiments of miners, Carston, Waite and Co. built the\nSquares, great quadrangles of dwellings on the hillside of Bestwood,\nand then, in the brook valley, on the site of Hell Row, they erected the\nBottoms.\n\nThe Bottoms consisted of six blocks of miners' dwellings, two rows\nof three, like the dots on a blank-six domino, and twelve houses in a\nblock. This double row of dwellings sat at the foot of the rather sharp\n<DW72> from Bestwood, and looked out, from the attic windows at least, on\nthe slow climb of the valley towards Selby.\n\nThe houses themselves were substantial and very decent. One could walk\nall round, seeing little front gardens with auriculas and saxifrage in\nthe shadow of the bottom block, sweet-williams and pinks in the sunny\ntop block; seeing neat front windows, little porches, little privet\nhedges, and dormer windows for the attics. But that was outside; that\nwas the view on to the uninhabited parlours of all the colliers' wives.\nThe dwelling-room, the kitchen, was at the back of the house, facing\ninward between the blocks, looking at a scrubby back garden, and then at\nthe ash-pits. And between the rows, between the long lines of ash-pits,\nwent the alley, where the children played and the women gossiped and the\nmen smoked. So, the actual conditions of living in the Bottoms, that\nwas so well built and that looked so nice, were quite unsavoury because\npeople must live in the kitchen, and the kitchens opened on to that\nnasty alley of ash-pits.\n\nMrs. Morel was not anxious to move into the Bottoms, which was already\ntwelve years old and on the downward path, when she descended to it from\nBestwood. But it was the best she could do. Moreover, she had an end\nhouse in one of the top blocks, and thus had only one neighbour; on\nthe other side an extra strip of garden. And, having an end house, she\nenjoyed a kind of aristocracy among the other women of the \"between\"\nhouses, because her rent was five shillings and sixpence instead of\nfive shillings a week. But this superiority in station was not much\nconsolation to Mrs. Morel.\n\nShe was thirty-one years old, and had been married eight years. A rather\nsmall woman, of delicate mould but resolute bearing, she shrank a little\nfrom the first contact with the Bottoms women. She came down in the\nJuly, and in the September expected her third baby.\n\nHer husband was a miner. They had only been in their new home three\nweeks when the wakes, or fair, began. Morel, she knew, was sure to make\na holiday of it. He went off early on the Monday morning, the day of\nthe fair. The two children were highly excited. William, a boy of seven,\nfled off immediately after breakfast, to prowl round the wakes ground,\nleaving Annie, who was only five, to whine all morning to go also. Mrs.\nMorel did her work. She scarcely knew her neighbours yet, and knew no\none with whom to trust the little girl. So she promised to take her to\nthe wakes after dinner.\n\nWilliam appeared at half-past twelve. He was a very active lad,\nfair-haired, freckled, with a touch of the Dane or Norwegian about him.\n\n\"Can I have my dinner, mother?\" he cried, rushing in with his cap on.\n\"'Cause it begins at half-past one, the man says so.\"\n\n\"You can have your dinner as soon as it's done,\" replied the mother.\n\n\"Isn't it done?\" he cried, his blue eyes staring at her in indignation.\n\"Then I'm goin' be-out it.\"\n\n\"You'll do nothing of the sort. It will be done in five minutes. It is\nonly half-past twelve.\"\n\n\"They'll be beginnin',\" the boy half cried, half shouted.\n\n\"You won't die if they do,\" said the mother. \"Besides, it's only\nhalf-past twelve, so you've a full hour.\"\n\nThe lad began hastily to lay the table, and directly the three sat down.\nThey were eating batter-pudding and jam, when the boy jumped off his\nchair and stood perfectly stiff. Some distance away could be heard the\nfirst small braying of a merry-go-round, and the tooting of a horn. His\nface quivered as he looked at his mother.\n\n\"I told you!\" he said, running to the dresser for his cap.\n\n\"Take your pudding in your hand--and it's only five past one, so you\nwere wrong--you haven't got your twopence,\" cried the mother in a\nbreath.\n\nThe boy came back, bitterly disappointed, for his twopence, then went\noff without a word.\n\n\"I want to go, I want to go,\" said Annie, beginning to cry.\n\n\"Well, and you shall go, whining, wizzening little stick!\" said the\nmother. And later in the afternoon she trudged up the hill under the\ntall hedge with her child. The hay was gathered from the fields, and\ncattle were turned on to the eddish. It was warm, peaceful.\n\nMrs. Morel did not like the wakes. There were two sets of horses, one\ngoing by steam, one pulled round by a pony; three organs were grinding,\nand there came odd cracks of pistol-shots, fearful screeching of the\ncocoanut man's rattle, shouts of the Aunt Sally man, screeches from the\npeep-show lady. The mother perceived her son gazing enraptured outside\nthe Lion Wallace booth, at the pictures of this famous lion that had\nkilled a <DW64> and maimed for life two white men. She left him alone,\nand went to get Annie a spin of toffee. Presently the lad stood in front\nof her, wildly excited.\n\n\"You never said you was coming--isn't the' a lot of things?--that lion's\nkilled three men--I've spent my tuppence--an' look here.\"\n\nHe pulled from his pocket two egg-cups, with pink moss-roses on them.\n\n\"I got these from that stall where y'ave ter get them marbles in\nthem holes. An' I got these two in two goes-'aepenny a go-they've got\nmoss-roses on, look here. I wanted these.\"\n\nShe knew he wanted them for her.\n\n\"H'm!\" she said, pleased. \"They ARE pretty!\"\n\n\"Shall you carry 'em, 'cause I'm frightened o' breakin' 'em?\"\n\nHe was tipful of excitement now she had come, led her about the ground,\nshowed her everything. Then, at the peep-show, she explained the\npictures, in a sort of story, to which he listened as if spellbound. He\nwould not leave her. All the time he stuck close to her, bristling with\na small boy's pride of her. For no other woman looked such a lady as she\ndid, in her little black bonnet and her cloak. She smiled when she saw\nwomen she knew. When she was tired she said to her son:\n\n\"Well, are you coming now, or later?\"\n\n\"Are you goin' a'ready?\" he cried, his face full of reproach.\n\n\"Already? It is past four, I know.\"\n\n\"What are you goin' a'ready for?\" he lamented.\n\n\"You needn't come if you don't want,\" she said.\n\nAnd she went slowly away with her little girl, whilst her son stood\nwatching her, cut to the heart to let her go, and yet unable to leave\nthe wakes. As she crossed the open ground in front of the Moon and Stars\nshe heard men shouting, and smelled the beer, and hurried a little,\nthinking her husband was probably in the bar.\n\nAt about half-past six her son came home, tired now, rather pale, and\nsomewhat wretched. He was miserable, though he did not know it, because\nhe had let her go alone. Since she had gone, he had not enjoyed his\nwakes.\n\n\"Has my dad been?\" he asked.\n\n\"No,\" said the mother.\n\n\"He's helping to wait at the Moon and Stars. I seed him through that\nblack tin stuff wi' holes in, on the window, wi' his sleeves rolled up.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" exclaimed the mother shortly. \"He's got no money. An' he'll be\nsatisfied if he gets his 'lowance, whether they give him more or not.\"\n\nWhen the light was fading, and Mrs. Morel could see no more to sew, she\nrose and went to the door. Everywhere was the sound of excitement, the\nrestlessness of the holiday, that at last infected her. She went\nout into the side garden. Women were coming home from the wakes, the\nchildren hugging a white lamb with green legs, or a wooden horse.\nOccasionally a man lurched past, almost as full as he could carry.\nSometimes a good husband came along with his family, peacefully. But\nusually the women and children were alone. The stay-at-home mothers\nstood gossiping at the corners of the alley, as the twilight sank,\nfolding their arms under their white aprons.\n\nMrs. Morel was alone, but she was used to it. Her son and her little\ngirl slept upstairs; so, it seemed, her home was there behind her,\nfixed and stable. But she felt wretched with the coming child. The world\nseemed a dreary place, where nothing else would happen for her--at\nleast until William grew up. But for herself, nothing but this dreary\nendurance--till the children grew up. And the children! She could not\nafford to have this third. She did not want it. The father was serving\nbeer in a public house, swilling himself drunk. She despised him, and\nwas tied to him. This coming child was too much for her. If it were not\nfor William and Annie, she was sick of it, the struggle with poverty and\nugliness and meanness.\n\nShe went into the front garden, feeling too heavy to take herself out,\nyet unable to stay indoors. The heat suffocated her. And looking ahead,\nthe prospect of her life made her feel as if she were buried alive.\n\nThe front garden was a small square with a privet hedge. There she\nstood, trying to soothe herself with the scent of flowers and the\nfading, beautiful evening. Opposite her small gate was the stile that\nled uphill, under the tall hedge between the burning glow of the cut\npastures. The sky overhead throbbed and pulsed with light. The glow sank\nquickly off the field; the earth and the hedges smoked dusk. As it grew\ndark, a ruddy glare came out on the hilltop, and out of the glare the\ndiminished commotion of the fair.\n\nSometimes, down the trough of darkness formed by the path under the\nhedges, men came lurching home. One young man lapsed into a run down\nthe steep bit that ended the hill, and went with a crash into the stile.\nMrs. Morel shuddered. He picked himself up, swearing viciously, rather\npathetically, as if he thought the stile had wanted to hurt him.\n\nShe went indoors, wondering if things were never going to alter. She was\nbeginning by now to realise that they would not. She seemed so far\naway from her girlhood, she wondered if it were the same person walking\nheavily up the back garden at the Bottoms as had run so lightly up the\nbreakwater at Sheerness ten years before.\n\n\"What have I to do with it?\" she said to herself. \"What have I to do\nwith all this? Even the child I am going to have! It doesn't seem as if\nI were taken into account.\"\n\nSometimes life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes\none's history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were\nslurred over.\n\n\"I wait,\" Mrs. Morel said to herself--\"I wait, and what I wait for can\nnever come.\"\n\nThen she straightened the kitchen, lit the lamp, mended the fire, looked\nout the washing for the next day, and put it to soak. After which\nshe sat down to her sewing. Through the long hours her needle flashed\nregularly through the stuff. Occasionally she sighed, moving to relieve\nherself. And all the time she was thinking how to make the most of what\nshe had, for the children's sakes.\n\nAt half-past eleven her husband came. His cheeks were very red and\nvery shiny above his black moustache. His head nodded slightly. He was\npleased with himself.\n\n\"Oh! Oh! waitin' for me, lass? I've bin 'elpin' Anthony, an' what's\nthink he's gen me? Nowt b'r a lousy hae'f-crown, an' that's ivry\npenny--\"\n\n\"He thinks you've made the rest up in beer,\" she said shortly.\n\n\"An' I 'aven't--that I 'aven't. You b'lieve me, I've 'ad very little\nthis day, I have an' all.\" His voice went tender. \"Here, an' I browt\nthee a bit o' brandysnap, an' a cocoanut for th' children.\" He laid the\ngingerbread and the cocoanut, a hairy object, on the table. \"Nay, tha\nniver said thankyer for nowt i' thy life, did ter?\"\n\nAs a compromise, she picked up the cocoanut and shook it, to see if it\nhad any milk.\n\n\"It's a good 'un, you may back yer life o' that. I got it fra' Bill\nHodgkisson. 'Bill,' I says, 'tha non wants them three nuts, does ter?\nArena ter for gi'ein' me one for my bit of a lad an' wench?' 'I ham,\nWalter, my lad,' 'e says; 'ta'e which on 'em ter's a mind.' An' so I\ntook one, an' thanked 'im. I didn't like ter shake it afore 'is eyes,\nbut 'e says, 'Tha'd better ma'e sure it's a good un, Walt.' An' so, yer\nsee, I knowed it was. He's a nice chap, is Bill Hodgkisson, e's a nice\nchap!\"\n\n\"A man will part with anything so long as he's drunk, and you're drunk\nalong with him,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Eh, tha mucky little 'ussy, who's drunk, I sh'd like ter know?\" said\nMorel. He was extraordinarily pleased with himself, because of his day's\nhelping to wait in the Moon and Stars. He chattered on.\n\nMrs. Morel, very tired, and sick of his babble, went to bed as quickly\nas possible, while he raked the fire.\n\nMrs. Morel came of a good old burgher family, famous independents\nwho had fought with Colonel Hutchinson, and who remained stout\nCongregationalists. Her grandfather had gone bankrupt in the lace-market\nat a time when so many lace-manufacturers were ruined in Nottingham. Her\nfather, George Coppard, was an engineer--a large, handsome, haughty\nman, proud of his fair skin and blue eyes, but more proud still of his\nintegrity. Gertrude resembled her mother in her small build. But her\ntemper, proud and unyielding, she had from the Coppards.\n\nGeorge Coppard was bitterly galled by his own poverty. He became foreman\nof the engineers in the dockyard at Sheerness. Mrs. Morel--Gertrude--was\nthe second daughter. She favoured her mother, loved her mother best of\nall; but she had the Coppards' clear, defiant blue eyes and their broad\nbrow. She remembered to have hated her father's overbearing manner\ntowards her gentle, humorous, kindly-souled mother. She remembered\nrunning over the breakwater at Sheerness and finding the boat. She\nremembered to have been petted and flattered by all the men when she had\ngone to the dockyard, for she was a delicate, rather proud child. She\nremembered the funny old mistress, whose assistant she had become, whom\nshe had loved to help in the private school. And she still had the Bible\nthat John Field had given her. She used to walk home from chapel\nwith John Field when she was nineteen. He was the son of a well-to-do\ntradesman, had been to college in London, and was to devote himself to\nbusiness.\n\nShe could always recall in detail a September Sunday afternoon, when\nthey had sat under the vine at the back of her father's house. The sun\ncame through the chinks of the vine-leaves and made beautiful patterns,\nlike a lace scarf, falling on her and on him. Some of the leaves were\nclean yellow, like yellow flat flowers.\n\n\"Now sit still,\" he had cried. \"Now your hair, I don't know what it IS\nlike! It's as bright as copper and gold, as red as burnt copper, and\nit has gold threads where the sun shines on it. Fancy their saying it's\nbrown. Your mother calls it mouse-colour.\"\n\nShe had met his brilliant eyes, but her clear face scarcely showed the\nelation which rose within her.\n\n\"But you say you don't like business,\" she pursued.\n\n\"I don't. I hate it!\" he cried hotly.\n\n\"And you would like to go into the ministry,\" she half implored.\n\n\"I should. I should love it, if I thought I could make a first-rate\npreacher.\"\n\n\"Then why don't you--why DON'T you?\" Her voice rang with defiance. \"If I\nwere a man, nothing would stop me.\"\n\nShe held her head erect. He was rather timid before her.\n\n\"But my father's so stiff-necked. He means to put me into the business,\nand I know he'll do it.\"\n\n\"But if you're a MAN?\" she had cried.\n\n\"Being a man isn't everything,\" he replied, frowning with puzzled\nhelplessness.\n\nNow, as she moved about her work at the Bottoms, with some experience of\nwhat being a man meant, she knew that it was NOT everything.\n\nAt twenty, owing to her health, she had left Sheerness. Her father had\nretired home to Nottingham. John Field's father had been ruined; the\nson had gone as a teacher in Norwood. She did not hear of him until, two\nyears later, she made determined inquiry. He had married his landlady, a\nwoman of forty, a widow with property.\n\nAnd still Mrs. Morel preserved John Field's Bible. She did not now\nbelieve him to be--Well, she understood pretty well what he might or\nmight not have been. So she preserved his Bible, and kept his memory\nintact in her heart, for her own sake. To her dying day, for thirty-five\nyears, she did not speak of him.\n\nWhen she was twenty-three years old, she met, at a Christmas party, a\nyoung man from the Erewash Valley. Morel was then twenty-seven years\nold. He was well set-up, erect, and very smart. He had wavy black hair\nthat shone again, and a vigorous black beard that had never been shaved.\nHis cheeks were ruddy, and his red, moist mouth was noticeable because\nhe laughed so often and so heartily. He had that rare thing, a rich,\nringing laugh. Gertrude Coppard had watched him, fascinated. He was\nso full of colour and animation, his voice ran so easily into comic\ngrotesque, he was so ready and so pleasant with everybody. Her own\nfather had a rich fund of humour, but it was satiric. This man's was\ndifferent: soft, non-intellectual, warm, a kind of gambolling.\n\nShe herself was opposite. She had a curious, receptive mind which found\nmuch pleasure and amusement in listening to other folk. She was clever\nin leading folk to talk. She loved ideas, and was considered very\nintellectual. What she liked most of all was an argument on religion or\nphilosophy or politics with some educated man. This she did not often\nenjoy. So she always had people tell her about themselves, finding her\npleasure so.\n\nIn her person she was rather small and delicate, with a large brow, and\ndropping bunches of brown silk curls. Her blue eyes were very straight,\nhonest, and searching. She had the beautiful hands of the Coppards.\nHer dress was always subdued. She wore dark blue silk, with a peculiar\nsilver chain of silver scallops. This, and a heavy brooch of twisted\ngold, was her only ornament. She was still perfectly intact, deeply\nreligious, and full of beautiful candour.\n\nWalter Morel seemed melted away before her. She was to the miner that\nthing of mystery and fascination, a lady. When she spoke to him, it was\nwith a southern pronunciation and a purity of English which thrilled\nhim to hear. She watched him. He danced well, as if it were natural and\njoyous in him to dance. His grandfather was a French refugee who had\nmarried an English barmaid--if it had been a marriage. Gertrude Coppard\nwatched the young miner as he danced, a certain subtle exultation like\nglamour in his movement, and his face the flower of his body, ruddy,\nwith tumbled black hair, and laughing alike whatever partner he bowed\nabove. She thought him rather wonderful, never having met anyone like\nhim. Her father was to her the type of all men. And George Coppard,\nproud in his bearing, handsome, and rather bitter; who preferred\ntheology in reading, and who drew near in sympathy only to one man, the\nApostle Paul; who was harsh in government, and in familiarity ironic;\nwho ignored all sensuous pleasure:--he was very different from the\nminer. Gertrude herself was rather contemptuous of dancing; she had not\nthe slightest inclination towards that accomplishment, and had never\nlearned even a Roger de Coverley. She was puritan, like her father,\nhigh-minded, and really stern. Therefore the dusky, golden softness of\nthis man's sensuous flame of life, that flowed off his flesh like the\nflame from a candle, not baffled and gripped into incandescence by\nthought and spirit as her life was, seemed to her something wonderful,\nbeyond her.\n\nHe came and bowed above her. A warmth radiated through her as if she had\ndrunk wine.\n\n\"Now do come and have this one wi' me,\" he said caressively. \"It's easy,\nyou know. I'm pining to see you dance.\"\n\nShe had told him before she could not dance. She glanced at his humility\nand smiled. Her smile was very beautiful. It moved the man so that he\nforgot everything.\n\n\"No, I won't dance,\" she said softly. Her words came clean and ringing.\n\nNot knowing what he was doing--he often did the right thing by\ninstinct--he sat beside her, inclining reverentially.\n\n\"But you mustn't miss your dance,\" she reproved.\n\n\n\"Nay, I don't want to dance that--it's not one as I care about.\"\n\n\"Yet you invited me to it.\"\n\nHe laughed very heartily at this.\n\n\"I never thought o' that. Tha'rt not long in taking the curl out of me.\"\n\nIt was her turn to laugh quickly.\n\n\"You don't look as if you'd come much uncurled,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm like a pig's tail, I curl because I canna help it,\" he laughed,\nrather boisterously.\n\n\"And you are a miner!\" she exclaimed in surprise.\n\n\"Yes. I went down when I was ten.\"\n\nShe looked at him in wondering dismay.\n\n\"When you were ten! And wasn't it very hard?\" she asked.\n\n\"You soon get used to it. You live like th' mice, an' you pop out at\nnight to see what's going on.\"\n\n\"It makes me feel blind,\" she frowned.\n\n\"Like a moudiwarp!\" he laughed. \"Yi, an' there's some chaps as does\ngo round like moudiwarps.\" He thrust his face forward in the blind,\nsnout-like way of a mole, seeming to sniff and peer for direction. \"They\ndun though!\" he protested naively. \"Tha niver seed such a way they get\nin. But tha mun let me ta'e thee down some time, an' tha can see for\nthysen.\"\n\nShe looked at him, startled. This was a new tract of life suddenly\nopened before her. She realised the life of the miners, hundreds of them\ntoiling below earth and coming up at evening. He seemed to her noble. He\nrisked his life daily, and with gaiety. She looked at him, with a touch\nof appeal in her pure humility.\n\n\"Shouldn't ter like it?\" he asked tenderly. \"'Appen not, it 'ud dirty\nthee.\"\n\nShe had never been \"thee'd\" and \"thou'd\" before.\n\nThe next Christmas they were married, and for three months she was\nperfectly happy: for six months she was very happy.\n\nHe had signed the pledge, and wore the blue ribbon of a tee-totaller: he\nwas nothing if not showy. They lived, she thought, in his own house.\nIt was small, but convenient enough, and quite nicely furnished,\nwith solid, worthy stuff that suited her honest soul. The women, her\nneighbours, were rather foreign to her, and Morel's mother and sisters\nwere apt to sneer at her ladylike ways. But she could perfectly well\nlive by herself, so long as she had her husband close.\n\nSometimes, when she herself wearied of love-talk, she tried to open her\nheart seriously to him. She saw him listen deferentially, but without\nunderstanding. This killed her efforts at a finer intimacy, and she had\nflashes of fear. Sometimes he was restless of an evening: it was not\nenough for him just to be near her, she realised. She was glad when he\nset himself to little jobs.\n\nHe was a remarkably handy man--could make or mend anything. So she would\nsay:\n\n\"I do like that coal-rake of your mother's--it is small and natty.\"\n\n\"Does ter, my wench? Well, I made that, so I can make thee one!\"\n\n\"What! why, it's a steel one!\"\n\n\"An' what if it is! Tha s'lt ha'e one very similar, if not exactly\nsame.\"\n\nShe did not mind the mess, nor the hammering and noise. He was busy and\nhappy.\n\nBut in the seventh month, when she was brushing his Sunday coat, she\nfelt papers in the breast pocket, and, seized with a sudden curiosity,\ntook them out to read. He very rarely wore the frock-coat he was married\nin: and it had not occurred to her before to feel curious concerning the\npapers. They were the bills of the household furniture, still unpaid.\n\n\"Look here,\" she said at night, after he was washed and had had his\ndinner. \"I found these in the pocket of your wedding-coat. Haven't you\nsettled the bills yet?\"\n\n\"No. I haven't had a chance.\"\n\n\"But you told me all was paid. I had better go into Nottingham on\nSaturday and settle them. I don't like sitting on another man's chairs\nand eating from an unpaid table.\"\n\nHe did not answer.\n\n\"I can have your bank-book, can't I?\"\n\n\"Tha can ha'e it, for what good it'll be to thee.\"\n\n\"I thought--\" she began. He had told her he had a good bit of money left\nover. But she realised it was no use asking questions. She sat rigid\nwith bitterness and indignation.\n\nThe next day she went down to see his mother.\n\n\"Didn't you buy the furniture for Walter?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes, I did,\" tartly retorted the elder woman.\n\n\"And how much did he give you to pay for it?\"\n\nThe elder woman was stung with fine indignation.\n\n\"Eighty pound, if you're so keen on knowin',\" she replied.\n\n\"Eighty pounds! But there are forty-two pounds still owing!\"\n\n\"I can't help that.\"\n\n\"But where has it all gone?\"\n\n\"You'll find all the papers, I think, if you look--beside ten pound as\nhe owed me, an' six pound as the wedding cost down here.\"\n\n\"Six pounds!\" echoed Gertrude Morel. It seemed to her monstrous that,\nafter her own father had paid so heavily for her wedding, six pounds\nmore should have been squandered in eating and drinking at Walter's\nparents' house, at his expense.\n\n\"And how much has he sunk in his houses?\" she asked.\n\n\"His houses--which houses?\"\n\nGertrude Morel went white to the lips. He had told her the house he\nlived in, and the next one, was his own.\n\n\"I thought the house we live in--\" she began.\n\n\"They're my houses, those two,\" said the mother-in-law. \"And not clear\neither. It's as much as I can do to keep the mortgage interest paid.\"\n\nGertrude sat white and silent. She was her father now.\n\n\"Then we ought to be paying you rent,\" she said coldly.\n\n\"Walter is paying me rent,\" replied the mother.\n\n\"And what rent?\" asked Gertrude.\n\n\"Six and six a week,\" retorted the mother.\n\nIt was more than the house was worth. Gertrude held her head erect,\nlooked straight before her.\n\n\"It is lucky to be you,\" said the elder woman, bitingly, \"to have a\nhusband as takes all the worry of the money, and leaves you a free\nhand.\"\n\nThe young wife was silent.\n\nShe said very little to her husband, but her manner had changed towards\nhim. Something in her proud, honourable soul had crystallised out hard\nas rock.\n\nWhen October came in, she thought only of Christmas. Two years ago, at\nChristmas, she had met him. Last Christmas she had married him. This\nChristmas she would bear him a child.\n\n\"You don't dance yourself, do you, missis?\" asked her nearest neighbour,\nin October, when there was great talk of opening a dancing-class over\nthe Brick and Tile Inn at Bestwood.\n\n\"No--I never had the least inclination to,\" Mrs. Morel replied.\n\n\"Fancy! An' how funny as you should ha' married your Mester. You know\nhe's quite a famous one for dancing.\"\n\n\"I didn't know he was famous,\" laughed Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Yea, he is though! Why, he ran that dancing-class in the Miners' Arms\nclub-room for over five year.\"\n\n\"Did he?\"\n\n\"Yes, he did.\" The other woman was defiant. \"An' it was thronged\nevery Tuesday, and Thursday, an' Sat'day--an' there WAS carryin's-on,\naccordin' to all accounts.\"\n\nThis kind of thing was gall and bitterness to Mrs. Morel, and she had\na fair share of it. The women did not spare her, at first; for she was\nsuperior, though she could not help it.\n\nHe began to be rather late in coming home.\n\n\"They're working very late now, aren't they?\" she said to her\nwasher-woman.\n\n\"No later than they allers do, I don't think. But they stop to have\ntheir pint at Ellen's, an' they get talkin', an' there you are! Dinner\nstone cold--an' it serves 'em right.\"\n\n\"But Mr. Morel does not take any drink.\"\n\nThe woman dropped the clothes, looked at Mrs. Morel, then went on with\nher work, saying nothing.\n\nGertrude Morel was very ill when the boy was born. Morel was good to\nher, as good as gold. But she felt very lonely, miles away from her own\npeople. She felt lonely with him now, and his presence only made it more\nintense.\n\nThe boy was small and frail at first, but he came on quickly. He was\na beautiful child, with dark gold ringlets, and dark-blue eyes which\nchanged gradually to a clear grey. His mother loved him passionately.\nHe came just when her own bitterness of disillusion was hardest to bear;\nwhen her faith in life was shaken, and her soul felt dreary and lonely.\nShe made much of the child, and the father was jealous.\n\nAt last Mrs. Morel despised her husband. She turned to the child; she\nturned from the father. He had begun to neglect her; the novelty of his\nown home was gone. He had no grit, she said bitterly to herself. What\nhe felt just at the minute, that was all to him. He could not abide by\nanything. There was nothing at the back of all his show.\n\nThere began a battle between the husband and wife--a fearful, bloody\nbattle that ended only with the death of one. She fought to make him\nundertake his own responsibilities, to make him fulfill his obligations.\nBut he was too different from her. His nature was purely sensuous, and\nshe strove to make him moral, religious. She tried to force him to face\nthings. He could not endure it--it drove him out of his mind.\n\nWhile the baby was still tiny, the father's temper had become so\nirritable that it was not to be trusted. The child had only to give a\nlittle trouble when the man began to bully. A little more, and the hard\nhands of the collier hit the baby. Then Mrs. Morel loathed her husband,\nloathed him for days; and he went out and drank; and she cared very\nlittle what he did. Only, on his return, she scathed him with her\nsatire.\n\nThe estrangement between them caused him, knowingly or unknowingly,\ngrossly to offend her where he would not have done.\n\nWilliam was only one year old, and his mother was proud of him, he was\nso pretty. She was not well off now, but her sisters kept the boy in\nclothes. Then, with his little white hat curled with an ostrich feather,\nand his white coat, he was a joy to her, the twining wisps of hair\nclustering round his head. Mrs. Morel lay listening, one Sunday morning,\nto the chatter of the father and child downstairs. Then she dozed off.\nWhen she came downstairs, a great fire glowed in the grate, the room was\nhot, the breakfast was roughly laid, and seated in his armchair, against\nthe chimney-piece, sat Morel, rather timid; and standing between\nhis legs, the child--cropped like a sheep, with such an odd round\npoll--looking wondering at her; and on a newspaper spread out upon\nthe hearthrug, a myriad of crescent-shaped curls, like the petals of a\nmarigold scattered in the reddening firelight.\n\nMrs. Morel stood still. It was her first baby. She went very white, and\nwas unable to speak.\n\n\"What dost think o' 'im?\" Morel laughed uneasily.\n\nShe gripped her two fists, lifted them, and came forward. Morel shrank\nback.\n\n\"I could kill you, I could!\" she said. She choked with rage, her two\nfists uplifted.\n\n\"Yer non want ter make a wench on 'im,\" Morel said, in a frightened\ntone, bending his head to shield his eyes from hers. His attempt at\nlaughter had vanished.\n\nThe mother looked down at the jagged, close-clipped head of her child.\nShe put her hands on his hair, and stroked and fondled his head.\n\n\"Oh--my boy!\" she faltered. Her lip trembled, her face broke, and,\nsnatching up the child, she buried her face in his shoulder and cried\npainfully. She was one of those women who cannot cry; whom it hurts as\nit hurts a man. It was like ripping something out of her, her sobbing.\n\nMorel sat with his elbows on his knees, his hands gripped together till\nthe knuckles were white. He gazed in the fire, feeling almost stunned,\nas if he could not breathe.\n\nPresently she came to an end, soothed the child and cleared away the\nbreakfast-table. She left the newspaper, littered with curls, spread\nupon the hearthrug. At last her husband gathered it up and put it at\nthe back of the fire. She went about her work with closed mouth and very\nquiet. Morel was subdued. He crept about wretchedly, and his meals were\na misery that day. She spoke to him civilly, and never alluded to what\nhe had done. But he felt something final had happened.\n\nAfterwards she said she had been silly, that the boy's hair would have\nhad to be cut, sooner or later. In the end, she even brought herself to\nsay to her husband it was just as well he had played barber when he\ndid. But she knew, and Morel knew, that that act had caused something\nmomentous to take place in her soul. She remembered the scene all her\nlife, as one in which she had suffered the most intensely.\n\nThis act of masculine clumsiness was the spear through the side of her\nlove for Morel. Before, while she had striven against him bitterly, she\nhad fretted after him, as if he had gone astray from her. Now she ceased\nto fret for his love: he was an outsider to her. This made life much\nmore bearable.\n\nNevertheless, she still continued to strive with him. She still had her\nhigh moral sense, inherited from generations of Puritans. It was now a\nreligious instinct, and she was almost a fanatic with him, because\nshe loved him, or had loved him. If he sinned, she tortured him. If he\ndrank, and lied, was often a poltroon, sometimes a knave, she wielded\nthe lash unmercifully.\n\nThe pity was, she was too much his opposite. She could not be content\nwith the little he might be; she would have him the much that he ought\nto be. So, in seeking to make him nobler than he could be, she destroyed\nhim. She injured and hurt and scarred herself, but she lost none of her\nworth. She also had the children.\n\nHe drank rather heavily, though not more than many miners, and always\nbeer, so that whilst his health was affected, it was never injured.\nThe week-end was his chief carouse. He sat in the Miners' Arms until\nturning-out time every Friday, every Saturday, and every Sunday evening.\nOn Monday and Tuesday he had to get up and reluctantly leave towards ten\no'clock. Sometimes he stayed at home on Wednesday and Thursday evenings,\nor was only out for an hour. He practically never had to miss work owing\nto his drinking.\n\nBut although he was very steady at work, his wages fell off. He was\nblab-mouthed, a tongue-wagger. Authority was hateful to him, therefore\nhe could only abuse the pit-managers. He would say, in the Palmerston:\n\n\"Th' gaffer come down to our stall this morning, an' 'e says, 'You know,\nWalter, this 'ere'll not do. What about these props?' An' I says to him,\n'Why, what art talkin' about? What d'st mean about th' props?' 'It'll\nnever do, this 'ere,' 'e says. 'You'll be havin' th' roof in, one o'\nthese days.' An' I says, 'Tha'd better stan' on a bit o' clunch, then,\nan' hold it up wi' thy 'ead.' So 'e wor that mad, 'e cossed an' 'e\nswore, an' t'other chaps they did laugh.\" Morel was a good mimic. He\nimitated the manager's fat, squeaky voice, with its attempt at good\nEnglish.\n\n\"'I shan't have it, Walter. Who knows more about it, me or you?' So\nI says, 'I've niver fun out how much tha' knows, Alfred. It'll 'appen\ncarry thee ter bed an' back.\"'\n\nSo Morel would go on to the amusement of his boon companions. And some\nof this would be true. The pit-manager was not an educated man. He had\nbeen a boy along with Morel, so that, while the two disliked each other,\nthey more or less took each other for granted. But Alfred Charlesworth\ndid not forgive the butty these public-house sayings. Consequently,\nalthough Morel was a good miner, sometimes earning as much as five\npounds a week when he married, he came gradually to have worse and worse\nstalls, where the coal was thin, and hard to get, and unprofitable.\n\nAlso, in summer, the pits are slack. Often, on bright sunny mornings,\nthe men are seen trooping home again at ten, eleven, or twelve o'clock.\nNo empty trucks stand at the pit-mouth. The women on the hillside look\nacross as they shake the hearthrug against the fence, and count the\nwagons the engine is taking along the line up the valley. And the\nchildren, as they come from school at dinner-time, looking down the\nfields and seeing the wheels on the headstocks standing, say:\n\n\"Minton's knocked off. My dad'll be at home.\"\n\nAnd there is a sort of shadow over all, women and children and men,\nbecause money will be short at the end of the week.\n\nMorel was supposed to give his wife thirty shillings a week, to\nprovide everything--rent, food, clothes, clubs, insurance, doctors.\nOccasionally, if he were flush, he gave her thirty-five. But these\noccasions by no means balanced those when he gave her twenty-five. In\nwinter, with a decent stall, the miner might earn fifty or fifty-five\nshillings a week. Then he was happy. On Friday night, Saturday, and\nSunday, he spent royally, getting rid of his sovereign or thereabouts.\nAnd out of so much, he scarcely spared the children an extra penny or\nbought them a pound of apples. It all went in drink. In the bad times,\nmatters were more worrying, but he was not so often drunk, so that Mrs.\nMorel used to say:\n\n\"I'm not sure I wouldn't rather be short, for when he's flush, there\nisn't a minute of peace.\"\n\nIf he earned forty shillings he kept ten; from thirty-five he kept five;\nfrom thirty-two he kept four; from twenty-eight he kept three; from\ntwenty-four he kept two; from twenty he kept one-and-six; from eighteen\nhe kept a shilling; from sixteen he kept sixpence. He never saved a\npenny, and he gave his wife no opportunity of saving; instead, she had\noccasionally to pay his debts; not public-house debts, for those never\nwere passed on to the women, but debts when he had bought a canary, or a\nfancy walking-stick.\n\nAt the wakes time Morel was working badly, and Mrs. Morel was trying\nto save against her confinement. So it galled her bitterly to think\nhe should be out taking his pleasure and spending money, whilst she\nremained at home, harassed. There were two days' holiday. On the Tuesday\nmorning Morel rose early. He was in good spirits. Quite early, before\nsix o'clock, she heard him whistling away to himself downstairs. He\nhad a pleasant way of whistling, lively and musical. He nearly always\nwhistled hymns. He had been a choir-boy with a beautiful voice, and had\ntaken solos in Southwell cathedral. His morning whistling alone betrayed\nit.\n\nHis wife lay listening to him tinkering away in the garden, his\nwhistling ringing out as he sawed and hammered away. It always gave\nher a sense of warmth and peace to hear him thus as she lay in bed, the\nchildren not yet awake, in the bright early morning, happy in his man's\nfashion.\n\nAt nine o'clock, while the children with bare legs and feet were sitting\nplaying on the sofa, and the mother was washing up, he came in from his\ncarpentry, his sleeves rolled up, his waistcoat hanging open. He was\nstill a good-looking man, with black, wavy hair, and a large black\nmoustache. His face was perhaps too much inflamed, and there was about\nhim a look almost of peevishness. But now he was jolly. He went straight\nto the sink where his wife was washing up.\n\n\"What, are thee there!\" he said boisterously. \"Sluthe off an' let me\nwesh mysen.\"\n\n\"You may wait till I've finished,\" said his wife.\n\n\"Oh, mun I? An' what if I shonna?\"\n\nThis good-humoured threat amused Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Then you can go and wash yourself in the soft-water tub.\"\n\n\"Ha! I can' an' a', tha mucky little 'ussy.\"\n\nWith which he stood watching her a moment, then went away to wait for\nher.\n\nWhen he chose he could still make himself again a real gallant. Usually\nhe preferred to go out with a scarf round his neck. Now, however, he\nmade a toilet. There seemed so much gusto in the way he puffed and\nswilled as he washed himself, so much alacrity with which he hurried to\nthe mirror in the kitchen, and, bending because it was too low for him,\nscrupulously parted his wet black hair, that it irritated Mrs. Morel. He\nput on a turn-down collar, a black bow, and wore his Sunday tail-coat.\nAs such, he looked spruce, and what his clothes would not do, his\ninstinct for making the most of his good looks would.\n\nAt half-past nine Jerry Purdy came to call for his pal. Jerry was\nMorel's bosom friend, and Mrs. Morel disliked him. He was a tall,\nthin man, with a rather foxy face, the kind of face that seems to lack\neyelashes. He walked with a stiff, brittle dignity, as if his head were\non a wooden spring. His nature was cold and shrewd. Generous where he\nintended to be generous, he seemed to be very fond of Morel, and more or\nless to take charge of him.\n\nMrs. Morel hated him. She had known his wife, who had died of\nconsumption, and who had, at the end, conceived such a violent dislike\nof her husband, that if he came into her room it caused her haemorrhage.\nNone of which Jerry had seemed to mind. And now his eldest daughter,\na girl of fifteen, kept a poor house for him, and looked after the two\nyounger children.\n\n\"A mean, wizzen-hearted stick!\" Mrs. Morel said of him.\n\n\"I've never known Jerry mean in MY life,\" protested Morel. \"A\nopener-handed and more freer chap you couldn't find anywhere, accordin'\nto my knowledge.\"\n\n\"Open-handed to you,\" retorted Mrs. Morel. \"But his fist is shut tight\nenough to his children, poor things.\"\n\n\"Poor things! And what for are they poor things, I should like to know.\"\n\nBut Mrs. Morel would not be appeased on Jerry's score.\n\nThe subject of argument was seen, craning his thin neck over the\nscullery curtain. He caught Mrs. Morel's eye.\n\n\"Mornin', missis! Mester in?\"\n\n\"Yes--he is.\"\n\nJerry entered unasked, and stood by the kitchen doorway. He was not\ninvited to sit down, but stood there, coolly asserting the rights of men\nand husbands.\n\n\"A nice day,\" he said to Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Yes.\n\n\"Grand out this morning--grand for a walk.\"\n\n\"Do you mean YOU'RE going for a walk?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes. We mean walkin' to Nottingham,\" he replied.\n\n\"H'm!\"\n\nThe two men greeted each other, both glad: Jerry, however, full of\nassurance, Morel rather subdued, afraid to seem too jubilant in presence\nof his wife. But he laced his boots quickly, with spirit. They were\ngoing for a ten-mile walk across the fields to Nottingham. Climbing the\nhillside from the Bottoms, they mounted gaily into the morning. At the\nMoon and Stars they had their first drink, then on to the Old Spot. Then\na long five miles of drought to carry them into Bulwell to a glorious\npint of bitter. But they stayed in a field with some haymakers whose\ngallon bottle was full, so that, when they came in sight of the city,\nMorel was sleepy. The town spread upwards before them, smoking vaguely\nin the midday glare, fridging the crest away to the south with spires\nand factory bulks and chimneys. In the last field Morel lay down under\nan oak tree and slept soundly for over an hour. When he rose to go\nforward he felt queer.\n\nThe two had dinner in the Meadows, with Jerry's sister, then repaired\nto the Punch Bowl, where they mixed in the excitement of pigeon-racing.\nMorel never in his life played cards, considering them as having some\noccult, malevolent power--\"the devil's pictures,\" he called them! But\nhe was a master of skittles and of dominoes. He took a challenge from\na Newark man, on skittles. All the men in the old, long bar took sides,\nbetting either one way or the other. Morel took off his coat. Jerry held\nthe hat containing the money. The men at the tables watched. Some\nstood with their mugs in their hands. Morel felt his big wooden ball\ncarefully, then launched it. He played havoc among the nine-pins, and\nwon half a crown, which restored him to solvency.\n\nBy seven o'clock the two were in good condition. They caught the 7.30\ntrain home.\n\nIn the afternoon the Bottoms was intolerable. Every inhabitant remaining\nwas out of doors. The women, in twos and threes, bareheaded and in white\naprons, gossiped in the alley between the blocks. Men, having a rest\nbetween drinks, sat on their heels and talked. The place smelled stale;\nthe slate roofs glistered in the arid heat.\n\nMrs. Morel took the little girl down to the brook in the meadows, which\nwere not more than two hundred yards away. The water ran quickly over\nstones and broken pots. Mother and child leaned on the rail of the old\nsheep-bridge, watching. Up at the dipping-hole, at the other end of the\nmeadow, Mrs. Morel could see the naked forms of boys flashing round the\ndeep yellow water, or an occasional bright figure dart glittering over\nthe blackish stagnant meadow. She knew William was at the dipping-hole,\nand it was the dread of her life lest he should get drowned. Annie\nplayed under the tall old hedge, picking up alder cones, that she called\ncurrants. The child required much attention, and the flies were teasing.\n\nThe children were put to bed at seven o'clock. Then she worked awhile.\n\nWhen Walter Morel and Jerry arrived at Bestwood they felt a load off\ntheir minds; a railway journey no longer impended, so they could put the\nfinishing touches to a glorious day. They entered the Nelson with the\nsatisfaction of returned travellers.\n\nThe next day was a work-day, and the thought of it put a damper on the\nmen's spirits. Most of them, moreover, had spent their money. Some were\nalready rolling dismally home, to sleep in preparation for the morrow.\nMrs. Morel, listening to their mournful singing, went indoors. Nine\no'clock passed, and ten, and still \"the pair\" had not returned. On a\ndoorstep somewhere a man was singing loudly, in a drawl: \"Lead, kindly\nLight.\" Mrs. Morel was always indignant with the drunken men that they\nmust sing that hymn when they got maudlin.\n\n\"As if 'Genevieve' weren't good enough,\" she said.\n\nThe kitchen was full of the scent of boiled herbs and hops. On the hob a\nlarge black saucepan steamed slowly. Mrs. Morel took a panchion, a great\nbowl of thick red earth, streamed a heap of white sugar into the bottom,\nand then, straining herself to the weight, was pouring in the liquor.\n\nJust then Morel came in. He had been very jolly in the Nelson, but\ncoming home had grown irritable. He had not quite got over the feeling\nof irritability and pain, after having slept on the ground when he was\nso hot; and a bad conscience afflicted him as he neared the house.\nHe did not know he was angry. But when the garden gate resisted his\nattempts to open it, he kicked it and broke the latch. He entered just\nas Mrs. Morel was pouring the infusion of herbs out of the saucepan.\nSwaying slightly, he lurched against the table. The boiling liquor\npitched. Mrs. Morel started back.\n\n\"Good gracious,\" she cried, \"coming home in his drunkenness!\"\n\n\"Comin' home in his what?\" he snarled, his hat over his eye.\n\nSuddenly her blood rose in a jet.\n\n\"Say you're NOT drunk!\" she flashed.\n\nShe had put down her saucepan, and was stirring the sugar into the\nbeer. He dropped his two hands heavily on the table, and thrust his face\nforwards at her.\n\n\"'Say you're not drunk,'\" he repeated. \"Why, nobody but a nasty little\nbitch like you 'ud 'ave such a thought.\"\n\nHe thrust his face forward at her.\n\n\"There's money to bezzle with, if there's money for nothing else.\"\n\n\"I've not spent a two-shillin' bit this day,\" he said.\n\n\"You don't get as drunk as a lord on nothing,\" she replied. \"And,\"\nshe cried, flashing into sudden fury, \"if you've been sponging on your\nbeloved Jerry, why, let him look after his children, for they need it.\"\n\n\"It's a lie, it's a lie. Shut your face, woman.\"\n\nThey were now at battle-pitch. Each forgot everything save the hatred of\nthe other and the battle between them. She was fiery and furious as he.\nThey went on till he called her a liar.\n\n\"No,\" she cried, starting up, scarce able to breathe. \"Don't call me\nthat--you, the most despicable liar that ever walked in shoe-leather.\"\nShe forced the last words out of suffocated lungs.\n\n\"You're a liar!\" he yelled, banging the table with his fist. \"You're a\nliar, you're a liar.\"\n\nShe stiffened herself, with clenched fists.\n\n\"The house is filthy with you,\" she cried.\n\n\"Then get out on it--it's mine. Get out on it!\" he shouted. \"It's me as\nbrings th' money whoam, not thee. It's my house, not thine. Then ger out\non't--ger out on't!\"\n\n\"And I would,\" she cried, suddenly shaken into tears of impotence. \"Ah,\nwouldn't I, wouldn't I have gone long ago, but for those children. Ay,\nhaven't I repented not going years ago, when I'd only the one\"--suddenly\ndrying into rage. \"Do you think it's for YOU I stop--do you think I'd\nstop one minute for YOU?\"\n\n\"Go, then,\" he shouted, beside himself. \"Go!\"\n\n\"No!\" She faced round. \"No,\" she cried loudly, \"you shan't have it ALL\nyour own way; you shan't do ALL you like. I've got those children to see\nto. My word,\" she laughed, \"I should look well to leave them to you.\"\n\n\"Go,\" he cried thickly, lifting his fist. He was afraid of her. \"Go!\"\n\n\"I should be only too glad. I should laugh, laugh, my lord, if I could\nget away from you,\" she replied.\n\nHe came up to her, his red face, with its bloodshot eyes, thrust\nforward, and gripped her arms. She cried in fear of him, struggled to be\nfree. Coming slightly to himself, panting, he pushed her roughly to the\nouter door, and thrust her forth, slotting the bolt behind her with a\nbang. Then he went back into the kitchen, dropped into his armchair, his\nhead, bursting full of blood, sinking between his knees. Thus he dipped\ngradually into a stupor, from exhaustion and intoxication.\n\nThe moon was high and magnificent in the August night. Mrs. Morel,\nseared with passion, shivered to find herself out there in a great white\nlight, that fell cold on her, and gave a shock to her inflamed soul.\nShe stood for a few moments helplessly staring at the glistening great\nrhubarb leaves near the door. Then she got the air into her breast. She\nwalked down the garden path, trembling in every limb, while the child\nboiled within her. For a while she could not control her consciousness;\nmechanically she went over the last scene, then over it again, certain\nphrases, certain moments coming each time like a brand red-hot down on\nher soul; and each time she enacted again the past hour, each time the\nbrand came down at the same points, till the mark was burnt in, and the\npain burnt out, and at last she came to herself. She must have been half\nan hour in this delirious condition. Then the presence of the night came\nagain to her. She glanced round in fear. She had wandered to the side\ngarden, where she was walking up and down the path beside the currant\nbushes under the long wall. The garden was a narrow strip, bounded from\nthe road, that cut transversely between the blocks, by a thick thorn\nhedge.\n\nShe hurried out of the side garden to the front, where she could stand\nas if in an immense gulf of white light, the moon streaming high in face\nof her, the moonlight standing up from the hills in front, and filling\nthe valley where the Bottoms crouched, almost blindingly. There, panting\nand half weeping in reaction from the stress, she murmured to herself\nover and over again: \"The nuisance! the nuisance!\"\n\nShe became aware of something about her. With an effort she roused\nherself to see what it was that penetrated her consciousness. The tall\nwhite lilies were reeling in the moonlight, and the air was charged with\ntheir perfume, as with a presence. Mrs. Morel gasped slightly in fear.\nShe touched the big, pallid flowers on their petals, then shivered.\nThey seemed to be stretching in the moonlight. She put her hand into\none white bin: the gold scarcely showed on her fingers by moonlight. She\nbent down to look at the binful of yellow pollen; but it only appeared\ndusky. Then she drank a deep draught of the scent. It almost made her\ndizzy.\n\nMrs. Morel leaned on the garden gate, looking out, and she lost herself\nawhile. She did not know what she thought. Except for a slight feeling\nof sickness, and her consciousness in the child, herself melted out like\nscent into the shiny, pale air. After a time the child, too, melted with\nher in the mixing-pot of moonlight, and she rested with the hills and\nlilies and houses, all swum together in a kind of swoon.\n\nWhen she came to herself she was tired for sleep. Languidly she looked\nabout her; the clumps of white phlox seemed like bushes spread with\nlinen; a moth ricochetted over them, and right across the garden.\nFollowing it with her eye roused her. A few whiffs of the raw, strong\nscent of phlox invigorated her. She passed along the path, hesitating at\nthe white rose-bush. It smelled sweet and simple. She touched the white\nruffles of the roses. Their fresh scent and cool, soft leaves reminded\nher of the morning-time and sunshine. She was very fond of them. But she\nwas tired, and wanted to sleep. In the mysterious out-of-doors she felt\nforlorn.\n\nThere was no noise anywhere. Evidently the children had not been\nwakened, or had gone to sleep again. A train, three miles away,\nroared across the valley. The night was very large, and very strange,\nstretching its hoary distances infinitely. And out of the silver-grey\nfog of darkness came sounds vague and hoarse: a corncrake not far off,\nsound of a train like a sigh, and distant shouts of men.\n\nHer quietened heart beginning to beat quickly again, she hurried down\nthe side garden to the back of the house. Softly she lifted the latch;\nthe door was still bolted, and hard against her. She rapped gently,\nwaited, then rapped again. She must not rouse the children, nor the\nneighbours. He must be asleep, and he would not wake easily. Her heart\nbegan to burn to be indoors. She clung to the door-handle. Now it was\ncold; she would take a chill, and in her present condition!\n\nPutting her apron over her head and her arms, she hurried again to the\nside garden, to the window of the kitchen. Leaning on the sill, she\ncould just see, under the blind, her husband's arms spread out on the\ntable, and his black head on the board. He was sleeping with his face\nlying on the table. Something in his attitude made her feel tired of\nthings. The lamp was burning smokily; she could tell by the copper\ncolour of the light. She tapped at the window more and more noisily.\nAlmost it seemed as if the glass would break. Still he did not wake up.\n\nAfter vain efforts, she began to shiver, partly from contact with the\nstone, and from exhaustion. Fearful always for the unborn child, she\nwondered what she could do for warmth. She went down to the coal-house,\nwhere there was an old hearthrug she had carried out for the rag-man the\nday before. This she wrapped over her shoulders. It was warm, if grimy.\nThen she walked up and down the garden path, peeping every now and then\nunder the blind, knocking, and telling herself that in the end the very\nstrain of his position must wake him.\n\nAt last, after about an hour, she rapped long and low at the window.\nGradually the sound penetrated to him. When, in despair, she had ceased\nto tap, she saw him stir, then lift his face blindly. The labouring of\nhis heart hurt him into consciousness. She rapped imperatively at the\nwindow. He started awake. Instantly she saw his fists set and his\neyes glare. He had not a grain of physical fear. If it had been\ntwenty burglars, he would have gone blindly for them. He glared round,\nbewildered, but prepared to fight.\n\n\"Open the door, Walter,\" she said coldly.\n\nHis hands relaxed. It dawned on him what he had done. His head dropped,\nsullen and dogged. She saw him hurry to the door, heard the bolt chock.\nHe tried the latch. It opened--and there stood the silver-grey night,\nfearful to him, after the tawny light of the lamp. He hurried back.\n\nWhen Mrs. Morel entered, she saw him almost running through the door\nto the stairs. He had ripped his collar off his neck in his haste to\nbe gone ere she came in, and there it lay with bursten button-holes. It\nmade her angry.\n\nShe warmed and soothed herself. In her weariness forgetting everything,\nshe moved about at the little tasks that remained to be done, set his\nbreakfast, rinsed his pit-bottle, put his pit-clothes on the hearth\nto warm, set his pit-boots beside them, put him out a clean scarf and\nsnap-bag and two apples, raked the fire, and went to bed. He was already\ndead asleep. His narrow black eyebrows were drawn up in a sort of\npeevish misery into his forehead while his cheeks' down-strokes, and his\nsulky mouth, seemed to be saying: \"I don't care who you are nor what you\nare, I SHALL have my own way.\"\n\nMrs. Morel knew him too well to look at him. As she unfastened her\nbrooch at the mirror, she smiled faintly to see her face all smeared\nwith the yellow dust of lilies. She brushed it off, and at last lay\ndown. For some time her mind continued snapping and jetting sparks,\nbut she was asleep before her husband awoke from the first sleep of his\ndrunkenness.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE BIRTH OF PAUL, AND ANOTHER BATTLE\n\nAFTER such a scene as the last, Walter Morel was for some days abashed\nand ashamed, but he soon regained his old bullying indifference. Yet\nthere was a slight shrinking, a diminishing in his assurance. Physically\neven, he shrank, and his fine full presence waned. He never grew in the\nleast stout, so that, as he sank from his erect, assertive bearing, his\nphysique seemed to contract along with his pride and moral strength.\n\nBut now he realised how hard it was for his wife to drag about at her\nwork, and, his sympathy quickened by penitence, hastened forward with\nhis help. He came straight home from the pit, and stayed in at evening\ntill Friday, and then he could not remain at home. But he was back again\nby ten o'clock, almost quite sober.\n\nHe always made his own breakfast. Being a man who rose early and had\nplenty of time he did not, as some miners do, drag his wife out of bed\nat six o'clock. At five, sometimes earlier, he woke, got straight out of\nbed, and went downstairs. When she could not sleep, his wife lay waiting\nfor this time, as for a period of peace. The only real rest seemed to be\nwhen he was out of the house.\n\nHe went downstairs in his shirt and then struggled into his\npit-trousers, which were left on the hearth to warm all night. There\nwas always a fire, because Mrs. Morel raked. And the first sound in\nthe house was the bang, bang of the poker against the raker, as Morel\nsmashed the remainder of the coal to make the kettle, which was filled\nand left on the hob, finally boil. His cup and knife and fork, all he\nwanted except just the food, was laid ready on the table on a newspaper.\nThen he got his breakfast, made the tea, packed the bottom of the doors\nwith rugs to shut out the draught, piled a big fire, and sat down to an\nhour of joy. He toasted his bacon on a fork and caught the drops of fat\non his bread; then he put the rasher on his thick slice of bread, and\ncut off chunks with a clasp-knife, poured his tea into his saucer,\nand was happy. With his family about, meals were never so pleasant. He\nloathed a fork: it is a modern introduction which has still scarcely\nreached common people. What Morel preferred was a clasp-knife. Then, in\nsolitude, he ate and drank, often sitting, in cold weather, on a little\nstool with his back to the warm chimney-piece, his food on the fender,\nhis cup on the hearth. And then he read the last night's newspaper--what\nof it he could--spelling it over laboriously. He preferred to keep the\nblinds down and the candle lit even when it was daylight; it was the\nhabit of the mine.\n\nAt a quarter to six he rose, cut two thick slices of bread and butter,\nand put them in the white calico snap-bag. He filled his tin bottle with\ntea. Cold tea without milk or sugar was the drink he preferred for the\npit. Then he pulled off his shirt, and put on his pit-singlet, a vest\nof thick flannel cut low round the neck, and with short sleeves like a\nchemise.\n\nThen he went upstairs to his wife with a cup of tea because she was ill,\nand because it occurred to him.\n\n\"I've brought thee a cup o' tea, lass,\" he said.\n\n\"Well, you needn't, for you know I don't like it,\" she replied.\n\n\"Drink it up; it'll pop thee off to sleep again.\"\n\nShe accepted the tea. It pleased him to see her take it and sip it.\n\n\"I'll back my life there's no sugar in,\" she said.\n\n\"Yi--there's one big 'un,\" he replied, injured.\n\n\"It's a wonder,\" she said, sipping again.\n\nShe had a winsome face when her hair was loose. He loved her to grumble\nat him in this manner. He looked at her again, and went, without any\nsort of leave-taking. He never took more than two slices of bread and\nbutter to eat in the pit, so an apple or an orange was a treat to him.\nHe always liked it when she put one out for him. He tied a scarf round\nhis neck, put on his great, heavy boots, his coat, with the big pocket,\nthat carried his snap-bag and his bottle of tea, and went forth into\nthe fresh morning air, closing, without locking, the door behind him. He\nloved the early morning, and the walk across the fields. So he appeared\nat the pit-top, often with a stalk from the hedge between his teeth,\nwhich he chewed all day to keep his mouth moist, down the mine, feeling\nquite as happy as when he was in the field.\n\nLater, when the time for the baby grew nearer, he would bustle round\nin his slovenly fashion, poking out the ashes, rubbing the fireplace,\nsweeping the house before he went to work. Then, feeling very\nself-righteous, he went upstairs.\n\n\"Now I'm cleaned up for thee: tha's no 'casions ter stir a peg all day,\nbut sit and read thy books.\"\n\nWhich made her laugh, in spite of her indignation.\n\n\"And the dinner cooks itself?\" she answered.\n\n\"Eh, I know nowt about th' dinner.\"\n\n\"You'd know if there weren't any.\"\n\n\"Ay, 'appen so,\" he answered, departing.\n\nWhen she got downstairs, she would find the house tidy, but dirty. She\ncould not rest until she had thoroughly cleaned; so she went down to the\nash-pit with her dustpan. Mrs. Kirk, spying her, would contrive to have\nto go to her own coal-place at that minute. Then, across the wooden\nfence, she would call:\n\n\"So you keep wagging on, then?\"\n\n\"Ay,\" answered Mrs. Morel deprecatingly. \"There's nothing else for it.\"\n\n\"Have you seen Hose?\" called a very small woman from across the road. It\nwas Mrs. Anthony, a black-haired, strange little body, who always wore a\nbrown velvet dress, tight fitting.\n\n\"I haven't,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Eh, I wish he'd come. I've got a copperful of clothes, an' I'm sure I\nheered his bell.\"\n\n\"Hark! He's at the end.\"\n\nThe two women looked down the alley. At the end of the Bottoms a\nman stood in a sort of old-fashioned trap, bending over bundles of\ncream- stuff; while a cluster of women held up their arms to\nhim, some with bundles. Mrs. Anthony herself had a heap of creamy,\nundyed stockings hanging over her arm.\n\n\"I've done ten dozen this week,\" she said proudly to Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"T-t-t!\" went the other. \"I don't know how you can find time.\"\n\n\"Eh!\" said Mrs. Anthony. \"You can find time if you make time.\"\n\n\"I don't know how you do it,\" said Mrs. Morel. \"And how much shall you\nget for those many?\"\n\n\"Tuppence-ha'penny a dozen,\" replied the other.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Morel. \"I'd starve before I'd sit down and seam\ntwenty-four stockings for twopence ha'penny.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't know,\" said Mrs. Anthony. \"You can rip along with 'em.\"\n\nHose was coming along, ringing his bell. Women were waiting at the\nyard-ends with their seamed stockings hanging over their arms. The\nman, a common fellow, made jokes with them, tried to swindle them, and\nbullied them. Mrs. Morel went up her yard disdainfully.\n\nIt was an understood thing that if one woman wanted her neighbour, she\nshould put the poker in the fire and bang at the back of the fireplace,\nwhich, as the fires were back to back, would make a great noise in the\nadjoining house. One morning Mrs. Kirk, mixing a pudding, nearly started\nout of her skin as she heard the thud, thud, in her grate. With her\nhands all floury, she rushed to the fence.\n\n\"Did you knock, Mrs. Morel?\"\n\n\"If you wouldn't mind, Mrs. Kirk.\"\n\nMrs. Kirk climbed on to her copper, got over the wall on to Mrs. Morel's\ncopper, and ran in to her neighbour.\n\n\"Eh, dear, how are you feeling?\" she cried in concern.\n\n\"You might fetch Mrs. Bower,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\nMrs. Kirk went into the yard, lifted up her strong, shrill voice, and\ncalled:\n\n\"Ag-gie--Ag-gie!\"\n\nThe sound was heard from one end of the Bottoms to the other. At last\nAggie came running up, and was sent for Mrs. Bower, whilst Mrs. Kirk\nleft her pudding and stayed with her neighbour.\n\nMrs. Morel went to bed. Mrs. Kirk had Annie and William for dinner. Mrs.\nBower, fat and waddling, bossed the house.\n\n\"Hash some cold meat up for the master's dinner, and make him an\napple-charlotte pudding,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"He may go without pudding this day,\" said Mrs. Bower.\n\nMorel was not as a rule one of the first to appear at the bottom of the\npit, ready to come up. Some men were there before four o'clock, when the\nwhistle blew loose-all; but Morel, whose stall, a poor one, was at this\ntime about a mile and a half away from the bottom, worked usually till\nthe first mate stopped, then he finished also. This day, however, the\nminer was sick of the work. At two o'clock he looked at his watch, by\nthe light of the green candle--he was in a safe working--and again at\nhalf-past two. He was hewing at a piece of rock that was in the way for\nthe next day's work. As he sat on his heels, or kneeled, giving hard\nblows with his pick, \"Uszza--uszza!\" he went.\n\n\"Shall ter finish, Sorry?\" cried Barker, his fellow butty.\n\n\"Finish? Niver while the world stands!\" growled Morel.\n\nAnd he went on striking. He was tired.\n\n\"It's a heart-breaking job,\" said Barker.\n\nBut Morel was too exasperated, at the end of his tether, to answer.\nStill he struck and hacked with all his might.\n\n\"Tha might as well leave it, Walter,\" said Barker. \"It'll do to-morrow,\nwithout thee hackin' thy guts out.\"\n\n\"I'll lay no b---- finger on this to-morrow, Isr'el!\" cried Morel.\n\n\"Oh, well, if tha wunna, somebody else'll ha'e to,\" said Israel.\n\nThen Morel continued to strike.\n\n\"Hey-up there--LOOSE-A'!\" cried the men, leaving the next stall.\n\nMorel continued to strike.\n\n\"Tha'll happen catch me up,\" said Barker, departing.\n\nWhen he had gone, Morel, left alone, felt savage. He had not finished\nhis job. He had overworked himself into a frenzy. Rising, wet with\nsweat, he threw his tool down, pulled on his coat, blew out his candle,\ntook his lamp, and went. Down the main road the lights of the other men\nwent swinging. There was a hollow sound of many voices. It was a long,\nheavy tramp underground.\n\nHe sat at the bottom of the pit, where the great drops of water fell\nplash. Many colliers were waiting their turns to go up, talking noisily.\nMorel gave his answers short and disagreeable.\n\n\"It's rainin', Sorry,\" said old Giles, who had had the news from the\ntop.\n\nMorel found one comfort. He had his old umbrella, which he loved, in the\nlamp cabin. At last he took his stand on the chair, and was at the top\nin a moment. Then he handed in his lamp and got his umbrella, which he\nhad bought at an auction for one-and-six. He stood on the edge of\nthe pit-bank for a moment, looking out over the fields; grey rain was\nfalling. The trucks stood full of wet, bright coal. Water ran down the\nsides of the waggons, over the white \"C.W. and Co.\". Colliers, walking\nindifferent to the rain, were streaming down the line and up the field,\na grey, dismal host. Morel put up his umbrella, and took pleasure from\nthe peppering of the drops thereon.\n\nAll along the road to Bestwood the miners tramped, wet and grey and\ndirty, but their red mouths talking with animation. Morel also walked\nwith a gang, but he said nothing. He frowned peevishly as he went. Many\nmen passed into the Prince of Wales or into Ellen's. Morel, feeling\nsufficiently disagreeable to resist temptation, trudged along under\nthe dripping trees that overhung the park wall, and down the mud of\nGreenhill Lane.\n\nMrs. Morel lay in bed, listening to the rain, and the feet of the\ncolliers from Minton, their voices, and the bang, bang of the gates as\nthey went through the stile up the field.\n\n\"There's some herb beer behind the pantry door,\" she said. \"Th'\nmaster'll want a drink, if he doesn't stop.\"\n\nBut he was late, so she concluded he had called for a drink, since it\nwas raining. What did he care about the child or her?\n\nShe was very ill when her children were born.\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked, feeling sick to death.\n\n\"A boy.\"\n\nAnd she took consolation in that. The thought of being the mother of men\nwas warming to her heart. She looked at the child. It had blue eyes,\nand a lot of fair hair, and was bonny. Her love came up hot, in spite of\neverything. She had it in bed with her.\n\nMorel, thinking nothing, dragged his way up the garden path, wearily\nand angrily. He closed his umbrella, and stood it in the sink; then he\nsluthered his heavy boots into the kitchen. Mrs. Bower appeared in the\ninner doorway.\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"she's about as bad as she can be. It's a boy childt.\"\n\nThe miner grunted, put his empty snap-bag and his tin bottle on the\ndresser, went back into the scullery and hung up his coat, then came and\ndropped into his chair.\n\n\"Han yer got a drink?\" he asked.\n\nThe woman went into the pantry. There was heard the pop of a cork. She\nset the mug, with a little, disgusted rap, on the table before Morel. He\ndrank, gasped, wiped his big moustache on the end of his scarf, drank,\ngasped, and lay back in his chair. The woman would not speak to him\nagain. She set his dinner before him, and went upstairs.\n\n\"Was that the master?\" asked Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"I've gave him his dinner,\" replied Mrs. Bower.\n\nAfter he had sat with his arms on the table--he resented the fact that\nMrs. Bower put no cloth on for him, and gave him a little plate, instead\nof a full-sized dinner-plate--he began to eat. The fact that his wife\nwas ill, that he had another boy, was nothing to him at that moment.\nHe was too tired; he wanted his dinner; he wanted to sit with his arms\nlying on the board; he did not like having Mrs. Bower about. The fire\nwas too small to please him.\n\nAfter he had finished his meal, he sat for twenty minutes; then he\nstoked up a big fire. Then, in his stockinged feet, he went reluctantly\nupstairs. It was a struggle to face his wife at this moment, and he was\ntired. His face was black, and smeared with sweat. His singlet had\ndried again, soaking the dirt in. He had a dirty woollen scarf round his\nthroat. So he stood at the foot of the bed.\n\n\"Well, how are ter, then?\" he asked.\n\n\"I s'll be all right,\" she answered.\n\n\"H'm!\"\n\nHe stood at a loss what to say next. He was tired, and this bother was\nrather a nuisance to him, and he didn't quite know where he was.\n\n\"A lad, tha says,\" he stammered.\n\nShe turned down the sheet and showed the child.\n\n\"Bless him!\" he murmured. Which made her laugh, because he blessed by\nrote--pretending paternal emotion, which he did not feel just then.\n\n\"Go now,\" she said.\n\n\"I will, my lass,\" he answered, turning away.\n\nDismissed, he wanted to kiss her, but he dared not. She half wanted\nhim to kiss her, but could not bring herself to give any sign. She only\nbreathed freely when he was gone out of the room again, leaving behind\nhim a faint smell of pit-dirt.\n\nMrs. Morel had a visit every day from the Congregational clergyman. Mr.\nHeaton was young, and very poor. His wife had died at the birth of his\nfirst baby, so he remained alone in the manse. He was a Bachelor of Arts\nof Cambridge, very shy, and no preacher. Mrs. Morel was fond of him, and\nhe depended on her. For hours he talked to her, when she was well. He\nbecame the god-parent of the child.\n\nOccasionally the minister stayed to tea with Mrs. Morel. Then she laid\nthe cloth early, got out her best cups, with a little green rim, and\nhoped Morel would not come too soon; indeed, if he stayed for a pint,\nshe would not mind this day. She had always two dinners to cook, because\nshe believed children should have their chief meal at midday, whereas\nMorel needed his at five o'clock. So Mr. Heaton would hold the baby,\nwhilst Mrs. Morel beat up a batter-pudding or peeled the potatoes, and\nhe, watching her all the time, would discuss his next sermon. His ideas\nwere quaint and fantastic. She brought him judiciously to earth. It was\na discussion of the wedding at Cana.\n\n\"When He changed the water into wine at Cana,\" he said, \"that is a\nsymbol that the ordinary life, even the blood, of the married husband\nand wife, which had before been uninspired, like water, became filled\nwith the Spirit, and was as wine, because, when love enters, the whole\nspiritual constitution of a man changes, is filled with the Holy Ghost,\nand almost his form is altered.\"\n\nMrs. Morel thought to herself:\n\n\"Yes, poor fellow, his young wife is dead; that is why he makes his love\ninto the Holy Ghost.\"\n\nThey were halfway down their first cup of tea when they heard the\nsluther of pit-boots.\n\n\"Good gracious!\" exclaimed Mrs. Morel, in spite of herself.\n\nThe minister looked rather scared. Morel entered. He was feeling rather\nsavage. He nodded a \"How d'yer do\" to the clergyman, who rose to shake\nhands with him.\n\n\"Nay,\" said Morel, showing his hand, \"look thee at it! Tha niver\nwants ter shake hands wi' a hand like that, does ter? There's too much\npick-haft and shovel-dirt on it.\"\n\nThe minister flushed with confusion, and sat down again. Mrs. Morel\nrose, carried out the steaming saucepan. Morel took off his coat,\ndragged his armchair to table, and sat down heavily.\n\n\"Are you tired?\" asked the clergyman.\n\n\"Tired? I ham that,\" replied Morel. \"YOU don't know what it is to be\ntired, as I'M tired.\"\n\n\"No,\" replied the clergyman.\n\n\"Why, look yer 'ere,\" said the miner, showing the shoulders of his\nsinglet. \"It's a bit dry now, but it's wet as a clout with sweat even\nyet. Feel it.\"\n\n\"Goodness!\" cried Mrs. Morel. \"Mr. Heaton doesn't want to feel your\nnasty singlet.\"\n\nThe clergyman put out his hand gingerly.\n\n\"No, perhaps he doesn't,\" said Morel; \"but it's all come out of me,\nwhether or not. An' iv'ry day alike my singlet's wringin' wet. 'Aven't\nyou got a drink, Missis, for a man when he comes home barkled up from\nthe pit?\"\n\n\"You know you drank all the beer,\" said Mrs. Morel, pouring out his tea.\n\n\"An' was there no more to be got?\" Turning to the clergyman--\"A man gets\nthat caked up wi' th' dust, you know,--that clogged up down a coal-mine,\nhe NEEDS a drink when he comes home.\"\n\n\"I am sure he does,\" said the clergyman.\n\n\"But it's ten to one if there's owt for him.\"\n\n\"There's water--and there's tea,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Water! It's not water as'll clear his throat.\"\n\nHe poured out a saucerful of tea, blew it, and sucked it up through his\ngreat black moustache, sighing afterwards. Then he poured out another\nsaucerful, and stood his cup on the table.\n\n\"My cloth!\" said Mrs. Morel, putting it on a plate.\n\n\"A man as comes home as I do 's too tired to care about cloths,\" said\nMorel.\n\n\"Pity!\" exclaimed his wife, sarcastically.\n\nThe room was full of the smell of meat and vegetables and pit-clothes.\n\nHe leaned over to the minister, his great moustache thrust forward, his\nmouth very red in his black face.\n\n\"Mr. Heaton,\" he said, \"a man as has been down the black hole all day,\ndingin' away at a coal-face, yi, a sight harder than that wall--\"\n\n\"Needn't make a moan of it,\" put in Mrs. Morel.\n\nShe hated her husband because, whenever he had an audience, he whined\nand played for sympathy. William, sitting nursing the baby, hated him,\nwith a boy's hatred for false sentiment, and for the stupid treatment of\nhis mother. Annie had never liked him; she merely avoided him.\n\nWhen the minister had gone, Mrs. Morel looked at her cloth.\n\n\"A fine mess!\" she said.\n\n\"Dos't think I'm goin' to sit wi' my arms danglin', cos tha's got a\nparson for tea wi' thee?\" he bawled.\n\nThey were both angry, but she said nothing. The baby began to cry, and\nMrs. Morel, picking up a saucepan from the hearth, accidentally knocked\nAnnie on the head, whereupon the girl began to whine, and Morel to shout\nat her. In the midst of this pandemonium, William looked up at the big\nglazed text over the mantelpiece and read distinctly:\n\n\"God Bless Our Home!\"\n\nWhereupon Mrs. Morel, trying to soothe the baby, jumped up, rushed at\nhim, boxed his ears, saying:\n\n\"What are YOU putting in for?\"\n\nAnd then she sat down and laughed, till tears ran over her cheeks, while\nWilliam kicked the stool he had been sitting on, and Morel growled:\n\n\"I canna see what there is so much to laugh at.\"\n\nOne evening, directly after the parson's visit, feeling unable to bear\nherself after another display from her husband, she took Annie and the\nbaby and went out. Morel had kicked William, and the mother would never\nforgive him.\n\nShe went over the sheep-bridge and across a corner of the meadow to the\ncricket-ground. The meadows seemed one space of ripe, evening light,\nwhispering with the distant mill-race. She sat on a seat under the\nalders in the cricket-ground, and fronted the evening. Before her, level\nand solid, spread the big green cricket-field, like the bed of a sea of\nlight. Children played in the bluish shadow of the pavilion. Many rooks,\nhigh up, came cawing home across the softly-woven sky. They stooped in\na long curve down into the golden glow, concentrating, cawing, wheeling,\nlike black flakes on a slow vortex, over a tree clump that made a dark\nboss among the pasture.\n\nA few gentlemen were practising, and Mrs. Morel could hear the chock\nof the ball, and the voices of men suddenly roused; could see the white\nforms of men shifting silently over the green, upon which already the\nunder shadows were smouldering. Away at the grange, one side of the\nhaystacks was lit up, the other sides blue-grey. A waggon of sheaves\nrocked small across the melting yellow light.\n\nThe sun was going down. Every open evening, the hills of Derbyshire were\nblazed over with red sunset. Mrs. Morel watched the sun sink from the\nglistening sky, leaving a soft flower-blue overhead, while the western\nspace went red, as if all the fire had swum down there, leaving the\nbell cast flawless blue. The mountain-ash berries across the field stood\nfierily out from the dark leaves, for a moment. A few shocks of corn in\na corner of the fallow stood up as if alive; she imagined them bowing;\nperhaps her son would be a Joseph. In the east, a mirrored sunset\nfloated pink opposite the west's scarlet. The big haystacks on the\nhillside, that butted into the glare, went cold.\n\nWith Mrs. Morel it was one of those still moments when the small frets\nvanish, and the beauty of things stands out, and she had the peace and\nthe strength to see herself. Now and again, a swallow cut close to her.\nNow and again, Annie came up with a handful of alder-currants. The baby\nwas restless on his mother's knee, clambering with his hands at the\nlight.\n\nMrs. Morel looked down at him. She had dreaded this baby like a\ncatastrophe, because of her feeling for her husband. And now she felt\nstrangely towards the infant. Her heart was heavy because of the child,\nalmost as if it were unhealthy, or malformed. Yet it seemed quite well.\nBut she noticed the peculiar knitting of the baby's brows, and the\npeculiar heaviness of its eyes, as if it were trying to understand\nsomething that was pain. She felt, when she looked at her child's dark,\nbrooding pupils, as if a burden were on her heart.\n\n\"He looks as if he was thinking about something--quite sorrowful,\" said\nMrs. Kirk.\n\nSuddenly, looking at him, the heavy feeling at the mother's heart melted\ninto passionate grief. She bowed over him, and a few tears shook swiftly\nout of her very heart. The baby lifted his fingers.\n\n\"My lamb!\" she cried softly.\n\nAnd at that moment she felt, in some far inner place of her soul, that\nshe and her husband were guilty.\n\nThe baby was looking up at her. It had blue eyes like her own, but its\nlook was heavy, steady, as if it had realised something that had stunned\nsome point of its soul.\n\nIn her arms lay the delicate baby. Its deep blue eyes, always looking up\nat her unblinking, seemed to draw her innermost thoughts out of her. She\nno longer loved her husband; she had not wanted this child to come, and\nthere it lay in her arms and pulled at her heart. She felt as if the\nnavel string that had connected its frail little body with hers had not\nbeen broken. A wave of hot love went over her to the infant. She held it\nclose to her face and breast. With all her force, with all her soul she\nwould make up to it for having brought it into the world unloved. She\nwould love it all the more now it was here; carry it in her love. Its\nclear, knowing eyes gave her pain and fear. Did it know all about her?\nWhen it lay under her heart, had it been listening then? Was there a\nreproach in the look? She felt the marrow melt in her bones, with fear\nand pain.\n\nOnce more she was aware of the sun lying red on the rim of the hill\nopposite. She suddenly held up the child in her hands.\n\n\"Look!\" she said. \"Look, my pretty!\"\n\nShe thrust the infant forward to the crimson, throbbing sun, almost with\nrelief. She saw him lift his little fist. Then she put him to her bosom\nagain, ashamed almost of her impulse to give him back again whence he\ncame.\n\n\"If he lives,\" she thought to herself, \"what will become of him--what\nwill he be?\"\n\nHer heart was anxious.\n\n\"I will call him Paul,\" she said suddenly; she knew not why.\n\nAfter a while she went home. A fine shadow was flung over the deep green\nmeadow, darkening all.\n\nAs she expected, she found the house empty. But Morel was home by ten\no'clock, and that day, at least, ended peacefully.\n\nWalter Morel was, at this time, exceedingly irritable. His work seemed\nto exhaust him. When he came home he did not speak civilly to anybody.\nIf the fire were rather low he bullied about that; he grumbled about his\ndinner; if the children made a chatter he shouted at them in a way that\nmade their mother's blood boil, and made them hate him.\n\nOn the Friday, he was not home by eleven o'clock. The baby was unwell,\nand was restless, crying if he were put down. Mrs. Morel, tired to\ndeath, and still weak, was scarcely under control.\n\n\"I wish the nuisance would come,\" she said wearily to herself.\n\nThe child at last sank down to sleep in her arms. She was too tired to\ncarry him to the cradle.\n\n\"But I'll say nothing, whatever time he comes,\" she said. \"It only works\nme up; I won't say anything. But I know if he does anything it'll make\nmy blood boil,\" she added to herself.\n\nShe sighed, hearing him coming, as if it were something she could not\nbear. He, taking his revenge, was nearly drunk. She kept her head\nbent over the child as he entered, not wishing to see him. But it\nwent through her like a flash of hot fire when, in passing, he lurched\nagainst the dresser, setting the tins rattling, and clutched at the\nwhite pot knobs for support. He hung up his hat and coat, then returned,\nstood glowering from a distance at her, as she sat bowed over the child.\n\n\"Is there nothing to eat in the house?\" he asked, insolently, as if to a\nservant. In certain stages of his intoxication he affected the\nclipped, mincing speech of the towns. Mrs. Morel hated him most in this\ncondition.\n\n\"You know what there is in the house,\" she said, so coldly, it sounded\nimpersonal.\n\nHe stood and glared at her without moving a muscle.\n\n\"I asked a civil question, and I expect a civil answer,\" he said\naffectedly.\n\n\"And you got it,\" she said, still ignoring him.\n\nHe glowered again. Then he came unsteadily forward. He leaned on the\ntable with one hand, and with the other jerked at the table drawer to\nget a knife to cut bread. The drawer stuck because he pulled sideways.\nIn a temper he dragged it, so that it flew out bodily, and spoons,\nforks, knives, a hundred metallic things, splashed with a clatter and a\nclang upon the brick floor. The baby gave a little convulsed start.\n\n\"What are you doing, clumsy, drunken fool?\" the mother cried.\n\n\"Then tha should get the flamin' thing thysen. Tha should get up, like\nother women have to, an' wait on a man.\"\n\n\"Wait on you--wait on you?\" she cried. \"Yes, I see myself.\"\n\n\"Yis, an' I'll learn thee tha's got to. Wait on ME, yes tha sh'lt wait\non me--\"\n\n\"Never, milord. I'd wait on a dog at the door first.\"\n\n\"What--what?\"\n\nHe was trying to fit in the drawer. At her last speech he turned round.\nHis face was crimson, his eyes bloodshot. He stared at her one silent\nsecond in threat.\n\n\"P-h!\" she went quickly, in contempt.\n\nHe jerked at the drawer in his excitement. It fell, cut sharply on his\nshin, and on the reflex he flung it at her.\n\nOne of the corners caught her brow as the shallow drawer crashed into\nthe fireplace. She swayed, almost fell stunned from her chair. To her\nvery soul she was sick; she clasped the child tightly to her bosom. A\nfew moments elapsed; then, with an effort, she brought herself to.\nThe baby was crying plaintively. Her left brow was bleeding rather\nprofusely. As she glanced down at the child, her brain reeling, some\ndrops of blood soaked into its white shawl; but the baby was at least\nnot hurt. She balanced her head to keep equilibrium, so that the blood\nran into her eye.\n\nWalter Morel remained as he had stood, leaning on the table with one\nhand, looking blank. When he was sufficiently sure of his balance,\nhe went across to her, swayed, caught hold of the back of her\nrocking-chair, almost tipping her out; then leaning forward over her,\nand swaying as he spoke, he said, in a tone of wondering concern:\n\n\"Did it catch thee?\"\n\nHe swayed again, as if he would pitch on to the child. With the\ncatastrophe he had lost all balance.\n\n\"Go away,\" she said, struggling to keep her presence of mind.\n\nHe hiccoughed. \"Let's--let's look at it,\" he said, hiccoughing again.\n\n\"Go away!\" she cried.\n\n\"Lemme--lemme look at it, lass.\"\n\nShe smelled him of drink, felt the unequal pull of his swaying grasp on\nthe back of her rocking-chair.\n\n\"Go away,\" she said, and weakly she pushed him off.\n\nHe stood, uncertain in balance, gazing upon her. Summoning all her\nstrength she rose, the baby on one arm. By a cruel effort of will,\nmoving as if in sleep, she went across to the scullery, where she bathed\nher eye for a minute in cold water; but she was too dizzy. Afraid lest\nshe should swoon, she returned to her rocking-chair, trembling in every\nfibre. By instinct, she kept the baby clasped.\n\nMorel, bothered, had succeeded in pushing the drawer back into its\ncavity, and was on his knees, groping, with numb paws, for the scattered\nspoons.\n\nHer brow was still bleeding. Presently Morel got up and came craning his\nneck towards her.\n\n\"What has it done to thee, lass?\" he asked, in a very wretched, humble\ntone.\n\n\"You can see what it's done,\" she answered.\n\nHe stood, bending forward, supported on his hands, which grasped his\nlegs just above the knee. He peered to look at the wound. She drew away\nfrom the thrust of his face with its great moustache, averting her\nown face as much as possible. As he looked at her, who was cold and\nimpassive as stone, with mouth shut tight, he sickened with feebleness\nand hopelessness of spirit. He was turning drearily away, when he saw\na drop of blood fall from the averted wound into the baby's fragile,\nglistening hair. Fascinated, he watched the heavy dark drop hang in\nthe glistening cloud, and pull down the gossamer. Another drop fell. It\nwould soak through to the baby's scalp. He watched, fascinated, feeling\nit soak in; then, finally, his manhood broke.\n\n\"What of this child?\" was all his wife said to him. But her low, intense\ntones brought his head lower. She softened: \"Get me some wadding out of\nthe middle drawer,\" she said.\n\nHe stumbled away very obediently, presently returning with a pad, which\nshe singed before the fire, then put on her forehead, as she sat with\nthe baby on her lap.\n\n\"Now that clean pit-scarf.\"\n\nAgain he rummaged and fumbled in the drawer, returning presently with a\nred, narrow scarf. She took it, and with trembling fingers proceeded to\nbind it round her head.\n\n\"Let me tie it for thee,\" he said humbly.\n\n\"I can do it myself,\" she replied. When it was done she went upstairs,\ntelling him to rake the fire and lock the door.\n\nIn the morning Mrs. Morel said:\n\n\"I knocked against the latch of the coal-place, when I was getting a\nraker in the dark, because the candle blew out.\" Her two small children\nlooked up at her with wide, dismayed eyes. They said nothing, but their\nparted lips seemed to express the unconscious tragedy they felt.\n\nWalter Morel lay in bed next day until nearly dinner-time. He did not\nthink of the previous evening's work. He scarcely thought of anything,\nbut he would not think of that. He lay and suffered like a sulking dog.\nHe had hurt himself most; and he was the more damaged because he would\nnever say a word to her, or express his sorrow. He tried to wriggle out\nof it. \"It was her own fault,\" he said to himself. Nothing, however,\ncould prevent his inner consciousness inflicting on him the punishment\nwhich ate into his spirit like rust, and which he could only alleviate\nby drinking.\n\nHe felt as if he had not the initiative to get up, or to say a word, or\nto move, but could only lie like a log. Moreover, he had himself violent\npains in the head. It was Saturday. Towards noon he rose, cut himself\nfood in the pantry, ate it with his head dropped, then pulled on his\nboots, and went out, to return at three o'clock slightly tipsy and\nrelieved; then once more straight to bed. He rose again at six in the\nevening, had tea and went straight out.\n\nSunday was the same: bed till noon, the Palmerston Arms till 2.30,\ndinner, and bed; scarcely a word spoken. When Mrs. Morel went upstairs,\ntowards four o'clock, to put on her Sunday dress, he was fast asleep.\nShe would have felt sorry for him, if he had once said, \"Wife, I'm\nsorry.\" But no; he insisted to himself it was her fault. And so he\nbroke himself. So she merely left him alone. There was this deadlock of\npassion between them, and she was stronger.\n\nThe family began tea. Sunday was the only day when all sat down to meals\ntogether.\n\n\"Isn't my father going to get up?\" asked William.\n\n\"Let him lie,\" the mother replied.\n\nThere was a feeling of misery over all the house. The children breathed\nthe air that was poisoned, and they felt dreary. They were rather\ndisconsolate, did not know what to do, what to play at.\n\nImmediately Morel woke he got straight out of bed. That was\ncharacteristic of him all his life. He was all for activity. The\nprostrated inactivity of two mornings was stifling him.\n\nIt was near six o'clock when he got down. This time he entered without\nhesitation, his wincing sensitiveness having hardened again. He did not\ncare any longer what the family thought or felt.\n\nThe tea-things were on the table. William was reading aloud from \"The\nChild's Own\", Annie listening and asking eternally \"why?\" Both children\nhushed into silence as they heard the approaching thud of their father's\nstockinged feet, and shrank as he entered. Yet he was usually indulgent\nto them.\n\nMorel made the meal alone, brutally. He ate and drank more noisily than\nhe had need. No one spoke to him. The family life withdrew, shrank\naway, and became hushed as he entered. But he cared no longer about his\nalienation.\n\nImmediately he had finished tea he rose with alacrity to go out. It was\nthis alacrity, this haste to be gone, which so sickened Mrs. Morel. As\nshe heard him sousing heartily in cold water, heard the eager scratch\nof the steel comb on the side of the bowl, as he wetted his hair, she\nclosed her eyes in disgust. As he bent over, lacing his boots, there\nwas a certain vulgar gusto in his movement that divided him from the\nreserved, watchful rest of the family. He always ran away from the\nbattle with himself. Even in his own heart's privacy, he excused\nhimself, saying, \"If she hadn't said so-and-so, it would never have\nhappened. She asked for what she's got.\" The children waited in\nrestraint during his preparations. When he had gone, they sighed with\nrelief.\n\nHe closed the door behind him, and was glad. It was a rainy evening. The\nPalmerston would be the cosier. He hastened forward in anticipation. All\nthe slate roofs of the Bottoms shone black with wet. The roads, always\ndark with coal-dust, were full of blackish mud. He hastened along. The\nPalmerston windows were steamed over. The passage was paddled with wet\nfeet. But the air was warm, if foul, and full of the sound of voices and\nthe smell of beer and smoke.\n\n\"What shollt ha'e, Walter?\" cried a voice, as soon as Morel appeared in\nthe doorway.\n\n\"Oh, Jim, my lad, wheriver has thee sprung frae?\"\n\nThe men made a seat for him, and took him in warmly. He was glad. In a\nminute or two they had thawed all responsibility out of him, all shame,\nall trouble, and he was clear as a bell for a jolly night.\n\nOn the Wednesday following, Morel was penniless. He dreaded his wife.\nHaving hurt her, he hated her. He did not know what to do with\nhimself that evening, having not even twopence with which to go to the\nPalmerston, and being already rather deeply in debt. So, while his wife\nwas down the garden with the child, he hunted in the top drawer of\nthe dresser where she kept her purse, found it, and looked inside. It\ncontained a half-crown, two halfpennies, and a sixpence. So he took the\nsixpence, put the purse carefully back, and went out.\n\nThe next day, when she wanted to pay the greengrocer, she looked in the\npurse for her sixpence, and her heart sank to her shoes. Then she sat\ndown and thought: \"WAS there a sixpence? I hadn't spent it, had I? And I\nhadn't left it anywhere else?\"\n\nShe was much put about. She hunted round everywhere for it. And, as she\nsought, the conviction came into her heart that her husband had taken\nit. What she had in her purse was all the money she possessed. But that\nhe should sneak it from her thus was unbearable. He had done so twice\nbefore. The first time she had not accused him, and at the week-end he\nhad put the shilling again into her purse. So that was how she had known\nhe had taken it. The second time he had not paid back.\n\nThis time she felt it was too much. When he had had his dinner--he came\nhome early that day--she said to him coldly:\n\n\"Did you take sixpence out of my purse last night?\"\n\n\"Me!\" he said, looking up in an offended way. \"No, I didna! I niver\nclapped eyes on your purse.\"\n\nBut she could detect the lie.\n\n\"Why, you know you did,\" she said quietly.\n\n\"I tell you I didna,\" he shouted. \"Yer at me again, are yer? I've had\nabout enough on't.\"\n\n\"So you filch sixpence out of my purse while I'm taking the clothes in.\"\n\n\"I'll may yer pay for this,\" he said, pushing back his chair in\ndesperation. He bustled and got washed, then went determinedly upstairs.\nPresently he came down dressed, and with a big bundle in a blue-checked,\nenormous handkerchief.\n\n\"And now,\" he said, \"you'll see me again when you do.\"\n\n\"It'll be before I want to,\" she replied; and at that he marched out\nof the house with his bundle. She sat trembling slightly, but her heart\nbrimming with contempt. What would she do if he went to some other\npit, obtained work, and got in with another woman? But she knew him too\nwell--he couldn't. She was dead sure of him. Nevertheless her heart was\ngnawed inside her.\n\n\"Where's my dad?\" said William, coming in from school.\n\n\"He says he's run away,\" replied the mother.\n\n\"Where to?\"\n\n\"Eh, I don't know. He's taken a bundle in the blue handkerchief, and\nsays he's not coming back.\"\n\n\"What shall we do?\" cried the boy.\n\n\"Eh, never trouble, he won't go far.\"\n\n\"But if he doesn't come back,\" wailed Annie.\n\nAnd she and William retired to the sofa and wept. Mrs. Morel sat and\nlaughed.\n\n\"You pair of gabeys!\" she exclaimed. \"You'll see him before the night's\nout.\"\n\nBut the children were not to be consoled. Twilight came on. Mrs. Morel\ngrew anxious from very weariness. One part of her said it would be a\nrelief to see the last of him; another part fretted because of keeping\nthe children; and inside her, as yet, she could not quite let him go. At\nthe bottom, she knew very well he could NOT go.\n\nWhen she went down to the coal-place at the end of the garden, however,\nshe felt something behind the door. So she looked. And there in the dark\nlay the big blue bundle. She sat on a piece of coal and laughed. Every\ntime she saw it, so fat and yet so ignominious, slunk into its corner in\nthe dark, with its ends flopping like dejected ears from the knots, she\nlaughed again. She was relieved.\n\nMrs. Morel sat waiting. He had not any money, she knew, so if he stopped\nhe was running up a bill. She was very tired of him--tired to death. He\nhad not even the courage to carry his bundle beyond the yard-end.\n\nAs she meditated, at about nine o'clock, he opened the door and came in,\nslinking, and yet sulky. She said not a word. He took off his coat, and\nslunk to his armchair, where he began to take off his boots.\n\n\"You'd better fetch your bundle before you take your boots off,\" she\nsaid quietly.\n\n\"You may thank your stars I've come back to-night,\" he said, looking up\nfrom under his dropped head, sulkily, trying to be impressive.\n\n\"Why, where should you have gone? You daren't even get your parcel\nthrough the yard-end,\" she said.\n\nHe looked such a fool she was not even angry with him. He continued to\ntake his boots off and prepare for bed.\n\n\"I don't know what's in your blue handkerchief,\" she said. \"But if you\nleave it the children shall fetch it in the morning.\"\n\nWhereupon he got up and went out of the house, returning presently and\ncrossing the kitchen with averted face, hurrying upstairs. As Mrs. Morel\nsaw him slink quickly through the inner doorway, holding his bundle, she\nlaughed to herself: but her heart was bitter, because she had loved him.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE CASTING OFF OF MOREL--THE TAKING ON OF WILLIAM\n\nDURING the next week Morel's temper was almost unbearable. Like all\nminers, he was a great lover of medicines, which, strangely enough, he\nwould often pay for himself.\n\n\"You mun get me a drop o' laxy vitral,\" he said. \"It's a winder as we\ncanna ha'e a sup i' th' 'ouse.\"\n\nSo Mrs. Morel bought him elixir of vitriol, his favourite first\nmedicine. And he made himself a jug of wormwood tea. He had hanging in\nthe attic great bunches of dried herbs: wormwood, rue, horehound, elder\nflowers, parsley-purt, marshmallow, hyssop, dandelion, and centaury.\nUsually there was a jug of one or other decoction standing on the hob,\nfrom which he drank largely.\n\n\"Grand!\" he said, smacking his lips after wormwood. \"Grand!\" And he\nexhorted the children to try.\n\n\"It's better than any of your tea or your cocoa stews,\" he vowed. But\nthey were not to be tempted.\n\nThis time, however, neither pills nor vitriol nor all his herbs would\nshift the \"nasty peens in his head\". He was sickening for an attack of\nan inflammation of the brain. He had never been well since his sleeping\non the ground when he went with Jerry to Nottingham. Since then he had\ndrunk and stormed. Now he fell seriously ill, and Mrs. Morel had him\nto nurse. He was one of the worst patients imaginable. But, in spite of\nall, and putting aside the fact that he was breadwinner, she never\nquite wanted him to die. Still there was one part of her wanted him for\nherself.\n\nThe neighbours were very good to her: occasionally some had the children\nin to meals, occasionally some would do the downstairs work for her, one\nwould mind the baby for a day. But it was a great drag, nevertheless.\nIt was not every day the neighbours helped. Then she had nursing of baby\nand husband, cleaning and cooking, everything to do. She was quite worn\nout, but she did what was wanted of her.\n\nAnd the money was just sufficient. She had seventeen shillings a week\nfrom clubs, and every Friday Barker and the other butty put by a portion\nof the stall's profits for Morel's wife. And the neighbours made broths,\nand gave eggs, and such invalids' trifles. If they had not helped her so\ngenerously in those times, Mrs. Morel would never have pulled through,\nwithout incurring debts that would have dragged her down.\n\nThe weeks passed. Morel, almost against hope, grew better. He had a fine\nconstitution, so that, once on the mend, he went straight forward to\nrecovery. Soon he was pottering about downstairs. During his illness his\nwife had spoilt him a little. Now he wanted her to continue. He often\nput his band to his head, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and\nshammed pains he did not feel. But there was no deceiving her. At first\nshe merely smiled to herself. Then she scolded him sharply.\n\n\"Goodness, man, don't be so lachrymose.\"\n\nThat wounded him slightly, but still he continued to feign sickness.\n\n\"I wouldn't be such a mardy baby,\" said the wife shortly.\n\nThen he was indignant, and cursed under his breath, like a boy. He was\nforced to resume a normal tone, and to cease to whine.\n\nNevertheless, there was a state of peace in the house for some time.\nMrs. Morel was more tolerant of him, and he, depending on her almost\nlike a child, was rather happy. Neither knew that she was more tolerant\nbecause she loved him less. Up till this time, in spite of all, he had\nbeen her husband and her man. She had felt that, more or less, what he\ndid to himself he did to her. Her living depended on him. There were\nmany, many stages in the ebbing of her love for him, but it was always\nebbing.\n\nNow, with the birth of this third baby, her self no longer set towards\nhim, helplessly, but was like a tide that scarcely rose, standing off\nfrom him. After this she scarcely desired him. And, standing more aloof\nfrom him, not feeling him so much part of herself, but merely part of\nher circumstances, she did not mind so much what he did, could leave him\nalone.\n\nThere was the halt, the wistfulness about the ensuing year, which\nis like autumn in a man's life. His wife was casting him off, half\nregretfully, but relentlessly; casting him off and turning now for love\nand life to the children. Henceforward he was more or less a husk. And\nhe himself acquiesced, as so many men do, yielding their place to their\nchildren.\n\nDuring his recuperation, when it was really over between them, both made\nan effort to come back somewhat to the old relationship of the first\nmonths of their marriage. He sat at home and, when the children were in\nbed, and she was sewing--she did all her sewing by hand, made all shirts\nand children's clothing--he would read to her from the newspaper, slowly\npronouncing and delivering the words like a man pitching quoits. Often\nshe hurried him on, giving him a phrase in anticipation. And then he\ntook her words humbly.\n\nThe silences between them were peculiar. There would be the swift,\nslight \"cluck\" of her needle, the sharp \"pop\" of his lips as he let out\nthe smoke, the warmth, the sizzle on the bars as he spat in the fire.\nThen her thoughts turned to William. Already he was getting a big boy.\nAlready he was top of the class, and the master said he was the smartest\nlad in the school. She saw him a man, young, full of vigour, making the\nworld glow again for her.\n\nAnd Morel sitting there, quite alone, and having nothing to think about,\nwould be feeling vaguely uncomfortable. His soul would reach out in its\nblind way to her and find her gone. He felt a sort of emptiness, almost\nlike a vacuum in his soul. He was unsettled and restless. Soon he could\nnot live in that atmosphere, and he affected his wife. Both felt an\noppression on their breathing when they were left together for some\ntime. Then he went to bed and she settled down to enjoy herself alone,\nworking, thinking, living.\n\nMeanwhile another infant was coming, fruit of this little peace and\ntenderness between the separating parents. Paul was seventeen months old\nwhen the new baby was born. He was then a plump, pale child, quiet, with\nheavy blue eyes, and still the peculiar slight knitting of the brows.\nThe last child was also a boy, fair and bonny. Mrs. Morel was sorry when\nshe knew she was with child, both for economic reasons and because she\ndid not love her husband; but not for the sake of the infant.\n\nThey called the baby Arthur. He was very pretty, with a mop of gold\ncurls, and he loved his father from the first. Mrs. Morel was glad this\nchild loved the father. Hearing the miner's footsteps, the baby would\nput up his arms and crow. And if Morel were in a good temper, he called\nback immediately, in his hearty, mellow voice:\n\n\"What then, my beauty? I sh'll come to thee in a minute.\"\n\nAnd as soon as he had taken off his pit-coat, Mrs. Morel would put an\napron round the child, and give him to his father.\n\n\"What a sight the lad looks!\" she would exclaim sometimes, taking back\nthe baby, that was smutted on the face from his father's kisses and\nplay. Then Morel laughed joyfully.\n\n\"He's a little collier, bless his bit o' mutton!\" he exclaimed.\n\nAnd these were the happy moments of her life now, when the children\nincluded the father in her heart.\n\nMeanwhile William grew bigger and stronger and more active, while Paul,\nalways rather delicate and quiet, got slimmer, and trotted after his\nmother like her shadow. He was usually active and interested, but\nsometimes he would have fits of depression. Then the mother would find\nthe boy of three or four crying on the sofa.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" she asked, and got no answer.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" she insisted, getting cross.\n\n\"I don't know,\" sobbed the child.\n\nSo she tried to reason him out of it, or to amuse him, but without\neffect. It made her feel beside herself. Then the father, always\nimpatient, would jump from his chair and shout:\n\n\"If he doesn't stop, I'll smack him till he does.\"\n\n\"You'll do nothing of the sort,\" said the mother coldly. And then she\ncarried the child into the yard, plumped him into his little chair, and\nsaid: \"Now cry there, Misery!\"\n\nAnd then a butterfly on the rhubarb-leaves perhaps caught his eye, or\nat last he cried himself to sleep. These fits were not often, but they\ncaused a shadow in Mrs. Morel's heart, and her treatment of Paul was\ndifferent from that of the other children.\n\nSuddenly one morning as she was looking down the alley of the Bottoms\nfor the barm-man, she heard a voice calling her. It was the thin little\nMrs. Anthony in brown velvet.\n\n\"Here, Mrs. Morel, I want to tell you about your Willie.\"\n\n\"Oh, do you?\" replied Mrs. Morel. \"Why, what's the matter?\"\n\n\"A lad as gets 'old of another an' rips his clothes off'n 'is back,\"\nMrs. Anthony said, \"wants showing something.\"\n\n\"Your Alfred's as old as my William,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"'Appen 'e is, but that doesn't give him a right to get hold of the\nboy's collar, an' fair rip it clean off his back.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Morel, \"I don't thrash my children, and even if I did,\nI should want to hear their side of the tale.\"\n\n\"They'd happen be a bit better if they did get a good hiding,\" retorted\nMrs. Anthony. \"When it comes ter rippin' a lad's clean collar off'n 'is\nback a-purpose--\"\n\n\"I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Make me a liar!\" shouted Mrs. Anthony.\n\nMrs. Morel moved away and closed her gate. Her hand trembled as she held\nher mug of barm.\n\n\"But I s'll let your mester know,\" Mrs. Anthony cried after her.\n\nAt dinner-time, when William had finished his meal and wanted to be off\nagain--he was then eleven years old--his mother said to him:\n\n\"What did you tear Alfred Anthony's collar for?\"\n\n\"When did I tear his collar?\"\n\n\"I don't know when, but his mother says you did.\"\n\n\"Why--it was yesterday--an' it was torn a'ready.\"\n\n\"But you tore it more.\"\n\n\"Well, I'd got a cobbler as 'ad licked seventeen--an' Alfy Ant'ny 'e\nsays:\n\n     'Adam an' Eve an' pinch-me,\n     Went down to a river to bade.\n     Adam an' Eve got drownded,\n     Who do yer think got saved?'\n\nAn' so I says: 'Oh, Pinch-YOU,' an' so I pinched 'im, an' 'e was mad,\nan' so he snatched my cobbler an' run off with it. An' so I run after\n'im, an' when I was gettin' hold of 'im, 'e dodged, an' it ripped 'is\ncollar. But I got my cobbler--\"\n\nHe pulled from his pocket a black old horse-chestnut hanging on a\nstring. This old cobbler had \"cobbled\"--hit and smashed--seventeen other\ncobblers on similar strings. So the boy was proud of his veteran.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Morel, \"you know you've got no right to rip his\ncollar.\"\n\n\"Well, our mother!\" he answered. \"I never meant tr'a done it--an' it was\non'y an old indirrubber collar as was torn a'ready.\"\n\n\"Next time,\" said his mother, \"YOU be more careful. I shouldn't like it\nif you came home with your collar torn off.\"\n\n\"I don't care, our mother; I never did it a-purpose.\"\n\nThe boy was rather miserable at being reprimanded.\n\n\"No--well, you be more careful.\"\n\nWilliam fled away, glad to be exonerated. And Mrs. Morel, who hated any\nbother with the neighbours, thought she would explain to Mrs. Anthony,\nand the business would be over.\n\nBut that evening Morel came in from the pit looking very sour. He stood\nin the kitchen and glared round, but did not speak for some minutes.\nThen:\n\n\"Wheer's that Willy?\" he asked.\n\n\"What do you want HIM for?\" asked Mrs. Morel, who had guessed.\n\n\"I'll let 'im know when I get him,\" said Morel, banging his pit-bottle\non to the dresser.\n\n\"I suppose Mrs. Anthony's got hold of you and been yarning to you about\nAlfy's collar,\" said Mrs. Morel, rather sneering.\n\n\"Niver mind who's got hold of me,\" said Morel. \"When I get hold of 'IM\nI'll make his bones rattle.\"\n\n\"It's a poor tale,\" said Mrs. Morel, \"that you're so ready to side\nwith any snipey vixen who likes to come telling tales against your own\nchildren.\"\n\n\"I'll learn 'im!\" said Morel. \"It none matters to me whose lad 'e is;\n'e's none goin' rippin' an' tearin' about just as he's a mind.\"\n\n\"'Ripping and tearing about!'\" repeated Mrs. Morel. \"He was running\nafter that Alfy, who'd taken his cobbler, and he accidentally got hold\nof his collar, because the other dodged--as an Anthony would.\"\n\n\"I know!\" shouted Morel threateningly.\n\n\"You would, before you're told,\" replied his wife bitingly.\n\n\"Niver you mind,\" stormed Morel. \"I know my business.\"\n\n\"That's more than doubtful,\" said Mrs. Morel, \"supposing some\nloud-mouthed creature had been getting you to thrash your own children.\"\n\n\"I know,\" repeated Morel.\n\nAnd he said no more, but sat and nursed his bad temper. Suddenly William\nran in, saying:\n\n\"Can I have my tea, mother?\"\n\n\"Tha can ha'e more than that!\" shouted Morel.\n\n\"Hold your noise, man,\" said Mrs. Morel; \"and don't look so ridiculous.\"\n\n\"He'll look ridiculous before I've done wi' him!\" shouted Morel, rising\nfrom his chair and glaring at his son.\n\nWilliam, who was a tall lad for his years, but very sensitive, had gone\npale, and was looking in a sort of horror at his father.\n\n\"Go out!\" Mrs. Morel commanded her son.\n\nWilliam had not the wit to move. Suddenly Morel clenched his fist, and\ncrouched.\n\n\"I'll GI'E him 'go out'!\" he shouted like an insane thing.\n\n\"What!\" cried Mrs. Morel, panting with rage. \"You shall not touch him\nfor HER telling, you shall not!\"\n\n\"Shonna I?\" shouted Morel. \"Shonna I?\"\n\nAnd, glaring at the boy, he ran forward. Mrs. Morel sprang in between\nthem, with her fist lifted.\n\n\"Don't you DARE!\" she cried.\n\n\"What!\" he shouted, baffled for the moment. \"What!\"\n\nShe spun round to her son.\n\n\"GO out of the house!\" she commanded him in fury.\n\nThe boy, as if hypnotised by her, turned suddenly and was gone. Morel\nrushed to the door, but was too late. He returned, pale under his\npit-dirt with fury. But now his wife was fully roused.\n\n\"Only dare!\" she said in a loud, ringing voice. \"Only dare, milord, to\nlay a finger on that child! You'll regret it for ever.\"\n\nHe was afraid of her. In a towering rage, he sat down.\n\nWhen the children were old enough to be left, Mrs. Morel joined\nthe Women's Guild. It was a little club of women attached to the\nCo-operative Wholesale Society, which met on Monday night in the long\nroom over the grocery shop of the Bestwood \"Co-op\". The women were\nsupposed to discuss the benefits to be derived from co-operation, and\nother social questions. Sometimes Mrs. Morel read a paper. It seemed\nqueer to the children to see their mother, who was always busy about\nthe house, sitting writing in her rapid fashion, thinking, referring\nto books, and writing again. They felt for her on such occasions the\ndeepest respect.\n\nBut they loved the Guild. It was the only thing to which they did not\ngrudge their mother--and that partly because she enjoyed it, partly\nbecause of the treats they derived from it. The Guild was called by some\nhostile husbands, who found their wives getting too independent, the\n\"clat-fart\" shop--that is, the gossip-shop. It is true, from off\nthe basis of the Guild, the women could look at their homes, at the\nconditions of their own lives, and find fault. So the colliers found\ntheir women had a new standard of their own, rather disconcerting. And\nalso, Mrs. Morel always had a lot of news on Monday nights, so that the\nchildren liked William to be in when their mother came home, because she\ntold him things.\n\nThen, when the lad was thirteen, she got him a job in the \"Co-op.\"\noffice. He was a very clever boy, frank, with rather rough features and\nreal viking blue eyes.\n\n\"What dost want ter ma'e a stool-harsed Jack on 'im for?\" said Morel.\n\"All he'll do is to wear his britches behind out an' earn nowt. What's\n'e startin' wi'?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter what he's starting with,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"It wouldna! Put 'im i' th' pit we me, an' 'ell earn a easy ten shillin'\na wik from th' start. But six shillin' wearin' his truck-end out on a\nstool's better than ten shillin' i' th' pit wi'me, I know.\"\n\n\"He is NOT going in the pit,\" said Mrs. Morel, \"and there's an end of\nit.\"\n\n\"It wor good enough for me, but it's non good enough for 'im.\"\n\n\"If your mother put you in the pit at twelve, it's no reason why I\nshould do the same with my lad.\"\n\n\"Twelve! It wor a sight afore that!\"\n\n\"Whenever it was,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\nShe was very proud of her son. He went to the night school, and learned\nshorthand, so that by the time he was sixteen he was the best shorthand\nclerk and book-keeper on the place, except one. Then he taught in the\nnight schools. But he was so fiery that only his good-nature and his\nsize protected him.\n\nAll the things that men do--the decent things--William did. He could\nrun like the wind. When he was twelve he won a first prize in a race;\nan inkstand of glass, shaped like an anvil. It stood proudly on the\ndresser, and gave Mrs. Morel a keen pleasure. The boy only ran for her.\nHe flew home with his anvil, breathless, with a \"Look, mother!\" That was\nthe first real tribute to herself. She took it like a queen.\n\n\"How pretty!\" she exclaimed.\n\nThen he began to get ambitious. He gave all his money to his mother.\nWhen he earned fourteen shillings a week, she gave him back two for\nhimself, and, as he never drank, he felt himself rich. He went about\nwith the bourgeois of Bestwood. The townlet contained nothing higher\nthan the clergyman. Then came the bank manager, then the doctors, then\nthe tradespeople, and after that the hosts of colliers. Willam began\nto consort with the sons of the chemist, the schoolmaster, and\nthe tradesmen. He played billiards in the Mechanics' Hall. Also he\ndanced--this in spite of his mother. All the life that Bestwood offered\nhe enjoyed, from the sixpenny-hops down Church Street, to sports and\nbilliards.\n\nPaul was treated to dazzling descriptions of all kinds of flower-like\nladies, most of whom lived like cut blooms in William's heart for a\nbrief fortnight.\n\nOccasionally some flame would come in pursuit of her errant swain. Mrs.\nMorel would find a strange girl at the door, and immediately she sniffed\nthe air.\n\n\"Is Mr. Morel in?\" the damsel would ask appealingly.\n\n\"My husband is at home,\" Mrs. Morel replied.\n\n\"I--I mean YOUNG Mr. Morel,\" repeated the maiden painfully.\n\n\"Which one? There are several.\"\n\nWhereupon much blushing and stammering from the fair one.\n\n\"I--I met Mr. Morel--at Ripley,\" she explained.\n\n\"Oh--at a dance!\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I don't approve of the girls my son meets at dances. And he is NOT at\nhome.\"\n\nThen he came home angry with his mother for having turned the girl away\nso rudely. He was a careless, yet eager-looking fellow, who walked with\nlong strides, sometimes frowning, often with his cap pushed jollily to\nthe back of his head. Now he came in frowning. He threw his cap on to\nthe sofa, and took his strong jaw in his hand, and glared down at\nhis mother. She was small, with her hair taken straight back from her\nforehead. She had a quiet air of authority, and yet of rare warmth.\nKnowing her son was angry, she trembled inwardly.\n\n\"Did a lady call for me yesterday, mother?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know about a lady. There was a girl came.\"\n\n\"And why didn't you tell me?\"\n\n\"Because I forgot, simply.\"\n\nHe fumed a little.\n\n\"A good-looking girl--seemed a lady?\"\n\n\"I didn't look at her.\"\n\n\"Big brown eyes?\"\n\n\"I did NOT look. And tell your girls, my son, that when they're running\nafter you, they're not to come and ask your mother for you. Tell them\nthat--brazen baggages you meet at dancing-classes.\"\n\n\"I'm sure she was a nice girl.\"\n\n\"And I'm sure she wasn't.\"\n\nThere ended the altercation. Over the dancing there was a great strife\nbetween the mother and the son. The grievance reached its height when\nWilliam said he was going to Hucknall Torkard--considered a low town--to\na fancy-dress ball. He was to be a Highlander. There was a dress he\ncould hire, which one of his friends had had, and which fitted him\nperfectly. The Highland suit came home. Mrs. Morel received it coldly\nand would not unpack it.\n\n\"My suit come?\" cried William.\n\n\"There's a parcel in the front room.\"\n\nHe rushed in and cut the string.\n\n\"How do you fancy your son in this!\" he said, enraptured, showing her\nthe suit.\n\n\"You know I don't want to fancy you in it.\"\n\nOn the evening of the dance, when he had come home to dress, Mrs. Morel\nput on her coat and bonnet.\n\n\"Aren't you going to stop and see me, mother?\" he asked.\n\n\"No; I don't want to see you,\" she replied.\n\nShe was rather pale, and her face was closed and hard. She was afraid of\nher son's going the same way as his father. He hesitated a moment, and\nhis heart stood still with anxiety. Then he caught sight of the Highland\nbonnet with its ribbons. He picked it up gleefully, forgetting her. She\nwent out.\n\nWhen he was nineteen he suddenly left the Co-op. office and got a\nsituation in Nottingham. In his new place he had thirty shillings a week\ninstead of eighteen. This was indeed a rise. His mother and his father\nwere brimmed up with pride. Everybody praised William. It seemed he was\ngoing to get on rapidly. Mrs. Morel hoped, with his aid, to help her\nyounger sons. Annie was now studying to be a teacher. Paul, also very\nclever, was getting on well, having lessons in French and German from\nhis godfather, the clergyman who was still a friend to Mrs. Morel.\nArthur, a spoilt and very good-looking boy, was at the Board school, but\nthere was talk of his trying to get a scholarship for the High School in\nNottingham.\n\nWilliam remained a year at his new post in Nottingham. He was studying\nhard, and growing serious. Something seemed to be fretting him. Still\nhe went out to the dances and the river parties. He did not drink. The\nchildren were all rabid teetotallers. He came home very late at night,\nand sat yet longer studying. His mother implored him to take more care,\nto do one thing or another.\n\n\"Dance, if you want to dance, my son; but don't think you can work in\nthe office, and then amuse yourself, and THEN study on top of all. You\ncan't; the human frame won't stand it. Do one thing or the other--amuse\nyourself or learn Latin; but don't try to do both.\"\n\nThen he got a place in London, at a hundred and twenty a year. This\nseemed a fabulous sum. His mother doubted almost whether to rejoice or\nto grieve.\n\n\"They want me in Lime Street on Monday week, mother,\" he cried, his\neyes blazing as he read the letter. Mrs. Morel felt everything go silent\ninside her. He read the letter: \"'And will you reply by Thursday whether\nyou accept. Yours faithfully--' They want me, mother, at a hundred and\ntwenty a year, and don't even ask to see me. Didn't I tell you I could\ndo it! Think of me in London! And I can give you twenty pounds a year,\nmater. We s'll all be rolling in money.\"\n\n\"We shall, my son,\" she answered sadly.\n\nIt never occurred to him that she might be more hurt at his going\naway than glad of his success. Indeed, as the days drew near for his\ndeparture, her heart began to close and grow dreary with despair. She\nloved him so much! More than that, she hoped in him so much. Almost she\nlived by him. She liked to do things for him: she liked to put a cup for\nhis tea and to iron his collars, of which he was so proud. It was a joy\nto her to have him proud of his collars. There was no laundry. So she\nused to rub away at them with her little convex iron, to polish them,\ntill they shone from the sheer pressure of her arm. Now she would not do\nit for him. Now he was going away. She felt almost as if he were going\nas well out of her heart. He did not seem to leave her inhabited with\nhimself. That was the grief and the pain to her. He took nearly all\nhimself away.\n\nA few days before his departure--he was just twenty--he burned his\nlove-letters. They had hung on a file at the top of the kitchen\ncupboard. From some of them he had read extracts to his mother. Some\nof them she had taken the trouble to read herself. But most were too\ntrivial.\n\nNow, on the Saturday morning he said:\n\n\"Come on, Postle, let's go through my letters, and you can have the\nbirds and flowers.\"\n\nMrs. Morel had done her Saturday's work on the Friday, because he was\nhaving a last day's holiday. She was making him a rice cake, which\nhe loved, to take with him. He was scarcely conscious that she was so\nmiserable.\n\nHe took the first letter off the file. It was mauve-tinted, and had\npurple and green thistles. William sniffed the page.\n\n\"Nice scent! Smell.\"\n\nAnd he thrust the sheet under Paul's nose.\n\n\"Um!\" said Paul, breathing in. \"What d'you call it? Smell, mother.\"\n\nHis mother ducked her small, fine nose down to the paper.\n\n\"I don't want to smell their rubbish,\" she said, sniffing.\n\n\"This girl's father,\" said William, \"is as rich as Croesus. He owns\nproperty without end. She calls me Lafayette, because I know French.\n'You will see, I've forgiven you'--I like HER forgiving me. 'I told\nmother about you this morning, and she will have much pleasure if you\ncome to tea on Sunday, but she will have to get father's consent also. I\nsincerely hope he will agree. I will let you know how it transpires. If,\nhowever, you--'\"\n\n\"'Let you know how it' what?\" interrupted Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"'Transpires'--oh yes!\"\n\n\"'Transpires!'\" repeated Mrs. Morel mockingly. \"I thought she was so\nwell educated!\"\n\nWilliam felt slightly uncomfortable, and abandoned this maiden, giving\nPaul the corner with the thistles. He continued to read extracts from\nhis letters, some of which amused his mother, some of which saddened her\nand made her anxious for him.\n\n\"My lad,\" she said, \"they're very wise. They know they've only got to\nflatter your vanity, and you press up to them like a dog that has its\nhead scratched.\"\n\n\"Well, they can't go on scratching for ever,\" he replied. \"And when\nthey've done, I trot away.\"\n\n\"But one day you'll find a string round your neck that you can't pull\noff,\" she answered.\n\n\"Not me! I'm equal to any of 'em, mater, they needn't flatter\nthemselves.\"\n\n\"You flatter YOURSELF,\" she said quietly.\n\nSoon there was a heap of twisted black pages, all that remained of the\nfile of scented letters, except that Paul had thirty or forty pretty\ntickets from the corners of the notepaper--swallows and forget-me-nots\nand ivy sprays. And William went to London, to start a new life.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE YOUNG LIFE OF PAUL\n\nPAUL would be built like his mother, slightly and rather small. His fair\nhair went reddish, and then dark brown; his eyes were grey. He was a\npale, quiet child, with eyes that seemed to listen, and with a full,\ndropping underlip.\n\nAs a rule he seemed old for his years. He was so conscious of what other\npeople felt, particularly his mother. When she fretted he understood,\nand could have no peace. His soul seemed always attentive to her.\n\nAs he grew older he became stronger. William was too far removed from\nhim to accept him as a companion. So the smaller boy belonged at first\nalmost entirely to Annie. She was a tomboy and a \"flybie-skybie\", as her\nmother called her. But she was intensely fond of her second brother. So\nPaul was towed round at the heels of Annie, sharing her game. She raced\nwildly at lerky with the other young wild-cats of the Bottoms. And\nalways Paul flew beside her, living her share of the game, having as\nyet no part of his own. He was quiet and not noticeable. But his sister\nadored him. He always seemed to care for things if she wanted him to.\n\nShe had a big doll of which she was fearfully proud, though not so fond.\nSo she laid the doll on the sofa, and covered it with an antimacassar,\nto sleep. Then she forgot it. Meantime Paul must practise jumping off\nthe sofa arm. So he jumped crash into the face of the hidden doll.\nAnnie rushed up, uttered a loud wail, and sat down to weep a dirge. Paul\nremained quite still.\n\n\"You couldn't tell it was there, mother; you couldn't tell it was\nthere,\" he repeated over and over. So long as Annie wept for the doll\nhe sat helpless with misery. Her grief wore itself out. She forgave\nher brother--he was so much upset. But a day or two afterwards she was\nshocked.\n\n\"Let's make a sacrifice of Arabella,\" he said. \"Let's burn her.\"\n\nShe was horrified, yet rather fascinated. She wanted to see what the boy\nwould do. He made an altar of bricks, pulled some of the shavings out of\nArabella's body, put the waxen fragments into the hollow face, poured\non a little paraffin, and set the whole thing alight. He watched with\nwicked satisfaction the drops of wax melt off the broken forehead of\nArabella, and drop like sweat into the flame. So long as the stupid big\ndoll burned he rejoiced in silence. At the end be poked among the embers\nwith a stick, fished out the arms and legs, all blackened, and smashed\nthem under stones.\n\n\"That's the sacrifice of Missis Arabella,\" he said. \"An' I'm glad\nthere's nothing left of her.\"\n\nWhich disturbed Annie inwardly, although she could say nothing. He\nseemed to hate the doll so intensely, because he had broken it.\n\nAll the children, but particularly Paul, were peculiarly against their\nfather, along with their mother. Morel continued to bully and to drink.\nHe had periods, months at a time, when he made the whole life of the\nfamily a misery. Paul never forgot coming home from the Band of Hope\none Monday evening and finding his mother with her eye swollen and\ndiscoloured, his father standing on the hearthrug, feet astride, his\nhead down, and William, just home from work, glaring at his father.\nThere was a silence as the young children entered, but none of the\nelders looked round.\n\nWilliam was white to the lips, and his fists were clenched. He waited\nuntil the children were silent, watching with children's rage and hate;\nthen he said:\n\n\"You coward, you daren't do it when I was in.\"\n\nBut Morel's blood was up. He swung round on his son. William was bigger,\nbut Morel was hard-muscled, and mad with fury.\n\n\"Dossn't I?\" he shouted. \"Dossn't I? Ha'e much more o' thy chelp, my\nyoung jockey, an' I'll rattle my fist about thee. Ay, an' I sholl that,\ndost see?\"\n\nMorel crouched at the knees and showed his fist in an ugly, almost\nbeast-like fashion. William was white with rage.\n\n\"Will yer?\" he said, quiet and intense. \"It 'ud be the last time,\nthough.\"\n\nMorel danced a little nearer, crouching, drawing back his fist to\nstrike. William put his fists ready. A light came into his blue eyes,\nalmost like a laugh. He watched his father. Another word, and the men\nwould have begun to fight. Paul hoped they would. The three children sat\npale on the sofa.\n\n\"Stop it, both of you,\" cried Mrs. Morel in a hard voice. \"We've had\nenough for ONE night. And YOU,\" she said, turning on to her husband,\n\"look at your children!\"\n\nMorel glanced at the sofa.\n\n\"Look at the children, you nasty little bitch!\" he sneered. \"Why, what\nhave I done to the children, I should like to know? But they're like\nyourself; you've put 'em up to your own tricks and nasty ways--you've\nlearned 'em in it, you 'ave.\"\n\nShe refused to answer him. No one spoke. After a while he threw his\nboots under the table and went to bed.\n\n\"Why didn't you let me have a go at him?\" said William, when his father\nwas upstairs. \"I could easily have beaten him.\"\n\n\"A nice thing--your own father,\" she replied.\n\n\"'FATHER!'\" repeated William. \"Call HIM MY father!\"\n\n\"Well, he is--and so--\"\n\n\"But why don't you let me settle him? I could do, easily.\"\n\n\"The idea!\" she cried. \"It hasn't come to THAT yet.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"it's come to worse. Look at yourself. WHY didn't you let\nme give it him?\"\n\n\"Because I couldn't bear it, so never think of it,\" she cried quickly.\n\nAnd the children went to bed, miserably.\n\nWhen William was growing up, the family moved from the Bottoms to a\nhouse on the brow of the hill, commanding a view of the valley, which\nspread out like a convex cockle-shell, or a clamp-shell, before it. In\nfront of the house was a huge old ash-tree. The west wind, sweeping from\nDerbyshire, caught the houses with full force, and the tree shrieked\nagain. Morel liked it.\n\n\"It's music,\" he said. \"It sends me to sleep.\"\n\nBut Paul and Arthur and Annie hated it. To Paul it became almost a\ndemoniacal noise. The winter of their first year in the new house their\nfather was very bad. The children played in the street, on the brim of\nthe wide, dark valley, until eight o'clock. Then they went to bed. Their\nmother sat sewing below. Having such a great space in front of the house\ngave the children a feeling of night, of vastness, and of terror. This\nterror came in from the shrieking of the tree and the anguish of the\nhome discord. Often Paul would wake up, after he had been asleep a long\ntime, aware of thuds downstairs. Instantly he was wide awake. Then he\nheard the booming shouts of his father, come home nearly drunk, then the\nsharp replies of his mother, then the bang, bang of his father's fist on\nthe table, and the nasty snarling shout as the man's voice got higher.\nAnd then the whole was drowned in a piercing medley of shrieks and\ncries from the great, wind-swept ash-tree. The children lay silent in\nsuspense, waiting for a lull in the wind to hear what their father was\ndoing. He might hit their mother again. There was a feeling of horror,\na kind of bristling in the darkness, and a sense of blood. They lay with\ntheir hearts in the grip of an intense anguish. The wind came through\nthe tree fiercer and fiercer. All the chords of the great harp hummed,\nwhistled, and shrieked. And then came the horror of the sudden silence,\nsilence everywhere, outside and downstairs. What was it? Was it a\nsilence of blood? What had he done?\n\nThe children lay and breathed the darkness. And then, at last, they\nheard their father throw down his boots and tramp upstairs in his\nstockinged feet. Still they listened. Then at last, if the wind allowed,\nthey heard the water of the tap drumming into the kettle, which their\nmother was filling for morning, and they could go to sleep in peace.\n\nSo they were happy in the morning--happy, very happy playing, dancing at\nnight round the lonely lamp-post in the midst of the darkness. But they\nhad one tight place of anxiety in their hearts, one darkness in their\neyes, which showed all their lives.\n\nPaul hated his father. As a boy he had a fervent private religion.\n\n\"Make him stop drinking,\" he prayed every night. \"Lord, let my father\ndie,\" he prayed very often. \"Let him not be killed at pit,\" he prayed\nwhen, after tea, the father did not come home from work.\n\nThat was another time when the family suffered intensely. The children\ncame from school and had their teas. On the hob the big black saucepan\nwas simmering, the stew-jar was in the oven, ready for Morel's dinner.\nHe was expected at five o'clock. But for months he would stop and drink\nevery night on his way from work.\n\nIn the winter nights, when it was cold, and grew dark early, Mrs. Morel\nwould put a brass candlestick on the table, light a tallow candle to\nsave the gas. The children finished their bread-and-butter, or dripping,\nand were ready to go out to play. But if Morel had not come they\nfaltered. The sense of his sitting in all his pit-dirt, drinking, after\na long day's work, not coming home and eating and washing, but sitting,\ngetting drunk, on an empty stomach, made Mrs. Morel unable to bear\nherself. From her the feeling was transmitted to the other children. She\nnever suffered alone any more: the children suffered with her.\n\nPaul went out to play with the rest. Down in the great trough of\ntwilight, tiny clusters of lights burned where the pits were. A few last\ncolliers straggled up the dim field path. The lamplighter came along. No\nmore colliers came. Darkness shut down over the valley; work was done.\nIt was night.\n\nThen Paul ran anxiously into the kitchen. The one candle still burned on\nthe table, the big fire glowed red. Mrs. Morel sat alone. On the hob\nthe saucepan steamed; the dinner-plate lay waiting on the table. All\nthe room was full of the sense of waiting, waiting for the man who was\nsitting in his pit-dirt, dinnerless, some mile away from home, across\nthe darkness, drinking himself drunk. Paul stood in the doorway.\n\n\"Has my dad come?\" he asked.\n\n\"You can see he hasn't,\" said Mrs. Morel, cross with the futility of the\nquestion.\n\nThen the boy dawdled about near his mother. They shared the same\nanxiety. Presently Mrs. Morel went out and strained the potatoes.\n\n\"They're ruined and black,\" she said; \"but what do I care?\"\n\nNot many words were spoken. Paul almost hated his mother for suffering\nbecause his father did not come home from work.\n\n\"What do you bother yourself for?\" he said. \"If he wants to stop and get\ndrunk, why don't you let him?\"\n\n\"Let him!\" flashed Mrs. Morel. \"You may well say 'let him'.\"\n\nShe knew that the man who stops on the way home from work is on a quick\nway to ruining himself and his home. The children were yet young, and\ndepended on the breadwinner. William gave her the sense of relief,\nproviding her at last with someone to turn to if Morel failed. But the\ntense atmosphere of the room on these waiting evenings was the same.\n\nThe minutes ticked away. At six o'clock still the cloth lay on the\ntable, still the dinner stood waiting, still the same sense of anxiety\nand expectation in the room. The boy could not stand it any longer. He\ncould not go out and play. So he ran in to Mrs. Inger, next door but\none, for her to talk to him. She had no children. Her husband was good\nto her but was in a shop, and came home late. So, when she saw the lad\nat the door, she called:\n\n\"Come in, Paul.\"\n\nThe two sat talking for some time, when suddenly the boy rose, saying:\n\n\"Well, I'll be going and seeing if my mother wants an errand doing.\"\n\nHe pretended to be perfectly cheerful, and did not tell his friend what\nailed him. Then he ran indoors.\n\nMorel at these times came in churlish and hateful.\n\n\"This is a nice time to come home,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Wha's it matter to yo' what time I come whoam?\" he shouted.\n\nAnd everybody in the house was still, because he was dangerous. He ate\nhis food in the most brutal manner possible, and, when he had done,\npushed all the pots in a heap away from him, to lay his arms on the\ntable. Then he went to sleep.\n\nPaul hated his father so. The collier's small, mean head, with its black\nhair slightly soiled with grey, lay on the bare arms, and the face,\ndirty and inflamed, with a fleshy nose and thin, paltry brows, was\nturned sideways, asleep with beer and weariness and nasty temper. If\nanyone entered suddenly, or a noise were made, the man looked up and\nshouted:\n\n\"I'll lay my fist about thy y'ead, I'm tellin' thee, if tha doesna stop\nthat clatter! Dost hear?\"\n\nAnd the two last words, shouted in a bullying fashion, usually at Annie,\nmade the family writhe with hate of the man.\n\nHe was shut out from all family affairs. No one told him anything.\nThe children, alone with their mother, told her all about the day's\nhappenings, everything. Nothing had really taken place in them until it\nwas told to their mother. But as soon as the father came in, everything\nstopped. He was like the scotch in the smooth, happy machinery of the\nhome. And he was always aware of this fall of silence on his entry,\nthe shutting off of life, the unwelcome. But now it was gone too far to\nalter.\n\nHe would dearly have liked the children to talk to him, but they could\nnot. Sometimes Mrs. Morel would say:\n\n\"You ought to tell your father.\"\n\nPaul won a prize in a competition in a child's paper. Everybody was\nhighly jubilant.\n\n\"Now you'd better tell your father when he comes in,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\"You know how be carries on and says he's never told anything.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Paul. But he would almost rather have forfeited the\nprize than have to tell his father.\n\n\"I've won a prize in a competition, dad,\" he said. Morel turned round to\nhim.\n\n\"Have you, my boy? What sort of a competition?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing--about famous women.\"\n\n\"And how much is the prize, then, as you've got?\"\n\n\"It's a book.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed!\"\n\n\"About birds.\"\n\n\"Hm--hm!\"\n\nAnd that was all. Conversation was impossible between the father and any\nother member of the family. He was an outsider. He had denied the God in\nhim.\n\nThe only times when he entered again into the life of his own people\nwas when he worked, and was happy at work. Sometimes, in the evening, he\ncobbled the boots or mended the kettle or his pit-bottle. Then he always\nwanted several attendants, and the children enjoyed it. They united with\nhim in the work, in the actual doing of something, when he was his real\nself again.\n\nHe was a good workman, dexterous, and one who, when he was in a good\nhumour, always sang. He had whole periods, months, almost years, of\nfriction and nasty temper. Then sometimes he was jolly again. It was\nnice to see him run with a piece of red-hot iron into the scullery,\ncrying:\n\n\"Out of my road--out of my road!\"\n\nThen he hammered the soft, red-glowing stuff on his iron goose, and made\nthe shape he wanted. Or he sat absorbed for a moment, soldering. Then\nthe children watched with joy as the metal sank suddenly molten, and was\nshoved about against the nose of the soldering-iron, while the room was\nfull of a scent of burnt resin and hot tin, and Morel was silent and\nintent for a minute. He always sang when he mended boots because of the\njolly sound of hammering. And he was rather happy when he sat putting\ngreat patches on his moleskin pit trousers, which he would often do,\nconsidering them too dirty, and the stuff too hard, for his wife to\nmend.\n\nBut the best time for the young children was when he made fuses. Morel\nfetched a sheaf of long sound wheat-straws from the attic. These he\ncleaned with his hand, till each one gleamed like a stalk of gold, after\nwhich he cut the straws into lengths of about six inches, leaving, if he\ncould, a notch at the bottom of each piece. He always had a beautifully\nsharp knife that could cut a straw clean without hurting it. Then he set\nin the middle of the table a heap of gunpowder, a little pile of black\ngrains upon the white-scrubbed board. He made and trimmed the straws\nwhile Paul and Annie rifled and plugged them. Paul loved to see the\nblack grains trickle down a crack in his palm into the mouth of the\nstraw, peppering jollily downwards till the straw was full. Then he\nbunged up the mouth with a bit of soap--which he got on his thumb-nail\nfrom a pat in a saucer--and the straw was finished.\n\n\"Look, dad!\" he said.\n\n\"That's right, my beauty,\" replied Morel, who was peculiarly lavish of\nendearments to his second son. Paul popped the fuse into the powder-tin,\nready for the morning, when Morel would take it to the pit, and use it\nto fire a shot that would blast the coal down.\n\nMeantime Arthur, still fond of his father, would lean on the arm of\nMorel's chair and say:\n\n\"Tell us about down pit, daddy.\"\n\nThis Morel loved to do.\n\n\"Well, there's one little 'oss--we call 'im Taffy,\" he would begin. \"An'\nhe's a fawce 'un!\"\n\nMorel had a warm way of telling a story. He made one feel Taffy's\ncunning.\n\n\"He's a brown 'un,\" he would answer, \"an' not very high. Well, he comes\ni' th' stall wi' a rattle, an' then yo' 'ear 'im sneeze.\n\n\"'Ello, <DW75>,' you say, 'what art sneezin' for? Bin ta'ein' some snuff?'\n\n\"An' 'e sneezes again. Then he slives up an' shoves 'is 'ead on yer,\nthat cadin'.\n\n\"'What's want, <DW75>?' yo' say.\"\n\n\"And what does he?\" Arthur always asked.\n\n\"He wants a bit o' bacca, my duckie.\"\n\nThis story of Taffy would go on interminably, and everybody loved it.\n\nOr sometimes it was a new tale.\n\n\"An' what dost think, my darlin'? When I went to put my coat on at\nsnap-time, what should go runnin' up my arm but a mouse.\n\n\"'Hey up, theer!' I shouts.\n\n\"An' I wor just in time ter get 'im by th' tail.\"\n\n\"And did you kill it?\"\n\n\"I did, for they're a nuisance. The place is fair snied wi' 'em.\"\n\n\"An' what do they live on?\"\n\n\"The corn as the 'osses drops--an' they'll get in your pocket an' eat\nyour snap, if you'll let 'em--no matter where yo' hing your coat--the\nslivin', nibblin' little nuisances, for they are.\"\n\nThese happy evenings could not take place unless Morel had some job\nto do. And then he always went to bed very early, often before the\nchildren. There was nothing remaining for him to stay up for, when he\nhad finished tinkering, and had skimmed the headlines of the newspaper.\n\nAnd the children felt secure when their father was in bed. They lay and\ntalked softly a while. Then they started as the lights went suddenly\nsprawling over the ceiling from the lamps that swung in the hands of the\ncolliers tramping by outside, going to take the nine o'clock shift. They\nlistened to the voices of the men, imagined them dipping down into the\ndark valley. Sometimes they went to the window and watched the three\nor four lamps growing tinier and tinier, swaying down the fields in the\ndarkness. Then it was a joy to rush back to bed and cuddle closely in\nthe warmth.\n\nPaul was rather a delicate boy, subject to bronchitis. The others were\nall quite strong; so this was another reason for his mother's difference\nin feeling for him. One day he came home at dinner-time feeling ill. But\nit was not a family to make any fuss.\n\n\"What's the matter with YOU?\" his mother asked sharply.\n\n\"Nothing,\" he replied.\n\nBut he ate no dinner.\n\n\"If you eat no dinner, you're not going to school,\" she said.\n\n\"Why?\" he asked.\n\n\"That's why.\"\n\nSo after dinner he lay down on the sofa, on the warm chintz cushions the\nchildren loved. Then he fell into a kind of doze. That afternoon Mrs.\nMorel was ironing. She listened to the small, restless noise the boy\nmade in his throat as she worked. Again rose in her heart the old,\nalmost weary feeling towards him. She had never expected him to live.\nAnd yet he had a great vitality in his young body. Perhaps it would have\nbeen a little relief to her if he had died. She always felt a mixture of\nanguish in her love for him.\n\nHe, in his semi-conscious sleep, was vaguely aware of the clatter of the\niron on the iron-stand, of the faint thud, thud on the ironing-board.\nOnce roused, he opened his eyes to see his mother standing on the\nhearthrug with the hot iron near her cheek, listening, as it were, to\nthe heat. Her still face, with the mouth closed tight from suffering and\ndisillusion and self-denial, and her nose the smallest bit on one side,\nand her blue eyes so young, quick, and warm, made his heart contract\nwith love. When she was quiet, so, she looked brave and rich with life,\nbut as if she had been done out of her rights. It hurt the boy keenly,\nthis feeling about her that she had never had her life's fulfilment:\nand his own incapability to make up to her hurt him with a sense of\nimpotence, yet made him patiently dogged inside. It was his childish\naim.\n\nShe spat on the iron, and a little ball of spit bounded, raced off the\ndark, glossy surface. Then, kneeling, she rubbed the iron on the sack\nlining of the hearthrug vigorously. She was warm in the ruddy firelight.\nPaul loved the way she crouched and put her head on one side. Her\nmovements were light and quick. It was always a pleasure to watch her.\nNothing she ever did, no movement she ever made, could have been found\nfault with by her children. The room was warm and full of the scent of\nhot linen. Later on the clergyman came and talked softly with her.\n\nPaul was laid up with an attack of bronchitis. He did not mind much.\nWhat happened happened, and it was no good kicking against the pricks.\nHe loved the evenings, after eight o'clock, when the light was put out,\nand he could watch the fire-flames spring over the darkness of the walls\nand ceiling; could watch huge shadows waving and tossing, till the room\nseemed full of men who battled silently.\n\nOn retiring to bed, the father would come into the sickroom. He was\nalways very gentle if anyone were ill. But he disturbed the atmosphere\nfor the boy.\n\n\"Are ter asleep, my darlin'?\" Morel asked softly.\n\n\"No; is my mother comin'?\"\n\n\"She's just finishin' foldin' the clothes. Do you want anything?\" Morel\nrarely \"thee'd\" his son.\n\n\"I don't want nothing. But how long will she be?\"\n\n\"Not long, my duckie.\"\n\nThe father waited undecidedly on the hearthrug for a moment or two. He\nfelt his son did not want him. Then he went to the top of the stairs and\nsaid to his wife:\n\n\"This childt's axin' for thee; how long art goin' to be?\"\n\n\"Until I've finished, good gracious! Tell him to go to sleep.\"\n\n\"She says you're to go to sleep,\" the father repeated gently to Paul.\n\n\"Well, I want HER to come,\" insisted the boy.\n\n\"He says he can't go off till you come,\" Morel called downstairs.\n\n\"Eh, dear! I shan't be long. And do stop shouting downstairs. There's\nthe other children--\"\n\nThen Morel came again and crouched before the bedroom fire. He loved a\nfire dearly.\n\n\"She says she won't be long,\" he said.\n\nHe loitered about indefinitely. The boy began to get feverish with\nirritation. His father's presence seemed to aggravate all his sick\nimpatience. At last Morel, after having stood looking at his son awhile,\nsaid softly:\n\n\"Good-night, my darling.\"\n\n\"Good-night,\" Paul replied, turning round in relief to be alone.\n\nPaul loved to sleep with his mother. Sleep is still most perfect, in\nspite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved. The warmth, the\nsecurity and peace of soul, the utter comfort from the touch of the\nother, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body and soul completely in\nits healing. Paul lay against her and slept, and got better; whilst she,\nalways a bad sleeper, fell later on into a profound sleep that seemed to\ngive her faith.\n\nIn convalescence he would sit up in bed, see the fluffy horses feeding\nat the troughs in the field, scattering their hay on the trodden yellow\nsnow; watch the miners troop home--small, black figures trailing slowly\nin gangs across the white field. Then the night came up in dark blue\nvapour from the snow.\n\nIn convalescence everything was wonderful. The snowflakes, suddenly\narriving on the window-pane, clung there a moment like swallows,\nthen were gone, and a drop of water was crawling down the glass. The\nsnowflakes whirled round the corner of the house, like pigeons dashing\nby. Away across the valley the little black train crawled doubtfully\nover the great whiteness.\n\nWhile they were so poor, the children were delighted if they could do\nanything to help economically. Annie and Paul and Arthur went out early\nin the morning, in summer, looking for mushrooms, hunting through the\nwet grass, from which the larks were rising, for the white-skinned,\nwonderful naked bodies crouched secretly in the green. And if they got\nhalf a pound they felt exceedingly happy: there was the joy of finding\nsomething, the joy of accepting something straight from the hand of\nNature, and the joy of contributing to the family exchequer.\n\nBut the most important harvest, after gleaning for frumenty, was the\nblackberries. Mrs. Morel must buy fruit for puddings on the Saturdays;\nalso she liked blackberries. So Paul and Arthur scoured the coppices and\nwoods and old quarries, so long as a blackberry was to be found, every\nweek-end going on their search. In that region of mining villages\nblackberries became a comparative rarity. But Paul hunted far and wide.\nHe loved being out in the country, among the bushes. But he also could\nnot bear to go home to his mother empty. That, he felt, would disappoint\nher, and he would have died rather.\n\n\"Good gracious!\" she would exclaim as the lads came in, late, and tired\nto death, and hungry, \"wherever have you been?\"\n\n\"Well,\" replied Paul, \"there wasn't any, so we went over Misk Hills. And\nlook here, our mother!\"\n\nShe peeped into the basket.\n\n\"Now, those are fine ones!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"And there's over two pounds--isn't there over two pounds\"?\n\nShe tried the basket.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered doubtfully.\n\nThen Paul fished out a little spray. He always brought her one spray,\nthe best he could find.\n\n\"Pretty!\" she said, in a curious tone, of a woman accepting a\nlove-token.\n\nThe boy walked all day, went miles and miles, rather than own himself\nbeaten and come home to her empty-handed. She never realised this,\nwhilst he was young. She was a woman who waited for her children to grow\nup. And William occupied her chiefly.\n\nBut when William went to Nottingham, and was not so much at home, the\nmother made a companion of Paul. The latter was unconsciously jealous of\nhis brother, and William was jealous of him. At the same time, they were\ngood friends.\n\nMrs. Morel's intimacy with her second son was more subtle and fine,\nperhaps not so passionate as with her eldest. It was the rule that Paul\nshould fetch the money on Friday afternoons. The colliers of the five\npits were paid on Fridays, but not individually. All the earnings of\neach stall were put down to the chief butty, as contractor, and he\ndivided the wages again, either in the public-house or in his own home.\nSo that the children could fetch the money, school closed early on\nFriday afternoons. Each of the Morel children--William, then Annie,\nthen Paul--had fetched the money on Friday afternoons, until they went\nthemselves to work. Paul used to set off at half-past three, with a\nlittle calico bag in his pocket. Down all the paths, women, girls,\nchildren, and men were seen trooping to the offices.\n\nThese offices were quite handsome: a new, red-brick building, almost\nlike a mansion, standing in its own grounds at the end of Greenhill\nLane. The waiting-room was the hall, a long, bare room paved with blue\nbrick, and having a seat all round, against the wall. Here sat the\ncolliers in their pit-dirt. They had come up early. The women and\nchildren usually loitered about on the red gravel paths. Paul always\nexamined the grass border, and the big grass bank, because in it grew\ntiny <DW29>s and tiny forget-me-nots. There was a sound of many voices.\nThe women had on their Sunday hats. The girls chattered loudly. Little\ndogs ran here and there. The green shrubs were silent all around.\n\nThen from inside came the cry \"Spinney Park--Spinney Park.\" All the folk\nfor Spinney Park trooped inside. When it was time for Bretty to be paid,\nPaul went in among the crowd. The pay-room was quite small. A counter\nwent across, dividing it into half. Behind the counter stood two\nmen--Mr. Braithwaite and his clerk, Mr. Winterbottom. Mr. Braithwaite\nwas large, somewhat of the stern patriarch in appearance, having a\nrather thin white beard. He was usually muffled in an enormous silk\nneckerchief, and right up to the hot summer a huge fire burned in the\nopen grate. No window was open. Sometimes in winter the air scorched the\nthroats of the people, coming in from the freshness. Mr. Winterbottom\nwas rather small and fat, and very bald. He made remarks that were not\nwitty, whilst his chief launched forth patriarchal admonitions against\nthe colliers.\n\nThe room was crowded with miners in their pit-dirt, men who had been\nhome and changed, and women, and one or two children, and usually a dog.\nPaul was quite small, so it was often his fate to be jammed behind the\nlegs of the men, near the fire which scorched him. He knew the order of\nthe names--they went according to stall number.\n\n\"Holliday,\" came the ringing voice of Mr. Braithwaite. Then Mrs.\nHolliday stepped silently forward, was paid, drew aside.\n\n\"Bower--John Bower.\"\n\nA boy stepped to the counter. Mr. Braithwaite, large and irascible,\nglowered at him over his spectacles.\n\n\"John Bower!\" he repeated.\n\n\"It's me,\" said the boy.\n\n\"Why, you used to 'ave a different nose than that,\" said glossy Mr.\nWinterbottom, peering over the counter. The people tittered, thinking of\nJohn Bower senior.\n\n\"How is it your father's not come!\" said Mr. Braithwaite, in a large and\nmagisterial voice.\n\n\"He's badly,\" piped the boy.\n\n\"You should tell him to keep off the drink,\" pronounced the great\ncashier.\n\n\"An' niver mind if he puts his foot through yer,\" said a mocking voice\nfrom behind.\n\nAll the men laughed. The large and important cashier looked down at his\nnext sheet.\n\n\"Fred Pilkington!\" he called, quite indifferent.\n\nMr. Braithwaite was an important shareholder in the firm.\n\nPaul knew his turn was next but one, and his heart began to beat. He was\npushed against the chimney-piece. His calves were burning. But he did\nnot hope to get through the wall of men.\n\n\"Walter Morel!\" came the ringing voice.\n\n\"Here!\" piped Paul, small and inadequate.\n\n\"Morel--Walter Morel!\" the cashier repeated, his finger and thumb on the\ninvoice, ready to pass on.\n\nPaul was suffering convulsions of self-consciousness, and could not\nor would not shout. The backs of the men obliterated him. Then Mr.\nWinterbottom came to the rescue.\n\n\"He's here. Where is he? Morel's lad?\"\n\nThe fat, red, bald little man peered round with keen eyes. He pointed at\nthe fireplace. The colliers looked round, moved aside, and disclosed the\nboy.\n\n\"Here he is!\" said Mr. Winterbottom.\n\nPaul went to the counter.\n\n\"Seventeen pounds eleven and fivepence. Why don't you shout up when\nyou're called?\" said Mr. Braithwaite. He banged on to the invoice a\nfive-pound bag of silver, then in a delicate and pretty movement, picked\nup a little ten-pound column of gold, and plumped it beside the silver.\nThe gold slid in a bright stream over the paper. The cashier finished\ncounting off the money; the boy dragged the whole down the counter to\nMr. Winterbottom, to whom the stoppages for rent and tools must be paid.\nHere he suffered again.\n\n\"Sixteen an' six,\" said Mr. Winterbottom.\n\nThe lad was too much upset to count. He pushed forward some loose silver\nand half a sovereign.\n\n\"How much do you think you've given me?\" asked Mr. Winterbottom.\n\nThe boy looked at him, but said nothing. He had not the faintest notion.\n\n\"Haven't you got a tongue in your head?\"\n\nPaul bit his lip, and pushed forward some more silver.\n\n\"Don't they teach you to count at the Board-school?\" he asked.\n\n\"Nowt but algibbra an' French,\" said a collier.\n\n\"An' cheek an' impidence,\" said another.\n\nPaul was keeping someone waiting. With trembling fingers he got his\nmoney into the bag and slid out. He suffered the tortures of the damned\non these occasions.\n\nHis relief, when he got outside, and was walking along the Mansfield\nRoad, was infinite. On the park wall the mosses were green. There were\nsome gold and some white fowls pecking under the apple trees of an\norchard. The colliers were walking home in a stream. The boy went near\nthe wall, self-consciously. He knew many of the men, but could not\nrecognise them in their dirt. And this was a new torture to him.\n\nWhen he got down to the New Inn, at Bretty, his father was not yet come.\nMrs. Wharmby, the landlady, knew him. His grandmother, Morel's mother,\nhad been Mrs. Wharmby's friend.\n\n\"Your father's not come yet,\" said the landlady, in the peculiar\nhalf-scornful, half-patronising voice of a woman who talks chiefly to\ngrown men. \"Sit you down.\"\n\nPaul sat down on the edge of the bench in the bar. Some colliers were\n\"reckoning\"--sharing out their money--in a corner; others came in. They\nall glanced at the boy without speaking. At last Morel came; brisk, and\nwith something of an air, even in his blackness.\n\n\"Hello!\" he said rather tenderly to his son. \"Have you bested me? Shall\nyou have a drink of something?\"\n\nPaul and all the children were bred up fierce anti-alcoholists, and he\nwould have suffered more in drinking a lemonade before all the men than\nin having a tooth drawn.\n\nThe landlady looked at him _de haut en bas_, rather pitying, and at\nthe same time, resenting his clear, fierce morality. Paul went home,\nglowering. He entered the house silently. Friday was baking day, and\nthere was usually a hot bun. His mother put it before him.\n\nSuddenly he turned on her in a fury, his eyes flashing:\n\n\"I'm NOT going to the office any more,\" he said.\n\n\"Why, what's the matter?\" his mother asked in surprise. His sudden rages\nrather amused her.\n\n\"I'm NOT going any more,\" he declared.\n\n\"Oh, very well, tell your father so.\"\n\nHe chewed his bun as if he hated it.\n\n\"I'm not--I'm not going to fetch the money.\"\n\n\"Then one of Carlin's children can go; they'd be glad enough of the\nsixpence,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\nThis sixpence was Paul's only income. It mostly went in buying birthday\npresents; but it WAS an income, and he treasured it. But--\n\n\"They can have it, then!\" he said. \"I don't want it.\"\n\n\"Oh, very well,\" said his mother. \"But you needn't bully ME about it.\"\n\n\"They're hateful, and common, and hateful, they are, and I'm not going\nany more. Mr. Braithwaite drops his 'h's', an' Mr. Winterbottom says\n'You was'.\"\n\n\"And is that why you won't go any more?\" smiled Mrs. Morel.\n\nThe boy was silent for some time. His face was pale, his eyes dark and\nfurious. His mother moved about at her work, taking no notice of him.\n\n\"They always stan' in front of me, so's I can't get out,\" he said.\n\n\"Well, my lad, you've only to ASK them,\" she replied.\n\n\"An' then Alfred Winterbottom says, 'What do they teach you at the\nBoard-school?'\"\n\n\"They never taught HIM much,\" said Mrs. Morel, \"that is a fact--neither\nmanners nor wit--and his cunning he was born with.\"\n\nSo, in her own way, she soothed him. His ridiculous hypersensitiveness\nmade her heart ache. And sometimes the fury in his eyes roused her, made\nher sleeping soul lift up its head a moment, surprised.\n\n\"What was the cheque?\" she asked.\n\n\"Seventeen pounds eleven and fivepence, and sixteen and six stoppages,\"\nreplied the boy. \"It's a good week; and only five shillings stoppages\nfor my father.\"\n\nSo she was able to calculate how much her husband had earned, and could\ncall him to account if he gave her short money. Morel always kept to\nhimself the secret of the week's amount.\n\nFriday was the baking night and market night. It was the rule that Paul\nshould stay at home and bake. He loved to stop in and draw or read; he\nwas very fond of drawing. Annie always \"gallivanted\" on Friday nights;\nArthur was enjoying himself as usual. So the boy remained alone.\n\nMrs. Morel loved her marketing. In the tiny market-place on the top\nof the hill, where four roads, from Nottingham and Derby, Ilkeston\nand Mansfield, meet, many stalls were erected. Brakes ran in from\nsurrounding villages. The market-place was full of women, the streets\npacked with men. It was amazing to see so many men everywhere in the\nstreets. Mrs. Morel usually quarrelled with her lace woman, sympathised\nwith her fruit man--who was a gabey, but his wife was a bad 'un--laughed\nwith the fish man--who was a scamp but so droll--put the linoleum man\nin his place, was cold with the odd-wares man, and only went to the\ncrockery man when she was driven--or drawn by the cornflowers on a\nlittle dish; then she was coldly polite.\n\n\"I wondered how much that little dish was,\" she said.\n\n\"Sevenpence to you.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nShe put the dish down and walked away; but she could not leave the\nmarket-place without it. Again she went by where the pots lay coldly on\nthe floor, and she glanced at the dish furtively, pretending not to.\n\nShe was a little woman, in a bonnet and a black costume. Her bonnet was\nin its third year; it was a great grievance to Annie.\n\n\"Mother!\" the girl implored, \"don't wear that nubbly little bonnet.\"\n\n\"Then what else shall I wear,\" replied the mother tartly. \"And I'm sure\nit's right enough.\"\n\nIt had started with a tip; then had had flowers; now was reduced to\nblack lace and a bit of jet.\n\n\"It looks rather come down,\" said Paul. \"Couldn't you give it a\npick-me-up?\"\n\n\"I'll jowl your head for impudence,\" said Mrs. Morel, and she tied the\nstrings of the black bonnet valiantly under her chin.\n\nShe glanced at the dish again. Both she and her enemy, the pot man,\nhad an uncomfortable feeling, as if there were something between them.\nSuddenly he shouted:\n\n\"Do you want it for fivepence?\"\n\nShe started. Her heart hardened; but then she stooped and took up her\ndish.\n\n\"I'll have it,\" she said.\n\n\"Yer'll do me the favour, like?\" he said. \"Yer'd better spit in it, like\nyer do when y'ave something give yer.\"\n\nMrs. Morel paid him the fivepence in a cold manner.\n\n\"I don't see you give it me,\" she said. \"You wouldn't let me have it for\nfivepence if you didn't want to.\"\n\n\"In this flamin', scrattlin' place you may count yerself lucky if you\ncan give your things away,\" he growled.\n\n\"Yes; there are bad times, and good,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\nBut she had forgiven the pot man. They were friends. She dare now finger\nhis pots. So she was happy.\n\nPaul was waiting for her. He loved her home-coming. She was always her\nbest so--triumphant, tired, laden with parcels, feeling rich in spirit.\nHe heard her quick, light step in the entry and looked up from his\ndrawing.\n\n\"Oh!\" she sighed, smiling at him from the doorway.\n\n\"My word, you ARE loaded!\" he exclaimed, putting down his brush.\n\n\"I am!\" she gasped. \"That brazen Annie said she'd meet me. SUCH a\nweight!\"\n\nShe dropped her string bag and her packages on the table.\n\n\"Is the bread done?\" she asked, going to the oven.\n\n\"The last one is soaking,\" he replied. \"You needn't look, I've not\nforgotten it.\"\n\n\"Oh, that pot man!\" she said, closing the oven door. \"You know what a\nwretch I've said he was? Well, I don't think he's quite so bad.\"\n\n\"Don't you?\"\n\nThe boy was attentive to her. She took off her little black bonnet.\n\n\"No. I think he can't make any money--well, it's everybody's cry alike\nnowadays--and it makes him disagreeable.\"\n\n\"It would ME,\" said Paul.\n\n\"Well, one can't wonder at it. And he let me have--how much do you think\nhe let me have THIS for?\"\n\nShe took the dish out of its rag of newspaper, and stood looking on it\nwith joy.\n\n\"Show me!\" said Paul.\n\nThe two stood together gloating over the dish.\n\n\"I LOVE cornflowers on things,\" said Paul.\n\n\"Yes, and I thought of the teapot you bought me--\"\n\n\"One and three,\" said Paul.\n\n\"Fivepence!\"\n\n\"It's not enough, mother.\"\n\n\"No. Do you know, I fairly sneaked off with it. But I'd been\nextravagant, I couldn't afford any more. And he needn't have let me have\nit if he hadn't wanted to.\"\n\n\"No, he needn't, need he,\" said Paul, and the two comforted each other\nfrom the fear of having robbed the pot man.\n\n\"We c'n have stewed fruit in it,\" said Paul.\n\n\"Or custard, or a jelly,\" said his mother.\n\n\"Or radishes and lettuce,\" said he.\n\n\"Don't forget that bread,\" she said, her voice bright with glee.\n\nPaul looked in the oven; tapped the loaf on the base.\n\n\"It's done,\" he said, giving it to her.\n\nShe tapped it also.\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied, going to unpack her bag. \"Oh, and I'm a wicked,\nextravagant woman. I know I s'll come to want.\"\n\nHe hopped to her side eagerly, to see her latest extravagance. She\nunfolded another lump of newspaper and disclosed some roots of <DW29>s\nand of crimson daisies.\n\n\"Four penn'orth!\" she moaned.\n\n\"How CHEAP!\" he cried.\n\n\"Yes, but I couldn't afford it THIS week of all weeks.\"\n\n\"But lovely!\" he cried.\n\n\"Aren't they!\" she exclaimed, giving way to pure joy. \"Paul, look at\nthis yellow one, isn't it--and a face just like an old man!\"\n\n\"Just!\" cried Paul, stooping to sniff. \"And smells that nice! But he's a\nbit splashed.\"\n\nHe ran in the scullery, came back with the flannel, and carefully washed\nthe <DW29>.\n\n\"NOW look at him now he's wet!\" he said.\n\n\"Yes!\" she exclaimed, brimful of satisfaction.\n\nThe children of Scargill Street felt quite select. At the end where\nthe Morels lived there were not many young things. So the few were more\nunited. Boys and girls played together, the girls joining in the fights\nand the rough games, the boys taking part in the dancing games and rings\nand make-belief of the girls.\n\nAnnie and Paul and Arthur loved the winter evenings, when it was not\nwet. They stayed indoors till the colliers were all gone home, till it\nwas thick dark, and the street would be deserted. Then they tied their\nscarves round their necks, for they scorned overcoats, as all the\ncolliers' children did, and went out. The entry was very dark, and at\nthe end the whole great night opened out, in a hollow, with a little\ntangle of lights below where Minton pit lay, and another far away\nopposite for Selby. The farthest tiny lights seemed to stretch out the\ndarkness for ever. The children looked anxiously down the road at the\none lamp-post, which stood at the end of the field path. If the little,\nluminous space were deserted, the two boys felt genuine desolation. They\nstood with their hands in their pockets under the lamp, turning their\nbacks on the night, quite miserable, watching the dark houses. Suddenly\na pinafore under a short coat was seen, and a long-legged girl came\nflying up.\n\n\"Where's Billy Pillins an' your Annie an' Eddie Dakin?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nBut it did not matter so much--there were three now. They set up a game\nround the lamp-post, till the others rushed up, yelling. Then the play\nwent fast and furious.\n\nThere was only this one lamp-post. Behind was the great scoop of\ndarkness, as if all the night were there. In front, another wide, dark\nway opened over the hill brow. Occasionally somebody came out of this\nway and went into the field down the path. In a dozen yards the night\nhad swallowed them. The children played on.\n\nThey were brought exceedingly close together owing to their isolation.\nIf a quarrel took place, the whole play was spoilt. Arthur was very\ntouchy, and Billy Pillins--really Philips--was worse. Then Paul had to\nside with Arthur, and on Paul's side went Alice, while Billy Pillins\nalways had Emmie Limb and Eddie Dakin to back him up. Then the six would\nfight, hate with a fury of hatred, and flee home in terror. Paul never\nforgot, after one of these fierce internecine fights, seeing a big red\nmoon lift itself up, slowly, between the waste road over the hilltop,\nsteadily, like a great bird. And he thought of the Bible, that the moon\nshould be turned to blood. And the next day he made haste to be friends\nwith Billy Pillins. And then the wild, intense games went on again under\nthe lamp-post, surrounded by so much darkness. Mrs. Morel, going into\nher parlour, would hear the children singing away:\n\n     \"My shoes are made of Spanish leather,\n     My socks are made of silk;\n     I wear a ring on every finger,\n     I wash myself in milk.\"\n\nThey sounded so perfectly absorbed in the game as their voices came\nout of the night, that they had the feel of wild creatures singing.\nIt stirred the mother; and she understood when they came in at eight\no'clock, ruddy, with brilliant eyes, and quick, passionate speech.\n\nThey all loved the Scargill Street house for its openness, for the great\nscallop of the world it had in view. On summer evenings the women would\nstand against the field fence, gossiping, facing the west, watching the\nsunsets flare quickly out, till the Derbyshire hills ridged across the\ncrimson far away, like the black crest of a newt.\n\nIn this summer season the pits never turned full time, particularly the\nsoft coal. Mrs. Dakin, who lived next door to Mrs. Morel, going to the\nfield fence to shake her hearthrug, would spy men coming slowly up the\nhill. She saw at once they were colliers. Then she waited, a tall, thin,\nshrew-faced woman, standing on the hill brow, almost like a menace to\nthe poor colliers who were toiling up. It was only eleven o'clock. From\nthe far-off wooded hills the haze that hangs like fine black crape at\nthe back of a summer morning had not yet dissipated. The first man came\nto the stile. \"Chock-chock!\" went the gate under his thrust.\n\n\"What, han' yer knocked off?\" cried Mrs. Dakin.\n\n\"We han, missis.\"\n\n\"It's a pity as they letn yer goo,\" she said sarcastically.\n\n\"It is that,\" replied the man.\n\n\"Nay, you know you're flig to come up again,\" she said.\n\nAnd the man went on. Mrs. Dakin, going up her yard, spied Mrs. Morel\ntaking the ashes to the ash-pit.\n\n\"I reckon Minton's knocked off, missis,\" she cried.\n\n\"Isn't it sickenin!\" exclaimed Mrs. Morel in wrath.\n\n\"Ha! But I'n just seed Jont Hutchby.\"\n\n\"They might as well have saved their shoe-leather,\" said Mrs. Morel. And\nboth women went indoors disgusted.\n\nThe colliers, their faces scarcely blackened, were trooping home again.\nMorel hated to go back. He loved the sunny morning. But he had gone to\npit to work, and to be sent home again spoilt his temper.\n\n\"Good gracious, at this time!\" exclaimed his wife, as he entered.\n\n\"Can I help it, woman?\" he shouted.\n\n\"And I've not done half enough dinner.\"\n\n\"Then I'll eat my bit o' snap as I took with me,\" he bawled\npathetically. He felt ignominious and sore.\n\nAnd the children, coming home from school, would wonder to see their\nfather eating with his dinner the two thick slices of rather dry and\ndirty bread-and-butter that had been to pit and back.\n\n\"What's my dad eating his snap for now?\" asked Arthur.\n\n\"I should ha'e it holled at me if I didna,\" snorted Morel.\n\n\"What a story!\" exclaimed his wife.\n\n\"An' is it goin' to be wasted?\" said Morel. \"I'm not such a extravagant\nmortal as you lot, with your waste. If I drop a bit of bread at pit, in\nall the dust an' dirt, I pick it up an' eat it.\"\n\n\"The mice would eat it,\" said Paul. \"It wouldn't be wasted.\"\n\n\"Good bread-an'-butter's not for mice, either,\" said Morel. \"Dirty or\nnot dirty, I'd eat it rather than it should be wasted.\"\n\n\"You might leave it for the mice and pay for it out of your next pint,\"\nsaid Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Oh, might I?\" he exclaimed.\n\nThey were very poor that autumn. William had just gone away to London,\nand his mother missed his money. He sent ten shillings once or twice,\nbut he had many things to pay for at first. His letters came regularly\nonce a week. He wrote a good deal to his mother, telling her all his\nlife, how he made friends, and was exchanging lessons with a Frenchman,\nhow he enjoyed London. His mother felt again he was remaining to her\njust as when he was at home. She wrote to him every week her direct,\nrather witty letters. All day long, as she cleaned the house, she\nthought of him. He was in London: he would do well. Almost, he was like\nher knight who wore HER favour in the battle.\n\nHe was coming at Christmas for five days. There had never been such\npreparations. Paul and Arthur scoured the land for holly and evergreens.\nAnnie made the pretty paper hoops in the old-fashioned way. And there\nwas unheard-of extravagance in the larder. Mrs. Morel made a big and\nmagnificent cake. Then, feeling queenly, she showed Paul how to blanch\nalmonds. He skinned the long nuts reverently, counting them all, to see\nnot one was lost. It was said that eggs whisked better in a cold place.\nSo the boy stood in the scullery, where the temperature was nearly at\nfreezing-point, and whisked and whisked, and flew in excitement to his\nmother as the white of egg grew stiffer and more snowy.\n\n\"Just look, mother! Isn't it lovely?\"\n\nAnd he balanced a bit on his nose, then blew it in the air.\n\n\"Now, don't waste it,\" said the mother.\n\nEverybody was mad with excitement. William was coming on Christmas Eve.\nMrs. Morel surveyed her pantry. There was a big plum cake, and a rice\ncake, jam tarts, lemon tarts, and mince-pies--two enormous dishes. She\nwas finishing cooking--Spanish tarts and cheese-cakes. Everywhere was\ndecorated. The kissing bunch of berried holly hung with bright and\nglittering things, spun slowly over Mrs. Morel's head as she trimmed her\nlittle tarts in the kitchen. A great fire roared. There was a scent of\ncooked pastry. He was due at seven o'clock, but he would be late. The\nthree children had gone to meet him. She was alone. But at a quarter to\nseven Morel came in again. Neither wife nor husband spoke. He sat in his\narmchair, quite awkward with excitement, and she quietly went on with\nher baking. Only by the careful way in which she did things could it be\ntold how much moved she was. The clock ticked on.\n\n\"What time dost say he's coming?\" Morel asked for the fifth time.\n\n\"The train gets in at half-past six,\" she replied emphatically.\n\n\"Then he'll be here at ten past seven.\"\n\n\"Eh, bless you, it'll be hours late on the Midland,\" she said\nindifferently. But she hoped, by expecting him late, to bring him early.\nMorel went down the entry to look for him. Then he came back.\n\n\"Goodness, man!\" she said. \"You're like an ill-sitting hen.\"\n\n\"Hadna you better be gettin' him summat t' eat ready?\" asked the father.\n\n\"There's plenty of time,\" she answered.\n\n\"There's not so much as I can see on,\" he answered, turning crossly in\nhis chair. She began to clear her table. The kettle was singing. They\nwaited and waited.\n\nMeantime the three children were on the platform at Sethley Bridge,\non the Midland main line, two miles from home. They waited one hour.\nA train came--he was not there. Down the line the red and green lights\nshone. It was very dark and very cold.\n\n\"Ask him if the London train's come,\" said Paul to Annie, when they saw\na man in a tip cap.\n\n\"I'm not,\" said Annie. \"You be quiet--he might send us off.\"\n\nBut Paul was dying for the man to know they were expecting someone by\nthe London train: it sounded so grand. Yet he was much too much scared\nof broaching any man, let alone one in a peaked cap, to dare to ask. The\nthree children could scarcely go into the waiting-room for fear of being\nsent away, and for fear something should happen whilst they were off the\nplatform. Still they waited in the dark and cold.\n\n\"It's an hour an' a half late,\" said Arthur pathetically.\n\n\"Well,\" said Annie, \"it's Christmas Eve.\"\n\nThey all grew silent. He wasn't coming. They looked down the darkness\nof the railway. There was London! It seemed the utter-most of distance.\nThey thought anything might happen if one came from London. They were\nall too troubled to talk. Cold, and unhappy, and silent, they huddled\ntogether on the platform.\n\nAt last, after more than two hours, they saw the lights of an engine\npeering round, away down the darkness. A porter ran out. The children\ndrew back with beating hearts. A great train, bound for Manchester, drew\nup. Two doors opened, and from one of them, William. They flew to him.\nHe handed parcels to them cheerily, and immediately began to explain\nthat this great train had stopped for HIS sake at such a small station\nas Sethley Bridge: it was not booked to stop.\n\nMeanwhile the parents were getting anxious. The table was set, the chop\nwas cooked, everything was ready. Mrs. Morel put on her black apron.\nShe was wearing her best dress. Then she sat, pretending to read. The\nminutes were a torture to her.\n\n\"H'm!\" said Morel. \"It's an hour an' a ha'ef.\"\n\n\"And those children waiting!\" she said.\n\n\"Th' train canna ha' come in yet,\" he said.\n\n\"I tell you, on Christmas Eve they're HOURS wrong.\"\n\nThey were both a bit cross with each other, so gnawed with anxiety. The\nash tree moaned outside in a cold, raw wind. And all that space of night\nfrom London home! Mrs. Morel suffered. The slight click of the works\ninside the clock irritated her. It was getting so late; it was getting\nunbearable.\n\nAt last there was a sound of voices, and a footstep in the entry.\n\n\"Ha's here!\" cried Morel, jumping up.\n\nThen he stood back. The mother ran a few steps towards the door and\nwaited. There was a rush and a patter of feet, the door burst open.\nWilliam was there. He dropped his Gladstone bag and took his mother in\nhis arms.\n\n\"Mater!\" he said.\n\n\"My boy!\" she cried.\n\nAnd for two seconds, no longer, she clasped him and kissed him. Then she\nwithdrew and said, trying to be quite normal:\n\n\"But how late you are!\"\n\n\"Aren't I!\" he cried, turning to his father. \"Well, dad!\"\n\nThe two men shook hands.\n\n\"Well, my lad!\"\n\nMorel's eyes were wet.\n\n\"We thought tha'd niver be commin',\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, I'd come!\" exclaimed William.\n\nThen the son turned round to his mother.\n\n\"But you look well,\" she said proudly, laughing.\n\n\"Well!\" he exclaimed. \"I should think so--coming home!\"\n\nHe was a fine fellow, big, straight, and fearless-looking. He looked\nround at the evergreens and the kissing bunch, and the little tarts that\nlay in their tins on the hearth.\n\n\"By jove! mother, it's not different!\" he said, as if in relief.\n\nEverybody was still for a second. Then he suddenly sprang forward,\npicked a tart from the hearth, and pushed it whole into his mouth.\n\n\"Well, did iver you see such a parish oven!\" the father exclaimed.\n\nHe had brought them endless presents. Every penny he had he had spent\non them. There was a sense of luxury overflowing in the house. For his\nmother there was an umbrella with gold on the pale handle. She kept\nit to her dying day, and would have lost anything rather than that.\nEverybody had something gorgeous, and besides, there were pounds of\nunknown sweets: Turkish delight, crystallised pineapple, and such-like\nthings which, the children thought, only the splendour of London could\nprovide. And Paul boasted of these sweets among his friends.\n\n\"Real pineapple, cut off in slices, and then turned into crystal--fair\ngrand!\"\n\nEverybody was mad with happiness in the family. Home was home, and they\nloved it with a passion of love, whatever the suffering had been. There\nwere parties, there were rejoicings. People came in to see William, to\nsee what difference London had made to him. And they all found him \"such\na gentleman, and SUCH a fine fellow, my word\"!\n\nWhen he went away again the children retired to various places to weep\nalone. Morel went to bed in misery, and Mrs. Morel felt as if she were\nnumbed by some drug, as if her feelings were paralysed. She loved him\npassionately.\n\nHe was in the office of a lawyer connected with a large shipping firm,\nand at the midsummer his chief offered him a trip in the Mediterranean\non one of the boats, for quite a small cost. Mrs. Morel wrote: \"Go, go,\nmy boy. You may never have a chance again, and I should love to think of\nyou cruising there in the Mediterranean almost better than to have you\nat home.\" But William came home for his fortnight's holiday. Not even\nthe Mediterranean, which pulled at all his young man's desire to travel,\nand at his poor man's wonder at the glamorous south, could take him away\nwhen he might come home. That compensated his mother for much.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nPAUL LAUNCHES INTO LIFE\n\nMOREL was rather a heedless man, careless of danger. So he had endless\naccidents. Now, when Mrs. Morel heard the rattle of an empty coal-cart\ncease at her entry-end, she ran into the parlour to look, expecting\nalmost to see her husband seated in the waggon, his face grey under his\ndirt, his body limp and sick with some hurt or other. If it were he, she\nwould run out to help.\n\nAbout a year after William went to London, and just after Paul had left\nschool, before he got work, Mrs. Morel was upstairs and her son was\npainting in the kitchen--he was very clever with his brush--when there\ncame a knock at the door. Crossly he put down his brush to go. At the\nsame moment his mother opened a window upstairs and looked down.\n\nA pit-lad in his dirt stood on the threshold.\n\n\"Is this Walter Morel's?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mrs. Morel. \"What is it?\"\n\nBut she had guessed already.\n\n\"Your mester's got hurt,\" he said.\n\n\"Eh, dear me!\" she exclaimed. \"It's a wonder if he hadn't, lad. And\nwhat's he done this time?\"\n\n\"I don't know for sure, but it's 'is leg somewhere. They ta'ein' 'im ter\nth' 'ospital.\"\n\n\"Good gracious me!\" she exclaimed. \"Eh, dear, what a one he is! There's\nnot five minutes of peace, I'll be hanged if there is! His thumb's\nnearly better, and now--Did you see him?\"\n\n\"I seed him at th' bottom. An' I seed 'em bring 'im up in a tub, an'\n'e wor in a dead faint. But he shouted like anythink when Doctor Fraser\nexamined him i' th' lamp cabin--an' cossed an' swore, an' said as 'e wor\ngoin' to be ta'en whoam--'e worn't goin' ter th' 'ospital.\"\n\nThe boy faltered to an end.\n\n\"He WOULD want to come home, so that I can have all the bother. Thank\nyou, my lad. Eh, dear, if I'm not sick--sick and surfeited, I am!\"\n\nShe came downstairs. Paul had mechanically resumed his painting.\n\n\"And it must be pretty bad if they've taken him to the hospital,\" she\nwent on. \"But what a CARELESS creature he is! OTHER men don't have all\nthese accidents. Yes, he WOULD want to put all the burden on me. Eh,\ndear, just as we WERE getting easy a bit at last. Put those things away,\nthere's no time to be painting now. What time is there a train? I know I\ns'll have to go trailing to Keston. I s'll have to leave that bedroom.\"\n\n\"I can finish it,\" said Paul.\n\n\"You needn't. I shall catch the seven o'clock back, I should think. Oh,\nmy blessed heart, the fuss and commotion he'll make! And those granite\nsetts at Tinder Hill--he might well call them kidney pebbles--they'll\njolt him almost to bits. I wonder why they can't mend them, the state\nthey're in, an' all the men as go across in that ambulance. You'd think\nthey'd have a hospital here. The men bought the ground, and, my sirs,\nthere'd be accidents enough to keep it going. But no, they must trail\nthem ten miles in a slow ambulance to Nottingham. It's a crying shame!\nOh, and the fuss he'll make! I know he will! I wonder who's with him.\nBarker, I s'd think. Poor beggar, he'll wish himself anywhere rather.\nBut he'll look after him, I know. Now there's no telling how long he'll\nbe stuck in that hospital--and WON'T he hate it! But if it's only his\nleg it's not so bad.\"\n\nAll the time she was getting ready. Hurriedly taking off her bodice, she\ncrouched at the boiler while the water ran slowly into her lading-can.\n\n\"I wish this boiler was at the bottom of the sea!\" she exclaimed,\nwriggling the handle impatiently. She had very handsome, strong arms,\nrather surprising on a smallish woman.\n\nPaul cleared away, put on the kettle, and set the table.\n\n\"There isn't a train till four-twenty,\" he said. \"You've time enough.\"\n\n\"Oh no, I haven't!\" she cried, blinking at him over the towel as she\nwiped her face.\n\n\"Yes, you have. You must drink a cup of tea at any rate. Should I come\nwith you to Keston?\"\n\n\"Come with me? What for, I should like to know? Now, what have I to take\nhim? Eh, dear! His clean shirt--and it's a blessing it IS clean. But it\nhad better be aired. And stockings--he won't want them--and a towel, I\nsuppose; and handkerchiefs. Now what else?\"\n\n\"A comb, a knife and fork and spoon,\" said Paul. His father had been in\nthe hospital before.\n\n\"Goodness knows what sort of state his feet were in,\" continued Mrs.\nMorel, as she combed her long brown hair, that was fine as silk, and\nwas touched now with grey. \"He's very particular to wash himself to the\nwaist, but below he thinks doesn't matter. But there, I suppose they see\nplenty like it.\"\n\nPaul had laid the table. He cut his mother one or two pieces of very\nthin bread and butter.\n\n\"Here you are,\" he said, putting her cup of tea in her place.\n\n\"I can't be bothered!\" she exclaimed crossly.\n\n\"Well, you've got to, so there, now it's put out ready,\" he insisted.\n\nSo she sat down and sipped her tea, and ate a little, in silence. She\nwas thinking.\n\nIn a few minutes she was gone, to walk the two and a half miles to\nKeston Station. All the things she was taking him she had in her bulging\nstring bag. Paul watched her go up the road between the hedges--a\nlittle, quick-stepping figure, and his heart ached for her, that she was\nthrust forward again into pain and trouble. And she, tripping so quickly\nin her anxiety, felt at the back of her her son's heart waiting on her,\nfelt him bearing what part of the burden he could, even supporting her.\nAnd when she was at the hospital, she thought: \"It WILL upset that lad\nwhen I tell him how bad it is. I'd better be careful.\" And when she was\ntrudging home again, she felt he was coming to share her burden.\n\n\"Is it bad?\" asked Paul, as soon as she entered the house.\n\n\"It's bad enough,\" she replied.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nShe sighed and sat down, undoing her bonnet-strings. Her son watched her\nface as it was lifted, and her small, work-hardened hands fingering at\nthe bow under her chin.\n\n\"Well,\" she answered, \"it's not really dangerous, but the nurse says\nit's a dreadful smash. You see, a great piece of rock fell on his\nleg--here--and it's a compound fracture. There are pieces of bone\nsticking through--\"\n\n\"Ugh--how horrid!\" exclaimed the children.\n\n\"And,\" she continued, \"of course he says he's going to die--it wouldn't\nbe him if he didn't. 'I'm done for, my lass!' he said, looking at me.\n'Don't be so silly,' I said to him. 'You're not going to die of a broken\nleg, however badly it's smashed.' 'I s'll niver come out of 'ere but in\na wooden box,' he groaned. 'Well,' I said, 'if you want them to carry\nyou into the garden in a wooden box, when you're better, I've no doubt\nthey will.' 'If we think it's good for him,' said the Sister. She's an\nawfully nice Sister, but rather strict.\"\n\nMrs. Morel took off her bonnet. The children waited in silence.\n\n\"Of course, he IS bad,\" she continued, \"and he will be. It's a great\nshock, and he's lost a lot of blood; and, of course, it IS a very\ndangerous smash. It's not at all sure that it will mend so easily. And\nthen there's the fever and the mortification--if it took bad ways he'd\nquickly be gone. But there, he's a clean-blooded man, with wonderful\nhealing flesh, and so I see no reason why it SHOULD take bad ways. Of\ncourse there's a wound--\"\n\nShe was pale now with emotion and anxiety. The three children realised\nthat it was very bad for their father, and the house was silent,\nanxious.\n\n\"But he always gets better,\" said Paul after a while.\n\n\"That's what I tell him,\" said the mother.\n\nEverybody moved about in silence.\n\n\"And he really looked nearly done for,\" she said. \"But the Sister says\nthat is the pain.\"\n\nAnnie took away her mother's coat and bonnet.\n\n\"And he looked at me when I came away! I said: 'I s'll have to go now,\nWalter, because of the train--and the children.' And he looked at me. It\nseems hard.\"\n\nPaul took up his brush again and went on painting. Arthur went outside\nfor some coal. Annie sat looking dismal. And Mrs. Morel, in her little\nrocking-chair that her husband had made for her when the first baby was\ncoming, remained motionless, brooding. She was grieved, and bitterly\nsorry for the man who was hurt so much. But still, in her heart of\nhearts, where the love should have burned, there was a blank. Now, when\nall her woman's pity was roused to its full extent, when she would have\nslaved herself to death to nurse him and to save him, when she would\nhave taken the pain herself, if she could, somewhere far away inside\nher, she felt indifferent to him and to his suffering. It hurt her\nmost of all, this failure to love him, even when he roused her strong\nemotions. She brooded a while.\n\n\"And there,\" she said suddenly, \"when I'd got halfway to Keston, I found\nI'd come out in my working boots--and LOOK at them.\" They were an old\npair of Paul's, brown and rubbed through at the toes. \"I didn't know\nwhat to do with myself, for shame,\" she added.\n\nIn the morning, when Annie and Arthur were at school, Mrs. Morel talked\nagain to her son, who was helping her with her housework.\n\n\"I found Barker at the hospital. He did look bad, poor little fellow!\n'Well,' I said to him, 'what sort of a journey did you have with him?'\n'Dunna ax me, missis!' he said. 'Ay,' I said, 'I know what he'd be.'\n'But it WOR bad for him, Mrs. Morel, it WOR that!' he said. 'I know,' I\nsaid. 'At ivry jolt I thought my 'eart would ha' flown clean out o' my\nmouth,' he said. 'An' the scream 'e gives sometimes! Missis, not for a\nfortune would I go through wi' it again.' 'I can quite understand it,'\nI said. 'It's a nasty job, though,' he said, 'an' one as'll be a long\nwhile afore it's right again.' 'I'm afraid it will,' I said. I like Mr.\nBarker--I DO like him. There's something so manly about him.\"\n\nPaul resumed his task silently.\n\n\"And of course,\" Mrs. Morel continued, \"for a man like your father,\nthe hospital IS hard. He CAN'T understand rules and regulations. And he\nwon't let anybody else touch him, not if he can help it. When he smashed\nthe muscles of his thigh, and it had to be dressed four times a day,\nWOULD he let anybody but me or his mother do it? He wouldn't. So, of\ncourse, he'll suffer in there with the nurses. And I didn't like leaving\nhim. I'm sure, when I kissed him an' came away, it seemed a shame.\"\n\nSo she talked to her son, almost as if she were thinking aloud to him,\nand he took it in as best he could, by sharing her trouble to lighten\nit. And in the end she shared almost everything with him without\nknowing.\n\nMorel had a very bad time. For a week he was in a critical condition.\nThen he began to mend. And then, knowing he was going to get better, the\nwhole family sighed with relief, and proceeded to live happily.\n\nThey were not badly off whilst Morel was in the hospital. There were\nfourteen shillings a week from the pit, ten shillings from the sick\nclub, and five shillings from the Disability Fund; and then every week\nthe butties had something for Mrs. Morel--five or seven shillings--so\nthat she was quite well to do. And whilst Morel was progressing\nfavourably in the hospital, the family was extraordinarily happy and\npeaceful. On Saturdays and Wednesdays Mrs. Morel went to Nottingham to\nsee her husband. Then she always brought back some little thing: a small\ntube of paints for Paul, or some thick paper; a couple of postcards for\nAnnie, that the whole family rejoiced over for days before the girl was\nallowed to send them away; or a fret-saw for Arthur, or a bit of pretty\nwood. She described her adventures into the big shops with joy. Soon the\nfolk in the picture-shop knew her, and knew about Paul. The girl in\nthe book-shop took a keen interest in her. Mrs. Morel was full of\ninformation when she got home from Nottingham. The three sat round till\nbed-time, listening, putting in, arguing. Then Paul often raked the\nfire.\n\n\"I'm the man in the house now,\" he used to say to his mother with joy.\nThey learned how perfectly peaceful the home could be. And they\nalmost regretted--though none of them would have owned to such\ncallousness--that their father was soon coming back.\n\nPaul was now fourteen, and was looking for work. He was a rather small\nand rather finely-made boy, with dark brown hair and light blue eyes.\nHis face had already lost its youthful chubbiness, and was becoming\nsomewhat like William's--rough-featured, almost rugged--and it was\nextraordinarily mobile. Usually he looked as if he saw things, was full\nof life, and warm; then his smile, like his mother's, came suddenly and\nwas very lovable; and then, when there was any clog in his soul's quick\nrunning, his face went stupid and ugly. He was the sort of boy that\nbecomes a clown and a lout as soon as he is not understood, or feels\nhimself held cheap; and, again, is adorable at the first touch of\nwarmth.\n\nHe suffered very much from the first contact with anything. When he was\nseven, the starting school had been a nightmare and a torture to him.\nBut afterwards he liked it. And now that he felt he had to go out into\nlife, he went through agonies of shrinking self-consciousness. He was\nquite a clever painter for a boy of his years, and he knew some French\nand German and mathematics that Mr. Heaton had taught him. But nothing\nhe had was of any commercial value. He was not strong enough for heavy\nmanual work, his mother said. He did not care for making things with his\nhands, preferred racing about, or making excursions into the country, or\nreading, or painting.\n\n\"What do you want to be?\" his mother asked.\n\n\"Anything.\"\n\n\"That is no answer,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\nBut it was quite truthfully the only answer he could give. His ambition,\nas far as this world's gear went, was quietly to earn his thirty or\nthirty-five shillings a week somewhere near home, and then, when his\nfather died, have a cottage with his mother, paint and go out as he\nliked, and live happy ever after. That was his programme as far as doing\nthings went. But he was proud within himself, measuring people against\nhimself, and placing them, inexorably. And he thought that PERHAPS he\nmight also make a painter, the real thing. But that he left alone.\n\n\"Then,\" said his mother, \"you must look in the paper for the\nadvertisements.\"\n\nHe looked at her. It seemed to him a bitter humiliation and an anguish\nto go through. But he said nothing. When he got up in the morning, his\nwhole being was knotted up over this one thought:\n\n\"I've got to go and look for advertisements for a job.\"\n\nIt stood in front of the morning, that thought, killing all joy and even\nlife, for him. His heart felt like a tight knot.\n\nAnd then, at ten o'clock, he set off. He was supposed to be a queer,\nquiet child. Going up the sunny street of the little town, he felt as\nif all the folk he met said to themselves: \"He's going to the Co-op.\nreading-room to look in the papers for a place. He can't get a job. I\nsuppose he's living on his mother.\" Then he crept up the stone stairs\nbehind the drapery shop at the Co-op., and peeped in the reading-room.\nUsually one or two men were there, either old, useless fellows, or\ncolliers \"on the club\". So he entered, full of shrinking and suffering\nwhen they looked up, seated himself at the table, and pretended to scan\nthe news. He knew they would think: \"What does a lad of thirteen want in\na reading-room with a newspaper?\" and he suffered.\n\nThen he looked wistfully out of the window. Already he was a prisoner\nof industrialism. Large sunflowers stared over the old red wall of the\ngarden opposite, looking in their jolly way down on the women who\nwere hurrying with something for dinner. The valley was full of corn,\nbrightening in the sun. Two collieries, among the fields, waved their\nsmall white plumes of steam. Far off on the hills were the woods of\nAnnesley, dark and fascinating. Already his heart went down. He was\nbeing taken into bondage. His freedom in the beloved home valley was\ngoing now.\n\nThe brewers' waggons came rolling up from Keston with enormous barrels,\nfour a side, like beans in a burst bean-pod. The waggoner, throned\naloft, rolling massively in his seat, was not so much below Paul's eye.\nThe man's hair, on his small, bullet head, was bleached almost white by\nthe sun, and on his thick red arms, rocking idly on his sack apron, the\nwhite hairs glistened. His red face shone and was almost asleep with\nsunshine. The horses, handsome and brown, went on by themselves, looking\nby far the masters of the show.\n\nPaul wished he were stupid. \"I wish,\" he thought to himself, \"I was fat\nlike him, and like a dog in the sun. I wish I was a pig and a brewer's\nwaggoner.\"\n\nThen, the room being at last empty, he would hastily copy an\nadvertisement on a scrap of paper, then another, and slip out in immense\nrelief. His mother would scan over his copies.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"you may try.\"\n\nWilliam had written out a letter of application, couched in admirable\nbusiness language, which Paul copied, with variations. The boy's\nhandwriting was execrable, so that William, who did all things well, got\ninto a fever of impatience.\n\nThe elder brother was becoming quite swanky. In London he found that he\ncould associate with men far above his Bestwood friends in station. Some\nof the clerks in the office had studied for the law, and were more or\nless going through a kind of apprenticeship. William always made friends\namong men wherever he went, he was so jolly. Therefore he was soon\nvisiting and staying in houses of men who, in Bestwood, would have\nlooked down on the unapproachable bank manager, and would merely have\ncalled indifferently on the Rector. So he began to fancy himself as a\ngreat gun. He was, indeed, rather surprised at the ease with which he\nbecame a gentleman.\n\nHis mother was glad, he seemed so pleased. And his lodging in\nWalthamstow was so dreary. But now there seemed to come a kind of fever\ninto the young man's letters. He was unsettled by all the change, he did\nnot stand firm on his own feet, but seemed to spin rather giddily on the\nquick current of the new life. His mother was anxious for him. She could\nfeel him losing himself. He had danced and gone to the theatre, boated\non the river, been out with friends; and she knew he sat up afterwards\nin his cold bedroom grinding away at Latin, because he intended to get\non in his office, and in the law as much as he could. He never sent his\nmother any money now. It was all taken, the little he had, for his own\nlife. And she did not want any, except sometimes, when she was in a\ntight corner, and when ten shillings would have saved her much worry.\nShe still dreamed of William, and of what he would do, with herself\nbehind him. Never for a minute would she admit to herself how heavy and\nanxious her heart was because of him.\n\nAlso he talked a good deal now of a girl he had met at a dance, a\nhandsome brunette, quite young, and a lady, after whom the men were\nrunning thick and fast.\n\n\"I wonder if you would run, my boy,\" his mother wrote to him, \"unless\nyou saw all the other men chasing her too. You feel safe enough and vain\nenough in a crowd. But take care, and see how you feel when you find\nyourself alone, and in triumph.\" William resented these things, and\ncontinued the chase. He had taken the girl on the river. \"If you saw\nher, mother, you would know how I feel. Tall and elegant, with the\nclearest of clear, transparent olive complexions, hair as black as jet,\nand such grey eyes--bright, mocking, like lights on water at night. It\nis all very well to be a bit satirical till you see her. And she dresses\nas well as any woman in London. I tell you, your son doesn't half put\nhis head up when she goes walking down Piccadilly with him.\"\n\nMrs. Morel wondered, in her heart, if her son did not go walking down\nPiccadilly with an elegant figure and fine clothes, rather than with\na woman who was near to him. But she congratulated him in her doubtful\nfashion. And, as she stood over the washing-tub, the mother brooded over\nher son. She saw him saddled with an elegant and expensive wife, earning\nlittle money, dragging along and getting draggled in some small, ugly\nhouse in a suburb. \"But there,\" she told herself, \"I am very likely\na silly--meeting trouble halfway.\" Nevertheless, the load of anxiety\nscarcely ever left her heart, lest William should do the wrong thing by\nhimself.\n\nPresently, Paul was bidden call upon Thomas Jordan, Manufacturer of\nSurgical Appliances, at 21, Spaniel Row, Nottingham. Mrs. Morel was all\njoy.\n\n\"There, you see!\" she cried, her eyes shining. \"You've only written four\nletters, and the third is answered. You're lucky, my boy, as I always\nsaid you were.\"\n\nPaul looked at the picture of a wooden leg, adorned with elastic\nstockings and other appliances, that figured on Mr. Jordan's notepaper,\nand he felt alarmed. He had not known that elastic stockings existed.\nAnd he seemed to feel the business world, with its regulated system of\nvalues, and its impersonality, and he dreaded it. It seemed monstrous\nalso that a business could be run on wooden legs.\n\nMother and son set off together one Tuesday morning. It was August and\nblazing hot. Paul walked with something screwed up tight inside him.\nHe would have suffered much physical pain rather than this unreasonable\nsuffering at being exposed to strangers, to be accepted or rejected. Yet\nhe chattered away with his mother. He would never have confessed to her\nhow he suffered over these things, and she only partly guessed. She\nwas gay, like a sweetheart. She stood in front of the ticket-office at\nBestwood, and Paul watched her take from her purse the money for the\ntickets. As he saw her hands in their old black kid gloves getting the\nsilver out of the worn purse, his heart contracted with pain of love of\nher.\n\nShe was quite excited, and quite gay. He suffered because she WOULD talk\naloud in presence of the other travellers.\n\n\"Now look at that silly cow!\" she said, \"careering round as if it\nthought it was a circus.\"\n\n\"It's most likely a bottfly,\" he said very low.\n\n\"A what?\" she asked brightly and unashamed.\n\nThey thought a while. He was sensible all the time of having her\nopposite him. Suddenly their eyes met, and she smiled to him--a rare,\nintimate smile, beautiful with brightness and love. Then each looked out\nof the window.\n\nThe sixteen slow miles of railway journey passed. The mother and son\nwalked down Station Street, feeling the excitement of lovers having an\nadventure together. In Carrington Street they stopped to hang over the\nparapet and look at the barges on the canal below.\n\n\"It's just like Venice,\" he said, seeing the sunshine on the water that\nlay between high factory walls.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" she answered, smiling.\n\nThey enjoyed the shops immensely.\n\n\"Now you see that blouse,\" she would say, \"wouldn't that just suit our\nAnnie? And for one-and-eleven-three. Isn't that cheap?\"\n\n\"And made of needlework as well,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThey had plenty of time, so they did not hurry. The town was strange\nand delightful to them. But the boy was tied up inside in a knot of\napprehension. He dreaded the interview with Thomas Jordan.\n\nIt was nearly eleven o'clock by St. Peter's Church. They turned up a\nnarrow street that led to the Castle. It was gloomy and old-fashioned,\nhaving low dark shops and dark green house doors with brass knockers,\nand yellow-ochred doorsteps projecting on to the pavement; then another\nold shop whose small window looked like a cunning, half-shut eye. Mother\nand son went cautiously, looking everywhere for \"Thomas Jordan and\nSon\". It was like hunting in some wild place. They were on tiptoe of\nexcitement.\n\nSuddenly they spied a big, dark archway, in which were names of various\nfirms, Thomas Jordan among them.\n\n\"Here it is!\" said Mrs. Morel. \"But now WHERE is it?\"\n\nThey looked round. On one side was a queer, dark, cardboard factory, on\nthe other a Commercial Hotel.\n\n\"It's up the entry,\" said Paul.\n\nAnd they ventured under the archway, as into the jaws of the dragon.\nThey emerged into a wide yard, like a well, with buildings all round. It\nwas littered with straw and boxes, and cardboard. The sunshine actually\ncaught one crate whose straw was streaming on to the yard like gold. But\nelsewhere the place was like a pit. There were several doors, and two\nflights of steps. Straight in front, on a dirty glass door at the top of\na staircase, loomed the ominous words \"Thomas Jordan and Son--Surgical\nAppliances.\" Mrs. Morel went first, her son followed her. Charles I\nmounted his scaffold with a lighter heart than had Paul Morel as he\nfollowed his mother up the dirty steps to the dirty door.\n\nShe pushed open the door, and stood in pleased surprise. In front of her\nwas a big warehouse, with creamy paper parcels everywhere, and clerks,\nwith their shirt-sleeves rolled back, were going about in an at-home\nsort of way. The light was subdued, the glossy cream parcels seemed\nluminous, the counters were of dark brown wood. All was quiet and very\nhomely. Mrs. Morel took two steps forward, then waited. Paul stood\nbehind her. She had on her Sunday bonnet and a black veil; he wore a\nboy's broad white collar and a Norfolk suit.\n\nOne of the clerks looked up. He was thin and tall, with a small face.\nHis way of looking was alert. Then he glanced round to the other end of\nthe room, where was a glass office. And then he came forward. He did\nnot say anything, but leaned in a gentle, inquiring fashion towards Mrs.\nMorel.\n\n\"Can I see Mr. Jordan?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'll fetch him,\" answered the young man.\n\nHe went down to the glass office. A red-faced, white-whiskered old man\nlooked up. He reminded Paul of a pomeranian dog. Then the same little\nman came up the room. He had short legs, was rather stout, and wore\nan alpaca jacket. So, with one ear up, as it were, he came stoutly and\ninquiringly down the room.\n\n\"Good-morning!\" he said, hesitating before Mrs. Morel, in doubt as to\nwhether she were a customer or not.\n\n\"Good-morning. I came with my son, Paul Morel. You asked him to call\nthis morning.\"\n\n\"Come this way,\" said Mr. Jordan, in a rather snappy little manner\nintended to be businesslike.\n\nThey followed the manufacturer into a grubby little room, upholstered\nin black American leather, glossy with the rubbing of many customers.\nOn the table was a pile of trusses, yellow wash-leather hoops tangled\ntogether. They looked new and living. Paul sniffed the odour of new\nwash-leather. He wondered what the things were. By this time he was so\nmuch stunned that he only noticed the outside things.\n\n\"Sit down!\" said Mr. Jordan, irritably pointing Mrs. Morel to a\nhorse-hair chair. She sat on the edge in an uncertain fashion. Then the\nlittle old man fidgeted and found a paper.\n\n\"Did you write this letter?\" he snapped, thrusting what Paul recognised\nas his own notepaper in front of him.\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered.\n\nAt that moment he was occupied in two ways: first, in feeling guilty\nfor telling a lie, since William had composed the letter; second, in\nwondering why his letter seemed so strange and different, in the fat,\nred hand of the man, from what it had been when it lay on the kitchen\ntable. It was like part of himself, gone astray. He resented the way the\nman held it.\n\n\"Where did you learn to write?\" said the old man crossly.\n\nPaul merely looked at him shamedly, and did not answer.\n\n\"He IS a bad writer,\" put in Mrs. Morel apologetically. Then she pushed\nup her veil. Paul hated her for not being prouder with this common\nlittle man, and he loved her face clear of the veil.\n\n\"And you say you know French?\" inquired the little man, still sharply.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Paul.\n\n\"What school did you go to?\"\n\n\"The Board-school.\"\n\n\"And did you learn it there?\"\n\n\"No--I--\" The boy went crimson and got no farther.\n\n\"His godfather gave him lessons,\" said Mrs. Morel, half pleading and\nrather distant.\n\nMr. Jordan hesitated. Then, in his irritable manner--he always seemed to\nkeep his hands ready for action--he pulled another sheet of paper from\nhis pocket, unfolded it. The paper made a crackling noise. He handed it\nto Paul.\n\n\"Read that,\" he said.\n\nIt was a note in French, in thin, flimsy foreign handwriting that the\nboy could not decipher. He stared blankly at the paper.\n\n\"'Monsieur,'\" he began; then he looked in great confusion at Mr. Jordan.\n\"It's the--it's the--\"\n\nHe wanted to say \"handwriting\", but his wits would no longer work even\nsufficiently to supply him with the word. Feeling an utter fool, and\nhating Mr. Jordan, he turned desperately to the paper again.\n\n\"'Sir,--Please send me'--er--er--I can't tell the--er--'two pairs--gris\nfil bas--grey thread stockings'--er--er--'sans--without'--er--I can't\ntell the words--er--'doigts--fingers'--er--I can't tell the--\"\n\nHe wanted to say \"handwriting\", but the word still refused to come.\nSeeing him stuck, Mr. Jordan snatched the paper from him.\n\n\"'Please send by return two pairs grey thread stockings without TOES.'\"\n\n\"Well,\" flashed Paul, \"'doigts' means 'fingers'--as well--as a rule--\"\n\nThe little man looked at him. He did not know whether \"doigts\" meant\n\"fingers\"; he knew that for all HIS purposes it meant \"toes\".\n\n\"Fingers to stockings!\" he snapped.\n\n\"Well, it DOES mean fingers,\" the boy persisted.\n\nHe hated the little man, who made such a clod of him. Mr. Jordan looked\nat the pale, stupid, defiant boy, then at the mother, who sat quiet and\nwith that peculiar shut-off look of the poor who have to depend on the\nfavour of others.\n\n\"And when could he come?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Morel, \"as soon as you wish. He has finished school\nnow.\"\n\n\"He would live in Bestwood?\"\n\n\"Yes; but he could be in--at the station--at quarter to eight.\"\n\n\"H'm!\"\n\nIt ended by Paul's being engaged as junior spiral clerk at eight\nshillings a week. The boy did not open his mouth to say another word,\nafter having insisted that \"doigts\" meant \"fingers\". He followed his\nmother down the stairs. She looked at him with her bright blue eyes full\nof love and joy.\n\n\"I think you'll like it,\" she said.\n\n\"'Doigts' does mean 'fingers', mother, and it was the writing. I\ncouldn't read the writing.\"\n\n\"Never mind, my boy. I'm sure he'll be all right, and you won't see much\nof him. Wasn't that first young fellow nice? I'm sure you'll like them.\"\n\n\"But wasn't Mr. Jordan common, mother? Does he own it all?\"\n\n\"I suppose he was a workman who has got on,\" she said. \"You mustn't mind\npeople so much. They're not being disagreeable to YOU--it's their way.\nYou always think people are meaning things for you. But they don't.\"\n\nIt was very sunny. Over the big desolate space of the market-place the\nblue sky shimmered, and the granite cobbles of the paving glistened.\nShops down the Long Row were deep in obscurity, and the shadow was full\nof colour. Just where the horse trams trundled across the market was a\nrow of fruit stalls, with fruit blazing in the sun--apples and piles of\nreddish oranges, small green-gage plums and bananas. There was a warm\nscent of fruit as mother and son passed. Gradually his feeling of\nignominy and of rage sank.\n\n\"Where should we go for dinner?\" asked the mother.\n\nIt was felt to be a reckless extravagance. Paul had only been in an\neating-house once or twice in his life, and then only to have a cup of\ntea and a bun. Most of the people of Bestwood considered that tea and\nbread-and-butter, and perhaps potted beef, was all they could afford to\neat in Nottingham. Real cooked dinner was considered great extravagance.\nPaul felt rather guilty.\n\nThey found a place that looked quite cheap. But when Mrs. Morel scanned\nthe bill of fare, her heart was heavy, things were so dear. So she\nordered kidney-pies and potatoes as the cheapest available dish.\n\n\"We oughtn't to have come here, mother,\" said Paul.\n\n\"Never mind,\" she said. \"We won't come again.\"\n\nShe insisted on his having a small currant tart, because he liked\nsweets.\n\n\"I don't want it, mother,\" he pleaded.\n\n\"Yes,\" she insisted; \"you'll have it.\"\n\nAnd she looked round for the waitress. But the waitress was busy, and\nMrs. Morel did not like to bother her then. So the mother and son waited\nfor the girl's pleasure, whilst she flirted among the men.\n\n\"Brazen hussy!\" said Mrs. Morel to Paul. \"Look now, she's taking that\nman HIS pudding, and he came long after us.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter, mother,\" said Paul.\n\nMrs. Morel was angry. But she was too poor, and her orders were too\nmeagre, so that she had not the courage to insist on her rights just\nthen. They waited and waited.\n\n\"Should we go, mother?\" he said.\n\nThen Mrs. Morel stood up. The girl was passing near.\n\n\"Will you bring one currant tart?\" said Mrs. Morel clearly.\n\nThe girl looked round insolently.\n\n\"Directly,\" she said.\n\n\"We have waited quite long enough,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\nIn a moment the girl came back with the tart. Mrs. Morel asked coldly\nfor the bill. Paul wanted to sink through the floor. He marvelled at his\nmother's hardness. He knew that only years of battling had taught her to\ninsist even so little on her rights. She shrank as much as he.\n\n\"It's the last time I go THERE for anything!\" she declared, when they\nwere outside the place, thankful to be clear.\n\n\"We'll go,\" she said, \"and look at Keep's and Boot's, and one or two\nplaces, shall we?\"\n\nThey had discussions over the pictures, and Mrs. Morel wanted to buy\nhim a little sable brush that he hankered after. But this indulgence he\nrefused. He stood in front of milliners' shops and drapers' shops almost\nbored, but content for her to be interested. They wandered on.\n\n\"Now, just look at those black grapes!\" she said. \"They make your mouth\nwater. I've wanted some of those for years, but I s'll have to wait a\nbit before I get them.\"\n\nThen she rejoiced in the florists, standing in the doorway sniffing.\n\n\"Oh! oh! Isn't it simply lovely!\"\n\nPaul saw, in the darkness of the shop, an elegant young lady in black\npeering over the counter curiously.\n\n\"They're looking at you,\" he said, trying to draw his mother away.\n\n\"But what is it?\" she exclaimed, refusing to be moved.\n\n\"Stocks!\" he answered, sniffing hastily. \"Look, there's a tubful.\"\n\n\"So there is--red and white. But really, I never knew stocks to smell\nlike it!\" And, to his great relief, she moved out of the doorway, but\nonly to stand in front of the window.\n\n\"Paul!\" she cried to him, who was trying to get out of sight of the\nelegant young lady in black--the shop-girl. \"Paul! Just look here!\"\n\nHe came reluctantly back.\n\n\"Now, just look at that fuchsia!\" she exclaimed, pointing.\n\n\"H'm!\" He made a curious, interested sound. \"You'd think every second as\nthe flowers was going to fall off, they hang so big an' heavy.\"\n\n\"And such an abundance!\" she cried.\n\n\"And the way they drop downwards with their threads and knots!\"\n\n\"Yes!\" she exclaimed. \"Lovely!\"\n\n\"I wonder who'll buy it!\" he said.\n\n\"I wonder!\" she answered. \"Not us.\"\n\n\"It would die in our parlour.\"\n\n\"Yes, beastly cold, sunless hole; it kills every bit of a plant you put\nin, and the kitchen chokes them to death.\"\n\nThey bought a few things, and set off towards the station. Looking up\nthe canal, through the dark pass of the buildings, they saw the Castle\non its bluff of brown, green-bushed rock, in a positive miracle of\ndelicate sunshine.\n\n\"Won't it be nice for me to come out at dinner-times?\" said Paul. \"I can\ngo all round here and see everything. I s'll love it.\"\n\n\"You will,\" assented his mother.\n\nHe had spent a perfect afternoon with his mother. They arrived home in\nthe mellow evening, happy, and glowing, and tired.\n\nIn the morning he filled in the form for his season-ticket and took it\nto the station. When he got back, his mother was just beginning to wash\nthe floor. He sat crouched up on the sofa.\n\n\"He says it'll be here on Saturday,\" he said.\n\n\"And how much will it be?\"\n\n\"About one pound eleven,\" he said.\n\nShe went on washing her floor in silence.\n\n\"Is it a lot?\" he asked.\n\n\"It's no more than I thought,\" she answered.\n\n\"An' I s'll earn eight shillings a week,\" he said.\n\nShe did not answer, but went on with her work. At last she said:\n\n\"That William promised me, when he went to London, as he'd give me a\npound a month. He has given me ten shillings--twice; and now I know\nhe hasn't a farthing if I asked him. Not that I want it. Only just now\nyou'd think he might be able to help with this ticket, which I'd never\nexpected.\"\n\n\"He earns a lot,\" said Paul.\n\n\"He earns a hundred and thirty pounds. But they're all alike. They're\nlarge in promises, but it's precious little fulfilment you get.\"\n\n\"He spends over fifty shillings a week on himself,\" said Paul.\n\n\"And I keep this house on less than thirty,\" she replied; \"and am\nsupposed to find money for extras. But they don't care about helping\nyou, once they've gone. He'd rather spend it on that dressed-up\ncreature.\"\n\n\"She should have her own money if she's so grand,\" said Paul.\n\n\"She should, but she hasn't. I asked him. And I know he doesn't buy her\na gold bangle for nothing. I wonder whoever bought ME a gold bangle.\"\n\nWilliam was succeeding with his \"Gipsy\", as he called her. He asked the\ngirl--her name was Louisa Lily Denys Western--for a photograph to send\nto his mother. The photo came--a handsome brunette, taken in profile,\nsmirking slightly--and, it might be, quite naked, for on the photograph\nnot a scrap of clothing was to be seen, only a naked bust.\n\n\"Yes,\" wrote Mrs. Morel to her son, \"the photograph of Louie is very\nstriking, and I can see she must be attractive. But do you think, my\nboy, it was very good taste of a girl to give her young man that photo\nto send to his mother--the first? Certainly the shoulders are beautiful,\nas you say. But I hardly expected to see so much of them at the first\nview.\"\n\nMorel found the photograph standing on the chiffonier in the parlour. He\ncame out with it between his thick thumb and finger.\n\n\"Who dost reckon this is?\" he asked of his wife.\n\n\"It's the girl our William is going with,\" replied Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"H'm! 'Er's a bright spark, from th' look on 'er, an' one as wunna do\nhim owermuch good neither. Who is she?\"\n\n\"Her name is Louisa Lily Denys Western.\"\n\n\"An' come again to-morrer!\" exclaimed the miner. \"An' is 'er an\nactress?\"\n\n\"She is not. She's supposed to be a lady.\"\n\n\"I'll bet!\" he exclaimed, still staring at the photo. \"A lady, is she?\nAn' how much does she reckon ter keep up this sort o' game on?\"\n\n\"On nothing. She lives with an old aunt, whom she hates, and takes what\nbit of money's given her.\"\n\n\"H'm!\" said Morel, laying down the photograph. \"Then he's a fool to ha'\nta'en up wi' such a one as that.\"\n\n\"Dear Mater,\" William replied. \"I'm sorry you didn't like the\nphotograph. It never occurred to me when I sent it, that you mightn't\nthink it decent. However, I told Gyp that it didn't quite suit your prim\nand proper notions, so she's going to send you another, that I hope\nwill please you better. She's always being photographed; in fact, the\nphotographers ask her if they may take her for nothing.\"\n\nPresently the new photograph came, with a little silly note from the\ngirl. This time the young lady was seen in a black satin evening bodice,\ncut square, with little puff sleeves, and black lace hanging down her\nbeautiful arms.\n\n\"I wonder if she ever wears anything except evening clothes,\" said Mrs.\nMorel sarcastically. \"I'm sure I ought to be impressed.\"\n\n\"You are disagreeable, mother,\" said Paul. \"I think the first one with\nbare shoulders is lovely.\"\n\n\"Do you?\" answered his mother. \"Well, I don't.\"\n\nOn the Monday morning the boy got up at six to start work. He had the\nseason-ticket, which had cost such bitterness, in his waistcoat pocket.\nHe loved it with its bars of yellow across. His mother packed his dinner\nin a small, shut-up basket, and he set off at a quarter to seven to\ncatch the 7.15 train. Mrs. Morel came to the entry-end to see him off.\n\nIt was a perfect morning. From the ash tree the slender green fruits\nthat the children call \"pigeons\" were twinkling gaily down on a little\nbreeze, into the front gardens of the houses. The valley was full of a\nlustrous dark haze, through which the ripe corn shimmered, and in which\nthe steam from Minton pit melted swiftly. Puffs of wind came. Paul\nlooked over the high woods of Aldersley, where the country gleamed, and\nhome had never pulled at him so powerfully.\n\n\"Good-morning, mother,\" he said, smiling, but feeling very unhappy.\n\n\"Good-morning,\" she replied cheerfully and tenderly.\n\nShe stood in her white apron on the open road, watching him as he\ncrossed the field. He had a small, compact body that looked full of\nlife. She felt, as she saw him trudging over the field, that where he\ndetermined to go he would get. She thought of William. He would have\nleaped the fence instead of going round the stile. He was away in\nLondon, doing well. Paul would be working in Nottingham. Now she had\ntwo sons in the world. She could think of two places, great centres of\nindustry, and feel that she had put a man into each of them, that these\nmen would work out what SHE wanted; they were derived from her, they\nwere of her, and their works also would be hers. All the morning long\nshe thought of Paul.\n\nAt eight o'clock he climbed the dismal stairs of Jordan's Surgical\nAppliance Factory, and stood helplessly against the first great\nparcel-rack, waiting for somebody to pick him up. The place was still\nnot awake. Over the counters were great dust sheets. Two men only had\narrived, and were heard talking in a corner, as they took off their\ncoats and rolled up their shirt-sleeves. It was ten past eight.\nEvidently there was no rush of punctuality. Paul listened to the voices\nof the two clerks. Then he heard someone cough, and saw in the office\nat the end of the room an old, decaying clerk, in a round smoking-cap of\nblack velvet embroidered with red and green, opening letters. He waited\nand waited. One of the junior clerks went to the old man, greeted him\ncheerily and loudly. Evidently the old \"chief\" was deaf. Then the young\nfellow came striding importantly down to his counter. He spied Paul.\n\n\"Hello!\" he said. \"You the new lad?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Paul.\n\n\"H'm! What's your name?\"\n\n\"Paul Morel.\"\n\n\"Paul Morel? All right, you come on round here.\"\n\nPaul followed him round the rectangle of counters. The room was second\nstorey. It had a great hole in the middle of the floor, fenced as with a\nwall of counters, and down this wide shaft the lifts went, and the light\nfor the bottom storey. Also there was a corresponding big, oblong hole\nin the ceiling, and one could see above, over the fence of the top\nfloor, some machinery; and right away overhead was the glass roof, and\nall light for the three storeys came downwards, getting dimmer, so that\nit was always night on the ground floor and rather gloomy on the second\nfloor. The factory was the top floor, the warehouse the second, the\nstorehouse the ground floor. It was an insanitary, ancient place.\n\nPaul was led round to a very dark corner.\n\n\"This is the 'Spiral' corner,\" said the clerk. \"You're Spiral, with\nPappleworth. He's your boss, but he's not come yet. He doesn't get here\ntill half-past eight. So you can fetch the letters, if you like, from\nMr. Melling down there.\"\n\nThe young man pointed to the old clerk in the office.\n\n\"All right,\" said Paul.\n\n\"Here's a peg to hang your cap on. Here are your entry ledgers. Mr.\nPappleworth won't be long.\"\n\nAnd the thin young man stalked away with long, busy strides over the\nhollow wooden floor.\n\nAfter a minute or two Paul went down and stood in the door of the glass\noffice. The old clerk in the smoking-cap looked down over the rim of his\nspectacles.\n\n\"Good-morning,\" he said, kindly and impressively. \"You want the letters\nfor the Spiral department, Thomas?\"\n\nPaul resented being called \"Thomas\". But he took the letters and\nreturned to his dark place, where the counter made an angle, where the\ngreat parcel-rack came to an end, and where there were three doors in\nthe corner. He sat on a high stool and read the letters--those whose\nhandwriting was not too difficult. They ran as follows:\n\n\"Will you please send me at once a pair of lady's silk spiral\nthigh-hose, without feet, such as I had from you last year; length,\nthigh to knee, etc.\" Or, \"Major Chamberlain wishes to repeat his\nprevious order for a silk non-elastic suspensory bandage.\"\n\nMany of these letters, some of them in French or Norwegian, were a great\npuzzle to the boy. He sat on his stool nervously awaiting the arrival\nof his \"boss\". He suffered tortures of shyness when, at half-past eight,\nthe factory girls for upstairs trooped past him.\n\nMr. Pappleworth arrived, chewing a chlorodyne gum, at about twenty to\nnine, when all the other men were at work. He was a thin, sallow man\nwith a red nose, quick, staccato, and smartly but stiffly dressed. He\nwas about thirty-six years old. There was something rather \"doggy\",\nrather smart, rather 'cute and shrewd, and something warm, and something\nslightly contemptible about him.\n\n\"You my new lad?\" he said.\n\nPaul stood up and said he was.\n\n\"Fetched the letters?\"\n\nMr. Pappleworth gave a chew to his gum.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Copied 'em?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, come on then, let's look slippy. Changed your coat?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You want to bring an old coat and leave it here.\" He pronounced the\nlast words with the chlorodyne gum between his side teeth. He vanished\ninto the darkness behind the great parcel-rack, reappeared coatless,\nturning up a smart striped shirt-cuff over a thin and hairy arm. Then\nhe slipped into his coat. Paul noticed how thin he was, and that his\ntrousers were in folds behind. He seized a stool, dragged it beside the\nboy's, and sat down.\n\n\"Sit down,\" he said.\n\nPaul took a seat.\n\nMr. Pappleworth was very close to him. The man seized the letters,\nsnatched a long entry-book out of a rack in front of him, flung it open,\nseized a pen, and said:\n\n\"Now look here. You want to copy these letters in here.\" He sniffed\ntwice, gave a quick chew at his gum, stared fixedly at a letter,\nthen went very still and absorbed, and wrote the entry rapidly, in a\nbeautiful flourishing hand. He glanced quickly at Paul.\n\n\"See that?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Think you can do it all right?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"All right then, let's see you.\"\n\nHe sprang off his stool. Paul took a pen. Mr. Pappleworth disappeared.\nPaul rather liked copying the letters, but he wrote slowly, laboriously,\nand exceedingly badly. He was doing the fourth letter, and feeling quite\nbusy and happy, when Mr. Pappleworth reappeared.\n\n\"Now then, how'r' yer getting on? Done 'em?\"\n\nHe leaned over the boy's shoulder, chewing, and smelling of chlorodyne.\n\n\"Strike my bob, lad, but you're a beautiful writer!\" he exclaimed\nsatirically. \"Ne'er mind, how many h'yer done? Only three! I'd 'a eaten\n'em. Get on, my lad, an' put numbers on 'em. Here, look! Get on!\"\n\nPaul ground away at the letters, whilst Mr. Pappleworth fussed over\nvarious jobs. Suddenly the boy started as a shrill whistle sounded near\nhis ear. Mr. Pappleworth came, took a plug out of a pipe, and said, in\nan amazingly cross and bossy voice:\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nPaul heard a faint voice, like a woman's, out of the mouth of the tube.\nHe gazed in wonder, never having seen a speaking-tube before.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Pappleworth disagreeably into the tube, \"you'd better\nget some of your back work done, then.\"\n\nAgain the woman's tiny voice was heard, sounding pretty and cross.\n\n\"I've not time to stand here while you talk,\" said Mr. Pappleworth, and\nhe pushed the plug into the tube.\n\n\"Come, my lad,\" he said imploringly to Paul, \"there's Polly crying out\nfor them orders. Can't you buck up a bit? Here, come out!\"\n\nHe took the book, to Paul's immense chagrin, and began the copying\nhimself. He worked quickly and well. This done, he seized some strips\nof long yellow paper, about three inches wide, and made out the day's\norders for the work-girls.\n\n\"You'd better watch me,\" he said to Paul, working all the while rapidly.\nPaul watched the weird little drawings of legs, and thighs, and ankles,\nwith the strokes across and the numbers, and the few brief directions\nwhich his chief made upon the yellow paper. Then Mr. Pappleworth\nfinished and jumped up.\n\n\"Come on with me,\" he said, and the yellow papers flying in his hands,\nhe dashed through a door and down some stairs, into the basement where\nthe gas was burning. They crossed the cold, damp storeroom, then a\nlong, dreary room with a long table on trestles, into a smaller, cosy\napartment, not very high, which had been built on to the main building.\nIn this room a small woman with a red serge blouse, and her black hair\ndone on top of her head, was waiting like a proud little bantam.\n\n\"Here y'are!\" said Pappleworth.\n\n\"I think it is 'here you are'!\" exclaimed Polly. \"The girls have been\nhere nearly half an hour waiting. Just think of the time wasted!\"\n\n\"YOU think of getting your work done and not talking so much,\" said Mr.\nPappleworth. \"You could ha' been finishing off.\"\n\n\"You know quite well we finished everything off on Saturday!\" cried\nPony, flying at him, her dark eyes flashing.\n\n\"Tu-tu-tu-tu-terterter!\" he mocked. \"Here's your new lad. Don't ruin him\nas you did the last.\"\n\n\"As we did the last!\" repeated Polly. \"Yes, WE do a lot of ruining, we\ndo. My word, a lad would TAKE some ruining after he'd been with you.\"\n\n\"It's time for work now, not for talk,\" said Mr. Pappleworth severely\nand coldly.\n\n\"It was time for work some time back,\" said Polly, marching away with\nher head in the air. She was an erect little body of forty.\n\nIn that room were two round spiral machines on the bench under the\nwindow. Through the inner doorway was another longer room, with six more\nmachines. A little group of girls, nicely dressed in white aprons, stood\ntalking together.\n\n\"Have you nothing else to do but talk?\" said Mr. Pappleworth.\n\n\"Only wait for you,\" said one handsome girl, laughing.\n\n\"Well, get on, get on,\" he said. \"Come on, my lad. You'll know your road\ndown here again.\"\n\nAnd Paul ran upstairs after his chief. He was given some checking\nand invoicing to do. He stood at the desk, labouring in his execrable\nhandwriting. Presently Mr. Jordan came strutting down from the glass\noffice and stood behind him, to the boy's great discomfort. Suddenly a\nred and fat finger was thrust on the form he was filling in.\n\n\"MR. J. A. Bates, Esquire!\" exclaimed the cross voice just behind his\near.\n\nPaul looked at \"Mr. J. A. Bates, Esquire\" in his own vile writing, and\nwondered what was the matter now.\n\n\"Didn't they teach you any better THAN that while they were at it? If\nyou put 'Mr.' you don't put Esquire'-a man can't be both at once.\"\n\nThe boy regretted his too-much generosity in disposing of honours,\nhesitated, and with trembling fingers, scratched out the \"Mr.\" Then all\nat once Mr. Jordan snatched away the invoice.\n\n\"Make another! Are you going to send that to a gentleman?\" And he tore\nup the blue form irritably.\n\nPaul, his ears red with shame, began again. Still Mr. Jordan watched.\n\n\"I don't know what they DO teach in schools. You'll have to write better\nthan that. Lads learn nothing nowadays, but how to recite poetry\nand play the fiddle. Have you seen his writing?\" he asked of Mr.\nPappleworth.\n\n\"Yes; prime, isn't it?\" replied Mr. Pappleworth indifferently.\n\nMr. Jordan gave a little grunt, not unamiable. Paul divined that his\nmaster's bark was worse than his bite. Indeed, the little manufacturer,\nalthough he spoke bad English, was quite gentleman enough to leave his\nmen alone and to take no notice of trifles. But he knew he did not\nlook like the boss and owner of the show, so he had to play his role of\nproprietor at first, to put things on a right footing.\n\n\"Let's see, WHAT'S your name?\" asked Mr. Pappleworth of the boy.\n\n\"Paul Morel.\"\n\nIt is curious that children suffer so much at having to pronounce their\nown names.\n\n\"Paul Morel, is it? All right, you Paul-Morel through them things there,\nand then--\"\n\nMr. Pappleworth subsided on to a stool, and began writing. A girl came\nup from out of a door just behind, put some newly-pressed elastic web\nappliances on the counter, and returned. Mr. Pappleworth picked up the\nwhitey-blue knee-band, examined it, and its yellow order-paper quickly,\nand put it on one side. Next was a flesh-pink \"leg\". He went through\nthe few things, wrote out a couple of orders, and called to Paul to\naccompany him. This time they went through the door whence the girl had\nemerged. There Paul found himself at the top of a little wooden flight\nof steps, and below him saw a room with windows round two sides, and at\nthe farther end half a dozen girls sitting bending over the benches\nin the light from the window, sewing. They were singing together \"Two\nLittle Girls in Blue\". Hearing the door opened, they all turned round,\nto see Mr. Pappleworth and Paul looking down on them from the far end of\nthe room. They stopped singing.\n\n\"Can't you make a bit less row?\" said Mr. Pappleworth. \"Folk'll think we\nkeep cats.\"\n\nA hunchback woman on a high stool turned her long, rather heavy face\ntowards Mr. Pappleworth, and said, in a contralto voice:\n\n\"They're all tom-cats then.\"\n\nIn vain Mr. Pappleworth tried to be impressive for Paul's benefit.\nHe descended the steps into the finishing-off room, and went to the\nhunchback Fanny. She had such a short body on her high stool that her\nhead, with its great bands of bright brown hair, seemed over large, as\ndid her pale, heavy face. She wore a dress of green-black cashmere, and\nher wrists, coming out of the narrow cuffs, were thin and flat, as she\nput down her work nervously. He showed her something that was wrong with\na knee-cap.\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"you needn't come blaming it on to me. It's not my\nfault.\" Her colour mounted to her cheek.\n\n\"I never said it WAS your fault. Will you do as I tell you?\" replied Mr.\nPappleworth shortly.\n\n\"You don't say it's my fault, but you'd like to make out as it was,\" the\nhunchback woman cried, almost in tears. Then she snatched the knee-cap\nfrom her \"boss\", saying: \"Yes, I'll do it for you, but you needn't be\nsnappy.\"\n\n\"Here's your new lad,\" said Mr. Pappleworth.\n\nFanny turned, smiling very gently on Paul.\n\n\"Oh!\" she said.\n\n\"Yes; don't make a softy of him between you.\"\n\n\"It's not us as 'ud make a softy of him,\" she said indignantly.\n\n\"Come on then, Paul,\" said Mr. Pappleworth.\n\n\"Au revoy, Paul,\" said one of the girls.\n\nThere was a titter of laughter. Paul went out, blushing deeply, not\nhaving spoken a word.\n\nThe day was very long. All morning the work-people were coming to speak\nto Mr. Pappleworth. Paul was writing or learning to make up parcels,\nready for the midday post. At one o'clock, or, rather, at a quarter to\none, Mr. Pappleworth disappeared to catch his train: he lived in the\nsuburbs. At one o'clock, Paul, feeling very lost, took his dinner-basket\ndown into the stockroom in the basement, that had the long table on\ntrestles, and ate his meal hurriedly, alone in that cellar of gloom and\ndesolation. Then he went out of doors. The brightness and the freedom of\nthe streets made him feel adventurous and happy. But at two o'clock\nhe was back in the corner of the big room. Soon the work-girls went\ntrooping past, making remarks. It was the commoner girls who worked\nupstairs at the heavy tasks of truss-making and the finishing of\nartificial limbs. He waited for Mr. Pappleworth, not knowing what to do,\nsitting scribbling on the yellow order-paper. Mr. Pappleworth came at\ntwenty minutes to three. Then he sat and gossiped with Paul, treating\nthe boy entirely as an equal, even in age.\n\nIn the afternoon there was never very much to do, unless it were near\nthe week-end, and the accounts had to be made up. At five o'clock all\nthe men went down into the dungeon with the table on trestles, and there\nthey had tea, eating bread-and-butter on the bare, dirty boards, talking\nwith the same kind of ugly haste and slovenliness with which they ate\ntheir meal. And yet upstairs the atmosphere among them was always jolly\nand clear. The cellar and the trestles affected them.\n\nAfter tea, when all the gases were lighted, WORK went more briskly.\nThere was the big evening post to get off. The hose came up warm and\nnewly pressed from the workrooms. Paul had made out the invoices. Now he\nhad the packing up and addressing to do, then he had to weigh his stock\nof parcels on the scales. Everywhere voices were calling weights, there\nwas the chink of metal, the rapid snapping of string, the hurrying to\nold Mr. Melling for stamps. And at last the postman came with his sack,\nlaughing and jolly. Then everything slacked off, and Paul took his\ndinner-basket and ran to the station to catch the eight-twenty train.\nThe day in the factory was just twelve hours long.\n\nHis mother sat waiting for him rather anxiously. He had to walk from\nKeston, so was not home until about twenty past nine. And he left the\nhouse before seven in the morning. Mrs. Morel was rather anxious about\nhis health. But she herself had had to put up with so much that she\nexpected her children to take the same odds. They must go through with\nwhat came. And Paul stayed at Jordan's, although all the time he was\nthere his health suffered from the darkness and lack of air and the long\nhours.\n\nHe came in pale and tired. His mother looked at him. She saw he was\nrather pleased, and her anxiety all went.\n\n\"Well, and how was it?\" she asked.\n\n\"Ever so funny, mother,\" he replied. \"You don't have to work a bit hard,\nand they're nice with you.\"\n\n\"And did you get on all right?\"\n\n\"Yes: they only say my writing's bad. But Mr. Pappleworth--he's my\nman--said to Mr. Jordan I should be all right. I'm Spiral, mother; you\nmust come and see. It's ever so nice.\"\n\nSoon he liked Jordan's. Mr. Pappleworth, who had a certain \"saloon bar\"\nflavour about him, was always natural, and treated him as if he had been\na comrade. Sometimes the \"Spiral boss\" was irritable, and chewed more\nlozenges than ever. Even then, however, he was not offensive, but one\nof those people who hurt themselves by their own irritability more than\nthey hurt other people.\n\n\"Haven't you done that YET?\" he would cry. \"Go on, be a month of\nSundays.\"\n\nAgain, and Paul could understand him least then, he was jocular and in\nhigh spirits.\n\n\"I'm going to bring my little Yorkshire terrier bitch tomorrow,\" he said\njubilantly to Paul.\n\n\"What's a Yorkshire terrier?\"\n\n\"DON'T know what a Yorkshire terrier is? DON'T KNOW A YORKSHIRE--\" Mr.\nPappleworth was aghast.\n\n\"Is it a little silky one--colours of iron and rusty silver?\"\n\n\"THAT'S it, my lad. She's a gem. She's had five pounds' worth of pups\nalready, and she's worth over seven pounds herself; and she doesn't\nweigh twenty ounces.\"\n\nThe next day the bitch came. She was a shivering, miserable morsel. Paul\ndid not care for her; she seemed so like a wet rag that would never\ndry. Then a man called for her, and began to make coarse jokes. But Mr.\nPappleworth nodded his head in the direction of the boy, and the talk\nwent on _sotto voce_.\n\nMr. Jordan only made one more excursion to watch Paul, and then the only\nfault he found was seeing the boy lay his pen on the counter.\n\n\"Put your pen in your ear, if you're going to be a clerk. Pen in your\near!\" And one day he said to the lad: \"Why don't you hold your shoulders\nstraighter? Come down here,\" when he took him into the glass office and\nfitted him with special braces for keeping the shoulders square.\n\nBut Paul liked the girls best. The men seemed common and rather dull.\nHe liked them all, but they were uninteresting. Polly, the little brisk\noverseer downstairs, finding Paul eating in the cellar, asked him if she\ncould cook him anything on her little stove. Next day his mother gave\nhim a dish that could be heated up. He took it into the pleasant, clean\nroom to Polly. And very soon it grew to be an established custom that he\nshould have dinner with her. When he came in at eight in the morning he\ntook his basket to her, and when he came down at one o'clock she had his\ndinner ready.\n\nHe was not very tall, and pale, with thick chestnut hair, irregular\nfeatures, and a wide, full mouth. She was like a small bird. He often\ncalled her a \"robinet\". Though naturally rather quiet, he would sit and\nchatter with her for hours telling her about his home. The girls all\nliked to hear him talk. They often gathered in a little circle while he\nsat on a bench, and held forth to them, laughing. Some of them regarded\nhim as a curious little creature, so serious, yet so bright and jolly,\nand always so delicate in his way with them. They all liked him, and he\nadored them. Polly he felt he belonged to. Then Connie, with her mane of\nred hair, her face of apple-blossom, her murmuring voice, such a lady in\nher shabby black frock, appealed to his romantic side.\n\n\"When you sit winding,\" he said, \"it looks as if you were spinning at\na spinning-wheel--it looks ever so nice. You remind me of Elaine in the\n'Idylls of the King'. I'd draw you if I could.\"\n\nAnd she glanced at him blushing shyly. And later on he had a sketch\nhe prized very much: Connie sitting on the stool before the wheel, her\nflowing mane of red hair on her rusty black frock, her red mouth shut\nand serious, running the scarlet thread off the hank on to the reel.\n\nWith Louie, handsome and brazen, who always seemed to thrust her hip at\nhim, he usually joked.\n\nEmma was rather plain, rather old, and condescending. But to condescend\nto him made her happy, and he did not mind.\n\n\"How do you put needles in?\" he asked.\n\n\"Go away and don't bother.\"\n\n\"But I ought to know how to put needles in.\"\n\nShe ground at her machine all the while steadily.\n\n\"There are many things you ought to know,\" she replied.\n\n\"Tell me, then, how to stick needles in the machine.\"\n\n\"Oh, the boy, what a nuisance he is! Why, THIS is how you do it.\"\n\nHe watched her attentively. Suddenly a whistle piped. Then Polly\nappeared, and said in a clear voice:\n\n\"Mr. Pappleworth wants to know how much longer you're going to be down\nhere playing with the girls, Paul.\"\n\nPaul flew upstairs, calling \"Good-bye!\" and Emma drew herself up.\n\n\"It wasn't ME who wanted him to play with the machine,\" she said.\n\nAs a rule, when all the girls came back at two o'clock, he ran upstairs\nto Fanny, the hunchback, in the finishing-off room. Mr. Pappleworth\ndid not appear till twenty to three, and he often found his boy sitting\nbeside Fanny, talking, or drawing, or singing with the girls.\n\nOften, after a minute's hesitation, Fanny would begin to sing. She had a\nfine contralto voice. Everybody joined in the chorus, and it went well.\nPaul was not at all embarrassed, after a while, sitting in the room with\nthe half a dozen work-girls.\n\nAt the end of the song Fanny would say:\n\n\"I know you've been laughing at me.\"\n\n\"Don't be so soft, Fanny!\" cried one of the girls.\n\nOnce there was mention of Connie's red hair.\n\n\"Fanny's is better, to my fancy,\" said Emma.\n\n\"You needn't try to make a fool of me,\" said Fanny, flushing deeply.\n\n\"No, but she has, Paul; she's got beautiful hair.\"\n\n\"It's a treat of a colour,\" said he. \"That coldish colour like earth,\nand yet shiny. It's like bog-water.\"\n\n\"Goodness me!\" exclaimed one girl, laughing.\n\n\"How I do but get criticised,\" said Fanny.\n\n\"But you should see it down, Paul,\" cried Emma earnestly. \"It's simply\nbeautiful. Put it down for him, Fanny, if he wants something to paint.\"\n\nFanny would not, and yet she wanted to.\n\n\"Then I'll take it down myself,\" said the lad.\n\n\"Well, you can if you like,\" said Fanny.\n\nAnd he carefully took the pins out of the knot, and the rush of hair, of\nuniform dark brown, slid over the humped back.\n\n\"What a lovely lot!\" he exclaimed.\n\nThe girls watched. There was silence. The youth shook the hair loose\nfrom the coil.\n\n\"It's splendid!\" he said, smelling its perfume. \"I'll bet it's worth\npounds.\"\n\n\"I'll leave it you when I die, Paul,\" said Fanny, half joking.\n\n\"You look just like anybody else, sitting drying their hair,\" said one\nof the girls to the long-legged hunchback.\n\nPoor Fanny was morbidly sensitive, always imagining insults. Polly was\ncurt and businesslike. The two departments were for ever at war, and\nPaul was always finding Fanny in tears. Then he was made the recipient\nof all her woes, and he had to plead her case with Polly.\n\nSo the time went along happily enough. The factory had a homely feel.\nNo one was rushed or driven. Paul always enjoyed it when the work got\nfaster, towards post-time, and all the men united in labour. He liked to\nwatch his fellow-clerks at work. The man was the work and the work was\nthe man, one thing, for the time being. It was different with the girls.\nThe real woman never seemed to be there at the task, but as if left out,\nwaiting.\n\nFrom the train going home at night he used to watch the lights of the\ntown, sprinkled thick on the hills, fusing together in a blaze in the\nvalleys. He felt rich in life and happy. Drawing farther off, there was\na patch of lights at Bulwell like myriad petals shaken to the ground\nfrom the shed stars; and beyond was the red glare of the furnaces,\nplaying like hot breath on the clouds.\n\nHe had to walk two and more miles from Keston home, up two long hills,\ndown two short hills. He was often tired, and he counted the lamps\nclimbing the hill above him, how many more to pass. And from the\nhilltop, on pitch-dark nights, he looked round on the villages five\nor six miles away, that shone like swarms of glittering living things,\nalmost a heaven against his feet. Marlpool and Heanor scattered the\nfar-off darkness with brilliance. And occasionally the black valley\nspace between was traced, violated by a great train rushing south to\nLondon or north to Scotland. The trains roared by like projectiles level\non the darkness, fuming and burning, making the valley clang with\ntheir passage. They were gone, and the lights of the towns and villages\nglittered in silence.\n\nAnd then he came to the corner at home, which faced the other side\nof the night. The ash-tree seemed a friend now. His mother rose with\ngladness as he entered. He put his eight shillings proudly on the table.\n\n\"It'll help, mother?\" he asked wistfully.\n\n\"There's precious little left,\" she answered, \"after your ticket and\ndinners and such are taken off.\"\n\nThen he told her the budget of the day. His life-story, like an Arabian\nNights, was told night after night to his mother. It was almost as if it\nwere her own life.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nDEATH IN THE FAMILY\n\nARTHUR MOREL was growing up. He was a quick, careless, impulsive boy, a\ngood deal like his father. He hated study, made a great moan if he had\nto work, and escaped as soon as possible to his sport again.\n\nIn appearance he remained the flower of the family, being well made,\ngraceful, and full of life. His dark brown hair and fresh colouring, and\nhis exquisite dark blue eyes shaded with long lashes, together with his\ngenerous manner and fiery temper, made him a favourite. But as he grew\nolder his temper became uncertain. He flew into rages over nothing,\nseemed unbearably raw and irritable.\n\nHis mother, whom he loved, wearied of him sometimes. He thought only of\nhimself. When he wanted amusement, all that stood in his way he\nhated, even if it were she. When he was in trouble he moaned to her\nceaselessly.\n\n\"Goodness, boy!\" she said, when he groaned about a master who, he said,\nhated him, \"if you don't like it, alter it, and if you can't alter it,\nput up with it.\"\n\nAnd his father, whom he had loved and who had worshipped him, he came\nto detest. As he grew older Morel fell into a slow ruin. His body, which\nhad been beautiful in movement and in being, shrank, did not seem to\nripen with the years, but to get mean and rather despicable. There came\nover him a look of meanness and of paltriness. And when the mean-looking\nelderly man bullied or ordered the boy about, Arthur was furious.\nMoreover, Morel's manners got worse and worse, his habits somewhat\ndisgusting. When the children were growing up and in the crucial stage\nof adolescence, the father was like some ugly irritant to their souls.\nHis manners in the house were the same as he used among the colliers\ndown pit.\n\n\"Dirty nuisance!\" Arthur would cry, jumping up and going straight out\nof the house when his father disgusted him. And Morel persisted the more\nbecause his children hated it. He seemed to take a kind of satisfaction\nin disgusting them, and driving them nearly mad, while they were so\nirritably sensitive at the age of fourteen or fifteen. So that Arthur,\nwho was growing up when his father was degenerate and elderly, hated him\nworst of all.\n\nThen, sometimes, the father would seem to feel the contemptuous hatred\nof his children.\n\n\"There's not a man tries harder for his family!\" he would shout. \"He\ndoes his best for them, and then gets treated like a dog. But I'm not\ngoing to stand it, I tell you!\"\n\nBut for the threat and the fact that he did not try so hard as he\nimagined, they would have felt sorry. As it was, the battle now went on\nnearly all between father and children, he persisting in his dirty and\ndisgusting ways, just to assert his independence. They loathed him.\n\nArthur was so inflamed and irritable at last, that when he won a\nscholarship for the Grammar School in Nottingham, his mother decided\nto let him live in town, with one of her sisters, and only come home at\nweek-ends.\n\nAnnie was still a junior teacher in the Board-school, earning about four\nshillings a week. But soon she would have fifteen shillings, since she\nhad passed her examination, and there would be financial peace in the\nhouse.\n\nMrs. Morel clung now to Paul. He was quiet and not brilliant. But still\nhe stuck to his painting, and still he stuck to his mother. Everything\nhe did was for her. She waited for his coming home in the evening, and\nthen she unburdened herself of all she had pondered, or of all that\nhad occurred to her during the day. He sat and listened with his\nearnestness. The two shared lives.\n\nWilliam was engaged now to his brunette, and had bought her an\nengagement ring that cost eight guineas. The children gasped at such a\nfabulous price.\n\n\"Eight guineas!\" said Morel. \"More fool him! If he'd gen me some on't,\nit 'ud ha' looked better on 'im.\"\n\n\"Given YOU some of it!\" cried Mrs. Morel. \"Why give YOU some of it!\"\n\nShe remembered HE had bought no engagement ring at all, and she\npreferred William, who was not mean, if he were foolish. But now the\nyoung man talked only of the dances to which he went with his betrothed,\nand the different resplendent clothes she wore; or he told his mother\nwith glee how they went to the theatre like great swells.\n\nHe wanted to bring the girl home. Mrs. Morel said she should come at the\nChristmas. This time William arrived with a lady, but with no presents.\nMrs. Morel had prepared supper. Hearing footsteps, she rose and went to\nthe door. William entered.\n\n\"Hello, mother!\" He kissed her hastily, then stood aside to present a\ntall, handsome girl, who was wearing a costume of fine black-and-white\ncheck, and furs.\n\n\"Here's Gyp!\"\n\nMiss Western held out her hand and showed her teeth in a small smile.\n\n\"Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Morel!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"I am afraid you will be hungry,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Oh no, we had dinner in the train. Have you got my gloves, Chubby?\"\n\nWilliam Morel, big and raw-boned, looked at her quickly.\n\n\"How should I?\" he said.\n\n\"Then I've lost them. Don't be cross with me.\"\n\nA frown went over his face, but he said nothing. She glanced round\nthe kitchen. It was small and curious to her, with its glittering\nkissing-bunch, its evergreens behind the pictures, its wooden chairs and\nlittle deal table. At that moment Morel came in.\n\n\"Hello, dad!\"\n\n\"Hello, my son! Tha's let on me!\"\n\nThe two shook hands, and William presented the lady. She gave the same\nsmile that showed her teeth.\n\n\"How do you do, Mr. Morel?\"\n\nMorel bowed obsequiously.\n\n\"I'm very well, and I hope so are you. You must make yourself very\nwelcome.\"\n\n\"Oh, thank you,\" she replied, rather amused.\n\n\"You will like to go upstairs,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"If you don't mind; but not if it is any trouble to you.\"\n\n\"It is no trouble. Annie will take you. Walter, carry up this box.\"\n\n\"And don't be an hour dressing yourself up,\" said William to his\nbetrothed.\n\nAnnie took a brass candlestick, and, too shy almost to speak, preceded\nthe young lady to the front bedroom, which Mr. and Mrs. Morel had\nvacated for her. It, too, was small and cold by candlelight. The\ncolliers' wives only lit fires in bedrooms in case of extreme illness.\n\n\"Shall I unstrap the box?\" asked Annie.\n\n\"Oh, thank you very much!\"\n\nAnnie played the part of maid, then went downstairs for hot water.\n\n\"I think she's rather tired, mother,\" said William. \"It's a beastly\njourney, and we had such a rush.\"\n\n\"Is there anything I can give her?\" asked Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Oh no, she'll be all right.\"\n\nBut there was a chill in the atmosphere. After half an hour Miss Western\ncame down, having put on a purplish- dress, very fine for the\ncollier's kitchen.\n\n\"I told you you'd no need to change,\" said William to her.\n\n\"Oh, Chubby!\" Then she turned with that sweetish smile to Mrs. Morel.\n\"Don't you think he's always grumbling, Mrs. Morel?\"\n\n\"Is he?\" said Mrs. Morel. \"That's not very nice of him.\"\n\n\"It isn't, really!\"\n\n\"You are cold,\" said the mother. \"Won't you come near the fire?\"\n\nMorel jumped out of his armchair.\n\n\"Come and sit you here!\" he cried. \"Come and sit you here!\"\n\n\"No, dad, keep your own chair. Sit on the sofa, Gyp,\" said William.\n\n\"No, no!\" cried Morel. \"This cheer's warmest. Come and sit here, Miss\nWesson.\"\n\n\"Thank you so much,\" said the girl, seating herself in the collier's\narmchair, the place of honour. She shivered, feeling the warmth of the\nkitchen penetrate her.\n\n\"Fetch me a hanky, Chubby dear!\" she said, putting up her mouth to him,\nand using the same intimate tone as if they were alone; which made the\nrest of the family feel as if they ought not to be present. The young\nlady evidently did not realise them as people: they were creatures to\nher for the present. William winced.\n\nIn such a household, in Streatham, Miss Western would have been a lady\ncondescending to her inferiors. These people were to her, certainly\nclownish--in short, the working classes. How was she to adjust herself?\n\n\"I'll go,\" said Annie.\n\nMiss Western took no notice, as if a servant had spoken. But when the\ngirl came downstairs again with the handkerchief, she said: \"Oh, thank\nyou!\" in a gracious way.\n\nShe sat and talked about the dinner on the train, which had been so\npoor; about London, about dances. She was really very nervous, and\nchattered from fear. Morel sat all the time smoking his thick twist\ntobacco, watching her, and listening to her glib London speech, as he\npuffed. Mrs. Morel, dressed up in her best black silk blouse, answered\nquietly and rather briefly. The three children sat round in silence and\nadmiration. Miss Western was the princess. Everything of the best was\ngot out for her: the best cups, the best spoons, the best table cloth,\nthe best coffee-jug. The children thought she must find it quite grand.\nShe felt strange, not able to realise the people, not knowing how to\ntreat them. William joked, and was slightly uncomfortable.\n\nAt about ten o'clock he said to her:\n\n\"Aren't you tired, Gyp?\"\n\n\"Rather, Chubby,\" she answered, at once in the intimate tones and\nputting her head slightly on one side.\n\n\"I'll light her the candle, mother,\" he said.\n\n\"Very well,\" replied the mother.\n\nMiss Western stood up, held out her hand to Mrs. Morel.\n\n\"Good-night, Mrs. Morel,\" she said.\n\nPaul sat at the boiler, letting the water run from the tap into a stone\nbeer-bottle. Annie swathed the bottle in an old flannel pit-singlet, and\nkissed her mother good-night. She was to share the room with the lady,\nbecause the house was full.\n\n\"You wait a minute,\" said Mrs. Morel to Annie. And Annie sat nursing\nthe hot-water bottle. Miss Western shook hands all round, to everybody's\ndiscomfort, and took her departure, preceded by William. In five minutes\nhe was downstairs again. His heart was rather sore; he did not know why.\nHe talked very little till everybody had gone to bed, but himself and\nhis mother. Then he stood with his legs apart, in his old attitude on\nthe hearthrug, and said hesitatingly:\n\n\"Well, mother?\"\n\n\"Well, my son?\"\n\nShe sat in the rocking-chair, feeling somehow hurt and humiliated, for\nhis sake.\n\n\"Do you like her?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" came the slow answer.\n\n\"She's shy yet, mother. She's not used to it. It's different from her\naunt's house, you know.\"\n\n\"Of course it is, my boy; and she must find it difficult.\"\n\n\"She does.\" Then he frowned swiftly. \"If only she wouldn't put on her\nBLESSED airs!\"\n\n\"It's only her first awkwardness, my boy. She'll be all right.\"\n\n\"That's it, mother,\" he replied gratefully. But his brow was gloomy.\n\"You know, she's not like you, mother. She's not serious, and she can't\nthink.\"\n\n\"She's young, my boy.\"\n\n\"Yes; and she's had no sort of show. Her mother died when she was a\nchild. Since then she's lived with her aunt, whom she can't bear. And\nher father was a rake. She's had no love.\"\n\n\"No! Well, you must make up to her.\"\n\n\"And so--you have to forgive her a lot of things.\"\n\n\"WHAT do you have to forgive her, my boy?\"\n\n\"I dunno. When she seems shallow, you have to remember she's never had\nanybody to bring her deeper side out. And she's FEARFULLY fond of me.\"\n\n\"Anybody can see that.\"\n\n\"But you know, mother--she's--she's different from us. Those sort of\npeople, like those she lives amongst, they don't seem to have the same\nprinciples.\"\n\n\"You mustn't judge too hastily,\" said Mrs. Morel.\n\nBut he seemed uneasy within himself.\n\nIn the morning, however, he was up singing and larking round the house.\n\n\"Hello!\" he called, sitting on the stairs. \"Are you getting up?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" her voice called faintly.\n\n\"Merry Christmas!\" he shouted to her.\n\nHer laugh, pretty and tinkling, was heard in the bedroom. She did not\ncome down in half an hour.\n\n\"Was she REALLY getting up when she said she was?\" he asked of Annie.\n\n\"Yes, she was,\" replied Annie.\n\nHe waited a while, then went to the stairs again.\n\n\"Happy New Year,\" he called.\n\n\"Thank you, Chubby dear!\" came the laughing voice, far away.\n\n\"Buck up!\" he implored.\n\nIt was nearly an hour, and still he was waiting for her. Morel, who\nalways rose before six, looked at the clock.\n\n\"Well, it's a winder!\" he exclaimed.\n\nThe family had breakfasted, all but William. He went to the foot of the\nstairs.\n\n\"Shall I have to send you an Easter egg up there?\" he called, rather\ncrossly. She only laughed. The family expected, after that time of\npreparation, something like magic. At last she came, looking very nice\nin a blouse and skirt.\n\n\"Have you REALLY been all this time getting ready?\" he asked.\n\n\"Chubby dear! That question is not permitted, is it, Mrs. Morel?\"\n\nShe played the grand lady at first. When she went with William\nto chapel, he in his frock-coat and silk hat, she in her furs and\nLondon-made costume, Paul and Arthur and Annie expected everybody to bow\nto the ground in admiration. And Morel, standing in his Sunday suit\nat the end of the road, watching the gallant pair go, felt he was the\nfather of princes and princesses.\n\nAnd yet she was not so grand. For a year now she had been a sort of\nsecretary or clerk in a London office. But while she was with the Morels\nshe queened it. She sat and let Annie or Paul wait on her as if they\nwere her servants. She treated Mrs. Morel with a certain glibness and\nMorel with patronage. But after a day or so she began to change her\ntune.\n\nWilliam always wanted Paul or Annie to go along with them on their\nwalks. It was so much more interesting. And Paul really DID admire\n\"Gipsy\" wholeheartedly; in fact, his mother scarcely forgave the boy for\nthe adulation with which he treated the girl.\n\nOn the second day, when Lily said: \"Oh, Annie, do you know where I left\nmy muff?\" William replied:\n\n\"You know it is in your bedroom. Why do you ask Annie?\"\n\nAnd Lily went upstairs with a cross, shut mouth. But it angered the\nyoung man that she made a servant of his sister.\n\nOn the third evening William and Lily were sitting together in the\nparlour by the fire in the dark. At a quarter to eleven Mrs. Morel was\nheard raking the fire. William came out to the kitchen, followed by his\nbeloved.\n\n\"Is it as late as that, mother?\" he said. She had been sitting alone.\n\n\"It is not LATE, my boy, but it is as late as I usually sit up.\"\n\n\"Won't you go to bed, then?\" he asked.\n\n\"And leave you two? No, my boy, I don't believe in it.\"\n\n\"Can't you trust us, mother?\"\n\n\"Whether I can or not, I won't do it. You can stay till eleven if you\nlike, and I can read.\"\n\n\"Go to bed, Gyp,\" he said to his girl. \"We won't keep mater waiting.\"\n\n\"Annie has left the candle burning, Lily,\" said Mrs. Morel; \"I think you\nwill see.\"\n\n\"Yes, thank you. Good-night, Mrs. Morel.\"\n\nWilliam kissed his sweetheart at the foot of the stairs, and she went\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}
{"id": "pg19_003", "title": "Marriage by H. G. Wells", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35338", "tokens": 65536, "chars": 274685, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST\n\nA DAY WITH THE POPES\n\n\nSec. 1\n\nAn extremely pretty girl occupied a second-class compartment in one of\nthose trains which percolate through the rural tranquillities of middle\nEngland from Ganford in Oxfordshire to Rumbold Junction in Kent. She was\ngoing to join her family at Buryhamstreet after a visit to some\nGloucestershire friends. Her father, Mr. Pope, once a leader in the\ncoach-building world and now by retirement a gentleman, had taken the\nBuryhamstreet vicarage furnished for two months (beginning on the\nfifteenth of July) at his maximum summer rental of seven guineas a week.\nHis daughter was on her way to this retreat.\n\nAt first she had been an animated traveller, erect and keenly regardful\nof every detail upon the platforms of the stations at which her\nconveyance lingered, but the tedium of the journey and the warmth of the\nsunny afternoon had relaxed her pose by imperceptible degrees, and she\nsat now comfortably in the corner, with her neat toes upon the seat\nbefore her, ready to drop them primly at the first sign of a\nfellow-traveller. Her expression lapsed more and more towards an almost\nsomnolent reverie. She wished she had not taken a second-class ticket,\nbecause then she might have afforded a cup of tea at Reading, and so\nfortified herself against this insinuating indolence.\n\nShe was travelling second class, instead of third as she ought to have\ndone, through one of those lapses so inevitable to young people in her\nposition. The two Carmel boys and a cousin, two greyhounds and a chow\nhad come to see her off; they had made a brilliant and prosperous group\non the platform and extorted the manifest admiration of two youthful\nporters, and it had been altogether too much for Marjorie Pope to admit\nit was the family custom--except when her father's nerves had to be\nconsidered--to go third class. So she had made a hasty calculation--she\nknew her balance to a penny because of the recent tipping--and found it\nwould just run to it. Fourpence remained,--and there would be a porter\nat Buryhamstreet!\n\nHer mother had said: \"You will have Ample.\" Well, opinions of amplitude\nvary. With numerous details fresh in her mind, Marjorie decided it would\nbe wiser to avoid financial discussion during her first few days at\nBuryhamstreet.\n\nThere was much in Marjorie's equipment in the key of travelling second\nclass at the sacrifice of afternoon tea. There was, for example, a\ncertain quiet goodness of style about her clothes, though the skirt\nbetrayed age, and an entire absence of style about her luggage, which\nwas all in the compartment with her, and which consisted of a distended\nhold-all, a very good tennis racquet in a stretcher, a portmanteau of\ncheap white basketwork held together by straps, and a very new,\nexpensive-looking and meretricious dressing-bag of imitation morocco,\nwhich had been one of her chief financial errors at Oxbridge. The\ncollection was eloquent indeed of incompatible standards....\n\nMarjorie had a chin that was small in size if resolute in form, and a\nmouth that was not noticeably soft and weak because it was conspicuously\nsoft and pretty. Her nose was delicately aquiline and very subtly and\nfinely modelled, and she looked out upon the world with steady,\ngrey-blue eyes beneath broad, level brows that contradicted in a large\nmeasure the hint of weakness below. She had an abundance of copper-red\nhair, which flowed back very prettily from her broad, low forehead and\nover her delicate ears, and she had that warm-tinted clear skin that\ngoes so well with reddish hair. She had a very dainty neck, and the long\nslender lines of her body were full of the promise of a riper beauty.\nShe had the good open shoulders of a tennis-player and a swimmer. Some\nday she was to be a tall, ruddy, beautiful woman. She wore simple\nclothes of silvery grey and soft green, and about her waist was a belt\nof grey leather in which there now wilted two creamy-petalled roses.\n\nThat was the visible Marjorie. Somewhere out of time and space was an\ninvisible Marjorie who looked out on the world with those steady eyes,\nand smiled or drooped with the soft red lips, and dreamt, and wondered,\nand desired.\n\n\nSec. 2\n\nWhat a queer thing the invisible human being would appear if, by some\ndiscovery as yet inconceivable, some spiritual X-ray photography, we\ncould flash it into sight! Long ago I read a book called \"Soul Shapes\"\nthat was full of ingenious ideas, but I doubt very much if the thing so\nrevealed would have any shape, any abiding solid outline at all. It is\nsomething more fluctuating and discursive than that--at any rate, for\nevery one young enough not to have set and hardened. Things come into\nit and become it, things drift out of it and cease to be it, things turn\nupside down in it and change and colour and dissolve, and grow and eddy\nabout and blend into each other. One might figure it, I suppose, as a\npreposterous jumble animated by a will; a floundering disconnectedness\nthrough which an old hump of impulse rises and thrusts unaccountably; a\nriver beast of purpose wallowing in a back eddy of mud and weeds and\nfloating objects and creatures drowned. Now the sunshine of gladness\nmakes it all vivid, now it is sombre and grimly insistent under the sky\nof some darkling mood, now an emotional gale sweeps across it and it is\none confused agitation....\n\nAnd surely these invisible selves of men were never so jumbled, so\ncrowded, complicated, and stirred about as they are at the present time.\nOnce I am told they had a sort of order, were sphered in religious\nbeliefs, crystal clear, were arranged in a cosmogony that fitted them as\nhand fits glove, were separated by definite standards of right and wrong\nwhich presented life as planned in all its essential aspects from the\ncradle to the grave. Things are so no longer. That sphere is broken for\nmost of us; even if it is tied about and mended again, it is burst like\na seed case; things have fallen out and things have fallen in....\n\nCan I convey in any measure how it was with Marjorie?\n\nWhat was her religion?\n\nIn college forms and returns, and suchlike documents, she would describe\nherself as \"Church of England.\" She had been baptized according to the\nusages of that body, but she had hitherto evaded confirmation into it,\nand although it is a large, wealthy, and powerful organization with\nmany minds to serve it, it had never succeeded in getting into her quick\nand apprehensive intelligence any lucid and persuasive conception of\nwhat it considered God and the universe were up to with her. It had\nfailed to catch her attention and state itself to her. A number of\nhumorous and other writers and the general trend of talk around her, and\nperhaps her own shrewd little observation of superficial things, had, on\nthe other hand, created a fairly definite belief in her that it wasn't\nas a matter of fact up to very much at all, that what it said wasn't\nsaid with that absolute honesty which is a logical necessity in every\nreligious authority, and that its hierarchy had all sorts of political\nand social considerations confusing its treatment of her immortal\nsoul....\n\nMarjorie followed her father in abstaining from church. He too professed\nhimself \"Church of England,\" but he was, if we are to set aside merely\nsuperficial classifications, an irascible atheist with a respect for\nusage and Good Taste, and an abject fear of the disapproval of other\ngentlemen of his class. For the rest he secretly disliked clergymen on\naccount of the peculiarity of their collars, and a certain influence\nthey had with women. When Marjorie at the age of fourteen had displayed\na hankering after ecclesiastical ceremony and emotional religion, he had\ndeclared: \"We don't want any of _that_ nonsense,\" and sent her into the\ncountry to a farm where there were young calves and a bottle-fed lamb\nand kittens. At times her mother went to church and displayed\nconsiderable orthodoxy and punctilio, at times the good lady didn't, and\nat times she thought in a broad-minded way that there was a Lot in\nChristian Science, and subjected herself to the ministrations of an\nAmerican named Silas Root. But his ministrations were too expensive for\ncontinuous use, and so the old faith did not lose its hold upon the\nfamily altogether.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt school Marjorie had been taught what I may best describe as Muffled\nChristianity--a temperate and discreet system designed primarily not to\nirritate parents, in which the painful symbol of the crucifixion and the\nriddle of what Salvation was to save her from, and, indeed, the coarser\naspects of religion generally, were entirely subordinate to images of\namiable perambulations, and a rich mist of finer feelings. She had been\nshielded, not only from arguments against her religion, but from\narguments for it--the two things go together--and I do not think it was\nparticularly her fault if she was now growing up like the great majority\nof respectable English people, with her religious faculty as it were,\nartificially faded, and an acquired disposition to regard any\nspeculation of why she was, and whence and whither, as rather foolish,\nnot very important, and in the very worst possible taste.\n\nAnd so, the crystal globe being broken which once held souls together,\nyou may expect to find her a little dispersed and inconsistent in her\nmotives, and with none of that assurance a simpler age possessed of the\nexact specification of goodness or badness, the exact delimitation of\nright and wrong. Indeed, she did not live in a world of right and wrong,\nor anything so stern; \"horrid\" and \"jolly\" had replaced these archaic\norientations. In a world where a mercantile gentility has conquered\npassion and God is neither blasphemed nor adored, there necessarily\narises this generation of young people, a little perplexed, indeed, and\nwith a sense of something missing, but feeling their way inevitably at\nlast to the great releasing question, \"Then why shouldn't we have a\ngood time?\"\n\nYet there was something in Marjorie, as in most human beings, that\ndemanded some general idea, some aim, to hold her life together. A girl\nupon the borders of her set at college was fond of the phrase \"living\nfor the moment,\" and Marjorie associated with it the speaker's lax\nmouth, sloe-like eyes, soft, quick-flushing, boneless face, and a habit\nof squawking and bouncing in a forced and graceless manner. Marjorie's\nnatural disposition was to deal with life in a steadier spirit than\nthat. Yet all sorts of powers and forces were at work in her, some\nexalted, some elvish, some vulgar, some subtle. She felt keenly and\ndesired strongly, and in effect she came perhaps nearer the realization\nof that offending phrase than its original exponent. She had a clean\nintensity of feeling that made her delight in a thousand various things,\nin sunlight and textures, and the vividly quick acts of animals, in\nlandscape, and the beauty of other girls, in wit, and people's voices,\nand good strong reasoning, and the desire and skill of art. She had a\nclear, rapid memory that made her excel perhaps a little too easily at\nschool and college, an eagerness of sympathetic interest that won people\nvery quickly and led to disappointments, and a very strong sense of the\nprimary importance of Miss Marjorie Pope in the world. And when any very\ndefinite dream of what she would like to be and what she would like to\ndo, such as being the principal of a ladies' college, or the first woman\nmember of Parliament, or the wife of a barbaric chief in Borneo, or a\ngreat explorer, or the wife of a millionaire and a great social leader,\nor George Sand, or Saint Teresa, had had possession of her imagination\nfor a few weeks, an entirely contrasted and equally attractive dream\nwould presently arise beside it and compete with it and replace it. It\nwasn't so much that she turned against the old one as that she was\nattracted by the new, and she forgot the old dream rather than abandoned\nit, simply because she was only one person, and hadn't therefore the\npossibility of realizing both.\n\nIn certain types Marjorie's impressionability aroused a passion of\nproselytism. People of the most diverse kinds sought to influence her,\nand they invariably did so. Quite a number of people, including her\nmother and the principal of her college, believed themselves to be the\nleading influence in her life. And this was particularly the case with\nher aunt Plessington. Her aunt Plessington was devoted to social and\npolitical work of an austere and aggressive sort (in which Mr.\nPlessington participated); she was childless, and had a Movement of her\nown, the Good Habits Movement, a progressive movement of the utmost\nscope and benevolence which aimed at extensive interferences with the\nfood and domestic intimacies of the more defenceless lower classes by\nmeans ultimately of legislation, and she had Marjorie up to see her,\ntook her for long walks while she influenced with earnestness and\nvigour, and at times had an air of bequeathing her mantle, movement and\neverything, quite definitely to her \"little Madge.\" She spoke of\ntraining her niece to succeed her, and bought all the novels of Mrs.\nHumphry Ward for her as they appeared, in the hope of quickening in her\nthat flame of politico-social ambition, that insatiable craving for\ndinner-parties with important guests, which is so distinctive of the\nmore influential variety of English womanhood. It was due rather to her\nown habit of monologue than to any reserve on the part of Marjorie that\nshe entertained the belief that her niece was entirely acquiescent in\nthese projects. They went into Marjorie's mind and passed. For nearly a\nweek, it is true, she had dramatized herself as the angel and\ninspiration of some great modern statesman, but this had been ousted by\na far more insistent dream, begotten by a picture she had seen in some\nexhibition, of a life of careless savagery, whose central and constantly\nrecurrent incident was the riding of barebacked horses out of\ndeep-shadowed forest into a foamy sunlit sea--in a costume that would\ncertainly have struck Aunt Plessington as a mistake.\n\nIf you could have seen Marjorie in her railway compartment, with the\nsunshine, sunshine mottled by the dirty window, tangled in her hair and\ncreeping to and fro over her face as the train followed the curves of\nthe line, you would certainly have agreed with me that she was pretty,\nand you might even have thought her beautiful. But it was necessary to\nfall in love with Marjorie before you could find her absolutely\nbeautiful. You might have speculated just what business was going on\nbehind those drowsily thoughtful eyes. If you are--as people\nsay--\"Victorian,\" you might even have whispered \"Day Dreams,\" at the\nsight of her....\n\nShe _was_ dreaming, and in a sense she was thinking of beautiful things.\nBut only mediately. She was thinking how very much she would enjoy\nspending freely and vigorously, quite a considerable amount of\nmoney,--heaps of money.\n\nYou see, the Carmels, with whom she had just been staying, were\nshockingly well off. They had two motor cars with them in the country,\nand the boys had the use of the second one as though it was just an old\nbicycle. Marjorie had had a cheap white dinner-dress, made the year\nbefore by a Chelsea French girl, a happy find of her mother's, and it\nwas shapely and simple and not at all bad, and she had worn her green\nbeads and her Egyptian necklace of jade; but Kitty Carmel and her sister\nhad had a new costume nearly every night, and pretty bracelets, and\nrubies, big pearls, and woven gold, and half a score of delightful and\nprecious things for neck and hair. Everything in the place was bright\nand good and abundant, the servants were easy and well-mannered, without\na trace of hurry or resentment, and one didn't have to be sharp about\nthe eggs and things at breakfast in the morning, or go without. All\nthrough the day, and even when they had gone to bathe from the smart\nlittle white and green shed on the upper lake, Marjorie had been made to\nfeel the insufficiency of her equipment. Kitty Carmel, being twenty-one,\npossessed her own cheque-book and had accounts running at half a dozen\nWest-end shops; and both sisters had furnished their own rooms according\nto their taste, with a sense of obvious effect that had set Marjorie\nspeculating just how a room might be done by a girl with a real eye for\ncolour and a real brain behind it....\n\nThe train slowed down for the seventeenth time. Marjorie looked up and\nread \"Buryhamstreet.\"\n\n\nSec. 3\n\nHer reverie vanished, and by a complex but almost instantaneous movement\nshe had her basket off the rack and the carriage door open. She became\nteeming anticipations. There, advancing in a string, were Daffy, her\nelder sister, Theodore, her younger brother, and the dog Toupee. Sydney\nand Rom hadn't come. Daffy was not copper red like her sister, but\nreally quite coarsely red-haired; she was bigger than Marjorie, and with\nirregular teeth instead of Marjorie's neat row; she confessed them in a\nbroad simple smile of welcome. Theodore was hatless, rustily\nfuzzy-headed, and now a wealth of quasi-humorous gesture. The dog Toupee\nwas straining at a leash, and doing its best in a yapping, confused\nmanner, to welcome the wrong people by getting its lead round their\nlegs.\n\n\"Toupee!\" cried Marjorie, waving the basket. \"Toupee!\"\n\nThey all called it Toupee because it was like one, but the name was\nforbidden in her father's hearing. Her father had decided that the\nproper name for a family dog in England is Towser, and did his utmost to\nsuppress a sobriquet that was at once unprecedented and not in the best\npossible taste. Which was why the whole family, with the exception of\nMrs. Pope, of course, stuck to Toupee....\n\nMarjorie flashed a second's contrast with the Carmel splendours.\n\n\"Hullo, old Daffy. What's it like?\" she asked, handing out the basket as\nher sister came up.\n\n\"It's a lark,\" said Daffy. \"Where's the dressing-bag?\"\n\n\"Thoddy,\" said Marjorie, following up the dressing-bag with the\nhold-all. \"Lend a hand.\"\n\n\"Stow it, Toupee,\" said Theodore, and caught the hold-all in time.\n\nIn another moment Marjorie was out of the train, had done the swift\nkissing proper to the occasion, and rolled a hand over Toupee's\nhead--Toupee, who, after a passionate lunge at a particularly savoury\ndrover from the next compartment, was now frantically trying to indicate\nthat Marjorie was the one human being he had ever cared for. Brother and\nsister were both sketching out the state of affairs at Buryhamstreet\nVicarage in rapid competitive jerks, each eager to tell things\nfirst--and the whole party moved confusedly towards the station exit.\nThings pelted into Marjorie's mind.\n\n\"We've got an old donkey-cart. I thought we shouldn't get here--ever....\nMadge, we can go up the church tower whenever we like, only old Daffy\nwon't let me shin up the flagstaff. It's _perfectly_ safe--you couldn't\nfall off if you tried.... Had positively to get out at the level\ncrossing and _pull_ him over.... There's a sort of moat in the\ngarden.... You never saw such furniture, Madge! And the study! It's hung\nwith texts, and stuffed with books about the Scarlet Woman.... Piano's\nrather good, it's a Broadwood.... The Dad's got a war on about the\ntennis net. Oh, frightful! You'll see. It won't keep up. He's had a\nletter kept waiting by the _Times_ for a fortnight, and it's a terror at\nbreakfast. Says the motor people have used influence to silence him.\nSays that's a game two can play at.... Old Sid got herself upset\nstuffing windfalls. Rather a sell for old Sid, considering how refined\nshe's getting....\"\n\nThere was a brief lull as the party got into the waiting governess cart.\nToupee, after a preliminary refusal to enter, made a determined attempt\non the best seat, from which he would be able to bark in a persistent,\nofficial manner at anything that passed. That suppressed, and Theodore's\nproposal to drive refused, they were able to start, and attention was\nconcentrated upon Daffy's negotiation of the station approach. Marjorie\nturned on her brother with a smile of warm affection.\n\n\"How are you, old Theodore?\"\n\n\"I'm all right, old Madge.\"\n\n\"Mummy?\"\n\n\"Every one's all right,\" said Theodore; \"if it wasn't for that damned\ninfernal net----\"\n\n\"Ssssh!\" cried both sisters together.\n\n\"_He_ says it,\" said Theodore.\n\nBoth sisters conveyed a grave and relentless disapproval.\n\n\"Pretty bit of road,\" said Marjorie. \"I like that little house at the\ncorner.\"\n\nA pause and the eyes of the sisters met.\n\n\"_He's_ here,\" said Daffy.\n\nMarjorie affected ignorance.\n\n\"Who's here?\"\n\n\"_Il vostro senior Miraculoso_.\"\n\n\"Just as though a fellow couldn't understand your kiddy little Italian,\"\nsaid Theodore, pulling Toupee's ear.\n\n\"Oh well, I thought he might be,\" said Marjorie, regardless of her\nbrother.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Daffy. \"I didn't know----\"\n\nBoth sisters looked at each other, and then both glanced at Theodore. He\nmet Marjorie's eyes with a grimace of profound solemnity.\n\n\"Little brothers,\" he said, \"shouldn't know. Just as though they didn't!\nRot! But let's change the subject, my dears, all the same. Lemme see.\nThere are a new sort of flea on Toupee, Madge, that he gets from the\nhens.\"\n\n\"_Is_ a new sort,\" corrected Daffy. \"He's horrider than ever, Madge. He\nleaves his soap in soak now to make us think he has used it. This is the\nvillage High Street. Isn't it jolly?\"\n\n\"Corners don't _bite_ people,\" said Theodore, with a critical eye to the\ndriving.\n\nMarjorie surveyed the High Street, while Daffy devoted a few moments to\nTheodore.\n\nThe particular success of the village was its brace of chestnut trees\nwhich, with that noble disregard of triteness which is one of the charms\nof villages the whole world over, shadowed the village smithy. On either\nside of the roadway between it and the paths was a careless width of\nvivid grass protected by white posts, which gave way to admit a generous\naccess on either hand to a jolly public house, leering over red blinds,\nand swinging a painted sign against its competitor. Several of the\ncottages had real thatch and most had porches; they had creepers nailed\nto their faces, and their gardens, crowded now with flowers, marigolds,\nbegonias, snapdragon, delphiniums, white foxgloves, and monkshood,\nseemed almost too good to be true. The doctor's house was pleasantly\nGeorgian, and the village shop, which was also a post and telegraph\noffice, lay back with a slight air of repletion, keeping its bulging\ndouble shop-windows wide open in a manifest attempt not to fall asleep.\nTwo score of shock-headed boys and pinafored girls were drilling upon a\nbald space of ground before the village school, and near by, the\nnational emotion at the ever-memorable Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria\nhad evoked an artistic drinking-fountain of grey stone. Beyond the\nsubsequent green--there were the correctest geese thereon--the village\nnarrowed almost to a normal road again, and then, recalling itself with\na start, lifted a little to the churchyard wall about the grey and ample\nchurch. \"It's just like all the villages that ever were,\" said Marjorie,\nand gave a cry of delight when Daffy, pointing to the white gate between\ntwo elm trees that led to the vicarage, remarked: \"That's us.\"\n\nIn confirmation of which statement, Sydney and Rom, the two sisters next\nin succession to Marjorie, and with a strong tendency to be twins in\nspite of the year between them, appeared in a state of vociferous\nincivility opening the way for the donkey-carriage. Sydney was Sydney,\nand Rom was just short for Romola--one of her mother's favourite\nheroines in fiction.\n\n\"Old Madge,\" they said; and then throwing respect to the winds, \"Old\nGargoo!\" which was Marjorie's forbidden nickname, and short for gargoyle\n(though surely only Victorian Gothic, ever produced a gargoyle that had\nthe remotest right to be associated with the neat brightness of\nMarjorie's face).\n\nShe overlooked the offence, and the pseudo-twins boarded the cart from\nbehind, whereupon the already overburthened donkey, being old and in a\nmanner wise, quickened his pace for the house to get the whole thing\nover.\n\n\"It's really an avenue,\" said Daffy; but Marjorie, with her mind strung\nup to the Carmel standards, couldn't agree. It was like calling a row of\nboy-scouts Potsdam grenadiers. The trees were at irregular distances, of\nvarious ages, and mostly on one side. Still it was a shady, pleasant\napproach.\n\nAnd the vicarage was truly very interesting and amusing. To these\nLondoners accustomed to live in a state of compression, elbows\npractically touching, in a tall, narrow fore-and-aft stucco house, all\nwindow and staircase, in a despondent Brompton square, there was an\neffect of maundering freedom about the place, of enlargement almost to\nthe pitch of adventure and sunlight to the pitch of intoxication. The\nhouse itself was long and low, as if a London house holidaying in the\ncountry had flung itself asprawl; it had two disconnected and roomy\nstaircases, and when it had exhausted itself completely as a house, it\nturned to the right and began again as rambling, empty stables, coach\nhouse, cart sheds, men's bedrooms up ladders, and outhouses of the most\nvarious kinds. On one hand was a neglected orchard, in the front of the\nhouse was a bald, worried-looking lawn area capable of simultaneous\ntennis and croquet, and at the other side a copious and confused\nvegetable and flower garden full of roses, honesty, hollyhocks, and\nsuchlike herbaceous biennials and perennials, lapsed at last into\nshrubbery, where a sickle-shaped, weedy lagoon of uncertain aims, which\nhad evidently, as a rustic bridge and a weeping willow confessed,\naspired to be an \"ornamental water,\" declined at last to ducks. And\nthere was access to the church, and the key of the church tower, and one\nwent across the corner of the lawn, and by a little iron gate into the\nchurchyard to decipher inscriptions, as if the tombs of all\nBuryhamstreet were no more than a part of the accommodation relinquished\nby the vicar's household.\n\nMarjorie was hurried over the chief points of all this at a breakneck\npace by Sydney and Rom, and when Sydney was called away to the horrors\nof practice--for Sydney in spite of considerable reluctance was destined\nby her father to be \"the musical one\"--Rom developed a copious\naffection, due apparently to some occult aesthetic influence in\nMarjorie's silvery-grey and green, and led her into the unlocked vestry,\nand there prayed in a whisper that she might be given \"one good hug,\njust _one_\"--and so they came out with their arms about each other very\naffectionately to visit the lagoon again. And then Rom remembered that\nMarjorie hadn't seen either the walnut-tree in the orchard, or the hen\nwith nine chicks....\n\nSomewhere among all these interests came tea and Mrs. Pope.\n\nMrs. Pope kissed her daughter with an air of having really wanted to\nkiss her half an hour ago, but of having been distracted since. She was\na fine-featured, anxious-looking little woman, with a close resemblance\nto all her children, in spite of the fact that they were markedly\ndissimilar one to the other, except only that they took their ruddy\ncolourings from their father. She was dressed in a neat blue dress that\nhad perhaps been hurriedly chosen, and her method of doing her hair was\na manifest compromise between duty and pleasure. She embarked at once\nupon an exposition of the bedroom arrangements, which evidently involved\ndifficult issues. Marjorie was to share a room with Daffy--that was the\ngist of it--as the only other available apartment, originally promised\nto Marjorie, had been secured by Mr. Pope for what he called his\n\"matutinal ablutions, _videlicet_ tub.\"\n\n\"Then, when your Aunt Plessington comes, you won't have to move,\" said\nMrs. Pope with an air of a special concession. \"Your father's looking\nforward to seeing you, but he mustn't be disturbed just yet. He's in the\nvicar's study. He's had his tea in there. He's writing a letter to the\n_Times_ answering something they said in a leader, and also a private\nnote calling attention to their delay in printing his previous\ncommunication, and he wants to be delicately ironical without being in\nany way offensive. He wants to hint without actually threatening that\nvery probably he will go over to the _Spectator_ altogether if they do\nnot become more attentive. The _Times_ used to print his letters\npunctually, but latterly these automobile people seem to have got hold\nof it.... He has the window on the lawn open, so that I think, perhaps,\nwe'd better not stay out here--for fear our voices might disturb him.\"\n\n\"Better get right round the other side of the church,\" said Daffy.\n\n\"He'd hear far less of us if we went indoors,\" said Mrs. Pope.\n\n\nSec. 4\n\nThe vicarage seemed tight packed with human interest for Marjorie and\nher mother and sisters. Going over houses is one of the amusements\nproper to her sex, and she and all three sisters and her mother, as soon\nas they had finished an inaudible tea, went to see the bedroom she was\nto share with Daffy, and then examined, carefully and in order, the\nfurniture and decoration of the other bedrooms, went through the rooms\ndownstairs, always excepting and avoiding very carefully and closing as\nmany doors as possible on, and hushing their voices whenever they\napproached the study in which her father was being delicately ironical\nwithout being offensive to the _Times_. None of them had seen any of the\nvicarage people at all--Mr. Pope had come on a bicycle and managed all\nthe negotiations--and it was curious to speculate about the individuals\nwhose personalities pervaded the worn and faded furnishings of the\nplace.\n\nThe Popes' keen-eyed inspection came at times, I think, dangerously near\nprying. The ideals of decoration and interests of the vanished family\nwere so absolutely dissimilar to the London standards as to arouse a\nsort of astonished wonder in their minds. Some of the things they\ndecided were perfectly hideous, some quaint, some were simply and weakly\nsilly. Everything was different from Hartstone Square. Daffy was perhaps\nmore inclined to contempt, and Mrs. Pope to refined amusement and witty\nappreciation than Marjorie. Marjorie felt there was something in these\npeople that she didn't begin to understand, she needed some missing\nclue that would unlock the secret of their confused peculiarity. She was\none of those people who have an almost instinctive turn for decoration\nin costume and furniture; she had already had a taste of how to do\nthings in arranging her rooms at Bennett College, Oxbridge, where also\nshe was in great demand among the richer girls as an adviser. She knew\nwhat it was to try and fail as well as to try and succeed, and these\npeople, she felt, hadn't tried for anything she comprehended. She\ncouldn't quite see why it was that there was at the same time an attempt\nat ornament and a disregard of beauty, she couldn't quite do as her\nmother did and dismiss it as an absurdity and have done with it. She\ncouldn't understand, too, why everything should be as if it were faded\nand weakened from something originally bright and clear.\n\nAll the rooms were thick with queer little objects that indicated a\nquite beaver-like industry in the production of \"work.\" There were\nembroidered covers for nearly every article on the wash-hand-stand, and\nmats of wool and crochet wherever anything stood on anything; there were\n\"tidies\" everywhere, and odd little brackets covered with gilded and\nvarnished fir cones and bearing framed photographs and little jars and\nall sorts of colourless, dusty little objects, and everywhere on the\nwalls tacks sustained crossed fans with badly painted flowers or\ntransfer pictures. There was a jar on the bedroom mantel covered with\nvarnished postage stamps and containing grey-haired dried grasses. There\nseemed to be a moral element in all this, for in the room Sydney shared\nwith Rom there was a decorative piece of lettering which declared that--\n\n    \"Something attempted, something done,\n    Has earned a night's repose.\"\n\nThere were a great number of texts that set Marjorie's mind stirring\ndimly with intimations of a missed significance. Over her own bed,\nwithin the lattice of an Oxford frame, was the photograph of a picture\nof an extremely composed young woman in a trailing robe, clinging to the\nRock of Ages in the midst of histrionically aggressive waves, and she\nhad a feeling, rather than a thought, that perhaps for all the oddity of\nthe presentation it did convey something acutely desirable, that she\nherself had had moods when she would have found something very\ncomforting in just such an impassioned grip. And on a framed,\nfloriferous card, these incomprehensible words:\n\n    |================================|\n    |THY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR ME. |\n    |================================|\n\nseemed to be saying something to her tantalizingly just outside her\nrange of apprehension.\n\nDid all these things light up somehow to those dispossessed people--from\nsome angle she didn't attain? Were they living and moving realities when\nthose others were at home again?\n\nThe drawing-room had no texts; it was altogether more pretentious and\nless haunted by the faint and faded flavour of religion that pervaded\nthe bedrooms. It had, however, evidences of travel in Switzerland and\nthe Mediterranean. There was a piano in black and gold, a little out of\ntune, and surmounted by a Benares brass jar, enveloping a scarlet\ngeranium in a pot. There was a Japanese screen of gold wrought upon\nblack, that screened nothing. There was a framed chromo-lithograph of\nJerusalem hot in the sunset, and another of Jerusalem cold under a\nsub-tropical moon, and there were gourds, roses of Jericho, sandalwood\nrosaries and kindred trash from the Holy Land in no little profusion\nupon a what-not. Such books as the room had contained had been arranged\nas symmetrically as possible about a large, pink-shaded lamp upon the\nclaret- cloth of a round table, and were to be replaced, Mrs.\nPope said, at their departure. At present they were piled on a\nside-table. The girls had been through them all, and were ready with the\nchoicer morsels for Marjorie's amusement. There was \"Black Beauty,\" the\nsympathetic story of a soundly Anglican horse, and a large Bible\nextra-illustrated with photographs of every well-known scriptural\npicture from Michael Angelo to Dore, and a book of injunctions to young\nladies upon their behaviour and deportment that Rom and Sydney found\nparticularly entertaining. Marjorie discovered that Sydney had picked up\na new favourite phrase. \"I'm afraid we're all dreadfully cynical,\" said\nSydney, several times.\n\nA more advanced note was struck by a copy of \"Aurora Leigh,\" richly\nunderlined in pencil, but with exclamation marks at some of the bolder\npassages....\n\nAnd presently, still avoiding the open study window very elaborately,\nthis little group of twentieth century people went again into the\nchurch--the church whose foundations were laid in A.D. 912--foundations\nof rubble and cement that included flat Roman bricks from a still\nremoter basilica. Their voices dropped instinctively, as they came into\nits shaded quiet from the exterior sunshine. Marjorie went a little\napart and sat in a pew that gave her a glimpse of the one good\nstained-glass window. Rom followed her, and perceiving her mood to be\nrestful, sat a yard away. Syd began a whispered dispute with her mother\nwhether it wasn't possible to try the organ, and whether Theodore might\nnot be bribed to blow. Daffy discovered relics of a lepers' squint and a\nholy-water stoup, and then went to scrutinize the lettering of the ten\ncommandments of the Mosaic law that shone black and red on gold on\neither side of the I.H.S. monogram behind the white-clothed communion\ntable that had once been the altar. Upon a notice board hung about the\nwaist of the portly pulpit were the numbers of hymns that had been sung\nthree days ago. The sound Protestantism of the vicar had banished\nsuperfluous crosses from the building; the Bible reposed upon the wings\nof a great brass eagle; shining blue and crimson in the window, Saint\nChristopher carried his Lord. What a harmonized synthesis of conflicts a\ncountry church presents! What invisible mysteries of filiation spread\nbetween these ancient ornaments and symbols and the new young minds from\nthe whirlpool of the town that looked upon them now with such bright,\nkeen eyes, wondering a little, feeling a little, missing so much?\n\nIt was all so very cool and quiet now--with something of the immobile\nserenity of death.\n\n\nSec. 5\n\nWhen Mr. Pope had finished his letter to the _Times_, he got out of the\nwindow of the study, treading on a flower-bed as he did so--he was the\nsort of man who treads on flower-beds--partly with the purpose of\nreading his composition aloud to as many members of his family as he\ncould assemble for the purpose, and so giving them a chance of\nappreciating the nuances of his irony more fully than if they saw it\njust in cold print without the advantage of his intonation, and partly\nwith the belated idea of welcoming Marjorie. The law presented a rather\ndiscouraging desolation. Then he became aware that the church tower\nfrothed with his daughters. In view of his need of an audience, he\ndecided after a brief doubt that their presence there was\nunobjectionable, and waved his MS. amiably. Marjorie flapped a\nhandkerchief in reply....\n\nThe subsequent hour was just the sort of hour that gave Mr. Pope an\nalmost meteorological importance to his family. He began with an\namiability that had no fault, except, perhaps, that it was a little\nforced after the epistolary strain in the study, and his welcome to\nMarjorie was more than cordial. \"Well, little Madge-cat!\" he said,\ngiving her an affectionate but sound and heavy thump on the left\nshoulder-blade, \"got a kiss for the old daddy?\"\n\nMarjorie submitted a cheek.\n\n\"That's right,\" said Mr. Pope; \"and now I just want you all to advise\nme----\"\n\nHe led the way to a group of wicker garden chairs. \"You're coming,\nmummy?\" he said, and seated himself comfortably and drew out a spectacle\ncase, while his family grouped itself dutifully. It made a charming\nlittle picture of a Man and his Womankind. \"I don't often flatter\nmyself,\" he said, \"but this time I think I've been neat--neat's the word\nfor it.\"\n\nHe cleared his throat, put on his spectacles, and emitted a long, flat\npreliminary note, rather like the sound of a child's trumpet. \"Er--'Dear\nSir!'\"\n\n\"Rom,\" said Mrs. Pope, \"don't creak your chair.\"\n\n\"It's Daffy, mother,\" said Rom.\n\n\"Oh, _Rom!_\" said Daffy.\n\nMr. Pope paused, and looked with a warning eye over his left\nspectacle-glass at Rom.\n\n\"Don't creak your chair, Rom,\" he said, \"when your mother tells you.\"\n\n\"I was _not_ creaking my chair,\" said Rom.\n\n\"I heard it,\" said Mr. Pope, suavely.\n\n\"It was Daffy.\"\n\n\"Your mother does not think so,\" said Mr. Pope.\n\n\"Oh, all right! I'll sit on the ground,\" said Rom, crimson to the roots\nof her hair.\n\n\"Me too,\" said Daffy. \"I'd rather.\"\n\nMr. Pope watched the transfer gravely. Then he readjusted his glasses,\ncleared his throat again, trumpeted, and began. \"Er--'Dear Sir,'\"\n\n\"Oughtn't it to be simply 'Sir,' father, for an editor?\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"Perhaps I didn't explain, Marjorie,\" said her father, with the calm of\ngreat self-restraint, and dabbing his left hand on the manuscript in his\nright, \"that this is a _private_ letter--a private letter.\"\n\n\"I didn't understand,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"It would have been evident as I went on,\" said Mr. Pope, and prepared\nto read again.\n\nThis time he was allowed to proceed, but the interruptions had ruffled\nhim, and the gentle stresses that should have lifted the subtleties of\nhis irony into prominence missed the words, and he had to go back and do\nhis sentences again. Then Rom suddenly, horribly, uncontrollably, was\nseized with hiccups. At the second hiccup Mr. Pope paused, and looked\nvery hard at his daughter with magnified eyes; as he was about to\nresume, the third burst its way through the unhappy child's utmost\neffort.\n\nMr. Pope rose with an awful resignation. \"That's enough,\" he said. He\nregarded the pseudo-twin vindictively. \"You haven't the self-control of\na child of six,\" he said. Then very touchingly to Mrs. Pope: \"Mummy,\nshall we try a game of tennis with the New Generation?\"\n\n\"Can't you read it after supper?\" asked Mrs. Pope.\n\n\"It must go by the eight o'clock post,\" said Mr. Pope, putting the\nmasterpiece into his breast pocket, the little masterpiece that would\nnow perhaps never be read aloud to any human being. \"Daffy, dear, do you\nmind going in for the racquets and balls?\"\n\nThe social atmosphere was now sultry, and overcast, and Mr. Pope's\ndecision to spend the interval before Daffy returned in seeing whether\nhe couldn't do something to the net, which was certainly very\nunsatisfactory, did not improve matters. Then, unhappily, Marjorie, who\nhad got rather keen upon tennis at the Carmels', claimed her father's\nfirst two services as faults, contrary to the etiquette of the family.\nIt happened that Mr. Pope had a really very good, hard, difficult,\nsmart-looking serve, whose only defect was that it always went either\ntoo far or else into the net, and so a feeling had been fostered and\nestablished by his wife that, on the whole, it was advisable to regard\nthe former variety as a legitimate extension of a father's authority.\nNaturally, therefore, Mr. Pope was nettled at Marjorie's ruling, and his\nirritation increased when his next two services to Daffy perished in the\nnet. (\"Damn that net! Puts one's eye out.\") Then Marjorie gave him an\nunexpected soft return which he somehow muffed, and then Daffy just\ndropped a return over the top of the net. (Love-game.) It was then\nMarjorie's turn to serve, which she did with a new twist acquired from\nthe eldest Carmel boy that struck Mr. Pope as un-English. \"Go on,\" he\nsaid concisely. \"Fifteen love.\"\n\nShe was gentle with her mother and they got their first rally, and when\nit was over Mr. Pope had to explain to Marjorie that if she returned\nright up into his corner of the court he would have to run backwards\nvery fast and might fall over down the silly <DW72> at that end. She\nwould have to consider him and the court. One didn't get everything out\nof a game by playing merely to win. She said \"All right, Daddy,\" rather\noff-handedly, and immediately served to him again, and he, taken a\nlittle unawares, hit the ball with the edge of his racquet and sent it\nout, and then he changed racquets with Daffy--it seemed he had known all\nalong she had taken his, but he had preferred to say nothing--uttered a\nword of advice to his wife just on her stroke, and she, failing to grasp\nhis intention as quickly as she ought to have done, left the score\nforty-fifteen. He felt better when he returned Marjorie's serve, and\nthen before she could control herself she repeated her new unpleasant\ntrick of playing into the corner again, whereupon, leaping back with an\nagility that would have shamed many a younger man, Mr. Pope came upon\ndisaster. He went spinning down the treacherous <DW72> behind, twisted\nhis ankle painfully and collapsed against the iron railings of the\nshrubbery. It was too much, and he lost control of himself. His\ndaughters had one instant's glimpse of the linguistic possibilities of a\nstrong man's agony. \"I told her,\" he went on as if he had said nothing.\n\"_Tennis!_\"\n\nFor a second perhaps he seemed to hesitate upon a course of action. Then\nas if by a great effort he took his coat from the net post and addressed\nhimself houseward, incarnate Grand Dudgeon--limping.\n\n\"Had enough of it, Mummy,\" he said, and added some happily inaudible\ncomment on Marjorie's new style of play.\n\nThe evening's exercise was at an end.\n\nThe three ladies regarded one another in silence for some moments.\n\n\"I will take in the racquets, dear,\" said Mrs. Pope.\n\n\"I think the other ball is at your end,\" said Daffy....\n\nThe apparatus put away, Marjorie and her sister strolled thoughtfully\naway from the house.\n\n\"There's croquet here too,\" said Daffy. \"We've not had the things out\nyet!\"....\n\n\"He'll play, I suppose.\"\n\n\"He wants to play.\"...\n\n\"Of course,\" said Marjorie after a long pause, \"there's no _reasoning_\nwith Dad!\"\n\n\nSec. 6\n\nCharacter is one of England's noblest and most deliberate products, but\nsome Englishmen have it to excess. Mr. Pope had.\n\nHe was one of that large and representative class which imparts a\ndignity to national commerce by inheriting big businesses from its\nancestors. He was a coach-builder by birth, and a gentleman by education\nand training. He had been to City Merchant's and Cambridge.\n\nThroughout the earlier half of the nineteenth century the Popes had been\nthe princes of the coach-building world. Mr. Pope's great-grandfather\nhad been a North London wheelwright of conspicuous dexterity and\nintegrity, who had founded the family business; his son, Mr. Pope's\ngrandfather, had made that business the occupation of his life and\nbrought it to the pinnacle of pre-eminence; his son, who was Marjorie's\ngrandfather, had displayed a lesser enthusiasm, left the house at the\nworks for a home ten miles away and sent a second son into the Church.\nIt was in the days of the third Pope that the business ceased to expand,\nand began to suffer severely from the competition of an enterprising\nperson who had originally supplied the firm with varnish, gradually\npicked up the trade in most other materials and accessories needed in\ncoach-building, and passed on by almost imperceptible stages to\ndelivering the article complete--dispensing at last altogether with the\nintervention of Pope and Son--to the customer. Marjorie's father had\nsucceeded in the fulness of time to the inheritance this insurgent had\ndamaged.\n\nMr. Pope was a man of firm and resentful temper, with an admiration for\nCato, Brutus, Cincinnatus, Cromwell, Washington, and the sterner heroes\ngenerally, and by nature a little ill-used and offended at things. He\nsuffered from indigestion and extreme irritability. He found himself in\ncontrol of a business where more flexible virtues were needed. The Popes\nbased their fame on a heavy, proud type of vehicle, which the increasing\nluxury and triviality of the age tended to replace by lighter forms of\ncarriage, carriages with diminutive and apologetic names. As these\nlighter forms were not only lighter but less expensive, Mr. Pope with a\npathetic confidence in the loyalty of the better class of West End\ncustomer, determined to \"make a stand\" against them. He was the sort of\nman to whom making a stand is in itself a sombre joy. If he had had to\nchoose his pose for a portrait, he would certainly have decided to have\none foot advanced, the other planted like a British oak behind, the arms\nfolded and the brows corrugated,--making a stand.\n\nUnhappily the stars in their courses and the general improvement of\nroads throughout the country fought against him. The lighter carriages,\nand especially the lighter carriages of that varnish-selling firm, which\nwas now absorbing businesses right and left, prevailed over Mr. Pope's\nresistance. For crossing a mountain pass or fording a river, for driving\nover the scene of a recent earthquake or following a retreating army,\nfor being run away with by frantic horses or crushing a personal enemy,\nthere can be no doubt the Pope carriages remained to the very last the\nbest possible ones and fully worth the inflexible price demanded.\nUnhappily all carriages in a civilization essentially decadent are not\nsubjected to these tests, and the manufactures of his rivals were not\nonly much cheaper, but had a sort of meretricious smartness, a\ndisingenuous elasticity, above all a levity, hateful indeed to the\nspirit of Mr. Pope yet attractive to the wanton customer. Business\ndwindled. Nevertheless the habitual element in the good class customer\ndid keep things going, albeit on a shrinking scale, until Mr. Pope came\nto the unfortunate decision that he would make a stand against\nautomobiles. He regarded them as an intrusive nuisance which had to be\nseen only to be disowned by the landed gentry of England. Rather than\nbuild a car he said he would go out of business. He went out of\nbusiness. Within five years of this determination he sold out the name,\ngood will, and other vestiges of his concern to a mysterious buyer who\nturned out to be no more than an agent for these persistently expanding\nvarnish makers, and he retired with a genuine grievance upon the family\naccumulations--chiefly in Consols and Home Railways.\n\nHe refused however to regard his defeat as final, put great faith in the\napproaching exhaustion of the petrol supply, and talked in a manner that\nshould have made the Automobile Association uneasy, of devoting the\nrest of his days to the purification of England from these aggressive\nmechanisms. \"It was a mistake,\" he said, \"to let them in.\" He became\nmore frequent at his excellent West End club, and directed a certain\nportion of his capital to largely indecisive but on the whole\nunprofitable speculations in South African and South American\nenterprises. He mingled a little in affairs. He was a tough conventional\nspeaker, rich in established phrases and never abashed by hearing\nhimself say commonplace things, and in addition to his campaign against\nautomobiles he found time to engage also in quasi-political activities,\ntaking chairs, saying a few words and so on, cherishing a fluctuating\nhope that his eloquence might ultimately win him an invitation to\ncontest a constituency in the interests of reaction and the sounder\nelements in the Liberal party.\n\nHe had a public-spirited side, and he was particularly attracted by that\nmass of modern legislative proposals which aims at a more systematic\ncontrol of the lives of lower class persons for their own good by their\nbetters. Indeed, in the first enthusiasm of his proprietorship of the\nPope works at East Purblow, he had organized one of those benevolent\nindustrial experiments that are now so common. He felt strongly against\nthe drink evil, that is to say, the unrestricted liberty of common\npeople to drink what they prefer, and he was acutely impressed by the\nfact that working-class families do not spend their money in the way\nthat seems most desirable to upper middle-class critics. Accordingly he\ndid his best to replace the dangerous freedoms of money by that ideal of\nthe social reformer, Payment in Kind. To use his invariable phrase, the\nEast Purblow experiment did \"no mean service\" to the cause of social\nreform. Unhappily it came to an end through a prosecution under the\nTruck Act, that blot upon the Statute Book, designed, it would appear,\neven deliberately to vitiate man's benevolent control of his fellow man.\nThe lessons to be drawn from that experience, however, grew if anything\nwith the years. He rarely spoke without an allusion to it, and it was\nquite remarkable how readily it could be adapted to illuminate a hundred\ndifferent issues in the hospitable columns of the _Spectator_....\n\n\nSec. 7\n\nAt seven o'clock Marjorie found herself upstairs changing into her\napple-green frock. She had had a good refreshing wash in cold soft\nwater, and it was pleasant to change into thinner silk stockings and\ndainty satin slippers and let down and at last brush her hair and dress\nloiteringly after the fatigues of her journey and the activities of her\narrival. She looked out on the big church and the big trees behind it\nagainst the golden quiet of a summer evening with extreme approval.\n\n\"I suppose those birds are rooks,\" she said.\n\nBut Daffy had gone to see that the pseudo-twins had done themselves\njustice in their muslin frocks and pink sashes; they were apt to be a\nlittle sketchy with their less accessible buttons.\n\nMarjorie became aware of two gentlemen with her mother on the lawn\nbelow.\n\nOne was her almost affianced lover, Will Magnet, the humorous writer.\nShe had been doing her best not to think about him all day, but now he\nbecame an unavoidable central fact. She regarded him with an almost\nperplexed scrutiny, and wondered vividly why she had been so excited and\npleased by his attentions during the previous summer.\n\nMr. Magnet was one of those quiet, deliberately unassuming people who do\nnot even attempt to be beautiful. Not for him was it to pretend, but to\nprick the bladder of pretence. He was a fairish man of forty, pale, with\na large protuberant, observant grey eye--I speak particularly of the\nleft--and a face of quiet animation warily alert for the wit's\nopportunity. His nose and chin were pointed, and his lips thin and\nquaintly pressed together. He was dressed in grey, with a low-collared\nsilken shirt showing a thin neck, and a flowing black tie, and he\ncarried a grey felt hat in his joined hands behind his back. She could\nhear the insinuating cadences of his voice as he talked in her mother's\near. The other gentleman, silent on her mother's right, must, she knew,\nbe Mr. Wintersloan, whom Mr. Magnet had proposed to bring over. His\ndress betrayed that modest gaiety of disposition becoming in an artist,\nand indeed he was one of Mr. Magnet's favourite illustrators. He was in\na dark bluish-grey suit; a black tie that was quite unusually broad went\ntwice around his neck before succumbing to the bow, and his waistcoat\nappeared to be of some gaily-patterned orange silk. Marjorie's eyes\nreturned to Mr. Magnet. Hitherto she had never had an opportunity of\nremarking that his hair was more than a little attenuated towards the\ncrown. It was funny how his tie came out under his chin to the right.\n\nWhat an odd thing men's dress had become, she thought. Why did they wear\nthose ridiculous collars and ties? Why didn't they always dress in\nflannels and look as fine and slender and active as the elder Carmel boy\nfor example? Mr. Magnet couldn't be such an ill-shaped man. Why didn't\nevery one dress to be just as beautiful and splendid as\npossible?--instead of wearing queer things!\n\n\"Coming down?\" said Daffy, a vision of sulphur-yellow, appearing in the\ndoorway.\n\n\"Let _them_ go first,\" said Marjorie, with a finer sense of effect. \"And\nTheodore. We don't want to make part of a comic entry with Theodore,\nDaffy.\"\n\nAccordingly, the two sisters watched discreetly--they had to be wary on\naccount of Mr. Magnet's increasingly frequent glances at the\nwindows--and when at last all the rest of the family had appeared below,\nthey decided their cue had come. Mr. Pope strolled into the group, with\nno trace of his recent debacle except a slight limp. He was wearing a\njacket of damson- velvet, which he affected in the country, and\nall traces of his Grand Dudgeon were gone. But then he rarely had Grand\nDudgeon except in the sanctities of family life, and hardly ever when\nany other man was about.\n\n\"Well,\" his daughters heard him say, with a witty allusiveness that was\ndifficult to follow, \"so the Magnet has come to the Mountain again--eh?\"\n\n\"Come on, Madge,\" said Daffy, and the two sisters emerged harmoniously\ntogether from the house.\n\nIt would have been manifest to a meaner capacity than any present that\nevening that Mr. Magnet regarded Marjorie with a distinguished\nsignificance. He had two eyes, but he had that mysterious quality so\nfrequently associated with a bluish-grey iris which gives the effect of\nlooking hard with one large orb, a sort of grey searchlight effect, and\nhe used this eye ray now to convey a respectful but firm admiration in\nthe most unequivocal manner. He saluted Daffy courteously, and then\nallowed himself to retain Marjorie's hand for just a second longer than\nwas necessary as he said--very simply--\"I am very pleased indeed to meet\nyou again--very.\"\n\nA slight embarrassment fell between them.\n\n\"You are staying near here, Mr. Magnet?\"\n\n\"At the inn,\" said Mr. Magnet, and then, \"I chose it because it would be\nnear you.\"\n\nHis eye pressed upon her again for a moment.\n\n\"Is it comfortable?\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"So charmingly simple,\" said Mr. Magnet. \"I love it.\"\n\nA tinkling bell announced the preparedness of supper, and roused the\nothers to the consciousness that they were silently watching Mr. Magnet\nand Marjorie.\n\n\"It's quite a simple farmhouse supper,\" said Mrs. Pope.\n\n\nSec. 8\n\nThere were ducks, green peas, and adolescent new potatoes for supper,\nand afterwards stewed fruit and cream and junket and cheese, bottled\nbeer, Gilbey's Burgundy, and home-made lemonade. Mrs. Pope carved,\nbecause Mr. Pope splashed too much, and bones upset him and made him\nwant to show up chicken in the _Times_. So he sat at the other end and\nrallied his guests while Mrs. Pope distributed the viands. He showed not\na trace of his recent umbrage. Theodore sat between Daffy and his mother\nbecause of his table manners, and Marjorie was on her father's right\nhand and next to Mr. Wintersloan, while Mr. Magnet was in the middle of\nthe table on the opposite side in a position convenient for looking at\nher. Both maids waited.\n\nThe presence of Magnet invariably stirred the latent humorist in Mr.\nPope. He felt that he who talks to humorists should himself be humorous,\nand it was his private persuasion that with more attention he might have\nbeen, to use a favourite form of expression, \"no mean jester.\" Quite a\nlot of little things of his were cherished as \"Good\" both by himself\nand, with occasional inaccuracies, by Mrs. Pope. He opened out now in a\nstrain of rich allusiveness.\n\n\"What will you drink, Mr. Wintersloan?\" he said. \"Wine of the country,\nyclept beer, red wine from France, or my wife's potent brew from the\ngolden lemon?\"\n\nMr. Wintersloan thought he would take Burgundy. Mr. Magnet preferred\nbeer.\n\n    \"I've heard there's iron in the Beer,\n    And I believe it,\"\n\nmisquoted Mr. Pope, and nodded as it were to the marker to score. \"Daffy\nand Marjorie are still in the lemonade stage. Will you take a little\nBurgundy to-night, Mummy?\"\n\nMrs. Pope decided she would, and was inspired to ask Mr. Wintersloan if\nhe had been in that part of the country before. Topography ensued. Mr.\nWintersloan had a style of his own, and spoke of the Buryhamstreet\ndistrict as a \"pooty little country--pooty little hills, with a swirl in\nthem.\"\n\nThis pleased Daffy and Marjorie, and their eyes met for a moment.\n\nThen Mr. Magnet, with a ray full on Marjorie, said he had always been\nfond of Surrey. \"I think if ever I made a home in the country I should\nlike it to be here.\"\n\nMr. Wintersloan said Surrey would tire him, it was too bossy and curly,\ntoo flocculent; he would prefer to look on broader, simpler lines, with\njust a sudden catch in the breath in them--if you understand me?\n\nMarjorie did, and said so.\n\n\"A sob--such as you get at the break of a pinewood on a hill.\"\n\nThis baffled Mr. Pope, but Marjorie took it. \"Or the short dry cough of\na cliff,\" she said.\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Mr. Wintersloan, and having turned a little deliberate\nclose-lipped smile on her for a moment, resumed his wing.\n\n\"So long as a landscape doesn't _sneeze_\" said Mr. Magnet, in that\nirresistible dry way of his, and Rom and Sydney, at any rate, choked.\n\n\"Now is the hour when Landscapes yawn,\" mused Mr. Pope, coming in all\nright at the end.\n\nThen Mrs. Pope asked Mr. Wintersloan, about his route to Buryhamstreet,\nand then Mr. Pope asked Mr. Magnet whether he was playing at a new work\nor working at a new play.\n\nMr. Magnet said he was dreaming over a play. He wanted to bring out the\nmore serious side of his humour, go a little deeper into things than he\nhad hitherto done.\n\n\"Mingling smiles and tears,\" said Mr. Pope approvingly.\n\nMr. Magnet said very quietly that all true humour did that.\n\nThen Mrs. Pope asked what the play was to be about, and Mr. Magnet, who\nseemed disinclined to give an answer, turned the subject by saying he\nhad to prepare an address on humour for the next dinner of the\n_Literati_. \"It's to be a humourist's dinner, and they've made me the\nguest of the evening--by way of a joke to begin with,\" he said with that\ndry smile again.\n\nMrs. Pope said he shouldn't say things like that. She then said \"Syd!\"\nquietly but sharply to Sydney, who was making a disdainful, squinting\nface at Theodore, and told the parlourmaid to clear the plates for\nsweets. Mr. Magnet professed great horror of public speaking. He said\nthat whenever he rose to make an after-dinner speech all the ices he had\never eaten seemed to come out of the past, and sit on his backbone.\n\nThe talk centered for awhile on Mr. Magnet's address, and apropos of\nTests of Humour Mr. Pope, who in his way was \"no mean raconteur,\"\nrelated the story of the man who took the salad dressing with his hand,\nand when his host asked why he did that, replied: \"Oh! I thought it was\nspinach!\"\n\n\"Many people,\" added Mr. Pope, \"wouldn't see the point of that. And if\nthey don't see the point they can't--and the more they try the less they\ndo.\"\n\nAll four girls hoped secretly and not too confidently that their\nlaughter had not sounded hollow.\n\nAnd then for a time the men told stories as they came into their heads\nin an easy, irresponsible way. Mr. Magnet spoke of the humour of the\nomnibus-driver who always dangled and twiddled his badge \"by way of a\njoke\" when he passed the conductor whose father had been hanged, and Mr.\nPope, perhaps, a little irrelevantly, told the story of the little boy\nwho was asked his father's last words, and said \"mother was with him to\nthe end,\" which particularly amused Mrs. Pope. Mr. Wintersloan gave the\nstory of the woman who was taking her son to the hospital with his head\njammed into a saucepan, and explained to the other people in the\nomnibus: \"You see, what makes it so annoying, it's me only saucepan!\"\nThen they came back to the Sense of Humour with the dentist who shouted\nwith laughter, and when asked the reason by his patient, choked out:\n\"Wrong tooth!\" and then Mr. Pope reminded them of the heartless husband\nwho, suddenly informed that his mother-in-law was dead, exclaimed \"Oh,\ndon't make me laugh, please, I've got a split lip....\"\n\n\nSec. 9\n\nThe conversation assumed a less anecdotal quality with the removal to\nthe drawing-room. On Mr. Magnet's initiative the gentlemen followed the\nladies almost immediately, and it was Mr. Magnet who remembered that\nMarjorie could sing.\n\nBoth the elder sisters indeed had sweet clear voices, and they had\nlearnt a number of those jolly songs the English made before the dull\nHanoverians came. Syd accompanied, and Rom sat back in the low chair in\nthe corner and fell deeply in love with Mr. Wintersloan. The three\nmusicians in their green and sulphur-yellow and white made a pretty\ngroup in the light of the shaded lamp against the black and gold\nBroadwood, the tawdry screen, its pattern thin glittering upon darkness,\nand the deep shadows behind. Marjorie loved singing, and forgot herself\nas she sang.\n\n    \"I love, and he loves me again,\n      Yet dare I not tell who;\n    For if the nymphs should know my swain,\n      I fear they'd love him too,\"\n\nshe sang, and Mr. Magnet could not conceal the intensity of his\nadmiration.\n\nMr. Pope had fallen into a pleasant musing; several other ripe old\nyarns, dear delicious old things, had come into his mind that he felt he\nmight presently recall when this unavoidable display of accomplishments\nwas overpast, and it was with one of them almost on his lips that he\nglanced across at his guest. He was surprised to see Mr. Magnet's face\ntransfigured. He was sitting forward, looking up at Marjorie, and he had\ncaught something of the expression of those blessed boys who froth at\nthe feet of an Assumption. For an instant Mr. Pope did not understand.\n\nThen he understood. It was Marjorie! He had a twinge of surprise, and\nglanced at his own daughter as though he had never seen her before. He\nperceived in a flash for the first time that this troublesome, clever,\ndisrespectful child was tall and shapely and sweet, and indeed quite a\nbeautiful young woman. He forgot his anecdotes. His being was suffused\nwith pride and responsibility and the sense of virtue rewarded. He did\nnot reflect for a moment that Marjorie embodied in almost equal\nproportions the very best points in his mother and his mother-in-law,\nand avoided his own more salient characteristics with so neat a\ndexterity that from top to toe, except for the one matter of colour, not\nonly did she not resemble him but she scarcely even alluded to him. He\nthought simply that she was his daughter, that she derived from him,\nthat her beauty was his. She was the outcome of his meritorious\npreparations. He recalled all the moments when he had been kind and\nindulgent to her, all the bills he had paid for her; all the stresses\nand trials of the coach-building collapse, all the fluctuations of his\nspeculative adventures, became things he had faced patiently and\nvaliantly for her sake. He forgot the endless times when he had been\nviciously cross with her, all the times when he had pished and tushed\nand sworn in her hearing. He had on provocation and in spite of her\nmother's protests slapped her pretty vigorously, but such things are\nbetter forgotten; nor did he recall how bitterly he had opposed the\ncollege education which had made her now so clear in eye and thought,\nnor the frightful shindy, only three months since, about that identical\ngreen dress in which she now stood delightful. He forgot these petty\ndetails, as an idealist should. There she was, his daughter. An immense\nbenevolence irradiated his soul--for Marjorie--for Magnet. His eyes were\nsuffused with a not ignoble tenderness. The man, he knew, was worth at\nleast thirty-five thousand pounds, a discussion of investments had made\nthat clear, and he must be making at least five thousand a year! A\nbeautiful girl, a worthy man! A good fellow, a sound good fellow, a\ncareful fellow too--as these fellows went!\n\nOld Daddy would lose his treasure of course.\n\nWell, a father must learn resignation, and he for one would not stand in\nthe way of his girl's happiness. A day would come when, very beautifully\nand tenderly, he would hand her over to Magnet, his favourite daughter\nto his trusted friend. \"Well, my boy, there's no one in all the\nworld----\" he would begin.\n\nIt would be a touching parting. \"Don't forget your old father, Maggots,\"\nhe would say. At such a moment that quaint nickname would surely not be\nresented....\n\nHe reflected how much he had always preferred Marjorie to Daffy. She was\nbrighter--more like him. Daffy was unresponsive, with a touch of\nbitterness under her tongue....\n\nHe was already dreaming he was a widower, rather infirm, the object of\nMagnet's and Marjorie's devoted care, when the song ceased, and the wife\nhe had for the purpose of reveries just consigned so carelessly to the\ncemetery proposed that they should have a little game that every one\ncould play at. A number of pencils and slips of paper appeared in her\nhands. She did not want the girls to exhaust their repertory on this\nfirst occasion--and besides, Mr. Pope liked games in which one did\nthings with pencils and strips of paper. Mr. Magnet wished the singing\nto go on, he said, but he was overruled.\n\nSo for a time every one played a little game in which Mr. Pope was\nparticularly proficient. Indeed, it was rare that any one won but Mr.\nPope. It was called \"The Great Departed,\" and it had such considerable\neducational value that all the children had to play at it whenever he\nwished.\n\nIt was played in this manner; one of the pseudo twins opened a book and\ndabbed a finger on the page, and read out the letter immediately at the\ntip of her finger, then all of them began to write as hard as they\ncould, writing down the names of every great person they could think of,\nwhose name began with that letter. At the end of five minutes Mr. Pope\nsaid Stop! and then began to read his list out, beginning with the first\nname. Everybody who had that name crossed it out and scored one, and\nafter his list was exhausted all the surviving names on the next list\nwere read over in the same way, and so on. The names had to be the names\nof dead celebrated people, only one monarch of the same name of the same\ndynasty was allowed, and Mr. Pope adjudicated on all doubtful cases. It\nwas great fun.\n\nThe first two games were won as usual by Mr. Pope, and then Mr.\nWintersloan, who had been a little distraught in his manner, brightened\nup and scribbled furiously.\n\nThe letter was _D_, and after Mr. Pope had rehearsed a tale of nine and\ntwenty names, Mr. Wintersloan read out his list in that curious voice of\nhis which suggested nothing so much as some mobile drink glucking out of\nthe neck of a bottle held upside down.\n\n\"Dahl,\" he began.\n\n\"Who was Dahl?\" asked Mr. Pope.\n\n\"'Vented dahlias,\" said Mr. Wintersloan, with a sigh. \"Danton.\"\n\n\"Forgot him,\" said Mr. Pope.\n\n\"Davis.\"\n\n\"Davis?\"\n\n\"Davis Straits. Doe.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"John Doe, Richard Roe.\"\n\n\"Legal fiction, I'm afraid,\" said Mr. Pope.\n\n\"Dam,\" said Mr. Wintersloan, and added after a slight pause: \"Anthony\nvan.\"\n\nMr. Pope made an interrogative noise.\n\n\"Painter--eighteenth century--Dutch. Dam, Jan van, his son. Dam,\nFrederich van. Dam, Wilhelm van. Dam, Diedrich van. Dam, Wilhelmina,\nwood engraver, gifted woman. Diehl.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Painter--dead--famous. See Duesseldorf. It's all painters now--all\nguaranteed dead, all good men. Deeds of Norfolk, the aquarellist,\nDenton, Dibbs.\"\n\n\"Er?\" said Mr. Pope.\n\n\"The Warwick Claude, _you_ know. Died 1823.\"\n\n\"Dickson, Dunting, John Dickery. Peter Dickery, William Dock--I beg your\npardon?\"\n\nMr. Pope was making a protesting gesture, but Mr. Wintersloan's bearing\nwas invincible, and he proceeded.\n\nIn the end he emerged triumphant with forty-nine names, mostly painters\nfor whose fame he answered, but whose reputations were certainly new to\nevery one else present. \"I can go on like that,\" said Mr. Wintersloan,\n\"with any letter,\" and turned that hard little smile full on Marjorie.\n\"I didn't see how to do it at first. I just cast about. But I know a\nfrightful lot of painters. No end. Shall we try again?\"\n\nMarjorie glanced at her father. Mr. Wintersloan's methods were all too\nevident to her. A curious feeling pervaded the room that Mr. Pope didn't\nthink Mr. Wintersloan's conduct honourable, and that he might even go\nsome way towards saying so.\n\nSo Mrs. Pope became very brisk and stirring, and said she thought that\nnow perhaps a charade would be more amusing. It didn't do to keep on at\na game too long. She asked Rom and Daphne and Theodore and Mr.\nWintersloan to go out, and they all agreed readily, particularly Rom.\n\"Come on!\" said Rom to Mr. Wintersloan. Everybody else shifted into an\naudience-like group between the piano and the what-not. Mr. Magnet sat\nat Marjorie's feet, while Syd played a kind of voluntary, and Mr. Pope\nleant back in his chair, with his brows knit and lips moving, trying to\nremember something.\n\nThe charade _was_ very amusing. The word was Catarrh, and Mr.\nWintersloan, as the patient in the last act being given gruel, surpassed\neven the children's very high expectations. Rom, as his nurse, couldn't\nkeep her hands off him. Then the younger people kissed round and were\npacked off to bed, and the rest of the party went to the door upon the\nlawn and admired the night. It was a glorious summer night, deep blue,\nand rimmed warmly by the afterglow, moonless, and with a few big\nlamp-like stars above the black still shapes of trees.\n\nMrs. Pope said they would all accompany their guests to the gate at the\nend of the avenue--in spite of the cockchafers.\n\nMr. Pope's ankle, however, excused him; the cordiality of his parting\nfrom Mr. Wintersloan seemed a trifle forced, and he limped thoughtfully\nand a little sombrely towards the study to see if he could find an\nEncyclopaedia or some such book of reference that would give the names of\nthe lesser lights of Dutch, Italian, and English painting during the\nlast two centuries.\n\nHe felt that Mr. Wintersloan had established an extraordinarily bad\nprecedent.\n\n\nSec. 10\n\nMarjorie discovered that she and Mr. Magnet had fallen a little behind\nthe others. She would have quickened her pace, but Mr. Magnet stopped\nshort and said: \"Marjorie!\"\n\n\"When I saw you standing there and singing,\" said Mr. Magnet, and was\nshort of breath for a moment.\n\nMarjorie's natural gift for interruption failed her altogether.\n\n\"I felt I would rather be able to call you mine--than win an empire.\"\n\nThe pause seemed to lengthen, between them, and Marjorie's remark when\nshe made it at last struck her even as she made it as being but poorly\nconceived. She had some weak idea of being self-depreciatory.\n\n\"I think you had better win an empire, Mr. Magnet,\" she said meekly.\n\nThen, before anything more was possible, they had come up to Daffy and\nMr. Wintersloan and her mother at the gate....\n\nAs they returned Mrs. Pope was loud in the praises of Will Magnet. She\nhad a little clear-cut voice, very carefully and very skilfully\ncontrolled, and she dilated on his modesty, his quiet helpfulness at\ntable, his ready presence of mind. She pointed out instances of those\nadmirable traits, incidents small in themselves but charming in their\nimplications. When somebody wanted junket, he had made no fuss, he had\njust helped them to junket. \"So modest and unassuming,\" sang Mrs. Pope.\n\"You'd never dream he was quite rich and famous. Yet every book he\nwrites is translated into Russian and German and all sorts of languages.\nI suppose he's almost the greatest humorist we have. That play of his;\nwhat is it called?--_Our Owd Woman_--has been performed nearly twelve\nhundred times! I think that is the most wonderful of gifts. Think of the\npeople it has made happy.\"\n\nThe conversation was mainly monologue. Both Marjorie and Daffy were\nunusually thoughtful.\n\n\nSec. 11\n\nMarjorie ended the long day in a worldly mood.\n\n\"Penny for your thoughts,\" said Daffy abruptly, brushing the long\nfirelit rapids of her hair.\n\n\"Not for sale,\" said Marjorie, and roused herself. \"I've had a long\nday.\"\n\n\"It's always just the time I particularly wish I was a man,\" she\nremarked after a brief return to meditation. \"Fancy, no hair-pins, no\nbrushing, no tie-up to get lost about, no strings. I suppose they\nhaven't strings?\"\n\n\"They haven't,\" said Daffy with conviction.\n\nShe met Marjorie's interrogative eye. \"Father would swear at them,\" she\nexplained. \"He'd naturally tie himself up--and we should hear of it.\"\n\n\"I didn't think of that,\" said Marjorie, and stuck out her chin upon her\nfists. \"Sound induction.\"\n\nShe forgot this transitory curiosity.\n\n\"Suppose one had a maid, Daffy--a real maid ... a maid who mended your\nthings ... did your hair while you read....\"\n\n\"Oh! here goes,\" and she stood up and grappled with the task of\nundressing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND\n\nTHE TWO PROPOSALS OF MR. MAGNET\n\n\nSec. 1\n\nIt was presently quite evident to Marjorie that Mr. Magnet intended to\npropose marriage to her, and she did not even know whether she wanted\nhim to do so.\n\nShe had met him first the previous summer while she had been staying\nwith the Petley-Cresthams at High Windower, and it had been evident that\nhe found her extremely attractive. She had never had a real grown man at\nher feet before, and she had found it amazingly entertaining. She had\ngone for a walk with him the morning before she came away--a frank and\ningenuous proceeding that made Mrs. Petley-Crestham say the girl knew\nwhat she was about, and she had certainly coquetted with him in an\nextraordinary manner at golf-croquet. After that Oxbridge had swallowed\nher up, and though he had called once on her mother while Marjorie was\nin London during the Christmas vacation, he hadn't seen her again. He\nhad written--which was exciting--a long friendly humorous letter about\nnothing in particular, with an air of its being quite the correct thing\nfor him to do, and she had answered, and there had been other exchanges.\nBut all sorts of things had happened in the interval, and Marjorie had\nlet him get into quite a back place in her thoughts--the fact that he\nwas a member of her father's club had seemed somehow to remove him from\na great range of possibilities--until a drift in her mother's talk\ntowards him and a letter from him with an indefinable change in tone\ntowards intimacy, had restored him to importance. Now here he was in the\nforeground of her world again, evidently more ardent than ever, and with\na portentous air of being about to do something decisive at the very\nfirst opportunity. What was he going to do? What had her mother been\nhinting at? And what, in fact, did the whole thing amount to?\n\nMarjorie was beginning to realize that this was going to be a very\nserious affair indeed for her--and that she was totally unprepared to\nmeet it.\n\nIt had been very amusing, very amusing indeed, at the Petley-Cresthams',\nbut there were moments now when she felt towards Mr. Magnet exactly as\nshe would have felt if he had been one of the Oxbridge tradesmen\nhovering about her with a \"little account,\" full of apparently\nexaggerated items....\n\nHer thoughts and feelings were all in confusion about this business. Her\nmind was full of scraps, every sort of idea, every sort of attitude\ncontributed something to that Twentieth Century jumble. For example, and\nso far as its value went among motives, it was by no means a trivial\nconsideration; she wanted a proposal for its own sake. Daffy had had a\nproposal last year, and although it wasn't any sort of eligible\nproposal, still there it was, and she had given herself tremendous airs.\nBut Marjorie would certainly have preferred some lighter kind of\nproposal than that which now threatened her. She felt that behind Mr.\nMagnet were sanctions; that she wasn't free to deal with this proposal\nas she liked. He was at Buryhamstreet almost with the air of being her\nparents' guest.\n\nLess clear and more instinctive than her desire for a proposal was her\ninclination to see just all that Mr. Magnet was disposed to do, and hear\nall that he was disposed to say. She was curious. He didn't behave in\nthe least as she had expected a lover to behave. But then none of the\nboys, the \"others\" with whom she had at times stretched a hand towards\nthe hem of emotion, had ever done that. She had an obscure feeling that\nperhaps presently Mr. Magnet must light up, be stirred and stirring.\nEven now his voice changed very interestingly when he was alone with\nher. His breath seemed to go--as though something had pricked his lung.\nIf it hadn't been for that new, disconcerting realization of an official\npressure behind him, I think she would have been quite ready to\nexperiment extensively with his emotions....\n\nBut she perceived as she lay awake next morning that she wasn't free for\nexperiments any longer. What she might say or do now would be taken up\nvery conclusively. And she had no idea what she wanted to say or do.\n\nMarriage regarded in the abstract--that is to say, with Mr. Magnet out\nof focus--was by no means an unattractive proposal to her. It was very\nmuch at the back of Marjorie's mind that after Oxbridge, unless she was\nprepared to face a very serious row indeed and go to teach in a\nschool--and she didn't feel any call whatever to teach in a school--she\nwould probably have to return to Hartstone Square and share Daffy's room\nagain, and assist in the old collective, wearisome task of propitiating\nher father. The freedoms of Oxbridge had enlarged her imagination until\nthat seemed an almost unendurably irksome prospect. She had tasted life\nas it could be in her father's absence, and she was beginning to realize\njust what an impossible person he was. Marriage was escape from all\nthat; it meant not only respectful parents but a house of her very own,\nfurniture of her choice, great freedom of movement, an authority, an\nimportance. She had seen what it meant to be a prosperously married\nyoung woman in the person of one or two resplendent old girls revisiting\nBennett College, scattering invitations, offering protections and\nopportunities....\n\nOf course there is love.\n\nMarjorie told herself, as she had been trained to tell herself, to be\nsensible, but something within her repeated: _there is love_.\n\nOf course she liked Mr. Magnet. She really did like Mr. Magnet very\nmuch. She had had her girlish dreams, had fallen in love with pictures\nof men and actors and a music master and a man who used to ride by as\nshe went to school; but wasn't this desolating desire for\nself-abandonment rather silly?--something that one left behind with much\nelse when it came to putting up one's hair and sensible living,\nsomething to blush secretly about and hide from every eye?\n\nAmong other discrepant views that lived together in her mind as cats and\nrats and parrots and squirrels and so forth used to live together in\nthose Happy Family cages unseemly men in less well-regulated days were\nwont to steer about our streets, was one instilled by quite a large\nproportion of the novels she had read, that a girl was a sort of\nself-giving prize for high moral worth. Mr. Magnet she knew was good,\nwas kind, was brave with that truer courage, moral courage, which goes\nwith his type of physique; he was modest, unassuming, well off and\nfamous, and very much in love with her. His True Self, as Mrs. Pope had\npointed out several times, must be really very beautiful, and in some\nodd way a line of Shakespeare had washed up in her consciousness as\nbeing somehow effectual on his behalf:\n\n    \"Love looks not with the eye but with the mind.\"\n\nShe felt she ought to look with the mind. Nice people surely never\nlooked in any other way. It seemed from this angle almost her duty to\nlove him....\n\nPerhaps she did love him, and mistook the symptoms. She did her best to\nmistake the symptoms. But if she did truly love him, would it seem so\nqueer and important and antagonistic as it did that his hair was rather\nthin upon the crown of his head?\n\nShe wished she hadn't looked down on him....\n\nPoor Marjorie! She was doing her best to be sensible, and she felt\nherself adrift above a clamorous abyss of feared and forbidden thoughts.\nDown there she knew well enough it wasn't thus that love must come. Deep\nin her soul, the richest thing in her life indeed and the best thing she\nhad to give humanity, was a craving for beauty that at times became\nalmost intolerable, a craving for something other than beauty and yet\ninseparably allied with it, a craving for deep excitement, for a sort of\nglory in adventure, for passion--for things akin to great music and\nheroic poems and bannered traditions of romance. She had hidden away in\nher an immense tumultuous appetite for life, an immense tumultuous\ncapacity for living. To be loved beautifully was surely the crown and\nclimax of her being.\n\nShe did not dare to listen to these deeps, yet these insurgent voices\nfilled her. Even while she drove her little crocodile of primly sensible\nthoughts to their sane appointed conclusion, her blood and nerves and\nall her being were protesting that Mr. Magnet would not do, that\nwhatever other worthiness was in him, regarded as a lover he was\npreposterous and flat and foolish and middle-aged, and that it were\nbetter never to have lived than to put the treasure of her life to his\nmeagre lips and into his hungry, unattractive arms. \"The ugliness of\nit! The spiritless horror of it!\" so dumbly and formlessly the rebel\nvoices urged.\n\n\"One has to be sensible,\" said Marjorie to herself, suddenly putting\ndown Shaw's book on Municipal Trading, which she imagined she had been\nreading....\n\n(Perhaps all marriage was horrid, and one had to get over it.)\n\nThat was rather what her mother had conveyed to her.\n\n\nSec. 2\n\nMr. Magnet made his first proposal in form three days later, after\ncoming twice to tea and staying on to supper. He had played croquet with\nMr. Pope, he had been beaten twelve times in spite of twinges in the\nsprained ankle--heroically borne--had had three victories lucidly\nexplained away, and heard all the particulars of the East Purblow\nexperiment three times over, first in relation to the new Labour\nExchanges, then regarded at rather a different angle in relation to\nfemale betting, tally-men, and the sanctities of the home generally, and\nfinally in a more exhaustive style, to show its full importance from\nevery side and more particularly as demonstrating the gross injustice\ndone to Mr. Pope by the neglect of its lessons, a neglect too systematic\nto be accidental, in the social reform literature of the time. Moreover,\nMr. Magnet had been made to understand thoroughly how several later\nquasi-charitable attempts of a similar character had already become, or\nmust inevitably become, unsatisfactory through their failure to follow\nexactly in the lines laid down by Mr. Pope.\n\nMr. Pope was really very anxious to be pleasant and agreeable to Mr.\nMagnet, and he could think of no surer way of doing so than by giving\nhim an unrestrained intimacy of conversation that prevented anything\nmore than momentary intercourse between his daughter and her admirer.\nAnd not only did Mr. Magnet find it difficult to get away from Mr. Pope\nwithout offence, but whenever by any chance Mr. Pope was detached for a\nmoment Mr. Magnet discovered that Marjorie either wasn't to be seen, or\nif she was she wasn't to be isolated by any device he could contrive,\nbefore the unappeasable return of Mr. Pope.\n\nMr. Magnet did not get his chance therefore until Lady Petchworth's\nlittle gathering at Summerhay Park.\n\nLady Petchworth was Mrs. Pope's oldest friend, and one of those brighter\ninfluences which save our English country-side from lassitude. She had\nbeen more fortunate than Mrs. Pope, for while Mr. Pope with that\naptitude for disadvantage natural to his temperament had, he said, been\ntied to a business that never gave him a chance, Lady Petchworth's\nhusband had been a reckless investor of exceptional good-luck. In\nparticular, led by a dream, he had put most of his money into a series\nof nitrate deposits in caves in Saghalien haunted by benevolent\npenguins, and had been rewarded beyond the dreams of avarice. His\nforesight had received the fitting reward of a knighthood, and Sir\nThomas, after restoring the Parish Church at Summerhay in a costly and\ndestructive manner, spent his declining years in an enviable contentment\nwith Lady Petchworth and the world at large, and died long before\ninfirmity made him really troublesome.\n\nGood fortune had brought out Lady Petchworth's social aptitudes.\nSummerhay Park was everything that a clever woman, inspired by that\ngardening literature which has been so abundant in the opening years of\nthe twentieth century, could make it. It had rosaries and rock gardens,\nsundials and yew hedges, pools and ponds, lead figures and stone urns,\nbox borderings and wilderness corners and hundreds and hundreds of feet\nof prematurely-aged red-brick wall with broad herbaceous borders; the\nwalks had primroses, primulas and cowslips in a quite disingenuous\nabundance, and in spring the whole extent of the park was gay, here with\nthousands of this sort of daffodil just bursting out and here with\nthousands of that sort of narcissus just past its prime, and every patch\nready to pass itself off in its naturalized way as the accidental native\nflower of the field, if only it hadn't been for all the other different\nvarieties coming on or wilting-off in adjacent patches....\n\nHer garden was only the beginning of Lady Petchworth's activities. She\nhad a model dairy, and all her poultry was white, and so far as she was\nable to manage it she made Summerhay a model village. She overflowed\nwith activities, it was astonishing in one so plump and blonde, and\nmeeting followed meeting in the artistic little red-brick and\ngreen-stained timber village hall she had erected. Now it was the\nNational Theatre and now it was the National Mourning; now it was the\nBreak Up of the Poor Law, and now the Majority Report, now the Mothers'\nUnion, and now Socialism, and now Individualism, but always something\nprogressive and beneficial. She did her best to revive the old village\nlife, and brought her very considerable powers of compulsion to make the\nmen dance in simple old Morris dances, dressed up in costumes they\nsecretly abominated, and to induce the mothers to dress their children\nin art- smocks instead of the prints and blue serge frocks they\npreferred. She did not despair, she said, of creating a spontaneous\npeasant art movement in the district, springing from the people and\nexpressing the people, but so far it had been necessary to import not\nonly instructors and material, but workers to keep the thing going, so\nsluggish had the spontaneity of our English countryside become.\n\nHer little gatherings were quite distinctive of her. They were a sort of\ngarden party extending from mid-day to six or seven; there would be a\nnucleus of house guests, and the highways and byeways on every hand\nwould be raided to supply persons and interests. She had told her friend\nto \"bring the girls over for the day,\" and flung an invitation to Mr.\nPope, who had at once excused himself on the score of his ankle. Mr.\nPope was one of those men who shun social gatherings--ostensibly because\nof a sterling simplicity of taste, but really because his intolerable\negotism made him feel slighted and neglected on these occasions. He told\nhis wife he would be far happier with a book at home, exhorted her not\nto be late, and was seen composing himself to read the \"Vicar of\nWakefield\"--whenever they published a new book Mr. Pope pretended to\nread an old one--as the hired waggonette took the rest of his\nfamily--Theodore very unhappy in buff silk and a wide Stuart\ncollar--down the avenue.\n\nThey found a long lunch table laid on the lawn beneath the chestnuts,\nand in full view of the poppies and forget-me-nots around the stone\nobelisk, a butler and three men servants with brass buttons and red and\nwhite striped waistcoats gave dignity to the scene, and beyond, on the\nterrace amidst abundance of deckchairs, cane chairs, rugs, and cushions,\na miscellaneous and increasing company seethed under Lady Petchworth's\nplump but entertaining hand. There were, of course, Mr. Magnet, and his\nfriend Mr. Wintersloan--Lady Petchworth had been given to understand\nhow the land lay; and there was Mr. Bunford Paradise the musician, who\nwas doing his best to teach a sullen holiday class in the village\nschoolroom to sing the artless old folk songs of Surrey again, in spite\nof the invincible persuasion of everybody in the class that the songs\nwere rather indelicate and extremely silly; there were the Rev. Jopling\nBaynes, and two Cambridge undergraduates in flannels, and a Doctor\nsomething or other from London. There was also the Hon. Charles Muskett,\nLord Pottinger's cousin and estate agent, in tweeds and very helpful.\nThe ladies included Mrs. Raff, the well-known fashion writer, in a\nwonderful costume, the anonymous doctor's wife, three or four\nneighbouring mothers with an undistinguished daughter or so, and two\nquiet-mannered middle-aged ladies, whose names Marjorie could not catch,\nand whom Lady Petchworth, in that well-controlled voice of hers,\naddressed as Kate and Julia, and seemed on the whole disposed to treat\nas humorous. There was also Fraulein Schmidt in charge of Lady\nPetchworth's three tall and already abundant children, Prunella,\nPrudence, and Mary, and a young, newly-married couple of cousins, who\naddressed each other in soft undertones and sat apart. These were the\nchief items that became distinctive in Marjorie's survey; but there were\na number of other people who seemed to come and go, split up, fuse,\nchange their appearance slightly, and behave in the way inadequately\napprehended people do behave on these occasions.\n\nMarjorie very speedily found her disposition to take a detached and\namused view of the entertainment in conflict with more urgent demands.\nFrom the outset Mr. Magnet loomed upon her--he loomed nearer and nearer.\nHe turned his eye upon her as she came up to the wealthy expanse of\nLady Petchworth's presence, like some sort of obsolescent iron-clad\nturning a dull-grey, respectful, loving searchlight upon a fugitive\ntorpedo boat, and thereafter he seemed to her to be looking at her\nwithout intermission, relentlessly, and urging himself towards her. She\nwished he wouldn't. She hadn't at all thought he would on this occasion.\n\nAt first she relied upon her natural powers of evasion, and the presence\nof a large company. Then gradually it became apparent that Lady\nPetchworth and her mother, yes--and the party generally, and the gardens\nand the weather and the stars in their courses were of a mind to\nco-operate in giving opportunity for Mr. Magnet's unmistakable\nintentions.\n\nAnd Marjorie with that instability of her sex which has been a theme for\nmasculine humour in all ages, suddenly and with an extraordinary\nviolence didn't want to make up her mind about Mr. Magnet. She didn't\nwant to accept him; and as distinctly she didn't want to refuse him. She\ndidn't even want to be thought about as making up her mind about\nhim--which was, so to speak, an enlargement of her previous\nindisposition. She didn't even want to seem to avoid him, or to be\nthinking about him, or aware of his existence.\n\nAfter the greeting of Lady Petchworth she had succeeded very clumsily in\nnot seeing Mr. Magnet, and had addressed herself to Mr. Wintersloan, who\nwas standing a little apart, looking under his hand, with one eye shut,\nat the view between the tree stems towards Buryhamstreet. He told her\nthat he thought he had found something \"pooty\" that hadn't been done,\nand she did her best to share his artistic interests with a vivid sense\nof Mr. Magnet's tentative incessant approach behind her.\n\nHe joined them, and she made a desperate attempt to entangle Mr.\nWintersloan in a three-cornered talk in vain. He turned away at the\nfirst possible opportunity, and left her to an embarrassed and\neloquently silent _tete-a-tete_. Mr. Magnet's professional wit had\ndeserted him. \"It's nice to see you again,\" he said after an immense\ninterval. \"Shall we go and look at the aviary?\"\n\n\"I hate to see birds in cages,\" said Marjorie, \"and it's frightfully\njolly just here. Do you think Mr. Wintersloan will paint this? He does\npaint, doesn't he?\"\n\n\"I know him best in black and white,\" said Mr. Magnet.\n\nMarjorie embarked on entirely insincere praises of Mr. Wintersloan's\nmanner and personal effect; Magnet replied tepidly, with an air of\nreserving himself to grapple with the first conversational opportunity.\n\n\"It's a splendid day for tennis,\" said Marjorie. \"I think I shall play\ntennis all the afternoon.\"\n\n\"I don't play well enough for this publicity.\"\n\n\"It's glorious exercise,\" said Marjorie. \"Almost as good as dancing,\"\nand she decided to stick to that resolution. \"I never lose a chance of\ntennis if I can help it.\"\n\nShe glanced round and detected a widening space between themselves and\nthe next adjacent group.\n\n\"They're looking at the goldfish,\" she said. \"Let us join them.\"\n\nEveryone moved away as they came up to the little round pond, but then\nMarjorie had luck, and captured Prunella, and got her to hold hands and\ntalk, until Fraulein Schmidt called the child away. And then Marjorie\nforced Mr. Magnet to introduce her to Mr. Bunford Paradise. She had a\nbright idea of sitting between Prunella and Mary at the lunch table,\nbut a higher providence had assigned her to a seat at the end between\nJulia--or was it Kate?--and Mr. Magnet. However, one of the\nundergraduates was opposite, and she saved herself from undertones by\ntalking across to him boldly about Newnham, though she hadn't an idea of\nhis name or college. From that she came to tennis. To her inflamed\nimagination he behaved as if she was under a Taboo, but she was\ndesperate, and had pledged him and his friend to a foursome before the\nmeal was over.\n\n\"Don't _you_ play?\" said the undergraduate to Mr. Magnet.\n\n\"Very little,\" said Mr. Magnet. \"Very little--\"\n\nAt the end of an hour she was conspicuously and publicly shepherded from\nthe tennis court by Mrs. Pope.\n\n\"Other people want to play,\" said her mother in a clear little\nundertone.\n\nMr. Magnet fielded her neatly as she came off the court.\n\n\"You play tennis like--a wild bird,\" he said, taking possession of her.\n\nOnly Marjorie's entire freedom from Irish blood saved him from a\nvindictive repartee.\n\n\nSec. 3\n\n\"Shall we go and look at the aviary?\" said Mr. Magnet, reverting to a\nfavourite idea of his, and then remembered she did not like to see caged\nbirds.\n\n\"Perhaps we might see the Water Garden?\" he said. \"The Water Garden is\nreally very delightful indeed--anyhow. You ought to see that.\"\n\nOn the spur of the moment, Marjorie could think of no objection to the\nWater Garden, and he led her off.\n\n\"I often think of that jolly walk we had last summer,\" said Mr. Magnet,\n\"and how you talked about your work at Oxbridge.\"\n\nMarjorie fell into a sudden rapture of admiration for a butterfly.\n\nTwice more was Mr. Magnet baffled, and then they came to the little pool\nof water lilies with its miniature cascade of escape at the head and\nsource of the Water Garden. \"One of Lady Petchworth's great successes,\"\nsaid Mr. Magnet.\n\n\"I suppose the lotus is like the water-lily,\" said Marjorie, with no\nhope of staving off the inevitable----\n\nShe stood very still by the little pool, and in spite of her pensive\nregard of the floating blossoms, stiffly and intensely aware of his\nrelentless regard.\n\n\"Marjorie,\" came his voice at last, strangely softened. \"There is\nsomething I want to say to you.\"\n\nShe made no reply.\n\n\"Ever since we met last summer----\"\n\nA clear cold little resolution not to stand this, had established itself\nin Marjorie's mind. If she must decide, she _would_ decide. He had\nbrought it upon himself.\n\n\"Marjorie,\" said Mr. Magnet, \"I love you.\"\n\nShe lifted a clear unhesitating eye to his face. \"I'm sorry, Mr.\nMagnet,\" she said.\n\n\"I wanted to ask you to marry me,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Mr. Magnet,\" she repeated.\n\nThey looked at one another. She felt a sort of scared exultation at\nhaving done it; her mother might say what she liked.\n\n\"I love you very much,\" he said, at a loss.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" she repeated obstinately.\n\n\"I thought you cared for me a little.\"\n\nShe left that unanswered. She had a curious feeling that there was no\ngetting away from this splashing, babbling pool, that she was fixed\nthere until Mr. Magnet chose to release her, and that he didn't mean to\nrelease her yet. In which case she would go on refusing.\n\n\"I'm disappointed,\" he said.\n\nMarjorie could only think that she was sorry again, but as she had\nalready said that three times, she remained awkwardly silent.\n\n\"Is it because----\" he began and stopped.\n\n\"It isn't because of anything. Please let's go back to the others, Mr.\nMagnet. I'm sorry if I'm disappointing.\"\n\nAnd by a great effort she turned about.\n\nMr. Magnet remained regarding her--I can only compare it to the\nsearching preliminary gaze of an artistic photographer. For a crucial\nminute in his life Marjorie hated him. \"I don't understand,\" he said at\nlast.\n\nThen with a sort of naturalness that ought to have touched her he said:\n\"Is it possible, Marjorie--that I might hope?--that I have been\ninopportune?\"\n\nShe answered at once with absolute conviction.\n\n\"I don't think so, Mr. Magnet.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said, \"to have bothered you.\"\n\n\"_I'm_ sorry,\" said Marjorie.\n\nA long silence followed.\n\n\"I'm sorry too,\" he said.\n\nThey said no more, but began to retrace their steps. It was over.\nAbruptly, Mr. Magnet's bearing had become despondent--conspicuously\ndespondent. \"I had hoped,\" he said, and sighed.\n\nWith a thrill of horror Marjorie perceived he meant to _look_ rejected,\nlet every one see he had been rejected--after encouragement.\n\nWhat would they think? How would they look? What conceivably might they\nnot say? Something of the importance of the thing she had done, became\nmanifest to her. She felt first intimations of regret. They would all be\nwatching, Mother, Daffy, Lady Petchworth. She would reappear with this\nvictim visibly suffering beside her. What could she say to straighten\nhis back and lift his chin? She could think of nothing. Ahead at the end\nof the shaded path she could see the copious white form, the agitated\nfair wig and red sunshade of Lady Petchworth----\n\n\nSec. 4\n\nMrs. Pope's eye was relentless; nothing seemed hidden from it; nothing\nindeed was hidden from it; Mr. Magnet's back was diagrammatic. Marjorie\nwas a little flushed and bright-eyed, and professed herself eager, with\nan unnatural enthusiasm, to play golf-croquet. It was eloquently\nsignificant that Mr. Magnet did not share her eagerness, declined to\nplay, and yet when she had started with the Rev. Jopling Baynes as\npartner, stood regarding the game with a sort of tender melancholy from\nthe shade of the big chestnut-tree.\n\nMrs. Pope joined him unobtrusively.\n\n\"You're not playing, Mr. Magnet,\" she remarked.\n\n\"I'm a looker-on, this time,\" he said with a sigh.\n\n\"Marjorie's winning, I think,\" said Mrs. Pope.\n\nHe made no answer for some seconds.\n\n\"She looks so charming in that blue dress,\" he remarked at last, and\nsighed from the lowest deeps.\n\n\"That bird's-egg blue suits her,\" said Mrs. Pope, ignoring the sigh.\n\"She's clever in her girlish way, she chooses all her own\ndresses,--colours, material, everything.\"\n\n(And also, though Mrs. Pope had not remarked it, she concealed her\nbills.)\n\nThere came a still longer interval, which Mrs. Pope ended with the\nslightest of shivers. She perceived Mr. Magnet was heavy for sympathy\nand ripe to confide. \"I think,\" she said, \"it's a little cool here.\nShall we walk to the Water Garden, and see if there are any white\nlilies?\"\n\n\"There are,\" said Mr. Magnet sorrowfully, \"and they are very\nbeautiful--_quite_ beautiful.\"\n\nHe turned to the path along which he had so recently led Marjorie.\n\nHe glanced back as they went along between Lady Petchworth's herbaceous\nborder and the poppy beds. \"She's so full of life,\" he said, with a sigh\nin his voice.\n\nMrs. Pope knew she must keep silent.\n\n\"I asked her to marry me this afternoon,\" Mr. Magnet blurted out. \"I\ncouldn't help it.\"\n\nMrs. Pope made her silence very impressive.\n\n\"I know I ought not to have done so without consulting you\"--he went on\nlamely; \"I'm very much in love with her. It's----It's done no harm.\"\n\nMrs. Pope's voice was soft and low. \"I had no idea, Mr. Magnet.... You\nknow she is very young. Twenty. A mother----\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Magnet. \"I can quite understand. But I've done no harm.\nShe refused me. I shall go away to-morrow. Go right away for ever....\nI'm sorry.\"\n\nAnother long silence.\n\n\"To me, of course, she's just a child,\" Mrs. Pope said at last. \"She\n_is_ only a child, Mr. Magnet. She could have had no idea that anything\nof the sort was in your mind----\"\n\nHer words floated away into the stillness.\n\nFor a time they said no more. The lilies came into sight, dreaming under\na rich green shade on a limpid pool of brown water, water that slept and\nbrimmed over as it were, unconsciously into a cool splash and ripple of\nescape. \"How beautiful!\" cried Mrs. Pope, for a moment genuine.\n\n\"I spoke to her here,\" said Mr. Magnet.\n\nThe fountains of his confidence were unloosed.\n\n\"Now I've spoken to you about it, Mrs. Pope,\" he said, \"I can tell you\njust how I--oh, it's the only word--adore her. She seems so sweet and\neasy--so graceful----\"\n\nMrs. Pope turned on him abruptly, and grasped his hands; she was deeply\nmoved. \"I can't tell you,\" she said, \"what it means to a mother to hear\nsuch things----\"\n\nWords failed her, and for some moments they engaged in a mutual\npressure.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Mr. Magnet, and had a queer wish it was the mother he had to\ndeal with.\n\n\"Are you sure, Mr. Magnet,\" Mrs. Pope went on as their emotions\nsubsided, \"that she really meant what she said? Girls are very strange\ncreatures----\"\n\n\"She seems so clear and positive.\"\n\n\"Her manner is always clear and positive.\"\n\n\"Yes. I know.\"\n\n\"I know she _has_ cared for you.\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"A mother sees. When your name used to be mentioned----. But these are\nnot things to talk about. There is something--something sacred----\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"Yes. Only----Of course, one thing----\"\n\nMrs. Pope seemed lost in the contemplation of water-lilies.\n\n\"I wondered,\" said Mr. Magnet, and paused again.\n\nThen, almost breathlessly, \"I wondered if there should be perhaps--some\none else?\"\n\nShe shook her head slowly. \"I should know,\" she said.\n\n\"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"I know I should know.\"\n\n\"Perhaps recently?\"\n\n\"I am sure I should know. A mother's intuition----\"\n\nMemories possessed her for awhile. \"A girl of twenty is a mass of\ncontradictions. I can remember myself as if it was yesterday. Often one\nsays no, or yes--out of sheer nervousness.... I am sure there is no\nother attachment----\"\n\nIt occurred to her that she had said enough. \"What a dignity that old\ngold-fish has!\" she remarked. \"He waves his tail--as if he were a beadle\nwaving little boys out of church.\"\n\n\nSec. 5\n\nMrs. Pope astonished Marjorie by saying nothing about the all too\nobvious event of the day for some time, but her manner to her second\ndaughter on their way home was strangely gentle. It was as if she had\nrealized for the first time that regret and unhappiness might come into\nthat young life. After supper, however, she spoke. They had all gone out\njust before the children went to bed to look for the new moon; Daffy was\nshowing the pseudo-twins the old moon in the new moon's arms, and\nMarjorie found herself standing by her mother's side. \"I hope dear,\"\nsaid Mrs. Pope, \"that it's all for the best--and that you've done\nwisely, dear.\"\n\nMarjorie was astonished and moved by her mother's tone.\n\n\"It's so difficult to know what _is_ for the best,\" Mrs. Pope went on.\n\n\"I had to do--as I did,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"I only hope you may never find you have made a Great Mistake, dear. He\ncares for you very, very much.\"\n\n\"Oh! we see it now!\" cried Rom, \"we see it now! Mummy, have you seen it?\nLike a little old round ghost being nursed!\"\n\nWhen Marjorie said \"Good-night,\" Mrs. Pope kissed her with an\nunaccustomed effusion.\n\nIt occurred to Marjorie that after all her mother had no selfish end to\nserve in this affair.\n\n\nSec. 6\n\nThe idea that perhaps after all she had made a Great Mistake, the\nMistake of her Life it might be, was quite firmly established in its\nplace among all the other ideas in Marjorie's mind by the time she had\ndressed next morning. Subsequent events greatly intensified this\npersuasion. A pair of new stockings she had trusted sprang a bad hole as\nshe put them on. She found two unmistakable bills from Oxbridge beside\nher plate, and her father was \"horrid\" at breakfast.\n\nHer father, it appeared, had bought the ordinary shares of a Cuban\nrailway very extensively, on the distinct understanding that they would\nimprove. In a decent universe, with a proper respect for meritorious\ngentlemen, these shares would have improved accordingly, but the weather\nhad seen fit to shatter the wisdom of Mr. Pope altogether. The sugar\ncrop had collapsed, the bears were at work, and every morning now saw\nhis nominal capital diminished by a dozen pounds or so. I do not know\nwhat Mr. Pope would have done if he had not had his family to help him\nbear his trouble. As it was he relieved his tension by sending Theodore\nfrom the table for dropping a knife, telling Rom when she turned the\nplate round to pick the largest banana that she hadn't the self-respect\nof a child of five, and remarking sharply from behind the _Times_ when\nDaffy asked Marjorie if she was going to sketch: \"Oh, for God's sake\ndon't _whisper!_\" Then when Mrs. Pope came round the table and tried to\ntake his coffee cup softly to refill it without troubling him, he\nsnatched at it, wrenched it roughly out of her hand, and said with his\nmouth full, and strangely in the manner of a snarling beast: \"No' ready\nyet. Half foo'.\"\n\nMarjorie wanted to know why every one didn't get up and leave the room.\nShe glanced at her mother and came near to speaking.\n\nAnd very soon she would have to come home and live in the midst of this\nagain--indefinitely!\n\nAfter breakfast she went to the tumbledown summer-house by the duckpond,\nand contemplated the bills she had not dared to open at table. One was\nboots, nearly three pounds, the other books, over seven. \"I _know_\nthat's wrong,\" said Marjorie, and rested her chin on her hand, knitted\nher brows and tried to remember the details of orders and deliveries....\n\nMarjorie had fallen into the net prepared for our sons and daughters by\nthe delicate modesty of the Oxbridge authorities in money matters, and\nshe was, for her circumstances, rather heavily in debt. But I must admit\nthat in Marjorie's nature the Oxbridge conditions had found an eager and\nadventurous streak that rendered her particularly apt to these\ntemptations.\n\nI doubt if reticence is really a virtue in a teacher. But this is a\nfearful world, and the majority of those who instruct our youth have the\npainful sensitiveness of the cloistered soul to this spirit of terror in\nthings. The young need particularly to be told truthfully and fully all\nwe know of three fundamental things: the first of which is God, the\nnext their duty towards their neighbours in the matter of work and\nmoney, and the third Sex. These things, and the adequate why of them,\nand some sort of adequate how, make all that matters in education. But\nall three are obscure and deeply moving topics, topics for which the\ndonnish mind has a kind of special ineptitude, and which it evades with\nthe utmost skill and delicacy. The middle part of this evaded triad was\nnow being taken up in Marjorie's case by the Oxbridge tradespeople.\n\nThe Oxbridge shopkeeper is peculiar among shopkeepers in the fact that\nhe has to do very largely with shy and immature customers with an\nextreme and distinctive ignorance of most commercial things. They are\nfor the most part short of cash, but with vague and often large\nprobabilities of credit behind them, for most people, even quite\nstraitened people, will pull their sons and daughters out of altogether\nunreasonable debts at the end of their university career; and so the\nOxbridge shopkeeper becomes a sort of propagandist of the charms and\nadvantages of insolvency. Alone among retailers he dislikes the sight of\ncash, declines it, affects to regard it as a coarse ignorant truncation\nof a budding relationship, begs to be permitted to wait. So the\nyoungster just up from home discovers that money may stay in the pocket,\nbe used for cab and train fares and light refreshments; all the rest may\nbe had for the asking. Marjorie, with her innate hunger for good fine\nthings, with her quite insufficient pocket-money, and the irregular\nhabits of expenditure a spasmodically financed, hard-up home is apt to\nengender, fell very readily into this new, delightful custom of having\nit put down (whatever it happened to be). She had all sorts of things\nput down. She and the elder Carmel girl used to go shopping together,\nhaving things put down. She brightened her rooms with colour-prints and\nengravings, got herself pretty and becoming clothes, acquired a fitted\ndressing-bag already noted in this story, and one or two other trifles\nof the sort, revised her foot-wear, created a very nice little\nbookshelf, and although at times she felt a little astonished and scared\nat herself, resolutely refused to estimate the total of accumulated debt\nshe had attained. Indeed until the bills came in it was impossible to do\nthat, because, following the splendid example of the Carmel girl, she\nhadn't even inquired the price of quite a number of things....\n\nShe didn't dare think now of the total. She lied even to herself about\nthat. She had fixed on fifty pounds as the unendurable maximum. \"It is\nless than fifty pounds,\" she said, and added: \"_must_ be.\" But something\nin her below the threshold of consciousness knew that it was more.\n\nAnd now she was in her third year, and the Oxbridge tradesman, generally\nsatisfied with the dimensions of her account, and no longer anxious to\nsee it grow, was displaying the less obsequious side of his character.\nHe wrote remarks at the bottom of his account, remarks about settlement,\nabout having a bill to meet, about having something to go on with. He\nasked her to give the matter her \"early attention.\" She had a\ndisagreeable persuasion that if she wanted many more things anywhere she\nwould have to pay ready money for them. She was particularly short of\nstockings. She had overlooked stockings recently.\n\nDaffy, unfortunately, was also short of stockings.\n\nAnd now, back with her family again, everything conspired to remind\nMarjorie of the old stringent habits from which she had had so\ndelightful an interlude. She saw Daffy eye her possessions, reflect.\nThis morning something of the awfulness of her position came to her....\n\nAt Oxbridge she had made rather a joke of her debts.\n\n\"I'd _swear_ I haven't had three pairs of house shoes,\" said Marjorie.\n\"But what can one do?\"\n\nAnd about the whole position the question was, \"what can one do?\"\n\nShe proceeded with tense nervous movements to tear these two distasteful\ndemands into very minute pieces. Then she collected them all together in\nthe hollow of her hand, and buried them in the loose mould in a corner\nof the summer-house.\n\n\"Madge,\" said Theodore, appearing in the sunshine of the doorway. \"Aunt\nPlessington's coming! She's sent a wire. Someone's got to meet her by\nthe twelve-forty train.\"\n\n\nSec. 7\n\nAunt Plessington's descent was due to her sudden discovery that\nBuryhamstreet was in close proximity to Summerhay Park, indeed only\nthree miles away. She had promised a lecture on her movement for Lady\nPetchworth's village room in Summerhay, and she found that with a slight\nreadjustment of dates she could combine this engagement with her\npromised visit to her husband's sister, and an evening or so of\ninfluence for her little Madge. So she had sent Hubert to telegraph at\nonce, and \"here,\" she said triumphantly on the platform, after a hard\nkiss at Marjorie's cheek, \"we are again.\"\n\nThere, at any rate, she was, and Uncle Hubert was up the platform seeing\nafter the luggage, in his small anxious way.\n\nAunt Plessington was a tall lean woman, with firm features, a high\ncolour and a bright eye, who wore hats to show she despised them, and\ncarefully dishevelled hair. Her dress was always good, but extremely old\nand grubby, and she commanded respect chiefly by her voice. Her voice\nwas the true governing-class voice, a strangulated contralto, abundant\nand authoritative; it made everything she said clear and important, so\nthat if she said it was a fine morning it was like leaded print in the\n_Times_, and she had over her large front teeth lips that closed quietly\nand with a slight effort after her speeches, as if the words she spoke\ntasted well and left a peaceful, secure sensation in the mouth.\n\nUncle Hubert was a less distinguished figure, and just a little\nreminiscent of the small attached husbands one finds among the lower\ncrustacea: he was much shorter and rounder than his wife, and if he had\nbeen left to himself, he would probably have been comfortably fat in his\nquiet little way. But Aunt Plessington had made him a Haigite, which is\none of the fiercer kinds of hygienist, just in the nick of time. He had\nround shoulders, a large nose, and glasses that made him look\nastonished--and she said he had a great gift for practical things, and\nmade him see after everything in that line while she did the lecturing.\nHis directions to the porter finished, he came up to his niece. \"Hello,\nMarjorie!\" he said, in a peculiar voice that sounded as though his mouth\nwas full (though of course, poor dear, it wasn't), \"how's the First\nClass?\"\n\n\"A second's good enough for me, Uncle Hubert,\" said Marjorie, and asked\nif they would rather walk or go in the donkey cart, which was waiting\noutside with Daffy. Aunt Plessington, with an air of great _bonhomie_\nsaid she'd ride in the donkey cart, and they did. But no pseudo-twins or\nTheodore came to meet this arrival, as both uncle and aunt had a way of\nasking how the lessons were getting on that they found extremely\ndisagreeable. Also, their aunt measured them, and incited them with loud\nencouraging noises to grow one against the other in an urgent,\ndisturbing fashion.\n\nAunt Plessington's being was consumed by thoughts of getting on. She was\nlike Bernard Shaw's life force, and she really did not seem to think\nthere was anything in existence but shoving. She had no idea what a lark\nlife can be, and occasionally how beautiful it can be when you do not\nshove, if only, which becomes increasingly hard each year, you can get\naway from the shovers. She was one of an energetic family of eight\nsisters who had maintained themselves against a mutual pressure by the\nuse of their elbows from the cradle. They had all married against each\nother, all sorts of people; two had driven their husbands into\nbishoprics and made quite typical bishop's wives, one got a leading\nbarrister, one a high war-office official, and one a rich Jew, and Aunt\nPlessington, after spending some years in just missing a rich and only\nslightly demented baronet, had pounced--it's the only word for it--on\nUncle Hubert. \"A woman is nothing without a husband,\" she said, and took\nhim. He was a fairly comfortable Oxford don in his furtive way, and\nbringing him out and using him as a basis, she specialized in\nintellectual philanthropy and evolved her Movement. It was quite\nremarkable how rapidly she overhauled her sisters again.\n\nWhat the Movement was, varied considerably from time to time, but it was\nalways aggressively beneficial towards the lower strata of the\ncommunity. Among its central ideas was her belief that these lower\nstrata can no more be trusted to eat than they can to drink, and that\nthe licensing monopoly which has made the poor man's beer thick,\nlukewarm and discreditable, and so greatly minimized its consumption,\nshould be extended to the solid side of his dietary. She wanted to place\nconsiderable restrictions upon the sale of all sorts of meat, upon\ngroceries and the less hygienic and more palatable forms of bread (which\ndo not sufficiently stimulate the coatings of the stomach), to increase\nthe present difficulties in the way of tobacco purchasers, and to put an\nend to that wanton and deleterious consumption of sweets which has so\nbad an effect upon the enamel of the teeth of the younger generation.\nClosely interwoven with these proposals was an adoption of the principle\nof the East Purblow Experiment, the principle of Payment in Kind. She\nwas quite in agreement with Mr. Pope that poor people, when they had\nmoney, frittered it away, and so she proposed very extensive changes in\nthe Truck Act, which could enable employers, under suitable safeguards,\nand with the advice of a small body of spinster inspectors, to supply\nhygienic housing, approved clothing of moral and wholesome sort, various\nforms of insurance, edifying rations, cuisine, medical aid and\neducational facilities as circumstances seemed to justify, in lieu of\nthe wages the employees handled so ill....\n\nAs no people in England will ever admit they belong to the lower strata\nof society, Aunt Plessington's Movement attracted adherents from every\nclass in the community.\n\nShe now, as they drove slowly to the vicarage, recounted to\nMarjorie--she had the utmost contempt for Daffy because of her irregular\nteeth and a general lack of progressive activity--the steady growth of\nthe Movement, and the increasing respect shown for her and Hubert in the\nworld of politico-social reform. Some of the meetings she had addressed\nhad been quite full, various people had made various remarks about her,\nhostile for the most part and yet insidiously flattering, and everybody\nseemed quite glad to come to the little dinners she gave in order, she\nsaid, to gather social support for her reforms. She had been staying\nwith the Mastersteins, who were keenly interested, and after she had\npolished off Lady Petchworth she was to visit Lady Rosenbaum. It was all\ngoing on swimmingly, these newer English gentry were eager to learn all\nshe had to teach in the art of breaking in the Anglo-Saxon villagers,\nand now, how was Marjorie going on, and what was _she_ going to do in\nthe world?\n\nMarjorie said she was working for her final.\n\n\"And what then?\" asked Aunt Plessington.\n\n\"Not very clear, Aunt, yet.\"\n\n\"Looking around for something to take up?\"\n\n\"Yes, Aunt.\"\n\n\"Well, you've time yet. And it's just as well to see how the land lies\nbefore you begin. It saves going back. You'll have to come up to London\nwith me for a little while, and see things, and be seen a little.\"\n\n\"I should love to.\"\n\n\"I'll give you a good time,\" said Aunt Plessington, nodding promisingly.\n\"Theodore getting on in school?\"\n\n\"He's had his remove.\"\n\n\"And how's Sydney getting on with the music?\"\n\n\"Excellently.\"\n\n\"And Rom. Rom getting on?\"\n\nMarjorie indicated a more restrained success.\n\n\"And what's Daffy doing?\"\n\n\"Oh! _get_ on!\" said Daffy and suddenly whacked the donkey rather hard.\n\"I beg your pardon, Aunt?\"\n\n\"I asked what _you_ were up to, Daffy?\"\n\n\"Dusting, Aunt--and the virtues,\" said Daffy.\n\n\"You ought to find something better than that.\"\n\n\"Father tells me a lot about the East Purblow Experiment,\" said Daffy\nafter a perceptible interval.\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Aunt Plessington with a loud encouraging note, but evidently\nmaking the best of it, \"_that's_ better. Sociological observation.\"\n\n\"Yes, Aunt,\" said Daffy, and negotiated a corner with exceptional care.\n\n\nSec. 8\n\nMrs. Pope, who had an instinctive disposition to pad when Aunt\nPlessington was about, had secured the presence at lunch of Mr. Magnet\n(who was after all staying on in Buryhamstreet) and the Rev. Jopling\nBaynes. Aunt Plessington liked to meet the clergy, and would always if\nshe could win them over to an interest in the Movement. She opened the\nmeal with a brisk attack upon him. \"Come, Mr. Baynes,\" she said, \"what\ndo your people eat here? Hubert and I are making a study of the\ngluttonous side of village life, and we find that no one knows so much\nof that as the vicar--not even the doctor.\"\n\nThe Reverend Jopling Baynes was a clergyman of the evasive type with a\nquite distinguished voice. He pursed his lips and made his eyes round.\n\"Well, Mrs. Plessington,\" he said and fingered his glass, \"it's the\nusual dietary. The usual dietary.\"\n\n\"Too much and too rich, badly cooked and eaten too fast,\" said Aunt\nPlessington. \"And what do you think is the remedy?\"\n\n\"We make an Effort,\" said the Rev. Jopling Baynes, \"we make an Effort. A\nHint here, a Word there.\"\n\n\"Nothing organized?\"\n\n\"No,\" said the Rev. Jopling Baynes, and shook his head with a kind of\nresignation.\n\n\"We are going to alter all that,\" said Aunt Plessington briskly, and\nwent on to expound the Movement and the diverse way in which it might be\npossible to control and improve the domestic expenditure of the working\nclasses.\n\nThe Rev. Jopling Baynes listened sympathetically across the table and\ntried to satisfy a healthy appetite with as abstemious an air as\npossible while he did so. Aunt Plessington passed rapidly from general\nprinciples, to a sketch of the success of the movement, and Hubert, who\nhad hitherto been busy with his lunch, became audible from behind the\nexceptionally large floral trophy that concealed him from his wife,\nbubbling confirmatory details. She was very bright and convincing as she\ntold of this prominent man met and subdued, that leading antagonist\nconfuted, and how the Bishops were coming in. She made it clear in her\nswift way that an intelligent cleric resolved to get on in this world\n_en route_ for a better one hereafter, might do worse than take up her\nMovement. And this touched in, she turned her mind to Mr. Magnet.\n\n(That floral trophy, I should explain, by the by, was exceptionally\nlarge because of Mrs. Pope's firm conviction that Aunt Plessington\nstarved her husband. Accordingly, she masked him, and so was able to\nheap second and third helpings upon his plate without Aunt Plessington\ndiscovering his lapse. The avidity with which Hubert ate confirmed her\nworst suspicions and evinced, so far as anything ever did evince, his\ngratitude.)\n\n\"Well, Mr. Magnet,\" she said, \"I wish I had your sense of humour.\"\n\n\"I wish you had,\" said Mr. Magnet.\n\n\"I should write tracts,\" said Aunt Plessington.\n\n\"I knew it was good for something,\" said Mr. Magnet, and Daffy laughed\nin a tentative way.\n\n\"I mean it,\" said Aunt Plessington brightly. \"Think if we had a\nDickens--and you are the nearest man alive to Dickens--on the side of\nsocial reform to-day!\"\n\nMr. Magnet's light manner deserted him. \"We do what we can, Mrs.\nPlessington,\" he said.\n\n\"How much more might be done,\" said Aunt Plessington, \"if humour could\nbe organized.\"\n\n\"Hear, hear!\" said Mr. Pope.\n\n\"If all the humorists of England could be induced to laugh at something\ntogether.\"\n\n\"They do--at times,\" said Mr. Magnet, but the atmosphere was too serious\nfor his light touch.\n\n\"They could laugh it out of existence,\" said Aunt Plessington.\n\nIt was evident Mr. Magnet was struck by the idea.\n\n\"Of course,\" he said, \"in _Punch_, to which I happen to be an obscure\noccasional contributor----\"\n\nMrs. Pope was understood to protest that he should not say such things.\n\n\"We _do_ remember just what we can do either in the way of advertising\nor injury. I don't think you'll find us up against any really _solid_\ninstitutions.\"\n\n\"But do you think, Mr. Magnet, you are sufficiently kind to the New?\"\nAunt Plessington persisted.\n\n\"I think we are all grateful to _Punch_,\" said the Rev. Jopling Baynes\nsuddenly and sonorously, \"for its steady determination to direct our\nmirth into the proper channels. I do not think that any one can accuse\nits editor of being unmindful of his great responsibilities----\"\n\nMarjorie found it a very interesting conversation.\n\nShe always met her aunt again with a renewal of a kind of admiration.\nThat loud authoritative rudeness, that bold thrusting forward of the\nMovement until it became the sole criterion of worth or success, this\nannihilation by disregard of all that Aunt Plessington wasn't and didn't\nand couldn't, always in the intervals seemed too good to be true. Of\ncourse this really was the way people got on and made a mark, but she\nfelt it must be almost as trying to the nerves as aeronautics. Suppose,\nsomewhere up there your engine stopped! How Aunt Plessington dominated\nthe table! Marjorie tried not to catch Daffy's eye. Daffy was\nunostentatiously keeping things going, watching the mustard, rescuing\nthe butter, restraining Theodore, and I am afraid not listening very\ncarefully to Aunt Plessington. The children were marvellously silent and\njumpily well-behaved, and Mr. Pope, in a very unusual state of subdued\namiability, sat at the end of the table with the East Purblow experiment\non the tip of his tongue. He liked Aunt Plessington, and she was good\nfor him. They had the same inherent distrust of the intelligence and\ngood intentions of their fellow creatures, and she had the knack of\nmaking him feel that he too was getting on, that she was saying things\non his behalf in influential quarters, and in spite of the almost\nuniversal conspiracy (based on jealousy) to ignore his stern old-world\nvirtues, he might still be able to battle his way to the floor of the\nHouse of Commons and there deliver himself before he died of a few\nsorely needed home-truths about motor cars, decadence and frivolity\ngenerally....\n\n\nSec. 9\n\nAfter lunch Aunt Plessington took her little Madge for an energetic\nwalk, and showed herself far more observant than the egotism of her\nconversation at that meal might have led one to suppose. Or perhaps she\nwas only better informed. Aunt Plessington loved a good hard walk in the\nafternoon; and if she could get any one else to accompany her, then\nHubert stayed at home, and curled up into a ball on a sofa somewhere,\nand took a little siesta that made him all the brighter for the\nintellectual activities of the evening. The thought of a young life,\nnew, untarnished, just at the outset, just addressing itself to the task\nof getting on, always stimulated her mind extremely, and she talked to\nMarjorie with a very real and effectual desire to help her to the utmost\nof her ability.\n\nShe talked of a start in life, and the sort of start she had had. She\nshowed how many people who began with great advantages did not shove\nsufficiently, and so dropped out of things and weren't seen and\nmentioned. She defended herself for marrying Hubert, and showed what a\nclever shoving thing it had been to do. It startled people a little, and\nmade them realize that here was a woman who wanted something more in a\nman than a handsome organ-grinder. She made it clear that she thought a\nclever marriage, if not a startlingly brilliant one, the first duty of a\ngirl. It was a girl's normal gambit. She branched off to the things\nsingle women might do, in order to justify this view. She did not think\nsingle women could do very much. They might perhaps shove as\nsuffragettes, but even there a husband helped tremendously--if only by\nrefusing to bail you out. She ran over the cases of a number of\nprominent single women.\n\n\"And what,\" said Aunt Plessington, \"do they all amount to? A girl is so\nhampered and an old maid is so neglected,\" said Aunt Plessington.\n\nShe paused.\n\n\"Why don't you up and marry Mr. Magnet, Marjorie?\" she said, with her\nmost brilliant flash.\n\n\"It takes two to make a marriage, aunt,\" said Marjorie after a slight\nhesitation.\n\n\"My dear child! he worships the ground you tread on!\" said Aunt\nPlessington.\n\n\"He's rather--grown up,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"Not a bit of it. He's not forty. He's just the age.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid it's a little impossible.\"\n\n\"Impossible?\"\n\n\"You see I've refused him, aunt.\"\n\n\"Naturally--the first time! But I wouldn't send him packing the second.\"\n\nThere was an interval.\n\nMarjorie decided on a blunt question. \"Do you really think, aunt, I\nshould do well to marry Mr. Magnet?\"\n\n\"He'd give you everything a clever woman needs,\" said Aunt Plessington.\n\"Everything.\"\n\nWith swift capable touches she indicated the sort of life the future\nMrs. Magnet might enjoy. \"He's evidently a man who wants helping to a\nposition,\" she said. \"Of course his farces and things, I'm told, make no\nend of money, but he's just a crude gift by himself. Money like that is\nnothing. With a clever wife he might be all sorts of things. Without one\nhe'll just subside--you know the sort of thing this sort of man does. A\nrather eccentric humorous house in the country, golf, croquet,\nhorse-riding, rose-growing, queer hats.\"\n\n\"Isn't that rather what he would like to do, aunt?\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"That's not _our_ business, Madge,\" said Aunt Plessington with humorous\nemphasis.\n\nShe began to sketch out a different and altogether smarter future for\nthe fortunate humorist. There would be a house in a good central\nposition in London where Marjorie would have bright successful lunches\nand dinners, very unpretending and very good, and tempt the clever smart\nwith the lure of the interestingly clever; there would be a bright\nlittle country cottage in some pretty accessible place to which Aunt and\nUncle Plessington and able and influential people generally could be\ninvited for gaily recreative and yet extremely talkative and helpful\nweek-ends. Both places could be made centres of intrigue; conspiracies\nfor getting on and helping and exchanging help could be organized,\npeople could be warned against people whose getting-on was undesirable.\nIn the midst of it all, dressed with all the natural wit she had and an\nenlarging experience, would be Marjorie, shining like a rising planet.\nIt wouldn't be long, if she did things well, before she had permanent\nofficials and young cabinet ministers mingling with her salad of writers\nand humorists and the Plessington connexion.\n\n\"Then,\" said Aunt Plessington with a joyous lift in her voice, \"you'll\nbegin to _weed_ a little.\"\n\nFor a time the girl's mind resisted her.\n\nBut Marjorie was of the impressionable sex at an impressionable age, and\nthere was something overwhelming in the undeviating conviction of her\naunt, in the clear assurance of her voice, that this life which\ninterested her was the real life, the only possible successful life. The\nworld reformed itself in Marjorie's fluent mind, until it was all a\nscheme of influence and effort and ambition and triumphs. Dinner-parties\nand receptions, men wearing orders, cabinet ministers more than a little\nin love asking her advice, beautiful robes, a great blaze of lights;\nwhy! she might be, said Aunt Plessington rising to enthusiasm, \"another\nMarcella.\" The life was not without its adventurous side; it wasn't in\nany way dull. Aunt Plessington to illustrate that point told amusing\nanecdotes of how two almost impudent invitations on her part had\nsucceeded, and how she had once scored off her elder sister by getting a\ncoveted celebrity through their close family resemblance. \"After\naccepting he couldn't very well refuse because I wasn't somebody else,\"\nshe ended gleefully. \"So he came--and stayed as long as anybody.\"\n\nWhat else was there for Marjorie to contemplate? If she didn't take this\nby no means unattractive line, what was the alternative? Some sort of\nemployment after a battle with her father, a parsimonious life, and even\nthen the Oxbridge tradesmen and their immortal bills....\n\nAunt Plessington was so intent upon her theme that she heeded nothing of\nthe delightful little flowers she trampled under foot across the down,\nnor the jolly squirrel with an artistic temperament who saw fit to give\nan uninvited opinion upon her personal appearance from the security of a\nbeech-tree in the wood. But Marjorie, noting quite a number of such\nthings with the corner of her mind, and being now well under the\nPlessington sway, wished she had more concentration....\n\nIn the evening after supper the customary games were suspended, and Mr.\nand Mrs. Plessington talked about getting on, and work and efficiency\ngenerally, and explained how so-and-so had spoilt his chances in life,\nand why so-and-so was sure to achieve nothing, and how this man ate too\nmuch and that man drank too much, and on the contrary what promising and\ncapable people the latest adherents of and subscribers to the Movement\nwere, until two glasses of hot water came--Aunt Plessington had been\ntold it was good for her digestion and she thought it just as well that\nHubert should have some too--and it was time for every one to go to bed.\n\n\nSec. 10\n\nNext morning an atmosphere of getting on and strenuosity generally\nprevailed throughout the vicarage. The Plessingtons were preparing a\nmemorandum on their movement for the \"Reformer's Year Book,\" every word\nwas of importance and might win or lose adherents and subscribers, and\nthey secured the undisturbed possession of the drawing-room, from which\nthe higher notes of Aunt Plessington's voice explaining the whole thing\nto Hubert, who had to write it out, reached, a spur to effort, into\nevery part of the house.\n\nTheir influence touched every one.\n\nMarjorie, struck by the idea that she was not perhaps getting on at\nOxbridge so fast as she ought to do, went into the summer-house with\nMarshall's \"Principles of Economics,\" read for two hours, and did not\nthink about her bills for more than a quarter of the time. Rom, who had\nalready got up early and read through about a third of \"Aurora Leigh,\"\nnow set herself with dogged determination to finish that great poem. Syd\npractised an extra ten minutes--for Aunt Plessington didn't mind\npractice so long as there wasn't a tune. Mrs. Pope went into the kitchen\nand made a long-needed fuss about the waste of rice. Mr. Pope began the\npamphlet he had had in contemplation for some time upon the advantages\nto public order of Payment in Kind. Theodore, who had washed behind his\nears and laced his boots in all the holes, went into the yard before\nbreakfast and hit a tennis ball against the wall and back, five hundred\nand twenty-two times--a record. He would have resumed this after\nbreakfast, but his father came round the corner of the house with a pen\nin his mouth, and asked him indistinctly, but fiercely, what the _devil_\nhe was doing. So he went away, and after a fretful interval set himself\nto revise his Latin irregular verbs. By twelve he had done wonders.\n\nLater in the day the widening circle of aggressive urgency reached the\nkitchen, and at two the cook gave notice in order, she said, to better\nherself.\n\nLunch, unconscious of this impending shadow, was characterized by a\nvirtuous cheerfulness, and Aunt Plessington told in detail how her seven\nand twenty nephews and nieces, the children of her various sisters, were\nall getting on. On the whole, they were not getting on so brilliantly as\nthey might have done (which indeed is apt to be the case with the\nchildren of people who have loved not well but too wisely), and it was\nborne in upon the mind of the respectfully listening Marjorie that, to\nborrow an easy colloquialism of her aunt's, she might \"take the shine\nout of the lot of them\" with a very little zeal and effort--and of\ncourse Mr. Magnet.\n\nThe lecture in the evening at Summerhay was a great success.\n\nThe chair was taken by the Rev. Jopling Baynes, Lady Petchworth was\nenthroned behind the table, Hubert was in charge of his wife's notes--if\nnotes should be needed--and Mr. Pope, expectant of an invitation at the\nend to say a few words about the East Purblow experiment, also occupied\na chair on the platform. Lady Petchworth, with her abundant soft blond\nhair, brightly blond still in spite of her fifty-five years, her\ndelicate features, her plump hands, her numerous chins and her entirely\ninaudible voice, made a pleasing contrast with Aunt Plessington's\nresolute personality. She had perhaps an even greater assurance of\nauthority, but it was a quiet assurance; you felt that she knew that if\nshe spoke in her sleep she would be obeyed, that it was quite\nunnecessary to make herself heard. The two women, indeed, the one so\nassertive, the other so established, were at the opposite poles of\nauthoritative British womanhood, and harmonized charmingly. The little\nroom struck the note of a well-regulated brightness at every point, it\nhad been decorated in a Keltic but entirely respectful style by one of\nLady Petchworth's artistic discoveries, it was lit by paraffin lamps\nthat smelt hardly at all, and it was gay with colour prints illustrating\nthe growth of the British Empire from the battle of Ethandune to the\nsurrender of Cronje. The hall was fairly full. Few could afford to\nabsent themselves from these brightening occasions, but there was a\ntendency on the part of the younger and the less thoughtful section of\nthe village manhood to accumulate at the extreme back and rumble in what\nappeared to be a slightly ironical spirit, so far as it had any spirit,\nwith its feet.\n\nThe Rev. Jopling Baynes opened proceedings with a few well-chosen\nremarks, in which he complimented every one present either singly or\ncollectively according to their rank and importance, and then Aunt\nPlessington came forward to the centre of the platform amidst a hectic\nflush of applause, and said \"Haw!\" in a loud clear ringing tone.\n\nShe spoke without resorting to the notes in Hubert's little fist, very\nfreely and easily. Her strangulated contralto went into every corner of\nthe room and positively seemed to look for and challenge inattentive\nauditors. She had come over, she said, and she had been very glad to\ncome over and talk to them that night, because it meant not only seeing\nthem but meeting her very dear delightful friend Lady Petchworth (loud\napplause) and staying for a day or so with her brother-in-law Mr. Pope\n(unsupported outburst of applause from Mr. Magnet), to whom she and\nsocial reform generally owed so much. She had come to talk to them that\nnight about the National Good Habits Movement, which was attracting so\nmuch attention and which bore so closely on our National Life and\nCharacter; she happened to be--here Aunt Plessington smiled as she\nspoke--a humble person connected with that movement, just a mere woman\nconnected with it; she was going to explain to them as well as she could\nin her womanly way and in the time at her disposal just what it was and\njust what it was for, and just what means it adopted and just what ends\nit had in view. Well, they all knew what Habits were, and that there\nwere Good Habits and Bad Habits, and she supposed that the difference\nbetween a good man and a bad man was just that the good man had good\nhabits and the bad one had bad habits. Everybody she supposed wanted to\nget on. If a man had good habits he got on, and if he had bad habits he\ndidn't get on, and she supposed it was the same with a country, if its\npeople had good habits they got on, and if its people had bad habits\nthey didn't get on. For her own part she and her husband (Hubert gave a\nlittle self-conscious jump) had always cultivated good habits, and she\nhad to thank him with all her heart for his help in doing so. (Applause\nfrom the front seats.) Now, the whole idea of her movement was to ask,\nhow can we raise the standard of the national habits? how can we get rid\nof bad habits and cultivate good ones?... (Here there was a slight\ninterruption due to some one being suddenly pushed off the end of a form\nat the back, and coming to the floor with audible violence, after which\na choked and obstructed tittering continued intermittently for some\ntime.)\n\nSome of her audience, she remarked, had not yet acquired the habit of\nsitting still.\n\n(Laughter, and a coarse vulgar voice: \"Good old Billy Punt!\")\n\nWell, to resume, she and her husband had made a special and careful\nstudy of habits; they had consulted all sorts of people and collected\nall sorts of statistics, in fact they had devoted themselves to this\nquestion, and the conclusion to which they came was this, that Good\nHabits were acquired by Training and Bad Habits came from neglect and\ncarelessness and leaving people, who weren't fit for such freedom, to\nrun about and do just whatever they liked. And so, she went on with a\nnote of complete demonstration, the problem resolved itself into the\nquestion of how far they could get more Training into the national life,\nand how they could check extravagant and unruly and wasteful and unwise\nways of living. (Hear, hear! from Mr. Pope.) And this was the problem\nshe and her husband had set themselves to solve.\n\n(Scuffle, and a boy's voice at the back, saying: \"Oh, _shut_ it, Nuts!\nSHUT it!\")\n\nWell, she and her husband had worked the thing out, and they had come to\nthe conclusion that what was the matter with the great mass of English\npeople was first that they had rather too much loose money, and secondly\nthat they had rather too much loose time. (A voice: \"What O!\" and the\nRev. Jopling Baynes suddenly extended his neck, knitted his brows, and\nbecame observant of the interrupter.) She did not say they had too much\nmoney (a second voice: \"Not Arf!\"), but too much _loose_ money. She did\nnot say they had too much time but too much loose time, that is to say,\nthey had money and time they did not know how to spend properly. And so\nthey got into mischief. A great number of people in this country, she\nmaintained, and this was especially true of the lower classes, did not\nknow how to spend either money or time; they bought themselves wasteful\nthings and injurious things, and they frittered away their hours in all\nsorts of foolish, unprofitable ways. And, after the most careful and\nscientific study of this problem, she and her husband had come to the\nconclusion that two main principles must underlie any remedial measures\nthat were attempted, the first of which was the Principle of Payment in\nKind, which had already had so interesting a trial at the great carriage\nworks of East Purblow, and the second, the Principle of Continuous\nOccupation, which had been recognized long ago in popular wisdom by that\nadmirable proverb--or rather quotation--she believed it was a quotation,\nthough she gave, she feared, very little time to poetry (\"Better\nemployed,\" from Mr. Pope)--\n\n    \"Satan finds some mischief still\n    For idle hands to do.\"\n\n(Irrepressible outbreak of wild and sustained applause from the back\nseats, and in a sudden lull a female voice asking in a flattened,\nthwarted tone: \"Ain't there to be no lantern then?\")\n\nThe lecturer went on to explain what was meant by either member of what\nperhaps they would permit her to call this double-barrelled social\nremedy.\n\nIt was an admirable piece of lucid exposition. Slowly the picture of a\nbetter, happier, more disciplined England grew upon the minds of the\nmeeting. First she showed the new sort of employer her movement would\nevoke, an employer paternal, philanthropic, vaguely responsible for the\nsocial order of all his dependants. (Lady Petchworth was seen to nod her\nhead slowly at this.) Only in the last resort, and when he was satisfied\nthat his worker and his worker's family were properly housed,\nhygienically clothed and fed, attending suitable courses of instruction\nand free from any vicious inclinations, would he pay wages in cash. In\nthe discharge of the duties of payment he would have the assistance of\nexpert advice, and the stimulus of voluntary inspectors of his own\nclass. He would be the natural clan-master, the captain and leader,\nadviser and caretaker of his banded employees. Responsibility would\nstimulate him, and if responsibility did not stimulate him, inspectors\n(both men and women inspectors) would. The worker, on the other hand,\nwould be enormously more healthy and efficient under the new regime. His\nhome, designed by qualified and officially recognized architects, would\nbe prettier as well as more convenient and elevating to his taste, his\nchildren admirably trained and dressed in the new and more beautiful\nclothing with which Lady Petchworth (applause) had done so much to make\nthem familiar, his vital statistics compared with current results would\nbe astonishingly good, his mind free from any anxiety but the proper\nanxiety of a man in his position, to get his work done properly and earn\nrecognition from those competent and duly authorized to judge it. Of all\nthis she spoke with the inspiring note of absolute conviction. All this\nwould follow Payment in Kind and Continuous Occupation as days follow\nsunrise. And there would always,--and here Aunt Plessington's voice\nseemed to brighten--be something for the worker to get on with,\nsomething for him to do; lectures, classes, reading-rooms, improving\nentertainments. His time would be filled. The proper authorities would\nsee that it was filled--and filled in the right way. Never for a moment\nneed he be bored. He would never have an excuse for being bored. That\nwas the second great idea, the complementary idea to the first. \"And\nhere it is,\" she said, turning a large encouraging smile on Lady\nPetchworth, \"that the work of a National Theatre, instructive,\nstimulating, well regulated, and morally sustaining, would come in.\" He\nwouldn't, of course, be _compelled_ to go, but there would be his seat,\npart of his payment in kind, and the public-house would be shut, most\nother temptations would be removed....\n\nThe lecture reached its end at last with only one other interruption.\nSome would-be humorist suddenly inquired, _a propos_ of nothing: \"What's\nthe fare to America, Billy?\" and a voice, presumably Billy's, answered\nhim: \"Mor'n _you'll_ ev 'av in _you'_ pocket.\"\n\nThe Rev. Jopling Baynes, before he called upon Mr. Pope for his promised\nutterance about East Purblow, could not refrain from pointing out how\nsilly \"in every sense of the word\" these wanton interruptions were.\nWhat, he asked, had English social reform to do with the fare to\nAmerica?--and having roused the meeting to an alert silence by the\nlength of his pause, answered in a voice of ringing contempt:\n\"Nothing--_whatsoever_.\" Then Mr. Pope made his few remarks about East\nPurblow with the ease and finish that comes from long practice; much, he\nsaid, had to be omitted \"in view of\" the restricted time at his\ndisposal, but he did not grudge that, the time had been better filled.\n(\"No, no,\" from Aunt Plessington.) Yes, yes,--by the lucid and\ndelightful lecture they had all enjoyed, and he not least among them.\n(Applause.)...\n\n\nSec. 11\n\nThey came out into a luminous blue night, with a crescent young moon\nhigh overhead. It was so fine that the Popes and the Plessingtons and\nMr. Magnet declined Lady Petchworth's proffered car, and walked back to\nBuryhamstreet across the park through a sleeping pallid cornfield, and\nalong by the edge of the pine woods. Mr. Pope would have liked to walk\nwith Mr. Magnet and explain all that the pressure on his time had caused\nhim to omit from his speech, and why it was he had seen fit to omit this\npart and include that. Some occult power, however, baffled this\nintention, and he found himself going home in the company of his\nbrother-in-law and Daffy, with Aunt Plessington and his wife like a\nbarrier between him and his desire. Marjorie, on the other hand, found\nMr. Magnet's proximity inevitable. They fell a little behind and were\ntogether again for the first time since her refusal.\n\nHe behaved, she thought, with very great restraint, and indeed he left\nher a little doubtful on that occasion whether he had not decided to\ntake her decision as final. He talked chiefly about the lecture, which\nhad impressed him very deeply. Mrs. Plessington, he said, was so\nsplendid--made him feel trivial. He felt stirred up by her, wanted to\nhelp in this social work, this picking up of helpless people from the\nmuddle in which they wallowed.\n\nHe seemed not only extraordinarily modest but extraordinarily gentle\nthat night, and the warm moonshine gave his face a shadowed earnestness\nit lacked in more emphatic lights. She felt the profound change in her\nfeelings towards him that had followed her rejection of him. It had\ncleared away his effect of oppression upon her. She had no longer any\nsense of entanglement and pursuit, and all the virtues his courtship had\nobscured shone clear again. He was kindly, he was patient--and she felt\nsomething about him a woman is said always to respect, he gave her an\nimpression of ability. After all, he could banish the trouble that\ncrushed and overwhelmed her with a movement of his little finger. Of all\nher load of debt he could earn the payment in a day.\n\n\"Your aunt goes to-morrow?\" he said.\n\nMarjorie admitted it.\n\n\"I wish I could talk to her more. She's so inspiring.\"\n\n\"You know of our little excursion for Friday?\" he asked after a pause.\n\nShe had not heard. Friday was Theodore's birthday; she knew it only too\nwell because she had had to part with her stamp collection--which very\nluckily had chanced to get packed and come to Buryhamstreet--to meet its\ndemand. Mr. Magnet explained he had thought it might be fun to give a\npicnic in honour of the anniversary.\n\n\"How jolly of you!\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"There's a pretty bit of river between Wamping and Friston Hanger--I've\nwanted you to see it for a long time, and Friston Hanger church has the\nprettiest view. The tower gets the bend of the river.\"\n\nHe told her all he meant to do as if he submitted his plans for her\napproval. They would drive to Wamping and get a very comfortable little\nsteam launch one could hire there. Wintersloan was coming down again; an\nidle day of this kind just suited his temperament. Theodore would like\nit, wouldn't he?\n\n\"Theodore will think he is King of Surrey!\"\n\n\"I'll have a rod and line if he wants to fish. I don't want to forget\nanything. I want it to be _his_ day really and truly.\"\n\nThe slightest touch upon the pathetic note? She could not tell.\n\nBut that evening brought Marjorie nearer to loving Magnet than she had\never been. Before she went to sleep that night she had decided he was\nquite a tolerable person again; she had been too nervous and unjust with\nhim. After all, his urgency and awkwardness had been just a part of his\nsincerity. Perhaps the faint doubt whether he would make his request\nagain gave the zest of uncertainty to his devotion. Of course, she told\nherself, he would ask again. And then the blissful air of limitless\nmeans she might breathe. The blessed release....\n\nShe was suddenly fast asleep.\n\n\nSec. 12\n\nFriday was after all not so much Theodore's day as Mr. Magnet's.\n\nUntil she found herself committed there was no shadow of doubt in\nMarjorie's mind of what she meant to do. \"Before I see you again,\" said\nAunt Plessington at the parting kiss, \"I hope you'll have something to\ntell me.\" She might have been Hymen thinly disguised as an aunt, waving\nfrom the departing train. She continued by vigorous gestures and\nunstinted display of teeth and a fluttering handkerchief to encourage\nMarjorie to marry Mr. Magnet, until the curve of the cutting hid her\nfrom view....\n\nFortune favoured Mr. Magnet with a beautiful day, and the excursion was\nbright and successful from the outset. It was done well, and what\nperhaps was more calculated to impress Marjorie, it was done with lavish\ngenerosity. From the outset she turned a smiling countenance upon her\nhost. She did her utmost to suppress a reviving irrational qualm in her\nbeing, to maintain clearly and simply her overnight decision, that he\nshould propose again and that she should accept him.\n\nYet the festival was just a little dreamlike in its quality to her\nperceptions. She found she could not focus clearly on its details.\n\nTwo waggonettes came from Wamping; there was room for everybody and to\nspare, and Wamping revealed itself a pleasant small country town with\nstocks under the market hall, and just that tint of green paint and that\nloafing touch the presence of a boating river gives.\n\nThe launch was brilliantly smart with abundant crimson cushions and a\ntasselled awning, and away to the left was a fine old bridge that dated\nin its essentials from Plantagenet times.\n\nThey started with much whistling and circling, and went away up river\nunder overhanging trees that sometimes swished the funnel, splashing the\nmeadow path and making the reeds and bulrushes dance with their wash.\nThey went through a reluctant lock, steamed up a long reach, they passed\nthe queerly painted Potwell Inn with its picturesque group of poplars\nand its absurd new notice-board of \"Omlets.\" ... Theodore was five stone\nof active happiness; he and the pseudo-twins, strictly under his orders\nas the universal etiquette of birthdays prescribes, clambered round and\nround the boat, clutching the awning rail and hanging over the water in\nan entirely secure and perilous looking manner. No one, unless his\nfather happened to be upset by something, would check him, he knew, on\nthis auspicious day. Mr. Magnet sat with the grey eye on Marjorie and\nlistened a little abstractedly to Mr. Pope, who was telling very fully\nwhat he would say if the Liberal party were to ask his advice at the\npresent juncture. Mrs. Pope attended discreetly, and Daffy and Marjorie\nwith a less restrained interest, to Mr. Wintersloan, who showed them how\nto make faces out of a fist tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, how to\nventriloquize, how to conjure with halfpence--which he did very\namusingly--and what the buttons on a man's sleeve were for; Theodore\nclambering at his back discovered what he was at, and by right of\nbirthday made him do all the faces and tricks over again. Then Mr.\nWintersloan told stories of all the rivers along which, he said, he had\ntravelled in steamboats; the Rhine, the Danube, the Hoogly and the Fall\nRiver, and particularly how he had been bitten by a very young\ncrocodile. \"It's the smell of the oil brings it all back to me,\" he\nsaid. \"And the kind of sway it gives you.\"\n\nHe made sinuous movements of his hand, and looked at Marjorie with that\nwooden yet expressive smile.\n\nFriston Hanger proved to be even better than Wamping. It had a character\nof its own because it was built very largely of a warm buff \nlocal rock instead of the usual brick, and the outhouses at least of the\nlittle inn at which they landed were thatched. Most of the cottages had\ncasement windows with diamond panes, and the streets were cobbled and\nvery up-and-down hill. The place ran to high walls richly suggestive of\nhidden gardens, overhung by big trees and pierced by secretive important\nlooking doors. And over it all rose an unusually big church, with a tall\nbuttressed tower surmounted by a lantern of pierced stone.\n\n\"We'll go through the town and look at the ruins of the old castle\nbeyond the church,\" said Mr. Magnet to Marjorie, \"and then I want you to\nsee the view from the church tower.\"\n\nAnd as they went through the street, he called her attention again to\nthe church tower in a voice that seemed to her to be inexplicably\ncharged with significance. \"I want you to go up there,\" he said.\n\n\"How about something to eat, Mr. Magnet?\" remarked Theodore suddenly,\nand everybody felt a little surprised when Mr. Magnet answered: \"Who\nwants things to eat on your birthday, Theodore?\"\n\nBut they saw the joke of that when they reached the castle ruins and\nfound in the old tilting yard, with its ivy-covered arch framing a view\nof the town and stream, a table spread with a white cloth that shone in\nthe sunshine, glittering with glass and silver and gay with a bowl of\nsalad and flowers and cold pies and a jug of claret-cup and an ice\npail--a silver pail! containing two promising looking bottles, in the\ncharge of two real live waiters, in evening dress as waiters should be,\nbut with straw hats to protect them from the sun and weather. \"Oh!\"\ncried Mrs. Pope, \"what a _splendid_ idea, Mr. Magnet,\" when the\ndestination of the feast was perfectly clear, and even Theodore seemed a\nlittle overawed--almost as if he felt his birthday was being carried too\nfar and might provoke a judgment later. Manifestly Mr. Magnet must have\nordered this in London, and have had it sent down, waiters and all!\nTheodore knew he was a very wonderful little boy in spite of the acute\ncriticism of four devoted sisters, and Mr. Magnet had noticed him before\nat times, but this was, well, rather immense! \"Look at the pie-crusts,\nold man!\" And on the pie-crusts, and on the icing of the cake, their\nmunificent host had caused to be done in little raised letters of dough\nand chocolate the word \"Theodore.\"\n\n\"Oh, _Mr._ Magnet!\" said Marjorie--his eye so obviously invited her to\nsay something. Mr. Pope tried a nebulous joke about \"groaning boards of\nFrisky Hanger,\" and only Mr. Wintersloan restrained his astonishment and\nadmiration. \"You could have got those chaps in livery,\" he\nsaid--unheeded. The lunch was as a matter of fact his idea; he had\nrefused to come unless it was provided, and he had somehow counted on\nblue coats, brass buttons, and yellow waistcoats--but everybody else of\ncourse ascribed the whole invention to Mr. Magnet.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Pope with a fine air of epigram, \"the only thing I can\nsay is--to eat it,\" and prepared to sit down.\n\n\"Melon,\" cried Mr. Magnet to the waiters, \"we'll begin with the melon.\nHave you ever tried melon with pepper and salt, Mrs. Pope?\"\n\n\"You put salt in everything,\" admired Mr. Pope. \"Salt from those attics\nof yours--Attic salt.\"\n\n\"Or there's ginger!\" said Mr. Magnet, after a whisper from the waiter.\n\nMr. Pope said something classical about \"ginger hot in the mouth.\"\n\n\"Some of these days,\" said Mr. Wintersloan, \"when I have exhausted all\nother sensations, I mean to try melon and mustard.\"\n\nRom made a wonderful face at him.\n\n\"I can think of worse things than that,\" said Mr. Wintersloan with a\nhard brightness.\n\n\"Not till after lunch, Mr. Wintersloan!\" said Rom heartily.\n\n\"The claret cup's all right for Theodore, Mrs. Pope,\" said Magnet. \"It's\na special twelve year old brand.\" (He thought of everything!)\n\n\"Mummy,\" said Mr. Pope. \"You'd better carve this pie, I think.\"\n\n\"I want very much,\" said Mr. Magnet in Marjorie's ear and very\nconfidentially, \"to show you the view from the church tower. I think--it\nwill appeal to you.\"\n\n\"Rom!\" said Theodore, uncontrollably, in a tremendous stage whisper.\n\"There's peaches!... _There!_ on the hamper!\"\n\n\"Champagne, m'am?\" said the waiter suddenly in Mrs. Pope's ear, wiping\nice-water from the bottle.\n\n(But what could it have cost him?)\n\n\nSec. 13\n\nMarjorie would have preferred that Mr. Magnet should not have decided\nwith such relentless determination to make his second proposal on the\nchurch tower. His purpose was luminously clear to her from the\nbeginning of lunch onward, and she could feel her nerves going under the\nstrain of that long expectation. She tried to pull herself together,\ntried not to think about it, tried to be amused by the high spirits and\nnonsense of Mr. Wintersloan and Syd and Rom and Theodore; but Mr. Magnet\nwas very pervasive, and her mother didn't ever look at her, looked past\nher and away from her and all round her, in a profoundly observant\nmanner. Marjorie felt chiefly anxious to get to the top of that\npredestinate tower and have the whole thing over, and it was with a\nstart that she was just able to prevent one of the assiduous waiters\nfilling her glass with champagne for the third time.\n\nThere was a little awkwardness in dispersing after lunch. Mr. Pope, his\nheart warmed by the champagne and mellowed by a subsequent excellent\ncigar, wanted very much to crack what he called a \"postprandial jest\" or\nso with the great humorist, while Theodore also, deeply impressed with\nthe discovery that there was more in Mr. Magnet than he had supposed,\ndisplayed a strong disposition to attach himself more closely than he\nhad hitherto done to this remarkable person, and study his quiet but\nenormous possibilities with greater attention. Mrs. Pope with a still\nalertness did her best to get people adjusted, but Syd and Rom had\nconceived a base and unnatural desire to subjugate the affections of the\nyoungest waiter, and wouldn't listen to her proposal that they should\ntake Theodore away into the town; Mr. Wintersloan displayed\nextraordinary cunning and resource in evading a _tete-a-tete_ with Mr.\nPope that would have released Mr. Magnet. Now Mrs. Pope came to think of\nit, Mr. Wintersloan never had had the delights of a good talk with Mr.\nPope, he knew practically nothing about the East Purblow experiment\nexcept for what Mr. Magnet might have retailed to him, and she was very\ngreatly puzzled to account for his almost manifest reluctance to go into\nthings thoroughly. Daffy remained on hand, available but useless, and\nMrs. Pope, smiling at the landscape and a prey to Management within, was\nsuddenly inspired to take her eldest daughter into her confidence.\n\"Daffy,\" she said, with a guileful finger extended and pointing to the\nlower sky as though she was pointing out the less obvious and more\natmospheric beauties of Surrey, \"get Theodore away from Mr. Magnet if\nyou can. He wants to talk to Marjorie.\"\n\nDaffy looked round. \"Shall I call him?\" she said.\n\n\"No,\" said Mrs. Pope, \"do it--just--quietly.\"\n\n\"I'll try,\" said Daffy and stared at her task, and Mrs. Pope, feeling\nthat this might or might not succeed but that anyhow she had done what\nshe could, strolled across to her husband and laid a connubial touch\nupon his shoulder. \"All the young people,\" she said, \"are burning to\nclimb the church tower. I never _can_ understand this activity after\nlunch.\"\n\n\"Not me,\" said Mr. Pope. \"Eh, Magnet?\"\n\n\"_I'm_ game,\" said Theodore. \"Come along, Mr. Magnet.\"\n\n\"I think,\" said Mr. Magnet looking at Marjorie, \"I shall go up. I want\nto show Marjorie the view.\"\n\n\"We'll stay here, Mummy, eh?\" said Mr. Pope, with a quite unusual\ngeniality, and suddenly put his arm round Mrs. Pope's waist. Her\nmotherly eye sought Daffy's, and indicated her mission. \"I'll come with\nyou, Theodore,\" said Daffy. \"There isn't room for everyone at once up\nthat tower.\"\n\n\"I'll go with Mr. Magnet,\" said Theodore, relying firmly on the\nprivileges of the day....\n\nFor a time they played for position, with the intentions of Mr. Magnet\nshowing more and more starkly through the moves of the game. At last\nTheodore was lured down a side street by the sight of a huge dummy fish\ndangling outside a tackle and bait shop, and Mr. Magnet and Marjorie,\nalready with a dreadful feeling of complicity, made a movement so rapid\nit seemed to her almost a bolt for the church tower. Whatever Mr. Magnet\ndesired to say, and whatever elasticity his mind had once possessed with\nregard to it, there can be no doubt that it had now become so rigid as\nto be sayable only in that one precise position, and in the exact order\nhe had determined upon. But when at last they got to that high serenity,\nMr. Magnet was far too hot and far too much out of breath to say\nanything at all for a time except an almost explosive gust or so of\napprobation of the scenery. \"Shor' breath!\" he said, \"win'ey stairs\nalways--that 'fect on me--buful sceny--Suwy--like it always.\"\n\nMarjorie found herself violently disposed to laugh; indeed she had never\nbefore been so near the verge of hysterics.\n\n\"It's a perfectly lovely view,\" she said. \"No wonder you wanted me to\nsee it.\"\n\n\"Naturally,\" said Mr. Magnet, \"wanted you to see it.\"\n\nMarjorie, with a skill her mother might have envied, wriggled into a\nhalf-sitting position in an embrasure and concentrated herself upon the\nbroad wooded undulations that went about the horizon, and Mr. Magnet\nmopped his face with surreptitious gestures, and took deep restoring\nbreaths.\n\n\"I've always wanted to bring you here,\" he said, \"ever since I found it\nin the spring.\"\n\n\"It was very kind of you, Mr. Magnet,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"You see,\" he explained, \"whenever I see anything fine or rich or\nsplendid or beautiful now, I seem to want it for you.\" His voice\nquickened as though he were repeating something that had been long in\nhis mind. \"I wish I could give you all this country. I wish I could put\nall that is beautiful in the world at your feet.\"\n\nHe watched the effect of this upon her for a moment.\n\n\"Marjorie,\" he said, \"did you really mean what you told me the other\nday, that there was indeed no hope for me? I have a sort of feeling I\nbothered you that day, that perhaps you didn't mean all----\"\n\nHe stopped short.\n\n\"I don't think I knew what I meant,\" said Marjorie, and Magnet gave a\nqueer sound of relief at her words. \"I don't think I know what I mean\nnow. I don't think I can say I love you, Mr. Magnet. I would if I could.\nI like you very much indeed, I think you are awfully kind, you're more\nkind and generous than anyone I have ever known....\"\n\nSaying he was kind and generous made her through some obscure\nassociation of ideas feel that he must have understanding. She had an\nimpulse to put her whole case before him frankly. \"I wonder,\" she said,\n\"if you can understand what it is to be a girl.\"\n\nThen she saw the absurdity of her idea, of any such miracle of sympathy.\nHe was entirely concentrated upon the appeal he had come prepared to\nmake.\n\n\"Marjorie,\" he said, \"I don't ask you to love me yet. All I ask is that\nyou shouldn't decide _not_ to love me.\"\n\nMarjorie became aware of Theodore, hotly followed by Daffy, in the\nchurchyard below. \"I _know_ he's up there,\" Theodore was manifestly\nsaying.\n\nMarjorie faced her lover gravely.\n\n\"Mr. Magnet,\" she said, \"I will certainly promise you that.\"\n\n\"I would rather be your servant, rather live for your happiness, than do\nanything else in all the world,\" said Mr. Magnet. \"If you would trust\nyour life to me, if you would deign--.\" He paused to recover his thread.\n\"If you would deign to let me make life what it should be for you, take\nevery care from your shoulders, face every responsibility----\"\n\nMarjorie felt she had to hurry. She could almost feel the feet of\nTheodore coming up that tower.\n\n\"Mr. Magnet,\" she said, \"you don't understand. You don't realize what I\nam. You don't know how unworthy I am--what a mere ignorant child----\"\n\n\"Let me be judge of that!\" cried Mr. Magnet.\n\nThey paused almost like two actors who listen for the prompter. It was\nonly too obvious that both were aware of a little medley of imperfectly\nsubdued noises below. Theodore had got to the ladder that made the last\npart of the ascent, and there Daffy had collared him. \"_My_ birthday,\"\nsaid Theodore. \"Come down! You _shan't_ go up there!\" said Daffy. \"You\n_mustn't_, Theodore!\" \"Why not?\" There was something like a scuffle, and\nwhispers. Then it would seem Theodore went--reluctantly and with\nprotests. But the conflict receded.\n\n\"Marjorie!\" said Mr. Magnet, as though there had been no pause, \"if you\nwould consent only to make an experiment, if you would try to love me.\nSuppose you _tried_ an engagement. I do not care how long I waited....\"\n\nHe paused. \"Will you try?\" he urged upon her distressed silence.\n\nShe felt as though she forced the word. \"_Yes!_\" she said in a very low\nvoice.\n\nThen it seemed to her that Mr. Magnet leapt upon her. She felt herself\npulled almost roughly from the embrasure, and he had kissed her. She\nstruggled in his embrace. \"Mr. Magnet!\" she said. He lifted her face and\nkissed her lips. \"Marjorie!\" he said, and she had partly released\nherself.\n\n\"Oh _don't_ kiss me,\" she cried, \"don't kiss me yet!\"\n\n\"But a kiss!\"\n\n\"I don't like it.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon!\" he said. \"I forgot----. But you.... You.... I\ncouldn't help it.\"\n\nShe was suddenly wildly sorry for what she had done. She felt she was\ngoing to cry, to behave absurdly.\n\n\"I want to go down,\" she said.\n\n\"Marjorie, you have made me the happiest of men! All my life, all my\nstrength I will spend in showing you that you have made no mistake in\ntrusting me----\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"yes,\" and wondered what she could say or do. It seemed\nto him that her shrinking pose was the most tenderly modest thing he had\never seen.\n\n\"Oh my dear!\" he said, and restrained himself and took her passive hand\nand kissed it.\n\n\"I want to go down to them!\" she insisted.\n\nHe paused on the topmost rungs of the ladder, looking unspeakable things\nat her. Then he turned to go down, and for the second time in her life\nshe saw that incipient thinness....\n\n\"I am sure you will never be sorry,\" he said....\n\nThey found Mr. and Mrs. Pope in the churchyard. Mr. Pope was reading\nwith amusement for the third time an epitaph that had caught his fancy--\n\n    \"Lands ever bright, days ever fair,\n    And yet we weep that _he_ is there.\"\n\nhe read. \"You know that's really Good. That ought to be printed\nsomewhere.\"\n\nMrs. Pope glanced sharply at her daughter's white face, and found an\nenigma. Then she looked at Mr. Magnet.\n\nThere was no mistake about Mr. Magnet. Marjorie had accepted him,\nwhatever else she had felt or done.\n\n\nSec. 14\n\nMarjorie's feelings for the rest of the day are only to be accounted for\non the supposition that she was overwrought. She had a preposterous\nreaction. She had done this thing with her eyes open after days of\ndeliberation, and now she felt as though she was caught in a trap. The\nclearest thing in her mind was that Mr. Magnet had taken hold of her and\nkissed her, kissed her on the lips, and that presently he would do it\nagain. And also she was asking herself with futile reiteration why she\nhad got into debt at Oxbridge? Why she had got into debt? For such silly\nlittle things too!\n\nNothing definite was said in her hearing about the engagement, but\neverybody seemed to understand. Mr. Pope was the most demonstrative, he\ntook occasion to rap her hard upon the back, his face crinkled with a\nresolute kindliness. \"Ah!\" he said, \"Sly Maggots!\"\n\nHe also administered several resounding blows to Magnet's shoulder\nblades, and irradiated the party with a glow of benevolent waggery.\nMarjorie submitted without an answer to these paternal intimations. Mrs.\nPope did no more than watch her daughter. Invisible but overwhelming\nforces were busy in bringing Marjorie and her glowing lover alone\ntogether again. It happened at last, as he was departing; she was almost\nto her inflamed imagination thrust out upon him, had to take him to the\ngate; and there in the shadows of the trees he kissed her \"good night\"\nwith passionate effusion.\n\n\"Madge,\" he said, \"Madge!\"\n\nShe made no answer. She submitted passively to his embrace, and then\nsuddenly and dexterously disengaged herself from him, ran in, and\nwithout saying good-night to anyone went to her room to bed.\n\nMr. Pope was greatly amused by this departure from the customary routine\nof life, and noted it archly.\n\nWhen Daffy came up Marjorie was ostentatiously going to sleep....\n\nAs she herself was dropping off Daffy became aware of an odd sound,\nsomehow familiar, and yet surprising and disconcerting.\n\nSuddenly wide awake again, she started up. Yes there was no mistake\nabout it! And yet it was very odd.\n\n\"Madge, what's up?\"\n\nNo answer.\n\n\"I say! you aren't crying, Madge, are you?\"\n\nThen after a long interval: \"_Madge!_\"\n\nAn answer came in a muffled voice, almost as if Marjorie had something\nin her mouth. \"Oh shut it, old Daffy.\"\n\n\"But Madge?\" said Daffy after reflection.\n\n\"Shut it. _Do_ shut it! Leave me alone, I say! Can't you leave me alone?\nOh!\"--and for a moment she let her sobs have way with her--\"Daffy, don't\nworry me. Old Daffy! _Please!_\"\n\nDaffy sat up for a long time in the stifled silence that ensued, and\nthen like a sensible sister gave it up, and composed herself again to\nslumber....\n\nOutside watching the window in a state of nebulous ecstasy, was Mr.\nMagnet, moonlit and dewy. It was a high serene night with a growing moon\nand a scattered company of major stars, and if no choir of nightingales\nsang there was at least a very active nightjar. \"More than I hoped,\"\nwhispered Mr. Magnet, \"more than I dared to hope.\" He was very sleepy,\nbut it seemed to him improper to go to bed on such a night--on such an\noccasion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE THIRD\n\nTHE MAN WHO FELL OUT OF THE SKY\n\n\nSec. 1\n\nFor the next week Marjorie became more nearly introspective than she had\never been in her life before. She began to doubt her hitherto unshaken\nconviction that she was a single, consistent human being. She found such\ndiscords and discrepancies between mood and mood, between the conviction\nof this hour and the feeling of that, that it seemed to her she was\nrather a collection of samples of emotion and attitude than anything so\nsimple as an individual.\n\nFor example, there can be no denying there was one Marjorie in the\nbundle who was immensely set up by the fact that she was engaged, and\ngoing to be at no very remote date mistress of a London house. She was\nprofoundly Plessingtonian, and quite the vulgarest of the lot. The new\nstatus she had attained and the possibly beautiful house and the\nprobably successful dinner-parties and the arrangements and the\nimportance of such a life was the substance of this creature's thought.\nShe designed some queenly dresses. This was the Marjorie most in\nevidence when it came to talking with her mother and Daphne. I am afraid\nshe patronized Daphne, and ignored the fact that Daphne, who had begun\nwith a resolute magnanimity, was becoming annoyed and resentful.\n\nAnd she thought of things she might buy, and the jolly feeling of\nputting them about and making fine effects with them. One thing she told\nDaphne, she had clearly resolved upon; the house should be always full\nand brimming over with beautiful flowers. \"I've always wished mother\nwould have more flowers--and not keep them so long when she has\nthem....\"\n\nAnother Marjorie in the confusion of her mind was doing her sincerest,\nnarrow best to appreciate and feel grateful for and return the devotion\nof Mr. Magnet. This Marjorie accepted and even elaborated his views,\nlaid stress on his voluntary subjection, harped upon his goodness,\nbrought her to kiss him.\n\n\"I don't deserve all this love,\" this side of Marjorie told Magnet. \"But\nI mean to learn to love you----\"\n\n\"My dear one!\" cried Magnet, and pressed her hand....\n\nA third Marjorie among the many was an altogether acuter and less\nagreeable person. She was a sprite of pure criticism, and in spite of\nthe utmost efforts to suppress her, she declared night and day in the\ninner confidences of Marjorie's soul that she did not believe in Mr.\nMagnet's old devotion at all. She was anti-Magnet, a persistent\ninsurgent. She was dreadfully unsettling. It was surely this Marjorie\nthat wouldn't let the fact of his baldness alone, and who discovered and\ninsisted upon a curious unbeautiful flatness in his voice whenever he\nwas doing his best to speak from the heart. And as for this devotion,\nwhat did it amount to? A persistent unimaginative besetting of Marjorie,\na growing air of ownership, an expansive, indulgent, smiling disposition\nto thwart and control. And he was always touching her! Whenever he came\nnear her she would wince at the freedoms a large, kind hand might take\nwith her elbow or wrist, at a possible sudden, clumsy pat at some erring\nstrand of hair.\n\nThen there was an appraising satisfaction in his eye.\n\nOn the third day of their engagement he began, quite abruptly, to call\nher \"Magsy.\" \"We'll end this scandal of a Girl Pope,\" he said. \"Magsy\nMagnet, you'll be--M.M. No women M.P.'s for _us_, Magsy....\"\n\nShe became acutely critical of his intellectual quality. She listened\nwith a new alertness to the conversations at the dinner-table, the bouts\nof wit with her father. She carried off utterances and witticism for\nmaturer reflection. She was amazed to find how little they could\nwithstand the tests and acids of her mind. So many things, such wide and\ninteresting fields, he did not so much think about as cover with a large\nenveloping shallowness....\n\nHe came strolling around the vicarage into the garden one morning about\neleven, though she had not expected him until lunch-time; and she was\nsitting with her feet tucked up on the aged but still practicable\ngarden-seat reading Shaw's \"Common Sense of Municipal Trading.\" He came\nand leant over the back of the seat, and she looked up, said \"Good\nmorning. Isn't it perfectly lovely?\" and indicated by a book still open\nthat her interest in it remained alive.\n\n\"What's the book, Magsy?\" he asked, took it out of her slightly\nresisting hand, closed it and read the title. \"Um,\" he said; \"Isn't this\na bit stiff for little women's brains?\"\n\nAll the rebel Marjories were up in arms at that.\n\n\"Dreadful word, 'Municipal.' I _don't_ like it.\" He shook his head with\na grimace of humorous distaste.\n\n\"I suppose women have as good brains as men,\" said Marjorie, \"if it\ncomes to that.\"\n\n\"Better,\" said Magnet. \"That's why they shouldn't trouble about horrid\nthings like Municipal and Trading.... On a day like this!\"\n\n\"Don't you think this sort of thing is interesting?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" he said, and flourished the book. \"Come! And besides--_Shaw!_\"\n\n\"He makes a very good case.\"\n\n\"But he's such a--mountebank.\"\n\n\"Does that matter? He isn't a mountebank there.\"\n\n\"He's not sincere. I doubt if you had a serious book on Municipal\nTrading, Magsy, whether you'd make head or tail of it. It's a stiff\nsubject. Shaw just gets his chance for a smart thing or so.... I'd\nrather you read a good novel.\"\n\nHe really had the air of taking her reading in hand.\n\n\"You think I ought not to read an intelligent book.\"\n\n\"I think we ought to leave those things to the people who understand.\"\n\n\"But we ought to understand.\"\n\nHe smiled wisely. \"There's a lot of things _you_ have to understand,\" he\nsaid, \"nearer home than this.\"\n\nMarjorie was ablaze now. \"What a silly thing to say!\" she cried, with an\nundergraduate's freedom. \"Really, you are talking nonsense! I read that\nbook because it interests me. If I didn't, I should read something else.\nDo you mean to suggest that I'm reading like a child, who holds a book\nupside down?\"\n\nShe was so plainly angry that he was taken aback. \"I don't mean to\nsuggest--\" he began, and turned to greet the welcome presence, the\ninterrogative eye of Mrs. Pope.\n\n\"Here we are!\" he said, \"having a quarrel!\"\n\n\"Marjorie!\" said Mrs. Pope.\n\n\"Oh, it's serious!\" said Mr. Magnet, and added with a gleam: \"It's about\nMunicipal Trading!\"\n\nMrs. Pope knew the wicked little flicker in Marjorie's eye better than\nMr. Magnet. She had known it from the nursery, and yet she had never\nquite mastered its meaning. She had never yet realized it was Marjorie,\nshe had always regarded it as something Marjorie, some other Marjorie,\nought to keep under control. So now she adopted a pacificatory tone.\n\n\"Oh! lovers' quarrels,\" she said, floating over the occasion. \"Lovers'\nquarrels. You mustn't ask _me_ to interfere!\"\n\nMarjorie, already a little ashamed of her heat, thought for an instant\nshe ought to stand that, and then decided abruptly with a return to\ncholer that she would not do so. She stood up, and held out her hand for\nher book.\n\n\"Mr. Magnet,\" she said to her mother with remarkable force and freedom\nas she took it, \"has been talking unutterable nonsense. I don't call\nthat a lovers' quarrel--anyhow.\"\n\nThen, confronted with a double astonishment, and having no more to say,\nshe picked up her skirt quite unnecessarily, and walked with a\nheavenward chin indoors.\n\n\"I'm afraid,\" explained Mr. Magnet, \"I was a little too free with one of\nMagsy's favourite authors.\"\n\n\"Which is the favourite author now?\" asked Mrs. Pope, after a reflective\npause, with a mother's indulgent smile.\n\n\"Shaw.\" He raised amused eyebrows. \"It's just the age, I suppose.\"\n\n\"She's frightfully loyal while it lasts,\" said Mrs. Pope. \"No one dare\nsay a word against them.\"\n\n\"I think it's adorable of her,\" said Mr. Magnet--with an answering\nloyalty and gusto.\n\n\nSec. 2\n\nThe aviation accident occurred while Mrs. Pope, her two eldest\ndaughters, and Mr. Magnet were playing golf-croquet upon the vicarage\nlawn. It was a serene, hot afternoon, a little too hot to take a game\nseriously, and the four little figures moved slowly over the green and\ngrouped and dispersed as the game required. Mr. Magnet was very fond of\ngolf-croquet, he displayed a whimsical humour and much invention at this\ngame, it was not too exacting physically; and he could make his ball\njump into the air in the absurdest manner. Occasionally he won a laugh\nfrom Marjorie or Daffy. No one else was in sight; the pseudo-twins and\nTheodore and Toupee were in the barn, and Mr. Pope was six miles away at\nWamping, lying prone, nibbling grass blades and watching a county\ncricket match, as every good Englishman, who knows what is expected of\nhim, loves to do.... Click went ball and mallet, and then after a long\ninterval, click. It seemed incredible that anything could possibly\nhappen before tea.\n\nBut this is no longer the world it was. Suddenly this tranquil scene was\nslashed and rent by the sound and vision of a monoplane tearing across\nthe heavens.\n\nA purring and popping arrested Mr. Magnet in mid jest, and the monster\ncame sliding up the sky over the trees beside the church to the east,\nalready near enough to look big, a great stiff shape, big buff sails\nstayed with glittering wire, and with two odd little wheels beneath its\nbody. It drove up the sky, rising with a sort of upward heaving, until\nthe croquet players could see the driver and a passenger perched behind\nhim quite clearly. It passed a little to the right of the church tower\nand only a few yards above the level of the flagstaff, there wasn't\nfifty feet of clearance altogether, and as it did so Marjorie could see\nboth driver and passenger making hasty movements. It became immense and\nover-shadowing, and every one stood rigid as it swept across the sun\nabove the vicarage chimneys. Then it seemed to drop twenty feet or so\nabruptly, and then both the men cried out as it drove straight for the\nline of poplars between the shrubbery and the meadow. \"Oh, oh, OH!\"\ncried Mrs. Pope and Daffy. Evidently the aviator was trying to turn\nsharply; the huge thing banked, but not enough, and came about and\nslipped away until its wing was slashing into the tree tops with a\nthrilling swish of leaves and the snapping of branches and stays.\n\n\"Run!\" cried Magnet, and danced about the lawn, and the three ladies\nrushed sideways as the whole affair slouched down on them. It came on\nits edge, hesitated whether to turn over as a whole, then crumpled, and\namidst a volley of smashing and snapping came to rest amidst ploughed-up\nturf, a clamorous stench of petrol, and a cloud of dust and blue smoke\nwithin twenty yards of them. The two men had jumped to clear the engine,\nhad fallen headlong, and were now both covered by the fabric of the\nshattered wing.\n\nIt was all too spectacular for word or speech until the thing lay still.\nEven then the croquet players stood passive for awhile waiting for\nsomething to happen. It took some seconds to reconcile their minds to\nthis sudden loss of initiative in a monster that had been so recently\nand threateningly full of go. It seemed quite a long time before it came\ninto Marjorie's head that she ought perhaps to act in some way. She saw\na tall young man wriggling on all fours from underneath the wreckage of\nfabric. He stared at her rather blankly. She went forward with a vague\nidea of helping him. He stood up, swayed doubtfully on his legs, turned,\nand became energetic, struggling mysteriously with the edge of the left\nwing. He gasped and turned fierce blue eyes over his shoulder.\n\n\"Help me to hold the confounded thing up!\" he cried, with a touch of\nirritation in his voice at her attitude.\n\nMarjorie at once seized the edge of the plane and pushed. The second\nman, in a peculiar button-shaped head-dress, was lying crumpled up\nunderneath, his ear and cheek were bright with blood, and there was a\nstreak of blood on the ground near his head.\n\n\"That's right. Can you hold it if I use only one hand?\"\n\nMarjorie gasped \"Yes,\" with a terrific weight as it seemed suddenly on\nher wrists.\n\n\"Right O,\" and the tall young man had thrust himself backwards under the\nplane until it rested on his back, and collared the prostrate man. \"Keep\nit up!\" he said fiercely when Marjorie threatened to give way. He seemed\nto assume that she was there to obey orders, and with much grunting and\neffort he had dragged his companion clear of the wreckage.\n\nThe man's face was a mass of blood, and he was sickeningly inert to his\ncompanion's lugging.\n\n\"Let it go,\" said the tall young man, and Marjorie thanked heaven as the\nbroken wing flapped down again.\n\nShe came helpfully to his side, and became aware of Daffy and her mother\na few paces off. Magnet--it astonished her--was retreating hastily. But\nhe had to go away because the sight of blood upset him--so much that it\nwas always wiser for him to go away.\n\n\"Is he hurt?\" cried Mrs. Pope.\n\n\"We both are,\" said the tall young man, and then as though these other\npeople didn't matter and he and Marjorie were old friends, he said: \"Can\nwe turn him over?\"\n\n\"I think so.\" Marjorie grasped the damaged man's shoulder and got him\nover skilfully.\n\n\"Will you get some water?\" said the tall young man to Daffy and Mrs.\nPope, in a way that sent Daffy off at once for a pail.\n\n\"He wants water,\" she said to the parlourmaid who was hurrying out of\nthe house.\n\nThe tall young man had gone down on his knees by his companion,\nreleasing his neck, and making a hasty first examination of his\ncondition. \"The pneumatic cap must have saved his head,\" he said,\nthrowing the thing aside. \"Lucky he had it. He can't be badly hurt. Just\nrubbed his face along the ground. Silly thing to have come as we did.\"\n\nHe felt the heart, and tried the flexibility of an arm.\n\n\"_That's_ all right,\" he said.\n\nHe became judicial and absorbed over the problems of his friend's side.\n\"Um,\" he remarked. He knelt back and regarded Marjorie for the first\ntime. \"Thundering smash,\" he said. His face relaxed into an agreeable\nsmile. \"He only bought it last week.\"\n\n\"Is he hurt?\"\n\n\"Rib, I think--or two ribs perhaps. Stunned rather. All _this_--just his\nnose.\"\n\nHe regarded Marjorie and Marjorie him for a brief space. He became aware\nof Mrs. Pope on his right hand. Then at a clank behind, he turned round\nto see Daphne advancing with a pail of water. The two servants were now\non the spot, and the odd-job man, and the old lady who did out the\nchurch, and Magnet hovered doubtfully in the distance. Suddenly with\nshouts and barks of sympathetic glee the pseudo-twins, Theodore and\nToupee shot out of the house. New thoughts were stirring in the young\naviator. He rose, wincing a little as he did so. \"I'm afraid I'm a\nlittle rude,\" he said.\n\n\"I do hope your friend isn't hurt,\" said Mrs. Pope, feeling the duty of\na hostess.\n\n\"He's not hurt _much_--so far as I can see. Haven't we made rather a\nmess of your lawn?\"\n\n\"Oh, not at all!\" said Mrs. Pope.\n\n\"We have. If that is your gardener over there, it would be nice if he\nkept back the people who seem to be hesitating beyond those trees. There\nwill be more presently. I'm afraid I must throw myself on your hands.\"\nHe broke into a chuckle for a moment. \"I have, you know. Is it possible\nto get a doctor? My friend's not hurt so very much, but still he wants\nexpert handling. He's Sir Rupert Solomonson, from\"--he jerked his head\nback--\"over beyond Tunbridge Wells. My name's Trafford.\"\n\n\"I'm Mrs. Pope and these are my daughters.\"\n\nTrafford bowed. \"We just took the thing out for a lark,\" he said.\n\nMarjorie had been regarding the prostrate man. His mouth was a little\nopen, and he showed beautiful teeth. Apart from the dry blood upon him\nhe was not an ill-looking man. He was manifestly a Jew, a square-rigged\nJew (you have remarked of course that there are square-rigged Jews,\nwhose noses are within bounds, and fore-and-aft Jews, whose noses\naren't), with not so much a bullet-head as a round-shot, cropped like\nthe head of a Capuchin monkey. Suddenly she was down and had his head on\nher knee, with a quick movement that caught Trafford's eye. \"He's\nbetter,\" she said. \"His eyelids flickered. Daffy, bring the water.\"\n\nShe had felt a queer little repugnance at first with this helpless man,\nbut now that professional nurse who lurks in the composition of so many\nwomen, was uppermost. \"Give me your handkerchief,\" she said to Trafford,\nand with Daffy kneeling beside her and also interested, and Mrs. Pope a\nbelated but more experienced and authoritative third, Sir Rupert was\nsoon getting the best of attention.\n\n\"Wathall ...\" said Sir Rupert suddenly, and tried again: \"Wathall.\" A\nthird effort gave \"Wathall about, eh?\"\n\n\"If we could get him into the shade,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"Woosh,\" cried Sir Rupert. \"Weeeooo!\"\n\n\"That's all right,\" said Trafford. \"It's only a rib or two.\"\n\n\"Eeeeeyoooo!\" said Sir Rupert.\n\n\"Exactly. We're going to carry you out of the glare.\"\n\n\"Don't touch me,\" said Sir Rupert. \"Gooo.\"\n\nIt took some little persuasion before Sir Rupert would consent to be\nmoved, and even then he was for a time--oh! crusty. But presently\nTrafford and the two girls had got him into the shade of a large bush\nclose to where in a circle of rugs and cushions the tea things lay\nprepared. There they camped. The helpful odd-job man was ordered to\nstave off intruders from the village; water, towels, pillows were\nforthcoming. Mr. Magnet reappeared as tentative assistance, and\nSolomonson became articulate and brave and said he'd nothing but a\nstitch in his side. In his present position he wasn't at all\nuncomfortable. Only he didn't want any one near him. He enforced that by\nan appealing smile. The twins, invited to fetch the doctor, declined,\nproffering Theodore. They had conceived juvenile passions for the tall\nyoung man, and did not want to leave him. He certainly had a very nice\nface. So Theodore after walking twice round the wreckage, tore himself\naway and departed on Rom's bicycle. Enquiry centred on Solomonson for a\ntime. His face, hair and neck were wet but no longer bloody, and he\nprofessed perfect comfort so long as he wasn't moved, and no one came\ntoo near him. He was very clear about that though perfectly polite, and\nscrutinized their faces to see if they were equally clear. Satisfied\nupon this point he closed his eyes and spoke no more. He looked then\nlike a Capuchin monkey lost in pride. There came a pause. Every one was\nconscious of having risen to an emergency and behaved well under unusual\ncircumstances. The young man's eye rested on the adjacent tea-things,\nlacking nothing but the coronation of the teapot.\n\n\"Why not,\" he remarked, \"have tea?\"\n\n\"If you think your friend----\" began Mrs. Pope.\n\n\"Oh! _he's_ all right. Aren't you, Solomonson? There's nothing more now\nuntil the doctor.\"\n\n\"Only want to be left alone,\" said Solomonson, and closed his heavy\neyelids again.\n\nMrs. Pope told the maids, with an air of dismissal, to get tea.\n\n\"We can keep an eye on him,\" said Trafford.\n\nMarjorie surveyed her first patient with a pretty unconscious mixture of\nmaternal gravity and girlish interest, and the twins to avoid too openly\ngloating upon the good looks of Trafford, chose places and secured\ncushions round the tea-things, calculating to the best of their ability\nhow they might secure the closest proximity to him. Mr. Magnet and\nToupee had gone to stare at the monoplane; they were presently joined by\nthe odd-job man in an interrogative mood. \"Pretty complete smash, sir!\"\nsaid the odd-job man, and then perceiving heads over the hedge by the\nchurchyard, turned back to his duty of sentinel. Daffy thought of the\nneed of more cups and plates and went in to get them, and Mrs. Pope\nremarked that she did hope Sir Rupert was not badly hurt....\n\n\"Extraordinary all this is,\" remarked Mr. Trafford. \"Now, here we were\nafter lunch, twenty miles away--smoking cigars and with no more idea of\nhaving tea with you than--I was going to say--flying. But that's out of\ndate now. Then we just thought we'd try the thing.... Like a dream.\"\n\nHe addressed himself to Marjorie: \"I never feel that life is quite real\nuntil about three days after things have happened. Never. Two hours ago\nI had not the slightest intention of ever flying again.\"\n\n\"But haven't you flown before?\" asked Mrs. Pope.\n\n\"Not much. I did a little at Sheppey, but it's so hard for a poor man to\nget his hands on a machine. And here was Solomonson, with this thing in\nhis hangar, eating its head off. Let's take it out,\" I said, \"and go\nonce round the park. And here we are.... I thought it wasn't wise for\nhim to come....\"\n\nSir Rupert, without opening his eyes, was understood to assent.\n\n\"Do you know,\" said Trafford, \"The sight of your tea makes me feel\nfrightfully hungry.\"\n\n\"I don't think the engine's damaged?\" he said cheerfully, \"do you?\" as\nMagnet joined them. \"The ailerons are in splinters, and the left wing's\nnot much better. But that's about all except the wheels. One falls so\nmuch lighter than you might suppose--from the smash.... Lucky it didn't\nturn over. Then, you know, the engine comes on the top of you, and\nyou're done.\"\n\n\nSec. 3\n\nThe doctor arrived after tea, with a bag and a stethoscope in a small\ncoffin-like box, and the Popes and Mr. Magnet withdrew while Sir Rupert\nwas carefully sounded, tested, scrutinized, questioned, watched and\nexamined in every way known to medical science. The outcome of the\nconference was presently communicated to the Popes by Mr. Trafford and\nthe doctor. Sir Rupert was not very seriously injured, but he was\nsuffering from concussion and shock, two of his ribs were broken and his\nwrist sprained, unless perhaps one of the small bones was displaced. He\nought to be bandaged up and put to bed....\n\n\"Couldn't we--\" said Mrs. Pope, but the doctor assured her his own house\nwas quite the best place. There Sir Rupert could stay for some days. At\npresent the cross-country journey over the Downs or by the South Eastern\nRailway would be needlessly trying and painful. He would with the Popes'\npermission lie quietly where he was for an hour or so, and then the\ndoctor would come with a couple of men and a carrying bed he had, and\ntake him off to his own house. There he would be, as Mr. Trafford said,\n\"as right as ninepence,\" and Mr. Trafford could put up either at the Red\nLion with Mr. Magnet or in the little cottage next door to the doctor.\n(Mr. Trafford elected for the latter as closer to his friend.) As for\nthe smashed aeroplane, telegrams would be sent at once to Sir Rupert's\nengineers at Chesilbury, and they would have all that cleared away by\nmid-day to-morrow....\n\nThe doctor departed; Sir Rupert, after stimulants, closed his eyes, and\nMr. Trafford seated himself at the tea-things for some more cake, as\nthough introduction by aeroplane was the most regular thing in the\nworld.\n\nHe had very pleasant and easy manners, an entire absence of\nself-consciousness, and a quick talkative disposition that made him very\nrapidly at home with everybody. He described all the sensations of\nflight, his early lessons and experiments, and in the utmost detail the\nevents of the afternoon that had led to this disastrous adventure. He\nmade his suggestion of \"trying the thing\" seem the most natural impulse\nin the world. The bulk of the conversation fell on him; Mr. Magnet, save\nfor the intervention of one or two jests, was quietly observant; the\nrest were well disposed to listen. And as Mr. Trafford talked his eye\nrested ever and again on Marjorie with the faintest touch of scrutiny\nand perplexity, and she, too, found a curious little persuasion growing\nup in her mind that somewhere, somehow, she and he had met and had\ntalked rather earnestly. But how and where eluded her altogether....\n\nThey had sat for an hour--the men from the doctor's seemed never\ncoming--when Mr. Pope returned unexpectedly from his cricket match,\nwhich had ended a little prematurely in a rot on an over-dry wicket. He\nwas full of particulars of the day's play, and how Wiper had got a most\namazing catch and held it, though he fell; how Jenks had deliberately\nbowled at a man's head, he believed, and little Gibbs thrown a man out\nfrom slip. He was burning to tell all this in the utmost detail to\nMagnet and his family, so that they might at least share the retrospect\nof his pleasure. He had thought out rather a good pun on Wiper, and he\nwas naturally a little thwarted to find all this good, rich talk\ncrowded out by a more engrossing topic.\n\nAt the sight of a stranger grouped in a popular manner beside the\ntea-things, he displayed a slight acerbity, which was if anything\nincreased by the discovery of a prostrate person with large brown eyes\nand an expression of Oriental patience and disdain, in the shade of a\nbush near by. At first he seemed scarcely to grasp Mrs. Pope's\nexplanations, and regarded Sir Rupert with an expression that bordered\non malevolence. Then, when his attention was directed to the smashed\nmachine upon the lawn, he broke out into a loud indignant: \"Good God!\nWhat next?\"\n\nHe walked towards the wreckage, disregarding Mr. Trafford beside him. \"A\nman can't go away from his house for an hour!\" he complained.\n\n\"I can assure you we did all we could to prevent it,\" said Trafford.\n\n\"Ought never to have had it to prevent,\" said Mr. Pope. \"Is your friend\nhurt?\"\n\n\"A rib--and shock,\" said Trafford.\n\n\"Well--he deserves it,\" said Mr. Pope. \"Rather than launch myself into\nthe air in one of those infernal things, I'd be stood against a wall and\nshot.\"\n\n\"Tastes differ, of course,\" said Trafford, with unruffled urbanity.\n\n\"You'll have all this cleared away,\" said Mr. Pope.\n\n\"Mechanics--oh! a complete break-down party--are speeding to us in fast\nmotors,\" said Trafford. \"Thanks to the kindness of your domestic in\ntaking a telegram for me.\"\n\n\"Hope they won't kill any one,\" said Mr. Pope, and just for a moment the\nconversation hung fire. \"And your friend?\" he asked.\n\n\"He goes in the next ten minutes--well, whenever the litter comes from\nthe doctor's. Poor old Solomonson!\"\n\n\"Solomonson?\"\n\n\"Sir Rupert.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Pope. \"Is that the Pigmentation Solomonson?\"\n\n\"I believe he does do some beastly company of that sort,\" said Trafford.\n\"Isn't it amazing we didn't smash our engine?\"\n\nSir Rupert Solomonson was indeed a familiar name to Mr. Pope. He had\norganized the exploitation of a number of pigment and bye-product\npatents, and the ordinary and deferred shares of his syndicate has risen\nto so high a price as to fill Mr. Pope with the utmost confidence in\ntheir future; indeed he had bought considerably, withdrawing capital to\ndo so from an Argentine railway whose stock had awakened his distaste\nand a sort of moral aversion by slumping heavily after a bad wheat and\nlinseed harvest. This discovery did much to mitigate his first asperity,\nhis next remark to Trafford was almost neutral, and he was even asking\nSir Rupert whether he could do anything to make him comfortable, when\nthe doctor returned with a litter, borne by four hastily compiled\nbearers.\n\n\nSec. 4\n\nSome brightness seemed to vanish when the buoyant Mr. Trafford, still\nundauntedly cheerful, limped off after his more injured friend, and\ndisappeared through the gate. Marjorie found herself in a world whose\nremaining manhood declined to see anything but extreme annoyance in this\ngay, exciting rupture of the afternoon. \"Good God!\" said Mr. Pope. \"What\nnext? What next?\"\n\n\"Registration, I hope,\" said Mr. Magnet,--\"and relegation to the desert\nof Sahara.\"\n\n\"One good thing about it,\" said Mr. Pope--\"it all wastes petrol. And\nwhen the petrol supply gives out--they're done.\"\n\n\"Certainly we might all have been killed!\" said Mrs. Pope, feeling she\nhad to bear her witness against their visitors, and added: \"If we hadn't\nmoved out of the way, that is.\"\n\nThere was a simultaneous movement towards the shattered apparatus, about\nwhich a small contingent of villagers, who had availed themselves of the\nwithdrawal of the sentinel, had now assembled.\n\n\"Look at it!\" said Mr. Pope, with bitter hostility. \"Look at it!\"\n\nEveryone had anticipated his command.\n\n\"They'll never come to anything,\" said Mr. Pope, after a pause of silent\nhatred.\n\n\"But they _have_ to come to something,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"They've come to smash!\" said Mr. Magnet, with the true humorist's air.\n\n\"But consider the impudence of this invasion, the\nwild--objectionableness of it!\"\n\n\"They're nasty things,\" said Mr. Magnet. \"Nasty things!\"\n\nA curious spirit of opposition stirred in Marjorie. It seemed to her\nthat men who play golf-croquet and watch cricket matches have no\nbusiness to contemn men who risk their lives in the air. She sought for\nsome controversial opening.\n\n\"Isn't the engine rather wonderful?\" she remarked.\n\nMr. Magnet regarded the engine with his head a little on one side. \"It's\nthe usual sort,\" he said.\n\n\"There weren't engines like that twenty years ago.\"\n\n\"There weren't people like _you_ twenty years ago,\" said Mr. Magnet,\nsmiling wisely and kindly, and turned his back on the thing.\n\nMr. Pope followed suit. He was filled with the bitter thought that he\nwould never now be able to tell the history of the remarkable match he\nhad witnessed. It was all spoilt for him--spoilt for ever. Everything\nwas disturbed and put out.\n\n\"They've left us our tennis lawn,\" he said, with a not unnatural\nresentment passing to invitation. \"What do you say, Magnet? Now you've\nbegun the game you must keep it up?\"\n\n\"If Marjorie, or Mrs. Pope, or Daffy...?\" said Magnet.\n\nMrs. Pope declared the house required her. And so with the gravest\napprehensions, and an insincere compliment to their father's energy,\nDaffy and Marjorie made up a foursome for that healthy and invigorating\ngame. But that evening Mr. Pope got his serve well into the bay of the\nsagging net almost at once, and with Marjorie in the background taking\nanything he left her, he won quite easily, and everything became\npleasant again. Magnet gloated upon Marjorie and served her like a\nmissionary giving Bibles to heathen children, he seemed always looking\nat her instead of the ball, and except for a slight disposition on the\npart of Daffy to slash, nothing could have been more delightful. And at\nsupper Mr. Pope, rather crushing his wife's attempt to recapitulate the\nmore characteristic sayings and doings of Sir Rupert and his friend, did\nafter all succeed in giving every one a very good idea indeed of the\nmore remarkable incidents of the cricket match at Wamping, and made the\npun he had been accustomed to use upon the name of Wiper in a new and\nimproved form. A general talk about cricket and the Immense Good of\ncricket followed. Mr. Pope said he would make cricket-playing compulsory\nfor every English boy.\n\nEveryone it seemed to Marjorie was forgetting that dark shape athwart\nthe lawn, and all the immense implication of its presence, with a\ndeliberate and irrational skill, and she noted that the usual move\ntowards the garden at the end of the evening was not made.\n\n\nSec. 5\n\nIn the night time Marjorie had a dream that she was flying about in the\nworld on a monoplane with Mr. Trafford as a passenger.\n\nThen Mr. Trafford disappeared, and she was flying about alone with a\ncurious uneasy feeling that in a minute or so she would be unable any\nlonger to manage the machine.\n\nThen her father and Mr. Magnet appeared very far below, walking about\nand disapproving of her. Mr. Magnet was shaking his head very, very\nsagely, and saying: \"Rather a stiff job for little Marjorie,\" and her\nfather was saying she would be steadier when she married. And then, she\nwasn't clear how, the engine refused to work until her bills were paid,\nand she began to fall, and fall, and fall towards Mr. Magnet. She tried\nfrantically to pay her bills. She was falling down the fronts of\nskyscrapers and precipices--and Mr. Magnet was waiting for her below\nwith a quiet kindly smile that grew wider and wider and wider....\n\nShe woke up palpitating.\n\n\nSec. 6\n\nNext morning a curious restlessness came upon Marjorie. Conceivably it\nwas due to the absence of Magnet, who had gone to London to deliver his\nlong promised address on The Characteristics of English Humour to the\n_Literati_ Club. Conceivably she missed his attentions. But it\ncrystallized out in the early afternoon into the oddest form, a powerful\ncraving to go to the little town of Pensting, five miles off, on the\nother side of Buryhamstreet, to buy silk shoelaces.\n\nShe decided to go in the donkey cart. She communicated her intention to\nher mother, but she did not communicate an equally definite intention to\nbe reminded suddenly of Sir Rupert Solomonson as she was passing the\nsurgery, and make an inquiry on the spur of the moment--it wouldn't\nsurely be anything but a kindly and justifiable impulse to do that. She\nmight see Mr. Trafford perhaps, but there was no particular harm in\nthat.\n\nIt is also to be remarked that finding Theodore a little disposed to\nencumber her vehicle with his presence she expressed her delight at\nbeing released from the need of going, and abandoned the whole\nexpedition to him--knowing as she did perfectly well that if Theodore\nhated anything more than navigating the donkey cart alone, it was going\nunprotected into a shop to buy articles of feminine apparel--until he\nchucked the whole project and went fishing--if one can call it fishing\nwhen there are no fish and the fisherman knows it--in the decadent\nornamental water.\n\nAnd it is also to be remarked that as Marjorie approached the surgery\nshe was seized with an absurd and powerful shyness, so that not only did\nshe not call at the surgery, she did not even look at the surgery, she\ngazed almost rigidly straight ahead, telling herself, however, that she\nmerely deferred that kindly impulse until she had bought her laces. And\nso it happened that about half a mile beyond the end of Buryhamstreet\nshe came round a corner upon Trafford, and by a singular fatality he\nalso was driving a donkey, or, rather, was tracing a fan-like pattern on\nthe road with a donkey's hoofs. It was a very similar donkey to\nMarjorie's, but the vehicle was a governess cart, and much smarter than\nMarjorie's turn-out. His ingenuous face displayed great animation at the\nsight of her, and as she drew alongside he hailed her with an almost\nunnatural ease of manner.\n\n\"Hullo!\" he cried. \"I'm taking the air. You seem to be able to drive\ndonkeys forward. How do you do it? I can't. Never done anything so\ndangerous in my life before. I've just been missed by two motor cars,\nand hung for a terrible minute with my left wheel on the very verge of\nan unfathomable ditch. I could hear the little ducklings far, far below,\nand bits of mould dropping. I tried to count before the splash. Aren't\nyou--_white?_\"\n\n\"But why are you doing it?\"\n\n\"One must do something. I'm bandaged up and can't walk. It hurt my leg\nmore than I knew--your doctor says. Solomonson won't talk of anything\nbut how he feels, and _I_ don't care a rap how he feels. So I got this\nthing and came out with it.\"\n\nMarjorie made her inquiries. There came a little pause.\n\n\"Some day no one will believe that men were ever so foolish as to trust\nthemselves to draught animals,\" he remarked. \"Hullo! Look out! The\nhorror of it!\"\n\nA large oil van--a huge drum on wheels--motor-driven, had come round the\ncorner, and after a preliminary and quite insufficient hoot, bore down\nupon them, and missing Trafford as it seemed by a miracle, swept past.\nBoth drivers did wonderful things with whips and reins, and found\nthemselves alone in the road again, with their wheels locked and an\nindefinite future.\n\n\"I leave the situation to you,\" said Trafford. \"Or shall we just sit and\ntalk until the next motor car kills us?\"\n\n\"We ought to make an effort,\" said Marjorie, cheerfully, and descended\nto lead the two beasts.\n\nAssisted by an elderly hedger, who had been taking a disregarded\ninterest in them for some time, she separated the wheels and got the two\ndonkeys abreast. The old hedger's opinion of their safety on the king's\nhighway was expressed by his action rather than his words; he directed\nthe beasts towards a shady lane that opened at right angles to the road.\nHe stood by their bridles while Marjorie resumed her seat.\n\n\"It seems to me clearly a case for compromise,\" said Trafford. \"You want\nto go that way, I want to go that way. Let us both go _this_ way. It is\nby such arrangements that civilization becomes possible.\"\n\nHe dismissed the hedger generously and resumed his reins.\n\n\"Shall we race?\" he asked.\n\n\"With your leg?\" she inquired.\n\n\"No; with the donkeys. I say, this _is_ rather a lark. At first I\nthought it was both dangerous and dull. But things have changed. I am in\nbeastly high spirits. I feel there will be a cry before night; but\nstill, I am----I wanted the companionship of an unbroken person. It's\nso jolly to meet you again.\"\n\n\"Again?\"\n\n\"After the year before last.\"\n\n\"After the year before last?\"\n\n\"You didn't know,\" said Trafford, \"I had met you before? How aggressive\nI must have seemed! Well, _I_ wasn't quite clear. I spent the greater\npart of last night--my ankle being foolish in the small hours--in\ntrying to remember how and where.\"\n\n\"I don't remember,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"I remembered you very distinctly, and some things I thought about you,\nbut not where it had happened. Then in the night I got it. It _is_ a\npuzzle, isn't it? You see, I was wearing a black gown, and I had been\nout of the sunlight for some months--and my eye, I remember it acutely,\nwas bandaged. I'm usually bandaged somewhere.\n\n    'I was a King in Babylon\n    And you were a Christian slave'\n\n--I mean a candidate.\"\n\nMarjorie remembered suddenly. \"You're Professor Trafford.\"\n\n\"Not in this atmosphere. But I am at the Romeike College. And as soon as\nI recalled examining you I remembered it--minutely. You were\nintelligent, though unsound--about cryo-hydrates it was. Ah, you\nremember me now. As most young women are correct by rote and\nunintelligent in such questions, and as it doesn't matter a rap about\nanything of that sort, whether you are correct or not, as long as the\nmental gesture is right----\" He paused for a moment, as though tired of\nhis sentence. \"I remembered you.\"\n\nHe proceeded in his easy and detached manner, that seemed to make every\ntopic possible, to tell her his first impressions of her, and show how\nvery distinctly indeed he remembered her.\n\n\"You set me philosophizing. I'd never examined a girls' school before,\nand I was suddenly struck by the spectacle of the fifty of you. What's\ngoing to become of them all?\"\n\n\"I thought,\" he went on, \"how bright you were, and how keen and eager\nyou were--_you_, I mean, in particular--and just how certain it was\nyour brightness and eagerness would be swallowed up by some silly\nordinariness or other--stuffy marriage or stuffy domestic duties. The\nold, old story--done over again with a sort of threadbare badness.\n(Nothing to say against it if it's done well.) I got quite sentimental\nand pathetic about life's breach of faith with women. Odd, isn't it, how\none's mind runs on. But that's what I thought. It's all come back to\nme.\"\n\nMarjorie's bright, clear eye came round to him. \"I don't see very much\nwrong with the lot of women,\" she reflected. \"Things are different\nnowadays. Anyhow----\"\n\nShe paused.\n\n\"You don't want to be a man?\"\n\n\"_No!_\"\n\nShe was emphatic.\n\n\"Some of us cut more sharply at life than you think,\" he said, plumbing\nher unspoken sense.\n\nShe had never met a man before who understood just how a girl can feel\nthe slow obtuseness of his sex. It was almost as if he had found her out\nat something.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, \"perhaps you do,\" and looked at him with an increased\ninterest.\n\n\"I'm half-feminine, I believe,\" he said. \"For instance, I've got just a\nwoman's joy in textures and little significant shapes. I know how you\nfeel about that. I can spend hours, even now, in crystal gazing--I don't\nmean to see some silly revelation of some silly person's proceedings\nsomewhere, but just for the things themselves. I wonder if you have ever\nbeen in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and looked at\nRuskin's crystal collection? I saw it when I was a boy, and it became--I\ncan't help the word--an obsession. The inclusions like moss and like\ntrees, and all sorts of fantastic things, and the cleavages and\nenclosures with little bubbles, and the lights and shimmer--What were we\ntalking about? Oh, about the keen way your feminine perceptions cut into\nthings. And yet somehow I was throwing contempt on the feminine\nintelligence. I don't do justice to the order of my thoughts. Never\nmind. We've lost the thread. But I wish you knew my mother.\"\n\nHe went on while Marjorie was still considering the proper response to\nthis.\n\n\"You see, I'm her only son and she brought me up, and we know each\nother--oh! very well. She helps with my work. She understands nearly all\nof it. She makes suggestions. And to this day I don't know if she's the\nmost original or the most parasitic of creatures. And that's the way\nwith all women and girls, it seems to me. You're as critical as light,\nand as undiscriminating.... I say, do I strike you as talking nonsense?\"\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said Marjorie. \"But you do go rather fast.\"\n\n\"I know,\" he admitted. \"But somehow you excite me. I've been with\nSolomonson a week, and he's dull at all times. It was that made me take\nout that monoplane of his. But it did him no good.\"\n\nHe paused.\n\n\"They told me after the exam.,\" said Marjorie, \"you knew more about\ncrystallography--than anyone.\"\n\n\"Does that strike you as a dull subject?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Marjorie, in a tone that invited justifications.\n\n\"It isn't. I think--naturally, that the world one goes into when one\nstudies molecular physics is quite the most beautiful of Wonderlands....\nI can assure you I work sometimes like a man who is exploring a magic\npalace.... Do you know anything of molecular physics?\"\n\n\"You examined me,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"The sense one has of exquisite and wonderful rhythms--just beyond sound\nand sight! And there's a taunting suggestion of its being all there,\ndisplayed and confessed, if only one were quick enough to see it. Why,\nfor instance, when you change the composition of a felspar almost\nimperceptibly, do the angles change? What's the correspondence between\nthe altered angle and the substituted atom? Why does this bit of clear\nstuff swing the ray of light so much out of its path, and that swing it\nmore? Then what happens when crystals gutter down, and go into solution.\nThe endless launching of innumerable little craft. Think what a clear\nsolution must be if only one had ultra-microscopic eyes and could see\ninto it, see the extraordinary patternings, the swimming circling\nconstellations. And then the path of a ray of polarized light beating\nthrough it! It takes me like music. Do you know anything of the effects\nof polarized light, the sight of a slice of olivine-gabbro for instance\nbetween crossed Nicols?\"\n\n\"I've seen some rock sections,\" said Marjorie. \"I forget the names of\nthe rocks.\"\n\n\"The colours?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, the colours.\"\n\n\"Is there anything else so rich and beautiful in all the world? And\nevery different mineral and every variety of that mineral has a\ndifferent palette of colours, a different scheme of harmonies--and is\ntelling you something.\"\n\n\"If only you understood.\"\n\n\"Exactly. All the ordinary stuff of life--you know--the carts and motor\ncars and dusty roads and--cinder sifting, seems so blank to me--with\nthat persuasion of swing and subtlety beneath it all. As if the whole\nworld was fire and crystal and aquiver--with some sort of cotton\nwrappers thrown over it....\"\n\n\"Dust sheets,\" said Marjorie. \"I know.\"\n\n\"Or like a diamond painted over!\"\n\n\"With that sort of grey paint, very full of body--that lasts.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He smiled at her. \"I can't help apologetics. Most people think a\nprofessor of science is just----\"\n\n\"A professor of science.\"\n\n\"Yes. Something all pedantries and phrases. I want to clear my\ncharacter. As though it is foolish to follow a vortex ring into a\nvacuum, and wise to whack at a dirty golf ball on a suburban railway\nbank. Oh, their golf! Under high heaven!... You don't play golf, do you,\nby any chance?\"\n\n\"Only the woman's part,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"And they despise us,\" he said. \"Solomonson can hardly hide how he\ndespises us. Nothing is more wonderful than the way these people go on\ndespising us who do research, who have this fever of curiosity, who\nwon't be content with--what did you call those wrappers?\"\n\n\"Dust sheets.\"\n\n\"Yes, dust sheets. What a life! Swaddling bands, dust sheets and a\nshroud! You know, research and discovery aren't nearly so difficult as\npeople think--if only you have the courage to say a thing or try a thing\nnow and then that it isn't usual to say or try. And after all----\" he\nwent off at a tangent, \"these confounded ordinary people aren't\njustified in their contempt. We keep on throwing them things over our\nshoulders, electric bells, telephones, Marconigrams. Look at the\nbeautiful electric trains that come towering down the London streets at\nnightfall, ships of light in full sail! Twenty years ago they were as\nimpossible as immortality. We conquer the seas for these--golfers, puts\narms in their hands that will certainly blow them all to bits if ever\nthe idiots go to war with them, come sailing out of the air on them----\"\n\nHe caught Marjorie's eye and stopped.\n\n\"_Falling_ out of the air on them,\" corrected Marjorie very softly.\n\n\"That was only an accident,\" said Mr. Trafford....\n\nSo they began a conversation in the lane where the trees met overhead\nthat went on and went on like a devious path in a shady wood, and\ntouched upon all manner of things....\n\n\nSec. 7\n\nIn the end quite a number of people were aggrieved by this dialogue, in\nthe lane that led nowhither....\n\nSir Rupert Solomonson was the first to complain. Trafford had been away\n\"three mortal hours.\" No one had come near him, not a soul, and there\nhadn't been even a passing car to cheer his ear.\n\nSir Rupert admitted he had to be quiet. \"But not so _damned_ quiet.\"\n\n\"I'd have been glad,\" said Sir Rupert, \"if a hen had laid an egg and\nclucked a bit. You might have thought there had been a Resurrection or\nsomethin', and cleared off everybody. Lord! it was deadly. I'd have sung\nout myself if it hadn't been for these infernal ribs....\"\n\nMrs. Pope came upon the affair quite by accident.\n\n\"Well, Marjorie,\" she said as she poured tea for the family, \"did you\nget your laces?\"\n\n\"Never got there, Mummy,\" said Marjorie, and paused fatally.\n\n\"Didn't get there!\" said Mrs. Pope. \"That's worse than Theodore!\nWouldn't the donkey go, poor dear?\"\n\nThere was nothing to colour about, and yet Marjorie felt the warm flow\nin neck and cheek and brow. She threw extraordinary quantities of\ncandour into her manner. \"I had a romantic adventure,\" she said rather\nquietly. \"I was going to tell you.\"\n\n(Sensation.)\n\n\"You see it was like this,\" said Marjorie. \"I ran against Mr.\nTrafford....\"\n\nShe drank tea, and pulled herself together for a lively description of\nthe wheel-locking and the subsequent conversation, a bright ridiculous\naccount which made the affair happen by implication on the high road and\nnot in a byeway, and was adorned with every facetious ornament that\nseemed likely to get a laugh from the children. But she talked rather\nfast, and she felt she forced the fun a little. However, it amused the\nchildren all right, and Theodore created a diversion by choking with his\ntea. From first to last Marjorie was extremely careful to avoid the\naffectionate scrutiny of her mother's eye. And had this lasted the\n_whole_ afternoon? asked Mrs. Pope. \"Oh, they'd talked for\nhalf-an-hour,\" said Marjorie, or more, and had driven back very slowly\ntogether. \"He did all the talking. You saw what he was yesterday. And\nthe donkeys seemed too happy together to tear them away.\"\n\n\"But what was it all about?\" asked Daffy curious.\n\n\"He asked after you, Daffy, most affectionately,\" said Marjorie, and\nadded, \"several times.\" (Though Trafford had as a matter of fact\ndisplayed a quite remarkable disregard of all her family.)\n\n\"And,\" she went on, getting a plausible idea at last, \"he explained all\nabout aeroplanes. And all that sort of thing. Has Daddy gone to Wamping\nfor some more cricket?...\"\n\n(But none of this was lost on Mrs. Pope.)\n\n\nSec. 8\n\nMr. Magnet's return next day was heralded by nearly two-thirds of a\ncolumn in the _Times_.\n\nThe Lecture on the Characteristics of Humour had evidently been quite a\nserious affair, and a very imposing list of humorists and of prominent\npeople associated with their industry had accepted the hospitality of\nthe _Literati_.\n\nMarjorie ran her eyes over the Chairman's flattering introduction, then\nwith a queer faint flavour of hostility she reached her destined\nhusband's utterance. She seemed to hear the flat full tones of his voice\nas she read, and automatically the desiccated sentences of the reporter\nfilled out again into those rich quietly deliberate unfoldings of sound\nthat were already too familiar to her ear.\n\nMr. Magnet had begun with modest disavowals. \"There was a story, he\nsaid,\"--so the report began--\"whose hallowed antiquity ought to protect\nit from further exploitation, but he was tempted to repeat it because it\noffered certain analogies to the present situation. There were three\ncharacters in the story, a bluebottle and two Scotsmen. (Laughter.) The\nbluebottle buzzed on the pane, otherwise a profound silence reigned.\nThis was broken by one of the Scotsmen trying to locate the bluebottle\nwith zoological exactitude. Said this Scotsman: 'Sandy, I am thinking if\nyon fly is a birdie or a beastie.' The other replied: 'Man, don't spoil\ngood whiskey with religious conversation.' (Laughter.) He was tempted,\nMr. Magnet resumed, to ask himself and them why it was that they should\nspoil the aftereffects of a most excellent and admirably served dinner\nby an academic discussion on British humour. At first he was pained by\nthe thought that they proposed to temper their hospitality with a demand\nfor a speech. A closer inspection showed that he was to introduce a\ndebate and that others were to speak, and that was a new element in\ntheir hospitality. Further, he was permitted to choose the subject so\nthat he could bring their speeches within the range of his\ncomprehension. (Laughter.) His was an easy task. He could make it\neasier; the best thing to do would be to say nothing at all.\n(Laughter.)\"\n\nFor a space the reporter seemed to have omitted largely--perhaps he was\nchanging places with his relief--and the next sentence showed Mr. Magnet\nengaged as it were in revising a _hortus siccus_ of jokes. \"There was\nthe humour of facts and situations,\" he was saying, \"or that humour of\nexpression for which there was no human responsibility, as in the case\nof Irish humour; he spoke of the humour of the soil which found its\nnoblest utterance in the bull. Humour depended largely on contrast.\nThere was a humour of form and expression which had many local\nvarieties. American humour had been characterized by exaggeration, the\nsuppression of some link in the chain of argument or narrative, and a\nwealth of simile and metaphor which had been justly defined as the\npoetry of a pioneer race.\"...\n\nMarjorie's attention slipped its anchor, and caught lower down upon: \"In\nEngland there was a near kinship between laughter and tears; their\nmental relations were as close as their physical. Abroad this did not\nappear to be the case. It was different in France. But perhaps on the\nwhole it would be better to leave the humour of France and what some\npeople still unhappily chose to regard as matters open to\ncontroversy--he referred to choice of subject--out of their discussion\naltogether. ('Hear, hear,' and cheers.)\"...\n\nAttention wandered again. Then she remarked:--it reminded her in some\nmysterious way of a dropped hairpin--\"It was noticeable that the pun to\na great extent had become demode....\"\n\nAt this point the flight of Marjorie's eyes down the column was arrested\nby her father's hand gently but firmly taking possession of the _Times_.\nShe yielded it without reluctance, turned to the breakfast table, and\nnever resumed her study of the social relaxations of humorists....\n\nIndeed she forgot it. Her mind was in a state of extreme perplexity. She\ndidn't know what to make of herself or anything or anybody. Her mind was\nfull of Trafford and all that he had said and done and all that he might\nhave said and done, and it was entirely characteristic that she could\nnot think of Magnet in any way at all except as a bar-like shadow that\nlay across all her memories and all the bright possibilities of this\nengaging person.\n\nShe thought particularly of the mobile animation of his face, the keen\nflash of enthusiasm in his thoughts and expressions....\n\nIt was perhaps more characteristic of her time than of her that she did\nnot think she was dealing so much with a moral problem as an\nembarrassment, and that she hadn't as yet felt the first stirrings of\nself-reproach for the series of disingenuous proceedings that had\nrendered the yesterday's encounter possible. But she was restless,\nwildly restless as a bird whose nest is taken. She could abide nowhere.\nShe fretted through the morning, avoided Daffy in a marked manner, and\ninflicted a stinging and only partially merited rebuke upon Theodore for\nslouching, humping and--of all trite grievances!--not washing behind his\nears. As if any chap washed behind his ears! She thought tennis with the\npseudo-twins might assuage her, but she broke off after losing two sets;\nand then she went into the garden to get fresh flowers, and picked a\nlarge bunch and left them on the piano until her mother reminded her of\nthem. She tried a little Shaw. She struggled with an insane wish to walk\nthrough the wood behind the village and have an accidental meeting with\nsomeone who couldn't possibly appear but whom it would be quite adorable\nto meet. Anyhow she conquered that.\n\nShe had a curious and rather morbid indisposition to go after lunch to\nthe station and meet Mr. Magnet as her mother wished her to do, in order\nto bring him straight to the vicarage to early tea, but here again\nreason prevailed and she went.\n\nMr. Magnet arrived by the 2.27, and to Marjorie's eye his alighting\npresence had an effect of being not so much covered with laurels as\ndistended by them. His face seemed whiter and larger than ever. He waved\na great handful of newspapers.\n\n\"Hullo, Magsy!\" he said. \"They've given me a thumping Press. I'm nearer\nswelled head than I've ever been, so mind how you touch me!\"\n\n\"We'll take it down at croquet,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"They've cleared that thing away?\"\n\n\"And made up the lawn like a billiard table,\" she said.\n\n\"That makes for skill,\" he said waggishly. \"I shall save my head after\nall.\"\n\nFor a moment he seemed to loom towards kissing her, but she averted\nthis danger by a business-like concern for his bag. He entrusted this to\na porter, and reverted to the triumph of overnight so soon as they were\nclear of the station. He was overflowing with kindliness towards his\nfellow humorists, who had appeared in force and very generously at the\nbanquet, and had said the most charming things--some of which were in\none report and some in another, and some the reporters had missed\naltogether--some of the kindliest.\n\n\"It's a pleasant feeling to think that a lot of good fellows think you\nare a good fellow,\" said Mr. Magnet.\n\nHe became solicitous for her. How had she got on while he was away? She\nasked him how one was likely to get on at Buryhamstreet; monoplanes\ndidn't fall every day, and as she said that it occurred to her she was\nbehaving meanly. But he was going on to his next topic before she could\nqualify.\n\n\"I've got something in my pocket,\" he remarked, and playfully: \"Guess.\"\n\nShe did, but she wouldn't. She had a curious sinking of the heart.\n\n\"I want you to see it before anyone else,\" he said. \"Then if you don't\nlike it, it can go back. It's a sapphire.\"\n\nHe was feeling nervously in his pockets and then the little box was in\nher hand.\n\nShe hesitated to open it. It made everything so dreadfully concrete. And\nthis time the sense of meanness was altogether acuter. He'd bought this\nin London; he'd brought it down, hoping for her approval. Yes, it\nwas--horrid. But what was she to do?\n\n\"It's--awfully pretty,\" she said with the glittering symbol in her hand,\nand indeed he had gone to one of those artistic women who are reviving\nand improving upon the rich old Roman designs. \"It's so beautifully\nmade.\"\n\n\"I'm so glad you like it. You really _do_ like it?\"\n\n\"I don't deserve it.\"\n\n\"Oh! But you _do_ like it?\"\n\n\"Enormously.\"\n\n\"Ah! I spent an hour in choosing it.\"\n\nShe could see him. She felt as though she had picked his pocket.\n\n\"Only I don't deserve it, Mr. Magnet. Indeed I don't. I feel I am taking\nit on false pretences.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Magsy. Nonsense! Slip it on your finger, girl.\"\n\n\"But I don't,\" she insisted.\n\nHe took the box from her, pocketed it and seized her hand. She drew it\naway from him.\n\n\"No!\" she said. \"I feel like a cheat. You know, I don't--I'm sure I\ndon't love----\"\n\n\"I'll love enough for two,\" he said, and got her hand again. \"No!\" he\nsaid at her gesture, \"you'll wear it. Why shouldn't you?\"\n\nAnd so Marjorie came back along the vicarage avenue with his ring upon\nher hand. And Mr. Pope was evidently very glad to see him....\n\nThe family was still seated at tea upon rugs and wraps, and still\ndiscussing humorists at play, when Professor Trafford appeared, leaning\non a large stick and limping, but resolute, by the church gate. \"Pish!\"\nsaid Mr. Pope. Marjorie tried not to reveal a certain dismay, there was\ndumb, rich approval in Daphne's eyes, and the pleasure of Theodore and\nthe pseudo-twins was only too scandalously evident. \"Hoo-Ray!\" said\nTheodore, with ill-concealed relief.\n\nMrs. Pope was the incarnate invocation of tact as Trafford drew near.\n\n\"I hope,\" he said, with obvious insincerity, \"I don't invade you. But\nSolomonson is frightfully concerned and anxious about your lawn, and\nwhether his men cleared it up properly and put things right.\" His eye\nwent about the party and rested on Marjorie. \"How are you?\" he said, in\na friendly voice.\n\n\"Well, we seem to have got our croquet lawn back,\" said Mr. Pope. \"And\nour nerves are recovering. How is Sir Rupert?\"\n\n\"A little fractious,\" said Trafford, with the ghost of a smile.\n\n\"You'll take some tea?\" said Mrs. Pope in the pause that followed.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Trafford and sat down instantly.\n\n\"I saw your jolly address in the _Standard_,\" he said to Magnet. \"I\nhaven't read anything so amusing for some time.\"\n\n\"Rom dear,\" said Mrs. Pope, \"will you take the pot in and get some fresh\ntea?\"\n\nMr. Trafford addressed himself to the flattery of Magnet with\nconsiderable skill. He had detected a lurking hostility in the eyes of\nthe two gentlemen that counselled him to propitiate them if he meant to\nmaintain his footing in the vicarage, and now he talked to them almost\nexclusively and ignored the ladies modestly but politely in the way that\nseems natural and proper in a British middle-class house of the better\nsort. But as he talked chiefly of the improvement of motor machinery\nthat had recently been shown at the Engineering Exhibition, he did not\nmake that headway with Marjorie's father that he had perhaps\nanticipated. Mr. Pope fumed quietly for a time, and then suddenly spoke\nout.\n\n\"I'm no lover of machines,\" he said abruptly, slashing across Mr.\nTrafford's description. \"All our troubles began with villainous\nsaltpetre. I'm an old-fashioned man with a nose--and a neck, and I don't\nwant the one offended or the other broken. No, don't ask me to be\ninterested in your valves and cylinders. What do you say, Magnet? It\nstarts machinery in my head to hear about them....\"\n\nOn such occasions as this when Mr. Pope spoke out, his horror of an\nanti-climax or any sort of contradiction was apt to bring the utterance\nto a culmination not always to be distinguished from a flight. And now\nhe rose to his feet as he delivered himself.\n\n\"Who's for a game of tennis?\" he said, \"in this last uncontaminated\npatch of air? I and Marjorie will give you a match, Daffy--if Magnet\nisn't too tired to join you.\"\n\nDaffy looked at Marjorie for an instant.\n\n\"We'll want you, Theodore, to look after the balls in the potatoes,\"\nsaid Mr. Pope lest that ingenuous mind should be corrupted behind his\nback....\n\nMrs. Pope found herself left to entertain a slightly disgruntled\nTrafford. Rom and Syd hovered on the off chance of notice, at the corner\nof the croquet lawn nearest the tea things. Mrs. Pope had already\ndetermined to make certain little matters clearer than they appeared to\nbe to this agreeable but superfluous person, and she was greatly\nassisted by his opening upon the subject of her daughters. \"Jolly tennis\nlooks,\" he said.\n\n\"Don't they?\" said Mrs. Pope. \"I think it is such a graceful game for a\ngirl.\"\n\nMr. Trafford glanced at Mrs. Pope's face, but her expression was\nimpenetrable.\n\n\"They both like it and play it so well,\" she said. \"Their father is so\nskillful and interested in games. Marjorie tells me you were her\nexaminer a year or so ago.\"\n\n\"Yes. She struck my memory--her work stood out.\"\n\n\"Of course she is clever,\" said Mrs. Pope. \"Or we shouldn't have sent\nher to Oxbridge. There she's doing quite well--quite well. Everyone says\nso. I don't know, of course, if Mr. Magnet will let her finish there.\"\n\n\"Mr. Magnet?\"\n\n\"She's just engaged to him. Of course she's frightfully excited about\nit, and naturally he wants her to come away and marry. There's very\nlittle excuse for a long engagement. No.\"\n\nHer voice died in a musical little note, and she seemed to be\nscrutinizing the tennis with an absorbed interest. \"They've got new\nballs,\" she said, as if to herself.\n\nTrafford had rolled over, and she fancied she detected a change in his\nvoice when it came. \"Isn't it rather a waste not to finish a university\ncareer?\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, it wouldn't be wasted. Of course a girl like that will be hand and\nglove with her husband. She'll be able to help him with the scientific\nside of his jokes and all that. I sometimes wish it had been Daffy who\nhad gone to college though. I sometimes think we've sacrificed Daffy a\nlittle. She's not the bright quickness of Marjorie, but there's\nsomething quietly solid about her mind--something _stable_. Perhaps I\ndidn't want her to go away from me.... Mr. Magnet is doing wonders at\nthe net. He's just begun to play--to please Marjorie. Don't you think\nhe's a dreadfully amusing man, Mr. Trafford? He says such _quiet_\nthings.\"\n\n\nSec. 9\n\nThe effect of this _eclaircissement_ upon Mr. Trafford was not what it\nshould have been. Properly he ought to have realized at once that\nMarjorie was for ever beyond his aspirations, and if he found it too\ndifficult to regard her with equanimity, then he ought to have shunned\nher presence. But instead, after his first shock of incredulous\nastonishment, his spirit rose in a rebellion against arranged facts that\nwas as un-English as it was ungentlemanly. He went back to Solomonson\nwith a mood of thoughtful depression giving place to a growing passion\nof indignation. He presented it to himself in a generalized and\naltruistic form. \"What the deuce is the good of all this talk of\nEugenics,\" he asked himself aloud, \"if they are going to hand over that\nshining girl to that beastly little area sneak?\"\n\nHe called Mr. Magnet a \"beastly little area sneak!\"\n\nNothing could show more clearly just how much he had contrived to fall\nin love with Marjorie during his brief sojourn in Buryhamstreet and the\nacuteness of his disappointment, and nothing could be more eloquent of\nhis forcible and undisciplined temperament. And out of ten thousand\npossible abusive epithets with which his mind was no doubt stored, this\none, I think, had come into his head because of the alert watchfulness\nwith which Mr. Magnet followed a conversation, as he waited his chance\nfor some neat but brilliant flash of comment....\n\nTrafford, like Marjorie, was another of those undisciplined young people\nour age has produced in such significant quantity. He was just\nsix-and-twenty, but the facts that he was big of build, had as an only\nchild associated much with grown-up people, and was already a\nconspicuous success in the world of micro-chemical research, had given\nhim the self-reliance and assurance of a much older man. He had still to\ncome his croppers and learn most of the important lessons in life, and,\nso far, he wasn't aware of it. He was naturally clean-minded, very busy\nand interested in his work, and on remarkably friendly and confidential\nterms with his mother who kept house for him, and though he had had\nseveral small love disturbances, this was the first occasion that\nanything of the kind had ploughed deep into his feelings and desires.\n\nTrafford's father had died early in life. He had been a brilliant\npathologist, one of that splendid group of scientific investigators in\nthe middle Victorian period which shines ever more brightly as our\ncriticism dims their associated splendours, and he had died before he\nwas thirty through a momentary slip of the scalpel. His wife--she had\nbeen his wife for five years--found his child and his memory and the\nquality of the life he had made about her too satisfying for the risks\nof a second marriage, and she had brought up her son with a passionate\nbelief in the high mission of research and the supreme duty of seeking\nout and expressing truth finely. And here he was, calling Mr. Magnet a\n\"beastly little area sneak.\"\n\nThe situation perplexed him. Marjorie perplexed him. It was, had he\nknown it, the beginning for him of a lifetime of problems and\nperplexities. He was absolutely certain she didn't love Magnet. Why,\nthen, had she agreed to marry him? Such pressures and temptations as he\ncould see about her seemed light to him in comparison with such an\nundertaking.\n\nWere they greater than he supposed?\n\nHis method of coming to the issue of that problem was entirely original.\nHe presented himself next afternoon with the air of an invited guest,\ndrove Mr. Pope who was suffering from liver, to expostulatory sulking in\nthe study, and expressed a passionate craving for golf-croquet, in spite\nof Mrs. Pope's extreme solicitude for his still bandaged ankle. He was\npartnered with Daffy, and for a long time he sought speech with Marjorie\nin vain. At last he was isolated in a corner of the lawn, and with the\nthinnest pretence of inadvertence, in spite of Daffy's despairing cry of\n\"She plays next!\" he laid up within two yards of her. He walked across\nto her as she addressed herself to her ball, and speaking in an\nincredulous tone and with the air of a comment on the game, he said: \"I\nsay, are you engaged to that chap Magnet?\"\n\nMarjorie was amazed, but remarkably not offended. Something in his tone\nset her trembling. She forgot to play, and stood with her mallet hanging\nin her hand.\n\n\"Punish him!\" came the voice of Magnet from afar.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said faintly.\n\nHis remark came low and clear. It had a note of angry protest. \"_Why?_\"\n\nMarjorie, by the way of answer, hit her ball so that it jumped and\nmissed his, ricochetted across the lawn and out of the ground on the\nfurther side.\n\n\"I'm sorry if I've annoyed you,\" said Trafford, as Marjorie went after\nher ball, and Daffy thanked heaven aloud for the respite.\n\nThey came together no more for a time, and Trafford, observant with\nevery sense, found no clue to the riddle of her grave, intent bearing.\nShe played very badly, and with unusual care and deliberation. He felt\nhe had made a mess of things altogether, and suddenly found his leg was\ntoo painful to go on. \"Partner,\" he asked, \"will you play out my ball\nfor me? I can't go on. I shall have to go.\"\n\nMarjorie surveyed him, while Daffy and Magnet expressed solicitude. He\nturned to go, mallet in hand, and found Marjorie following him.\n\n\"Is that the heavier mallet?\" she asked, and stood before him looking\ninto his eyes and weighing a mallet in either hand.\n\n\"Mr. Trafford, you're one of the worst examiners I've ever met,\" she\nsaid.\n\nHe looked puzzled.\n\n\"I don't know _why_,\" said Marjorie, \"I wonder as much as you. But I\nam\"; and seeing the light dawning in his eyes, she turned about, and\nwent back to the debacle of her game.\n\n\nSec. 10\n\nAfter that Mr. Trafford had one clear desire in his being which ruled\nall his other desires. He wanted a long, frank, unembarrassed and\nuninterrupted conversation with Marjorie. He had a very strong\nimpression that Marjorie wanted exactly the same thing. For a week he\nbesieged the situation in vain. After the fourth day Solomonson was only\nkept in Buryhamstreet by sheer will-power, exerted with a brutality that\nthreatened to end that friendship abruptly. He went home on the sixth\nday in his largest car, but Trafford stayed on beyond the limits of\ndecency to perform some incomprehensible service that he spoke of as\n\"clearing up.\"\n\n\"I want,\" he said, \"to clear up.\"\n\n\"But what _is_ there to clear up, my dear boy?\"\n\n\"Solomonson, you're a pampered plutocrat,\" said Trafford, as though\neverything was explained.\n\n\"I don't see any sense in it at all,\" said Solomonson, and regarded his\nfriend aslant with thick, black eyebrows raised.\n\n\"I'm going to stay,\" said Trafford.\n\nAnd Solomonson said one of those unhappy and entirely disregarded things\nthat ought never to be said.\n\n\"There's some girl in this,\" said Solomonson.\n\n\"Your bedroom's always waiting for you at Riplings,\" he said, when at\nlast he was going off....\n\nTrafford's conviction that Marjorie also wanted, with an almost equal\neagerness, the same opportunity for speech and explanations that he\ndesired, sustained him in a series of unjustifiable intrusions upon the\nseclusion of the Popes. But although the manner of Mr. and Mrs. Pope did\nchange considerably for the better after his next visit, it was\nextraordinary how impossible it seemed for him and Marjorie to achieve\ntheir common end of an encounter.\n\nAlways something intervened.\n\nIn the first place, Mrs. Pope's disposition to optimism had got the\nbetter of her earlier discretions, and a casual glance at Daphne's face\nwhen their visitor reappeared started quite a new thread of\ninterpretations in her mind. She had taken the opportunity of hinting at\nthis when Mr. Pope asked over his shirt-stud that night, \"What the devil\nthat--that chauffeur chap meant by always calling in the afternoon.\"\n\n\"Now that Will Magnet monopolizes Marjorie,\" she said, after a little\npause and a rustle or so, \"I don't see why Daffy shouldn't have a little\ncompany of her own age.\"\n\nMr. Pope turned round and stared at her. \"I didn't think of that,\" he\nsaid. \"But, anyhow, I don't like the fellow.\"\n\n\"He seems to be rather clever,\" said Mrs. Pope, \"though he certainly\ntalks too much. And after all it was Sir Rupert's aeroplane. _He_ was\nonly driving it to oblige.\"\n\n\"He'll think twice before he drives another,\" said Mr. Pope, wrenching\noff his collar....\n\nOnce Mrs. Pope had turned her imagination in this more and more\nagreeable direction, she was rather disposed, I am afraid, to let it\nbolt with her. And it was a deflection that certainly fell in very\nharmoniously with certain secret speculations of Daphne's. Trafford,\ntoo, being quite unused to any sort of social furtiveness, did perhaps,\nin order to divert attention from his preoccupation with Marjorie,\nattend more markedly to Daphne than he would otherwise have done. And so\npresently he found Daphne almost continuously on his hands. So far as\nshe was concerned, he might have told her the entire history of his\nlife, and every secret he had in the world, without let or hindrance.\nMrs. Pope, too, showed a growing appreciation of his company, became\nsympathetic and confidential in a way that invited confidence, and threw\na lot of light on her family history and Daffy's character. She had\nfound Daffy a wonderful study, she said. Mr. Pope, too, seemed partly\nreconciled to him. The idea that, after all, both motor cars and\nmonoplane were Sir Rupert's, and not Trafford's, had produced a reaction\nin the latter gentleman's favour. Moreover, it had occurred to him that\nTrafford's accident had perhaps disposed him towards a more thoughtful\nview of mechanical traction, and that this tendency would be greatly\nhelped by a little genial chaff. So that he ceased to go indoors when\nTrafford was there, and hung about, meditating and delivering sly digs\nat this new victim of his ripe, old-fashioned humour.\n\nNor did it help Trafford in his quest for Marjorie and a free, outspoken\ndelivery that the pseudo-twins considered him a person of very\nconsiderable charm, and that Theodore, though indisposed to \"suck up\" to\nhim publicly--I write here in Theodorese--did so desire intimate and\nsolitary communion with him, more particularly in view of the chances of\nan adventitious aeroplane ride that seemed to hang about him--as to\nstalk him persistently--hovering on the verge of groups, playing a\nwaiting game with a tennis ball and an old racquet, strolling artlessly\ntowards the gate of the avenue when the time seemed ripening for his\nappearance or departure.\n\nOn the other hand, Marjorie was greatly entangled by Magnet.\n\nMagnet was naturally an attentive lover; he was full of small\nencumbering services, and it made him none the less assiduous to\nperceive that Marjorie seemed to find no sort of pleasure in all the\nlittle things he did. He seemed to think that if picking the very best\nrose he could find for her did not cause a very perceptible brightening\nin her, then it was all the more necessary quietly to force her racquet\nfrom her hand and carry it for her, or help her ineffectually to cross a\nfoot-wide ditch, or offer to read her in a rich, abundant, well\nmodulated voice, some choice passage from \"The Forest Lovers\" of Mr.\nMaurice Hewlett. And behind these devotions there was a streak of\njealousy. He knew as if by instinct that it was not wise to leave these\ntwo handsome young people together; he had a queer little disagreeable\nsensation whenever they spoke to one another or looked at one another.\nWhenever Trafford and Marjorie found themselves in a group, there was\nMagnet in the midst of them. He knew the value of his Marjorie, and did\nnot mean to lose her....\n\nBeing jointly baffled in this way was oddly stimulating to Marjorie's\nand Trafford's mutual predisposition. If you really want to throw people\ntogether, the thing to do--thank God for Ireland!--is to keep them\napart. By the fourth day of this emotional incubation, Marjorie was\nthinking of Trafford to the exclusion of all her reading; and Trafford\nwas lying awake at nights--oh, for half an hour and more--thinking of\nbold, decisive ways of getting at Marjorie, and bold, decisive things to\nsay to her when he did.\n\n(But why she should be engaged to Magnet continued, nevertheless, to\npuzzle him extremely. It was a puzzle to which no complete solution was\never to be forthcoming....)\n\n\nSec. 11\n\nAt last that opportunity came. Marjorie had come with her mother into\nthe village, and while Mrs. Pope made some purchases at the general shop\nshe walked on to speak to Mrs. Blythe the washerwoman. Trafford suddenly\nemerged from the Red Lion with a soda syphon under each arm. She came\nforward smiling.\n\n\"I say,\" he said forthwith, \"I want to talk with you--badly.\"\n\n\"And I,\" she said unhesitatingly, \"with you.\"\n\n\"How can we?\"\n\n\"There's always people about. It's absurd.\"\n\n\"We'll have to meet.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I have to go away to-morrow. I ought to have gone two days ago. Where\n_can_ we meet?\"\n\nShe had it all prepared.\n\n\"Listen,\" she said. \"There is a path runs from our shrubbery through a\nlittle wood to a stile on the main road.\" He nodded. \"Either I will be\nthere at three or about half-past five or--there's one more chance.\nWhile father and Mr. Magnet are smoking at nine.... I might get away.\"\n\n\"Couldn't I write?\"\n\n\"No. Impossible.\"\n\n\"I've no end of things to say....\"\n\nMrs. Pope appeared outside her shop, and Trafford gesticulated a\ngreeting with the syphons. \"All right,\" he said to Marjorie. \"I'm\nshopping,\" he cried as Mrs. Pope approached.\n\n\nSec. 12\n\nAll through the day Marjorie desired to go to Trafford and could not do\nso. It was some minutes past nine when at last with a swift rustle of\nskirts that sounded louder than all the world to her, she crossed the\ndimly lit hall between dining-room and drawing-room and came into the\ndreamland of moonlight upon the lawn. She had told her mother she was\ngoing upstairs; at any moment she might be missed, but she would have\nfled now to Trafford if an army pursued her. Her heart seemed beating in\nher throat, and every fibre of her being was aquiver. She flitted past\nthe dining-room window like a ghost, she did not dare to glance aside at\nthe smokers within, and round the lawn to the shrubbery, and so under a\nblackness of trees to the gate where he stood waiting. And there he was,\ndim and mysterious and wonderful, holding the gate open for her, and she\nwas breathless, and speechless, and near sobbing. She stood before him\nfor a moment, her face moonlit and laced with the shadows of little\ntwigs, and then his arms came out to her.\n\n\"My darling,\" he said, \"Oh, my darling!\"\n\nThey had no doubt of one another or of anything in the world. They clung\ntogether; their lips came together fresh and untainted as those first\nlovers' in the garden.\n\n\"I will die for you,\" he said, \"I will give all the world for you....\"\n\nThey had thought all through the day of a hundred statements and\nexplanations they would make when this moment came, and never a word of\nit all was uttered. All their anticipations of a highly strung eventful\nconversation vanished, phrases of the most striking sort went like\nphantom leaves before a gale. He held her and she clung to him between\nlaughing and sobbing, and both were swiftly and conclusively assured\ntheir lives must never separate again.\n\n\nSec. 13\n\nMarjorie never knew whether it was a moment or an age before her father\ncame upon them. He had decided to take a turn in the garden when Magnet\ncould no longer restrain himself from joining the ladies, and he chanced\nto be stick in hand because that was his habit after twilight. So it was\nhe found them. She heard his voice falling through love and moonlight\nlike something that comes out of an immense distance.\n\n\"Good God!\" he cried, \"what next!\"\n\nBut he still hadn't realized the worst.\n\n\"Daffy,\" he said, \"what in the name of goodness----?\"\n\nMarjorie put her hands before her face too late.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" he cried with a rising inflection, \"it's Madge!\"\n\nTrafford found the situation difficult. \"I should explain----\"\n\nBut Mr. Pope was giving himself up to a towering rage. \"You damned\nscoundrel!\" he said. \"What the devil are you doing?\" He seized Marjorie\nby the arm and drew her towards him. \"My poor misguided girl!\" he said,\nand suddenly she was tensely alive, a little cry of horror in her\nthroat, for her father, at a loss for words and full of heroic rage, had\nsuddenly swung his stick with passionate force, and struck at Trafford's\nface. She heard the thud, saw Trafford wince and stiffen. For a\nperfectly horrible moment it seemed to her these men, their faces\nqueerly distorted by the shadows of the branches in the slanting\nmoonlight, might fight. Then she heard Trafford's voice, sounding cool\nand hard, and she knew that he would do nothing of the kind. In that\ninstant if there had remained anything to win in Marjorie it was\naltogether won. \"I asked your daughter to meet me here,\" he said.\n\n\"Be off with you, sir!\" cried Mr. Pope. \"Don't tempt me further, sir,\"\nand swung his stick again. But now the force had gone out of him.\nTrafford stood with a hand out ready for him, and watched his face.\n\n\"I asked your daughter to meet me here, and she came. I am prepared to\ngive you any explanation----\"\n\n\"If you come near this place again----\"\n\nFor some moments Marjorie's heart had been held still, now it was\nbeating violently. She felt this scene must end. \"Mr. Trafford,\" she\nsaid, \"will you go. Go now. Nothing shall keep us apart!\"\n\nMr. Pope turned on her. \"Silence, girl!\" he said.\n\n\"I shall come to you to-morrow,\" said Trafford.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Marjorie, \"to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Marjorie!\" said Mr. Pope, \"_will_ you go indoors.\"\n\n\"I have done nothing----\"\n\n\"Be off, sir.\"\n\n\"I have done nothing----\"\n\n\"Will you be off, sir? And you, Marjorie--will you go indoors?\"\n\nHe came round upon her, and after one still moment of regard for\nTrafford--and she looked very beautiful in the moonlight with her hair a\nlittle disordered and her face alight--she turned to precede her father\nthrough the shrubbery.\n\nMr. Pope hesitated whether he should remain with Trafford.\n\nA perfectly motionless man is very disconcerting.\n\n\"Be off, sir,\" he said over his shoulder, lowered through a threatening\nsecond, and followed her.\n\nBut Trafford remained stiffly with a tingling temple down which a little\nthread of blood was running, until their retreating footsteps had died\ndown into that confused stirring of little sounds which makes the\nstillness of an English wood at night.\n\nThen he roused himself with a profound sigh, and put a hand to his cut\nand bruised cheek.\n\n\"_Well!_\" he said.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FOURTH\n\nCRISIS\n\n\nSec. 1\n\nCrisis prevailed in Buryhamstreet that night. On half a dozen sleepless\npillows souls communed with the darkness, and two at least of those\npillows were wet with tears.\n\nNot one of those wakeful heads was perfectly clear about the origins and\nbearings of the trouble; not even Mr. Pope felt absolutely sure of\nhimself. It had come as things come to people nowadays, because they\nwill not think things out, much less talk things out, and are therefore\nin a hopeless tangle of values that tightens sooner or later to a\nknot....\n\nWhat an uncharted perplexity, for example, was the mind of that\nexcellent woman Mrs. Pope!\n\nPoor lady! she hadn't a stable thing in her head. It is remarkable that\nsome queer streak in her composition sympathized with Marjorie's passion\nfor Trafford. But she thought it such a pity! She fought that sympathy\ndown as if it were a wicked thing. And she fought too against other\nideas that rose out of the deeps and did not so much come into her mind\nas cluster at the threshold, the idea that Marjorie was in effect grown\nup, a dozen queer criticisms of Magnet, and a dozen subtle doubts\nwhether after all Marjorie was going to be happy with him as she assured\nherself the girl would be. (So far as any one knew Trafford might be an\nexcellent match!) And behind these would-be invaders of her guarded mind\nprowled even worse ones, doubts, horrible disloyal doubts, about the\nwisdom and kindness of Mr. Pope.\n\nQuite early in life Mrs. Pope had realized that it is necessary to be\nvery careful with one's thoughts. They lead to trouble. She had clipped\nthe wings of her own mind therefore so successfully that all her\nconclusions had become evasions, all her decisions compromises. Her\nprofoundest working conviction was a belief that nothing in the world\nwas of value but \"tact,\" and that the art of living was to \"tide things\nover.\" But here it seemed almost beyond her strength to achieve any sort\nof tiding over....\n\n(Why _couldn't_ Mr. Pope lie quiet?)\n\nWhatever she said or did had to be fitted to the exigencies of Mr. Pope.\n\nAvailing himself of the privileges of matrimony, her husband so soon as\nMr. Magnet had gone and they were upstairs together, had explained the\nsituation with vivid simplicity, and had gone on at considerable length\nand with great vivacity to enlarge upon his daughter's behaviour. He\nascribed this moral disaster,--he presented it as a moral disaster of\nabsolutely calamitous dimensions--entirely to Mrs. Pope's faults and\nnegligences. Warming with his theme he had employed a number of homely\nexpressions rarely heard by decent women except in these sacred\nintimacies, to express the deep indignation of a strong man moved to\nunbridled speech by the wickedness of those near and dear to him. Still\nwarming, he raised his voice and at last shouted out his more forcible\nmeanings, until she feared the servants and children might hear, waved a\nclenched fist at imaginary Traffords and scoundrels generally, and\ngiving way completely to his outraged virtue, smote and kicked blameless\narticles of furniture in a manner deeply impressive to the feminine\nintelligence.\n\nFinally he sat down in the little arm-chair between her and the cupboard\nwhere she was accustomed to hang up her clothes, stuck out his legs very\nstiffly across the room, and despaired of his family in an obtrusive and\nimpregnable silence for an enormous time.\n\nAll of which awakened a deep sense of guilt and unworthiness in Mrs.\nPope's mind, and prevented her going to bed, but did not help her in the\nslightest degree to grasp the difficulties of the situation....\n\nShe would have lain awake anyhow, but she was greatly helped in this by\nMr. Pope's restlessness. He was now turning over from left to right or\nfrom right to left at intervals of from four to seven minutes, and such\nremarks as \"Damned scoundrel! Get out of this!\" or \"_My_ daughter and\ndegrade yourself in this way!\" or \"Never let me see your face again!\"\n\"Plight your troth to one man, and fling yourself shamelessly--I repeat\nit, Marjorie, shamelessly--into the arms of another!\" kept Mrs. Pope\nclosely in touch with the general trend of his thoughts.\n\nShe tried to get together her plans and perceptions rather as though she\nswept up dead leaves on a gusty day. She knew that the management of the\nwhole situation rested finally on her, and that whatever she did or did\nnot do, or whatever arose to thwart her arrangements, its entire tale of\nresponsibility would ultimately fall upon her shoulders. She wondered\nwhat was to be done with Marjorie, with Mr. Magnet? Need he know? Could\nthat situation be saved? Everything at present was raw in her mind.\nExcept for her husband's informal communications she did not even know\nwhat had appeared, what Daffy had seen, what Magnet thought of\nMarjorie's failure to bid him good-night. For example, had Mr. Magnet\nnoticed Mr. Pope's profound disturbance? She had to be ready to put a\nface on things before morning, and it seemed impossible she could do so.\nIn times of crisis, as every woman knows, it is always necessary to\nmisrepresent everything to everybody, but how she was to dovetail her\nmisrepresentations, get the best effect from them, extract a working\nsystem of rights and wrongs from them, she could not imagine....\n\n(Oh! she did so wish Mr. Pope would lie quiet.)\n\nBut he had no doubts of what became _him_. He had to maintain a splendid\nand irrational rage--at any cost--to anybody.\n\n\nSec. 2\n\nA few yards away, a wakeful Marjorie confronted a joyless universe. She\nhad a baffling realization that her life was in a hopeless mess, that\nshe really had behaved disgracefully, and that she couldn't for a moment\nunderstand how it had happened. She had intended to make quite sure of\nTrafford--and then put things straight.\n\nOnly her father had spoilt everything.\n\nShe regarded her father that night with a want of natural affection\nterrible to record. Why had he come just when he had, just as he had?\nWhy had he been so violent, so impossible?\n\nOf course, she had no business to be there....\n\nShe examined her character with a new unprecedented detachment. Wasn't\nshe, after all, rather a mean human being? It had never occurred to her\nbefore to ask such a question. Now she asked it with only too clear a\nsense of the answer. She tried to trace how these multiplying threads of\nmeanness had first come into the fabric of a life she had supposed\nherself to be weaving in extremely bright, honourable, and adventurous\ncolours. She ought, of course, never to have accepted Magnet....\n\nShe faced the disagreeable word; was she a liar?\n\nAt any rate, she told lies.\n\nAnd she'd behaved with extraordinary meanness to Daphne. She realized\nthat now. She had known, as precisely as if she had been told, how\nDaphne felt about Trafford, and she'd never given her an inkling of her\nown relations. She hadn't for a moment thought of Daphne. No wonder\nDaffy was sombre and bitter. Whatever she knew, she knew enough. She had\nheard Trafford's name in urgent whispers on the landing. \"I suppose you\ncouldn't leave him alone,\" Daffy had said, after a long hostile silence.\nThat was all. Just a sentence without prelude or answer flung across the\nbedroom, revealing a perfect understanding--deeps of angry\ndisillusionment. Marjorie had stared and gasped, and made no answer.\n\nWould she ever see him again? After this horror of rowdy intervention?\nShe didn't deserve to; she didn't deserve anything.... Oh, the tangle of\nit all! The tangle of it all! And those bills at Oxbridge! She was just\ndragging Trafford down into her own miserable morass of a life.\n\nHer thoughts would take a new turn. \"I love him,\" she whispered\nsoundlessly. \"I would die for him. I would like to lie under his\nfeet--and him not know it.\"\n\nHer mind hung on that for a long time. \"Not know it until afterwards,\"\nshe corrected.\n\nShe liked to be exact, even in despair....\n\nAnd then in her memory he was struck again, and stood stiff and still.\nShe wanted to kneel to him, imagined herself kneeling....\n\nAnd so on, quite inconclusively, round and round through the\ninterminable night hours.\n\n\nSec. 3\n\nThe young man in the village was, if possible, more perplexed,\nround-eyed and generally inconclusive than anyone else in this series of\nnocturnal disturbances. He spent long intervals sitting on his\nwindow-sill regarding a world that was scented with nightstock, and\nseemed to be woven of moonshine and gossamer. Being an inexpert and\ninfrequent soliloquist, his only audible comment on his difficulties was\nthe repetition in varying intonations of his fervent, unalterable\nconviction that he was damned. But behind this simple verbal mask was a\ngreat fury of mental activity.\n\nHe had something of Marjorie's amazement at the position of affairs.\n\nHe had never properly realized that it was possible for any one to\nregard Marjorie as a daughter, to order her about and resent the\nresearch for her society as criminal. It was a new light in his world.\nSome day he was to learn the meaning of fatherhood, but in these night\nwatches he regarded it as a hideous survival of mediaeval darknesses.\n\n\"Of course,\" he said, entirely ignoring the actual quality of their\nconversation, \"she had to explain about the Magnet affair. Can't\none--converse?\"\n\nHe reflected through great intervals.\n\n\"I _will_ see her! Why on earth shouldn't I see her?\"\n\n\"I suppose they can't lock her up!\"\n\nFor a time he contemplated a writ of Habeas Corpus. He saw reason to\nregret the gaps in his legal knowledge.\n\n\"Can any one get a writ of Habeas Corpus for any one--it doesn't matter\nwhom\"--more especially if you are a young man of six-and-twenty,\nanxious to exchange a few richly charged words with a girl of twenty\nwho is engaged to someone else?\n\nThe night had no answer.\n\nIt was nearly dawn when he came to the entirely inadvisable\nconclusion--I use his own word's--to go and have it out with the old\nruffian. He would sit down and ask him what he meant by it all--and\nreason with him. If he started flourishing that stick again, it would\nhave to be taken away.\n\nAnd having composed a peroration upon the institution of the family of a\ncharacter which he fondly supposed to be extraordinarily tolerant,\nreasonable and convincing, but which was indeed calculated to madden Mr.\nPope to frenzy, Mr. Trafford went very peacefully to sleep.\n\n\nSec. 4\n\nCame dawn, with a noise of birds and afterwards a little sleep, and then\nday, and heavy eyes opened again, and the sound of frying and the smell\nof coffee recalled our actors to the stage. Mrs. Pope was past her worst\ndespair; always the morning brings courage and a clearer grasp of\nthings, and she could face the world with plans shaped subconsciously\nduring those last healing moments of slumber.\n\nBreakfast was difficult, but not impossible. Mr. Pope loomed like a\nthundercloud, but Marjorie pleaded a headache very wisely, and was taken\na sympathetic cup of tea. The pseudo-twins scented trouble, but Theodore\nwas heedless and over-full of an entertaining noise made by a moorhen as\nit dived in the ornamental water that morning. You could make it\npractically _sotto voce_, and it amused Syd. He seemed to think the\n_Times_ opaque to such small sounds, and learnt better only to be\ndismissed underfed and ignominiously from the table to meditate upon the\nimperfections of his soul in the schoolroom. There for a time he was\nsilent, and then presently became audible again, playing with a ball\nand, presumably, Marjorie's tennis racquet.\n\nDirectly she could disentangle herself from breakfast Mrs. Pope, with\nall her plans acute, went up to the girls' room. She found her daughter\ndressing in a leisurely and meditative manner. She shut the door almost\nconfidentially. \"Marjorie,\" she said, \"I want you to tell me all about\nthis.\"\n\n\"I thought I heard father telling you,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"He was too indignant,\" said Mrs. Pope, \"to explain clearly. You see,\nMarjorie\"--she paused before her effort--\"he knows things--about this\nProfessor Trafford.\"\n\n\"What things?\" asked Marjorie, turning sharply.\n\n\"I don't know, my dear--and I can't imagine.\"\n\nShe looked out of the window, aware of Marjorie's entirely distrustful\nscrutiny.\n\n\"I don't believe it,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\"Don't believe what, dear?\"\n\n\"Whatever he says.\"\n\n\"I wish I didn't,\" said Mrs. Pope, and turned. \"Oh, Madge,\" she cried,\n\"you cannot imagine how all this distresses me! I cannot--I cannot\nconceive how you came to be in such a position! Surely honour----! Think\nof Mr. Magnet, how good and patient he has been! You don't know that\nman. You don't know all he is, and all that it means to a girl. He is\ngood and honourable and--pure. He is kindness itself. It seemed to me\nthat you were to be so happy--rich, honoured.\"\n\nShe was overcome by a rush of emotion; she turned to the bed and sat\ndown.\n\n\"_There!_\" she said desolately. \"It's all ruined, shattered, gone.\"\n\nMarjorie tried not to feel that her mother was right.\n\n\"If father hadn't interfered,\" she said weakly.\n\n\"Oh, don't, my dear, speak so coldly of your father! You don't know what\nhe has to put up with. You don't know his troubles and anxieties--all\nthis wretched business.\" She paused, and her face became portentous.\n\"Marjorie, do you know if these railways go on as they are going he may\nhave to _eat into his capital_ this year. Just think of that, and the\nworry he has! And this last shame and anxiety!\"\n\nHer voice broke again. Marjorie listened with an expression that was\nalmost sullen.\n\n\"But what is it,\" she asked, \"that father knows about Mr. Trafford?\"\n\n\"I don't know, dear. I don't know. But it's something that matters--that\nmakes it all different.\"\n\n\"Well, may I speak to Mr. Trafford before he leaves Buryhamstreet?\"\n\n\"My dear! Never see him, dear--never think of him again! Your father\nwould not dream----Some day, Marjorie, you will rejoice--you will want\nto thank your father on your bended knees that he saved you from the\nclutches of this man....\"\n\n\"I won't believe anything about Mr. Trafford,\" she said slowly, \"until I\nknow----\"\n\nShe left the sentence incomplete.\n\nShe made her declaration abruptly. \"I love Mr. Trafford,\" she said, with\na catch in her voice, \"and I don't love Mr. Magnet.\"\n\nMrs. Pope received this like one who is suddenly stabbed. She sat still\nas if overwhelmed, one hand pressed to her side and her eyes closed.\nThen she said, as if she gasped involuntarily--\n\n\"It's too dreadful! Marjorie,\" she said, \"I want to ask you to do\nsomething. After all, a mother has _some_ claim. Will you wait just a\nlittle. Will you promise me to do nothing--nothing, I mean, to commit\nyou--until your father has been able to make inquiries. Don't _see_ him\nfor a little while. Very soon you'll be one-and-twenty, and then perhaps\nthings may be different. If he cares for you, and you for him, a little\nseparation won't matter.... Until your father has inquired....\"\n\n\"Mother,\" said Marjorie, \"I can't----\"\n\nMrs. Pope drew in the air sharply between her teeth, as if in agony.\n\n\"But, mother----Mother, I _must_ let Mr. Trafford know that I'm not to\nsee him. I _can't_ suddenly cease.... If I could see him once----\"\n\n\"Don't!\" said Mrs. Pope, in a hollow voice.\n\nMarjorie began weeping. \"He'd not understand,\" she said. \"If I might\njust speak to him!\"\n\n\"Not alone, Marjorie.\"\n\nMarjorie stood still. \"Well--before you.\"\n\nMrs. Pope conceded the point. \"And then, Marjorie----\" she said.\n\n\"I'd keep my word, mother,\" said Marjorie, and began to sob in a manner\nshe felt to be absurdly childish--\"until--until I am one-and-twenty. I'd\npromise that.\"\n\nMrs. Pope did a brief calculation. \"Marjorie,\" she said, \"it's only your\nhappiness I think of.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Marjorie, and added in a low voice, \"and father.\"\n\n\"My dear, you don't understand your father.... I believe--I do firmly\nbelieve--if anything happened to any of you girls--anything bad--he\nwould kill himself.... And I know he means that you aren't to go about\nso much as you used to do, unless we have the most definite promises. Of\ncourse, your father's ideas aren't always my ideas, Marjorie; but it's\nyour duty--You know how hasty he is and--quick. Just as you know how\ngood and generous and kind he is\"--she caught Marjorie's eye, and added\na little lamely--\"at bottom.\" ... She thought. \"I think I could get him\nto let you say just one word with Mr. Trafford. It would be very\ndifficult, but----\"\n\nShe paused for a few seconds, and seemed to be thinking deeply.\n\n\"Marjorie,\" she said, \"Mr. Magnet must never know anything of this.\"\n\n\"But, mother----!\"\n\n\"Nothing!\"\n\n\"I can't go on with my engagement!\"\n\nMrs. Pope shook her head inscrutably.\n\n\"But how _can_ I, mother?\"\n\n\"You need not tell him _why_, Marjorie.\"\n\n\"But----\"\n\n\"Just think how it would humiliate and distress him! You _can't_,\nMarjorie. You must find some excuse--oh, any excuse! But not the\ntruth--not the truth, Marjorie. It would be too dreadful.\"\n\nMarjorie thought. \"Look here, mother, I _may_ see Mr. Trafford again? I\n_may_ really speak to him?\"\n\n\"Haven't I promised?\"\n\n\"Then, I'll do as you say,\" said Marjorie.\n\n\nSec. 5\n\nMrs. Pope found her husband seated at the desk in the ultra-Protestant\nstudy, meditating gloomily.\n\n\"I've been talking to her,\" she said, \"She's in a state of terrible\ndistress.\"\n\n\"She ought to be,\" said Mr. Pope.\n\n\"Philip, you don't understand Marjorie.\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\n\"You think she was kissing that man.\"\n\n\"Well, she was.\"\n\n\"You can think _that_ of her!\"\n\nMr. Pope turned his chair to her. \"But I _saw!_\"\n\nMrs. Pope shook her head. \"She wasn't; she was struggling to get away\nfrom him. She told me so herself. I've been into it with her. You don't\nunderstand, Philip. A man like that has a sort of fascination for a\ngirl. He dazzles her. It's the way with girls. But you're quite\nmistaken.... Quite. It's a sort of hypnotism. She'll grow out of it. Of\ncourse, she _loves_ Mr. Magnet. She does indeed. I've not a doubt of it.\nBut----\"\n\n\"You're _sure_ she wasn't kissing him?\"\n\n\"Positive.\"\n\n\"Then why didn't you say so?\"\n\n\"A girl's so complex. You didn't give her a chance. She's fearfully\nashamed of herself--fearfully! but it's just because she _is_ ashamed\nthat she won't admit it.\"\n\n\"I'll make her admit it.\"\n\n\"You ought to have had all boys,\" said Mrs. Pope. \"Oh! she'll admit it\nsome day--readily enough. But I believe a girl of her spirit would\nrather _die_ than begin explaining. You can't expect it of her. Really\nyou can't.\"\n\nHe grunted and shook his head slowly from side to side.\n\nShe sat down in the arm-chair beside the desk.\n\n\"I want to know just exactly what we are to do about the girl, Philip. I\ncan't bear to think of her--up there.\"\n\n\"How?\" he asked. \"Up there?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered with that skilful inconsecutiveness of hers, and let\na brief silence touch his imagination. \"Do you think that man means to\ncome here again?\" she asked.\n\n\"Chuck him out if he does,\" said Mr. Pope, grimly.\n\nShe pressed her lips together firmly. She seemed to be weighing things\npainfully. \"I wouldn't,\" she said at last.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Mr. Pope.\n\n\"I do not want you to make an open quarrel with Mr. Trafford.\"\n\n\"_Not_ quarrel!\"\n\n\"Not an open one,\" said Mrs. Pope. \"Of course I know how nice it would\nbe if you _could_ use a horsewhip, dear. There's such a lot of\nthings--if we only just slash. But--it won't help. Get him to go away.\nShe's consented never to see him again--practically. She's ready to tell\nhim so herself. Part them against their will--oh! and the thing may go\non for no end of time. But treat it as it ought to be treated--She'll be\nvery tragic for a week or so, and then she'll forget him like a dream.\nHe _is_ a dream--a girl's dream.... If only we leave it alone, she'll\nleave it alone.\"\n\n\nSec. 6\n\nThings were getting straight, Mrs. Pope felt. She had now merely to add\na few touches to the tranquillization of Daphne, and the misdirection of\nthe twin's curiosity. These touches accomplished, it seemed that\neverything was done. After a brief reflection, she dismissed the idea of\nputting things to\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}
{"id": "pg19_004", "title": "The Genius by Theodore Dreiser", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31824", "tokens": 65537, "chars": 277898, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nBOOK I\n------\nYOUTH\n\n\n\n\nTHE \"GENIUS\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nThis story has its beginnings in the town of Alexandria, Illinois,\nbetween 1884 and 1889, at the time when the place had a population of\nsomewhere near ten thousand. There was about it just enough of the air\nof a city to relieve it of the sense of rural life. It had one\nstreet-car line, a theatre,--or rather, an opera house, so-called (why\nno one might say, for no opera was ever performed there)--two railroads,\nwith their stations, and a business district, composed of four brisk\nsides to a public square. In the square were the county court-house and\nfour newspapers. These two morning and two evening papers made the\npopulation fairly aware of the fact that life was full of issues, local\nand national, and that there were many interesting and varied things to\ndo. On the edge of town, several lakes and a pretty stream--perhaps\nAlexandria's most pleasant feature--gave it an atmosphere not unakin to\nthat of a moderate-priced summer resort. Architecturally the town was\nnot new. It was mostly built of wood, as all American towns were at this\ntime, but laid out prettily in some sections, with houses that sat back\nin great yards, far from the streets, with flower beds, brick walks, and\ngreen trees as concomitants of a comfortable home life. Alexandria was a\ncity of young Americans. Its spirit was young. Life was all before\nalmost everybody. It was really good to be alive.\n\nIn one part of this city there lived a family which in its character and\ncomposition might well have been considered typically American and\nmiddle western. It was not by any means poor--or, at least, did not\nconsider itself so; it was in no sense rich. Thomas Jefferson Witla, the\nfather, was a sewing machine agent with the general agency in that\ncounty of one of the best known and best selling machines made. From\neach twenty, thirty-five or sixty-dollar machine which he sold, he took\na profit of thirty-five per cent. The sale of machines was not great,\nbut it was enough to yield him nearly two thousand dollars a year; and\non that he had managed to buy a house and lot, to furnish it\ncomfortably, to send his children to school, and to maintain a local\nstore on the public square where the latest styles of machines were\ndisplayed. He also took old machines of other makes in exchange,\nallowing ten to fifteen dollars on the purchase price of a new machine.\nHe also repaired machines,--and with that peculiar energy of the\nAmerican mind, he tried to do a little insurance business in addition.\nHis first idea was that his son, Eugene Tennyson Witla, might take\ncharge of this latter work, once he became old enough and the insurance\ntrade had developed sufficiently. He did not know what his son might\nturn out to be, but it was always well to have an anchor to windward.\n\nHe was a quick, wiry, active man of no great stature, sandy-haired, with\nblue eyes with noticeable eye-brows, an eagle nose, and a rather radiant\nand ingratiating smile. Service as a canvassing salesman, endeavoring to\npersuade recalcitrant wives and indifferent or conservative husbands to\nrealize that they really needed a new machine in their home, had taught\nhim caution, tact, savoir faire. He knew how to approach people\npleasantly. His wife thought too much so.\n\nCertainly he was honest, hard working, and thrifty. They had been\nwaiting a long time for the day when they could say they owned their own\nhome and had a little something laid away for emergencies. That day had\ncome, and life was not half bad. Their house was neat,--white with green\nshutters, surrounded by a yard with well kept flower beds, a smooth\nlawn, and some few shapely and broad spreading trees. There was a front\nporch with rockers, a swing under one tree, a hammock under another, a\nbuggy and several canvassing wagons in a nearby stable. Witla liked\ndogs, so there were two collies. Mrs. Witla liked live things, so there\nwere a canary bird, a cat, some chickens, and a bird house set aloft on\na pole where a few blue-birds made their home. It was a nice little\nplace, and Mr. and Mrs. Witla were rather proud of it.\n\nMiriam Witla was a good wife to her husband. A daughter of a hay and\ngrain dealer in Wooster, a small town near Alexandria in McLean County,\nshe had never been farther out into the world than Springfield and\nChicago. She had gone to Springfield as a very young girl, to see\nLincoln buried, and once with her husband she had gone to the state fair\nor exposition which was held annually in those days on the lake front in\nChicago. She was well preserved, good looking, poetic under a marked\noutward reserve. It was she who had insisted upon naming her only son\nEugene Tennyson, a tribute at once to a brother Eugene, and to the\ncelebrated romanticist of verse, because she had been so impressed with\nhis \"Idylls of the King.\"\n\nEugene Tennyson seemed rather strong to Witla pere, as the name of a\nmiddle-western American boy, but he loved his wife and gave her her way\nin most things. He rather liked the names of Sylvia and Myrtle with\nwhich she had christened the two girls. All three of the children were\ngood looking,--Sylvia, a girl of twenty-one, with black hair, dark eyes,\nfull blown like a rose, healthy, active, smiling. Myrtle was of a less\nvigorous constitution, small, pale, shy, but intensely sweet--like the\nflower she was named after, her mother said. She was inclined to be\nstudious and reflective, to read verse and dream. The young bloods of\nthe high school were all crazy to talk to Myrtle and to walk with her,\nbut they could find no words. And she herself did not know what to say\nto them.\n\nEugene Witla was the apple of his family's eye, younger than either of\nhis two sisters by two years. He had straight smooth black hair, dark\nalmond-shaped eyes, a straight nose, a shapely but not aggressive chin;\nhis teeth were even and white, showing with a curious delicacy when he\nsmiled, as if he were proud of them. He was not very strong to begin\nwith, moody, and to a notable extent artistic. Because of a weak stomach\nand a semi-anaemic condition, he did not really appear as strong as he\nwas. He had emotion, fire, longings, that were concealed behind a wall\nof reserve. He was shy, proud, sensitive, and very uncertain of himself.\n\nWhen at home he lounged about the house, reading Dickens, Thackeray,\nScott and Poe. He browsed idly through one book after another, wondering\nabout life. The great cities appealed to him. He thought of travel as a\nwonderful thing. In school he read Taine and Gibbon between recitation\nhours, wondering at the luxury and beauty of the great courts of the\nworld. He cared nothing for grammar, nothing for mathematics, nothing\nfor botany or physics, except odd bits here and there. Curious facts\nwould strike him--the composition of clouds, the composition of water,\nthe chemical elements of the earth. He liked to lie in the hammock at\nhome, spring, summer or fall, and look at the blue sky showing through\nthe trees. A soaring buzzard poised in speculative flight held his\nattention fixedly. The wonder of a snowy cloud, high piled like wool,\nand drifting as an island, was like a song to him. He had wit, a keen\nsense of humor, a sense of pathos. Sometimes he thought he would draw;\nsometimes write. He had a little talent for both, he thought, but did\npractically nothing with either. He would sketch now and then, but only\nfragments--a small roof-top, with smoke curling from a chimney and birds\nflying; a bit of water with a willow bending over it and perhaps a boat\nanchored; a mill pond with ducks afloat, and a boy or woman on the bank.\nHe really had no great talent for interpretation at this time, only an\nintense sense of beauty. The beauty of a bird in flight, a rose in\nbloom, a tree swaying in the wind--these held him. He would walk the\nstreets of his native town at night, admiring the brightness of the\nstore windows, the sense of youth and enthusiasm that went with a crowd;\nthe sense of love and comfort and home that spoke through the glowing\nwindows of houses set back among trees.\n\nHe admired girls,--was mad about them,--but only about those who were\ntruly beautiful. There were two or three in his school who reminded him\nof poetic phrases he had come across--\"beauty like a tightened bow,\"\n\"thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,\" \"a dancing shape, an image\ngay\"--but he could not talk to them with ease. They were beautiful but\nso distant. He invested them with more beauty than they had; the beauty\nwas in his own soul. But he did not know that. One girl whose yellow\nhair lay upon her neck in great yellow braids like ripe corn, was\nconstantly in his thoughts. He worshiped her from afar but she never\nknew. She never knew what solemn black eyes burned at her when she was\nnot looking. She left Alexandria, her family moving to another town, and\nin time he recovered, for there is much of beauty. But the color of her\nhair and the wonder of her neck stayed with him always.\n\nThere was some plan on the part of Witla to send these children to\ncollege, but none of them showed any great desire for education. They\nwere perhaps wiser than books, for they were living in the realm of\nimagination and feeling. Sylvia longed to be a mother, and was married\nat twenty-one to Henry Burgess, the son of Benjamin C. Burgess, editor\nof the _Morning Appeal_. There was a baby the first year. Myrtle was\ndreaming through algebra and trigonometry, wondering whether she would\nteach or get married, for the moderate prosperity of the family demanded\nthat she do something. Eugene mooned through his studies, learning\nnothing practical. He wrote a little, but his efforts at sixteen were\npuerile. He drew, but there was no one to tell him whether there was any\nmerit in the things he did or not. Practical matters were generally\nwithout significance to him. But he was overawed by the fact that the\nworld demanded practical service--buying and selling like his father,\nclerking in stores, running big business. It was a confusing maze, and\nhe wondered, even at this age, what was to become of him. He did not\nobject to the kind of work his father was doing, but it did not interest\nhim. For himself he knew it would be a pointless, dreary way of making a\nliving, and as for insurance, that was equally bad. He could hardly\nbring himself to read through the long rigamarole of specifications\nwhich each insurance paper itemized. There were times--evenings and\nSaturdays--when he clerked in his father's store, but it was painful\nwork. His mind was not in it.\n\nAs early as his twelfth year his father had begun to see that Eugene was\nnot cut out for business, and by the time he was sixteen he was\nconvinced of it. From the trend of his reading and his percentage marks\nat school, he was equally convinced that the boy was not interested in\nhis studies. Myrtle, who was two classes ahead of him but sometimes in\nthe same room, reported that he dreamed too much. He was always looking\nout of the window.\n\nEugene's experience with girls had not been very wide. There were those\nvery minor things that occur in early youth--girls whom we furtively\nkiss, or who furtively kiss us--the latter had been the case with\nEugene. He had no particular interest in any one girl. At fourteen he\nhad been picked by a little girl at a party as an affinity, for the\nevening at least, and in a game of \"post-office\" had enjoyed the wonder\nof a girl's arms around him in a dark room and a girl's lips against\nhis; but since then there had been no re-encounter of any kind. He had\ndreamed of love, with this one experience as a basis, but always in a\nshy, distant way. He was afraid of girls, and they, to tell the truth,\nwere afraid of him. They could not make him out.\n\nBut in the fall of his seventeenth year Eugene came into contact with\none girl who made a profound impression on him. Stella Appleton was a\nnotably beautiful creature. She was very fair, Eugene's own age, with\nvery blue eyes and a slender sylph-like body. She was gay and debonair\nin an enticing way, without really realizing how dangerous she was to\nthe average, susceptible male heart. She liked to flirt with the boys\nbecause it amused her, and not because she cared for anyone in\nparticular. There was no petty meanness about it, however, for she\nthought they were all rather nice, the less clever appealing to her\nalmost more than the sophisticated. She may have liked Eugene originally\nbecause of his shyness.\n\nHe saw her first at the beginning of his last school year when she came\nto the city and entered the second high school class. Her father had\ncome from Moline, Illinois, to take a position as manager of a new\npulley manufactory which was just starting. She had quickly become\nfriends with his sister Myrtle, being perhaps attracted by her quiet\nways, as Myrtle was by Stella's gaiety.\n\nOne afternoon, as Myrtle and Stella were on Main Street, walking home\nfrom the post office, they met Eugene, who was on his way to visit a boy\nfriend. He was really bashful; and when he saw them approaching he\nwanted to escape, but there was no way. They saw him, and Stella\napproached confidently enough. Myrtle was anxious to intercept him,\nbecause she had her pretty companion with her.\n\n\"You haven't been home, have you?\" she asked, stopping. This was her\nchance to introduce Stella; Eugene couldn't escape. \"Miss Appleton, this\nis my brother Eugene.\"\n\nStella gave him a sunny encouraging smile, and her hand, which he took\ngingerly. He was plainly nervous.\n\n\"I'm not very clean,\" he said apologetically. \"I've been helping father\nfix a buggy.\"\n\n\"Oh, we don't mind,\" said Myrtle. \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"Over to Harry Morris's,\" he explained.\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"We're going for hickory nuts.\"\n\n\"Oh, I wish I had some,\" said Stella.\n\n\"I'll bring you some,\" he volunteered gallantly.\n\nShe smiled again. \"I wish you would.\"\n\nShe almost proposed that they should be taken along, but inexperience\nhindered her.\n\nEugene was struck with all her charm at once. She seemed like one of\nthose unattainable creatures who had swum into his ken a little earlier\nand disappeared. There was something of the girl with the corn-\nhair about her, only she had been more human, less like a dream. This\ngirl was fine, delicate, pink, like porcelain. She was fragile and yet\nvirile. He caught his breath, but he was more or less afraid of her. He\ndid not know what she might be thinking of him.\n\n\"Well, we're going on to the house,\" said Myrtle.\n\n\"I'd go along if I hadn't promised Harry I'd come over.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's all right,\" replied Myrtle. \"We don't mind.\"\n\nHe withdrew, feeling that he had made a very poor impression. Stella's\neyes had been on him in a very inquiring way. She looked after him when\nhe had gone.\n\n\"Isn't he nice?\" she said to Myrtle frankly.\n\n\"I think so,\" replied Myrtle; \"kind o'. He's too moody, though.\"\n\n\"What makes him?\"\n\n\"He isn't very strong.\"\n\n\"I think he has a nice smile.\"\n\n\"I'll tell him!\"\n\n\"No, please don't! You won't, will you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"But he _has_ a nice smile.\"\n\n\"I'll ask you round to the house some evening and you can meet him\nagain.\"\n\n\"I'd like to,\" said Stella. \"It would be a lot of fun.\"\n\n\"Come out Saturday evening and stay all night. He's home then.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Stella. \"Won't that be fine!\"\n\n\"I believe you like him!\" laughed Myrtle.\n\n\"I think he's awfully nice,\" said Stella, simply.\n\nThe second meeting happened on Saturday evening as arranged, when he\ncame home from his odd day at his father's insurance office. Stella had\ncome to supper. Eugene saw her through the open sitting room door, as he\nbounded upstairs to change his clothes, for he had a fire of youth which\nno sickness of stomach or weakness of lungs could overcome at this age.\nA thrill of anticipation ran over his body. He took especial pains with\nhis toilet, adjusting a red tie to a nicety, and parting his hair\ncarefully in the middle. He came down after a while, conscious that he\nhad to say something smart, worthy of himself, or she would not see how\nattractive he was; and yet he was fearful as to the result. When he\nentered the sitting room she was sitting with his sister before an open\nfire-place, the glow of a lamp with a red-flowered shade warmly\nilluminating the room. It was a commonplace room, with its blue\ncloth-covered center table, its chairs of stereotyped factory design,\nand its bookcase of novels and histories, but it was homey, and the\nsense of hominess was strong.\n\nMrs. Witla was in and out occasionally, looking for things which\nappertained to her functions as house-mother. The father was not home\nyet; he would get there by supper-time, having been to some outlying\ntown of the county trying to sell a machine. Eugene was indifferent to\nhis presence or absence. Mr. Witla had a fund of humor which extended to\njoking with his son and daughters, when he was feeling good, to noting\ntheir budding interest in the opposite sex; to predicting some\ncommonplace climax to their one grand passion when it should come. He\nwas fond of telling Myrtle that she would one day marry a horse-doctor.\nAs for Eugene, he predicted a certain Elsa Brown, who, his wife said,\nhad greasy curls. This did not irritate either Myrtle or Eugene. It even\nbrought a wry smile to Eugene's face for he was fond of a jest; but he\nsaw his father pretty clearly even at this age. He saw the smallness of\nhis business, the ridiculousness of any such profession having any claim\non him. He never wanted to say anything, but there was in him a burning\nopposition to the commonplace, a molten pit in a crater of reserve,\nwhich smoked ominously now and then for anyone who could have read.\nNeither his father nor his mother understood him. To them he was a\npeculiar boy, dreamy, sickly, unwitting, as yet, of what he really\nwanted.\n\n\"Oh, here you are!\" said Myrtle, when he came in. \"Come and sit down.\"\n\nStella gave him an enticing smile.\n\nHe walked to the mantel-piece and stood there, posing. He wanted to\nimpress this girl, and he did not quite know how. He was almost lost for\nanything to say.\n\n\"You can't guess what we've been doing!\" his sister chirped helpfully.\n\n\"Well--what?\" he replied blankly.\n\n\"You ought to guess. Can't you be nice and guess?\"\n\n\"One guess, anyhow,\" put in Stella.\n\n\"Toasting pop-corn,\" he ventured with a half smile.\n\n\"You're warm.\" It was Myrtle speaking.\n\nStella looked at him with round blue eyes. \"One more guess,\" she\nsuggested.\n\n\"Chestnuts!\" he guessed.\n\nShe nodded her head gaily. \"What hair!\" he thought. Then--\"Where are\nthey?\"\n\n\"Here's one,\" laughed his new acquaintance, holding out a tiny hand.\n\nUnder her laughing encouragement he was finding his voice. \"Stingy!\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"Now isn't that mean,\" she exclaimed. \"I gave him the only one I had.\nDon't you give him any of yours, Myrtle.\"\n\n\"I take it back,\" he pleaded. \"I didn't know.\"\n\n\"I won't!\" exclaimed Myrtle. \"Here, Stella,\" and she held out the few\nnuts she had left, \"take these, and don't you give him any!\" She put\nthem in Stella's eager hands.\n\nHe saw her meaning. It was an invitation to a contest. She wanted him to\ntry to make her give him some. He fell in with her plan.\n\n\"Here!\" He stretched out his palm. \"That's not right!\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"One, anyhow,\" he insisted.\n\nHer head moved negatively from side to side slowly.\n\n\"One,\" he pleaded, drawing near.\n\nAgain the golden negative. But her hand was at the side nearest him,\nwhere he could seize it. She started to pass its contents behind her to\nthe other hand but he jumped and caught it.\n\n\"Myrtle! Quick!\" she called.\n\nMyrtle came. It was a three-handed struggle. In the midst of the contest\nStella twisted and rose to her feet. Her hair brushed his face. He held\nher tiny hand firmly. For a moment he looked into her eyes. What was it?\nHe could not say. Only he half let go and gave her the victory.\n\n\"There,\" she smiled. \"Now I'll give you one.\"\n\nHe took it, laughing. What he wanted was to take her in his arms.\n\nA little while before supper his father came in and sat down, but\npresently took a Chicago paper and went into the dining room to read.\nThen his mother called them to the table, and he sat by Stella. He was\nintensely interested in what she did and said. If her lips moved he\nnoted just how. When her teeth showed he thought they were lovely. A\nlittle ringlet on her forehead beckoned him like a golden finger. He\nfelt the wonder of the poetic phrase, \"the shining strands of her hair.\"\n\nAfter dinner he and Myrtle and Stella went back to the sitting room. His\nfather stayed behind to read, his mother to wash dishes. Myrtle left the\nroom after a bit to help her mother, and then these two were left alone.\nHe hadn't much to say, now that they were together--he couldn't talk.\nSomething about her beauty kept him silent.\n\n\"Do you like school?\" she asked after a time. She felt as if they must\ntalk.\n\n\"Only fairly well,\" he replied. \"I'm not much interested. I think I'll\nquit one of these days and go to work.\"\n\n\"What do you expect to do?\"\n\n\"I don't know yet--I'd like to be an artist.\" He confessed his ambition\nfor the first time in his life--why, he could not have said.\n\nStella took no note of it.\n\n\"I was afraid they wouldn't let me enter second year high school, but\nthey did,\" she remarked. \"The superintendent at Moline had to write the\nsuperintendent here.\"\n\n\"They're mean about those things,\" he cogitated.\n\nShe got up and went to the bookcase to look at the books. He followed\nafter a little.\n\n\"Do you like Dickens?\" she asked.\n\nHe nodded his head solemnly in approval. \"Pretty much,\" he said.\n\n\"I can't like him. He's too long drawn out. I like Scott better.\"\n\n\"I like Scott,\" he said.\n\n\"I'll tell you a lovely book that I like.\" She paused, her lips parted\ntrying to remember the name. She lifted her hand as though to pick the\ntitle out of the air. \"The Fair God,\" she exclaimed at last.\n\n\"Yes--it's fine,\" he approved. \"I thought the scene in the old Aztec\ntemple where they were going to sacrifice Ahwahee was so wonderful!\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I liked that,\" she added. She pulled out \"Ben Hur\" and turned\nits leaves idly. \"And this was so good.\"\n\n\"Wonderful!\"\n\nThey paused and she went to the window, standing under the cheap lace\ncurtains. It was a moonlight night. The rows of trees that lined the\nstreet on either side were leafless; the grass brown and dead. Through\nthe thin, interlaced twigs that were like silver filigree they could see\nthe lamps of other houses shining through half-drawn blinds. A man went\nby, a black shadow in the half-light.\n\n\"Isn't it lovely?\" she said.\n\nEugene came near. \"It's fine,\" he answered.\n\n\"I wish it were cold enough to skate. Do you skate?\" She turned to him.\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" he replied.\n\n\"My, it's so nice on a moonlit night. I used to skate a lot at Moline.\"\n\n\"We skate a lot here. There're two lakes, you know.\"\n\nHe thought of the clear crystal nights when the ice of Green Lake had\nsplit every so often with a great resounding rumble. He thought of the\ncrowds of boys and girls shouting, the distant shadows, the stars. Up to\nnow he had never found any girl to skate with successfully. He had never\nfelt just easy with anyone. He had tried it, but once he had fallen with\na girl, and it had almost cured him of skating forever. He felt as\nthough he could skate with Stella. He felt that she might like to skate\nwith him.\n\n\"When it gets colder we might go,\" he ventured. \"Myrtle skates.\"\n\n\"Oh, that'll be fine!\" she applauded.\n\nStill she looked out into the street.\n\nAfter a bit she came back to the fire and stood before him, pensively\nlooking down.\n\n\"Do you think your father will stay here?\" he asked.\n\n\"He says so. He likes it very much.\"\n\n\"Do you?\"\n\n\"Yes--now.\"\n\n\"Why _now_?\"\n\n\"Oh, I didn't like it at first.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Oh, I guess it was because I didn't know anybody. I like it though,\nnow.\" She lifted her eyes.\n\nHe drew a little nearer.\n\n\"It's a nice place,\" he said, \"but there isn't much for me here. I think\nI'll leave next year.\"\n\n\"Where do you think you'll go?\"\n\n\"To Chicago. I don't want to stay here.\"\n\nShe turned her body toward the fire and he moved to a chair behind her,\nleaning on its back. She felt him there rather close, but did not move.\nHe was surprising himself.\n\n\"Aren't you ever coming back?\" she asked.\n\n\"Maybe. It all depends. I suppose so.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't think you'd want to leave yet.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"You say it's so nice.\"\n\nHe made no answer and she looked over her shoulder. He was leaning very\nmuch toward her.\n\n\"Will you skate with me this winter?\" he asked meaningly.\n\nShe nodded her head.\n\nMyrtle came in.\n\n\"What are you two talking about?\" she asked.\n\n\"The fine skating we have here,\" he said.\n\n\"I love to skate,\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"So do I,\" added Stella. \"It's heavenly.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nSome of the incidents of this courtship that followed, ephemeral as it\nwas, left a profound impression on Eugene's mind. They met to skate not\nlong after, for the snow came and the ice and there was wonderful\nskating on Green Lake. The frost was so prolonged that men with horses\nand ice-saws were cutting blocks a foot thick over at Miller's Point,\nwhere the ice houses were. Almost every day after Thanksgiving there\nwere crowds of boys and girls from the schools scooting about like water\nskippers. Eugene could not always go on week evenings and Saturdays\nbecause he had to assist his father at the store. But at regular\nintervals he could ask Myrtle to get Stella and let them all go together\nat night. And at other times he would ask her to go alone. Not\ninfrequently she did.\n\nOn one particular occasion they were below a group of houses which crept\nnear the lake on high ground. The moon was up, its wooing rays reflected\nin the polished surfaces of the ice. Through the black masses of trees\nthat lined the shore could be seen the glow of windows, yellow and\nhomey. Eugene and Stella had slowed up to turn about, having left the\ncrowd of skaters some distance back. Stella's golden curls were covered,\nexcept for a few ringlets, with a French cap; her body, to below the\nhips, encased in a white wool Jersey, close-fitting and shapely. The\nskirt below was a grey mixture of thick wool and the stockings were\ncovered by white woolen leggings. She looked tempting and knew it.\n\nSuddenly, as they turned, one of her skates came loose and she hobbled\nand exclaimed about it. \"Wait,\" said Eugene, \"I'll fix it.\"\n\nShe stood before him and he fell to his knees, undoing the twisted\nstrap. When he had the skate off and ready for her foot he looked up,\nand she looked down on him, smiling. He dropped the skate and flung his\narms around her hips, laying his head against her waist.\n\n\"You're a bad boy,\" she said.\n\nFor a few minutes she kept silent, for as the center of this lovely\nscene she was divine. While he held her she pulled off his wool cap and\nlaid her hand on his hair. It almost brought tears to his eyes, he was\nso happy. At the same time it awakened a tremendous passion. He clutched\nher significantly.\n\n\"Fix my skate, now,\" she said wisely.\n\nHe got up to hug her but she would not let him.\n\n\"No, no,\" she protested. \"You mustn't do like that. I won't come with\nyou if you do.\"\n\n\"Oh, Stella!\" he pleaded.\n\n\"I mean it,\" she insisted. \"You mustn't do like that.\"\n\nHe subsided, hurt, half angry. But he feared her will. She was really\nnot as ready for caresses as he had thought.\n\nAnother time a sleighing party was given by some school girls, and\nStella, Eugene and Myrtle were invited. It was a night of snow and\nstars, not too cold but bracing. A great box-wagon had been dismantled\nof its body and the latter put on runners and filled with straw and warm\nrobes. Eugene and Myrtle, like the others, had been picked up at their\ndoor after the sleigh had gone the rounds of some ten peaceful little\nhomes. Stella was not in yet, but in a little while her house was\nreached.\n\n\"Get in here,\" called Myrtle, though she was half the length of the box\naway from Eugene. Her request made him angry. \"Sit by me,\" he called,\nfearful that she would not. She climbed in by Myrtle but finding the\nspace not to her liking moved farther down. Eugene made a special effort\nto have room by him, and she came there as though by accident. He drew a\nbuffalo robe around her and thrilled to think that she was really there.\nThe sleigh went jingling around the town for others, and finally struck\nout into the country. It passed great patches of dark woods silent in\nthe snow, little white frame farmhouses snuggled close to the ground,\nand with windows that gleamed in a vague romantic way. The stars were\ncountless and keen. The whole scene made a tremendous impression on him,\nfor he was in love, and here beside him, in the shadow, her face palely\noutlined, was this girl. He could make out the sweetness of her cheek,\nher eyes, the softness of her hair.\n\nThere was a good deal of chatter and singing, and in the midst of these\ndistractions he managed to slip an arm about her waist, to get her hand\nin his, to look close into her eyes, trying to divine their expression.\nShe was always coy with him, not wholly yielding. Three or four times he\nkissed her cheek furtively and once her mouth. In a dark place he pulled\nher vigorously to him, putting a long, sensuous kiss on her lips that\nfrightened her.\n\n\"No,\" she protested, nervously. \"You mustn't.\"\n\nHe ceased for a time, feeling that he had pressed his advantage too\nclosely. But the night in all its beauty, and she in hers made a lasting\nimpression.\n\n******\n\n\"I think we ought to get Eugene into newspaper work or something like\nthat,\" Witla senior suggested to his wife.\n\n\"It looks as though that's all he would be good for, at least now,\"\nreplied Mrs. Witla, who was satisfied that her boy had not yet found\nhimself. \"I think he'll do something better later on. His health isn't\nvery good, you know.\"\n\nWitla half suspected that his boy was naturally lazy, but he wasn't\nsure. He suggested that Benjamin C. Burgess, the prospective\nfather-in-law of Sylvia and the editor and proprietor of the _Morning\nAppeal_, might give him a place as a reporter or type-setter in order\nthat he might learn the business from the ground up. The _Appeal_\ncarried few employees, but Mr. Burgess might have no objections to\nstarting Eugene as a reporter if he could write, or as a student of\ntype-setting, or both. He appealed to Burgess one day on the street.\n\n\"Say, Burgess,\" he said, \"you wouldn't have a place over in your shop\nfor that boy of mine, would you? He likes to scribble a little, I\nnotice. I think he pretends to draw a little, too, though I guess it\ndoesn't amount to much. He ought to get into something. He isn't doing\nanything at school. Maybe he could learn type-setting. It wouldn't hurt\nhim to begin at the bottom if he's going to follow that line. It\nwouldn't matter what you paid him to begin with.\"\n\nBurgess thought. He had seen Eugene around town, knew no harm of him\nexcept that he was lackadaisical and rather moody.\n\n\"Send him in to see me some day,\" he replied noncommittally. \"I might do\nsomething for him.\"\n\n\"I'd certainly be much obliged to you if you would,\" said Witla. \"He is\nnot doing much good as it is now,\" and the two men parted.\n\nHe went home and told Eugene. \"Burgess says he might give you a position\nas a type-setter or a reporter on the _Appeal_ if you'd come in and see\nhim some day,\" he explained, looking over to where his son was reading\nby the lamp.\n\n\"Does he?\" replied Eugene calmly. \"Well, I can't write. I might set\ntype. Did you ask him?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Witla. \"You'd better go to him some day.\"\n\nEugene bit his lip. He realized this was a commentary on his loafing\npropensities. He wasn't doing very well, that was certain. Still\ntype-setting was no bright field for a person of his temperament. \"I\nwill,\" he concluded, \"when school's over.\"\n\n\"Better speak before school ends. Some of the other fellows might ask\nfor it around that time. It wouldn't hurt you to try your hand at it.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Eugene obediently.\n\nHe stopped in one sunny April afternoon at Mr. Burgess' office. It was\non the ground floor of the three-story _Appeal_ building in the public\nsquare. Mr. Burgess, a fat man, slightly bald, looked at him quizzically\nover his steel rimmed spectacles. What little hair he had was gray.\n\n\"So you think you would like to go into the newspaper business, do you?\"\nqueried Burgess.\n\n\"I'd like to try my hand at it,\" replied the boy. \"I'd like to see\nwhether I like it.\"\n\n\"I can tell you right now there's very little in it. Your father says\nyou like to write.\"\n\n\"I'd like to well enough, but I don't think I can. I wouldn't mind\nlearning type-setting. If I ever could write I'd be perfectly willing\nto.\"\n\n\"When do you think you'd like to start?\"\n\n\"At the end of school, if it's all the same to you.\"\n\n\"It doesn't make much difference. I'm not really in need of anybody, but\nI could use you. Would you be satisfied with five a week?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Well, come in when you are ready. I'll see what I can do.\"\n\nHe waved the prospective type-setter away with a movement of his fat\nhand, and turned to his black walnut desk, dingy, covered with\nnewspapers, and lit by a green shaded electric light. Eugene went out,\nthe smell of fresh printing ink in his nose, and the equally aggressive\nsmell of damp newspapers. It was going to be an interesting experience,\nhe thought, but perhaps a waste of time. He did not think so much of\nAlexandria. Some time he was going to get out of it.\n\nThe office of the _Appeal_ was not different from that of any other\ncountry newspaper office within the confines of our two hemispheres. On\nthe ground floor in front was the business office, and in the rear the\none large flat bed press and the job presses. On the second floor was\nthe composing room with its rows of type cases on their high racks--for\nthis newspaper was, like most other country newspapers, still set by\nhand; and in front was the one dingy office of the so-called editor, or\nmanaging editor, or city editor--for all three were the same person, a\nMr. Caleb Williams whom Burgess had picked up in times past from heaven\nknows where. Williams was a small, lean, wiry man, with a black pointed\nbeard and a glass eye which fixed you oddly with its black pupil. He was\ntalkative, skipped about from duty to duty, wore most of the time a\ngreen shade pulled low over his forehead, and smoked a brown briar pipe.\nHe had a fund of knowledge, piled up in metropolitan journalistic\nexperience, but he was anchored here with a wife and three children,\nafter sailing, no doubt, a chartless sea of troubles, and was glad to\ntalk life and experiences after office hours with almost anybody. It\ntook him from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon to gather\nwhat local news there was, and either write it or edit it. He seemed to\nhave a number of correspondents who sent him weekly batches of news from\nsurrounding points. The Associated Press furnished him with a few minor\nitems by telegraph, and there was a \"patent insides,\" two pages of\nfiction, household hints, medicine ads. and what not, which saved him\nconsiderable time and stress. Most of the news which came to him\nreceived short shrift in the matter of editing. \"In Chicago we used to\ngive a lot of attention to this sort of thing,\" Williams was wont to\ndeclare to anyone who was near, \"but you can't do it down here. The\nreaders really don't expect it. They're looking for local items. I\nalways look after the local items pretty sharp.\"\n\nMr. Burgess took care of the advertising sections. In fact he solicited\nadvertising personally, saw that it was properly set up as the\nadvertiser wanted it, and properly placed according to the convenience\nof the day and the rights and demands of others. He was the politician\nof the concern, the handshaker, the guider of its policy. He wrote\neditorials now and then, or, with Williams, decided just what their\nsense must be, met the visitors who came to the office to see the\neditor, and arbitrated all known forms of difficulties. He was at the\nbeck and call of certain Republican party-leaders in the county; but\nthat seemed natural, for he was a Republican himself by temperament and\ndisposition. He was appointed postmaster once to pay him for some useful\nservices, but he declined because he was really making more out of his\npaper than his postmastership would have brought. He received whatever\ncity or county advertising it was in the power of the Republican leaders\nto give him, and so he did very well. The complications of his political\nrelationships Williams knew in part, but they never troubled that\nindustrious soul. He dispensed with moralizing. \"I have to make a living\nfor myself, my wife and three children. That's enough to keep me going\nwithout bothering my head about other people.\" So this office was really\nrun very quietly, efficiently, and in most ways pleasantly. It was a\nsunny place to work.\n\nWitla, who came here at the end of his eleventh school year and when he\nhad just turned seventeen, was impressed with the personality of\nMr. Williams. He liked him. He came to like a Jonas Lyle who worked at\nwhat might be called the head desk of the composing room, and a certain\nJohn Summers who worked at odd times--whenever there was an extra rush\nof job printing. He learned very quickly that John Summers, who was\nfifty-five, grey, and comparatively silent, was troubled with weak lungs\nand drank. Summers would slip out of the office at various times in the\nday and be gone from five to fifteen minutes. No one ever said anything,\nfor there was no pressure here. What work was to be done was done. Jonas\nLyle was of a more interesting nature. He was younger by ten years,\nstronger, better built, but still a character. He was semi-phlegmatic,\nphilosophic, feebly literary. He had worked, as Eugene found out in the\ncourse of time, in nearly every part of the United States--Denver,\nPortland, St. Paul, St. Louis, where not, and had a fund of\nrecollections of this proprietor and that. Whenever he saw a name of\nparticular distinction in the newspapers he was apt to bring the paper\nto Williams--and later, when they became familiar, to Eugene--and say,\n\"I knew that fellow out in ----. He was postmaster (or what not) at\nX----. He's come up considerably since I knew him.\" In most cases he did\nnot know these celebrities personally at all, but he knew of them, and\nthe echo of their fame sounding in this out-of-the-way corner of the\nworld impressed him. He was a careful reader of proof for Williams in a\nrush, a quick type-setter, a man who stayed by his tasks faithfully. But\nhe hadn't got anywhere in the world, for, after all, he was little more\nthan a machine. Eugene could see that at a glance.\n\nIt was Lyle who taught him the art of type-setting. He demonstrated the\nfirst day the theory of the squares or pockets in a case, how some\nletters were placed more conveniently to the hand than others, why some\nletters were well represented as to quantity, why capitals were used in\ncertain offices for certain purposes, in others not. \"Now on the Chicago\n_Tribune_ we used to italicize the names of churches, boats, books,\nhotels, and things of that sort. That's the only paper I ever knew to do\nthat,\" he remarked. What slugs, sticks, galleys, turnovers, meant, came\nrapidly to the surface. That the fingers would come to recognize weights\nof leads by the touch, that a letter would almost instinctively find its\nway back to its proper pocket, even though you were not thinking, once\nyou became expert, were facts which he cheerfully communicated. He\nwanted his knowledge taken seriously, and this serious attention,\nEugene, because of his innate respect for learning of any kind, was only\ntoo glad to give him. He did not know what he wanted to do, but he knew\nquite well that he wanted to see everything. This shop was interesting\nto him for some little time for this reason, for though he soon found\nthat he did not want to be a type-setter or a reporter, or indeed\nanything much in connection with a country newspaper, he was learning\nabout life. He worked at his desk cheerfully, smiling out upon the\nworld, which indicated its presence to him through an open window, read\nthe curious bits of news or opinion or local advertisements as he set\nthem up, and dreamed of what the world might have in store for him. He\nwas not vastly ambitious as yet, but hopeful and, withal, a little\nmelancholy. He could see boys and girls whom he knew, idling in the\nstreets or on the corner squares; he could see where Ted Martinwood was\ndriving by in his father's buggy, or George Anderson was going up the\nstreet with the air of someone who would never need to work. George's\nfather owned the one and only hotel. There were thoughts in his mind of\nfishing, boating, lolling somewhere with some pretty girl, but alas,\ngirls did not apparently take to him so very readily. He was too shy. He\nthought it must be nice to be rich. So he dreamed.\n\nEugene was at that age when he wished to express himself in ardent\nphrases. He was also at the age when bashfulness held him in reserve,\neven though he were in love and intensely emotional. He could only say\nto Stella what seemed trivial things, and look his intensity, whereas it\nwas the trivial things that were most pleasing to her, not the\nintensity. She was even then beginning to think he was a little strange,\na little too tense for her disposition. Yet she liked him. It became\ngenerally understood around town that Stella was _his_ girl. School day\nmating usually goes that way in a small city or village. He was seen to\ngo out with her. His father teased him. Her mother and father deemed\nthis a manifestation of calf love, not so much on her part, for they\nwere aware of her tendency to hold lightly any manifestation of\naffection on the part of boys, but on his. They thought his\nsentimentalism would soon be wearisome to Stella. And they were not far\nwrong about her. On one occasion at a party given by several high school\ngirls, a \"country post office\" was organized. That was one of those\ngames which mean kissing only. A system of guessing results in a series\nof forfeits. If you miss you must be postmaster, and call someone for\n\"mail.\" _Mail_ means to be kissed in a dark room (where the postmaster\nstands) by someone whom you like or who likes you. You, as postmaster,\nhave authority or compulsion--however you feel about it--to call whom\nyou please.\n\nIn this particular instance Stella, who was caught before Eugene, was\nunder compulsion to call someone to kiss. Her first thought was of him,\nbut on account of the frankness of the deed, and because there was a\nlurking fear in her of his eagerness, the name she felt impelled to\nspeak was Harvey Rutter. Harvey was a handsome boy whom Stella had met\nafter her first encounter with Eugene. He was not as yet fascinating to\nher, but pleasing. She had a coquettish desire to see what he was like.\nThis was her first direct chance.\n\nHe stepped gaily in, and Eugene was at once insane with jealousy. He\ncould not understand why she should treat him in that way. When it came\nto his turn he called for Bertha Shoemaker, whom he admired, and who was\nsweet in a way, but who was as nothing to Stella in his estimation. The\npain of kissing her when he really wanted the other girl was great. When\nhe came out Stella saw moodiness in his eyes, but chose to ignore it. He\nwas obviously half-hearted and downcast in his simulation of joy.\n\nA second chance came to her and this time she called him. He went, but\nwas in a semi-defiant mood. He wanted to punish her. When they met in\nthe dark she expected him to put his arms around her. Her own hands were\nup to about where his shoulders should be. Instead he only took hold of\none of her arms with his hand and planted a chilly kiss on her lips. If\nhe had only asked, \"Why did you?\" or held her close and pleaded with her\nnot to treat him so badly, the relationship might have lasted longer.\nInstead he said nothing, and she grew defiant and she went out gaily.\nThere was a strain of reserve running between them until the party broke\nup and he took her home.\n\n\"You must be melancholy tonight,\" she remarked, after they had walked\ntwo blocks in complete silence. The streets were dark, and their feet\nsounded hollowly on the brick pavement.\n\n\"Oh, I'm feeling all right,\" he replied moodily.\n\n\"I think it's awfully nice at the Weimers', we always have so much fun\nthere.\"\n\n\"Yes, lots of fun,\" he echoed contemptuously.\n\n\"Oh, don't be so cross!\" she flared. \"You haven't any reason for\nfussing.\"\n\n\"Haven't I?\"\n\n\"No, you haven't.\"\n\n\"Well if that's the way you feel about it I suppose I haven't. I don't\nsee it that way.\"\n\n\"Well, it doesn't make any difference to me how you see it.\"\n\n\"Oh, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"No, it doesn't.\" Her head was up and she was angry.\n\n\"Well I'm sure then it doesn't to me.\"\n\nThere was another silence which endured until they were almost home.\n\n\"Are you coming to the sociable next Thursday?\" he inquired. He was\nreferring to a Methodist evening entertainment which, although he cared\nvery little about it, was a convenience as it enabled him to see her and\ntake her home. He was prompted to ask by the fear that an open rupture\nwas impending.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"I don't think I will.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I don't care to.\"\n\n\"I think you're mean,\" he said reprovingly.\n\n\"I don't care,\" she replied. \"I think you're too bossy. I don't think I\nlike you very much anyhow.\"\n\nHis heart contracted ominously.\n\n\"You can do as you please,\" he persisted.\n\nThey reached her gate. It was his wont to kiss her in the shadow--to\nhold her tight for a few minutes in spite of her protests. Tonight, as\nthey approached, he thought of doing it, but she gave him no chance.\nWhen they reached the gate she opened it quickly and slipped in.\n\"Good-night,\" she called.\n\n\"Good-night,\" he said, and then as she reached her door, \"Stella!\"\n\nIt was open, and she slipped in. He stood in the dark, hurt, sore,\noppressed. What should he do? He strolled home cudgelling his brain\nwhether never to speak to or look at her again until she came to him, or\nto hunt her up and fight it all out with her. She was in the wrong, he\nknew that. When he went to bed he was grieving over it, and when he\nawoke it was with him all day.\n\nHe had been gaining rather rapidly as a student of type-setting, and to\na certain extent of the theory of reporting, and he worked diligently\nand earnestly at his proposed trade. He loved to look out of the window\nand draw, though of late, after knowing Stella so well and coming to\nquarrel with her because of her indifference, there was little heart in\nit. This getting to the office, putting on an apron, and starting in on\nsome local correspondence left over from the day before, or some\ntelegraph copy which had been freshly filed on his hook, had its\nconstructive value. Williams endeavored to use him on some local items\nof news as a reporter, but he was a slow worker and almost a failure at\ngetting all the facts. He did not appear to know how to interview\nanybody, and would come back with a story which needed to be filled in\nfrom other sources. He really did not understand the theory of news, and\nWilliams could only make it partially clear to him. Mostly he worked at\nhis case, but he did learn some things.\n\nFor one thing, the theory of advertising began to dawn on him. These\nlocal merchants put in the same ads. day after day, and many of them did\nnot change them noticeably. He saw Lyle and Summers taking the same ads.\nwhich had appeared unchangingly from month to month in so far as their\nmain features were concerned, and alter only a few words before\nreturning them to the forms. He wondered at the sameness of them, and\nwhen, at last, they were given to him to revise he often wished he could\nchange them a little. The language seemed so dull.\n\n\"Why don't they ever put little drawings in these ads?\" he asked Lyle\none day. \"Don't you think they'd look a little better?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't know,\" replied Jonas. \"They look pretty good. These people\naround here wouldn't want anything like that. They'd think it was too\nfancy.\" Eugene had seen and in a way studied the ads. in the magazines.\nThey seemed so much more fascinating to him. Why couldn't newspaper ads.\nbe different?\n\nStill it was never given to him to trouble over this problem.\nMr. Burgess dealt with the advertisers. He settled how the ads were to\nbe. He never talked to Eugene or Summers about them, not always to Lyle.\nHe would sometimes have Williams explain just what their character and\nlayout was to be. Eugene was so young that Williams at first did not pay\nvery much attention to him, but after a while he began to realize that\nthere was a personality here, and then he would explain things,--why\nspace had to be short for some items and long for others, why county\nnews, news of small towns around Alexandria, and about people, was much\nmore important financially to the paper than the correct reporting of\nthe death of the sultan of Turkey. The most important thing was to get\nthe local names right. \"Don't ever misspell them,\" he once cautioned\nhim. \"Don't ever leave out a part of a name if you can help it. People\nare awfully sensitive about that. They'll stop their subscription if you\ndon't watch out, and you won't know what's the matter.\"\n\nEugene took all these things to heart. He wanted to see how the thing\nwas done, though basically it seemed to be a little small. In fact\npeople seemed a little small, mostly.\n\nOne of the things that did interest him was to see the paper put on the\npress and run off. He liked to help lock up the forms, and to see how\nthey were imposed and registered. He liked to hear the press run, and to\nhelp carry the wet papers to the mailing tables and the distributing\ncounter out in front. The paper hadn't a very large circulation but\nthere was a slight hum of life about that time and he liked it. He liked\nthe sense of getting his hands and face streaked and not caring, and of\nseeing his hair tousled, in the mirror. He tried to be useful and the\nvarious people on the paper came to like him, though he was often a\nlittle awkward and slow. He was not strong at this period and his\nstomach troubled him. He thought, too, that the smell of the ink might\naffect his lungs, though he did not seriously fear it. In the main it\nwas interesting but small; there was a much larger world outside, he\nknew that. He hoped to go to it some day; he hoped to go to Chicago.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nEugene grew more and more moody and rather restless under Stella's\nincreasing independence. She grew steadily more indifferent because of\nhis moods. The fact that other boys were crazy for her consideration was\na great factor; the fact that one particular boy, Harvey Rutter, was\npersistently genial, not insistent, really better looking than Eugene\nand much better tempered, helped a great deal. Eugene saw her with him\nnow and then, saw her go skating with him, or at least with a crowd of\nwhich he was a member. Eugene hated him heartily; he hated her at times\nfor not yielding to him wholly; but he was none the less wild over her\nbeauty. It stamped his brain with a type or ideal. Thereafter he knew in\na really definite way what womanhood ought to be, to be really\nbeautiful.\n\nAnother thing it did was to bring home to him a sense of his position in\nthe world. So far he had always been dependent on his parents for food,\nclothes and spending money, and his parents were not very liberal. He\nknew other boys who had money to run up to Chicago or down to\nSpringfield--the latter was nearer--to have a Saturday and Sunday lark.\nNo such gaieties were for him. His father would not allow it, or rather\nwould not pay for it. There were other boys who, in consequence of amply\nprovided spending money, were the town dandies. He saw them kicking\ntheir heels outside the corner book store, the principal loafing place\nof the elite, on Wednesdays and Saturdays and sometimes on Sunday\nevenings preparatory to going somewhere, dressed in a luxury of clothing\nwhich was beyond his wildest dreams. Ted Martinwood, the son of the\nprincipal drygoods man, had a frock coat in which he sometimes appeared\nwhen he came down to the barber shop for a shave before he went to call\non his girl. George Anderson was possessed of a dress suit, and wore\ndancing pumps at all dances. There was Ed Waterbury, who was known to\nhave a horse and runabout of his own. These youths were slightly older,\nand were interested in girls of a slightly older set, but the point was\nthe same. These things hurt him.\n\nHe himself had no avenue of progress which, so far as he could see, was\ngoing to bring him to any financial prosperity. His father was never\ngoing to be rich, anybody could see that. He himself had made no\npractical progress in schoolwork--he knew that. He hated\ninsurance--soliciting or writing, despised the sewing machine business,\nand did not know where he would get with anything which he might like to\ndo in literature or art. His drawing seemed a joke, his writing, or wish\nfor writing, pointless. He was broodingly unhappy.\n\nOne day Williams, who had been watching him for a long time, stopped at\nhis desk.\n\n\"I say, Witla, why don't you go to Chicago?\" he said. \"There's a lot\nmore up there for a boy like you than down here. You'll never get\nanywhere working on a country newspaper.\"\n\n\"I know it,\" said Eugene.\n\n\"Now with me it's different,\" went on Williams. \"I've had my rounds.\nI've got a wife and three children and when a man's got a family he\ncan't afford to take chances. But you're young yet. Why don't you go to\nChicago and get on a paper? You could get something.\"\n\n\"What could I get?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"Well, you might get a job as type-setter if you'd join the union. I\ndon't know how good you'd be as a reporter--I hardly think that's your\nline. But you might study art and learn to draw. Newspaper artists make\ngood money.\"\n\nEugene thought of his art. It wasn't much. He didn't do much with it.\nStill he thought of Chicago; the world appealed to him. If he could only\nget out of here--if he could only make more than seven or eight dollars\na week. He brooded about this.\n\nOne Sunday afternoon he and Stella went with Myrtle to Sylvia's home,\nand after a brief stay Stella announced that she would have to be going;\nher mother would be expecting her back. Myrtle was for going with her,\nbut altered her mind when Sylvia asked her to stay to tea. \"Let Eugene\ntake her home,\" Sylvia said. Eugene was delighted in his persistent,\nhopeless way. He was not yet convinced that she could not be won to\nlove. When they walked out in the fresh sweet air--it was nearing\nspring--he felt that now he should have a chance of saying something\nwhich would be winning--which would lure her to him.\n\nThey went out on a street next to the one she lived on quite to the\nconfines of the town. She wanted to turn off at her street, but he had\nurged her not to. \"Do you have to go home just yet?\" he asked,\npleadingly.\n\n\"No, I can walk a little way,\" she replied.\n\nThey reached a vacant place--the last house a little distance\nback--talking idly. It was getting hard to make talk. In his efforts to\nbe entertaining he picked up three twigs to show her how a certain trick\nin balancing was performed. It consisted in laying two at right angles\nwith each other and with a third, using the latter as an upright. She\ncould not do it, of course. She was not really very much interested. He\nwanted her to try and when she did, took hold of her right hand to\nsteady her efforts.\n\n\"No, don't,\" she said, drawing her hand away. \"I can do it.\"\n\nShe trifled with the twigs unsuccessfully and was about to let them\nfall, when he took hold of both her hands. It was so sudden that she\ncould not free herself, and so she looked him straight in the eye.\n\n\"Let go, Eugene, please let go.\"\n\nHe shook his head, gazing at her.\n\n\"Please let go,\" she went on. \"You mustn't do this. I don't want you\nto.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because.\"\n\n\"Because why?\"\n\n\"Well, because I don't.\"\n\n\"Don't you like me any more, Stella, really?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't think I do, not that way.\"\n\n\"But you did.\"\n\n\"I thought I did.\"\n\n\"Have you changed your mind?\"\n\n\"Yes, I think I have.\"\n\nHe dropped her hands and looked at her fixedly and dramatically. The\nattitude did not appeal to her. They strolled back to the street, and\nwhen they neared her door he said, \"Well, I suppose there's no use in my\ncoming to see you any more.\"\n\n\"I think you'd better not,\" she said simply.\n\nShe walked in, never looking back, and instead of going back to his\nsister's he went home. He was in a very gloomy mood, and after sitting\naround for a while went to his room. The night fell, and he sat there\nlooking out at the trees and grieving about what he had lost. Perhaps he\nwas not good enough for her--he could not make her love him. Was it that\nhe was not handsome enough--he did not really consider himself good\nlooking--or what was it, a lack of courage or strength?\n\nAfter a time he noticed that the moon was hanging over the trees like a\nbright shield in the sky. Two layers of thin clouds were moving in\ndifferent directions on different levels. He stopped in his cogitations\nto think where these clouds came from. On sunny days when there were\ngreat argosies of them he had seen them disappear before his eyes, and\nthen, marvel of marvels, reappear out of nothingness. The first time he\never saw this it astonished him greatly, for he had never known up to\nthen what clouds were. Afterward he read about them in his physical\ngeography. Tonight he thought of that, and of the great plains over\nwhich these winds swept, and of the grass and trees--great forests of\nthem--miles and miles. What a wonderful world! Poets wrote about these\nthings, Longfellow, and Bryant, and Tennyson. He thought of\n\"Thanatopsis,\" and of the \"Elegy,\" both of which he admired greatly.\nWhat was this thing, life?\n\nThen he came back to Stella with an ache. She was actually gone, and she\nwas so beautiful. She would never really talk to him any more. He would\nnever get to hold her hand or kiss her. He clenched his hands with the\nhurt. Oh, that night on the ice; that night in the sleigh! How wonderful\nthey were! Finally he undressed and went to bed. He wanted to be\nalone--to be lonely. On his clean white pillow he lay and dreamed of the\nthings that might have been, kisses, caresses, a thousand joys.\n\nOne Sunday afternoon he was lying in his hammock thinking, thinking of\nwhat a dreary place Alexandria was, anyhow, when he opened a Chicago\nSaturday afternoon paper, which was something like a Sunday one because\nit had no Sunday edition,--and went gloomily through it. It was as he\nhad always found, full of a subtle wonder, the wonder of the city, which\ndrew him like a magnet. Here was the drawing of a big hotel someone was\ngoing to build; there was a sketch of a great pianist who was coming to\nplay. An account of a new comedy drama; of a little romantic section of\nGoose Island in the Chicago river, with its old decayed boats turned\ninto houses and geese waddling about; an item of a man falling through a\ncoal hole on South Halstead street fascinated him. This last was at\nsixty-two hundred and something and the idea of such a long street\nseized on his imagination. What a tremendous city Chicago must be. The\nthought of car lines, crowds, trains, came to him with almost a yearning\nappeal.\n\nAll at once the magnet got him. It gripped his very soul, this wonder,\nthis beauty, this life.\n\n\"I'm going to Chicago,\" he thought, and got up.\n\nThere was his nice, quiet little home laid out before him. Inside were\nhis mother, his father, Myrtle. Still he was going. He could come back.\n\"Sure I can come back,\" he thought. Propelled by this magnetic power he\nwent in and upstairs to his room, and got a little grip or portmanteau\nhe had. He put in it the things he thought he would immediately need. In\nhis pocket were nine dollars, money he had been saving for some time.\nFinally he came downstairs and stood in the door of the sitting room.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" asked his mother, looking at his solemn\nintrospective face.\n\n\"I'm going to Chicago,\" he said.\n\n\"When?\" she asked, astonished, a little uncertain of just what he meant.\n\n\"Today,\" he said.\n\n\"No, you're joking.\" She smiled unbelievingly. This was a boyish prank.\n\n\"I'm going today,\" he said. \"I'm going to catch that four o'clock\ntrain.\"\n\nHer face saddened. \"You're not?\" she said.\n\n\"I can come back,\" he replied, \"if I want to. I want to get something\nelse to do.\"\n\nHis father came in at this time. He had a little work room out in the\nbarn where he sometimes cleaned machines and repaired vehicles. He was\nfresh from such a task now.\n\n\"What's up?\" he asked, seeing his wife close to her boy.\n\n\"Eugene's going to Chicago.\"\n\n\"Since when?\" he inquired amusedly.\n\n\"Today. He says he's going right now.\"\n\n\"You don't mean it,\" said Witla, astonished. He really did not believe\nit. \"Why don't you take a little time and think it over? What are you\ngoing to live on?\"\n\n\"I'll live,\" said Eugene. \"I'm going. I've had enough of this place. I'm\ngoing to get out.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said his father, who, after all, believed in initiative.\nEvidently after all he hadn't quite understood this boy. \"Got your trunk\npacked?\"\n\n\"No, but mother can send me that.\"\n\n\"Don't go today,\" pleaded his mother. \"Wait until you get something\nready, Eugene. Wait and do a little thinking about it. Wait until\ntomorrow.\"\n\n\"I want to go today, ma.\" He slipped his arm around her. \"Little ma.\" He\nwas bigger than she by now, and still growing.\n\n\"All right, Eugene,\" she said softly, \"but I wish you wouldn't.\" Her boy\nwas leaving her--her heart was hurt.\n\n\"I can come back, ma. It's only a hundred miles.\"\n\n\"Well, all right,\" she said finally, trying to brighten. \"I'll pack your\nbag.\"\n\n\"I have already.\"\n\nShe went to look.\n\n\"Well, it'll soon be time,\" said Witla, who was thinking that Eugene\nmight back down. \"I'm sorry. Still it may be a good thing for you.\nYou're always welcome here, you know.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Eugene.\n\nThey went finally to the train together, he and his father and Myrtle.\nHis mother couldn't. She stayed to cry.\n\nOn the way to the depot they stopped at Sylvia's.\n\n\"Why, Eugene,\" she exclaimed, \"how ridiculous! Don't go.\"\n\n\"He's set,\" said Witla.\n\nEugene finally got loose. He seemed to be fighting love, home ties,\neverything, every step of the way. Finally he reached the depot. The\ntrain came. Witla grabbed his hand affectionately. \"Be a good boy,\" he\nsaid, swallowing a gulp.\n\nMyrtle kissed him. \"You're so funny, Eugene. Write me.\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\nHe stepped on the train. The bell rang. Out the cars rolled--out and on.\nHe looked out on the familiar scenes and then a real ache came to\nhim--Stella, his mother, his father, Myrtle, the little home. They were\nall going out of his life.\n\n\"Hm,\" he half groaned, clearing his throat. \"Gee!\"\n\nAnd then he sank back and tried, as usual, not to think. He must\nsucceed. That's what the world was made for. That was what he was made\nfor. That was what he would have to do....\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nThe city of Chicago--who shall portray it! This vast ruck of life that\nhad sprung suddenly into existence upon the dank marshes of a lake\nshore. Miles and miles of dreary little houses; miles and miles of\nwooden block-paved streets, with gas lamps placed and water mains laid,\nand empty wooden walks set for pedestrians; the beat of a hundred\nthousand hammers; the ring of a hundred thousand trowels! Long,\nconverging lines of telegraph poles; thousands upon thousands of\nsentinel cottages, factory plants, towering smoke stacks, and here and\nthere a lone, shabby church steeple, sitting out pathetically upon\nvacant land. The raw prairie stretch was covered with yellow grass; the\ngreat broad highways of the tracks of railroads, ten, fifteen, twenty,\nthirty, laid side by side and strung with thousands upon thousands of\nshabby cars, like beads upon a string. Engines clanging, trains moving,\npeople waiting at street crossings--pedestrians, wagon drivers, street\ncar drivers, drays of beer, trucks of coal, brick, stone, sand--a\nspectacle of new, raw, necessary life!\n\nAs Eugene began to draw near it he caught for the first time the sense\nand significance of a great city. What were these newspaper shadows he\nhad been dealing with in his reading compared to this vivid, articulate,\neager thing? Here was the substance of a new world, substantial,\nfascinating, different. The handsome suburban station at South Chicago,\nthe first of its kind he had ever seen, took his eye, as the train\nrolled cityward. He had never before seen a crowd of foreigners--working\nmen--and here were Lithuanians, Poles, Czechs, waiting for a local\ntrain. He had never seen a really large factory plant, and here was one,\nand another, and another--steel works, potteries, soap-factories,\nfoundries, all gaunt and hard in the Sunday evening air. There seemed to\nbe, for all it was Sunday, something youthful, energetic and alive about\nthe streets. He noted the streetcars waiting; at one place a small river\nwas crossed on a draw,--dirty, gloomy, but crowded with boats and lined\nwith great warehouses, grain elevators, coal pockets--that architecture\nof necessity and utility. His imagination was fired by this for here was\nsomething that could be done brilliantly in black--a spot of red or\ngreen for ship and bridge lights. There were some men on the magazines\nwho did things like this, only not so vivid.\n\nThe train threaded its way through long lines of cars coming finally\ninto an immense train shed where arc lights were spluttering--a score\nunder a great curved steel and glass roof, where people were hurrying to\nand fro. Engines were hissing; bells clanging raucously. He had no\nrelatives, no soul to turn to, but somehow he did not feel lonely. This\npicture of life, this newness, fascinated him. He stepped down and\nstarted leisurely to the gate, wondering which way he should go. He came\nto a corner where a lamp post already lit blazoned the name Madison. He\nlooked out on this street and saw, as far as the eye could reach, two\nlines of stores, jingling horse cars, people walking. What a sight, he\nthought, and turned west. For three miles he walked, musing, and then as\nit was dark, and he had arranged for no bed, he wondered where he should\neat and sleep. A fat man sitting outside a livery stable door in a\ntilted, cane-seated chair offered a possibility of information.\n\n\"Do you know where I can get a room around here?\" asked Eugene.\n\nThe lounger looked him over. He was the proprietor of the place.\n\n\"There's an old lady living over there at seven-thirty-two,\" he said,\n\"who has a room, I think. She might take you in.\" He liked Eugene's\nlooks.\n\nEugene crossed over and rang a downstairs bell. The door was opened\nshortly by a tall, kindly woman, of a rather matriarchal turn. Her hair\nwas gray.\n\n\"Yes?\" she inquired.\n\n\"The gentleman at the livery stable over there said I might get a room\nhere. I'm looking for one.\"\n\nShe smiled pleasantly. This boy looked his strangeness, his wide-eyed\ninterest, his freshness from the country. \"Come in,\" she said. \"I have a\nroom. You can look at it.\"\n\nIt was a front room--a little bed-room off the one main living room,\nclean, simple, convenient. \"This looks all right,\" he said.\n\nShe smiled.\n\n\"You can have it for two dollars a week,\" she proffered.\n\n\"That's all right,\" he said, putting down his grip. \"I'll take it.\"\n\n\"Have you had supper?\" she asked.\n\n\"No, but I'm going out soon. I want to see the streets. I'll find some\nplace.\"\n\n\"I'll give you something,\" she said.\n\nEugene thanked her, and she smiled. This was what Chicago did to the\ncountry. It took the boys.\n\nHe opened the closed shutters of his window and knelt before it, leaning\non the sill. He looked out idly, for it was all so wonderful. Bright\nlights were burning in store windows. These people hurrying--how their\nfeet sounded--clap, clap, clap. And away east and away west it was all\nlike this. It was all like this everywhere, a great big, wonderful city.\nIt was nice to be here. He felt that now. It was all worth while. How\ncould he have stayed in Alexandria so long! He would get along here.\nCertainly he would. He was perfectly sure of that. He knew.\n\nChicago at this time certainly offered a world of hope and opportunity\nto the beginner. It was so new, so raw; everything was in the making.\nThe long lines of houses and stores were mostly temporary\nmake-shifts--one and two story frame affairs--with here and there a\nthree and four story brick building which spoke of better days to come.\nDown in the business heart which lay between the lake and the river, the\nNorth Side and the South Side, was a region which spoke of a tremendous\nfuture, for here were stores which served the buying public, not only of\nChicago, but of the Middle West. There were great banks, great office\nbuildings, great retail stores, great hotels. The section was running\nwith a tide of people which represented the youth, the illusions, the\nuntrained aspirations, of millions of souls. When you walked into this\narea you could feel what Chicago meant--eagerness, hope, desire. It was\na city that put vitality into almost every wavering heart: it made the\nbeginner dream dreams; the aged to feel that misfortune was never so\ngrim that it might not change.\n\nUnderneath, of course, was struggle. Youth and hope and energy were\nsetting a terrific pace. You had to work here, to move, to step lively.\nYou had to have ideas. This city demanded of you your very best, or it\nwould have little to do with you. Youth in its search for something--and\nage--were quickly to feel this. It was no fool's paradise.\n\nEugene, once he was settled, realized this. He had the notion, somehow,\nthat the printer's trade was all over for him. He wanted no more of\nthat. He wanted to be an artist or something like that, although he\nhardly knew how to begin. The papers offered one way, but he was not\nsure that they took on beginners. He had had no training whatever. His\nsister Myrtle had once said that some of his little thumb-nail sketches\nwere pretty, but what did she know? If he could study somewhere, find\nsomeone who would teach him.... Meanwhile he would have to work.\n\nHe tried the newspapers first of course, for those great institutions\nseemed the ideal resort for anyone who wanted to get up in the world,\nbut the teeming offices with frowning art directors and critical\nnewspaper workers frightened him. One art director did see something in\nthe three or four little sketches he showed, but he happened to be in a\ncrusty mood, and did not want anybody anyway. He simply said no, there\nwas nothing. Eugene thought that perhaps as an artist also, he was\ndestined to be a failure.\n\nThe trouble with this boy was really that he was not half awake yet. The\nbeauty of life, its wonder, had cast a spell over him, but he could not\nyet interpret it in line and color. He walked about these wonderful\nstreets, gazing in the windows, looking at the boats on the river,\nlooking at the ships on the lake. One day, while he was standing on the\nlake shore, there came a ship in full sail in the offing--the first he\nhad ever seen. It gripped his sense of beauty. He clasped his hands\nnervously and thrilled to it. Then he sat down on the lake wall and\nlooked and looked and looked until it gradually sank below the horizon.\nSo this was how the great lakes were; and how the great seas must\nbe--the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Ah, the sea! Some\nday, perhaps he would go to New York. That was where the sea was. But\nhere it was also, in miniature, and it was wonderful.\n\nOne cannot moon by lake shores and before store windows and at bridge\ndraws and live, unless one is provided with the means of living, and\nthis Eugene was not. He had determined when he left home that he would\nbe independent. He wanted to get a salary in some way that he could at\nleast live on. He wanted to write back and be able to say that he was\ngetting along nicely. His trunk came, and a loving letter from his\nmother, and some money, but he sent that back. It was only ten dollars,\nbut he objected to beginning that way. He thought he ought to earn his\nown way, and he wanted to try, anyhow.\n\nAfter ten days his funds were very low, a dollar and seventy-five cents,\nand he decided that any job would have to do. Never mind about art or\ntype-setting now. He could not get the last without a union card, he\nmust take anything, and so he applied from store to store. The cheap\nlittle shops in which he asked were so ugly they hurt, but he tried to\nput his artistic sensibilities aside. He asked for anything, to be made\na clerk in a bakery, in a dry goods store, in a candy store. After a\ntime a hardware store loomed up, and he asked there. The man looked at\nhim curiously. \"I might give you a place at storing stoves.\"\n\nEugene did not understand, but he accepted gladly. It only paid six\ndollars a week, but he could live on that. He was shown to a loft in\ncharge of two rough men, stove fitters, polishers, and repairers, who\ngruffly explained to him that his work was to brush the rust off the\ndecayed stoves, to help piece and screw them together, to polish and\nlift things, for this was a second hand stove business which bought and\nrepaired stoves from junk dealers all over the city. Eugene had a low\nbench near a window where he was supposed to do his polishing, but he\nvery frequently wasted his time here looking out into the green yards of\nsome houses in a side street. The city was full of wonder to him--its\nevery detail fascinating. When a rag-picker would go by calling \"rags,\nold iron,\" or a vegetable vender crying \"tomatoes, potatoes, green corn,\npeas,\" he would stop and listen, the musical pathos of the cries\nappealing to him. Alexandria had never had anything like this. It was\nall so strange. He saw himself making pen and ink sketches of things, of\nthe clothes lines in the back yards and of the maids with baskets.\n\nOn one of the days when he thought he was working fairly well (he had\nbeen there two weeks), one of the two repairers said, \"Hey, get a move\non you. You're not paid to look out the window.\" Eugene stopped. He had\nnot realized that he was loafing.\n\n\"What have you got to do with it?\" he asked, hurt and half defiant. He\nwas under the impression that he was working with these men, not under\nthem.\n\n\"I'll show you, you fresh kid,\" said the older of the two, who was an\nindividual built on the order of \"Bill Sykes.\" \"You're under me. You get\na move on you, and don't give me any more of your lip.\"\n\nEugene was startled. It was a flash of brutality out of a clear sky. The\nanimal, whom he had been scanning as an artist would, as a type, out of\nthe corner of his eye, was revealing himself.\n\n\"You go to the devil,\" said Eugene, only half awake to the grim reality\nof the situation.\n\n\"What's that!\" exclaimed the man, making for him. He gave him a shove\ntoward the wall, and attempted to kick him with his big, hob-nailed\nboot. Eugene picked up a stove leg. His face was wax white.\n\n\"Don't you try that again,\" he said darkly. He fixed the leg in his hand\nfirmly.\n\n\"Call it off, Jim,\" said the other man, who saw the uselessness of so\nmuch temper. \"Don't hit him. Send him down stairs if you don't like\nhim.\"\n\n\"You get to hell out of here, then,\" said Eugene's noble superior.\n\nEugene walked to a nail where his hat and coat were, carrying the stove\nleg. He edged past his assailant cautiously, fearing a second attack.\nThe man was inclined to kick at him again because of his stubbornness,\nbut forebore.\n\n\"You're too fresh, Willie. You want to wake up, you dough face,\" he said\nas Eugene went.\n\nEugene slipped out quietly. His spirit was hurt and torn. What a scene!\nHe, Eugene Witla, kicked at, and almost kicked out, and that in a job\nthat paid six dollars a week. A great lump came up in his throat, but it\nwent down again. He wanted to cry but he could not. He went downstairs,\nstovepolish on his hands and face and slipped up to the desk.\n\n\"I want to quit,\" he said to the man who had hired him.\n\n\"All right, what's the matter?\"\n\n\"That big brute up there tried to kick me,\" he explained.\n\n\"They're pretty rough men,\" answered the employer. \"I was afraid you\nwouldn't get along. I guess you're not strong enough. Here you are.\" He\nlaid out three dollars and a half. Eugene wondered at this queer\ninterpretation of his complaint. He must get along with these men? They\nmusn't get along with him? So the city had that sort of brutality in it.\n\nHe went home and washed up, and then struck out again, for it was no\ntime now to be without a job. After a week he found one,--as a house\nrunner for a real estate concern, a young man to bring in the numbers of\nempty houses and post up the \"For Rent\" signs in the windows. It paid\neight dollars and seemed to offer opportunities of advancement. Eugene\nmight have stayed there indefinitely had it not failed after three\nmonths. He had reached the season of fall clothes then, and the need of\na winter overcoat, but he made no complaint to his family. He wanted to\nappear to be getting along well, whether he was or not.\n\nOne of the things which tended to harden and sharpen his impressions of\nlife at this time was the show of luxury seen in some directions. On\nMichigan Avenue and Prairie Avenue, on Ashland Avenue and Washington\nBoulevard, were sections which were crowded with splendid houses such as\nEugene had never seen before. He was astonished at the magnificence of\ntheir appointments, the beauty of the lawns, the show of the windows,\nthe distinction of the equipages which accompanied them and served them.\nFor the first time in his life he saw liveried footmen at doors: he saw\nat a distance girls and women grown who seemed marvels of beauty to\nhim--they were so distinguished in their dress; he saw young men\ncarrying themselves with an air of distinction which he had never seen\nbefore. These must be the society people the newspapers were always\ntalking about. His mind made no distinctions as yet. If there were fine\nclothes, fine trappings, of course social prestige went with them. It\nmade him see for the first time what far reaches lay between the\nconditions of a beginner from the country and what the world really had\nto offer--or rather what it showered on some at the top. It subdued and\nsaddened him a little. Life was unfair.\n\nThese fall days, too, with their brown leaves, sharp winds, scudding\nsmoke and whirls of dust showed him that the city could be cruel. He met\nshabby men, sunken eyed, gloomy, haggard, who looked at him, apparently\nout of a deep despair. These creatures all seemed to be brought where\nthey were by difficult circumstances. If they begged at all,--and they\nrarely did of him, for he did not look prosperous enough, it was with\nthe statement that unfortunate circumstances had brought them where they\nwere. You could fail so easily. You could really starve if you didn't\nlook sharp,--the city quickly taught him that.\n\nDuring these days he got immensely lonely. He was not very sociable, and\ntoo introspective. He had no means of making friends, or thought he had\nnone. So he wandered about the streets at night, marveling at the sights\nhe saw, or staying at home in his little room. Mrs. Woodruff, the\nlandlady, was nice and motherly enough, but she was not young and did\nnot fit into his fancies. He was thinking about girls and how sad it was\nnot to have one to say a word to him. Stella was gone--that dream was\nover. When would he find another like her?\n\nAfter wandering around for nearly a month, during which time he was\ncompelled to use some money his mother sent him to buy a suit of clothes\non an instalment plan, he got a place as driver of a laundry, which,\nbecause it paid ten dollars a week, seemed very good. He sketched now\nand then when he was not tired, but what he did seemed pointless. So he\nworked here, driving a wagon, when he should have been applying for an\nart opening, or taking art lessons.\n\nDuring this winter Myrtle wrote him that Stella Appleton had moved to\nKansas, whither her father had gone; and that his mother's health was\nbad, and that she did so want him to come home and stay awhile. It was\nabout this time that he became acquainted with a little Scotch girl\nnamed Margaret Duff, who worked in the laundry, and became quickly\ninvolved in a relationship which established a precedent in his\nexperiences with women. Before this he had never physically known a\ngirl. Now, and of a sudden, he was plunged into something which awakened\na new, and if not evil, at least disrupting and disorganizing propensity\nof his character. He loved women, the beauty of the curves of their\nbodies. He loved beauty of feature and after a while was to love beauty\nof mind,--he did now, in a vague, unformed way,--but his ideal was as\nyet not clear to him. Margaret Duff represented some simplicity of\nattitude, some generosity of spirit, some shapeliness of form, some\ncomeliness of feature,--it was not more. But, growing by what it fed on,\nhis sex appetite became powerful. In a few weeks it had almost mastered\nhim. He burned to be with this girl daily--and she was perfectly willing\nthat he should, so long as the relationship did not become too\nconspicuous. She was a little afraid of her parents, although those two,\nbeing working people, retired early and slept soundly. They did not seem\nto mind her early philanderings with boys. This latest one was no\nnovelty. It burned fiercely for three months--Eugene was eager,\ninsatiable: the girl not so much so, but complaisant. She liked this\nevidence of fire in him,--the hard, burning flame she had aroused, and\nyet after a time she got a little tired. Then little personal\ndifferences arose,--differences of taste, differences of judgment,\ndifferences of interest. He really could not talk to her of anything\nserious, could not get a response to his more delicate emotions. For her\npart she could not find in him any ready appreciation of the little\nthings she liked--theater jests, and the bright remarks of other boys\nand girls. She had some conception of what was tasteful in dress, but as\nfor anything else, art, literature, public affairs, she knew nothing at\nall, while Eugene, for all his youth, was intensely alive to what was\ngoing on in the great world. The sound of great names and great fames\nwas in his ears,--Carlyle, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman. He read of great\nphilosophers, painters, musicians, meteors that sped across the\nintellectual sky of the western world, and he wondered. He felt as\nthough some day he would be called to do something--in his youthful\nenthusiasm he half-thought it might be soon. He knew that this girl he\nwas trifling with could not hold him. She had lured him, but once lured\nhe was master, judge, critic. He was beginning to feel that he could get\nalong without her,--that he could find someone better.\n\nNaturally such an attitude would make for the death of passion, as the\nsatiation of passion would make for the development of such an attitude.\nMargaret became indifferent. She resented his superior airs, his\ntop-lofty tone at times. They quarreled over little things. One night he\nsuggested something that she ought to do in the haughty manner customary\nwith him.\n\n\"Oh, don't be so smart!\" she said. \"You always talk as though you owned\nme.\"\n\n\"I do,\" he said jestingly.\n\n\"Do you?\" she flared. \"There are others.\"\n\n\"Well, whenever you're ready you can have them. I'm willing.\"\n\nThe tone cut her, though actually it was only an ill-timed bit of\nteasing, more kindly meant than it sounded.\n\n\"Well, I'm ready now. You needn't come to see me unless you want to. I\ncan get along.\"\n\nShe tossed her head.\n\n\"Don't be foolish, Margy,\" he said, seeing the ill wind he had aroused.\n\"You don't mean that.\"\n\n\"Don't I? Well, we'll see.\" She walked away from him to another corner\nof the room. He followed her, but her anger re-aroused his opposition.\n\"Oh, all right,\" he said after a time. \"I guess I'd better be going.\"\n\nShe made no response, neither pleas nor suggestions. He went and secured\nhis hat and coat and came back. \"Want to kiss me good-bye?\" he inquired.\n\n\"No,\" she said simply.\n\n\"Good-night,\" he called.\n\n\"Good-night,\" she replied indifferently.\n\nThe relationship was never amicably readjusted after this, although it\ndid endure for some time.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nFor the time being this encounter stirred to an almost unbridled degree\nEugene's interest in women. Most men are secretly proud of their triumph\nwith woman--their ability to triumph--and any evidence of their ability\nto attract, entertain, hold, is one of those things which tends to give\nthem an air of superiority and self-sufficiency which is sometimes\nlacking in those who are not so victorious. This was, in its way, his\nfirst victory of the sort, and it pleased him mightily. He felt much\nmore sure of himself instead of in any way ashamed. What, he thought,\ndid the silly boys back in Alexandria know of life compared to this?\nNothing. He was in Chicago now. The world was different. He was finding\nhimself to be a man, free, individual, of interest to other\npersonalities. Margaret Duff had told him many pretty things about\nhimself. She had complimented his looks, his total appearance, his taste\nin the selection of particular things. He had felt what it is to own a\nwoman. He strutted about for a time, the fact that he had been dismissed\nrather arbitrarily having little weight with him because he was so very\nready to be dismissed, sudden dissatisfaction with his job now stirred\nup in him, for ten dollars a week was no sum wherewith any\nself-respecting youth could maintain himself,--particularly with a view\nto sustaining any such relationship as that which had just ended. He\nfelt that he ought to get a better place.\n\nThen one day a woman to whom he was delivering a parcel at her home in\nWarren Avenue, stopped him long enough to ask: \"What do you drivers get\na week for your work?\"\n\n\"I get ten dollars,\" said Eugene. \"I think some get more.\"\n\n\"You ought to make a good collector,\" she went on. She was a large,\nhomely, incisive, straight-talking woman. \"Would you like to change to\nthat kind of work?\"\n\nEugene was sick of the laundry business. The hours were killing. He had\nworked as late as one o'clock Sunday morning.\n\n\"I think I would,\" he exclaimed. \"I don't know anything about it, but\nthis work is no fun.\"\n\n\"My husband is the manager of The People's Furniture Company,\" she went\non. \"He needs a good collector now and then. I think he's going to make\na change very soon. I'll speak to him.\"\n\nEugene smiled joyously and thanked her. This was surely a windfall. He\nwas anxious to know what collectors were paid but he thought it scarcely\ntactful to ask.\n\n\"If he gives you a job you will probably get fourteen dollars to begin\nwith,\" she volunteered.\n\nEugene thrilled. That would be really a rise in the world. Four dollars\nmore! He could get some nice clothes out of that and have spending money\nbesides. He might get a chance to study art. His visions began to\nmultiply. One could get up in the world by trying. The energetic\ndelivery he had done for this laundry had brought him this. Further\neffort in the other field might bring him more. And he was young yet.\n\nHe had been working for the laundry company for six months. Six weeks\nlater, Mr. Henry Mitchly, manager of the People's Furniture, wrote him\ncare of the laundry company to call at his home any evening after eight\nand he would see him. \"My wife has spoken to me of you,\" he added.\n\nEugene complied the same day that he received the note, and was looked\nover by a lean, brisk, unctuous looking man of forty, who asked him\nvarious questions as to his work, his home, how much money he took in as\na driver, and what not. Finally he said, \"I need a bright young man down\nat my place. It's a good job for one who is steady and honest and\nhardworking. My wife seems to think you work pretty well, so I'm willing\nto give you a trial. I can put you to work at fourteen dollars. I want\nyou to come to see me a week from Monday.\"\n\nEugene thanked him. He decided, on Mr. Mitchly's advice, to give his\nlaundry manager a full week's notice. He told Margaret that he was\nleaving and she was apparently glad for his sake. The management was\nslightly sorry, for Eugene was a good driver. During his last week he\nhelped break in a new man in his place, and on Monday appeared before\nMr. Mitchly.\n\nMr. Mitchly was glad to have him, for he had seen him as a young man of\nenergy and force. He explained the simple nature of the work, which was\nto take bills for clocks, silverware, rugs, anything which the company\nsold, and go over the various routes collecting the money due,--which\nwould average from seventy five to a hundred and twenty-five dollars a\nday. \"Most companies in our line require a bond,\" he explained, \"but we\nhaven't come to that yet. I think I know honest young men when I see\nthem. Anyhow we have a system of inspection. If a man's inclined to be\ndishonest he can't get very far with us.\"\n\nEugene had never thought of this question of honesty very much. He had\nbeen raised where he did not need to worry about the matter of a little\npocket change, and he had made enough at the _Appeal_ to supply his\nimmediate wants. Besides, among the people he had always associated with\nit was considered a very right and necessary thing to be honest. Men\nwere arrested for not being. He remembered one very sad case of a boy he\nknew being arrested at Alexandria for breaking into a store at night.\nThat seemed a terrible thing to him at the time. Since then he had been\nspeculating a great deal, in a vague way as to what honesty was, but he\nhad not yet decided. He knew that it was expected of him to account for\nthe last penny of anything that was placed in his keeping and he was\nperfectly willing to do so. The money he earned seemed enough if he had\nto live on it. There was no need for him to aid in supporting anyone\nelse. So he slipped along rather easily and practically untested.\n\nEugene took the first day's package of bills as laid out for him, and\ncarefully went from door to door. In some places money was paid him for\nwhich he gave a receipt, in others he was put off or refused because of\nprevious difficulties with the company. In a number of places people had\nmoved, leaving no trace of themselves, and packing the unpaid for goods\nwith them. It was his business, as Mr. Mitchly explained, to try to get\ntrack of them from the neighbors.\n\nEugene saw at once that he was going to like the work. The fresh air,\nthe out-door life, the walking, the quickness with which his task was\naccomplished, all pleased him. His routes took him into strange and new\nparts of the city, where he had never been before, and introduced him to\ntypes he had never met. His laundry work, taking him from door to door,\nhad been a freshening influence, and this was another. He saw scenes\nthat he felt sure he could, when he had learned to draw a little better,\nmake great things of,--dark, towering factory-sites, great stretches of\nrailroad yards laid out like a puzzle in rain, snow, or bright sunlight;\ngreat smoke-stacks throwing their black heights athwart morning or\nevening skies. He liked them best in the late afternoon when they stood\nout in a glow of red or fading purple. \"Wonderful,\" he used to exclaim\nto himself, and think how the world would marvel if he could ever come\nto do great pictures like those of Dore. He admired the man's tremendous\nimagination. He never thought of himself as doing anything in oils or\nwater colors or chalk--only pen and ink, and that in great, rude\nsplotches of black and white. That was the way. That was the way force\nwas had.\n\nBut he could not do them. He could only think them.\n\nOne of his chief joys was the Chicago river, its black, mucky water\nchurned by puffing tugs and its banks lined by great red grain elevators\nand black coal chutes and yellow lumber yards. Here was real color and\nlife--the thing to draw; and then there were the low, drab, rain-soaked\ncottages standing in lonely, shabby little rows out on flat prairie\nland, perhaps a scrubby tree somewhere near. He loved these. He would\ntake an envelope and try to get the sense of them--the feel, as he\ncalled it--but it wouldn't come. All he did seemed cheap and\ncommonplace, mere pointless lines and stiff wooden masses. How did the\ngreat artists get their smoothness and ease? He wondered.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nEugene collected and reported faithfully every day, and had managed to\nsave a little money. Margaret was now a part of his past. His landlady,\nMrs. Woodruff, had gone to live with a daughter in Sedalia, Missouri,\nand he had moved to a comparatively nice house in East Twenty-first\nStreet on the South Side. It had taken his eye because of a tree in a\nfifty foot space of ground before it. Like his other room it cost him\nlittle, and he was in a private family. He arranged a twenty cent rate\nper meal for such meals as he took there, and thus he managed to keep\nhis bare living expenses down to five dollars a week. The remaining nine\nhe spent sparingly for clothes, car-fare, and amusements--almost nothing\nof the latter. When he saw he had a little money in reserve he began to\nthink of looking up the Art Institute, which had been looming up in his\nmind as an avenue of advancement, and find out on what condition he\ncould join a night class in drawing. They were very reasonable, he\nheard, only fifteen dollars a quarter, and he decided to begin if the\nconditions were not too severe. He was beginning to be convinced that he\nwas born to be an artist--how soon he could not tell.\n\nThe old Art Institute, which preceded the present impressive structure,\nwas located at Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street, and presented an\natmosphere of distinction which was not present in most of the\nstructures representing the public taste of the period. It was a large\nsix storey building of brown stone, and contained a number of studios\nfor painters, sculptors, and music teachers, besides the exhibition\nrooms and the rooms for the classes. There were both day and evening\nclasses, and even at that time a large number of students. The western\nsoul, to a certain extent, was fired by the wonder of art. There was so\nlittle of it in the life of the people--the fame of those who could\naccomplish things in this field and live in a more refined atmosphere\nwas great. To go to Paris! To be a student in any one of the great\nateliers of that city! Or of Munich or Rome, to know the character of\nthe artistic treasures of Europe--the life of the Art quarter--that was\nsomething. There was what might have been termed a wild desire in the\nbreast of many an untutored boy and girl to get out of the ranks of the\ncommonplace; to assume the character and the habiliments of the artistic\ntemperament as they were then supposed to be; to have a refined,\nsemi-languorous, semi-indifferent manner; to live in a studio, to have a\ncertain freedom in morals and temperament not accorded to the ordinary\nperson--these were the great things to do and be. Of course, art\ncomposition was a part of this. You were supposed ultimately to paint\ngreat pictures or do noble sculptures, but in the meanwhile you could\nand should live the life of the artist. And that was beautiful and\nwonderful and free.\n\nEugene had long had some sense of this. He was aware that there were\nstudios in Chicago; that certain men were supposed to be doing good\nwork--he saw it in the papers. There were mentions now and then of\nexhibitions, mostly free, which the public attended but sparingly. Once\nthere was an exhibition of some of the war pictures of Verestchagin, a\ngreat Russian painter who had come West for some purpose. Eugene saw\nthem one Sunday afternoon, and was enthralled by the magnificence of\ntheir grasp of the elements of battle; the wonder of color; the truth of\ncharacter; the dramatic quality; the sense of force and danger and\nhorror and suffering which was somehow around and in and through\neverything that was shown. This man had virility and insight; stupendous\nimagination and temperament. Eugene stood and stared, wondering how such\nthings could be done. Ever afterward the name of Verestchagin was like a\ngreat call to his imagination; that was the kind of an artist to be if\nyou were going to be one.\n\nAnother picture came there once, which appealed to another side of his\nnature, although primarily the basis of its appeal was artistic. It was\na great, warm tinted nude by Bouguereau, a French artist who was\nstartling his day with his daring portrayal of the nude. The types he\ndepicted were not namby-pamby little slim-bodied women with spindling\nqualities of strength and passion, but great, full-blown women whose\nvoluptuous contour of neck and arms and torso and hip and thigh was\nenough to set the blood of youth at fever heat. The man obviously\nunderstood and had passion, love of form, love of desire, love of\nbeauty. He painted with a sense of the bridal bed in the background; of\nmotherhood and of fat, growing babies, joyously nursed. These women\nstood up big in their sense of beauty and magnetism, the soft lure of\ndesire in their eyes, their full lips parted, their cheeks flushed with\nthe blood of health. As such they were anathema to the conservative and\npuritanical in mind, the religious in temperament, the cautious in\ntraining or taste. The very bringing of this picture to Chicago as a\nproduct for sale was enough to create a furore of objection. Such\npictures should not be painted, was the cry of the press; or if painted,\nnot exhibited. Bouguereau was conceived of by many as one of those\ndastards of art who were endeavoring to corrupt by their talent the\nmorals of the world; there was a cry raised that the thing should be\nsuppressed; and as is always the case in all such outbursts of special\nclass opposition, the interest of the general public was aroused.\n\nEugene was one of those who noted the discussion. He had never seen a\npicture by Bouguereau or, indeed, an original nude by any other artist.\nBeing usually at liberty after three o'clock, he was free to visit some\nof these things, and having found it possible to do his work in good\nclothes he had come to wear his best suit every day. He was a fairly\npresentable youth with a solemn mien, and his request to be shown\nanything in any art store would have aroused no surprise. He looked as\nthough he belonged to the intellectual and artistic classes.\n\nNot being sure of what reception would be accorded one so young--he was\nnow nearing twenty--he nevertheless ventured to stop at the gallery\nwhere the Bouguereau was being exhibited and ask to see it. The\nattendant in charge eyed him curiously, but led him back to a room hung\nin dark red, and turning on a burst of incandescent bulbs set in the\nceiling of a red plush hung cabinet, pulled back the curtain revealing\nthe picture. Eugene had never seen such a figure and face. It was a\ndream of beauty--his ideal come to life. He studied the face and neck,\nthe soft mass of brown, sensuous hair massed at the back of the head,\nthe flowerlike lips and soft cheeks. He marveled at the suggestion of\nthe breasts and the abdomen, that potentiality of motherhood that is so\nfiring to the male. He could have stood there hours dreaming,\nluxuriating, but the attendant who had left him alone with it for a few\nminutes returned.\n\n\"What is the price of this?\" Eugene asked.\n\n\"Ten thousand dollars,\" was the reply.\n\nHe smiled solemnly. \"It's a wonderful thing,\" he said, and turned to go.\nThe attendant put out the light.\n\nThis picture, like those of Verestchagin, made a sharp impression on\nhim. Curiously he had no longing to paint anything of this kind. He only\nrejoiced to look at it. It spoke to him of his present ideal of\nwomanhood--physical beauty, and he longed with all his heart to find a\ncreature like that who would look on him with favor.\n\nThere were other exhibitions--one containing a genuine Rembrandt--which\nimpressed him, but none like these that had definitely stirred him. His\ninterest in art was becoming eager. He wanted to find out all about\nit--to do something himself. One day he ventured to call at the Art\nInstitute building and consult the secretary, who explained to him what\nthe charges were. He learned from her, for she was a woman of a\npractical, clerical turn, that the classes ran from October to May, that\nhe could enter a life or antique class or both, though the antique alone\nwas advisable for the time, and a class in illustration, where costumes\nof different periods were presented on different models. He found that\neach class had an instructor of supposed note, whom it was not necessary\nfor him to see. Each class had a monitor and each student was supposed\nto work faithfully for his own benefit. Eugene did not get to see the\nclass rooms, but he gained a sense of the art of it all, nevertheless,\nfor the halls and offices were decorated in an artistic way, and there\nwere many plaster casts of arms, legs, busts, and thighs and heads. It\nwas as though one stood in an open doorway and looked out upon a new\nworld. The one thing that gratified him was that he could study pen and\nink or brush in the illustration class, and that he could also join a\nsketch class from five to six every afternoon without extra charges if\nhe preferred to devote his evening hours to studying drawing in the life\nclass. He was a little astonished to learn from a printed prospectus\ngiven him that the life class meant nude models to work from--both men\nand women. He was surely approaching a different world now. It seemed\nnecessary and natural enough, and yet there was an aloof atmosphere\nabout it, something that suggested the inner precincts of a shrine, to\nwhich only talent was admitted. Was he talented? Wait! He would show the\nworld, even if he was a raw country boy.\n\nThe classes which he decided to enter were first a life class which\nconvened Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings at seven in one of the\nstudy rooms and remained in session until ten o'clock, and second a\nsketch class which met from five to six every afternoon. Eugene felt\nthat he knew little or nothing about figure and anatomy and had better\nwork at that. Costume and illustration would have to wait, and as for\nthe landscapes, or rather city-scapes, of which he was so fond, he could\nafford to defer those until he learned something of the fundamentals of\nart.\n\nHeretofore he had rarely attempted the drawing of a face or figure\nexcept in miniature and as details of a larger scene. Now he was\nconfronted with the necessity of sketching in charcoal the head or body\nof a living person, and it frightened him a little. He knew that he\nwould be in a class with fifteen or twenty other male students. They\nwould be able to see and comment on what he was doing. Twice a week an\ninstructor would come around and pass upon his work. There were honors\nfor those who did the best work during any one month, he learned from\nthe prospectus, namely: first choice of seats around the model at the\nbeginning of each new pose. The class instructors must be of\nconsiderable significance in the American art world, he thought, for\nthey were N. A.'s, and that meant National Academicians. He little knew\nwith what contempt this honor was received in some quarters, or he would\nnot have attached so much significance to it.\n\nOne Monday evening in October, armed with the several sheets of paper\nwhich he had been told to purchase by his all-informing prospectus, he\nbegan his work. He was a little nervous at sight of the brightly lighted\nhalls and class rooms, and the moving crowd of young men and women did\nnot tend to allay his fears. He was struck at once with the quality of\ngaiety, determination and easy grace which marked the different members\nof this company. The boys struck him as interesting, virile, in many\ncases good looking; the girls as graceful, rather dashing and confident.\nOne or two whom he noted were beautiful in a dark way. This was a\nwonderful world.\n\nThe rooms too, were exceptional. They were old enough in use to be\nalmost completely covered, as to the walls, with the accumulation of\npaint scraped from the palettes. There were no easels or other\nparaphernalia, but simply chairs and little stools--the former, as\nEugene learned, to be turned upside down for easels, the latter for the\nstudents to sit on. In the center of the room was a platform, the height\nof an ordinary table, for the model to pose on, and in one corner a\nscreen which constituted a dressing room. There were no pictures or\nstatuary--just the bare walls--but curiously, in one corner, a piano.\nOut in the halls and in the general lounging center were pictures of\nnude figures or parts of figures posed in all sorts of ways which\nEugene, in his raw, youthful way, thought suggestive. He secretly\nrejoiced to look at them but he felt that he must not say anything about\nwhat he thought. An art student, he felt sure, must appear to be\nindifferent to such suggestion--to be above such desire. They were here\nto work, not to dream of women.\n\nWhen the time came for the classes to assemble there was a scurrying to\nand fro, conferring between different students, and then the men found\nthemselves in one set of rooms and the women in another. Eugene saw a\nyoung girl in his room, sitting up near the screen, idly gazing about.\nShe was pretty, of a slightly Irish cast of countenance, with black hair\nand black eyes. She wore a cap that was an imitation of the Polish\nnational head-dress, and a red cape. Eugene assumed her to be the class\nmodel and secretly wondered if he was really to see her in the nude. In\na few minutes all the students were gathered, and then there was a stir\nas there strolled in a rather vigorous and picturesque man of thirty-six\nor thereabouts, who sauntered to the front of the room and called the\nclass to order. He was clad in a shabby suit of grey tweed and crowned\nwith a little brown hat, shoved rakishly over one ear, which he did not\ntrouble to take off. He wore a soft blue hickory shirt without collar or\ntie, and looked immensely self-sufficient. He was tall and lean and\nraw-boned, with a face which was long and narrow; his eyes were large\nand wide set, his mouth big and firm in its lines; he had big hands and\nfeet, and an almost rolling gait. Eugene assumed instinctively that this\nwas Mr. Temple Boyle, N. A., the class instructor, and he imagined there\nwould be an opening address of some kind. But the instructor merely\nannounced that Mr. William Ray had been appointed monitor and that he\nhoped that there would be no disorder or wasting of time. There would be\nregular criticism days by him--Wednesdays and Fridays. He hoped that\neach pupil would be able to show marked improvement. The class would now\nbegin work. Then he strolled out.\n\nEugene soon learned from one of the students that this really was\nMr. Boyle. The young Irish girl had gone behind the screen. Eugene could\nsee partially, from where he was sitting, that she was disrobing. It\nshocked him a little, but he kept his courage and his countenance\nbecause of the presence of so many others. He turned a chair upside down\nas he saw the others do, and sat down on a stool. His charcoal was lying\nin a little box beside him. He straightened his paper on its board and\nfidgeted, keeping as still as he could. Some of the students were\ntalking. Suddenly he saw the girl divest herself of a thin, gauze shirt,\nand the next moment she came out, naked and composed, to step upon the\nplatform and stand perfectly erect, her arms by her side, her head\nthrown back. Eugene tingled and blushed and was almost afraid to look\ndirectly at her. Then he took a stick of charcoal and began sketching\nfeebly, attempting to convey something of this personality and this pose\nto paper. It seemed a wonderful thing for him to be doing--to be in this\nroom, to see this girl posing so; in short, to be an art student. So\nthis was what it was, a world absolutely different from anything he had\never known. And he was self-called to be a member of it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nIt was after he had decided to enter the art class that Eugene paid his\nfirst visit to his family. Though they were only a hundred miles away,\nhe had never felt like going back, even at Christmas. Now it seemed to\nhim he had something definite to proclaim. He was going to be an artist;\nand as to his work, he was getting along well in that. Mr. Mitchly\nappeared to like him. It was to Mr. Mitchly that he reported daily with\nhis collections and his unsatisfied bills. The collections were checked\nup by Mr. Mitchly with the cash, and the unpaid bills certified.\nSometimes Eugene made a mistake, having too much or too little, but the\n\"too much\" was always credited against the \"too little,\" so that in the\nmain he came out even. In money matters there was no tendency on\nEugene's part to be dishonest. He thought of lots of things he wanted,\nbut he was fairly well content to wait and come by them legitimately. It\nwas this note in him that appealed to Mitchly. He thought that possibly\nsomething could be made of Eugene in a trade way.\n\nHe left the Friday night preceding Labor Day, the first Monday in\nSeptember, which was a holiday throughout the city. He had told\nMr. Mitchly that he thought of leaving Saturday after work for over\nSunday and Monday, but Mr. Mitchly suggested that he might double up his\nSaturday's work with Thursday's and Friday's if he wished, and go Friday\nevening.\n\n\"Saturday's a short day, anyhow,\" he said. \"That would give three days\nat home and still you wouldn't be behind in your work.\"\n\nEugene thanked his employer and did as suggested. He packed his bag with\nthe best he had in the way of clothes, and journeyed homeward, wondering\nhow he would find things. How different it all was! Stella was gone. His\nyouthful unsophistication had passed. He could go home as a city man\nwith some prospects. He had no idea of how boyish he looked--how much\nthe idealist he was--how far removed from hard, practical judgment which\nthe world values so highly.\n\nWhen the train reached Alexandria, his father and Myrtle and Sylvia were\nat the depot to greet him--the latter with her two year old son. They\nhad all come down in the family carryall, which left one seat for\nEugene. He greeted them warmly and received their encomiums on his looks\nwith a befitting sense of humility.\n\n\"You're bigger,\" his father exclaimed. \"You're going to be a tall man\nafter all, Eugene. I was afraid you had stopped growing.\"\n\n\"I hadn't noticed that I had grown any,\" said Eugene.\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" put in Myrtle. \"You're much bigger, Gene. It makes you look a\nlittle thinner. Are you good and strong?\"\n\n\"I ought to be,\" laughed Eugene. \"I walk about fifteen or twenty miles a\nday, and I'm out in the air all the time. If I don't get strong now I\nnever will.\"\n\nSylvia asked him about his \"stomach trouble.\" About the same, he told\nher. Sometimes he thought it was better, sometimes worse. A doctor had\ntold him to drink hot water in the morning but he didn't like to do it.\nIt was so hard to swallow the stuff.\n\nWhile they were talking, asking questions, they reached the front gate\nof the house, and Mrs. Witla came out on the front porch. Eugene, at\nsight of her in the late dusk, jumped over the front wheel and ran to\nmeet her.\n\n\"Little ma,\" he exclaimed. \"Didn't expect me back so soon, did you?\"\n\n\"So soon,\" she said, her arms around his neck. Then she held him so,\nquite still for a few moments. \"You're getting to be a big man,\" she\nsaid when she released him.\n\nHe went into the old sitting room and looked around. It was all quite\nthe same--no change. There were the same books, the same table, the same\nchairs, the same pulley lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling. In\nthe parlor there was nothing new, nor in the bed rooms or the kitchen.\nHis mother looked a little older--his father not. Sylvia had changed\ngreatly--being slightly \"peaked\" in the face compared to her former\nplumpness; it was due to motherhood, he thought. Myrtle seemed a little\nmore calm and happy. She had a real \"steady\" now, Frank Bangs, the\nsuperintendent of the local furniture factory. He was quite young,\ngood-looking, going to be well-off some day, so they thought. \"Old\nBill,\" one of the big horses, had been sold. Rover, one of the two\ncollies, was dead. Jake the cat had been killed in a night brawl\nsomewhere.\n\nSomehow, as Eugene stood in the kitchen watching his mother fry a big\nsteak and make biscuits and gravy in honor of his coming, he felt that\nhe did not belong to this world any more. It was smaller, narrower than\nhe had ever thought. The town had seemed smaller as he had come through\nits streets, the houses too; and yet it was nice. The yards were sweet\nand simple, but countrified. His father, running a sewing machine\nbusiness, seemed tremendously limited. He had a country or small town\nmind. It struck Eugene as curious now, that they had never had a piano.\nAnd Myrtle liked music, too. As for himself, he had learned that he was\npassionately fond of it. There were organ recitals in the Central Music\nHall, of Chicago, on Tuesday and Friday afternoons, and he had managed\nto attend some after his work. There were great preachers like Prof.\nSwing and the Rev. H. W. Thomas and the Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus and Prof.\nSaltus, liberal thinkers all, whose public services in the city were\nalways accompanied by lovely music. Eugene had found all these men and\ntheir services in his search for life and to avoid being lonely. Now\nthey had taught him that his old world was no world at all. It was a\nsmall town. He would never come to this any more.\n\nAfter a sound night's rest in his old room he went down the next day to\nsee Mr. Caleb Williams at the _Appeal_ office, and Mr. Burgess, and\nJonas Lyle, and John Summers. As he went, on the court house square he\nmet Ed Mitchell and George Taps and Will Groniger, and four or five\nothers whom he had known in school. From them he learned how things\nwere. It appeared that George Anderson had married a local girl and was\nin Chicago, working out in the stock yards. Ed Waterbury had gone to San\nFrancisco. The pretty Sampson girl, Bessie Sampson, who had once gone\nwith Ted Martinwood so much, had run away with a man from Anderson,\nIndiana. There had been a lot of talk about it at the time. Eugene\nlistened.\n\nIt all seemed less, though, than the new world that he had entered. Of\nthese fellows none knew the visions that were now surging in his brain.\nParis--no less--and New York--by what far route he could scarcely tell.\nAnd Will Groniger had got to be a baggage clerk at one of the two depots\nand was proud of it. Good Heavens!\n\nAt the office of the _Appeal_ things were unchanged. Somehow Eugene had\nhad the feeling that two years would make a lot of difference, whereas\nthe difference was in him only. He was the one who had undergone\ncataclysmic changes. He had a been a stove polisher, a real estate\nassistant, a driver and a collector. He had known Margaret Duff, and\nMr. Redwood, of the laundry, and Mr. Mitchly. The great city had dawned\non him; Verestchagin, and Bouguereau, and the Art Institute. He was\ngoing on at one pace, the town was moving at another one--a slower, but\nquite as fast as it had ever gone.\n\nCaleb Williams was there, skipping about as of yore, cheerful,\ncommunicative, interested. \"I'm glad to see you back, Eugene,\" he\ndeclared, fixing him with the one good eye which watered. \"I'm glad\nyou're getting along--that's fine. Going to be an artist, eh? Well, I\nthink that's what you were cut out for. I wouldn't advise every young\nfellow to go to Chicago, but that's where you belong. If it wasn't for\nmy wife and three children I never would have left it. When you get a\nwife and family though--\" he paused and shook his head. \"I gad! You got\nto do the best you can.\" Then he went to look up some missing copy.\n\nJonas Lyle was as portly, phlegmatic and philosophic as ever. He greeted\nEugene with a solemn eye in which there was inquiry. \"Well, how is it?\"\nhe asked.\n\nEugene smiled. \"Oh, pretty good.\"\n\n\"Not going to be a printer, then?\"\n\n\"No, I think not.\"\n\n\"Well, it's just as well, there're an awful lot of them.\"\n\nWhile they were talking John Summers sidled up.\n\n\"How are you, Mr. Witla?\" he inquired.\n\nEugene looked at him. John was certainly marked for the grave in the\nnear future. He was thinner, of a bluish-grey color, bent at the\nshoulders.\n\n\"Why, I'm fine, Mr. Summers,\" Eugene said.\n\n\"I'm not so good,\" said the old printer. He tapped his chest\nsignificantly. \"This thing's getting the best of me.\"\n\n\"Don't you believe it,\" put in Lyle. \"John's always gloomy. He's just as\ngood as ever. I tell him he'll live twenty years yet.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said Summers, shaking his head, \"I know.\"\n\nHe left after a bit to \"go across the street,\" his customary drinking\nexcuse.\n\n\"He can't last another year,\" Lyle observed the moment the door was\nclosed. \"Burgess only keeps him because it would be a shame to turn him\nout. But he's done for.\"\n\n\"Anyone can see that,\" said Eugene. \"He looks terrible.\"\n\nSo they talked.\n\nAt noon he went home. Myrtle announced that he was to come with her and\nMr. Bangs to a party that evening. There were going to be games and\nrefreshments. It never occurred to him that in this town there had never\nbeen dancing among the boys and girls he moved with, and scarcely any\nmusic. People did not have pianos--or at least only a few of them.\n\nAfter supper Mr. Bangs called, and the three of them went to a typical\nsmall town party. It was not much different from the ones Eugene had\nattended with Stella, except that the participants were, in the main,\njust that much older. Two years make a great deal of difference in\nyouth. There were some twenty-two young men and women all crowded into\nthree fair sized rooms and on a porch, the windows and doors leading to\nwhich were open. Outside were brown grass and some autumn flowers. Early\ncrickets were chirping, and there were late fire-flies. It was warm and\npleasant.\n\nThe opening efforts to be sociable were a little stiff. There were\nintroductions all around, much smart badinage among town dandies, for\nmost of them were here. There were a number of new faces--girls who had\nmoved in from other towns or blossomed into maturity since Eugene had\nleft.\n\n\"If you'll marry me, Madge, I'll buy you a nice new pair of seal skin\nearrings,\" he heard one of the young bloods remark.\n\nEugene smiled, and the girl laughed back. \"He always thinks he's so\ncute.\"\n\nIt was almost impossible for Eugene to break through the opening sense\nof reserve which clogged his actions at everything in the way of social\ndiversion. He was a little nervous because he was afraid of criticism.\nThat was his vanity and deep egotism. He stood about, trying to get into\nthe swing of the thing with a bright remark or two. Just as he was\nbeginning to bubble, a girl came in from one of the other rooms. Eugene\nhad not met her. She was with his prospective brother-in-law, Bangs, and\nwas laughing in a sweet, joyous way which arrested his attention. She\nwas dressed in white, he noticed, with a band of golden brown ribbon\npulled through the loops above the flounces at the bottom of her dress.\nHer hair was a wonderful ashen yellow, a great mass of it--and laid in\nbig, thick braids above her forehead and ears. Her nose was straight,\nher lips were thin and red, her cheek-bones faintly but curiously\nnoticeable. Somehow there was a sense of distinction about her--a faint\naroma of personality which Eugene did not understand. It appealed to\nhim.\n\nBangs brought her over. He was a tight, smiling youth, as sound as oak,\nas clear as good water.\n\n\"Here's Miss Blue, Eugene. She's from up in Wisconsin, and comes down to\nChicago occasionally. I told her you ought to know her. You might meet\nup there sometime.\"\n\n\"Say, but that's good luck, isn't it?\" smiled Eugene. \"I'm sure I'm glad\nto know you. What part of Wisconsin do you come from?\"\n\n\"Blackwood,\" she laughed, her greenish-blue eyes dancing.\n\n\"Her hair is yellow, her eyes are blue, and she comes from Blackwood,\"\ncommented Bangs. \"How's that?\" His big mouth, with its even teeth, was\nwide with a smile.\n\n\"You left out the blue name and the white dress. She ought to wear white\nall the time.\"\n\n\"Oh, it does harmonize with my name, doesn't it?\" she cried. \"At home I\ndo wear white mostly. You see I'm just a country girl, and I make most\nof my things.\"\n\n\"Did you make that?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"Of course I did.\"\n\nBangs moved away a little, looking at her as if critically. \"Well,\nthat's really pretty,\" he pronounced.\n\n\"Mr. Bangs is such a flatterer,\" she smiled at Eugene. \"He doesn't mean\nany thing he says. He just tells me one thing after another.\"\n\n\"He's right,\" said Eugene. \"I agree as to the dress, and it fits the\nhair wonderfully.\"\n\n\"You see, he's lost, too,\" laughed Bangs. \"That's the way they all do.\nWell, I'm going to leave you two. I've got to get back. I left your\nsister in the hands of a rival of mine.\"\n\nEugene turned to this girl and laughed his reserved laugh. \"I was just\nthinking what was going to become of me. I've been away for two years,\nand I've lost track of some of these people.\"\n\n\"I'm worse yet. I've only been here two weeks and I scarcely know\nanybody. Mrs. King takes me around everywhere, but it's all so new I\ncan't get hold of it. I think Alexandria is lovely.\"\n\n\"It is nice. I suppose you've been out on the lakes?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. We've fished and rowed and camped. I have had a lovely time\nbut I have to go back tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Do you?\" said Eugene. \"Why I do too. I'm going to take the\nfour-fifteen.\"\n\n\"So am I!\" she laughed. \"Perhaps we can go together.\"\n\n\"Why, certainly. That's fine. I thought I'd have to go back alone. I\nonly came down for over Sunday. I've been working up in Chicago.\"\n\nThey fell to telling each other their histories. She was from Blackwood,\nonly eighty-five miles from Chicago, and had lived there all her life.\nThere were several brothers and sisters. Her father was evidently a\nfarmer and politician and what not, and Eugene gleaned from stray\nremarks that they must be well thought of, though poor. One\nbrother-in-law was spoken of as a banker; another as the owner of a\ngrain elevator; she herself was a school teacher at Blackwood--had been\nfor several years.\n\nEugene did not realize it, but she was fully five years older than\nhimself, with the tact and the superior advantage which so much\ndifference in years brings. She was tired of school-teaching, tired of\ncaring for the babies of married sisters, tired of being left to work\nand stay at home when the ideal marrying age was rapidly passing. She\nwas interested in able people, and silly village boys did not appeal to\nher. There was one who was begging her to marry him at this moment, but\nhe was a slow soul up in Blackwood, not actually worthy of her nor able\nto support her well. She was hopefully, sadly, vaguely, madly longing\nfor something better, and as yet nothing had ever turned up. This\nmeeting with Eugene was not anything which promised a way out to her.\nShe was not seeking so urgently--nor did she give introductions that\nsort of a twist in her consciousness. But this young man had an appeal\nfor her beyond anyone she had met recently. They were in sympathetic\naccord, apparently. She liked his clear, big eyes, his dark hair, his\nrather waxen complexion. He seemed something better than she had known,\nand she hoped that he would be nice to her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nThe rest of that evening Eugene spent not exactly with, but near Miss\nBlue--Miss Angela Blue, as he found her name to be. He was interested in\nher not so much from the point of view of looks, though she was charming\nenough, but because of some peculiarity of temperament which lingered\nwith him as a grateful taste might dwell on the palate. He thought her\nyoung; and was charmed by what he considered her innocence and\nunsophistication. As a matter of fact she was not so much young and\nunsophisticated as an unconscious simulator of simplicity. In the\nconventional sense she was a thoroughly good girl, loyal, financially\nhonest, truthful in all commonplace things, and thoroughly virtuous,\nmoreover, in that she considered marriage and children the fate and duty\nof all women. Having had so much trouble with other peoples' children\nshe was not anxious to have any, or at least many, of her own. Of\ncourse, she did not believe that she would escape with what seemed to be\nany such good fortune. She fancied that she would be like her sisters,\nthe wife of a good business or professional man; the mother of three or\nfour or five healthy children; the keeper of an ideal middle class home;\nthe handmaiden of her husband's needs. There was a deep current of\npassion in her which she had come to feel would never be satisfied. No\nman would ever understand, no man at least whom she was likely to meet;\nbut she knew she had a great capacity to love. If someone would only\ncome along and arouse that--be worthy of it--what a whirlwind of\naffection she would return to him! How she would love, how sacrifice!\nBut it seemed now that her dreams were destined never to be fulfilled,\nbecause so much time had slipped by and she had not been courted by the\nright one. So here she was now at twenty-five, dreaming and longing--the\nobject of her ideals thus accidentally brought before her, and no\nimmediate consciousness that that was the case.\n\nIt does not take sexual affinity long to manifest itself, once its\nsubjects are brought near to each other. Eugene was older in certain\nforms of knowledge, broader in a sense, potentially greater than she\nwould ever comprehend; but nevertheless, swayed helplessly by emotion\nand desire. Her own emotions, though perhaps stronger than his, were\ndifferently aroused. The stars, the night, a lovely scene, any exquisite\nattribute of nature could fascinate him to the point of melancholy. With\nher, nature in its largest aspects passed practically unnoticed. She\nresponded to music feelingly, as did Eugene. In literature, only realism\nappealed to him; for her, sentiment, strained though not necessarily\nunreal, had the greatest charm. Art in its purely aesthetic forms meant\nnothing at all to her. To Eugene it was the last word in the matter of\nemotional perception. History, philosophy, logic, psychology, were\nsealed books to her. To Eugene they were already open doors, or, better\nyet, flowery paths of joy, down which he was wandering. Yet in spite of\nthese things they were being attracted toward each other.\n\nAnd there were other differences. With Eugene convention meant nothing\nat all, and his sense of evil and good was something which the ordinary\nperson would not have comprehended. He was prone to like all sorts and\nconditions of human beings--the intellectual, the ignorant, the clean,\nthe dirty, the gay, the sorrowful, white, yellow, black. As for Angela,\nshe had a distinct preference for those who conducted themselves\naccording to given standards of propriety. She was brought up to think\nof those people as best who worked the hardest, denied themselves the\nmost, and conformed to the ordinary notions of right and wrong. There\nwas no questioning of current standards in her mind. As it was written\nsocially and ethically upon the tables of the law, so was it. There\nmight be charming characters outside the pale, but they were not\nadmitted to association or sympathy. To Eugene a human being was a human\nbeing. The ruck of misfits or ne'er-do-wells he could laugh joyously\nwith or at. It was all wonderful, beautiful, amusing. Even its grimness\nand tragedy were worth while, although they hurt him terribly at times.\nWhy, under these circumstances, he should have been so thoroughly\nattracted to Angela remains a mystery. Perhaps they complemented each\nother at this time as a satellite complements a larger luminary--for\nEugene's egoism required praise, sympathy, feminine coddling; and Angela\ncaught fire from the warmth and geniality of his temperament.\n\nOn the train next day Eugene had nearly three hours of what he deemed\nmost delightful talk with her. They had not journeyed far before he had\ntold her how he had traveled this way, on this train, at this hour, two\nyears before; how he had walked about the streets of the big city,\nlooking for a place to sleep, how he had got work and stayed away until\nhe felt that he had found himself. Now he was going to study art and\nthen to New York or Paris, and do magazine illustrating and possibly\npaint pictures. He was truly your flamboyant youth of talent when he got\nto talking--when he had a truly sympathetic ear. He loved to boast to\nsomeone who really admired him, and he felt that he had admiration here.\nAngela looked at him with swimming eyes. He was really different from\nanything she had ever known, young, artistic, imaginative, ambitious. He\nwas going out into a world which she had longed for but never hoped to\nsee--that of art. Here he was telling her of his prospective art\nstudies, and talking of Paris. What a wonderful thing!\n\nAs the train neared Chicago she explained that she would have to make an\nalmost immediate connection with one which left over the Chicago\nMilwaukee and St. Paul, for Blackwood. She was a little lonely, to tell\nthe truth, a little sick at heart, for the summer vacation was over and\nshe was going back to teach school. Alexandria, for the two weeks she\nhad been there visiting Mrs. King (formerly a Blackwood girl and\nschool-day chum of hers), was lovely. Her girlhood friend had tried to\nmake things most pleasant and now it was all over. Even Eugene was over,\nfor he said nothing much of seeing her again, or had not so far. She was\nwishing she might see more of this world he painted in such glowing\ncolors, when he said:\n\n\"Mr. Bangs said that you come down to Chicago every now and then?\"\n\n\"I do,\" she replied. \"I sometimes come down to go to the theatres and\nshop.\" She did not say that there was an element of practical household\ncommercialism in it, for she was considered one of the best buyers in\nthe family and that she was sent to buy by various members of the family\nin quantities. From a practical household point of view she was a\nthoroughbred and was valued by her sisters and friends as someone who\nloved to do things. She might have come to be merely a family pack\nhorse, solely because she loved to work. It was instinct to do\neverything she did thoroughly, but she worked almost exclusively in\nminor household matters.\n\n\"How soon do you expect to come down again?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, I can't tell. I sometimes come down when Opera is on in the winter.\nI may be here around Thanksgiving.\"\n\n\"Not before that?\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" she replied archly.\n\n\"That's too bad. I thought maybe I'd see you a few times this fall. When\nyou do come I wish you could let me know. I'd like to take you to the\ntheatre.\"\n\nEugene spent precious little money on any entertainment, but he thought\nhe could venture this. She would not be down often. Then, too, he had\nthe notion that he might get a rise one of these days--that would make a\ndifference. When she came again he would be in art school, opening up\nanother field for himself. Life looked hopeful.\n\n\"That's so nice of you,\" she replied. \"And when I come I'll let you\nknow. I'm just a country girl,\" she added, with a toss of her head, \"and\nI don't get to the city often.\"\n\nEugene liked what he considered the guileless naivete of her\nconfessions--the frankness with which she owned up to simplicity and\npoverty. Most girls didn't. She almost made a virtue out of these\nthing--at least they were charming as a confession in her.\n\n\"I'll hold you to that,\" he assured her.\n\n\"Oh, you needn't. I'll be glad to let you know.\"\n\nThey were nearing the station. He forgot, for the moment that she was\nnot as remote and delicate in her beauty as Stella, that she was\napparently not as passionate temperamentally as Margaret. He saw her\nwonderfully dull hair and her thin lips and peculiar blue eyes, and\nadmired her honesty and simplicity. He picked up her grip and helped her\nto find her train. When they came to part he pressed her hand warmly,\nfor she had been very nice to him, so attentive and sympathetic and\ninterested.\n\n\"Now remember!\" he said gaily, after he had put her in her seat in the\nlocal.\n\n\"I won't forget.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't mind if I wrote you now and then?\"\n\n\"Not at all. I'd like it.\"\n\n\"Then I will,\" he said, and went out.\n\nHe stood outside and looked at her through the train window as it pulled\nout. He was glad to have met her. This was the right sort of girl,\nclean, honest, simple, attractive. That was the way the best women\nwere--good and pure--not wild pieces of fire like Margaret; nor\nunconscious, indifferent beauties like Stella, he was going to add, but\ncouldn't. There was a voice within him that said that artistically\nStella was perfect and even now it hurt him a little to remember. But\nStella was gone forever, there was no doubt about that.\n\nDuring the days that followed he thought of the girl often. He wondered\nwhat sort of a town Blackwood was; what sort of people she moved with,\nwhat sort of a house she lived in. They must be nice, simple people like\nhis own in Alexandria. These types of city bred people whom he\nsaw--girls particularly--and those born to wealth, had no appeal for him\nas yet. They were too distant, too far removed from anything he could\naspire to. A good woman such as Miss Blue obviously was, must be a\ntreasure anywhere in the world. He kept thinking he would write to\nher--he had no other girl acquaintance now; and just before he entered\nart school he did this, penning a little note saying that he remembered\nso pleasantly their ride; and when was she coming? Her answer, after a\nweek, was that she expected to be in the city about the middle or the\nend of October and that she would be glad to have him call. She gave him\nthe number of an aunt who lived out on the North Side in Ohio Street,\nand said she would notify him further. She was hard at work teaching\nschool now, and didn't even have time to think of the lovely summer she\nhad had.\n\n\"Poor little girl,\" he thought. She deserved a better fate. \"When she\ncomes I'll surely look her up,\" he thought, and there was a lot that\nwent with the idea. Such wonderful hair!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nThe succeeding days in the art school after his first admission revealed\nmany new things to Eugene. He understood now, or thought he did, why\nartists were different from the rank and file of mankind. This Art\nInstitute atmosphere was something so refreshing after his days rambling\namong poor neighborhoods collecting, that he could hardly believe that\nhe, Eugene Witla, belonged there. These were exceptional young people;\nsome of them, anyhow. If they weren't cut out to be good artists they\nstill had imagination--the dream of the artist. They came, as Eugene\ngradually learned, from all parts of the West and South, from Chicago\nand St. Louis--from Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa--from Texas and California\nand Minnesota. One boy was in from Saskatchewan of the Canadian north\nwest, another from the then territory of New Mexico. Because his name\nwas Gill they called him the Gila monster--the difference in the\npronunciation of the \"G's\" not troubling them at all. A boy who came\ndown from Minnesota was a farmer's son, and talked about going back to\nplow and sow and reap during the next spring and summer. Another boy was\nthe son of a Kansas City millionaire.\n\nThe mechanics of drawing interested Eugene from the first. He learned\nthe first night that there was some defect in his understanding of light\nand shade as it related to the human form. He could not get any\nroundness or texture in his drawings.\n\n\"The darkest shadow is always closest to the high light,\" observed his\ninstructor laconically on Wednesday evening, looking over his shoulder.\n\"You're making everything a dull, even tone.\" So that was it.\n\n\"You're drawing this figure as a bricklayer who isn't an architect might\nstart to build a house. You're laying bricks without having a plan.\nWhere's your plan?\" The voice was that of Mr. Boyle looking over his\nshoulder.\n\nEugene looked up. He had begun to draw the head only.\n\n\"A plan! A plan!\" said his instructor, making a peculiar motion with his\nhands which described the outline of the pose in a single motion. \"Get\nyour general lines first. Then you can put in the details afterward.\"\n\nEugene saw at once.\n\nAnother time his instructor was watching him draw the female breast. He\nwas doing it woodenly--without much beauty of contour.\n\n\"They're round! They're round! I tell you!\" exclaimed Boyle. \"If you\never see any square ones let me know.\"\n\nThis caught Eugene's sense of humor. It made him laugh, even though he\nflushed painfully, for he knew he had a lot to learn.\n\nThe cruelest thing he heard this man say was to a boy who was rather\nthick and fat but conscientious. \"You can't draw,\" he said roughly.\n\"Take my advice and go home. You'll make more money driving a wagon.\"\n\nThe class winced, but this man was ugly in his intolerance of futility.\nThe idea of anybody wasting his time was obnoxious to him. He took art\nas a business man takes business, and he had no time for the misfit, the\nfool, or the failure. He wanted his class to know that art meant effort.\n\nAside from this brutal insistence on the significance of art, there was\nanother side to the life which was not so hard and in a way more\nalluring. Between the twenty-five minute poses which the model took,\nthere were some four or five minute rests during the course of the\nevening in which the students talked, relighted their pipes and did much\nas they pleased. Sometimes students from other classes came in for a few\nmoments.\n\nThe thing that astonished Eugene though, was the freedom of the model\nwith the students and the freedom of the students with her. After the\nfirst few weeks he observed some of those who had been there the year\nbefore going up to the platform where the girl sat, and talking with\nher. She had a little pink gauze veil which she drew around her\nshoulders or waist that instead of reducing the suggestiveness of her\nattitudes heightened them.\n\n\"Say, ain't that enough to make everything go black in front of your\neyes,\" said one boy sitting next to Eugene.\n\n\"Well, I guess,\" he laughed. \"There's some edge to that.\"\n\nThe boys would sit and laugh and jest with this girl, and she would\nlaugh and coquette in return. He saw her strolling about looking at some\nof the students' drawings of her over their shoulders, standing face to\nface with others--and so calmly. The strong desire which it invariably\naroused in Eugene he quelled and concealed, for these things were not to\nbe shown on the surface. Once, while he was looking at some photographs\nthat a student had brought, she came and looked over his shoulder, this\nlittle flower of the streets, her body graced by the thin scarf, her\nlips and cheeks red with color. She came so close that she leaned\nagainst his shoulder and arm with her soft flesh. It pulled him tense,\nlike a great current; but he made no sign, pretending that it was the\nveriest commonplace. Several times, because the piano was there, and\nbecause students would sing and play in the interludes, she came and sat\non the piano stool herself, strumming out an accompaniment to which some\none or three or four would sing. Somehow this, of all things, seemed\nmost sensuous to him--most oriental. It set him wild. He felt his teeth\nclick without volition on his part. When she resumed her pose, his\npassion subsided, for then the cold, aesthetic value of her beauty became\nuppermost. It was only the incidental things that upset him.\n\nIn spite of these disturbances, Eugene was gradually showing improvement\nas a draughtsman and an artist. He liked to draw the figure. He was not\nas quick at that as he was at the more varied outlines of landscapes and\nbuildings, but he could give lovely sensuous touches to the human\nform--particularly to the female form--which were beginning to be\nimpressive. He'd got past the place where Boyle had ever to say \"They're\nround.\" He gave a sweep to his lines that attracted the instructor's\nattention.\n\n\"You're getting the thing as a whole, I see,\" he said quietly, one day.\nEugene thrilled with satisfaction. Another Wednesday he said:--\"A little\ncolder, my boy, a little colder. There's sex in that. It isn't in the\nfigure. You ought to make a good mural decorator some day, if you have\nthe inclination,\" Boyle went on; \"you've got the sense of beauty.\" The\nroots of Eugene's hair tingled. So art was coming to him. This man saw\nhis capacity. He really had art in him.\n\nOne evening a paper sign pasted up on the bulletin board bore the\nsignificant legend: \"Artists! Attention! We eat! We eat! Nov. 16th. at\nSofroni's. All those who want to get in give their names to the\nmonitor.\"\n\nEugene had heard nothing of this, but he judged that it originated in\none of the other classes. He spoke to the monitor and learned that only\nseventy-five cents was required of him. Students could bring girls if\nthey wished. Most of them would. He decided that he would go. But where\nto get a girl? Sofroni's was an Italian restaurant in lower Clark\nStreet, which had originally started out as an eating place for Italian\nlaborers, because it was near an Italian boarding house section. It was\nlocated in an old house that was not exactly homely. A yard in the back\nhad been set with plain wooden tables, and benches had been placed for\nuse in the summer time and, later, this had been covered with a mouldy\ntent-cloth to protect the diners from rain. Still later this became\nglass and was used in winter. The place was clean and the food good.\nSome struggling craftsman in journalism and art had found it and by\ndegrees Signor Sofroni had come to realize that he was dealing with a\nbetter element. He began to exchange greetings with these people to set\naside a little corner for them. Finally he entertained a small group of\nthem at dinner--charging them hardly more than cost price--and so he was\nlaunched. One student told another. Sofroni now had his yard covered in\nso that he could entertain a hundred at dinner, even in winter. He could\nserve several kinds of wines and liquors with a dinner for seventy-five\ncents a piece. So he was popular.\n\nThe dinner was the culmination of several other class treats. It was the\ncustom of a class, whenever a stranger, or even a new member appeared,\nto yell \"Treat! Treat!\" at which the victim or new member was supposed\nto produce two dollars as a contribution to a beer fund. If the money\nwas not produced--the stranger was apt to be thrown out or some\nridiculous trick played upon him--if it was forthcoming, work for the\nevening ceased. A collection was immediately taken up. Kegs of beer were\nsent for, with sandwiches and cheese. Drinking, singing, piano playing,\njesting followed. Once, to Eugene's utter astonishment, one of the\nstudents--a big, good natured, carousing boy from Omaha--lifted the nude\nmodel to his shoulders, set her astride his neck and proceeded around\nthe room, jigging as he went--the girl meantime pulling his black hair,\nthe other students following and shouting uproariously. Some of the\ngirls in an adjoining room, studying in an evening life class, stopped\ntheir work to peep through a half dozen small holes which had been\npunched in the intervening partition. The sight of Showalter carrying\nthe girl so astonished the eavesdroppers that the news of it was soon\nall over the building. Knowledge of the escapade reached the Secretary\nand the next day the student was dropped. But the Bacchic dance had been\nenacted--its impression was left.\n\nThere were other treats like this in which Eugene was urged to drink,\nand he did--a very little. He had no taste for beer. He also tried to\nsmoke, but he did not care for it. He could become nervously intoxicated\nat times, by the mere sight of such revelry, and then he grew witty,\neasy in his motions, quick to say bright things. On one of these\noccasions one of the models said to him: \"Why, you're nicer than I\nthought. I imagined you were very solemn.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" he said, \"only at times. You don't know me.\"\n\nHe seized her about the waist, but she pushed him away. He wished now\nthat he danced, for he saw that he might have whirled her about the room\nthen and there. He decided to learn at once.\n\nThe question of a girl for the dinner, troubled him. He knew of no one\nexcept Margaret, and he did not know that she danced. There was Miss\nBlue, of Blackwood--whom he had seen when she made her promised visit to\nthe city--but the thought of her in connection with anything like this\nwas to him incongruous. He wondered what she would think if she saw such\nscenes as he had witnessed.\n\nIt chanced that one day when he was in the members' room, he met Miss\nKenny, the girl whom he had seen posing the night he had entered the\nschool. Eugene remembered her fascination, for she was the first nude\nmodel he had ever seen and she was pretty. She was also the one who had\ncome and stood by him when she was posing. He had not seen her since\nthen. She had liked Eugene, but he had seemed a little distant and, at\nfirst, a little commonplace. Lately he had taken to a loose, flowing tie\nand a soft round hat which became him. He turned his hair back loosely\nand emulated the independent swing of Mr. Temple Boyle. That man was a\nsort of god to him--strong and successful. To be like that!\n\nThe girl noted a change for what she deemed the better. He was so nice\nnow, she thought, so white-skinned and clear-eyed and keen.\n\nShe pretended to be looking at the drawing of a nude when she saw him.\n\n\"How are you?\" he asked, smiling, venturing to speak to her because he\nwas lonely and because he knew no other girl.\n\nShe turned gaily, and returned the question, facing him with smiling\nlips and genial eyes.\n\n\"I haven't seen you for some time,\" he said. \"Are you back here now?\"\n\n\"For this week,\" she said. \"I'm doing studio work. I don't care for\nclasses when I can get the other.\"\n\n\"I thought you liked them!\" he replied, recalling her gaiety of mood.\n\n\"Oh, I don't dislike it. Only, studio work is better.\"\n\n\"We've missed you,\" he said. \"The others haven't been nearly as nice.\"\n\n\"Aren't you complimentary,\" she laughed, her black eyes looking into his\nwith a twinkle.\n\n\"No, it's so,\" he returned, and then asked hopefully, \"Are you going to\nthe dinner on the 16th?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" she said. \"I haven't made up my mind. It all depends.\"\n\n\"On what?\"\n\n\"On how I feel and who asks me.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't think there'd be any trouble about that,\" he observed. \"If\nI had a girl I'd go,\" he went on, making a terrific effort to reach the\npoint where he could ask her. She saw his intention.\n\n\"Well?\" she laughed.\n\n\"Would you go with me?\" he ventured, thus so shamelessly assisted.\n\n\"Sure!\" she said, for she liked him.\n\n\"That's fine!\" he exclaimed. \"Where do you live? I'll want to know\nthat.\" He searched for a pencil.\n\nShe gave him her number on West Fifty-seventh Street.\n\nBecause of his collecting he knew the neighborhood. It was a street of\nshabby frame houses far out on the South Side. He remembered great mazes\nof trade near it, and unpaved streets and open stretches of wet prairie\nland. Somehow it seemed fitting to him that this little flower of the\nmuck and coal yard area should be a model.\n\n\"I'll be sure and get you,\" he laughed. \"You won't forget, will you,\nMiss--\"\n\n\"Just Ruby,\" she interrupted. \"Ruby Kenny.\"\n\n\"It's a pretty name, isn't it?\" he said. \"It's euphonious. You wouldn't\nlet me come out some Sunday and see just where it is?\"\n\n\"Yes, you may,\" she replied, pleased by his comment on her name. \"I'm\nhome most every Sunday. Come out next Sunday afternoon, if you want to.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Eugene.\n\nHe walked out to the street with her in a very buoyant mood.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n\nRuby Kenny was the adopted child of an old Irish laborer and his wife\nwho had taken her from a quarrelling couple when they had practically\ndeserted her at the age of four years. She was bright, good natured, not\nat all informed as to the social organization of the world, just a\nsimple little girl with a passion for adventure and no saving insight\nwhich would indicate beforehand whither adventure might lead. She began\nlife as a cash girl in a department store and was spoiled of her virtue\nat fifteen. She was rather fortunate in that her smartness attracted the\nrather superior, capable, self-protecting type of man; and these were\nfortunate too, in that she was not utterly promiscuous, appetite with\nher waiting on strong liking, and in one or two cases real affection,\nand culminating only after a period of dalliance which made her as much\na victim of her moods as were her lovers. Her foster parents provided no\nguidance of any intelligent character. They liked her, and since she was\nbrighter than they were, submitted to her rule, her explanations of\nconduct, her taste. She waved aside with a laughing rejoinder any slight\nobjections they might make, and always protested that she did not care\nwhat the neighbors thought.\n\nThe visits which Eugene paid, and the companionship which ensued, were\nof a piece with every other relationship of this character which he ever\nentered into. He worshiped beauty as beauty, and he never wholly missed\nfinding a certain quality of mind and heart for which he longed. He\nsought in women, besides beauty, good nature and sympathy; he shunned\ncriticism and coldness, and was never apt to select for a sweetheart\nanyone who could outshine him either in emotion or rapidity or\ndistinction of ideas.\n\nHe liked, at this time, simple things, simple homes, simple\nsurroundings, the commonplace atmosphere of simple life, for the more\nelegant and imposing overawed him. The great mansions which he saw, the\ngreat trade structures, the great, significant personalities, seemed\nartificial and cold. He liked little people--people who were not known,\nbut who were sweet and kindly in their moods. If he could find female\nbeauty with anything like that as a background he was happy and settled\ndown near it, if he could, in comfort. His drawing near to Ruby was\ngoverned by this mood.\n\nThe Sunday Eugene called, it rained and the neighborhood in which she\nlived was exceedingly dreary. Looking around here and there one could\nsee in the open spaces between the houses pools of water standing in the\nbrown, dead grass. He had crossed a great maze of black cindered car\ntracks, where engines and cars were in great masses, and speculated on\nthe drawings such scenes would make--big black engines throwing up\nclouds of smoke and steam in a grey, wet air; great mazes of\nparti- cars dank in the rain but lovely. At night the switch\nlights in these great masses of yards bloomed like flowers. He loved the\nsheer yellows, reds, greens, blues, that burned like eyes. Here was the\nstuff that touched him magnificently, and somehow he was glad that this\nraw flowering girl lived near something like this.\n\nWhen he reached the door and rang the bell he was greeted by an old\nshaky Irish-American who seemed to him rather low in the scale of\nintelligence--the kind of a man who would make a good crossing guard,\nperhaps. He had on common, characterful clothes, the kind that from long\nwear have taken the natural outlines of the body. In his fingers was a\nshort pipe which he had been smoking.\n\n\"Is Miss Kenny in?\" Eugene inquired.\n\n\"Yus,\" said the man. \"Come in. I'll git her.\" He poked back through a\ntypical workingman's parlor to a rear room. Someone had seen to it that\nalmost everything in the room was red--the big silk-shaded lamp, the\nfamily album, the carpet and the red flowered wall paper.\n\nWhile he was waiting he opened the album and looked at what he supposed\nwere her relatives--commonplace people, all--clerks, salesmen,\nstore-keepers. Presently Ruby came, and then his eye lighted, for there\nwas about her a smartness of youth--she was not more than\nnineteen--which captivated his fancy. She had on a black cashmere dress\nwith touches of red velvet at the neck and elsewhere, and she wore a\nloose red tie, much as a boy might. She looked gay and cheerful and held\nout her hand.\n\n\"Did you have much trouble in getting here?\" she asked.\n\nHe shook his head. \"I know this country pretty well. I collect all\nthrough here week days. I work for the Peoples' Furniture Company, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"Oh, then it's all right,\" she said, enjoying his frankness. \"I thought\nyou'd have a hard time finding it. It's a pretty bad day, isn't it?\"\n\nEugene admitted that it was, but commented on the car tracks he had\nseen. \"If I could paint at all I'd like to paint those things. They're\nso big and wonderful.\"\n\nHe went to the window and gazed out at the neighborhood.\n\nRuby watched him with interest. His movements were pleasing to her. She\nfelt at home in his company--as though she were going to like him very\nmuch. It was so easy to talk to him. There were the classes, her studio\nwork, his own career, this neighborhood, to give her a feeling of\ncongeniality with him.\n\n\"Are there many big studios in Chicago?\" he asked when they finally got\naround to that phase of her work. He was curious to know what the art\nlife of the city was.\n\n\"No, not so very many--not, at least, of the good ones. There are a lot\nof fellows who think they can paint.\"\n\n\"Who are the big ones?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well, I only know by what I hear artists say. Mr. Rose is pretty good.\nByam Jones is pretty fine on _genre_ subjects, so they say. Walter Low\nis a good portrait painter, and so is Manson Steele. And let's\nsee--there's Arthur Biggs--he does landscapes only; I've never been in\nhis studio; and Finley Wood, he's another portrait man; and Wilson\nBrooks, he does figures--Oh! I don't know, there are quite a number.\"\n\nEugene listened entranced. This patter of art matters was more in the\nway of definite information about personalities than he had heard during\nall the time he had been in the city. The girl knew these things. She\nwas in the movement. He wondered what her relationship to these various\npeople was?\n\nHe got up after a time and looked out of the window again. She came\nalso. \"It's not very nice around here,\" she explained, \"but papa and\nmamma like to live here. It's near papa's work.\"\n\n\"Was that your father I met at the door?\"\n\n\"They're not my real parents,\" she explained. \"I'm an adopted child.\nThey're just like real parents to me, though, I certainly owe them a\nlot.\"\n\n\"You can't have been posing in art very long,\" said Eugene thoughtfully,\nthinking of her age.\n\n\"No; I only began about a year ago.\"\n\nShe told how she had been a clerk in The Fair and how she and another\ngirl had got the idea from seeing articles in the Sunday papers. There\nwas once a picture in the Tribune of a model posing in the nude before\nthe local life class. This had taken her eye and she had consulted with\nthe other girl as to whether they had not better try posing, too. Her\nfriend, like herself, was still posing. She was coming to the dinner.\n\nEugene listened entranced. It reminded him of how he was caught by the\npicture of Goose Island in the Chicago River, of the little tumble-down\nhuts and upturned hulls of boats used for homes. He told her of that and\nof how he came, and it touched her fancy. She thought he was sentimental\nbut nice--and then he was big, too, and she was so much smaller.\n\n\"You play?\" he asked, \"don't you?\"\n\n\"Oh, just a little. But we haven't got a piano. I learned what I know by\npractising at the different studios.\"\n\n\"Do you dance?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" she replied.\n\n\"I wish I did,\" he commented ruefully.\n\n\"Why don't you? It's easy. You could learn in no time. I could teach you\nin a lesson.\"\n\n\"I wish you would,\" he said persuasively.\n\n\"It isn't hard,\" she went on, moving away from him. \"I can show you the\nsteps. They always begin with the waltz.\"\n\nShe lifted her skirts and exposed her little feet. She explained what to\ndo and how to do it. He tried it alone, but failed; so she got him to\nput his arm around her and placed her hand in his. \"Now, follow me,\" she\nsaid.\n\nIt was so delightful to find her in his arms! And she was apparently in\nno hurry to conclude the lesson, for she worked with him quite\npatiently, explaining the steps, stopping and correcting him, laughing\nat her mistakes and his. \"You're getting it, though,\" she said, after\nthey had turned around a few times.\n\nThey had looked into each other's eyes a number of times and she gave\nhim frank smiles in return for his. He thought of the time when she\nstood by him in the studio, looking over his shoulder. Surely, surely\nthis gap of formalities might be bridged over at once if he tried if he\nhad the courage. He pulled her a little closer and when they stopped he\ndid not let go.\n\n\"You're mighty sweet to me,\" he said with an effort.\n\n\"No, I'm just good natured,\" she laughed, not endeavoring to break away.\n\nHe became emotionally tense, as always.\n\nShe rather liked what seemed the superiority of his mood. It was\ndifferent, stronger than was customary in the men she knew.\n\n\"Do you like me?\" he asked, looking at her.\n\nShe studied his face and hair and eyes.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she returned calmly.\n\n\"Are you sure you don't?\"\n\nThere was another pause in which she looked almost mockingly at him and\nthen, sobering, away at the hall door.\n\n\"Yes, I think I do,\" she said.\n\nHe picked her up in his arms. \"You're as cute as a doll,\" he said and\ncarried her to the red settee. She spent the rest of the rainy afternoon\nresting in his arms and enjoying his kisses. He was a new and peculiar\nkind of boy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n\nA little while before, Angela Blue at Eugene's earnest solicitation had\npaid her first Fall visit to Chicago. She had made a special effort to\ncome, lured by a certain poignancy of expression which he could give to\nany thought, particularly when it concerned his desires. In addition to\nthe art of drawing he had the gift of writing--very slow in its\ndevelopment from a structural and interpretative point of view, but\npowerful already on its descriptive side. He could describe anything,\npeople, houses, horses, dogs, landscapes, much as he could draw them and\ngive a sense of tenderness and pathos in the bargain which was moving.\nHe could describe city scenes and the personal atmosphere which\nsurrounded him in the most alluring fashion. He had little time to\nwrite, but he took it in this instance to tell this girl what he was\ndoing and how he was doing it. She was captivated by the quality of the\nworld in which he was moving, and the distinction of his own\npersonality, which he indicated rather indirectly than otherwise. By\ncontrast her own little world began to look very shabby indeed.\n\nShe came shortly after his art school opened, and at her invitation he\nwent out to the residence of her aunt on the North Side, a nice,\npleasant brick house in a quiet side street, which had all the airs of\nmiddle class peace and comfort. He was impressed with what seemed to him\na sweet, conservative atmosphere--a fitting domicile for a girl so\ndainty and refined as Angela. He paid his respects early Saturday\nmorning because her neighborhood happened to be in the direction of his\nwork.\n\nShe played for him--better than anyone he had ever known. It seemed to\nhim a great accomplishment. Her temperament attracted her to music of a\nhigh emotional order and to songs and instrumental compositions of\nindefinable sweetness. In the half hour he stayed she played several\nthings, and he noted with a new pleasure her small shapely body in a\ndress of a very simple, close fitting design; her hair hung in two great\nbraids far below her waist. She reminded him the least bit of Marguerite\nin \"Faust.\"\n\nHe went again in the evening, shining and eager, and arrayed in his\nbest. He was full of the sense of his art prospects, and happy to see\nher again, for he was satisfied that he was going to fall in love with\nher. She had a strong, sympathetic attitude which allured him. She\nwanted to be nice to this youth--wanted him to like her--and so the\natmosphere was right.\n\nThat evening he took her to the Chicago Opera House, where there was\nplaying an extravaganza. This fantasy, so beautiful in its stage-craft,\nso gorgeous in its show of costumes and pretty girls, so idle in its\nhumor and sweet in its love songs, captivated both Eugene and Angela.\nNeither had been to a theatre for a long time; both were en rapport with\nsome such fantastic interpretation of existence. After the short\nacquaintance at Alexandria it was a nice coming together. It gave point\nto their reunion.\n\nAfter the performance he guided her through the surging crowds to a\nNorth Division Street car--they had laid cables since his arrival--and\ntogether they went over the beauties and humor of the thing they had\nseen. He asked permission to call again next day, and at the end of an\nafternoon in her company, proposed that they go to hear a famous\npreacher who was speaking in Central Music Hall evenings.\n\nAngela was pleased at Eugene's resourcefulness. She wanted to be with\nhim; this was a good excuse. They went early and enjoyed it. Eugene\nliked the sermon as an expression of youth and beauty and power to\ncommand. He would have liked to be an orator like that, and he told\nAngela so. And he confided more and more of himself to her. She was\nimpressed by his vivid interest in life, his selective power, and felt\nthat he was destined to be a notable personality.\n\nThere were other meetings. She came again in early November and before\nChristmas and Eugene was fast becoming lost in the meshes of her hair.\nAlthough he met Ruby in November and took up a tentative relation on a\nless spiritual basis--as he would have said at the time--he nevertheless\nheld this acquaintanceship with Angela in the background as a superior\nand more significant thing. She was purer than Ruby; there was in her\ncertainly a deeper vein of feeling, as expressed in her thoughts and\nmusic. Moreover she represented a country home, something like his own,\na nice simple country town, nice people. Why should he part with her, or\never let her know anything of this other world that he touched? He did\nnot think he ought to. He was afraid that he would lose her, and he knew\nthat she would make any man an ideal wife. She came again in December\nand he almost proposed to her--he must not be free with her or draw too\nnear too rapidly. She made him feel the sacredness of love and marriage.\nAnd he did propose in January.\n\nThe artist is a blend of subtleties in emotion which can not be\nclassified. No one woman could have satisfied all sides of Eugene's\ncharacter at that time. Beauty was the point with him. Any girl who was\nyoung, emotional or sympathetic to the right degree and beautiful would\nhave attracted and held him for a while. He loved beauty--not a plan of\nlife. He was interested in an artistic career, not in the founding of a\nfamily. Girlhood--the beauty of youth--was artistic, hence he craved it.\n\nAngela's mental and emotional composition was stable. She had learned to\nbelieve from childhood that marriage was a fixed thing. She believed in\none life and one love. When you found that, every other relationship\nwhich did not minister to it was ended. If children came, very good; if\nnot, very good; marriage was permanent anyhow. And if you did not marry\nhappily it was nevertheless your duty to endure and suffer for whatever\ngood might remain. You might suffer badly in such a union, but it was\ndangerous and disgraceful to break it. If you could not stand it any\nmore, your life was a failure.\n\nOf course, Eugene did not know what he was trifling with. He had no\nconception of the nature of the relationship he was building up. He went\non blindly dreaming of this girl as an ideal, and anticipating eventual\nmarriage with her. When that would be, he had no idea, for though his\nsalary had been raised at Christmas he was getting only eighteen dollars\na week; but he deemed it would come within a reasonable time.\n\nMeanwhile, his visits to Ruby had brought the inevitable result. The\nvery nature of the situation seemed to compel it. She was young,\nbrimming over with a love of adventure, admiring youth and strength in\nmen. Eugene, with his pale face, which had just a touch of melancholy\nabout it, his sex magnetism, his love of beauty, appealed to her.\nUncurbed passion was perhaps uppermost to begin with; very shortly it\nwas confounded with affection, for this girl could love. She was sweet,\ngood natured, ignorant of life from many points of view. Eugene\nrepresented the most dramatic imagination she had yet seen. She\ndescribed to him the character of her foster parents, told how simple\nthey were and how she could do about as she pleased. They did not know\nthat she posed in the nude. She confided to him her particular\nfriendship for certain artists, denying any present intimacies. She\nadmitted them in the past, but asserted that they were bygones. Eugene\nreally did not believe this. He suspected her of meeting other\napproaches in the spirit in which she had met his own. It aroused his\njealousy, and he wished at once that she were not a model. He said as\nmuch and she laughed. She knew he would act like that, it was the first\nproof of real, definite interest in her on his part.\n\nFrom that time on there were lovely days and evenings spent in her\ncompany. Before the dinner she invited him over to breakfast one Sunday.\nHer foster parents were to be away and she was to have the house to\nherself. She wanted to cook Eugene a breakfast--principally to show him\nshe could cook--and then it was novel. She waited till he arrived at\nnine to begin operations and then, arrayed in a neat little lavender,\nclose fitting house dress, and a ruffled white apron, went about her\nwork, setting the table, making biscuit, preparing a kidney ragout with\nstrong wine, and making coffee.\n\nEugene was delighted. He followed her about, delaying her work by taking\nher in his arms and kissing her. She got flour on her nose and he\nbrushed it off with his lips.\n\nIt was on this occasion that she showed him a very pleasing little dance\nshe could do--a clog dance, which had a running, side-ways motion, with\nfrequent and rapid clicking of the heels. She gathered her skirts a\nlittle way above her ankles and twinkled her feet through a maze of\nmotions. Eugene was beside himself with admiration. He told himself he\nhad never met such a girl--to be so clever at posing, playing and\ndancing, and so young. He thought she would make a delightful creature\nto live with, and he wished now he had money enough to make it possible.\nAt this high-flown moment and at some others he thought he might almost\nmarry her.\n\nOn the night of the dinner he took her to Sofroni's, and was surprised\nto find her arrayed in a red dress with a row of large black leather\nbuttons cutting diagonally across the front. She had on red stockings\nand shoes and wore a red carnation in her hair. The bodice was cut low\nin the neck and the sleeves were short. Eugene thought she looked\nstunning and told her so. She laughed. They went in a cab, for she had\nwarned him beforehand that they would have to. It cost him two dollars\neach way but he excused his extravagance on the ground of necessity. It\nwas little things like this that were beginning to make him think\nstrongly of the problem of getting on.\n\nThe students who had got up this dinner were from all the art classes,\nday and night. There were over two hundred of them, all of them young,\nand there was a mixed collection of girl art students, artist's models\nand girl friends of various grades of thought and condition, who were\nbrought as companions. The big dining-room was tempestuous with the\nrattling of dishes, the shouting of jests, the singing of songs and the\nexchange of greetings. Eugene knew a few of these people outside his own\nclasses, enough to give him the chance to be sociable and not appear\nlonely or out of it.\n\nFrom the outset it was apparent that she, Ruby, was generally known and\nliked. Her costume--a little bold--made her conspicuous. From various\ndirections there were cries of \"Hey! Rube!\" which was a familiar\ninterpretation of her first name, Ruby.\n\nEugene was surprised at this--it shocked him a little. All sorts of boys\nhe did not know came and talked to her, exchanging familiar gossip. She\nwas called away from him a dozen times in as many minutes. He saw her\nlaughing and chatting at the other end of the hall, surrounded by half a\ndozen students. It made him jealous.\n\nAs the evening progressed the attitude of each toward the other and all\ntoward anyone became more and more familiar. When the courses were over,\na space was cleared at one end and a screen of green cloth rigged up in\none corner as a dressing room for _stunts_. Eugene saw one of the\nstudents called with much applause to do an Irish monologue, wearing\ngreen whiskers, which he adjusted in the presence of the crowd. There\nwas another youth who pretended to have with him an immense roll of\nverse--an epic, no less--wound in so tight a manner that it looked as\nthough it might take all night to read it. The crowd groaned. With\namazing savoir faire he put up one hand for silence, dropped the roll,\nholding, of course, to the outer end and began reading. It was not bad\nverse, but the amusing part was that it was really short, not more than\ntwenty lines. The rest of the paper had been covered with scribbling to\ndeceive the crowd. It secured a round of applause. There was one\nsecond-year man who sang a song--\"Down in the Lehigh Valley\"--and\nanother who gave imitations of Temple Boyle and other instructors at\ntheir work of criticising and painting for the benefit of the class.\nThese were greatly enjoyed. Finally one of the models, after much\ncalling by the crowd of \"Desmond! Desmond!\"--her last name--went behind\nthe green cloth screen and in a few moments reappeared in the short\nskirt of a Spanish dancer, with black and silver spangles, and\ncastanets. Some friendly student had brought a mandolin and \"La Paloma\"\nwas danced.\n\nEugene had little of Ruby's company during all these doings. She was too\nmuch sought after. As the other girl was concluding her dance he heard\nthe cry of \"Hey, Rube! Why don't you do your turn?\" Someone else, eager\nto see her dance, called \"Come on, Ruby!\" The rest of the room, almost\nunthinkingly took it up. Some boys surrounding her had started to push\nher toward the dancing space. Before Eugene knew it she was up in\nsomeone's arms being passed from group to group for a joke. The crowd\ncheered. Eugene, however, having come so close to her, was irritated by\nthis familiarity. She did not appear to belong to him, but to the whole\nart-student body. And she was laughing. When she was put down in the\nclear space she lifted her skirts as she had done for him and danced. A\ncrowd of students got very close. He had to draw near to see her at all.\nAnd there she was, unconscious of him, doing her gay clog dance. When\nshe stopped, three or four of the more daring youths urged her, seizing\nher by the hands and arms, to do something else. Someone cleared a table\nand someone else picked her up and put her on it. She did still other\ndances. Someone cried, \"Hey, Kenny, do you need the red dress?\" So this\nwas his temporary sweetheart.\n\nWhen she was finally ready to go home at four o'clock in the morning, or\nwhen the others were agreed to let her go, she hardly remembered that\nshe had Eugene with her. She saw him waiting as two students were asking\nfor the privilege of taking her home.\n\n\"No,\" she exclaimed, seeing him, \"I have my escort. I'm going now.\nGood-bye,\" and came toward him. He felt rather frozen and out of it.\n\n\"Are you ready?\" she asked.\n\nHe nodded gloomily, reproachfully.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\n\nFrom drawing from the nude, which Eugene came to do very successfully\nthat winter, his interest switched to his work in the illustration class\nwhere costume figures were used. Here, for the first time, he tried his\nhand at wash drawings, the current medium for magazine work, and was\npraised after a time for his execution. Not always, however; for the\ninstructors, feeling that harsh criticism would make for steadier\neffort, pooh-poohed some of his best work. But he had faith in what he\nwas destined to do, and after sinking to depths of despair he would rise\nto great heights of self-confidence.\n\nHis labor for the Peoples' Furniture Company was becoming a rather\ndreary grind when Vincent Beers, the instructor in the illustration\nclass, looking over his shoulder one Wednesday afternoon said:--\"You\nought to be able to make a little money by your work pretty soon,\nWitla.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\" questioned Eugene.\n\n\"It's pretty good. There ought to be a place on one of the newspapers\nhere for a man like you--an afternoon newspaper possibly. Did you ever\ntry to get on?\"\n\n\"I did when I first came to the city, but they didn't want anyone. I'm\nrather glad they didn't now. I guess they wouldn't have kept me very\nlong.\"\n\n\"You draw in pen and ink pretty well, don't you?\"\n\n\"I thought I liked that best of all at first.\"\n\n\"Well, then, they ought to be able to use you. I wouldn't stay very long\nat it though. You ought to go to New York to get in the magazine\nillustration field--there's nothing out here. But a little newspaper\nwork now wouldn't hurt you.\"\n\nEugene decided to try the afternoon papers, for he knew that if he got\nwork on one of these he could still continue his night classes. He could\ngive the long evening session to the illustration class and take an\noccasional night off to work on the life studies. That would make an\nadmirable arrangement. For several days he took an hour after his work\nto make inquiry, taking with him some examples of his pen and inks.\nSeveral of the men he saw liked what he had to show, but he found no\nimmediate opening. There was only one paper, one of the poorest, that\noffered him any encouragement. The editor-in-chief said he might be in\nneed of a man shortly. If Eugene would come in again in three or four\nweeks he could tell him. They did not pay very much--twenty-five dollars\nto beginners.\n\nEugene thought of this as a great opportunity, and when he went back in\nthree weeks and actually secured the place, he felt that he was now\nfairly on the road to prosperity. He was given a desk in a small back\nroom on a fourth floor where there was accidentally west and north\nlight. He was in a department which held two other men, both several\nyears older than himself, one of whom posed as \"dean\" of the staff.\n\nThe work here was peculiar in that it included not only pen and ink but\nthe chalk plate process which was a method of drawing with a steel point\nupon a zinc plate covered with a deposit of chalk, which left a design\nwhich was easily reproduced. Eugene had never done this, he had to be\nshown by the \"dean,\" but he soon picked it up. He found it hard on his\nlungs, for he had constantly to keep blowing the chalk away as he\nscratched the surface of the plate, and sometimes the dust went up into\nhis nostrils. He hoped sincerely there would not be much of this work,\nbut there was rather an undue proportion at first owing to the fact that\nit was shouldered on to him by the other two--he being the beginner. He\nsuspected as much after a little time, but by that time he was beginning\nto make friends with his companions and things were not so bad.\n\nThese two, although they did not figure vastly in his life, introduced\nhim to conditions and personalities in the Chicago newspaper world which\nbroadened him and presented points of view which were helpful. The elder\nof the two, the \"dean,\" was dressy and art-y; his name was Horace Howe.\nThe other, Jeremiah Mathews, Jerry for short, was short and fat, with a\nround, cheerful, smiling countenance and a wealth of coarse black hair.\nHe loved chewing tobacco, was a little mussy about his clothes, but\nstudious, generous and good natured. Eugene found that he had several\npassions, one for good food, another for oriental curios and a third for\narchaeology. He was alive to all that was going on in the world, and was\nutterly without any prejudices, social, moral or religious. He liked his\nwork, and whistled or talked as he did it. Eugene took a secret like for\nhim from the beginning.\n\nIt was while working on this paper that Eugene first learned that he\nreally could write. It came about accidentally for he had abandoned the\nidea that he could ever do anything in newspaper work, which was the\nfield he had originally contemplated. Here there was great need for\ncheap Sunday specials of a local character, and in reading some of\nthese, which were given to him for illustration, he came to the\nconclusion that he could do much better himself.\n\n\"Say,\" he asked Mathews, \"who writes the articles in here?\" He was\nlooking over the Sunday issue.\n\n\"Oh, the reporters on the staff--anyone that wants to. I think they buy\nsome from outsiders. They only pay four dollars a column.\"\n\nEugene wondered if they would pay him, but pay or no pay he wanted to do\nthem. Maybe they would let him sign his name. He saw that some were\nsigned. He suggested he believed he could do that sort of thing but\nHowe, as a writer himself, frowned on this. He wrote and drew. Howe's\nopposition piqued Eugene who decided to try when the opportunity\noffered. He wanted to write about the Chicago River, which he thought he\ncould illustrate effectively. Goose Island, because of the description\nhe had read of it several years before, the simple beauties of the city\nparks where he liked to stroll and watch the lovers on Sundays. There\nwere many things, but these stood as susceptible of delicious, feeling\nillustration and he wanted to try his hand. He suggested to the Sunday\nEditor, Mitchell Goldfarb, with whom he had become friendly, that he\nthought something nice in an illustrative way could be done on the\nChicago River.\n\n\"Go ahead, try your hand,\" exclaimed that worthy, who was a vigorous,\nrobust, young American of about thirty-one, with a gaspy laugh that\nsounded as if someone had thrown cold water down his back. \"We need all\nthat stuff. Can you write?\"\n\n\"I sometimes think I might if I practiced a little.\"\n\n\"Why not,\" went on the other, who saw visions of a little free copy.\n\"Try your hand. You might make a good thing of it. If your writing is\nanything like your drawing it will be all right. We don't pay people on\nthe staff, but you can sign your name to it.\"\n\nThis was enough for Eugene. He tried his hand at once. His art work had\nalready begun to impress his companions. It was rough, daring, incisive,\nwith a touch of soul to it. Howe was already secretly envious, Mathews\nfull of admiration. Encouraged thus by Goldfarb Eugene took a Sunday\nafternoon and followed up the branches of the Chicago River, noting its\nwonders and peculiarities, and finally made his drawings. Afterward he\nwent to the Chicago library and looked up its history--accidentally\ncoming across the reports of some government engineers who dwelt on the\noddities of its traffic. He did not write an article so much as a\npanegyric on its beauty and littleness, finding the former where few\nwould have believed it to exist. Goldfarb was oddly surprised when he\nread it. He had not thought Eugene could do it.\n\nThe charm of Eugene's writing was that while his mind was full of color\nand poetry he had logic and a desire for facts which gave what he wrote\nstability. He liked to know the history of things and to comment on the\ncurrent phases of life. He wrote of the parks, Goose Island, the\nBridewell, whatever took his fancy.\n\nHis real passion was for art, however. It was a slightly easier medium\nfor him--quicker. He thrilled to think, sometimes, that he could tell a\nthing in words and then actually draw it. It seemed a beautiful\nprivilege and he loved the thought of making the commonplace dramatic.\nIt was all dramatic to him--the wagons in the streets, the tall\nbuildings, the street lamps--anything, everything.\n\nHis drawing was not neglected meantime, but seemed to get stronger.\n\n\"I don't know what there is about your stuff, Witla, that gets me,\"\nMathews said to him one day, \"but you do something to it. Now why did\nyou put those birds flying above that smokestack?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't know,\" replied Eugene. \"It's just the way I feel about it.\nI've seen pigeons flying like that.\"\n\n\"It's all to the good,\" replied Mathews. \"And then you handle your\nmasses right. I don't see anybody doing this sort of thing over here.\"\n\nHe meant in America, for these two art workers considered themselves\nconnoisseurs of pen and ink and illustration generally. They were\nsubscribers to _Jugend_, _Simplicissimus_, _Pick-Me-Up_ and the radical\nEuropean art journals. They were aware of Steinlen and Cheret and Mucha\nand the whole rising young school of French poster workers. Eugene was\nsurprised to hear of these men and these papers. He began to gain\nconfidence in himself--to think of himself as somebody.\n\nIt was while he was gaining this knowledge--finding out who was who and\nwhat and why that he followed up his relationship with Angela Blue to\nits logical conclusion--he became engaged to her. In spite of his\nconnection with Ruby Kenny, which continued unbroken after the dinner,\nhe nevertheless felt that he must have Angela; partly because she\noffered more resistance than any girl since Stella, and partly because\nshe appeared to be so innocent, simple and good hearted. And she was\naltogether lovely. She had a beautiful figure, which no crudity of\ncountry dressmaking could conceal. She had her wonderful wealth of hair\nand her large, luring, water-clear blue eyes. She had colorful lips and\ncheeks, a natural grace in walking, could dance and play the piano.\nEugene looked at her and came to the conclusion after a time that she\nwas as beautiful as any girl he had ever seen--that she had more soul,\nmore emotion, more sweetness. He tried to hold her hand, to kiss her, to\ntake her in his arms, but she eluded him in a careful, wary and yet half\nyielding way. She wanted him to propose to her, not because she was\nanxious to trap him, but because her conventional conscience told her\nthese things were not right outside a definite engagement and she wanted\nto be engaged first. She was already in love with him. When he pleaded,\nshe was anxious to throw herself in his arms in a mad embrace, but she\nrestrained herself, waiting. At last he flung his arms about her as she\nwas sitting at the piano one evening and holding her tight pressed his\nlips to her cheek.\n\nShe struggled to her feet. \"You musn't,\" she said. \"It isn't right. I\ncan't let you do that.\"\n\n\"But I love you,\" he exclaimed, pursuing her. \"I want to marry you. Will\nyou have me, Angela? Will you be mine?\"\n\nShe looked at him yearningly, for she realized that she had made him do\nthings her way--this wild, unpractical, artistic soul. She wanted to\nyield then and there but something told her to wait.\n\n\"I won't tell you now,\" she said, \"I want to talk to papa and mamma. I\nhaven't told them anything as yet. I want to ask them about you, and\nthen I'll tell you when I come again.\"\n\n\"Oh, Angela,\" he pleaded.\n\n\"Now, please wait, Mr. Witla,\" she pleaded. She had never yet called him\nEugene. \"I'll come again in two or three weeks. I want to think it over.\nIt's better.\"\n\nHe curbed his desire and waited, but it made all the more vigorous and\nbinding the illusion that she was the one woman in the world for him.\nShe aroused more than any woman yet a sense of the necessity of\nconcealing the eagerness of his senses--of pretending something higher.\nHe even tried to deceive himself into the belief that this was a\nspiritual relationship, but underneath all was a burning sense of her\nbeauty, her physical charm, her passion. She was sleeping as yet, bound\nin convention and a semi-religious interpretation of life. If she were\naroused! He closed his eyes and dreamed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\n\nIn two weeks Angela came back, ready to plight her faith; and Eugene was\nwaiting, eager to receive it. He had planned to meet her under the smoky\ntrain shed of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul depot, to escort her\nto Kinsley's for dinner, to bring her some flowers, to give her a ring\nhe had secured in anticipation, a ring which had cost him seventy-five\ndollars and consumed quite all his savings; but she was too regardful of\nthe drama of the situation to meet him anywhere but in the parlor of her\naunt's house, where she could look as she wished. She wrote that she\nmust come down early and when he arrived at eight of a Saturday evening\nshe was dressed in the dress that seemed most romantic to her, the one\nshe had worn when she first met him at Alexandria. She half suspected\nthat he would bring flowers and so wore none, and when he came with pink\nroses, she added those to her corsage. She was a picture of rosy youth\nand trimness and not unlike the character by whose name he had\nchristened her--the fair Elaine of Arthur's court. Her yellow hair was\ndone in a great mass that hung sensuously about her neck; her cheeks\nwere rosy with the elation of the hour; her lips moist; her eyes bright.\nShe fairly sparkled her welcome as he entered.\n\nAt the sight of her Eugene was beside himself. He was always at the\nbreaking point over any romantic situation. The beauty of the idea--the\nbeauty of love as love; the delight of youth filled his mind as a song\nmight, made him tense, feverish, enthusiastic.\n\n\"You're here at last, Angela!\" he said, trying to keep hold of her\nhands. \"What word?\"\n\n\"Oh, you musn't ask so soon,\" she replied. \"I want to talk to you first.\nI'll play you something.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, following her as she backed toward the piano. \"I want to\nknow. I must. I can't wait.\"\n\n\"I haven't made up my mind,\" she pleaded evasively. \"I want to think.\nYou had better let me play.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" he urged.\n\n\"Yes, let me play.\"\n\nShe ignored him and swept into the composition, but all the while she\nwas conscious of him hovering over her--a force. At the close, when she\nhad been made even more emotionally responsive by the suggestion of the\nmusic, he slipped his arms about her as he had once before, but she\nstruggled away again, slipping to a corner and standing at bay. He liked\nher flushed face, her shaken hair, the roses awry at her waist.\n\n\"You must tell me now,\" he said, standing before her. \"Will you have\nme?\"\n\nShe dropped her head down as though doubting, and fearing familiarities;\nhe slipped to one knee to see her eyes. Then, looking up, he caught her\nabout the waist. \"Will you?\" he asked.\n\nShe looked at his soft hair, dark and thick, his smooth pale brow, his\nblack eyes and even chin. She wanted to yield dramatically and this was\ndramatic enough. She put her hands to his head, bent over and looked\ninto his eyes; her hair fell forward about her face. \"Will you be good\nto me?\" she asked, yearning into his eyes.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" he declared. \"You know that. Oh, I love you so.\"\n\nShe put his head far back and laid her lips to his. There was fire,\nagony in it. She held him so and then he stood up heaping kisses upon\nher cheeks, her lips, her eyes, her neck.\n\n\"Good God!\" he exclaimed, \"how wonderful you are!\"\n\nThe expression shocked her.\n\n\"You mustn't,\" she said.\n\n\"I can't help it. You are so beautiful!\"\n\nShe forgave him for the compliment.\n\nThere were burning moments after this, moments in which they clung to\neach other desperately, moments in which he took her in his arms,\nmoments in which he whispered his dreams of the future. He took the ring\nhe had bought and put it on her finger. He was going to be a great\nartist, she was going to be an artist's bride; he was going to paint her\nlovely face, her hair, her form. If he wanted love scenes he would paint\nthese which they were now living together. They talked until one in the\nmorning and then she begged him to go, but he would not. At two he left,\nonly to come early the next morning to take her to church.\n\nThere ensued for Eugene a rather astonishing imaginative and emotional\nperiod in which he grew in perception of things literary and artistic\nand in dreams of what marriage with Angela would mean to him. There was\na peculiar awareness about Eugene at this time, which was leading him\ninto an understanding of things. The extraordinary demands of some\nphases of dogma in the matter of religion; the depths of human\nperversity in the matter of morality; the fact that there were worlds\nwithin worlds of our social organism; that really basically and actually\nthere was no fixed and definite understanding of anything by\nanybody. From Mathews he learned of philosophies--Kant, Hegel,\nSchopenhauer--faint inklings of what they believed. From association\nwith Howe he heard of current authors who expressed new moods, Pierre\nLoti, Thomas Hardy, Maeterlinck, Tolstoi. Eugene was no person to\nread--he was too eager to live,--but he gained much by conversation and\nhe liked to talk. He began to think he could do almost anything if he\ntried--write poems, write plays, write stories, paint, illustrate, etc.\nHe used to conceive of himself as a general, an orator, a\npolitician--thinking how wonderful he would be if he could set himself\ndefinitely to any one thing. Sometimes he would recite passages from\ngreat speeches he had composed in his imagination as he walked. The\nsaving grace in his whole make-up was that he really loved to work and\nhe would work at the things he could do. He would not shirk his\nassignments or dodge his duties.\n\nAfter his evening class Eugene would sometimes go out to Ruby's house,\ngetting there by eleven and being admitted by an arrangement with her\nthat the front door be left open so that he could enter quietly. More\nthan once he found her sleeping in her little room off the front room,\narrayed in a red silk dressing gown and curled up like a little\nblack-haired child. She knew he liked her art instincts and she strove\nto gratify them, affecting the peculiar and the exceptional. She would\nplace a candle under a red shade on a small table by her bed and pretend\nto have been reading, the book being usually tossed to one side on the\ncoverlet where he would see it lying when he came. He would enter\nsilently, gathering her up in his arms as she dozed, kissing her lips to\nwaken her, carrying her in his arms into the front room to caress her\nand whisper his passion. There was no cessation of this devotion to Ruby\nthe while he was declaring his love for Angela, and he really did not\nsee that the two interfered greatly. He loved Angela, he thought. He\nliked Ruby, thought she was sweet. He felt sorry for her at times\nbecause she was such a little thing, so unthinking. Who was going to\nmarry her eventually? What was going to become of her?\n\nBecause of this very attitude he fascinated the girl who was soon ready\nto do anything for him. She dreamed dreams of how nice it would be if\nthey could live in just a little flat together--all alone. She would\ngive up her art posing and just keep house for him. He talked to her of\nthis--imagining it might possibly come to pass--realizing quite fully\nthat it probably wouldn't. He wanted Angela for his wife, but if he had\nmoney he thought Ruby and he might keep a separate place--somehow. What\nAngela would think of this did not trouble him--only that she should not\nknow. He never breathed anything to either of the other, but there were\ntimes when he wondered what they would think each of the other if they\nknew. Money, money, that was the great deterrent. For lack of money he\ncould not marry anybody at present--neither Angela nor Ruby nor anyone\nelse. His first duty, he thought, was so to place himself financially\nthat he could talk seriously to any girl. That was what Angela expected\nof him, he knew. That was what he would have to have if he wanted Ruby.\n\nThere came a time when the situation began to grow irksome. He had\nreached the point where he began to understand how limited his life was.\nMathews and Howe, who drew more money, were able to live better than he.\nThey went out to midnight suppers, theatre parties, and expeditions to\nthe tenderloin section (not yet known by that name). They had time to\nbrowse about the sections of the city which had peculiar charms for them\nas Bohemians after dark--the levee, as a certain section of the Chicago\nRiver was called; Gambler's Row in South Clark Street; the Whitechapel\nClub, as a certain organization of newspaper men was called, and other\nplaces frequented by the literati and the more talented of the newspaper\nmakers. Eugene, first because of a temperament which was introspective\nand reflective, and second because of his aesthetic taste, which was\noffended by much that he thought was tawdry and cheap about these\nplaces, and third by what he considered his lack of means, took\npractically no part in these diversions. While he worked in his class he\nheard of these things--usually the next day--and they were amplified and\nmade more showy and interesting by the narrative powers of the\nparticipants. Eugene hated coarse, vulgar women and ribald conduct, but\nhe felt that he was not even permitted to see them at close range had he\nwanted to. It took money to carouse and he did not have it.\n\nPerhaps, because of his youth and a certain air of unsophistication and\nimpracticability which went with him, his employers were not inclined to\nconsider money matters in connection with him. They seemed to think he\nwould work for little and would not mind. He was allowed to drift here\nsix months without a sign of increase, though he really deserved more\nthan any one of those who worked with him during the same period. He was\nnot the one to push his claims personally but he grew restless and\nslightly embittered under the strain and ached to be free, though his\nwork was as effective as ever.\n\nIt was this indifference on their part which fixed his determination to\nleave Chicago, although Angela, his art career, his natural restlessness\nand growing judgment of what he might possibly become were deeper\nincentives. Angela haunted him as a dream of future peace. If he could\nmarry her and settle down he would be happy. He felt now, having fairly\nsatiated himself in the direction of Ruby, that he might leave her. She\nreally would not care so very much. Her sentiments were not deep enough.\nStill, he knew she would care, and when he began going less regularly to\nher home, really becoming indifferent to what she did in the artists'\nworld, he began also to feel ashamed of himself, for he knew that it was\na cruel thing to do. He saw by her manner when he absented himself that\nshe was hurt and that she knew he was growing cold.\n\n\"Are you coming out Sunday night?\" she asked him once, wistfully.\n\n\"I can't,\" he apologized; \"I have to work.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know how you have to work. But go on. I don't mind, I know.\"\n\n\"Oh, Ruby, how you talk. I can't always be here.\"\n\n\"I know what it is, Eugene,\" she replied. \"You don't care any more. Oh,\nwell, don't mind me.\"\n\n\"Now, sweet, don't talk like that,\" he would say, but after he was gone\nshe would stand by her window and look out upon the shabby neighborhood\nand sigh sadly. He was more to her than anyone she had met yet, but she\nwas not the kind that cried.\n\n\"He is going to leave me,\" was her one thought. \"He is going to leave\nme.\"\n\nGoldfarb had watched Eugene a long time, was interested in him, realized\nthat he had talent. He was leaving shortly to take a better\nSunday-Editorship himself on a larger paper, and he thought Eugene was\nwasting his time and ought to be told so.\n\n\"I think you ought to try to get on one of the bigger papers here,\nWitla,\" he said to him one Saturday afternoon when things were closing\nup. \"You'll never amount to anything on this paper. It isn't big enough.\nYou ought to get on one of the big ones. Why don't you try the\n_Tribune_--or else go to New York? I think you ought to do magazine\nwork.\"\n\nEugene drank it all in. \"I've been thinking of that,\" he said. \"I think\nI'll go to New York. I'll be better off there.\"\n\n\"I would either do one or the other. If you stay too long in a place\nlike this it's apt to do you harm.\"\n\nEugene went back to his desk with the thought of change ringing in his\nears. He would go. He would save up his money until he had one hundred\nand fifty or two hundred dollars and then try his luck in the East. He\nwould leave Ruby and Angela, the latter only temporarily, the former for\ngood very likely, though he only vaguely confessed this to himself. He\nwould make some money and then he would come back and marry his dream\nfrom Blackwood. Already his imaginative mind ran forward to a poetic\nwedding in a little country church, with Angela standing beside him in\nwhite. Then he would bring her back with him to New York--he, Eugene\nWitla, already famous in the East. Already the lure of the big eastern\ncity was in his mind, its palaces, its wealth, its fame. It was the\ngreat world he knew, this side of Paris and London. He would go to it\nnow, shortly. What would he be there? How great? How soon?\n\nSo he dreamed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n\nOnce this idea of New York was fixed in his mind as a necessary step in\nhis career, it was no trouble for him to carry it out. He had already\nput aside sixty dollars in a savings bank since he had given Angela the\nring and he decided to treble it as quickly as possible and then start.\nHe fancied that all he needed was just enough to live on for a little\nwhile until he could get a start. If he could not sell drawings to the\nmagazines he might get a place on a newspaper and anyhow he felt\nconfident that he could live. He communicated to Howe and Mathews his\nintention of going East pretty soon and aroused in their respective\nbosoms the emotions which were characteristic of each. Howe, envious\nfrom the start, was glad to have him off the paper, but regretful of the\nstellar career which his determination foreboded. He half suspected now\nthat Eugene would do something exceptional--he was so loose in his\nmoods--so eccentric. Mathews was glad for Eugene and a little sorry for\nhimself. He wished he had Eugene's courage, his fire, his talent.\n\n\"You'll make good when you get down there,\" Mathews said to him one\nafternoon when Howe was out of the room, for he realized that the latter\nwas jealous. \"You've got the stuff. Some of the work you have done here\nwill give you a fine introduction. I wish I were going.\"\n\n\"Why don't you?\" suggested Eugene.\n\n\"Who? me? What good would it do me? I'm not ready yet. I can't do that\nsort of stuff. I might go down some time.\"\n\n\"I think you do good work,\" said Eugene generously. He really did not\nbelieve it was good art, but it was fair newspaper sketching.\n\n\"Oh, no, you don't mean that, Witla,\" replied Mathews. \"I know what I\ncan do.\"\n\nEugene was silent.\n\n\"I wish when you get down there,\" went on Mathews, \"you would write us\noccasionally. I would like to know how you are getting along.\"\n\n\"Sure, I'll write,\" replied Eugene, flattered by the interest his\ndetermination had aroused. \"Sure I will.\" But he never did.\n\nIn Ruby and Angela he had two problems to adjust which were not so easy.\nIn the one case it was sympathy, regret, sorrow for her helplessness,\nher hopelessness. She was so sweet and lovely in her way, but not quite\nbig enough mentally or emotionally for him. Could he really live with\nher if he wanted to? Could he substitute her for a girl like Angela?\nCould he? And now he had involved Angela, for since her return to tell\nhim that she accepted him as her affianced lover, there had been some\nscenes between them in which a new standard of emotion had been set for\nhim. This girl who looked so simple and innocent was burning at times\nwith a wild fire. It snapped in her eyes when Eugene undid her wonderful\nhair and ran his hands through its heavy strands. \"The Rhine Maiden,\" he\nwould say. \"Little Lorelei! You are like the mermaid waiting to catch\nthe young lover in the strands of her hair. You are Marguerite and I\nFaust. You are a Dutch Gretchen. I love this wonderful hair when it is\nbraided. Oh, sweet, you perfect creature! I will put you in a painting\nyet. I will make you famous.\"\n\nAngela thrilled to this. She burned in a flame which was of his fanning.\nShe put her lips to his in long hot kisses, sat on his knee and twined\nher hair about his neck; rubbed his face with it as one might bathe a\nface in strands of silk. Finding such a response he went wild, kissed\nher madly, would have been still more masterful had she not, at the\nslightest indication of his audacity, leaped from his embrace, not\nopposition but self protection in her eyes. She pretended to think\nbetter of his love, and Eugene, checked by her ideal of him, tried to\nrestrain himself. He did manage to desist because he was sure that he\ncould not do what he wanted to. Daring such as that would end her love.\nSo they wrestled in affection.\n\nIt was the fall following his betrothal to Angela that he actually took\nhis departure. He had drifted through the summer, pondering. He had\nstayed away from Ruby more and more, and finally left without saying\ngood-bye to her, though he thought up to the last that he intended to go\nout and see her.\n\nAs for Angela, when it came to parting from her, he was in a depressed\nand downcast mood. He thought now that he did not really want to go to\nNew York, but was being drawn by fate. There was no money for him in the\nWest; they could not live on what he could earn there. Hence he must go\nand in doing so must lose her. It looked very tragic.\n\nOut at her aunt's house, where she came for the Saturday and Sunday\npreceding his departure, he walked the floor with her gloomily, counted\nthe lapse of the hours after which he would be with her no more,\npictured the day when he would return successful to fetch her. Angela\nhad a faint foreboding fear of the events which might intervene. She had\nread stories of artists who had gone to the city and had never come\nback. Eugene seemed such a wonderful person, she might not hold him; and\nyet he had given her his word and he was madly in love with her--no\ndoubt of that. That fixed, passionate, yearning look in his eyes--what\ndid it mean if not enduring, eternal love? Life had brought her a great\ntreasure--a great love and an artist for a lover.\n\n\"Go, Eugene!\" she cried at last tragically, almost melodramatically. His\nface was in her hands. \"I will wait for you. You need never have one\nuneasy thought. When you are ready I will be here, only, come soon--you\nwill, won't you?\"\n\n\"Will I!\" he declared, kissing her, \"will I? Look at me. Don't you\nknow?\"\n\n\"Yes! Yes! Yes!\" she exclaimed, \"of course I know. Oh, yes! yes!\"\n\nThe rest was a passionate embrace. And then they parted. He went out\nbrooding over the subtlety and the tragedy of life. The sharp October\nstars saddened him more. It was a wonderful world but bitter to endure\nat times. Still it could be endured and there was happiness and peace in\nstore for him probably. He and Angela would find it together living in\neach other's company, living in each other's embrace and by each other's\nkisses. It must be so. The whole world believed it--even he, after\nStella and Margaret and Ruby and Angela. Even he.\n\nThe train which bore him to New York bore a very meditative young man.\nAs it pulled out through the great railroad yards of the city, past the\nshabby back yards of the houses, the street crossings at grade, the\ngreat factories and elevators, he thought of that other time when he had\nfirst ventured in the city. How different! Then he was so green, so raw.\nSince then he had become a newspaper artist, he could write, he could\nfind his tongue with women, he knew a little something about the\norganization of the world. He had not saved any money, true, but he had\ngone through the art school, had given Angela a diamond ring, had this\ntwo hundred dollars with which he was venturing to reconnoitre the great\nsocial metropolis of the country. He was passing Fifty-seventh Street;\nhe recognized the neighborhood he traversed so often in visiting Ruby.\nHe had not said good-bye to her and there in the distance were the rows\nof commonplace, two family frame dwellings, one of which she occupied\nwith her foster parents. Poor little Ruby! and she liked him. It was a\nshame, but what was he to do about it? He didn't care for her. It really\nhurt him to think and then he tried not to remember. These tragedies of\nthe world could not be healed by thinking.\n\nThe train passed out into the flat fields of northern Indiana and as\nlittle country towns flashed past he thought of Alexandria and how he\nhad pulled up his stakes and left it. What was Jonas Lyle doing and John\nSummers? Myrtle wrote that she was going to be married in the spring.\nShe had delayed solely because she wanted to delay. He thought sometimes\nthat Myrtle was a little like himself, fickle in her moods. He was sure\nhe would never want to go back to Alexandria except for a short visit,\nand yet the thought of his father and his mother and his old home were\nsweet to him. His father! How little he knew of the real world!\n\nAs they passed out of Pittsburgh he saw for the first time the great\nmountains, raising their heads in solemn majesty in the dark, and great\nlines of coke ovens, flaming red tongues of fire. He saw men working,\nand sleeping towns succeeding one another. What a great country America\nwas! What a great thing to be an artist here! Millions of people and no\nvast artistic voice to portray these things--these simple dramatic\nthings like the coke ovens in the night. If he could only do it! If he\ncould only stir the whole country, so that his name would be like that\nof Dore in France or Verestchagin in Russia. If he could but get fire\ninto his work, the fire he felt!\n\nHe got into his berth after a time and looked out on the dark night and\nthe stars, longing, and then he dozed. When he awoke again the train had\nalready passed Philadelphia. It was morning and the cars were speeding\nacross the flat meadows toward Trenton. He arose and dressed, watching\nthe array of towns the while, Trenton, New Brunswick, Metuchen,\nElizabeth. Somehow this country was like Illinois, flat. After Newark\nthey rushed out upon a great meadow and he caught the sense of the sea.\nIt was beyond this. These were tide-water streams, the Passaic and the\nHackensack, with small ships and coal and brick barges tied at the water\nside. The thrill of something big overtook him as the brakeman began to\ncall \"Jersey City,\" and as he stepped out into the vast train shed his\nheart misgave him a little. He was all alone in New York. It was\nwealthy, cold and critical. How should he prosper here? He walked out\nthrough the gates to where low arches concealed ferry boats, and in\nanother moment it was before him, sky line, bay, the Hudson, the Statue\nof Liberty, ferry boats, steamers, liners, all in a grey mist of fierce\nrain and the tugs and liners blowing mournfully upon great whistles. It\nwas something he could never have imagined without seeing it, and this\nswish of real salt water, rolling in heavy waves, spoke to him as music\nmight, exalting his soul. What a wonderful thing this was, this\nsea--where ships were and whales and great mysteries. What a wonderful\nthing New York was, set down by it, surrounded by it, this metropolis of\nthe country. Here was the sea; yonder were the great docks that held the\nvessels that sailed to the ports of all the world. He saw them--great\ngrey and black hulls, tied to long piers jutting out into the water. He\nlistened to the whistles, the swish of the water, saw the circling\ngulls, realized emotionally the mass of people. Here were Jay Gould and\nRussell Sage and the Vanderbilts and Morgan--all alive and all here.\nWall Street, Fifth Avenue, Madison Square, Broadway--he knew of these by\nreputation. How would he do here--how fare? Would the city ever acclaim\nhim as it did some? He looked wide eyed, with an open heart, with\nintense and immense appreciation. Well, he was going to enter, going to\ntry. He could do that--perhaps, perhaps. But he felt lonely. He wished\nhe were back with Angela where her soft arms could shut him safe. He\nwished he might feel her hands on his cheeks, his hair. He would not\nneed to fight alone then. But now he was alone, and the city was roaring\nabout him, a great noise like the sea. He must enter and do battle.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\n\nNot knowing routes or directions in New York, Eugene took a Desbrosses\nStreet ferry, and coming into West Street wandered along that curious\nthoroughfare staring at the dock entrances. Manhattan Island seemed a\nlittle shabby to him from this angle but he thought that although\nphysically, perhaps, it might not be distinguished, there must be other\nthings which made it wonderful. Later when he saw the solidity of it,\nthe massed houses, the persistent streams of people, the crush of\ntraffic, it dawned on him that mere humanity in packed numbers makes a\nkind of greatness, and this was the island's first characteristic. There\nwere others, like the prevailing lowness of the buildings in its old\nneighborhoods, the narrowness of the streets in certain areas, the\nshabbiness of brick and stone when they have seen an hundred years of\nweather, which struck him as curious or depressing. He was easily\ntouched by exterior conditions.\n\nAs he wandered he kept looking for some place where he might like to\nlive, some house that had a yard or a tree. At length he found a row of\nhouses in lower Seventh Avenue with an array of iron balconies in front\nwhich appealed to him. He applied here and in one house found a room for\nfour dollars which he thought he had better take for the present. It was\ncheaper than any hotel. His hostess was a shabby woman in black who made\nscarcely any impression on him as a personality, merely giving him a\nthought as to what a dreary thing it was to keep roomers and the room\nitself was nothing, a commonplace, but he had a new world before him and\nall his interests were outside. He wanted to see this city. He deposited\nhis grip and sent for his trunk and then took to the streets, having\ncome to see and hear things which would be of advantage to him.\n\nHe went about this early relationship to the city in the right spirit.\nFor a little while he did not try to think what he would do, but struck\nout and walked, here, there and everywhere, this very first day down\nBroadway to the City Hall and up Broadway from 14th to 42nd street the\nsame night. Soon he knew all Third Avenue and the Bowery, the wonders of\nFifth Avenue and Riverside Drive, the beauties of the East River, the\nBattery, Central Park and the lower East Side. He sought out quickly the\nwonders of metropolitan life--its crowds at dinner and theatre time in\nBroadway, its tremendous throngs morning and afternoon in the shopping\ndistrict, its amazing world of carriages in Fifth Avenue and Central\nPark. He had marveled at wealth and luxury in Chicago, but here it took\nhis breath away. It was obviously so much more fixed, so definite and\ncomprehensible. Here one felt intuitively the far reaches which separate\nthe ordinary man from the scion of wealth. It curled him up like a\nfrozen leaf, dulled his very soul, and gave him a clear sense of his\nposition in the social scale. He had come here with a pretty high\nestimate of himself, but daily, as he looked, he felt himself crumbling.\nWhat was he? What was art? What did the city care? It was much more\ninterested in other things, in dressing, eating, visiting, riding\nabroad. The lower part of the island was filled with cold commercialism\nwhich frightened him. In the upper half, which concerned only women and\nshow--a voluptuous sybaritism--caused him envy. He had but two hundred\ndollars with which to fight his way, and this was the world he must\nconquer.\n\nMen of Eugene's temperament are easily depressed. He first gorged the\nspectacle of life and then suffered from mental indigestion. He saw too\nmuch of it too quickly. He wandered about for weeks, looking in the shop\nwindows, the libraries, the museums, the great streets, growing all the\nwhile more despondent. At night he would return to his bare room and\nindite long epistles to Angela, describing what he had seen and telling\nher of his undying love for her--largely because he had no other means\nof ridding himself of his superabundant vitality and moods. They were\nbeautiful letters, full of color and feeling, but to Angela they gave a\nfalse impression of emotion and sincerity because they appeared to be\nprovoked by absence from her. In part of course they were, but far more\nlargely they were the result of loneliness and the desire for expression\nwhich this vast spectacle of life itself incited. He also sent her some\ntentative sketches of things he had seen--a large crowd in the dark at\n34th Street; a boat off 86th Street in the East River in the driving\nrain; a barge with cars being towed by a tug. He could not think exactly\nwhat to do with these things at that time, but he wanted to try his hand\nat illustrating for the magazines. He was a little afraid of these great\npublications, however, for now that he was on the ground with them his\nart did not appear so significant.\n\nIt was during the first few weeks that he received his only letter from\nRuby. His parting letter to her, written when he reached New York, had\nbeen one of those makeshift affairs which faded passion indites. He was\nso sorry he had to leave without seeing her. He had intended to come out\nbut the rush of preparation at the last moment, and so forth; he hoped\nto come back to Chicago one of these days and he would look her up. He\nstill loved her, but it was necessary for him to leave--to come where\nthe greatest possibilities were. \"I remember how sweet you were when I\nfirst saw you,\" he added. \"I shall never forget my first impressions,\nlittle Ruby.\"\n\nIt was cruel to add this touch of remembrance, but the artist in him\ncould not refrain. It cut Ruby as a double edged sword, for she\nunderstood that he cared well enough that way--aesthetically. It was not\nher but beauty that he loved, and her particular beauty had lost its\nappeal.\n\nShe wrote after a time, intending to be defiant, indifferent, but she\nreally could not be. She tried to think of something sharp to say, but\nfinally put down the simple truth.\n\n\"Dear Eugene:\" she wrote, \"I got your note several weeks ago, but I\ncould not bring myself to answer it before this. I know everything is\nover between us and that is all right, for I suppose it has to be. You\ncouldn't love any woman long, I think. I know what you say about your\nhaving to go to New York to broaden your field is true. You ought to,\nbut I'm sorry you didn't come out. You might have. Still I don't blame\nyou, Eugene. It isn't much different from what has been going on for\nsome time. I have cared but I'll get over that, I know, and I won't ever\nthink hard of you. Won't you return me the notes I have sent you from\ntime to time and my pictures? You won't want them now.\n\n   \"Ruby.\"\n\nThere was a little blank space on the paper and then:--\n\n\"I stood by the window last night and looked out on the street. The\nmoon was shining and those dead trees were waving in the wind. I saw the\nmoon on that pool of water over in the field. It looked like silver. Oh,\nEugene, I wish I were dead.\"\n\nHe jumped up as he read these words and clenched the letter in his\nhands. The pathos of it all cut him to the quick, raised his estimate of\nher, made him feel as if he had made a mistake in leaving her. He really\ncared for her after all. She was sweet. If she were here now he could\nlive with her. She might as well be a model in New York as in Chicago.\nHe was on the verge of writing this, when one of the long, almost daily\nepistles Angela was sending arrived and changed his mood. He did not see\nhow, in the face of so great and clean a love as hers, he could go on\nwith Ruby. His affection had obviously been dying. Should he try to\nrevive it now?\n\nThis conflict of emotions was so characteristic of Eugene's nature, that\nhad he been soundly introspective, he would have seen that he was an\nidealist by temperament, in love with the aesthetic, in love with love,\nand that there was no permanent faith in him for anybody--except the\nimpossible she.\n\nAs it was, he wrote Ruby a letter breathing regret and sorrow but not\ninviting her to come. He could not have supported her long if she had,\nhe thought. Besides he was anxious to secure Angela. So that affair\nlapsed.\n\nIn the meantime he visited the magazine offices. On leaving Chicago he\nhad put in the bottom of his trunk a number of drawings which he had\ndone for the _Globe_--his sketches of the Chicago River, of Blue Island\nAvenue, of which he had once made a study as a street, of Goose Island\nand of the Lake front. There were some street scenes, too, all forceful\nin the peculiar massing of their blacks, the unexpected, almost\nflashing, use of a streak of white at times. There was emotion in them,\na sense of life. He should have been appreciated at once, but, oddly,\nthere was just enough of the radically strange about what he did to make\nhis work seem crude, almost coarse. He drew a man's coat with a single\ndash of his pen. He indicated a face by a spot. If you looked close\nthere was seldom any detail, frequently none at all. From the praise he\nhad received at the art school and from Mathews and Goldfarb he was\nslowly coming to the conclusion that he had a way of his own. Being so\nindividual he was inclined to stick to it. He walked with an air of\nconviction which had nothing but his own belief in himself to back it\nup, and it was not an air which drew anybody to him. When he showed his\npictures at the _Century_, _Harper's_, _Scribner's_, they were received\nwith an air of weary consideration. Dozens of magnificent drawings were\ndisplayed on their walls signed by men whom Eugene now knew to be\nleaders in the illustration world. He returned to his room convinced\nthat he had made no impression at all. They must be familiar with\nartists a hundred times better than himself.\n\nAs a matter of fact Eugene was simply overawed by the material face of\nthings. These men whose pictures he saw displayed on the walls of the\nart and editorial rooms of the magazines were really not, in many\ninstances, any better than himself, if as good. They had the advantage\nof solid wood frames and artistic acceptance. He was a long way as yet\nfrom magazine distinction but the work he did later had no more of the\nfire than had this early stuff. It was a little broader in treatment, a\nlittle less intolerant of detail, but no more vigorous if as much so.\nThe various art directors were weary of smart young artists showing\ndrawings. A little suffering was good for them in the beginning. So\nEugene was incontinently turned away with a little faint praise which\nwas worse than opposition. He sank very low in spirits.\n\nThere were still the smaller magazines and the newspapers, however, and\nhe hunted about faithfully, trying to get something to do. From one or\ntwo of the smaller magazines, he secured commissions, after a time,\nthree or four drawings for thirty-five dollars; and from that had to be\nextracted models' fees. He had to have a room where he could work as an\nartist, receiving models to pose, and he finally found one in West 14th\nStreet, a back bedroom, looking out over an open court and with a public\nstair which let all come who might without question. This cost him\ntwenty-five dollars a month, but he thought he had better risk it. If he\ncould get a few commissions he could live.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\n\nThe art world of New York is peculiar. It was then and for some time\nafter, broken up into cliques with scarcely any unity. There was a world\nof sculptors, for instance, in which some thirty or forty sculptors had\npart--but they knew each other slightly, criticised each other severely\nand retired for the most part into a background of relatives and\nfriends. There was a painting world, as distinguished from an\nillustrating world, in which perhaps a thousand alleged artists, perhaps\nmore, took part. Most of these were men and women who had some\nability--enough to have their pictures hung at the National Academy of\nDesign exhibition--to sell some pictures, get some decorative work to\ndo, paint some portraits. There were studio buildings scattered about\nvarious portions of the city; in Washington Square; in Ninth and Tenth\nStreets; in odd places, such as Macdougal Alley and occasional cross\nstreets from Washington Square to Fifty-ninth Street, which were filled\nwith painters, illustrators, sculptors and craftsmen in art generally.\nThis painting world had more unity than the world of sculptors and, in a\nway, included the latter. There were several art clubs--the Salmagundi,\nthe Kit-Kat and the Lotus--and there were a number of exhibitions, ink,\nwater color, oil, with their reception nights where artists could meet\nand exchange the courtesies and friendship of their world. In addition\nto this there were little communal groups such as those who resided in\nthe Tenth Street studios; the Twenty-third Street Y. M. C. A.; the Van\nDyck studios, and so on. It was possible to find little crowds, now and\nthen, that harmonized well enough for a time and to get into a group,\nif, to use a colloquialism, one _belonged_. If you did not, art life in\nNew York might be a very dreary thing and one might go a long time\nwithout finding just the particular crowd with which to associate.\n\nBeside the painting world there was the illustrating world, made up of\nbeginners and those who had established themselves firmly in editorial\nfavor. These were not necessarily a part of the painting or sculpture\nworlds and yet, in spirit, were allied to them, had their clubs also,\nand their studios were in the various neighborhoods where the painters\nand sculptors were. The only difference was that in the case of the\nembryo illustrators they were to be found living three or four in one\nstudio, partly because of the saving in expense, but also because of the\nlove of companionship and because they could hearten and correct one\nanother in their work. A number of such interesting groups were in\nexistence when Eugene arrived, but of course he did not know of them.\n\nIt takes time for the beginner to get a hearing anywhere. We all have to\nserve an apprenticeship, whatever field we enter. Eugene had talent and\ndetermination, but no experience, no savoir faire, no circle of friends\nand acquaintances. The whole city was strange and cold, and if he had\nnot immediately fallen desperately in love with it as a spectacle he\nwould have been unconscionably lonely and unhappy. As it was the great\nfresh squares, such as Washington, Union and Madison; the great streets,\nsuch as Broadway, Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue; the great spectacles,\nsuch as the Bowery at night, the East River, the water front, the\nBattery, all fascinated him with an unchanging glamor.\n\nHe was hypnotized by the wonder of this thing--the beauty of it. Such\nseething masses of people! such whirlpools of life! The great hotels,\nthe opera, the theatres, the restaurants, all gripped him with a sense\nof beauty. These lovely women in magnificent gowns; these swarms of\ncabs, with golden eyes, like monstrous insects; this ebb and surge of\nlife at morning and evening, made him forget his loneliness. He had no\nmoney to spend, no immediate hope of a successful career, he could walk\nthese streets, look in these windows, admire these beautiful women;\nthrill at the daily newspaper announcements of almost hourly successes\nin one field or another. Here and there in the news an author had made a\ngreat success with a book; a scientist with a discovery; a philosopher\nwith a new theory; a financier with an investment. There was news of\ngreat plays being put on; great actors and actresses coming from abroad;\ngreat successes being made by debutantes in society; great movements\nforwarded generally. Youth and ambition had the call--he saw that. It\nwas only a question of time, if you had talent, when you would get your\nhearing. He longed ardently for his but he had no feeling that it was\ncoming to him quickly, so he got the blues. It was a long road to\ntravel.\n\nOne of his pet diversions these days and nights was to walk the streets\nin rain or fog or snow. The city appealed to him, wet or white,\nparticularly the public squares. He saw Fifth Avenue once in a driving\nsnowstorm and under sputtering arc lights, and he hurried to his easel\nnext morning to see if he could not put it down in black and white. It\nwas unsuccessful, or at least he felt so, for after an hour of trying he\nthrew it aside in disgust. But these spectacles were drawing him. He was\nwanting to do them--wanting to see them shown somewhere in color.\nPossible success was a solace at a time when all he could pay for a meal\nwas fifteen cents and he had no place to go and not a soul with whom to\ntalk.\n\nIt was an interesting phase of Eugene's character that he had a passion\nfor financial independence. He might have written home from Chicago at\ntimes when he was hard pressed; he might have borrowed some money from\nhis father now, but preferred to earn it--to appear to be further along\nthan he was. If anyone had asked him he would have said he was doing\nfine. Practically he so wrote to Angela, giving as an excuse for further\ndelay that he wanted to wait until he had ample means. He was trying all\nthis time to make his two hundred dollars go as far as possible and to\nadd to it by any little commissions he could get, however small. He\nfigured his expenses down to ten dollars a week and managed to stay\nwithin that sum.\n\nThe particular building in which he had settled was really not a studio\nbuilding but an old, run-down boarding and apartment house turned\npartially to uses of trade. The top floor contained three fair sized\nrooms and two hall bedrooms, all occupied by lonely individuals plying\nsome craft or other. Eugene's next door neighbor chanced to be a hack\nillustrator, who had had his training in Boston and had set up his easel\nhere in the hope of making a living. There were not many exchanges of\ncourtesies between them at first, although, the door being open the\nsecond day he arrived, he saw that an artist worked there, for the easel\nwas visible.\n\nNo models applying at first he decided to appeal to the Art Students'\nLeague. He called on the Secretary and was given the names of four, who\nreplied to postal cards from him. One he selected, a young Swedish\nAmerican girl who looked somewhat like the character in the story he had\nin mind. She was neat and attractive, with dark hair, a straight nose\nand pointed chin, and Eugene immediately conceived a liking for her. He\nwas ashamed of his surroundings, however, and consequently diffident.\nThis particular model was properly distant, and he finished his pictures\nwith as much expedition and as little expense as he possibly could.\n\nEugene was not given to scraping odd acquaintances, though he made\nfriends fast enough when the balance of intellect was right. In Chicago\nhe had become friendly with several young artists as a result of working\nwith them at the Institute, but here he knew no one, having come without\nintroductions. He did become acquainted with his neighbor, Philip\nShotmeyer. He wanted to find out about local art life from him, but\nShotmeyer was not brilliant, and could not supply him with more than\nminor details of what Eugene desired to know. Through him he learnt a\nlittle of studio regions, art personalities; the fact that young\nbeginners worked in groups. Shotmeyer had been in such a group the year\nbefore, though why he was alone now he did not say. He sold drawings to\nsome of the minor magazines, better magazines than Eugene had yet had\ndealings with. One thing he did at once for Eugene which was very\nhelpful: he admired his work. He saw, as had others before him,\nsomething of his peculiar distinction as an artist, attended every show\nand one day he gave him a suggestion which was the beginning of Eugene's\nsuccessful magazine career. Eugene was working on one of his street\nscenes--a task which he invariably essayed when he had nothing else to\ndo. Shotmeyer had drifted in and was following the strokes of his brush\nas he attempted to portray a mass of East Side working girls flooding\nthe streets after six o'clock. There were dark walls of buildings, a\nflaring gas lamp or two, some yellow lighted shop windows, and many\nshaded, half seen faces--bare suggestions of souls and pulsing life.\n\n\"Say,\" said Shotmeyer at one point, \"that kind o' looks like the real\nthing to me. I've seen a crowd like that.\"\n\n\"Have you?\" replied Eugene.\n\n\"You ought to be able to get some magazine to use that as a\nfrontispiece. Why don't you try _Truth_ with that?\"\n\n\"Truth\" was a weekly which Eugene, along with many others in the West,\nhad admired greatly because it ran a double page color insert every week\nand occasionally used scenes of this character. Somehow he always needed\na shove of this kind to make him act when he was drifting. He put more\nenthusiasm into his work because of Shotmeyer's remark, and when it was\ndone decided to carry it to the office of _Truth_. The Art Director\napproved it on sight, though he said nothing, but carried it in to the\nEditor.\n\n\"Here's a thing that I consider a find in its way.\"\n\nHe set it proudly upon the editorial desk.\n\n\"Say,\" said the Editor, laying down a manuscript, \"that's the real\nthing, isn't it? Who did that?\"\n\n\"A young fellow by the name of Witla, who has just blown in here. He\nlooks like the real thing to me.\"\n\n\"Say,\" went on the Editor, \"look at the suggestion of faces back there!\nWhat? Reminds me just a little of the masses in Dore stuff--It's good,\nisn't it?\"\n\n\"It's fine,\" echoed the Art Director. \"I think he's a comer, if nothing\nhappens to him. We ought to get a few centre pages out of him.\"\n\n\"How much does he want for this?\"\n\n\"Oh, he doesn't know. He'll take almost anything. I'll give him\nseventy-five dollars.\"\n\n\"That's all right,\" said the Editor as the Art Director took the drawing\ndown. \"There's something new there. You ought to hang on to him.\"\n\n\"I will,\" replied his associate. \"He's young yet. He doesn't want to be\nencouraged too much.\"\n\nHe went out, pulling a solemn countenance.\n\n\"I like this fairly well,\" he said. \"We may be able to find room for it.\nI'll send you a check shortly if you'll let me have your address.\"\n\nEugene gave it. His heart was beating a gay tattoo in his chest. He did\nnot think anything of price, in fact it did not occur to him. All that\nwas in his mind was the picture as a double page spread. So he had\nreally sold one after all and to _Truth_! Now he could honestly say he\nhad made some progress. Now he could write Angela and tell her. He could\nsend her copies when it came out. He could really have something to\npoint to after this and best of all, now he knew he could do street\nscenes.\n\nHe went out into the street treading not the grey stone pavement but\nair. He threw back his head and breathed deep. He thought of other\nscenes like this which he could do. His dreams were beginning to be\nrealized--he, Eugene Witla, the painter of a double page spread in\n_Truth_! Already he was doing a whole series in his imagination, all he\nhad ever dreamed of. He wanted to run and tell Shotmeyer--to buy him a\ngood meal. He almost loved him, commonplace hack that he was--because he\nhad suggested to him the right thing to do.\n\n\"Say, Shotmeyer,\" he said, sticking his head in that worthy's door, \"you\nand I eat tonight. _Truth_ took that drawing.\"\n\n\"Isn't that fine,\" said his floor-mate, without a trace of envy. \"Well,\nI'm glad. I thought they'd like it.\"\n\nEugene could have cried. Poor Shotmeyer! He wasn't a good artist, but he\nhad a good heart. He would never forget him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\n\nThis one significant sale with its subsequent check of seventy-five\ndollars and later the appearance of the picture in color, gave Eugene\nsuch a lift in spirit that he felt, for the time being, as though his\nart career had reached a substantial basis, and he began to think of\ngoing to Blackwood to visit Angela. But first he must do some more work.\n\nHe concentrated his attention on several additional scenes, doing a view\nof Greeley Square in a sopping drizzle, and a picture of an L train\nspeeding up the Bowery on its high, thin trestle of steel. He had an eye\nfor contrasts, picking out lights and shadows sharply, making wonderful\nblurs that were like colors in precious stones, confused and suggestive.\nHe took one of these after a month to _Truth_, and again the Art\nDirector was his victim. He tried to be indifferent, but it was hard.\nThe young man had something that he wanted.\n\n\"You might show me anything else you do in this line,\" he said. \"I can\nuse a few if they come up to these two.\"\n\nEugene went away with his head in the air. He was beginning to get the\ncourage of his ability.\n\nIt takes quite a number of drawings at seventy-five and one hundred\ndollars each to make a living income, and artists were too numerous to\nmake anyone's opportunity for immediate distinction easy. Eugene waited\nmonths to see his first drawing come out. He stayed away from the\nsmaller magazines in the hope that he would soon be able to contribute\nto the larger ones, but they were not eagerly seeking new artists. He\nmet, through Shotmeyer, two artists who were living in one studio in\nWaverly Place and took a great liking to them. One of them, McHugh, was\nan importation from Wyoming with delicious stories of mountain farming\nand mining; the other, Smite, was a fisher lad from Nova Scotia. McHugh,\ntall and lean, with a face that looked like that of a raw yokel, but\nwith some gleam of humor and insight in the eyes which redeemed it\ninstantly, was Eugene's first choice of a pleasing, genial personality.\nJoseph Smite had a sense of the sea about him. He was short and stout,\nand rather solidly put together, like a blacksmith. He had big hands and\nfeet, a big mouth, big, bony eye sockets and coarse brown hair. When he\ntalked, ordinarily, it was with a slow, halting air and when he smiled\nor laughed it was with his whole face. When he became excited or gay\nsomething seemed to happen distinctly to every part of his body. His\nface became a curious cross-hatch of genial lines. His tongue loosened\nand he talked fast. He had a habit of emphasizing his language with\noaths on these occasions--numerous and picturesque, for he had worked\nwith sea-faring men and had accumulated a vast vocabulary of picturesque\nexpressions. They were vacant of evil intent so far as he was concerned,\nfor there was no subtlety or guile in him. He was kindly and genial all\nthrough. Eugene wanted to be friendly and struck a gay relationship with\nthese two. He found that he got along excellently well with them and\ncould swap humorous incidents and character touches by the hour. It was\nsome months before he could actually say that he was intimate with them,\nbut he began to visit them regularly and after a time they called on\nhim.\n\nIt was during this year that he came to know several models passingly\nwell, to visit the various art exhibitions, to be taken up by Hudson\nDula, the Art Director of _Truth_ and invited to two or three small\ndinners given to artists and girls. He did not find anyone he liked\nexceptionally well barring one Editor of a rather hopeless magazine\ncalled _Craft_, devoted to art subjects, a young blond, of poetic\ntemperament, who saw in him a spirit of beauty and tried to make friends\nwith him. Eugene responded cheerfully and thereafter Richard Wheeler was\na visitor at his studio from time to time. He was not making enough to\nhouse himself much better these days, but he did manage to buy a few\nplaster casts and to pick up a few nice things in copper and brass for\nhis studio. His own drawings, his street scenes, were hung here and\nthere. The way in which the exceptionally clever looked at them\nconvinced him by degrees that he had something big to say.\n\nIt was while he was settling himself in this atmosphere--the spring of\nthe second year--that he decided to go back and visit Angela and\nincidentally Alexandria and Chicago. He had been away now sixteen\nmonths, had not seen anyone who had won his affections or alienated him\nfrom his love of Angela. He wrote in March that he thought he would be\ncoming in May or June. He did get away in July--a season when the city\nwas suffering from a wave of intense heat. He had not done so\nmuch--illustrated eight or ten stories and drawn four double page\npictures for _Truth_, one of which had appeared; but he was getting\nalong. Just as he was starting for Chicago and Blackwood a second one\nwas put on the news-stand and he proudly carried a copy of it with him\non the train. It was the Bowery by night, with the L train rushing\noverhead and, as reproduced, it had color and life. He felt intensely\nproud and knew that Angela would also. She had written him such a\nglowing appreciation of the East Side picture called \"Six O'clock.\"\n\nAs he rode he dreamed.\n\nHe reached it at last, the long stretch between New York and Chicago\ntraversed; he arrived in the Lake city in the afternoon, and without\npausing to revisit the scenes of his earlier efforts took a five o'clock\ntrain for Blackwood. It was sultry, and on the way heavy thunder clouds\ngathered and broke in a short, splendid summer rain. The trees and grass\nwere thoroughly wet and the dust of the roads was laid. There was a\nrefreshing coolness about the air which caressed the weary flesh. Little\ntowns nestling among green trees came into view and passed again, and at\nlast Blackwood appeared. It was smaller than Alexandria, but not so\ndifferent. Like the other it was marked by a church steeple, a saw mill,\na pretty brick business street and many broad branching green trees.\nEugene felt drawn to it at sight. It was such a place as Angela should\nlive in.\n\nIt was seven o'clock and nearing dusk when he arrived. He had not given\nAngela the definite hour of his arrival and so decided to stay over\nnight at the little inn or so-called hotel which he saw up the street.\nHe had brought only a large suit case and a traveling bag. He inquired\nof the proprietor the direction and distance of the Blue house from the\ntown, found that he could get a vehicle any time in the morning which\nwould take him over, as the phrase ran, for a dollar. He ate his supper\nof fried steak and poor coffee and fried potatoes and then sat out on\nthe front porch facing the street in a rocking chair, to see how the\nvillage of Blackwood wagged and to enjoy the cool of the evening. As he\nsat he thought of Angela's home and how nice it must be. This town was\nsuch a little place--so quiet. There would not be another train coming\nup from the city until after eleven.\n\nAfter a time he rose and took a short walk, breathing the night air.\nLater he came back and throwing wide the windows of the stuffy room sat\nlooking out. The summer night with its early rain, its wet trees, its\nsmell of lush, wet, growing things, was impressing itself on Eugene as\none might impress wet clay with a notable design. Eugene's mood was soft\ntoward the little houses with their glowing windows, the occasional\npedestrians with their \"howdy Jakes\" and \"evenin' Henrys.\" He was\ntouched by the noise of the crickets, the chirp of the tree toads, the\nhang of the lucent suns and planets above the tree tops. The whole night\nwas quick with the richness of fertility, stirring subtly about some\nwork which concerned man very little or not at all, yet of which he was\nat least a part, till his eyelids drooped after a time and he went to\nbed to sleep deeply and dreamlessly.\n\nNext morning he was up early, eager for the hour to arrive when he might\nstart. He did not think it advisable to leave before nine o'clock, and\nattracted considerable attention by strolling about, his tall, spare,\ngraceful figure and forceful profile being an unusual sight to the\nnatives. At nine o'clock a respectable carryall was placed at his\ndisposal and he was driven out over a long yellow road, damp with the\nrain of the night before and shaded in places by overhanging trees.\nThere were so many lovely wild flowers growing in the angles of the rail\nfences--wild yellow and pink roses, elder flower, Queen Anne's lace,\ndozens of beautiful blooms, that Eugene was lost in admiration. His\nheart sang over the beauty of yellowing wheatfields, the young corn,\nalready three feet high, the vistas of hay and clover, with patches of\nwoods enclosing them, and over all, house martens and swallows scudding\nafter insects and high up in the air his boyhood dream of beauty, a\nsoaring buzzard.\n\nAs he rode the moods of his boyhood days came back to him--his love of\nwinging butterflies and birds; his passion for the voice of the\nwood-dove (there was one crying in the still distance now)--his\nadoration for the virile strength of the men of the countryside. He\nthought as he rode that he would like to paint a series of country\nscenes that would be as simple as those cottage dooryards that they now\nand then passed; this little stream that cut the road at right angles\nand made a drinking place for the horses; this skeleton of an old\nabandoned home, doorless and windowless, where the roof sagged and\nhollyhocks and morning glories grew high under the eaves. \"We city\ndwellers do not know,\" he sighed, as though he had not taken the country\nin his heart and carried it to town as had every other boy and girl who\nhad gone the way of the metropolis.\n\nThe Blue homestead was located in the centre of a rather wide rolling\nstretch of country which lay between two gently rising ridges of hill\ncovered with trees. One corner of the farm, and that not so very far\nfrom the house, was cut by a stream, a little shallow thing, singing\nover pebbles and making willows and hazel bushes to grow in profusion\nalong its banks, and there was a little lake within a mile of the house.\nIn front of it was a ten acre field of wheat, to the right of it a\ngrazing patch of several acres, to the left a field of clover; and near\nthe house by a barn, a well, a pig pen, a corn crib and some smaller\nsheds. In front of the house was a long open lawn, down the centre of\nwhich ran a gravel path, lined on either side by tall old elm trees. The\nimmediate dooryard was shut from this noble lawn by a low picket fence\nalong the length of which grew lilac bushes and inside which, nearer the\nhouse, were simple beds of roses, calycanthus and golden glow. Over an\narbor leading from the backdoor to a rather distant summer kitchen\nflourished a grapevine, and there was a tall remnant of a tree trunk\ncovered completely with a yellow blooming trumpet vine. The dooryard's\nlawn was smooth enough, and the great lawn was a dream of green grass,\ngraced with the shadows of a few great trees. The house was long and of\nno great depth, the front a series of six rooms ranged in a row, without\nan upper storey. The two middle rooms which had originally, perhaps\nseventy years before, been all there was of the house. Since then all\nthe other rooms had been added, and there was in addition to these a\nlean-to containing a winter kitchen and dining room, and to the west of\nthe arbor leading to the summer kitchen, an old unpainted frame\nstorehouse. In all its parts the place was shabby and run down but\npicturesque and quaint.\n\nEugene was surprised to find the place so charming. It appealed to him,\nthe long, low front, with doors opening from the centre and end rooms\ndirect upon the grass, with windows set in climbing vines and the lilac\nbushes forming a green wall between the house and the main lawn. The\ngreat rows of elm trees throwing a grateful shade seemed like sentinel\nfiles. As the carryall turned in at the wagon gate in front he thought\n\"What a place for love! and to think Angela should live here.\"\n\nThe carryall rattled down the pebble road to the left of the lawn and\nstopped at the garden gate. Marietta came out. Marietta was twenty-two\nyears old, and as gay and joyous as her elder sister Angela was sober\nand in a way morbid. Light souled as a kitten, looking always on the\nbright side of things, she made hosts of friends everywhere she went,\nhaving a perfect swarm of lovers who wrote her eager notes, but whom she\nrebuffed with good natured, sympathetic simplicity. Here on this farm\nthere was not supposed to be so much opportunity for social life as in\ntown, but beaux made their way here on one pretext and another. Marietta\nwas the magnet, and in the world of gaiety which she created Angela\nshared.\n\nAngela was now in the dining room--easy to be called--but Marietta\nwanted to see for herself what sort of lover her sister had captured.\nShe was surprised at his height, his presence, the keenness of his eyes.\nShe hardly understood so fine a lover for her own sister, but held out\nher hand smilingly.\n\n\"This is Mr. Witla, isn't it?\" she asked.\n\n\"The same,\" he replied, a little pompously. \"Isn't it a lovely drive\nover here?\"\n\n\"We think it nice in nice weather,\" she laughed. \"You wouldn't like it\nso much in winter. Won't you come in and put your grip here in the hall?\nDavid will take it to your room.\"\n\nEugene obeyed, but he was thinking of Angela and when she would appear\nand how she would look. He stepped into the large, low ceiled, dark,\ncool parlor and was delighted to see a piano and some music piled on a\nrack. Through an open window he saw several hammocks out on the main\nlawn, under the trees. It seemed a wonderful place to him, the substance\nof poetry--and then Angela appeared. She was dressed in plain white\nlinen. Her hair, braided as he liked it in a great rope, lay as a band\nacross her forehead. She had picked a big pink rose and put it in her\nwaist. At sight of her Eugene held out his arms and she flew to them. He\nkissed her vigorously, for Marietta had discreetly retired and they were\nleft alone.\n\n\"So I have you at last,\" he whispered, and kissed her again.\n\n\"Oh, yes, yes, and it has been so long,\" she sighed.\n\n\"You couldn't have suffered any more than I have,\" he consoled. \"Every\nminute has been torture, waiting, waiting, waiting!\"\n\n\"Let's not think of that now,\" she urged. \"We have each other. You are\nhere.\"\n\n\"Yes, here I am,\" he laughed, \"all the virtues done up in one brown\nsuit. Isn't it lovely--these great trees, that beautiful lawn?\"\n\nHe paused from kissing to look out of the window.\n\n\"I'm glad you like it,\" she replied joyously. \"We think it's nice, but\nthis place is so old.\"\n\n\"I love it for that,\" he cried appreciatively. \"Those bushes are so\nnice--those roses. Oh, dear, you don't know how sweet it all seems--and\nyou--you are so nice.\"\n\nHe held her off at arm's length and surveyed her while she blushed\nbecomingly. His eager, direct, vigorous onslaught confused her at\ntimes--caused her pulse to beat at a high rate.\n\nThey went out into the dooryard after a time and then Marietta appeared\nagain, and with her Mrs. Blue, a comfortable, round bodied mother of\nsixty, who greeted Eugene cordially. He could feel in her what he felt\nin his own mother--in every good mother--love of order and peace, love\nof the well being of her children, love of public respect and private\nhonor and morality. All these things Eugene heartily respected in\nothers. He was glad to see them, believed they had a place in society,\nbut was uncertain whether they bore any fixed or important relationship\nto him. He was always thinking in his private conscience that life was\nsomehow bigger and subtler and darker than any given theory or order of\nliving. It might well be worth while for a man or woman to be honest and\nmoral within a given condition or quality of society, but it did not\nmatter at all in the ultimate substance and composition of the universe.\nAny form or order of society which hoped to endure must have individuals\nlike Mrs. Blue, who would conform to the highest standards and theories\nof that society, and when found they were admirable, but they meant\nnothing in the shifting, subtle forces of nature. They were just\naccidental harmonies blossoming out of something which meant everything\nhere to this order, nothing to the universe at large. At twenty-two\nyears of age he was thinking these things, wondering whether it would be\npossible ever to express them; wondering what people would think of him\nif they actually knew what he did think; wondering if there was\nanything, anything, which was really stable--a rock to cling to--and not\nmere shifting shadow and unreality.\n\nMrs. Blue looked at her daughter's young lover with a kindly eye. She\nhad heard a great deal about him. Having raised her children to be\nhonest, moral and truthful she trusted them to associate only with those\nwho were equally so. She assumed that Eugene was such a man, and his\nfrank open countenance and smiling eyes and mouth convinced her that he\nwas basically good. Also, what to her were his wonderful drawings, sent\nto Angela in the form of proofs from time to time, particularly the one\nof the East Side crowd, had been enough to prejudice her in his favor.\nNo other daughter of the family, and there were three married, had\napproximated to this type of man in her choice. Eugene was looked upon\nas a prospective son-in-law who would fulfill all the conventional\nobligations joyfully and as a matter of course.\n\n\"It's very good of you to put me up, Mrs. Blue,\" Eugene said pleasantly.\n\"I've always wanted to come out here for a visit--I've heard so much of\nthe family from Angela.\"\n\n\"It's just a country home we have, not much to look at, but we like it,\"\nreplied his hostess. She smiled blandly, asked if he wouldn't make\nhimself comfortable in one of the hammocks, wanted to know how he was\ngetting along with his work in New York and then returned to her\ncooking, for she was already preparing his first meal. Eugene strolled\nwith Angela to the big lawn under the trees and sat down. He was\nexperiencing the loftiest of human emotions on earth--love in youth,\naccepted and requited, hope in youth, justified in action by his success\nin New York; peace in youth, for he had a well earned holiday in his\ngrasp, was resting with the means to do so and with love and beauty and\nadmiration and joyous summer weather to comfort him.\n\nAs he rocked to and fro in the hammock gazing at the charming lawn and\nrealizing all these things, his glance rested at last upon Angela, and\nhe thought, \"Life can really hold no finer thing than this.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\n\nToward noon old Jotham Blue came in from a cornfield where he had been\nturning the earth between the rows. Although sixty-five and with snowy\nhair and beard he looked to be vigorous, and good to live until ninety\nor a hundred. His eyes were blue and keen, his color rosy. He had great\nbroad shoulders set upon a spare waist, for he had been a handsome\nfigure of a man in his youth.\n\n\"How do you do, Mr. Witla,\" he inquired with easy grace as he strolled\nup, the yellow mud of the fields on his boots. He had pulled a big\njackknife out of his pocket and begun whittling a fine twig he had\npicked up. \"I'm glad to see you. My daughter, Angela, has been telling\nme one thing and another about you.\"\n\nHe smiled as he looked at Eugene. Angela, who was sitting beside him,\nrose and strolled toward the house.\n\n\"I'm glad to see you,\" said Eugene. \"I like your country around here. It\nlooks prosperous.\"\n\n\"It is prosperous,\" said the old patriarch, drawing up a chair which\nstood at the foot of a tree and seating himself. Eugene sank back into\nthe hammock.\n\n\"It's a soil that's rich in lime and carbon and sodium--the things which\nmake plant life grow. We need very little fertilizer here--very little.\nThe principal thing is to keep the ground thoroughly cultivated and to\nkeep out the bugs and weeds.\"\n\nHe cut at his stick meditatively. Eugene noted the chemical and physical\nknowledge relative to farming. It pleased him to find brain coupled with\ncrop cultivation.\n\n\"I noticed some splendid fields of wheat as I came over,\" he observed.\n\n\"Yes, wheat does well here,\" Blue went on, \"when the weather is\nmoderately favorable. Corn does well. We have a splendid apple crop and\ngrapes are generally successful in this state. I have always thought\nthat Wisconsin had a little the best of the other valley states, for we\nare blessed with a moderate climate, plenty of streams and rivers and a\nfine, broken landscape. There are good mines up north and lots of\nlumber. We are a prosperous people, we Wisconsiners, decidedly\nprosperous. This state has a great future.\"\n\nEugene noted the wide space between his clear blue eyes as he talked. He\nliked the bigness of his conception of his state and of his country. No\npetty little ground-harnessed ploughman this, but a farmer in the big\nsense of the word--a cultivator of the soil, with an understanding of\nit--an American who loved his state and his country.\n\n\"I have always thought of the Mississippi valley as the country of the\nfuture,\" said Eugene. \"We have had the Valley of the Nile and the Valley\nof the Euphrates with big populations, but this is something larger. I\nrather feel as though a great wave of population were coming here in the\nfuture.\"\n\n\"It is the new paradise of the world,\" said Jotham Blue, pausing in his\nwhittling and holding up his right hand for emphasis. \"We haven't come\nto realize its possibilities. The fruit, the corn, the wheat, to feed\nthe nations of the world can be raised here. I sometimes marvel at the\nproductivity of the soil. It is so generous. It is like a great mother.\nIt only asks to be treated kindly to give all that it has.\"\n\nEugene smiled. The bigness of his prospective father-in-law's feelings\nlured him. He felt as though he could love this man.\n\nThey talked on about other things, the character of the surrounding\npopulation, the growth of Chicago, the recent threat of a war with\nVenezuela, the rise of a new leader in the Democratic party, a man whom\nJotham admired very much. As he was telling of the latter's exploits--it\nappeared he had recently met him at Blackwood--Mrs. Blue appeared in the\nfront door.\n\n\"Jotham!\" she called.\n\nHe rose. \"My wife must want a bucket of water,\" he said, and strolled\naway.\n\nEugene smiled. This was lovely. This was the way life should\nbe--compounded of health, strength, good nature, understanding,\nsimplicity. He wished he were a man like Jotham, as sound, as hearty, as\nclean and strong. To think he had raised eight children. No wonder\nAngela was lovely. They all were, no doubt.\n\nWhile he was rocking, Marietta came back smiling, her blond hair blowing\nabout her face. Like her father she had blue eyes, like him a sanguine\ntemperament, warm and ruddy. Eugene felt drawn to her. She reminded him\na little of Ruby--a little of Margaret. She was bursting with young\nhealth.\n\n\"You're stronger than Angela,\" he said, looking at her.\n\n\"Oh, yes, I can always outrun Angel-face,\" she exclaimed. \"We fight\nsometimes but I can get things away from her. She has to give in.\nSometimes I feel older--I always take the lead.\"\n\nEugene rejoiced in the sobriquet of Angel-face. It suited Angela, he\nthought. She looked like pictures of Angels in the old prints and in the\nstained glass windows he had seen. He wondered in a vague way, however,\nwhether Marietta did not have the sweeter temperament--were not really\nmore lovable and cosy. But he put the thought forcefully out of his\nmind. He felt he must be loyal to Angela here.\n\nWhile they were talking the youngest boy, David, came up and sat down on\nthe grass. He was short and stocky for his years--sixteen--with an\nintelligent face and an inquiring eye. Eugene noted stability and quiet\nforce in his character at once. He began to see that these children had\ninherited character as well as strength from their parents. This was a\nhome in which successful children were being reared. Benjamin came up\nafter awhile, a tall, overgrown, puritanical youth, with western\nmodifications and then Samuel, the oldest of the living boys and the\nmost impressive. He was big and serene like his father, of brown\ncomplexion and hickory strength. Eugene learned in the conversation that\nhe was a railroad man in St. Paul--home for a brief vacation, after\nthree years of absence. He was with a road called the Great Northern,\nalready a Second Assistant Passenger Agent and with great prospects, so\nthe family thought. Eugene could see that all the boys and girls, like\nAngela, were ruggedly and honestly truthful. They were written all over\nwith Christian precept--not church dogma--but Christian precept, lightly\nand good naturedly applied. They obeyed the ten commandments in so far\nas possible and lived within the limits of what people considered sane\nand decent. Eugene wondered at this. His own moral laxity was a puzzle\nto him. He wondered whether he were not really all wrong and they all\nright. Yet the subtlety of the universe was always with him--the mystery\nof its chemistry. For a given order of society no doubt he was out of\nplace--for life in general, well, he could not say.\n\nAt 12.30 dinner was announced from the door by Mrs. Blue and they all\nrose. It was one of those simple home feasts common to any intelligent\nfarming family. There was a generous supply of fresh vegetables, green\npeas, new potatoes, new string beans. A steak had been secured from the\nitinerant butcher who served these parts and Mrs. Blue had made hot\nlight biscuit. Eugene expressed a predilection for fresh buttermilk and\nthey brought him a pitcherful, saying that as a rule it was given to the\npigs; the children did not care for it. They talked and jested and he\nheard odd bits of information concerning people here and there--some\nfarmer who had lost a horse by colic; some other farmer who was\npreparing to cut his wheat. There were frequent references to the three\noldest sisters, who lived in other Wisconsin towns. Their children\nappeared to be numerous and fairly troublesome. They all came home\nfrequently, it appeared, and were bound up closely with the interests of\nthe family as a whole.\n\n\"The more you know about the Blue family,\" observed Samuel to Eugene,\nwho expressed surprise at the solidarity of interest, \"the more you\nrealize that they're a clan not a family. They stick together like\nglue.\"\n\n\"That's a rather nice trait, I should say,\" laughed Eugene, who felt no\nsuch keen interest in his relatives.\n\n\"Well, if you want to find out how the Blue family stick together just\ndo something to one of them,\" observed Jake Doll, a neighbor who had\nentered.\n\n\"That's sure true, isn't it, Sis,\" observed Samuel, who was sitting next\nto Angela, putting his hand affectionately on his sister's arm. Eugene\nnoted the movement. She nodded her head affectionately.\n\n\"Yes, we Blues all hang together.\"\n\nEugene almost begrudged him his sister's apparent affection. Could such\na girl be cut out of such an atmosphere--separated from it completely,\nbrought into a radically different world, he wondered. Would she\nunderstand him; would he stick by her. He smiled at Jotham and Mrs. Blue\nand thought he ought to, but life was strange. You never could tell what\nmight happen.\n\nDuring the afternoon there were more lovely impressions. He and Angela\nsat alone in the cool parlor for two hours after dinner while he\nrestated his impressions of her over and over. He told her how charming\nhe thought her home was, how nice her father and mother, what\ninteresting brothers she had. He made a genial sketch of Jotham as he\nhad strolled up to him at noon, which pleased Angela and she kept it to\nshow to her father. He made her pose in the window and sketched her head\nand her halo of hair. He thought of his double page illustration of the\nBowery by night and went to fetch it, looking for the first time at the\nsweet cool room at the end of the house which he was to occupy. One\nwindow, a west one, had hollyhocks looking in, and the door to the north\ngave out on the cool, shady grass. He moved in beauty, he thought; was\ntreading on showered happiness. It hurt him to think that such joy might\nnot always be, as though beauty were not everywhere and forever present.\n\nWhen Angela saw the picture which _Truth_ had reproduced, she was beside\nherself with joy and pride and happiness. It was such a testimony to her\nlover's ability. He had written almost daily of the New York art world,\nso she was familiar with that in exaggerated ideas, but these actual\nthings, like reproduced pictures, were different. The whole world would\nsee this picture. He must be famous already, she imagined.\n\nThat evening and the next and the next as they sat in the parlor alone\nhe drew nearer and nearer to that definite understanding which comes\nbetween a man and woman when they love. Eugene could never stop with\nmere kissing and caressing in a reserved way, if not persistently\nrestrained. It seemed natural to him that love should go on. He had not\nbeen married. He did not know what its responsibilities were. He had\nnever given a thought to what his parents had endured to make him worth\nwhile. There was no instinct in him to tell him. He had no yearnings for\nparenthood, that normal desire which gives visions of a home and the\nproper social conditions for rearing a family. All he thought of was the\nlove making period--the billing and cooing and the transports of delight\nwhich come with it. With Angela he felt that these would be super-normal\nprecisely because she was so slow in yielding--so on the defensive\nagainst herself. He could look in her eyes at times and see a swooning\nveil which foreshadowed a storm of emotion. He would sit by her stroking\nher hands, touching her cheek, smoothing her hair, or at other times\nholding her in his arms. It was hard for her to resist those significant\npressures he gave, to hold him at arm's length, for she herself was\neager for the delights of love.\n\nIt was on the third night of his stay and in the face of his growing\nrespect for every member of this family, that he swept Angela to the\ndanger line--would have carried her across it had it not been for a\nfortuitous wave of emotion, which was not of his creation, but of hers.\n\nThey had been to the little lake, Okoonee, a little way from the house\nduring the afternoon for a swim.\n\nAfterward he and Angela and David and Marietta had taken a drive. It was\none of those lovely afternoons that come sometimes in summer and speak\ndirect to the heart of love and beauty. It was so fair and warm, the\nshadows of the trees so comforting that they fairly made Eugene's heart\nache. He was young now, life was beautiful, but how would it be when he\nwas old? A morbid anticipation of disaster seemed to harrow his soul.\n\nThe sunset had already died away when they drew near home. Insects\nhummed, a cow-bell tinkled now and then; breaths of cool air, those\nharbingers of the approaching eve, swept their cheeks as they passed\noccasional hollows. Approaching the house they saw the blue smoke curls\nrising from the kitchen chimney, foretelling the preparation of the\nevening meal. Eugene clasped Angela's hand in an ecstasy of emotion.\n\nHe wanted to dream--sitting in the hammock with Angela as the dusk fell,\nwatching the pretty scene. Life was all around. Jotham and Benjamin came\nin from the fields and the sound of their voices and of the splashing\nwater came from the kitchen door where they were washing. There was an\nanticipatory stamping of horses' feet in the barn, the lowing of a\ndistant cow, the hungry grunt of pigs. Eugene shook his head--it was so\npastoral, so sweet.\n\nAt supper he scarcely touched what was put before him, the group at the\ndining table holding his attention as a spectacle. Afterwards he sat\nwith the family on the lawn outside the door, breathing the odor of\nflowers, watching the stars over the trees, listening to Jotham and\nMrs. Blue, to Samuel, Benjamin, David, Marietta and occasionally Angela.\nBecause of his mood, sad in the face of exquisite beauty, she also was\nsubdued. She said little, listening to Eugene and her father, but when\nshe did talk her voice was sweet.\n\nJotham arose, after a time, and went to bed, and one by one the others\nfollowed. David and Marietta went into the sitting room and then Samuel\nand Benjamin left. They gave as an excuse hard work for the morning.\nSamuel was going to try his hand again at thrashing. Eugene took Angela\nby the hand and led her out where some hydrangeas were blooming, white\nas snow by day, but pale and silvery in the dark. He took her face in\nhis hands, telling her again of love.\n\n\"It's been such a wonderful day I'm all wrought up,\" he said. \"Life is\nso beautiful here. This place is so sweet and peaceful. And you! oh,\nyou!\" kisses ended his words.\n\nThey stood there a little while, then went back into the parlor where\nshe lighted a lamp. It cast a soft yellow glow over the room, just\nenough to make it warm, he thought. They sat first side by side on two\nrocking chairs and then later on a settee, he holding her in his arms.\nBefore supper she had changed to a loose cream  house gown. Now\nEugene persuaded her to let her hair hang in the two braids.\n\nReal passion is silent. It was so intense with him that he sat\ncontemplating her as if in a spell. She leaned back against his shoulder\nstroking his hair, but finally ceased even that, for her own feeling was\ntoo intense to make movement possible. She thought of him as a young\ngod, strong, virile, beautiful--a brilliant future before him. All these\nyears she had waited for someone to truly love her and now this splendid\nyouth had apparently cast himself at her feet. He stroked her hands, her\nneck, cheeks, then slowly gathered her close and buried his head against\nher bosom.\n\nAngela was strong in convention, in the precepts of her parents, in the\nsense of her family and its attitude, but this situation was more than\nshe could resist. She accepted first the pressure of his arm, then the\nslow subtlety with which he caressed her. Resistance seemed almost\nimpossible now for he held her close--tight within the range of his\nmagnetism. When finally she felt the pressure of his hand upon her\nquivering limbs, she threw herself back in a transport of agony and\ndelight.\n\n\"No, no, Eugene,\" she begged. \"No, no! Save me from myself. Save me from\nmyself. Oh, Eugene!\"\n\nHe paused a moment to look at her face. It was wrought in lines of\nintense suffering--pale as though she were ill. Her body was quite limp.\nOnly the hot, moist lips told the significant story. He could not stop\nat once. Slowly he drew his hand away, then let his sensitive artists'\nfingers rest gently on her neck--her bosom.\n\nShe struggled lamely at this point and slipped to her knees, her dress\nloosened at the neck.\n\n\"Don't, Eugene,\" she begged, \"don't. Think of my father, my mother. I,\nwho have boasted so. I of whom they feel so sure. Oh, Eugene, I beg of\nyou!\"\n\nHe stroked her hair, her cheeks, looking into her face as Abelard might\nhave looked at Heloise.\n\n\"Oh, I know why it is,\" she exclaimed, convulsively. \"I am no better\nthan any other, but I have waited so long, so long! But I mustn't! Oh,\nEugene, I mustn't! Help me!\"\n\nVaguely Eugene understood. She had been without lovers. Why? he thought.\nShe was beautiful. He got up, half intending to carry her to his room,\nbut he paused, thinking. She was such a pathetic figure. Was he really\nas bad as this? Could he not be fair in this one instance? Her father\nhad been so nice to him--her mother--He saw Jotham Blue before him,\nMrs. Blue, her admiring brothers and sisters, as they had been a little\nwhile before. He looked at her and still the prize lured him--almost\nswept him on in spite of himself, but he stayed.\n\n\"Stand up, Angela,\" he said at last, pulling himself together, looking\nat her intensely. She did so. \"Leave me now,\" he went on, \"right away! I\nwon't answer for myself if you don't. I am really trying. Please go.\"\n\nShe paused, looking at him fearfully, regretfully.\n\n\"Oh, forgive me, Eugene,\" she pleaded.\n\n\"Forgive me,\" he said. \"I'm the one. But you go now, sweet. You don't\nknow how hard this is. Help me by going.\"\n\nShe moved away and he followed her with his eyes, yearningly, burningly,\nuntil she reached the door. When she closed it softly he went into his\nown room and sat down. His body was limp and weary. He ached from head\nto foot from the intensity of the mood he had passed through. He went\nover the recent incidents, almost stunned by his experience and then\nwent outside and stood under the stairs, listening. Tree toads were\nchirping, there were suspicious cracklings in the grass as of bugs\nstirring. A duck quacked somewhere feebly. The bell of the family cow\ntinkled somewhere over near the water of the little stream. He saw the\ngreat dipper in the sky, Sirius, Canopus, the vast galaxy of the Milky\nWay.\n\n\"What is life anyway?\" he asked himself. \"What is the human body? What\nproduces passion? Here we are for a few years surging with a fever of\nlonging and then we burn out and die.\" He thought of some lines he might\nwrite, of pictures he might paint. All the while, reproduced before his\nmind's eye like a cinematograph, were views of Angela as she had been\ntonight in his arms, on her knees. He had seen her true form. He had\nheld her in his arms. He had voluntarily resigned her charms for\ntonight; anyhow, no harm had come. It never should.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\n\nIt would be hard to say in what respect, if any, the experiences of this\nparticular night altered Eugene's opinion of Angela. He was inclined to\nlike her better for what he would have called her humanness. Thus\nfrankly to confess her weakness and inability to save herself was\nsplendid. That he was given the chance to do a noble deed was fortunate\nand uplifting. He knew now that he could take her if he wished, but once\ncalm again he resolved to be fair and not to insist. He could wait.\n\nThe state of Angela's mind, on the contrary, once she had come out of\nher paroxysm and gained the privacy of her own room, or rather the room\nshe shared with Marietta at the other extreme of the house, was\npitiable. She had for so long considered herself an estimable and\nvirtuous girl. There was in her just a faint trace of prudery which\nmight readily have led to an unhappy old maid existence for her if\nEugene, with his superiority, or non-understanding, or indifference to\nconventional theories and to old-maidish feelings, had not come along\nand with his customary blindness to material prosperity and age\nlimitations, seized upon and made love to her. He had filled her brain\nwith a whirlwind of notions hitherto unfamiliar to her world and set\nhimself up in her brain as a law unto himself. He was not like other\nmen--she could see that. He was superior to them. He might not make much\nmoney, being an artist, but he could make other things which to her\nseemed more desirable. Fame, beautiful pictures, notable friends, were\nnot these things far superior to money? She had had little enough money\nin all conscience, and if Eugene made anything at all it would be enough\nfor her. He seemed to be under the notion that he needed a lot to get\nmarried, whereas she would have been glad to risk it on almost anything\nat all.\n\nThis latest revelation of herself, besides tearing her mind from a\ncarefully nurtured belief in her own virtuous impregnability, raised at\nthe same time a spectre of disaster in so far as Eugene's love for her\nwas concerned. Would he, now that she had allowed him those precious\nendearments which should have been reserved for the marriage bed only,\ncare for her as much as he had before? Would he not think of her as a\nlight minded, easily spoiled creature who was waiting only for a\npropitious moment to yield herself? She had been lost to all sense of\nright and wrong in that hour, that she knew. Her father's character and\nwhat he stood for, her mother's decency and love of virtue, her\ncleanly-minded, right-living brothers and sisters,--all had been\nforgotten and here she was, a tainted maiden, virtuous in technical\nsense it is true, but tainted. Her convention-trained conscience smote\nher vigorously and she groaned in her heart. She went outside the door\nof her own room and sat down on the damp grass in the early morning to\nthink. It was so cool and calm everywhere but in her own soul. She held\nher face in her hands, feeling her hot cheeks, wondering what Eugene was\nthinking now. What would her father think, her mother? She wrung her\nhands more than once and finally went inside to see if she could not\nrest. She was not unconscious of the beauty and joy of the episode, but\nshe was troubled by what she felt she ought to think, what the\nconsequences to her future might be. To hold Eugene now--that was a\nsubtle question. To hold up her head in front of him as she had, could\nshe? To keep him from going further. It was a difficult situation and\nshe tossed restlessly all night, getting little sleep. In the morning\nshe arose weary and disturbed, but more desperately in love than ever.\nThis wonderful youth had revealed an entirely new and intensely dramatic\nworld to her.\n\nWhen they met on the lawn again before breakfast, Angela was garbed in\nwhite linen. She looked waxen and delicate and her eyes showed dark\nrings as well as the dark thoughts that were troubling her. Eugene took\nher hand sympathetically.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" he said, \"I know. It isn't as bad as you think.\" And he\nsmiled tenderly.\n\n\"Oh, Eugene, I don't understand myself now,\" she said sorrowfully. \"I\nthought I was better than that.\"\n\n\"We're none of us better than that,\" he replied simply. \"We just think\nwe are sometimes. You are not any different to me. You just think you\nare.\"\n\n\"Oh, are you sure?\" she asked eagerly.\n\n\"Quite sure,\" he replied. \"Love isn't a terrible thing between any two.\nIt's just lovely. Why should I think worse of you?\"\n\n\"Oh, because good girls don't do what I have done. I have been raised to\nknow better--to do better.\"\n\n\"All a belief, my dear, which you get from what has been taught you. You\nthink it wrong. Why? Because your father and mother told you so. Isn't\nthat it?\"\n\n\"Oh, not that alone. Everybody thinks it's wrong. The Bible teaches that\nit is. Everybody turns his back on you when he finds out.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" pleaded Eugene argumentatively. He was trying to solve\nthis puzzle for himself. \"Let's leave the Bible out of it, for I don't\nbelieve in the Bible--not as a law of action anyhow. The fact that\neverybody thinks it's wrong wouldn't necessarily make it so, would it?\"\nHe was ignoring completely the significance of _everybody_ as a\nreflection of those principles which govern the universe.\n\n\"No-o-o,\" ventured Angela doubtfully.\n\n\"Listen,\" went on Eugene. \"Everybody in Constantinople believes that\nMahomet is the Prophet of God. That doesn't make him so, does it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, then, everyone here might believe that what we did last night was\nwrong without making it so. Isn't that true?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Angela confusedly. She really did not know. She could not\nargue with him. He was too subtle, but her innate principles and\ninstincts were speaking plainly enough, nevertheless.\n\n\"Now what you're really thinking about is what people will do. They'll\nturn their backs on you, you say. That is a practical matter. Your\nfather might turn you out of doors--\"\n\n\"I think he would,\" replied Angela, little understanding the bigness of\nthe heart of her father.\n\n\"I think he wouldn't,\" said Eugene, \"but that's neither here nor there.\nMen might refuse to marry you. Those are material considerations. You\nwouldn't say they had anything to do with real right or wrong, would\nyou?\"\n\nEugene had no convincing end to his argument. He did not know any more\nthan anyone else what was right or wrong in this matter. He was merely\ntalking to convince himself, but he had enough logic to confuse Angela.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said vaguely.\n\n\"Right,\" he went on loftily, \"is something which is supposed to be in\naccordance with a standard of truth. Now no one in all the world knows\nwhat truth is, no one. There is no way of telling. You can only act\nwisely or unwisely as regards your personal welfare. If that's what\nyou're worrying about, and it is, I can tell you that you're no worse\noff. There's nothing the matter with your welfare. I think you're better\noff, for I like you better.\"\n\nAngela wondered at the subtlety of his brain. She was not sure but that\nwhat he said might be true. Could her fears be baseless? She felt sure\nshe had lost some of the bloom of her youth anyhow.\n\n\"How can you?\" she asked, referring to his saying that he liked her\nbetter.\n\n\"Easily enough,\" he replied. \"I know more about you. I admire your\nfrankness. You're lovely--altogether so. You are sweet beyond compare.\"\nHe started to particularize.\n\n\"Don't, Eugene,\" she pleaded, putting her finger over her lips. The\ncolor was leaving her cheeks. \"Please don't, I can't stand it.\"\n\n\"All right,\" he said, \"I won't. But you're altogether lovely. Let's go\nand sit in the hammock.\"\n\n\"No. I'm going to get you your breakfast. It's time you had something.\"\n\nHe took comfort in his privileges, for the others had all gone. Jotham,\nSamuel, Benjamin and David were in the fields. Mrs. Blue was sewing and\nMarietta had gone to see a girl friend up the road. Angela, as Ruby\nbefore her, bestirred herself about the youth's meal, mixing biscuit,\nbroiling him some bacon, cleaning a basket of fresh dewberries for him.\n\n\"I like your man,\" said her mother, coming out where she was working.\n\"He looks to be good-natured. But don't spoil him. If you begin wrong\nyou'll be sorry.\"\n\n\"You spoiled papa, didn't you?\" asked Angela sagely, recalling all the\nlittle humorings her father had received.\n\n\"Your father has a keen sense of duty,\" retorted her mother. \"It didn't\nhurt him to be spoiled a little.\"\n\n\"Maybe Eugene has,\" replied her daughter, turning her slices of bacon.\n\nHer mother smiled. All her daughters had married well. Perhaps Angela\nwas doing the best of all. Certainly her lover was the most\ndistinguished. Yet, \"well to be careful,\" she suggested.\n\nAngela\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}
{"id": "pg19_005", "title": "The Magnetic North by Elizabeth Robins", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10038", "tokens": 65536, "chars": 259971, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nWINTER CAMP ON THE YUKON\n\n\"To labour and to be content with that a man hath is a sweet life; but\nhe that findeth a treasure is above them both.\"--_Ecclesiasticus_.\n\n\nOf course they were bound for the Klondyke. Every creature in the\nNorth-west was bound for the Klondyke. Men from the South too, and men\nfrom the East, had left their ploughs and their pens, their factories,\npulpits, and easy-chairs, each man like a magnetic needle suddenly set\nfree and turning sharply to the North; all set pointing the self-same\nway since that July day in '97, when the _Excelsior_ sailed into San\nFrancisco harbour, bringing from the uttermost regions at the top of\nthe map close upon a million dollars in nuggets and in gold-dust.\n\nSome distance this side of the Arctic Circle, on the right bank of the\nYukon, a little detachment of that great army pressing northward, had\nbeen wrecked early in the month of September.\n\nThey had realised, on leaving the ocean-going ship that landed them at\nSt. Michael's Island (near the mouth of the great river), that they\ncould not hope to reach Dawson that year. But instead of \"getting cold\nfeet,\" as the phrase for discouragement ran, and turning back as\nthousands did, or putting in the winter on the coast, they determined,\nwith an eye to the spring rush, to cover as many as possible of the\nseventeen hundred miles of waterway before navigation closed.\n\nThey knew, in a vague way, that winter would come early, but they had\nnot counted on the big September storm that dashed their heavy-laden\nboats against the floe-ice, ultimately drove them ashore, and nearly\ncost the little party their lives. On that last day of the long\nstruggle up the stream, a stiff north-easter was cutting the middle\nreach of the mighty river, two miles wide here, into a choppy and\ndangerous sea.\n\nDay by day, five men in the two little boats, had kept serious eyes on\nthe shore. Then came the morning when, out of the monotonous cold and\nsnow-flurries, something new appeared, a narrow white rim forming on\nthe river margin--the first ice!\n\n\"Winter beginning to show his teeth,\" said one man, with an effort at\njocosity.\n\nDay by day, nearer came the menace; narrower and swifter still ran the\ndeep black water strip between the encroaching ice-lines. But the\nthought that each day's sailing or rowing meant many days nearer the\nKlondyke, seemed to inspire a superhuman energy. Day by day each man\nhad felt, and no man yet had said, \"We must camp to-night for eight\nmonths.\" They had looked landward, shivered, and held on their way.\n\nBut on this particular morning, when they took in sail, they realised\nit was to be that abomination of desolation on the shore or death. And\none or other speedily.\n\nNearer the white teeth gleamed, fiercer the gale, swifter the current,\nsweeping back the boats. The _Mary C._ was left behind, fighting for\nlife, while it seemed as if no human power could keep the _Tulare_ from\nbeing hurled against the western shore. Twice, in spite of all they\ncould do, she was driven within a few feet of what looked like certain\ndeath. With a huge effort, that last time, her little crew had just got\nher well in mid-stream, when a heavy roller breaking on the starboard\nside drenched the men and half filled the cockpit. Each rower, still\npulling for dear life with one hand, bailed the boat with the other;\nbut for all their promptness a certain amount of the water froze solid\nbefore they could get it out.\n\n\"Great luck, if we're going to take in water like this,\" said the\ncheerful Kentuckian, shipping his oar and knocking off the ice--\"great\nluck that all the stores are so well protected.\"\n\n\"Protected!\" snapped out an anxious, cast-iron-looking man at the\nrudder.\n\n\"Yes, protected. How's water to get through the ice-coat that's over\neverything?\"\n\nThe cast-iron steersman set his jaw grimly. They seemed to be\ncomparatively safe now, with half a mile of open water between them and\nthe western shore.\n\nBut they sat as before, stiff, alert, each man in his ice jacket that\ncracked and crunched as he bent to his oar. Now right, now left, again\nthey eyed the shore.\n\nWould it be--could it be there they would have to land? And if they\ndid...?\n\nLord, how it blew!\n\n\"Hard a-port!\" called out the steersman. There, just ahead, was a great\nwhite-capped \"roller\" coming--coming, the biggest wave they had\nencountered since leaving open sea.\n\nBut MacCann, the steersman, swung the boat straight into the crested\nroller, and the _Tulare_ took it gamely, \"bow on.\" All was going well\nwhen, just in the boiling middle of what they had thought was foaming\n\"white-cap,\" the boat struck something solid, shivered, and went\nshooting down, half under water; recovered, up again, and seemed to\npause in a second's doubt on the very top of the great wave. In that\nsecond that seemed an eternity one man's courage snapped.\n\nPotts threw down his oar and swore by----and by----he wouldn't pull\nanother----stroke on the----Yukon.\n\nWhile he was pouring out the words, the steersman sprang from the\ntiller, and seized Potts' oar just in time to save the boat from\ncapsizing. Then he and the big Kentuckian both turned on the distracted\nPotts.\n\n\"You infernal quitter!\" shouted the steersman, and choked with fury.\nBut even under the insult of that \"meanest word in the language,\" Potts\nsat glaring defiantly, with his half-frozen hands in his pockets.\n\n\"It ain't a river, anyhow, this ain't,\" he said. \"It's plain, simple\nHell and water.\"\n\nThe others had no time to realise that Potts was clean out of his\nsenses for the moment, and the Kentuckian, still pulling like mad,\nfaced the \"quitter\" with a determination born of terror.\n\n\"If you can't row, take the rudder! Damnation! Take that rudder! Quick,\n_or we'll kill you_!\" And he half rose up, never dropping his oar.\n\nBlindly, Potts obeyed.\n\nThe _Tulare_ was free now from the clinging mass at the bow, but they\nknew they had struck their first floe.\n\nFarther on they could see other white-caps bringing other ice masses\ndown. But there was no time for terrors ahead. The gale was steadily\ndriving them in shore again. Boat and oars alike were growing unwieldy\nwith their coating of ever-increasing ice, and human strength was no\nmatch for the storm that was sweeping down from the Pole.\n\nLord, how it blew!\n\n\"There's a cove!\" called out the Kentuckian. \"Throw her in!\" he shouted\nto Potts. Sullenly the new steersman obeyed.\n\nRolling in on a great surge, the boat suddenly turned in a boiling\neddy, and the first thing anybody knew was that the _Tulare_ was on her\nside and her crew in the water. Potts was hanging on to the gunwale and\ndamning the others for not helping him to save the boat.\n\nShe wasn't much of a boat when finally they got her into quiet water;\nbut the main thing was they had escaped with their lives and rescued a\ngood proportion of their winter provisions. All the while they were\ndoing this last, the Kentuckian kept turning to look anxiously for any\nsign of the others, in his heart bitterly blaming himself for having\nagreed to Potts' coming into the _Tulare_ that day in place of the\nKentuckian's own \"pardner.\" When they had piled the rescued provisions\nup on the bank, and just as they were covering the heap of bacon,\nflour, and bean-bags, boxes, tools, and utensils with a tarpaulin, up\nwent a shout, and the two missing men appeared tramping along the\nice-encrusted shore.\n\nWhere was the _Mary C._? Well, she was at the bottom of the Yukon, and\nher crew would like some supper.\n\nThey set up a tent, and went to bed that first night extremely well\npleased at being alive on any terms.\n\nBut people get over being glad about almost anything, unless misfortune\nagain puts an edge on the circumstance. The next day, not being in any\nimmediate danger, the boon of mere life seemed less satisfying.\n\nIn detachments they went up the river several miles, and down about as\nfar. They looked in vain for any sign of the _Mary C._. They prospected\nthe hills. From the heights behind the camp they got a pretty fair idea\nof the surrounding country. It was not reassuring.\n\n\"As to products, there seems to be plenty of undersized timber, plenty\nof snow and plenty of river, and, as far as I can see, just nothing\nelse.\"\n\n\"Well, there's oodles o' blueberries,\" said the Boy, his inky-looking\nmouth bearing witness to veracity; \"and there are black and red\ncurrants in the snow, and rose-apples--\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" returned the other, \"it's a sort of garden of Eden!\"\n\nA little below here it was four miles from bank to bank of the main\nchannel, but at this point the river was only about two miles wide, and\nwhite already with floating masses of floe-ice going on a swift current\ndown towards the sea, four hundred miles away.\n\nThe right bank presented to the mighty river a low chain of hills,\nfringed at the base with a scattered growth of scrubby spruce, birch,\nwillow, and cotton-wood. Timber line was only two hundred feet above\nthe river brink; beyond that height, rocks and moss covered with\nnew-fallen snow.\n\nBut if their side seemed cheerless, what of the land on the left bank?\nA swamp stretching endlessly on either hand, and back from the icy\nflood as far as eye could see, broken only by sloughs and an occasional\nice-rimmed tarn.\n\n\"We've been travelling just eight weeks to arrive at this,\" said the\nKentuckian, looking at the desolate scene with a homesick eye.\n\n\"We're not only pretty far from home,\" grumbled another, \"we're still\nthirteen hundred miles away from the Klondyke.\"\n\nThese unenlivening calculations were catching.\n\n\"We're just about twenty-five hundred miles from the nearest railroad\nor telegraph, and, now that winter's down on us, exactly eight months\nfrom anywhere in the civilised world.\"\n\nThey had seen no sign of even savage life, no white trader, nothing to\nshow that any human foot had ever passed that way before.\n\nIn that stillness that was like the stillness of death, they went up\nthe hillside, with footsteps muffled in the clinging snow; and sixty\nfeet above the great river, in a part of the wood where the timber was\nleast unpromising, they marked out a site for their winter quarters.\n\nThen this queer little company--a Denver bank-clerk, an ex-schoolmaster\nfrom Nova Scotia, an Irish-American lawyer from San Francisco, a\nKentucky \"Colonel\" who had never smelt powder, and \"the Boy\" (who was\nno boy at all, but a man of twenty-two)--these five set to work felling\ntrees, clearing away the snow, and digging foundations for a couple of\nlog-cabins--one for the Trio, as they called themselves, the other for\nthe Colonel and the Boy.\n\nThese two had chummed from the hour they met on the steamer that\ncarried them through the Golden Gate of the Pacific till--well, till\nthe end of my story.\n\nThe Colonel was a big tanned fellow, nearly forty--eldest of the\nparty--whom the others used to guy discreetly, because you couldn't\nmention a place anywhere on the known globe, except the far north,\nwhich he had not personally inspected. But for this foible, as the\nuntravelled considered it, he was well liked and a little\nfeared--except by the Boy, who liked him \"first-rate,\" and feared him\nnot at all. They had promptly adopted each other before they discovered\nthat it was necessary to have one or more \"pardners.\" It seemed, from\nall accounts, to be true, that up there at the top of the world a man\nalone is a man lost, and ultimately the party was added to as\naforesaid.\n\nOnly two of them knew anything about roughing it. Jimmie O'Flynn of\n'Frisco, the Irish-American lawyer, had seen something of frontier\nlife, and fled it, and MacCann, the Nova Scotian schoolmaster, had\nspent a month in one of the Caribou camps, and on the strength of that,\nproudly accepted the nickname of \"the Miner.\"\n\nColonel George Warren and Morris Burnet, the Boy, had the best outfits;\nbut this fact was held to be more than counter-balanced by the value of\nthe schoolmaster's experience at Caribou, and by the extraordinary\nhandiness of Potts, the Denver clerk, who had helped to build the\nshelter on deck for the disabled sick on the voyage up. This young man\nwith the big mouth and lazy air had been in the office of a bank ever\nsince he left school, and yet, under pressure, he discovered a natural\nneat-handedness and a manual dexterity justly envied by some of his\nfellow-pioneers. His outfit was not more conspicuously meagre than\nO'Flynn's, yet the Irishman was held to be the moneyed man of his\nparty. Just why was never fully developed, but it was always said,\n\"O'Flynn represents capital\"; and O'Flynn, whether on that account, or\nfor a subtler and more efficient reason, always got the best of\neverything that was going without money and without price.\n\nOn board ship O'Flynn, with his ready tongue and his golden\nbackground--\"representing capital\"--was a leading spirit. Potts the\nhandy-man was a talker, too, and a good second. But, once in camp, Mac\nthe Miner was cock of the walk, in those first days, quoted \"Caribou,\"\nand ordered everybody about to everybody's satisfaction.\n\nIn a situation like this, the strongest lean on the man who has ever\nseen \"anything like it\" before. It was a comfort that anybody even\n_thought_ he knew what to do under such new conditions. So the others\nlooked on with admiration and a pleasant confidence, while Mac boldly\ncut a hole in the brand-new tent, and instructed Potts how to make a\nflange out of a tin plate, with which to protect the canvas from the\nheat of the stove-pipe. No more cooking now in the bitter open.\nEveryone admired Mac's foresight when he said:\n\n\"We must build rock fireplaces in our cabins, or we'll find our one\nlittle Yukon stove burnt out before the winter is over--before we have\na chance to use it out prospecting.\" And when Mac said they must pool\ntheir stores, the Colonel and the Boy agreed as readily as O'Flynn,\nwhose stores consisted of a little bacon, some navy beans, and a\ndemijohn of whisky. O'Flynn, however, urged that probably every man had\na little \"mite o' somethin'\" that he had brought specially for\nhimself--somethin' his friends had given him, for instance. There was\nPotts, now. They all knew how the future Mrs. Potts had brought a\nplum-cake down to the steamer, when she came to say good-bye, and made\nPotts promise he wouldn't unseal the packet till Christmas. It wouldn't\ndo to pool Potts' cake--never! There was the Colonel, the only man that\nhad a sack of coffee. He wouldn't listen when they had told him tea was\nthe stuff up here, and--well, perhaps other fellows didn't miss coffee\nas much as a Kentuckian, though he _had_ heard--Never mind; they\nwouldn't pool the coffee. The Boy had some preserved fruit that he\nseemed inclined to be a hog about--\n\n\"Oh, look here. I haven't touched it!\" \"Just what I'm sayin'. You're\nhoardin' that fruit.\"\n\nIt was known that Mac had a very dacint little medicine-chest. Of\ncourse, if any fellow was ill, Mac wasn't the man to refuse him a\nlittle cold pizen; but he must be allowed to keep his own medicine\nchest--and that little pot o' Dundee marmalade. As for O'Flynn, he\nwould look after the \"dimmi-john.\"\n\nBut Mac was dead against the whisky clause. Alcohol had been the curse\nof Caribou, and in _this_ camp spirits were to be for medicinal\npurposes only. Whereon a cloud descended on Mr. O'Flynn, and his health\nbegan to suffer; but the precious demi-john was put away \"in stock\"\nalong with the single bottles belonging to the others. Mac had taken an\ninventory, and no one in those early days dared touch anything without\nhis permission.\n\nThey had cut into the mountain-side for a level foundation, and were\nhard at it now hauling logs.\n\n\"I wonder,\" said the Boy, stopping a moment in his work, and looking at\nthe bleak prospect round him--\"I wonder if we're going to see anybody\nall winter.\"\n\n\"Oh, sure to,\" Mac thought; \"Indians, anyhow.\"\n\n\"Well, I begin to wish they'd mosy along,\" said Potts; and the sociable\nO'Flynn backed him up.\n\nIt was towards noon on the sixth day after landing (they had come to\nspeak of this now as a voluntary affair), when they were electrified by\nhearing strange voices; looked up from their work, and saw two white\nmen seated on a big cake of ice going down the river with the current.\nWhen they recovered sufficiently from their astonishment at the\nspectacle, they ran down the hillside, and proposed to help the\n\"castaways\" to land. Not a bit of it.\n\n\"_Land_ in that place! What you take us for? Not much! We're going to\nSt. Michael's.\"\n\nThey had a small boat drawn up by them on the ice, and one man was\ndressed in magnificent furs, a long sable overcoat and cap, and wearing\nquite the air of a North Pole Nabob.\n\n\"Got any grub?\" Mac called out.\n\n\"Yes; want some?\"\n\n\"Oh no; I thought you--\"\n\n\"You're not going to try to live through the winter _there?_\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Lord! you _are_ in a fix!\"\n\n\"That's we thought about you.\"\n\nBut the travellers on the ice-raft went by laughing and joking at the\nmen safe on shore with their tents and provisions. It made some of them\nvisibly uneasy. _Would_ they win through? Were they crazy to try it?\nThey had looked forward eagerly to the first encounter with their kind,\nbut this vision floating by on the treacherous ice, of men who rather\ndared the current and the crash of contending floes than land where\n_they_ were, seemed of evil augury. The little incident left a\ncuriously sinister impression on the camp.\n\nEven Mac was found agreeing with the others of his Trio that, since\nthey had a grand, tough time in front of them, it was advisable to get\nthrough the black months ahead with as little wear and tear as\npossible. In spite of the Trio's superior talents, they built a small\nramshackle cabin with a tumble-down fireplace, which served them so ill\nthat they ultimately spent all their waking hours in the more\ncomfortable quarters of the Colonel and the Boy. It had been agreed\nthat these two, with the help, or, at all events, the advice, of the\nothers, should build the bigger, better cabin, where the stores should\nbe kept and the whole party should mess--a cabin with a solid outside\nchimney of stone and an open fireplace, generous of proportion and\nancient of design, \"just like down South.\"\n\nThe weather was growing steadily colder; the ice was solid now many\nfeet out from each bank of the river. In the middle of the flood the\nclotted current still ran with floe-ice, but it was plain the river was\nsettling down for its long sleep.\n\nNot silently, not without stress and thunder. The handful of dwellers\non the shore would be waked in the night by the shock and crash of\ncolliding floes, the sound of the great winds rushing by, and--\"Hush!\nWhat's that?\" Tired men would start up out of sleep and sit straight to\nlisten. Down below, among the ice-packs, the noise as of an old-time\nbattle going on--tumult and crashing and a boom! boom! like\ncannonading.\n\nThen one morning they woke to find all still, the conflict over, the\nYukon frozen from bank to bank. No sound from that day on; no more\nrunning water for a good seven months.\n\nWinter had come.\n\nWhile the work went forward they often spoke of the only two people\nthey had thus far seen. Both Potts and O'Flynn had been heard to envy\nthem.\n\nMac had happened to say that he believed the fellow in furs was an\nEnglishman--a Canadian, at the very least. The Americans chaffed him,\nand said, \"That accounts for it,\" in a tone not intended to flatter.\nMac hadn't thought of it before, but he was prepared to swear now that\nif an Englishman--they were the hardiest pioneers on earth--or a\nCanadian was in favour of lighting out, \"it must be for some good\nreason.\"\n\n\"Oh yes; we all know that reason.\"\n\nThe Americans laughed, and Mac, growing hot, was goaded into vaunting\nthe Britisher and running down the Yankee.\n\n\"Yankee!\" echoed the Kentuckian. \"And up in Nova Scotia they let this\nman teach school! Doesn't know the difference yet between the little\ncorner they call New England and all the rest of America.\"\n\n\"All the rest of America!\" shouted Mac. \"The cheeky way you people of\nthe States have of gobbling the Continent (in _talk_), just as though\nthe British part of it wasn't the bigger half!\"\n\n\"Yes; but when you think _which_ half, you ought to be obliged to any\nfellow for forgetting it.\" And then they referred to effete monarchical\ninstitutions, and by the time they reached the question of the kind of\nking the Prince of Wales would make, Mac was hardly a safe man to argue\nwith.\n\nThere was one bond between him and the Kentucky Colonel: they were both\nreligious men; and although Mac was blue Presbyterian and an inveterate\ntheologian, somehow, out here in the wilderness, it was more possible\nto forgive a man for illusions about the Apostolic Succession and\nmistaken views upon Church government. The Colonel, at all events, was\nnot so lax but what he was ready to back up the Calvinist in an\nendeavour to keep the Sabbath (with a careful compromise between church\nand chapel) and help him to conduct a Saturday-night Bible-class.\n\nBut if the Boy attended the Bible-class with fervour and aired his\nheresies with uncommon gusto, if he took with equal geniality Colonel\nWarren's staid remonstrance and Mac's fiery objurgation, Sunday morning\ninvariably found him more \"agnostic\" than ever, stoutly declining to\nrecognise the necessity for \"service.\" For this was an occasion when\nyou couldn't argue or floor anybody, or hope to make Mac \"hoppin' mad,\"\nor have the smallest kind of a shindy. The Colonel read the lessons,\nMac prayed, and they all sang, particularly O'Flynn. Now, the Boy\ncouldn't sing a note, so there was no fair division of entertainment,\nwherefore he would go off into the woods with his gun for company, and\nthe Catholic O'Flynn, and even Potts, were in better odour than he\n\"down in camp\" on Sundays. So far you may travel, and yet not escape\nthe tyranny of the \"outworn creeds.\"\n\nThe Boy came back a full hour before service on the second Sunday with\na couple of grouse and a beaming countenance. Mac, who was cook that\nweek, was the only man left in the tent. He looked agreeably surprised\nat the apparition.\n\n\"Hello!\" says he more pleasantly than his Sunday gloom usually\npermitted. \"Back in time for service?\"\n\n\"I've found a native,\" says the Boy, speaking as proudly as any\nColumbus. \"He's hurt his foot, and he's only got one eye, but he's\nsplendid. Told me no end of things. He's coming here as fast as his\nfoot will let him--he and three other Indians--Esquimaux, I mean. They\nhaven't had anything to eat but berries and roots for seven days.\"\n\nThe Boy was feverishly overhauling the provisions behind the stove.\n\n\"Look here,\" says Mac, \"hold on there. I don't know that we've come all\nthis way to feed a lot o' dirty savages.\"\n\n\"But they're starving.\" Then, seeing that that fact did not produce the\ndesired impression: \"My savage is an awfully good fellow. He--he's a\nconverted savage, seems to be quite a Christian.\" Then, hastily\nfollowing up his advantage: \"He's been taught English by the Jesuits at\nthe mission forty miles above us, on the river. He can give us a whole\nheap o' tips.\"\n\nMac was slowly bringing out a small panful of cold boiled beans.\n\n\"There are four of them,\" said the Boy--\"big fellows, almost as big as\nour Colonel, and _awful_ hungry.\"\n\nMac looked at the handful of beans and then at the small sheet-iron\nstove.\n\n\"There are more cooking,\" says he not over-cordially.\n\n\"The one that talks good English is the son of the chief. You can see\nhe's different from the others. Knows a frightful lot. He's taught me\nsome of his language already. The men with him said 'Kaiomi' to\neverything I asked, and that means 'No savvy.' Says he'll teach\nme--he'll teach all of us--how to snow-shoe.\"\n\n\"We know how to snow-shoe.\"\n\n\"Oh, I mean on those long narrow snow-shoes that make you go so fast\nyou always trip up! He'll show us how to steer with a pole, and how to\nmake fish-traps and--and everything.\"\n\nMac began measuring out some tea.\n\n\"He's got a team of Esquimaux dogs--calls 'em Mahlemeuts, and he's got\na birch-bark canoe, and a skin kyak from the coast.\" Then with an\ninspiration: \"His people are the sort of Royal Family down there,\"\nadded the Boy, thinking to appeal to the Britisher's monarchical\ninstincts.\n\nMac had meditatively laid his hand on a side of bacon, the Boy's eyes\nfollowing.\n\n\"He's asked us--_all_ of us, and we're five--up to visit him at Pymeut,\nthe first village above us here.\" Mac took up a knife to cut the bacon.\n\"And--good gracious! why, I forgot the grouse; they can have the\ngrouse!\"\n\n\"No, they can't,\" said Mac firmly; \"they're lucky to get bacon.\"\n\nThe Boy's face darkened ominously. When he looked like that the elder\nmen found it was \"healthiest to give him his head.\" But the young face\ncleared as quickly as it had clouded. After all, the point wasn't worth\nfighting for, since grouse would take time to cook, and--here were the\nnatives coming painfully along the shore.\n\nThe Boy ran out and shouted and waved his cap. The other men of the\ncamp, who had gone in the opposite direction, across the river ice to\nlook at an air-hole, came hurrying back and reached camp about the same\ntime as the visitors.\n\n\"Thought you said they were big fellows!\" commented Mac, who had come\nto the door for a glimpse of the Indians as they toiled up the <DW72>.\n\n\"Well, so they are!\"\n\n\"Why, the Colonel would make two of any one of them.\"\n\n\"The Colonel! Oh well, you can't expect anybody else to be quite as big\nas that. I was in a hurry, but I suppose what I meant was, they could\neat as much as the Colonel.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Well, just look how broad they are. It doesn't matter to your stomach\nwhether you're big up and down, or big to and fro.\"\n\n\"It's their furs make 'em look like that. They're the most awful little\nrunts I ever saw!\"\n\n\"Well, I reckon _you'd_ think they were big, too--big as Nova\nScotia--if _you'd_ found 'em--come on 'em suddenly like that in the\nwoods--\"\n\n\"Which is the...?\"\n\n\"Oh, the son of the chief is in the middle, the one who is taking off\nhis civilised fur-coat. He says his father's got a heap of pelts (you\ncould get things for your collection, Mac), and he's got two\nreindeer-skin shirts with hoods--'parkis,' you know, like the others\nare wearing--\"\n\nThey were quite near now.\n\n\"How do,\" said the foremost native affably.\n\n\"How do.\" The Boy came forward and shook hands as though he hadn't seen\nhim for a month. \"This,\" says he, turning first to Mac and then to the\nother white men, \"this is Prince Nicholas of Pymeut. Walk right in, all\nof you, and have something to eat.\"\n\nThe visitors sat on the ground round the stove, as close as they could\nget without scorching, and the atmosphere was quickly heavy with their\npresence. When they slipped back their hoods it was seen that two of\nthe men wore the \"tartar tonsure,\" after the fashion of the coast.\n\n\"Where do you come from?\" inquired the Colonel of the man nearest him,\nwho simply blinked and was dumb.\n\n\"This is the one that talks English,\" said the Boy, indicating Nicholas,\n\"and he lives at Pymeut, and he's been converted.\"\n\n\"How far is Pymeut?\"\n\n\"We sleep Pymeut to-night,\" says Nicholas.\n\n\"Which way?\"\n\nThe native jerked his head up the river.\n\n\"Many people there?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"White men, too?\"\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n\"How far to the nearest white men?\"\n\nNicholas's mind wandered from the white man's catechism and fixed\nitself on his race's immemorial problem: how far it was to the nearest\nthing to eat.\n\n\"I thought you said he could speak English.\"\n\n\"So he can, first rate. He and I had a great pow-wow, didn't we,\nNicholas?\"\n\nNicholas smiled absently, and fixed his one eye on the bacon that Mac\nwas cutting on the deal box into such delicate slices.\n\n\"He'll talk all right,\" said the Boy, \"when he's had some breakfast.\"\n\nMac had finished the cutting, and now put the frying-pan on an open\nhole in the little stove.\n\n\"Cook him?\" inquired Nicholas.\n\n\"Yes. Don't you cook him?\"\n\n\"Take heap time, cook him.\"\n\n\"You couldn't eat it raw!\"\n\nNicholas nodded emphatically.\n\nMac said \"No,\" but the Boy was curious to see if they would really eat\nit uncooked.\n\n\"Let them have _some_ of it raw while the rest is frying\"; and he\nbeckoned the visitors to the deal box. They made a dart forward,\ngathered up the fat bacon several slices at a time, and pushed it into\ntheir mouths.\n\n\"Ugh!\" said the Colonel under his breath.\n\nMac quickly swept what was left into the frying-pan, and began to cut a\nfresh lot.\n\nThe Boy divided the cold beans, got out biscuits, and poured the tea,\nwhile silence and a strong smell of ancient fish and rancid seal\npervaded the little tent.\n\nO'Flynn put a question or two, but Nicholas had gone stone-deaf. There\nwas no doubt about it, they had been starving.\n\nAfter a good feed they sat stolidly by the fire, with no sign of\nconsciousness, save the blinking of beady eyes, till the Colonel\nsuggested a smoke. Then they all grinned broadly, and nodded with great\nvigour. Even those who had no other English understood \"tobacco.\"\n\nWhen he had puffed awhile, Nicholas took his pipe out of his mouth,\nand, looking at the Boy, said:\n\n\"You no savvy catch fish in winter?\"\n\n\"Through the ice? No. How you do it?\"\n\n\"Make hole--put down trap--heap fish all winter.\"\n\n\"You get enough to live on?\" asked the Colonel.\n\n\"They must have dried fish, too, left over from the summer,\" said Mac.\n\nNicholas agreed. \"And berries and flour. When snow begin get soft,\nPymeuts all go off--\" He motioned with his big head towards the hills.\n\n\"What do you get there?\" Mac was becoming interested.\n\n\"Caribou, moose--\"\n\n\"Any furs?\"\n\n\"Yes; trap ermun, marten--\"\n\n\"Lynx, too, I suppose, and fox?\"\n\nNicholas nodded. \"All kinds. Wolf--muskrat, otter--wolverine--all\nkinds.\"\n\n\"You got some skins now?\" asked the Nova Scotian.\n\n\"Y--yes. More when snow get soft. You come Pymeut--me show.\"\n\n\"Where have ye been just now?\" asked O'Flynn.\n\n\"St. Michael.\"\n\n\"How long since ye left there?\"\n\n\"Twelve sleeps.\"\n\n\"He means thirteen days.\"\n\nNicholas nodded.\n\n\"They couldn't possibly walk that far in--\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" says the Boy; \"they don't follow the windings of the river,\nthey cut across the portage, you know.\"\n\n\"Snow come--no trail--big mountains--all get lost.\"\n\n\"What did you go to St. Michael's for?\"\n\n\"Oh, me pilot. Me go all over. Me leave N. A. T. and T. boat St.\nMichael's last trip.\"\n\n\"Then you're in the employ of the great North American Trading and\nTransportation Company?\"\n\nNicholas gave that funny little duck of the head that meant yes.\n\n\"That's how you learnt English,\" says the Colonel.\n\n\"No; me learn English at Holy Cross. Me been baptize.\"\n\n\"At that Jesuit mission up yonder?\"\n\n\"Forty mile.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says Potts, \"I guess you've had enough walking for one winter.\"\n\nNicholas seemed not to follow this observation. The Boy interpreted:\n\n\"You heap tired, eh? You no go any more long walk till ice go out, eh?\"\n\nNicholas grinned.\n\n\"Me go Ikogimeut--all Pymeut go.\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"Big feast.\"\n\n\"Oh, the Russian mission there gives a feast?\"\n\n\"No. Big Innuit feast.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Pretty quick. Every year big feast down to Ikogimeut when Yukon ice\nget hard, so man go safe with dog-team.\"\n\n\"Do many people go?\"\n\n\"All Innuit go, plenty Ingalik go.\"\n\n\"How far do they come?\"\n\n\"All over; come from Koserefsky, come from Anvik--sometime Nulato.\"\n\n\"Why, Nulato's an awful distance from Ikogimeut.\"\n\n\"Three hundred and twenty miles,\" said the pilot, proud of his general\ninformation, and quite ready, since he had got a pipe between his\nteeth, to be friendly and communicative.\n\n\"What do you do at Ikogimeut when you have these--\" \"Big fire--big\nfeed--tell heap stories--big dance. Oh, heap big time!\"\n\n\"Once every year, eh, down at Ikogimeut?\"\n\n\"Three times ev' year. Ev' village, and\"--he lowered his voice, not\nwith any hit of reverence or awe, but with an air of making a sly and\ncheerful confidence--\"and when man die.\"\n\n\"You make a feast and have a dance when a friend dies?\"\n\n\"If no priests. Priests no like. Priests say, 'Man no dead; man gone\nup.'\" Nicholas pondered the strange saying, and slowly shook his head.\n\n\"In that the priests are right,\" said Mac grudgingly.\n\nIt was anything but politic, but for the life of him the Boy couldn't\nhelp chipping in:\n\n\"You think when man dead he stay dead, eh, and you might as well make a\nfeast?\"\n\nNicholas gave his quick nod. \"We got heap muskeetah, we cold, we\nhungry. We here heap long time. Dead man, he done. Why no big feast? Oh\nyes, heap big feast.\"\n\nThe Boy was enraptured. He would gladly have encouraged these pagan\ndeliverances on the part of the converted Prince, but the Colonel was\nscandalised, and Mac, although in his heart of hearts not ill-satisfied\nat the evidence of the skin-deep Christianity of a man delivered over\nto the corrupt teaching of the Jesuits, found in this last fact all the\nstronger reason for the instant organisation of a good Protestant\nprayer-meeting. Nicholas of Pymeut must not be allowed to think it was\nonly Jesuits who remembered the Sabbath day to keep it holy.\n\nAnd the three \"pore benighted heathen\" along with him, if they didn't\nunderstand English words, they should have an object-lesson, and Mac\nwould himself pray the prayers they couldn't utter for themselves. He\njumped up, motioned the Boy to put on more wood, cleared away the\ngranite-ware dishes, filled the bean-pot and set it back to simmer,\nwhile the Colonel got out Mac's Bible and his own Prayer-Book.\n\nThe Boy did his stoking gloomily, reading aright these portents. Almost\neclipsed was joy in this \"find\" of his (for he regarded the precious\nNicholas as his own special property). It was all going to end in\nhis--the Boy's--being hooked in for service. As long as the Esquimaux\nwere there _he_ couldn't, of course, tear himself away. And here was\nthe chance they'd all been waiting for. Here was a native chock-full of\nknowledge of the natural law and the immemorial gospel of the North,\nwho would be gone soon--oh, very soon, if Mac and the Colonel went on\nlike this--and they were going to choke off Nicholas's communicativeness\nwith--a service!\n\n\"It's Sunday, you know,\" says the Colonel to the Prince, laying open\nhis book, \"and we were just going to have church. You are accustomed to\ngoing to church at Holy Cross, aren't you?\"\n\n\"When me kid me go church.\"\n\n\"You haven't gone since you grew up? They still have church there,\ndon't they?\"\n\n\"Oh, Father Brachet, him have church.\"\n\n\"Why don't you go?\"\n\nNicholas was vaguely conscious of threatened disapproval.\n\n\"Me ... me must take up fish-traps.\"\n\n\"Can't you do that another day?\"\n\nIt seemed not to have occurred to Nicholas before. He sat and\nconsidered the matter.\n\n\"Isn't Father Brachet,\" began the Colonel gravely--\"he doesn't like it,\ndoes he, when you don't come to church?\"\n\n\"He take care him church; him know me take care me fish-trap.\"\n\nBut Nicholas saw plainly out of his one eye that he was not growing in\npopularity. Suddenly that solitary organ gleamed with self-justification.\n\n\"Me bring fish to Father Brachet and to Mother Aloysius and the\nSisters.\"\n\nMac and the Colonel exchanged dark glances.\n\n\"Do Mother Aloysius and the Sisters live where Father Brachet does?\"\n\n\"Father Brachet, and Father Wills, and Brother Paul, and Brother\nEtienne, all here.\" The native put two fingers on the floor. \"Big white\ncross in middle\"--he laid down his pipe to personate the\ncross--\"here\"--indicating the other side--\"here Mother Aloysius and the\nSisters.\"\n\n\"I thought,\" says Mac, \"we'd be hearing of a convent convenient.\"\n\n\"Me help Father Brachet,\" observed Nicholas proudly. \"Me show him boys\nhow make traps, show him girls how make mucklucks.\" \"_What_!\" gasps the\nhorrified Mac, \"Father Brachet has got a family?\"\n\n\"Famly?\" inquired Nicholas. \"Kaiomi\"; and he shook his head\nuncertainly.\n\n\"You say Father Brachet has got boys, and\"--as though this were a yet\ndeeper brand of iniquity--\"_girls_?\"\n\nNicholas, though greatly mystified, nodded firmly.\n\n\"I suppose he thinks away off up here nobody will ever know. Oh, these\nJesuits!\"\n\n\"How many children has this shameless priest?\"\n\n\"Father Brachet, him got seventeen boys, and--me no savvy how much\ngirl--twelve girl ... twenty girl ...\"\n\nThe Boy, who had been splitting with inward laughter, exploded at this\njuncture.\n\n\"He keeps a native school, Mac.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" says Nicholas, \"teach boy make table, chair, potatoes grow--all\nkinds. Sisters teach girl make dinner, wash--all kinds. Heap good\npeople up at Holy Cross.\"\n\n\"Divil a doubt of it,\" says O'Flynn.\n\nBut this blind belauding of the children of Loyola only fired Mac the\nmore to give the heathen a glimpse of the true light. In what darkness\nmust they grope when a sly, intriguing Jesuit (it was well known they\nwere all like that) was for them a type of the \"heap good man\"--a\npriest, forsooth, who winked at Sabbath-breaking because he and his\nneighbouring nuns shared in the spoil!\n\nWell, they must try to have a truly impressive service. Mac and the\nColonel telegraphed agreement on this head. Savages were said to be\nspecially touched by music.\n\n\"I suppose when you were a kid the Jesuits taught you chants and so\non,\" said the Colonel, kindly.\n\n\"Kaiomi,\" answered Nicholas after reflection.\n\n\"You can sing, can't you?\" asks O'Flynn.\n\n\"Sing? No, me dance!\"\n\nThe Boy roared with delight.\n\n\"Why, yes, I never thought of that. You fellows do the songs, and\nNicholas and I'll do the dances.\"\n\nMac glowered angrily. \"Look here: if you don't mind being blasphemous\nfor yourself, don't demoralise the natives.\"\n\n\"Well, I like that! Didn't Miriam dance before the Lord? Why shouldn't\nNicholas and me?\"\n\nThe Colonel cleared his throat, and began to read the lessons for the\nday. The natives sat and watched him closely. They really behaved very\nwell, and the Boy was enormously proud of his new friends. There was a\ngreat deal at stake. The Boy felt he must walk warily, and he already\nregretted those light expressions about dancing before the Lord. All\nthe fun of the winter might depend on a friendly relation between\nPymeut and the camp. It was essential that the Esquimaux should not\nonly receive, but make, a good impression.\n\nThe singing \"From Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand\"\nseemed to please them; but when, after the Colonel's \"Here endeth the\nsecond lesson,\" Mac said, in sepulchral tones, \"Let us pray,\" the\nvisitors seemed to think it was time to go home.\n\n\"No,\" said Mac sternly, \"they mustn't go in the middle of the meeting\";\nand he proceeded to kneel down.\n\nBut Nicholas was putting on his fur coat, and the others only waited to\nfollow him out. The Boy, greatly concerned lest, after all, the visit\nshould end badly, dropped on his knees to add the force of his own\nexample, and through the opening phrases of Mac's prayer the agnostic\nwas heard saying, in a loud stage-whisper, \"Do like me--down! Look\nhere! Suppose you ask us come big feast, and in the middle of your\ndance we all go home--.\n\n\"Oh no,\" remonstrated Nicholas.\n\n\"Very well. These friends o' mine no like man go home in the middle.\nThey heap mad at me when I no stay. You savvy?\"\n\n\"Me savvy,\" says Nicholas slowly and rather depressed.\n\n\"Kneel down, then,\" says the Boy. And first Nicholas, and then the\nothers, went on their knees.\n\nAlternately they looked in the Boy's corner where the grub was, and\nthen over their shoulders at the droning Mac and back, catching the\nBoy's eye, and returning his reassuring nods and grins.\n\nMac, who had had no innings up to this point, was now embarked upon a\nmost congenial occupation. Wrestling with the Lord on behalf of the\nheathen, he lost count of time. On and on the prayer wound its slow\nway; involution after involution, coil after coil, like a snake, the\nBoy thought, lazing in the sun. Unaccustomed knees grew sore.\n\n\"Hearken to the cry of them that walk in darkness, misled by wolves in\nsheep's clothing--_wolves_, Lord, wearing the sign of the Holy Cross--\"\n\nO'Flynn shuffled, and Mac pulled himself up. No light task this of\nconveying to the Creator, in covert terms, a due sense of the iniquity\nof the Jesuits, without, at the same time, stirring O'Flynn's bile, and\nseeing him get up and stalk out of meeting, as had happened once\nbefore.\n\nO'Flynn was not deeply concerned about religious questions, but \"there\nwere limits.\" The problem was how to rouse the Lord without rousing\nO'Flynn--a piece of negotiation so delicate, calling for a skill in\npious invective so infinitely absorbing to Mac's particular cast of\nmind, that he was quickly stone-blind and deaf to all things else.\n\n\"Not all the heathen are sunk in iniquity; but they are weak, tempted,\nand they weary, Lord!\"\n\n\"Amen,\" said the Boy, discreetly. \"How long?\" groaned Mac--\"Oh Lord,\nhow long?\" But it was much longer than he realised. The Boy saw the\nvisitors shifting from one knee to another, and feared the worst. But\nhe sympathised deeply with their predicament. To ease his own legs, he\nchanged his position, and dragged a corner of the sailcloth down off\nthe little pile of provisions, and doubled it under his knees.\n\nThe movement revealed the bag of dried apples within arm's length.\nNicholas was surreptitiously reaching for his coat. No doubt about it,\nhe had come to the conclusion that this was the fitting moment to\ndepart. A look over his shoulder showed Mac absorbed, and taking fresh\nbreath at \"Sixthly, Oh Lord.\" The Boy put out a hand, and dragged the\napple-bag slowly, softly towards him. The Prince dropped the sleeve of\nhis coat, and fixed his one eye on his friend. The Boy undid the neck\nof the sack, thrust in his hand, and brought out a fistfull. Another\nlook at Mac--still hard at it, trying to spare O'Flynn's feelings\nwithout mincing matters with the Almighty.\n\nThe Boy winked at Nicholas, made a gesture, \"Catch!\" and fired a bit of\ndried apple at him, at the same time putting a piece in his own mouth\nto show him it was all right.\n\nNicholas followed suit, and seemed pleased with the result. He showed\nall his strong, white teeth, and ecstatically winked his one eye back\nat the Boy, who threw him another bit and then a piece to each of the\nothers.\n\nThe Colonel had \"caught on,\" and was making horrible frowns at the Boy.\nPotts and O'Flynn looked up, and in dumbshow demanded a share. No? Very\nwell, they'd tell Mac. So the Boy had to feed them, too, to keep them\nquiet. And still Mac prayed the Lord to catch up this slip he had made\nhere on the Yukon with reference to the natives. In the midst of a\npowerful peroration, he happened to open his eyes a little, and they\nfell on the magnificent great sable collar of Prince Nicholas's coat.\n\nWithout any of the usual slowing down, without the accustomed warning\nof a gradual descent from the high themes of heaven to the things of\ncommon earth, Mac came down out of the clouds with a bump, and the\nsudden, business-like \"Amen\" startled all the apple-chewing\ncongregation.\n\nMac stood up, and says he to Nicholas:\n\n\"Where did you get that coat?\"\n\nNicholas, still on his knees, stared, and seemed in doubt if this were\na part of the service.\n\n\"Where did you get that coat?\" repeated Mac.\n\nThe Boy had jumped up nimbly. \"I told you his father has a lot of\nfurs.\"\n\n\"Like this?\"\n\n\"No,\" says Nicholas; \"this belong white man.\"\n\n\"Ha,\" says Mac excitedly, \"I thought I'd seen it before. Tell us how\nyou got it.\"\n\n\"Me leave St. Michael; me got ducks, reindeer meat--oh, _plenty_\nkow-kow! [Footnote: Food] Two sleeps away St. Michael me meet Indian.\nHeap hungry. Him got bully coat.\" Nicholas picked it up off the floor.\n\"Him got no kow-kow. Him say, 'Give me duck, give me back-fat. You take\ncoat, him too heavy.' Me say, 'Yes.'\"\n\n\"But how did he get the coat?\"\n\n\"Him say two white men came down river on big ice.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes--\"\n\n\"Men sick.\" He tapped his forehead. \"Man no sick, he no go down with\nthe ice\"; and Nicholas shuddered. \"Before Ikogimeut, ice jam. Indian\nsee men jump one big ice here, more big ice here, and one... go down.\nIndian\"--Nicholas imitated throwing out a line--\"man tie mahout\nround--but--big ice come--\" Nicholas dashed his hands together, and\nthen paused significantly. \"Indian sleep there. Next day ice hard.\nIndian go little way out to see. Man dead. Him heap good coat,\" he\nwound up unemotionally, and proceeded to put it on.\n\n\"And the other white man--what became of him?\"\n\nNicholas shrugged: \"Kaiomi,\" though it was plain he knew well enough\nthe other lay under the Yukon ice.\n\n\"And that--_that_ was the end of the fellows who went by jeering at\nus!\"\n\n\"We'd better not crow yet,\" said Mac. And they bade Prince Nicholas and\nhis heathen retinue good-bye in a mood chastened not by prayer alone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHOUSE-WARMING\n\n\"There is a sort of moral climate in a household.\"--JOHN MORLEY.\n\n\nNo idle ceremony this, but the great problem of the dwellers in the\ncountry of the Yukon.\n\nThe Colonel and the Boy made up their minds that, whatever else they\nhad or had not, they would have a warm house to live in. And when they\nhad got it, they would have a \"Blow-out\" to celebrate the achievement.\n\n\"We'll invite Nicholas,\" says the Boy. \"I'll go to Pymeut myself, and\nlet him know we are going to have 'big fire, big feed. Oh, heap big\ntime!'\"\n\nIf the truth were told, it had been a difficult enough matter to keep\naway from Pymeut since the hour Nicholas had vanished in that\ndirection; but until winter quarters were made, and until they were\nproved to be warm, there was no time for the amenities of life.\n\nThe Big Cabin (as it was quite seriously called, in contradistinction\nto the hut of the Trio) consisted of a single room, measuring on the\noutside sixteen feet by eighteen feet.\n\nThe walls of cotton-wood logs soared upward to a level of six feet, and\nthis height was magnificently increased in the middle by the angle of\nthe mildly gable roof. But before the cabin was breast-high the Boy had\nbegun to long for a window.\n\n\"Sorry we forgot the plate-glass,\" says Mac.\n\n\"Wudn't ye like a grrand-piana?\" asks O'Flynn.\n\n\"What's the use of goin' all the way from Nova Scotia to Caribou,\" says\nthe Boy to the Schoolmaster-Miner, \"if you haven't learned the way to\nmake a window like the Indians, out of transparent skin?\"\n\nMac assumed an air of elevated contempt.\n\n\"I went to mine, not to learn Indian tricks.\"\n\n\"When the door's shut it'll be dark as the inside of a cocoa-nut.\"\n\n\"You ought to have thought of that before you left the sunny South,\"\nsaid Potts.\n\n\"It'll be dark all winter, window or no window,\" Mac reminded them.\n\n\"Never mind,\" said the Colonel, \"when the candles give out we'll have\nthe fire-light. Keep all the spruce knots, boys!\"\n\nBut one of the boys was not pleased. The next day, looking for a\nmonkey-wrench under the tarpaulin, he came across the wooden box a\nCalifornia friend had given him at parting, containing a dozen tall\nglass jars of preserved fruit. The others had growled at the extra bulk\nand weight, when the Boy put the box into the boat at St. Michael's,\nbut they had now begun to look kindly on it and ask when it was to be\nopened. He had answered firmly:\n\n\"Not before Christmas,\" modifying this since Nicholas's visit to \"Not\nbefore the House-Warming.\" But one morning the Boy was found pouring\nthe fruit out of the jars into some empty cans.\n\n\"What you up to?\"\n\n\"Wait an' see.\" He went to O'Flynn, who was dish-washer that week, got\nhim to melt a couple of buckets of snow over the open-air campfire and\nwash the fruit-jars clean.\n\n\"Now, Colonel,\" says the Boy, \"bring along that buck-saw o' yours and\nlend a hand.\"\n\nThey took off the top log from the south wall of the cabin, measured a\ntwo-foot space in the middle, and the Colonel sawed out the superfluous\nspruce intervening. While he went on doing the same for the other logs\non that side, the Boy roughly chiselled a moderately flat sill. Then\none after another he set up six of the tall glass jars in a row, and\nshowed how, alternating with the other six bottles turned upside down,\nthe thick belly of one accommodating itself to the thin neck of the\nother, the twelve made a very decent rectangle of glass. When they had\nhoisted up, and fixed in place, the logs on each side, and the big\nfellow that went all across on top; when they had filled the\ninconsiderable cracks between the bottles with some of the mud-mortar\nwith which the logs were to be chinked, behold a double glass window\nfit for a king!\n\nThe Boy was immensely pleased.\n\n\"Oh, that's an old dodge,\" said Mac depreciatingly. \"Why, they did that\nat Caribou!\"\n\n\"Then, why in--Why didn't you suggest it?\"\n\n\"You wait till you know more about this kind o' life, and you won't go\nin for fancy touches.\"\n\nNevertheless, the man who had mined at Caribou seemed to feel that some\ncontribution from him was necessary to offset the huge success of that\nwindow. He did not feel called upon to help to split logs for the roof\nof the Big Cabin, but he sat cutting and whittling away at a little\nshelf which he said was to be nailed up at the right of the Big Cabin\ndoor. Its use was not apparent, but no one dared call it a \"fancy\ntouch,\" for Mac was a miner, and had been to Caribou.\n\nWhen the shelf was nailed up, its maker brought forth out of his\nmedicine-chest a bottle of Perry Davis's Pain-killer.\n\n\"Now at Caribou,\" says he, \"they haven't got any more thermometers\nkicking round than we have here, but they discovered that when Perry\nDavis congeals you must keep a sharp look-out for frost-bite, and when\nPerry Davis freezes solid, you'd better mind your eye and stay in your\ncabin, if you don't want to die on the trail.\" With which he tied a\nstring round Perry Davis's neck, set the bottle up on the shelf, and\nsecured it firmly in place. They all agreed it was a grand advantage to\nhave been to Caribou!\n\nBut Mac knew things that he had probably not learned there, about\ntrees, and rocks, and beasts, and their manners and customs and family\nnames. If there were more than a half-truth in the significant lament\nof a very different man, \"I should be a poet if only I knew the names\nof things,\" then, indeed, Samuel MacCann was equipped to make a mark in\nliterature.\n\nFrom the time he set foot on the volcanic shore of St Michael's Island,\nMac had begun his \"collection.\"\n\nNowadays, when he would spend over \"that truck of his\" hours that might\nprofitably (considering his talents) be employed in helping to fortify\nthe camp against the Arctic winter, his companions felt it little use\nto remonstrate.\n\nBy themselves they got on rapidly with work on the roof, very much\nhelped by three days' unexpectedly mild weather. When the split logs\nhad been marshalled together on each side of the comb, they covered\nthem with dried moss and spruce boughs.\n\nOver all they laid a thick blanket of the earth which had been dug out\nto make a level foundation. The cracks in the walls were chinked with\nmoss and mud-mortar. The floor was the naked ground, \"to be carpeted\nwith skins by-and-by,\" so Mac said; but nobody believed Mac would put a\nskin to any such sensible use.\n\nThe unreasonable mildness of three or four days and the little surface\nthaw, came to an abrupt end in a cold rain that turned to sleet as it\nfell. Nobody felt like going far afield just then, even after game, but\nthey had set the snare that Nicholas told the Boy about on that first\nencounter in the wood. Nicholas, it seemed, had given him a noose made\nof twisted sinew, and showed how it worked in a running loop. He had\nillustrated the virtue of this noose when attached to a pole balanced\nin the crotch of a tree, caught over a horizontal stick by means of a\nsmall wooden pin tied to the snare. A touch at the light end of the\nsuspended pole (where the baited loop dangles) loosens the pin, and the\nheavy end of the pole falls, hanging ptarmigan or partridge in the air.\n\nFor some time after rigging this contrivance, whenever anyone reported\n\"tracks,\" Mac and the Boy would hasten to the scene of action, and set\na new snare, piling brush on each side of the track that the game had\nrun in, so barring other ways, and presenting a line of least\nresistance straight through the loop.\n\nIn the early days Mac would come away from these preparations saying\nwith dry pleasure:\n\n\"Now, with luck, we may get a _Xema Sabinii_,\" or some such fearful\nwildfowl.\n\n\"Good to eat?\" the Boy would ask, having had his disappointments ere\nnow in moments of hunger for fresh meat, when Mac, with the nearest\napproach to enthusiasm he permitted himself, had brought in some\nmiserable little hawk-owl or a three-toed woodpecker to add, not to the\nlarder, but to the \"collection.\"\n\n\"No, you don't _eat_ Sabine gulls,\" Mac would answer pityingly.\n\nBut those snares never seemed to know what they were there for. The\nfirst one was set expressly to catch one of the commonest birds that\nfly--Mac's _Lagopus albus_, the beautiful white Arctic grouse, or at\nthe very least a _Bonasa umbellus_, which, being interpreted, is ruffed\nptarmigan. The tracks had been bird tracks, but the creature that swung\nin the air next day was a baby hare. The Schoolmaster looked upon the\nincident as being in the nature of a practical joke, and resented it.\nBut the others were enchanted, and professed thereafter a rooted\nsuspicion of the soundness of the Schoolmaster's Natural History, which\nnobody actually felt. For he had never yet pretended to know anything\nthat he didn't know well; and when Potts would say something\ndisparaging of Mac's learning behind his back (which was against the\nunwritten rules of the game) the Colonel invariably sat on Potts.\n\n\"Knows a darned sight too much? No, he _don't_, sir; that's just the\nremarkable thing about Mac. He isn't trying to carry any more than he\ncan swing.\"\n\nAt the same time it is to be feared that none of his companions really\nappreciated the pedagogue's learning. Nor had anyone but the Boy\nsympathised with his resolution to make a Collection. What they wanted\nwas eatable game, and they affected no intelligent interest in knowing\nthe manners and customs of the particular species that was sending up\nappetising odours from the pot.\n\nThey even applauded the rudeness of the Boy, who one day responded to\nMac's gravely jubilant \"Look here! I've got the _Parus Hudsonicus_!\"--\n\n\"Poor old man! What do you do for it?\"\n\nAnd when anybody after that was indisposed, they said he might be\nsickening for an attack of Parus Hudsonicus, and in that case it was a\nbad look-out.\n\nWell for Mac that he wouldn't have cared a red cent to impress the\ngreatest naturalist alive, let alone a lot of fellows who didn't know a\ntitmouse from a disease.\n\nMeanwhile work on the Big Cabin had gone steadily forward. From the\noutside it looked finished now, and distinctly imposing. From what were\nleft of the precious planks out of the bottom of the best boat they had\nmade the door--two by four, and opening directly in front of that\nmasterpiece, the rock fireplace. The great stone chimney was the pride\nof the camp and the talk before the winter was done of all \"the Lower\nRiver.\"\n\nSpurred on partly by the increased intensity of the cold, partly by the\nColonel's nonsense about the way they did it \"down South,\" Mac roused\nhimself, and turned out a better piece of masonry for the Big Cabin\nthan he had thought necessary for his own. But everybody had a share in\nthe glory of that fireplace. The Colonel, Potts, and the Boy selected\nthe stone, and brought it on a rude litter out of a natural quarry from\na place a mile or more away up on the bare mountain-side. O'Flynn mixed\nand handed up the mud-mortar, while Mac put in some brisk work with it\nbefore it stiffened in the increasing cold.\n\nEverybody was looking forward to getting out of the tent and into the\nwarm cabin, and the building of the fireplace stirred enthusiasm. It\nwas two and a half feet deep, three and a half feet high, and four feet\nwide, and when furnished with ten-inch hack logs, packed in glowing\nashes and laid one above another, with a roaring good blaze in front of\nbirch and spruce, that fire would take a lot of beating, as the Boy\nadmitted, \"even in the tat-pine Florida country.\"\n\nBut no fire on earth could prevent the cabin from being swept through,\nthe moment the door was opened, by a fierce and icy air-current. The\nlate autumnal gales revealed the fact that the sole means of\nventilation had been so nicely contrived that whoever came in or went\nout admitted a hurricane of draught that nearly knocked him down. Potts\nsaid it took a good half-hour, after anyone had opened the door, to\nheat the place up again.\n\n\"What! You cold?\" inquired the usual culprit. The Boy had come in to\nput an edge on his chopper. \"It's stopped snowin', an' you better come\nalong with me, Potts. Swing an axe for a couple of hours--that'll warm\nyou.\"\n\n\"I've got rheumatism in my shoulder to-day,\" says Potts, hugging the\nhuge fire closer.\n\n\"And you've got something wrong with your eyes, eh, Mac?\"\n\nPotts narrowed his and widened the great mouth; but he had turned his\nhead so Mac couldn't see him.\n\nThe Nova Scotian only growled and refilled his pipe. Up in the woods\nthe Boy repeated the conversation to the Colonel, who looked across at\nO'Flynn several yards away, and said: \"Hush!\"\n\n\"Why must I shut up? Mac's _eyes_ do look rather queer and bloodshot. I\nshould think he'd rather feel we lay it to his eyes than know we're\nafraid he's peterin' out altogether.\"\n\n\"I never said I was afraid--\"\n\n\"No, you haven't _said_ much.\" \"I haven't opened my head about it.\"\n\n\"No, but you've tried hard enough for five or six days to get Mac to\nthe point where he would come out and show us how to whip-saw. You\nhaven't _said_ anything, but you've--you've got pretty dignified each\ntime you failed, and we all know what that means.\"\n\n\"We ought to have begun sawing boards for our bunks and swing-shelf a\nweek back, before this heavy snowfall. Besides, there's enough\nfire-wood now; we're only marking time until--\"\n\n\"Until Mac's eyes get all right. I understand.\"\n\nAgain the Colonel had made a sound like \"Sh!\" and went on swinging his\naxe.\n\nThey worked without words till the Boy's tree came down. Then he\nstopped a moment, and wiped his face.\n\n\"It isn't so cold to-day, not by a long shot, for all Potts's howling\nabout his rheumatics.\"\n\n\"It isn't cold that starts that kind of pain.\"\n\n\"No, siree. I'm not much of a doctor, but I can see Potts's rheumatism\ndoesn't depend on the weather.\"\n\n\"Never you mind Potts.\"\n\n\"I don't mind Potts. I only mind Mac. What's the matter with Mac,\nanyway?\"\n\n\"Oh, he's just got cold feet. Maybe he'll thaw out by-and-by.\"\n\n\"Did you ever think what Mac's like? With that square-cut jaw and\nsawed-off nose, everything about him goin' like this\"--the Boy\ndescribed a few quick blunt angles in the air--\"well, sir, he's the\nlivin' image of a monkey-wrench. I'm comin' to think he's as much like\nit inside as he is out. He can screw up for a prayer-meetin', or he can\nscrew down for business--when he's a mind, but, as Jimmie over there\nsays, 'the divil a different pace can you put him through.' I _like_\nmonkey-wrenches! I'm only sayin' they aren't as limber as willa-trees.\"\n\nNo response from the Colonel, who was making the chips fly. It had cost\nhis great body a good many aches and bruises, but he was a capital\naxeman now, and not such a bad carpenter, though when the Boy said as\nmuch he had answered:\n\n\"Carpenter! I'm just a sort of a well-meanin' wood-butcher\"; and deeply\nhe regretted that in all his young years on a big place in the country\nhe had learnt so little about anything but horses and cattle.\n\nOn the way back to dinner they spoke again of this difficulty of the\nboards. O'Flynn whistled \"Rory O'More\" with his pleasant air of\ndetachment.\n\n\"You and the others would take more interest in the subject,\" said the\nBoy a little hotly, \"if we hadn't let you fellows use nearly all the\nboat-planks for _your_ bunks, and now we haven't got any for our own.\"\n\n\"_Let_ us use 'em! Faith! we had a right to'm.\"\n\n\"To boards out of _our_ boat!\"\n\n\"And ye can have the loan o' the whip-saw to make more, whenever the\nfancy takes ye.\"\n\n\"Loan o' the whip-saw! Why, it's mine,\" says the Colonel.\n\n\"Divil a bit of it, man!\" says O'Flynn serenely. \"Everything we've got\nbelongs to all of us, except a sack o' coffee, a medicine-chest, and a\ndimmi-john. And it's mesilf that's afraid the dimmi-john--\"\n\n\"What's the use of my having bought a whip-saw?\" interrupted the\nColonel, hurriedly. \"What's the good of it, if the only man that knows\nhow to use it--\"\n\n\"Is more taken up wid bein' a guardjin angel to his pardner's\ndimmi-john--\"\n\nThe Colonel turned and frowned at the proprietor of the dimmi-john. The\nBoy had dropped behind to look at some marten tracks in the\nfresh-fallen snow.\n\n\"I'll follow that trail after dinner,\" says he, catching up the others\nin time to hear O'Flynn say:\n\n\"If it wusn't that ye think only a feller that's been to Caribou can\nteach ye annything it's Jimmie O'Flynn that 'ud show ye how to play a\nchune on that same whip-saw.\"\n\n\"Will you show us after dinner?\"\n\n\"Sure I will.\"\n\nAnd he was as good as his word.\n\nThis business of turning a tree into boards without the aid of a\nsaw-mill is a thing many placer-miners have to learn; for, even if they\nare disposed to sleep on the floor, and to do without shelves, they\ncan't do sluicing without sluice-boxes, and they can't make those long,\nnarrow boxes without boards.\n\nSo every party that is well fitted out has a whip-saw.\n\n\"Furrst ye dig a pit,\" O'Flynn had said airily, stretched out before\nthe fire after dinner. \"Make it about four feet deep, and as long as\nye'd like yer boards. When ye've done that I'll come and take a hand.\"\n\nThe little job was not half finished when the light tailed. Two days\nmore of soil-burning and shovelling saw it done.\n\n\"Now ye sling a couple o' saplings acrost the durrt ye've chucked out.\nR-right! Now ye roll yer saw-timber inter the middle. R-right! An' on\neach side ye want a log to stand on. See? Wid yer 'guide-man' on top\nsthradlin' yer timberr, watchin' the chalk-line and doin' the pull-up,\nand the otherr fellerr in the pit lookin' afther the haul-down, ye'll\nbe able to play a chune wid that there whip-saw that'll make the\nserryphims sick o' plain harps.\" O'Flynn superintended it all, and even\nPotts had the curiosity to come out and see what they were up to. Mac\nwas \"kind o' dozin'\" by the fire.\n\nWhen the frame was finished O'Flynn helped to put the trial-log in\nplace, having marked it off with charcoal to indicate inch and a\nquarter planks. Then the Colonel, down in the pit, and O'Flynn on top\nof the frame, took the great two-handled saw between them, and began\nlaboriously, one drawing the big blade up, and the other down,\nvertically through the log along the charcoal line.\n\n\"An' _that's_ how it's done, wid bits of yer arrums and yer back that\nhave niver been called on to wurruk befure. An' whin ye've been at it\nan hour ye'll find it goes betther wid a little blasphemin';\" and he\ngave his end of the saw to the reluctant Potts.\n\nPotts was about this time as much of a problem to his pardners as was\nthe ex-schoolmaster. If the bank clerk had surprised them all by his\nhandiness on board ship, and by making a crane to swing the pots over\nthe fire, he surprised them all still more in these days by an apparent\neclipse of his talents. It was unaccountable. Potts's carpentering,\nPotts's all-round cleverness, was, like \"payrock in a pocket,\" as the\nminers say, speedily worked out, and not a trace of it afterwards to be\nfound.\n\nBut less and less was the defection of the Trio felt. The burly\nKentucky stock-farmer was getting his hand in at \"frontier\" work,\nthough he still couldn't get on without his \"<DW65>,\" as the Boy said,\nslyly indicating that it was he who occupied this exalted post. These\ntwo soon had the bunks made out of the rough planks they had sawed with\nall a green-horn's pains. They put in a fragrant mattress of spring\nmoss, and on that made up a bed of blankets and furs.\n\nMore boards were laboriously turned out to make the great swing-shelf\nto hang up high in the angle of the roof, where the provisions might be\nstored out of reach of possible marauders.\n\nThe days were very short now, bringing only about five hours of pallid\nlight, so little of which struggled through the famous bottle-window\nthat at all hours they depended chiefly on the blaze from the great\nfireplace. There was still a good deal of work to be done indoors,\nshelves to be put up on the left as you entered (whereon the\ngranite-ware tea-service, etc., was kept), a dinner-table to be made,\nand three-legged stools. While these additions--\"fancy touches,\" as the\nTrio called them--were being made, Potts and O'Flynn, although\noccasionally they went out for an hour or two, shot-gun on shoulder,\nseldom brought home anything, and for the most part were content with\ndoing what they modestly considered their share of the cooking and\nwashing. For the rest, they sat by the fire playing endless games of\neuchre, seven-up and bean poker, while Mac, more silent than ever,\nsmoked and read Copps's \"Mining Laws\" and the magazines of the previous\nAugust.\n\nNobody heard much in those days of Caribou. The Colonel had gradually\nslipped into the position of Boss of the camp. The Trio were still just\na trifle afraid of him, and he, on his side, never pressed a dangerous\nissue too far.\n\nBut this is a little to anticipate.\n\nOne bitter gray morning, that had reduced Perry Davis to a solid lump\nof ice, O'Flynn, the Colonel, and the Boy were bringing into the cabin\nthe last of the whip-sawed boards. The Colonel halted and looked\nsteadily up the river.\n\n\"Is that a beast or a human?\" said he.\n\n\"It's a man,\" the Boy decided after a moment--\"no, two men, single\nfile, and--yes--Colonel, it's dogs. Hooray! a dog-team at last!\"\n\nThey had simultaneously dropped the lumber. The Boy ran on to tell the\ncook to prepare more grub, and then pelted after O'Flynn and the\nColonel, who had gone down to meet the newcomers--an Indian driving\nfive dogs, which were hitched tandem to a low Esquimaux sled, with a\npack and two pairs of web-foot snow-shoes lashed on it, and followed by\na white man. The Indian was a fine fellow, younger than Prince\nNicholas, and better off in the matter of eyes. The white man was a\ngood deal older than either, with grizzled hair, a worn face, bright\ndark eyes, and a pleasant smile.\n\n\"I had heard some white men had camped hereabouts,\" says he. \"I am glad\nto see we have such substantial neighbours.\" He was looking up at the\nstone chimney, conspicuous a long way off.\n\n\"We didn't know we had any white neighbours,\" said the Colonel in his\nmost grand and gracious manner. \"How far away are you, sir?\"\n\n\"About forty miles above.\"\n\nAs he answered he happened to be glancing at the Boy, and observed his\neagerness cloud slightly. Hadn't Nicholas said it was \"about forty\nmiles above\" that the missionaries lived?\n\n\"But to be only forty miles away,\" the stranger went on,\nmisinterpreting the fading gladness, \"is to be near neighbours in this\ncountry.\"\n\n\"We aren't quite fixed yet,\" said the Colonel, \"but you must come in\nand have some dinner with us. We can promise you a good fire, anyhow.\"\n\n\"Thank you. You have chosen a fine site.\" And the bright eyes with the\ndeep crow's-feet raying out from the corners scanned the country in so\nkeen and knowing a fashion that the Boy, with hope reviving, ventured:\n\n\"Are--are you a prospector?\"\n\n\"No. I am Father Wills from Holy Cross.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" And the Boy presently caught up with the Indian, and walked on\nbeside him, looking back every now and then to watch the dogs or\nexamine the harness. The driver spoke English, and answered questions\nwith a tolerable intelligence. \"Are dogs often driven without reins?\"\n\nThe Indian nodded.\n\nThe Colonel, after the stranger had introduced himself, was just a\nshade more reserved, but seemed determined not to be lacking in\nhospitality. O'Flynn was overflowing, or would have been had the Jesuit\nencouraged him. He told their story, or, more properly, his own, and\nhow they had been wrecked.\n\n\"And so ye're the Father Superior up there?\" says the Irishman, pausing\nto take breath.\n\n\"No. Our Superior is Father Brachet. That's a well-built cabin!\"\n\nThe dogs halted, though they had at least five hundred yards still to\ntravel before they would reach the well-built cabin.\n\n\"_Mush!_\" shouted the Indian.\n\nThe dogs cleared the ice-reef, and went spinning along so briskly over\nthe low hummocks that the driver had to run to keep up with them.\n\nThe Boy was flying after when the priest, having caught sight of his\nface, called out: \"Here! Wait! Stop a moment!\" and hurried forward.\n\nHe kicked through the ice-crust, gathered up a handful of snow, and\nbegan to rub it on the Boy's right cheek.\n\n\"What in the name of--\" The Boy was drawing back angrily.\n\n\"Keep still,\" ordered the priest; \"your cheek is frozen\"; and he\napplied more snow and more friction. \"You ought to watch one another in\nsuch weather as this. When a man turns dead-white like that, he's\ntouched with frost-bite.\" After he had restored the circulation: \"There\nnow, don't go near the fire, or it will begin to hurt.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said the Boy, a little shame-faced. \"It's all right now, I\nsuppose?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" said the priest. \"You'll lose the skin, and you may be a\nlittle sore--nothing to speak of,\" with which he fell back to the\nColonel's side.\n\nThe dogs had settled down into a jog-trot now, but were still well on\nin front.\n\n\"Is 'mush' their food?\" asked the Boy.\n\n\"_Mush?_ No, fish.\"\n\n\"Why does your Indian go on like that about mush, then?\"\n\n\"Oh, that's the only word the dogs know, except--a--certain expressions\nwe try to discourage the Indians from using. In the old days the\ndog-drivers used to say 'mahsh.' Now you never hear anything but\nswearing and 'mush,' a corruption of the French-Canadian _marche_.\" He\nturned to the Colonel: \"You'll get over trying to wear cheechalko boots\nhere--nothing like mucklucks with a wisp of straw inside for this\ncountry.\"\n\n\"I agree wid ye. I got me a pair in St. Michael's,\" says O'Flynn\nproudly, turning out his enormous feet. \"Never wore anything so\ncomf'table in me life.\"\n\n\"You ought to have drill parkis too, like this of mine, to keep out the\nwind.\"\n\nThey were going up the <DW72> now, obliquely to the cabin, close behind\nthe dogs, who were pulling spasmodically between their little rests.\n\nFather Wills stooped and gathered up some moss that the wind had swept\nalmost bare of snow. \"You see that?\" he said to O'Flynn, while the Boy\nstopped, and the Colonel hurried on. \"Wherever you find that growing no\nman need starve.\"\n\nThe Colonel looked back before entering the cabin and saw that the Boy\nseemed to have forgotten not alone the Indian, but the dogs, and was\nwalking behind with the Jesuit, face upturned, smiling, as friendly as\nyou please.\n\nWithin a different picture.\n\nPotts and Mac were having a row about something, and the Colonel struck\nin sharply on their growling comments upon each other's character and\nprobable destination.\n\n\"Got plenty to eat? Two hungry men coming in. One's an Indian, and you\nknow what that means, and the other's a Catholic priest.\" It was this\nbomb that he had hurried on to get exploded and done with before the\nsaid priest should appear on the scene.\n\n\"A _what_?\" Mac raised his heavy eyes with fight in every wooden\nfeature.\n\n\"A Jesuit priest is what I said.\"\n\n\"He won't eat his dinner here.\"\n\n\"That is exactly what he will do.\"\n\n\"Not by--\" Whether it was the monstrous proposition that had unstrung\nMac, he was obliged to steady himself against the table with a shaking\nhand. But he set those square features of his like iron, and, says he,\n\"No Jesuit sits down to the same table with me.\"\n\n\"That means, then, that you'll eat alone.\"\n\n\"Not if I know it.\"\n\nThe Colonel slid in place the heavy wooden bar that had never before\nbeen requisitioned to secure the door, and he came and stood in the\nmiddle of the cabin, where he could let out all his inches. Just\nclearing the swing-shelf, he pulled his great figure up to its full\nheight, and standing there like a second Goliath, he said quite softly\nin that lingo of his childhood that always came back to his tongue's\ntip in times of excitement: \"Just as shuah as yo' bohn that priest will\neat his dinner to-day in my cabin, sah; and if yo' going t' make any\ntrouble, just say so now, and we'll get it ovah, and the place cleaned\nup again befoh our visitors arrive.\"\n\n\"Mind what you're about, Mac,\" growled Potts. \"You know he could lick\nthe stuffin' out o' you.\"\n\nThe ex-schoolmaster produced some sort of indignant sound in his throat\nand turned, as if he meant to go out. The Colonel came a little nearer.\nMac flung up his head and squared for battle.\n\nPotts, in a cold sweat, dropped a lot of tinware with a rattle, while\nthe Colonel said, \"No, no. We'll settle this after the people go, Mac.\"\nThen in a whisper: \"Look here: I've been trying to shield you for ten\ndays. Don't give yourself away now--before the first white neighbour\nthat comes to see us. You call yourself a Christian. Just see if you\ncan't behave like one, for an hour or two, to a fellow-creature that's\ncold and hungry. Come, _you're_ the man we've always counted on! Do the\nhonours, and take it out of me after our guests are gone.\"\n\nMac seemed in a haze. He sat down heavily on some beanbags in the\ncorner; and when the newcomers were brought in and introduced, he \"did\nthe honours\" by glowering at them with red eyes, never breaking his\nsurly silence.\n\n\"Well!\" says Father Wills, looking about, \"I must say you're very\ncomfortable here. If more people made homes like this, there'd be fewer\nfailures.\" They gave him the best place by the fire, and Potts dished\nup dinner. There were only two stools made yet. The Boy rolled his\nsection of sawed spruce over near the priest, and prepared to dine at\nhis side.\n\n\"No, no,\" said Father Wills firmly. \"You shall sit as far away from\nthis splendid blaze as you can get, or you will have trouble with that\ncheek.\" So the Boy had to yield his place to O'Flynn, and join Mac over\non the bean-bags.\n\n\"Why didn't you get a parki when you were at St. Michael's?\" said the\npriest as this change was being effected.\n\n\"We had just as much--more than we could carry. Besides, I thought we\ncould buy furs up river; anyway, I'm warm enough.\"\n\n\"No you are not,\" returned the priest smiling. \"You must get a parki\nwith a hood.\"\n\n\"I've got an Arctic cap; it rolls down over my ears and goes all round\nmy neck--just leaves a little place in front for my eyes.\"\n\n\"Yes; wear that if you go on the trail; but the good of the parki hood\nis, that it is trimmed all round with long wolf-hair. You see\"--he\npicked his parki up off the floor and showed it to the company--\"those\nlong hairs standing out all round the face break the force of the wind.\nIt is wonderful how the Esquimaux hood lessens the chance of\nfrost-bite.\"\n\nWhile the only object in the room that he didn't seem to see was Mac,\nhe was most taken up with the fireplace.\n\nThe Colonel laid great stress on the enormous services of the\ndelightful, accomplished master-mason over there on the beanbags, who\nsat looking more than ever like a monkey-wrench incarnate.\n\nBut whether that Jesuit was as wily as the Calvinist thought, he had\nquite wit enough to overlook the great chimney-builder's wrathful\nsilence.\n\nHe was not the least \"professional,\" talked about the country and how\nto live here, saying incidentally that he had spent twelve years at the\nmission of the Holy Cross. The Yukon wasn't a bad place to live in, he\ntold them, if men only took the trouble to learn how to live here.\nWhile teaching the Indians, there was a great deal to learn from them\nas well.\n\n\"You must all come and see our schools,\" he wound up.\n\n\"We'd like to awfully,\" said the Boy, and all but Mac echoed him. \"We\nwere so afraid,\" he went on, \"that we mightn't see anybody all winter\nlong.\"\n\n\"Oh, you'll have more visitors than you want.\"\n\n\"_Shall_ we, though?\" Then, with a modified rapture: \"Indians, I\nsuppose, and--and missionaries.\"\n\n\"Traders, too, and miners, and this year cheechalkos as well. You are\ndirectly on the great highway of winter travel. Now that there's a good\nhard crust on the snow you will have dog-trains passing every week, and\nsometimes two or three.\"\n\nIt was good news!\n\n\"We've already had one visitor before you,\" said the Boy, looking\nwonderfully pleased at the prospect the priest had opened out. \"You\nmust know Nicholas of Pymeut, don't you?\"\n\n\"Oh yes; we all know Nicholas\"; and the priest smiled.\n\n\"We _like_ him,\" returned the Boy as if some slighting criticism had\nbeen passed upon his friend.\n\n\"Of course you do; so do we all\"; and still that look of quiet\namusement on the worn face and a keener twinkle glinting in the eyes.\n\n\"We're afraid he's sick,\" the Boy began.\n\nBefore the priest could answer, \"He was educated at Howly Cross, he\n_says_,\" contributed O'Flynn.\n\n\"Oh, he's been to Holy Cross, among other places.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Well, Nicholas is a most impartial person. He was born at Pymeut, but\nhis father, who is the richest and most intelligent man in his tribe,\ntook Nicholas to Ikogimeut when the boy was only six. He was brought up\nin the Russian mission there, as the father had been before him, and\nwas a Greek--in religion--till he was fourteen. There was a famine that\nyear down yonder, so Nicholas turned Catholic and came up to us. He was\nat Holy Cross some years, when business called him to Anvik, where he\nturned Episcopalian. At Eagle City, I believe, he is regarded as a\npattern Presbyterian. There are those that say, since he has been a\npilot, Nicholas makes six changes a trip in his religious convictions.\"\n\nFather Wills saw that the Colonel, to whom he most frequently addressed\nhimself, took his pleasantry gravely. \"Nicholas is not a bad fellow,\"\nhe added. \"He told me you had been kind to him.\"\n\n\"If you believe that about his insincerity,\" said the Colonel, \"are you\nnot afraid the others you spend your life teaching may turn out as\nlittle credit to you--to Christianity?\"\n\nThe priest glanced at the listening Indian. \"No,\" said he gravely; \"I\ndo not think _all_ the natives are like Nicholas. Andrew here is a true\nson of the Church. But even if it were otherwise, _we_, you know\"--the\nJesuit rose from the table with that calm smile of his--\"we simply do\nthe work without question. The issue is not in our hands.\" He made the\nsign of the cross and set back his stool.\n\n\"Come, Andrew,\" he said; \"we must push on.\"\n\nThe Indian repeated the priest's action, and went out to see to the\ndogs.\n\n\"Oh, are you going right away?\" said the Colonel politely, and O'Flynn\nvolubly protested.\n\n\"We thought,\" said the Boy, \"you'd sit awhile and smoke and--at least,\nof course, I don't mean smoke exactly--but--\"\n\nThe Father smiled and shook his head.\n\n\"Another time I would stay gladly.\"\n\n\"Where are you going now?\"\n\n\"Andrew and I are on our way to the _Oklahoma_, the steamship frozen in\nthe ice below here.\"\n\n\"How far?\" asked the Boy.\n\n\"About seven miles below the Russian mission, and a mile or so up the\nKuskoquim Slough.\"\n\n\"Wrecked there?\"\n\n\"Oh no. Gone into winter quarters.\"\n\n\"In a slew?\" for it was so Father Wills pronounced s-l-o-u-g-h.\n\n\"Oh, that's what they call a blind river up in this country. They come\ninto the big streams every here and there, and cheechalkos are always\nmistaking them for the main channel. Sometimes they're wider and deeper\nfor a mile or so than the river proper, but before you know it they\nland you in a marsh. This place I'm going to, a little way up the\nKuskoquim, out of danger when the ice breaks up, has been chosen for a\nnew station by the N. A. T. and T. Company--rival, you know, to the\nold-established Alaska Commercial, that inherited the Russian fur\nmonopoly and controlled the seal and salmon trade so long. Well, the\nyounger company runs the old one hard, and they've sent this steamer\ninto winter quarters loaded with provisions, ready to start for Dawson\nthe instant the ice goes out.\"\n\n\"Why, then, it's the very boat that'll be takin' us to the Klondyke.\"\n\n\"You just goin' down to have a look at her?\" asked Potts enviously.\n\n\"No. I go to get relief for the Pymeuts.\"\n\n\"What's the matter with 'em?\"\n\n\"Epidemic all summer, starvation now.\"\n\n\"Guess you won't find _any_body's got such a lot he wants to give it\naway to the Indians.\"\n\n\"Our Father Superior has given much,\" said the priest gently; \"but we\nare not inexhaustible at Holy Cross. And the long winter is before us.\nMany of the supply steamers have failed to get in, and the country is\nflooded with gold-seekers. There'll be wide-spread want this\nyear--terrible suffering all up and down the river.\"\n\n\"The more reason for people to hold on to what they've got. A white\nman's worth more 'n an Indian.\"\n\nThe priest's face showed no anger, not even coldness.\n\n\"White men have got a great deal out of Alaska and as yet done little\nbut harm here. The government ought to help the natives, and we believe\nthe Government will. All we ask of the captain of the _Oklahoma_ is to\nsell us, on fair terms, a certain supply, we assuming part of the risk,\nand both of us looking to the Government to make it good.\"\n\n\"Reckon you'll find that steamer-load down in the ice is worth its\nweight in gold,\" said Potts.\n\n\"One must always try,\" replied the Father.\n\nHe left the doorpost, straightened his bowed back, and laid a hand on\nthe wooden latch.\n\n\"But Nicholas--when you left Pymeut was he--\" began the Boy.\n\n\"Oh, he is all right,\" the Father smiled and nodded. \"Brother Paul has\nbeen looking after Nicholas's father. The old chief has enough food,\nbut he has been very ill. By the way, have you any letters you want to\nsend out?\"\n\n\"Oh, if we'd only known!\" was the general chorus; and Potts flew to\nclose and stamp one he had hardly more than begun to the future Mrs.\nPotts.\n\nThe Boy had thoughtlessly opened the door to have a look at the dogs.\n\n\"Shut that da--Don't keep the door open!\" howled Potts, trying to hold\nhis precious letter down on the table while he added \"only two words.\"\nThe Boy slammed the door behind him.\n\n\"With all our trouble, the cabin isn't really warm,\" said the Colonel\napologetically. \"In a wind like this, if the door is open, we have to\nhold fast to things to keep them from running down the Yukon. It's a\ntrial to anybody's temper.\"\n\n\"Why don't you build a false wall?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know; we hadn't thought of it.\"\n\n\"You'd find it correct this draught\"; and the priest explained his\nviews on the subject while Potts's letter was being addressed. Andrew\nput his head in.\n\n\"Ready, Father!\"\n\nAs the priest was pocketing the letter the Boy dashed in, put on the\nArctic cap he set such store by, and a fur coat and mittens.\n\n\"Do you mind if I go a little way with you?\" he said.\n\n\"Of course not,\" answered the priest. \"I will send him back in half an\nhour,\" he said low to the Colonel. \"It's a hitter day.\"\n\nIt was curious how already he had divined the relation of the elder man\nto the youngest of that odd household.\n\nThe moment they had gone Mac, with an obvious effort, pulled himself up\nout of his corner, and, coming towards the Colonel at the fireplace, he\nsaid thickly:\n\n\"You've put an insult upon me, Warren, and that's what I stand from no\nman. Come outside.\"\n\nThe Colonel looked at him.\n\n\"All right, Mac; but we've just eaten a rousing big dinner. Even\nSullivan wouldn't accept that as the moment for a round. We'll both\nhave forty winks, hey? and Potts shall call us, and O'Flynn shall be\numpire. You can have the Boy's bunk.\"\n\nMac was in a haze again, and allowed himself to be insinuated into bed.\n\nThe others got rid of the dinner things, and \"sat round\" for an hour.\n\n\"Doubt if he sleeps long,\" says Potts a little before two; \"that's what\nhe's been doing all morning.\"\n\n\"We haven't had any fresh meat for a week,\" returns the Colonel\nsignificantly. \"Why don't you and O'Flynn go down to meet the Boy, and\ncome round by the woods? There'll be full moon up by four o'clock; you\nmight get a brace of grouse or a rabbit or two.\"\n\nO'Flynn was not very keen about it; but the Jesuit's visit had stirred\nhim up, and he offered less opposition to the unusual call to activity\nthan the Colonel expected.\n\nWhen at last he was left alone with the sleeping man, the Kentuckian\nput on a couple more logs, and sat down to wait. At three he got up,\nswung the crane round so that the darting tongues of flame could lick\nthe hot-water pot, and then he measured out some coffee. In a quarter\nof an hour the cabin was full of the fragrance of good Mocha.\n\nThe Colonel sat and waited. Presently he poured out a little coffee,\nand drank it slowly, blissfully, with half-closed eyes. But when he had\nset the granite cup down again, he stood up alert, like a man ready for\nbusiness. Mac had been asleep nearly three hours. The others wouldn't\nbe long now.\n\nWell, if they came prematurely, they must go to the Little Cabin for\nawhile. The Colonel shot the bar across door and jamb for the second\ntime that day. Mac stirred and lifted himself on his elbow, but he\nwasn't really awake.\n\n\"Potts,\" he said huskily.\n\nThe Colonel made no sound. \"Potts, measure me out two fingers, will\nyou? Cabin's damn cold.\"\n\nNo answer.\n\nMac roused himself, muttering compliments for Potts. When he had\nbundled himself out over the side of the bunk, he saw the Colonel\nseemingly dozing by the fire.\n\nHe waited a moment. Then, very softly, he made his way to the farther\nend of the swing-shelf.\n\nThe Colonel opened one eye, shut it, and shuffled in a sleepy sort of\nway. Mac turned sharply back to the fire.\n\nThe Colonel opened his eyes and yawned.\n\n\"I made some cawfee a little while back. Have some?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Better; it's A 1.\"\n\n\"Where's Potts?\"\n\n\"Gone out for a little. Back soon.\" He poured out some of the strong,\nblack decoction, and presented it to his companion. \"Just try it.\nFinest cawfee in the world, sir.\"\n\nMac poured it down without seeming to bother about tasting it.\n\nThey sat quite still after that, till the Colonel said meditatively:\n\n\"You and I had a little account to settle, didn't we?\"\n\n\"I'm ready.\"\n\nBut neither moved for several moments.\n\n\"See here, Mac: you haven't been ill or anything like that, have you?\"\n\n\"No.\" There was no uncertain note in the answer; if anything, there was\nin it more than the usual toneless decision. Mac's voice was\nmachine-made--as innocent of modulation as a buzz-saw, and with the\nsame uncompromising finality as the shooting of a bolt. \"I'm ready to\nstand up against any man.\"\n\n\"Good!\" interrupted the Colonel. \"Glad o' that, for I'm just longing to\nsee you stand up--\"\n\nMac was on his feet in a flash.\n\n\"You had only to say so, if you wanted to see me stand up against any\nman alive. And when I sit down again it's my opinion one of us two\nwon't be good-lookin' any more.\"\n\nHe pushed back the stools.\n\n\"I thought maybe it was only necessary to mention it,\" said the Colonel\nslowly. \"I've been wanting for a fortnight to see you stand up\"--Mac\nturned fiercely--\"against Samuel David MacCann.\"\n\n\"Come on! I'm in no mood for monkeyin'!\"\n\n\"Nor I. I realise, MacCann, we've come to a kind of a crisis. Things in\nthis camp are either going a lot better, or a lot worse, after to-day.\"\n\n\"There's nothing wrong, if you quit asking dirty Jesuits to sit down\nwith honest men.\"\n\n\"Yes; there's something worse out o' shape than that.\"\n\nMac waited warily.\n\n\"When we were stranded here, and saw what we'd let ourselves in for,\nthere wasn't one of us that didn't think things looked pretty much like\nthe last o' pea time. There was just one circumstance that kept us from\nthrowing up the sponge; _we had a man in camp.\"_\n\nThe Colonel paused.\n\nMac stood as expressionless as the wooden crane.\n\n\"A man we all believed in, who was going to help us pull through.\"\n\"That was you, I s'pose.\" Mac's hard voice chopped out the sarcasm.\n\n\"You know mighty well who it was. The Boy's all right, but he's young\nfor this kind o' thing--young and heady. There isn't much wrong with me\nthat I'm aware of, except that I don't know shucks. Potts's petering\nout wasn't altogether a surprise, and nobody expected anything from\nO'Flynn till we got to Dawson, when a lawyer and a fella with capital\nbehind him may come in handy. But there was one man--who had a head on\nhim, who had experience, and who\"--he leaned over to emphasise the\nclimax--\"who had _character_. It was on that man's account that I\njoined this party.\"\n\nMac put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. His face\nbegan to look a little more natural. The long sleep or the coffee had\ncleared his eyes.\n\n\"Shall I tell you what I heard about that man last night?\" asked the\nColonel gravely.\n\nMac looked up, but never opened his lips.\n\n\"You remember you wouldn't sit here--\"\n\n\"The Boy was always in and out. The cabin was cold.\"\n\n\"I left the Boy and O'Flynn at supper-time and went down to the Little\nCabin to--\"\n\n\"To see what I was doin'--to spy on me.\"\n\n\"Well, all right--maybe I was spying, too. Incidentally I wanted to\ntell you the cabin was hot as blazes, and get you to come to supper. I\nmet Potts hurrying up for his grub, and I said, 'Where's Mac? Isn't he\ncoming?' and your pardner's answer was: 'Oh, let him alone. He's got a\nflask in his bunk, swillin' and gruntin'; he's just in hog-heaven.'\"\n\n\"Damn that sneak!\"\n\n\"The man he was talkin' about, Mac, was the man we had all built our\nhopes on.\"\n\n\"I'll teach Potts--\"\n\n\"You can't, Mac. Potts has got to die and go to heaven--perhaps to\nhell, before he'll learn any good. But you're a different breed. Teach\nMacCann.\"\n\nMac suddenly sat down on the stool with his head in his hands.\n\n\"The Boy hasn't caught on,\" said the Colonel presently, \"but he said\nsomething this morning to show he was wondering about the change that's\ncome over you.\"\n\n\"That I don't split wood all day, I suppose, when we've got enough for\na month. Potts doesn't either. Why don't you go for Potts?\"\n\n\"As the Boy said, I don't care about Potts. It's Mac that matters.\"\n\n\"Did the Boy say that?\" He looked up.\n\nThe Colonel nodded.\n\n\"After you had made that chimney, you know, you were a kind of hero in\nhis eyes.\"\n\nMac looked away. \"The cabin's been cold,\" he muttered.\n\n\"We are going to remedy that.\"\n\n\"I didn't bring any liquor into camp. You must admit that I didn't\nintend--\"\n\n\"I do admit it.\"\n\n\"And when O'Flynn said that about keeping his big demijohn out of the\ninventory and apart from the common stores, I sat on him.\"\n\n\"So you did.\"\n\n\"I knew it was safest to act on the 'medicinal purposes' principle.\"\n\n\"So it is.\"\n\n\"But I wasn't thinking so much of O'Flynn. I was thinking of ... things\nthat had happened before ... for ... I'd had experience. Drink was the\ncurse of Caribou. It's something of a scourge up in Nova Scotia ... I'd\nhad experience.\"\n\n\"You did the very best thing possible under the circumstances.\" Mac was\nfeeling about after his self-respect, and must be helped to get hold of\nit. \"I realise, too, that the temptation is much greater in cold\ncountries,\" said the Kentuckian unblushingly. \"Italians and Greeks\ndon't want fiery drinks half as much as Russians and\nScandinavians--haven't the same craving as Nova Scotians and\ncold-country people generally, I suppose. But that only shows,\ntemperance is of more vital importance in the North.\"\n\n\"That's right! It's not much in my line to shift blame, even when I\ndon't deserve it; but you know so much you might as well know ... it\nwasn't I who opened that demijohn first.\"\n\n\"But you don't mind being the one to shut it up--do you?\"\n\n\"Shut it up?\"\n\n\"Yes; let's get it down and--\" The Colonel swung it off the shelf. It\nwas nearly empty, and only the Boy's and the Colonel's single bottles\nstood unbroached. Even so, Mac's prolonged spree was something of a\nmystery to the Kentuckian. It must be that a very little was too much\nfor Mac. The Colonel handed the demijohn to his companion, and lit the\nsolitary candle standing on its little block of wood, held in place\nbetween three half-driven nails.\n\n\"What's that for?\"\n\n\"Don't you want to seal it up?\"\n\n\"I haven't got any wax.\"\n\n\"I have an inch or so.\" The Colonel produced out of his pocket the only\npiece in camp.\n\nMac picked up a billet of wood, and drove the cork in flush with the\nneck. Then, placing upright on the cork the helve of the hammer, he\ndrove the cork down a quarter of an inch farther.\n\n\"Give me your wax. What's for a seal?\" They looked about. Mac's eye\nfell on a metal button that hung by a thread from the old militia\njacket he was wearing. He put his hand up to it, paused, glanced\nhurriedly at the Colonel, and let his fingers fall.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said the Kentuckian, \"that'll make a capital seal.\"\n\n\"No; something of yours, I think, Colonel. The top of that tony\npencil-case, hey?\"\n\nThe Colonel produced his gold pencil, watched Mac heat the wax, drop it\ninto the neck of the demijohn, and apply the initialled end of the\nColonel's property. While Mac, without any further waste of words, was\nswinging the wicker-bound temptation up on the shelf again, they heard\nvoices.\n\n\"They're coming back,\" says the Kentuckian hurriedly. \"But we've\nsettled our little account, haven't we, old man?\"\n\nMac jerked his head in that automatic fashion that with him meant\ngenial and whole-hearted agreement.\n\n\"And if Potts or O'Flynn want to break that seal--\"\n\n\"I'll call 'em down,\" says Mac. And the Colonel knew the seal was safe.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"By-the-by, Colonel,\" said the Boy, just as he was turning in that\nnight, \"I--a--I've asked that Jesuit chap to the House-Warming.\"\n\n\"Oh, you did, did you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, you'd just better have a talk with Mac about it.\"\n\n\"Yes. I've been tryin' to think how I'd square Mac. Of course, I know\nI'll have to go easy on the raw.\"\n\n\"I reckon you just will.\"\n\n\"If Monkey-wrench screws down hard on me, you'll come to the rescue,\nwon't you, Colonel?\"\n\n\"No I'll side with Mac on that subject. Whatever he says, goes!\"\n\n\"Humph! _that_ Jesuit's all right.\"\n\nNot a word out of the Colonel.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTWO NEW SPISSIMENS\n\nMedwjedew (zu Luka). Tag' mal--wer bist du? Ich\nkenne dich nicht.\n\nLuka. Kennst du denn sonst alle Leute?\n\nMedwjedew. In meinem Revier muss ich jeden kennen und dich kenn'ich\nnicht....\n\nLuka. Das kommt wohl daher Onkelchen, dass dein Revier nicht die ganze\nErde umfasst ... 's ist da noch ein Endchen draussen geblieben....\n\n\nOne of the curious results of what is called wild life, is a blessed\nrelease from many of the timidities that assail the easy liver in the\ncentres of civilisation. Potts was the only one in the white camp who\nhad doubts about the wisdom of having to do with the natives.\n\nHowever, the agreeable necessity of going to Pymeut to invite Nicholas\nto the Blow-out was not forced upon the Boy. They were still hard at\nit, four days after the Jesuit had gone his way, surrounding the Big\nCabin with a false wall, that final and effectual barrier against\nBoreas--finishing touch warranted to convert a cabin, so cold that it\ndrove its inmates to drink, into a dwelling where practical people,\nwithout cracking a dreary joke, might fitly celebrate a House-Warming.\n\nIn spite of the shortness of the days, Father Wills's suggestion was\nbeing carried out with a gratifying success. Already manifest were the\nadvantages of the stockade, running at a foot's distance round the\ncabin to the height of the eaves, made of spruce saplings not even\nlopped of their short bushy branches, but planted close together, after\nburning the ground cleared of snow. A second visitation of mild\nweather, and a further two days' thaw, made the Colonel determine to\nfill in the space between the spruce stockade and the cabin with\n\"burnt-out\" soil closely packed down and well tramped in. It was\ngenerally conceded, as the winter wore on, that to this contrivance of\nthe \"earthwork\" belonged a good half of the credit of the Big Cabin,\nand its renown as being the warmest spot on the lower river that\nterrible memorable year of the Klondyke Rush.\n\nThe evergreen wall with the big stone chimney shouldering itself up to\nlook out upon the frozen highway, became a conspicuous feature in the\nlandscape, welcome as the weeks went on to many an eye wearied with\nlong looking for shelter, and blinded by the snow-whitened waste.\n\nAn exception to what became a rule was, of all men, Nicholas. When the\nstockade was half done, the Prince and an equerry appeared on the\nhorizon, with the second team the camp had seen, the driver much\nconcerned to steer clear of the softened snow and keep to that part of\nthe river ice windswept and firm, if roughest of all. Nicholas regarded\nthe stockade with a cold and beady eye.\n\nNo, he hadn't time to look at it. He had promised to \"mush.\" He wasn't\neven hungry.\n\nIt did little credit to his heart, but he seemed more in haste to leave\nhis new friends than the least friendly of them would have expected.\n\n\"Oh, wait a sec.,\" urged the deeply disappointed Boy. \"I wanted awf'ly\nto see how your sled is made. It's better 'n Father Wills'.\"\n\n\"Humph!\" grunted Nicholas scornfully; \"him no got Innuit sled.\"\n\n\"Mac and I are goin' to try soon's the stockade's done--\"\n\n\"Goo'-bye,\" interrupted Nicholas.\n\nBut the Boy paid no attention to the word of farewell. He knelt down in\nthe snow and examined the sled carefully.\n\n\"Spruce runners,\" he called out to Mac, \"and--jee! they're shod with\nivory! _Jee!_ fastened with sinew and wooden pegs. Hey?\"--looking up\nincredulously at Nicholas--\"not a nail in the whole shebang, eh?\"\n\n\"Nail?\" says Nicholas. \"Huh, no _nail!_\" as contemptuously as though\nthe Boy had said \"bread-crumbs.\"\n\n\"Well, she's a daisy! When you comin' back?\"\n\n\"Comin' pretty quick; goin' pretty quick. Goo'-bye! _Mush!_\" shouted\nNicholas to his companion, and the dogs got up off their haunches.\n\nBut the Boy only laughed at Nicholas's struggles to get started. He\nhung on to the loaded sled, examining, praising, while the dogs, after\nthe merest affectation of trying to make a start, looked round at him\nover their loose collars and grinned contentedly.\n\n\"Me got to mush. Show nex' time. Mush!\"\n\n\"What's here?\" the Boy shouted through the \"mushing\"; and he tugged at\nthe goodly load, so neatly disposed under an old reindeer-skin\nsleeping-bag, and lashed down with raw hide.\n\nThat? Oh, that was fish. _\"Fish!_ Got so much fish at starving Pymeut\nyou can go hauling it down river? Well, sir, _we_ want fish. We _must_\nhave fish. Hey?\" The Boy appealed to the others.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"R-right y'arre!\"\n\n\"I reckon we just do!\"\n\nBut Nicholas had other views.\n\n\"No, me take him--\" He hitched his body in the direction of Ikogimeut.\n\n\"Bless my soul! you've got enough there for a regiment. You goin' to\nsell him? Hey?\"\n\nNicholas shook his head.\n\n\"Oh, come off the roof!\" advised the Boy genially.\n\n\"You ain't carryin' it about for your health, I suppose?\" said Potts.\n\n\"The people down at Ikogimeut don't need it like us. We're white\nduffers, and can't get fish through the ice. You sell _some_ of it to\nus.\" But Nicholas shook his head and shuffled along on his snow-shoes,\nbeckoning the dog-driver to follow.\n\n\"Or trade some fur--fur tay,\" suggested O'Flynn.\n\n\"Or for sugar,\" said Mac.\n\n\"Or for tobacco,\" tempted the Colonel.\n\nAnd before that last word Nicholas's resolve went down. Up at the cabin\nhe unlashed the load, and it quickly became manifest that Nicholas was\na dandy at driving a bargain. He kept on saying shamelessly:\n\n\"More--more shuhg. Hey? Oh yes, me give heap fish. No nuff shuhg.\"\n\nIf it hadn't been for Mac (his own clear-headed self again, and by no\nmeans to be humbugged by any Prince alive) the purchase of a portion of\nthat load of frozen fish, corded up like so much wood, would have laid\nwaste the commissariat.\n\nBut if the white men after this passage did not feel an absolute\nconfidence in Nicholas's fairness of mind, no such unworthy suspicion\nof them found lodgment in the bosom of the Prince. With the exception\nof some tobacco, he left all his ill-gotten store to be kept for him by\nhis new friends till he should return. When was that to be? In five\nsleeps he would be back.\n\n\"Good! We'll have the stockade done by then. What do you say to our big\nchimney, Nicholas?\"\n\nHe emitted a scornful \"Peeluck!\"\n\n\"What! Our chimney no good?\"\n\nHe shrugged: \"Why you have so tall hole your house? How you cover him\nup?\"\n\n\"We don't want to cover him up.\"\n\n\"Humph! winter fin' you tall hole. Winter come down--bring in\nsnow--drive fire out.\" He shivered in anticipation of what was to\nhappen. \"Peeluck!\"\n\nThe white men laughed.\n\n\"What you up to now? Where you going?\"\n\nWell, the fact was, Nicholas had been sent by his great ally, the\nFather Superior of Holy Cross, on a mission, very important, demanding\ndespatch.\n\n\"Father Brachet--him know him heap better send Nicholas when him want\nman go God-damn quick. Me no stop--no--no stop.\"\n\nHe drew on his mittens proudly, unjarred by remembrance of how his good\nresolution had come to grief.\n\n\"Where you off to now?\"\n\n\"Me ketchum Father Wills--me give letter.\" He tapped his\ndeerskin-covered chest. \"Ketchum _sure_ 'fore him leave Ikogimeut.\"\n\n\"You come back with Father Wills?\"\n\nNicholas nodded.\n\n\"Hooray! we'll all work like sixty!\" shouted the Boy, \"and by Saturday\n(that's five sleeps) we'll have the wall done and the house warm, and\nyou and\"--he caught himself up; not thus in public would he break the\nnews to Mac--\"you'll be back in time for the big Blow-Out.\" To clinch\nmatters, he accompanied Nicholas from the cabin to the river trail,\nexplaining: \"You savvy? Big feast--all same Indian. Heap good grub. No\nprayer-meetin'--you savvy?--no church this time. Big fire, big feed.\nAll kinds--apples, shuhg, bacon--no cook him, you no like,\" he added,\nbasely truckling to the Prince's peculiar taste.\n\nNicholas rolled his single eye in joyful anticipation, and promised\nfaithfully to grace the scene.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis was all very fine ... but Father Wills! The last thing at night\nand the first thing in the morning the Boy looked the problem in the\nface, and devised now this, now that, adroit and disarming fashion of\nbreaking the news to Mac.\n\nBut it was only when the daring giver of invitations was safely in bed,\nand Mac equally safe down in the Little Cabin, that it seemed possible\nto broach the subject. He devised scenes in which, airily and\ntriumphantly, he introduced Father Wills, and brought Mac to the point\nof pining for Jesuit society; but these scenes were actable only under\nconditions of darkness and of solitude. The Colonel refused to have\nanything to do with the matter.\n\n\"Our first business, as I see it, is to keep peace in the camp, and\nhold fast to a good understanding with one another. It's just over\nlittle things like this that trouble begins. Mac's one of us; Father\nWills is an outsider. I won't rile Mac for the sake of any Jesuit\nalive. No, sir; this is _your_ funeral, and you're obliged to attend.\"\n\nBefore three of Nicholas's five sleeps were accomplished, the Boy began\nto curse the hour he had laid eyes on Father Wills. He began even to\nspeculate desperately on the good priest's chances of tumbling into an\nair-hole, or being devoured by a timely wolf. But no, life was never so\nconsiderate as that. Yet he could neither face being the cause of the\nfirst serious row in camp, nor endure the thought of having his\nparticular guest--drat him!--flouted, and the whole House-Warming\nturned to failure and humiliation.\n\nIndeed, the case looked desperate. Only one day more now before he\nwould appear--be flouted, insulted, and go off wounded, angry, leaving\nthe Boy with an irreconciliable quarrel against Mac, and the\nHouse-Warming turned to chill recrimination and to wretchedness.\n\nBut until the last phantasmal hope went down before the logic of events\nit was impossible not to cling to the idea of melting Mac's Arctic\nheart. There was still one course untried.\n\nSince there was so little left to do to the stockade, the Boy announced\nthat he thought he'd go up over the hill for a tramp. Gun in hand and\ngrub in pocket, he marched off to play his last trump-card. If he could\nbring home a queer enough bird or beast for the collection, there was\nstill hope. To what lengths might Mac not go if one dangled before him\nthe priceless bait of a golden-tipped emperor goose, dressed in\nimperial robes of rose-flecked snow? Or who, knowing Mac, would not\ntrust a _Xema Sabinii_ to play the part of a white-winged angel of\npeace? Failing some such heavenly messenger, there was nothing for it\nbut that the Boy should face the ignominy of going forth to meet the\nFather on the morrow, and confess the humiliating truth. It wasn't fair\nto let him come expecting hospitality, and find--. Visions arose of Mac\nreceiving the bent and wayworn missionary with the greeting: \"There is\nno corner by the fire, no place in the camp for a pander to the Scarlet\nWoman.\" The thought lent impassioned fervour to the quest for goose or\ngull.\n\nIt was pretty late when he got back to camp, and the men were at\nsupper. No, he hadn't shot anything.\n\n\"What's that bulging in your pocket?\"\n\n\"Sort o' stone.\"\n\n\"Struck it rich?\"\n\n\"Don't give me any chin-music, boys; give me tea. I'm dog-tired.\"\n\nBut when Mac got up first, as usual, to go down to the Little Cabin to\n\"wood up\" for the night, \"I'll walk down with you,\" says the Boy,\nthough it was plain he was dead-beat.\n\nHe helped to revive the failing fire, and then, dropping on the section\nof sawed wood that did duty for a chair, with some difficulty and a\ndeal of tugging he pulled \"the sort o' stone\" out of the pocket of his\nduck shooting-jacket.\n\n\"See that?\" He held the thing tightly clasped in his two red, chapped\nhands.\n\nMac bent down, shading his eyes from the faint flame flicker.\n\n\"What is it?\" \"Piece o' tooth.\"\n\n\"By the Lord Harry! so it is.\" He took the thing nearer the faint\nlight. \"Fossil! Where'd you get it?\"\n\n\"Over yonder--by a little frozen river.\"\n\n\"How far? Any more? Only this?\"\n\nThe Boy didn't answer. He went outside, and returned instantly, lugging\nin something brown and whitish, weather-stained, unwieldy.\n\n\"I dropped this at the door as I came along home. Thought it might do\nfor the collection.\"\n\nMac stared with all his eyes, and hurriedly lit a candle. The Boy\ndropped exhausted on a ragged bit of burlap by the bunks. Mac knelt\ndown opposite, pouring liberal libation of candle-grease on the\nuncouth, bony mass between them.\n\n\"Part of the skull!\" he rasped out, masking his ecstasy as well as he\ncould.\n\n\"Mastodon?\" inquired the Boy.\n\nMac shook his head.\n\n\"I'll bet my boots,\" says Mac, \"it's an _Elephas primigenius;_ and if\nI'm right, it's 'a find,' young man. Where'd you stumble on him?\"\n\n\"Over yonder.\" The Boy leaned his head against the lower bunk.\n\n\"Where?\" \"Across the divide. The bones have been dragged up on to some\nrocks. I saw the end of a tusk stickin' up out of the snow, and I\nscratched down till I found--\" He indicated the trophy between them on\nthe floor.\n\n\"Tusk? How long?\"\n\n\"'Bout nine feet.\" \"We'll go and get it to-morrow.\"\n\nNo answer from the Boy.\n\n\"Early, hey?\"\n\n\"Well--a--it's a good ways.\"\n\n\"What if it is?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't mind. I'd do more 'n that for you, Mac.\"\n\nThere was something unnatural in such devotion. Mac looked up. But the\nBoy was too tired to play the big fish any longer. \"I wonder if you'll\ndo something for me.\" He watched with a sinking heart Mac's sharp\nuprising from the worshipful attitude. It was not like any other\nmortal's gradual, many-jointed getting-up; it was more like the sudden\nspringing out of the big blade of a clasp-knife.\n\n\"What's your game?\"\n\n\"Oh, I ain't got any game,\" said the Boy desperately; \"or, if I have,\nthere's mighty little fun in it. However, I don't know as I want to\nwalk ten hours again in this kind o' weather with an elephant on my\nback just for--for the poetry o' the thing.\" He laid his chapped hands\non the side board of the bunk and pulled himself up on his legs.\n\n\"What's your game?\" repeated Mac sternly, as the Boy reached the door.\n\n\"What's the good o' talkin'?\" he answered; but he paused, turned, and\nleaned heavily against the rude lintel.\n\n\"Course, I know you'd be shot before you'd do it, but what I'd _like_,\nwould be to hear you say you wouldn't kick up a hell of a row if Father\nWills happens in to the House-Warmin'.\"\n\nMac jerked his set face, fire-reddened, towards the fossil-finder; and\nhe, without waiting for more, simply opened the door, and heavily\nfooted it back to the Big Cabin.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\nNext morning when Mac came to breakfast he heard that the Boy had had\nhis grub half an hour before the usual time, and was gone off on some\ntramp again. Mac sat and mused.\n\nO'Flynn came in with a dripping bucket, and sat down to breakfast\nshivering.\n\n\"Which way'd he go?\"\n\n\"The Boy? Down river.\"\n\n\"Sure he didn't go over the divide?\"\n\nO'Flynn was sure. He'd just been down to the water-hole, and in the\nfaint light he'd seen the Boy far down on the river-trail \"leppin\" like\na hare in the direction of the Roosian mission.\"\n\n\"Goin' to meet ... a ... Nicholas?\"\n\n\"Reckon so,\" said the Colonel, a bit ruffled. \"Don't believe he'll run\nlike a hare very far with his feet all blistered.\"\n\n\"Did you know he'd discovered a fossil elephant?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, he has. I must light out, too, and have a look at it.\"\n\n\"Do; it'll be a cheerful sort of House-Warming with one of you off\nscouring the country for more blisters and chilblains, and another\nhuntin' antediluvian elephants.\" The Colonel spoke with uncommon\nirascibility. The great feast-day had certainly not dawned\npropitiously.\n\nWhen breakfast was done Mac left the Big Cabin without a word; but,\ninstead of going over the divide across the treeless snow-waste to the\nlittle frozen river, where, turned up to the pale northern dawn, were\nlying the bones of a beast that had trampled tropic forests, in that\nother dawn of the Prime, the naturalist, turning his back on _Elephas\nprimigenius,_ followed in the track of the Boy down the great river\ntowards Ikogimeut.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the low left bank of the Yukon a little camp. On one side, a big\nrock hooded with snow. At right angles, drawn up one on top of the\nother, two sleds covered with reindeer-skins held down by stones. In\nthe corner formed by the angle of rocks and sleds, a small A-tent, very\nstained and old. Burning before it on a hearth of greenwood, a little\nfire struggling with a veering wind.\n\nMac had seen from far off the faint blue banners of smoke blowing now\nright, now left, then tossed aloft in the pallid sunshine. He looked\nabout sharply for the Boy, as he had been doing this two hours. There\nwas the Jesuit bending over the fire, bettering the precarious position\nof a saucepan that insisted on sitting lop-sided, looking down into the\nheart of coals. Nicholas was holding up the tent-flap.\n\n\"Hello! How do!\" he sang out, recognising Mac. The priest glanced up\nand nodded pleasantly. Two Indians, squatting on the other side of the\nfire, scrambled away as the shifting wind brought a cloud of stifling\nsmoke into their faces. \"Where's the Boy?\" demanded Mac, arresting the\nstampede.\n\nNicholas's dog-driver stared, winked, and wiped his weeping,\nsmoke-reddened eyes.\n\n\"Is he in there?\" Mac looked towards the tent.\n\nAndrew nodded between coughs.\n\n\"What's he doing in there? Call him out,\" ordered Mac.\n\n\"He no walk.\"\n\nMac's hard face took on a look of cast-iron tragedy.\n\nThe wind, veering round again, had brought the last words to the priest\non the other side of the fire.\n\n\"Oh, it'll be all right by-and-by,\" he said cheerfully.\n\n\"But knocking up like that just for blisters?\"\n\n\"Blisters? No; cold and general weakness. That's why we delayed--\"\n\nWithout waiting to hear more Mac strode over to the tent, and as he\nwent in, Nicholas came out. No sign of the Boy--nobody, nothing. What?\nDown in the corner a small, yellow face lying in a nest of fur. Bright,\ndark eyes stared roundly, and as Mac glowered astonished at the\napparition, a mouth full of gleaming teeth opened, smiling, to say in a\nvery small voice:\n\n\"Farva!\"\n\nAstonished as Mac was, disappointed and relieved all at once, there was\nsomething arresting in the appeal.\n\n\"I'm not your father,\" he said stiffly. \"Who're you? Hey? You speak\nEnglish?\"\n\nThe child stared at him fixedly, but suddenly, for no reason on earth,\nit smiled again. Mac stood looking down at it, seeming lost in thought.\nPresently the small object stirred, struggled about feebly under the\nencompassing furs, and, freeing itself, held out its arms. The mites of\nhands fluttered at his sleeve and made ineffectual clutches.\n\n\"What do you want?\" To his own vast astonishment Mac lifted the little\nthing out of its warm nest. It was woefully thin, and seemed, even to\nhis inexperience, to be insufficiently clothed, though the beaded\nmoccasins on its tiny feet were new and good.\n\n\"Why, you're only about as big as a minute,\" he said gruffly. \"What's\nthe matter--sick?\" It suddenly struck him as very extraordinary that he\nshould have taken up the child, and how extremely embarrassing it would\nbe if anyone came in and caught him. Clutching the small morsel\nawkwardly, he fumbled with the furs preparatory to getting rid, without\ndelay, of the unusual burden. While he was straightening the things,\nFather Wills appeared at the flap, smoking saucepan in hand. The\ninstant the cold air struck the child it began to cough.\n\n\"Oh, you mustn't do that!\" said the priest to Mac with unexpected\nseverity. \"Kaviak must lie in bed and keep warm.\" Down on the floor\nwent the saucepan. The child was caught away from the surprised Mac,\nand the furs so closely gathered round the small shrunken body that\nthere was once more nothing visible but the wistful yellow face and\ngleaming eyes, still turned searchingly on its most recent\nacquaintance.\n\nBut the priest, without so much as a glance at the new-comer, proceeded\nto feed Kaviak out of the saucepan, blowing vigorously at each spoonful\nbefore administering.\n\n\"He's pretty hungry,\" commented Mac. \"Where'd you find him?\"\n\n\"In a little village up on the Kuskoquim. Kaviak's an Esquimaux from\nNorton Sound, aren't you, Kaviak?\" But the child was wholly absorbed,\nit seemed, in swallowing and staring at Mac. \"His family came up there\nfrom the coast in a bidarra only last summer--all dead now. Everybody\nelse in the village--and there isn't but a handful--all ailing and all\nhungry. I was tramping across an igloo there a couple of days ago, and\nI heard a strange little muffled sound, more like a snared rabbit than\nanything else. But the Indian with me said no, everybody who had lived\nthere was dead, and he was for hurrying on. They're superstitious, you\nknow, about a place where people have died. But I crawled in, and found\nthis little thing lying in a bundle of rags with its hands bound and\ndried grass stuffed in its mouth. It was too weak to stir or do more\nthan occasionally to make that muffled noise that I'd heard coming up\nthrough the smoke-hole.\"\n\n\"What you goin' to do with him?\"\n\n\"Well, I hardly know. The Sisters will look after him for a while, if I\nget him there alive.\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't you?\"\n\nKaviak supplied the answer straightway by choking and falling into an\nappalling fit of coughing.\n\n\"I've got some stuff that'll be good for that,\" said Mac, thinking of\nhis medicine-chest. \"I'll give you some when we get back to camp.\"\n\nThe priest nodded, taking Mac's unheard of civility as a matter of\ncourse.\n\n\"The ice is very rough; the jolting makes him cough awfully.\"\n\nThe Jesuit had fastened his eyes on Mac's woollen muffler, which had\nbeen loosened during the ministering to Kaviak and had dropped on the\nground. \"Do you need that scarf?\" he asked, as though he suspected Mac\nof wearing it for show. \"Because if you didn't you could wrap it round\nKaviak while I help the men strike camp.\" And without waiting to see\nhow his suggestion was received, he caught up the saucepan, lifted the\nflap, and vanished.\n\n\"Farva,\" remarked Kaviak, fixing melancholy eyes on Mac.\n\n\"I ain't your father,\" muttered the gentleman so addressed. He picked\nup his scarf and hung it round his own neck.\n\n\"Farva!\" insisted Kaviak. They looked at each other.\n\n\"You cold? That it, hey?\" Mac knelt down and pulled away the furs. \"God\nbless me! you only got this one rag on? God bless me!\" He pulled off\nhis muffler and wound the child in it mummy-wise, round and round,\nmuttering the while in a surly way. When it was half done he\nstopped--thought profoundly with a furrow cutting deep into his square\nforehead between the straight brows. Slowly he pulled his gloves out of\nhis pocket, and turned out from each beaver gauntlet an inner mitten of\nknitted wool. \"Here,\" he said, and put both little moccasined feet into\none of the capacious mittens. Much pleased with his ingenuity, he went\non winding the long scarf until the yellow little Esquimaux bore a\ncertain whimsical resemblance to one of the adorable Delia Robbia\ninfants. But Mac's sinewy hands were exerting a greater pressure than\nhe realized. The morsel made a remonstrant squeaking, and squirmed\nfeebly.\n\n\"Oh, oh! Too tight? Beg your pardon,\" said Mac hastily, as though not\nonly English, but punctilious manners were understanded of Kaviak. He\nrelaxed the woollen bandage till the morsel lay contented again within\nits folds.\n\nNicholas came in for Kaviak, and for the furs, that he might pack them\nboth in the Father's sled. Already the true son of the Church was\nundoing the ropes that lashed firm the canvas of the tent.\n\n\"Where's the Boy?\" said Mac suddenly. \"The young fellow that's with us.\nYou know, the one that found you that first Sunday and brought you to\ncamp. Where is he?\"\n\nNicholas paused an instant with Kaviak on his shoulder.\n\n\"Kaiomi--no savvy.\"\n\n\"You not seen him to-day?\"\n\n\"No. He no up--?\" With the swaddled child he made a gesture up the\nriver towards the white camp.\n\n\"No, he came down this morning to meet you.\"\n\nNicholas shook his head, and went on gathering up the furs. As he and\nMac came out, Andrew was undoing the last fastening that held the\ncanvas to the stakes. In ten minutes they were on the trail, Andrew\nleading, with Father Wills' dogs, Kaviak lying in the sled muffled to\nthe eyes, still looking round out of the corners--no, strangely enough,\nthe Kaviak eye had no corners, but fixedly he stared sideways at Mac.\n\"Farva,\" seeming not to take the smallest notice, trudged along on one\nside of him, the priest on the other, and behind came Nicholas and the\nother Indians with the second sled. It was too windy to talk much even\nhad they been inclined.\n\nThe only sounds were the _Mush! Mush!_ of the drivers, the grate and\nswish of the runners over the ice, and Kaviak's coughing.\n\nMac turned once and frowned at him. It was curious that the child\nseemed not to mind these menacing looks, not in the smallest degree.\n\nBy-and-by the order of march was disturbed.\n\nKaviak's right runner, catching at some obstacle, swerved and sent the\nsled bumping along on its side, the small head of the passenger\nnarrowly escaping the ice. Mac caught hold of the single-tree and\nbrought the racing dogs to an abrupt halt. The priest and he righted\nthe sled, and Mac straddling it, tucked in a loosened end of fur. When\nall was again in running order, Mac was on the same side as Father\nWills. He still wore that look of dour ill-temper, and especially did\nhe glower at the unfortunate Kaviak, seized with a fresh fit of\ncoughing that filled the round eyes with tears.\n\n\"Don't you get kind o' tired listenin' to that noise? Suppose I was to\ncarry--just for a bit--. This is the roughest place on the trail. Hi!\nStop!\" he called to Andrew. The priest had said nothing; but divining\nwhat Mac would be at, he helped him to undo the raw-hide lashing, and\nwhen Kaviak was withdrawn he wrapped one of the lighter fur things\nround him.\n\nIt was only when Mac had marched off, glowering still, and sternly\nrefusing to meet Kaviak's tearful but grateful eyes--it was only then,\nbending over the sled and making fast the furs, that Father Wills, all\nto himself, smiled a little.\n\nIt wasn't until they were in sight of the smoke from the Little Cabin\nthat Mac slackened his pace. He had never for a moment found the trail\nso smooth that he could return his burden to the sled. Now, however, he\nallowed Nicholas and the priest to catch up with him.\n\n\"You carry him the rest of the way,\" he commanded, and set his burden\nin Nicholas's arms. Kaviak was ill-pleased, but Mac, falling behind\nwith the priest, stalked on with eyes upon the ground.\n\n\"I've got a boy of my own,\" he jerked out presently, with the air of a\nman who accounts confidentially for some weakness.\n\n\"Really!\" returned the priest; \"they didn't tell me.\"\n\n\"I haven't told them yet.\"\n\n\"Oh, all right.\"\n\n\"Why is he called that heathen name?\"\n\n\"Kaviak? Oh, it's the name of his tribe. His people belong to that\nbranch of the Innuits known as Kaviaks.\"\n\n\"Humph! Then he's only Kaviak as I'm MacCann. I suppose you've\nchristened him?\"\n\n\"Well, not yet--no. What shall we call him? What's your boy's name?\"\n\"Robert Bruce.\" They went on in silence till Mac said, \"It's on account\nof my boy I came up here.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\n\"It didn't use to matter if a man _was_ poor and self-taught, but in\nthese days of competition it's different. A boy must have chances if\nhe's going to fight the battle on equal terms. Of course, some boys\nain't worth botherin' about. But my boy--well, he seems to have\nsomething in him.\"\n\nThe priest listened silently, but with that look of brotherliness on\nhis face that made it so easy to talk to him.\n\n\"It doesn't really matter to those other fellows.\" Mac jerked his hand\ntowards the camp. \"It's never so important to men--who stand alone--but\nI've _got_ to strike it rich over yonder.\" He lifted his head, and\nfrowned defiantly in the general direction of the Klondyke, thirteen\nhundred miles away. \"It's my one chance,\" he added half to himself. \"It\nmeans everything to Bob and me. Education, scientific education, costs\nlike thunder.\"\n\n\"In the United States?\"\n\n\"Oh, I mean to send my boy to the old country. I want Bob to be\nthorough.\"\n\nThe priest smiled, but almost imperceptibly.\n\n\"How old is he?\"\n\n\"Oh, 'bout as old as this youngster.\" Mac spoke with calculated\nindifference.\n\n\"Six or thereabouts?\"\n\n\"No; four and a half. But he's bigger--\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"And you can see already--he's got a lot in him.\"\n\nFather Wills nodded with a conviction that brought Mac nearer\nconfession than he had ever been in his life.\n\n\"You see,\" he said quite low, and as if the words were dragged out with\npincers, \"the fact is--my married life--didn't pan out very well. And\nI--ran away from home as a little chap--after a lickin'--and never went\nback. But there's one thing I mean to make a success of--that's my\nboy.\"\n\n\"Well, I believe you will, if you feel like that.\"\n\n\"Why, they've gone clean past the camp trail,\" said Mac sharply, \"all\nbut Nicholas--and what in thunder?--he's put the kid back on the\nsled--\"\n\n\"Yes, I told my men we'd be getting on. But they were told to leave you\nthe venison--\"\n\n\"What! You goin' straight on? Nonsense!\" Mac interrupted, and began to\nshout to the Indians.\n\n\"No; I _meant_ to stop; just tell your friends so,\" said the\nunsuspecting Father; \"but with a sick child--\"\n\n\"What can you do for him that we can't? And to break the journey may\nmake a big difference. We've got some condensed milk left--and--\"\n\n\"Ah yes, but we are more accustomed to--it's hardly fair to burden a\nneighbour. No, we'll be getting on.\"\n\n\"If those fellers up there make a row about your bringing in a\nyoungster\"--he thrust out his jaw--\"they can settle the account with\nme. I've got to do something for that cough before the kid goes on.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the priest; and so wily are these Jesuits that he never\nonce mentioned that he was himself a qualified doctor in full and\nregular practice. He kept his eyes on the finished stockade and the\ngreat chimney, wearing majestically its floating plume of smoke.\n\n\"Hi!\" Mac called between his hands to the Indians, who had gone some\ndistance ahead. \"Hi!\" He motioned them back up the hill trail.\n\nO'Flynn had come out of the Little Cabin, and seemed to be laboriously\ntrundling something along the footpath. He got so excited when he heard\nthe noise and saw the party that, inadvertently, he let his burden\nslide down the icy <DW72>, bumping and bouncing clumsily from one\nimpediment to another.\n\n\"Faith, look at 'im! Sure, that fossle can't resthrain his j'y at\nseein' ye back. Mac, it's yer elephunt. I was takin' him in to the sate\nof honour be the foir. We thought it 'ud be a pleasant surprise fur ye.\nSure, ye'r more surprised to see 'im leppin' down the hill to meet ye,\nlike a rale Irish tarrier.\"\n\nMac was angry, and didn't conceal the fact. As he ran to stop the thing\nbefore it should be dashed to pieces, the priest happened to glance\nback, and saw coming slowly along the river trail a solitary figure\nthat seemed to make its way with difficulty.\n\n\"It looks as though you'd have more than you bargained for at the\nHouse-Warming,\" he said.\n\nO'Flynn came down the hill babbling like a brook.\n\n\"Good-day to ye, Father. The blessin's o' Heaven on ye fur not kapin'\nus starvin' anny longer. There's Potts been swearin', be this and be\nthat, that yourself and the little divvle wudn't be at the Blow-Out at\nahl, at ahl.\"\n\n\"You mean the Boy hasn't come back?\" called out Mac. He leaned _Elephas\nprimigenius_ against a tuft of willow banked round with snow, and\nturned gloomily as if to go back down the river again.\n\n\"Who's this?\" They all stood and watched the limping traveller.\n\n\"Why it's--of course. I didn't know him with that thing tied over his\ncap\"; and Mac went to meet him.\n\nThe Boy bettered his pace.\n\n\"How did I miss you?\" demanded Mac.\n\n\"Well,\" said the Boy, looking rather mischievous, \"I can't think how it\nhappened on the way down, unless you passed when I 'd gone uphill a\npiece after some tracks. I was lyin' under the Muff a few miles down\nwhen you came back, and you--well, I kind o' thought you seemed to have\nyour hands full.\" Mac looked rigid and don't-you-try-to-chaff-me-sir.\n\"Besides,\" the Boy went on, \"I couldn't cover the ground like you and\nFather Wills.\"\n\n\"What's the matter with you?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothin' to howl about. But see here, Mac.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Soon's I can walk I'll go and get you the rest o' that elephant.\"\n\nThere was no more said till they got up to the others, who had waited\nfor the Indians to come back, and had unpacked Kaviak to spare him the\njolting uphill.\n\nO'Flynn was screaming with excitement as he saw that the bundle\nNicholas was carrying had a head and two round eyes.\n\n\"The saints in glory be among us! What's that? Man alive, what _is_ it,\nbe the Siven?\"\n\n\"That,\" answered Mac with a proprietary air, \"is a little Esquimaux\nboy, and I'm bringing him in to doctor his cold.\"\n\n\"Glory be! An Esquimer! And wid a cowld! Sure, he can have some o' my\nlinnyeemint. Well, y'arre a boss collector, Mac! Faith, ye bang the\nJews! And me thinkin' ye'd be satisfied wid yer elephunt. Not him, be\nthe Siven! It's an Esquimer he must have to finish off his collection,\nwan wid the rale Arctic cowld in his head, and two eyes that goes\nsnappin' through ye like black torpeders. Two spissimens in wan day!\nYer growin' exthravagant, Mac. Why, musha, child, if I don't think yer\nthe dandy Spissimen o' the lot!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE BLOW-OUT\n\n\"How good it is to invite men to the pleasant feast.\"\n\n\nComfortable as rock fireplace and stockade made the cabin now, the\nColonel had been feeling all that morning that the official\nHouse-Warming was fore-doomed to failure. Nevertheless, as he was cook\nthat week, he could not bring himself to treat altogether lightly his\noffice of Master of the Feast. There would probably be no guests. Even\ntheir own little company would likely be incomplete, but t here was to\nbe a spread that afternoon, \"anyways.\"\n\nEven had the Colonel needed any keeping up to the mark, the office\nwould have been cheerfully undertaken by O'Flynn or by Potts, for whom\ninterest in the gustatory aspect of the occasion was wholly undimmed by\nthe threatened absence of Mac and the \"little divvle.\"\n\n\"There'll be the more for us,\" said Potts enthusiastically.\n\nO'Flynn's argument seemed to halt upon a reservation. He looked over\nthe various contributions to the feast, set out on a board in front of\nthe water-bucket, and, \"It's mate I'm wishin' fur,\" says he.\n\n\"We've got fish.\"\n\n\"That's only mate on Fridays. We've had fish fur five days stiddy, an'\nbefure that, bacon three times a day wid sivin days to the week, an'\nnot enough bacon ayther, begob, whin all's said and done! Not enough to\nbe fillin', and plenty to give us the scurrvy. May the divil dance on\nshorrt rations!\"\n\n\"No scurvy in this camp for a while yet,\" said the Colonel, throwing\nsome heavy objects into a pan and washing them vigorously round and\nround.\n\n\"Pitaties!\" O'Flynn's eyes dwelt lovingly on the rare food. \"Ye've\nhoarded 'em too long, man, they've sprouted.\"\n\n\"That won't prevent you hoggin' more'n your share, I'll bet,\" said\nPotts pleasantly.\n\n\"I don't somehow like wasting the sprouts,\" observed the Colonel\nanxiously. \"It's such a wonderful sight--something growing.\" He had cut\none pallid slip, and held it tenderly between knife and thumb.\n\n\"Waste 'em with scurvy staring us in the face? Should think not. Mix\n'em with cold potaters in a salad.\"\n\n\"No. Make slumgullion,\" commanded O'Flynn.\n\n\"What's that?\" quoth the Colonel.\n\n\"Be the Siven! I only wonder I didn't think of it befure. Arre ye\nlistening, Kentucky? Ye take lots o' wathur, an' if ye want it rich, ye\ntake the wathur ye've boiled pitaties or cabbage in--a vegetable stock,\nye mind--and ye add a little flour, salt, and pepper, an' a tomater if\nye're in New York or 'Frisco, and ye boil all that together with a few\nfish-bones or bacon-rin's to make it rale tasty.\"\n\n\"Yes--well?\"\n\n\"Well, an' that's slumgullion.\"\n\n\"Don't sound heady enough for a 'Blow-Out,'\" said the Colonel. \"We'll\nsober up on slumgullion to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Anyhow, it's mate I'm wishin' fur,\" sighed O'Flynn, subsiding among\nthe tin-ware. \"What's the good o' the little divvle and his thramps, if\nhe can't bring home a burrud, or so much as the scut iv a rabbit furr\nthe soup?\"\n\n\"Well, he's contributed a bottle of California apricots, and we'll have\nboiled rice.\"\n\n\"An' punch, glory be!\"\n\n\"Y-yes,\" answered the Colonel. \"I've been thinkin' a good deal about\nthe punch.\"\n\n\"So's myself,\" said O'Flynn frankly; but Potts looked at the Colonel\nsuspiciously through narrowed eyes.\n\n\"There's very little whiskey left, and I propose to brew a mild bowl--\"\n\n\"To hell with your mild bowls!\"\n\n\"A good enough punch, sah, but one that--that--a--well, that the whole\nkit and boodle of us can drink. Indians and everybody, you know ...\nNicholas and Andrew may turn up. I want you two fellas to suppoht me\nabout this. There are reasons foh it, sah\"--he had laid a hand on\nPotts' shoulder and fixed O'Flynn with his eye--\"and\"--speaking very\nsolemnly--\"yoh neither o' yoh gentlemen that need mo' said on the\nsubject.\"\n\nWhereupon, having cut the ground from under their feet, he turned\ndecisively, and stirred the mush-pot with a magnificent air and a\nnewly-whittled birch stick.\n\nTo give the Big Cabin an aspect of solid luxury, they had spread the\nBoy's old buffalo \"robe\" on the floor, and as the morning wore on Potts\nand O'Flynn made one or two expeditions to the Little Cabin, bringing\nback selections out of Mac's hoard \"to decorate the banquet-hall,\" as\nthey said. On the last trip Potts refused to accompany his pardner--no,\nit was no good. Mac evidently wouldn't be back to see, and the laugh\nwould be on them \"takin' so much trouble for nothin'.\" And O'Flynn\nwasn't to be long either, for dinner had been absurdly postponed\nalready.\n\nWhen the door opened the next time, it was to admit Mac, Nicholas with\nKaviak in his arms, O'Flynn gesticulating like a windmill, and, last of\nall, the Boy.\n\nKaviak was formally introduced, but instead of responding to his hosts'\nattentions, the only thing he seemed to care about, or even see, was\nsomething that in the hurly-burly everybody else overlooked--the\ndecorations. Mac's stuffed birds and things made a remarkably good\nshow, but the colossal success was reserved for the minute shrunken\nskin of the baby white hare set down in front of the great fire for a\nhearthrug. If the others failed to appreciate that joke, not so Kaviak.\nHe gave a gurgling cry, struggled down out of Nicholas's arms, and\nfolded the white hare to his breast.\n\n\"Where are the other Indians?\" said Mac.\n\n\"Looking after the dogs,\" said Father Wills; and as the door opened,\n\"Oh yes, give us that,\" he said to Andrew. \"I thought\"--he turned to\nthe Colonel--\"maybe you'd like to try some Yukon reindeer.\"\n\n\"Hooray!\"\n\n\"Mate? Arre ye sayin' mate, or is an angel singin'?\"\n\n\"Now I _know_ that man's a Christian,\" soliloquised Potts.\n\n\"Look here: it'll take a little time to cook,\" said Mac, \"and it's\nworth waitin' for. Can you let us have a pail o' hot water in the\nmeantime?\"\n\n\"Y-yes,\" said the Colonel, looking as if he had enough to think about\nalready.\n\n\"Yes, we always wash them first of all,\" said Father Wills, noticing\nhow Mac held the little heathen off at arm's length. \"Nicholas used to\nhelp with that at Holy Cross.\" He gave the new order with the old\nauthoritative gesture.\n\n\"And where's the liniment I lent you that you're so generous with?\" Mac\narraigned O'Flynn. \"Go and get it.\"\n\nUnder Nicholas's hands Kaviak was forced to relinquish not only the\nbaby hare, but his own elf locks. He was closely sheared, his moccasins\nput off, and his single garment dragged unceremoniously wrong side out\nover his head and bundled out of doors.\n\n\"Be the Siven! he's got as manny bones as a skeleton!\"\n\n\"Poor little codger!\" The Colonel stood an instant, skillet in hand\nstaring.\n\n\"What's that he's got round his neck?\" said the Boy, moving nearer.\n\nKaviak, seeing the keen look menacing his treasure, lifted a shrunken\nyellow hand and clasped tight the dirty shapeless object suspended from\na raw-hide necklace.\n\nNicholas seemed to hesitate to divest him of this sole remaining\npossession.\n\n\"You must get him to give it up,\" said Father Wills, \"and burn it.\"\n\nKaviak flatly declined to fall in with as much as he understood of this\narrangement.\n\n\"What is it, anyway?\" the Boy pursued.\n\n\"His amulet, I suppose.\" As Father Wills proceeded to enforce his\norder, and pulled the leather string over the child's head, Kaviak rent\nthe air with shrieks and coughs. He seemed to say as well as he could,\n\"I can do without my parki and my mucklucks, but I'll take my death\nwithout my amulet.\"\n\nMac insinuated himself brusquely between the victim and his\npersecutors. He took the dirty object away from the priest with scant\nceremony, in spite of the whisper, \"Infection!\" and gave it back to the\nwrathful owner.\n\n\"You talk his language, don't you?\" Mac demanded of Nicholas.\n\nThe Pymeut pilot nodded.\n\n\"Tell him, if he'll lend the thing to me to wash, he shall have it\nback.\"\n\nNicholas explained.\n\nKaviak, with streaming eyes and quivering lips, reluctantly handed it\nover, and watched Mac anxiously till overwhelmed by a yet greater\nmisfortune in the shape of a bath for himself.\n\n\"How shall I clean this thing thoroughly?\" Mac condescended to ask\nFather Wills. The priest shrugged.\n\n\"He'll have forgotten it to-morrow.\"\n\n\"He shall have it to-morrow,\" said Mac.\n\nWith his back to Kaviak, the Boy, O'Flynn, and Potts crowding round\nhim, Mac ripped open the little bird-skin pouch, and took out three\nobjects--an ivory mannikin, a crow's feather, and a thing that Father\nWills said was a seal-blood plug.\n\n\"What's it for?\" \"Same as the rest. It's an amulet; only as it's used\nto stop the flow of blood from the wound of a captive seal, it is\nsupposed to be the best of all charms for anyone who spits blood.\"\n\n\"I'll clean 'em all after the Blow-Out,\" said Mac, and he went out,\nburied the charms in the snow, and stuck up a spruce twig to mark the\nspot.\n\nMeanwhile, to poor Kaviak it was being plainly demonstrated what an\nawful fate descended on a person so unlucky as to part with his amulet.\nHe stood straight up in the bucket like a champagne-bottle in a cooler,\nand he could not have resented his predicament more if he had been set\nin crushed ice instead of warm water. Under the remorseless hands of\nNicholas he began to splutter and choke, to fizz, and finally explode\nwith astonishment and wrath. It was quite clear Nicholas was trying to\ndrown him. He took the treatment so to heart, that he kept on howling\ndismally for some time after he was taken out, and dried, and\nlinimented and dosed by Mac, whose treachery about the amulet he seemed\nto forgive, since \"Farva\" had had the air of rescuing him from the\nhorrors he had endured in that water-bucket, where, for all Kaviak\nknew, he might have stayed till he succumbed to death. The Boy\ncontributed a shirt of his own, and helped Mac to put it on the\nincredibly thin little figure. The shirt came down to Kaviak's heels,\nand had to have the sleeves rolled up every two minutes. But by the\ntime the reindeer-steak was nearly done Kaviak was done, too, and\nO'Flynn had said, \"That Spissimen does ye credit, Mac.\"\n\nSaid Spissimen was now staring hungrily out of the Colonel's bunk,\nholding towards Mac an appealing hand, with half a yard of shirt-sleeve\nfalling over it.\n\nMac pretended not to see, and drew up to the table the one remaining\navailable thing to sit on, his back to his patient.\n\nWhen the dogs had been fed, and the other Indians had come in, and\nsquatted on the buffalo-skin with Nicholas, the first course was sent\nround in tin cups, a nondescript, but warming, \"camp soup.\"\n\n\"Sorry we've got so few dishes, gentlemen,\" the Colonel had said.\n\"We'll have to ask some of you to wait till others have finished.\"\n\n\"Farva,\" remarked Kaviak, leaning out of the bunk and sniffing the\nsavoury steam.\n\n\"He takes you for a priest,\" said Potts, with the cheerful intention of\nstirring Mac's bile. But not even so damning a suspicion as that could\ncool the collector's kindness for his new Spissimen.\n\n\"You come here,\" he said. Kaviak didn't understand. The Boy got up,\nlimped over to the bunk, lifted the child out, and brought him to Mac's\nside.\n\n\"Since there ain't enough cups,\" said Mac, in self-justification, and\nhe put his own, half empty, to Kaviak's lips. The Spissimen imbibed\ngreedily, audibly, and beamed. Mac, with unimpaired gravity, took no\nnotice of the huge satisfaction this particular remedy was giving his\npatient, except to say solemnly, \"Don't bubble in it.\"\n\nThe next course was fish a la Pymeut.\n\n\"You're lucky to be able to get it,\" said the Father, whether with\nsuspicion or not no man could tell. \"I had to send back for some by a\ntrader and couldn't get enough.\"\n\n\"We didn't see any trader,\" said the Boy to divert the current.\n\n\"He may have gone by in the dusk; he was travelling hotfoot.\"\n\n\"Thought that steamship was chockful o' grub. What did you want o'\nfish?\"\n\n\"Yes; they've got plenty of food, but--\"\n\n\"They don't relish parting with it,\" suggested Potts.\n\n\"They haven't much to think about except what they eat; they wanted to\ntry our fish, and were ready to exchange. I promised I would send a\nload back from Ikogimeut if they'd--\" He seemed not to care to finish\nthe sentence.\n\n\"So you didn't do much for the Pymeuts after all?\"\n\n\"I did something,\" he said almost shortly. Then, with recovered\nserenity, he turned to the Boy: \"I promised I'd bring back any news.\"\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nEverybody stopped eating and hung on the priest's words.\n\n\"Captain Rainey's heard there's a big new strike--\"\n\n\"In the Klondyke?\"\n\n\"On the American side this time.\"\n\n\"Hail Columbia!\"\n\n\"Whereabouts?\"\n\n\"At a place called Minook.\"\n\n\"Where's that?\"\n\n\"Up the river by the Ramparts.\"\n\n\"How far?\"\n\n\"Oh, a little matter of six or seven hundred miles from here.\"\n\n\"Glory to God!\"\n\n\"Might as well be six or seven thousand.\"\n\n\"And very probably isn't a bona-fide strike at all,\" said the priest,\n\"but just a stampede--a very different matter.\"\n\n\"Well, I tell you straight: I got no use for a gold-mine in Minook at\nthis time o' year.\"\n\n\"Nop! Venison steak's more in my line than grub-stake just about now.\"\n\nPotts had to bestir himself and wash dishes before he could indulge in\nhis \"line.\" When the grilled reindeer did appear, flanked by\nreally-truly potatoes and the Colonel's hot Kentucky biscuit, there was\nno longer doubt in any man's mind but what this Blow-Out was being a\nsuccess.\n\n\"Colonel's a daisy cook, ain't he?\" the Boy appealed to Father Wills.\n\nThe Jesuit assented cordially.\n\n\"My family meant _me_ for the army,\" he said. \"Seen much service,\nColonel?\"\n\nThe Kentuckian laughed.\n\n\"Never wasted a day soldiering in my life.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\n\"Maybe you're wonderin',\" said Potts, \"why he's a Colonel!\"\n\nThe Jesuit made a deprecatory gesture, politely disclaiming any such\nrude curiosity.\n\n\"He's from Kentucky, you see;\" and the smile went round. \"Beyond that,\nwe can't tell you why he's a Colonel unless it's because he ain't a\nJudge;\" and the boss of the camp laughed with the rest, for the Denver\nman had scored.\n\nBy the time they got to the California apricots and boiled rice\neverybody was feeling pretty comfortable. When, at last, the table was\ncleared, except for the granite-ware basin full of punch, and when all\navailable cups were mustered and tobacco-pouches came out, a remarkably\ngenial spirit pervaded the company--with three exceptions.\n\nPotts and O'Flynn waited anxiously to sample the punch before giving\nway to complete satisfaction, and Kaviak was impervious to\nconsiderations either of punch or conviviality, being wrapped in\nslumber on a corner of the buffalo-skin, between Mac's stool and the\nnatives, who also occupied places on the floor.\n\nUpon O'Flynn's first draught he turned to his next neighbour:\n\n\"Potts, me bhoy, 'tain't s' bad.\"\n\n\"I'll bet five dollars it won't make yer any happier.\"\n\n\"Begob, I'm happy enough! Gentlemen, wud ye like I should sing ye a\nsong?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" and the Colonel thumped the table for order, infinitely relieved\nthat the dinner was done, and the punch not likely to turn into a\n_casus belli_. O'Flynn began a ditty about the Widdy Malone that woke\nup Kaviak and made him rub his round eyes with astonishment. He sat up,\nand hung on to the back of Mac's coat to make sure he had some\nanchorage in the strange new waters he had so suddenly been called on\nto navigate.\n\nThe song ended, the Colonel, as toast-master, proposed the health\nof--he was going to say Father Wills, but felt it discreeter to name no\nnames. Standing up in the middle of the cabin, where he didn't have to\nstoop, he lifted his cup till it knocked against the swing-shelf, and\ncalled out, \"Here's to Our Visitors, Neighbours, and Friends!\"\nWhereupon he made a stately circular bow, which ended by his offering\nKaviak his hand, in the manner of one who executes a figure in an\nold-fashioned dance. The smallest of \"Our Visitors,\" still keeping hold\nof Mac, presented the Colonel with the disengaged half-yard of flannel\nundershirt on the other side, and the speech went on, very flowery,\nvery hospitable, very Kentuckian.\n\nWhen the Colonel sat down there was much applause, and O'Flynn, who had\nlent his cup to Nicholas, and didn't feel he could wait till it came\nback, began to drink punch out of the dipper between shouts of:\n\n\"Hooray! Brayvo! Here's to the Kurrnul! God bless him! That's rale\noratry, Kurrnul! Here's to Kentucky--and ould Ireland.\"\n\nFather Wills stood up, smiling, to reply.\n\n_\"Friends\"_ (the Boy thought the keen eyes rested a fraction of a\nmoment longer on Mac than on the rest),--_\"I think in some ways this is\nthe pleasantest House-Warming I ever went to. I won't take up time\nthanking the Colonel for the friendly sentiments he's expressed, though\nI return them heartily. I must use these moments you are good enough to\ngive me in telling you something of what I feel is implied in the\nfounding of this camp of yours.\n\n\"Gentlemen, the few white dwellers in the Yukon country have not looked\nforward\"_ (his eyes twinkled almost wickedly) _\"with that pleasure you\nmight expect in exiles, to the influx of people brought up here by the\ngreat Gold Discovery. We knew what that sort of craze leads to. We knew\nthat in a barren land like this, more and more denuded of wild game\nevery year, more and more the prey of epidemic disease--we knew that\ninto this sorely tried and hungry world would come a horde of men, all\nof them ignorant of the conditions up here, most of them ill-provided\nwith proper food and clothing, many of them (I can say it without\noffence in this company)--many of them men whom the older, richer\ncommunities were glad to get rid of. Gentlemen, I have ventured to take\nyou into our confidence so far, because I want to take you still\nfarther--to tell you a little of the intense satisfaction with which we\nrecognise that good fortune has sent us in you just the sort of\nneighbours we had not dared to hope for. It means more to us than you\nrealise. When I heard a few weeks ago that, in addition to the\nboat-loads that had already got some distance up the river beyond Holy\nCross--\"_\n\n\"Going to Dawson?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, Klondyke mad--\"\n\n\"They'll be there before us, boys!\"\n\n\"Anyways, they'll get to Minook.\"\n\nThe Jesuit shook his head. \"It isn't so certain. They probably made\nonly a couple of hundred miles or so before the Yukon went to sleep.\"\n\n\"Then if grub gives out they'll be comin' back here?\" suggested Potts.\n\n_\"Small doubt of it,\"_ agreed the priest. _\"And when I heard there were\nparties of the same sort stranded at intervals all along the Lower\nRiver--\"_\n\n\"You sure?\"\n\nHe nodded.\n\n_\"And when Father Orloff of the Russian mission told us that he was\nalready having trouble with the two big rival parties frozen in the ice\nbelow Ikogimeut--\"_\n\n\"Gosh! Wonder if any of 'em were on our ship?\"\n\n_\"Well, gentlemen, I do not disguise from you that, when I heard of the\nlarge amount of whiskey, the small amount of food, and the low type of\nmanners brought in by these gold-seekers, I felt my fears justified.\nSuch men don't work, don't contribute anything to the decent social\nlife of the community, don't build cabins like this. When I came down\non the ice the first time after you'd camped, and I looked up and saw\nyour solid stone chimney\"_ (he glanced at Mac), _\"I didn't know what a\nHouse-Warming it would make; but already, from far off across the ice\nand snow, that chimney warmed my heart. Gentlemen, the fame of it has\ngone up the river and down the river. Father Orloff is coming to see it\nnext week, and so are the white traders from Anvik and Andreiefsky, for\nthey've heard there's nothing like it in the Yukon. Of course, I know\nthat you gentlemen have not come to settle permanently. I know that\nwhen the Great White Silence, as they call the long winter up here, is\nbroken by the thunder of the ice rushing down to the sea, you, like the\nrest, will exchange the snow-fields for the gold-fields, and pass out\nof our ken. Now, I'm not usually prone to try my hand at prophecy; but\nI am tempted to say, even on our short acquaintance, that I am\ntolerably sure that, while we shall be willing enough to spare most of\nthe new-comers to the Klondyke, we shall grudge to the gold-fields the\nmen who built this camp and warmed this cabin.\"_ (His eye rested\nreflectively on Mac.) _\"I don't wish to sit down leaving an impression\nof speaking with entire lack of sympathy of the impulse that brings men\nup here for gold. I believe that, even with the sort in the two camps\nbelow Ikogimeut--drinking, quarrelling, and making trouble with the\nnatives at the Russian mission--I believe that even with them, the gold\nthey came up here for is a symbol--a fetich, some of us may think. When\nsuch men have it in their hands, they feel dimly that they are laying\ntangible hold at last on some elusive vision of happiness that has\nhitherto escaped them. Behind each man braving the Arctic winter up\nhere, is some hope, not all ignoble; some devotion, not all\nunsanctified. Behind most of these men I seem to see a wife or child, a\nparent, or some dear dream that gives that man his share in the Eternal\nHope. Friends, we call that thing we look for by different names; but\nwe are all seekers after treasure, all here have turned our backs on\nhome and comfort, hunting for the Great Reward--each man a new Columbus\nlooking for the New World. Some of us looking north, some south,\nsome\"_--he hesitated the briefest moment, and then with a faint smile,\nhalf sad, half triumphant, made a little motion of his head--_\"some of\nus ... looking upwards.\"_\n\nBut quickly, as though conscious that, if he had raised the moral tone\nof the company, he had not raised its spirits, he hurried on:\n\n_\"Before I sit down, gentlemen, just one word more. I must congratulate\nyou on having found out so soon, not only the wisdom, but the pleasure\nof looking at this Arctic world with intelligent eyes, and learning\nsome of her wonderful lessons. It is so that, now the hardest work is\nfinished, you will keep up your spirits and avoid the disease that\nattacks all new-comers who simply eat, sleep, and wait for the ice to\ngo out. When I hear cheechalkos complaining of boredom up here in this\nworld of daily miracles, I think of the native boy in the\nhistory-class, who, called on to describe the progress of civilisation,\nsaid: 'In those days men had as many wives as they liked, and that was\ncalled polygamy. Now they have only one wife, and that's called\nmonotony.'\"_\n\nWhile O'Flynn howled with delight, the priest wound up:\n\n_\"Gentlemen, if we find monotony up here, it's not the country's fault,\nbut a defect in our own civilisation.\"_ Wherewith he sat down amid\ncheers.\n\n\"Now, Colonel, is Mac goin' to recite some Border ballads?\" inquired\nthe Boy, \"or will he make a speech, or do a Highland fling?\"\n\nThe Colonel called formally upon Mr. MacCann.\n\nMac was no sooner on his legs than Kaviak, determined not to lose his\ngrasp of the situation, climbed upon the three-legged stool just\nvacated, and resumed his former relations with the friendly coat-tail.\n\nEverybody laughed but Mac, who pretended not to know what was going on\nbehind his back.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" he began harshly, with the air of one about to launch a\nheavy indictment, \"there's one element largely represented here by\nnumbers and by interests\"--he turned round suddenly toward the natives,\nand almost swung Kaviak off into space--\"one element not explicitly\nreferred to in the speeches, either of welcome or of thanks. But,\ngentlemen, I submit that these hitherto unrecognised Natives are our\nreal hosts, and a word about them won't be out of place. I've been told\nto-day that, whether in Alaska, Greenland, or British America, they\ncall themselves _Innuits,_ which means human beings. They believed, no\ndoubt, that they were the only ones in the world. I've been thinking a\ngreat deal about these Esquimaux of late--\"\n\n\"Hear, hear!\"\n\n\"About their origin and their destiny.\" (Mac was beginning to enjoy\nhimself. The Boy was beginning to be bored and to drum softly with his\nfingers.) \"Now, gentlemen, Buffon says that the poles were the first\nportions of the earth's crust to cool. While the equator, and even the\ntropics of Cancer and of Capricorn, were still too boiling hot to\nsupport life, up here in the Arctic regions there was a carboniferous\nera goin' on--\"\n\n\"Where's the coal, then?\" sneered Potts.\n\n\"It's bein' discovered ... all over ... ask him\" (indicating Father\nWills, who smiled assent). \"Tropical forests grew where there are\nglayshers now, and elephants and mastodons began life here.\"\n\n\"Jimminy Christmas!\" interrupted the Boy, sitting up very straight. \"Is\nthat Buffer you quoted a good authority?\"\n\n\"First-rate,\" Mac snapped out defiantly.\n\n\"Good Lord! then the Garden o' Eden was up here.\"\n\n\"Hey?\"\n\n\"Course! _This_ was the cradle o' the human race. Blow the Ganges! Blow\nthe Nile! It was our Yukon that saw the first people, 'cause of course\nthe first people lived in the first place got ready for 'em.\"\n\n\"That don't follow. Read your Bible.\"\n\n\"If I'm not right, how did it happen there were men here when the North\nwas first discovered?\"\n\n\"Sh!\"\n\n\"Mac's got the floor.\"\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\nBut the Boy thumped the table with one hand and arraigned the\nschoolmaster with the other.\n\n\"Now, Mac, I put it to you as a man o' science: if the race had got a\nfoothold in any other part o' the world, what in Sam Hill could make\n'em come up here?\"\n\n\"_We're_ here.\"\n\n\"Yes, tomfools after gold. They never dreamed there was gold. No,\nSir_ee!_ the only thing on earth that could make men stay here, would\nbe that they were born here, and didn't know any better. Don't the\nprimitive man cling to his home, no matter what kind o' hole it is?\nHe's _afraid_ to leave it. And these first men up here, why, it's plain\nas day--they just hung on, things gettin' worse and worse, and colder\nand colder, and some said, as the old men we laugh at say at home, 'The\nclimate ain't what it was when I was a boy,' and nobody believed 'em,\nbut everybody began to dress warmer and eat fat, and--\"\n\n\"All that Buffon says is--\"\n\n\"Yes--and they invented one thing after another to meet the new\nconditions--kaiaks and bidarras and ivory-tipped harpoons\"--he was\npouring out his new notions at the fastest express rate--\"and the\nanimals that couldn't stand it emigrated, and those that stayed behind\ngot changed--\"\n\n\"Dry up.\"\n\n\"One at a time.\"\n\n\"Buffon--\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, Mac, and the hares got white, and the men, playin' a losin'\ngame for centuries, got dull in their heads and stunted in their\nlegs--always cramped up in a kaiak like those fellas at St. Michael's.\nAnd, why, it's clear as crystal--they're survivals! The Esquimaux are\nthe oldest race in the world.\"\n\n\"Who's makin' this speech?\"\n\n\"Order!\"\n\n\"Order!\"\n\n\"Well, see here: _do_ you admit it, Mac? Don't you see there were just\na few enterprisin' ones who cleared out, or, maybe, got carried away in\na current, and found better countries and got rich and civilised, and\nbecame our forefathers? Hey, boys, ain't I right?\"\n\n\"You sit down.\"\n\n\"You'll get chucked out.\"\n\n\"Buffon--\"\n\nEverybody was talking at once.\n\n\"Why, it goes on still,\" the Boy roared above the din. \"People who\nstick at home, and are patient, and put up with things, they're doomed.\nBut look at the fellas that come out o' starvin' attics and stinkin'\npigsties to America. They live like lords, and they look at life like\nmen.\"\n\nMac was saying a great deal about the Ice Age and the first and second\nperiods of glaciation, but nobody could hear what.\n\n_\"Prince_ Nicholas? Well, I should smile. He belongs to the oldest\nfamily in the world. Hoop-la!\" The Boy jumped up on his stool and\ncracked his head against the roof; but he only ducked, rubbed his wild,\nlong hair till it stood out wilder than ever, and went on: \"Nicholas's\nforefathers were kings before Caesar; they were here before the\nPyramids--\"\n\nThe Colonel came round and hauled the Boy down. Potts was egging the\nmiscreant on. O'Flynn, poorly disguising his delight in a scrimmage,\nhad been shouting: \"Ye'll spoil the Blow-Out, ye meddlin' jackass!\nCan't ye let Mac make his spache? No; ye must ahlways be huntin' round\nfur harrum to be doin' or throuble to make.\"\n\nIn the turmoil and the contending of many voices Nicholas began to\nexplain to his friends that it wasn't a real fight, as it had every\nappearance of being, and the visitors were in no immediate danger of\ntheir lives. But Kaviak feared the worst, and began to weep forlornly.\n\n\"The world is dyin' at top and bottom!\" screamed the Boy, writhing\nunder the Colonel's clutch. \"The ice will spread, the beasts will turn\nwhite, and we'll turn yella, and we'll all dress in skins and eat fat\nand be exactly like Kaviak, and the last man'll be found tryin' to warm\nhis hands at the Equator, his feet on an iceberg and his nose in a\nsnowstorm. Your old Buffer's got a long head, Mac. Here's to Buffer!\"\nWhereupon he subsided and drank freely of punch.\n\n\"Well,\" said the Colonel, severely, \"you've had a Blow-Out if nobody\nelse has!\"\n\n\"Feel better?\" inquired Potts, tenderly.\n\n\"Now, Mac, you shall have a fair field,\" said the Colonel, \"and if the\nBoy opens his trap again--\"\n\n\"I'll punch 'im,\" promised O'Flynn, replenishing the disturber's cup.\n\nBut Mac wouldn't be drawn. Besides, he was feeding Kaviak. So the\nColonel filled in the breach with \"My old Kentucky Home,\" which he sang\nwith much feeling, if not great art.\n\nThis performance restored harmony and a gentle reflectiveness.\n\nFather Wills told about his journey up here ten years before and of a\nfurther expedition he'd once made far north to the Koyukuk.\n\n\"But Nicholas knows more about the native life and legends than anyone\nI ever met, except, of course, Yagorsha.\"\n\n\"Who's Yag----?\" began the Boy.\n\n\"Oh, that's the Village Story-teller.\" He was about to speak of\nsomething else, but, lifting his eyes, he caught Mac's sudden glance of\ngrudging attention. The priest looked away, and went on: \"There's a\nstory-teller in every settlement. He has always been a great figure in\nthe native life, I believe, but now more than ever.\"\n\n\"Why's that?\"\n\n\"Oh, battles are over and blood-feuds are done, but the need for a\nstory-teller abides. In most villages he is a bigger man than the\nchief--they're all 'ol' chiefs,' the few that are left--and when they\ndie there will be no more. So the tribal story-teller comes to be the\nmost important character\"--the Jesuit smiled in that shrewd and gentle\nway of his--\"that is, of course, after the Shaman, as the Russians call\nhim, the medicine-man, who is a teller of stories, too, in his more\ncircumscribed fashion. But it's the Story-teller who helps his people\nthrough the long winter--helps them to face the terrible new enemies,\nepidemic disease and famine. He has always been their best defence\nagainst that age-old dread they all have of the dark. Yes, no one\nbetter able to send such foes flying than Yagorsha of Pymeut. Still,\nNicholas is a good second.\" The Prince of Pymeut shook his head.\n\n\"Tell them 'The White Crow's Last Flight,'\" urged the priest.\n\nBut Nicholas was not in the vein, and when they all urged him overmuch,\nhe, in self-defence, pulled a knife out of his pocket and a bit of\nwalrus ivory about the size of his thumb, and fell to carving.\n\n\"What you makin'?\"\n\n\"Button,\" says Nicholas; \"me heap hurry get him done.\"\n\n\"It looks more like a bird than a button,\" remarked the Boy.\n\n\"Him bird--him button,\" replied the imperturbable one.\n\n\"Half the folk-lore of the North has to do with the crow (or raven),\"\nthe priest went on. \"Seeing Kaviak's feather reminded me of a native\ncradle-song that's a kind of a story, too. It's been roughly\ntranslated.\"\n\n\"Can you say it?\"\n\n\"I used to know how it went.\"\n\nHe began in a deep voice:\n\n  \"'The wind blows over the Yukon.\n  My husband hunts deer on the Koyukun mountains.\n  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep, little one.\n\n  There is no wood for the fire,\n  The stone-axe is broken, my husband carries the other.\n  Where is the soul of the sun? Hid in the dam of the beaver, waiting the\n  spring-time.\n  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not!\n\n  Look not for ukali, old woman.\n  Long since the cache was emptied, the crow lights no more on the ridge\n  pole.\n  Long since, my husband departed. Why does he wait in the mountains?\n  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, softly.\n\n  Where, where, where is my own?\n  Does he lie starving on the hillside? Why does he linger?\n  Comes he not soon I must seek him among the mountains.\n  Ahmi, ahmi, little one, sleep sound.\n\n  Hush! hush! hush! The crow cometh laughing.\n  Red is his beak, his eyes glisten, the false one!\n  \"Thanks for a good meal to Kuskokala the Shaman--\n  On the far mountain quietly lieth your husband.\"\n  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not.\n\n  \"Twenty deers' tongues tied to the pack on his shoulders;\n  Not a tongue in his mouth to call to his wife with.\n  Wolves, foxes, and ravens are tearing and fighting for morsels.\n  Tough and hard are the sinews; not so the child in your bosom.\"\n  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not!\n\n  Over the mountain slowly staggers the hunter.\n  Two bucks' thighs on his shoulders.\n  Twenty deers' tongues in his belt.\n  \"Go, gather wood, kindle a fire, old woman!\"\n  Off flew the crow--liar, cheat and deceiver.\n  Wake, oh sleeper, awake! welcome your father!\n\n  He brings you back fat, marrow, venison fresh from the mountain\n  Tired and worn, yet he's carved you a toy of the deer's horn,\n  While he was sitting and waiting long for the deer on the hillside.\n  Wake! see the crow! hiding himself from the arrow;\n  Wake, little one, wake! here is your father safe home.'\"\n\n\"Who's 'Kuskokala the Shaman'?\" the Boy inquired.\n\n\"Ah, better ask Nicholas,\" answered the priest.\n\nBut Nicholas was absorbed in his carving.\n\nAgain Mr. O'Flynn obliged, roaring with great satisfaction:\n\n  \"'I'm a stout rovin' blade, and what matther my name,\n  For I ahlways was wild, an' I'll niver be tame;\n  An' I'll kiss putty gurrls wheriver I go,\n  An' what's that to annyone whether or no.\n\n    _Chorus._\n\n  \"'Ogedashin, den thashin, come, boys! let us drink;\n  'Tis madness to sorra, 'tis folly to think.\n  For we're ahl jolly fellows wheriver we go--\n  Ogedashin, den thashin, na boneen sheen lo!'\"\n\nPotts was called on. No, he couldn't sing, but he could show them a\ntrick or two. And with his grimy euchre-deck he kept his word, showing\nthat he was not the mere handy-man, but the magician of the party. The\nnatives, who know the cards as we know our A B C's, were enthralled,\nand began to look upon Potts as a creature of more than mortal skill.\n\nAgain the Boy pressed Nicholas to dance. \"No, no;\" and under his\nbreath: \"You come Pymeut.\"\n\nMeanwhile, O'Flynn, hugging the pleasant consciousness that he had\ndistinguished himself--his pardner, too--complained that the only\ncontribution Mac or the Boy had made was to kick up a row. What steps\nwere they going to take to retrieve their characters and minister to\nthe public entertainment?\n\n\"I've supplied the decorations,\" said Mac in a final tone.\n\n\"Well, and the Bhoy? What good arre ye, annyway?\"\n\n\"Hard to say,\" said the person addressed; but, thinking hard: \"Would\nyou like to see me wag my ears?\" Some languid interest was manifested\nin this accomplishment, but it fell rather flat after Potts' splendid\nachievements with the euchre-deck.\n\n\"No, ye ain't good fur much as an enthertainer,\" said O'Flynn frankly.\n\nKaviak had begun to cry for more punch, and Mac was evidently growing a\ngood deal perplexed as to the further treatment for his patient.\n\n\"Did ye be tellin' some wan, Father, that when ye found that Esquimer\nhe had grass stuffed in his mouth? Sure, he'll be missin' that grass.\nRam somethin' down his throat.\"\n\n\"Was it done to shorten his sufferings?\" the Colonel asked in an\nundertone.\n\n\"No,\" answered the priest in the same low voice; \"if they listen long\nto the dying, the cry gets fixed in their imagination, and they hear it\nafter the death, and think the spirit haunts the place. Their fear and\nhorror of the dead is beyond belief. They'll turn a dying man out of\nhis own house, and not by the door, but through a hole in the roof. Or\nthey pull out a log to make an opening, closing it up quick, so the\nspirit won't find his way back.\"\n\nKaviak continued to lament.\n\n\"Sorry we can't offer you some blubber, Kaviak.\"\n\n\"'Tain't that he's missin'; he's got an inexhaustible store of his own.\nHis mistake is offerin' it to us.\"\n\n\"I know what's the matter with that little shaver,\" said the Boy. \"He\nhasn't got any stool, and you keep him standin' on those legs of his\nlike matches.\"\n\n\"Let him sit on the buffalo-skin there,\" said Mac gruffly.\n\n\"Don't you s'pose he's thought o' the buffalo-skin? But he'd hate it. A\nlittle fella likes to be up where he can see what's goin' on. He'd feel\nas lost 'way down there on the buffalo as a puppy in a corn-brake.\"\n\nThe Boy was standing up, looking round.\n\n\"I know. Elephas! come along, Jimmie!\" In spite of remonstrance, they\nrushed to the door and dragged in the \"fossle.\" When Nicholas and his\nfriends realised what was happening, they got up grunting and\nprotesting. \"Lend a hand, Andrew,\" the Boy called to the man nearest.\n\n\"No--no!\" objected the true son of the Church, with uncommon fervour.\n\n\"You, then, Nicholas.\"\n\n_\"Oo,_ ha, _oo!_ No touch! No touch!\"\n\n\"What's up? You don't know what this is.\"\n\n\"Huh! Nicholas know plenty well. Nicholas no touch bones of dead\ndevils.\" This view of the \"fossle\" so delighted the company that,\nacting on a sudden impulse, they pushed the punch-bowl out of the way,\nand, with a whoop, hoisted the huge thing on the table. Then the Boy\nseized the whimpering Kaviak, and set him high on the throne. So\nsurprised was the topmost Spissimen that he was as quiet for a moment\nas the one underneath him, staring about, blinking. Then, looking down\nat Mac's punch-cup, he remembered his grievance, and took up the wail\nwhere he had left it off.\n\n\"Nuh, nuh! don't you do that,\" said the Boy with startling suddenness.\n\"If you make that noise, I'll have to make a worse one. If you cry,\nKaviak, I'll have to sing. Hmt, hmt! don't you do it.\" And as Kaviak,\nin spite of instructions, began to bawl, the Boy began to do a\nplantation jig, crooning monotonously:\n\n  \"'Grashoppah sett'n on de swee' p'tater vine,\n  Swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'tater vine;\n  Grasshoppah--'\"\n\nHe stopped as suddenly as he'd begun. \"_Now_, will you be good?\"\n\nKaviak drew a breath with a catch in it, looked round, and began as\nfirmly as ever:\n\n\"Weh!--eh!--eh!\"\n\n\"Sh--sh!\" The Boy clapped his hands, and lugubriously intoned:\n\n  \"'Dey's de badger and de bah,\n  En de funny lil hah,\n  En de active lil flea,\n  En de lil armadillah\n  Dat sleeps widouter pillah,\n  An dey all gottah mate but me--ee--ee!'\n\n\"Farva!\" Kaviak gasped.\n\n\"Say, do a <DW65> breakdown,\" solicited Potts.\n\n\"Ain't room; besides, I can't do it with blisters.\"\n\nThey did the impossible--they made room, and turned back the\nbuffalo-skin. Only the big Colonel, who was most in the way of all,\nsat, not stirring, staring in the fire. Such a look on the absent,\ntender face as the great masters, the divinest poets cannot often\nsummon, but which comes at the call of some foolish old nursery jingle,\nsome fragment of half-forgotten folk-lore, heard when the world was\nyoung--when all hearing was music, when all sight was \"pictures,\" when\nevery sense brought marvels that seemed the everyday way of the\nwonderful, wonderful world.\n\nFor an obvious reason it is not through the utterances of the greatest\nthat the child receives his first intimations of the beauty and the\nmystery of things. These come in lowly guise with familiar everyday\nvoices, but their eloquence has the incommunicable grace of infancy,\nthe promise of the first dawn, the menace of the first night.\n\n\"Do you remember the thing about the screech-owl and the weather\nsigns?\" said the Colonel, roused at last by the jig on his toes and the\nrattle of improvised \"bones\" almost in his face.\n\n\"Reckon I do, honey,\" said the Boy, his feet still flying and flapping\non the hard earthen floor.\n\n  \"_'Wen de screech-owl light on de gable en'\n  En holler, Who--ool oh--oh!'_\"\n\nHe danced up and hooted in Kaviak's face.\n\n  \"_'Den yo' bettah keep yo eyeball peel,\n  Kase 'e bring bad luck t' yo'.\n  Oh--oh! oh-oh!'_\"\n\nThen, sinking his voice, dancing slowly, and glancing anxiously under the\ntable:\n\n  \"_'Wen de ole black cat widdee yalla eyes\n  Slink round like she atterah mouse,\n  Den yo' bettah take keer yo'self en frien's,\n  Kase deys sholy a witch en de house.'_\"\n\nAn awful pause, a shiver, and a quick change of scene, indicated by a\ngurgling whoop, ending in a quacking:\n\n  \"_'Wen de puddle-duck'e leave de pon',\n  En start t' comb e fedder,\n  Den yo' bettah take yo' omberel,\n  Kase deys gwine tubbee wet wedder.'_\"\n\n\"Now comes the speckly rooster,\" the Colonel prompted.\n\nThe Boy crowed long and loud:\n\n  \"_'Effer ole wile rooster widder speckly tail\n  Commer crowin' befoh de do',\n  En yo got some comp'ny a'ready,\n  Yo's gwinter have some mo'.'_\"\n\nThen he grunted, and went on all fours. \"Kaviak!\" he called, \"you take\nwarnin'----\n\n  \"_'Wen yo' see a pig agoin' along--'_\"\n\nLook here: Kaviak's never seen a pig! I call it a shame.\n\n  _\"'Wen yo' see a pig agoin' along\n  Widder straw en de sider 'is mouf,\n  It'll be a tuhble winter,\n  En yo' bettuh move down Souf.'\"_\n\nHe jumped up and dashed into a breakdown, clattering the bones, and\nscreeching:\n\n  _\"'Squirl he got a bushy tail,\n  Possum's tail am bah,\n  Raccoon's tail am ringed all roun'--\n  Touch him ef yo dah!\n  Rabbit got no tail at all,\n  Cep a little bit o' bunch o' hah.'\"_\n\nThe group on the floor, undoubtedly, liked that part of the\nentertainment that involved the breakdown, infinitely the best of all,\nbut simultaneously, at its wildest moment, they all turned their heads\nto the door. Mac noticed the movement, listened, and then got up,\nlifted the latch, and cautiously looked out. The Boy caught a glimpse\nof the sky over Mac's shoulder.\n\n\"Jimminy Christmas!\" He stopped, nearly breathless. \"It can't be a\nfire. Say, boys! they're havin' a Blow-Out up in heaven.\"\n\nThe company crowded out. The sky was full of a palpitant light. An\nIndian appeared from round the stockade; he was still staring up at the\nstone chimney.\n\n\"Are we on fire?\"\n\n\"How-do.\" He handed Father Wills a piece of dirty paper.\n\n\"Hah! Yes. All right. Andrew!\"\n\nAndrew needed no more. He bustled away to harness the dogs. The white\nmen were staring up at the sky. \"What's goin' on in heaven, Father?\nS'pose you call this the Aurora Borealis--hey?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the priest; \"and finer than we often get it. We are not far\nenough north for the great displays.\"\n\nHe went in to put on his parki.\n\nMac, after looking out, had shut the door and stayed behind with\nKaviak.\n\nOn Father Will's return Farva, speaking apparently less to the priest\nthan to the floor, muttered: \"Better let him stop where he is till his\ncold's better.\"\n\nThe Colonel came in.\n\n\"Leave the child here!\" ejaculated the priest.\n\n\"--till he's better able to travel.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said the Colonel promptly.\n\n\"Well, it would be a kindness to keep him a few days. I'll _have_ to\ntravel fast tonight.\"\n\n\"Then it's settled.\" Mac bundled Kaviak into the Boy's bunk.\n\nWhen the others were ready to go out again, Farva caught up his fur\ncoat and went along with them.\n\nThe dogs were not quite ready. The priest was standing a little\nabsentmindedly, looking up. The pale green streamers were fringed with\nthe tenderest rose colour, and from the corona uniting them at the\nzenith, they shot out across the heavens, with a rapid circular and\nlateral motion, paling one moment, flaring up again the next.\n\n\"Wonder what makes it,\" said the Colonel.\n\n\"Electricity,\" Mac snapped out promptly.\n\nThe priest smiled.\n\n\"One mystery for another.\"\n\nHe turned to the Boy, and they went on together, preceding the others,\na little, on the way down the trail towards the river.\n\n\"I think you must come and see us at Holy Cross--eh? Come soon;\" and\nthen, without waiting for an answer: \"The Indians think these flitting\nlights are the souls of the dead at play. But Yagorsha says that long\nago a great chief lived in the North who was a mighty hunter. It was\nalways summer up here then, and the big chief chased the big game from\none end of the year to another, from mountain to mountain and from\nriver to sea. He killed the biggest moose with a blow of his fist, and\ncaught whales with his crooked thumb for a hook. One long day in summer\nhe'd had a tremendous chase after a wonderful bird, and he came home\nwithout it, deadbeat and out of temper. He lay down to rest, but the\nsunlight never winked, and the unending glare maddened him. He rolled,\nand tossed, and roared, as only the Yukon roars when the ice rushes\ndown to the sea. But he couldn't sleep. Then in an awful fury he got\nup, seized the day in his great hands, tore it into little bits, and\ntossed them high in the air. So it was dark. And winter fell on the\nworld for the first time. During months and months, just to punish this\ngreat crime, there was no bright sunshine; but often in the long night,\nwhile the chief was wearying for summer to come again, he'd be\ntantalised by these little bits of the broken day that flickered in the\nsky. Coming, Andrew?\" he called back.\n\nThe others trooped down-hill, dogs, sleds, and all. There was a great\nhand-shaking and good-byeing.\n\nNicholas whispered:\n\n\"You come Pymeut?\"\n\n\"I should just pretty nearly think I would.\"\n\n\"You dance heap good. Buttons no all done.\" He put four little ivory\ncrows into the Boy's hands. They were rudely but cleverly carved, with\neyes outlined in ink, and supplied under the breast with a neat\ninward-cut shank.\n\n\"Mighty fine!\" The Boy examined them by the strange glow that\nbrightened in the sky.\n\n\"You keep.\"\n\n\"Oh no, can't do that.\"\n\n\"_Yes!_\" Nicholas spoke peremptorily. \"Yukon men have big feast, must\nbring present. Me no got reindeer, me got button.\" He grinned.\n\"Goo'-bye.\" And the last of the guests went his way.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was only habit that kept the Colonel toasting by the fire before he\nturned in, for the cabin was as warm to-night as the South in\nmid-summer.\n\n  _\"Grasshoppah sett'n on a swee' p'tater vine,\"_\n\nThe Boy droned sleepily as he untied the leathern thongs that kept up\nhis muckluck legs--\n\n  _\"Swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'ta--\"_\n\n\"All those othahs\"--the Colonel waved a hand in the direction of\nPymeut--\"I think we dreamed 'em, Boy. You and me playing the Big Game\nwith Fohtune. Foolishness! Klondyke? Yoh crazy. Tell me the river's\nhard as iron and the snow's up to the windah? Don' b'lieve a wo'd of\nit. We're on some plantation, Boy, down South, in the niggah quawtaws.\"\n\nThe Boy was turning back the covers, and balancing a moment on the side\nof the bunk.\n\n\n _\"Sett'n on a swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'ta--\"_\n\n\"Great Caesar's ghost!\" He jumped up, and stood staring down at the\nsleeping Kaviak.\n\n\"Ah--a--didn't you know? He's been left behind for a few days.\"\n\n\"Yes, I can see he's left behind. No, Colonel, I reckon we're in the\nArctic regions all right when it comes to catchin' Esquimers in your\nbed!\"\n\nHe pulled the furs over Kaviak and himself, and curled down to sleep.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE SHAMAN.\n\n\"For my part, I have ever believed and do now know, that there are\nwitches.\"--_Religio Medici._\n\n\nThe Boy had hoped to go to Pymeut the next day, but his feet refused to\ncarry him. Mac took a diagram and special directions, and went after\nthe rest of elephas, conveying the few clumsy relics home, bit by bit,\nwith a devotion worthy of a pious pilgrim.\n\nFor three days the Boy growled and played games with Kaviak, going\nabout at first chiefly on hands and knees.\n\nOn the fifth day after the Blow-Out, \"You comin' long to Pymeut this\nmornin'?\" he asked the Colonel.\n\n\"What's the rush?\"\n\n\"_Rush!_ Good Lord! it's 'most a week since they were here. And it's\nstopped snowin', and hasn't thought of sleetin' yet or anything else\nrambunksious. Come on, Colonel.\"\n\nBut Father Wills had shown the Colonel the piece of dirty paper the\nIndian had brought on the night of the Blow-Out.\n\n\"_Trouble threatened. Pymeuts think old chief dying not of consumption,\nbut of a devil. They've sent a dogteam to bring the Shaman down over\nthe ice. Come quickly.--_PAUL.\"\n\n\"Reckon we'd better hold our horses till we hear from Holy Cross.\"\n\n\"Hear what?\"\n\nThe Colonel didn't answer, but the Boy didn't wait to listen. He\nswallowed his coffee scalding hot, rolled up some food and stuff for\ntrading, in a light reindeer skin blanket, lashed it packwise on his\nback, shouldered his gun, and made off before the Trio came in to\nbreakfast.\n\nThe first sign that he was nearing a settlement, was the appearance of\nwhat looked like sections of rude wicker fencing, set up here and there\nin the river and frozen fast in the ice. High on the bank lay one of\nthe long cornucopia-shaped basket fish-traps, and presently he caught\nsight of something in the bleak Arctic landscape that made his heart\njump, something that to Florida eyes looked familiar.\n\n\"Why, if it doesn't make me think of John Fox's cabin on Cypress\nCreek!\" he said to himself, formulating an impression that had vaguely\nhaunted him on the Lower River in September; wondering if the Yukon\nflooded like the Caloosahatchee, and if the water could reach as far up\nas all that.\n\nHe stopped to have a good look at this first one of the Pymeut caches,\nfor this modest edifice, like a Noah's Ark on four legs, was not a\nhabitation, but a storehouse, and was perched so high, not for fear of\nfloods, but for fear of dogs and mice. This was manifest from the fact\nthat there were fish-racks and even ighloos much nearer the river.\n\nThe Boy stopped and hesitated; it was a sore temptation to climb up and\nsee what they had in that cache. There was an inviting plank all ready,\nwith sticks nailed on it transversely to prevent the feet from\nslipping. But the Boy stopped at the rude ladder's foot, deciding that\nthis particular mark of interest on the part of a stranger might be\nmisinterpreted. It would, perhaps, be prudent to find Nicholas first of\nall. But where was Nicholas?--where was anybody?\n\nThe scattered, half-buried huts were more like earth-mounds,\nsnow-encrusted, some with drift-logs propped against the front face\nlooking riverwards.\n\nWhile he was cogitating how to effect an entrance to one of these, or\nto make his presence known, he saw, to his relief, the back of a\nsolitary Indian going in the direction of an ighloo farther up the\nriver.\n\n\"Hi, hi!\" he shouted, and as the figure turned he made signs. It\nstopped.\n\n\"How-do?\" the Boy called out when he got nearer. \"You talk English?\"\n\nThe native laughed. A flash of fine teeth and sparkling eyes lit up a\nyoung, good-looking face. This boy seemed promising.\n\n\"How d'ye do? You know Nicholas?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThe laugh was even gayer. It seemed to be a capital joke to know\nNicholas.\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\nThe figure turned and pointed, and then: \"Come. I show you.\"\n\nThis was a more highly educated person than Nicholas, thought the\nvisitor, remarking the use of the nominative scorned of the Prince.\n\nThey walked on to the biggest of the underground dwellings.\n\n\"Is this where the King hangs out? Nicholas' father lives here?\"\n\n\"No. This is the Kazhga.\"\n\n\"Oh, the Kachime. Ain't you comin' in?\"\n\n\"Oh no.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHis guide had a fit of laughter, and then turned to go.\n\n\"Say, what's your name?\"\n\nThe answer sounded like \"Muckluck.\"\n\nAnd just then Nicholas crawled out of the tunnel-like opening leading\ninto the council-house. He jumped up, beaming at the sight of his\nfriend.\n\n\"Say, Nicholas, who's this fella that's always laughing, no matter what\nyou say? Calls himself 'Muckluck.'\"\n\nThe individual referred to gave way to another spasm of merriment,\nwhich infected Nicholas.\n\n\"My sister--this one,\" he explained.\n\n\"Oh-h!\" The Boy joined in the laugh, and pulled off his Arctic cap with\na bow borrowed straight from the Colonel.\n\n\"Princess Muckluck, I'm proud to know you.\"\n\n\"Name no Muckluck,\" began Nicholas; \"name Mahk----\"\n\n\"Mac? Nonsense! Mac's a man's name--she's Princess Muckluck. Only,\nhow's a fella to tell, when you dress her like a man?\"\n\nThe Princess still giggled, while her brother explained.\n\n\"No like man. See?\" He showed how the skirt of her deerskin parki,\nreaching, like her brother's, a little below the knee, was shaped round\nin front, and Nicholas's own--all men's parkis were cut straight\nacross.\n\n\"I see. How's your father?\"\n\nNicholas looked grave; even Princess Muckluck stopped laughing.\n\n\"Come,\" said Nicholas, and the Boy followed him on all fours into the\nKachime.\n\nEntering on his stomach, he found himself in a room about sixteen by\ntwenty feet, two-thirds underground, log-walls chinked with moss, a\nroof of poles sloping upwards, tent-like, but leaving an opening in the\nmiddle for a smoke-hole some three feet square, and covered at present\nby a piece of thin, translucent skin. With the sole exception of the\nsmoke-hole, the whole thing was so covered with earth, and capped with\nsnow, that, expecting a mere cave, one was surprised at the wood-lining\nwithin. The Boy was still more surprised at the concentration, there,\nof malignant smells.\n\nHe gasped, and was for getting out again as fast as possible, when the\nbearskin flap fell behind him over the Kachime end of the\nentrance-tunnel.\n\nThrough the tobacco-smoke and the stifling air he saw, vaguely, a grave\ngathering of bucks sitting, or, rather, lounging and squatting, on the\nouter edge of the wide sleeping-bench that ran all round the room,\nabout a foot and a half from the hewn-log floor.\n\nTheir solemn, intent faces were lit grotesquely by the uncertain glow\nof two seal-oil lamps, mounted on two posts, planted one in front of\nthe right sleeping-bench, the other on the left.\n\nThe Boy hesitated. Was it possible he could get used to the atmosphere?\nCertainly it was warm in here, though there was no fire that he could\nsee. Nicholas was talking away very rapidly to the half-dozen grave and\nreverend signiors, they punctuating his discourse with occasional\ngrunts and a well-nigh continuous coughing. Nicholas wound up in\nEnglish.\n\n\"Me tell you: he heap good friend. You ketch um tobacco?\" he inquired\nsuddenly of his guest. Fortunately, the Boy had remembered to \"ketch\"\nthat essential, and his little offering was laid before the\ncouncil-men. More grunts, and room made for the visitor on the\nsleeping-bench next the post that supported one of the lamps, a clay\nsaucer half-full of seal-oil, in which a burning wick of twisted moss\ngave forth a powerful odour, a fair amount of smoke, and a faint light.\n\nThe Boy sat down, still staring about him, taking note of the well-hewn\nlogs, and of the neat attachment of the timbers by a saddle-joint at\nthe four corners of the roof.\n\n\"Who built this?\" he inquired of Nicholas.\n\n\"Ol' father, an' ... heap ol' men gone dead.\"\n\n\"Gee! Well, whoever did it was on to his job,\" he said. \"I don't seen a\nnail in the whole sheebang.\"\n\n\"No, no nail.\"\n\nThe Boy remembered Nicholas's sled, and, looking again at the\ndisproportionately small hands of the men about him, corrected his\nfirst impression that they were too feminine to be good for much.\n\nA dirty old fellow, weak and sickly in appearance, began to talk\nquerulously. All the others listened with respect, smoking and making\ninarticulate noises now and then. When that discourse was finished, a\nfresh one was begun by yet another coughing councillor.\n\n\"What's it all about?\" the Boy asked.\n\n\"Ol' Chief heap sick,\" said the buck on the Boy's right.\n\n\"Ol' Chief, ol' father, b'long me,\" Nicholas observed with pride.\n\n\"Yes; but aren't the Holy Cross people nursing him?\"\n\n\"Brother Paul gone; white medicine no good.\"\n\nThey all shook their heads and coughed despairingly.\n\n\"Then try s'm' other--some yella-brown, Esquimaux kind,\" hazarded the\nBoy lightly, hardly noticing what he was saying till he found nearly\nall the eyes of the company fixed intently upon him. Nicholas was\ntranslating, and it was clear the Boy had created a sensation.\n\n\"Father Wills no like,\" said one buck doubtfully. \"He make cross-eyes\nwhen Shaman come.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, medicine-man,\" said the Boy, following the narrative eagerly.\n\n\"Shaman go way,\" volunteered an old fellow who hitherto had held his\npeace; \"all get sick\"--he coughed painfully--\"heap Pymeuts die.\"\n\n\"Father Wills come.\" Nicholas took up the tale afresh. \"Shaman come.\nFather Wills heap mad. He no let Shaman stay.\"\n\n\"No; him say, 'Go! plenty quick, plenty far. Hey, you! _Mush!_'\"\n\nThey smoked awhile in silence broken only by coughs.\n\n\"Shaman say, 'Yukon Inua plenty mad.'\"\n\n\"Who is Yukon Inua? Where does he live?\"\n\n\"Unner Yukon ice,\" whispered Nicholas. \"Oh, the river spirit?... Of\ncourse.\"\n\n\"Him heap strong. Long time\"--he motioned back into the ages with one\nslim brown hand--\"fore Holy Cross here, Yukon Inua take good care\nPymeuts.\"\n\n\"No tell Father Wills?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThen in a low guttural voice: \"Shaman come again.\"\n\n\"Gracious! When?\"\n\n\"To-night.\"\n\n\"Jiminny Christmas!\"\n\nThey sat and smoked and coughed. By-and-by, as if wishing thoroughly to\njustify their action, Nicholas resumed:\n\n\"You savvy, ol' father try white medicine--four winter, four summer. No\ngood. Ol' father say, 'Me well man? Good friend Holy Cross, good friend\nRussian mission. Me ol'? me sick? Send for Shaman.'\"\n\nThe entire company grunted in unison.\n\n\"You no tell?\" Nicholas added with recurrent anxiety.\n\n\"No, no; they shan't hear through me. I'm safe.\"\n\nPresently they all got up, and began removing and setting back the hewn\nlogs that formed the middle of the floor. It then appeared that,\nunderneath, was an excavation about two feet deep. In the centre,\nwithin a circle of stones, were the charred remains of a fire, and here\nthey proceeded to make another.\n\nAs soon as it began to blaze, Yagorsha the Story-teller took the cover\noff the smoke-hole, so the company was not quite stifled.\n\nA further diversion was created by several women crawling in, bringing\nfood for the men-folk, in old lard-cans or native wooden kantaks. These\nvessels they deposited by the fire, and with an exchange of grunts went\nout as they had come.\n\nNicholas wouldn't let the Boy undo his pack.\n\n\"No, we come back,\" he said, adding something in his own tongue to the\ncompany, and then crawled out, followed by the Boy. Their progress was\nslow, for the Boy's \"Canadian webfeet\" had been left in the Kachime,\nand he sank in the snow at every step. Twice in the dusk he stumbled\nover an ighloo, or a sled, or some sign of humanity, and asked of the\nnow silent, preoccupied Nicholas, \"Who lives here?\" The answer had\nbeen, \"Nobody; all dead.\"\n\nThe Boy was glad to see approaching, at last, a human figure. It came\nshambling through the snow, with bent head and swaying, jerking gait,\nlooked up suddenly and sheered off, flitting uncertainly onward, in the\ndim light, like a frightened ghost.\n\n\"Who is that?\"\n\n\"Shaman. Him see in dark all same owl. Him know you white man.\"\n\nThe Boy stared after him. The bent figure of the Shaman looked like a\nhuge bat flying low, hovering, disappearing into the night.\n\n\"Those your dogs howling?\" the visitor asked, thinking that for sheer\ndismalness Pymeut would be hard to beat.\n\nNicholas stopped suddenly and dropped down; the ground seemed to open\nand swallow him. The Boy stooped and saw his friend's feet disappearing\nin a hole. He seized one of them. \"Hold on; wait for me!\"\n\nNicholas kicked, but to no purpose; he could make only such progress as\nhis guest permitted.\n\nPresently a gleam. Nicholas had thrust away the flap at the tunnel's\nend, and they stood in the house of the Chief of the Pymeuts, that\nnative of whom Father Wills had said, \"He is the richest and most\nintelligent man of his tribe.\"\n\nThe single room seemed very small after the spaciousness of the\nKachime, but it was the biggest ighloo in the settlement.\n\nA fire burnt brightly in the middle of the earthen floor, and over it\nwas bending Princess Muckluck, cooking the evening meal. She nodded,\nand her white teeth shone in the blaze. Over in the corner, wrapped in\nskins, lay a man on the floor groaning faintly. The salmon, toasting on\nsticks over wood coals, smelt very appetising.\n\n\"Why, your fish are whole. Don't you clean 'em first?\" asked the\nvisitor, surprised out of his manners.\n\n\"No,\" said Nicholas; \"him better no cut.\"\n\nThey sat down by the fire, and the Princess waited on them. The Boy\ndiscovered that it was perfectly true. Yukon salmon broiled in their\nskins over a birch fire are the finest eating in the world, and any\n\"other way\" involves a loss of flavour.\n\nHe was introduced for the first time to the delights of reindeer\n\"back-fat,\" and found even that not so bad.\n\n\"You are lucky, Nicholas, to have a sister--such a nice one, too\"--(the\nPrincess giggled)--\"to keep house for you.\"\n\nNicholas understood, at least, that politeness was being offered, and\nhe grinned.\n\n\"I've got a sister myself. I'll show you her picture some day. I care\nabout her a lot. I've come up here to make a pile so that we can buy\nback our old place in Florida.\"\n\nHe said this chiefly to the Princess, for she evidently had profited\nmore by her schooling, and understood things quite like a Christian.\n\n\"Did you ever eat an orange, Princess?\" he continued.\n\n\"Kind o' fish?\"\n\n\"No, fruit; a yella ball that grows on a tree.\"\n\n\"Me know,\" said Nicholas; \"me see him in boxes St. Michael's. Him\nbully.\"\n\n\"Yes. Well, we had a lot of trees all full of those yella balls, and we\nused to eat as many as we liked. We don't have much winter down where I\nlive--summer pretty nearly all the time.\"\n\n\"I'd like go there,\" said the girl.\n\n\"Well, will you come and see us, Muckluck? When I've found a gold-mine\nand have bought back the Orange Grove, my sister and me are goin' to\nlive together, like you and Nicholas.\"\n\n\"She look like you?\"\n\n\"No; and it's funny, too, 'cause we're twins.\"\n\n\"Twins! What's twins?\"\n\n\"Two people born at the same time.\"\n\n\"No!\" ejaculated Nicholas.\n\n\"Why, yes, and they always care a heap about each other when they're\ntwins.\"\n\nBut Muckluck stared incredulously.\n\n\"_Two_ at the same time!\" she exclaimed. \"It's like that, then, in your\ncountry?\"\n\nThe Boy saw not astonishment alone, but something akin to disgust in\nthe face of the Princess. He felt, vaguely, he must justify his\ntwinship.\n\n\"Of course; there's nothing strange about it; it happens quite often.\"\n\n\"_Often?_\"\n\n\"Yes; people are very much pleased. Once in a while there are even\nthree--\"\n\n\"All at the same time!\" Her horror turned into shrieks of laughter.\n\"Why, your women are like our dogs! Human beings and seals never have\nmore than one at a time!\"\n\nThe old man in the corner began to moan and mutter feverishly. Nicholas\nwent to him, bent down, and apparently tried to soothe him. Muckluck\ngathered up the supper-things and set them aside.\n\n\"You were at the Holy Cross school?\" asked the Boy.\n\n\"Six years--with Mother Aloysius and the Sisters. They very good.\"\n\n\"So you're a Catholic, then?\"\n\n\"Oh yes.\"\n\n\"You speak the best English I've heard from a native.\"\n\n\"I love Sister Winifred. I want to go back--unless\"--she regarded the\nBoy with a speculative eye--\"unless I go your country.\"\n\nThe sick man began to talk deliriously, and lifted up a terrible old\nface with fever-bright eyes glaring through wisps of straight gray\nhair. No voice but his was heard for some time in the ighloo, then, \"I\nfraid,\" said Muckluck, crouching near the fire, but with head turned\nover shoulder, staring at the sick man.\n\n\"No wonder,\" said the Boy, thinking such an apparition enough to\nfrighten anybody.\n\n\"Nicholas 'fraid, too,\" she whispered, \"when the devil talks.\"\n\n\"The devil?\"\n\n\"Yes. Sh! You hear?\"\n\nThe delirious chatter went on, rising to a scream. Nicholas came\nhurrying back to the fire with a look of terror in his face.\n\n\"Me go get Shaman.\"\n\n\"No; he come soon.\" Muckluck clung to him.\n\nThey both crouched down by the fire.\n\n\"You 'fraid he'll die before the Shaman gets here?\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" said Muckluck soothingly, but her face belied her words.\n\nThe sick man called hoarsely. Nicholas got him some water, and propped\nhim up to drink. He glared over the cup with wild eyes, his teeth\nchattering against the tin. The Boy, himself, felt a creep go down his\nspine.\n\nMuckluck moved closer to him.\n\n\"Mustn't say he die,\" she whispered. \"If Nicholas think he die, he drag\nhim out--leave him in the snow.\" \"Never!\"\n\n\"Sh!\" she made him a sign to be quiet. The rambling fever-talk went on,\nNicholas listening fascinated. \"No Pymeut,\" she whispered, \"like live\nin ighloo any more if man die there.\"\n\n\"You mean, if they know a person's dying they haul him out o'\ndoors--and _leave_ him a night like this?\"\n\n\"If not, how get him out ... after?\"\n\n\"Why, carry him out.\"\n\n\"_Touch_ him? Touch _dead_ man?\" She shuddered. \"Oh, no. Bad, bad! I no\nthink he die,\" she resumed, raising her voice. But Nicholas rejoined\nthem, silent, looking very grave. Was he contemplating turning the poor\nold fellow out? The Boy sat devising schemes to prevent the barbarism\nshould it come to that. The wind had risen; it was evidently going to\nbe a rough night.\n\nWith imagination full of sick people turned out to perish, the Boy\nstarted up as a long wail came, muffled, but keen still with anguish,\ndown through the snow and the earth, by way of the smoke-hole, into the\ndim little room.\n\n\"Oh, Nicholas! what was that?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Wait! Listen! There, that! Why, it's a child crying.\"\n\n\"No, him Chee.\"\n\n\"Let's go and bring him in.\"\n\n\"Bring dog in here?\"\n\n\"Dog! That's no dog.\"\n\n\"Yes, him dog; him my Chee.\"\n\n\"Making a human noise like that?\"\n\nNicholas nodded. The only sounds for some time were the doleful\nlamenting of the Mahlemeut without, and the ravings of the Pymeut Chief\nwithin.\n\nThe Boy was conscious of a queer, dream-like feeling. All this had been\ngoing on up here for ages. It had been like this when Columbus came\nover the sea. All the world had changed since then, except the\nsteadfast North. The Boy sat up suddenly, and rubbed his eyes. With\nthat faculty on the part of the unlearned that one is tempted to call\n\"American,\" a faculty for assimilating the grave conclusions of the\ndoctors, and importing them light-heartedly into personal experience,\nhe realised that what met his eyes here in Nicholas' house was one of\nthe oldest pictures humanity has presented. This was what was going on\nby the Yukon, when King John, beside that other river, was yielding\nMagna Charta to the barons. While the Caesars were building Rome the\nPymeut forefathers were building just such ighloos as this. While\nPheidias wrought his marbles, the men up here carved walrus-ivory, and,\nin lieu of Homer, recited \"The Crow's Last Flight\" and \"The Legend of\nthe Northern Lights.\"\n\nNicholas had risen again, his mouth set hard, his small hands shaking.\nHe unrolled an old reindeer-skin full of holes, and examined it. At\nthis the girl, who had been about to make up the fire, threw down the\nbit of driftwood and hid her face.\n\nThe sick man babbled on.\n\nFaint under the desolate sound another--sibilant, clearer, uncannily\nhuman. Nicholas had heard, too, for he threw down the tattered\ndeerskin, and went to the other side of the fire. Voices in the tunnel.\nNicholas held back the flap and gravely waited there, till one Pymeut\nafter another crawled in. They were the men the Boy had seen at the\nKachime, with one exception--a vicious-looking old fellow, thin, wiry,\nwith a face like a smoked chimpanzee and eyes of unearthly brightness.\nHe was given the best place by the fire, and held his brown claws over\nthe red coals while the others were finding their places.\n\nThe Boy, feeling he would need an interpreter, signed to Muckluck to\ncome and sit by him. Grave as a judge she got up, and did as she was\nbid.\n\n\"That the Shaman?\" whispered the Boy.\n\nShe nodded. It was plain that this apparition, however hideous, had\ngiven her great satisfaction.\n\n\"Any more people coming?\"\n\n\"Got no more now in Pymeut.\"\n\n\"Where is everybody?\"\n\n\"Some sick, some dead.\"\n\nThe old Chief rambled on, but not so noisily.\n\n\"See,\" whispered Muckluck, \"devil 'fraid already. He begin to speak\nsmall.\"\n\nThe Shaman never once looked towards the sufferer till he himself was\nthoroughly warm. Even then he withdrew from the genial glow, only to\nsit back, humped together, blinking, silent. The Boy began to feel\nthat, if he did finally say something it would be as surprising as to\nhear an aged monkey break into articulate speech.\n\nNicholas edged towards the Shaman, presenting something in a birch-bark\ndish.\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"A deer's tongue,\" whispered Muckluck.\n\nThe Boy remembered the Koyukun song, \"Thanks for a good meal to\nKuskokala, the Shaman.\"\n\nNicholas seemed to be haranguing the Shaman deferentially, but with\nspirit. He pulled out from the bottom of his father's bed three fine\nmarten-skins, shook them, and dangled them before the Shaman. They\nproduced no effect. He then took a box of matches and a plug of the\nBoy's tobacco out of his pocket, and held the lot towards the Shaman,\nseeming to say that to save his life he couldn't rake up another\nearthly thing to tempt his Shamanship. Although the Shaman took the\nofferings his little black eyes glittered none the less rapaciously, as\nthey flew swiftly round the room, falling at last with a vicious snap\nand gleam upon the Boy. Then it was that for the first time he spoke.\n\n\"Nuh! nuh!\" interrupted Muckluck, chattering volubly, and evidently\ncommending the Boy to the Shaman. Several of the old bucks laughed.\n\n\"He say Yukon Inua no like you.\"\n\n\"He think white men bring plague, bring devils.\"\n\n\"Got some money?\" whispered Muckluck.\n\n\"Not here.\"\n\nThe Boy saw the moment when he would be turned out. He plunged his\nhands down into his trousers pockets and fished up a knife, his\nsecond-best one, fortunately.\n\n\"Tell him I'm all right, and he can give this to Yukon Inua with my\nrespects.\"\n\nMuckluck explained and held up the shining object, blades open,\ncorkscrew curling attractively before the covetous eyes of the Shaman.\nWhen he could endure the temptation no longer his two black claws shot\nout, but Nicholas intercepted the much-envied object, while, as it\nseemed, he drove a more advantageous bargain. Terms finally settled,\nthe Shaman seized the knife, shut it, secreted it with a final grunt,\nand stood up.\n\nEveryone made way for him. He jerked his loosely-jointed body over to\nthe sick man, lifted the seal-oil lamp with his shaky old hands, and\nlooked at the patient long and steadily. When he had set the lamp down\nagain, with a grunt, he put his black thumb on the wick and squeezed\nout the light. When he came back to the fire, which had burnt low, he\npulled open his parki and drew out an ivory wand, and a long eagle's\nfeather with a fluffy white tuft of some sort at the end. He deposited\nthese solemnly, side by side, on the ground, about two feet apart.\n\nTurning round to the dying fire, he took a stick, and with Nicholas's\nhelp gathered the ashes up and laid them over the smouldering brands.\n\nThe ighloo was practically dark. No one dared speak save the yet\nunabashed devil in the sick man, who muttered angrily. It was curious\nto see how the coughing of the others, which in the Kachime had been\npractically constant, was here almost silenced. Whether this was\nachieved through awe and respect for the Shaman, or through nervous\nabsorption in the task he had undertaken, who shall say?\n\nThe Boy felt rather than saw that the Shaman had lain down between the\nivory wand and the eagle's feather. Each man sat as still as death,\nlistening, staring, waiting.\n\nPresently a little jet of flame sprang up out of the ashes. The Shaman\nlifted his head angrily, saw it was no human hand that had dared turn\non the light, growled, and pulled something else from under his\ninexhaustible parki. The Boy peered curiously. The Shaman seemed to be\nshutting out the offensive light by wrapping himself up in something,\nhead and all.\n\n\"What's he doing now?\" the Boy ventured to whisper under cover of the\ndevil's sudden loud remonstrance, the sick man at this point breaking\ninto ghastly groans.\n\n\"He puts on the Kamlayka. Sh!\"\n\nThe Shaman, still enveloped head and body, began to beat softly,\nkeeping time with the eagle's feather. You could follow the faint gleam\nof the ivory wand, but on what it fell with that hollow sound no eye\ncould see. Now, at intervals, he uttered a cry, a deep bass\ndanger-note, singularly unnerving. Someone answered in a higher key,\nand they kept this up in a kind of rude, sharply-timed duet, till one\nby one the whole group of natives was gathered into the swing of it,\nswept along involuntarily, it would seem, by some magnetic attraction\nof the rhythm.\n\n_\"Ung hi yah! ah-ha-yah! yah-yah-yah!\"_ was the chorus to that deep,\nrecurrent cry of the Shaman. Its accompanying drum-note was muffled\nlike far-off thunder, conjured out of the earth by the ivory wand.\n\nPresently a scream of terror from the bundle of skins and bones in the\ncorner.\n\n\"Ha!\" Muckluck clasped her hands and rocked back and forth.\n\n\"They'll frighten the old man to death if he's conscious,\" said the\nBoy, half rising.\n\nShe pulled him down.\n\n\"No, no; frighten devil.\" She was shaking with excitement and with\necstacy.\n\nThe sick man cried aloud. A frenzy seemed to seize the Shaman. He\nraised his voice in a series of blood-curdling shrieks, then dropped\nit, moaning, whining, then bursting suddenly into diabolic laughter,\nbellowing, whispering, ventriloquising, with quite extraordinary skill.\nThe dim and foetid cave might indeed be full of devils.\n\nIf the hideous outcry slackened, but an instant, you heard the sick man\nraving with the preternatural strength of delirium, or of mad\nresentment. For some time it seemed a serious question as to who would\ncome out ahead. Just as you began to feel that the old Chief was at the\nend of his tether, and ready to give up the ghost, the Shaman, rising\nsuddenly with a demoniac yell, flung himself down on the floor in a\nconvulsion. His body writhed horribly; he kicked and snapped and\nquivered.\n\nThe Boy was for shielding Muckluck from the crazy flinging out of legs\nand arms; but she leaned over, breathless, to catch what words might\nescape the Shaman during the fit, for these were omens of deep\nsignificance.\n\nWhen at last the convulsive movements quieted, and the Shaman lay like\none dead, except for an occasional faint twitch, the Boy realised for\nthe first time that the sick man, too, was dumb. Dead? The only sound\nnow was the wind up in the world above. Even the dog was still.\n\nThe silence was more horrible than the hell-let-loose of a few minutes\nbefore.\n\nThe dim group sat there, motionless, under the spell of the stillness\neven more than they had been under the spell of the noise. At last a\nqueer, indescribable scratching and scraping came up out of the bowels\nof the earth.\n\nHow does the old devil manage to do that? thought the Boy. But the\nplain truth was that his heart was in his mouth, for the sound came\nfrom the opposite direction, behind the Boy, and not near the Shaman at\nall. It grew louder, came nearer, more inexplicable, more awful. He\nfelt he could not bear it another minute, sprang up, and stood there,\ntense, waiting for what might befall. Were _all_ the others dead, then?\n\nNot a sound in the place, only that indescribable stirring of something\nin the solid earth under his feet.\n\nThe Shaman had his knife. A ghastly sensation of stifling came over the\nBoy as he thought of a struggle down there under the earth and the\nsnow.\n\nOn came the horrible underground thing. Desperately the Boy stirred the\nalmost extinct embers with his foot, and a faint glow fell on the\nterror-frozen faces of the natives, fell on the bear-skin flap. _It\nmoved!_ A huge hand came stealing round. A hand? The skeleton of a\nhand--white, ghastly, with fingers unimaginably long. No mortal in\nPymeut had a hand like that--no mortal in all the world!\n\nA crisp, smart sound, and a match blazed. A tall, lean figure rose up\nfrom behind the bear-skin and received the sudden brightness full in\nhis face, pale and beautiful, but angry as an avenging angel's. For an\ninstant the Boy still thought it a spectre, the delusion of a\nbewildered brain, till the girl cried out, \"Brother Paul!\" and fell\nforward on the floor, hiding her face in her hands.\n\n\"Light! make a light!\" he commanded. Nicholas got up, dazed but\nobedient, and lit the seal-oil lamp.\n\nThe voice of the white man, the call for light, reached the Shaman. He\nseemed to shiver and shrink under the folds of the Kamlayka. But\ninstead of getting up and looking his enemy in the face, he wriggled\nalong on his belly, still under cover of the Kamlayka, till he got to\nthe bear-skin, pushed it aside with a motion of the hooded head, and\ncrawled out like some snaky symbol of darkness and superstition fleeing\nbefore the light.\n\n\"Brother Paul!\" sobbed the girl, \"don't, _don't_ tell Sister Winifred.\"\n\nHe took no notice of her, bending down over the motionless bundle in\nthe corner.\n\n\"You've killed him, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Brother Paul--\" began Nicholas, faltering.\n\n\"Oh, I heard the pandemonium.\" He lifted his thin white face to the\nsmoke-hole. \"It's all useless, useless. I might as well go and leave\nyou to your abominations. But instead, go _you_, all of you--go!\" He\nflung out his long arms, and the group broke and scuttled, huddling\nnear the bear-skin, fighting like rats to get out faster than the\nnarrow passage permitted.\n\nThe Boy turned from watching the instantaneous flight, the scuffle, and\nthe disappearance, to find the burning eyes of the Jesuit fixed\nfascinated on his face. If Brother Paul had appeared as a spectre in\nthe ighloo, it was plain that he looked upon the white face present at\nthe diabolic rite as dream or devil. The Boy stood up. The lay-brother\nstarted, and crossed himself.\n\n\"In Christ's name, what--who are you?\"\n\n\"I--a--I come from the white camp ten miles below.\"\n\n\"And you were _here_--you allowed this? Ah-h!\" He flung up his arms,\nthe pale lips moved convulsively, but no sound came forth.\n\n\"I--you think I ought to have interfered?\" began the Boy.\n\n\"I think--\" the Brother began bitterly, checked himself, knelt down,\nand felt the old man's pulse.\n\nNicholas at the bear-skin was making the Boy signs to come.\n\nThe girl was sobbing with her face on the ground. Again Nicholas\nbeckoned, and then disappeared. There seemed to be nothing to do but to\nfollow his host. When the bear-skin had dropped behind the Boy, and he\ncrawled after Nicholas along the dark passage, he heard the muffled\nvoice of the girl praying: \"Oh, Mary, Mother of God, don't let him tell\nSister Winifred.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nA PENITENTIAL JOURNEY\n\n  \"... Certain London parishes still receive L12 per annum\n   for fagots to burn heretics.\"--JOHN RICHARD GREEN.\n\n\nThe Boy slept that night in the Kachime beside a very moody, restless\nhost. Yagorsha dispensed with the formality of going to bed, and seemed\nbent on doing what he could to keep other people awake. He sat\nmonologuing under the seal lamp till the Boy longed to throw the dish\nof smouldering oil at his head. But strangely enough, when, through\nsheer fatigue, his voice failed and his chin fell on his broad chest, a\nlad of fourteen or so, who had also had difficulty to keep awake, would\njog Yagorsha's arm, repeating interrogatively the last phrase used,\nwhereon the old Story-Teller would rouse himself and begin afresh, with\nan iteration of the previous statement. If the lad failed to keep him\ngoing, one or other of the natives would stir uneasily, lift a head\nfrom under his deerskin, and remonstrate. Yagorsha, opening his eyes\nwith a guilty start, would go on with the yarn. When morning came, and\nthe others waked, Yagorsha and the lad slept.\n\nNicholas and all the rest who shared the bench at night, and the fire\nin the morning, seemed desperately depressed and glum. A heavy cloud\nhung over Pymeut, for Pymeut was in disgrace.\n\nAbout sunset the women came in with the kantaks and the lard-cans.\nYagorsha sat up and rubbed his eyes. He listened eagerly, while the\nothers questioned the women. The old Chief wasn't dead at all. No, he\nwas much better. Brother Paul had been about to all the house-bound\nsick people, and given everybody medicine, and flour, and a terrible\nscolding. Oh yes, he was angrier than anybody had ever been before.\nSome natives from the school at Holy Cross were coming for him\ntomorrow, and they were all going down river and across the southern\nportage to the branch mission at Kuskoquim.\n\n\"Down river? Sure?\"\n\nYes, sure. Brother Paul had not waited to come with those others, being\nso anxious to bring medicine and things to Ol' Chief quick; and this\nwas how he was welcomed back to the scene of his labours. A Devil's\nDance was going on! That was what he called it.\n\n\"You savvy?\" said Nicholas to his guest. \"Brother Paul go plenty soon.\nYou wait.\"\n\nI'll have company back to camp, was the Boy's first thought, and\nthen--would there be any fun in that after all? It was plain Brother\nPaul was no such genial companion as Father Wills.\n\nAnd so it was that he did not desert Nicholas, although Brother Paul's\ncompanions failed to put in an appearance on the following morning.\nHowever, on the third day after the incident of the Shaman (who seemed\nto have vanished into thin air), Brother Paul shook the snow of Pymeut\nfrom his feet, and with three Indians from the Holy Cross school and a\ndog-team, he disappeared from the scene. Not till he had been gone some\ntime did Nicholas venture to return to the parental roof.\n\nThey found Muckluck subdued but smiling, and the old man astonishingly\nbetter. It looked almost as if he had turned the corner, and was\ngetting well.\n\nThere was certainly something very like magic in such a recovery, but\nit was quickly apparent that this aspect of the case was not what\noccupied Nicholas, as he sat regarding his parent with a keen and\nspeculative eye. He asked him some question, and they discussed the\npoint volubly, Muckluck following the argument with close attention.\nPresently it seemed that father and son were taking the guest into\nconsideration. Muckluck also turned to him now and then, and by-and-by\nshe said: \"I think he go.\"\n\n\"Go where?\"\n\n\"Holy Cross,\" said the old man eagerly.\n\n\"Brother Paul,\" Nicholas explained. \"He go _down_ river. We get Holy\nCross--more quick.\"\n\n\"I see. Before he can get back. But why do you want to go?\"\n\n\"See Father Brachet.\"\n\n\"Sister Winifred say: 'Always tell Father Brachet; then everything all\nright,'\" contributed Muckluck.\n\n\"You tell Pymeut belly solly,\" the old Chief said.\n\n\"Nicholas know he not able tell all like white man,\" Muckluck\ncontinued. \"Nicholas say you good--hey? you good?\"\n\n\"Well--a--pretty tollable, thank you.\"\n\n\"You go with Nicholas; you make Father Brachet unnerstan'--forgive.\nTell Sister Winifred--\" She stopped, perplexed, vaguely distrustful at\nthe Boy's chuckling.\n\n\"You think we can explain it all away, hey?\" He made a gesture of happy\nclearance. \"Shaman and everything, hey?\"\n\n\"Me no can,\" returned Nicholas, with engaging modesty. \"_You_--\" He\nconveyed a limitless confidence.\n\n\"Well, I'll be jiggered if I don't try. How far is it?\"\n\n\"Go slow--one sleep.\"\n\n\"Well, we won't go slow. We've got to do penance. When shall we start?\"\n\n\"Too late now. Tomalla,\" said the Ol' Chief.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey got up very early--it seemed to the Boy like the middle of the\nnight--stole out of the dark Kachime, and hurried over the hard crust\nthat had formed on the last fall of snow, down the bleak, dim <DW72> to\nthe Ol' Chief's, where they were to breakfast.\n\nNot only Muckluck was up and doing, but the Ol' Chief seemed galvanised\ninto unwonted activity. He was doddering about between his bed and the\nfire, laying out the most imposing parkis and fox-skins, fur blankets,\nand a pair of seal-skin mittens, all of which, apparently, he had had\nsecreted under his bed, or between it and the wall.\n\nThey made a sumptuous breakfast of tea, the last of the bacon the Boy\nhad brought, and slapjacks.\n\nThe Boy kept looking from time to time at the display of furs. Father\nWills was right; he ought to buy a parki with a hood, but he had meant\nto have the priest's advice, or Mac's, at least, before investing. Ol'\nChief watching him surreptitiously, and seeing he was no nearer making\nan offer, felt he should have some encouragement. He picked up the\nseal-skin mittens and held them out.\n\n\"Present,\" said Ol' Chief. \"You tell Father Brachet us belly solly.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll handle him without gloves,\" said the Boy, giving back the\nmittens. But Ol' Chief wouldn't take them. He was holding up the\nsmaller of the two parkis.\n\n\"You no like?\"\n\n\"Oh, very nice.\"\n\n\"You no buy?\"\n\n\"You go sleep on trail,\" said Nicholas, rising briskly. \"You die, no\nparki.\"\n\nThe Boy laughed and shook his head, but still Ol' Chief held out the\ndeer-skin shirt, and caressed the wolf-fringe of the hood.\n\n\"Him cheap.\"\n\n\"How cheap?\"\n\n\"Twenty-fi' dollah.\"\n\n\"Don't know as I call that cheap.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Nicholas. \"St. Michael, him fifty dollah.\"\n\nThe Boy looked doubtful.\n\n\"I saw a parki there at the A. C. Store about like this for twenty.\"\n\n\"A. C. parki, peeluck,\" Nicholas said contemptuously. Then patting the\none his father held out, \"You wear _him_ fifty winter.\"\n\n\"Lord forbid! Anyhow, I've only got about twenty dollars' worth of\ntobacco and stuff along with me.\"\n\n\"Me come white camp,\" Nicholas volunteered. \"Me get more fi' dollah.\"\n\n\"Oh, will you? Now, that's very kind of you.\" But Nicholas, impervious\nto irony, held out the parki. The Boy laughed, and took it. Nicholas\nstooped, picked up the fur mittens, and, laying them on the Boy's arm,\nreiterated his father's \"Present!\" and then departed to the Kachime to\nbring down the Boy's pack.\n\nThe Princess meanwhile had withdrawn to her own special corner, where\nin the daytime appeared only a roll of plaited mats, and a little,\ncheap, old hat-box, which she evidently prized most of all she had in\nthe world.\n\n\"You see? Lock!\"\n\nThe Boy expressed surprise and admiration.\n\n\"No! Really! I call that fine.\"\n\n\"I got present for Father Brachet\"; and turning over the rags and\nnondescript rubbish of the hat-box, she produced an object whose use\nwas not immediately manifest. A section of walrus ivory about six\ninches long had been cut in two. One of these curved halves had been\nmounted on four ivory legs. In the upper flat side had been stuck, at\nequal distances from the two ends and from each other, two delicate\nbranches of notched ivory, standing up like horns. Between these sat an\nivory mannikin, about three inches long, with a woeful countenance and\nwith arms held out like one beseeching mercy.\n\n\"It's fine,\" said the Boy, \"but--a--what's it for? Just look pretty?\"\n\n\"Wait, I show you.\" She dived into the hat-box, and fished up a bit of\nbattered pencil. With an air of pride, she placed the pencil across the\noutstretched hands of the ivory suppliant, asking the Boy in dumb-show,\nwas not this a pen-rest that might be trusted to melt the heart of the\nHoly Father?\n\n\"This way, too.\" She illustrated how anyone embarrassed by the\npossession of more than one pencil could range them in tiers on the\nivory horns above the head of the Woeful One.\n\n\"I call that scrumptious! And he looks as if he was saying he was sorry\nall the time.\"\n\nShe nodded, delighted that the Boy comprehended the subtle symbolism.\n\n\"One more!\" she said, showing her dazzling teeth. Like a child playing\na game, she half shut the hat-box and hugged it lovingly. Then with\neyes sparkling, slowly the small hand crept in--was thrust down the\nside and drew out with a rapturous \"Ha!\" a gaudy advertisement card,\nsetting forth the advantages of smoking \"Kentucky Leaf\" She looked at\nit fondly. Then slowly, regretfully, all the fun gone now, she passed\nit to the Boy.\n\n\"For Sister Winifred!\" she said, like one who braces herself to make\nsome huge renunciation. \"You tell her I send with my love, and I always\nsay my prayers. I very good. Hey? You tell Sister Winifred?\"\n\n\"_Sure_,\" said the Boy.\n\nThe Ol' Chief was pulling the other parki over his head. Nicholas\nreappeared with the visitor's effects. Under the Boy's eyes, he calmly\nconfiscated all the tea and tobacco. But nothing had been touched in\nthe owner's absence.\n\n\"Look here: just leave me enough tea to last till I get home. I'll make\nit up to you.\"\n\nNicholas, after some reflection, agreed. Then he bustled about,\ngathered together an armful of things, and handed the Boy a tea-kettle\nand an axe.\n\n\"You bring--dogs all ready. Mush!\" and he was gone.\n\nTo the Boy's surprise, while he and Muckluck were getting the food and\npresents together, the lively Ol' Chief--so lately dying--made off, in\na fine new parki, on all fours, curious, no doubt, to watch the\npreparations without.\n\nBut not a bit of it. The Ol' Chief's was a more intimate concern in the\nexpedition. When the Boy joined him, there he was sitting up in\nNicholas's sled, appallingly emaciated, but brisk as you please,\nordering the disposition of the axe and rifle along either side, the\ntea-kettle and grub between his feet, showing how the deer-skin\nblankets should be wrapped, and especially was he dictatorial about the\nlashing of the mahout.\n\n\"How far's he comin'?\" asked the Boy, astonished.\n\n\"All the way,\" said Muckluck. \"He want to be _sure_.\"\n\nSeveral bucks came running down from the Kachime, and stood about,\ncoughed and spat, and offered assistance or advice. When at last Ol'\nChief was satisfied with the way the raw walrus-hide was laced and\nlashed, Nicholas cracked his whip and shouted, \"Mush! God-damn! Mush!\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Princess. We'll take care of your father, though I'm sure he\noughtn't to go.\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" answered Muckluck confidently; then lower, \"Shaman make all\nwell quick. Hey? Goo'-bye.\"\n\n\"Good-bye.\"\n\n\"Don't forget tell Sister Winifred I say my p--\" But the Boy had to run\nto keep up with the sled.\n\nFor some time he kept watching the Ol' Chief with unabated\nastonishment, wondering if he'd die on the way. But, after all, the\nopen-air cure was tried for his trouble in various other parts of the\nworld--why not here?\n\nThere was no doubt about it, Nicholas had a capital team of dogs, and\nknew how to drive them. Two-legged folk often had to trot pretty\nbriskly to keep up. Pymeut was soon out of sight.\n\n\"Nicholas, what'll you take for a couple o' your dogs?\"\n\n\"No sell.\"\n\n\"Pay you a good long price.\"\n\n\"No sell.\"\n\n\"Well, will you help me to get a couple?\"\n\n\"Me try\"; but he spoke dubiously.\n\n\"What do they cost?\"\n\n\"Good leader cost hunder and fifty in St. Michael.\"\n\n\"You don't mean dollahs?\"\n\n\"Mean dollahs.\"\n\n\"Come off the roof!\"\n\nBut Nicholas seemed to think there was no need.\n\n\"You mean that if I offer you a hundred and fifty dollahs for your\nleader, straight off, this minute, you won't take it?\"\n\n\"No, no take,\" said the Prince, stolidly.\n\nAnd his friend reflected. Nicholas without a dog-team would be\npractically a prisoner for eight months of the year, and not only that,\nbut a prisoner in danger of starving to death. After all, perhaps a\ndog-team in such a country _was_ priceless, and the Ol' Chief was\ntravelling in truly royal style.\n\nHowever, it was stinging cold, and running after those expensive dogs\nwas an occupation that palled. By-and-by, \"How much is your sled\nworth?\" he asked Ol' Chief.\n\n\"Six sables,\" said the monarch.\n\n      *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was a comfort to sight a settlement off there on the point.\n\n\"What's this place?\"\n\n\"Fish-town.\"\n\n\"Pymeuts there?\"\n\n\"No, all gone. Come back when salmon run.\"\n\nNot a creature there, as Nicholas had foretold--a place built wilfully\non the most exposed point possible, bleak beyond belief. If you open\nyour mouth at this place on the Yukon, you have to swallow a hurricane.\nThe Boy choked, turned his back to spit out the throttling blast, and\nwhen he could catch his breath inquired:\n\n\"This a good place for a village?\"\n\n\"Bully. Wind come, blow muskeetah--\"\n\nNicholas signified a remote destination with his whip.\n\n\"B'lieve you! This kind o' thing would discourage even a mosquito.\"\n\nIn the teeth of the blast they went past the Pymeut Summer Resort.\nUnlike Pymeut proper, its cabins were built entirely above ground, of\nlogs unchinked, its roofs of watertight birch-bark.\n\nA couple of hours farther on Nicholas permitted a halt on the edge of a\nstruggling little grove of dwarfed cotton-wood.\n\nThe kettle and things being withdrawn from various portions of the Ol'\nChief's person, he, once more warmly tucked up and tightly lashed down,\ndrew the edge of the outer coverlid up till it met the wolf-skin fringe\nof his parki hood, and relapsed into slumber.\n\nNicholas chopped down enough green wood to make a hearth.\n\n\"What! bang on the snow?\"\n\nNicholas nodded, laid the logs side by side, and on them built a fire\nof the seasoned wood the Boy had gathered. They boiled the kettle, made\ntea, and cooked some fish.\n\nOl' Chief waked up just in time to get his share. The Boy, who had kept\nhanging about the dogs with unabated interest, had got up from the fire\nto carry them the scraps, when Nicholas called out quite angrily, \"No!\nno feed dogs,\" and waved the Boy off.\n\n\"What! It's only some of my fish. Fish is what they eat, ain't it?\"\n\n\"No feed now; wait till night.\"\n\n\"What for? They're hungry.\"\n\n\"You give fish--dogs no go any more.\"\n\nPeremptorily he waved the Boy off, and fell to work at packing up. Not\nunderstanding Nicholas's wisdom, the Boy was feeling a little sulky and\ndidn't help. He finished up the fish himself, then sat on his heels by\nthe fire, scorching his face while his back froze, or wheeling round\nand singeing his new parki while his hands grew stiff in spite of\nseal-skin mittens.\n\nNo, it was no fun camping with the temperature at thirty degrees below\nzero--better to be trotting after those expensive and dinnerless dogs;\nand he was glad when they started again.\n\nBut once beyond the scant shelter of the cottonwood, it was evident the\nwind had risen. It was blowing straight out of the north and into their\nfaces. There were times when you could lean your whole weight against\nthe blast.\n\nAfter sunset the air began to fill with particles of frozen snow. They\ndid not seem to fall, but continually to whirl about, and present\nstinging points to the travellers' faces. Talking wasn't possible even\nif you were in the humour, and the dead, blank silence of all nature,\nunbroken hour after hour, became as nerve-wearing as the cold and\nstinging wind. The Boy fell behind a little. Those places on his heels\nthat had been so badly galled had begun to be troublesome again. Well,\nit wouldn't do any good to holla about it--the only thing to do was to\nharden one's foolish feet. But in his heart he felt that all the\ntime-honoured conditions of a penitential journey were being complied\nwith, except on the part of the arch sinner. Ol' Chief seemed to be\ngetting on first-rate.\n\nThe dogs, hardly yet broken in to the winter's work, were growing\ndiscouraged, travelling so long in the eye of the wind. And Nicholas,\nin the kind of stolid depression that had taken possession of him,\nseemed to have forgotten even to shout \"Mush!\" for a very long time.\n\nBy-and-by Ol' Chief called out sharply, and Nicholas seemed to wake up.\nHe stopped, looked back, and beckoned to his companion.\n\nThe Boy came slowly on.\n\n\"Why you no push?\"\n\n\"Push what?\"\n\n\"Handle-bar.\"\n\nHe went to the sled and illustrated, laying his hands on the\narrangement at the back that stood out like the handle behind a baby's\nperambulator. The Boy remembered. Of course, there were usually two men\nwith each sled. One ran ahead and broke trail with snow-shoes, but that\nwasn't necessary today, for the crust bore. But the other man's\nbusiness was to guide the sled from behind and keep it on the trail.\n\n\"Me gottah drive, you gottah push. Dogs heap tired.\"\n\nNicholas spoke severely. The Boy stared a moment at what he mentally\ncalled \"the nerve of the fella,\" laughed, and took hold, swallowing\nNicholas's intimation that he, after all, was far more considerate of\nthe dogs than the person merely sentimental, who had been willing to\nshare his dinner with them.\n\n\"How much farther?\"\n\n\"Oh, pretty quick now.\"\n\nThe driver cracked his whip, called out to the dogs, and suddenly\nturned off from the river course. Unerringly he followed an invisible\ntrail, turning sharply up a slough, and went zig-zagging on without\napparent plan. It was better going when they got to a frozen lake, and\nthe dogs seemed not to need so much encouragement. It would appear an\nimpossible task to steer accurately with so little light; but once on\nthe other side of the lake it was found that Nicholas had hit a\nwell-beaten track as neatly as a thread finds the needle's eye.\n\nFar off, out of the dimness, came a sound--welcome because it was\nsomething to break the silence but hardly cheerful in itself.\n\n\"Hear that, Nicholas?\"\n\n\"Mission dogs.\"\n\nTheir own had already thrown up their noses and bettered the pace.\n\nThe barking of the dogs had not only announced the mission to the\ntravellers, but to the mission a stranger at the gates.\n\nBefore anything could be seen of the settlement, clumsy, fur-clad\nfigures had come running down the <DW72> and across the ice, greeting\nNicholas with hilarity.\n\nIndian or Esquimaux boys they seemed to be, who talked some jargon\nunderstanded of the Pymeut pilot. The Boy, lifting tired eyes, saw\nsomething white glimmering high in the air up on the right river bank.\nIn this light it refused to form part of any conceivable plan, but hung\nthere in the air detached, enigmatic, spectral. Below it, more on\nhumanity's level, could be dimly distinguished, now, the Mission\nBuildings, apparently in two groups with an open space in the middle.\nWhere are the white people? wondered the Boy, childishly impatient.\nWon't they come and welcome us? He followed the Esquimaux and Indians\nfrom the river up to the left group of buildings. With the heathen\njargon beating on his ears, he looked up suddenly, and realized what\nthe white thing was that had shone out so far. In the middle of the\nopen space a wooden cross stood up, encrusted with frost crystals, and\nlifting gleaming arms out of the gloom twenty feet or so above the\nheads of the people.\n\n\"Funny thing for an Agnostic,\" he admitted to himself, \"but I'm right\nglad to see a Christian sign.\" And as he knocked at the door of the big\ntwo-story log-house on the left he defended himself. \"It's the\nswing-back of the pendulum after a big dose of Pymeut and heathen\ntricks. I welcome it as a mark of the white man.\" He looked over his\nshoulder a little defiantly at the Holy Cross. Recognition of what the\nhigh white apparition was had given him a queer jolt, stirring\nunsuspected things in imagination and in memory. He had been accustomed\nto see that symbol all his life, and it had never spoken to him before.\nUp here it cried aloud and dominated the scene. \"Humph!\" he said to\nhimself, \"to look at you a body'd think 'The Origin' had never been\nwritten, and Spencer and Huxley had never been born.' He knocked again,\nand again turned about to scan the cross.\n\n\"Just as much a superstition, just as much a fetich as Kaviak's\nseal-plug or the Shaman's eagle feather. With long looking at a couple\nof crossed sticks men grow as dazed, as hypnotized, as Pymeuts watching\na Shaman's ivory wand. All the same, I'm not sure that faith in 'First\nPrinciples' would build a house like this in the Arctic Regions, and\nit's convenient to find it here--if only they'd open the door.\"\n\nHe gave another thundering knock, and then nearly fell backwards into\nthe snow, for Brother Paul stood on the threshold holding up a lamp.\n\n\"I--a--oh! How do you do? Can I come in?\"\n\nBrother Paul, still with the look of the Avenging Angel on his pale,\nyoung face, held the door open to let the Boy come in. Then, leaning\nout into the night and lifting the lamp high, \"Is that Nicholas?\" he\nsaid sternly.\n\nBut the Pymeuts and the school-boys had vanished. He came in and set\ndown the lamp.\n\n\"We--a--we heard you were going down river,\" said the Boy, tamely, for\nhe had not yet recovered himself after such an unexpected blow.\n\n\"Are you cold? Are you wet?\" demanded Brother Paul, standing erect,\nunwelcoming, by the table that held the lamp.\n\nThe Boy pulled himself together.\n\n\"Look here\"--he turned away from the comforting stove and confronted\nthe Jesuit--\"those Pymeuts are not only cold and wet and sick too, but\nthey're sorry. They've come to ask forgiveness.\"\n\n\"It's easily done.\"\n\nSuch scorn you would hardly expect from a follower of the meek\nGalilean.\n\n\"No, not easily done, a penance like this. I know, for I've just\ntravelled that thirty miles with 'em over the ice from Pymeut.\"\n\n\"You? Yes, it amuses you.\"\n\nThe sombre eyes shone with a cold, disconcerting light.\n\n\"Well, to tell you the truth, I've been better amused.\"\n\nThe Boy looked down at his weary, wounded feet. And the others--where\nwere his fellow pilgrims? It struck him as comic that the upshot of the\njourney should be that he was doing penance for the Pymeuts, but he\ncouldn't smile with that offended archangel in front of him.\n\n\"Thirty miles over the ice, in the face of a norther, hasn't been so\n'easy' even for me. And I'm not old, nor sick--no, nor frightened,\nBrother Paul.\"\n\nHe flung up his head, but his heart failed him even while he made the\nboast. Silently, for a moment, they confronted each other.\n\n\"Where are you bound for?\"\n\n\"I--a--\" The Boy had a moment of wondering if he was expected to answer\n\"Hell,\" and he hesitated.\n\n\"Are you on your way up the river?\"\n\n\"No--I\" (was the man not going to let them rest their wicked bones\nthere a single night?)--\"a--I--\"\n\nThe frozen river and the wind-racked wood were as hospitable as the\nbeautiful face of the brother. Involuntarily the Boy shivered.\n\n\"I came to see the Father Superior.\"\n\nHe dropped back into a chair.\n\n\"The Father Superior is busy.\"\n\n\"I'll wait.\"\n\n\"And very tired.\"\n\n\"So'm I.\"\n\n\"--worn out with the long raging of the plague. I have waited till he\nis less harassed to tell him about the Pymeuts' deliberate depravity.\nNicholas, too!--one of our own people, one of the first pupils of the\nschool, a communicant in the church; distinguished by a thousand\nkindnesses. And this the return!\"\n\n\"The return is that he takes his backsliding so to heart, he can't rest\nwithout coming to confess and to beg the Father Superior--\"\n\n\"I shall tell the Father Superior what I heard and saw. He will agree\nthat, for the sake of others who are trying to resist temptation, an\nexample should be made of Nicholas and of his father.\"\n\n\"And yet you nursed the old man and were kind to him, I believe, after\nthe offense.\"\n\n\"I--I thought you had killed him. But even you must see that we cannot\nhave a man received here as Nicholas was--the most favoured child of\nthe mission--who helps to perpetuate the degrading blasphemies of his\nunhappy race. It's nothing to you; you even encourage--\"\n\n\"'Pon my soul--\" But Brother Paul struck in with an impassioned\nearnestness:\n\n\"We spend a life-time making Christians of these people; and such as\nyou come here, and in a week undo the work of years.\"\n\n\"I--_I?_\"\n\n\"It's only eighteen months since I myself came, but already I've\nseen--\" The torrent poured out with never a pause. \"Last summer some\nwhite prospectors bribed our best native teacher to leave us and become\na guide. He's a drunken wreck now somewhere up on the Yukon Flats. You\ntake our boys for pilots, you entice our girls away with trinkets--\"\n\n\"Great Caesar! _I_ don't.\"\n\nBut vain was protest. For Brother Paul the visitor was not a particular\nindividual. He stood there for the type of the vicious white\nadventurer.\n\nThe sunken eyes of the lay-brother, burning, impersonal, saw not a\nparticular young man and a case compounded of mixed elements, but--The\nEnemy! against whom night and day he waged incessant warfare.\n\n\"The Fathers and Sisters wear out their lives to save these people. We\nteach them with incredible pains the fundamental rules of civilization;\nwe teach them how to save their souls alive.\" The Boy had jumped up and\nlaid his hand on the door-knob. \"_You_ come. You teach them to smoke--\"\n\nThe Boy wheeled round.\n\n\"I don't smoke.\"\n\n\"... and to gamble.\"\n\n\"Nicholas taught _me_ to gamble. Brother Paul, I swear--\"\n\n\"Yes, and to swear and get drunk, and so find the shortest way to\nhell.\"\n\n\"Father Brachet! Father Wills!\" a voice called without.\n\nThe door-knob turned under the Boy's hand, and before he could more\nthan draw back, a whiff of winter blew into the room, and a creature\nstood there such as no man looks to find on his way to an Arctic gold\ncamp. A girl of twenty odd, with the face of a saint, dressed in the\nblack habit of the Order of St. Anne.\n\n\"Oh, Brother Paul! you are wanted--wanted quickly. I think Catherine is\nworse; don't wait, or she'll die without--\" And as suddenly as she came\nthe vision vanished, carrying Brother Paul in the wake of her streaming\nveil.\n\nThe Boy sat down by the stove, cogitating how he should best set about\nfinding Nicholas to explain the failure of their mission.... What was\nthat? Voices from the other side. The opposite door opened and a man\nappeared, with Nicholas and his father close behind, looking anything\nbut cast down or decently penitential.\n\n\"How do you do?\" The white man's English had a strong French accent. He\nshook hands with great cordiality. \"We have heard of you from Father\nWills also. These Pymeut friends of ours say you have something to tell\nme.\"\n\nHe spoke as though this something were expected to be highly\ngratifying, and, indeed, the cheerfulness of Nicholas and his father\nwould indicate as much.\n\nAs the Boy, hesitating, did not accept the chair offered, smiling, the\nJesuit went on:\n\n\"Will you talk of zis matter--whatever it is--first, or will you first\ngo up and wash, and have our conference after supper?\"\n\n\"No, thank you--a--Are you the Father Superior?\"\n\nHe bowed a little ceremoniously, but still smiling.\n\n\"I am Father Brachet.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, Nicholas is right. The first thing to do is to explain why\nwe're here.\"\n\nWas it the heat of the stove after the long hours of cold that made him\nfeel a little dizzy? He put up his hand to his head.\n\n\"I have told zem to take hot water upstairs,\" the Father was saying,\n\"and I zink a glass of toddy would be a good sing for you.\" He slightly\nemphasised the \"you,\" and turned as if to supplement the original\norder.\n\n\"No, no!\" the Boy called after him, choking a little, half with\nsuppressed merriment, half with nervous fatigue. \"Father Brachet, if\nyou're kind to us, Brother Paul will never forgive you. We're all in\ndisgrace.\"\n\n\"Hein! What?\"\n\n\"Yes, we're all desperately wicked.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" objected Nicholas, ready to go back on so tactless an\nadvocate.\n\n\"And Brother Paul has just been saying--\"\n\n\"What is it, what is it?\"\n\nThe Father Superior spoke a little sharply, and himself sat down in the\nwooden armchair he before had placed for his white guest.\n\nThe three culprits stood in front of him on a dead level of iniquity.\n\n\"You see, Father Brachet, Ol' Chief has been very ill--\"\n\n\"I know. Much as we needed him here, Paul insisted on hurrying back to\nPymeut\"--he interrupted himself as readily as he had interrupted the\nBoy--\"but ze Ol' Chief looks lively enough.\"\n\n\"Yes; he--a--his spirits have been raised by--a--what you will think an\nunwarrantable and wicked means.\"\n\nNicholas understood, at least, that objectionable word \"wicked\"\ncropping up again, and he was not prepared to stand it from the Boy.\n\nHe grunted with displeasure, and said something low to his father.\n\n\"Brother Paul found them--found _us_ having a seance with the Shaman.\"\n\nFather Brachet turned sharply to the natives.\n\n\"Ha! you go back to zat.\"\n\nNicholas came a step forward, twisting his mittens and rolling his eye\nexcitedly.\n\n\"Us no wicked. Shaman say he gottah scare off--\" He waved his arm\nagainst an invisible army. Then, as it were, stung into plain speaking:\n\"Shaman say _white man_ bring sickness--bring devils--\"\n\n\"Maybe the old Orang Outang's right.\"\n\nThe Boy drew a tired breath, and sat down without bidding in one of the\nwooden chairs. What an idiot he'd been not to take the hot grog and the\nhot bath, and leave these people to fight their foolishness out among\nthemselves! It didn't concern him. And here was Nicholas talking away\ncomfortably in his own tongue, and the Father was answering. A native\nopened the door and peeped in cautiously.\n\nNicholas paused.\n\n\"Hein!\" said Father Brachet, \"what is it!\"\n\nThe Indian came in with two cups of hot tea and a cracker in each\nsaucer. He stopped at the priest's side.\n\n\"You get sick, too. Please take. Supper little late.\" He nodded to\nNicholas, and gave the white stranger the second cup. As he was going\nout: \"Same man here in July. You know\"--he tapped himself on the left\nside--\"man with sore heart.\"\n\n\"Yansey?\" said the priest quickly. \"Well, what about Yansey?\"\n\n\"He is here.\"\n\n\"But no! Wiz zose ozzers?\"\n\n\"No, I think they took the dogs and deserted him. He's just been\nbrought in by our boys; they are back with the moose-meat. Sore heart\nworse. He will die.\"\n\n\"Who's looking after him?\"\n\n\"Brother Paul\"; and he padded out of the room in his soft native shoes.\n\n\"Then Brother Paul has polished off Catherine,\" thought the Boy, \"and\nhe won't waste much time over a sore heart. It behoves us to hurry up\nwith our penitence.\" This seemed to be Nicholas's view as well. He was\nbeginning again in his own tongue.\n\n\"You know we like best for you to practise your English,\" said the\npriest gently; \"I expect you speak very well after working so long on\nze John J. Healy.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Nicholas straightened himself. \"Me talk all same white man now.\"\n(He gleamed at the Boy: \"Don't suppose I need you and your perfidious\ntongue.\") \"No; us Pymeuts no wicked!\"\n\nAgain he turned away from the priest, and challenged the Boy to repeat\nthe slander. Then with an insinuating air, \"Shaman no say you wicked,\"\nhe reassured the Father. \"Shaman say Holy Cross all right. Cheechalko\nno good; Cheechalko bring devils; Cheechalko all same _him_,\" he wound\nup, flinging subterfuge to the winds, and openly indicating his\nfaithless ambassador.\n\n\"Strikes me I'm gettin' the worst of this argument all round. Brother\nPaul's been sailing into me on pretty much the same tack.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Nicholas, firmly; \"Brother Paul no unnerstan'. _You_\nunnerstan'.\" He came still nearer to the Father, speaking in a\nfriendly, confidential tone. \"You savvy! Plague come on steamboat up\nfrom St. Michael. One white man, he got coast sickness. Sun shining.\nSalmon run big. Yukon full o' boats. Two days: no canoe on river. Men\nall sit in tent like so.\" He let his mittens fall on the floor,\ncrouched on his heels, and rocked his head in his hands. Springing up,\nhe went on with slow, sorrowful emphasis: \"Men begin die--\"\n\n\"Zen we come,\" said the Father, \"wiz nurses and proper medicine--\"\n\nNicholas gave the ghost of a shrug, adding the damaging fact: \"Sickness\ncome to Holy Cross.\"\n\nThe Father nodded.\n\n\"We've had to turn ze schools into wards for our patients,\" he\nexplained to the stranger. \"We do little now but nurse ze sick and\nprepare ze dying. Ze Muzzer Superieure has broken down after heroic\nlabours. Paul, I fear, is sickening too. Yes, it's true: ze disease\ncame to us from Pymeut.\"\n\nIn the Father's mind was the thought of contagion courageously faced in\norder to succour \"the least of these my brethren.\" In Nicholas's mind\nwas the perplexing fact that these white men could bring sickness, but\nnot stay it. Even the heap good people at Holy Cross were not saved by\ntheir deaf and impotent God.\n\n\"Fathers sick, eight Sisters sick, boy die in school, three girl die.\nHoly Cross people kind--\" Again he made that almost French motion of\nthe shoulders. \"Shaman say, 'Peeluck!' No good be kind to devils; scare\n'em--make 'em run.\"\n\n\"Nicholas,\" the priest spoke wearily, \"I am ashamed of you. I sought\nyou had learned better. Zat old Shaman--he is a rare old rogue. What\ndid you give him?\"\n\nNicholas' mental processes may not have been flattering, but their\nclearness was unmistakable. If Father Brachet was jealous of the rival\nholy man's revenue, it was time to bring out the presents.\n\nOl' Chief had a fine lynx-skin over his arm. He advanced at a word from\nNicholas, and laid it down before the Father.\n\n\"No!\" said Father Brachet, with startling suddenness; \"take it away and\ntry to understand.\"\n\nNicholas approached trembling, but no doubt remembering how necessary\nit had been to add to the Shaman's offering before he would consent to\nlisten with favour to Pymeut prayers, he pulled out of their respective\nhiding--places about his person a carved ivory spoon and an embroidered\nbird-skin pouch, advanced boldly under the fire of the Superior's keen\neyes and sharp words, and laid the further offering on the lynx-skin at\nhis feet.\n\n\"Take zem away,\" said the priest, interrupting his brief homily and\nstanding up. \"Don't you understand yet zat we are your friends wizzout\nmoney and wizzout price? We do not want zese sings. Shaman takes\nivories from ze poor, furs from ze shivering, and food from zem zat\nstarve. And he gives nossing in return--nossing! Take zese sings away;\nno one wants zem at Holy Cross.\"\n\nOl' Chief wiped his eyes pathetically. Nicholas, the picture of\ndespair, turned in a speechless appeal to his despised ambassador.\nBefore anyone could speak, the door-knob rattled rudely, and the big\nbullet-head of a white man was put in.\n\n\"Pardon, mon Pere; cet homme qui vient de Minook--faudrait le coucher\nde suite--mais ou, mon Dieu, ou?\"\n\nWhile the Superior cogitated, \"How-do, Brother Etienne?\" said Nicholas,\nand they nodded.\n\nBrother Etienne brought the rest of his heavy body half inside the\ndoor. He wore aged, weather-beaten breeches, and a black sweater over\nan old hickory shirt.\n\n\"Ses compagnons l'ont laisse, la, je crois. Mais ca ne durera pas\nlongtemps.\"\n\n\"Faudra bien qu'il reste ici--je ne vois pas d'autre moyen,\" said the\nFather. \"Enfin--on verra. Attendez quelques instants.\"\n\n\"C'est bien.\" Brother Etienne went out.\n\nOl' Chief was pulling the Boy's sleeve during the little colloquy, and\nsaying, \"You tell.\" But the Boy got up like one who means to make an\nend.\n\n\"You haven't any time or strength for this--\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Father Brachet, smiling, and arresting the impetuous\nmovement. \"Ziz is--part of it.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the Boy, still hesitating, \"they _are_ sorry, you know,\n_really_ sorry.\"\n\n\"You sink so?\" The question rang a little sceptically.\n\n\"Yes, I do, and I'm in a position to know. You'd forgive them if you'd\nseen, as I did, how miserable and overwhelmed they were when Brother\nPaul--when--I'm not saying it's the highest kind of religion that\nthey're so almighty afraid of losing your good opinion, but it--it\ngives you a hold, doesn't it?\" And then, as the Superior said nothing,\nonly kept intent eyes on the young face, the Boy wound up a little\nangrily: \"Unless, of course, you're like Brother Paul, ready to throw\naway the power you've gained--\"\n\n\"Paul serves a great and noble purpose--but--zese questions are--a--not\nin his province.\" Still he bored into the young face with those kind\ngimlets, his good little eyes, and--\n\n\"You are--one of us?\" he asked, \"of ze Church?\"\n\n\"No, I--I'm afraid I'm not of any Church.\"\n\n\"Ah!\"\n\n\"And I ought to take back 'afraid.' But I'm telling you the truth when\nI say there never were honester penitents than the Pymeuts. The whole\nKachime's miserable. Even the girl, Ol' Chief's daughter she cried like\nanything when she thought Sister--\"\n\n\"Winifred?\"\n\n\"Sister Winifred would be disappointed in her.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes; Sister Winifred has zem--\" he held out his hand, spread the\nfingers apart, and slowly, gently closed them. \"Comme ca.\"\n\n\"But what's the good of it if Brother Paul--\"\n\n\"Ah, it is not just zere Paul comes in. But I tell you, my son, Paul\ndoes a work here no ozzer man has done so well.\"\n\n\"He is a flint--a fanatic.\"\n\n\"Fanatique!\" He flung out an expressive hand. \"It is a name, my son. It\noften means no more but zat a man is in earnest. Out of such a 'flint'\nwe strike sparks, and many a generous fire is set alight. We all do\nwhat we can here at Holy Cross, but Paul will do what we cannot.\"\n\n\"Well, give _me_--\" He was on the point of saying \"Father Wills,\" but\nchanged it to \"a man who is tolerant.\"\n\n\"Tolerant? Zere are plenty to be tolerant, my son. Ze world is full.\nBut when you find a man zat can _care_, zat can be 'fanatique'--ah! It\nis\"--he came a little nearer--\"it is but as if I would look at you and\nsay, 'He has earnest eyes! He will go far _whatever_ road he follow.'\"\nHe drew off, smiling shrewdly. \"You may live, my son, to be yourself\ncalled 'fanatique.' Zen you will know how little--\"\n\n\"I!\" the Boy broke in. \"You are pretty wide of the mark this time.\"\n\n\"Ah, perhaps! But zere are more trails zan ze Yukon for a fanatique.\nYou have zere somesing to show me?\"\n\n\"I promised the girl that cried so--I promised her to bring the Sister\nthis.\" He had pulled out the picture. In spite of the careful wrapping,\nit had got rather crumpled. The Father looked at it, and then a swift\nglance passed between him and the Boy.\n\n\"You could see it was like pulling out teeth to part with it. Can it go\nup there till the Sister sends for it?\"\n\nFather Brachet nodded, and the gorgeous worldling, counselling all men\nto \"Smoke Kentucky Leaf!\" was set up in the high place of honour on the\nmantel-shelf, beside a print of the Madonna and the Holy Child.\nNicholas cheered up at this, and Ol' Chief stopped wiping his eyes.\nWhile the Boy stood at the mantel with his back to Father Brachet,\nacting on a sudden impulse, he pulled the ivory pen-rest out of his\nshirt, and stuck its various parts together, saying as he did so, \"She\nsent an offering to you, too. If the Ol' Chief an' I fail to convince\nyou of our penitence, we're all willin' to let this gentleman plead for\nus.\" Whereupon he wheeled round and held up the Woeful One before the\nFather's eyes.\n\nThe priest grasped the offering with an almost convulsive joy, and\ninstantly turned his back that the Pymeuts might not see the laugh that\ntwisted up his humorous old features. The penitents looked at each\nother, and telegraphed in Pymeut that after all the Boy had come up to\ntime. The Father had refused the valuable lynx-skin and Nicholas'\nsuperior spoon, but was ready, it appeared, to look with favour on\nanything the Boy offered.\n\nBut very seriously the priest turned round upon the Pymeuts. \"I will\njust say a word to you before we wash and go in to supper.\" With a\nkindly gravity he pronounced a few simple sentences about the\ngentleness of Christ with the ignorant, but how offended the Heavenly\nFather was when those who knew the true God descended to idolatrous\npractices, and how entirely He could be depended upon to punish wicked\npeople.\n\nOl' Chief nodded vigorously and with sudden excitement. \"Me jus' like\nGod.\"\n\n\"Hein?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. Me no stan' wicked people. When me young me kill two ol'\nsquaws--_witches!_\" With an outward gesture of his lean claws he swept\nthese wicked ones off the face of the earth, like a besom of the Lord.\n\nA sudden change had passed over the tired face of the priest. \"Go, go!\"\nhe called out, driving the Pymeuts forth as one shoos chickens out of a\ngarden. \"Go to ze schoolhouse and get fed, for it's all you seem able\nto get zere.\"\n\nBut the perplexed flight of the Pymeuts was arrested. Brother Paul and\nBrother Etienne blocked the way with a stretcher. They all stood back\nto let the little procession come in. Nobody noticed them further, but\nthe Pymeuts scuttled away the instant they could get by. The Boy,\nequally forgotten, sat down in a corner, while the three priests\nconferred in low-voiced French over the prostrate figure.\n\n\"Father Brachet,\" a weak voice came up from the floor.\n\nBrother Paul hurried out, calling Brother Etienne softly from the door.\n\n\"I am here.\" The Superior came from the foot of the pallet, and knelt\ndown near the head.\n\n\"You--remember what you said last July?\"\n\n\"About--\"\n\n\"About making restitution.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, I can do it now.\"\n\n\"I am glad.\"\n\n\"I've brought you the papers. That's why--I--_had_ to come. Will\nyou--take them--out of my--\"\n\nThe priest unbuckled a travel-stained buckskin miner's belt and laid it\non the floor. All the many pockets were empty save the long one in the\nmiddle. He unbuttoned the flap and took out some soiled, worn-looking\npapers. \"Are zese in proper form?\" he asked, but the man seemed to have\ndropped into unconsciousness. Hurriedly the priest added: \"Zere is no\ntime to read zem. Ah! Mr.--will you come and witness zis last will and\ntestament?\"\n\nThe Boy got up and stood near. The man from Minook opened his eyes.\n\n\"Here!\" The priest had got writing materials, and put a pen into the\nslack hand, with a block of letter-paper under it.\n\n\"I--I'm no lawyer,\" said the faint voice, \"but I think it's all--in\nshape. Anyhow--you write--and I'll sign.\" He half closed his eyes, and\nthe paper slipped from under his hand. The Boy caught it, and set down\nthe faint words:--\"will and bequeath to John M. Berg, Kansas City, my\nright and title to claim No. 11 Above, Little Minook, Yukon Ramparts--\"\n\nAnd the voice fell away into silence. They waited a moment, and the\nSuperior whispered:\n\n\"Can you sign it?\"\n\nThe dull eyes opened. \"Didn't I--?\"\n\nFather Brachet held him up; the Boy gave him the pen and steadied the\npaper. \"Thank you, Father. Obliged to you, too.\" He turned his dimming\neyes upon the Boy, who wrote his name in witness. \"You--going to\nMinook?\"\n\n\"I hope so.\"\n\nThe Father went to the writing-table, where he tied up and sealed the\npacket.\n\n\"Anybody that's going to Minook will have to hustle.\" The slang of\neveryday energy sounded strangely from dying lips--almost a whisper,\nand yet like a far-off bugle calling a captive to battle.\n\nThe Boy leaned down to catch the words, yet fainter:\n\n\"Good claims going like hot cakes.\"\n\n\"How much,\" the Boy asked, breathless, \"did you get out of yours?\"\n\n\"Waiting till summer. Nex' summer--\" The eyelids fell.\n\n\"So it isn't a fake after all.\" The Boy stood up. \"The camp's all\nright!\"\n\n\"You'll see. It will out-boom the Klondyke.\"\n\n\"Ha! How long have you been making the trip?\"\n\n\"Since August.\"\n\nThe wild flame of enterprise sunk in the heart of the hearer.\n\n\"Since _August_?\"\n\n\"No cash for steamers; we had a canoe. She went to pieces up by--\" The\nweak voice fell down into that deep gulf that yawns waiting for man's\nlast word.\n\n\"But there is gold at Minook, you're sure? You've seen it?\"\n\nThe Father Superior locked away the packet and stood up. But the Boy\nwas bending down fascinated, listening at the white lips. \"There is\ngold there?\" he repeated.\n\nOut of the gulf came faintly back like an echo:\n\n\"Plenty o' gold there--plenty o' gold.\"\n\n\"Jee-rusalem!\" He stood up and found himself opposite the contemplative\nface of the priest.\n\n\"We have neglected you, my son. Come upstairs to my room.\"\n\nThey went out, the old head bent, and full of thought; the young head\nhigh, and full of dreams. Oh, to reach this Minook, where there was\n\"plenty of gold, plenty of gold,\" before the spring floods brought\nthousands. What did any risk matter? Think of the Pymeuts doing their\nsixty miles over the ice just to apologise to Father Brachet for being\nPymeuts. This other, this white man's penance might, would involve a\ngreater mortification of the flesh. What then? The reward was\nproportionate--\"plenty of gold.\" The faint whisper filled the air.\n\nA little more hardship, and the long process of fortune-building is\nshortened to a few months. No more office grind. No more anxiety for\nthose one loves.\n\nGold, plenty of gold, while one is young and can spend it gaily--gold\nto buy back the Orange Grove, to buy freedom and power, to buy wings,\nand to buy happiness!\n\nOn the stairs they passed Brother Paul and the native.\n\n\"Supper in five minutes, Father.\"\n\nThe Superior nodded.\n\n\"There is a great deal to do,\" the native went on hurriedly to Paul.\n\"We've got to bury Catherine to-morrow--\"\n\n\"And this man from Minook,\" agreed Paul, pausing with his hand on the\ndoor.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nKAVIAK'S CRIME\n\n  \"My little son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes,\n   And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,\n   Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,\n   I struck him, and dismiss'd\n   With hard words and unkiss'd....\"\n\n\nEven with the plague and Brother Paul raging at the mission--even with\neveryone preoccupied by the claims of dead and dying, the Boy would\nhave been glad to prolong his stay had it not been for \"nagging\"\nthoughts of the Colonel. As it was, with the mercury rapidly rising and\nthe wind fallen, he got the Pymeuts on the trail next day at noon,\nspent what was left of the night at the Kachime, and set off for camp\nearly the following day. He arrived something of a wreck, and with an\nenormous respect for the Yukon trail.\n\nIt did him good to sight the big chimney, and still more to see the big\nColonel putting on his snow-shoes near the bottom of the hill, where\nthe cabin trail met the river trail. When the Boss o' the camp looked\nup and saw the prodigal coming along, rather groggy on his legs, he\njust stood still a moment. Then he kicked off his web-feet, turned back\na few paces uphill, and sat down on a spruce stump, folded his arms,\nand waited. Was it the knapsack on his back that bowed him so?\n\n\"Hello, Kentucky!\"\n\nBut the Colonel didn't look up till the Boy got quite near, chanting in\nhis tuneless voice:\n\n   \"'Grasshoppah sett'n on a swee' p'tater vine,\n     Swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'tater vine--'\"\n\n\"What's the matter, hey, Colonel? Sorry as all that to see me back?\"\n\n\"Reckon it's the kind o' sorrah I can bear,\" said the Colonel. \"We\nthought you were dead.\"\n\n\"You ought t' known me better. Were you just sendin' out a rescue-party\nof one?\"\n\nThe Colonel nodded. \"That party would have started before, but I cut my\nfoot with the axe the day you left. Where have you been, in the name o'\nthe nation?\"\n\n\"Pymeut an' Holy Cross.\"\n\n\"Holy Cross? Holy Moses! _You?_\"\n\n\"Yes; and do you know, one thing I saw there gave me a serious nervous\nshock.\"\n\n\"That don't surprise me. What was it?\"\n\n\"Sheets. When I came to go to bed--a real bed, Colonel, on legs--I\nfound I was expected to sleep between sheets, and I just about\nfainted.\"\n\n\"That the only shock you had?\"\n\n\"No, I had several. I saw an angel. I tell you straight, Colonel--you\ncan bank on what I'm sayin'--that Jesuit outfit's all right.\"\n\n\"Oh, you think so?\" The rejoinder came a little sharply.\n\n\"Yes, sir, I just do. I think I'd be bigoted not to admit it.\"\n\n\"So, you'll be thick as peas in a pod with the priests now?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm the one that can afford to be. They won't convert _me!_ And,\nfrom my point o' view, it don't matter what a man is s' long's he's a\ndecent fella.\"\n\nThe Colonel's only answer was to plunge obliquely uphill.\n\n\"Say, Boss, wait for me.\"\n\nThe Colonel looked back. The Boy was holding on to a scrub willow that\nput up wiry twigs above the snow.\n\n\"Feel as if I'd never get up the last rungs o' this darn ice-ladder!\"\n\n\"Tired? H'm! Something of a walk to Holy Cross even on a nice mild day\nlike this.\" The Colonel made the reflection with obvious satisfaction,\ntook off his knapsack, and sat down again. The Boy did the same. \"The\nvery day you lit out Father Orloff came up from the Russian mission.\"\n\n\"What's he like?\"\n\n\"Oh, little fella in petticoats, with a beard an' a high pot-hat, like\na Russian. And that same afternoon we had a half-breed trader fella\nhere, with two white men. Since that day we haven't seen a human\ncreature. We bought some furs of the trader. Where'd you get yours?\"\n\n\"Pymeut. Any news about the strike?\"\n\n\"Well, the trader fella was sure it was all gammon, and told us stories\nof men who'd sacrificed everything and joined a stampede, and got\nsold--sold badly. But the two crazy whites with him--miners from\nDakotah--they were on fire about Minook. Kept on bragging they hadn't\ncold feet, and swore they'd get near to the diggins as their dogs'd\ntake 'em. The half-breed said they might do a hundred miles more, but\nprobably wouldn't get beyond Anvik.\"\n\n\"Crazy fools! I tell you, to travel even thirty miles on the Yukon in\nwinter, even with a bully team and old Nick to drive 'em, and not an\nextra ounce on your back--I tell you, Colonel, it's no joke.\"\n\n\"B'lieve you, sonny.\"\n\nIt wasn't thirty seconds before sonny was adding: \"Did that half-breed\nthink it was any use our trying to get dogs?\"\n\n\"Ain't to be had now for love or money.\"\n\n\"Lord, Colonel, if we had a team--\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. We'll probably owe our lives to the fact that we\nhaven't.\"\n\nIt suddenly occurred to the Boy that, although he had just done a\npretty good tramp and felt he'd rather die than go fifty feet further,\nit was the Colonel who was most tired.\n\n\"How's everybody?\"\n\n\"Oh, I s'pose we might all of us be worse off.\"\n\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\nHe was so long answering that the Boy's eyes turned to follow the\nserious outward gaze of the older man, even before he lifted one hand\nand swept it down the hill and out across the dim, grey prospect.\n\n\"This,\" said the Colonel.\n\nTheir eyes had dropped down that last stretch of the steep snow <DW72>,\nacross the two miles of frozen river, and ran half round the wide\nhorizon-line, like creatures in a cage. Whether they liked it or\nwhether they didn't, for them there was no way out.\n\n\"It's the awful stillness.\" The Colonel arraigned the distant\nice-plains.\n\nThey sat there looking, listening, as if they hoped their protest might\nbring some signal of relenting. No creature, not even a crystal-coated\nwillow-twig, nothing on all the ice-bound earth stirred by as much as a\nhair; no mark of man past or present broke the grey monotony; no sound\nbut their two voices disturbed the stillness of the world. It was a\nquiet that penetrated, that pricked to vague alarm. Already both knew\nthe sting of it well.\n\n\"It's the kind of thing that gets on a fella's nerves,\" said the\nColonel. \"I don't know as I ever felt helpless in any part of the world\nbefore. But a man counts for precious little up here. Do you notice how\nyou come to listen to the silence?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I've noticed.\"\n\n\"Stop.\" Again he lifted his hand, and they strained their ears. \"I've\ndone that by the hour since you left and the daft gold-diggers went up\ntrail after you. The other fellas feel it, too. Don't know what we'd\nhave done without Kaviak. Think we ought to keep that kid, you know.\"\n\n\"I could get on without Kaviak if only we had some light. It's this\nvillainous twilight that gets into my head. All the same, you know\"--he\nstood up suddenly--\"we came expecting to stand a lot, didn't we?\"\n\nThe elder man nodded. \"Big game, big stakes. It's all right.\"\n\nEventless enough after this, except for the passing of an Indian or\ntwo, the days crawled by.\n\nThe Boy would get up first in the morning, rake out the dead ashes, put\non a couple of back-logs, bank them with ashes, and then build the fire\nin front. He broke the ice in the water-bucket, and washed; filled\ncoffee-pot and mush-kettle with water (or ice), and swung them over the\nfire; then he mixed the corn-bread, put it in the Dutch oven, covered\nit with coals, and left it to get on with its baking. Sometimes this\npart of the programme was varied by his mixing a hoe-cake on a board,\nand setting it up \"to do\" in front of the fire. Then he would call the\nColonel--\n\n  \"'Wake up Massa,\n     De day am breakin';\n   Peas in de pot, en de\n   Hoe-cake bakin''\"--\n\nfor it was the Colonel's affair to take up proceedings at this\npoint--make the coffee and the mush and keep it from burning, fry the\nbacon, and serve up breakfast.\n\nSaturday brought a slight variation in the early morning routine. The\nothers came straggling in, as usual, but once a week Mac was sure to be\nfirst, for he had to get Kaviak up. Mac's view of his whole duty to man\nseemed to centre in the Saturday scrubbing of Kaviak. Vainly had the\nEsquimer stood out against compliance with this most repulsive of\nforeign customs. He seemed to be always ready with some deep-laid\nscheme for turning the edge of Mac's iron resolution. He tried hiding\nat the bottom of the bed. It didn't work. The next time he crouched far\nback under the lower bunk. He was dragged out. Another Saturday he\nembedded himself, like a moth, in a bundle of old clothes. Mac shook\nhim out. He had been very sanguine the day he hid in the library. This\nwas a wooden box nailed to the wall on the right of the door. Most of\nthe bigger books--Byron, Wordsworth, Dana's \"Mineralogy,\" and two\nBibles--he had taken out and concealed in the lower bunk very\nskilfully, far back behind the Colonel's feet. Copps's \"Mining\" and the\ntwo works on \"Parliamentary Law\" piled at the end of the box served as\na pillow. After climbing in and folding himself up into an incredibly\nsmall space, Kaviak managed with superhuman skill to cover himself\nneatly with a patchwork quilt of\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}
{"id": "pg19_006", "title": "Ancestors by Gertrude Atherton", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31858", "tokens": 65536, "chars": 279512, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nPART I\n\n1904\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nMiss Thangue, who had never seen her friend's hand tremble among the\nteacups before, felt an edge on her mental appetite, stimulating after\ntwo monotonous years abroad. It was several minutes, however, before she\nmade any effort to relieve her curiosity, for of all her patron-friends\nVictoria Gwynne required the most delicate touch. Flora had learned to\nbe audacious without taking a liberty, which, indeed, was one secret of\nher success; but although she prided herself upon her reading of this\nenigma, whom even the ancestral dames of Capheaton looked down upon\ninspectively, she was never quite sure of her ground. She particularly\nwished to avoid mistakes upon the renewal of an intimacy kept alive by a\nfitful correspondence during her sojourn on the Continent. Quite apart\nfrom self-interest, she liked no one as well, and her curiosity was\ntempered by a warm sympathy and a genuine interest. It was this capacity\nfor friendship, and her unlimited good-nature, that had saved her,\npenniless as she was, from the ignominious footing of the social\nparasite. The daughter of a clergyman in a Yorkshire village, and the\nplaymate in childhood of the little girls of the castle near by, she had\nrealized early in life that although pretty and well-bred, she was not\nyet sufficiently dowered by either nature or fortune to hope for a\nbrilliant marriage; and she detested poverty. Upon her father's death\nshe must earn her bread, and, reasoning that self-support was merely the\nmarketing of one's essential commodity, and as her plump and indolent\nbody was disinclined to privations of any sort, she elected the role of\nuseful friend to fashionable and luxurious women. It was not an exalted\nniche to fill in life, but at least she had learned to fill it to\nperfection, and her ambitions were modest. Moreover, a certain integrity\nof character and girlish enthusiasm had saved her from the more\ncorrosive properties of her anomalous position, and she was not only\nclever enough to be frankly useful without servility, but she had become\nso indispensable to certain of her friends, that although still blooming\nin her early forties, she would no more have deserted them for a mere\nhusband than she would have renounced her comfortable and varied\nexistence for the no less varied uncertainties of matrimony.\n\nIt was not often that a kindly fate had overlooked her for so long a\nperiod as two years, and when she had accepted the invitation of one of\nthe old castle playmates to visit her in Florence, it had been with a\nlively anticipation that made dismay the more poignant in the face of\nhypochondria. Nevertheless, realizing her debt to this first of her\npatrons, and with much of her old affection revived, she wandered from\none capital and specialist to the next, until death gave her liberty.\nShe was not unrewarded, but the legacy inspired her with no desire for\nan establishment beyond her room at the Club in Dover Street, the\ncompanionship of friends not too exacting, the agreeable sense of\nindispensableness, and a certain splendor of environment which gave a\nwarmth and color to life; and which she could not have commanded had she\nset up in middle years as an independent spinster of limited income. She\nhad received many impatient letters while abroad, to which she had\nreplied with fluent affection and picturesque gossip, never losing touch\nfor a moment. When release came she had hastened home to book herself\nfor the house-parties, and with Victoria Gwynne, although one of the\nleast opulent of her friends, first on the list. She had had several\ncorrespondents as ardent as herself, and there was little gossip of the\nmore intimate sort that had not reached her sooner or later, but she\nfound subtle changes in Victoria for which she could not as yet account.\nShe had now been at Capheaton and alone with her friend for three days,\nbut there had been a stress of duties for both, and the hostess had\nnever been more silent. To-day, as she seemed even less inclined to\nconversation, although manifestly nervous, Miss Thangue merely drank her\ntea with an air of being too comfortable and happy in England and\nCapheaton for intellectual effort, and patiently waited for a cue or an\ninspiration. But although she too kept silence, memory and imagination\nheld rendezvous in her circumspect brain, and she stole more than one\nfurtive glance at her companion.\n\nLady Victoria Gwynne, one of the tallest women of her time and still one\nof the handsomest, had been extolled all her life for that fusion of the\nromantic and the aristocratic ideals that so rarely find each other in\nthe same shell; and loved by a few. Her round slender figure, supple\nwith exercise and ignorant of disease, her black hair and eyes, the\nutter absence of color in her smooth Orientally white skin, the mouth,\nfull at the middle and curving sharply upward at the corners, and the\nirregular yet delicate nose that seemed presented as an afterthought to\nsave that brilliant and subtle face from classic severity, made her\nlook--for the most part--as if fashioned for the picture-gallery or the\npoem, rather than for the commonplaces of life. Always one of those\nEnglishwomen that let their energy be felt rather than expressed, for\nshe made no effort in conversation whatever, her once mobile face had of\nlate years, without aging, composed itself into a sort of illuminated\nmask. As far as possible removed from that other ideal, the British\nMatron, and still suggesting an untamed something in the complex centres\nof her character, she yet looked so aloof, so monumental, that she had\nrecently been painted by a great artist for a world exhibition, as an\nillustration of what centuries of breeding and selection had done for\nthe noblewomen of England.\n\nSome years before, a subtle Frenchman had expressed her in such a\nfashion that while many vowed he had given to the world an epitome of\nromantic youth, others remarked cynically that his handsome subject\nlooked as if about to seat herself on the corner of the table and smoke\na cigarette. The American artist, although habitually cruel to his\npatrons, had, after triumphantly transferring the type to the canvas,\ndrawn to the surface only so much of the soul of the woman as all that\nran might admire. If there was a hint of bitterness in the lower part of\nthe face, from the eyes there looked an indomitable courage and much\nsweetness. Only in the carnage of the head, the tilt of the chin, was\nthe insolence expressed that had made her many enemies. Some of the\nwildest stories of the past thirty years had been current about her, and\nrejected or believed according to the mental habit or personal bias of\nthose that tinker with reputations. The late Queen, it was well known,\nhad detested her, and made no secret of her resentment that through the\nshort-sighted loyalty of one of the first members of her Household, the\ndangerous creature had been named after her. But whatever her secrets,\nopen scandal Lady Victoria had avoided: imperturbably, without even an\nadditional shade of insolence, never apologizing nor explaining;\nwherein, no doubt, lay one secret of her strength. And then her\neminently respectable husband, Arthur Gwynne, second son of the Marquess\nof Strathland and Zeal, had always fondly alluded to her as \"The\nMissus,\" and lauded her as a repository of all the unfashionable\nvirtues. To-day, presiding at the tea-table in her son's country-house,\nan eager light in her eyes, she looked like neither of her portraits:\nmore nearly approached, perhaps, poor Arthur Gwynne's ideal of her; not\nin the least the frozen stoic of the past three days. When she finally\nmade an uncontrollable movement that half-overturned the cream-jug,\nFlora Thangue's curiosity overcame her, and she murmured, tentatively:\n\n\"If I had ever seen you nervous before, Vicky--\"\n\n\"I am not nervous, but allowances are to be made for maternal anxiety.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" Miss Thangue drew a deep breath. She continued, vaguely, \"Oh, the\nmaternal role--\"\n\n\"Have I ever failed as a mother?\" asked Lady Victoria, dispassionately.\n\n\"No, but you are so many other things, too. Somehow, when I am away from\nyou I see you in almost every other capacity.\"\n\n\"Jack is thirty and I am forty-nine.\"\n\n\"_You_ look thirty,\" replied Flora, with equal candor.\n\n\"I am thankful that my age is in Lodge; I can never be tempted to enroll\nmyself with the millions that were married when just sixteen.\"\n\n\"Oh, you never could make a fool of yourself,\" murmured her friend.\nThen, as Victoria showed signs of relapsing into silence, she plunged in\nrecklessly; \"Jack is bound to be elected. When has he ever failed to get\nwhat he wanted? But you, Vicky dear--is there anything wrong? You had a\nbulky letter from California the day I arrived. I do hope that tiresome\nproperty is not giving you trouble. What a pity it is such a long way\noff.\"\n\n\"The San Francisco lease runs out shortly. Half of that, and the\nsouthern ranch, are my only independent sources of income. The northern\nranch belongs to Jack. All three are getting less and less easy to let\nin their entirety, my agents write me, and I feel half a pauper\nalready.\"\n\n\"This is not so bad,\" murmured Flora.\n\n\"Strathland would bundle me out in ten minutes if anything happened to\nJack.\"\n\n\"It would be a pity; it suits you.\" She was not referring to the hall,\nwhich was somewhat too light and small for the heroic mould of its\nchatelaine, but to the noble proportions of the old house itself, and\nthe treasures that had accumulated since the first foundations were laid\nin the reign of Henry VI. There were rooms hung with ugly brocades and\nvelvets never duplicated, state bed-chambers and boudoirs sacred to the\nmemory of personages whose dust lay half-forgotten in their marbles; but\nabove all, Capheaton was famous for its pictures. Not only was there an\nunusually large number of portraits by masters scattered about the\ntwenty rooms that lay behind and on either side of the hall, but many\nhundreds of those portraits and landscapes from the brushes of artists\nfashionable in their day, unknown in the annals of art, but seeming to\nemit a faint scent of lavender and rose leaves from the walls of\nEngland's old manor-houses and castles. In the dining-room there was a\nfull-length portrait of Mary Tudor, black but for the yellow face and\nhands and ruff; and another, the scarlet coat and robust complexion\nstill fresh, of the fourth George, handsome, gay, devil-may-care; both\npainted to commemorate visits to Capheaton, historically hospitable in\nthe past. But Lord Strathland, besides having been presented with six\ndaughters and an heir as extravagant as tradition demanded, was poor as\npeers go, and had more than once succumbed to the titillating delights\nof speculation, less cheering in the retrospect. Having a still larger\nestate to keep up, he had been glad to lend Capheaton to his second son,\nwho, being an excellent manager and assisted by his wife's income, had\nlived very comfortably upon its yield. Upon his death Elton Gwynne had\nassumed possession as a matter of course; and a handsome allowance from\nhis doting grandfather supplementing his inheritance, the mind of the\nhaughty and promising young gentleman was free of sordid anxieties.\n\nLady Victoria's satirical gaze swept the simpering portraits of her\nson's great-aunts and grandmothers, with which the hall was\npromiscuously hung.\n\n\"Of course I am as English as if the strain had never been crossed, if\nyou mean that. But I'd rather like to get away for a while. I really\nought to visit my California estates, and I have always wanted to see\nthat part of America. I started for it once, but never even reached the\nwestern boundaries of New York. One of us should spend a year there, at\nleast; and of course it is out of the question for Jack to leave England\nagain.\"\n\n\"You would not spend six months out of Curzon Street. You are the most\nconfirmed Londoner I know.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\"\n\nMiss Thangue replied, impulsively, \"I have often wondered if you\nnumbered satiety among your complexities!\"\n\nThis was as far as she had ever adventured into the mysterious\nbackwaters of Victoria's soul, and she dropped her eyelids lest a\ndeprecating glance meet the contempt it deserved; both with a due regard\nfor the limit imposed by good taste, despised the faint heart.\n\n\"I hate the sight of London!\" Her tone had changed so suddenly that\nFlora winked. \"If it were not for Jack I would leave--get out. I am sick\nof the whole game.\"\n\n\"Oh, be on your guard,\" cried her friend, sharply. \"That sort of thing\nmeans the end of youth.\"\n\n\"Youth after fifty depends upon your doctor, your masseuse, and your\ndressmaker. I do not say that my present state of mind is sown with\nevergreens and immortelles, but the fact remains that for the present I\nhave come to the end of myself and am interested in no one on earth but\nJack.\"\n\nMiss Thangue stared into her teacup, recalling the gossip of a year ago,\nalthough she had given it little heed at the time: Victoria had been\ntransiently interested so often! But all the world knew that when Arthur\nGwynne was killed Sir Cadge Vanneck had been off his head about\nVictoria; and that when obvious restrictions vanished into the family\nvault he had left abruptly for Rhodesia to develop his mines, and had\nnot found time to return since. Sir Cadge was about the same age as the\nfamous beauty, and rose quite two inches above her lofty head. People\nhad grown accustomed to the fine appearance they made when\ntogether--\"Artie\" was ruddy and stout--and although Victoria reinforced\nher enemies, for Vanneck was one of the most agreeable and accomplished\nmen in London, the artistic sense of that lenient world was tickled at\ntheir congruities and took their future mating for granted; Arthur\nGwynne was sure to meet his death on the hunting-field, for he was far\ntoo heavy for a horse and rode vilely. When he fulfilled his destiny and\nVanneck fled, the world was as much annoyed as amused. But they were\namused, and Flora Thangue knew that this gall must have bitten deeper\nthan the loss of Vanneck, who may or may not have made an impression on\nthis woman too proud and too spoiled to accept homage in public\notherwise than passively, whatever may have been the unwritten tale of\nher secret hours. The excuses hazarded by Vanneck's friends were neither\nhumorous nor sentimental, but no one denied that they were eminently\nsensible: his first wife had died childless, his estates were large, his\ntitle was one of the oldest in England. But although no one pitied\nVictoria Gwynne, many were annoyed at having their mental attitude\ndisarranged, and this no doubt had kept the gossip alive and been a\nconstant source of irritation to a woman whose sense of humor was as\ndeep as her pride.\n\nFlora replied at random. \"Jack couldn't very well get on without you.\"\n\nHis mother's eyes flashed. \"I flatter myself he could not--at present.\nIf Julia Kaye would only marry him!\"\n\n\"She won't,\" cried Flora, relieved at the change of tone. \"And\nwhy do you wish it? She is two years older, of quite dreadful\norigin--and--well--I don't like her; perhaps my opinion is a little\nbiased.\"\n\n\"She is immensely rich, one of the ablest political women in London, and\nJack is desperately in love with her.\"\n\n\"I cannot picture Jack in extremities about any one, although I don't\ndeny that he has his sentimental seizures. He even made love to me when\nhe was cutting his teeth. But he doesn't need a lot of money, you rank\nhigher than she among the political women, and--well, I believe her to\nbe bad-tempered, and more selfish than any woman I have ever known.\"\n\n\"He loves her. He wants her. He would dominate any woman he married. He\nis such a dear that no woman who lived with him could help loving him.\nMoreover, she is inordinately ambitious, and Jack's career is the most\npromising in England.\"\n\n\"Jack is far too good for her, and I am glad that he will not get her. I\nhappen to know that she has made up her mind to marry Lord Brathland.\"\n\n\"Bratty is a donkey.\"\n\n\"She would be the last to deny it, but he is certain to be a duke if he\nlives, and she would marry a man that had to be led round with a string\nfor the sake of being called 'your grace' by the servants. She'll never\nbe anything but a third-rate duchess, and people that tolerate her now\nwill snub her the moment she gives herself airs. But I suppose she\nthinks a duchess is a duchess.\"\n\n\"Money goes pretty far with us,\" said Lady Victoria, dryly.\n\n\"Doesn't it? Nevertheless--you know it as well as I do--among the people\nthat really count other things go further, and duchesses have been put\nin their place before this--you have done it yourself. Julia Kaye has\nkept her head so far because she has been hunting for strawberry leaves,\nand there is no denying she's clever; but once she is in the upper\nair--well, I have seen her as rude as she dares be, and if she became a\nduchess she would cultivate rudeness as part of the role.\"\n\n\"We can be rude enough.\"\n\n\"Yes, and know how to be. A parvenu never does.\"\n\n\"She is astonishingly clever.\"\n\n\"Duchesses are born--even the American ones. Julia Kaye has never\nsucceeded in being quite natural; she has always the effect of\nrehearsing the part of the great lady for amateur theatricals. Poor\nGussy Kaye might have coached her better. The moment she mounts she'll\nbecome wholly artificial, she'll patronize, she'll give herself no end\nof ridiculous airs; she won't move without sending a paragraph to the\n_Morning Post_. The back of her head will be quite in line with her\ncharming little bust, and I for one shall walk round and laugh in her\nface. She is the only person that could inspire me to such a vicious\nspeech, but I am human, and as she so ingenuously snubs me as a person\nof no consequence, my undazzled eyes see her as she is.\"\n\nLady Victoria, instead of responding with the faint, absent, somewhat\nirritating smile which she commonly vouchsafed those that sought to\namuse her, lit another cigarette and leaned back among the cushions of\nthe sofa behind the tea-table. She drew her eyelids together, a rare\nsign of perturbation. The only stigma of time on her face was a certain\nsharpness of outline and leanness of throat. But the throat was always\ncovered, and her wardrobe reflected the most fleeting of the fashions,\nassuring her position as a contemporary, if driving her dressmaker to\nthe verge of bankruptcy. When her bright, black, often laughing eyes\nwere in play she passed with the casual public, and abroad, as a woman\nof thirty, but with her lids down the sharpness of the lower part of the\nface arrested the lover of detail.\n\n\"Are you sure of that?\" she asked, in a moment.\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\n\"I am sorry. It will be a great blow to Jack. I hoped she would come\nround in time.\"\n\n\"She will marry Brathland. I saw Cecilia Spence in town. She was at\nMaundrell Abbey with them both last week. You may expect the\nannouncement any day--she'll write it herself for the _Morning Post_.\nHow on earth can Jack find time to think about women with the immense\namount of work he gets through?--and his really immodest ambitions!\nBy-the-way--isn't this polling-day? I wonder if he has won his seat? But\nas I said just now I do not associate Jack with defeat. His trifling\nset-backs have merely served to throw his manifest destiny into higher\nrelief.\"\n\n\"The telegram should have come an hour ago. I have few doubts--and yet\nhe has so many enemies. I wonder if we shall be born into a world, after\nwe have been sufficiently chastened here, where one can get one's head\nabove the multitude without rousing some of the most hideous qualities\nin human nature? It is a great responsibility! But there has been no\nsuch speaker, nor fighter, for a quarter of a century.\" Her eyes glowed\nagain. \"And heaven knows I have worked for him.\"\n\n\"What a pity he is not a Tory! He could have a dozen boroughs for the\nasking. I wish he were. The whole Liberal party makes me sick. And it is\nagainst every tradition of his family--\"\n\n\"As if that mattered. Besides, he is a born fighter. He'd hate anything\nhe could have for the asking. And he's far too modern, too progressive,\nfor the Conservative party--even if there were anything but blue-mould\nleft in it.\"\n\n\"Well, you know I am not original, and my poor old dad brought us up on\nthe soundest Tory principles; he never would even compromise on the word\nConservative. But considering that Jack is as Liberal as if the taint\nwere in the marrow of his bones, what a blessing that poor Artie did not\nhappen to be the oldest son. Cecilia says they were all talking of it at\nMaundrell Abbey, where of course it is a peculiarly interesting topic.\nThat ornamental and conscientious peer, Lord Barnstable, has never\nceased to regret his father's death, for reasons far removed from\nsentimental. He told Cecilia that Lord Strathland almost confessed to\nhim that he would give his right eye to hand over his old shoes to Jack,\nnot only because he detests Zeal, but because it would take the backbone\nout of his Liberalism--\"\n\n\"And ruin _his_ career. Thank heaven Zeal is engaged at last. They will\nmarry in the spring, and then the only cloud on Jack's horizon will\nvanish.\"\n\n\"What if there were no children?\"\n\n\"There are so much more often than not--that is the least of my worries.\nHe had five girls by his first wife; there is no reason why this\nsplendid cow I have picked out should not produce a dozen boys. I never\nworked so hard over one of Jack's elections--not only to overcome Zeal's\nmisogyny, which he calls scruples, but I had to fight Strathland every\ninch of the way. When I think of Jack's desperation if he were\npitchforked up into the Peers--you do not know him as I do.\"\n\n\"Well, he is safe for a time, I fancy. There has been consumption in the\nfamily before, and always the slowest sort--\"\n\nA footman entered with a yellow envelope on a tray.\n\nLady Victoria opened it without haste or change of color.\n\n\"Jack is returned,\" she said.\n\n\"How jolly,\" replied the other, with equal indifference.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\n\"You look tired--I will take you up to your room. Vicky has so many on\nher hands.\"\n\nThe American rose slowly, but with a flash of gratitude in her eyes.\n\n\"I am tired, and I don't know a soul here. I almost wish Lady Victoria\nhad not asked me down, although I have wanted all my life to visit one\nof the ancestral homes of England.\"\n\n\"Oh, you'll get over that, and used to us,\" said Miss Thangue, smiling.\n\"Your staircase is behind this door, and we can slip out without\nattracting attention. They are all gabbling over Jack's election.\"\n\nShe opened a door in a corner of the hall where the newly arrived guests\nwere gathered about Lady Victoria's tea-table, and led the way up a wide\ndark and slippery stair. After the first landing the light was stronger,\nand the walls were, to an inch, covered with portraits and landscapes,\nthe effect almost as careless as if the big open space were a\nlumber-room.\n\n\"Are they _all_ old masters?\" asked Miss Isabel Otis, politely, her eyes\nroving over the dark canvases.\n\n\"Oh no; the masters are down-stairs. I'll show them to you to-morrow.\nThese are not bad, though.\"\n\n\"What a lot of ancestors to have!\"\n\n\"Oh, you'll find them all over the house. These are not Gwynnes. This\nhouse came to Lord Strathland through the female line. It will be Jack's\neventually--one way or another; and Jack must be more like the Eltons\nthan the Gwynnes--unless, indeed, he is like his American ancestors.\"\nShe turned her soft non-committal eyes on the stranger. \"You are his\nthirty-first cousin, are you not?\"\n\n\"Not quite so remote. But why do you call him Jack? He is known to fame\nas Elton Gwynne.\"\n\n\"His name is John Elton Cecil Gwynne. We are given to the nickname these\ndays--to the abbreviation in general.\"\n\nThey were walking down a corridor, and Miss Thangue was peering through\nher lorgnette at the cards on the doors.\n\n\"I know you are on this side. I wrote your name myself. But exactly\nwhere--ah, here it is.\"\n\nShe opened the door of a square room with large roses on the white\nwall-paper, and fine old mahogany furniture. The sofa and chairs and\nwindows were covered with a chintz in harmony with the walls. \"It is\ncheerful, don't you think so?\" asked Miss Thangue, drawing one of the\nstraight curtains aside. \"Vicky had all the rooms done over, and I chose\nthe designs. She is quite intolerantly modern, and holds that when\nwall-paper and chintz can save an old house from looking like a\nsarcophagus, why not have them? That bell-cord connects with your maid's\nroom--\"\n\n\"I have no maid. I am not well off at all. I wonder Lady Victoria\nthought it worth while to ask me down.\"\n\n\"Dear me, how odd! May I sit with you a little while? I never before saw\na poor American girl.\"\n\n\"I'll be only too grateful if you will stay with me as long as you can.\nI am not exactly poor. I have a ranch near Rosewater, some property and\nan old house in San Francisco. All that makes me comfortable, but no\nmore; and there are so many terribly rich American girls!\"\n\n\"There are, indeed!\" Miss Thangue sat forward with the frank curiosity\nof the Englishwoman when inspecting a foreign specimen. But her\ncuriosity was kindly, for she was still a girl at heart, interested in\nother girls. Miss Otis, looking at her blond, virginal face, took for\ngranted that she was under thirty, and owed her weight to a fondness for\nsweets and sauces.\n\n\"How can you travel in Europe if you are not rich?\" demanded Flora. \"I\nnever dare venture over except as the guest of some more fortunate\nfriend.\"\n\n\"Are _you_ poor?\" asked Miss Otis, her eye arrested by the smart little\nafternoon frock of lace and chiffon and crepe-de-chine.\n\n\"Oh, horribly. But then we all are, over here. If it were not for the\nJews and the Americans we'd have to make our own clothes. The\ndressmakers never could afford to give us credit.\"\n\n\"They all looked very wealthy down-stairs.\"\n\n\"Smart, rather. This happens to be a set that knows how to dress. Many\ndon't. You know something of it yourself,\" she added, with a frank\nsurvey of the girl's well-cut travelling-frock and small hat. \"Lots of\nAmericans don't, if you don't mind my saying so--for all their\nreputation. I went to a dinner at an American Legation once and two of\nyour countrywomen came with their hats on. They had brought letters to\nthe Minister, and he hadn't taken the precaution of looking them over.\nHe was terribly mortified, poor thing.\"\n\nShe related the anecdote with philanthropic intention, but Miss Otis put\nher half-rejected doubts to flight by remarking, lightly:\n\n\"We don't do that even in Rosewater.\"\n\n\"Where _is_ Rosewater? What a jolly name!\"\n\n\"It is in northern California, not far from Lady Victoria's ranch and\nwhat is left of ours. I have spent most of my life in or near it--my\nfather was a lawyer.\"\n\n\"Do tell me about yourself!\" Like most amiable spinsters, she was as\ninterested in the suggestive stranger as in a new novel. She sank with a\nsigh of comfort into the depths of the chair. \"May I smoke? Are you\nshocked?\"\n\nThen she  apprehensively, fearing that her doubt might be\nconstrued as an insult to Rosewater.\n\nBut Miss Otis met it with her first smile. \"Oh no,\" she replied. \"Will\nyou give me one? Mine are in my trunk and they haven't brought it up.\"\nShe took a cigarette from the gayly tendered case and smoked for a few\nmoments in silence.\n\n\"I don't know why you should be interested in my history,\" she said at\nlast in her slow cold voice, so strikingly devoid of the national\nanimation. \"It has been far too uneventful. I have an adopted sister,\nsix years older than myself, who married twelve years ago. Her husband\nis an artist in San Francisco, rather a genius, so they are always poor.\nMy mother died when I was little. After my sister married I took care of\nmy father until I was twenty-one, when he died--four years ago. There\nare very good schools in Rosewater, particularly the High School. My\nfather also taught me languages. He had a very fine library. But I do\nnot believe this interests you. Doubtless you want to know something of\nthe life with which Lady Victoria is so remotely connected.\"\n\n\"I am far more interested in you. Tell me whichever you like first. How\n_are_ you related, by-the-way?\"\n\n\"Father used to draw our family tree whenever he had bronchitis in\nwinter. One of the most famous of the Spanish Californians was Don Jose\nArgueello. We are descended from one of his sons, who had a ranch of a\nhundred thousand acres in the south. When the Americans came, long\nafter, they robbed the Californians shamefully, but fortunately the son\nof the Argueello that owned the ranch at the time married an American\ngirl whose father bought up the mortgages. He left the property to his\nonly grandchild, a girl, who married my great-grandfather, James Otis--a\nnorthern rancher, born in Boston, and descended from old Sam Adams. He\nhad two children, a boy and a girl, who inherited the northern and\nsouthern ranches in equal shares. The girl came over to England to visit\nan aunt who lived here, was presented at court, and straightway married\na lord.\"\n\n\"Then you are second cousin to Vicky and third to Jack. I had no idea\nthe relationship was so close.\"\n\n\"It has seemed very remote to me ever since I laid eyes on Lady Victoria\ndown-stairs. Father made me promise, just before he died, that if ever I\nvisited Europe I would look her up. Somehow I hadn't thought of her\nexcept as Elton Gwynne's mother, so I wrote to her without a qualm. But\nI see that she is an individual.\"\n\n\"Rather! How self-contained our great London is, after all! Vicky has\nbeen a beauty for over thirty years--to be sure her fame was at its\nheight before you were old enough to be interested in such things. But I\nshould have thought your father--\"\n\n\"He must have known all about her. It comes back to me that he was very\nproud of the connection for more than family reasons, but it made no\nimpression on me at the time.\"\n\n\"Proud?\"\n\n\"Yes, he was rather a snob. He was very clever, but he fell out of\nthings, and being able to dwell on his English and Spanish connections\nmeant a good deal to him. I can recite the family history backwards.\"\n\n\"But if he was clever, why on earth did he live in Rosewater? Surely he\ncould have practised in San Francisco?\"\n\n\"He drank. When a man drinks he doesn't care much where he lives. My\nfather had fads but no ambition.\"\n\n\"Great heaven!\" exclaimed Miss Thangue, aghast at this toneless\nfrankness. \"You must have been glad to be rid of him!\"\n\n\"I was fond of him, but his death was a great relief. He was a hard\nsteady secret drinker. I nursed him through several attacks of delirium\ntremens, and was always in fear that he would get out and disgrace us.\nSometimes he did, although when I saw the worst coming I generally\nmanaged to get him over to the ranch. Of course it tied me down. I\nrarely even visited my sister. My father hated San Francisco. He had\npractised there in his youth, promised great things, had plenty of\nmoney. The time came--\" She shrugged her shoulders, although without the\nslightest change of expression. \"I never lived my own life until he\ndied, but I have lived it ever since.\"\n\n\"And the first thing you did with your liberty was to come to Europe,\"\nsaid Miss Thangue, with a sympathetic smile.\n\n\"Of course. My father and uncle had got rid of most of their property\nlong before they died; there isn't an acre left of our share in the\nsouthern estate. But my uncle died six years ago and willed me all that\nremained of the northern, as well as some land in the poorer quarter of\nSan Francisco. I could not touch the principal during the lifetime of my\nfather, but we lived on the ranch and I managed it and was entitled, by\nthe terms of the will, to what I could make it yield. When I was finally\nmistress of my fortunes I left it in charge of an old servant, sold\nenough to pay off the mortgage on a property in San Francisco I\ninherited from my mother, and came to Europe with a personally conducted\ntour.\"\n\nMiss Thangue shuddered. The phrase unrolled a vista of commonness and\nattrition. Miss Otis continued, calmly: \"That is the way I should feel\nnow. But it was my only chance then; or rather I had seen enough of\nbusiness to avoid making mistakes when I could. In that way I learned\nthe ropes. After we had been rushed about for six weeks and I could not\nhave told you whether the Pitti Palace was in Italy or France, and the\ncelebrated frescos were one vast pink smudge, the party returned and I\nwandered on by myself. I spent a winter in Paris, and months in\nBrittany, Austria, Italy, Spain--Munich.\" It was here that her even\ntones left their register for a second. \"I studied the languages, the\nliteratures, the peoples, music, pictures. In Munich\"--this time Flora's\nalert ear detected no vibration--\"and also in Rome, I saw something of\nsociety. It was a life full of freedom, and I shall never cease to be\ngrateful for it, but I must go home soon and look after my affairs. I\nleft England to the last, like the best things of the banquet. I hope\nLady Victoria--I shall never be able to call her Cousin Victoria, as I\nremember father did--will be nice to me. I have seen a good deal of\nlife, but have never had a real _girl's_ time, and I should love it.\nBesides, I have a lot of new frocks.\"\n\n\"I am sure Vicky will be nice to you. If she isn't, I'll find some one\nthat will be. You might marry Jack if you had money enough. We are dying\nto get him married--and a California cousin--it would be too romantic.\nAnd you would hold your own anywhere!\"\n\nBut Miss Otis expanded a fine nostril. \"I have no desire to marry. I\nfeel as if I had had enough of men to last until I am forty--what with\nthose I have buried, and others I have known at home and in Europe--to\nsay nothing of the executors of my uncle's will, who did not approve of\nmy coming abroad alone and delayed the settlement of the estate as long\nas possible. And now I have had too much liberty! Besides, I have seen\n'Jack's' picture--two years ago, in a magazine. I will confess I had\nsome romantic notions about him: imagined him very dashing, bold,\nhandsome; insolent, if you like--the traditional young aristocrat,\nglorified by genius. He looks like Uncle Hiram.\"\n\n\"Is that who Jack looks like? We never could make out. No, Jack is not\nmuch to look at, except when he wakes up--I have seen him quite\ntransfigured on the platform. But he is as insolent as you could wish,\nand has a superb confidence in himself that his enemies call by the most\noffensive names. But he is a dear, in spite of all, and I quite adore\nhim.\"\n\n\"Perhaps; but life, myself, so many mysteries and problems, upon which\nI have barely turned a dark lantern as yet, interest me far more than\nany man could, unless he were superlative. I have had my disillusions.\"\n\nShe lit another cigarette, and for a few moments looked silently out of\nthe window at the darkening woods beyond the lawn. Flora Thangue\nregarded her with a swelling interest. It was a type of which she had no\nknowledge, evidently not a common type even in the hypothetical land of\nthe free; she had visited New York and Newport and known many Americans.\nTrue, she had never met the provincial type before, but she doubted if\nRosewater had produced a crop of Isabel Otises. What was at the source\nof that cold-blooded frankness, so different from the English fashion of\nalternately speaking out and knowing nothing? Was she merely an\negoist--it ran in the family--or did it conceal much that she had no\nintention of revealing? Her very beauty was of a type rarely seen in the\nAmerica of to-day, prevalent as it may have been a hundred years ago:\nshe looked like a feminine edition of the first group of American\nstatesmen--although black Spanish hair was pulled carelessly over the\nhigh forehead, a heavy coil encircling the head in a long upward sweep,\nand the half-dreaming, half-penetrating regard of the light-blue eyes\nwas softened by a heavy growth of lash. The eyebrows were low and thick,\nthe upper lip was sensitive, quivering sometimes as she talked, but the\nlower was firm and full. It was the brow, the profile, the strength of\ncharacter expressed, the general seriousness of the fine face and head,\nthat made her look like a reversion to the type that gave birth to a\nnation. But Miss Thangue had seen too much of the world to judge any one\nby his inherited shell. She had observed many Americans with fine heads\nand bulging brows concealing practically nothing, insignificant German\nheads whose intellects had terrified her, the romantic Spanish eyes of\nthe most unromantic people in Europe, English pride and an icy mask of\nbreeding guarding from the casual eye the most lawless and ribald\ninstincts. Therefore had she no intention of taking this new specimen on\ntrust, much as she liked her, and she speculated upon her possibilities\nin the friendly silence that had fallen between them. Life is composed\nof individuals and their choruses, and Flora, humorously admitting the\nfact, was far more interested in others than in herself.\n\nOnly in the dense silky masses of her black hair and the almost stolid\nabsence of gesture did the American betray her Spanish ancestry; but how\nmuch of the Spaniard, subtle, patient, vengeful, treacherous, mighty in\npassive resistance and cunning, lay behind those deep fearless blue eyes\nof her New England ancestors? Or was she not Spanish at all, but merely\na higher type of American--or wholly herself? Would Jack, susceptible\nand passionate, a worshipper of beauty down among the roots of his\nabnormal cleverness and egoism, fall in love with her? And what then?\nThe girl, with her strong stern profile against the shadows, her low\nbrooding brows, might wield a power far more dangerous than that of the\naverage fascinating woman, if her will marshalled the rest of her\nfaculties and drove them in a straight line; although the luminous skin\nas polished as ivory, the low full curves and slow graceful movements of\nher figure added a potency that Flora, always an amused observer of men,\nwould have been the last to ignore. Victoria, high-bred, fastidious,\nmocking, yet unmistakably passionate and possibly insurgent, was of\nthat mint of woman about whom men had gone mad since the world began.\nBut this girl, who might be as cold as the moon, or not, looked, in any\ncase, capable of clasping a man's throat with her strong little hand,\nand gently turning his head from east to west. At this point Miss\nThangue rose impatiently and rang a bell. Jack's career was almost at\nthe flood. No woman could submerge his intellect and stupendous\ninterests for more than a moment.\n\n\"Order lights and have your trunks brought up,\" she said. \"I will send\none of the housemaids to help you dress. My room is over on the other\nside of the house--go through that door opposite, and down a corridor\nuntil you come to another long hall and staircase like the one on this\nside. You will find my name on the door. Knock at about a quarter-past\neight and I will go down with you. Vicky may be in an angelic humor and\nshe may not. It depends mainly upon whether Jack condescends to turn up.\nI suppose you know all about him; it would hardly do for you to face him\nand his mother if you didn't. He has travelled quite exhaustively in the\ncolonies and given us some of the most informing literature on that\nsubject that we have. He was out in Africa when the Boer War broke out,\nand once before in India, when there was fighting, volunteered both\ntimes and did brilliant service. He has no end of medals with clasps.\nThen he suddenly went in for politics and announced himself an\nuncompromising Liberal. It nearly killed his grandfather--Lord\nStrathland--for Jack is the one person on earth that he loves as much as\nhimself; and it has alienated many of his relatives on both sides--which\ngave him one more chance to win against terrific odds; he enjoys that\nsort of thing. He had been in but two years when there was a general\nelection, and he has only just got back--he contested three divisions\nbefore he won his seat this time, and he had almost as hard a fight\nbefore. Vicky, who hates the Gwynnes, with the exception of Lord Zeal,\nthe heir, besides believing in Jack as you would in Solomon, has\nsteadily upheld him; and she is a powerful ally--not only one of the\nmost distinguished of the political women, but still turns heads when\nshe chooses, and her game is generally in the cabinet preserves, when it\nis not in the diplomatic. I must run. Put on your most fetching gown.\nJulia Kaye, a detestable little parvenu, is here. Jack is in love with\nher and she has chosen another. It will be a cousinly duty to console\nhim. Then you can turn him over to some one else. Ta, ta!\" Her last\nwords floated back from the depths of the corridor; a clock was striking\nand she had pattered off hastily.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe \"Jack,\" whose more distinguished patronymic was so gayly caracolling\ndown the road to posterity, had arrived, and after dressing hastily,\nsought his mother. Her hair was done, her gown laced; she dismissed her\nmaid at once, and while her eyes melted, in the fashion of mothers, she\nembraced her son with something more than maternal warmth: a curious\nsuggestion of relief, of stepping out of her own personality and leaving\nit like a heap of clothes on the floor. This attitude had occasionally\npuzzled her idol, but he was too masculine to analyze. She was his best\nfriend and a delightful person to have for a mother; her soul might be\nher own possession undisturbed. He admired her almost as much as he did\nhimself, and to-night he kissed her fondly and told her gallantly that\nshe was looking even more beautiful than usual.\n\n\"It is all this white after the dead black,\" said Lady Victoria, smiling\nappreciatively. \"I am thankful that prolonged mourning is out of date;\nit made a fright of me and was getting on my nerves.\" She wore no jewels\nsave a high diamond dog-collar and a few sparkling combs in her hair,\nbut she made a superb appearance with the long white sweep of shoulders\nand bust, her brilliant eyes and smart tailed gown of black chiffon and\nIrish lace. Her arms, no longer rounded as when artists had fought to\npaint her, were but half-revealed under floating sleeves, and her fair\ntapering hands were even younger than her face.\n\nShe opened a large black fan and moved it slowly while looking intently\nat her son's bent profile. \"Something has gone wrong,\" she said. \"Have\nyou seen Julia Kaye again?\"\n\n\"No, I was invited to Maundrell Abbey last week, but couldn't manage it,\nof course. And I knew she was to be here. Nothing has gone wrong--but I\nhad rather a shock this morning. I met Zeal at the club. He looks like a\ndeath's head. He vowed he was taking even better care of himself than\nusual, but his chest is bad again. He talked about going to Davos--the\nvery word makes me sick! In the next breath he said he might go out to\nAfrica. Can't you hurry on his marriage?--persuade Carry that it is her\nduty to go with him?\"\n\n\"I should have no difficulty persuading Carry. The rub is with him.\nCompulsory asceticism has bred misogyny, and misogyny scruples. He says\nthat he has sins enough to his account without laying up a reckoning\nwith posterity. If it were not for you I should agree with him. I feel\nlike a conspirator--\"\n\n\"There is no reason why his children should be consumptive. Carry's\nphysique is Wagnerian, and she is just the woman to look after her\nchildren herself. Zeal's health was thrown to the dogs by a weak\nindulgent frivolous mother, and what she left him he disposed of later\nwhen he made as great an ass of himself as might have been expected. He\nis a hypochondriac now and would keep a close watch on his heir's health\nand habits; you may be sure of that. He ought not to be in London\nnow--it is stifling--went up for some business meeting or other--seemed\nto wish to avoid details. I hope to heaven he has not been relieving the\nmonotony of his life by some rotten speculation. I begged him to come\ndown here, but he wouldn't--says that his hand is no longer steady\nenough to hold a gun--it's awful!--worse because I'm not merely fond of\nhim and regretting the possible loss of a good friend--I have felt like\na beast all day. But I can't help it. For God's sake write and persuade\nhim to go to Davos at once--and picture the delights of a pretty and\ndevoted nurse. I feel as if I had ashes in my mouth--and yesterday I was\nso happy!\" he burst out, with the petulance of a child.\n\n\"I will write to-night,\" she said, soothingly. \"He has a very slow form\nof consumption; I have the assurance of his doctors. And at least he has\ncommitted himself with Carry, and announced his intention to marry as\nsoon as a sojourn somewhere has made him feel fit again. You know how\nmuch better he always is when he comes back. Put it out of your mind\nto-night. I want you to be as happy as I am. Everybody is talking of the\nbrilliance of your campaign--\"\n\n\"Much good brilliance will do me if I am to rot in the Upper House!\"\n\n\"Put it out of your mind; don't let apprehension control you for a\nmoment. Believe me, will-power counts in life for more than everything\nelse combined, and if it isn't watched it weakens.\"\n\n\"All right, mummy. You are never so original as when you preach. So\nJulia Kaye came down this afternoon? Talk about will. Mine should be of\npure steel; I have ordered her out of my consciousness these last weeks\nat the point of the bayonet. She has written me exactly three times.\nHowever--those letters were charming,\" he added, with the sudden smile\nthat transfigured his face, routing the overbearing and contemptuous\nexpression that had won him so many enemies; friends and flatterers and\nthe happy circumstances of his life had combined thoroughly to spoil\nhim. \"Do you maintain that will can win a woman?\" he added, sharply.\n\nShe was the woman to laugh outright at such a suggestion. \"No, nor that\nit can uproot love, although it can give it a good shaking and lock it\nin the dark room. I doubt if you love Julia Kaye, but you will find that\nout for yourself. You might bring her to terms by flirting a little with\nyour American cousin--\"\n\n\"My what?\" He opened his eyes as widely as he had ever done when a\nschool-boy.\n\n\"Of course--I forgot you know nothing of her. She wrote me from\nAmbleside--I infer she has been 'doing' England; and as her credentials\nwere unimpeachable I asked her down. She has inherited a part of the\nnorthern estate and was brought up in the neighboring town of\nRosewater--the American names are too silly. She seems quite _comme il\nfaut_ and is remarkably handsome. I detest Americans, as you know, but\nthere certainly is something in blood. I liked her at once. She looks\nclever, and is quite off the type--none of the usual fluff. If she\ndoesn't bore me I shall keep her here for a while.\"\n\n\"I wish you would adopt her,\" he said, fondly. \"I shouldn't be jealous,\nfor I hate to think of you so much alone.\" He rose and kissed her\nlightly on the forehead, experience teaching him to avoid a stray hair\nfrom the carefully built coiffure. \"I'll see if I can waylay Julia on\nthe stairs; she is always late. Keep from eleven to twelve for me\nto-morrow morning. I want to tell you about the campaign. It was a\nglorious fight!\" His eyes sparkled at the memory of it. \"I felt as if\nevery bit of me had never been alive at once before. My opponent was a\nsplendid chap. It meant something to beat him. The other side was in a\nrage!--more than once yelled for half an hour after I took the platform.\nWhen I finished they yelled again for half an hour--to a different\ntune.\" His slight, thin, rather graceless figure seemed suddenly to\nexpand, even to grow taller. Some hidden magnetism burst from him like\nan aura, and his cold pasty face and light gray eyes flamed into\npositive beauty. \"It was glorious! Glorious! I was intoxicated--I could\nhave reeled, little as they suspected it. I wouldn't part for a second\nwith the certainty that I am the biggest figure in young England to-day.\nI hate to sleep and forget it. If I cultivated modesty I should renounce\none of the exquisite pleasures of life. Humility is a superstition. The\nman who doesn't weed it out is an ass. To be young, well-born, with\nmoney enough, a brain instead of a mere intelligence, an essential\nleader of men--Good God! Good God!\" Then he subsided and blushed, jerked\nup his shoulders and laughed. \"Well--I never let myself go to any one\nbut you,\" he said. \"And I won't inflict _you_ any longer.\"\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\n\"I wish the old homes of England had electric lights,\" thought Miss\nOtis, with a sigh.\n\nThere were four candles on the dressing-table, two on the mantel-shelf;\nbeyond the radius of their light the room was barely visible. She\ncarried one of the candles over to the cheval-glass and held it above\nher head, close to her face, low on either side.\n\n\"I feel as if I had been put together by some unpleasant mechanical\nprocess. It is well I am not inordinately vain, but when one puts on a\nnew dress for the first time--\" She shrugged her shoulders hopelessly,\nreplaced the candle, and walked up and down the room swinging the\ntrain--her first--of the charming gown of pale blue satin; patting the\nhair coiled softly about the entire head in a line eminently becoming to\nthe profile, and prolonged by several little curls escaping to the neck.\n\nShe felt happy and excited, her fine almost severe face far more\ngirlishly alive than when she had told her story, provocatively dry, to\nFlora Thangue. She directed an approving glance at the high heels of her\nslippers, which, with her lofty carriage, produced the effect of\nnon-existing inches. She was barely five feet five, but she ranked with\ntall women, her height as unchallenged as the chiselling of her profile.\n\n\"What frauds we all are!\" she thought, with a humor of which she had\nnot vouchsafed Miss Thangue a hint. \"But what is a cunningly made\nslipper on a foot not so small, at the end of a body not quite long\nenough, but an encouraging example of the triumph of art over nature?\nNot the superiority, perhaps, but they are the best of working\npartners.\"\n\nShe sat down and recalled the conversation with her new friend, giving\nan amused little shudder. She had heard much of, and in her travels come\ninto contact with, the cold-blooded frankness of the English elect; with\nwhom it was either an instinct or a pose to manifest their careless\nsense of impregnability. When pressed to give an account of herself the\ndramatic possibilities of the method suddenly appealed to her,\naccompanied by a mischievous desire to outdo them at their own game and\nobserve the effect. She had found herself as absorbed as an actress in a\nnew and congenial role.\n\n\"After all,\" she thought, \"clever women make themselves over in great\npart, uprooting here, adopting there, and as we have so little chance to\n_be_ anything, there is a good deal to be got out of it. If one cannot\nbe a genius one can at least be an artist. I have never had much cause\nto be as direct as stage lightning, but as I enjoyed it I suppose I may\ninfer that even brutal frankness is not foreign to my nature. Perhaps,\nlike father, I am a snob at heart and liked the sensation of a sort of\nartistic alliance with the British aristocracy. Well, if I develop\nsnobbery I can root out that weed--or persuade myself that some other\nmotive is at the base of a disposition to adopt any of the\ncharacteristics of this people: a woman can persuade herself of any\nsophistry she chooses. Not for anything would I be a man. Absolutely to\naccept the facts of life, even the ugly unvarnished fact itself, and at\nthe same time to invent one's own soul-tunes--that is to be a woman and\nfree!\"\n\nA printed square of card-board on her writing-table had informed her\nthat the dinner-hour was half-past eight. She looked at her watch. It\nwas five minutes to the time. Once more she peered into the glass, shook\nout her skirts, then sought a door in a far and dusky corner. It opened\nupon a long dimly lit corridor which led into another at right angles,\nand Isabel presently found herself at the head of a staircase similar to\nthe one on her side of the house. Here, too, the walls were hung with\nportraits and landscapes, and as far down as the eye could follow; but\nafter glancing over them for a moment with the recurring weariness of\none who has seen too many pictures in the hard ways of European travel,\nher eyes lit and lingered on the figure of a young man who stood on the\nlanding, his back to her, examining, with a certain tensity, a canvas on\na level with his eyes.\n\n\"Uncle Hiram--John Elton Cecil Gwynne! What a likeness and what a\ndifference!\"\n\nThe young Englishman's hair, pale in color and very smooth, was worn\nlonger than the fashion, the ends lilting. As he turned slowly at the\nrustle of descending skirts, this eccentricity and his colorless skin\nmade him look the pale student rather than the gallant soldier, the best\nfighter on the hustings that England had seen for five-and-twenty years.\nAs Isabel walked carefully down the slippery stair she veiled her eyes\nto hide the wonder in them. She had expected personality, magnetism, as\na compensation for nature's external economies. His apparent lack of\nboth made him almost repellent, awakened in Isabel a sensation of\nantagonism; and the cool speculation in his light gray eyes merely\naccentuated his general dearth of charm. True he had height--although\nhis carriage was unimposing--his head was large and well-proportioned,\nhis nose and chin salient, but the straight heavy mouth was as\ncontemptuous as a Prussian officer's, and in spite of his grooming he\nlooked old-fashioned, absurdly like the Uncle Hiram who had been a\ncountry lawyer and farmer, and had always worn broadcloth in the hottest\nweather--except, to be sure, when he wore a linen \"duster,\" or sat on\nthe veranda in his shirt-sleeves, his feet on the railing.\n\nHowever, she smiled, and he smiled politely in return, advancing a few\nsteps to meet her. \"I hope you have heard of me,\" she said. \"Your mother\nis so busy--English people are so indifferent to details--I am your\ncousin, Isabel Otis--\"\n\n\"Of course my mother has spoken of you. I am very glad to see you in my\nhouse,\" he added, hospitably. \"Shall I show you the way?\"\n\nHe made no further remark as they descended the darker section of the\nstair, and she could think of nothing to say to him. Nor did she\nparticularly care to think of anything, the American in her resenting\nhis lack of effort. But as they reached the door she paused abruptly.\n\n\"I forgot! Miss Thangue asked me to knock at her door--\"\n\n\"You take us too seriously,\" he said, with a slight sneer. \"Flora has\nevidently forgotten you; she came down a quarter of an hour ago.\"\n\nIsabel lifted her head still higher, annoyed at the angry blood that\nleaped to her face. \"I am afraid I am rather literal,\" she said, with\nmore hauteur than the occasion demanded. \"But perhaps you will tell me\nwhere to go. There seems to be a bewildering number of rooms. After\nthree years of lodgings in Europe, to say nothing of the modest\narchitecture of Rosewater, I feel as if astray in a maze.\"\n\n\"You got that off as if you were a masquerading princess,\" he said, with\na flicker of humor in his eyes. \"Americans generally bluff the other\nway.\" He opened the door. \"We meet here in the hall. There is my mother.\nYou are not obliged to speak to her, you know. We are less formal in\nlife than in novels.\" With this parting shot he left her abruptly and\njoined a small dark woman with a plebeian face, a sensual mouth, and\nmagnificent black eyes.\n\n\"The rude beast!--Julia Kaye, of course.\" But Isabel forgot them both in\nthe novelty of the scene. The square white hall was lit with wax-candles\nand shaded lamps, and filled with the murmur of voices--beautiful\ngowns--the sparkle of jewels. Isabel dismissed the memory of early\ntrials, the long years she had lived in the last three, her philosophic\nresignation to the disillusions and disappointments with which her\nliberty had been pitted; it was her first appearance in the world of\nfashion--which she entered, after all, by a sort of divine right.\nTrepidation was undeveloped in her, and when she had stood for a moment,\nquite aware that her proud and singular beauty had won her instant\nrecognition, she walked over to her hostess.\n\nNo fresh demand was made on her courage. Lady Victoria's earlier mood of\ncolossal indifference had been dissipated by her son's return. She\ngreeted Isabel with a dazzling smile and a winning gesture.\n\n\"Isn't Jack a darling? Isn't he a dear?\" she commanded. \"I have put you\non his left, that you may be sure not to be bored. What hair! That is\n_your_ legacy from Spain. I have the eyes, but I never had a foot of\nhair. I hope you are comfortable. I expect you to remain a week. I am so\nglad that Jack will be here. The place is intolerably dull without him.\"\n\nIsabel, warming to such maternal ardor in a beauty whose years were\nprematurely emphasized by a son as conspicuous as Elton Gwynne, summoned\na few vague words of enthusiasm. She was reproached politely for\nwandering about England for two months before discovering herself to her\nrelatives; then, Lady Victoria's interest waning, she turned to a young\nman, handsome and Saxon and orthodox, and said, casually, \"Jimmy, you\nwill take in Miss Otis.\"\n\nDinner had already been announced. The twain, in complete ignorance of\neach other's identity, walked through a long line of rooms, almost\nunfurnished but for the scowling or smiling dead crowding the walls.\nIsabel decided that she would be as effortless as the English and see\nwhat came of it. The practised instinct of the American girl, added to\nthe excessive hospitality of the Californian, would have led her to put\nher companion immediately at ease, but not only was she fond of\nexperimenting with racial characteristics upon her own hidden\npossibilities, but she was intensely proud, and the English attitude had\nstung her more than once.\n\n\"Why should I please them?\" she thought, contemptuously. \"Let them\nplease me.\"\n\nHer companion betrayed no eagerness to please her; and during the first\nten minutes at table he talked to Gwynne about the late elections.\nEvidently, he too had emerged from the political fray triumphant. Isabel\nsat like a stately picture by Reynolds, and after her slow gaze had\ntravelled over the dark full-length portraits of the kings and queens\nthat had honored Capheaton, it dropped to the more animated faces in the\nforeground. The men were good-looking, with hardly an exception; judging\nby their carriage they might all have been army men, but as every word\nthat floated to the head of the table was political, they possibly had\nfollowed their successful host's example and adopted an equally\nintermittent career. One or two of the women were almost as handsome as\nLady Victoria, with their superb figures, their complexions of claret\nand snow, that blending of high breeding and warm palpitating humanity\none never sees outside of England. But others within Isabel's range were\ntoo haggard for beauty, although one had a Burne-Jones face and her eyes\ngazed beyond the company with an expression that made her seem pure\nspirit; but she too looked tired, delicate, curiously overworked.\n\nOpposite Isabel was a tall buxom young woman of the purest Saxon type,\nwho was talking amiably with the man on her right, and occasionally\nshaking with deep and silent laughter; her intimate casual manner, her\nslight movements, her accentuation, manifestly bred in the bone.\nSuddenly it was borne in upon Isabel's always sensitive consciousness\nthat she was the only haughty and reserved person present, and she felt\nprovincial and laughed frankly at herself. The lady across the table\nclaiming the attention of the host, she turned to her own partner. Her\nblack eyelashes were long, and under their protecting shadow she swept a\nglance at the card above the young man's plate. It was inscribed, \"Lord\nHexam.\" She saw her opportunity and asked, ingenuously:\n\n\"How can you be a member of the House of Commons?\"\n\nHe looked up from his fish and replied, somewhat cuttingly, \"By\ncontesting a borough and getting elected.\"\n\n\"But I thought a peer could not be in the House of Commons.\"\n\n\"He can't.\"\n\n\"Then how can you be?\"\n\n\"I am not a peer.\" He looked very much annoyed.\n\n\"But you are Lord Hexam.\"\n\nHe answered, sulkily: \"I happen to be the son of a peer.\"\n\n\"Are you irritated because I know nothing about you?\" asked Isabel,\ncruelly. \"Do you suppose I have wasted my time in England reading\nBurke?\"\n\n\"No, there are too many sights,\" he replied, more cruelly still.\n\n\"They are far more interesting than most of the people I have met.\" Then\nshe changed her tactics and smiled upon him; and when she smiled she\nshowed a dimple hardly larger than a pin's head at one corner of her\nflexible mouth. For the first time he looked under her eyelashes into\nthe odd blue eyes, with their dilated pupils and black rim edging the\nlight iris. He suddenly realized that she was beautiful, in spite of the\nthree little black moles on her face--he detested moles--and smiled in\nreturn.\n\n\"I am afraid I was rude. But I am really shy, and you quite took it out\nof me. I am more afraid of the American girl than of anything on earth.\"\n\n\"How did you know I was an American?\"\n\n\"By your accent.\" He laughed good-naturedly. \"Now I am even with you.\"\n\n\"Well, you are. Californians pride themselves upon having no accent.\"\n\n\"Oh, it is not nearly so bad as some. But it is there all the same. Not\na twang nor a drawl, but--well--every country has its unmistakable\nstamp.\"\n\n\"Well, I have no desire to be taken for anything but an American,\" she\nsaid, defiantly. \"A Californian, that is. After all, we are quite\ndifferent. But we do have an appalling variety of accents in the United\nStates. I have lived abroad long enough to discover that. When I am an\nold maid I am going to mount the platform and preach the training of the\nvoice in childhood. I have taken a violent dislike to more than one\nclever American man merely because he trailed his voice through his\nnose. I don't mind our vices being criticised as much as our crudities.\"\n\n\"I never before heard an American girl make a remark that indicated the\nleast interest in her country--even when--pardon me--they brag. They\ngenerally give the impression that they don't even know who happens to\nbe the President of the moment. Somehow, you look as if you might.\"\n\n\"I was brought up by a man, and my uncle was a great politician in a\nsmall way. That is to say he was identified with country politics only,\nbut he and my father were everlastingly discussing the national issues.\nOf course you have only met girls from the great cities, where the men\nare too busy making money to take any interest in public affairs. The\nwomen rarely hear them mentioned, practically forget there are such\naffairs--except on the Fourth of July, which they resent as a personal\ngrievance. I have met scores of them in Europe. To know anything of\npolitics they regard as the height of bad form.\"\n\n\"Sometimes I wish that our women would let them alone for a while. That\nis my sister over there,\" indicating the lady with the Burne-Jones face.\n\"She has worn herself to a shadow working for her husband, who is in the\nHouse, and she is heart and soul in politics--which she regards as a\nsort of divine mission. She is on several committees, is far more useful\nto her husband than his secretary, for she has the gift of style--and no\none would accuse Rex of that--and during an election she never rests.\nBesides which, of course she has her little family, the usual number of\nestablishments to look after, and great social pressure. I always\nmaintain that our women are of immense service to us, but many of them\nare physically unfit. I expect to see my sister go to pieces any day,\nand as she is little short of an angel it worries me.\"\n\n\"She does look angelic,\" said Isabel, sympathetically. \"Is that what is\nthe matter with the rest of them?--the thin ones, I mean?\"\n\n\"Generally speaking. The thinnest is my cousin. I went in for a cup of\ntea a week or two before the end of last session. There were several of\nus about the tea-table when a footman entered and muttered something to\nher, and with a vague word of apology she left the room and did not\nreturn for half an hour. I thought the baby must be dying, and was about\nto ring, when she reappeared and remarked that she had been sitting at\nthe telephone listening to a paper her husband had just finished on one\nof the questions before the House. Some of them stand it better.\" He\nindicated a fair beautiful creature with a determined profile and deep\nwomanly figure. \"There is Mrs. Sefton, for instance. She presides at\ncommittee meetings--she is great on colonial politics--for three or four\nhours at a time, and always sails out as fresh as a rose; but she has\nburied her husband and entertains when and whom she chooses. Lady\nCecilia opposite understands politics as well as any woman in England,\nbut does not go in for them--Spence isn't in the House; that may account\nfor it!\"\n\n\"Your fashionable women do not in the least resemble ours,\" said Isabel,\nmeditatively. \"They are far more like the women of our small towns.\"\n\n\"What!\"\n\n\"It sounds paradoxical, but it is more than half true. Say two-thirds;\nthe other third is all in favor of your women, for obvious reasons. But\nthose I speak of, the best women of every small town, are constantly\nactive in civic affairs. Most of the sanitary improvements and the\neducational, all schemes for parks and better streets, come from them.\nThere is no village too small to have its 'Woman's Improvement Club.'\nAnd it is the women that have saved all the historical buildings in the\ncountry from destruction.\"\n\n\"I thought they went in for Browning Societies.\"\n\n\"Doubtless you would scorn really to know anything of American humor.\nPerhaps our comic papers have never heard of the Improvement Clubs, or\nfind nothing in them that is humorous. Not that I would decry the\nBrowning Clubs, nor any literary clubs, however crude. It is all in the\nline of progress. 'Culture' is a tempting morsel for the jokemaker, but\nas an alternative for dull domesticity and the vulgar inanities of\ngossip it is not to be despised.\"\n\n\"By Jove, you are right,\" said Hexam, not without warmth.\n\n\"Is my fair cousin converting you to something?\" asked the host. His\nvoice had been little heard, and he looked sulky.\n\n\"Cousin?\"\n\n\"Yes, he is my cousin,\" said Isabel, with the accent of resignation.\nHexam laughed. Gwynne looked as if the grace of humor had been left out\nof him. Isabel, innocent and impassive, turned her eyelashes upon her\npartner. \"I was quite wild to meet my cousin,\" she went on, in the\ntoneless voice that contrasted so effectively with her occasional\nextravagance of speech; \"and now I find him the precise image of my\nuncle Hiram, who never spoke to me except to say: 'Little girls should\nbe seen and not heard,' or 'Run off to bed now, little one.'\"\n\nWithout repitching her voice she yet infused it with a patronizing\nmasculinity that once more startled Hexam into laughter, and caused a\nsilent convulsion in the massive frame of Lady Cecilia Spence.\n\n\"She knows that was a bit of vengeance,\" thought Isabel. \"But of course,\nmanlike, he'll never suspect it.\" She turned her deep thoughtful gaze\nfull upon her cousin. His eyes were glittering under their heavy lids.\nHe replied, suavely:\n\n\"I hope you will find us more polite--if less picturesque. I cannot\nflatter myself that my likeness to your uncle Hiram extends that far.\n'Precise image'--is not that perhaps a bit of national exaggeration?\"\n\n\"Well, I take that back,\" said Isabel, sweetly. \"But you really might be\nhis son instead of his second cousin.\"\n\n\"Perhaps that accounts for a good many things,\" said Lady Cecilia. \"You\nknow, Jack, I have always said there was something exotic about you. You\nare much too energetic and progressive for this settled old country. If\nyou had been born in America I suppose you would have been president at\nthe earliest moment the constitution permitted.\"\n\nHe hesitated a moment, then delivered himself of a bombshell. \"I was\nborn in America,\" he said.\n\nHis eyes moved slowly from one stupefied face to another. \"As I left at\nthe age of five weeks I can hardly claim that the incident left an\nindelible impress. But the fact remains that I should be eligible for\nthe presidency if I chose to become an American citizen.\"\n\nIsabel looked at her relative with an accession of interest; he had\nsuddenly ceased to be an alien, become in a measure a personal\npossession. \"Come over and try it,\" she said, impulsively. \"_There_ is a\ncareer worth while! A young country as full of promise as of faults!\nThink of the variousness of achievement! England's history is made. If\nyou are all they claim, you might really make history in the United\nStates. If I only had a brother--\" Her eyes were flashing for the first\ntime. \"However--they say you love the fight. It is far more difficult to\nbecome a president of the United States than a prime-minister of\nEngland, for with us family influence counts for nothing.\"\n\n\"I am afraid I have not the qualities that do count. To be as frank as\nyourself--I don't think I could stand your politics.\"\n\n\"But think of the excitement of really sounding your capacities!\"\nImpersonality was an achievement with Isabel and she could always\ncommand it. \"You can never do that here, no matter how brilliant your\nsuccess. There must always be the question of how far you would have\ngone without your family, and friends of equal power. The ugliest lesson\nof life is its snobbishness. Even when the herd can expect no return, a\nblind instinct--doubtless an inheritance from the days when there were\nbut two classes--drives it to beat the drums for the socially elect. We\nhave enough of that in America, heaven knows, but the best thing that\ncan be said of American politics is that they are free of it. Besides,\nif our politics are bad, so much the better for you. You might do for\nthe United States what your English great-grandfather helped to do for\nthis country in 1832. You might be another 'Great Revolutioner,' like\nyour still more illustrious ancestor, Sam Adams. You'll never, never\nhave such an opportunity to become a great historical figure over here,\nfor English dissatisfaction hardly counts, and in the United States\nthere are increasing millions that demand reform, a closer approach to\nthe ideal republic promised by their ancestors, and the man for the\nhour.\"\n\nThe angry glitter had left his eyes and he was looking at her with\ninterest and curiosity. He respected her courage and obvious power to\nrise above the personal attitude of her sex.\n\n\"I dislike intensely many things in your country,\" he said, slowly; \"but\nI will confess that it interests me greatly. If it has failed in some of\nits original ideals it has at least continued to be a republic for more\nthan a century; and when one considers its enormous size and conflicting\nelements--for I suppose you will not claim that you are a homogeneous\nrace--that is very inspiring! It makes one believe that fundamentally\nthe country must be sound--that unswerving fidelity to an ideal. It is a\ngreat thing! a stupendous thing! I wish I knew that I should live to\nsee England, all Europe, a republic. There is no other state fit for\nself-respecting men--that voice in the selection of their own rulers.\"\n\n\"By Jove, Jack!\" cried Lord Hexam. \"I never heard you go as far as that\nbefore.\"\n\n\"Possibly you never will again. I have no desire to rank with those\nbrilliant failures that are born before their time, and no intention of\nwasting my energies on the unattainable. Moreover, radicals and\nsocialists per se are merely a nuisance. The Liberal party is the only\nchoice in England to-day, and when I get it at my back, I can, at least,\nafter I have led it to a stronger position, fight for the soundest of\nthe extremist dogmas, as well as for the reorganization of the House of\nPeers. Hereditary legislation in the twentieth century and the most\ncivilized country in the world! Why not an hereditary army and navy?\nRussia has few greater anachronisms. And when one thinks of the careers\nit has ruined! Look at Barnstaple.\"\n\nThe two men plunged into discussion, and Isabel, her eyes expressing a\npolite interest, studied the face of her cousin. She appreciated for the\nfirst time something of its power. A brief illumination of his eyes had\nbetrayed the soul of the idealist; a passion that in a less sound mind\nmight result in fanaticism. He was talking with none of the fiery\nenthusiasm that made him so irresistible a public speaker, but his\nnegative suggestion of vitality, of mature thought, his very lack of\nevery-day magnetism, fascinated her; not the woman, but the acute,\nreceptive, and antagonistic intelligence. As he sat there talking, with\nhardly a change of expression in his voice or on his cold face, faintly\nsneering, he seemed to be holding his powers in solution; to have\nresolved them for the time being into their elements, that they might\nrest and recuperate. While no doubt in first-rate physical condition, he\nlooked as if he had not a red corpuscle in his body, and this very\ncontrast to the warm full-blooded people surrounding him gave him a\ndistinction of his own, the distinction of pure brain independent of\nthose auxiliaries that few public men have been able to dispense with.\nIt was obvious that he was too self-centred, too haughtily indifferent,\nor too spoilt, to make any effort in private life to charm or bewilder;\nwhen he vanquished from the platform it was by the awakened rush of the\nforces within him; and this very indifference, this contemptuous\nknowledge of his mighty reserves, this serene faith in his star,\ninvested his personal unattractiveness with a formidable significance.\nIsabel's imagination dilated him into a disembodied intellect surrounded\nby mere statues of human flesh. As she left the dining-room the illusion\nvanished. She liked him less than ever, nevertheless wished that he were\nher brother and the rising star in American politics.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nAs the women entered a large room on the opposite side of the central\nhall, where coffee was to be served, Flora Thangue laid her hand\ndeprecatingly on Isabel's arm. \"I was so sorry not to be able to wait\nfor you,\" she said. \"But I had a distracted note from Vicky at eight\nasking me to dress as quickly as I could and see if the cards on the\ntable were all right: the new butler is rather a muff, and such a\nmartinet the footmen dare not interfere. I was delighted to see that\nJack had taken charge of you. What do you think of our infant prodigy?\"\n\n\"I have had little chance to think anything,\" said Isabel, evasively.\n\"Is he the typical Englishman--I mean apart from his peculiar gifts?\"\n\n\"Only in certain qualities. You see he has Celtic blood in him: of\ncourse the Gwynnes had their origin in Wales; and then he is one-fourth\nAmerican, isn't he? I can't say how far that inheritance has influenced\nhis character, but there is no doubt about the Celtic. Outwardly he is\neven more impassive than the usual Oxford product, and if he had been\nborn a generation earlier he would have had all sorts of affectations.\nBut affectation, thank heaven, is out of date. We wouldn't tolerate a\nGrandcourt five minutes. Whom should you like to talk to? You will have\nenough of me.\"\n\n\"I am sure there is no one I shall like half so well,\" said Isabel,\ntruthfully; and Flora loved her for not being gracious. \"I think I\nshould like to know Mrs. Kaye.\"\n\n\"If you ever do, please give me the benefit of your investigations.\nThere are as many opinions of her as there are of cats. Vicky believes\nin her and I don't. Jack is in love with her--with certain of his Celtic\ninstincts gone wrong.\"\n\nShe led Isabel over to Mrs. Kaye, who sat alone on a small sofa, sipping\nher coffee and absently puffing at a cigarette. She was exquisitely\ndressed and jewelled, and her little figure was round and symmetrical;\nbut nothing could obscure the ignoble modelling of her face. She might\nhave been misunderstood for a housemaid masquerading had it not been for\nan air of assured power, a repose as monumental as that of a Chinese\njoss.\n\nShe had cultivated a still radiance of expression which, when she\nthought it worth her while, broke into a tender or brilliant smile;\nalthough even then her large, ripe mouth retained a hint of the\nausterity her strong will had imposed upon it--to the more complete\nundoing of the masculine host. She smiled graciously as Miss Thangue\nmurmured the introduction and moved away, but did not offer the other\nhalf of the sofa, and Isabel fetched a chair.\n\n\"You are the American cousin, of course,\" she said, with a slight lisp.\n\"We were all talking about you down at our end of the table, but I could\nnot see you until just now. I long to go to America, your novels\ninterest me so much. But one is always so busy--one never gets time for\nthe Atlantic. Lady Victoria says you come from that wonderful country,\nCalifornia, but of course you know New York and Newport still better.\nAll Americans do.\"\n\n\"I have never seen Newport, and passed exactly a week in New York before\nsailing.\"\n\nMrs. Kaye's expressive eyes, which had dwelt on Isabel with flattering\nattention, fell to the tip of her cigarette. \"No? I thought that all\nsmart Americans came from that sacred precinct.\"\n\n\"I am not in the least smart. I don't really _know_ half a dozen people\nin America outside of the county in which I have spent the greater part\nof my life--not even in San Francisco, where I was born.\" Isabel held\nher cigarette poised in one slender hand, letting her eyes fall\ndeliberately on the broad back and flat nails of the exquisitely kept\nsection on Mrs. Kaye's lap. \"So far, in my small social ventures I have\nfelt the necessity of little beyond good manners and a small independent\nincome. This is my first excursion into the great world, and of course\nmy cousin is too secure in her position to care whether I am smart or\nnot. Miss Thangue, the only other woman I have talked with, is far too\namiable and well-bred. Am I to understand that I shall be tried by New\nYork measurements and found wanting?\"\n\n\"Oh no!\" Mrs. Kaye's bright color had darkened. \"On the contrary, the\nEnglish are always rather amused at American distinctions. It only\nhappens that all my friends are New-Yorkers.\"\n\nShe was a very clever woman, for snobbery had blunted and demoralized\nonly one small chamber of her brain, and she had as comprehensive a\nknowledge of the world as any woman in it. Nevertheless, as her powerful\nmagnetic eyes met the ingenuous orbs opposite, she was unable to\ndetermine whether the barbed words, quivering in a sore spot, had been\nuttered in innocence or intent. \"Of course one doesn't meet so many\nAmericans, after all. Naturally, the New-Yorkers bring the best\nletters.\" She paused a moment as if ruminating, then delivered herself\nof an epigram: \"New York is the great American invention for separating\nthe wheat from the tares.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" Isabel was too surprised to strike back.\n\n\"It is well known that it is one of the most exclusive social bodies in\nthe world. You have far less difficulty over here.\"\n\n\"That may be merely owing to the fear that affects all new social\nbodies. I have the honor to know the leader of society in St. Peter--a\ntown of ten thousand inhabitants near my own--and she is frightfully\nexclusive. She is so afraid of knowing the wrong sort of people that she\nis barely on nodding terms with the several thousand new-comers that\nhave added to the wealth and importance of the town during the last ten\nyears. Consequently, her circle is as dull as an Anglo-Saxon Sunday. I\nfancy the same may be said of New York, for its fashionable set is not\nlarge and its interests are far from various. From all I have heard,\nLondon society alone is perennially interesting, and the reason is,\nthat, absolutely secure, it keeps itself from staleness by constantly\nrefreshing its veins with new blood, exclusive only against\noffensiveness. Of course you are a daughter of a duke or something,\" she\nadded, wickedly. \"Everybody here seems to be. Don't you feel that your\nancestors have given you the right to know whom you please?--instead of\neternally plugging the holes in the dike.\"\n\nIn spite of her sharpened wits, Mrs. Kaye smiled radiantly into Isabel's\nguileless eyes. \"I am not the daughter of a duke; I wish I were!\" she\nexclaimed, with a fair assumption of aristocratic frankness. \"But your\npoint is quite correct.\" Again she appeared to ruminate; then added:\n\"The British aristocracy is to society what God is to the\nworld--all-sufficient, all-merciful, all-powerful.\"\n\n\"And she would sacrifice Him and all his archangels to an epigram,\"\nthought Isabel, who was somewhat shocked. \"How fearfully clever you\nare!\" she murmured. \"Do you think in epigrams?\"\n\n\"Epigrams? Have I made one? I wish I could. They are immensely the\nfashion.\"\n\n\"I should think you might have set it--\"\n\nShe did not finish her sentence, for the ear to which it was addressed\nsuddenly closed. Lady Cecilia Spence had sauntered up, and Mrs. Kaye\nhastily made room for her on the sofa, turning a shoulder upon Isabel. A\nfaint change, as by the agitation of depths on the far surface of\nwaters, rippled her features, and Isabel, summoning the impersonal\nattitude, watched her curiously. It was her first experience of the snob\nin a grandiose setting, but it was the type that had aroused her most\nimpassioned inward protest all her life: the smallest circles have their\nsnobs, and, like all the unchosen of mammon, she had had her corroding\nexperiences. But her high spirit resented the power of the baser\ninfluences, and, with her intellect, commanded her to accept the world\nwith philosophy and the unsheathed weapon of self-respect. In the\npresent stage of the world's development it was to be expected that the\npettier characteristics of human nature would predominate; and perhaps\nthe intellectually exclusive would not have it otherwise.\n\nMrs. Kaye, polite tolerance giving place to the accent of intimacy,\nbegan: \"Oh, Lady Cecilia, have you heard--\" and plunged into a piece of\ngossip, no doubt of absorbing interest to those that knew the\ncontributory circumstances and the surnames of the actors, but to the\nuninitiated as puzzling as success. Lady Cecilia's eyes twinkled\nappreciatively, and her wells of laughter bubbled close to the surface.\nIsabel, completely ignored, waited until the story was finished, and\nthen made a deliberate move.\n\n\"How interesting!\" she exclaimed. \"Won't you tell me the names of the\npeople?\"\n\nMrs. Kaye, without turning her head, murmured something indistinctly,\nand lit another cigarette. \"Won't you have a light, Lady Cecilia?\" she\nasked.\n\n\"Please give me one,\" said Isabel, sweetly. She reached out and took the\ncigarette from Mrs. Kaye's faintly resisting hand. \"Thank you. I am lazy\nabout looking for matches. Do you smoke a lot?\"\n\nBut Mrs. Kaye, irritated, or having reached the conclusion that the\nnewcomer was not in the very least worth while, said with soft fervor to\nher who was: \"How delightful that dear Jack was returned! Of course you\nare as interested in his career as the rest of us.\"\n\n\"I should be a good deal more so if his mother had turned him across her\nknee a little oftener--or if I could shake him myself occasionally.\"\n\nIsabel, satisfied, more amazed than ever at the infantile ingenuousness\nof the snob, rose, and was about to turn away when she met Lady\nCecilia's eyes. They were full of amusement, and there was no mistaking\nits purport. In a flash Isabel had responded with a challenge of appeal,\nwhich that accomplished dame was quick to understand.\n\n\"Please don't go,\" she said. \"I came over here to talk to you. We are\nall so interested in the idea that Vicky is half an American--we had\nquite forgotten it. Did you ever see any one look less as if she had\nAmerican cousins than Vicky? She might easily have a whole tribe of\nSpanish ones.\"\n\n\"Well, she has, in a way.\" And in response to many questions Isabel\nfound herself relating the story of Rezanov and Concha Argueello, while\nMrs. Kaye, whatever may have been her sensations, rose with an absent\nsmile and composedly transferred herself to an equally distinguished\nneighborhood.\n\n\"I wonder if she has ever tried to condense rudeness into an epigram,\"\nsaid Isabel viciously, pausing in her narrative.\n\nLady Cecilia shook expressively. \"At least she has not made an art of\nit,\" she said. \"They never do.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nThe next morning, Isabel, after little sleep, rose early and went out\nfor a walk. She had sat up until eleven, listening to the puzzling jets\nof conversation, or watching the Bridge-players, and when she had\nfinally reached her room, tired and excited, Flora Thangue had come in\nfor a last cigarette and half an hour of chat. Her first evening in the\nnew world had had its clouded moments, for it was impossible not to feel\nthe alien, and the kindness of English people, no matter how deep, is\ncasual in expression. But on the whole she had felt more girlishly happy\nand ebullient than since her sister had gone her own way and left a\nheavy burden for young shoulders behind her. In the freedom of a girl in\nEurope, no matter how prized, there is much of loneliness in idleness, a\nconstant attitude of defence, moments of bitter wonder and disgust, and,\nto the analytical mind, an encroaching dread of a more normal future\nwith a chronic canker of discontent.\n\nIsabel had by no means passed her European years in the procession that\nwinds from the Tiber to the Seine, prostrating itself at each successive\nstation of architecture or canvas; nor even devoted the major portion of\nher time to the investigation of the native, deeply as the varying types\nhad interested her. Her intellectual ambition, as is often the case with\nthe American provincial girl, had been even stronger than her desire for\nliberty and pleasure, and she had spent several months with the\narchaeological society of Rome, read deeply in Italian history and art,\nattended lectures at the Sorbonne, and spent nearly a year in Berlin,\nDresden, Munich, and Vienna, studying that modern stronghold of dramatic\nliterature, the German Theatre.\n\nIt had been the living dream of long winter evenings, when she had not\ndared to join in the festivities of the other young folk lest her father\nshould stray beyond her control; he would, when the demon was quiescent,\nsit at home if she read to him, and she had learned to read and dream at\nthe same time. It was only at the beginning of her third year of\nliberty, when, in spite of shifting scenes, the entire absence of daily\ncares and of heavy responsibilities involving another had given her\nlonger hours for thought and introspection, that the poisonous doubt of\nthe use of it all had begun to work in a mind that had lost something of\nthe ardor of novelty. The eternal interrogations had obtruded themselves\nin her unfortunate girlhood, and she had questioned the voiceless\ninfinite, but angrily, with youth's blind rebellion against the\ninjustice of life. The anger and rebellion had been comatose in these\nyears of freedom, but the maturer brain was the more uneasy, at times\nappalled. For what was she developing, perfecting herself? She had no\ntalent, with its constant promises, its occasional triumphs, its\nstimulating rivalries, to give zest to life; and there were times when\nshe envied the student girls in Munich with their absurd \"reform dress,\"\ntheir cigarettes and beer in cheap restaurants and theatres, their more\nthan doubtful standards. Although she had her own private faith and\nnever hesitated to pray for anything she wanted, she was not of those\nthat can make a career of religion; her mind and temperament were both\ntoo complex, and she was unable to interest herself in creeds and\ntheologies--and congregations.\n\nNow and again she had considered seriously the study of medicine,\narchitecture, law, of perfecting herself for criticism of some sort, for\nshe had spoken with a measure of truth when she had assured Flora that\nshe had no wish to marry. In her depths she was--had been--romantic and\ngiven to dreaming, but the manifold weaknesses of her father--who had\nbeen one of the most brilliant and accomplished of men, a graduate of\nHarvard, and the possessor of many books--and the selfish and tyrannous\nexactions which had tempered his enthusiasm for all things feminine, the\ncaustic tongue and overbearing masculinity of her uncle, who had been as\nweak in his way as her father, for he had lost the greater part of his\npatrimony on the stock-market, and the charming inconsequence of her\nbrother-in-law, who loved his family extravagantly and treated them like\npoor relations, had not prepared her to idealize the young men she had\nmet in Rosewater and Europe. She had been sought and attracted more than\nonce during her years of liberty, but her prejudices and the deep cold\nsurface of temperament peculiar to American girls of the best class,\nlent a fatal clarity of vision; and although she had studied men as\ndeeply as she dared, the result had but intensified the sombre threat of\nthe future. It was quite true that she had half-consciously believed\nthat hope would live again and justify itself in Elton Gwynne, and the\ndisappointment, at the first glimpse of his portrait, was so crushing\nthat she had buried her sex under an avalanche of scorn.\n\nBut scorn is far more volcanic than glacial and a poor barrier between\nsex and judgment. It needed more than that, and more than disillusions\nof the second class, no matter how inordinate, to give a girl the cool\nreality of poise that had stimulated the curiosity of Miss Thangue; and\nthis Isabel had encountered, during the most critical period of her\ninner life, in the beautiful city by the Isar. The experience had been\nso brief and tremendous, the incidents so crowding and tense, the climax\nso hideous, that she had been stunned for a time, then emerged into her\npresent state of tranquil and not unpleasant philosophy--when the\npresent moment, if it contained distraction, was something to be\ngrateful for; otherwise, to be borne with until the sure compensation\narrived. The future had neither terror for her nor any surpassing\nconcern, although all her old impersonal interest in life had revived,\nand she was still too young not to be very much like other girls when\ncircumstances were propitious. And at last she had conceived--or\nevolved--a definite purpose.\n\nThis morning she was living as eagerly as ever during her first deep\nmonths in Europe. The excitement of the evening still possessed her; she\nhad held her own, received homage, lived a little chapter in an English\nnovel; above all, she was young, she was free, she was no longer\nunhappy; and she loved the early morning and swift walking.\n\nIt was Sunday; the shooting would not begin until the morrow; everybody\nexcept herself, apparently, still slept; the breakfast-hour was\nhalf-past nine. She walked down a long lane behind the lawns and entered\nthe first of the coverts. There was a drowsy whir of wings--once--that\nwas all. There was a glint of dancing water in the heavier shades, a\nrosy light beyond the farthest of the trees in the little wood where the\ndelicate pendent leaves hung asleep in the sweet peace. There was not an\nexpiring echo of her own wild forests here; nor any likeness to the\nsplendid royal preserves of Germany and Austria, with their ancient\ntrees, their miles of garnished floor, the sudden glimpse of chamois or\nstag standing on a rocky ledge against the sky as if drilled for his\npart. These woods had a quality all their own: of Nature in her last\nlittle strongholds, but smiling, serenely triumphant, of tempered heat\nwithout chill, above all, of perfect peace.\n\nNothing in England had impressed Isabel like this atmosphere of peace\nthat broods over its fields and lanes, its woods and fells, in the\nevening and early morning hours; the atmosphere that makes it seem to be\nset to the tune of Wordsworth's verses, and to keep it everlastingly\nold-fashioned and out of all relation to its towns. As she left the wood\nshe saw a big hay-stack, as firm and shapely of outline as a house, not\na loose wisp anywhere. A girl, bareheaded, was driving a cow across a\nfield. A narrow river moved as slowly as if the world had never\nawakened. The road turned to her right and led to an old stone village\nwith a winding broken street and several oak-trees, a pump, and a long\ngreen bench. It might have been the Deserted Village, for the English\nrise far later than the Southern races that have fallen so far behind\nthem in importance and wealth. Beyond the village, on a rise of ground,\nwas the church, its square gray tower crumbling down upon its ancient\ngraves. In the distance were farms, coverts, another village, a gray\nspire against the blossoming red of the sky; and over all--peace--peace.\nHad anything ever really disturbed it? Would there ever be any change?\nEngland had been devastated to the roots, would be again, no doubt, but\nunless it became one vast London, it would brood on into eternity with\nthe slight defiant smile of a beautiful woman in an enchanted sleep.\n\n\"Are you, too, an early bird?\"\n\nIsabel flew out of her reverie. Lady Victoria was approaching from a\nforking road. She wore a short skirt, leggings, and heavy boots; and she\nwas bright, fresh, almost rosy from swift walking. \"I have gone five\nmiles already,\" she said, smiling. \"But I believe you were sauntering.\"\n\n\"Only just now--to absorb it all. I, too, can do my five miles an hour,\nalthough Californians are the laziest people in the world about\nwalking.\"\n\n\"Then if you are up to a sharp trot we'll go to that farthest village.\nMy land steward has been telling me a painful tale about one of my young\nwomen, and I intend to ask her some embarrassing questions while she is\nstill too stupid with sleep to lie.\"\n\n\"Your young women? Is all this your estate?\"\n\n\"It belongs to Strathland, but I have lived here since I married, and\nnow the place is virtually Jack's. These people have been my particular\ncharge for thirty years and will continue to be until my son marries.\nThere are only about a hundred families on the estate altogether, but\nthey keep one busy.\"\n\n\"I can't imagine you in the working role of the Lady Bountiful. Last\nnight, at least, if I had written to my friend, Anabel Colton, I should\nhave devoted pages to your more famous attributes, but I should never\nhave thought of this.\"\n\n\"Indeed? If one could languish through life in the shell of a mere\nbeauty that life would be a good deal simpler proposition than it is.\nUnfortunately there are complications, and, agreeable or not, one\naccepts them as one does enemies, husbands, stupid servants, and all\nother mortal thorns. But I am not uninterested in my people here, not by\nany means, and they bore me less than going to court and visiting my\nfather-in-law. I watch them from birth, see that they are properly\nclothed and fed, that they go to school as soon as they are old enough,\nlater that they find a situation here or elsewhere--those that have no\nwork to do at home. My son gives the young men and women a complete\nwardrobe when they start out to win their way in life, and the details\nfall on me. It means correspondence, mothers' meetings, and all that\nsort of thing. Even during the London season I come down once a month.\nOf course it is a bore, but on the whole tradition is rather kind than\notherwise in making life more or less of a routine.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't you miss it if your son married?\" Isabel wondered if this\nwoman had really given her the impression of tragic secrets, unlimited\ncapacities for both license and arrogance. In this early morning\nfreshness there was hardly a suggestion of the woman of the world,\nbarely of the great lady; and in the rich tones of her voice there was a\ngenuine note of interest in her poor.\n\n\"Oh, I should always keep an eye on them; young wives have so many\ndistractions. If I had to give them up--yes, of course it would mean a\nvacancy in my collection of habits; one side of me clings strongly to\ntraditions and duty. The other--well, I'd like to be a free-lance in the\nworld for a while--although,\" she added, with a sharp intonation, \"I\ndon't suppose I should stay away from Jack very long. It is a great\nrelief to have a vital interest in life outside one's self. You, of\ncourse, are not old enough to have discovered that; and, indeed, I am\nnot always so sure that it is possible.\"\n\nIsabel did not ask her if she would not be jealous of the wife who must,\nif he loved her, take the greater part of all that her \"Jack\" had to\ngive; she divined in this many-sided woman a quality in her attitude\ntowards her son with which ordinary maternal affection had little in\ncommon. Her fine eyes flashed with pride at the mention of his name, and\nit was more than evident that he was her deep and abiding interest; but\nthis keen and curious young student of life had never seen any one less\nmaternal. Lady Victoria's attitude, indeed, might as reasonably be that\nof a proud sister or wife. When he was beside her she looked almost\ncommonplace in her content. The moment he passed out of her sight some\nphase of individuality promptly lit its torch. Last night Isabel had\nseen her stand for half an hour as motionless as some ivory female\nColossus, only her eyes burning down with slow voluptuous fire upon an\nadoring little Frenchman. She had looked like a Messalina petrified with\nthe complications and commonness of the modern world; possibly with the\nburden of years, Isabel had added, in girlish intolerance of the wiles\nof which youth is independent. She had been far from falling under her\nspell, although not wholly repelled by the glimpse of this worst side of\na woman far too complex to be judged off-hand. This morning she liked\nher suddenly and warmly, and, with the lightning of instinct, divined\nwhy she worshipped her son and still was willing to have him marry and\nswing aside into an orbit of his own. All she needed was a certain\namount of his society, opportunities to work for him, the assurance of\nhis success and happiness. He was a refuge from herself; in his\nimperious demands her memory slept, her depths were stagnant. But Isabel\nwas still too young, in spite of her own experience, more than dimly to\napprehend the older woman's attitude, and the innumerable and various\nacts and sufferings, disenchantments and contacts that had led up to it.\nVictoria seemed to her the most rounded mortal she had met, and yet with\nan insistent terror in the depths of her riven and courageous soul, the\nterror of the complete, the final disillusion. Between that moment and\nher too exhaustive knowledge of life stood the magnetic figure of her\nson, safeguarding, almost hypnotizing her. She was as incapable of\njealousy as of aching vanity in the fact of a son whom the world was\nnever permitted to forget. She had done with little things, and Isabel,\nwith young curiosity, wondered in what convulsion the last of them had\ngone down.\n\nLady Victoria, unconscious of the analytical mind groping to conclusions\nbeside her, was revolving the midnight comments of Flora Thangue, and\nher own impressions of this American relative whose sudden advent, taken\nin connection with her eighteenth century beauty and undecipherable\nquality, wrought the impression of a symbolic figure swimming out of\nspace. Lady Victoria was far too indifferent to analyze the problems of\nany woman's soul, but she was keenly alive to the vital suggestion of\npower in the girl, and of the strong will and intellect, the command\nover every faculty, evidenced in the strong line of the jaw, the stern\nnoble profile, the calm searching gaze so difficult to sustain. None\nknew better than Victoria the value and rarity of a free and courageous\nsoul. Such a woman must, when more fully developed, throw the whole\nweight of her character into the scales balancing for the few whom she\nrecognized as equals and accepted as friends. If she had had \"some\nsmashing love affair,\" as the more romantic Flora suggested, so much\nthe better.\n\nShe said, with a perfectly simulated impulsiveness:\n\n\"Of course you understand that I meant what I said last evening. And not\nmerely a week; you must pay us a long visit, if it won't bore you. But\nthe house will rarely be empty now that the shooting has begun, and\nthere is always something going on in the neighborhood. Later comes the\nhunting, and I am sure you ride.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I ride! I have spent about half my life on a horse. I want to\nstay more than I can tell you, but before long I must go home. The same\nsafe old bank that has charge of your ranches looks after my small\naffairs, and I have a man on the farm that has been in the family for\nforty years; otherwise I should never have dared to leave my precious\nchickens; but Mr. Colton writes me that Mac is failing, and before the\nrainy season commences I must look into things myself.\"\n\n\"Chickens?\" said Lady Victoria, much amused. \"Do you raise chickens?\"\n\n\"Rather; and not in the back yard, neither. I have about a thousand of\nthe most beautiful snow-white Leghorns with blood-red combs you ever\nsaw; and I have incubators, runs, colony-houses, and all the rest of it.\nThey are raised on the strictest scientific principles and yield me the\ngreater part of my income. That is the reason I feel obliged to\nreturn--if Mac is no longer able--or willing--to get up at night. One\nmust not neglect the chicks--the little ones. I doubt if real babies are\nmore trouble. I don't mind telling you that I have resolved to make a\nfortune out of chickens, if only that I may be able to live as I should\nin San Francisco. But I must go back and do the greater part of the work\nmyself.\"\n\n\"Make a fortune--out of chickens! How odd that sounds! Not in the least\nromantic, but rather the more interesting for that. But why don't you\nlet your ranch for dairy and grazing purposes, as we do? They bring us\nin a very good income--have done, so far.\"\n\n\"There are about nineteen thousand acres in Lumalitas, and some forty\nthousand in the southern ranch. I possess exactly three hundred and\nthirty-two, forty-five of which are marsh. You have now nearly the whole\nof the original grants, for as my father and uncle sold or mortgaged\nportions--and could not pay--your agents bought in. You may remember.\"\n\n\"There is seldom any correspondence. Mr. Colton has always had a free\nhand--yes--I do recall--vaguely. So I am profiting at your expense. I am\nafraid that must seem unjust to you.\"\n\n\"Not in the least. I did not choose my paternal relatives, but I long\nsince accepted them with philosophy. I am thankful to have anything. Why\ndon't you go to California and look at your property?--live on it for a\nfew years? You could make far more out of it if you ran it yourself. The\nlease of Lumalitas must expire very soon. I do wish you would come and\npay me a visit, and--Mr.--what on earth am I to call him?\"\n\n\"Jack, of course,\" said Lady Victoria, warmly, although she would have\nbeen swift to resent the liberty had the new relative been so\nindiscreet.\n\n\"I never could manage Jack--never! I can't feel, see him, as Jack. I\nthink Cousin Elton will do.\"\n\n\"Quite so. I shouldn't wonder at all if we went. Jack is rather keen on\nAmerican politics, knows his Bryce--I suppose it is in the blood. He\neven takes in an American Review. I have always rather wanted to visit\nCalifornia, and started for it once upon a time--on my wedding journey.\nBut we were entertained so delightfully in New York and Washington that\nbefore we realized what an American summer meant it was too hot to cross\nthe continent, and we accepted an invitation to the Adirondacks,\nintending to return to England in the course of a month. But Arthur\nbroke his leg, and by the time he was well again it was not safe for me\nto travel. So we rented a place in Virginia, where there was good sport,\nand there Jack was born. Here we are. Rest under that tree while I\ninterview the erring maiden.\"\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nIsabel sat on the bench under an ancient oak for half an hour or more,\nbut took no note of the time. In rural America one always seems to hear\nthe whir of distant machinery and responds to its tensity in the depths\nof some nerve centre; but in England's open the tendency is to dream\naway the hours, the nerves as blunt as in the tropics; unless, indeed,\none happens to be so astir within that one rebels in responding, and\nconceives of ultimate hatred for this incompassionate arrogant peace of\nEngland.\n\nIsabel had been roused from her mood of unreasoning content by her\ncontact with the older woman, but for a few moments her thoughts waved\nto and fro in that large tranquillity like pendent moss in a gentle\nbreeze. There was a stir of life in the little village; a window was\nthrown open; a man came out to the pump and filled a bucket with water;\na child cried for its breakfast; the birds were singing in the trees.\nBut they barely rippled the calm. Isabel's eyes dwelt absently upon a\nwhite line along a distant hill-top, made, no doubt, by Caesar's troops;\nfor she had heard that the mosaic floors of Roman houses had been\ndiscovered under one of the fields in the neighborhood. This\ninformation, imparted by Lord Hexam's cousin, Mrs. Throfton, a lady\ninterested in neither Bridge nor gossip, had not excited her as it might\nhave done before her archaeological experience at headquarters, but she\nwas glad to recall it now, for that white road, sharply insistent in the\nsurrounding green, was one of the perceptible vincula of history.\n\nIt was all old--old--old; an illimitable backward vista. And she was as\nnew, as out of tune with it as the motorcar flashing like a lost and\ndistracted comet along that hill-top in a cloud of historied dust: she\nwith her problems, her egoisms, the fateful independence of the modern\ngirl. In a fashion she was one of the chosen of earth, but she doubted\nif the women who had toiled in these villages, or in centuries past had\nlived their lives in the mansions of their indubious lords, had not had\ngreater compensations than she. Unbroken monotony and a saving sense of\nthe inevitable must in time create for the soul something of the\nillimitable horizon of the vast level spaces of the earth.\n\nAnd she? At twenty-five she had lost her old habit of staring with\nveiled eyes into some sweet ambiguous future, her girlish intensity of\nemotion. But her theories, in general, were sound, and she had ticketed\neven her minor experiences. She knew that character was the most\nsignificant of all individual forces, and that if developed in strict\nadjustment to the highest demands of society, dragging strength out of\nthe powers of the universe, were it not inborn, the book of one's\nobjective future at least need never be closed prematurely by those\ninexorable social forces, which, whatever the weak spots on the surface\nof life, invariably place a man in the end according to his deserts. She\nhad seen her father, with all his advantages of birth and talents, and\nearly importance in the community, gradually shunned, shelved, dismissed\nfrom the daily life of steadier if less gifted men, almost unknown to\nthe young generation. He had clung to certain strict notions of honor\nthrough it all, however, and at his death the county had experienced a\nspasm of remorse and attended his funeral; the sermon had been eloquent\nwith masterly omissions, and even the newspaper that had vilified him in\nhis days of political influence came out with an obituary, which, when\nincluded in some future county history, would give to posterity quite as\ngood an impression of him as he deserved.\n\nAnd James Otis had had his virtues. One of his claims to redemption\nsurvived in his daughter. He had reared her in the strict principles and\nprecepts of his New England ancestors, many of which are generally more\nuseful in the life of a man. This early instillation, taken in\nconnection with himself as a commanding illustration in subcontraries,\nhad given Isabel a directness of vision invaluable to a girl in no haste\nto place her life in stronger hands. Whatever her dissatisfactions and\ndisillusions, her road lay along the upper reaches; the second rate, the\nfailures from birth, the criminal classes, far below. Her start in life\nwas indefectible, and she knew that did the necessity arise to-morrow\nshe could support herself and ask no quarter.\n\nPerhaps, she mused, she would be happier in the necessity, for the\nproblem of roof and bread is an abiding substitute for the problem of\nwhat to do with one's life. But she had never known an anxious moment\nregarding the bare necessities, and although there was something\npleasantly stimulating in the prospect of making a fortune and being\nable to live as she wished in the city of her birth--the only object for\nwhich she retained any passion in her affections--she smiled somewhat\ncynically at the modest outlook.\n\nEnvironments like the present were uplifting, almost deindividualizing,\nand there had been a time when she had known seconds in the face of\nnature's surprises that were distinct spiritual experiences. She\nbelieved they would return when she was in her own land once more, and\nEurope a book of fading memories. Her love of beauty at least was as\nkeen as ever, and now that Europe was off her mind, leaving the proper\nsense of surfeit behind it, no doubt she would have a sense of actually\nbeginning life when the time came to take an active part in it, and she\nassumed a position of some importance in her own community. She was far\ntoo sensible for ingratitude, and fully appreciated the gifts that life\nhad so liberally dealt her. And she fully believed in work as the\nuniversal panacea. The mere thought of a busy future brought a glow to\nher heart. She rose with a smile as Lady Victoria emerged from the\ncottage at the upper end of the village.\n\nLady Victoria was not smiling. Her brows were drawn, and she looked\nangry and contemptuous.\n\n\"The little idiot!\" she exclaimed, as they started briskly for home.\n\"This is the first failure I have had in ten years. That is one of my\nboasts. And I took particular pains with that girl. Now Jack will have\nthe agreeable task of coercing the man into marrying her, for it appears\nthat his ardor has cooled.\"\n\nHer brow cleared in a few moments, but she seemed to have had enough of\nconversation, and it was evident that words for words' sake, or as a\nflimsy chain between signposts of genuine interest, had no place in her\nsocial rubric. Isabel, who was equally indifferent, strode along beside\nher without so much as a comment, and so confirmed the good impression\nshe had made on her mettlesome relative. As they approached the house,\nLady Victoria turned to her with a smile that brought sweetness to her\neyes rather than any one of her more dazzling qualities.\n\n\"I am generally in my boudoir at five,\" she said. \"Come in this\nafternoon for a chat before tea, if you have nothing better to do. Now\nrun and get ready for breakfast.\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nWhether or not Mr. Gwynne had made up his mind to follow his mother's\nadvice and employ a new weapon in his siege of Mrs. Kaye, or whether,\nlike common mortals, he was subject to the natural impulses of youth,\nthe most novel of the guests of Capheaton found herself on his right in\nthe informality of breakfast, and the object of his solicitude. He\nfetched her bacon and toast from the sideboard, and when he discovered\nthat she did not like cream in her tea, carried her cup back to his\nmother and waited for the more pungent substitute. And then he actually\nmade an effort to entertain her. There was a flicker of surprised\namusement in the neighborhood, but Isabel accepted his attentions as a\nmatter of course, assuming that the young gentleman felt refreshed after\na night's rest in his own bed, or had awakened to a sense of her\nimportance as a member of his family. It was not until she caught Mrs.\nKaye's eye and read a contemptuous power to retaliate, that she\nexperienced a certain zest in the situation. With the magnetism of\nintelligent interest in her own eyes, she turned to Gwynne with a\nquestion that betrayed a flattering acquaintance with one of his less\npopular books, then hung upon the monologue of which he promptly\ndelivered himself. It was characteristic that he either contributed\nlittle to the conversation or monopolized it; and he reflected, as he\ntalked of the personal experience which led up to the episode of her\ninterest, that he had never before gazed into eyes at once so lovely and\nso fine. He disliked American girls, partly because they had shown no\ndisposition to join the ranks of those that lived to spoil him, partly\nbecause he believed them to be shallow and cold. Some of the married\nwomen had attracted him, but not before they had lived long enough to\ndevelop the stronger qualities of the older races; he had his ideals and\nwas not easily satisfied. He was deeply in love with Mrs. Kaye, for her\nbrilliant subtle mind and powerful appeal to his passions had blinded\nhim to her defects, and he was convinced that his heart had travelled to\nits predestined goal. Nevertheless, he decided that his new cousin, if\nas cold as the rest of her youthful compatriots, was worth cultivating\nfor her intelligence and obvious talent for good-comradeship.\n\nBut in a moment a subject was started that entirely diverted his mind\nand upset the lively tenor of the breakfast-table.\n\n\"Where is Lorcutt?\" asked some one, abruptly, referring to a brother of\nLord Brathland, who had lost heavily and cheerfully at Bridge the night\nbefore.\n\nIsabel's eyes happened to have wandered to the face of the man opposite.\nTo her surprise it became livid. He turned instantly to Gwynne, however,\nand said: \"I should have told you--I quite forgot--he asked me to make\nhis excuses. He got a telegram--bad news--Bratty is dead.\"\n\nInvoluntarily Isabel glanced at Mrs. Kaye; Flora had hinted to her of\nthe lady's designs. That face for once was ghastly and unmasked, but the\neyes were not glittering with grief.\n\n\"Impossible!\" she cried, sharply. \"Lord Brathland? Why--I saw him only\ntwo days ago, in London. He was as well as possible.\"\n\nThe others barely noticed her. Their astonished eyes were fixed on the\nfirst speaker, Captain Ormond, who was sitting very erect, as if to\nreceive the questions fired at him as a brave man faces the hiss of lead\non the field.\n\n\"I know little,\" he replied; \"except that Brathland was suddenly\nattacked by appendicitis two nights ago and that an operation was\nimmediately performed--\"\n\n\"Friday night!\" cried Mrs. Kaye. \"Why he spent an hour with me that\nafternoon, and was to dine with Lord Zeal and Lord Raglin and half a\ndozen other men that night--they all came up to London to talk over one\nof Sir Cadge Vanneck's mines. Why--I remember you were to be there.\nSurely Lord Brathland was well then?\"\n\n\"He was looking very seedy when he came in. I happened to sit next to\nhim--told him he ought to go home. Finally he got so bad he decided\nthat he would, and as he left the table he fainted. Several of us saw\nhim to bed. He said he didn't want his family fidgeting him, and the\nsurgeon said he would be all right in a few days. I thought he was out\nof danger when I came down last night, so said nothing about it to\nHarold.\"\n\n\"Was he taken home?\" asked Gwynne, whose eyes had never left Ormond's\nface.\n\n\"No--to Raglin's room up-stairs. The dinner was at the Club.\"\n\n\"I cannot understand why his family was not summoned at the last!\"\nexclaimed Lady Victoria.\n\n\"Well, there's only the old duke and Harold, you see. Dick is out in\nAfrica. I suppose they didn't want to agitate the duke until the last\nmoment and couldn't find Harold until this morning. Besides, Raglin was\nwith him, and he is a relative, at least. It is awfully sudden. I have\nbeen upset ever since Harold woke me up this morning and told me; and\nhated to speak of it.\"\n\n\"Who was the surgeon?\" asked Gwynne.\n\n\"Ballast.\"\n\n\"Ballast? Who is he? Why not one of the big men, in heaven's name?\"\ncried Mrs. Kaye.\n\n\"Well--they were all out of town--naturally enough at this time of year.\nWe had to take what we could get. No doubt Lester or Masten was\ntelegraphed for later. I--all of us--left the affair in Raglin's hands.\"\n\nThe company broke into general comment, and under cover of the confusion\nIsabel distinctly heard Gwynne demand:\n\n\"What's up your sleeve, Ormond?\"\n\nAnd the response: \"For God's sake, old chap, don't ask!\"\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nGwynne had never recognized the contingency of a serious rival in the\naffections of the woman he had elected to mate, and had he heard of the\nlate Lord Brathland's attentions it would not have occurred to him that\nMrs. Kaye could weigh a prospective dukedom against the reflected\nglories of his own career. He intended to be prime-minister before he\nwas forty, and older and soberer heads shared his confidence. It was\ntrue that Mrs. Kaye was an emphatic Conservative--scorning even the\ncompromise of Liberal-Unionism--and that so far he had been unable to\nconvert her; but he did not take any woman's political convictions very\nseriously, knowing that they commonly owed their inspiration to social\nambition, a desire for a career, or to marital comradeship. The latter\nhe made no doubt would operate in his own case as soon as the lady gave\nhim the opportunity to demand it as his right; and his sharp political\ndiscussions with her were among the spiciest of his experiences. She\nrarely expressed herself in every-day language; and although it had\ncrossed his mind that epigrammatic matrimony might grow oppressive, he\nhad reminded himself that her speech was but a part of a too cultivated\nindividuality and would be unable to endure the strain of daily\nintercourse. Although he had in his composition little of the femininity\nthat gives a certain type of man a sympathetic comprehension of women,\nhis Celtic blood imparted a subtle understanding of their foibles of\nwhich he was but half aware. More than once this subconscious\npenetration had induced a speedy recovery from misplaced affections; but\nthe toils of Julia Kaye, who piqued, allured, repelled, dazzled, now and\nagain snubbed every one else for his sake, bound him helpless. He was\ngrateful for his mother's abetment, although it somewhat surprised him;\nbut his mother was the woman of whom he had the least comprehension.\n\nSo far Mrs. Kaye had ignored his several proposals, but of this he\nthought nothing. He would have cared little for a woman to be had for\nthe asking; and he rather welcomed any treatment that stirred the\nsomewhat sluggish surfaces of his nature.\n\nHe had determined, however, to force a definite answer from her during\nthis visit, and although he was far too courteous a host to embarrass a\nguest, he knew that were Mrs. Kaye deliberately to grant him a private\ninterview he should be at liberty to press his suit.\n\nImmediately after the hour in the smoking-room that followed breakfast,\nhe started in search of her; but although many of the women were\nscattered throughout the lower rooms, reading, writing, gossiping, he\nsaw nothing of his inamorata. Flora Thangue happened to be standing\nalone, and he went up to her impulsively.\n\n\"Do you know if Julia has gone to church?\" he asked, without\ncircumlocution.\n\n\"She went to her room directly after breakfast. I fancy she is rather\ncut up over Lord Brathland's death,\" replied the astute Miss Thangue.\n\n\"Of course; we all are--poor Bratty! He was rather a bounder, but it is\nnatural to recall his virtues. Flora, go and tell her I want her to come\nfor a walk. I can't go to her room myself, and I don't care to send a\nservant.\"\n\nMiss Thangue reflected. Probably this was the most favorable moment for\na repulse that he could have chosen. She was sincerely fond of him and\ndistrusted Mrs. Kaye as much as she disliked her.\n\n\"Very well,\" she said. \"I will see what I can do.\"\n\nMrs. Kaye admitted her promptly and presented an unstained front,\nalthough her color was lower than usual. She was a woman of too much\nnatural and acquired poise to remain askew under any shock. But she had\nexperienced an hour of mixed emotions in which a confused and wondering\nsense of defeat was paramount. It had left her a little aghast, for\nalthough she had met with the inevitable snubs in her upward course, she\nrarely permitted them to agitate her memory in these days when she had\ngrown to believe herself one of the spoiled favorites of destiny; and\nher fibres were by no means sensitive. But this sudden blow was a\nreminder that fate had been capricious to spoiled darlings before. She\nhad stood almost motionless before the window from the moment she had\nentered her room until Miss Thangue knocked at the door, and by that\ntime she had repoised herself and set her heavy mouth in a hard line as\nshe reflected upon her own will as a factor in any game with life.\n\n\"Jack wants you to go for a walk,\" announced Miss Thangue, who saw no\noccasion for subtlety.\n\n\"That means he intends to propose again,\" said Mrs. Kaye, in her\ncarefully modulated voice. \"I don't know that I care about it. I have\nletters to write.\"\n\n\"Why not get it over? You could compel him to believe, if you chose,\nthat you have no intention of marrying him, and it would be rather a\nkindness; he has so much else to think about, and he certainly should\nhave a free mind before the opening of Parliament. If you really did\nJack any harm,\" she added, deliberately, \"Vicky would never forgive\nyou--nor a good many others.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't do him any harm for the world,\" said Mrs. Kaye, casting down\nher eyes and looking very young and innocent. \"But I should hate to give\nhim up. After all, there is no one half so interesting. Well, I'll go\ndown and have it over.\"\n\nA few moments later she joined Gwynne at the foot of the staircase, and\nthey went out to the woods. She looked her best in a smart walking-frock\nof white tweed, and a red toque; for the tailor costume modifies where\nthe elaborate accentuates.\n\nHer brilliant eyes melted as Brathland's name was mentioned; naturally\nat once.\n\n\"What a dreadful--shocking thing!\" she cried. \"I do not realize it at\nall. Poor dear, we were such friends--and I saw him only a few hours\nbefore. Have you heard anything more?\"\n\n\"Ormond ran off to town directly after breakfast--as if he were afraid\nof being asked too many questions. I have an idea that he kept the cat\nin the bag. I saw my cousin Zeal yesterday, and thought he looked as if\nhe had something besides his health on his mind.\"\n\n\"Why?\" asked Mrs. Kaye, startled. \"What else could it be?\"\n\n\"Well, Bratty was rather a flasher,\" said Gwynne, innocently. \"The\ndinner may not have been at the Club at all, and there is a little\nchorus-girl that engaged the fickle Bratty's affections for a time, and\nproclaimed her desire for vengeance from the house-tops when he\ntransferred himself to a rival at the Adelphi. She is a Neapolitan, and\nthat sort may carry a stiletto even in prosaic old London. Or perhaps\npoor Bratty was despatched with the carving-knife. No wonder he didn't\nwant his family. But whatever it was, he has paid the penalty himself,\npoor chap, and no doubt the matter will be hushed up.\"\n\n\"How disgusting! I don't want to think of human slums on this heavenly\nSunday morning.\"\n\n\"Nor to be proposed to, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I don't mind, Jack dear.\"\n\nShe looked girlish and very piquant. Jack took her hand. She did not\nwithdraw it, and they walked silently in the shadowed quiet of the wood.\nHis heart beat almost audibly. Never before had she given him such\ndefinite encouragement. He could think of nothing to say that would not\nsound banal to this woman of the ready tongue. But agitation unlocks\nwayward fancies and sends them scurrying inopportunely across the very\nforeground of the mind. The vagrant hope that she would not accept him\nin an epigram restored his balance, and he turned to her with his\nhabitual air of confidence, albeit his eyes and mouth were restless.\n\n\"I want an answer to-day,\" he said, boldly. \"And there is only one\nanswer I will take. I have let you play with me, as that seemed to be\nyour caprice, and I love caprice in a woman. But there is an end to\neverything and I want to marry before Parliament meets.\"\n\n\"And you never thought I would not marry you?\" she asked, in some\nwonder.\n\n\"I have never faced the possibility of failure in my life. And you are\nas much to me as my career. I cannot imagine life without either.\"\n\nHe suddenly put his hand under her chin and lifted her face; she was of\ntiny stature and this disadvantage in the presence of man was not the\nleast subtle of her charms. \"Say yes quickly,\" he cried, and the\nstrength of his will and passion vibrated to her through the medium he\nhad established. But she pouted and drew back.\n\n\"Perhaps I want a career of my own. You would swallow me whole.\"\n\n\"You could become the most powerful woman in the Liberal party--have a\nsalon and all the rest of it.\"\n\n\"I happen to be a Conservative.\"\n\n\"What has that to do with it? Or politics with love, for that matter?\nTell me that you love me. That is all I care about.\"\n\n\"It is only during the engagement that love is all. Marriage is the\ngreat public school of life; the passions fall meekly into their proper\nplace--beside the prosaic appetites, the objective demands; somewhat\nbelow the faculties that distinguish the higher kingdom.\"\n\n\"Indeed? Well, I am sanguine enough to believe that we would prove the\nexception. I hardly dare think of it!\" he burst out. \"For God's sake\nkeep your epigrams for other people and be a woman pure and simple.\"\n\nShe looked both as she permitted her full red mouth to tremble and his\narms to take sudden possession of her.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nIn the large liberty of an English country-house Isabel might have found\nthe long morning tedious had she been of a more sociable habit. Lady\nVictoria, Mrs. Throfton, and Lady Cecilia Spence went to church; all\nthree, as great ladies, having a dutiful eye to the edification of\nhumbler folk. Flora Thangue spent the greater part of the morning\nwriting letters for her hostess, the men fled to the golf-links, and the\nrest of the women not engaged in vehement political discussion, or\nBridge, were striding across country. Isabel, tempted by the charmingly\nfitted writing-table in her room, although an indolent correspondent,\nwrote a long and amply descriptive letter to her sister, which her\nbrother-in-law, being more than usually hard up at the moment of its\narrival, transposed into fiction and illustrated delightfully for a\nlocal newspaper. Then she roamed about looking at the pictures, testing\nher European education by discovering for herself the Lelys and Mores,\nthe Hoppners, Ketels, Holbeins, Knellers, Dahls, and Romneys. She had a\nquick instinct for the best in all things, but cared less for pictures\nthan for other treasures of the past: marbles, the architecture in old\nstreets, hard brown schlosses on their lonely heights, the Gothic spaces\nof cathedrals, the high and fervent imaginations, immortal yet nameless,\nin the carvings on stone; the jewelled facades of Orvieto and Siena,\nthe romantic grandeur of the Alhambra.\n\nShe opened a door at the back of the central hall and found herself in a\npillared corridor with a door at either end. Both rooms were open, and\nas a blue cloud hung about the entrance to the left, she turned to what\nproved to be the library of Capheaton. It was a square light apartment,\nwith the orthodox number of books, but with so many desks and\nwriting-tables that it looked more like the business corner of the\nmansion. Here, indeed, as Isabel was to learn, Lady Victoria held daily\nconference with her housekeeper and stewards, interviewed the women of\nthe tenantry, and those active and philanthropic ladies of every\ndistrict that aspire to carry the burdens of others. Here Gwynne kept\nhis Blue Books and thought out his speeches, but it was not a favorite\nroom with the guests.\n\nIsabel had found many books scattered about the house, solid and\nflippant, old and new, but nothing by her host. She rightly assumed that\nhis works would be disposed for posterity in the family library, and\nfound them on a shelf above one of the large orderly tables. As a matter\nof fact she had read but two of his books, and she selected another at\nrandom and carried it to a comfortable chair by the window. The work was\nan exposition of conditions in one of the South African colonies,\ncontaining much criticism that had been defined by the Conservative\npress as youthful impertinence, but surprisingly sound to the\nunprejudiced. What had impressed Isabel in his other books and claimed\nher admiration anew was his maturity of thought and style; she saw that\nthis volume had been published when he was twenty-four, written,\ndoubtless, when he was a year or two younger. She felt a vague pity for\na man that seemed to have had no youth. Since his graduation from\nBalliol in a blaze of glory he had worked unceasingly, for he appeared\nto have found little of ordinary recreation in travel. She wondered if\nhe would take his youth in his bald-headed season, like the self-made\nAmerican millionaire.\n\nHis style, pure, lucid, virile, distinguished, might have been the\noutcome of midnight travail, or, like his eloquence on the platform, a\ndirect flight from the quickened brain. It certainly bore no resemblance\nto his amputated table talk. But in a moment she dismissed her\nspeculations, for she had discovered a quality, overlooked before, but\narresting in the recent light of his cold arrogance and haughty\nself-confidence. Behind his strict regard for facts and the keen insight\nand large grasp of his subject, which, without his evident care for the\ngraces, would have distinguished his work from the dry report of equally\nconscientious but less gifted men, was the lonely play of a really lofty\nimagination, and a noble human sympathy. As she read on, this warm\nfull-blooded quality, tempered always by reason, grew more and more\nvisible to her alert sense; and when the fires in his mind blazed forth\ninto a revelation of a passionate love of beauty, both in nature and in\nhuman character, Isabel realized what such a man's power over his\naudience must be; when this second self, so effectually concealed,\nsuddenly burst into being.\n\n\"It is too bad a woman would have to live with the other!\" she thought,\nas she raised her eyes and saw Gwynne emerge from the woods with Mrs.\nKaye. \"I cannot say that I envy her.\"\n\n\"By Jove, they have an engaged look!\"\n\nIsabel turned with a start, but greeted Lord Hexam with a smile. He was\nas yet her one satisfactory experience of the young English nobleman,\nwhom, like most American girls, she had unconsciously foreshadowed in\ndoublet and hose. Hexam was quite six feet, with a fine military\ncarriage; he had been in the Guards and had not left the army until\nafter two years of active service; his blue eyes were both honest and\nintelligent, and he was generally clean cut and highly bred.\n\nHe drew up a chair beside Isabel and reflected that she was even\nhandsomer than he had thought, with the sunlight warming the ivory\nwhiteness of her skin, although it contracted the mobile pupils of her\neyes; and that little black moles when rightly placed were more\nattractive than he had thought possible. They gave a sort of daring\nunconscious eighteenth-century coquetry to what was otherwise a somewhat\nsevere style of beauty. But he was a man for whom a woman's hair had a\npeculiar fascination, and while they were uttering commonplaces at\nrandom his eyes wandered to the soft yet massive coils encircling\nIsabel's shapely head, and lingered there.\n\n\"Pardon me!\" he said, boyishly. \"But I always thought--don't you\nknow?--that hair like that was only in novels and poems and that sort of\nthing. Is it all your own?\" he asked, with sudden suspicion.\n\n\"You would think so if you had to carry it for a day. I should have had\nit cut off long ago if it had happened to be coarse hair. It is an\ninherited evil of which I am too vain to rid myself. The early Spanish\nwomen of my family all had hair that touched the ground when they stood\nup. I have an old sketch of a back view of three of them taken side by\nside; you see nothing but billows of fine silky hair. But I have put it\nout of sight, as it looks rather like an advertisement for a famous hair\nrestorer.\"\n\n\"I'd give a lot to see yours down. It's wonderful--wonderful!\"\n\n\"Well, I have promised a private view to some of the women. If Lady\nVictoria thinks it quite proper perhaps I'll admit you.\"\n\n\"I'll ask her for a card directly she comes home. Let it be this\nafternoon just after tea.\"\n\n\"I wonder if they really are engaged,\" said Isabel, who had been told\nthat Englishmen never paid compliments, and was growing embarrassed\nunder the round-eyed scrutiny. Gwynne and Mrs. Kaye had paused by a\nsundial.\n\n\"Who? Oh yes, I should think so, although there was some talk that poor\nBratty--but no doubt that was mere rumor, or Mrs. Kaye wouldn't be on\nwith Jack like that. By Jove, he is engaged. I never saw him look\nso--so--well, I hardly know what.\"\n\n\"Do you approve of the match?\"\n\n\"If my consent is asked I shall give them my blessing. He is the salt of\nthe earth, although a bit lumpy now and then; and she is such a jolly\nlittle thing, full of genuine affection--just the wife for Jack.\"\n\n\"You believe in her, then?\" Isabel wondered, as many another has done,\nat the miasma that seems to rise and dim a man's perceptive faculties\nwhen he is called upon to estimate the worth of a fascinating woman.\n\n\"Rather! Don't you?\"\n\n\"She struck me as being one of the few people without a redeeming\nvirtue. To be sure that has a distinction of its own.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" He wondered if so handsome a girl shared the common rancor of her\nage and sex against charming young widows.\n\n\"And the worst mannered,\" continued Isabel, who knew exactly what he\nthought. \"And plebeian in her marrow. I wish my cousin had chosen Miss\nThangue or any one else.\"\n\n\"But he couldn't marry Flora,\" said the literal young nobleman. \"She\nhasn't a penny, and is the friend of all our mothers. But I'm sorry\nyou've such a bad opinion of Mrs. Kaye. She's tremendously popular with\nus. I'm not one of her circle--retinue would be more like it; but I've\nalways thought her the brightest little thing going, and I'm sure she\nwouldn't harm a fly.\"\n\n\"I'm sure she would do nothing so little worth her while. Well, there is\nno need for your eyes to be opened; but I wish that my cousin's might\nbe. I suppose that you have the same faith in him that so many\nothers--himself included--seem to have.\"\n\n\"Rather!--You are a most critical person. Haven't you?\"\n\n\"I think I have. In fact I am sure of it. That is the reason I have been\nwishing he were an American.\"\n\nHe laughed boyishly. \"That is a good one! But we need him over here. You\nhaven't the slightest idea how much. We get into a blue funk every time\nZeal takes a cold on his chest. To quote Mrs. Kaye, 'A Liberal peer is\nas useful as a fifth wheel to a coach, and as ornamental as whitewash.'\nClever, ain't it?\"\n\n\"I think people are touchingly easy to satisfy! I have been treated to\nseveral of Mrs. Kaye's epigrams and heard as many more quoted. It seems\nto me that nothing could be easier than the manufacture of that popular\nsuperfluity.\"\n\n\"Perhaps--with time to think them out beforehand. Anyhow, it's rather\njolly to hear things you can remember.\"\n\n\"I should be the last to deny her cleverness,\" said Isabel, dryly. But\nbeing by no means desirous that he should find her too acid, she dropped\nher eyes for a moment, then raised two dazzling wells of innocence. \"I\nam tired of the subject of my cousin and Mrs. Kaye,\" she murmured. \"Are\nyou as ambitious as Jack?\"\n\n\"No use.\" He stared helplessly down into the blue flood. \"There is no\nescape from the 'Peers' for me, although my father, I am happy to say,\nis as healthy as I am. But after the brain cells become brittle--one\nnever knows. I too am a Liberal, and am getting in all the good work of\nwhich I am capable while there is yet time. I don't go as far as\nJack--don't want to see the 'Peers' chucked. I have a strong reverence\nfor traditions, and no taste whatever for democracy--that would be too\nlong a step. And I think a man should be content to be useful, do the\nbest he can, in his own class; and be loyal to that class whatever\nhappens. Of course I understand Jack's point of view, because I\nunderstand him so well, and know that he would be the most maimed and\nwretched man on earth in the Upper House; but personally, I think one\nshould be prepared to accept inherited responsibilities.\"\n\nAnd then, as they were both young, and mutually attracted, they found\nmany subjects of common interest to keep them in the library until the\ngong summoned them to luncheon.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nFlora Thangue, after luncheon, took Isabel out in a pony cart, and\nalthough too loyal to gossip intimately about her patrons, incidentally\ndirected a search-light into certain of their recesses; a light that was\nto prove useful to Isabel in her future intercourse with them, although\nit did not in the least prepare her for an experience that awaited her\nlater in the day. Miss Thangue's mind was occupied at first with the\nobvious engagement of Gwynne and Mrs. Kaye.\n\n\"That woman was born to upset calculations!\" she exclaimed. \"Yonder is\nthe castle of the dukes of Arcot. We are going over to a party to-morrow\nnight. It really looks like a castle with all those gray battlements and\ntowers, doesn't it? We don't call every tuppeny-hapenny villa inhabited\nby a nobleman a 'castle' as they do in Germany and Austria. Well--that\nclever little panther! I'd like to pack her into one of her own epigrams\nand bury her alive. I _know_ she was as good as engaged to Brathland.\nNow, having decided that, all things considered, Jack is the best match\ngoing--for everybody believes Lord Zeal to be worse than he is--well!\nthere is something appalling in a woman who can adjust herself as\nquickly as that; whose caprices, sentiments, passions, all natural\nimpulses, are completely controlled by her reason. I wish Vicky saw\nthrough her; she has so much influence over Jack, and such deadly\npowers of ridicule. But Vicky, like all spoiled women of the world, is\nas much the victim of the subtle flatterer as any man, and Julia Kaye\nhas managed her beautifully. She considered Jack for a bit before she\nwas sure of Brathland. Vicky's real reason for indorsing Julia\nKaye--between us--is because she believes her to be one of that small\nand select band that can hold a man on all his various sides, and she\nwants to avoid the probability of an absorbing and possibly tragic\nliaison--like Parnell's, for instance--which might interfere with,\nperhaps ruin, Jack's career. That is all very well, as far as it goes,\nbut I believe Julia Kaye to be so entirely selfish that when Jack finds\nher out he will sicken of life. I have had the best of opportunities to\nstudy women, and I have brought Jack up--I had the honor to be the\nhighly idealized heroine of his calf-love, and have been more or less in\nhis confidence ever since. In certain ways I understand him better than\nhis mother does, for she has seen too much of the worst side of men, and\nis at heart too _blasee_ to have much respect for or knowledge of their\nspiritual side; and if I have ever had any maternal spasms in my\nvirtuous spinsterhood they have been over Jack. Can't you help us out?\"\nshe asked, turning suddenly to the stranger, to whom she was powerfully\nattracted. \"Are you as indifferent as you look?\"\n\n\"I have no idea! But although I should not in the least object to be\ncast for a part in this domestic drama, I don't care for it at the price\nof too much 'Jack.' To attempt to cut out Mrs. Kaye I should need a\nlittle genuine enthusiasm; and frankly, your beloved prodigy does not\ninspire it. I like Lord Hexam far better.\"\n\n\"Oh, Jimmy! He's a fine fellow, but only a type.\"\n\n\"He hasn't a rampant ego, if that is what you mean. And for every-day\npurposes--\" She shrugged her shoulders. \"I could endure and even be\ndeeply interested in Elton Gwynne if he happened to be my brother and I\ncould hook my finger in his destiny; but in any other capacity--no,\nthank you!\"\n\n\"Are you going to marry Jimmy?\"\n\n\"I did not even know he was not already married. Do you see nothing in a\nman but a husband over here? If I ever do marry it will not be before I\nam forty.\"\n\n\"That is rather long--if you see much of the world meanwhile! And Jimmy,\nalthough there is not much money in the family--about twenty thousand a\nyear--would be a very good match. He will be Earl of Hembolt--a fine old\ntitle.\"\n\n\"You assume that such a plum may be pulled by the first comer.\"\n\n\"Rather not! But you Americans have such a way with you! What is more to\nthe point, I never saw him so bowled over.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Isabel, imperturbably, \"I will think of it. This English\ncountry and these wonderful old houses, with their inimitable\natmosphere, appeal to me very strongly. I have more the feeling of being\nat home here than I had even in Spain, where I have roots. And socially\nand picturesquely, there is nothing to compare with the position of an\nEnglish noblewoman.\"\n\nFlora turned her eyes frankly to the classic profile beside her. Isabel\nhad removed her hat, and, framed in the heavy coils of her hair, her\nfeatures impressed the anxious observer as even more Roman than early\nAmerican; although had she but reflected she would have remembered that\nthe type of the Caesars had its last stronghold in the United States of\nthe eighteenth century. Isabel looked like a very young Roman matron,\nbut her resemblance to the stately effigies in the galleries of Florence\nand Rome, strong in virtue or vice, was so striking that once more Flora\nlonged for her support. A woman with such capabilities would be wasted\nin the role of a mere countess--but as the wife of an aspiring Liberal\nstatesman! She devoutly wished that the American had arrived six months\nearlier, or that Brathland still lived.\n\nBut she was a very tactful person and was about to drop the subject,\nwhen Isabel slowly turned her eyes. They looked so much like steel that\nfor the moment they seemed to have lost their blue.\n\n\"I have made up my mind to do something to prevent this marriage,\" she\nannounced. \"I do not know what, as yet. I shall be guided by events.\"\n\nAnd Flora devoutly kissed her, then gossipped pleasantly about the other\nguests and the people in the neighborhood. Isabel was curious to know\nsomething of the duchess she was to meet on the morrow.\n\n\"Does she really look like a duchess?\" she asked, so innocently that\nFlora laughed and forgot the Roman-American profile, and the fateful\neyes that had given her an uncomfortable sensation a moment before.\n\n\"Well--yes--she does--rather. It is the fashion in these days not to--to\nbe smart above all things, excessively democratic, animated, unaffected,\nclever. But our duchess here is rather old-fashioned, very lofty of head\nand expression. She has a look of floating from peak to peak, and\nalthough passee is still a beauty. To be honest, she is hideously dull,\nbut as good a creature as ever lived, and all that the ideal duchess\nshould be--so high-minded that she has never suspected the larkiest of\nher friends.\"\n\n\"Well, I am glad she looks the role. I have artistic cravings.\"\n\nThey drove for an hour through the beautiful quiet green country, past\nmany old stone villages that might have been the direct sequence of the\ncave era. An automobile skimmed past and the pony sat down on its\nhaunches. Isabel had a glimpse of a delicate high-bred face set like a\npanel in a parted curtain.\n\n\"That is the duchess,\" said Miss Thangue. \"She wouldn't wear goggles for\nthe world, and only gets into an automobile occasionally to please the\nduke. There is nothing old-fashioned about him.\"\n\n\"She looks as if her name ought to be Lucy,\" said Isabel, to whom the\npure empty face had appeared like a vision from some former dull\nexistence, and left behind it an echo of insupportable ennui.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\nIsabel had looked forward all day to the promised talk with the somewhat\nformidable relative for whom, however, she had conceived one of those\nenthusiasms peculiar to her age and sex. Her wardrobe was barren of the\ncostly afternoon gowns smart women affect, but she put on an organdie,\nbillowy with many ruffles, that consorted with the season, at least.\nBlue cornflowers were scattered over the white transparent surface, and\nshe possessed no more becoming frock. Had she been on her way to a tryst\nwith Lord Hexam she would have thrust a rose in her hair, accentuated\nthe smallness of her waist with a blue ribbon, the whiteness of her\nthroat with a line of black velvet; but she had the instinct of dress,\nwhich teaches, among many things, that self-consciousness in external\nadornment provokes amusement in other women.\n\nShe had not the least idea where to find Lady Victoria's boudoir,\nalthough a casual reference by Flora Thangue suggested that it was on\nthe bedroom floor. She lost herself in the interminable corridors and\nfinally ran into Elton Gwynne.\n\n\"Your mother expects me--where is her boudoir?\" she asked.\n\nHe was at peace with the world, and answered, good-naturedly: \"I'll\npilot you. Her rooms are over on the other side.\"\n\n\"You look as if you should be congratulated about something,\" she said,\ndemurely. \"There are all sorts of rumors flying about.\"\n\nShe had half-expected to be snubbed, but he was not in the humor to snub\nanybody. \"You can congratulate me!\" he said, emphatically. \"The most\nwonderful woman in the world has promised to marry me.\"\n\n\"I hope you will be happy,\" said Isabel, conventionally. She resented\nhis sudden drop from his pedestal, for he looked sentimental and\nsomewhat sheepish. Still, her youth warmed to his in spite of herself,\nand again he noticed with a passing surprise that her eyes were both\nlovely and intellectual. He was hardly aware that coincidentally his\nJulia's eyes met his mental vision with a glance somewhat too hard and\nbrilliant, but he caught Isabel's hand and gave it a little shake.\n\n\"Thank you!\" he exclaimed. \"That was said as if you jolly well meant it.\nThere are my mother's rooms.\"\n\nHe went off whistling, and Isabel raised her hand and looked at it\nmeditatively; his own had been unexpectedly warm and magnetic. She had\nimagined that his grasp would be cold and loose.\n\nHe had indicated a private corridor, and she entered it and approached a\ndoor ajar. There was no response to her knock, but as she was expected,\nand Lady Victoria no doubt was still dressing, she pushed open the door\nand entered. The room was empty, but Isabel was instantly impressed with\nits reflection of an individuality, although of a side that had\nattracted her least. Here was none of the old-time stiffness of\nCapheaton, and there was a conspicuous absence of dead masters and their\npupils. It was not a large room. The walls were covered with a Japanese\ngold paper to within four feet of the floor where it was met by a\ntapestry of Indian cashmeres, and from it was separated by a narrow\nshelf set thick with photographs in silver frames, and with odd and\nexquisite bibelots. On the walls were artists' sketches, and two or\nthree canvases of the Impressionist and Secessionist schools, expressive\nof the ardent temperaments of their creators. In the place of honor was\na painting of Salambo in the folds of her python.\n\nThere were several deep chairs and a mighty divan covered with\ngold- cushions and a tiger-skin, whose mate was on the floor. The\ngloom of the afternoon was excluded by heavy gold- curtains, and\nthe only, but quite sufficient light, filtered through an opalescent\nglobe upheld by a twisted bronze female of the modern Munich school,\nthat looked like nothing so much as Alice elongating in Wonderland.\n\nIsabel suddenly felt herself and her organdie absurdly out of place in\nthis room with its enchantress atmosphere. She wished that Lady Victoria\nhad made the appointment for the library, which was equally in tune with\nanother side of her.\n\nShe was even meditating a retreat, inexplicably embarrassed, when an\ninner door opened and Lady Victoria entered. She wore a tea-gown of a\nsort, black and yellow, open over the soft lace of a chemisette,\nalthough a dog-collar of tiny golden sequins clasped her throat. In her\nhair a golden butterfly trembled, and in that light she would have\nlooked little older than her guest had it not been for the expression of\nher face. It was this expression that arrested Isabel even more than the\ntoilette, as she moved towards the divan without a word of greeting. It\nlooked as if it had been put on with the costume, both intended to\nexpress a mood of the wearer: which might have been that of a tigress\nwhose ferocity was slowly awakening with the approach of the victim. The\nblack eyes were heavy with the lust of conquest, the points of the mouth\nturned up more sharply than usual; there was an insatiable vanity in the\ncommanding poise of her head. She was as little like the woman of the\nmorning as the sun is like the midnight, and Isabel experienced a\npositive terror of her.\n\nFeeling sixteen and very foolish, she sank to the edge of a chair and\nmuttered something about the charm of the room. Then, as Lady Victoria,\nwho had arranged herself among the shining pillows, continued to stare\nat her with absolutely no change of expression, it dawned upon her that\nshe had not been expected but that some one else was. With too little\npresence of mind left to retire gracefully and too much pride to appear\nto have ventured into the cave of Venus unasked, she managed to\narticulate her gratitude for the invitation of the morning.\n\n\"Oh!\" Lady Victoria's eyebrows expressed a flicker of intelligence. \"I\nhope you have managed not to bore yourself.\"\n\nIsabel plunged into an account of her drive, to which Lady Victoria, who\nhad lit a long Russian cigarette, paid no attention whatever. Her\nexpression was still petrified, except that she might have had the scent\nof blood in her slightly dilating nostrils.\n\nSuddenly the slow flame in her eyes burned upward, and Isabel, her head\nfairly jerking about, saw that a man had entered and was advancing\nrapidly across the room, his heavy eyes wide with admiration. It was the\nFrenchman whom Lady Victoria had honored with so much of her attention\nthe evening before.\n\nHe raised to his lips the pointed fingers negligently extended, and\nmurmured something to which Lady Victoria replied in French as pure and\nfluent as his own; and in a low rich voice, with not an echo in it of\nher habitual abruptness or haughty languor.\n\nThe Frenchman accepted a cigarette and a low chair opposite the divan,\nwhose golden cushions seemed subtly to embrace the yielding flexible\nfigure against them. Neither took the slightest notice of the third\nperson beyond a muttered introduction and acknowledgment, and as the man\nembarked on a soft torrent of speech, bearing the burden of his\nbeatitude in at last meeting the only Englishwoman whose fame in Paris\nwas as great as among her native fogs, Isabel rose and retreated with\nwhat dignity she could summon. Then Lady Victoria, seeing that she was\nrid of her, and courteous under all her idiosyncrasies, rose with a long\nmotion of repressed energy and accompanied her to the door, her hand\nresting lightly against the crisp organdie belt.\n\n\"Will you pour out the tea for me?\" she asked, sweetly. \"I doubt if I go\ndown.\"\n\nNo small part of her dangerous fascination lay in her sincerity. She\nreally liked Isabel, although it was characteristic of her that she did\nnot in the least care at what conclusions that puzzled young woman might\narrive in a more solitary meditation.\n\nWhen Isabel found herself in the long cool corridor, set thick with\ngentle landscapes, and hunting squires, and dames haughty and humble,\nshe drew a long breath of relief, as if she had escaped from a jungle.\nBut she felt oddly wounded in her self-love, young and silly. She had\nthought herself old in the last three years, tremendously modern. What\ndid she know? The easy morals of students in France and Germany had\nrepelled her at first, but she had ended by accepting them as a matter\nof course, and had rather plumed herself upon her accumulating grains\nand blends of human nature. She felt a rush of contempt for their\ncrudity. What children they were with their simple unmorality of\nartists, as ignorant of the real world as babes in a wood!\n\nWhen she reached her own room she astonished herself by bursting into a\npassion of tears. It was some time before she understood what had\ninduced it. It was not that the illusions of youth had received a hard\nblow, for many of them had disappeared long since in Paris, when she had\nsupported an American girl of decent family but too much liberty through\nthe most desperate experience that a young woman, alone and friendless\nin a foreign city, well could have. The girl had died cursing all men\nand the folly of women, and after Isabel had buried her and the leading\ncause of her repentance, she returned to her lonely flat in a state of\ndisillusion and disgust which seemed to encase her by no means\nsusceptible heart in a triple panoply. This state of mind had lasted for\nat least three months. And there was little of which she had not\nabstract knowledge, nor had she lived a quarter of a century to learn\nfor the first time of the license which the world permits to women so\nhighly placed that they have come to believe themselves above all laws.\n\nBut all her experience and abstract knowledge counted for nothing, and\nshe had for the first time a sudden and complete appreciation of the\nevil of the world and of its odd association with even the higher\nvirtues; of the fact that in the upper walks of life the balance was\nmore nearly even than on planes where there existed scantier\nopportunities for development. There was no question that Victoria\nGwynne was made on a magnificent plan, as capable of heroism, no doubt,\nas any of the salient women of history. She was an ornament in her\nworld, useful, sympathetic, the author of much good, a devoted and\ninspiring mother. And yet there was no more question that this Frenchman\nwas the last of a long line of favored adorers than that Victoria, for\nall her individualities, was but a type of her kind: a kind that was\nsufficiently distinct from the hundreds of wholly estimable women that\nwere proud to know her, or accepted her as a matter of course.\n\nAnd even these good women? Had they not the same passions, the same\ninclinations in the secrecies of their souls? What was the determining\ncause of their indisputable virtue? A happy marriage? Too many children?\nTimidity? Absence of temptation? Or were they merely orthodox through a\nmore uneven balancing of their qualities, the animal in abeyance? For\nthis very reason were they not frequently narrow, unsympathetic,\nunuseful--unless, indeed, they were of the few who, with the mighty\ntemptations of the Victoria Gwynnes, were mightier still in their\nfidelity to some inner and cherished ideal. This lofty ideal of\nwomanhood Isabel had unconsciously set up in her soul, and the sudden\nconviction of its imperfection was, after all, the reason of her sudden\ndespair. For the soul with its immemorial and often incommunicable\nknowledge may have its moments of terror while the mind wonders.\n\nAnd she was disheartened at the sense of insignificance and\nmortification inspired by this contact with a side of life, as real and\nconsequent as motherhood or government, instead of feeling merely\nrepelled, infinitely superior in her unstained maidenhood. She had no\nwish to emulate, but neither did she relish feeling provincial, a chit,\nan outsider. Her youthful vanity had its way in a mind too speculative,\nintelligent, observant, merely to be shocked. Her memory reverted to\nexperiences that had made her feel as much older than the ordinary girl\nas she now felt at sea. What was she, Isabel Otis, after all? She felt a\nmere assortment of fluids, which might or might not crystallize into\nsome such being as she had dimly apprehended, or into something quite\ncommonplace; realized with a shock that her own deep personal experience\nhad left her less definitely moulded than she had imagined.\n\nShe rose impatiently and bathed her eyes before ringing for the maid to\nlace her for dinner--it was long past tea-time. \"Perhaps I had better\nmarry Lord Hexam and have ten children,\" she thought. \"That sort of\nexistence has kept more women up to the correct standard than anything\nelse except poverty.\"\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n\n\"And is this really your first big party?\" asked Hexam, wonderingly.\n\n\"The first! The first! And I am twenty-five! Just think of it! Of course\nI have been to students' balls, and little parties in Rosewater. But a\nfunction--never before.\"\n\n\"This is hardly a function--parties even in the big political\ncountry-houses are more or less informal.\"\n\n\"Informal! The jewels fairly blind my provincial eyes. And this is a\nreal castle!\"\n\n\"Oh yes, it is a castle,\" he said, laughing outright. \"I suppose you\nhave read up its record?\" he added, teasingly. \"You industrious and\ncurious Americans know a lot more about us than we know about\nourselves.\"\n\n\"Of course I know the history of this castle. I haven't the least doubt\nyou know every word of it yourself. I have already learned that the\nEnglish are not nearly so vacant-minded as, in their curious pride, they\nwould have one believe.\"\n\nShe threw back her head, half-closing her eyes in the ecstasy of her new\nexperience. The dancing was in the picture-gallery, an immense room, in\nwhich there were many dark paintings of the old Italian and Spanish\nschools, besides the presentments of innumerable Arcots by the usual\npopular masters of the Dutch and English. The ceiling was of stone and\nvaulted, but set thick with electric lights, blazing down from their\ngreat height like the crystal stars of the tropics. It had seemed to\nIsabel that after entering the castle she had walked for ten minutes\nbefore reaching this room, where as brilliant a company was disporting\nitself as she was likely to look upon in England. The Duke of Arcot was\nan energetic Conservative and a member of the present cabinet, but his\nsocial attentions were ever directed to the prominent and interesting of\nwhatever party or creed. As he found a particular zest in being\nsurrounded by smart, bright and pretty women, the parties at the castle,\nand at Arcot House in London, were seldom surpassed in either brilliancy\nor interest. And as his rent-roll was abnormal, there was no sign of\ndilapidation within the gray walls and towers of the ancient castle, but\nmuch comfort and luxury against a background of countless treasures\naccumulated throughout the centuries. He had taken an immediate fancy to\nIsabel and promised to show her the lower rooms as soon as she tired of\ndancing.\n\nHexam watched her with an amused indulgence that in no wise tempered his\nmounting admiration. She was radiant. Her blue eyes were shining and\nalmost black, her cheeks flooded with a delicate pink. She wore a gown\nof white tulle upon whose floating surface were a few dark-blue lilies.\nThe masses of her black hair were piled on her head in the fashion of\nher Californian grandmothers, and confined by a high Spanish comb of\ngold and tortoise-shell. Her only other jewel was a long string of Baja\nCalifornia pearls that had glistened on warm white necks in many an old\nCalifornia ballroom before ever an American had crossed the threshold of\nArcot Castle. They had been given by Concha Argueello, when she assumed\nthe gray habit of the Third Order of the Franciscan nuns, to the wife of\nher brother Santiago and so had come down to Isabel.\n\nAnd to-night this descendant of that powerful clan, unimaginable in her\nmodern complexities to their simple minds, was receiving homage in the\nballroom of one of the greatest houses in Europe. For there was no\nquestion, even in the minds of the young married women, who carry all\nbefore them in English society, that the American girl had created a\nfurore among the men. Isabel had confided to the duke, who had lunched\nthat day at Capheaton, and to Hexam, her haunting fear of being a\nwall-flower, and both had vowed that she should have no lack of partners\nat her first English ball. But to Hexam's disgust, at least, their\nsolicitude came to an untimely end, and he was able to secure but two\nwaltzes and a square dance. The duke had spoken for the cotillon, which\nhe had no intention of dancing. He was a most estimable person, but he\nnever ignored an opportunity to talk with a new and interesting woman.\n\nIsabel could hardly have failed to be a belle that night, for her spirit\nwas pitched to a height of joy and triumph that charged her whole being\nwith a powerful magnetism. Possibly with a presentiment that it was to\nbe an isolated experience, she abandoned herself recklessly to the mere\ndelight of living, her will imperious for the fulness of one of the\ndearest of girlhood's ideals. She was one of those women, cast, as she\nwell knew, for tragic and dramatic contacts with life, but Nature in\ncompensation had granted her a certain wildness of spirit that sprang\nspontaneously to meet the pleasure, trifling or great, of the mere\npresent; no matter for how long a period, or how hard, its wings had\nbeen smitten.\n\nSo she danced, and talked far more than was her wont, surpassing herself\nin every way, and no more interested in poor Hexam than in twenty\nothers. He took her in to supper, however, and after three hours of\ndancing she was glad to rest and be sheltered by his determined bulk,\nplanted squarely before her corner. She knew that she had a coronet very\nclose to her footstool, and that this brilliant night might be but the\nprologue to a lifetime of the only society in the world worth while, but\nshe was not conscious of any desire beyond the brimming cup of the\nmoment. Moreover, she had never so thoroughly enjoyed being a girl, and\nlove-making would have bored her grievously.\n\nThe duke claimed her, and after a desultory tour of the great\nreception-rooms and an infinite number of little cabinets, containing\nsome of the most valuable of the Japanese and Indian treasures, he led\nher to the library, a luxurious room conducive to rapid friendship.\n\nWith that amiable desire, peculiar to the kindly Englishman, to gratify\nthe ingenuous curiosity of the American, he produced a huge leather\nvolume containing the various patents of nobility that marked the upward\nevolution of his house from a barony in some remote period of the\nworld's history to the present dukedom, and the royal letters that had\naccompanied them. It was something he never would have dreamed of doing\nfor a stranger of his own country, or of any state in Europe, but the\nEnglish humor Americans that please them much as they would engaging\nchildren; and Isabel's eyes sparkled with so lively an intelligence that\nthe duke fancied she had literary intentions and might one day find\nsuch information useful. He even showed her his complicated\ncoat-of-arms, which included a bend sinister, for he had royal blood in\nhis veins; and this slanting rod interested Isabel as deeply as the moat\nunder the window. She was even more interested in the duke's attitude;\nit was evident that he felt no more vanity in his royal descent than\ndeprecation of its irregular cause and enduring emblem. It was, and that\nwas the end of it; but he had quite enough imagination to appreciate the\neffect of so picturesque an incident in family history upon the mind of\nthe young republican.\n\n\"The best we can do is to descend irrelevantly from Washington,\nHamilton, or Jefferson,\" said Isabel. \"Only we have not yet reached the\nstage where we dare to acknowledge it on our coat-of-arms. The illusions\nof the American youth must be preserved. Even the fact that one of our\nPresidents was a son of Aaron Burr is still to be read only in the great\nvolume of unwritten history. My father was a sort of walking edition of\nthat work.\"\n\n\"That is new to me!\" The duke was quite famous as a student of history,\nand took a personal interest in America, having been over twice in\nsearch of big game. He asked her many questions; but his interest in the\ngeneral subject was as nothing to the enthusiasm she aroused by a chance\nallusion to the chicken-ranch. The duke was agricultural above all\nthings; he had a model estate bristling with scientific improvement. He\nwas enchanted at Isabel's picture of her wire-enclosed \"runs\" and yards\ncontaining industrious chickens of all ages, engaged, however\ninnocently, in the pursuit of wealth. Isabel, when she chose, could\ninvest any subject with glamour, and her account, delivered in tones\nnotably accelerated, of the snow-white, red-crowned flocks, their\naristocratic little white mansions, the luxurious nurseries for the\n\"chicks,\" and the astonishing and costly banquets with which they were\ndaily regaled, was so lively that the duke vowed he would raise Leghorns\nforthwith. He asked her so many practical questions, taking copious\nnotes, and inevitably embracing California ranch life in its entirety,\nin his thirst for knowledge, that Isabel had no more dancing that night;\nbut she made an enduring impression upon the eminently practical mind of\nher host.\n\nIt was quite two hours after supper, and Isabel was beginning to reflect\nwith some humor upon the brevity of all illusions, when Hexam and Miss\nThangue appeared simultaneously and announced that the Capheaton guests\nwere leaving. Hexam looked sulky and suspicious. Flora was smiling.\n\n\"For the first time--\" she murmured.\n\nIsabel and the duke laughed outright, and then shook hands warmly.\n\n\"When I go home we can correspond,\" she said to him, \"and I will tell\nyou all the new kinks. We are always improving.\"\n\n\"The duke looked positively rejuvenated,\" said Hexam, spitefully, as\nthey walked down the corridor. \"Have you discovered the elixir of life\nin California, and promised him the prescription.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Isabel, demurely. \"I have merely been initiating him into the\nmysteries of raising Leghorns.\"\n\nHexam looked stupefied, but Miss Thangue burst into a merry peal of\nlaughter.\n\n\"Isabel!\" she exclaimed. \"I begin to suspect you are a minx!\"\n\nAnd Isabel laughed, too, in sheer excess of animal spirits and gratified\nvanity. She had excellent cause to remember the ebullition, for it was\nsome time before she laughed again.\n\nThe duchess, with her light sweet smile, her old-fashioned\nBook-of-Beauty style, a certain affectation of shabbiness in her\nblack-and-silver gown, looked a more indispensable part of the picture\nthan any of her guests, as she stood in the middle of the great\ndrawing-room with a group of her more intimate friends. Among them was\nLady Victoria, more normal of mood this evening, sufficiently gracious,\nsuperbly indifferent, although she had held her court as usual.\n\nShe tapped Isabel lightly on the cheek with her fan. \"You were quite the\nrage,\" she said. \"I never should have forgiven you if you had not been.\"\nAnd Isabel had not the slightest doubt of her sincerity.\n\nThe duchess, in the immensity of her castle, did not pretend to keep an\neye on any one, and would have been the last to suspect that Miss Otis\nhad inspired her husband with a sudden passion for chickens. She shook\nhands approvingly with the young American and asked her to come over\ninformally to luncheon on the morrow.\n\n\"Is your head turning?\" asked Miss Thangue, as they drove home. \"You\nmust reap the results of your success; it would be a pity not to. After\na few weeks here with Vicky you must go on a round of visits and then\nhave a season in London.\"\n\n\"It would be glorious!\" exclaimed Isabel, in whom problems were\nmoribund. \"I certainly believe I shall.\"\n\nShe was in the second of the carriages to reach Capheaton, and Gwynne,\nwho was still standing on the steps, helped her down, and asked her\npleasantly if she had enjoyed herself.\n\n\"I had such a good time I know I sha'n't sleep a wink for twenty-four\nhours. I believe I'll go to the library and get a book of yours I began\non Sunday--only--\" She hesitated. A talk with this enigmatical cousin\nwould be a proper climax to the triumphs of the night. She raised her\neyes, full of flattering appeal. \"There are one or two points I did not\nquite understand--I have hesitated to go on--\"\n\nHe too was wakeful, and rose to the bait promptly. \"Suppose you give me\nan hour by the empty hearth. Will you? Well, go on ahead and I'll follow\nin a moment--after I see that the men have all they want in the\nsmoking-room.\"\n\nIn the depths of the most independent woman's soul is a lingering taint\nof servility to the lordly male, and in Isabel it warmed into subtle\nlife under the flattering response of this illustrious specimen. She\nfairly sailed towards the library, wondering if any of the famous\nold-time California belles, Concha Argueello, Chonita Iturbe y Moncada,\nwith their caballeros flinging gold and silver at their feet, Nina\nRandolph and Chonita Hathaway and Helena Belmont, with their pugnacious\n\"courts,\" had ever felt as exultant as she. That last moment, as she\nstepped lightly over the threshold of the library, was a sort of climax\nto the intoxication of youth.\n\nAnd then she stopped short, stifling a cry of terror. The library,\nexcept for the wandering moonshine, was unlit, but a ray fell directly\nacross a shadowy figure in the depths of a chair, half-way down the\nroom. It was a relaxed figure, the head fallen on the chest; the arms\nwere hanging limply over the sides of the chair, the hands ghastly in\nthe moonlight. At the rustle of skirts the figure slowly raised its\nhead, and the eyes of a man, haunted rather than haunting, looked out of\na drawn and livid face. But the movement was not followed by speech, and\nIsabel stood, stiff with horror, convinced that she was in the presence\nof the Capheaton ghost. Of course, like all old manor-houses, it had\none, and she was too imaginative not to accept with her nerves if not\nwith her intelligence this ugly proof of a restless domain beyond the\ngrave. But her petrifaction was mercifully brief. There was a quick step\nbehind her, and then an exclamation of horror as Gwynne shot past and\ncaught the lugubrious visitant by the shoulder.\n\n\"Good God, Zeal!\" he cried, and his voice shook. \"What is it, old man?\nYou look--you look--\"\n\nThe man in the chair rose slowly and drew a long breath, which seemed to\ninfuse him with life again.\n\n\"I probably look much as I feel,\" he said, grimly. \"I'm about to go on a\njourney, and if you can give me a few minutes--\"\n\nHe paused and looked with cold politeness at Isabel. She waited for no\nfurther formalities, but shaken with the sure foreboding of calamity,\nturned and fled the room.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\n\nThat night had also been one of triumph for Elton Gwynne. He had dined\nat the castle, and--his Julia having flitted to another\ncountry-house--spent the greater part of the evening in the smoking-room\nwith half a score of the most eminent men in political England; and\nothers whose recognition was not to be despised.\n\nAs there were many guests at the castle the dinner took place in the\nbanquet-hall, but at six or eight round tables, and Gwynne had found\nhimself distinguished above all the other young men present by being\nseated at that of the duchess. The prime-minister, the chancellor of the\nexchequer, two other members of the cabinet, and an ambassador were his\ncompanions. All the women were of exalted station, but for this fact\nGwynne cared nothing, being entirely free of that snobbery which so\noften agitates even the best-born of the world; indeed, would have been\nresentful of the ripe age of the ladies--accumulated with their\npolitical values--had it not been for the tremendous compliment paid to\nhis personal achievement.\n\nHe could not sit beside her grace in that nest of titles, but at the\nsuggestion of the duke he had been placed as nearly opposite her as the\nround table permitted, and he soon forgot the broken circle of\nimmemorial bosoms in the manifest disapproval of the Conservative\npremier towards himself, and in the attitude of the other men, which,\nwhether hostile or friendly, evinced a recognition of the rising star\nand a tolerance of his ideas.\n\nThere is always a glamour about a very young man who has given\ncumulative evidence of genius and compelled the attention of the world,\nalways distrustful of youth. His enemies had long since--and he was but\nthirty--admitted his gift for letters, fiercely as they might scoff at\nhis conclusions; and his rewards for bravery in the field had aroused no\nadverse comment. But while his most persistent critics had never\ndiscovered him truthless and corruptible, his political sincerity had\nbeen called into question even by his colleagues, and almost unanimously\nby the opposition. His principles were by no means so rigidly outlined\nas those of the great Whig families, nor of the men who belonged to the\nLiberal party as a natural result of their more modest station and\nprotesting spirit. He was strong on the fundamental principles of the\nparty, and far more energetic in his advocacy of the rights and needs of\nthe working-man than any Liberal of his own class, but he rarely, if\never, alluded to the question of Home Rule; a question somnolent but by\nno means dead; and the omission savored of Unionism, in spite of his\navowed scorn of all compromises.\n\nThese facts, taken in connection with the pride and arrogance of the\nyoung scion of the house of Strathland and Zeal, generated the suspicion\nthat he had allied himself with the Liberal party for two reasons only:\nits weakness in first-class men, and his passion for self-advertising.\nNo one disputed his pre-eminence in this branch of industrial art, for\nalthough he never descended to commonplace methods, and the interviewer,\nfar from being sought, rather dreaded him than otherwise, there was no\nman in England who was such a mine for \"copy,\" nor of a perennially\ngreener growth in the select front lawn of \"news.\" When he attacked the\ngovernment he was eminently quotable, and this endeared him to both\nreporters and editors. When he was interviewed, fearsome in manner as he\nwas, he sent the worm away packed with ideas and phrases. But although\nhe was almost continuously on the tongue, and the object of more\nacrimonious discussion than any young man in England, distrust of him\nhad grown to such proportions that he had been dropped after one brief\nsojourn in the House; and to regain his seat had taken two years of the\nhardest and most brilliant fighting Great Britain had seen since the\nConservative majority of 1874 permitted Disraeli to rest on his prickly\nlaurels. But this memorable battle of one young man against a mighty\nphalanx of enemies and doubting friends had battered down the prejudices\nof his own party, and won a meed of applause from even those of stout\nold Tory principles. The humbler class, upon whom the election largely\ndepended, were captivated by his eloquence, his insidious manipulation\nof the best in their natures, filling them with a judicious mixture of\nideals and self-approval; while the phenomenon he invariably presented\non the platform of the gradual awakening into life of a warm-blooded\ngenerous magnetic and earnest inner man, so effectually concealed at\nother times within a repellent exterior, never failed to induce in them\nthe belief that something responsive in their own personalities awakened\nthat rare spirit from its stifled sleep. That the glamour of his birth\nand condescension to their plane had aught to do with the dazzling\nquality of his charm, they might have admitted had their minds been\ndriven by the enemy into the regions of self-analysis, but in any case\nhe was the theme of two-thirds of the \"pubs\" and reading-rooms in\nEngland. He had achieved a sweeping victory that loomed portentously as\na forerunner of greater triumphs in the future; for the personal\npopularity he had achieved, the gift for leadership he had demonstrated,\nthe self-control he showed at all times, and the fatally adhesive\nquality of his biting wit, had strengthened the Liberal party and caused\nthe Conservative to wish that he had never been born.\n\nAnd flushed with self-love and the conquest of the woman of his desire,\nhe had never talked better than on that night at Arcot; nor less\noffensively, for his arrogance and assertiveness were tempered by the\nwarm high tide of his emotions. It was a magnificent room, the\nbanquet-hall at Arcot, as large as that of many royal palaces, hung with\nold Gobelins and frescoed by a pupil of Giotto. It was a fit setting for\nthe triumphant hour of the \"most remarkable young man since the younger\nPitt,\" a phrase which, if not notably suave, at least possessed an\nastonishing vigor, and was almost as familiar in American and\ncontinental newspapers as in his own proud nation; a nation always so\nkeen to possess the first in all departments of excellence--creating\nthem out of second-class material when the first is lacking--that the\nwonder was she had been so long accepting Elton Gwynne. Nothing,\nperhaps, but a noble desire for a really great man restrained her.\n\nOpposite Gwynne, the duchess, sweet and tactful, if little more than an\nornamental husk in which the juices of her race possibly recuperated to\ninvigorate the future generations, was as fair and stately as her castle\ndemanded; and if her gown was shabby her jewels were not. On either\nside of her table, which occupied the central position in the great\nroom, were some of the most beautiful women in England, the smartest,\nthe most politically important; all, without exception, of an inherited\nstatus that brought them once a year as a matter of course within the\nsternly guarded portals of Arcot. Gwynne did not know that Mrs. Kaye had\nknocked at these sacred portals in vain; for such gossip, if by chance\nhe heard it, made no impression upon him whatever. But he was by no\nmeans insensible to the salient fact that he was one among the chosen of\nEarth to-night, and that it was good to be the hero of such an assembly.\n\nFor that he was the hero there was no manner of doubt, and when the\ndinner was over he spent but half an hour in the drawing-room,\npreferring the conversation of the heads of state, who so seldom\ngratified the vanity of a man of his years, but whom he had the power to\ninterest whether they approved of him or not. He had many friends among\nwomen, some conquered by the magic of notoriety, others, like Flora\nThangue, sensible of his finer side, or tolerant of him through\nlife-long intimacy; and there were times when he was as alive to the\npleasures of their society as any young sprig about town; but to-night\ntheir admiration was too illogical to administer to the self-love which\nin the last few days had palpitated with so exquisite a sense of\nfruition. Moreover, it gave him the keenest satisfaction to read in the\nmanner of these older and long-tried men the grudging belief in his own\nsincerity.\n\nIn reality his motives for joining a party at war with every tradition\nof his house had been, primarily, as mixed as are all motives that bring\nabout great voluntary changes in a man's life. It was quite true that\nhe was inordinately ambitious, that he had a distinct preference for the\nsensational method, as productive of speedier results; for he had no\nintention of waiting until middle-age for the activities and honors he\ncraved in his insatiable youth; and it was also true that he was even\nmore of an aristocrat than many of his class, with whom a simpler\nattitude had become the fashion, even if it were not marrow-deep. But\nthe ruling motive had been his passionate love of battle, a trait\ninherited perhaps from his pioneer ancestors, whose roots were in the\nsoil. This desire to prove his mettle and fill his life with the only\nexcitement worthy of his gifts, would alone have made him turn from the\nbroad ancestral paths, but, like a lawyer fascinated by his brief, he\nhad long since been heart and soul with the party he had chosen, and,\nwith the exercise of his faculties, become possessed of a mounting\ndesire not only to be of genuine use to his country, but to lift the\nfamily name from the comparative obscurity where it had rested during\nthe half of a century.\n\nThe present head of the family had been an invalid in his early life,\nand Italy had withered whatever ambitions may have pricked him in his\nyouth. When he finally found himself able to live the year round in\nEngland he saw no fault in a nation so superior to any of his exile, and\nhe had settled down to the life of a country squire, devoted to sport,\nand supremely satisfied with himself. His eldest son, an estimable young\nman, who had worked at Christ Church as if he had been qualifying for a\nstatesman or a don, died of typhoid-fever before the birth of his boy.\nThe present heir, brilliant, weak, cynical, absolutely selfish, had\nrioted to such an extent that he had fatally injured his health and\nincurred the detestation of his grandfather; Lord Strathland was not\nonly a virtuous old gentleman but was also inclined to be miserly. The\nsubjects upon which they did not quarrel bitterly every time they met\nwere those relating to Elton Gwynne, whom both loved, in so far as they\nloved any one but themselves. Deeply as they disapproved of his\npolitics, they respected his independence and were inordinately proud of\nhim. Zeal's daughters, who bored him inexpressibly, were parcelled out\namong relatives, and he led a roving life in search of beneficent air\nfor his weary lungs. All women had become hateful to him since he had\nbeen forced to sit in the ashes of repentance, but he had consented to\nenter upon a second marriage through the most disinterested sentiment of\nhis life, his love of his cousin, whose haunting fear of being shelved\nin his youth had been poured into his ears many times. That he also\nenraged his grandfather, who wanted nothing so much as the assurance\nthat his favorite should inherit the territorial honors of his house,\nmay have given zest to his act of renunciation. Not that he had the\nleast intention of giving his cousin a solid basis for despair for many\nyears to come, for no mother ever nursed her babe more tenderly than he\nhis weak but by no means exhausted chest. During his last interview with\nElton in London he had assured his anxious relative that he was taking\nthe best of care of himself, and that, in spite of blood-shot eyes and\nhaggard cheeks, his disease was quiescent; although he had decided to\nstart for Davos or some other popular climate before the advent of harsh\nweather. Davos is a word of hideous portent in English ears, but Gwynne\nhad expelled it with all other cares from his mind, and on this night\nwhen he returned from Arcot feeling a far greater man than any of his\nhouse had ever dreamed of being, and with a song in his heart, the\nawful face of his cousin, whom in the shock of the moment he thought\nstricken with death, gave him the first stab of terror and doubt that he\nhad experienced in his triumphant life.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\n\n\"Come up-stairs,\" said Zeal. \"We are liable to interruption here.\"\n\n\"Have they put you up decently?\" asked Gwynne, with his mind's surface.\n\"The house is rather full.\"\n\n\"I shall leave by the seven-o'clock train, and it must be three now. I\nhave no intention of going to bed.\"\n\n\"Is that wise? You look pretty seedy, old man. You haven't had a\nhemorrhage?\" He almost choked as he brought the word out, and yet he was\nnot in the least surprised when Zeal replied, tonelessly, \"I had\nforgotten I ever had a chest;\" for his mind was vibrating with a\ntelepathic message which his wits attacked fiercely and without avail.\n\nAs they entered his room he pushed his cousin into an easy-chair and\nturned up the lamp on the writing-table. Then he planted his feet on the\nhearth-rug with a blind instinct to die standing.\n\n\"Fire away, for God's sake,\" he said. \"Something has happened. You know\nyou can count on me, whatever it is.\"\n\nZeal, who was sitting stiffly forward, his hands gripping the arms of\nhis chair, laughed dryly. \"You will be the chief sufferer. The others\ndon't count.\"\n\n\"Has my grandfather speculated once too often? Are we gone completely\nsmash?\" Gwynne was rapidly assuring himself that he was now prepared for\nthe worst, that nothing should knock the props from under him again,\nthat it was the sight of Zeal's face that had upset him; he was not one\nto collapse before the stiff blows of life.\n\n\"It is likely. Anyhow, if he lives long enough he'll make a mess of what\nis left.\" He raised his head slowly, and once more Gwynne, as he met\nthose terrible haunted eyes, felt as Adam may have felt when he was\nbeing bundled towards the exit of Eden. He braced himself unconsciously,\nand after Zeal's next words did not relax his body, although his lips\nturned white and stiff.\n\n\"I am going to kill myself some time to-day,\" said Zeal, in a voice so\nemotionless that Gwynne wondered idly if all his capacity for expression\nhad gone to his eyes. \"I should have done it several hours earlier, but\nI felt that I owed you an explanation. You can pass it on to my\ngrandfather when the time comes.\"\n\nHe paused a moment, and then he too seemed to brace himself.\n\n\"I killed Brathland,\" he said.\n\nGwynne moistened his lips. \"Poor old Zeal,\" he muttered. \"It must be a\nhorrid sensation--\"\n\n\"To be a murderer? I can assure you it is.\"\n\nGwynne's mind seemed to darken until only one luminous point confronted\nit, the visible tormented soul of his kinsman. He walked over to the\ntable and mixed two tumblers of whiskey-and-soda, wondering why he had\nnot thought of it before. They drank without haste, and then Gwynne took\nthe chair opposite Zeal's.\n\n\"Tell me all about it,\" he said.\n\n\"Brathland and I had not been friends for some years. He was a bounder,\nand an ass in the bargain. I never, even when we were on speaking\nterms, made any particular effort to hide what I thought of him--it\nwasn't worth while. Of course, with every mother firing her girls at his\nhead, and the flatterers and toadies from whom a prospective duke cannot\nescape if he would, he had an opinion of himself that would have made me\nthe object of his particular rancor, even if I hadn't cut him out with\nthree different women that couldn't marry either of us. When I got the\nverdict that I must pull up or go under, he chose that particular moment\nto take up with Stella Starr, the only woman I ever cared a pin for.\nSomehow, he got wind of my condition, and knowing that I would prefer to\nretire as gracefully as possible, it struck him as the refinement of\nvengeance to make a laughing-stock of me when I was no longer in a\ncondition to play the game out; to advertise me as a worn-out rake for\nwhom the world of Stella Starrs had no further use. We never spoke again\nuntil Friday night.\"\n\nHe paused, then mixed and drank another whiskey-and-soda, lit a\ncigarette, and resumed.\n\n\"I had objected to his being let into the mine, which Vanneck's agent\nand private letters had persuaded the rest of us would make our\nfortunes; but I was helpless, for he was not only Vanneck's cousin, but\nhis brother is out in Africa and also interested in the mine. I\ntherefore consented to attend the dinner at which the whole business was\nto be discussed, fully intending to treat him as I should any stranger\nto whom I had just been introduced.\n\n\"At first all went well enough. We had the private dining-room and\nsmoking-room on the second floor at the Club, the dinner was excellent,\nand Brathland, although nearly opposite me, behaved as decently as he\nalways did when sober. It was champagne that let loose the bounder in\nhim, and that was one reason I always so thoroughly despised him: the\nman that is not a gentleman when he is drunk has no right to be alive at\nall.\n\n\"We were not long discussing the mine threadbare, for we did not know\nenough about it to enlarge into any picturesque details, and the agent,\nwho had seen each of us separately, was not present. Raglin read a\npersonal letter from Vanneck, and Brathland another from Dick. Then, the\nsubject being exhausted long before we reached the end of dinner, we\ndrifted off to other topics; and went into the smoking-room with the\ncoffee.\n\n\"It was at least six years since I had tasted anything stronger than\nwhiskey-and-water, and what devil entered into me that night to drink a\nquart of champagne, and liqueurs, and pour port and brandy on top, the\ndevil himself only knows. Perhaps the old familiar sight of a lot of\ngood fellows; most likely the vanity of forcing Brathland to believe\nthat he beheld a rival as vigorous and dangerous as of old--I had gained\nten pounds and was looking and feeling particularly fit. At all events\nthe mess affected me as alcohol never had done in even my salet days,\nand although my thoughts seemed to be moving in a crystal procession, I\nbecame slowly obsessed with the desire to kill Brathland; whose face,\nchalky white, as it always was when he was drunk--and he always got\ndrunk on less than any one else--filled me with a fury of disgust and\nhatred. My mind kept assuring this thing that straddled it that I had\nnot the least intention of making an ass of myself; and that procession\nof thought, in order to support its confidence, entered into an argument\nwith my conscience, which was in a corner and looked like a codfish\nstanding on its tail and grinning impotently. A jig of words escaped\nfrom the mouth of the codfish: copy-book maxims, Bible admonitions, the\ncommandments, legal statutes; all in one hideous mess that annoyed me so\nI slipped out, went up to my room, and pocketed a pistol. That logical\nprocession of thought in my mind assured me that this unusual move at a\nfriendly business dinner was merely in the way of self-protection, for\nBrathland had once been heard to say that he wished we were both\ncow-boys on an American ranch so that he could put a bullet into me\nwithout taking the consequences--he never had a brain above shilling\nshockers. My thoughts, as they visibly combined and recombined in the\ncrystal vault of my skull, asserted confidently that he had been reading\nsuch stuff lately, and that, ten to one, he had a pistol in his pocket.\n\n\"When I returned Brathland was standing by the hearth, supporting\nhimself by the chimney-piece. The rest were lying about in long chairs,\nsmoking, and drinking whiskey-and-sodas. They were all sober enough, and\nBrathland looked the more of a beast by contrast.\n\n\"I took a chair opposite him and ordered my thoughts to arrange\nthemselves in phrases that should pierce his mental hide and wither the\nvery roots of his self-esteem--his vanity was the one big thing about\nhim. But he took his doom into his own hands and built it up like a\nhouse of cards.\n\n\"'How does it feel to be drunk once more?' he asked, with his damnable\nsneer. 'It makes you look less of a hypochondriac, anyhow. \"Granny\nZeal\"--that's what the girls call you.'\n\n\"'If they do I've no doubt you taught them,' I replied, in tones as low\nas his own. Several men were seated not far off, but neither of us hung\nout a storm signal.\n\n\"'I did,' he said. 'Not but that I had had revenge enough. I had made\nyou ridiculous--you with your damned superior airs--like that infant\nphenomenon cousin of yours who is making the family ass of himself over\nJulia Kaye--'\n\n\"Those were his last words. I pulled the pistol and fired straight into\nhis abdomen--knew I couldn't miss him there.\n\n\"God! what a commotion there was. He doubled up with a yell--just like\nhim. The men fairly bounded out of their chairs. There were two waiters\nin the room--just come in with Apollinaris. Raglin slammed the doors to,\nand, while Ormond and Hethrington laid Brathland out on a sofa, asked\nthe servants if they would hold their tongues until it was known whether\nhe would die or not. They assented readily enough, knowing how damned\nwell worth their while it was. Then he went off for a surgeon--didn't\ndare telephone--went straight for a young fellow named Ballast he\nhappened to know, and asked him if he would probe for a bullet and call\nit appendicitis, for a thousand pounds. Apparently there was no time\nwasted in argument, for he returned in half an hour with his man. The\nsurgeon probed for the bullet, but without success. Then he bandaged\nBrathland, had him carried up to Raglin's room, and sent for a nurse\nthat he could trust.\n\n\"We all regathered in the smoking-room, shut the waiters in the\ndining-room, and talked the matter over. By this time I was more\nhideously sober than I ever had been in my life. What they thought of me\nI neither knew nor cared, and it is doubtful if they knew themselves;\ntheir one thought was to keep the matter from getting out and dragging\nthe Club into a scandal; and of course Raglin was equally keen on\nsheltering the family, whether Brathland lived or died. Anyhow, I fancy\nthey would have stood by me, for if we have no other virtue we do stand\nby each other.\n\n\"Practically the only question was the amount to be paid in blackmail,\nfor every trace of the affair had been removed; even the smell of\nantiseptics and ether had gone. We finally called the waiters in and\noffered them four hundred each for their silence, or in the case of\nBrathland's death--the surgeon held out hopes--a thousand. They coolly\nreplied they would take a thousand apiece before noon on the following\nday, and ten thousand each in case of death. We--or rather Raglin and\none or two others--jawed for an hour; but the wretches never yielded an\ninch. They had us on the hip and were not likely to be put off by any\namount of eloquence. Of course we caved in and God knows what amount of\nfuture blackmail the Club is in for. Then there was the thousand for the\nsurgeon, and the nurse would expect a thousand more. Of course I made\nmyself responsible for the entire amount. Raglin insisted for a time\nupon going halves--blood may be blood, but he had despised Bratty as\nmuch as I ever did--but of course I would not hear of it.\n\n\"The next afternoon the surgeon probed again, and Brathland died under\nthe ether. The wound after probing looked sufficiently like an ordinary\nincision to deceive any one. Raglin and Harold Lorcutt--who, of course,\nwas told the truth--naturally had the body sealed up in lead before\ntaking it north. The old duke and the women of the family are in a fair\nway to know nothing.\"\n\nHe paused abruptly and lifted his eyes once more to Gwynne's, bursting\ninto a laugh that sounded like the crackling of fire under dry leaves.\n\n\"Lovely story, ain't it?\"\n\nBut Gwynne made no reply. His mind, released, was working abnormally,\nand his face was as livid as his cousin's had been.\n\nZeal rose. The narrative had excited him out of his apathy and physical\nexhaustion, the confession shaken the rigidity from his mind. He planted\nhimself on the hearth-rug with an air that approached nonchalance. His\nthin clever face had a burning spot on either cheek, his sunken eyes\nwere no longer haunted, but brilliant and staring; his thin high nose\nand fine hands twitched slightly, as if his nerves were enjoying a too\nsudden release.\n\n\"Heavenly sensation--to be a murderer. What beastly names things have\nand how we are obsessed by them! The word rings in my brain night and\nday--I haven't slept three hours since it happened, and I never had the\nremotest hope that he would live. It's the second time in my life I've\nbeen up against a cold ugly fact that stands by itself in a region where\nrhetoric doesn't enter. I believe I could tolerate the situation if I'd\ndone it in cold blood, if I'd thought it out, determined to gratify my\nhatred of the man; if, in short, the deed had been the offspring of my\nintelligence, for which I have always had a considerable respect. But to\nhave been under the control of a Thing, like any navvy, to be a criminal\nwithout the consent of my will--\n\n\"I don't know that that fact alone would make life insupportable. But\nthere are other and sufficient reasons. I shall never get the hideous\nsight of Brathland as he doubled up, and his horrid gurgling shriek, out\nof my mind this side of the grave. And I am practically cleaned out. You\nknow how much I have left of my mother's property! It barely covers\nwhat I paid out to-day. There isn't a penny for the girls. They will be\ndependent on Strathland--as I should be if I lived; a position for which\nI have as little relish as for that of a murderer on the loose. And\nshould I ever be really safe? If this stinking quartet takes it into its\nhead to levy annual blackmail, where is the money coming from? I won't\nhave the others let in while I'm alive. If it did come to that--and of\ncourse it would--I'd get out anyhow, so I may as well go now and save\nmyself further horrors. Besides, with all our precautions, we may have\noverlooked some significant detail, there may have been an eavesdropper,\nthe undertakers may have had their suspicions--for all I know I may be\narrested to-morrow--well, Jack, what would you do in my place?\"\n\nGwynne shook himself and stood up. \"I don't know. I have been feeling as\nif I had killed Bratty myself. But I cannot imagine myself committing\nsuicide--talk about ugly words! In the first place I don't think that\none crime is any reason for committing another, and in the second--\"\n\n\"It is cowardly! You don't suppose that old standby slipped my mind, do\nyou? Well, I am a coward. There you have my dispassionate opinion of\nmyself. I don't see myself in the prisoner's dock, in the graceful act\nof dangling from the end of a rope; or, if the judge was inclined to\nhave pity on the family, of dying in a prison hospital. Even if I\ntrumped up the necessary fortitude I should be a blacker villain than I\nam to bring disgrace upon my five poor girls and the woman that has\npromised to marry me, to say nothing of Vicky and yourself. Nor, on the\nother hand, do I see myself skulking in some hole abroad with the hue\nand cry after me. I have just as little appetite for the role of the\nhaunted man in comparative security. Well, what would you do yourself?\"\n\nGwynne shuddered. His own eyes were hunted. \"How, in God's name, can any\nman tell what he would do until he is in the same hole? I should like to\nthink that I would speak out and take the consequences. There is little\ndanger of your swinging, and as for imprisonment--one way or another\nyou've got to answer for your crime, and it seems to me that the honest\nthing is to accept the penalty of the law you live under.\"\n\n\"Well, it doesn't to me,\" said Zeal, coolly, and lighting another\ncigarette. \"I asked the question merely out of curiosity, as the\nworkings of your mind always interest me. But I have quite made up my\nown mind. The only reason I hesitated a moment--to be exact, it was half\na day--was on your account. Of course I know what my death will mean to\nyou.\"\n\n\"It was for that reason I was almost coward enough not to remonstrate.\"\nGwynne scratched a match several times before he succeeded in getting a\nlight. \"Nevertheless, I meant it.\"\n\n\"Don't doubt it. And I am sorry--it is about the only regret I shall\ntake with me, that and some remorse on account of the girls. I suppose\nStrathland will throw them a bone each--\"\n\n\"I will look out for them. But you are not bent on this horror!\" he\nburst out. Wild plans of drugging his cousin, of locking him up, chased\nthrough his mind, and at the same time he was sick with the certainty of\nhis own impotence. He knew his cousin, and he had the sensation that an\nilluminated scroll of fate dangled before his eyes.\n\nZeal nodded. His excitement, his fears, had left him. He felt something\nof the swagger in calm peculiar to the condemned in their final hour,\nthat last great rally of the nerves to feed the fires of courage. He\nfinished his cigarette and flung himself on the sofa.\n\n\"Wake me at twenty to seven, will you?\" he asked. \"I have ordered the\ntrap.\"\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\n\nThe young Marquess of Strathland and Zeal sat alone in the smoking-room\nat Capheaton--the guests, with the exception of Flora Thangue and Isabel\nOtis had departed six days ago--sunk in a melancholy so profound that\nhis brain was mercifully inactive: if the history of the past week was\ndully insistent the future was not.\n\nHe had witnessed the descent of his grandfather and cousin into the\nvault of the chapel at Strathland Abbey two days before, and after the\nnecessary interviews with stewards and family solicitors had returned\nthis afternoon to Capheaton with his mother. Lady Victoria, even her\ndauntless soul sick with grief and horrors, had gone to bed at once, and\nafter a funereal dinner, where he had made no response whatever to the\nfeeble efforts of the girls to illuminate the darkness in which he\nmoved, had gone to the smoking-room alone, wishing to think and plan,\nyet grateful that he could not.\n\nHe had known nothing of the weakness of his grandfather's heart, and the\nold gentleman, as ruddy and debonair as ever, had just come in from the\ncoverts when he arrived at the Abbey a few hours after Zeal's departure\nfrom Capheaton. Always vain of his health and appearance since his\ncomplete recovery, now many years ago, Lord Strathland had turned a\nhaughty back upon the one physician that had dared to warn him; not even\nhis valet was permitted to suspect that he had been forced to pay to\nTime any debt beyond bleaching hair and an occasional twinge of gout.\nThe care he had taken of himself in his delicate youth had given him a\nfiner constitution than he would have been likely to enjoy had he been\nable to go the wild way of many of his family; and it was his familiar\nboast that he intended to live until ninety.\n\nElton's visit roused no curiosity in his complacent breast, for the\nfavorite seldom announced his coming, and it was quite in order that he\nshould run down for congratulations, and delight his affectionate if\ndisapproving relative with personal details of the great fight. He had\ncome with the intention of being the one to break the news of his\ncousin's death to his grandfather, should it be necessary; but he\npermitted himself to hope that Zeal would rise above his type. He had\ndriven him to the station himself, dispensing with the groom as well,\nand pleaded with him to wait at least a month; to consider the matter\nmore coolly and carefully than had hitherto been possible; begged him to\nreturn to Capheaton; offered to travel with him if he preferred to leave\nEngland. Whatever might threaten in the future there could be no\nimmediate danger of arrest, for if the shot had carried beyond the\nprivate rooms of the Club there would have been evidence of the fact at\nonce, and if the undertakers had suspected the truth and delayed giving\ninformation, their purpose was blackmail and could be dealt with.\n\nAnd while he argued and pleaded he wondered, as he had during the hours\nhe watched beside his cousin sleeping, if, in spite of certain\nprinciples which he had believed to be immutable, he could have found\nany other solution himself. Honor has many arbitrary inflections, and\nZeal's act, being wholly abominable, there must seem, in his code, to be\nno place for him among men. To walk among them unscathed, punished only\nby a conscience that time would inevitably dull, and the loss of a small\nfortune that his promised wife would more than replace, while some\npassionate creature without powerful friends or money for blackmail went\nto the noose, was an outrage abroad in the secret regions of the spirit\neven if it made no assault upon public standards. He deserved\nextinction, one way or another, and it would be almost as great an\noutrage were he to cover his family with his own disgrace. Certain men\nmight, after such a lesson, live on to devote their lives to repentance\nand beneficent works, but not Zeal; and Gwynne had no great respect for\na character made over after some terrifying explosion among its baser\nparts. And the question would always remain if the highest honor would\nnot have commanded confession.\n\nHe made a deliberate effort to put himself in Zeal's place, and after\nseveral failures accomplished the feat. He was willing to believe that\nhis first impulse would have been to destroy himself, not so much\nthrough fear as through a blind sense of atonement, for when he\nendeavored to argue that the crime belonged to the law and the public,\nhe swore at himself for a prig. Either way was suicide, and if the more\ndeliberate might damn a man's soul, no doubt he deserved nothing less,\nand at least he had done his duty by his family and his class. Gwynne\nhad in the base of his character a puritanical stratum by no means mined\nas yet, but with too many outcroppings to have been overlooked. But the\nvery strength it gave him served to confuse the simplicity of the\nreligious instinct; and duty, like the code of honor, endures many\ninterpretations in complex minds. He was quite sure that ultimately he\nwould have decided with his cold intelligence; and he was equally sure\nthat if he had doggedly determined to conquer life and be conquered by\nnothing, that the best part of his mental existence would have gone into\nthe grave with his ideals.\n\nAlthough there was still some confusion in his mind, he kept it out of\nhis words, and as he drove home from the station he was sanguine enough\nto hope that he had at least dissuaded Zeal from precipitancy; for his\ncousin, flippant, cynical, appeared to be quite his usual self, and as\nhe nodded from the window of the train bore little resemblance to the\ndemoralized wretch of the night.\n\nNevertheless, he hastened to his grandfather, for he knew how little the\nmood of the moment may presage that of an hour hence; although he was\nreasonably sure that if Zeal lived until the following morning it would\nbe some time before he brought himself to the sticking-point again. He\nannounced to his mother and his guests that it was his duty to spend\ntwenty-four hours with his grandfather, promising to return in time for\ntwo hours' shooting on the morrow.\n\nHe took for granted that Zeal had gone to London. What then was his\nforeboding horror when Lord Strathland, as they sat alone at\nluncheon--the unmarried aunts were visiting--remarked with acerbity:\n\n\"Zeal arrived on the train before yours--went straight to his room,\ngiving orders he was not to be called until dinner--has not honored me\nwith so much as an intimation that he was in the house--Where are you\ngoing?\"\n\nGwynne had half risen. He sat down hastily.\n\n\"I was afraid he might be ill,\" he replied, coolly. \"But doubtless he\nmerely had a bad night and wants sleep.\"\n\nIn a flash he had understood. It was like Zeal's cynicism to die as\nclose to the family vault as possible.\n\nNo meal had ever seemed as long as that last luncheon with his\ngrandfather, who promptly dismissed the subject of his detested heir and\nasked a hundred questions about the campaign. A fierce sense of\nprotecting the two men he loved best enabled Gwynne to answer as\ncollectedly as if he had not been possessed with the sickening idea that\nthe very bones had gone out of him. When luncheon was over he\naccompanied his grandfather to the library, then after smoking a third\nof a cigar, left him to his nap, frankly stating that he thought he had\nbetter look up Zeal, who had been rather seedy of late; he would risk\nbeing unwelcome.\n\nHe walked slowly up the stair and along the corridor to his cousin's\nsuite; he was in no hurry to reach it, but neither could he wait for the\npossible discovery of the servants at the dinner-hour.\n\nHe knocked at the door of the sitting-room. There was no answer. He\nturned the handle. The door was locked. Then he pounded and called. He\nwas about to fling himself against the door when he heard a quick step\nin the corridor, and before he could retreat Lord Strathland was beside\nhim. There was no defect in the old gentleman's eyesight nor in his\nperceptions. Zeal's abrupt arrival without servant or luggage, and his\nmore than usual rudeness, had charged him with vague suspicions as well\nas annoyance. When Gwynne, in spite of his self-control, had turned\nlivid upon hearing that Zeal was in the Abbey, and had risen as if to\nfly to his rescue, a dark if undefined foreboding had entered his\ngrandfather's mind. But Lord Strathland respected the reserve of his\nguests, no matter how nearly related, and, dismissing the subject, had\nforgotten his apprehension until Gwynne revived it by his untimely\npilgrimage. Then Lord Strathland thought the time had come to hear the\ntruth.\n\n\"Well?\" he demanded, sharply. \"What is it? What's up? Why doesn't Zeal\nopen? I saw him in Piccadilly on Saturday and he stared at me as if he\nhad never seen me before. I thought at the moment it was some of his\ndamned impertinence, but concluded that he had something on his mind. He\nlooked more dead than alive.\"\n\nGwynne's back was to the light, and he controlled his voice, although\nhis heart was thumping. \"Well, he has been, poor chap--awfully seedy--I\nam really worried. He may have anticipated a final hemorrhage, and\ncrawled home to die.\" He cherished the hope that Zeal had been at pains\nto procure an untraceable drug.\n\n\"Ah! Well--I hope that is it if the poor fellow is dead. He looked as if\nhe had more than ill-health on his mind. I thought he had pulled up, but\nno doubt he went to pieces over some wretched woman again. Come, let us\nget in. I don't want the servants to know anything of this at present.\"\n\nThey threw themselves against the door. The old gentleman was heavy and\nGwynne sound and wiry in spite of his delicate appearance. The door was\nstout but its hinges were old, and after several attempts they drove it\nin. Lord Strathland's face was pale and he was panting, but he led the\nway rapidly through the sitting-room into the bedroom.\n\nZeal had undressed, extended himself on the bed, and covered his body\nwith an eider-down quilt. Lord Strathland jerked it off, and both saw\nwhat they had expected to see, for a faint odor of burnt powder lingered\nin the rooms.\n\nLord Strathland's face was ghastly, almost blue. He had anticipated\ndeath, not with the imagination of the young, but dully, through the\natrophied faculties of his age, and the shock could hardly have been\ngreater had he found his grandson without warning.\n\n\"What does this mean?\" he demanded, thickly. \"You know and I will know.\"\n\nGwynne took him firmly by the arm and turned him about. \"Not here,\" he\nsaid. \"Come to the library. I will tell you, but I am no more fit to\ntalk just now than you are to listen.\"\n\nHis grandfather submitted, and Gwynne dropped his arm and rearranged the\nquilt over his cousin's body. At the same moment Lord Strathland's eyes\nlit on a sealed letter addressed to himself. Before Gwynne could\ninterfere he had broken the seal. It ran:\n\n     MY LORD,--I murdered Brathland. In cold blood--saving the fact\n     that I was drunk. My entire private fortune has gone for purposes\n     of blackmail. Even that might not have saved me eventually from the\n     hangman, we have grown so damned democratic. All things considered,\n     I am sure you will agree that it is quite proper I should make the\n     exit of a gentleman while there is yet time. Jack will give you\n     further particulars, should you care to listen to them. ZEAL.\"\n\nHe too had known nothing of the condition of his grandfather's heart,\nand it had amused him to plan a last shock to the perennial optimism\nand complacency of the person he disliked most on earth. The smile was\nstill on his frozen lips that expressed the amused anticipation of his\nbrain. Death, to do him justice, he had met with none of the cowardice\nhe had vaunted, and consistently with his arid cynical soul.\n\n\"Don't read it! Don't!\" Gwynne had exclaimed, in agony, and forgetting\nthe awful figure on the bed in his alarm at the sight of his\ngrandfather's face. \"If you must know the truth let me tell it in my own\nway.\"\n\nBut Lord Strathland read, and fell at his feet like a bundle of old\nclothes.\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\n\nGwynne wondered if he should ever shake off the pall-like memories of\nthe past week: the testimony before the coroner, in which every word had\nto be weighed as carefully as if life instead of the honor of the\nworthless dead were at stake, the reporters from the less dignified of\nthe British newspapers, and the American correspondents, two of whom\ndodged the vigilance of the servants, entered the Abbey by a window, and\ntook snap shots of the lower rooms and of the coffins in the\ndeath-chamber; the painful scenes with the women of the family, who had\ndescended in a body; the wearisome interview with the family solicitor,\nin the course of which he had learned that he was heir to little more\nthan the entailed properties; which must be let in order to insure an\nincome for his three unmarried aunts, Zeal's five girls, and himself;\nthe hideous reiteration of \"your lordship\" by the obsequious servants,\nthat reproduced in his mind the slow deep notes of the passing bell,\ntolled in the village for his grandfather and cousin.\n\nA letter from Julia Kaye had fluttered in like a dove of promise, but he\nhad never been able to recall anything in the six pages of graceful\nsympathy but her allusions to the dead as \"the marquess\" and \"the earl.\"\nHe told himself angrily that his brain must have weakened to notice a\nsolecism at such a time, but it is in moments of abnormal mental strain\nthat trifles have their innings; and during the beautiful service in the\nchapel he caught himself wondering if any woman of his own class could\nhave made such a slip. Always deaf to gossip, he had no suspicion that\nhis Julia had been laughed at more than once for her inability to grasp\nall the unwritten laws of a world which she had entered too late. With\nan ear in which a title lingered like a full voluptuous note of music,\nshe was blunt to certain of the democratic canons of modern society.\nAlthough it gave her the keenest pleasure to address the highest\nbulwarks of the peerage off-handedly as \"duke\" and \"duchess,\" there had\nbeen moments of confusion when she had lapsed naturally into \"your\ngrace.\" And it would have seemed like a lost opportunity to have alluded\nto a titled foreigner without his \"von\" or \"de,\" even where there was a\nmore positive title to use as often as she pleased. It was the one weak\nspot in a singularly acute and accomplished mind.\n\nBut of all this Gwynne knew nothing, and he was dully wondering if a\ngreat love could be affected by trifles, and if his brain and character\nwere of less immutable material than he had believed, his mental vision\nstill straying through the insupportable gloom of the past week, when he\nheard a light foot-fall beyond the door. He sprang to his feet, cursing\nhis nerves, and was by no means reassured upon seeing the long figure of\na woman, dressed entirely in white, a candle in her hand, approaching\nhim down the dark corridor. He had never given a moment's thought in his\nactive life to psychic phenomena, but he was in a state of mind where\nnothing would have surprised him, and he had turned cold to his\nfinger-tips when a familiar voice reassured him.\n\n\"I am not Lady Macbeth,\" said Isabel, with a tremor in her own voice, as\nshe entered and blew out the candle. \"But I felt like her as I braved\nthe terrors of all those dark corridors and that staircase in my wild\ndesire to talk to a living person. I had arrived at that stage where all\nyour ancestors gibbered at the foot of my bed. Flora has been sleeping\nwith me, but your mother wanted her to-night, and I am deserted.\"\n\n\"What a lot of babies you are!\" Gwynne was delighted to wreak his\nself-contempt on some one else, but glad of the interruption, and\nunexpectedly mellowed by the sight of a pretty woman after the red noses\nand sable plumage of the past week. It was true that he had seen Isabel\nat dinner, but like Flora she had worn a black gown out of respect to\nthe family woe, and he hated the sight of black.\n\nNow she wore a gown of soft white wool fastened at the throat and waist\nwith a blue ribbon; and even her profile, whose severity he had\ndisapproved, having a masculine weakness for pugs, was softened by the\nabsence of the coils or braids that commonly framed it: her hair hung in\none tremendous plait to the heels of her slippers.\n\n\"I see that you have no more sleep in you than I have,\" he said. \"Let us\nmake a night of it.\"\n\nIt had rained all day and he was suddenly alive to a sense of physical\ndiscomfort. He rang and ordered a servant to make a fire and bring the\ntea-service.\n\n\"How did you know I was here?\" he asked Isabel, when they were alone\nagain.\n\n\"I felt that you were, but I went first to your room and tapped. I was\nquite capable of waking you up. Thank heaven I summoned the courage to\ncome down. This is delightful.\"\n\nThe fire was crackling in the grate, the water boiling in the big silver\nkettle. Isabel made his tea almost black, but diluted her own, lest she\nshould be left alone before she too was ready for sleep.\n\n\"You have had a beastly time these last days,\" he said, for he was\ngenuinely hospitable. \"I am sorry you did not happen to come a month\nearlier. Have you seen anything of Hexam? He was going on to Arcot.\"\n\n\"He rode over, or walked over, every day. We should have fallen a prey\nto melancholy without him, although you may believe me when I assure you\nthat we thought more of you than we did of ourselves. I am your own\nblood-relation, so I have a right to feel dreadfully sympathetic--may I\nhave a cigarette?\"\n\n\"What a brick you are to smoke! I don't mind being sympathized with for\na change. I have had to do so much sympathizing with others in the last\nweek that I have not had time to pity myself. Even my mother went to\npieces, for she was fond of Zeal, poor old chap, and her conscience\nscorched her because she was always rather nasty to my grandfather--she\nlikes and dislikes tremendously, you know; although to most people she\nis merely indifferent. But when she dislikes--\" He blew the ashes from\nthe tip of his cigarette with a slight whistling sound.\n\nFlora Thangue had extracted all the particulars of the death and suicide\nfrom Lady Victoria--who knew nothing, however, of the tragic cause of\nboth--and imparted them to Isabel, whose mind, in consequence, was free\nof morbid curiosity. She had also read the newspapers. The speculations\nand veiled hints of the sensational sheets had not interested her, but\nshe had pondered deeply over leaders in the more dignified organs, which\nhad abounded in comment upon the changed conditions in the meteoric\ncareer of the young man who was no longer Elton Gwynne, but a peer of\nthe realm.\n\n\"Do you mind it so awfully much?\" she asked, after a short silence\nduring which they had both smoked absently and gazed at the fire.\n\n\"What?\" Gwynne turned the cold surprise of his eyes upon her. \"Losing\ntwo of the four people I cared most for on earth?\"\n\n\"Of course not. Being suddenly made a peer and having to begin all over.\nYou never will be called Elton Gwynne again, and you will have as much\ntrouble educating the public up to your new name as if you were emerging\nfrom obscurity for the first time.\"\n\nThe words, brutally direct, rolled away the last clouds of his lethargy.\nHe vividly realized that he had been skulking before the closed shutters\nof his understanding, accepting the new conditions with but the dulled\nsurface of his brain.\n\nNow his naked soul stared at her out of his white face and tortured\neyes, and she looked away. She had not believed that he could be racked\nwith feeling of any sort, and it was as if she heard him cry: \"Oh, God!\nOh, God!\" although his lips were silent.\n\nBut she did not change the subject.\n\n\"I suppose you haven't seen the newspapers,\" she said. \"I cut out all\nthe editorials and paragraphs I thought would interest you. One of the\nbig dailies, I forget which, said that the interruption of your career\nwas a greater political tragedy than Parnell's or Lord Randolph\nChurchill's.\"\n\n\"Do they say that?\" asked Gwynne, eagerly. \"Well, God knows, it is a\ntragedy for me.\"\n\n\"Don't you like being a peer the least little bit? I am too feminine,\npossibly too American, not to see a certain picturesqueness in a title,\nespecially in such a pretty one as yours; and there is no doubt that you\nare a more imposing figure in the eyes of the world to-day than you were\na week ago. Are you really indifferent to that side of it?\"\n\n\"Am I? One does such a lot of self-posing and self-imposition. There are\nfew things in this world that gratify a man's vanity more than being a\npeer of Great Britain, and, no doubt, had I happened to be born without\nwhat you might call a fighting ambition, and certain abilities, I\nshould--barring natural grief--feel that I was one of the favorites of\ndestiny--that is to say if I had a commensurate income. The fact that I\nmust let the Abbey and Capheaton, and after portioning off all the\nunmarried women of the family, shall have barely enough left to keep up\nmy flat in Charles Street, may have something to do with my absence of\nenthusiasm. But--yes--I _am_ sure of myself!\" he burst out. \"I am the\nmost miserable man on earth to-night, and the reason is not that I have\nlost two good friends, but because my career is ruined, broken off in\nthe middle.\"\n\n\"You could become a militant Liberal peer.\"\n\n\"Paradoxes don't happen to appeal to me. And the only chance for a\ngenuine fighter is the House of Commons. Besides, it is impossible for a\nman to be a peer and remain a true Liberal. Power, and inherited\ninfluence, and exalted social position have a deadly insinuation. I\ndon't believe any man is strong enough to withstand them. There is never\nan hour that a peer is not reminded of his difference from the mass of\nhumanity; and human nature is too weak to resist complacency in the\nend--long before the end. And complacency is the premature old age of\nthe brain and character. If this tragedy had not occurred, even if my\ngrandfather had lived on for fifteen years more, as there was every\nreason to believe he would, I might have gone on that much longer before\ndiscovering weak points in my character. Now God knows what I shall\ndevelop.\"\n\n\"Have you made any plans?\"\n\n\"Plans? I hadn't faced the situation until you spoke.\"\n\n\"You have weak spots like other people, of course. You would be a horrid\nprig if you hadn't. But you surely must know if your Liberalism is\nsincere, ingrained. There is no question that you are a hopeless\naristocrat in essentials. But so have been certain of America's greatest\npatriots--Washington and Hamilton, for instance. I do not see that it\nmatters. One can hold to what seems to me the first principles of\nadvanced civilization--that hereditary monarchy is an insult to\nself-respecting and enlightened men--without wishing to associate with\nthose that offend grammar and good taste. Education, intellect,\nbreeding, would create an aristocracy among anarchists on a desert\nisland--supposing any possessed them; and in time it would become as\nintolerant of liberties as if it harked back to the battle of Hastings.\nThere is no plant that grows so rapidly in the human garden as\nself-superiority, and it is ridiculous only when watered by nothing more\nexcusable than the arbitrary social conditions that exist in the United\nStates. I don't see that the qualities you have inherited should\ninterfere with your ability to see the justice and rationality of\nself-government.\"\n\n\"They do not!\" She seemed to beat his thoughts into their old coherent\nand logical forms. \"Whatever may have been the various motives that\nimpelled me into the Liberal party in the beginning, there is no\nquestion that I have become even more extreme and single-minded than I\nhave let the world know. Perhaps it is my American blood, although I\nnever thought of that before. At all events, had the time been ripe I\nshould have devoted all the gift for leadership I now possess, and all\nthe power I could build up, to overturning monarchy in this country and\nestablishing a republic. There! I never confessed as much to a living\nsoul, but I think you have bewitched me, for I never have been less--or\nmore--myself!\"\n\n\"With yourself as President?\"\n\n\"Sooner or later--the sooner the better. But I waste no time in dreams,\nmy fair cousin--although I have something of a tendency that way. It was\nenough that I had a great and useful career before me and might have\ngone into history as the prime factor of the great change.\"\n\n\"Well, that is over,\" said Isabel, conclusively. \"There is only one\nthing left you and that is to come over and be an American.\"\n\n\"What?\" He stared, and then laughed. \"Ah!\"\n\n\"You will have all the fighting you want over there. You will have to\nwork twenty times harder than you ever did here, for your accent, your\npersonality, the thirty years you have lived out of the country you were\nborn in, all will be against you. You will have to be naturalized in\nspite of your birth--I happen to know of a similar case in my father's\npractice--and that will take five years. In those five years you will\nencounter all the difficulties that strew the way of the foreigner who\nwould gain the confidence of the shrewd American people--they are most\ncharacteristic in the small towns and farming districts. You will win\nbecause you were born to win, but you will learn for the first time what\nit is to stand and fight absolutely alone--for if they learn of your\nexalted birth they will but distrust you the more; and you will taste\nthe sweets of real success for the first time in your life. In spite of\nyour youth and enthusiasm, there is in you a vein of inevitable\ncynicism, for you have had far too much experience of the flatterer and\nthe toady. You are too honest not to confess that if you had been born\nJohn Smith there would have been no editorial comments of any sort upon\nthe tragic end of your relatives, and the great world would have taken\nas little notice of your abilities until you had compelled its unwilling\nattention by many more years of hard work. America will take you for\nexactly what you are and no more. But you will have to become more\nAmerican than the Americans; although you may continue to say 'ain't it'\nand 'it's me' and drop your final gs, because those are all the\nhall-marks of the half-educated in the United States, and will rather\nhelp you than otherwise. Of course you will assume charge of your own\nranch, for that will not only give you plenty to do, but it will be the\nquickest way of becoming one of the people; and after you have been out\nin all weathers for a year or two, turned a dark brown down to your\nchest, ridden a loping horse on a Mexican saddle, talked politics on\nstreet corners and in saloons, left your muddy or dusty wagon once a\nweek at the Rosewater hitching-rail while you transact business in a\nlinen duster, or yellow oil-skin overalls and rubber boots, you will\nfeel so American--Californian, to be exact--that the mere memory of this\nformal cut-and-dried Old World will fill you with ennui.\"\n\nThere was a glint of laughter in Gwynne's eyes, but they were widely\nopen and very bright.\n\n\"I see! You are determined to make a convert of me. You began the night\nof your arrival. I suspect you of having come over on a crusade.\"\n\n\"That was the moment of inspiration--that first night. I won't deny that\nI have thought a great deal about it since--of little else since I read\nthose editorials.\"\n\nHe leaned back and regarded the sole of his shoe as if it were a\nfamiliar. \"That is a large order,\" he said, in a moment. \"Colossal!\nThere might be worse solutions. And the life of a cow-boy, for a while\nat least--\"\n\n\"Don't delude yourself. You would not be the least bit of a cow-boy.\nYou wouldn't even look picturesque--if you did you might be sorry.\nYou would just be a plain northern California rancher. Of course\nyou would have all the riding you wanted, but there are no round-ups\nworth speaking of on a ranch the size of Lumalitas. And probably you\nwould continue to let sections of it to men that wanted to raise cattle\nor horses on a small scale. You had better devote yourself to the dairy\nand to raising hay and grain, and turn about five hundred acres into a\nchicken-ranch--nothing pays like that.\"\n\nHe threw back his head and laughed as heartily as if death and disaster\nhad never been.\n\n\"From the English hustings and the greatest parliamentary body the world\nhas ever known to chickens and butter in California! From Capheaton to\nRosewater, oil-skin overalls and a linen 'Duster!' Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!\nBut give me a comprehensive idea of the place, in your own inimitable\nunvarnished diction. That will keep the ghosts off, at all events.\"\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\n\nJulia Kaye was one of those women designed by nature for the role of a\nValerie Marneffe, or of that astute Parisian's bourgeoise and more\nromantic daughter, Emma Bovary; but tossed, in the gamble of the fates,\ninto a setting of respectable opulence, where her instincts for prey\nwere trimmed of their crudities, and the vehemence of her passions\nsubdued by the opportunity to gratify all other whims and desires.\n\nHer father, born in the sooty alley of a manufacturing town in the north\nof England, had run away to sea in his boyhood, deserted in the port of\nNew York, starved, stolen, peddled, washed dishes in cheap restaurants,\nshovelled snow, tramped to Chicago, starved and peddled and shovelled\nagain, finally found a position with a firm of wholesale druggists. He\nattended a night school, proved himself a lad of uncommon sharpness, and\nin less than a year was first packing and then dispensing drugs. Five\nyears later he was drawing a large salary, and at the age of thirty he\nhad opened a retail drug store of his own.\n\nIt was during his earlier period of comparative leisure and peace of\nmind that he began to test the inventive faculty that had pricked him in\nsmall but significant ways during his boyhood. His first inventions were\nof a minor importance, although they increased his income and were\npermanently remunerative; but when he turned the torch of his genius\nupon the fatal antipathies of vermin, his success was so deservedly\nrewarded that he was a millionaire in less than three years. He returned\nto England, and, avoiding the alley of inglorious memory, courted and\nwon the daughter of a manufacturer, his ambition driving him to compel\nsocial recognition in his native city. It soared no higher, but his\nwife, now no longer one of a large family, but with the income of a\ngenerous millionaire at her disposal, was open to higher promptings; and\nhe to conversion. They moved to London and laid their plans with some\nskill.\n\nBut although London can stand a good deal in the cause of resupply and\nnovelty, the violence of Mrs. Tippett's accent, and the terrible\nsolecisms of a gentleman whose education had begun in a Lancashire alley\nand finished in the business purlieus of Chicago, who had acquired the\nAmerican vice of brag in its acutest form, and who, when in his cups,\nshouted and spat and swore, were more than the most enterprising among\nthem had been called upon to endure. The social ambitions of the\nTippetts were so definitely quenched that the indignant millionaire\nthreatened to return to Chicago. But Mrs. Tippett moved him firmly to\nBrighton, where, in the course of time, she toned him down. They made\ntheir way slowly into society of a sort, and attracted the attention of\nthe public. There was no law to prevent them from dining at the\nfashionable hotels, where Paris gowns could not pass unobserved; and\ntheir turnouts were irreproachable.\n\nMrs. Tippet, an astute woman, by this time had realized that hers was\nnot the destiny of the social star, and she concentrated her hopes and\nambitions upon her one child, an uncommonly clever little girl. This\nchild grew up in a luxury that would have stifled even her precocious\nmind had it not been for the rigid laws of the school-room. Her\ngovernesses and tutors were selected with a sharp eye to the number of\ntitles in their reference-books, but dismissed promptly if they were\nunworthy of their hire. Later, the little Julia was sent to a\ndistinguished school near Paris, where, with an eye to her future\nwell-being, remarkable in one so young, she divided her affectionate\naffluence among the few whose exalted station made them worth the while\nof a maiden with an indefinite future.\n\nThese friends did not prove as useful as she had hoped. At home there\nwere her parents to terrify theirs, and although she visited at several\nchateaux, and more than one title was laid at her gilded feet, she made\nup her mind to read her name in Burke.\n\nShe took her parents for a tour round the world with a view to polishing\noff their lingering idiosyncrasies, and her chance came in India, where\nshe buried them both. They succumbed to cholera, and the kindly wife of\nthe viceroy, to whom she had had the forethought to secure a letter,\nsent for her to come to Simla and remain as her guest until she found\ncourage and a chaperon for the return to England. Here she met Captain,\nthe Honorable Augustus Kaye, heir to an ancient barony, chivalrous,\nimpressionable, and hard-up. They were married with the blessings of old\nfriends and new, and, to do her full justice, she made him a good wife\naccording to her lights. She was quite insanely in love with him at\nfirst, for he looked like one of Ouida's guardsmen, and his pedigree was\nso long, and so varied with romantic historic episode, that she was\nfully a week committing it to memory.\n\nWhen he left the army and they had returned to England--via Paris--she\nhad the wardrobe and establishment of a princess, the right to dine at\nthe Queen's table, and not a relative in London. She was immoderately\nhappy, and during the five years of her wedded life she exhausted the\nfirst strength of her affections, buried her feminine caprice, and\nwhatever of impulse youth may have clung to as its right. When Gussy\nKaye died, the predominant feeling in her bosom was rage at his\ninconsiderateness in leaving the world before his father, and nothing\nbehind him but a courtesy prefix which she could not even use on her\ncards.\n\nShe opened her soul to searching, and decided that five years of love\nwere quite enough for any woman, and that her attentions hereafter\nshould be directed towards the highest worldly success obtainable with\nbrains, talents, and wealth. To be merely a rich woman in the right set\ndid not come within measurable distance of her ambition's apex, and she\ndetermined to gratify her passionate self-love by becoming a\npersonality.\n\nShe had long since simulated the repose of the high-born Englishwoman,\nuntil, like all imitators, she far surpassed her models, and her manners\nwere marked not so much by the caste of Vere de Vere as by an almost\nnegative stolidity. This at least provided her with an unruffled front\nfor trying occasions--others besides the Arcots were insensible of her\nofferings--which in the United States of America would have been\nadmiringly characterized as \"nerve.\" This manner became solidified after\nher popular husband's death, and if it was generally referred to as\n\"aplomb\" or \"poise,\" allowances must be made for the poverty of the\naverage vocabulary.\n\nIt is not difficult for a clever, handsome, correct, and wealthy woman\nto reach and hold a distinctive position even in London, that world's\nheadquarters of individualities. In addition to a judiciously lavish\nhospitality, it is only necessary to personalize intelligently, and this\nMrs. Kaye did with an industry that would have carried her to greatness\nhad she been granted a spark of the divine fire. She cultivated the\ngreat and the fashionable in art, letters, and the drama, mixed them\ntactfully with her titles, attended the banquets of the ruling class in\nBohemia attired flatteringly in her best, and founded a society for the\nstudy of Leonardo da Vinci. She became intimate with several royal\nladies, who were charmed with her endless power to amuse them and her\nmagnificent patronage of their charities; and she formed close relations\nwith other dames but a degree less exalted, and generally more\ndiscriminating. She cultivated a witty habit of speech, the society of\ncabinet ministers, and her _chef_ was a celebrity. Her gowns would have\nbeen notable in New York, and she was wise enough to avoid eccentricity\nand openly to regard all forms of sensationalism with a haughty disdain.\n\nHer attitude to men was equally well-advised. Detrimentals and\nineligibles never so much as came up for inspection; she had a\nfar-reaching sense of selection and a proper notion of the value of\ntime. Therefore, the many that had the run of her luxurious mansion\ncontributed personally to her prestige, and she flattered herself that\nher particular band was little less distinguished than the Royal\nHousehold. And they invariably found her witty, entertaining, or, like\nMadame Recamier, ready to listen \"avec seduction.\" Her knowledge of\npolitics was practically unbounded.\n\nIn such moments as she happened to be alone with any of her swains, she\nbecame distractingly personal, inviting, gently repelling, afforded\ndazzling glimpses of possibilities awaiting time and the man: so\naccomplishing the double purpose of agreeably titillating her own depths\nand wearing the halo of a well-behaved Circe. Altogether her success was\nwhat it always must be when brains and ambition, money and a cold heart\nare allied; but it was small wonder if the head of the daughter of the\nHouse of Tippett was a trifle turned and certain of her perceptions were\nblunted.\n\nAlthough ofttimes large with complacency, she by no means lost sight of\nher original purpose to wed a coronet, and if she endured four years of\nwidowhood it was merely because she knew that she could afford to wait\nfor transcendence. This she had finally run to earth in Lord Brathland,\nimminent heir to a dukedom, and personally more agreeable to her than\nany man in London. That he was notoriously inconstant but added zest to\nthe chase, and it was, perhaps, the illusion she at times achieved of a\ncertain resemblance to the ladies of his preference that finally\novercame his intense aversion from respectability. He had offered\nhimself to her on the day of his undoing.\n\nThis was the woman with whom Elton Gwynne was infatuated at the most\ncritical moment of his career. Of her profound aybsses he suspected\nnothing. She reigned in his imagination as the unique woman in whom\nintellect and passion, tenderness and all the social graces united in an\nexquisite harmony. There had been a time when, dazzled by the brilliancy\nof his ascending star, and Brathland being but a name to her, she had\nconsidered marriage with a man who assuredly would be the next leader of\na Liberal House, and was no less certain of being prime-minister. She\nwas under no delusion that she could one day induce him to accept a\npeerage, but she was reasonably sure that Zeal would not marry again,\nand there were times when the heir looked so ill that she tightened her\nbonds about the heir-presumptive, while assuring him that she was too\nmuch in love with liberty to think of marriage. Even when Zeal came back\nfrom Norway or Sorrento looking almost well, she never permitted Gwynne\nto escape, to see so much as a corner of her ego that might disturb the\nimage of herself she had created in his mind; and when she met Brathland\nand her senses swam with the subtle scent of strawberry leaves, she saw\nno reason for losing the stimulating society and flattering attentions\nof the brightest star in the political firmament. Therefore, when he was\nready to hand, in the crushing hour of her riven ambitions, and his own\nof serenest effulgence, she promptly reflected that the distance between\na marquisate and a dukedom was quickly traversed by a powerful\nstatesman. Meanwhile, although Elton Gwynne would no doubt be a hideous\ntrial as a husband, his wife's position, supported by a million in the\nfunds and another in Chicago, would be one of the most brilliant in\nEngland. And she too had seen Lord Zeal in Piccadilly on Saturday.\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\n\nThe sudden elevation of her Jack to a marquisate, beside whose roots,\ngripping the foundations of Britain's aristocracy, and ramifying the\nlength and breadth of its society, the lost dukedom was a mere mushroom,\ncreated for a favorite of the last George, and notorious for its\n_mesalliances_, did not cost Mrs. Kaye a moment's loss of poise. She\nmerely wondered that she had ever questioned her star. People that\ndisliked her found a subtle suggestion of arrogance in her manner, and\nthe slight significant smile on her large firm lips was a trifle more\nstereotyped. Those that she favored with the abundance of her offerings\nremembered afterwards that she had never been so brilliant as during the\nmonth that followed the announcement of her bethrothal, and attributed\nthe fact to the electrified springs of affection.\n\nGwynne and she had been invited to the same houses for the rest of the\nautumn, but he cancelled his engagements while begging her to fulfil\nhers, as he should be too busy to entertain her were she so sweet as to\ninsist upon coming to Capheaton. This she had not the least intention of\ndoing, for she not only yearned for the additional tribute due to her,\nbut she always avoided long sojourns in Lady Victoria's vicinity,\nknowing her as a woman of caprice, who often dropped people as abruptly\nas she took them up. Susceptible to the charm of novelty, so far Mrs.\nKaye had wholly pleased her; but the clever Julia gauged the depths of\nher future mother-in-law's credulity and kept her distance. With all her\nreason for self-gratulation, in the depths of her cynical soul she was\nquite aware of her natural inferiority to the women she emulated in all\nbut their license. That prerogative, with the wisdom that had marked her\nupward course, she had flagrantly avoided, knowing that the world is\ncomplacent only to those that fire its snobbishness, never to those that\nfan the flame; and while she bitterly envied these women, she never\nforgot the market value of her own unimpeachable virtue. She could not\nin any case have been the slave of her passions, but her serenity was\nsometimes ruffled as she reflected that, in spite of eminence achieved,\nher caution in this and in other respects branded her in her secret soul\nas second rate.\n\nBut if she tactfully did not insist upon flying to Capheaton, she wrote\nsuch charming letters, happily free of solecisms, that Gwynne wondered\nat his failure to sound the depths of her charm. But he refrained from\nmeeting her, and the reason was that he was slowly working towards a\nmomentous decision, and wished to arm himself at all points before\nbraving her possible disapproval. When he was his cool normal collected\nself again, he gave way to his impatience to see the woman he had every\nreason to believe was deeply in love with him. He telegraphed her a\nperemptory appeal to go up to her house in London, and she was too wise\nto refuse. It was now October and London quite bearable. She telegraphed\nto her servants to strip her house of its summer shroud, and returned\nearly on the day of his choice.\n\nIt is hardly necessary to state that Mrs. Kaye lived in Park Lane. She\nhad cultivated half-tones with a notable success, but to symbolize her\nnew estate was a temptation it had not occurred to her to resist.\nShortly after her return from India she had bought a large house in the\nfacade of London, and furnished it with a luxury that satisfied one of\nthe deepest cravings of her being, while her admirable sense of balance\nsaved her from the peculiar extravagances of the cocotte.\n\nShe had seen Lady Victoria's expressive boudoir at Capheaton, and its\nmate in Curzon Street, and relieved the envy they inspired in a caustic\nepigram that happily did not reach the insolent beauty's ear. \"These old\ncoquettes,\" she had lisped, with an amused uplift of one eyebrow. \"They\nsurround themselves with the atmosphere of the demi-monde and forget\nthat a wrinkle is as fatal as a chaperon.\"\n\nThe pictures in her own house were as correct as they were costly, and\nshe had no boudoir. She invariably received her guests in the\ndrawing-room, an immense and unique apartment, with a frieze of dusky\ncopies of old masters, all of a size, and all framed in gilt as dim with\ntime. From them depended a tapestry of crimson silk brocade of\nuncheckered surface. By a cunning arrangement of furniture the great\nroom was broken up into a semblance of smaller ones, each with its group\nof comfortable chairs, its tea-table, or book case, or cabinet of\nbibelots, or open hearth. And all exhaled the inviting atmosphere of\noccupation.\n\nMrs. Kaye, rested, and more self-possessed than if the hastening lover\nhad been the late Lord Brathland, but agreeably stirred nevertheless,\nawaited the new peer in a charming corner before a screen of dull gold,\nthe last reviews on a table beside her, the afternoon sun shining in on\nher healthy unworn face. When he entered and advanced impetuously across\nthe room she decided that he certainly was a dear, even if he lacked the\nfascination of Brathland and his kind. And his halo was almost visible.\nShe therefore yielded enchantingly when he enveloped her, smothered her,\nstormed her lips, and even pulled her hair. She finally got him over to\nthe little sofa--she had advanced to meet him--but remained in his arm,\nthe very picture of tender voluptuous young womanhood. Indeed, she was\nwell pleased, and found her Jack, with that light blazing in his eyes,\nquite handsome, and fascinating in his own boyish imperious\nself-confident way.\n\nIt was half an hour before she rang for tea, and then she looked so\npretty and domestic on the other side of the little table, with its\ndelicate and costly service, that Gwynne was obliged to pause and summon\nall his resolution before proceeding to another subject that possessed\nhim as fully as herself; but he succeeded, for not even passion could\nturn him from his course; and she gave him his opening.\n\n\"Poor Lord Strathland!\" she exclaimed, with a tear in her throat. \"He\nwas always so jolly and amusing, quite the most cheerful person I ever\nmet. And before your cousin became--lost his health--we were great\nfriends. Indeed he never quite forgot me. But it was for you I was so\nhorribly cut up. I cried for two nights.\"\n\n\"Did you? But I was positive you did not make those tears in your first\nletter with your hair-brush.\" He laughed like a happy school-boy, while\nshe protested with a roughish expression that made her look like a very\nyoung girl.\n\n\"It need not prevent our immediate marriage,\" he said. \"What do you say\nto the last of this month?\"\n\n\"I could get ready. Only girls, who never have any clothes, poor things,\nget trousseaux in these days. I had set my heart upon spending the\nhoneymoon at the Abbey, but it would be rather indecent yet awhile;\ndon't you think so?\"\n\nHe had not an atom of tact and rushed upon his doom. \"We shall have to\ncut the Abbey,\" he said, firmly. \"I start for California three weeks\nfrom to-day.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" she said, stiffly. \"I should have thought you would have\nconsulted me. Not but that I shall be enchanted to visit California,\nbut--well, you _are_ rather lordly, you know.\"\n\n\"My dear girl, I have been too harassed to consider the amenities. And\nwhen a man is rearranging his whole life he must isolate himself or run\nthe risk of clouds in his judgment.\"\n\nHe paused. She disguised her mortification and answered, kindly: \"I can\nunderstand that in this sudden demand for readjustment you have had many\nbad moments. It was far too soon for you to go up to the Peers'. But\nwith your marvellous energies, your genius--there is no other word for\nit--you can soon astonish the world anew with a patent for\ndefossilization. At all events the Peers' will enter upon a new life as\na sort of mastodon cave swept out and illuminated by the most energetic\nand aspiring of knights-errant.\"\n\nGwynne laughed dryly. \"The role does not appeal to me; nor any other in\nthe same setting. I have done a month of the hardest thinking of my\nlife. Everything that went before looks like child's play. I have\narrived at the definite conclusion that my career in England has come\nto a full stop, and I have made up my mind to create another--out of\nwhole cloth--in the United States.\"\n\nShe stared at him, her face not yet unset, but her eyes expanding with\nincredulous apprehension. \"You mean to desert England?\" she asked,\nquietly.\n\n\"Forever. Absolutely. It is all or nothing. I cannot become an American\ncitizen until five years after entering the country, and I do not wish\nto lose any valuable time. Having made up my mind, I have ceased to\nwonder if I shall like it. That is now beside the question. I shall drop\nmy title as a matter of course, and hope that I shall pass undiscovered\nas John Gwynne. In short, I shall begin life all over again--as if I\nwere a criminal in disguise instead of the sport of circumstances. I\nhave ceased to regret the inevitable and begun to be stimulated by the\nthought of a struggle to which all that I have had here was a mere game,\nand I am sure that you, with your brains and energy, will enjoy the\nfight as much as I. I am not going into the wilderness. We shall be only\ntwo hours from San Francisco, which I am told is the only city in\nAmerica that in the least suggests Europe; it should be very attractive.\nOn the ranch you shall have every comfort and luxury. You must be sick\nof London, anyhow. You have conquered everything here.\"\n\nHe paused and regarded her in some trepidation. In spite of his\nself-confidence he had had his moments of doubt. And although he had\nanticipated tears and remonstrance, he was unprepared for the more\nsubtle weapon of amusement, flickering through absolute calm. He\nsuddenly wished that she were younger. He had never given a thought to\nher age before, but he remembered that she had lived for two years\nlonger than himself, and it made him feel even less than thirty.\n\n\"My dear boy,\" she said, wonderingly, \"I never heard anything so\nromantic and impossible. Of course it is the American cousin with whom\nyou have been shut up all these weeks that has been putting such\npreposterous ideas into your head. I always said that nature just missed\nmaking you a poet. But if you wish to work out your manifest destiny--to\nbe immortalized in history--you will remind yourself that England is the\none place on earth where an Anglo-Saxon can cut a really great figure.\nNot only because he has the proper background of traditions, but because\nhe has an audience trained to recognize a man's greatness during his\nlifetime. If you go in for those unspeakable American politics you will\nnever be given credit for anything higher than your medium; in other\nwords, should you develop into a statesman on American lines you would\nnever be recognized for anything but a successful politician. Even if\nyou survived in their hurly-burly of history, you would be judged by\ncontemporary standards--infused with a certain contempt because you were\nnot American-born.\"\n\n\"I have thought it all out. The obstacles to greatness, even more than\nto success, have whetted my appetite for the struggle. I must fight!\nfight! fight! I must exercise my powers of usefulness to some good end,\nand now, now, when I am young and ardent. I should go mad sitting round\ndoing nothing. I have no temper for attacking the passive resistance of\ninertia. I want to fight out in the open. If I fail I will take my\nbeating like a man. But I have not the least intention of failing. I am\nacutely aware of the powers within me, and I can use them anywhere.\"\n\n\"Then why not in the Upper House?\" she asked, quickly.\n\n\"For the reasons I have given you, and because I should fear the results\non my character. You know what it means to be a peer of Great Britain.\nFlattery without accomplishment is demoralizing--would be to me, at all\nevents. It is wine to me when I am achieving, but it would drug me in\nidleness. Are you so wedded to London?\"\n\n\"London is the _raison d'etre_ of life. Has it occurred to you,\" she\nasked, gently, \"that I might refuse to go to America?\"\n\n\"I was afraid the idea would be something of a shock, but I was sure you\nwould see the matter in my light.\"\n\n\"It is not wanting in power! But it seems that I am. I have never\naspired to the role of Amelia Sedley. I have, in fact, rather a\npronounced individuality; and yet you have taken upon yourself to\ndispose of my future as if I were a slip of eighteen--delighted at the\nprospect of a husband.\"\n\n\"Indeed you are wrong!\" he cried, distressed to have bruised so beloved\nan ego. \"But, I repeat, it was a question I was forced to decide alone.\nNor would it have been fair to ask you to assume any part of so great a\nresponsibility. Do you suppose I did not think of that? Do you suppose I\nhave ever lost sight of your happiness? Let me think for both and you\nshall not regret it.\"\n\nShe could have smiled outright at this evidence of the ingenuousness of\nman, but her breast was raging with a fury of disappointment and\nconsternation. She kept her eyes down lest they should betray her. But\nsuddenly she had an inspiration. She controlled herself with a masterly\neffort, flooded her eyes with tenderness, raised them, and said,\nsoftly:\n\n\"I do love London, love it with what I called a passion before I--before\nwe met. And I cannot believe that this extraordinary resolution of yours\nhas had time to mature. Promise me at least that you will not apply for\nletters of citizenship for at least a year after your arrival--\"\n\n\"I shall apply the day after I arrive in Rosewater.\" He steeled himself,\nfor he had had his experience of woman's wiles; and his faith in\nmasculine supremacy as a habit did not waver. \"I only regret that the\ntime of probation must be so long. I am on fire to throw myself into the\narena--however, there will be opportunities to make myself known and\nfelt. I have decided to study law meanwhile--and the law, it seems, is a\ncareer in itself in America.\"\n\nAnd then he watched her eyes, fascinated. They slowly hardened, until,\nwith the sun slanting into them, they looked like bronze. She was too\nintent upon studying his own to hide them, and upon arriving at a final\nconclusion. She reached it in a moment, for to her habit of rapid\nthought and her understanding of the workings of the masculine mind she\nowed no little of her supremacy among the clever women of London.\n\n\"I see that your decision is irrevocable,\" she said. \"You are yourself;\nno one could make or unmake you, and God forbid that I should try.\nBut--and I forbear to lead up to it artistically--I dissever myself from\nyour chariot wheels. I am not afraid of being crushed, for no doubt you\nwould always remember to be polite, if not considerate. I am not sure\nthat you would even permit me to become unrecognizable with dust. But I\nam no longer plastic. I am thirty-two, and I am as much I as you are\nyou. I shall watch you from afar with great interest, and I sincerely\nhope, for both your sakes, that Miss Otis will succeed in marrying you.\nI cannot fancy anything more suitable.\"\n\nHe had turned white, but he looked at her steadily. He felt as if the\nround globe were slipping from under him; and vaguely wondered if she\nhad gone about alluding to him as \"the marquess.\" Then he sprang to his\nfeet, lifted her forcibly from her chair, deposited her on the sofa, and\ntaking her in his arms defied her to dismiss him, to live without him.\nAs the body, so yielding before, declined even to become rigid in\nresistance, he poured out such a flood of pleading that, believing\npassion had conquered reason, she flung her arms about his neck and\noffered to marry him on the morrow if he would promise to remain in\nEngland. But there was a crystal quality in Gwynne's intellect that no\npassion could obscure. He merely renewed his pleadings; and then she\nslipped out of his embrace and rose to her feet.\n\n\"We are wasting time,\" she said. \"I always drive before dinner, and I\ncannot go out in a tea-gown.\" She paused a moment to summon from her\nresources the words that would humiliate him most and slake the desire\nfor vengeance that shrieked within her. She had never hated any one so\nbitterly before, not even in her youth, when snubs were frequent. For\nthe third time she watched a coronet slip through her strong determined\nimpotent fingers. She could forgive her husband and Brathland their\nuntimely deaths, but for this young man, passionately in love with her,\nwho tossed the dazzling prize aside as an actor might a \"property\ncrown,\" she felt such a rage of hatred that for almost a moment she\nthought of giving her inherited self the exquisite satisfaction of\nscratching his eyes out. But it was too late in her day to be wholly\nnatural, and, indeed, she preferred the weapons the world and her\nambitions had given her. As he rose and stared at her doubtingly, she\nsaid, without a high or a sharp note, in her clear lisping voice:\n\n\"I think it wise to put an end to all this by telling you that I was\nengaged to Lord Brathland when he died. I was more in love with him than\nI ever shall be with any one again. You caught me in the violence of the\nrebound, for I was confused with grief, and distraction was welcome: you\nare always sufficiently amusing. I have not the least idea it would ever\nhave come off, for, to tell you the truth, my friend, you are too\nhopelessly the _enfant gate_ for a woman who is neither young enough nor\nold enough to crave youth on any terms. As a husband, I fear, not to put\ntoo fine a point on it, you would be a bore. At the risk of being\nthought a snob--to which I am quite indifferent--I will add that as\nplain John Gwynne you seem to have so shrunk in size as to have become\nas insignificant as most men are, no doubt, when you catch a glimpse of\ntheir unmanufactured side. However\"--with the air of a great lady\ndismissing an object of patronage--\"I wish you good-fortune, and\nsincerely hope that we shall one day read of John Gwynne, senator, and\nrecall for a moment the brilliant Elton Gwynne so long forgotten in this\nbusy London of ours.\"\n\nDuring quite half of her discourse Gwynne had felt his soul writhe under\na rain of hot metal, gibber towards some abyss where it could hide its\nhumiliation and its scars for ever. His brain seemed vacant and his very\nnostrils turned white. But like many clever people goaded to words by a\nfurious sense of failure, she overshot her mark, and before she\nfinished his pride had made a terrified rebound and taken complete\npossession of him. He still felt stripped, lashed, a presumptuous youth\nbefore a scornful woman in the ripeness of her maturity, but it was\nimperative for his future self-respect that he should reassert his\nmanhood and retire in good order. He let her finish, and then, as she\nstood with a still impatience, he lifted his eyes and drew himself up.\nHis face was devoid of expression. His eyes did not even glitter; he\nmight have been listening with voluntary politeness to the speech of\nmajesty laying a corner-stone.\n\n\"You are quite right,\" he said. \"You have given me the drubbing I\ndeserve, and I am grateful to you. It was the only thing I needed to\nsnap my last tie with England and brace me for the struggle in America.\nIt emboldens me to ask another favor--that you will regard what I have\ntold you of my plans as confidential. I shall give out that I am going\nto travel for a time. As I believe I mentioned, I do not wish to be\nrecognized in the United States; and that by the time I have made my new\nname my old one will be forgotten, is one of the sure points upon which\nI have reckoned. Have I your promise?\"\n\n\"My oath!\" she said, flippantly; and although she was not generous\nenough to admire, and still felt as if the world itself were a corpse,\nevery inherited instinct in her united in a visible respect for a poise\nthat was a gift of the centuries, not a deftly manufactured mask.\n\nShe rang the bell and extended her hand. Gwynne shook it politely; and a\nmoment later was walking down Park Lane in that singular state of\nelation that in mercurial natures succeeds one of the brutal blows of\nlife, when all the forces of the spirit have leaped to the rescue.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\n1905\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nFor Isabel Otis the _genius loci_ had a more powerful and enduring\nmagnetism than any man or woman she had ever known. She had felt the\nconsolation of it, although without analysis, in her lonely girlhood by\nthe great Rosewater Marsh; definitely in Tyrol, Perugia, Toledo, in\nMunich where she had lingered too long, in a hundred tiny high-perched\nand low-set villages of Austria and Italy of which the tourist had never\nheard, at Konigsee and Pragserwildsee; and deeply in England. But no\nplace had ever called her, disturbed her, excited her into furious\ncriticism, mockingly maintained its hold upon the very roots of her\nbeing, like the city of her birth. Her childhood's memories of it\nclustered about the old house on Russian Hill where the most cordial\nneighbors were goats; the beach by the Cliff House on a stormy day; long\nrides up and down the almost perpendicular hills of the city in the\nswift cable cars; and certain candy stores on Polk and Kearney streets.\nAt long intervals there was a children's party at one of the fine houses\non the ledge below her home; or out in the Western Addition, where an\nalways migratory people were rivalling the splendors of Nob Hill--as\nthat craggy height had long since humbled South Park and Rincon Hill\ninto their abundant dust. She also cherished many charming memories of\nher mother, with dinner or ball-gown so prudently looped under her\nrain-coat that it gave her slender figure the proportions of the\nold-fashioned hoop-skirt; always laughing as she kissed the little girls\ngood-night before braving the two flights of steps to the carriage at\nthe foot of the cliff. Two years before her death Mrs. Otis was glad to\nbury her mortification and misery in Rosewater. After that Isabel had\nnever so much as a glimpse of San Francisco until she was sixteen, when\nher father was induced to visit his adopted daughter and take his\nyoungest martyr with him. Isabel had planned for this visit throughout\nsix long months, and arrived in the city of her heart radiant in a frock\nevery breadth of which was new--heretofore her wardrobe had risen like\nan apologetic ph[oe]nix from the moth-eaten remnants of her mother's old\nfinery--and such uncompromising trust in the benevolence of fate as a\ngirl rarely knows twice in a lifetime. There were three days of\nenchanted prowling about the old house on Russian Hill, where, as the\ntenant, in the rocking-chair by the bedroom window, did not invite her\nto enter, she consoled herself with the views and the memories; and of\nan even more normal delight in the shopping streets and gay restaurants\nof a real city. After that the visit existed in her mind with the\nconfused outlines of a nightmare.\n\nHer adopted sister's peevish complaints at being obliged to remain in\nthe foggy windy city all summer, the crying baby, the whirlwinds of dust\nand shivering nights, she might have dismissed as unworthy the spirit of\nsixteen, and dreamed herself happy. But Mr. Otis, who had been sober for\nseven months, selected this occasion for a fall which resounded from\nMarket Street to Telegraph Hill, and rejuvenated the long line of\nsaloons that had graced Montgomery Street since the days when \"Jim\" Otis\nhad been one of the wildest spirits in the wildest city on earth. That\nwas \"back in the Sixties,\" when his lapses were as far apart as they\nwere unrivalled in consumption, span, and pyrotechny. By the late\nEighties he had disappeared into the north, and the careless city knew\nhim no more.\n\nDuring the Seventies and early Eighties there had been a period of\nreform, incident upon his marriage with a pretty and high-spirited girl,\nand one of the city's estimable attempts to clean out its political\nstables. His brilliant and desperate encounter with Boss Buckley was\nhistoric, but its failure, and the indifference of the gay contented\nmajority to the city's underworld, soured him and struck a fatal blow at\nthe never vital roots of personal ambition. When he began to water the\nroots at his old haunts, the finish of his career and of his splendid\ninheritance passed into the region of problems that Time solves so\neasily. When she solved his problem he was glad to subside into one of\nhis cottages in Rosewater. Here he reformed and collapsed, reformed and\ncollapsed; but, with fewer temptations, and a remnant of his legal\nbrilliancy, he supported his family after a fashion; and fed his pride\nto the day of his death with the fact that his wife, unlike the\nforgotten half of many another comet, had never been obliged to do her\nown work.\n\nDuring that last visit to San Francisco, Isabel, guided by her amused\nbrother-in-law, routed him out of no less than fourteen saloons, and\nspent night after night walking the streets with him to conquer the\nrestlessness that otherwise would find a prolonged surcease beyond her\ninfluence. When she finally steered him back to Rosewater he fell into\nan exuberant fit of repentance, during which he was so charming and so\nlegal that Isabel forgave him, laid by her bitterness and\nmortification, and hoped. But although no repentance could maintain a\ngrip upon that slippery flabby substance which he still called his\ncharacter, at least he never went to San Francisco again. Occasionally\nhe permitted Isabel to spend a week with her sister, while he pledged\nhimself to good behavior during her absence; and kept his word. He\nalways kept his word; and he took care to withhold it except when he was\nsure of himself. Isabel decided that as everything was relative it was\nbetter to have a dipsomaniac as her life portion than a drinking-machine\nof more steady and industrious habits.\n\nFinally his patient clients left him, he sold the cottage in\nRosewater--all that remained of his inheritance--to pay its mortgages,\nand moved with Isabel out to the ranch-house, preserved with a few\nhundred acres by the more canny and less thirsty Hiram. When the elder\nbrother died James would have returned forthwith to the sources of\nsupply, but by this time Isabel had the upper hand, and although he\ndisappeared for days at a time, he was always forced to return to the\nranch when the small monthly sum allowed him by the terms of his\nbrother's will was exhausted; no one in Rosewater would give him credit.\nAs he invariably left a note behind him promising to \"be quiet about\nit,\" Isabel ceased to haunt his footsteps. His appetite was far beyond\nhis control or hers, and as he kept his word and spent his time in the\nback parlor of a saloon, and had no longer the digestive capacity to\nachieve his former distinction, she merely sat at home and waited.\nFortunately he did not live long enough after his brother hopelessly to\nembitter his daughter's youth. Liberty came to her when she had ceased\nto hate with young intolerance and begun to pity; and before too much\nlonging for freedom, and its insidious suggestions, had poisoned her\nnature. Indeed, when she had seen her father buried with much pomp in\nthe cemetery behind Rosewater, and returned to the permanent peace of\nher home, she missed her cares and responsibilities, so long and\nsystematically borne, and mourned, not as a child for its parent, but as\nan adoptive mother suddenly bereft. Nevertheless, she was bent upon\nenjoying her freedom to the utmost and rebelled against the obduracy of\nher uncle's executors, who disapproved of her pilgrimage to Europe\nunattended by a matron of Rosewater. Hiram Otis, who trusted no man, had\nappointed four executors; and had not Judge Leslie been one of them the\nother three might have delayed the settling of the estate beyond the\nlegal term. But at the end of a year Isabel was absolute mistress of her\nproperty and herself.\n\nOne of the happiest moments of her life was when she sat before her\nlawyer's table in San Francisco and watched the pen strokes that\ncancelled the mortgage of the house on Russian Hill. The house and its\nacre, encumbered by the inevitable mortgage, had been all that remained\nof Mrs. Otis's personal inheritance when she left San Francisco for\never. James Otis had promised his dying wife that he would never sell\nthe place, which she bequeathed to Isabel; and when his last client left\nhim and he could no longer pay the interest, Hiram, who was morosely\ndevoted to his niece, met the yearly obligation: he would not redeem the\nmortgage unless he were permitted to buy the property. But to this James\nOtis, clinging to his solitary virtue, would not consent; and Hiram,\nalthough he intended to leave all he possessed to Isabel, could not\nbring himself to part with any sum in four figures.\n\nBefore leaving for Europe Isabel had leased the house to a young\nnewspaper man whose wife had an income of her own, and not only an\nartistic appreciation of the view, but a more practical esteem for a\nsite so far removed from the \"all-night life\" below. Immediately after\nIsabel's return Mrs. Glait had asked permission to sublet the house,\nremarking cynically that time had inured her to the desultory phenomena\nof journalism, but never to the stable prospect of her husband's death\nstruggle with foot-pads, or her children falling down the cliff of this\nwild bit of nature in the heart of a city.\n\nIsabel took back her old home with another spasm of delight, and vowed\nthat not until she was a pauper would she part with it again. Five or\nsix days of every week must be spent on the chicken-ranch, which had\ngrown to such proportions that she was now one of the persons that\ncounted in her flourishing community. But in time she would live more\nand more in her lofty home, become a notable figure in San Francisco,\ndrawing with both hands from its varied best; and meanwhile, once a\nweek, she could sit for hours and look down upon the city, which, even\nin rainy weather, was a wild and beautiful sight from her eyrie.\n\nMrs. Otis had been a niece of the Mrs. Montgomery who had reigned on\nRincon Hill twenty years ago, and a cousin of the Helena Belmont who had\nbeen the greatest belle the city had seen since that earlier time when\nNina Randolph, Guadalupe Hathaway, Mrs. Hunt McLane, and \"The Three\nMacs\" had made history for themselves in spite of the momentous era of\nwhich they were so unheeding a part. Mary Belmont would have been no\nmean heiress herself had not her father been too adventurous a spirit\non the stock-market during the Belcher Bonanza excitement of 1872. For a\ntime it looked as if Gordon Belmont would be a far richer man than his\nfamous brother, Colonel Jack, always contented with a modest million;\nbut in ten mad days there was a decline of sixty million dollars in the\naggregate value of stocks on the San Francisco market; and six months\nlater, when he died of sheer exhaustion, he had nothing to leave his\nonly child but the house on Russian Hill, and a small income generously\nsupplemented by her uncle and guardian until her marriage. She was\nthirteen at her father's death, and as her mother had preceded him, she\nspent the following five years in a New York boarding-school. Then she\nreturned home, and, after a year's gayety, married James Otis. Colonel\nBelmont surrendered her small property. Skilfully \"turned over\" it would\nhave multiplied indefinitely. But James Otis and his wife knew far more\nabout spending money than making it, and to-day nothing was left to\ncommemorate the meteoric and eminently typical career of Gordon Belmont\nbut the ancient structure whose nucleus he had taken over just after his\nmarriage as a \"bad debt.\" His wife, too, had insisted upon living in it,\nfor reasons subsequently understood by her daughter and Mrs. Glait, and\ncomplacently enlarged it with all the hideous improvements of the day.\n\nThat part of Russian Hill conspicuous from the city is little more than\na great cliff rising abruptly from the extreme north end of the graded\nledge on the summit of Nob Hill, which, in its turn, almost overhangs\nthe steep and populous ascent from the valley. In \"early days\" none but\nthe goat could cling to those rough hills that all but stood on end, and\nthe brush was so thick and the titles so uncertain that their future\ndistinction was undreamed of. Then came a determined period of grading\nwhich embraced the heights in due course, titles were settled, and many\nthat foresaw the ultimate possession of that great valley now known as\n\"South of Market Street\"--but which in its haughty youth embraced South\nPark and Rincon Hill--by the tenacious sons of Erin and Germania, moved\nto the uplands while lots could still be bought for a song. The Jack\nBelmonts, the Yorbas, the Polks, and others of the first aristocracy to\nfollow the Spanish, made Nob Hill fashionable before a new class of\nmillionaires sprang up in a night, and indulged its fresh young fancy\nwith monstrous wooden structures holding a large portion of converted\ncapital. Mrs. Yorba, who led society in the Eighties, when it was as\nexclusive as a small German principality, was disposed to snub all\nparvenus. But the young people made their way. When Mary Belmont\nreturned from school, and, chaperoned by a widowed relative, gave at\nleast a dance a month until she married, and many a one after, the heirs\nof all grades thought nothing of leaving their carriages at the foot of\nthe cliff to climb the precarious stair; groping blindly more often than\nnot through the rains of winter or the fogs of summer. To-day Isabel's\nneighbors wisely made no such demands upon the pampered, but in that\nincomparably older time the young people would have climbed to the stars\nfor the sake of the lavish hospitality of the gay indulgent young\nhostess; and if some of the youths rolled down the hill when the lights\nwent out, that was hardly a matter to excite indignant comment in a city\nwhere drink was so admittedly the curse that it was philosophically\naccepted with such other standing evils as fogs, trade-winds,\nsmall-pox, mud-holes, dust-storms, and unmentionable politics.\n\nWhen Mary Belmont became the wife of James Otis, one of the greatest\nranchers in California--in which State, unlike other fervent patriots of\nthat era, he had been born--and a brilliant figure in one of the most\nnotable legal groups of any time, she long held her position as a social\nfavorite. But children came and died too quickly for her health and\nfragile beauty, and the storms of life beset her. She continued to live\nin her inconvenient eyrie, not only in the waning hope of ultimately\nseparating her husband from the convivial beings on the lower plain, but\nbecause she felt an intense pride in owning a home two generations old\nin that young community. She was determined that it should remain in the\nfamily and be occupied by at least one of her children. So the ugly\nbrown wooden structure with its bay-windows, its central tower, its\nMansard-roof--added for the servants--had, contrary to all tradition,\nactually joined three generations of San Franciscans in one unbroken\nchain. It owed its proud position, no doubt, to the fact that when the\nOtis fortunes collapsed there was but one child left to inherit it and\nto be supported meanwhile.\n\nIsabel intended in time to give the house a new facade, and had gloated\nover such of the Burnham plans as had been reproduced by the city press.\nThese lovely plans were designed to make the city as classic and\nimposing as Nature had dreamed of when she piled up that rugged\namphitheatre out of chaos; and Isabel had long since resolved that, if\nshe could not be the first to plant a bit of ancient Athens upon a brown\nand ragged bluff, the high tide of her fortunes should coincide with the\nawakening of the city to the sense of its architectural guilt. She\nbanished much of the tasteless furniture of the old time, and refitted\nwith a stately comfort that expressed one side of her nature. She too\nclung to traditions--and to the long mirrors in their tarnished gilt\nframes, with the little shelf below; the multitude of family portraits\nengraved on wood, and surrounded by a wide white margin and tiny gilt\nframe. That they might strike no discordant note, she made use of a\nlesson learned in London, where she had spent a month with Lady\nVictoria, and had the walls and wood of the living-room painted white,\ncovered the windows and furniture with a plain stuff of a dark but\nneutral blue. In the dining-room were a few paintings of her New England\nand Spanish ancestors, and she disturbed them only to replace the\nwall-paper with leather; at the same time sending the black walnut\nfurniture to the auction-room.\n\nBeing the one practical member of her family, and the product of an\nearthquake country, she repaired the uncertain foundations of her house\nbefore removing the walls that had cut up the lower floor into the\nconventional number of rooms and hallways. The house, of no great depth,\nwas so close to the hill-side, still rising above it, that more than one\nenterprising cook had made use of the natural ledges before the windows.\nBesides the kitchen department and pantries, there were now but three\nrooms on the lower floor: the dining-room, a small reception-room in the\ntower, and an immense living-room, broken by the white pillars that\nsupported the storys above.\n\nMrs. Belmont and Mrs. Otis, in the time-honored American fashion, had\nmade a day nest of their bedroom, but Isabel was far too modern for that\nlingering provincialism, and lived luxuriously in the big room\ndown-stairs when she was not in the porch. She had reserved her mother's\nold alcoved bedroom with its mahogany four-poster for her own use, but\nthe rest of the second-story rooms she had fitted for her English\ncousins, that they too might have headquarters in town.\n\nNeither appeared to be in any haste to visit the city of their\nancestors. Gwynne had left England in October, now nearly a year ago,\nbut, having discovered from his solicitor that he could apply for\nletters of citizenship as late as the end of the third year after\nlanding, had announced to Isabel his intention to travel slowly about\nthe country \"before settling down in its remotest part, which, from all\naccounts, was sufficiently unlike the rest to provincialize his point of\nview unless he saw something first of the East, South, and Middle West.\"\nHe had written to her several times, but only on business. She had\nreturned in January, after a round of visits in England, and had put his\nhouse in order at once. The lease had expired, and Mr. Colton had\nengaged a temporary superintendent, but Gwynne sent Isabel his power of\nattorney and she was temporarily in possession. She wrote to him from\ntime to time that all was well, or to send him an account of her\nexpenditures; but felt no promptings towards a friendly correspondence\nwith one who showed as little disposition to encourage it.\n\nFrom Victoria she had not heard directly since she bade her good-bye in\nCurzon Street, but Flora Thangue had written that her ladyship's superb\nhealth had (to her ill-concealed fury) given way, following an attack of\ninfluenza, and she would not be able to leave her doctor for an\nindefinite time. A few months later she wrote that \"dear Vicky\" was\noutwardly herself again, but in reality very nervous, the result, no\ndoubt, of her illness, and of the prolonged stress of business. However,\nshe had finally succeeded in letting the Abbey and Capheaton to\nadvantage, and it was on the cards that she would reach California\nbefore the end of the year. Isabel hoped that, unfed by her son's\nexacting presence the maternal fires burned low; she had a clearly\ndefined intention to be a factor in the new career of\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}
{"id": "pg19_007", "title": "Beltane The Smith by Jeffery Farnol", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10064", "tokens": 65536, "chars": 248089, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nHOW BELTANE LIVED WITHIN THE GREENWOOD\n\n\nIn a glade of the forest, yet not so far but that one might hear the\nchime of bells stealing across the valley from the great minster of\nMortain on a still evening, dwelt Beltane the Smith.\n\nAlone he lived in the shadow of the great trees, happy when the piping\nof the birds was in his ears, and joying to listen to the plash and\nmurmur of the brook that ran merrily beside his hut; or pausing 'twixt\nthe strokes of his ponderous hammer to catch its never failing music.\n\nA mighty man was Beltane the Smith, despite his youth already great of\nstature and comely of feature. Much knew he of woodcraft, of the growth\nof herb and tree and flower, of beast and bird, and how to tell each by\nits cry or song or flight; he knew the ways of fish in the streams, and\ncould tell the course of the stars in the heavens; versed was he\nlikewise in the ancient wisdoms and philosophies, both Latin and Greek,\nhaving learned all these things from him whom men called Ambrose the\nHermit. But of men and cities he knew little, and of women and the\nways of women, less than nothing, for of these matters Ambrose spake\nnot.\n\nThus, being grown from youth to manhood, for that a man must needs\nlive, Beltane builded him a hut beside the brook, and set up an anvil\nthereby whereon he beat out bill-hooks and axe-heads and such\nimplements as the charcoal-burners and they that lived within the green\nhad need of.\n\nOft-times, of an evening, he would seek out the hermit Ambrose, and\nthey would talk together of many things, but seldom of men and cities,\nand never of women and the ways of women. Once, therefore, wondering,\nBeltane had said:\n\n\"My father, amongst all these matters you speak never of women and the\nways of women, though history is full of their doings, and all poets\nsing praise of their wondrous beauty, as this Helena of Troy, whom men\ncalled 'Desire of the World.'\"\n\nBut Ambrose sighed and shook his head, saying:\n\n\"Art thou indeed a man, so soon, my Beltane?\" and so sat watching him\nawhile. Anon he rose and striding to and fro spake sudden and\npassionate on this wise: \"Beltane, I tell thee the beauty of women is\nan evil thing, a lure to wreck the souls of men. By woman came sin\ninto the world, by her beauty she blinds the eyes of men to truth and\nhonour, leading them into all manner of wantonness whereby their very\nmanhood is destroyed. This Helen of Troy, of whom ye speak, was nought\nbut a vile adulteress, with a heart false and foul, by whose sin many\ndied and Troy town was utterly destroyed.\"\n\n\"Alas!\" sighed Beltane, \"that one so fair should be a thing so evil!\"\n\nThereafter he went his way, very sad and thoughtful, and that night,\nlying upon his bed, he heard the voices of the trees sighing and\nmurmuring one to another like souls that sorrowed for sin's sake, and\nbroken dreams and ideals.\n\n\"Alas! that one so fair should be a thing so evil!\" But, above the\nwhispers of the trees, loud and insistent rose the merry chatter of the\nbrook speaking to him of many things; of life, and the lust of life;\nthe pomp and stir of cities; the sound of song and laughter; of women\nand the beauty of women, and of the sweet, mad wonder of love. Of all\nthese things the brook sang in the darkness, and Beltane sighed, and\nsighing, fell asleep.\n\nThus lived my Beltane in the woodland, ranging the forest with eye\nquick to see the beauty of earth and sky, and ear open to the thousand\nvoices around him; or, busied at his anvil, hearkening to the wondrous\ntales of travel and strange adventure told by wandering knight and\nman-at-arms the while, with skilful hand, he mended broken mail or dented\ncasque; and thereafter, upon the mossy sward, would make trial of their\nstrength and valour, whereby he both took and gave right lusty knocks;\nor again, when work failed, he would lie upon the grass, chin on fist,\nporing over some ancient legend, or sit with brush and colours,\nilluminating on vellum, wherein right cunning was he. Now it chanced\nthat as he sat thus, brush in hand, upon a certain fair afternoon, he\nsuddenly espied one who stood watching him from the shade of a tree,\nnear by. A very tall man he was, long and lean and grim of aspect, with\na mouth wry-twisted by reason of an ancient sword-cut, and yet, withal,\nhe had a jovial eye. But now, seeing himself observed, he shook his\ngrizzled head and sighed. Whereat said Beltane, busied with his brush\nagain:\n\n\"Good sir, pray what's amiss?\"\n\n\"The world, youth, the world--'tis all amiss. Yet mark me! here sit you\na-dabbing colour with a little brush!\"\n\nAnswered Beltane: \"An so ye seek to do your duty as regardfully as I\nnow daub this colour, messire, in so much shall the world be bettered.\"\n\n\"My duty, youth,\" quoth the stranger, rasping a hand across his\ngrizzled chin, \"my duty? Ha, 'tis well said, so needs must I now fight\nwith thee.\"\n\n\"Fight with me!\" says Beltane, his keen gaze upon the speaker.\n\n\"Aye, verily!\" nodded the stranger, and, forthwith, laying by his long\ncloak, he showed two swords whose broad blades glittered, red and evil,\nin the sunset.\n\n\"But,\" says Beltane, shaking his head, \"I have no quarrel with thee,\ngood fellow.\"\n\n\"Quarrel?\" exclaimed the stranger, \"no quarrel, quotha? What matter for\nthat? Surely you would not forego a good bout for so small a matter?\nDoth a man eat only when famishing, or drink but to quench his thirst?\nOut upon thee, messire smith!\"\n\n\"But sir,\" said Beltane, bending to his brush again, \"an I should fight\nwith thee, where would be the reason?\"\n\n\"Nowhere, youth, since fighting is ever at odds with reason; yet for\nsuch unreasonable reasons do reasoning men fight.\"\n\n\"None the less, I will not fight thee,\" answered Beltane, deftly\ntouching in the wing of an archangel, \"so let there be an end on't.\"\n\n\"End forsooth, we have not yet begun! An you must have a quarrel, right\nfully will I provoke thee, since fight with thee I must, it being so my\nduty--\"\n\n\"How thy duty?\"\n\n\"I am so commanded.\"\n\n\"By whom?\"\n\n\"By one who, being dead, yet liveth. Nay, ask no names, yet mark me\nthis--the world's amiss, boy. Pentavalon groans beneath a black\nusurper's heel, all the sins of hell are loose, murder and riot, lust\nand rapine. March you eastward but a day through the forest yonder and\nyou shall see the trees bear strange fruit in our country. The world's\namiss, messire, yet here sit you wasting your days, a foolish brush\nstuck in thy fist. So am I come, nor will I go hence until I have tried\nthy mettle.\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, shaking his head, intent upon his work:\n\n\"You speak me riddles, sir.\"\n\n\"Yet can I speak thee to the point and so it be thy wish, as thus--now\nmark me, boy! Thou art a fool, a dog, a fatuous ass, a slave, a\nnincompoop, a cowardly boy, and as such--mark me again!--now do I spit\nat thee!\"\n\nHereupon Beltane, having finished the archangel's wing, laid by his\nbrush and, with thoughtful mien, arose, and being upon his feet, turned\nhim, swift and sudden, and caught the stranger in a fierce and cunning\nwrestling grip, and forthwith threw him upon his back. Whereat this\nstrange man, sitting cross-legged upon the sward, smiled his wry and\ntwisted smile and looked upon Beltane with bright, approving eye.\n\n\"A pretty spirit!\" he nodded. \"'Tis a sweet and gentle youth all good\nbeef and bone; a little green as yet, perchance, but 'tis no matter. A\nmighty arm, a noble thigh, and shoulders--body o' me! But 'tis in the\nbreed. Young sir, by these same signs and portents my soul is uplifted\nand hope singeth a new song within me!\" So saying, the stranger sprang\nnimbly to his feet and catching up one of the swords took it by the\nblade and gave its massy hilt to Beltane's hand. Said he:\n\n\"Look well upon this blade, young sir; in duchy, kingdom or county you\nshall not find its match, nor the like of the terrible hand that bore\nit. Time was when this good steel--mark how it glitters yet!--struck\ndeep for liberty and justice and all fair things, before whose might\noppression quailed and hung its head, and in whose shadow peace and\nmercy rested. 'Twas long ago, but this good steel is bright and\nundimmed as ever. Ha! mark it, boy--those eyes o' thine shall ne'er\nbehold its equal!\"\n\nSo Beltane took hold upon the great sword, felt the spring and balance\nof the blade and viewed it up from glittering point to plain and simple\ncross-guard. And thus, graven deep within the broad steel he read this\nword:\n\nRESURGAM.\n\n\"Ha!\" cried the stranger, \"see you the legend, good youth? Speak me now\nwhat it doth signify.\"\n\nAnd Beltane answered:\n\n\"'I shall arise!'\"\n\n\"'Arise' good boy, aye, verily, mark me that. 'Tis a fair thought, look\nyou, and the motto of a great and noble house, and, by the Rood, I\nthink, likewise a prophecy!\" Thus speaking the stranger stooped, and\ntaking up the other sword faced Beltane therewith, saying in soft and\nwheedling tones: \"Come now, let us fight together thou and I, and deny\nme not, lest,--mark me this well, youth,--lest I spit at thee again.\"\n\nThen he raised his sword, and smote Beltane with the flat of it, and\nthe blow stung, wherefore Beltane instinctively swung his weapon and\nthrilled with sudden unknown joy at the clash of steel on steel; and\nso they engaged.\n\nAnd there, within the leafy solitude, Beltane and the stranger fought\ntogether. The long blades whirled and flashed and rang upon the\nstillness; and ever, as they fought, the stranger smiled his wry smile,\nmocking and gibing at him, whereat Beltane's mouth grew the grimmer and\nhis blows the heavier, yet wherever he struck, there already was the\nstranger's blade to meet him, whereat the stranger laughed fierce and\nloud, taunting him on this wise:\n\n\"How now, thou dauber of colours, betake thee to thy little brush,\nbelike it shall serve thee better! Aye me, betake thee to thy little\nbrush, 'twere better fitted to thee than a noble sword, thou daubing\nboy!\"\n\nNow did my Beltane wax wroth indeed and smote amain until his breath\ngrew short and thick, but ever steel rang on steel, and ever the\nstranger laughed and gibed until Beltane's strokes grew slower:--then,\nwith a sudden fierce shout, did the stranger beset my Beltane with\nstrokes so swift and strong, now to right of him, now to left, that the\nvery air seemed full of flaming, whirling steel, and, in that moment,\nas Beltane gave back, the stranger smote thrice in as many moments with\nthe flat of his blade, once upon the crown, once upon the shoulder, and\nonce upon the thigh. Fierce eyed and scant of breath, Beltane\nredoubled his blows, striving to beat his mocker to the earth, whereat\nhe but laughed again, saying:\n\n\"Look to thy long legs, dullard!\" and forthwith smote Beltane upon the\nleg. \"Now thine arm, slothful boy--thy left arm!\" and he smote Beltane\nupon the arm. \"Now thy sconce, boy, thy mazzard, thy sleepy, golden\nhead!\" and straightway he smote him on the head, and, thereafter, with\nsudden, cunning stroke, beat the great sword from Beltane's grip, and\nso, laughing yet, paused and stood leaning upon his own long weapon.\n\nBut Beltane stood with bent head, hurt in his pride, angry and beyond\nall thought amazed; yet, being humbled most of all he kept his gaze\nbent earthwards and spake no word.\n\nNow hereupon the stranger grew solemn likewise and looked at Beltane\nwith kindly, approving eyes.\n\n\"Nay, indeed,\" quoth he, \"be not abashed, good youth; take it not amiss\nthat I have worsted thee. 'Tis true, had I been so minded I might have\ncut thee into gobbets no larger than thy little brush, but then, body\no' me! I have lived by stroke of sword from my youth up and have fought\nin divers wars and countries, so take it not to heart, good youth!\"\nWith the word he nodded and, stooping, took up the sword, and,\nthereafter, cast his cloak about him, whereat Beltane lifted his head\nand spake:\n\n\"Art going, sir? Wilt not try me once again? Methinks I might do a\nlittle better this time, an so God wills.\"\n\n\"Aye, so thou shalt, sweet youth,\" cried the stranger, clapping him\nupon the shoulder, \"yet not now, for I must begone, yet shall I\nreturn.\"\n\n\"Then I pray you leave with me the sword till you be come again.\"\n\n\"The sword--ha! doth thy soul cleave unto it so soon, my good, sweet\nboy? Leave the sword, quotha? Aye, truly--some day. But for the nonce--\nno, no, thy hand is not fitted to bear it yet, nor worthy such a blade,\nbut some day, belike--who knows? Fare thee well, sweet youth, I come\nagain to-morrow.\"\n\nAnd so the tall, grim stranger turned him about, smiling his wry smile,\nand strode away through the green. Then Beltane went back, minded to\nfinish his painting, but the colours had lost their charm for him,\nmoreover, the light was failing. Wherefore he put brushes and colours\naside, and, stripping, plunged into the cool, sweet waters of a certain\nquiet pool, and so, much heartened and refreshed thereby, went betimes\nto bed. But now he thought no more of women and the ways of women, but\nrather of this stranger man, of his wry smile and of his wondrous\nsword-play; and bethinking him of the great sword, he yearned after\nit, as only youth may yearn, and so, sighing, fell asleep. And in his\ndreams all night was the rushing thunder of many fierce feet and the\nroaring din of bitter fight and conflict.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nUp to an elbow sprang Beltane to find the sun new risen, filling his\nhumble chamber with its golden glory, and, in this radiance, upon the\nopen threshold, the tall, grim figure of the stranger.\n\n\"Messire,\" quoth Beltane, rubbing sleepy eyes, \"you wake betimes,\nmeseemeth.\"\n\n\"Aye, sluggard boy; there is work to do betwixt us.\" \"How so, sir?\"\n\n\"My time in the greenwood groweth short; within the week I must away,\nfor there are wars and rumours of wars upon the borders.\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, wondering:\n\n\"War and conflict have been within my dreams all night!\"\n\n\"Dreams, boy! I tell thee the time groweth ripe for action--and, mark\nme this! wherein, perchance, thou too shalt share, yet much have I to\nteach thee first, so rise, slug-a-bed, rise!\"\n\nNow when Beltane was risen and clad he folded his arms across his broad\nchest and stared upon the stranger with grave, deep-searching eyes.\n\n\"Who art thou?\" he questioned, \"and what would you here again?\"\n\n\"As to thy first question, sir smith, 'tis no matter for that, but as\nfor thy second, to-day am I come to teach thee the use and manage of\nhorse and lance, it being so my duty.\"\n\n\"And wherefore thy duty?\"\n\n\"For that I am so commanded.\"\n\n\"By whom?\"\n\n\"By one who yet liveth, being dead.\"\n\nNow Beltane frowned at this, and shook his head, saying:\n\n\"More riddles, messire? Yet now will I speak thee plain, as thus: I am\na smith, and have no lust to strife or knightly deeds, nor will I e'er\nattempt them, for strife begetteth bitter strife and war is an evil\nthing. 'They that trust to the sword shall perish by the sword,' 'tis\nso written, and is, meseemeth, a faithful saying. This sorry world hath\nknown over much of war and hate, of strife and bloodshed, so shall\nthese my hands go innocent of more.\"\n\nThen indeed did the stranger stare with jaws agape for wonder at my\nBeltane's saying, and, so staring, turned him to the door and back\nagain, and fain would speak, yet could not for a while. Then:\n\n\"Besotted boy!\" he cried. \"O craven youth! O babe! O suckling! Was it\nfor this thou wert begot? Hast thou no bowels, no blood, no manhood?\nForsooth, and must I spit on thee indeed?\"\n\n\"And so it be thy will, messire,\" said Beltane, steady-eyed.\n\nBut as they stood thus, Beltane with arms yet crossed, his lips\nup-curving at the other's fierce amaze, the stranger grim-faced and\nfrowning, came a shadow athwart the level glory of the sun, and,\nturning, Beltane beheld the hermit Ambrose, tall and spare beneath his\ntattered gown, bareheaded and bare of foot, whose eyes were bright and\nquick, despite the snow of hair and beard, and in whose gentle face and\nhumble mien was yet a high and noble look at odds with his lowly guise\nand tattered vesture; at sight of whom the grim-faced stranger, of a\nsudden, bowed his grizzled head and sank upon his knee.\n\n\"Lord!\" he said, and kissed the hermit's long, coarse robe. Whereon the\nhermit bent and touched him with a gentle hand.\n\n\"_Benedicite_, my son!\" said he. \"Go you, and leave us together a\nwhile.\"\n\nForthwith the stranger rose from his knee and went out into the glory\nof the morning. Then the hermit came to Beltane and set his two hands\nupon his mighty shoulders and spake to him very gently, on this wise:\n\n\"Thou knowest, my Beltane, how all thy days I have taught thee to love\nall fair, and sweet, and noble things, for they are of God. 'Twere a\nfair thought, now, to live out thy life here, within these calm, leafy\nsolitudes--but better death by the sword for some high, unselfish\npurpose, than to live out a life of ease, safe and cloistered all thy\ndays. To live for thine own ends--'tis human; to die for some great\ncause, for liberty, or for another's good--that, my son, were God-like.\nAnd there was a Man of Sorrows Whose word was this, that He came\n'not to bring peace on this earth, but a sword.' For good cannot\noutface evil but strife must needs follow. Behold now here another\nsword, my Beltane; keep it henceforth so long as thou keep honour.\" So\nsaying, Ambrose the Hermit took from beneath his habit that for which\nBeltane had yearned, that same great blade whereon whose steel was\ngraven the legend:\n\nRESURGAM.\n\nSo Ambrose put the sword in Beltane's hand, saying:\n\n\"Be terrible, my son, that evil may flee before thee, learn to be\nstrong that thou may'st be merciful.\" Then the hermit stretched forth\nhis hands and blessed my Beltane, and turned about, and so was gone.\n\nBut Beltane stood awhile to swing the great blade lightly to and fro\nand to stare upon it with shining eyes. Then, having hid it within his\nbed, he went forth into the glade. And here he presently beheld a great\ngrey horse tethered to a tree hard by, a mettled steed that tossed its\nnoble head and snuffed the fragrant air of morning, pawing at the earth\nwith impatient hoof. Now, as he stood gazing, came the stranger and\ntouched him on the arm.\n\n\"Messire,\" said he, \"try an thou canst back the steed yonder.\"\n\nBeltane smiled, for he had loved horses all his days, and loosing the\nhorse, led it out into the open and would have mounted, but the\nspirited beast, knowing him not, reared and plunged and strove to break\nthe grip upon the bridle, but the grip was strong and compelling; then\nBeltane soothed him with gentle voice and hand, and, of a sudden,\nvaulted lightly into the saddle, and being there, felt the great beast\nrear under him, and, laughing joyously, struck him with open palm and\nset off at a thunderous gallop. Away, away they sped up the sunny\nglade, past oak and beech and elm, through light and shadow, until\nbefore them showed a tree of vast girth and mighty spread of branches.\nNow would Beltane have reined aside, but the great horse, ears flat and\neyes rolling, held blindly on. Then Beltane frowned and leaning\nforward, seized the bridle close beside the bit, and gripping it so,\nput forth his strength. Slowly, slowly the great, fierce head was drawn\nlow and lower, the foam-flecked jaws gaped wide, but Beltane's grip\ngrew ever the fiercer until, snorting, panting, wild-eyed, the great\ngrey horse faltered in his stride, checked his pace, slipped, stumbled,\nand so stood quivering in the shade of the tree. Thereafter Beltane\nturned him and, galloping back, drew rein where the stranger sat,\ncross-legged, watching him with his wry smile.\n\n\"Aye,\" he nodded, \"we shall make of thee a horseman yet. But as to\nlance now, and armour--\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, smiling:\n\n\"Good sir, I am a smith, and in my time have mended many a suit of\nmail, aye, and made them too, though 'twas but to try my hand. As for a\nlance, I have oft tilted at the ring astride a forest pony, and\nbetimes, have run a course with wandering men-at-arms.\"\n\n\"Say you so, boy?\" said the stranger, and rising, took from behind a\ntree a long and heavy lance and thrust it into Beltane's grip; then,\ndrawing his sword, he set it upright in the sward, and upon the hilt he\nput his cap, saying:\n\n\"Ride back up the glade, and try an thou canst pick up my cap on thy\npoint, at a gallop.\" So Beltane rode up the glade and wheeling at a\ndistance, came galloping down with levelled lance, and thundered by\nwith the cap fluttering from his lance point.\n\n\"Art less of a dullard than I thought thee,\" said the stranger, taking\nback his cap, \"though, mark me boy, 'tis another matter to ride against\na man fully armed and equipped, lance to lance and shield to shield,\nthan to charge a harmless, ancient leathern cap. Still, art less of a\ndullard than I thought thee. But there is the sword, now--with the\nsword thou art indeed but a sorry fool! Go fetch the sword and I will\ne'en belabor thee again.\"\n\nSo Beltane, lighting down from the horse that reared and plunged no\nmore, went and fetched the great sword; and when they had laid their\njerkins by (for the sun was hot) they faced each other, foot to foot\nand eye to eye. Then once again the long blades whirled and flew and\nrang together, and once again the stranger laughed and gibed and struck\nmy Beltane how and where he would, nor gave him stay or respite till\nBeltane's mighty arm grew aweary and his shoulder ached and burned;\nthen, when he recked not of it, the stranger, with the same cunning\nstroke, beat the sword from Beltane's hand, and laughed aloud and\nwagged his head, saying:\n\n\"Art faint, boy, and scant o' breath already? Methinks we ne'er shall\nmake of thee a lusty sworder!\" But beholding Beltane's flushing cheek\nand drooping eye, reached out and clapped him on the shoulder.\n\n\"Go to!\" cried he, \"art young and all unlearned as yet--heed not my\ngibes and quirks, 'tis ever so my custom when steel is ringing, and\nmark me, I do think it a good custom, as apt to put a man off his ward\nand flurry him in his stroke. Never despair, youth, for I tell thee,\nnorth and south, and east and west my name is known, nor shall you find\nin any duchy, kingdom or county, a sworder such as I. For, mark me now!\nyour knight and man-at-arms, trusting to his armour, doth use his sword\nbut to thrust and smite. But--and mark me again, boy! a man cannot go\never in his armour, nor yet be sure when foes are nigh, and, at all\ntimes, 'tis well to make thy weapon both sword and shield; 'tis a\ngoodly art, indeed I think a pretty one. Come now, take up thy sword\nand I will teach thee all my strokes and show thee how 'tis done.\"\n\nThus then, this stranger dwelt the week with Beltane in the greenwood,\nteaching him, day by day, tricks of sword and much martial lore beside.\nAnd, day by day, a friendship waxed and grew betwixt them so that upon\nthe seventh morning, as they broke their fast together, Beltane's heart\nwas heavy and his look downcast; whereat the stranger spake him thus:\n\n\"Whence thy dole, good youth?\"\n\n\"For that to-day needs must I part with thee.\"\n\n\"And thy friends are few, belike?\"\n\n\"None, messire,\" answered Beltane, sighing.\n\n\"Aye me! And yet 'tis well enough, for--mark me, youth!--friends be\nofttimes a mixed blessing. As for me, 'tis true I am thy friend and so\nshall ever be, so long as you shall bear yon goodly blade.\"\n\n\"And wherefore?\" questioned Beltane.\n\n\"Moreover thou art my scholar, and like, perchance, to prove thyself,\nsome day, a notable sworder and a sweet and doughty fighter, belike.\"\n\n\"Yet hast never spoken me thy name, messire.\"\n\n\"Why, hast questioned me but once, and then thou wert something of a\nblockhead dreamer, methought. But now, messire Beltane, since thou\nwould'st know--Benedict of Bourne am I called.\"\n\nNow hereupon Beltane rose and stood upon his feet, staring wide-eyed at\nthis grim-faced stranger who, with milk-bowl at lip, paused to smile\nhis wry smile. \"Aha!\" said he, \"hast heard such a name ere now, even\nhere in the greenwood?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" answered Beltane, \"betimes I have talked with soldiers and\nmen-at-arms, so do I know thee for that same great knight who, of all the\nnobles of Pentavalon, doth yet withstand the great Duke Ivo--\"\n\n\"Call you that black usurper 'great,' youth? Body o' me! I knew a\ngreater, once, methinks!\"\n\n\"Aye,\" nodded Beltane, \"there was him men called 'Beltane the Strong.'\"\n\n\"Ha!\" quoth Sir Benedict, setting down his milk-bowl, \"what know you\nof Duke Beltane?\"\n\n\"Nought but that he was a great and lusty fighter who yet loved peace\nand mercy, but truth and justice most of all.\"\n\n\"And to-day,\" sighed Sir Benedict, \"to-day we have Black Ivo! Aye me!\nthese be sorry days for Pentavalon. 'Tis said he woos the young Duchess\nyonder. Hast ever seen Helen of Mortain, sir smith?\"\n\n\"Nay, but I've heard tell that she is wondrous fair.\"\n\n\"Hum!\" quoth Sir Benedict, \"I love not your red-haired spit-fires.\nMethinks, an Ivo win her, she'll lead him how she will, or be broke in\nthe adventure--a malison upon him, be it how it may!\"\n\nSo, having presently made an end of eating, Sir Benedict arose and\nforthwith donned quilted gambeson, and thereafter his hauberk of bright\nmail and plain surcoat, and buckling his sword about him, strode into\nthe glade where stood the great grey horse. Now, being mounted, Sir\nBenedict stayed awhile to look down at Beltane, whiles Beltane looked\nup at him.\n\n\"Messire Beltane,\" said he, pointing to his scarred cheek, \"you look\nupon my scar, I think?\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, flushing hot:\n\n\"Nay, sir; in truth, not I.\"\n\n\"Why look now, sweet youth, 'tis a scar that likes me well, though\n'twas in no battle I took it, yet none the less, I would not be without\nit. By this I may be known among a thousand. 'Benedict o' the Mark,'\nsome call me, and 'tis, methinks, as fair a name as any. But look now,\nand mark me this well, Beltane,--should any come to thee within the\ngreen, by day or night, and say to thee, 'Benedict o' the Mark bids\nthee arise and follow,'--then follow, messire, and so, peradventure,\nthou shalt arise indeed. Dost mark me well, youth?\"\n\n\"Aye, Sir Benedict.\"\n\n\"Heigho!\" sighed Sir Benedict, \"thou'rt a fair sized babe to bear\nwithin a cloak, and thou hast been baptized in blood ere now--and there\nbe more riddles for thee, boy, and so, until we meet, fare thee well,\nmessire Beltane!\"\n\nSo saying, Sir Benedict of Bourne smiled his twisted smile and,\nwheeling his horse, rode away down the glade, his mail glistening in\nthe early light and his lance point winking and twinkling amid the\ngreen.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHOW BELTANE HAD WORD WITH THE DUKE, BLACK IVO\n\n\nNow it fell out upon a day, that as Beltane strode the forest ways,\nthere met him a fine cavalcade, gay with the stir of broidered\npetticoat and ermined mantle; and, pausing beneath a tree, he stood to\nhearken to the soft, sweet voices of the ladies and to gaze enraptured\nupon their varied beauty. Foremost of all rode a man richly habited, a\nman of great strength and breadth of shoulder, and of a bearing high\nand arrogant. His face, framed in long black hair that curled to meet\nhis shoulder, was of a dark and swarthy hue, fierce looking and\nmasterful by reason of prominent chin and high-arched nose, and of his\nthin-lipped, relentless mouth. Black were his eyes and bold; now\nstaring bright and wide, now glittering 'twixt heavy, narrowed lids;\nyet when he smiled they glittered brightest, and his lips showed\nmoistly red. Beside him rode a lady of a wondrous dark beauty, sleepy\neyed and languid; yet her glance was quick to meet the Duke's bold\nlook, and, 'neath her mantle, her fingers met, once in a while, and\nclung with his, what time his red lips would smile; but, for the most\npart, his brow was gloomy and he fingered his chin as one in thought.\n\nAs he paced along upon his richly caparisoned steed, pinching at his\nlong, blue-shaven chin with supple fingers, his heavy brows drawn low,\nof a sudden his narrowed lids widened and his eyes gleamed bright and\nblack as they beheld my Beltane standing in the shade of the tree.\n\n\"Aha!\" said he, drawing rein, \"what insolent, long-legged rogue art\nthou, to stand gaping at thy betters?\"\n\nAnd Beltane answered:\n\n\"No rogue, messire, but an honest man, I pray God, whom folk call\nBeltane the Smith.\"\n\nThe staring eyes grew suddenly narrow, the scarlet mouth curled in a\nslow smile, and the tall man spake, yet with his gaze bent ever upon\nBeltane:\n\n\"Fair lords,\" he said, \"and you, most sweet and gentle ladies, our\nsport hath been but poor, hitherto--methinks I can show you a better,\n'tis a game we play full oft in my country. Would that our gracious\nlady of Mortain were here, nor had balked us of her wilful company. Ho!\nGefroi!\" he called, \"come you and break me the back of this 'honest'\nrogue.\" And straightway came one from the rear, where rode the servants\nand men-at-arms, a great, bronzed fellow, bearded to the eyes of him,\nloosing his sword-belt as he came; who, having tossed aside cap and\npourpoint, strode toward Beltane, his eyes quick and bright, his teeth\nagleam through the hair of his beard.\n\n\"Come, thou forest rogue,\" said he, \"my lord Duke loveth not to wait\nfor man or maid, so--have at thee!\"\n\nGreat he looked and tall as Beltane's self, a hairy man of mighty girth\nwith muscles that swelled on arm and breast and rippled upon his back.\nThus, as he stood and laughed, grimly confident and determined, not a\nfew were they who sighed for Beltane for his youth's sake, and because\nof his golden curls and gentle eyes, for this Gefroi was accounted a\nvery strong man, and a matchless wrestler withal.\n\n\"'Tis a fair match, how think you, Sir Jocelyn?\" said the Duke, and\nturned him to one who rode at his elbow; a youthful, slender figure\nwith long curled hair and sleepy eyes, \"a fair match, Sir Jocelyn?\"\n\n\"In very sooth, sweet my lord, gramercy and by your gracious leave--not\nso,\" sighed Sir Jocelyn. \"This Gefroi o' thine is a rare breaker of\nnecks and hath o'er-thrown all the wrestlers in the three duchies; a\nman is he, set in his strength and experienced, but this forester, tall\nthough he be, is but a beardless youth.\"\n\nThe Duke smiled his slow smile, his curving nostrils quivered and were\nstill, and he glanced toward Sir Jocelyn through veiling lids. Quoth\nhe:\n\n\"Art, rather, for a game of ball, messire, or a song upon a lute?\" So\nsaying he turned and signed to Gefroi with his finger; as for Sir\nJocelyn, he only curled a lock of his long hair, and hummed beneath his\nbreath.\n\nNow Beltane, misliking the matter, would fain have gone upon his way,\nbut wheresoever he turned, there Gefroi was also, barring his path,\nwherefore Beltane's eye kindled and he raised his staff threateningly.\n\n\"Fellow,\" quoth he, \"stand from my way, lest I mischief thee.\"\n\nBut Gefroi only laughed and looked to his lord, who, beckoning an\narcher, bid him lay an arrow to his string.\n\n\"Shoot me the cowardly rogue so soon as he turn his back,\" said he,\nwhereat Gefroi laughed again, wagging his head.\n\n\"Come, forest knave,\" quoth he, \"I know a trick to snap thy neck so\nsweetly shalt never know, I warrant thee. Come, 'twill take but a\nmoment, and my lord begins to lack of patience.\"\n\nSo Beltane laid by his staff, and tightening his girdle, faced the\nhairy Gefroi; and there befell that, the which, though you shall find\nno mention of it in any chronicle, came much to be talked of\nthereafter; so that a ballade was writ of it the which beginneth thus:\n\n  'Beltane wrestled in the green\n   With a mighty man,\n   A goodlier bout was never seen\n   Since the world began,'\n\nWhile Beltane was tightening his girdle, swift and sudden Gefroi\nclosed, pinning his arms in a cunning hold, and thrice he swung my\nBeltane from his feet so that many clapped their hands the while the\nsquires and men-at-arms shouted lustily. Only Sir Jocelyn curled the\nlock of hair upon his finger and was silent.\n\nTo him quoth my lord Duke, smiling:\n\n\"Messire, an you be in a mind to wager now, I will lay you this my roan\nstallion 'gainst that suit of triple mail you won at Dunismere joust,\nthat Gefroi breaks thy forester's back within two falls--how say you?\"\n\n\"Sweet my lord, it liketh me beyond telling, thy roan is a peerless\nbeast!\" sighed Sir Jocelyn, and so fell once more to humming his song\nbeneath his breath.\n\nNow Beltane had wrestled oft with strangers in the greenwood and had\nlearned many cunning and desperate holds; moreover, he had learned to\nbide his time; thus, though Gefroi's iron muscles yet pinned his arms,\nhe waited, calm-eyed but with every nerve a-quiver, for that moment\nwhen Gefroi's vicious grip should slacken.\n\nTo and fro the wrestlers swayed, knee to knee and breast to breast,\nfierce and silent and grim. As hath been said, this Gefroi was a very\ncunning fellow, and once and twice, he put forth all his strength\nseeking to use a certain cruel trick whereby many a goodly man had died\nere now; but once, and twice, the hold was foiled, yet feebly and as\nthough by chance, and Gefroi wondered; a third time he essayed it\ntherefore, but, in that moment, sudden and fierce and strong, Beltane\ntwisted in his loosened grasp, found at last the deadly hold he sought,\nand Gefroi wondered no more, for about him was a painful grip that grew\never tighter and more relentless. Now Gefroi's breath grew short and\nlaboured, the muscles stood out on his writhing body in knotted cords,\nbut ever that cruel grip grew more deadly, crushing his spirit and\nrobbing him of his wonted strength. And those about them watched that\nmighty struggle, hushed for wonder of it; even Sir Jocelyn had forgot\nhis lock of hair, and hummed no more.\n\nFor, desperately though he fought and struggled, they saw Gefroi's\ngreat body was bending slowly backward; his eyes stared up, wild and\nbloodshot, into the fierce, set face above him; swaying now, he saw the\nwide ring of faces, the quiver of leaves and the blue beyond, all a-swim\nthrough the mist of Beltane's yellow hair, and then, writhing in\nhis anguish, he turned and buried his teeth in Beltane's naked arm, and\nwith a cunning twist, broke from that deadly grip and staggered free.\n\nStraightway the air was full of shouts and cries, some praising, some\ncondemning, while Gefroi stood with hanging arms and panted. But\nBeltane looking upon his hurt, laughed, short and fierce, and as Gefroi\ncame upon him, stooped and caught him below the loins. Then Beltane the\nstrong, the mighty, put forth his strength and, whirling Gefroi aloft,\nhurled him backwards over his shoulder. So Gefroi the wrestler fell,\nand lay with hairy arms wide-tossed as one that is dead, and for a\nspace no man spake for the wonder of it.\n\n\"By all the Saints, but 'twas a mighty throw!\" sighed Sir Jocelyn,\n\"though alack! sweet my lord, 'twould almost seem my forester hath\nsomething spoiled thy wrestler!\"\n\n\"And is the roan stallion thine\" frowned the Duke, \"and to none would I\nlose him with a fairer grace, for 'twas a good bout as I foretold: yet,\nby the head of St. Martin! meseemeth yon carrion might have done me\nbetter!\" So saying, my lord Duke gave his horse the spur and, as he\npassed the prostrate form of Gefroi, leaned him down and smote the\nwrestler thrice with the whip he held and so rode on, bidding his\nfollowers let him lie.\n\nBut Sir Jocelyn paused to look down at Beltane, who was setting his\ndress in order.\n\n\"Sir forester, thou hast a mighty arm,\" quoth he, \"and thy face liketh\nme well. Here's for thee,\" and tossing a purse to Beltane's feet, he\nrode upon his way.\n\nSo the gay cavalcade passed 'neath the leafy arches, with the jingle of\nbridle and stirrup and the sound of jest and laughter, and was\npresently lost amid the green; only Gefroi the wrestler lay there upon\nhis back and groaned. Then came Beltane and knelt and took his heavy\nhead upon his knee, whereat Gefroi opened his eyes and groaned again.\n\n\"Good fellow,\" said Beltane, \"I had not meant to throw thee so heavily--\"\n\n\"Nay, forester, would it had been a little harder, for a ruined man am\nI this day.\"\n\n\"How so--have you not life?\"\n\n\"I would 'twere death. And I bit you--in the arm, I mind me?\"\n\n\"Aye, 'twas in the arm.\"\n\n\"For that am I heartily sorry, forester. But when a man seeth fame and\nfortune slipping from him--aye, and his honour, I had nigh forgot that--\nfame and fortune and honour, so small a thing as a bite may be\nforgiven?\"\n\n\"I forgive thee--full and freely.\"\n\n\"Spoke like an honest forester,\" said Gefroi, and groaned again. \"The\nfavour of a lord is a slippery thing--much like an eel--quick to\nwriggle away. An hour agone my lord Duke held me in much esteem, while\nnow? And he struck me! On the face, here!\" Slowly Gefroi got him upon\nhis feet, and having donned cap and pourpoint, shook his head and\nsighed; quoth he:\n\n\"Alack! 'tis a ruined man am I this day! Would I had broken thy neck,\nor thou, mine--and so, God den to ye, forester!\" Then Gefroi the\nwrestler turned and plodded on his way, walking slow and with drooping\nhead as one who knoweth not whither he goes, or careth. Now, as he\nwatched, Beltane bethought him of the purse and taking it up, ran after\nGefroi and thrust it into his hand.\n\n\"'Twill help thee to find a new service, mayhap.\" So saying my Beltane\nturned upon his heel and strode away, while Gefroi stood staring wide-eyed\nlong after Beltane was vanished amid the trees.\n\nSo thus it was that Beltane looked his first upon Duke Ivo of\nPentavalon, and thus did he overthrow Gefroi the famous wrestler. And\nbecause of this, many were they, knights and nobles and esquires, who\nsought out Beltane's lonely hut beside the brook, with offers of\nservice, or to try a fall with him. But at their offers Beltane laughed\nand shook his head, and all who came to wrestle he threw upon their\nbacks. And thus my Beltane dwelt within the greenwood, waxing mightier\nday by day.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nHOW LOVE CAME TO BELTANE IN THE GREENWOOD\n\n\nUpon a day Beltane stood at his forge fashioning an axe-head. And,\nhaving tempered it thereafter in the brook, he laid it by, and\nstraightening his back, strode forth into the glade all ignorant of the\neyes that watched him curiously through the leaves. And presently as he\nstood, his broad back set to the bole of a tree, his blue eyes lifted\nheavenwards brimful of dreams, he brake forth into a song he had made,\nlying sleepless upon his bed to do it.\n\nTall and stately were the trees, towering aloft, nodding slumberously\nin the gentle wind; fair were the flowers lifting glad faces to their\nsun-father and filling the air with their languorous perfume; yet\nnaught was there so comely to look upon as Beltane the Smith, standing\nbare-armed in his might, his golden hair crisp-curled and his lifted\neyes a-dream. Merrily the brook laughed and sang among the willows,\nleaping in rainbow-hues over its pebbly bed; sweet piped the birds in\nbrake and thicket, yet of all their music none was there so good to\nhear as the rich tones of Beltane the Smith.\n\nSo thought the Duchess Helen of Mortain where she sat upon her white\npalfrey screened by the thick-budded foliage, seeing nought but this\ngolden-locked singer whose voice thrilled strangely in her ears. And\nwho so good a judge as Helen the Beautiful, whose lovers were beyond\ncount, knights and nobles and princelings, ever kneeling at her haughty\nfeet, ever sighing forth vows of service and adoration, in whose honour\nmany a stout lance had shivered, and many a knightly act been wrought?\nWherefore I say, who so good a judge as the Duchess Helen of Mortain?\nThus Beltane the maker of verses, all ignorant that any heard save the\nbirds in the brake, sang of the glories of the forest-lands. Sang how\nthe flowers, feeling the first sweet promise of spring stirring within\nthem, awoke; and lo! the frost was gone, the warm sun they had dreamed\nof through the long winter was come back, the time of their waiting\npassed away. So, timidly, slowly, they stole forth from the dark,\nunveiling their beauties to their lord the sun and filling the world\nwith the fragrance of their worship.\n\nSomewhat of all this sang Beltane, whiles the Duchess Helen gazed upon\nhim wide-eyed and wondering.\n\nCould this be Beltane the Smith, this tall, gentle-eyed youth, this\nsoft-voiced singer of dreams? Could this indeed be the mighty wrestler\nof whom she had heard so many tales of late, how that he lived an\nanchorite, deep hidden in the green, hating the pomp and turmoil of\ncities, and contemning women and all their ways?\n\nNow, bethinking her of all this, the Duchess frowned for that he was\nsuch a goodly man and so comely to look on, and frowning, mused, white\nchin on white fist. Then she smiled, as one that hath a bright thought,\nand straightway loosed the golden fillet that bound her glowing\ntresses so that they fell about her in all their glory, rippling far\ndown her broidered habit. Then, the song being ended, forth from her\ncover rode the lady of Mortain, and coming close where Beltane leaned\nhim in the shade of the tree, paused of a sudden, and started as one\nthat is surprised, and Beltane turning, found her beside him, yet spake\nnot nor moved.\n\nBreathless and as one entranced he gazed upon her; saw how her long\nhair glowed a wondrous red 'neath the kisses of the dying sun; saw how\nher purpled gown, belted at the slender waist, clung about the beauties\nof her shapely body; saw how the little shoe peeped forth from the\nperfumed mystery of its folds, and so stood speechless, bound by the\nspell of her beauty. Wherefore, at length, she spake to him, low and\nsweet and humble, on this wise:\n\n\"Art thou he whom men call Beltane the Smith?\"\n\nHe answered, gazing at her lowered lashes:\n\n\"I am Beltane the Smith.\"\n\nFor a space she sat grave and silent, then looked at him with eyes that\nlaughed 'neath level brows to see the wonder in his gaze. But anon she\nfalls a-sighing, and braided a tress of hair 'twixt white fingers ere\nshe spoke:\n\n\"'Tis said of thee that thou art a hermit and live alone within these\nsolitudes. And yet--meseemeth--thine eyes are not a hermit's eyes,\nmessire!\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, with flushing cheek and eyes abased:\n\n\"Yet do I live alone, lady.\"\n\n\"Nor are thy ways and speech the ways of common smith, messire.\"\n\n\"Yet smith am I in sooth, lady, and therewithal content.\"\n\nNow did she look on him 'neath drooping lash, sweet-eyed and\nlanguorous, and shook her head, and sighed.\n\n\"Alas, messire, methinks then perchance it may be true that thou, for\nall thy youth, and despite thine eyes, art a mocker of love, a despiser\nof women? And yet--nay--sure 'tis not so?\"\n\nThen did Beltane the strong come nigh to fear, by reason of her fair\nwomanhood, and looked from her to earth, from earth to sky, and, when\nhe would have answered, fell a-stammering, abashed by her wondrous\nbeauty.\n\n\"Nay lady, indeed--indeed I know of women nought--nought of myself, but\nI have heard tell that they be--light-minded, using their beauty but to\nlure the souls of men from high and noble things--making of love a\njest--a sport and pastime--\" But now the Duchess laughed, very soft\nand sweeter, far, to Beltane's thinking than the rippling music of any\nbrook, soever.\n\n\"Aye me, messire anchorite,\" said she smiling yet, \"whence had you this\npoor folly?\"\n\nQuoth Beltane gravely:\n\n\"Lady, 'twas from one beyond all thought wise and learned. A most holy\nhermit--\"\n\n\"A hermit!\" says she, merry-eyed, \"then, an he told thee this, needs\nmust he be old, and cold, and withered, and beyond the age of love,\nknowing nought of women save what memory doth haunt his evil past. But\nyoung art thou and strong, and should love come to thee--as come,\nmethinks, it may, hearken to no voice but the pleading of thine own\ntrue heart. Messire,\" she sighed, \"art very blind, methinks, for you\nsing the wonders of these forest-lands, yet in thy song is never a word\nof love! O blind! O blind! for I tell thee nought exists in this great\nworld but by love. Behold now, these sighing trees love their lord the\nsun, and, through the drear winter, wait his coming with wide-stretched,\nyearning arms, crying aloud to him in every shuddering blast the tale\nof their great longing. And, after some while, he comes, and at his advent\nthey clothe themselves anew in all their beauty, and with his warm breath\nthrilling through each fibre, put forth their buds, singing through\nall their myriad leaves the song of their rejoicing. Something the like\nof this, messire, is the love a woman beareth to a man, the which, until\nhe hath felt it trembling in his heart, he hath not known the joy of\nliving.\"\n\nBut Beltane answered, smiling a little as one that gloried in his\nfreedom:\n\n\"No woman hath ever touched my heart, yet have I lived nor found it\nlonely, hitherto.\"\n\nBut hereupon, resting her white fingers on his arm, she leaned nearer\nto him so that he felt her breath warm upon his cheek, and there stole\nto him the faint, sweet perfume of her hair.\n\n\"Beware, O scorner of women! for I tell thee that ere much time hath\npassed thou shalt know love--aye, in such fashion as few men know--\nwherefore I say--beware, Beltane!\"\n\nBut Beltane the strong, the mighty, shook his head and smiled.\n\n\"Nay,\" quoth he, \"a man's heart may be set on other things, flowers may\nseem to him fairer than the fairest women, and the wind in trees\nsweeter to him than their voices.\"\n\nNow as she hearkened, the Duchess Helen grew angry, yet straightway,\nshe dissembled, looking upon him 'neath drooping lashes. Soft and\ntender-eyed and sighing, she answered:\n\n\"Ah, Beltane! how unworthy are such things of a man's love! For if he\npluck them, that he may lay these flowers upon his heart, lo! they fade\nand wither, and their beauty and fragrance is but a memory. Ah,\nBeltane, when next ye sing, choose you a worthier theme.\"\n\n\"Of what shall I sing?\" said Beltane.\n\nVery soft she answered, and with eyes abased:\n\n\"Think on what I have told thee, and sing--of love.\"\n\nAnd so she sighed, and looked on him once, then wheeled her palfrey,\nand was gone up the glade; but Beltane, as he watched her go, was\nseized of a sudden impulse and over-took her, running.\n\n\"Beseech thee,\" cried he, barring her path, \"tell me thy name!\"\n\nThen Helen the Beautiful, the wilful, laughed and swerved her palfrey,\nminded to leave him so; but Beltane sprang and caught the bridle.\n\n\"Tell me thy name,\" said he again.\n\n\"Let me go!\"\n\n\"Thy name, tell me thy name.\"\n\nBut the Duchess laughed again, and thinking to escape him, smote her\nhorse so that it started and reared; once it plunged, and twice, and so\nstood trembling with Beltane's hand upon the bridle; wherefore a sudden\nanger came upon her, and, bending her black brows, she raised her\njewelled riding-rod threateningly. But Beltane only smiled and shook\nhis head, saying:\n\n\"Unless I know thy name thou shalt not fare forth of the greenwood.\"\n\nSo the proud lady of Mortain looked down upon Beltane in amaze, for\nthere was none in all the Duchy, knight, noble or princeling, who dared\ngainsay her lightest word; wherefore, I say, she stared upon this bold\nforest knave with his golden hair and gentle eyes, his curved lips and\nsquare chin; and in eyes and mouth and chin was a look of\nmasterfulness, challenging, commanding. And, meeting that look, her\nheart leapt most strangely with sudden, sweet thrill, so that she\nlowered her gaze lest he should see, and when she spake her voice was\nlow and very sweet:\n\n\"Tell me I pray, why seek you my name, and wherefore?\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, soft and slow as one that dreams:\n\n\"I have seen thine eyes look at me from the flowers, ere now, have\nheard thy laughter in the brook, and found thy beauty in all fair\nthings: methinks thy name should be a most sweet name.\"\n\nNow was it upon her lips to tell him what he asked, but, being a woman,\nshe held her peace for very contrariness, and blushing beneath his\ngaze, looked down and cried aloud, and pointed to a grub that crawled\nupon her habit. So Beltane loosed the bridle, and in that moment, she\nlaughed for very triumph and was off, galloping 'neath the trees. Yet,\nas she went, she turned and called to him, and the word she called\nwas:--\n\n\"Helen!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nOF THE LOVE AND THE GRIEF OF HELEN THE PROUD\n\n\nLong stood Beltane where she had left him, the soft shadows of night\ndeepening about him, dreaming ever of her beauty, of her wondrous hair,\nand of the little foot that had peeped forth at him 'neath her habit,\nand, full of these thoughts, for once he was deaf to the soft voices of\nthe trees nor heard the merry chatter of the brook. But later, upon his\nbed he lay awake full long and must needs remember yet another Helen,\nwith the same wondrous hair and eyes of mystery, for whose sake men had\ndied and a noble city burned; and, hereupon, his heart grew strangely\nheavy and cold with an unknown dread.\n\nDays came and went, and labouring at the forge or lying out in the\nsunshine gazing wistfully beyond the swaying tree-tops, Beltane would\noft start and turn his head, fancying the rustle of her garments in\nhis ears, or her voice calling to him from some flowery thicket; and\nthe wind in the trees whispered \"Helen!\" and the brook sang of Helen,\nand Helen was in his thoughts continually.\n\nThus my Beltane forgot his loves the flowers, and sang no more the\nwonders of the forest-lands.\n\nAnd oft-times the Duchess, seated in state within her great hall of\nMortain looking down upon her knights and nobles, would sigh, for none\nwas there so noble of form nor so comely as Beltane the Smith. Hereupon\nher white brow would grow troubled and, turning from them all, she\nwould gaze with deep, unfathomable eyes, away across the valley to\nwhere, amid the mystery of the trees, Beltane had his lonely dwelling.\n\nWherefore it was, that, looking up one evening from where he sat busied\nwith brush and colours upon a border of wondrous design, Beltane beheld\nher of whom he was dreaming; and she, standing tall and fair before\nhim, saw that in his look the which set her heart a-fluttering at her\nwhite breast most strangely; yet, fearing she should betray aught of\nit, she laughed gaily and mocked him, as is the way of women, saying:\n\n\"Well, thou despiser of Love, I hearkened vainly for thy new song as I\nrode hither through the green.\"\n\nRed grew my Beltane's cheek and he looked not to her as he answered:\n\n\"Lady, I have no new song.\"\n\n\"Why then, is thy lesson yet unlearned?\" said she. \"Have ye no love but\nfor birds and flowers?\" and her red lip curled scornfully.\n\nQuoth Beltane:\n\n\"Is there aught more worthy?\"\n\n\"O Beltane!\" she sighed, \"art then so simple that such will aye content\nthee; doth not thy heart hunger and cry within thee for aught beside?\"\n\nThen Beltane bowed his head, and fumbled with his brush and dropped it,\nand ere he could reach it she had set her foot upon it; thus it chanced\nthat his hand came upon her foot, and feeling it beneath his fingers,\nhe started and drew away, whereat she laughed low and sweet, saying:\n\n\"Alack, and doth my foot affright thee? And yet 'tis none so fierce and\nnone so large that thou shouldst fear it thus, messire--thou who art so\ntall and strong, and a mighty wrestler withal!\"\n\nNow, looking up, he saw her lips curved and scarlet, and her eyes\nbrimful of laughter, and fain would he have taken up the brush yet\ndared not. Therefore, very humbly, she stooped and lifting the brush\nput it in his hand. Then, trembling 'neath the touch of her soft\nfingers, Beltane rose up, and that which he had hidden deep within his\nheart brake from him.\n\n\"Helen!\" he whispered, \"O Helen, thou art so wondrous fair and belike\nof high estate, but as for me, I am but what I am. Behold me\" he cried,\nstretching wide his arms, \"I am but Beltane the Smith; who is there to\nlove such as I? See, my hands be hard and rough, and would but bruise\nwhere they should caress, these arms be unfitted for soft\nembracements. O lady, who is there to love Beltane the Smith?\"\n\nNow the Duchess Helen laughed within herself for very triumph, yet her\nbosom thrilled and hurried with her breathing, her cheek grew red and\nher eyes bright and tender, wherefore she stooped low to cull a flower\nere she answered.\n\n\"Beltane,\" she sighed, \"Beltane, women are not as thy flowers, that\nembraces, even such as thine, would crush them.\"\n\nBut Beltane stooped his head that he might not behold the lure and\nbeauty of her, and clenched his hands hard and fierce and thereafter\nspake:\n\n\"Thou art so wondrous fair,\" said he again, \"and belike of noble\nbirth, but--as for me, I am a smith!\"\n\nAwhile she stood, turning the flower in gentle fingers yet looking upon\nhim in his might and goodly youth, beholding his averted face with its\nstrong, sweet mouth and masterful chin, its curved nostrils and the\ndreaming passion of his eyes, and when she spake her voice was soft\nand very sweet.\n\n\"Above all, thou art--a man, messire!\"\n\nThen did my Beltane lift his head and saw how the colour was deepened\nin her cheek and how her tender eyes drooped before his.\n\n\"Tell me,\" he said, \"is there ever a woman to love such a man? Is there\never a woman who would leave the hum and glitter of cities to walk with\nsuch as I in the shadow of these forest-lands? Speak, Oh speak I do\nbeseech thee!\" Thus said he and stopped, waiting her answer.\n\n\"Nay, Beltane,\" she whispered, \"let thine own heart speak me this.\"\n\nAll blithe and glorious grew the world about him as he stooped and\ncaught her in his arms, lifting her high against his heart. And, in\nthis moment, he forgot the teaching of Ambrose the Hermit, forgot all\nthings under heaven, save the glory of her beauty, the drooping languor\nof her eyes and the sweet, moist tremor of her mouth. And so he kissed\nher, murmuring 'twixt his kisses:\n\n\"Fairer art thou than all the flowers, O my love, and sweeter thy\nbreath than the breath of flowers!\"\n\nThus Helen the Proud, the Beautiful, yielded her lips to his, and in\nall the world for her was nought save the deep, soft voice of Beltane,\nand his eyes, and the new, sweet ecstasy that thrilled within her.\nSurely nowhere in all the world was there such another man as this, so\nstrong and gentle, so meet for love and yet so virginal. Surely life\nmight be very fair here in the green solitudes, aye, surely, surely--\n\nSoft with distance came the peal of bells, stealing across the valley\nfrom the great minster in Mortain, and, with the sound, memory waked,\nand she bethought her of all those knights and nobles who lived but to\ndo her will and pleasure, of Mortain and the glory of it; and so she\nsighed and stirred, and, looking at Beltane, sighed again. Quoth she:\n\n\"Is this great love I foretold come upon thee, Beltane?\"\n\nAnd Beltane answered:\n\n\"Truly a man hath not lived until he hath felt a woman's kisses upon\nhis lips!\"\n\n\"And thou wilt flout poor Love no more?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" he answered, smiling, \"'tis part of me, and must be so\nhenceforth--forever!\"\n\nBut now she sighed again, and trembled in his arms and clasped him\nclose, as one beset by sudden fear, while ever soft with distance came\nthe silvery voices of the bells, low yet insistent, sweet yet\ncommanding; wherefore she, sighing, put him from her.\n\n\"Why then,\" said she, with drooping head, \"fare thee well, messire.\nNay, see you not? Methinks my task is done. And it hath been a--\npleasing task, this--of teaching thee to love--O, would you had not\nlearned so soon! Fare thee well. Beltane!\"\n\nBut Beltane looked upon her as one in deep amaze, his arms fell from\nher and he stepped back and so stood very still and, as he gazed, a\ngrowing horror dawned within his eyes.\n\n\"What art thou?\" he whispered.\n\n\"Nay, Beltane,\" she murmured, \"ah--look not so!\"\n\n\"Who art thou--and what?\" he said.\n\n\"Nay, did I not tell thee at the first? I am Helen--hast thou not\nknown? I am Helen--Helen of Mortain.\"\n\n\"Thou--thou art the Duchess Helen?\" said Beltane with stiffening lips,\n\"thou the Duchess and I--a smith!\" and he laughed, short and fierce,\nand would have turned from her but she stayed him with quivering hands.\n\n\"And--did'st not know?\" she questioned hurriedly, \"methought it was no\nsecret--I would have told thee ere this had I known. Nay--look not so,\nBeltane--thou dost love me yet--nay, I do know it!\" and she strove to\nsmile, but with lips that quivered strangely.\n\n\"Aye, I love thee, Helen of Mortain--though there be many fair lords to\ndo that! But, as for me--I am only a smith, and as a smith greatly\nwould I despise thee. Yet may this not be, for as my body is great, so\nis my love. Go, therefore, thy work here is done, go--get thee to thy\nknightly lovers, wed this Duke who seeks thee--do aught you will but\ngo, leave me to my hammers and these green solitudes.\"\n\nSo spake he, and turning, strode away, looking not back to where she\nstood leaning one white hand against a tree. Once she called to him but\nhe heeded not, walking ever with bowed head and hearing only the tumult\nwithin him and the throbbing of his wounded heart. And now, in his pain\nneeds must he think of yet another Helen and of the blood and agony of\nblazing Troy town, and lifting up his hands to heaven he cried aloud:\n\n\"Alas! that one so fair should be a thing so evil!\"\n\nAll in haste Beltane came to his lonely hut and taking thence his cloak\nand great sword, he seized upon his mightiest hammer and beat down the\nroof of the hut and drave in the walls of it; thereafter he hove the\nhammer into the pool, together with his anvil and rack of tools and so,\nsetting the sword in his girdle and the cloak about him, turned away\nand plunged into the deeper shadows of the forest.\n\nBut, ever soft and faint with distance, the silvery voices of the bells\nstole upon the warm, stilly air, speaking of pomp and state, of pride\nand circumstance, but now these seemed but empty things, and the\nDuchess Helen stood long with bent head and hands that strove to shut\nthe sounds away. But in the end she turned, slow-footed amid the\ngathering shadows and followed whither they called.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut that night, sitting in state within her great hall of Mortain, the\nDuchess Helen sighed deep and oft, scarce heeding the courtesies\naddressed to her and little the whispered homage of her guest Duke Ivo,\nhe, the proudest and most potent of all her many wooers; yet to-night\nher cheek burned beneath his close regard and her woman's flesh\nrebelled at his contact as had never been aforetime. Thus, of a sudden,\nthough the meal was scarce begun, she arose and stepped down from the\ndais, and when her wondering ladies would have followed forbade them\nwith a gesture. And so, walking proud and tall, she passed out before\nthem, whereat Duke Ivo's black brow grew the blacker, and he stared\nbefore him with narrowed eyes, beholding which, the faces of my lady's\ncounsellors waxed anxious and long; only Winfrida, chiefest of the\nladies, watched the Duke 'neath drooping lids and with a smile upon her\nfull, red lips.\n\nNow the Duchess, being come to her chamber, lifted her hands and tore\nthe ducal circlet from her brow and cast it from her, and, thereafter,\nlaid by her rings and jewels, and coming to the open casement fell\nthere upon her knees and reached forth her pale hands to where, across\nthe valley, the dark forest stretched away, ghostly and unreal, 'neath\nthe moon.\n\n\"My beloved!\" she whispered, \"O my beloved!\" And the gentle night-wind\nbore her secret in its embrace away across the valley to the dim\nsolitudes of the woods. \"Beltane!\" she sighed, \"love hath come into\nmine heart even as it came to thee, when I recked not of it. My\nbeloved--O my beloved!\" Anon she rose and stood awhile with head bowed\nas one that dreams, and of a sudden her cheek glowed warmly red, her\nbreath caught and she gazed upon the moon with eyes of yearning\ntenderness; thereafter she laughed, soft and happily and, snatching up\na cloak, set it about her and fled from the chamber. So, swift and\nlight of foot, she sped by hidden ways until she came where old Godric,\nher chief huntsman, busied himself trimming the shaft of a boar-spear,\nwho, beholding his lady, rose up in amaze.\n\n\"Godric,\" said she, white hands upon his arm, \"thou didst love me or\never I could walk?\"\n\n\"Aye, verily thou hast said, dear my lady.\"\n\n\"Love you me yet?\"\n\n\"Truly thou knowest that I love thee.\"\n\n\"Thou hast heard, Godric, how that my counsellors have long desired me\nto wed with Duke Ivo, and do yet await my answer to his suit--nay\nhearken! So to-night shall my mind be known in the matter once and for\nall! Come, my Godric, arm you and saddle two horses--come!\"\n\n\"Nay, sweet my lady, what would ye?\"\n\n\"Fly hence with thee, my Godric! Come--the horses!\"\n\n\"Fly from Mortain, and thou the Duchess? Nay, dear lady, 'tis madness,\nbethink thee! O dear my Mistress--O little Helen that I have cherished\nall thy days, bethink thee--do not this thing--\"\n\n\"Godric, did not the Duke, my father, strictly charge thee to follow\never my call?\"\n\n\"Aye, my lady.\"\n\n\"Then follow now!\" And so she turned and beckoned, and Godric perforce\nfollowed after.\n\nHand in hand they went a-down the winding stair, down, to the great,\ndim courtyard that whispered to their tread. And, thereafter, mounting\nin haste, the Duchess galloped from Mortain, unheeding stern old Godric\nby her side and with never a look behind, dreaming ever of Beltane with\ncheeks that crimsoned 'neath her hood.\n\nFast and faster she rode 'neath the pale moon, her eyes ever gazing\ntowards the gloom of the forest, her heart throbbing quick as the\nhoof-beats of her horse. So at last, being come to that glade whereby\nBeltane had his dwelling, she lighted down, and bidding Godric wait,\nstole forward alone.\n\nAutumn was at hand, and here and there the fallen leaves rustled sadly\nunder foot while the trees sighed and mourned together for that the\nflowers so soon must wither and die. But in the heart of the Duchess\nHelen, Spring was come, and all things spake to her of coming joys\nundreamed till now as she hasted on, flitting through the pallid\nmoonbeams that, falling athwart rugged hole and far-flung branch,\nsplashed the gloom with radiant light. Once she paused to listen, but\nheard nought save the murmur of the brook and the faint stirring of\nleaves. And now, clear and strong the tender radiance fell athwart the\nlonely habitation and her heart leapt at the sight, her eyes grew moist\nand tender and she hurried forward with flying steps, then--beholding\nthe ruin of thatch and wall, she stopped and stood aghast, gazing\nwide-eyed and with her heart numb in her bosom. Then she shivered, her\nproud head drooped and a great sob brake from her, for that she knew she\nwas come too late, her dreams of wandering with Beltane through sunny\nglades were nought but dreams after all. Beltane the Smith was gone!\n\nThen a great loneliness and desolation came upon her and, sinking down\nat the foot of that tree whereby he had been wont to lean so often, her\nyearning arms crept about its rugged hole and she lay there in the\npassion of her grief weeping long and bitterly.\n\nBut the gentle trees ceased mourning over their own coming sorrow in\nwonder at the sight, and bending their heads together, seemed to\nwhisper one to the other saying:\n\n\"He is gone, Beltane the Smith is gone!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nWHICH TELLS OF THE STORY OF AMBROSE THE HERMIT\n\n\nDeep, deep within the green twilight of the woods Ambrose the Hermit\nhad builded him a hut; had built and framed it of rude stones and\nthatched it with grass and mosses. And from the door of the hut he had\nformed likewise a path strewn thick with jagged stones and sharp\nflints, a cruel track, the which, winding away through the green, led\nto where upon a gentle eminence stood a wooden cross most artfully\nwrought and carven by the hermit's skilled and loving fingers.\n\nMorning and evening, winter and summer it was his custom ever to tread\nthis painful way, wetting the stones with the blood of his atonement.\n\nNow upon a certain rosy dawn, ere yet the sun was up, Beltane standing\namid the leaves, saw the hermit issue forth of the hut and, with bowed\nhead and folded hands, set out upon his appointed way. The cruel stones\ngrew red beneath his feet yet he faltered not nor stayed until, being\ncome to the cross, he kneeled there and, with gaunt arms upraised,\nprayed long and fervently so that the tears of his passion streamed\ndown his furrowed cheeks and wetted the snow of his beard.\n\nIn a while, having made an end, he arose and being come to his hut once\nmore, he of a sudden espied Beltane standing amid the leaves; and\nbecause he was so fair and goodly to look upon in his youth and might,\nthe pale cheek of the hermit flushed and a glow leapt within his sunken\neyes, and lifting up his hand, he blessed him.\n\n\"Welcome to this my solitude, my son,\" quoth he, \"and wherefore hast\nthou tarried in thy coming? I have watched for thee these many days.\nCome, sit you here beside me in this blessed sun and tell me of thy\nlatter doings.\"\n\nBut the eyes of Beltane were sad and his tongue unready, so that he\nstammered in his speech, looking ever upon the ground; then, suddenly\nup-starting to his feet, he strode before the hut, while Ambrose the\nwise looked, and saw, yet spake not. So, presently, Beltane paused, and\nlooking him within the eyes spake hurriedly on this wise:\n\n\"Most holy father, thou knowest how I have lived within the greenwood\nall my days nor found it lonely, for I did love it so, that I had\nthought to die here likewise when my time should come. Yet now do I\nknow that this shall never be--to-day I go hence.\"\n\n\"Wherefore, my son?\"\n\n\"There is come a strange restlessness upon me, a riot and fever of the\nblood whereby I am filled with dreams and strange desires. I would go\nforth into the great world of men and cities, to take my rightful place\ntherein, for until a man hath loved and joyed and sorrowed with his\nfellows, he knoweth nought of life.\"\n\n\"Perchance, my son, this is but the tide of youthful blood that tingles\nin thy veins? Or is it that thou hast looked of late within a woman's\neyes?\"\n\nThen Beltane kneeled him at the feet of Ambrose and hid his face\nbetwixt his knees, as he had been wont to do whiles yet a little child.\n\n\"Father,\" he murmured, \"thou hast said.\" Now looking down upon this\ngolden head, Ambrose sighed and drew the long curls through his fingers\nwith a wondrous gentleness.\n\n\"Tell me of thy love, Beltane,\" said he.\n\nForthwith, starting to his feet, Beltane answered:\n\n\"'Tis many long and weary months, my father, and yet doth seem but\nyesterday. She came to me riding upon a milk-white steed. At first\nmethought her of the fairy kind thither drawn by my poor singing, yet,\nwhen I looked on her again, I knew her to be woman. And she was fair--\nO very fair, my father. I may not tell her beauty for 'twas compounded\nof all beauteous things, of the snow of lilies, the breath of flowers,\nthe gleam of stars on moving waters, the music of streams, the\nmurmur of wind in trees--I cannot tell thee more but that there is a\nflame doth hide within her hair, and for her eyes--O methinks 'tis for\nher eyes I do love her most--love her? Aye, my body doth burn and\nthrill with love--alas, poor fool, alas it should be so! But, for that\nshe is proud and of an high estate, for that I am I, a poor worker of\niron whom men call Beltane the Smith, fit but to sigh and sigh and\nforever sigh, to dream of her and nothing more--so must I go hence,\nleaving the sweet silence of the woods for the strife and noise of\ncities, learning to share the burdens of my fellows. See you not, my\nfather, see you not the way of it?\" So spake Beltane, hot and\npassionate, striding to and fro upon the sward, while Ambrose sat with\nbitterness in his heart but with eyes ineffably gentle.\n\n\"And is this love of thine so hopeless, my Beltane?\"\n\n\"Beyond all thought; she is the Duchess Helen of Mortain!\"\n\nNow for a while the hermit spake not, sitting chin in hand as one who\nhalts betwixt two courses.\n\n\"'Tis strange,\" he said at length, \"and passing strange! Yet, since\n'tis she, and she so much above thee, wherefore would ye leave the\ntender twilight of these forests?\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, sighing:\n\n\"My father, I tell thee these woods be full of love and her. She\nlooketh at me from the flowers and stealeth to me in their fragrance;\nthe very brooks do babble of her beauty; each leaf doth find a little\nvoice to whisper of her, and everywhere is love and love and love--so\nneeds must I away.\"\n\n\"And think you so to escape this love, my Beltane, and the pain of it?\"\n\n\"Nay my father, that were thing impossible for it doth fill the\nuniverse, so must I needs remember it with every breath I draw, but in\nthe griefs and sorrows of others I may, perchance, learn to bear mine\nown, silent and patiently, as a man should.\"\n\nThen Ambrose sighed, and beckoning Beltane to his knee, laid his hands\nupon his shoulders and looked deep within his eyes.\n\n\"Beltane my son,\" said he, \"I have known thee from thy youth up and\nwell do I know thou canst not lie, for thy heart is pure as yet and\nuncorrupt. But now is the thing I feared come upon thee--ah, Beltane,\nhast thou forgot all I have told thee of women and the ways of women,\nhow that their white bodies are filled with all manner of wantonness,\ntheir hands strong in lures and enticements? A woman in her beauty is\na fair thing to the eyes of a man, yet I tell thee Beltane, they be\nsnares of the devil, setting father 'gainst son and--brother 'gainst\nbrother, whereby come unnatural murders and bloody wars.\"\n\n\"And yet, needs must I love her still, my father!\"\n\n\"Aye, 'tis so,\" sighed Ambrose, \"'tis ever so, and as for thee, well do\nI know the blood within thee for a hot, wild blood--and thou art young,\nand so it is I fear for thee.\"\n\nBut, looking up, Beltane shook his head and answered:\n\n\"Holy father, thou art wise and wondrous learned in the reading of\nbooks and in the ancient wisdoms and philosophies, yet methinks this\nlove is a thing no book can teach thee, a truth a man must needs find\nout for himself.\" \"And think you I know nought of love, Beltane, the\npain and joy of it--and the shame? Thou seest me a poor old man and\nfeeble, bent with years and suffering, one who but waiteth for the time\nwhen my grievous sin shall be atoned for and God, in His sweet\nclemency, shall ease me of this burden of life. Yet do I tell thee\nthere was a time when this frail body was strong and tall, well-nigh,\nas thine own, when this white hair was thick and black, and these dim\neyes bold and fearless even as thine.\"\n\n\"Ah, Beltane, well do I know women and the ways of women! Come, sit you\nbeside me and, because thou art fain to go into the world and play thy\nman's part, so now will I tell thee that the which I had thought to\nbear with me to the grave.\"\n\nThen Ambrose the Hermit, leaning his head upon his hand, began to speak\non this wise:\n\n\"Upon a time were two brothers, nobles of a great house and following,\neach alike lovers of peace yet each terrible in war; the name of the\none was Johan and of the other Beltane. Now Beltane, being elder, was\nDuke of that country, and the country maintained peace within its\nborders and the people thereof waxed rich and happy. And because these\ntwain loved each other passing well the way of the one was ever the way\nof the other so that they dwelt together in a wondrous amity, and as\ntheir hearts were pure and strong so waxed they in body so that there\nwas none could cope with them at hand-strokes nor bear up against the\nmight of their lances, and O, methinks in all this fair world nought\nwas there fairer than the love of these two brethren!\n\n\"Now it befell, upon a day, that they set out with a goodly company to\nattend a tourney in a certain town whither, likewise, were come many\nknights of renown, nobles and princes beyond count eager to prove their\nprowess, thither drawn by the fame of that fair lady who was to be\nQueen of Beauty. All lips spake of her and the wonder of her charms,\nhow that a man could not look within her eyes but must needs fall into\na passion of love for her. But the brethren smiled and paid small heed\nand so, together, journeyed to the city. The day of the joust being\ncome, forth they rode into the lists, side by side, each in his triple\nmail and ponderous helm, alike at all points save for the golden\ncirclet upon Duke Beltane's shining casque. And there befell, that day,\na mighty shivering of lances and many a knightly deed was wrought. But,\nfor these brethren there was none of all these knights and nobles who\nmight abide their onset; all day long they together maintained the\nlists till there none remained to cope with them, wherefore the marshal\nwould have had them run a course together for proof which was the\nmightier. But Beltane smiled and shook his head saying, 'Nay, it is not\nmeet that brother strive with brother!' And Johan said: 'Since the day\ndoth rest with us, we will share the glory together.' So, amid the\nacclaim of voice and trumpet, side by side they came to make obeisance\nto the Queen of Beauty, and gazing upon her, they saw that she was\nindeed of a wondrous beauty. Now in her hand she held the crown that\nshould reward the victor, yet because they were two, she knew not whom\nto choose, wherefore she laughed, and brake the crown asunder and gave\nto each a half with many fair words and gentle sayings. But, alas, my\nson! from that hour her beauty came betwixt these brethren, veiling\ntheir hearts one from the other. So they tarried awhile in that fair\ncity, yet companied together no more, for each was fain to walk apart,\ndreaming of this woman and the beauty of her, and each by stealth wooed\nher to wife. At last, upon an evening, came Johan to his brother and\ntaking from his bosom the half of the crown he had won, kissed it and\ngave it to Beltane, saying: 'The half of a crown availeth no man, take\ntherefore my half and join it with thine, for well do I know thy heart,\nmy brother--and thou art the elder, and Duke; go therefore and woo\nthis lady to wife, and God speed thee, my lord.' But Beltane said:\n'Shame were it in me to take advantage of my years thus; doth age or\nrank make a man's love more worthy? So, get thee to thy wooing, my\nbrother, and heaven's blessing on thee.' Then grew Johan full of joy,\nsaying: 'So be it, dear my brother, but am I come not to thee within\nthree days at sunset, then shalt know that my wooing hath not\nprospered.' Upon the third day, therefore, Beltane the Duke girded on\nhis armour and made ready to ride unto his own demesne, yet tarried\nuntil sunset, according to his word. But his brother Johan came not.\nTherefore he, in turn, rode upon his wooing and came unto the lady's\npresence in hauberk of mail, and thus ungently clad wooed her as one in\nhaste to be gone, telling her that this world was no place for a man to\nsigh out his days at a woman's feet, and bidding her answer him' Yea'\nor 'Nay' and let him be gone to his duty. And she, whom so many had\nwooed on bended knee, spake him' Yea'--for that a woman's ways be\nbeyond all knowledge--and therewith gave her beauty to his keeping. So,\nforthwith were they wed, with much pomp and circumstance, and so he\nbrought her to his Duchy with great joy and acclaim. Then would Johan\nhave departed over seas, but Beltane ever dissuaded him, and fain these\nbrethren would have loved each other as they had done aforetime, yet\nwas the beauty of this woman ever betwixt them. Now, within that year,\ncame news of fire and sword upon the border, of cruel rape and murder,\nso Beltane sent forth his brother Johan with an army to drive back the\ninvaders, and himself abode in his great castle, happy in the love of\nhis fair, young wife. But the war went ill, tidings came that Johan his\nbrother was beaten back with much loss and he himself sore wounded.\nTherefore the Duke made ready to set forth at the head of a veteran\ncompany, but ere he rode a son was born to him, so needs must he come\nto his wife in his armour, and beholding the child, kissed him.\nThereafter Duke Beltane rode to the war with a glad heart, and fell\nupon his enemies and scattered them, and pursued them far and smote\nthem even to their own gates. But in the hour of his triumph he fell,\nby treachery, into the hands of his cruelest enemy, how it mattereth\nnot, and for a space was lost to sight and memory. But as for Johan,\nthe Duke's brother, he lay long sick of his wounds, so came the Duchess\nand ministered to him; and she was fair, and passing fair, and he was\nyoung. And when his strength was come again, each day was Johan minded\nto ride forth and seek the Duke his brother--but he was young, and she\npassing fair, wherefore he tarried still, bound by the lure of her\nbeauty. And, upon a soft and stilly eve as they walked together in the\ngarden, she wooed Johan with tender look and word, and wreathed her\nwhite arms about him and gave to his her mouth. And, in that moment\ncame one, fierce and wild of aspect, in dinted casque and rusty mail\nwho stood and watched--ah God!\"\n\nHere, for a while, the hermit Ambrose stayed his tale, and Beltane saw\nhis brow was moist and that his thin hands clenched and wrung each\nother.\n\n\"So thus, my son, came Duke Beltane home again, he and his esquire Sir\nBenedict of Bourne alone of all his company, each alike worn with\nhardship and spent with wounds. But now was the Duke stricken of a\ngreater pain and leaned him upon the shoulder of his esquire, faint and\nsick of soul, and knew an anguish deeper than any flesh may know. Then,\nof a sudden, madness came upon him and, breaking from the mailed arms\nthat held him, he came hot-foot to the courtyard and to the hall\nbeyond, hurling aside all such as sought to stay him and so reached at\nlast my lady's bower, his mailed feet ringing upon the Atones. And,\nlooking up, the Duchess saw and cried aloud and stood, thereafter, pale\nand speechless and wide of eye, while Johan's cheek grew red and in his\nlook was shame. Then the Duke put up his vizor and, when he spake, his\nvoice was harsh and strange: 'Greeting, good brother!' said he, 'go\nnow, I pray you, get you horse and armour and wait me in the courtyard,\nyet first must I greet this my lady wife.' So Johan turned, with\nhanging head, and went slow-footed from the chamber. Then said the\nDuke, laughing in his madness, 'Behold, lady, the power of a woman's\nbeauty, for I loved a noble brother once, a spotless knight whose\nhonour reached high as heaven, but thou hast made of him a something\nfoul and base, traitor to me and to his own sweet name, and 'tis for\nthis I will requite thee!' But the Duchess spake not, nor blenched even\nwhen the dagger gleamed to strike--O sweet God of mercy, to strike!\nBut, in that moment, came Benedict of Bourne and leapt betwixt and took\nthe blow upon his cheek, and, stanching the blood within his tattered\nwar-cloak, cried: 'Lord Duke, because I love thee, ne'er shalt thou do\nthis thing until thou first slay me!' A while the Duke stood in amaze,\nthen turned and strode away down the great stair, and coming to the\ncourtyard, beheld his brother Johan armed at all points and mounted,\nand with another horse equipped near by. So the Duke laughed and closed\nhis vizor and his laughter boomed hollow within his rusty casque, and,\nleaping to the saddle, rode to the end of the great tilt-yard, and,\nwheeling, couched his lance. So these brethren, who had loved each\nother so well, spurred upon each other with levelled lances but, or\never the shock came--O my son, my son!--Johan rose high in his stirrups\nand cried aloud the battle-cry of his house 'Arise! Arise! I shall\narise!' and with the cry, tossed aside his lance lest he might harm the\nDuke his brother--O sweet clemency of Christ!--and crashed to earth--\nand lay there--very still and silent. Then the Duke dismounted and,\nwatched by pale-faced esquires and men-at-arms, came and knelt beside\nhis brother, and laid aside his brother's riven helm and, beholding his\ncomely features torn and marred and his golden hair all hatefully\nbedabbled, felt his heart burst in sunder, and he groaned, and rising\nto stumbling feet came to his horse and mounted and rode away 'neath\ngrim portcullis and over echoing drawbridge, yet, whithersoever he\nlooked, he saw only his brother's dead face, pale and bloody. And fain\nhe would have prayed but could not, and so he came into the forest. All\nday long he rode beneath the trees careless of his going, conscious\nonly that Benedict of Bourne rode behind with his bloody war-cloak\nwrapped about him. But on rode the Duke with hanging head and listless\nhands for before his haggard eyes was ever the pale, dead face of Johan\nhis brother. Now, as the moon rose, they came to a brook that whispered\nsoft-voiced amid the shadows and here his war-horse stayed to drink.\nThen came Sir Benedict of Bourne beside him, 'Lord Duke,' said he,\n'what hast thou in thy mind to do?' 'I know not,' said the Duke,\n'though methinks 'twere sweet to die.' 'Then what of the babe, lord\nDuke?' and, speaking, Sir Benedict drew aside his cloak and showed the\nbabe asleep beneath. But, looking upon its innocence, the Duke cried\nout and hid his face, for the babe's golden curls were dabbled with the\nblood from Sir Benedict's wound and looked even as had the face of the\ndead Johan. Yet, in a while, the Duke reached out and took the child\nand setting it against his breast, turned his horse. Said Sir Benedict:\n'Whither do we ride, lord Duke?' Then spake the Duke on this wise: 'Sir\nBenedict, Duke Beltane is no more, the stroke that slew my brother\nJohan killed Duke Beltane also. But as for you, get you to Pentavalon\nand say the Duke is dead, in proof whereof take you this my ring and\nso, farewell.' Then, my Beltane, God guiding me, I brought thee to\nthese solitudes, for I am he that was the Duke Beltane, and thou art my\nson indeed.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nHOW BELTANE FARED FORTH OF THE GREEN\n\n\nThus spake the hermit Ambrose and, having made an end, sat thereafter\nwith his head bowed upon his hands, while Beltane stood wide-eyed yet\nseeing not, and with lips apart yet dumb by reason of the wonder of it;\ntherefore, in a while, the hermit spake again:\n\n\"Thus did we live together, thou and I, dear son, and I loved thee\nwell, my Beltane: with each succeeding day I loved thee better, for as\nthine understanding grew, so grew my love for thee. Therefore, so soon\nas thou wert of an age, set in thy strength and able to thine own\nsupport, I tore myself from thy sweet fellowship and lived alone lest,\nhaving thee, I might come nigh to happiness.\"\n\nThen Beltane sank upon his knees and caught the hermit's wasted hands\nand kissed them oft, saying:\n\n\"Much hast thou suffered, O my father, but now am I come to thee again\nand, knowing all things, here will I bide and leave thee nevermore.\"\nNow in the hermit's pale cheek came a faint and sudden glow, and in his\neyes a light not of the sun.\n\n\"Bethink thee, boy,\" said he, \"the blood within thy veins is noble.\nFor, since thou art my son, so, an thou dost leave me and seek thy\ndestiny thou shalt, perchance, be Duke of Pentavalon--an God will it\nso.\"\n\nBut Beltane shook his head. Quoth he:\n\n\"My father, I am a smith, and smith am I content to be since thou, lord\nDuke, art my father. So now will I abide with thee and love and honour\nthee, and be thy son indeed.\"\n\nThen rose the hermit Ambrose to his feet and spake with eyes uplifted:\n\n\"Now glory be to God, Who, in His mercy, hath made of thee a man, my\nBeltane, clean of soul and innocent, yet strong of arm to lift and\nsuccour the distressed, and therefore it is that you to-day must leave\nme, my well-beloved, for there be those whose need of thee is greater\neven than mine.\"\n\n\"Nay, dear my father, how may this be?\"\n\nNow hereupon Ambrose the Hermit stood awhile with bent head, and spake\nnot, only he sighed full oft and wrung his hands.\n\n\"I thought but of myself!\" he groaned, \"great sorrow is oft-times\ngreatly selfish. Alas, my son--twenty weary years have I lived here\nsuing God's forgiveness, and for twenty bitter years Pentavalon hath\ngroaned 'neath shameful wrong--and death in many hateful shapes. O God\nhave mercy on a sinner who thought but on himself! List, my son, O\nlist! On a day, as I kneeled before yon cross, came one in knightly\narmour and upon his face, 'neath the links of his camail, I saw a great\nscar--the scar this hand had wrought. And, even as I knew Sir Benedict,\nin that same moment he knew me, and gave a joyous cry and came and fell\nupon his knee and kissed my hand, as of old. Thereafter we talked, and\nhe told me many a woeful tale of Pentavalon and of its misery. How,\nwhen I was gone, rose bitter fight and faction, barons and knights\nstriving together which should be Duke. In the midst of the which\ndisorders came one, from beyond seas, whom men called Ivo, who by might\nof sword and cunning tongue made himself Duke in my place. Sir Benedict\ntold of a fierce and iron rule, of the pillage and ravishment of town\nand city, of outrage and injustice, of rack and flame and gibbet--of a\npeople groaning 'neath a thousand cruel wrongs. Then, indeed, did I see\nthat my one great sin a thousand other sins had bred, and was I full of\nbitter sorrow and anguish. And, in my anguish, I thought on thee, and\nsent to thee Sir Benedict, and watched thee wrestle, and at stroke of\nsword, and praised God for thy goodly might and strength. For O, dear\nmy son, meseemeth that God hath raised thee up to succour these\nafflicted, to shield the weak and helpless--hath made thee great and\nmightier than most to smite Evil that it may flee before thee. So in\nthee shall my youth be renewed, and my sins, peradventure, purged\naway.\"\n\n\"Father!\" said Beltane rising, his blue eyes wide, his strong hands\na-tremble, \"O my father!\" Then Ambrose clasped those quivering hands and\nkissed those wide and troubled eyes and spake thereafter, slow and\nsoft:\n\n\"Now shall I live henceforth in thee, my son, glorying in thy deeds\nhereafter. And if thou must needs--bleed, then shall my heart bleed\nwith thee, or if thou meet with death, my Beltane, then shall this\nheart of mine die with thee.\"\n\nThus speaking, the hermit drew the sword from Beltane's girdle and\nheld the great blade towards heaven.\n\n\"Behold, my son,\" said he, \"the motto of our house, 'I will arise!' So\nnow shalt thou arise indeed that thy destiny may be fulfilled. Take\nhold upon thy manhood, my well-beloved, get thee to woeful Pentavalon\nand, beholding its sorrows, seek how they may be assuaged. Now my\nBeltane, all is said--when wilt thou leave thy father?\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, gathering his cloak about him:\n\n\"An so it be thy wish, my father, then will I go this hour.\"\n\nThen Ambrose brought Beltane into his humble dwelling where was a\ncoffer wrought by his own skilful fingers; and from this coffer he drew\nforth a suit of triple mail, wondrously fashioned, beholding the\nwhich, Beltane's eyes glistened because of the excellence of its\ncraftsmanship.\n\n\"Behold!\" quoth the hermit, \"'tis an armour worthy of a king, light is\nit, yet marvellous strong, and hath been well tried in many a desperate\naffray. 'Tis twenty years since these limbs bore it, yet see--I have\nkept it bright from rust lest, peradventure, Pentavalon should need\nthee to raise again the battle cry of thy house and lead her men to\nwar. And, alas dear son, that day is now! Pentavalon calls to thee from\nout the gloom of dungeon, from the anguish of flame, and rack, and\ngibbet--from blood-soaked hearth and shameful grave she calls thee--\nso, my Beltane, come and let me arm thee.\"\n\nAnd there, within his little hut, the hermit Ambrose, Duke of\nPentavalon that was, girt the armour upon Beltane the mighty, Duke of\nPentavalon to be, if so God willed; first the gambeson of stuffed and\nquilted leather, and, thereafter, coifed hauberk and chausses, with\nwide sword-belt clamped with broad plates of silver and studs of gold,\nuntil my Beltane stood up armed in shining mail from head to foot. Then\nbrought Ambrose a wallet, wherein were six gold pieces, and put it in\nhis hand, saying:\n\n\"These have I kept against this day, my Beltane. Take them to aid thee\non thy journey, for the county of Bourne lieth far to the south.\"\n\n\"Do I then journey to Bourne, my father?\"\n\n\"Aye, to Sir Benedict, who yet doth hold the great keep of\nThrasfordham. Many sieges hath he withstood, and daily men flee to him\n--stricken men, runaway serfs, and outlaws from the green, all such\nmasterless men as lie in fear of their lives.\"\n\nSaid Beltane, slow and thoughtful:\n\n\"There be many outlaws within the green, wild men and sturdy fighters\nas I've heard. Hath Sir Benedict many men, my father?\"\n\n\"Alas! a pitiful few, and Black Ivo can muster bows and lances by the\nten thousand--\"\n\n\"Yet doth Sir Benedict withstand them all, my father!\"\n\n\"Yet must he keep ever within Bourne, Beltane. All Pentavalon, save\nBourne, lieth 'neath Ivo's iron foot, ruled by his fierce nobles, and\nthey be strong and many, 'gainst whom Sir Benedict is helpless in the\nfield. 'Tis but five years agone since Ivo gave up fair Belsaye town to\nravishment and pillage, and thereafter, builded him a mighty gallows\nover against it and hanged many men thereon.\"\n\nNow hereupon, of a sudden, Beltane clenched his hands and fell upon his\nknees.\n\n\"Father,\" said he, \"Pentavalon indeed doth cry, so must I now arise and\ngo unto her. Give me thy blessing that I may go.\"\n\nThen the hermit laid his hands upon Beltane's golden head and blessed\nhim, and whispered awhile in passionate prayer. Thereafter Beltane\narose and, together, they came out into the sunshine.\n\n\"South and by west must you march, dear son, and God, methinks, shall\ngo beside thee, for thy feet shall tread a path where Death shall lie\nin wait for thee. Let thine eyes be watchful therefore, and thine ears\nquick to hear. Hearken you to all men, yet speak you few words and\nsoft. But, when you act, let your deeds shout unto heaven, that all\nPentavalon may know a man is come to lead them who fears only God. And\nso, my Beltane, fare-thee-well! Come, kiss me, boy; our next kiss,\nperchance--shall be in heaven.\"\n\nAnd thus they kissed, and looked within each other's eyes; then Beltane\nturned him, swift and sudden, and strode upon his way. But, in a\nlittle, looking back, he saw his father, kneeling before the cross,\nwith long, gaunt arms upraised to heaven.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nHOW BELTANE TALKED WITH ONE HIGHT GILES BRABBLECOMBE, WHO WAS A\nNOTABLE AND LEARNED ARCHER\n\n\nThe morning was yet young when my Beltane fared forth into the world, a\njoyous, golden morning trilling with the glad song of birds and rich\nwith a thousand dewy scents; a fair, sweet, joyous world it was indeed,\nwhose glories, stealing in at eye and ear, filled him with their\ngladness. On strode my Beltane by rippling brook and sleepy pool, with\nstep swift and light and eyes wide and shining, threading an unerring\ncourse as only a forester might; now crossing some broad and sunny\nglade where dawn yet lingered in rosy mist, anon plunging into the\ngreen twilight of dell and dingle, through tangled brush and scented\nbracken gemmed yet with dewy fire, by marsh and swamp and lichened\nrock, until he came out upon the forest road, that great road laid by\nthe iron men of Rome, but now little better than a grassy track, yet\nhere and there, with mossy stone set up to the glory of proud emperor\nand hardy centurion long since dust and ashes; a rutted track, indeed,\nbut leading ever on, 'neath mighty trees, over hill and dale towards\nthe blue mystery beyond.\n\nNow, in a while, being come to the brow of a hill, needs must my\nBeltane pause to look back upon the woodlands he had loved so well and,\nsighing, he stretched his arms thitherward; and lo! out of the soft\ntwilight of the green, stole a gentle wind full of the scent of root\nand herb and the fresh, sweet smell of earth, a cool, soft wind that\nstirred the golden hair at his temples, like a caress, and so--was\ngone. For a while he stood thus, gazing towards where he knew his\nfather yet knelt in prayer for him, then turned he slowly, and went his\nappointed way.\n\nThus did Beltane bid farewell to the greenwood and to woodland things,\nand thus did the green spirit of the woods send forth a gentle wind to\nkiss him on the brow ere he went out into the world of men and cities.\n\nNow, after some while, as he walked, Beltane was aware of the silvery\ntinkle of bells and, therewith, a full, sweet voice upraised in song,\nand the song was right merry and the words likewise:\n\n  \"O ne'er shall my lust for the bowl decline,\n   Nor my love for my good long bow;\n   For as bow to the shaft and as bowl to the wine,\n   Is a maid to a man, I trow.\"\n\nLooking about, Beltane saw the singer, a comely fellow whose long legs\nbestrode a plump ass; a lusty man he was, clad in shirt of mail and\nwith a feather of green brooched to his escalloped hood; a long-bow\nhung at his back together with a quiver of arrows, while at his thigh\nswung a heavy, broad-bladed sword. Now he, espying Beltane amid the\nleaves, brought the ass to a sudden halt and clapped hand to the pommel\nof his sword.\n\n\"How now, Goliath!\" cried he. \"_Pax vobiscum,_ and likewise\n_benedicite_! Come ye in peace, forsooth, or is it to be _bellum\ninternecinum?_ Though, by St. Giles, which is my patron saint, I care\nnot how it be, for mark ye, _vacuus cantat coram latrone viator,_ Sir\nGoliath, the which in the vulgar tongue signifieth that he who travels\nwith an empty purse laughs before the footpad--moreover, I have a\nsword!\"\n\nBut Beltane laughed, saying:\n\n\"I have no lust to thy purse, most learned bowman, or indeed to aught\nof thine unless it be thy company.\"\n\n\"My company?\" quoth the bowman, looking Beltane up and down with merry\nblue eyes, \"why now do I know thee for a fellow of rare good judgment,\nfor my company is of the best, in that I have a tongue which loveth to\nwag in jape or song. Heard ye how the birds and I were a-carolling? A\nright blithesome morn, methinks, what with my song, and the birds'\nsong, and this poor ass's bells--aye, and the flowers a-peep from the\nbank yonder. God give ye joy of it, tall brother, as he doth me and\nthis goodly ass betwixt my knees, patient beast.\"\n\nNow leaning on his quarter-staff Beltane smiled and said:\n\n\"How came ye by that same ass, master bowman?\"\n\n\"Well--I met a monk!\" quoth the fellow with a gleam of white teeth. \"O!\na ponderous monk, brother, of most mighty girth of belly! Now, as ye\nsee, though this ass be sleek and fat as an abbot, she is something\nsmall. 'And shall so small a thing needs bear so great a mountain o'\nflesh?' says I (much moved at the sight, brother). 'No, by the blessed\nbones of St. Giles (which is my patron saint, brother), so thereafter\n(by dint of a little persuasion, brother) my mountainous monk, to ease\nthe poor beast's back, presently got him down and I, forthwith, got up--\nas being more in proportion to her weight, sweet beast! O! surely\nne'er saw I fairer morn than this, and never, in so fair a morn, saw I\nfairer man than thou, Sir Forester, nor taller, and I have seen many\nmen in my day. Wherefore an so ye will, let us company together what\ntime we may; 'tis a solitary road, and the tongue is a rare shortener\nof distance.\"\n\nSo Beltane strode on beside this garrulous bowman, hearkening to his\nmerry talk, yet himself speaking short and to the point as was ever his\ncustom; as thus:\n\nBOWMAN. \"How do men call thee, tall brother?\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Beltane.\"\n\nBOWMAN. \"Ha! 'Tis a good name, forsooth I've heard worse--and yet,\nforsooth, I've heard better. Yet 'tis a fairish name--'twill serve. As\nfor me, Giles Brabblecombe o' the Hills men call me, for 'twas in the\nhill country I was born thirty odd years agone. Since then twelve\nsieges have I seen with skirmishes and onfalls thrice as many. Death\nhave I beheld in many and divers shapes and in experience of wounds and\ndangers am rich, though, by St. Giles (my patron saint), in little\nelse. Yet do I love life the better, therefore, and I have read that\n'to despise gold is to be rich.'\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Do all bowmen read, then?\"\n\nBOWMAN. \"Why look ye, brother, I am not what I was aforetime--_non sum\nquails eram _--I was bred a shaveling, a mumbler, a be-gowned\ndo-nothing--brother, I was a monk, but the flesh and the devil made of me\na bowman, heigho--so wags the world! Though methinks I am a better\nbowman than ever I was a monk, having got me some repute with this my\nbow.\"\n\nBELTANE (shaking his head). \"Methinks thy choice was but a sorry one\nfor--\"\n\nBOWMAN (laughing). \"Choice quotha! 'Twas no choice, 'twas forced upon\nme, _vi et armis._ I should be chanting prime or matins at this very\nhour but for this tongue o' mine, God bless it! For, when it should\nhave been droning psalms, it was forever lilting forth some blithesome\nmelody, some merry song of eyes and lips and stolen kisses. In such\nsort that the good brethren were wont to gather round and, listening,--\nsigh! Whereof it chanced I was, one night, by order of the holy Prior,\ndrubbed forth of the sacred precincts. So brother Anselm became Giles\no' the Bow--the kind Saints be praised, in especial holy Saint Giles\n(which is my patron saint!). For, heed me--better the blue sky and the\nsweet, strong wind than the gloom and silence of a cloister. I had\nrather hide this sconce of mine in a hood of mail than in the mitre of\na lord bishop--_nolo episcopare,_ good brother! Thus am I a fighter,\nand a good fighter, and a wise fighter, having learned 'tis better to\nlive to fight than to fight to live.\"\n\nBELTANE. \"And for whom do ye fight?\"\n\nBOWMAN. \"For him that pays most, _pecuniae obediunt omnia,_ brother.\"\n\nBELTANE (frowning). \"Money? And nought beside?\"\n\nBOWMAN (staring). \"As what, brother?\"\n\nBELTANE. \"The justice of the cause wherefore ye fight.\"\n\nBOWMAN. \"Justice quotha--cause! O innocent brother, what have such\nmatters to do with such as I? See you now, such lieth the case. You,\nlet us say, being a baron (and therefore noble!) have a mind to a\ncertain other baron's castle, or wife, or both--(the which is more\nusual) wherefore ye come to me, who am but a plain bowman knowing\nnought of the case, and you chaffer with me for the use of this my body\nfor so much money, and thereafter I shoot my best on thy behalf as in\nmine honour bound. Thus have I fought both for and against Black Ivo\nthroughout the length and breadth of his Duchy of Pentavalon. If ye be\nminded to sell that long sword o' thine, to none better market could ye\ncome, for there be ever work for such about Black Ivo.\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Aye, 'tis so I hear.\"\n\nBOWMAN. \"Nor shall ye anywhere find a doughtier fighter than Duke Ivo,\nnor a leader quicker to spy out the vantage of position and attack.\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Is he so lusty a man-at-arms?\"\n\nBOWMAN. \"With lance, axe, or sword he hath no match. I have seen him\nlead a charge. I have watched him fight afoot. I have stormed behind\nhim through a breach, and I know of none dare cope with him--unless it\nbe Sir Pertolepe the Red.\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Hast ne'er heard tell, then, of Benedict of Bourne?\"\n\nBOWMAN (clapping hand to thigh). \"Now by the blood and bones of St.\nGiles 'tis so! Out o' the mouth of a babe and suckling am I corrected!\nVerily if there be one to front Black Ivo 'tis Benedict o' the Mark. To\nbehold these two at handstrokes--with axes--ha, there would be a sweet\naffray indeed--a sight for the eyes of holy archangels! Dost know aught\nof Sir Benedict, O Innocence?\"\n\nBELTANE. \"I have seen him.\"\n\nBOWMAN. \"Then, my soft and gentle dove-like youth, get thee to thy\nmarrow-bones and pray that kind heaven shall make thee more his like,\nfor in his shoes doth stand a man--a knight--a very paladin!\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Who fighteth not for--hire. Sir Bowman!\"\n\nBOWMAN. \"Yet who hireth to fight, Sir Dove-eyed Giant, for I have\nfought for him, ere now, within his great keep of Thrasfordham within\nBourne. But, an ye seek employ, his is but a poor service, where a man\nshall come by harder knocks than good broad pieces.\"\n\nBELTANE. \"And yet, 'spite thy cunning and all thy warring, thy purse\ngoeth empty!\"\n\nBOWMAN. \"My purse, Sir Dove? Aye, I told thee so for that I am by\nnature cautious--_sicut mos est nobis_! But thy dove's eyes are honest\neyes, so now shall you know that hid within the lining of this my left\nboot be eighty and nine gold pieces, and in my right a ring with stones\nof price, and, moreover, here behold a goodly chain.\"\n\nSo saying, the bowman drew from his bosom a gold chain, thick and long\nand heavy, and held it up in the sunlight.\n\n\"I got this, Sir Dove, together with the ring and divers other toys, at\nthe storming of Belsaye, five years agone. Aha! a right good town is\nBelsaye, and growing rich and fat against another plucking.\"\n\n\"And how came Belsaye to be stormed?\" Quoth Giles the Bowman, eying\nhis golden chain:\n\n\"My lord Duke Ivo had a mind to a certain lady, who was yet but a\nmerchant's daughter, look ye. But she was young and wondrous fair, for\nDuke Ivo hath a quick eye and rare judgment in such pretty matters. But\nshe (and she but a merchant's daughter!) took it ill, and when Duke\nIvo's messengers came to bear her to his presence, she whined and\nstruggled, as is ever woman's way, and thereafter in the open street\nsnatched a dagger and thereupon, before her father's very eye did slay\nherself (and she but a merchant's daughter!), whereat some hot-head\nplucked out sword and other citizens likewise, and of my lord Duke's\nmessengers there none escaped save one and he sore wounded. So Belsaye\ncity shut its gates 'gainst my lord Duke and set out fighting-hoards\nupon its walls. Yet my lord Duke battered and breached it, for few can\nmatch him in a siege, and stormed it within three days. And, by Saint\nGiles, though he lost the merchant's daughter methinks he lacked not\nat all, for the women of Belsaye are wondrous fair.\"\n\nThe rising sun made a glory all about them, pouring his beams 'twixt\nmighty trees whose knotted, far-flung branches dappled the way here and\nthere with shadow; but now Beltane saw nought of it by reason that he\nwalked with head a-droop and eyes that stared earthward; moreover his\nhands were clenched and his lips close and grim-set. As for Giles o'\nthe Bow, he chirrupped merrily to the ass, and whistled full\nmelodiously, mocking a blackbird that piped amid the green. Yet in a\nwhile he turned to stare at Beltane rubbing at his square, shaven chin\nwith strong, brown fingers.\n\n\"Forsooth,\" quoth he, nodding, \"thou'rt a lusty fellow, Sir\nGentleness, by the teeth of St. Giles, which is my patron saint, ne'er\nsaw I a goodlier spread of shoulder nor such a proper length of arm to\ntwirl an axe withal, and thy legs like me well--hast the makings of a\nright lusty man-at-arms in thee, despite thy soft and peaceful look!\"\n\n\"Yet a lover of peace am I!\" said Beltane, his head yet drooping.\n\n\"Peace, quotha--peace? Ha? by all the holy saints--peace! A soft word!\nA woman's word! A word smacking of babes and milk! Out upon thee, what\nhath a man with such an arm--aye, and legs--to do with peace? An you\nwould now, I could bring ye to good service 'neath Duke Ivo's banner.\n'Tis said he hath sworn, this year, to burn Thrasfordham keep, to hang\nBenedict o' the Mark and lay waste to Bourne. Aha! you shall see good\nfighting 'neath Ivo's banner, Sir Dove!\"\n\nThen Beltane raised his head and spake, swift and sudden, on this wise:\n\n\"An I must fight, the which God forbid, yet once this my sword is drawn\nne'er shall it rest till I lie dead or Black Ivo is no more.\"\n\nThen did the archer stare upon my Beltane in amaze with eyes full wide\nand mouth agape, nor spake he for awhile, then:\n\n\"Black Ivo--thou!\" he cried, and laughed amain. \"Go to, my tender\nyouth,\" said he, \"methinks a lute were better fitted to thy hand than\nthat great sword o' thine.\" Now beholding Beltane's gloomy face, he\nsmiled within his hand, yet eyed him thoughtfully thereafter, and so\nthey went with never a word betwixt them. But, in a while, the archer\nfell to snuffing the air, and clapped Beltane upon the shoulder.\n\n\"Aha!\" quoth he, \"methinks we reach the fair Duchy of Pentavalon; smell\nye aught, brother?\" And now, indeed, Beltane became aware of a cold\nwind, foul and noisome, a deadly, clammy air breathing of things\ncorrupt, chilling the flesh with swift unthinking dread; and, halting\nin disgust, he looked about him left and right.\n\n\"Above--above!\" cried Giles o' the Bow, \"this is Sir Pertolepe's\ncountry--look you heavenward, Sir Innocence!\"\n\nThen, lifting his eyes to the shivering leaves overhead, Beltane of a\nsudden espied a naked foot--a down-curving, claw-like thing,\nshrivelled and hideous, and, glancing higher yet, beheld a sight to\nblast the sun from heaven: now staring up at the contorted horror of\nthis shrivelled thing that once had lived and laughed, Beltane let fall\nhis staff and, being suddenly sick and faint, sank upon his knees and,\ncovering his eyes, crouched there in the grass the while that grisly,\nsilent thing swayed to and fro above him in the gentle wind of morning\nand the cord whereby it hung creaked faintly.\n\n\"How now--how now!\" cried Giles; \"do ye blench before this churlish\ncarrion? Aha! ye shall see the trees bear many such hereabouts. Get up,\nmy qualmish, maid-like youth; he ne'er shall injure thee nor any man\nagain--save by the nose--faugh! Rise, rise and let us be gone.\"\n\nSo, presently Beltane, shivering, got him to his feet and looking up,\npale-faced, beheld upon the ragged breast a parchment with this legend\nin fair, good writing:\n\nHE KILLED A DEER\n\nThen spake Beltane 'twixt pallid lips:\n\n\"And do they hang men for killing deer in this country?\"\n\n\"Aye, forsooth, and very properly, for, heed me, your ragged rogues be\na plenty, but a stag is a noble creature and something scarcer--\nmoreover they be the Duke's.\"\n\n\"By whose order was this done?\"\n\n\"Why, the parchment beareth the badge of Sir Pertolepe, called the Red.\nBut look you, Sir Innocent, no man may kill a deer unless he be of\ngentle blood.\"\n\n\"And wherefore?\"\n\n\"'Tis so the law!\"\n\n\"And who made the law?\"\n\n\"Why--as to that,\" quoth Giles, rubbing his chin, \"as to that--what\nmatters it to you or me? Pah! come away lest I stifle!\"\n\nBut now, even as they stood thus, out of the green came a cry, hoarse\nat first but rising ever higher until it seemed to fill the world about\nand set the very leaves a-quiver. Once it came, and twice, and so--was\ngone. Then Beltane trembling, stooped and caught up his long quarter-staff,\nand seized the bowman in a shaking hand that yet was strong, and\ndragging him from the ass all in a moment, plunged into the underbrush\nwhence the cry had come. And, in a while, they beheld a cottage upon\nwhose threshold a child lay--not asleep, yet very still; and beyond the\ncottage, his back to a tree, a great hairy fellow, quarter-staff in\nhand, made play against five others whose steel caps and ringed\nhauberks glittered in the sun. Close and ever closer they beset the\nhairy man who, bleeding at the shoulder, yet swung his heavy staff; but\never the glittering pike-heads thrust more close. Beside the man a\nwoman crouched, young and of comely seeming, despite wild hair and\ngarments torn and wrenched, who of a sudden, with another loud cry,\nleapt before the hairy man covering him with her clinging body and, in\nthat moment, her scream died to a choking gasp and she sank huddled\n'neath a pike-thrust. Then Beltane leapt, the great sword flashing in\nhis grasp, and smote the smiter and set his feet upon the writhing body\nand smote amain with terrible arm, and his laughter rang out fierce and\nwild. So for a space, sword clashed with pike, but ever Beltane,\nlaughing loud, drave them before him till but two remained and they\nwrithing upon the sward. Then Beltane turned to see Giles o' the Bow,\nwho leaned against a tree near by, wide-eyed and pale.\n\n\"Look!\" he cried, pointing with quivering finger, \"one dead and one\nsore hurt--Saint Giles save us, what have ye done? These be Sir\nPertolepe's foresters--behold his badge!\"\n\nBut Beltane laughed, fierce-eyed.\n\n\"How, bowman, dost blench before a badge, then? I was too meek and\ngentle for thee ere this, but now, if thou'rt afraid--get you gone!\"\n\n\"Art surely mad!\" quoth Giles. \"The saints be my witness here was no\nact of mine!\" So saying he turned away and hasted swift-footed through\nthe green. Now when the bowman was gone, Beltane turned him to the\nhairy man who yet kneeled beside the body of the woman. Said he:\n\n\"Good fellow, is there aught I may do for thee?\"\n\n\"Wife and child--and dead!\" the man muttered, \"child and wife--and\ndead! A week ago, my brother--and now, the child, and then the wife!\nChild and wife and brother--and dead!\" Then Beltane came, minded to aid\nhim with the woman, but the hairy man sprang before her, swinging his\ngreat staff and muttering in his beard; therefore Beltane, sick at\nheart, turned him away. And, in a while, being come to the road once\nmore, he became aware that he yet grasped his sword and beheld its\nbright steel dimmed here and there with blood, and, as he gazed, his\nbrow grew dark and troubled.\n\n\"'Tis thus have I made beginning,\" he sighed, \"so now, God aiding me,\nne'er will I rest 'till peace be come again and tyranny made an end\nof!\"\n\nThen, very solemnly, did my Beltane kneel him beside the way and\nlifting the cross hilt of his sword to heaven kissed it, and thereafter\nrose. And so, having cleansed the steel within the earth, he sheathed\nthe long blade and went, slowfooted, upon his way.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nHOW BELTANE HELD DISCOURSE WITH A BLACK FRIAR\n\nThe sun was high, and by his shadow Beltane judged it the noon hour;\nvery hot and very still it was, for the wind had died and leaf and twig\nhung motionless as though asleep. And presently as he went, a sound\nstole upon the stillness, a sound soft and beyond all things pleasant\nto hear, the murmurous ripple of running water near by. Going aside\ninto the green therefore, Beltane came unto a brook, and here, screened\nfrom the sun 'neath shady willows, he laid him down to drink, and to\nbathe face and hands in the cool water.\n\nNow as he lay thus, staring sad-eyed into the hurrying waters of the\nbrook, there came to him the clicking of sandalled feet, and glancing\nup, he beheld one clad as a black friar. A fat man he was, jolly of\nfigure and mightily round; his nose was bulbous and he had a drooping\nlip.\n\n\"Peace be unto thee, my son!\" quoth he, breathing short and loud, \"an\nevil day for a fat man who hath been most basely bereft of a goodly ass\n--holy Saint Dunstan, how I gasp!\" and putting back the cowl from his\ntonsured crown, he puffed out his cheeks and mopped his face. \"Hearkee\nnow, good youth, hath there passed thee by ever a ribald in an\nescalloped hood--an unhallowed, long-legged, scurvy archer knave\nastride a fair white ass, my son?\"\n\n\"Truly,\" nodded Beltane, \"we parted company scarce an hour since.\"\n\nThe friar sat him down in the shade of the willows and sighing, mopped\nhis face again; quoth he:\n\n\"Now may the curse of Saint Augustine, Saint Benedict, Saint Cuthbert\nand Saint Dominic light upon him for a lewd fellow, a clapper-claw, a\nthieving dog who hath no regard for Holy Church--forsooth a most\nvicious rogue, _monstrum nulla virtute redemptum a vitiis_!\"\n\n\"Good friar, thy tongue is something harsh, methinks. Here be four\nsaints with as many curses, and all for one small ass!\"\n\nThe friar puffed out his cheeks and sighed:\n\n\"'Twas a goodly ass, my son, a fair and gentle beast and of an easy\ngait, and I am one that loveth not to trip it in the dust. Moreover\n'twas the property of Holy Church! To take from thy fellow is evil, to\nsteal from thy lord is worse, but to ravish from Holy Church--_per de_\n'tis sacrilege, 'tis foul blasphemy thrice--aye thirty times damned and\nbeyond all hope of redemption! So now do I consign yon archer-knave to\nthe lowest pit of Acheron--_damnatus est_, amen! Yet, my son, here--by\nthe mercy of heaven is a treasure the rogue hath overlooked, a pasty\nmost rarely seasoned that I had this day from my lord's own table. 'Tis\nsomething small for two, alack and yet--stay--who comes?\"\n\nNow, lifting his head, Beltane beheld a man, bent and ragged who crept\ntowards them on a stick; his face, low-stooped, was hid 'neath long\nand matted hair, but his tatters plainly showed the hideous nakedness\nof limbs pinched and shrunken by famine, while about his neck was a\nheavy iron collar such as all serfs must needs wear. Being come near he\npaused, leaning upon his staff, and cried out in a strange, cracked\nvoice:\n\n\"O ye that are strong and may see the blessed sun, show pity on one\nthat is feeble and walketh ever in the dark!\" And now, beneath the\ntangled hair, Beltane beheld a livid face in whose pale oval, the\neyeless sockets glowed fierce and red; moreover he saw that the man's\nright arm was but a mutilated stump, whereat Beltane shivered and,\nbowing his head upon his hands, closed his eyes.\n\n\"Oho!\" cried the friar, \"and is it thou, Simon? Trouble ye the world\nyet, child of Satan?\"\n\nHereupon the blind man fell upon his knees. \"Holy father,\" he groaned,\nclasping his withered arms upon his gaunt breast, \"good Friar Gui I die\nof hunger; aid me lest I perish. 'Tis true I am outlaw and no man may\nminister unto me, yet be merciful, give me to eat--O gentle Christ, aid\nme--\"\n\n\"How!\" cried the friar, \"dare ye speak that name, ye that are breaker\nof laws human and divine, ye that are murderer, dare ye lift those\nbloody hands to heaven?\"\n\n\"Holy sir,\" quoth Beltane, \"he hath but one; I pray you now give him to\neat.\"\n\n\"Feed an outlaw! Art mad, young sir? Feed a murderer, a rogue banned by\nHoly Church, a serf that hath raised hand 'gainst his lord? He should\nhave hanged when the witch his daughter burned, but that Sir Pertolepe,\nwith most rare mercy, gave to the rogue his life.\"\n\n\"But,\" sighed Beltane, \"left him to starve--'tis a death full as sure\nyet slower, methinks. Come, let us feed him.\"\n\n\"I tell thee, fond youth, he is excommunicate. Wouldst have me\ncontravene the order of Holy Church? Go to!\"\n\nThen my Beltane put his hand within his pouch and taking thence a gold\npiece held it out upon his palm; said he:\n\n\"Friar, I will buy the half of thy pasty of thee!\" Hereupon Friar Gui\nstared from the gold to the pasty, and back again.\n\n\"So much!\" quoth he, round-eyed. \"Forsooth 'tis a noble pasty and yet--\nnay, nay, tempt me not--_retro Sathanas!_\" and closing his eyes he\ncrossed himself. Then Beltane took out other two gold pieces and set\nthem in the blind man's bony hand, saying:\n\n\"Take these three gold pieces and buy you food, and thereafter--\"\n\n\"Gold!\" cried the blind man, \"gold! Now the Saints keep and bless thee,\nyoung sir, sweet Jesu love thee ever!\" and fain would he have knelt to\nkiss my Beltane's feet. But Beltane raised him up with gentle hand,\nspeaking him kindly, as thus:\n\n\"Tell now, I pray you, how came ye to slay?\"\n\n\"Stay! stay!\" cried Friar Gui, \"bethink thee, good youth--so much gold,\n'tis a very fortune! With so much, masses might be sung for his\nwretched soul; give it therefore to Holy Church, so shall he,\nperadventure, attain Paradise.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" answered Beltane, \"I had rather he, of a surety, attain a\nfull belly, Sir Friar.\" Then, turning his back upon the friar, Beltane\nquestioned the blind man again, as thus:\n\n\"Tell me, an ye will, how ye came to shed blood?\" and the outlaw,\nkneeling at Beltane's feet answered with bowed head:\n\n\"Noble sir, I had a daughter and she was young and fair, therefore came\nmy lord Pertolepe's chief verderer to bear her to my lord. But she\ncried to me and I, forgetting my duty to my lord, took my quarter-staff\nand, serf though I was, smote the chief verderer that he died\nthereafter, but, ere he died, he named my daughter witch. And, when\nthey had burned her, they put out mine eyes, and cut off my hand, and\nmade of me an outlaw. So is my sin very heavy upon me.\"\n\nNow when the man had made an end, Beltane stood silent awhile, then,\nreaching down, he aided the blind man to his feet.\n\n\"Go you to Mortain,\" said he, \"seek out the hermit Ambrose that liveth\nin Holy Cross Thicket; with him shall you find refuge, and he,\nmethinks, will surely win thy soul to heaven.\"\n\nSo the blind man blessed my Beltane and turning, crept upon his\nsolitary way.\n\n\"Youth,\" said the friar, frowning up into Beltane's gentle eyes, \"thou\nhast this day put thy soul in jeopardy--the Church doth frown upon this\nthy deed!\"\n\n\"And yet, most reverend sir, God's sun doth shine upon this my body!\"\n\nFRIAR. \"He who aideth an evil-doer is enemy to the good!\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Yet he who seeketh to do good to evil that good may follow,\ndoeth no evil to good.\"\n\nFRIAR. \"Ha! thou art a menace to the state--\"\n\nBELTANE. \"So shall I be, I pray God, the whiles this state continue!\"\n\nFRIAR. \"Thou art either rogue or fool!\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Well, thou hast thy choice.\"\n\nFRIAR. \"Alack! this sorry world is full of rogues and fools and--\"\n\nBELTANE. \"And friars!\"\n\nFRIAR. \"Who seek the salvation of this wretched world.\"\n\nBELTANE. \"As how?\"\n\nFRIAR. \"Forsooth we meditate and pray--\"\n\nBELTANE. \"And eat!\"\n\nFRIAR. \"Aye verily, we do a little in that way as the custom is, for\nyour reverent eater begetteth a devout pray-er. The which mindeth me I\ngrow an hungered, yet will I forego appetite and yield thee this fair\npasty for but two of thy gold pieces. And, look ye, 'tis a noble pasty\nI had this day from my lord Pertolepe's own table.\"\n\nBELTANE. \"That same lord that showed mercy on yonder poor maimed\nwretch? Know you him?\"\n\nFRIAR. \"In very sooth, and 'tis a potent lord that holdeth me in some\nesteem, a most Christian knight--\"\n\nBELTANE. \"That ravisheth the defenceless! Whose hands be foul with the\nblood of innocence--\"\n\nFRIAR. \"How--how? 'Tis a godly lord who giveth bounteously to Holy\nChurch--\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Who stealeth from the poor--\"\n\nFRIAR. \"Stealeth! Holy Saint Dunstan, dare ye speak thus of so great a\nlord--a son of the Church, a companion of our noble Duke? Steal,\nforsooth! The poor have nought to steal!\"\n\nBELTANE. \"They have their lives.\"\n\nFRIAR. \"Not so, they and their lives are their lord's, 'tis so the law\nand--\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Whence came this law?\"\n\nFRIAR. \"It came, youth--it came--aye, of God!\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Say rather of the devil!\"\n\nFRIAR. \"Holy Saint Michael--'tis a blasphemous youth! Never heard ears\nthe like o' this--\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Whence cometh poverty and famine?\"\n\nFRIAR. \"'Tis a necessary evil! Doth it not say in Holy Writ, 'the poor\nye have always with you'?\"\n\nBELTANE. \"Aye, so shall ye ever--until the laws be amended. So needs\nmust men starve and starve--\"\n\nFRIAR. \"There be worse things! And these serfs be born to starve, bred\nup to it, and 'tis better to starve here than to perish hereafter,\nbetter to purge the soul by lack of meat than to make of it a fetter of\nthe soul!\"\n\n\"Excellently said, holy sir!\" quoth Beltane, stooping of a sudden. \"But\nfor this pasty now, 'tis a somewhat solid fetter, meseemeth, so now do\nI free thee of it--thus!\" So saying, my Beltane dropped the pasty into\nthe deeper waters of the brook and, thereafter, took up his staff. \"Sir\nFriar,\" said he, \"behold to-day is thy soul purged of a pasty against\nthe day of judgment!\"\n\nThen Beltane went on beside the rippling waters of the brook, but above\nits plash and murmur rose the deeptoned maledictions of Friar Gui.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nWHEREIN IS SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF FOLLY AND THE WISDOM OF A\nFOOL\n\n\nAs the day advanced the sun grew ever hotter; birds chirped drowsily\nfrom hedge and thicket, and the warm, still air was full of the\nslumberous drone of a myriad unseen wings. Therefore Beltane sought the\ndeeper shade of the woods and, risking the chance of roving thief or\nlurking foot-pad, followed a devious course by reason of the\nunderbrush.\n\nNow as he walked him thus, within the cool, green twilight, watchful of\neye and with heavy quarter-staff poised upon his shoulder, he presently\nheard the music of a pipe now very mournful and sweet, anon breaking\ninto a merry lilt full of rippling trills and soft, bubbling notes most\npleasant to be heard. Wherefore he went aside and thus, led by the\nmusic, beheld a jester in his motley lying a-sprawl beneath a tree. A\nlong-legged knave was he, pinched and something doleful of visage yet\nwith quick bright eyes that laughed 'neath sombre brows, and a wide,\nup-curving mouth; upon his escalloped cape and flaunting cock's-comb\nwere many little bells that rang a silvery chime as, up-starting to his\nelbow, he greeted my Beltane thus:\n\n\"Hail, noble, youthful Sir, and of thy sweet and gracious courtesy I\npray you mark me this--the sun is hot, my belly lacketh, and thou art a\nfool!\"\n\n\"And wherefore?\" questioned Beltane, leaning him upon his quarter-staff.\n\n\"For three rarely reasonable reasons, sweet sir, as thus:--item, for\nthat the sun burneth, item, my belly is empty, and item, thou, lured by\nthis my foolish pipe art hither come to folly. So I, a fool, do greet\nthee, fool, and welcome thee to this my palace of ease and pleasaunce\nwhere, an ye be minded to list to the folly of a rarely foolish fool, I\nwill, with foolish jape and quip, befool thy mind to mirth and jollity,\nfor thou art a sad fool, methinks, and something melancholic!\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, sighing:\n\n\"'Tis a sad world and very sorrowful!\"\n\n\"Nay--'tis a sweet world and very joyful--for such as have eyes to see\nwithal!\"\n\n\"To see?\" quoth Beltane, frowning, \"this day have I seen a dead man\na-swing on a tree, a babe dead beside its cradle, and a woman die upon\na spear! All day have I breathed an air befouled by nameless evil;\nwhithersoever I go needs must I walk 'twixt Murder and Shame!\"\n\n\"Then look ever before thee, so shalt see neither.\"\n\n\"Yet will they be there!\"\n\n\"Yet doth the sun shine in high heaven, so must these things be till\nGod and the saints shall mend them. But if thou must needs be doleful,\ngo make thee troubles of thine own but leave the woes of this wide\nworld to God!\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Beltane, shaking his head, \"how if God leave these things\nto thee and me?\"\n\n\"Why then methinks the world must wag as it will. Yet must we repine\ntherefore? Out upon thee for a sober, long-legged, doleful wight. Now\nharkee! Here sit I--less fool! A fool who hath, this day, been driven\nforth of my lord's presence with blows and cruel stripes! And\nwherefore? 'Twas for setting a bird free of its cage, a small matter\nmethinks--though there be birds--and birds, but mum for that! Yet do I\ngrieve and sigh therefore, O doleful long-shanks? Not so--fie on't! I\nblow away my sorrows through the music of this my little pipe and,\nlying here, set my wits a-dancing and lo! I am a duke, a king, a very\ngod! I create me a world wherein is neither hunger nor stripes, a world\nof joy and laughter, for, blessed within his dreams, even a fool may\nwalk with gods and juggle with the stars!\"\n\n\"Aye,\" nodded Beltane, \"but how when he awake?\"\n\n\"Why then, messire,\" laughed the fellow, leaping nimbly to his feet,\n\"why then doth he ask alms of thee, as thus: Prithee most noble\nmessire, of thy bounty show kindness to a fool that lacks everything\nbut wit. So give, messire, give and spare not, so may thy lady prove\nkind, thy wooing prosper and love strengthen thee.\"\n\nNow when the jester spake of love, my Beltane must needs sigh amain and\nshake a doleful head.\n\n\"Alas!\" said he, \"within my life shall be no place for love, methinks.\"\n\n\"Heigho!\" sighed the jester, \"thy very look doth proclaim thee lover,\nand 'tis well, for love maketh the fool wise and the wise fool, it\nchangeth saints into rogues and rogues into saints, it teacheth the\nstrong man gentleness and maketh the gentle strong. 'Tis sweeter than\nhoney yet bitter as gall--Love! ah, love can drag a man to hell or lift\nhim high as heaven!\"\n\n\"Aye verily,\" sighed Beltane, \"I once did dream of such a love, but now\nam I awake, nor will I dream of love again, nor rest whiles Lust and\nCruelty rule this sorrowful Duchy--\"\n\n\"Ha, what would ye then, fond youth?\"\n\n\"I am come to smite them hence,\" said Beltane, clenching mighty fists.\n\n\"How?\" cried the jester, wide of eye. \"Alone?\"\n\n\"Nay, methinks God goeth with me. Moreover, I have this sword!\" and\nspeaking, Beltane touched the hilt of the great blade at his side.\n\n\"What--a sword!\" scoffed the jester, \"think ye to mend the woes of thy\nfellows with a sword? Go to, thou grave-visaged, youthful fool! I tell\nthee, 'tis only humour and good fellowship can mend this wretched\nworld, and there is nought so lacking in humour as a sword--unless it\nbe your prating priest or mumbling monk. A pope in cap and bells, now--\naha, there would be a world indeed, a world of joy and laughter! No\nmore gloom, no more bans and damnings of Holy Church, no more groaning\nand snivelling in damp cloister and mildewed chapel, no more burnings\nand hangings and rackings--\"\n\n\"Yet,\" said Beltane, shaking his head, \"yet would kings and dukes\nremain, Christian knights and godly lords to burn and hang and rack the\ndefenceless.\"\n\n\"Aye, Sir Gravity,\" nodded the jester, \"but the Church is paramount\never; set the pope a-blowing of tunes upon a reed and kings would lay\nby their sceptres and pipe too and, finding no time or lust for\nwarring, so strife would end, swords rust and wit grow keen. And wit,\nlook you, biteth sharper than sword, laughter is more enduring than\nblows, and he who smiteth, smiteth only for lack of wit. So, an you\nwould have a happy world, lay by that great sword and betake thee to a\nlittle pipe, teach men to laugh and so forget their woes. Learn wisdom\nof a fool, as thus: 'Tis better to live and laugh and beget thy kind\nthan to perish by the sword or to dangle from a tree. Here now is\nadvice, and in this advice thy life, thus in giving thee advice so do I\ngive thee thy life. And I am hungry. And in thy purse is money\nwherewith even a fool might come by food. And youth is generous! And\nthou art very young! Come, sweet youthful messire, how much for thy\nlife--and a fool's advice?\"\n\nThen Beltane smiled, and taking out one of his three remaining gold\npieces, put it in the jester's hand.\n\n\"Fare thee well, good fool,\" said he, \"I leave thee to thy dreams; God\nsend they be ever fair--\"\n\n\"Gold!\" cried the jester, spinning the coin upon his thumb, \"ha, now do\nI dream indeed; may thy waking be ever as joyous. Farewell to thee,\nthou kind, sweet, youthful fool, and if thou must hang some day on a\ntree, may every leaf voice small prayers for thy gentle soul!\"\n\nSo saying, the jester nodded, waved aloft his bauble, and skipped away\namong the trees. But as Beltane went, pondering the jester's saying,\nthe drowsy stillness was shivered by a sudden, loud cry, followed\nthereafter by a clamour of fierce shouting; therefore Beltane paused\nand turning, beheld the jester himself who ran very fleetly, yet with\nthree lusty fellows in close pursuit.\n\n\"Messire,\" panted the jester, wild of eye and with a trickle of blood\nupon his pallid face, \"O sweet sir--let them not slay me!\"\n\nNow while he spake, and being yet some way off, he tripped and fell,\nand, as he lay thus the foremost of his pursuers, a powerful, red-faced\nman, leapt towards him, whirling up his quarter-staff to smite; but, in\nthat moment, Beltane leapt also and took the blow upon his staff and\nswung it aloft, yet stayed the blow, and, bestriding the prostrate\njester, spake soft and gentle, on this wise:\n\n\"Greeting to thee, forest fellow! Thy red face liketh me well, let us\ntalk together.\"\n\nBut, hereupon, as the red-faced man fell back, staring in amaze, there\ncame his two companions, albeit panting and short of breath.\n\n\"What, Roger,\" cried one, \"doth this fellow withstand thee?\"\n\nBut Roger only growled, whiles Beltane smiled upon the three, gentle-eyed,\nbut with heavy quarter-staff poised lightly in practised hand; quoth he:\n\n\"How now, would ye harm the fool? 'Tis a goodly fool forsooth, yet with\nlegs scarce so nimble as his wit, and a tongue--ha, a golden tongue to\nwin all men to humour and good fellowship--\"\n\n\"Enough!\" growled red-faced Roger, \"Sir Pertolepe's foresters we be,\ngive us yon scurvy fool then, that we may hang him out of hand.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" answered Beltane, \"first let us reason together, let us hark to\nthe wisdom of Folly and grow wise--\"\n\n\"Ha, Roger!\" cried one of the men, \"tap me this tall rogue on his\ngolden mazzard!\"\n\n\"Or,\" said Beltane, \"the fool shall charm thy souls to kindliness with\nhis pipe--\"\n\n\"Ho, Roger!\" cried the second forester, \"split me this tall talker's\nyellow sconce, now!\"\n\n\"Come,\" growled Roger, threatening of mien, \"yield us the fool, 'tis an\narrant knave hath angered his lord!\"\n\n\"What matter for that,\" said Beltane, \"so he hath not angered his God?\nCome now, ye be hearty fellows and have faces that might be honest,\ntell me, how long will ye serve the devil?\"\n\n\"Devil? Ha, what talk be this? We serve no devil!\"\n\n\"Aye,\" nodded Beltane, \"though they call him Pertolepe the Red,\nhereabouts.\"\n\n\"Devil!\" cried Black Roger aghast. And, falling back a step he gaped in\namaze from Beltane to his gaping fellows. \"Devil, forsooth!\" he gasped,\n\"aha, I've seen many a man hang for less than this--\"\n\n\"True,\" sighed Beltane, \"men hang for small matters here in Pentavalon,\nand to hang is an evil death, methinks!\"\n\n\"So, so!\" nodded Black Roger, grim-smiling, \"I've watched them kick a\nfair good while, betimes!\"\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Beltane, his eyes widening, \"those hands of thine, belike,\nhave hanged a man ere this?\"\n\n\"Aye, many a score. Oho! folk know Black Roger's name hereabouts. I\ncarry ever a noose at my girdle here--behold it!\" and he showed a coil\nof rope that swung at his belt.\n\nNow looking from the man's grim features to this murderous cord,\nBeltane blenched and shivered, whereat Black Roger laughed aloud, and\npointed a scornful finger.\n\n\"Look'ee, 'tis fair, good rope this, and well-tried, and shall bear\neven thy great carcase sweetly--aye, sweetly--\"\n\n\"How--would'st hang me also?\" said Beltane faintly, and the heavy\nquarter-staff sagged in his loosened grip.\n\n\"Hang thee--aye. Thou didst withstand us with this fool, thou hast\ndared miscall our lord--we be all witnesses to it. So now will we--\"\n\nBut swift as lightning-flash, Beltane's long quarter-staff whirled and\nfell, and, for all his hood of mail, Black Roger threw wide his arms\nand, staggering, fell upon his face and so lay; then, fierce and grim,\nhe had leapt upon the other two, and the air was full of the rattle and\nthud of vicious blows. But these foresters were right lusty fellows and\nthey, together, beset my Beltane so furiously, right and left, that he\nperforce gave back 'neath their swift and grievous blows and, being\novermatched, turned and betook him to his heels, whereat they,\nincontinent, pursued with loud gibes and fierce laughter. But on ran\nBeltane up the glade very fleetly yet watchful of eye, until, seeing\none had outstripped his fellow, he checked his going somewhat,\nstumbling as one that is spent, whereat the forester shouted the louder\nand came on amain. Then did my cunning Beltane leap aside and, leaping,\nturned and smote the fellow clean and true upon the crown, and,\nlaughing to see him fall, ran in upon the other forester with whirling\nquarter-staff. Now this fellow seeing himself stand alone, stayed not\nto abide the onset, but turning about, made off into the green. Then\nBeltane leaned him, panting, upon his staff, what time the fallen man\ngot him unsteadily to his legs and limped after his comrade; as for the\njester, he was gone long since; only Black Roger lay upon his face and\ngroaned faintly, ever and anon. Wherefore came Beltane and stood above\nhim as one in thought and, seeing him begin to stir, took from him his\nsword and coil of rope and loosing off his swordbelt, therewith bound\nhis hands fast together and so, dragged him 'neath a tree that stood\nhard by. Thus when at last Black Roger opened his eyes, he beheld\nBeltane standing above him and in his hand the deadly rope. Now,\nlooking from this to the desolation about him, Black Roger shivered,\nand gazing up into' the stern face above, his florid cheek grew pale.\n\n\"Master,\" said he hoarsely, \"what would ye?\"\n\n\"I would do to thee as thou hast done to others.\"\n\n\"Hang me?\"\n\n\"Aye!\" quoth Beltane, and setting the noose about his neck, cast the\nrope across a branch.\n\n\"Master, how shall my death profit thee?\"\n\n\"The world shall be the better, and thy soul know less of sin, mayhap.\"\n\n\"Master,\" said Black Roger, stooping to wipe sweat from his face with\nfettered hands, \"I have store of money set by--\"\n\nBut Beltane laughed with pallid lips, and, pulling upon the rope,\ndragged Black Roger, choking, to his feet.\n\n\"Master,\" he gasped, \"show a little mercy--\"\n\n\"Hast ever shown mercy to any man--speak me true!\"\n\n\"Alack!--no, master! And yet--\"\n\n\"How then shall ye expect mercy? Thou hast burnt and hanged and\nravished the defenceless, so now shall be an end of it for thee, yet--O\nmark me this, thy name shall live on accursed in memory long after\nthou'rt but poor dust.\"\n\n\"Aye, there be many alive to curse Black Roger living, and many dead to\ncurse me when I'm dead; poor Roger's soul shall find small mercy\nhereafter, methinks--ha, I never thought on this!\"\n\n\"Thou had'st a mother--\"\n\n\"Aye, but they burned her for a witch when I was but a lad. As for me,\n'tis true I've hanged men, yet I was my lord's chief verderer and did\nbut as my lord commanded.\"\n\n\"A man hath choice of good or evil.\"\n\n\"Aye. So now, an I must die--I must, but O master, say a prayer for me--\nmy sins lie very heavy--\"\n\nBut Beltane, trembling, pulled upon the rope and swung Black Roger\nwrithing in mid-air; then, of a sudden, loosing the rope, the forester\nfell and, while he lay gasping, Beltane stooped and loosed the rope\nfrom his neck.\n\n\"What now?\" groaned the forester, wild-eyed, \"Sweet Jesu--ah, torture\nme not!\"\n\n\"Take back thy life,\" said Beltane, \"and I pray God that henceforth\nthou shalt make of it better use, and live to aid thy fellows, so shall\nthey, mayhap, some day come to bless thy memory.\"\n\nThen Black Roger, coming feebly to his knees, looked about him as one\nthat wakes upon a new world, and lifted wide eyes from green earth to\ncloudless sky.\n\n\"To live!\" quoth he, \"to live!\" And so, with sudden gesture, stooped\nhis head to hide his face 'neath twitching fingers.\n\nHereupon Beltane smiled, gentle-eyed, yet spake not, and, turning,\ncaught up his staff and went softly upon his way, leaving Black Roger\nthe forester yet upon his knees.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nHOW BELTANE MADE COMRADE ONE BLACK ROGER THAT WAS A HANGMAN\n\n\nThe sun was low what time Beltane came to a shrine that stood beside\nthe way, where was a grot built by some pious soul for the rest and\nrefreshment of wearied travellers; and here also was a crystal spring\nthe which, bubbling up, fell with a musical plash into the basin\nhollowed within the rock by those same kindly hands. Here Beltane\nstayed and, when he had drunk his fill, laid him down in the grateful\nshade and setting his cloak beneath his head, despite his hunger,\npresently fell asleep. When he awoke the sun was down and the world was\nbecome a place of mystery and glooming shadow; a bird called\nplaintively afar off in the dusk, the spring bubbled softly near by,\nbut save for this a deep silence brooded over all things; above the\ngloom of the trees the sky was clear, where bats wheeled and hovered,\nand beyond the purple upland an orbed moon was rising.\n\nNow as Beltane breathed the cool, sweet air of evening and looked about\nhim drowsily, he suddenly espied a shadow within the shadows, a dim\nfigure--yet formidable and full of menace, and he started up, weapon in\nfist, whereupon the threatening figure stirred and spake:\n\n\"Master--'tis I!\" said a voice. Then Beltane came forth of the grot and\nstared upon Black Roger, grave-eyed.\n\n\"O Hangman,\" said he, \"where is thy noose?\"\n\nBut Roger quailed and hung his head, and spake with eyes abased:\n\n\"Master, I burned it, together with my badge of service.\"\n\n\"And what would ye here?\"\n\n\"Sir, I am a masterless man henceforth, for an I hang not men for Sir\nPertolepe, so will Sir Pertolepe assuredly hang me.\"\n\n\"And fear ye death?\"\n\n\"Messire, I--have hanged many men and--there were women also! I have\ncut me a tally here on my belt, see--there be many notches--and every\nnotch a life. So now for every life these hands have taken do I vow to\nsave a life an it may be so, and for every life saved would I cut away\na notch until my belt be smooth again and my soul the lighter.\"\n\n\"Why come ye to me, Black Roger?\"\n\n\"For that this day, at dire peril, I saw thee save a fool, Master. So\nnow am I come to thee to be thy man henceforth, to follow and serve\nthee while life remain.\"\n\n\"Why look now,\" quoth Beltane, \"mine shall be a hard service and a\ndangerous, for I have mighty wrongs to set aright.\"\n\n\"Ha! belike thou art under some vow also, master?\"\n\n\"Aye, verily, nor will I rest until it be accomplished or I am slain.\nFor mark this, lonely am I, with enemies a many and strong, yet because\nof my vow needs must I smite them hence or perish in the adventure.\nThus, he that companies me must go ever by desperate ways, and 'tis\nlike enough Death shall meet him in the road.\"\n\n\"Master,\" quoth Black Roger, \"this day have ye shown me death yet given\nme new life, so beseech thee let me serve thee henceforth and aid thee\nin this thy vow.\"\n\nNow hereupon Beltane smiled and reached forth his hand; then Black\nRoger falling upon his knee, touched the hand to lip, and forehead and\nheart, taking him for his lord henceforth, and spake the oath of\nfealty: but when he would have risen, Beltane stayed him:\n\n\"What, Black Roger, thou hast sworn fealty and obedience to me--now\nswear me this to God:--to hold ever, and abide by, thy word: to shew\nmercy to the distressed and to shield the helpless at all times!\"\n\nAnd when he had sworn, Black Roger rose bright-eyed and eager.\n\n\"Lord,\" said he, \"whither do we go?\"\n\n\"Now,\" quoth Beltane, \"shew me where I may eat, for I have a mighty\nhunger.\"\n\n\"Forsooth,\" quoth Roger, scratching his chin, \"Shallowford village\nlieth but a bowshot through the brush yonder--yet, forsooth, a man\nshall eat little there, methinks, these days.\"\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"For that 'twas burned down, scarce a week agone--\"\n\n\"Burned!--and wherefore?\"\n\n\"Lord Pertolepe fell out with his neighbour Sir Gilles of Brandonmere--\nupon the matter of some wench, methinks it was--wherefore came Sir\nGilles' men by night and burned down Shallowford with twenty hunting\ndogs of Sir Pertolepe's that chanced to be there: whereupon my lord\nwaxed mighty wroth and, gathering his company, came into the demesne of\nSir Gilles and burned down divers manors and hung certain rogues and\ndestroyed two villages--in quittance.\"\n\n\"Ah--and what of the village folk?\"\n\n\"My lord, they were but serfs for the most part, but--for Sir\nPertolepe's dogs--twenty and two--and roasted alive, poor beasts!\"\n\nBut here Black Roger checked both speech and stride, all at once, and\nstood with quarter-staff poised as from the depth of the wood came the\nsound of voices and fierce laughter.\n\n\"Come away, master,\" he whispered, \"these should be Sir Pertolepe's\nmen, methinks.\"\n\nBut Beltane shook his head:\n\n\"I'm fain to see why they laugh,\" said he, and speaking, stole forward\nsoft-footed amid the shadows; and so presently parting the leaves,\nlooked down into an open dell or dingle full of the light of the rising\nmoon; light that glinted upon the steel caps and hauberks of some score\nmen, who leaned upon pike or gisarm about one who sat upon a fallen\ntree--and Beltane saw that this was Giles the Bowman. But the arms of\nGiles were bound behind his back, about his neck hung a noose, and his\nface showed white and pallid 'neath the moon, as, lifting up his head,\nhe began to sing:\n\n  \"O ne'er shall my lust for the bowl decline,\n   Nor my love for my good long bow;\n   For as bow to the shaft and as bowl to the wine,\n   Is a--\"\n\nThe rich voice was strangled to a gasping sob as the rope was tightened\nsuddenly about the singer's brawny throat and he was swung, kicking,\ninto the air amid the hoarse gibes and laughter of the men-at-arms.\nBut, grim and silent, Beltane leaped down among them, his long blade\nglittering in the moonlight, and before the mighty sweep of it they\nfell back, crowding upon each other and confused; then Beltane,\nturning, cut asunder the cord and Giles Brabblecombe fell and lay\n'neath the shade of the tree, wheezing and whimpering in the grass.\n\nAnd now with a clamour of cries and fierce rallying shouts, the\nmen-at-arms, seeing Beltane stand alone, set themselves in array and\nbegan to close in upon him. But Beltane, facing them in the tender\nmoonlight, set the point of his sword to earth and reached out his\nmailed hand in salutation.\n\n\"Greeting, brothers!\" said he, \"why seek ye the death of this our\nbrother? Come now, suffer him to go his ways in peace, and God's\nblessing on ye, one and all.\"\n\nNow at this some laughed and some growled, and one stood forth before\nhis fellows staring upon Beltane 'neath close-drawn, grizzled brows:\n\n\"'Tis a rogue, and shall dance for us upon a string!\" laughed he.\n\n\"And this tall fellow with him!\" said another.\n\n\"Aye, aye, let us hang 'em together,\" cried others.\n\n\"Stay!\" said Beltane, \"behold here money; so now will I ransom this\nman's life of ye. Here be two pieces of gold, 'tis my all--yet take\nthem and yield me his life!\"\n\nHereupon the men fell to muttering together doubtfully, but in this\nmoment the grizzled man of a sudden raised a knotted fist and shook it\nin the air.\n\n\"Ha!\" cried he, pointing to Beltane, \"look ye, Cuthbert, Rollo--see ye\nnot 'tis him we seek? Mark ye the size of him, his long sword and belt\nof silver--'tis he that came upon us in the green this day and slew our\ncomrade Michael. Come now, let us hang him forthwith and share his\nmoney betwixt us after.\"\n\nThen my Beltane sighed amain, and sighing, unsheathed his dagger.\n\n\"Alas!\" said he, \"and must we shed each other's blood forsooth? Come\nthen, let us slay each other, and may Christ have pity on our souls!\"\n\nThus saying, he glanced up at the pale splendour of the moon, and round\nhim on the encircling shadows of the woods dense and black beneath the\nmyriad leaves, and so, quick-eyed and poised for action, waited for the\nrush.\n\nAnd, even as they came upon him, he sprang aside where the gloom lay\nblackest, and they being many and the clearing small, they hampered\neach other and fell into confusion; and, in that moment, Beltane leapt\namong them and smote, and smote again, now in the moonlight, now in\nshadow; leaping quick-footed from the thrust of sword and pike,\ncrouching 'neath the heavy swing of axe and gisarm; and ever his\nterrible blade darted with deadly point or fell with deep-biting edge.\nHands gripped at him from the gloom, arms strove to clasp him, but his\ndagger-hand was swift and strong. Pike heads leapt at him and were\nsmitten away, axe and gisarm struck, yet found him not, and ever, as he\nleapt, he smote. And now in his ears were cries and groans and other\nhateful sounds, and to his nostrils came a reek of sweating flesh and\nthe scent of trampled grass; while the moon's tender light showed faces\nwild and fierce, that came and went, now here--now there; it glinted on\nhead-piece and ringed mail, and flashed back from whirling steel--a\nround, placid moon that seemed, all at once, to burst asunder and\nvanish, smitten into nothingness. He was down--beaten to his knee,\ndeafened and half blind, but struggling to his feet he staggered out\nfrom the friendly shadow of the trees, out into the open. A sword,\nhard-driven, bent and snapped short upon his triple mail, the blow of a\ngisarm half stunned him, a goring pike-thrust drove him reeling back,\nyet, ringed in by death, he thrust and smote with failing arm. Axe and\npike, sword and gisarm hedged him in nearer and nearer, his sword grew\nsuddenly heavy and beyond his strength to wield, but stumbling,\nslipping, dazed and with eyes a-swim, he raised the great blade aloft,\nand lifting drooping head, cried aloud the battle-cry of his house--\nhigh and clear it rang above the din:\n\n\"Arise! Arise! I will arise!\"\n\nAnd even in that moment came one in answer to the cry, one that leapt\nto his right hand, a wild man and hairy who plied a gleaming axe and,\n'twixt each stroke, seemed, from hairy throat, to echo back the cry:\n\n\"Arise! Arise!\"\n\nAnd now upon his left was Black Roger, fierce-eyed behind his buckler.\nThereafter a voice hailed them as from far away, a sweet, deep voice,\ncheery and familiar as one heard aforetime in a dream, and betwixt\nevery sentence came the twang of swift-drawn bow-string.\n\n\"O tall brother, fall back! O gentle paladin, O fair flower of lusty\nfighters, fall back and leave the rest to our comrades, to me and my\ngood bow, here!\"\n\nSo, dazed and breathless, came Beltane on stumbling feet and leaned him\ngasping in the shadow of a great tree whereby stood Giles o' the Bow\nwith arrows planted upright in the sod before him, the which he\nsnatched and loosed so fast 'twas a wonder to behold. Of a sudden he\nuttered a shout and, setting by his bow, drew sword, and leaping from\nthe shadow, was gone.\n\nBut, as for Beltane, he leaned a while against the tree as one who is\nvery faint; yet soon, lifting heavy head, wondered at the hush of all\nthings, and looking toward the clearing saw it empty and himself alone;\ntherefore turned he thitherwards. Now as he went he stumbled and his\nfoot struck a something soft and yielding that rolled before him in the\nshadow out--out into the full brilliance of the moon, and looking down,\nhe beheld a mangled head that stared up at him wide-eyed and with mouth\nagape. Then Beltane let fall his reeking sword and staggering out into\nthe light, saw his bright mail befouled with clotted blood, and of a\nsudden the world went black about him and he fell and lay with his face\namong the trampled grass.\n\nIn a while he groaned and opened his eyes to find Black Roger bathing\nhis face what time Giles o' the Bow held wine to his lips, while at his\nfeet, a wild figure grim and ragged, stood a tall, hairy man leaning\nupon a blood-stained axe.\n\n\"Aha!\" cried the bowman. \"Come now, my lovely fighter, my gentle giant,\nsup this--'tis life, and here behold a venison steak fit for Duke Ivo's\nself, come--\"\n\n\"Nay, first,\" says Beltane, sitting up, \"are there many hurt?\"\n\n\"Aye, never fear for that, my blood-thirsty dove, they be all most\ncompletely dead save one, and he sore wounded, _laus Deo, amen!_\"\n\n\"Dead!\" cried Beltane, shivering, \"dead, say you?\"\n\n\"Aye, Sir Paladin, all sweetly asleep in Abraham's bosom. We three here\naccounted for some few betwixt us, the rest fell 'neath that great\nblade o' thine. O sweet Saint Giles! ne'er saw I such sword-work--point\nand edge, sa-ha! And I called thee--dove!--aye 'dove' it was, I mind\nme. O blind and worse than blind! But _experientia docet_, tall\nbrother!\"\n\nNow hereupon Beltane bowed his head and clasping his hands, wrung them.\n\n\"Sweet Jesu forgive me!\" he cried, \"I had not meant to slay so many!\"\n\nThen he arose and went apart and, kneeling among the shadows, prayed\nlong and fervently.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nWHICH TELLS HOW THREE MIGHTY MEN SWARE FEALTY TO BELTANE: AND HOW GOOD\nFRIAR MARTIN DIGGED A GRAVE IN THE WILD\n\n\nNow when Beltane's mighty hunger was assuaged he sat--his aching head\nyet ringing with the blow--and stared up at the moon, sad and wistful-eyed\nas one full of heaviness the while Black Roger standing beside him\ngazed askance at the archer who sat near by whistling softly and busied\nwith certain arrows, cleaning and trimming them ere he set them back in\nhis quiver. And presently Black Roger spake softly, low-stooping to\nBeltane's ear:\n\n\"Lord, we have saved the life of yon prating archer-fellow, and behold\nmy belt lacketh for one notch, which is well. So come, let us go our\nways, thou and I, for I love not your talkers, and this fellow hath\novermuch to say.\"\n\nBut now, ere Beltane could make reply, came the hairy man--but behold\nhis rags had given place to fair garments of tanned leather (albeit\nsomething small) together with steel cap and shirt of ringed mail, and,\nabout his middle, a broad belt where swung a heavy sword; being come to\nBeltane he paused leaning upon his axe, and gazed upon him fierce-eyed:\n\n\"Messire,\" said he, \"who ye are I know not, what ye are I care not, for\nart quick of foot and mighty of arm, and when ye fight, cry a point of\nwar, a battle-shout I knew aforetime ere they enslaved and made of me a\nserf--and thus it is I would follow thee.\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, his aching head upon his hand:\n\n\"Whither?\"\n\n\"To death if needs be, for a man must die soon or late, yet die but\nonce whether it be by the steel, or flame, or rope. So what matter the\nway of it, if I may stand with this my axe face to face with Gilles of\nBrandonmere, or Red Pertolepe of Garthlaxton Keep: 'twas for this I\nfollowed his foresters.\"\n\n\"Who and whence are you?\"\n\n\"Walkyn o' the Dene they call me hereabouts--though I had another name\nonce--but 'twas long ago, when I marched, a lad, 'neath the banner of\nBeltane the Strong!\"\n\n\"What talk be this?\" grunted Black Roger, threatening of mien, \"my lord\nand I be under a vow and must begone, and want no runaway serf crawling\nat our heels!\"\n\n\"Ha!\" quoth Walkyn, \"spake I to thee, hangman? Forsooth, well do I know\nthee, Roger the Black: come ye into the glade yonder, so will I split\nthy black poll for thee--thou surly dog!\"\n\nForth leapt Black Roger's sword, back swung Walkyn's glittering axe,\nbut Beltane was between, and, as they stood thus came Giles o' the Bow:\n\n\"Oho!\" he laughed, \"must ye be at it yet? Have we not together slain of\nSir Pertolepe's foresters a round score?--\"\n\n\"'Twas but nineteen!\" growled Roger, frowning at Walkyn.\n\n\"So will I make of this hangman the twentieth!\" said Walkyn, frowning\nat Roger.\n\n\"'Tis a sweet thought,\" laughed the archer, \"to it, lads, and slay each\nother as soon as ye may, and my blessings on ye. As for us, Sir\nPaladin, let us away--'tis true we together might give check to an\narmy, yet, minding Sir Pertolepe's nineteen foresters, 'twere wiser to\nhis us from Sir Pertolepe's country for the nonce: so march, tall\nbrother--march!\"\n\n\"Ha!\" snarled Walkyn, \"fear ye Red Pertolepe yet, bowman? Well, we want\nye not, my lord and I, he hath a sword and I an axe--they shall suffice\nus, mayhap, an Pertolepe come. So his thee hence with the hangman and\nsave thy rogue's skin.\"\n\n\"And may ye dangle in a noose yet for a prating do-nothing!\" growled\nRoger.\n\n\"Oho!\" laughed Giles, with a flash of white teeth, \"a hangman and a\nserf--must I slay both?\" But, ere he could draw sword, came a voice\nfrom the shadows near by--a deep voice, clear and very sweet:\n\n\"Oh, children,\" said the voice, \"oh, children of God, put up your\nsteel and pray for one whose white soul doth mount e'en now to heaven!\"\nand forth into the light came one clad as a white friar--a tall man and\nslender, and upon his shoulder he bare a mattock that gleamed beneath\nthe moon. His coarse, white robe, frayed and worn, was stained with\nearth and the green of grass, and was splashed, here and there, with a\ndarker stain; pale was he, and hollow-cheeked, but with eyes that\ngleamed 'neath black brows and with chin long and purposeful. Now at\nsight of him, fierce-eyed Walkyn cried aloud and flung aside his axe\nand, falling on his knees, caught the friar's threadbare robe and\nkissed it.\n\n\"Good brother!\" he groaned, \"O, gentle brother Martin, pity me!\"\n\n\"What, Walkyn?\" quoth the friar. \"What do ye thus equipped and so far\nfrom home?\"\n\n\"Home have I none, henceforth, O my father.\"\n\n\"Ah! What then of thy wife, Truda--of thy little son?\"\n\n\"Dead, my father. Red Pertolepe's men slew them this day within the\ngreen. So, when I had buried them, I took my axe and left them with\nGod: yet shall my soul go lonely, methinks, until my time be come.\"\n\nThen Friar Martin reached out his hand and laid it upon Walkyn's bowed\nhead: and, though the hand was hard and toil-worn, the touch of it was\nineffably gentle, and he spake with eyes upraised to heaven:\n\n\"O Christ of Pity, look down upon this stricken soul, be Thou his stay\nand comfort. Teach him, in his grief and sorrow, to pity the woes of\nothers, that, in comforting his fellows, he may himself find comfort.\"\n\nNow when the prayer was ended he turned and looked upon the others,\nand, beholding Beltane in his might and glittering mail, he spake,\nsaluting him as one of rank.\n\n\"Sir Knight,\" said he, \"do these men follow thee?\"\n\n\"Aye, verily,\" cried the archer, \"that do I in sooth--_Verbum sat\nsapienti_--good friar.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" growled Roger, \"'tis but a pestilent archer that seeketh but\nbase hire. I only am my lord's man, sworn to aid him in his vow.\" \"I\nalso,\" quoth Walkyn, \"an so my lord wills?\"\n\n\"So shall it be,\" sighed Beltane, his hand upon his throbbing brow.\n\n\"And what have ye in mind to do?\"\n\n\"Forsooth,\" cried Giles, \"to fight, good friar, _manibus pedibusque_.\"\n\n\"To obey my lord,\" said Roger, \"and speak good Saxon English.\"\n\n\"To adventure my body in battle with joyful heart,\" quoth Walkyn.\n\n\"To make an end of tyranny!\" sighed Beltane.\n\n\"Alas!\" said the friar, \"within this doleful Duchy be tyrants a many,\nand ye are but four, meseemeth; yet if within your hearts be room for\npity--follow me, and I will show you a sight, mayhap shall nerve you\nstrong as giants. Come!\"\n\nSo Beltane followed the white friar with the three upon his heels who\nwrangled now no more; and in a while the friar paused beside a new-digged\ngrave.\n\n\"Behold,\" said he, \"the bed where we, each one, must sleep some day,\nand yet 'tis cold and hard, methinks, for one so young and tender!\" So\nsaying he sighed, and turning, brought them to a hut near by, an humble\ndwelling of mud and wattles, dim-lighted by a glimmering rush. But,\nbeing come within the hut Beltane stayed of a sudden and held his\nbreath, staring wide-eyed at that which lay so still: then, baring his\nhead, sank upon his knees.\n\nShe lay outstretched upon a bed of fern, and looked as one that sleeps\nsave for the deathly pallor of her cheek and still and pulseless bosom:\nand she was young, and of a wondrous, gentle beauty.\n\n\"Behold,\" said the friar, \"but one short hour agone this was alive--a\nchild of God, pure of heart and undefiled. These gentle hands lie\nstilled forever: this sweet, white body (O shame of men!) blasted by\nbrutality, maimed and torn--is nought but piteous clay to moulder in\nthe year. Yet doth her radiant soul lie on the breast of God forever,\nsince she, for honour, died the death--Behold!\" So saying, the friar\nwith sudden hand laid bare the still and marble bosom; and, beholding\nthe red horror wrought there by cruel steel, Beltane rose up, and\ntaking off his cloak, therewith reverently covered the pale, dead\nbeauty of her, and so stood awhile with eyes close shut and spake,\nsoft-voiced and slow, 'twixt pallid lips:\n\n\"How--came this--thing?\"\n\n\"She was captive to Sir Pertolepe, by him taken in a raid, and he would\nhave had her to his will: yet, by aid of my lord's jester, she escaped\nand fled hither. But Sir Pertolepe's foresters pursued and took her\nand--so is she dead: may God requite them!\"\n\n\"Amen!\" quoth Giles o' the Bow, hoarse-voiced, \"so do they all lie dead\nwithin the green!\"\n\n\"Save one!\" said Roger.\n\n\"But he sore wounded!\" quoth Walkyn.\n\n\"How!\" cried the friar aghast, \"have ye indeed slain Sir Pertolepe's\nforesters?\"\n\n\"Nineteen!\" nodded Roger, grimly.\n\n\"Alas!\" cried the friar, \"may God save the poor folk hereabouts, for\nnow will Sir Pertolepe wreak vengeance dire upon them.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said Beltane, \"then must I have word with Sir Pertolepe.\"\n\nNow when he said this, Black Roger stared agape and even the archer's\ntongue failed him for once; but Walkyn smiled and gripped his axe.\n\n\"Art mad, tall brother!\" cried Giles at length, \"Sir Pertolepe would\nhang thee out of hand, or throw thee to his dogs!\"\n\n\"Lord,\" said Roger, \"Sir Pertolepe hath ten score men-at-arms in\nGarthlaxton, beside bowmen and foresters.\"\n\n\"There should be good work for mine axe!\" smiled Walkyn.\n\n\"None the less must I speak with him,\" said Beltane, and turned him to\nthe door.\n\n\"Then will I die with thee, lord,\" growled Roger.\n\n\"So will I come and watch thee die--hangman, and loose a shaft or two\non mine own account!\"\n\nBut now, of a sudden, Walkyn raised a warning hand.\n\n\"Hark!\" said he: and, in a while, as they listened, upon the stillness\ncame a rustle of leaves and thereafter a creeping step drawing slowly\nnearer: then swift and soft-treading, Walkyn stole out into the\nshadows.\n\nVery soon he returned, leading a woman, pale and haggard, who clasped\na babe within her threadbare cloak; her eyes were red and sore with\nmuch weeping and upon the threshold she paused as one in sudden fear,\nbut espying the friar, she uttered a cry:\n\n\"O Father Martin--good father--pray, pray for the soul of him who is\nfather to my child, but who at dawn must die with many others upon my\nlord Duke's great gallows!\"\n\n\"Alas!\" cried the friar, wringing his hands, \"what news is this?\"\n\n\"O good friar,\" sobbed the woman, \"my lord's hand hath been so heavy\nupon us of late--so heavy: and there came messengers from Thrasfordham\nin Bourne bidding us thither with fair promises:--and my father, being\nhead of our village, hearkened to them and we made ready to cross into\nBourne. But my lord came upon us and burned our village of Shallowford\nand lashed my father with whips and thereafter hanged him, and took my\nman and many others and cast them into the great dungeon at Belsaye--\nand with the dawn they must hang upon the Duke's great gallows.\"\n\nSo she ended and stood weeping as one that is hopeless and weary. But\nof a sudden she screamed and pointed at Black Roger with her finger:\n\n\"'Tis Roger!\" she cried, \"'tis Black Roger, that slew my father!\"\n\nThen Roger the Black groaned and hid his face within his arm and shrank\nbefore the woman's outstretched finger and, groaning, cowered to his\nknees; whereupon the archer turned his back and spat upon the floor\nwhile Walkyn glared and fingered his great axe: but in this moment my\nBeltane came beside him and laid his hand on Roger's stooping shoulder.\n\n\"Nay,\" said he, \"this is my friend henceforth, a man among men, who\nliveth to do great things as thus: To-night he will give back to thee\nthe father of thy child, and break open the dungeon of Belsaye!\"\n\nThus spake my Beltane while all stared at his saying and held their\npeace because of their amaze: only Black Roger turned of a sudden and\ncaught his hand and kissed it savagely.\n\n\"Sir,\" said the woman, peering up in Beltane's face, \"Lord--ah, would\nye mock the weak and helpless--\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Beltane gently, \"as God seeth me, to-night the prisoners\nshall go free, or this man and I die with them. So now be comforted--go\nyou to Bourne, to Sir Benedict within Thrasfordham Keep, and say you\ncome from Beltane, Duke of Pentavalon, who swore thee, by the honour of\nthe Duke Beltane his father, that never again shall a man hang from the\ngreat gallows of Black Ivo the usurper--from this night it shall cease\nto be!\"\n\nNow would the woman have knelt and kissed his hand, but Beltane smiled\nand brought her to the door. Then, wondering and amazed, she made her\nobeisance to Beltane and with her babe clasped to her bosom went forth\ninto the night. Thereafter Beltane turned and looked grave-eyed upon\nthe three.\n\n\"My masters,\" quoth he, \"ye have heard my words, how this night I go to\ntake down Black Ivo's great gallows. Come ye with me? Aye or no?\"\n\n\"Aye, lord!\" cried the three in one acclaim.\n\n\"Do ye then stand with me henceforth 'gainst Black Ivo and all his\nmight? Aye or no?\"\n\n\"Aye, lord!\" cried they again.\n\nThen Beltane smiled and drew his sword and came to them, the great\nblade gleaming in his hand.\n\n\"'Tis well!\" said he, \"but first come now and lay your hands here upon\nmy sword and swear me this, each one,--To follow ever where I shall\nlead, to abide henceforth in brotherhood together, to smite evil within\nyou and without, to be pitiful to the weak, and to honour God at all\ntimes.\"\n\nThen did the three, being upon their knees, lay their hands upon the\nsword and swear the oath as Beltane commanded; now came the white friar\nand stared upon the sword and beholding the motto graven in the steel,\nlifted up his hand to heaven and cried aloud:--\n\n\"Now greeting and fair greeting to thee, lord Duke, may thy body be\nstrong for war and thy head wise in the council, for Pentavalon hath\ndire need of thee, Beltane, son of Duke Beltane the Strong. Moreover I\nwas sent to thee by Sir Benedict of Bourne who bids thee 'Arise and\nfollow' for that the time is at hand.\"\n\n\"How,\" cried Beltane, \"art thou indeed from Sir Benedict?\"\n\n\"Even so, lord. In Thrasfordham be seven hundred chosen men-at-arms,\nand within Bourne, mayhap a thousand more. It is become a haven for\nthose that flee from tyranny and bitter wrong. As for me, I journey\nwhere I will within the Duchy, serving the poor and ministering to the\nbroken-hearted, and everywhere is black sin and suffering and death. So\nnow in the name of these oppressed do I give thee welcome to this thy\nsorrowful Duchy, and may God make of thee Duke indeed!\"\n\nQuoth Beltane:\n\n\"Duke am I in blood and Duke will I yet be in very sooth an God so will\nit.\" Then turning to the three, who stood hearkening open-mouthed and\nwide of eye, he smiled and reached to them his hand.\n\n\"Good friends,\" said he, \"knowing nought of me yet were ye willing to\nfollow my fortunes. For this do I thank ye one and all, and so shall my\nfortune, high or low, be thine, henceforth. To-day is Ivo Duke, and I\nthy companion-in-arms, no more, no less--this, I pray you all,\nremember.\"\n\nSo saying, Beltane sheathed his sword and beholding Friar Martin on his\nknees beside that muffled figure, he knelt also, and the three with\nhim. Thereafter at a sign from the friar, Beltane stooped and raised\nthis slender, shrouded figure in his arms and reverently bore it out\ninto the shadows.\n\nAnd there, all in the tender radiance of the moon, they buried her\nwhose name they never knew, and stood a while in silence. Then,\npointing to the new-turned earth, Friar Martin spake soft-voiced:\n\n\"Lo, here--in but a little time, wild flowers shall bloom above her--\nyet none purer or sweeter than she! In a little shall the grass be\ngreen again, and she sleep here forgot by all--save God! And God, my\nbrothers, is a gentle God and very pitiful--so now do we leave her in\nGod's abiding care.\"\n\nAnd presently they turned, soft-footed, and went upon their way leaving\nthe place to solitude.\n\nBut from the vault of heaven the stars looked down upon that lonely\ngrave like the watching eyes of holy angels.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nWHICH TELLS HOW DUKE IVO'S GREAT GALLOWS CEASED TO BE\n\n\nScarce a mile without the walls of the fair city of Belsaye my lord\nDuke had builded him a great gallows, had set it high upon a hill for\nall the world to see; from whose lofty cross-beams five score rogues\nhad hanged ere now, had writhed and kicked their lives away and rotted\nthere in company, that all the world might know how potent was the\nanger of my lord Duke Ivo.\n\nDay in, day out, from rosy morn till dewy eve, it frowned upon Belsaye,\na thing of doom whose grim sight should warn rebellious townsfolk to\ndutiful submission; by night it loomed, a dim-seen, brooding horror,\nwhose loathsome reek should mind them how all rogues must end that\ndared lift hand or voice against my lord Duke, or those proud barons,\nlords, and knights who, by his pleasure, held their fiefs with rights\nof justice, the high, the middle and the low.\n\nDay in, day out, the men of Belsaye eyed it askance 'neath scowling\nbrows and, by night, many a clenched hand was shaken and many a\nwhispered malediction sped, toward that thing of doom that menaced them\nfrom the dark.\n\nTo-night the moon was full, and thus, following Friar Martin's bony\noutstretched finger, Beltane of a sudden espied afar the Duke's great\ngallows, rising grisly and stark against the moon's round splendour. So\nfor a space, standing yet within the shade of the woods, Beltane stared\nfierce-eyed, the while Giles, with Roger at his elbow, pointed out\ndivers shapes that dangled high in air, at sight of which the friar\nknelt with bowed head and lips that moved in prayer: and Walkyn,\nscowling, muttered in his beard.\n\n\"Messire,\" said the archer, \"my lord Duke's gallows is great and very\nstrong, and we but five all told!\"\n\n\"I have mine axe!\" quoth Walkyn.\n\n\"Had we fifty axes we scarce should bring it down ere dawn: moreover,\nthe night is very still and sounds carry far--\"\n\n\"Nathless,\" quoth Roger, \"to-night we surely shall destroy it--my lord\nhath said so.\"\n\n\"Aye--but how?\" questioned Giles. \"In Belsaye is that pale fox Sir Gui\nof Allerdale with many trusty men-at-arms to hold the town for Black\nIvo and teach Belsaye its duty: how may we destroy my lord Duke's\ngallows 'neath the very beards of my lord Duke's garrison, wilt tell me\nthat, my good, Black Rogerkin?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" nodded Roger, \"that will I--when I have asked my lord.\" So\nsaying, he came and touched Beltane and humbly put the question.\n\nThen, with his gaze yet upon the gallows, Beltane sighed and answered:\n\n\"There hath been no rain for weeks, look you: the underbrush is dry,\nmethinks, and should burn well!\"\n\n\"Aye, for sure,\" said Roger, \"we shall burn Black Ivo's gallows to\nashes, bowman, and a good end 'twill be.\"\n\n\"By fire!\" cried the archer, aghast, \"but lord, so soon as they shall\nsee the flames, Sir Gui and his men will sally out upon us!\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Beltane, \"for we shall sally in.\"\n\n\"Into Belsaye, mean you, lord?\"\n\n\"Certes,\" answered Beltane, \"how else may we break open the dungeon?\nThe night is young yet, but we have much to do--follow!\" So saying,\nBeltane turned and keeping ever within the shadow of the trees, set off\ntowards that distant hill where stood the gallows, black against the\nmoon.\n\nSwiftly they went and for the most part in silence, for Beltane's mind\nwas busied upon many matters.\n\nSo betimes they climbed the hill and stood at last beneath the gallows,\nand, glancing up, Beltane beheld noisome shapes, black and shrivelled,\nthat once had lived and laughed. Forthwith he drew his sword and fell\nto cutting down the brush, whereat friar Martin, girding up his frock,\ntook Walkyn's sword and fell to likewise.\n\nNow, as Beltane laboured thus, he was suddenly aware of a wild and\nragged figure, the which started up before him as if from the very\nground. An old man he was, bent with years, yet with eyes that burned\nfierce and undimmed 'neath hoary brows, and shrivelled hands that\ngripped upon a rusty sword.\n\n\"Who are ye,\" he cried, harsh-voiced, \"who are ye that disturb this\nwoeful place? 'Tis here that men are dragged to die--and, being dead,\ndo hang i' the air to rot and rot--and thereby hangs a tale of wolves\nthat howl and birds that shriek, aha!--carrion crows and hook-billed\nkites--they be well gorged since Ivo came. 'Caw!' they cry, 'caw!'--\nsoft child's flesh and the flesh of tender maids--aha!--I know--I've\nwatched--I've seen! Ah! since my lord Duke Beltane died, what sights\nthese eyes have seen!\"\n\n\"Old man,\" quoth Beltane, bending near, \"who art thou?\"\n\n\"I am the ghost that haunts this place, but, ages since, I was Sir\nRobert Bellesme of Garthlaxton Keep. But my wife they slew, my daughter\nravished from me--and my son--Ah! Christ--my son! They hanged him here\n--yonder he hung, and I, his father, watched him die. But, by night,\nwhen all was still, I crept hither and found a hole to shelter me. And\nhere I stayed to watch over him--my son who hung so quiet and so still.\nAnd the rough wind buffeted him, the cruel rain lashed him, and the hot\nsun scorched him, but still he hung there, so high!--so high! Yet I\nwaited, for the strongest rope will break in time. And upon a moony\nnight, he fell, and I gathered him in my arms, close here against my\nheart, and buried him--where none can know--save God. Many others have\nI buried also, for the strongest cords must break in time! And folk do\nsay the devil bears them hence, since none are ever found--but I know\nwhere they lie--six hundred and seventy and nine--I know--these hands\nhave buried them and I have kept a tally. Ah!--but you, gentle youth,\nwhat would ye here?\"\n\n\"Burn down the gallows,\" said Beltane, \"'tis an accursed thing, so\nshall it shame earth and heaven no longer.\"\n\n\"How!--how!\" cried the ancient man, letting fall his rusty sword,\n\"Destroy Black Ivo's gibbet? Dare ye--dare ye such a thing indeed? Are\nthere men with souls unconquered yet? Methought all such were old, or\ndead, or fled away--dare ye this, youth?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" nodded Beltane. \"Watch now!\" and hereupon he, together with the\nothers, fell to hewing down the dry brush with might and main, and\npiling it about the gibbet's massy beams, while the ancient man,\nperched upon a rock hard by, watched them 'neath his shaggy brows and\nlaughed soft and shrill.\n\n\"Aha!\" he cried, \"the fire ye kindle here shall set the Duchy in a\nflame mayhap, to burn Black Ivo with Gui of Allerdale and Red\nPertolepe--mayhap! For them, fire on earth and flame in hell--aha! To\nburn the gibbet! 'tis well bethought: so shall carrion kite and jay go\nlight-bellied hereabouts, mayhap, oho! 'Caw,' they shall cry, 'Caw--\ngive us to eat--fair white flesh!' Yet how may they eat when the\ngallows is no more?\"\n\nThus spake he with shrill laughter while Beltane laboured until the\nsweat ran from him, while Walkyn's great axe flashed and fell near by\nand steel glittered among the underbrush that clothed the <DW72>s of the\nhill.\n\nVery soon they had stacked great piles of kindling about the gallows'\nweather-beaten timbers--twigs below, <DW19>s above--cunningly ordered\nand higher than Beltane's head. Now as Beltane leaned upon his sword to\nwipe the sweat from his eyes, came Roger and Walkyn yet panting from\ntheir labour.\n\n\"Master,\" said Roger, \"they should burn well, I trow, and yet--\"\n\n\"And yet,\" quoth Walkyn, \"these beams be thick: methinks, when the\nothers go, one man should stay to tend the fires until the flame gets\nfair hold--\"\n\n\"And that man I!\" said Roger.\n\n\"No, no,\" frowned Walkyn, \"an one of us must die, it shall be me--\"\n\nBut now came the ancient man, leaning upon his ancient weapon.\n\n\"No, children,\" said he, \"'tis for age to die--death is sweet to the\nold and weary: so will I tend the fire. Yet, beseech thee, grant me\nthis: that these my hands shall fire the gallows whereon they hanged my\nson, long ago: young was he, and tall--scarce yet a man--they hanged\nhim yonder, so high--so high--so far beyond my care: and the carrion\nbirds--kites, see you, and crows--and the wind and rain and dark--Ah,\nGod! my son! I am but an old man and feeble, yet, beseech thee, let\nthis be the hand to fire Black Ivo's gibbet!\"\n\nThen Beltane took from his pouch flint and steel and tinder and gave\nthem to the old man's trembling fingers as Giles o' the Bow came\nrunning with the stalwart friar behind him.\n\nSo, while the five stood hushed and wide of eye, the old man knelt\nbefore them in his rags and struck flint to steel. Once he struck, and\ntwice--and behold a spark that leapt to a small flame that died to a\nglow; but now, flat upon his belly lay Giles and, pursing his lips,\npuffed and blew until the glow brightened, spread, and burst into a\ncrackling flame that leapt from twig to twig. And when the fire waxed\nhot, Beltane took thence a glowing brand, and, coming to the other\ngreat pile, fired it therewith. Up rose the flames high and higher\nuntil they began to lick, pale-tongued, about the gibbet's two great\nsupporting timbers, and ever as they rose, Walkyn and Roger, Giles and\nthe friar, laboured amain, stacking logs near by wherewith to feed the\nfires.\n\n\"Enough,\" said Beltane at last, \"it shall suffice, methinks.\"\n\n\"Suffice?\" cried the old man, his eyes bright in the ruddy glow, \"aye,\nit shall suffice, sweet boy. See--see, the timbers catch e'en now. Ha!\nburn, good fire--eat, hungry flame! O, happy sight--would my dear son\nwere here--they hanged his fair young body, but his soul--Ha, his\nsoul! O souls of hanged men--O spirits of the dead, come about me, ye\nghosts of murdered youth, come and behold the gibbet burn whereon ye\ndied. What--are ye there, amid the smoke, so soon? Come then, let us\ndance together and trip it lightly to and fro--merrily, merrily! Hey\nboy, so ho then--so ho, and away we go!\" Hereupon, tossing up gaunt\narms, the old man fell to dancing and capering amid the sparks and\nrolling smoke, filling the air with wild talk and gabbling high-pitched\nlaughter that rose above the roar of the fires. And so in a while\nBeltane, sighing, turned and led the way down the hill towards the\nglooming shadow of the woods; but ever as they went the flames waxed\nfiercer behind them and the madman's laughter shrilled upon the air.\n\nSwift-footed they plunged into the underbrush and thus hidden began to\nclose in upon Belsaye town. And of a sudden they heard a cry, and\nthereafter the shattering blare of a trumpet upon the walls. And now\nfrom within the waking city rose a confused sound, a hum that grew\nlouder and ever more loud, pierced by shout and trumpet-blast while\nhigh above this growing clamour the tocsin pealed alarm.\n\nThus, in a while the trembling citizens of Belsaye, starting from their\nslumber, stared in pallid amaze beholding afar a great and fiery gibbet\nwhose flames, leaping heavenward, seemed to quench the moon.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nHOW THEY BRAKE OPE THE DUNGEON OF BELSAYE\n\n\nBeing yet in the shade of the woods, Beltane paused, hearkening to the\ndistant uproar of Belsaye town and watching the torches that hovered\nupon its walls and the cressets that glowed on tower and bartizan.\n\n\"Messire Beltane,\" quoth the friar, setting his rumpled frock in order,\n\"are ye minded still to adventure breaking ope the dungeon of Belsaye?\"\n\n\"Aye, verily!\" nodded Beltane. \"Know you the city, good friar?\"\n\n\"That do I, my brother: every lane and street, every hole and corner of\nit--'twas there I first drew breath. A fair, rich city, freed by\ncharter long ago--but now, alas, its freedom snatched away, its ancient\ncharter gone, it bleeds 'neath a pale-cheeked tyrant's sway--a pallid\nman who laughs soft-voiced to see men die, and smiles upon their\nanguish. O Belsaye, grievous are thy wrongs since Ivo came five years\nagone and gave thee up to pillage and to ravishment. O hateful day! O\nday of shame! What sights I saw--what sounds I heard--man-groans and\nscreams of women to rend high heaven and shake the throne of God,\nmethinks. I see--I hear them yet, and must forever. Jesu, pity!\" and\nleaning against a tree near by, the stalwart friar shivered violently\nand hid his eyes.\n\n\"Why, good brother Martin,\" said Beltane, setting an arm about him,\n\"doth memory pain thee so, indeed? good Brother Martin, be comforted--\"\n\n\"Nay, nay--'tis past, but--O my son, I--had a sister!\" said the good\nfriar, and groaned. Yet in a while he raised his head and spake again:\n\"And when Duke Ivo had wrought his will upon the city, he builded the\ngreat gibbet yonder and hanged it full with men cheek by jowl, and left\nSir Gui the cruel with ten score chosen men for garrison. But the men\nof Belsaye have stubborn memories; Sir Gui and his butchers slumber in\na false security, for stern men are they and strong, and wait but God's\nappointed time. Pray God that time be soon!\"\n\n\"Amen!\" said Beltane. Now, even as he spake came the sound of a distant\ntucket, the great gates of Belsaye swung wide, and forth rode a company\nof men-at-arms, their bascinets agleam 'neath the moon.\n\n\"Now!\" spake the friar, \"and you are for Belsaye, my brother, follow\nme; I know a way--albeit a moist way and something evil--but an you\nwill follow,--come!\" So saying Friar Martin set off among the trees,\nand Beltane, beckoning to the others, followed close. Fast strode the\nfriar, his white robe fluttering on before, through moonlight and\nshadow, until they reached a brook or freshet that ran bubbling betwixt\nflowery banks; beside this strode the tall friar, following its winding\ncourse, until before them, amid the shadow--yet darker than the shadow\n--loomed high an embattled flanking tower of the walls of Belsaye town;\nbut ever before them flitted the friar's white gown, on and on until\nthe freshet became a slow-moving river, barring their advance--a broad\nriver that whispered among the reeds on the one side and lapped against\nrugged wall on the other.\n\nHere the friar stayed to glance from gloomy wall and turret to fast\nwaning moon on their left, then, girding up his gown, he stepped down\ninto the reeds, and a moment later they saw him--to their amaze--\nfording the river that flowed scarce knee deep.\n\nSo, needfully, Beltane followed, and, stepping into the water found his\nfeet upon a narrow causeway cunningly devised. Thus, slowly and\ncarefully, because of the flowing of the water, they came betimes to\nwhere the friar waited in the shadow of the massy wall; yet, even as\nthey came near, the friar waved his arm, stooped--and was gone; whereon\nmy Beltane stared amazed and the three muttered uneasily behind him.\nBut, coming nearer, Beltane espied above the hurrying waters the curve\nof an arch or tunnel, and pointing it to the others, took a great\nbreath and, stooping beneath the water, stumbled on and on until it\nshallowed, and he was free to breathe again.\n\nOn he went, through water now breast-high, with slimy walls above him\nand around, seeing naught by reason of the pitchy blackness, and\nhearing only the smothered splash of those behind, and gasping breaths\nthat boomed hollow in the dark. Yet presently he saw a gleam before him\nthat broadened with each step, and, of a sudden, was out beneath the\nsky--a narrow strip wherein stars twinkled, and so beheld again friar\nMartin's white frock flitting on, ghost-like, before. In a while he\nbrought them to a slimy stair, and climbing this, with ever growing\ncaution, they found themselves at last beneath the frowning shadow of\nthe citadel within the walls of Belsaye town. Now, looking north,\nBeltane beheld afar a fiery gallows that flamed to heaven, and from the\ntown thitherward came a confused hum of the multitude who watched; but\nhereabouts the town seemed all deserted.\n\n\"The dungeons lie beneath our feet,\" whispered Friar Martin. \"Come!\"\n\nSo, keeping ever in the shadow of the great square keep, they went on,\nsoft-treading and alert of eye till, being come to the angle of the\nwall, the friar stayed of a sudden and raised a warning hand. Then came\nBeltane with Walkyn close behind, and peering over the friar's broad\nshoulders, they beheld a sentinel who stood with his back to them,\nleaning on his spear, to watch the burning gallows, his chain-mail\nagleam and his head-piece glittering as he stirred lazily in time to\nthe merry lilt he sang softly.\n\nThen, or ever Beltane could stay him, Walkyn o' the Dene laid by his\naxe, and, his soaked shoes soundless upon the stones, began to steal\nupon the unconscious singer, who yet lolled upon his spear some thirty\npaces away. With great body bowed forward and hairy fingers crooked,\nWalkyn stole upon him; six paces he went, ten--twenty--twenty-five--\nthe soldier ceased his humming, stood erect and turned about; and\nWalkyn leapt--bore him backward down into the shadow--a shadow wherein\ntheir bodies writhed and twisted silently awhile. When Walkyn rose out\nof the shadow and beckoned them on.\n\nSo, following ever the friar's lead, they came to a narrow doorway\nthat gave upon a small guard-room lighted by a smoking torch socketed\nto the wall. The place was empty, save for a medley of arms stacked in\ncorners, wherefore, treading cautiously, the friar led them a-down a\nnarrow passage and so to a second and larger chamber where burned a\nfire of logs. Upon the walls hung shining head-pieces; cloaks and\nmantles lay where they had been flung on bench and floor, but none was\nthere to give them let or hindrance. Then Friar Martin took a torch\nthat smoked near by, and, crossing to the hearth, reached down a massy\nkey from the wall, and with this in his hand, came to a door half\nhidden in a corner, beyond which were steps that wound downwards into\nthe dark, a darkness close and dank, and heavy with corruption.\n\nBut on went the friar--his torch lighting the way--down and ever down\nuntil they trod a narrow way 'twixt reeking walls, where breathed an\nair so close and foul the very torch languished. At length the friar\nstopped before a mighty door, thick-banded with iron bars and with\nmassy bolts, and while Beltane held the torch, he fitted key to lock\nand thereafter the great door swung on screaming hinge and showed a\ndungeon beyond--a place foul and noisome, where divers pale-faced\nwretches lay or crouched, blinking in the torch's glare.\n\n\"What?\" cried one, coming to his feet, a squat broad-shouldered man--\n\"be this the dawn so soon? Well, we be ready, better to hang i' the\nclean air than rot in a dungeon, say I. So we be ready, eh, my\nbrothers?\"\n\nBut now, some groaned and wept and others laughed, while yet others got\nthem to their knees, bowed of head and silent. Then went in the friar\nto them and laid his hands upon the squat man's shoulder and spake him\ngently.\n\n\"And is it Osric,\" said he. \"Day is not yet, my son, nor with the day\nshalt thou die nor any here, an ye be silent all and follow where we\nlead, soft-footed, so will we bring you to God's good world again.\nRise, then, each one, speak nothing, but follow!\"\n\nSo then did these men, snatched of a sudden from the horror of death to\nthe hope of new life, follow on stumbling feet, out from the noisome\ngloom of the dungeon, out from the clammy air breathing of death, up\nthe narrow winding stair; and with each step came strength and manhood.\nThus as they strode forth of the frowning keep, each man bore sword or\ngisarm. So, with breath in cheek, but hearts high-beating, they came\none and all, to where the slimy stair led down into the gloom. Yet here\nFriar Martin paused, sighing, to look behind, whence rose the distant\nhum of those thronging townsfolk who yet crowded wall and street and\nmarket square to watch the gallows burn.\n\n\"Now sweet Christ shield ye, good people of Belsaye!\" he sighed.\n\n\"What mean ye, my brother?\" questioned Beltane.\n\n\"Alas! my son,\" groaned the friar, \"I needs must think upon the coming\nday and of the vengeance of Sir Gui for this our work!\"\n\n\"His vengeance, friar?\"\n\n\"There will be torture and death busy hereabouts tomorrow, my son,\nfor, the prisoners being gone, so will Sir Gui vent his anger on the\ntownsfolk--'tis ever his custom--\"\n\n\"Ha!\" quoth my Beltane, knitting his brows, \"I had not thought on\nthis!\"--and with the word, he turned him back, drawing on his hood of\nmail.\n\n\"Come, lord,\" whispered Black Roger in his ear, \"let us be going while\nyet we may.\"\n\n\"Aye, come, my son,\" spake the friar, low-voiced. \"Tarry not, Belsaye\nis in the hand of God! Nay, what would you?\"\n\n\"I must go back,\" said Beltane, loosening sword in scabbard, \"for needs\nmust I this night have word with Gui of Allerdale.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" whispered the friar, with pleading hand on Beltane's arm, \"'tis\nthing impossible--\"\n\n\"Yet must I try, good brother--\"\n\n\"Ah, dear my son, 'twill be thy death--\"\n\n\"Why look you, gentle friar, I am in Belsaye, and Belsaye 'is in the\nhand of God!' So fear not for me, but go you all and wait for me beyond\nthe river. And, if I come not within the hour, then press on with speed\nfor Thrasfordham within Bourne, and say to Sir Benedict that, while\n_he_ liveth to draw sword, so is there hope for Pentavalon. But now--\nquick!--where lodgeth Sir Gui?\"\n\n\"Within the keep--there is a stair doth mount within the thickness of\nthe wall--nay, I will be thy guide if go indeed thou must--\"\n\n\"Not so, good friar, be it thy duty to lead these prisoners to freedom\nand to safety within Bourne.\"\n\n\"Then will I come,\" whispered Roger hoarse and eager, as the friar\nturned slow-footed to follow the others adown the slippery stair,\n\"beseech thee, lord, thy man am I, twice sworn to thee till death, so\nsuffer me beside thee.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Beltane, \"Pentavalon's need of thee is greater e'en than\nmine, therefore will I adventure this thing alone. Go you with the\nfriar, my Roger, and so farewell to each.\"\n\n\"God keep thee, noble son!\" whispered the friar, his hand upraised in\nblessing: but Roger stood, chin on breast and spake no word.\n\nThen Beltane turned him and sped away, soft-treading in the shadow of\nthe great keep.\n\nThe waning moon cast shadows black and long, and in these shadows\nBeltane crept and so, betimes, came within the outer guard-room and to\nthe room beyond; and here beheld a low-arched doorway whence steps led\nupward,--a narrow stair, gloomy and winding, whose velvet blackness\nwas stabbed here and there by moonlight, flooding through some deep-set\narrow-slit. Up he went, and up, pausing once with breath in check,\nfancying he heard the stealthy sound of one who climbed behind him in\nthe black void below; thus stayed he a moment, with eyes that strove to\npierce the gloom, and with naked dagger clenched to smite, yet heard\nnought, save the faint whisper of his own mail, and the soft tap of his\nlong scabbard against the wall; wherefore he presently sped on again,\nclimbing swiftly up the narrow stair. Thus, in a while, he beheld a\ndoor above: a small door, yet stout and strong, a door that stood ajar,\nwhence came a beam of yellow light.\n\nSo, with sure and steady hand, Beltane set wide the door, that creaked\nfaintly in the stillness, and beheld a small, square chamber where was\na narrow window, and, in this window, a mail-clad man lolled, his\nunhelmed head thrust far without, to watch the glow that leapt against\nthe northern sky.\n\nThen Beltane sheathed his dagger and, in three long strides was close\nbehind, and, stooping above the man, sought and found his hairy throat,\nand swung him, mighty-armed, that his head struck the wall; then\nBeltane, sighing, laid him upon the floor and turned toward a certain\narras-hung arch: but, or ever his hand came upon this curtain, from\nbeyond a voice hailed--a voice soft and musical.\n\n\"Hugo--O Hugo, spawn of hell, hither to me!\"\n\nThen Beltane, lifting the curtain, opened the door and, striding into\nthe chamber beyond, closed and barred the door behind him, and so\nstood, tall and menacing, looking on one who sat at a table busied with\npen and ink-horn. A slender man this, and richly habited: a sleepy-eyed\nman, pale of cheek, with long, down-curving nose, and mouth thin-lipped\nand masterful, who, presently lifting his head, stared up in amaze,\nsleepy-eyed no longer: for now, beholding Beltane the mighty, sheathed\nin mail from head to foot, the pen dropped from his fingers and his\nlong pale hands slowly clenched themselves.\n\nSo, for a space, they fronted each other, speaking not, while eye met\neye unswerving--the menacing blue and the challenging black, and,\nthrough the open casement near by came a ruddy glow that flickered on\narras-hung wall and rugged roof-beam. Now raising his hand, Beltane\npointed toward this glowing window.\n\n\"Sir Gui,\" quoth he, \"Lord Seneschal of Belsaye town, thou hast good\neyes--look now, and tell me what ye see.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Sir Gui, stirring not, \"I see a presumptuous knave--a dog\nwho shall be flung headlong from the turret. Ha! Hugo!\" he called, his\nblack eyes yet unswerving, \"O Hugo, son of the fiend, hither to me!\"\n\n\"Trouble not, my lord,\" quoth Beltane gently, \"behold, the door is\nbarred: moreover, Hugo lieth without--pray God I have not killed him.\nBut, as for thee--look yonder, use thine eyes and speak me what thou\ndost see.\"\n\nBut Sir Gui sat on, his thin lips upcurling to a smile, his black eyes\nunswerving: wherefore came Beltane and seized him in fierce hands and\nplucked him to his feet and so brought him to the window.\n\n\"Ha!\" he cried, \"look now and tell me what ye see. Speak! speak--for,\nGod help me! now am I minded to kill thee here and now, unarmed though\nye be, and cast thy carrion to the dogs--speak!\"\n\nNow, beholding the mail-clad face above him, the blue eyes aflame, the\npale lips tight-drawn, Sir Gui, Seneschal of Belsaye, spake soft-voiced\non this wise:\n\n\"I see my lord Duke's gallows go up in flame--wherefore men shall die!\"\n\n\"Aye,\" sighed Beltane, \"said I not thine eyes were good, Lord\nSeneschal? Now, use thine ears--hearken! 'Twas I and five others, men\nfrom beyond the marches, fired this night Black Ivo's gibbet, moreover,\nto-night also have we broke the dungeon that lieth beneath this thy\nkeep, and set thy prisoners free--I and these five, all men from the\nnorth, mark me this well! This have we done for a sign and portent--ha!\nlook!\" and Beltane pointed of a sudden to where the great gallows,\noutlined against the night in seething flame, swayed to and fro,\ncrumbled, and crashed to earth 'mid whirling sparks and flame, while,\nfrom the town below rose a murmur that swelled and swelled to a shout,\nand so was gone.\n\n\"Behold, lord Seneschal, Black Ivo's gallows to-night hath ceased to\nbe: here is a sign, let those heed it that will. But for thee--this!\nTo-night have I burned this gallows, to-night have I freed thy\nprisoners. Upon me therefore, and only me, be the penalty; for--mark me\nthis, Seneschal!--spill but one drop of blood of these innocents of\nBelsaye, and, as God seeth me, so will I hunt thee down, and take thee\nand tear out thine eyes, and cut off thine hands, and drive thee forth\nto starve! And this do I swear by the honour of my father, Beltane the\nStrong, Duke of Pentavalon!\"\n\nBut now, even as Sir Gui shrank back before the death in Beltane's\nlook, amazed beyond all thought by his words, came a sudden shout, and\nthereafter a clash and ring of steel upon the stair without. And now,\nabove the sudden din, hoarse and loud a battle-cry arose, at the sound\nof which Sir Gui's jaws hung agape, and he stood as one that doubts his\nears; for 'twas a cry he had heard aforetime, long ago.\n\n\"Arise! Arise! I will arise!\"\n\nThen Beltane cast up the bar, and, plucking wide the door, beheld the\nbroad, mail-clad back of one who held the narrow stair where flashed\npike and gisarm.\n\n\"Roger!\" he called, \"Black Roger!\"\n\n\"Aye, lord, 'tis I,\" cried Roger, parrying a pike-thrust, \"make sure of\nthy work, master, I can hold these in check yet a while.\"\n\n\"My work is done, Roger. To me--to me, I say!\"\n\nSo Roger, leaping back from the stair-head, turned about and ran to\nBeltane, stumbling and spattering blood as he came, whereupon Beltane\nclapped-to the door and barred it in the face of the pursuit. A while\nleaned Roger, panting, against the wall, then, beholding Sir Gui:\n\n\"How!\" he cried, \"lives the pale fox yet? Methought thy work was done,\nmaster!\" So saying, he swung aloft his bloody sword, but, even as the\nSeneschal waited the blow, smiling of lip, Beltane caught Black Roger's\nwrist.\n\n\"Stay!\" cried he, above the thunder of blows that shook the door,\n\"would'st slay a man unarmed?\"\n\n\"Aye, master, as he hath slain many a man ere now!\" quoth Roger,\nstriving to free his arm. \"The door is giving, and there be many\nwithout: and, since to-night we must die, so let us slay the white fox\nfirst.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" said Beltane, \"get you through the window--the river runs\nbelow: through the window--out, I say!\" and, with the word, he stooped\nand bore Black Roger to the window.\n\n\"But, lord--\"\n\n\"Jump!\" cried Beltane, \"jump, ere the door fall.\"\n\n\"But you, master--\"\n\n\"Jump, I say: I will follow thee.\" So, groaning, Black Roger hurled his\nsword far out from the window, and leaping from the sill, was gone.\n\nThen Beltane turned and looked upon Gui of Allerdale. \"Seneschal,\" said\nhe, \"I who speak am he, who, an God so wills, shall be Duke of\nPentavalon ere long: howbeit, I will keep my promise to thee, so aid me\nGod!\"\n\nThus saying, he mounted the window in his turn, and, even as the door\nsplintered behind him, forced himself through, and, leaping wide,\nwhirled over and over, down and down, and the sluggish river closed\nover him with a mighty splash; thereafter the placid waters went upon\ntheir way, bubbling here and there, and dimpling 'neath the waning\nmoon.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nHOW BELTANE CAME NIGH TO DEATH\n\n\nDown went my Beltane, weighted in his heavy mail--down and ever down\nthrough a world of green that grew dark and ever more dark, until,\nwithin the pitchy gloom beneath him was a quaking slime that sucked\nviciously at foot and ankle. Desperately he fought and strove to rise,\nbut ever the mud clung, and, lusty swimmer though he was, his triple\nmail bore him down.\n\nAnd now his mighty muscles failed, lights flamed before his eyes, in\nhis ears was a drone that grew to a rushing roar, his lungs seemed\nbursting, and the quaking ooze yearning to engulf him. Then my Beltane\nknew the bitter agony of coming death, and strove no more; but in that\nplace of darkness and horror, a clammy something crawled upon his face,\nslipped down upon his helpless body, seized hold upon his belt and\ndragged at him fierce and strong; slowly, slowly the darkness thinned,\ngrew lighter, and then--Ah, kind mercy of God! his staring eyes beheld\nthe orbed moon, his famished lungs drank deep the sweet, cool air of\nnight. And so he gasped, and gasping, strove feebly with arm and leg\nwhile ever the strong hand grasped at his girdle. And now he heard,\nfaint and afar, a sound of voices, hands reached down and drew him up--\nup to good, firm earth, and there, face down among the grass, he lay\nawhile, content only to live and breathe. Gradually he became aware of\nanother sound hard by, a sharp sound yet musical, and in a little, knew\nit for the \"twang\" of a swift-drawn bow-string. Now, glancing up,\nBeltane beheld an ancient tree near by, a tree warped and stunted\nwherein divers arrows stood, and behind the tree, Giles o' the Bow,\nwho, as he watched, drew and loosed a shaft, which, flashing upward,\nwas answered by a cry; whereon Giles laughed aloud.\n\n\"Six!\" he cried, \"six in seven shots: 'tis sweet archery methinks, and\nquicker than a noose, my Rogerkin, and more deadly than thy axe, my\nsurly Walkyn. Let the rogues yonder but show themselves, and give me\narrows enow, so will I slay all Gui's garrison ere the moon fail me\nquite.\"\n\nBut hereupon Beltane got him to his knees and made shift to stand, and,\ncoming to the tree, leaned there, being faint and much spent.\n\n\"Aha, sweet lord,\" cried the archer, \"a man after my very heart art\nthou. What wonders have we achieved this night--paladins in sooth we\nbe, all four! By the blessed bones of St. Giles, all Pentavalon shall\nring with our doings anon.\"\n\nSaid Beltane, faintly:\n\n\"Where is my good Roger?\"\n\n\"Here, lord,\" a voice answered from the shade of a bush hard by: \"'twas\nmy comrade Walkyn dragged me up from death--even as he did thee.\"\n\n\"We thought you gone for good, master.\"\n\n\"Aye!\" cried the archer, \"so would ye all be dead, methinks, but for me\nand this my bow.\"\n\n\"Friends,\" said Beltane, \"'tis by doings such as this that men do learn\neach other's worth: so shall the bonds betwixt us strengthen day by\nday, and join us in accord and brotherhood that shall outlast this puny\nlife. So now let us begone and join the others.\"\n\nSo they turned their backs upon Belsaye town, and keeping to the brush,\ncame at length to where upon the borders of the forest the white friar\nwaited them, with the nine who yet remained of the prisoners; these,\nbeholding Beltane, came hurrying to meet him, and falling upon their\nknees about him, strove with each other to kiss his hands and feet.\n\n\"Good fellows,\" said Beltane, \"God hath this night brought ye out of\ndeath into life--how will ye use your lives hereafter? List now:--even\nas ye have suffered, others are suffering: as ye have endured the gloom\nof dungeon and fear of death, so, at this hour, others do the like by\nreason of misrule and tyranny. Now here stand I, together with Sir\nBenedict of Bourne who holdeth Thrasfordham Keep, pledged to live\nhenceforth, sword in hand, until these evils are no more--since 'tis\nonly by bitter strife and conflict that evil may be driven from our\nborders. Thus, Pentavalon needeth men, strong-armed and resolute: if\nsuch ye be, march ye this hour to Thrasfordham within Bourne, and say\nto Sir Benedict that God having given you new life, so now will ye give\nyour lives to Pentavalon, that tyranny may cease and the Duchy be\ncleansed of evil. Who now among ye will draw sword for freedom and\nPentavalon?\"\n\nThen sprang the squat man Osric to his feet, with clenched fist\nupraised and eyes ablaze 'neath his matted hair.\n\n\"That will I!\" he cried. \"And I! And I! And I!\" cried the rest, grim-faced\nand eager. \"Aye--give us but swords, and one to lead, and we will\nfollow!\"\n\nQuoth Beltane:\n\n\"Go you then to Sir Benedict within Bourne and say to all men that\nBeltane the Duke hath this night burned down Black Ivo's shameful\ngibbet, for a sign that he is come at last and is at work, nor will he\nstay until he die, or Pentavalon be free!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nHOW BELTANE HAD WORD WITH PERTOLEPE THE RED, AND HOW THEY LEFT HIM IN\nTHE FOREST\n\n\n  \"Since all men breathing 'neath the sky\n   Good or evil, soon must die,\n   Ho! bring me wine, and what care I\n   For dying!\"\n\nIt was Giles Brabblecombe singing to himself as he knelt beside a fire\nof twigs, and Beltane, opening sleepy eyes, looked round upon a world\nall green and gold and dew-bespangled; a fair world and fragrant,\nwhose balmy air breathed of hidden flowers and blooming thickets,\nwhence came the joyous carolling of new-waked birds; and beholding all\nthis and the glory of it, my Beltane must needs praise God he was\nalive.\n\n\"Hail and good morrow to thee, brother!\" cried the bowman, seeing him\nastir. \"The sun shineth, look you, I sit upon my hams and sing for that\nthis roasting venison smelleth sweet, while yonder i' the leaves be a\nmavis and a merle a-mocking of me, pretty rogues: for each and ever of\nwhich, _Laus Deo, Amen!_\"\n\n\"Why truly, God hath made a fair world, Giles, a good world to live in,\nand to live is to act--yet here have I lain most basely sleeping--\"\n\n\"Like any paunched friar, brother. But a few days since, I met thee in\nthe green, a very gentle, dove-like youth that yet became a very lion\nof fight and demi-god of battle! Heroes were we all, last night--nay,\nvery Titans--four 'gainst an army!--whiles now, within this\nbalmy-breathing morn you shall see Walkyn o' the Bloody Axe with grim\nBlack Rogerkin, down at the brook yonder, a-sprawl upon their bellies\nbusily a-tickling trout for breakfast, while I, whose good yew bow\ncarrieth death in every twang, toasting deer-flesh on a twig, am mocked of\nwanton warblers i' the green: and thou, who art an Achilles, a Hector,\nan Ajax--a very Mars--do sleep and slumber, soft and sweet as full-fed\nfriar--Heigho! Yet even a demi-god must nod betimes, and Titans eat,\nlook ye.\"\n\nNow looking from sun to earth and beholding the shortening of the\nshadows, Beltane leapt up. Quoth he:\n\n\"Sluggard that I am, 'tis late! And Roger was wounded last night, I\nmind--\"\n\n\"Content you, brother, 'twas nought,\" said Giles bending above his\ncooking, \"the kiss of a pike-head i' the thick o' the arm--no more.\"\n\n\"Yet it must be looked to--\"\n\n\"I did it, brother, as I shoot--that is to say I did it most excellent\nwell: 'twill be healed within the week.\"\n\n\"How then--art leech as well as bowman?\"\n\n\"Quite as well, brother. When I was a monk I learned two good things,\n_videlicit_: never to argue with those in authority over me, and to\nheal the hurts of those that did. So, by my skill in herbs and\nleechcraft, Roger, having a hole in his arm, recks not of it--behold\nhere he cometh, and Walkyn too, and _Laus Deo!_ with a trout! Now shall\nwe feast like any pampered prelate.\"\n\nSo when Beltane had stripped and bathed him in the brook, they\npresently sat down, all four together, and ate and talked and laughed\nright merrily, the while lark and thrush and blackbird carolled lustily\nfar and near.\n\n\"Now eat, brothers,\" cried the bowman, full-mouthed, \"eat and spare\nnot, as I do, for to-day I smell the battle from afar: Ho! Ho! the\nnoise of captains and the shouting! Yesterday were we heroes, to-day\nmust we be gods--yet cautious gods, for, mark me, I have but twelve\nshafts remaining, and with twelve shafts can but promise ye a poor\ntwelve lives.\"\n\nBut now came Roger wistful-eyed, and with belt a-swing in his hand.\n\n\"Master,\" quoth he, \"last night did we four rescue twelve. Now I'm fain\nto know if for these twelve I may cut twelve notches from my belt, or\nmust we share their lives betwixt us and I count but three?\"\n\n\"Three?\" laughed Giles, \"Oho--out upon thee, Rogerkin! Our lord here\nclaimeth six, since he the rescue planned, next, I claim three, since\nbut for my goodly shooting ye all had died, then hath Walkyn two, since\nhe saved thee from the fishes, which leaveth thee--one. _Quod erat\ndemonstrandum!_\"\n\nBut now, seeing Roger's downcast look, Giles snatched the belt and gave\nit unto Beltane, who forthwith cut there-from twelve notches. And, in a\nwhile, having made an end of eating, Beltane rose and looked round upon\nthe three.\n\n\"Good comrades all,\" quoth he, \"well do I know ye to be staunch and\ntrusty; yet to-day am I minded to speak with him men call Pertolepe the\nRed, lest he shed innocent blood for that we slew his foresters--\"\n\n\"Twenty lusty fellows!\" nodded Giles, with a morsel of venison on his\ndagger point.\n\n\"Nay, there one escaped!\" quoth Roger.\n\n\"Yet he sore wounded!\" said Walkyn.\n\n\"Ha! Sir Pertolepe is a terrible lord!\" quoth Giles, eyeing the morsel\nof venison somewhat askance. \"'Twill be a desperate adventure,\nmethinks--and we but four.\"\n\n\"Yet each and all--gods!\" quoth Walkyn, reaching for his axe.\n\n\"Aye,\" nodded Giles, frowning at the piece of venison, \"yet are we but\nfour gods.\"\n\n\"Not so,\" answered Beltane, \"for in this thing shall we be but one. Go\nyou three to Bourne, for I am minded to try this adventure alone.\"\n\n\"Alone, master!\" cried Black Roger, starting to his feet.\n\n\"Alone!\" growled Walkyn, clutching his axe.\n\n\"An death must come, better one should die than four,\" said Beltane,\n\"howbeit I am minded to seek out Pertolepe this day.\"\n\n\"Then do I come also, master, since thy man am I.\"\n\n\"I, too,\" nodded Walkyn, \"come death and welcome, so I but stand face\nto face with Pertolepe.\"\n\n\"Alack!\" sighed Giles, \"so needs must I come also, since I have twelve\nshafts yet unsped,\" and he swallowed the morsel of venison with mighty\nrelish and gusto.\n\nThen laughed Beltane for very gladness, and he looked on each with\nkindling eye.\n\n\"Good friends,\" quoth he, \"as ye say, so let it be, and may God's hand\nbe over us this day.\"\n\nNow, as he spake with eyes uplift to heaven, he espied a faint, blue\nmist far away above the soft-stirring tree tops--a distant haze, that\nrose lazily into the balmy air, thickening ever as he watched.\n\n\"Ah!\" he exclaimed, fierce-eyed of a sudden and pointing with rigid\nfinger, \"whence cometh that smoke, think ye?\"\n\n\"Why,\" quoth Roger, frowning, \"Wendonmere village lieth yonder!\"\n\n\"Nay, 'tis nearer than Wendonmere,\" said Walkyn, shouldering his axe.\n\n\"See, the smoke thickens!\" cried Beltane. \"Now, God forgive me! the\nwhile I tarry here Red Pertolepe is busy, meseemeth!\" So saying, he\ncaught up his sword, and incontinent set off at speed toward where the\nsoft blue haze stole upon the air of morning, growing denser and ever\ndenser.\n\nFast and furious Beltane sped on, crashing through underbrush and\ncrackling thicket, o'erleaping bush and brook and fallen tree, heedful\nof eye, and choosing his course with a forester's unerring instinct,\npraying fiercely beneath his breath, and with the three ever close\nbehind.\n\n\"Would I had eaten less!\" panted Giles.\n\n\"Would our legs were longer!\" growled Walkyn.\n\n\"Would my belt bore fewer notches!\" quoth Roger.\n\nAnd so they ran together, sure-footed and swift, and ever as they ran\nthe smoke grew denser, and ever Beltane's prayers more fervent. Now in\na while they heard a sound, faint and confused: a hum, that presently\ngrew to a murmur--to a drone--to a low wailing of voices, pierced of a\nsudden by a shrill cry no man's lips could utter, that swelled high\nupon the air and died, lost amid the growing clamour.\n\n\"They've fired the ricks first!\" panted Roger; \"'tis ever Pertolepe's\nway!\"\n\n\"They be torturing the women!\" hissed Walkyn; \"'tis ever so Red\nPertolepe's pleasure!\"\n\n\"And I have but twelve arrows left me!\" groaned Giles.\n\nBut Beltane ran in silence, looking neither right nor left, until,\nabove the hum of voices he heard one upraised in passionate\nsupplication, followed by another--a loud voice and jovial--and\nthereafter, a burst of roaring laughter.\n\nSoon Beltane beheld a stream that flowed athwart their way and, beyond\nthe stream, a line of willows thick growing upon the marge; and again,\nbeyond these clustering willows the straggling village lay. Then\nBeltane, motioning the others to caution, forded the stream and coming\nin the shade of the osiers, drew on his hood of mail, and so,\nunsheathing his long sword, peered through the leaves. And this is what\nhe saw:\n\nA wide road flanked by rows of scattered cottages, rude of wall and\nthatch; a dusty road, that led away east and west into the cool depths\nof the forest, and a cringing huddle of wretched village folk whose\npallid faces were all set one way, where some score of men-at-arms\nlolled in their saddles watching a tall young maid who struggled\nfiercely in the grasp of two lusty fellows, her garments rent, her\nwhite flesh agleam in the sunlight. A comely maid, supple and strong,\nwho ever as she strove 'gainst the clutching hands that held her, kept\nher blazing eyes turned upon one in knightly mail who sat upon a great\nwar-horse hard by, watching her, big chin in big mailed fist, and with\nwide lips up-curling in a smile: a strong man this, heavy and broad of\nchest; his casque hung at his saddle-bow, and his mail-coif, thrown\nback upon his wide shoulders, showed his thick, red hair that fell a-down,\nframing his square-set, rugged face.\n\n\"Ha, Cuthbert,\" quoth he, turning to one who rode at his elbow--a\nslender youth who stared with evil eyes and sucked upon his finger,\n\"Aha, by the fiend, 'tis a sweet armful, Sir Squire?\"\n\n\"Aye, my lord Pertolepe, 'tis rarely shaped and delicately fleshed!\"\nanswered the esquire, and so fell to sucking his finger again.\n\n\"What, silly wench, will ye defy me still?\" cried Sir Pertolepe, jovial\nof voice, \"must ye to the whip in sooth? Ho, Ralph--Otho, strip me this\nstubborn jade--so!--Ha! verily Cuthbert, hast shrewd eyes, 'tis a\ndainty rogue. Come,\" said he smiling down into the girl's wide, fierce\neyes, \"save that fair body o' thine from the lash, now, and speak me\nwhere is thy father and brother that I may do justice on them, along\nwith these other dogs, for the foul murder of my foresters yest're'en;\ntheir end shall be swift, look ye, and as for thyself--shalt find those\nto comfort thee anon--speak, wench!\"\n\nBut now came a woman pale and worn, who threw herself on trembling\nknees at Sir Pertolepe's stirrup, and, bowed thus before him in the\ndust, raised a passionate outcry, supplicating his mercy with bitter\ntears and clasped hands lifted heavenwards.\n\n\"O good my lord Pertolepe,\" she wailed, \"'twas not my husband, nor son,\nnor any man of our village wrought this thing; innocent are we, my\nlord--\"\n\n\"O witch!\" quoth he, \"who bade thee speak?\" So saying he drew mail-clad\nfoot from stirrup and kicked her back into the dust. \"Ho, whips!\" he\ncalled, \"lay on, and thereafter will we hang these vermin to their own\nroof-trees and fire their hovels for a warning.\"\n\nBut now, even as the struggling maid was dragged forward--even as\nPertolepe, smiling, settled chin on fist to watch the lithe play of her\nwrithing limbs, the willows behind him swayed and parted to a sudden\npanther-like leap, and a mail-clad arm was about Sir Pertolepe--a\nmighty arm that bore him from the saddle and hurled him headlong; and\nthereafter Sir Pertolepe, half stunned and staring up from the dust,\nbeheld a great blade whose point pricked his naked throat, and, beyond\nthis blade, a mail-clad face, pallid, fierce, grim-lipped, from whose\nblazing eyes death glared down at him.\n\n\"Dog!\" panted Beltane.\n\n\"Ha! Cuthbert!\" roared Red Pertolepe, writhing 'neath Beltane's\ngrinding heel, \"to me, Cuthbert--to me!\"\n\nBut, as the esquire wheeled upon Beltane with sword uplifted, out from\nthe green an arrow whistled, and Cuthbert, shrill-screaming, swayed in\nhis saddle and thudded to earth, while his great war-horse, rearing\naffrighted, plunged among the men-at-arms, and all was shouting and\nconfusion; while from amid the willows arrows whizzed and flew, 'neath\nwhose cruel barbs horses snorted, stumbling and kicking, or crashed\ninto the dust; and ever the confusion grew.\n\nBut now Sir Pertolepe, wriggling beneath Beltane's iron foot had\nunsheathed his dagger, yet, ere he could stab, down upon his red pate\ncrashed the heavy pommel of Beltane's sword and Sir Pertolepe, sinking\nbackward, lay out-stretched in the dust very silent and very still.\nThen Beltane sheathed his sword and, stooping, caught Sir Pertolepe by\nthe belt and dragged him into the shade of the willows, and being come\nto the stream, threw his captive down thereby and fell to splashing his\nbruised face with the cool water. And now, above the shouts and the\ntrampling of hoofs upon the road, came the clash of steel on steel and\nthe harsh roar of Walkyn and Black Roger as they plied axe and sword--\n\"Arise! Ha, arise!\" Then, as Beltane glanced up, the leaves near by\nwere dashed aside and Giles came bounding through, his gay feather\nshorn away, his escalloped cape wrenched and torn, his broadsword a-swing\nin his hand.\n\n\"Ho, tall brother--a sweet affray!\" he panted, \"the fools give back\nalready: they cry that Pertolepe is slain and the woods full of\noutlaws; they be falling back from the village--had I but a few shafts\nin my quiver, now--\" but here, beholding the face of Beltane's captive,\nGiles let fall his sword, staring round-eyed.\n\n\"Holy St. Giles!\" he gasped, \"'tis the Red Pertolepe!\" and so stood\nagape, what time a trumpet brayed a fitful blast from the road and was\nanswered afar. Thereafter came Roger, stooping as he ran, and shouting:\n\n\"Archers! Archers!--run, lord!\"\n\nBut Beltane stirred not, only he dashed the water in Sir Pertolepe's\ntwitching face, wherefore came Roger and caught him by the arm,\npleading:\n\n\"Master, O master!\" he panted, \"the forest is a-throng with lances, and\nthere be archers also--let us make the woods ere we are beset!\"\n\nBut Beltane, seeing the captive stir, shook off Black Roger's grasp;\nbut now, one laughed, and Walkyn towered above him, white teeth agleam,\nwho, staring down at Sir Pertolepe, whirled up his bloody axe to smite.\n\n\"Fool!\" cried Beltane, and threw up his hand to stay the blow, and in\nthat moment Sir Pertolepe oped his eyes.\n\n\"'Tis Pertolepe!\" panted Walkyn, \"'tis he that slew wife and child: so\nnow will I slay him, since we, in this hour, must die!\"\n\n\"Not so,\" quoth Beltane, \"stand back--obey me--back, I say!\" So,\nmuttering, Walkyn lowered his axe, while Beltane, drawing his dagger,\nstooped above Sir Pertolepe and spake, swift and low in his ear, and\nwith dagger at his throat. And, in a while, Beltane rose and Sir\nPertolepe also, and side by side they stepped forth of the leaves out\ninto the road, where, on the outskirts of the village, pikemen and\nmen-at-arms, archer and knight, were halted in a surging throng, while\nabove the jostling confusion rose the hoarse babel of their voices. But\nof a sudden the clamour died to silence, and thereafter from a hundred\nthroats a shout went up:\n\n\"A Pertolepe! 'Tis Sir Pertolepe!\"\n\nNow in this moment Beltane laid his dagger-hand about Sir Pertolepe's\nbroad shoulders, and set the point of his dagger 'neath Sir Pertolepe's\nright ear.\n\n\"Speak!\" quoth Beltane softly, and his dagger-point bit deeper, \"speak\nnow as I commanded thee!\"\n\nA while Sir Pertolepe bit savagely at his knuckle-bones, then, lifting\nhis head, spake that all might hear:\n\n\"Ho, sirs!\" he cried, \"I am fain to bide awhile and hold talk with one\nBeltane, who styleth himself--Duke of Pentavalon. Hie ye back,\ntherefore, one and all, and wait me in Garthlaxton; yet, an I come not\nby sunset, ride forth and seek me within the forest. Go!\"\n\nHereupon from the disordered ranks a sound arose, a hoarse murmur that\nvoiced their stark amaze, and, for a while, all eyes stared upon those\ntwo grim figures that yet stood so close and brotherly. But Sir\nPertolepe quelled them with a gesture:\n\n\"Go!\" he commanded.\n\nSo their disarray fell into rank and order, and wheeling about, they\nmarched away along the forest road with helm agleam and pennons a-dance,\nthe while Sir Pertolepe stared after them, wild of eye and with\nmailed hands clenched; once he made as if to call them back: but\nBeltane's hand was heavy on his shoulder, and the dagger pricked his\nthroat. And thus stood they, side by side, until the tramp of feet was\ndied away, until the last trembling villager had slunk from sight and\nthe broad road was deserted, all save for Cuthbert the esquire, and\ndivers horses that lay stiffly in the dust, silent and very still.\n\nThen Beltane sighed and sheathed his dagger, and Sir Pertolepe faced\nhim scrowling, fierce-eyed and arrogant.\n\n\"Ha, outlaw!\" quoth he, \"give back my sword and I will cope with thee--\nwolf's head though thou art--aye, and any two other rogues beside.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" answered Beltane, \"I fight with such as thee but when I needs\nmust. What--Roger!\" he called, \"go fetch hither a rope!\"\n\n\"Dog--would ye murder me?\"\n\n\"Not so,\" sighed Beltane, shaking his head, \"have I not promised to\nleave thee alive within the greenwood? Yet I would see thee walk in\nbonds first.\"\n\n\"Ha, dare ye bind me, then? He that toucheth me, toucheth Duke Ivo--\ndare ye so do, rogue?\"\n\n\"Aye, messire,\" nodded Beltane, \"I dare so. Bring hither the rope,\nRoger.\" But when Roger was come nigh, Sir Pertolepe turned and stared\nupon him.\n\n\"What!\" cried he, jovial of voice yet deadly-eyed, \"is it my runaway\nhangman in very sooth. Did I not pay thee enough, thou black-avised\nknave? Did I not love thee for thy skill with the noose, thou\ntraitorous rogue? Now, mark me, Roger: one day will I feed thee to my\nhounds and watch them tear thee, as they have certain other rogues--\naha!--you mind them, belike?\"\n\nPale of cheek and with trembling hands, Roger bound the arms of him\nthat had been his over-lord, while Walkyn and Giles, silent and\nwide-eyed, watched it done.\n\n\"Whither would ye take me?\" quoth Red Pertolepe, arrogant.\n\n\"That shalt thou know anon, messire.\"\n\n\"How an I defy thee?\"\n\n\"Then must we carry thee, messire,\" answered Beltane, \"yet thine own\nlegs were better methinks--come, let us begone.\"\n\nThus, presently, having forded the brook, they struck into the forest;\nfirst went Walkyn, axe on shoulder, teeth agleam; next strode Sir\nPertolepe, head high, 'twixt pale-faced Roger and silent Beltane, while\nthe bowman followed after, calling upon St. Giles beneath his breath\nand crossing himself: and ever and anon Walkyn would turn to look upon\ntheir scowling captive with eyes that glared 'neath shaggy brows.\n\nNow after they had gone some while, Sir Pertolepe brake silence and\nspake my Beltane, proud and fierce.\n\n\"Fellow,\" quoth he, \"if 'tis for ransom ye hold me, summon hither thy\nrogues' company, and I will covenant for my release.\"\n\n\"I seek no ransom of thee, messire,\" answered Beltane, \"and for my\ncompany--'tis here.\"\n\n\"Here? I see but three sorry knaves!\"\n\n\"Yet with these same three did I o'ercome thy foresters, Sir\nPertolepe.\"\n\n\"Rogue, thou liest--'tis thing impossible!\"\n\n\"Moreover, with these three did I, last night, burn down Black Ivo's\nmighty gallows that stood without Belsaye town, and, thereafter set\nwide the dungeon of Belsaye and delivered thence certain woeful\nprisoners, and sent them abroad with word that I--Beltane, son of\nBeltane the Strong, Duke of Pentavalon, am come at last, bearing the\nsword of my father, that was wont to strike deep for liberty and\njustice: nor, having life, will I lay it by until oppression is no\nmore.\"\n\nNow indeed did Sir Pertolepe stare upon my Beltane in amaze and spake\nno word for wonder; then, of a sudden he laughed, scornful and loud.\n\n\"Ho! thou burner of gibbets!\" quoth he, \"take heed lest thy windy\nboasting bring thy lordly neck within a noose! Art lusty of arm, yet\nlustier of tongue--and as to thy father, whoe'er he be--\"\n\n\"Messire?\" Beltane's voice was soft, yet, meeting the calm serenity of\nhis gaze, Sir Pertolepe checked the jeer upon his lip and stared upon\nBeltane as one new-waked; beheld in turn his high and noble look, the\ncostly excellence of his armour, his great sword and belt of silver--\nand strode on thereafter with never a word, yet viewing Beltane aslance\n'neath brows close-knit in dark perplexity. So, at last, they came into\na little clearing deep-hid among the denser green.\n\nBeltane paused here, and lifting mailed hand, pointed to a certain\ntree. But hereupon, Sir Pertolepe, staring round about him and down\nupon his galling bonds, spake:\n\n\"Sir knight,\" said he, \"who thou art I know not, yet, if indeed thou\nart of gentle blood, then know that I am Sir Pertolepe, Baron of\nTrenda, Seneschal of Garthlaxton, lord warden of the marches: moreover,\nfriend and brother-in-arms am I to Duke Ivo--\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Beltane, \"all this I know, for much of thee have I heard,\nmessire: of thy dark doings, of the agony of men, the shame of women,\nand how that there be many desolate hearths and nameless graves of thy\nmaking, lord Pertolepe. Thou wert indeed of an high estate and strong,\nand these but lowly folk and weak--yet mercy on them had ye none. I\nhave this day heard thee doom the innocent to death and bitter shame,\nand, lord, as God seeth us, it is enough!\"\n\nSir Pertolepe's ruddy cheek showed pale, but his blue eyes stared upon\nBeltane wide and fearless.\n\n\"Have ye then dragged me hither to die, messire?\"\n\n\"Lord Pertolepe, all men must die, aye, e'en great lords such as thou,\nwhen they have sinned sufficiently: and thy sins, methinks, do reach\nhigh heaven. So have I brought thee hither into the wilderness that\nGod's will may be wrought upon thee.\"\n\n\"How--wilt forswear thyself?\" cried Sir Pertolepe, writhing in his\nbonds.\n\nQuoth Beltane:\n\n\"Come Roger--Walkyn--bring me him to the tree, yonder.\"\n\n\"Ha! rogue--rogue,\" panted Sir Pertolepe, \"would'st leave me to die in\na noose, unshriven and unannealed, my soul dragged hell-wards weighted\nwith my sins?\"\n\nNow, even as he spake, swift and sudden he leapt aside and would have\nfled; but Walkyn's fierce fingers dragged at his throat, and Roger's\niron arms were close about him. Desperately he fought and struggled,\nbut mighty though he was, his captors were mighty also, moreover his\nbonds galled him; wherefore, fighting yet, they dragged him to the\ntree, and to the tree Beltane fast bound him, whiles the forest rang\nand echoed with his panting cries until his great voice cracked and\nbroke, and he hung 'gainst the tree, spent and breathless.\n\nThen spake Beltane, grim-lipped yet soft of voice:\n\n\"Lord Pertolepe, fain would I hang thee as thou hast hanged many a man\nere now--but this, methinks, is a better way: for here, unless some\nwanderer chance to find thee, must thou perish, an so God will it. Thus\ndo we leave thee in the hands of God to grant thee life or death: and\nmay he have mercy on thy guilty soul!\"\n\nThus said Beltane, sombre of brow and pale of cheek; and so, beckoning\nto the others, turned away, despite Sir Pertolepe's passionate threats\nand prayers, and plunging into the dense underbrush, strode swift-footed\nfrom the place, with the captive's wild cries ringing in his ears.\n\nHaphazard went Beltane, yet straining his ears to catch those mournful\nsounds that grew faint and fainter with distance till they were lost in\nthe rustle of the leaves. But, of a sudden, he stayed his going and\nstood with his head aslant hearkening to a sound that seemed to have\nreached him from the solitudes behind; and presently it came again, a\ncry from afar--a scream of agony, hoarse and long drawn out, a hateful\nsound that checked the breath of him and brought the sweat out cold\nupon his brow; and now, turning about, he saw that his following was\nbut two, for Walkyn had vanished quite. Now Giles, meeting Beltane's\nwide stare, must needs cough and fumble with his bow, whiles Roger\nstood with bowed head and fingers tight-clenched upon his quarter-staff:\nwhereat, fierce-frowning, Beltane spake.\n\n\"Wait!\" he commanded, \"wait you here!\" and forthwith turned and ran,\nand so running, came again at last to that obscure glade whence now\ncame a sound of groans, mocked, thereafter, by fierce laughter. Now,\nbursting from the green, Beltane beheld Sir Pertolepe writhing in his\nbonds with Walkyn's fierce fingers twined in his red hair, and Walkyn's\nbusy dagger at his upturned brow, where was a great, gory wound, a\nhideous cruciform blotch whence pulsed the blood that covered his\nwrithen face like a scarlet vizard.\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Beltane, \"what hast thou done?\"\n\nBack fell Walkyn, fierce-eyed and grim yet with teeth agleam through\nthe hair of his beard.\n\n\"Lord,\" quoth he, \"this man hath slain wife, and child and brother, so\ndo I know him thrice a murderer. Therefore have I set this mark of\nCain upon him, that all men henceforth may see and know. But now, an it\nbe so thy will, take this my dagger and slay me here and now--yet shall\nRed Pertolepe bear my mark upon him when I am dead.\"\n\nAwhile stood Beltane in frowning thought, then pointed to the green.\n\n\"Go,\" said he, \"the others wait thee!\"\n\nSo Walkyn, obeying, turned and plunged into the green, while Beltane\nfollowed after, slow and heavy-footed. But now, even as he went, slow\nand ever slower, he lifted heavy head and turned about, for above the\nleafy stirrings rose the mournful lilting of a pipe, clear and very\nsweet, that drew nearer and louder until it was, of a sudden, drowned\nin a cry hoarse and woeful. Then Beltane, hasting back soft-treading,\nstood to peer through the leaves, and presently, his cock's-comb\nflaunting, his silver bells a-jingle, there stepped a mountebank into\nthe clearing--that same jester with whom Beltane had talked aforetime.\n\n\"Beda!\" cried Sir Pertolepe faintly, his bloody face uplifted, \"and is\nit forsooth, thou, Beda? Come, free me of my bonds. Ha! why stay ye, I\nam Pertolepe--thy lord--know you me not, Beda?\"\n\n\"Aye, full well I know thee, lord Pertolepe, thou art he who had me\ndriven forth with blows and bitter stripes--thou art he who slew my\nfather for an ill-timed jest--oho! well do I know thee, my lord\nPertolepe.\" So saying, Beda the Jester set his pipe within his girdle,\nand, drawing his dagger, began to creep upon Sir Pertolepe, who shook\nthe dripping blood from his eyes to watch him as he came. Quote he:\n\n\"Art a good fool, Beda, aye, a good fool. And for thy father, 'twas the\nwine, Beda--the wine, not I--come, free me of these my bonds--I loved\nthy father, e'en as I loved thee.\"\n\n\"Yet is my father dead, lord--and I am outcast!\" said Beda, smiling and\nfingering his dagger.\n\n\"So then, will ye slay me, Beda--wilt murder thy lord? Why then,\nstrike, fool, strike--here, i' the throat, and let thy steel be\nhard-driven. Come!\"\n\nThen Sir Pertolepe feebly raised his bloody head, proffering his throat\nto the steel and so stood faint in his bonds, yet watching the jester\ncalm-eyed. Slowly, slowly the dagger was lifted for the stroke while\nSir Pertolepe watched the glittering steel patient and unflinching;\nthen, swift and sudden the dagger flashed and fell, and Sir Pertolepe\nstaggered free, and so stood swaying. Then, looking down upon his\nsevered bonds, he laughed hoarsely.\n\n\"How, 'twas but a jest, then, my Beda?\" he whispered. \"A jest--ha! and\nmethinks, forsooth, the best wilt ever make!\"\n\nSo saying, Sir Pertolepe stumbled forward a pace, groping before him\nlike a blind man, then, groaning, fell, and lay a'swoon, his bloody\nface hidden in the grass.\n\nAnd turning away, Beltane left him lying there with Beda the Jester\nkneeling above him.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nOF THE RUEFUL KNIGHT OF THE BURNING HEART\n\n\nSouthward marched Beltane hour after hour, tireless of stride, until\nthe sun began to decline; on and on, thoughtful of brow and speaking\nnot at all, wherefore the three were gloomy and silent also--even Giles\nhad no mind to break in upon his solemn meditations. But at last came\nRoger and touched him on the shoulder.\n\n\"Master,\" said he, \"the day groweth to a close, and we famish.\"\n\n\"Why, then--eat,\" said Beltane.\n\nNow while they set about building a fire, Beltane went aside and\nwandering slow and thoughtful, presently came to a broad glade or ride,\nand stretching himself out 'neath a tree, lay there staring up at the\nleafy canopy, pondering upon Sir Pertolepe his sins, and the marvellous\nways of God. Lying thus, he was aware of the slow, plodding hoof-strokes\nof a horse drawing near, of the twang of a lute, with a voice\nsweet and melodious intoning a chant; and the tune was plaintive and\nthe words likewise, being these:--\n\n  \"Alack and woe\n   That love is so\n   Akin to pain!\n   That to my heart\n   The bitter smart\n   Returns again,\n   Alack and woe!\"\n\nGlancing up therefore, Beltane presently espied a knight who bestrode a\ngreat and goodly war-horse; a youthful knight and debonair, slender and\nshapely in his bright mail and surcoat of flame- samite. His\nbroad shield hung behind his shoulder, balanced by a long lance whose\ngay banderol fluttered wanton to the soft-breathing air; above his\nmail-coif he wore a small bright-polished bascinet, while, at his\nhigh-peaked saddle-bow his ponderous war-helm swung, together with\nbroad-bladed battle-axe. Now as he paced along in this right gallant\nestate, his roving glance, by hap, lighted on Beltane, whereupon,\nchecking his powerful horse, he plucked daintily at the strings of his\nlute, delicate-fingered, and brake into song anew:--\n\n  \"Ah, woe is me\n   That I should be\n   A lonely wight!\n   That in mankind\n   No joy I find\n   By day or night,\n   Ah, woe is me!\"\n\nThereafter he sighed amain and smote his bosom, and smiling upon\nBeltane sad-eyed, spake:\n\n\"Most excellent, tall, and sweet young sir, I, who Love's lorn pilgrim\nam, do give thee woeful greeting and entreat now the courtesy of thy\npity.\"\n\n\"And wherefore pity, sir?\" quoth Beltane, sitting up.\n\n\"For reason of a lady's silver laughter. A notable reason this; for,\nmark me, ye lovers, an thy lady flout thee one hour, grieve not--she\nshall be kind the next; an she scorn thee to-day, despair nothing--she\nshall love thee to-morrow; but, an she laugh and laugh--ah, then poor\nlover, Venus pity thee! Then languish hope, and tender heart be rent,\nfor love and laughter can ne'er be kin. Wherefore a woeful wight am I,\nforedone and all distraught for love. Behold here, the blazon on my\nshield--lo! a riven heart proper (direfully aflame) upon a field vert.\nThe heart, methinks, is aptly wrought and popped, and the flame in\nsooth flame-like! Here beneath, behold my motto, 'Ardeo' which\nsignifieth 'I burn.' Other device have I laid by for the nonce, what\ntime my pilgrimage shall be accompt.\"\n\nBut Beltane looked not so much upon the shield as on the face of him\nthat bore it, and beholding its high and fearless look, the clear,\nbright eyes and humorous mouth (albeit schooled to melancholy) he\nsmiled, and got him to his feet.\n\n\"Now, well met, Sir Knight of the Burning Heart!\" quoth he. \"What would\nye here, alone, within these solitudes?\"\n\n\"Sigh, messire. I sing and sigh, and sigh and sing.\"\n\n\"'Tis a something empty life, methinks.\"\n\n\"Not so, messire,\" sighed the rueful knight, \"for when I chance to meet\na gentle youth, young and well beseen--as thou, bedight in goodly mail\n--as thou, with knightly sword on thigh, why then, messire, 'tis ever my\nwont to declare unto him that she I honour is fairer, nobler, and\naltogether more worthy and virtuous than any other she soever, and to\nmaintain that same against him, on horse or afoot, with lance, battle-axe\nor sword. Thus, see you messire, even a love-lorn lover hath\nbetimes his compensations, and the sward is soft underfoot, and level.\"\nSaying which, the knight cocked a delicate eyebrow in questioning\nfashion, and laid a slender finger to the pommel of his long sword.\n\n\"How,\" cried Beltane, \"would'st fight with me?\"\n\n\"Right gladly would I, messire--to break the monotony.\"\n\n\"I had rather hear thy song again.\"\n\n\"Ha, liked you it in sooth? 'Tis small thing of mine own.\"\n\n\"And 'tis brief!\" nodded Beltane.\n\n\"Brief!\" quoth the knight, \"brief! not so, most notable youthful sir,\nfor even as love is long enduring so is my song, it being of an hundred\nand seventy and eight cantos in all, dealing somewhat of the woes and\nills of a heart sore smitten (which heart is mine own also). Within my\nsong is much matter of hearts (in truth) and darts, of flames and\nshames, of yearnings and burnings, the which this poor heart must needs\nendure since it doth constant bleed and burn.\"\n\n\"Indeed, messire, I marvel that you be yet alive,\" said Beltane\ngravely, whereat the young knight did pause to view him, dubious-eyed.\nQuoth he:\n\n\"In sooth, most youthful and excellent sir, I have myself marvelled\nthereat betimes, but, since alive am I, now do I declare unto you that\nshe for whom I sigh is the fairest, gentlest, noblest, most glorious\nand most womanly of all women in the world alive--\"\n\n\"Save one!\" said Beltane.\n\n\"Save none, messire!\" said the young knight, eager-eyed.\n\n\"One!\" said Beltane.\n\n\"None!\" quoth the knight, as, casting aside ponderous lance he vaulted\nlightly from his saddle and drew his sword; but, seeing that Beltane\nbore no shield, paused to lay his own tenderly aside, and so faced him\nserene of brow and smiling of lip. \"Sweet sir,\" said he gaily, \"here\nmethinks is fair cause for argument; let us then discuss the matter\ntogether for the comfort of our souls and to the glory of our ladies.\nAs to my name--\" \"'Tis Jocelyn,\" quoth Beltane.\n\n\"Ha!\" exclaimed the knight, staring.\n\n\"That won a suit of triple mail at Dunismere joust, and wagered it\n'gainst Black Ivo's roan stallion within Deepwold forest upon a time.\"\n\n\"Now, by Venus!\" cried the knight, starting back, \"here be manifest\nsorcery! Ha! by the sweet blind boy, 'tis black magic!\" and he crossed\nhimself devoutly. But Beltane, laughing, put back his hood of mail,\nthat his long, fair hair fell a-down rippling to his shoulders.\n\n\"Know you me not, messire?\" quoth he.\n\n\"Why,\" said Sir Jocelyn, knitting delicate brows, \"surely thou art the\nforester that o'ercame Duke Ivo's wrestler; aye, by the silver feet of\nlovely Thetis, thou'rt Beltane the Smith!\"\n\n\"Verily, messire,\" nodded Beltane, \"and 'tis not meet that knight cross\nblade with lowly smith.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" quoth Sir Jocelyn, rubbing at his smooth white chin, \"yet art a\ngoodly man withal--and lover to boot--methinks?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" sighed Beltane, \"ever and always.\"\n\n\"Why then, all's well,\" quoth Sir Jocelyn with eyes a-dance, \"for since\ntrue love knoweth nought of distinctions, therefore being lovers are\nwe peers, and, being peers, so may we fight together. So come, Sir\nSmith, here stand I sword in hand to maintain 'gainst thee and all men\nthe fame and honour of her I worship, of all women alive, maid or wife\nor widow, the fairest, noblest, truest, and most love-worthy is--\"\n\n\"Helen of Mortain!\" quoth Beltane, sighing.\n\n\"Helen?--Helen?--thou too!\" exclaimed Sir Jocelyn, and forthwith\ndropped his sword, staring in stark amaze. \"How--dost thou love her\nalso?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" sighed Beltane, \"to my sorrow!\"\n\nThen stooped Sir Jocelyn and, taking up his sword, slowly sheathed it.\nQuoth he, sad-eyed:\n\n\"Life, methinks, is full of disappointments; farewell to thee, Sir\nSmith,\" and sighing, he turned away; yet ere he had taken lance and\nshield, Beltane spake:\n\n\"Whither away, Sir Jocelyn?\"\n\n\"To sigh, and sing, and seek adventure. 'Twas for this I left my goodly\ncastle of Alain and journeyed, a lorn pilgrim, hither to Pentavalon,\nsince when strange stories have I heard that whisper in the air,\nspeeding from lip to lip, of a certain doughty knight-at-arms, valiant\nbeyond thought, that beareth a sword whose mighty sweep none may abide,\nwho, alone and unaided slew an hundred and twenty and four within the\ngreenwood, and thereafter, did, 'neath the walls of Belsaye town burn\ndown Duke Ivo's gibbet, who hath sworn to cut Duke Ivo into gobbets,\nlook you, and feed him to the dogs; which is well, for I love not Duke\nIvo. All this have I heard and much beside, idle tales mayhap, yet\nwould I seek out this errant Mars and prove him, for mine own behoof,\nwith stroke of sword.\"\n\n\"And how an he prove worthy?\" questioned Beltane.\n\n\"Then will I ride with him, to share his deeds and glory mayhap, Sir\nSmith--I and all the ten-score lusty fellows that muster to my pennon,\nsince in the air is whispered talk of war, and Sir Benedict lieth ready\nin Thrasfordham Keep.\"\n\n\"Two hundred men,\" quoth Beltane, his blue eyes agleam, \"two hundred,\nsay you?\" and, speaking, he stepped forward, unsheathing his sword.\n\n\"How now,\" quoth Sir Jocelyn, \"what would ye, sweet smith?\"\n\n\"I would have thee prove me for thy behoof, Sir Jocelyn; for I am he\nthat with aid of five good men burned down the gibbet without Belsaye.\"\n\n\"Thou!\" cried Sir Jocelyn, \"and thou art a smith! And yet needs must I\ncredit thee, for thine eyes be truthful eyes. And did'st indeed slay so\nmany in the green, forsooth?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" answered Beltane, \"there were but twenty; moreover I--\"\n\n\"Enough!\" cried Sir Jocelyn, gaily, \"be thou smith or be thou demi-god,\nnow will I make proof of thy might and valiance.\" And he drew sword.\n\nSo did these two youths face each other, smiling above their gleaming\nsteel, and so the long blades rang together, and, thereafter, the air\nwas full of a clashing din, in so much that Roger came running sword in\nhand, with Walkyn and Giles at his heels; but, seeing how matters\nstood, they sat them down on the sward, watching round-eyed and eager.\n\nAnd now Sir Jocelyn (happy-eyed), his doleful heart forgot, did show\nhimself a doughty knight, skipping lightly to and fro despite his heavy\narmour, and laying on right lustily while the three a-sprawl upon the\ngrass shouted gleefully at each shrewd stroke or skilful parry; but,\nonce Sir Jocelyn's blade clashed upon Beltane's mailed thigh, and\nstraightway they fell silent; and once his point touched the links on\nBeltane's wide breast, and straightway their brows grew anxious and\ngloomy--yet none so gloomy as Roger. But now, on a sudden, was the\nflash and ring of hard smitten steel, and behold, Sir Jocelyn's sword\nsprang from his grasp and thudded to earth a good three yards away;\nwhereupon the three roared amain--yet none so loud as Roger.\n\n\"Now by sweet Cupid his tender bow!\" panted Sir Jocelyn--\"by the\ncestus of lovely Venus--aye, by the ox-eyed Juno, I swear 'twas featly\ndone, Sir Smith!\"\n\nQuoth Beltane, taking up the fallen sword:\n\n\"'Tis a trick I learned of that great and glorious knight, Sir Benedict\nof Bourne.\"\n\n\"Messire,\" said Sir Jocelyn, his cheek flushing, \"an earl am I of\nthirty and two quarterings and divers goodly manors: yet thou art the\nbetter man, meseemeth, and as such do I salute thee, and swear myself\nthy brother-in-arms henceforth--an ye will.\"\n\nNow hereupon Beltane turned, and looking upon the mighty three with\nkindling eye, beckoned them near.\n\n\"Lord Jocelyn,\" said he, \"behold here my trusty comrades, valiant men\nall:--this, my faithful Roger, surnamed the Black: This, Giles\nBrabblecombe, who shooteth as ne'er did archer yet: and here, Walkyn--\nwho hath known overmuch of sorrow and bitter wrong. Fain would we take\nthee for our comrade, Lord Jocelyn, for God knoweth Pentavalon hath\nneed of true men these days, yet first, know this--that I, and these my\nthree good comrades do stand pledged to the cause of the weak and\nwoefully oppressed within this sorrowful Duchy; to smite evil, nor\nstay till we be dead, or Black Ivo driven hence.\"\n\n\"Ivo?--Ivo?\" stammered Sir Jocelyn, in blank amaze, \"'tis madness!\"\n\n\"Thus,\" said Beltane, \"is our cause, perchance, a little desperate, and\nhe who companies with us must company with Death betimes.\" \"To defy\nBlack Ivo--ha, here is madness so mad as pleaseth me right well! A\nrebellion, forsooth! How many do ye muster?\"\n\nAnswered Beltane:\n\n\"Thou seest--we be four--\"\n\n\"Four!\" cried Sir Jocelyn, \"Four!\"\n\n\"But Sir Benedict lieth within Thrasfordham Keep, and God is in heaven,\nmessire.\"\n\n\"Aye, but heaven is far, methinks, and Duke Ivo is near, and hath an\narm long and merciless. Art so weary of life, Sir Smith?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" answered Beltane, \"but to what end hath man life, save to spend\nit for the good of his fellows?\"\n\n\"Art mad!\" sighed Sir Jocelyn, \"art surely mad! Heigho!--some day,\nmayhap, it shall be written how one Jocelyn Alain, a gentle, love-lorn\nknight, singing his woes within the greenwood, did meet four lovely\nmadmen and straight fell mad likewise. So here, upon my sword, do I\nswear to take thee for my brother-in-arms, and these thy comrades for\nmy comrades, and to spend my life, henceforth, to the good of my\nfellows!\"\n\nSo saying, Sir Jocelyn smiled his quick bright smile and reached out\nhis hand to my Beltane, and there, leaning upon their swords, their\nmailed fingers clasped and wrung each other. Thereafter he turned upon\nthe three, but even as he did so, Walkyn uttered a fierce cry, and\nwhirling about with axe aloft, sprang into the green, whence of a\nsudden rose a babel of voices, and the sound of fierce blows and,\nthereafter, the noise of pursuit. A flicker of steel amid the green--a\nscore of fierce faces all about him, and Beltane was seized from\nbehind, borne struggling to his knees, to his face, battered by unseen\nweapons, dragged at by unseen hands, choked, half-stunned, his arms\ntwisted and bound by galling thongs. Now, as he lay thus, helpless, a\nmailed foot spurned him fiercely and looking up, half-swooning, he\nbeheld Sir Pertolepe smiling down at him.\n\n\"Ha--thou fool!\" he laughed jovially, \"did'st think to escape me, then\n--thou fool, I have followed on thy tracks all day. By the eyes of God,\nI would have followed thee to hell! I want thee in Garthlaxton--there\nbe gibbets for thee above the keep--also, there are my hounds--aye, I\nwant thee, Messire Beltane who art Duke of Pentavalon! Ho! Arnulf--a\nhalter for his ducal throat!\" So, when they had cast a noose about his\nneck, they dragged Beltane, choking, to his feet, and led him away\ngasping and staggering through the green; and having eyes, he saw not,\nand having ears, he heard not, being very spent and sick.\n\nNow, as they went, evening began to fall.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nOF THE AMBUSHMENT NEAR THORNABY MILL\n\n\nLittle by little, as he stumbled along, Beltane's brain began to clear;\nhe became aware of the ring and clash of arms about him, and the\ntrampling of horses. Gradually, the mist lifting, he saw long files of\nmen-at-arms riding along very orderly, with archers and pike-men.\nLittle by little, amid all these hostile forms, he seemed to recognise\na certain pair of legs that went on just before: sturdy legs, that yet\nfaltered now and then in their stride, and, looking higher, he saw a\nbroad belt whose edges were notched and saw-like, and a wide, mail-clad\nback that yet bent weakly forward with every shambling step. Once this\nfigure sank to its knees, but stumbled up again 'neath the vicious\nprick of a pike-head that left blood upon the bronzed skin, whereat\nBeltane uttered a hoarse cry.\n\n\"O Black Roger!\" he groaned, \"I grieve to have brought thee to this!\"\n\n\"Nay, lord,\" quoth Roger, lifting high his drooping head, \"'tis but my\nwound that bleeds afresh. But, bond or free, thy man am I, and able yet\nto strike a blow on thy behalf an heaven so please.\"\n\n\"Now God shield thee, brave Roger!\" sighed Beltane.\n\n\"O sweet St. Giles--and what of me, brother?\" spake a voice in his\near, and turning, Beltane beheld the archer smiling upon him with\nswollen, bloody lips.\n\n\"Thou here too, good Giles?\"\n\n\"Even so, tall brother, in adversity lo! I am with thee--since I\nfound no chance to run other-where, for that divers rogues constrained\nme to abide--notably yon knave with the scar, whose mailed fist I had\nperforce to kiss, brother, in whose dog's carcase I will yet feather me\na shaft, sweet St. Giles aiding me--which is my patron saint, you'll\nmind. _Nil desperandum_, brother: bruised and beaten, bleeding and in\nbonds, yet I breathe, nothing desponding, for mark me, _a priori_,\nbrother, Walkyn and the young knight won free, which is well; Walkyn\nhath long legs, which is better; Walkyn hath many friends i' the\ngreenwood, which is best of all. So do I keep a merry heart--_dum spiro\nspero_--trusting to the good St. Giles, which, as methinks you know is\nmy--\"\n\nThe archer grew suddenly dumb, his comely face blanched, and glancing\nround, Beltane beheld Sir Pertolepe beside him, who leaned down from\nhis great white horse to smile wry-mouthed, and smiling thus, put back\nthe mail-coif from his pallid face and laid a finger to the linen clout\nthat swathed his head above the brows.\n\n\"Messire,\" said he soft-voiced, \"for this I might hang thee to a tree,\nor drag thee at a horse's tail, or hew thee in sunder with this great\nsword o' thine which shall be mine henceforth--but these be deaths\nunworthy of such as thou--my lord Duke! Now within Garthlaxton be\ndivers ways and means, quaint fashions and devices strange and rare,\nmessire. And when I'm done, Black Roger shall hang what's left of thee,\nere he go to feed my hounds. That big body o' thine shall rot above my\ngate, and for that golden head--ha! I'll send it to Duke Ivo in\nquittance for his gallows! Yet first--O, first shalt thou sigh that\ndeath must needs be so long a-coming!\"\n\nBut now, from where the van-ward marched, came galloping a tall\nesquire, who, reining in beside Sir Pertolepe, pointed down the hill.\n\n\"Lord Pertolepe,\" he cried joyously, \"yonder, scarce a mile, flies the\nbanner of Gilles of Brandonmere, his company few, his men scattered\nand heavy with plunder.\"\n\n\"Gilles!\" quoth Sir Pertolepe. \"Ha, is it forsooth Gilles of\nBrandonmere?\"\n\n\"Himself, lord, and none other. I marked plain his banner with the\nthree stooping falcons.\"\n\n\"And he hath booty, say you?\"\n\n\"In truth, my lord--and there be women also, three horse litters--\"\n\n\"Ah--women! Verily, good Fulk, hast ever a quick eye for the flutter of\na kirtle. Now, mark me Fulk, Thornaby Mill lieth in our front, and\nbeyond, the road windeth steep 'twixt high banks. Let archers line\nthese banks east and west: let the pikemen be ambushed to the south,\nuntil we from the north have charged them with the horse--see 'tis\ndone, Fulk, and silently--so peradventure, Sir Gilles shall trouble me\nno more. Pass the word--away!\"\n\nOff rode Sir Fulk, and straightway the pounding hoofs were still, the\njingle of bridle and stirrup hushed, and in its place a vague stir of\nbustle and excitement; of pikemen wheeling right and left to vanish\nsouthwards into the green, and of archers stringing bows and unbuckling\nquiver-caps ere they too wheeled and vanished; yet now Sir Pertolepe\nstayed four lusty fellows, and beckoning them near, pointed to the\nprisoners.\n\n\"Good fellows,\" quoth he, nodding jovially upon the archers, \"here be\nmy three rogues, see you--who must with me to Garthlaxton: one to die\nby slow fire, one to be torn by my hounds, and one--this tall\ngolden-haired youth--mark him well!--to die in slow and subtle fashion.\nNow these three do I put in charge of ye trusty four; guard them well,\ngood fellows, for, an one escape, so shall ye all four die in his stead\nand in such fashion as he should have died. Ha! d'ye mark me well, my merry\nmen?\"\n\n\"Aye, lord!\" nodded the four, scowling of brow yet pale-cheeked.\n\n\"Look to it I find them secure, therefore, and entreat them tenderly.\nMarch you at the rear and see they take no harm; choose ye some secure\ncorner where they may lie safe from chance of stray shafts, for I would\nhave them come hale and sound to Garthlaxton, since to die well, a man\nmust be strong and hearty, look you. D'ye mark me well, good fellows?\"\n\n\"Aye, lord!\" growled the four.\n\nThen Sir Pertolepe, fondling his great chin, smiled upon Beltane and\nlifted Beltane's glittering sword on high, \"Advance my banner!\" he\ncried, and rode forward among his men-at-arms. On went the company,\ngrimly silent now save for the snort of a horse, the champing of\ncurbing bits and the thud of slow trampling hoofs upon the tender\ngrass, as the west flamed to sunset. Thus in a while they came to a\nplace where the road, narrowing, ran 'twixt high banks clothed in gorse\nand underbrush; a shadowy road, the which, winding downwards, was lost\nin a sharp curve. Here the array was halted, and abode very still and\nsilent, with helm and lance-point winking in the last red rays of\nsunset.\n\n\"O brother,\" whispered Giles, \"ne'er saw I place sweeter or more apt\nfor ambushment. Here shall be bloody doings anon, and we--helpless as\nbabes! O me, the pity on't!\" But now with blows and gibes the four\narchers dragged them unto a tall tree that stood beside the way, a tree\nof mighty girth whose far-flung branches cast a deep gloom. Within this\ngloom lay my Beltane, stirring not and speaking no word, being faint\nand sick with his hurts. But Giles the archer, sitting beside him,\nvented by turns bitter curses upon Sir Pertolepe and humble prayers to\nhis patron saint, so fluent and so fast that prayers and curses became\nstrangely blent and mingled, on this wise:\n\n\"May Red Pertolepe be thrice damned with a candle to the blessed Saint\nGiles that is my comfort and intercessor. May his bones rot within him\nwith my gold chain to sweet Saint Giles. May his tongue wither at the\nroots--ah, good Saint Giles, save me from the fire. May he be cursed in\nlife and may the flesh shrivel on his bones and his soul be eternally\ndamned with another candle and fifty gold pieces to the altar of holy\nSaint Giles--\"\n\nBut now hearing Roger groan, the archer paused to admonish him thus:\n\n\"Croak not, Roger, croak not,\" quoth he, \"think not upon thy vile body\n--pray, man, pray--pray thyself speechless. Call reverently upon the\nblessed saints as I do, promise them candles, Roger, promise hard and\npray harder lest we perish--I by fire and thou by Pertolepe's hounds.\nIll deaths, look you, aye, 'tis a cruel death to be burnt alive,\nRoger!\"\n\n\"To be torn by hounds is worse!\" growled Roger.\n\n\"Nay, my Rogerkin, the fire is slower, methinks--I have watched good\nflesh sear and shrivel ere now--ha! by Saint Giles, 'tis an evil\nsubject; let us rather think upon two others.\"\n\n\"As what, archer?\"\n\n\"The long legs of our comrade Walkyn. Hist! hark ye to that bruit! Here\ncometh Gilles of Brandonmere, meseemeth!\" And now from the road in\nfront rose the sound of an approaching company, the tramp of weary\nhorses climbing the ascent with the sound of cheery voices upraised in\nsong; and ever the sinking sun glinted redly on helm and lance-point\nwhere sat Sir Pertolepe's mailed riders, grim and silent, while the\ncheery voices swelled near and more near, till, all at once, the song\ndied to a hum of amaze that rose to a warning shout that was drowned in\nthe blare of a piercing trumpet blast. Whereat down swept glittering\nlance-point, forward leaned shining bascinet, and the first rank of Sir\nPertolepe's riders, striking spurs, thundered upon them down the hill;\ncame thereafter the shock of meeting ranks, with shouts and cries that\ngrew to a muffled roar. Up rose the dust, an eddying cloud wherein\nsteel flickered and dim forms strove, horse to horse and man to man,\nwhile Sir Pertolepe, sitting his great white charger, nursed his big\nchin and, smiling, waited his chance. Presently, from the eddying\ncloud staggered the broken remnant of Sir Gilles' van-ward, whereon,\nlaughing fierce and loud, Sir Pertolepe rose in his stirrups with\nBeltane's long sword lifted high, his trumpets brayed the charge, and\ndown the hill thundered Sir Pertolepe and all his array; and the road\nnear by was deserted, save for the prisoners and the four archers who\nstood together, their faces set down-hill, where the dust rose denser\nand denser, and the roar of the conflict fierce and loud.\n\nBut now, above the din and tumult of the fight below, shrill and high\nrose the notes of a horn winded from the woods in the east, that was\nanswered--like an echo, out of the woods in the west; and, down the\nbanks to right and left, behold Sir Pertolepe's archers came leaping\nand tumbling, pursued by a hissing arrow shower. Whereat up sprang\nGiles, despite his bonds, shouting amain:\n\n\"O, Walkyn o' the Long Legs--a rescue! To us! Arise, I will arise!\" Now\nwhile he\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}
{"id": "pg19_008", "title": "Vashti by Augusta J. Evans Wilson", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31620", "tokens": 65536, "chars": 274389, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n\n\"I can hear the sullen, savage roar of the breakers, if I do not see\nthem, and my pretty painted bark--expectation--is bearing down\nhelplessly upon them. Perhaps the unwelcome will not come to-day. What\nthen? I presume I should not care; and yet, I am curious to see\nhim,--anxious to know what sort of person will henceforth rule the\nhouse, and go in and out here as master. Of course the pleasant,\npeaceful days are at an end, for men always make din and strife in a\nhousehold,--at least my father did, and he is the only one I know much\nabout. But, after all, why borrow trouble?--the interloper may never\ncome.\"\n\nThe girl stood on tip-toe, shading her eyes with one hand, and peering\neagerly down the winding road which stretched at right angles to the\navenue, and over the hills, on towards the neighboring town. No moving\nspeck was visible; and, with a sigh of relief, she sank back on the\ngrassy mound and resumed the perusal of her book. Above and around her\nspread the wide branches of an aged apple-tree, feathered thickly with\npearly petals, which the wind tossed hither and thither and drifted\nover the bermuda, as restless tides strew pink-chambered shells on\nsloping strands; and down through the flowery limbs streamed the\nwaning March sun, throwing grotesque shadows on the sward and golden\nripples over the face and figure of the young lounger. A few yards\ndistant a row of whitewashed bee-hives extended along the western side\nof the garden-wall, where perched a peacock whose rainbow hues were\nburnished by the slanting rays that smote like flame the narrow pane\nof glass which constituted a window in each hive and permitted\ninvestigation of the tireless workers within. The afternoon was almost\nspent; the air, losing its balmy noon breath, grew chill with the\napproach of dew, and the figure under the apple-tree shivered\nslightly, and, closing her book, drew her scarlet shawl around her\nshoulders and leaned her dimpled chin on her knee.\n\nSixteen years had ripened and rounded the girlish form, and given to\nher countenance that indefinable charm which marks the timid hovering\nbetween careless, frolicsome youth, and calmly conscious womanhood;\nwhile perfect health rouged the polished cheeks and vermillioned the\nthin lips, whose outlines sharply indexed more of decision than\namiability of character.\n\nThere were hints of brown in the heavy mass of waveless dusky hair,\nthat was elaborately braided and coiled around the well turned\nhead, and certain amber rays suggestive of topaz and gold flashed\nout now and then in the dark-hazel iris of the large eyes, lending\nthem an eldritch and baleful glow. Fresh as the overhanging\napple-blooms, but immobile as if carved from pearl,--perhaps it\nwas just such a face as hers that fronted Jason, amid the clustering\nboughs of Colchian rhododendrons, when first he sought old AEetes'\nprescient daughter,--the maiden face of magical Medea, innocent as\nyet of murder, sacrilege, fratricide, and plunder,--eloquent of\nall possibilities of purity and peace, but vaguely adumbrating all\nconceivable disquietude and guilt.\n\nThe hushed expectancy of the fair young countenance had given place to\na dreamy languor, and the dark lashes drooped heavily, when a long\nshadow fell upon the grass, and simultaneously the peacock sounded its\nshrill alarm. Rising quickly the girl found herself face to face with\none upon whose features she had never looked before, and for a moment\neach eyed the other searchingly. The stranger raised his hat, and\ninclining his head slightly, said,--\n\n\"Permit me to ask your name?\"\n\n\"Salome Owen. And yours, sir, is--\"\n\n\"Ulpian Grey.\"\n\nFor a few seconds neither spoke; but the man smiled, and the girl bit\nher under-lip and frowned.\n\n\"Are you the miller's daughter?\"\n\n\"I am the miller's daughter; and you are the master of Grassmere.\"\n\n\"It seems that I come home like Rip Van Winkle, or Ulysses, unknown,\nunwelcomed,--unlike the latter,--even by a dog.\"\n\n\"Where is your sister?\"\n\n\"Not having seen her for five years, I am unable to answer.\"\n\n\"She went to town two hours ago, to meet you.\"\n\n\"Then, after all, I am expected; but pray by what route--balloon or\ntelegraph?\"\n\n\"Miss Jane went to the railroad depot, but thought it possible you\nmight not arrive to-day, and said she would attend a meeting at the\nchurch, if you failed to come. I presume she missed you in the crowd.\nSir, will you walk into the house?\"\n\nPerhaps he did not hear the question, and certainly he did not heed\nit, amid the clamorous recollections that rushed upon him as he gazed\nearnestly over the lawn, down the avenue, and up at the ivy-mantled\nfront of the old brick homestead. Thinking it might impress him as\nludicrous or officious that she should invite him to enter and take\npossession of his own establishment, Salome reddened and compressed\nher lips. Apparently forgetful of her presence, he stood with his hat\nin his hand, noting the changes that time had wrought: the growth of\nvenerable trees and favorite shrubs, the crumbling of fences, the\ngathering moss on the sun-dial, and the lichen stains upon two marble\nvases that held scarlet verbena on either side of the broad stone\nsteps.\n\nHis close-fitting travelling suit of gray showed the muscular,\nwell-developed form of a man of medium size, whose very erect carriage\nenhanced his height and invested him with a commanding air; while the\nunusual breadth of his chest and shoulders seemed to indicate that\nlife had called him to athletic out-door pursuits, rather than the dun\nand dusty atmosphere of a sedentary, cloistered career.\n\nThere are subtle countenances that baffle the dainty stipple and line\ntracery of time, refusing to become mere tablets, mere fleshy\nintaglios of the past, whereon every curious stranger may spell out\nthe bygone, and, counting their footprints, cast up the number of\nengraving years. Thus it happened that if Salome had not known from\nthe family Bible that this man was almost thirty-five, her eager\nscrutiny of his features would have discovered little concerning his\nage, and still less concerning his character. Exposure to the winds\nand heat of tropic regions had darkened and sallowed the complexion,\nwhich his clear deep blue eyes and light brown hair declared was\noriginally of Saxon fairness; in proof whereof, when he drew off one\nglove and lifted his hand it seemed as if the marble fingers of one\nstatue were laid against the bronze cheek of another.\n\nLooking intently at this grave yet benignant countenance, full of\nserenity, because calmly conscious of its power, the girl set her\nteeth and ground her heel into the velvet turf, for _frangas non\nflectes_ was written on his smooth, broad brow, and she felt fiercely\nrebellious as some fiery, free creature of the Kamse, when first\nconfronted with the bit and trappings of him who will henceforth\nbridle and tame the desert-bred.\n\nWaking from his brief reverie, the stranger turned and extended his\nhand, saying, in tones as low and sweet as a woman's,--\n\n\"Will you not welcome a wanderer back to his home?\"\n\nShe gave him the tips of her fingers, but the \"Imp of the Perverse\"\ndictated her answer,--\n\n\"As you saw fit to compare yourself, a few moments since, to certain\ncelebrated absentees, I am constrained to tell you that I happen to be\nneither Penelope nor Gretchen, nor yet the illustrious dog referred\nto.\"\n\nHe smiled good-humoredly, and replied,--\n\n\"I am not very sure that there is not a spice of Dame Van Winkle\nsomewhere in your nature. True, we are strangers, but I believe you\nare my sister's adopted child, and I hope you are glad to see her\nbrother at home once more. Jane is a dear kind link, who should make\nus at least good friends; for, if you are attached to her you will in\ntime learn to like me.\"\n\n\"I doubt it,--seeing that you resemble Miss Jane about as nearly as I\ndo the Grand Lama of Larissa, or the idol Bhadrinath. But, sir,\nalthough it is not my office to welcome you, I presume you have not\nforgotten the front door, and once more I ask, Will you walk in and\nmake yourself at home in your own house?\"\n\nAs she led the way to the steps, the arched gate at the end of the\navenue swung open, a carriage entered, and Salome retreated to her own\nroom, leaving unwitnessed the happy meeting between an aged, infirm\nsister, and long-absent brother.\n\nLocking the door to secure herself from intrusion, she drew a low\nrocking-chair to the hearth, where smouldered the embers of a dying\nfire, and dropping her face in her palms, stared abstractedly at the\nashes. As she swayed slowly to and fro, her lips parted and closed,\nher brows bent from their customary curves of beauty, and half\ninaudibly she muttered,--\n\n\"The sceptre is departing from Judah. My rule is well nigh ended; the\ninterregnum has been brief, and the old dynasty reigns once more.\nJust what I dreaded from the hour I heard he was coming home. I\nshall be reduced to a mere cipher, and made to realize my utter\ndependence,--and the iron will soon enter my soul. We paupers are\nadepts in the art of reading the countenance, and I have looked at\nthis Ulpian Grey long enough to know that I might as well bombard\nGibraltar with boiled peas as hope to conquer one of his whims or\nalter one of his purposes. There will be bitterness and strife between\nus. I shall wish him in his grave a thousand times before it closes\nover him,--and he, unless he is too good, will hate me cordially. I\ncannot and will not give up all my hopes and expectations, without a\nlong, fierce struggle.\"\n\nSalome Owen was the eldest of five children, who, by the death of both\nparents, had been thrown penniless upon the world, and found a\ntemporary asylum in the county poor-house. Her mother she remembered\nmerely as a feeble, fractious invalid; and her father, who had long\nbeen employed as superintendent of large mills belonging to Miss Jane\nGrey, had, after years of reckless intemperance, ended his wretched\ncareer in a fit of mania a potu. His death occurred at a season when\nMiss Grey was confined to her bed by an attack of rheumatism, which\nrendered her a <DW36> for the remainder of her days; but the first\nhours of her convalescence were spent in devising plans for the\neducation and maintenance of his helpless orphans. In the dusty,\ncheerless yard of the poor-house she had found the little group\nhuddled under a mulberry tree one hot July noon; and, sending the two\nyounger children to the orphan asylum in a neighboring town, she had\napprenticed one boy to a worthy carpenter, another to an eminent\nhorticulturist in a distant State; and Salome, the handsomest and\nbrightest of the flock, she carried to her own home as an adopted\nchild. Here, for four years, the girl had lived in peace and luxurious\nease, surrounded by all the elegances and refining associations which\nthough not inherent in are at the command of wealth; and so rapidly\nand gracefully had she fitted herself into the new social niche, that\nthe dark and stormy morning of her life had become only a dim and\nhideous recollection, that rarely lifted its hated visage above the\nsmooth and shining surface of the happy present.\n\nFortuitous circumstances constitute the moulds that shape the majority\nof human lives, and the hasty impress of an accident is too often\nregarded as the relentless decree of all-ordaining fate; while to the\nphilosophic anthropologist it might furnish matter for curious\nspeculation whether, if Attila and Alaric had chanced to find\nthemselves the pampered sons of some merchant prince,--some Rothschild\nor Peabody of the fifth century,--their campaigns had not been purely\nfiscal and bloodless, limited to the leaves of a ledger, while the\nnames of Goth and Hun had never crystallized into synonyms of havoc\nand ruin; or had Timour been trained to cabbage-raising and\nvine-dressing, whether he would not have lived in history as the great\nhorticulturist of Kesth, or the Diocletian of Samarcand, rather than\nthe Tartar tyrant and conqueror of the East? How many possible Howards\nhave swung at Tyburn? How many canonized and haloed heads have barely\nescaped the doom of Brinvilliers, and the tender mercies of Carnifex?\n\nAnalogous to that wonderful Gulf Stream, once a myth and still a\nmystery, the strange current of human existence, four score and\nten years long, bears each and all of us with a strong, steady sweep\naway from the tropic lands of sunny childhood, enamelled with verdure\nand gaudy with bloom, through the temperate regions of manhood and\nwomanhood, fruitful and harvest-hued, on to the frigid, lonely shores\nof dreary old age, snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual\ndestinies seem to resemble the tangled drift on those broad\nbounding gulf-billows, driven hither and thither, strewn on barren\nbeaches, scattered over bleaching coral crags, stranded upon blue\nbergs,--precious germs from all climes and classes; some to be\nscorched under equatorial heats; some to perish by polar perils; a\nfew to take root and flourish and triumph, building imperishable\nland-marks; and many to stagnate in the long, inglorious rest of a\nSargasso Sea.\n\nFor all helpless human waifs in this surging ocean of time, there is\ncomfort in the knowledge that the fiercest storms toss their drift\nhighest; and one of these apparently savage waves of adversity had\nswept Salome Owen safely to an isle of palms and peace, where, under\nthe fostering rays of prosperity, the selfish and sordid elements of\nher character found rapid development.\n\nIn affectionate natures, family ties serve as cords to strangle\nselfishness; for, in large domestic circles, each member contributes a\nmoiety to swell the good of the whole--silently endures some trial,\nmakes some sacrifice, shares some sympathy and sunshine, hoards some\ngrief and gloom, and had Salome remained with her brothers and\nsisters, their continual claims on her time and attention would have\nhealthfully diverted thoughts that had long centred solely in self.\nFinding that fortune had temporarily sheathed in velvet the goad of\nnecessity, the girl's aspirations soared no higher than the\nmaintenance of her present easy and luxurious position, as a petted\ndependent on the affection and bounty of a weak but generous and\nlonely old lady. Having no other object near, upon which to lavish the\nlove and caresses that were stored in her heart, Miss Jane had turned\nfondly to Salome, and so earnestly endeavored to brighten her life,\nthat the latter felt assured she was selected as the heiress of that\nhouse and estate where she had dwelt so happily; and thus sanguine\nconcerning her future prospects, the strong will of the girl\ncompletely dominated the feebler and failing one of her benefactress,\nthrough whose fingers the reins of government slipped so gradually,\nthat she was unconscious of her virtual abdication.\n\nFrom this pleasant dream of a handsome heritage and life-long plenty,\nSalome had been rudely aroused by the unwelcome tidings that a young\nhalf-brother of Miss Jane was coming to reside under her roof; and\nprophetic fear whispered that the stranger would contest and divide\nher dominion. A surgeon in the United States navy, he had been absent\nfor five years in distant seas, and only resigned his commission in\nconsequence of letters which informed him of the feeble condition of\nhis only surviving relative. Those who have eaten the bread of charity\nlearn to interpret countenances with an unerring facility that\neclipses the vaunted skill of Lavater, and the girl's brief inspection\nof the face which would henceforth confront her daily, yielded little\nto dispel her gloomy forebodings. The sound of the tea-bell terminated\nher reverie, and rising, she walked slowly to the dining-room,\nthrowing her head as erect as possible, and compressing her mouth like\nsome gladiator summoned to the fatal arena of the Coliseum.\n\nThe dining-room was large and airy, with lofty wide windows, and\nneatly papered walls, where in numerous old-fashioned and quaintly\ncarved frames hung the ancestral portraits of the family. Although one\nwindow was open, and the mild air laden with the perfumed breath of\nspring, a bright wood fire flashed on the hearth, near which Miss Jane\nsat in her large, cushioned rocking-chair, resting her swollen\nslippered feet on a velvet stool, while her silver-mounted crutches\nleaned against the arm of her chair. An ugly and very diminutive brown\nterrier snarled and frisked on the rug, tormenting a staid and aged\nblack cat, who occasionally arched her back and showed her teeth; and\nDr. Grey stood leaning over his sister's chair, smoothing the soft\ngrizzled locks that clustered under the rich lace border of her cap.\nHe was talking of other days,--those of his boyhood, when, kneeling by\nthat hearth, she had pasted his kites, found strings for his tops,\nmade bags for his marbles, or bound up his bleeding hands, bruised in\nboyish sports; and, while he read from the fresher page of his memory\nthe blessed juvenile annals long since effaced from hers, a happy\nsmile lighted her withered face, and she put up one thin hand to pat\nthe brown and bearded cheek which nearly touched her head. To the\npretty young thing who had paused on the threshold, watching what\npassed, it seemed a peaceful picture, cosy and complete, needing no\nadjuncts, defying intruders; but Miss Jane caught a glimpse of the\nshrinking figure, and beckoned her to the fire-place.\n\n\"Salome, come shake hands with my sailor-boy, and tell him how glad we\nare to have his sunburnt face once more among us. Ulpian, this is my\ndear child Salome, who makes noise and sunshine enough in an otherwise\ndark and silent dreary house. Why, children, don't stand bowing at\neach other, like foreign ministers at court! Ulpian, you are to be a\nbrother to that child; so go and kiss her like a Christian, and let us\nhave no more state and ceremony.\"\n\n\"_Sans ceremonie_ we introduced ourselves this afternoon, under the\napple-tree, and I presume Salome will accept the assurance of my\nfriendly intentions and fraternal regard, and decline the seal which\nonly long acquaintance and perfect confidence could induce her to\npermit. Notwithstanding the very evident fact that she is not entirely\noverwhelmed with delight at my return, I gratefully acknowledge my\nindebtedness to one who has so largely contributed to my sister's\nhappiness, and shall avail myself of every opportunity to prove my\nappreciation of her devotion.\"\n\nDr. Grey stepped forward, took Salome's hand, and touched it lightly\nwith his lips, while the grave dignity of his manner forbade the\nthought that affectation of gallantry or idle persiflage suggested the\nwords or action.\n\nDisarmed by the quiet courtesy which she felt she had not merited, the\ngirl's ready wit and nimbly obedient tongue for once proved\ntreacherous; and, conscious that the flush was deepening on cheek and\nbrow, she moved to the oval table in the centre of the floor, and\nseated herself behind the massive silver urn.\n\n\"Ulpian, take your place yonder, at the foot, and excuse my absence\nfrom the table this first evening of your return. I always have my\nmeals here, close to the fire, and Salome presides in my place. Child,\nput no cream in his tea, but a bountiful share of sugar. You see, my\nboy, I have not grown too old to recollect your whims.\"\n\nAs he obeyed her, Salome was preparing to pour out the tea; but,\ncatching his eye, she paused, and Dr. Grey bowed his head on his hand,\nand solemnly and impressively asked a blessing, and offered up fervent\nthanks for the family reunion. In the somewhat fragmentary discourse\nthat ensued between brother and sister the orphan took no part; and, a\nhalf hour later, when the little party removed to the library and\nestablished themselves comfortably for the evening, Salome drew her\nchair close to the lamp, and, under pretence of examining a book of\nengravings, covertly studied the features and mien of the new-comer.\n\nHis quiet, low-toned conversation was of other lands and distant\nnations, and, while there was an entire absence of that ostentatious\nbraggardism and dropsical egotism which unfortunately attacks the\nmajority of travellers, his descriptions of foreign scenery were so\ngraceful and brilliant, that despite her ungracious determination and\npremeditated dislike, she became a fascinated listener; and, more than\nonce, found herself leaning forward to catch his words. Her own vivid\nfancy travelled with him over the lakes and isles, temples and\npalaces, he had visited; and, when the clock struck eleven, and a\nbrief silence succeeded, she started as from some delightful dream.\n\n\"Janet, shall we have prayers, or have I already kept you up too\nlate?\"\n\nDr. Grey stooped and pressed his lips to his sister's wrinkled\nforehead, and her voice faltered slightly, as she answered,--\n\n\"It is never too late to thank God for all his goodness, especially in\nbringing my dear boy safely back to me. Salome, get the large Bible\nfrom the cushion in the parlor.\"\n\nAs the orphan placed the book in Dr. Grey's hand it opened at the\nrecord of births, where on the wide page appeared only the name of\nUlpian Grey, and from the leaves fluttered a small bow of blue\nribbon.\n\nHe picked it up, and, considering it merely a book-mark, would have\nreplaced it, but Miss Jane exclaimed,--\n\n\"It is the blue knot that fastens that child's collar. Give it to her.\nShe lost it yesterday, and has searched the house for it. How came it\nin that old Bible, which I am sure has not been used for fifteen\nyears?\"\n\nWhatever solution of the mystery Salome might have deigned to offer,\nremained unuttered, for Dr. Grey kindly obviated the necessity of a\nreply by requesting her to bring him an additional candle from an\nadjoining room; and the superfluous celerity with which she started on\nthe errand called a twinkle to his eye and a half-smothered smile to\nhis lips. She felt assured that he was thoroughly cognizant of the\ncuriosity which had prompted her researches among the family records,\nand inferred that he had either no vanity to be flattered by such\ntrifles, or was dowered with too much generosity to evince any\ngratification at the discovery of an interest she would have\nvehemently disclaimed.\n\nIt was the first time she had ever bowed before the family altar, and,\nnotwithstanding her avowed aversion to \"Puritanic ceremonials and\nPharisaical practices,\" she was unexpectedly awed and deeply\nimpressed by the solemnity with which he conducted the brief services;\nwhile, despite her prejudice, his grave courtesy toward her, and the\nsubdued tenderness that marked his treatment of his sister, commanded\nher involuntary respect. When she stood before the mirror in her own\nroom, unbraiding her heavy hair, a dissatisfied expression robbed her\nfeatures of half their loveliness, and discontent ploughed distorting\nlines about the scarlet lips which muttered,--\n\n\"I wonder if, in one of his evil fits, my father sold and signed me\naway to Satan? I certainly am _bon gre mal gre_ in bondage to him;\nfor, from my inmost heart I hate 'good, pious, sanctified souls,' such\nas that marble man upstairs, who has come back to usurp my kingdom,\nand lord it over this heritage. After to-day a new regime. The\npotter's hands are fair and shapely, courteous and deft, but potter's\nhands nevertheless. Tough kneading he shall find it, and stiffer clay\nthan ever yet was moulded, or my name is not Salome Owen. After all,\nhow much better are we than the lower beasts of prey? In the race for\nriches there is but one alternative,--to devour, or be devoured;\nconsequently that was an immemorial and well tested rule in the\nwarfare that commenced when Adam and Eve found themselves shut out of\nEden. 'Each for himself,' etc., etc., etc. Since I must _ex\nnecessitate_ prey or be preyed upon, I shall waste no time in\ndeliberation.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n\nWhen fifty-two years old, Daniel Grey amassed a handsome fortune\nby speculating in certain gold and coal mine stocks, which not\nonly relieved him from the necessity of daily toil in his dusty\ncounting-room, but elevated him to that more than Braminical caste,\ndubbed in Mammon-parlance--capitalists; whose decrees outweigh\nlegislative statutes, and by feeling the pulse of stock-boards and\nall financial corporations, regulate the fiscal currents of the\nState. A few months subsequent to this sudden accession of wealth,\nhis meek and devoted wife--who had patiently shared all the trials\nand hardships of his early impecunious career, and brightened an\nhumble home which boasted no treasure comparable to her loving,\nunselfish heart,--was summoned to the enjoyment of a heritage beyond\nthe stars; and Daniel Grey, capitalist, found himself a florid\nhandsome widower, with two children, Enoch and Jane, to remind him\ncontinually of the pale wife over whose quiet ashes rose a costly\nmausoleum, where rare exotics nodded to each other across gilded\nslab and sculptured angels. That he profoundly mourned his loss no\ncharitable mind could doubt, notwithstanding the obstinate fact that\nere the violets had bloomed a twelvemonth over the dead mother of\nhis children he had provided them with one who certainly bore her\nname, usurped her precious privileges, walked in her footsteps, but\nwofully failed to fill her place.\n\nMrs. Daniel Grey, scarcely the senior of the step-daughter whose lips\nmost reluctantly framed the sacred word \"mother,\" was a fresh fair\nyoung thing, whose ideas of marriage extended no further than\ndiamonds, white satin, reception cards, and bridal presents; and whose\nregard for her worthy husband sought no surer basis than his\nbank-stock and insurance dividends. Dainty and bright, in tasteful and\ncostly apparel, the pretty child-wife flitted up and down in his house\nand over the serene surface of his life, touching no feeling of his\nnature so deeply as that colossal _parvenu_ vanity which exulted in\nthe possession of a graceful walking announcement of his ability to\nclothe in fine fabrics and expensive jewels.\n\nPerhaps the mildew that stained the ghastly gaunt angels who kept\nguard over the dust of the dead wife, extended yet further than the\nsilent territory over which sexton and mattock reigned, for one dreary\nDecember night, instead of nestling for a post-prandial nap among the\nvelvet cushions of his luxurious parlor, Daniel Grey, capitalist,\nslept his last sleep in a high-backed, comfortless chair before his\ndesk, where the confidential clerk found him next morning, with his\nrigid icy fingers thrust between the leaves of his check-book.\n\nAccording to the old Arab proverb,--\n\n  \"The black camel named Death kneeleth once at each door,\n  And a mortal must mount to return nevermore.\"\n\nAnd, past all peradventure, having borne away one member of the\nhousehold, the \"Last Carrier\" from force of habit hastens to perform\nthe same thankless service for the remainder;--thus ere summer\nsunshine streamed on the husband's grave, another yawned at its side,\nand a wreathed and fluted shaft shot up close to his mausoleum, to\ntell sympathizing friends and careless strangers that the second wife\nof Daniel Grey had been snatched away in the morning of life.\n\nHer infant son Ulpian was committed to the tender guardianship of his\nmaternal grandmother, in whose hands he remained until the close of\nhis fourth year, when her death necessitated his return to the home of\nhis only relatives, Enoch and Jane. At the request of his sister, the\nformer had sold the elegant new residence in a fashionable quarter of\nthe town, and removed to the old homestead and farm, hallowed by\nreminiscences of their mother, and invested with the magic attractions\nthat early association weaves about the spots frequented in youth.\n\nManifesting, even in boyhood, an unconquerable repugnance not only to\ncurriculum, but the monotonous routine of mercantile pursuits, Enoch\nsullenly forswore stock-jobbing and finance, and declared his\nintention of indulging his rural tastes and becoming a farmer. Fine\ncattle and poultry of all kinds, heavy wheat-crops, and well-stored\ncorn-cribs engrossed his thoughts, to the entire exclusion of abstract\naesthetic speculation, of operatic music, and Pre-Raphaelitism; while\nthe sight of one of his silky short-horned Ayrshires yielded him\ninfinitely more pleasure than the possession of all Rosa Bonheur's\nideals could possibly have done, and the soft billowy stretch of his\nfavorite clover-meadow was worth all the canvas that Claude or Poussin\nhad ever . While Enoch had cordially hated his fair blue-eyed\nyoung step-mother, not from any personal or individual grounds of\ngrievance, but simply and solely because she dared to occupy the\nhousehold niche, sanctified once and forever by his own meek\ngentle-toned mother, he nevertheless tenderly loved her baby-boy; and\nas Ulpian grew to manhood he became the idol, at whose shrine the\nbrother and sister offered their pure and most intense affection.\n\nNeither had married, and when the youngest of the household band\ncompleted his studies, and decided to accept a naval appointment, the\nconsternation and grief which the announcement produced at the\nhomestead, proved how essential the presence of the half-brother had\nbecome to the happiness of the sedate stolid Enoch, and equable\nunselfish Jane. But the desire to travel subordinated all other\nsentiments in Ulpian's nature, and he eagerly embarked for a cruise,\nfrom which he was recalled by tidings of the death of his brother.\n\nA brief sojourn at the homestead had sufficed to arrange the affairs\nof the carefully-managed estate, and the young surgeon returned to his\npost aboard ship, in distant oriental seas. The increasing infirmity\nof his sister had finally induced the resignation of his cherished\ncommission, and brought the man of thirty-five back to his home, where\nthe \"old familiar faces\" seemed to have vanished forever; and, in lieu\nthereof, legions of cold-eyed strangers carelessly confronted him.\n\nEmancipated from all restraint, and early consigned to the guidance of\nhis boyish caprices and immature judgment, Ulpian Grey's character had\nunfolded itself under circumstances peculiarly favorable for the\nfostering of selfishness and the development of idiosyncrasies. As a\nplant, unmolested by man and beast, germinates, expands, and freely\nand completely manifests all its inherent tendencies, whether\ndetrimental or beneficial to humanity, so Dr. Grey's matured manhood\nwas no distorted or discolored result of repeated educational\nexperiments, but a thoroughly normal efflorescence of an unbiassed\nhealthful nature.\n\nHabits of unwavering application and searching study, contracted in\ncollegiate cloisters, tightened their grasp upon him, as he wandered\naway from the quiet precincts of _Alma Mater_ and into the crowded\nnoisy campus of life; and even the gregarious and convivial manners\nprevalent aboard ship failed to divert his attention from the\nprosecution of scientific researches, or to <DW44> his rapid progress\nin classical scholarship.\n\nFor the treasures of knowledge thus patiently and indefatigably\ngarnered through a series of years, travel proved an invaluable polyglot\ncommentator, analyzing, comparing, annotating, and italicizing, and had\nconverted his mind into a vast, systematically arranged pictorial\nencyclopaedia of miscellaneous lore, embellished with delicate etchings,\nnoble engravings, and gorgeous illuminations,--a thesaurus where\n_savants_ might seek successfully for _data_, and whence artists\ncould derive grand types, and pure tender coloring.\n\nReverent and loving appreciation of the intrinsically \"true, good,\nand beautiful\" was part of the homage that his nature rendered to its\nCreator, and instead of flowering into a morbid and maudlin\nsentimentality which craves low-browed, long straight-nosed,\nundraped statuettes in every nook and corner,--or dwarfs the soul and\npins it to the surplice of some theologic _dogmata_ claiming\ninfallibility--or coffins the intellect in cramped, shallow,\npsychological categories,--it bore fruit in a wide-eyed, large-hearted,\nliberal-minded eclecticism, which, waging no crusade against the various\nSaladins of modern systems, quietly possessed itself of the really\nvaluable elements that constitute the basis of every ethical,\naesthetic, and scientific creed, which has for any length of time\nlevied black-mail on the credulity of mankind.\n\nBreadth of intellectual vision promotes moral and emotional\nexpansion--for true catholicity of mind manufactures charity in the\nheart; and toleration is the real mesmeric current which brings the\nextremes of humanity _en rapport_,--is the veritable ubiquitous\nSamaritan always provided with wine and oil for the bruised and\nhelpless, who are strewn along the highway of life; and those who\npenetrated beyond the polished surface of Dr. Grey's character,\nrealized that no tinge of cynicism, no affectation of contempt for his\ncountry and countrymen lurked in his heart, while erudition and\nforeign sojourning seemed only to have warmed and intensified his\nsympathy with all noble aims--his compassion for all grovelling ones.\n\nThat his compulsory return to the uneventful routine of life at the\nhomestead, involved a sacrifice which he would gladly have avoided, he\ndid not attempt to deny; but having invested a large amount of\nearnest, vigorous faith in the final conservatism of that much-abused\nmonster which the seditious army of the Disappointed anathematize as\n\"Bad Luck,\" he went to work contentedly in this new sphere of action,\nand waited patiently and trustfully for the slow grinding of the great\nmill of Compensation, into whose huge hopper Fate had unceremoniously\npoured all his plans.\n\nHis advent produced a very decided sensation not only in the quiet\nneighborhood in which the farm was located, but also in the adjacent\ntown where the memory of Daniel Grey's meteoric ascent to pecuniosity\nstill lingered in the minds of the oldest citizens, and pleasantly\npaved the way for a cordial reception of the fortunate son who\ninherited not only his mother's comeliness but his father's hoarded\nwealth.\n\nLiving in the middle of the nineteenth century, and in a hemisphere\ncompletely antipodal to that in which Utopia was situated, or\n\"Bensalem\" dreamed of, the appearance of a good-looking, well-educated,\naffluent bachelor could not fail to stir all gossipdom to its dreg;\nand society, ever tenderly concerned about the individual affairs of\nits prominent members, was all agog--busily arranging for the\n_ci-devant_ United States Surgeon a programme, than which he would\nsooner have undertaken the feats of Samson or the Avatars of Vishnu.\n\nHis published card, announcing the fact that he had permanently\nlocated in the city and was a patient candidate for the privilege of\nsetting fractured limbs and administering medicine, somewhat dashed\nthe expectations of many who conjected that the Grey estate could not\npossibly be worth the amount so long reputed, or the principal heir\nwould certainly not soil his fingers with pills and plasters, instead\nof sauntering and dawdling with librettos, lorgnettes, meerschaums,\nand curiously-carved canes cut in the Hebrides or the jungles of\nJava.\n\nOver the door of that office, where the Angel of Death had smitten his\nfather thirty-five years before, a new sign swung in the breeze, and\nshowed the citizens the name of \"Dr. Ulpian Grey. Office hours from\nnine to ten, and from two to three.\"\n\nThe members of the profession called formally to welcome him to a\nshare of their annual profits, and collectively gave him a dinner; the\n\"best families\" invited him to tea or luncheon, croquet or \"German,\"\nand thus, having accomplished his professional and social _debut_,\nUlpian Grey, M.D., henceforth claimed and exercised the privilege of\nselecting his associates, and employing his time as inclination\nprompted.\n\nIn the comprehensive course of study to which he had so long devoted\nhis attention, he had not omitted that immemorial stereotyped\nvolume--Human Nature--which, despite the attempted revisions of sages,\npoliticians, and ecclesiastics, remains as immutable as the\neverlasting hills; printing upon the leaves of the youngest century\nphases of guilt and guilelessness which find their prototypes in the\ngray dawn of time, when the \"morning stars sang together,\"--yea, busy\nto-day as of yore, slaughtering Abel, stoning Stephen, fretting Moses,\ncrucifying Christ. Finding much that was admirable, and more that\nseemed ignoble, he gravely and reverently sought to possess himself of\nthe subtle arcana of this marvellous book, rejecting as equally\nerroneous and unreliable the magnifying zeal of optimism and the\ngloomy jaundiced lenses of sneering pessimism,--thoroughly satisfied\nthat it was a solemn duty, obligatory upon all, to study that complex\nparadoxical human nature, for the mastery of which Lucifer and Jesus\nhad ceaselessly battled since the day when Adam and Eve were called\n\"to dress and to keep\" the Garden by the Euphrates,--that heaven-born,\nheaven-cursed, restless human nature, which now, as then,--\n\n  \"Grasps at the fruitage forbidden,\n  The golden pomegranates of Eden,\n  To quiet its fever and pain.\"\n\nA few days' residence under the same roof, and a guarded observation\nof Salome's conduct, sufficed to acquaint Dr. Grey with the ungenerous\nmotives that induced her chagrin at his return; and, without\npermitting her to suspect that he had so accurately read her\ncharacter, he endeavored as unobtrusively as possible to bridge by\nkindness and courtesy the chasm of jealous distrust which divided\nthem.\n\nIndolent and self-indulgent, she neither brooked dictation, nor\ngracefully accepted any suggestions at variance with the reigning\nwhim; for, since she became an inmate of Miss Jane's hospitable home,\nexistence had been a mere dreamy, aimless succession of golden dawns\nand scarlet-curtained sunsets--a slow, quiet lapsing of weeks into\nmonths,--an almost stagnant stream curled by no eddies, freighted with\nfew aspirations, bearing no drift.\n\nThe circumstances and associations of her early life had destroyed her\nfaith in abstract nobility of character; self-abnegation she neither\ncomprehended nor deemed possible; and of a stern, innate moral heroism\nshe was utterly sceptical; consequently a delicately graduated scale\nof selfishness was the sole balance by which she was wont to weigh men\nand women.\n\nHer irregular method of study and desultory reading had rather\nenervated than strengthened a mind naturally clear and vigorous, and\nleft its acquisitions in a confused and kaleidoscopic mass, bordering\nupon intellectual salmagundi.\n\nOne warm afternoon, on his return from town, as Dr. Grey ascended the\nsteps he noticed Salome reclining on a bamboo settee at the western\nend of the gallery, where the sunshine was hot and glaring,\nunobstructed by the thin leafy screen of vines that drooped from\ncolumn to column on the southern and eastern sides of the building. If\nconscious of his approach she vouchsafed not the slightest intimation\nof it, and when he stood beside her she remained so immovable that he\nmight have imagined her asleep but for the lambent light which rayed\nout from eyes that seemed intently numbering the soft fluttering young\nleaves on a distant clump of elm trees, which made a lace-like tracery\nof golden glimmer and quivering shadow on the purple-headed clover at\ntheir feet.\n\nHer fair but long slender fingers carelessly held a book that\nthreatened to slip from their light relaxing grasp, and compressing\nhis lips in order to smother a smile under his heavy moustache, Dr.\nGrey stooped and put his hand on her plump white wrist, where the blue\nveins were running riot.\n\n\"So young,--yet cataleptic! Unfortunate, indeed,\" he murmured.\n\nShe shook off his touch, and instantly sat erect.\n\n\"I should be glad to know what you mean.\"\n\n\"I have an admirable, nay, I venture to add, an almost infallible\nprescription for catalepsy, which has cured two chronic and apparently\nhopeless cases, and it will afford me great pleasure to try the third\nexperiment upon you, since you seem pitiably in want of a remedy.\"\n\n\"Thank you. Were I as free from all other ills that 'flesh is heir\nto,' as I certainly am of the taint of catalepsy, I might indeed\ncongratulate myself upon an immunity which would obviate the dire\nnecessity of ever meeting a physician.\"\n\n\"Are you sure that you sufficiently understand the symptoms, to\nrecognize them unerringly?\"\n\nThe rose tint in her cheeks deepened to scarlet, as she haughtily drew\nherself up to her full height, and answered,--\n\n\"Dr. Grey himself is not more sagacious and adroit in detecting them;\nespecially when open eyes discover unwelcome and disagreeable objects,\nwhich, wishing to avoid, they are still compelled to see. I hope you\nare satisfied that I comprehend you.\"\n\n\"My meaning was not so occult as to justify a doubt upon that subject;\nand moreover, Salome, lack of astuteness is far from being your\ngreatest defect. My motive should eloquently plead pardon for my\ncandor, if I venture to tell you that your frequent affectation of\nunconsciousness of the presence of others, 'is a custom more honored\nin the breach than the observance,' and may prove prolific of\nannoyance in coming years; for courtesy constitutes the keystone in\nthe beautiful arch of social amenities which vaults the temple of\nChristian virtues. Lest you should take umbrage at my frankness, which\nought to assure you of my interest in your happiness and improvement,\npermit me to remind you of the oriental definition of a faithful\nfriend, that has more pith than verbal polish,--\n\n  \"The true friend is not he who holds up Flattery's mirror,\n    In which the face to thy conceit most pleasing hovers;\n  But he who kindly shows thee all thy vices, sirrah!\n    And helps thee mend them ere an enemy discovers.\"\n\nRising, Salome swept him a profound courtesy, and, while her fingers\nbeat a tattoo on the book she held, she watched him with a peculiar\nsparkle in her eyes, which he had already learned to understand was a\nbeacon flame kindled by intense displeasure. Dr. Grey seated himself,\nand, taking off his hat, said gently and winningly, as he pushed aside\nthe hair that clustered in brown rings over his forehead,--\n\n\"Here is ample room for both of us. Sit down, and be reasonable; and\nlet me catch a glimpse of the amiable elements which I feel assured\nmust exist somewhere in your nature, notwithstanding your persistent\nendeavor to conceal them. Your Janus character has hitherto breathed\nonly war--war; but, my young friend, I earnestly invoke its peaceful\nphase.\"\n\nThe kindness of tone and evident sincerity of manner might have\ndisarmed a prejudice better founded than hers; but wrath consumed all\nscruples, and, recollecting his forbearance with various former acts\nof rudeness, she presumed to attempt further aggressions.\n\nWaving her hand in tacit rejection of the proffered share of the\nsettee, she answered with more emphasis than perspicuity demanded,--\n\n\"Does your reading of the book of Job encourage you to believe that\nwhen those self-appointed counsellors--Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad\nthe Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite--returned to their respective\nhomes, they had cause to congratulate themselves upon their cordial\nwelcome to Job's bank of ashes, or felt bountifully repaid for their\nvoluntary mission of advice?\"\n\n\"Unfortunately, no. My study of the record of the man of Uz renders\npainfully patent that humiliating fact--old as humanity--that sanctity\nof motive is no coat-of-mail to the luckless few who bravely bear to\nthe hearts of those with whom they associate the unwelcome burden of\nunflattering truths. Phraseology--definitions--vary with advancing\ncenturies, but not so the human impulses they express or explain; and\nfriendship in the days of Job was the identical 'Mutual Admiration\nSociety,' which at present converts its consistent servile members\ninto Damon and Pythias, but punishes any violation of its canons with\nhatred dire and inextinguishable. Were I blessed with the genius of\nPraxiteles or of Angelo, I would chisel and bequeath to the world a\nnoble statue,--typical of that rare, fearless friendship, which,\nwalking through the lazaretto of diseased and morbid natures, bears\nnot honied draughts alone, but scalpel, caustic, and bitter tonics.\"\n\nThe calm sweetness of voice and mien lent to his words an influence\nwhich no amount of gall or satire could have imparted; and, in the\nbrief silence that ensued, Salome's heart was suddenly smitten with a\nhumiliating consciousness of her childish flippancy,--her utter\ninferiority to this man, who seemed to walk serenely in a starry plane\nfar beyond the mire where she grovelled.\n\nRidicule braced and exaggerated her weaknesses, and the strokes of\nsarcasm she could adroitly parry; but for persistent magnanimity she\nwas no match, and recoiled before it like the traditional Fiend at\nsight of the _Santo Sudario_. Watching her companion's quiet\ncountenance, she saw a shadow drift over it, betokening neither anger\nnor scorn, but serious regret; and involuntarily she drooped her head\nto avoid the eyes that now turned full upon her.\n\n\"Since I became a man, and to some extent capable of discriminating\nwith reference to the characters of persons with whom I found myself\nin contact, I have made and invariably observed one rule of\nconduct,--namely, never to associate with those whom I cannot\nrespect. Ignorance, want of refinement, irritability of temper, and\neven lack of generous impulses, I can forgive, when redeemed by candor\nand stern honesty of purpose; but arrogance, dissimulation, and\nall-absorbing selfishness I will not tolerate. In you I hoped and\nexpected better qualities than you permit me to find, and I trust you\nwill acquit me of intentional rudeness if I acknowledge that you have\npainfully disappointed me. It was, and still is, my earnest wish to\nbefriend and to aid you,--to contribute to your happiness, and\ncordially sympathize in any annoyances that may surround you; but thus\nfar you have rendered it impossible for me to esteem you, and while I\ndo not presume that my good opinion is of any importance to you, our\npresent relations compel me to request that our intercourse may in\nfuture be characterized by more urbanity than has yet graced it. My\nsister has been much pained by the feelings with which you evidently\nregard me, and since you and I are merely guests under her roof, a due\ndeference to her wishes should certainly repress the exhibition of\nantipathies towards those whom she loves. It is her earnest desire (as\nexpressed in a conversation which I had with her yesterday) that I\nshould treat you as a young sister; and, for her sake, I offer you\nonce more, and for the last time, my hearty assistance in any\ndepartment in which I am able to render it.\"\n\n\"The folds of your flag of truce do not conceal the drawn sword\nbeneath it; and let me tell you, sir, it is very evident that\n'demand' would far better have expressed your purpose than the\nword 'request.'\"\n\n\"At least you should not be surprised if I doubt whether you regard\nany truce as inviolable, and am inclined to suspect you of latent\ntreachery.\"\n\n\"Your accusation of dissimulation is unjust, for I have openly,\nfearlessly manifested my prejudice--my aversion.\"\n\n\"That you dislike me is my misfortune, but that you allow your\ndetestation to generate discord in our small circle is an error which\nI trust you will endeavor to correct. That I have many faults I shall\nnot attempt to deny; but mutual forbearance will prove a mutual\nblessing. For Jane's sake, shall there not be peace between us?\"\n\nStanding before her, he looked gravely down into her face, where flush\nand sparkle had died out, and saw--what she was too proud to\nconfess--that he had partially conquered her waywardness, that she was\nreluctantly yielding to his influence; but he understood her nature\ntoo thoroughly to pause contented with this slight advantage in a\ncontest which he foresaw must determine the direction of her aims\nthrough life.\n\n\"Salome, I am waiting for your decision.\"\n\nHer lips stirred twice, but the words they framed were either too\nhaughty or too humble, for she refused them utterance; and, while she\ndeliberated, two tears settled the question by rolling swiftly over\nher cheeks, and falling upon the cherry ribbon at her throat.\n\nAccepting it as a tacit signature to his terms of capitulation, and\nsatisfied with the result, Dr. Grey forbore to urge verbal assurances.\nTaking the book from her hand, he said, pleasantly,--\n\n\"Are you fond of French? I frequently find you poring over your\ngrammar.\"\n\n\"I have never had a teacher, nor have I conquered the conjugations;\nconsequently, I know comparatively little about the language.\"\n\n\"Are you studying it with the intention of familiarizing yourself with\nFrench literature, or merely to enable you to translate the few\nphrases that modern writers sprinkle through novels and essays?\"\n\n\"For neither purpose, but simply because it is the court language of\nthe old world; and, if I should succeed in my hope of visiting Europe,\nI might regret my ignorance of the universally received medium of\ncommunication.\"\n\n\"Have you, then, no desire to master those noble bursts of eloquence\nby which Racine, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Cousin have charmed the\nintellects of all nations?\"\n\n\"None, whatever. I might as well tell you at once, what you will\ninevitably discover ere long if you condescend to inspect my meagre\nattainments, that for abstract study I have no more inclination than\nto fondle some mummy in the crypts of Cyrene, or play 'blind man's\nbuff' with the corpses in the Morgue. My limited investments of time\nand thought in intellectual stock have been made solely with reference\nto speedy dividends of most practical and immediate benefits; and\nknowledge _per se_--knowledge which will not pay me handsome\ninterest--has no more value in my eyes than a handful of the dust of\nthose Atures found in the cavern of Ataruipe. Doubtless you think me\npitiably benighted, and possibly I might find more favor in your sight\nif I affected a prodigious amount of literary enthusiasm, and\nboundless admiration for scholarship and erudition; but that would\nprove too troublesome an imposture,--for I am constitutionally,\nhabitually, and premeditatedly lazy.\"\n\nShe saw a smile lurking under his heavy lashes, and half ambushed in\nthe corners of his mouth; and, vaguely conscious that she was\nrendering herself ridiculous, she bit her lip with ill-disguised\nvexation.\n\n\"Salome, I am afraid that under the garb of a jest you are making me\nacquainted with a very mournful truth. You have probably never heard\nof Lessing,--Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am not quite as ignorant as a Pitcairn's Islander; and I think\nI have somewhere seen that such a person as Lessing lived at\nWolfenbuettel. He once said, 'The chase is always worth more than\nthe quarry.' And again, 'Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand\nTruth, and in his left Search after Truth, deign to proffer me the\none I might prefer,--in all humility, but without hesitation, I\nshould request Search after Truth.' When you have nothing more\nimportant to occupy your attention, give ten minutes' reflection to\nhis admonition, and perhaps it may declare a dividend years hence.\nLast week I found your algebra on the rug before the library grate,\nand noticed several sums worked out in pencil on the margin. Are\nyou fond of mathematics?\"\n\n\"Not that I am aware of.\"\n\n\"What progress have you made?\"\n\n\"My knowledge of arithmetic is barely sufficient to take me through a\nbrief shopping expedition.\"\n\n\"Have you no ambition to increase it?\"\n\n\"Dr. Grey, I have no ambition. That 'last infirmity of noble minds'\nhas never attacked me; and, folding my hands, I chant ceaselessly to\nmy soul, 'Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.' The rapture of\nthe mathematician, who bows before the shrine of his favorite science,\nis to my dull intellect as incomprehensible as the jargon of\nmetaphysics or the mysteries wrapped up in Pali cerements. Equations,\nconic sections, differential calculus, constitute a skull and\ncross-bones to which I allow as wide a berth as possible.\"\n\nThe weary dissatisfied expression of her large, luminous eyes, belied\nthe sneer in her voice and the curl of her thin lip, and it cost her\nan effort to answer his next question.\n\n\"Will you tell me what rule you have adopted for the distribution of\nyour time, and the government of your life?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; you are heartily welcome to it: 'Yet a little slumber, a\nlittle folding of the hands to sleep.' _Laissez nous faire_. Moreover,\nDr. Grey, if you will courteously lend me your ears, I will favor you\nwith a still more felicitous exposition of my invaluable organon.\"\n\nStooping suddenly, she raised from the floor a small volume which had\nbeen concealed by her dress, and, as it opened at a page stained with\nthe juice of a purple convolvulus, she smiled defiantly, and read with\nalmost scornful emphasis,--\n\n                         ... \"'Ah, why\n    Should life all labor be?\n  Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,\n    And in a little while our lips are dumb.\n  Let us alone. What is it that will last?\n    All things are taken from us, and become\n  Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.\n    Let us alone. What pleasure can we have\n  To war with evil? Is there any peace\n    In ever climbing up the climbing wave?\n    All things have rest, and ripen towards the grave\n  In silence; ripen, fall, and cease:\n  Give us long rest or death; dark death or dreamful ease.'\n\nThere, Dr. Grey, you have my creed and method,--_Laissez nous\nfaire_.\"\n\nWith a degree of gravity that trenched on sternness, he bowed, and\nanswered,--\n\n\"So be it. I might insist that the closing lines of 'Ulysses' nobly\nrefute all the numbing heresy of the 'Lotos Eaters'--\n\n           ... 'But something ere the end,\n  Some work of noble note may yet be done.\n  That which we are, we are:\n  One equal templer of heroic hearts,\n  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will\n  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'\n\nBut I would not rouse you from a lethargy, which, knowing it to be\nfatal to all hopes of usefulness, you still deliberately prefer. Take\ncare, however, lest you bury the one original talent so deep that you\nfail to unearth it when the Master demands it in the final day of\nrestitution. I have questioned you concerning your studies, because I\ndesired and intended to offer my services as tutor, while you\nprosecuted mathematics and the languages; but I forbear to suggest a\ncourse so evidently distasteful to you. Unless I completely misjudge\nyour character, I fear the day is not distant, when, haunted by ghosts\nof strangled opportunities, you will realize the solemn and painful\ntruth, that,--\n\n  'There is nothing a man knows, in grief or in sin,\n  _Half so bitter as to think, What I might have been_!'\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n\n\"Salome, you look so weary that I must insist upon relieving you. Give\nme the book and run out for a breath of fresh air--a glimpse of blue\nsky.\"\n\nDr. Grey laid his hand on the volume, but the girl shook her head and\npushed aside his fingers.\n\n\"I am not at all tired, and even if I were it would make no\ndifference. Miss Jane desires me to read this sermon aloud, and I\nshall finish it.\"\n\nThe invalid, who had been confined to her bed for many days by a\nsevere attack of rheumatism, partially raised herself on one elbow,\nand said,--\n\n\"My dear, give him the book, while you take a little exercise. You\nhave been pent up here long enough, and, moreover, I want to talk to\nUlpian about some business matters. Don't look so sullen, my child; it\nmakes no difference who reads the sermon to me. Kiss me, and run out\non the lawn.\"\n\nThe orphan relinquished chair and book, but there was no relaxation of\nher bent brows, and neither warmth nor lingering pressure in the firm,\nhardly drawn lips, which lightly touched the old lady's sallow,\nwrinkled cheek. When she had left the room, closing the door after her\nwith more force than was requisite to bolt it securely, Miss Jane\nsighed heavily, and turned to her brother.\n\n\"Poor thing! She is so jealous of you; and it distresses me to see\nthat no friendship grows up between you, as I hoped and believed would\nbe the case. If you would only notice her a little more I think you\nmight win her over.\"\n\n\"Leave it to time, Janet. I 'have piped unto her and she would not\ndance; I have mourned unto her, and she has not lamented,'--and\nconcessions only feed her waywardness. If there be a residuum of good\nsense and proper feeling in her nature, they will assert themselves\nafter a while; if not, all extraneous influences are futile. I will\nresume the reading, if agreeable to you.\"\n\nMoody and rebellious, Salome stood for some moments on the threshold\nof the front door, staring vacantly out over the lawn; then, snatching\nher hat from a hook in the hall, she swiftly crossed the grounds,\nclimbed over a low lattice fence at the foot of the declivity, and\nfollowed a worn but neglected path leading into the adjoining forest.\n\nThe sanctity of the Sabbath afternoon rested like a benison over the\nsilent glades, where sunshine made golden roads along the smooth brown\npine straw, and glinted on the purple flags that fluttered in the mild\nwest wind. Even the melancholy plaint of sad-eyed dun doves was\nhushed, as they slowly swung in the swaying pine-tops; and two young\nlambs, neglected by the wandering flock, lay sleeping quietly, with\ntheir snowy heads pillowed on clustering violets,--far from the fold,\nforgotten by their mothers, at the mercy of strolling dogs, watched\nonly by the Great Shepherd.\n\nSalome's rapid pace soon placed a mile between her and the fence that\nbounded the lawn; and, pushing through the dense undergrowth which\nbetokened the proximity of a stream, she stood ere long on the margin\nof a wide pond which supplied the broad, shining sheet of beryl water\nthat poured over the rocky dam, close to the large irregular building\ncalled \"Grey's Mill.\"\n\nPiles of lumber were bleaching in the sunshine, but the machinery was\nat rest, the workmen were all absent, and not a sound broke the\nstillness, save the steady, monotonous chant of the water leaping down\ninto the race, where a thousand foam-flakes danced along towards the\nhuge wheels, and died on the soft green mosses and lush-creepers that\nstole down to bathe in the sparkling wavelets. The knotted roots of an\nold beech tree furnished a resting-place, and Salome sat down and\nleaned her head against the scarred trunk, where lightning had once\ngirdled and partially destroyed it,--leaving one-half the branches\nleafy, the remainder scorched and barren.\n\nOverhanging willows darkened the edges of the pond; and, in the\ncentre, one tall, venerable cypress, lonely as some palm in the\ndesert, rose like a gray shaft tufted with a fine fringe of fresh\ngreen; and occasional clusters of broad, shining leaves, spread\nthemselves on the surface of the water, cradling large, snowy lilies,\nwhose gold-powdered stamens trembled ceaselessly. Now and then a trout\nleaped up, as if for a breath of May air, and fell back into the\ncircle that widened until it touched either bank; and not far from a\ncow who stood knee-deep in water, browsing on a wild rose that\nclambered over the willows to peep at its pink image in the pond, a\nproud pair of gray geese convoyed a brood of yellow younglings that\ndived and breasted the ripples with evident glee.\n\nWith her arms clasped around her knees, Salome sat watching the blue\ntendrils of smoke that rose from a clump of elms beyond the mill and\ncurled lazily upward until they lost themselves in air; and, though\nthe arching elm boughs hid mossy roof and chimney, she nevertheless\nfelt that she was looking on the old house where she was born, and\nwhere ten dreary years of sorrow and humiliation had embittered and\nperverted her nature.\n\nThose elms had seen her mother die, had heard her father's drunken\nrevelry, and bent their aged heads to listen on that wild wintry\nnight, when in blood-curdling curses his soul rent itself from the\ndegraded tenement of clay. Apparently peace brooded over earth, sky,\nand water; but to that lonely figure under the riven beech, every\nobject within the range of vision babbled horrible tales of the early\nyears, and memory pointed to a corner of the lumber-shed adjoining the\nmill where she had often secreted herself to avoid her father's\nbrutality,--always keeping her head in the moonshine, because she\ndreaded the darkness inside, which childish fancy filled with ghostly\ngroups. She hated the place as she hated the past, and this was the\nsecond time she had visited it since the day that consigned her to the\npoor-house; for it was impossible for her to look at the pond without\nrecollecting one dark passage in her life, known only to God and\nherself. To-day she recalled, with startling vividness a dusky,\nstarlit June evening, when, maddened by an unmerited and unusually\nsevere punishment inflicted by her father, she had resolved to drown\nherself, and find peace in the mud at the bottom of the mill-pond.\nPlacing her infant sister on the grass, she had kissed her good-by,\nand selecting the deepest portion of the water, had climbed out on a\nwillow branch and prepared for the final plunge. Putting her fingers\nin her ears that she might not hear the bubbling of the murderous\nwater, she shut her eyes and sprang into the pond; but her long hair\ncaught the willow twigs, and, half strangled and quite willing to\nlive, she scrambled up into the low limbs that seemed so anxious to\nrescue her from a watery grave; and, dripping and trembling, crept\nback to the house, comforting herself with the grim assurance that\nwhatever else might befall, she certainly was not foreordained to be\neither beaten to death or drowned. The impulse which had brought her\non this occasion to a scene so fraught with harrowing memories, was\nexplicable only by the supposition that its painful surroundings were\nin consonance with the bitter and despondent mood in which she found\nherself; and, in the gloom that this retrospection shed over her\ncountenance, her features seemed to grow wan and angular. For several\ndays she had been sorely disquieted by the realization of Miss Jane's\nrapidly failing strength; and the probability of her death, which a\nyear ago would have been entirely endurable as an avenue to wealth,\nnow appeared the direst catastrophe that had yet threatened her\nill-starred life.\n\nIt was distressing to think of the kind old face growing stiff in a\nshroud, but infinitely more appalling to contemplate the possibility\nof being turned out of a comfortable home and driven to labor for a\nmaintenance. Salome had a vague impression that either Providence or\nthe world owed her a luxurious future, as partial compensation for her\njuvenile miseries; but since both seemed disposed to repudiate the\ndebt, she was reluctantly compelled to ponder her prospective\nbankruptcy in worldly goods, and, like the unjust steward, while\nunwilling to work she was still ashamed to beg.\n\nAlthough she strenuously resisted the strong, steady influence so\nquietly exerted by Dr. Grey, the best elements of her nature, long\ndormant, began to stir feebly, and she was conscious of nobler\naspirations than those which had hitherto swayed her; and of a\ndimly-defined self-dissatisfaction that was novel and annoying.\nUnwilling to admit that she valued his good opinion, she nevertheless\nfelt chagrined at her failure to possess it, and gradually she\nrealized her utter inferiority to this man, whose consistent Christian\ncharacter commanded an entire respect which she had never before\nentertained for any human being. Immersed in vexing thoughts\nconcerning her future, she mechanically stretched out her hand to\npluck a bunch of phlox and of lemon-hued primroses that were nodding\nin the sunshine close to her feet; but, as she touched the stems, a\nlarge copper- snake slowly uncoiled from the tuft of grass\nwhere they nestled and, gliding into the water, disappeared in the\nmidst of the lilies.\n\n\"I wonder if throughout life all the flowers I endeavor to grasp will\nprove only Moccasin-beds! Why should they,--unless God abdicates and\nSatan reigns? I have found, to my cost, that existence is not made\nentirely of rainless June days; but I doubt whether darkness and\nstorms shut out the warm glow and perpetually curtain the stars.\nObviously I am no saint; still, I am disposed to believe I am not\naltogether wicked. I have committed no capital sins, nor grievously\ntransgressed the decalogue,--and why should I despair of my share of\nthe good things of life? I am neither Cain nor Jezebel, and therefore\nFates and Furies have no warrant to dog my footsteps. Moreover, how do\nI know that Destiny is indeed the hideous, vindictive crone that\nluckless wretches have painted her, instead of an amiable, good soul,\nwho is quite as willing to scatter blessings as curses? Because some\ndyspeptic Greek dreamed of three pitiless old weavers, blind to human\ntears, deaf to human petitions, why should we wise and enlightened\npeople of the nineteenth century scare ourselves with the skeleton of\nPaganism? I have as inalienable a right to brocades, crown-jewels, and\na string of titles, as any reigning queen, provided I can only get my\nhands upon them; and, since life seems to be a sort of snatch-and-hold\ngame, quick keen eyes and nimble fingers decide the question. I have\nnever trodden on the world's tender toes, nor smitten its pet follies,\nnor set myself aloft to gaze pityingly on its degradation, therefore,\nthe world honors me with no special grudge. But one thing is\nmournfully certain,--my path is not strewn with loaves and fishes\nready baked and broiled, and I must even go gleaning and fishing for\nmyself. Almost everybody has some gift or some mission; but I really\ndo not see in what direction I can set to work. Work! How I hate the\nbare thought! I have not sufficient education to teach, nor genius to\nwrite, nor a talent for drawing, and barely music enough in my soul to\nenable me to carry the church tunes respectably. Come, Salome Owen!\nShake off your sloth, and face the abominable fact that you must earn\nyour own bread. It is a great shame, and I ought not to be obliged to\nwork, for I am not responsible for my existence, and those who brought\nme into the world owed it to me to provide for my wants. I cannot and\nwill not forgive my father and mother; but that will not mend matters,\nsince, nevertheless, here I am, with a body to feed and clothe, and\nGod only knows how I am to accomplish it. I find myself with youth,\nhealth, some beauty, an average share of intellect, and all the wants\npertaining thereunto. If the worst comes to the worst I suppose I can\ncontrive, like other poverty-stricken girls, to marry somebody who\nwill support me comfortably; but that is rather an uncertain\nspeculation, and meantime Miss Jane might die. Now, if the Bible is\ntrue, it must indeed be a blessed lot to be born a brown sparrow, and\nhave the Lord for a commissary. I am a genuine child of old Adam, and\nlabor is the heaviest curse that could possibly be sent upon me.\"\n\nOnce or twice during this profitless reverie she had paused to listen\nto a singular sound that came from a dense group of willows not far\nfrom the spot where she sat, and now it grew louder, swelling into a\nmeasured cry, as of a child in great distress.\n\n\"Somebody in trouble, but it does not concern me; I have enough and to\nspare, of my own.\"\n\nShe settled herself once more quite comfortably, but the low,\nmonotonous wail, smote her heart, and womanly sympathy with suffering\nstrangled her constitutional selfishness. Rising, she crept cautiously\nalong the edge of the pond until she reached the thicket whence the\nsound proceeded, and, as she pushed aside the low branches and peeped\ninto the cool, green nook, her eyes fell upon the figure of a little\nboy who lay on the ground, rolling from side to side and sobbing\nviolently.\n\n\"What is the matter? Are you sick or hungry?\"\n\nStartled by the sound of her voice, the child uttered a scream of\nterror, and whirled over, hiding his face in the leaves and grass.\n\n\"For Heaven's sake, stop howling! What are you about,--wallowing here\nin the mud, ruining your clothes, and yelling like a hyena? Hush, and\nget up.\"\n\n\"Oh, please, ma'am, don't tell on me! Don't carry me back, and I will\nhush!\"\n\n\"Where do you live?\"\n\n\"Nowhere. Oh!--oh!\" And he renewed his cries.\n\n\"A probable story. What is your name?\"\n\n\"Haven't got any name.\"\n\n\"You have no name, and you live nowhere? Come, little fellow, this\nwill never do. I am afraid you are a very bad boy and have run away\nfrom home to escape being punished. Hush this instant!\"\n\nHe had kept his face carefully concealed, and, resolved to ascertain\nthe truth, Salome stooped and tried to lift him; but he struggled\ndesperately, and screamed frantically,--\n\n\"Let me alone! I won't go back! I will jump into the pond and drown\nmyself if you don't let me alone.\"\n\nHe was so hoarse from constant crying that she could recognize no\nfamiliar tones in his voice, but a great dread seized her, and,\nsuddenly putting her hands under his head, she forced the face up, and\nlooked at the flushed, swollen features.\n\n\"Stanley! Is it possible? My poor little brother!\"\n\nThe equally astonished boy started up, and stared half wistfully, half\nfearfully, at the figure standing before him.\n\n\"Is it you, Salome? I did not know you.\"\n\n\"How came you here? When did you leave the Asylum?\"\n\n\"I ran away, three days ago.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I was tired of living there, and I wanted to come back\nhome.\"\n\n\"Home, indeed! You miserable begger, don't you know you have no home\nbut the Orphan Asylum?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have. I want to come back yonder. Don't you see home yonder,\namong the trees, with the pretty white and speckled pigeons flying\nover it?\"\n\nHe pointed across the pond to the old house beyond the mill, whose\noutlines were visible through the openings in the elms; and, as he\ngazed upon it with that intense longing so touching in a child's face,\nhis sobs increased.\n\n\"Stanley, that is not your home now. Other people live there, and you\nhave no right to come back. Why did you run away from the Asylum? Did\nthey treat you unkindly?\"\n\n\"No,--yes. They whipped me because I cried and said I hated to stay\nthere, and wanted to come home.\"\n\nSalome looked at the soiled, torn clothes, and sorrowful face; and,\nbursting into tears, she bent forward and drew her brother to her\nbosom. He put his arms around her neck, and kissed her cheek several\ntimes, saying, softly and coaxingly,--\n\n\"Sister Salome, you won't send me back, will you? Please let me stay\nwith you, and I will be a good boy.\"\n\nFor some minutes she was unable to reply, and wept silently as she\nsmoothed the tangled hair back from the child's white forehead and\npressed her lips to it.\n\n\"Stanley, how is Jessie? Where did you leave her?\"\n\n\"She is well, and I left her at the Asylum. She had a long cry the\nnight I ran away, and said she wanted to see you, and she thought you\nhad forgotten us both. You know, Salome, it is over a year since you\ncame to see us, and Jessie and I are so lonesome there, we hate the\nplace.\"\n\n\"What were you crying so bitterly about when I found you, just now?\"\n\n\"I am so hungry, and the man who lives yonder at home drove me away.\nHe said I was prowling around to steal something, and if he saw me\nthere any more he would shoot me. I ate my last piece of biscuit\nyesterday.\"\n\n\"Why did you not come to me instead of the miller?\"\n\n\"I was afraid you would send me back to the Asylum; but you won't,--I\nknow you won't, Salome.\"\n\n\"Suppose I had not happened to hear you crying,--what would have\nbecome of you? Did you intend to starve here in the swamp?\"\n\n\"I thought I would wait till the miller left home, and then beg his\nwife to give me some bread, and, if I could get nothing, I was going\nto pull up some carrots that I saw growing in a field back of the\nhouse. Oh, Salome, I am so hungry and so tired!\"\n\nShe sat down on a heap of last year's leaves, which autumn winds and\nwinter rains had driven against the trunk of a decayed and fallen\nsweet-gum, and, drawing the weary head with its shock of matted yellow\ncurls to her lap, she covered her own face with her hands to hide the\nhot tears that streamed over her cheeks.\n\n\"Salome, are you very mad with me?\"\n\n\"Yes, Stanley; you have behaved very badly, and I don't know what I\nought to do with you.\"\n\nHe tried to put aside one of her shielding hands, and failing, wound\nhis arms around her waist, and nestled as close as possible.\n\n\"Sister, please let me stay and live with you, and I promise--I\ndeclare--I will be a good boy.\"\n\n\"Poor little fellow! You don't in the least know what you are talking\nabout. How can you live with me when I have no home, and not a\ndollar?\"\n\n\"I thought you stayed with a rich lady, and had everything nice that\nyou wanted.\"\n\n\"I do not expect to have even a shelter much longer. The lady who\ntakes care of me is sick, and cannot live very long; and, when she\ndies, I don't know where I shall go or what I may be obliged to do.\"\n\n\"If you will only keep me I will help you work. At the Asylum I saw\nwood, and pick peas, and pull out grass and weeds from the strawberry\nvines, and sometimes I sweep the yards. Just try me a little while,\nSalome, and see how smart I can be.\"\n\n\"Would you be willing to leave poor little Jessie at the Asylum? If\nshe felt so lonesome when you were there, how will she get along\nwithout you?\"\n\n\"Oh, we could steal her out some night, and keep her with us. Salome,\nI tell you I don't mean to go back there. I will die first. I will\ndrown myself, or run away to sea. I would rather starve to death here\nin the swamp. Everybody else can get a home, and why can't we?\"\n\n\"Because your father was a drunkard, and left his children to the\ncharity of the poor-house; and, God knows, I heartily wish we were all\nscrewed down in the same coffin with him. You and I, Jessie, and Mark,\nand Joel are all beggars--miserable beggars! Hush, Stanley, you will\nsob yourself into a fever! Stop crying, I say, if you do not want to\ndrive me crazy! I thought I had trouble enough, without being\ntormented by the sight of your poor, wretched face; and now, what to\ndo with you I am sure I don't know. There--do be quiet. Take your arms\naway; I don't want you to kiss me any more.\"\n\nIn the long silence that succeeded, the child, spent with grief and\nfatigue, fell into a sound sleep, and Salome sat with his head in her\nlap and her clasped hands resting on her knee.\n\nThe afternoon slowly wore away, and the dimpled pond caught\nlengthening shadows on its surface as the sun dipped into the forest.\nThe measured tinkle of a distant bell told that the cows were wending\nquietly homeward; and, while the miller's wife drove her geese into\nthe yard, the pigeons nestled in their leafy coverts high among the\nelm arches, and the solemn serenity of coming summer night stole with\nvelvet tread over the scene, silencing all things save the silvery\nbarcarolle of the falling water, and the sweet, lonely vesper hymn of\na whippoorwill, half hidden in the solitary cypress.\n\nAlthough tears came very rarely to her eyes, the orphan had wept\nbitterly, and, surprised at finding herself so completely unnerved on\nthis occasion, she made a powerful effort to regain her composure and\nusual stolidity of expression. Shaking the little sleeper, she\nsaid,--\n\n\"Wake up, Stanley. Get your hat and come with me, at least for\nto-night.\"\n\nThe child was too weary to renew the conversation, and, hand in hand,\nthe two walked silently on until they approached the confines of the\nfarm, when Salome suddenly paused at sight of Dr. Grey, who was\ncrossing the pine forest just in front of them. Pressing his sister's\nhand, Stanley looked up and asked, timidly,--\n\n\"What are you going to do with me?\"\n\n\"Hush! I have not fully decided.\"\n\nShe endeavored to elude observation by standing close to the body of a\nlarge pine, but Dr. Grey caught a glimpse of her fluttering dress,\nand came forward rapidly, carrying in his arms one young lamb and\ndriving another before him.\n\n\"Salome, will you be so good as to assist me in shepherding this\nobstinate little waif? It has been running hither and thither for\nnearly half an hour, taking every direction but the right one. If you\nwill either walk on and lower the bars for me or drive this lamb while\nI go forward, you will greatly oblige me. Pardon me,--you look\ndistressed. Something painful has occurred, I fear.\"\n\nThe girl's usually firm mouth trembled as she laid her hand on the\ntorn straw hat that shaded Stanley's features, and answered,\nhurriedly,--\n\n\"Yes. We have both stumbled upon stray lambs; but mine, unfortunately,\nhappens to prove my youngest brother, and, since I am neither Reuben\nnor Judah, I could not leave him in the woods to perish. Stanley, run\non and pull down the bars yonder, where you see the sheep looking\nthrough the fence.\"\n\n\"How old is he?\"\n\n\"About eight years, I believe, but he is small for his age.\"\n\n\"He does not in the least resemble you.\"\n\n\"No; pitiable little wretch, he looks like nothing but destitution!\nWhen a poor man dies, leaving a houseful of beggarly orphans, the\nState ought to require the undertaker who buries him to shoot or hang\nthe whole brood, and lay them all in the Potter's Field out of the\nworld's way.\"\n\n\"Such words and sentiments are strangely at variance with the\naffectionate gentleness and resignation which best become womanly\nlips, and I pity the keen suffering that wrings them from yours. He\nwho 'setteth the solitary in families' never yet failed in loving\nguardianship of trusting orphanage, and certainly you have no cause to\nupbraid fate, or impiously murmur against the decrees of your God.\"\n\nHe stood before her, with one hand stroking the head of the lamb that\nnestled on his bosom; but his face was sterner, his voice far more\nsevere, than she had ever known either before, and her eyes fell\nbeneath the grave and sorrowful rebuke which looked out from his.\n\n\"Your brother ran away from the Asylum, three days ago.\"\n\n\"How did you ascertain that fact?\"\n\n\"About an hour after you left the house, the matron of the Asylum sent\nto inquire whether you were aware of his absence, and to notify you\nthat your little sister Jessie is quite ill. I was searching for you,\nwhen I accidentally found these lambs, deserted by their mother. Thank\nyou, Stanley; I will put up the bars, and you can go to the house with\nyour sister. Salome, the carriage is ready, and if you desire to see\nJessie immediately I will take you over as soon as possible. There is\na full moon, and you can return with me or remain at the Asylum until\nmorning. Confer with my sister concerning the disposal of this little\nrefugee.\"\n\nHe patted the boy's head, and entered the sheepfold, while Salome\nstood leaning against the fence, looking vacantly down at the bleating\nflock.\n\nCatching her brother's hand, she hurried to the house, bathed his\nface, brushed his disordered hair, and gave him a bountiful supper of\nbread and milk; after which, Jane Grey ordered the little culprit\nbrought to her bedside, where she delivered a kind lecture on his\nsinful disobedience. When Dr. Grey entered the room, Salome was\nstanding at the window, while Stanley clung to her dress, hiding his\nface in its folds, vowing vehemently that he would not return to the\nAsylum, and protesting with many sobs that he would be the best boy in\nthe world if he were only allowed to remain at the farm.\n\n\"Salome, do quiet him; he will fret himself into a fever,\" said Miss\nJane, whose nerves began to quiver painfully.\n\n\"He has it already,\" answered the girl, without turning her head. She\ndid not observe Dr. Grey's entrance, and when he approached the\nwindow, where the mellow moonshine streamed full on her face, he saw\ntears stealing over her cheeks, and noticed that her fingers were\nclenched tightly.\n\n\"Salome, do you wish to see Jessie to-night? She has had convulsions\nduring the day, and may not live until morning.\"\n\nShe looked up at his grave, noble countenance, and her lips fluttered\nas she answered, huskily,--\n\n\"I can do nothing for her, and why should I see her die?\"\n\n\"To whose care was she committed by her dying mother?\"\n\n\"To mine.\"\n\n\"Have you faithfully kept the sacred trust?\"\n\n\"I did all that I could until Miss Jane placed her in the asylum.\"\n\n\"Does your conscience acquit you?\"\n\nShe silently dropped her face in her hands, and for some seconds he\nwatched her anxiously.\n\n\"Have you and Janet decided what shall be done with Stanley?\"\n\n\"No; the longer I ponder the matter, the more confused my mind\nbecomes.\"\n\n\"Will you leave it in my hands, and abide by my decision?\"\n\n\"Yes, gladly.\"\n\n\"You promise to be satisfied with any course upon which I may\nresolve?\"\n\nLooking up quickly, she exclaimed,--\n\n\"Oh, yes; I trust you, fully. Do what you think best.\"\n\nDr. Grey put his hand under Stanley's chin, and, lifting his face,\nexamined his countenance and felt his pulse.\n\n\"He is only frightened and fatigued. Put him to bed at once in your\nroom, and then let me take you to see little Jessie. If you fail to\ngo, you might reproach yourself in coming years.\"\n\nIt was nine o'clock when the carriage stopped at the door of the\nAsylum, and Salome and Dr. Grey went up to the \"Infirmary,\" where the\nfaithful matron sat beside one of the little beds, watching the deep\nslumber of the flushed and exhausted sleeper.\n\nThe disease had almost spent its force, the crisis was passed, and the\nattending physician had pronounced the patient much better; still,\nwhen Salome stooped to kiss her sister, the matron held her back,\nassuring her that perfect quiet was essential for her recovery.\nKneeling there beside the motherless girl, Salome noted the changes\nthat time and suffering had wrought on the delicate features; and, as\nshe listened to the quick, irregular breathing, the fountain of\ntenderness was suddenly unsealed in her own nature, and she put out\nher arms, yearning to clasp Jessie to her heart. So strong were her\nemotions, so keen was her regret for past indifference and neglect,\nthat she lost all self-control, and, unable to check her passionate\nweeping, Dr. Grey led her from the room, promising to bring her again\nwhen the sick child was sufficiently strong to bear the interview.\n\nDuring the ride homeward he made no effort to divert her thoughts or\nrelieve her anxiety, knowing that although severe it was a healthful\nregimen for her long indurated heart, and was the _renaissance_ of her\nbetter nature.\n\nWhen they arrived at home, the moon was shining bright and full, and,\nas they waited on the gallery for a servant to open the door, Dr. Grey\ndrew most favorable auguries from the chastened, blanched face, with\nits humbled and grieved expression.\n\n\"Salome, I shall for the present keep Stanley here; and, until I can\nmake some satisfactory arrangement with reference to his education, I\nwould be glad to have you hear his recitations every day. Have you the\nrequisite leisure to superintend his lessons?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I have not deserved this kindness from you, Dr. Grey; but I\nthank you, from my inmost heart. You are good enough to forgive my\nmany offences, and I shall not soon forget it.\"\n\n\"Salome, you owe me no gratitude, but there is much for which you\nshould go down on your knees and fervently thank your merciful God. My\nyoung friend, will you do this?\"\n\nHe extended his hand, and, unable to utter a word, Salome gave him\nhers, for a second only, and hastened to her own room, where Stanley's\nfair face lay in the golden moonlight, radiant with happy dreams of\nwhite pigeons and pet lambs.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n\n\"Don't strangle me, Jessie! Put down your arms, and listen to me.\nSobbing will not mend matters, and you might as well make up your mind\nto be patient. Of course I should like to take you with me, if I had\na home; but, as I told you just now, we are so poor that we must live\nwhere we can, not where we prefer. Because I wear nice pretty clothes\ndo you suppose I have a pocketful of money? I have not a cent to buy\neven a loaf of bread, and I can't ask Miss Jane to take care of you as\nwell as of Stanley and myself. Poor little thing, don't cry so! I know\nyou are lonely here without Stanley, but it can't be helped. Jessie,\ndon't you see that it can not be helped?\"\n\n\"I don't eat so very much, and I could sleep with Buddie and wouldn't\nbe in the way,--and I can wear my old clothes. Oh, please, Salome! I\nwill die if you leave me here.\"\n\n\"You will do no such thing; you are getting well as fast as possible.\nCrying never kills people,--it only makes their heads ache, and their\neyes red and ugly. See here, if you don't stop all this, I shall quit\ncoming to see you! Do you hear what I say?\"\n\nThe only reply was a fresh sob, which the child strove to smother by\nhiding her face in Salome's lap.\n\nThe matron, who sat by the open window, looked up from the button-hole\nshe was working, and, clearing her throat, said,--\n\n\"Better let her have her cry out,--that is the surest cure for such\ntroubles as hers. She was always manageable and good enough until\nStanley ran away, and since then she does nothing but mope and bite\nher finger-nails. Cry away, Jessie, and have done with it. Ah, miss,\nthe saddest feature about Asylums is the separation of families;\nand if the matron had a heart of stone it would melt sometimes at\nsight of these little motherless things clinging to each other. I'm\nsure I have shed a gallon of tears since I came here. It is a\nfearful responsibility to take charge of an institution like this,\nfor if I try to make the children respect my authority, and behave\nthemselves properly, outsiders 'specially the neighbors, says I am\ntoo severe; and if I let them frolic and romp and make as much din\nand uproar as they like, why, then the same folks scandalize me\nand the managers, and say there is no sort of discipline maintained.\nI verily believe, miss, that if an angel came down from heaven to\nmatronize these children, before six months elapsed all the\ngodliness would be worried out of her soul by the slanders of the\npublic and the squabbles of the children. Now I don't confess to be\nan angel, but I do claim a conscience, and God knows I make it a\nrule to treat these orphans exactly as I treated my own and only\nchild, whom I buried three years ago. Do you suppose that any woman\nwho has laid her first-born in its coffin could be brutal enough to\nmaltreat poor little motherless lambs? I don't deny that sometimes I\nam compelled to punish them, for it is as much my duty to whip them\nfor bad conduct as to see that their meals are properly cooked and\ntheir clothes kept in order. Am I to let them grow up thieves and\nliars? Must I stand by and see them pull out each other's hair and\nbite off one another's ears?\"\n\n\"Of course not, Mrs. Collins. You must preserve some discipline.\"\n\n\"Must I? Well, miss, I will show you how beautifully that sounds and\nhow poorly it works. There is your brother Stanley (I mean no offence,\nmiss, but special cases explain better than generalities),--there's\nyour brother Stanley, who ran away--for what?\"\n\n\"Because he was homesick and wanted to see me.\"\n\n\"No such thing, begging your pardon. Perhaps he told you that, but\nremember there are always two sides to every tale. The truth of the\nmatter is just this: Stanley has an ugly habit of cursing, which I\nwill not tolerate; and, twice when I heard him swearing at the other\nchildren, I shamed him well and slapped him soundly. Last week I told\nhim and Joe Clark to shell a basket of peas, while the cook was making\nsome ginger-bread for them, and before I was out of the room they\ncommenced quarrelling. They raised such an uproar that I came back and\nsaw the whole fray. Stanley cursed Joe, who expostulated and tried to\npacify him, and when he finally threatened to tell me that Stanley was\ncursing again, your brother snatched a hatchet that was lying on the\ndresser and swore he would kill him if he did. He aimed a blow at\nJoe's head, but slipped on the pea-hulls, and the hatchet struck the\nboy's right foot, cutting off one of his toes. Now what would you have\ndone, under the circumstances,--allowed the children to be tomahawked\nin that style? You say I must have discipline. Well, miss, I tried to\n'discipline' Stanley's wickedness out of him by giving him a whipping,\nand the end of the matter was that he ran away that afternoon. That is\nnot the worst of it,--for the children all know the facts, and since\nthey find that Stanley Owen can run away and be sustained in his\ndisobedience, of course it tends to demoralize them. So I say that if\nI do my duty I am lashed by the tongues of people who know nothing of\nthe circumstances; and if I fail to perform my duty I am lashed by my\nown conscience,--and between the two I have a sorrowful time; for I\ndeclare to you, miss, that Stephen's martyrdom was a small affair in\ncomparison with what I pass through every week. I love the children\nand try to be kind to them, but I can't have them cursing and swearing\nlike sailors, and scalping each other. I must either raise them like\nChristians, or resign my situation to some one who is 'wise as\nserpents and harmless as doves.' It is all very fine to talk of\n'proper discipline' in charitable institutions; but, miss, in the name\nof common sense, how can I get along unless the friends of the\nchildren sustain me? Did you punish Stanley, and send him back? On the\ncontrary, you countenanced his bad conduct and kept him with you, and\nit is perfectly natural that little Jessie here should be dissatisfied\nand anxious to join him. I can't scold her, for I know she misses her\nbrother, who was always very tender and considerate in his treatment\nof her.\"\n\n\"I appreciate the difficulties which surround you, and believe that\nyou are conscientiously striving to do your duty towards these\nchildren; but I knew that if I compelled Stanley to return it would\naugment instead of correcting the mischief.\"\n\nAt this juncture the matron was summoned from the room, and, during\nthe silence that ensued, Jessie climbed into her sister's lap, wound\nher thin arms around her neck, and softly rubbed her pale cheek\nagainst the polished rosy face, where perplexity and annoyance were\nlegibly written.\n\n\"Salome, don't you love me a little?\"\n\n\"Of course I do; Jessie, don't be so foolish.\"\n\n\"Please let me go with you and Stanley.\"\n\n\"Do you want to starve,--you poor silly thing?\"\n\n\"Yes; I would rather starve with Buddie than stay here by myself.\"\n\n\"I want to hear no more of such nonsense. You have not tried starving,\nand you are too young to know what is really for your good. Now,\nlisten to me. At present I am obliged to leave you here,--come, don't\nbegin crying again; but, if you will be a good girl and try not to\nfret over what cannot be helped, I promise you that just as soon as I\ncan possibly support you I will take you to live with me.\"\n\n\"How long must I wait?\"\n\n\"Until I make money enough to feed and clothe you.\"\n\n\"Can't you guess when you can come for me?\"\n\n\"No, for as yet I know not how I can earn a dollar; but, if you will\nbe patient, I promise to work hard for you and Stanley.\"\n\n\"I will be good. Salome, I have saved a quarter of a dollar that the\ndoctor gave me when I was sick,--because I let the blister stay on my\nside a half hour longer; and I thought I would send it to Buddie, to\nbuy him some marbles or a kite; but I reckon I had better give it to\nyou to help us get a house.\"\n\nShe drew from her pocket a green calico bag, and, emptying the\ncontents into her hand, picked out from among brass buttons and bits\nof broken glass a silver coin, which she held up triumphantly.\n\n\"No, Jessie,--keep it. Stanley has plenty of playthings, and you may\nneed it. Besides, your quarter would not go far, and I don't want it.\nGood-bye, little darling. Try to give Mrs. Collins no trouble, and\nrecollect that when I promise you anything I shall be sure to keep my\nword.\"\n\nSalome drew the child's head to her shoulder, and, as she bent over\nand kissed the sweet, pure lips, Jessie whispered, \"When we say our\nprayers to-night, we will ask God to send us some money to buy a home,\nwon't we? You know he made the birds feed Elijah.\"\n\n\"But we are not prophets, and ravens are not flying about with bags of\nmoney under their wings.\"\n\n\"We do not know what God can do, and if we are only good, He is as\nmuch bound to take care of us as of Elijah. He made the sky rain manna\nand partridges for the starving people in the desert, and He is as\nmuch our God as if we came out from Egypt under Moses. I know God will\nhelp us, if we ask Him. I am sure of it; for last week I lost Mrs.\nCollins' bunch of keys, and, when I could not find them anywhere, I\nprayed to God to help me, and, sure enough, I remembered I left them\nin the dairy where I was churning.\"\n\nJessie's countenance was radiant with hope and faith, which her sister\ncould not share, yet felt unwilling to destroy; and, checking the\nheavy sigh that rose from her oppressed heart, she hastily quitted the\nhouse.\n\nIn the midst of confused and perturbed reflections, rose like some\nlonely rock-based beacon in boiling waves her sacred promise to the\ntrusting child, and ingenuity was racked to devise some means for its\nprompt fulfilment. Consanguinity began to urge its claim vehemently,\nand long dormant tenderness pleaded piteously for exiled idols.\n\n\"If I were only a Christian, like Dr. Grey! His faith, like strong\nwings, bears him high above all sloughs of despond, all morasses of\nmoodiness. People cannot successfully or profitably serve two masters.\nThat is eminently true; not because it is scriptural, but _vice\nversa_; because it is so obviously true it could not escape a place in\nthe Bible. Half work pays poor wages, and it is not surprising that\nneither God nor Mammon will patiently submit to it. I suppose the time\nhas come when I must bargain myself to one or the other; for,\nhitherto, I have declared in favor of neither. I am not altogether\nsanctified, nor yet desperately wicked, but I hate Satan, who ruined\nmy father, infinitely more than I dislike the restrictions of\nreligion. I owe him a grudge for all the shame and suffering of my\nchildhood,--which, if God did not interfere to prevent, at least there\nis strong presumptive evidence that he took no pleasure in witnessing.\nI don't suppose I have any faith; I scarcely know what it means; but\nperhaps if I try to serve God instead of myself, it will come to me\nas it came to Paul and Thomas. I wonder whether mere abstract love of\nrighteousness and of the Lord drives half as many persons into\nChristian churches as the fear of eternal perdition. I don't deny that\nI am afraid of Satan, for if he contrives to smuggle so much sin and\nsorrow into this world what must his own kingdom be? If there be any\ntruth in the tradition that every human being is afflicted by some\nbesetting sin that crouches at the door of the soul, lying in ambush\nto destroy it, then my own 'Dweller of the Threshold,' is love of mine\nease. Time was when I would have bartered my eternal heritage for a\ngood-sized mess of earthly pottage, provided only it was well spiced\nand garnished; but to-day I have no inclination to be swindled like\nEsau. Idleness has well-nigh ruined me, so I shall take industry by\nthe horns, and laying thereon all my sins of indolence, drive it\nbefore me as the Jews drove Apopompoeus.\"\n\nShe walked on in the direction of the town, turning her head neither\nto right nor left, and keeping her eyes fixed on the blue air before\nher, where imagination built a home, through whose spacious halls\nStanley and Jessie sported at will. On the principal street stood a\nfashionable dress-making and millinery establishment, and thither\nSalome bent her steps, resolved that the sun should not set without\nhaving witnessed some effort to redeem the pledge given to Jessie.\n\nPanoplied in Miss Jane's patronage, she demanded and obtained\nadmission to the inner apartment of this Temple of Fashion, where\npresided the Pythoness whose oracular utterances swayed _le beau\nmonde_.\n\nWhat passed between the two never transpired, even among the\napprentices that thronged the adjoining room; but when Salome left the\nhouse she carried under her arm a large bundle which furnished work\nfor the ensuing fortnight.\n\nEvening shadows overtook her, while yet a mile distant from home, and\nas she passed a small cottage, where candle-light flared through the\nopen window, she saw Dr. Grey standing beside the bed, on which,\ndoubtless, lay some sufferer.\n\nEre many moments had elapsed, she heard his well-known footstep on\nthe rocky road, and involuntarily paused to greet him.\n\n\"What called you to old Mrs. Peterson's?\"\n\n\"Her youngest grandchild is very ill with brain fever; so ill that I\nshall return and sit up with him to-night.\"\n\n\"I was not aware that physicians condescended to act as mere\nnurses,--to execute their own orders.\"\n\n\"Then I fear you have formed a very low estimate of the sacred\nresponsibilities of my profession, or of the characters of those who\nrepresent it. The true physician combines the offices of surgeon,\ndoctor, nurse, and friend.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Peterson is almost destitute, and to a great extent dependent on\ncharity; consequently you need not expect to collect any fee.\"\n\n\"Knowing her poverty, I attend the family gratuitously.\"\n\n\"Is not your charity-list a very long one?\"\n\n\"Could I divest myself of sympathy with the sufferings of those who\ncompose it I would not curtail it one iota; for I feel like Boerhaave,\nwho once said, 'My poor are my best patients; God pays for them.'\"\n\n\"Then, after all, you are actuated merely by selfishness, and remit\npayments in earthly dross,--in 'filthy lucre,'--in order to collect\nyour fees in a better currency, where thieves do not break through nor\nsteal?\"\n\n\"'He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker; but he that\nhonoreth Him, hath mercy on the poor.' If a tinge of selfishness\nmingle with the hope of future reward, it will be forgiven, I trust,\nby the great Physician, who, in sublimating human nature, seized upon\nits selfish elements as powerful agencies in the regeneration of\nmankind. An abstract worship of virtue is scarcely possible while\nhumanity is clothed with clay, and I am not unwilling to confess that\nhope of eternal compensation influences my conduct in many respects.\nIf this be indeed only subtle selfishness, at least we shall be\npardoned by Him who promised to prepare a place in the Father's\nmansion for those who follow His footsteps among the poor.\"\n\nShe looked up at him, with a puzzled, searching expression, that\narrested his attention, and exclaimed,--\n\n\"How singularly honest you are! I believe I could have faith if there\nwere more like you.\"\n\n\"Faith in what?\"\n\n\"In the nobility of my race,--in the possibility of my own\nimprovement,--in the watchful providence of God.\"\n\n\"Salome, there is much sound philosophy in the eighty-seventh and\neighty-ninth maxims of cynical Rochefoucauld, 'It is more disgraceful to\ndistrust one's friends than to be deceived by them. Our mistrust\njustifies the deceit of others.' My opportunities have been favorable\nfor studying various classes of men, and my own experience corroborates\nthe truth of Montaigne's sagacious remark, 'Confidence in another\nman's virtue is no slight evidence of a man's own.' Try to cultivate\ntrust in your fellow creatures, and the bare show of faith will\nsometimes create worth.\"\n\n\"Did Christ's show of confidence in Judas save him from betrayal?\"\n\n\"Let us hope that he was the prototype of a very limited class. You\nmust not expect to find mankind divided into two great castes--one all\nangels, the other comprising hopeless demons. On the contrary, noble\nand most ignoble impulses alternately sway the actions and thoughts of\nthe majority of our race; and the saint of to-day is not unfrequently\ntempted to become the fiend of to-morrow. Remember that the conflict\nwith sinful promptings begins in the cradle--ends only in the\ncoffin,--and try to be more charitable in your judgments.\"\n\nThey walked a few yards in silence, and at length Salome asked,--\n\n\"Were you not kept up all of last night?\"\n\n\"Yes; I was obliged to ride fifteen miles to set a dislocated\nshoulder.\"\n\n\"Then you must be exhausted from fatigue, and unfit for watching\nto-night. Will you not allow me to relieve you, and take charge of\nMrs. Peterson's grandchild? I admit I am very ignorant; but I will\nfaithfully follow your directions, and I think you may venture to\ntrust me.\"\n\nConfusion flushed her face as she made this proposition, but in the\npale, pearly lustre of the summer starlight, it was not visible.\n\n\"Thank you heartily, Salome. I could implicitly trust your intentions,\nbut the case is almost hopeless, and I fear you are too inexperienced\nto render it safe for me to commit the child to your care. I\nappreciate your kindness, but am too much interested in the boy to\nleave him when the disease is at its crisis, and a cup of coffee will\nstrengthen me for the vigil. You have been to the Asylum this\nafternoon; tell me something about little Jessie.\"\n\n\"She is still rather pale, but otherwise seems quite well again. Of\ncourse she is dissatisfied since Stanley has left, and thinks she\nought to be allowed to follow his example; but I finally persuaded her\nto remain there patiently, at least for the present. It is well that\nthe poor have their sensibilities blunted early in life, for they are\nspared many sorrows that afflict those who are pampered by fortune and\nrendered morbidly sensitive by years of indulgence and prosperity.\"\n\nA metallic ring had crept into her voice, hardening it, and although\nhe could not distinctly see her countenance, he knew that the words\ncame through set teeth.\n\n\"Salome, I hope that I misunderstand you.\"\n\n\"No; unfortunately, you thoroughly comprehend me. Dr. Grey, were you\nsituated precisely as I find myself, do you suppose you would feel\nyour degradation as little as I seem to do? Do you think you would\nrelish the bread of charity as keenly as one, who, for courtesy's\nsake, shall be nameless? Could you calmly stand by, and with utter\n_sang froid_ see your brothers and sisters--your own flesh and\nblood--drift on every chance wave, like some sodden crust or withered\nweed on a stormy, treacherous sea? Would not your family pride bleed\nand die, and your self-respect wail and shrivel and expire?\"\n\n\"You have so grossly exaggerated and overcolored your picture that I\nrecognize little likeness to reality.\"\n\n\"I neither gloze nor mask; I simply front the facts, which are,\nbriefly, that you were nurtured in independence and trained to abhor\nthe crumbs that fall from other people's tables, while all heroic\naspirations and proud chivalric dreams were fed by the milk that\nnourished you; whereas, I grew up in the wan, sickly atmosphere of\npenury; glad to grasp the crust that chance offered; taught to\nconsider the bread of dependence precious as ambrosia; willing to\nforget family ties that were fraught only with humiliation and\nwretchedness; coveting bounty that I had not sufficient ambition to\nmerit; and eager to live on charity, as long as it could be coaxed,\nhoodwinked, or scourged into supporting me comfortably. Yesterday I\nread a sentence that might have been written for me, so felicitously\ndoes it photograph me, 'Temperament is a fate oftentimes, from whose\njurisdiction its victims hardly escape, but do its bidding herein, be\nit murder or martyrdom. Virtues and crimes are mixed in one's cup of\nnativity, with the lesser or larger margin of choice. _Blood is a\ndestiny._' You, Ulpian Grey, are what you are because your father was\na gentleman, and all your surroundings were luxurious and refined; and\nI, the miller's child, am what you see me because my father was coarse\nand brutal; because my body and soul struggled with staring\nstarvation,--physical, mental, and moral. Be just, and remember these\nthings when you are tempted to despise me as a pitiable, spiritless\nparasite.\"\n\n\"My little friend, you have most unnecessarily tortured yourself, and\ngrieved and mortified me. Have I ever treated you with contempt or\ndisrespect?\"\n\n\"You evidently pity me, and compassion is about as welcome to my\nfeelings as a vitriol bath to fresh wounds.\"\n\n\"Are you not conscious of having more than once acted in such a manner\nas to necessitate my compassion?\"\n\nShe was silent for some moments; but as they entered the avenue, she\nsaid, impetuously,--\n\n\"I want you to respect me.\"\n\n\"If you respect yourself and merit my good opinion, I shall not\nwithhold it. But of one thing let me assure you; my standard of\nwomanly delicacy, nobility, gentleness, and Christian faith is very\nexalted; and I cannot and will not lower it, even to meet the\nrequirements of those who claim my friendship. Thoroughly cognizant of\nmy opinions concerning several subjects, you have more than once,\npremeditatedly and obtrusively outraged them, and while I can and do\nmost cordially overlook the offence, you should not deem it possible\nfor me to entertain a very lofty estimate of the offender. When I came\nhome you took such extraordinary pains to convince me that not a\nsingle noble aspiration actuated you that I confess you almost\nsucceeded in your aim; but, Salome, I hope you are far more generous\nthan you deign to prove yourself, and I promise you my earnest respect\nshall not lag behind,--shall promptly keep pace with your deserts. You\ncan, if you so determine, make yourself an attractive, brilliant,\nnoble woman; an ornament--and better still--a useful, honored member\nof society; but the faults of your character are grave, and only\nprayer and conscientious, persistent efforts can entirely correct\nthem. I am neither so unreasonable nor so unjust as to hold you\naccountable for circumstances beyond your control; and, while I warmly\nsympathize with all your sorrows, I know that you are still\nsufficiently young to rectify the unfortunate warping that your nature\nreceived in its mournful early years. To ask me to respect you is as\nidle and useless and impotent as the soft murmur of this June breeze\nin the elm boughs above us; but you can command my perfect confidence\nand friendship solely on condition that you merit it. Salome,\nsomething very unusual has influenced you to-day, forcing you to throw\naside the rubbish that you patiently piled over your better self until\nit was effectually concealed; and, if you are willing to be frank with\nme, I should be glad to know what has so healthfully affected you. I\nbelieve I can guess: has not little Jessie wooed and won her sister's\nheart, melting all its icy selfishness and warming its holiest\nrecesses?\"\n\nAt this moment Stanley bounded down the steps to meet them, and,\nbending over to receive his kiss and embrace, Salome gladly evaded a\nreply. That night, after she had taught her brother his lessons for\nthe next day and made him repeat the prayer learned in the dormitory\nof the Asylum,--when she had read Miss Jane to sleep and seen the\ndoctor set out on his mission of mercy, she brightened the lamp-light\nin her own room, and, opening the parcel, drew out and commenced the\ndainty embroidery which she had promised should be completed at an\nearly day.\n\nThe night was warm, but the sea-breeze sang a lullaby in the trees\nthat peeped in at her window, and now and then a strong gust\nblew the flame almost to the top of the lamp-chimney. Stanley\nslept soundly in his trundle-bed, occasionally startling her by\nhalf-uttered exclamations, as in his dreams he chased rabbits or\nfound partridge-eggs. Oblivious of passing hours, and profoundly\nimmersed in speculations concerning her future, the girl sewed\non, working scallop after scallop, and flower after flower, in\nthe gossamer cambric between her slender fingers. Stars that looked\nupon her early in the night had gone down into blue abysms below\nthe horizon, and the midnight song of a mocking-bird, swinging in\na lemon-tree beneath her window, had long since hushed itself with\nthe chirp of crickets and gossip of the katydids.\n\nA tap on the facing of her open door finally aroused her, and she\nhastily attempted to hide her work, as Dr. Grey asked,--\n\n\"What keeps you up so late? Are you dressing a doll for Jessie?\"\n\n\"What brings you home so early? Is your patient better?\"\n\n\"Yes; in one sense he is certainly better; for, free from all pain, he\nrests with his God.\"\n\n\"What time is it?\"\n\n\"Half-past three. Little Charles died about an hour ago, and, as I\nshall be very busy to-morrow, I came upstairs to ask if you will\noblige me by going over to Mrs. Peterson's and remaining with her\nuntil the neighbors assemble in the morning. It is an unpleasant duty,\nand unless you are perfectly willing I will not request you to perform\nit.\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir; I will go at once. Why should I hesitate?\"\n\n\"Come down as soon as you are ready, and I will make Harrison drive\nyou over in my buggy. As it is only a mile I walked home.\"\n\nWhen she stood before him, waiting for the servant to adjust some\nportion of the harness, Dr. Grey wrapped her shawl more closely around\nher, and said,--\n\n\"What new freak keeps you awake till four o'clock?\"\n\n\"It is no freak, but the beginning of a settled purpose that reaches\nin numberless ramifications through all my coming years. It does not\nconcern you, so ask me no more. Good-night. I suppose I ought to\ntender you my thanks for deeming me worthy of this melancholy mission;\nand if so, pray be pleased to accept them.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n\n\"Jane, have you heard that we shall soon have some new neighbors at\n'Solitude'?\"\n\n\"No; who is brave enough to settle there?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Gerome, a widow, has purchased and refitted the house,\npreparatory to making it her home.\"\n\n\"Do you suppose she knows the history of its former owners?\"\n\n\"Probably not, as she has never seen the place. The purchase was made\nsome months since by her agent, who stated that she was in Europe.\"\n\n\"Ulpian, I am sorry that the house will again be occupied, for some\nmournful fatality seems to have attended all who ever resided there;\nand I have been told that the last proprietor changed the name from\n'Solitude' to 'Bochim.'\"\n\n\"You must not indulge such superstitious vagaries, my dear, wise\nJanet. The age of hobgoblins, haunted houses, and supernatural\ninfluences has passed away with the marvels of alchemy and the weird\nmyths of Rosicrucianism. Because many deaths have occurred at that\nplace, and the residents were consequently plunged in gloom, you must\nnot rashly impute eldritch influences to the atmosphere surrounding\nit. Knowing its ghostly celebrity, I have investigated the grounds of\nexisting prejudice, and find that of the ten persons who have died\nthere during the last fifteen years, three deaths were from hereditary\nconsumption, one from dropsy, two from paralysis, one from epilepsy,\none from brain-fever, one from drowning, and the last from a fall that\nbroke the victim's neck. Were these attributable to any local cause,\nthe results would certainly not have proved so diverse.\"\n\n\"Call it superstition, or what you will, no amount of coaxing,\nargument, or ridicule, no imaginable inducement could prevail on me to\nlive there,--even if the house were floored with gold and roofed with\nsilver. It is the gloomiest-looking place this side of Golgotha, and I\nwould as soon crawl into a coffin for an afternoon nap as spend a\nnight there.\"\n\n\"Your imagination invests it with a degree of gloom which is\nadventitious, and referable solely to painful associations; for\nintrinsically the situation is picturesque and beautiful, and the\ngrounds have been arranged with consummate taste. This morning I\nnoticed a quantity of rare and very superb lilies clustered in a\ncorner of the _parterre_.\"\n\n\"Pray, what called you there?\"\n\n\"A workman engaged in repairing some portion of the roof, slipped on\nthe slate and broke his arm; consequently, they sent for me.\"\n\n\"Just what he might have expected. I tell you something happens to\neverybody who ever sleeps there.\"\n\n\"Do you suppose there is a squad of malicious spirits hovering in\nambush to swoop upon all new-comers, and not only fracture limbs, but\nscatter to right and left paralysis, epilepsy, and other diseases?\nFrom your rueful countenance a stranger might infer that Pandora's box\nhad just been opened at 'Bochim,' and that the very air was thick with\nmiasma and maledictions.\"\n\n\"Oh, laugh on if you choose at my old-fashioned whims and superstition;\nbut, mark my words, that place will prove a curse to whoever buys it\nand settles there! Has Mrs. Gerome a family?\"\n\n\"I believe I heard that she had no children, but I really know little\nabout her except that she must be a woman of unusually refined and\ncultivated tastes, as the pictures, books, and various articles of\nvertu that have preceded her seem to indicate much critical and\nartistic acumen. The entire building has been refitted in exceedingly\nhandsome style, and the upholsterer who was arranging the furniture\ntold me it had been purchased in Europe.\"\n\n\"When is Mrs. Gerome expected?\"\n\n\"During the present week.\"\n\n\"What aged person is she?\"\n\n\"Indeed, my dear, curious Janet, I have asked no questions and formed\nno conjectures; but I trust your baleful prognostications will find no\nfulfilment in her case.\"\n\n\"Ulpian, I had some very fashionable visitors to-day, who manifested\nan extraordinary interest in your past, present, and future. Mrs.\nChanning and her two lovely daughters spent the morning here, and left\nan invitation for you to attend a party at their house next Thursday\nevening. Miss Adelaide went into ecstasies over that portrait in which\nyou wore your uniform, and asked numberless questions about you; among\nothers, whether you were still heart-whole, or whether you had\nsuffered some great disappointment early in life which kept you a\nbachelor. What do you suppose she said when I told her that you had\nnever had a love-scrape in your life?\"\n\n\"Of course she impugned the statement, which, to a young lady framed\nfor flirtations, must indeed have appeared incredible.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, she declared that the woman who succeeded in\ncaptivating you would achieve a triumph more difficult and more\ndesirable than the victory of the Nile or of Trafalgar. I was tempted\nto ask her if she might be considered the ambitious Nelson, but of\ncourse politeness forbade. Ulpian, she is the prettiest creature I\never looked at.\"\n\n\"Yes, as pretty as mere healthy flesh can be without the sublimation\nand radiance of an indwelling soul. There is nothing which impresses\nme so mournfully as the sight of a beautiful, frivolous, unscrupulous\nwoman, who immolates all that is truly feminine in her character upon\nthe shrine of swollen vanity; and whose career from cradle to grave is\nas utterly aimless and useless as that of some gaudy, flaunting\nephemeron of the tropics. Such women act as extinguishers upon the\nfeeble, flickering flame of chivalry, which modern degeneracy in\nmanners and morals has almost smothered.\"\n\nHis tone and countenance evinced more contempt than Salome had known\nhim to express on any former occasion, and, glancing at his clear,\nsteady, grave blue eyes, she said to herself,--\n\n\"At least he will never strike his colors to Admiral Adelaide\nChanning, and I should dislike to occupy her place in his estimation.\"\n\n\"My dear boy, you must not speak in such ungrateful terms of my\nbeautiful visitor, who certainly has some serious design on your\nheart, if I may judge from the very extravagant praise she lavished\nupon you. I daresay she is a very nice, sweet girl, and you know you\ntold me once that if you should ever marry your wife must be a beauty,\nelse you could not love her.\"\n\n\"Very true, Janet, and I have no intention of retracting or\ndiminishing my rigid requirements, but my definition of beauty\nincludes more than mere physical perfection,--than satin skin,\npearl-tinted, fine eyes, faultless teeth, abundant silky tresses, and\nrounded figure. It demands that the heart whose blood paints lips and\ncheek, shall be pure, generous, and holy; that the soul which looks\nout at me from lustrous eyes shall be consecrated to another deity\nthan Fashion,--shall be as full of magnanimity, and strength, and\npeace, as a harp is of melody; my beauty means meekness, faith,\nsanctity, and exacts mental, moral, and material excellence. Rest\nassured, my dear, sage counsellor, that if ever I bring a wife to my\nhearthstone I will have selected her in obedience to the advice of\nJoubert, who admonished us, 'We should choose for a wife only the\nwoman we would choose for a friend, were she a man.'\"\n\n\"You expect too much; you will never find your perfect ideal walking\nin flesh.\"\n\n\"I will content myself with nothing less--I promise you that.\"\n\n\"Oh, no doubt you will believe that the woman you marry is all that\nyou dream or wish; but some fine morning you will present me with a\nsister as full of foibles and vanities and frailties as any other\nspoiled and cunning daughter of Eve. Of course every bridegroom\nclasses as 'perfect' the blushing, trembling young thing who peeps\nshyly at him from under a tulle veil and an orange wreath; but, take\nmy word for it, there is a spice of Delilah in every pretty girl, and\nthe credulity of Samson slumbers in all lovers. Nevertheless, Ulpian,\nI would sooner see you in bondage to a pair of white hands and hazel\neyes,--would rather know that like all your race you were utterly\nhumbugged--hoodwinked--by some fair-browed belle, whose low voice\nrippled over pouting pink lips, than have you live always alone, a\nconfirmed old bachelor. After all, I doubt whether you have really\nnever had a sweetheart, for every schoolboy swears allegiance to some\nyellow-haired divinity in ruffled muslin aprons.\"\n\nDr. Grey laid his hand gently on the shrivelled fingers that were\nbusily engaged in shelling some seed-beans, and answered, jocosely,--\n\n\"Have I not often told you, that my dear, old, patient sister Janet,\nis my only lady-love?\"\n\n\"And your silly old Janet is not such an arrant fool as to believe any\nsuch nonsense,--especially when she remembers that from time\nimmemorial sailors have had sweethearts in every port, and that her\nspoiled pet of a brother is no exception to his race or his\nprofession.\"\n\nHe laughed, and smoothed her grizzled hair.\n\n\"Since my sapient sister is so curious, I will confess that once--and\nonly once in my life--I was in dire danger of falling most desperately\nin love. The frigate was coaling at Palermo, and I went ashore. One\nafternoon, in sauntering through the orange and lemon groves which\nrender its environs so inviting, I caught a glimpse of a countenance\nso serene, so indescribably lovely, that for an instant I was disposed\nto believe I had encountered the beatific spirit of St. Rosalie\nherself. The face was that of a woman apparently about eighteen years\nold, who evidently ranked among Sicilian aristocrats, and whose\nelegant attire enhanced her beauty. I followed, at a respectful\ndistance, until she entered the garden of an adjacent convent and fell\non her knees before a marble altar, where burned a lamp at the feet of\na statue of the Virgin; and no painting in Europe stamped itself so\nindelibly on my memory as the picture of that beautiful votary. Her\ndelicate hands were crossed over her heart,--her large, liquid, black\neyes, raised in adoration,--her full, crimson lips parted as she\nrepeated the '_Ave Maria_' in the most musical voice I ever heard.\nJust above the purplish folds of her abundant hair drooped pomegranate\nboughs all aflame with scarlet blooms that fell upon her head like\ntongues of fire, as the wind sprang from the blue hollows of the\nMediterranean and shook the grove. The sun was going swiftly down\nbehind the stone turrets of a monastery that crowned a distant hill,\nand the last rays wove an aureola around my kneeling saint, who,\ndoubtless, aware of the effect of her graceful attitudinizing, seemed\nin no haste to conclude her devotions. As I recalled the charming\ntableau, those lines wherein Buchanan sought to photograph the\npicturesqueness of the Digentia, float up from some sympathetic cell\nof memory,--\n\n  'Could you look at the leaves of yonder tree,--\n  The wind is stirring them, as the sun is stirring me!\n    The woolly clouds move quiet and slow\n  In the pale blue calm of the tranquil skies,\n    And their shades that run on the grass below\n  Leave purple dreams in the violet's eyes!\n    The vine droops over my head with bright\n  Clusters of purple and green,--the rose\n  Breaks her heart on the air; and the orange glows\n  Like golden lamps in an emerald night.'\n\nMy Sicilian Siren finally disappeared in a gloomy arched-way\nleading into the convent, and I returned to the hotel to dream of\nher until the morning sunshine once more bathed Conca D'Oro in\nsplendor,--when I instituted a search for the name and residence of\nmy inamorata. Six hours of enthusiastic investigation yielded me\nthe coveted information, but imagine the profound despair in which\nI was plunged when I ascertained from her own smiling lips that\nshe was a happy wife and the proud mother of two beautiful children.\nAs she rose to present her swarthy husband, I bowed myself out and\ntook refuge aboard ship. Here ends the recital of the first and last\nbit of romance that ever threw its rosy tinge over the quiet life of\nyour staid and humble brother--Ulpian Grey, M.D.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear sailor boy, I am afraid thirty-five years of experience\nhave rendered you too wary to be caught by such chaff as pretty girls\nsprinkle along your path! I should be glad to see your bride enter\nthis door before I am carried out feet foremost to my final rest by\nEnoch's side.\"\n\n\"Do not despair of me, dear Jane, for I am not exactly Methuselah's\nrival; and comfort yourself by recollecting that Lessing was forty\nyears old when he first loved the only woman for whom he ever\nentertained an affection--his devoted Eva Koenig.\"\n\nDr. Grey bent over his sister's easy-chair, and, taking her thin,\nsallow face tenderly in his soft palms, kissed the sunken cheeks--the\nwrinkled forehead; and then, laying her head gently back upon its\ncushions, entered his buggy and drove to his office.\n\n\"Salome, what makes you look so moody? There are as many furrows on\nyour brow as lines in a spider's web, and your lips are drawn in as if\nyou had dined on green persimmons. Child, what is the matter?\"\n\nMiss Jane lifted her spectacles from her nose, and eyed the orphan,\nanxiously.\n\n\"I am very sorry to hear that 'Solitude' will be filled once more with\npeople, and bustle, and din. It is the nearest point where we can\nreach the beach, and I have enjoyed many quiet strolls under its\ngrand, old, solemn trees. If haunted at all, it is by Dryads and\nHamadryads, and I like the babble of their leaves infinitely better\nthan the strife of human tongues. Miss Jane, if I were only a pagan!\"\n\n\"I am not very sure that you are not,\" sighed the invalid.\n\n\"Nor I. I have lost my place,--I am behind my time in this world by at\nleast twenty centuries, and ought to have lived in the jovial age of\nfauns and satyrs, when groves were sacred for other reasons than the\nhigh price of wood,--when gods and goddesses were abundant as\nblackberries, and at the beck and call of every miserable wretch who\nchose to propitiate them by offering a flask of wine, a bunch of\nturnips, a litter of puppies, or a basket of olives. Hesiod and Homer\nunderstood human nature infinitely better than Paul and Luther.\"\n\n\"Salome, you are growing shockingly irreverent and wicked.\"\n\n\"No, madam,--begging your pardon. I am only desperately honest in\nwishing that my salvation and future felicity could be secured beyond\nall peradventure, by a sacrifice of oatcakes, or white doves, or black\ncats, instead of a drab- life of prayer, penance, purity, and\npatience. I don't deny that I would rather spend my days in watching\nthe gorgeous pageant of the_ Panathenaea_, or chanting dithyrambics to\ninsure a fine vintage, or even offering a _Taigheirm_, than in running\nneck and neck with Lucifer for the kingdom of heaven. I love kids, and\nfawns, and lambs, as well as Landseer; but I should not long hesitate,\nhad I the choice, between flaying their tender flesh in sacrifice and\nmortifying my own as a devout life requires.\"\n\n\"But what would have become of your poor soul if you had lived in\nPagan times?\"\n\n\"What will become of it under present circumstances, I should be\nexceedingly glad to know. 'The heathen are a law unto themselves,' and\nI sometimes wish I had been born a Fejee belle, who lived, was\ntastefully tattooed, and died without having even dreamed of\nmissionaries,--those officious martyrs who hope to wear a whole\nconstellation on their foreheads as a reward for having been eaten by\ncannibals, to whom they expounded the unpalatable doctrine that,\n'this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men\nloved darkness rather than light.' Moreover, I confess--\"\n\n\"That is quite sufficient. I have already heard more than I relish of\nsuch silly and sacrilegious chat. At least, you might have more\nprudence and discretion than to hold forth so disgracefully in the\nhearing of your little brother.\"\n\nMiss Jane's cheek flushed, and her feeble voice faltered.\n\n\"He has fallen fast asleep over the bean-pods; and, even if he\nhad not, how much of the conversation do you imagine he would\ncomprehend? His sole knowledge of Grecian theogony consists of a\nbrief acquaintance with a bottle of pseudo Greek fire which\nburnt the pocket out of his best pantaloons.\"\n\n\"Salome, you distress me; and, if Ulpian had not left us, you would\nhave kept all such heathenish stuff shut up in your sinful and wayward\nheart.\"\n\n\"Dr. Grey is no Gorgon, having power to petrify my tongue. I am not\nafraid of him; and my respect for your feelings is much stronger than\nmy dread of his.\"\n\n\"Hush, child! You are afraid of him, and well you may be. I fear\nthat all your Sabbath-school advantages--all your Christian\nprivileges--have been wofully wasted; and I shall ask Ulpian to talk\nto you.\"\n\n\"No, thank you, Miss Jane. You may save yourself the trouble, for he\nhas given me over to hardness of heart and 'a reprobate mind,' and his\npatience is not only 'clean gone forever,' but he has carefully washed\nhis hands of all future interest in my rudderless and drifting soul.\nLet me speak this once, and henceforth I promise to hold my peace. I\ndo not require to be 'talked to' by anybody,--I only need to be let\nalone. Sabbath-schools are indisputably excellent things,--and I can\ntestify that they are ponderous ecclesiastical hammers, pounding\ncreeds and catechisms into the mould of memory; but these nurseries of\nthe church nourish and harbor some Satan's imps among their\nhalf-fledged saints; and while they certainly accomplish a vast amount\nof good, they are by no means infallible machines for the manufacture\nof Christians,--of which fact I stand in melancholy attestation. I\nhave a vague impression that piety does not grow up in a night, like\nJonah's gourd or Jack the Giant-killer's beanstalk; but is a pure,\nglittering, spiritual stalactite, built by the slow accretion of\ndripping tears. Do you suppose that you can successfully train my soul\nas you have managed my body?--that you can hold my nose and pour a\ndose of faith down my throat, like ipecac or cod-liver oil? In matters\nof theology I am no ostrich, and, if you afflict me _ad nauseam_ with\nreligious dogmas, you must not wonder that my moral digestion rebels\noutright. I shall not dispute the fact that in justice to your\nprecepts and example I ought to be a Christian; but, since I am not, I\nmay as well tell you at once and save future trouble, that I can\nneither be baited into the church like a hawk into a steel-trap, nor\nscared and driven into it like bees into a hive by the rattling of tin\npans and the screaking of horns. Don't look at me so dolefully, dear\nMiss Jane, as if you had already seen my passport to perdition signed\nand sealed. You, at least, have done your whole duty,--have set all\nthe articles of orthodoxy, well-flavored and garnished, before me;\nand, if I am finally lost, my spiritual starvation can never be\ncharged against you in the last balance-sheet. I am not ignorant of\nthe Bible, nor altogether unacquainted with the divers creeds that\nspring from its pages as thick, as formidable, as ferocious, as the\nharvest from the dragon's teeth; and, thanking you for all you have\ntaught me, I here undertake to pilot my own soul in this boiling,\nbellowing sea of life. I doubt whether some of the charts you value\nwill be of any service in my voyage, or whether the beacons by which\nyou steer will save me from the reefs; but, nevertheless, I take the\nwheel, and, if I wreck my soul,--why, then, I wreck it.\"\n\nIn the magic evening light, which touches all things with a rosy,\ntransitory glamour, the fresh young face with its daintily sculptured\nlineaments seemed marvellously and surpassingly fair; but, like\n_morbidezza_ marble, hopelessly fixed and chill, and might have served\nfor some image of Eve, when, standing on the boundary of eternal\nbeatitude, she daringly put up her slender womanly fingers to pluck\nthe fatal fruit. Her large, brilliant eyes followed the sinking sun\nas steadily--as unblinkingly--as an eagle's; but the gleam that rayed\nout was baleful, presaging storms, as infallibly as that sullen, lurid\nlight, which glares defiantly over helpless earth when to-day's sun\nfalls into the cloudy lap of to-morrow's tempest.\n\nA heavy sigh struggled across Miss Jane's unsteady lips, as, removing\nher glasses, she wiped her eyes, and said, slowly,--\n\n\"Yes; I am a stupid, unsuspecting old dolt; but I see it all now.\"\n\n\"My ultimate and irremediable ruin?\"\n\n\"God forbid!\"\n\nSalome approached the arm-chair, and, stooping, looked intently at the\naged, wan face.\n\n\"What is it that you see? Miss Jane, when people stand, as you do,\nupon the borders of two worlds, the Bygone fades,--the Beyond grows\ndistinct and luminous. Lend me your second sight, to decipher the\ncharacters scrawled like fiery serpents over the pall that envelops\nthe future.\"\n\n\"I see nothing but the grim, unmistakeable fact that my little,\nclinging, dependent child, has, without my knowledge, put away\nchildish things, and suddenly steps before me a wilful, irreverent,\ngraceless woman, as eager to challenge the decrees of the Lord as was\ncomplaining Job before the breath of the whirlwind smote and awed him.\nSome day, Salome, that same voice that startled the old man of Uz will\nmake you bend and tremble and shiver like that acacia yonder, which\nthe wind is toying with before it snaps asunder. When that time comes\nthe clover will feed bees above my gray head, but I trust my soul will\nbe near enough to the great white throne to pray God to have mercy on\nyour wretched spirit, and bring you safely to that blessed haven\nwhither you can never pilot yourself.\"\n\nNervous excitement gave unwonted strength to the feeble limbs; and,\ngrasping her crutches, Miss Jane limped into her own room and closed\nthe door after her.\n\nFor some moments the girl stood looking out over the lawn, where\nfading sunshine and deepening shadow made fitful _chiaroscuro_ along\nthe primrose-paved aisles that stretched under the elm arches,--then,\nraising her fingers as if tracing lines on the soft, gold-dusted\natmosphere that surrounded her, she muttered doggedly,--\n\n\"Yes; I am at sea! But, if God is just, Miss Jane and I will yet shake\nhands on that calm, surgeless, crystal sea, shining before the throne.\nSo, now I take the helm and put the head of my precious charge before\nthe wind, and only the Almighty can foresee the result. In His mercy I\nput my trust. So be it.\n\n  'Gray distance hid each shining sail,\n    By ruthless breezes borne from me;\n  And lessening, fading, faint, and pale,\n    My ships went forth to sea.'\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n\n\"Mother, I am afraid Mrs. Gerome does not like this place, or the\nfurniture, or something, for she has not spoken a kind word about the\nhouse since she came. She looks closely at everything, but says\nnothing. What do you suppose she thinks?\"\n\nRobert Maclean, the gardener at \"Solitude,\" paused abruptly, as his\nmother pinched his arm sharply and whispered,--\n\n\"Whist! There she comes down the azalea walk; and no one likes to\nstumble upon their own name when they are not expecting the sound\nor sight of it. No; she has turned off towards the cedars, and does\nnot see us. As to her likes and dislikes, there is nothing this side\nof heaven that will content her; and you might have known better\nthan to suppose she would be much pleased with anything. No matter\nwhat she thinks, she seldom complains, and it is hard to find out her\nviews; but she told me to tell you that she approved all you had\ndone, and thanked you for the pains you have taken to arrange things\ncomfortably.\"\n\nOld Elsie tied the strings of her white muslin cap, and turned her\nback to the wind that was playing havoc with its freshly fluted\nfrills.\n\n\"Mother, I heard her laugh yesterday, for the first time. It was a\nshort, quick, queer little laugh, but it pleased me greatly. The cook\nhad set some duck-eggs under that fine black Spanish hen; and, when\nthey hatched, she marched off with the brood into the fowl-yard, where\nthey made straight for the duck-pool and sailed in. The hen set up\nsuch a din and clatter that Mrs. Gerome, who happened to get a glimpse\nof them, felt sorry for the poor frightened fowl, and tried to drive\nthe little ones out of the water; but, whenever she put her hand\ntowards them to catch the nearest, the whole brood would quack and\ndive,--and, when she had laughed that one short laugh, she called to\nme to look after them and went back to the house. You don't know how\nstrangely that laugh sounded.\"\n\n\"Don't I? Speak for yourself, Robert. I have heard her laugh twice,\nbut it was when she was asleep, and it was an uncanny, bitter\nsound,--about as welcome to my ears as her death-rattle. Last night\nshe did not close her eyes,--did not even undress; and the hall clock\nwas striking three this morning when I heard her open the piano and\nplay one of those dismal, frantic, wailing things she calls 'fugues,'\nthat make the hair rise on my head and every inch of my flesh creep as\nif a stranger were treading on my grave. When she was a baby, cutting\nher eye-teeth, she had a spasm; and seeing her straighten herself out\nand roll back her eyes till only the white balls showed, I took it for\ngranted she was about to die, and, holding her in my arms, I fell on\nmy knees and prayed that she might be spared. Well, now, Robert, I am\nsorry I put up that petition, for the Lord knew best; and it would\nhave been a crowning mercy if he had paid no attention to my\nhalf-crazy pleadings and taken her home then. What meddling fools we\nall are! I thought, at that time, it would break my heart to shroud\nher sweet little body; but ah! I would rather have laid my precious\nbaby in her coffin, with violets under her fingers, than live to see\nthat desperate, unearthly look, come and house itself in her great,\nsolemn, hungry, tormenting eyes, that were once as full of sparkles\nand merriment as the sky is of stars on a clear, frosty night. My son,\nwe never know what is good for us; for, many times, when we clamor for\nbread we break our teeth on it; and then, again, when we rage and howl\nbecause we think the Lord has dealt out scorpions to us, they prove\nbetter than the fish we craved. So, after all, I conclude Christ\nunderstood the whole matter when he enjoined upon us to say, 'Thy will\nbe done.'\"\n\nThe old nurse wiped her eyes with the corner of her black silk apron,\nand, leaning against the trunk of a tree, crossed her arms comfortably\nover her broad and ample chest, while Robert busied himself in\nrepotting some choice carnations.\n\n\"But, mother, do you really think she will be satisfied to stay here,\nafter travelling so long up and down in the world?\"\n\n\"How can I tell what she will or will not do? You know very well that\nshe goes to sleep with one set of whims and wakes up with new ones.\nShe catches odd freaks as some people catch diseases. She said\nyesterday that she had had enough of travel and change, and intended\nto settle and live and die right here; but that does not prove that I\nmay not receive an order next week to pack her trunks and start to\nJericho or Halifax, and I should not think the world was upside down\nand coming to an end if such an order came before breakfast to-morrow.\nPoor lamb! My poor lamb! Yonder she comes again. Do you notice how\nfast she walks, as if the foul fiend were clutching at her skirts or\nshe were trying to get away from herself,--trying to run her restless\nsoul entirely out of her wretched body? Come away, Robert, and let her\nhave all the grounds to herself. She likes best to be alone.\"\n\nMother and son walked off in the direction of the stables, and the\nadvancing figure emerged from the dense shade where interlacing limbs\nroofed one of the winding walks, and paused before the circular stand\non which lemon, rose, white, crimson, and variegated carnations,\nnodded their fringed heads and poured spicy aromas from their velvety\nchalices.\n\nThe face and form of Mrs. Gerome presented a puzzling paradox, in\nwhich old age and youth seemed struggling for mastery; and \"death in\nlife\" found melancholy verification. Tall, slender, and faultlessly\nmade, the perfection of her figure was marred by the unfortunate\ncarriage of her head, which drooped forward so heavily that the chin\nalmost touched her throat and nearly destroyed the harmony of the\nprofile outline. The head itself was nobly rounded, and sternly\nclassic as any well authenticated antique, but it was no marvel that\nit habitually bowed under the heavy glittering mass of silver hair,\nwhich wound in coil after coil and was secured at the back by a comb\nof carved jet, thickly studded with small silver stars. The\nextraordinary lustrousness of these waves of gray hair that rippled on\nher forehead and temples like molten metal, lent a weird and wondrous\neffect to the straight, regular, rigid features,--daintily cut as\nthose of Pallas, and quite as pallid. The delicate and high arch of\nthe eyebrows was black as ebony, and in conjunction with the long\njetty lashes formed a very singular contrast to the shining white\ntresses, which lay piled like freshly fallen snow-drift above them.\nThe brow was full, round, smooth, and fair as a child's; and more than\none azure thread showed the subtle tracery of veins, whose crimson\ncurrents left no rosy reflex on the firm, gleaming white flesh,\nthrough which they branched.\n\nBeneath that faultless forehead burned unusually large eyes, deep as\nmountain tarns, and of that pure bluish gray that tolerates no hint of\ngreen or yellow rays. The dilated pupils intensified the steel color,\nand faint violet lines ran out from the iris to meet the central\nshadows, while above and below the heavy black fringes enhanced their\nsombre depths, where mournful mysteries seemed to float like corpses\njust beneath the crystal shroud of ocean waves. The pale, passionless\nlips,--perfect in their pure curves, but defrauded of the blood which\nresolutely refused to come to the surface and tint the fine satin\nskin,--were lined in ciphers that the curious questioned and wondered\nover, but which few could read and none fully comprehend. The\nbeautiful, frigid mouth, where all sweetness was frozen out to make\nroom for hopelessness and defiance, would have admirably suited some\nstatue of discrowned and smitten Hecuba; and no amount of sighs and\nsobs, no stormy bursts of grief or fierce invective, could rival the\nmelancholy eloquence of its mute, calm pallor.\n\nThe wan face, with its gray globe-like eyes, and the metallic glitter\nof the prematurely silvered hair, matched in hue the pearl-\nmuslin dress which fluttered in the wind; and, standing there, this\ngray woman of twenty-three looked indeed like Pygmalion's stone\ndarling,--\n\n  \"Fair-statured, noble, like an awful thing\n  Frozen upon the very verge of life,\n  And looking back along eternity\n  With rayless eyes that keep the shadow Time.\"\n\nHer frail, white hands, with their oval nails polished and opalescent,\nwere exceedingly beautiful; and, where the creamy foam of the fine\nlace fell back from the dimpled wrists, quaintly carved jet serpents\nwith blazing diamond eyes coiled around the throbbing thread-like\npulses of sullen _sang azure_.\n\nBending over the carnations, she examined the gorgeous hues,--toyed\nwith their fragile stems,--and then, glancing shyly over her shoulder\nlike a startled fawn half expectant of hounds and hunter, she glided\nrapidly to an artificial mound crowned with a mouldering mossy plaster\nimage of Ariadne and her pard, and stood surveying her new domain.\n\n\"Solitude\" filled a semicircular hollow between low wooded hills,\nwhich ran down to lave their grassy flanks in the blue brine of the\nAtlantic, and constituted the horns of a crescent bay, on whose\nsloping sandy beach the billows broke without barrier.\n\nThe old-fashioned brick house--with sharp, peaked roof, turreted\nchimneys, and gable window looking down in front upon the clumsily\nclustered columns that supported the arched portico--was built upon a\nrocky knoll, of which nature laid the foundation and art increased the\nheight; and, around and above it, towered a dense grove of ancient\ntrees that shut out the glare of the sea and effectually screened the\nmansion from observation. The damp walls were heavily draped with the\nsombre verdure of ivy, whose ambitious tendrils clambered to the cleft\nchimney-tops, and peered impertinently over the broad stone\nwindow-sills, whence the indignant housemaid remorselessly sheared\nthem away as often as their encroachments grew perceptible.\n\nIn the rear of the house, and toward the west, stretched orchard,\nvegetable garden, vineyard, and wheat-field, whose rolling green waves\nseemed almost to break against the ruddy trunks of cedars that clothed\nthe hillside. To the left and north lay low, marshy, meadow land,\ncovered with rank grass and frosted with saline incrustations; while\nsouth of the building extended spacious grounds, studded here and\nthere with noble groups of deodars, Norway spruce, and various\nornamental shrubs, and bounded by a tall impenetrable hedge of osage\norange. Before the house, which faced the ocean and fronted east, the\nlawn sloped gently down to a terrace surmounted by a granite\nbalustrade; and just beyond, supported by stone piers on the golden\nsands, stood an octagonal boat-house, built in the Swiss style, with\nred-tiled roof, and floored with squares of white and black marble,\nwhence a flight of steps led to the little boat chained to one of the\nrocky piers. Along the entire length of the terrace a line of giant\npoplars lifted their aged, weather-beaten heads, high above all\nsurrounding objects,--ever on the _qui vive_, looking seaward,--trim\nand erect as soldiers on dress parade, and defiant of gales that had\nshorn them of many boughs, and left ghastly scars on their glossy\nlimbs.\n\nTradition whispered, with bated breath, that in the dim dawn of\ncolonial settlement a rude log hut had been erected here by pirates,\nwho came ashore to bury their ill-gotten booty, and rumors were rife\nof bloody deeds and midnight orgies,--all of which sprang into more\nvigorous circulation, when, in laying the foundations of the\nboat-house piers, an iron pot containing a number of old French and\nSpanish coins was dug out of the shells and sand.\n\nMelancholy tales of stranded vessels and drowned crews, of a\nslaver burned to the water's edge to escape capture, and of charred\ncorpses strewn on the beach, thickened the atmosphere of legendary\ngloom that enveloped the spot,--where the successive demise of\nseveral proprietors certainly sanctioned the feeling of dread and\nsuperstitious distrust with which it was regarded. That the\nunenviable celebrity it had attained was referable to local causes\ngenerating disease, appeared almost incredible; for, if miasmatic\nexhalations rose dank and poisonous from the densely shaded humid\nhouse, they were promptly dispelled by the strong, invincible\nocean-breeze, which tore aside leafy branches and muslin curtains, and\nwafted all noxious vapors inland.\n\nA committee of medical sages having cautiously examined the place,\nunanimously averred that its reputed fatality could not justly be\nascribed to any topographical causes. Whereupon the popular nerve,\nwhich closely connected the community with supernaturaldom, thrilled\nafresh; and all the calamities, real and imaginary, that had afflicted\n\"Solitude\" from a period so remote that \"the memory of man runneth not\nto the contrary,\" were laid upon the galled shoulders of some\nred-liveried, sulphur-scented Imp of Abaddon, whose peculiar mission\nwas to haunt the \"piratical nest;\" and, in lieu of human victims, to\naddle the eggs, blast the grape crop, and make night hideous with\nspectral sights and sounds.\n\nTo an unprejudiced observer the hills seemed to have gleefully clasped\nhands and formed a half-circle, shutting the place in for a quiet\nbreezy communion with garrulous ocean, whose waves ran eagerly up the\nstrand to gossip of wrecks and cyclones, with the staid martinet\npoplars that nodded and murmured assent to all their wild romances.\n\nSuch was the pleasant impression produced upon the mind of the lonely\nwoman who now owned it, and who hoped to spend here in seclusion and\npeace the residue of a life whose radiant dawn had been suddenly\nswallowed by drab clouds and starless gloom.\n\nThe Scotch are proverbially credulous concerning all preternatural\ninfluences; and, had Robert Maclean been cognizant of half the ghostly\nassociations attached to the residence which he had selected in\ncompliance with general instructions from his mistress, it is scarcely\nproblematical whether the house would not have remained in the hands\nof the real-estate broker; but, fortunately for their peace of mind,\nElsie and her son were as yet in blissful ignorance of the dismal\ncelebrity of their new home.\n\nResting her folded hands on the bare shoulders of the Ariadne, which\nmodest lichens and officious wreaths of purple verbena were striving\nto mantle, Mrs. Gerome scanned the scene before her; and a quick,\nnervous sigh, that was almost a pant, struggled across her lips.\n\n\"Unto this last nook of refuge have I come; and, expecting little,\nfind much. Shut out from the world, locked in with the sea,--no\nneighbors, no visitors, no news, no gossip,--solitary, shady, cool,\nand quiet,--surely I can rest here. Forked tongues of scandal can not\npenetrate through those rock-ribbed hills yonder, nor dart across that\ndefying sea; and neither wail nor wassail of men or women can disturb\nme more. But how do I know that it will not prove a mocking cheat like\nBaiae and Maggiore, or Copais and Cromarty? I have fled in disgust and\n_ennui_ from far lovelier spots than this, and what right have I to\nsuppose that contentment has housed itself as my guest in that old,\nmossy, brick pile, where mice and wrens run riot? Like Cain and\nCartophilus, my curse travels with me, and I no sooner pitch my tent,\nthan lo! the rattle and grin of my skeleton, for which earth is not\nwide enough to furnish a grave! Well! well! at least I shall not be\nstared to death here,--shall not be tormented by eye-glasses and\nsketch-books; can live in that dim, dark, greenish den yonder,\nunobserved and possibly forgotten and finally sleep undisturbed in the\ndank shade of those deodars, with twittering birds overhead and a\nsobbing sea at my feet. How long--how long before that dreamless\nslumber will fall upon my heavy lids,--weary with waiting? Only\ntwenty-three yesterday! My God, if I should live to be an old woman!\nThe very thought threatens insanity! Ten--twenty--possibly thirty\nyears ahead of me. No; I could not endure it,--I should go mad, or\ndestroy myself! If I were a delicate woman, if I only had weak lungs\nor a dropsical heart, or a taint of any hereditary infirmity that\nwould surely curtail my days, I could be tolerably patient, hoping\ndaily for the symptoms to develop themselves. But, unfortunately,\nthough my family all died early, no two members, selected the same\nmode of escape from this bastile of clay; and my flesh is sound, and I\nam as strong and compact as that granite balustrade, and--ha!\nha!--quite as hard. _Au pis aller_, if the burden of life becomes\nutterly intolerable I can shuffle it off as quickly as did that proud\nRoman, who, 'when the birds began to sing' in the dawn of a day\nheralded by tempestuous winds laden with perfume from the vales of\nSicily, shut his eyes forever from the warm sparkling Mediterranean\nbillows that broke in the roads of Utica, and pricked the memory of\ninattentive Azrael with the point of a sword. Neither Phaedo, family,\nnor fame, could coax Cato to respect the prerogative of Atropos; and\nif he, 'the only free and unconquered man,' quailed and fled before\nthe apparition of numerous advancing years, what marvel that I, who am\nneither sage nor Roman, should be tempted some fine morning when the\nbirds are sounding _reveille_ around my chamber windows, to imitate\n'what Cato did, and Addison approved'? After all, what despicable\ncowards are human hearts, and how much easier to die like Socrates,\nSeneca, and Zeno, than stagger and groan under the load of hated,\ntorturing years, that are about as welcome to my shoulders as the 'old\nman of the sea' to Sinbad's! How long?--oh, how long?\"\n\nThe gloomy gray eyes had kindled into a dull flicker that resembled\nthe fitful, ghostly gleam of sheet lightning, falling through painted\nwindows upon crumbling and defiled altars in some lonely ruined\ncathedral; and her low, shuddering tones, were full of a hopeless,\nsneering bitterness, as painfully startling and out of place in a\nwoman's voice as would be the scream of a condor from the irised\nthroats of brooding doves, or the hungry howl of a wolf from the\ntender lips of unweaned lambs. In the gloaming light of a soft gray\nsky powdered by a few early stars, stood this desolate gray woman,\nabout whose face and dress there was no stain of color save the blue\nglitter of a large sapphire ring, curiously cut in the form of a\ncoiled asp, with hooded head erect and brilliant diamond eyes that\ntwinkled with every quiver of the marble-white fingers.\n\nImpatiently she turned her imperial head, when the sound of\napproaching steps broke the stillness; and her tone was sharp as that\nof one suddenly roused from deep sleep,--\n\n\"Well, Elsie! What is it?\"\n\n\"Tea, my child, has been waiting half-an-hour.\"\n\n\"Then go and get your share of it. I want none.\"\n\n\"But you ate no dinner to-day. Does your head ache?\"\n\n\"Oh, no; my heart jealously monopolizes that privilege!\"\n\nThe old woman sighed audibly, and Mrs. Gerome added,--\n\n\"Pray, do not worry yourself about me! When I feel disposed to come in\nI can find the way to the door. Go and get your supper.\"\n\nThe nurse passed her wrinkled hand over the drab muslin sleeves and\nskirt, and touched the folds of hair.\n\n\"But, my bairn, the dew is thick on your head and has taken all the\nstarch out of your dress. Please come out of this fog that is creeping\nup like a serpent from the sea. You are not used to such damp air, and\nit might give you rheumatic cramps.\"\n\n\"Well, suppose it should? Does not my white head entitle me to all\nsuch luxuries of old age and decrepitude? Don't bother me, Elsie.\"\n\nShe put out her hand with a repellent gesture, but Elsie seized it,\nand clasping both her palms over the cold fingers, said, with\nirresistible tenderness,--\n\n\"Come, dearie!--come, my dearie!\"\n\nWithout a word Mrs. Gerome turned and followed her across the lawn and\ninto the house, whose internal arrangement was somewhat at variance\nwith its unpretending exterior.\n\nThe rooms were large, with low ceilings; and fire-places, originally\nwide and deep, had been recently filled and fitted up with handsome\ngrates, while the heavy mantelpieces of carved cedar, that once\nmatched the broad facings of the windows and the massive panels of the\ndoors, were exchanged for costly _verd antique_ and lumachella. The\nnarrow passage running through the centre of the building was also\nwainscoted with cedar and adorned with fine engravings of Landseer's\nbest pictures, whose richly carved walnut frames looked almost cedarn\nin the pale chill light that streamed upon them through the\nviolet- glass which surrounded the front door and effectually\nsubdued the hot golden glare of the sunny sun. The old-fashioned\nfolding doors that formerly connected the parlor and library had been\nremoved to make room for a low, wide arch, over which drooped lace\ncurtains, partially looped with blue silk cord and tassels, and both\napartments were furnished with sofas and chairs of rosewood and blue\nsatin damask, while the velvet carpet, with its azure ground strewn\nwith wreaths of white roses and hyacinths, corresponded in color.\nHandsome book-cases, burdened with precious lore, lined the walls of\nthe rear room; and on either side of a massive ormolu _escritoire_,\nbronze candelabra shed light on the blue velvet desk where lay\ndelicate sheets of gossamer paper with varied and _outre_ monograms,\nguarded by an exquisite marble statuette of Harpocrates, which stood\nin the mirror-panelled recess reserved for pen, ink, and sealing-wax.\nThe air was fragrant with the breath of flowers that nodded to each\nother from costly vases scattered through both apartments; and, before\none of the windows, rose a bronze stand containing china jars filled\nwith pelargoniums, in brilliant bloom. An Erard piano occupied one\ncorner of the parlor, and the large harp-shaped stand at its side was\nheaped with books and unbound sheets of music. Here two long wax\ncandles were now burning brightly, and, on the oval marble table in\nthe centre of the floor, was a superb silver lamp representing Psyche\nbending over Cupid, and supporting the finely-cut globe, whose soft\nradiance streamed down on her burnished wings and eagerly-parted sweet\nGreek lips. The design of this exceedingly beautiful lamp would not\nhave disgraced Benvenuto Cellini, nor its execution have reflected\ndiscredit upon the genius of Felicie Fauveau, though to neither of\nthese distinguished artificers could its origin have been justly\nascribed. In its mellow, magical glow, the fine paintings suspended on\nthe walls seemed to catch a gleam of \"that light that never was on\nsea or land,\" for their dim, purplish Alpine gorges were filled with\nsnowy phantasmagoria of rushing avalanches; their foaming cataracts\nbraided glittering spray into spectral similitude of Undine tresses\nand Undine faces; their desolate red deserts grew vaguely populous\nwith mirage mockeries; their green dells and grassy hill-sides,\ncouching careless herds, and fleecy flocks, borrowed all Arcadia's\nrepose; and the marble busts of Beethoven and of Handel, placed on\nbrackets above the piano, shone as if rapt, transfigured in the mighty\ninspiration that gave to mankind \"_Fidelio_\" and the \"_Messiah_.\"\n\nOn the sofa which partially filled the oriel window, where the lace\ndrapery was looped back to admit the breeze, lay an ivory box\ncontaining materials and models for wax-flowers; and, in one corner,\nhalf thrust under the edge of the silken cushion, was an unfinished\nwreath of waxen convolvulus and a cluster of gentians. There, too,\nopen at the page that narrated the death-struggle, lay Liszt's \"Life\nof Chopin,\" pressed face downwards, with two purple <DW29>s crushed\nand staining the leaves; and a small gold thimble peeping out of a\ncrevice in the damask tattled of the careless feminine fingers that\nhad left these traces of disorder.\n\nThe collection of pictures was unlike those usually brought from\nEurope by cultivated tourists, for it contained no Madonnas, no\nMagdalenes, no Holy Families, no Descents or Entombments, no Saints,\nor Sibyls, or martyrs; and consisted of wild mid-mountain scenery, of\nsolemn surf-swept strands, of lonely moonlit moors, of crimson sunsets\nin Cobi or Sahara, and of a few gloomy, ferocious faces, among which\nthe portrait of Salvator Rosa smiled sardonically, and a head of\nfrenzied Jocasta was preeminently hideous.\n\nAs Mrs. Gerome entered the parlor and brightened the flame of the\nPsyche lamp, her eyes accidentally fell upon the bust of Beethoven,\nwhere, in gilt letters, she had inscribed his own triumphant\ndeclaration, \"_Music is like wine, inflaming men to new achievements;\nand I am the Bacchus who serves it out to them_.\" While she watched\nthe rayless marble orbs, more eloquent than dilating darkening human\npupils, a shadow dense and mysterious drifted over her frigid face,\nand, without removing her eyes from the bust above her, she sat down\nbefore the piano, and commenced one of those marvellous symphonies\nwhich he had commended to the study of Goethe.\n\nEre it was ended Elsie came in, bearing a waiter on which stood a\nsilver _epergne_ filled with fruit, a basket of cake, and a goblet of\niced tea.\n\n\"My child, I bring your supper here because the dining-room looks\nlonesome at night.\"\n\n\"No,--no! take it away. I tell you I want nothing.\"\n\n\"But, for my sake, dear--\"\n\n\"Let me alone, Elsie! There,--there! Don't teaze me.\"\n\nThe nurse stood for some moments watching the deepening gloom of the\nup-turned countenance, listening to the weird strains that seemed to\ndrip from the white fingers as they wandered slowly across the keys;\nthen, kneeling at her side, grasped the hands firmly, and covered them\nwith kisses.\n\n\"Precious bairn! don't play any more to-night. For God's sake, let me\nshut up this piano that is making a ghost of you! You will get so\nstirred up you can't close your eyes,--you know you will; and then I\nshall cry till day-break. If you don't care for yourself, dearie, do\ntry to care a little for the old woman who loves you better than her\nlife, and who never can sleep till she knows your precious head is on\nits pillow. My pretty darling, you are killing me by inches, and I\nshall stay here on my knees until you leave the piano, if that is not\ntill noon to-morrow. You may order me away; but not a step will I\nstir. God help you, my bairn!\"\n\nMrs. Gerome made an effort to extricate her hands, but the iron grasp\nwas relentless; and, in a tone of great annoyance, she exclaimed,--\n\n\"Oh, Elsie! You are an intolerable--\"\n\n\"Well, dear, say it out,--an intolerable old fool! Isn't that what you\nmean?\"\n\n\"Not exactly; but you presume upon my forbearance. Elsie, you must not\ninterrupt and annoy me, for I tell you now I will not submit to it.\nYou forget that I am not a child.\"\n\n\"Darling, you will never be anything but a child to me,--the same\npretty child I took from its dead mother's arms and carried for years\nclose to my heart. So scold me as you may, my pet, I shall love you\nand try to take care of you just as long as there is breath left in my\nbody.\"\n\nShe ended by kissing the struggling hands; and, striving to conceal\nher vexation, Mrs. Gerome finally turned and said,--\n\n\"If you will eat your supper, and stay with Robert, and leave me in\npeace, I promise you I will close the piano, which your flinty Scotch\nsoul can no more appreciate than the brick and mortar that compose\nthese walls. You mean well, my dear, faithful Elsie, but sometimes you\nbore me fearfully. I know I am often wayward; but you must bear with\nme, for, after all, how could I endure to lose you,--you the only\nhuman being who cares whether I live or die? There,--go! Good night!\"\n\nShe threw her arms around Elsie's neck, leaned her wan cheek for an\ninstant only on her shoulder, then pushed her away and hastily closed\nthe piano.\n\nTwo hours later, when the devoted servant stole up on tip-toe, and\npeeped through the half-open door that led into the hall, she found\nthe queenly figure walking swiftly and lightly across the room from\noriel to arch, with her hands clasped over the back of her head, and\nthe silvery lamp-light shining softly on the waves of burnished hair\nthat rippled around her pure, polished forehead.\n\nAs she watched her mistress, Elsie's stout frame trembled, and hot\ntears streamed down her furrowed face while she lifted her heart in\nprayer, for the dreary, lonely, lovely woman, who had long ago ceased\nto pray for herself. But when the quivering lips of one breathed a\npetition before the throne of God, the beautiful cold mouth of the\nother was muttering bitterly,--\n\n  \"Yea, love is dead, and by her funeral bier\n  Ambition gnaws the lips, and sheds no tears;\n  And, in the outer chamber Hope sits wild,--\n  Hope, with her blue eyes dim with looking long.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n\n\"Ulpian, why do you look so grave and grieved? Does your letter\ncontain bad news?\"\n\nMiss Jane pushed back her spectacles and glanced anxiously at her\nbrother, who stood with his brows slightly knitted, twirling a\ncrumpled envelope between his fingers.\n\n\"It is not a letter, but a telegraphic dispatch, summoning me to the\ndeath-bed of my best friend, Horace Manton.\"\n\n\"The man whose life you saved at Madeira?\"\n\n\"Yes; and the person to whom, above all other men, I am most strongly\nand tenderly attached. His constitution is so feeble that I have long\nbeen uneasy about him; but the end has come even earlier than I\nfeared.\"\n\n\"Where does he live?\"\n\n\"On the Hudson, a few miles above New York City. I have no time to\nspare, for I shall take the train that leaves at one o'clock, and must\nmake some arrangement with Dr. Sheldon to attend my patients. Will it\ntrouble or tire you too much to pack my valise while I write a couple\nof business letters? If so, I will call Salome to assist you.\"\n\n\"Trouble me, indeed! Nonsense, my dear boy; of course I will pack your\nvalise. Moreover, Salome is not at home. How long will you be\nabsent?\"\n\n\"Probably a week or ten days,--possibly longer. If poor Horace\nlingers, I shall remain with him.\"\n\n\"Wait one moment, Ulpian. Before you go I want to speak to you about\nSalome.\"\n\n\"Well, Janet, I lend you my ears. Has the girl absolutely turned\npagan and set up an altar to Ceres, as she threatened some weeks\nsince? Take my word for the fact that she does not believe or mean\none half that she says, and is only amusing herself by trying to\ndiscover how wide her audacious heresies can expand your dear\northodox eyes. Expostulation and entreaty only feed her affected\neccentricities and skepticism, and if you will persistently and\nquietly ignore them, they will shrivel as rapidly as a rank\ngourd-vine, uprooted on an August day.\"\n\n\"Pooh! pooh! my dear boy. How you men do prate sometimes of\nmatters concerning which you are as ignorant as the yearling calves\nand gabbling geese that I suppose your learned astronomers see\ndriven every day to pasture on that range of mountains in the\nmoon--Eratosthenes--that modern science pretends to have discovered,\nand about which you read so marvellous a paper last week.\"\n\nMiss Jane reverently clung to the dishonored remnants of the Ptolemaic\ntheory, and scouted the philosophy of Copernicus which she vehemently\naverred was not worth \"a pinch of snuff,\" else the water in the well\nwould surely run out once in every twenty-four hours. Now, as she\ndived into the depths of her stocking-basket, collecting the socks\nneatly darned and rolled over each other, her brother smiled, and\nanswered, good humoredly,--\n\n\"Dear Janet, I really have not time to follow you to the moon, nor to\nprove to you that your astronomical doctrines have been dead and\ndecently buried for nearly three hundred years; but I should like to\nhear what you desire to tell me with reference to Salome. What is the\nmatter now?\"\n\n\"Nothing ails her, except a violent attack of industry, which has\nlasted much longer than I thought possible; for, to tell you the truth\nwithout stint or varnish, she certainly was the most sluggish piece of\nflesh I ever undertook to manage. Study she would not, keep house she\ncould not, sewing gave her the headache, and knitting made her\ncross-eyed; but, behold! she has suddenly found out that her pretty\nlittle pink palms were made for something better than propping her\npeach-bloom cheeks. A few days ago I accidentally discovered that she\nwas sitting up until long after midnight, and when I questioned her\nclosely, she finally confessed that she had entered into a contract to\nfurnish a certain amount of embroidery every month. Bless the child!\ncan you guess what she intends to do with the money? Hoard it up in\norder to rent a couple of rooms, where she can take Jessie and\nStanley to live with her. Ulpian, it is a praiseworthy aim, you must\nadmit.\"\n\n\"Eminently commendable, and I respect and admire the motive that\nincites her to such a laborious course. At present she is too young\nand inexperienced to take entire charge of the children, and I know\nnothing of your plans or intentions concerning her future; but, let me\nassure you, dear Jane, that I will cordially cooperate in all your\nschemes for aiding her and providing a home for them, and my purse\nshall not prove a laggard in the race with yours. Recently I have been\nrevolving a plan for their benefit, but am too much hurried just now\nto give you the details. When I return we will discuss it _in\nextenso_.\"\n\n\"You know that I ascribe great importance to blood, but strange as\nit may appear, that girl Salome has always tugged hard at my\nheart-strings, as if our proud old blood beat in her veins; and\nsometimes I fancy there must be kinship hidden behind the years, or\nburied in some unknown grave.\"\n\n\"Amuse yourself while I am away by digging about the genealogical\ntree of the house of Grey, and, if you can trace a fibre that\nramifies in the miller's family, I will gladly bow to my own blood\nwherever I find it, and claim cousinship. Meantime, my dear sister,\ndo keep a corner of your loving heart well swept and dusted for your\nerrant sailor-boy.\"\n\nHe hastily kissed her cheek and turned away to write letters, while\nshe went into the adjoining room to pack his clothes.\n\nWhen Salome returned from town, whither she had gone to carry a\npackage of finished work and obtain a fresh supply, she found Miss\nJane alone in the dining-room, and wearing a dejected expression on\nher usually cheerful countenance.\n\n\"Did Ulpian tell you good-by?\"\n\n\"No, I have not seen him. Where has he gone?\"\n\n\"To New York.\"\n\nThe long walk and sultry atmosphere had unwontedly flushed the girl's\nface, and the damp hair clung in glossy rings to her brow; but, as\nMiss Jane spoke, the blood ebbed from cheeks and lips, and sweeping\nback the dark tresses that seemed to oppress her, she asked,\nshiveringly,--\n\n\"Is Dr. Grey going back to sea?\"\n\n\"Oh no, child! An old friend is very ill, and telegraphed for him. Sit\ndown, dear,--you look faint.\"\n\n\"Thank you, I don't wish to sit down, and there is nothing the matter\nwith me. When will he come home?\"\n\n\"I can not tell precisely, as his stay is contingent upon the\ncondition of his friend.\"\n\n\"Is it a man or woman whom he has gone to see?\"\n\nThe astonishment painted on Miss Jane's face would have been ludicrous\nto a careless observer, less interested than the orphan in her slow\nand deliberate reply.\n\n\"A man, of course.\"\n\n\"Did he tell you so?\"\n\n\"Certainly. He went to see Mr. Horace Manton, with whom he was\nassociated while abroad. But suppose it had been some winsome,\nbrown-eyed witch of a woman, instead of a dying man, what then?\"\n\n\"Then you would have lost your brother, and I my French pronouncing\ndictionary,--that is all. Did he leave any message about my grammar\nand exercises?\"\n\n\"No, dear; but he started so hurriedly--so unexpectedly--he had not\ntime for such trifles. Where are you going?\"\n\n\"To put away my bonnet and bundle, and look after Stanley, who is\nromping with the kittens on the lawn.\"\n\nThe old lady laid down her knitting, leaned her elbows on the arms of\nher rocking-chair, and, clasping her hands, bowed her chin upon them,\nwhile a half-stifled sigh escaped her.\n\n\"Mischief,--mischief, where I meant only kindness! I sowed good seed,\nand reap thistles and brambles! My charity-cake turns out miserable\ndough! But how could I possibly foresee that the child would be such a\nsimpleton? What right has she to be so unnecessarily interested in my\nbrother, who is old enough to have been her father? It is unnatural,\nabsurd, and altogether unpardonable in Salome to be guilty of such\npresumptuous nonsense; and, of course, it is not in the least my\nfault, for the possibility of this piece of mischief never once\noccurred to me! True, she is as old as Ulpian's mother was when father\nmarried her; but then Mrs. Grey was not at all in love with her\nwhite-haired husband, and had set her affections solely on that\nMercer-Street house, with marble steps and plate-glass windows. How do\nI know that, after all, Salome is not in love with Ulpian's fortune\ninstead of the dear boy's blue eyes, and handsome hair, and splendid\nteeth? However, I ought not to think so harshly of the child, for I\nhave no cause to consider her calculating and selfish. Poor thing! if\nshe really cares for him there are breakers ahead of her, for I am\nsure that he is as far from falling in love with her as I would be\nwith the ghost of my great-grandfather's uncle. Thank Providence, all\nthis troublesome, mischievous, Lucifer machinery of love and marriage\nis shut out of heaven, where we shall be as the angels are. Ah,\nSalome! I fear you are a giddy young idiot, and that I am a blind old\nimbecile, and I wish from the bottom of my heart you had never\ndarkened my doors.\"\n\nThe quiet current of Miss Jane's secluded life had never been ruffled\nby a serious _affaire du coeur_; consequently she indulged little\ncharity towards those episodes, which displayed what she considered\nthe most humiliating weakness of her sex.\n\nWhile puzzling over the best method of extricating her _protegee_ from\nthe snare into which she was disposed to apprehend that her own\nwell-meant but mistaken kindness had betrayed her, she saw an unsealed\nnote lying beneath the table, and, by the aid of her crutch, drew it\nwithin reach of her fingers. A small sheet of paper, carelessly folded\nand addressed to Salome, merely contained these words,--\n\n  \"I congratulate you, my young friend, on the correctness of your\n  French themes, which I leave in the drawer of the library-table.\n  When I return I will examine those prepared during my absence;\n  and, in the interim, remain,\n\n  \"Very respectfully,\n\n  \"ULPIAN GREY.\"\n\nMiss Jane wiped her glasses, and read the note twice; then held it\nbetween her thumb and third finger, and debated the expediency of\nchanging its destination. Her delicate sense of honor revolted at the\nfirst suggestion of interference, but an intense aversion to\n\"love-scrapes\" finally strengthened her prudential inclination to\ncrush this one in its incipiency; and she deliberately tore the paper\ninto shreds, which she tossed out of the window.\n\n\"If Ulpian only had his eyes open he would never have scribbled one\nline to her; and, since I know what I know, and see what I see, it is\nmy duty to take the responsibility of destroying all fuel within reach\nof a flame that may prove as dangerous as a torch in a hay-rick.\"\n\nLimping into the library, she took from the drawer the two books\ncontaining French exercises and laid them in a conspicuous place on\nthe table, where they could not fail to arrest the attention of their\nowner; after which she resumed her knitting, consoling herself with\nthe reflection that she had taken the first step towards smothering\nthe spark that threatened the destruction of all her benevolent\nschemes.\n\nUp and down, under the spreading trees in the orchard, wandered\nSalome, anxious to escape scrutiny, and vaguely conscious that she had\nreached the cross-roads in her life, where haste or inadvertence might\ninvolve her in inextricable difficulties.\n\nShe was neither startled, nor shocked, nor mortified, that the\nunceremonious departure of the master of the house stabbed her heart\nwith pangs that made her firm lips writhe, for she had long been\ncognizant of the growth of feelings whose discovery had so completely\nastounded Miss Jane.\n\nThe orphan had not eagerly watched and listened for the sight of his\nface--the sound of his voice--without fully comprehending herself;\nfor, however ingeniously and indefatigably women may mask their hearts\nfrom public gaze and comment, they do not mock their own reason by\nsuch flimsy shams, and Salome could find no prospect of gain in\nplaying a game of brag with her inquisitive soul.\n\nIn the quiet orchard, where all things seemed drowsy--where the only\nspectators were the mellowing apples that reddened the boughs above\nher, and her sole auditors the brown partridges that nestled in the\ntall grass, and the shy cicadae ambushed under the clover leaves--her\npent-up pain and disappointment bubbled over in a gush of passionate\nwords.\n\n\"Gone without giving me a syllable, a word, a touch! Gone, for an\nindefinite period, without even a cold 'good-by, Salome!' You call\nyourself a Christian, Dr. Grey, and yet you are cruel, now and then,\nand make me writhe like a worm on a fish-hook! He told Stanley he\nwould return in two or three weeks, perhaps sooner,--but I know\nbetter. I have a dull monitor here that says it will be a long, dreary\ntime, before I see him again. A wall of ice is rising to divide\nus--but it shall not! it shall not! I will have my own! I will look\ninto his calm eyes! I will touch his soft, warm, white palms! I will\nhear his steady, low, clear voice, that makes music in my ears and\nheaven in my heart! It is three months since he shook hands with me,\nbut all time cannot remove the feeling from my fingers; and some day I\ncan cling to his hand and lean my cheek against it,--and who dare\ndispute my right? He says he never loved any woman! I heard him tell\nhis sister he had yet to meet the woman whom he could marry,--and, if\ntruth lingers anywhere in this world of sin, it finds a sanctuary in\nhis soul! He never loved any woman! Thank God! I can't afford to doubt\nit. No one but his sister has touched his lips, or his noble,\nbeautiful forehead. How I envied little Jessie when he put his arm\naround her and stooped and laid his cheek on hers. Oh, Dr. Grey,\nnobody else will ever love you as I do! I know I am unworthy, but I\nwill make myself good and great to match you! I know I am beneath you,\nbut I will climb to your proud height,--and, so help me God, I will be\nall that your lofty standard demands! He does not care for me\nnow,--does not even think of me; but I must be patient and merit his\nnotice, for my own folly sank me in his good opinion. When these\napples were pale, pink blossoms, I dreaded his coming, and hoped the\nvessel would be wrecked; now, ere they are ripe, I am disposed to\ncurse the cause of his temporary absence and think myself ill-used\nthat no farewell privileges were granted me. Now I can understand why\npeople find comfort in praying for those they love; for what else can\nI do but pray while he is away? Oh, I shall not, cannot, will not,\nmiss my way to heaven if he gets there before me!\"\n\nIn utter abandonment she threw herself down in the long yellow\nsedge-grass,--frightening a whole covey of gossiping young partridges\nand a couple of meek doves, all of which whirred away to an adjacent\npea-field, leaving her with her face buried in her hands, and watched\nby trembling mute crickets and cicadae.\n\nOn the topmost twig of the tallest tree a mocking-bird poised himself,\nand sympathetically poured out his vesper canticle,--a song of\ncondolence to the prostrate figure who, just then, would have\npreferred the echo of a man's deep voice to all Pergolese's strains.\n\nAfter a little while pitying Venus swung her golden globe in among the\napple-boughs, peeping compassionately at her luckless votary; and,\nfinally, in the violet west,--\n\n  \"Two silver beacons sphered in the skies,\n  Eve in her cradle opening her eyes.\"\n\nTwo weeks dragged themselves away without bringing any tidings of\nthe absent master; but, towards the close of the third, a brief\nletter informed his sister that the invalid friend was still alive,\nthough no hope of his recovery was entertained, and that it was\nimpossible to fix any period for the writer's return. Salome asked\nno questions, but the eager, hungry expression, with which she\neyed the letter as it lay on the top of the stocking-basket,\ntouched Miss Jane's tender heart; and, knowing that it contained no\nallusion to the orphan, she put it into her hand, and noticed the\ncloud of disappointment that gathered over her features as she\nperused and refolded it. Another week--monotonous, tedious, almost\ninterminable--crept by, and one morning as Salome passed the\npost-office she inquired for letters, and received one post-marked\nNew York and addressed to Miss Jane.\n\nHurrying homeward with the precious missive, her pace would well-nigh\nhave distanced Hermes, and the dusty winding road seemed to mock her\nwith lengthening curves while she pressed on; but at last she reached\nthe gate, sped up the avenue, and, pausing a moment at the threshold\nto catch her breath and appear _nonchalant_, she demurely entered Miss\nJane's apartment. The only occupant was a servant sewing near the\nwindow, and who, in reply to an eager question, informed Salome that\nthe mistress had gone to spend the day with a friend whose residence\nwas six miles distant.\n\nThe girl bit her lip until the blood started, and, to conceal her\nchagrin, took refuge in the parlor, where the quiet dimness offered a\ncovert. Locking the door, she sat down in one of the cushioned\nrocking-chairs and looked at the letter lying between her fingers. The\ngilt clock on the mantel uttered a dull, clicking sound, and a little\ngreen and gold- bird hopped out and \"cuckooed\" ten times. Miss\nJane would not probably return before seven, possibly eight o'clock,\nand what could be done to strangle those intervening nine hours?\n\nThe blood, heated by exercise and impatience, throbbed fiercely in her\ntemples and thumped heavily at her heart, producing a half-suffocating\nsensation; and, in her feverish anxiety, the doom of Damiens appeared\ntolerable in comparison with the torturing suspense of nine hours on\nthe rack.\n\nThe envelope was an ordinary white one, merely sealed with a solution\nof gum arabic, and dexterous fingers could easily open and reclose it\nwithout fear of detection, especially by eyes so dim and uncertain as\nthose for which it had been addressed. A damp cloth laid upon the\nletter would in five minutes prove an _open sesame_ to its coveted\ncontents, and a legion of fiends patted the girl's tingling fingers\nand urged her to this prompt and feasible relief from her goading\nimpatience. Secure from intrusion and beyond the possibility of\ndiscovery, she turned the envelope up and down and over, examining the\nseal; and the amber gleams lying _perdu_ under the shadows of her\npupils rayed out, glowing with a baleful Lucifer light, as infallibly\nindicative of evil purposes as the sudden kindling in a crouching\ncat's or cougar's gaze, just as they spring upon their prey.\n\nIt was a mighty temptation, cunningly devised and opportunely\npresented, and six months ago her parley with the imps of Apollyon who\ncontrived it would not have lasted five minutes; but, in some natures,\nlove for a human being will work marvels which neither the fear of\nGod, nor the hope of heaven, nor yet the promptings of self-respect\nhave power to accomplish.\n\nNow while Salome dallied with the temper and gave audience to the\nclamors of her rebellious heart, she looked up and met the earnest\ngaze of a pair of sunny blue eyes in a picture that hung directly\nopposite.\n\nIt was an admirable portrait of Dr. Grey, clad in full uniform as\nsurgeon in the U.S. Navy, and painted when he was twenty-eight years\nold. Up at that calm, cloudless countenance, the girl looked\nbreathlessly, spell-bound as if in the presence of a reproving angel;\nand, after some seconds had elapsed, she hurled the unopened letter\nacross the room, and lifted her hands appealingly,--\n\n\"No,--no! I did not--I cannot--I will not act so basely! I must not\nsoil fingers that should be pure enough to touch yours. I was sorely\ntempted, my beloved; but, thank God, your blessed blue eyes saved me.\nIt is hard to endure nine hours of suspense, but harder still to bear\nthe thought that I have stooped to a deed that would sink me one iota\nin your good opinion. I will root out the ignoble tendencies of my\nnature, and keep my heart and lips and hands stainless,--hold them\nhigh above the dishonorable things that you abhor, and live during\nyour absence as if your clear eyes took cognizance of every detail.\nYea,--search me as you will, dear deep-blue eyes,--I shall not shrink;\nfor the rule of my future years shall be to scorn every word, thought,\nand deed that I would not freely bare to the scrutiny of the man whose\nrespect I would sooner die than forfeit. Oh, my darling, it were\neasier for me to front the fiercest flames of Tophet than face your\nscorn! I can wait till Miss Jane sees fit to show me the letter, and,\nif it bring good news of your speedy coming, I shall have my reward;\nif not, why should I hasten to meet a bitter disappointment which may\nbe lagging out of mercy to me?\"\n\nPicking up the letter as suspiciously as if it had been dropped by\nthe Prince of Darkness on the crest of Quarantina, she stepped upon a\ntable and inserted the corner of the envelope in the crevice between\nthe canvas and the portrait-frame, repeating the while a favorite\npassage that she had first heard from Dr. Grey's lips,--\n\n  \"'God meant me good too, when he hindered me\n  From saying \"yes\" this morning. I say no,--no!\n  I tie up \"no\" upon His altar-horns,\n  Quite out of reach of perjury!'\"\n\nYoung though she was, experience had taught her that the most\neffectual method of locking the wheels of time consisted in sitting\nidly down to watch and count their revolutions; consequently, she\nhastened upstairs and betook herself vigorously to the work of\nembroidering a _parterre_ of flowers on the front breadth of an\ninfant's christening dress which her employer had promised should be\ncompleted before the following Sabbath.\n\nStab the laggard seconds as she might with her busy needle, the day\nwas drearily long; and few genuine cuckoo-carols have been listened to\nwith such grateful rejoicing as greeted those metallic gutturals that\nonce in every sixty minutes issued from the throat of the gaudy\nautomaton caged in the gilt clock.\n\nTrue, nine hours are intrinsically nine hours under all circumstances,\nwhether decapitation or coronation awaits their expiration; but to the\ndoomed victim or the heir-apparent they appear relatively shorter or\nlonger. At last Salome saw that the shadows on the grass were\nlengthening. Her head ached, her eyes burned from steady application\nto her trying work, and laying aside the cambric, she leaned against\nthe window-facing and looked out over the lawn, where Time seemed to\nhave fallen asleep in the mild autumn sunshine.\n\nHow sweet and welcome was the distance-muffled sound of tinkling\ncow-bells, and the low bleating of homeward-strolling flocks, wending\ntheir way across the hills through which the road crawled like a dusty\ngray serpent.\n\nA noisy club of black-birds that had been holding an indignation\nmeeting in the top of a walnut tree near the gate, adjourned to the\nsycamore grove that overshadowed the barn in the rear of the house;\nand Stanley's pigeons, which had been cooing and strutting in the\navenue, went to roost in the pretty painted pagoda Dr. Grey had\nerected for their comfort. Finally, the low-swung, heavy carriage,\nwith its stout dappled horses, gladdened Salome's strained eyes; and,\nsoon after, she heard the thump of Miss Jane's crutches and her\ncheerful voice, asking,--\n\n\"Where are the children? Tell them I have come home. Bless me, the\nhouse is as dark as a dungeon! Rachel, have we neither lamps nor\ncandles?\"\n\nThe orphan stole down the steps, climbed upon the table in the parlor,\nand, seizing the letter, hurried into the dining-room, where, quite\nexhausted by the fatigue of the day, the old lady lay on the sofa.\n\nShe held out her hand and drew the girl's face within reach of her\nlips, saying,--\n\n\"My child, I am afraid you have had rather a lonely day.\"\n\n\"Decidedly the loneliest and longest I ever spent, and I believe I\nnever was half so glad to see you come home as just now when the\ncarriage stopped at the door.\"\n\nAh, what hypocrisy is sometimes innocently masked by the earnest\nutterance of the truth! And what marvels of industry are accomplished\nby self-love, which seeks more assiduously than bees for the honied\ndrops of flattery that feed its existence!\n\nMiss Jane was pardonably proud that her presence was so essential to\nthe happiness of the orphan whom she fondly loved, and gratification\nspread a pleasant smile over her worn features.\n\n\"Where is Stanley? The child ought not to be out so late.\"\n\n\"He went down to the sheep-pen to count the lambs and look after one\nthat broke its leg yesterday. Miss Jane, are you too much fatigued to\nread a letter which I found this morning in your box at the\npost-office?\"\n\n\"Is it from Ulpian? I was wondering to-day why I did not hear from\nhim. Dear me, what have I done with my spectacles? They are the\ntorment of my life, for the instant I take them off my nose they seem\nto find wings. Give me the letter, and see whether I left my glasses\non the bed where I put my bonnet.\"\n\nSalome went into the next room and unsuccessfully searched the bed,\nbureau, table, and wardrobe; and in an agony of impatience, returned\nto the invalid.\n\n\"You must have lost them before you came home; I can't find them\nanywhere. Let me read the letter to you.\"\n\n\"No; I must have my glasses. Perhaps I dropped them in the carriage.\nSend word to the driver to look for them. It was very careless in me\nto lose them, but I am growing so forgetful. Rachel, do hunt for my\nspectacles.\"\n\nSalome ground her teeth to suppress a cry of vexation; and, to conceal\nher impatience, joined heartily in the search.\n\nFinally she found the glasses on the front steps, where they had\nfallen when their owner left the carriage; and, feeling that adverse\nfate could no longer keep her in suspense, she hurried into the house\nand adjusted them on Miss Jane's eagle nose.\n\nConscious that she was fast losing control over the nerves that were\nquivering from long-continued tension, Salome stepped to the open\nwindow and stood waiting. Would the old lady never finish the perusal?\nThe minutes seemed hours, and the pulsing of the blood in the girl's\nears sounded like muttering thunder.\n\nMiss Jane sighed heavily,--cleared her throat, and sighed again.\n\n\"It is very sad, indeed! It is too bad,--too bad!\"\n\nSalome turned around, and exclaimed, savagely,--\n\n\"Why can't you speak out? What is the matter? What has happened?\"\n\n\"Ulpian's friend is dead.\"\n\n\"Thank God!\"\n\n\"For shame! How can you be so heartless?\"\n\n\"If the man could not recover I should think you would be glad that\nhe is at rest, and that your brother can come home.\"\n\n\"But the worst of the matter is that Ulpian is not coming home. Mr.\nManton wished him to act as guardian for his daughter, who is in\nEurope, and Ulpian will sail in the next steamer for England, to\nattend to some business connected with the estate. It is too\nprovoking, isn't it? He says it is impossible to tell when we shall\nsee him again.\"\n\nThere was no answer, and, when Miss Jane wiped her eyes and looked\naround, she saw the girl tottering towards the door, groping her way\nlike one blind.\n\n\"Salome,--come here, child!\"\n\nBut the figure disappeared in the hall, and when the moonlight looked\ninto the orphan's chamber the soft rays showed a girlish form kneeling\nat the window, with a white face drenched by tears, and quivering lips\nthat moaned in feeble, broken accents,--\n\n\"God help me! I might have known it, for I had a presentiment of\nterrible trouble when he went away. How can I trust God and be\npatient, while the Atlantic raves and surges between me and my idol?\nAfter all, it was an angel of mercy whose tender white hands held\nback this bitter blow for nine hours. Gone to Europe, and not one\nword--not one line--to me! Oh, my darling! you are trampling under\nyour feet the heart that loves you better than everything else in the\nuniverse,--better than life, and its hopes of heaven!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n\n\"Salome, where did you learn to sing? I was astonished this morning\nwhen I heard you.\"\n\n\"I have not yet learned,--I have only begun to practise.\"\n\n\"But, my child, I had no idea you owned such a voice. Where have you\nkept it concealed so long?\"\n\n\"I was not aware that I had it until a month ago, when it accidentally\ndiscovered itself.\"\n\n\"It is very powerful.\"\n\n\"Yes, and very rough; but care and study will smooth and polish it.\nMiss Jane, please keep your eye on Stanley until I come home; for,\nalthough I left him with his slate and arithmetic, it is by no means\ncertain that they will not part company the moment I am out of\nsight.\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"To carry back some work which would have been returned yesterday had\nnot the weather been so inclement.\"\n\nIn addition to the package of embroidered handkerchiefs, Salome\ncarried under her arm a roll of music and an instruction-book; and,\nwhen she reached the outskirts of the town, turned away from the main\nstreet and stopped at the door of a small comfortless-looking house\nthat stood without enclosure on the common.\n\nTwo swart, black-eyed children were playing mumble-peg with a broken\nknife, in one corner of the room; a third, with tears still on its\nlashes, had just sobbed itself to sleep on a strip of faded carpet\nstretched before the smouldering embers on the hearth; while the\nfourth, a feeble infant only six months old, was wailing in the arms\nof its mother,--a thin, sickly woman, with consumption's red autograph\nwritten on her hollow cheeks, where the skin clung to the bones as if\nresisting the chill grasp of death. As she slowly rocked herself,\nstriving to hush the cry of the child, her dry, husky cough formed a\nmelancholy chorus, which seemed to annoy a man who sat before the\nsmall table covered with materials for copying music. His cadaverous,\nsallow complexion, and keen, restless eyes, bespoke Italian origin;\nand, although engaged in filling some blank sheets with musical notes,\nhe occasionally took up a violin that lay across his knees, and, after\nplaying a few bars, laid aside the bow and resumed the pen. Now and\nthen he glanced at his wife and child with a scowling brow; but, as\nhis eyes fell on their emaciated faces, something like a sigh seemed\nto heave his chest.\n\nWhen Salome's knock arrested his attention he rose and advanced to the\nhalf-open door, saying, impatiently,--\n\n\"Well, miss, have you brought me any money?\"\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. Barilli. Here are the ten dollars that I promised,\nbut I wish you to understand that in future I shall not advance one\ncent of my tuition-money. When the month ends you will receive your\nwages, but not one day earlier.\"\n\n\"I beg pardon, miss; but, indeed, you see--\"\n\nHe did not conclude the sentence, but waved his hand towards the two\nin the rocking-chair and proceeded to count the money placed in his\npalm.\n\n\"Yes, I see that you are very destitute, but charity begins at home,\nand I have to work hard for the wages that you have demanded before\nthey are due. Good morning, madam; I hope you feel better to-day.\nCome, Mr. Barilli, I have no time to waste in loitering. Are you ready\nfor my lesson?\"\n\n\"Quite ready, miss. Commence.\"\n\nFor three-quarters of an hour he listened to her exercises, which he\naccompanied with his violin, and afterwards directed her to sing an\nair from a collection of songs on the table. As her deep, rich\ncontralto notes swelled round and full, he shut his eyes and nodded\nhis head as if in an ecstacy; and, when she concluded, he rapped his\nviolin heavily with the bow, and exclaimed,--\n\n\"Some day when you sing that at _Della Scala_, remember the poor devil\nwho taught it to you in a hovel. Soaked as those old walls are with\nmusic from the most famous lips the world ever applauded, they hold no\nechoes sweeter than that last trill. After all, there is no\npassion--no pathos--comparable to a perfect contralto crescendo. It is\nwonderful how you Americans squander voices that would rouse all\nEurope into a _furore_.\"\n\n\"I am afraid your eager desire for pupils biases your judgment, and\ninvests my voice with fictitious worth,\" answered Salome, eyeing him\nsuspiciously.\n\n\"Ha! you mean that I flatter, in order to keep you. Not so, miss. If\nSt. Cecilia herself asked tuition without good pay, I should shut the\ndoor in her face; but, much as I need money, I would not risk my\nreputation by praising what was poor. If one of my children--that\nmiserable little Beatrice, yonder--only had your voice, do you think I\nwould copy music, or teach beginners, or live in this cursed hole?\nYou have a fortune shut up in your throat, and some day, when you are\ncelebrated, at least do me the justice to tell the world who first\nfound the treasure; and, out of your wealth, spare me a decent\ntombstone in the Campo Santo of--of--\"\n\nHe laughed bitterly, and, seizing his violin, filled the room with\nmournful _miserere_ strains.\n\n\"How long a course of training do you think will be necessary before\nthe inequalities in my voice can be corrected and my vocalization\nperfected?\"\n\n\"You are very young, miss, and it would not do to strain your voice,\nwhich is well-nigh perfect in itself; but, of course, your execution\nis defective,--just as a young nightingale cannot warble all its\nstrains before it is full-feathered. If you study faithfully, in one\nyear, or certainly one and a half, you will be ready for your\nengagement at Della Scala. Hist! see if you can follow me?\"\n\nHe played a subtle, chromatic passage, ending in a trill, and the\norphan echoed it with such accuracy and sweetness that the teacher\nthrew down his bow, and, while tears stood in his glittering eyes, he\nput his brown hand on the girl's head, and said, earnestly,--\n\n\"There ought to be feathers here instead of hair, for no nightingale,\nnestled in the olive groves of Italy, ever warbled more easily and\nnaturally. Don't go out to the world as Miss Owen,--make it call you\n_Rosignuolo_. Take the next page in the instruction-book for a new\nlesson, and practise the old scales over before you touch the\nnew,--they are like steps in a ladder, and save jumps and jars. God\nmade your voice wonderful, and, if you are only careful not to undo\nhis work, it will develop itself every year in fresh power and depth.\nHa! if my poor squeaking Beatrice only had it! But there is no more\nmusic stored in her throat and chest than in a regiment of rats. Good\nday, miss. Your lesson is ended, and I go to buy some wood for my\nmiserable shiverers.\"\n\nHe seized his hat and walking-stick and quitted the house, leaving his\npupil to gather up her music and conjecture, meanwhile, whether the\nwood-yard or a neighboring bar-room was his real destination.\n\nHis dissipated habits had greatly impaired her faith in the accuracy\nof his critical acumen touching professional matters, and, as she\nrolled up the sheet of paper in her hands, Salome approached the\nfeeble occupant of the rocking-chair, and said, rather abruptly,--\n\n\"Madam Barilli, you ought to know when your husband speaks earnestly\nand when he is merely indulging in idle flattery, and I wish to learn\nhis real opinion of my voice. Will you tell me the truth?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss, I will. I am no musician, and never was in Europe, where\nhe studied; but he talks constantly of your voice, and tells me there\nis a fortune in it. Only last night he swore that if he could control\nit, he would not take a hundred thousand dollars for the right; and\nthen, poor fellow, he fell into one of his fierce ways and boxed my\nlittle Beatrice's ears, because, he said, all the teachers in the\n_Conservatoire_ could not put into her throat the trill that you were\nborn with. Ah, no, he flatters no one now! He has forgotten how, since\nthe day that I was coaxed to run away from my father's elegant home\nand marry the tenor singer of an opera troupe and the professor who\ntaught me the gamut at boarding-school. Miss, you may believe him, for\nSebastian Barilli means what he says.\"\n\n\"One hundred thousand dollars! I promise him and you that if one-half\nof that amount can be 'trilled' into my pocket you shall both be\ncomfortable during the remainder of your days.\"\n\n\"Mine are numbered, and will end before your career begins; and, when\nyou sing in Della Scala, I trust I shall be singing up yonder behind\nthe stars, where cold and hunger and heart-ache and cruel words cannot\nfollow me. But, miss, when I am gone, and Sebastian is over at the\ncorner trying to drown his troubles, and my four helpless little ones\nare left here unprotected, for God's sake look in upon them now and\nthen, and don't let them cry for bread. My own family long ago cast me\noff, and here I am a stranger; but you, who have felt the pangs of\norphanage, will not stand by and see my darlings starve! Oh, miss,\nthe poor who cannot pity the poor must be hard-hearted indeed!\"\n\nThe suffering woman pressed her moaning babe closer to her bosom, and,\ntaking Salome's hand between her thin, hot fingers, bowed her\ntear-stained face upon it.\n\nGrim recollections of similar scenes enacted in the old house behind\nthe mill crowded upon the mind of the miller's daughter, hardening\ninstead of melting her heart; but, withdrawing her fingers, she said\nin as kind a tone as she could command,--\n\n\"The poor are sometimes too poor to aid each other, and pity is most\nunpalatable fare; but, if your husband has not grossly deceived\nhimself and me with reference to my voice, I will promise that your\nchildren shall not suffer while I live. For their sake do not despond,\nbut try to keep up your spirits, else your husband will be utterly\nruined. Gloomy hearthstones make club-rooms and bar-rooms populous.\nGood-by. When I come again, I will bring something to stimulate your\nappetite, which seems to require coaxing.\"\n\nShe stooped and looked for a minute at the gaunt, white face of the\nhalf-famished infant pressed against the mother's feverish breast, and\nan irresistible impulse impelled her to stroke back the rings of black\nhair that clustered on its sunken temples; then, snatching her music\nand bundle, she hurried out of the close, untidy room, and, once more\nupon the grassy common, drew a long, deep breath of pure fresh air.\n\nAutumn, with orange dawns, and mellow, misty moons, when\n\n  \"Sweet, calm days, in golden haze\n    Melt down the amber sky,\"\n\nhad died on bare brown stubble-fields and vine-veined hill-sides,\npurple with clustering grapes on leafless branches; and wintry days\nhad come, with sleety morns and chill, crisp noons, and scarlet sunset\nbanners flouting the silver stars in western skies, where the\nshivering, gasping old year had woven,--\n\n  \"One strait gown of red\n    Against the cold.\"\n\nNone of the earlier years of Salome's life seemed to her half so\ndrearily long as the four monotonous months that followed Dr. Grey's\ndeparture; and, during the intervals between his brief letters to his\nsister, the orphan learned a deceptive quietude of manner, at variance\nwith the tumultuous feelings that agitated her heart; for painful\nsuspense which is borne with clenched hands and firmly-set teeth is\nnot the more patient because sternly mute.\n\nWhich suffered least, Philoctetes howling on the shores of Lemnos, or\nthe silent Trojan priest, writhing in a death-struggle with the\nserpent folds that crushed him before the altar of Neptune?\n\nIf any messages intended for Salome found their way across the ocean,\nthey finally missed their destination, and reached the dead-letter\noffice of Miss Jane's vast and inviolate pocket; and, while this\napparent neglect piqued the girl's vanity, the blessed assurance that\nthe absent master was alive and well proved a sovereign balm for all\nthe bleeding wounds of _amour propre_.\n\nIn order to defray the expense of her musical tuition, which was\ncarried on in profound secrecy, it was necessary to redouble her\nexertions; and all the latent energy of her character developed itself\nin unflagging work, which she persistently prosecuted early and late,\nand in quiet defiance of Miss Jane's expostulations and predictions\nthat she would permanently impair her sight.\n\nParamount to the desire of amassing wealth that would enable her to\nprovide for Jessie and Stanley rose the hope that the cultivation of\nher voice would invest her with talismanic influence over the man who\nwas singularly susceptible of the magic of music; and, jealously\nguarding the new-found gift, she spared no toil to render it perfect.\n\nFearful that her suddenly acquired fondness for singing might arouse\nsuspicion and inquiry, she rarely practised at home unless Miss Jane\nwere absent; and, having procured a tuning-fork, she retreated to the\nmost secluded portion of the adjoining forest and rehearsed her\nlessons to a mute audience of grazing cattle, sombre pines, nodding\nplumes of golden-rod, and shivering white asters, belated and\novertaken by wintry blasts. Alone with nature, she warbled as\nunrestrainedly as the birds who listened to her quavering crescendos;\nand more than once she had become so absorbed in this forest\npractising, that twinkling stars peeped down at her through the fringy\ncanopy of murmuring firs.\n\nIn fulfilment of a promise given to Stanley, with the hope of\nstimulating him to more earnest study, Salome one day took a piece of\nsewing and her music-book, and set off with her brother for the\nsea-shore, where he was sometimes allowed to amuse himself by catching\ncrabs and shrimps. The route they were compelled to take was very\ncircuitous, since strangers were now forbidden to stroll through the\ngrounds attached to \"Solitude,\" which was the nearest point where land\nand ocean met. Following a cattle-path that threaded the bare brown\nhills and wound through low marsh meadows, Salome at length climbed a\ncliff that overhung the narrow strip of beach running along the base\nof the promontory, and, while Stanley prepared his net, she applied\nherself vigorously to the completion of a cluster of lilies of the\nvalley which she had begun to embroider the preceding night.\n\nIt was a mild, sunny afternoon, late in December, with only a few\nflakes of white curd-like cirri drifting slowly before the stiffening\nsouth wind that came singing a song of the tropics over the gently\nheaving waste of waters--\n\n  \"Where the green buds of waves burst into white froth flowers.\"\n\nTwo glimmering sails stood like phantoms on the horizon; and a silent\ncolony of snowy gulls, perched in conclave on a bit of weed-wreathed\ndrift floating landward, were the only living things in sight, save\nthe childish figure on the yellow beach under the bleaching rocks, and\nthe girlish one seated on the tallest cliff, where a storm-scarred\njuniper, bending inland, waved its scanty fringe in the fresh salt\nbreeze.\n\nNo note of human strife entered here, nor hum of noisy business marts;\nand the solemn silence, so profound and holy, was broken only by the\nsoft, mysterious murmur of the immemorial ocean, as its crystal\nfingers smote the harp of rosy shells and golden sands.\n\nClasped in the crescent that curved a mile northward lay the house,\nand grove, and grounds of \"Solitude,\" looking sombre in the distance,\nas the shadow of surrounding hills fell upon the dense foliage that\noverhung its quiet precincts, and toned down the garish red of the\nboat-house roof, which lent a brief dash of color to the peaceful\npicture. Beyond the last guarding promontory that seemed to have\nplunged through the shelving strand to bathe in blue brine and cut off\nall passage along its base, a strong well-trained eye might follow the\ntrend of the coast even to the dim outlines and thread-like masts,\nthat told where the distant town hugged its narrow harbor; and, in the\nopposite direction, low, irregular sand hills and brown marshes crept\nsouthward, as if hunting the warmth that alone could mantle them with\nliving verdure.\n\nAs the afternoon wore away, the sinking sun dipped suddenly behind a\nwooded eminence, which, losing the warm purples it had worn since\nnoon, grew chill and blue as his rays departed; and, weary of her\nwork, Salome put it aside and began to practise her music lesson,\nbeating time with her slender fingers on the bare juniper-roots, from\nwhich wind and rain had driven the soil. Running her chromatic scales,\nand pausing at will to trill upon any minor note that wooed her\nvagrant fancy, she played with her flexible voice as dexterous\nviolinists toy with the obedient strings they hold in harmonious\nbondage to their bows.\n\nFinally she pushed the exercises away, and began a _fantasus_ from\n\"Traviata,\" which she had heard Mr. Barilli play several times; and so\nabsorbed was she in testing her capacity for vocal gymnastics that she\nfailed to observe the moving figure dwarfed by distance and pacing the\nsands in front of \"Solitude.\"\n\nThe rich, fresh tones which seemed occasionally to tremble with the\nexcess of melody that burdened them played hide-and-seek among the\nhills, startling whole choruses of deep-throated echoes, and attending\nand retentive ocean, catching the strains on her beryl strings, bore\nthem whither--and how far? To palm-plumed equatorial isles, where\ndying auricular nerves mistook them for seraphic utterances? To\ntoiling mariners, tossed helplessly by fierce typhoons, who, pausing\nin their scramble for spars, listened to the weird melody that\npresaged woe and wreck? To the broken casements of fishermen's huts,\non distant shores, where anxious wives peered out in the blackening\ntempest, and shrank back appalled by sounds which sea-tradition\naverred were born in coral caves, mosaiced with blanching human\nskulls? What hoary hierophant in the mysteries of cataphonics and\ndiacoustics will undertake to track those trills across the blue bosom\nof the Atlantic or the purplish billows of the Indian Ocean?\n\nThe wind went down with the sun; silver-edged cirri lost their\nglitter, and swift was\n\n                     ... \"The spread\n  Of orange lustre through these azure spheres\n  Where little clouds lie still like flocks of sheep,\n  Or vessels sailing in God's other deep.\"\n\nIn that wondrous and magical after-glow which tenderly hovers over the\ndarkening face of the dying day, like the strange, spectral smile that\nonly sheds its cold, supernatural light on lips twelve hours dead,\nSalome's fair face and graceful _pose_ was as softly defined against\nthe western sky as some nimbussed saint or madonna on the golden\nbackground of old Byzantine pictures. Her small straw hat, wreathed\nwith scarlet poppies, lay at her feet; and around her shoulders she\nhad closely folded a bright plaid flannel cloak, which tinted her\ncomplexion with its ruddy hues, as firelight flushes the olive\nportraits that stare at it from surrounding walls, and the braided\nblack hair and large hazel eyes showed every brown tint and topaz\ngleam.\n\nLeaning her arms on the top of her music-book, she rested her chin\nupon them, and sat looking seaward, singing a difficult passage, in\nthe midst of which her nimble voice tripped on an E flat, and, missing\nthe staccato step, rolled helplessly down in a legato flood of melody;\nwhereupon, with an impatient grimace she shut her eyes, weary of\nwatching the wave-shimmer that almost dazzled her. After a few\nseconds, when she opened them, there stood just on the edge of the\ncliff, as if poised in air, a woman whose face and form were as\nsharply cut in profile on the azure sea and sky as white cameo\nfeatures on black agate grounds.\n\nAround the tall figure shining folds of silver poplin hung heavy and\nstatuesque, and over the shoulders a blue crape shawl was held by a\nbeautiful blue-veined hand, where a sapphire asp kept guard; while a\ncluster of double violets fastened behind one shell-like ear breathed\ntheir perfume among glossy bands of gray hair.\n\n  \"There was no color in the quiet mouth,\n  Nor fulness; yet it had a ghostly grace,\n  Pathetically pale,\"\n\nand wan, and woful--the still face turned seaward, fronting a round\nwhite moon that was lifting its full disk out of the line where air\nand water met--she stood motionless.\n\nLifting her head, Salome shivered involuntarily, and grew a shade\npaler as she breathlessly watched the apparition, expecting that it\nwould fade into blue air or float down and mingle with the waters that\ngave it birth. But there was no wavering mistiness about the shining\ndrapery; and, presently, when she turned and came forward, the orphan,\ndespite her sneers at superstition, felt the hair creep and rise on\nher temples, and, springing to her feet, they faced each other. As the\nstranger advanced, Salome unconsciously retreated a few steps, and\nexclaimed,--\n\n\"Gray-eyed, gray-haired, gray-clad, gray-faced, and rising out of that\ngray sea, I suppose I have at last met the gray ghost that people tell\nme haunts old 'Solitude.' But how came such a young face under that\ndrift of white hair? If all ghosts have such finely carved, delicate\nnoses and chins, such oval cheeks and pretty brows, most of us here in\nthe flesh might thank fortune for a chance to 'shuffle off this mortal\ncoil.' Say, are you the troubled evil spirit that haunts 'Solitude'?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nThe voice was so mournfully sweet that it thrilled every nerve in\nSalome's quivering frame.\n\n\"Phantom or flesh--which are you?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Gerome, the owner of 'Solitude.'\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed! I beg your pardon, madam, but I took you for a wraith!\nYou know the place has always been considered unlucky--haunted--and\nyou are such an extraordinary-looking person I was inclined to think I\nhad stumbled on the traditional ghost. I am neither ignorant nor\nstupidly superstitious; but, madam, you must admit you have an\nunearthly appearance; and, moreover, I should be glad to know how you\nrose from the beach below to the top of this cliff? I see no feathers\non your shoulders--no balloon under your feet!\"\n\n\"I was walking on the sands in front of my door, and, hearing some\nvery sweet strains that came floating down from this direction, I\nfollowed the sound, and climbed by means of steps cut in the side of\nthis cliff. Since you regarded me as a spectre, I may as well tell you\nthat I was beginning to fancy I was listening to one of the old\nsea-sirens, until I saw your rosy face and red lips, far too human for\na dripping mermaid or a murderous, mocking Aglaiopheme.\"\n\n\"No more a siren, madam, than you are a ghost! I am only Salome Owen,\nthe miller's child, waiting for that boy yonder, whose sublimest idea\nof heaven consists in the hope that its blessed sea of glass is\nbrimming with golden shrimp. Stanley, run around the cliff, and meet\nme. It is too late for us to be here. We should have started home an\nhour ago.\"\n\n\"Who taught you 'Traviata'?\"\n\n\"I am teaching myself, with what small help I can obtain from a\nvagabond musician, who calls himself Signor Barilli, and claims to\nhave been a tenor singer in an opera troupe at Milan.\"\n\n\"You ought to cultivate your voice as thoroughly as possible.\"\n\n\"Why? Is it really good? Tell me, is it worth anything? No one has\nheard it except that Italian violinist; and, if he praises it, I\nsometimes fear it is because he is so horribly dissipated that he\nconfounds my _bravura_ runs with the clicking of his wine-glasses and\nthe gurgling of his flask. Do you know much about music?\"\n\n\"I have heard the best living performers, vocal and instrumental, and\nto a finer voice than yours I never listened; but you need study and\npractice, for your execution is faulty. You have a splendid\ninstrument; but you do not yet understand its management. Where do you\nlive?\"\n\n\"At 'Grassmere,' a farm two miles behind those hills, and in a house\nhidden under elm and apple trees. Madam, it is very late, and I must\nbid you good-evening. Before I go, I should like to know, if you will\nnot deem me unwarrantably impertinent, whether you are a very young\nperson with white hair, or whether you are a very old woman with a\nwonderfully young face?\"\n\nFor a moment there was no answer; and, supposing that she had offended\nher, the orphan bowed and was turning away, when Mrs. Gerome's calm,\nmournful tones arrested her:\n\n\"I am only twenty-three years old.\"\n\nShe walked away, turning her countenance towards the water, where\nmoonlight was burnishing the waves; and, when Salome and Stanley had\nreached the bend in their path that would shut out the view of the\nbeach, the former looked back and saw the silver-gray figure standing\nalone on the silent shore, communing with the silver sea, as desolate\nand as hopeless as Buchanan's \"Penelope,\"--\n\n  \"An alabaster woman, whose fixed eyes\n  Stare seaward, whether it be storm or calm.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n\n\"Doctor Sheldon, do you think she is dangerously ill?\"\n\n\"I am afraid, Salome, that she will soon become so; for she is\nthreatened with a violent attack of pneumonia, which would certainly\nbe very dangerous to a woman of her age. It is a great misfortune that\nher brother is absent.\"\n\n\"Dr. Grey reached New York three days ago.\"\n\n\"Indeed! I will telegraph immediately, and hasten his return.\"\n\nDr. Sheldon was preparing a blister in the room adjoining the one\noccupied by Miss Jane, and the orphan stood by his side, twisting her\nfingers nervously over each other, and looking perplexed and anxious.\nHe returned to his patient, and when he came out some moments later,\nand took up his hat, his countenance was by no means reassuring.\n\n\"Although I know that you are very much attached to Miss Jane, and\nwould faithfully endeavor to nurse her, you are so young and\ninexperienced that I do not feel quite willing to leave her entirely\nto your guardianship; and, therefore, shall send a woman here to-night\nwho will fully understand the case. She is a professional nurse, and\nDr. Grey will be relieved to hear that his sister is in her hands, for\nhe has great confidence in her good sense and discretion. I shall stop\nat the telegraph office, as I go home, and urge him to return at once.\nGive me his address. Do not look so dejected. Miss Grey has a better\nconstitution than most persons are disposed to believe, and she may\nstruggle through this attack.\"\n\nThe new year was ushered in by heavy and incessant rains, and, having\nimprudently insisted upon superintending the drainage of a new\nsheepfold and the erection of an additional cattle-shed, Miss Jane had\ntaken a severe cold, which resulted in pneumonia.\n\nAssiduously and tenderly Salome watched over her, and even after the\narrival of Hester Dennison, the nurse, the orphan's solicitude would\nnot permit her to quit the apartment where her benefactress lay\nstruggling with disease; while Miss Jane shrank from the stranger, and\npreferred to receive the medicine from the hand of her adopted child.\n\nWhen Dr. Sheldon stood by the bed early next morning, and noted the\neffect of his treatment, Salome's keen eye observed the dissatisfied\nexpression of his face, and she drew sad auguries from his clouded\nbrow. He took a paper from his pocket, and said, cheerfully,--\n\n\"Come, Miss Jane, get up a smile to pay me for the good news I bring.\nCan you guess what this means?\" holding an envelope close to her\neyes.\n\n\"More blisters and fever mixtures, I suppose. Doctor, my poor side is\nin a dreadful condition.\"\n\nAs she laid her hand over her left lung, she winced and groaned.\n\n\"How much would you give to have your brother's hand, instead of mine,\non your pulse?\"\n\n\"All that I am worth! But my boy is in Europe, and can't come back to\nme now, when I need him most.\"\n\n\"No, he is in New York. You have been dreaming, and forget that he has\nreached America.\"\n\n\"No, I never knew it. Salome, is there a letter?\"\n\n\"No letter, but a dispatch announcing his arrival. I told you; but you\nmust have fallen asleep while I was talking to you.\"\n\n\"No such thing! I have not slept a wink for a week.\"\n\n\"That is right, Miss Jane; scold as much as you like; it will do you\nno harm. But, meantime, let me tell you I have just heard from Dr.\nGrey, and he is now on his way home.\"\n\nSalome was sitting near the pillow, and suddenly her head bowed\nitself, while her lips whispered, inaudibly,--\n\n\"Thank God!\"\n\nThe invalid's face brightened, and, stretching her thin, hot hand\ntowards the orphan, she touched her shoulder, and said:--\n\n\"Do you hear that, my child? Ulpian is coming home. When will he be\nhere?\"\n\n\"Day after to-morrow evening, I hope, if there is no detention and\nhe makes all the railroad connections. I trust you will prove\nsufficiently generous to bear testimony to my professional skill, by\nimproving so rapidly that when he arrives there will be nothing\nleft to do but compliment my sagacity, and thank me for relieving you\nso speedily. Is not your cough rather better?\"\n\nShe did not reply; and, bending down, he saw that she was asleep.\n\n\"Doctor, I am afraid she is not much better.\"\n\nHe sighed, shook his head, and beckoned Hester into the hall in order\nto question her more minutely concerning the patient.\n\nThat night and the next she was delirious, and failed to recognize any\none; but about noon on the following day she opened her eyes, and,\nlooking intently at Salome, who stood near the foot of the bed, she\nsaid, as if much perplexed,--\n\n\"I saw Ulpian just now. Where is he?\"\n\n\"He will be here this afternoon, I hope. The train is due at two\no'clock, and it is now a quarter past twelve.\"\n\n\"I tell you I saw him not ten minutes since.\"\n\n\"You are feverish, dear Miss Jane, and have been dreaming.\"\n\n\"Don't contradict me! Am I in my dotage, think you? I saw my boy, and\nhe was pale, and had blood on his hands, and it ran down his beard and\ndripped on his vest. You can't deceive me! What is the matter with my\npoor boy? I will see him! Give me my crutches this instant!\"\n\nShe struggled into a partially upright position, but fell back upon\nher pillow exhausted and panting for breath.\n\n\"You were delirious. I give you my word that he has not yet come home.\nIt was only a horrible dream. Hester will assure you of the truth of\nwhat I say. You must lie still, for this excitement will injure you.\"\n\nThe nurse gave her a powerful sedative, and strove to divert her\nthoughts; but ever and anon she shuddered and whispered,--\n\n\"It was not a dream. I saw my dear sailor-boy, and he was hurt and\nbleeding. I know what I saw; and if you and Hester swore till every\nstar dropped out of heaven, I would not believe you. If I am old and\ndying, my eyes are better than yours. My poor Ulpian!\"\n\nDespite her knowledge of the feverish condition of the sick woman, and\nher incredulity with reference to the vision that so painfully\ndisturbed her, Salome's lips blanched, and a vague, nameless, horrible\ndread seized her heart.\n\nVery soon Miss Jane fell into a heavy sleep, and, while the nurse\nbusied herself in preparing a bottle of beef-tea, the orphan sat with\nher head pressed against the bedpost, and her eyes riveted on the face\nof the watch in her palm, where the minute-hand seemed now and then to\nstop, as if for breathing-time, and the hour-hand to have forgotten\nthe way to two o'clock.\n\nFor nearly six months Salome had counted the weeks and days,--had\nwaited and hoped for the hour of Dr. Grey's return as the happiest of\nher life,--had imagined his greeting, the bright, steady glow in his\nfine eyes, the warm, cordial pressure of his white hand, the friendly\ntones of his pleasant voice; for, though he had failed to bid her\ngood-by, fate could not cheat her out of the interview that must\nfollow his arrival. Fancy had painted so vividly all the incidents\nthat would characterize this longed-for greeting, that she had lived\nit over a thousand times; and, now that the meeting seemed actually at\nhand, she asked herself whether it were possible that disappointment\ncould pour one poisonous drop into the brimming draught of joy that\nrose foaming in amber bubbles to her parched lips.\n\nIn the profound silence that pervaded the darkened room, the ticking\nof the watch was annoyingly audible, and seemed to Salome's strained\nand excited nerves so unusually loud that she feared it might disturb\nthe sleeper. At a quarter to two o'clock she went to the hearth and\nnoiselessly renewed the fire, laying two fresh pieces of oak across\nthe shining brass andirons, whose feet represented lions' heads.\n\nShe swept the hearth, arranged some vials that were scattered on the\ndressing-table, and gave a few improving touches to a vase filled with\nwhite and orange crocuses, then crept back to the bedside and again\npicked up the watch. It still lacked fifteen minutes of two, and,\nlooking more closely, she found that it had stopped. Tossing it into a\nhollow formed by the folds of the coverlid, and repressing an\nimpatient ejaculation, she listened for the sound of the railroad\nwhistle, which, though muffled by distance, had not failed to reach\nher every day during the past week.\n\nPresently the silence, which made her ears ache, throbbed so suddenly\nthat she started, but it was only the \"cuckoo! cuckoo!\" of the painted\nbird on the gilded clock. That clock was fifteen minutes slower than\nMiss Jane's watch; and Salome put her face in her hands, and tried to\nstill the loud thumping sound of the blood at her heart.\n\nThe train was behind time. Only a few moments as yet, but something\nmust have happened to occasion even this slight delay; and, if\nsomething,--what?\n\nHester came in and whispered,--\n\n\"Dinner is ready, and Stanley is hungry. Has Miss Jane stirred since I\nwent out?\"\n\n\"No; what time is it?\"\n\n\"Half after two.\"\n\n\"Oh, nonsense! You are too fast.\"\n\n\"Not a minute,--begging your pardon. My brother stays at the depot,\nand keeps my watch with the railroad time.\"\n\nSalome went to the dining-room, gave Stanley his dinner, and, anxious\nto escape observation, shut herself in the dim, cold parlor, where she\npaced the floor until the cuckoo jumped out, chirped three times, and,\nas if frightened by the girl's fixed eyes, fluttered back inside the\nclock. More than an hour behind time! Now, beyond all hope or doubt,\nthere had been an accident! Loss of sleep for several consecutive\nnights, and protracted anxiety concerning Miss Jane, had so unnerved\nthe orphan that she was less able to cope successfully with this\nharrowing suspense than on former occasions; still the sanguine\nhopefulness of youth battled valiantly with the ghouls that\napprehension conjured up, and she remembered that comparatively\ntrivial occurrences had sometimes detained the train, which finally\nbrought all its human freight safely to the depot.\n\nThe day had been very cold and gloomy; and thick, low masses of\nsmoke- cloud scudded across the chill sky, whipped along their\nskirts by a stinging north-east blast into dun, ragged, trailing\nbanners. Despite the keenness of the air, Salome opened one of the\nparlor windows and leaned her face on the broad sill, where a\ndrizzling rain began to show itself. She had read and heard just\nenough with reference to the phenomena of _clairvoyance_ to sneer at\nthem in happy hours, and to recur helplessly to the same subject with\na species of silent dread when misfortune seemed imminent. To-day, as\nMiss Jane's delirious utterances haunted every nook and cranny of her\nexcited brain, permeating all topics of thought, she recalled many\ninstances, on legendary record, where the dying were endowed with\ntalismanic power over the secrets of futurity. Could it be possible\nthat Miss Jane had really seen what was taking place many miles\ndistant? Reason shook her hoary head, and jeered at such childish\nfatuity; but superstitious credulity, goaded by an intense anxiety,\nwould not be silenced nor put to the blush, but boldly babbled of\nSwedenborg and burning Stockholm.\n\nOnce she had heard Dr. Grey tell his sister, in answer to some inquiry\nconcerning the _arcana_ of mesmerism, that he had bestowed much time\nand thought upon the investigation of the subject, and was thoroughly\nconvinced that there existed subtle psychological laws whose\noperations were not yet comprehended, but which, when analyzed and\nstudied, would explain the remarkable influence of mind over mind, and\nprove that the dread and baffling mysteries of psychology were merely\nnormal developments of intellectual power instead of supernatural or\nspiritual manifestations.\n\nThis abstract view of the matter was, however, most unsatisfactory at\nthe present juncture; and the current of Salome's reflections was\nabruptly changed by the sound of the locomotive whistle,--not the\nprolonged, steady roar, announcing arrival, but the sharp, short,\nshrill note of departure. Soon after, the clock struck four, and, ere\nthe echoes fell asleep once more in the sombre corners of the quiet\nparlor, Dr. Sheldon drove up to the front door and entered the house.\nSpringing into the hall, Salome met him, and laid her hand on his\narm.\n\n\"Salome, your face frightens me. How is Miss Jane? Has she grown worse\nso rapidly since I was here this morning?\"\n\n\"I see little change in her. But you have locked bad news behind your\nset teeth. Oh, for God's sake, don't torture me one second longer!\nTell me the worst. What has happened?\"\n\n\"The down-train was thrown from an embankment twenty feet high, and\nthe cars took fire. Many lives have been sacrificed, and it is the\nmost awful affair I ever heard of.\"\n\nHe had partially averted his head to avoid the sight of her whitening\nand convulsed features; but, laying her hands heavily upon his\nshoulders, she forced him to face her, and her voice sank to a husky\nwhisper,--\n\n\"Is he dead?\"\n\n\"I hope not.\"\n\n\"Speak out,--or I shall go mad! Is he dead?\"\n\n\"Calm yourself, Salome, and let us hope for the best. We know nothing\nof the particulars of this dreadful disaster, and have learned the\nnames of none of the sufferers. I have little doubt that Dr. Grey was\non the train, but there is no certainty that he was injured. The\nregular up-train could not leave as usual, because the track was badly\ntorn up; but a locomotive and three cars ran out a while ago with\nseveral surgeons and articles required for the victims. Pray sit down,\nmy poor child, for you are unable to stand.\"\n\n\"Where did it happen?\"\n\n\"Near Silver Run water-tank,--about forty miles from here. The\naccident occurred at twelve o'clock.\"\n\nSalome's grasp suddenly relaxed, and, tossing her hands above her\nhead, she laughed hysterically,--\n\n\"Ha, ha! Thank God, he is not dead! He is only hurt,--only bleeding.\nMiss Jane saw it all, and he is not dead, or she would have known it.\nThank God!\"\n\nDr. Sheldon was a stern man and renowned for his iron nerves, but he\nshuddered as he looked at the pinched, wan face, and heard the\nunnatural, hollow sound of her unsteady voice. Had care, watching, and\nsuspense unpoised her reason?\n\nSomething of that which passed through his mind looked out of his\neyes, and interpreting their amazed expression, the girl waved her\nhand towards the door, and added,--\n\n\"I am not insane. Go in, and Hester will explain.\"\n\nHe turned away, and she went back to the dusky room and threw herself\ndown on the sofa, opposite to the portrait of the U.S. surgeon.\n\nOf what passed during the following two hours, she retained, in after\nyears, only a dim, confused, painful memory of prayers and promises\nmade to God in behalf of the absent.\n\nOnce before, when Miss Jane's death seemed imminent, she had been\ngrieved and perplexed by the possibility that Dr. Grey would inherit\nthe estate and usurp her domains; but to-day, when the Great Reaper\nhovered over the panting, emaciated sufferer, and simultaneously\nthreatened the distant brother and sole heir of the extended\npossessions which this girl had so long coveted, the only thought that\nfilled her heart with dread and wrung half-smothered cries from her\nlips was,--\n\n\"Spare his life, oh, my God! Leave me penniless--take friends,\nrelatives, comforts, hopes of wealth--take all--take everything, but\nspare that precious life and bring him safely back to me! Have mercy\non me, O Lord, and do not snatch him away! for, if I lose him now, I\nlose faith in Christ--in Thee--I lose all hope in time and eternity,\nand my sinful, wrecked soul will go down forever in a night that knows\nno dawning!\"\n\nFor six months she had been indeed,--\n\n  \"A faded watcher through the weary night--\n  A meek, sweet statue at the silver shrines,\n  In deep, perpetual prayer for him she loved;\"\n\nbut patience, dragging anchor, finally snapped its cable, and now,\ninstead of an humble suppliant for the boon that alone made existence\nendurable, she fiercely demanded that her idol should not be broken,\nand, battling with Jehovah, impiously thrust her life down before Him\nas an accursed and intolerable burden, unless her prayers were\ngranted. Ah, what scorpions and stones we gather to our boards, and\nthen dare charge the stinging mockeries against a long-suffering,\nloving God! Ten days before, Salome had meekly prayed, \"Thy will be\ndone,\" and had comforted herself with the belief that at last she was\nbeginning to grow pious and trusting, like Miss Jane; but, at the\nfirst hint of harm to Dr. Grey, she sprang up, utterly oblivious of\nthe protestations of resignation that were scarcely cold on her lips,\nand furious as a tigress who sees the hunter approach the jungle where\nall her fierce affections centre. God help as all who pray orthodoxly\nfor His will, and yet, when the emergency arrives, fight desperately\nfor our own, feeling wofully aggrieved that He takes us at our word,\nand moulds the clay which we make a Pharisaical pretense of offering!\n\nA slow drizzling rain whitened the distant hills, that seemed to\nblanch in their helplessness as the wind smote them like a flail; and\nit wove a grayish veil over the leafless boughs of bending, shivering\nelms, on the long, dim avenue. The wintry afternoon closed swiftly,\nand, in its dusky dreariness, Salome listened to the tattoo of the\nrain on the roof, and to the _miserere_ that wailed through the lonely\nchambers of her soul. The chill at her heart froze her to numbness and\noblivion of the coldness of the atmosphere, and, when a servant came\nin to close the window against the slanting sleet, she lay so still\nthat the woman thought her asleep, and stole away on tip-toe. The room\ngrew dark; but, through the half-opened door, the light from the hall\nlamp crept in and fell on the gilded frame and painted face of the\nportrait, tracing a silvery path along the gloomy wall. As the night\ndeepened, that wave of light rippled and glittered until the handsome\nfeatures in the picture seemed to belong to some hierarch who peeped\nfrom a window of heaven, into a world drenched with unlifting\ndarkness.\n\nThat oval piece of canvas had become the one fetich to which Salome's\nheart clung in silent adoration, defiant of the iconoclastic touch of\nreason and the adverse decree of womanly pride; for natures such as\nhers will always grovel in the dust, hugging the mutilated fragments\nof their idol, rather than bow at some new, fretted shrine, where\nother images hold sway, commanding worship. Looking up almost\nwolfishly at that tranquil, shining countenance, she said to her\nsullen, mourning heart,--\n\n\"There are no more like him, and, if we lose him, there is nothing\nleft in life, and all hope is at an end, and _finis_ shall be printed\non the first page of the book of our existence; and ruin, like a\npitiless pall, shall cover what might have been a happy, possibly a\ngrand and good, human career. We did not intend to love him,--no, no;\nwe tried hard to hate him who stood between us and affluence and\nindolent ease, but he conquered us by his matchless magnanimity, and\nshamed our ignoble aims and base selfishness, and put us under his\nroyal feet; and now we would rather be trampled by Ulpian, our king,\nthan crowned by any other man. Let us plead with Christ to spare the\nonly pilot who can save us from eternal shipwreck.\"\n\nLying there so helpless yet defiant in her desolation, some subtle\nthread of association, guided, perhaps, by the invisible fingers of\nher guardian angel, led her mind to a favorite couplet often quoted by\nDr. Grey,--\n\n  \"I heard faith's low, sweet singing, in the night,\n  And, groping through the darkness, touched God's hand.\"\n\nIf the painted lips in the aureola on the wall had parted and audibly\nuttered these words, they would scarcely have impressed her more\npowerfully as a message from the absent; and, rising instantly, the\norphan prayed in chastened, humbled tones for strength to be patient,\nfor ability to trust God's wisdom and mercy.\n\nHow often, when binding our idolized Isaacs upon the altar, and,\nmeekly submissive to what appears God's inexorable mandates, we\nunmurmuringly offer our heart's dearest treasure, the sacrificial\nknife is stayed, and our loathed and horrible Moriahs, that erst smelt\nof blood and echoed woe, become hallowed Jehovah-jirehs, all aglow,\nnot with devouring flames, but the blessed radiance of God's benignant\nsmile, and musical with thanksgiving strains. But Abraham's burden\npreceded Abraham's boon, and the souls who cannot patiently endure the\nfirst are utterly unworthy of the rapture of the last.\n\nAs the girl's mind grew calmer under the breath of prayer--which\nstills the billows of human passion and strife as the command of Jesus\nsmoothed the thundering surf of Genesareth,--she recollected that she\nhad absented herself from the sick-room for an unusually long time.\nHow long, she could not conjecture, for the face of the clock was\ninvisible, and she had ceased to count the cuckoo-notes; but her limbs\nached, and a fillet of fire seemed to circle her brow.\n\nWith a lingering gaze upon the radiant portrait, she quitted the\nparlor, and went wearily back to renew her vigil.\n\nHester Dennison was cowering over the hearth, spreading her bony hands\ntowards the crackling flames, and, walking up to the mantelpiece,\nSalome touched the nurse, and whispered,--\n\n\"Hester, what did the doctor say? Is there any change?\"\n\n\"Hush!\" The woman laid a finger on her lip, and glanced over her\nshoulder.\n\nThere was only a subdued light of a shaded lamp mingling with the\nflicker of the fire, and, as Salome's eyes followed those of the\nnurse, they rested upon the figure of a man kneeling at the bedside,\nand leaning his head against the pillow where Miss Jane's white hair\nwas strewn in disorder.\n\nA cry of delight, which she had neither the prudence nor power to\nrepress, rang through the silent chamber, startling its inmates, and\npartially arousing the invalid. Salome forgot that life and death were\ngrappling over the prostrate form of the aged woman,--forgot\neverything but the supreme joy of knowing that her idol had not been\nrudely shattered.\n\nSpringing to the bedside, she put out her hands, and exclaimed,\nrapturously:\n\n\"Oh, Dr. Grey! Were you much hurt? Thank God, you are alive and here!\nIndeed, He is merciful--\"\n\n\"Hush! Have you no prudence? Quit the room, or be quiet.\"\n\nDr. Grey lifted his haggard face from the pillow, and the light showed\nit pallid and worn by acute suffering, while a strip of plaster\npressed together the edges of a deep cut on his cheek. His clothes\nglistened with sleet, and bore stains that in daylight were crimson,\nthough now they were only ominously dark.\n\nThe stern tones of his voice, suppressed though it was, stung the\ngirl's heart; and she answered, in a pleading whisper,--\n\n\"Only tell me that you are not severely injured. Speak one kind word\nto me!\"\n\n\"I am not dangerously hurt. Hush! Remember life hangs in the\nbalance.\"\n\n\"Oh, Dr. Grey! will you not even shake hands with me, after all these\ndreary months of absence? This is hard, indeed.\"\n\nShe had stood at his side, with her hands extended imploringly; and\nnow he moved cautiously, and, silently holding up one hand swathed in\nlinen bands, pointed to his left arm, which was tightly splintered and\nbandaged.\n\nThe mute gesture explained all, and, sinking to the carpet, she\npressed her lips to the linen folds, and to the coat-sleeve, where\nsleet and blood-spots mingled.\n\nHe could not have prevented her, even had he desired to do so; but at\nthat instant his sister moaned faintly, and, bending forward to\nexamine her countenance, he seemed for some minutes unconscious of the\npresence of the form crouching close by his side.\n\nAfter a little while he looked down, sighed, and whispered,--\n\n\"My child, do go to bed. You can do no good here, and too much\nwatching has already unstrung your nerves. Go to your room, and pray\nthat God will spare our dear Janet to us.\"\n\nWas this the welcome for which she had waited and longed--of which she\nhad dreamed by day and by night? Not a touch, barely a brief,\nimpatient glance, and a few reproving, indifferent words. She had\nrashly dared fate to cheat her out of this long-anticipated greeting,\nand the grim, grinning crone had accepted the challenge, and now\ntriumphantly snapped her withered fingers in the face of the\nvanquished.\n\nWhen coveted fruit that has been hungrily watched through the slow,\ntedious process of ripening finally falls rosy and mellow into\neagerly uplifted fingers, and breaks in a shower of bitter dust on the\nsharpened and fastidious palate, it rarely happens that the\nhalf-famished dupe relishes the taste; and Salome rose, feeling\nstunned and mocked.\n\nIn one corner of the room stood a chintz-covered lounge, and, creeping\nto it, she laid herself down; and, shading her features with her hand,\nlooked through her fingers at the pale, grieved face of the anxious\nbrother. Sometimes he stood up, studying the placid countenance of the\nsufferer, and now and then he walked softly to the fire-place, and\nheld whispered conferences with Hester relative to the course of\ntreatment that had been pursued.\n\nBut everywhere Salome's eyes followed him; and finally, when he\nchanced to glance at the couch, and noticed its occupant, whom he\nimagined fast asleep, he pointed to a blanket lying on a chair, and\ndirected Hester to spread it over the girlish figure. The thoughtful\nact warmed the orphan's heart more effectually than the thick woollen\ncover; and when he sat down in an easy-chair close to the bed, and\nwithin range of Salome's vision, she yielded to the comforting\nconsciousness of his presence. And, while her lips were moving in\nthanks for his preservation and return, exhausted nature seized her\ndues, and the girl fell asleep and dreamed that Dr. Grey stood by the\nlounge, and whispered,--\n\n  \"No star goes down, but climbs in other skies;\n  The rose of sunset folds its glory up\n  To burst again from out the heart of dawn,\n  And love is never lost, though hearts run waste,\n  And sorrow makes the chastened heart a seer;\n  The deepest dark reveals the starriest hope,\n  And Faith can trust her heaven behind the veil.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n\n\"Yes, Hester, the danger is past; and, if the weather continues\nfavorable, my sister will soon be able to sit up. My gratitude\nprompts me to erect an altar here, where the mercy of God stayed\nthe Destroying Angel, as in ancient days David consecrated the\nthreshing-floor of Araunah.\"\n\n\"Dr. Grey, if you can possibly spare me, I should like to go back to\ntown to-day as Dr. Sheldon has sent for me to take charge of a patient\nat his Infirmary.\"\n\n\"You ought not to desert me while I am so comparatively helpless; and\nI should be glad to have you remain, at least until I recover the use\nof my hands.\"\n\n\"Miss Salome can take my place, and do all that is really necessary.\"\n\n\"The child is so inexperienced I am almost afraid to trust her;\nstill--\"\n\n\"Don't speak so loud. She is standing behind the window-curtain.\"\n\n\"Indeed! I thought she left the room when I entered it. Of course,\nHester, I will not detain you if it is necessary that you should be at\nthe Infirmary; but I give you up very reluctantly. Salome, if you are\nat leisure, please come and see how Hester dresses my hand and arm,\nfor I must rely upon your kind services when she leaves us. Notice the\nmanner in which she winds the bandages. There, Hester,--not quite so\ntight.\"\n\n\"Dr. Grey, I never had an education, and am at best an ignorant,\npoor soul: therefore, not knowing what to think about many curious\nthings that happen in sick-rooms, I should be glad to hear what you\nhave to say concerning that vision of your sister. Remember, she\nsaw it at the very minute that the accident happened. I don't\nbelieve in spirit-rapping, and such stuff as dancing tables, and\nspinning chairs, and pianos that play tunes when no human being is\nnear them; but I have heard and seen things that made the hair rise\nand stand on my head.\"\n\n\"The circumstance that occurred three days since is certainly rather\nsingular and remarkable, but by no means inexplicable. My sister knew\nthat I was then travelling by railroad,--that I would, without some\nunusual delay, reach the depot at a certain hour, and, being in a\ndelirious condition, her mind reverted to the probability of some\noccurrence that might detain me. Having always evinced a peculiar\naversion to railroads, which she deems the most unsafe method of\ntravelling, she had a feverish dream that took its coloring from her\nexcited apprehension of danger to me; and this vision, born of delirium,\nwas so vivid that she could not distinguish phantom from reality. In\nninety-nine cases out of every hundred similar ones, the dream\npasses without fulfilment, and is rarely recollected or mentioned;\nbut the hundredth--which may chance by some surprising coincidence to\nseem verified--is noised abroad as supernatural, and carefully preserved\namong 'well-authenticated spiritual manifestations.' If I had escaped\ninjury, the freaks of my sister's delirium would have made no more\nimpression on your mind than the ravings of a lunatic; and, since I was\nso unfortunate as to be bruised and burned, you must not allow\nyourself to grow superstitious, and attach undue importance to a\ncircumstance which was entirely accidental, and only startling because\nso exceedingly rare. Presentiments, especially when occurring in cases\nof fever, are merely Will-o-the-wisps floating about in excited,\ndiseased brains. While at sea, and constantly associated with sailors,\nwhose minds constitute the most favorable and fruitful soil for the\nproduction of phantasmagoria and _diablerie_, I had frequent\nopportunities of testing the fallacy and absurdity of so-called\n'presentiments and forebodings.' I am afraid it is the absence of\nspirituality in the hearts of the people, that drives this generation\nto seek supernaturalism in the realm of merely normal physics. The only\ntrue spiritualism is that which emanates from the Holy Ghost,--conquers\nsinful impulses, and makes a Christian heart the temple of God.\"\n\nHere Miss Jane called Hester into the adjoining room; and turning to\nSalome, Dr. Grey added,--\n\n\"Notwithstanding the vaunted destruction of the ancient Hydra of\nsuperstition by the darts and javelins of modern rationalism, and the\nponderous hot irons of empirics, it is undeniably true that the habit\nof 'seeking after a sign' survived the generation of Scribes and\nPharisees whom Christ rebuked; and manifests itself in the middle of\nthe nineteenth century by the voracity with which merely material\nphenomena are seized as unmistakable indications of preternatural\nagencies. The innate leaven of superstition triumphs over common sense\nand scientific realism, and men and women are awed by coincidences\nthat reason scouts, but credulity receives with open arms. Salome, I\nregret exceedingly that I am forced to trouble you, but there are some\nimportant letters which I wish to mail to-day, and you will greatly\noblige me by acting as amanuensis while I dictate. My present disabled\ncondition must apologize for the heavy tax which I am imposing upon\nyour patience and industry. Will you come to the library?\"\n\nShe made no protestations of willingness to serve him, and confessed\nno delight at the prospect of being useful, but merely bowed and\nsmiled, with an expression in her eyes that puzzled him.\n\nSeated at the library-table, and writing down the sentences that he\ndictated while pacing the floor, Salome passed one of the happiest\nhours of her life; for it brought the blessed assurance that, for the\npresent at least, he acknowledged his need of her.\n\nOne of the letters was addressed to Mr. Gerard Granville, an _attache_\nof the American legation at Paris, and referred principally to\nfinancial affairs; and the other, directed to Muriel Manton, contained\nan urgent request that she and her governess would leave New York as\nspeedily as possible and become inmates of his sister's house.\n\nWhen she had folded the letters and sealed them with his favorite\nemerald signet,--bearing the words, \"_Frangas non Flectes_,\"--Salome\nlooked up, and asked,--\n\n\"How old is your ward, Miss Manton?\"\n\n\"About your age,--though she looks much more childish.\"\n\n\"Pretty, of course?\"\n\n\"Why 'of course'?\"\n\n\"Simply because in novels they are always painted as pretty as\nPersephone; and the only wards I ever knew happen to be fictitious\ncharacters.\"\n\n\"Novels are by no means infallible mirrors of nature, and few wards\nare as attractive as my black-eyed pet. Muriel will be very handsome,\nI hope, when she is grown; but now she impresses me as merely sweet,\npiquant, and pretty.\"\n\n\"Did you know her prior to your recent visit?\"\n\n\"Yes; her father's house was my home whenever I chanced to be in New\nYork, and I have seen her, occasionally, since she was a little girl.\nFor your sake, as well as mine, I am glad she will reside here,\nbecause I hope she will prove in every respect a pleasant companion\nfor you.\"\n\n\"Thank you; but, unfortunately, that is one luxury of which I never\nfelt the need, and with which, permit me to tell you, I can readily\ndispense. I have little respect for women, and no desire to be wearied\nwith their inane garrulity.\"\n\nShe leaned back in her chair, and tapped restlessly with the end of\nthe pen-staff on the morocco-covered table.\n\nDr. Grey looked down steadily and gravely into her provokingly defiant\nface, and replied very coldly,--\n\n\"Were I in your place, I think I should jealously guard my lips from\nthe hasty utterance of sentiments that, if unfeigned, ought to bring a\nblush to every true woman's cheek; for I fear that she who has no\nrespect for her own sex bids fair to disgrace it.\"\n\nA scarlet wave rolled up from throat to temples, and the lurking\nyellow gleamed in her eyes, but the bend of her nostril and curve of\nher lips did not relax.\n\n\"Which is preferable, hypocrisy or irreverence?\"\n\n\"Both are unpardonable, in a woman.\"\n\n\"Where is your vast charity, Dr. Grey?\"\n\n\"Busy in sheltering that lofty ideal of genuine female perfection\nwhich you seem so pertinaciously ambitious to sully and degrade.\"\n\n\"You are harsh, and scarcely courteous.\"\n\n\"You will never find me less so when you vauntingly exhibit such\nmournful blemishes of character.\"\n\n\"At least, sir, I am honest, and show myself just what God saw fit to\nallow misfortune to make me.\"\n\n\"Hush, Salome! Do not add impiousness to the long catalogue of your\nsinful follies. I hoped that there was a favorable change in you\nbefore I left home, but I very much fear that, instead of exorcising\nthe one evil spirit that possessed you, you have swept, and garnished,\nand settled yourself comfortably with seven new ones.\"\n\n\"And, like R. Chaim Vital, you come to pronounce _Nidui!_ and banish\nmy diabolical guests. If cauterization cures moral ulcers as\neffectually as those that afflict the flesh, then, verily, you intend\nI shall be clean and whole. You are losing patience with your\ngraceless neophyte.\"\n\n\"Yes, Salome; because forced to lose faith in her inclination and\ncapacity to sublimate her erring nature. Once for all, let me say that\nhabitual depreciation of your own sex will not elevate you in the\nestimation of mine; for, however fallen you may find mankind, they\nnevertheless realize amid their degradation that,--\n\n  ''Tis somewhat to have known, albeit in vain,\n    One woman in this sorrowful, bad earth,\n  Whose very loss can yet bequeath to pain\n    New faith in worth.'\"\n\nThere was no taunt, no bitterness, in his voice; but grievous\ndisappointment, too deep for utterance; and the girl winced under it,\nthough only the flush burning on cheek and brow attested her\nvulnerability.\n\n\"Remember, sir, that humanity was not moulded entirely from one\nstratum of pipe-clay. Only a few wear paint, enamelling, and gold as\ndelicate costly Sevres; and, while the majority are only coarse\npottery, it is scarcely kind--certainly not generous--in dainty,\ntransparent china, belonging to king's palaces, to pity or denounce\nthe humble Delft or Wedgewoodware doing duty in laborer's cottages.\"\n\n\"Very true, my poor little warped, blotched bit of perverse pottery;\nbut of one vital truth permit me to assure you: the purity and\nelevation of our race depend upon preserving inviolate in the hearts\nof men a belief that women's natures are crystalline as that\ncelebrated glass once made at Murano, which was so exceedingly fine\nand delicate that it burst into fragments if poison was poured into\nit.\"\n\n\"Then, obviously, I am no Venetian goblet; else long ago I should have\nshattered under the bitter, black juices poured by fate. It seems I am\nnot worthy to touch the lips of doges and grand dukes; but let them\nlook to it that some day, when spent and thirsty, they stretch not\ntheir regal hands for the common clay that holds what all their\ncostly, dainty fragments can never yield. _Nous verrons!_ 'The stone\nwhich the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.'\"\n\nDr. Grey had resumed his walk, but the half-suppressed, passionate\nprotest, whose underswell began to agitate her voice, arrested his\nattention, and he came to the table and stood close to the orphan.\n\n\"What is the matter with my headstrong young friend?\"\n\nShe made no answer; but her elfish eyes sought his, and braved their\nquiet rebuke.\n\n\"This is the last opportunity I shall offer you to tell me frankly\nwhat troubles you. Can I help you in any way? If so, command me.\"\n\n\"Once you could have helped me, but that time has passed.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not. Try me.\"\n\n\"It is too late. You have lost faith in me.\"\n\n\"No; you have lost all faith in yourself, if you ever indulged\nany,--which I very much doubt. It is you who are faithless concerning\nyour own defective character.\"\n\n\"Not I, indeed! I know it rather too well, either to set it aloft for\nadoration or to trample it in the mire. When your faith in me expired,\nmine was born. Do you recollect that beautiful painted window in\nLincoln Cathedral which the untutored fingers of an apprentice\nfashioned out of the despised bits of glass rejected by the\nfastidious master-builder? It is so vastly superior to every other in\nthe church that the vanquished artist could not survive the chagrin\nand mortification, and killed himself. My faith is very strong, that,\nplease God, I shall some day show you similar handiwork.\"\n\n\"You grow enigmatical, and I do not fully understand you.\"\n\n\"No; you do not in the least comprehend me. The girl whom you left six\nmonths ago has changed in many respects.\"\n\n\"For better, or for worse?\"\n\n\"Perhaps neither one nor yet the other; but, at least, sir, 'my future\nwill not copy fair my past.'\"\n\n\"Since my return, I have noticed an alteration in your deportment,\nwhich, I regret to say, I cannot consider an improvement; and I should\nfeel inclined to attribute your restless impatience to nervous disease\nwere I not assured by your appearance that you are in perfect health.\nRemember, that quietude of manner constitutes a woman's greatest\ncharm; and, unfortunately, you seem almost a mimic maelstrom. But,\npardon me, I did not intend to lecture you; and, hoping all things, I\nwill patiently wait for the future that you seem to have dedicated to\nsome special object. I will try to have faith in my perverse little\nfriend, though she sometimes renders it a difficult task. May I\ntrouble you to stamp those letters?\"\n\nHe could not analyze the change that passed swiftly across her face,\nnor the emotion that made her suddenly clinch her hands till the rosy\nnails grew purple.\n\n\"Dr. Grey, don't you believe that if Judas Iscariot had only resisted\nthe temptation of the thirty pieces of silver, and stood by his master\ninstead of betraying him, that his position in heaven would have been\nfar more exalted than that of Peter, or even of John?\"\n\n\"That is a question which I have never pondered, and am not prepared\nto discuss. Why do you propound it?\"\n\nShe did not answer immediately; and, when she spoke, her glittering\neyes softened in their expression, and resembled stars rising through\nthe golden mist of lingering sunset splendor.\n\n\"God gave you a nobler heart than mine, and left it an easy, pleasant\nmatter for you to be good; while, struggle as I may, I am constantly\nin danger of tumbling into some slough of iniquity, or setting up\nfalse gods for my soul to bow down to. Because it is so much more\ndifficult for me to do right than for you, it is only just that my\nreward should be correspondingly greater.\"\n\n\"I am neither John nor Peter, nor are you Judas; and only He who knows\nour mutual faults and follies, our triumphs and defeats in the\nlife-long campaign with sin, can judge us equitably. I am too\npainfully conscious of my own imperfections not to sympathize\nearnestly with the temptations that may assail you; and, moreover, we\nshould never lose sight of the fact,--\n\n  'What's done we partly may compute,\n  But know not what's resisted.'\"\n\n\"Dr. Grey, you have great confidence in the efficacy of prayer?\"\n\n\"Yes; for without it human lives are rudderless, drifting to speedy\nwreck and ruin.\"\n\n\"If I ask a favor, will you grant it?\"\n\n\"Have I ever denied you anything that you asked?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,--your good opinion.\"\n\n\"I knew that had you really desired that, you would long since have\nrendered it impossible for me to withhold it. But to the point,--what\nis your petition?\"\n\n\"I want you to pray for me.\"\n\n\"Salome, are you serious? Are you really in earnest?\"\n\n\"Mournfully in earnest.\"\n\n\"Then rest satisfied that henceforth you will always have a place in\nmy prayer; but do not forget the greater necessity of praying for\nyourself. Now, tell me how you have been employed during my long\nabsence. Where are the accumulated exercises which I promised to\nexamine and correct when I returned?\"\n\n\"Promised whom?\"\n\n\"You.\"\n\n\"You forget that I did not see you the day you left, and that you did\nnot even bid me good-by.\"\n\n\"I referred to your French exercises in a brief and hurried note that\nI left for you.\"\n\n\"Left where? I never received--never heard of it.\"\n\n\"I laid it upon your plate, where I supposed you would certainty\nnotice it when you came home to dinner.\"\n\n\"Why did not you give it to Miss Jane?\"\n\n\"Simply because she was not in the room when I wrote it. It is rather\nsurprising that it escaped your observation, as I laid it in a\nconspicuous place.\"\n\nShe did not deem it necessary to inform him that on that unlucky day\nshe had suddenly lost her appetite, and failed to go to the table; and\nnow she put her fingers over her eyes to conceal the blaze of joyful\nlight that irradiated them, as he mentioned the circumstance,\ncomparatively trivial, but precious in her estimation, since it was\nfreighted with the assurance that at least he had thought of her on\nthe eve of his unexpected departure. What inexpressible comfort that\nnote might have contributed during all those tedious months of silence\nand separation! While she sat there thinking of the dreary afternoon\nwhen, down in the orchard-grass she lay upon her face, Dr. Grey came\nnearer to her, and said,--\n\n\"I hope you have not abandoned your French?\"\n\n\"No, sir; but I devote less time than formerly to it.\"\n\n\"If agreeable to you, we will resume the exercises as soon as I can\nwield my pen.\"\n\n\"If you can teach me Italian, I should prefer it; especially since I\nhave learned to pronounce French tolerably well?\"\n\n\"What use do you expect to have for Italian,--at least, at present?\nFrench is much more essential.\"\n\n\"I have a good reason for desiring to make the change, though just now\nI do not choose to be driven into any explanations.\"\n\n\"Pardon me. I had no intention of forcing your confidence. When in\nItaly, I always contrive to understand and make myself understood;\nbut my knowledge and use of the language is rather too slip-shod to\njustify my attempting to teach you idioms, hallowed as the medium\nthrough which Dante and Ariosto charmed the world. Miss Dexter,\nMuriel's governess, is a very thorough and accomplished linguist, and\nspeaks Italian not only gracefully but correctly. I have already\nengaged her to teach you whatever she may deem advisable when she\ncomes here to live.\"\n\n\"You are very kind. Is she a young person?\"\n\n\"She is a very highly cultivated and elegant woman, probably\ntwenty-five or six years old, and has been in Florence with Muriel.\"\n\nInvoluntarily and unconsciously the orphan sighed, and the muscles in\nher broad forehead tangled terribly.\n\n\"Salome, please put your hand in the right pocket of my vest, and take\nout a key that ought to be there. No,--not that; a larger steel one.\nNow you have it. Will you be so good as to open that trunk which came\nby express yesterday (it is in the upper hall), and bring me a box\nwrapped in pink tissue-paper? I would not trouble you with so many\ncommissions if I could use my hands.\"\n\nUnable longer to repress her feelings, the girl exclaimed eagerly,--\n\n\"If you could imagine what pleasure it affords me to render you the\nslightest service, I am very sure you would not annoy me with\napologies for making me happy.\"\n\nIn a few moments she returned to the library, bearing in her hand a\nsmall but heavy package, which she placed on the table before him.\n\n\"Please open it, and examine the contents.\"\n\nShe obeyed him; and, after removing the wrapping, found a blue velvet\ncase that opened with a spring and revealed a parcel enclosed in\nsilver paper. Dr. Grey turned and walked to the window; and, as Salome\ntook off the last covering, a watch and chain met her curious gaze.\nOne side of the former was richly and elaborately chased, and\nrepresented Kronos leaning on his scythe; the other was studded with\ndiamonds that flashed out the name \"Salome.\" Astonishment and delight\nsealed the orphan's lips, and, in silence, far more eloquent than\nwords, she bowed her head upon the table. After a few moments had\nelapsed, Dr. Grey attempted to steal out of the room; but, being\nobliged to pass close by her chair, she put out her hand and arrested\nhis movement.\n\n\"It is the most beautiful watch I have ever seen; but, oh, sir! how\nshall I sufficiently thank you? How can I express all that is\nthrobbing here in my proud, grateful heart? Although the costly gift\nis elegant and tasteful, I hold still more precious the fact which it\nattests,--that during your absence you thought of me. How shall I\nbegin to prove my gratitude for your kindness and generosity?\"\n\n\"Do not thank me, my little friend; for, indeed I require no verbal\nassurances that my _souvenir_ is kindly received and appreciated. Wear\nthe watch; and let it continually remind you not only of the sincerity\nof my friendship, but of the far more important fact that every idle\nor injudiciously employed hour will cry out in accusation against us\nin the final assize, when we are called upon to render an account of\nthe distribution of that invaluable time which God allows us solely\nfor the accomplishment of His work on earth. It is so exceedingly\ndifficult for young persons to realize how marvellously rapid is the\nflight of time, that you will, I trust, forgive me if I endeavor to\nimpress upon you the vital importance of making each day fragrant with\nthe burden of some good deed, the resistance of some sore temptation,\nsome service rendered to God or to suffering humanity which shall make\nyour years mellow with the fruitage that will entitle you to a\nglorious record in the golden book of Abou Ben Adhem's angel. Let this\nlittle jewelled monitress of the fleeting, mocking nature of time,\nthis ingenious toy, whose ticking is but the mournful, endless knell\nof dead seconds, remind you that,--\n\n  \"This life of ours, what is it? A very few\n  Soon ended years, and then--the ceaseless psalm,\n  And the eternal Sabbath of the soul.\"\n\nAs Salome looked up into his tranquil, happy face, two tears glided\nacross her cheeks, and fell upon the pretty bauble.\n\n\"You will find a key in the case, and can wind it up, and set it by\nthe clock in the parlor.\"\n\n\"Dr. Grey, are you willing that my watch shall bear daily testimony of\nsomething which I hold far above its diamonds,--that you have faith in\nSalome Owen?\"\n\n\"Perfectly willing that you should make it eloquent with all friendly\nutterances and sympathy. Hester has bound my arm so tightly that it\nimpedes the circulation, and is very painful. Please loosen the\nbandage.\"\n\nShe complied as carefully as possible, though her hands trembled; and,\nwhen the ligature had been comfortably adjusted and the arm restored\nto its sling, she stooped and pressed her lips softly and reverently\nto the cold, white fingers, that protruded from the linen bands. He\nendeavored ineffectually to prevent the caress, which evidently\nembarrassed him; but she left two kisses on the bruised hand, and,\nsnatching her watch and chain from the table, hastily quitted the\nroom.\n\nIn after years, when loneliness and disappointment pressed heavily\nupon her heart, she looked back to the three weeks that succeeded Dr.\nGrey's return as the halcyon days, as the cloudless June morning of\nher life; and, in blissful retrospection, temporarily found Elysium.\n\nShe wrote his letters, read aloud from his favorite books, dressed and\nbandaged his blistered hand and fractured arm, and surrendered her\nheart to an intense and perfect happiness such as she had scarcely\ndared to hope would ever be her portion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n\n\"Bring her into my office. Steady, men! There may be broken bones, and\njarring would be torture. Don't stumble over that book on the floor.\nLay her here on the sofa, and throw open the blinds.\"\n\n\"Dr. Grey, is she dead?\"\n\n\"No, only badly stunned; and the contusion on the head seems to be\nvery severe. Stand back, all of you, and give her air. When did it\nhappen?\"\n\n\"About twenty minutes ago. She is a stout, heavy woman, and we could\nnot walk very fast with such a burden. Ah! you intend to bleed her?\"\n\n\"Yes, I fear nothing else will relieve her. Mitchell, hold the arm for\nme.\"\n\n\"How did she receive this injury?\" asked Dr. Mitchell, who had been\nholding a consultation with Dr. Grey relative to some perplexing\ncase.\n\n\"Those gray ponies which we were admiring a half-hour since, as they\ntrotted by the door, took fright at a menagerie procession coming up\nfrom the depot to the Hippodrome,--and ran away. In steering clear of\nthe elephant, who was covered from head to foot, and certainly looked\nfrightful, the horses ran into a mass of lumber and brick at the\ncorner of Fountain and Franklin streets, where a new store is being\nerected, and the carriage was upset. Unfortunately the harness was\nvery strong, and did not give away until the carriage had been dragged\nsome yards among the rubbish, and one of the horses finally floundered\ninto a bed of mortar, and broke the traces. The driver kept his hold\nupon the reins to the last, but was badly bruised, and this woman was\nthrown out on a pile of bricks and granite-caps. The municipal\nauthorities should prohibit these menagerie parades, for the meekest\nplough-horse in the State could scarcely have faced that band of\nmusicians, flanked by the covered elephant and giraffe, and the cages\nof the beasts,--much less those fiery grays, who seem snuffing danger\neven when there is no provocation.\"\n\n\"Who is this woman?\"\n\n\"She is a total stranger to me,\" answered Dr. Grey, bending down to\nput his ear to the heart of the victim.\n\nA bystander seemed better informed, and replied,--\n\n\"She is a servant or housekeeper of the lady who lives at 'Solitude.'\nBut here comes the driver, limping and making wry faces.\"\n\nRobert Maclean approached the sofa, and his scratched and bleeding\nface paled as he leaned over the prostrate form of his mother.\n\n\"Oh, doctors, surely two of you can save her! For God's sake, don't\nlet her die! Does she breathe?\"\n\n\"Yes, the bleeding has already benefitted her. She breathes regularly,\nand the action of her heart is better. Sit down, my man,--you look\nghastly. Mitchell, give him some brandy, and sew up that gash in his\ncheek, while I write a prescription.\"\n\n\"Never mind me, doctor; only save my poor mother. She looks like death\nitself. Mother, mother, it is all over now! Come, wake up, and speak\nto me!\"\n\nHe seized one of her cold hands, and chafed it vigorously between both\nof his, while tears and blood mingled, as they dripped from his face\nto hers.\n\n\"Doctor, tell me the truth; is there any hope?\"\n\n\"Certainly, my friend; there is every reason to believe she will\nultimately recover, though you need not be surprised if she remains\nfor some hours in a heavy stupor. Remember, a pile of brick is not\nexactly a feather pillow, and it may be some time before the brain\nrecovers from the severity of the contusion. What is your name?\"\n\n\"Robert Maclean.\"\n\n\"And hers?\"\n\n\"Elsie Maclean. Poor, dear creature! How she labors in her breathing.\nSuppose I lift her head?\"\n\n\"No; let her rest quietly, just as she is, and I trust all will be\nwell. Come to the table, and allow me to put some plaster over that\ncut which bleeds so freely. Trust me, Maclean, and do not look so\nwoe-begone. I am not deceiving you. There may be serious internal\ninjuries that I have not discovered, but this stupor is not alarming.\nI can find no fractured bones, and hope the blow on the head is the\nmost troublesome thing we shall have to contend with.\"\n\nDr. Grey proceeded to sponge the bruised and stained face and, hoping\nto divert the man's anxious thoughts, said, nonchalantly,--\n\n\"I believe you are in Mrs. Gerome's employment?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"How long have you been at 'Solitude'?\"\n\n\"I came here, sir, and bought the place, while she was in Europe. Ah,\ndoctor, if my mother should die, I believe it would kill my\nmistress.\"\n\n\"You are old family servants?\"\n\n\"My mother took her when she was twelve hours old, and has never left\nher since. She loves Mrs. Gerome even better than she loves me--her\nown flesh and blood. I can't go home and tell my mistress I have\nnearly killed my mother. She would never endure the sight of me again.\nHer own mother died the day after she was born, and she has always\nlooked on that poor dear soul yonder as her foster-mother.\"\n\nRobert limped back to the sofa, and, seating himself on a chair,\nlooked wistfully into his mother's countenance; then hid his face in\nhis hands.\n\n\"Come, be a man, Maclean; and don't give way to nervousness! Your\nmother's condition is constantly improving, though of course it is not\nso apparent to you as to me. What has been done with the carriage and\nhorses?\"\n\n\"Oh, the carriage is a sweet pudding; and the grays--curses on\n'em!--are badly bruised. One of them had his flank laid open by a saw\nlying on a lumber-pile; and I only wish it had sawed across the\njugular. They are vicious brutes as ever were bitted, and it makes my\nblood run cold sometimes to see their devilish antics when Mrs. Gerome\ninsists on driving them. They will break her neck, if I don't contrive\nto break theirs first.\"\n\n\"I should judge from their appearance that it was exceedingly unsafe\nfor any lady to attempt to control them. They seem very fiery and\nunmanageable. What has been done with them?\"\n\n\"The deuce knows!--knocked in the head, I trust. I asked two men, who\nwere in the crowd, to take them to the livery-stable. Mrs. Gerome is\nnot afraid of anything, and one of her few pleasures is driving those\ngray imps, who know her voice as well as I do. I have seen them put up\ntheir narrow ears and neigh when she was a hundred yards off; and\nsometimes she wraps the reins around her wrists and quiets them, when\ntheir eyes look like balls of fire. But Rarey himself could not have\nstopped them a while ago, when they determined to run over that\nmenagerie show. My mistress will say it was my fault, and she will\nstand by the gray satans through thick and thin. Hist, doctor, my\nmother groans!\"\n\n\"Would it not be best for you to go home and acquaint Mrs. Gerome with\nwhat has occurred?\"\n\n\"I would not face her without my mother for--twenty kingdoms! You have\nno idea how she loves her 'old Elsie,' and I couldn't break the news\nto her,--I would sooner break my head.\"\n\n\"This is not a proper place for your mother, and I advise you to\nremove her to the hospital, which is not very far from my office. She\ncan be carried on a litter.\"\n\n\"Oh, my mistress would never permit that! She will let no one else\nnurse my mother; and, of course, she could not go to a public place\nlike a hospital, for you know she is so dreadful shy of strangers.\"\n\nAfter many suggestions, and much desultory conversation, it was\nfinally decided that Elsie should be placed on a mattress, in the\nbottom of an open wagon, and carried slowly home. A careful driver was\nprovided, and when Dr. Grey had seen his patient comfortably arranged,\nand established Robert on the seat with the driver, he yielded to the\nsolicitations of the son, that he would precede them to \"Solitude,\"\nand acquaint Mrs. Gerome with the details of the accident.\n\nAlthough ten months had elapsed since the latter took possession of\nher new home, so complete had been her seclusion that she remained an\nutter stranger; and, when visitors flocked from town and neighborhood\nto satisfy themselves concerning the rumors of the elegant furniture\nand appointments of the house, they were invariably denied admittance,\nand informed that since her widowhood Mrs. Gerome had not re-entered\nsociety.\n\nCuriosity was piqued, and gossip wagged her hundred busy tongues over\nthe tormenting fact that Mrs. Gerome had never darkened the\nchurch-door since her arrival; and, occasionally, when she rode into\ntown, wore a thick veil that thoroughly screened her features; and,\ninstead of shopping like other people, made Elsie Maclean bring the\narticles to the carriage for her inspection.\n\nThe servants seemed to hold themselves as much aloof as their\nmistress, and though Robert and his mother attended service regularly\nevery Sabbath, they appeared as gravely silent and ungregarious as\nSphinxes. The ministers of various denominations called to pay their\nrespects to the stranger, but only the clerical cards succeeded in\ncrossing the threshold; and, while rumors of her boundless wealth\ncrept teasingly through Newsmongerdom, no one except Salome Owen had\nyet seen the new-comer.\n\nCases of books and pictures occasionally arrived from Europe, and\nnever failed to stir the pool of gossip to its dregs; for the wife of\nthe express-agent was an intimate friend of Mrs. Spiewell, whose\nhusband was pastor of the church which Elsie and Robert attended, and\nwho felt personally aggrieved that the Rev. Charles Spiewell was not\nwelcomed as the spiritual guide of the mistress of \"Solitude.\"\n\nFinally, a morbid, meddling inquisitiveness goaded the chatty little\nwoman beyond the bounds of ministerial decorum, and, having rashly\nwagered a pair of gloves that she would gain an entrance to the\nparlors (whereof the upholsterer's wife told marvellous tales), she\narmed herself with a pathetic petition for aid to build a \"Widow's\nRow,\" and, with a subscription-list for a \"Dorcas Society,\" and\nconfident of ingress, boldly rang the bell. Unfortunately, Elsie\nchanced that day to be on post as sentinel, and, though she\nimmediately recognized the visitor as the mother of the small colony\nof Spiewells who crowded every Sunday morning into the pew of the\npastor, she courtesied, and gave the stereotyped rebuff,--\n\n\"Mrs. Gerome begs to be excused.\"\n\n\"Ah, indeed! But she does not know who has called, or she would make\nan exception in my favor. I am your minister's wife, and must really\nsee her, if only for two minutes. Take my card to her, and say I call\non important business, which cannot fail to interest her.\"\n\nNot a muscle of Elsie's grave face moved, as she received the card,\nand answered,--\n\n\"I am very sorry, madam, but Mrs. Gerome sees no visitors, and my\norders are positive.\"\n\nMrs. Spiewell bit her lip, and reddened.\n\n\"Then take these papers to her, and ask if she will please be so good\nas to examine their claims to her charity. In the meantime I will wait\nin the parlor, and must trouble you for a glass of water.\"\n\nShe thrust the petitions into Elsie's hand, and attempted to slip into\nthe hall, through the partial opening of the door which the servant\nheld during the parley; but, planting her massive frame directly in\nthe way, the resolute woman effectually barred entrance, and, pointing\nto an iron _tete-a-tete_ on the portico, said, decisively,--\n\n\"I beg pardon, madam, but you will find a seat there; and I will bring\nthe water while Mrs. Gerome reads your letters. If you are fatigued, I\nwill hand you luncheon and some wine.\"\n\nMortified and enraged, Mrs. Spiewell grew scarlet, but threw herself\ninto the seat designated, resolved to snatch a glimpse of the interior\nthe instant the servant had disappeared.\n\nVery softly Elsie closed and securely latched the door on the inside,\nknowing that at that moment her mistress was sitting in the oriel\nwindow of the front parlor.\n\nIn vain the visitor tried and twisted the bolt, and, completely\nbaffled, tears of chagrin moistened her eyes. She had scarcely time to\nregain her seat, when Elsie reappeared, bearing on a handsome salver a\nwine-glass, silver goblet, and an elegant basket filled with cake.\n\n\"Mrs. Gerome presents her compliments, and sends you this fifty dollar\nbill for whatever society you represent.\"\n\nToo thoroughly discomfited to conceal her pique and indignation, Mrs.\nSpiewell snatched letters and donation, and, without lingering an\ninstant, swept haughtily down the steps, \"shaking off the dust of her\nfeet\" against \"Solitude\" and its incorrigible owner.\n\nAn innocent impertinence once coldly frustrated soon takes unto itself\na sting and branding-irons, and thus, what was originally merely idle\ncuriosity, becomes bitter malice; and henceforth the worthy minister's\ngossiping wife lost no opportunity of inveighing against the\nsuperciliousness of the stranger, and of insinuating that some very\nextraordinary circumstances led her \"to\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}
{"id": "pg19_009", "title": "The End of a Coil by Susan Warner", "source_url": "http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27618", "tokens": 65536, "chars": 265374, "messages": [{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant. You will be given a passage from a book. Read it carefully, then summarize it in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Context:\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nDOLLY'S ARRIVAL.\n\nThe door stands open of a handsome house in Walnut Street--the Walnut\nStreet which belongs to the city of William Penn; and on the threshold\nstands a lady, with her hand up to her brows, shielding her eyes from\nthe light. She is watching to see what will come out of a carriage just\ndriving up to the curbstone. The carriage stops; there descends first\nthe figure of a handsome, very comfortable-looking gentleman. Mrs.\nEberstein's eyes pass over him very cursorily; she has seen him before;\nand there is hardly a curl on his handsome head which his wife does not\nknow by heart. What comes next? Ah, that is she!--the figure of the\nexpected one; and a little girl of some eleven years is helped\ncarefully out by Mr. Eberstein, and comes up the steps to the waiting\nand watching lady. A delicate little thing, delicate in frame and\nfeature alike, with a fair, childish face, framed in by loose light\nbrown curls, and a pair of those clear, grave, wise, light hazel eyes\nwhich have the power of looking so young and so spiritually old at\nonce. Those eyes are the first thing that Mrs. Eberstein sees, and they\nfascinate her already. Meanwhile kind arms are opened wide, and take\nthe little one in.\n\n\"Come at last, darling! And do you remember your Aunt Hal? and are you\nhalf as glad to see her as she is to see you?\" So Mrs. Eberstein gives\nher greeting, while she is drawing the child through the hall and into\nthe parlour; gives it between kisses.\n\n\"Why, no,\" said her husband, who had followed. \"Be reasonable, Harry.\nShe cannot be so glad to see you as we are to see her. She has just\ncome from a long stage-coach journey; and she is tired, and she is\nhungry; and she has left a world she knows, and has come to a world she\ndoesn't know; hey, Dolly? isn't it true? Tell your Aunt Hal to stop\nasking questions, and give you something to eat.\"\n\n\"I have come to a world I don't know,\" repeated the little girl by way\nof answer, turning her serious small face to her questioner, while Mrs.\nEberstein was busily taking off coat and hat and mufflers.\n\n\"Yes, that's what I say!\" returned Mr. Eberstein. \"How do you like the\nlook of it, hey?\"\n\n\"I wonder who is asking questions now!\" said Mrs. Eberstein. \"There,\ndarling! now you are at home.\"\n\nShe finished with another kiss; but, nevertheless, I think the feeling\nthat it was a strange world she had come to, was rather prominent in\nDolly. She suddenly stooped to a great Maltese cat that was lying on\nthe hearthrug, and I am afraid the eyes were glad of an excuse to get\nout of sight. She touched the cat's fur tenderly and somewhat\ndiligently.\n\n\"She won't hurt you,\" said her aunt. \"That is Mr. Eberstein's pet. Her\nname is Queen Mab.\"\n\n\"She don't look much like a fairy,\" was Dolly's comment. Indeed, Queen\nMab would outweigh most of her race, and was a magnificent specimen of\ngood feeding.\n\n\"You do,\" thought Mrs. Eberstein. Aloud she asked: \"What do you know\nabout fairies?\"\n\n\"Oh, I know they are only stories. I have read about them.\"\n\n\"Fairy tales, eh?\"\n\n\"No, not much fairy tales,\" said Dolly, now rising up from the cat. \"I\nhave read about them in 'Midsummer Night's Dream.'\"\n\n\"'Midsummer Night's Dream,' you <DW40>!\" exclaimed Mrs. Eberstein.\n\"Have you read that? And everything else you could lay hands on?\"\n\nShe took the child in her arms again as she spoke. Dolly gave a quiet\nassent.\n\n\"And they let you do just what you like at home? and read just what you\nlike?\"\n\nDolly smiled slightly at the obviousness of the course of action\nreferred to; but the next minute the smile was quenched in a mist of\ntears, and she hid her head on Mrs. Eberstein's shoulder. Kisses and\ncaresses of course followed, not successfully. At last Mr. Eberstein's\nrepeated suggestion that food, in the circumstances, would be very much\nin place, was acted upon. Supper was served in the next room, which did\nduty for a dining-room; and the little family gathered round a\nbountifully spread table. There were only those three; and, naturally,\nthe attention of the two elder was very much concentrated upon the\nthird new member of the party; although Mr. Eberstein was hungry and\nproved it. The more Mrs. Eberstein studied her new acquisition,\nhowever, the more incitement to study she found. .\n\nDolly was not like most children; one could see that immediately. Faces\nas pretty, and more pretty, could easily be found; the charm was not in\nmere flesh and blood, form or colour. Other children's faces are often\ninnocent too, and free from the shadow of life's burdens, as this was.\nNevertheless, it is not often, it is very rarely, that one sees the\nmingling of childish simplicity with that thoughtful, wise, spiritual\nlook into life, which met one in Dolly's serious hazel orbs; not often\nthat sweetness and character speak so early in the lines of the lips;\nutterly childish in their soft, free mobility, and yet revealing\ncontinually a trait of thoughtfulness or of strength, along with the\nhappy play of an unqualified tender disposition. \"You are lovely! you\nare lovely!\" was Mrs. Eberstein's inner cry; and she had to guard\nherself that the thought did not come to too open expression. There was\na delicate air of refinement also about the child, quite in keeping\nwith all the rest of her; a neat and noiseless handling of knife and\nfork, cup and saucer; and while Dolly was evidently hungry as well as\nher uncle, she took what was given to her in a thoroughly high-bred\nway; that is, she made neither too much nor too little of it.\n\nDoubtless all the while she was using her power of observation, as Mrs.\nEberstein was using hers, though the fact was not obtruded; for Dolly\nhad heart wants quite as urgent as body wants. What she saw was\nreassuring. With Mr. Eberstein she had already been several hours in\ncompany, having travelled with him from New York. She was convinced of\nhis genial kindness and steadfast honesty; all the lines of his\nhandsome face, and every movement of his somewhat ease-loving person,\nwere in harmony with that impression. Mrs. Eberstein was a fit mate for\nher husband. If Dolly had watched her a little anxiously at first, on\naccount of her livelier manner, she soon made out to her satisfaction\nthat nothing but kindness, large and bounteous, lodged behind her\naunt's face, and gave its character to her aunt's manner. She knew\nthose lively eyes were studying her; she knew just as well that nothing\nbut good would come of the study.\n\nThe meal over, Mrs. Eberstein took her niece upstairs to make her\nacquainted with her new quarters. It was a little room off the hall\nwhich had been destined for Dolly, opening out of her aunt's own; and\nit had been fitted up with careful affection. A small bedstead and\ndressing-table of walnut wood, a little chest of drawers, a little\nwardrobe; it was a wonder how so much could have been got in, but there\nwas room for all. And then there were red curtains and carpet, and on\nthe white spread a dainty little eider-down silk quilt; and on the\ndressing-table and chest of drawers pretty toilet napkins and\npincushion. It was a cosy little apartment as ever eleven years old\nneed delight in. Dolly forthwith hung up her hat and coat in the\nwardrobe; took brush and comb out of her travelling bag, and with\nsomewhat elaborate care made her hair smooth; as smooth, that is, as a\nloose confusion of curly locks allowed; then signified that she was\nready to go downstairs again. If Mrs. Eberstein had expected some\nremark upon her work, she was disappointed.\n\nIn the drawing-room, she drew the child to sit down upon her knee.\n\n\"Well, Dolly, what do you think you are going to do in Philadelphia?\"\n\n\"Go to school--they say.\"\n\n\"Who says so?\"\n\n\"Father says so, and mother.\"\n\n\"What do you think they want you to go to school for?\"\n\n\"I suppose that I may become like other people.\"\n\nMr. Eberstein burst out into a laugh. His wife's eyes went over to him\nadjuringly.\n\n\"Are you not like other people now, Dolly?\"\n\nThe child's sweet, thoughtful brown eyes were lifted to hers frankly,\nas she answered, \"I don't know, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Then why do you say that? or why do they say it?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Dolly again. \"I think they think so.\"\n\n\"I daresay they do,\" said Mrs. Eberstein; \"but if you were mine, I\nwould rather have you unlike other people.\"\n\n\"Why, Aunt Harry?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Eberstein; \"now you'll have to go on and tell.\" And\nDolly's eyes indeed looked expectant.\n\n\"I think I like you best just as you are.\"\n\nDolly's face curled all up into a smile at this; brow and eyes and\ncheeks and lips all spoke her sense of amusement; and stooping forward\na little at the same time, she laid a loving kiss upon her aunt's\nmouth, who was unspeakably delighted with this expression of\nconfidence. But then she repeated gravely--\n\n\"I think they want me changed.\"\n\n\"And pray, what are you going to do, with that purpose in view?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I am going to study, and learn things; a great many\nthings.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you are particularly ignorant for eleven years old.\"\n\n\"Oh, I do not know anything!\"\n\n\"Can you write a nice hand?\"\n\nDolly's face wrinkled up again with a sense of the comical. She gave an\nunhesitating affirmative answer.\n\n\"And you have read Shakespeare. What else, Dolly?\"\n\n\"Plutarch.\"\n\n\"'Plutarch's Lives'?\" said Mrs. Eberstein, while her husband again\nlaughed out aloud. \"Hush, Edward. Is it 'Plutarch's Lives,' my dear,\nthat you mean? Caesar, and Alexander, and Pompey?\"\n\nDolly nodded. \"And all the rest of them. I like them very much.\"\n\n\"But what is your favourite book?\"\n\n\"That!\" said Dolly.\n\n\"I have got a whole little bookcase upstairs full of the books I used\nto read when I was a little girl. We will look into it to-morrow, and\nsee what we can find. 'Plutarch's Lives' is not there.\"\n\n\"Oh, I do not want that,\" said Dolly, her eyes brightening. \"I have\nread it so much, I know it all.\"\n\n\"Come here,\" said Mr. Eberstein; \"your aunt has had you long enough;\ncome here, Dolly, and talk to me. Tell me which of those old fellows\nyou think was the best fellow?\"\n\n\"Of 'Plutarch's Lives'?\" said Dolly, accepting a position upon Mr.\nEberstein's knee now.\n\n\"Yes; the men that 'Plutarch's Lives' tell about. Whom do you like\nbest?\"\n\nDolly pondered, and then averred that she liked one for one thing and\nanother for another. There ensued a lively discussion between her and\nMr. Eberstein, in the course of which Dolly certainly brought to view\nsome power of discrimination and an unbiassed original judgment; at the\nsame time her manner retained the delicate quiet which characterised\nall that belonged to her. She held her own over against Mr. Eberstein,\nbut she held it with an exquisite poise of ladylike good breeding; and\nMr. Eberstein was charmed with her. The talk lasted until it was broken\nup by Mrs. Eberstein, who declared Dolly must go to rest.\n\nShe went up herself with the child, and attended to her little\narrangements; helped her undress; and when Dolly was fairly in bed,\nstood still looking at the bright little head on the pillow, thinking\nthat the brown eyes were very wide open for the circumstances.\n\n\"Are you very tired, darling?\" she asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Dolly. \"I guess not very.\"\n\n\"Sleepy?\"\n\n\"No, I am not sleepy yet. I am wide awake.\"\n\n\"Do you ever lie awake, after you have gone to bed?\"\n\n\"Not often. Sometimes.\"\n\n\"What makes you do it?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I get thinking sometimes.\"\n\n\"About what can such a <DW40> as you get thinking?\"\n\nDolly's face wrinkled up a little in amusement at this question. \"I see\na great many things to think about,\" she answered.\n\n\"It's too soon for you to begin that,\" said Mrs. Eberstein, shaking her\nhead. Then she dropped down on her knees by the bedside, so as to bring\nher face nearer the child's.\n\n\"Dolly, have you said your prayers?\" she asked softly.\n\nThe brown eyes seemed to lift their lids a little wider at that. \"What\ndo you mean, Aunt Harry?\" she replied.\n\n\"Do you never pray to the Lord Jesus before you go to sleep?\"\n\n\"I don't do it ever. I don't know anything about it.\"\n\nThe thrill that went over Mrs. Eberstein at this happily the little one\ndid not know. She went on very quietly in manner.\n\n\"Don't you know what prayer is?\"\n\n\"It is what people do in church, isn't it?\"\n\n\"What is it that people do in church?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" said Dolly. \"I never thought about it.\"\n\n\"It is what you do whenever you ask your father or mother for anything.\nOnly that is prayer to your father or mother. This I mean is prayer to\nGod.\"\n\n\"We don't call it prayer, asking them anything,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"No, we do not call it so. But it is really the same thing. We call it\nprayer, when we speak to God.\"\n\n\"Why should I speak to God, Aunt Harry? I don't know how.\"\n\n\"Why He is our Father in heaven, Dolly. Wouldn't it be a strange thing\nif children never spoke to their father?\"\n\n\"But they can't, if they don't know him,\" said Dolly.\n\nHere followed a strange thing, which no doubt had mighty after-effects.\nMrs. Eberstein, who was already pretty well excited over the\nconversation, at these words broke down, burst into tears, and hid her\nface in the bedclothes. Dolly looked on in wondering awe, and an\ninstant apprehension that the question here was about something real.\nPresently she put out her hand and touched caressingly Mrs. Eberstein's\nhair, moved both by pity and curiosity to put an end to the tears and\nhave the talk begin again. Mrs. Eberstein lifted her face, seized the\nlittle hand and kissed it.\n\n\"You see, darling,\" she said, \"I want you to be God's own child.\"\n\n\"How can I?\"\n\n\"If you will trust Jesus and obey Him. All who belong to Him are God's\ndear children; and He loves them, and the Lord Jesus loves them, and He\ntakes care of them and teaches them, and makes them fit to be with Him\nand serve Him in glory by and by.\"\n\n\"But I don't know about Jesus,\" said Dolly again.\n\n\"Haven't you got a Bible?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Never read it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Never went to Sunday School?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Little Dolly, I am very glad you came to Philadelphia.\"\n\n\"Why, Aunt Harry?\"\n\n\"Because I love you so much!\" exclaimed Mrs. Eberstein, kissing the\nchild's sweet mouth. \"Why, Dolly, Jesus is the best, best friend we\nhave got; nobody loves us so much in the whole world; He gave his life\nfor us. And, then, He is the King of glory. He is everything that is\nloving, and true, and great, and good; 'the chiefest among ten\nthousand.'\"\n\n\"What did He give His life for?\" said Dolly, whose eyes were growing\nmore and more intent.\n\n\"To save our lives, dear.\"\n\n\"From what?\"\n\n\"Why, Dolly, you and I, and everybody, have broken God's beautiful law.\nThe punishment for that is death; not merely the death of the body, but\neverlasting separation from God and His love and His favour; that is\ndeath; living death. To save us from that, Jesus died Himself; He paid\nour debt; He died instead of us.\"\n\n\"Then is He dead?\" said Dolly awefully.\n\n\"He was dead; but He rose again, and now He lives, King over all. He\nwas God as well as man, so the grave could not hold Him. But He paid\nour debt, darling.\"\n\n\"You said, death was everlasting separation from God and good,\" said\nDolly very solemnly.\n\n\"For us, it would have been.\"\n\n\"But He did not die that way?\"\n\n\"He could not, for He is the glorious Son of God. He only tasted death\nfor us; that we might not drink the bitter cup to eternity.\"\n\n\"Aunt Harry,\" said Dolly, \"is all that true?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"When did He do that?\"\n\n\"It is almost nineteen hundred years ago. And since then, if any one\ntrusts His word and is willing to be His servant, Jesus loves him, and\nkeeps him, and saves him, and makes him blessed for ever.\"\n\n\"But why did He do that? what made Him?\"\n\n\"His great love for us.\"\n\n\"Us?\" Dolly repeated.\n\n\"Yes. You and me, and everybody. He just came to save that which was\nlost.\"\n\n\"I don't see how He can love me,\" said Dolly slowly. \"Why, I am a\nstranger to Him, Aunt Harry.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are no stranger! Oh yes, Dolly, He loves you dearly; and He\nknows all about you.\"\n\nDolly considered the matter a little, and also considered her aunt,\nwhose lips were quivering and whose eyes were dropping tears. With a\nvery serious face Dolly considered the matter: and came to a conclusion\nwith promptitude unusual in this one subject of all the world. She half\nrose up in her bed.\n\n\"Then I love Him,\" she said. \"I will love Him, too, Aunt Harry.\"\n\n\"Will you, my darling?\"\n\n\"But I do not know how to be His servant.\"\n\n\"Jesus will teach you Himself, if you ask Him.\"\n\n\"How will He teach me?\"\n\n\"He will make you understand His word, and let you know what pleases\nHim. He says, 'If ye love me, keep My commandments.'\"\n\n\"His commandments are in the Bible, aren't they?\"\n\n\"Certainly. You say you have not got a Bible?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then we will see about that to-morrow, the first thing we do. You\nshall have a Bible, and that will tell you about His commandments.\"\n\n\"Aunt Harry, I would like Him to know to-night that I love Him.\"\n\n\"Then tell Him so, dear.\"\n\n\"Can I?\"\n\n\"To be sure you can. Why not?\"\n\n\"I do not know how.\"\n\n\"Tell Him, Dolly, just as if the Lord Jesus were here present and you\ncould see Him. He is here, only you do not see Him; that is all the\ndifference Tell Him, Dolly, just as you would tell me; only remember\nthat you are speaking to the King. He would like to hear you say that.\"\n\n\"I ought to kneel down when I speak to Him, oughtn't I? People do in\nchurch.\"\n\n\"It is proper, when we can, to take a position of respect when we speak\nto the King; don't you think so?\"\n\nDolly shuffled herself up upon her knees in the bed, not regarding much\nthat Mrs. Eberstein threw a shawl round her shoulders; and waited a\nminute or two, looking intensely serious and considering. Then laying\nher hands involuntarily together, but with her eyes open, she spoke.\n\n\"O Lord Jesus,--Aunt Harry says you are here though I cannot see you.\nIf you are here, you can see, and you know that I love you; and I will\nbe your servant. I never knew about you before, or I would have done it\nbefore. Now I do. Please to teach me, for I do not know anything, that\nI may do everything that pleases you. I will not do anything that don't\nplease you. Amen.\"\n\nDolly waited a moment, then turned and put her arms round her aunt's\nneck and kissed her. \"Thank you!\"--she said earnestly; and then lay\ndown and arranged herself to sleep.\n\nMrs. Eberstein went downstairs and astonished her husband by a burst of\nhysterical weeping. He made anxious enquiries; and at last received an\naccount of the last half-hour.\n\n\"But, oh, Edward, what do you think?\" she concluded. \"Did you ever hear\nanything like that in your life? Do you think it can be genuine?\"\n\n\"Genuine what?\" demanded her husband.\n\n\"Why, I mean, can it be true religious conversion? This child knows\nnext to nothing; just that Jesus died out of love to her, to save\nher,--nothing more.\"\n\n\"And she has given her love back. Very logical and reasonable; and\nought not to be so uncommon.\"\n\n\"But it is uncommon, Edward. At least, people generally make a longer\nbusiness of it.\"\n\n\"In which they do not show their wisdom.\"\n\n\"No; but they do it. Edward, can it be that this child is so suddenly a\nChristian? Will it stand?\"\n\n\"Only time can show that. But Harry, all the cases,--almost all the\ncases reported in the New Testament are cases of sudden yielding. Just\nlook at it. John and Andrew took but a couple of hours or so to make up\ntheir minds. Nathanael did not apparently take more than two minutes\nafter he saw Christ. Lydia became a Christian at her first hearing the\ngood news; the eunuch made up his mind as quick. Why should not little\nDolly? The trouble is caused only by people's obstinate resistance.\"\n\n\"Then you think it may be true work?\"\n\n\"Of course I think so. This child is not an ordinary child, there is\nthat to be said.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mrs. Eberstein thoughtfully. \"Is she not peculiar? She is\nsuch a child; and yet there is such a wise, deep look in her brown\neyes. What pretty eyes they are! There is the oddest mixture of old and\nyoung in her I ever saw. She is going to be lovely, Edward!\"\n\n\"I think she is lovely now.\"\n\n\"Oh yes! but I mean, when she grows up. She will be very lovely, with\nthose spiritual eyes and that loose curly brown hair; if only she can\nbe kept as she is now.\"\n\n\"My dear, she cannot be that!\"\n\n\"Oh, you know what I mean, Edward. If she can be kept unspoiled;\nuntainted; unsophisticated; with that sort of mixture of wisdom and\nsimplicity which she has now. I wish we need not send her to school.\"\n\n\"We have no choice about that. And the Lord can keep His own. Let us\nask Him.\"\n\nThey knelt and did so; with some warm tears on Mrs. Eberstein's part,\nand great and warm earnestness in them both.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nCHRISTINA AND HER MOTHER.\n\nMrs. Eberstein watched during the next few days, to see, if she could,\nwhether the sudden resolve taking on Dolly's part that first evening\n\"meant anything,\" as she expressed it, or not. She remained in doubt.\nDolly was thoughtful certainly, and sweet certainly; \"but that don't\ntell,\" Mrs. Eberstein remarked; \"it is her characteristic.\" It was\nequally certain that she had attached herself with a trustful, clinging\naffection to the new friends whose house and hearts had received her.\nDolly's confidence was given to them fully and heartily from that very\nfirst day; and they saw that it was.\n\nNearly a week passed before the school-term began. Meanwhile Dolly was\ntaken about, in walks and drives, to see all that her friends thought\nwould interest her. Everything interested her, they found; and upon\nevery subject presented to her, her little head went to work; the\nresult of which was the putting of a question now and then, which\nafforded her guardians, perhaps, as much entertainment as the ground of\nthe question had given Dolly. These questions, however, were called\nforth most of all by the subject which had seized hold of Dolly's mind\nwith such force that first evening. Mrs. Eberstein had not forgotten\nher promise about the Bible. One of the first expeditions undertaken\nthe next day had been in search of one; successful, in the judgment of\nboth Dolly and her aunt; and since then the book was very often to be\nseen in Dolly's hands.\n\n\"What are you reading there, Dolly?\" Mr. Eberstein asked, corning in\none evening just before dinner. Dolly was on a low seat at the corner\nof the fireplace, reading by the shine of a fire of Liverpool coal,\nwhich threw warm lights all over the little figure. She looked up and\nsaid it was her Bible she was studying.\n\n\"You will put out your eyes.\"\n\n\"Oh no, Uncle Edward; the print is so good, and the fire makes such a\nnice blaze, I can see perfectly.\"\n\n\"And pray, what are you looking for, or what are you finding, in that\nbook, little one?\"\n\n\"I am looking for a great deal,--and I am finding a little,\" was\nDolly's reply.\n\n\"Different with me,\" said Mr. Eberstein with a short laugh. \"I\ngenerally find more in the Bible than I look for.\"\n\n\"What do you look for in it?\" said Dolly, raising her head which had\ngone down to the reading.\n\nMr. Eberstein laughed again.\n\n\"Truly, Dolly,\" he said, \"you have hit me there! I believe I often open\nthe Bible without looking for anything in particular.\"\n\n\"Perhaps that makes the difference,\" said Dolly, letting her eyes fall\nagain to her page.\n\n\"Perhaps it does; but, Dolly, I should very much like to know what you\nare looking for?\"\n\n\"I am looking to find out the will of God, Uncle Edward.\"\n\n\"Come here, my pet,\" said Mr. Eberstein, coaxing the little girl into\nhis arms and setting her on his knee. \"What do you want to find out the\nwill of God for? what about?\"\n\n\"About me.\"\n\n\"What do you want to know the will of God about you for?\"\n\n\"I want to do it, Uncle Edward.\"\n\n\"There couldn't be a better reason. Jesus says, 'He that hath My\ncommandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me.' Do you find\nwhat you seek?\"\n\n\"I find some,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Where were you reading just now?\"\n\n\"About Abraham.\"\n\n\"Abraham! What do you find in Abraham's life, may I ask, that tells you\nthe will of God about Dolly Copley? You are not called upon to leave\nyour country and go out into a strange land.\"\n\n\"No; not that. But God said to Abraham, 'Walk before Me, and be thou\nperfect.' And it puzzles me.\"\n\n\"What puzzles you?\"\n\n\"I don't see how I can 'walk before Him.'\"\n\n\"Dolly,--the Lord is here, here where we are, wherever we are.\"\n\n\"Yes. I know that.\"\n\n\"Then, if you know that and remember it, and do everything you do in\nHis presence, and feeling that it is in His presence, you will be\nwalking before Him; don't you see? Just as if Jesus were here again\nupon earth, and you were always with Him; only you do not see Him now.\nHe sees you.\"\n\n\"And 'be perfect'?\" said Dolly questioningly.\n\n\"Yes. That means, I think, don't try to serve two masters. If you love\nGod with all your heart, and give Him your whole life and service,--not\na part of it,--that is what the word to Abraham means, I think. A\nservant of God is a perfect servant, if he does all the will of God\nthat he knows, and as fast as he knows it. But you cannot do that of\nyourself, little Dolly.\"\n\n\"Why cannot I, if I want to?\"\n\n\"Why, because there come temptations, and there come difficulties; and\nyou will want to do something you like, and not what God likes; and you\nwill do it too, unless the Lord Jesus keeps fast hold of you and saves\nyou from making such a mistake. Only He can.\"\n\n\"Can He?\"\n\n\"Certainly He can.\"\n\n\"Will He?\"\n\n\"If you want Him to do it, and trust Him to do it, He will. He will\njust do all that you trust Him to do.\"\n\nDolly pondered. \"Will He do that because He loves me?\" she asked.\n\n\"Just for that reason, Dolly.\"\n\n\"Then He will do it,\" said Dolly confidently; \"for I will trust Him.\nWon't you show me where he says that, Uncle Edward?\"\n\nMr. Eberstein told Dolly to find Matt. xxi. 21. Dolly read eagerly--\n\n\"Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have\nfaith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the\nfig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed,\nand be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things\nwhatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.\"\n\nDolly read to herself, then looked up, eager and confident, for the\nnext reference.\n\n\"Turn to John xv. 7.\"\n\nAgain Dolly found and read, in silence--\n\n\"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye\nwill, and it shall be done unto you.\"\n\n\"What next, Uncle Edward?\"\n\n\"Isn't that promise enough?\"\n\n\"Yes; but I thought you had more.\"\n\n\"There is a great deal more. Look out Thessalonians v. 23, 24.\"\n\nDolly read, slowly, aloud now--\n\n\"'And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your\nwhole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming\nof our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you, who also\nwill do it.' That is beautiful, Uncle Edward!\"\n\n\"Do you want another? Find Jude, and read the 24th and 25th verses.\"\n\nWith some trouble Dolly found it.\n\n\"'Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present\nyou faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to\nthe only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and\npower, both now and ever. Amen.'\"\n\nDolly slipped off Mr. Eberstein's knee and retook her old place by the\nfire; where she sat turning from one passage to another of those she\nhad been reading. Mr. Eberstein watched her, how the ribbon markers of\nthe Bible were carefully laid in two of the places, and a couple of\nneat slips of paper prepared for the others.\n\n\"What have you been doing to-day, Dolly?\" he asked at length.\n\n\"We went to see the water works.\"\n\n\"Oh, you did! And what did you think of the water works?\"\n\n\"We went up to the top and walked about. Do the people in Philadelphia\nwant so much water as all that?\"\n\n\"They want a great deal more. The Fairmount works give only enough for\npart of the city.\"\n\n\"That is taking a great deal of trouble to get water.\"\n\n\"It would be worse trouble to do without it.\"\n\n\"But why don't people all live in the country, as we do at home? then\nthey would have water for nothing.\"\n\n\"Humph! That would answer, Dolly, if people were contented with water;\nthey all want wine. I mean, my child, that most people are not\nsatisfied with simple doings; and for anything more they must have\nmoney; and they can make money faster in cities. Therefore they build\ncities.\"\n\n\"Is _that_ what they build cities for?\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Largely. Not altogether. A great many things can be better done where\npeople are congregated together; it is for the convenience of trade and\nbusiness, in many kinds and in many ways. What have you been doing\nsince you came home from the water works?\"\n\n\"O Uncle Edward!\" said Dolly, suddenly rising now and coming to him,\n\"Aunt Harry has opened for me her old bookcase!\"\n\n\"What old bookcase? I didn't know she had an old bookcase.\"\n\n\"Oh yes; the one where she keeps the books she had when she was as old\nas I am.\"\n\n\"And as young, eh? Well, what is in that bookcase? is it a great find?\"\n\n\"O Uncle Edward, there is a great deal in it! It is wonderful. Books I\nnever saw, and they look so interesting!\"\n\n\"What, for instance? Something to rival Plutarch's Lives?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Dolly; \"you know I have not read them yet. There\nis 'Sandford and Merton;' I was reading in that, and I like it very\nmuch; and the 'Looking Glass' is another; and 'Rosamond' I am sure is\ninteresting. Oh there is a whole load of them.\"\n\n\n\"Well I am glad of it,\" said Mr. Eberstein. \"That is the right sort of\nstuff for your busy little brain; will not weigh too heavy. Now I\nsuppose you will be reading all the time you are in the house.\"\n\n\"Aunt Harry has begun to teach me to knit.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said Mr. Eberstein. \"I believe in knitting too. That's\nsafe.\"\n\nThey went to dinner, and after dinner there was a further knitting\nlesson, in which Dolly seemed absorbed; nevertheless, before the\nevening was over she brought up a very different subject again.\n\n\"Aunt Harry,\" she began, in the midst of an arduous effort to get the\nloops of wool on her needles in the right relative condition,--\"does\nmother know about the Bible?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mrs. Eberstein, with a glance at her husband, \"she knows\nabout it, something.\"\n\n\"Then why did she never tell me anything about it?\"\n\nMrs. Eberstein hesitated.\n\n\"I suppose, Dolly, her thoughts were fuller of other things.\"\n\n\"But how _could_ they be?\" said the little one, laying her hands with\ntheir knitting work in her lap, and looking up.\n\nHer aunt did not answer.\n\n\"How could her thoughts be fuller of other things, if she knows the\nBible?\" Dolly urged.\n\n\"I don't think she really knows much of what is in the Bible,\" Mrs.\nEberstein said. \"She has never read it much.\"\n\n\"I don't think she knows about Jesus,\" Dolly went on gravely; \"for she\nnever told me; and she would if she had known, I think. Aunt Harriet, I\nthink _I_ ought to tell _her_ now.\"\n\n\"What would you tell her, my darling?\"\n\n\"Oh, I will tell her that I know Him and love Him; and I will tell her\nI have got a Bible, and some of the things I have found in it. I will\nask her to get one too, and read it. I don't believe she knows.\"\n\n\"The reason why a great many people do not know, Dolly, is, as your\nAunt Harry says, that they are so much taken up with other things.\"\n\n\"Then I think one ought to take care not to be too much taken up with\nother things,\" said Dolly very seriously.\n\n\"But you have got to be taken up with other things,\" Mr. Eberstein went\non. \"Here you are going to school in a few days; then your head will be\nfull of English and French, and your hands full of piano keys and harp\nstrings, from morning till night. How are you going to do?\"\n\nDolly looked at the speaker, came and placed herself on his knee again,\nand laid a hand on his shoulder; eyeing him steadily.\n\n\"Ought I not to go to school?\"\n\n\"Must!--else you cannot be the right sort of a woman, and do the right\nsort of work.\"\n\n\"How then, Uncle Edward? what shall I do?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you one thing, Dolly. Don't study and practise to get ahead\nof somebody else; but to please the King!\"\n\n\"The King--that is Jesus?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\nDolly nodded, in full agreement with the rule of action as thus stated;\npresently brought forward another idea.\n\n\"Will He care? Would it please Him to have me play on the piano, or\nlearn French and arithmetic?\"\n\n\"Dolly, the more you know, and the better you know it, the better\nservant you can be; you will have the more to use for Jesus.\"\n\n\"Can I use such things for Him? How?\"\n\n\"Many ways. He will show you how. Do you think an ignorant woman could\ndo as much in the world as an elegant, well-informed, accomplished\nwoman?\"\n\nDolly thought over this question, nodded as one who had come to an\nunderstanding of it, and went back to her knitting.\n\n\"What ever will become of that child,\" said Mrs. Eberstein an hour or\ntwo later, when she and her husband were alone. \"I am full of anxiety\nabout her.\"\n\n\"Then you are taking upon you the part of Providence.\"\n\n\"No, but, Edward, Dolly will have a history.\"\n\n\"So have we all,\" Mr. Eberstein responded very unresponsively.\n\n\"But she will not have a common history. Do you see how open she is to\nreceive impressions, and how fast they stay once they are made?\"\n\n\"I see the first quality. I never saw a creature quicker to take\nimpressions or to welcome affections. Whether they will prove as\nlasting as they are sudden,--that we have no means of knowing at\npresent.\"\n\n\"I think they will.\"\n\n\"That's a woman's conclusion, founded on her wishes.\"\n\n\"It is a man's conclusion too; for you think the same thing, Edward.\"\n\n\"Don't prove anything, Harry.\"\n\n\"Yes, it does. When two people come to the same independent view of\nsomething, it is fair to suppose there are grounds for it.\"\n\n\"I hope so. Time will show.\"\n\n\"But, Edward, with this extremely sensitive and affectionate nature,\nhow important it is that Dolly should have only the right surroundings,\nand see only the right sort of people.\"\n\n\"Just so. And so she is going out into the world of a large school;\nwhere she will meet all sorts of people and be subjected to all sorts\nof influences; and you cannot shield her.\"\n\n\"I wish I could keep her at home, and have her taught here! I wish I\ncould!\"\n\n\"Playing Providence again. We all like to do it.\"\n\n\"No, but, Edward, just look at her,\" said Mrs. Eberstein with her eyes\nfull of tears.\n\n\"I do,\" said Mr. Eberstein. \"I've got eyes. But you will have to trust\nher, Harry.\"\n\n\"Now she will go, I have no doubt, and write that letter to her mother.\nI wonder if Sally will get scared, and take her away from us?\"\n\n\"Why, Hal,\" said her husband, \"your self-will is getting up very strong\nto-night! What if? Dolly's future does not depend upon us; though we\nwill do what we can for it.\"\n\nWhat they did then, was to pray about it again; for these people\nbelieved in prayer.\n\nThe next day Mrs. Eberstein had invited an acquaintance to come to\ndinner. This acquaintance had a daughter, also about to enter Mrs.\nDelancy's school; and Mrs. Eberstein's object was to let the two girls\nbecome a little known to each other, so that Dolly in the new world she\nwas about to enter might not feel everything utterly strange. Mrs.\nThayer belonged to a good New York family; and it likewise suited her\npurposes to have her daughter received in so unexceptionable a house as\nMrs. Eberstein's, albeit the young lady was not without other\nPhiladelphia friends. So the party fitted together very harmoniously.\nMrs. Thayer, in spite of her good connections, was no more than a\ncommonplace personage. Christina, her daughter, on the other hand,\nshowed tokens of becoming a great beauty. A little older than Dolly, of\nlarger build and more flesh and blood development generally, and with\none of those peach-blossom complexions which for fairness and delicacy\nalmost rival the flower. Her hair was pretty, her features also pretty,\nher expression placid. Mrs. Eberstein was much struck.\n\n\"They are just about of an age,\" remarked Mrs. Thayer. \"I suppose they\nwill study the same things. Everybody studies the same things. Well, I\nhope you'll be friends and not rivals, my dears.\"\n\n\"Dolly will not be rivals with anybody,\" returned Dolly's aunt.\n\n\"She don't look very strong. I should think it would not do for her to\nstudy too hard,\" said the other lady. \"Oh, rivalry is necessary, you\nknow, to bring out the spirit of boys and girls and make them work. It\nmay be friendly rivalry; but if they were not rivals they would not be\nanything; might as well not be school girls, or school boys. They would\nnot do any work but what they liked, and we know what that would amount\nto. I don't know about beating learning into boys; some people say that\nis the way; but with girls you can't take that way; and all you have to\nfall back upon is emulation.\"\n\n\"Very few young people will study for the love of it,\" Mrs. Eberstein\nso far assented.\n\n\"They might, I believe, if the right way was taken,\" Mr. Eberstein\nremarked.\n\n\"Emulation will do it, if a girl has any spirit,\" said Mrs. Thayer.\n\n\"What sort of spirit?\"\n\n\"What sort of spirit! Why, the spirit not to let themselves be outdone;\nto stand as high as anybody, and higher; be No. 1, and carry off the\nfirst honours. A spirited girl don't like to be No. 2. Christina will\nnever be No. 2.\"\n\n\"Is it quite certain that such a spirit is the one to be cultivated?\"\n\n\"It makes them study,\"--said Mrs. Thayer, looking at her questioner to\nsee what he meant.\n\n\"What do you think the Bible means, when it tells us not to seek for\nhonour?\"\n\n\"_Not_ to seek for honour?\" repeated the lady.\n\n\"Not the honour that comes from man.\"\n\n\"I didn't know it forbade it. I never heard that it was forbidden. Why,\nMr. Eberstein, it is _natural_ to wish for honour. Everybody wishes for\nit.\"\n\n\"So they do,\" Mr. Eberstein assented. \"I might say, so _we_ do.\"\n\n\"It is natural,\" repeated the lady.\n\n\"Its being natural does not prove it to be right.\"\n\n\"Why, Mr. Eberstein, if it is _natural_, we cannot help it.\"\n\n\"How then does trying to be No. 1 agree with the love that 'seeketh not\nher own'?\"\n\nDolly was listening earnestly, Mr. Eberstein saw. Mrs. Thayer\nhesitated, in some inward disgust.\n\n\"Do you take that literally?\" she said then. \"How can you take it\nliterally? You cannot.\"\n\n\"But Christ pleased not Himself.\"\n\n\"Well, but He was not like us.\"\n\n\"We are bidden to be like him, though.\"\n\n\"Oh, as far as we can. But you cannot press those words literally, Mr.\nEberstein.\"\n\n\"As far as we can? I _must_ press them, for the Bible does. I ask no\nmore, and the Lord demands no more, than that we be like our Master _as\nfar as we can_. And He 'pleased not himself,' and 'received not honour\nfrom men.'\"\n\n\"If you were to preach such doctrine in schools, I am afraid you would\nhave very bad recitations.\"\n\n\"Well!\" said Mr. Eberstein. \"Better bad recitations than bad hearts.\nThough really there is no necessary connection between my premises and\nyour conclusion. The Bible reckons 'emulations,' Mrs. Thayer, in the\nlist of the worst things human nature knows, and does.\"\n\n\"Then you would have a set of dunces. I should just like to be told,\nMr. Eberstein, how on that principle you would get young people to\nstudy. In the case of girls you cannot do it by beating; nor in the\ncase of boys, after they have got beyond being little boys. Then\nemulation comes in, and they work like beavers to get the start of one\nanother. And so we have honours, and prizes, and distinctions. Take all\nthat away, and how would you do, Mr. Eberstein?\"\n\nMr. Eberstein was looking fondly into a pair of young eyes that were\nfixedly gazing at him. So looking, he spoke,\n\n\"There is another sort of '_Well done!_' which I would like my Dolly\nand Miss Christina to try for. If they are in earnest in trying for\nthat, they will study!\" said Mr. Eberstein.\n\nMrs. Thayer thought, apparently, that it was no use talking on the\nsubject with a visionary man; and she turned to something else. The\nparty left the dinner-table, and Dolly took her new acquaintance\nupstairs to show her the treasure contained in Mrs. Eberstein's old\nbookcase.\n\n\"Mr. Eberstein is rather a strange man, isn't he?\" said Miss Christina\non the way.\n\n\"No,\" said Dolly. \"I don't think he is. What makes you say so?\"\n\n\"I never heard any one talk like that before.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said Dolly, stopping short on the landing place and looking\nat her companion. Then she seemed to change her manner of attack. \"Who\ndo you want to please most?\" she said.\n\n\"With my studies? Why, mamma, of course.\"\n\n\"I would rather please the Lord Jesus,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"But I was talking about _school work_,\" retorted the other. \"You don't\nsuppose _He_ cares about our lessons?\"\n\n\"I guess He does,\" said Dolly. They were still standing on the landing\nplace, looking into each other's eyes.\n\n\"But that's impossible. Think!--French lessons, and English lessons,\nand music and dancing, and all of it. That couldn't be, you know.\"\n\n\"Do you love Jesus?\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Love him? I do not know,\" said Christina colouring. \"I am a member of\nthe church, if that is what you mean.\"\n\nDolly began slowly to go up the remaining stairs. \"I think we ought to\nstudy to please Him,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't see how it should please him,\" said the other a little out of\nhumour. \"I don't see how He should care about such little things.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said Dolly. \"If your mother cares, and my mother cares.\nJesus loves us better than they do, and I guess He cares more than they\ndo.\"\n\nChristina was silenced now, as her mother had been, and followed Dolly\nthinking there were a _pair_ of uncomfortably strange people in the\nhouse. The next minute Dolly was not strange at all, but as much a\nchild as any of her fellows. She had unlocked the precious bookcase,\nand with the zeal of a connoisseur and the glee of a discoverer she was\nenlarging upon the treasures therein stowed away.\n\n\"Here is 'Henry Milner,'\" she said, taking down three little red\nvolumes. \"Have you read that? Oh, it is delightful! I like it almost\nbest of all. But I have not had time to read much yet. Here is 'Harry\nand Lucy,' and 'Rosamond,' and 'Frank.' I have just looked at them. And\n'Sandford and Merton.' do you know 'Sandford and Merton'? I have just\nread that.\"\n\n\"There are the 'Arabian Nights,'\" said Christina.\n\n\"Is that good? I haven't read much yet. I don't know almost any of\nthem.\"\n\n\"'The Looking-Glass'\"--Christina went on--\"'Pity's Gift'--'Father's\nTales.'\"\n\n\"Those are beautiful,\" Dolly put in. \"I read one, about 'Grandfather's\nold arm-chair.' Oh, it's _very_ interesting.\"\n\n\"'Elements of Morality'\"--Christina read further on the back of a\nbrown book.\n\n\"That don't sound good, but I guess it _is_ good,\" said Dolly. \"I just\npeeped in, and 'Evenings at Home' looks pretty. Here is 'Robinson\nCrusoe,' and 'Northern Regions;' I want to read that very much. I guess\nit's delightful.\"\n\n\"Have you ever been to school before?\" said Christina. The books had a\nfaint interest for her.\n\n\"No,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Nor have I; but I know somebody who has been at Mrs. Delancy's, and\nshe says there is one lovely thing at that school. Every month they go\nsomewhere.\"\n\n\"They--go--somewhere,\" Dolly echoed the words. \"Who go?\"\n\n\"Everybody; teachers and scholars and all. There is a holiday; and Mrs.\nDelancy takes them all to see something. One time it was a rope walk, I\nthink; and another time it was a paper-mill; and sometimes it's a\npicture-gallery. It's something very interesting.\"\n\n\"I suppose we are not _obliged_ to go, are we, if we don't want to?\"\n\n\"Oh, but we _do_ want to. I do.\"\n\n\"I would just as lief be at home with my Aunt Harry,\" said Dolly,\nlooking lovingly at the book-case. But Christina turned away from it.\n\n\"They dress a great deal at this school,\" she said. \"Does your mother\ndress you a great deal?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Dolly. \"I don't know what you mean.\"\n\n\"Well, what's your school dress? what is it made of?\"\n\n\"My school dress for every day! It is grey poplin. It is not new.\"\n\n\"Poplin will do, I suppose,\" said Christina. \"But some of the girls\nwear silk; old silk dresses, you know, but really handsome still, and\nvery stylish.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by 'stylish'?\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Why don't you know what 'stylish' means?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nChristina looked doubtfully at her new little companion. Where could\nDolly have come from, and what sort of people could she belong to, who\ndid not know _that?_ The truth was, that Dolly being an only child and\nliving at home with her father and mother, had led a very childish life\nup to this time; and her mother, owing to some invalidism, had lately\nbeen withdrawn from the gay world and its doings. So, though the thing\nwas greatly upon her mother's heart, the word had never made itself\nfamiliar to Dolly's ear. Christina was reassured, however, by observing\nthat the little girl's dress was quite what it ought to be, and\ncertainly bespoke her as belonging to people who \"knew what was what.\"\nSo the practice was all right, and Dolly needed only instruction in the\ntheory.\n\n\"'Stylish,'\"--she repeated. \"It means--It is very hard to tell you\nwhat it means. Don't you know? 'Stylish' means that things have an air\nthat belongs to the right kind of thing, and only what you see in a\ncertain sort of people. It is the way things look when people know how.\"\n\n\"Know how, what?\" inquired Dolly.\n\n\"Know how things ought to be; how they ought to be worn, and how they\nought to be done.\"\n\n\"Then everybody ought to be stylish,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Yes, but you cannot, my dear, unless you happen to know how.\"\n\n\"But I should think one could always know how things ought to be,\"\nDolly went on. \"The Bible tells.\"\n\n\"The Bible!\" echoed Christina.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"The Bible tell one how to be stylish!\"\n\n\"The Bible tells how things ought to be.\"\n\n\"Why, no, it don't, child! the Bible don't tell you what sort of a hat\nto put on.\"\n\n\"Yes, it does, Christina. The Bible says, 'Whether you eat or drink, or\nwhatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.' I can show you the\nwords.\"\n\n\"Oh, that is something quite different. That has nothing to do with\nbeing stylish. How shall I make you understand? If your cravat wasn't\ntied in a nice bow there, it wouldn't be stylish.\"\n\n\"Well,\" returned Dolly, \"it wouldn't be to the glory of God either.\"\n\n\"What has that to do with it?\"\n\n\"I think it would be wrong for a Christian to be anything but nice.\"\n\n\"Oh, it isn't being _nice!_\" said Christina. \"Your dress wouldn't be\nstylish if it hadn't those flounces.\"\n\n\"And is it now?\"\n\n\"Yes--I think it is. I should say, your mother knows what is what. It\nisn't very easy to be stylish if you are poor; but I've seen people do\nit, though.\"\n\n\"I don't think I understand, quite,\" said Dolly. \"But when I am old\nenough to dress myself,--to choose my own dresses, I mean, I shall\ndress to please Jesus, Christina.\"\n\n\"You can't,\" said Christina. \"I never heard of such a thing. It's\nmaking religion little, I think, to talk so.\"\n\n\"I think, if religion isn't little, it'll _do_ so,\" answered Dolly.\nWhereby each kept her own opinion; notwithstanding which, at the end of\nthe afternoon they separated, mutually pleased each with her new\nacquaintance.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE MARINE DICTIONARY.\n\nAs the weeks of the first school term went on, the two girls drew\nnearer to each other. Everybody inclined towards Dolly indeed; the\nsweet, fresh, honest little face, with the kindly affections beaming\nforth from it, and the sensitive nature quick to feel pleasure or pain,\nand alive to fun in the midst of its seriousness, made such a quaint\nmingling and such a curious variety and such a lovely creature, that\nall sorts of characters were drawn towards her. From the head of the\nschool down, teachers and pupils, there was hardly one whose eye did\nnot soften and whose lips did not smile at Dolly's approach. With\nChristina, on the other hand, it was not just so. She was not\nparticularly clever, not particularly emotional, not specially\nsociable; calm and somewhat impassive, with all her fair beauty she was\noverlooked in the practical \"selection\" which takes place in school\nlife; so that little Dolly after all came to be Christina's best\nfriend. Dolly never passed her over; was never unsympathetic; never\nseemed to know her own popularity; and Christina's slow liking grew\ninto a real and warm affection as the passing days gave her more and\nmore occasion. In the matter of \"style,\" it appears, Dolly had enough\nto satisfy her; thanks to her mother; for Dolly herself was as\nunconventional in spirit and manner as a child should be. In school\nwork proper, on the other hand, she was a pattern of diligence and\nfaithfulness; gave her teachers no trouble; of course had the good word\nand good will of every one of them. Was it the working of Mr.\nEberstein's rule?\n\nThe first monthly holiday after school began was spent in Fairmount\nPark. A few weeks later, Dolly and Christina were sitting together one\nday, busy with some fancy work, when one of their schoolmates came up\nto them.\n\n\"Guess where we are going next week!\" she cried.\n\n\"Next week?\" said the others, looking up.\n\n\"Next holiday--next week--next Saturday. Yes. Where do you think we are\ngoing? Just guess. Oh, you can't guess.\"\n\n\"I can't guess,\" said Dolly; \"I don't know what there is to go to. The\nMint? Mrs. Delancy did speak of the Mint.\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it! Something else has come up. Guess again.\"\n\n\"Something has _come up_. Then it must be something new.\"\n\n\"It isn't new, either. Can't a thing come to you that isn't new?\"\n\n\"But you're talking riddles, Eudora,\" the other two said, laughing.\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you. There's a man-of-war come up the river.\"\n\n\"A man-of-war\"--Dolly repeated.\n\n\"You know what that means, I hope, Dolly Copley?\"\n\n\"I don't know. It means a soldier. The Bible says, Goliath was a\nman-of-war from his youth.\"\n\nDolly as she spoke looked mystified, and her words were met by a shout\nof laughter so loud and ringing that it almost abashed the child. Some\nother girls had joined the group and were standing around, and there\nwere many to laugh. However, Dolly was never given to false shame. She\nwaited for more light.\n\n\"It's a _ship_, Dolly,\" they cried. \"You dear little innocent, don't\nyou know as much as that?\"\n\n\"It's a ship; and this is a big one. It is lying out in the Delaware.\"\n\n\"Then why is it called a man-of-war?\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Because it is a war ship. Won't it be fun! just think!--the guns, and\nthe officers, and the midshipmen!\"\n\n\"What are midshipmen?\"\n\n\"I don't know!\" cried another. \"They are somebodies that are always on\na man-of-war; and they are young too. Baby officers, I suppose.\"\n\n\"They _are_ officers,\" said the first speaker.\n\n\"No, they're not. They are learning to be officers. They're at school,\nand their school is a man-of-war; and their teachers are the captain,\nand the lieutenants, and so on.\"\n\n\"And what are their lessons about?\" said Dolly.\n\n\"_I_ don't know. Oh, they are learning to be officers, you know. Really\nthey are boys at school.\"\n\n\"Some of them are old enough,\" remarked another.\n\n\"Learning _what_, Eudora?\" said Dolly.\n\n\"How do I know, chicken? I've never been a midshipman myself. You can\nask them if you like, when we go on board. For we are going on board,\ngirls! Hurrah! We shall drive over to the Navy Yard, and there we shall\nget into boats, and then we shall row--I mean be rowed--out into the\nstream to the ship. It's a big frigate, the 'Achilles;' and Mrs.\nDelancy knows the captain; and she says it's a good chance, and she\nwill not have us lose it. Hurrah, girls! this is prime.\"\n\n\"What's a _frigate?_\" was Dolly's next question.\n\n\"Dolly Copley, you are ridiculous! you want to understand everything.\"\n\n\"Don't you?\"\n\n\"No! I guess I don't. I am tired enough with trying to understand a\nlittle. I'll let alone what I can. You'll know what a frigate is when\nyou have been on board of her.\"\n\n\"But I think I should enjoy it a great deal more if I knew beforehand,\"\nsaid Dolly.\n\n\"You had best study a ship's dictionary. _I_ am going to study what I\nshall wear.\"\n\n\"That you cannot tell yet,\" Christina remarked. \"You do not know what\nsort of a day next Saturday, I mean, Saturday week, will be. It may be\ncold or\"----\n\n\"It mayn't be hot,\" said the other. \"It will be cold, cold enough. It's\nNovember. You can wear your prettiest winter things, young ladies.\"\n\nA little while after, the group had broken up, and Dolly sought out one\nof the teachers and begged to know where she could find a \"ship's\ndictionary.\"\n\n\"A ship dictionary? My dear, there is no such thing. What do you want\nto find out?\"\n\n\"One of the girls said I could find out about ships in a ship's\ndictionary. We are going to see a man-of-war next week.\"\n\n\"Oh, and you want to study up the subject? It is a Marine Dictionary\nyou are in quest of. Come to the library.\"\n\nThe library was always open to the girls for study purposes. The\nteacher was good-natured, and got out a big, brown square volume, and\nput it in Dolly's hand. Dolly had been followed by Christina; and now\nthe two sat down together in a window recess on the floor, with the\nbook before them. Dolly began at the beginning, and aloud.\n\n\"'_Aback_.'\"\n\n\"That is nothing we want,\" remarked Christina.\n\n\"Oh yes, I think it is. It is 'the situation of the sails when their\nsurfaces are flatted against the masts by the force of the wind.' I do\nnot understand, though. The sails are said to be 'taken aback.'-- Oh, I\nhave heard mother say that. What could she mean? I have heard her say\nshe was taken aback.\"\n\n\"I have heard people say that too,\" said Christina; \"often. I never\nknew what they meant. Something disagreeable, I think.\"\n\n\"Well, you see,\" said Dolly, reading further, \"it 'pushes the ship\n_astern_'--what's that? 'See _Backing_.' I suppose it means pushing it\nback. But I don't understand!\" the little girl added with a sigh.\n\n\"Oh, well! we don't care about all that,\" said Dolly's companion. \"Go\non to something else. Find out about the midshipmen.\"\n\n\"What about the midshipmen?\"\n\n\"Nothing,--only I would like to know what they are. Madeleine said they\nwere young officers; very young; not older than some of us.\"\n\n\"Then why do you want to know about them?\" said Dolly. \"We have nothing\nto do with young officers. We don't know any of them.\"\n\n\"But we might,\" suggested Christina. \"We shall see them, if we go on\nboard the ship.\"\n\n\"I don't care about seeing them,\" said Dolly. \"Young officers are young\nmen, I suppose. I understand _them;_ what I don't know about, is the\nship. Let us go on in this book, and see what we come to. '_Abaft_--the\nhinder part of a ship'\"----\n\n\"O Dolly!\" cried Christina, \"we have not time to go through everything\nin this way. You have not turned over one leaf yet  Do get on a little.\"\n\n\"It is good it's a holiday,\" said Dolly, turning the leaf. \"We have\nplenty of time. I like this book. '_Aboard_,--the inside of a ship.' So\nwhen we go into the ship, we go aboard. That's it.\"\n\n\"Go on,\" urged Christina. \"Here's '_Admiral_.'\"\n\n\"'An officer of first rank and command in the fleet.' There is a great\ndeal here about the Admiral. I don't believe we shall see him. We'll\nlook a little further.\"\n\nDolly presently was caught by the word \"_Anchor_,\" and lost herself in\nthe study of the paragraphs following, and the plate accompanying;\nafter which she declared that she understood how a ship could be held\nby its anchor. Urged to go on again, she turned over more leaves, but\ngot lost in the study of \"_boats;_\" then of \"_cannon;_\" then of the\n\"_captain_'s\" office and duties; finally paused at the plate and\ndescription of a ship's deck.\n\n\"It's just the deck of a ship!\" said Christina impatiently. \"You will\nsee it when we go on board the 'Achilles.'\"\n\n\"I want to understand it.\"\n\n\"You can't.\"\n\n\"Are those guns?\" said Dolly, pointing to a row of pieces delineated\nalong the side of the deck.\n\n\"Must be guns.\"\n\n\"Well, I should like to go on board of a ship very much,\" said Dolly.\n\"There are twelve guns on that side. If there are the same on this\nside, that would make twenty-four. What do they want so many for,\nChristina, on one ship?\"\n\n\"Why, to fight with, of course. To fire at other ships.\"\n\n\"But what do they want of _so many?_ They would not want to fire twelve\nat once. I should think one would be enough.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it wouldn't. Go on, Dolly, do! let us get to something else.\"\n\nIt was difficult to get Dolly on. She was held fast again by the\ndescription of a naval engagement; then fell to studying the directions\nfor the \"_exercise_\" of the guns; then was interested in some plates\ngiving various orders of the line of battle. At last in due course they\ncame to the word \"_Midshipman_,\" which was read, or the article under\nit, by both girls.\n\n\"'A naval cadet'\"--repeated Christina.\n\n\"And a cadet must be four years at sea before he can become a\nlieutenant; and two years midshipman besides. I should think they would\nbe tired of it.\"\n\n\"But if they are going to be sailors all their lives, it's no use for\nthem to get tired of it,\" said Christina.\n\n\"They come on shore sometimes, don't they?\"\n\n\"I suppose so. Oh yes, they have houses, I know, and wives and\nchildren. I shouldn't like to be the wife of a sailor!\"\n\n\"Somebody must, I suppose,\" said Dolly. \"But I shouldn't like to have\nmy home--my principal home, I mean--on the sea; if I was a man. _They_\nmust like it, I suppose.\"\n\nDolly went on reading.\n\n\"The midshipmen have plenty to do, Christina. They have to learn how to\ndo everything a common sailor does; all the work of the ship; and then\nthey must learn astronomy, and geometry, and navigation and mechanics.\nHydrostatics, too; oh dear, I don't know what that is. I can look it\nout, I suppose. The midshipmen must be very busy, Christina, and at\nhard work too.\"\n\nChristina's interest in the Marine Dictionary was exhausted. She went\noff; but Dolly pored over its pages still, endeavouring to take in\ndetails about vessels, and ropes, and sails, and winds, until her head\nwas in a fog. She recurred to the book, however, on the next\nopportunity; and from time to time, as her lessons permitted, gave her\ntime and attention to this seemingly very unnecessary subject. How much\nshe really learned, is doubtful; yet as little things do touch and link\nthemselves with great things, it may be that the old Marine Dictionary\nin Mrs. Delancy's library played a not insignificant part in the\nfortunes of Dolly Copley. As we shall see. She studied, till a ship\nbecame a romance to her; till rigging and spars and decks and guns were\nlike the furniture of a new and strange life, which hardly belonged to\nthe earth, being upon the sea; and the men who lived that life, and\nespecially the men who ruled in it, grew to be invested with\ncharacteristics of power and skill and energy which gave them fabulous\ninterest in Dolly's eyes.\n\nAt home there had been a little scruple about letting Dolly join the\nparty. She had had a cold, and was rather delicate at all times. The\nscruples, however, gave way before the child's earnest wish; and as\nSaturday of the particular week turned out mild and quiet, no hindrance\nwas put in the way of the expedition.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE \"ACHILLES.\"\n\nIt was a very special delectation which the school were to enjoy\nto-day. The girls thought it always \"fun,\" of course, to quit lessons\nand go to see anything; \"even factories,\" as one of the girls expressed\nit, to Dolly's untold astonishment; for it seemed to her that to be\nallowed to look into the mystery of manufactures must be the next thing\nto taking part personally in a fairy tale. However, to-day it was not a\nquestion of manufactures, but of a finished and furnished big ship, and\nnot only finished and furnished, but manned. \"_This_ is something\nlively,\" Eudora opined. And she was quite right.\n\nThe day was a quiet day in November, with just a spice of frost in it;\nthe air itself was lively, quick and quickening. The party were driven\nto the Navy Yard in carriages, and there received very politely by the\nofficers, some of whom knew Mrs. Delancy and lent themselves with much\nkindness to the undertaking. The girls were more or less excited with\npleasure and anticipation; but to Dolly the Navy Yard seemed to be\nalready touching the borders of that mysterious and fascinating sea\nlife in which her fancy had lately been roaming. So when the girls were\nall carefully bestowed in stout little row boats to go out to the ship,\nDolly's foot it was which stepped upon enchanted boards, and her eye\nthat saw an enchanted world around her. What a field was this rippling\nwater, crisped with the light breeze, and gurgling under the boat's\nsmooth sweep ahead! How the oars rose and fell, all together, as if\nmoved by only one hand. Was this a part of the order and discipline of\nwhich she had read lately, as belonging to this strange world?\nProbably; for now and then a command was issued to the oarsmen, curt\nand sharp; and obeyed, Dolly saw, although she did not know what the\ncommand meant. Yes, she was in an enchanted sphere; and she looked at\nthe \"Achilles\" as they drew nearer, with profoundest admiration. Its\ngreat hulk grew large upon her view, with an absolute haze of romance\nand mystery hanging about its decks and rigging. It was a large ship,\nfinely equipped, according to the fashion of naval armament which was\nprevalent in those days; she was a three-decker; and the port holes of\nher guns looked in threatening ranks along the sides of the vessel.\nStill and majestic she lay upon the quiet river; a very wonderful\nfloating home indeed, and unlike all else she had ever known, to\nDolly's apprehension. How she and the rest were ever to get on board\nwas an insoluble problem to her, as to most of them; and the chair that\nwas presently lowered along the ship's side to receive them, seemed a\nvery precarious sort of means of transport. However, the getting aboard\nwas safely accomplished; one by one they were hoisted up; and Dolly's\nfeet stood upon the great main deck. And the first view was perfectly\nsatisfactory, and even went far beyond her imaginings. She found\nherself standing under a mixed confusion of masts and spars and sails,\nmarvellous to behold, which yet she also saw was no confusion at all,\nbut complicated and systematic order. How much those midshipmen must\nhave to learn, though, if they were to know the names and uses and\nhandling of every spar and every rope and each sail among them! as\nDolly knew they must. Her eye came back to the deck. What order there\ntoo; what neatness; why it was beautiful; and the uniforms here and\nthere, and the sailors' hats and jackets, filled up the picture to her\nheart's desire. Dolly breathed a full breath of satisfaction.\n\nThe Captain of the \"Achilles\" made his appearance, Captain Barbour. He\nwas a thick-set, grizzly haired man, rather short, not handsome at all;\nand yet with an air of authority unmistakably clothing him like a\ngarment of power and dignity. Plainly this man's word was law, and the\ngirls stood in awe of him. He was known to Mrs. Delancy; and now she\nwent on to present formally all her young people to him. The captain\nreturned the courtesy by calling up and introducing to her and them\nsome of his officers; and then they went to a review of the ship.\n\nIt took a long while. Between Mrs. Delancy and Captain Barbour a lively\nconversation was carried on; Dolly thought he was explaining things to\nthe lady that she did not understand; but though it might be the case\nnow and then, I think the talk moved mainly upon less technical\nmatters. Dolly could not get near enough to hear what it was, at any\nrate. The young lieutenants, too, were taken up with playing the host\nto the older young ladies of the party. If _they_ received instruction\nalso by the way, Dolly could not tell; the laughing hardly looked like\nit. She and the other young ones at any rate followed humbly at the\ntail of everything, and just came up to a clear view of some detail\nwhen the others were moving away. There was nobody to help Dolly\nunderstand anything; nevertheless, she wandered in a fairy vision of\nwonderland. Into the cabins, down to the forecastle, down to the gun\ndeck. What could equal the black strangeness of _that_ view! and what\ncould it all mean? Dolly wished for her Uncle Edward, or some one, to\nanswer a thousand questions. She had been reading about the guns, she\nlooked curiously now at the realities, of which she had studied the\npictures; recognised here a detail and there a detail, but remaining\nhugely ignorant of the whole and of the bearing of the several parts\nupon each other. Yet she did not know how time flew; she did not know\nthat she was getting tired; from one strange thing to another she\nfollowed her leaders about; very much alone indeed, for even the other\ngirls of her own age were staring at a different class of objects, and\ncould hardly be said to see what she saw, much less were ready to ask\nwhat she wanted to ask. Dolly went round in a confused dream.\n\nAt last the party had gone everywhere that such a party could go;\nCaptain Barbour had spared them the lower gun deck. They came back to\nthe captain's cabin, where a very pleasant lunch was served to the\nladies. It was served, that is, to those who could get it, to those who\nwere near enough and old enough to put in a claim by right of\nappearance. Dolly and one or two more who were undeniably little girls\nstood a bad chance, hanging about on the outskirts of the crowd, for\nthe cabin would not take them all in; and hearing a distant sound of\nclinking glass and silver and words of refreshment. It was all they\nseemed likely to get; and when a kindly elderly officer had taken pity\non the child and given Dolly a biscuit, she concluded to resign the\nrest of the unattainable luncheon and make the most of her other\nopportunities while she had them. Eating the biscuit, which she was\nvery glad of, she wandered off by herself, along the deck; looking\nagain carefully at all she saw; for her eyes were greedy of seeing.\nSails,--what strange shapes; and how close rolled up some of them were!\nRopes,--what a multitude; and cables. Coils of them on deck; and if she\nlooked up, an endless tracery of lines seen against the blue sky. There\nwas a sailor going up something like a rope ladder; going up and up;\nhow could he? and how far could he go? Dolly almost grew dizzy gazing\nat him.\n\n\"What are you looking after, little one?\" a voice near her asked. An\nunceremonious address, certainly; frankly put; but the voice was not\nunkindly or uncivil, and Dolly was not sensitive on the point of\npersonal dignity. She brought her eyes down for a moment far enough to\nsee the shimmer of gold lace on a midshipman's cap, and answered,\n\n\"I am looking at that man. He's going up and up, to the top of\neverything. I should think his head would turn.\"\n\n\"Yours will, if you look after him with your head in that position.\"\n\nDolly let her eyes come now to the speaker's face. One of the young\nmidshipmen it was, standing near her, with his arms folded and leaning\nupon something which served as a support to them, and looking down at\nDolly. For standing so and leaning over, he was still a good deal\ntaller than she. Further, Dolly observed a pair of level brows, beneath\nthem a pair of wise-looking, cognisance-taking blue eyes, an expression\nof steady calm, betokening either an even temperament or an habitual\npower of self-control; and just now in the eyes and the mouth there was\nthe play almost of a smile somewhat merry, wholly kindly. It took\nDolly's confidence entirely and at once.\n\n\"You don't think you would like to be a sailor?\" he went on.\n\n\"Is it pleasant?\" said Dolly, retorting the question earnestly and\ndoubtfully.\n\nThe smile broke a little more on the other's face. \"How do you like the\nship?\" he asked.\n\n\"I do not know,\" said Dolly, glancing along the deck. \"I think it is a\nstrange place to live.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"And I don't understand the use of it,\" Dolly went on with a really\npuzzled face.\n\n\"The use of what?\"\n\n\"The use of the whole thing. I know what ships are good for, of course;\nother ships; but what is the use of such a ship as this?\"\n\n\"To take care of the other ships.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Have you been below? Did you see the gun decks?\"\n\n\"I was in a place where there were a great many guns--but I could not\nunderstand, and there was nobody to tell me things.\"\n\n\"Would you like to go down there again?\"\n\n\"Oh yes!\" said Dolly. \"They will be a good while at lunch yet. Oh,\nthank you! I should like so much to go.\"\n\nThe young midshipman took her hand; perhaps he had a little sister at\nhome and the action was pleasant and familiar; it seemed to be both;\nand led her down the way that took them to the upper gun deck.\n\n\"How comes it you are not taking lunch too?\" he asked by the way.\n\n\"Oh, there are too many of them,\" said Dolly contentedly. \"I don't\ncare. I had a biscuit.\"\n\n\"You don't care for your lunch?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do, when I'm hungry; but now I would rather see things. I never\nsaw a ship before.\"\n\nThey arrived in the great, gloomy, black gun deck. The midshipman let\ngo Dolly's hand, and she stood and looked along the avenue between the\nbristling black cannon.\n\n\"Now, what is it that you don't understand?\" he asked, watching her.\n\n\"What are these guns here for?\"\n\n\"Don't you know _that?_ Guns are to fight with.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" said Dolly; \"but how can you fight with them here in a\nrow? and what would you fight with? I mean, who would you fight\nagainst?\"\n\n\"Some other ship, if Fate willed it so. Look here; this is the way of\nit.\"\n\nHe took a letter from the breast of his coat, tore off a blank leaf;\nthen resting it on the side of a gun carriage, he proceeded to make a\nsketch. Dolly's eyes followed his pencil point, spell-bound with\ninterest. Under his quick and ready fingers grew, she could not tell\nhow, the figure of a ship,--hull, masts, sails and rigging, deftly\nsketched in; till it seemed to Dolly she could almost see how the wind\nblew that was filling out the sails and floating off the streamer.\n\n\"There,\" said the artist,--\"that is our enemy.\"\n\n\"Our enemy?\" repeated Dolly.\n\n\"Our supposed enemy. We will suppose she is an enemy.\"\n\n\"But how could she be?\"\n\n\"We might be at war with England suppose, or with France. This might be\nan English ship of war coming to catch up every merchantman she could\noverhaul that carried American colours, and make a prize of her; don't\nyou see?\"\n\n\"Do they do that?\" said Dolly.\n\n\"What? catch up merchantmen? of course they do; and the more of value\nis on board, the better they are pleased. We lose so much, and they\ngain so much. Now we want to stop this fellow's power of doing\nmischief; you understand.\"\n\n\"What are those little black spots you are making along her sides.\"\n\n\"The port holes of her guns.\"\n\n\"Port holes?\"\n\n\"The openings where the mouths of her guns look out. See,\" said he,\npointing to the one near which they were standing,--\"that is a port\nhole.\"\n\n\"That little window?\"\n\n\"It isn't a window; it is a port hole.\"\n\n\"It is not a black spot.\"\n\n\"Because you are inside, and looking out towards the light. Look at\nthem when you are leaving the ship; they will look like black spots\nthen, you will find.\"\n\n\"Well, that's the enemy,\" said Dolly, drawing a short breath of\nexcitement. \"What is that ship you are making now?\"\n\n\"That's the 'Achilles'; brought to; with her main topsails laid aback,\nand her fore topsails full; ready for action.\"\n\n\"I do not know what are topsails or fore topsails,\" said Dolly.\n\nThe midshipman explained; to illustrate his explanation sketched\nlightly another figure of a vessel, showing more distinctly the\nprincipal sails.\n\n\"And this is the 'Achilles,'\" said Dolly, recurring to the principal\ndesign. \"You have put her a great way off from the enemy, it seems to\nme.\"\n\n\"No. Point blank range. Quite near enough.\"\n\n\"Oh, what is 'point blank range'?\" cried Dolly in despair. Her new\nfriend smiled, but answered with good-humoured patience. Dolly listened\nand comprehended.\n\n\"Then, if this were an enemy, and that the 'Achilles,' and within point\nblank range, you would load one of these guns and fire at her?\"\n\nThe midshipman shook his head. \"We should load up all of them--all on\nthat side.\"\n\n\"And five them one after another?\"\n\n\"As fast as we could. We should give her a broadside. But we should\nprobably give her one broadside after another.\"\n\n\"Suppose the balls all hit her?\"\n\n\"Yes, you may suppose that. I should like to suppose it, if I were the\nofficer in command.\"\n\n\"What would they do to her?--to that enemy ship?\"\n\n\"If they all hit? Hinder her from doing any more mischief.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Break her masts, tear up her rigging, make a wreck of her generally.\nPerhaps sink her.\"\n\n\"But suppose while you are fighting that she fights too?\"\n\n\"Extremely probable.\"\n\n\"If a shot came in here--could it come in here?\"\n\n\"Certainly. Cannon balls will go almost anywhere.\"\n\n\"If it came in here, what would it do?\"\n\n\"Kill three or four of the men at a gun, perhaps; tear away a bit of\nthe ship's side; or perhaps disable the gun.\"\n\n\"While you were firing at the enemy on this side, the guns of the other\nside, I suppose, would have nothing to do?\"\n\n\"They might be fighting another enemy on that side,\" said the\nmidshipman, smiling.\n\n\"I should think,\" said Dolly, looking down the long line of the gun\ndeck, and trying to imagine the state of things described,--\"I should\nthink it would be most dreadful!\"\n\n\"I have no doubt you would think so.\"\n\n\"Don't _you_ think so?\"\n\n\"I have never been in action yet.\"\n\n\"Don't you hope you never will?\"\n\nThe young man laughed a little. \"What would be the use of ships of war,\nif there were never any fighting? I should have nothing to do in the\nworld.\"\n\n\"You might do something else,\" said Dolly, gazing at the lines of black\nguns stretching along both sides of the deck, so near to each other, so\nblack, so grim. \"How many men does it take to manage each gun? You said\n_three or four_ might be killed.\"\n\n\"According to the size of the gun. Twelve men for these guns; larger\nwould take fifteen.\"\n\nAgain Dolly meditated; in imagination peopled the solitary place with\nthe active crowd of men which would be there if each gun had twelve\ngunners, filled the silence with the roar of combined discharges,\nthought of the dead and wounded; at last turned her eyes to the blue\nones that were watching her.\n\n\"I wonder if God likes it?\" she said.\n\n\"Likes what?\" said the midshipman in wonder.\n\n\"Such work. I don't see how He _can_.\"\n\n\"How can you help such work? People cannot get along without fighting.\"\n\nHe did not speak carelessly or mockingly or banteringly; rather with a\ngentle, somewhat deliberate utterance. Yet Dolly was persuaded there\nwas no unmanly softness in him; she never doubted but that he would be\nready to do his part in that dreadful work, if it must be done.\nMoreover, he was paying to this odd little girl a delicate sort of\nrespect and treating her with great consideration. Her confidence, as I\nsaid, had been entirely given to him before; and now some gratitude\nbegan to mingle with it, along with great freedom to speak her mind.\n\n\"I don't think God can like it,\" she repeated.\n\n\"What would you do, then?\" he also repeated, smiling. \"Let wicked\npeople have their own way?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"If they are not to have their own way, you must stop them.\"\n\n\"I think this is a dreadful way of stopping them.\"\n\n\"It's a bad job for the side that goes under,\" the young officer\nadmitted.\n\n\"I don't believe God likes it,\" Dolly concluded for the third time,\nwith great conviction.\n\n\"Is that your rule for everything?\"\n\n\"Yes. Isn't it your rule?\"\n\n\"I have to obey orders,\" he answered, watching her.\n\n\"Don't you obey _His_ orders?\" said Dolly wistfully.\n\n\"I do not know what they are.\"\n\n\"Oh, but they are in the Bible. You can find them in the Bible.\"\n\n\"Does it say anything about fighting?\"\n\nDolly tried to think, and got confused. Certainly it did say a good\ndeal about fighting, but in various ways, it seemed to her. She did not\nknow how to answer. She changed the subject.\n\n\"How do you get the shot, the balls, I mean, into these guns? I don't\nsee how you get at them. The mouths are out of the windows. Port holes,\nI mean.\"\n\nFor the upper gun deck had been put to a certain extent in order of\naction, and the guns were run out.\n\n\"You are of an inquiring disposition,\" said the midshipman gravely.\n\n\"Am I?\"\n\n\"I think you are.\"\n\n\"But I should like to know\"--pursued Dolly, looking at the muzzle of\nthe gun by which they were standing.\n\n\"The guns would be run in to be loaded.\"\n\nDolly looked at the heavy piece of metal, and at him, but did not\nrepeat her question.\n\n\"Now you want to know how,\" he said, smiling. \"If I were captain, I\nwould have the men here and show you. The gun is run in by means of\nthis tackle, see!--and when it is charged, it is bowsed out again.\"\n\nSeeing Dolly's wise grave eyes bent upon the subject, he went on to\namuse her with a full detail of the exercise of the gun; from \"casting\nloose,\" to the finishing \"secure your guns;\" explaining the manner of\nhandling and loading, and the use of the principal tackle concerned.\nDolly listened, intent, fascinated, enchained; and I think the young\nman was a little fascinated too, though his attentions were given to so\nvery young a lady. Dolly's brown eyes were so utterly pure and grave\nand unconscious; the brain at work behind them was so evidently clear\nand busy and competent; the pleasure she showed was so\nunschoolgirl-like, and he thought so unchildlike, and at the same time\nso very far from being young lady-like. What she was like, he did not\nknow; she was an odd little apparition there in the gun-deck of the\n\"Achilles,\" leaning with her elbows upon a gun carriage, and surveyeing\nwith her soft eyes the various paraphernalia of conflict and carnage\naround her. Contrast could hardly be stronger.\n\n\"Suppose,\" said Dolly at last, \"a shot should make a hole in the side\nof the ship, and let in the water?\"\n\n\"Well? Suppose it,\" he answered.\n\n\"Does that ever happen?\"\n\n\"Quite often. Why not?\"\n\n\"What would you do then?\"\n\n\"Pump out the water as fast as it came in,--if we could.\"\n\n\"Suppose you couldn't?\"\n\n\"Then we should go down.\"\n\n\"And all in the ship?\"\n\n\"All who could not get out of it.\"\n\n\"How could any get out of it?\"\n\n\"In the boats.\"\n\n\"Oh!--I forgot the boats. Would they hold everybody?\"\n\n\"Probably not. The other ships' boats would come to help.\"\n\n\"The officers would go first, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Last. The highest officer of all would be the last man on board.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"He must do his duty. If he cannot save his ship, at least he must save\nhis men;--all he can. He is there to do his duty.\"\n\n\"I think it would be better not to be there at all,\" said Dolly very\ngravely.\n\n\"Who would take care of you then, if an enemy's fleet were coming to\nattack Philadelphia?\" said the young officer.\n\n\"I would go home,\" said Dolly. \"I don't know what would become of\nPhiladelphia. But I do not think God can like it.\"\n\n\"Shall we go above where it is more cheerful? or have you seen it all?\"\n\nDolly gave him her hand again and let him help her till they got on\ndeck. There they went roaming towards the fore part of the vessel,\nlooking at everything by the way; Dolly asking the names and the\nmeaning of things, and receiving explanations, especially regarding the\nsails and rigging and steering of the ship. She was even shown where\nthe sailors made their home in the forecastle. As they were returning\naft, Dolly stopped by a coil of rope on deck and began pulling at an\nend of it. Her companion inquired what she wanted?\n\n\"I would like a little piece,\" said Dolly; \"if I could get it.\"\n\n\"A piece of rope?\"\n\n\"Yes;--just a little bit; but it is very strong; it won't break.\"\n\nShe was tugging at a loose strand.\n\n\"How large a bit do you want?\"\n\n\"Oh, just a little piece,\" said Dolly. \"I wanted just a little piece to\nkeep--but it's no matter. I wanted to keep it.\"\n\n\"A keepsake?\" said the young man. \"To remember us by? They are breaking\nup,\"--he added immediately, casting his glance aft, where a stir and a\ngathering and a movement on deck in front of the captain's cabin could\nnow be seen, and the sound of voices came fresh along the breeze. \"They\nare going--there is no time now. I will send you a piece, if you will\ntell me where I can send it. Where do you live?\"\n\n\"Oh, will you? Oh, thank you!\" said Dolly, and her face lifted\nconfidingly to the young officer grew sunny with pleasure. \"I live at\nMrs. Delancy's school;--but no, I don't! I don't live there. My home is\nat Uncle Edward's--Mr. Edward Eberstein--in Walnut Street.\"\n\n\"What number?\" said the midshipman, using his pencil again on the much\nscribbled piece of paper; and Dolly told him.\n\n\"And whom shall I send the--the piece of rope, to?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!--Dolly Copley. That is my name. Good bye, I must go.\"\n\n\"Dolly Copley. You shall have it,\" said he, giving the little hand she\nheld out to him a right sailorly grasp. And Dolly ran away. In the\nbustle and anxiety of getting lowered into the little boat again she\nforgot him and everything else; however, so soon as she was safely\nseated and just as the men were ordered to \"give way,\" she looked up at\nthe great ship they were leaving; and there, just above her, leaning on\nthe guards and looking over and down at her, she saw her midshipman\nfriend. Dolly saw nothing else till his face was too small in the\ndistance to be any longer recognised.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE PIECE OF ROPE.\n\nIt was Saturday and holiday, and Dolly went home to her aunt's. There\nher aunt and uncle, as was natural, expected a long story of the\nmorning's experience. And Dolly one would think might have given it;\nmatter for the detail was not wanting; yet she seemed to have little to\ntell. On the other hand, she had a great deal to ask. She wanted to\nknow why people could not do all their fighting on land; why ships of\nwar were necessary; Mr. Eberstein tried to explain that there might be\ngreat and needful advantages attendant upon the use of them. Then Dolly\nbegged for instances. Had we, Americans, ever fought at sea? Mr.\nEberstein answered that, and gave her details of facts, while Mrs.\nEberstein sat by silent and watched Dolly's serious, meditative face.\n\n\"I should think,\" said Dolly, \"that when there is a fight, a ship of\nwar would be a very dreadful place.\"\n\n\"There is no doubt of that, my little girl,\" said Mr. Eberstein. \"Take\nthe noise, and the smoke, the packed condition of one of those gun\ndecks, and the every now and then coming in of a round shot, crashing\nthrough planks and timbers, splintering what comes in its way, and\nstretching half a dozen men at once, more or less, on the floor in dead\nand wounded,--I think it must be as good a likeness of the infernal\nregions as earth can give--in one way at least.\"\n\n\"In what way?\" Dolly asked immediately.\n\n\"Confusion of pain and horror. Not wickedness.\"\n\n\"Uncle Ned, do you think God can like it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then isn't it wicked?\"\n\n\"No, little one; not necessarily. No sort of pain or suffering can be\npleasing to God; we know it is not; yet sin has made it necessary, and\nHe often sends it.\"\n\n\"Don't He always send it?\"\n\n\"Why no. Some sorts people bring on themselves by their own folly and\nperverseness; and some sorts people work on others by their own wicked\nself-will. God does not cause that, though He will overrule it to do\nwhat He wants done.\"\n\n\"Uncle Ned, do you think we shall ever have to use our ships of war\nagain?\"\n\n\"We are using them all the time. We send them to this place and that\nplace to protect our own people, and their merchant vessels and their\ncommerce, from interference and injury.\"\n\n\"No, but I mean, in fighting. Do you think we shall ever have to send\nthem to fight again?\"\n\n\"Probably.\"\n\n\"To fight whom?\"\n\n\"That I don't know.\"\n\n\"Then why do you say 'probably'?\"\n\n\"Because human nature remains what it was, and will no doubt do the\nsame work in the future that it has done from the beginning.\"\n\n\"Why is fighting part of that work, Uncle Ned?\"\n\n\"Ah, why! Greed, which wants what is the right of others; pride, which\nresents even a fancied interference with its own; anger, which cries\nfor revenge; these are the reasons.\"\n\nDolly looked very deeply serious.\n\n\"Why do you care so much about it, Dolly?\" her aunt asked at length,\nafter a meditative pause of several minutes.\n\n\"I would be sorry to have the 'Achilles' go into battle,\" said Dolly;\nand a perceptible slight shudder passed over her shoulders.\n\n\"Is the 'Achilles' so much to you, just because you have seen her?\"\n\n\"No--\" said Dolly thoughtfully; \"it isn't the _ship;_ it's the people.\"\n\n\"Oh!--But what do you know of the people?\"\n\n\"I saw a good many of them, Aunt Harry.\"\n\nPolitic Dolly! She had really seen only one. Yet she had no idea of\nbeing politic; and why she did not say whom she had seen, and what\nreason she had for being interested in him, I cannot tell you.\n\nFrom that time Dolly's reading took a new turn. She sought out in the\nbookcases everything that related to sailors and ships, and especially\nnaval warfare, and simply devoured it. The little Life of Lord Nelson,\nby Southey, in two small calf-bound volumes, became her darling book.\nBetter than any novel, for it was _true_, and equal to any novel for\nits varied, picturesque, passionate, stirring life story. Dolly read\nit, till she could have given you at any time an accurate and detailed\naccount of any one of Nelson's great battles; and more than that, she\nstudied the geography of the lands and waters thereby concerned, and\nwhere possible the topography also. I suppose the \"Achilles\" stood for\na model of all the ships in which successively the great commander\nhoisted his flag; and if the hero himself did not take the form and\nfeatures of a certain American midshipman, it was probably because\nthere was a likeness of the subject of the Memoir opposite to the\ntitle-page; and the rather plain, rather melancholy, rather feeble\ntraits of the English naval captain, could by no effort of imagination\nbe confounded with the quiet strength and gentle manliness which Dolly\nhad found in the straight brows and keen blue eyes and kindly smile of\nher midshipman friend. That would not do. Nelson was not like him, nor\nhe like Nelson; but Dolly had little doubt but he would do as much, if\nhe had occasion. In that faith she read on; and made every action\nlively with the vision of those keen-sighted blue eyes and firm sweet\nmouth in the midst of the smoke of battle and the confusion of orders\ngiven and received. How often the Life of Nelson was read, I dare not\nsay; nor with what renewed eagerness the Marine Dictionary and its\nplates of ships and cannon were studied and searched. From that,\nDolly's attention was extended to other books which told of the sea and\nof life upon it, even though the life were not war-like. Captain Cook's\nvoyages came in for a large amount of favour; and Cooper's \"Afloat and\nAshore,\" which happened about this time to fall into Dolly's hands, was\ndevoured with a hunger which grew on what it fed. Nobody knew; she had\nceased to talk on naval subjects; and it was so common a thing for\nDolly to be swallowed up in some book or other whenever she was at\nhome, that Mrs. Eberstein's curiosity was not excited.\n\nMeanwhile school days and school work went on, and week succeeded week,\nand everybody but Dolly had forgotten all about the \"Achilles;\" when\none day a small package was brought to the door and handed in \"For Miss\nDolly Copley.\" It was a Saturday afternoon. Dolly and her aunt were\nsitting comfortably together in Mrs. Eberstein's workroom upstairs, and\nMr. Eberstein was there too at his secretary.\n\n\"For me?\" said Dolly, when the servant brought the package in. \"It's a\nbox! Aunt Harry, what can it be?\"\n\n\"Open and see, Dolly.\"\n\nWhich Dolly did with an odd mixture of haste and deliberation which\namused Mrs. Eberstein. She tore off nothing, and she cut nothing;\npatiently knots were untied and papers unfolded, though Dolly's fingers\ntrembled with excitement. Papers taken off showed a rather small\npasteboard box; and the box being opened revealed coil upon coil,\nnicely wound up, of a beautifully wrought chain. It might be a watch\nchain; but Dolly possessed no watch.\n\n\"What is it, Aunt Harry?\" she said in wondering pleasure as the coils\nof the pretty woven work fell over her hand.\n\n\"It looks like a watch chain, Dolly. What is it made of?\"\n\nMrs. Eberstein inspected the work closely and could not determine.\n\n\"But who could send me a watch chain?\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Somebody; for here is your name very plainly on the cover and on the\npaper.\"\n\n\"The boy is waiting for an answer, miss.\"\n\n\"Answer? To what? I don't know whom to answer,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"There's a note, miss.\"\n\n\"A note? where?--Oh, here _is_ a note, Aunt Harry, in the bottom of the\nbox. I did not see it.\"\n\n\"From whom, Dolly?\"\n\nDolly did not answer. She had unfolded the note, and now her whole face\nwas wrinkling up with pleasure or fun; she did not hear or heed her\naunt's question. Mrs. Eberstein marked how her colour rose and her\nsmile grew sparkling; and she watched with not a little curiosity and\nsome impatience till Dolly should speak. The little girl looked up at\nlast with a face all dimples.\n\n\"O Aunt Harry! it's my piece of rope.\"\n\n\"Your _piece of rope_, my dear?\"\n\n\"Yes; I wanted a piece of rope; and this is it.\"\n\n\"That is not a piece of rope.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is; it is made of it. I could not think what it was made of;\nand now I see. Isn't it beautifully made? He has picked a piece of rope\nto pieces, and woven this chain of the threads; isn't it beautiful? And\nhow kind! How kind he is.\"\n\n\"_Who_, Dolly? Who has done it?\"\n\n\"Oh, the midshipman, Aunt Harry.\"\n\n\"_The_ midshipman. What one? You didn't say anything about a\nmidshipman.\"\n\n\"I saw him, though, and he said he would send me a piece of rope. I\nwanted a piece, Aunt Harry, to remember the ship by; and I could not\nbreak a bit off, though I tried; then he saw me trying, and it was just\ntime to go, and he said he would get it and send it to me. I thought he\nhad forgotten all about it; but here it is! I am so glad.\"\n\n\"My dear, do you call that a piece of rope?\"\n\n\"Why, yes, Aunt Harry; it is woven out of a piece of rope. He has\npicked the rope apart and made this chain of the threads. I think he is\nvery clever.\"\n\n\"_Who_, my dear? Who has done it, Dolly?\"\n\n\"The midshipman, Aunt Harry.\"\n\n\"What midshipman?\"\n\n\"On the 'Achilles.' I saw him that day.\"\n\n\"Did you see only one midshipman?\"\n\n\"No; I suppose I saw a good many. I didn't notice any but this one.\"\n\n\"And he noticed you, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Yes, a little\"--said Dolly.\n\n\"Did he notice nobody beside you?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Aunt Harry. Not that time, for I was alone.\"\n\n\"Alone! Where were all the rest, and Mrs. Delancy?\"\n\n\"Eating lunch in the captain's cabin.\"\n\n\"Did you have no lunch?\"\n\n\"I had a biscuit one of the officers gave me.\"\n\n\"And have you got a note there from the midshipman?\"\n\n\"Yes, Aunt Harry.\"\n\n\"What does he say?\"\n\nDolly unfolded the note again and looked at it with great\nconsideration; then handed it to Mrs. Eberstein. Mrs. Eberstein read\naloud.\n\n\n\"Ship '_Achilles_,'\n\n\"_Dec_. 5, 18--\n\n\"Will Miss Dolly Copley please send a word to say that she has received\nher piece of cable safe? I thought she would like it best perhaps in a\nmanufactured form; and I hope she will keep it to remember the\n'Achilles' by, and also\n\n\"A. CROWNINSHIELD.\"\n\n\n\"What's all that?\" demanded Mr. Eberstein now from his writing-desk.\nMrs. Eberstein bit her lips as she answered,\n\n\"Billet-doux.\"\n\n\"Aunt Harry,\" said Dolly now doubtfully, \"must I write an answer?\"\n\n\"Edward,\" said Mrs. Eberstein, \"shall I let this child write a note to\na midshipman on board the 'Achilles'? What do you think? Come and\ncounsel me.\"\n\nMr. Eberstein left his writing, informed himself of the circumstances,\nread \"A. Crowninshield's\" note, and gave his decision.\n\n\"The 'Achilles'? Oh yes, I know Captain Barbour very well. It's all\nright, I guess. I think Dolly had better write an answer, certainly.\"\n\nSo Dolly fetched her writing materials. Her aunt looked for some\nappeals for advice now on her part; but Dolly made none. She bent over\nher paper with an earnest face, a little flushed; but it seemed she was\nin no uncertainty what to say or how to say it. She did not offer to\nshow her finished note to Mrs. Eberstein; I think it did not occur to\nher; but in the intensity of her concentration Dolly only thought of\nthe person she was writing to and the occasion which made her write.\nCertainly she would have had no objection that anybody should see what\nshe wrote. The simple words ran as follows:\n\n\n\"MR. CROWNINSHIELD,\n\n\"I have got the chain, and I think it is beautiful, and I am very much\nobliged to you. I mean to keep it and wear it as long as I live. You\nare very kind.\n\n\"DOLLY COPLEY.\"\n\n\nThe note was closed and sent off; and with that Dolly dismissed the\nsubject, so far at least as words were concerned; but Mrs. Eberstein\nwatched her still for some time handling and examining the chain,\npassing it through her fingers, and regarding it with a serious face,\nand yet an expression in the eyes and on the lips that was almost\nequivalent to a smile.\n\n\"What are you going to do with it, Dolly?\" Mrs. Eberstein asked at\nlength, wishing to get into the child's thoughts.\n\n\"I'll keep it, Aunt Harry. And when I have anything to wear it with, I\nwill wear it. When I am old enough, I mean.\"\n\n\"What did you do to that young fellow, to make him show you such an\nattention?\"\n\n\"Do to him? I didn't do anything to him, Aunt Harry!\"\n\n\"It was very kind of him, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"_Very_ kind. I guess he is kind,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Maybe we shall see him again one of these days, and have a chance to\nthank him. The midshipmen get leave to come on shore now and then.\"\n\nBut no such chance offered. The \"Achilles\" sailed out of those waters,\nand her place in the river was empty.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nEND OF SCHOOL TERM.\n\nDolly's school life is not further of importance in this history; or no\nfurther than may serve to fill out the picture already given of\nherself. A few smooth and uneventful years followed that first coming\nto Philadelphia; not therefore unfruitful because uneventful; perhaps\nthe very contrary. The little girl made her way among her fellow pupils\nand the teachers, the masters and mistresses, the studies and drills\nwhich busied them all, with a kind of sweet facility; such as is born\neverywhere, I suppose, of good will. Whoever got into scrapes, it was\nnever Dolly Copley; whoever was chidden for imperfect recitations, such\nrebukes never fell on her; whoever might be suspected of mischief, such\nsuspicion could not rest for a moment on the fair, frank little face\nand those grave brown eyes. The most unpopular mistress had a friend in\nDolly; the most refractory school-girl owned to a certain influence\nwhich went forth from her; the most uncomfortable of her companions\nfound soothing in her presence. People who are happy themselves can\ndrop a good deal of oil on the creaking machinery around them, and love\nis the only manufactory where the oil is made.\n\nWith all this smooth going, it may be supposed that Dolly's progress in\nknowledge and accomplishments would be at least satisfactory; and it\nwas more than that. She prospered in all she undertook. The teacher of\nmathematics said she had a good head for calculation; the French\nmistress declared nature had given her a good ear and accent; the\ndancing master found her agile and graceful as a young roe; the drawing\nmaster went beyond all these and averred that Miss Copley would\ndistinguish him and herself. \"She has an excellent manner of handling,\nmadame,\" he said,--\"and she has an eye for colour, and she will have a\nstyle that will be distinguished.\" Moreover, Dolly's voice was sweet\nand touching, and promised to be very effective.\n\nSo things went on at school; and at home each day bound faster the\nloving ties which united her with her kind protectors and relations.\nEvery week grew and deepened the pleasure of the intercourse they held\ntogether. Those were happy years for all parties. Dolly had become\nrather more talkative, without being less of a bookworm. Vacations were\nsometimes spent with her mother and father, though not always, as the\nlatter were sometimes travelling. Dolly missed nothing; Mrs.\nEberstein's house had come to be a second home.\n\nAll this while the \"Achilles\" had never been heard of again in the\nneighbourhood of Philadelphia. Neither, though Dolly I am bound to say\nsearched faithfully all the lists of ship's officers which were\nreported in any American ports, did she ever so much as see the name of\nA. Crowninshield. She always looked for it, wherever a chance of\nfinding it might be; she never found it.\n\nSuch was the course of things, until Dolly had reached her seventeenth\nyear and was half through it. Then, in the spring, long before school\nterm ended, came a sudden summons for her. Mr. Copley had received the\nappointment of a consulship in London; he and his family were about to\ntransfer themselves immediately to this new sphere of activity, and\nDolly of course must go along. Her books were hastily fetched from\nschool, her clothes packed up; and Dolly and her kind friends in Walnut\nStreet sat together the last evening in a very subdued frame of mind.\n\n\"I don't see what your father wanted of a consulship, or anything else\nthat would take him out of his country!\" Mr. Eberstein uttered his\nrather grumbling complaint. \"He has enough to satisfy a man without\nthat.\"\n\n\"But what papa likes is precisely something to take him out of the\ncountry. He likes change\"--said Dolly sorrowfully.\n\n\"He won't have much change as American Consul in London,\" Mr. Eberstein\nreturned. \"Business will pin him pretty close.\"\n\n\"I suppose it will be a change at first,\" said Dolly; \"and then, when\nhe gets tired of it, he will give it up, and take something else.\"\n\n\"And you, little Dolly, you are accordingly to be shoved out into the\ngreat, great world, long before you are ready for it.\"\n\n\"Is the world any bigger over there than it is on this side?\" said\nDolly, with a gleam of fun.\n\n\"Well, yes,\" said Mr. Eberstein. \"Most people think so. And London _is_\na good deal bigger than Philadelphia.\"\n\n\"The world is very much alike all over,\" remarked Mrs. Eberstein; \"in\none place a little more fascinating and dangerous, in another a little\nless.\"\n\n\"Will it be more or less, over there, for me, Aunt Harry?\"\n\n\"It would be 'more' for you anywhere, Dolly, soon. Why you are between\nsixteen and seventeen; almost a woman!\" Mrs. Eberstein said with a sigh.\n\n\"No, not yet, Aunt Harry. I'll be a girl yet awhile. I can be that in\nEngland, can't I, as well as here?\"\n\n\"Better,\" said Mr. Eberstein.\n\n\"But the world, nevertheless, _is_ a little bigger out there, Ned,\" his\nwife added.\n\n\"In what way, Aunt Harry? And what do you mean by the 'world' anyhow?\"\n\n\"I mean what the Lord was speaking of, when He said to His disciples,\n'If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye\nare not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore\nthe world hateth you.'\"\n\n\"That means, bad people?\"\n\n\"Some of them are by no means bad people. Some of them are delightful\npeople.\"\n\n\"Then I do not quite understand, Aunt Harry. I thought it meant not\nonly _bad_ people, but gay people; pleasure lovers.\"\n\n\"Aren't you a lover of pleasure, Dolly?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. But, Aunt Harry,\" Dolly said seriously, \"I am _not_ a 'lover\nof pleasure more than a lover of God.'\"\n\n\"No, thanks to His goodness! However, Dolly, people may be just as\nworldly without seeking pleasures at all. It isn't that.\"\n\n\"What is it, then?\"\n\n\"I don't know how to put it. Ned, can you?\"\n\n\"Why, Hal,\" said Mr. Eberstein pondering, \"it comes to about this, I\nreckon. There are just two kingdoms in the world, upon earth I mean.\"\n\n\"Yes. Well? I know there are two kingdoms, and no neutral ground. But\nwhat is the dividing line? That is what we want to know.\"\n\n\"If there is no neutral ground, it follows that the border line of one\nkingdom is the border line of the other. To go out of one, is to go\ninto the other.\"\n\n\"Well? Yes. That's plain.\"\n\n\"Then it is simple enough. What belongs to Christ, or what is done for\nHim or in His service, belongs to His kingdom. Of course, what is _not_\nChrist's, nor is done for Him, nor in His service, belongs to the\nworld.\"\n\nThere was a silence here of some duration; and then Dolly exclaimed, \"I\nsee it. I shall know now.\"\n\n\"What, Dolly?\"\n\n\"How to do, Aunt Harry.\"\n\n\"How to do what?\"\n\n\"Everything. I was thinking particularly just then\"--Dolly hesitated.\n\n\"Yes, of what?\"\n\n\"Of dressing myself.\"\n\n\"Dressing yourself, you chicken?\"\n\n\"Yes, Aunt Harry. I see it. If I do not dress for Christ, I do it for\nthe world.\"\n\n\"Don't go into another extreme now, Dolly.\"\n\n\"No, Aunt Harry. I cannot be wrong, can I, if I do it for Christ?\"\n\n\"I wonder how many girls of sixteen in the country have such a thought?\nAnd I wonder, how long will you be able to keep it, Dolly?\"\n\n\"Why not, Aunt Harry?\"\n\n\"O child! because you have got to meet the world.\"\n\n\"What will the world do to me?\" Dolly asked, half laughing in her\nsimple ignorance.\n\n\"When I think what it will do to you, Dolly, I am ready to break my\nheart. It will tempt you, child. It will tempt you with beauty, and\nwith pleasant things; pleasant things that look so harmless! and it\nwill seek to persuade you with sweet voices and with voices of\nauthority; and it will show you everybody going one way, and that not\nyour way.\"\n\n\"But I will follow Christ, Aunt Hal.\"\n\n\"Then you will have to bear reproach.\"\n\n\"I would rather bear the world's reproach, than His.\"\n\n\"If you don't get over-persuaded, child, or deafened with the voices!\"\n\n\"She will have to do like the little girl in the fairy tale,\" said Mr.\nEberstein; \"stuff cotton in her ears. The little girl in the fairy tale\nwas going up a hill to get something at the top--what _was_ she going\nfor, that was at the top of the hill?\"\n\n\"I know!\" cried Dolly. \"I remember. She was going for three things. The\nSinging bird and the Golden water, and--I forget what the third thing\nwas.\"\n\n\"Well, you see what that means,\" Mr. Eberstein went on. \"She was going\nup the hill for the Golden water at the top; and there were ten\nthousand voices in her ears tempting her to look round; and if she\nlooked, she would be turned to stone. The road was lined with stones,\nwhich had once been pilgrims. You see, Dolly? Her only way was to stop\nher ears.\"\n\n\"I see, Uncle Ned.\"\n\n\"What shall Dolly stop her ears with?\" asked Mrs. Eberstein.\n\n\"These words will do. 'Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do,\ndo all to the glory of God.'\"\n\nThere was little more talking, for as the evening drew on, the\nheaviness of the parting weighed too hard upon all hearts. The next day\nDolly made the journey to Boston, and from there to her parents' house;\nand her childhood's days were over.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nPLAYTHINGS.\n\nDolly did not know that her childhood was over. Every pulse of her\nhappy little heart said the contrary, when she found herself again\namong her old haunts and was going the rounds of them, the morning\nafter her return home. She came in at last to her mother, flushed and\nwarm.\n\n\"Mother, what are we going away for?\" she began.\n\n\"Your father knows. I don't. Men never know when they are well off.\"\n\n\"Do women?\"\n\n\"I used to think so.\"\n\n\"Is it as pleasant in England as it is here?\"\n\n\"Depends on where you are placed, I suppose, and _how_ you are placed.\nHow can I tell? I have never been in England.\"\n\n\"Mother, we have got the prettiest little calf in the barn that you\never saw.\"\n\n\"In the barn! A queer place for a calf to be, it seems to me.\"\n\n\"Yes, because they want to keep it from the cow. Johnson is going to\nrear it, he says. I am so glad it is not to be killed! It is spotted,\nmother; all red and white; and so prettily spotted!\"\n\nAn inarticulate sound from Mrs. Copley, which might mean anything.\n\n\"And, mother, I have been getting the eggs. And Johnson has a hen\nsetting. We shall have chickens pretty soon.\"\n\n\"Dolly Copley, how old are you?\"\n\n\"Sixteen last Christmas, mother.\"\n\n\"And seventeen next Christmas.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, but next Christmas is not come yet.\"\n\n\"Seems to me, it is near enough for you to be something besides a\nchild.\"\n\n\"What's the harm, mother?\"\n\n\"Harm?\" said Mrs. Copley with a sharp accent; \"why, when one has a\nwoman's work to do, one had better be a woman to do it. How is a child\nto fill a woman's place?\"\n\n\"I have only a child's place to fill, just now,\" said Dolly merrily. \"I\nhave no woman's work to do, mother.\"\n\n\"Yes, you have. You have got to go into society, and play your part in\nsociety, and be married by and by; and _then_ you'll know that a\nwoman's part isn't so easy to play.\"\n\nDolly looked grave.\n\n\"But we are going to England, mother; where we know nobody. I don't see\nhow we are to go into much society.\"\n\n\"Do you suppose,\" said Mrs. Copley very irately, \"that with your\nfather's position his wife and daughter will not be visited and receive\ninvitations? That is the one thing that reconciles me to going. We\nshall have a very different sort of society from what we have here. Why\nyou will go to court, Dolly; you will be presented; and of course you\nwill see nothing but people of the very best circles.\"\n\n\"I don't care about going to court.\"\n\n\"Why not? You are a goose; you know nothing about it. Why don't you\nwant to go to court? Your father's daughter may, as well as some other\npeople's. Why don't you care about it?\"\n\n\"It would be a great deal of fuss; and no use.\"\n\n\"No use! Yes, it would; just the use I am telling you. It would\nintroduce you to the best society.\"\n\n\"But I am not going to live in England all my life, mother.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\" very sharply. \"How do you know where you are going\nto live?\"\n\n\"Why, father won't stay there always, will he?\"\n\n\"I am sure I don't know what your father will take into his head. I may\nbe called to end my days in Japan. But you--Look here; has your aunt\nmade you as old-fashioned as she is herself?\"\n\n\"How, mother?\"\n\n\"I am sure I can't tell how! There are ever so many ways. There's the\nbenevolent sort, and there's the devout sort, and there's the\npuritanical sort. Has she put it into your head that it is good to be a\nhermit and separate yourself from the rest of the world?\"\n\nDolly laughed and denied that charge.\n\n\"She's a very good woman, I suppose; but she is ridiculous,\" Mrs.\nCopley went on. \"Don't be ridiculous, whatever you are. You can't do\nany good to anybody by being ridiculous.\"\n\n\"But people may call things ridiculous, that are not ridiculous,\nmother.\"\n\n\"Don't let them _call_ you ridiculous, then,\" said Mrs. Copley,\nchopping her words in the way people do when impatience has the\nmanagement of them. \"You had better not. The world is pretty apt to be\nright.\"\n\nDolly let the subject go, and let it go from her mind too; giving\nherself to the delights of her chickens, and the calf, and the nests of\neggs in the hay mow. More than half the time she was dancing about out\nof doors; as gay as the daffodils that were just opening, as delicate\nas the Van Thol tulips that were taking on slender streaks and threads\nof carmine in their half transparent white petals, as sweet as the\nwhite hyacinth that was blooming in Mrs. Copley's window. Within the\nhouse Dolly displayed another character, and soon became indispensable\nto her mother. In all consultations of business, in emergencies of\npacking, in perplexities of arrangements, Dolly was ready with a sweet,\nclear common sense, loving hands of skill, and an imperturbable\ncheerfulness and patience. It was only a few weeks that the confusion\nlasted; during those weeks Mrs. Copley came to know what sort of a\ndaughter she had. And even Mr. Copley began to divine it.\n\nMr. Copley has been no more than mentioned. He was a comely,\nintelligent, active, energetic man; a very good specimen of a typical\nYankee who has enjoyed the advantages of education and society. He had\nplenty of common sense, acute business faculties, and genial manners;\nand so was generally a popular man among his compeers. His inherited\nfamily property made him more than independent; so his business\ndealings were entered into rather for amusement and to satisfy the\ninborn Yankee craving to be doing something, than for need or for gain.\nMr. Copley laid no special value on money, beyond what went to make him\ncomfortable. But he lacked any feeling for art, which might have made\nhim a collector and connoisseur; he had no love for nature, which might\nhave expended itself in grounds and gardens; he cared little for\nknowledge, except such as he could forthwith use. What was left to him\nbut business? for he was not of those softly natures which sit down at\nhome in the midst of their families and are content. However, Mr.\nCopley could value his home belongings, and had an eye to discern\nthings.\n\nHe was watching Dolly, one day just before their departure, as she was\nbusying herself with a bunch of violets; putting some of them in a\nglass, sticking some of them in her mother's hair, finally holding the\nbunch under her father's nose.\n\n\"Dolly,\" said her father, \"I declare I don't know whether you are most\nof a child or a woman!\"\n\n\"I suppose I can be both, father; can't I?\"\n\n\"I don't know about that.\"\n\n\"So I tell her,\" said Mrs. Copley. \"It's all very well as long as she\nis here; but I tell her she has got to give up being a child and\nplaying with the chickens.\"\n\n\"Why must I?\" said Dolly.\n\n\"You will find other playthings on the other side,\" said her father,\nfondly putting his arm round her and drawing her up to him.\n\n\"Will they be as good as chickens? What will they be?\"\n\n\"Yes, there, 'what will they be,' she asks! I do believe that Dolly has\nno idea,\" Mrs. Copley remarked.\n\n\"She will find out soon enough,\" said Mr. Copley contentedly.\n\n\"What will they be, father?\" Dolly repeated, making for the present a\nplaything of her father's head; for both her soft arms were around it,\nand she was touching first one side and then the other side with her\nown cheeks. Mr. Copley seemed to enjoy the play, for he gave himself up\nto it luxuriously and made no answer.\n\n\"Dolly has been long enough in Philadelphia,\" Mrs. Copley went on. \"It\nis time she was away.\"\n\n\"So I think.\"\n\n\"Father,\" said Dolly now, \"have I done with going to school?\"\n\nThere ensued a debate upon this question; Dolly herself taking the\nnegative and her mother the affirmative side. She wanted her daughter\nat home, she said.\n\n\"But not till I am fit to be at home, mother?\"\n\n\"Fit? Why are you not fit?\" said Mrs. Copley. \"You know as much as I\ndid when I was married; and I should think that would be enough. I do\nnot see what girls want with so much crammed into their heads,\nnowadays! It does them no good, and it does nobody else any good.\"\n\n\"What do you think you want, Dolly, more than you have already?\" her\nfather asked.\n\n\"Why, father, I do not know _anything_. I have only begun things.\"\n\n\"Humph! Not know anything. I suppose you can read and write and cipher?\"\n\n\"And you can play and sing,\" added Mrs. Copley.\n\n\"Very little, mother.\"\n\n\"And your drawings are beautiful.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, mother! That is one especial thing that I want to do better; a\ngreat deal better.\"\n\n\"I think they are good enough. And you have music enough. What's the\nuse? When you are married you will give it all up.\"\n\n\"My music and my drawing, mother?\"\n\n\"Yes. Every girl does.\"\n\n\"But I am not going to be married.\"\n\n\"Not just yet,\"--said Mr. Copley, drawing the soft arms round his\nneck,--\"not just yet, Dolly. But when a girl is known to have so much\nmoney as you will have, there are sure to be plenty of fellows after\nher. Somebody will catch you up, some of these days.\"\n\n\"Somebody who wants my money, father?\"\n\n\"Everybody wants money\"--Mr. Copley answered evasively.\n\n\"They would not come and tell you so, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Not exactly. That isn't the game.\"\n\n\"Then they would pretend to like me, while they only wanted my money?\"\n\n\"Mr. Copley, do you think what notions you are putting in Dolly's head?\nDon't you know yet, that whatever you put in Dolly's head, stays\nthere?\" Mrs. Copley objected.\n\n\"I like that,\" said Dolly's father. \"Most girls' heads are like paper\nfly traps--won't hold anything but a fly. Dolly, in the pocket of my\novercoat that hangs up in the hall, there is something that concerns\nyou.\"\n\n\"Which pocket, father?\"\n\n\"Ay, you've got your head on your shoulders! That's right. In the inner\nbreast pocket, my dear. You'll find a small packet, tied up in paper.\"\n\nBeing brought and duly opened, Mr. Copley's fingers took out of a small\npaper box a yet smaller package in silk paper and handed it to Dolly.\nIt was a pretty little gold watch.\n\n\"Why didn't you wait till you go to Geneva, Mr. Copley?\" said his wife.\n\"You could have got it cheaper and better there.\"\n\n\"How do you know, my dear, without knowing how much I paid for this, or\nhow good it is? I am not going to Geneva, either. Well, Dolly?\"\n\nDolly gave her father a mute kiss, which was expressive.\n\n\"_You_ think it will do, then. What will you wear it on? I should have\nthought of that. You must have a chain.\"\n\n\"Oh, I have got a chain!\" Dolly cried, and off she ran to fetch it. She\ncame back presently with the little box which had been sent her from\nthe \"Achilles,\" and sat down by the lamp to put the watch on the chain.\nHer father's eye rested on her as she sat there, and well it might. The\nlamp-light fell among the light loose curls of brown hair, glanced from\nthe white brow, showed the delicate flush with which delight had\n her cheeks, and then lit up the little hands which were busy\nwith gold and wreathen work of the cable chain. The eyes he could not\nsee; the mouth, he thought, with its innocent half smile, was as sweet\nas a mouth could be. Mrs. Copley was looking that way too, but seeing\nsomewhat else. Eyes do see in the same picture such different things.\n\n\"What have you got there, Dolly?\"\n\n\"A chain, mother. I am so glad! I never could wear it, before. Now I am\nso glad.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"A chain, mother,\" said Dolly, holding it up.\n\n\"What sort of a chain? Made of what?\"\n\nDolly told her story. Mrs. Copley examined and wondered at the elegance\nof the work. Mr. Copley promised Dolly a chain of gold.\n\n\"I do not want it, father. I like this,\" said Dolly, putting the chain\nround her neck.\n\n\"Not better than a gold one?\"\n\n\"Yes, father, I do.\"\n\n\"Why, child?\"\n\n\"It reminds me of the time, and of the person that made it; and I like\nit for all that.\"\n\n\"Who was the person? what was his name?\"\n\n\"A midshipman on the 'Achilles.' His name was Crowninshield.\"\n\n\"A good name,\" said Mr. Copley.\n\n\"Why that was five and a half years ago, child. Did he make such an\nimpression on you? Where is he now?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"You have never seen him since?\"\n\n\"Nor heard of him. I could not even find his name in any of the lists\nof officers of ships, that I saw sometimes in the paper.\"\n\n\"I'll look for it,\" said Mr. Copley.\n\nBut though he was as good as his word, he was no more successful than\nDolly had been.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nLONDON.\n\nMrs. Copley did not like London. So she declared after a stay of some\nmonths had given her, as she supposed, an opportunity of judging. The\nhouse they inhabited was not in a sufficiently fashionable quarter, she\ncomplained; and society did not seem to open its doors readily to the\nnew American consul.\n\n\"I suppose, mother, we have not been here long enough. People do not\nknow us.\"\n\n\"What do you call 'long enough'?\" said Mrs. Copley with sharp emphasis.\n\"And how are people to know us, if they do not come to see us? When\npeople are strangers, is the very time to go and make their\nacquaintance; I should say.\"\n\n\"English nature likes to know people before it makes their\nacquaintance,\" Mr. Copley remarked. \"I do not think you have any cause\nto find fault.\"\n\n\"No; you have all _you_ want in the way of society, and you have no\nnotion how it is with me. That is men's way. And what do you expect to\ndo with Dolly, shut up in this smoky old street? You might think of\nDolly.\"\n\n\"Dolly, dear,\" said her father, \"are you getting smoked out, like your\nmother? Do you want to go with me and see the Bank of England to-day?\"\n\nDolly made a joyful spring to kiss her thanks, and then flew off to get\nready; but stopped at the door.\n\n\"Won't you go too, mother?\"\n\n\"And tire myself to death? No, thank you, Dolly. I am not so young as I\nwas once.\"\n\n\"You are a very young woman for your years, my dear,\" said Mr. Copley\ngallantly.\n\n\"But I should like to know, Frank,\" said Mrs. Copley, thawing a little,\n\"what you do mean to do with Dolly?\"\n\n\"Take her to see the Bank of England. It's a wonderful institution.\"\n\n\"You know what I mean, Frank. Don't run away from my question. You have\nsociety enough, I suppose, of the kind that suits you; but Dolly and I\nare alone, or as near as possible. What is to become of Dolly, shut up\nhere in smoke and fog? You should think of Dolly. I can stand it for\nmyself.\"\n\n\"There'll be no want of people to think of Dolly.\"\n\n\"If they could see her; but they don't see her. How are they to see\nher?\"\n\n\"I'll get you a place down in the country, if you like; out of the\nsmoke.\"\n\n\"I should like it very much. But that will not help Dolly.\"\n\n\"Yes, it will; help her to keep fresh. I'll get her a pony.\"\n\n\"Mr. Copley, you will not answer me! I am talking of Dolly's prospects.\nYou do not seem to consider them.\"\n\n\"How old is Dolly?\"\n\n\"Seventeen.\"\n\n\"Too young for prospects, my dear.\"\n\n\"Not too young for us to think about it, and take care that she does\nnot miss them. Mr. Copley, do you know Dolly is very handsome?\"\n\n\"She is better than that!\" said Mr. Copley proudly. \"I understand\nfaces, if I don't prospects. There is not the like of Dolly to be seen\nin Hyde Park any day.\"\n\n\"Why don't you take her to ride in the Park then, and let her be seen?\"\n\n\"Do you want her to marry an Englishman?\"\n\nMrs. Copley was silent, and before she spoke again Dolly came in, ready\nfor her expedition.\n\nLondon was not quite to Dolly the disappointing thing her mother\ndeclared it. She was at an age to find pleasure in everything from\nwhich a fine sense could bring it out; and not being burdened with\nthoughts about \"prospects,\" and finding her own and her mother's\nsociety always sufficient for herself, Dolly went gaily on from day to\nday, like a bee from flower to flower; sucking sweetness in each one.\nShe had a large and insatiable appetite for the sight and knowledge of\neverything that was worth seeing or knowing; it followed, that London\nwas to her a rich treasure field. She delighted in viewing it under its\nhistorical aspect; she would study out the associations and the\nchronicled events connected with a particular point; and then, with her\nmind and heart full of the subject, go some day to visit the place with\nher father. What pleasure she took in this way it is impossible to\ntell. Mr. Copley was excessively fond and proud of his daughter, even\nthough her mother thought him so careless about her interests; his life\nwas a busy one, but from time to time he would spare half a day to give\nto Dolly, and then they went sight-seeing together. Old houses, old\ngateways and courts, old corners and streets, where something had\nhappened or somebody had lived that henceforth could never be\nforgotten, how Dolly studied them and hung about them! Mr. Copley\nhimself cared for no historical associations, neither could he\napprehend picturesque effects; what he did care for was Dolly; and for\nher sake he would linger hours, if need were, around some bit of old\nLondon; and find amusement enough the while in watching Dolly. Dolly\nstudied like an antiquary, and dreamed like a romantic girl; and at the\nsame time enjoyed fine effects with the true natural feeling of an\nartist; though Dolly was no artist. The sense had not been cultivated,\nbut the feeling was born in her. So the British Museum was to her\nsomething quite beyond fairyland; a region of wonders, where past ages\nwent by in procession; or better, stood still for her eyes to gaze upon\nthem. The Tower was another place of indescribable fascination. How\nmany visits they made to it I dare not say; Dolly never had enough; and\nher delight was so much of a feast to her father that he did not grudge\nthe time nor mind what he would have called the dawdling. Indeed it was\na sort of refuge to Mr. Copley, when business perplexities or\niterations had fairly wearied him, which sometimes happened; then he\nwould flee away from the dust and confusion of present life in the city\nand lose himself with Dolly in the cool shades of the past. That might\nseem dusty to him too; but there was always a fresh spring of life in\nhis little daughter which made a green place for him wherever she\nhappened to be. So Mr. Copley was as contented with the condition of\nthings at this time as it was in his nature to feel. He had enough\nsociety, as his wife had stated; he had all he wanted in that line; he\nwas just as well contented to keep Dolly for the present at home and to\nhimself. He did not want her to be snapped up by somebody, he said; and\nif you don't mean to have a fire, you had best not leave matches lying\nabout; a sentiment which Mrs. Copley received with great scorn.\n\nIt would have, so far, suited the views of both parents, to send Dolly\nto some first-rate boarding school for a year or two. Only, they could\nnot do without her. She was the staple of Mrs. Copley's life, and the\nspice of life to her husband. Dolly was kept at home therefore, and\nfurnished with masters in music and drawing, and at her pressing\nrequest, in languages also. And just because she made diligent,\nconscientious use of these advantages and worked hard most of the time,\nDolly the more richly enjoyed an occasional half day of wandering about\nwith her father. She came home from her visit to the Bank of England in\nhigh glee and with a brave appetite for her late luncheon.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Copley, watching her,--\"now you have tired yourself\nout again; and for what?\"\n\n\"O mother, it was a very great sight!\" said Dolly. \"I wish you had been\nalong. I think it has given me the best notion of the greatness of\nEngland that I have got from anything yet.\"\n\n\"Money isn't _everything_,\" said Mrs. Copley scornfully. \"I dare say we\nhave just as good banks in America.\"\n\n\"Father says, there is nothing equal to it in the world.\"\n\n\"That is because your father is so taken with everything English. He'd\nbe sure to say that. I don't know why a bank in America shouldn't be as\ngood as a bank here, or anywhere.\"\n\n\"It isn't that, mother. A bank might be _good_, in one sense; but it\ncould not be such a magnificent establishment as this, anywhere but in\nEngland.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Oh, the abundance of wealth here, mother; and the scale of everything;\nand the superb order and system. English system is something\nbeautiful.\" And Dolly went on to explain to her mother the arrangements\nof the bank, and in especial the order taken for the preservation and\ngradual destruction of the redeemed notes.\n\n\"I should like to know what is the use of such things as banks at all?\"\nwas Mrs. Copley's unsatisfied comment.\n\n\"Why mother? don't you know? they make business so much easier, and\nsafer.\"\n\n\"I wish there was no such thing as banks, then.\"\n\n\"O mother! Why do you say that?\"\n\n\"Then your father would maybe let business alone.\"\n\n\"But he is fond of business!\"\n\n\"I don't think business is fond of him. He gets drawn into a\nspeculation here and a speculation there, by some of these people he is\nalways with; and some day he will do it once too often. He has enough\nfor us all now; if he would only keep to his consul's business and let\nbanks alone.\"\n\nMrs. Copley looked worried, and Dolly for a moment looked grave; but it\nwas her mother's way to talk so.\n\n\"Why did he take the consulship?\"\n\n\"Ask him! Because he would rather be a nobody in England than a\nsomebody in America.\"\n\n\"Mother,\" said Dolly after a pause, \"we have an invitation to dinner.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Father and I.\"\n\n\"Not me!\" cried Mrs. Copley. \"You and your father, and not your\nfather's wife!\"\n\n\"I suppose the people do not know you, mother, nor know about you; that\nmust be the reason.\"\n\n\"How do they know about you, pray?\"\n\n\"They have seen me. At least one of them has; so father says.\"\n\n\"One of whom?\"\n\n\"One of the family.\"\n\n\"What family is it?\"\n\n\"A rich banker's family, father says. Mr. St. Leger.\"\n\n\"St. Leger. That is a good name here.\"\n\n\"They are very rich, father says, and have a beautiful place.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Some miles out of London; a good many, I think.\"\n\n\"Where is your invitation?\"\n\n\"Where?--Oh, it is not written. Mr. St. Leger asked father to come and\nbring me.\"\n\n\"And _Mrs._ St. Leger has sent you no invitation, then. Not even a\ncard, Dolly?\"\n\n\"Why no, mother. Was that necessary?\"\n\n\"It would have been civil,\" said Mrs. Copley. \"It is what she would\nhave done to an Englishwoman. I suppose they think we don't know any\nbetter.\"\n\nDolly was silent, and Mrs. Copley presently went on.--\"How can you go\nto dinner several miles away? You would have to come back in the night.\"\n\n\"Oh no; we could not do that. Mr. St. Leger asked us to stay over till\nnext day.\"\n\n\"It is just like everything else in this miserable country!\" Mrs.\nCopley exclaimed. \"I wish I was at home!\"\n\n\"Oh, why, mother? We shall go home by and by; why cannot you enjoy\nthings, while we are here?\"\n\n\"Enjoy what? Staying here in the house and seeing you and your father\ngo off to dinners without me? At home I am Mrs. Copley, and it means\nsomething; here, it seems, I am Mr. Copley's housekeeper.\"\n\n\"But, mother, nobody meant any affront. And you will not see us go off\nand leave you; for I shall stay at home.\"\n\n\"Indeed you will do no such thing! I am not going to have you asked\nanywhere, really asked to a dinner, and not go. You shall go, Dolly.\nBut I really think Mr. Copley might have managed to let the people know\nyou had a mother somewhere. That's what he would have done, if it\nwasn't for business. It is business that swallows him up; and I don't\nknow for my part what life is good for so. Once I had a husband. Now, I\ndeclare I haven't got anything but you, Dolly.\"\n\n\"Mother, you _have_ me,\" said the girl, kissing her. And the caress was\nso sweet that it reminded Mrs. Copley how much that one word \"Dolly\"\nsignified; and she was quiet. And when Mr. Copley came home, and the\nsubject was discussed anew, she limited herself to inquiries about the\nfamily and questions concerning Dolly's dress, refraining from all\ncomplaints on her own score.\n\n\"St. Leger?\" said Mr. Copley. \"Who is he? He's a goodish old fellow;\nsharp as a hawk in business; but he's solid; solid as the Bank. That's\nall there is about him; he is of no great count, except for his money.\nHe'll never set the Thames on fire. What did he ask us for?--Humph!\nWell--he and I have had a good deal to do with each other. And then--\"\nMr. Copley paused and his eyes involuntarily went over the table to his\ndaughter. \"Do you remember, Dolly, being in my office one day, a month\nago or more, when Mr. St. Leger came in? he and his son?\"\n\nDolly remembered nothing about it; remembered indeed being there, but\nnot who came in.\n\n\"Well, _they_ remember it,\" said Mr. Copley.\n\n\"Is it a good place for Dolly to go?\"\n\n\"Dolly? Oh yes. Why not? They have a fine place out of town. Dolly will\ntell you about it when she has been there.\"\n\n\"And what must Dolly wear?\" pursued Mrs. Copley.\n\n\"Wear? Oh, just what everybody wears. The regular thing, I suppose.\nDolly may wear what she has a mind to.\"\n\n\"That is just what you know she cannot, Mr. Copley. At home she might;\nbut these people here are so very particular.\"\n\n\"About dress? Not at all, my dear. English people let you go your own\nway in that as much as any people on the face of the earth. They do not\ncare how you dress.\"\n\n\"They don't _care_, no,\" said Mrs. Copley; \"they don't care if you went\non your head; but all the same they judge you according to how you look\nand what you do. And us especially because we are foreigners. I don't\nwant them to turn up their noses at Dolly because she is an American.\"\n\n\"I'd as lieve they did it for that as for anything,\" said Dolly\nlaughing; \"but I hope the people we are going to will know better.\"\n\n\"They _will_ know better, there is no fear,\" answered her father.\n\nThe subject troubled Mrs. Copley's head, however, from that time till\nthe day of the dinner; and even after Dolly and her father had driven\noff and were gone, she still debated with herself uneasily whether a\ndarker dress would have done better, and whether Dolly ought to have\nhad flowers in her hair, to make her very best impression upon her\nentertainers. For Dolly had elected to wear white, and would deck\nherself with no ornament at all, neither ribband nor flower. Mrs.\nCopley half grumbled, yet could not but allow to herself that there was\nnothing to wish for in the finished effect; and Dolly was allowed to\ndepart; but as I said, after she was gone, Mrs. Copley went on\ntroubling herself with doubts on the question.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE PEACOCKS.\n\nNo doubts troubled Dolly's mind during that drive, about dress or\nanything else. Her dress she had forgotten indeed; and the pain of\nleaving her mother at home was forced to give way before the multitude\nof new and pleasant impressions. That drive was pure enjoyment. The\nexcitement and novelty of the occasion gave no doubt a spur to Dolly's\nspirits and quickened her perceptions; they were all alive, as the\ncarriage rolled along over the smooth roads. What could be better than\nto drive so, on such an evening, through such a country? For the\nweather was perfect, the landscape exceedingly rich and fair, the\nvegetation in its glory. And the roads themselves were full of the most\nvaried life, and offered to the little American girl a flashing,\nchanging, very amusing and abundantly suggestive scene. Dolly's eyes\nwere incessantly busy, yet her lips did not move unless to smile; and\nher father for a long time would not interrupt her meditations. Good\nthat she should forget herself, he thought; if she were recalled to the\npractical present maybe she would grow nervous. That was the only thing\nMr. Copley was afraid of. However, for him to keep absolute silence\nbeyond a limited time was out of his nature.\n\n\"Are you happy, Dolly?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Very happy, father! If only mother was with us.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, it would have been rather pleasanter for you; but you must\nnot mind that.\"\n\n\"I am afraid I do not mind it enough, I am so amused with everything. I\ncannot help it.\"\n\n\"That's right. Now, Dolly\"\n\n\"Yes, father\"\n\n\"I should like to know what you have been thinking of all this while. I\nhave been watching the smiles coming and going.\"\n\n\"I do not know that I was thinking at all--until just now; just before\nyou spoke.\"\n\n\"And of what then?\"\n\n\"It came to me, I do not know why, a question. We have passed so many\npeople who seemed as if they were enjoying themselves,--like me;--and\nso many pretty-looking places, where people might live happy, one would\nthink; and the question somehow came to me, father, what I am going to\ndo with my own life?\"\n\n\"Do with it?\" said Mr. Copley astonished; \"why enjoy it, Dolly. Every\nday as much as to-day.\"\n\n\"But perhaps one cannot enjoy life always,\" said Dolly thoughtfully.\n\n\"All you can, then, dear; all you can. There is nothing to prevent\n_your_ always enjoying it. You will have money enough; and that is the\nmain thing. There is nothing to hinder your enjoying yourself.\"\n\n\"But, father, don't you think one ought to do more with one's life than\nthat?\"\n\n\"Yes; you'll marry one of these days, and so make somebody else enjoy\nhimself.\"\n\n\"What would become of you and mother then?\" asked Dolly shyly.\n\n\"We'd get along,\" said Mr. Copley. \"What we care about, is to see you\nenjoy life, Dolly. Are you enjoying it now, puss?\"\n\n\"Very much, father.\"\n\n\"Then so am I.\"\n\nThe carriage left the high road here, and Dolly's attention was again,\nseemingly, all bestowed on what she saw from its windows. Her father\nwatched her, and could not observe that she was either timid or excited\nin the prospect of the new scenes upon which she was about to enter.\nHer big brown eyes were wide open, busy and interested, at the same\ntime wholly self-forgetful. Self-forgetful they remained when arriving\nat the house, and when she was introduced to the family; and her manner\nconsequently left nothing to be desired. Yet house and grounds and\nestablishment were on a scale to which Dolly hitherto had been entirely\nunaccustomed.\n\nThere was a small dinner party gathered, and Dolly was taken in to\ntable by young Mr. St. Leger, the son of their host. Dolly had seen\nthis gentleman before, and so in this concourse of strangers she felt\nmore at home with him than with anybody. Young Mr. St. Leger was a very\nhandsome fellow; with regular features and soft, rather lazy, blue\neyes, which, however, were not insipid. Dolly rather liked him; the\nexpression of his features was gentle and good, so were his manners. He\nseemed well pleased with his choice of a companion, and did his best to\nmake Dolly pleased also.\n\n\"You are new in this part of the world?\" he remarked to her.\n\n\"I am new in any part of the world,\" said Dolly, dimpling, as she did\nwhen something struck her funnily. \"I am not very old yet.\"\n\n\"No, I see,\" said her companion, laughing a little, though in some\ndoubt whether he or she had made the fun. \"How do you like us? Or\nhaven't you been long enough here to judge?\"\n\n\"I have been in England a good many months.\"\n\n\"Then is it a fair question?\"\n\n\"All questions are fair,\" said Dolly. \"I like some things here very\nmuch.\"\n\n\"I should be delighted to know what.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you,\" said Dolly's father, who sat opposite and had caught\nthe question. \"She likes an old suit of armour or a collection of old\nstones in the form of an arch or a gateway; and in the presence of the\ncrown jewels she was almost as bad as that Scotch lady who worshipped\nthe old Regalia of the northern kingdom. Only it was the antiquity that\nDolly worshipped, you know; not the royalty.\"\n\n\"What is there in antiquity?\" said Mr. St. Leger, turning his eyes\nagain curiously to Dolly. \"Old things were young once; how are they any\nbetter for being old?\"\n\n\"Not any better; only more interesting.\"\n\n\"Pray tell me why.\"\n\n\"Think of what those old stones have seen.\"\n\n\"Pardon me; they have not _seen_ anything.\"\n\n\"Think of the eyes that have seen them, then. Or stand before one of\nthose old suits of armour in the Tower, and think where it has been.\nThink of the changes that have come; and what a strange witness it is\nfor the things that were and have passed away.\"\n\n\n\"I am more interested in the present,\" said the young man. \"I perceive\nyou are romantic.\"\n\nDolly was silent. She thought one of those halls of old armour in the\nTower was in its attractions very far beyond the present dinner table;\nalthough indeed this amused her. Presently her companion began again\nand gave her details about all the guests; who they were, and how they\nhappened to be there; and then suddenly asked her if she had ever been\nto the races? Dolly inquired what races; and was informed that the\nEpsom races were just beginning. Would she like to go to them? was\ninquired eagerly.\n\nDolly had no idea what was the real character of the show she was asked\nabout; and she answered in accordance with her general craving to see\neverything. Nevertheless she was somewhat surprised, when the gentlemen\ncame up from dinner, to hear the proposition earnestly made; made by\nboth Mr. and Mrs. St. Leger; that she and her father should go with\nthem the next day to the Epsom races; and she was greatly astonished to\nhear her father agree to the proposal, although the acceptance of it\ninvolved the staying another day away from home and the sleeping a\nsecond night at the St. Leger place. But Dolly was not consulted. The\nfamily expressed their pleasure in undoubted terms, and young Mr. St.\nLeger's blue eyes had a gleam of satisfaction in them, as he assured\nDolly that now they would \"show her something of interest in the\npresent.\"\n\nDolly was the youngest guest in the house, and by all rules the one\nentitled to least consideration; yet she went to sleep that night in a\nchamber the most superb she had ever inhabited in her life. She looked\naround her with wonder at the richness of every matter of detail, and a\nlittle private query how _she_, little Dolly Copley, came to be so\nlodged? Her mother would have no reason _here_ to complain of want of\ndue regard. And all the evening there had been no such complaint to\nmake. People had been very kind, Dolly said to herself as she was\nfalling asleep. But how _could_ her father have consented to stay\nanother day, for any races in the world--leaving her mother alone? But\nshe could not help it; and no doubt the next day would be amusing;\nto-day had been amusing--and Dolly's thoughts went no further.\n\nThe next morning everybody drove or rode to the races. Dolly herself\nwas taken by young Mr. St. Leger, along with one of his sisters, in an\nelegant little vehicle for which she knew no name. It was very\ncomfortable, and they drove very fast--till the crowd hindered them,\nthat is; and certainly Dolly was amused. All was novel and strange to\nher; the concourse, the equipages, the people, the horses, even before\nthey arrived at the race grounds. There a good position was secured,\nand Dolly saw the whole of that day's performances. Mr. St. Leger\nattended to her unremittingly; he and his sister explained everything,\nand pointed out the people of mark within their range of vision; his\nblue eyes grew quite animated, and looked into Dolly's to see what they\ncould find there, of response or otherwise. And Dolly's eyes were grave\nand wide-awake, intent, very busy, very lively, but how far they were\nbrightened with pleasure he could not tell. They were bright, he saw\nthat; fearless, pure, sweet eyes, that yet baffled him; no trace of\nself-consciousness or self-seeking was to be found in them; and young\nSt. Leger stood a little in awe, as common men will, before a face so\nuncommon. He ventured no direct question for the satisfying of his\ncuriosity until they had returned, and dinner was over. Indeed he did\nnot venture it then; it was his father who asked it. He too had\nobserved the simple, well-bred, lovely little maiden, and had a little\ncuriosity on his own part.\n\n\"Well, Miss Copley--now you have seen Epsom, how do you like it?\"\n\nDolly hesitated. \"I have been very much interested, sir, thank you,\"\nshe said gravely.\n\n\"But how do you _like_ it? Did you enjoy it?\"\n\nDolly hesitated again. Finally smiled and confessed. \"I was sorry for\nthe horses.\"\n\n\"Sorry for the horses!\" her host repeated. \"What for?\"\n\n\"Yes, what for?\" added the younger St. Leger. \"They were not ill\ntreated.\"\n\n\"No,--\" said Dolly doubtfully, \"perhaps not,--but they were running\nvery hard, and for nothing.\"\n\n\"For nothing!\" echoed Mr. St. Leger again. \"It was for a good many\nthousand pounds. There's many a one was there to-day who wishes they\nhad run for nothing!\"\n\n\"But after all, that is for nothing,\" said Dolly. \"It is no good to\nanybody.\"\n\n\"Except to those that win,\" said the old gentleman. \"Except to those\nthat win!\" Probably _he_ had won.\n\nDolly wanted to get out of the conversation. She made no answer.\nAnother gentleman spoke up, and opined, were it not for the money won\nand lost, the whole thing would fail of its attraction. It would be no\nsport indeed, if the horses ran _for nothing_. \"Do you have no races\nin--a--your country?\" he asked Dolly.\n\nDolly believed so. She had never been present at them.\n\n\"Nothing like Epsom,\" said her father. \"We shall have nothing to show\nlike that for some time. But Dolly takes practical views. I saw her\nsmiling out of the windows, as we drove along, coming here yesterday;\nand I asked her what she was thinking of? I expected to hear her say,\nthe beauty of the plantations, or the richness of the country, or the\nelegance and variety of the equipages we passed. She answered me she\nwas thinking _what she should do with her life!_\"\n\nThere was a general gentle note of amusement audible through the room,\nbut old Mr. St. Leger laughed out in a broad \"ha, ha.\"\n\n\"What did you conclude, my dear?\" said he. \"What did you conclude? I am\ninterested to know.\"\n\n\"I could not conclude then, sir,\" said Dolly, bearing the laugh very\nwell, with a pretty little peach-blossom blush coming upon her cheeks.\n\n\"'Tisn't difficult to know,\" the old gentleman went on, not unkindly\nwatching Dolly's face play. \"There is one pretty certain lot for a\npretty young woman. She will manage her household, take care of her\nhusband, and bring up her children,--one of these days.\"\n\n\"That is not precisely the ambition of all pretty young women,\"\nremarked one of the party; while Mrs. St. Leger good humouredly drew\nDolly down to a seat beside her and engrossed her attention.\n\n\"You meant the words perhaps in another sense, more practical, that\nyour father did not think of. You were thinking maybe what profession\nyou would follow?\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, ma'am!\" said Dolly, quite perplexed now. \"How do\nyou mean, profession?\"\n\n\"Yes; perhaps you were thinking of being a governess some day, or a\nteacher, or something of that sort; were you?\"\n\nDolly's face dimpled all over in a way that seemed to young St. Leger\nthe very prettiest, winningest, most uncommon loveliness that his eyes\nhad ever been blessed with. Said eyes were inseparable from Dolly; he\nhad no attention but for her looks and words; and his mother knew as\nmuch, while she too looked at the girl and waited for her answer.\n\n\"Oh no,\" Dolly said; \"I was not thinking of any such thing. My father\ndoes not wish me to do anything of the kind.\"\n\n\"Then what _did_ you mean, my dear?\"\n\nDolly lifted a pair of sweet grave eyes to the face of her questioner;\na full, rather bloated face, very florid; with an expression of eyes\nkindly indeed, but unresting, dissatisfied; or if that is too strong a\nword, not content. Dolly looked at all this and answered--\n\n\"I don't want to live merely to live, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Don't you? What more do you want? To live pleasantly, of course; for\nnot to do _that_, is not what I call living.\"\n\n\"I was not thinking of pleasant living. But--I do not want my life to\nbe like those horses running to-day,\" said Dolly smiling; \"for nothing;\nof no use.\"\n\n\"Don't you think a woman is of use and fills her place, my dear, who\nlooks after her household and attends to her family, and does her duty\nby society?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Dolly hesitating,--\"but that is not enough.\" The girl was\nthinking of her own mother at the moment.\n\n\"Not enough? Why, yes, it is enough. That is a woman's place and\nbusiness. What else would you do?\"\n\nDolly was in some embarrassment now. She must answer, for Mrs. St.\nLeger was waiting for it; but her answer could not be understood. Her\neye took in again the rich appliances for present enjoyment which\nfilled the room, above, below, and around her; and then she said, her\neye coming back--\n\n\"I would like my life to be good for something that would not pass\naway.\"\n\n\"Not pass away? Why, everything passes away, my child\" (and there came\na sigh here),--\"in time. The thing is to make the best of them while we\nhave them.\"\n\nIs that all? thought Dolly, as she noticed the untested, rather sad\nlook of her hostess's face; and she wished she could say more, but she\ndared not. Then young Mr. St. Leger bent forward, and inquired what she\ncould be thinking of that would _not_ pass away? His mother saw the\nlook with which his blue eyes sought the face of the little stranger;\nand turned away with another sigh, born half of sympathy with her boy's\nfeeling and half of jealousy against the subject of it. Dolly saw the\nlook too, but did not comprehend it. She simply wondered why these\npeople put her through the catechism so?\n\n\"What could you be thinking of?\" St. Leger repeated, sliding into the\nseat his mother had quitted.\n\n\"Don't you know anything that will last?\" Dolly retorted.\n\n\"No,\" said the young man, laughing. \"Do you? Except that I have heard\nthat 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.'\"\n\nThis, which was a remarkable flight for St. Leger, was lost upon simple\nDolly.\n\n\"Oh, I know that is true,\" she answered; \"but that is just a way of\nspeaking. It would not be a joy to me, if I had not something else to\nhold to. I am sorry for you.\"\n\n\"Really? I wish I could think that. It would be delightful to have you\nsorry for me.\"\n\n\"It would be much better not to need it.\"\n\n\"I don't know about that. Perhaps, if you were very sorry for me, you\nwould try to teach me better.\"\n\n\"Perhaps; but I shall not have time. I suppose we shall go away very\nearly in the morning.\"\n\n\"I should like to show you the gardens, first.\"\n\n\"Haven't we seen them?\"\n\n\"Why, of course not. All that you have seen is a little shrubbery and a\nbit of the park. Suppose we go over the gardens in the morning?\"\n\n\"I am sure we shall return home immediately after breakfast.\"\n\n\"Before breakfast then? Why not?\"\n\nThis plan went into effect. It was an occasion of great pleasure to\nboth parties. No better time could be for seeing the utmost beauty of\nthe flowers; and Dolly wandered in what was to her a wilderness of an\nenchanted land. Breakfast was forgotten; and young St. Leger was so\ncharmed with this perfectly fresh, simple, and lively nature, that he\nfor his part was willing to forget it indefinitely. Dolly's utter\ndelight, and her intelligent, quick apprehension, the sparkle in her\neye, the happy colour in her cheeks, made her to his fancy the rarest\nthing he had ever seen. The gardener, who was summoned to give\ninformation of which his young master was not possessed, entertained\nquite the same opinion; and thanks to his admiring gratification Dolly\nwent back to the house the possessor of a most superb bouquet, which he\nhad cut for her and offered through Mr. St. Leger.\n\nThere were some significant half smiles around the breakfast table, as\nthe young pair and the flowers made their appearance. St. Leger braved\nthem; Dolly did not see them. Her sweet eyes were full of the blissful\nenchantment still. Immediately after breakfast, as she had said, her\nfather took leave.\n\nMrs. Copley had awaited their coming in a mood half irritation, half\ngratification. The latter conquered when she saw Dolly.\n\n\"Now tell me all about it!\" she said, before Dolly even could take off\nher bonnet.\n\n\"She went to the races,\" said Mr. Copley.\n\n\"That's a queer place for Dolly to go, Mr. Copley.\"\n\n\"Not at all. Everybody goes that can go.\"\n\n\"I think it's a queer place for young ladies to go,\" persisted the\nmother.\n\n\"It is a queer place enough for anybody, if you come to that; but no\nworse for them than for others; and it is they make the scene so pretty\nas it is.\"\n\n\"I can't imagine how there should be anything pretty in seeing horses\nrun to death!\" said Mrs. Copley.\n\n\"I just said it is the pretty girls that give the charm,\" said her\nhusband. \"Though _I_ can see some beauty in a fine horse, and in good\nriding; and they understand riding, those Epsom jockeys.\"\n\n\"Jockeys!\" his wife repeated. \"I don't want to hear you talk about\njockeys, Mr. Copley.\"\n\n\"I am not going to, my dear. I give up the field to Dolly.\"\n\n\"Mother, the first thing was the place. It is a most beautiful place.\"\n\n\"The race-ground?\"\n\n\"No, no, mother; Mr. St. Leger's place. 'The Peacocks,' they call it.\"\n\n\"What do they give it such a ridiculous name for?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Perhaps they used to have a great many peacocks. But the\nplace is the most beautiful place I ever saw. Mother, we were half an\nhour driving from the lodge at the park gate to the house.\"\n\n\"The road so bad?\"\n\n\"So _long_, mother; think of it; half an hour through the park woods,\nuntil we carne out upon the great lawn dotted with the noblest trees\nyou ever saw.\"\n\n\"Better than the trees in Boston common? I guess not,\" said Mrs. Copley.\n\n\"Those are good trees, mother, but nothing to these. These are just\nmagnificent.\"\n\n\"I don't see why fine trees cannot grow as well on American ground as\non English,\" said Mrs. Copley incredulously.\n\n\"Give them time enough,\" put in her husband.\n\n\"Time!\"\n\n\"Yes. We are a new country, comparatively, my dear. These old oaks here\nhave been growing for hundreds of years.\"\n\n\"And what should hinder them from growing hundreds of years over there?\nI suppose the _ground_ is as old as England; if Columbus didn't\ndiscover it all at once.\"\n\n\"The ground,\" said Mr. Copley, eyeing the floor between his\nboots,--\"yes, the ground; but it takes more than ground to make large\ntrees. It takes good ground, and favouring climate, and culture; or at\nleast to be let alone. Now we don't let things alone in America.\"\n\n\"I know _you_ don't,\" said his wife. \"Well, Dolly, go on with your\nstory.\"\n\n\"Well, mother,--there were these grand old trees, and beautiful grass\nunder them, and cattle here and there, and the house showing in the\ndistance. I did not like the house so very much, when we came to it; it\nis not old; but it is exceedingly handsome, and most beautifully\nfurnished. I never had such a room in my life, as I have slept in these\ntwo nights.\"\n\n\"And yet you don't like it!\" put in Mr. Copley.\n\n\"I like it,\" said Dolly slowly. \"I like all the comfort of it; but I\ndon't think it is very pretty, father. It's very _new_.\"\n\n\"New!\" said her father. \"What's the harm of a thing's being new? And\nwhat is the charm of its being old?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Dolly thoughtfully; \"but I like it. Then, mother,\ncame the dinner; and the dinner was like the house.\"\n\n\"That don't tell me anything,\" exclaimed Mrs. Copley. \"What was the\nhouse like?\"\n\n\"Mother, you go first into a great hall, set all round with marble\nfigures--statues--and with a heavy staircase going up at one side. It's\nall marble. But oh, the flower garden is lovely!\"\n\n\"Well, tell me about the house,\" said Mrs. Copley. \"And the dinner. Who\nwas there?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Dolly; \"quite a company. There were one or two\nforeign gentlemen; a count somebody and a baron somebody; there was an\nEnglish judge, and his wife, and two or three other ladies and\ngentlemen.\"\n\n\"How did you like the gentlemen, Dolly?\" her father asked here.\n\n\"I had hardly anything to do with them, except the two Mr. St. Legers.\"\n\n\"How did you like _them?_ I suppose, on your principle, you would tell\nme that you liked the _old_ one?\"\n\n\"Never mind them,\" said Mrs. Copley; \"go on about the dinner. What did\nyou have?\"\n\n\"Oh, everything, mother; and the most beautiful fruit at dessert; fruit\nfrom their own hothouses; and I saw the hothouses, afterwards. Most\nbeautiful! the purple and white grapes were hanging in thick clusters\nall over the vines; and quantities of different sorts of pines were\ngrowing in another hothouse. I had a bunch of Frontignacs this morning\nbefore breakfast, father; and I never had grapes taste so good.\"\n\n\"Yes, you must have wanted something,\" said Mr. Copley; \"wandering\nabout among flowers and fruit till ten o'clock without anything to eat!\"\n\n\"Poor Mr. St. Leger!\" said Dolly. \"But he was very kind. They were all\nvery kind. If they only would not drink wine so!\"\n\n\"Wine!\" Mrs. Copley exclaimed.\n\n\"It was all dinner time; it began with the soup, and it did not end\nwith the fruit, for the gentlemen sat on drinking after we had left\nthem. And they had been drinking all dinner time; the decanters just\nwent round and round.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Dolly!\" her father said; \"you are unaccustomed to the world,\nthat is all. There was none but the most moderate drinking.\"\n\n\"It was all dinner time, father.\"\n\n\"That is the custom of gentlemen here. It is always so. Tell your\nmother about the races.\"\n\n\"I don't like the races.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Well, tell me what they were, at any rate,\" said Mrs. Copley. \"It is\nthe least you can do.\"\n\n\"I don't know how to tell you,\" said Dolly. \"I will try. Imagine a\ngreat flat plain, mother, level as far as the eye can see. Imagine a\nstraight line marked out, where the horses are to run; and at the end\nof it a post, which is the goal, and there is the judges' stand. All\nabout this course, on both sides, that is towards the latter part of\nthe course, fancy rows of carriages, drawn up as close as they can\nstand, the horses taken out; and on these carriages a crowd of people\npacked as thick as they can find room to sit and stand. They talk and\nlaugh and discuss the horses. By and by you hear a cry that the horses\nhave set off; and then everybody looks to see them coming, with all\nsorts of glasses and telescopes; and everybody is still, waiting and\nwatching, until I suppose the horses get near enough for people to\nbegin to judge how the race will turn out; and then begins the\nfearfullest uproar you ever heard, everybody betting and taking bets.\n_Everybody_ seemed to be doing it, even ladies. And with the betting\ncomes the shouting, and the cursing, and the cheering on this one and\nthat one; it was a regular Babel. Even the ladies betted.\"\n\n\"Every one does it,\" said Mr. Copley.\n\n\"And the poor horses come running, and driven to run as hard as they\ncan; beautiful horses too, some of them; running to decide all those\nbets! I don't think it is an amusement for civilised people.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said her father.\n\n\"It is barbarous. There is no sense in it. If the white horse beats the\nblack, I'll pay you a thousand pounds; but if the black horse beats the\nwhite, you shall pay me two thousand. Is there any sense in that?\"\n\n\"Some sense in a thousand pound.\"\n\n\"Lost\"--said Dolly.\n\n\"It is better not to lose, certainly.\"\n\n\"But somebody must lose. And people bet in a heat, before they know\nwhat they ought to say; and bet more than they have to spare; I saw it\nyesterday.\"\n\n\"_You_ didn't bet, Mr. Copley?\" said his wife.\n\n\"A trifle. My dear, when one is in Rome, one must do as the Romans do.\"\n\n\"Did you lose?\"\n\n\"I gained, a matter of fifty pounds.\"\n\n\"Who did you gain it from, father?\"\n\n\"Lawrence St. Leger.\"\n\n\"He has no right to bet with his father's money.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is his own. I will give you twenty pound of it, Dolly, to\ndo what you like with.\"\n\nBut Dolly would have none of it. If it was to be peace money, it made\nno peace with her.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nBRIERLEY COTTAGE.\n\nA few months later than this, it happened one day that Mr. Copley was\nsurprised in his office by a visit from young St. Leger. Mr. Copley was\nsitting at a table in his own private room. It was not what you would\ncall a very comfortable room; rather bare and desolate looking; a\ncarpet and some chairs and desks and a table being the only furniture.\nThe table was heaped up with papers, and desks and floor alike\ntestified to an amount of heterogeneous business. Busy the Consul\nundoubtedly was, writing and studying; nevertheless, he welcomed his\nvisitor. The young man came in like an inhabitant of another world, as\nhe was; in spotlessly neat attire, leisurely manner, and with his blue\neyes sleepily nonchalant at the sight of all the stir of all the world.\nBut they smiled at Mr. Copley.\n\n\"You seem to have your bands full,\" he remarked.\n\n\"Rather. Don't I? Awfully! Secretary taken sick--confoundedly\ninconvenient.\" Mr. Copley went on writing as he spoke.\n\n\"There are plenty of secretaries to be had.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I haven't got hold of 'em yet. What brings you here,\nLawrence? Not business, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Not business with the American Consul.\"\n\n\"No. I made out so much by myself. What is it? I see all's right with\nyou, by your face.\"\n\n\"Thank you. Quite so. But you can't attend to me just now.\"\n\n\"Go ahead,\" said Mr. Copley, whose pen did not cease to scribble. \"I\ncan hear. No time for anything like the present minute. I've got _this_\ncase by heart, and don't need to think about it. Go on, Lawrence. Has\nyour father sent you to me?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Sit down, and tell me what I can do for you.\"\n\nMr. St. Leger sat down, but did not immediately comply with the rest of\nthe invitation. He rested his elbow on the table, looked at Mr.\nCopley's pen for a few minutes, and said nothing; until Mr. Copley\nagain glanced up at his face.\n\n\"I do not know that you can do anything for me,\" said the young man\nthen; \"only you can perhaps answer a question or two. Mr. Copley, would\nyou like to have me for a son-in-law?\"\n\n\"No,\" said the Consul shortly; \"nor any other man. I'd as lieve have\nyou as anybody, Lawrence.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I couldn't expect more. But you must allow somebody in that\ncapacity, Mr. Copley.\"\n\n\"Must I? Depends on how much Dolly likes somebody.\"\n\n\"That is just what I want to find out about myself,\" said the young man\neagerly. \"Then you would not put any hindrance?\"\n\n\"In the way of Dolly's happiness? Not if I know it. But _that's_ got to\nbe proved.\"\n\n\"You know, Mr. Copley, she would be happy with me.\"\n\n\"How do I know that? I know nothing of the kind. It all depends on\nDolly, I tell you. What does she think about it?\"\n\n\"That's just what I don't know and cannot find out. I have no chance. I\ncannot get sight of her.\"\n\n\"Her mother's sick, you see. It keeps Dolly at home.\"\n\n\"My mother has proposed several times to take Miss Copley out with her,\nand she will not go.\"\n\n\"She's very kind, and we are grateful; but Dolly won't leave her\nmother.\"\n\n\"So she says. Then how am I to see her, Mr. Copley? I can't expect her\nto like me if I never see her.\"\n\n\"I don't know, my boy. Wait till better times.\"\n\n\"Wait\" is a word that lovers never want to hear; and Lawrence sat\ndiscontentedly watching the play of Mr. Copley's pen.\n\n\"You know it would be all right about the money,\" he said at length.\n\n\"Yes, yes; between your father and her father, I guess we could make it\ncomfortable for you two. But the thing is all the while, what Dolly\nthinks of you.\"\n\n\"And how am I to find that out?\"\n\n\"Can't tell, I declare. Unless you volunteer to become my secretary.\"\n\n\"Does your secretary live in your family?\"\n\n\"Of course he does. One of us completely.\"\n\n\"Will you take me, Mr. Copley?\"\n\n\"Yes, but you would never take the drudgery. It is not in your line.\"\n\n\"Try me,\" said the young man. \"I'll take it at once. Will you have me,\nMr. Copley? But _she_ must not know what you take me for. I don't care\nfor the drudgery. Will you let me come? On trial?\"\n\n\"Why is the boy in earnest? This is Jacob and Rachel over again!\"\n\n\"Not for seven years, I hope.\"\n\n\"No, I shall not stay in this old crib as long as that. The question\nwill have to be decided sooner. We haven't so much time to spare as\nthose old patriarchs. But Dolly must have time to make up her mind, if\nit takes seven years. She is a queer little piece, and usually has a\nmind of her own. About this affair she certainly will. I'll give Mrs.\nCopley a hint to keep quiet, and Dolly will never suspect anything.\"\n\nLawrence was so thoroughly in earnest that he insisted on going to work\nat once. And the next day he was introduced at the house and made at\nhome there.\n\nIt was quite true that Mrs. Copley was unwell; the doctors were not yet\nagreed as to the cause. She was feeble and nervous and feverish, and\nDolly's time was wholly devoted to her. In these circumstances St.\nLeger's coming into the family made a very pleasant change. Dolly\nwondered a little that the rich banker's son should care to do business\nin the American Consul's office; but she troubled her head little about\nit. What he did in the office was out of her sphere; at home, in the\nfamily, he was a great improvement on the former secretary. Mr. Barr,\nhis predecessor, had been an awkward, angular, taciturn fourth person\nin the house; a machine of the pen; nothing more. Mr. St. Leger brought\nquite a new life into the family circle. It is true, he was himself no\ngreat talker; but his blue eyes were eloquent. They were beautiful\neyes; and they spoke of kindness of heart, gentleness of disposition,\nand undoubted liking for his present companions. There was refinement\ntoo, and the habit of the world, and the power of comprehending at\nleast what others spoke; and gentle as he was, there was also now and\nthen a gleam which showed some fire and some persistent self-will; that\namount of backbone without which a man's agreeable qualities go for\nnothing with women. It was pleasant, his respectful attention to Mrs.\nCopley; it was pleasant too the assistance he was to Mr. Copley's\nmonologues; if he did not say a great deal himself, his blue eyes gave\nintelligent heed, and he could also now and then say a word in the\nright place. With Dolly he took very soon the familiar habit of a\nbrother. She liked him, she liked to pour out his coffee for him, it\namused her to hear her father talk to him, she was grateful for his\nkindness to her mother; and before long the words exchanged between\nthemselves came in the easy, enjoyable tone of a thorough good\nunderstanding. I don't know but St. Leger would have liked a little\nmore shyness on her part. Dolly was not given to shyness in any\ncompany; and as to being shy with him, she would as soon have thought\nof being on terms of ceremony with Berdan, the great hound that her\nfather was so proud of. And poor St. Leger was more hopelessly in love\nevery day. Dolly was so fresh and cool and sweet, as she came down to\nbreakfast in her white wrapper; she was so despairingly careless and\nfree; and at evening, dressed for dinner, she was so quiet and simple\nand graceful; it was another thing, he said to himself, seeing a girl\nin this way, from dancing with her in a cloud of lace and flowers in a\ncrowded room, and talking conventional nothings. Now, on the contrary,\nhe was always admiring Dolly's practical business ways; the quick eye\nand capable hand; the efficient attention she bestowed on the affairs\nof the household and gave to her father's and mother's comfort, and\nalso not less to his own. And she was quaint; she moved curiosity. With\nall her beauty, she never seemed to think of her looks; and with all\nher spirit and sense, she never seemed to talk but when she had\nsomething to say; while yet, if anything in the conversation deserved\nit, it was worth while to catch the sparkle of Dolly's eye and see her\nface dimple. Nevertheless, she would often sit for a long time silent\nat the table, when others were talking, and remind nobody voluntarily\nof her presence.\n\nSpring had come now, and London was filling; and Lawrence was hoping\nfor some gaieties that would draw Dolly out into society,\nnotwithstanding his secret confession about ball rooms. He wanted to\nsee how she would bear the great world, how she would meet it; but\nstill more he hoped to have some chance to make himself of importance\nto her. And then the doctors decided that Mrs. Copley must go into the\ncountry.\n\nWhat was to be done? Mr. Copley could not quit London without giving up\nhis office. To any distance Mrs. Copley could not go without him. The\ndilemma, which Lawrence at first had heard of with dismay, turned for\nhis advantage; or he hoped so. His father owned a cottage in a pretty\npart of the country, not a great many miles from London, which cottage\njust then was untenanted. Mr. Copley could run down there any day (so\ncould he); and Mrs. Copley would be in excellent air, with beautiful\nsurroundings. This plan was agreed to, and Lawrence hurried away to\nmake the needful arrangements with his father and at the cottage.\n\n\"Oh dear!\" said Mrs. Copley, when all this was communicated to\nher,--\"why can't we go home?\"\n\n\"Father is not ready for that, mother,\" Dolly said somewhat sadly.\n\n\"Where is this place you are talking of?\"\n\n\"Down in Berkshire. Mr. St. Leger says you will be sure to like it.\"\n\n\"Mr. St. Leger doesn't know everything. Is the house furnished?\"\n\n\"I believe so. Oh, I hope it will be very pleasant, mother dear. It's a\npretty place; and they say it will be very good for you.\"\n\n\"Who says so?\"\n\n\"The doctors\"\n\n\"_They_ don't know everything, either. I tell you what I believe would\ndo me good, Dolly, only your father never wants what I want, unless he\nwants it at a different time; I should like to go travelling.\"\n\n\"Travelling!--Where?\" Dolly exclaimed and inquired.\n\n\"Anywhere. I want a change. I am so tired of London, I could die! I\nhave swallowed dust and fog enough to kill me. I should like to go\nwhere there is no dust. That would be a change. I should like to go to\nVenice.\"\n\n\"Venice! So should I,\" said Dolly in a changed tone. \"Well, mother,\nwe'll go down first to this cottage in the country--they say it's\ndelightful there;--and then, if it does you good, you'll be well\nenough, and we will coax father to take us to Italy.\"\n\n\"I don't care about Italy. I only want to be quiet in Venice, where\nthere are no carts or omnibusses. I don't believe this cottage will do\nme one bit of good.\"\n\n\"Mother, I guess it will. At any rate, I suppose we must try.\"\n\n\"I wish your father could have been contented at home, when he was well\noff. It's very unlucky he ever brought us here. I don't see what is to\nbecome of you, for my part.\"\n\nDolly suppressed a sigh at this point.\n\n\"You know what the Bible says, mother. 'All things shall work together\nfor good, to them that love God.'\"\n\n\"I don't want to hear that sort of talk, Dolly.\"\n\n\"Why not, mother?\"\n\n\"It don't mean anything. I would rather have people show their religion\nin their lives, than hear them talk about it.\"\n\n\"But, mother, isn't there comfort in those words?\"\n\n\"No. It ain't true.\"\n\n\"O mother! _What_ isn't true?\"\n\n\"That. There is a difference between things, and there is no use trying\nto make out they're all alike. Sour isn't sweet, and hard ain't soft.\nWhat's the use of talking as if it was? I always like to look at things\njust as they are.\"\n\n\"But, mother!\"--\n\n\"Now, don't talk, Dolly, but just tell me. What is the good of my\ngetting sick just now? just now, when you ought to be going into\ncompany? And we have got to give up our house, and you and I go and\nbury ourselves down in some out-of-the-way place, and your father get\nalong as he can; and how we shall get along without him to manage, I am\nsure I don't know.\"\n\n\"He will run down to see us often, mother.\"\n\n\"The master's eye wants to be all the while on the spot, if anything is\nto keep straight.\"\n\n\"But this is such a little spot; I think my eye can manage it.\"\n\n\"Then how are you going to take care of me?--if you are overseeing the\nplace. And I don't believe my nerves are going to stand it, all alone\ndown there. It'll be lonely. I'd rather hear the carts rattle. It's\ndreadful, to hear nothing.\"\n\n\"Well, we will try how it goes, mother; and if it does not go well, we\nwill try somewhere else.\"\n\nThe house in town was given up, and Mr. Copley moved into lodgings.\nSome furniture and two servants were sent down to the cottage; but the\nvery day when the ladies were to follow, Mr. Copley was taken\npossession of by some really important business. The secretary\nvolunteered to supply his place; and in his company Mrs. Copley and\nDolly made the little journey, one warm summer day.\n\nDolly had her own causes for anxiety, the weightier that they must be\nkept to herself. Nevertheless, the influence of sweet nature could not\nbe withstood. The change from city streets and crowds to the green\nleafiness of June in the country, the quiet of unpaved roads, the\ndeliciousness of the air full of scents from woodland and field,\nexcited Dolly like champagne. Every nerve thrilled with delight; her\neyes could not get enough, nor her lungs. And when they arrived at the\ncottage, Brierley Cottage it was called, she was filled with a glad\nsurprise. It was no common, close, musty, uncomfortable little\ndwelling; but a roomy old house with plenty of space, dark oak\nwainscotings, casement windows with little diamond panes, and a wide\nporch covered with climbing roses and honeysuckle. These were in\nblossom now, and the air was perfumed with their incomparable\nsweetness. Round the house lay a small garden ground, which having been\nsome time without care looked pretty wild.\n\nDolly uttered her delight as the party entered the porch. Mrs. Copley\npassed on silently, looking at everything with critical eyes.\n\n\"What a charming old house, mother! so airy and so old-fashioned, and\n_everything_ so nice.\"\n\n\"I am afraid there is not much furniture in it,\" remarked the secretary.\n\n\"We don't want much, for two people,\" said Dolly gaily.\n\n\"But when your father brings a dinner party down,\" said Mrs. Copley;\n\"how does he suppose we shall manage then? You must have chairs for\npeople to sit on.\"\n\nDolly did not answer; it had struck her that her father had no\nintention of bringing dinner parties down, and that he had made his\narrangements with an evident exclusion of any such idea. He had thought\ntwo women servants enough. For the rest, leaving parties out of\nconsideration, the house had a rambling supply of old furniture,\nsuiting it well enough; it looked pretty, and quaint, and cool; and\nDolly for her part was well content.\n\nThey went over the place, taking a general survey; and then Mrs. Copley\nlay down on a lounge while supper was getting ready, and Dolly and Mr.\nSt. Leger went out to the porch. Here, beyond the roses and\nhoneysuckles, the eye found first the wild garden or pleasure ground.\nThere was not much of it, and it was a mere tangle of what had once\nbeen pretty and sweet. It sloped, however, down to a little stream\nwhich formed the border of the property; and on the other side of this\nstream the ground rose in a grassy bank, set with most magnificent oaks\nand beeches. A little foot-bridge spanned the stream and made a\npicturesque point in the view, as a bridge always does. The sun was\nsetting, throwing his light upon that grassy bank and playing in the\nbranches of the great oaks and beeches. Dolly stood quite still, with\nher hands crossed upon her bosom, looking.\n\n\"The garden has had nothing done to it,\" said St. Leger. \"That won't\ndo. It's quite distressing.\"\n\n\"I suppose father never thought of engaging a gardener,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"We have gardeners to spare, I am sure, at home. I'll send over one to\ntrain those vines and put things in some shape. You'd find him useful,\ntoo, about the house. I'll send old Peters; he can come as well as not.\"\n\n\"Oh, thank you! But I don't know whether father would choose to afford\na gardener,\" said Dolly low.\n\n\"He shall not afford it. I want him to come for my own comfort. You do\nnot think I want your father to pay my gardener.\"\n\n\"You are very kind. What ground is that over there?\"\n\n\"That? that is Brierley Park. It is a great place. The stream divides\nthe park from this cottage ground.\"\n\n\"Can one go over the bridge?\"\n\n\"Of course. The place is left to itself; nobody is at the house now.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I suppose they like some other place better,\" said St. Leger,\nshrugging his shoulders. \"You would like to go and see the house and\nthe pictures. The next time I come down I'll take you there.\"\n\n\"Oh, thank you! And may I go over among those grand trees? may I walk\nthere?\"\n\n\"Walk there, or ride there; you may do what you like; nobody will\nhinder you. If you meet anybody that has a right to know, you can tell\nhim who you are. But don't go to the house till I come to go with you.\"\n\n\"You are very good, Mr. St. Leger,\" said Dolly gratefully. But then, as\nif shy of what he might next say, she turned and went in to her mother.\nDolly always kept Mr. St. Leger at a certain fine, insensible distance.\nHe seemed to be very near; he was really very much at home in the\nfamily; nevertheless, an atmospheric wall, felt but not seen, divided\nhim from Dolly. It was so invisible that it was unmanageable; it kept\nhim at a distance.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nIN THE PARK.\n\nThe next day was a delightful one in Dolly's experience. Mr. St. Leger\nwent back to town early in the morning; and as soon as she was free of\nhim, Dolly's delight began. She attended to her mother, and put her in\ncomfort; next, she examined the house and its capabilities, and\narranged the little household; and then she gave herself to the garden.\nIt was an unmitigated wilderness. The roses had grown into irregular,\nwide-spreading shrubs, with waving, flaunting branches; yet sweet with\ntheir burden of blushing flowers. Lilac bushes had passed all bounds,\nand took up room most graspingly. Hawthorn and eglantine, roses of\nSharon and stocky syringas, and other bushes and climbers, had entwined\nand confused their sprays and branches, till in places they formed an\nimpenetrable mass. In other places, and even in the midst of this\novergrown thicket, jessamine stars peeped out, lilies and violets grew\nhalf smothered, mignonette ran along where it could; even carnations\nand pinks were to be seen, in unhappy situations, and daisies and\nlarkspur and scarlet geraniums, lupins and sweet peas, and I know not\nwhat more old-fashioned flowers, showed their fair faces here and\nthere. It was bewildering, and beyond Dolly's powers to put in order.\nShe wished for old Peter's arrival; and meantime cut and trimmed a\nlittle here and there, gathered a nosegay of wildering blossoms,\nconsidered what might be done, and lost herself in the sweet June day.\n\nAt last it was growing near lunch time, and she went in. Mrs. Copley\nwas lying on an old-fashioned lounge; and the room where she lay was\nbrown with old oak, quaint with its diamond-paned casement windows, and\ncool with a general effect of wooden floor and little furniture; while\nroses looked in at the open window, and the light was tempered by the\ndark panelling and low ceiling. Dolly gave an exclamation of delight.\n\n\"What is it?\" said Mrs. Copley fretfully.\n\n\"Mother, this place is so lovely! and this room,--do you know how\nperfectly pretty it is?\"\n\n\"It isn't half furnished. Not half.\"\n\n\"But it is furnished enough. There are only two of us; and certainly\nhere are all the things that we want, and a great deal more than we\nwant; and it is so pretty! so pretty!\"\n\n\"How long do you suppose there are to be only two of us?\"\n\n\"I don't know that, mother. Lawrence St. Leger is just gone, and I\ndon't want him back, for my part. In fact, I don't believe we have\ndinner enough for three.\"\n\n\"That's another thing. Where are we going to get anything to eat?\"\n\n\"Lunch will be ready in a minute, mother.\"\n\n\"What have we got?\"\n\n\"What you like. Frizzled beef and chocolate.\"\n\n\"I like it,--but I don't suppose it is very nourishing. Where are we to\nget what we want, Dolly? how are we to get bread, and butter, and\nmarketing?\"\n\n\"There's a village half a mile off. And, here is lunch on the table. We\nshall not starve to-day.\"\n\nMrs. Copley liked her chocolate and found the bread good. Nevertheless,\nshe presently began again.\n\n\"Are we to live here alone the rest of our lives, Dolly? or what do you\nsuppose your father's idea is? It's a very lonesome place, seems to me.\"\n\n\"Why, mother, we came here to get you well; and it's enough to make\nanybody well. It is the loveliest place I have ever seen, I think. Mr.\nSt. Leger's grand establishment is nothing to it.\"\n\n\"And what do you mean by what you said about Lawrence St. Leger? Are\nyou glad to have even _him_ go away?\"\n\n\"Yes, mother, a little bit. He was rather in my way.\"\n\n\"In your way! that's very ungrateful. How was he in your way?\"\n\n\"Somebody to attend to, and somebody to attend to me. I like to be let\nalone. By and by, when you are sleeping, I shall go over and explore\nthe park.\"\n\n\"What I don't understand,\" said Mrs. Copley, recurring to her former\ntheme, \"is, why, if he wanted me to be in the country, your father did\nnot take a nice house somewhere just a little way out of London,--there\nare plenty of such places,--and have things handsome; so that he could\nentertain company, and we could see somebody. We can have nobody here.\nIt looks really quite like poor people.\"\n\n\"That isn't a very bad way to look,\" said Dolly calmly.\n\n\"_Not?_ Like poor people?\" cried Mrs. Copley. \"Dolly, don't talk folly.\nNobody likes that look, and you don't, either.\"\n\n\"I am not particularly afraid of it. But, mother, we do not want to\nentertain company while you are not well, you know.\"\n\n\"No; and so here you are shut up and seeing no creature. I wish we were\nat home!\"\n\nDolly did not precisely wish that; not at least till she had had time\nto examine this new leaf of nature's book opened to her. And yet she\nsighed a response to her mother's words. It was all the response she\nmade.\n\nShe was too tired with her unwonted gardening exertions to go further\nexploring that afternoon. It was not till a day or two later, when\nDolly had become somewhat more acquainted with her new life and its\nconditions, that she crossed the bridge one fair, warm June evening,\nand set her hesitating steps upon what seemed to her a wonderful piece\nof ground. She entered it immediately upon crossing the bridge. The\ngreen glades of the park woods were before her; the old giants of the\npark trees stretched their great arms over her and shadowed her\nfootsteps. Such mighty trees! their great stems stood as if they had\nbeen there for ever; the leafy crown of their heads was more majestic\nthan any king's diadem, and gave its protecting shelter, each of them,\nto a wide domain of earth's minor growths. Underneath their branches\nthe turf was all green and gold, for the slant sun rays came in there\nand gold was in the tree tops, some of the same gold; and the green\nshadows and the golden bands and flecks of light were all still. There\nwas no stir of air that evening. Silence, the stillness and solitude of\na woodland, were all around; the only house visible from here was the\ncottage Dolly had just quitted, with its rose-covered porch.\n\nDolly went a little way, and stood still to look and listen, then went\non a few steps more. The scene had a sort of regal beauty, not like\nanything she had ever known in her life before, and belonging to\nsomething her life had never touched. For this was not a primeval\nforest; it was not forest at all; it was a lordly pleasure ground. A\n\"pleasaunee,\" for somebody's delight; kept so. There was no ragged\nunderbrush; there were no wildering bushes and briars; the green turf\nswept away out of sight under the great old trees clean and soft; and\nthey, the oaks and beeches, stretching their arms abroad and standing\nin still beauty and majesty, seemed to say--\"Yes, we belong to the\nfamily; we have stood by it for ages.\" Dolly could see no dead trees,\nnor fallen lumber of dry branches; the place was dressed, yet\nunadorned, except by its own magnificent features; so most simple, most\nlordly. The first impression almost took away Dolly's breath. She again\nwent on, and again stood still, then went further; at last could go no\nfurther, and she sat down on the bank under the shadow of a great oak\ntree which had certainly seen centuries, and gave herself up to the\nscene and her thoughts. They did not fit, somehow, and took possession\nof her alternately. Sometimes her eyes filled with glad tears, at the\nwonderful loveliness and stateliness of nature around her; the sense of\nbeauty overcame all other feelings; filling and satisfying and also\nconcealing a certain promise. It was certainly the will of the Creator\nthat all things should be thus perfect, harmonious, and fair. What was\nnot, could be made so. But then again a shadow would come over this\nsunshine, as Dolly remembered the anxieties she had brought from home\nwith her. She had meant to let herself look at them here, in solitude\nand quiet; could she do it, now she was here? But when, if not now?\nGradually Dolly gave herself up to thinking, and forgot where she was,\nor more correctly, saw the objects around her only through a veil of\nher own thoughts.\n\nShe had several anxieties; she was obliged to confess it to herself\nunwillingly; for indeed anxiety was so new to Dolly that she had hardly\nentertained it in all her life before; and when it had knocked at her\ndoor, she had answered that it came to the wrong place. However, she\ncould not but hear and heed the knock now; and she wanted to consider\nthe matter calmly and see whether the unwelcome visitor must be really\ntaken in, and lodged.\n\nIt was not her mother's condition. With the buoyancy of youth, and the\ninexperience, Dolly expected that Mrs. Copley would soon get well. Her\ntrouble was about her father; and the worst thing about her mother's\nstate of nervous weakness was, that she could not talk to her on the\nsubject or get her help and co-operation. That is, if anything were to\nbe attempted to be done in the matter.--That was another question she\nwanted to consider.\n\nIn the first place, she could not help seeing one thing; that Mr.\nCopley was not flush with money as he used to be; as he had always\nbeen, ever since Dolly could remember. It was wholly unlike him, to\nsend her and her mother down to this cottage with a household of two\nwomen servants; barely enough for the work that was indispensably\nnecessary. Evidently, Mr. Copley entertained no idea of showing\nhospitality here in the country, and Dolly thought he had been secretly\nglad to be relieved of the necessity of doing it in town. Very unlike\nhim. It was unlike him, too, to content his pride with so meagre an\nestablishment. Mr. Copley loved to handle money, always spent it with a\nlavish carelessness, and was rather fond of display. What had made this\nchange? Dolly had felt the change in still other and lesser things.\nMoney had not been immediately forthcoming when she asked for it lately\nto pay her mantua maker's bill; and she had noticed on several\noccasions that her father had taken a 'bus instead of a hansom, or even\nhad chosen to walk. A dull doubt had been creeping over her, which now\nwas no longer obscure, but plainly enough revealed; her father had lost\nmoney. How, and where?\n\nImpossible to answer this question. But at the same time there floated\nbefore Dolly's mind two vague images; Epsom and betting,--and a green\nwhist table at Mr. St. Leger's, with eager busy players seated round\nit. True, the Derby came but once a year; and true, she had always\nheard that whist was a very gentlemanly game and much money never lost\nat it. She repeated those facts to herself, over and over. Yet the\nimages remained; they came before her again and again; her father\nbetting eagerly in the crowd of betters on the race course, and the\nsame beloved figure handling the cards opposite to his friend the\nbanker, at the hospitable mansion of the latter. Who should be her\nguaranty, that a taste once formed, though so respectably, might not be\nindulged in other ways and companies not so irreproachable? The more\nDolly allowed herself to think of it, the more the pain at her heart\nbit her. And another fear came to help the former, its fit and\nappropriate congener. With the image of Mr. St. Leger and his cards,\nrose up also the memory of Mr. St. Leger's decanters; and Dolly lowered\nher head once in a convulsion of fear. She found she could not bear the\ncourse of her thought; it must be interrupted; and she sprang up and\nhurried on up the bank under the great trees, telling herself that it\nwas impossible; that anything so terrible could not happen to her; it\nwas not to be even so much as thought of. She cast it away from her,\nand resolved that it could not be. As to the rest, she thought, poverty\nis not disgrace; she would not break her heart about _that_ till she\nknew there was more reason.\n\nSo with flying foot she hastened forward, willing to put a forcible\nstop to thought by her quick motion and the new succession of objects\nbefore her eyes. Yet they were not very new for a while. The ground\nbecame level and the going grew easier; otherwise it was the same\nlovely park ground, the same wilderness of noble trees, a renewal of\nthe same woodland views. Lovely green alleys or glades opened to right\nand left, bidding her to enter them; then as she went on the trees\nstood thicker again. The sun getting more low sent his beams more\nslant, gilding the sides of the great trunks, tipping the ends of\nbranches with leafy glitter, laying lovely lines of light over the\nturf. Dolly wandered on and on, allured by the continual change and\nvariety of lovely combination in which grass, trees, and sunlight\nplayed before her eyes. But after a while the beauty took a different\ncast. The old oaks and beeches ceased; she found herself among a\nlighter growth, of much younger trees, some of them very ornamental,\nand in the great diversity of kinds showing that they were a modern\nplantation. What a plantation it was! for Dolly could not seem to get\nto the end of it. She went fast; the afternoon was passing, and she was\ncurious to see what would succeed to this young wood; though it is\nhardly right to call it a wood; the trees were not close to each other,\nbut stood apart to give every one a fair chance for developing its own\npeculiar manner of growth. Some had reached a height and breadth of\nbeauty already; some could be only beautiful at every stage of growth;\nvery many of them were quite strange to Dolly; they were foreign trees,\ngathered from many quarters. She went on, until she began to think she\nmust give it up and turn back; she was by this time far from home; but\njust then she saw that the plantation was coming to an end on that\nside; light was breaking through the branches. She pressed forward\neagerly a few steps; and on a sudden stood still, almost with a cry of\ndelight. The plantation did end there abruptly, and at the edge of it\nbegan a great stretch of level green, just spotted here and there with\nmagnificent trees, singly or in groups. And at the further edge of this\ngreen plain, dressed, not hidden, by these intervening trees, rose a\nmost beautiful building. It seemed to Dolly like a castle in a fairy\ntale, so bewitchingly lovely and stately it stood there, with the\nevening sunlight playing upon its turrets, and battlements, and all\nthat grand sweep of lawn lying at its feet. This must be the \"house\" of\nwhich Lawrence had spoken; but surely it was rather a castle. The style\nwas Gothic; the building stretched along the ground to a lordly extent\nfor a \"house,\" and yet in the light grace and adornment of its\nstructure it hardly looked like anything so grim as a castle. The\nstillness was utter; some cattle under the trees on the lawn were the\nonly living things to be seen.\n\nDolly could not satisfy herself with looking. This was something that\nshe had read about and heard about; a real English baronial residence.\nBut was it reality? it was so graceful, so noble, so wonderful. She\nmust go a little nearer. Yet it was a good while before she could make\nup her mind to leave the spot where this exquisite view had first\nopened to her. She advanced then upon the lawn, going towards the house\nand scarce taking her eyes from it. There were no paths cut anywhere;\nit was no loss, for the greensward here was the perfection of English\nturf; soft and fine and thick and even. It was a pleasure to step on\nit; and Dolly stepped along, in a maze, caught in the meshes of the\nbeauty around her, and giving herself up to it in willing captivity.\nBut the lawn was enormously wider than she had supposed; her eye had\nnot been able to measure distances on this green level; she had walked\nalready a long way by the time she had got one-third of its breadth\nbehind her. Still, Dolly did not much consider that; her eye was fixed\non the house as she now drew nearer to it, busied in picking out the\ndetails; and she only now and then cast a glance to right or left of\nher, and never looked back. It did occur to her at last that she\nherself was like a mere little speck cast away in this ocean of green,\ntoiling over it like an ant over a floor; and she hurried her steps,\nthough she was beginning to be tired. Slowly, slowly she went; half of\nthe breadth of lawn was behind her, and then three quarters; and the\nbuilding was unfolding at least its external organisation to her\ncurious eyes, and displaying some of its fine memberment and broken\nsurface and the resulting lights and shadows. Dolly almost forgot her\ntoil, wondering and delighted; though beginning also to question dimly\nwith herself how she was ever to find her way home! Go back over all\nthat ground she could not, she knew; as little could she have told\nwhere was the point at the edge of the lawn by which she had entered\nupon it. _That_ way she could not go; she had a notion that at the\nhouse, or near it, she might find somebody to speak to from whom she\ncould get directions as to some other way. So she pressed on, feeding\nher eyes as she approached it upon the details of the house.\n\nWhen now more than three-fourths of the lawn ground was passed, one of\nDolly's side glances, intended to catch the beauty of the trees on the\nlawn in their evening illumination, revealed to her a disagreeable\nfact--that, namely, she was looked upon as an intruder by some of the\ncattle; and that in especial a young bull was regarding her with\nserious and ominous bearing and even advancing slowly towards her from\nthe group of his companions. It seemed to Dolly not desirable to stand\nthe question, and she set off to run; which proceeding, of course,\nconfirmed the young bull's suspicions, whatever they were, and he\nfollowed on a run also. Dolly became aware of this, and now, with all\nthe strength of muscle that remained to her, fled towards the house; no\nlonger seeing its Gothic mouldings and picturesque lights and shadows,\nonly trying very hard to get near. She thought perhaps the creature\nwould be shy of the immediate neighbourhood of the house, and not\nchoose to follow her so far. But just as she reached that desirable\nvicinity she longed for, she was met by another danger, coming from the\nquarter from whence she sought safety. An enormous staghound dashed out\nfrom his covert somewhere, with an utterance from his deep throat which\nsounded sufficiently awful to Dolly, an angry or a warning bay, and\ncame springing towards her. Dolly stood still dismayed and uncertain,\nthe dog before and the bull behind; then, even before the former could\nreach her, a voice was heard calling him off and directing him to the\nadvancing bull. In another minute or two a woman had come over the\ngrass and stood at Dolly's side. Dolly was on her feet no longer; with\nthe first breath of respite she had sunk down on the grass; nerves and\nmuscles all trembling with the exertion and with the fright.\n\nThe woman came up with a business air; then as she stood beside Dolly\nher look changed. This was no common intruder, she saw; this\ndelicate-featured girl; and her dress too, simple as it was, was the\ndress of a lady. Dolly on her part looked up to a face not\ndelicate-featured; far from it; solid and strong built as was the\nperson to which it belonged; sense and capacity and kindliness,\nhowever, were legible even at that first glance.\n\n\"You've been rather badly frightened, ma'am, I'm afraid,\" she said, in\na voice which precisely matched the face; strong and somewhat harsh,\nbut kindly in accent.\n\n\"Very,\" said Dolly, whose face began to dimple now. \"I am so much\nobliged to you!\"\n\n\"Not in the vary least, ma'am. But you are worried with the fright, I\nfear?\"\n\n\"No; I'll get up,\" said Dolly; \"I'm only tired. I believe I'm a little\nweak too. I haven't quite got over trembling, I find.\"\n\n\"You haven't your colour yet again, ma'am. Would you come into my room\nand rest a bit?\"\n\n\"Oh, thank you. You are very kind!\" said Dolly with sincere delight at\nthis proposition. For now she was upon her feet she felt that her knees\ntrembled under her, and her footsteps were unsteady as she followed the\nwoman over the grass. They went towards a small door in the long line\nof the building, the staghound coming back from his chase and attending\nthem gravely. The woman opened the door, led Dolly through a passage or\ntwo, and ushered her into a cosy little sitting-room, neat as wax,\nnicely though plainly furnished. Here she begged Dolly to rest herself\non the sofa; and while Dolly did so she stood considering her with a\nkindly, anxious face.\n\n\"I'm all right now,\" said Dolly, smiling.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, ma'am, but you're growing paler every minute. If\nyou'll allow me, ma'am, I will fetch you a glass of wine.\"\n\n\"Wine? Oh, no,\" said Dolly. \"I don't want any wine. I do not drink\nwine. I am just tired. If you'll let me rest here a few minutes\"----\n\n\"Lie still, ma'am, and don't talk.\"\n\nShe left the room, and Dolly lay still, with shut eyes, feeling very\nmuch exhausted. It was inexpressibly good to be under shelter and on\nher back; how she was to get home she could not yet consider. Before\nthat question fairly came up, her entertainer was back again; but Dolly\nkept her eyes shut. If she opened them, perhaps she would have to talk;\nand she wanted nothing on earth at that moment but to be still.\n\nAfter a little interval, however, she heard the door open and a second\nperson enter; and curiosity brought her eyes open then. The second\nperson was a maid-servant with a tray. The tray was set upon a table,\nand Dolly heard the other woman say--\n\n\"You'll bring the tea, Kitty, when I ring.\"\n\nDolly took this as a signal that she must go; of course she was in the\nway; yet rest felt so very comfortable, that for a moment she still lay\nwhere she was; and lying there, she gave her hostess a more critical\nexamination than she had hitherto bestowed on her. Who could she be?\nShe was very well, that is very respectably, dressed; her manner and\nbearing were those of a person in authority; she was at home; but with\ngentle or noble blood she could have no connection unless one of\nservice. Her features and her manner proved that. Nevertheless, both\nher face and bearing had a certain attraction for Dolly; a certain\nquiet and poise, an expression of acute intelligence and efficient\nactivity, flavoured with good will, which was all very pleasant to see.\nEvidently she was not a person to be imposed upon. Dolly raised herself\nup at last to a sitting posture, preparatory to going.\n\n\"Are you recovered enough to be up, ma'am?\" her hostess asked, standing\nstill to survey her in her turn. \"I'm afraid not.\"\n\n\"Oh, thank you, yes; I must go home. And I must ask you kindly to\ndirect me; for I do not in the least know the way.\"\n\n\"Have you come far, ma'am? I couldn't make out by what direction it was\nor could have been; for when I saw you first, you seemed to be coming\nright from the middle of the lawn.\"\n\n\"Not quite that; but a little one side of the middle I did cross the\nlawn.\"\n\n\"I do not know, ma'am, anybody that lives in that direction, nor any\nvillage.\"\n\n\"Brierley Cottage? You know Brierley Cottage?\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, ma'am; I thought that was standing empty for\nmonths.\"\n\n\"It was, I suppose. We have just moved in. My mother wants country air,\nand Mr. St. Leger has let us the cottage. My mother and I are living\nthere, and we came only a day or two ago. I wanted to see the beautiful\nground and trees on this side the brook, and came over the bridge. I\ndid not mean to have come so far; I had no notion of seeing the house\nor getting near it; but everything was so beautiful, I was drawn on\nfrom one point to another, till I found myself at the edge of the lawn.\nAnd then I saw the cattle, but I never thought of them.\"\n\n\"Why, ma'am,\" said the woman, looking surprised, \"you must have walked\na good bit. You must have come all through the plantations.\"\n\n\"I should not have minded the walk so much, if I had not had the fright\nat the end of it. But now the thing is, to get home. Can you tell me\nwhich way? for I am completely out of my reckoning.\"\n\n\"You will take a cup of tea first, ma'am,\" said the woman, ringing the\nbell. \"I had it made on purpose for you. I am sure you'll be the better\nfor it. I am the housekeeper here, ma'am, and my name is Jersey.\"\n\n\"The housekeeper?\" said Dolly. \"I thought the family were abroad.\"\n\n\"So they are, ma'am; and to be sure that makes me less to do; but\nenough still to take care of the place. Put the table up by the sofa,\nKitty.\"\n\nThe girl had brought in the tea-pot, and Dolly saw some magnificent\nstrawberries on the board. The table was shoved up, a cup of tea poured\nout, and Mrs. Jersey cut bread and butter.\n\n\"How kind you are!\" Dolly cried. \"You are taking a great deal of\ntrouble for me; a stranger.\"\n\n\"Is it for somebody that loves my Master?\" said Mrs. Jersey, looking at\nher with keen eyes.\n\nDolly's face dimpled all up at this, which would have completed her\nconquest of Mrs. Jersey's heart, if there had been by this time any\nground in that region not already subjected.\n\n\"Your Master?\" she said. \"You mean--?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, I mean that. My Master is the Lord Jesus Christ; no other.\nOne cannot have two masters; and I serve Lord Brierley only under Him.\"\n\n\"And what made you think--how did you know--that I am His servant too?\"\n\n\"I don't know, ma'am,\" said the housekeeper, smiling. \"I guessed it\nwhen I saw you sitting on the grass there. It seems to me, if the Lord\ndon't just yet write His name in their foreheads, He does put a letter\nor two of it there, so one can tell.\"\n\n\"I am very glad to find I have a friend in the neighbourhood,\" said\nDolly. \"I am Dolly Copley; my father is American Consul at London, and\na friend of Mr. St. Leger.\"\n\n\"I know Mr. St. Leger, ma'am; by name, that is.\"\n\nBy this time Dolly's tea was poured out. The housekeeper served her,\nand watched her as she drank it and eat her strawberries, both of which\nwere refreshing to Dolly.\n\n\"I think, ma'am, if you'll allow me to say it, you should not try your\nstrength with quite such long walks.\"\n\n\"I did not mean it. I was drawn on; and when I got a sight of the house\nfrom the other side of the lawn, I wanted to look at it nearer. I had\nno notion the distance was so much.\"\n\n\"Ay, ma'am, it's a good bit across the lawn. Perhaps you would like to\ncome another day and see the house inside. I would show it to you with\npleasure.\"\n\n\"Oh, may I?\" said Dolly. \"I should like it; oh, very much! But you are\nextremely kind, Mrs. Jersey!\"\n\n\"It is only what I do for a great many indifferent people, ma'am. I\nwould think it a privilege to do it for you. My lord and lady being\naway, I have plenty of time on my hands.\"\n\n\"I wonder anybody can stay away from so beautiful a home.\"\n\n\"They have no choice, ma'am; at least so the doctors say. Lady Brierley\nis delicate, and the air of England does not agree with her.\"\n\n\"And she must be banished from her own home!\" said Dolly, looking out\ninto the lovely landscape visible from the window. \"How sad that is!\"\n\n\"There's only one home one can always keep, ma'am,\" said the\nhousekeeper, watching her.\n\n\"Heaven, you mean?\"\n\n\"We are not in heaven yet. I meant what David says, 'Lord, thou hast\nbeen our dwelling-place in all generations.'\"\n\n\"I am not sure I understand it.\"\n\n\"Only love does understand it, ma'am.\"\n\n\"How do you mean, please?\"\n\n\"Ma'am, it is only love that can live in the life of another; and when\nthat other is God, one lives in a secure and wealthy abode. And then it\ndoes not much matter where one's body is. At least, so I find it.\"\n\nDolly looked very thoughtful for a minute; then she rose up.\n\n\"I am coming again,\" she said; \"I am coming very soon, Mrs. Jersey.\nNow, will you tell me how I can get home? I must be as quick as I can.\"\n\n\"That is provided for, ma'am,\" said Mrs. Jersey. \"It's a longish way\nround by the road, farther than even you came this afternoon; and\nyou're not fit for it; far from it, I should say. I have ordered the\ndog-cart to take you home; and it's ready.\"\n\n\"How could you be so kind to a stranger?\" said Dolly, giving her hand.\nBut the housekeeper smiled.\n\n\"You're no stranger to me, ma'am,\" she said, clasping the hand Dolly\nhad given. \"It is true I never saw you before; but whenever I see one\nof my Lord's children, I say to myself, 'Jersey, there is another of\nthe family, and the Lord expects you to do what you can for him, or for\nher, as the case may be.'\"\n\nDolly laughed and ran away. The adventure was taking beautiful shape.\nHere she was to have a charming drive home, to end the day; a drive\nthrough the pretty country lanes. And they were charming in the evening\nlight. And the dog-cart did not bring her to Brierley Cottage a bit too\nsoon; for Mrs. Copley was already fidgeting about her.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE HOUSE.\n\nDolly did not tell all her experiences of that afternoon. She told only\nso much as might serve to quiet and amuse her mother; for Mrs. Copley\ntook all occasions of trouble that came in her way, and invented a few\nmore. Mrs. Jersey had sent along in the dog-cart a basket of\nstrawberries for the sick lady; so Dolly hoped her mother's impressions\nof this day at least would be favourable.\n\n\"Did you ever see such magnificent berries, mother? black and red?\"\n\n\"Why haven't we berries in our garden?\" Mrs. Copley returned.\n\n\"Mother, you know the garden has not been kept up; nobody has been\nliving here lately.\"\n\n\"Then why did not your father get some other house, where the garden\n_had_ been kept up, and we could have our own fruit and vegetables? I\nthink, to be in the country and not have one's own garden and fresh\nthings, is forlorn.\"\n\n\"There is one thing, mother; there are plenty of markets in this\ncountry.\"\n\n\"And plenty of high prices for everything in them. Yes, if you have no\nend to your purse, you can buy things, certainly. But to look at what\nis around us here, one would think your father didn't mean us to have\nmuch of anything!\"\n\n\"Mother, he means you to have all you want. We thought you just wanted\ncountry air.\"\n\n\"And nothing to eat?\"\n\n\"We are not starving _yet_,\" said Dolly, smiling, and arranging the\nstrawberries.\n\n\"These are a gift. A gift I shouldn't think your father would like to\ntake, or have us take, which comes to the same thing. We used to have\nenough for ourselves and our neighbours too, once, when we were at\nhome, in America. We are nobody here.\"\n\n\"We are just ourselves, mother; what we always were. It does not make\nmuch difference what people think of us.\"\n\n\"Not much difference,\" cried Mrs. Copley, \"about what people think of\nyou! And then, what is to become of you, I should like to know? Nobody\nseeing you, and no chance for anything! I wonder if your father means\nyou never to be married?\"\n\n\"You do not want me married, mother; and not to an Englishman, anyhow.\"\n\n\"Why not? And how are you going to marry anybody else, out here? Can\nyou tell me? But, O Dolly! I am tormented to death!\"\n\n\"Don't, dear mother. That is what makes you ill. What is the matter?\nWhat troubles you?\"\n\nMrs. Copley did not answer at once.\n\n\"You are as sweet as a honeysuckle,\" she said. \"And to think that\nnobody should see you!\"\n\nDolly's dimples came out here strong.\n\n\"Are you tormented to death about that?\"\n\nAnother pause came, and Mrs. Copley finally left the table with the air\nof one who is thinking what she will not speak. She went to the\nhoneysuckle porch and sat down, resting her head in her hand and\nsurveying the landscape. Twilight was falling over it now, soft and\ndewy.\n\n\"I don't see a sign of anything human, anywhere,\" she remarked. \"Is it\nbecause it is so dark?\"\n\n\"No, mother; there are no houses in sight.\"\n\n\"Nor from the back windows?\"\n\n\"No, mother.\"\n\n\"Where is the village you talk about?\"\n\n\"Half a mile away; the woods and rising ground of Brierley Park hide it\nfrom us.\"\n\n\"And in this wilderness your father expects me to get well!\"\n\n\"Why, I think it is charming!\" Dolly cried. \"My drive home to-night was\nperfectly lovely, mother.\"\n\n\"I didn't have it.\"\n\n\"No, of course; but the country is exceedingly pretty.\"\n\n\"I can't make your father out.\"\n\nDolly was hushed here. She was at a loss likewise on this point.\n\n\"He acts just as if he had lost his money.\"\n\nDolly did not know what to say. She had had the same impression. To her\ninexperience, this did not seem the first of evils; but she guessed it\nwould wear another face to her mother.\n\n\"And if he _has_,\" Mrs. Copley went on, \"I am sure I wish we were at\nhome. England is no sort of a place for poor folks.\"\n\n\"Why should you think he has, mother?\"\n\n\"I _don't_ think he has,\" Mrs. Copley flamed out. \"But if he hasn't, I\nthink he has lost his wits.\"\n\n\"That would be worse,\" said Dolly, smiling, though she felt anything\nbut merry.\n\n\"I don't know about that. Nobody'll ask about your wits, if you've got\nmoney; and if you _haven't_, Dolly, nobody'll care what else you have.\"\n\n\"Mother, I think it is good to have one's treasure where one cannot\nlose it.\"\n\n\"I thought I had that when I married your father,\" said Mrs. Copley,\nbeginning to cry. This was a very strange thing to Dolly and very\nterrible. Her mother's nerves, if irritable, had always been wont to\nshow themselves of the soundest. Dolly saw it was not all nerves; that\nshe was troubled by some unspoken cause of anxiety; and she herself\nunderwent nameless pangs of fear at this corroboration of her own\ndoubts, while she was soothing and caressing and arguing her mother\ninto confidence again. The success was only partial, and both of them\ncarried careful hearts to bed.\n\nA day or two more passed without any variation in the state of things;\nexcept that old Peters the gardener made his appearance, and began to\nreduce the wilderness outside to some order. Dolly spent a good deal of\ntime in the garden with him; tying up rose trees, taking counsel, even\npulling up weeds and setting plants. That was outside refreshment;\nwithin, things were unchanged. Mr. Copley wrote that he would run down\nSaturday, or, if he could not, he would send Lawrence. \"Why shouldn't\nhe come himself?\" said Mrs. Copley; and, Why should he send Lawrence?\nthought Dolly. She liked it better without him. She was pleasing\nherself in her garden; finding little ways of activity that delighted\nher in and out of the house; getting wonted; and she did not care for\nthe constraint of anybody's presence who must be treated as company.\nOne thing she determined upon, however; Lawrence should not make the\nnext visit with her at Brierley House; and to prevent it, she would go\nat once by herself.\n\nShe went that afternoon, and by an easier way of approach to the place.\nMrs. Jersey was very glad to see her, and as soon as Dolly was rested a\nlittle, entered upon the fulfilment of her promise to show the house.\nAccordingly she took her visitor round to the principal entrance, in\nanother side of the building from the one Dolly had first seen. Here,\nbefore she would go in, she stood to admire and wonder at the rich and\nnoble effect; the beauty of turrets, oriels, mouldings, and arched\nwindows, the wide and lofty pile which stretched away on two sides in\nsuch lordly lines. Mrs. Jersey told her who was the first builder; who\nhad made this and that extension and addition; and then they went in.\nAnd the first impression here was a contrast.\n\nThe place was a great hall of grand proportions. There was nothing\nsplendid here to be seen; neither furniture nor workmanship called for\nadmiration, unless by their simplicity. There were some old paintings\non the walls; there were some fine stags' horns, very large and very\nold; there were some heavy oaken settles and big chairs, on which the\nfamily arms were painted; the arms of the first builder; and there were\nalso, what looked very odd to Dolly, a number of leather fire buckets,\npainted in like manner. Yet simple as the room was, it had a great\ncharm for her. It was lofty, calm, imposing, superb. She was not ready\nsoon to quit it; and Mrs. Jersey, of course, was willing to indulge her.\n\n\"It is so unlike anything at home!\" Dolly exclaimed.\n\n\"That's in America?\" said the housekeeper. \"Have you no old houses like\nthis there, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Why, we are not old ourselves,\" said Dolly. \"When this house was first\nbegun to be built, our country was full of red Indians.\"\n\n\"Is it possible! And are there Indians there yet, ma'am?\"\n\n\"No. Oh, yes, in the country, there are; but they are driven far\noff,--to the west--what there are of them.--This is very beautiful!\"\n\n\"I never heard anybody call this old hall beautiful before,\" said the\nhousekeeper, smiling.\n\n\"It is so large, and high, and so simple; and these old time things\nmake it so respectable,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Respectable! yes, ma'am, it is that. Shall we go on and see something\nbetter?\"\n\nBut her young visitor had fallen to studying the ceiling, which had\ncurious carvings and panellings, and paintings which once had been\nbright. There was such a flavour of past ages in the place, that\nDolly's fancy was all alive and excited. Mrs. Jersey waited, watching\nher, smiling in a satisfied manner; and then, after a while, when Dolly\nwould let her, she opened the door into another apartment. A great door\nof carved oak it was, through which Dolly went expectantly, and then\nstood still with a little cry. The first thing she saw was the great\nwindows, down to the floor, all along one side of a large room, through\nwhich a view was given into the park landscape. The grand trees, the\nbeautiful green turf, the sunlight and shadow, caught her eye for a\nminute; and then it came back to the view within the windows. Opposite\nthis row of windows was an enormous marble chimney-piece; the family\narms, which Dolly was getting to know, blazoned upon it in brilliant\ncolours. Right and left of the fireplace hung old family portraits. But\nwhen Dolly turned next to give a look at the side of the hall from\nwhich she had entered, she found that the whole wall was of a piece\nwith the great carved door; it was filled with carvings, figures in\nhigh relief, very richly executed. For a long while Dolly studied these\nfigures. Mrs. Jersey could give her little help in understanding them,\nbut having, as she fancied, got hold of a clue, Dolly pursued it;\nadmiring the life and expression in the figures, and the richly-carved\naccessories. The whole hall was a study to her. On the further side\nwent up the staircases leading to the next story. Between them opened\nthe entrance into the dining-hall.\n\nFurther than these three halls, Mrs. Jersey almost despaired of getting\nDolly that day. In the dining-hall was a portrait of Queen Elizabeth;\nand before it Dolly sat down, and studied it.\n\n\"Did she look like that?\" she said finally.\n\n\"Surely, she must,\" said the housekeeper. \"The picture is thought a\ndeal of. It was painted by a famous painter, I've been told.\"\n\n\"She was very ugly, then!\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Handsome is that handsome does,\" said the housekeeper, smiling; \"and,\nto be sure, I never could make out that Her Majesty was altogether\nhandsome in her doings; though perhaps that's the fault of my\nstupidity.\"\n\n\"She looks cold,\" said Dolly; \"she looks cruel.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid, by all I have read of her, she was a little of both.\"\n\n\"And how she is dressed!--Who is that, the next to her?\"\n\n\"Mary Stuart; Mary, Queen of Scotland; this lady's rival.\"\n\n\"Rival?\" said Dolly. \"No, I do not think she was; only Elizabeth chose\nto think her so. How lovely, how lovely!\"\n\n\"Yes, and by all accounts the portrait tells truth. They say, so she\nwas to be sure.\"\n\n\"She looks so innocent, so sweet,\" said Dolly, fixed before the two\npictures.\n\n\"Do you think she wasn't?\"\n\n\"One cannot feel quite comfortable about her. The story is ugly, Mrs.\nJersey. But how a woman with that face could do anything fearfully\nwicked, it is hard to imagine. Poor thing!\"\n\n\"You are very kind, I am sure, to a person of whom you hold such a bad\nopinion,\" said the housekeeper, amused.\n\n\"I am sorry for them both,\" said Dolly. \"Life wasn't much good to\neither of them, I should think.\"\n\n\"Queen Elizabeth had power,\" said Mrs. Jersey; \"and Queen Mary had\nadmiration, I understand.\"\n\n\"Yes, but Elizabeth wanted the admiration, and Mary Stuart wanted the\npower,\" said Dolly. \"Neither of them got what she wanted.\"\n\n\"Few people do in this world, my young lady.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\"\n\n\"Young people generally think they will,\" said the housekeeper;--\"and\nold people know better.\"\n\n\"But why should that be?\"\n\n\"Does Miss Dolly Copley know already what _she_ wants?\" the housekeeper\nasked.\n\n\"No,\" said Dolly, laughing out; \"not at all. I do not know what I want.\nI do not think I want anything in particular, Mrs. Jersey.\"\n\n\"Keep so, my dear; that is best.\"\n\n\"Why? Because I should be so sure to be disappointed?\"\n\n\"You might. But it is safe to let God choose for us, Miss Copley; and\nas soon as we begin to plan, we begin to work for our plans, generally;\nand if our plan is not _His_ plan,--that makes trouble, you see, and\nconfusion.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Dolly thoughtfully. \"Yet it seems to me it would be\npleasant to have some particular object that one was striving after.\nThe days go by, one after another, one like another, and seem to\naccomplish nothing. I should like to have some purpose, some end in\nlife, to be striving for and attaining.\"\n\n\"A servant of Christ need never want that,\" said the housekeeper.\n\n\"I have not anything in special to do,\" said Dolly, looking at her.\n\n\"Every servant has something special to do,\" the other answered.\n\n\"I have to take care of mother. But that is not work; it is not work\nfor Christ, at least, Mrs. Jersey.\"\n\n\"Dear, it may be. Everything you do, you may do for Him; for He has\ngiven it to you to do for Him. That is, unless it is something you are\nchoosing for yourself.\"\n\nDolly pondered.\n\n\"And if there be nothing ready to hand that you call work, there is\nalways preparation for work to be done,\" Mrs. Jersey went on.\n\n\"What sort?\"\n\n\"The knowledge of the Bible,--and the knowledge of Christ, to seek and\nwin. That surely.\"\n\n\"The knowledge of the Bible? Mrs. Jersey, I know the Bible pretty well.\"\n\n\"And Christ also?\"\n\nDolly mused again, with a very grave face.\n\n\"I do not quite know what you mean.\"\n\n\"Then, there is something to be gained yet.\"\n\n\"But,--of course I know what the Bible says about Him.\"\n\n\"That is one sort of knowledge,\" said the housekeeper; \"but it is not\nthe knowledge of Him.\"\n\n\"What then?\"\n\n\"Only knowing about Him, dear.\"\n\n\"What more can we have?\"\n\n\"Just _Himself_, Miss Copley; and till you have that, dear, you don't\nrightly know what the Bible means.\"\n\n\"I don't think I quite understand you.\"\n\n\"Suppose I told you all I could about my Lady Brierley; would that make\nyou know her as I know her?\"\n\n\"No, certainly; it would not make me really know her at all.\"\n\n\"That is what I was thinking.\"\n\n\"But for _that_ there must be sight, and intercourse, and the power of\nunderstanding.\"\n\n\"All that,\" said Mrs. Jersey, smiling; \"and the more of that power you\nspeak of, the more and the nearer knowledge there will be.\"\n\n\"But in the case you are speaking of, the knowledge of Christ, sight is\nnot possible.\"\n\n\"No, not sight with the bodily eyes. It is not; and if it were, it\nmightn't do. Did all the people know the Lord that saw Him with the\nbodily eyes? 'Ye have neither known My Father nor Me,' He said to the\nJews. 'Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known\nMe, Philip?'\"\n\n\"You are setting me a regular puzzle, Mrs. Jersey.\"\n\n\"I hope not, my dear. I do not mean it; and it is the last thing I\nwish.\"\n\n\"But without sight, how is such knowledge to be gained?\"\n\n\"Do you remember, Miss Copley, it is written,--'The secret of the Lord\nis with them that fear Him.' And Jesus promised to him that loves Him\nand keeps His commandments, 'I will manifest Myself to him.' Doubtless\nwe must seek the fulfilment of the promise too.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"The same way as with other things. We must ask, and expect, and use\nthe means. And no doubt one must be single-eyed and true-hearted. But\ndear, there is no knowledge like that, once get it; and no friend to be\nhad, that can equal the Lord Jesus Christ.\"\n\nDolly sat still and pondered, gazing at the two portraits.\n\n\"It is very hard to think that this world is nothing!\" she said at\nlast. \"To most people it seems everything. Just look at those two\nfaces! How they struggled and fought; and how little good their life\nwas to them, after all.\"\n\n\"Ay, and folks can struggle and fight for less things than what divided\nthem, and lose all just the same. So the Lord said, 'He that loveth his\nlife, shall lose it;' but He said too, 'He that loseth his life for My\nsake, shall find it.'\"\n\n\"You are talking riddles again, Mrs. Jersey,\" said Dolly, laughing. \"I\nthought I was beginning to understand you; but I do not understand\nthat.\"\n\n\"No, dear; and surely it is a hard saying to many. But I'll give you a\nkey. Just you give your life to the Lord Jesus, and He will show you\nwhat the losing it means, and the gaining it, too.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I will,\" said Dolly.\n\nThey went on again after that, through more rooms of the house; but the\nafternoon did not serve for the whole. Dolly must return to her mother.\nMrs. Jersey sent her home again in the dog-cart. The evening was very\nbright and fair; the hedgerows sweet with flowers; the light glittered\non the foliage of trees and copsewood and shrubbery; the sky was clear\nand calm. Dolly tasted and rejoiced in it all; and yet in the very\nmidst of her pleasure an echo from Mrs. Jersey's words seemed to run\nthrough everything. It did not depress; on the contrary, it excited\nDolly. With all the beauty and enjoyment of this very beautiful and\nvery enjoyable world, there was something still better to be sought and\nfound; somewhat still more beautiful, far more enjoyable; and the\ncorrelative fact that the search and attainment were, or might be,\nattended with some difficulty and requiring some effort or resolution,\nwas simply an additional stimulus. Dolly breathed the air with intense\ntaste of it. Yes, she thought, I will seek the knowledge Mrs. Jersey\nspoke of. That must be better than anything else.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nPREACHING AND PRACTICE.\n\n\"How long you have stayed, Dolly!\" was Mrs. Copley's greeting. \"I don't\nsee what is to become of me in this lonely place, if you are always\ntrotting about. I shall die!\"\n\nDolly took this cold-water bath upon her pleasure with her usual\nsweetness.\n\n\"Dear mother, I did not know I was so long away. I will not go again,\nif it is bad for you.\"\n\n\"Of course it is bad for me. It is very bad for me. It is bad for\nanybody. I just think and think, till I am ready to fly.--What have you\nbeen doing?\"\n\n\"Looking at Brierley House. So beautiful as it is, mother!\"\n\nThis made a diversion. Mrs. Copley asked and received a detailed\naccount of all Dolly had seen.\n\n\"It don't sound as if _I_ should like it,\" was her comment. \"I should\nnever have those old chairs and things sticking about.\"\n\n\"O mother! yes, you would; they are most beautiful, and so\nold-fashioned; with the arms of the barons of Coppleby carved on them.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't want the arms of the barons of Coppleby on the chairs in\nmy house, if I was the Earl of Brierley.\"\n\n\"But they are everywhere, mother; they are cut and painted over the\nfireplace in the baron's hall.\"\n\n\"I'd cut 'em out, then, and put up my own. Fire buckets, too! How\nridiculous. What ornaments for a house!\"\n\n\"I like them,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Oh, you like everything. But, Dolly, what does your father think is to\nbecome of us? He in London, and we here! Such a way of living!\"\n\n\"But you wanted country air, mother.\"\n\n\"I didn't; not in this way. Air isn't everything. Did he say, if he\ncould not come down Saturday, he would send Mr. St. Leger?\"\n\n\"I do not see why he should,\" said Dolly gaily. \"We don't want him.\"\n\n\"Now, what do you say that for, Dolly?\"\n\n\"Just because _I_ don't want him, mother. Do you?\"\n\n\"He's a very good young man.\"\n\nDolly was silent.\n\n\"And very rich.\"\n\nDolly said nothing.\n\n\"And I am sure he is very agreeable.\"\n\nThen, as her utterances still met no response, Mrs. Copley broke out.\n\"Dolly, why don't you say something? I have nobody to talk to but you,\nand you don't answer me! I might as well talk to the wall.\"\n\n\"Mother, I would rather have father come down to see us. If the choice\nlies between them, I would rather have father.\"\n\nMrs. Copley leaned her head on her hand. \"Dolly,\" she began again,\n\"your father acts exactly as if he had lost money.\"\n\nDolly again did not answer. The repeated words gave her a very startled\nthrill.\n\n\"As if he had lost a good deal of money,\" Mrs. Copley went on. \"I can't\nget it out of my head that he has.\"\n\n\"It's no use to think about it, mother,\" Dolly said as lightly as she\ncould. \"Don't you trouble yourself, at any rate.\"\n\n\"That's foolish. How can I help troubling myself? And if it _was_ any\nuse to think about it, to be sure I needn't be troubled. Dolly, it\ntorments me day and night!\" And tears that were bitter came into Mrs.\nCopley's eyes.\n\n\"It need not, dear mother. Money is not the only thing in the world;\nnor the best thing.\"\n\n\"And that's silly, too,\" returned her mother. \"One's bread and butter\nmay not be the best thing in the world,--I am sure this bread\nain't,--but you can't live without it. What can you do without money?\"\n\n\"I never tried, you know,\" said Dolly; \"but I should think it would be\npossible to be happy.\"\n\n\"Like a child!\" said her mother. \"Children always think so. What's to\nmake you happy, when the means are gone? No, Dolly; money is\neverything, in this world. Without it you are of no consequence, and\nyou are at everybody's mercy; and I can tell you one thing besides;--if\nthe women could be happy without money, the men cannot. If you don't\ngive a man a good breakfast, he'll be cross all day; and if his dinner\ndon't suit him, you'll hear of it for a week, and he'll go off to the\nclub besides.\"\n\n\"He cannot do _that_ without money,\" said Dolly, trying to laugh.\n\n\"Then he'll stay at home, and torment you. I tell you, Dolly, life\nain't worth having, if you haven't got money. That is why I want you to\nlike\"---- Mrs. Copley broke off suddenly.\n\n\"I should think one might have good breakfasts and dinners even if one\nwas poor,\" said Dolly. \"They say French women do.\"\n\n\"What French women do is neither here nor there. I am talking about you\nand me. Look at this bread,--and see that omelette. I can tell you,\nnothing on earth would keep your father down here if he couldn't have\nsomething better to eat than, that.\"\n\nDolly began to ponder the possibility of learning the art of cookery.\n\n\"What puzzles me,\" Mrs. Copley went on, \"is, how he _could_ have lost\nmoney? But I am sure he has. I feel it in all my bones. And he is such\na clever man about business too!\"\n\nDolly tried with all her might to bring her mother off this theme. At\nlast she succeeded; but the question lingered in her own mind and gave\nit a good deal to do.\n\nAfter a day or two more, Mr. St. Leger came as threatened. Dolly\nreceived him alone. She was in the garden, gathering roses, at the time\nof his arrival. The young man came up to her, looking very glad and shy\nat once, while Dolly was neither the one nor the other. She was\nattending to the business she had in hand.\n\n\"Well, how are you?\" said her visitor. \"How is Mrs. Copley? Getting\nalong, eh?\"\n\n\"When's father coming down, Mr. St. Leger?\"\n\n\"To-morrow. He'll come down early, he said.\"\n\n\"Sunday morning?\" cried Dolly, and stopped, looking at the young man.\n\n\"Oh yes. He'll come down early. He couldn't get off to-night, he told\nme. Some business.\"\n\n\"What business? Anything he could not put off? What kept him, Mr. St.\nLeger?\"\n\n\"I don't know, 'pon my honour. He'll be down in the morning, though.\nWhat's the matter? Mrs. Copley isn't worse, I hope?\"\n\n\"No, I think not,\" said Dolly, going back to her rose-pulling, with a\nhand that trembled.\n\n\"May I help you? What are all these roses for? Why, you've got a lot of\n'em. How do you like Brierley, Miss Dolly? It likes you. I never saw\nyou look better. How does your mother fancy it?\"\n\n\"Mother has taken a fancy to travel. She thinks she would like that\nbetter than being still in one place.\"\n\n\"Travel! Where to? Where does she want to go?\"\n\n\"She talks of Venice. But I do not know whether father could leave his\npost.\"\n\n\"I should say he couldn't, without the post leaving him. But, I say,\nMiss Dolly! maybe Mrs. Copley would let me be her travelling-courier,\ninstead. I should like that famously. Venice--and we might run down and\nsee Rome. Hey? What do you think of it?\"\n\nDolly answered coolly, inwardly resolving she would have no more to say\nabout travelling before Mr. St. Leger. However, in the evening he\nbrought up the subject himself; and Mrs. Copley and he went into it\neagerly, and spent a delightful evening over plans for a possible\njourney; talking of routes, and settling upon stopping places. Dolly\nwas glad to see her mother pleased and amused, even so; but herself\ntook no sort of part in the talk. Next day Mr. Copley in truth arrived,\nand was joyfully received.\n\n\n\"Well, how do you do?\" said he, after the first rejoicings were over,\nlooking from his wife to his daughter and back again. It was the third\nor fourth time he had asked the question. \"Pretty jolly, eh? Dolly is.\n_You_ are not, my dear, seems to me.\"\n\n\"You are not either, it seems to me, Mr. Copley.\"\n\n\"I? I am well enough.\"\n\n\"You are not 'jolly,' father?\" said Dolly, hanging upon him.\n\n\"Why not? Yes, I am. A man can't be very jolly that has anything to do\nin this world.\"\n\n\"O father! I should think, to have nothing to do would be what would\nhinder jolliness.\"\n\n\"Anything to do but enjoy, I mean. I don't mean _nothing_ to do. But it\nain't life, to live for business.\"\n\n\"Then, if I were you, I would play a little, Mr. Copley,\" said his wife.\n\n\"So I do. Here I am,\" said he, with what seemed to Dolly forced gaiety.\n\"Now, how are you going to help me play?\"\n\n\"_We_ help _you_,\" said his wife. \"Why didn't you come yesterday?\"\n\n\"Business, my dear; as I said. These are good berries. Do they grow in\nthe garden?\"\n\n\"How should strawberries grow in a garden where nobody has been\nliving?\" said his wife. \"And what is your idea of play in an\nout-of-the-way place like this, Mr. Copley?\"\n\n\"Well--not a catechism,\" said he, slowly putting strawberries in his\nmouth one after the other. \"What's the matter with the place? I thought\nit would just suit you. Isn't the air good?\"\n\n\"Breathing isn't quite the only necessary of life,\" said his wife; \"and\nyou were asking about play. I think a change would be play to me.\"\n\n\"Well, this is a change, or I don't know the meaning of the word.\nYou've just come, and have not examined the ground yet. Must have a\ngood market, if this fruit is any sign.\"\n\n\"There is no market or anything else, except what you can find in a\nlittle village. The strawberries come from Brierley House, where Dolly\ngoes to get _her_ play. As for me, who cannot run about, on my feet, or\nanyway, I sit here and wonder when she will be back again. Are we to\nhave no carriage here, Mr. Copley?\"\n\n\"We had better find out how you like it first, seems to me. Hardly\nworth while, if you're not going to stay.\"\n\nMr. Copley rose and sauntered out to the porch, and Dolly looked\nfurtively at her mother. She saw a troubled, anxious face, lines of\nnervous unrest; she saw that her father's coming had not brought\nrefreshment or relief; and truly she did not perceive why it should.\nDolly was wholly inexperienced, in all but the butterfly life of very\nhappy young years; nevertheless, she could not fail to read, or at\nleast half read, some signs of another sort of life. She noticed that\nher father's manner wanted its ordinary careless, confident ease; there\nwas something forced about it; his face bore tokens of loss of sleep,\nand had a trait of uneasiness most unwonted in Mr. Copley. Dolly sat\nstill a little while, and then went out and joined her father in the\nporch. Mr. St. Leger had come in, so that she did not leave her mother\nalone. Dolly came close and laid her arm round her father's neck, her\nfingers playing with his hair; while he fondly threw one arm about her.\n\n\"How is it, Dolly?\" he asked. \"Don't you like it here?\"\n\n\"_I_ do, very much. But mother finds it very quiet. I think she would\nlike to travel, father.\"\n\n\"Travel! But I can't go travelling. I cannot get away from London for\nmore than a day. Quiet! I thought she wanted quiet. I heard of nothing\nbut her want of quiet, till I got her down here; and now she wants\nnoise.\"\n\n\"Not noise, exactly, but change.\"\n\n\"Well, what is this but change? as I said. I do not know what would\nplease her.\"\n\n\"I know what would please me,\" said Dolly, with her heart beating; for\nshe was venturing on unknown ground--\"A little money.\"\n\n\"Money!\" exclaimed her father. \"What in the world do you want with\nmoney down here?\"\n\n\"To pay the servants, father,\" Dolly said low. \"Margaret asked me for\nher month's wages, and I said I would ask you. Can you give it to me?\"\n\n\"She cannot do anything with money down here either. She don't want it.\nHer wages are safe, tell her. I'll take care of them for her.\"\n\n\"But, father, if she likes to take care of them for herself, she has\nthe right. Such people like to see their money, I suppose.\"\n\n\"I have yet to find the people that don't,\" said her father. \"But,\nreally, she'll have to wait, my child. I have not brought so much in my\npocket-book with me.\"\n\nThis also struck Dolly as very unusual. Never in her life, that she\ncould remember, had her father confessed before to an empty purse.\n\n\"Then, could you send it to me, father, when you go back to London?\"\n\n\"Yes, I'll send it. Or better, wait till I come down again. You would\nnot know how to manage if I sent it. And Margaret really cannot be in a\nhurry.\"\n\nDolly stood still, fingering the locks of her father's thick hair,\nwhile her mental thermometer went down and down. She knew by his whole\nmanner that the money was not at hand even were he in London; and where\nthen was it? Mr. Copley had always till now had plenty; what had\nhappened, or what was the cause of the change? And how far had it gone?\nand to what point might it go? and what should she do, if she could not\nsoon pay Margaret? and what would become of her mother, if not only her\ntravelling projects were shattered, but also her personal and household\ncomforts should fail her where she was? What could Dolly do, to save\nmoney? or could she in any way touch the source of the evil, and bring\nabout an essential bettering of this new and evil state of things? She\nmust know more first; and how should she get more knowledge?\n\nThere came a sigh to her ears here, which greatly touched her.\nNevertheless, for the present she could not even show sympathy, for she\ndared not seem aware of the need for it. Tears came to her eyes, but\nshe commanded them back; that would not do either.\n\n\"Suppose we take a walk, Dolly, in that jolly old wood yonder?\" Mr.\nCopley said. \"That's Brierley Park, ain't it? We might go and see the\nhouse, if you like.\"\n\n\"It is Sunday, father.\"\n\n\"Well, what then? The world is pretty much the same thing Sunday that\nit is other days, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes, father--the world; but not the day. That is not the same as the\nrest.\"\n\n\"Why not? We cannot go to church to-day, if that is what you are\nthinking of. I took church-time to come down here. And if you wanted to\ngo to church, Dolly, you couldn't have a finer temple than over yonder.\"\n\n\"Oh, if you'll go to church there, father, I'll go.\"\n\n\"To be sure I will. Get your hat.\"\n\n\"And my Bible?\"\n\n\"Bible?\" Mr. Copley looked at her. \"I didn't say anything about a\nBible. We are going to take a walk. You don't want a book to carry.\"\n\n\"How are we going to church there, then?\"\n\n\"Think good thoughts, and enjoy the works of the good Creator. That's\nall you can do in any church, Dolly. Come, little Puritan.\"\n\nDolly did not quite know what to do; however, she got her hat, finding\nthat her mother was willing; and she and her father went down to the\nbridge. There, to her dismay somewhat, they were joined by Mr. St.\nLeger. But not to Mr. Copley's dismay; he welcomed the young man\nopenly. Dolly would have gone back now, but she did not dare.\n\n\"Going to see the house?\" Lawrence asked.\n\n\"It is Sunday,\" said Dolly. \"You cannot.\"\n\n\"There's a way of opening doors, even on Sunday,\" said the other.\n\n\"No, not here. The housekeeper will not let you in. She is a Christian.\"\n\n\"She is a Methodist, you mean,\" said Mr. Copley.\n\n\"I believe she is a Methodist. She is a good friend of mine.\"\n\n\"What business have you to make friends with Methodists? we're all good\nChurch people; hey, Lawrence? What grand old woods these are!\"\n\n\"How old do you suppose these trees to be, father?\"\n\n\"Can't guess; less than centuries would not do. Centuries of being let\nalone! I wonder how men would get on, if they could have as good a\nchance? Glorious! Go on, children, and take your walk; I will lie down\nhere and rest. I believe I want that more than walking.\"\n\nHe threw himself down at full length on the turf in the shadow of a\ngiant beech. Dolly and her remaining companion passed slowly on. This\nwas not what she had reckoned upon; but she saw that her father wished\nto be left alone, and she did not feel, nevertheless, that she could go\nhome and leave the party. Slowly she and Mr. St. Leger sauntered on,\nfrom the shadow of one great tree to another; Dolly thinking what she\nshould do. When they were gotten out of sight and out of earshot, she\ntoo stopped, and sat down on a shady bank which the roots of an immense\noak had thrown up around its base.\n\n\"What now?\" said Lawrence.\n\n\"This is a good place to stay. Father wishes to be left to himself.\"\n\n\"But aren't you going any further?\"\n\n\"There is nothing to be gained by going any further. It is as pretty\nhere as anywhere in the wood.\"\n\n\"We might go on and see the pheasantry. Have you seen the pheasantry?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"That does not depend on the housekeeper's pleasure; and the people on\nthe place are not all Methodists. I fancy we should have no trouble in\ngetting to see that. Come! It is really very fine, and worth a walk to\nsee. I am not much of a place-hunter, but the Brierley pheasantry is\nsomething by itself.\"\n\n\"Not to-day,\" said Dolly.\n\n\"Why not to-day? I can get the gate opened.\"\n\n\"You forget it is Sunday, Mr. St. Leger.\"\n\n\"I do not forget it,\" said he, throwing himself down on the bank beside\nher. \"I came here to have the day with you. It's a holiday. Mr. Copley\nkeeps a fellow awfully busy other days, if one has the good fortune to\nbe his secretary. I remember particularly well that it is Sunday. What\nabout it? Can't a fellow have it, now he has got it?\"\n\nThe blue eyes were looking with a surprised sort of complaint in them,\nyet not wholly discontented, at Dolly. How could they be discontented?\nSo fair an object to rest upon and so curiosity-provoking too, as she\nwas. Dolly's advantages were not decked out at all; she was dressed in\na simple white gown; and there were none of the formalities of fine\nladyism about her; a very plain little girl; and yet, Lawrence was not\nfar wrong when he thought her the fairest thing his eyes had ever seen.\n_Her_ eyes had such a mingling of the childlike and the wise; her hair\ncurled in such an artless, elegant way about her temples and in her\nneck; the neck itself had such a pretty set and carriage, the figure\nwas so graceful in its girlish outlines; and above all, her manner had\nsuch an inexplicable combination of the utterly free and the utterly\nunapproachable. Lawrence lay thinking all this, or part of it; Dolly\nwas thinking how she should dispose of him. She could not well say\nanything that would directly seem to condemn her father. And while she\nwas thinking what answer she should make, Lawrence had forgot his\nquestion.\n\n\"Do you like this park?\" he began on another tack.\n\n\"Oh, more than I can tell you! It is perfect. It is magnificent. There\nis nothing like it in all America. At least, _I_ never saw anything\nlike it there.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said Lawrence. \"I mean, why is there not anything like this\nthere?\"\n\nThen Dolly's face dimpled all up in one of its expressions of extreme\nsense of fun.\n\n\"We are not old enough,\" she said. \"You know when these trees were\nyoung, our land was filled with the red men, and overgrown with\nforests.\"\n\n\"Well, those forests were old.\"\n\n\"Yes, but in a forest trees do not grow like this. They cannot. And\nthen the forest had to be cut down.\"\n\n\"Then you like England better than America?\"\n\n\"I never saw in my life anything half so beautiful as Brierley Park.\"\n\n\"You would be contented with such a home, wherever it might be?\"\n\n\"As far as the trees went,\" said Dolly, with another ripple of fun\nbreaking over her face.\n\n\"Tell me,\" said Lawrence, \"are all American girls like you?\"\n\n\"In what way? We do not all look alike.\"\n\n\"No, no; I do not mean looks; they are no more like you in _that_, than\nyou say America resembles Brierley Park. But you are not like an\nEnglish girl.\"\n\n\"I am afraid that is not an equal compliment to me. But why should\nAmericans be different from English people? We went over from England\nonly a little while ago.\"\n\n\"Institutions?\" Lawrence ventured.\n\n\"What, because we have a President, and you have a King? What\ndifference should that make?\"\n\n\"Then you see no difference? Am I like an American, now?\"\n\n\"You are not like my father, certainly. But I do not know any American\nyoung men--except one. And I don't know him.\"\n\n\"That sounds very much like a riddle. Won't you be so good as to\nexplain?\"\n\n\"There is no riddle,\" said Dolly. \"I knew him when I was at school, a\nlittle girl, and I have never seen him since.\"\n\n\"Then you don't know him now, I should say.\"\n\n\"No. And yet I feel as if I knew him. I should know him if we saw each\nother again.\"\n\n\"Seems to have made a good deal of an impression!\"\n\n\"Yes, I think he did. I liked him.\"\n\n\"Before you see him again you will have forgotten him,\" said Lawrence\ncomfortably. \"Do you not think you could forget America, if somebody\nwould make you mistress of such a place as this?\"\n\n\"And if everybody I loved was here? Perhaps,\" said Dolly, looking round\nher at the soft swelling green turf over which the trees stretched\ntheir great branches.\n\n\"But,\" said Lawrence, lying on his elbow and watching her, \"would you\nwant _everybody_ you love? The Bible says that a woman shall leave\nfather and mother and cleave to her husband.\"\n\n\"No; the Bible says that is what the man shall do; leave father and\nmother and cleave unto his wife.\"\n\n\"They work it the other way,\" said Lawrence. \"With us, it is the woman\nwho leaves her family to go with the man.\"\n\n\"Mr. St. Leger,\" said Dolly suddenly, \"father does not look well. What\ndo you think is the matter with him?\"\n\n\"Oh--aw--yes! Do you think he doesn't look well?\" Lawrence answered\nvaguely.\n\n\"Not _ill_--but not just like himself either. What is it?\"\n\n\"I--well, I have thought that myself sometimes,\" replied the young man.\n\n\"What is the matter with him?\" Dolly repeated anxiously.\n\n\"Oh, not much, he spends too much time at--at his office, you know!\"\n\n\"He has no need to do that. He does not want the office--not for the\nmoney's sake.\"\n\n\"Most men want money,\" said Lawrence.\n\n\"But do you think he does?\"\n\n\"Oh, why not? Why, _my_ father wants money, always wants money; and yet\nyou would say he has enough, too. Dolly\"---- She interrupted him.\n\n\"But what did you mean? You meant to say he spends too much time at--at\nwhat? Say what you were going to say.\"\n\nLawrence rolled himself over on the bank so that he could look up\nstraight into her face. It was a good look of his blue eyes. \"Dolly,\"\nsaid he, \"if you will leave father and mother for my sake,\nfiguratively, I mean,--of course, figuratively,--I will take care that\nneither of them ever wants anything for the rest of their lives. And\nyou shall have a place as good as Brierley Park.\"\n\nDolly's spirits must have taken one or two quick leaps, for her colour\nchanged so; but happily Lawrence's speech was long enough to let her\nget possession of herself again. She answered with an _a plomb_ which,\nborn of necessity as it was, and natural, equalled that of the most\npractised fine lady which should show her artificial habit or skill.\nLike an instinct of self-preservation, I suppose; swift in action,\ncorrect in adjustment, taking its measures with unpremeditated good\naim. She answered with absolute seeming calmness--\n\n\"You evade my question, I observe.\"\n\n\"I am sure you evade mine!\" said the young man, much more hotly.\n\n\"Perhaps I do. Naturally, I want mine answered first.\"\n\n\"And then will you give me the answer to my question?\" said he eagerly.\n\n\"That would seem to be no more than good manners.\"\n\n\"What do you want to know, Dolly? I am sure I can't tell what to say to\nyou.\"\n\n\"Tell me what makes my father look unlike himself,\" said Dolly quietly.\nShe spoke quietly; not as if she were greatly concerned to know the\nanswer; yet if Lawrence had guessed how her heart beat he would have\nhad still more difficulty with his reply. He had some, as it was; so\nmuch that he tried to turn the matter off.\n\n\"You are imagining things,\" he said. \"Mr. Copley seems to me very much\nwhat I have always known him.\"\n\n\"He does not seem to me as _I_ have always known him,\" said Dolly. \"And\nyou are not saying what you are thinking, Mr. St. Leger.\"\n\n\"You are terribly sharp!\" said he, to gain time.\n\n\"That's quite common among American women. Go on, Mr. St. Leger, if you\nplease.\"\n\n\"I declare, it's uncanny. I feel as if you could see through me, too.\nAnd no one will bear such looking into.\"\n\n\"Go on, Mr. St. Leger,\" Dolly repeated with an air of superiority. Poor\nchild, she felt very weak at the time.\n\n\"I don't know what to say, 'pon my honour,\" the young man averred. \"I\nhave nothing to say, really. And I am afraid of troubling you, besides.\"\n\nDolly could _not_ speak now. She preserved her calm air of attention;\nthat was all.\n\n\"It's really nothing,\" St. Leger went on; \"but I suppose, really, Mr.\nCopley may have lost some money. That's nothing, you know. Every man\ndoes, now and then. He loses, and then he gains.\"\n\n\"How?\" said Dolly gravely.\n\n\"Oh, well, there are various ways. Betting, you know, and cards.\nEverybody bets; and of course he can't always win, or betting would\nstop. That's nothing, Miss Copley.\"\n\n\"Have you any idea how much he has lost?\"\n\n\"Haven't an idea. People don't tell, naturally, how hard they are hit.\nI am sure it is nothing you need be concerned about.\"\n\n\"Are not people often ruined in that way?\" Dolly asked, still\npreserving her outside calm.\n\n\"Well, that does happen, of course, now and then, with careless people.\nMr. Copley is not one of that sort. Not that kind of man.\"\n\n\"Do not people grow careless, in the interest and excitement of the\nplay?\"\n\nSt. Leger hesitated, and laughed a little, casting up his blue eyes at\nDolly as if she were a very peculiar specimen of young womanhood and he\nwere not quite sure how to answer her.\n\n\"I assure you,\" he said, \"there is nothing that you need be concerned\nabout. I am certain there is not.\"\n\n\"Not if my father is concerned about it already?\"\n\n\"He is not concerned, I am sure. Oh, well! there may be a little\ntemporary embarrassment--that can happen to any man, who is not made of\ngold--but it will be all right. Now, Miss Copley\"----\n\nShe put out her hand to stop him.\n\n\"Mr. St. Leger, can you do nothing to help? You are kind, I know; you\nhave always been kind to us; can you do nothing to help now?\"\n\nThe young man rather opened his eyes. Was this asking him for an\nadvance? It was a very cool proceeding in that case. \"Help?\" he\nrepeated doubtfully. \"What sort?\"\n\n\"There is only one way that you could help,\" said Dolly.\n\nHe saw she meant what she meant, if he could know what that was; her\ncheeks had even grown pale; the sweet, clear brown eyes sought his face\nas if they would reach his heart, which they did; but then,--to assume\nany of Mr. Copley's responsibilities--\n\n\"I'll assume all Mr. Copley's responsibilities, Dolly,\" he said with\nrash decision--\"if you'll smile upon me.\"\n\n\"Assume?--Oh, did you think I meant _that?_\" cried Dolly, while a\nfurious flush came up into her face. \"What a notion you must have of\nAmericans, Mr. St. Leger! Do you think father would make over his\nresponsibilities to another man? I did not mean anything so impossible\nas that.\"\n\n\"Forgive me Then what did you mean?\"\n\n\"Perhaps something as impossible,\" said Dolly sadly, while the flush\nslowly paled. \"I meant--couldn't you--could you--I don't know but it is\njust as impossible!\"----\n\n\"Could I, what? I could do most things, if you wished it, Dolly.\"\n\n\"Then you must not call me that till I give you leave. I was going to\nsay, could you perhaps do anything to get my father away from this\nhabit, or pleasure\"----\n\n\"Of betting?\"\n\n\"Betting--and cards--it's all the same. He never used to do it. Can you\nhelp, Mr. St. Leger?\"\n\nDolly's face was a sort of a marvel. It was so childlike, it was so\nwomanly; it was so innocent, and it was so forceful. Lawrence looked,\nand would have liked to do the impossible; but what could he? It was\nspecially at his own father's card-table, he knew, that Mr. Copley had\nlost money; it was wholly in his father's society that he had been\ninitiated into the fascination of wagers--and of something else. Could\nhe go against his own father? and how could he? and himself a player,\nthough a very cautious one, how should he influence another man not to\nplay?\n\n\"Miss Copley--I am younger than your father\"---- Lawrence began.\n\n\"I know. But you might speak where I cannot. Or you might do something.\"\n\n\"Mr. Copley only does what my father does, and what everybody does.\"\n\n\"If you were to tell your father,--could not _he_ perhaps stop\nit?--bring my father off the notion?\" Dolly had reached the very core\nof the subject now and touched what she wanted to touch; for she had a\ncertain assurance in her own mind that her father's intercourse with\nthe banker and his circle of friends had led to all this trouble.\nLawrence pondered, looked serious; and finally promised that he would\n\"see what he could do.\" He would have urged his own question then; but\nto Dolly's great relief Mr. Copley found by this time that he had had\nenough of his own company; and called to them. However she could not\nescape entirely.\n\n\"I have answered your question, Miss Copley,\" Lawrence said as they\nwere going down the <DW72> towards the yet unseen caller. \"Hallo! yes,\nwe're coming.--Now am I not to have the promised answer to mine?\"\n\n\"How did you put it? the question?\" said Dolly, standing still and\nfacing her difficulties.\n\n\"You know. _I_ don't know how I put it,\" St. Leger said with a half\nlaugh. \"But I meant, Dolly, that you are more to me than everything and\neverybody in the world; and I wanted to know what I am to you?\"\n\n\"Not _that_, Mr. St. Leger.\" Dolly was quiet, and did not shun his\neyes; and though she did grow rosy, there were some suspicious dimples\nin her fair little face; very unencouraging, but absolutely\nirresistible at the same time.\n\n\"What then?\" said the young man. \"Of course, I could not be to you what\nyou are to me, Dolly. Naturally. But I can take care of your father and\nmother, and I will; and I will put you in a place as good as Brierley\nPark. I am my father's only son, and his heir, and I can do pretty much\nwhat I like to do. But I care for nothing if you will not share it with\nme.\"\n\n\"I am not going to leave my father and mother at present,\" said Dolly,\nshaking her head.\n\n\"No, not at present,\" said he eagerly, catching at her words. \"Not at\npresent. But you do not love anybody else, Dolly?\"\n\n\"Certainly not!\"\n\n\"Then you will let me hope? You will let me hold myself your best\nfriend, after them?\"\n\n\"I believe you are that,\" said Dolly, giving him her hand;--\"except my\nold Methodist acquaintance, Mrs. Jersey.\" Which addition was a little\nlike a dash of cold water; but Lawrence was tolerably contented after\nall; and pondered seriously what he could do in the matter of Mr.\nCopley's gaming tendencies. Dolly was right; but it is awkward to\npreach against what you practise yourself.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nDIFFICULTIES.\n\nDolly on her part had not much comfort in the review of this afternoon.\n\"It was no good,\" she said to herself; \"I am afraid it has encouraged\nLawrence St. Leger in nonsense. I did not mean that, but I am afraid he\ntook it for encouragement. So much for going walking Sunday. I'll never\ndo it again.\"\n\nLawrence had taken leave very cheerfully; that was certain. As much\ncould not be said for his principal. Dolly had privately asked her\nfather to send her down the money for the servants' wages; and Mr.\nCopley had given an offhand promise; but Dolly saw that same want of\nthe usual ready ease in his manner, and was not surprised when days\npassed and the money did not come. The question recurred, what was she\nto do? She wrote to remind her father; and she took a fixed resolve\nthat she would buy no more, of anything, that she could not on the spot\npay for. This, however, was not a resolve immediately taken; it ensued\nwhen after several weeks the women again pressed for their money, and\nagain in vain. Dolly started back then from the precipice she saw she\nmight be nearing, and determined to owe no more debts. She wrote to her\nfather once more, begging for a supply. And a supply came; but so\nmeagre that Dolly could but partially pay her two servants and keep a\nlittle in hand to go to market with. Mr. Copley had not come down to\nBrierley in the meanwhile. Lawrence had.\n\nHer unaccustomed burden of care Dolly had kept to herself; therefore it\nstartled her when one day her mother began upon the subject.\n\n\"What's this about Margaret's wages, Dolly?\"\n\n\"She asked me for some money the other day,\" Dolly answered as easily\nas she could.\n\n\"You didn't give it to her?\"\n\n\"I have given her part; I had not the whole.\"\n\n\"Haven't you _any?_\"\n\n\"Yes, mother, but not enough to give Margaret all she wants.\"\n\n\"Let her have what you've got, and write your father to send you some.\nI never like to keep servants waiting. What's theirs, isn't yours; and\nbesides, they never serve you so well, and you're in their power.\"\n\n\"Mother, I want to keep a little in the house, for every day calls,\ntill I get some more.\"\n\n\"Your father will send it immediately. Why he don't come himself, I\ndon't see. _I_'m not gaining, all alone in this wilderness, with\nnothing but the trees of Brierley Park to look at. I can't think what\nyour father is dreaming about!\"\n\nDolly was silent, and hoped the subject had blown over. Yet it could\nnot blow over for ever, she reflected. What was she to do? Then her\nmother startled her again.\n\n\"Dolly have you told your father that you want money?\"\n\nDolly hesitated; had to say yes.\n\n\"And he did not give it to you?\"\n\n\"Yes, mother; he sent me some.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"It was--it must have been three weeks ago.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"Not enough to pay all that is due to Margaret.\"\n\nMrs. Copley laid down her face in her hands. A terrible pain went\nthrough Dolly's heart; but what could she say. It seemed as if pain\npricked her like a shower of arrows, first on this side and then on\nthat. She thought her mother _had_ gained somewhat in the past weeks;\nhow would it, or could it, be now? Presently Mrs. Copley lifted up her\nhead with a further question.\n\n\"Is Sarah paid?\"\n\n\"No, mother; not yet,\" said poor Dolly.\n\n\"Has Peter been paid anything?\"\n\n\"Not by us. We do not pay Peter at all,\" replied Dolly, feeling as if\nthe words were stabbing her.\n\n\"Who does?\" said her mother quickly.\n\n\"Mr. St. Leger sent him here. He is their servant really, and they take\ncare of him.\"\n\n\"I don't see how your father can content himself with that,\" said Mrs.\nCopley. \"But I suppose that is one of the debts that _you_ will pay,\nDolly.\"\n\nDolly forced herself to speak very quietly, though every nerve and\nfibre was trembling and quivering. She said, \"How, mother?\"\n\n\"I suppose you know. Mr. St. Leger knows, at any rate; and your father\ntoo, it seems.\"\n\n\"Mother,\" said Dolly, sitting up a little straighter, \"do you think I\nwill pay debts in _that_ way?\"\n\n\"What other way will you pay them, then, child? what do you and your\nfather expect? What _can_ you do, if you have not the money?\" Mrs.\nCopley spoke bitterly. Dolly waited a little, perhaps to bite down or\nswallow down some feeling.\n\n\"Mother,\" she said, somewhat lower, \"do you think father would want me\nto pay his debts so?\"\n\n\"Want to?\" echoed Mrs. Copley. \"I tell you, Dolly, when people get into\ndifficulties the question is not what they _want_ to do. They have to\npocket their likings, and eat humble pie. But how has your father got\ninto difficulties?\" she burst out with an expression of frightened\ndistress. \"He always had plenty. Dolly!--tell me!--what do you know\nabout it? what is it? How _could_ he get into difficulties! Oh, if we\nhad staid at home! Dolly, how is it possible? We have always had\nplenty--money running like water--all my life; and now, how _could_\nyour father have got into difficulties?\"\n\nPerhaps the difficulty was but transient and would soon pass over,\nDolly faintly suggested.\n\n\"It don't look like it,\" said Mrs. Copley miserably, \"and your father\ndon't look like it. Here we are down in this desert, you and I, to keep\nus out of the way, and where we will cost as near nothing as can be;\nand we can't pay that! Do you know nothing about it, Dolly? how it has\ncome about?\"\n\n\"I couldn't ask father such a question, mother, you know.\"\n\n\"And what is to become of me!\" Mrs. Copley went on; \"when travelling is\nthe thing I need. And what is to become of you, Dolly? Nobody to be\nseen, or to see you, but St. Leger. Have you made up your mind to be\ncontent with him? Will you have him, Dolly? and is that the way your\nfather is going to take care of you?\"\n\nPoor Mrs. Copley, having so long swallowed her troubles in secret,\ndreading to give pain to Dolly, now that her mouth was once opened\npoured them forth relentlessly. Why not? the subject was broached at\nlast, and having spoken, she might go on to speak. And poor Dolly, full\nof her own anxieties, did not know where to begin to quiet those of her\nmother.\n\n\"Mr. St. Leger is nothing to me,\" she said, however, in answer to Mrs.\nCopley's last suggestions.\n\n\"He thinks he is.\"\n\n\"Then he is very foolish,\" said Dolly, reddening.\n\n\"It is you that are foolish, and you just do not know any better. I\ndon't think, Dolly, that it would be at all a bad thing for\nyou;--perhaps it would be the very best; though I'd rather have you\nmarry one of our own people; but St. Leger is rich, very rich, I\nsuppose; and your father has got mixed up with them somehow, and I\nsuppose that would settle everything. St. Leger is handsome, too; he\nhas a nice face; he has beautiful eyes; and he is a gentleman.\"\n\n\"His face wants strength.\"\n\n\"That's no matter. I begin to believe, Dolly, that you have wit enough\nfor two.\"\n\n\"I am not speaking of wit; I mean _strength;_ and I should never like\nany man that hadn't it; not like him in the way you mean, mother.\"\n\n\"Strength? what sort of strength?\"\n\n\"I mean manliness; power to do right; power over himself and others;\npower over the wrong, to put it down, and over the right, to lift it up\nand give it play. I don't know that I can tell you what I mean, mother;\nbut that is my notion of a man.\"\n\n\"You are romantic, I am afraid, Dolly. You have been reading novels too\nmuch.\"\n\n\"What novels, mother? I have not read any, except Scott's and Miss\nAusten's and 'The Scottish Chiefs.'\"\n\n\"Well, you have got romantic ideas, I am afraid. Your talk sounds\nromantic. You won't find that sort of man.\"\n\n\"I don't care,\" said Dolly. \"But if I don't, I'll never marry any other\nsort.\"\n\n\"And that is a delusion too,\" said Mrs. Copley. \"You will do just as\nother girls do. Nobody marries her fancy. And besides, St. Leger thinks\nhe has got you; and I don't know but he and your father will manage it\nso. He don't ask _my_ advice.\"\n\nNow this was not quite true; for the subject of Mr. St. Leger had been\ndiscussed more than once between Dolly's parents; though certainly Mrs.\nCopley did see that matters were out of her hand and beyond her\nguidance now. Dolly was glad to have the conversation turn to something\nelse; but the several subjects of it hardly left her head any more.\n\nIt is blessedly true, that at seventeen there is a powerful spring of\nelasticity in the mind, and an inexhaustible treasury of hope; also it\nis true that Mrs. Copley was not wrong in her estimate of Dolly when\nshe adjudged her to have plenty of \"wit;\" otherwise speaking, resources\nand acuteness. That was all true; nevertheless, Dolly's\nseventeen-year-old heart and head were greatly burdened with what they\nhad to carry just now. Experience gave her no help, and the\ncircumstances forbade her to depend upon the experience of her mother.\nMrs. Copley's nerves must not be excited. So Dolly carried her burden\nalone, and found it very heavy; and debated her questions with herself,\nand could find an answer to never a one of them. How should she give\nher mother the rest and distraction of travelling? The doctor said, and\nDolly believed, that it would be the best thing for her. But she could\nnot even get speech of her father to consult over the matter with him\nMr. Copley was caught in embarrassments of his own, worse than nervous\nones. What could Dolly do, to break him off from his present habits,\nthose she knew and those she dimly feared? Then when, as was\ninevitable, the image of Mr. St. Leger presented itself, as affording\nthe readiest solution of all these problems, Dolly bounded back. Not\n_that_, of all possible outcomes of the present state of things. Dolly\nwould neither be bought nor sold; would not in that way even be her\nparents' deliverer. She was sure she could not do that. What else could\nshe do?\n\nShe carried these questions about with her, out into the garden, and up\ninto her room; and many a hot tear she shed over them, when she could\nbe long enough away from her mother to let the tears dry and the signs\nof them disappear before she met Mrs. Copley's eyes again. To her eyes\nDolly was unfailingly bright and merry; a most sweet companion and most\nentertaining society; lively, talkative, and busy with endless plans\nfor her mother's amusement. Meanwhile she wrote to her father, begging\nhim to come down to Brierley; she said she wanted to talk to him.\n\nThree days after that letter came Lawrence St. Leger. Mr. Copley could\nnot spare the time, he reported.\n\n\"Spare the time from what?\" Dolly asked.\n\n\"Oh, business, of course. It is always business.\"\n\n\"What sort? Not consul business.\"\n\n\"All sorts,\" said Lawrence. \"He couldn't come. So he sent me. What is\nthe thing, Miss Dolly? He said something was up.\"\n\n\"I wanted to talk to my father,\" Dolly said coldly.\n\n\"Won't I do?\"\n\n\"Not at all. I had business to discuss.\"\n\n\"The journey, eh?\"\n\n\"That was one thing,\" Dolly was obliged to allow.\n\n\"Well, look here. About that, I've a plan. I think I can arrange it\nwith Mr. Copley, if you and your mother would be willing to set off\nwith me, and let Mr. Copley join us somewhere--say at Baden Baden, or\nVenice, or where you like. He could come as soon as he was ready, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"But you know,\" said Dolly quietly, \"I specially want _him_, himself.\"\n\n\"But then your mother wants the journey. She really does. The doctor\nsays so, you know, and I think he's right. And Mr. Copley won't leave\nLondon just now. He could send his secretary, you know. That's all\nright.\"\n\n\"I must see father before I can do anything,\" said Dolly evasively. \"I\nwill write a letter for you to carry back to him. And I will go do it\nat once.\"\n\n\"And I will take a look at what Peter is doing,\" said the young man.\n\"Such fellows always want looking after.\"\n\nDolly had looked after Peter herself. She paused before an upper window\nin her way to her room, to cast a glance down into the garden. Old\nPeter was there, at some work she had set him; and before him stood\nLawrence, watching him, and she supposed making remarks; but at any\nrate, his air was the air of a master and of one very much at home.\nDolly saw it, read it, stood still to read it, and turned from the\nwindow with her heart too full of vexation and perturbation to write\nher letter then. She felt a longing for somebody to talk to, even\nthough she could by no means lay open all her case for counsel; the air\nof the house was too close for her; her breath could not be drawn free\nin that neighbourhood. She must see somebody; and no one had poor Dolly\nto go to but the housekeeper, Mrs. Jersey. Nobody, near or far. So she\nslipped out of the house and took a roundabout way to the great\nmansion. She dared not take a straight way and cross the bridge, lest\nshe should be seen and followed; so she made a circuit, and got into\nthe park woods only after some time of warm walking through lanes and\nover fields. Till then she had hurried; now, safe from interruption,\nshe went slowly, and pondered what she was going to do or say. Pondered\neverything, and could not with all her thinking make the confusion less\nconfusion. It was a warm, still, sultry day; the turf was dry, the air\nwas spicy under the great trees; shadow and sunshine alternately\ncrossed her path, or more correctly, her path crossed them. A certain\nsense of contrast smote her as she went. Around her were the tokens of\na broad security, sheltering protection, quiet and immovable\npossession, careless wealth; and within her a tumult of fear,\nuncertainty, exposure, and craving need. Life seemed a very unequal\nthing to the little American girl. Her step became slower. What was she\ngoing to say to Mrs. Jersey? It was impossible to determine;\nnevertheless, Dolly felt that she must see her and speak to her. That\nwas a necessity.\n\nThrough the trees she caught at last sight of the grand old house. The\ndog knew her by this time and she did not fear him. She found the\nhousekeeper busy with some sewing and glad to welcome her. Mrs. Jersey\nwas that always. To-day she looked a little closer than usual at her\nvisitor, discerning that Dolly's mind was not just in its wonted poise.\nAnd besides, she loved to look at her.\n\nYet it is not easy to describe that for which our eyes seek and dwell\nupon a face or form. It is easy to say brown eyes and lightly curled,\nwaving, beautiful hair; but hair is beautiful in different ways, and so\nfaces. Can we put Dolly's charm into words? Mrs. Jersey saw a delicate,\ngraceful, active figure, to begin with; delicate without any suspicion\nof weakness; active, in little quick, gracious movements, which it was\nfascinating to watch; and when not in motion, lovely in its childlike\nunconsciousness of repose. Her hair was exceedingly beautiful, not on\naccount of its mass or colour so much as for the great elegance of its\ngrowth and curly arrangement or disarrangement around the face and\nneck; and the face was a blending of womanly and childlike. It could\nseem by turns most of the one or most of the other; but the clear eyes\nhad at all times a certain deep _inwardness_, along with their bright,\nintelligent answer to the moment's impression, and also a certain\ninnocent outlook, which was very captivating. And then, at a moment's\nnotice, Dolly's face from being grave and thoughtful, would dimple all\nup with some flash of fun, and make you watch its change back to\ngravity again, with an intensified sense both of its merry and of its\nserious charm. She smiled at Mrs. Jersey now as she came in, but the\nhousekeeper saw that the eyes had more care in their thoughtfulness\nthan she was accustomed to see in them.\n\n\"And how is the mother, dear?\" she asked, when Dolly had drawn up a\nchair and sat down; for they were grown familiar friends by this time.\n\n\"She is not getting on much, Mrs. Jersey. I wanted to talk to you about\nher. The doctor says travelling would be the best thing.\"\n\n\"And you will go and travel? Where will you go?\"\n\n\"I don't know yet whether we can go anywhere. Mother wants to go.\"\nDolly looked out hard into the tree groups on the lawn. They barred the\nvision.\n\n\"That is one sign then that the doctor is right,\" said Mrs. Jersey. \"It\nis good for sick folks to have what they like.\"\n\n\"Isn't it good for people that are not sick?\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" said Mrs. Jersey, smiling. \"But sometimes not; or else the\ngood Lord would let them have it, when He does not let them. What are\n_you_ wanting, Miss Dolly?\"\n\n\"I want everything different from what it is just now!\" said Dolly, the\ntears starting to her eyes. The housekeeper was moved with a great\nsympathy; sympathy that was silent at first.\n\n\"Can I help?\" she asked.\n\n\"Maybe you can help with your counsel,\" said Dolly, brushing her hand\nover her eyes; \"that is what I came here for to-day. I wanted to speak\nto somebody; and I have nobody but you, Mrs. Jersey.\"\n\n\"Your mother, my dear?\"\n\n\"I can't worry mother.\"\n\n\"True. You are right. Well, my dear? What do you want counsel about?\"\n\n\"It is very difficult to tell you. I don't know if I can. I will try.\nOne thing. Mrs. Jersey, is it right sometimes, is it a girl's duty\never--to sacrifice herself for her parents?\".\n\nThe housekeeper had not expected this form of dilemma, and hesitated a\nfew minutes.\n\n\"Sacrifice herself how, Miss Dolly?\"\n\n\"Marrying, for instance.\"\n\n\"Marrying somebody she does not care for?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How 'for her parents'?\"\n\n\"Suppose--I am just supposing,--suppose he has money, and they haven't.\nSuppose, for instance, they are in difficulties, and by her sacrificing\nherself she can put them out of difficulty? Such a case might be, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"Often has been; or at least people have thought so. But, Miss Dolly,\nwhere is a young lady's first duty?\"\n\n\"To God, of course; her first duty.\"\n\n\"And next after God?\"\n\n\"To her parents, I suppose.\"\n\n\"And besides her parents?\"\n\n\"I don't know; nobody, I think.\"\n\n\"Let us see. She owes something to herself.\"\n\n\"Does she?\"\n\n\"And do you not think she owes something to the other party concerned?\ndon't you think she owes something to the gentleman she is to marry?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" said Dolly slowly. \"I do not know exactly what,\nthough; nor exactly what she owes to herself.\"\n\n\"Before taking any course of action, in a matter that is very\nimportant, shouldn't she look all round the subject? and see what will\nbecome of all these duties?\"\n\n\"Certainly. But the first comes first.\"\n\n\"The first comes first. How does the first look to you?\"\n\n\"The first is her duty to God.\"\n\n\"Well. What does her duty to God say?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Dolly very gravely. \"I am all in a puzzle.\nSomething in me says one thing, and something else in me cries out\nagainst it. Mrs. Jersey, the Bible says, 'Honour thy father and thy\nmother.'\"\n\n\"Yes, and it says, 'Children, obey your parents\n\nQuestion: Summarize the above passage in exactly 500 words and give a brief outlook on it."}]}