joanna godden by sheila kaye-smith to w.l. george contents part i shepherd's hey part ii first love part iii the little sister part iv last love note _though local names, both of places and people, have been used in this story, the author states that no reference is intended to any living person._ joanna godden _part i_ shepherd's hey § three marshes spread across the triangle made by the royal military canal and the coasts of sussex and kent. the military canal runs from hythe to rye, beside the military road; between it and the flat, white beaches of the channel lie romney marsh, dunge marsh and walland marsh, from east to west. walland marsh is sectored by the kent ditch, which draws huge, straggling diagrams here, to preserve ancient rights of parishes and the monks of canterbury. dunge marsh runs up into the apex of the triangle at dunge ness, and adds to itself twenty feet of shingle every year. romney marsh is the sixth continent and the eighth wonder of the world. the three marshes are much alike; indeed to the foreigner they are all a single spread of green, slatted with watercourses. no river crosses them, for the rother curves close under rye hill, though these marshes were made by its ancient mouth, when it was the river limine and ran into the channel at old romney. there are a few big watercourses--the new sewer, the yokes sewer, the white kemp sewer--there are a few white roads, and a great many marsh villages--brenzett, ivychurch, fairfield, snargate, snave--each little more than a church with a farmhouse or two. here and there little deserted chapels lie out on the marsh, officeless since the days of the monks of canterbury; and everywhere there are farms, with hundreds of sheep grazing on the thick pastures. little ansdore farm was on walland marsh, three miles from rye, and about midway between the villages of brodnyx and pedlinge. it was a sea farm. there were no hop-gardens, as on the farms inland, no white-cowled oasts, and scarcely more than twelve acres under the plough. three hundred acres of pasture spread round ansdore, dappled over with the big kent sheep--the road from pedlinge to brodnyx went through them, curling and looping and doubling to the demands of the dykes. just beyond pedlinge it turned northward and crossed the south eastern railway under the hills that used to be the coast of england, long ago when the sea flowed up over the marsh to the walls of lympne and rye; then in less than a mile it had crossed the line again, turning south; for some time it ran seawards, parallel with the kent ditch, then suddenly went off at right angles and ran straight to the throws where the woolpack inn watches the roads to lydd and appledore. on a dim afternoon towards the middle of october in the year , a funeral procession was turning off this road into the drive of little ansdore. the drive was thick with shingle, and the mourning coaches lurched and rolled in it, spoiling no doubt the decorum of their occupants. anyhow, the first two to get out at the farmhouse door had lost a little of that dignity proper to funerals. a fine young woman of about twenty-three, dressed handsomely but without much fashion in black crape and silk, jumped out with a violence that sent her overplumed black hat to a rakish angle. in one black kid-gloved hand she grasped a handkerchief with a huge black border, in the other a prayer book, so could not give any help to the little girl of ten who stumbled out after her, with the result that the child fell flat on the doorstep and cut her chin. she immediately began to cry. "now be quiet, ellen," said the elder roughly but not unkindly, as she helped her up, and stuffing the black-bordered handkerchief into her pocket, took out the everyday one which she kept for use. "there, wipe your eyes, and be a stout gal. don't let all the company see you crying." the last injunction evidently impressed ellen, for she stopped at once. her sister had wiped the grit and the little smear of blood off her chin, and stood in the doorway holding her hand while one by one the other carriages drew up and the occupants alighted. not a word was spoken till they had all assembled, then the young woman said: "please come in and have a cup of tea," and turning on her heel led the way to the dining-room. "joanna," said little ellen in a loud whisper, "may i take off my hat?" "no, that you mayn't." "but the elastic's so tight--it's cutting my chin. why mayn't i?" "you can't till the funeral's over." "it is over. they've put father in the ground." "it isn't over till we've had tea, and you keep your hat on till it's over." for answer ellen tore off her pork-pie hat and threw it on the floor. immediately joanna had boxed her unprotected ears, and the head of the procession was involved in an ignominious scuffle. "you pick up that hat and put it on," said joanna, "or you shan't have any nice tea." "you're a beast! you're a brute," cried ellen, weeping loudly. behind them stood two rows of respectable marsh-dwellers, gazing solemnly ahead as if the funeral service were still in progress. in their hearts they were thinking that it was just like joanna godden to have a terrification like this when folk were expected to be serious. in the end joanna picked up ellen's hat, crammed it down ruthlessly on her head, hind part before, and heaving her up under her arm carried her into the dining-room. the rest of the company followed, and were ushered into their places to the accompaniment of ellen's shrieks, which they pretended not to hear. "mr. pratt, will you take the end of the table?" said joanna to the scared little clergyman, who would almost have preferred to sit under it rather than receive the honour which miss godden's respect for his cloth dictated. "mr. huxtable, will you sit by me?" having thus settled her aristocracy she turned to her equals and allotted places to vine of birdskitchen, furnese of misleham, southland of yokes court, and their wives. "arthur alce, you take my left," and a tall young man with red hair, red whiskers, and a face covered with freckles and tan, came sidling to her elbow. in front of joanna a servant-girl had just set down a huge black teapot, which had been stewing on the hob ever since the funeral party had been sighted crossing the railway line half a mile off. round it were two concentric rings of teacups--good old worcester china, except for a common three which had been added for number's sake, and which joanna carefully bestowed upon herself, ellen, and arthur alce. ellen had stopped crying at the sight of the cakes and jam and pots of "relish" which stretched down the table in orderly lines, so the meal proceeded according to the decent conventions of silence. nobody spoke, except to offer some eatable to somebody else. joanna saw that no cup or plate was empty. she ought really to have delegated this duty to another, being presumably too closely wrapped in grief to think of anybody's appetite but her own, but joanna never delegated anything, and her "a little more tea, mrs. vine?"--"another of these cakes, mr. huxtable?"--"just a little dash of relish, mr. pratt?" were constantly breaking the stillness, and calling attention to her as she sat behind the teapot, with her plumed hat still a little on one side. she was emphatically what men call a "fine woman," with her firm, white neck, her broad shoulders, her deep bosom and strong waist; she was tall, too, with large, useful hands and feet. her face was brown and slightly freckled, with a warm colour on the cheeks; the features were strong, but any impression of heaviness was at once dispelled by a pair of eager, living blue eyes. big jet earrings dangled from her ears, being matched by the double chain of beads that hung over her crape-frilled bodice. indeed, with her plumes, her earrings, her necklace, her frills, though all were of the decent and respectable black, she faintly shocked the opinion of walland marsh, otherwise disposed in pity to be lenient to joanna godden and her ways. owing to the absence of conversation, tea was not as long drawn-out as might have been expected from the appetites. besides, everyone was in a hurry to be finished and hear the reading of old thomas godden's will. already several interesting rumours were afloat, notably one that he had left ansdore to joanna only on condition that she married arthur alce within the year. "she's a mare that's never been präaperly broken in, and she wants a strong hand to do it." thus unchoicely furnese of misleham had expressed the wish that fathered such a thought. so at the first possible moment after the last munch and loud swallow with which old grandfather vine, who was unfortunately the slowest as well as the largest eater, announced repletion, all the chairs were pushed back on the drugget and a row of properly impassive faces confronted mr. huxtable the lawyer as he took his stand by the window. only joanna remained sitting at the table, her warm blue eyes seeming to reflect the evening's light, her arm round little ellen, who leaned against her lap. the will was, after all, not so sensational as had been hoped. it opened piously, as might have been expected of thomas godden, who was as good an old man as ever met death walking in a cornfield unafraid. it went on to leave various small tokens of remembrance to those who had known him--a mourning ring to mr. vine, mr. furnese and mr. southland, his two volumes of robertson's sermons, and a book called "the horse in sickness and in health," to arthur alce, which was a disappointment to those who had expected the bequest to be his daughter joanna. there was fifty pounds for mr. samuel huxtable of huxtable, vidler and huxtable, solicitors, watchbell street, rye, five pounds each for those farm hands in his employment at the time of his death, with an extra ten pounds to "nathan stuppeny, my carter, on account of his faithful services both to me and to my father. and i give, devise and bequeath the residue of my property, comprising the freehold farm of little ansdore, in the parish of pedlinge, sussex, with all lands and live and dead stock pertaining thereto to my daughter joanna mary godden. and i appoint the said joanna mary godden sole executrix of this my will." when the reading was over the company remained staring for a minute as decency required, then the door burst open and a big servant-girl brought in a tray set with glasses of whisky and water for the men and spiced wine for the women. these drink-offerings were received with a subdued hum of conversation--it was impossible to hear what was said or even to distinguish who was saying it, but a vague buzzing filled the room, as of imprisoned bees. in the midst of it ellen's voice rose suddenly strident. "joanna, may i take off my hat now?" her sister looked doubtful. the funeral was not ceremonially complete till grandfather vine had done choking over his heel-taps, but ellen had undoubtedly endured a good deal with remarkable patience--her virtue ought in justice to be rewarded. also joanna noticed for the first time that she was looking grotesque as well as uncomfortable, owing perhaps to the hat being still on hind part before. so the necessary dispensation was granted, and ellen further refreshed by a sip of her sister's wine. the guests now took their departure, each being given a memorial card of the deceased, with a fine black edge and the picture of an urn upon it. ellen also was given one, at her urgent request, and ran off in excitement with the treasure. joanna remained with mr. huxtable for a final interview. § "well," he said, "i expect you'll want me to help you a bit, miss joanna." joanna had sat down again at the end of the table--big, tousled, over-dressed, alive. huxtable surveyed her approvingly. "a damn fine woman," he said to himself, "she'll marry before long." "i'm sure i'm much obliged to you, mr. huxtable," said joanna, "there's many a little thing i'd like to talk over with you." "well, now's your time, young lady. i shan't have to be home for an hour or two yet. the first thing is, i suppose, for me to find you a bailiff for this farm." "no, thank you kindly. i'll manage that." "what! do you know of a man?" "no--i mean i'll manage the farm." "you! my dear miss joanna ..." "well, why not? i've been bred up to it from a child. i used to do everything with poor father." as she said the last word her brightness became for a moment dimmed, and tears swam into her eyes for the first time since she had taken the ceremonial handkerchief away from them. but the next minute she lighted up again. "he showed me a lot--he showed me everything. i could do it much better than a man who doesn't know our ways." "but--" the lawyer hesitated, "but it isn't just a question of knowledge, miss joanna; it's a question of--how shall i put it?--well, of authority. a woman is always at a disadvantage when she has to command men." "i'd like to see the man i couldn't make mind me." huxtable grinned. "oh, i've no doubt whatever that you could get yourself obeyed; but the position--the whole thing--you'd find it a great strain, and people aren't as a rule particularly helpful to a woman they see doing what they call a man's job." "i don't want anyone's help. i know my own business and my poor father's ways. that's enough for me." "did your father ever say anything to you about this?" "oh no--he being only fifty-one and never thinking he'd be took for a long while yet. but i know it's what he'd have wanted, or why did he trouble to show me everything? and always talked to me about things as free as he did to fuller and stuppeny." "he would want you to do the best for yourself--he wouldn't want you to take up a heavy burden just for his sake." "oh, it ain't just for his sake, it's for my own. i don't want a strange man messing around, and ansdore's mine, and i'm proud of it." huxtable rubbed his large nose, from either side of which his sharp eyes looked disapprovingly at joanna. he admired her, but she maddened him by refusing to see the obvious side of her femininity. "most young women of your age have other things to think of besides farming. there's your sister, and then--don't tell me that you won't soon be thinking of getting married." "well, and if i do, it'll be time enough then to settle about the farm. as for ellen, i don't see what difference she makes, except that i must see to things for her sake as well as mine. it wouldn't help her much if i handed over this place to a man who'd muddle it all up and maybe bring us to the auctioneer's. i've known ... i've seen ... they had a bailiff in at becket's house and he lost them three fields of lucerne the first season, and got the fluke into their sheep. why, even sir harry trevor's taken to managing things himself at north farthing after the way he saw they were doing with, that old lambarde, and what he can do i can do, seeing i wasn't brought up in a london square." as joanna's volubility grew, her voice rose, not shrilly as with most women, but taking on a warm, hoarse note--her words seemed to be flung out hot as coals from a fire. mr. huxtable grimaced. "she's a virago," he thought to himself. he put up his hand suavely to induce silence, but the eruption went on. "i know all the men, too. they'd do for me what they wouldn't do for a stranger. and if they won't, i know how to settle 'em. i've been bursting with ideas about farming all my life. poor father said only a week before he was taken 'pity you ain't a man, joanna, with some of the notions you've got.' well, maybe it's a pity and maybe it isn't, but what i've got to do now is to act up proper and manage what is mine, and what you and other folks have got to do is not to meddle with me." "come, come, my dear young lady, nobody's going to meddle with you. you surely don't call it 'meddling' for your father's lawyer, an old man who's known you all your life, to offer you a few words of advice. you must go your own way, and if it doesn't turn out as satisfactorily as you expect, you can always change it." "reckon i can," said joanna, "but i shan't have to. won't you take another whisky, mr. huxtable?" the lawyer accepted. joanna godden's temper might be bad, but her whisky was good. he wondered if the one would make up for the other to arthur alce or whoever had married her by this time next year. § mr. huxtable was not alone in his condemnation of joanna's choice. the whole neighbourhood disapproved of it. the joint parishes of brodnyx and pedlinge had made up their minds that joanna godden would now be compelled to marry arthur alce and settle down to mind her own business instead of what was obviously a man's; and here she was, still at large and her business more a man's than ever. "she's a mare that's never been präaperly broken in, and she wants a strong man to do it," said furnese at the woolpack. he had repeated this celebrated remark so often that it had almost acquired the status of a proverb. for three nights joanna had been the chief topic of conversation in the woolpack bar. if arthur alce appeared a silence would fall on the company, to be broken at last by some remark on the price of wool or the rye united's last match. everybody was sorry for alce, everybody thought that thomas godden had treated him badly by not making his daughter marry him as a condition of her inheritance. "three times he's asked her, as i know for certain," said vennal, the tenant of beggar's bush. "no, it's four," said prickett, joanna's neighbour at great ansdore, "there was that time coming back from the wild beast show." "i was counting that," said vennal; "that and the one that mr. vine's looker heard at lydd market, and then that time in the house." "how do you know he asked her in the house?--that makes five." "i don't get that--once indoors and twice out, that's three." "well, anyways, whether it's three or four or five, he's asked her quite enough. it's time he had her now." "he won't get her. she'll fly higher'n him now she's got ansdore. she'll be after young edward huxtable, or maybe parson himself, him having neglected to keep himself married." "ha! ha! it ud be valiant to see her married to liddle parson--she'd forget herself and pick him up under her arm, same as she picks up her sister. but anyways i don't think she'll get much by flying high. it's all fine enough to talk of her having ansdore, but whosumdever wants ansdore ull have to take joanna godden with it, and it isn't every man who'd care to do that." "surelye. she's a mare that's never bin präaperly broken in. d'you remember the time she came prancing into church with a bustle stuck on behind, and everyone staring and fidgeting so as pore mus' pratt lost his place in the prayers and jumped all the way from the belief to the royal family?" "and that time as she hit job piper over the head wud a bunch of osiers just because he'd told her he knew more about thatching than she did." "surelye, and knocked his hat off into the dyke, and then bought him a new one, with a lining to it." "and there was that time when--" several more anecdotes to the point were contributed by the various patrons of the bar, before the conversation, having described a full circle, returned to its original starting point, and then set off again with its vitality apparently undiminished. it was more than a week before the summons of mr. gain, of botolph's bridge, for driving his gig without a light ousted joanna from her central glory in the woolpack's discussions. at ansdore itself the interest naturally lasted longer. joanna's dependents whether in yard or kitchen were resentfully engrossed in the new conditions. "so joanna's going to run our farm for us, is she?" said the head man, old stuppeny, "that'll be valiant, wud some of the notions she has. she'll have our pläace sold up in a twelve-month, surelye. well, well, it's time maybe as i went elsewheres--i've bin long enough at this job." old stuppeny had made this remark at intervals for the last sixty years, indeed ever since the day he had first come as a tow-headed boy to scare sparrows from the fields of joanna's grandfather; so no one gave it the attention that should have been its due. other people aired their grievances instead. "i wöan't stand her meddling wud me and my sheep," said fuller, the shepherd. "it's her sheep, come to that," said martha tilden the chicken-girl. fuller dealt her a consuming glance out of his eyes, which the long distances of the marsh had made keen as the sea wind. "she döan't know nothing about sheep, and i've been a looker after sheep since times when you and her was in your cradles, so i wöan't täake sass from neither of you." "she'll meddle wud you, martha, just as she'll meddle wud the rest of us," said broadhurst, the cowman. "she's meddled wud me for years--i'm used to it. it's you men what's going to have your time now. ha! ha! i'll be pleased watching it." martha's short, brightly-coloured face seemed ready to break in two as she laughed with her mouth wide open. "when she's had a terrification wud me and said things as she's sorry for, she'll give me a gownd of hers or a fine hat. sometimes i think as i make more out of her tempers than i do out of my good work what she pays me wages for." "well, if i wur a decent maid i'd be ashamed to wear any of her outlandish gowns or hats. the colours she chooses! sometimes when i see her walking through a field near the lambing time, i'm scared for my ewes, thinking they'll drop their lambs out of fright. i can't help being thankful as she's in black now for this season, though maybe i shudn't ought to say it, seeing as we've lost a good mäaster, and one as we'll all be tediously regretting in a week or two if we äun't now. you take my word, martha--next time she gives you a gownd, you give it back to her and say as you don't wear such things, being a respectable woman. it äun't right, starting you like that on bad ways." § there was only one house in the joint parishes where joanna had any honourable mention, and that was north farthing house on the other side of the kent ditch. here lived sir harry trevor, the second holder of a title won in banking enterprises, and lately fallen to low estate. the reason could perhaps be seen on his good-looking face, with its sensual, humorous mouth, roving eyes, and lurking air of unfulfilled, undefeated youth. the taverns of the three marshes had combined to give him a sensational past, and further said that his two sons had forced him to settle at brodnyx with a view to preserving what was left of his morals and their inheritance. the elder was in holy orders, and belonged to a small community working in the east end of london; he seldom came to north farthing house. the younger, martin, who had some definite job in the city, was home for a few days that october. it was to him his father said: "i can't help admiring that girl joanna godden for her pluck. old godden died suddenly two weeks ago, and now she's given out that she'll run the farm herself, instead of putting in a bailiff. of course the neighbours disapprove, they've got very strict notions round here as to woman's sphere and all that sort of thing." "godden? which farm's that?" "little ansdore--just across the ditch, in pedlinge parish. it's a big place, and i like her for taking it on." "and for any other reason?" "lord, no! she isn't at all the sort of woman i admire--a great big strapping wench, the kind this marsh breeds twelve to the acre, like the sheep. has it ever struck you, martin, that the women on romney marsh, in comparison with the women one's used to and likes, are the same as the kent sheep in comparison with southdowns--admirably hardy and suited to the district and all that, but a bit tough and coarse-flavoured?" "i see that farming has already enlarged and refined your stock of similes. i hope you aren't getting tired of it." "no, not exactly. i'm interested in the place now i manage it without that dolt lambarde, and hythe isn't too far for the phaeton if i want to see life. besides, i haven't quite got over the thrill of not being in debt and disgrace"--he threw martin a glance which might have come from a rebellious son to a censorious father. "but sometimes i wish there was less moated grange about it all. damn it, i'm always alone here! except when you or your reverend brother come down to see how i'm behaving." "why don't you marry again?" "i don't want to marry. besides, whom the devil should i marry round here? there's mighty few people of our own class about, and those there are seem to have no daughters under forty." martin looked at him quizzically. "oh yes, you young beast--i know what you're thinking. you're thinking that forty's just the right age for me. you're reminding me that i'm a trifle _passé_ myself and ought to marry something sere and yellow. but i tell you i don't feel any older than twenty-five--never have, it's my affliction--while you've never been younger than forty in all your life. it's you who ought to marry middle-age"--and he grimaced at martin. § joanna rather enjoyed being the centre of discussion. she had none of the modest shrinking from being talked about which might have affected some young women. she was glad when martha tilden or another of the girls brought her any overheard scraps. "oh, that's what they say, is it?" and she would laugh a big jolly laugh like a boy's. so far she had enjoyed being "mäaster" of little ansdore. it meant a lot of work and a lot of thought and a lot of talking and interference, but joanna shrank from none of these things. she was healthy and vigorous and intelligent, and was, moreover, quite unhampered by any diffidence about teaching their work to people who had been busy at it before she was born. still it was scarcely more than a fortnight since she had taken on the government, and time had probably much to show her yet. she had a moment of depression one morning, rising early as she always must, and pulling aside the flowered curtain that covered her window. the prospect was certainly not one to cheer; even in sunshine the horizons of the marsh were discouraging with their gospel of universal flatness, and this morning the sun was not yet up, and a pale mist was drifting through the willows, thick and congealed above the watercourses, thinner on the grazing lands between them, so that one could see the dim shapes of the sheep moving through it. even in clear weather only one other dwelling was visible from little ansdore, and that was its fellow of great ansdore, about half a mile away seawards. the sight of it never failed to make joanna contemptuous--for great ansdore had but fifty acres of land compared with the three hundred of its little neighbour. its greatness was merely a matter of name and tradition, and had only one material aspect in the presentation to the living of brodnyx-with-pedlinge, which had been with great ansdore since the passing of the monks of canterbury. to-day great ansdore was only a patch of grey rather denser than its surroundings, and failed to inspire joanna with her usual sense of gloating. her eyes were almost sad as she stared out at it, her chin propped on her hands. the window was shut, as every window in every farm and cottage on the marsh was shut at night, though the ague was now little more than a name on the lips of grandfathers. therefore the room in which two people had slept was rather stuffy, though this in itself would hardly account for joanna's heaviness, since it was what she naturally expected a bedroom to be in the morning. such vague sorrow was perplexing and disturbing to her practical emotions; she hurriedly attributed it to "poor father," and the propriety of the sentiment allowed her the relief of a few tears. turning back into the room she unbuttoned her turkey-red dressing-gown, preparatory to the business of washing and dressing. then her eye fell on ellen still asleep in her little iron bedstead in the corner, and a glow of tenderness passed like a lamp over her face. she went across to where her sister slept, and laid her face for a moment beside hers on the pillow. ellen's breath came regularly from parted lips--she looked adorable cuddled there, with her red cheeks, like an apple in snow. joanna, unable to resist the temptation, kissed her and woke her. "hullo, jo--what time is it?" mumbled ellen sleepily. "not time to get up yet. i'm not dressed." she sat on the edge of the bed, stooping over her sister, and her big rough plaits dangled in the child's face. "hullo, jo--hullo, old jo," continued the drowsy murmur. "go to sleep, you bad girl," said joanna, forgetting that she herself had roused her. ellen was not wide enough awake to have any conflicting views on the subject, and she nestled down again with a deep sigh. for the next ten minutes the room was full of small sounds--the splashing of cold water in the basin, the shuffle of coarse linen, the click of fastening stays, the rhythmic swish of a hair brush. then came two silent minutes, while joanna knelt with closed eyes and folded hands beside her big, tumbled bed, and said the prayers that her mother had taught her eighteen years ago--word for word as she had said them when she was five, even to the "make me a good girl" at the end. then she jumped up briskly and tore the sheet off the bed, throwing it with the pillows on the floor, so that grace wickens the servant should have no chance of making the bed without stripping it, as was the way of her kind. grace was not up yet, of course. joanna hit her door a resounding thump as she passed it on her way to the kitchen. here the dead ashes had been raked out overnight, and the fire laid according to custom. she lit the fire and put the kettle on to boil; she did not consider it beneath her to perform these menial offices. she knew that every hand was needed for the early morning work of a farm. by the time she had finished both grace and martha were in the room, yawning and rubbing their eyes. "that'll burn up nicely now," said joanna, surveying the fire. "you'd better put the fish-kettle on too, in case broadhurst wants hot water for a mash. bring me out a cup of tea as soon as you can get it ready--i'll be somewhere in the yard." she put on an old coat of her father's over her black dress, and went out, her nailed boots clattering on the cobble-stones. the men were up--they should have been up an hour now--but no sounds of activity came from the barns. the yard was in stillness, a little mist floating against the walls, and the pervading greyness of the morning seemed to be lit up by the huge blotches of yellow lichen that covered the slated roofs of barns and dwelling--the roofs were all new, having only for a year or two superseded the old roofs of osier thatch, but that queer golden rust had almost hidden their substance, covering them as it covered everything that was left exposed to the salt-thick marsh air. joanna stood in the middle of the yard looking keenly round her like a cat, then like a cat she pounced. the interior of the latest built barn was dimly lit by a couple of windows under the roof--the light was just enough to show inside the doorway five motionless figures, seated about on the root-pile and the root-slicing machine. they were joanna's five farm-men, apparently wrapped in a trance, from which her voice unpleasantly awoke them. "here, you--what d'you think you're doing?" the five figures stiffened with perceptible indignation, but they did not rise from their sitting posture as their mistress advanced--or rather swooped--into their midst. joanna did not expect this. she paid a man fifteen shillings a week for his labour and made no impossible demands of his prejudices and private habits. "i've been up an hour," she said, looking round on them, "and here i find all of you sitting like a lot of sacks." "it's two hours since i've bin out o' my warm bed," said old stuppeny reproachfully. "you'd be as much use in it as out, if this is how you spend your time. no one's been to the pigs yet, and it wants but half an hour to milking." "we wur setting around for grace wickens to bring us out our tea," said broadhurst. "you thought maybe she wouldn't know her way across the yard if you was on the other side of it? the tea ain't ready yet--i tell you i haven't had any. it's a fine sight to see a lot of strong, upstanding men lolling around waiting for a cup of tea." the scorn in joanna's voice was withering, and a resentful grumble arose, amidst which old stuppeny's dedication of himself to a new sphere was hoarsely discernible. however the men scrambled to their feet and tramped off in various directions; joanna stopped fuller, the shepherd, as he went by. "you'll be taking the wethers to lydd this morning?" "surelye." "how many are you taking?" "maybe two score." "you can take the lot. it'll save us their grazing money this winter, and we can start fattening the tegs in the spring." "there's but two score wethers fit for market." "how d'you mean?" "the others äun't fatted präaperly." "nonsense--you know we never give 'em cake or turnips, so what does it matter?" "they äun't fit." "i tell you they'll do well enough. i don't expect to get such prices for them as for that lot you've kept down in the new innings, but they won't fetch much under, for i declare they're good meat. if we keep them over the winter we'll have to send them inland and pay no end for their grazing--and then maybe the price of mutton ull go down in the spring." "it ud be a fool's job to täake them." "you say that because you don't want to have to fetch them up from the salt innings. i tell you you're getting lazy, fuller." "my old mäaster never called me that." "well, you work as well for me as you did for him, and i won't call you lazy, neither." she gave him a conciliatory grin, but fuller had been too deeply wounded for such easy balm. he turned and walked away, a whole speech written in the rebellious hunch of his shoulders. "you'll get them beasts," she called after him. "surelye"--came in a protesting drawl. then "yup!--yup!" to the two sheep dogs couched on the doorstep. § what with supervising the work and herding slackers, getting her breakfast and packing off ellen to the little school she went to at rye, joanna found all too soon that the market hour was upon her. it did not strike her to shirk this part of a farmer's duty--she would drive into rye and into lydd and into romney as her father had always driven, inspecting beasts and watching prices. soon after ten o'clock she ran upstairs to make herself splendid, as the occasion required. by this time the morning had lifted itself out of the mist. great sheets of blue covered the sky and were mirrored in the dykes--there was a soft golden glow about the marsh, for the vivid green of the pastures was filmed over with the brown of the withering seed-grasses, and the big clumps of trees that protected every dwelling were richly toned to rust through scales of flame. already there were signs that the day would be hot, and joanna sighed to think that approaching winter had demanded that her new best black should be made of thick materials. she hated black, too, and grimaced at her sombre frills, which the mourning brooch and chain of jet beads could only embellish, never lighten. but she would as soon have thought of jumping out of the window as of discarding her mourning a day before the traditions of the marsh decreed. she decided not to wear her brooch and chain--the chain might swing and catch in the beasts' horns as she inspected them, besides her values demanded that she should be slightly more splendid in church than at market, so her ornaments were reserved as a crowning decoration, all except her mourning ring made of a lock of her father's hair. it was the first time she had been to market since his death, and she knew that folks would stare, so she might as well give them something to stare at. outside the front door, in the drive, old stuppeny was holding the head of foxy, her mare, harnessed to the neat trap that thomas godden had bought early the same year. "hullo, stuppeny--you ain't coming along like that!" and joanna's eye swept fiercely up and down his manure-caked trousers. "i never knew as i wur coming along anywheres, miss joanna." "you're coming along of me to the market. surely you don't expect a lady to drive by herself?" old stuppeny muttered something unintelligible. "you go and put on your black coat," continued joanna. "my sunday coat!" shrieked stuppeny. "yes--quick! i can't wait here all day." "but i can't put on my good coat wudout cleaning myself, and it'll täake me the best part o' the marnun to do that." joanna saw the reasonableness of his objection. "oh, well, you can leave it this once, but another time you remember and look decent. to-day it'll do if you go into the kitchen and ask grace to take a brush to your trousers--and listen here!" she called after him as he shambled off--"if she's making cocoa you can ask her to give you a cup." grace evidently was making cocoa--a habit she had whenever her mistress's back was turned--for stuppeny did not return for nearly a quarter of an hour. he looked slightly more presentable as he climbed into the back of the trap. it struck joanna that she might be able to get him a suit of livery secondhand. "there isn't much he's good for on the farm now at his age, so he may as well be the one to come along of me. broadhurst or luck ud look a bit smarter, but it ud be hard to spare them.... stuppeny ud look different in a livery coat with brass buttons.... i'll look around for one if i've time this afternoon." it was nearly seven miles from ansdore to lydd, passing the woolpack, and the ragged gable of midley chapel--a reproachful ruin among the reeds of the wheelsgate sewer. foxy went smartly, but every now and then they had to slow down as they overtook and passed flocks of sheep and cattle being herded along the road by drovers and shepherds in dusty boots, and dogs with red, lolling tongues. it was after midday when the big elm wood which had been their horizon for the last two miles suddenly turned, as if by an enchanter's wand, into a fair-sized town of red roofs and walls, with a great church tower raking above the trees. joanna drove straight to the crown, where thomas godden had "put up" every market day for twenty years. she ordered her dinner--boiled beef and carrots, and jam roll--and walked into the crowded coffee room, where farmers from every corner of the three marshes were already at work with knife and fork. some of them knew her by sight and stared, others knew her by acquaintance and greeted her, while arthur alce jumped out of his chair, dropping his knife and sweeping his neighbour's bread off the table. he was a little shocked and alarmed to see joanna the only woman in the room; he suggested that she should have her dinner in the landlady's parlour--"you'd be quieter like, in there." "i don't want to be quiet, thank you," said joanna. she felt thankful that none of the few empty chairs was next alce's--she could never abide his fussing. she sat down between cobb of slinches and a farmer from snargate way, and opened the conversation pleasantly on the subject of liver fluke in sheep. when she had brought her meal to a close with a cup of tea, she found alce waiting for her in the hotel entrance. "i never thought you'd come to market, joanna." "and why not, pray?" the correct answer was--"because you don't know enough about beasts," but alce had the sense to find a substitute. "because it ain't safe or seemly for a woman to come alone and deal with men." "and why not, again? are all you men going to swindle me if you get the chance?" joanna's laugh always had a disintegrating effect on alce, with its loud warm tones and its revelation of her pretty teeth--which were so white and even, except the small pointed canines. when she laughed she opened her mouth wide and threw back her head on her short white neck. alce gropingly put out a hairy hand towards her, which was his nearest approach to a caress. joanna flicked it away. "now a-done do, arthur alce"--dropping in her merriment into the lower idiom of the marsh--"a-done do with your croaking and your stroking both. let me go my own ways, for i know 'em better than you can." "but these chaps--i don't like it--maybe, seeing you like this amongst them, they'll get bold with you." "not they! how can you mention such a thing? there was mr. cobb and mr. godfrey at dinner, talking to me as respectful as churchwardens, all about liver fluke and then by way of rot in the oats, passing on natural and civil to the isle of wight disease in potatoes--if you see anything bold in _that_ ... well then you're an old woman as sure as i ain't." a repetition of her laugh completed his disruption, and he found himself there on the steps of the crown begging her to let him take over her market day discussions as her husband and deputy. "why should you go talking to farmers about isle of wight disease and liver fluke, when you might be talking to their wives about making puddings and stuffing mattresses and such-like women's subjects." "i talk about them too," said joanna, "and i can't see as i'd be any better for talking of nothing else." what alce had meant to convey to her was that he would much rather hear her discussing the ailments of her children than of her potatoes, but he was far too delicate-minded to state this. he only looked at her sadly. joanna had not even troubled to refuse his proposal--any more than a mother troubles to give a definite and reasoned refusal to the child who asks for the moon. finding him silent, and feeling rather sorry for him, she suggested that he should come round with her to the shops and carry some of her parcels. § she went first of all to a firm of house-painters, for she meant to brighten up ansdore. she disliked seeing the place with no colour or ornament save that which the marsh wind gave it of gold and rust. she would have the eaves and the pipes painted a nice green, such as would show up well at a distance. there was plenty of money, so why should everything be drab? alce discouraged her as well as he was able--it was the wrong time of year for painting, and the old paint was still quite good. joanna treated his objections as she had treated his proposal--with good-humoured, almost tender, indifference. she let him make his moan at the house-painter's, then carelessly bore him on to the furnishers', where she bought brightly-flowered stuff for new curtains. then he stood by while at an outfitter's she inspected coats for stuppeny, and finally bought one of a fine mulberry colour with brass buttons all down the front. she now returned to the market-place, and sought out two farmers from the iden district, with whom she made arrangements for the winter keep of her lambs. owing to the scanty and salt pastures of winter, it had always been the custom on the marsh to send the young sheep for grazing on upland farms, and fetch them back in the spring as tegs. joanna disposed of her young flock between relf of baron's grange and noakes of mockbeggar, then, still accompanied by alce, strolled down to inspect the wethers she had brought to the market. on her way she met the farmer of picknye bush. "good day, miss godden--i've just come from buying some tegs of yourn." "my looker's settled with you, has he?" "he said he had the power to sell as he thought proper--otherways i was going to ask for you." an angry flush drowned the freckles on joanna's cheek. "that's fuller, the obstinate, thick-headed old man...." bates's round face fell a little. "i'm sorry if there's bin any mistäake. after all, i äun't got the beasts yet--thirty shillings a head is the price he asked and i paid. i call it a fair price, seeing the time of year and the state of the meat market but if your looker's bin presuming and you äun't pleased, then i wöan't call it a deal." "i'm pleased enough to sell you my beasts, and thirty shillings is a fairish price. but i won't have fuller fixing things up over my head like this, and i'll tell him so. how many of 'em did you buy, mr. bates?" "i bought the lot--two score." joanna made a choking sound. without another word, she turned and walked off in the direction of the hurdles where her sheep were penned, bates and alce following her after one disconcerted look at each other. fuller stood beside the wethers, his two shaggy dogs couched at his feet--he started when he suddenly saw his mistress burst through the crowd, her black feathers nodding above her angry face. "fuller!" she shouted, so loud that those who were standing near turned round to see--"how many wether-tegs have you brought to lydd?" "two score." "how many did i tell you to bring?" "the others wurn't fit, surelye." "but didn't i tell you to bring them?" "you did, but they wurn't fit." "i said you were to bring them, no matter if you thought 'em fit or not." "they wurn't fit to be sold as meat." "i tell you they were." "no one shall say as tom fuller döan't bring fit meat to market." "you're an obstinate old fool. i tell you they were first-class meat." men were pressing round, farmers and graziers and butchers, drawn by the spectacle of joanna godden at war with her looker in the middle of lydd market. alce touched her arm appealingly-- "come away, joanna," he murmured. she flung round at him. "keep dear--leave me to settle my own man." there was a titter in the crowd. "i know bad meat from good, surelye," continued fuller, feeling that popular sentiment was on his side--"i should ought to, seeing as i wur your father's looker before you wur your father's daughter." "you were my father's looker, but after this you shan't be looker of mine. since you won't mind what i say or take orders from me, you can leave my service this day month." there was a horror-stricken silence in the crowd--even the lowest journeyman butcher realized the solemnity of the occasion. "you understand me?" said joanna. "yes, ma'am," came from fuller in a crushed voice. § by the same evening the news was all over lydd market, by the next it was all over the three marshes. everyone was repeating to everyone else how joanna godden of little ansdore had got shut of her looker after twenty-eight years' service, and her father not been dead a month. "enough to make him rise out of his grave," said the marsh. the actual reasons for the turning away were variously given--"just because he spuck up and told her as her pore father wudn't hold wud her goings on," was the doctrine promulgated by the woolpack; but the general council sitting in the bar of the crown decreed that the trouble had arisen out of fuller's spirited refusal to sell some lambs that had tic. other pronouncements were that she had sassed fuller because he knew more about sheep than she did--or that fuller had sassed her for the same reason--that it wasn't joanna who had dismissed him, but he who had been regretfully obliged to give notice, owing to her meddling--that all the hands at ansdore were leaving on account of her temper. "he'll never get another pläace agäun, will pore old fuller--he'll end in the union and be an everlasting shame to her." there was almost a feeling of disappointment when it became known that fuller--who was only forty-two, having started his career at an early age--had been given a most satisfactory job at arpinge farm inland, and something like consternation when it was further said and confirmed by fuller himself that joanna had given him an excellent character. "she'll never get another looker," became the changed burden of the marsh. but here again prophecy failed, for hardly had joanna's advertisement appeared simultaneously in the _rye observer_ and the _kentish express_ than she had half a dozen applications from likely men. martha tilden brought the news to godfrey's stores, the general shop in brodnyx. "there she is, setting in her chair, talking to a young chap what's come from botolph's bridge, and there's three more waiting in the passage--she told grace to give them each a cup of cocoa when she was making it. and what d'you think? their looker's come over from old honeychild, asking for the place, though he was sitting in the crown at lydd only yesterday, as sam broadhurst told me, saying as it was a shame to get shut of fuller like that, and as how joanna deserved never to see another looker again in her life." "which of the lot d'you think she'll take?" asked godfrey. "i dunno. how should i say? peter relf from old honeychild is a stout feller, and one of the other men told me he'd got a character that made him blush, it was that fine and flowery. but you never know with joanna godden--maybe she'd sooner have a looker as knew nothing, and then she could teach him. ha! ha!" meanwhile joanna sat very erect in her kitchen chair, interviewing the young chap from botolph's bridge. "you've only got a year's character from mr. gain?" "yes, missus ..." a long pause during which some mental process took place clumsily behind this low, sunburnt forehead ... "but i've got these." he handed joanna one or two dirty scraps of paper on which were written "characters" from earlier employers. joanna read them. none was for longer than two years, but they all spoke well of the young man before her. "then you've never been on the marsh before you came to botolph's bridge?" "no, missus." "sheep on the marsh is very different from sheep inland." "i know, missus." "but you think you're up to the job." "yes, missus." joanna stared at him critically. he was a fine young fellow--slightly bowed already though he had given his age as twenty-five, for the earth begins her work early in a man's frame, and has power over the green tree as well as the dry. but this stoop did not conceal his height and strength and breadth, and somehow his bigness, combined with his simplicity, his slow thought and slow tongue, appealed to joanna, stirred something within her that was almost tender. she handed him back his dirty "characters." "well, i must think it over. i've some other men to see, but i'll write you a line to botolph's bridge and tell you how i fix. you go now and ask grace wickens, my gal, to give you a cup of hot cocoa." young socknersh went, stooping his shock-head still lower as he passed under the worn oak lintel of the kitchen door. joanna interviewed the shepherd from honeychild, a man from slinches, another from anvil green inland, and one from chilleye, on pevensey marsh beyond marlingate. she settled with none, but told each that she would write. she spent the evening thinking them over. no doubt peter relf from honeychild was the best man--the oldest and most experienced--but on the other hand he wanted the most money, and probably also his own way. after the disastrous precedent of fuller, joanna wasn't going to have another looker who thought he knew better than she did. now, dick socknersh, he would mind her properly, she felt sure.... day from slinches had the longest "character"--fifteen years man and boy; but that would only mean that he was set in their ways and wouldn't take to hers--she wasn't going to start fattening her sheep with turnips, coarsening the meat, not to please anyone.... now, socknersh, having never been longer than two years in a place wouldn't have got fixed in any bad habits.... as for jenkins and taylor, they weren't any good--just common southdown men--she might as well write off to them at once. her choice lay between relf and day and socknersh. she knew that she meant to have socknersh--he was not the best shepherd, but she liked him the best, and he would mind her properly and take to her ways ... for a moment he seemed to stand before her, with his head stooping among the rafters, his great shoulders shutting out the window, his curious, brown, childlike eyes fixed upon her face. day was a scrubby little fellow, and relf had warts all over his hands.... but she wasn't choosing socknersh for his looks; she was choosing him because he would work for her the best, not being set up with "notions." of course she liked him the best, too, but it would be more satisfactory from every practical point of view to work with a man she liked than with a man she did not like--joanna liked a man to look a man, and she did not mind if he was a bit of a child too.... yes, she would engage socknersh; his "characters," though short, were most satisfactory--he was "good with sheep and lambs," she could remember--"hard-working"--"patient".... she wrote to botolph's bridge that evening, and engaged him to come to her at the end of the week. § nothing happened to make her regret her choice. socknersh proved, as she had expected, a humble, hard-working creature, who never disputed her orders, indeed who sometimes turned to her for direction and advice. stimulated by his deference, she became even more of an oracle than she had hitherto professed. she looked up "the sheep" in her father's "farmer's encyclopædia" of the year , and also read one or two more books upon his shelves. from these she discovered that there was more in sheep breeding than was covered by the lore of the three marshes, and her mind began to plunge adventurously among southdowns and leicesters, black-faced, blue-faced, and cumberland sheep. she saw ansdore famous as a great sheep-breeding centre, with many thousands of pounds coming annually to its mistress from meat and wool. she confided some of these ideas to arthur alce and a few neighbouring farmers. one and all discouraged her, and she told herself angrily that the yeomen were jealous--as for alce, it was just his usual silliness. she found that she had a more appreciative listener in dick socknersh. he received all her plans with deep respect, and sometimes an admiring "surelye, missus," would come from his lips that parted more readily for food than for speech. joanna found that she enjoyed seeking him out in the barn, or turning off the road to where he stood leaning on his crook with his dog against his legs. "you'd never believe the lot there is in sheep-keeping, socknersh; and the wonders you can do if you have knowledge and information. now the folks around here, they're middling sensible, but they ain't what you'd call clever. they're stuck in their ways, as you might say. now if you open your mind properly, you can learn a lot of things out of books. my poor father had some wonderful books upon his shelves, that are mine to read now, and you'd be surprised at the lot i've learned out of 'em, even though i've been sheep-raising all my life." "surelye, missus." "now i'll tell you something about sheep-raising that has never been done here, all the hundreds of years there's been sheep on the marsh. and that's the proper crossing of sheep. my book tells me that there's been useful new breeds started that way and lots of money made. now, would you believe it, they've never tried crossing down here on the marsh, except just once or twice with southdowns?--and that's silly, seeing as the southdown is a smaller sheep than ours, and i don't see any sense in bringing down our fine big sheep that can stand all waters and weathers. if i was to cross 'em, i'd sooner cross 'em with rams bigger than themselves. i know they say that small joints of mutton are all the style nowadays, but i like a fine big animal--besides, think of the fleeces." socknersh apparently thought of them so profoundly that he was choked of utterance, but joanna could tell that he was going to speak by the restless moving of his eyes under their strangely long dark lashes, and by the little husky sounds he made in his throat. she stood watching him with a smile on her face. "well, socknersh--you were going to say ..." "i wur going to say, missus, as my mäaster up at garlinge green, whur i wur afore i took to the marsh at botolph's bridge--my mäaster, mus' pebsham, had a valiant set of spanish ship, as big as liddle cattle; you shud ought to have seen them." "did he do any crossing with 'em?" "no, missus--leastways not whiles i wur up at the green." joanna stared through the thick red sunset to the horizon. marvellous plans were forming in her head--part, they seemed, of the fiery shapes that the clouds had raised in the west beyond rye hill. those clouds walked forth as flocks of sheep--huge sheep under mountainous fleeces, the wonder of the marsh and the glory of ansdore.... "socknersh ..." "yes, missus." she hesitated whether she should share with him her new inspiration. it would be good to hear him say "surelye, missus" in that admiring, husky voice. he was the only one of her farm-hands who, she felt, had any deference towards her--any real loyalty, though he was the last come. "socknersh, d'you think your master up at garlinge would let me hire one or two rams to cross with my ewes?--i might go up and have a look at them. i don't know as i've ever seen a spanish sheep.... garlinge is up by court-at-street, ain't it?" "yes, missus. 'tis an unaccountable way from here." "i'd write first. what d'you think of the notion, socknersh? don't you think that a cross between a spanish sheep and a kent sheep ud be an uncommon fine animal?" "surelye, missus." that night joanna dreamed that giant sheep as big as bullocks were being herded on the marsh by a giant shepherd. § spring brought a blooming to ansdore as well as to the marsh. joanna had postponed, after all, her house-painting till the winter months of rotting sea mists were over. but in april the ladders striped her house-front, and soon her windows and doors began to start luridly out of their surroundings of mellowed tiles and brick. after much deliberation she had chosen yellow for her colour, tastefully picked out with green. she had always been partial to yellow--it was a colour that "showed up" well, and she was also influenced by the fact that there was no other yellow-piped dwelling on the marsh. her neighbours disapproved of her choice for the same reasons that had induced her to make it. they were shocked by the fact that you could see her front door from half a mile off on the brodnyx road; it was just like joanna godden to choose a colour that shrieked across the landscape instead of merging itself unobtrusively into it. but there was a still worse shock in store for public opinion, and that was when she decided to repaint her waggons as well as her house. hitherto there had been only one shape and colour of waggon on the marsh--a plain low-sided trough of deep sea-blue. the name was always painted in white on a small black wooden square attached to the side. thomas godden's waggons had been no departure from this rule. it was left to his daughter to flout tradition, and by some obscure process of local reasoning, bring discredit to her dead father by painting her waggons yellow instead of blue. the evil went deeper than mere colour. joanna was a travelled woman, having once been to the isle of wight, and it suddenly struck her that, since she was repainting, she might give her three waggons the high gondola-shaped fronts that she had admired in the neighbourhood of shanklin and ventnor. these she further beautified with a rich, scrolled design, and her name in large, ornate lettering--"joanna godden. little ansdore. walland marsh"--so that her waggons went forth upon the roads very much as the old men o' war of king edward's fleet had sailed over that same country when it was fathoms deep under the seas of rye bay.... with their towering, decorated poops they were more like mad galleys of a bygone age than sober waggons of a nineteenth century farm. her improvements gave her a sense of adventurous satisfaction--her house with its yellow window frames and doors, with its new curtains of swaggering design--her high-pooped waggons--the coat with the brass buttons that old stuppeny wore when he drove behind her to market--her dreams of giant sheep upon her innings--all appealed to something fundamental in her which was big and boastful. she even liked the gossip with which she was surrounded, the looks that were turned upon her when she drove into rye or lydd or new romney--the "there goes joanna godden" of folk she passed. she had no acute sense of their disapproval; if she became aware of it she would only repeat to herself that she would "show 'em the style"--which she certainly did. § arthur alce was very much upset by the gossip about joanna. "all you've done since you started running ansdore is to get yourself talked about," he said sadly. "well, i don't mind that." "no, but you should ought to. a woman should ought to be modest and timid and not paint her house so's it shows up five mile off--first your house, and then your waggons--it'll be your face next." "arthur alce, you're very rude, and till you learn to be civil you can keep out of my house--the same as you can see five mile off." alce, who really felt bitter and miserable, took her at her word and kept away for nearly a fortnight. joanna was not sorry, for he had been highly disapproving on the matter of the spanish sheep, and she was anxious to carry out her plan in his absence. a letter to garlinge green had revealed the fact that socknersh's late master had removed to a farm near northampton; he still bred spanish sheep, but the risk of joanna's venture was increased by the high price she would have to pay for railway transport as well as in fees. however, once she had set her heart on anything, she would let nothing stand in her way. socknersh was inclined to be aghast at all the money the affair would cost, but joanna soon talked him into an agreeable "surelye." "we'll get it all back," she told him. "our lambs ull be the biggest at market, and ull fetch the biggest prices too." it pleased joanna to talk of socknersh and herself as "we," though she would bitterly have resented any idea of joint responsibility in the days of fuller. the rites of lambing and shearing had not dimmed her faith in the high priest she had chosen for ansdore's most sacred mysteries. socknersh was a man who was automatically "good with sheep." the scared and trembling ewes seemed to see in him a kind of affinity with themselves, and lay still under his big, brown, quiet hands. he had not much "head," but he had that queer inward kinship with animals which is sometimes found in intensely simple natures, and joanna felt equal to managing the "head" part of the business for both. it pleased her to think that the looker--who is always the principal man on a farm such as ansdore, where sheep-rearing is the main business--deferred to her openly, before the other hands, spoke to her with drawling respect, and for ever followed her with his humble eyes. she liked to feel those eyes upon her. all his strength and bigness, all his manhood, huge and unaware, seemed to lie deep in them like a monster coiled up under the sea. when he looked at her he seemed to lose that heavy dumbness, that inarticulate stupidity which occasionally stirred and vexed even her good disposition; his mouth might still be shut, but his eyes were fluent--they told her not only of his manhood but of her womanhood besides. socknersh lived alone in the looker's cottage which had always belonged to ansdore. it stood away on the kent innings, on the very brink of the ditch, which here gave a great loop, to allow a peninsula of sussex to claim its rights against the kentish monks. it was a lonely little cottage, all rusted over with lichen, and sometimes joanna felt sorry for socknersh away there by himself beside the ditch. she sent him over a flock mattress and a woollen blanket, in case the old ague-spectre of the marsh still haunted that desolate corner of water and reeds. § towards the end of that autumn, joanna and ellen godden came out of their mourning. as was usual on such occasions, they chose a sunday for their first appearance in colours. half mourning was not worn on the marsh, so there was no interval of grey and violet between joanna's hearse-like costume of crape and nodding feathers and the tan-coloured gown in which she astonished the twin parishes of brodnyx and pedlinge on the first sunday in november. her hat was of sage green and contained a bird unknown to natural history. from her ears swung huge jade earrings, in succession to the jet ones that had dangled against her neck on sundays for a year--she must have bought them, for everyone knew that her mother, mary godden, had left but one pair. altogether the sight of joanna was so breathless, that a great many people never noticed ellen, or at best only saw her hat as it went past the tops of their pews. joanna realized this, and being anxious that no one should miss the sight of ellen's new magenta pelisse with facings of silver braid, she made her stand on the seat while the psalms were sung. the morning service was in brodnyx church--in the evening it would be at pedlinge. brodnyx had so far escaped the restorer, and the pews were huge wooden boxes, sometimes fitted with a table in the middle, while sir harry trevor's, which he never occupied, except when his sons were at home, was further provided with a stove--all the heating there was in the three aisles. there was also a two-decker pulpit at the east end and over the dim little altar hung an escutcheon of royal george--the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown amid much scroll-work. like most churches on the marsh it was much too big for its parish, and if the entire population of brodnyx and pedlinge had flocked into it, it would not have been full. this made joanna and ellen all the more conspicuous--they were alone in their great horse-box of a pew, except for many prayer books and hassocks--there were as many hassocks in brodnyx church as there were sheep on the brodnyx innings. joanna, as usual, behaved very devoutly, and did not look about her. she had an immense respect for the church, and always followed the service word for word in her huge calf-bound prayer book, expecting ellen to do the same--an expectation which involved an immense amount of scuffling and angry whispering in their pew. however, though her eyes were on her book, she was proudly conscious that everyone else's eyes were on her. even the rector must have seen her--as indeed from his elevated position on the bottom deck of the pulpit he could scarcely help doing--and his distraction was marked by occasional stutters and the intrusion of an evening collect. he was a nervous, deprecating little man, terribly scared of his flock, and ruefully conscious of his own shortcomings and the shortcomings of his church. visiting priests had told him that brodnyx church was a disgrace, with its false stresses of pew and pulpit and the lion and the unicorn dancing above the throne of the king of kings. they said he ought to have it restored. they did not trouble about where the money was to come from, but mr. pratt knew he could not get it out of his congregation, who did not like to have things changed from the manner of their fathers--indeed there had been complaints when he had dislodged the owls that had nested under the gallery from an immemorial rector's day. the service came to an end with the singing of a hymn to an accompaniment of grunts and wheezes from an ancient harmonium and the dropping of pennies and threepenny bits into a wooden plate. then the congregation hurried out to the civilities of the churchyard. from outside, brodnyx church looked still more georgian and abandoned. its three aisles were without ornament or architecture; there was no tower, but beside it stood a peculiar and unexplained erection, shaped like a pagoda, in three tiers of black and battered tar-boarding. it had a slight cant towards the church, and suggested nothing so much as a disreputable victorian widow, in tippet, mantle and crinoline, seeking the support of a stone wall after a carouse. in the churchyard, among the graves, the congregation assembled and talked of or to joanna. it was noticeable that the women judged her more kindly than the men. "she can't help her taste," said mrs. vine, "and she's a kind-hearted thing." "if you ask me," said mrs. prickett, "her taste ain't so bad, if only she'd have things a bit quieter. but she's like a child with her yallers and greens." "she's more like an organist's monkey," said her husband. "what ud i do if i ever saw you tricked out like that, mrs. prickett?" "oh, i'd never wear such clothes, master, as you know well. but then i'm a different looking sort of woman. i wouldn't go so far as to say them bright colours don't suit joanna godden." "i never thought much of her looks." "nor of her looker--he! he!" joined in furnese with a glance in joanna's direction. she was talking to dick socknersh, who had been to church with the other hands that could be spared from the farm. she asked him if he had liked the sermon, and then told him to get off home quickly and give the tegs their swill. "reckon he don't know a teg from a tup," said furnese. "oh, surelye, mr. furnese, he äun't a bad looker. jim harmer said he wur just about wonderful with the ewes at the shearing." "maybe--but he'd three sway-backed lambs at rye market on thursday." "sway-backs!" "three. 'twas a shame." "but joanna told me he was such a fine, wonderful man with the sheep--as he got 'em to market about half as tired and twice as quick as fuller used to in his day." "ah, but then she's unaccountable set on young socknersh. he lets her do what she likes with her sheep, and he's a stout figure of a man, too. joanna godden always was partial to stout-looking men." "but she'd never be such a fool as to git sweet on her looker." "well, that's wot they're saying at the woolpack." "the woolpack! did you ever hear of such a talk-hole as you men get into when you're away from us! they say some unaccountable fine things at the woolpack. i tell you, joanna ain't such a fool as to get sweet on dick socknersh." "she's been fool enough to cross spanish sheep with her own. three rams she had sent all the way from furrin parts by northampton. i tell you, after that, she'd be fool enough for anything." "maybe she'll do well by it." "maybe she'll do well by marrying dick socknersh. i tell you, you döan't know näun about it, missus. whosumdever heard of such an outlandish, heathen, foolish notion?" on the whole joanna was delighted with the success of her appearance. she walked home with mrs. southland and maggie furnese, bridling a little under their glances, while she discussed servants, and food-prices, and a new way of pickling eggs. she parted from them at ansdore, and she and ellen went in to their sunday's dinner of roast beef and yorkshire pudding. after this the day would proceed according to the well-laid ceremonial that joanna loved. little ellen, with a pinafore tied over her sabbath splendours, would go into the kitchen to sit with the maids--get into their laps, turn over their picture bibles, examine their one or two trinkets and strings of beads which they always brought into the kitchen on sunday. meanwhile joanna would sit in state in the parlour, her feet on a footstool, on her lap a volume of spurgeon's sermons. in the old days it had always been her father who read sermons, but now he was dead she had taken over this part of his duties with the rest, and if the afternoon generally ended in sleep, sleep was a necessary part of a well-kept sabbath day. § when christmas came that year, joanna was inspired to celebrate it with a party. the christmas before she had been in mourning, but in her father's day it had been usual to invite a few respectable farmers to a respectable revel, beginning with high tea, then proceeding through whist to a hot supper. joanna would have failed in her duty to "poor father" if she had not maintained this custom, and she would have failed in consistency with herself if she had not improved upon it--embellished it with one or two ornate touches, which lifted it out of its prosaic rut of similarity to a dozen entertainments given at a dozen farms, and made it a rather wonderful and terrible occasion to most dwellers on the marsh. to begin with, the invitations were not delivered, according to custom, verbally in the churchyard after morning prayer on sunday--they were written on cards, as mrs. saville of dungemarsh court wrote them, and distributed through the unwonted and expensive medium of the post. when their recipients had done exclaiming over the waste of a penny stamp, they were further astonished to see the word "music" written in the corner--joanna had stuck very closely to her dungemarsh court model. what could the music be? was the brodnyx brass band going to play? or had joanna hired miss patty southland, who gave music lessons on the marsh? she had done neither of these things. when her visitors assembled, stuffed into her two parlours, while the eatables were spread in a kitchen metamorphosed with decorations of crinkled paper, they found, buttressed into a corner by the freshly tuned piano, the rye quartet, consisting of the piano-tuner himself, his wife, who played the 'cello, and his two daughters with fiddles and white piqué frocks. at first the music was rather an embarrassment, for while it played eating and conversation were alike suspended, and the guests stood with open mouths and cooling cups of tea till mr. plummer's final chords released their tongues and filled their mouths with awkward simultaneousness. however, after a time the general awe abated, and soon the rye quartet was swamped in a terrific noise of tongues and mastication. everyone was staring at joanna's dress, for it was low--quite four inches of her skin must have shown between its top most frill and the base of her sturdy throat. the sleeves stopped short at the elbow, showing a very soft, white forearm, in contrast with brown, roughened hands. altogether it was a daring display, and one or two of the miss vines and southlands and furneses wondered "how joanna could do it." proudly conscious of the eyes fixed upon her, she moved--or rather, it must be confessed, squeezed--about among her guests. she had put on new manners with her new clothes, and was full of a rather mincing civility. "pray, mrs. cobb, may i get you another cup of tea?"--"just one more piece of cake, mr. alce?"--"oh, please, miss prickett--just a leetle bit of ham." ellen followed her sister about, pulling at her skirt. she was dressed in white, and her hair was crimped, and tied with pink ribbons. at eight o'clock she was ordered up to bed and there was a great uproar, before, striking out in all directions, she was carried upstairs under joanna's stalwart arm. the rye quartet tactfully started playing to drown her screams, which continued for some time in the room overhead. the party did not break up till eleven, having spent five hours standing squeezed like herrings under the ansdore beams, eating and drinking and talking, to the strains of "the blue danube" and "see me dance the polka." local opinion was a little bewildered by the entertainment--it had been splendid, no doubt, and high-class to an overwhelming degree, but it had been distinctly uncomfortable, even tiresome, and a great many people were upset by eating too much, since the refreshments had been served untiringly from six to eleven, while others had not had enough, being nervous of eating their food so far from a table, and clinging throughout the evening to their first helpings. to joanna, however, the evening was an uncriticized success, and she was inspired to repeat it on a humbler scale for the benefit of her servants. she knew that at big houses there was often a servants' ball at christmas, and though she had at present no definite ambition to push herself into the manor class, she was anxious that ansdore should have every pomp and that things should be "done proper." the mere solid comfort of prosperity was not enough for her--she wanted the glitter and glamour of it as well, she wanted her neighbours not only to realize it but to exclaim about it. thus inspired she asked prickett, vine, furnese and other yeomen and tenants of the marsh to send their hands, men and maids, to ansdore, for dancing and supper on new year's eve. she found this celebration even more thrilling than the earlier one. somehow these humbler preparations filled more of her time and thought than when she had prepared to entertain her peers. she would not wear her low dress, of course, but she would have her pink one "done up"--a fall of lace and some beads sewn on, for she must look her best. she saw herself opening the ball with dick socknersh, her hand in his, his clumsy arm round her waist.... of course old stuppeny was technically the head man at ansdore, but he was too old to dance--she would see he had plenty to eat and drink instead--she would take the floor with dick socknersh, and all eyes would be fixed upon her. they certainly were, except when they dropped for a wink at a neighbour. joanna waltzing with socknersh to the trills of mr. elphick, the brodnyx schoolmaster, seated at the tinkling, ancient collard, joanna in her pink gown, close fitting to her waist and then abnormally bunchy, with her hair piled high and twisted with a strand of ribbon, with her face flushed, her lips parted and her eyes bright, was a sight from which no man and few women could turn their eyes. her vitality and happiness seemed to shine from her skin, almost to light up the dark and heavy figure of socknersh in his sunday blacks, as he staggered and stumbled, for he could not dance. his big hand pawed at her silken waist, while the other held hers crumpled in it--his hair was greased with butter, and his skin with the sweat of his endeavour as he turned her round. that was the only time joanna danced that night. for the rest of the evening she went about among her guests, seeing that all were well fed and had partners. as time went on, gradually her brightness dimmed, and her eyes became almost anxious as she searched among the dancers. each time she looked she seemed to see the same thing, and each time she saw it, it was as if a fresh veil dropped over her eyes. at last, towards the end of the evening, she went up again to socknersh. "would you like me to dance this polka with you that's coming?" "thank you, missus--i'd be honoured, missus--but i'm promised to martha tilden." "martha!--you've danced with her nearly all the evening." "she's bin middling kind to me, missus, showing me the steps and hops." "oh, well, since you've promised you must pay." she turned her back on him, then suddenly smarted at her own pettishness. "you've the makings of a good dancer in you, if you'll learn," she said over her shoulder. "i'm glad martha's teaching you." § lambing was always late upon the marsh. the wan film of the winter grasses had faded off the april green before the innings became noisy with bleating, and the new-born lambs could match their whiteness with the first flowering of the blackthorn. it was always an anxious time--though the marsh ewes were hardy--and sleepless for shepherds, who from the windows of their lonely lambing huts watched the yellow spring-dazzle of the stars grow pale night after night. they were bad hours to be awake, those hours of the april dawn, for in them, the shepherds said, a strange call came down from the country inland, straying scents of moss and primroses reaching out towards the salt sea, calling men away from the wind-stung levels and the tides and watercourses, to where the little inland farms sleep in the sheltered hollows among the hop-bines, and the sunrise is warm with the scent of hidden flowers. dick socknersh began to look wan and large-eyed under the strain--he looked more haggard than the shepherd of yokes court or the shepherd of birdskitchen, though they kept fast and vigil as long as he. his mistress, too, had a fagged, sorrowful air, and soon it became known all over the three marshes that ansdore's lambing that year had been a gigantic failure. "it's her own fault," said prickett at the woolpack, "and serve her right for getting shut of old fuller, and then getting stuck on this furrin heathen notion of spanish sheep. anyone could have told her as the lambs ud be too big and the ewes could never drop them safe--she might have known it herself, surelye." "it's her looker that should ought to have known better," said furnese. "joanna godden's a woman, fur all her man's ways, and you can't expéct her to have präaper know wud sheep." "i wonder if she'll get shut of him after this," said vine. "not she! she don't see through him yet." "she'll never see through him," said prickett solemnly. "the only kind of man a woman ever sees through is the kind she don't like to look at." joanna certainly did not "see through" dick socknersh. she knew that she was chiefly to blame for the tragedy of her lambing, and when her reason told her that her looker should have discouraged instead of obeyed and abetted her, she rather angrily tossed the thought aside. socknersh had the sense to realize that she knew more about sheep than he, and he had not understood that in this matter she was walking out of her knowledge into experiment. no one could have known that the scheme would turn out so badly--the spanish rams had not been so big after all, only a little bigger than her ewes ... if anyone should have foreseen trouble it was the northampton farmer who knew the size of spanish lambs at birth, and from his kentish experience must also have some knowledge of romney marsh sheep. but though she succeeded in getting all the guilt off her looker and some of it off herself, she was nevertheless stricken by the greatness of the tragedy. it was not only the financial losses in which she was involved, or the derision of her neighbours, or the fulfilment of their prophecy--or even the fall of her own pride and the shattering of that dream in which the giant sheep walked--there was also an element of almost savage pity for the animals whom her daring had betrayed. those dead ewes, too stupid to mate themselves profitably and now the victims of the farm-socialism that had experimented with them.... at first she ordered socknersh to save the ewes even at the cost of the lambs, then when in the little looker's hut she saw a ewe despairingly lick the fleece of its dead lamb, an even deeper grief and pity smote her, and she burst suddenly and stormily into tears. sinking on her knees on the dirty floor, she covered her face, and rocked herself to and fro. socknersh sat on his three-legged stool, staring at her in silence. his forehead crumpled slightly and his mouth twitched, as the slow processes of his thought shook him. the air was thick with the fumes of his brazier, from which an angry red glow fell on joanna as she knelt and wept. § when the first sharpness of death had passed from ansdore, joanna's sanguine nature, her hopeful bumptiousness, revived. her pity for the dead lambs and her fellow-feeling of compassion for the ewes would prevent her ever dreaming of a new experiment, but already she was dreaming of a partial justification of the old one--her cross-bred lambs would grow so big both in size and price that they would, even in their diminished numbers pay for her daring and proclaim its success to those who jeered and doubted. certainly those lambs which had survived their birth now promised well. they were bigger than the purebred kent lambs, and seemed hardy enough. joanna watched them grow, and broke away from marsh tradition to the extent of giving them cake--she was afraid they might turn bony. as the summer advanced she pointed them out triumphantly to one or two farmers. they were fine animals, she said, and justified her experiment, though she would never repeat it on account of the cost; she did not expect to do more than cover her expenses. "you'll be lucky if you do that," said prickett rather brutally, "they look middling poor in wool." joanna was not discouraged, nor even offended, for she interpreted all prickett's remarks in the light of great ansdore's jealousy of little ansdore. later on martha tilden told her that they were saying much the same at the woolpack. "i don't care what they say at the woolpack," cried joanna, "and what business have you to know what they say there? i don't like my gals hanging around pubs." "i didn't hang aräound, ma'am. 'twas socknersh töald me." "socknersh had no business to tell you--it's no concern of yours." martha put her hand over her mouth to hide a grin, but joanna could see it in her eyes and the dimples of her cheeks. a sudden anger seized her. "i won't have you gossiping with socknersh, neither--you keep away from my men. i've often wondered why the place looks in proper need of scrubbing, and now i know. you can do your work or you can pack off. i won't have you fooling around with my men." "i döan't fool aräound wud your men," cried martha indignantly. she was going to add "i leave that to you," but she thought better of it, because for several reasons she wanted to keep her place. joanna flounced off, and went to find socknersh at the shearing. in the shelter of some hurdles he and one or two travelling shearers were busy with the ewes' fleeces. she noticed that the animal socknersh was working on lay quiet between his feet, while the other men held theirs with difficulty and many struggles. the july sunshine seemed to hold the scene as it held the marsh in a steep of shining stillness. the silence was broken by many small sounds--the clip of the shears, the panting of the waiting sheep and of the dogs that guarded them, and every now and then the sudden scraping scuttle of the released victim as it sprang up from the shearer's feet and dashed off to where the shorn sheep huddled naked and ashamed together. joanna watched for a moment without speaking; then suddenly she broke out: "socknersh, i hear it's said that the new lambs ull be poor in wool." "they're saying it, missus, but it äun't true." "i don't care if it's true or not. you shouldn't ought to tell my gal martha such things before you tell me." socknersh's eyes opened wide, and the other men looked up from their work. "seemingly," continued joanna, "everyone on this farm hears everything before i do, and it ain't right. next time you hear a lot of tedious gossip, dick socknersh, you come and tell me, and don't waste it on the gals, making them idle." she went away, her eyes bright with anger, and then suddenly her heart smote her. suppose socknersh took offence and gave notice. she had rebuked him publicly before the hired shearers--it was enough to make any man turn. but what should she do if he went?--he must not go. she would never get anyone like him. she almost turned and went back, but had enough sense to stop--a public apology would only make a worse scandal of a public rebuke. she must wait and see him alone ... the next minute she knew further that she must not apologize, and the minute after she knew further still--almost further than she could bear--that in denying herself an apology she was denying herself a luxury, that she wanted to apologize, to kneel at socknersh's clay-caked feet and beg his forgiveness, to humble herself before him by her penitence so that he could exalt her by his pardon.... "good sakes! whatever's the matter with me?" thought joanna. § her apology took the discreet form of a side of bacon, and socknersh did not give notice--had evidently never thought of it. of course the shearers spread the story of joanna's outburst when they went on to slinches and birdskitchen and other farms, but no one was surprised that the shepherd stayed on. "he'd never be such a fool as to give up being looker a day before she makes him master," said cobb of slinches. "and when he's master," said mrs. cobb, "he'll get his own back for her sassing him before harmer and his men." a few weeks later socknersh brought the first of the cross-bred lambs to market at rye, and joanna's wonderful sheep-breeding scheme was finally sealed a failure. the lambs were not only poor in wool, but coarse in meat, and the butchers would not deal, small mutton being the fashion. altogether they fetched lower prices than the kent lambs, and the rumour of ansdore's losses mounted to over four hundred pounds. rumour was not very wide of the fact--what with hiring fees, railway expenses, the loss of ewes and lambs at the lambing, and the extra diet and care which panic had undertaken for the survivors, the venture had put about two hundred and sixty pounds on the debit side of joanna's accounts. she was able to meet her losses--her father had died with a comfortable balance in lewes old bank, and she had always paid ready money, so was without any encumbrance of debt--but ansdore was bound to feel the blow, which had shorn it of its fleece of pleasant profits. joanna was for the first time confronted by the need for economy, and she hated economy with all the lavish, colour-loving powers of her nature. even now she would not bend herself to retrenchment--not a man less in the yard, not a girl less in the kitchen, as her neighbours had expected. but the failure of the cross-bred lambs did not end the tale of ansdore's misadventures. there was a lot of dipping for sheep-scab on the marsh that august, and it soon became known that several of joanna godden's sheep and lambs had died after the second dip. "that's her valiant socknersh again," said prickett--"guv 'em a double arsenic dip. good sakes! that woman had better be quick and marry him before he does any more harm as her looker." "there's more than he gives a double arsenic dip, surelye." "surelye--but they mixes the can a bit. broadhurst says as socknersh's second dip was as strong as his first." the feeling about socknersh's incapacity reached such a point that more than one warning was given joanna for her father's sake, and one at least for her own, from arthur alce. "i shouldn't say it, joanna, if it wasn't true, but a man who puts a sheep into poison-wash twice in a fortnight isn't fit to be anyone's looker." "but we were dipping for sheep-scab--that takes something stronger than keatings." "yes, but the point is, d'you see, that you give 'em the first dip in arsenic stuff, and the next shouldn't ought to be poison at all--there's a lot of good safe dips on the market, that ull do very well for a second wash." "socknersh knows his business." "he don't--that's why i'm speaking. fuller ud never have done what he's done. he's lost you a dozen prime sheep on the top of all your other losses." the reference was unfortunate. joanna's cheekbones darkened ominously. "it's all very well for you to talk, arthur alce, for you think no one can run ansdore except yourself who'll never get the chance. it's well known around, in spite of what you say, that socknersh is valiant with sheep--no one can handle 'em as he can; at the shearing harmer and his men were full of it--how the ewes ud keep quiet for him as for nobody else--and 'twas the same at the lambing. it wasn't his fault that the lambs died, but because that chap at northampton never told us what he should ought.... i tell you, i've never had anyone like him for handling sheep--they're quite different with him from what they were with that rude old fuller, barking after 'em like a dog along the brodnyx road and bringing 'em up to rye all raggled and draggled and dusty as mops ... he knows how to manage sheep--he's like one of themselves." "that's just about it--he's like another sheep, so they ain't scared of him, but he can do no more for 'em than another sheep could, neither. he's ignorant--he's got no sense nor know, or he'd never have let you breed with them spanishes, or given 'em a poisonous double-dip--and he's always having sway-backs up at market, too, and tic and hoose and fluke.... oh, joanna, if you're any bit wise you'll get shut of him before he messes you all up. and you know what folks say--they say you'd have got shut of him months agone if you hadn't been so unaccountable set on him, so as they say--yes, they say one day you'll marry him and make him master of ansdore." alce's face flamed as red as his whiskers and nearly as red as joanna's cheeks. for a moment she faced him speechless, her mouth open. "oh, that's what they say, is it!" she broke out at last. "they say i'd marry dick socknersh, who looks after my sheep, and who's like a sheep himself. they think i'd marry a man who's got no more'n two words on his tongue and half that number of ideas in his head--who can't think without its giving him a headache--who comes of no class of people--his father and mother were hedge people up at anvil green--who gets eighteen bob a week as my looker--who--" "don't get so vrothered, joanna. i'm only telling you what folk say, and if you'll stop and think you'll see they've got some reason. your looker's done things that no farmer on this marsh ud put up with a month, and yet you keep him on, you with all your fine ideas about farming and running ansdore as your poor father ud have had it ... and then he's a well set-up young man too, nice-looking and stout as i won't deny, and you're a young woman that i'd say was nice-looking too, and it's only natural folks should talk when they see a pretty woman hanging on to a handsome chap in spite of his having half bust her." "he hasn't half bust me, nor a quarter, neither--and i ain't hanging on to him, as you're elegant enough to say. i keep him as my looker because he's valiant with the sheep and manages 'em as if born to it, and because he minds what i say and doesn't sass me back or meddle, as some i could name. as for being set on him, i'm not so far below myself as all that. you must think unaccountable low of me, arthur alce, if you figure i'd get sweet on a man who's courting my chicken-gal, which is what dick socknersh is doing." "courting martha tilden?" "yes, my chicken-gal. and you think i'd look at him!--i!... you must think middling low of me, arthur alce ... a man who's courting my chicken-gal." "i'd always thought as martha tilden--but you must know best. well, if he's courting her i hope as he'll marry her soon and show folks they're wrong about him and you." "they should ought to be ashamed of themselves to need showing. i look at a man who's courting my chicken-gal!--i never! i tell you what i'll do--i'll raise his wages, so as he can marry her at once--my chicken-gal--and so as folk ull know that i'm satisfied with him as my looker." and joanna marched off up the drive, where this conversation had taken place. § she raised socknersh's wages to twenty shillings the next day, and it was not due to any wordy flow of his gratitude that the name of martha tilden was not mentioned between them. "better leave it," thought joanna to herself, "after all, i'm not sure--and she's a slut. i'd sooner he married a cleaner, steadier sort of gal." grace wickens had already departed, her cocoa-making tendencies having lately passed into mania--and her successor was an older woman, a widow, who had fallen on evil days. she was a woman of few words, and joanna wondered a little when one afternoon she said to her rather anxiously: "i'd lik to speak to you, ma'am--in private, if you please." they went into the larder and mrs. tolhurst began: "i hardly lik to say it to you, miss joanna, being a single spinster ..." this was a bad beginning, for joanna flamed at once at the implication that her spinsterhood put her at any disadvantage as a woman of the world. "don't talk nonsense, mrs. tolhurst; i may be unwed as yet, but i'm none of your misses." "no, ma'am--well, it's about this martha tilden--" joanna started. "what about her?" "only, ma'am, that she's six months gone." there was no chair in the larder, or joanna would have fallen into it--instead she staggered back against the shelves, with a great rattle of crockery. her face was as white as her own plates, and for a moment she could not speak. "i made bold to tell you, miss joanna, for all the neighbourhood's beginning to talk--and the gal getting near her time and all.... i thought maybe you'd have noticed.... don't be in such a terrification about it, miss joanna.... i'm sorry i told you--maybe i shud ought to have spuck to the gal fust ..." "don't be a fool ... the dirty slut!--i'll learn her ... under my very roof--" "oh, no, ma'am,'twasn't under your roof--we shouldn't have allowed it. she used to meet him in the field down by beggar's bush ..." "hold your tongue." mrs. tolhurst was offended; she thought her mistress's behaviour unwarranted either by modesty or indignation. there were burning tears in joanna's eyes as she flung herself out of the room. she was blind as she went down the passage, twisting her apron furiously in her hands. "martha tilden!" she called--"martha tilden!" "oh," she thought in her heart, "i raised his wages so's he could marry her--for months this has been going on ... the field down by beggar's bush ... oh, i could kill her!" then shouting into the yard--"martha tilden! martha tilden!" "i'm coming, miss joanna," martha's soft drawly voice increased her bitterness; her own, compared with it, sounded harsh, empty, inexperienced. martha's voice was full of the secrets of love--the secrets of dick socknersh's love. "come into the dairy," she said hoarsely. martha came and stood before her. she evidently knew what was ahead, for she looked pale and a little scared, and yet she had about her a strange air of confidence ... though not so strange, after all, since she carried dick socknersh's child, and her memory was full of his caresses and the secrets of his love ... thus bravely could joanna herself have faced an angry world.... "you leave my service at once," she said. martha began to cry. "you know what for?" "yes, miss joanna." "i wonder you've had the impudence to go about as you've done--eating my food and taking my wages, while all the time you've been carrying on with my looker." "your looker?--no, miss joanna." "what d'you mean?" "i don't know what _you_ mean, miss--i've never had näun to do wud dick socknersh if it's him you're thinking of." "not socknersh, but i ... who _is_ the man, then?" "well, it äun't no secret from anyone but you, miss joanna, so i döan't mind telling you as my boy is peter relf, their looker at old honeychild. we've bin walking out ever sinst the day he came after your pläace as looker here, and we'd be married now if he hadn't his old mother and dad to keep, and got into some nasty silly trouble wud them fellers wot put money on horses they've never seen.... he döan't get more'n fifteen bob a week at honeychild, and he can't keep the old folk on less than eight, them being always filling themselves with doctor's stuff...." joanna was not listening to her--she sat amazed and pale, her heart beating in heavy thuds of relief. mixed with her happiness there was a little shame, for she saw that the mistake had arisen from her putting herself too realistically in martha's place. why had she jumped to the conclusion that the girl's lover was socknersh? it is true that he had danced with her very often at the christmas party nine months ago, and once since then she had scolded him for telling the chicken-woman some news he ought first to have told the mistress ... but that was very little in the way of evidence, and martha had always been running after boys.... seeing her still silent, martha began to cry again. "i'm sure i'm unaccountable sorry, miss joanna, and what's to become of me i don't know, nuther. maybe i'm a bad lot, but it's hard to love and wait on and on for the wedding ... and pete was sure as he could do summat wud a horse running in the derby race, and at the woolpack they told him it wur bound to win.... i've always kept straight up till this, miss joanna, and a virtuous virgin for all i do grin and laugh a lot ... and many's the temptation i've had, being a lone gal wudout father or mother ..." "keep quiet, martha, and have done with so much excuse. you've been a very wicked gal, and you shouldn't ought to think any different of yourself. but maybe i was too quick, saying you were to go at once. you can finish your month, seeing as you were monthly hired." "thank you, miss joanna, that'll give me time to look around for another pläace; though--" bursting out crying again--"i don't see what good that'll do me, seeing as my time's three months from hence." a great softness had come over joanna. there were tears in her eyes as she looked at martha, but they were no longer tears of anger. "don't cry, child," she said kindly, "i'll see you don't come to want." "oh, thank you, miss joanna ... it's middling good of you, and pete will repay you when we're married and have säaved some tin." "i'll do my best, for you've worked well on the whole, and i shan't forget that orpington hen you saved when she was egg-bound. but don't you think, martha," she added seriously, "that i'm holding with any of your goings-on. i'm shocked and ashamed at you, for you've done something very wicked--something that's spoken against in the bible, and in church too--it's in the ten commandments. i wonder you could kneel in your place and say 'lord have mercy upon us,' knowing what you'd been up to"--martha's tears flowed freely--"and it's sad to think you've kept yourself straight for years as you say, and then gone wrong at last, just because you hadn't patience to wait for your lawful wedding ... and all the scandal there's been and ull be, and folks talking at you and at me ... and you be off now, and tell mrs. tolhurst you're to have the cream on your milk and take it before it's skimmed." § for the rest of the day joanna was in a strange fret--dreams seemed to hang over life like mist, there was sorrow in all she did, and yet a queer, suffocating joy. she told herself that she was upset by martha's revelation, but at the same time she knew it had upset her not so much in itself as in the disturbing new self-knowledge it had brought. she could not hide from herself that she was delighted, overjoyed to find that her shepherd did not love her chicken-girl, that the thoughts she had thought about them for nine months were but vain thoughts. was it true, then, that she was moving along that road which the villages had marked out for her--the road which would end before the lion and the unicorn in brodnyx church, with her looker as her bridegroom? the mere thought was preposterous to her pride. she, her father's daughter, to marry his father's son!--the suspicion insulted her. she loved herself and ansdore too well for that ... and socknersh, fine fellow as he was, had no mind and very little sense--he could scarcely read and write, he was slow as an ox, and had common ways and spoke the low marsh talk--he drank out of his saucer and cut his bread with his pocket-knife--he spat in the yard. how dared people think she would marry him?--that she was so undignified, infatuated and unfastidious as to yoke herself to a slow, common boor? her indignation flamed against the scandal-mongers ... that woolpack! she'd like to see their licence taken away, and then perhaps decent women's characters would be safe.... but folk said it was queer she should keep on socknersh when he had done her such a lot of harm--they made sure there must be something behind it. for the first time joanna caught a glimpse of his shortcomings as a looker, and in a moment of vision asked herself if it wasn't really true that he ought to have known about that dip. was she blinding herself to his incapacity simply because she liked to have him about the place--to see his big stooping figure blocked against the sunset--to see his queer eyes light up with queer thoughts that were like a dog's thoughts or a sheep's thoughts ... to watch his hands, big and heavy and brown, with the earth worked into the skin ... and his neck, when he lifted his head, brown as his hands, and like the trunk of an oak with roots of firm, beautiful muscle in the field of his broad chest? then joanna was scared--she knew she ought not to think of her looker so; and she told herself that she kept him on just because he was the only man she'd ever had about the place who had minded her properly.... when evening came, she began to feel stifled in the house, where she had been busy ironing curtains, and tying on her old straw hat went out for a breath of air on the road. there was a light mist over the watercourses, veiling the pollards and thorn trees and the reddening thickets of ansdore's bush--a flavour of salt was in it, for the tides were high in the channels, and the sunset breeze was blowing from rye bay. northward, the coast--as the high bank marking the old shores of england before the flood was still called--was dim, like a low line of clouds beyond the marsh. the sun hung red and rayless above beggar's bush, a crimson ball of frost and fire. a queer feeling of sadness came to joanna--queer, unaccountable, yet seeming to drain itself from the very depths of her body, and to belong not only to her flesh but to the marsh around her, to the pastures with their tawny veil of withered seed-grasses, to the thorn-bushes spotted with the red haws, to the sky and to the sea, and the mists in which they merged together.... "i'll get shut of socknersh," she said to herself--"i believe folks are right, and he's too like a sheep himself to be any real use to them." she walked on a little way, over the powdery brodnyx road. "i'm silly--that's what i am. who'd have thought it? i'll send him off--but then folks ull say i'm afraid of gossip." she chewed the bitter cud of this idea over a hurrying half mile, which took her across the railway, and then brought her back, close to the kent ditch. "i can't afford to let the place come to any harm--besides, what does it matter what people think or say of me? i don't care.... but it'll be a mortal trouble getting another looker and settling him to my ways--and i'll never get a man who'll mind me as poor socknersh does. i want a man with a humble soul, but seemingly you can't get that through advertising...." she had come to the bridge over the kent ditch, and sussex ended in a swamp of reeds. looking southward she saw the boundaries of her own land, the kent innings, dotted with sheep, and the shepherd's cottage among them, its roof standing out a bright orange under the fleece of lichen that smothered the tiles. it suddenly struck her that a good way out of her difficulty might be a straight talk with socknersh. he would probably be working in his garden now, having those few evening hours as his own. straining her eyes into the shining thickness of mist and sun, she thought she could see his blue shirt moving among the bean-rows and hollyhocks around the little place. "i'll go and see him and talk it out--i'll tell him that if he won't have proper sense he must go. i've been soft, putting up with him all this time." being marsh bred, joanna did not take what seemed the obvious way to the cottage, across the low pastures by the kent ditch; instead, she went back a few yards to where a dyke ran under the road. she followed it out on the marsh, and when it cut into another dyke she followed that, walking on the bank beside the great teazle. a plank bridge took her across between two willows, and after some more such movements, like a pawn on a chess-board, she had crossed three dykes and was at the shepherd's gate. he was working at the farther side of the garden and did not see her till she called him. she had been to his cottage only once before, when he complained of the roof leaking, but socknersh would not have shown surprise if he had seen old goodman of the marsh tales standing at his door. joanna had stern, if somewhat arbitrary, notions of propriety, and now not only did she refuse to come inside the gate, but she made him come and stand outside it, among the seed-grasses which were like the ghost of hay. it struck her that she had timed her visit a little too late. already the brightness had gone from the sunset, leaving a dull red ball hanging lustreless between the clouds. there was no wind, but the air seemed to be moving slowly up from the sea, heavy with mist and salt and the scent of haws and blackberries, of dew-soaked grass and fleeces.... socknersh stood before her with his blue shirt open at the neck. from him came a smell of earth and sweat ... his clothes smelt of sheep.... she opened her mouth to tell him that she was highly displeased with the way he had managed her flock since the shearing, but instead she only said: "look!" over the eastern rim of the marsh the moon had risen, a red, lightless disk, while the sun, red and lightless too, hung in the west above rye hill. the sun and the moon looked at each other across the marsh, and midway between them, in the spell of their flushed, haunted glow, stood socknersh, big and stooping, like some lonely beast of the earth and night.... a strange fear touched joanna--she tottered, and his arm came out to save her.... it was as if marsh itself enfolded her, for his clothes and skin were caked with the soil of it.... she opened her eyes, and looking up into his, saw her own face, infinitely white and small, looking down at her out of them. joanna godden looked at her out of socknersh's eyes. she stirred feebly, and she found that he had set her a little way from him, still holding her by the shoulders, as if he feared she would fall. "do you feel better, missus?" "i'm all right," she snapped. "i beg your pardon if i took any liberty, missus. but i thought maybe you'd turned fainty-like." "you thought wrong"--her anger was mounting--"i trod on a mole-hill. you've messed my nice alpaca body--if you can't help getting dirt all over yourself you shouldn't ought to touch a lady even if she's in a swound." "i'm middling sorry, missus." his voice was quite tranquil--it was like oil on the fire of joanna's wrath. "maybe you are, and so am i. you shouldn't ought to have cotched hold of me like that. but it's all of a match with the rest of your doings, you great stupid owl. you've lost me more'n a dozen prime sheep by not mixing your dip proper--after having lost me the best of my ewes and lambs with your ignorant notions--and now you go and put finger marks over my new alpaca body, all because you won't think, or keep yourself clean. you can take a month's notice." socknersh stared at her with eyes and mouth wide open. "a month's notice," she repeated, "it's what i came here to give you. you're the tale of all the parish with your ignorance. i'd meant to talk to you about it and give you another chance, but now i see there'd be no sense in that, and you can go at the end of your month." "you'll give me a character, missus?" "i'll give you a prime character as a drover or a ploughman or a carter or a dairyman or a housemaid or a curate or anything you like except a looker. why should i give you eighteen shillun a week as my looker--twenty shillun, as i've made it now--when my best wether could do what you do quite as well and not take a penny for it? you've got no more sense or know than a tup ..." she stopped, breathless, her cheeks and eyes burning, a curious ache in her breast. the sun was gone now, only the moon hung flushed in the foggy sky. socknersh's face was in darkness as he stood with his back to the east, but she could see on his features a look of surprise and dismay which suddenly struck her as pathetic in its helpless stupidity. after all, this great hulking man was but a child, and he was unhappy because he must go, and give up his snug cottage and the sheep he had learned to care for and the kind mistress who gave him sides of bacon.... there was a sudden strangling spasm in her throat, and his face swam into the sky on a mist of tears, which welled up in her eyes as without another word she turned away. his voice came after her piteously-- "missus--missus--but you raised my wages last week." § her tears were dry by the time she reached home, but in the night they flowed again, accompanied by angry sobs, which she choked in her pillow, for fear of waking little ellen. she cried because she was humbled in her own eyes. it was as if a veil had been torn from the last two years, and she saw her motives at last. for two years she had endured an ignorant, inefficient servant simply because his strength and good looks had enslaved her susceptible womanhood.... her father would never have acted as she had done; he would not have kept socknersh a single month; he would not have engaged him at all--both relf of honeychild and day of slinches were more experienced men, with better recommendations; and yet she had chosen socknersh--because his brown eyes had held and drowned her judgment, as surely as they had held her image, so dwindled and wan, when she looked into them that evening, between the setting sun and the rising moon. then, after she had engaged him, he had shown just enough natural capacity for her to blind herself with--his curious affinity with the animals he tended had helped her to forget the many occasions on which he had failed to rise above them in intelligence. it had been left to another to point out to her that a man might be good with sheep simply because he was no better than a sheep himself. and now she was humbled--in her own eyes, and also in the eyes of her neighbours. she would have to confess herself in the wrong. everyone knew that she had just raised socknersh's wages, so there would be no good pretending that she had known his shortcomings from the first, but had put up with them as long as she could. everyone would guess that something had happened to make her change her mind about him ... there would be some terrible talk at the woolpack. and there was socknersh himself, poor fellow--the martyr of her impulses. she thrust her face deep into the pillow when she thought of him. she had given him as sharp a blow as his thick hide would ever let him suffer. she would never forget that last look on his face.... then she began wondering why this should have come upon her. why should she have made a fool of herself over socknersh, when she had borne unmoved the courtship of arthur alce for seven years? was it just because alce had red whiskers and red hands and red hair on his hands, while socknersh was dark and sweet of face and limb? it was terrible to think that mere youth and comeliness and virility should blind her judgment and strip her of common sense. yet this was obviously the lesson she must learn from to-day's disgrace. hot and tear-stained, she climbed out of bed, and paced across the dark room to the grey blot of the window. she forgot her distrust of the night air in all her misery of throbbing head and heart, and flung back the casement, so that the soft marsh wind came in, with rain upon it, and her tears were mingled with the tears of the night. "oh god!" she mourned to herself--"why didn't you make me a man?" _part ii_ first love § it took joanna nearly two years to recover from the losses of her sheep. some people would have done it earlier, but she was not a clever economist. where many women on the marsh would have thrown themselves into an orgy of retrenchment--ranging from the dismissal of a dairymaid to the substitution of a cheaper brand of tea--she made no new occasions for thrift, and persevered but lamely in the old ones. she was fond of spending--liked to see things trim and bright; she hated waste, especially when others were guilty of it, but she found a positive support in display. she was also generous. everybody knew that she had paid dick socknersh thirty shillings for the two weeks that he was out of work after leaving her--before he went as cattleman to an inland farm--and she had found the money for martha tilden's wedding, and for her lying-in a month afterwards, and some time later she had helped peter relf with ready cash to settle his debts and move himself and his wife and baby to west wittering, where he had the offer of a place with three shillings a week more than they gave at honeychild. she might have indulged herself still further in this way, which gratified both her warm heart and her proud head, if she had not wanted so much to send ellen to a good school. the school at rye was all very well, attended by the daughters of tradesmen and farmers, and taught by women whom joanna recognized as ladies; but she had long dreamed of sending her little sister to a really good school at folkestone--where ellen would wear a ribbon round her hat and go for walks in a long procession of two-and-two, and be taught wonderful, showy and intricate things by ladies with letters after their names--whom joanna despised because she felt sure they had never had a chance of getting married. she herself had been educated at the national school, and from six to fourteen had trudged to and fro on the brodnyx road, learning to read and write and reckon and say her catechism.... but this was not good enough for ellen. joanna had made up her mind that ellen should be a lady; she was pretty and lazy and had queer likes and dislikes--all promising signs of vocation. she would never learn to care for ansdore, with its coarse and crowding occupations, so there was no reason why she should grow up like her sister in capable commonness. half unconsciously joanna had planned a future in which she ventured and toiled, while ellen wore a silk dress and sat on the drawing-room sofa--that being the happiest lot she could picture for anyone, though she would have loathed it herself. in a couple of years ansdore's credit once more stood high at lewes old bank, and ellen could be sent to a select school at folkestone--so select indeed that there had been some difficulty about getting her father's daughter into it. joanna was surprised as well as disgusted that the schoolmistress should give herself such airs, for she was very plainly dressed, whereas joanna had put on all her most gorgeous apparel for the interview; but she had been very glad when her sister was finally accepted as a pupil at rose hill house, for now she would have as companions the daughters of clergymen and squires, and learn no doubt to model herself on their refinement. she might even be asked to their homes for her holidays, and, making friends in their circle, take a short cut to silken immobility on the drawing-room sofa by way of marriage.... joanna congratulated herself on having really done very well for ellen, though during the first weeks she missed her sister terribly. she missed their quarrels and caresses--she missed ellen's daintiness at meals, though she had often smacked it--she missed her strutting at her side to church on sunday--she missed her noisy, remonstrant setting out to school every morning and her noisy affectionate return--her heart ached when she looked at the little empty bed in her room, and being sentimental she often dropped a tear where she used to drop a kiss on ellen's pillow. nevertheless she was proud of what she had done for her little sister, and she was proud too of having restored ansdore to prosperity, not by stinging and paring, but by her double capacity for working hard herself and for getting all the possible work out of others. if no one had gone short under her roof, neither had anyone gone idle--if the tea was strong and the butter was thick and there was always prime bacon for breakfast on sundays, so was there also a great clatter on the stairs at five o'clock each morning, a rattle of brooms and hiss and slop of scrubbing-brushes--and the mistress with clogs on her feet and her father's coat over her gown, poking her head into the maids' room to see if they were up, hurrying the men over their snacks, shouting commands across the yard, into the barns or into the kitchen, and seemingly omnipresent to those slackers who paused to rest or chat or "put their feet up." that time had scarred her a little--put some lines into the corners of her eyes and straightened the curling corners of her mouth, but it had also heightened the rich healthy colour on her cheeks, enlarged her fine girth, her strength of shoulder and depth of bosom. she did not look any older, because she was so superbly healthy and superbly proud. she knew that the neighbours were impressed by ansdore's thriving, when they had foretold its downfall under her sway.... she had vindicated her place in her father's shoes, and best of all, she had expiated her folly in the matter of socknersh, and restored her credit not only in the bar of the woolpack but in her own eyes. § one afternoon, soon after ellen had gone back to school for her second year, when joanna was making plum jam in the kitchen, and getting very hot and sharp-tongued in the process, mrs. tolhurst saw a man go past the window on his way to the front door. "lor, miss! there's parson!" she cried, and the next minute came sounds of struggle with joanna's rusty door-bell. "go and see what he wants--take off that sacking apron first--and if he wants to see me, put him into the parlour." mr. pratt lacked "visiting" among many other accomplishments as a parish priest--the vast, strewn nature of his parish partly excused him--and a call from him was not the casual event it would have been in many places, but startling and portentous, requiring fit celebration. joanna received him in state, supported by her father's bible and stuffed owls. she had kept him waiting while she changed her gown, for like many people who are sometimes very splendid she could also on occasion be extremely disreputable, and her jam-making costume was quite unfit for the masculine eye, even though negligible. mr. pratt had grown rather nervous waiting for her--he had always been afraid of her, because of her big, breathless ways, and because he felt sure that she was one of the many who criticized him. "i--i've only come about a little thing--at least it's not a little thing to me, but a very big thing--er--er--" "what is it?" asked joanna, a stuffed owl staring disconcertingly over each shoulder. "for some time there's been complaints about the music in church. of course i'm quite sure mr. elphick does wonders, and the ladies of the choir are excellent--er--gifted ... i'm quite sure. but the harmonium--it's very old and quite a lot of the notes won't play ... and the bellows ... mr. saunders came from lydd and had a look at it, but he says it's past repair--er--satisfactory repair, and it ud really save money in the long run if we bought a new one." joanna was a little shocked. she had listened to the grunts and wheezes of the harmonium from her childhood, and the idea of a new one disturbed her--it suggested sacrilege and ritualism and the moving of landmarks. "i like what we've got very well," she said truculently--"it's done for us properly this thirty year." "that's just it," said the rector, "it's done so well that i think we ought to let it retire from business, and appoint something younger in its place ... he! he!" he looked at her nervously to see if she had appreciated the joke, but joanna's humour was not of that order. "i don't like the idea," she said. mr. pratt miserably clasped and unclasped his hands. he felt that one day he would be crushed between his parishioners' hatred of change and his fellow-priests' insistence on it--rumour said that the squire's elder son, father lawrence, was coming home before long, and the poor little rector quailed to think of what he would say of the harmonium if it was still in its place. "i--er--miss godden--i feel our reputation is at stake. visitors, you know, come to our little church, and are surprised to find us so far behind the times in our music. at pedlinge we've only got a piano, but i'm not worrying about that now.... perhaps the harmonium might be patched up enough for pedlinge, where our services are not as yet fully choral ... it all depends on how much money we collect." "how much do you want?" "well, i'm told that a cheap, good make would be thirty pounds. we want it to last us well, you see, as i don't suppose we shall ever have a proper organ." he handed her a little book in which he had entered the names of subscribers. "people have been very generous already, and i'm sure if your name is on the list they will give better still." the generosity of the neighbourhood amounted to five shillings from prickett of great ansdore, and half-crowns from vine, furnese, vennal, and a few others. as joanna studied it she became possessed of two emotions--one was a feeling that since others, including great ansdore, had given, she could not in proper pride hold back, the other was a queer savage pity for mr. pratt and his poor little collection--scarcely a pound as the result of all his begging, and yet he had called it generous.... she immediately changed her mind about the scheme, and going over to a side table where an ink-pot and pen reposed on a woolly mat, she prepared to enter her name in the little book. "i'll give him ten shillings," she said to herself--"i'll have given the most." mr. pratt watched her. he found something stimulating in the sight of her broad back and shoulders, her large presence had invigorated him--somehow he felt self-confident, as he had not felt for years, and he began to talk, first about the harmonium, and then about himself--he was a widower with three pale little children, whom he dragged up somehow on an income of two hundred a year. joanna was not listening. she was thinking to herself--"my cheque-book is in the drawer. if i wrote him a cheque, how grand it would look." finally she opened the drawer and took the cheques out. after all, she could afford to be generous--she had nearly a hundred pounds in lewes old bank, put aside without any scraping for future "improvements." how much could she spare? a guinea--that would look handsome, among all the miserable half-crowns.... mr. pratt had seen the cheque-book, and a stutter came into his speech-- "so good of you, miss godden ... to help me ... encouraging, you know ... been to so many places, a tiring afternoon ... feel rewarded." she suddenly felt her throat grow tight; the queer compassion had come back. she saw him trotting forlornly round from farm to farm, begging small sums from people much better off than himself, receiving denials or grudging gifts ... his boots were all over dust, she had noticed them on her carpet. her face flushed, as she suddenly dashed her pen into the ink, wrote out the cheque in her careful, half-educated hand, and gave it to him. "there--that'll save you tramping any further." she had written the cheque for the whole amount. mr. pratt could not speak. he opened and shut his mouth like a fish. then suddenly he began to gabble, he poured out thanks and assurances and deprecations in a stammering torrent. his gratitude overwhelmed joanna, disgusted her. she lost her feeling of warmth and compassion--after all, what should she pity him for now that he had got what he wanted, and much more easily than he deserved? "that's all right, mr. pratt. i'm sorry i can't wait any longer now. i'm making jam." she forgot his dusty boots and weary legs that had scarcely had time to rest, she forgot that she had meant to offer him a cup of tea. "good afternoon," she said, as he rose, with apologies for keeping her. she went with him to the door, snatched his hat off the peg and gave it to him, then crashed the door behind him, her cheeks burning with a queer kind of shame. § for the next few days joanna avoided mr. pratt; she could not tell why her munificence should make her dislike him, but it did. one day as she was walking through pedlinge she saw him standing in the middle of the road, talking to a young man whom on approach she recognized as martin trevor, the squire's second son. she could not get out of his way, as the pedlinge dyke was on one side of the road and on the other were some cottages. to turn back would be undignified, so she decided to pass them with a distant and lordly bow. unfortunately for this, she could not resist the temptation to glance at martin trevor--she had not seen him for some time, and it was surprising to meet him in the middle of the week, as he generally came home only for week-ends. that glance was her undoing--a certain cordiality must have crept into it, inspired by his broad shoulders and handsome, swarthy face, for mr. pratt was immediately encouraged, and pounced. he broke away from trevor to joanna's side. "oh, miss godden ... so glad to meet you. i--i never thanked you properly last week for your generosity--your munificence. thought of writing, but somehow felt that--felt that inadequate.... mr. trevor, i've told you about miss godden ... our harmonium ..." he had actually seized joanna's hand. she pulled it away. what a wretched undersized little chap he was. she could have borne his gratitude if only he had been a real man, tall and dark and straight like the young fellow who was coming up to her. "please don't, mr. pratt. i wish you wouldn't make all this tedious fuss." she turned towards martin trevor with a greeting in her eyes. but to her surprise she saw that he had fallen back. the rector had fallen back too, and the two men stood together, as when she had first come up to them. joanna realized that she had missed the chance of an introduction. well, it didn't matter. she really couldn't endure mr. pratt and his ghastly gratitude. she put her stiffest bow into practice and walked on. for the rest of the day she tried to account for young trevor's mid-week appearance. her curiosity was soon satisfied, though she was at a disadvantage in having no male to bring her news from the woolpack. however, she made good use of other people's males, and by the same evening was possessed of the whole story. martin trevor had been ill in london with pleurisy, and the doctor said his lungs were in danger and that he must give up office work and lead an open-air life. he was going to live with his father for a time, and help him farm north farthing house--they were taking in a bit more land there, and buying sheep. § that october the farmers' club dinner was held as usual at the woolpack. there had been some controversy about asking joanna--there was controversy every year, but this year the difference lay in the issue, for the ayes had it. the reasons for this change were indefinite--on the whole, no doubt, it was because people liked her better. they had grown used to her at ansdore, where at first her mastership had shocked them; the scandal and contempt aroused by the socknersh episode were definitely dead, and men took off their hats to the strenuousness with which she had pulled the farm together, and faced a crisis that would have meant disaster to many of her neighbours. ansdore was one of the largest farms of the district, and it was absurd that it should never be represented at the woolpack table merely on the ground that its master was a woman. of course many women wondered how joanna could face such a company of males, and suggestions were made for admitting farmers' wives on this occasion. but joanna was not afraid, and when approached as to whether she would like other women invited, or to bring a woman friend, she declared that she would be quite satisfied with the inevitable presence of the landlord's wife. she realized that she would be far more imposing as the only woman guest, and made great preparations for a proper display. among these was included the buying of a new gown at folkestone. she thought that folkestone, being a port for the channel steamers, would be more likely to have the latest french fashions than the nearer towns of bulverhythe and marlingate. my i but she would make the farmers' club sit up. the dressmaker at folkestone tried to persuade her not to have her sleeves lengthened or an extra fold of lace arranged along the top of her bodice. "madam has such a lovely neck and arms--it's a pity to cover them up--and it spoils the character of the gown. besides, madam, this gown is not at all extreme--demi-toilet is what it really is." "i tell you it won't do--i'm going to dine alone with several gentlemen, and it wouldn't be seemly to show such a lot of myself." it ended, to the dressmaker's despair, in her draping her shoulders in a lace scarf and wearing kid gloves to her elbow; but though these pruderies might have spoilt her appearance at dungemarsh court, there was no doubt as to its effectiveness at the woolpack. the whole room held its breath as she sailed in, with a rustle of amber silk skirts. her hair was piled high against a tortoise-shell comb, making her statelier still. furnese of misleham, who was chairman that year, came gaping to greet her. the others stared and stood still. most of them were shocked, in spite of the scarf and the long gloves, but then it was just like joanna godden to swing bravely through an occasion into which most women would have crept. she saw that she had made a sensation, which she had expected and desired, and her physical modesty being appeased, she had no objection to the men's following eyes. she saw that sir harry trevor was in the room, with his son martin. it was the first time that the squire had been to the farmers' club dinner. up till then no one had taken him seriously as a farmer. for a year or two after his arrival in the neighbourhood he had managed the north farthing estate through a bailiff, and on the latter's turning out unsatisfactory, had dismissed him, and at the same time let off a good part of the land, keeping only a few acres for cow-grazing round the house. now, on his son's coming home and requiring an outdoor life, he had given a quarter's notice to the butcher-grazier to whom he had sub-let his innings, had bought fifty head of sheep, and joined the farmers' club--which he knew would be a practical step to his advantage, as it brought certain privileges in the way of marketing and hiring. joanna was glad to see him at the woolpack, because she knew that there was now a chance of the introduction she had unfortunately missed in pedlinge village a few weeks ago. she had a slight market-day acquaintance with the old squire--as the neighbourhood invariably called him, to his intense annoyance--and now she greeted him with her broad smile. "good evening, sir harry." "good evening, miss godden. i'm pleased to see you here. you're looking very well." his bold tricky eyes swept over her, and somehow she felt more gratified than by all the bulging glances of the other men. "i'm pleased to see you, too, sir harry. i hear you've joined the club." "surelye--as a real farmer ought to say; and so has my son martin--he's going to do most of the work. martin, you've never met miss godden. let me introduce you." joanna's welcoming grin broke itself on the young man's stiff bow. there was a moment's silence. "he doesn't look as if a london doctor had threatened him with consumption," said the squire banteringly. "sometimes i really don't, think i believe it--i think he's only come down here so as he can look after me." martin made some conventional remark. he was a tall, broadly built young man, with a dark healthy skin and that generally robust air which sometimes accompanies extreme delicacy in men. "the doctor says he's been overworking," continued his father, "and that he ought to try a year's outdoor life and sea air. if you ask me, i should say he's overdone a good many things besides work--" he threw the boy a defiant, malicious glance, rather like a child who gets a thrust into an elder--"but walland marsh is as good a cure for over-play as for over-work. not much to keep him up late hereabouts, is there, miss godden?" "i reckon it'll be twelve o'clock before any of us see our pillows to-night," said joanna. "tut! tut i what terrible ways we're getting into, just when i'm proposing the place as a rest-cure. how do you feel, miss godden, being the only woman guest?" "i like it." "bet you do--so do we." joanna laughed and bridled. she felt proud of her position--she pictured every farmer's wife on the marsh lying awake that night so that she could ask her husband directly he came upstairs how joanna godden had looked, what she had said, and what she had worn. § at dinner she sat on the chairman's right. on her other side, owing to some accident of push and shuffle, sat young martin trevor. at first she had not thought his place accidental, in spite of his rather stiff manner before they sat down, but after a while she realized with a pang of vexation that he was not particularly pleased to find himself next her. he replied without interest to her remarks and then entered into conversation with his right-hand neighbour. joanna was annoyed--she could not put down his constraint to shyness, for he did not at all strike her as a shy young man. nor was he being ungracious to mr. turner of beckett's house, though the latter could not talk of turnips half so entertainingly as joanna would have done. he obviously did not want to speak to her. why? because of what had happened in pedlinge all that time ago? she remembered how he had drawn back ... he had not liked the way she had spoken to mr. pratt. she had not liked it herself by the time she got to the road's turn. but to think of him nursing his feelings all this time ... and something she had said to mr. pratt ... considering that she had bought them all a new harmonium ... the lazy, stingy louts with their half-crowns.... she had lost her serenity, her sense of triumph--she felt vaguely angry with the whole company, and snapped at arthur alce when he spoke to her across the table. he had asked after ellen, knowing she had been to folkestone. "ellen's fine--and learning such good manners as it seems a shame to bring her into these parts at christmas for her to lose 'em." "on the other hand. miss godden, she might impart them to us," said the squire from a little farther down. "she's learning how to dance and make curtsies right down to the floor," said joanna. "then she's fit to see the queen. you really mustn't keep her away from us at christmas--on the contrary, we ought to make some opportunities for watching her dance; she must be as pretty as a sprite." "that she is," agreed joanna, warming and mollified, "and i've bought her a new gown that pulls out like an accordion, so as she can wave her skirts about when she dances." "well, the drawing-room at north farthing would make an excellent ball-room ... we must see about that--eh, martin?" "it'll want a new floor laid down--there's rot under the carpet," was his son's disheartening reply. but joanna had lost the smarting of her own wound in the glow of her pride for ellen, and she ate the rest of her dinner in good-humoured contempt of martin trevor. when the time for the speeches came her health was proposed by the chairman. "gentlemen," he said, "let us drink to--the lady." the chivalry of the committee had prompted them to offer her southland to respond to this toast. but joanna had doubts of his powers as an orator, whereas she had none of her own. she stood up, a glow of amber brightness above all the black coats, and spoke of her gratification, of her work at ansdore and hopes for south-country farming. her speech, as might have been expected, was highly dogmatic. she devoted her last words to the marsh as a grain-bearing district--on one or two farms, where pasture had been broken, the yield in wheat had been found excellent. since that was so, why had so few farms hitherto shown enterprise in this direction? there was no denying that arable paid better than pasture, and the only excuse for neglecting it was poverty of soil. it was obvious that no such poverty existed here--on the contrary, the soil was rich, and yet no crops were grown in it except roots and here and there a few acres of beans or lucerne. it was the old idea, she supposed, about breaking up grass. it was time that old idea was bust--she herself would lead the way at ansdore next spring. as she was the guest of the evening, they heard her with respect, which did not, however, survive her departure at the introduction of pipes and port. "out on the rampage again, is she?" said southland to his neighbour. "well, if she busts that 'old idea' same as she bust the other 'old idea' about crossing kent sheep, all i can say is that it's ansdore she'll bust next." "whosumdever breaks pasture shall himself be broke," said vine oracularly. "surelye--surelye," assented the table. "she's got pluck all the same," said sir harry. but he was only an amateur. "i don't hold for a woman to have pluck," said vennal of beggar's bush, "what do you say, mr. alce?" "i say nothing, mr. vennal." "pluck makes a woman think she can do without a man," continued vennal, "when everyone knows, and it's in scripture, that she can't. now joanna godden should ought to have married drackly minute thomas godden died and left her ansdore, instead of which she's gone on plunging like a heifer till she must be past eight and twenty as i calculate--" "now, now, mr. vennal, we mustn't start anything personal of our lady guest," broke in furnese from the chair, "we may take up her ideas or take 'em down, but while she's the guest of this here farmers' club, which is till eleven-thirty precise, we mustn't start arguing about her age or matrimonious intentions. anyways, i take it, that's a job for our wives." "hear, hear," and joanna passed out of the conversation, for who was going to waste time either taking up or taking down a silly, tedious, foreign, unsensible notion like ploughing grass?... indeed, it may be said that her glory had gone up in smoke--the smoke of twenty pipes. she had been obliged to leave the table just when it was becoming most characteristic and convivial, and to retire forlorn and chilly in her silken gown to the woolpack parlour, where she and the landlady drank innumerable cups of tea. it was an unwelcome reminder of the fact that she was a woman, and that no matter how she might shine and impress the company for an hour, she did not really belong to it. she was a guest, not a member, of the farmers' club, and though a guest has more honour, he has less fellowship and fun. it was for fellowship and fun that she hungrily longed as she sat under the green lamp-shade of the woolpack's parlour, and discoursed on servants and the price of turkeys with mrs. jupp, who was rather constrained and absent-minded owing to her simultaneous efforts to price miss godden's gown. now and then a dull roar of laughter came to her from the club room. what were they talking about, joanna wondered. had there been much debate over her remarks on breaking pasture?... § on the whole, the farmers' club dinner left behind it a rankling trail--for one thing, it was not followed as she had hoped and half expected by an invitation to join the farmers' club. no, they would never have a woman privileged among them--she realized that, in spite of her success, certain doors would always be shut on her. the men would far rather open those doors ceremonially now and then than allow her to go freely in and out. after all, perhaps they were right--hadn't she got her own rooms that they were shut out of?... women were always different from men, even if they did the same things ... she had heard people talk of "woman's sphere." what did that mean? a husband and children, of course--any fool could tell you that. when you had a husband and children you didn't go round knocking at the men's doors, but shut yourself up snugly inside your own ... you were warm and cosy, and the firelight played on the ceiling.... but if you were alone inside your room--with no husband or child to keep you company ... then it was terrible, worse than being outside ... and no wonder you went round to the men's doors, and knocked on them and begged them to give you a little company, or something to do to help you to forget your empty room.... "well, i could marry arthur alce any day i liked," she thought to herself. but somehow that did not seem any solution to the problem. she thought of one or two other men who had approached her, but had been scared off before they had reached any definite position of courtship. they were no good either--young cobb of slinches had married six months ago, and jack abbot of stock bridge belonged to the christian believers, who kept sunday on saturday, and in other ways fathered confusion. besides, she didn't want to marry just anyone who would have her--some dull yeoman who would take her away from ansdore, or else come with all his stupid, antiquated, man-made notions to sit for ever on her enterprising acres. she wanted her marriage to be some big, neighbour-startling adventure--she wanted either to marry someone above herself in birth and station, or else very much below. she had touched the fringe of the latter experience and found it disappointing, so she felt that she would now prefer the other--she would like to marry some man of the upper classes, a lawyer or a parson or a squire. the two first were represented in her mind by mr. huxtable and mr. pratt, and she did not linger over them, but the image she had put up for the third was martin trevor--dark, tall, well-born, comely and strong of frame, and yet with that hidden delicacy, that weakness which joanna must have in a man if she was to love him.... she had been a fool about martin trevor--she had managed to put him against her at the start. of course it was silly of him to mind what she said to mr. pratt, but that didn't alter the fact that she had been stupid herself, that she had failed to make a good impression just when she most wanted to do so. martin trevor was the sort of man she felt she could "take to," for in addition to his looks he had the quality she prized in males--the quality of inexperience; he was not likely to meddle with her ways, since he was only a beginner and would probably be glad of her superior knowledge and judgment. he would give her what she wanted--his good name and his good looks and her neighbours' envious confusion--and she would give him what he wanted, her prosperity and her experience. north farthing house was poorer than ansdore in spite of late dinners and drawing-rooms--the trevors could look down on her from the point of view of birth and breeding but not from any advantage more concrete. as for herself, for her own warm, vigorous, vital person--with that curious simplicity which was part of her unawakened state, it never occurred to her to throw herself into the balance when ansdore was already making north farthing kick the beam. she thought of taking a husband as she thought of taking a farm hand--as a matter of bargaining, of offering substantial benefits in exchange for substantial services. if in a secondary way she was moved by romantic considerations, that was also true of her engagement of her male servants. just as she saw her future husband in his possibilities as a farm-hand, in his relations to ansdore, so she could not help seeing every farm-hand in his possibilities as a husband, in his relations to herself. § martin trevor would have been surprised had he known himself the object of so much attention. his attitude towards joanna was one of indifference based on dislike--her behaviour towards mr. pratt had disgusted him at the start, but his antipathy was not all built on that foundation. during the weeks he had been at home, he had heard a good deal about her--indeed he had found her rather a dominant personality on the marsh--and what he had heard had not helped turn him from his first predisposition against her. as a young boy he had shared his brother's veneration of the madonna, and though, when he grew up, his natural romanticism had not led him his brother's way, the boyish ideal had remained, and unconsciously all his later attitude towards women was tinged with it. joanna was certainly not the madonna type, and all martin's soul revolted from her broad, bustling ways--everywhere he went he heard stories of her busyness and her bluff, of "what she had said to old southland," or "the sass she had given vine." she seemed to him to be an arrant, pushing baggage, running after notoriety and display. her rudeness to mr. pratt was only part of the general parcel. he looked upon her as sexless, too, and he hated women to be sexless--his madonna was not after memling but after raphael. though he heard constant gossip about her farming activities and her dealings at market, he heard none about her passions, the likelier subject. all he knew was that she had been expected for years to marry arthur alce, but had not done so, and that she had also been expected at one time to marry her looker, but had not done so. the root of such romances must be poor indeed if this was all the flower that gossip could give them. altogether he was prejudiced against joanna godden, and the prejudice did not go deep enough to beget interest. he was not interested in her, and did not expect her to be interested in him; therefore it was with great surprise, not to say consternation, that one morning at new romney market he saw her bearing down upon him with the light of battle in her eye. "good morning, mr. trevor." "good morning, miss godden." "fine weather." "fine weather." he would have passed on, but she barred the way, rather an imposing figure in her bottle-green driving coat, with a fur toque pressed down over the flying chestnut of her hair. her cheeks were not so much coloured as stained deep with the sun and wind of walland marsh, and though it was november, a mass of little freckles smudged and scattered over her skin. it had not occurred to him before that she was even a good-looking creature. "i'm thinking, mr. trevor," she said deliberately, "that you and me aren't liking each other as much as we should ought." "really, miss godden. i don't see why you need say that." "well, we don't like each other, do we? leastways, you don't like me. now"--lifting a large, well-shaped hand--"you needn't gainsay me, for i know what you think. you think i was middling rude to mr. pratt in pedlinge street that day i first met you--and so i think myself, and i'm sorry, and mr. pratt knows it. he came around two weeks back to ask about milly pump, my chicken-gal, getting confirmed, and i told him i liked him and his ways so much that he could confirm the lot, gals and men--even old stuppeny who says he's been done already, but i say it don't matter, since he's so old that it's sure to have worn off by this time." martin stared at her with his mouth open. "so i say as i've done proper by mr. pratt," she continued, her voice rising to a husky flurry, "for i'll have to give 'em all a day off to get confirmed in, and that'll be a tedious affair for me. however, i don't grudge it, if it'll make things up between us--between you and me, i'm meaning." "but, i--i--that is, you've made a mistake--your behaviour to mr. pratt is no concern of mine." he was getting terribly embarrassed--this dreadful woman, what would she say next? unconsciously yielding to a nervous habit, he took off his cap and violently rubbed up his hair the wrong way. the action somehow appealed to joanna. "but it is your concern, i reckon--you've shown me plain that it is. i could see you were offended at the farmers' dinner." a qualm of compunction smote martin. "you're showing me that i've been jolly rude." "well, i won't say you haven't," said joanna affably. "still you've had reason. i reckon no one ud like me better for behaving rude to mr. pratt ..." "oh, damn mr. pratt!" cried martin, completely losing his head--"i tell you i don't care tuppence what you or anyone says or does to him." "then you should ought to care, mr. trevor," said joanna staidly, "not that i've any right to tell you, seeing how i've behaved. but at least i gave him a harmonium first--it's only that i couldn't abide the fuss he made of his thanks. i like doing things for folks, but i can't stand their making fools of themselves and me over it." trevor had become miserably conscious that they were standing in the middle of the road, that joanna was not inconspicuous, and if she had been, her voice would have made up for it. he could see people--gaitered farmers, clay-booted farm-hands--staring at them from the pavement. he suddenly felt himself--not without justification--the chief spectacle of romney market-day. "please don't think about it any more, miss godden," he said hurriedly. "i certainly should never presume to question anything you ever said or did to mr. pratt or anybody else. and, if you'll excuse me, i must go on--i'm a farmer now, you know," with a ghastly attempt at a smile, "and i've plenty of business in the market." "reckon you have," said joanna, her voice suddenly falling flat. he snatched off his cap and left her standing in the middle of the street. § he did not let himself think of her for an hour or more--the episode struck him as grotesque and he preferred not to dwell on it. but after he had done his business of buying a farm horse, with the help of mr. southland who was befriending his inexperience, he found himself laughing quietly, and he suddenly knew that he was laughing over the interview with joanna. and directly he had laughed, he was smitten with a sense of pathos--her bustle and self-confidence which hitherto had roused his dislike, now showed as something rather pathetic, a mere trapping of feminine weakness which would deceive no one who saw them at close quarters. under her loud voice, her almost barbaric appearance, her queerly truculent manner, was a naïve mixture of child and woman--soft, simple, eager to please. he knew of no other woman who would have given herself away quite so directly and naturally as she had ... and his manhood was flattered. he was far from suspecting the practical nature of her intentions, but he could see that she liked him, and wanted to stand in his favour. she was not sexless, after all. this realization softened and predisposed him; he felt a little contrite, too--he remembered how her voice had suddenly dragged and fallen flat at his abrupt farewell.... she was disappointed in his reception of her offers of peace--she had been incapable of appreciating the attitude his sophistication was bound to take up in the face of such an outburst. she had proved herself, too, a generous soul--frankly owning herself in the wrong and trying by every means to make atonement.... few women would have been at once so frank and so practical in their repentance. that he suspected the repentance was largely for his sake did not diminish his respect of it. when he met joanna godden again, he would be nice to her. the opportunity was given him sooner than he expected. walking up the high street in quest of some quiet place for luncheon--every shop and inn seemed full of thick smells of pipes and beer and thick noises of agricultural and political discussion conducted with the mouth full--he saw miss godden's trap waiting for her outside the new inn. he recognized her equipage, not so much from its make or from the fat cob in the shafts, as from the figure of old stuppeny dozing at smiler's head. old stuppeny went everywhere with miss godden, being now quite unfit for work on the farm. his appearance was peculiar, for he seemed, like new romney church tower, to be built in stages. he wore, as a farm-labourer of the older sort, a semi-clerical hat, which with his long white beard gave him down to the middle of his chest a resemblance to that type still haunting the chapels of marsh villages and known as aged evangelist--from his chest to his knees, he was mulberry coat and brass buttons, miss joanna godden's coachman, though as the vapours of the marsh had shaped him into a shepherd's crook, his uniform lost some of its effect. downwards from the bottom of his coat he was just a farm-labourer, with feet of clay and corduroy trousers tied with string. his presence showed that miss godden was inside the new inn, eating her dinner, probably finishing it, or he would not have brought the trap round. it was just like her, thought martin, with a tolerant twist to his smile, to go to the most public and crowded place in romney for her meal, instead of shrinking into the decent quiet of some shop. but joanna godden had done more for herself in that interview than she had thought, for though she still repelled she was no longer uninteresting. martin gave up searching for that quiet meal, and walked into the new inn. he found joanna sitting at a table by herself, finishing a cup of tea. the big table was edged on both sides with farmers, graziers and butchers, while the small tables were also occupied, so there was not much need for his apologies as he sat down opposite her. her face kindled at once-- "i'm sorry i'm so near finished." she was a grudgeless soul, and martin almost liked her. "have you done much business to-day?" "not much. i'm going home as soon as i've had my dinner. are you stopping long?" "till i've done a bit of shopping"--he found himself slipping into the homeliness of her tongue--"i want a good spade and some harness." "i'll tell you a good shop for harness ..." joanna loved enlightening ignorance and guiding inexperience, and while martin's chop and potatoes were being brought she held forth on different makes of harness and called spades spades untiringly. he listened without rancour, for he was beginning to like her very much. his liking was largely physical--he wouldn't have believed a month ago that he should ever find joanna godden attractive, but to-day the melting of his prejudice seemed to come chiefly from her warm beauty, from the rich colouring of her face and the flying sunniness of her hair, from her wide mouth with its wide smile, from the broad, strong set of her shoulders, and the sturdy tenderness of her breast. she saw that he had changed. his manner was different, more cordial and simple--the difference between his coldness and his warmth was greater than in many, for like most romantics he had found himself compelled at an early age to put on armour, and the armour was stiff and disguising in proportion to the lightness and grace of the body within. not that he and joanna talked of light and graceful things ... they talked, after spades and harness, of horses and sheep, and of her ideas on breaking up grass, which was to be a practical scheme at ansdore that spring in spite of the neighbours, of the progress of the new light railway from lydd to appledore, of the advantages and disadvantages of growing lucerne. but the barrier was down between them, and he knew that they were free, if they chose, to go on from horses and sheep and railways and crops to more daring, intimate things, and because of that same freedom they stuck to the homely topics, like people who are free to leave the fireside but wait till the sun is warmer on the grass. he had begun his apple-tart before she rose. "well, i must be getting back now. good-bye, mr. trevor. if you should ever happen to pass ansdore, drop in and i'll give you a cup of tea." he was well aware that the whole room had heard this valediction. he saw some of the men smiling at each other, but he was not annoyed. he rose and went with her to the door, where she hugged herself into her big driving coat. something about her made him feel big enough to ignore the small gossip of the marsh. § he liked her now--he told himself that she was good common stuff. she was like some sterling homespun piece, strong and sweet-smelling--she was like a plot of the marsh earth, soft and rich and alive. he had forgotten her barbaric tendency, the eccentricity of looks and conduct which had at first repelled him--that aspect had melted in the unsuspected warmth and softness he had found in her. he had been mistaken as to her sexlessness--she was alive all through. she was still far removed from his type, but her fundamental simplicity had brought her nearer to it, and in time his good will would bring her the rest of the way. anyhow, he would look forward to meeting her again--perhaps he would call at ansdore, as she had proposed. joanna was not blind to her triumph, and it carried her beyond her actual attainment into the fulfilment of her hopes. she saw martin trevor already as her suitor--respectful, interested, receptive of her wisdom in the matter of spades. she rejoiced in her courage in having taken the first step--she would not have much further to go now. now that she had overcome his initial dislike, the advantages of the alliance must be obvious to him. she looked into the future, and between the present moment and the consummated union of north farthing and ansdore, she saw thrilling, half-dim, personal adventures for martin and joanna ... the touch of his hands would be quite different from the touch of arthur alce's ... and his lips--she had never wanted a man's lips before, except perhaps socknersh's for one wild, misbegotten minute ... she held in her heart the picture of martin's well-cut, sensitive mouth, so unlike the usual mouths of brodnyx and pedlinge, which were either coarse-lipped or no-lipped.... martin's mouth was wonderful--it would be like fire on hers.... thus joanna rummaged in her small stock of experience, and of the fragments built a dream. her plans were not now all concrete--they glowed a little, though dimly, for her memory held no great store, and her imagination was the imagination of walland marsh, as a barndoor fowl to the birds that fly. she might have dreamed more if her mind had not been occupied with the practical matter of welcoming ellen home for her christmas holidays. ellen, who arrived on thomas-day, already seemed in some strange way to have grown apart from the life of ansdore. as joanna eagerly kissed her on the platform at rye, there seemed something alien in her soft cool cheek, in the smoothness of her hair under the dark boater hat with its deviced hat-band. "hullo, joanna," she said. "hullo, dearie. i've just about been pining to get you back. how are you?--how's your dancing?"--this as she bundled her up beside her in the trap, while the porter helped old stuppeny with her trunk. "i can dance the waltz and the polka." "that's fine--i've promised the folks around here that you shall show 'em what you can do." she gave ellen another warm, proud hug, and this time the child's coolness melted a little. she rubbed her immaculate cheek against her sister's sleeve-- "good old jo ..." thus they drove home at peace together. the peace was shattered many times between that day and christmas. ellen had forgotten what it was like to be slapped and what it was like to receive big smacking kisses at odd encounters in yard or passage--she resented both equally. "you're like an old bear, jo--an awful old bear." she had picked up at school a new vocabulary, of which the word "awful," used to express every quality of pleasure or pain, was a fair sample. joanna sometimes could not understand her--sometimes she understood too well. "i sent you to school to be made a little lady of, and here you come back speaking worse than a national child." "all the girls talk like that at school." "then seemingly it was a waste to send you there, since you could have learned bad manners cheaper at home." "but the mistresses don't allow it," said ellen, in hasty fear of being taken away, "you get a bad mark if you say 'damn.'" "i should just about think you did, and i'd give you a good spanking too. i never heard such language--no, not even at the woolpack." ellen gave her peculiar, alien smile. "you're awfully old-fashioned, jo." "old-fashioned, am i, because i don't go against my catechism and take the lord's name in vain?" "yes, you do--every time you say 'lord sakes' you take the lord's name in vain, and it's common into the bargain." here joanna lost her temper and boxed ellen's ears. "you dare say i'm common! so that's what you learn at school?--to come home and call your sister common. well, if i'm common, you're common too, since we're the same blood." "i never said you were common," sobbed ellen--"and you really are a beast, hitting me about. no wonder i like school better than home if that's how you treat me." joanna declared with violence if that was how she felt she should never see school again, whereupon ellen screamed and sobbed herself into a pale, quiet, tragic state--lying back in her chair, her face patchy with crying, her head falling queerly sideways like a broken doll's--till joanna, scared and contrite, assured her that she had not meant her threat seriously, and that ellen should stop at school as long as she was a good girl and minded her sister. this sort of thing had happened every holiday, but there were also brighter aspects, and on the whole joanna was proud of her little sister and pleased with the results of the step she had taken. ellen could not only dance and drop beautiful curtsies, but she could play tunes on the piano, and recite poetry. she could ask for things in french at table, could give startling information about the kings of england and the exports and imports of jamaica, and above all these accomplishments, she showed a welcome alacrity to display them, so that her sister could always rely on her for credit and glory. "when martin trevor comes i'll make her say her piece." § martin came on christmas day. he knew that the feast would lend a special significance to the visit, but he did not care; for in absence he had idealized joanna into a fit subject for flirtation. he had no longer any wish to meet her on the level footing of friendship--besides, he was already beginning to feel lonely on the marsh, to long for the glow of some romance to warm the fogs that filled his landscape. in spite of his father's jeers, he was no monk, and generally had some sentimental adventure keeping his soul alive--but he was fastidious and rather bizarre in his likings, and since he had come to north farthing, no one, either in his own class or out of it, had appealed to him, except joanna godden. she owed part of her attraction to the surviving salt of his dislike. there was still a savour of antagonism in his liking of her. also his curiosity was still unsatisfied. was that undercurrent of softness genuine? was she really simple and tender under her hard flaunting? was she passionate under her ignorance and _naïveté_? only experiment could show him, and he meant to investigate, not merely for the barren satisfaction of his curiosity, but for the satisfaction of his manhood which was bound up with a question. when he arrived, joanna was still in church--on christmas day as on other selected festivals, she always "stayed the sacrament," and did not come out till nearly one. he went to meet her, and waited for her some ten minutes in the little churchyard which was a vivid green with the christmas rains. the day was clear and curiously soft for the season, even on the marsh where the winters are usually mild. the sky was a delicate blue, washed with queer, flat clouds--the whole country of the marsh seemed faintly luminous, holding the sunshine in its greens and browns. beside the dyke which flows by brodnyx village stood a big thorn tree, still bright with haws. it made a vivid red patch in the foreground, the one touch of christmas in a landscape which otherwise suggested october--especially in the sunshine, which poured in a warm shower on to the altar-tomb where martin sat. he grew dreamy with waiting--his thoughts seemed to melt into the softness of the day, to be part of the still air and misty sunshine, just as the triple-barned church with its grotesque tower was part.... he could feel the great marsh stretching round him, the lonely miles of walland and dunge and romney, once the sea's bed, now lately inned for man and his small dwellings, his keepings and his cares, perhaps one day to return to the same deep from which it had come. people said that the bells of broomhill church--drowned in the great floods which had changed the rother's mouth--still rang under the sea. if the sea came to brodnyx, would brodnyx bells ring on?--and pedlinge? and brenzett? and fairfield? and all the little churches of thomas à becket on their mounds?--what a ringing there would be. he woke out of his daydream at the sound of footsteps--the people were coming out, and glancing up he saw joanna a few yards off. she looked surprised to see him, but also she made no attempt to hide her pleasure. "mr. trevor! you here?" "i came over to ansdore to wish you a happy christmas, and they told me you were still in church." "yes--i stopped for communion--" her mouth fell into a serious, reminiscent line, "you didn't come to the first service, neither?" "no, my brother's at home, and he took charge of my father's spiritual welfare--they went off to church at udimore, and i was too lazy to follow them." "i'm sorry you didn't come here--they used my harmonium, and it was valiant." he smiled at her adjective. "i'll come another day and hear your valiant harmonium. i suppose you think everybody should go to church?" "my father went, and i reckon i'll keep on going." "you always do as your father did?" "in most ways." "but not in all?--i hear startling tales of new-shaped waggons and other adventures, to say nothing of your breaking up grass next spring." "well, if you don't see any difference between breaking up grass and giving up church ..." "they are both a revolt from habit." "now, don't you talk like that--it ain't seemly. i don't like hearing a man make a mock of good things, and going to church is a good thing, as i should ought to know, having just come out of it." "i'm sorry," said martin humbly, and for some reason he felt ashamed. they were walking now along the pedlinge road, and the whole marsh, so broad and simple, seemed to join in her rebuke of him. she saw his contrite look, and repented of her sharpness. "come along home and have a bit of our christmas dinner." martin stuttered--he had not expected such an invitation, and it alarmed him. "we all have dinner together on christmas day," continued joanna, "men and gals, old stuppeny, mrs. tolhurst, everybody--we'd take it kindly if you'd join us. but--i'm forgetting--you'll be having your own dinner at home." "we shan't have ours till the evening." "oh--late dinner"--her tone became faintly reverential--"it ud never do if we had that. the old folk, like stuppeny and such, ud find their stomachs keep them awake. we've got two turkeys and a goose and plum puddings and mince pies, to say nothing of the oranges and nuts--that ain't the kind of food to go to bed with." "i agree," said martin, smiling. "then you'll come and have dinner at ansdore?" they had reached the first crossing of the railway line, and if he was going back to north farthing he should turn here. he could easily make an excuse--no man really wanted to eat two christmas dinners--but his flutter was gone, and he found an attraction in the communal meal to which she was inviting him. he would like to see the old folk at their feast, the old folk who had been born on the marsh, who had grown wrinkled with its sun and reddened with its wind and bent with their labours in its damp soil. there would be joanna too--he would get a close glimpse of her. it was true that he would be pulling the cord between them a little tighter, but already she was drawing him and he was coming willingly. to-day he had found in her an unsuspected streak of goodness, a sound, sweet core which he had not looked for under his paradox of softness and brutality.... it would be worth while committing himself with joanna godden. § dinner on christmas day was always in the kitchen at ansdore. when joanna reached home with martin, the two tables, set end to end, were laid--with newly ironed cloths and newly polished knives, but with the second-best china only, since many of the guests were clumsy. joanna wished there had been time to get out the best china, but there was not. ellen came flying to meet them, in a white serge frock tied with a red sash. "arthur alce has come, jo--we're all waiting. is mr. trevor coming too?" and she put her head on one side, looking up at him through her long fringe. "yes, duckie. mr. trevor's dropped in to taste our turkey and plum pudding--to see if they ain't better than his own to-night." "is he going to have another turkey and plum pudding to-night? how greedy!" "be quiet, you sassy little cat"--and joanna's hand swooped, missing ellen's head only by the sudden duck she gave it. "leave me alone, joanna--you might keep your temper just for christmas day." "i won't have you sass strangers." "i wasn't sassing." "you was." "i wasn't." martin felt scared. "i hope you don't mean me by the stranger," he said, taking up lightness as a weapon, "i think i know you well enough to be sassed--not that i call that sassing." "well, it's good of you not to mind," said joanna, "personally i've great ideas of manners, and ellen's brought back some queer ones from her school, though others she's learned are beautiful. fancy, she never sat down to dinner without a serviette." "never," said ellen emphatically. martin appeared suitably impressed. he thought ellen a pretty little thing, strangely exotic beside her sister. dinner was ready in the kitchen, and they all went in, joanna having taken off her coat and hat and smoothed her hair. before they sat down there were introductions to arthur alce and to luck and broadhurst and stuppeny and the other farm people. the relation between employer and employed was at once more patriarchal and less sharply defined at ansdore than it was at north farthing--martin tried to picture his father sitting down to dinner with the carter and the looker and the housemaid ... it was beyond imagination, yet joanna did it quite naturally. of course there was a smaller gulf between her and her people--the social grades were inclined to fuse on the marsh, and the farmer was only just better than his looker--but on the other hand, she seemed to have far more authority.... "now, hold your tongues while i say grace," she cried. joanna carved the turkeys, refusing to deputise either to martin or to alce. at the same time she led a general kind of conversation. the christmas feast was to be communal in spirit as well as in fact--there were to be no formalities above the salt or mutterings below it. the new harmonium provided a good topic, for everyone had heard it, except mrs. tolhurst who had stayed to keep watch over ansdore, cheering herself with the prospect of carols in the evening. "it sounded best in the psalms," said wilson, joanna's looker since socknersh's day--"oh, the lovely grunts it made when it said--'thou art my son, this day have i begotten thee!" "so it did," said broadhurst, "but i liked it best in the herald angels." "i liked it all through," said milly pump, the chicken-girl. "and i thought mr. elphick middling clever to make it sound as if it wur playing two different tunes at the same time." "was that how it sounded?" asked mrs. tolhurst wistfully, "maybe they'll have it for the carols to-night." "surelye," said old stuppeny, "you'd never have carols wudout a harmonister. i'd lik myself to go and hear it, but doubt if i ull git so far wud so much good victual inside me." "no, you won't--not half so far," said joanna briskly, "you stop at home and keep quiet after this, or you'll be having bad dreams to-night." "i never do but have one kind o' dream," said old stuppeny, "i dream as i'm setting by the fire and a young gal brings me a cup of cocoa. 'tis but an old dream, but reckon the lord god sends the old dreams to the old folk--all them new dreams that are about on the marsh, they goes to the young uns." "well, you've no call to complain of your dreams, stuppeny," said wilson, "'tisn't everyone who has the luck to dream regular of a pretty young gal. leastways, i guess she's pretty, though you äun't said it." "i döan't take much count on her looks--'tis the cocoa i'm after, though it äun't often as the lord god lets the dream stay till i've drunk my cup. sometimes 'tis my daughter nannie wot brings it, but most times 'tis just some unacquainted female." "oh, you sorry old dog," said wilson, and the table laughed deep-throatedly, or giggled, according to sex. old stuppeny looked pleased. his dream, for some reason unknown to himself, never failed to raise a laugh, and generally produced a cup of cocoa sooner or later from one of the girls. martin did not join in the discussion--he felt that his presence slightly damped the company, and for him to talk might spoil their chances of forgetting him. he watched miss godden as she ate and laughed and kept the conversation rolling--he also watched arthur alce, trying to use this man's devotion as a clue to what was left of joanna's mystery. alce struck him as a dull fellow, and he put down his faithfulness to the fact that having once fallen into love as into a rut he had lain there ever since like a sheep on its back. he could see that alce did not altogether approve of his own choice--her vigour and flame, her quick temper, her free airs--she was really too big for these people; and yet she was so essentially one of them ... their roots mingled in the same soil, the rich, damp, hardy soil of the marsh. his attitude towards her was undergoing its second and final change. now he knew that he would never want to flirt with her. he did not want her tentatively or temporarily. he still wanted her adventurously, but her adventure was not the adventure of siege and capture but of peaceful holding. like the earth, she would give her best not to the man who galloped over her, but to the man who chose her for his home and settlement. thus he would hold her, or not at all. very likely after to-day he would renounce her--he had not yet gone too far, his eyes were still undazzled, and he could see the difficulties and limitations in which he was involving himself by such a choice. he was a gentleman and a townsman--he trod her country only as a stranger, and he knew that in spite of the love which the marsh had made him give it in the few months of his dwelling, his thoughts still worked for years ahead, when better health and circumstances would allow him to go back to the town, to a quick and crowded life. could he then swear himself to the slow blank life of the three marshes, where events move deliberately as a plough? to the empty landscape, to the flat miles? he would have to love her enough to endure the empty flatness that framed her. he could never take her away, any more than he could take away ansdore or north farthing. he must make a renunciation for her sake--could he do so? and after all, she was common stuff--a farmer's daughter, bred at the national school. by taking her he would be making just a yokel of himself.... yet was it worth clinging to his simulacrum of gentility--boosted up by his father's title and a few dead rites, such as the late dinner which had impressed her so much. the only real difference between the goddens and the trevors was that the former knew their job and the latter didn't. all this thinking did not make either for much talk or much appetite, and joanna was disappointed. she let fall one or two remarks on farming and outside matters, thinking that perhaps the conversation was too homely and intimate for him, but he responded only languidly. "a penny for your thoughts, mr. trevor," said ellen pertly. "you eat your pudding," said joanna. it occurred to her that perhaps martin was disgusted by the homeliness of the meal--after all, he was gentry, and it was unusual for gentry to sit down to dinner with a crowd of farm-hands.... no doubt at home he had wine-glasses, and a servant-girl to hand the dishes. she made a resolution to ask him again and provide both these luxuries. to-day she would take him into the parlour and make ellen show off her accomplishments, which would help put a varnish of gentility on the general coarseness of the entertainment. she wished she had asked mr. pratt--she had thought of doing so, but finally decided against it. so when the company had done shovelling the stilton cheese into their mouths with their knives, she announced that she and mr. trevor would have their cups of tea in the parlour, and told milly to go quick and light the fire. ellen was most satisfactorily equal to this part of the occasion. she recited "curfew shall not ring tonight," and played haydn's "gipsy rondo." joanna began to feel complacent once more. "i made up my mind she should go to a good school," she said when her sister had run back to what festivities lingered in the kitchen, "and really it's wonderful what they've taught her. she'll grow up to be a lady." it seemed to martin that she stressed the last word rather wistfully, and the next moment she added-- "there's not many of your sort on the marsh." "how do you mean--my sort?" "gentlefolk." "oh, we don't trouble to call ourselves gentlefolk. my father and i are just plain farmers now." "but you don't really belong to us--you're the like of the savilles at dungemarsh court, and the clergy families." "is that where you put us?--we'd find our lives jolly dull if we shut ourselves up in that set. i can tell you that i've enjoyed myself far more here to-day than ever at the court or the rectory. besides, miss godden, your position on walland marsh is very much better than ours. you're a great personage, you know." "reckon folks talk about me," said joanna proudly. "maybe you've heard 'em." he nodded. "you've heard about me and arthur alce?" "i've heard some gossip." "don't you believe it. i'm fond of arthur, but he ain't my style--and i could do better for myself ..." she paused--her words seemed to hang in the flickering warmth of the room. she was waiting for him to speak, and he felt a little shocked and repelled. she was angling for him--he had never suspected that. "i must go," he said, standing up. "so soon?" "yes--tradition sends one home on christmas day." he moved towards the door, and she followed him, glowing and majestic in the shadows of the firelit room. outside, the sky was washed with a strange, fiery green, in which the new kindled stars hung like lamps. they stood for a moment on the threshold, the warm, red house behind them, before them the star-hung width and emptiness of the marsh. martin blocked the sky for joanna, as he turned and held out his hand. then, on the brink of love, she hesitated. a memory smote her--of herself standing before another man who blocked the sky, and in whose eyes sat the small, enslaved image of herself. was she just being a fool again?--ought she to draw back while she had still the power, before she became his slave, his little thing, and all her bigness was drowned in his eyes. she knew that whatever she gave him now could never be taken back. here stood the master of the mistress of ansdore. as for martin, his thoughts were of another kind. "good-bye," he said, renouncing her--for her boldness and her commonness and all that she would mean of change and of foregoing--"good-bye, joanna." he had not meant to say her name, but it had come, and with it all the departing adventure of love. she seemed to fall towards him, to lean suddenly like a tree in a gale--he smelt a fresh, sweet smell of clean cotton underclothing, of a plain soap, of free unperfumed hair ... then she was in his arms, and he was kissing her warm, shy mouth, feeling that for this moment he had been born. § "well, where have you been?" asked sir harry, as his son walked in at the hall door soon after six. "i've been having dinner with joanna godden." "the deuce you have." "i looked in to see her this morning and she asked me to stay." "you've stayed long enough--your saintly brother's had to do the milking." "where's dennett?" "gone to the carols with the rest. confounded nuisance, these primitive religious impulses of an elemental people--always seem to require an outlet at an hour when other people want their meals." "they'll be back in time for dinner." "i doubt it, and cook's gone too--and tom saville's coming, you know." "well, i'd better go and see after the milking." "don't worry. i've finished," and a dark round head came round the door, followed by a hunched figure in a cloak, from the folds of which it deprecatingly held out a pint jug. "what's that?" "the results of half an hour's milking. i know i should have got more, but i think the cows found me unsympathetic." martin burst out laughing. ordinarily he would have felt annoyed at the prospect of having to go milking at this hour, but to-night he was expansive and good-humoured towards all beasts and men. he laughed again-- "i don't know that the cows have any particular fancy for me, but i'll go and see what i can do." "i'm sorry not to have succeeded better," said his brother. the elder trevor was only two years older than martin, but his looks gave him more. his features were blunter, more humorous, and his face was already lined, while his hands looked work-worn. he wore a rough grey cassock buttoned up to his chin. "you should have preached to them," said sir harry, "like st. francis of something or other. you should have called them your sisters and they'd have showered down their milk in gallons. what's the good of being a monk if you can't work miracles?" "i leave that to st. francis dennett--i'm quite convinced that cows are milked only supernaturally, and i find it very difficult even to be natural with them. perhaps martin will take me in hand and show me that much." "i don't think i need. i hear the servants coming in." "thank god," exclaimed sir harry, "now perhaps we shall get our food cooked. martin's already had dinner, lawrence--he had it with joanna godden. martin, i don't know that i like your having dinner with joanna godden. it marks you--they'll talk about it at the woolpack for weeks, and it'll probably end in your having to marry her to make her an honest woman." "that's what i mean to do--to marry her." the words broke out of him. he had certainly not meant to tell his father anything just yet. apart from his natural reserve, sir harry was not the man he would have chosen for such confidences till they became inevitable. the fact that his father was still emotionally young and had love affairs of his own gave him feelings of repugnance and irritation--he could have endured the conventionally paternal praise or blame, but he was vaguely outraged by the queer basis of equality from which sir harry dealt with his experiences. but now the truth was out. what would they say, these two?--the old rake who refused to turn his back on youth and love, and the triple-vowed religious who had renounced both before he had enjoyed either. sir harry was the first to speak. "martin, i am an old man, who will soon be forced to dye his hair, and really my constitution is not equal to these shocks. what on earth makes you think you want to marry joanna godden?" "i love her." "a most desperate situation. but surely marriage is rather a drastic remedy." "well, don't let's talk about it any longer. i'm going to dress--saville will be here in a quarter of an hour." "but i must talk about it. hang it all, i'm your father--i'm the father of both of you, though you don't like it a bit and would rather forget it. martin, you mustn't marry joanna godden however much you love her. it would be a silly mistake--she's not your equal, and she's not your type. have you asked her?" "practically." "oh that's all right, then. it doesn't matter asking a woman practically as long as you don't ask her literally." "father, please don't talk about it." "i will talk about it. lawrence, do you know what this idiot's letting himself in for? have you seen joanna godden? why, she'd never do for him? she's a big, bouncing female, and her stays creak." "be quiet, father. you make me furious." "yes, you'll be disrespectful to me in a minute. that would be very sad, and the breaking of a noble record. of course it's presumptuous of me to want a lady for my daughter-in-law, and perhaps you're right to chuck away the poor remains of our dignity--they were hardly worth keeping." "i've thought over that," said martin. he saw now that having recklessly started the subject he could not put it aside till it had been fought out. "i've thought over that, and i've come to the conclusion that joanna's worth any sacrifice i can make for her." "but not marriage--why must you ask her to marry you? you don't really know her. you'll cool off." "i shan't." "what about your health, martin?" asked lawrence, "are you fit and able to marry? you know what the doctor said." "he said i might go off into consumption if i hung on in town--that beastly atmosphere at wright's and all the racket.... but there's nothing actually wrong with me, i'm perfectly fit down here. i'll last for ever in this place, and i tell you it's been a ghastly thought till now--knowing that i must either stop here, away from all my friends and interests, or else shorten my life. but now, i don't care--when i marry joanna godden i'll take root, i'll belong to the marsh, i'll be at home. you don't know joanna godden, lawrence--if you did i believe you'd like her. she's so sane and simple--she's so warm and alive; and she's good, too--when i met her to-day, she had just been to communion. she'll help me to live--at last i'll be able to live the best life for me, body and soul, down here in the sea air, with no town rubbish ..." "it sounds a good thing," said lawrence. "after all, father, there really isn't much use trying to keep up the state of the trevors and all that now ..." "no, there isn't--especially when this evening's guest will arrive in two minutes to find us sitting round in dirt and darkness and dissension, all because we've been too busy discussing our heir's betrothal to a neighbouring goose-girl to trouble about such fripperies as dressing for dinner. of course now lawrence elects to take martin's part there's no good my trying to stand against the two of you. i've always been under your heels, ever since you were old enough to boss me. let the state of the trevors go--martin, marry joanna godden and we will come to you for our mangolds--lawrence, if you were not hindered by your vows, i should suggest your marrying one of the miss southlands or the miss vines, and then we could have a picturesque double wedding. as for me, i will build on more solid foundations than either of you, and marry my cook." with which threat he departed to groom himself. "he'll be all right," said martin, "he likes joanna godden really." "so do i. she sounds a good sort. will you take me to see her before i go?" "certainly. i want you to meet her. when you do you'll see that i'm not doing anything rash, even from the worldly point of view. she comes of fine old yeoman stock, and she's of far more consequence on the marsh than any of us." "i can't see that the social question is of much importance. as long as your tastes and your ideas aren't too different ..." "i'm afraid they are, rather. but somehow we seem to complement each other. she's so solid and so sane--there's something barbaric about her too ... it's queer." "i've seen her. she's a fine-looking girl--a bit older than you, isn't she?" "five years. against it, of course--but then i'm so much older than she is in most ways. she's a practical woman of business--knows more about farming than i shall ever know in my life--but in matters of life and love, she's a child ..." "i should almost have thought it better the other way round--that you should know about the business and she about the love. but then in such matters i too am a child." he smiled disarmingly, but martin felt ruffled--partly because his brother's voluntary abstention from experience always annoyed him, and partly because he knew that in this case the child was right and the man wrong. § in the engagement of joanna godden to martin trevor walland marsh had its biggest sensation for years. indeed it could be said that nothing so startling had happened since the rother changed its mouth. the feelings of those far-back marsh-dwellers who had awakened one morning to find the kentish river swirling past their doors at broomhill might aptly be compared with those of the farms round the woolpack, who woke to find that joanna godden was not going just to jog on her final choice between arthur alce and old maidenhood, but had swept aside to make an excellent, fine marriage. "she's been working for this all along," said prickett disdainfully. "i don't see that she's had the chance to work much," said vine, "she hasn't seen the young chap more than three or four times." "bates's looker saw them at romney once," said southland, "having their dinner together; but that time at the farmers' club he'd barely speak to her." "well she's got herself talked about over two men that she hasn't took, and now she's took a man that she hasn't got herself talked about over." "anyways, i'm glad of it," said furnese, "she's a mare that's never been präaperly broken in, and now at last she's got a man to do it." "poor feller, alce. i wonder how he'll take it." alce took it very well. for a week he did not come to ansdore, then he appeared with joanna's first wedding present in the shape of a silver tea-service which had belonged to his mother. "maybe it's a bit early yet for wedding presents. they say you won't be married till next fall. but i've always wanted you to have this tea-set of mother's--it's real silver, as you can see by the lion on it--a teapot and milk jug and sugar bowl; many's the time i've seen you in my mind's eye, setting like a queen and pouring my tea out of it. since it can't be my tea, it may as well be another's." "there'll always be a cup for you, arthur," said joanna graciously. "thanks," said arthur in a stricken voice. joanna could not feel as sorry for alce as she ought and would have liked. all her emotions, whether of joy or sorrow, seemed to be poured into the wonderful new life that martin had given her. a new life had begun for her on christmas day--in fact, it would be true to say that a new joanna had begun. something in her was broken, melted, changed out of all recognition--she was softer, weaker, more excited, more tender. she had lost much of her old swagger, her old cocksureness, for martin had utterly surprised and tamed her. she had come to him in a scheming spirit of politics, and he had kept her in a spirit of devotion. she had come to him as ansdore to north farthing--but he had stripped her of ansdore, and she was just joanna godden who had waited twenty-eight years for love. yet, perhaps because she had waited so long, she was now a little afraid. she had hitherto met love only in the dim forms of arthur alce and dick socknersh, with still more hazy images in the courtships of abbot and cobb. now martin was showing her love as no dim flicker or candlelight or domestic lamplight but as a bright, eager fire. she loved his kisses, the clasp of his strong arms, the stability of his chest and shoulders--but sometimes his passion startled her, and she had queer, shy withdrawals. yet these were never more than temporary and superficial; her own passions were slowly awaking, and moreover had their roots in a sweet, sane instinct of vocation and common sense. on the whole, though, she was happiest in the quieter ways of love--the meals together, the fireside talks, the meetings in lonely places, the queer, half-laughing secrets, the stolen glances in company. she made a great fuss of his bodily needs--she was convinced that he did not get properly fed or looked after at home, and was always preparing him little snacks and surprises. for her sake martin swallowed innumerable cups of milk and wrapped his chin in choky mufflers. she had prouder moments too. on her finger glittered a gorgeous band of diamonds and sapphires which she had chosen for her engagement ring, and it was noticed that joanna godden now always drove with her gloves off. she had insisted on driving martin round the marsh to call on her friends--to show him to mrs. southland, mrs. vine, and mrs. prickett, to say nothing of their husbands who had always said no man in his senses would marry joanna godden. well, not merely a man but a gentleman was going to do it--a gentleman who had his clothes made for him at a london tailor's instead of buying them ready-made at lydd or romney or rye, who had--he confessed it, though he never wore it--a top hat in his possession, who ate late dinner and always smelt of good tobacco and shaving soap ... such thoughts would bring the old joanna back, for one fierce moment of gloating. her reception by north farthing house had done nothing to spoil her triumph. martin's father and brother had both accepted her--the latter willingly, since he believed that she would be a sane and stabilizing influence in martin's life, hitherto over-restless and mood-ridden. he looked upon his brother as a thwarted romantic, whose sophistication had debarred him from finding a natural outlet in religion. he saw in his love for joanna the chance of a return to nature and romance, since he loved a thing at once simple and adventurous, homely and splendid--which was how religion appeared to father lawrence. he had liked joanna very much on their meeting, and she liked him too, though as she told him frankly she "didn't hold with jesoots." as for sir harry, he too liked joanna, and was too well-bred and fond of women to show himself ungracious about that which he could not prevent. "i've surrendered, martin. i can't help myself. you'll bring down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave, but i am all beautiful resignation. indeed i think i shall offer myself as best man, and flirt dutifully with ellen godden, who i suppose will be chief bridesmaid. your brother shall himself perform the ceremony. what could your family do more?" "what indeed?" laughed martin. he felt warmhearted towards all men now--he could forgive both his father for having had too much experience and his brother for having had too little. § the actual date of the wedding was not fixed till two months had run. though essentially adult and practical in all matters of business and daily life, joanna was still emotionally adolescent, and her betrothed state satisfied her as it would never have done if her feelings had been as old as her years. also this deferring of love had helped other things to get a hold on her--martin was astonished to find her swayed by such considerations as sowing and shearing and marketing--"i can't fix up anything till i've got my spring sowings done"--"that ud be in the middle of the shearing"--"i'd sooner wait till i'm through the autumn markets." he discovered that she thought "next fall" the best time for the wedding--"i'll have got everything clear by then, and i'll know how the new ploughs have borne." he fought her and beat her back into june--"after the hay." he was rather angry with her for thinking about these things, they expressed a side of her which he would have liked to ignore. he did not care for a "managing" woman, and he could still see, in spite of her new moments of surrender, that joanna eternally would "manage." but in spite of this his love for her grew daily, as he discovered daily her warmth and breadth and tenderness, her growing capacity for passion. once or twice he told her to let the sowings and the shearings be damned, and come and get married to him quietly without any fuss at the registrar's. but joanna was shocked at the idea of getting married anywhere but in church--she could not believe a marriage legal which the lion and the unicorn had not blessed. also he discovered that she rejoiced in fuss, and thought june almost too early for the preparations she wanted to make. "i'm going to show 'em what a wedding's like," she remarked ominously--"i'm going to do everything in the real, proper, slap-up style. i'm going to have a white dress and a veil and carriages and bridesmaids and favours--" this was the old joanna--"you don't mind, do you, martin?" this was the new. of course he could not say he minded. she was like an eager child, anxious for notice and display. he would endure the wedding for her sake. he also would endure for her sake to live at ansdore; after a few weeks he saw that nothing else could happen. it would be ridiculous for joanna to uproot herself from her prosperous establishment and settle in some new place just because in spirit he shrank from becoming "mr. joanna godden." she had said that "martin and joanna trevor" should be painted on the scrolled name-boards of her waggons, but he knew that on the farm and in the market-place they would not be on an equal footing, whatever they were in the home. as farmer and manager she would outshine him, whose tastes and interests and experiences were so different. never mind--he would have more time to give to the beloved pursuit of exploring the secret, shy marsh country--he would do all joanna's business afield, in the far market towns of new romney and dymchurch, and the farms away in kent or under the coast at ruckinge and warhorne. meanwhile he spent a great deal of his time at ansdore. he liked the life of the place with its mixture of extravagance and simplicity, democracy and tyranny. fortunately ellen approved of him--indeed he sometimes found her patronage excessive. he thought her spoilt and affected, and might almost have come to dislike her if she had not been such a pretty, subtle little thing, and if she had not interested and amused him by her sharp contrasts with her sister. he was now also amused by the conflicts between the two, which at first had shocked him. he liked to see joanna's skin go pink as she faced ellen in a torment of loving anger and rattled the fierce words off her tongue, while ellen tripped and skipped and evaded and generally triumphed by virtue of a certain fundamental coolness. "it will be interesting to watch that girl growing up," he thought. § as the year slid through the fogs into the spring, he persuaded joanna to come with him on his rambles on the marsh. he was astonished to find how little she knew of her own country, of that dim flat land which was once under the sea. she knew it only as the hunting ground of her importance. it was at yokes court that she bought her roots, and from becket's house her looker had come; lydd and rye and romney were only market-towns--you did best in cattle at rye, but the other two were proper for sheep; old honeychild was just a farm where she had bought some good spades and dibbles at an auction; at misleham they had once had foot-and-mouth disease--she had gone to picknye bush for the character of milly pump, her chicken-girl.... he told her of the smugglers and owlers who had used the woolpack as their headquarters long ago, riding by moonlight to the cross-roads, with their mouths full of slang--cant talk of "mackerel" and "fencing" and "hornies" and "oliver's glim." "well, if they talked worse there then than they talk now, they must have talked very bad indeed," was all joanna found to say. he told her of the old monks of canterbury who had covered the marsh with the altars of thomas à becket. "we got shut of 'em all on the fifth of november," said joanna, "as we sing around here on bonfire nights--and 'a halfpenny loaf to feed the pope, a penn'orth of cheese to choke him,' as we say." all the same he enjoyed the expeditions that they had together in her trap, driving out on some windy-skied march day, to fill the hours snatched from her activities at ansdore and his muddlings at north farthing, with all the sea-green sunny breadth of walland, and still more divinely with walland's secret places--the shelter of tall reeds by the yokes sewer, or of a thorn thicket making a tent of white blossom and spindled shadows in the midst of the open land. sometimes they crossed the rhee wall on to romney marsh, and he showed her the great church at ivychurch, which could have swallowed up in its nave the two small farms that make the village. he took her into the church at new romney and showed her the marks of the great flood, discolouring the pillars for four feet from the ground. "doesn't it thrill you?--doesn't it excite you?" he teased her, as they stood together in the nave, the church smelling faintly of hearthstones. "how long ago did it happen?" "in the year of our lord twelve hundred and eighty seven the kentish river changed his mouth, and after swilling out romney sands and drowning all the marsh from honeychild to the wicks, did make himself a new mouth in rye bay, with which mouth he swallowed the fifty taverns and twelve churches of broomhill, and--" "oh, have done talking that silly way--it's like the bible, only there's no good in it." her red mouth was close to his in the shadows of the church--he kissed it.... "child!" "oh, martin--" she was faintly shocked because he had kissed her in church, so he drew her to him, tilting back her chin. "you mustn't" ... but she had lost the power of gainsaying him now, and made no effort to release herself. he held her up against the pillar and gave her mouth another idolatrous kiss before he let her go. "if it happened all that while back, they might at least have got the marks off by this time," she said, tucking away her loosened hair. martin laughed aloud--her little reactions of common sense after their passionate moments never failed to amuse and delight him. "you'd have had it off with your broom, and that's all you think about it. but look here, child--what if it happened again?" "it can't." "how do you know?" "it can't--i know it." "but if it happened then it could happen again." "there ain't been a flood on the marsh in my day, nor in my poor father's day, neither. sometimes in february the white kemp brims a bit, but i've never known the roads covered. you're full of old tales. and now let's go out, for laughing and love-making ain't the way to behave in church." "the best way to behave in church is to get married." she blushed faintly and her eyes filled with tears. they went out, and had dinner at the new inn, which held the memory of their first meal together, in that huge, sag-roofed dining-room, then so crowded, now empty except for themselves. joanna was still given to holding forth on such subjects as harness and spades, and to-day she gave martin nearly as much practical advice as on that first occasion. "now, don't you waste your money on a driller--we don't give our sheep turnips on the marsh. it's an inland notion. the grass here is worth a field of roots. you stick to grazing and you'll keep your money in your pocket and never send coarse mutton to the butcher." he did not resent her advice, for he was learning humility. her superior knowledge and experience of all practical matters was beginning to lose its sting. she was in his eyes so adorable a creature that he could forgive her for being dominant. the differences in their natures were no longer incompatibilities, but gifts which they brought each other--he brought her gifts of knowledge and imagination and emotion, and she brought him gifts of stability and simplicity and a certain saving commonness. and all these gifts were fused in the glow of personality, in a kind bodily warmth, in a romantic familiarity which sometimes found its expression in shyness and teasing. they loved each other. § martin had always wanted to go out on the cape at dunge ness, that tongue of desolate land which rakes out from dunge marsh into the sea, slowly moving every year twenty feet towards france. joanna had a profound contempt of dunge ness--"not enough grazing on it for one sheep"--but martin's curiosity mastered her indifference and she promised to drive him out there some day. she had been once before with her father, on some forgotten errand to the hope and anchor inn. it was an afternoon in may when they set out, bowling through pedlinge in the dog cart behind smiler's jogging heels. joanna wore her bottle green driving coat, with a small, close-fitting hat, since martin, to her surprise and disappointment, disliked her best hat with the feathers. he sat by her, unconsciously huddling to her side, with his hand thrust under her arm and occasionally pressing it--she had told him that she could suffer that much of a caress without detriment to her driving. it was a bright, scented day, heavily coloured with green and gold and white; for the new grass was up in the pastures, releasing the farmer from many anxious cares, and the buttercups were thick both on the grazing lands and on the innings where the young hay stood, still green; the watercourses were marked with the thick dumpings of the may, walls of green-teased white streaking here and there across the pastures, while under the boughs the thick green water lay scummed with white ranunculus, and edged with a gaudy splashing of yellow irises, torches among the never silent reeds. above it all the sky was misty and fall of shadows, a low soft cloud, occasionally pierced with sunlight. "it'll rain before night," said joanna. "what makes you think that?" "the way of the wind, and those clouds moving low--and the way you see rye hill all clear with the houses on it--and the way the sheep are grazing with their heads to leeward." "do you think they know?" "of course they know. you'd be surprised at the things beasts know, martin." "well, it won't matter if it does rain--we'll be home before night. i'm glad we're going down on the ness--i'm sure it's wonderful." "it's a tedious hole." "that's what you think." "i know--i've been there." "then it's very sweet of you to come again with me." "it'll be different with you." she was driving him by way of broomhill, for that was another place which had fired his imagination, though to her it too was a tedious hole. martin could not forget the broomhill of old days--the glamour of taverns and churches and streets lay over the few desolate houses and ugly little new church which huddled under the battered sea-wall. great reedy pools still remained from the thirteenth century floods, brackish on the flat seashore, where the staked keddle nets showed that the mackerel were beginning to come into rye bay. "nothing but fisher-folk around here," said joanna contemptuously--"you'll see 'em all in the summer, men, women and children, with heaps of mackerel that they pack in boxes for london and such places--so much mackerel they get that there's nothing else ate in the place for the season, and yet if you want fish-guts for manure they make you pay inland prices, and do your own carting." "i think it's a delicious place," he retorted, teasing her, "i've a mind to bring you here for our honeymoon." "martin, you'd never i you told me you were taking me to foreign parts, and i've told mrs. southland and mrs. furnese and maudie vine and half a dozen more all about my going to paris and seeing the sights and hearing french spoken." "yes--perhaps it would be better to go abroad; broomhill is wonderful, but you in paris will be more wonderful than broomhill--even in the days before the flood." "i want to see the eiffel tower--where they make the lemonade--and i want to buy myself something really chick in the way of hats." "joanna--do you know the hat which suits you best?" "which?" she asked eagerly, with some hope for the feathers. "the straw hat you tie on over your hair when you go out to the chickens first thing in the morning." "that old thing i why i my! lor! martin! that's an old basket that i tie under my chin with a neckerchief of poor father's." "it suits you better than any hat in the rue st. honoré--it's brown and golden like yourself, and your hair comes creeping and curling from under it, and there's a shadow on your face, over your eyes--the shadow stops just above your mouth--your mouth is all of your face that i can see dearly, and it's your mouth that i love most ..." he suddenly kissed it, ignoring her business with the reins and the chances of the road, pulling her round in her seat and covering her face with his, so that his eyelashes stroked her cheek. she drew her hands up sharply to her breast, and with the jerk the horse stopped. for a few moments they stayed so, then he released her and they moved on. neither of them spoke; the tears were in joanna's eyes and in her heart was a devouring tenderness that made it ache. the trap lurched in the deep ruts of the road, which now had become a mass of shingle and gravel, skirting the beach. queer sea plants grew in the ruts, the little white sea-campions with their fat seed-boxes filled the furrows of the road as with a foam--it seemed a pity and a shame to crush them, and one could tell by their fresh growth how long it was since wheels had passed that way. at jury's gap, a long white-daubed coastguard station marked the end of the road. only a foot-track ran out to the ness. they left the horse and trap at the station and went afoot. "i told you it was a tedious place," said joanna. like a great many busy people she did not like walking, which she always looked upon as a waste of time. martin could seldom persuade her to come for a long walk. it was a long walk up the ness, and the going was bad, owing to the shingle. the sea-campion grew everywhere, and in sunny corners the yellow-horned poppy put little spots of colour into a landscape of pinkish grey. the sea was the same colour as the land, for the sun had sunk away into the low thick heavens, leaving the sea an unrelieved, tossed dun waste. the wind came tearing across rye bay with a moan, lifting all the waves into little sharp bitter crests. "we'll get the rain," said joanna sagely. "i don't care if we do," said martin. "you haven't brought your overcoat." "never mind that." "i do mind." his robust appearance--his broad back and shoulders, thick vigorous neck and swarthy skin--only magnified his pathos in her eyes. it was pitiful that this great thing should be so frail.... he could pick her up with both hands on her waist, and hold her up before him, the big joanna--and yet she must take care of him. § an hour's walking brought them to the end of the ness--to a strange forsaken country of coastguard stations and lonely taverns and shingle tracks. the lighthouse stood only a few feet above the sea, at the end of the point, and immediately before it the water dropped to sinister, glaucous depths. "well, it ain't much to see," said joanna. "it's wonderful," said martin--"it's terrible." he stood looking out to sea, into the channel streaked with green and grey, as if he would draw france out of the southward fogs. he felt half-way to france ... here on the end of this lonely crane, with water each side of him and ahead, and behind him the shingle which was the uttermost of kent. "joanna--don't you feel it, too?" "yes--maybe i do. it's queer and lonesome--i'm glad i've got you, martin." she suddenly came close to him and put out her arms, hiding her face against his heart. "child--what is it?" "i dunno. maybe it's this place, but i feel scared. oh, martin, you'll never leave me? you'll always be good to me?..." "i ... oh, my own precious thing." he held her close to him and they both trembled--she with her first fear of those undefinable forces and associations which go to make the mystery of place, he with the passion of his faithfulness, of his vows of devotion, too fierce and sacrificial even to express. "let's go and have tea," she said, suddenly disengaging herself, "i'll get the creeps if we stop out here on the beach much longer--reckon i've got 'em now, and i never was the one to be silly like that. i told you it was a tedious hole." they went to the britannia, on the eastern side of the bill. the inn looked surprised to see them, but agreed to put the kettle on. they sat together in a little queer, dim room, smelling of tar and fish, and bright with the flames of wreckwood. joanna had soon lost her fears--she talked animatedly, telling him of the progress of her spring wheat; of the dead owl that had fallen out of the beams of brenzett church during morning prayers last sunday, of the shocking way they had managed their lambing at beggar's bush, of king edward's coronation that was coming off in june. "i know of something else that's coming off in june," said martin. "our wedding?" "surelye." "i'm going into folkestone next week, to that shop where i bought my party gown." "and i'm going to mr. pratt to tell him to put up our banns, or we shan't have time to be cried three times before the first of june." "the first!--i told you the twenty-fourth." "but i'm not going to wait till the twenty-fourth. you promised me june." "but i shan't have got in my hay, and the shearers are coming on the fourteenth--you have to book weeks ahead, and that was the only date harmer had free." "joanna." her name was a summons, almost stern, and she looked up. she was still sitting at the table, stirring the last of her tea. he sat under the window on an old sea-chest, and had just lit his pipe. "come here, joanna." she came obediently, and sat beside him, and he put his arm round her. the blue and ruddy flicker of the wreckwood lit up the dark day. "i've been thinking a lot about this, and i know now--there is only one thing between us, and that's ansdore." "how d'you mean? it ain't between us." "it is--again and again you seem to be putting ansdore in the place of our love. what other woman on god's earth would put off her marriage to fit in with the sheep-shearing?" "i ain't putting it off. we haven't fixed the day yet, and i'm just telling you to fix a day that's suitable and convenient." "you know i always meant to marry you the first week in june." "and you know as i've told you, that i can't take the time off then." "the time off! you're not a servant. you can leave ansdore any day you choose." "not when the shearing's on. you don't understand, martin--i can't have all the shearers up and nobody to look after 'em." "what about your looker?--or broadhurst? you don't trust anybody but yourself." "you're just about right--i don't." "don't you trust me?" "not to shear sheep." martin laughed ruefully. "you're very sensible, joanna--unshakably so. but i'm not asking you to trust me with the sheep, but to trust me with yourself. don't misunderstand me, dear. i'm not asking you to marry me at the beginning of the month just because i haven't the patience to wait till the end. it isn't that, i swear it. but don't you see that if you fix our marriage to fit in with the farm-work, it'll simply be beginning things in the wrong way? as we begin we shall have to go on, and we can't go on settling and ordering our life according to ansdore's requirements--it's a wrong principle. think, darling," and he drew her close against his heart, "we shall want to see our children--and will you refuse, just because that would mean that you would have to lie up and keep quiet and not go about doing all your own business?" joanna shivered. "oh, martin, don't talk of such things." "why not?" she had given him some frank and graphic details about the accouchement of her favourite cow, and he did not understand that the subject became different when it was human and personal. "because i--because we ain't married yet." "joanna, you little prude!" she saw that he was displeased and drew closer to him, slipping her arms round his neck, so that he could feel the roughness of her work-worn hands against it. "i'm not shocked--only it's so wonderful--i can't abear talking of it ... martin, if we had one ... i should just about die of joy ..." he gripped her to him silently, unable to speak. somehow it seemed as if he had just seen deeper into joanna than during all the rest of his courtship. he moved his lips over her bright straying hair--her face was hidden in his sleeve. "then we'll stop at mr. pratt's on our way home and ask him to put up the banns at once?" "oh no--" lifting herself sharply--"i didn't mean that." "why not?" "well, it won't make any difference to our marriage, being married three weeks later--but it'll make an unaccountable difference to my wool prices if the shearers don't do their job proper--and then there's the hay." "on the contrary, child--it will make a difference to our marriage. we shall have started with ansdore between us." "what nonsense." "well, i can't argue with you--you must do as you like. my wife is a very strong-willed person, who will keep her husband in proper order. but he loves her enough to bear it." he kissed her gently, and they both stood up. at the same time there was a sharp scud of rain against the window. § the journey home was quieter and dimmer than the journey out. their voices and footsteps were muffled in the roar of the wind, which had risen from sorrow to anger. the rain beat in their faces as they walked arm in arm over the shingle. they could not hurry, for at every step their feet sank. "i said it was a tedious hole," reiterated joanna, "and now perhaps you'll believe me--the folk here walk with boards on their feet, what they call backstays. our shoes will be just about ruined." she was not quite happy, for she felt that martin was displeased with her, though he made no reproaches. he did not like her to arrange their wedding day to fit in with the shearing. but what else could she do? if she was away when the shearers came, there'd be no end to their goings on with the girls, and besides, who'd see that the work was done proper and the tegs not scared out of their lives? it was only six o'clock, but a premature darkness was falling as the clouds dropped over dunge marsh, and the rain hung like a curtain over rye bay, blotting out all distances, showing them nothing but the crumbling, uncertain track. in half an hour they were both wet through to their shoulders, for the rain came down with all the drench of may. joanna could see that martin was beginning to be worried about himself--he was worried about her too, but he was more preoccupied with his own health than other men she knew, the only way in which he occasionally betrayed the weak foundations of his stalwart looks. "the worst of it is, we'll have to sit for an hour in the dog-cart after we get to jury's gap. you'll catch your death of cold, joanna." "not i! i often say i'm like our romney sheep--i can stand all winds and waters. but you're not used to it like i am--you should ought to have brought your overcoat." "how was i to know it would turn out like this?" "i told you it would rain." "but not till after we'd started." joanna said nothing. she accepted martin's rather unreasonable displeasure without protest, for she felt guilty about other things. was he right, after all, when he said that she was putting ansdore between them?... she did not feel that she was, any more than she was putting ansdore between herself and ellen. but she hated him to have the thought. should she give in and tell him he could call on mr. pratt on their way home?... no, there was plenty of time to make up her mind about that. to-day was only tuesday, and any day up till saturday would do for putting in notice of banns ... she must think things over before committing herself ... it wasn't only the shearers--there was the hay.... thus they came, walking apart in their own thoughts, to jury's gap. in a few moments the horse was put to, and they were lurching in the ruts of the road to broomhill. the air was full of the sound of hissing rain, as it fell on the shingle and in the sea and on the great brackish pools of the old flood. round the pools were thick beds of reeds, shivering and moaning, while along the dykes the willows tossed their branches and the thorn-trees rattled. "it'll freshen up the grass," said joanna, trying to cheer martin. "i was a fool not to bring my overcoat," he grumbled. then suddenly her heart went out to him more than ever, because he was fractious and fretting about himself. she took one hand off the reins and pressed his as it lay warm between her arm and her side. "reckon you're my own silly child," she said in a low voice. "i'm sorry, jo," he replied humbly, "i know i'm being a beast and worrying you. but i'm worried about you too--you're as wet as i am." "no, i'm not. i've got my coat. i'm not at all worried about myself--nor about you, neither." she could not conceive of a man taking cold through a wetting. she had planned for him to come back to supper with her at ansdore, but with that fussiness which seemed so strange and pathetic, he insisted on going straight back to north farthing to change his clothes. "you get into a hot bath with some mustard," he said to her, meaning what he would do himself. "ha! ha!" laughed joanna, at such an idea. § she did not see martin for the next two days. he had promised to go up to london for the first night of a friend's play, and was staying till friday morning. she missed him very much--he used to come to ansdore every day, sometimes more than once, and they always had at least one meal together. she brooded about him too, for she could not rid herself of the thought that she had failed him in her refusal to be married before the shearing. he was disappointed--he could not understand.... she looked round on ansdore almost distrustfully ... was it true that she loved it too much? the farm looked very lonely and bare, with the mist hanging in the doorways, and the rain hissing into the midden, while the bush--as the trees were called which sheltered nearly every marsh dwelling--sighed and tossed above the barn-roofs. she suddenly realized that she did not love it as much as she used. the knowledge came like a slap. she suddenly knew that for the last four months her love for martin had been eating into her love for ansdore.... it was like the sun shining on a fire and putting it out--now that the sun had gone she saw that her hearth was cold. it was for martin she had sown her spring wheat, for martin she had broken up twelve acres of pasture by the kent ditch, for martin she would shear her sheep and cut her hay.... then since it was all for martin, what an owl she was to sacrifice him to it, to put it before his wants and needs. he wanted her, he needed her, and she was offering him bales of wool and cocks of hay. of course in this matter she was right and he was wrong--it would be much better to wait just a week or two till after the shearing and the hay-making--but for the first time joanna saw that even right could surrender. even though she was right, she could give way to him, bend her will to his. after all, nothing really mattered except his love, his good favour--better that she should muddle her shearing and her crops than the first significant weeks of their married life. he should put his dear foot upon her neck--for the last of her pride was gone in that discovery of the dripping day, the discovery that her plans, her ambitions, her life, herself, had their worth only in the knowledge that they belonged to him. it was on thursday afternoon that joanna finally beat ansdore out of her love. she cried a little, for she wished that it had happened earlier, before martin went away. still, it was his going that had shown her at last clearly where she belonged. she thought of writing and telling him of her surrender, but like most of her kind she shrank from writing letters except when direly necessary; and she would see martin to-morrow--he had promised to come to ansdore straight from the station. so instead of writing her letter, she went and washed the tears off her face over the sink and sat down to a cup of tea and a piece of bread and dripping with mrs. tolhurst and milly pump. when ellen was at home joanna was lofty and exclusive, and had her meals in the dining-room--she did not think it right that her little sister, with all her new accomplishments and elegancies, should lead the common, kitchen life--also, of course, when martin came they sat down in state, with pink wine-glasses beside their tumblers. but when she was alone she much preferred a friendly meal with milly and mrs. tolhurst--she even joined them in pouring her tea into her saucer, and sat with it cooling on her spread fingers, her elbow on the cloth. she unbent from mistress to fellow-worker, and they talked the scandal of a dozen farms. "it's as i said, at yokes court," said mrs. tolhurst--"there's no good young mus' southland saying as the girl's mother sent for her--_i_ know better." "i saw mrs. lambarde after church on sunday," said joanna, "and she wasn't expecting elsie then." "elsie went before her box did," said milly pump, "bill piper fetched it along after her, as he told me himself." "i'm sure it's tom southland," said joanna. "surelye," said mrs. tolhurst, "and all the more as he's been saying at the woolpack that the old squire's been hanging around after the girl--which reminds me, miss joanna, as i hear mus' martin's back this afternoon." "this afternoon! he said to-morrow morning." "well, he's come this afternoon. broadhurst met him driving from rye station." "then he's sure to be over to-night. you get the wine-glasses out, mrs. tolhurst, and spread in the dining-room." she rose up from table, once more apart from her servants. her brain was humming with surprised joy--martin was back, she would soon see him, he would be sure to come to her. and then she would tell him of her surrender, and the cloud would be gone from their love. with beating heart she ran upstairs to change her dress and tidy herself, for he might come at any moment. there was a red-brown velvet dress he particularly liked--she pulled it out of her drawer and smoothed its folds. her drawers were crammed and heavy with the garments she was to wear as martin's wife; there were silk blouses bought at smart shops in folkestone and marlingate; there was a pair of buckled shoes--size eight; there were piles of neat longcloth and calico underclothing, demure nightdresses buttoning to the chin, stiff petticoats, and what she called "petticoat bodies," fastening down the front with linen buttons, and with tiny, shy frills of embroidery at the neck and armholes. she put on the brown dress, and piled up her hair against the big comb. she looked at herself in the glass by the light of the candles she had put to light up the rainy evening. her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright, and her hair and her dress were the same soft, burning colour.... when would martin come? then suddenly she thought of something even better than his coming. she thought of herself going over to north farthing house and telling him that she had changed her mind and that she was his just as soon as ever he wanted her.... her breath came fast at the inspiration--it would be better than waiting for him here; it gave to her surrender the spectacular touch which hitherto it had lacked and her nature demanded. the rain was coming down the wind almost as fiercely and as fast as it had come on tuesday night, but joanna the marsh-born had never cared for weather. she merely laced on her heavy boots and bundled into her father's overcoat. then she put out a hand for an old hat, and suddenly she remembered the hat martin had said he liked her in above all others. it was an old rush basket, soft and shapeless with age, and she tied it over her head with her father's red and white spotted handkerchief. she was now ready, and all she had to do was to run down and tell mrs. tolhurst that if mr. martin called while she was out he was to be asked to wait. she was not really afraid of missing him, for there were few short cuts on the marsh, where the long way round of the road was often the only way--but she hoped she would reach north farthing before he left it; she did not want anything to be taken from her surrender, it must be absolute and complete ... the fires of her own sacrifice were kindled and were burning her heart. § she did not meet martin on the brodnyx road; only the wind was with her, and the rain. she turned aside to north farthing between the woolpack and the village, and still she did not meet him--and now she really thought that she would arrive in time. on either side of the track she followed, martin's sheep were grazing--that was his land, those were his dykes and willows, ahead of her were the lighted windows of his house. she wondered what he would say when he saw her. would he be much surprised? she had come to north farthing once or twice before, but not very often. if he was not surprised to see her, he would be surprised when she told him why she had come. she pictured how he would receive her news--with his arms round her, with his kisses on her mouth. her arrival was a check--the formalities of her betrothed's house never failed to upset her. to begin with she had to face that impertinent upstart of a nell raddish, all tricked out in a black dress and white apron and cap and collar and cuffs, and she only a cowman's daughter with a face like a plum, and no sense or notions at all till she came to farthing, since when, as everyone knew, her skirts had grown shorter and her nose whiter and her hair frizzier and her ways more knowing. "good evening, nell," said joanna, covering her embarrassment with patronage, "is mr. martin at home?" "yes, he is," said nell, "he came back this afternoon." "i know that, of course. i want to see him, please." "i'm not sure if he's gone up to bed. come in, and i'll go and look." "up to bed!" "yes, he's feeling poorly. that's why he came home." "poorly, what's the matter?" joanna pushed past nell into the house. "i dunno, a cold or cough. he told me to bring him some tea and put a hot brick in his bed. sir harry ain't in yet." joanna marched up the hall to the door of martin's study. she stopped and listened for a moment, but could hear nothing, except the beating of her own heart. then, without knocking, she went in. the room was ruddy and dim with firelight, and at first she thought it was empty, but the next minute she saw martin huddled in an armchair, a tea-tray on a low stool beside him. "martin!" he started up out of a kind of sleep, and blinked at her. "jo! is that you?" "yes. i've come over to tell you i'll marry you whenever you want. martin dear, what's the matter? are you ill?" "it's nothing much--i've caught cold, and thought i'd better come home. colds always make me feel wretched." she could see that he was anxious about himself, and in her pity she forgave him for having ignored her surrender. she knelt down beside him and took both his restless hands. "have you had your tea, dear?" "no. i asked her to bring it, and then i sort of fell asleep ..." "i'll give it to you." she poured out his tea, giving him a hot black cup, with plenty of sugar, as they liked it on the marsh. he drank it eagerly, and felt better. "jo, how good of you to come over and see me. who told you i was back?" "i heard it from milly pump, and she heard it from broadhurst." "i meant to send a message round to you. i hope i'll be all right to-morrow." "reckon you will, dear.... martin, you heard what i said--about marrying you when you want?" "do you mean it?" "of course i mean it--i came over a-purpose to tell you. while you was away i did some thinking, and i found that ansdore doesn't matter to me what it used. it's only you that matters now." she was crouching at his feet, and he stooped over her, taking her in his arms, drawing her back between his knees. "you noble, beloved thing ..." the burning touch of his lips and face reminded her that he was ill, so the consecration of her sacrifice lost a little of its joy. "you're feverish--you should ought to go to bed." "i'm going--when i've had another cup of tea. will you give me another, child?" "i've a mind to go home through brodnyx and ask dr. taylor to call round." "oh, i don't think i'm bad enough for a doctor--i catch cold easily, and i was wet through the other night." "was it that!" her voice shook with consternation. "i expect so--but don't fret, darling jo. it's nothing. i'll be quite right to-morrow--i feel better already." "i think you should ought to see a doctor, though. i'll call in on my way back. i'll can in on mr. pratt, too, and tell him to start crying us next sunday." "that's my business--i'll go to-morrow. but are you sure, darling, you can make such a sacrifice? i'm afraid i've been a selfish beast, and i'm spoiling your plans." "oh no, you ain't. i feel now as if i wanted to get married more'n anything wotsumever. the shearing ull do proper--the men know their job--and broadhurst ull see to the hay. they dursn't muck things up, knowing as i'll be home to see to it by july." "to say nothing of me," said martin, pinching her ear. "to say nothing of you." "joanna, you've got on the old hat ..." "i put it on special." "bless you." he pulled her down to the arm of his chair, and for a moment they huddled together, cheek on cheek. the opening of the door made joanna spring virtuously upright. it was sir harry. "hullo, joanna!--you here. hullo, martin! the lovely raddish says you've come home middling queer. i hope that doesn't mean anything serious." "i've got some sort of a chill, and i feel a beast. so i thought i'd better come home." "i've given him his tea," said joanna, "and now he should ought to go to bed." sir harry looked at her. she struck him as an odd figure, in her velvet gown and basket hat, thick boots and man's overcoat. the more he saw of her, the less could he think what to make of her as a daughter-in-law; but to-night he was thankful for her capable managing--mentally and physically he was always clumsy with martin in illness. he found it hard to adapt himself to the occasional weakness of this being who dominated him in other ways. "do you think he's feverish?" joanna felt martin's hands again. "i guess he is. maybe he wants a dose--or a cup of herb tea does good, they say. but i'll ask doctor to come around. martin, i'm going now this drackly minute, and i'll call in at dr. taylor's and at mr. pratt's." "wait till to-morrow, and i'll see pratt," said martin, unable to rid himself of the idea that a bride should find such an errand embarrassing. "i'd sooner go myself to-night. anyways you mustn't go traipsing around, even if you feel better to-morrow. i'll settle everything, so don't you fret." she took his face between her hands, and kissed him as if he were a child. "good night, my duck. you get off to bed and keep warm." § she worked off her fears in action. having given notice of the banns to mr. pratt, sent off dr. taylor to north farthing, put up a special petition for martin in her evening prayers, she went to bed and slept soundly. she was not an anxious soul, and a man's illness never struck her as particularly alarming. men were hard creatures--whose weaknesses were of mind and character rather than of body--and though martin was softer than some, she could not quite discount his broad back and shoulders, his strong, swinging arms. she drove over to north farthing soon after breakfast, expecting to find him, in spite of her injunctions, about and waiting for her. "the day's warm and maybe he won't hurt if he drives on with me to honeychild"--the thought of him there beside her was so strong that she could almost feel his hand lying pressed between her arm and her heart. but when she came to the house she found only sir harry, prowling in the hall. "i'm glad you've come, joanna. i'm anxious about martin." "what's the matter? what did the doctor say?" "he said there's congestion of the lung or something. martin took a fit of the shivers after you'd gone, and of course it made him worse when the doctor said the magic word 'lung.' he's always been hipped about himself, you know." "i'd better go and see him." she hitched the reins, and climbed down out of the trap--stumbling awkwardly as she alighted, for she had begun to tremble. "you don't think he's very bad, do you?" "can't say. i wish taylor ud come. he said he'd be here again this morning." his voice was sharp and complaining, for anything painful always made him exasperated. martin lying ill in bed, martin shivering and in pain and in a funk was so unlike the rather superior being whom he liked to pretend bullied him, that he felt upset and rather shocked. he gave a sigh of relief as joanna ran upstairs--he told himself that she was a good practical sort of woman, and handsome when she was properly dressed. she had never been upstairs in north farthing house before, but she found martin's room after only one false entry--which surprised the guilty raddish sitting at sir harry's dressing-table and smarming his hair-cream on her ignoble head. the blinds in martin's room were down, and he was half-sitting, half-lying in bed, with his head turned away from her. "that you, father?--has taylor come?" "no, it's me, dearie. i've come to see what i can do for you." the sight of him huddled there in the pillows, restless, comfortless, neglected, wrung her heart. hitherto her love for martin had been singularly devoid of intimacy. they had kissed each other, they had eaten dinner and tea and supper together, they had explored the three marshes in each other's company, but she had scarcely ever been to his house, never seen him asleep, and in normal circumstances would have perished rather than gone into his bedroom. to-day when she saw him there, lying on his wide, tumbled bed, among his littered belongings--his clothes strewn untidily on the floor, his books on their shelves, his pictures that struck her rigidity as indecent, his photographs of people who had touched his life, some perhaps closely, but were unknown to her, she had a queer sense of the revelation of poor, pathetic secrets. this, then, was martin when he was away from her--untidy, sensual, forlorn, as all men were ... she bent down and kissed him. "lovely jo," ... he yielded childish, burning lips, then drew away--"no, you mustn't kiss me--it might be bad for you." "gammon, dear. 'tis only a chill." she saw that he was in a bate about himself, so after her tender beginnings, she became rough. she made him sit up while she shook his pillows, then she made him lie flat and tucked the sheet round him strenuously; she scolded him for leaving his clothes lying about on the floor. she felt as if her love for him was only just beginning--the last four months seemed cold and formal compared with these moments of warm, personal service. she brought him water for his hands, and scrubbed his face with a sponge to his intense discomfort. she was bawling downstairs to the unlucky raddish to put the kettle on for some herb tea--since an intimate cross-examination revealed that he had not had the recommended dose--when the doctor arrived and came upstairs with sir harry. he undid a good deal of joanna's good work--he ordered the blind to be let down again, and he refused to back her up in her injunctions to the patient to lie flat--on the contrary he sent for more pillows, and martin had to confess to feeling easier when he was propped up against them with a rug round his shoulders. he then announced that he would send for a nurse from rye. "oh, but i can manage," cried joanna--"let me nurse him. i can come and stop here, and nurse him day and night." "i am sure there is no one whom he'd rather have than you, miss godden," said dr. taylor gallantly, "but of course you are not professional, and pneumonia wants thoroughly experienced nursing--the nurse counts more than the doctor in a case like this." "pneumonia! is that what's the matter with him?" they had left martin's room, and the three of them were standing in the hall. "i'm afraid that's it--only in the right lung so far." "but you can stop it--you won't let him get worse. pneumonia!..." the word was full of a sinister horror to her, suggesting suffocation--agony. and martin's chest had always been weak--the weak part of his strong body. she should have thought of that ... thought of it three nights ago when, all through her, he had been soaked with the wind-driven rain ... just like a drowned rat he had looked when they came to ansdore, his cap dripping, the water running down his neck.... no, no, it could not be that--he couldn't have caught pneumonia just through getting wet that time--she had got wet a dunnamany times and not been tuppence the worse ... his lungs were not weak in that way--it was the london fogs that had disagreed with them, the doctor had said so, and had sent him away from town, to the marsh and the rain.... he had been in london for the last two days, and the fog had got into his poor chest again,--that was all, and now that he was home on the marsh he would soon be well--of course he would soon be well--she was a fool to fret. and now she would go upstairs and sit with him till the nurse came; it was her last chance of doing those little tender, rough, intimate things for him ... till they were married--oh, she wouldn't let him fling his clothes about like that when they were married! meantime she would go up, and see that he swallowed every drop of the herb tea--that was the stuff to give anyone who was ill on the marsh, no matter what the doctor said ... rheumatism, bronchitis, colic, it cured them all. § martin was very ill. the herb tea did not cure him, nor did the stuff the doctor gave him. nor did the starched crackling nurse, who turned joanna out of the room and exasperatingly spoke of martin as "my patient." joanna had lunch with sir harry, who in the stress of anxiety was turning into something very like a father, and afterwards drove off in her trap to rye, having forgotten all about the honeychild errand. she went to the fruiterers, and ordered grapes and peaches. "but you won't get them anywhere now, miss godden. it's just between seasons--in another month ..." "i must have 'em now," said joanna truculently, "i don't care what i pay." it ended in the telephone at the post office being put into hysteric action, and a london shop admonished to send down peaches and grapes to rye station by passenger train that afternoon. the knowledge of martin's illness was all over walland marsh by the evening. all the marsh knew about the doctor and the nurse and the peaches and grapes from london. the next morning they knew that he was worse, and that his brother had been sent for--father lawrence arrived on saturday night, driving in the carrier's cart from rye station. on sunday morning people met on their way to church, and shook their heads as they told each other the latest news from north farthing--double pneumonia, an abscess on the lung.... nell raddish said his face was blue ... the old squire was quite upset ... the nurse was like a heathen, raging at the cook.... joanna godden?--she sat all day in mr. martin's study, waiting to be sent for upstairs, but she'd only seen him once.... then, when tongues at last were quiet in church, just before the second lesson, mr. pratt read out-- "i publish the banns of marriage between martin arbuthnot trevor, bachelor, of this parish, and joanna mary godden, spinster, of the parish of pedlinge. this is for the first time of asking. if any of you know any just cause or impediment why these persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it." § martin died early on monday morning. joanna was with him at the last, and to the last she did not believe that he would die--because he had given up worrying about himself, so she was sure he must feel better. three hours before he died he held both her hands and looked at her once more like a man out of his eyes ... "lovely jo," he said. she had lain down in most of her clothes as usual, in the little spare room, and between two and three o'clock in the morning the nurse had roused her. "you're wanted ... but i'm not sure if he'll know you." he didn't. he knew none of them--his mind seemed to have gone away and left his body to fight its last fight alone. "he doesn't feel anything," they said to her, when martin gasped and struggled--"but don't stay if you'd rather not." "i'd rather stay," said joanna, "he may know me. martin ..." she called to him. "martin--i'm here--i'm jo--" but it was like calling to someone who is already far away down a long road. there was a faint sweet smell of oil in the room--father lawrence had administered the last rites of holy church. his romance and martin's had met at his brother's death-bed ... "go forth, christian soul, from this world, in the name of god--in the name of the angels and archangels--in the name of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and of all the saints of god; let thine habitation to-day be in peace and thine abode in holy sion" ... "martin, it's only me, it's only jo" ... thus the two voices mingled, and he heard neither. the cold morning lit up the window square, and the window rattled with the breeze of rye bay. joanna felt someone take her hand and lead her towards the door. "he's all right now," said lawrence's voice--"it's over ..." somebody was giving her a glass of wine--she was sitting in the dining-room, staring unmoved at nell raddish's guilt revealed in a breakfast-table laid over night. lawrence and sir harry were both with her, being kind to her, forgetting their own grief in trying to comfort her. but joanna only wanted to go home. suddenly she felt lonely and scared in this fine house, with its thick carpets and mahogany and silver--now that martin was not here to befriend her in it. she did not belong--she was an outsider, she wanted to go away. she asked for the trap, and they tried to persuade her to stay and have some breakfast, but she repeated doggedly, "i want to go." lawrence went and fetched the trap round, for the men were not about yet. the morning had not really come--only the cold twilight, empty and howling with wind, with a great drifting sky of fading stars. lawrence went with her to the door, and kissed her--"good-bye, dear jo. father or i will come and see you soon." she was surprised at the kiss, for he had never kissed her before, though the squire had taken full advantage of their relationship--she had supposed it wasn't right for jesoots. she did not know what she said to him--probably nothing. there was a terrible silence in her heart. she heard smiler's hoofs upon the road--clop, clop, clop. but they did not break the silence within ... oh, martin, martin, put your hand under my arm, against my heart--maybe that'll stop it aching. thoughts of martin crowding upon her, filling her empty heart with memories.... martin sitting on the tombstone outside brodnyx church on christmas day, martin holding her in his arms on the threshold of ansdore ... martin kissing her in new romney church, bending her back against the pillar stained with the old floods ... that drive through broomhill--how he had teased her!--"we'll come here for our honeymoon" ... dunge ness, the moaning sea, the wind, her fear, his arms ... the warm kitchen of the britannia, with the light of the wreckwood fire, the teacups on the table, "we shall want to see our children".... no, no, you mustn't say that--not _now_, not _now_.... remember instead how we quarrelled, how he tried to get between me and ansdore, so that i forgot ansdore, and gave it up for his sake; but it's all i've got now. i gave up ansdore to martin, and now i've lost martin and got ansdore. i've got three hundred acres and four hundred sheep and three hundred pounds at interest in lewes old bank. but i've lost martin. i've done valiant for ansdore, better'n ever i hoped--poor father ud be proud of me. but my heart's broken. i don't like remembering--it hurts--i must forget. colour had come into the dawn. the marsh was slowly turning from a strange papery grey to green. the sky changed from white to blue, and suddenly became smeared with ruddy clouds. at once the watercourses lit up, streaking across the green in fiery slats--the shaking boughs of the willows became full of fire, and at the turn of the road the windows of ansdore shone as if it were burning. there it stood at the road's bend. its roofs a fiery yellow with the swarming sea-lichen, its solid walls flushed faintly pink in the sunrise, its windows squares of amber and flame. it was as a house lit up and welcoming. it seemed to shout to joanna as she came to it clop, clop along the road. "come back--come home to me--i'm glad to see you again. you forgot me for five days, but you won't forget me any more--for i'm all that you've got now." _part iii_ the little sister § for many months ansdore was a piece of wreckage to which a drowning woman clung. joanna's ship had foundered--the high-castled, seaworthy ship of her life--and she drifted through the dark seas, clinging only to this which had once been so splendid in the midst of her decks, but was now mere wreckage, the least thing saved. if she let go she would drown. so she trailed after ansdore, and at last it brought her a kind of anchorage, not in her native land, but at least in no unkind country of adoption. during the last weeks of martin's wooing, she had withdrawn herself a little from the business of the farm into a kind of overlordship, from which she was far more free to detach herself than from personal service. now she went back to work with her hands--she did not want free hours, either for his company or for her own dreams; she rose early, because she waked early and must rise when she waked, and she went round waking the girls, hustling the men, putting her own hand to the milking or the cooking, more sharp-tongued than ever, less tolerant, but more terribly alive, with a kind of burning, consuming life that vexed all those about her. "she spicks short wud me," said old stuppeny, "and i've töald her as she mun look around fur a new head man. this time i'm going." "she's a scold," said broadhurst, "and reckon the young chap säaved himself a tedious life by dying." "reckon her heart's broke," said mrs. tolhurst. "her temper's broke," said milly pump. they were unsympathetic, because she expressed her grief in terms of fierce activity instead of in the lackadaisical ways of tradition. if joanna had taken to her bed on her return from north farthing house that early time, and had sent for the doctor, and shown all the credited symptoms of a broken heart, they would have pitied her and served her and borne with her. but, instead, she had come back hustling and scolding, and they could not see that she did so because not merely her heart but her whole self was broken, and that she was just flying and rattling about like a broken thing. so instead of pitying her, they grumbled and threatened to leave her service--in fact, milly pump actually did so, and was succeeded by mene tekel fagge, the daughter of bibliolatious parents at northlade. ansdore throve on its mistress's frenzy. that autumn joanna had four hundred pounds in lewes old bank, the result of her splendid markets and of her new ploughs, which had borne eight bushels to the acre. she had triumphed gloriously over everyone who had foretold her ruin through breaking up pasture; strong-minded farmers could scarcely bear to drive along that lap of the brodnyx road which ran through joanna's wheat, springing slim and strong and heavy-eared as from lothian soil--if there had been another way from brodnyx to rye market they would have taken it; indeed it was rumoured that on one occasion vine had gone by train from appledore because he couldn't abear the sight of joanna godden's ploughs. this rumour, when it reached her, brought her a faint thrill. it was the beginning of a slow process of reidentification of herself with her own activities, which till then had been as some furious raging outside the house. she began to picture new acts of discomfiting adventure, new roads which should be shut to vine through envy. ansdore was all she had, so she must make it much. when she had given it and herself to martin she had had all the marsh and all the world to plant with her love; but since he was gone and had left her gifts behind him, she had just a few acres to plant with wheat--and her harvest should be bread alone. § her black months had changed her--not outwardly very much, but leaving wounds in her heart. martin had woken in her too many needs for her to be able to go back quietly into the old life of unfulfilled content. he had shown her a vision of herself as complete woman, mother and wife, of a joanna godden bigger than ansdore. she could no longer be the joanna godden whose highest ambition was to be admitted member of the farmers' club. he had also woken in her certain simple cravings--for a man's strong arm round her and his shoulder under her cheek. she had now to make the humiliating discovery that the husk of such a need can remain after the creating spirit had left it. in the course of the next year she had one or two small, rather undignified flirtations with neighbouring farmers--there was young gain over at botolph's bridge, and ernest noakes of belgar. they did not last long, and she finally abandoned both in disgust, but a side of her, always active unconsciously, was now disturbingly awake, requiring more concrete satisfactions than the veiled, self-deceiving episode of socknersh. she was ashamed of this. and it made her withdraw from comforts she might have had. she never went to north farthing house, where she could have talked about martin with the one person who--as it happened--would have understood her treacheries. lawrence came to see her once at the end of september, but she was gruff and silent. she recoiled from his efforts to break the barriers between life and death; he wanted her to give martin her thoughts and her prayers just as if he were alive. but she "didn't hold with praying for the dead"--the lion and the unicorn would certainly disapprove of such an act; and martin was now robed in white, with a crown on his head and a harp in his hand and a new song in his mouth--he had no need of the prayers of joanna godden's unfaithful lips. as for her thoughts, by the same token she could not think of him as he was now; that radiant being in glistening white was beyond the soft approaches of imagination--robed and crowned, he could scarcely be expected to remember himself in a tweed suit and muddy boots kissing a flushed and hot joanna on the lonely innings by beggar's bush. no, martin was gone--gone beyond thought and prayer--gone to sing hymns for ever and ever--he who could never abide them on earth--gone to forget joanna in the company of angels--pictured uncomfortably by her as females, who would be sure to tell him that she had let thomas gain kiss her in the barn over at botolph's bridge.... she could not think of him as he was now, remote and white, and she could bear still less to think of him as he had been once, warm and loving, with his caressing hands and untidy hair, with his flushed cheek pressed against hers, and the good smell of his clothes--with his living mouth closing slowly down on hers ... no, earth was even sharper than heaven. all she had of him in which her memory and her love could find rest were those few common things they keep to remember their dead by on the marsh--a memorial card, thickly edged with black, which she had had printed at her own expense, since apparently such things were no part of the mourning of north farthing house; his photograph in a black frame; his grave in brodnyx churchyard, in the shadow of the black, three-hooded tower, and not very far from the altar-tomb on which he had sat and waited for her that christmas morning. § in the fall of the next year, she found that once again she had something to engross her outside ansdore. ellen was to leave school that christmas. the little sister was now seventeen, and endowed with all the grace; and learning that forty pounds a term can buy. during the last year she and joanna had seen comparatively little of each other. she had received one or two invitations from her school friends to spend her holidays with them--a fine testimonial, thought joanna, to her manners and accomplishments--and her sister had been only too glad that she should go, that she should be put out of the shadow of a grief which had grown too black even for her sentimental schoolgirl sympathy, so gushing and caressing, in the first weeks of her poor joanna's mourning. but things were different now--martin's memory was laid. she told herself that it was because she was too busy that she had not gone as usual to the harvest festival at new romney, to sing hymns beside the pillar marked with the old floods. she was beginning to forget. she could think and she could love. she longed to have ellen back again, to love and spoil and chasten. she was glad that she was leaving school, and would make no fugitive visit to ansdore. immediately her mind leapt to preparations--her sister was too big to sleep any more in the little bed at the foot of her own, she must have a new bed ... and suddenly joanna thought of a new room, a project which would mop up all her overflowing energies for the next month. it should be a surprise for ellen. she sent for painters and paper-hangers, and chose a wonderful new wall-paper of climbing chrysanthemums, rose and blue in colour, and tied with large bows of gold ribbon--real, shining gold. the paint she chose was a delicate fawn, picked out with rose and blue. she bought yards of flowered cretonne for the bed and window curtains, and had the mahogany furniture moved in from the spare bedroom. the carpet she bought brand new--it was a sea of stormy crimson, with fawn-coloured islands rioted over with roses and blue tulips. joanna had never enjoyed herself so much since she lost martin, as she did now, choosing all the rich colours, and splendid solid furniture. the room cost her nearly forty pounds, for she had to buy new furniture for the spare bedroom, having given ellen the mahogany. as a final touch she hung the walls with pictures. there was a large photograph of ventnor church, isle of wight, and another of furness abbey in an oxford frame; there was "don't touch" and "mother's boy" from "pears' christmas annual," and two texts, properly expounded with robins. to crown all, there was her father's certificate of enrolment in the ancient order of buffaloes, sacrificed from her own room, and hung proudly in the place of honour over ellen's bed. § her sister came at thomas-tide, and joanna drove in to meet her at rye. brodnyx had now a station of its own on the new light railway from appledore to lydd, but joanna was still faithful to rye. she loved the spanking miles, the hard white lick of road that flew under her wheels as she drove through pedlinge, and then, swinging round the throws, flung out on the straight mile. she trotted under the land gate, feeling pleasantly that all the town was watching her from shop and street. her old love of swagger had come back, with perhaps a slight touch of defiance. at the station she had to wake old stuppeny out of his slumber on the back seat, and put him in his proper place at smiler's head, while she went on the platform. the train was just due, and she had not passed many remarks with the ticket-collector--a comely young fellow whom she liked for his build and the sauciness of his tongue--before it arrived. as it steamed in, her heart began to beat anxiously--she bit her lip, and actually looked nervous. ellen was the only person in the world who could make her feel shy and ill at ease, and ellen had only lately acquired this power; but there had been a constraint about their meetings for the last year. during the last year ellen had become terribly good-mannered and grown up, and somehow that first glimpse of the elegant maiden whom her toil and sacrifice had built out of little ellen godden of ansdore, never failed to give joanna a queer sense of awkwardness and inferiority. to-day ellen was more impressive, more "different" than ever. she had been allowed to buy new clothes before leaving folkestone, and her long blue coat and neat little hat made joanna, for the first time in her life, feel tawdry and savage in her fur and feathers. her sister stepped down from her third-class carriage as a queen from her throne, beckoned to rye's one porter, and without a word pointed back into the compartment, from which he removed a handbag; whereat she graciously gave him twopence and proceeded to greet joanna. "dear jo," she murmured, filling her embrace with a soft perfume of hair, which somehow stifled the "hello, duckie" on the other's tongue. joanna found herself turning to rye's one porter with inquiries after his wife and little boy, doing her best to take the chill off the proceedings. she wished that ellen wouldn't give herself these airs. it is true that they always wore off as ansdore reasserted itself in old clothes and squabbles, but joanna resented her first impressions. however, her sister thawed a little on the drive home--she was curious about the affairs of brodnyx and pedlinge, for her time in two worlds was at an end, and ansdore was henceforth to give her its horizons. "will there be any parties at christmas?" she asked. "sure to be," said joanna, "i'll be giving one myself, and mrs. vine was telling me only yesterday as she's a mind to have some neighbours in for whist." "won't there be any dancing?" "oh, it's that what you're after, is it?" said joanna proudly. "mabel and pauline are going to heaps of dances this christmas--and myra west is coming out. mayn't i come out, joanna?" "come out o' what, dearie?" "oh, you know--put up my hair and go to balls." "you can put your hair up any day you please--i put mine up at fifteen, and you're turned seventeen now. as for balls ..." she broke off, a little at a loss as to how she was to supply this deficiency. it would scarcely be possible for her to break into the enclosures of dungemarsh court--especially since she had allowed herself to drop away from north farthing house ... she had been a fool to do that--sir harry might have helped her now. but then ... her lips tightened.... anyhow, he would not be at home for christmas--since martin's death he had sub-let the farm and was a good deal away; people said he had "come into" some money, left him by a former mistress, who had died more grateful than he deserved. "i'll do the best i can for you, duck," said joanna, "you shall have your bit of dancing--and anyways i've got a fine, big surprise for you when we're home." "what sort of a surprise?" "that's telling." ellen, in spite of her dignity, was child enough to be intensely excited at the idea of a secret, and the rest of the drive was spent in baffled question and provoking answer. "i believe it's something for me to wear," she said finally, as they climbed out of the trap at the front door--"a ring, joanna.... i've always wanted a ring." "it's better than a ring," said joanna, "leastways it's bigger," and she laughed to herself. she led the way upstairs, while mrs. tolhurst and old stuppeny waltzed recriminatingly with ellen's box. "where are you taking me?" asked her sister, pausing with her hand on the door-knob of joanna's bedroom. "never you mind--come on." would mene tekel, she wondered, have remembered to set the lamps, so that the room should not depend on the faint gutter of sunset to display its glories? she opened the door, and was reassured--a fury of light and colour leapt out--rose, blue, green, buff, and the port-wine red of mahogany. the pink curtains were drawn, but there was no fire in the grate--for fires in bedrooms were unknown at ansdore; however, a christmas-like effect was given by sprigs of holly stuck in the picture-frames, and a string of paper flowers hung from the bed-tester to the top of the big woolly bell-rope by the mantelpiece. joanna heard her sister gasp. "it's yours, ellen--your new room. i've given it to you--all to yourself. there's the spare mahogany furniture, and the best pictures, and poor father's buffalo certificate." the triumph of her own achievement melted away the last of her uneasiness--she seized ellen in her arms and kissed her, knocking her hat over one ear. "see, you've got new curtains--eighteenpence a yard ... and that's mother's text--'inasmuch....' and i've bought a new soap-dish at godfrey's--it doesn't quite go with the basin, but they've both got roses on 'em ... and you won't mind there being a few of my gowns in the wardrobe--only the skirts--i've got room for the bodies in my drawers ... that's the basket armchair out of the dining-room, with a new cover that mene tekel fixed for it ... the clock's out of the spare room--it don't go, but it looks fine on the mantelpiece.... say, duckie, are you pleased?--are you pleased with your old jo?" "oh, joanna ... thank you," said ellen. "well, i'll have to be leaving you now--that gal's got a rabbit pie in the oven for our tea, and i must go and have a look at her crust. you unpack and clean yourself--and be careful not to spoil anything." § supper that night was rather a quiet meal. something about ellen drove joanna back into her old sense of estrangement. her sister made her think of a lily on a thundery day. she wore a clinging dress of dull green stuff, which sheathed her delicate figure like a lily bract--her throat rose out of it like a lily stalk, and her face, with its small features and soft skin, was the face of a white flower. about her clung a dim atmosphere of the languid and exotic, like the lily's scent which is so unlike the lily. "ellen," broke out joanna, with a glance down at her own high, tight bosom, "don't you ever wear stays?" "no. miss collins and the gym mistress both say it's unhealthy." "unhealthy! and don't they never wear none themselves?" "never. they look much better without--besides, small waists are going out of fashion." "but ... ellen ... it ain't seemly--to show the natural shape of your body as you're doing." "i've been told my figure's a very good one." "and whoever dared make such a remark to you?" "it was a compliment." "i don't call it any compliment to say such things to a young girl. besides, what right have you to go showing what you was meant to hide?" "i'm not showing anything i was meant to hide. my figure isn't nearly so pronounced as yours--if i had your figure, i couldn't wear this sort of frock." "my figure is as god made it"--which it certainly was not--"and i was brought up to be the shape of a woman, in proper stays, and not the shape of a heathen statue. i'd be ashamed for any of the folk around here to see you like that--and if arthur alce, or any other man, came in, i'd either have to send you out or wrap the table-cover round you." ellen took refuge in a haughty silence, and joanna began to feel uneasy and depressed. she thought that ellen was "fast." was this what she had learned at school--to flout the standards of her home? § the next morning joanna overslept herself, in consequence of a restless hour during the first part of the night. as a result, it had struck half past seven before she went into her sister's room. she was not the kind of person who knocks at doors, and burst in to find ellen, inadequately clothed in funny little garments, doing something very busily inside the cupboard. "hullo, duckie! and how did you sleep in your lovely bed?" she was once more aglow with the vitality and triumph of her own being, but the next moment she experienced a vague sense of chill--something was the matter with the room, something had happened to it. it had lost its sense of cheerful riot, and wore a chastened, hangdog air. in a spasm of consternation joanna realized that ellen had been tampering with it. "what have you done?--where's my pictures?--where've you put the window curtains?" she cried at last. ellen stiffened herself and tried not to look guilty. "i'm just trying to find room for my own things." joanna stared about her. "where's father's buffalo certificate?" "i've put it in the cupboard." "in the cupboard!--father's ... and i'm blessed if you haven't taken down the curtains." "they clash with the carpet--it quite hurts me to look at them. really, joanna, if this is my room, you oughtn't to mind what i do in it." "your room, indeed!--you've got some sass!--and i spending more'n forty pound fixing it up for you. i've given you new wall paper and new carpet and new curtains and all the best pictures, and took an unaccountable lot of trouble, and now you go and mess it up." "i haven't messed it up. on the contrary"--ellen's vexation was breaking through her sense of guilt--"i'm doing the best i can to make it look decent. since you say you've done it specially for me and spent all that money on it, i think at least you might have consulted my taste a little." "and what is your taste, ma'am?" "a bit quieter than yours," said ellen saucily. "there are about six different shades of red and pink in this room." "and what shades would you have chosen, may i be so bold as to ask?" joanna's voice dragged ominously with patience--"the same shade as your last night's gownd, which is the colour of the mould on jam? i'll have the colours i like in my own house--i'm sick of your dentical, die-away notions. you come home from school thinking you know everything, when all you've learned is to despise my best pictures, and say my curtains clash with the carpet, when i chose 'em for a nice match. i tell you what, ma'am, you can just about put them curtains back, and them pictures, and that certificate of poor father's that you're so ashamed of." "i want to put my own pictures up," said ellen doggedly--"if i've got to live with your carpet and wallpaper, i don't see why i shouldn't have my own pictures." joanna swept her eye contemptuously over "the vigil," "sir galahad," "the blessed damozel," and one or two other schoolgirl favourites that were lying on the bed. "you can stick those up as well--there ain't such a lot." "but can't you see, joanna, that there are too many pictures on the wall already?--it's simply crowded with them. really, you're an obstinate old beast," and ellen began to cry. joanna fought back in herself certain symptoms of relenting. she could not bear to see ellen cry, but on the other hand she had "fixed up" this room for ellen--she had had it furnished and decorated for her--and now ellen must and should appreciate it. she should not be allowed to disguise and bowdlerize it to suit the unwelcome tastes she had acquired at school. the sight of her father's buffalo certificate, lying face downwards on the cupboard floor, gave strength to her flagging purpose. "you pick that up and hang it in its proper place." "i won't." "you will." "i won't! why should i have that hideous thing over my bed?" "because it was your father's, and you should ought to be proud of it." "it's some low drinking society he belonged to, and i'm not proud--i'm ashamed." joanna boxed her ears. "you don't deserve to be his daughter, ellen godden, speaking so. it's you that's bringing us all to shame--thank goodness you've left school, where you learned all that tedious, proud nonsense. you hang those pictures up again, and those curtains, and you'll keep this room just what i've made it for you." ellen was weeping bitterly now, but her sacrilege had hardened joanna's heart. she did not leave the room till the deposed dynasty of curtains and pictures was restored, with poor father's certificate once more in its place of honour. then she marched out. § the days till christmas were full of strain. joanna had won her victory, but she did not find it a satisfying one. ellen's position in the ansdore household was that of a sulky rebel--resentful, plaintive, a nurse of hard memories--too close to be ignored, too hostile to be trusted. the tyrant groaned under the heel of her victim. she was used to quarrels, but this was her first experience of a prolonged estrangement. it had been all very well to box ellen's ears as a child, and have her shins kicked in return, and then an hour or two later be nursing her on her lap to the tune of "there was an old woman," or "little boy blue".... but this dragged out antagonism wore down her spirits into a long sadness. it was the wrong start for that happy home she had planned, in which ellen, the little sister, was to absorb that overflowing love which had once been martin's, but which his memory could not hold in all its power. it seemed as if she would be forced to acknowledge ellen's education as another of her failures. she had sent her to school to be made a lady of, but the finished article was nearly as disappointing as the cross-bred lambs of socknersh's unlucky day. if ellen had wanted to lie abed of a morning, never to do a hand's turn of work, or had demanded a table napkin at all her meals, joanna would have humoured her and bragged about her. but, on the contrary, her sister had learned habits of early rising at school, and if left to herself would have been busy all day with piano or pencil or needle of the finer sort. also she found more fault with the beauties of ansdore's best parlour than the rigours of its kitchen; there lay the sting--her revolt was not against the toils and austerities of the farm's life but against its glories and comelinesses. she despised ansdore for its very splendours, just as she despised her sister's best clothes more than her old ones. by christmas day things had righted themselves a little. ellen was too young to sulk more than a day or two, and she began to forget her grievances in the excitement of the festival. there was the usual communal midday dinner, with arthur alce back in his old place at joanna's right hand. alce had behaved like a gentleman, and refused to take back the silver tea set, his premature wedding gift. then in the evening, joanna gave a party, at which young vines and southlands and furneses offered their sheepish admiration to her sister ellen. of course everyone was agreed that ellen godden gave herself lamentable airs, but she appealed to her neighbours' curiosity through her queer, exotic ways, and the young men found her undeniably beautiful--she had a thick, creamy skin, into which her childhood's roses sometimes came as a dim flush, and the younger generation of the three marshes was inclined to revolt from the standards of its fathers. so young stacey vine kissed her daringly under the mistletoe at the passage bend, and was rewarded with a gasp of sweet scent, which made him talk a lot at the woolpack. while tom southland, a man of few words, went home and closed with his father's offer of a partnership in his farm, which hitherto he had thought of setting aside in favour of an escape to australia. ellen was pleased at the time, but a night's thought made her scornful. "don't you know any really nice people?" she asked joanna. "why did you send me to school with gentlemen's daughters if you just meant me to mix with common people when i came out?" "you can mix with any gentlefolk you can find to mix with. i myself have been engaged to marry a gentleman's son, and his father would have come to my party if he hadn't been away for christmas." she felt angry and sore with ellen, but she was bound to admit that her grievance had a certain justification. after all, she had always meant her to be a lady, and now, she supposed, she was merely behaving like one. she cast about her for means of introducing her sister into the spheres she coveted ... if only sir harry trevor would come home!--but she gathered there was little prospect of that for some time. then she thought of mr. pratt, the rector.... it was the first time that she had ever considered him as a social asset--his poverty, his inefficiency and self-depreciation had quite outweighed his gentility in her ideas; he had existed only as the voice of the church on walland marsh, and the spasmodic respect she paid him was for his office alone. but now she began to remember that he was an educated man and a gentleman, who might supply the want in her sister's life without in any way encouraging those more undesirable "notions" she had picked up at school. accordingly, mr. pratt, hitherto neglected, was invited to ansdore with a frequency and enthusiasm that completely turned his head. he spoiled the whole scheme by misinterpreting its motive, and after about the ninth tea-party, became buoyed with insane and presumptuous hopes, and proposed to joanna. she was overwhelmed, and did not scruple to overwhelm him, with anger and consternation. it was not that she did not consider the rectory a fit match for ansdore, even with only two hundred a year attached to it, but she was furious that mr. pratt should think it possible that she could fancy him as a man--"a little rabbity chap like him, turned fifty, and scarce a hair on him. if he wants another wife at his age he should get an old maid like miss godfrey or a hopeful widder like mrs. woods--not a woman who's had real men to love her, and ud never look at anything but a real, stout feller." however, she confided the proposal to ellen, for she wanted her sister to know that she had had an offer from a clergyman, and also that she was still considered desirable--for once or twice ellen had thrown out troubling hints that she thought her sister middle-aged. of course she was turned thirty now, and hard weather and other hard things had made her inclined to look older, by reddening and lining her face. but she had splendid eyes, hair and teeth, and neither the grace nor the energy of youth had left her body, which had coarsened into something rather magnificent, tall and strong, plump without stoutness, clean-limbed without angularity. she could certainly now have had her pick among the unmarried farmers--which could not have been said when she first set up her mastership at ansdore. since those times men had learned to tolerate her swaggering ways, also her love affair with martin had made her more normal, more of a soft, accessible woman. arthur alce was no longer the only suitor at ansdore--it was well known that sam turner, who had lately moved from inland to northlade, was wanting to have her, and hugh vennal would have been glad to bring her as his second wife to beggar's bush. joanna was proud of these attachments and saw to it that they were not obscure--also, one or two of the men, particularly vennal, she liked for themselves, for their vitality and "set-upness"; but she shied away from the prospect of marriage. martin had shown her all that it meant in the way of renunciation, and she felt that she could make its sacrifices for no one less than martin. also, the frustration of her hopes and the inadequacy of her memories had produced in her a queer antipathy to marriage--a starting aside. her single state began to have for her a certain worth in itself, a respectable rigour like a pair of stays. for a year or so after martin's death, she had maintained her solace of secret kisses, but in time she had come to withdraw even from these, and by now the full force of her vitality was pouring itself into her life at ansdore, its ambitions and business, her love for ellen, and her own pride. § ellen secretly despised joanna's suitors, just as she secretly despised all joanna's best and most splendid things. they were a dull lot, driving her sister home on market-day, or sitting for hours in the parlour with arthur alce's mother's silver tea-set. it was always "good evening, miss godden," "good evening, mr. turner"--"fine weather for roots"--"a bit dry for the grazing." it was not thus that ellen godden understood love. besides, these men looked oafs, in spite of the fine build of some of them--they were not so bad in their working clothes, with their leggings and velveteen breeches, but in their sunday best, which they always wore on these occasions, they looked clumsy and ridiculous, their broad black coats in the cut of yester-year and smelling of camphor, their high-winged collars scraping and reddening their necks ... in their presence ellen was rather sidling and sweet, but away from them in the riotous privacy of her new bedroom, she laughed to herself and jeered. she had admirers of her own, but she soon grew tired of them--would have grown tired sooner if joanna had not clucked and shoo'd them away, thus giving them the glamour of the forbidden thing. joanna looked upon them all as detrimentals, presumptuously lifting up their eyes to ansdore's wealth and ellen's beauty. "when you fall in love, you can take a stout yeoman with a bit of money, if you can't find a real gentleman same as i did. howsumever, you're too young to go meddling with such things just yet. you be a good girl, ellen godden, and keep your back straight, and don't let the boys kiss you." ellen had no particular pleasure in letting the boys kiss her--she was a cold-blooded little thing--but, she asked herself, what else was there to do in a desert like walland marsh? the marsh mocked her every morning as she looked out of her window at the flat miles between ansdore and dunge ness. this was her home--this wilderness of straight dykes and crooked roads, every mile of which was a repetition of the mile before it. there was never any change in that landscape, except such as came from the sky--cloud-shadows shaking like swift wings across the swamp of buttercups and sunshine, mists lying in strange islands by the sewers, rain turning all things grey, and the wind as it were made visible in a queer flying look put on by the pastures when the storms came groaning inland from rye bay ... with a great wail of wind and slash of rain and a howl and shudder through all the house. she found those months of spring and summer very dreary. she disliked the ways of ansdore; she met no one but common and vulgar people, who took it for granted that she was just one of themselves. of course she had lived through more or less the same experiences during her holidays, but then the contact had not been so close or so prolonged, and there had always been the prospect of school to sustain her. but now schooldays were over, and seemed very far away. ellen felt cut off from the life and interests of those happy years. she had hoped to receive invitations to go and stay with the friends she had made at school; but months went by and none came. her school-friends were being absorbed by a life very different from her own, and she was sensitive enough to realize that parents who had not minded her associating with their daughters while they were still at school, would not care for their grown-up lives to be linked together. at first letters were eagerly written and constantly received, but in time even this comfort failed, as ways became still further divided, and ellen found herself faced with the alternative of complete isolation or such friendships as she could make on the marsh. she chose the latter. though she would have preferred the humblest seat in a drawing-room to the place of honour in a farm-house kitchen, she found a certain pleasure in impressing the rude inhabitants of brodnyx and pedlinge with her breeding and taste. she accepted invitations to "drop in after church," or to take tea, and scratched up rather uncertain friendships with the sisters of the boys who admired her. joanna watched her rather anxiously. she tried to persuade herself that ellen was happy and no longer craved for the alien soil from which she had been uprooted. but there was no denying her own disappointment. a lady was not the wonderful being joanna godden had always imagined. ellen refused to sit in impressive idleness on the parlour sofa, not because she disapproved of idleness, but because she disapproved of the parlour and the sofa. she despised joanna's admirers, those stout, excellent men she was so proud of, who had asked her in marriage, "as no one ull ever ask you, ellen godden, if you give yourself such airs." and worst of all, she despised her sister ... her old jo, on whose back she had ridden, in whose arms she had slept.... those three years of polite education seemed to have wiped out all the fifteen years of happy, homely childhood. sometimes joanna wished she had never sent her to a grand school. all they had done there was to stuff her head with nonsense. it would have been better, after all, if she had gone to the national, and learned to say her catechism instead of to despise her home. § one day early in october the vines asked ellen to go with them into rye and visit lord john sanger's menagerie. joanna was delighted that her sister should go--a wild beast show was the ideal of entertainment on the three marshes. "you can put on your best gown, ellen--the blue one miss godfrey made you. you've never been to lord john sanger's before, have you? i'd like to go myself, but wednesday's the day for romney, and i just about can't miss this market. i hear they're sending up some heifers from orgarswick, and there'll be sharp bidding.... i envy you going to a wild beast show. i haven't been since arthur alce took me in ' . that was the first time he asked me to marry him. i've never had the time to go since, though sanger's been twice since then, and they had buffalo bill in cadborough meadow.... i reckon you'll see some fine riding and some funny clowns--and there'll be stalls where you can buy things, and maybe a place where you can get a cup of tea. you go and enjoy yourself, duckie." ellen smiled a wan smile. on monday night the news came to the vines that their eldest son, bill, who was in an accountant's office at maidstone, had died suddenly of peritonitis. of course wednesday's jaunt was impossible, and joanna talked as if young bill's untimely end had been an act of premeditated spite. "if only he'd waited till thursday--even wednesday morning ud have done ... the telegram wouldn't have got to them till after they'd left the house, and ellen ud have had her treat." ellen bore the deprivation remarkably well, but joanna fumed and champed. "i call it a shame," she said to arthur alce,--"an unaccountable shame, spoiling the poor child's pleasure. it's seldom she gets anything she likes, with all her refined notions, but here you have, as you might say, amusement and instruction combined. if only i hadn't got that tedious market ... but go i must; it's not a job i can give to broadhurst, bidding for them heifers--and i mean to have 'em. i hear furnese is after 'em, but he can't bid up to me." "would you like me to take ellen to the wild beast show?" said arthur alce. "oh, arthur--that's middling kind of you, that's neighbourly. but aren't you going into romney yourself?" "i've nothing particular to go for. i don't want to buy. if i went it ud only be to look at stock." "well, i'd take it as a real kindness if you'd drive in ellen to rye on wednesday. the show's there only for the one day, and nobody else is going up from these parts save the cobbs, and i don't want ellen to go along with them 'cos of that tom cobb what's come back and up to no good." "i'm only too pleased to do anything for you, joanna, as you know well." "yes, i know it well. you've been a hem good neighbour to me, arthur." "a neighbour ain't so good as i'd like to be." "oh, don't you git started on that again--i thought you'd done." "i'll never have done of that." joanna looked vexed. alce's wooing had grown stale, and no longer gratified her. she could not help comparing his sandy-haired sedateness with her memories of martin's fire and youth--that dead sweetheart had made it impossible for her to look at a man who was not eager and virile; her admirers were now all, except for him, younger than herself. she liked his friendship, his society, his ready and unselfish support, but she could not bear to think of him as a suitor, and there was almost disdain in her eyes. "i don't like to hear such talk from you," she said coldly. then she remembered the silver tea-set which he had never taken back, and the offer he had made just now.... "not but that you ain't a good friend to me, arthur--my best." a faint pink crept under his freckles and tan. "well, i reckon that should ought to be enough for me--to hear you say that." "i do say it. and now i'll go and tell ellen you're taking her into rye for the show. she'll be a happy girl." § ellen was not quite so happy as her sister expected. her sum of spectacular bliss stood in shakespearean plays which she had seen, and in "monsieur beaucaire," which she had not. a wild beast show with its inevitable accompaniment of dust and chokiness and noise would give her no pleasure at all, and the slight interest which had lain in the escort of the vines with the amorous stacey was now removed. she did not want arthur alce's company. her sister's admirer struck her as a dull dog. "i won't trouble him," she said. "i'm sure he doesn't really want to go." "reckon he does," said joanna. "he wants to go anywhere that pleases me." this did not help to reconcile ellen. "well, i don't want to be taken anywhere just to please you." "it pleases you too, don't it?" "no, it doesn't. i don't care twopence about fairs and shows, and arthur alce bores me." this double blasphemy temporarily deprived joanna of speech. "if he's only taking me to please you," continued ellen, "he can just leave me at home to please myself." "what nonsense!" cried her sister--"here have i been racking around for hours just to fix a way of getting you to the show, and now you say you don't care about it." "well, i don't." "then you should ought to. i never saw such airs as you give yourself. not care about sanger's world wide show!--i tell you, you just about shall go to it, ma'am, whether you care about it or not, and arthur alce shall take you." thus the treat was arranged, and on wednesday afternoon alce drove to the door in his high, two-wheeled dog-cart, and ellen climbed up beside him, under the supervision of mrs. tolhurst, whom joanna, before setting out for market, had commissioned to "see as she went." not that joanna could really bring herself to believe that ellen was truthful in saying she did not care about the show, but she thought it possible that sheer contrariness might keep her away. ellen was wearing her darkest, demurest clothes, in emphatic contrast to the ribbons and laces in which brodnyx and pedlinge usually went to the fair. her hair was neatly coiled under her little, trim black hat, and she wore dark suède gloves and buckled shoes. alce felt afraid of her, especially as during the drive she never opened her mouth except in brief response to some remark of his. ellen despised arthur alce--she did not like his looks, his old-fashioned side-whiskers and gladstone collars, or the amount of hair and freckles that covered the exposed portions of his skin. she despised him, too, for his devotion to joanna; she did not understand how a man could be inspired with a lifelong love for joanna, who seemed to her unattractive--coarse and bouncing. she also a little resented this devotion, the way it was accepted as an established fact in the neighbourhood, a standing sum to joanna's credit. of course she was fond of her sister--she could not help it--but she would have forgiven her more easily for her ruthless domineering, if she had not also had the advantage in romance. an admirer who sighed hopelessly after you all your life was still to ellen the summit of desire. it was fortunate that she could despise alce so thoroughly in his person, or else she might have found herself jealous of her sister. they arrived at sanger's in good time for the afternoon performance, and their seats were the best in the tent. alce, ever mindful of joanna, bought ellen an orange and a bag of bull's-eyes. during the performance he was too much engrossed to notice her much--the elephants, the clowns, the lovely ladies, were as fresh and wonderful to him as to any child present, though as a busy farmer he had long ago discarded such entertainments and would not have gone to-day if it had not been for ellen, or rather for her sister. when the interval came, however, he had time to notice his companion, and it seemed to him that she drooped. "are you feeling it hot in here?" "yes--it's very close." he did not offer to take her out--it did not strike him that she could want to leave. "you haven't sucked your orange--that'll freshen you a bit." ellen looked at her orange. "let me peel it for you," said alce, noticing her gloved hands. "thanks very much--but i can't eat it here; there's nowhere to put the skin and pips." "what about the floor? reckon they sweep out the sawdust after each performance." "i'm sure i hope they do," said ellen, whose next-door neighbour had spat at intervals between his knees, "but really, i'd rather keep the orange till i get home." at that moment the ring-master came in to start the second half of the entertainment, and alce turned away from ellen. he was unconscious of her till the band played "god save the king," and there was a great scraping of feet as the audience turned to go out. "we'll go and have a cup of tea," said alce. he took her into the refreshment tent, and blundered as far as offering her a twopenny ice-cream at the ice-cream stall. he was beginning to realize that she took her pleasures differently from most girls he knew; he felt disappointed and ill at ease with her--it would be dreadful if she went home and told joanna she had not enjoyed herself. "what would you like to do now?" he asked when they had emptied their tea-cups and eaten their stale buns in the midst of a great steaming, munching squash--"there's swings and stalls and a merry-go-round--and i hear the fat lady's the biggest they've had yet in rye; but maybe you don't care for that sort of thing?" "no, i don't think i do, and i'm feeling rather tired. we ought to be starting back before long." "oh, not till you've seen all the sights. joanna ud never forgive me if i didn't show you the sights. we'll just stroll around, and then we'll go to the george and have the trap put to." ellen submitted--she was a born submitter, whose resentful and watchful submission had come almost to the pitch of art. she accompanied alce to the swings, though she would not go up in them, and to the merry-go-round, though she would not ride in it. "there's ellen godden out with her sister's young man," said a woman's voice in the crowd. "maybe he'll take the young girl now he can't get the old 'un," a man answered her. "oh, arthur alce ull never change from joanna godden." "but the sister's a dear liddle thing, better worth having to my mind." "still, i'll never believe ..." the voices were lost in the crowd, and ellen never knew who had spoken, but for the first time that afternoon her boredom was relieved. it was rather pleasant to have anyone think that arthur alce was turning to her from joanna ... it would be a triumph indeed if he actually did turn ... for the first time she began to take an interest in him. the crowd was very thick, and alce offered her his arm. "hook on to me, or maybe i'll lose you." ellen did as he told her, and after a time he felt her weight increase. "reckon you're middling tired." he looked down on her with a sudden pity--her little hand was like a kitten under his arm. "yes, i am rather tired." it was no pretence--such an afternoon, without the stimulant and sustenance of enjoyment, was exhausting indeed. "then we'll go home--reckon we've seen everything." he piloted her out of the crush, and they went to the george, where the trap was soon put to. ellen sat drooping along the straight mile. "lord, but you're hem tired," said alce, looking down at her. "i've got a little headache--i had it when i started." "then you shouldn't ought to have come." "joanna said i was to." "you should have told her about your head." "i did--but she said i must come all the same. i said i was sure you wouldn't mind, but she wouldn't let me off." "joanna's valiant for getting her own way. still, it was hard on you, liddle girl, making you come--i shouldn't have taken offence." "i know you wouldn't. but jo's so masterful. she always wants me to enjoy myself in her way, and being strong, she doesn't understand people who aren't." "that's so, i reckon. still your sister's a fine woman, ellen--the best i've known." "i'm sure she is," snapped ellen. "but she shouldn't ought to have made you come this afternoon, since you were feeling poorly." "don't let out i said anything to you about it, arthur--it might make her angry. oh, don't make her angry with me." § during the next few weeks it seemed to joanna that her sister was a little more alert. she went out more among the neighbours, and when joanna's friends came to see her, she no longer sulked remotely, but came into the parlour, and was willing to play the piano and talk and be entertaining. indeed, once or twice when joanna was busy she had sat with arthur alce after tea and made herself most agreeable--so he said. the fact was that ellen had a new interest in life. those words sown casually in her thoughts at the show were bearing remarkable fruit. she had pondered them well, and weighed her chances, and come to the conclusion that it would be a fine and not impossible thing to win arthur alce from joanna to herself. she did not see why she should not be able to do so. she was prettier than her sister, younger, more accomplished, better educated. alce on his side must be tired of wooing without response. when he saw there was a chance of ellen, he would surely take it; and then--what a triumph! how people would talk and marvel when they saw joanna godden's life-long admirer turn from her to her little sister! they would be forced to acknowledge ellen as a superior and enchanting person. of course there was the disadvantage that she did not particularly want arthur alce, but her schemings did not take her as far as matrimony. she was shrewd enough to see that the best way to capture alce was to make herself as unlike her sister as possible. with him she was like a little soft cat, languid and sleek, or else delicately playful. she appealed to his protecting strength, and in time made him realize that she was unhappy in her home life and suffered under her sister's tyranny. she had hoped that this might help detach him from joanna, but his affection was of that passive, tenacious kind which tacitly accepts all the faults of the beloved. he was always ready to sympathize with ellen, and once or twice expostulated with joanna--but his loyalty showed no signs of wavering. as time went on, ellen began to like him more in himself. she grew accustomed to his red hair and freckles, and when he was in his everyday kit of gaiters and breeches and broadcloth, she did not find him unattractive. moreover she could not fail to appreciate his fundamental qualities of generosity and gentleness--he was like a big, faithful, gentle dog, a red-haired collie, following and serving. § the weeks went by, and ellen still persevered. but she was disappointed in results. she had thought that alce's subjection would not take very long, she had not expected the matter to drag. it was the fault of his crass stupidity--he was unable to see what she was after, he looked upon her just as a little girl, joanna's little sister, and was good to her for joanna's sake. this was humiliating, and ellen fretted and chafed at her inability to make him see. she was no siren, and was without either the parts or the experience for a definite attack on his senses. she worked as an amateur and a schoolgirl, with only a certain fundamental shrewdness to guide her; she was doubtless becoming closer friends with alce--he liked to sit and talk to her after tea, and often gave her lifts in his trap--but he used their intimacy chiefly to confide in her his love and admiration for her sister, which was not what ellen wanted. the first person to see what was happening was joanna herself. she had been glad for some time of ellen's increased friendliness with alce, but had pat it down to nothing more than the comradeship of that happy day at lord john sanger's show. then something in ellen's looks as she spoke to arthur, in her manner as she spoke of him, made her suspicious--and one sunday evening, walking home from church, she became sure. the service had been at pedlinge, in the queer barn-like church whose walls inside were painted crimson; and directly it was over ellen had taken charge of alce, who was coming back to supper with them. alce usually went to his parish church at old romney, but had accepted ellen's invitation to accompany the goddens that day, and now ellen seemed anxious that he should not walk with her and joanna, but had taken him on ahead, leaving joanna to walk with the southlands. the elder sister watched them--alce a little oafish in his sunday blacks, ellen wearing her new spring hat with the daisies. as she spoke to him she lifted her face on her graceful neck like a swan, and her voice was eager and rather secret. joanna lost the thread of mrs. southland's reminiscences of her last dairy-girl, and she watched ellen, watched her hands, watched the shrug of her shoulders under her gown--the girl's whole body seemed to be moving, not restlessly or jerkily, but with a queer soft ripple. then joanna suddenly said to herself--"she loves him. ellen wants arthur alce." her first emotion was of anger, a resolve to stop this impudence; but the next minute she pitied instead--ellen, with her fragile beauty, her little die-away airs, would never be able to get arthur alce from joanna, to whom he belonged. he was hers, both by choice and habit, and ellen would never get him. then from pity, she passed into tenderness--she was sorry ellen could not get arthur, could not have him when she wanted him, while joanna, who could have him, did not want him. it would be a good thing for her, too. alce was steady and well-established--he was not like those mucky young vines and southlands. ellen would be safe to marry him. it was a pity she hadn't a chance. joanna looked almost sentimentally at the couple ahead--then she suddenly made up her mind. "if i spoke to arthur alce, i believe i could make him do it." she could make arthur do most things, and she did not see why he should stop at this. of course she did not want ellen to marry him or anybody, but now she had once come to think of it she could see plainly, in spite of herself, that marriage would be a good thing for her sister. she was being forced up against the fact that her schemes for ellen had failed--school-life had spoiled her, home-life was making both her and home miserable. the best thing she could do would be to marry, but she must marry a good man and true--alce was both good and true, and moreover his marriage would set joanna free from his hang-dog devotion, of which she was beginning to grow heartily tired. she appreciated his friendship and his usefulness, but they could both survive, and she would at the same time be free of his sentimental lapses, the constant danger of a declaration. yes, ellen should have him--she would make a present of him to ellen. § "arthur, i want a word with you." they were alone in the parlour, ellen having been dispatched resentfully on an errand to great ansdore. "about them wethers?" "no--it's a different thing. arthur, have you noticed that ellen's sweet on you?" joanna's approach to a subject was ever direct, but this time she seemed to have taken the breath out of arthur's body. "ellen ... sweet on me?" he gasped. "yes, you blind-eyed owl. i've seen it for a dunnamany weeks." "but--ellen? that liddle girl ud never care an onion for a dull, dry chap lik me." "reckon she would. you ain't such a bad chap, arthur, though i could never bring myself to take you." "well, i must say i haven't noticed anything, or maybe i'd have spoken to you about it. i'm unaccountable sorry, jo, and i'll do all i can to help you stop it." "i'm not sure i want to stop it. i was thinking only to-day as it wouldn't be a bad plan if you married ellen." "but, jo, i don't want to marry anybody but you." "reckon that's middling stupid of you, for i'll never marry you, arthur alce--_never_!" "then i don't want nobody." "oh, yes, you do. you'll be a fool if you don't marry and get a wife to look after you and your house, which has wanted new window-blinds this eighteen month. you can't have me, so you may as well have ellen--she's next best to me, i reckon, and she's middling sweet on you." "ellen's a dear liddle thing, as i've always said against them that said otherwise--but i've never thought of marrying her, and reckon she don't want to marry me, she'd sooner marry a stout young southland or young vine." "she ain't going to marry any young vine. when she marries i'll see she marries a steady, faithful, solid chap, and you're the best i know." "it's kind of you to say it, but reckon it wouldn't be a good thing for me to marry one sister when i love the other." "but you'll never get the other, not till the moon's cheese, so there's no sense in vrothering about that. and i want ellen to marry you, arthur, since she's after you. i never meant her to marry yet awhiles, but reckon i can't make her happy at home--i've tried and i can't--so you may as well try." "it ud be difficult to make ellen happy--she's a queer liddle dentical thing." "i know, but marriage is a wonderful soberer-down. she'll be happy once she gets a man and a house of her own." "i'm not so sure. anyways i'm not the man for her. she should ought to marry a gentleman." "well, there ain't none for her to marry, nor likely to be none. she'll go sour if she has to stand ... and she wants you, arthur. i wouldn't be asking you this if i hadn't seen she wanted you, and seen too as the best thing as could happen to her would be for her to marry you." "i'm sure she'll never take me." "you can but ask her." "she'll say 'no.'" "reckon she won't--but if she does, there'll be no harm in asking her." "you queer me, jo--it seems a foolish thing to marry ellen when i want to marry you." "but i tell you, you can never marry me. you're a stupid man, arthur, who won't see things as they are. you go hankering after whom you can't get, and all the time you might get someone who's hankering after you. it's a lamentable waste, i say, and i'll never be pleased if you don't ask ellen. it ain't often i ask you to do anything to please me, and this is no hard thing. ellen's a fine match--a pretty girl, and clever, and well-taught--she'll play the piano to your friends. and i'll see as she has a bit of money with her. you'll do well for yourself by taking her, and i tell you, arthur, i'm sick and tired of your dangling after me." § joanna had many more conversations with arthur alce, and in the end bore down his objections. she used her tongue to such good purpose that by next sunday he had come to see that ellen wanted him, and that for him to marry her would be the best thing for everyone--joanna, ellen and himself. after all, it wasn't as if he had the slightest chance of joanna--she had made that abundantly clear, and his devotion did not feed on hope so much as on a stale content in being famous throughout three marshes as her rejected suitor. perhaps it was not amiss that her sudden call should stir him into a more active and vital service. in the simplicity of his heart, he saw nothing outrageous in her demands. she was troubled and anxious about ellen, and had a right to expect him to help her solve this problem in the best way that had occurred to her. as for ellen herself, now his attention had been called to the matter, he could see that she admired him and sought him out. why she should do so was as much a mystery as ever--he could not think why so soft and dainty and beautiful a creature should want to marry a homely chap like himself. but he did not doubt the facts, and when, at the beginning of the second week, he proposed to her, he was much less surprised at her acceptance than she was herself. ellen had never meant to accept him--all she had wanted had been the mere proclaimable fact of his surrender; but during the last weeks the focus of her plans had shifted--they had come to mean more than the gratification of her vanity. the denial of what she sought, the dragging of her schemes, the growing sense of hopelessness, had made her see just exactly how much she wanted. she would really like to marry alce--the slight physical antipathy with which she had started had now disappeared, and she felt that she would not object to him as a lover. he was, moreover, an excellent match--better than any young vines or southlands or furneses; as his wife she would be important and well-to-do, her triumph would be sealed, open and celebrated.... she would moreover be free. that was the strong hidden growth that had heaved up her flat little plans of a mere victory in tattle--if she married she would be her own mistress, free for ever of joanna's tyranny. she could do what she liked with alce--she would be able to go where she liked, know whom she liked, wear what she liked; whereas with joanna all these things were ruthlessly decreed. of course she was fond of jo, but she was tired of living with her--you couldn't call your soul your own--she would never be happy till she had made herself independent of jo, and only marriage would do that. she was tired of sulking and submitting--she could make a better life for herself over at donkey street than she could at ansdore. of course if she waited she might get somebody better, but she might have to wait a long time, and she did not care for waiting. she was not old or patient or calculating enough to be a really successful schemer; her plans carried her this time only as far as a triumph over joanna and an escape from ansdore. § certainly her triumph was a great one. brodnyx and pedlinge had never expected such a thing. their attitude had hitherto been that of the man at the fair, who would rather distrust appearances than believe arthur alce could change from joanna godden to her sister ellen. it would have been as easy to think of the sunset changing from rye to court-at-street. there was a general opinion that joanna had been injured--though no one really doubted her sincerity when she said that she would never have taken arthur. her evident pleasure in the wedding was considered magnanimous--it was also a little disappointing to ellen. not that she wanted joanna to be miserable, but she would have liked her to be rather more sensible of her sister's triumph, to regret rather more the honour that had been taken from her. the bear's hug with which her sister had greeted her announcement, the eager way in which she had urged and hustled preparations for the wedding, all seemed a little incongruous and humiliating.... joanna should at least have had some moments of realizing her fallen state. however, what she missed at home ellen received abroad. some neighbours were evidently offended, especially those who had sons to mate. mrs. vine had been very stiff when ellen called with alce. "well, arthur"--ignoring the bride-to-be--"i always felt certain you would marry ansdore, but it was the head i thought you'd take and not the tail." "oh, the tail's good enough for me," said arthur, which ellen thought clumsy of him. having taken the step, arthur was curiously satisfied. his obedience in renouncing joanna seemed to have brought him closer to her than all his long wooing. besides, he was growing very fond of little ellen--her soft, clinging ways and little sleek airs appealed to him as those of a small following animal would, and he was proud of her cleverness, and of her prettiness, which now he had come to see, though for a long time he had not appreciated it, because it was so different from joanna's healthy red and brown. he took her round the farms, not only in her own neighbourhood, but those near donkey street, over on romney marsh, across the rhee wall. in her honour he bought a new trap, and ellen drove beside him in it, sitting very demure and straight. people said--"there goes ellen godden, who's marrying her sister's young man," and sometimes ellen heard them. she inspected donkey street, which was a low, plain, oblong house, covered with grey stucco, against which flamed the orange of its lichened roof. it had been built in queen anne's time, and enlarged and stuccoed over about fifty years ago. it was a good, solid house, less rambling than ansdore, but the kitchens were a little damp. alce bought new linen and new furniture. he had some nice pieces of old furniture too, which ellen was very proud of. she felt she could make quite a pleasant country house of donkey street. in spite of joanna's protests, alce let her have her own way about styles and colours, and her parlour was quite unlike anything ever seen on the marsh outside north farthing and dungemarsh court. there was no centre table and no cabinet, but a deep, comfortable sofa, which ellen called a chesterfield, and a "cosy corner," and a sheraton bureau, and a sheraton china-cupboard with glass doors. the carpet was purple, without any pattern on it, and the cushions were purple and black. for several days those black cushions were the talk of the woolpack bar and every farm. it reminded joanna a little of the frenzy that had greeted the first appearance of her yellow waggons, and for the first time she felt a little jealous of ellen. she sometimes, too, had moments of depression at the thought of losing her sister, of being once more alone at ansdore, but having made up her mind that ellen was to marry arthur alce, she was anxious to carry through the scheme as quickly and magnificently as possible. the wedding was fixed for may, and was to be the most wonderful wedding in the experience of the three marshes of walland, dunge and romney. for a month joanna's trap spanked daily along the straight mile, taking her and ellen either into rye to the confectioner's--for joanna had too true a local instinct to do as her sister wanted and order the cake from london--or to the station for folkestone where the clothes for both sisters were being bought. they had many a squabble over the clothes--ellen pleaded passionately for the soft, silken undergarments in the shop windows, for the little lace-trimmed drawers and chemises ... it was cruel and bigoted of joanna to buy yards and yards of calico for nightgowns and "petticoat bodies," with trimmings of untearable embroidery. it was also painful to be obliged to wear a saxe-blue going-away dress when she wanted an olive green, but ellen reflected that she was submitting for the last time, and anyhow she was spared the worst by the fact that the wedding-gown must be white--not much scope for joanna there. § the day before the wedding joanna felt unusually nervous and restless. the preparations had been carried through so vigorously that everything was ready--there was nothing to do, no finishing touches, and into her mind came a sudden blank and alarm. all that evening she was unable to settle down either to work or rest. ellen had gone to bed early, convinced of the good effect of sleep on her complexion, and joanna prowled unhappily from room to room, glancing about mechanically for dust which she knew could not be there ... the farm was just a collection of gleaming surfaces and crackling chintzes and gay, dashing colours. everything was as she wished it, yet did not please her. she went into her room. on the little spare bed which had once been ellen's lay a mass of tissue paper, veiling a marvellous gown of brown and orange shot silk, the colour of the sunburn on her cheeks, which she was to wear to-morrow when she gave the bride away. in vain had ellen protested and said it would look ridiculous if she came down the aisle with her sister--joanna had insisted on her prerogative. "it isn't as if we had any he-cousins fit to look at--i'll cut a better figger than either tom or pete stansbury, and what right has either of them to give you away, i'd like to know?" ellen had miserably suggested sam huxtable, but joanna had fixed herself in her mind's eye, swaggering, rustling and flaming up pedlinge aisle, with the little drooping lily of the bride upon her arm. "who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" mr. pratt would say--"i do," joanna would answer. everyone would stare at joanna, and remember that arthur alce had loved her for years before he loved her sister--she was certainly "giving" ellen to him in a double sense. she would be just as grand and important at this wedding as she could possibly have been at her own, yet to-night the prospect had ceased to thrill her. was it because in this her first idleness she realized she was giving away something she wanted to keep? or because she saw that, after all, being grand and important at another person's wedding is not as good a thing even as being humble at your own? "well, it might have been my own if i'd liked," she said to herself, but even that consideration failed to cheer her. she went over to the chest of drawers. on it stood martin's photograph in a black velvet frame adorned with a small metal shield on which were engraved the words "not lost but gone before." the photograph was a little faded--martin's eyes had lost some of their appealing darkness and the curves of the mouth she had loved were dim.... she put her face close to the faded face in the photograph, and looked at it. gradually it blurred in a mist of tears, and she could feel her heart beating very slowly, as if each beat were an effort.... then suddenly she found herself thinking about ellen in a new way, with a new, strange anxiety. martin's fading face seemed to have taught her about ellen, about some preparation for the wedding which might have been left out, in spite of all the care and order of the burnished house. did she really love arthur alce?--did she really know what she was doing--what love meant? joanna put down the photograph and straightened her back. she thought of her sister alone for the last time in her big flowery bedroom, lying down for the last time in the rose-curtained, mahogany bed, for her last night's rest under ansdore's roof. it was the night on which, if she had not been motherless, her mother would have gone to her with love and advice. surely on this night of all nights it was not for joanna to shirk the mother's part. her heaviness had gone, for its secret cause had been displayed--no doubt this anxiety and this question had lurked with her all the evening, following her from room to room. she did not hesitate, but went down the passage to ellen's door, which she opened as usual without knocking. "not in bed, yet, duckie?" ellen was sitting on the bolster, in her little old plain linen nightdress buttoning to her neck, two long plaits hanging over her shoulders. the light of the rose-shaded lamp streamed on the flowery walls and floor of her compulsory bower, showing the curtains and pictures and vases and father's buffalo certificate--showing also her packed and corded trunks, lying there like big, blobbed seals on her articles of emancipation. "hullo," she said to joanna, "i'm just going to get in." she did not seem particularly pleased to see her. "you pop under the clothes, and i'll tuck you up. there's something i want to speak to you about if you ain't too sleepy." "about what?" "about this wedding of yours." "you've spoken to me about nothing else for weeks and months." "but i want to speak to you different and most particular. duckie, are you quite sure you love arthur alce?" "of course i'm sure, or i shouldn't be marrying him." "there's an unaccountable lot of reasons why any gal ud snap at arthur. he's got a good name and a good establishment, and he's as mild-mannered and obliging as a cow." ellen looked disconcerted at hearing her bridegroom thus defined. "if that's all i saw in him i shouldn't have said 'yes.' i like him--he's got a kind heart and good manners, and he won't interfere with me--he'll let me do as i please." "but that ain't enough--it ain't enough for you just to like him. do you love him?--it's struck me all of a sudden, ellen, i've never made sure of that, and it ud be a lamentable job if you was to get married to arthur without loving him." "but i do love him--i've told you. and may i ask, jo, what you'd have done if i'd said i didn't? it's rather late for breaking off the match." joanna had never contemplated such a thing. it would be difficult to say exactly how far her plans had stretched, probably no further than the argument and moral suasion which would forcibly compel ellen to love if she did not love already. "no, no--i'd never have you break it off--with the carriages and the breakfast ordered, and my new gownd, and your troosoo and all.... but, ellen, if you _want_ to change your mind ... i mean, if you feel, thinking honest, that you don't love arthur ... for pity's sake say so now before it's too late. i'll stand by you--i'll face the racket--i'd sooner you did anything than--" "oh, don't be an ass, jo. of course i don't want to change my mind. i know what i'm doing, and i'm very fond of arthur--i love him, if you want the word. i like being with him, and i even like it when he kisses me. so you needn't worry." "marriage is more than just being kissed and having a man about the house." "i know it is." something in the way she said it made joanna see she was abysmally ignorant. "is there anything you'd like to ask me, dearie?" "nothing you could possibly know anything about." joanna turned on her. "i'll learn you to sass me. you dare say such a thing!" "well, jo--you're not married, and there _are_ some things you don't know." "that's right--call me an old maid! i tell you i could have made a better marriage than you, my girl.... i could have made the very marriage you're making, for the matter of that." she stood up, preparing to go in anger. then suddenly as she looked down on ellen, fragile and lily-white among the bed-clothes, her heart smote her and she relented. this was ellen's last night at home. "don't let's grumble at each other. i know you and i haven't quite hit it off, my dear, and i'm sorry, as i counted a lot on us being at ansdore together. i thought maybe we'd be at ansdore together all our lives. howsumever, i reckon things are better as they are--it was my own fault, trying to make a lady of you, and i'm glad it's all well ended. only see as it's truly well ended, dear--for arthur's sake as well as yours. he's a good chap and deserves the best of you." ellen was still angry, but something about joanna as she stooped over the bed, her features obscure in the lamplight, her shadow dim and monstrous on the ceiling, made a sudden, almost reproachful appeal. a rush of genuine feeling made her stretch out her arms. "jo ..." joanna stooped and caught her to her heart, and for a moment, the last moment, the big and the little sister were as in times of old. § ellen's wedding was the most wonderful that brodnyx and pedlinge had seen for years. it was a pity that the law of the land required it to take place in pedlinge church, which was comparatively small and mean, and which indeed joanna could never feel was so established as the church at brodnyx, because it had only the old harmonium, and queer paintings of angels instead of the lion and the unicorn. however, mr. elphick ground and sweated wonders out of "the old harmonister" as it was affectionately called by the two parishes, and everyone was too busy staring at the bride and the bride's sister to notice whether angels or king george the third presided over the altar. joanna had all the success that she had longed for and expected. she walked down the aisle with ellen white and drooping on her arm, like a sunflower escorting a lily. when mr. pratt said "who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" she answered "i do" in a voice that rang through the church. afterwards, she took her handkerchief out of her pocket and cried a little, as is seemly at weddings. turner of northlade was arthur alce's best man, and there were four bridesmaids dressed in pink--maudie vine, gertrude prickett, maggie southland and ivy cobb. they carried bouquets of roses with lots of spiræa, and wore golden hearts "the gift of the bridegroom." altogether the brilliance of the company made up for the deficiencies of its barn-like setting and the ineffectiveness of mr. pratt, who, discomposed by the enveloping presence of joanna, blundered more helplessly than ever, so that, as joanna said afterwards, she was glad when it was all finished without anyone getting married besides the bride and bridegroom. after the ceremony there was a breakfast at ansdore, with a wedding-cake and ices and champagne, and waiters hired from the george hotel at rye. ellen stood at the end of the room shaking hands with a long procession of pricketts, vines, furneses, southlands, bateses, turners, cobbs.... she looked a little tired and droopy, for she had had a trying day, with joanna fussing and fighting her ever since six in the morning; and now she felt resentfully that her sister had snatched the splendours of the occasion from her to herself--it did not seem right that joanna should be the most glowing, conspicuous, triumphant object in the room, and ellen, unable to protest, sulked languishingly. however, if the bride did not seem as proud and happy as she might, the bridegroom made up for it. there was something almost spiritual in the look of arthur alce's eyes, as he stood beside ellen, his arm held stiffly for the repose of hers, his great choker collar scraping his chin, lilies of the valley and camellias sprouting from his buttonhole, a pair of lemon kid gloves--split at the first attempt, so he could only hold them--clutched in his moist hand. he looked devout, exalted, as he armed his little bride and watched her sister. "arthur alce looks pleased enough," said furnese to mrs. bates--"reckon he sees he's got the best of the family." "maybe he's thankful now that joanna wouldn't take him." neither of them noticed that the glow was in alce's eyes chiefly when they rested on joanna. he knew that to-day he had pleased her better than he had ever pleased her in his life. to-day she had said to him "god bless you, arthur--you're the best friend i have, or am like to have, neither." to-day he had made himself her kinsman, with a dozen new opportunities of service. chief among these was the dear little girl on his arm--how pretty and sweet she was! how he would love her and cherish her as he had promised mr. pratt! well, thank god, he had done joanna one good turn, and himself not such a bad one, neither. how clever she had been to think of his marrying ellen! he would never have thought of it himself; yet now he saw clearly that it was a wonderful notion--nothing could be better. joanna was valiant for notions.... alce had had one glass of champagne. at about four o'clock, joanna dashed into the circle round the bride, and took ellen away upstairs, to put on her travelling dress of saxe-blue satin--the last humiliation she would have to endure from ansdore. the honeymoon was being spent at canterbury, cautiously chosen by arthur as a place he'd been to once and so knew the lie of a bit. ellen had wanted to go to wales, or to the lakes, but joanna had sternly forbidden such outrageous pinings--"arthur's got two cows calving next week--what are you thinking of, ellen godden?" the bridal couple drove away amidst much hilarity, inspired by the unaccustomed champagne and expressed in rice and confetti. after they had gone the guests still lingered, feasting at the littered tables or re-inspecting and re-valuing the presents which had been laid out, after the best style, in the dining-room. sir harry trevor had sent ellen a little pearl pendant, though he had been unable to accept joanna's invitation and come to the wedding himself--he wrote from a london address and hinted vaguely that he might never come back to north farthing house, which had been let furnished. his gift was the chief centre of interest--when mrs. vine had done comparing her electro-plated cruet most favourably with the one presented by mrs. furnese and the ignoble china object that mrs. cobb had had the meanness to send, and mrs. bates had recovered from the shock of finding that her tea-cosy was the exact same shape and pattern as the one given by mrs. gain. people thought it odd that the old squire should send pearls to ellen godden--something for the table would have been much more seemly. joanna had grown weary--her shoulders drooped under her golden gown, she tossed back her head and yawned against the back of her hand. she was tired of it all, and wanted them to go. what were they staying for? they must know the price of everything pretty well by this time and have eaten enough to save their suppers. she was no polished hostess, concealing her boredom, and the company began soon to melt away. traps lurched over the shingle of ansdore's drive, the pricketts walked off across the innings to great ansdore, guests from rye packed into two hired wagonettes, and the cousins from the isle of wight drove back to the george, where, as there were eight of them and they refused to be separated, joanna was munificently entertaining them instead of under her own roof. when the last was gone, she turned back into the house, where mrs. tolhurst stood ready with her broom to begin an immediate sweep-up after the waiters, whom she looked upon as the chief source of the disorder. a queer feeling came over joanna, a feeling of loneliness, of craving, and she fell in all her glory of feathers and silk upon mrs. tolhurst's alpaca bosom. gone were those arbitrary and often doubtful distinctions between them, and the mistress enjoyed the luxury of a good cry in her servant's arms. § ellen's marriage broke into joanna's life quite as devastatingly as martin's death. though for more than three years her sister had been away at school, with an ever-widening gulf of temperament between herself and the farm, and though since her return she had been little better at times than a rebellious and sulky stranger, nevertheless she was a part of ansdore, a part of joanna's life there, and the elder sister found it difficult to adjust things to her absence. of course ellen had not gone very far--donkey street was not five miles from ansdore, though in a different parish and a different county. but the chasm between them was enormous--it was queer to think that a mere change of roof-tree could make such a difference. no doubt the reason was that with ellen it had involved an entire change of habit. while she lived with joanna she had been bound both by the peculiarities of her sister's nature and her own to accept her way of living. she had submitted, not because she was weak or gentle-minded but because submission was an effective weapon of her welfare; now, having no further use for it, she ruled instead and was another person. she was, besides, a married woman, and the fact made all the difference to ellen herself. she felt herself immeasurably older and wiser than joanna, her teacher and tyrant. her sister's life seemed to her puerile.... ellen had at last read the riddle of the universe and the secret of wisdom. the sisters' relations were also a little strained over arthur alce. joanna resented the authority that ellen assumed--it took some time to show her that arthur was no longer hers. she objected when ellen made him shave off his moustache and whiskers; he looked ten years younger and a far handsomer man, but he was no longer the traditional arthur alce of joanna's history, and she resented it. ellen on her part resented the way joanna still made use of him, sending him to run errands and make inquiries for her just as she used in the old days before his marriage. "arthur, i hear there's some good pigs going at honeychild auction--i can't miss market at lydd, but you might call round and have a look for me." or "arthur, i've a looker's boy coming from abbot's court--you might go there for his characters, i haven't time, with the butter-making to-day and mene tekel such an owl." ellen rebelled at seeing her husband ordered about, and more than once "told off" her sister, but joanna had no intention of abandoning her just claims in arthur, and the man himself was pig-headed--"i mun do what i can for her, just as i used." ellen could make him shave off his whiskers, she could even make him on occasion young and fond and frolicsome, but she could not make him stop serving joanna, or, had she only known it, stop loving her. arthur was perfectly happy as ellen's husband, and made her, as joanna had foretold, an exemplary one, but his love for joanna seemed to grow rather than diminish as he cared for and worked for and protected her sister. it seemed to feed and thrive on his love for ellen--it gave him a wonderful sense of action and effectiveness, and people said what a lot of good marriage had done for arthur alce, and that he was no longer the dull chap he used to be. § it had done ellen a lot of good too. during the next year she blossomed and expanded. she lost some of her white looks. the state of marriage suited her thoroughly well. being her own mistress and at the same time having a man to take care of her, having an important and comfortable house of her own, ordering about her own servants and spending her husband's money, such things made her life pleasant, and checked the growth of peevishness that had budded at ansdore. during the first months of her marriage, joanna went fairly often to see her, one reason being the ache which ellen's absence had left in her heart--she wanted to see her sister, sit with her, hear her news. another reason was the feeling that ellen, a beginner in the ways of life and household management, still needed her help and guidance. ellen soon undeceived her on this point. "i really know how to manage my own house, joanna," she said once or twice when the other commented and advised, and joanna had been unable to enforce her ideas, owing to the fact that she seldom saw ellen above once or twice a week. her sister could do what she liked in her absence, and it was extraordinary how definite and cocksure the girl was about things she should have approached in the spirit of meekness and dependence on her elders. "i count my linen after it is aired--it comes in at such an inconvenient time that i can't attend to it then. the girls can easily hang it out on the horse--really, joanna, one must trust people to do something." "well, then, don't blame me when you're a pillowcase short." "i certainly shan't blame you," said ellen coolly. joanna felt put out and injured. it hurt her to see that ellen did not want her supervision--she had looked forward to managing donkey street as well as ansdore. she tried to get a hold on ellen through arthur alce. "arthur, it's your duty to see ellen don't leave the bread-making to that cook-gal of hers. i never heard of such a notion--her laying on the sofa while the gal wastes coal and flour." ... "arthur, ellen needs a new churn--let her get a wallis. it's a shame for her to be buying new cushions when her churn's an old butter-spoiler i wouldn't use if i was dead--arthur, you're there with her, and you can make her do what i say." but arthur could not, any more than joanna, make ellen do what she did not want. he had always been a mild-mannered man, and he found ellen, in her different way, quite as difficult to stand up to as her sister. "i'm not going to have jo meddling with my affairs," she would say with a toss of her head. § another thing that worried joanna was the fact that the passing year brought no expectations to donkey street. one of her happiest anticipations in connexion with ellen's marriage was her having a dear little baby whom joanna could hug and spoil and teach. perhaps it would be a little girl, and she would feel like having ellen over again. she was bitterly disappointed when ellen showed no signs of obliging her quickly, and indeed quite shocked by her sister's expressed indifference on the matter. "i don't care about children, jo, and i'm over young to have one of my own." "young! you're rising twenty, and mother was but eighteen when i was born." "well, anyhow, i don't see why i should have a child just because you want one." "i don't want one. for shame to say such things, ellen alce." "you want me to have one, then, for your benefit." "don't you want one yourself?" "no--not now. i've told you i don't care for children." "then you should ought to! dear little mites! it's a shame to talk like that. oh, what wouldn't i give, ellen, to have a child of yours in my arms." "why don't you marry and have one of your own?" joanna coloured. "i don't want to marry." "but you ought to marry if that's how you feel. why don't you take a decent fellow like, say, sam turner, even if you don't love him, just so that you may have a child of your own? you're getting on, you know, joanna--nearly thirty-four--you haven't much time to waste." "well it ain't my fault," said joanna tearfully, "that i couldn't marry the man i wanted to. i'd have been married more'n five year now if he hadn't been took. and it's sorter spoiled the taste for me, as you might say. i don't feel inclined to get married--it don't take my fancy, and i don't see how i'm ever going to bring myself to do it. that's why it ud be so fine for me if you had a little one, ellen--as i could hold and kiss and care for and feel just as if it was my own." "thanks," said ellen. § the winding up of her plans for her sister made it necessary that joanna should cast about for fresh schemes to absorb her energies. the farm came to her rescue in this fresh, more subtle collapse, and she turned to it as vigorously as she had turned after martin's death, and with an increase of that vague feeling of bitterness which had salted her relations with it ever since. a strong rumour was blowing on the marsh that shortly great ansdore would come into the market. joanna's schemes at once were given their focus. she would buy great ansdore if she had the chance. she had always resented its presence, so inaptly named, on the fringe of little ansdore's greatness. if she bought it, she would be adding more than fifty acres to her own, but it was good land--prickett was a fool not to have made more of it--and the possession carried with it manorial rights, including the presentation of the living of brodnyx with pedlinge. when joanna owned great ansdore in addition to her own thriving and established patrimony, she would be a big personage on the three marshes, almost "county." no tenant or yeoman from dymchurch to winchelsea, from romney to the coast, would dare withhold his respect--she might even at last be admitted a member of the farmers' club.... it was characteristic of her that, with this purchase in view, she made no efforts to save money. she set out to make it instead, and her money-making was all of the developing, adventurous kind--she ploughed more grass, and decided to keep three times the number of cows and open a milk-round. as a general practice only a few cows were kept on the marsh farms, for, owing to the shallowness of the dykes, it was difficult to prevent their straying. however, joanna boldly decided to fence all the further innings. she could spare that amount of grazing, and though she would have to keep down the numbers of her sheep till after she had bought great ansdore, she expected to make more money out of the milk and dairy produce--she might even in time open a dairy business in rye. this would involve the engaging of an extra girl for the dairy and chickens, and an extra man to help broadhurst with the cows, but joanna was undaunted. she enjoyed a gamble, when it was not merely a question of luck, but also in part a matter of resource and planning and hard driving pace. "there's joanna godden saving her tin to buy great ansdore," said bates of picknye bush to cobb of slinches, as they watched her choosing her shorthorns at romney. she had arthur alce beside her, and he was, as in the beginning, trying to persuade her to be a little smaller in her ideas, but, as in the beginning, she would not listen. "setting up cow-keeping now, is she?--will she make as much a valiant wonder of that as she did with her sheep? ha! ha!" "ha! ha!" the two men laughed and winked and rubbed their noses, for they liked to remember the doleful tale of joanna's first adventure at ansdore; it made them able to survey more equably her steady rise in glory ever since. it was obvious to walland marsh that, on the whole, her big ideas had succeeded where the smaller, more cautious ones of her neighbours had failed. of course she had been lucky--luckier than she deserved--but she was beginning to make men wonder if after all there wasn't policy in paying a big price for a good thing, rather than in obeying the rules of haggle which maintained on other farms. ansdore certainly spent half as much again as birdskitchen or beggar's bush or misleham or yokes court, but then it had nearly twice as much to show for it. joanna was not the woman who would fail to keep pace with her own prosperity--her swelling credit was not recorded merely in her pass-book; it was visible, indeed dazzling, to every eye. she had bought a new trap and mare--a very smart turn-out, with rubber tires and chocolate-coloured upholstery, while the mare herself had blood in her, and a bit of the devil too, and upset the sleepy, chumbling rows of farmers' horses waiting for their owners in the streets of lydd or rye. old stuppeny had died in the winter following ellen's marriage, and had been lavishly buried, with a tombstone, and an obituary notice in the _rye observer_, at joanna's expense. in his place she had now one of those good-looking, rather saucy-eyed young men, whom she liked to have about her in a menial capacity. he wore a chocolate-coloured livery made by a tailor in marlingate, and sat on the seat behind joanna with his arms folded across his chest, as she spanked along the straight mile. joanna was now thirty-three years old, and in some ways looked older than her age, in others younger. her skin, richly weather-beaten into reds and browns, and her strong, well-developed figure in its old-fashioned stays, made her look older than her eyes, which had an expectant, childish gravity in their brightness, and than her mouth, which was still a young woman's mouth, large, eager, full-lipped, with strong, little, white teeth. her hair was beautiful--it had no sleekness, but, even in its coils, looked rough and abundant, and it had the same rich, apple-red colours in it as her skin. she still had plenty of admirers, for the years had made her more rather than less desirable in herself, and men had grown used to her independence among them. moreover, she was a "catch," a maid with money, and this may have influenced the decorous, well-considered offers she had about this time from farmers inland as well as on the marsh. she refused them decidedly--nevertheless, it was obvious that she was well pleased to have been asked; these solid, estimable proposals testified to a quality in her life which had not been there before. yes--she had done well for herself on the whole, she thought. looking back over her life, over the ten years she had ruled at ansdore, she saw success consistently rewarding hard work and high ambition. she saw, too, strange gaps--parts of the road which had grown dim in her memory, parts where probably there had been a turning, where she might have left this well-laid, direct and beaten highway for more romantic field-paths. it was queer, when she came to think of it, that nothing in her life had been really successful except ansdore, that directly she had turned off her high-road she had become at once as it were bogged and lantern-led. socknersh ... martin ... ellen ... there had been by-ways, dim paths leading into queer unknown fields, a strange beautiful land, which now she would never know. § ellen watched her sister's thriving. "she's almost a lady," she said to herself, "and it's wasted on her." she was inclined to be dissatisfied with her own position in local society. when she had first married she had not thought it would be difficult to get herself accepted as "county" in the new neighbourhood, but she had soon discovered that she had had far more consequence as joanna godden's sister than she would ever have as arthur alce's wife. even in those days little ansdore had been a farm of the first importance, and joanna was at least notorious where she was not celebrated; but donkey street held comparatively humble rank in a district overshadowed by dungemarsh court, and arthur was not the man to push himself into consideration, though ellen had agreed that half her marriage portion should be spent on the improvement of his farm. no one of any consequence had called upon her, though her drawing-room, with its black cushions and watts pictures, was more fit to receive the well-born and well-bred than joanna's disgraceful parlour of oleographs and aspidistras and stuffed owls. the parson had "visited" mrs. alce a few weeks after her arrival, but a "visit" is not a call, and when at the end of three months his wife still ignored her existence, ellen made arthur come over with her to brodnyx and pedlinge on the sundays she felt inclined to go to church, saying that she did not care for their ways at romney, where they had a lot of ceremonial centering round the alms-dish. it was bitter for her to have to watch joanna's steady rise in importance--the only respect in which she felt bitter towards her sister, since it was the only respect in which she felt inferior to her. after a time, joanna discovered this. at first she had enjoyed pouring out her triumphs to ellen on her visits to donkey street, or on the rarer occasions when ellen visited ansdore. "yes, my dear, i've made up my mind. i'm going to give a dinner-party--a late dinner-party. i shall ask the people to come at seven, and then not have dinner till the quarter, so as there'll be no chance of the food being kept waiting. i shall have soup and meat and a pudding, and wine to drink." "who are you going to invite?" asked ellen, with a curl of her lip. "why, didn't i tell you? sir harry trevor's coming back to north farthing next month. mrs. tolhurst got it from peter crouch, who had it from the woolpack yesterday. he's coming down with his married sister, mrs. williams, and i'll ask mr. pratt, so as there'll be two gentlemen and two ladies. i'd ask you, ellen, only i know arthur hasn't got an evening suit." "thanks. i don't care about dinner-parties. who's going to do your waiting?" "mene tekel. she's going to wear a cap, and stand in the room all the time." "i hope that you'll be able to hear yourselves talk through her breathing." it struck joanna that ellen was not very cordial. "i believe you want to come," she said, "and i tell you, duckie, i'll try and manage it. it doesn't matter about arthur not having proper clothes--i'll put 'evening dress optional' on the invitations." "i shouldn't do that," said ellen, and laughed in a way that made joanna feel uncomfortable. "i really don't want to come in the least--it would be very dreary driving to and fro." "then what's the matter, dearie?" "matter? there's nothing the matter." but joanna knew that ellen felt sore, and failing to discover the reason herself at last applied to arthur alce. "if you ask me," said arthur, "it's because she's only a farmer's wife." "why should that upset her all of a sudden?" "well, folks don't give her the consequence she'd like; and now she sees you having gentry at your table ..." "i'd have had her at it too, only she didn't want to come, and you haven't got the proper clothes. arthur, if you take my advice, you'll go into lydd this very day and buy yourself an evening suit." "ellen won't let me. she says i'd look a clown in it." "ellen's getting very short. what's happened to her these days?" "it's only that she likes gentlefolk and is fit to mix with them; and after all, jo, i'm nothing but a pore common man." "i hope you don't complain of her, arthur?" "oh, no--i've no complaints--don't you think it. and don't you go saying anything to her, jo." "then what am i to do about it? i won't have her troubling you, nor herself, neither. i tell you what i'll do--look here!--i--i--" joanna gave a loud sacrificial gulp--"i'll make it middle-day dinner instead of late, and then you won't have to wear evening dress, and ellen can come and meet the old squire. she should ought to, seeing as he gave her a pearl locket when she was married. it won't be near so fine as having it in the evening, but i don't want neither her nor you to be upset--and i can always call it 'lunch' ..." § as the result of joanna's self-denial, ellen and arthur were able to meet sir harry trevor and his sister at luncheon at ansdore. the luncheon did not differ in any respect from the dinner as at first proposed. there was soup--much to ellen's annoyance, as arthur had never been able to master the etiquette of its consumption--and a leg of mutton and roast fowls, and a large fig pudding, washed down with some really good wine, for joanna had asked the wine-merchant at rye uncompromisingly for his best--"i don't mind what i pay so long as it's that"--and had been served accordingly. mene tekel waited, with creaking stays and shoes, and loud breaths down the visitors' necks as she thrust vegetable dishes and sauce-boats at perilous angles over their shoulders. ellen provided a piquant contrast to her surroundings. as she sat there in her soft grey dress, with her eyes cast down under her little town hat, with her quiet voice, and languid, noiseless movements, anything more unlike the average farmer's wife of the district was difficult to imagine. joanna felt annoyed with her for dressing up all quiet as a water-hen, but she could see that, in spite of it, her sacrifice in having her party transferred from the glamorous evening hour had been justified. both the old squire and his sister were obviously interested in ellen alce--he in the naïve unguarded way of the male, she more subtly and not without a dash of patronage. mrs. williams always took an interest in any woman she thought downtrodden, as her intuition told her ellen was by that coarse, hairy creature, arthur alce. she herself had disposed of an unsatisfactory husband with great decision and resource, and, perhaps as a thank-offering, had devoted the rest of her life to woman's emancipation. she travelled about the country lecturing for a well-known suffrage society, and was bitterly disappointed in joanna godden because she expressed herself quite satisfied without the vote. "but don't you feel it humiliating to see your carter and your cowman and your shepherd boy all go up to rye to vote on polling-day, while you, who own this farm, and have such a stake in the country, aren't allowed to do so?" "it only means as i've got eight votes instead of one," said joanna, "and don't have the trouble of going to the poll, neither. not one of my men would dare vote but as i told him, so reckon i do better than most at the elections." mrs. williams told joanna that it was such opinions which were keeping back the country from some goal unspecified. "besides, you have to think of other women, miss godden--other women who aren't so fortunate and independent as yourself." she gave a long glance at ellen, whose downcast eyelids flickered. "i don't care about other women," said joanna, "if they won't stand up for themselves, i can't help them. it's easy enough to stand up to a man. i don't think much of men, neither. i like 'em, but i can't think any shakes of their doings. that's why i'd sooner they did their own voting and mine too. now, mene tekel, can't you see the squire's ate all his cabbage?--you hand him the dish again--not under his chin--he don't want to eat out of it--but low down, so as he can get hold of the spoon...." joanna looked upon her luncheon party as a great success, and her pleasure was increased by the fact that soon after it sir harry trevor and his sister paid a ceremonial call on ellen at donkey street. "now she'll be pleased," thought joanna, "it's always what she's been hankering after--having gentlefolk call on her and leave their cards. it ain't my fault it hasn't happened earlier.... i'm unaccountable glad she met them at my house. it'll learn her to think prouder of me." § that spring and summer sir harry trevor was a good deal at north farthing, and it was rumoured on the marsh that he had run through the money so magnanimously left him and had been driven home to economize. joanna did not see as much of him as in the old days--he had given up his attempts at farming, and had let off all the north farthing land except the actual garden and paddock. he came to see her once or twice, and she went about as rarely to see him. it struck her that he had changed in many ways, and she wondered a little where he had been and what he had done during the last four years. he did not look any older. some queer, rather unpleasant lines had traced themselves at the corners of his mouth and eyes, but strangely enough, though they added to his characteristic air of humorous sophistication, they also added to his youth, for they were lines of desire, of feeling ... perhaps in his four years of absence from the marsh he had learned how to feel at last, and had found youth instead of age in the commotions which feeling brings. though he must be fifty-five, he looked scarcely more than forty--and he had a queer, weak, loose, emotional air about him that she found it hard to account for. in the circumstances she did not press invitations upon him, she had no time to waste on men who did not appreciate her as a woman--which the squire, in spite of his susceptibility, obviously failed to do. from june to august she met him only once, and that was at ellen's. neither did she see very much of ellen that summer--her life was too full of hard work, as a substitute for economy. curiously enough next time she went to see her sister sir harry was there again. "hullo! i always seem to be meeting you here," she said--"and nowhere else--you never come to see me now." sir harry grinned. "you're always so mortal busy, jo--i'd feel in your way. now this little woman never seems to have much to do. you're a lazy little thing, ellen--i don't believe you ever move off the sofa, except to the piano." joanna was surprised to see him on such familiar terms with her sister--"ellen," indeed! he'd no right to call her that. "mrs. alce hasn't nothing beyond her housework to do--and any woman worth her keep 'ull get shut of that in the morning. now i've got everything on my hands--and i've no good, kind arthur to look after me neither," and joanna beamed on arthur alce as he stirred his tea at the end of the table. "and jolly thankful you are that you haven't," said the squire. "own up, joanna, and say that the last thing you'd want in life would be someone to look after you." "well, it strikes me," said joanna, "as most of the people i meet want looking after themselves, and it 'ud be just about waste for any of 'em to start looking after me." arthur alce unexpectedly murmured something that sounded like "hear, hear." when joanna left, he brought round her trap, as the saucy-eyed young groom was having a day off in rye. "how've your turnips done?" he asked. "not so good as last year, but the wurzels are fine." "mine might be doing better"--he stood fumbling with a trace-buckle. "has that come loose?" asked joanna. "nun-no. i hope your little lady liked her oats." "she looks in good heart--watch her tugging. you've undone that buckle, arthur." "so i have--i was just fidgeting." he fastened the strap again, his fingers moving clumsily and slowly. it struck her that he was trying to gain time, that he wanted to tell her something. "anything the matter, arthur?" "nothing--why?" "oh, it struck me you looked worried." "what should i be worried about?" "there's a lot of things you might be worried about. what did you tell me about your wurzels?" "they're not so bad." "then i can't see as there's any need for you to look glum." "no more there ain't," said arthur in the voice of a man making a desperate decision. § it was not till nearly a month later that joanna heard that people were "talking" about ellen and sir harry. gossip generally took some time to reach her, owing to her sex, which was not privileged to frequent the woolpack bar, where rumours invariably had a large private circulation before they were finally published at some auction or market. she resented this disability, but in spite of the general daring of her outlook and behaviour, nothing would have induced her to enter the woolpack save by the discreet door of the landlady's parlour, where she occasionally sipped a glass of ale. however, she had means of acquiring knowledge, though not so quickly as those women who were provided with husbands and sons. on this occasion mene tekel fagge brought the news, through the looker at slinches, with whom she was walking out. "that'll do, mene," said joanna to her handmaiden, "you always was the one to pick up idle tales, and dansay should ought to be ashamed of himself, drinking and talking the way he does. now you go and tell peter crouch to bring me round the trap." she drove off to donkey street, carrying her scandal to its source. she was extremely angry--not that for one moment she believed in the truth of those accusations brought against her sister, but ellen was just the sort of girl, with her airs and notions, to get herself talked about at the woolpack, and it was disgraceful to have such things said about one, even if they were not true. there was a prickly heat of shame in joanna's blood as she hustled the mare over the white loops of the romney road. the encounter with ellen made her angrier still. "i don't care what they say," said her sister, "why should i mind what a public-house bar says against me?" "well, you should ought to mind--it's shameful." "they've said plenty against you." "not that sort of thing." "i'd rather have that sort of thing said about me than some." "ellen!" "well, the squire's isn't a bad name to have coupled with mine, if they must couple somebody's." "i wonder you ain't afraid of being struck dead, talking like that--you with the most kind, good-tempered and lawful husband that ever was." "do you imagine that i'm disloyal to arthur?" "howsumever could you think i'd dream of such a thing?" "well, it's the way you're talking." "it ain't." "then why are you angry?" "because you shouldn't ought to get gossiped about like that." "it isn't my fault." "it is. you shouldn't ought to have sir harry about the place as much as you do. the last two times i've been here, he's been too." "i like him--he amuses me." "i like him too, but he ain't worth nothing, and he's got a bad name. you get shut of him, ellen--i know him, and i know a bit about him; he ain't the sort of man to have coming to your house when folks are talking." "you have him to yours--whenever you can get him." "but then i'm a single woman, and he being a single man there's no harm in it." "do you think that a married woman should know no man but her husband?" "what did she marry a husband for?" "really, joanna ... however, there's no use arguing with you. i'm sorry you're annoyed at the gossip, but to keep out of the gossip here one would have to live like a cabbage. you haven't exactly kept out of it yourself." "have done, do, with telling me that. they only talk about me because i'm more go-ahead than any of 'em, and make more money. anyone may talk about you that way and i shan't mind. but to have it said at the woolpack as you, a married woman, lets a man like sir harry be for ever hanging around your house ..." "are you jealous?" said ellen softly. "poor old jo--i'm sorry if i've taken _another_ of your men." joanna opened her mouth and stared at her. at first she hardly understood, then, suddenly grasping what was in ellen's mind, she took in her breath for a torrential explanation of the whole matter. but the next minute she realized that this was hardly the moment to say anything which would prejudice her sister against arthur alce. if ellen would value him more as a robbery, then let her persist in her delusion. the effort of silence was so great that joanna became purple and apoplectic--with a wild, grabbing gesture she turned away, and burst out of the house into the drive, where her trap was waiting. § the next morning mene tekel brought fresh news from the woolpack, and this time it was of a different quality, warranted to allay the seething of joanna's moral sense. sir harry trevor had sold north farthing to a retired bootmaker. he was going to the south of france for the winter, and was then coming back to his sister's flat in london, while she went for a lecturing tour in the united states. the woolpack was very definitely and minutely informed as to his doings, and had built its knowledge into the theory that he must have had some more money left him. joanna was delighted--she forgave sir harry, and ellen too, which was a hard matter. none the less, as november approached through the showers and floods, she felt a little anxious lest he should delay his going or perhaps even revoke it. however, the first week of the month saw the arrival of the bootmaker from deal, with two van-loads of furniture, and his wife and four grown-up daughters--all as ugly as roots, said the woolpack. the squire's furniture was sold by auction at dover, from which port his sailing was in due course guaranteed by credible eye-witnesses. joanna once more breathed freely. no one could talk about him and ellen now--that disgraceful scandal, which seemed to lower ellen to the level of marsh dairy-girls in trouble, and had about it too that strange luciferian flavour of "the sins of society," that scandal had been killed, and its dead body taken away in the dover mail. now that he was gone, and no longer a source of danger to her family's reputation, she found herself liking sir harry again. he had always been friendly, and though she fundamentally disapproved of his "ways," she was woman enough to be thrilled by his lurid reputation. moreover, he provided a link, her last living link, with martin's days--now that strange women kept rabbits in the backyards of north farthing and the rooms were full of the deal bootmaker's resplendent suites, that time of dew and gold and dreams seemed to have faded still further off. for many years it had lain far away on the horizon, but now it seemed to have faded off the earth altogether, and to live only in the sunset sky or in the dim moon-risings, which sometimes woke her out of her sleep with a start, as if she slipped on the verge of some troubling memory. this kindlier state of affairs lasted for about a month, during which joanna saw very little of ellen. she was at rest about her sister, for the fact that ellen might be feeling lonely and unhappy at the departure of her friend did not trouble her in the least; such emotions, so vile in their source, could not call for any sympathy. besides, she was busy, hunting for a new cowman to work under broadhurst, whose undertakings, since the establishment of the milk-round, had almost come to equal those of the looker in activity and importance. she was just about to set out one morning for a farm near brenzett, when she saw arthur alce come up to the door on horseback. "hullo, jo!" he called rather anxiously through the window. "have you got ellen?" "i?--no. why should i have her, pray?" "because i ain't got her." "what d'you mean? get down, arthur, and come and talk to me in here. don't let everyone hear you shouting like that." arthur hitched his horse to the paling and came in. "i thought maybe i'd find her here," he said. "i ain't seen her since breakfast." "there's other places she could have gone besides here. maybe she's gone shopping in romney and forgot to tell you." "it's queer her starting off like that without a word--and she's took her liddle bag and a few bits of things with her too." "what things?--arthur! why couldn't you tell me that before?" "i was going to.... i'm feeling a bit anxious, jo.... i've a feeling she's gone after that old squire." "you dare say such a thing! arthur, i'm ashamed of you, believing such a thing of your wife and my sister." "well, she was unaccountable set on him." "nonsense! he just amused her. it's you whose wife she is." "she's scarce given me a word more'n in the way of business, as you might say, this last three month. and she won't let me touch her." "why didn't you tell me this before?" "i didn't want to trouble you, and i thought maybe it was a private matter." "you should have told me the drackly minute ellen started not to treat you proper. i'd have spoken to her.... now we're in for a valiant terrification." "i'm unaccountable sorry, jo." "how long has she been gone?" "since around nine. i went out to see the tegs, counting them up to go inland, and when i came in for dinner the gal told me as ellen had gone out soon after breakfast, and had told her to see as i got my dinner, as she wouldn't be back." "why didn't you start after her at once?" "well, i made sure as she'd gone to you. then i began to think over things and put 'em together, and i found she'd taken her liddle bag, and i got scared. i never liked her seeing such a lot of that man." "then why didn't you stop it?" "how could i?" "i could have--and the way people talked.... i'd have locked her up sooner than ... well, it's too late now ... the boat went at twelve. oh, arthur, why didn't you watch her properly? why did you let her go like that? think of it! what's to become of her--away in foreign parts with a man who ain't her husband ... my liddle ellen ... oh, it's turble--turble--" her speech suddenly roughened into the doric of the marsh, and she sat down heavily, dropping her head to her knees. "joanna--don't, don't ... don't take on, jo." he had not seen her cry before, and now she frightened him. her shoulders heaved, and great panting sobs shook her broad back. "my liddle ellen ... my treasure, my duckie ... oh, why have you left us?... you could have come back to me if you didn't like it.... oh, ellen, where are you?... come back ..." arthur stood motionless beside her, his frame rigid, his protuberant blue eyes staring through the window at the horizon. he longed to take joanna in his arms, caress and comfort her, but he knew that he must not. "cheer up," he said at last in a husky voice, "maybe it ain't so bad as you think. maybe i'll find her at home when i get back to donkey street." "not if she took her bag. oh, whatsumever shall we do?--whatsumever shall we do?" "we can but wait. if she don't come back, maybe she'll send me a letter." "it queers me how you can speak so light of it." "i speak light?" "yes, you don't seem to tumble to it." "reckon i do tumble to it, but what can we do?" "you shouldn't have left her alone all that time from breakfast till dinner--if you'd gone after her at the start you could have brought her back. you should ought to have kicked sir harry out of donkey street before the start. i'd have done it surely. reckon i love ellen more'n you." "reckon you do, jo. i tell you, i ought never to have married her--since it was you i cared for all along." "hold your tongue, arthur. i'm ashamed of you to choose this time to say such an immoral thing." "it ain't immoral--it's the truth." "well, it shouldn't ought to be the truth. when you married ellen you'd no business to go on caring for me. i guess all this is a judgment on you, caring for a woman when you'd married her sister." "you ain't yourself, jo," said arthur sadly, "and there's no sense arguing with you. i'll go away till you've got over it. maybe i'll have some news for you to-morrow morning." § to-morrow morning he had a letter from ellen herself. he brought it at once to a strangely drooping and weary-eyed joanna, and read it again over her shoulder. "dear arthur," it ran-- "i'm afraid this will hurt you and joanna terribly, but i expect you have already guessed what has happened. i am on my way to san remo, to join sir harry trevor, and i am never coming back, because i know now that i ought not to have married you. i do not ask you to forgive me, and i'm sure joanna won't, but i had to think of my own happiness, and i never was a good wife to you. believe me, i have done my best--i said 'good-bye for ever' to harry a month ago, but ever since then my life has been one long misery; i cannot live without him. "ellen." "well, it's only told us what we knew already," said joanna with a gulp, "but now we're sure we can do better than just talk about it." "what can we do?" "we can get the old squire's address from somebody--mrs. williams or the people at north farthing house--and then send a telegram after her, telling her to come back." "that won't be much use." "it'll be something, anyway. maybe when she gets out there in foreign parts she won't be so pleased--or maybe he never asked her to come, and he'll have changed his mind about her. we must try and get her back. where have you told your folk she's gone to?" "i've told 'em she's gone to stop with you." "well, i can't pretend she's here. you might have thought of something better, arthur." "i can't think of nothing else." "you just about try. if only we can get her somewheres for a week, so as to have time to write and tell her as all will be forgiven and you'll take her back...." arthur looked mutinous. "i don't know as i want her back." "arthur, you must. otherways, everybody ull have to know what's happened." "but she didn't like being with me, or she wouldn't have gone away." "she liked it well enough, or she wouldn't have stayed with you two year. arthur, you must have her back, you just about must. you send her a telegram saying as you'll have her back if only she'll come this once, before folks find out where she's gone." arthur's resistance gradually failed before joanna's entreaties and persuasions. he could not withstand jo when her blue eyes were all dull with tears, and her voice was hoarse and frantic. for some months now his marriage had seemed to him a wrong and immoral thing, but he rather sorrowfully told himself that having made the first false step he could not now turn round and come back, even if ellen herself had broken away. he rode off to find out the squire's address, and send his wife the summoning and forgiving telegram. § it was not perhaps surprising that, in spite of a lavish and exceedingly expensive offer of forgiveness, ellen did not come home. over a week passed without even an acknowledgment of the telegram, which she must have found reproachfully awaiting her arrival--the symbol of walland marsh pursuing her into the remoteness of a new life and a strange country. as might have been expected joanna felt this period of waiting and inactivity far more than she had felt the actual shock. she had all the weight on her shoulders of a sustained deception. she and arthur had to dress up a story to deceive the neighbourhood, and they gave out that ellen was in london, staying with mrs. williams--her husband had forbidden her to go, so she had run away, and now there would have to be some give and take on both sides before she could come back. joanna had been inspired to circulate this legend by the discovery that ellen actually had taken a ticket for london. she had probably guessed the sensation that her taking a ticket to dover would arouse at the local station, so had gone first to london and travelled down by the boat express. it was all very cunning, and joanna thought she saw the old squire's experienced hand in it. of course it might be true that he had not persuaded ellen to come out to him, but that she had gone to him on a sudden impulse.... but even joanna's plunging instinct realized that her sister was not the sort to take desperate risks for love's sake, and the whole thing had about it a sly, concerted air, which made her think that sir harry was not only privy, but a prime mover. after some ten days of anxiety, self-consciousness, shame and exasperation, these suspicions were confirmed by a letter from the squire himself. he wrote from oepedaletti, a small place near san remo, and he wrote charmingly. no other adverb could qualify the peculiarly suave, tactful, humorous and gracious style in which not only he flung a mantle of romance over his and ellen's behaviour (which till then, judged by the standards of ansdore, had been just drably "wicked"), but by some mysterious means brought in joanna as a third conspirator, linked by a broad and kindly intuition with himself and ellen against a censorious world. "you, who know ellen so well, will realize that she has never till now had her birthright. you did your best for her, but both of you were bounded north, south, east and west by walland marsh. i wish you could see her now, beside me on the terrace--she is like a little finch in the sunshine of its first spring day. her only trouble is her fear of you, her fear that you will not understand. but i tell her i would trust you first of all the world to do that. as a woman of the world, you must realize exactly what public opinion is worth--if you yourself had bowed down to it, where would you be now? ellen is only doing now what you did for yourself eleven years ago." joanna's feelings were divided between gratification at the flattery she never could resist, and a fierce resentment at the insult offered her in supposing she could ever wink at such "goings on." the more indignant emotions predominated in the letter she wrote sir harry, for she knew well enough that the flattery was not sincere--he was merely out to propitiate. her feelings towards ellen were exceedingly bitter, and the letter she wrote her was a rough one:-- "you're nothing but a baggage. it makes no difference that you wear fine clothes and shoes that he's bought you to your shame. you're just every bit as low as martha tilden whom i got shut of ten year ago for no worse than you've done." nevertheless, she insisted that ellen should come home. she guaranteed arthur's forgiveness, and--somewhat rashly--the neighbours' discretion. "i've told them you're in london with mrs. williams. but that won't hold good much more than another week. so be quick and come home, before it's too late." unfortunately the facts of ellen's absence were already beginning to leak out. people did not believe in the london story. had not the old squire's visits to donkey street been the tattle of the marsh for six months? she was condemned not only at the woolpack, but at the three markets of rye, lydd and romney. joanna was furious. "it's that post office," she exclaimed, and the remark was not quite unjust. the contents of telegrams had always had an alarming way of spreading themselves over the district, and joanna felt sure that miss godfrey would have both made and published her own conclusions on the large amount of foreign correspondence now received at ansdore. ellen herself was the next to write. she wrote impenitently and decidedly. she would never come back, so there was no good either joanna or arthur expecting it. she had left donkey street because she could not endure its cramped ways any longer, and it was unreasonable to expect her to return. "if arthur has any feeling for me left, he will divorce me. he can easily do it, and then we shall both be free to re-marry." "reckon she thinks the old squire ud like to marry her," said alce, "i'd be glad if i thought so well of him." "he can't marry her, seeing as she's your wife." "if we were divorced, she wouldn't be." "she would. you were made man and wife in pedlinge church, as i saw with my own eyes, and i'll never believe as what was done then can be undone just by having some stuff written in the papers." "it's a lawyer's business," said arthur. "i can't see that," said joanna--"a parson married you, so reckon a parson must unmarry you." "he wouldn't do it. it's a lawyer's job." "i'd thank my looker if he went about undoing my carter's work. those lawyers want to put their heads in everywhere. and as for ellen, all i can say is, it's just like her wanting the ten commandments altered to suit her convenience. reckon they ain't refined and high-class enough for her. but she may ask for a divorce till she's black in the face--she shan't get it." so ellen had to remain--very much against the grain, for she was fundamentally respectable--a breaker of the law. she wrote once or twice more on the subject, appealing to arthur, since joanna's reply had shown her exactly how much quarter she could expect. but arthur was not to be won, for apart from joanna's domination, and his own unsophisticated beliefs in the permanence of marriage, his suspicions were roused by the old squire's silence on the matter. at no point did he join his appeals and arguments with ellen's, though he had been ready enough to write to excuse and explain.... no, arthur felt that love and wisdom lay not in sanctifying ellen in her new ways with the blessing of the law, but in leaving the old open for her to come back to when the new should perhaps grow hard. "that chap 'ull get shut of her--i don't trust him--and then she'll want to come back to me or jo." so he wrote with boring reiteration of his willingness to receive her home again as soon as she chose to return, and assured her that he and joanna had still managed to keep the secret of her departure, so that she need not fear scornful tongues. they had given the marsh to understand that no settlement having been arrived at, ellen had accompanied mrs. williams to the south of france, hoping that things would have improved on her return. this would account for the foreign post-marks, and both he and joanna were more proud of their cunning than was quite warrantable from its results. § that winter brought great ansdore at last into the market. it would have come in before had not joanna so rashly bragged of her intention to buy it. as it was--"i guess i'll get a bit more out of the old gal by holding on," said prickett disrespectfully, and he held on till joanna's impatience about equalled his extremity; whereupon he sold it to her for not over fifty per cent, more than he would have asked had he not known of her ambition. she paid the price manfully, and prickett went out with his few sticks. the woolpack was inclined to be contemptuous. "five thousand pounds for prickett's old shacks, and his mouldy pastures that are all burdock and fluke. if joanna godden had had any know, she could have beaten him down fifteen hundred--he was bound to sell, and she was a fool not to make him sell at her price." but when joanna wanted a thing she did not mind paying for it, and she had wanted great ansdore very much, though no one knew better than she that it was shacky and mouldy. for long it had mocked with its proud title the triumphs of little ansdore. now the whole manor of ansdore was hers, great and little, and with it she held the living of brodnyx and pedlinge--it was she, of her own might, who would appoint the next rector, and for some time she imagined that she had it in her power to turn out mr. pratt. she at once set to work, putting her new domain in order. some of the pasture she grubbed up for spring sowings, the rest she drained by cutting a new channel from the kent ditch to the white kemp sewer. she re-roofed the barns with slate, and painted and re-tiled the dwelling-house. this last she decided to let to some family of gentlepeople, while herself keeping on the farm and the barns. the dwelling-house of little ansdore, though more flat and spreading, was in every way superior to that of great ansdore, which was rather new and inclined to gimcrackiness, having been built on the site of the first dwelling, burnt down somewhere in the eighties. besides, she loved little ansdore for its associations--under its roof she had been born and her father had been born, under its roof she had known love and sorrow and denial and victory; she could not bear to think of leaving it. the queer, low house, with its mixture of spaciousness and crookedness, its huge, sag-ceilinged rooms and narrow, twisting passages, was almost a personality to her now, one of the godden family, the last of kin that had remained kind. her activities were merciful in crowding what would otherwise have been a sorrowful period of emptiness and anxiety. it is true that ellen's behaviour had done much to spoil her triumph, both in the neighbourhood and in her own eyes, but she had not time to be thinking of it always. visits to rye, either to her lawyers or to the decorators and paper-hangers, the engaging of extra hands, both temporary and permanent, for the extra work, the supervising of labourers and workmen whom she never could trust to do their job without her ... all these crowded her cares into a few hours of evening or an occasionally wakeful night. but every now and then she must suffer. sometimes she would be overwhelmed, in the midst of all her triumphant business, with a sense of personal failure. she had succeeded where most women are hopeless failures, but where so many women are successful and satisfied she had failed and gone empty. she had no home, beyond what was involved in the walls of this ancient dwelling, the womb and grave of her existence--she had lost the man she loved, had been unable to settle herself comfortably with another, and now she had lost ellen, the little sister, who had managed to hold at least a part of that over-running love, which since martin's death had had only broken cisterns to flow into. the last catastrophe now loomed the largest. joanna no longer shed tears for martin, but she shed many for ellen, either into her own pillow, or into the flowery quilt of the flowery room which inconsequently she held sacred to the memory of the girl who had despised it. her grief for ellen was mixed with anxiety and with shame. what would become of her? joanna could not, would not, believe that she would never come back. yet what if she came?... in joanna's eyes, and in the eyes of all the neighbourhood, ellen had committed a crime which raised a barrier between her and ordinary folk. between ellen and her sister now stood the wall of strange, new conditions--conditions that could ignore the sonorous thou shalt not, which joanna never saw apart from mr. pratt in his surplice and hood, standing under the lion and the unicorn, while all the farmers and householders of the marsh murmured into their prayer books--"lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law." she could not think of ellen without this picture rising up between them, and sometimes in church she would be overwhelmed with a bitter shame, and in the lonely enclosure of her great cattle-box pew would stuff her fingers into her ears, so that she should not hear the dreadful words of her sister's condemnation. she had moments, too, of an even bitterer shame--strange, terrible, and mercifully rare times when her attitude towards ellen was not of judgment or of care or of longing, but of envy. sometimes she would be overwhelmed with a sense of ellen's happiness in being loved, even if the love was unlawful. she had never felt this during the years that her sister had lived with alce; the thought of his affection had brought her nothing but happiness and content. now, on sinister occasions, she would find herself thinking of ellen cherished and spoiled, protected and caressed, living the life of love--and a desperate longing would come to her to enjoy what her sister enjoyed, to be kissed and stroked and made much of and taken care of, to see some man laying schemes and taking risks for her ... sometimes she felt that she would like to see all the fullness of her life at ansdore, all her honour on the three marshes, blown to the winds if only in their stead she could have just ordinary human love, with or without the law. poor joanna was overwhelmed with horror at herself--sometimes she thought she must be possessed by a devil. she must be very wicked--in her heart just as wicked as ellen. what could she do to cast out this dumb, tearing spirit?--should she marry one of her admirers on the marsh, and trust to his humdrum devotion to satisfy her devouring need? even in her despair and panic she knew that she could not do this. it was love that she must have--the same sort of love that she had given martin; that alone could bring her the joys she now envied in her sister. and love--how shall it be found?--who shall go out to seek it? § towards the spring, ellen wrote again, breaking the silence of several weeks. she wrote in a different tone--some change had passed over her. she no longer asked arthur to divorce her--on the contrary she hinted her thanks for his magnanimity in not having done so. evidently she no longer counted on marrying sir harry trevor, perhaps, even, she did not wish to. but in one point she had not changed--she was not coming back to her husband. "i couldn't bear to live that life again, especially after what's happened. it's not his fault--it's simply that i'm different. if he wants his freedom, i suggest that he should let me divorce him--it could easily be arranged. he should go and see a really good lawyer in london." yes--ellen spoke truly when she said that she was "different." her cavalier dealings with the situation, the glib way she spoke of divorce, the insult she flung at the respectable form of huxtable, vidler and huxtable by suggesting that arthur should consult "a really good lawyer in london," all showed how far she had travelled from the ways of walland marsh. "what's she after now?" asked joanna. "reckon they're getting tired of each other." "she don't say so." "no--she wants to find out which way the land lays first." "i'll write and tell her she can come back and live along of me, if she won't go to you." "then i'll have to be leaving these parts--i couldn't be at donkey street and her at ansdore." "reckon you could--she can go out of the way when you call." "it wouldn't be seemly." "where ud you go?" "i've no notion. but reckon all this ain't the question yet. ellen won't come back to you no more than she'll come back to me." "she'll just about have to come if she gets shut of the old squire, seeing as she's got no more than twelve pounds a year of her own. reckon poor father was a wise man when he left ansdore to me and not to both of us--you'd almost think he'd guessed what she was coming to." joanna wrote to ellen and made her offer. her sister wrote back at great length, and rather pathetically--"harry" was going on to venice, and she did not think she would go with him--"when one gets to know a person, jo, one sometimes finds they are not quite what one thought them." she would like to be by herself for a bit, but she did not want to come back to ansdore, even if arthur went away--"it would be very awkward after what has happened." she begged jo to be generous and make her some small allowance--"harry would provide for me if he hadn't had such terrible bad luck--he never was very well off, you know, and he can't manage unless we keep together. i know you wouldn't like me to be tied to him just by money considerations." joanna was bewildered by the letter. she could have understood ellen turning in horror and loathing from the partner of her guilt, but she could not understand this wary and matter-of-fact separation. what was her sister made of? "harry would provide for me" ... would she really have accepted such a provision? joanna's ears grew red. "i'll make her come home," she exclaimed savagely--"she'll have to come if she's got no money." "maybe she'll stop along of him," said arthur. "then let her--i don't care. but she shan't have my money to live on by herself in foreign parts, taking up with any man that comes her way; for i don't trust her now--i reckon she's lost to shame." she wrote ellen to this effect, and, not surprisingly, received no answer. she felt hard and desperate--the thought that she was perhaps binding her sister to her misdoing gave her only occasional spasms of remorse. sometimes she would feel as if all her being and all her history, ansdore and her father's memory, disowned her sister, and that she could never take her back into her life again, however penitent--"she's mocked at our good ways--she's loose, she's low." at other times her heart melted towards ellen in weakness, and she knew within herself that no matter what she did, she would always be her little sister, her child, her darling, whom all her life she had cherished and could never cast out. she said nothing about these swaying feelings to arthur--she had of late grown far more secretive about herself--as for him, he took things as they came. he found a wondrous quiet in this time, when he was allowed to serve joanna as in days of old. he did not think of marrying her--he knew that even if it was true that the lawyers could set aside parson's word, joanna would not take him now, any more than she would have taken him five or ten or fifteen years ago; she did not think about him in that way. on the other hand she appreciated his company and his services. he called at ansdore two or three times a week, and ran her errands for her. it was almost like old times, and in his heart he knew and was ashamed to know that he hoped ellen would never come back. if she came back either to him or to joanna, these days of quiet happiness would end. meantime, he would not think of it--he was joanna's servant, and when she could not be in two places at once it was his joy and privilege to be in one of them. "i could live like this for ever, surely," he said to himself, as he sat stirring his solitary cup of tea at donkey street, knowing that he was to call at ansdore the next morning. that was the morning he met joanna in the drive, hatless, and holding a piece of paper in her hand. "i've heard from ellen--she's telegraphed from venice--she's coming home." § now that she knew ellen was coming, joanna had nothing in her heart but joy and angry love. ellen was coming back, at last, after many wanderings--and she saw now that these wanderings included the years of her life with alce--she was coming back to ansdore and the old home. joanna forgot how much she had hated it, would not think that this precious return was merely the action of a woman without resources. she gave herself up to the joy of preparing a welcome--as splendidly and elaborately as she had prepared for her sister's return from school. this time, however, she went further, and actually made some concessions to ellen's taste. she remembered that she liked dull die-away colours "like the mould on jam," so she took down the pink curtains and folded away the pink bedspread, and put in their places material that the shop at rye assured her was "art green"--which, in combination with the crimson, flowery walls and floor contrived most effectually to suggest a scum of grey-green mould on a pot of especially vivid strawberry jam. but she was angry too--her heart burned to think not only of ellen's sin but of the casual way in which she treated it. "i won't have none of her loose notions here," said joanna grimly. she made up her mind to give her sister a good talking to, to convince her of the way in which her "goings on" struck decent folk; but she would not do it at the start--"i'll give her time to settle down a bit first." during the few days which elapsed between ellen's telegram and her arrival, joanna saw nothing of alce. she had one letter from him, in which he told her that he had been over to fairfield to look at the plough she was speaking of, but that it was old stuff and would be no use to her. he did not even mention ellen's name. she wondered if he was making any plans for leaving donkey street--she hoped he would not be such a fool as to go. he and ellen could easily keep out of each other's way. still, if ellen wouldn't stay unless he went, she would rather have ellen than alce.... he would have to sell donkey street, or perhaps he might let it off for a little time. april had just become may when ellen returned to ansdore. it had been a rainy spring, and great pools were on the marshes, overflows from the dykes and channels, clear mirrors green from the grass beneath their shallows and the green rainy skies that hung above them. here and there they reflected white clumps and walls of hawthorn, with the pale yellowish gleam of the buttercups in the pastures. the two sisters, driving back from rye, looked round on the green twilight of the marsh with indifferent eyes. joanna had ceased to look for any beauty in her surroundings since martin's days--the small gift of sight that he had given her had gone out with the light of his own eyes, and this evening all she saw was the flooded pastures, which meant poor grazing for her tegs due to come down from the coast, and her lambs new-born on the kent innings. as for ellen, the marsh had always stood with her for unrelieved boredom. its eternal flatness--the monotony of its roads winding through an unvarying landscape of reeds and dykes and grazings, past farms each of which was almost exactly like the one before it, with red walls and orange roofs and a bush of elms and oaks--the wearisome repetition of its seasons--the mists and floods of winter, the may and buttercups of spring, the hay and meadow-sweet and wild carrot of the summer months, the bleakness and winds of autumn--all this was typical of her life there, water-bound, cut off from all her heart's desire of variety and beauty and elegance, of the life to which she must now return because her attempt to live another had failed and left her stranded on a slag-heap of disillusion from which even ansdore was a refuge. ellen sat very trim and erect beside joanna in the trap. she wore a neat grey coat and skirt, obviously not of local, nor indeed of english, make, and a little toque of flowers. she had taken joanna's breath away on rye platform; it had been very much like old times when she came home for the holidays and checked the impulse of her sister's love by a baffling quality of self-containment. joanna, basing her expectations on the bible story of the prodigal son rather than on the experiences of the past winter, had looked for a subdued penitent, surfeited with husks, who, if not actually casting herself at her sister's feet and offering herself as her servant, would at least have a hang-dog air and express her gratitude for so much forgiveness. instead of which ellen had said--"hullo, jo--it's good to see you again," and offered her a cool, delicately powdered cheek, which joanna's warm lips had kissed with a queer, sad sense of repulse and humiliation. before they had been together long, it was she who wore the hang-dog air--for some unconscionable reason she felt in the wrong, and found herself asking her sister polite, nervous questions about the journey. this attitude prevailed throughout the evening--on the drive home, and at the excellent supper they sat down to: a stuffed capon and a bottle of wine, truly a genteel feast of reconciliation--but joanna had grown more aristocratic in her feeding since she bought great ansdore. ellen spoke about her journey--she had had a smooth crossing, but had felt rather ill in the train. it was a long way from venice--yes, you came through france, and switzerland too ... the st. gothard tunnel ... twenty minutes--well, i never?... yes, a bit smoky--you had to keep the windows shut ... she preferred french to italian cooking--she did not like all that oil ... oh yes, foreigners were very polite when they knew you, but not to strangers ... just the opposite from england, where people were polite to strangers and rude to their friends. joanna had never spoken or heard so many generalities in her life. at the end of supper she felt quite tired, what with saying one thing with her tongue and another in her heart. sometimes she felt that she must say something to break down this unreality, which was between them like a wall of ice--at other times she felt angry, and it was ellen she wanted to break down, to force out of her superior refuge, and show up to her own self as just a common sinner receiving common forgiveness. but there was something about ellen which made this impossible--something about her manner, with its cold poise, something about her face, which had indefinitely changed--it looked paler, wider, and there were secrets at the corners of her mouth. this was not the first time that joanna had seen her sister calm and collected while she herself was flustered--but this evening a sense of her own awkwardness helped to put her at a still greater disadvantage. she found herself making inane remarks, hesitating and stuttering--she grew sulky and silent, and at last suggested that ellen would like to go to bed. her sister seemed glad enough, and they went upstairs together. but even the sight of her old bedroom, where the last year of her maidenhood had been spent, even the sight of the new curtains chastening its exuberance with their dim austerity, did not dissolve ellen's terrible, cold sparkle--her frozen fire. "good night," said joanna. "good night," said ellen, "may i have some hot water?" "i'll tell the gal," said joanna tamely, and went out. § when she was alone in her own room, she seemed to come to herself. she felt ashamed of having been so baffled by ellen, of having received her on those terms. she could not bear to think of ellen living on in the house, so terribly at an advantage. if she let things stay as they were, she was tacitly acknowledging some indefinite superiority which her sister had won through sin. all the time she was saying nothing she felt that ellen was saying in her heart--"i have been away to foreign parts, i have been loved by a man i don't belong to, i have seen life, i have stopped at hotels, i have met people of a kind you haven't even spoken to...." that was what ellen was saying, instead of what joanna thought she ought to say, which was--"i'm no better then a dairy girl in trouble, than martha tilden whom you sacked when i was a youngster, and it's unaccountable good of you to have me home." joanna was not the kind to waste her emotions in the sphere of thought. she burst out of the room, and nearly knocked over mene tekel, who was on her way to ellen with a jug of hot water. "give that to me," she said, and went to her sister's door, at which she was still sufficiently demoralized to knock. "come in," said ellen. "i've brought you your hot water." "thank you very much--i hope it hasn't been a trouble." ellen was standing by the bed in a pretty lilac silk wrapper, her hair tucked away under a little lace cap. joanna wore her dressing-gown of turkey-red flannel, and her hair hung down her back in two great rough plaits. for a moment she stared disapprovingly at her sister, whom she thought looked "french," then she suddenly felt ashamed of herself and her ugly, shapeless coverings. this made her angry, and she burst out-- "ellen alce, i want a word with you." "sit down, jo," said ellen sweetly. joanna flounced on to the rosy, slippery chintz of ellen's sofa. ellen sat down on the bed. "what do you want to say to me?" "an unaccountable lot of things." "must they all be said to-night? i'm very sleepy." "well, you must just about keep awake. i can't let it stay over any longer. here you've been back five hour, and not a word passed between us." "on the contrary, we have had some intelligent conversation for the first time in our lives." "you call that rot about furriners 'intelligent conversation'? well, all i can say is that it's like you--all pretence. one ud think you'd just come back from a pleasure-trip abroad instead of from a wicked life that you should ought to be ashamed of." for the first time a flush darkened the heavy whiteness of ellen's skin. "so you want to rake up the past? it's exactly like you, jo--'having things out,' i suppose you'd call it. how many times in our lives have you and i 'had things out'?--and what good has it ever done us?" "i can't go on all pretending like this--i can't go on pretending i think you an honest woman when i don't--i can't go on saying 'it's a fine day' when i'm wondering how you'll fare in the day of judgment." "poor old jo," said ellen, "you'd have had an easier life if you hadn't lived, as they say, so close to nature. it's just what you call pretences and others call good manners that make life bearable for some people." "yes, for 'some people' i daresay--people whose characters won't stand any straight talking." "straight talking is always so rude--no one ever seems to require it on pleasant occasions." "that's all nonsense. you always was a squeamish, obstropulous little thing, ellen. it's only natural that having you back in my house--as i'm more than glad to do--i should want to know how you stand. what made you come to me sudden like that?" "can't you guess? it's rather unpleasant for me to have to tell you." "reckon it was that man"--somehow sir harry's name had become vaguely improper, joanna felt unable to pronounce it--"then you've made up your mind not to marry him," she finished. "how can i marry him, seeing i'm somebody else's wife?" "i'm glad to hear you say such a proper thing. it ain't what you was saying at the start. then you wanted a divorce and all sorts of foreign notions ... what's made you change round?" "well, arthur wouldn't give me a divorce, for one thing. for another, as i told you in my letter, one often doesn't know people till one's lived with them--besides, he's too old for me." "he'll never see sixty again." "he will," said ellen indignantly--"he was only fifty-five in march." "that's thirty year more'n you." "i've told you he's too old for me." "you might have found out that at the start--he was only six months younger then." "there's a great many things i might have done at the start," said ellen bitterly--"but i tell you, joanna, life isn't quite the simple thing you imagine. there was i, married to a man utterly uncongenial--" "he wasn't! you're not to miscall arthur--he's the best man alive." "i don't deny it--perhaps that is why i found him uncongenial. anyhow, we were quite unsuited to each other--we hadn't an idea in common." "you liked him well enough when you married him." "i've told you before that it's difficult to know anyone thoroughly till one's lived with them." "then at that rate, who's to get married--eh?" "i don't know," said ellen wearily, "all i know is that i've made two bad mistakes over two different men, and i think the least you can do is to let me forget it--as far as i'm able--and not come here baiting me when i'm dog tired, and absolutely down and out...." she bowed her face into her hands, and burst into tears. joanna flung her arms round her-- "oh, don't you cry, duckie--don't--i didn't mean to bait you. only i was getting so mortal vexed at you and me walking round each other like two cats and never getting a straight word." "jo," ... said ellen. her face was hidden in her sister's shoulder, and her whole body had drooped against joanna's side, utterly weary after three days of travel and disillusioned loneliness. "reckon i'm glad you've come back, dearie--and i won't ask you any more questions. i'm a cross-grained, cantankerous old thing, but you'll stop along of me a bit, won't you?" "yes," said ellen, "you're all i've got in the world." "arthur ud take you back any day you ask it," said joanna, thinking this a good time for mediation. "no--no!" cried ellen, beginning to cry again--"i won't stay if you try to make me go back to arthur. if he had the slightest feeling for me he would let me divorce him." "how could you?--seeing that he's been a pattern all his life." "he needn't do anything wrong--he need only pretend to. the lawyers ud fix it up." ellen was getting french again. joanna pushed her off her shoulder. "really, ellen alce, i'm ashamed of you--that you should speak such words! what upsets me most is that you don't seem to see how wrong you've done. don't you never read your bible any more?" "no," sobbed ellen. "well, there's lots in the bible about people like you--you're called by your right name there, and it ain't a pretty one. some are spoken uncommon hard of, and some were forgiven because they loved much. seemingly you haven't loved much, so i don't see how you expect to be forgiven. and there's lots in the prayer book too ... the bible and the prayer book both say you've done wrong, and you don't seem to mind--all you think of is how you can get out of your trouble. reckon you're like a child that's done wrong and thinks of nothing but coaxing round so as not to be punished." "i have been punished." "not half what you deserve." "it's all very well for you to say that--you don't understand; and what's more, you never will. you're a hard woman, jo--because you've never had the temptations that ordinary women have to fight against." "how dare you say that?--temptation!--reckon i know ..." a sudden memory of those painful and humiliating moments when she had fought with those strange powers and discontents, made joanna turn hot with shame. the realization that she had come very close to ellen's sin in her heart did not make her more relenting towards the sinner--on the contrary, she hardened. "anyways, i've said enough to you for to-night." "i hope you don't mean to say more to-morrow." "no--i don't know that i do. reckon you're right, and we don't get any good from 'having things out.' seemingly we speak with different tongues, and think with different hearts." she stood up, and her huge shadow sped over the ceiling, hanging over ellen as she crouched on the bed. then she stalked out of the room, almost majestic in her turkey-red dressing-gown. § ellen kept very close to the house during the next few days. her face wore a demure, sullen expression--towards joanna she was quiet and sweet, and evidently anxious that there should be no further opening of hearts between them. she was very polite to the maids--she won their good opinion by making her bed herself, so that they should not have any extra work on her account. perhaps it was this domestic good opinion which was at the bottom of the milder turn which the gossip about her took at this time. naturally tongues had been busy ever since it became known that joanna was expecting her back--sir harry trevor had got shut of her for the baggage she was ... she had got shut of sir harry trevor for the blackguard he was ... she had travelled back as somebody's maid, to pay her fare ... she had brought her own french maid as far as calais ... she had walked from dover ... she had brought four trunks full of french clothes. these conflicting rumours must have killed each other, for a few days after her return the woolpack was saying that after all there might be something in joanna's tale of a trip with mrs. williams--of course everyone knew that both ellen and the old squire had been at san remo, but now it was suddenly discovered that mrs. williams had been there too--anyway, there was no knowing that she hadn't, and ellen alce didn't look the sort that ud go to a furrin place alone with a man. mrs. vine had seen her through the parlour window, and her face was as white as chalk--not a scrap of paint on it. mr. southland had met her on the brodnyx road, and she had bowed to him polite and stately--no shrinking from an honest man's eye. according to the woolpack, if you sinned as ellen was reported to have sinned, you were either brazen or thoroughly ashamed of yourself, and ellen, by being neither, did much to soften public opinion, and make it incline towards the official explanation of her absence. this tendency increased when it became known that arthur alce was leaving donkey street. the woolpack held that if ellen had been guilty, alce would not put himself in the wrong by going away. he would either have remained as the visible rebuke of her misconduct, or he would have bundled ellen herself off to some distant part of the kingdom, such as the isle of wight, where the goddens had cousins. by leaving the neighbourhood he gave colour to the mysteriously-started rumour that he was not so easy to get on with as you'd think ... after all, it's never a safe thing for a girl to marry her sister's sweetheart ... probably alce had been hankering after his old love and ellen resented it ... the woolpack suddenly discovered that alce was leaving not so much on ellen's account as on joanna's--he'd been unable to get off with the old love, even when he'd got on with the new, and now that the new was off too ... well, there was nothing for it but for arthur alce to be off. he was going to his brother, who had a big farm in the shires--a proper farm, with great fields each of which was nearly as big as a marsh farm, fifty, seventy, a hundred acres even. § joanna bitterly resented arthur's going, but she could not prevent it, for if he stayed ellen threatened to go herself. "i'll get a post as lady's-maid sooner than stay on here with you and arthur. have you absolutely no delicacy, jo?--can't you see how awkward it'll be for me if everywhere i go i run the risk of meeting him? besides, you'll be always plaguing me to go back to him, and i tell you i'll never do that--never." arthur, too, did not seem anxious to stay. he saw that if ellen was at ansdore he could not be continually running to and fro on his errands for joanna. that tranquil life of service was gone, and he did not care for the thought of exile at donkey street, a shutting of himself into his parish of old romney, with the kent ditch between him and joanna like a prison wall. when joanna told him what ellen had said, he accepted it meekly-- "that's right, joanna--i must go." "but that ull be terrible hard for you, arthur." he looked at her. "reckon it will." "where ull you go?" "oh, i can go to tom's." "that's right away in the shires, ain't it?" "yes--beyond leicester." "where they do the hunting." "surelye." "what's the farm?" "grain mostly--and he's done well with his sheep. he'd be glad to have me for a bit." "what'll you do with donkey street?" "let it off for a bit." "don't you sell!" "not i!" "you'll be meaning to come back?" "i'll be hoping." joanna gazed at him for a few moments in silence, and a change came into her voice-- "arthur, you're doing all this because of me." "i'm doing it for you, joanna." "well--i don't feel i've any call--i haven't any right.... i mean, if ellen don't like you here, she must go herself ... it ain't fair on you--you at donkey street for more'n twenty year ..." "don't you trouble about that. a change won't hurt me. reckon either ellen or me ull have to go and it ud break your heart if it was ellen." "why can't you both stay? ellen ull have to stay if i make her. i don't believe a word of what she says about going as lady's maid--she hasn't got the grit--nor the character neither, though she doesn't seem to think of that." "it ud be unaccountable awkward, jo--and it ud set ellen against both of us, and bring you trouble. maybe if i go she'll take a different view of things. i shan't let off the place for longer than three year ... it'll give her a chance to think different, and then maybe we can fix up something...." joanna fastened on to these words, both for her own comfort in arthur's loss, and for the quieting of her conscience, which told her that it was preposterous that he should leave donkey street so that she could keep ellen at ansdore. of course, if she did her duty she would pack ellen off to the isle of wight, so that arthur could stay. the fact was, however, that she wanted the guilty, ungracious ellen more than she wanted the upright, devoted arthur--she was glad to know of any terms on which her sister would consent to remain under her roof--it seemed almost too good to be true, to think that once more she had the little sister home.... so she signed the warrant for arthur's exile, which was to do so much to spread the more favourable opinion of ellen alce that had mysteriously crept into being since her return. he let off donkey street on a three years' lease to young jim honisett, the greengrocer's son at rye, who had recently married and whose wish to set up as farmer would naturally be to the advantage of his father's shop. he let his furniture with it too.... he himself would take nothing to his brother, who kept house in a very big way, the same as he farmed.... "reckon i should ought to learn a thing or two about grain-growing that'll be useful to me when i come back," said arthur stoutly. he had come to say good-bye to joanna on a june evening just before the quarter day. the hot scents of hay-making came in through the open parlour window, and they were free, for ellen had gone with mr. and mrs. southland to rye for the afternoon--of late she had accepted one or two small invitations from the neighbours. joanna poured arthur out a cup of tea from the silver teapot he had given her as a wedding present six years ago. "well, arthur--reckon it'll be a long time before you and me have tea again together." "reckon it will." "howsumever, i shall always think of you when i pour it out of your teapot--which will be every day that i don't have it in the kitchen." "thank you, jo." "and you'll write and tell me how you're getting on?" "reckon i will." "maybe you'll send me some samples of those oats your brother did so well with. i'm not over pleased with that barbacklaw, and ud make a change if i could find better." "i'll be sure and send." joanna told him of an inspiration she had had with regard to the poorer innings of great ansdore--she was going to put down fish-guts for manure--it had done wonders with some rough land over by botolph's bridge--"reckon it'll half stink the tenants out, but they're at the beginning of a seven years lease, so they can't help themselves much." she held forth at great length, and arthur listened, holding his cup and saucer carefully on his knee with his big freckled hands. his eyes were fixed on joanna, on the strong-featured, high-coloured face he thought so much more beautiful than ellen's with its delicate lines and pale, petal-like skin.... yes, joanna was the girl all along--the one for looks, the one for character--give him joanna every time, with her red and brown face, and thick brown hair, and her high, deep bosom, and sturdy, comfortable waist ... why couldn't he have had joanna, instead of what he'd got, which was nothing? for the first time in his life arthur alce came near to questioning the ways of providence. reckon it was the last thing he would ever do for her--this going away. he wasn't likely to come back, though he did talk of it, just to keep up their spirits. he would probably settle down in the shires--go into partnership with his brother--run a bigger place than donkey street, than ansdore even. "well, i must be going now. there's still a great lot of things to be tidied up." he rose, awkwardly setting down his cup. joanna rose too. the sunset, rusty with the evening sea-mist, poured over her goodly form as she stood against the window, making its outlines dim and fiery and her hair like a burning crown. "i shall miss you, arthur." he did not speak, and she held out her hand. "good-bye." he could not say it--instead he pulled her towards him by the hand he held. "jo--i must." "arthur--no!" but it was too late--he had kissed her. "that's the first time you done it," she said reproachfully. "because it's the last. you aren't angry, are you?" "i?--no. but, arthur, you mustn't forget you're married to ellen." "am i like to forget it?--and seeing all the dunnamany kisses she's given to another man, reckon she won't grudge me this one poor kiss i've given the woman i've loved without clasp or kiss for fifteen years." for the first time she heard in his voice both bitterness and passion, and at that moment the man himself seemed curiously to come alive and to compel.... but joanna was not going to dally with temptation in the unaccustomed shape of arthur alce. she pushed open the door. "have they brought round ranger?--hi! peter crouch!--yes, there he is. you'll have a good ride home, arthur." "but there'll be rain to-morrow." "i don't think it. the sky's all red at the rims." "the wind's shifted." joanna moistened her finger and held it up-- "so it has. but the glass is high. reckon it'll hold off till you're in the shires, and then our weather won't trouble you." she watched him ride off, standing in the doorway till the loops of the brodnyx road carried him into the rusty fog that was coming from the sea. _part iv_ last love § time passed on, healing the wounds of the marsh. at donkey street, the neighbours were beginning to get used to young honisett and his bride, at rye and lydd and romney the farmers had given up expecting arthur alce to come round the corner on his grey horse, with samples of wheat or prices of tegs. at ansdore, too, the breach was healed. joanna and ellen lived quietly together, sharing their common life without explosions. joanna had given up all idea of "having things out" with ellen. there was always a bit of pathos about joanna's surrenders, and in this case ellen had certainly beaten her. it was rather difficult to say exactly to what the younger sister owed her victory, but undoubtedly she had won it, and their life was in a measure based upon it. joanna accepted her sister--past and all; she accepted her little calm assumptions of respectability together with those more expected tendencies towards the "french." when ellen had first come back, she had been surprised and resentful to see how much she took for granted in the way of acceptance, not only from joanna but from the neighbours. according to her ideas, ellen should have kept in shamed seclusion till public opinion called her out of it, and she had been alarmed at her assumptions, fearing rebuff, just as she had almost feared heaven's lightning stroke for that demure little figure in her pew on sunday, murmuring "lord have mercy" without tremor or blush. but heaven had not smitten and the neighbours had not snubbed. in some mysterious way ellen had won acceptance from the latter, whatever her secret relations with the former may have been. the stories about her grew ever more and more charitable. the woolpack pronounced that arthur alce would not have gone away "if it had been all on her side," and it was now certainly known that mrs. williams had been at san remo.... ellen's manner was found pleasing--"quiet but affable." indeed, in this respect she had much improved. the southlands took her up, forgiving her treatment of their boy, now comfortably married to the daughter of a big folkestone shopkeeper. they found her neither brazen nor shamefaced--and she'd been as shocked as any honest woman at lady mountain's trial in the sunday papers ... if folk only knew her real story, they'd probably find.... in fact, ellen was determined to get her character back. she knew within herself that she owed a great deal to joanna's protection--for joanna was the chief power in the parishes of brodnyx and pedlinge, both personally and territorially. ellen had been wise beyond the wisdom of despair when she came home. she was not unhappy in her life at ansdore, for her escapade had given her a queer advantage over her sister, and she now found that she could to a certain extent, mould the household routine to her comfort. she was no longer entirely dominated, and only a small amount of independence was enough to satisfy her, a born submitter, to whom contrivance was more than rule. she wanted only freedom for her tastes and pleasures, and joanna did not now strive to impose her own upon her. occasionally the younger woman complained of her lot, bound to a man whom she no longer cared for, wearing only the fetters of her wifehood--she still hankered after a divorce, though arthur must be respondent. this always woke joanna to rage, but ellen's feelings did not often rise to the surface, and on the whole the sisters were happy in their life together--more peaceful because they were more detached than in the old days. ellen invariably wore black, hoping that strangers and newcomers would take her for a widow. this she actually became towards the close of the year . arthur did a fair amount of hunting with his brother in the shires, and one day his horse came down at a fence, throwing him badly and fracturing his skull. he died the same night without regaining consciousness--death had treated him better on the whole than life, for he died without pain or indignity, riding to hounds like any squire. he left a comfortable little fortune, too--donkey street and its two hundred acres--and he left it all to joanna. secretly he had made his will anew soon after going to the shires, and in it he had indulged himself, ignoring reality and perhaps duty. evidently he had had no expectations of a return to married life with ellen, and in this new testament he ignored her entirely, as if she had not been. joanna was his wife, inheriting all that was his, of land and money and live and dead stock--"my true, trusty friend, joanna godden." ellen was furious, and joanna herself was a little shocked. she understood arthur's motives--she guessed that one of his reasons for passing over ellen had been his anxiety to leave her sister dependent on her, knowing her fear that she would take flight. but this exaltation of her by his death to the place she had refused to occupy during his life, gave her a queer sense of smart and shame. for the first time it struck her that she might not have treated arthur quite well.... however, she did not sympathize with ellen's indignation-- "you shouldn't ought to have expected a penny, the way you treated him." "i don't see why he shouldn't have left me at least some furniture, seeing there was about five hundred pounds of my money in that farm. he's done rather well out of me on the whole--making me no allowance whatever when he was alive." "because i wouldn't let him make it--i've got some pride if you haven't." "your pride doesn't stop you taking what ought to have been mine." "'ought to'.... i never heard such words. not that i'm pleased he should make it all over to me, but it ain't my doing." ellen looked at her fixedly out of her eyes which were like the shallow floods. "are you quite sure? are you quite sure, joanna, that you honestly played a sister's part by me while i was away?" "what d'you mean?" "i mean, arthur seems to have got a lot fonder of you while i was away than he--er--seemed to be before." joanna gaped at her. "of course it was only natural," continued ellen smoothly--"i know i treated him badly--but don't you think you needn't have taken advantage of that?" "well, i'm beat ... look here, ellen ... that man was mine from the first, and i gave him over to you, and i never took him back nor wanted him, neither." "how generous of you, jo, to have 'given him over' to me." a little maddening smile twisted the corners of her mouth, and joanna remembered that now arthur was dead and there was no hope of ellen going back to him she need not spare her secret. "yes, i gave him to you," she said bluntly--"i saw you wanted him, and i didn't want him myself, so i said to him 'arthur, look here, you take her'--and he said to me--'i'd sooner have you, jo'--but i said 'you won't have me even if you wait till the moon's cheese, so there's no good hoping for that. you take the little sister and please me'--and he said 'i'll do it to please you, jo.' that's the very thing that happened, and i'm sorry it happened now--and i never told you before, because i thought it ud put you against him, and i wanted you to go back to him, being his wife; but now he's dead, and you may as well know, seeing the upstart notions you've got." she looked fiercely at ellen, to watch the effect of the blow, but was disconcerted to see that the little maddening smile still lingered. there were dimples at the flexing corners of her sister's mouth, and now they were little wells of disbelieving laughter. ellen did not believe her--she had told her long-guarded secret and her sister did not believe it. she thought it just something joanna had made up to salve her pride--and nothing would ever make her believe it, for she was a woman who had been loved and knew that she was well worth loving. § both ellen and joanna were a little afraid that arthur's treatment of his widow might disestablish her in public opinion. people would think that she must have behaved unaccountable badly to be served out like that. but the effects were not so disastrous as might have been expected. ellen, poor and forlorn, in her graceful weeds, without complaining or resentful words, soon won the neighbours' compassion. it wasn't right of alce to have treated her so--showed an unforgiving nature--if only the real story could be known, most likely folks would see.... there was also a mild scandal at his treatment of joanna. "well, even if he loved her all the time when he was married to her sister, he needn't have been so brazen about it.... always cared for joanna more'n he ought and showed it more'n he ought." joanna was not worried by these remarks--she brushed them aside. her character was gossip-proof, whereas ellen's was not, therefore it was best that the stones should be thrown at her rather than at her sister. she at once went practically to work with donkey street. she did not wish to keep it--it was too remote from ansdore to be easily workable, and she was content with her own thriving estate. she sold donkey street with all its stock, and decided to lay out the money in improvements of her land. she would drain the waterlogged innings by the kent ditch, she would buy a steam plough and make the neighbourhood sit up--she would start cattle-breeding. she had no qualms in thus spending the money on the farm, instead of on ellen. her sister rather plaintively pointed out that the invested capital would have brought her in a comfortable small income--"and then i needn't be such a burden to you, joanna, dear." "you ain't a burden to me," said joanna. she could not bear to think of ellen's becoming independent and leaving her. but ellen was far better contented with her life at home than she wisely let it appear. ansdore was a manor now--the largest estate not only in brodnyx and pedlinge, but on walland marsh; indeed the whole of the three marshes had little to beat it with. moreover, ellen was beginning to get her own way in the house--her bedroom was no longer a compulsory bower of roses, but softly cream-coloured and purple-hung. she had persuaded joanna to have a bathroom fitted up, with hot and cold water and other glories, and though she had been unable to induce her to banish her father's bible and the stuffed owls from the parlour, she had been allowed to supplement--and practically annihilate--them with the notorious black cushions from donkey street. joanna was a little proud to have these famous decorations on the premises, to be indoors what her yellow waggons were outdoors, symbols of daring and progress. on the whole, this substantial house, with its wide lands, respectable furniture and swarming servants, was one to be proud of. ellen's position as squire joanna godden's sister was much better than if she were living by herself in some small place on a small income. her brief adventure into what she thought was a life of fashionable gaiety had discouraged and disillusioned her--she was slowly slipping back into the conventions of her class and surroundings. ansdore was no longer either a prison or a refuge, it was beginning to be a home--not permanent, of course, for she was now a free woman and would marry again, but a good home to rest in and re-establish herself. thanks to ellen's contrivance and to the progress of joanna's own ambition--rising out of its fulfilment in the sphere of the material into the sphere of style and manners--the sisters now lived the lives of two well-to-do ladies. they had late dinner every night--only soup and meat and pudding, still definitely neither supper nor high tea. joanna changed for it into smart, stiff silk blouses, with a great deal of lace and guipure about them, while ellen wore a rest-gown of drifting black charmeuse. mene tekel was promoted from the dairy to be ansdore's first parlourmaid, and wore a cap and apron, and waited at table. ellen would have liked to keep mene tekel in her place and engage a smart town girl, whose hands were not the colour of beetroots and whose breathing could not be heard through a closed door; but joanna stood firm--mene had been her faithful servant for more than seven years, and it wasn't right that she should have a girl from the town promoted over her. besides, joanna did not like town girls--with town speech that rebuked her own, and white hands that made her want to put her own large brown ones under the table. § early the next year mr. pratt faded out. he could not be said to have done anything so dramatic as to die, though the green marsh-turf of brodnyx churchyard was broken to make him a bed, and the little bell rocked in the bosom of the drunken victorian widow who was brodnyx church steeple, sending a forlorn note out over the marsh. various aunts in various stages of resigned poverty bore off his family to separate destinations, and the great rectory house which had for so long mocked his two hundred a year, stood empty, waiting to swallow up its next victim. only in joanna godden's breast did any stir remain. for her at least the fading out of mr. pratt had been drama, the final scene of her importance; for it was now her task to appoint his successor in the living of brodnyx with pedlinge. ever since she had found out that she could not get rid of mr. pratt she had been in terror lest this crowning triumph might be denied her, and the largeness of her funeral wreath and the lavishness of her mourning--extinguishing all the relations in their dyed blacks--had testified to the warmth of her gratitude to the late rector for so considerately dying. she felt exceedingly important, and the feeling was increased by the applications she received for the living. clergymen wrote from different parts of the country; they told her that they were orthodox--as if she had imagined a clergyman could be otherwise--that they were acceptable preachers, that they were good with boy scouts. one or two she interviewed and disliked, because they had bad teeth or large families--one or two turned the tables on her and refused to have anything to do with a living encumbered by so large a rectory and so small an endowment. joanna felt insulted, though she was not responsible for either. she resolved not to consider any applicants, but to make her own choice outside their ranks. this was a difficult matter, for her sphere was hardly clerical, and she knew no clergy except those on the marsh. none of these she liked, because they were for the most part elderly and went about on bicycles--also she wanted to dazzle her society with a new importation. the archdeacon wrote to her, suggesting that she might be glad of some counsel in filling the vacancy, and giving her the names of two men whom he thought suitable. joanna was furious--she would brook no interference from archdeacons, and wrote the gentleman a letter which must have been unique in his archidiaconal experience. all the same she began to feel worried--she was beginning to doubt if she had the same qualifications for choosing a clergyman as she had for choosing a looker or a dairy-girl. she knew the sort of man she liked as a man, and more vaguely the sort of man she liked as a parson, she also was patriotically anxious to find somebody adequate to the honours and obligations of the living. nobody she saw or heard of seemed to come up to her double standard of man and minister, and she was beginning to wonder to what extent she could compromise her pride by writing--not to the archdeacon, but over his head to the bishop--when she saw in the local paper that father lawrence, of the society of sacred pity, was preaching a course of sermons in marlingate. immediately memories came back to her, so far and pale that they were more like the memories of dreams than of anything which had actually happened. she saw a small dark figure standing with its back to the awakening light and bidding godspeed to all that was vital and beautiful and more-than-herself in her life.... "go, christian soul"--while she in the depths of her broken heart had cried "stay, stay!" but he had obeyed the priest rather than the lover, he had gone and not stayed ... and afterwards the priest had tried to hold him for her in futurity--"think of martin, pray for martin," but the lover had let him slip, because she could not think and dared not pray, and he had fallen back from her into his silent home in the past. the old wound could still hurt, for a moment it seemed as if her whole body was pain because of it. successful, important, thriving joanna godden could still suffer because eight years ago she had not been allowed to make the sacrifice of all that she now held so triumphantly. this mere name of martin's brother had pricked her heart, and she suddenly wanted to get closer to the past than she could get with her memorial-card and photograph and tombstone. even sir harry trevor, ironic link with faithful love, was gone now--there was only lawrence. she would like to see him--not to talk to him of martin, she couldn't bear that, and there would be something vaguely improper about it--but he was a clergyman, for all he disguised the fact by calling himself a priest, and she would offer him the living of brodnyx with pedlinge and let the neighbourhood sit up as much as it liked. § father lawrence came to see her one april day when the young lambs were bleating on the sheltered innings and making bright clean spots of white beside the ewes' fog-soiled fleeces, when the tegs had come down from their winter keep inland, and the sunset fell in long golden slats across the first water-green grass of spring. the years had aged him more than they had aged joanna--the marks on her face were chiefly weather marks, tokens of her exposure to marsh suns and winds, and of her own ruthless applications of yellow soap. behind them was a little of the hardness which comes when a woman has to fight many battles and has won her victories largely through the sacrifice of her resources. the lines on his face were mostly those of his own humour and other people's sorrows, he had exposed himself perhaps not enough to the weather and too much to the world, so that where she had fine lines and a fundamental hardness, he had heavy lines like the furrows of a ploughshare, and a softness beneath them like the fruitful soil that the share turns up. joanna received him in state, with arthur alce's teapot and her best pink silk blouse with the lace insertion. ellen, for fairly obvious reasons, preferred not to be present. joanna was terrified lest he should begin to talk of martin, so after she had conformed to local etiquette by inquiring after his health and abusing the weather, she offered him the living of brodnyx with pedlinge and a slice of cake almost in the same breath. she was surprised and a little hurt when he refused the former. as a member of a religious community he could not hold preferment, and he had no vocation to settled christianity. "i shouldn't be at all good as a country clergyman. besides, jo"--he had at once slipped into the brotherliness of their old relations--"i know you; you wouldn't like my ways. you'd always be up at me, teaching me better, and then i should be up at you, and possibly we shouldn't stay quite such good friends as we are now." "i shouldn't mind your ways. reckon it might do the folks round here a proper lot of good to be prayed over same as you--i mean i'd like to see a few of 'em prayed over when they were dying and couldn't help themselves. serve them right, i say, for not praying when they're alive, and some who won't put their noses in church except for a harvest thanksgiving. no, if you'll only come here, lawrence, you may do what you like in the way of prayers and such. i shan't interfere as long as you don't trouble us with the pope, whom i never could abide after all i've heard of him, wanting to blow up the established church in london, and making people kiss his toe, which i'd never do, not if he was to burn me alive." "well, if that's the only limit to your toleration i think i could help you, even though i can't come myself. i know one or two excellent priests who would do endless good in a place like this." joanna suddenly felt her imagination gloat and kindle at the thought of brodnyx and pedlinge compelled to holiness--all those wicked old men who wouldn't go to church, but expected their christmas puddings just the same, those hobbledehoys who loafed against gate-posts the whole of sunday, those vain hussies who giggled behind their handkerchiefs all the service through--it would be fine to see them hustled about and taught their manners ... it would be valiant sport to see them made to behave, as mr. pratt had never been able to make them. she with her half-crown in the plate and her quarterly communion need have no qualms, and she would enjoy seeing the fear of god put into other folk. so lawrence's visit was fruitful after all--a friend of his had been ordered to give up his hard work in a slum parish and find a country vocation. he promised that this friend should write to joanna. "but i must see him, too," she said. they were standing at the open door, and the religious in his black habit was like a cut paper silhouette against the long streaks of fading purple cloud. "i remember," he said, "that you always were particular about a man's looks. how martin's must have delighted you!" his tongue did not falter over the loved, forbidden name--he spoke it quite naturally and conversationally, as if glad that he could introduce it at last into their business. joanna's body stiffened, but he did not see it, for he was gazing at the young creeper's budding trail over the door. "i hope you have a good photograph of him," he continued--"i know that a very good photograph was taken of him a year before he died--much better than any of the earlier ones. i hope you have one of those." "yes, i have," said joanna gruffly. from shock she had passed into a thrilling anger. how calmly he had spoken the dear name, how unblushingly he had said the outrageous word "died!" how brazen, thoughtless, cruel he was about it all!--tearing the veil from her sorrow, talking as if her dead lived ... she felt exposed, indecent, and she hated him, all the more because mixed with her hatred was a kind of disapproving envy, a resentment that he should be free to remember where she was bound to forget.... he saw her hand clench slowly at her side, and for the first time became aware of her state of mind. "good-bye, jo," he said kindly--"i'll tell father palmer to write to you." "thanks, but i don't promise to take him," was her ungracious fling. "no--why should you? and of course he may have already made his plans. good-bye, and thank you for your great kindness in offering the living to me--it was very noble of you, considering what your family has suffered from mine." he had carefully avoided all reference to his father, but he now realized that he had kept the wrong silence. it was the man who had brought her happiness, not the man who had brought her shame, that she was unable to speak of. "oh, don't you think of that--it wasn't your doing"--she melted towards him now she had a genuine cause for indignation--"and we've come through it better than we hoped, and some of us deserved." lawrence gave her an odd smile, which made his face with its innumerable lines and pouches look rather like a gargoyle's. then he walked off bare-headed into the twilight. § ellen was intensely relieved when she heard that he had refused the living, and a little indignant with joanna for having offered it to him. "you don't seem to realize how very awkward it would have been for me--i don't want to have anything more to do with that family." "i daresay not," said joanna grimly, "but that ain't no reason why this parish shouldn't have a good parson. lawrence ud have made the people properly mind their ways. and it ain't becoming in you, ellen alce, to let your own misdoings stand between folk and what's good for 'em." ellen accepted the rebuke good-humouredly. she had grown more mellow of late, and was settling into her life at ansdore as she had never settled since she went to school. she relished her widowed state, for it involved the delectable business of looking about for a second husband. she was resolved to act with great deliberation. this time there should be no hustling into matrimony. it seemed to her now as if that precipitate taking of arthur alce had been at the bottom of all her troubles; she had been only a poor little schoolgirl, a raw contriver, hurling herself out of the frying-pan of ansdore's tyranny into the fire of donkey street's dullness. she knew better now--besides, the increased freedom and comfort of her conditions did not involve the same urgency of escape. she made up her mind that she would not take anyone of the farming classes; this time she would marry a gentleman--but a decent sort. she did not enjoy all her memories of sir harry trevor. she would not take up with that kind of man again, any more than with a dull fellow like poor arthur. she had far better opportunities than in the old days. the exaltation of ansdore from farm to manor had turned many keys, and joanna now received calls from doctors' and clergymen's wives, who had hitherto ignored her except commercially. it was at fairfield vicarage that ellen met the wife of a major at lydd camp, and through her came to turn the heads of various subalterns. the young officers from lydd paid frequent visits to ansdore, which was a novelty to both the sisters, who hitherto had had no dealings with military society. ellen was far too prudent to engage herself to any of these boys; she waited for a major or a captain at least. but she enjoyed their society, and knew that their visits gave her consequence in the neighbourhood. she was invariably discreet in her behaviour, and was much reproached by them for her coldness, which they attributed to joanna, who watched over her like a dragon, convinced that the moment she relaxed her guard her sister would inevitably return to her wicked past. ellen would have felt sore and insulted if she had not the comfort of knowing in her heart that joanna was secretly envious--a little hurt that these personable young men came to ansdore for ellen alone. they liked joanna, in spite of her interference; they said she was a good sort, and spoke of her among themselves as "the old girl" and "joanna god-dam." but none of them thought of turning from ellen to her sister--she was too weather-beaten for them, too big and bouncing--over-ripe. ellen, pale as a flower, with wide lips like rose-leaves and narrow, brooding eyes, with her languor, and faint suggestions of the exotic, all the mystery with which fate had chosen to veil the common secret which was ellen alce.... she could now have the luxury of pitying her sister, of seeing herself possessed of what her tyrant joanna had not, and longed for.... slowly she was gaining the advantage, her side of the wheel was mounting while joanna's went down; in spite of the elder woman's success and substance the younger was unmistakably winning ascendancy over her. § her pity made her kind. she no longer squabbled, complained or resented. she took joanna's occasionally insulting behaviour in good part. she even wished that she would marry--not one of the subalterns, for they were not her sort, but some decent small squire or parson. when the new rector first came to brodnyx she had great hopes of fixing a match between him and jo--for ellen was now so respectable that she had become a match-maker. but she was disappointed--indeed, they both were, for joanna had liked the looks of mr. pratt's successor, and though she did not go so far as to dream of matrimony--which was still below her horizons--she would have much appreciated his wooing. but it soon became known that the new rector had strange views on the subject of clerical marriage--in fact, he shocked his patron in many ways. he was a large, heavy, pale-faced young man, with strange, sleek qualities that appealed to her through their unaccustomedness. but he was scarcely a sleek man in office, and under his drawling, lethargic manner there was an energy that struck her as shocking and out of place. he was like lawrence, speaking forbidden words and of hidden things. in church he preached embarrassing perfections--she could no longer feel that she had attained the limits of churchmanship with her weekly half-crown and her quarterly communion. he turned her young people's heads with strange glimpses of beauty and obligation. in fact, poor joanna was deprived of the spectacle she had looked forward to with such zest--that of a parish made to amend itself while she looked on from the detachment of her own high standard. she was made to feel just as uncomfortable as any wicked old man or giggling hussy.... she was all the more aggrieved because, though mr. palmer had displeased her, she could not get rid of him as she would have got rid of her looker in the same circumstances. "if i take a looker and he don't please me i can sack him--the gal i engage i can get shut of at a month's warning, but a parson seemingly is the only kind you can put in and not put out." then to crown all, he took away the lion and the unicorn from their eternal dance above the altar of god, and in their place he put tall candles, casting queer red gleams into daylight.... joanna could bear no more; she swallowed the pride which for the first few months of innovation had made her treat the new rector merely with distant rudeness, and descended upon him in the three rooms of brodnyx rectory which he inhabited with cheerful contempt for the rest of its howling vastness. she emerged from the encounter strangely subdued. mr. palmer had been polite, even sympathetic, but he had plainly shown her the indifference (to use no cruder term) that he felt for her as an ecclesiastical authority. he was not going to put the lion and the unicorn back in their old place, they belonged to a bygone age which was now forgotten, to a bad old language which had lost its meaning. the utmost he would do was to consent to hang them up over the door, so that they could bless joanna's going out and coming in. with this she had to be content. poor joanna! the episode was more than a passing outrage and humiliation--it was ominous, it gave her a queer sense of downfall. with her beloved symbol something which was part of herself seemed also to have been dispossessed. she became conscious that she was losing authority. she realized that for long she had been weakening in regard to ellen, and now she was unable to stand up to this heavy, sleek young man whom her patronage had appointed.... the lion and the unicorn had from childhood been her sign of power--they were her theology in oleograph, they stood for the church of england as by law established, large rectory houses, respectable and respectful clergymen, "dearly beloved brethren" on sunday mornings, and a nice nap after dinner. and now they were gone, and in their place was a queer jesuitry of kyries and candles, and a gospel which kicked and goaded and would not allow one to sleep.... § it began to be noticed at the woolpack that joanna was losing heart. "she's lost her spring," they said in the bar--"she's got all she wanted, and now she's feeling dull"--"she's never had what she wanted and now she's feeling tired"--"her sister's beat her and parson's beat her--she can't be properly herself." there was some talk about making her an honorary member of the farmers' club, but it never got beyond talk--the traditions of that exclusive body were too strong to admit her even now. to joanna it seemed as if life had newly and powerfully armed itself against her. her love for ellen was making her soft, she was letting her sister rule. and not only at home but abroad she was losing her power. both church and state had taken to themselves new arrogances. the church had lost its comfortable atmosphere of sunday beef--and now the state, which hitherto had existed only for that most excellent purpose of making people behave themselves, had lifted itself up against joanna godden. lloyd george's finance act had caught her in its toils, she was being overwhelmed with terrible forms and schedules, searching into her profits, making strange inquiries as to minerals, muddling her with long words. then out of all the muddle and welter finally emerged the startling fact that the government expected to have twenty per cent. of her profits on the sale of donkey street. she was indignant and furious. she considered that the government had been grossly treacherous, unjust, and disrespectful to poor arthur's memory. it was arthur who had done so well with his land that she had been able to sell it to honisett at such a valiant price. she had spent all the money on improvements, too--she was not like some people who bought motor-cars and took trips to paris. she had not bought a motor-car but a motor-plough, the only one in the district--the government could come and see it themselves if they liked. it was well worth looking at. thus she delivered herself to young edward huxtable, who now managed his father's business at rye. "but i'm afraid it's all fair and square, miss joanna," said her lawyer--"there's no doubt about the land's value or what you sold it for, and i don't see that you are entitled to any exemption." "why not?--if i'm not entitled, who is?" joanna sat looking very large and flushed in the huxtable office in watchbell street. she felt almost on the verge of tears, for it seemed to her that she was the victim of the grossest injustice which also involved the grossest disrespect to poor arthur, who would turn in his grave if he knew that the government were trying to take his legacy from her. "what are lawyers for?" she continued hotly. "you can turn most things inside out--why can't you do this? can't i go to county court about it?" edward huxtable consulted the act.... "'notice of objection may be served on the commissioners within sixty days. if they do not allow the objection, the petitioner may appeal to a referee under the act, and an appeal by either the petitioner or the commissioners lies from the referee to the high court, or where the site value does not exceed £ , to the county court.' i suppose yours is worth more than £ ?" "i should just about think it is--it's worth something more like five thousand if the truth was known." "well, i shouldn't enlarge on that. do you think it worth while to serve an objection? no doubt there are grounds on which we could appeal, but they aren't very good, and candidly i think we'd lose. it would cost you a great deal of money, too, before you'd finished." "i don't care about that. i'm not going to sit down quiet and have my rightful belongings taken from me." edward huxtable considered that he had done his duty in warning joanna--lots of lawyers wouldn't have troubled to do that--and after all the old girl had heaps of money to lose. she might as well have her fun and he his fee. "well, anyhow we'll go as far as the commissioners. if i were you, i shouldn't apply for total exemption, but for a rebate. we might do something with allowances. let me see, what did you sell for?"... he finally prepared an involved case, partly depending on the death duties that had already been paid when joanna inherited alce's farm, and which he said ought to be considered in calculating increment value. joanna would not have confessed for worlds that she did not understand the grounds of her appeal, though she wished edward huxtable would let her make at least some reference to her steam tractor, and thus win her victory on moral grounds, instead of just through some lawyer's mess. but, moral appeal or lawyer's mess, her case should go to the commissioners, and if necessary to the high court. just because she knew that in her own home and parish the fighting spirit was failing her, joanna resolved to fight this battle outside it without counting the cost. § that autumn she had her first twinge of rheumatism. the days of the marsh ague were over, but the dread "rheumatiz" still twisted comparatively young bones. joanna had escaped till a later age than many, for her work lay mostly in dry kitchens and bricked yards, and she had had little personal contact with the soil, that odorous sponge of the marsh earth, rank with the soakings of sea-fogs and land-fogs. like most healthy people, she made a tremendous fuss once she was laid up. mene tekel and mrs. tolhurst were kept flying up and down stairs with hot bricks and poultices and that particularly noxious brew of camomile tea which she looked upon as the cure of every ill. ellen would come now and then and sit on her bed, and wander round the room playing with joanna's ornaments--she wore a little satisfied smile on her face, and about her was a queer air of restlessness and contentment which baffled and annoyed her sister. the officers from lydd did not now come so often to ansdore. ellen's most constant visitor at this time was the son of the people who had taken great ansdore dwelling-house. tip ernley had just come back from australia; he did not like colonial life and was looking round for something to do at home. he was a county cricketer, an exceedingly nice-looking young man, and his people were a good sort of people, an old west sussex family fallen into straightened circumstances. on his account joanna came downstairs sooner than she ought. she could not get rid of her distrust of ellen, the conviction that once her sister was left to herself she would be up to all sorts of mischief. ellen had behaved impossibly once and therefore, according to joanna, there was no guarantee that she would not go on behaving impossibly to the end of time. so she came down to play the dragon to tip ernley as she had played the dragon to the young lieutenants of the summer. there was not much for her to do--she saw at once that the boy was different from the officers, a simple-minded creature, strong, gentle and clean-living, with deferential eyes and manners. joanna liked him at first sight, and relented. they had tea together, and a game of three-handed bridge afterwards--ellen had taught her sister to play bridge. then as the evening wore on, and the mists crept up from the white kemp sewer to muffle the windows of ansdore and make joanna's bones twinge and ache, she knew that she had come down too late. these young people had had time enough to settle their hearts' business in a little less than a week, and joanna god-dam could not scare them apart. of course there was nothing to fear--this fine, shy man would make no assault on ellen alce's frailty, it was merely a case of ellen alce becoming ellen ernley, if he could be persuaded to overlook her "past"--a matter which joanna thought important and doubtful. but the elder sister's heart twinged and ached as much as her bones. there was not only the thought that she might lose ellen once more and have to go back to her lonely living ... her heart was sick to think that again love had come under her roof and had not visited her. love ... love ... for ellen--no more for joanna godden. perhaps now it was too late. she was getting on, past thirty-seven--romance never came as late as that on walland marsh, unless occasionally to widows. then, since it was too late, why did she so passionately long for it?--why had not her heart grown old with her years? § during the next few weeks joanna watched the young romance grow and sweeten. ellen was becoming almost girlish again, or rather, girlish as she had never been. the curves of her mouth grew softer and her voice lost its even tones--she had moments of languor and moments of a queer lightness. great and little ansdore were now on very good terms, and during that winter there was an exchange of dinners and bridge. joanna could now, as she expressed it, give a dinner-party with the best of 'em. nothing more splendid could be imagined than joanna godden sitting at the head of her table, wearing her folkestone-made gown of apricot charmeuse, adapted to her modesty by means of some rich gold lace; ellen had induced her to bind her hair with a gold ribbon, and from her ears great gold ear-rings hung nearly to her shoulders, giving the usual barbaric touch to her stateliness. ellen, in contrast, wore iris-tinted gowns that displayed nacreous arms and shoulders, and her hair passed in great dark shining licks over her little unadorned ears. joanna was annoyed because ellen never told her anything about herself and tip ernley. she wanted to know in what declared relation they stood to each other. she hoped ellen was being straight with him, as she was obviously not being straight with her. she did not think they were definitely engaged--surely they would have let her know that. perhaps he was waiting till he had found some satisfactory job and could afford to keep a wife. she told herself angrily that if only they would confide in her, she would help the young pair ... they were spoiling their own chances by keeping her out of their secrets. it never struck her that ernley would rather not be beholden to her, whatever ellen might feel in the matter. his father and mother--well-bred, cordial people--and his maiden sister, of about joanna's age, never seemed to see anything remarkable in the way ellen and tip always went off together after dinner, while the others settled down to their bridge. it seemed to joanna a grossly improper proceeding if they were not engaged. but all mr. and mrs. ernley would say was--"quite right too--it's just as well when young people aren't too fond of cards." joanna herself was growing to be quite fond of cards, though in her heart she did not think that for sheer excitement bridge was half as good as beggar-my-neighbour, which she used to play with mene tekel, in the old days before she and mene both became dignified, the one as mistress, the other as maid. she enjoyed her bridge--but often the game would be quite spoilt by the thought of ellen and tip in some secluded corner. he must be making love to her, or they wouldn't go off alone together like that ... i go no trumps ... if they wanted just ordinary talk they could stay in here, we wouldn't trouble them if they sat over there on the sofa ... me to play, is it?... i wonder if she lets him kiss her ... oh, i beg your pardon, i'm sure.... joanna had no more returns of rheumatism that winter. scared and infuriated by her one experience, she took great care of herself, and that winter was drier than usual, with crisp days of cold sunshine, and a skin of ice on the sewers. once or twice there was a fall of snow, and even joanna saw beauty in those days of a blue sky hanging above the dazzling white spread of the three marshes, walland, dunge and romney, one huge white plain, streaked with the watercourses black under their ice, like bars of iron. somehow the sight hurt her; all beautiful things hurt her strangely now--whether it was the snow-laden marsh, or the first scents of spring in the evenings of february, or even ellen's face like a broad, pale flower. she felt low-spirited and out of sorts that turn of the year. it was worse than rheumatism.... then she suddenly conceived the idea that it was the rheumatism "driven inside her." joanna had heard many terrible tales of people who had perished through quite ordinary complaints, like measles, being mysteriously "driven inside." it was a symptom of her low condition that she should worry about her health, which till then had never given her a minute's preoccupation. she consulted "the family doctor," and realized the number of diseases she might be suffering from besides suppressed rheumatics--cancer, consumption, kidney disease, diabetes, appendicitis, asthma, arthritis, she seemed to have them all, and in a fit of panic decided to consult a physician in the flesh. so she drove off to see dr. taylor in her smart chocolate-coloured trap, behind her chocolate-coloured mare, with her groom in chocolate-coloured livery on the seat behind her. she intended to buy a car if she won her case at the high court--for to the high court it had gone, both the commissioners and their referee having shown themselves blind to the claims of justice. the doctor listened respectfully to the long list of her symptoms and to her own diagnosis of them. no, he did not think it was the rheumatism driven inside her.... he asked her a great many questions, some of which she thought indelicate. "you're thoroughly run down," he said at last--"been doing too much--you've done a lot, you know." "reckon i have," said joanna--"but i'm a young woman yet"--there was a slight touch of defiance in her last words. "oh, age has nothing to do with it. we're liable to overwork ourselves at all ages. overwork and worry.... what you need is a thorough rest of mind and body. i recommend a change." "you mean i should ought to go away?" "certainly." "but i haven't been away for twenty year." "that's just it. you've let yourself get into a groove. you want a thorough change of air, scene and society. i recommend that you go away to some cheerful gay watering-place, where there's plenty going on and you'll meet new people." "but what'll become of ansdore?" "surely it can get on without you for a few weeks?" "i can't go till the lambing's finished." "when will that be?" "not till after easter." "well, easter is a very good time to go away. do take my advice about this, miss godden. you'll never be really well and happy if you keep in a groove ..." "groove!" snorted joanna. § she was so much annoyed with him for having twice referred to ansdore as a "groove" that at first she felt inclined not to take his advice. but even to joanna this was unsatisfactory as a revenge--"if i stay at home, maybe i'll get worse, and then he'll be coming over to see me in my 'groove' and getting eight-and-six each time for it." it would certainly be better to go away and punish the doctor by a complete return to health. besides, she was awed by the magnitude of the prescription. it was a great thing on the marsh to be sent away for change of air, instead of just getting a bottle of stuff to take three times daily after meals.... she'd go, and make a splash of it. then the question arose--where should she go? she could go to her cousins in the isle of wight, but they were a poor lot. she could go to chichester, where martha relf, the girl who had been with her when she first took over ansdore and had behaved so wickedly with the looker at honeychild, now kept furnished rooms as a respectable widow. martha, who was still grateful to joanna, had written and asked her to come and try her accommodation.... but by no kind of process could chichester be thought of as a "cheerful watering-place," and joanna was resolved to carry out her prescription to the letter. "why don't you go to a really good place?" suggested ellen--"bath or matlock or leamington. you could stay at a hydro, if you liked." but these were all too far--joanna did not want to be beyond the summons of ansdore, which she could scarcely believe would survive her absence. also, to her horror, she discovered that nothing would induce ellen to accompany her. "but i can't go without you!" she cried dismally--"it wouldn't be seemly--it wouldn't be proper." "what nonsense, jo. surely a woman of your age can stop anywhere by herself." "oh, indeed, can she, ma'am? and what about a woman of your age?--it's you i don't like leaving alone here." "that's absurd of you. i'm a married woman, and quite able to look after myself. besides, i've mrs. tolhurst with me, and the ernleys are quite close." "oh, yes, the ernleys!" sniffed joanna with a toss of her head. she felt that now was a fitting opportunity for ellen to disclose her exact relations with the family, but surprisingly her sister took no advantage of the opening thus made. "you'd much better go alone, joanna--it won't do you half so much good if i go with you. we're getting on each other's nerves, you know we are. at least i'm getting on yours. you'll be much happier among entirely new people." it ended in joanna's taking rooms at the palace hotel, marlingate. no persuasions would make her go farther off. she was convinced that neither ansdore nor ellen could exist, at least decorously, without her, and she must be within easy reach of both. the fortnight between the booking of her room and her setting out she spent in mingled fretfulness and swagger. she fretted about ansdore, and nearly drove her carter and her looker frantic with her last injunctions; she fretted about ellen, and cautioned mrs. tolhurst to keep a strict watch over her--"she's not to go up to late dinner at great ansdore without you fetch her home." on the other hand, she swaggered tremendously about the expensive and fashionable trip she was making. her room was on the first floor of the hotel and would cost her twelve-and-six a night. she had taken it for a week, "but i told them i'd stay a fortnight if i was satisfied, so reckon they'll do all they can. i'll have breakfast in bed"--she added, as a climax. § in spite of this, joanna could not help feeling a little nervous and lonely when she found herself at the palace hotel. it was so very different from the new inn at romney, or the george at rye, or any other substantial farmers' ordinary where she ate her dinner on market days. of course she had been to the metropole at folkestone--whatever place joanna visited, whether brodnyx or folkestone, she went to the best hotel--so she was not uninitiated in the mysteries of hotel menus and lifts and hall porters, and other phenomena that alarm the simple-minded; but that was many years ago, and it was more years still since she had slept away from ansdore, out of her own big bed with its feather mattress and flowered curtains, so unlike this narrow hotel arrangement, all box mattress and brass knobs. the first night she lay miserably awake, wishing she had never come. she felt shy and lonely and scared and homesick. after the dead stillness of ansdore, a stillness which brooded unbroken till dawn, which was the voice of a thick darkness, she found even this quiet seaside hotel full of disturbing noise. the hum of the ascending lift far into the night, the occasional wheels and footsteps on the parade, the restless heaving roar of the sea, all disturbed the small slumbers that her sense of alarm and strangeness would let her enjoy. she told herself she would never sleep a wink in this rackety place, and would have sought comfort in the resolution to go home the next morning, if she had not had ellen to face, and the servants and neighbours to whom she had boasted so much. however, when daylight came, and sunshine, and her breakfast-in-bed, with its shining dish covers and appetizing smells, she felt quite different, and ate her bacon and eggs with appetite and a thrilling sense of her own importance. the waitress, for want of a definite order, had brought her coffee, which somehow made her feel very rakish and continental, though she would have much preferred tea. when she had finished breakfast, she wrote a letter to ellen describing all her experiences with as much fullness as was compatible with that strange inhibition which always accompanied her taking up of the pen, and distinguished her letters so remarkably from the feats of her tongue. when she had written the letter and posted it adventurously in the hotel letter-box, she went out on the parade to listen to the band. it was easter week, and there were still a great many people about, couples sitting round the bandstand, more deeply absorbed in each other than in the music. joanna paid twopence for a chair, having ascertained that there were no more expensive seats to be had, and at the end of an hour felt consumedly bored. the music was bright and popular enough, but she was not musical, and soon grew tired of listening to "tunes." also something about the music made her feel uncomfortable--the same dim yet searching discomfort she had when she looked at the young couples in the sun ... the young girls in their shady hats and silk stockings, the young men in their flannels and blazers. they were all part of a whole to which she did not belong, of which the music was part ... and the sea, and the sun, and the other visitors at the hotel, the very servants of the hotel ... and ellen at ansdore ... all day she was adding fresh parts to that great whole, outside which she seemed to exist alone. "i'm getting fanciful," she thought--"this place hasn't done me a bit of good yet." she devoted herself to the difficult art of filling up her day. accustomed to having every moment occupied, she could hardly cope with the vast stretch of idle hours. after a day or two she found herself obliged to give up having breakfast in bed. from force of habit she woke every morning at five, and could not endure the long wait in her room. if the weather was fine she usually went for a walk on the sea-front, from rock-a-nore to the monypenny statue. nothing would induce her to bathe, though even at that hour and season the water was full of young men and women rather shockingly enjoying themselves and each other. after breakfast she wrote laborious letters to broadhurst, wilson, mrs. tolhurst, ellen, mene tekel--she had never written so many letters in her life, but every day she thought of some fresh thing that would be left undone if she did not write about it. when she had finished her letters she went out and listened respectfully to the band. the afternoon was generally given up to some excursion or charabanc drive, and the day finished rather somnolently in the lounge. she did not get far beyond civilities with the other visitors in the hotel. more than one had spoken to her, attracted by this handsome, striking, and probably wealthy woman--through ellen's influence her appearance had been purged of what was merely startling--but they either took fright at her broad marsh accent ... "she must be somebody's cook come into a fortune" ... or the more fundamental incompatibility of outlook kept them at a distance. joanna was not the person for the niceties of hotel acquaintanceship--she was too garrulous, too overwhelming. also she failed to realize that all states of society are not equally interested in the price of wheat, that certain details of sheep-breeding seem indelicate to the uninitiated, and that strangers do not really care how many acres one possesses, how many servants one keeps, or the exact price one paid for one's latest churn. § the last few days of her stay brought her a rather ignominious sense of relief. in her secret heart she was eagerly waiting till she should be back at ansdore, eating her dinner with ellen, sleeping in her own bed, ordering about her own servants. she would enjoy, too, telling everyone about her exploits, all the excursions she had made, the food she had eaten, the fine folk she had spoken to in the lounge, the handsome amount she had spent in tips.... they would all ask her whether she felt much the better for her holiday, and she was uncertain what to answer them. a complete recovery might make her less interesting; on the other hand she did not want anyone to think she had come back half-cured because of the expense ... that was just the sort of thing mrs. southland would imagine, and southland would take it straight to the woolpack. her own feelings gave her no clue. her appetite had much improved, but, against that, she was sleeping badly--which she partly attributed to the "noise"--and was growing, probably on account of her idle days, increasingly restless. she found it difficult to settle down to anything--the hours in the hotel lounge after dinner, which used to be comfortably drowsy after the day of sea-air, were now a long stretch of boredom, from which she went up early to bed, knowing that she would not sleep. the band played on the parade every evening, but joanna considered that it would be unseemly for her to go out alone in marlingate after dark. though she would have walked out on the brodnyx road at midnight without putting the slightest strain on either her courage or her decorum, the well-lighted streets of a town became to her vaguely dangerous and indecorous after dusk had fallen. "it wouldn't be seemly," she repeated to herself in the loneliness and dullness of the lounge, and went desperately to bed. however, three nights before going away she could bear it no longer. after a warm april day, a purple starry evening hung over the sea. the water itself was a deep, glaucous gray, holding strange lights besides the golden path of the moon. beachy head stood out purple against the fading amber of the west, in the east all holland hill was hung with a crown of stars, which seemed to be mirrored in the lights of the fisher-boats off rock-a-nore.... it was impossible to think of such an evening spent in the stuffy, lonely lounge, with heavy curtains shutting out the opal and the amethyst of night. she had not had time to dress for dinner, having come home late from a charabanc drive to pevensey, and the circumstance seemed slightly to mitigate the daring of a stroll. in her neat tailor-made coat and skirt and black hat with the cock's plumes she might perhaps walk to and fro just a little in front of the hotel. she went out, and was a trifle reassured by the light which still lingered in the sky and on the sea--it was not quite dark yet, and there was a respectable-looking lot of people about--she recognized a lady staying in the hotel, and would have joined her, but the lady, whom she had already scared, saw her coming, and dodged off in the direction of the marine gardens. the band began to play a waltz from "a persian princess." joanna felt once more in her blood the strange stir of the music she could not understand. it would be nice to dance ... queer that she had so seldom danced as a girl. she stood for a moment irresolute, then walked towards the bandstand, and sat down on one of the corporation benches, outside the crowd that had grouped round the musicians. it was very much the same sort of crowd as in the morning, but it was less covert in its ways--hands were linked, even here and there waists entwined.... such details began to stand out of the dim, purplescent mass of the twilight people ... night was the time for love. they had come out into the darkness to make love to each other--their voices sounded different from in the day, more dragging, more tender.... she began to think of the times, which now seemed so far off, when she herself had sought a man's kisses. half-ashamed she went back to stolen meetings--in a barn--behind a rick--in the elvish shadow of some skew-blown thorn. just kisses ... not love, for love had been dead in her then.... but those kisses had been sweet, she remembered them, she could feel them on her lips ... oh, she could love again now--she could give and take kisses now. the band was playing a rich, thick, drawling melody, full of the purple night and the warm air. the lovers round the bandstand seemed to sway to it and draw closer to each other. joanna looked down into her lap, for her eyes were full of tears. she regretted passionately the days that were past--those light loves which had not been able to live in the shadow of martin's memory. oh, why had he taught her to love and then made it impossible for her ever to love again?--till it was too late, till she was a middle-aged woman to whom no man came.... it was not likely that anyone would want her now--her light lovers all lived now in substantial wedlock, the well-to-do farmers who had proposed to her in the respectful way of business had now taken to themselves other wives. the young men looked to women of their own age, to ellen's pale, soft beauty ... once again she envied ellen her loves, good and evil, and shame was in her heart. then she lifted her eyes and saw martin coming towards her. § in the darkness, lit only now by the lamp-dazzled moonlight, and in the mist of her own tears, the man before her was exactly like martin, in build, gait, colouring and expression. her moment of recognition stood out clear, quite distinct from the realization of impossibility which afterwards engulfed it. she unclasped her hands and half rose in her seat--the next minute she fell back. "reckon i'm crazy," she thought to herself. then she was startled to realize that the man had sat down beside her. her heart beat quickly. though she no longer confused him with martin, the image of martin persisted in her mind ... how wonderfully like him he was ... the very way he walked.... "i saw you give me the glad eye ..." not the way he talked, certainly. there was a terrible silence. "are you going to pretend you didn't?" joanna turned on him the tear-filled eyes he had considered glad. she blinked the tears out recklessly on to her cheek, and opened her mouth to reduce him to the level of the creeping things upon the earth.... but the mouth remained open and speechless. she could not look him in the face and still feel angry. though now she would no longer have taken him for martin, the resemblance still seemed to her startling. he had the same rich eyes--with an added trifle of impudence under the same veiling, womanish lashes, the same black sweep of hair from a rather low forehead, the same graceful setting of the head, though he had not martin's breadth of shoulder or deceiving air of strength. her hesitation gave him his opportunity. "you aren't going to scold me, are you? i couldn't help it." his unlovely, cockney voice had in it a stroking quality. it stirred something in the depths of joanna's heart. once again she tried to speak and could not. "it's such a lovely night--just the sort of night you feel lonely, unless you've got someone very nice with you." this was terribly true. "and you did give me the glad eye, you know." "i didn't mean to." she had found her voice at last. "i--i thought you were someone else; at least i--" "are you expecting a friend?" "oh, no--no one. it was a mistake." "then mayn't i stay and talk to you--just for a bit. i'm here all alone, you know--a fortnight's holiday. i don't know anyone." by this time he had dragged all her features out of the darkness, and saw that she was not quite what he had first taken her for. he had never thought she was a girl--his taste was for maturity--but he had not imagined her of the obviously well-to-do and respectable class to which she evidently belonged. he saw now that her clothes were of a fashionable cut, that she had about her a generally expensive air, and at the same time he knew enough to tell that she was not what he called a lady. he found her rather difficult to place. perhaps she was a wealthy milliner on a holiday ... but, her accent--you could lean up against it ... well, anyhow she was a damn fine woman. "what do you think of the band?" he asked, subtly altering the tone of the conversation which he saw now had been pitched too low. "i think it a proper fine band." "so it is. they're going to play 'the merry widow' next--ever seen it?" "no, never. i was never at a play but once, which they did at the monastery at rye in aid of lady buller's fund when we was fighting the boers. 'our flat' it was called, and all done by respectable people--not an actor or an actress among 'em." what on earth had he picked up? "do you live at rye?" "i live two mile out of it--ansdore's the name of my place--ansdore manor, seeing as now i've got both great and little ansdore, and the living's in my gift. i put in a new parson last year." this must be a remarkable woman, unless she was telling him the tale. "i went over to rye on sunday," he said. "quaint old place, isn't it? funny to think it used to be on the seashore. they say there once was a battle between the french and english fleets where it's all dry marsh now." joanna thrilled again--that was like martin, telling her things, old things about the marsh. the conversation was certainly being conducted on very decorous lines. she began to lose the feeling of impropriety which had disturbed her at first. they sat talking about the neighbourhood, the weather, and--under joanna's guidance--the prospects of the harvest, for another ten minutes, at the end of which the band went off for their "interval." the cessation of the music and scattering of the crowd recalled joanna to a sense of her position. she realized also that it was quite dark--the last redeeming ray had left the sky. she stood up-- "well, i must be getting back." "where are you staying?" "the palace hotel." what ho! she must have some money. "may i walk back with you?" "oh, thanks," said joanna--"it ain't far." they walked, rather awkwardly silent, the few hundred yards to the hotel. joanna stopped and held out her hand. she suddenly realized that she did not want to say good-bye to the young man. their acquaintanceship had been most shockingly begun--ellen must never know--but she did not want it to end. she felt, somehow, that he just meant to say good-bye and go off, without any plans for another meeting. she must take action herself. "won't you come and have dinner--i mean lunch--with me to-morrow?" she scanned his face eagerly as she spoke. it suddenly struck her what a terrible thing it would be if he went out of her life now after having just come into it--come back into it, she had almost said, for she could not rid herself of that strange sense of martin's return, of a second spring. but she need not have been afraid. he was not the man to refuse his chances. "thanks no end--i'll be honoured." "then i'll expect you. one o'clock, and ask for miss godden." § joanna had a nearly sleepless night. the torment of her mind would not allow her to rest. at times she was overwhelmed with shame at what she had done--taken up with a strange man at the band, like any low servant girl on her evening out--my! but she'd have given it to mene tekel if she dared behave so! at other times she drifted on a dark sweet river of thought ... every detail of the boy's appearance haunted her with disturbing charm--his eyes, black and soft like martin's--his mouth which was coarser and sulkier than martin's, yet made her feel all disquieted ... the hair which rolled like martin's hair from his forehead--dear hair she used to tug.... oh, he's the man i could love--he's my sort--he's the kind i like.... and i don't even know his name.... but he talks like martin--knows all about old places when they were new--queer he should talk about them floods.... romney church, you can see the marks on the pillars.... i can't bear to think of that.... i wonder what he'll say when he comes to-morrow?--maybe he'll find me too old--i'm ten year older than him if i'm a day.... i must dress myself up smart--i'm glad i brought my purple body.... martin liked me in the old basket hat i fed the fowls in ... but i was slimmer then.... i'm getting on now ... he won't like me as well by daylight as he did in the dark--and properly i'll deserve it, carrying on like that. i've half a mind not to be in--i'll leave a polite message, saying "miss godden's compliments, but she's had to go home, owing to one of her cows having a miscarriage." i'll be wise to go home to-morrow--reckon i ain't fit to be trusted alone. but a quarter to one the next day saw her in all the splendour of her "purple body," standing before her mirror, trying to make up her mind whether to wear her big hat or her little one. the little hat was smarter and had cost more money, but the big hat put a becoming shadow over her eyes, and hid those little lines that were straying from the corners.... for the first time joanna had begun to realize that clothes should have other qualities besides mere splendour. hitherto she had never thought of clothes in any definite relation to herself, as enhancing, veiling, suggesting, or softening the beauty which was joanna godden. but to-day she chose warily--her hat for shadow, her shoes for grace, her amber necklace because she must have that touch of barbarism which suited her best--an unconscious process this--and her amber earrings, because they matched her necklace, and because in the mirror she could see the brighter colours of her hair swinging in them. at the last minute she changed her "purple body" for one of rich chestnut-coloured silk. this was so far her best inspiration, for it toned not only with the amber beads, but with her skin and hair. as she turned to leave the room she was like a great glowing amber bead herself, all brown and gold, with rich red lights and gleams of yellow ... then just as she was going out she had her last and best inspiration of all. she suddenly went back into the room, and before the mirror tore off the swathe of cream lace she wore round her throat. the short thick column of her neck rose out of her golden blouse. she burned to her ears, but walked resolutely from the room. her young man was waiting for her in the lounge, and she saw his rather blank face light up when she appeared. she had been successful, then ... the realization gave her confidence, and more beauty. during the meal which followed, he re-cast a little of that opinion he had formed of her the night before. she was younger than he had thought, probably only a little over thirty, and far better looking than he had gathered from a first impression. joanna was that rather rare type of woman who invariably looks her best in sunshine--the dusk had hidden from him her really lovely colouring of skin and eyes and hair; here at her little table by the window her face seemed almost a condensation of the warm, ruddy light which poured in from the sea. her eyes, with the queer childlike depths behind their feminine hardness, her eager mouth and splendid teeth, the scatter of freckles over her nose, all combined to hold him in a queer enchantment of youth. there was a curious, delightful freshness about her ... and she was a damn fine woman, too. the night before he had gathered that she was of overwhelming respectability, but now he had his doubts about that also. she certainly seemed of a more oncoming disposition than he had thought, though there was something naïve and virginal about her forwardness. her acquaintance might prove more entertaining than he had supposed. he fixed his eyes on her uncovered throat; she blushed deeply, and put her hand up. their talk was very much on the same lines as the night before. he discovered that she had a zest for hearing him discourse on old places--she drank in all he had to say about the old days of marlingate, when it was just a red fishing-village asleep between two hills. he told her how the new town had been built northward and westward, in the days of the great monypenny, whose statue now stares blindly out to sea. he was a man naturally interested in topography and generally "read up" the places he visited, but he had never before found a woman who cared to listen to that sort of stuff. after luncheon, drinking coffee in the lounge, they became more personal and intimate. he told her about himself. his name was albert hill--his father was dead, and he lived with his mother and sister at lewisham. he had a good position as clerk in a firm of carpet-makers. he was twenty-five years old, and doing well. joanna became confidential in her turn. her confidences mostly concerned the prosperity of her farm, the magnitude of its acreage, the success of this year's lambing and last year's harvest, but they also included a few sentimental adventures--she had had ever so many offers of marriage, including one from a clergyman, and she had once been engaged to a baronet's son. he wondered if she was pitching him a yarn, but did not think so; if she was, she would surely do better for herself than a three hundred acre farm, and an apparently unlimited dominion over the bodies and souls of clergymen. by this time he was liking her very much, and as he understood she had only two days more at marlingate, he asked her to go to the pier theatre with him the next evening. joanna accepted, feeling that she was committing herself to a desperate deed. but she was reckless now--she, as well as hill, thought of those two poor days which were all she had left. she must do something in those two days to bind him, for she knew that she could not let him go from her--she knew that she loved again. § she did not love as she had loved the first time. then she had loved with a calmness and an acceptance which were impossible to her now. she had trusted fate and trusted the beloved, but now she was unsure of both. she was restless and tormented, and absorbed as she had never been in martin. her love consumed every other emotion, mental or physical--it would not let her sleep or eat or listen to music. it kept her whole being concentrated on the new force that had disturbed it--she could think of nothing but albert hill, and her thoughts were haggard and anxious, picturing their friendship at a standstill, failing, and lost.... oh, she must not lose him--she could not bear to lose him--she must bind him somehow in the short time she had left. there were intervals in which she became uneasily conscious of her folly. he was thirteen years younger than she--it was ridiculous. she was a fool, after all the opportunities she'd had, to fall in love with a mere boy. but she knew in her heart that it was his youth she wanted most, partly because it was martin's youth, partly because it called to something in her which was not youth, nor yet belonged to age--something which was wise, tender and possessive--something which had never yet been satisfied. luckily she had health robust enough to endure the preyings of her mind, and did not bear her conflict on her face when hill called for her the next evening. she had been inspired to wear the same clothes as before--having once pleased, she thought perhaps she would be wise not to take any risks with the purple body, and as for an evening gown, joanna would have felt like a bad woman in a book if she had worn one. but she was still guiltily without her collar. he took her to a small restaurant on the sea-front, where half a dozen couples sat at little rosily lit tables. joanna was pleased--she was beginning faintly to enjoy the impropriety of her existence ... dinner in a restyrong--with wine--that would be something to hold in her heart against ellen, next time that young person became superior. joanna did not really like wine--a glass of stout at her meals, or pale ale in the hot weather, was all she took as a rule--but there was a subtle fascination in putting her lips to the red glass full of broken lights, and feeling the wine like fire against them, while her eyes gazed over the brim at hill ... he gazed at her over the brim of his, and somehow when their eyes met thus over their glasses, over the red wine, it was more than when they just met across the table, in the pauses of their talk. it seemed to her that he was more lover-like to-night--his words seemed to hover round her, to caress her, and she was not surprised when she felt his foot press hers under the table, though she hastily drew her own away. after dinner, he took her on the pier. "east lynne" was being played in the pavilion, and they had two of the best seats. joanna was terribly thrilled and a little shocked--she was also, at the proper time, overcome with emotion. when little willie lay dying, it was more than she could bear ... poor little chap, it made your heart ache to see him--even though he was called miss maidie masserene on the programme, and when not in bed stuck out in parts of his sailor suit which little boys do not usually stick out in. his poor mother, too ... the tears rolled down joanna's face, and her throat was speechless and swollen ... something seemed to be tugging at her heart ... she grew ashamed, almost frightened. it was a positive relief when the curtain came down, and rose again to show that little willie had done likewise and stood bowing right and left in his night-shirt. still the tears would furtively trickle ... what a fool she was getting--it must be the wine. my, but she had a weak head ... she must never take another glass. then suddenly, in the darkness, she felt a hand take hers, pick it up, set it on a person's knee ... her hand lay palm downwards on his knee, and his own lay over it--she began to tremble and her heart turned to water. the tears ran on and on. ... they were outside, the cool sea wind blew over them, and in the wind was the roar of the sea. without a word they slipped out of the stream of people heading for the pier gates, and went to the railing, where they stood looking down on the black water. "why are you crying, dear?" asked hill tenderly, as his arm crept round her. "i dunno--i'm not the one to cry. but that little chap ... and his poor mother ..." "you soft-hearted darling." ... he held her close, in all her gracious and supple warmth, which even the fierceness of her stays could not quite keep from him. oh, she was the dearest thing, so crude and yet so soft ... how glad he was he had not drawn back at the beginning, as he had half thought of doing ... she was the loveliest woman, adorable--mature, yet unsophisticated ... she was like a quince, ripe and golden red, yet with a delicious tartness. "joanna," he breathed, his mouth close to the tawny, flying anthers of her hair--"do you think you could love me?" he felt her hair stroke his lips, as she turned her head. he saw her eyes bright with tears and passion. then suddenly she broke from him-- "i can't--i can't ... it's more than i can bear." he came after her, overtaking her just before the gate. "darling thing, what's the matter?--you ain't afraid?" "no--no--it isn't that. only i can't bear ... beginning to feel it ... again." "again?" "yes--i told you a bit ... i can't tell you any more." "but the chap's dead." "yes." "hang it all, we're alive ..." and she surrendered to his living mouth. § that night she slept, and the next morning she felt calmer. some queer, submerged struggle seemed to be over. as a matter of fact, her affair was more uncertain than ever. after albert's kiss, they had had no discussion and very little conversation. he had taken her back to the hotel, and had kissed her again--this time on the warm, submissive mouth she lifted to him. he had said--"i'll come and see you at ansdore--i've got another week." and she had said--nothing. she did not know if he wanted to marry her, or even if she wanted to marry him. she did not worry about how--or if--she should explain him to ellen. all her cravings and uncertainties were swallowed up in a great quiet, a strange quiet which was somehow all the turmoil of her being expressed in silence. the next day he was true to his promise, and saw her off--sitting decorously in her first-class carriage "for ladies only." "you'll come and see me at ansdore?" she said, as the moment of departure drew near, and he said nothing about last night's promise. "do you really want me to come?" "reckon i do." "i'll come, then." "which day?" "say monday, or tuesday." "come on monday, by this train--and i'll meet you at the station in my trap. i've got a fine stepper." "right you are. i'll come on monday. it's kind of you to want me so much." "i do want you." her warm, glowing face in the frame of the window invited him, and they kissed. funny, thought hill to himself, the fuss she had made at first, and she was all over him now.... but women were always like that--wantons by nature and prudes by grace, and it was wonderful what a poor fight grace generally made of it. joanna, unaware that she had betrayed herself and womankind, leaned back comfortably in the train as it slid out of the station. she was in a happy dream, hardly aware of her surroundings. mechanically she watched the great stucco amphitheatre of marlingate glide past the window--then the red throbbing darkness of a tunnel ... and the town was gone, like a bad dream, giving place to the tiny tilted fields and century-old hedges of the south-eastern weald. then gradually these sloped and lost themselves in marsh--first only a green tongue running into the weald along the bed of the brede river, then spreading north and south and east and west, from the cliff-line of england's ancient coast to the sand-line of england's coast to-day, from the spires of the monks of battle to the spires of the monks of canterbury. joanna was roused automatically by this return to her old surroundings. she began to think of her trap waiting for her outside rye station. she wondered if ellen would have come to meet her. yes, there she was on the platform ... wearing a green frock, too. she'd come out of her blacks. joanna thrilled to a faint shock. she wondered how many other revolutions ellen had carried out in her absence. "well, old jo ..." it seemed to her that ellen's kiss was warmer than usual. or was it that her own heart was so warm...? ellen found her remarkably silent. she had expected an outpouring of joanna's adventures, achievements and triumphs, combined with a desperate catechism as to just how much ruin had befallen ansdore while she was away. instead of which joanna seemed for the first time in ellen's experience, a little dreamy. she had but little to say to rye's one porter, or to peter crouch, the groom. she climbed up on the front seat of the trap, and took the reins. "you're looking well," said ellen--"i can see your change has done you good." "reckon it has, my dear." "were you comfortable at the hotel?" this, if anything, should have started joanna off, but all she said was-- "it wasn't a bad place." "well, if you don't want to talk about your own affairs," said ellen to herself--"you can listen to mine, for a change. joanna,"--she added aloud--"i came to meet you, because i've got something special to tell you." "what's that?" "perhaps you can guess." joanna dreamily shook her head. "well, i'm thinking of getting married again." "married!" "yes--it's eighteen months since poor arthur died," sighed the devoted widow, "and--perhaps you've noticed--tip ernley's been getting very fond of me." "yes, i had noticed.... i was wondering why you didn't tell." "there was nothing to tell. he couldn't propose to me till he had something definite to do. now he's just been offered the post of agent on the duke of wiltshire's estate--a perfectly splendid position. of course, i told him all about my first marriage"--she glanced challengingly at her sister--"but he's a perfect dear, and he saw at once i'd been more sinned against than sinning. we're going to be married this summer." "i'm unaccountable glad." ellen gave her a queer look. "you take it very calmly, jo." "well, i'd been expecting it all along." "you won't mind my going away and leaving you?" "reckon you'll have to go where your husband goes." "what on earth's happened?" thought ellen to herself--"she's positively meek." the next minute she knew. "ellen," said joanna, as they swung into the straight mile, "i've got a friend coming to spend the day on monday--a mr. hill that i met in marlingate." § for the next few days joanna was restless and nervous; she could not be busy with ansdore, even after a fortnight's absence. the truth in her heart was that she found ansdore rather flat. wilson's pride in the growth of the young lambs, broadhurst's anxiety about spot's calving and his preoccupation with the suffolk dray-horse joanna was to buy at ashford fair that year, all seemed irrelevant to the main purpose of life. the main stream of her life had suddenly been turned underground--it ran under ansdore's wide innings--on monday it would come again to the surface, and take her away from ansdore. the outward events of monday were not exciting. joanna drove into rye with peter crouch behind her, and met albert hill with a decorous handshake on the platform. during the drive home, and indeed during most of his visit, his attitude towards her was scarcely more than ordinary friendship. in the afternoon, when ellen had gone out with tip ernley, he gave her a few kisses, but without much passion. she began to feel disquieted. had he changed? was there someone else he liked? at all costs she must hold him--she must not let him go. the truth was that hill felt uncertain how he stood--he was bewildered in his mind. what was she driving at? surely she did not think of marriage--the difference in their ages was far too great. but what else could she be thinking of? he gathered that she was invincibly respectable--and yet he was not sure.... in spite of her decorum, she had queer, unguarded ways. he had met no one exactly like her, though he was a man of wide and not very edifying experience. the tactics which had started his friendship with joanna he had learned at the shorthand and typewriting college where he had learned his clerking job--and they had brought him a rummage of adventures, some transient, some sticky, some dirty, some glamorous. he had met girls of a fairly good class--for his looks caused much to be forgiven him--as well as the typists, shop-girls and waitresses of his more usual association. but he had never met anyone quite like joanna--so simple yet so swaggering, so solid yet so ardent, so rigid yet so unguarded, so superior and yet, he told himself, so lacking in refinement. she attracted him enormously ... but he was not the sort of man to waste his time. "when do you go back to london?" she asked. "wednesday morning." she sighed deeply, leaning against him on the sofa. "is this all the holiday you'll get this year?" "no--i've whitsun coming--friday to tuesday. i might run down to marlingate ..." he watched her carefully. "oh, that 'ud be fine. you'd come and see me here?" "of course--if you asked me?" "if i asked you," she repeated in a sudden, trembling scorn. her head drooped to his breast, and he took her in his arms, holding her across him--all her magnificent weight upon his knees. oh, she was a lovely creature ... as he kissed her firm, shy mouth it seemed to him as if her whole body was a challenge. a queer kind of antagonism seized him--prude or rake, she should get her lesson from him all right. § when he had gone joanna said to ellen-- "d'you think it would be seemly if i asked mr. hill here to stay?" "of course it would be 'seemly,' jo. i'm a married woman. but would he be able to come? he's in business somewhere, isn't he?" "yes, but he could get away for whitsun." "then ask him by all means. but ..." she looked at her quickly and teasingly. "but what?" "jo, do you care about this man?" "what d'you mean? why should i care? or, leastways, why shouldn't i?" "no reason at all. he's a good bit younger than you are, but then i always fancied that if you married it ud be a man younger than yourself." "who said i was going to marry him?" "no one. but if you care ..." "i never said i did." "oh, you're impossible," said ellen with a little shrug. she picked up a book from the table, but joanna could not let the conversation drop. "what d'you think of mr. hill, ellen? does he remind you of anyone particular?" "no, not at the moment." "hasn't it ever struck you he's a bit like my martin trevor?" her tongue no longer stammered at the name. "your martin trevor! jo, what nonsense, he's not a bit like him." "he's the living image--the way his hair grows out of his forehead, and his dark, saucy eyes ..." "well, i was only a little girl when you were engaged to martin trevor, but as i remember him he was quite different from mr. hill. he belonged to another class, for one thing.... he was a gentleman." "and you think mr. hill ain't a gentleman?" "my dear joanna! of course he's not--he doesn't profess to be." "he's got a good position as a clerk. some clerks are gentlemen." "but this one isn't." "how do _you_ know?" "because i happen to be engaged to someone who is." "that ain't any reason for miscalling my friends." "i'm not 'miscalling' anyone.... oh, hang it all, jo, don't let's quarrel about men at our time of life. i'm sorry if i said anything you don't like about mr. hill. of course, i don't know him as well as you do." § so joanna wrote to albert hill in her big, cramped handwriting, on the expensive yet unostentatious note-paper which ellen had decreed, inviting him to come and spend whitsuntide at ansdore. his answer did not come for three or four days, during which, as he meant she should, she suffered many doubts and anxieties. was he coming? did he care for her? or had he just been fooling? she had never felt like this about a man before. she had loved, but love had never held her in the same bondage--perhaps because till now she had always had certainties. her affair with martin, her only real love affair, had been a certainty, arthur alce's devotion had been a most faithful certainty, the men who had comforted her bereavement had also in their different ways been certainties. albert hill was the only man who had ever eluded her, played with her or vexed her. she knew that she attracted him, but she also guessed dimly that he feared to bind himself. as for her, she was now determined. she loved him and must marry him. characteristically she had swept aside the drawbacks of their different ages and circumstances, and saw nothing but the man she loved--the man who was for her the return of first love, youth and spring. a common little tawdry-minded clerk some might have called him, but to joanna he was all things--fulfilment, lover and child, and also a sign and a second coming. she could think of nothing else. once again ansdore was failing her, as it always failed her in any crisis of emotion--ansdore could never be big enough to fill her heart. but she valued it because of the consequence it must give her in young hill's eyes, and she was impressed by the idea that her own extra age and importance gave her the rights of approach normally belonging to the man.... queens always invited their consorts to share their thrones, and she was a queen, opening her gates to the man she loved. there could be no question of her leaving her house for his--he was only a little clerk earning two pounds a week, and she was squire of the manor. possibly this very fact made him hesitate, fear to presume.... well, she must show him he was wrong, and this whitsuntide was her opportunity. but she wished that she could feel more queenly in her mind--less abject, craving and troubled. in outward circumstances she was his queen, but in her heart she was his slave. she plunged into an orgy of preparation. mrs. tolhurst and mene tekel and the new girl from windpumps who now reinforced the household were nearly driven off their legs. ellen spared the wretched man much in the way of feather-beds--just one down mattress would be enough, town people weren't used to sleeping on feathers. she also chastened the scheme of decoration, and substituted fresh flowers for the pampas grasses which joanna thought the noblest adornment possible for a spare bedroom. on the whole ellen behaved very well about albert hill--she worked her best to give him a favourable impression of ansdore as a household, and when he came she saw that he and her sister were as much alone together as possible. "he isn't at all the sort of brother-in-law i'd like you to have, my dear," she said to tip, "but if you'd seen some of the men joanna's taken up with you'd realize it might have been much worse. i'm told she once had a most hectic romance with her own shepherd ... she's frightfully impressionable, you know." "is she really?" said tip in his slow, well-bred voice. "i shouldn't have thought that." "no, because--dear old jo! it's so funny--she's quite without art. but she's always been frightfully keen on men, though she never could attract the right sort; and for some reason or other--to do with the farm, i suppose--she's never been keen on marriage. now lately i've been thinking she really ought to marry--lately she's been getting quite queer--_détraquée_--and i do think she ought to settle down." "but hill's much younger than she is." "joanna would never care for anyone older. she's always liked boys--it's because she wants to be sure of being boss, i suppose. i know for a fact she's turned down nearly half a dozen good, respectable, well-to-do farmers of her own age or older than herself. and yet i've sometimes felt nervous about her and peter crouch, the groom.... oh, i tell you, jo's queer, and i'll be thankful if she marries bertie hill, even though he is off the mark. after all, tip"--and ellen looked charming--"jo and i aren't real ladies, you know." § albert was able to get off on the friday afternoon, and arrived at ansdore in time for the splendours of late dinner and a bath in the new bathroom. there was no doubt about it, thought he, that he was on a good thing, whichever way it ended. she must have pots of money ... everything of the very best ... and her sister marrying no end of a swell--ernley, who played for sussex, and was obviously top-notch in every other way. perhaps he wouldn't be such a fool, after all, if he married her. he would be a country gentleman with plenty of money and a horse to ride--better than living single till, with luck, he got a rise, and married inevitably one of his female acquaintances, to live in the suburbs on three hundred a year.... and she was such a splendid creature--otherwise he would not have thought of it--but in attraction she could give points to any girl, and her beauty, having flowered late, would probably last a good while longer.... but--. that night as he sat at his bedroom window, smoking a succession of gold flake cigarettes, he saw many other aspects of the situation. the deadly quiet of ansdore in the night, with all the blackness of the marsh waiting for the unrisen moon, was to him a symbol of what his life would be if he married joanna. he would perish if he got stuck in a hole like this, and yet--he thus far acknowledged her queenship--he could never ask her to come out of it. he could not picture her living in streets--she wouldn't fit--but then, neither would he fit down here. he liked streets and gaiety and noise and picture-palaces.... if she'd been younger he might have risked it, but at her age--thirteen years older than he (she had told him her age in an expansive moment) it was really impossible. but, damn it all! she was gorgeous--and he'd rather have her than any younger woman. he couldn't make her out--she must see the folly of marriage as well as he ... then why was she encouraging him like this?--leading him on into an impossible situation? gradually he was drifting back into his first queer moment of antagonism--he felt urged to conquest, not merely for the gratification of his vanity nor even for the attainment of his desire, but for the satisfaction of seeing her humbled, all her pride and glow and glory at his feet, like a tiger-lily in the dust. the next day joanna drove him into lydd, and in the afternoon took him inland, to ruckinge and warehorne. these drives were another reconstruction of her life with martin, though now she no longer loved albert only in his second-coming aspect. she loved him passionately and childishly for himself--the free spring of his hair from his forehead, not merely because it had also been martin's but because it was his--the impudence as well as the softness of his eyes, the sulkiness as well as the sensitiveness of his mouth, the unlike as well as the like. she loved his quick, cockney accent, his cockney oaths when he forgot himself--the way he always said "yeyss" instead of "yes"--his little assumptions of vanity in socks and tie. she loved a queer blend of albert and martin, the real and the imaginary, substance and dream. as for him, he was enjoying himself. driving about the country with a fine woman like joanna, with privileges continually on the increase, was satisfactory even if no more than an interlude. "where shall we go to-morrow?" he asked her, as they sat in the parlour after dinner, leaving the garden to ellen and tip. "to-morrow? why, that's sunday." "but can't we go anywhere on sunday?" "to church, of course." "but won't you take me out for another lovely drive? i was hoping we could go out all day to-morrow. it's going to be ever so fine." "maybe, but i was brought up to go to church on sundays, and on whit sunday of all other sundays." "but this sunday's going to be different from all other sundays--and from all other whit sundays...." he looked at her meaningly out of his bold, melting eyes, and she surrendered. she could not deny him in this matter any more than in most others.... she could not disappoint him any more than she could disappoint a child. he should have his drive--she would take him over to new romney, even though it was written "neither thou nor thine ox nor thine ass nor the stranger that is within thy gates." § so the next morning when brodnyx bells were ringing in the east she drove off through pedlinge on her way to broomhill level. she felt rather uneasy and ashamed, especially when she passed the church-going people. it was the first time in her life that she had voluntarily missed going to church--for hundreds of sundays she had walked along that flat white lick of road, her big prayer book in her hand, and had gone under that ancient porch to kneel in her huge cattle-pen pew with its abounding hassocks. even the removal of the lion and the unicorn, and the transformation of her comfortable, established religion into a disquieting mystery had not made her allegiance falter. she still loved brodnyx church, even now when hassocks were no longer its chief ecclesiastical ornament. she thought regretfully of her empty place and shamefully of her neighbours' comments on it. it was a sunless day, with grey clouds hanging over a dull green marsh, streaked with channels of green water. the air was still and heavy with the scent of may and meadowsweet and ripening hayseed. they drove as far as the edges of dunge marsh, then turned eastward along the shingle road which runs across the root of the ness to lydd. the little mare's chocolate flanks were all a-sweat, and joanna thought it better to bait at lydd and rest during the heat of the day. "you'd never think it was whitsun," said albert, looking out of the inn window at the sunny, empty street. "you don't seem to get much of a crowd down here. rum old place, ain't it?" already joanna was beginning to notice a difference between his outlook and martin's. "what d'you do with yourself out here all day?" he continued. "i've plenty to do." "well, it seems to agree with you--i never saw anyone look finer. you're reelly a wonder, old thing." he picked up the large hand lying on the table-cloth and kissed it back and palm. from any other man, even from martin himself, she would have received the caress quite simply, been proud and contented, but now it brought her into a strange trouble. she leaned towards him, falling upon his shoulder, her face against his neck. she wanted his kisses, and he gave them to her. at about three o'clock they set out again. the sun was high now, but the air was cooler, for it had lost its stillness and blew in rippling gusts from the sea. joanna resolved not to go on to new romney, as they had waited too long at lydd; so she took the road that goes to ivychurch, past midley chapel, one of the ruined shrines of the monks of canterbury--grey walls huddled against a white tower of hawthorn in which the voices of the birds tinkled like little bells. she was now beginning to feel more happy and self-confident but she was still preoccupied, though with a new situation. they had now been alone together for five hours, and albert had not said a word about the marriage on which her hopes were set. her ideas as to her own right of initiative had undergone a change. he was in all matters of love so infinitely more experienced than she was that she could no longer imagine herself taking the lead. hitherto she had considered herself as experienced and capable in love as in other things--had she not been engaged for five months? had she not received at least half a dozen offers of marriage? but albert had "learned her different." his sure, almost careless, touch abashed her, and the occasional fragments of autobiography which he let fall, showed her that she was a limited and ignorant recluse compared to this boy of twenty-five. in matters of money and achievement she might brag, but in matters of love she was strangely subservient to him, because in such matters he had everything to teach her. they stopped for tea at ivychurch; the little inn and the big church beside the new sewer were hazed over in a cloud of floating sunshine and dust. she had been here before with martin, and after tea she and albert went into the church and looked around them. but his interest in old places was not the same as martin's. he called things "quaint" and "rummy," and quoted anything he had read about them in the guide-book, but he could not make them come alive in a strange re-born youth--he could not make her feel the beauty of the great sea on which the french ships had ridden, or the splendours of the marsh before the flood, with all its towns and taverns and steeples. unconsciously she missed this appeal to her sleeping imagination, and her bringing of him into the great church, which could have held an the village in its aisles, was an effort to supply what was lacking. but albert's attitude towards the church was critical and unsatisfactory. it was much too big for the village. it was ridiculous ... that little clump of chairs in all the huge emptiness ... what a waste of money, paying a parson to idle away his time among a dozen people.... "how dreadful is this place" ran the painted legend over the arches.... joanna trembled. they came out on the farther side of the churchyard, where a little path leads away into the hawthorns of the new sewer. a faint sunshine was spotting it through the branches, and suddenly joanna's heart grew warm and heavy with love. she wanted some sheltered corner where she could hold his hand, feel his rough coat-sleeve against her cheek--or, dearer still, carry his head on her bosom, that heavenly weight of a man's head, with the coarse, springing hair to pull and stroke.... she put her arm into his. "bertie, let's go and sit over there in the shade." he smiled at the innocence of her contrivance. "shall we?" he said, teasing her--"won't it make us late for dinner?" "we don't have dinner on sundays--we have supper at eight, so as to let the gals go to church." her eyes looked, serious and troubled, into his. he pressed her hand. "you darling thing." they moved away out of the shadow of the church, following the little path down to the channel's bank. the water was of a clear, limpid green, new-flushed with the tide, with a faint stickle moving down it, carrying the white, fallen petals of the may. the banks were rich with loosestrife and meadowsweet, and as they walked on, the arching of hawthorn and willow made of the stream and the path beside it a little tunnel of shade and scent. the distant farmyard sounds which spoke of ivychurch behind them gradually faded into a thick silence. joanna could feel bertie leaning against her as they walked, he was playing with her hand, locking and unlocking her fingers with his. weren't men queer ... the sudden way they melted at a touch? martin had been like that--losing his funny sulks.... and now bertie was just the same. she felt convinced that in one moment ... in two ... he would ask her to be his wife.... "let's sit down for a bit," she suggested. they sat down by the water side, crushing the meadowsweet till its sickliness grew almost fierce with bruising. she sidled into his arms, and her own crept round him. "bertie ..." she whispered. her heart was throbbing quickly, and, as it were, very high--in her throat--choking her. she began to tremble. looking up she saw his eyes above her, gazing down at her out of a mist--everything seemed misty, trees and sky and sunshine and his dear face.... she was holding him very tight, so tight that she could feel his collar-bones bruising her arms. he was kissing her now, and his kisses were like blows. she suddenly became afraid, and struggled. "jo, jo--don't be a fool--don't put me off, now ... you can't, i tell you." but she had come to herself. "no--let me go. i ... it's late--i've got to go home." she was strong enough to push him from her, and scrambled to her feet. they both stood facing each other in the trodden streamside flowers. "i beg your pardon," he said at last. "oh, it doesn't matter." she was ashamed. § she was frightened, too--never in her life had she imagined that she could drift so far as she had drifted in those few seconds. she was still trembling as she led the way back to the church. she could hear him treading after her, and as she thought of him her heart smote her. she felt as if she had hurt him--oh, what had she done to him? what had she denied him? what had she given him to think? as they climbed into the trap she could tell that he was sulking. he looked at her half-defiantly from under his long lashes, and the corners of his mouth were turned down like a child's. the drive home was constrained and nearly silent. joanna tried to talk about the grazings they had broken at yokes court, in imitation of her own successful grain-growing, about her appeal to the high court which was to be heard that summer, and the motor-car she would buy if it was successful--but it was obvious that they were both thinking of something else. for the last part of the drive, from brodnyx to ansdore, neither of them spoke a word. the sunset was scattering the clouds ahead and filling the spaces with lakes of gold. the dykes turned to gold, and a golden film lay over the pastures and the reeds. the sun wheeled slowly north, and a huge, shadowy horse and trap began to run beside them along the embankment of the white kemp sewer. they turned up ansdore's drive, now neatly gravelled and gated, and a flood of light burst over the gables of the house, pouring on joanna as she climbed down over the wheel. she required no help, and he knew it, but she felt his hands pressing her waist; she started away, and she saw him laugh--mocking her. she nearly cried. the rest of that evening was awkward and unhappy. she had a vague feeling in her heart that she had treated albert badly, and yet ... the strange thing was that she shrank from an explanation. it had always been her habit to "have things out" on all occasions, and many a misunderstanding had been strengthened thereby. but to-night she could not bear the thought of being left alone with albert. for one thing, she was curiously vague as to the situation--was she to blame or was he? had she gone too far or not far enough? what was the matter, after all? there was nothing to lay hold of.... joanna was unused to this nebulous state of mind; it made her head ache, and she was glad when the time came to go to bed. with a blessed sense of relief she felt the whitewashed thickness of her bedroom walls between her and the rest of the house. she did not trouble to light her candle. her room was in darkness, except for one splash of light reflected from her mirror which held the moon. she went over to the window and looked out. the marsh swam in a yellow, misty lake of moonlight. there was a strange air of unsubstantiality about it--the earth was not the solid earth, the watercourses were moonlight rather than water, the light was water rather than light, the trees were shadows.... "ah-h-h," said joanna godden. she lifted her arms to her head with a gesture of weariness--as she took out the pins her hair fell on her shoulders in great hanks and masses, golden and unsubstantial as the moon. slowly and draggingly she began to unfasten her clothes--they fell off her, and lay like a pool round her feet. she plunged into her stiff cotton nightgown, buttoning it at neck and wrists. then she knelt by her bed and said her prayers--the same prayers that she had said ever since she was five. the moonlight was coming straight into the room--showing its familiar corners. there was no trace of ellen in this room--nothing that was "artistic" or "in good taste." a lively pattern covered everything that could be so covered, but joanna's sentimental love of old associations had spared the original furniture--the wide feather bed, the oaken chest of drawers, the wash-stand which was just a great chest covered with a towel. over her bed hung poor father's buffalo certificate, the cherished symbol of all that was solid and prosperous and reputable in life. she lay in bed. after she got in she realized that she had forgotten to plait her hair, but she felt too languid for the effort. her hair spread round her on the pillow like a reproach. for some mysterious reason her tears began to fall. her life seemed to reproach her. she saw all her life stretching behind her for a moment--the moment when she had stood before socknersh her shepherd, seeing him dark against the sky, between the sun and moon. that was when men, properly speaking, had begun for her--and it was fifteen years since then--and where was she now? still at ansdore, still without her man. albert had not asked her to marry him, nor, she felt desperately, did he mean to. if he did, he would surely have spoken to-day. and now besides, he was angry with her, disappointed, estranged. she had upset him by turning cold like that all of a sudden.... but what was she saying? why, of course she had been quite right. she should ought to have been cold from the start. that was her mistake--letting the thing start when it could have no seemly ending ... a boy like that, nearly young enough to be her son ... and yet she had been unable to deny him, she had let him kiss her and court her--make love to her.... worse than that, she had made love to him, thrown herself at him, pursued him with her love, refused to let him go ... and all the other things she had done--changing for his sake from her decent ways ... breaking the sabbath, taking off her neck-band. she had been getting irreligious and immodest, and now she was unhappy, and it served her right. the house was quite still; everyone had gone to bed, and the moon filled the middle of the window, splashing the bed, and joanna in it, and the walls, and the sagging beams of the ceiling. she thought of getting up to pull down the blind, but had no more energy to do that than to bind her hair. she wanted desperately to go to sleep. she lay on her side, her head burrowed down into the pillow, her hands clenched under her chin. her bed was next the door, and beyond the door, against the wall at right angles to it, was her chest of drawers, with martin's photograph in its black frame, and the photograph of his tombstone in a frame with a lily worked on it. her eyes strained towards them in the darkness ... oh, martin--martin, why did i ever forget you?... but i never forgot you ... martin, i've never had my man.... i've got money, two farms, lovely clothes--i'm just as good as a lady ... but i've never had my man.... seemingly i'll go down into the grave without him ... but, oh, i do want ... the thing i was born for.... sobs shook her broad shoulders as she lay there in the moonlight. but they did not relieve her--her sobs ploughed deep into her soul ... they turned strange furrows.... oh, she was a bad woman, who deserved no happiness. she'd always known it. she lifted her head, straining her eyes through the darkness and tears to gaze at martin's photograph as if it were the serpent in the wilderness. perhaps all this had come upon her because she had been untrue to his memory--and yet what had so appealed to her about bertie was that he was like martin, though ellen said he wasn't--well, perhaps he wasn't.... but what was happening now? something had come between her and the photograph on the chest of drawers. with a sudden chill at her heart, she realized that it was the door opening. "who's there?" she cried in a hoarse angry whisper. "don't be frightened, dear--don't be frightened, my sweet jo--" said bertie hill. § she could not think--she could only feel. it was morning--that white light was morning, though it was like the moon. under it the marsh lay like a land under the sea--it must have looked like this when the keels of the french boats swam over it, high above ansdore, and brodnyx, and pedlinge, lying like red apples far beneath, at the bottom of the sea. that was nonsense ... but she could not think this morning, she could only feel. he had not been gone an hour, but she must find him. she must be with him--just feel him near her. she must see his head against the window, hear the heavy, slow sounds of his moving. she slipped on her clothes and twisted up her hair, and went down into the empty, stir-less house. no one was about--even her own people were in bed. the sun was not yet up, but the white dawn was pouring into the house, through the windows, through the chinks. joanna stood in the midst of it. then she opened the door and went out into the yard, which was a pool of cold light, ringed round with barns and buildings and reed-thatched haystacks. it was queer how this cold, still, trembling dawn hurt her--seemed to flow into her, to be part of herself, and yet to wound.... she had never felt like this before--she could never have imagined that love would make her feel like this, would make her see beauty in her forsaken yard at dawn--not only see but feel that beauty, physically, as pain. her heart wounded her--her knees were failing--she went back into the house. a wooden chair stood in the passage outside the kitchen door, and she sat down on it. she was still unable to think, and she knew now that she did not want to think--it might make her afraid. she wanted only to remember.... he had called her the loveliest, sweetest, most beautiful woman in the world.... she repeated his words over and over again, calling up the look with which he had said them ... oh, those eyes of his--slanty, saucy, secret, loving eyes.... she wondered why he did not come down. she could not imagine that he had turned into bed and gone to sleep--that he did not know she was sitting here waiting for him in the dawn. for a moment she thought of going up and knocking at his door--then she heard a thud of footsteps and creaking of boards, which announced that mene tekel and nan gregory of windpumps were stirring in their bedroom. in an incredibly short time they were coming downstairs, tying apron-strings and screwing up hair as they went, and making a terrific stump past the door behind which they imagined their mistress was in bed. it was a great shock to them to find that she was downstairs before them--they weren't more than five minutes late. "hurry up, gals," said joanna, "and get that kettle boiling for the men. i hear broadhurst about the yard. mene tekel, see as there's no clinkers left in the grate; mrs. alce never got her bath yesterday evening before dinner as she expects it. when did you do the flues last?" she set her household about its business--her dreams could not live in the atmosphere of antagonistic suspicion in which she had always viewed the younger members of her own sex. she was firmly convinced that neither nan nor mene would do a stroke of work if she was not "at them"; the same opinion applied in a lesser degree to the men in the yard. so till ansdore's early breakfast appeared amid much hustling and scolding, joanna had no time to think about her lover, or continue the dreams so strangely and gloriously begun in the sunless dawn. bertie was late for breakfast, and came down apologising for having overslept himself. but he had a warm, sleepy, rumpled look about him which made her forgive him. he was like a little boy--her little boy ... she dropped her eyelids over her tears. after breakfast, as soon as they were alone, she stole into his arms and held close to him, without embrace, her hands just clasped over her breast on which her chin had fallen. he tried to raise her burning, blushing face, but she turned it to his shoulder. § albert hill went back to london on tuesday, but he came down again the following week-end, and the next, and the next, and then his engagement to joanna was made public. in this respect the trick was hers. the affair had ended in a committal which he had not expected, but his own victory was too substantial for him to regret any development of it to her advantage. besides, he had seen the impossibility of conducting the affair on any other lines, both on account of the circumstances in which she lived and of her passionate distress when she realized that he did not consider marriage an inevitable consequence of their relation. it was his only way of keeping her--and he could not let her go. she was adorable, and the years between them meant nothing--her beauty had wiped them out. he could think of her only as the ageless woman he loved, who shared the passion of his own youth and in it was for ever young. on the practical side, too, he was better reconciled. he felt a pang of regret when he thought of london and its work and pleasures, of his chances of a "rise"--which his superiors had hinted was now imminent--of a head clerkship, perhaps eventually of a partnership and a tight marriage into the business--since his whitsuntide visit to ansdore he had met the junior partner's daughter and found her as susceptible to his charms as most young women. but after all, his position as joanna godden's husband would be better even than that of a partner in the firm of sherwood and son. what was sherwood's but a firm of carpet-makers?--a small firm of carpet-makers. as joanna's husband he would be a country gentleman, perhaps even a county gentleman. he saw himself going out with his gun ... following the hounds in a pink coat.... he forgot that he could neither shoot nor ride. meantime his position as joanna's lover was not an unenviable one. she adored him and spoiled him like a child. she poured gifts upon him--a gold wrist-watch, a real panama hat, silk socks in gorgeous colours, boxes and boxes of the best turkish and egyptian cigarettes--she could not give him enough to show her love and delight in him. at first he had been a little embarrassed by this outpouring, but he was used to receiving presents from women, and he knew that joanna had plenty of money to spend and really got as much pleasure out of her gifts as he did. they atoned for the poverty of her letters. she was no letter-writer. her feelings were as cramped as her handwriting by the time she had got them down on paper; indeed, joanna herself was wondrously expressed in that big, unformed, constricted handwriting, black yet uncertain, sprawling yet constrained, in which she recorded such facts as "dot has calved at last," or "broadhurst will be come monday," or--as an utmost concession--"i love you, dear." however, too great a strain was not put on this frail link, for he came down to ansdore almost every week-end, from saturday afternoon to early monday morning. he tried to persuade her to come up to london and stay at his mother's house--he had vague hopes that perhaps an experience of london might persuade her to settle there (she could afford a fine house over at blackheath, or even in town itself, if she chose). but joanna had a solid prejudice against london--the utmost she would consent to was a promise to come up and stay with albert's mother when her appeal was heard at the high court at the beginning of august. edward huxtable had done his best to convince her that her presence was unnecessary, but she did not trust either him or the excellent counsel he had engaged. she had made up her mind to attend in person, and look after him properly. § the attitude of brodnyx and pedlinge towards this new crisis in joanna godden's life was at first uncertain. the first impression was that she had suddenly taken fright at the prospect of old-maidenhood, and had grabbed the first man she could get, even though he was young enough to be her son. "he ain't twenty-one till michaelmas," said vine at the woolpack. "she's always liked 'em young," said furnese. "well, if she'd married arthur alce when she fust had the chance, instead of hanging around and wasting time the way she's done, by now she could have had a man of her intended's age for a son instead of a husband." "reckon it wouldn't have been the same thing." "no--it would have been a better thing," said vine. when it became known that joanna's motive was not despair but love, public opinion turned against her, albert's manner among the marsh people was unfortunate. in his mind he had always stressed his bride's connexions through ellen--the ernleys, a fine old county family; he found it very satisfying to slap tip ernley on the back and call him "ole man." he had deliberately shut his eyes to the other side of her acquaintance, those marsh families, the southlands, furneses, vines, cobbs and bateses, to whom she was bound by far stronger, older ties than any which held her to great ansdore. he treated these people as her and his inferiors--unlike martin trevor, he would not submit to being driven round and shown off to misleham, picknye bush, or slinches.... it was small wonder that respectable families became indignant at such airs. "what does he think himself, i'd like to know? he's nothing but a clerk--such as i'd never see my boy." "and soon he won't be even that--he'll just be living on joanna." "she's going to keep him at ansdore?" "surelye. she'll never move out now." "but what's she want to marry for, at her age, and a boy like that?" "she's getting an old fool, i reckon." § the date of the wedding was not yet fixed, though september was spoken of rather vaguely, and this time the hesitation came from the bridegroom. as on the occasion of her first engagement joanna had made difficulties with the shearing and hay-making, so now albert contrived and shifted in his anxiety to fit in his marriage with other plans. he had, it appeared, as far back as last christmas, arranged for a week's tour in august with the polytechnic to lovely lucerne. in vain joanna promised him a liberal allowance of "foreign parts" for their honeymoon--bertie's little soul hankered after the polytechnic, his pals who were going with him, and the kindred spirits he would meet at the chalets. going on his honeymoon as joanna godden's husband was a different matter and could not take the place of such an excursion. joanna did not press him. she was terribly afraid of scaring him off. it had occurred to her more than once that his bonds held him far more lightly than she was held by hers. and the prospect of marriage was now an absolute necessity if she was to endure her memories. marriage alone could hallow and remake joanna godden. sometimes, as love became less of a drug and a bewilderment, her thoughts awoke, and she would be overwhelmed by an almost incredulous horror at herself. could this be joanna godden, who had turned away her dairy-girl for loose behaviour, who had been so shocked at the adventures of her sister ellen? she could never be shocked at anyone again, seeing that she herself was just as bad and worse than anyone she knew.... oh, life was queer--there was no denying. it took you by surprise in a way you'd never think--it made you do things so different from your proper notions that afterwards you could hardly believe it was you that had done them--it gave you joy that should ought to have been sorrow ... and pain as you'd never think. as the summer passed and the time for her visit to town drew near, joanna began to grow nervous and restless. she did not like the idea of going to a place like london, though she dared not confess her fears to the travelled ellen or the metropolitan bertie. she felt vaguely that "no good would come of it"--she had lived thirty-eight years without setting foot in london, and it seemed like tempting providence to go there now.... however she resigned herself to the journey--indeed, when the time came she undertook it more carelessly than she had undertaken the venture of marlingate. her one thought was of albert, and she gave over ansdore almost nonchalantly to her carter and her looker, and abandoned ellen to tip ernley with scarcely a doubt as to her moral welfare. bertie met her at charing cross, and escorted her the rest of the way. he found it hard to realize that she had never been to london before, and it annoyed him a little. it would have been all very well, he told himself, in a shy village maiden of eighteen, but in a woman of joanna's age and temperament it was ridiculous. however, he was relieved to find that she had none of the manners of a country cousin. her self-confidence prevented her being flustered by strange surroundings; her clothes were fashionable and well-cut, though perhaps a bit too showy for a woman of her type, she tipped lavishly, and was not afraid of porters. neither did she, as he had feared at first, demand a four-wheeler instead of a taxi. on the contrary, she insisted on driving all the way to lewisham, instead of taking another train, and enlarged on the five-seater touring car she would buy when she had won her case. "i hope to goodness you will win it, ole girl," said bertie, as he slipped his arm round her--"i've a sort of feeling that you ought to touch wood." "i'll win it if there's justice in england." "but perhaps there ain't." "i _must_ win," repeated joanna doggedly. "you see, it was like this ..." not for the first time she proceeded to recount the sale of donkey street and the way she had applied the money. he wished she wouldn't talk about that sort of thing the first hour they were together. "i quite see, darling," he exclaimed in the middle of the narrative, and shut her mouth with a kiss. "oh, bertie, you mustn't." "why not?" "we're in a cab--people will see." "they won't--they can't see in--and i'm not going to drive all this way without kissing you." he took hold of her. "i won't have it--it ain't seemly." but he had got a good hold of her, and did as he liked. joanna was horrified and ashamed. a motor-bus had just glided past the cab and she felt that the eyes of all the occupants were upon her. she managed to push albert away, and sat very erect beside him, with a red face. "it ain't seemly," she muttered under her breath. bertie was vexed with her. he assumed an attitude intended to convey displeasure. joanna felt unhappy, and anxious to conciliate him, but she was aware that any reconciliation was bound to lead to a repetition of that conduct so eminently shocking to the occupants of passing motor-buses. "i don't like london folk to think i don't know how to behave when i come up to town," she said to herself. luckily, just as the situation was becoming unbearable, and her respectability on the verge of collapsing in the cause of peace, they stopped at the gate of the elms, raymond avenue, lewisham. bertie's annoyance was swallowed up in the double anxiety of introducing her to his family and his family to her. on both counts he felt a little gloomy, for he did not think much of his mother and sister and did not expect joanna to think much of them. at the same time there was no denying that jo was and looked a good bit older than he, and his mother and sister were quite capable of thinking he was marrying her for her money. she was looking rather worn and dragged this afternoon, after her unaccustomed railway journey--sometimes you really wouldn't take her for more than thirty, but to-day she was looking her full age. "mother--agatha--this is jo." joanna swooped down on the old lady with a loud kiss. "pleased to meet you," said mrs. hill in a subdued voice. she was very short and small and frail-looking, and wore a cap--for the same reason no doubt that she kept an aspidistra in the dining-room window, went to church at eleven o'clock on sundays, and had given birth to agatha and albert. agatha was evidently within a year or two of her brother's age, and she had his large, melting eyes, and his hair that sprang in a dark semicircle from a low forehead. she was most elegantly dressed in a peek-a-boo blouse, hobble skirt, and high-heeled shoes. "pleased to meet you," she said, and joanna kissed her too. "is tea ready?" asked bertie. "it will be in a minute, dear--i can hear her getting it." they could all do that, but bertie seemed annoyed that they should be kept waiting. "you might have had it ready," he said, "i expect you're tired, jo." "oh, not so terrible, thanks," said joanna, who felt sorry for her future mother-in-law being asked to keep tea stewing in the pot against the uncertain arrival of travellers. but, as it happened, she did feel rather tired, and was glad when the door was suddenly kicked open and a large tea-tray was brought in and set down violently on a side table. "cream _and_ sugar?" said mrs. hill nervously. "yes, thank you," said joanna. she felt a little disconcerted by this new household of which she found herself a member. she wondered what bertie's mother and sister thought of his middle-aged bride. for a time they all sat round in silence. joanna covertly surveyed the drawing-room. it was not unlike the parlour at ansdore, but everything looked cheaper--they couldn't have given more than ten pound for their carpet, and she knew those fire-irons--six and eleven-three the set at the ironmongers. these valuations helped to restore her self-confidence and support the inspection which agatha was conducting on her side. "reckon the price of my clothes ud buy everything in this room," she thought to herself. "did you have a comfortable journey, miss godden?" asked mrs. hill. "you needn't call her miss godden, ma," said albert, "she's going to be one of the family." "i had a fine journey," said joanna, drowning mrs. hill's apologetic twitter, "the train came the whole of sixty miles with only one stop." agatha giggled, and bertie stabbed her with a furious glance. "did you make this tea?" he asked. "no--she made it." "i might have thought as much. that girl can't make tea any better than the cat. you reelly might make it yourself when we have visitors." "i hadn't time. i've only just come in." "you seem to be out a great deal." "i've my living to get." joanna played with her teaspoon. she felt ill at ease, though it would be difficult to say why. she had quarrelled too often with ellen to be surprised at any family disagreements--it was not ten years since she had thought nothing of smacking ellen before a disconcerted public. what was there different--and there was something different--about this wrangle between a brother and sister, that it should upset her so--upset her so much that for some unaccountable reason she should feel the tears running out of her eyes. on solemn ceremonial occasions joanna always wore a veil, and this was now pushed up in several folds, to facilitate tea-drinking. she could feel the tears wetting it, so that it stuck to her cheeks under her eyes. she was furious with herself, but she could not stop the tears--she felt oddly weak and shaken. agatha had flounced off with the teapot to make a fresh brew, albert was leaning gloomily back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, mrs. hill was murmuring--"i hope you like fancy-work--i am very fond of fancy-work--i have made a worsted kitten." joanna could feel the tears soaking through her veil, running down her cheeks--she could not stop them--and the next moment she heard bertie's voice, high and aggrieved--"what are you crying for, jo?" directly she heard it, it seemed to be the thing she had been dreading most. she could bear no more, and burst into passionate weeping. they all gathered round her, agatha with the new teapot, mrs. hill with her worsted, bertie patting her on the back and asking what was the matter. "i don't know," she sobbed--"i expect i'm tired, and i ain't used to travelling." "yes, i expect you must be tired--have a fresh cup of tea," said agatha kindly. "and then go upstairs and have a good lay down," said mrs. hill. joanna felt vaguely that albert was ashamed of her. she was certainly ashamed of herself and of this entirely new, surprising conduct. § by supper that night she had recovered, and remembered her breakdown rather as a bad dream, but neither that evening nor the next day could she quite shake off the feeling of strangeness and depression. she had never imagined that she would like town life, but she had thought that the unpleasantness of living in streets would be lost in the companionship of the man she loved--and she was disappointed to find that this was not so. bertie, indeed, rather added to than took away from her uneasiness. he did not seem to fit into the hill household any better than she did--in fact, none of the members fitted. bertie and agatha clashed openly, and mrs. hill was lost. the house was like a broken machine, full of disconnected parts, which rattled and fell about. joanna was used to family quarrels, but she was not used to family disunion--moreover, though she would have allowed much between brother and sister, she had certain very definite notions as to the respect due to a mother. both bertie and agatha were continually suppressing and finding fault with mrs. hill, and of the two bertie was the worst offender. joanna could not excuse him, even to her own all-too-ready heart. the only thing she could say was that it was most likely mrs. hill's own fault--her not having raised him properly. every day he went off to his office in fetter lane, leaving joanna to the unrelieved society of his mother, for which he apologised profusely. indeed, she found her days a little dreary, for the old lady was not entertaining, and she dared not go about much by herself in so metropolitan a place as lewisham. every morning she and her future mother-in-law went out shopping--that is to say they bought half-pounds and quarter-pounds of various commodities which joanna at ansdore would have laid in by the bushel and the hundredweight. they would buy tea at one grocer's, and then walk down two streets to buy cocoa from another, because he sold it cheaper than the shop where they had bought the tea. the late mr. hill had left his widow very badly off--indeed she could not have lived at all except for what her children gave her out of their salaries. to her dismay, joanna discovered that while agatha, in spite of silk stockings and merry widow hats, gave her mother a pound out of the weekly thirty shillings she earned as a typist, albert gave her only ten shillings a week--his bare expenses. "he says he doesn't see why he should pay more for living at home than he'd pay in digs--though, as a matter of fact i don't know anyone who'd take him for as little as that, even for only bed and breakfast." "but what does he do with the rest of the money?" "oh, he has a lot of expenses, my dear--belongs to all sorts of grand clubs, and goes abroad every year with the polytechnic, or even cook's. besides, he has lady friends that he takes about--used to, i should say, for, of course, he's done with all that now--but he was always the boy for taking ladies out--and never would demean himself to anything less than a corner house." "but he should ought to treat you proper, all the same," said joanna. she felt sorry and angry, and also, in some vague way, that it was her part to set matters right--that the wound in her love would be healed if she could act where bertie was remiss. but mrs. hill would not let her open her fat purse on her account. "no, dear; we never let a friend oblige us." joanna, who was not tactful, persisted, and the old lady became very frozen and genteel. bertie's hours were not long at the office. he was generally back at six, and took joanna out--up to town, where they had dinner and then went on to some theatre or picture-palace, the costs of the expedition being defrayed out of her own pocket. she had never had so much dissipation in her life--she saw "the merry widow," "a persian princess," and all the musical comedies. albert did not patronise the more serious drama, and for joanna the british stage became synonymous with fluffy heads and whirling legs and jokes she could not understand. the late hours made her feel very tired, and on their way home albert would find her sleepy and unresponsive. they always went by taxi from lewisham station, and instead of taking the passionate opportunities of the darkness, she would sink her heavy head against his breast, holding his arm with both her tired hands. "let me be, dear, let me be," she would murmur when he tried to rouse her--"this is what i love best." she told herself that it was because she was so tired that she often felt depressed and wakeful at nights. raymond avenue was not noisy, indeed it was nearly as quiet as ansdore, but on some nights joanna lay awake from bertie's last kiss till the crashing entrance of the girl to pull up her blinds in the morning. at nights, sometimes, a terrible clearness came to her. this visit to her lover's house was showing her more of his character than she had learned in all the rest of their acquaintance. she could not bear to realize that he was selfish and small-minded, though, now she came to think of it, she had always been aware of it in some degree. she had never pretended to herself that he was good and noble--she had loved him for something quite different--because he was young and had brought her back her own youth, because he had a handsome face and soft, dark eyes, because in spite of all his cheek and knowingness he had in her sight a queer, appealing innocence.... he was like a child, even if it was a spoilt, selfish child. when she held his dark head in the crook of her arm, he was her child, her little boy.... and perhaps one day she would hold, through her love for him, a real child there, a child who was really innocent and helpless and weak--a child without grossness to scare her or hardness to wound her--her own child, born of her own body. but though she loved him, this constant expression of his worst points could not fail to give her a feeling of chill. was this the way he would behave in their home when they were married? would he speak to her as he spoke to his mother? would he speak to their children so?... she could not bear to think it, and yet she could not believe that marriage would change him all through. what if their marriage made them both miserable?--made them like some couples she had known on the marsh, nagging and hating each other. was she a fool to think of marrying him?--all that difference in their age ... only perfect love could make up for it ... and he did not like the idea of living in the country--he was set on his business--his "career," as he called it.... she did not think he wanted to marry her as much as she wanted to marry him.... was it right to take him away from his work, which he was doing so well at, and bring him to live down at ansdore? my, but he would probably scare her folk with some of his ways. however, it was now too late to draw back. she must go on with what she had begun. at all costs she must marry--not merely because she loved him, but because only marriage could hallow and silence the past. with all the traditions of her race and type upon her, joanna could not face the wild harvest of love. her wild oats must be decently gathered into the barn, even if they gave her bitter bread to eat. § the case of "godden _versus_ inland revenue commissioners" was heard at the high court when joanna had been at lewisham about ten days. albert tried to dissuade her from being present. "i can't go with you, and i don't see how you can go alone." "i shall be right enough." "yet you won't even go down the high street by yourself--i never met anyone so inconsistent." "it's my appeal," said joanna. "but there's no need for you to attend. can't you trust anyone to do anything without you?" "not edward huxtable," said joanna decidedly. "then why did you choose him for your lawyer?" "he's the best i know." bertie opened his mouth to carry the argument further, but laughed instead. "you _are_ a funny ole girl--so silly and so sensible, so hard and so soft, such hot stuff and so respectable ..." he kissed her at each item of the catalogue--"i can't half make you out." however, he agreed to take her up to town when he went himself, and deposited her at the entrance of the law courts--a solid, impressive figure in her close-fitting tan coat and skirt and high, feathered toque, with the ceremonial veil pulled down over her face. beneath her imposing exterior she felt more than a little scared and lost. godden seemed a poor thing compared to all this might of inland revenue commissioners, spreading about her in passage and hall and tower.... the law had suddenly become formidable, as it had never been in edward huxtable's office.... however, she was fortunate in finding him, with the help of one or two policemen, and the sight of him comforted her with its suggestion of home and watchbell street, and her trap waiting in the sunshine outside the ancient door of the huxtable dwelling. her appeal was not heard till the afternoon, and in the luncheon interval he took her to some decorous dining-rooms--such as joanna had never conceived could exist in london, so reminiscent were they of the george and the ship and the new and the crown and other of her market-day haunts. they ate beef and cabbage and jam roly poly, and discussed the chances of the day. huxtable said he had "a pretty case--a very pretty case--you'll be surprised, miss joanna, to see what i've made of it." and so she was. indeed, if she hadn't heard the opening she would never have known it was her case at all. she listened in ever-increasing bewilderment and dismay. in spite of her disappointment in the matter of the commissioners and their referee, she had always looked upon her cause as one so glaringly righteous that it had only to be pleaded before any just judge to be at once established. but now ... the horror was, that it was no longer her cause at all. this was not joanna godden coming boldly to the law of england to obtain redress from her grievous oppression by pettifogging clerks--it was just a miserable dispute between the commissioners of inland revenue and the lessor of property under the act. it was full of incomprehensible jargon about increment value, original site value, assessable site value, land value duty, estate duty, redemption of land tax, and many more such terms among which the names of donkey street and little ansdore appeared occasionally and almost frivolously, just to show joanna that the matter was her concern. in his efforts to substantiate an almost hopeless case edward huxtable had coiled most of the finance act round himself, and the day's proceedings consisted of the same being uncoiled and stripped off him, exposing his utter nakedness in the eyes of the law. when the last remnant of protective jargon had been torn away, joanna knew that her appeal had been dismissed--and she would have to pay the duty and also the expenses of the action. the only comfort that remained was the thought of what she would say to edward huxtable when she could get hold of him. they had a brief, eruptive interview in the passage. "you take my money for making a mess like that," stormed joanna. "i tell you, you shan't have it--you can amuse yourself bringing another action for it." "hush, my dear lady--hush! don't talk so loud. i've done my best for you, i assure you. i warned you not to bring the action in the first instance, but when i saw you were determined to bring it, i resolved to stand by you, and get you through if possible. i briefed excellent counsel, and really made out a very pretty little case for you." "ho! did you? and never once mentioned my steam plough. i tell you when i heard all the rubbish your feller spoke i'd have given the case against him myself. it wasn't my case at all. my case is that i'm a hard-working woman, who's made herself a good position by being a bit smarter than other folk. i have a gentleman friend who cares for me straight and solid for fifteen years, and when he dies he leaves me his farm and everything he's got. i sell the farm, and get good money for it, which i don't spend on motor-cars like some folk, but on more improvements on my own farm. i make my property more valuable, and _i've_ got to pay for it, if you please. why, they should ought to pay me. what's farming coming to, i'd like to know, if we've got to pay for bettering ourselves? the government ud like to see all farmers in the workhouse--and there we'll soon be, if they go on at this rate. and it's the disrespectfulness to poor arthur, too--he left donkey street to me--not a bit to me and the rest to them. but there they go, wanting to take most of it in death duty. the best death duty i know is to do what the dead ask us and not what they'd turn in their graves if they knew of. and poor arthur who did everything in the world for me, even down to marrying my sister ellen ..." edward huxtable managed to escape. "drat that woman," he said to himself--"she's a terror. however, i suppose i've got to be thankful she didn't try to get any of that off her chest in court--she's quite capable of it. damn it all! she's a monstrosity--and going to be married too ... well, there are some heroes left in the world." § bertie was waiting for joanna outside the law courts. in the stillness of the august evening and the yellow dusty sunshine, he looked almost contemplative, standing there with bowed head, looking down at his hands which were folded on his stick, while one or two pigeons strutted about at his feet. joanna's heart melted at the sight of him. she went up to him, and touched his arm. "hullo, ole girl. so here you are. how did it go off?" "i've lost." "damn! that's bad." she saw that he was vexed, and a sharp touch of sorrow was added to her sense of outrage and disappointment. "yes, it was given against me. it's all that edward huxtable's fault. would you believe me, but he never made out a proper case for me at all, but just a lawyer's mess, what the judge was quite right not to hold with." "have you lost much money?" "a proper lot--but i shan't let edward huxtable get any of it. if he wants his fees he'll just about have to bring another action." "don't be a fool, joanna--you'll have to pay the costs if they've been given against you. you'll only land yourself in a worse hole by making a fuss." they were walking westward towards the theatres and the restaurants. joanna felt that bertie was angry with her--he was angry with her for losing her case, just as she was angry with edward huxtable. this was too much--the tears rose in her eyes. "will it do you much damage?" he asked. "in pocket, i mean." "oh, i--i'll have to sell out an investment or two, but it won't do any real hurt to ansdore. howsumever, i'll have to go without my motor-car." "it was really rather silly of you to bring the action." "how, silly?" "well, you can't have had much of a case, or you wouldn't have lost it like this in an hour's hearing." "stuff and nonsense! i'd a valiant case, if only that fool, edward huxtable, hadn't been anxious to show how many hard words he knew, instead of just telling the judge about my improvements and that." "really, joanna, you might give up talking about your improvements. they've nothing to do with the matter at all. can't you see that, as the government wanted the money, it's nothing to them if you spent it on a steam plough or on a new hat. as a matter of fact, you might just as well have bought your motor-car--then at least we'd have that. now you say you've given up the idea." "unless you make some money and buy it"--pain made joanna snap. "yes--that's right, start twitting me because it's you who have the money. i know you have, and you've always known i haven't--i've never deceived you. i suppose you think i'm glad to be coming to live on you, to give up a fine commercial career for your sake. i tell you, any other man with my feelings would have made you choose between me and ansdore--but i give up everything for your sake, and that's how you pay me--by despising me." "oh, don't, bertie," said joanna. she felt that she could bear no more. they had come into piccadilly, and the light was still warm--it was not yet dinner-time, but joanna, who had had no tea, felt suddenly weak and faint. "let's go in there, dear," she said, as they reached the popular café, "and have a cup of tea. and don't let's quarrel, for i can't bear it." he looked down at her drawn face and pity smote him. "pore ole girl--aren't you feeling well?" "not very--i'm tired, like--sitting listening to all that rubbish." "well, let's have an early dinner, and then go to a music-hall. you've never been to one yet, have you?" "no," said joanna. she would have much rather gone straight home, but this was not the time to press her own wishes. she was only too glad to have bertie amicable and smiling again--she realized that they had only just escaped a serious quarrel. the dinner, and the wine that accompanied it, made her feel better and more cheerful. she talked a good deal--even too much, for half a glass of claret had its potent effect on her fatigue. she looked flushed and untidy, for she had spent a long day in her hat and outdoor clothes, and her troubles had taken her thoughts off her appearance--she badly needed a few minutes before the looking-glass. as albert watched her, he gave up his idea of taking her to the palace, which he told himself would be full of smart people, and decided on the alhambra music hall--then from the alhambra he changed to the holborn empire.... really it was annoying of jo to come out with him looking like this--she ought to realize that she was not a young girl who could afford to let things slip. he had told her several times that her hat was on one side, ... and those big earrings she wore ... she ought to go in for something quieter at her age. her get-up had always been too much on the showy side, and she was too independent of those helps to nature which much younger and better-looking women than herself were only too glad to use.... he liked to see a woman take out a powder-puff and flick it over her face in little dainty sweeps.... these reflections did not put him in a good humour for the evening's entertainment. they went by 'bus to the holborn empire where the first house had already started. joanna felt a little repulsed by the big, rowdy audience, smoking and eating oranges and joining in the choruses of the songs. her brief experience of the dress circle at daly's or the queen's had not prepared her for anything so characteristic as an english music-hall, with its half-participating audience. "hurrah for maudie!" as some favourite took the boards to sing, with her shoulders hunched up to the brim of her enormous hat, a heartrending song about her mother. joanna watched bertie as he lounged beside her. she knew that he was sulking--the mere fact that he was entertaining her cheaply, by 'bus and music-hall instead of taxi and theatre, pointed to his displeasure. she wondered if he was enjoying this queer show, which struck her alternately as inexpressibly beautiful and inexpressibly vulgar. the lovely ladies like big handsome barmaids, who sang serious songs in evening dress and diamonds, apparently in the vicinity of clapham high street or the monument, were merely incomprehensible. she could not understand what they were doing. the comedians she found amusing, when they did not shock her--bertie had explained to her one or two of the jokes she could not understand. the "song-scenas" and acrobatic displays filled her with rapture. she would have liked that sort of thing the whole time.... albert said it was a dull show, he grumbled at everything, especially the turns joanna liked. but gradually the warm, friendly, vulgar atmosphere of the place infected him--he joined in one or two of the choruses, and seemed almost to forget about joanna. she watched him as he leaned back in his seat, singing-- "take me back to pompeii-- to pompey-ompey-i--" in the dim red light of the place, he looked incredibly young. she could see only his profile--the backward sweep of glistening, pomaded hair, the little short straight nose, the sensual, fretful lips--and as she watched him she was smitten with a queer sense of pity. this was no strong man, no lover and husband--just a little clerk she was going to shut up in prison--a little singing clerk. she felt a brute--she put out her hand and slid it under his arm, against his warm side. "to pompey-ompey-i" sang bert. § the curtain came down and the lights went up for the interval. a brass band played very loud. joanna was beginning to have a bit of a headache, but she said nothing--she did not want him to leave on her account--or to find that he did not think of leaving.... she felt very hot, and fanned herself with her programme. most of the audience were hot. "joanna," said bert, "don't you ever use powder?" "powder? what d'you mean?" "face-powder--what most girls use. your skin wouldn't get red and shiny like that if you had some powder on it." "i'd never dream of using such a thing. i'd be ashamed." "why be ashamed of looking decent?" "i wouldn't look decent--i'd look like a hussy. sometimes when i see these gals' faces i--" "really, jo, to hear you speak one ud think you were the only virtuous woman left in england. but there are just one or two things in your career, my child, which don't quite bear out that notion." joanna's heart gave a sudden bound, then seemed to freeze. she leaned forward in her chair, staring at the advertisements on the curtain. bertie put his arm round her--"i say, ole girl, you ain't angry with me, are you?" she made no reply--she could not speak; too much was happening in her thoughts--had happened, rather, for her mind was now quite made up. a vast, half-conscious process seemed suddenly to have settled itself, leaving her quite clear-headed and calm. "you ain't angry with me, are you?" repeated bert. "no," said joanna--"i'm not angry with you." he had been cruel and selfish when she was in trouble, he had shown no tenderness for her physical fatigue, and now at last he had taunted her with the loss of her respectability for his sake. but she was not angry with him.... it was only that now she knew she could never, never marry him. § that night she slept heavily--the deep sleep of physical exhaustion and mental decision. the unconscious striving of her soul no longer woke her to ask her hard questions. her mind was made up, and her conflict was at an end. she woke at the full day, when down on walland marsh all the world was awake, but here the city and the house still slept, and rose with her eyes and heart full of tragic purpose. she dressed quickly, then packed her box--all the gay, grand things she had brought to make her lover proud of her. then she sat down at her dressing-table, and wrote-- "dear bertie,--when you get this i shall have gone for good. i see now that we were not meant for each other. i am very sorry if this gives you pain. but it is all for the best.--your sincere friend, "joanna godden." by this time it was half-past seven by the good gold watch which poor father had left her. joanna's plan was to go downstairs, put her letter on the hall table, and bribe the girl to help her down with her box and call a cab, before any of the others appeared. she did not want to have to face albert, with inevitable argument and possible reproaches. her bruised heart ached too much to be able to endure any more from him--angry and wounded, it beat her side. she carried out her scheme quite successfully as far as the cab itself, and then was betrayed. poor father's watch, that huge emblem of worth and respectability, hanging with its gold chain and seals upon her breast, had a rare but embarrassing habit of stopping for half an hour or so, as if to rest its ancient works. this is what it had done to-day--instead of half-past seven, the time was eight, and as the girl and the cabman carried joanna's box out of the door, bertie appeared at the head of the steep little stairs. "hullo, joanna!" he called out in surprise--"where on earth are you going?" here was trouble. for a moment joanna quailed, but she recovered herself and answered-- "i'm going home." "home! what d'you mean? whatever for?" the box was on the taxi, and the driver stood holding the door open. "i made up my mind last night. i can't stay here any longer. thank you, alice, you needn't wait." she put a sovereign into the girl's hand. "come into the dining-room," said albert. he opened the door for her and they both went in. "it's no good, bertie--i can't stand it any longer," said joanna, "it's as plain as a pike as you and me were never meant to marry, and the best thing to do is to say good-bye before it's too late." he stared at her in silence. "i made up my mind last night," she continued, "but i wouldn't say anything about it till this morning, and then i thought i'd slip off quiet. i've left a letter to you that i wrote." "but why--why are you going?" "well, it's pretty plain, ain't it, that we haven't been getting along so well as we should ought since i came here. you and me were never meant for each other--we don't fit--and the last few days it's been all trouble--and there's been things i could hardly bear ..." her voice broke. "i'm sorry i've offended you"--he spoke stiffly--"but since you came here it's struck me, too, that things were different. i must say, joanna, you don't seem to have considered the difficulties of my position." "i have--and that's one reason why i'm going. i don't want to take you away from your business and your career, as you say; i know you don't want to come and live at ansdore ..." "if you reelly loved me, and still felt like that about my prospects, you'd rather give up ansdore than turn me down as you're doing." "i do love you"--she said doggedly, "but i couldn't give up my farm for you and come and live with you in london--because if i did, reckon i shouldn't love you much longer. these last ten days have shown me more than anything before that you'd make anyone you lived with miserable, and if i hadn't my farm to take my thoughts off i'd just about die of shame and sorrow." he flushed angrily. "reelly, joanna--what do you mean? i've given you as good a time as i knew how." "most likely. but all the while you were giving me that good time you were showing me how little you cared for me. oh, it isn't as if i hadn't been in love before and seen how good a man can be.... i don't want to say hard things to you, my dear, but there's been times when you've hurt me as no man could hurt a woman he really loved. and i've lived in your home and seen how you treat your poor mother and your sister--and i tell you the truth, though it hurts me--you ain't man enough for me." "well, if that's how you feel about me, we had certainly better not go on." "don't be angry with me, dear. reckon it was all a mistake from the start--i'm too old for you." "then it's a pity we went as far as this. what'll mother and agatha think when they hear you've turned me down? they're cats enough to imagine all sorts of things. why do you dash off like this as if i was the plague? if you must break off our engagement, you must, though i don't want you to--i love you, even though you don't love me--but you might at least do it decently. think of what they'll say when they come down and find you've bolted." "i'm sorry, bertie. but i couldn't bear to stick on here another hour. you may tell them any story about me you like. but i can't stay. i must think of myself a bit, since i've no one else to do it for me." his face was like a sulky child's. he looked at the floor, and kicked the wainscot. "well, i think you're treating me very badly, joanna. hang it all, i love you--and i think you're a damn fine woman--i reelly do--and i don't care if you are a bit older--i don't like girls." "you won't think me fine in another ten years--and as for loving me, don't talk nonsense; you don't love me, or i shouldn't be going. now let me go." her voice was hard, because her self-control was failing her. she tore open the door, and pushed him violently aside when he tried to stand in her way. "let me go--i'm shut of you. i tell you, you ain't man enough for me." § she had told the cabman to drive to charing cross station, as she felt unequal to the complications of travelling from lewisham. it was a long drive, and all the way joanna sat and cried. she seemed to have cried a great deal lately--her nature had melted in a strange way, and the tears she had so seldom shed as a girl were now continually ready to fall--but she had never cried as much as she cried this morning. by the time she reached charing cross she was in desperate need of that powder-puff bertie had urged her to possess. so this was the end--the end of the great romance which should have given her girlhood back to her, but which instead seemed to have shut her into a lonely and regretful middle-age. all her shining pride in herself was gone--she saw herself as one who has irrevocably lost all that makes life worth living ... pride and love. she knew that bertie did not love her--in his heart he was glad that she was going--all he was sorry for was the manner of it, which might bring him disgrace. but he would soon get over that, and then he would be thankful he was free, and eventually he would marry some younger woman than herself ... and she? yes, she still loved him--but it would not be for long. she could feel her love for him slowly dying in her heart. it was scarcely more than pity now--pity for the little singing clerk whom she had caught and would have put in a cage if he had not fluttered so terribly in her hands. when she arrived at charing cross a feeling of desolation was upon her. a porter came to fetch her box, but joanna--the great joanna godden, who put terror into the markets of three towns--shrank back into the taxi, loath to leave its comfortable shelter for the effort and racket of the station. a dark, handsome, rather elderly man, was coming out of one of the archways. their eyes met and he at once turned his away, but joanna leapt for him-- "sir harry! sir harry trevor! don't you know me?" only too well, but he had not exactly expected her to claim acquaintance. he felt bewildered when joanna pushed her way to him through the crowd and wrung his hand as if he was her only friend. "oh, sir harry, reckon i'm glad to see you!" "i--i--" stuttered the baronet. he looked rather flushed and sodden, and the dyeing of his hair was more obvious than it had been. "fancy meeting you!" gasped joanna. "er--how are you, miss godden?" "do you know when there's a train to rye?" "i'm sorry, i don't. i've just been saying good-bye to my son lawrence--he's off to africa or somewhere, but i couldn't wait till his train came in. i've got to go over to st. pancras and catch the . for the north." "lawrence!" thank goodness, that had put her on another scent--now she would let him go. "yes--he's in the station. you'll see him if you're quick." joanna turned away, and he saw that the tears were running down her face. the woman had been drinking, that accounted for it all ... well, he wished lawrence joy of her. it would do him good to have a drunken woman falling on his neck on a public platform. the porter said there was not a train for rye for another hour. he suggested that joanna should put her luggage in the cloak-room and go and get herself a cup of tea--the porter knew the difference between a drunken woman and one who is merely faint from trouble and want of her breakfast. but joanna's mind was somehow obsessed by the thought of lawrence--her brother-in-law as she still called him in her heart--she wanted to see him--she remembered his kindness long ago ... and in her sorrow she was going back to the sorrow of those days ... somehow she felt as if martin had just died, as if she had just come out of north farthing house, alone, as she had come then--and now lawrence was here, as he had been then, to kiss her and say "dear jo".... "what platform does the train for africa start from?" she asked the porter. "well, lady, i can't rightly say. the only boat-train from here this morning goes to folkestone, and that's off--but most likely the gentleman ud be going from waterloo, and the trains for waterloo start from number seven." the porter took her to number seven, and at the barrier she caught sight of a familiar figure sitting on a bench. father lawrence's bullet head showed above the folds of his cloak; by his side was a big shapeless bundle and his eyes were fixed on the station roof. he started violently when a large woman suddenly sat down beside him and burst into tears. "lawrence!" sobbed joanna--"lawrence!" "joanna!" he was too startled to say anything more, but the moment did not admit of much conversation. joanna sat beside him, bent over her knees, her big shoulders shaking with sobs which were not always silent. lawrence made himself as large as he could, but he could not hide her from the public stare, for nature had not made her inconspicuous, and her taste in clothes would have defeated nature if it had. her orange toque had fallen sideways on her tawny hair--she was like a big, broken sunflower. "my dear jo," he said gently, after a time--"let me go and get you a drink of water." "no--don't leave me." "then let me ask someone to go." "no--no.... oh, i'm all right--it's only that i felt so glad at seeing you again." lawrence was surprised. "it makes me think of that other time when you were kind--i remember when martin died ... oh, i can't help wishing sometimes he was dead--that he'd died right at the start--or i had." "my dear ..." "oh, when martin died, at least it was finished; but this time it ain't finished--it's like something broken." she clasped her hands, in their brown kid gloves, against her heart. "won't you tell me what's happened? this isn't martin you're talking about?" "no. but i thought he was like martin--that's what made me take to him at the start. i looked up and i saw him, and i said to myself 'that's martin'--it gave me quite a jump." the waterloo train was in the station and the people on the platform surged towards it, leaving lawrence and joanna stranded on their seat. lawrence looked at the train for a minute, then shook his head, as if in answer to some question he had asked himself. "look here, jo," he said, "won't you tell me what's happened? i can't quite understand you as it is. don't tell me anything you'd rather not." joanna sat upright and swallowed violently. "it's like this," she said. "i've just broken off my engagement to marry--maybe you didn't know i was engaged to be married?" "no, i didn't." "well, i was. i was engaged to a young chap--a young chap in an office. i met him at marlingate, when i was staying there that time. i thought he was like martin--that's what made me take to him at the first. but he wasn't like martin--not really in his looks and never in his ways. and at last it got more'n i could bear, and i broke with him this morning and came away--and i reckon he ain't sorry, neither.... i'm thirteen year older than him." her tears began to flow again, but the platform was temporarily deserted. lawrence waited for her to go on--he suspected a tragedy which had not yet been revealed. "oh, my heart's broke," she continued--"reckon i'm done for, and there's nothing left for me." "but, jo--is this--this affair quite finished? perhaps ... i mean to say, quarrels can be made up, you know." "not this one," said joanna. "it's been too much. for days i've watched him getting tired of me, and last night he turned on me because for his sake i'd done what no woman should do." the words were no sooner out of her mouth than she was dismayed. she had not meant to say them. would lawrence understand? what would he think of her?--a clergyman.... she turned on him a face crimson and suffused with tears, to meet a gaze as serene as ever. then suddenly a new feeling came to her--something apart from horror at herself and shame at his knowing, and yet linked strangely with them both--something which was tenderer than any shame and yet more ruthless.... her last guard broke down. "lawrence, i've been wicked, i've been bad--i'm sorry--lawrence."... "tell me as little or as much as you like, dear jo." joanna gripped his arm; she had driven him into the corner of the seat, where he sat with his bundle on his lap, his ear bent to her mouth, while she crowded up against him, pouring out her tale. every now and then he said gently--"sh-sh-sh"--when he thought that her confession was penetrating the further recesses of charing cross.... "oh, lawrence, i feel so bad--i feel so wicked--i never should have thought it of myself. i didn't feel wicked at first, but i did afterwards. oh, lawrence, tell me what i'm to do." his professional instinct taught him to treat the situation with simplicity, but he guessed that joanna would not appreciate the quiet dealings of the confessional. he had always liked joanna, always admired her, and he liked and admired her no less now, but he really knew very little of her--her life had crossed his only on three different brief occasions, when she was engaged to his brother, when she was anxious to appoint a rector to the living in her gift, and now when as a broken-hearted woman she relieved herself of a burden of sorrow. "lawrence--tell me what to do." "dear jo--i'm not quite sure.... i don't know what you want, you see. what i should want first myself would be absolution." "oh, don't you try none of your jesoot tricks on me--i couldn't bear it." "very well. then i think there's only one thing you can do, and that is to go home and take up your life where you left it, with a very humble heart. 'i shall go softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul.'" joanna gulped. "and be very thankful, too." "what for?" "for your repentance." "well, reckon i do feel sorry--and reckon, too, i done something to be sorry for.... oh, lawrence, what a wicked owl i've been! if you'd told me six year ago as i'd ever have come to this i'd have had a fit on the ground." lawrence looked round him nervously. whatever joanna's objections to private penance, she was curiously indifferent to confessing her sins to all mankind in charing cross station. the platform was becoming crowded again, and already their confessional had been invaded--a woman with a baby was sitting on the end of it. "your train will be starting soon," said lawrence--"let's go and find you something to eat." § joanna felt better after she had had a good cup of coffee and a poached egg. she was surprised afterwards to find she had eaten so much. lawrence sat with her while she ate, then took her to find her porter, her luggage and her train. "but won't you lose your train to africa?" asked joanna. "i'm only going as far as waterloo this morning, and there's a train every ten minutes." "when do you start for africa?" "i think to-night." "i wish you weren't going there. why are you going?" "because i'm sent." "when will you come back?" "i don't know--perhaps never." "i'm middling sorry you're going. what a place to send you to!--all among niggers." she was getting more like herself. he stood at the carriage door, talking to her of indifferent things till the train started. the whistle blew, and the train began to glide out of the station. joanna waved her hand to the grey figure standing on the platform beside the tramp's bundle which was all that would go with it to the ends of the earth. she did not know whether she pitied lawrence or envied him. "reckon he's got some queer notions," she said to herself. she leaned back in the carriage, feeling more at ease than she had felt for weeks. she was travelling third class, for one of lawrence's notions was that everybody did so, and when joanna had given him her purse to buy her ticket it had never struck him that she did not consider third-class travel "seemly" in one of her sex and position. however, the carriage was comfortable, and occupied only by two well-conducted females. yes--she was certainly feeling better. she would never have thought that merely telling her story to lawrence would have made such a difference. but a great burden had been lifted off her heart.... he was a good chap, lawrence, for all his queer ways--such as ud make you think he wasn't gentry if you didn't know who his father was and his brother had been--and no notion how to behave himself as a clergyman, neither--anyway she hoped he'd get safe to africa and that the niggers wouldn't eat him ... though she'd heard of such things.... she'd do as he said, too. she'd go home and take up things where she'd put them down. it would be hard--much harder than he thought. perhaps he didn't grasp all that she was doing in giving up marriage, the one thing that could ever make her respect herself again. well, she couldn't help that--she must just do without respecting herself--that's all. anything would be better than shutting up herself and albert together in prison, till they hated each other. it would be very hard for her, who had always been so proud of herself, to live without even respecting herself. but she should have thought of that earlier. she remembered lawrence's words--"i will go softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul".... well, she'd do her best, and perhaps god would forgive her, and then when she died she'd go to heaven, and be with martin for ever and ever, in spite of all the bad things she'd done.... she got out at appledore and took the light railway to brodnyx. she did not feel inclined for the walk from rye. the little train was nearly empty, and joanna had a carriage to herself. she settled herself comfortably in a corner--it was good to be coming home, even as things were. the day was very sunny and still. the blue sky was slightly misted--a yellow haze which smelt of chaff and corn smudged together the sky and the marsh and the distant sea. the farms with their red and yellow roofs were like ripe apples lying in the grass. yes, the marsh was the best place to live on, and the marsh ways were the best ways, and the man who had loved her on the marsh was the best man and the best lover.... she wondered what ellen would say when she heard she had broken off her engagement. ellen had never thought much of bertie--she had thought joanna was a fool to see such a lot in him; and ellen had been right--her eyes and her head were clearer than her poor sister's.... she expected she would be home in time for tea--ellen would be terrible surprised to see her; if she'd had any sense she'd have sent her a telegram. the little train had a strange air of friendliness as it jogged across romney marsh. it ran familiarly through farmyards and back gardens, it meekly let the motor-cars race it and pass it as it clanked beside the roads. the line was single all the way, except for a mile outside brodnyx station, where it made a loop to let the up-train pass. the up-train was late--they had been too long loading up the fish at dungeness, or there was a reaping machine being brought from lydd. for some minutes joanna's train stayed halted in the sunshine, in the very midst of the three marshes. miles of sun-swamped green spread on either side--the carriage was full of sunshine--it was bright and stuffy like a greenhouse. joanna felt drowsy, she lay back in her corner blinking at the sun--she was all quiet now. a blue-bottle droned against the window, and the little engine droned, like an impatient fly--it was all very still, very hot, very peaceful.... then suddenly something stirred within her--stirred physically. in some mysterious way she seemed to come alive. she sat up, pressing her hand to her side. a flood of colour went up into her face--her body trembled, and the tears started in her eyes ... she felt herself choking with wild fear, and wild joy. § oh, she understood now. she understood, and she was certain. she knew now--she knew, and she was frightened ... oh, she was frightened ... now everything was over with her indeed. joanna nearly fainted. she fell in a heap against the window, looking more than ever, as the sunshine poured on her, like a great golden, broken flower. she felt herself choking and managed to right herself--the window was down, and a faint puff of air came in from the sea, lifting her hair as she leaned back against the wooden wall of the carriage, her mouth a little open.... she felt better now, but still so frightened.... she was done for, she was finished--there would not be any more talk of going back and picking up things where she had let them drop. she would have to marry bertie--there was no help for it, she would send him a telegram from brodnyx station. oh, that this should have happened!... and she had been feeling so much easier in her mind--she had almost begun to feel happy again, thinking of the old home and the old life. and now she knew that they had gone for ever--the old home and the old life. she had cut herself away from both--she would have to marry albert, to shut her little clerk in prison after all, and herself with him. she would have to humble herself before him, she would have to promise to go and live with him in london, do all she possibly could to make his marriage easy for him. he did not want to marry her, and she did not want to marry him, but there was no help for it, they must marry now, because of what their love had given them before it died. she had no tears for this new tragedy. she leaned forward in her seat, her hands clasped between her knees, her eyes staring blankly at the carriage wall as if she saw there her future written ... herself and albert growing old together, or rather herself growing old while albert lived through his eager, selfish youth--herself and albert shut up together ... how he would scold her, how he would reproach her--he would say "you have brought me to this," and in time he would come to hate her, his fellow-prisoner who had shut the door on both of them--and he would hate her child ... they would never have married except for the child, so he would hate her child, scold it, make it miserable ... it would grow up in an unhappy home, with parents who did not love each other, who owed it a grudge for coming to them--her child, her precious child.... still in her heart, alive under all the fear, was that thrill of divine joy which had come to her in the first moment of realization. terror, shame, despair--none of them could kill it, for that joy was a part of her being, part of the new being which had quickened in her. it belonged to them both--it was the secret they shared ... joy, unutterable joy. yes, she was glad she was going to have this child--she would still be glad even in the prison-house of marriage, she would still be glad even in the desert of no-marriage, every tongue wagging, every finger pointing, every heart despising. nothing could take her joy from her--make her less than joyful mother.... then as the joy grew and rose above the fear, she knew that she could never let fear drive her into bondage. nothing should make a sacrifice of joy to shame--to save herself she would not bring up her child in the sorrow and degradation of a loveless home.... if she had been strong enough to give up the thought of marriage for the sake of bertie's liberty and her own self-respect, she could be strong enough now to turn from her only hope of reputation for the sake of the new life which was joy within her. it would be the worst, most shattering thing she had ever yet endured, but she would go through with it for the love of the unborn. joanna was not so unsophisticated as to fail to realize the difficulties and complications of her resolve--how much her child would suffer for want of a father's name; memories of lapsed dairymaids had stressed in her experience the necessity of a marriage no matter how close to the birth. but she did not rate these difficulties higher than the misery of such a home as hers and albert's would be. better anything than that. joanna had no illusions about albert now--he'd have led her a dog's life if she had married him in the first course of things; now it would be even worse, and her child should not suffer that. no, she would do her best. possibly she could arrange things so as to protect, at least to a certain extent, the name her baby was to bear. she would have to give up ansdore, of course--leave walland marsh ... her spirit quailed, but she braced it fiercely. she was going through with this--it was the only thing lawrence had told her that she could do--go softly all her days--to the very end. that end was farther and bitterer than either he or she had imagined then, but she would not have to go all the way alone. a child--that was what she had always wanted; she had tried to fill her heart with other things, with ansdore, with ellen, with men ... but what she had always wanted had been a child--she saw that now. her child should have been born in easy, honourable circumstances, with a kind father--arthur alce, perhaps, since it could not be martin trevor. but the circumstances of its birth were her doing, and it was she who would face them. the circumstances only were her sin and shame, her undying regret--since she knew she could not keep them entirely to herself--the rest was joy and thrilling, vital peace. the little train pulled itself together, and ran on into brodnyx station. joanna climbed down on the wooden platform, and signalled to the porter-stationmaster to take out her box. "what, you back, miss godden!" he said, "we wasn't expecting you." "no, i've come back pretty sudden. do you know if there's any traps going over pedlinge way?" "there's mrs. furnese come over to fetch a crate of fowls. maybe she'd give you a lift." "i'll ask her," said joanna. mrs. furnese, too, was much surprised to see her back, but she said nothing about it, partly because she was a woman of few words, and partly because they'd all seen in the paper this morning that joanna had lost her case--and reckon she must be properly upset. maybe that was why she had come back.... "would you like to drive?" she asked joanna, when they had taken their seats in misleham's ancient gig, with the crate of fowls behind them. she felt rather shy of handling the reins under joanna godden's eye, for everyone knew that joanna drove like a jehu, something tur'ble. but the great woman shook her head. she felt tired, she said, with the heat. so mrs. furnese drove, and joanna sat silently beside her, watching her thick brown hand on the reins, with the wedding ring embedded deep in the gnarled finger. "reckon she's properly upset with that case," thought the married woman to herself, "and sarve her right for bringing it. she could easily have paid them missionaries, with all the money she had. but it was ever joanna's way to make a terrification." they jogged on over the winding, white ribbon of road--through brodnyx village, past the huge barn-like church which had both inspired and reproached her faith, with its black, caped tower canting over it, on to walland marsh, to the cross roads at the woolpack--my, how they would talk at the woolpack!... but she would be far away by then ... where?... she didn't know, she would think of that later--when she had told ellen. oh, there would be trouble--there would be the worst she'd ever have to swallow--when she told ellen.... § joanna saw ansdore looking at her through the chaffy haze of the august afternoon. it stewed like an apple in the sunshine, and a faint smell of apples came from it, as its great orchard dragged its boughs in the grass. they were reaping the gate field close to the house--the hum of the reaper came to her, and seemed in some mysterious way to be the voice of ansdore itself, droning in the sunshine and stillness. she felt her throat tighten, and winked the tears from her eyes. she could see ellen coming down the drive, a cool, white, belted figure, with trim white feet. from her bedroom window ellen had seen the misleham gig turn in at the gate, and had at once recognized the golden blot beside mrs. furnese as her sister joanna. "hullo, jo! i never expected you back to-day. did you send a wire? for if you did, i never got it." "no, i didn't telegraph. where's mene tekel? tell her to come around with nan and carry up my box. mrs. furnese, ma'am, i hope you'll step in and drink a cup of tea." joanna climbed down and kissed ellen--her cheek was warm and moist, and her hair hung rough about her ears, over one of which the orange toque, many times set right, had come down in a final confusion. ellen on the other hand was as cool as she was white--and her hair lay smooth under a black velvet fillet. of late it seemed as if her face had acquired a brooding air; it had lost its exotic look, it was dreamy, almost virginal. joanna felt her sister's kiss like snow. "is tea ready?" "no--it's only half-past three. but you can have it at once. you look tired. why didn't you send a wire, and i'd have had the trap to meet you." "i never troubled, and i've managed well enough. ain't you coming in, mrs. furnese?" "no, thank you, miss godden--much obliged all the same. i've my man's tea to get, and these fowls to see to." she felt that the sisters would want to be alone. joanna would tell ellen all about her failure, and mene tekel and nan would overhear as much as they could, and tell broadhurst and crouch and the other men, who would tell the woolpack bar, where mr. furnese would hear it and bring it home to mrs. furnese.... so her best way of learning the truth about the appeal and exactly how many thousands joanna had lost depended on her going home as quickly as possible. joanna, was glad to be alone. she went with ellen into the cool parlour, drinking in the relief of its solid comfort compared with the gimcrackiness of the parlour at lewisham. "i'm sorry about your appeal," said ellen--"i saw in to-day's paper that you've lost it." joanna had forgotten all about the appeal--it seemed twenty-four years ago instead of twenty-four hours that she had come out of the law courts and seen bertie standing there with the pigeons strutting about his feet--but she welcomed it as a part explanation of her appearance, which she saw now was deplorable, and her state of mind, which she found impossible to disguise. "yes, it's terrible--i'm tedious upset." "i suppose you've lost a lot of money." "not more than i can afford to pay"--the old joanna came out and boasted for a minute. "that's one comfort." joanna looked at her sister and opened her mouth, but shut it as mene tekel came in with the tea tray and arthur alce's good silver service. mene set the tea as silently as the defects of her respiratory apparatus would admit, and once again joanna sighed with relief as she thought of the clatter made by her at lewisham.... oh, there was no denying that she had a good house and good servants and had done altogether well for herself until in a fit of wickedness she had bust it all. she would not tell ellen to-night. she would wait till to-morrow morning, when she'd had a good sleep. she felt tired now, and would cry the minute ellen began.... but she'd let her know about the breaking off of her engagement--that would prepare the way, like. "ellen," she said, after she had drunk her tea--"one reason i'm so upset is that i've just broken off my marriage with my intended." "joanna!" ellen put down her cup and stared at her. in her anxiety to hide her emotion, joanna had spoken more in anger than in sorrow, so her sister's pity was checked. "what ever made you do that!" "we found we didn't suit." "well, my dear, i must say the difference in your age made me rather anxious. thirteen years on the woman's side is rather a lot, you know. but i knew you'd always liked boys, so i hoped for the best." "well, it's all over now." "poor old joanna, it must have been dreadful for you--on the top of your failure in the courts, too; but i'm sure you were wise to break it off. only the most absolute certainty could have justified such a marriage." she smiled to herself. when she said "absolute certainty" she was thinking of tip. "well, i've got a bit of a headache," said joanna rising--"i think i'll go and have a lay down." "do, dear. would you like me to come up with you and help you undress?" "no thanks. i'll do by myself. you might ask the girl to bring me up a jug of hot water. reckon i shan't be any worse for a good wash." § much as joanna was inclined to boast of her new bathroom at ansdore, she did not personally make much use of it, having perhaps a secret fear of its unfriendly whiteness, and a love of the homely, steaming jug which had been the fount of her ablutions since her babyhood's tub was given up. this evening she removed the day's grime from herself by a gradual and excessively modest process, and about one and a half pints of hot water. then she twisted her hair into two ropes, put on a clean night-gown, and got into bed. her body's peace between the cool, coarse sheets seemed to thrill to her soul. she felt at home and at rest. it was funny being in bed at that time in the afternoon--scarcely past four o'clock--it was funny, but it was good. the sunshine was coming into the room, a spill of misty gold on the floor and furniture, and from where she lay she could see the green boundaries of the marsh. oh, it would be terrible when she saw that marsh no more ... the tears rose, and she turned her face to the pillow. it was all over now--all her ambition, all her success, all the greatness of joanna godden. she had made ansdore great and prosperous though she was a woman, and then she had lost it because she was a woman.... words that she had uttered long ago came back into her mind. she saw herself standing in the dairy, in front of martha tilden, whose face she had forgotten. she was saying: "it's sad to think you've kept yourself straight for years and then gone wrong at last...." yes, it was sad ... and now she was being punished for it; but wrapped up in her punishment, sweetening its very heart, was a comfort she did not deserve. ansdore was slowly fading in her thoughts, as it had always faded in the presence of any vital instinct, whether of love or death. ansdore could never be to her what her child would be--none of her men, except perhaps martin, could have been to her what her child would be.... "if it's a boy i'll call it martin--if it's a girl i'll call it ellen," he said to herself. then she doubted whether ellen would appreciate the compliment ... but she would not let herself think of ellen to-night. that was to-morrow's evil. "i'll have to make some sort of a plan, though--i'll have to sell this place and give ellen a share of it. and me--where ull i go?" she must go pretty far, so that when the child came brodnyx and pedlinge would not get to know about it. she would have to go at least as far as brighton ... then she remembered martha relf and her lodgings at chichester--"that wouldn't be bad, to go to martha just for a start. me leaving ansdore for the same reason as she left it thirteen year ago ... that's queer. the mistress who got shut of her, coming to her and saying--'look here, martha, take me in, so's i can have my child in peace same as you had yours' ... i should ought to get some stout money for this farm--eight thousand pounds if it's eightpence--though reckon the government ull want about half of it and we'll have all that terrification started again ... howsumever, i guess i'll get enough of it to live on, even when ellen has her bit ... and maybe the folk around here ull think i'm sold up because my case has bust me, and that'll save me something of their talk." well, well, she was doing the best she could--though lawrence on his blind, obedient way to africa was scarcely going on a farther, lonelier journey than that on which joanna was setting out. "oh, martin," she whispered, lifting her eyes to his picture on her chest of drawers--"i wish i could feel you close." it was years since she had really let herself think of him, but now strange barriers of thought had broken down, and she seemed to go to and fro quite easily into the past. whether it was her love for bertie whom in her blindness she had thought like him, or her meeting with lawrence, or the new hope within her, she did not trouble to ask--but that strange, long forbidding was gone. she was free to remember all their going out and coming in together, his sweet fiery kisses, the ways of the marsh that he had made wonderful. throughout her being there was a strange sense of release--broken, utterly done and finished as she was from the worldly point of view, there was in her heart a springing hope, a sweet softness--she could indeed go softly at last. the tears were in her eyes as she climbed out of bed and knelt down beside it. it was weeks since she had said her prayers--not since that night when bertie had come into her room. but now that her heart was quite melted she wanted to ask god to help her and forgive her. "oh, please god, forgive me. i know i been wicked, but i'm unaccountable sorry. and i'm going through with it. please help my child--don't let it get hurt for my fault. help me to do my best and not grumble, seeing as it's all my own wickedness; and i'm sorry i broke the ten commandments. 'lord have mercy upon us and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee.'" this liturgical outburst seemed wondrously to heal joanna--it seemed to link her up again with the centre of her religion--brodnyx church, with the big pews, and the hassocks, and the lion and the unicorn over the north door--she felt readmitted into the congregation of the faithful, and her heart was full of thankfulness and loyalty. she rose from her knees, climbed into bed, and curled up on her side. ten minutes later she was sound asleep. § the next morning after breakfast, joanna faced ellen in the dining-room. "ellen," she said--"i'm going to sell ansdore." "you're what?" "i'm going to put up this place for auction in september." "joanna!" ellen stared at her in amazement, alarm, and some sympathy. "i'm driving in to tell edward huxtable about it this morning. not that i trust him, after the mess he made of my case; howsumever, i can look after him in this business, and the auctioneer, too." "but, my dear, i thought you said you'd plenty of money to meet your losses." "so i have. that's not why i'm selling." "then why on earth ..." the colour mounted to joanna's face. she looked at her sister's delicate, thoughtful face, with its air of quiet happiness. the room was full of sunshine, and ellen was all in white. "ellen, i'm going to tell you something ... because you're my sister. and i trust you not to let another living soul know what i've told you. as i kept your secret four years ago, so now you can keep mine." ellen's face lost a little of its repose--suddenly, for a moment, she looked like the ellen of "four years ago." "really, joanna, you might refrain from raking up the past." "i'm sorry, i didn't mean to rake up nothing. i've no right--seeing as what i want to tell you is that i'm just the same as you." ellen turned white. "what do you mean?" she cried furiously. "i mean--i'm going to have a child." ellen stared at her without speaking, her mouth fell open; then her face began working in a curious way. "i know i been wicked," continued joanna, in a dull, level voice--"but it's too late to help that now. the only thing now is to do the best i can, and that is to get out of here." "do you know what you're talking about?" said ellen. "yes--i know right enough. it's true what i'm telling you. i didn't know for certain till yesterday." "are you quite sure?" "certain sure." "but--" ellen drummed with her fingers on the table, her hands were shaking, her colour came and went. "joanna--is it albert's child?" "of course it is." "then why--why in god's name did you break off the engagement?" "i tell you i didn't know till yesterday. i'd been scared once or twice, but he told me it was all right." "does he know?" "he doesn't." "then he must be told"--ellen sprang to her feet--"joanna, what a fool you are! you must send him a wire at once and tell him to come down here. you must marry him." "that i won't!" "but you're mad--really, you've no choice in the matter. you must marry him at once." "i tell you i'll never do that." "if you don't ... can't you see what'll happen?--are you an absolute fool? if you don't marry this man, your child will be illegitimate, you'll be kicked out of decent society, and you'll bring us all to ruin and disgrace." ellen burst into tears. joanna fought back her own. "listen to me, ellen." but ellen sobbed brokenly on. it was as if her own past had risen from its grave and laid cold hands upon her, just when she thought it was safely buried for ever. "don't you see what'll happen if you refuse to marry this man?--it'll ruin me--it'll spoil my marriage. tip ... good god! he's risen to a good deal, seeing the ideas most englishmen have ... but now you--you--" "ellen, you don't mean as tip ull get shut of you because of me?" "no, of course i don't. but it's asking too much of him--it isn't fair to him ... he'll think he's marrying into a fine family!"--and ellen's tears broke into some not very pleasant laughter--"both of us ... oh, he was sweet about me, he understood--but now you--you!--whatever made you do it, joanna?" "i dunno ... i loved him, and i was mad." "i think it's horrible of you--perfectly horrible. i'd absolutely no idea you were that sort of woman--i thought at least you were decent and respectable.... a man you were engaged to, too. oh, i know what you're thinking--you're thinking i'm in the same boat as you are, but i tell you i'm not. i was a married woman--i couldn't have married my lover, i'd a right to take what i could get. but you could have married yours--you were going to marry him. but you lost your head--like a common servant--like the girl you sacked years ago when you thought i was too young to understand anything about it. and i never landed myself with a child--at least there was some possibility of wiping out what i'd done when it proved a mistake, some chance of living it down--and i've done it, i've won my way back, and now you come along and disgrace me all over again, and the man i love ..." never had ellen's voice been so like joanna's. it had risen to a hoarse note where it hung suspended--anyone now would know that they were sisters. "i tell you i'm sorry, ellen. but i can't do nothing bout it." "yes, you can. you can marry this man, hill--then no one need ever know, tip need never know--" "reckon that wouldn't keep them from knowing. they'd see as i was getting married in a hurry--not an invitation out and my troossoo not half ready--and then they'd count the months till the baby came. no, i tell you, it'll be much better if i go away. everyone ull think as i'm bust, through having lost my case, and i'll go right away--chichester, i'd thought of going to, where martha relf is--and when the baby comes, no one till be a bit the wiser." "of course they will. they'll know all about it--everything gets known here, and you've never in your life been able to keep a secret. if you marry, people won't talk in the same way--it'll be only guessing, anyhow. you needn't be down here when the baby's born--and at least tip needn't know. joanna, if you love me, if you ever loved me, you'll send a wire to this man and tell him that you've changed your mind and must see him--you can easily make up the quarrel, whatever it was." "maybe he wouldn't marry me now, even if i did wire." "nonsense--he'd have to." "well, he won't be asked." joanna was stiffening with grief. she had not expected to have this battle with ellen; she had been prepared for abuse and upbraiding, but not for argument--it had not struck her that her sister would demand the rehabilitation she herself refused. "you're perfectly shameless," sobbed ellen. "my god! it ud take a woman like you to brazen through a thing like this. swanking, swaggering, you've always been ... well, i bet you'll find this too much even for your swagger--you don't know what you're letting yourself in for.... i can tell you a little, for i've known, i've felt, what people can be.... i've had to face them--when you wouldn't let arthur give me my divorce." "well, i'll just about have to face 'em, that's all. i done wrong, and i don't ask not to be punished." "you're an absolute fool. and if you won't do anything for your own sake, you might at least do something for mine. i tell you, i'm not like you--i do think of other people--and for tip's sake i can't have everyone talking about you, and may be my own story raked up again. i won't have him punished for his goodness. if you won't marry and be respectable, i tell you, you needn't think i'll ever let you see me again." "but, ellen, supposing even there is talk--you and tip won't be here to hear it. you'll be married by then and away in wiltshire. tip need never know." "how can he help knowing, as long as you've got a tongue in your head? and what'll he think you're doing at chichester?--no, i tell you, joanna, unless you marry hill, you can say good-bye to me"--she was speaking quite calmly now--"i don't want to be hard and unsisterly, but i happen to love the man who's going to be my husband better than anyone in the world. he's been good, and i'm not going to have his goodness put upon. he's marrying a woman who's had trouble and scandal in her life, but at least he's not going to have the shame of that woman's sister. so you can choose between me and yourself." "it ain't between you and myself. it's between you and my child. it's for my child's sake i won't marry bertie hill." "my dear joanna, are you quite an ass? can't you see that the person who will suffer most for all this is your child? i didn't bring in that argument before, as i didn't think it would appeal to you--but surely you see that the position of an illegitimate child ..." "is much better than the child of folk who don't love each other, and have only married because it was coming. i'm scared myself, and i can scare bert, and we can get married--but what'll that be? he don't love me--i don't love him. he don't want to marry me--i don't want to marry him. he'll never forgive me, and all our lives he'll be throwing it up to me--and he'll be hating the child, seeing as it's only because of it we're married, and he'll make it miserable. oh, you don't know bertie as i know him--i don't say as it's all his fault, poor boy, i reckon his mother didn't raise him properly--but you should hear him speak to his mother and sister, and know what he'd be as a husband and father. i tell you, he ain't fit to be the father of a child." "and are you fit to be the mother?" ellen sneered. "maybe i ain't. but the point is, i am the mother, nothing can change that. and reckon i can fight, and keep the worst off. oh, i know it ain't easy, and it ain't right; and i'll suffer for it, and the worst till be that my child ull have to suffer too. but i tell you it shan't suffer more than i can help. reckon i shan't manage so badly. i'll raise it among strangers, and i'll have a nice little bit of money to live on, coming to me from the farm, even when i've paid you a share, as i shall, as is fitting. i'll give my child every chance i can." "then it's a choice between your child and me. if you do this mad thing, joanna, you'll have to go. i can't have you ever coming near me and tip--it isn't only for my own sake--it's for his." "reckon we're both hurting each other for somebody else's sake. but i ain't angry with you, ellen, same as you're angry with me." "i am angry with you--i can't help it. you go and do this utterly silly and horrible thing, and then instead of making the best you can of it for everybody's sake, you go on blundering worse and worse. such utter ignorance of the world ... such utter ignorance of your own self ... how d'you think you're going to manage without ansdore? why, it's your very life--you'll be utterly lost without it. think of yourself, starting an entirely new life at your age--nearly forty. it's impossible. you don't know what you're letting yourself in for. but you'll find out when it's too late, and then both you and your unfortunate child ull have to suffer." "if i married bert i couldn't keep on ansdore. he wouldn't marry me unless i came to london--i know that now. he's set on business. i'd have to go and live with him in a street ... then we'd both be miserable, all three be miserable. now if i go off alone, maybe later on i can get a bit of land, and run another farm in foreign parts--by chichester or southampton--just a little one, to keep me busy. reckon that ud be fine and healthy for my child ..." "your child seems to be the only thing you care about. really to hear you talk, one ud almost think you were glad." "i am glad." ellen sprang to her feet. "there's no good going on with this conversation. you're quite without feeling and quite without shame. i don't know if you'll come to your senses later, and not perhaps feel quite so _glad_ that you have ruined your life, disgraced your family, broken my heart, brought shame and trouble into the life of a good and decent man. but at present i'm sick of you." she walked towards the door. "ellen," cried joanna--"don't go away like that--don't think that of me. i ain't glad in that way." but ellen would not turn or speak. she went out of the door with a queer, white draggled look about her. "ellen," cried joanna a second time, but she knew it was no good.... well, she was alone now, if ever a woman was. she stood staring straight in front of her, out of the little flower-pot obscured window, into the far distances of the marsh. once more the marsh wore its strange, occasional look of being under the sea, but this time it was her own tears that had drowned it. "child--what if the old floods came again?" she seemed to hear martin's voice as it had spoken in a far-off, half forgotten time.... he had talked to her about those old floods, he had said they might come again, and she had said they couldn't.... my! how they used to argue together in those days. he had said that if the floods came back to drown the marsh, all the church bells would ring under the sea.... she liked thinking of martin in this way--it comforted her. it made her feel as if, now that everything had been taken from her, the past so long lost had been given back. and not the past only, for if her memories lived, her hopes lived too--not even ellen's bitterness could kill them.... there she stood, nearly forty years old, on the threshold of an entirely new life--her lover, her sister, her farm, her home, her good name, all lost. but the past and the future still were hers. two men: a romance of sussex by alfred ollivant _necessity the spring of faith and mould of character_ garden city new york doubleday, page & company _copyright, , by_ doubleday, page & company _all rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the scandinavian_ _by the same author_ bob, son of battle danny the gentleman redcoat captain the taming of john blunt the royal road the brown mare boy woodburn to beachbourne and the friends i made there - contents beau-nez book i father and son chapter i mr. trupp ii edward caspar iii anne caspar iv old man caspar v ernie makes his appearance vi the manor-house vii hans caspar's will book ii the two brothers viii beachbourne ix the two boys x old and new xi the study xii alf shows his colours xiii alf makes a remark xiv evil xv mr. trupp introduces the lash xvi father, mother and son xvii ernie goes for a soldier book iii the soldier xviii ernie goes east xix the regiment xx ernie in india xxi the return of the soldier xxii old town xxiii the changed man xxiv alf xxv the churchman xxvi mr. pigott book iv ruth boam xxvii the hohenzollern hotel xxviii the third floor xxix the man of affairs xxx reality xxxi the ride on the bus xxxii on the hill xxxiii under the stars book v captain royal xxxiv his arrival xxxv his origin xxxvi the captain begins his siege xxxvii he drives a sap xxxviii the serpent xxxix the lash again xl clash of males xli the decoy pond xlii the captain's flight xliii the ebb-tide xliv ernie leaves the hotel book vi the quest xlv old mus boam xlvi ernie turns philosopher xlvii alf tries to help xlviii two meetings xlix alf marks time book vii the outcast l the crumbles li evelyn trupp lii the return of the outcast liii the find liv the brooks book viii treasure trove lv the pool lvi frogs' hall lvii the surprise lviii the dower-house lix alf tries to save a soul lx the end of a chapter beau-nez book i father and son two men beau-nez old beau-nez shouldered out into the sea, immense, immovable, as when the north-men, tossing off him in their long-boats, had first named him a thousand years before. like a lion asleep athwart the doors of light, his head massive upon his paws, his flanks smooth as marble, he rested. the sea broke petulantly and in vain against the boulders that strewed his feet. he lay squandered in the sunshine that filled the hollows in his back and declared the lines of his ribs gaunt beneath the pelt. overhead larks poured down rivulets of song from the brimming bowl of heaven. the long-drawn swish of the sea, a sonorous under-current that came and went in rhythmical monotone, rose from the foot of the cliff to meet the silvery rain of sound and mingle with it in deep and mysterious harmony. it was may. the sides of the coombes were covered with cloth of gold: for the gorse was in glory, and filled the air with heavy fragrance; while the turf, sweet with thyme, was bejewelled with a myriad variety of tiny flowers. in earth and sea and sky there was a universal murmuring content, as though after labour, enduring for æons, the mother of time had at last brought forth her son and, as she nursed him, crooned her thankfulness. out of the west, along the back of the downs, dipping and dancing to the curve of the land like the wake of a ship over a billowy sea, a rough road swept up to the head, passing a dew-pond, the old race-course still fenced in, and a farm amid stacks at the head of a long valley that curled away towards a lighthouse pricking up white against the blue on the summit of the cliff in the eye of the misty morning sun. the name of the lighthouse was bel- or baal-tout, reminding men by its title of the god their fathers worshipped on high places here and elsewhere throughout the world with human sacrifices--the god of the philistine of every age and country, and not least our own. on beau-nez itself a tall flagstaff overtopped a little cluster of white coast-guard stations, outside which a tethered goat grazed. beside the flagstaff stood a man, watching a tan-sailed thames barge leisurely flapping across the shining floor of water beneath. he too was massive: a big man with swarthy eyes set in a pale face, very sure of himself. so much you could tell by the carriage of his head, and the way he stood on his feet. he was not used to opposition, it was clear, and would not brook it; while the coat with the astrakhan collar he was wearing added to his air of consequence. behind him in the road stood the dingy fly and moth-eaten horse that had brought him up the hill. the big man turned his back on the sun and walked slowly to the top of the steep coombe which overlooked the town that lay beneath him like a fairy city in the mists along the foam-lined edge of the bay, reaching out over the levels to the east, and flinging its red-coated skirmishers up the lower slopes of the downs. "how the town grows!" mused the big man. a brown excrescence on the smooth turf of the coombe beneath him caught his eye. at first he mistook it for a badger's earth; then he saw that it was a man lying on his back. the man's hands were behind his head, and his soft hat over his eyes; but he was not sleeping. one lank leg was crossed over a crooked knee, and the dangling foot kicked restlessly to and fro. that foot was sandalled. the man in the astrakhan coat slowly descended towards the recumbent figure. his eyes were ironical, his expression almost grim. for a moment he stood looking down upon the unconscious dreamer whose pale brown hair peeped from beneath a hat of a shape more familiar in the quartier latin than on english shores. then he prodded the other in the side with his toe. the young fellow roused with a start and blinked up into the big man's face. "hullo, f--father," he cried with a slight stutter, and rose in perturbation: a ramshackle young fellow, taller even than his father, but entirely lacking the other's girth and authoritative presence. a soft beard framed his long face, and he was wearing the low flannel collar that in the seventies was the height of bad form. "just like you, ned," said the elder with a grimness that was not entirely unkind. the son bent and brushed his knees unnecessarily. his face twitched, but he did not attempt to answer. "your mother's very ill," said the big man casually. he took a letter from his pocket and thrust it towards his son. the young man read it and handed it back. "is she h--happy?" he asked, his face moved and moving. "she's away all the time--like her son," the other answered; and added more mildly--"she doesn't know any one now--not even the latest parson." he turned and climbed the hill again. on the summit by the flagstaff he paused and looked round deliberately. "might build an hotel here," he said thoughtfully. "should pay." book i father and son chapter i mr. trupp when in the late seventies young mr. trupp, abandoning the use of lister's spray, but with meticulous antiseptic precautions derived from the great man at university hospital, performed the operation of variotomy on the daughter of sir hector moray, and she lived, his friends called it a miracle, his enemies a lucky fluke. all were agreed that it had never been done before, and the more foolish added that it would never be done again. sir hector was a well-known soldier; and the operation made the growing reputation of the man who performed it. william trupp was registrar at the whitechapel at the time, and a certainty for the next staff appointment. when, therefore, while the columns of the lancet were still hot with the controversy that raged round the famous case, the young man told sir audrey rivers, whose house-surgeon he had been, that he meant to leave london and migrate to the country, the great orthopædist had said in his grim way to this his favourite pupil: "if you do, i'll never send you a patient." even in his young days mr. trupp was remarkable for the gruff geniality which characterized him to the end. "very well, sir," he said with that shrewd smile of his. "i must go all the same." next day sir audrey read that his understudy was engaged to evelyn, only daughter of sir hector moray of pole. evelyn moray came of warrior ancestry; and her father, known on the north-west frontier as mohmund moray, was not the least distinguished of his line. the family had won their title as imperialists, not on the platform, but by generations of laborious service in the uttermost marches of the empire. the morays were in fact one of those rare families of working aristocrats, which through all the insincerities of victorian times remained true to the old knightly ideal of service as the only test of leadership. evelyn then had been brought up in a spacious atmosphere of high endeavour and chivalrous gaiety remote indeed from the dull and narrow circumstance of her lover's origin. profoundly aware of it, the young man was determined that his lady should not suffer as the result of her choice. moreover he loved the sea; he loved sport; and, not least, he was something of a natural philosopher. that is to say, he cherished secret dreams as to the part his profession was to play in that gradual ascent of man which darwin had recently revealed to the young men of william trupp's generation. moreover he held certain theories as to the practice of his profession, which he could never work out in harley street. it was his hope to devote his life to a campaign against that enemy of the human race--the tubercle bacillus. and to the realization of his plans the sea and open spaces were necessary. a colleague at the whitechapel, who was his confidant, said one day:-- "why don't you look at beachbourne? it's a coming town. and you get the sea and the downs. it's ideal for your purpose." "it's so new," protested the young surgeon. "i can't take that girl out of that home and plant her down in a raw place like beachbourne. she'd perish like a violet in commercial road." "there's an old town," replied the other.... in those days, mr. trupp kept greyhounds at the _pelham arms_, lewes, and spent his saturday afternoon scampering about furrel beacon and high-'nd-over and the flanks of the hills above aldwoldston and the ruther valley. in the evening, after his sport, he would ride over to spend the night at pole, which lay "up country," as the shepherds and carters in the down villages still called the weald. one spring evening he arrived very late by gig instead of on horseback, and coming from the east instead of from the south. the beautiful girl, awaiting him somewhat coldly at the gate, was about to chide him, when she saw his face; and her frosts melted in a moment. "my dear," he said, dismounting and taking her by both hands, "i've done it." "what have you done?" she cried, a-gleam like an april evening after rain. "taken the manor-house at beachbourne." six months later mr. trupp was settled in his home, with for capital the love of a woman who believed in him, his own natural capacity and shrewd common sense, and a blue greyhound bitch called she. chapter ii edward caspar the days when the parish priest knew the secrets of every family within his cure have long gone by, never to return. his place in the last generation has been taken to a great extent by the family doctor, who in his turn perhaps will give way to the psycho-therapist in the generation to come. mr. trupp had not been long in beachbourne before he began to know something of the inner histories of many of the families about him. those shrewd eyes of his, peering short-sightedly through pince-nez as he rolled about the steep streets of old town, or drove in his hooded gig along the broad esplanades of new, allowed little to escape them. moreover he was a man of singular discretion; and his fellow citizens, men alike and women, learned soon to trust him and never had cause to regret their confidence. it was quite in the early days of his residence in the little township on the hill that the young surgeon received a letter from mr. caspar, the famous railway contractor, asking him to look after--_my boy, ned, who has seen good to pitch his tent on your accursed downs--heaven knows why_. hans caspar owed his immense success in life as much to his habit of almost brutal directness as to anything, save perhaps his equally brutal energy. a governor of the whitechapel hospital, and a regular attendant at the board-meetings, he knew the young surgeon well, believed in him, and did not hesitate to tell the naked truth about his son. _he's not a scamp_, he wrote. _nobody could say that of ned. he's got no enemies but himself. you know his trouble. his address is , rectory walk. look him up. he won't come to you--shy as a roe-deer. but once you're established connection he'll love you like a dog. i've told him i'm sending you_. in a postscript he added, _i'll foot the bill. i keep the boy mighty short. it's the one thing i can do to help him_. mr. trupp, in those days none too busy, went.... the manor, a solid queen anne house, fronted on to the street opposite the black-timbered _star_, where of old pilgrims who had landed from the continent at pevensey would, after a visit to holy well in coombe-in-the-cliff under beau-nez, pass their first night before taking the green-way that led along the top of the downs to the _lamb_ at aldwoldston on the road to the shrine of good st. richard-de-la-wych at chichester. mr. trupp, muffled to the chin--for even in those days he was cultivating the cold which he was to cherish to the end--climbed church street, little changed for centuries, passed the massive-towered st. michael's on the kneb, and turned to the left at billing's corner. here at once were evidences of the change that had driven squire caryll to forsake the home of his fathers and retreat westward to the valley of the ruther before the onrush of those he called the barbarians. "they've squeezed me out, the ----!" the old man said with tears in his eyes. "but, by god, i've made em pay!" the manor farm had been cut up into building lots; the moot, as the land under the kneb crowned by the parish-church was still called, would shortly follow suit; and saffrons croft, with its glory of great elms that stood like a noble tapestry between the downs and the sea, was being turned by a progressive town council into a public park. at the back of church street old and new met and clashed unhappily; a walnut peeping amid houses, an ancient fig tree prisoned in a back yard, a length of grim flint wall patching red brick. here a row of substantial blue-slated houses, larger than cottages, less pretentious than villas, each with its tiny garden characteristic of its occupant, stood at right angle to the downs and looked across open ground to beech-hangar and the spur which hides beau-nez from view. a white house across the way, standing apart in pharisaic aloofness amid a gloom of unhappy-seeming trees, told that this was rectory walk. at the end of the walk a new road set a boundary to the town. beyond the road a dark crescent-sea of cultivated land washed the foot of the downs which rose here steep as a green curtain, shutting off with radiant darkness the wonder-world that lay beyond in the light of setting suns. no. was almost opposite the rectory. mr. trupp, as he entered the gate, remarked that in the upper window of the house there was a chocolate coloured card, on which was printed in deep grooved silver letters the word _apartments_. a woman opened to him, but kept the door upon the chain. through the crack he glanced at her, and saw at once that but for her hardness she would have been beautiful, while even in her hardness there was something of the quality of a sword. "is mr. caspar in?" he asked. "yes," she answered. whether the woman was surly or suspicious, he wasn't sure; but she undid the chain. "will you step inside?" she said, thawing ever so little. "mr. trupp, isn't it?" she stood back to let him pass. her blue overall, falling straight to her feet, showed the fine lines of her figure; her eyes met his straight as the point of a lance and much the colour of one; her lips were fine almost to cruelty, her nose fine; she was fine all through as an aristocrat, if her accent and manner were those of a small shop-keeper; and her colouring was of finest porcelain. she showed him into the room upon the right. the room was unusual. there was little furniture in it, and that little exquisite; no carpet, but a lovely persian rug lay before the fire. all round the walls and half-way up them, were oak book-shelves with glass doors of a pattern new to mr. trupp, but designed he was sure in germany. on the top of one of them was a jacobean tankard with a crest upon it; in the bow a broad writing-table with the new roll-top. on the brown wall were two pictures, both familiar to the young surgeon who was interested in art and knew something of it: botticelli's _primavera_ and a perfect print of young peter lely's famous _cavalier_--raoul beauregard, the long-faced languorous first earl ravenwood, who died so beautifully in his master's arms at naseby. "i had rather lost my crown," the stricken monarch had remarked, so we all as children read in our nursery histories. "sire," the wounded man had answered. "you are losing little. i am gaining all...." as mr. trupp entered, a very tall man, smoking by the fireside, put down a volume of swinburne, and rose. he was as unusual as the room in which he lived. young though he was, he had a soft brown beard that suited his weak and charming face and served partially to hide an uncertain mouth and chin. it was noon, but he was wearing slippers and a quilted dressing gown, with the arms of a famous cambridge college worked in silk on the breast-pocket. certainly he was hardly the type you expected to find in the little room of a tiny house in a backwater of a seaside resort. his long face had something of the contour of a sheep, and something of a sheep's expression. in a flash of recognition mr. trupp glanced from it to that of the love-locked cavalier on the wall above his head. edward caspar too had those unforgettable eyes--shy, fugitive, and above all far too sensitive. he had, moreover, the delightful ease of manner of one who has been bred at the most ancient of public schools and universities and has responded to the somewhat stagnant atmosphere of those old-world treasuries of dignity and peace. but a less shrewd eye than mr. trupp's would have detected behind the apparent assurance a complete lack of self-confidence. "my father tut--tut--told me you were going to be kind enough to lul--lul--look me up," the young man said with a stutter in the perfect intonation of his kind. "it's good of you to come." "just looked in for a chat," growled mr. trupp, unusually shy for some reason. the two young men talked awhile at random--of the hospital, of mr. caspar senior and the grand northern railway, of beachbourne, old and new, its origin, growth, and prospects. then conversation flagged. edward caspar, it was clear, was trying to say something and found it difficult. he stood before the fire, wrapping his dressing-gown about him, and moving elephant-wise from one foot to the other. his brow puckered; his face wrought; his eyes were on the floor. mr. trupp, intuitive and sympathetic as few would have believed, gave him every chance and mute encouragement. at last the thing came out. "you know what my tut--tut--trouble is," said the young man, over-riding obstacles with motions of the head. "i find it hard to keep off it." he nodded to the writing-desk on which stood a soda-water syphon and a glass. "we must see what can be done," the other answered. "you're young. you've got life before you. it's worth making a fight." the young man showed himself troubled and eager as a child. "d'you think there's hup--hup--hope for me?" he asked. "every hope," replied mr. trupp with the gruff cheerfulness that so often surprised his patients. "you're honest with yourself. that's the main thing. first thing we must do is to find you a job." the other stared into the fire. "i've got a job," he said at last reluctantly. "what's that?" edward caspar answered after a pause and much facial emotion. "i'm writing a book on the philosophy of m--mysticism." he wound himself up and his speech flowed more freely. "it'll take me my lifetime. professor zweibrucker of leipzig is helping me. that's why i've settled here. at least," he corrected, stumbling once again, "that's one reason why. to be quiet and near the public library." mr. trupp nodded. "it's the best in the south of england bar brighton," he said. "and it'll beat that soon." he rose to go. "does that woman look after you properly?" he asked. the young man's colour changed; and the momentary glow of enthusiasm roused in him as he touched on his work vanished. edward caspar was too weak or too honest to make a good conspirator. he became self-conscious, and blinked rapidly as he stared at the fire. "what--wow--woman's that?" he asked in a flustered way. "your landlady." the other's face wrought. his stammer possessed him. he flapped about like a wounded bird in a tumult of fear and pain. "what?" he said. "she?--she's all right." he did not show his visitor to the door. mr. trupp noticed it and wondered: for his host's manners were obviously perfect both by nature and tradition. in the passage was the woman who had admitted him, feigning to dust. she opened the door for him as he wound himself elaborately up in his muffler. "d'you let lodgings?" he asked. those steel blue eyes of hers were on him challenging and armed for resistance. "he's my lodger." "yes," said mr. trupp. "but have you other rooms? i see your card's up." "sometimes." "because my patients ask me now and then if i can recommend them lodgings." the woman was clearly resentful rather than grateful. mr. trupp, amused, pursued his mild persecution with the glee of the tormenting male. "let me see. what's your name?" for a second the woman hesitated--baffled it seemed and fighting. then she said with a note of obvious relief as of one who has overcome a difficulty. "anne, i believe." "thank you, mrs. anne, i'll remember." he rolled on his way chuckling to himself. the woman watched his back suspiciously from the door. then she retired, not into the kitchen, but into her lodger's sitting-room. "your father's spy," she said tartly. "nonsense, nonsense," the young man answered with the desperate exasperation of the neurotic. "my f--father's not like that." chapter iii anne caspar edward caspar, something of the scholar, something of the artist, even a little of the saint, was notoriously bad at keeping secrets. "old ned leaks," his friends at harrow and trinity used to say. the charge was unfortunately true. it was because he had a secret it was important he should keep that, knowing his own weakness, he had settled in old town, to be out of danger. up there on the hill he would meet none of his quondam friends, who, if they came to beachbourne at all, would go to one of the fine hotels in new town along the sea front by the wish. but nature, which has no mercy on weakness in any form, was too much for the soft young man. it was barely a week after his first visit to rectory walk that mr. trupp was sent for again. the same woman opened to him with the same fierce, almost defiant face. "well?" he said. "it's pleurisy, he says," she answered. "pretty sharp." he unwound himself in the passage. "he may want a nurse then." "he won't," cried the woman, the note of challenge in her voice. "i'll nurse him." "can you manage it--with your work?" "if i can't no one else shan't," the woman snorted, almost threateningly. "first door on the left." mr. trupp, grinning to himself, went up the stairs, and was aware that the woman was standing at the foot watching his back. she did not follow. the young surgeon climbed thoughtfully, absorbing his environment, as the good doctor does. the varnished paper on the wall, the cheap carpet under his feet, the sham drain-pipe that served as an umbrella-stand in the passage; they were all the ordinary appurtenances of the house of this class, commonplace, even a little coarse, and affording a strange contrast to the almost exotic refinement and distinction of the sitting-room on the ground floor. the house too was bright and clean as a hospital, hard too, he thought, as its landlady. there was no lodging-house smell, his nose, trained in the great wards of the whitechapel, noted with approval. windows were kept clearly open, sunshine admitted as a friend. he trailed his fingers up the bannisters and examined them, when he had turned the corner and was out of sight of the woman watching in the passage. not a trace of dust! yes, when he was in a position to start his open-air hostel on the cliff for tuberculous patients, this was the woman he should get for housekeeper. he knocked at the door on the left, suddenly remembering that this must be the room in the window of which hung the chocolate-coloured _apartments_ card. young caspar's voice bid him enter. the room was a bed-room and contained a double bed. in the window, where dangled the card, was a dressing-table, and on it, undisguised, the paraphernalia of a woman's toilet. edward caspar lay in bed, breathing shortly, his face pinched with physical and spiritual suffering. beside the bed was a chair and on it a manuscript. mr. trupp glanced at the inscription--_the philosophy of mysticism. part i. the history of animism_. "you've fuf--fuf--found us out early," gasped the young man with a ghastly smile. "nothing very terrible," said mr. trupp. "i'm not ashamed of it," answered the other. "she's a good woman. only my f--father's a bit old-fashioned. you see, i'm the only son." "i don't suppose he knows," grunted mr. trupp. "no, he don't know." "and i don't see any reason why he should," continued the doctor. edward caspar raised his wistful eyes. "thank you, mr. trupp," he stuttered in his pathetic and dependent way. "thank you. very good of you, i'm sure. we're fond of each other, anne and i. i owe her a lot. and my father's getting an old man." on the mantelpiece was the photograph of a lady in court dress. mr. trupp studied the long and refined face. there was no mistaking the type. it was beauregard all through, exhibiting the same sheep-like contour as that of the man in the bed, the same unquenchable spiritual longings as the cavalier in the room below--added in this case to that exasperating weakness which provokes a pagan world to blows. "is that your mother?" asked mr. trupp. "yes." "she's like you." "she's supposed to be." when the doctor left the sick room and went downstairs he was aware that the door of the sitting-room was open. the woman was inside, standing duster in hand, under the picture of the cavalier, whose eyes seemed now to the young doctor faintly ironical. mr. trupp entered quietly and shut the door behind him. "we're married," she said, blurting the words at him. "i know," he grunted. she looked at him suspiciously. "did he tell you?" "that you were married?" "yes." "no." "who did?" fiercely. "your face." she relaxed slowly. "you mean i don't look the sort to stand any nonsense." she nodded, grimly amused. "you're right. that's me. i'm chapel." then she let herself go. "i'm fond of ned," she flashed. "i wouldn't have married him else, for all his family. he's reel gentry, ned is. i don't mean his mother being lady blanche, i'm not that kind. i mean in him--here." she put her hand on her chest. "i know i'm not his sort. but i can help him. and he needs help. think any of _them_ could support him up?" with scorn. "too flabby by half. can't support emselves, some of em. lays on their backs in bed and drinks tea out of a spout before they can get up o mornings. i know. my sister's in service." she stopped abruptly. "what do you think about it yourself? straight now." "i think," said mr. trupp, sententious and dour, "the only sensible thing he ever did in his life was to marry you." she eyed him shrewdly, sweetly. then the hard young woman softened, and her face became beautiful, the lovely colour deepening. she was still wearing the blue over-all in which he had first seen her. "you see me how i am," she said. "i can guess," answered mr. trupp. "will you see me through?" "with pleasure." "i don't want no one else, only you. mr. pigott--the schoolmaster--told me of you." mr. trupp nodded. "he's chapel too," he said. her eyes became ironical. "yes," she answered. "he's a good man though. you'll be church, i suppose. manor-house always is." mr. trupp shook his head forcibly. "i'm an agnostic," he replied. the word, recently coined by huxley, was on the lips of all the young men of science of the day. "that's a kind of honest heathen," he added, seeing she did not understand. she nodded at him with a gleam of almost merry malice. "hope for the best and fear the worst sort," she said. "i know em." then she returned to her subject, and her face became grave and sweet again. "i'm due in april," she said. "that's the right time," he answered. "all children should be born in the spring. then they're greeted with a song--because nature wants em; and they've got the summer before them to get established in. i'll come and look you up in a day or two." "and ned?" "he's all right. keep him in bed. i'll send him round some medicine to ease the pain." she eyed him shrewdly. "i didn't mean that. i meant the big thing. what chance has he?" mr. trupp buttoned himself up. "he's honest with himself. that's the great thing. for the rest it depends mostly on you. you may pull him up. he's young. is he ambitious?" she shook her head. "what about his writing?" "_the basis of animalism_," said mrs. caspar thoughtfully. "that's the essay that got him the fellowship at king's--only he gave it up after a year. too drudgeryfied. see where it is," confidentially, "he's got the brains, ned has. the teachers at cambridge thought no end of him. i've seen their letters. _you can do what you like_,--the head teacher wrote. _question is--do you like_? and that's where it is with him. there's no stay in ned. he'll write away one day, and then drop it for a month. then he'll paint a bit; and after that a bit of poetry. _but he don't go at it_. he don't understand work. that sort don't," with scorn. "they've no need. a man works when he's got to--and not before. dad worked. he was a tobacconist at ealing in a small way. cleared three pound a week if he kept at it steady and went under if he didn't. why should a man work when he's only got to open his mouth and the pocket-money'll drop in. 'tain't in nature." mr. trupp nodded quiet approval. "_must's_ the only word that matters," he said. "_must's_ the man. he's the boy to kill your _can't_." the woman followed him to the door. "of course if old mr. caspar knew he'd disinherit him. and ned could never earn." "and you'd be done?" queried mr. trupp with quiet glee. "never!" cried the woman, up in arms at once. "i could keep us both at a pinch, i'll lay then." "i'll lay you could," answered the other. "but mr. caspar won't know, so you'll be all right." the two lingered for a moment in the door, as do those who find themselves in sympathy. "he's a hard un's old man caspar," said anne. "and he's not the only one," grinned the young doctor. "and a good job too." chapter iv old man caspar that was how it came about that mr. trupp helped young ernie caspar into the world. there was no doubt who the lad took after. "he's his father's child," said the young surgeon. whether mrs. caspar was angry with her son for his resemblance to her husband, it was hard to say, but she was fierce even in her mothering. now she nodded at the photograph of the woman in court-dress upon the mantelpiece. "it's her he favours," she said shortly, one stern eye on the sucking infant. "he's the spit of her--same as ned. none of old man caspar about him." "have you seen him?" asked mr. trupp, washing his hands. "the old man?--yes. once. he came to lunch. met ned on beau-nez. i was landlady that day." she nodded grimly at the window where hung the card. "that's why i keep that up--lest he should come down on us sudden. we're done if he finds us out." mr. trupp grunted as he dried his hands. "i'm not so sure," he said. "well, that's what ned says," the woman retorted. "he would," replied the surgeon. she looked at him sharply. "you mean ned's afraid of the old man?" the other didn't answer. "you're right there," said the young mother. "he is. and i don't wonder. i'm afraid of him--and i've never feared a man before." "most people are," replied mr. trupp. "he's a bit of a terror; but he's got his points. you needn't worry," he added as he said good-bye. "you're not likely to see much of him. he's too busy with his grand northern railway." the woman was unconvinced. "he's that sudden," she said. "there he was in the door--me in me wrapper and all. of course ned never give me no warning. too flabbergasted by half. learnt me a lesson, though, never to sit in the back-room with my sewing about." "did you know him?" asked mr. trupp, amused. "know him?" cried the other. "seen his picture in the papers time and again. astrakhan coat and all!" happily for the peace of mind of the young couple mr. trupp proved right. all the energies of the great contractor were set on driving the new commercial railway from london to the north, tapping the black country, and linking the yorkshire ports with the metropolis by the most direct route. it was in fact two years and more before mr. caspar made another of his sudden appearances at the door of . young mrs. caspar, one of those women who is always on her guard, guessed her visitor by that peremptory knock. she dried her hands, shut the kitchen-door on the children--there were two now; peeped into the study, saw that edward was out, and faced the stranger. old mr. caspar was not really old: a dark, powerful man, almost magnificent, in the familiar coat with the astrakhan collar of the picture papers, and a black-and-silvered beard. a close observer would have detected a semitic strain in him and more than a strain of the south. in fact, hans caspar's father came from frankfurt and his mother from trieste, though he had lived in england from his earliest years and spoke without a trace of accent. now his dark eyes met the woman's blue ones, and seemed to approve of what they saw. "mr. edward caspar in?" he asked. "he will be in a moment.--mr. hans caspar, isn't it?" she showed him into the little back sitting-room. then the task before her was to warn her husband before he came blundering in and began to coo and call to her and the children from the passage. anne caspar was always at her best in a crisis. her baby was asleep; and ernie was happy bestriding a new hobby-horse and chanting to himself. she took off her apron, put on her hat, and paused a moment on the door-step, looking up and down the road. which way had her husband gone? once a week or so he went down town to consult the public library. for the rest he always went towards the downs to lose himself amid the hollows of the hills. she made for the huge green wall that blocked the end of the road, shimmering and mysterious in the april sunshine. her choice proved right. she saw him coming off the hill above beech-hangar, and went to meet him. he would have blundered past her, oblivious of her presence but that she stopped him. briefly she told him the news and gave him his instructions. they must not be seen entering the house together. she would return directly to the house: he must go along the new road, down church street at the back, and approach by way of billing's corner. obedient as a child, he lumbered off at that curious bear-like trot of his, his sandals tapping the pavement. ten minutes later, when he entered the back sitting-room, he was perspiring but as prepared as such a flabby soul could ever be. he had always been in terror of his father; and hans caspar saw nothing strange in his son's greeting. "hullo, edward," he said in his deep voice. "just run down to see you." "hullo, father," replied the son with the forced cheeriness he always adopted when addressing his sire. "you'll stop for luncheon?" "thank-you. if you can give me a bite." the young man rang. his wife came to the door. "mr. caspar'll stay for luncheon," said edward, lowering his voice appropriately. "can you let us have something?" "very good," replied his wife surlily. the father looked after her, grimly amused. "don't seem very obliging," he remarked. edward laughed uneasily. "what!" he said. "oh, she's all right. a bit fuf--funny in her manner. that's all." mr. caspar prodded his son. "you'd better mind your eye, ned. she's masterful, and a fine figure of a woman too." edward tittered foolishly. "what?--oh, she--she's married. children and all that." "what's her husband do?" "what--him?--oh, he does nothing much that i know of." "lives on her, i suppose," growled the other. "scoundrel! i know the sort. the kind your gladstones encourage." he descanted at length and with more than even his usual violence on the sins of all governments and especially radical ones. unlike his usual self, he was clearly talking as a screen to gain time, sheltering something behind a wall of words. ned was always embarrassed in his father's presence; but for once mr. caspar seemed himself uneasy in the presence of this son who had been such a woeful disappointment to him. after his political outburst, there was a prolonged pause. then mr. caspar leaned forward and kicked a cinder into its place. "pretty comfortable here?" he asked at last. "oh, i get along fuf--first-rate," answered the son. "three hundred a year's not much for a man in my position to allow his only son, i know," the other said gruffly. it was a new and unexpected note. the young man, chivalrous to the roots of him, and heir to all the qualities of his mother's family, instantly answered his father's mute appeal. "my dear fuf--father, it's a fortune," he said. "we--i live like a prince. and anyway, it's three hundred a year more than i deserve." his father was silent. "i don't know if you've had any expectations from me," he said at last. "i've been pretty blunt with you in the past." the young man had risen and was standing before the fire, his face working. "i've no need for mum--much money," he explained. "you see i've no expensive tastes. i don't hunt or shoot or gug--gamble. if i can have enough for the necessities of life, and to buy an occasional bub--book or two, that's all i need." "ned," said the other, coming firmly to the point, "i've made arrangements for the three hundred a year i allow you to be continued throughout your life." "i think it's mum--most _awfully_ good of you, father," said the young man with obvious sincerity. the other grunted. "i don't know," he replied. "not every son would take it that way." he was rarely moved. his son saw it and was wretched. then the woman came in with luncheon. chapter v ernie makes his appearance the little room in which they lunched looked out on a tiny back-garden bounded by a high old flint-wall. the view was limited; and yet, for those who knew, it contained much of the history of beachbourne. over the top of the wall could be seen the chimney-pots and long blue roofs of what was now the workhouse, which had, ned told his father, been a cavalry barracks in the days of napoleon. against the wall a fine fig-tree revealed that the new house stood where not long since an old garden, its soil enriched by centuries of the toil of man, had grown the pleasant fruits of the earth. the room was dark but singularly clean. it was distinguished, moreover, by the complete absence of all the ordinary insignia of a lodging-house. there were no pictures on the walls. the furniture, what there was of it, was mahogany, solid and plain, the chairs and sofa horse-hair. if the room lacked the distinction and delicacy of the study, neither was it stamped as was the rest of the house with the conventional hall-mark of the lower middle class. rather, in its strength and its simplicity it was like the parlour of a yeoman-farmer. the two men talked little at their meal; but all went well until they had resumed their chairs in the sunny front sitting-room that looked over to the solitary stucco house, gloomy amid trees and evergreens, behind a high wall across the road. "the rectory, i suppose," said the older man, standing in the bow, picking his teeth. "always the best house in the parish. d'you know the man?" "just," edward answered. "what's his sort?" "oh, the ordinary cleric. a bit of a pagan; a bit of a pharisee; and a whole-hearted snob. he's a prebendary who insists on being called a canon." his father flashed a twinkling eye at him. just sometimes hans caspar wondered whether there might not be more in this poor creature of a son of his than appeared. "how like em!" he mused. "yet i've an immense admiration for the church as a commercial concern. look at the business they've built up. look at the property they've accumulated. look at the way the ecclesiastical commissioners sweat blood out of the foulest slums in christendom. they deserve to succeed. do it all in such style too. house their head-managers in palaces, and pay em £ , a year--and perks--and plenty of em. the hanseatic league was nothing to em." the young man's eyes became quizzical. then he began to titter in the feeble and deprecatory way of one who half dissents and dares not say so. the door opened quietly. hans caspar, standing in the bow, turned round. a small brown-smocked figure, a-stride a dappled grey horse, looked in; and a lovely little singing voice like that of water pouring from a jug, said in a slight stutter with mysterious intimacy, "daddy!" the little lad stood smiling in the door, the image of his father, of his father's mother, of the cavalier upon the wall, of those high-bred, rather ineffective faces that look down on visitors from the famous portrait-gallery at ravensrood, the somersetshire home of the beauregards. edward caspar sat and sweated. it was of course the elder man who spoke first. "hullo, youngster!" he called cheerily. "what might be your name?" the child's face wrought just like his father's, as he struggled with some invisible obstacle. "ernie gug--gug--gaspod," he said at last. "ernie gaspipe," laughed the other. "is your daddy a plumber?" the child's hand left his horse's mane and shot out a chubby finger. "that's my dad--daddy," he said. there was the sound of swift feet in the passage, a blue arm reached fiercely forth, and the child was swept back to the kitchen. mr. caspar's eye flashed on his son's grey and quaking face and flashed away again. "nice-looking kiddy," he said calmly. "just the age to take us all for his dad." "yes," panted ned, his moist hands gripping the arm of his chair. "how many's she got?" "two, i believe." "boys?" "yes, both." the father took a cigar leisurely from his case, cut it and began to smoke. "i'd have liked a large family," he said quietly. the son raised his eyes of a hunted hare. "i know, father," he stuttered. "i'm afraid i've been a great dud--disappointment to you." "stop it!" grunted the other. "or i'll go into the kitchen." he puffed away, lost in his reflections. "it was your mother," he went on. "she couldn't stand the racket. that sort can't. the english aristocracy breed in and in too much. that's why they always fail. no red blood in em." he added, after a pause, "_you_ almost killed her; and you were only a five-pounder when you were born...." before he left mr. caspar did go into the kitchen alone. "i'm going to give that woman half-a-sovereign," he explained. "she gave me a decent luncheon." he went down the passage and knocked at the kitchen-door. "come in," said a voice. he entered. the woman faced him, formidable as a tigress guarding her cubs. her enemy eyed her with something more than kindness. "i've seen one child," he said with the charm he could assume at will. "where's tother?" his manner disarmed her. half-hidden behind a towel-horse was a cot. anne caspar stood aside while the big man bent over the sleeping child. "ern's all right," she said. "this'n's not much to talk on--as yet. i'd not have rared him only for mr. trupp." "mr. trupp's a great man," said the other, and laid two sovereigns on the table. "one for each of em," he explained. the woman coloured faintly. there was about her the beauty of a clear and frosty day. "thank-you," she said. he held out his hand. she took it, and he would not let it go, those eyes of his, in which light and darkness, cruelty and kindness, chased each other, engaging hers. "good-bye," he said. "i don't know what your name is--look after _him_," he jerked his head towards the door. "he needs it." the woman dropped her eyes, the lovely colour deepening in her cheeks. "i'll try," she said, her natural surliness dashed with ungracious graciousness. in the passage he put on his coat. edward came out to him. "good-bye, ned," he said. "good luck," and put his hand almost affectionately on his son's shoulder. "i'm going down to look in on trupp and curse him from the board for leaving the whitechapel. damn tomfoolery. he'd a career before him, that man." chapter vi the manor-house when he left his son to carry out his threat, mr. caspar struck into the steep main street of old town, which preserved still the somewhat stagnant atmosphere of a country village. on the left the parish church, square-towered, massive, grey, stood on a slight eminence over a green hollow, called still the moot, in which was a pond that may have been the source of the original bourne. beneath the church the old star inn hung its sign-board across the way. here borough lane crossed the street, running steeply down between the church and the inn and as steeply up under noble beech-trees along the garden-wall of the queen anne mansion which must clearly be the manor-house. the brass-plate on the door confirmed the visitor's conjecture. yes; mr. trupp was in. the house was beautiful within as it was plain and solid outside. in the hall wainscoted, spacious, and with shining oaken floors, a grandfather's clock swung its pendulum rhythmically. the room into which mr. caspar was shown had a wide bow-window looking out over gracious lawns and laburnum-trees in blossom to the elms in saffrons croft. mr. trupp entered. he was a slight man with a moustache, who tilted his shrewd, rather sharp face to inspect his visitor through pince-nez. "well, mr. caspar," he growled genially. "ah, you runagate!" scolded the other. "what d'you mean by it?" the doctor nodded at the window. a beautiful young woman with chestnut hair, bare to the sun, was walking with extreme deliberation across the lawn, leaning on the arm of a nurse. "that's one reason," he said. the other gazed. "yes; you've given her the right setting," he remarked at last in a strangely quiet voice, touched with melancholy. a greyhound emerged from a shrubbery and crossed the lawn after the two women at a stealthy trot. "that's another," said mr. trupp. "sport!" cried the other. "bah!--and you might have been a great man!--a credit to the whitechapel. what's the next?" "professional," grunted the doctor. "third and last of course," retorted the other. "that's you english all over. you don't know what work is. still, old town for your wife and new town for your practice--may be something in it after all." the surgeon opened the window. "come and be introduced," he said, and led the way across the lawn. "she'd like to meet you." mrs. trupp showed herself delightfully shy in her large and royal way. mr. caspar was mr. caspar; and the fair creature knew the secret of mr. caspar's son. she was indeed the only woman in beachbourne who knew it, and that not because mr. trupp had told her, but because she was the only woman in whom anne caspar had confided,--as had, in fact, edward too. her meeting therefore with mr. caspar senior was full of dramatic possibilities. her innocent soul thrilled with pleasurable alarm at the perilous character of the situation. she felt a little guilty and wholly defensive; and her transparent face betrayed every emotion as a pool reflects a cloud. mr. caspar watched her as she worked, with admiration and amusement. "you've come down to see your son, i expect," she said in her charming leisured voice. "i have," he answered brusquely, the light flashing in his eyes. "he seems snug enough. not bad lodgings." "as lodgings go," said mrs. trupp, delicately, bending over her work as her colour came and went. "that's a queer creature," continued mr. caspar. "who?" "the woman my son's lodging with." mrs. caspar held up her work to inspect it. "she is a little funny in her manner," she replied, and began to pride herself on her skill in evading the enemy without telling a downright lie. "she's a fine cook, i believe." "she's a fine woman," said mr. caspar. the beautiful creature tossed her head as though he was suggesting something improper, which no doubt he was. mr. caspar chuckled without shame or mercy; but as he walked back to the house his mood changed. "well," he said gravely, "i congratulate you, trupp. children may be the greatest blessing in a man's life." back in the consulting-room he was still very quiet. all the teasing laughter was gone from him. the mischievous boy, the trampling conqueror, had disappeared. their place had been taken by a sad and even pathetic man. "what is it?" asked mr. trupp, as his visitor sank back in the big chair. "i'm sick as herrings," replied the other. "labour troubles?" the big man, with his black hair, pale face and swarthy eyes, shook his head. "i wish it was." he put his hand to his heart. "i've got notice to quit. rivers gives me eighteen months at most. damn nuisance." he stared out of the window at the two women under the elm. "i don't feel like dying. and there was so much to do." "let's see," said the doctor. he applied the stethoscope, and then replaced it in his pocket without comment. it was clear from the negative expression of his face that he agreed with sir audrey rivers' judgment. mr. caspar, intuitive as his friend, asked no questions. "that's it," said he. "machine wearing out. i've rattled her about too much, i suppose. well, a man must live--my sort of man at least. i could never be content to rust. there's nothing to be done. it's just good-bye and no _au revoir_ this time. that's why i came down. i wanted to see the boy before i pushed off." he turned suddenly. "how's he getting on?" mr. trupp shrugged his shoulders. "no improvement?" asked the other. "i wouldn't say that. he's put the brake on a bit of late." "or had it put on for him," muttered mr. caspar. he mused for some time. "i'd have taken a peerage but for him," he said at last. "i can't see ned as a hereditary legislator." "oh, i don't know," mumbled mr. trupp. he was an aggressive radical of the then active school of dilke and chamberlain. "i think he'd do very well in the house of lords." the young man had touched the springs of laughter in the other's heart. hans caspar's immense vitality asserted itself again. he resumed himself with a shout, sweeping the clouds boisterously away. "ned's a true beauregard," he said. "just his mother over again. so charming and so ineffectual! always some weak strain in an hereditary aristocracy." "must be," muttered mr. trupp. "they're never weeded out. they're above the laws of nature. case of survival of the unfittest--protected by law and living on you and me to whom they dictate the law. albino bunnies in a gilded hutch with a policeman watching over em!" "good!" cried mr. caspar. "albino bunnies is good. it took my albino in the way of religious orgies. i prefer ned's trouble of the two. less humbug about it." he got up and began restlessly to pace the room. "there's nothing like religion to eat a man's soul away, trupp--to say nothing of a woman's. _you_ don't let your wife go to church, i understand. well, you're a shrewd fellow. that way lies the bottomless pit. mine took to it--it was in her blood, mind you--when i was away in the river plate driving the trans-argentine railway from the atlantic to the pacific. when i came back--good lord! priests to luncheon, bishops to dinner, deaconesses to tea. missionary meetings in the drawing-room, altars in the alcove, parasites everywhere. in her last illness she _would_ have a _religeuse_ to see to her instead of one of our nurses from the whitechapel. of course she died. serve her right, too, say i." he paused. "with ned it was just touch and go which way it would take him. i thought at one time his mother's trouble'd got him, but in the end it was..." he jiggled his elbow. "he's not a bad sort," muttered mr. trupp. hans caspar took the other by the lapel of his coat. "but that's just what makes me so mad, man!" he cried. "if he'd been vicious i could have kicked his back-side with joy. but you couldn't kick ned. you can't kick a pathetic vacuum." he added with a swagger: "no man can accuse hans caspar of being afraid to use the jack-boot. you don't kick bottoms half enough in england." "there's plenty of kicking bottoms," answered the other. "the trouble is that the men who kick bottoms never get their own kicked. if every man who kicked knew for certain that he would automatically be kicked in his turn, we might get on a bit." hans caspar chuckled. "your idea of utopia," he said. "everybody standing round in a circle, with his hands on the shoulders of the man in front, hacking him. i like it." "i believe," chanted mr. trupp, "in the big stick. that's my creed. but i want it applied by everybody to everybody--not by the strong to the weak as we do in this country, and you do in yours." "my firm belief you're this new-fangled creature--a socialist," said hans caspar. "what if i am!" grunted the other. in fact, in london he had attended meetings of the recently born fabian society, and had heard william morris preach on sunday evenings in the stables of kelmscott house. the young surgeon had found himself in general sympathy with the views expounded, but like many another man could not tolerate the personalities of the expounders of the new creed. "apart from morris, they're such prigs," he would say, "and so blatant about it. always thrusting their alleged intellectual superiority down your throat. and after all, they're only advocating what every sensible man must advocate--the application of the method of science to the problems of government." mr. caspar had gone to the window and was staring out. "how long'll that boy of mine last the pace he's going?" he asked, subdued again. "he might last thirty years yet," the other answered. hans caspar turned round. "with that woman to run him, you mean?" "what woman's that?" "his wife." it was mr. trupp's turn to look away. "she's the sort for him," he mumbled warily. the other broke in with vehement enthusiasm. "the sort for him!--why, if i'd married a woman like that--with a back-bone like steel, and the jaws of a rat-trap--i'd have been a napoleon." mr. trupp's face was still averted. its naturally shrewd expression had for the moment a satirical touch. "you think he's a lucky fellow to get her?" said the other. mr. trupp's silence was eloquent enough. "ah," continued hans caspar knowingly. "i see. you think _she_ got him. i dare say. she's the sort of woman who'd get anything she wanted. and he's the kind of man who'd be got by the first woman who wanted him. i took the measure of her at first sight. fact i was just going to offer her the job of manageress of my canteen at rail-head--when i found out. she'd make the navvies sit up, i'll swear." "her hands are pretty full as it is," commented mr. trupp. the other nodded. "i expect so," he said. "ned alone's one woman's job. and the two children." he put his hand on the surgeon's arm. "that eldest boy, trupp!" "what about him?" "he's his grandmother over again. watch him!" a bell in the street clanged. "what's that?" he asked. "station-bus," said mr. trupp. "the driver strikes the coaching-bell over the _star_ as he passes." "i must catch it." the big man put on his coat and went out. at the door of the inn a two-horse bus was drawn up. mr. caspar climbed up beside the driver. the young surgeon closed the front-door and turned. his wife stood framed in the garden-window against a background of green. "did he find out?" she asked anxiously. "my dear," her husband answered, "he did." the tender creature's face fell. "oh, the poor caspars!" she cried. chapter vii hans caspar's will sir audrey rivers' diagnosis proved correct. just a year after his visit to beachbourne mr. caspar died. his will caused malicious merriment to those who knew "unser hans," as he was called in society. he left the bulk of his vast fortune in trust for the whitechapel hospital--with one proviso: that no clergyman was to act as a trustee. for the rest he bequeathed £ a year for life, free of income tax, to his daughter-in-law, mrs. edward caspar; and should she pre-decease her husband, the sum was to be continued to his son. "sound fellow that," said mr. trupp, when he heard. "old man caspar to the end." "it's rather hard on our mr. caspar," remarked his wife, who had known edward caspar in london before either had married. "my dear," replied the surgeon, with the slight sententiousness peculiar to him, "the only way to help that sort of son is to be hard on him." "i hope you'll never help my joe like that," cried the beautiful woman warmly. mr. trupp loved to tease his wife. "if your joe goes that way i will," he grinned--"and worse. so mind your eye!" another woman who was not amused by hans caspar's will was the woman who benefited by it. anne caspar had the qualities of her kind. if she was hard, she was passionately loyal and genuinely devoted to her ned. when she had told mr. trupp that her marriage had been a love-match she had but spoken the truth as regards her part in it. therefore on the morning she opened the letter from the lawyers announcing that she had come by miracle into what was for the daughter of the ealing tobacconist a fortune, she felt a slight had been put upon her husband and was perturbed accordingly. with pensive face she went into the study, wearing the long blue over-all in which edward caspar had first seen her. her husband stood in his shirt-sleeves, pipe in mouth, a loose, round-shouldered figure, splashing away with vague enthusiasm at a canvas in the sunny bow-window. she realized in a moment that she had caught him in one of his rare uplifted moods. "ned," she said. "what-ho, my annie!" "your father's left us £ a year." he chuckled as he painted, one eye on the gleaming mystery of the downs. "been opening my letters, you burglar?" "the letter's to me." this time he turned, saw her face, and steadied. she offered him the envelope. he glanced at the address. "yes, it's to you all right. funny they didn't write to me." "won't you read it, ned?" she said gently. he skimmed the contents and winced. "that's all right, anne," he said, handing it back to her, and patting her hand. "the old man's been as good as his word--and better, by the amount of income tax." "such a way to do it and all," said anne censoriously. he pinched her arm. "perhaps it's for the best," he said. "and anyway, it doesn't much matter." if edward caspar was by no means sure of himself, he was sure beyond question of the woman life had given him. she lifted her face to his, and it was beautiful. "ned," she said; and he kissed her. book ii the two brothers chapter viii beachbourne the domesday book tells us that king edward the confessor held the manor of burne, and gave the endowment of the church of st. michael to the abbey of fecamp, along with the lordships of steyning and rye and winchelsea and other jewels from the crown of sussex; as all who have read mr. dudgeon's scholarly history of beachbourne will recall. harold cancelled the grant, with the result, so legend has it, that william the norman landed at pevensey just across the way to enforce restitution. in those days the parish of burne covered like a blanket the western promontory of the great bay. at each of the four corners of the blanket, holding it down as it were, was a rude hamlet. on the bourne itself a few hovels clustered round the wooden church upon the kneb; in coombe-in-the-cliff, carved out of the flank of beau-nez, was holy well, haunted by pilgrims from the continent; on the sea-front there was the wish, beneath which of old a roman dock had been; and further east was sea-gate with its fishing-station and the earth-work which guarded the entrance to the bay whose waters swept inland over what are now the levels to ratton and horsey and the borders of hailsham. in the reign of henry ii the norman church, much as we know it to-day, succeeded the crazy wooden building in which our saxon forefathers heard the word of the promise first brought to sussex by bishop wilfrith, who starting from the north, dared the perils of the forest, and somehow fought his way through brake and marsh and thicket, among wild beasts and wilder men, to the ancient roman settlement at chichester; thence to spread the news all along the high bleak coast-line on which at river-mouths and lagoon-like estuaries the saxon adventurers had gained a footing. till the nineteenth century the parish that lay scattered thus between the downs, the marshes, and the sea, changed but little, experiencing the ordinary vicissitudes of an english village. bishops made their visitations. rectors lived and died. outlaws sought sanctuary at the altar of the church above the moot, which was still the centre of the life of the little pastoral community. in the last half of the fourteenth century the massive tower was added which dominated the village as it dominates the town to-day; built perhaps as a thank-offering for the passing of the black death, which slew half the population, reduced the monks at michelham to five, and, with indiscriminating zeal, laid a clammy hand on the abbot of battle and prior of st. pancras, lewes; while giving rise to a wave of industrial unrest which a few years later sent the rebellious men of sussex londonwards behind the ragged banner of jack cade. in the proclamation repudiating the pope was read from the pulpit of the church upon the kneb; and ten years later the first outburst of puritanism stripped the consecrated building of many shrines, pictures, ornaments, as our historian has recently reminded us. the village thrilled to the threat of the spanish armada, and, what is more, prepared to meet it; the inhabitants having--time out of memory of man, we are told--a reputation, the outcome of experience and necessity, for dealing with the landings of forraine enemies. during the parliamentary troubles the squire of beachbourne was of course a stout-hearted royalist; and his friend the rector was brought up before the authorities on a charge of "malignancy." found guilty, he was removed from office; whereupon, as his brass quaintly reminds us, the gallant gentleman _mori maluit_--preferred to die. and it is on record that the parish was only saved from the ravages of civil war by the abominable condition of the roads of east sussex. perhaps the same factor told against the prosperity of the place. for, by the middle of the eighteenth century, beachbourne, as it was now called, had dwindled in population to a few hundred souls. later in the same century, about the time newhaven was born, it began to blossom out as a health resort. a celebrity or two discovered its remote charm. a peer succeeded the squire at the big house. behind the wish a row of sea-houses sprang into being on the front. but dr. russell of lewes and the prince regent, in turning the fishing-village of brightelmstone into fashionable brighton, ruined for the moment its rival under beau-nez. beachbourne had to wait its turn until the iron horse, running on an iron road, across country that not long since had been washed by tides, overcame with astounding ease the difficulties that teams of snorting oxen up to the hocks in mud had found insuperable. then, and only then, the four corners of the parish came together apace. the old bourne disappeared, the source of it in the moot under the church-crowned kneb now no more than a stagnant pond. and by the time of our story a city of tens of thousands of inhabitants had risen where men, still middle-aged, could recall meadows that swept down to the sea, the voice of the corn-crake harsh everywhere as they sauntered down water lane of evenings after church, and the last fight of the "gentlemen" and the revenue officers that took place on a desolate strip of shore to the sound of calling sea-birds, on the site of what is now the cecil hotel. chapter ix the two boys next time mr. trupp called at rectory walk, he marked that the familiar chocolate notice in the upper window had gone. he chaffed mrs. caspar in his grim way. "no more rooms to let, i see," he said. "no," the woman answered. "no more lies to have to tell just at present." she was in one of her tartest moods; and when he congratulated her on being through her troubles, she answered, "some of em. plenty more to follow. there'll be enough money for ned and me and the boys. that's one thing." "and a big thing too," said mr. trupp. "the biggest," admitted the woman surlily. "speaking worldly-wise, i don't say nay to that." after the birth of her second son, mr. trupp had told her that she would have no more children and she was glad: for her hands were going to be full enough throughout her life; so much the shrewd woman saw clearly. there was her husband; and there was her eldest son, ernie, who was his father over again. he had his father's face, his father's charm, his father's soft and generous heart; and, unless she was mistaken, other qualities of his father that were by no means so desirable. and the curious thing was that the characteristics which in her husband anne caspar secretly admired, only exasperated her in ernie. alf, the second son, whatever his faults, certainly did not trace them to his dad. he was as much his mother's child as ernie was his father's. and whether for that reason or because for years she had to wrestle for his miserable little life with the angel of death, his mother loved him with the fierce, protecting passion of an animal. "nobody but his mother could have saved him," mr. trupp told his wife. while mrs. caspar said to the same lady, "but for mr. trupp he wouldn't be here." a proud woman, mrs. caspar was also a very lonely one. her genuine pride in her rather ramshackle husband--his birth, his breeding, his obvious air of a gentleman--which evinced itself in her almost passionate determination that he should dress himself "as such," prevented her from associating with her own class; and the women of her husband's class would not associate with her. mrs. trupp, the kindest of souls, was the solitary exception. but the two women were antipathetic. the doctor's wife, who possessed in full measure the noble toleration that marks the best of her kind, was forced to admit to her conscience, that she could not bring herself to like mrs. caspar. the large and beautiful nature of the former, brought to fruition in the sunshine and shelter of a cultivated home, could not understand the harsh combativeness of the daughter of the small tobacconist, who had fought from childhood for the right to live. "she's like a wolf," mrs. trupp told her husband. "even with her children." "my dear," said the wise doctor, "she's had to snap to survive. you haven't. others have done your snapping for you." "she needn't snap and snarl at that dear, gentle husband of hers," retorted mrs. trupp. "if she didn't," replied her husband drily, "she'd be a widow in a week." "anyway she might be kind to that eldest boy," continued mrs. trupp, who at edward caspar's request had stood sponsor to ernie. "he's beautiful, and such breeding. a true beauregard." "what d'you make of the baby?" asked her husband with sudden interest. "why, he's like a little rat," answered mrs. trupp. "he's the only baby i've ever seen i didn't want to handle." "yet there's something in him," replied the other thoughtfully. "he wouldn't have lived else. a touch of old man caspar about that child somewhere. _he'll_ bite all right if he lives to be a man." and to the doctor's shrewd and seeing eye it was clear from the start that alfred meant to live to be a man. somewhere in the depths of his wretched little body there glowed a spark that all the threats and frosts of a hostile nature failed to extinguish. on that spark his mother blew with a tenacity surpassing words; mr. trupp blew in his wise way, working the bellows of science with the easy skill of the master-workman; little ernie, most loving of children, blew too. even edward caspar leaned over the cot in his quilted dressing gown and said, "he's coming on." but even as he leant, the sensitive fellow knew that there was not and could never be any bond between him and his youngest born. his heart was with ernie. and the way his mother rebuffed the elder lad, only endeared him the more to his father. the two lads grew: ernie strong in body, loving in heart, lacking in will; alf ardent of spirit, ruthless as a stoat upon the trail, and rickety as an old doll. there was a first-rate elementary school in old town to which the two boys went when the time came. the headmaster, mr. pigott, was also manager of the chapel in the moot which mrs. caspar attended regularly. the hard woman was religious in the common puritan way, so dear to the english lower-middle-class of her generation. her chapel and her god were both a great deal to the austere woman, especially the former. she had a stern and narrow moral code of her own which she mistook for love of christ. from that code she never departed herself, and punished to the utmost of her power all those who did depart from it. in a chapel of her own denomination she had insisted on being married, in spite of the fact that she risked by her obstinacy losing the only man she had ever loved. ned caspar, for his part, took his religion, as most of us do, from his mother. he was high church at a time when to be so was far less fashionable than it is at present. he called himself a catholic, and spoke always of the mass in a way that shocked his fellow-churchmen who were in those days still content to speak of themselves as protestants and the sacramental act as holy communion. and after marriage he maintained his position with a far greater tenacity than most would have expected of the soft-willed man. indeed, it was the one point on which, aided by his mother's memory, he stood up to his wife for long. "i'll wear you down yet, my son," anne told him grimly. "may as well come off the perch now as later." in this one matter her taunts served only, so it seemed, to strengthen her husband's resistance. he went white, shook, perspired, and continued to attend high mass at st. michael's, in spite of his growing distaste for the man who administered it--his neighbour, prebendary willcocks, across the road. a far wiser woman than she seemed, mrs. caspar recognized her mistake, desisted from her original line of attack, and let her husband go his own way for a time without protest--as the cat permits the mouse a little liberty. when she began to take the children to chapel with her, she said--and anne caspar could be beautiful upon occasion-- "ned, i wish you'd come along with me and the boys sometimes. i do feel it so that we never worship in common." that was the beginning of the end of his resistance. he became an occasional attendant at the chapel, if he could never bring his aesthetic spirit, seeking everywhere for colour, harmony and form, to become a professed member of the rather dreary little community. and later, for quite other reasons, he dropped st. michael's entirely. but for twenty years after he had ceased to call himself a member of the church of england, often of sunday afternoons in the spring and summer he would take the train to london bridge, and wander east on the top of a dawdling bus, to find himself, about the time most churches close their doors, outside st. jude's in commercial street, the "chuckers in" already busy at their work among the street-roughs and fighting factory girls. edward caspar was not a "chucker-in" himself; but when the quiet doorkeeper of the house of the lord opened it at . he was of the first to enter the lighted church, the side-aisles of which were darkened that tramp and prostitute might sit there unnoticed and unashamed. and in that motley assembly of hooligans from the east end, of respectable artisans from streets drab as their inmates, of intellectuals from toynbee hall, and occasional visitors from the west end, he would join in that irregular and beautiful hour of worship, of song, silent meditation, solos on organ or violin, extempore prayer, readings from mazzini, maurice, ruskin, and carlyle, that made him and others dream of that society of the redeemed which in days to come should gather thus, without priest or ceremonial, simply to rejoice together in the blessing of a common life and universal father. chapter x old and new edward caspar went occasionally to chapel in order to gratify his wife. he ceased attending church because his always growing spirit, intensely modern and aspiring in spite of its inherent weakness, no longer found satisfaction in the ornate ritual, the quaint mediæval formulæ, the iterations and reiterations of the sacerdotalism which had held his mother in its grip. as a student of comparative religion his intellect was still interested in forms which his seeking mind had long rejected as empty, ludicrous, or inadequate. his reading for his book, his experience of life, and most of all an inner urge, led him in time to look for the spiritual comfort that was his most vital need outside the walls of the consecrated prison in which he had been bred. _quia fecisti nos ad te cor nostrum inquietum est donec requiscat in te_ was the motto that hung above his writing-desk. and his restless heart found increasingly its peace sometimes in music, sometimes amid the hum of men and women in the crowded streets of the east end of the town, and most often in quiet communion with nature on the downs or beside the sea in some gap far from the haunts of men. he would ramble the lonely hills by the hour, lost in thought, ernie skirmishing about him. sometimes mr. trupp, riding with his little daughter up there between the sky and sea, would meet the couple. "like a bear and a terrier, bess," he would smile. then in some secluded valley, father and son would lie down in the "loo" of the hill, as ernie called it. resting there with contented spirits amid the gorse, they would watch the gulls, white-winged and desolately crying over the plough, while the larks purred above them. these were the best moments of ernie's childhood, never to pass from him in the tumult and battle of later life. a child of the earth, even his tongue, touched with the soft slur of sussex caught from school-mates, betrayed him for a countryman. he loved the feel of the turf solid beneath him; he loved the sound of the gorse-pods snapping in the sun; he loved the thump of the sea crashing on the beach far below; and most of all he loved the larks pouring comfort into the cistern of his mind until it too seemed to brim with the music of praise. "loving, idn't they?" he would say in his sweet little voice, his hands behind his head, his eyes on a speck of song thrilling in the blue. "that's it, boy-lad," his father's answer would come from beneath the cavern of his hat; and edward caspar forthwith would repeat, in a voice that seemed to co-ordinate the harmonies of earth and sky and sea, wordsworth's _lines above tintern abbey_: _... that serene and blessed mood, in which the affections gently lead us on,-- until, the breath of this corporeal frame and even the motion of our human blood almost suspended, we are laid asleep in body, and become a living soul:_ alf never came on these excursions. the bent of the two brothers was indeed entirely different. if they left the house together, as often as not they parted at the garden-gate. ern turned his face towards the green hills that blocked the end of the road, alf turned his back on them. "nothin doin there," he would say with a knowing wink. he hated walking, and he feared the loneliness of the hills. his heart was in the east end of the growing town. down there, beyond the gas-works, at the edge of the levels, where the trams clanged continually, where you heard strange tongues, and saw new types of faces, alf found himself. the little urchin, who seemed all eyes in a hideous square head, would wander by the hour in sea-gate, among the booths and barrows, drinking in the life about him, and return home at night tired but contented. in bed the two boys would compare their experiences. "what did you see?" ern would ask. "everythink," alf would answer. "folks and a fight and all." "i see something, too," said ernie, deliberate alike of speech and mind. "what then?" asked alf, scornfully. "i see angels," ernie answered. "dad see em too." but alf only sniggered. at that time old town hung, as it were, between the past and the future. it had not shaken off the one, and yet could not resist the other. beneath it was new town, a growing industrial city, absorbing workers of every kind from every quarter; stretching back from the sea to rodmill and overrunning the marshes at an incredible speed; with the slums, the sunday agitators, the salvationists and reformers, the rumble of discontent, that mark the cities of our day. beyond it lay the immemorial countryside with shepherds on the hills, oxen ploughing in the valleys, villages clustered about the village-green, the squire, the public-house, the parish-church as in the days of elizabeth. old town still slept upon its hill about the parish-church, but the murmur of the ungainly offspring at its feet disturbed slumbers that had endured for centuries. in its steep streets you might hear the undulating sussex tongue, little changed from saxon times, clashing in vain conflict with the aggressive cockney phrase and accent which is conquering the british isles as surely, if as slowly, as did the english of the men of the elbe in by-gone days. ernie was of the older life; alf of the new. their very speech betrayed them: for the elder boy's tongue was touched with the slow, cawing music of the shepherds and labourers with whom he loved to consort, while alf's was the speech of a city rat, sharp, incisive, twanging. in the holiday ern worked on the hill in the harvest, and was known to all the men and most of the animals at the moot farm, just across the lewes road. once, in the early spring, he passed the night out in shadow coombe, and came home fearfully just before school. his mother was shaking the mat at the front-door. "where you been then?" she asked ferociously. "with the shepherd in his hut," answered ernie. "dis lambin time. his boy's run'd away." the lad's manifest truthfulness disarmed the angry woman. alf peeped round his mother's skirts. "did he give you anythink?" he asked. "i didn't ask him for nohun," ern answered, aggrieved. alf sneered. "fat 'ead!" he cried. "aynt arf soft, ern aynt!" their father, dressing at the upper window, heard the conversation and agonized. tolerant as was edward caspar of grammatical solecisms, his ear, sensitive as lady blanche's, writhed at the mangling of vowels by his second son. his wife, who came from the bucks border of the great city on the thames, had indeed the cockney phrase but not the offending accent. when he came downstairs, in a moment of despair, he poured his troubles into anne's unsympathetic ear. "what a way to talk!" he groaned. "i don't see it matters," his wife answered grimly. "_they_ aren't going to harrow and trinity." the big man winced. it was a real grief to him that his sons were not to have in life the advantages that he believed himself to have been given. "you needn't throw that up at me," he grumbled into his brown beard. she put her hand on his shoulder. her husband was the only creature in the world to whom anne caspar sometimes demonstrated affection. "and a good job, too, i says," she observed. "they got to work." words that gave unconscious witness to the estimate she and her class held of their rulers and their education. chapter xi the study instead then of going to the preparatory-school, the public-school, and the university in which their father had sought to learn the art of useful citizenship, the two lads attended on week-days the board-school in the hollow between the church and rodmill. new amid much that was old, it reared its gaunt red head above a crowd of workmen's cottages which stood on ground still called the moot, where of old, under the kneb, beside the bourne, the saxon folk from hill and wold and marshy level gathered about the moot-tree to discuss affairs, deal justly between man and man and proclaim the common will. mr. pigott, a short, shrewd, bearded man, with a merry grey eye, swift to wrath, was the headmaster as he was manager of the chapel. thoroughly efficient in a day when the gospel of efficiency had been little preached, he managed chapel and school admirably. the boys attended both. alf was always at the head of his class, ern never anywhere in particular. as mr. pigott told the boys' mother, ern had plenty of brains, but he didn't care to use them. "he's a little gentleman though--like his father," ended the schoolmaster. mr. pigott was on the whole less of a snob than most of us. as an honest radical he scorned rank, perhaps a little ostentatiously; while money was very little to him. but for the mysterious quality of breeding he had the respect the roughest of us confess in the presence of something finer than ourselves. and on the rare occasions in which mr. edward caspar had been induced to deliver an address at the new institute he would say to his teaching staff in awed voice--"there's english for you! don't you wish you could talk like that...?" now his comparison of her son to her husband provoked mrs. caspar as it never failed to do. "that's all very well if you can afford it," she commented acridly. "but ern's got to make his own way in the world." "he'll do," said mr. pigott. "he won't be forgotten, you'll see. he's a good lad, and that's something even in these days." and if ernie was not a success in the schoolroom, in the playground he excelled. like his father in being universally popular, he was unlike him in his marked athletic capacity. true, he was always in trouble for slacking with the masters, who none the less were fond of him; while alf, the most assiduous of youths, was disliked by everybody and gloried in it. he won all the gilt-edged prizes, while ern took the canings. alf reported his brother's misdoings gleefully at home. "ern got it again," he crowed jubilantly one evening. "they fairly sliced him, didn't they, ern?" his recollections of the scene were so spicy that--for once--he was dreadfully affectionate to the brother who had given him such prurient pleasure. "ern in trouble of course!" cried the mother angrily. "you needn't tell me! a nice credit to his home and all! i'm ashamed to look mr. pigott in the face come sunday!' "now then, mother!" grumbled mr. caspar. "let the boy alone!" "yes, you're always for him!" flared mrs. caspar, buttering the bread. "setting him against his mother! but for you he'd be all right." alf sat like a little wizened devil at the end of the table in his high chair, his eyes twinkling malignantly over his bib, enjoying the fun. "it's him and ern against you and me, mum, ayn't it?" he cried, shuffling on his seat. whether it was his son's accent or a sense of the tragic truth underlying his child's words, that affected him, mr. caspar rose and shuffled out of the kitchen into the study, which was looked on in the family as dad's sanctuary. the scene had taken place in the kitchen at tea, which was the one meal the family shared. breakfast, dinner, supper, edward caspar had by himself in the little back room looking out on the fig-tree; and mrs. caspar waited on him. that was by her desire, not his: for from the start of their married life anne had determined that, so far as in her lay, her husband should have everything just as he was accustomed to. thus from earliest infancy the children had been taught by their mother to understand that the two sitting-rooms were sacred to dad, and never to be entered except by permission. their place was the kitchen. she herself set the example by always knocking on the door of either room before entering. and the atmosphere of these two rooms was radically different from that of the rest of the house. anne knew it and rejoiced. everywhere else the tobacconist's daughter reigned obviously supreme. these rooms were the habitat of a scholar and a gentleman. the little back-room, indeed, was remarkable for little but the solidity of its few articles of furniture, and the old silver salver with the crest, reposing on the mahogany side-board. but the front sitting-room, with the bow-window looking out on to beech-hangar and the long spur of the downs that hid beau-nez from view, was known in the family as the study, and looked what it was called. the room, flooded with sunshine, was mrs. caspar's secret pride. she knew very well that there was nothing quite like it in beachbourne, old or new, and preserved it jealously. she did not understand it, much preferring her own kitchen, but she recognized that it stamped her husband for what he was, admired its atmosphere of distinction, and loved showing it to her rare visitors. on these occasions she stood herself in the passage, one arm of steel barring the door, like a priest showing the sanctuary to one without the pale. and it gave her malicious pleasure when canon willcocks, from the rectory, opposite, calling one day, showed surprise, not untinged with jealousy, at what he was permitted to see. the canon clearly thought it unseemly that lazarus living at the rectory gate should boast a room like that. and he was seriously annoyed when anne, pointing to the cavalier upon the wall, referred to the first lord ravensrood as "my children's ancestor." on the evening of the squabble in the kitchen, ernie joined his father in the study after tea. as alf was fond of remarking, "ern's welcome there if no one else ayn't." edward caspar was sitting by the fire as usual, brooding over the meerschaum he was colouring. his manuscript lay where it usually lay on the chair at his side, and a critical eye would have noted that it was little thicker than when mr. trupp had first seen it some years before. "ain't you well then, dad?" asked the boy in his beautiful little treble. "i'm all right, boy-lad," the other answered. "mother didn't touch you, did she?" there was something reassuring always about ernie's manner with his father, as of a woman dealing with a sick child. "no," he replied. "she said i was to come to you." "why were you caned at school?" asked the father, after a pause. the boy's eyes were down, and he scraped the floor with one foot. "fighting," he said at last reluctantly. "where it were, alf sauce aaron huggett in de playground, and aaron twist alf's arm. allowed he'd had more'n enough of alf's lip. and he wouldn't leggo. so i paint his nose for him. and it bled." edward caspar puffed. "why don't you let alfred fight his own battles?" steadfast to the tradition of his own class in this matter if in no other, he revolted against the common abbreviation of his younger son's name. "alf fight!" cried ernie with rare scorn. "he couldn't fight no-hows. d'isn't in him. he'd just break." "then why does he sauce em?" ernie resumed his foot scraping. "that's what i says to him," he admitted in his slow ca-a-ing speech. "only where it seems he ca'an't keep his tongue tidy. seems he ca'an't elp issalf like. then he gets into trouble. then i avs to fight for him." "and if you don't fight for him no one else will?" said his father. "no," replied ernie with the delightful reluctance of innocence and youth. "see no one do'osn't like alf--only issalf." he added as a slow after-thought, "and i be his brother like." edward caspar held out a big hand. ern saw his father was pleased, he didn't know why; and he was glad. in ern's estimation there was no one in the world like dad--the kind, the comforter. once indeed in sunday-school, some years before, when mr. pigott had been expatiating on the character of our lord, the silence had been broken by the voice of a very little lad, "my dad's like that." chapter xii alf shows his colours in fact, as ernie said, the two were brothers, and in some sort complementary. ern had to the full the chivalrous qualities of the beauregards. he never forgot that he was alf's elder brother, or that alf was a poor little creature with a chest in which mr. trupp took an abnormal interest. he fought many battles, bore many blows for his young brother. alf took it all as a matter of course, regarding himself as a little god whom ernie was privileged to serve and suffer for. ern accepted the other's constant suggestion of superiority without revolt, and took the second place with the lazy good-nature characteristic of him. ern indeed was nothing of a leader. in all the adventurous vicissitudes of boy-life the initiative lay with alf, who planned the mischief; while ern, obedient to his brother, for whose brains he had the profoundest admiration, carried it out and paid the penalty, as a rule uncomplainingly, at home and abroad. old town was now creeping west along the foot of the downs towards lewes. on its outskirts and in the corn-fields where are to-day rows of red-brick villas, were still to be found flint cottages, long blue-roofed barns, and timbered farmsteads among elms. as little by little the town, with its border of allotment gardens, flooded along the new road, sweeping up rodmill and brimming over towards ratton and the decoy on the edge of the marshes, these buildings that dated from another age were gradually diverted from their pristine use to be the habitations of those who no longer drew their living from the earth. thus in the house which had once been the huntsman's lodge, beside the now abandoned kennels, lived mr. pigott--one foot in the country, as he said, one in the town. every morning he walked across the foot-path, past moot farm, to school. mr. pigott's house stood in a hollow coombe a long way back from the road. the gorse-clad sides of the down rose steeply at the back of it. in front was an orchard in which a walnut-tree lorded it, conspicuous over the lesser trees. it was towards the end of their school time, when ern was nearly fourteen, that alf planned a raid upon this tree, famous in the locality for its beauty and fruitfulness. the adventure needed careful thinking out. the approach to the house was along an unscreened path that led across the arable land. between the path and the house was the orchard in which stood the tree with its coveted treasure. the trouble was that mrs. pigott's window overlooked the orchard, and she was always in that window--so much alf, in his many reconnaissances of the position, discovered. now it was well known in the school that mrs. pigott had but one eye, and that of glass, which accounted perhaps for its extraordinary powers of vision. and besides mrs. pigott with her one sharp eye, there was mrs. pigott's little dog with his many sharp teeth. there was also in the background mr. pigott, who, outside the chapel, was athletic and regrettably fierce. alf waited long for his opportunity, in terror lest the tree should be beaten before he had worked his will upon it, but his chance came at last. one saturday afternoon he and ern were loitering in church street, marching along with the starts and stops, the semi-innocent and semi-surreptitious manner of boys waiting for satan to enter into them and prompt them to definite action, when alf dug his brother with a warning elbow. mrs. pigott was staring with her glass eye into the ironmonger's opposite the church. on her arm was a basket and at her feet her dog. it was clear that she was doing her week-end shopping. alf, swift to seize his opportunity, set off up the hill, hot-foot, silent, with a bustle of arms and legs, his brow puckered as he concentrated ruthlessly upon his purpose. ern followed the fierce, insistent, little figure more leisurely. "steady on!" he called. "where away then?" "walnut-tree," panted alf. "now's yer chance." ern, who knew from experience that the dirty and dangerous work would fall to his lot, lagged. "mr. pigott's there," he grumbled. "now he ayn't then," cried alf, spurring the laggard on. "he's gone over to lewes for the conference. didn't you hear mother at breakfast?" there had been in truth a split in the chapel. the established methodists were breaking away from the foundation methodists, and the primitive methodists were thinking of following suit. the little community was therefore a tumult of warring tongues. alf led up the hill, past the chalk-pit, along the side of the downs, and dropped down on his objective from the rear. coming to the fence that ran round the orchard, he peeped at the low house lying in the background under the green flank of the hill. ern followed reluctantly, as one drawn to his doom by a fate he cannot withstand. he wanted the walnuts; he wanted to be brave; but he liked mr. pigott, and, usually obedient to his brother's suggestions, had qualms in this case. "go on then!" urged alf. it was a favourite phrase of his. "there ayn't no one there." "come on yourself," answered ern without enthusiasm. "now, i'll stay and watch the path for you against her," piped alf. but for once ern was firm. "i aren't a-gooin unless you cooms too," he said doggedly. "what's the good of me, then?" scoffed alf in his fierce and feverish way. "can i climb the tree? only wish i could. i'd show you. i suppose you'll be throwin that up at me next! my belief you're afraid." but ernie was not to be moved from the position which he had taken up. just now and then alf had remarked that his brother for all his softness became hard--adamant indeed--in a way that rather frightened alf. "i'll goo up the tree and shake em down to you," ern said in his slow, musical voice. "you stand at the foot of her and gather em." "fine!" jeered alf. "and when mr. pigott comes out you'll be up the tree safe as dysies, and i'll be on the floor for him to paste!" "i thart you said he'd gone to lewes," retorted ern, unusually alert. "so he has," replied alf sourly. "only i suppose he won't stay there for ever, will he?" ern, however, was proof against all the other's logic; and finally the two boys climbed the fence together. the walnut was a majestic tree, with boughs that dropped almost to the ground, making a splendid pavilion of green. ern swarmed the tree. alf stood at the foot, sheltered by the drooping branches. thus he could watch the house, while nobody in the house could see anything of him but a pair of meagre black legs. he was fairly safe and knew it, but even so his heart pattered, he bit his nails continually, and kept a furtive eye on the line of his retreat. "hurry!" he kept on calling. ern, up aloft, went to work like a man. he tossed the branches to and fro. the ripe walnuts came rattling down. alf, underneath, gathered rich harvest. he filled his pockets, his cap, his handkerchief. opening his shirt, he stuffed the brown treasure into his bosom and grew into a portly urchin who rattled when he moved. "i got nigh a bushel!" he cried keenly. "throw your coat down, and i'll fill the pockets!" the little devil darted to and fro, tumbling spiderlike upon the falling riches, absorbed in accumulation. his heart and eyes burned. there was money in this--money. and money was already taking its appointed place in alf's philosophy. he would sell the nuts at so much a pound--some wholesale to a fruiterer he knew in the remote east end; some retail to his schoolfellows. the quality and quantity of the loot so absorbed him that he forgot his fears. and when he glanced up through the screen of thick branches to see a pair of grey-stockinged legs, thick and formidable to a degree, advancing upon the tree with dreadful deliberation, his heart stopped. the enemy was on them. alf emptied handkerchief, pockets, cap: he emptied himself by a swift ducking motion that sent the treasure heaped against his heart pouring forth with a rattle about his neck and head and ears. then he cast fearful eyes to the rear. it was thirty yards to the fence and beyond there was but the unscreened path without a scrap of cover, leading across the plough, past the moot farm and abandoned kennels to the new road. alf saw at a glance that escape was impossible. mr. pigott, for all his forty years, could sprint. swift as a cornered rat, alf made his decision. he marched out from his shelter towards the approaching legs, a puny little creature with pale peaked face, and ern's coat flung over his arm. mr. pigott was advancing, very grim and grey, across the rough grass, his hands behind him, dragging something. he seemed in no hurry, and not in the least surprised to see alf, whom he ignored. "please, sir," said alf, perking his face up with an air of frankness, "there's a boy up your tree. here's his coat." mr. pigott walked slowly on, drawing behind him a sixty-foot hose, which issued like a white snake from the scullery window. "i know," he said with suppressed quiet. "and i know who set him on to it. i can't beat you because you'd break if i touched you. but i'll take your brother's skin off him though he's twice the man you are, you dirty little cur!" he brought the hose to bear on the brigand in the tree, and loosed the water-spout and the vials of his wrath together. "ah, you young scoundrel!" he roared, finding joy in explosive self-expression. "i'll teach you come monkeying after my nuts!" swish went the stream of water through the branches. ern hid as best he could on the leeward side of the trunk. mr. pigott brought his artillery mercilessly to bear upon the boy's clasping hands. ern, spluttering and sprawling, came down the tree with a rush and made a bolt for the fence. mr. pigott, roaring jovially, played the stream full on him. it was a powerful gush, and floored the boy. the avenger knew no mercy and drenched his victim as he lay. it was a sodden little figure who crept home disconsolately ten minutes later. alf had been back some time and had already told his tale, gibbering with excitement and fear. ern's mother, in a white fury, was awaiting the boy in the kitchen. "i'll learn you disgrace me!" she cried. "robbing your own chapel-manager's orchard--and then come home like a drownded rat!" she set about the lad in good earnest. alf, perched upon the dresser to be out of the way, watched the fun, biting his nails. "you mustn't hit her back then!" he screamed. "your own mother!" "i aren't hittin' her back then!" cried ern, dogged, dazed, and warding off the blows as best he might. "i'm only defendin of mesalf." the noise of the scuffle was considerable. outside in the passage was the sound of slippered feet. then some one tried the door. "it's only dad!" cried the devil on the dresser, white and with little black eyes that danced. "what's up?" called an agitated voice from outside. "hold on, mother! give the boy a chance." some one rattled the door. "go about your business!" cried mrs. caspar. "there's a pair of you!" her anger exhausted and shame possessing her, she was going out into the yard to shelter herself in the little shed against the workhouse wall, when alf's sudden scream stayed her. "mum!--down't leave me!--he'll kill me!" she turned to mark a white flare burning in the face of her elder son. she had seen it before and had been afraid. when ern looked like that he ceased to be ern: he became transfigured--yes, and terrible: like, she sometimes thought, the cavalier in the picture must have been in anger. "take them sopping duds off," she said quietly, "and then go up and put your sundays on." half an hour later ern, wearing dry clothes, entered the study. he was sweet, smiling, and a thought abashed. his father, on the other hand, evinced signs of terrible emotion. his face was mottled, and he was shaking. wrapped in his dressing-gown, he stood before the fire, trying pitifully to preserve his dignity, and moving uneasily from leg to leg like a chained elephant. "did she hurt you?" he asked, seeking to steady his voice. ern shook his head. "she laid about me middlin tidy," he admitted. "but she didn't not to say hurt me. she don't know how--a woman don't. too much flusteration along of it." edward caspar collapsed into a chair. "what happened?" he asked. ern recounted the story truthfully, the white glimmer in his face coming and going between pants as he told. "why d'you let him lead you astray?" asked the father irritably, at the end. ern wagged his head slowly and began to scrape once more with his foot. "alf's artfuller nor me!" he said at last in a shamefaced way. chapter xiii alf makes a remark both boys turned up at sunday-school next morning: alf defiant, ern abashed. mr. pigott ignored the former, snubbed him brutally when occasion offered, and showed himself benignant to the prime sinner. after chapel mrs. caspar spoke to him. "i don't know what you think of my son, mr. pigott," she began. "which son?" asked the other in his bluff way. "why, ernie to be sure. he's always bringing shame upon me." "he's worth twice the other," cried mr. pigott, letting off steam. "ah, yes, you've got your favourites, mr. pigott!" retorted the woman. "and i'm not the only one!" answered the outraged schoolmaster. "ern's a boy. and boys will be boys, as we all know. but he's a little gentleman, ern is. he's his father over again." the comparison of ernie to his father, however well intentioned, always touched mrs. caspar on the raw. her eyes sparkled. every now and then she reminded you forcibly that her grandmother had lived in a by-street--off greyhound road, fulham. "ah," she muttered vengefully, "i'll cut his little liver out yet, you'll see." mr. pigott rounded on her, genuinely shocked. "and you a religious woman!" he cried. "shame on you!" "i don't care," answered mrs. caspar. "i see it coming. i always have. and it's just more than i can bear." mr. pigott did not understand the cause of the woman's emotion, but he recognized that it was genuine and so respected it. "well, he's leaving school now," he said more gently. "he'll settle down once he's got his nose to the grindstone." later, at the meeting of the bowling green committee, in the moot, the schoolmaster reported mrs. caspar's saying to mr. trupp. "she's a hard un," he commented. "she's need to be," growled the other. "what's that, doctor?" asked mr. pigott. "if she let go of him, he'd be dead in a month," mumbled mr. trupp. "mr. caspar would?" the doctor looked at the grey church-tower bluff against the sky. "but she won't let go," he added. "she's got her qualities." "she has," said mr. pigott, treading the green. "she's a diamond--as hard, as keen." the two always sparred when they met and loved their friendly bouts. both were radicals; but they had arrived at their convictions by very different routes. the schoolmaster had inherited his opinions from tough, dissenting ancestors, the man of science had acquired them from huxley and darwin. politics the pair rarely discussed, except at election time; for on that subject they were in rough agreement. but the two men wrangled genially over religion, the ethics of sport, even the two caspar boys; for mr. trupp was the one man in old town who alleged a preference for the younger boy--mainly, his wife declared, because he must be "contrary." mr. pigott now told the stubborn man almost with glee the story of alf's treachery. "what d'ye think of that now?" he asked defiantly. "why," grunted the doctor, "what i should expect." "of course," said the sarcastic mr. pigott. "he's got the faults of his physique," continued the other. "he's afraid of a thrashing because he knows it'd kill him. self-preservation is always the first law of life." "he's a little cur," said mr. pigott. "that's what your young alf is." "i've no doubt he is," replied the doctor. "you would be too if you'd got that body to live in." "i'd be ashamed," shouted the other. "i'd commit suicide offhand." "the wonder is he's alive at all," continued mr. trupp, quite unmoved. "must have some grit in him somewhere or he'd have died when he was born." "that's you and his mother," said the schoolmaster censoriously. "saving useless human material that ought to be scrapped. and you call yourself a man of science! in a properly ordered community you'd stand your trial at lewes assizes, the two of you--for adding to the criminal classes. now if we were back in the good old days, they'd have exposed alf at birth--and quite right, too." "quite so," said mr. trupp. "your christianity has a lot to answer for, as i've remarked before." it fell to mr. pigott to find a job of work for ernie when his favourite left school: for at that date there were no labour bureaux, no juvenile advisory committees, no attempt to make the most of the country's one solid asset--its youth. and the rich had not yet made their grand discovery of the last twenty-five years--that the poor have bodies; and that these bodies must be saved, even if it cost a little more than saving their souls, which can always be done upon the cheap. mr. pigott had little difficulty in his self-imposed task, for he did not mean to remain a schoolmaster all his life, and was already dabbling in the commercial life of the growing town. ernie started as an office-boy in a coal-merchant's office in cornfield road by the central station, which formed the junction between the old town and the new. before the boy embarked on his career, mr. pigott invited him to tea and lecture. "it's your own fault if you don't get on," said the schoolmaster aggressively after the muffins. "rests with yourself. office boy to president--like they do in america. make a romance of it." "i shall try, sir," cried era, with the easy enthusiasm characteristic of him. "i'll lay you won't, then!" retorted the other rudely. "i'll lay all the work i've put into you these ten years past goes down the drain. now your grandfather..." he stopped short, remembering mrs. caspar had told him that their origin had been kept from the two boys.... at his new job ern did not work very hard. it was not in him to do that; for he had his father's complete lack of ambition. but he worked just enough to keep his place, to pay his mother for his keep by the time he was seventeen, and have some "spending money," as he called it, over, with which to buy cigarettes, and join the cricket club. in time he even attained to the dignity of an office stool: for his handwriting was excellent, his ability undoubted, and his education as good as most. "ern don't lick the stamps no more. he writes the letters," was alf's report at home. the younger brother too had now launched out upon the world. but alf was very different from ern. he had his own ideas from the start and went his own way. somehow he had ferreted out the facts about his grandfather's career; and that career it was his deliberate determination to surpass. those were the early days of the motor industry and the petrol engine. alf made his mother apprentice him to hewson and clarke, an enterprising young engineering firm in the east end, off pevensey road. "no old town for me," he said knowingly. "new town's the bird!" and the boy worked with the undeviating energy of an insect. all day he was busy at the shop, and in the evening came home, grimy and tired, to have a wash and then settle down in the kitchen to study the theory of the petrol-engine. his mother, ambitious as her son, watched him with admiration, guarding his hours of study jealously from interruption. "he's his grand-dad over again," she confided to her husband in one of their rare moments of intimacy. edward caspar shook his head. he was interested in his second son, although in his heart of hearts he disliked the boy. he disliked ambitious men--their restlessness, their unhappy egoism, their incapacity to give themselves to any cause from which they would not reap personal advantage, offended his spiritual sense; and he followed with amused benevolence the careers of his contemporaries at harrow and trinity who were reaping now the fruits of orthodoxy, and just becoming cabinet ministers, bishops, judges, and the like. "alf hasn't got my father's physique," he said. "you wait," anne replied. "he'll conquer that too. last time mr. trupp saw him he said he'd do now--if he took care." ern watched his brother's feverish activities with ironical smiles. "he's like a little engine himself," he said. "no time to look around and take a little pleasure in life. all the while a-running along the lines--puff-puff-puff!--with his nose to the ground. not knowin where he's goin or why; only set on getting somewhere, he don't know where, some day, he don't know when." himself he preferred the leisurely life, and was known among his friends as gentleman ernie. the office, which prided itself upon its tone, for in it worked a youth who said he had been at a public school, had taken the country accent off his tongue. ern was indeed a bit of a dandy now, who oiled his hair, and took an interest in his ties; while alf never spent a penny on his clothes, was always shabby, and seldom clean. the dapper young clerk and the grimy little mechanic, on the rare occasions when they appeared in the streets together, formed a marked contrast, of which ernie at least was aware. "you'd never know em for brothers," the passers-by would remark. both had arrived at the age when the young male joins a gang, curious about women, but inclining to be suspicious of them. alf, however, strong in himself, continued on his prickly and independent way. he was not drawn to others, nor were others drawn to him. companionable ern, on the other hand, who was everybody's friend, was absorbed into a gang; but he was different from his gang-mates. he used less hair-oil than they did, and wore more modest ties. moreover, there was nothing of the hooligan about him. "such a gentlemanly lad," said mrs. trupp. "that's his father coming out in him." "may the resemblance end there," muttered mr. trupp. the lady speared her husband on the point of her needle. "croakie!" she remarked. ern could have been a leader among his mates, had he chosen to assume authority. his quiet, his distinction, his happy manner, and above all the fact that he was a promising cricketer and had made half a century on the frying pan at lewes for the sussex colts against the canterbury wanderers, marked him out. but ern would not lead. he spent his evenings in the main at home rather than in the lighted streets, and was at his happiest sitting in the study opposite his father. on these occasions the two rarely spoke, but they enjoyed a silent communion that was eminently satisfying to them both. just sometimes the father would touch the revolving book-case on his right; take out one of the little blue poetry books ern knew so well, and read _the scholar gypsy_ or _the happy warrior_. ern loved that, but he was far too indolent to pursue the readings himself. when his father had finished, he would return the book to its place and say, "you should read a bit yourself, boy-lad," and ern's invariable reply would be, "i will, dad, when i got the time." but ern was one of those who never had the time and never would have. then the two would relapse into smoke and silence and vague dreams, out of which edward caspar's voice would emerge, "where's alfred?" to which ern would answer with a faint smirk, "studyin in the kitchen." ern's tendency to be a masher, as the phrase of the day went, delighted mr. pigott. he looked on it as the best sign he had yet detected in the boy. "who's the lady, ern?" he chaffed, meeting the lad. the boy smiled shyly. at such moments, in spite of his plainness, he looked beautiful. "haven't got one, sir," he said. it was true, too. his attitude towards girls was unlike that of his mates. he neither chirped at them in the streets, nor avoided them aggressively, nor was self-conscious in their presence. he was always friendly with them, even affectionate; but he went no farther. some of the old town maidens wished he would. but, in fact, this was not ern's weakness. the destroyer, who lies in wait to undo us all, if we give him but a crevice through which to creep into our citadel, was taking the line of least resistance, as he does in every case. there began to be rumours in old town. his father's weakness, known to all, lent these rumours wing. in churchy beachbourne, as the enemy called the town by reason of the number and variety of its consecrated buildings, people were swift to believe, eager to hand on their beliefs. prebendary willcocks--which was his proper title--or canon willcocks--as he had taught the locality to call him--who had reasons of his own for disliking edward caspar, heard and shook his aristocratic head, repeating the rumour to all and sundry in a lowered voice. the lady augusta willcocks, that indefatigable worker in the parish for god and the tory party, entirely lacking in her husband's delicate feeling, echoed it resonantly. mr. pigott was honestly aghast. "never!" he cried, and added--"god help him if his mother hears!" he was so genuinely concerned indeed that he went round to rectory walk to find out by indirect examination if mrs. caspar had heard. she had; and was distraught. "if he takes to that, i'll turn him out of the house!" she cried savagely. "straight i will!" and there was no question that she meant what she said. "the best way to make trouble is to meet it half-way," muttered the schoolmaster, cowed for once by the woman's terrible emotion. "give the boy a chance--even if he is your own son." "alf says he was blind at the match," the other answered doggedly. "alf!" scoffed mr. pigott, savage in his turn. "i wouldn't care that what alf says about his brother. i know your alf." "and i don't then," said mrs. caspar. "i try to keep it fair between em--for all what folks may say different." that evening mr. pigott met alf in church street. the schoolmaster stopped, holding with his eye the youth in the stained blue overall. alf approached him delicately, with averted face and a sly smile. it was clear that he courted the encounter. mr. pigott came to the point at once. "how's ern?" he boomed in a voice of challenge. alf dropped his eyes. "beg pardon, sir," he said, "our ern's goin the same way as dad." mr. pigott gazed at him as one stupefied. then in a flash he understood ... mr. trupp was right. the boy was abnormal: his spirit dwarfed and stunted by the miserable tenement in which it was forced to dwell. this sudden peep into one of the sewers of nature, this illumination of what before had been to him obscure, this swift suggestion of evil lurking obscenely in the dusk to leap on the unwary, brought him up abruptly. his anger passed for the moment. something between fear and pity laid hold of him. "i suppose you're glad," he said quietly. alf smiled that satyr-like smile of his, sickly and uncertain. "ah, you never did like me, mr. pigott!" he sneered. "i don't," answered mr. pigott. "i never did. but i'm beginning to understand you. you're possessed." he went on down the street and called at the manor-house. mrs. trupp was, he knew, a staunch friend of ernie's. the lady was playing with her children in the garden. but she gave both her ears to her visitor when she knew his errand. had she heard anything? mrs. trupp coloured. she _had_ heard something which greatly perturbed her pure and beautiful spirit. her joe, home from rugby, had reported that on the way back from a match at lewes ernie caspar had taken a drop which had made him funny. "it was only a little," the lady ended. "joe said it wasn't enough to make an ordinary canary queer. but it upset ernest for the moment." mr. pigott marched on down the hill to the railway station. it was shutting-up time, and the object of his concern was just leaving the office. mr. pigott unceremoniously seized the boy by the hand. "for god's sake take a pull, ern!" he said, most seriously. ernie looked up surprised, read the distress in the other's bearded face, and burned one of those sudden white flares of his. "i see!" he said. "alf's been at it again!" and he broke away. swiftly he went home, passed the study door, and entered the kitchen. his mother was out. alf, his elbows on the table, and his chin on his hands, was studying a model-engine under the gas-light. he looked up surlily as ern entered. "keep out of it!" he ordered. "you've heard what mother says. the kitchen's mine at this time. i don't want you." "but i want you, my lad," answered ernie, brutal in his bitterness. he locked the door, and took off his coat. "been tellin the tale again!" he trembled, as he rolled up his sleeves. "i've had more'n enough of it. put em up! you're for it this journey!" alf had risen. he knew that look upon his brother's face, and was afraid. "you mustn't touch me!" he screamed, shaking a crooked finger at the other. "i'm delicit, i am." it was the ancient ruse which had stood him in good stead many a time at home and in the playground. "else you'll tell mother!" sneered ern. "very well. have it your own way!" he seized the model engine on the table, and smashed it down on to the floor. it lay at his feet, a broken mass, with spinning wheels. then ern unlocked the door and went out. at supper that evening he was still burning his white flare. alf saw it and was cowed; mrs. caspar saw it too and held her peace. edward caspar was, as always, away in the clouds and aware of nothing unusual when he looked in to say good-night. chapter xiv evil alf took no overt steps to avenge himself. like old polonius he went round to work, lying in wait for the chance he knew would come. he had not to wait long. on the august bank holiday there was a big dance at the rink in cornfield road. ern attended. he danced well and was sought after as a partner. alf went too. ern was surprised to see his brother there, and pleased: for it was not in his nature to bear malice long. "hullo, alf!" he chaffed. "didn't know you was a dancing-man. let me find you a partner then." alf shook his head, smiling that shifty smile of his. "i ain't," he said. "i only come to watch." that was true; but the words carried no sinister meaning to ern's innocent ear. alf watched. he sat by himself on one of the faded plush-seats that went round the hall. nobody spoke to him, nobody heeded him. the seats on either side of him were left vacant. sour, shabby, ill at ease, yet sure of himself, he watched with furtive eyes the flow of boys and girls swirling by him in the dance. one of ern's friends pointed his brother out to him. "i know," laughed ern. "let him alone. he don't want us. he's above larking, alf is." "never seen him at a hop before," remarked the friend. "and now he don't look happy." the evening was hot, the dancers thirsty, the drinks good. alf observed his brother go to the bar once, twice, and again. then he rose to go home, nodding to himself. ern passed him in the dance and stopped. "what, alf! you're off early!" "i got a bit of reading to do," answered alf. "so long, then," said ernie. "shan't be long first myself." and he joined the current again, with flushed face and loquacious tongue. it was just ten when alf entered the kitchen. his father had already retired to bed; his mother was sitting up. "you're late," she remarked sharply. "where's ern?" "heard em say he was at the rink," alf answered sheepishly. mrs. caspar's face darkened. the puritan in her rose in arms. "dancing?" she asked. alf feigned uneasiness. "i'll stay and let him in," he said. "he mayn't be back yet a bit." mrs. caspar took her candle. regular as a machine, she rose always at six, and expected to be in bed by ten. anything that disturbed her routine she resented, surly as an animal. "let me know when he comes in," she said. "i'll speak to him. keepin us up to all hours and disturbin dad's rest while he carries on. might be a disorderly house." she left the room. alf turned out the gas, and sat in the darkness, watching the dying fire, and waiting for his mouse. a crisis in his life had come. he was about to take the first big step along the road that was going to lead him to success or ruin. he was aware of it, and calm as a practised gambler. once he rose and locked the front door to make sure his brother could not enter without his knowledge. it was eleven o'clock when he heard feet outside. those feet told their own tale. alf turned up the light in the passage and opened the door. his brother lolled against the side-wall like a mortally wounded man. "take my arm, old chap," said alf, and supported his brother into the kitchen. ern sat down suddenly at the table. alf lit the gas. the light fell on his brother's foolish face and clearly irritated him. he put up his hand to brush it away. "arf a mo'," said alf soothingly, skipped light-footed upstairs, and knocked at his mother's door. she was half-undressed, brushing her hair, her neck and shoulders bare in the moonlight. alf glanced at them and even in that moment of excitement thought how beautiful they were. mrs. caspar raised a finger. her husband was in bed and apparently asleep, lady blanche upon the mantelpiece staring vacantly at the form of her recumbent son. "ern!" whispered alf, and jerked his head significantly. "you'd best come." anne caspar slipped on a wrap. candle in hand she descended the stairs and entered the kitchen. alf followed stealthily. like a gnome he stood in the shadow at the foot of the stairs, biting his nails uneasily, as he watched with lewd, malignant eyes. ern sat at the table with the dreadful blind face of the living dead. he saw his mother enter and paid no heed to her. he was too much occupied. a troubled look crossed his face, and clouded it. then he was very sick. that amused alf. his mother shut the kitchen-door. but alf was not to be defrauded of his spectacle. he opened the door quietly. his mother, busy on her knees, with a slop pail and cloth, looked up. "it's only me, mum," muttered alf. her face frightened him: so did her breathing: so did her quiet. "come in then," she said. "and shut the door." ern still sat at the table. "you little og!" said alf fiercely, and shook his brother. his mother, still on her hands and knees, restrained him. "let him be," she said. "it's past that. it's past all." the door opened slowly. mr. caspar stood in it in the faded quilted dressing-gown that had once graced historic rooms at trinity. he stood there, dishevelled from sleep, a tall, round-shouldered ruin of a man, every sign of distress upon his face. "what is it?" he asked nervously. "im!" said alf. mr. caspar saw ern, and marked his wife busy on her knees. then he understood. the distress on his face deepened. anne caspar rose sharply from her knees, the filthy rag still in her hands. "two of you!" she cried thickly. "it's too much!" and shoved him out of the room. the father's slippered feet shuffled along the passage. "take your brother up to bed," ordered mrs. caspar. alf, too discreet to argue, obeyed. anne caspar locked the door, and sat down at the table. chapter xv mr. trupp introduces the lash there was no doubt that anne caspar was a woman of character. "too much character," said mr. trupp. his wife was somewhat shocked. "can you have too much character?" she asked. her husband was in one of his philosophical moods. "character's only will," he growled. "it's the repression or direction of energy. you may misdirect your energies. most so-called strong men do. look at this fellow chamberlain. willed us into this war. if it hadn't been for his superfluous character we should never have heard of south africa." "and your investments would never have gone down," said mrs. trupp delicately. the doctor may have been unjust to the colonial secretary, but he was right about anne caspar, whom he knew rather better. that dour woman had, indeed, just two friends in beachbourne. one was mr. trupp, and the other was mr. trupp's wife. neither had ever failed her; and she knew quite well that neither ever would. the day after the calamity she went round to see the doctor. "he's got to go," she said, tight-lipped and trembling. "that's flat. you know what i been through with his father, mr. trupp. you're the only one as does. i'm not going through it again with him. ned's my man, and i'm going to see him through. but ern must go his own way. stew in his own juice, as alf says. they say i've been hard with the boy. so i have. because i've seen it a-comin ever since he was so high. and i've fought it and been beaten." the gruff man was wonderfully tender with her. he saw the woman's distress and understood its cause as no other could have done. "don't do anything in a hurry," he said soothingly. "think it over for a week and then come and see me again." that evening he reported the interview to his wife. "she'll never turn him out!" cried the kind woman. "she will though," said mr. trupp. mrs. trupp, pink and white with indignation, dropped her eyes to her work to hide the flash in them. "i'll never forgive her if she does," she said. "yes, you will," retorted mr. trupp. mrs. trupp answered nothing for a time. "i shall go round to see her," she said at last with determination. "you won't move her," the doctor answered, grimly cheerful. "no," said mrs. trupp. "she hasn't got a heart. as mr. pigott says, she's hard as the nether millstone in a frost." mr. trupp put down his coffee-cup and licked his lips like a cat. "my dear," he said, "you haven't been through her mill." "perhaps not," the other answered warmly. "but i am a mother." the sympathetic creature, all love and pity, was as good as her word. mrs. trupp was always full of indignation against mrs. caspar when away from her, and in her presence touched by the tragedy of the woman's loneliness. she found things at rectory walk as she had expected or worse. ern had lost his job. his escapade at the rink had reached his employers' ears. none too satisfied with the quality of the lad's work, they had seized the excuse to dismiss him. "there he is!" cried mrs. caspar. "just turn eighteen and back on my hands. nobody won't have him, and i don't blame em neether." "where is he?" asked mrs. trupp. the interview between the two women was taking place in the back sitting-room, where mrs. caspar always saw her rare visitors. anne nodded in the direction of the study. "settin along o dad," she said briefly. "nothing but trouble along of it all. i took his cigarettes away. _if he don't earn neether shan't he smoke_, as alf says. and now dad won't smoke because ern can't. _sympathetic strike_, alf calls it. and it's dad's one pleasure. i allow him a shilling bacca-money a week. it's just all i do allow him." "we all make mistakes--especially when we're young," said mrs. trupp gently. the other was adamant. "there's slips and slips," she retorted. "if he'd gone with a girl i'd have said nothing. but _this_!" mrs. trupp was steadfast in her tranquil way, as her opponent was dogged. "i know if my joe made a mistake what i should do," she said. "what then?" sharply. "forgive him," replied the other. mrs. caspar flared up. "you wouldn't, not if your joe's father----" she pulled up short. loyalty to her husband was the soul of anne caspar. on her way home the doctor's wife met mr. pigott. the sanguine little man stopped short. "you've heard?" said mrs. trupp. the other nodded, surly as a baited bear. "ern was round at my place first thing sunday to tell me. he kept nothing back." mr. pigott dropped his voice like a stage-conspirator. "that young alf's at the bottom of this, i'll lay." mrs. trupp was shocked. "did ernie say so?" "no," fiercely. "he wouldn't give his brother away--not he. but i know." he came closer. "i tell you the devil's in that boy. i can see him leering at me from behind the mask of alf's face. there is no alf caspar. he's only a blind. but there is a devil!" "o, mr. pigott!" murmured the lady. "yes, you may o mr. pigott me!" cried the wrathful man. "but i've watched. i know. he's the cuckoo kind, alf is. he wants the place to himself. it's me and mum all the time. his father don't count; and ern's to be jostled out of the nest. then there'll be room for him to grow. i curse the day mr. trupp saved his miserable little life." "hush! hush! hush!" said the lady. "yes, i know alf's one of mr. trupp's darlings," continued the other. "and i know why. you know my old bicycle they all laugh at. i bought it for ten shillings from a pedlar and patched it up myself. it's the worst bike in old town, but i saved it from the scrap-heap, so i think the world of it. same with mr. trupp and young alf." mrs. trupp reported to her husband that mr. pigott had become almost blasphemous over alf. "i know," grunted the doctor. "he's not fair to the boy. alf's stunted; of course he's stunted. he's grown up all wrong. the wonder is he's grown up at all. he's a standing witness to the power of nature to make the most of a bad job." it was next day that mrs. caspar came round, as appointed, to see the doctor, who was much more to her than a physician. mr. trupp had now come to a decision as to the best course to be taken. "you must send him right away," he said. "that's his best chance." "dad won't hear of the colonies," the other replied. "says it's so far and he'll never see the boy again once he gets out there. stood up and fought me fairly!" and it was clear from the way she said it that the resistance encountered from her husband had been as rare as it was astonishing. "i didn't mean the colonies," the other replied. "what then?" "the army." mrs. caspar's face fell. she was momentarily shocked: for she belonged to a sect that had for generations been despitefully used by the powers that be. and the weapon of the powers that be is always in the last resort the army. "discipline is what the boy wants," said mr. trupp. "it's what we all want." anne caspar nodded dubiously. "if it's the right sort," she said. "it may save him," continued her mentor. "it can't do him any harm. and anyway, it's worth trying. you send ernie round to me. i'll have a talk with him, and i'll drop in to-morrow and have a chat with his father." ernie, when approached, made no difficulty. he was young; his enthusiasms were easily stirred; and the most famous of south country regiments, the forest rangers, known in history as the hammer-men, had been more than living up to its reputation in south africa. "you'll travel," mr. trupp told him. "go to india as like as not and see a bit of the world. our joe's going to sandhurst next year. nothing'll do but he must be a hammer-man--like his grandfather before him. i dare say he'll join you out there." but if ern was too young to fight his own battles, there was one doughty warrior who meant to fight them for him. mr. pigott came round to see the doctor in roaring wrath. the south african war was in full swing. the frenzy of lusty paganism, called imperialism, which was sweeping the country, had revolted the schoolmaster and many more. in the estimation of these, the horrors enacted at home in the name of god and empire surpassed the obscenities of the war itself. mr. pigott saw militarism as a raddled prostitute dancing on the souls and bodies of men. he burst like a tempest into mr. trupp's consulting room. "the army!" he cried. "you're going to send that boy into the army! take him a first-class ticket to hell at once! where's your militarism led us? the war's costing us half a million a week! over a thousand casualties at paardeberg alone! rowntree stoned in york; leonard courtney boycotted in london; lloyd george escaping for his life over the house-tops for daring to preach christ! and you call yourself a radical, mr. trupp!--shame on you!" mr. trupp listened, amused and patient. "it's discipline he wants," he said at last. "he's soft and slack. he'll never do any good without it. the artist type like his father." the other began to blaze again. "discipline!" he cried. "you talk like a prussian drill-sergeant. i tell you that lad's got a soul. you _discipline_ beasts of the field--with a big stick; but you _grow_ souls." mr. trupp shook his head. "we're only just emerging from the mud," he said. "the brute still lurks in all of us. watch him or he'll catch you out. and remember the only thing the brute understands is the big stick. without it he'll either go to sleep--like ernie; or pounce on some one who has gone to sleep--like alf." mr. pigott drew himself up. there was about him the dignity of conviction. "mr. trupp," he said. "fear never made a man yet. faith's the thing." the doctor lifted his shrewd kind face, and eyed the other through his pince-nez. "fear plays its part too," he said. "we none of us can do without the lash as yet." chapter xvi father, mother and son there was no difficulty with edward caspar. he had made an immense effort and fought about the colonies. easily spent, he would not fight again. moreover, ernie committed to the army was committed for a few years only, and not for life; and some of his service might very well be passed in england. in edward caspar too, pacifist though he personally inclined to be, there was no inherited prejudice to overcome: for the beauregards had been soldiers for generations. mr. trupp came to talk things over; and that evening, as father and son sat together in the study, edward caspar said out of the silence, very quietly, "boy-lad, it's best you should go." "i shall go all right, dad," the boy answered, feigning a cheerfulness he by no means felt. "don't you worry." "mother wants it," the other continued. "she's all right, mother is," said the lad. it was settled that the boy should go over to lewes and enlist in the hammer-men at the depot there, on saturday. the decision made, his mother relaxed somewhat. while she still kept ernie without money, she allowed him cigarettes. father and son sat together and smoked in the evenings, watching the trees swaying against the blue in the rectory garden across the road. alf reported surreptitiously to his mother that ern was smoking with dad. "what's it to do with you if he is?" answered the other tartly. the catastrophe which had severed the frayed string that joined the mother and her eldest son had reacted unfavourably on her relations with alf. the few days before ern's departure went with accustomed speed. on the last evening, as he and his father sat together, studying their toes in the twilight, a small fire flickering in the grate, edward caspar spoke out of the dark which he had been waiting to cover him. "boy-lad, i can't do by you as i should wish," he said tremulously. "but here's a bit of something to show you i mean well." in the half light he thrust an envelope towards his son. ern opened it and saw that it contained a five-pound note. the great waters surged up into his throat and filled his eyes. "here! i can't keep this, dad," he said chokily. "i'm all right. i've got..." the old man--for such he was to his son, though not yet fifty--waved his hand irritably. "put it away," he said, "put it away. let's hear no more of it." ernie sat dumb, moved and wondering. where had dad got the money from? he knew very well that his mother jealously controlled the family purse, doling out rare sixpences or shillings to his father; and he knew why. the boy's brain moved swiftly. "what's the time, dad?" he asked, and lit the gas. the clock on the mantel-piece never went: for it was edward caspar's solitary household task to wind it up. the father, by no means a match for his artful son, produced from a baggy pocket a five-shilling waterbury watch in place of the old gold hunter that had come to him from lady blanche's father, the twelfth earl ravensrood. his ruse successful, ernie delivered a direct attack. "where's the ticket, dad?" he asked casually. "what ticket?" "the pawn-ticket." "i don't know," irritably. "don't worry me. turn out the light. i want to get a nap." ernie obeyed. soon edward caspar's breathing told its own tale. ernie rose, and, knowing his father's habits well as he knew his own, put his hand into the jacobean tankard that stood on the book-shelf. there he found what he sought. quietly he went out into the passage. on the ticket was the name he expected: goldmann, the jew pawn-broker in the east-end off the pevensey road. for a moment he paused, fingering the brown cardboard ticket under the gas light. it would not take him an hour to get down to goldmann's and back; for the tram almost passed the door; but he hadn't got the redemption money. he hadn't got a penny in the world. alf had seen to that. with the impetuous gallantry peculiar to him he made up his mind and opened the kitchen-door. where ernie loved he would risk anything, face anybody--even his mother. she sat in her windsor chair by the fire, a puritan, still beautiful, reading her bible as she always did at this hour; and her silvering hair added to her distinction. all their married life the pair had sat thus of evenings, edward in the study, anne caspar in the kitchen. the strange couple rarely met indeed except at night. and the arrangement was not of edward caspar's making, but of his wife's. it may be that in part the woman preferred the kitchen as the environment to which she was most used: it was still more that she had determined from the outset of their union never to intrude upon her husband's spiritual life, or attempt to encroach upon a mind she could not understand. her duty was as clear to her from the first as were her limitations. she could and would cherish, support, protect, and even chasten her husband where it was necessary for his good. for the rest she was resolved to be no hindrance or inconvenience to him. he should gain by his marriage and not lose by it. therefore from the start she had slammed the door without mercy or remorse on her own relatives. when ern entered, she looked up at him not unkindly through her spectacles. "what is it, ernie?" she asked. he rushed out his request. "please, mum," he panted, "could you let me have a shilling?" he was determined not to give his father away. to his relief his mother rose without a word, went to a drawer, unlocked it, took out half a sovereign and gave it to him. ernie ran out without his hat, took the old horse-bus at billing's corner, and riding on the top under a night splendid with stars that hung in the elms of saffrons croft, he went down the hill, through the chestnuts, past the railway station, and along the gay main-street. just before cornfield road reaches the sea he exchanged the horse-bus for the electric tram that swung him down pevensey road through the thronged and always thickening east-end. at the _barbary corsair_ in sea-gate he descended, turned down a side-street, and entered a door over which hung the three golden balls taken from the coat-of-arms of the banker medici. mr. goldmann was a short, fair jew, without a neck, immensely thick throughout, though still under thirty. when he walked he carried his arms away from his side as though to aid him to inflate; and winter or summer he could be found behind his counter, perspiring freely. his trousers were always too short, and his little legs protruded from them like pillars. he spoke cockney without a trace of yiddish. his manner was hearty; but he was honest of his kind. the police had nothing against him, while his innumerable clients complained less of him than of his rivals. ern in the past had dealt with him. "how much?" he asked, presenting the ticket. "only two-pence," said goldmann, and took the watch out of the case. he handled it with care, almost covetously, burnishing it on his sleeve. "what arms is them?" he asked, displaying the back. ernie didn't know. "if it had been any man but your father left it, i'd have communicated with the police," said the pawn-broker cheerfully. "will you do it up in a piece of paper, please?" ern requested. the jew obeyed. "lend me your stylo alf a mo," said ernie, and wrote on the paper covering the word _dad_. then he raced home and re-entered the kitchen. it was after ten, but his mother was still up, and apparently unconscious of the lateness of the hour. ern, panting from the speed at which he had travelled, paid nine shillings and four pence into his mother's lap. tram and bus had cost him sixpence, and the redemption money the rest. "eightpence all told," he gasped, "what i wanted. only a little something for dad. i'll send you the odd money when i draw me first pay." he put the little packet on the mantel-piece. "will you give that to dad, please, when i'm gone, mum?" his mother looked at him, a rare sweetness in her eyes. "you may keep the change, ern," she said gently. collecting the money from her lap, she handed it back to him. a moment he demurred, taken aback; then slipped the cash into his trouser pocket, mumbling and deeply moved. "thank you kindly, mum," he muttered. her eyes were still on his face, and he could not meet them. "you're a good lad, ern," she said quietly. the words, and the way of saying them, moved the lad more than all her rebuffs and brutalities in the past had done. his chest began to heave. she stood before him stiff as a blade of steel, as slight and straight. for a second she laid her hand, fine still for all its toil, upon his arm. "go up to bed now," she said in the same very quiet way. he went hurriedly. there were few things which happened in that house of which anne caspar was not aware. that morning on rising she had missed her husband's watch on the dressing-table--and had said nothing. later she had found the pawn-ticket in the tankard--and again had held her peace. a wife before all things, yet to some extent a mother, she had known, had understood, had perhaps sympathized. chapter xvii ernie goes for a soldier next day, after dinner, when she heard ern's feet slowly descending the stairs, and knew he was coming to say good-bye, anne caspar shoved alf roughly out of the kitchen. "you wait your brother outside," she said. "take his bag now, and carry it to the bus for him. be a brother for once!" "well, i was going to," answered alf, aggrieved. since the catastrophe he had kept discreetly in the background. ern entered the kitchen, uncertain of himself, uncertain of his reception; but, true to the best that was in him, trying to carry a pale feather of gallantry. "i guess it's about time to be off, mum," he remarked huskily. his mother shut the door behind him gently, and drew him to her. "kiss me, ern," she said. the boy gasped and obeyed. "now go and say good-bye to dad," continued his mother, quiet, firm, authoritative. as he went into the passage, he heard the kitchen-door close behind him. ern was his father's son, and nothing was to be allowed to intrude in the parting between the two. edward caspar stood before the fire in quilted dressing-gown, somewhat faded now. in its appointed place on the chair beside his chair lay the familiar manuscript, much as ern had known it since his childhood, save that the titles on the covering page were typewritten now--_the philosophy of mysticism, part i, the basis of animism_. his father's colourless hair was greying fast and becoming sparse; while his always ungainly figure was losing any shape it had ever possessed. at fifty edward caspar was already old. but age had enhanced the wistfulness which had marked him, even in youth. his was the face of a man who has failed, and is conscious of his failure; but it was the face of a christian, gentle and very sad. here clearly was a man of immense parts, scholar, thinker, artist, who, somehow baffled by the wiles of nature, had failed to make good. yet in spite of his failure there were few who could more surely rely upon the limitless resources of the spirit in the hour of his need than edward caspar. and now in this great moment of his life, when he was parting from his dearest, he summoned to his aid all the powers that, massed unseen in the silence, await our call. there was a wonderful dignity and restraint about him. ern, the most intuitive of lads, felt it and drew from his father's strength. simply and beautifully father and son kissed. a moment the eyes of each rested in the other's. then it was over. no one of us is entirely inhuman. something of the spirit of the scene enacted in the study had conveyed itself even to alf awaiting in the road outside, ern's bag at his feet. he was blinking when his brother, blowing his nose, joined him. ern glanced at the green rampart of the downs rising like a wall at the end of the road, and huge shadow coombe where the lambs were folded in march and where once he had passed a night in the shepherd's hut. ern waved to them and beech-hangar beyond. "good-bye, old downs!" he called. "you and me been good old pals!" then they set off for the bus at billing's corner, neither speaking, neither wishing to, alf carrying his brother's bag. both youths were slight and colt-like, yet with loose unshackled limbs; ern rather smart, alf distinctly shabby. the rector, tall and titupping, emerged from his gate as they passed, but refrained from seeing them. he did not approve of the two caspar boys--in the main because they were the sons of their father. canon willcocks aped--successfully enough--the walk and deportment of a thoroughbred weed. his face--which was aquiline--inspired his pose, which was aristocratic and satirical. his solitary hero was louis napoleon, whom he had worshipped from childhood. and he bore himself habitually as one who is too fine for the coarse world in which he dwells perforce. the two brothers nudged each other as he stalked by. then they climbed to the box-seat of the old bus and established themselves beside the driver. "where away then?" he asked, seeing the bag. "off to see the world, mr. huggett," answered ern, already cheering up. "goin for the week-end to the north pole, me and alf!" the bus jolted down the street, past the long-backed church with its mighty tower looking down upon the moot as it had done for five centuries, and stopped opposite the _star_. ern for the last time touched the old coaching bell with the driver's whip. as it clanged sonorously, a window in the manor-house opened. ern looked up to see mrs. trupp and her daughter, a fair flapper now, waving at him with eyes that smiled and shone. "good-bye!" they called. "good luck!" saffrons croft was white with cricketers as they passed. the honest thump of the ball upon the bat, the recumbent groups under the elms, even the imperious voice of mr. pigott umpiring on lower pitch, moved ern strangely. alf's presence somehow helped him to be hard. at the central station the boys got down. they paced the platform, waiting for the train. alf babbled at large, his brother paying little heed. "be the making of you!" alf was saying in his rather patronizing way. "see the world!--knock about!--come home a full-blown hammer-man with a fat pension and a v.c. on your chest and a colonel's commission! and we'll all meet you at the stytion with a brass band playing _see the conquering hero comes!_ and be proud of you. i'd come along meself for company, only i'm too small." ern roused from his dreams. "what will you do then?" he asked, faintly ironical. "me?" cried alf, starting off on his favourite topic. "i ain't a-goin to stop in beachbourne all me life, you lay. when i'm through me apprentice they may send me to the river plate. got a big branch there. england's used up. there's chances in a new country for a chap that means to get on." ern installed himself in a smoking carriage. "o, reservoir," said alf, facetious to the end. "see ye again some day," answered ern, puffing away and exhibiting a man-of-the-world-like stoicism he did not feel. he took off his trilby hat, unbuttoned the overcoat with the velvet collar, and opened his orange-coloured _answers_. the train moved on. the brothers waved. alf stood on the platform, a mean little figure with a dishonest smile; his clothes rather shabby, his trousers too short and creased behind the knees. then he turned to the bookstall and asked if _motor mems_, the paper on the new industry, had arrived yet. ern leaned back in his corner; and his eyes sought, between hoardings and roofs of crowded railway-shops, the familiar outline of the downs which would accompany him to lewes--and far beyond. book iii the soldier chapter xviii ernie goes east the army did for ernie neither what mr. trupp hoped nor what mr. pigott feared. ernie was in truth very much the modern man, and had absorbed unconsciously the spirit of industrial democracy. he was open-minded, intelligent and sincere. the false idealism that is at the back of all militarism, the bully-cum-bluff principle that has been the creed of the barrack-square at all times all over the world, from sparta to potsdam, made no appeal to him. in the british army, it is true, there was even at that date little of the spirit of orthodox militarism, but the shadow of the continental system and the heritage of a false tradition still hung over it. he found himself plucked out of the world of to-day with its quick flow of ideas, its give and take, its elasticity, its vivid unconscious spirituality, and plunged back into the darkness of medievalism: forced labour, forced worship, forced obsequiousness, a feudal lord against whom there was no appeal, with corrupt retainers who squeezed the serf without mercy. when his first drill-instructor in a moment of patronizing confidence informed the squad of which ernie was a member that "it's swank as makes the soldier," others were amused; but ernie, who giggled dutifully with the rest, thought how silly and how disgusting. ernie always remembered that drill-sergeant's illuminating remark, and placed it alongside that of a veteran colonel, dating from crimean days, who said in ernie's hearing with the offensive truculence that a certain type of officer still thinks he owes it to himself and to his position to cultivate, "that man's no good to me." he was speaking of a company sergeant-major who had the manners of a gentleman. "take him away and shoot him. i want a man who'll chuck his chest, and beat his leg, and own the barrack square." ernie saw very soon that the army system was based on the old two-class conception with an insuperable barrier between the two classes, and the underclass deprived of the right to appeal, the right to combine, the right to strike. and he saw equally clearly, and with far more surprise, that in spite of its obvious limitations, and openness to brutality and abuse, the system worked astonishingly well, given good officers--and his own were unusually good upon the whole. ernie did not know that the barrack was in fact the heir of the old monastic habit and tradition with its herding together of males, its little caste of priests who alone possessed the direct access to god denied to common men, its sacrosanct dogmas, its insuperable prejudices, its life of unquestioning obedience to authority with the consequent thwarting of intellectual and spiritual development that is the outcome of free communion between man and man; and on the other hand its genuine religious fervour, its abnegation, its devotion to duty, and disinterested service of the commonwealth. ern, it is true, who realized some of these things and was dimly conscious of others, was different from most of his mates and superior to them: rather more intelligent and much more refined. the bulk of them were the conscripts of necessity; some, like himself, had made mistakes; a few, nearly always themselves the sons of old soldiers, were genuine volunteers. and yet ern was by no means unhappy. if he was something of a critic, he was not in the least a rebel. at first the pressure of discipline served to brace the boy, as mr. trupp had anticipated. moreover, if he vaguely apprehended what was vicious in the military system, there was much he could not fail to enjoy, because he was young, virile and healthy; and not a little he could honestly admire. he loved the drill: the rhythmical marching _en masse_, the movements of great bodies of men swinging this way and that like one, actuated by a single purpose, directed by a single mind, worshipping a single god enthroned at the saluting-point, satisfied his religious spirit, exalted and transfigured him as did nothing he was to know in later days. the outdoor existence, the hard athleticism, the good fellowship, and above all the communal life, appealed to all that was best in him. indeed in this organization, abused by advanced thinkers in press and parliament alike, he was to find a fullness of corporate life, an absorption of the individual in the mass, a bee-like enthusiasm for the hive, such as he was never to discover outside the army in after years. moreover there was a goal held before his eyes, as it is held before the eyes of all young english soldiers. that goal was india. the shiny was the private soldier's paradise, the old hands would tell the young in the canteens at night. "things are different there, my boy. in the shiny a swoddy's a gentleman. punkah-wallahs to pull the cords in the hot weather, a tiger curled at your feet to keep the snakes at bay, bearer to clean your boots, shooting parties, bubbly by the barrel, i don't know what all." because of this jewel that was for ever dangled before his eyes, ernie bore a good deal without complaining. a youth who had enlisted with him, and for much the same reason, induced his people to buy him out after six months. ernie made no such attempt. "i'm going through with it now," he said. "want to see a bit before i'm done and take em home a tale or two." after a spell of service in ireland, at the close of the south african war, when ernie was turned twenty, the expected call came. a draft was going out to join the first battalion of the hammer-men at jubbulpore, and ernie went with it. the cheering transport dropped down the thames one misty november afternoon, passing hay-laden barges, timber ships from the baltic, and rusty tramps from all over the world. the smell of the sea, so familiar and so good, thrilled ernie's susceptible heart. it spoke to him of home, of the unforgotten things of childhood, of his passing youth, of much that was intimate and dear. he spent most of that first evening on deck, long after dark, in spite of the drizzle, watching the coast lights. once they passed quite close to a light-ship, swinging desolately on the tide. "what's that?" he asked a sailor. "sovereign light," the man told him. ernie leapt to the name familiar to him from childhood. how often had he not climbed the hill behind his home of winter evenings, and waited in the chalk-pit above the larch spinney for that far-off spark to leap out of the darkness and warm his expectant heart. he swung about and stared keenly through the gloom at a light winking at them from the land. "then that's the light-house under beau-nez!" he said, pointing. "that's it," the man answered. "and beachbourne underneath. all them lights strung out like a necklace along the coast,--bexhill, hastings, beachbourne. it's growing into a great place. d'you know it?" ernie's heart and eyes were full. "my home's there," he said. "and my old dad." he stayed on deck peering through the darkness, till the last light had disappeared and they had swung round beau-nez into the channel and he could see the seven sisters, the gap that marks the mouth of the ruther, and the cliffs between newhaven and rotting-dean. then he went below and turned in. thereafter, his home behind him, he began to taste the new life, the life of adventure. he felt the surge of the atlantic, saw whales spouting in the bay, marked off the coast of portugal a lateen sail which first whispered of the east; gazed up at the rock of gibraltar, noted there caparisoned barbs, their head-stalls studded with turquoises to keep the evil one away, welcomed the mediterranean sun, and gazed at the snow-capped hills of crete. in port said he landed and saw his first mosque. he examined it with interest. _very bleak-like_, he wrote home to mr. pigott. _more like a chapel than a church. and more like the quaker meeting-house in the moot than either. no stained glass or crucifixes or nothing. i was more at home there than the catholics_. in the canal he marked the black hair-tents of the travelling bedouins, and saw a british camel corps trekking slowly across the desert against the hills beyond. he sweated in the red sea and gazed with awe at the sultry rocks of aden, and followed with delight the flying-fish skimming across the indian ocean. then one dawn the engines stopped; the ship lay at rest; and in his nostrils, blown from the land, there was the smell of incense. "makes you think of the queen of sheba," said ernie. "spices and tyre and sidon and all the rest," and he closed his eyes and saw mr. pigott standing with the pointer before the black-board, addressing his class. "not alf," said his unimaginative friend. "give me the pevensey road o sadaday nights. fried fish and chips." they went on deck to find themselves lying in the lovely island-sprinkled harbour of bombay; boats with curved bamboo yards and brown-skinned crews of pirates under the ship's side; and parsee money-lenders in shining hats on deck offering to change the money of those who had any. ernie looked across to the land, lifting blue in the wondrous dawn--the land that was to be his home for the next six years. chapter xix the regiment ernie joined his battalion in the central provinces. the forest rangers, as famous in the south country as the black watch in the highlands, and of far longer pedigree, was first raised from the iron-ore workers by the hammer ponds on the forest ridge in the heart of the then black country of england to meet the imminent onslaught of the spanish armada. in those days the hammer-men, as they were called familiarly from the start, watched the coast from the mouth of the adur to rye and winchelsea; and in the succeeding centuries they left their bloody mark upon the pages of history, the memories of their fellow-countrymen, and the bodies of the king's enemies. the most ancient of english regiments, it carries on its colours more honours than any but the th. for more than three tumultuous centuries it has been distinguished even in that british infantry which has never yet encountered in war its match or its master. the splendid foot-soldiers of spain broke in flanders before its thundering hammer-strokes; in flanders and elsewhere in later times the legions of imperial france surged in vain against its bayonets; and in our own day the prussian guard, as insolent and vain-glorious as the veterans of napoleon, has recoiled before the invincible stubbornness of the peasants of sussex. the officers were drawn almost exclusively from two or three of the oldest public-schools. ernie found they were keen soldiers, and efficient, immensely proud of their regiment, athletic, and better-mannered than most. but as a whole they were singularly stupid men, deliberately blind to the wonders of the country in which they lived, proud of their blindness, and cultivating their insularity. there was one shining exception. when the new draft paraded for inspection, a scarecrow major wearing the south african ribands walked slowly up and down the ranks with a word for each man. he was very tall, and so lean as to be almost spectral. his voice was charming and leisured, reminding ernie of his father. he was friendly too, almost genial. it was obvious that he based his authority on his own spiritual qualities and not on the accident of his position. there was no rattling of the sabre, no fire-eating, no attempt to put the fear of god into the hearts of the recruits. when he came to ernie, he asked, "what name?" "caspar, sir." the major looked at the lad from beneath his sun-helmet with sudden curiosity. "are you ..." he began, and pulled himself up short. "i hope you'll be happy as a hammer-man," he said, and passed on. later he addressed the draft in a gentle little speech of the kind that annoyed his brother-officers almost past bearing. "you have all heard of death and glory," he began. "well, in this country there's a certain amount of death going about, if you care to look out for it, but very little glory. you have also heard no doubt from your mothers and the missionaries that the black man is your brother. it may be so. but in this country there are no black men and therefore no brothers. there are brown men who are your remote cousins; and they aren't bad fellows if you keep them in their place, and remember your own. on sundays there is church for those who like it; and the same for those who don't. for the rest, whether you are happy or the reverse depends in the main upon your health, and your health depends in the main on yourselves. be careful what you drink, and don't suck every stick of sugar-cane a native offers you. remember you are hammer-men and not monkeys. most of you are men of sussex, as are most of your officers; and we all know that the sussex man wunt be druv. but discipline is discipline and must be maintained. we don't hammer each other more than we can help, nor do we hammer the natives more than is good for them. we exist to hammer the king's enemies. and now i wish you all well and hope you'll find the regiment a real home." major lewknor's long spidery legs carried him back to the bungalow where his wife awaited him. she was a little woman, clearly semitic, fine as she was strong, with eyes like jewels and the nose of an arab. "my dear," said the major, "in your young days did you ever hear of one hans caspar?" "my jock, did i ever hear of one napoleon buonaparte?" mocked his mate. "what about him?" "i was at trinity with his son," replied the colonel. "we used to call him hathri. a charming fellow, and a brilliant scholar, but----" "what about him?" said mrs. lewknor, who seemed suddenly on the defensive. "his son has just joined us," answered the major. "in the ranks." the lady handled the sugar-tongs thoughtfully. her memory travelled back more than twenty years to a great ball in grosvenor square, and the timid son of the house, a gawky, awkward fellow with a reputation for shyness and brilliance. he could not dance, but under the palms in the conservatory, tête-à-tête, he could talk--as rachel solomons had never heard a man talk yet--of things she had never heard talked about: of a place called toynbee hall somewhere in the east end; of a little parson named samuel barnett; of the group of young university men--alfred milner, arnold toynbee, lewis nettleship--he and his wife were gathering about them there with the aim of bridging the gulf between disraeli's two nations; of the hopes of a redeemed england and a new world that were rising in the hearts of many. that young man saw visions and had made her see them too. she had cut two dances to listen to that talk, and when at last an outraged partner had torn her away and edward had said in his sensitive stuttering way, his face shining mysteriously, "shall we ever meet again?" she had answered with astonishing emphasis, "we must." but they never did. fate swung his scythe; her father died and she had to abandon her london season. edward caspar went abroad to study at leipzig. and next winter she met her hammer-man and launched her boat on the great waters. but she had never forgotten that mysterious half-hour in which the trembling young man had knocked at her door, entered her sanctuary; and she, rachel the reserved, had permitted him to stay. at that moment reality had entered her life--unforgettable and unforgotten. india from the first tantalized ernie. it was for him a mysterious and beautiful book, its pages for ever open inviting him to read, yet keeping its secret inviolate from him; for he could not read himself and there was no one to read to him. his officers, capable at their work, and good fellows enough in the main, ernie soon discovered to be illiterate to an almost laughable degree. they not only knew nothing outside the limited military field, but they took a marked professional pride in their ignorance. ernie, used to his father's large philosophical outlook on any subject, his scholarly talk, his learning, was amazed at the intellectual apathy and crustacean self-complacency, sometimes ludicrous, more often naïf, occasionally offensive, of those set in authority over him. major lewknor was the solitary exception. he was the one university man in the regiment, and, whether as the result of a more catholic education or a more original temperament, he always stood slightly apart from his brother-officers. when he was a young man they had mocked at him quietly; now that he was a field officer they stood somewhat in awe of his ironical spirit. some of his more dubious sayings were handed on religiously from last-joined subaltern to last-joined subaltern. the worst of them--his famous--_patriotism is the last refuge of every scoundrel_--was happily attributed by the army at large to a chap called johnston who, thank god! was not a hammer-man at all, but a gunner or a sapper or something like that. a sapper probably. it was just the sort of thing you would expect a sapper to say: for sappers wore flannel shirts and never washed. but if the major was undoubtedly critical of what was obsolete and theatrical in the service that he loved, few possessed a deeper reverence or more intimate understanding of the much that was noble in it. "after the really grand ritual of a big ceremonial parade," he would say, "when you actually do transcend yourself and become one with the larger life, for grown men in an age like ours, to be herded at the point of the bayonet into a tin-pot temple to hear a gramophone in a surplice droning out an unintelligible rigmarole every sunday in the name of religion--why it is not only redundant, it's a blasphemous farce that every decent man _must_ kick against." in spite of his caustic humour the major's passion for the regiment, to which he had given his life, steadfastly refusing all those staff-appointments for which he was so admirably fitted, was genuine as it was profound. because of it, his much-tried brother officers, who loved him deeply if they feared him not a little, forgave him all. and if he was sadly unorthodox in many respects, as for instance that he was not a hard and fast conservative, he was jealously orthodox in others as in that contempt for politicians which is almost an obsession amongst the men of his profession, perhaps because to them it falls to pay the price of the mistakes of their masters at westminster. the major and his wife were in brief distinguished from their kind by the fact that they were mentally alive, sympathetic, keen, and knowledgeable. they had passed most of their lives in the east, and were of the few of their fellow-countrymen who had made the most of the opportunities vouchsafed to them. indeed it was said in the regiment that what the pair didn't know about india was not worth knowing. once at a halt on a route-march ernie saw the major, standing gaunt and helmeted in the shade of a banyan tree, take a pace out into the road. a native, carrying two sealed pitchers slung from the ends of a bamboo, was padding down the road in the dust between the ranks of the soldiers who had fallen out. the major spoke to him, then turned to ernie who was standing by. "see that man, caspar," he said quietly. "he's a pilgrim. he's tramped all the way from hardwar, the source of the ganges, to get holy water--seven hundred miles. what about that for faith?" "fine, sir," said ernie, with quiet enthusiasm. "in the days of chaucer we used to do the same kind of thing in england," continued the major. "ever read the 'canterbury tales'?" "dad's read em to me, sir--in bits like." the major moved away. close by a group of officers, whose faces clearly showed how profoundly they disapproved of this conversation, were sprawling in the shade. _that was the way to lose caste with the men_. amongst them was a last-joined lad, chubby still; the other was mr. royal of ernie's company. "what did the major say he was?" asked the boy keenly. "i don't know what the major said he was," answered mr. royal coolly. "and between ourselves i don't greatly care. _i_ know what he was. and if you'll ask me prettily i might impart my information." "what was he?" asked the boy. "he was a coolie," said mr. royal. "india's full of them. in fact they're the dominant class." "i thought he looked something a bit out of the ordinary," said the snubbed boy. "did you?" retorted mr. royal. "i thought myself he looked as if he wanted kicking. and as i've got five years' service to your three months it may be presumed that i'm right." chapter xx ernie in india the regiment was wonderfully well run for the men on its social side, for the colonel was a bachelor, and much was trusted to mrs. lewknor. she was at ernie's bedside the day after he had his first attack of fever. the little lady, so delicate, yet so strong, stood above the lad whose mother she might have been with a curious thrill. he was so like his father, yet so unlike; and he was not only sick of fever, but dreadfully homesick too. mrs. lewknor knew all about that, and the cure for it. "tell me about your people, caspar," she said, after the ice had been broken. the lad unloosed the flood-gates with immense relief. he talked of beachbourne, of rectory walk with the virginia-creeper on the wall and the fig-tree at the back; of his mother, of mr. pigott, even of alf, and all the time of dad and the downs. on rising to go, mrs. lewknor said that when she came next day she would read to him. "what shall i read?" she asked. "would you read me matthew arnold's _scholar-gypsy_?" said the boy. mrs. lewknor looked down at the lad with brilliant eyes. "is that your father's favourite?" she asked. "one of them, 'm. wordsworth's the one." there was only one man in the regiment who possessed a matthew arnold, but that man happily was mrs. lewknor's husband. next day, as the little lady read the familiar lines, ernie lay with eyes shut, the tears pouring down his face. "takes me right back," he said at last as she finished. "i'm not here at all. i'm laying just above the rabbit-walk over beech-hangar, with the gorse-pods snapping in the sun, and the beech-leaves stirring beneath me, and old dad with his hat over his eyes and his hands behind his head reciting." that afternoon mrs. lewknor told mr. royal, who had dropped in to tea, that she had been reading matthew arnold to a man in his company. mr. royal looked blank. he had cold, speedwell blue eyes, that seemed all the brighter for his curly dark hair, a fine skin, rather pale, and an always growing reputation for hard efficiency. "matthew arnold!" he said. "and who might mr. matthew arnold be?" he said it a thought aggressively. it was clear that not only had he never heard of matthew arnold, but that he would have considered it bad form to have done so. "i believe he was a poet who seldom went to church," said the major in the chi-chi voice which he could imitate to the life. "indeed," said mr. royal. "a poet!--ah, i'm too busy for that sort of thing myself." he said it with a crushing air of finality. when he had gone, mrs. lewknor looked at her husband with deprecatory eyes. "my jock," she said with a little sigh, "tell me!--is it the system?--is it the man?--what is it?" the major sat upright on a little hard chair. his eyes twinkled maliciously in his somewhat bony head. he looked like a gaunt satyr. "my dear," he said, "in the british army you must do as the british army does. and there is one thing which the british army _will not_ tolerate, and that is--a cultivated mind." "i don't think that's peculiar to the army," replied mrs. lewknor. "the attitude's characteristic of our race." mr. royal was not in fact popular among his brother officers. his superiors complained that his manner was slightly insolent, his juniors that it was so damn superior. the men liked him for his efficiency, and some women admired him--too much it was whispered. mrs. lewknor followed ernie's military career with quiet interest. not that there was very much to follow: for ernie, apart from the cricket-field, had no career. he did not seek promotion, and was not in fact offered it. as mr. royal very truly said,--"he can't come it enough to make an n.c.o." the habit of authority indeed sat ill on his shoulders; but he was liked by officers and men; and his cricket gave him a place in the regimental team. but there was little in army life to do for ernie the one thing essential self demands--encourage growth; and not a little to repress it. when the first newness had worn off, ernie was spiritually unsatisfied and solitary. the grosser vices of the men never appealed to him, and the men themselves were not his sort. to get away from them he sometimes wandered far a-field, poking and prying into the temples of the various sects, and not seldom found himself in the crowded streets of the native city, a lonely khaki figure in a sun-helmet, regarding the many-coloured crowd, and asking himself, in the philosophical way he inherited from his father, "what's the meaning of it all?" it was on one of these rambles that the solitary incident of his career in india occurred to him. he was standing at the foot of the hill in the native city of lahore, watching the traffic in the narrow streets, when he saw a mem-sahib driving a tum-tum slowly through the heavy ox-traffic. the syce for some reason had descended, and the lady was alone. just then a huge elephant with painted sides came swinging down the steep street, at the head of a religious procession, singing and clashing cymbals. the lady's pony, a dun country-bred, took fright and bolted. ernie saw her face, quite calm beneath her solar topee, as she rushed past him, pulling at the run-away. it was mrs. lewknor. a few yards down the street the wheels of the tum-tum cannoned into a sack borne by a small donkey. the donkey, already tottering beneath his load, collapsed and lay in the dust unable to rise. the driver of the donkey, an unsavoury giant, pock-marked, abused the mem-sahib. a crowd gathered. the religious procession was held up, the elephant swinging his trunk discontentedly and spouting showers of dust over his flanks. ernie didn't like the look of things, for it was common talk in the lines that the native city was mutinous. he came up quickly. the presence of the man in khaki steadied the crowd and stopped the chatter. "best get out of this, 'm," he suggested. "they look a bit funny." he took the pony's head and turned him. "you get up alongside me then," said mrs. lewknor. he obeyed. the crowd made way. the pock-marked man began again to beat his donkey. the procession resumed its march. "one up for the hammer-men!" the little lady laughed, as they emerged from the gate of the native city. "yes, 'm," said ernie. "only one thing. the native city's out of bounds for me." mrs. lewknor smiled. "i'm not one of the military police," she said.... that evening she put to her husband a question that had often puzzled her. "why doesn't caspar get on?" she asked. "he's got twice the intelligence of men who go over his head." "my dear," replied the major with the sententiousness that grew on him with the greying years, "intelligence is the last thing we want in the ranks of the army. intelligence always leads to indiscipline. the army wants in the lower ranks only one thing--what is called 'character.' and by character it means the quality of the bull who rammed his head against a brick-wall till he was unconscious and went at it again when he came round saying--_my head is bloody but unbowed_." during ernie's years of service the battalion moved slowly north, exchanging the plains of the central provinces for the frosty nights and red sand-hills of the punjauh. major lewknor became colonel; and mr. royal adjutant. ern and the new colonel were curiously sympathetic; ern and the adjutant the reverse. it may be that the colonel, unusual himself, and lonely because of it, recognized a kindred spirit in the man; it may be that he never forgot that ern was the son of his old contemporary hathri caspar of trinity; or perhaps mrs. lewknor played an unconscious part in the matter. it is certain that on the one occasion ern was brought before him in the orderly room for a momentary lapse into his old weakness, the colonel merely "admonished" the offender. captain royal, a ruthless disciplinarian, was aggrieved. "he's such a rotten slack soldier, sir," he complained, after the culprit, congratulating himself upon his escape, had disappeared. "isn't he?" said the colonel, enjoying to the full the irritation of his subordinate. "that man'd be no earthly good except on service." even at the wicket indeed ernie was only at his best when he had to try. a first-rate natural bat, he would have been left out of the regimental team for slackness but that, as the sergeant-major said, "caspar's always there when you want him most." in fact, ernie ended his career in the army with something of a flourish. the regiment was playing the rifle brigade at rawlpindi in the last round for the holkar cup. half-way through the second day, when the hammer-men were batting, a rot set in. there were still two hours to play when the last man went in. "who is it?" asked mrs. lewknor, keen as a knife. "your friend, caspar, mrs. lewknor," answered the senior subaltern, one conky joe, with the beak of a penguin, the eyes of an angel, and the heart of a laughter-loving boy. "they're sending him in last for his sins in the field--which were many and grievous." "he won't live long against their fast bowler," commented the boy gloomily. "i know caspar." "i never like to differ from my superiors," said the colonel. "but i'm not so sure." "nor am i," said mrs. lewknor defiantly. the colonel and his wife proved right. ernie batted with astonishing confidence from the first. at the end of twenty minutes it was anybody's game. royal, well into his second century, was flogging the ball all over the ground. and ernie's clear voice--"yes, sir! no, sir! stay where you are!" gave new heart to the watching hammer-men. in the end the two men played out time with consummate ease, and were carried together off the ground. "it was like bowling at two rocks," said one of the defeated side. "spiteful rocks too!" replied the other. "stood up and slashed at you!" the colonel went up and shook hands with the victorious batsmen, and mrs. lewknor waved her parasol. "well done, caspar!" she cried. "stuck it out!" a few days later, his time being up, ernie was detailed for a draft for home. the colonel, on signing his papers, said that he was sorry to be parting, and meant it. "charming fellow!" he said to the adjutant, when ern had left the room. "yes," answered captain royal in his lofty way. "too charming. he'll never be any good to himself or us either." "i'm not so sure," replied the colonel. "he's the sort that never does well except when he's got to." that evening ern went up to the colonel's bungalow to say good-bye to mrs. lewknor. "where are you going?" asked the little lady. "back home, 'm," ernie answered. "old town, beachbourne. there's no place in the world to touch it." mrs. lewknor smiled at his enthusiasm. "i know it," she said. "the colonel comes from those parts--hailsham-way. perhaps we shall follow you when we retire." "beachbourne!" mused the colonel, after ernie had departed. "famous for two things: mr. trupp, the surgeon, who by a brilliant operation saved the other day the life of the man the world could have done best without, and the hohenzollern hotel." "what's the hohenzollern hotel?" asked mrs. lewknor. "my dear," said the colonel, "captain royal will enlighten you in his more intimate moments." chapter xxi the return of the soldier that first return to england after his long absence in the east always remained one of the land-marks in ernie's life. it was a revelation to him, never completely to pass away. the time was late april; the weather perfect. the song of mating birds rose from dew-drenched brake and bush on every hand; the spring lay like a dream of gossamer on the hedges and woodlands; the lambs and quiet cattle filled him with an immense content. his heart rose up in joy and thankfulness and humble love. and his mates, it was clear to him, were experiencing the same transfiguring emotion. he was sure of it from the silence that grew on them as they travelled through the radiant country-side from the port at which they had landed, their noses glued to the windows of the troop-train. gradually the vision possessed their souls like lovely music. the rowdiness, the silly songs, the bad jokes faded away. an awe stole over them as of men admitted into the sanctuary and beholding there for the first time the beauty of the holy one unveiled before them. now and then a quiet voice spoke out of the silence. "blime! there's a rabbit!" "there's an english serving-maid!" "ain't it all solid-like?" that solidity was one of ernie's abiding impressions too--the massive character of this western civilization to which he was returning. and it stood, he was convinced, for something real: for it was based on a foundation that only the blind and gross could call materialism. the big-boned porters trundling tinkling milk-cans along the platforms at a wayside station, the english faces, the square brick buildings, the substantial coin, confirmed the thought. "solid!" he echoed in his father's vein. "that's the word. give me the west. back there it's all a little bit o gilded gimcrack." once the train stopped in an embankment lined with primroses and crowned with woods, a sweet undercurrent of song streaming quietly up to heaven, like the murmur of innumerable fairy-bees. ernie removed his cap; and the unuttered words in his heart, as in those of his companions, were, "let us pray!" a few weeks later he stood on the platform of victoria, discharged. deliberately he chose, to take him home, a train that stopped and browsed at all the stations with the familiar english names as it made its fussy way across the weald through the very heart of saxondom. he sat in the corner, the window wide, the breeze upon his face, without a paper, reading instead the countryside as a man reads in age a poem beloved in his youth. one by one he picked up the old land-marks--the spire of cowfold monastery, slender against the west, ditchling beacon, black cap, and the devil's dyke. at ardingly, where the train had stopped, it seemed, for lunch, he got out. the downs were drawing closer now, the blue rampart of them seeming to gather all this beauty as in a giant basin. in the woods hard by a woodpecker was tapping. he saw a cock pheasant streaming in glorious flight over a broad-backed hedge. and across the hollow of the weald cuckoos everywhere were calling, and flying as they called. he closed his eyes and listened. the weald seemed to him an immense bowl of nectar, brimming and beaded. he was floating in it; and the tiny bubbles all about him were popping off with a soft delicious sound--_cuck-oo! cuck-oo!_ then he came to earth to see the train bundling out of the station with a callous grin. it was significant of ernie's weakness and his strength that he didn't mind. indeed he was glad. he left the station and plunged like a swimmer into the sea of sound and colour, opening his chest and breathing it in. the wealth of green amazed him. it filled and fulfilled his heart. he caught it up in both hands, as it were, and poured it over his thirsting flesh. abundant, yet light as froth, it overflowed all things, hedges, woods and pastures; splashing with brightest emerald the walls and roofs of the cottages, russet-timbered and sussex-tiled. here and there in an old garden, set in the green, was a laburnum like a fountain of gold, a splash of lilac in lovely mourning against the yews, a chestnut lighted with a myriad spray of bloom. the pink may had succeeded the white; and clematis garlanded the hedges. there was a wonderful stillness everywhere, and the atmosphere was bright and hard. after a dry month the grass was very forward. the oak-trees stood up to their knees in hay that was yellow with buttercups, the wind rustling through it like a tide. the foliage of the oaks was still faintly bronzed. steadfast, old, and very grim in all this faerie, they bore themselves as lords of the forest by right of conquest and long inheritance. ernie nodded greeting at them. their uncompromising air amused him. they were not his tree: for he was a hill-man; and the oaks belonged to the weald, which in its turn clearly belonged to them. he did not love them; but he admired and respected them for their sturdy independence of character, if he laughed a little at their english self-righteousness and dogmatic air. they were of england too in their determination not to show emotion: for they appeared not to be moving; yet he could see a wind was flowing through them, while in the shadow of them mares-in-foal were flicking their tails. ernie recognized with joy that he was returning to the country he had left. the gang of men he came on at the end of a lane, asphalting a main-road, the rare car dashing along with a swirling tail of dust between green hedges, disturbed but little his peace of mind. he was home again--in old england--the heart of whose heart was sussex. in the train again he sank back in a kind of pleasant trance. two country-men in his carriage were talking in the old ca-a-ing speech--_so cardingly i saays to herrr_.... their undulating voices rocked him to sleep. he woke to find himself in lewes, and his eyes resting on the massif of mount caburn. the train wandered eastwards under the downs, past furrel beacon, athwart the opening of the ruther valley. the long man of wilmington stared bleakly at him from the flanks of hills that seemed sometimes scarred and old and worn, at others rich with the mystery of youth. the train ran through polefax, where the line to romney marsh turns off. then with a belated effort at sprightliness it hurried through the sprawling outposts of beachbourne. the town had grown greatly, overspreading the foothills towards ratton and the woods of the decoy and skirmishing across the marshes beyond the gasworks, which, when he left, had marked the uttermost bounds of civilization. chapter xxii old town when ern got out of the train on to the very platform where alf, six years before, had prophesied his return in glory, nothing much happened. true, the conditions were not quite as alf had foretold. rather the reverse. whereas it was a dapper young clerk who had left beachbourne, it was a solid working-man who returned to it; one who by his clothes, boots, hands, hair, and even walk, testified that he was of those who bear on their shoulders the burden of our industrial civilization. and that perhaps was why the promised brass-band was conspicuous by its absence, and there were present no fathers of the city expanding ample paunches preparatory to delivering an address of welcome to the returning soldier. instead there was upon the platform one unkempt porter, who took his ticket very casually, and when asked by ern whether he recognized him, replied with more honesty than tact that he didn't know but thought not. "see, i sees so many," he remarked apologetically. "i'm ernie caspar," said ernie, noting with critical military eye that the other did not seem to have had his hair cut since last they met. "i was at the moot school along o you. aaron huggett, aren't it?" the porter's face betrayed a flicker of sardonic interest. "i expagt you'll be alf caspar's brother," he said. "that's it," ernie answered, a thought sourly. back in beachbourne he was not himself; he was just his younger brother's brother, it seemed. things were not quite as he had expected. everywhere was a subtle change of atmosphere. beside the book-stall now stood a sentry-box with glass doors. in it a man with something to his ear was talking to himself. ernie felt somehow disconsolate. outside the station, in cornfield road, he paused and took in the scene. there was more traffic than of old, and it was swifter. in the country from which he came the ox was still the principal motive-power upon the roads: here clearly horses were becoming out of date. he asked a policeman when the bus for old town ran. "there she is," said the man, pointing. "on the bounce!" just across the street, under the particular plane-tree the starlings haunted of evenings, where in the past old huggett in his bottle-green coat would wait indefinitely with his mouldy pair of browns, there stood a gaudy motor-bus, decked on top. a spruce conductor was pulling the bell sharply; and a board on which were printed the starting-times hung from a neighbouring lamp. it was all very precise, powerful, and efficient. ernie was not sure whether he liked it or not. but he had little time to think. this mechanical monster was not the old gentlemanly horse-bus with its easy tolerance. it gave no law and knew no mercy. it was swift and terrible; and its heart was of the same stuff as its engines. he crossed the road and leapt on to the great lurching thing. carelessly it bore him along the old road to lewes and then swung away under the chestnuts into water lane. here at least nothing had changed but the vehicle that carried him. on his left was saffrons croft, just as of old, with its group of splendid elms and the downs seen through the screen of them; in front on the hill, above the roofs of old town, the church-tower with its squat spire, bluff against a background of green. two ladies were walking down the hill, a middle-aged and gracious mother, escorted by a tall daughter. ernie's neighbour nudged him confidentially. "mrs. trupp," he said. ernie leaned over. except for the silver in her hair, his god-mother had altered little; but he would hardly have recognized in the stately young woman who walked at her side the flapper who had waved him good-bye from the nursery-window years before. his neighbour was conveying to him information about the great surgeon. "he's our greatest man by far. mr. trupp _of beachbourne_. they come from all parts to him. he saved the tsar of dobrudja--when all the rest had taken to their prayers." "ah," said ernie, "i think i ave eard of im." the bus, for all its rushing manners of a parvenu, stopped opposite the _star_; but the old beam across the road was gone. ernie felt himself aggrieved, and complained to the conductor as he got down. "well, you didn't want your head took off every time, did you?" said that unsympathetic worthy. ernie strolled up church street, living his past over again. here at least he found the rich, slow atmosphere he had expected. there was the long-backed church standing massive and noble as of old on its eminence above the moot; beneath it in the hollow the brown roof of the quaker meeting-house; and on his left the little ironmonger's shop outside which alf had seen mrs. pigott and her dog sharkie on the fatal day they sacked the walnut-tree. at billing's corner he was reassured to find the high flint-wall that ran at the back of rectory walk making its old sharp corner and the fig-tree peeping over it. the rectory, too, still stood in pharisaic aloofness amid gloomy evergreens. and out of it was coming the rector, walking mincingly just as of yore. that finikin old man had not changed much at all events, and yet ... and yet ... as he came closer, ernie was aware of some subtle spiritual difference here too. at first he thought the rector had grown. then he recognized that the change was in the top-hat and those tall attenuated legs. they were clothed in gaiters now, and gave the wearer just that air of old-world distinction it was his passion to assume. in fact pseudo-canon willcocks had in ernie's absence become archdeacon, to his own ineffable satisfaction and that of his lady. now he marched down the middle of the road with his hands behind his back, in the meditative pose he always hoped passers-by would mistake for prayer. ernie touched his hat; and the archdeacon with an air of royal indifference imitated to the life from his hero, the late emperor of the french, acknowledged the salute with an "ah! my friend!" and titupped delicately upon his way. ernie, grinning, turned the corner and stopped short. he had little notion as to what was before him. during his absence his mother's letters, it is true, had been very regular and most curt. it was indeed astonishing how little she had contrived to tell him. his father, on the other hand, had written seldom but at length, yet never mentioning home-news; while alf, of course, had not written at all. ernie was therefore in the dark as to the welcome awaiting him. the downs at the end of the walk greeted him; but a row of red-brick villas on the far side the new road imposed a barrier between him and them. true, they nodded at him friendly over the intruding roofs; but he was shut out from the great coombe which of old had gathered the shadows in the evening and echoed in the spring to the melancholy insistent cry of lambs. all around the builder had been busy. when he left, the windows of rectory walk had looked across over rough fields to the golf links and beech-hangar beyond. now detached houses on the westward side of the road blocked the view. his own home at least had changed not at all. the virginia-creeper was brilliant as ever on its walls; the arabis humming with bees beneath the study-window. as he passed through the gate, his mother, who must have been waiting, opened to him quietly, and held up a warning finger. she was beautiful still, but showing wear, as must a woman of fifty, who has never spared herself. her hair was now snow-white; her complexion, as seen in the passage, fine as ever; her eyes the same startling blue under fierce brows, but the lines about them had an added kindness. she led past the study-door into the kitchen, walking a little stiffly, her bones more apparent than of old. ern followed her with a smile, his hand scraping the familiar varnished paper, his eye catching that of the converted drain-pipe. she was still clearly a woman of one idea--dad. cautiously his mother closed the door of the kitchen behind him. then she turned and put her hands upon his shoulders. there was something yearning in her gesture as of a puzzled child asking an explanation. ern's quick intuitions told him that since he had last seen her his mother had lost something and was missing it. this he noticed and her hands--how worn they were. fondly he kissed them, realizing a little wistfully that his mother now was an old woman. she smiled at him. "let me see you," she said, and her eyes dwelt upon his face. for the first time in his life he felt that his mother was depending on him, and was moved accordingly. "you're changed," she said at last. "you're a man now. but your eyes are the same." "how's dad?" he asked. she withdrew from his arms and turned away. "he's an old man now, ernie," she said.... "he's not what he was.... i don't rightly know what to make of him.... he goes to meeting now." she was puzzled and pathetic. "has he turned quaker?" asked ernie. "he says not." just then quiet music sounded from the study. "is that dad?" asked ernie, amazed. his mother nodded. "one of them new-fangled machines. pianolas, don't they call em? i give him one for his birthday." ernie listened in awed silence. "that's beethoven," he said. "i'd know it anywhere.... in old days we used to have to go out for that, me and dad did." the music ceased. "now," said his mother, and opened the kitchen-door. chapter xxiii the changed man ernie went to the study-door and knocked. "come in," said a voice that surprised him by its firmness. he entered. his father stood before the fireplace almost as he had left him, save that he had discarded his dressing-gown for a loose long-tailed morning-coat of the kind worn by country gentlemen in the eighties. physically he had changed very little, spiritually it was clear at the first glance that he was another man. the dignity which had distinguished him at the moment of parting had become his permanent possession. some shining wind of the spirit blowing through his stagnant streets had purged him thoroughly. his colour was fresh as a child's, his eyes steady and hopeful, and there was a note of quiet exaltation about him, of expectation. "boy-lad," he said in deeper tones than of old, as they shook hands. ernie looked round like one lost. the room, too, was as greatly changed as its inmate. but for a bowl of crimson roses on the book-shelf it might have been called austere. the persian rug had gone, the writing-table was bare of the familiar manuscript. the book-shelves had disappeared to make way for a piano. the walls were still brown, and from them lely's cavalier looked down with faintly ironical eyes upon his descendants. it was the only picture on the walls. "where are the books then, dad?" ernie asked. "i sent them down to fowler's," the other answered. "i've done with books--all except those." he pointed to a single row, perhaps a dozen in all, among which ernie recognized the blue backs of the golden treasury series, the old edition of wordsworth, homely as the poet himself, and a little brown-paper bound new testament. ernie sat down. now he understood that pathetic look in his mother's eyes. his father was no longer dependent on her; and she was missing that dependency as only a woman who has given her life to propping an invalid can miss it. "have you joined the friends, dad?" he asked earnestly. the old man shook his head. "i shall never join another sect. they're nearest the truth, it seems to me--a long way nearest. but they aren't there yet. none of us are." ernie considered his father, sitting opposite him as of old, and yet how changed! in those familiar blue eyes he detected now a dry twinkle, as of an imp dancing amid autumn leaves. suddenly the imp leapt out and tickled him. ernie flung back in his chair and laughed. the old man opposite nodded sympathetically. then the door in the hall opened. somebody had entered the passage, and was stumbling over the bag ernie had left there. ernie ceased to laugh; and the imp to twinkle. "that's your brother," said the old man almost harshly. ernie made no move. in the passage outside alf was shifting the bag--with curses. "does he live here still?" asked ernie, low. "yes," said his father. "he's got a garage of his own now. he's getting on." "shall i go and see him?" asked ernie. "there's nothing to see," his father answered in that new dry note of his. "but you'd better go and see it perhaps," he added. ernie rose reluctantly and went into the passage. alf's voice came from the kitchen, dogmatic and domineering. "him or me. that's flat," he was saying. "house won't hold us both." ernie swaggered into the kitchen. alf was standing before the fire, very smart and well-groomed. he wore a double-breasted waistcoat, festooned by a watch-chain, from which hung a bronze cross. a little man still, with an immense head, his shoulders appeared broad in their padded coat; but the creases in his waistcoat betrayed his hollow chest and defective physique, and his legs were small and almost shrunken in their last year's sunday trousers. ernie advanced on his brother. "all right, alf, old son," he said. "no need to get yer shirt out. i'm not a-goin to force myself on no one." "al-_fred_, if you please," answered alf, planted before the fire and caressing a little waxed moustache, which had come into being during ernie's absence. "oh, you are igh," laughed ernie. "i am al-_fred_ to me own folk and mr. caspar to the rest," answered alf, dogged and unbending. "come, alf, shake hands with your brother!" scolded his mother. alf, his eyes still averted, extended a surly hand mechanically from the shoulder. ern, white and flashing, took the hand. "there's for my brother!" he said. "and there's for alf!" and tossed it from him. then he went out. his bag was still in the hall. he was about to take it up when his father called him from the study. "you're going to stop here?" he asked; and ernie detected a touch of the old anxiety in his voice, a suggestion of the old tremulousness in his face and figure. in all the tuzzles between the two brothers, alf had over ern the incalculable material advantage of the man who is not a gentleman over the man who is. "i just got to go down and see mr. pigott after a job, dad," ern answered soothingly. "i'll be round again later." he went out of the house, shutting the door quietly behind him. anne caspar heard it go, and looking out into the passage saw that the bag had vanished too. "he's gone," she said. "army manners," muttered alf. "you've drove him out," continued his mother. "ave i?" said alf, cleaning his nails with a penknife. "i got my way to make. i don't want no angers-on to me.... comin back on us a common soldier--not so much as a stripe to his arm, let alone a full sergeant. a fair disgrace on the family, i call it." "all for yourself always," said his mother censoriously. "who else'd i be for then?" asked alf, genuinely indignant. "you might be for the church," answered anne grimly. chapter xxiv alf if ernie was now the working-man, alf on his side was very much the gentleman. he dressed the part to the best of his ability; and--when he remembered--even tried to talk it. but he had not arrived at his present position without a struggle. when he was through his apprenticeship, he left hewson & clarke, and inducing his mother to lend him a little capital, started a car and garage of his own in the chestnuts between old town and the station. at first he did not prosper. the horse-industry, with a tradition of tens of thousands of years behind it, would not yield its pride of place without a struggle. competitors were many and fierce. and just when he believed that he was finding his feet at last, a big london syndicate started the red cross garages throughout kent and sussex. alf for the first time felt the full weight of capitalism--the juggernaut with mammon at the wheel that crushes beneath its rollers the bodies and souls of the weak and impotent. his sense of helplessness embittered him. his garage was empty; his car in little request; he had few repairs. old town at one end of beachbourne and holywell on the foot-hills under beau-nez at the other were the quarters of the resident aristocracy amongst whom it was the convention to avoid "the front" as bad form. these clung to their sleek pairs and cockaded coachmen just as they clung to the church and joseph chamberlain and the belief, so often re-affirmed by archdeacon willcocks, that kaiser wilhelm of germany was the one man living who knew how to rule the masses. _the firm hand, sir!_ the doctors, on the other hand, were beginning to possess little cars of their own which they drove themselves or had driven for them; while the progressive town council started motor buses and deprived alf of some station-work. mr. pigott, now a radical alderman, was responsible for this last injustice. alf knew it, and in revenge, ceased to attend chapel. mr. pigott, with an unerring eye for the defaulters of his flock, marked his absence and tackled the lost sheep on the subject. "you've given up god then!" he said, fierce and frowning. "there ain't none," answered alf, as brief and brutal. "where there's no justice, there can't be no god." his little eyes sparkled dreadfully. "look at young albert hewson. he went through the shops with me. is he as good an engineer as me?--can he strip an engine same as me?--can he turn to the thousandth part of an inch?--ask the chaps in the yard. yet because he's got all the money, been to rugby and oxford, they make him deputy-chairman of the red cross syndicate at £ , a year straight from the shop, and managing director of ball-bearings, limited, and i don't know what all." he became a violent socialist; spent his sundays attending labour demonstrations in the east-end; read robert blatchford in the _clarion_; and sulked with his mother. for a moment he even contemplated the abandonment of his ambitions. when mr. pigott, after his second marriage, finally gave up schoolmastering and became manager of the southdown transport company, alf applied for the position of working foreman. the application was discussed at a meeting of the directors. "he's the chap that made the wage-slave speech to the engineers at the salvation army citadel on labour day," said one. "what d'_you_ think, pigott?" asked another. "i won't have alf caspar in my yard," replied the manager with characteristic emphasis. "i know alf." "then that settles it," said the chairman. alf rightly attributed his defeat to his old schoolmaster. "so you've turned me down, mr. pigott," he said, stopping the other in church street a few days later. mr. pigott, like most professing pacifists, was always ready for a fight. "i thought you wanted to be a master-man!" he cried. "and here you're applying for a job as a wage-slave--to use your own term." alf was white, trembling, and sour-faced. "all i want is a fair chance," he said doggedly. "and if i don't get it there'll be trouble." he came a step closer. his eyes were down, and he looked dangerous. "see here, mr. pigott--if you turn on full-steam same time you seal up the safety-valve, something'll burst. that's science, that is." mr. pigott was not at all dismayed. "now look here!" he said. "you take a pull, young man. you're going altogether too far and too fast. and i'm speaking not as a magistrate but as your old school-master." at the bowling green committee that evening, while the minutes were being read, he retailed the incident to mr. trupp. "that little ewe-lamb o yours is turning tiger because he can't have it all his own way," he said. "going to upset society because he's not king." mr. trupp was amused. "arrested development," he said. "he's an interesting study in pathology." "criminal pathology," muttered mr. pigott. whether in the interests of science, or of expediency, next day mr. trupp rolled into alf's garage, with a blue long-dog, a descendant of the original _she_, wearing the studded collar of her ancestress, at his heels. no man had made a stiffer fight against the new and aggressive locomotive than the great surgeon. pests of the road, he called them, and refused to recognize his friends when driving them. he affirmed that they upset his horses and his patients; made the place stink; and whirled through the country-side disseminating disease in clouds of dust. but he was no fool, and increasingly busy. a machine that could whisk him over to lewes in little more than thirty minutes, and land him at the metropole in brighton in the hour, was not to be scoffed at. alf was cleaning his car when mr. trupp, greatly muffled in spite of the heat, strolled into his yard. "look here, alf," growled the great man. "i'm never going to own one of those things. but i've got to use one to get about. if you like to do my driving we'll arrange something." alf's attitude to life changed in the twinkling of an eye. he bustled home that evening, a new man. "all o.k.," he called to his mother. "i got me first contract." "what?" she asked sullenly. "driving for mr. trupp." she took a saucepan off the fire. "then you're a made man," she said; and she did not exaggerate. the job, or as alf preferred to call it, the contract, meant honour; it meant money; it meant--above all--a start. mr. trupp had been for long the first surgeon in sussex: since the operation, as daring as discreet, by which he had preserved the life of a balkan tsar to disgrace a throne, his fame had become world-wide. that evening, uplifted on a wave of humility and thankfulness, alf walked to mr. pigott's house and apologized to him. "i said a lot of silly things, i know," he said. "there is a god and a good god too." mr. pigott was sitting with his new wife, who was as much his junior as the first had been his senior. she was a young woman, with a mischievous face and bright hair. "he'll be glad to have you on his side again," she remarked demurely. "he was missing you." mr. pigott scowled melodramatically at the offender. she refused to catch his eye, busy with her work. "five pound a week isn't a bad god as times go," she went on. alf smirked. "it's seven pound ten," he said, and withdrew. "elsie pigott!" roared her husband, when the outside door had shut. "sir!" answered his bride, and added--"mr. trupp's taken him on.... mrs. trupp's furious...." alf, in spite of his access of faith, never returned to chapel. as he remarked to his mother, "i got me principles. and i must stick to em." "that's it," said his mother. "stick to em--until you want to change em." anne caspar cherished now no illusions about her second son. she no longer cared for alf--for he was no longer dependent on her; nor did she respect him. but his naïveté, the outrageous sincerity of his egotism, appealed to a certain grim sense of humour she possessed. chapter xxv the churchman alf, with all his faults, had at least the supreme virtue of the animal living in a fiercely competitive world: he never missed a chance. a year after he began to drive for mr. trupp, he had a second car, a man driving for him, and another on repairing work. success sugared his political outlook, just as defeat had soured it. like most really hard men, he saved himself in his own eyes by becoming a thorough-going sentimentalist. in the course of a year or two, king and country had become the objects of his ferocious admiration; while the masses of his countrymen were to be dealt with as ruthlessly as expediency and the vote would allow. "traitors, i call em," he confided to his new friend, the reverend spink. "all for their fat selves all the time. never think of you and me. they fair give me the hiccoughs." at the general election of he came out fearlessly for god and the conservative party. the two candidates for west beachbourne were, as all decent men admitted, the worst who ever stood for a constituency. the sitting member had just received that which he entered parliament to obtain--a baronetcy; and his solitary ambition now was to be defeated. unfortunately an aspiring wife had other views to which her spouse had to give way. his opponent, on the other hand, had, according to the enemy, recently emerged "from a home of rest" in order to contest the constituency. at the preceding khaki election the conservative candidate, who was an undoubtedly fine whip, had secured the "triumph of right," as archdeacon willcocks finely called it, by the simple process of driving a well-appointed team through the constituency. "i'll vote for them 'orses," had been the general verdict. the victor now repeated his tactics. on polling day, as a reward for his strenuous labours in the good cause, alf was given a ride on the top of the coach among the very pick of england's aristocracy. in that fair company he meandered from public-house to public-house all a winter's afternoon, singing with his hosts hymns and spirituous songs. in cornfield road, opposite the _white hart_, mr. pigott, red and dusty from the battle, saw him ensconced on that bad eminence among the crimson faces and flowery hats of the enemy. "you've changed your coat to some purpose," he bawled. alf leaned down. "yes, sir," he said quietly. "i've learned a bit, and i'm not ashamed to admit it." the beery riders raised an aggressive cheer. and the son and heir of the candidate, snatching the horn from the hand of a footman, blew a strident blast in the ear of the outraged schoolmaster. alf's candidate was returned, to his no small chagrin--one of the few tories to survive the democratic deluge of that year. "just a remnant of us," as alf remarked pathetically to the archdeacon, "that 'as not bowed the knee to bile." thus earlier in life even than most of us, alf joined the big battalions of those who, secure themselves, mean to make capital out of the insecurity of others. "i'm a high old tory," he would tell lady augusta willcocks truculently. "and i don't care who knows it." and finding quickly the necessity for, and advantage of, a religious sanction for a position that was morally untenable, he threw himself upon the bosom of the church; and in that comfortable and accommodating community which opens wide its gates to all who prefer the path of compromise to the road that leads up calvary, he found the sustenance of which he stood in need. alf effected the change of religious community with considerable tact. he began quite simply by touching his hat to the junior curate of the parish church, when he met him in the street. the reverend spink, who was a man of much the same class as alf, was highly gratified and uplifted. then alf took to saying very shyly, "good morning, sir," hurrying past in order not to impede by his unworthy presence the great man's view. next he took to dropping in to the reverend spink's addresses for "men only." here he made himself conspicuous by his thoughtfulness and the corrugations in his brow as he imbibed the teachings of his master. one day he asked, with some confusion and stumblings of speech, a question so easy that even the curate could answer it. alf nodded, well satisfied. the curate swelled in the spirit. this catechumen at the least knew what was what. next day alf, greatly daring, stopped the evangelist in the street. "beg pardon, sir," he began diffidently. "about what you was saying last night about them proper prefaces..." the curate amplified his explanation. alf drank in the milk of the word, nodding his head. "ah, i never thought of that!" he said. "look here!" said the curate with sudden warmth. "if you're interested in those sort of things..." the naughty devil who possessed alf bobbed out and almost undid him. "what!--proper prefaces!" he said, and added hastily--"and the things appertaining to em!--religion and that." "that's what i mean," said the curate. "come round to my rooms on friday. some of us meet there once a week. jolly fellows. come and smoke a pipe and chat!" the reverend spink was deeply tainted with the hearty bon-camarade method which the bishop of fulham had recently introduced into the church to enable it to float on the flowing democratic tide. after that alf went often. the curate, who had made inquiries, found that alf had once been, according to report, "a roaring, raving socialist and atheist!" "shockin the things he used to say!" his informant told him. the curate, who was all out for sensation, was thrilled. here was a catch indeed!--if he could but bring it off!--what wouldn't the dear bishop of fulham say? his prayers were answered more swiftly than he had anticipated. in a month the reverend spink had led his penitent to the baptismal font. alf, asked if he would like any of his people to be present at the ceremony, had shaken his head. "see where it is, sir, mother's chapel. she'll never forgive me--not but what i'll put up with that if it's right. and dad's i don't know what. i don't know that he knows himself." the only people alf invited to attend were mrs. trupp and her daughter. they refused politely. as bess said to her mother with the firmness of youth, "we are on ernie's side. dad may forget, but we don't." a few weeks later the reverend spink went to call on alf's father. after he had left, mrs. caspar heard strange sounds in the study. she went to the door and listened. then she opened and peeped in. edward caspar was laughing as she had never seen him laugh in twenty odd years of married life. the tears were streaming down his face, his head was thrown back and his body convulsed. his wife regarded him with dour sympathy. "what is it?" she asked hardly. her husband wiped his eyes shamefacedly. "nothing," he said. "only the curate's been converting me." that evening, as he went to bed, he peered over the banisters, and said in his grave way to alf in the kitchen, "i hope your friend mr. spink'll come again." alf reported the incident next day to the curate, adding, "i will say this for dad. he is broad." mr. trupp heard of his chauffeur's conversion. "you're church then now, alf," he said. "yes, sir," replied the other with the curious naïveté of blunted susceptibilities. "more classier. see, i'm getting on now." and alf did not stop at baptism. he was thorough in religious as in secular affairs. next spring, after a careful preparation by the reverend spink, he was confirmed by the bishop and afterwards admitted a member of the c.e.m.s. after the ceremony, the bishop inquired of the rector, in the vestry, who the young man with the immense head might be. archdeacon willcocks always wore a little white imperial in reverent imitation of his master, louis napoleon. his cult of the third emperor was perhaps the most genuine thing about him, and had endured for fifty years. but for a stern no-nonsense father he would have deserted cambridge in ' to fight for a cause already lost. and he had never forgiven the scholar at his gate who had told him that his favourite had painted his face before sedan. "what if he did?" he had asked sourly. "nothing," edward caspar had answered. "only it's interesting." "i don't believe he did." "did you never read zola's _débâcle_?" asked the other gently. "nevah!" cried the archdeacon, on firm church-ground now. "i don't read zolah!" "ah," said edward. "pity..." the archdeacon looked like a gentleman, and, to do him justice, tried hard to live up to his looks. with this end in view he had married--to his no small gratification, and that of his mother--the daughter of a victorian earl. in the days before he became an archdeacon he habitually wore a top-hat, slightly battered to signify that the wearer, while an aristocrat, was not a new one. a sedulous attendant on the rich of the parish, he visited the poor by proxy; and yet by the simple process of taking off his hat with a sweep to every cottage-woman in the moot who vouchsafed him a good-morning on his rare passages through that district, he maintained an easy reputation among the more conservative of the working-class as a christian and a gentleman. archdeacon willcocks was in fact a snob, but he was not a cad; whereas his junior curate was both. when, therefore, the bishop made inquiries as to alf, the archdeacon gave the glory to his subordinate. "spink got hold of him," he said. "he was a dangerous socialist, i believe." the bishop regarded with approval the chubby young man with the pursed mouth, wondering whether he should transfer him to the industrial east-end or the slums of portslade. a thorough-going man of the world, like most of his type, he was quite astute enough to see that the real enemy of the institution he represented was the labour party; and that the danger from this quarter was growing, and would continue to grow. when alf returned home from the ceremony in the parish-church, his mother was taking off her bonnet in the kitchen. she eyed him with sardonic mirth as he entered. "feel a change?" she asked. "what's that?" "since he done it." "was you there then?" asked alf. "i was." alf was entirely unabashed. "i must go with me conscience," he said, "if it was ever so." "and we all know which way your conscience goes, alf," his mother answered. "which way's that then?" "the way the money goes." alf was not in the least offended. indeed he was rather pleased. he stood in his favourite position in the window with his back to his mother and cleaned his nails with a pen-knife. "crucified for conscience' sake," he muttered. "i dare say i'm not the first, nor i won't be the last neether." alf was confirmed into the church, and persecuted for it by his mother, a few weeks before his brother's return home. chapter xxvi mr. pigott ernie, bag in hand, and sore of heart, sauntered along to the end of rectory walk. there beech-hangar, swirling in the wind under the shoulder of the downs that shut off beau-nez, called to his wounded spirit. he walked slowly along the new road, away from the houses, across the golf links towards this favourite retreat of his boyhood where of old, when in trouble with his mother, he would retire. there on the slope amid the beech-trees, the links billowing away before him to the woods that ambushed the duke's lodge, he lay down. the smooth stems rose about him like columns in the choir of a church. the wind strayed amid a sea of sun-lit leaves. the cool, the comfort, the bright graciousness of these comrades of his youth soothed and satisfied him. he studied them with kind eyes. the harsh male quality of the oak was not theirs. they could not stand the buffeting of time as did the fierce old warriors of the weald; but they could sustain the spirit in the hour of need. they were for him the women among trees. ernie lay with his eyes shut, and his hands behind his head, listening to the wind flowing through the tree-tops. the murmur of flies, the under-song of birds, the moving stillness, the secret stir of life, filled him to overflowing. alf had made him feel an isolated atom, the sport of incredibly cruel devils. now he knew that he was part of an immense and harmonious whole. the sense of dislocation, exile and disease passed away. his mind was an open cistern into which a myriad healing streams were pouring from an unknown source. who was alf to disturb his peace of mind? alf, the puny, the pretentious, who was not really alive at all. there was something greater in the world than alf, and that something was on his side. he was sure of it. he sat up and laughed. then above the murmur of insects and birds the louder hum of man and his machinery, setting the world to rights, stole in upon his mind. two groundmen were mowing the green just under the hangar. it was time to be moving. he sauntered back along the new road, eyeing the spruce villas on the northern side, where of old allotment gardens had been. at the corner of church street he asked a policeman where mr. pigott lived now. the man pointed down the lewes road, now fringed with houses. the old schoolmaster had, it seemed, left huntsman's lodge at the foot of the downs, and moved in nearer to his work when he became manager of the south downs transport co. ernie rambled down the dusty hill, the downs upon his left, picking up familiar objects as he went--the moot farm standing up like an elm-girt island from the sea of arable, the long low backs of the duke's piggeries, the path that wound across the plough and led over the hill to far aldwoldston in the ruther valley. a young woman with provocative eyes and brightly burnished hair came to the door at his knock and scanned him friendly. "is mr. pigott in?" ernie asked. "he's at his office." "could i see mrs. pigott then?" she eyed him merrily. "you are seeing her," she said; and added, enjoying his embarrassment, "i'm number two. my predecessor sleeps at the back." she tossed her bright head in the direction of the cemetery on rodmill seen through the open back-door. ernie blushed and fumbled. "i'm ernie caspar, miss--i would say ma'am." the young woman regarded him with swift and sympathetic interest. "oh, i know _you_," she said. "you used to write from india.... so mr. pigott never mentioned _me_! i'll just speak to him when he comes in." she saw the bag in his hand, and her mouth became firm. "been to see your people?" "just looked in on dad, 'm." she eyed him sharply. "and your brother?" ern said nothing. "well then, you leave your bag here, and step across the moot to the office. _southdown transport co._, back of the _star_ by the quaker meeting-house. you'll sleep the night here." ernie crossed the brickfields, passed his old school where the children were singing the evening hymn, under the church upon the kneb, through what the old inhabitants still called ox-steddle bottom, where once his father had pointed out to him the remains of roman byres. the office was in borough lane. mrs. pigott had warned her husband by telephone. ernie therefore was shown into the inner sanctum at once. mr. pigott, grizzled now, but with the old almost aggressive air of integrity, summed his erstwhile pupil up with the eyes of the appraising schoolmaster. "it's the old ernie. i see that," he grunted. "so alf's been playing it up already. you needn't tell me. he's a masterpiece, that young man. even _she_ admits that." he paused and began again, confidential and communicative like one naughty boy whispering to another. "what d'ye think of her? she's church--more shame to her. but i forgive her. i forgive her a lot. you have to when you're married to em--as you'll find some day. and what i don't forgive i pass by. for why?--if i didn't she'd sauce me." he suddenly became aware that he was being indiscreet, even undignified, and broke off gruffly--"well, what did they teach you in the army?" ernie laughed. "it's not so bad as they make out, sir. i like the old regiment well enough." "they tell me," said mr. pigott solemnly, "that in south africa none of the unpopular officers came home--_and they weren't shot by the boers_!" "it depends on the regiment, i expect," replied ernie. "there's not much of that in the hammer-men. our officers were mostly all right. more gentlemen than most, from what i could see of it. they were sports, and they tried to be just. of course there wasn't none of em like dad--only the colonel. hadn't the education. but some of these snotty little jumped-ups like what they had in the welsh liverpools that lay alongside us in pindi ... why i wouldn't salute em if i met em in the lines." mr. pigott listened to this audacious statement with the hostile interest of the radical. "a rotten system," he said. "built on make-believe and lies." "it fairly rots some of em," ernie admitted. "gives em more power nor what they can carry. but in the hands of the right men it don't work so bad. all depends on that." then mr. pigott asked him what he proposed to do. "that's what i come to you about, sir." "of course your brother won't help!" "no, sir; nor i wouldn't ask him," flashed ernie. "and i don't blame you," answered mr. pigott. "alf's too busy taking the mass and walking in processions to help his brother.... now i'll tell you what to do. you go up and see mr. trupp. he can do anything he likes now he's disembowelled royalty. and if he can't help you, i must; though i haven't got a vacant job in the yard just now. you're to sleep at my place, _she_ says." he followed ernie to the door. "what d'you make of your father?" he asked mysteriously. "i don't rightly understand him, sir," ernie answered. "don't you?" said mr. pigott. "i do." he dropped his voice. "he's waiting the second coming, i'm sure of it." when ernie presented himself at the manor, mr. trupp was out. ernie thought mrs. trupp would see him. the smart maid thought not. ernie, however, proved right. mrs. trupp was sitting in the long drawing-room, with her daughter, and greeted him with pleasure. "ernie!" cried mrs. trupp. "this is a sight for sair e'en. what a man you've become!" "was alfred decent to you?" blurted bess. mrs. trupp shot a warning glance at her impetuous daughter. "and have you seen the new mrs. pigott?" she asked. "she's top-hole," cried bess. "he never stops talking about her. really after that other old thing always sitting on his head----" then mr. trupp entered, smiling, and cocking his face to sum up his visitor through his pince-nez. "you needn't introduce yourself, ernie," he growled. "you've taken no harm, i see." later the two men retired to the consulting-room to talk business. "would you care for a temporary job at the hohenzollern?" asked mr. trupp; "the german hotel on the crumbles. it was building in your time. they want a lift-man, i know." "anything, sir," answered ernie with easy enthusiasm. mr. trupp rang up the hotel and arranged the matter there and then. "it will do as a stop-gap, anyway," he said, "until we can fix you up in a permanent job. you don't want to be knocking about at home, twiddling your thumbs." "that i don't, sir!" laughed ernie a thought ironically, and returned to deep-dene to tell his luck. mr. pigott glanced at his wife. "the hohenzollern," he said gruffly. "well, give it a try." next day mr. pigott met the doctor in the street. "well," he said, "what d'you think of your soldier?" "done him no harm anyway," replied mr. trupp, quite impenitent. "i don't know," retorted the other. "he left here a gentleman: he comes back a labourer--fit to work a lift." "none the worse for that," said mr. trupp. "mr. wyndham's been telling us we want fewer clerks and more working-men. there's no satisfying you radicals." "better than a jumped-up jackanapes in black leggings and a pilot coat, i will admit," answered the other. "yes, you've got a lot to answer for, mr. trupp. first you send him off to the army; and directly that's finished you pack him off to the hohenzollern hotel." "might be worse places," muttered mr. trupp. mr. pigott held up a hand in horror. "doctor!" he cried, "i tell you what it is. ever since you saved that tsar you've been a changed man." "i don't know about that," said mr. trupp. "i only know that tsars forget to pay their doctor's bills." "i'm glad to hear it," answered mr. pigott. "_very_ glad," with emphasis. "a lesson to you to leave the insides of royalty to emselves in future." book iv ruth boam chapter xxvii the hohenzollern hotel the hohenzollern hotel was both physically and spiritually remote from all the other hotels in beachbourne. the respectable grand, facing the wish, the ponderous talbot opposite the band-stand, the perky hydropathic perched on the rise of the hill, the dudley by the pier, the cecil, the bentinck, and all the other hotels with aristocratic names and a middle-class clientele, were at the west-end of the town, interspersed among boarding-houses the whole length of the sea-front from the pier to beau-nez. the hohenzollern stood aloof at the east-end on the edge of the crumbles, as the levels here were called. an immense, modern caravanserai of pretentious neogothic style, it had been dumped down on the shore beyond the long-deserted redoubt of napoleonic times. in front of it was the sea. on its flank, beyond the fishing station, stretched the marshes. behind it, at a respectful distance, crouching in the dust, the mass of mean houses and crowded streets that constituted the east-end. on these the hohenzollern, aloof and lordly in its railed-off pleasure grounds, turned an unheeding back. it was unaware of their presence; or rather recognized them only to patronize. it was a drab area, unfrequented by the fashionable and redolent of the atmosphere of cheap lodging-houses. the parade ceased at the redoubt, and ended for promenaders at the pier. beyond splash point nobody who was anybody ever thought it decent to penetrate. the band-stand, the winter gardens, the brick walls were at the west-end, reaching out towards beau-nez. and the hohenzollern was not only inaccessible, it was self-contained and meant to be. it possessed its own fine band, its own smooth lawns, its own strip of fore-shore with bathing rafts moored off it and bathing tents on the beach, its own tiny jetty for pleasure boats. the hotel was german-owned and german-inspired; but it was not the centre of an extensive spy-system as certain of the patriots of east sussex maintained. the men and women who launched it as a business proposition were not mad. they were just cosmopolitan financiers who knew a good deal about the human heart on its shady side, and proposed to make money out of their knowledge. in beachbourne it was always spoken of as the german hotel, and its character was well known and probably exaggerated. the town, called by spiteful rivals on the south coast churchy beachbourne, by reason of the number and variety of its sacred edifices, was shocked and delighted. started in the late nineties, the original title of the hotel was of course the empire; and its first chairman, baron blumenthal, a prominent member of the primrose league. then came the slump in british imperialism after the boer war. with the advent of a radical government it became correct for desperate patriots to affirm with immense emphasis in private, and with less emphasis on public platforms that they would sooner see the country governed by the german emperor, who was at least a gentleman, than by lloyd george--that little welsh attorney. at the height of this patriotic rally the german emperor came himself to england; and beachbourne was thrilled to hear the great and good man was to stop at the empire hotel to be under mr. trupp. the hotel incontinently changed its name to commemorate an event which in fact never took place. shortly afterwards, however, a balkan tsar--also a hohenzollern--happily did come, and was subjected by mr. trupp to the operation prepared for the head of his family. but if the hotel changed its name, its reputation remained the same and even grew. in berlin, paris, brussels, buda-pesth, men talked of it; and even in india native princes whispered _risqué_ stories about it to their prime ministers at the council table. wherever men spoke of it, they mentioned with smiles its two characteristic traits--the third floor and the head porter. the hohenzollern hotel, indeed, had two sides, like many a better institution, and deliberately cultivated both. the third floor represented one; and salvation joe the other. there were respectable men and women who stayed regularly at the hotel on the crumbles, and denied quite honestly and not without heat all knowledge of the third floor and what it stood for. it was a convention at the hohenzollern that nobody stopping there ever recognized anybody else. you went down to beachbourne from town with the man who always occupied the chair next you at the club; you sat by his side in the station-bus that bore you to the portals of the hotel; and then--you parted till monday morning when you met once more on the platform at the station. therefore the most staid and admirable of citizens often retired there to be undisturbed. ministers and their secretaries during a busy session, homely young couples on their honeymoons, even bishops and clergymen in retreat. and for these the hotel had its undoubted advantages. eastwards the levels stretched away for miles haunted by none but birds. the fore-shore was private, the sea itself secluded. there were no trippers, and, what mattered more, none of the usual society week-enders. the former spread themselves between the redoubt and the pier, the latter from the pier to beau-nez. it was for those who sought for quiet at the hotel that the head porter existed. he was known far and wide as salvation joe, and always wore the red jersey of his kind by request of the management; though unkind rumour affirmed that he had forfeited the right to his distinguishing habit. on sundays, after lunch, the second dining-room was cleared, and salvation joe, all glorious in scarlet apparel, held a meeting for the staff. visitors would be welcomed, a notice in the hall announced, though as joe often said with the splendid smile he was alleged to have copied from a recent archbishop, "it's only just among ourselves, sir. we call it our 'appy 'our. we just like to meet together the once a week--them and me and the master." that pleased the bishops, who went back to the athenæum and talked about it over their coffee; it delighted the occupants of the third floor, especially on wet sundays; and, to judge from the attendance, it appeared to be very popular with the staff, who, warmed by the rays from joe's benevolent eye, sang with enthusiasm _tell me the old, old story_ and the like. moreover it was noticed by the curious that when the men were asked by sceptical visitors whether they _really_ enjoyed it, the invariable answer given in the same sort of voice with the same sort of smile was, "we calls it our 'appy 'our, miss." salvation joe was not perhaps more of a humbug than most of us: that is to say, he humbugged himself just as much as he humbugged others. at one time he had quite certainly found religion; and if with the advent of middle age he lost it, it is by no means sure that he was aware of his loss. certainly he was invaluable to the management as a counterpoise; and they paid him accordingly. salvation joe never took tips. that impressed every one, especially the third floor. through this idiosyncrasy joe indeed acquired a european reputation. on monday mornings he stood in the great marbled hall, under a tall palm, among bustling porters and stacks of luggage, a majestic presence, refusing with a martyr's smile the coin that corrupts. his real name was joseph collett; and in the boot-room in the basement he was known irreverently as j.c. the staff attended the service because it paid; and they had to live. there was only one man who never went; and that man was ernie. joe met him in the passage one day, after he had been at the hotel a month or more, and stopped him. "i suppose you haven't got a soul to save then, caspar?" he began, his great chest rising and falling beneath the flaming jersey. ernie grinned sheepishly. "well, mr. collett, as to that, i guess i've got the same as most." "but you're too proud to save it," continued the other in a voice like battalions on the march. he laid a frank and friendly hand on ernie's shoulder. "come and confess your redeemer, my lad!" he called. "come to the foot of the cross! throw the burden of your sins on him! he'll carry em--next sunday--two o'clock--second dining-room--sharp." ernie never went. it was not that he wished to stand or fall by a principle: ernie had no hankerings for a martyr's crown. it may have been that he inherited from his father a fine reserve in matters spiritual and that somewhere in the deeps of him there was an invincible repugnance to the methods of the seducer, or merely that he was one of the simple of earth--far too honest to see the path of expediency and follow it. the other men saw and winked. they did not admire ernie for refusing to bow the knee, nor was there anything to admire. "bloody mug," was all their comment. chapter xxviii the third floor but if ernie was simple, he was not blind. when he was not on the lift, he acted as boots for the third floor; and no man could work there without seeing what he saw. mr. pigott, once meeting his old pupil in church street, asked him how he liked his job. "not so bad, sir," ernie answered without enthusiasm. "some i likes; and some i dislikes; and most i don't mind." the work indeed, in the slack seasons at all events, was by no means hard, the wages moderate; the tips many, and sometimes extravagant. ernie was the only man on the staff who frequented the third floor. no waiters ever came there. all the waiting that was done--and there was plenty--was done by the maids. most of these were foreign; and the few who were not had adopted foreign names. they were pretty and pert; and they called ernie--"ernie boots." it was the common gossip that the manageress chose them herself--"with care," the knowing added with a wink. madame, as she was familiarly known, was in fact a bavarian, who must have been beautiful in her day, with an immense bust that concealed a most kind heart, and piles of fair hair, obviously her own, that she amassed in pyramids on the top of her head. there was generally a cigarette between her lips, and she used a lorgnette lavishly. she was in fact an efficient woman of the world, saved from the dreadful vices of the efficient by a genuinely benignant nature. and she avowed openly that it was her mission in life to give people what they wanted--propriety to the proper, and pleasure to the pleasure-seeking. ernie had been at the hotel nearly a year when there came to the third floor a maid who seemed strangely out of her element. he noted her advent at once with surprise and a sense of shame. amid her saucy colleagues she seemed a lily of the valley blowing stately amid artificial flowers. a big young woman and beautiful, she held herself apart, moving among the others, apparently unconscious of them, and ignorant of the meretricious atmosphere, as a madonna walking through the ballet of a music-hall revue. her presence filled him with acute personal discomfort. he did not like the tone of the third floor, but he accepted it as he accepted everything with the easy tolerance that was his weakness. this majestic young woman with her aloof and noble air, her accusing innocence, her damning purity, filled him with shame and pity--shame for himself and his weak-kneed benevolence, pity for those others whom she with her unconscious dignity made appear so small and vulgar. her name was ruth, so much ernie knew, and she was english too, though she scarcely looked it: for she was very dark, her hair black as a horse's mane, with a skin that had a peculiar ruddy warmth, and the large brown eyes full of splendid darkness and mellow lights, that are so rare and therefore so noticeable when found among the working-classes that fringe the north sea. her brows, black as her hair and broadly splashed, almost met; but there was nothing of ferocity about her. her natural habit, ernie saw, was that of a great and mysteriously growing tree, its roots deep in the red earth; its massive foliage drinking of the goodness of sunshine and wind and rain; but now there was about her a note of restraint, even of stress. the easy flow of her nature was being dammed. she seemed out of place and dumbly aware of it, like a creature of the wilderness in a strange environment. the profound and quiet joyousness of woman, maturing to ripe perfection, which should have been hers to an unusual degree, was not. ernie was desperately shy of her. he would peep at her as she passed him on her swift way; she never looked at him. he seldom saw her speak to the other maids. yet it was clear to him that this isolation was unnatural to her, and that she was made for quiet intercourse and noble mirth. unlike the other maids she was always busy. she never romped, gossiped, or flirted. one evening ernie saw a fat-necked jew in a sleeping suit, his mouth stuffed with a cigar, his eyes hot and bibulous, standing in the door of his bedroom. the dark beauty came by. the jew chirped at her. "pretty tartie!" he called in his luscious voice. "come inside then. i've got something to show you." the girl passed on, unheeding. the jew followed her with moist eyes that glistened. a fair chamber-maid emerging from another room winked at ernie. "she's white," she said, and jerked her head in the direction of the disappearing girl. the chamber-maid was a little cockney from clapham who had taken to herself the name of céleste. "none the worse for that, i dare say," said ernie with unusual acrimony. céleste flirted on her way. "tra-la-la!--ta-ta-ta!" she taunted with a little mocking flutter of her fingers. "i suppose you're white too, ernie boots." "no," grinned ernie. "i'm grey." "baa-baa, black sheep!" mocked the naughty one. "i'd be one or the other. grey's a silly sort of tint." then the jew's sodden voice came wheezing down the corridor. "here, kid!--you'll do. you're not a bloody iceberg, are you?" céleste shook her carefully-coiffed head. "i'm engaged, soly. so sorry!--go back to bed, there's a dear old thing!" ernie woke that night in the belief that ruth was bending over him. "ruth!" he answered quietly. "is that you?" but there was no reply. next morning he took the plunge. "good morning, miss," he said as she passed him. the other's curiously impassive face flashed into life. "good morning, mr. boots," she answered in a deep and humming voice like the sound of wings. she said the words quite simply, and he saw she was not chaffing. she honestly believed boots to be his name. céleste, dusting in an adjoining room, looked through an open door. "she's an innocent," she said discontentedly. "she knows nothing. ought to go back to her mother. madame's got no business to put her here." ernie went on his way, that deep voice still thrilling in his ears. thereafter he sought and found chances of serving the girl. one day he came on her tugging a heavy basket of washing along the passage. it was clear that she had been too proud to ask another maid for help, preferring to trust her own magnificent physique to accomplish the task alone. "let me, miss," he said. "you take yon end," she answered. "i'll take this. then atween us like." "ah," said ernie, gathering courage. "i see what it is. you think you're the only strong one." deliberately and without an effort he swung the basket on to his shoulder and bore it jauntily to its destination. then he slid it down and faced the girl. "now then!" he cried. she dropped her eyelids, and he saw the length and curl of her lashes. "you are strong," she said, with a dainty irony he found as delightful as it was surprising. "i allow you'll be purty nigh half as strong as i be." he pointed an accusing finger at her. "you're sussex!" he cried, falling into the old broad speech in his turn. "i'd knaw ye anywheres." her whole face gladdened slowly as she heard the familiar accent. "never!" she said, still faintly ironical, and added more sedately. "i was bred and born in sussex, and never been outside it." "and never mean to be," chaffed ernie. "that's your style. i knaw ye." "i was borrn in the brooks at aldwoldston," she continued, pronouncing the word auston. "along under the church by the white bridge across parson's tye. dad was squire caryll's keeper till he was ate up with the rheumatism." her speech broadened even as she spoke, deliberately, he thought, to meet his own. he followed suit. the pair began to ca-a-a away at each other like a couple of old rooks in an elm in may. "what might be your name then?" "ruth boam, i believe." ernie nodded sagaciously. "'twould be surely. boam or burgess or ticehurst or woolgar. something with a bit o saxon in it, as dad says." he added hopefully: "i'm sussex too. i was dragged up in old town agin the rectory there," jerking his head. "cerdainly i was." she regarded him mischievously. "i knew you was no'hun of a foreigner then," she told him. ernie feigned surprise. "how did you knaw that then?" she chuckled like a cuckoo. "hap i aren't the only one," she answered. then she was gone; and it struck him suddenly that this grave and stately damsel had been chaffing him. ernie stood a moment amazed. then he nodded his head. suddenly he seemed to have crossed a border-line into a new country. behind him was the stale old past, with its failures, its purposelessness, its dreary hag-tracks; before him was adventure, the new world--and what? he wasn't sure. but there it was beckoning him and he should follow, true child of romance that he was. and it was time he moved on. he had been a year now at the hotel and was, as always, tending to grow slack. salvation joe was watching him, waiting his chance, and ernie knew it. now a change stole over him. a nucleus, small at first, but always growing, round which the dissipated forces of his spirit could rally, had been forming in his heart, unknown to him, ever since ruth's advent to the third floor. he was becoming firm of purpose, gathering himself, making good. his eyes, his face, his gait, testified to the change. mr. trupp, the observant, remarked on it to mr. pigott. "he's growing," he said. "the right way, let's hope," answered the other. "that place you sent him to is a queer kind of forcing house." "he wants forcing," said mr. trupp. "we all do." "bah!" growled mr. pigott. "you and your lash." chapter xxix the man of affairs once a week ernie had a half-day off, which he invariably spent in the same way. he took the bus from the redoubt up to old town, went home, and coaxed his father out for a walk to beech-hangar or the downs above the chalk-pit. then back to tea, and a long and quiet smoke in the study. in this matter he always had a faint resistance to overcome, part real, part simulated: his father's excuse for not going being the curious one that he was too busy. "you forget that i'm a man of action now," he would say, the imp dancing remotely in his blue eyes. "i've an official position." it was true too in a sense. edward caspar, during ernie's absence in india, had been appointed a visitor to the workhouse at the back of rectory walk. and there in that cess-pool of our civilization, into which filtered drop by drop the sewage of all our defective social processes, amid the derelicts of the vast ocean of empire, prostitutes sickening to death, the idiot offspring of incestuous intercourse, the half-witted mother who had fallen a prey to the prowling male, the decent girl who had succumbed to her own affections, the young man broken in the industrial arena, the middle-aged who were not wanted, the old for whom there was no place beside the fire at home, amid all those of every age and class whom society was too cruel to kill, and not capable as yet of stimulating to life, edward caspar wandered vaguely like a cloud, full of sunshine, blessing alike and blessed. in his old-fashioned roomy tail-coat of a country gentleman, always fresh, his beautiful linen, that showed anne caspar's care, his blue tie of an artist running loosely through a gold ring, he became a familiar figure in the wards of the bastille, with his beard, his spectacles, his morning air, radiating a mild warmth of love and pity. almost daily he might be seen, sitting at the bedside of some broken boy picked up off the roads to be patched up and flung again under the wheels of the juggernaut car of modern industrialism that had crushed him, or listening to the tale of some ancient in corduroys--not seldom according to his own account the scion of an illustrious but ruined house--who had laboured on the land for sixty years, to be cast alive into the cess-pool when he had been broken in the service of his country. all the inmates of the bastille, from the unwanted babies in the nursery, to the grannies and daddies propped up like dreadful dolls in bed in the wards of the infirmary, liked the visits of this shambling man who said so little and looked so much. the lady augusta willcocks, a fierce and efficient guardian, tramping the wards in short skirts, broad-toed boots, and cropped woolly white hair, cross-questioned the master as to what mr. caspar said to the inmates. the master, a kind man, something of a mystic himself, answered: "he don't seem to say much. mostly he listens." "oh, that's all right," said the lady with relief. "only we don't want a lot of nonsense talked in here." "seems to soothe em," continued the master. "afore now when i've had them violent in the casuals' cells i've sent for him. they call him the prophet." the master smiled to himself as the masterful lady tramped on her way. he had noticed that edward caspar invariably left the ward when the reverend spink entered to hold divine service; and that if the archdeacon marched through the wards like a conqueror amid the dreadful human debris of a battle-field the visitor, sitting quietly at the bedside of some cast-away, never seemed to see him. in spite of the pressure of affairs, ernie rarely failed to lure his father out into the sunshine on the hill. once, as they sat together by the roadside in beech-hangar, ernie propounded a solemn question. "dad." "well." "didn't you once say there was a spanish strain in the real old sussex peasant stock?" the father eyed his son obliquely. "so they say," he answered. "a spanish galleon in the days of the armada wrecked in ruther haven. that's the story. and i'm inclined to think there's something in it. any way there's more foreign blood in the genuine peasantry of sussex and kent than in all the rest of england. propinquity to the continent, you see. all the refugees came here first--dutchmen in the days of alva; huguenots after the revocation; royalists during the terror; and smugglers of all sorts all the time from the days of cæsar." that evening, as anne caspar brushed her hair in the bedroom before going to bed, she heard her husband in the little dressing-room talking to himself as his manner was. she stayed the sweeping motion of her hand and listened. "i met mr. pigott in church street this evening," she called. "he stopped me and said, 'what's come to ernie?'" there was a silence; then the voice from next door answered, "she's dark. that's all i know." chapter xxx reality a few days after his conversation with his father, ernie took a telegram up to the third floor in the afternoon, and was about to descend when he heard a bedroom bell ring violently for the maid on duty. there was no maid visible. he went along the corridor. at the end of it was a passage-landing with a window looking over the sea. on the window-sill ruth was sitting in the sun, perched as a woman riding, her work beside her. she did not see him, and for a moment he watched her fascinated: the lines of her figure, almost majestic for so young a woman; the dignity of her face; the lovely curve of her neck and shoulders; the warmth of her colouring. her thimbled finger flashed to and fro; and the sun caught her hair, simply massed beneath her cap, and revealing in its blackness just a note of tan. every now and then, as the sea thumped and hissed and poured on the fore-shore, she looked up. there was for once a wonderful content upon her face, the look that ernie had often sought and never found there before. the strain had vanished. this girl possessed her soul in love and peace for the moment at least. ernie was reluctant to disturb her, for she gave him the impression of one who prays. "the bell's going, ruth," he said at last gently. she put down her work and dismounted from the sill in that swift business-like way of hers. there was a rhythm about her every movement that satisfied the deepest need of ernie's soul. "what number?" she asked. "seventy-seven." her face clouded. it was the sodden jew, clamant once more. "i'll go," said ernie. it was no job of his, but go he did. and he was glad he had, for soly surpassed himself. "you!" stertorously. "what good are you to me? send that spanish gypsy here! she's the one i want. i like 'em brown." just outside the door ernie met céleste. "he wants you, miss," he said, and admired the readiness of his lie. then he walked thoughtfully back to ruth, who had resumed her work. "it's all right," he said shyly. she lifted her face to him slowly, almost stealthily. then there flashed a lovely light into her eyes. "thank-you, mr. boots," she said. he advanced a step on her. "that ain't my name." she hid again in her work. "what is then?" she asked. "ernie," he said. "call me that." he was curiously peremptory, almost imperious. she did not answer him--threading her needle deliberately against the light. suddenly doors flung wide, and his whole being leapt forth as from a furnace, caught her up, and rapt her in a living flame of love. she seemed to feel it beating about her, devouring her, and stirred as a tired bird stirs in its nest at night after a long flight. ernie was trembling till it seemed to him that his heels rat-a-tatting on the floor must betray him. then he went on his way. the transfiguring experience that comes perhaps once in a life-time to the pure in heart had come to him in full flood. a new life was his, sweeping away old land-marks, and bearing him he knew not whither. he drifted with that mighty tide, content to be borne along. he had been alive for twenty-five years, yet dead. now he rose from the tomb, at this his astounding ascension-tide. in a second he had been rapt up from the earth, had suffered miraculous conversion, and would never again see life as he had once seen it. it was curious, wonderful, and above all it revolutionized old values. the men and women he met in the passage looked different, especially the women. they were coarse, commonplace. céleste passed him with a quip. what she said he didn't know, but he thought how opaque and material she was in such a spiritual world; and what a pity it was; and how sorry he was for her. madame stopped him and gave him orders. he heard and carried them out. but all the while this new spirit was at work on its own business in the deeps of him. his intellect, a mere cockle-shell afloat on an ocean of mind, dealt with the superficial mechanism of life. _he_ was elsewhere. for the first time ernie became aware of a double life going on within him, of two minds, related, yet apart, each pursuing its own ends. he entered the room in the basement where the men cleaned the knives, blacked the boots and ate their hurried meals. it was cool, almost cavernous. he was amazed that he had never before seen beauty in this bleak room, the beauty of the woods for which he longed. he sat down and was glad. about him were men of all nationalities, some in aprons, some in their shirt-sleeves, some snatching a desultory snack, chattering or silent. ernie, aware of them, yet deep in himself, was conscious of two impressions: these men were monkeys--and knew it; and they were sons of god--and as yet unconscious of it. one of the men, a sallow austrian with a stringy moustache, who went by the name of don john among his mates, put down the _arbeiter zeitung_ which he had been reading, watched ernie awhile sardonically, and then made a jeering remark to a neighbour, who replied. ernie caught the words "third floor." instantly he emerged from his deeps, his intellect alert, paramount, and defensive. don john continued caressingly, his cheek bulging with cheese, and a clasp-knife in his hand. "pluddy mug!" he jeered. "thinks they're for him. they're for de toffs on de top--not for _you_! you're unter-tog. nozzing for unter-tog in this world only de crumbs that _don't_ fall from de rich man's table. de girls are for de chairman jews. they can buy em. can you?--nice english girls are cheap." chapter xxxi the ride on the bus the thursday following his great experience, ernie went as usual to the redoubt which was the terminus of the bus that ran to billing's corner. he was early; and there was as yet only one passenger on the roof, a young woman simply dressed in black, her bare throat girt about with yellow amber, and wearing a felt hat of terra-cotta colour. she was sitting on the front seat. the large and graceful indolence of her pose gave him pause. he stayed on the last step, regarding her. then she turned her face sea-wards and he saw her profile. another moment and he stood above her. "ruth," he said. she looked up at him. "o, it's you, ernie!" she answered quite simply, and without a thought of coquetry. his heart moved within him. "that's a little better!" he muttered, and proceeded to sit down beside her. she made room for him, friendly and entirely unconscious. they began to talk, and once she glanced at him from under her hat with tranquil eyes that seemed to pour their soft light into his. he held them with his own. the two streams met and mingled in mysterious communion that thrilled him till he trembled faintly. he was the first to turn away. "you look just all right," he said. she was a changed girl. the restraint had left her. a new life danced within her. she was quivering with it, almost communicative. "i feel it," she answered joyously. "i'm off till ten. i'm going away back home to dad and mother. i most in general doos o sadadays if i gets off." she was broadening her speech again, as though to throw off the corrupting town, and draw near once more to the country which had bred her. he heard her with delight; and answered her easily and in kind. "auston, aren't it?" he asked. she eyed him slyly, taking his humour, and nodded. "you got it," she said. "i just take bus to billing's corner; and then 'lewes coach drops me at turnpike short o b'rick. then 'dis but little better'n a mile to traipse down the valley. i was borrun in the river house in the brooks along o the white bridge under the church. and where i was borrun there my folks do still live. pretty well beknown in them paarts my folks be, i rack'n." she was almost chattering now. and as her tongue resumed with joy the habit of babyhood a ripple of deep mirth swam over her face, and spoke of profound inward content. she became shy and confidential. "just under the eaves outside the room where i was borrun there's a martin's nest. and in the dark o summer nights they wake and gurgle to emselves. that'll be the little uns snugglin agin their mother's breast and thinkin how cosy. i do just adore to listen to em. kind o company like." she gurgled in her turn, and then looked away abashed and blushing at the flow of her confidences. "that's where you was borrun, was it?" mocked ernie. "no, it warn't then. you was borrun in de corrun one morrun all forlorrun. how do i know it? cos you're same as i be. you're a country chap." it was clear that she enjoyed his chaff. "that's a sure thing, you may depend," she answered in that humming voice of hers that seemed to resound long after she had finished speaking. "it's bred in my blood. see dad's dad and his dad afoor him dey were ox-herds in the home-farm in ruther valley. dad went along o the long-horns on the hill too when he was a lad. there's few teams left now except only mr. gorringe's at exeat. when dad's dad was a lad it was pretty near ox-teams allwheres in sussex--on the hill and on the levels. then it come horrses; and prazendly it'll be machines. the world moves faster nor it used to did one time o day, i expagd. ya-as. cerdainly it doos." the bus ran along the esplanade to the pier, the sea shining on their left. then it swung down cornfield road, stopped at the station, and took the old road for lewes. as it lurched under the chestnuts into water lane, the downs were seen across saffrons croft through a screen of elms. "there they be!" cried ernie, hailing them. "what d'you think of them now?" "eh, but they're like mother and father to you, if you've been bred to em," answered ruth. "i just couldn't a-bear to be parted from them nohows. they're sussex--them and the sea. sussex by the sea, my miss caryll used to call it." they travelled up the hill; and the girl feasted her eyes on the green of saffrons croft. "i allow the brown-birds holloa in them old ellums, dawn and dusk," she murmured, talking more to herself than to her companion. "that's what i misses by the sea more'n all--the song o birds. there's no loo like for em--only the anonymous bushes. reck'n that's where it is. they like the loo'th, doos birds. but times i see a old jack-yearn flappin along over the levels like he'd all the time before him. and the wheat-ears come from acrarst the sea and show the white of their tails that carmical about cuckoo-fair. hap it'll be their first landing-place. they must be tired. but there's not nigh the numbers there was one time o day. when dad was a lad there was i dunna many all along the downs from rottingdean to friston." the bus stopped, as always, at the _star_. ernie, who felt the spirit of the show-man strong within him, pointed out the manor-house with a certain proprietary air. "that's where mr. trupp lives," he explained. "they come from all over the world to see him. he's our doctor. has been this thirty year. dad was one of the first in old town to have him. give him his start, as you might say." "he's a nice gentleman surely," said ruth. "do you know him then?" asked ernie, a thought jealously. "i've knaw'd him all my life," answered the other. "he attends the squire and family. he looked after my miss caryll till she died; and then me when i took bad after her death. eh, but he was a kind gentleman." "he brought me into the world," said ernie with an air of finality, the desire to swagger still strong upon him. "he took the inside out of the tsar of dobrudja and he brought me into the world. that's what mr. trupp done." she turned a deep brown eye on him. "he done well," she said quietly. then they both laughed. at billing's corner he helped her off the bus and on to the four-horse char-a-banc waiting outside the _billing arms_. "last char-a-banc home," said ernie authoritatively. "half after nine or so. i'll look out." he stood beneath her in the dust. with her jet-black hair, her colouring of a ripe peach, and those soft swarthy eyes that streamed down upon him, she perched above him, stately, mocking, mysterious. he could not make her out. she was at once so simple and so elusive in her royal way. she teased, startled, and exalted him; she calmed and maddened him. "thank you, mr. caspar," came the quiet voice from on high. "call me, ernie," he ordered, this strange passion to domineer still overmastering him. she gazed at him with those quiet ironical eyes of hers. then the char-a-banc moved on. chapter xxxii on the hill that afternoon ernie and his father sauntered up to the chalk-pit, and lay on the green hill-side above it in the sun. ernie plucked the bents and chewed them. "dad," he began at last. "yes." "what is love?" once years ago at a dance in grosvenor square, edward caspar had himself for a moment floated out on to the ocean of an immense and wonderful new life. thereafter he had been captured, as such easy-going dreamy creatures are, by one of the fiercer sex. he respected his wife, admired her beauty, owed her much, and was aware of it; but for all her strength of character anne had found herself from the start of her married relations with her husband in that position of secret moral inferiority which is even to-day, perhaps as the result of an age-long inheritance of tradition, the accustomed doom of the woman who has taken the initiative in matters of sex. moreover as the years went by the doom grew always more oppressive, and her husband more remote.... edward answered his son, "a door opens," he said slowly. "and you see." "what d'you see?" persisted the young man. his father made a curious undulating motion with his hand. "_the infinite that lends a yonder to all ends,_" he said after a pause, and gestured across the weald stretched beneath them. "i can see it," he mused, "and hear it. so can you. it's a tide--like the wind in willow leaves. it's silvery and it rustles. it's there--and here--and everywhere. the scientists call it ether. so it is--from their point of view. if you approach it from the other side--our side--it's what you said. it goes like so--like a billow." with fine long-fingered hand he resumed that curious rhythmic motion of his. "i once heard somebody compare humanity to an undulating wave. so it is, because it's the highest expression of _that_. it made us, and is us. all that about the everlasting arms which mr. pigott, and the archdeacon, and your salvation joe talk about, it's all true--literally true. only they put it crudely; and for most of them it's an opinion and not a fact of experience--that a man can prove for himself at any moment." he paused. "love is recognition--often instantaneous. it is the i-within recognizes the me-without." he was sitting up now, bare-headed. a lovely colour flushed his frail complexion. to ernie, watching his scant hair, he seemed wonderfully innocent and pure: a child talking with the wisdom of an old man. then his father spoke again with an emphasis that was almost startling. "it's the profound simplicity of life that baffles us," he said. "it's too simple for us to understand. our brains aren't big enough--as yet." he was becoming strangely excited. ernie thought he understood now the source of that exalted look of his father's. "but we shall some day. already there has been one man who did. think of it! we crucified him for it of course. we had to. he was climbing too far a-head: so we plucked him back to earth. you mustn't go too far ahead of the herd. they won't stand it. but he knew: he trusted it: he could float in it--like that kittiwake, ascending into heaven, descending into hell, at will." he lay back on the turf, exhausted, his hat over his eyes, his hands on the turf beside him. "ernie." "yes, dad." "have you felt the tide?" "i think so." the old man put his hand upon his son's. "let it come, boy-lad," he said. "trust it to do the work. all our mistakes are due to the same thing." "what's that?" asked ernie. "trying to interfere," answered the other. "follow!--that's our human part." that evening, after supper, before he left, ernie asked his mother shyly for some roses. she took him out into the front-garden, tiny as it was trim, and gave him of her best. afterwards, as he walked away, she stood at the little gate and watched him, a beautiful look in her eyes. then she wiped her shoes very carefully, and turned into the house. the study-door was open, and she peeped in. her husband was sitting as always in the bow, looking out towards the trees stirring in the rectory garden. anne stared at him. "has he said anything to you?" she asked at last in the voice that grew always more grumbling and ungracious with the years. "not yet," her husband answered. "well, it's about time," anne grumbled. "only i wish i'd had the choosing of her." "ernie'll choose all right," edward answered in the peculiar crisp way he sometimes now adopted. "you needn't worry about him." whether there was a faint emphasis on the pronoun or not, anne answered with asperity, "and you needn't worry about alf for that matter. he's far too set on himself to find room for a wife." ernie was at billing's corner half an hour before the lewes char-a-banc was due, hanging about at the top of the rise, looking along the white road that runs past moot farm under the long swell of the escorting hills. it was a perfect evening of late may. the sun had already sunk in darkened majesty against the west when the familiar cloud of dust betokened the approach of the four-horse team. ruth was sitting on the box beside the driver. ernie recognized her from afar by the splotch of colour made by her hat, and was filled with an almost overpowering content. the horses sprang the rise at a canter, the conductor blowing a flourish on his horn. the girl's hand was to her hat, and her head bowed to the wind. the char-a-banc drew up with a swagger in the open space before the _billing arms_. she was smiling down at him. ernie lifted his cap: it was a trick he had from his father. no one had ever paid the girl that common courtesy before, and she beamed upon him. the other passengers were descending by the steps. ernie advanced lordly. "this way!" he ordered, and laid his roses on the driver's foot-board. "don't wait for them! put your foot on the wheel! give over your hand! now your left foot here!" for the first time in his life he felt masterful. powers in him, of which he had possessed no previous knowledge, were thrusting through the ice of the customary. ruth obeyed. she slipped her foot into his hand. it was slight, not small, yet beautifully compact. "it's dusty," she warned him. "no, it ain't," he answered, still in his high mood. he gripped it firmly. her cool hand was in his. then she trusted her whole weight to him. he felt his strength tried and answering to the test; and rejoiced in it. so did she. for a moment he balanced her, lifted her even, let her feel the power of his manhood. then he lowered her swiftly. it was well, even gracefully done. neither spoke; ernie took his roses from the feet of the driver, who looked down with approval. "go on!" he said sturdily. "that's the way!" the motor-bus that was to take them back to the hotel was turning in the open space before the public-house. without a word they climbed on to the top. the bus dropped down church street, past the long-backed church with its square tower standing on the grave-strewn mound solemn in the growing dusk. ernie placed his roses in ruth's lap. her eyes were shining, her voice soft. "for me?" she asked in her deep thrilling voice. for a second he laid his hand on hers. "oh, they are beauties!" she buried her face in them. "my miss caryll learned me the names of a tidy few o them when we was in the dower-house afoor she come to beachbourne," she said. a motor-car stood at mr. trupp's door as the bus reached the _star_. the two talked quietly of the famous surgeon, their heads together. the chauffeur got down from the doctor's car and crossed slowly towards the bus. he was small and wore black gaiters that glittered in the lamp-light like a wet slug. he stood beneath them in the road, and then gave a low whistle. ernie looked down. alf was leering up at him. chapter xxxiii under the stars the bus rolled on, past saffrons croft, the stars now twittering in the branches of the elms. "who was that?" asked ruth. "my brother," answered ernie, a thought surlily. "he doesn't favour you," said ruth after a pause. "no," answered ernie. "he's a master-man now, alf is. got his own garage and men working for him and all. he drives for mr. trupp." at the pier, at ernie's suggestion, they got down. it was dark now; the sea moon-silvered and still. they walked along, rubbing elbows. ernie broke the silence, to ask a question that had long haunted him. "ruth," he said, "however did you come into service at the hohenzollern?" both of them had unconsciously resumed the accent of the town as they returned to the town. ruth told him simply and without reserve. she had been maid to squire caryll's sister at the dowerhouse in aldwoldston. her mistress had been taken ill, and mr. trupp had ordered her to beachbourne. "we was going to the grand," ruth told him. "but it was full. so cardingly we went to the hohenzollern till the grand could have us. and once there we stayed there two years--till she died. see mr. trupp likes the hotel for his patients. there's the lawns straight onto the sea; and the invalids' corner by the anonymous hedge he got madame to build." madame had throughout been kind, so kind--first to her mistress and then to her; for after miss caryll's death ruth had broken down from over-strain. the manageress and mr. trupp had pulled her through. then when she came round, madame, who was clearly fond of the girl, had kept her on as personal maid, "cosseting me," said ruth with a little laugh, "like a bottle-lamb." at easter, when the crush came, and ruth was quite recovered, madame had asked her to go to the third floor to help, saying she would take her back if the girl didn't like it. "i went tempory to oblige madame," ruth explained. "i'd do a lot for her. she's been that kind." ruth had been there some weeks now, too lazy or too shy to take the step that would involve another change. "i don't ardly like to see you there, ruth," said ernie gently. "i don't really." she lifted her face to him in the darkness. "where?" "the third floor." ruth turned her face to him. her wall was down. she was talking intimately almost as a woman to a woman she trusts. "i don't hardly myself," she said in the musing voice of the disturbed. "the gentlemen are that funny. seem scarcely respectable, some of em. and the couples too. might not be married the way they go on. london, i suppose." he glanced at her covertly. she met his eyes--so frank, so fearless. what a man of the world ernie felt beside this white ewe-lamb straying far from the fold in the hollow of its native coombe! they were skirting now the fosse of the redoubt. before them on the shore rose the great hotel, like a brilliantly lighted mausoleum, blocking out a square patch of stars. they made towards it. "ruth," said ernie quietly, "if i was you i'd get madame to change you. second floor's more your sort. more steadified. there's a bishop there now and his wife and three-four daughters or so. go to bed at ten, and get up at seven. i can hear em all a-snorin in chorus like so many hoggets in a stye when i take the lift down last turn at night." "hap i will," said ruth thoughtfully. "madame'd take me back herself, only she's got a german maid now, and i wouldn't do anything to put madame out for worlds." a struggle was taking place in ernie's heart. if ruth left the third floor for the second he would still see her sometimes. if she left the hotel altogether he might lose her. "ruth," he said at last. "i sometimes wonder why you stay on there at all." she glanced at him mischievously. "shall i tell you?" she asked, her voice deeper than ever. "yes." "it's the bathin. i just do adore the swimmin. madame arranges it nice for the maids. and the season's coming on. we start next week if this weather holds. when the season's over i shall cut my stick--if so be madame wasn't to want me for her own maid again." she chuckled at her own cunning. they came to the servants' gate. ernie stopped. "good-bye, ruth," he said. "i'll say good-night." she looked up at him surprised. "aren't you comin then?" she asked. "yes," he said. "but i'm just a-goin to finish my fag first." she gave him a delicious look. innocent as she was, she understood his consideration and thanked him for it mutely. she gave him her hand. he took it, shook it, and held it awhile, as though weighing it. it was firm and very capable. swiftly he lifted it to his lips and kissed it. she made no protest, looking at him with kind eyes that knew no thought of coquetry. then she vanished with her flowers. he gave her five minutes, and then followed her. ruth had been detained in the basement, and was vanishing up the back-stairs as he entered, her roses in her hand. don john, the austrian, with his dingy face and greasy moustache, winked at ernie as he passed. "peach," he whispered. "don't you wish you ad the pickin of her?" book v captain royal chapter xxxiv his arrival ruth was as good as her word. next day she went to see madame, and asked to be moved from the third floor. madame, the majestic, standing before the fire, dressed like a fashion-plate, put down her cigarette and looked at the young woman standing before her, slightly abashed, and uncertain how her request would be received. she was genuinely fond of the girl, and had sent her to the third floor at some personal sacrifice because she wished her to have chances she would not get elsewhere. now she showed herself kind, if by no means understanding. she thought ruth foolish and hinted as much. with foreign girls she could talk so much more plainly than with these wooden englishwomen who understood so little. it was because ruth was english, yet looked foreign, and showed a certain swift comprehension rare in her race, that madame had taken to her at first. however, she assented to the girl's request as always with a good grace, if reluctantly. "very well, ruth," she said. "you are one of ze quiet ones, i see. zey are too gay on ze third floor. i zought zey might be. it was only an egsperiment. one of ze maids on ze second floor is going next week. i vill move you zen. but you vill not get ze tips, you know. bishops don't pay." "thank you, ma'am," said ruth, and left the room. two evenings later the hohenzollern express, as the non-stop train from victoria to beachbourne was called, brought an unusual number of visitors to the hotel. the palm-lined hall was packed with forlorn travellers, wandering about trying to find themselves; the clerks in the office were besieged; the porters run off their legs. ernie was on the lift that evening. he stood in the corridor, listening to the hubbub in the hall, and waiting for the first rush of visitors who had arranged themselves and appropriated keys, when he saw a man emerge from madame's private sitting-room at the end of the passage. then he came marching resolutely down the corridor, absorbed, swift, direct, with eyes neither to right nor left, wearing a burberry, and the short tooth-brush moustache that was still the rage in the british army; a young man of a type so familiar to ernie that he smiled on recognizing it. the traveller entered the passenger-lift with a curt, "third floor!" it was captain royal. ernie had just been long enough away from the regiment to see everything connected with it through the roseate mists of sentimentality. he pulled the cord and the lift ascended. "beg pardon, sir," he said shyly. "might you remember me?" royal turned his slate-blue eyes on the other, and extended a sudden hand. "what! caspar, the cricketer!" he cried with the gay nonchalance peculiar to him. "rather!--that stand against the rifle brigade at pindi? yes. what! got a job you like? what!" "pretty fair, sir," answered ernie. "home on long leave, sir?" "yes, six months. i'm going to work for the staff college." "all well with the regiment when you left, sir?" "yes, thanks. all merry and bright. we won the polo cup. mr. ffloukes--you remember him in d company--got himself mauled by a bear in the hills. silly young feller. quite unnecessary, i thought.... the colonel's retired and come home. living somewhere in these parts, i believe." the lift stopped at the third floor. ernie carried the captain's suit-case to his room. "i'll bring your heavy luggage myself, sir," he said, for he had quite taken the other under his wing. as he left the room he met ruth. ernie beckoned her mysteriously. "that's my old skipper," he whispered. "you look after him now. he's just all right." ruth regarded him with amused eyes. "why, you're quite excited," she said. "ah," answered ernie. "we're hammer-men, him and me. that's enough. _quite_ enough." he disappeared down the shaft with a knowing and consequential air, hushing her with lordly hand. the captain rang for his hot water. ruth took it him. he turned round as she entered and flashed his eyes at her curiously. "will you help me unpack?" he said quietly. "i haven't brought a man." she knelt beside the suit-case, while he stood at the chest of drawers. she handed him his clothes, and he arranged them orderly and with an unerring precision that appealed to her methodical mind. his clothes were beautiful too: so fine, so fresh, so like himself, ruth thought. she handled the silken shirts, when his back was turned, and stroked the flimsy vests. once he turned swiftly to find her pressing some diaphanous under-wear against her cheek. he laughed; and she blushed. "that's from cashmere," he said. "pleasant to the touch--what?" "it's beautiful," answered ruth. when ernie entered with the heavy luggage, ruth was kneeling at the suit-case, the captain standing over her. ernie's somewhat artificial enthusiasm suddenly melted away. he wasn't very pleased. the captain had brought a quantity of luggage too, and clearly meant to make a prolonged stay. chapter xxxv his origin captain royal was the son of his father; but very few people knew anything about that father. and those few knew little more than that he had made money in business in the north. the business in fact was that of an unregistered dentist at blackpool. albert ryle was a curious little fellow. he lived more like a machine than it was possible to conceive a human being could live. he was so regular as to be almost automatic: he had no virtues, and his vices were vigorously suppressed. early in life he planned out his career according to programme, and he stuck to it with methodical precision throughout. during his working life, happily for him, there were no such seismic disturbances, utterly beyond his control, as have completely upset the programme of like automaton men in our own day. nor did the unexpected and catastrophic in the way of illness or sudden love ever overwhelm him. he did not marry: that was part of the programme. he did not enjoy himself. he lived meanly; but his practice grew and grew, especially among the well-to-do artisans. the middle and upper class he left in the main to the qualified practitioners. he was extraordinarily efficient, thorough, and precise in his work; he was daring too. he would administer gas himself, and happily had no accidents. he spent nothing on himself, and studied the stock-markets with the same meticulous care which he gave to the human mouth. on his fiftieth birthday he totted up his capital account and found he had made £ , --just six months ahead of scheduled time. his end had been attained. the first part of the programme had now been accomplished. next day--or as near as it was possible--he sold his practice, took down his brass-plate, said good-bye to no one, for he knew no one except in the way of business; and for the first time in his life crossed the trent, never to recross it. albert ryle never looked back: he moved forward steady as a caterpillar on the trail. in the north he left behind him everything but the accent which, to his own no small grief, and the unending anguish of his wife, he carried to the grave, and the money he had made in gloomy lancashire. he bought a villa in croydon, modified his name under expert advice, and in the sun of the south country began to live. mr. royal of deepdene had made money in business in the north. now he was going to spend it in the south. here began the second part of the programme. he married a middle-class woman, who had been a companion, and possessed some not very well-founded pretensions to family. he entered the church, ignoring formal admission by baptism, and took an active part in the life of the town. capable and tireless, he became in time a town councillor, and, better still, a justice of the peace for surrey. his grand ambition, never to be fulfilled in this world, was to be a deputy lieutenant of the county of his adoption. there was one child of the marriage, who was christened at his wife's request, and with his full approval, hildebrand. the boy was sent to a first-rate preparatory school, where, being an aggressive youngster, he more than held his own. mr. albert royal was determined that his son should go to one of "our ancient public schools." when he broached the subject, the headmaster of the preparatory school was in a dilemma. mr. royal was an admirable parent from the commercial point of view. he paid the fees and never made a fuss; but there was no getting away from mr. royal's accent. mr. wortley, an etonian himself, didn't somehow think eton was quite the school for hildebrand. too damp. there wasn't much chance of a boy getting into winchester unless his father had been there before him. had mr. royal been at winchester?--ah, bad luck. then rugby?--but mr. royal wouldn't send his son to a north country school. mr. royal's home was in the south; and so was his heart. what about harrow?--mr. wortley's face brightened. harrow was the very thing. he could see hildebrand at harrow in his mind's eye. later when his partner came into the study, after mr. royal's departure, mr. wortley announced the news with a little grin. "arrow for ildebrand," he said. "and quite good enough too," replied the other, who was also an etonian, with a little snort. to harrow, then, hildebrand went. and just at the appropriate moment mr. royal senior died. that was not part of the programme, but it was consummately tactful. "my father didn't do much. he was a magistrate in surrey," sounded so much better than the reality incarnate, rough and red and rather harsh--with the blackpool accent. mr. royal's opportune death was, in fact, an immense relief to his suffering wife and perhaps to young hildebrand, who was beginning to know what was what in the world in which he proposed to live and move and have his being. his school career was a great success. many admired, not a few envied, nobody liked him; but as a master said--"he likes himself enough to make up for that." an extremely good-looking boy, full of self-confidence, he was an unusually fine athlete, played racquets for the school, and notched a century against eton at lords in a style that made men talk of f. s. jackson at his best. his mother was presentable and dressed extremely well. young royal had no objection to being seen about with her, and even invited her down to speech-day and introduced her to his friends at lords. it was not to be wondered at that when she died she left the whole of the £ , to her only-born. hildebrand bore this second bereavement with characteristic fortitude. he was just at the age when the possession of money was rare as it was useful. he passed high into sandhurst, and became an under-officer. his record there as an athlete, his bit of money, and the use he made of it, enabled him to secure a commission in the coveted hammer-men. he joined the regiment with a considerable and deserved reputation, which he more than maintained. he was not popular with his brother-officers, who said quietly among themselves that he was not a sahib; while conky joe went so far as to assert that he was not even a "white man"; but he was an asset to the regiment and accepted as such. now he had come home on six months' leave with two objects in view. he meant to work for the staff college--and there were few more ambitious men; and he meant to enjoy himself. when he returned to england, there was no question where he would settle down. he knew all about the hohenzollern, and indeed would boast to his few intimates--and he was fond of boasting--that madame was an old friend of his, and that he had paid his first visit to the third floor when still at harrow. beachbourne indeed suited him very well. it possessed a first-rate crammer; if he wanted society there was the club at the west-end, full always of service men retired or on leave; and he could get as much golf and cricket as he liked. a terrific worker, he would have no distractions: for he knew very few people socially. there would be no country-house invitations for him; nor did he court them. when he had passed through the staff college and settled down in london for a spell at the war office he knew very well that doors, now shut to him, would open. there was no hurry about that. he didn't mean to marry yet: he meant to enjoy himself. in a word, captain royal was an adventurer of a kind by no means uncommon in our day. a tory in his opinions and his prejudices he lacked the one thing that can make a tory admirable, and that is tradition. when colonel lewknor once defined him as "a first-rate officer and a first-class cad," conky joe, the kindest of men but a first-rate hater, who had never quite got over the bias imbibed in the atmosphere of the "greatest of all schools," replied with scorn, rare scorn, "well, what d'you expect of harrow?" chapter xxxvi the captain begins his siege the morning after captain royal's advent, ernie, going his round of the third floor, dropping boots at various doors, stopped outside no. . the door was open; and ruth stood at the window looking sea-wards. it was early yet, scarcely seven, but clearly the captain was already up and out. ernie stood in the door, admiring the lines of the girl's big young figure, the curve of her neck and shoulders and the glossy black of her hair. he made a little whistling sound. ruth turned, saw who it was, and beckoned to him. the window looked out over the lawns and foreshore on to the sea, brisk and broken in the sun. the tide was brimming, and swinging in, green-hued, white-tipped, and splashed with shadows. the bathing-raft was wobbling in the short chop. there were no bobbing heads about it now. it was too early in the season, too early in the morning, and the sea was too rough. but a figure, white in the sun, balanced on the unsteady raft, then shot arrow-wise into the sea. another moment and a black head bounced up out of the water. then there was the flash of an arm, rising and falling swiftly, as the swimmer strode away for the horizon. "straight out to sea!" cried ernie. "that's the captain!--buffet em!" "i wish i was a man," mused ruth. "go in like that--just as you are." she took up her duster, and resumed her work. the bed was already made. "you're early at it," said ernie, glancing round. "yes," answered ruth. "i'm to do his room every morning while he's in the water. he's going to work up here after breakfast." "hot stuff!" said ernie, trying to work up enthusiasm. "he'll command the old battalion one day, the skipper will. good old hammer-men!" half an hour later the captain was back. his hair still wet, was crisp still and very dark; while the brine crusted his handsome face. he had run up the stairs, three at a stride, too impetuous to await the lift. in flannels, a sweater with a broad collar, and white shoes, he looked cool and clean and strenuous as the water from which he just emerged. at the top of the stairs he met the shabby porter with his collarless shirt, his scrubby hair, and rough hands. ruth, coming down the corridor, marked the meeting of the two men. "mornin," said the captain, brief as his own moustache. "morning, sir," grinned ernie, rolling by, full of self-consciousness. an hour later, he saw ruth coming out of with a tray. ernie stopped. "havin breakfast in his own room?" he asked. "yes," said ruth quietly. the monosyllable seemed to knock at ernie's heart. he hesitated a moment. "i'm sorry you're leaving the third floor, ruth," he said. "for me own sake like." "thank you," answered ruth. he noticed she was strangely curt. a week later madame sent for the girl. "ruth, are you still in any hurry to change your floor?" she asked. the girl looked down, colouring faintly. "think it over, vill you?" said madame. "there is no hurry." "thank you, ma'am," said ruth, quivering. she returned to her work. a bell was ringing. it was . ruth went. the captain was manicuring his nails at the window. he looked up as she entered. "shut the door!" he said. she obeyed. "come here!" he ordered. she went. he looked at her, in his blue eyes a laughing sternness. "what's this?" he asked. "what, sir?" "i hear you're thinking of deserting." she stood before him, her bosom rising and falling. "ruth," he said gravely, "you've got to make a home for me while i'm here. i'm a pore lone orphan--no mother, or sister, or friends. you've got to mend me and mind me, as my old nurse used to say. d'you see? i look to you." "very well, sir," answered ruth. whatever else ruth might feel about captain royal, there was no doubt that she admired him. and to do the man justice, there was not a little to admire. in any company, except the best, he shone. and on the third floor, in that meretricious atmosphere of fat-necked jews, dubious foreigners, and degenerate englishmen, royal with his strenuous ways of the public-school boy, his athletic figure, and keen walk stood out like a sword among gamps in an umbrella-stand. he lived too with the deliberate speed of the man who knows his goal and means to get there. there was no need to call him. he was up every morning at . , and into the sea, rain or fine, rough or smooth, at . . at he was back again in his room, stripped, and doing physical exercises. at ruth brought his breakfast; and by he had settled to his morning's work. after lunch he golfed; then to his crammer; and in the evening he relaxed over a billiard-table or in the card-room. sometimes he went off for the night to town. on the first of these occasions ernie carried his bag to the taxi with a joy for which he himself could not account. "what!--are you off, sir?" he asked gaily. "i thought we was going to keep you all your leave." "only for the week-end," answered the other, with his little hard laugh. "see me back on monday." ernie's heart fell. he went upstairs, saw ruth, and feigned surprise. "what, still here, ruth?" "yes," the girl answered in her quiet way. "i shan't move now till the captain's gone." she said it quite simply. she was too great, too spiritual, to be provocative: ernie knew that. he stopped full. there was a sea of fire lifting his chest and lighting his eye. "ruth," he said. she saw his emotion, and stayed with the courtesy natural to her. "will you walk out with me?" she met his eyes with the courage, dark, flashing, and kind, he loved so much. "i couldn't do that, ernie," she said so gently that he loved her all the more. "why not then?" "i'm afraid." "what of?" "afraid you might ask me more'n what i can give." "i'll run the risk!" cried ernie. "i'm ready!" she shook her head. he took her hand. "i'm a good man, ruth," he said with the almost divine simplicity of the class to which he now belonged. she overwhelmed him with tenderness. "o, i know you are, ernie!" she said in her purring voice of a wood-pigeon at evening. "but i'm not thinking of settling--not yet." the love-passage relieved ernie immensely. he would face defeat, face captain royal, face the future with confidence now. thereafter for some time he went about his work whistling, so that don john, the austrian, winked at his mates behind his back, and said, "he thinks she's for him! no fool like an english fool!" when he came back from his week-end away, captain royal went straight to madame's private sitting-room, which was at the end of the third floor. as he came out and passed along the corridor he saw ruth sitting on the window-sill in the passage, where ernie had suddenly known himself in love with her. he stopped. there was a bundle of mending beside her, and among it he recognized his own pyjamas. royal knew there was a sitting-room for the maids, called by the habitués of the third floor, "the nunnery," and wondered. that evening, when she came to put out his evening clothes, he said to her, "you don't care about using the maids' sitting-room, ruth?" she did not answer. "the other girls aren't your sort? too rowdy--what?" again she fell back on characteristic silence. each of the bed-rooms on the third floor had a dressing-room attached. "well, you know my hours," he continued. "you use my dressing-room to work in whenever you like. i never use it myself; and i know you've a lot to do for me." ruth thanked him; and after that in the afternoons, when he was out, and in the evenings, when he was at dinner, she would sit in his dressing-room and work. one evening, as she sat beside the window, her dark head bent over her work, she was aware that he was standing over her. he had come in on her very quietly from behind, not through his bed-room but through the door of the dressing-room that opened into the corridor. she rose to go, gathering her work. he put his hand upon her shoulder, and pressed her gently back into the chair. she trembled beneath his touch. "no," he said. "don't go. i like to have you there." she glanced swiftly at the door behind her. "that's all right," he laughed. "it's shut." then he moved into the bed-room. "i'm not going to close the door," he said, "because i like to see you there when i look up from my work." she lifted her eyes to his, full of confidence and affection. he was not a man; he was a god--and to be treated as such: he could do no wrong. he smiled at her friendly from his chair. "i'm going to read jomini," he said. "ever hear of jomini, ruth?--nice name, isn't it? joe-mine-eye." after that captain royal was less regular in his attendance at the billiard-room after dinner. he read in his bed-room; ruth worked in the dressing-room; sometimes the door between the two rooms was open; and sometimes they talked. one evening ernie, descending from a higher floor in the lift, marked céleste listening at the dressing-room door. she saw him, winked, and tripped away. "it's a caise!" she whispered, making a hollow of her hand. "a h'iceberg's hot stuff once it begins to go." chapter xxxvii he drives a sap one morning, after captain royal had been at the hotel two months, ernie missed the familiar soft thud of his feet as he came up the stairs three at a time after his bathe. ernie looked at his watch. it was half-past seven; and the captain was regular as the seasons. he wondered what was up. the strange dis-ease which possessed him, whenever his thoughts turned to royal, was on him strong. then ruth came out of the captain's room. her face, always grave, was graver than usual. the note of restraint ernie had marked in it of late, whenever he met her, had given place to one of anxiety. "what's up?" he asked. "he's not getting up," she answered. "he's not well. looks to me like the hot-chills." the sick man heard the voices outside. "caspar!" he called. "sir." ernie entered. captain royal lay in bed, a touch of colour in his cheeks, his skin dry, his hair bristling, his eyes suffused. "i've got a touch of fever," he said. "and my head's stupid. you don't remember the prescription they used to give us in india. quinine and--what?" ernie was far too vague to be of any help, and was testily dismissed. he left the sick-room. the captain's helplessness roused the woman in him and disarmed the jealous male. "it's nothing much," he told ruth. "only a go of malaria. he used to get it in india. don't you worry." later in the morning madame visited the sick man, and summed him up with those fine shrewd eyes of hers that let so little escape them. the captain was clearly running a temperature. madame put her plump be-ringed hand on his lean one, and then rang. ruth came. "have you a thermometer, ruth?" ruth had--a legacy from miss caryll's days. in a moment she re-appeared with it, washed it, and put it into the captain's mouth. then she plucked it out, and took it to the window. it marked . "what is it?" asked the sick man. "it's a little up," answered ruth, shaking the thermometer down. "what is it?" repeated the other. ruth had not nursed miss caryll for two years in vain. "it's a shade over normal," she said. "hap it'll be a bit higher this evening." outside she told madame. "i shall send for mr. trupp," that lady said, and telephoned at once. the great man came, grumbling and grousing. what did he--who loved to describe his surgery as carpentry, and himself as a mechanic--know of indian fevers? madame took him herself to the captain's room. ruth brought a jug of hot water. "you must just stop in bed till it's burned itself out," said the doctor, wiping his hands and coughing. the sick man cursed. "you won't want a nurse," said madame. "ruth'll do everything you want." mr. trupp looked up and for the first time noticed the girl by the wash-stand. he seemed put out and glanced at madame. "i didn't know you were on this floor, ruth," he said, and added to the captain--"ruth nursed a patient of mine for two years in this very hotel, didn't you, ruth? she can take a temperature, feel a pulse, and keep a chart with the best of em, and you'll be all right in a day or two." ruth, who loved mr. trupp, as she loved no one else on earth, blushed and smiled. "that's settled then," said the captain from his bed. outside in the corridor mr. trupp, busy winding his comforter about his neck, saw ernie and shook hands with him. "well, ernie," he said gruffly. "i forgot you were here. how _you_ getting on?" "nicely, thank you, sir," answered ernie, forgetful for the moment of all his trouble. "nothing much amiss with the captain, i hope, sir?" "d'you know him?" asked mr. trupp. "why, sir!" cried ernie, aggrieved. "he was our adjutant. and a fine officer too. mr. george'll tell you all about him, though they was in different battalions. he's well be-known all over india because of his cricket." "o, he's a hammer-man too, is he?" said mr. trupp, interested. "quite a collection of you here. d'you know colonel lewknor?" "know him, sir!" cried ernie. "the colonel!--the best officer and nicest gentleman we had. is he down here?" "yes, he's taking a house in holywell, i believe.... take my bag down to the car, will you?--you'll find alf outside. i must just wait and speak to the manageress." ernie willingly obeyed. outside was the familiar chocolate-coloured car; and a little way off was alf standing in the grass exchanging confidences with some one in the boothole in the basement. he saw ernie and broke off his conversation at once to come lurching towards his brother, licking his lips, and on his colourless face the familiar leer. "say, ern!" he began confidentially. ernie, paying no heed, opened the door of the car, and put the bag inside. "that was a pretty pick-up you got hold of top of the bus that time," alf continued quietly. ern faced his brother. "what's this then?" he asked, rather white. "that tart top o the bus that night." ernie was breathing deep as he shut the door of the car elaborately. "i thought you was a churchman then," he said. "took the sacraments, marched in processions and carried the bag, from what i hear of it." alf looked round warily. then he came boring in upon the other, as though determined to penetrate his secret. "what if i do!" he said. "'taint sunday to-day, is it?--'taint sunday _all_ the time." some one buried in the boot-hole laughed. "what's that got to do with it?" ernie asked. "d'you keep a dirty tongue all the week, and put on a clean one o sunday with yer change o clothes?" "who was she?" persisted alf, his eyes like the waters of a canal at night glittering in the murk of some desolate industrial quarter. ernie folded his arms. he said nothing; but the lightning flickered about his face. "i know who she was then," continued alf, his great head weaving from side to side. "she was one of the totties from the third floor--where you work." he thrust his head forward, and his eyes were cruel. "_d'you_ think she's for you?--earning twenty-two a week, aren't you?--and what the german jews toss you. why, i doubt if she'd fall to me--and i'm a master-man." jeering laughter from the bowels of the earth punctuated his words. just then mr. trupp came through the great swing-doors. he stopped for a word with the hall-porter. "you settled down here, ernie?" he asked. "pretty fair, sir, thank you," ernie answered without enthusiasm. mr. trupp entered the car. he seemed perturbed. "well, if you want to make a change at any time, let me know," he said. "i only suggested this as a make-shift for you, till we could fix you up in something better, you know." the doctor drove home in surly mood. it was not till the evening that his wife arrived at the root of the trouble. "you remember miss caryll's maid?" he said. "ruth boam?" cried mrs. trupp. "that charming girl who used to bring us over strawberries from the dower-house at aldwoldston." mr. trupp stirred his coffee. "she's on the third floor at the hohenzollern." mrs. trupp put down her work. "temporarily," continued the other, "but she oughtn't to be there at all, a good girl like that. i told madame as much." "i should think you did!" cried mrs. trupp, flashing out like a sword from a scabbard. "it's a crime!" "madame's not a criminal," replied her husband quietly. "she's kind. but she's one of the people who carries her kindness altogether too far." chapter xxxviii the serpent ernie, who was never very fond of work, had on the captain's arrival stored his trunks in the dressing-room to save himself the trouble of carting them up to the box-room in the roof. now it occurred to him that if a nurse was called in to attend the sick man there might be trouble about the trunks. on the morning after mr. trupp's visit he determined, therefore, to move them before he was found out. very early he opened the dressing-room door and blundered in. a girl with bare arms was standing before the looking-glass, dressing her dark hair; and the bed had been slept in. "o, beg pardon, miss," said ernie, genuinely abashed. the girl smiled and held up a hushing finger. "i didn't know, miss," continued ernie, still caught in his own confusion. "why d'you call me miss?" asked ruth calmly. ernie laughed lamely. "did i?" he said. "i don't know." he found relief in bustle. "i was just a-goin to shift some o them trunks." "thank you kindly," answered ruth. "it'd make more room like." ernie set to work. "how's the captain?" he asked. "middlin or'nary," ruth replied. "he didn't sleep unaccountable well." "you look a bit tired yourself, ruth," said ernie. "i was up to him time or two in the night," the girl answered. "i shall go off this afternoon. madame's very kind." ernie went out, swallowing his misery as best he could. the fever took its normal course. the captain needed very little attention. ruth gave him his medicine, tidied his bed, took his temperature, and saw to his food. he lay in a fog, amused with her, angry with himself. "you're top-hole at this job, ruth," he would say. on the third night, in the small hours, he rang. the bell was on a chair at ruth's side. she rose at once. the dressing-gown in which she wrapped herself was a flimsy affair, and showed the lines of her large young body. the light beside the captain's bed was switched on. "ruth," he said, "i'm better. i've broken out in a muck-sweat. i'm dripping. get me some fresh pyjamas and a towel." his face was shining with perspiration, his hair dark. she went to a drawer. "bring me a towel," he said. "and give me a rub down." she obeyed and clothed him in his new pyjamas. he lay back, dry and contented. the dawn was breaking. she lit the spirit-lamp and crouched beside it, graceful and brooding, her nightdress spread on the floor about her like a train of snow. "i'll chill you a drop o milk," she said in her deep voice, with the coo of comfort in it. "it comes over cold towards dawn." he drank readily and seemed refreshed. "that's better," he said. ruth watched him with kind eyes. "now you'll sleep, i reck'n," she said. "ruth," he answered, "come here." she came. he took her hand and kissed it. "that's all," he said. "thank you. good-night." she went back to the dressing-room and closed the door behind her. then she went to the window. the tide was low, the sea still dark, and on the horizon of it a bank of saffron, from which in time the sun would appear. on the far edge of the sands, pearl-hued and desolate, the waves stirred faintly. all else was stillness and immensity. not a soul, not a ship, not a movement. the sweep, the nakedness, the inexorable passivity of earth and sky and sea, man-forsaken and forlorn, seemed for once to affect the girl with fear. she retired hastily to her bed and sought the shelter of sleep. chapter xxxix the lash again in a week the captain was in the sea again, and living the same fiercely strenuous life he had done before his attack. ernie congratulated him upon his recovery with a cheerfulness he by no means felt. a question haunted him. was ruth still sleeping in the dressing-room? ... could the girl be so indiscreet? ... nothing could have been easier for him than to answer the question for himself by peeping. but he would not do it, for the hotel-porter was a gentleman. the question that troubled him was, however, soon to answer itself. one afternoon, when ruth was out to ernie's knowledge, he was surprised to hear in the dressing-room the familiar voices of céleste and another maid, hushed and whispering. "she keeps the key her side," one was saying. "what's it matter who keeps the key?" the other answered. "that's only a bluff." the door was slightly ajar. "he don't seem to have give her nothing," said the one at the dressing-table discontentedly. "only cash. cash is the thing. then you can get what you like for yourself." "here's her bible and pray-book! _look!_--ain't she just the little limit?--and that close with it too." "it's always the same. it's the dark uns are the deep uns." "don't you dare to chip her then," warned the other. "she's madame's own ducky-darlin-doodle-day." ernie opened the door. the two girls turned in a scared flutter. "there!--it's only old ernie boots!" cried céleste relieved. "he don't count, ernie don't.--but you give me the palpitations though." ernie held the door wide. "you've no business in here," he said sternly. "no one has--only the captain, old cock," retorted céleste flippantly. the two girls flirted away with high noses and a rustle of silken underwear. ernie looked round the little room with the eyes of a furtive watch-dog. he had no business there; and being there he ought to make it his duty to see nothing. but he did see; and what he saw was that the bed was not in use. thrown carelessly upon it was a regimental blazer, obviously awaiting repair, and a pair of socks in like case. beside them was a work-bag. he moved the blazer and saw beneath it a silver cigarette-case. then in the grate he saw the burnt end of a cigarette. with beating heart, but unruffled air, he went out. the two mocking-birds were perched on a window-sill at the end of the corridor. "pore old ernie boy!" they cried in chorus. "did he think she was for him?" ... the story trickled down to the boot-room in the basement, which was a kind of cess-pool into which all the moral filth in the hotel poured and finally accumulated. don john openly mocked ernie. "here's caspar!--thought he'd have a chance against the toff!" ernie flashed round on him. "stow it!" he ordered. the austrian was afraid. "soldier! soldier!" he croaked, hiding his fear behind hideous laughter, and reported his enemy to salvation joe. that worthy, swollen and stiff with righteousness as the jehovah of the israelites, and glad of his chance, tackled ernie on the subject. "what's this then?" he said, stopping the other. "what, sir?" asked ernie. "fighting in the boot-hole," answered jehovah in his voice of thunder, subdued and distant. "i don't know nothing of it," said ernie, honestly taken aback. jehovah, the majestic, in his flaming jersey, could sneer. "ah, don't you, my lad?" he said. "well, i do. let's have no more of it." the two men went on their way: salvation joe to the manager's office to make his report. "always the same with these old soldiers," he said. "it's up with their fists at the first onset. no reasonableness in em. can't keep em off of it." "better keep him anyway till the end of the season," said the manager. "we don't want a change now." "no, sir. i don't want a change any time," said the head-porter, on the defensive. "but order is order. that's all i says." the pressure of necessity was indeed squeezing the softness out of ernie. enemies thronged his path. he was becoming wary and watchful. of old, when in the course of life he had come up against hostility and obstruction, he had met it either by evasion or the non-resistance so fatally easy to a man of his temperament. it was different now. his enemies were leagued together to rob him of something dearer than himself. therefore he would stand: therefore he would fight. there grew upon him a dignity, a restraint, above all a sternness that men and women alike remarked and respected. céleste ceased to mock him; don john kept his distance; and the captain was on his guard. ernie was sure of it: for royal was nothing of a diplomatist when dealing with an enemy whom he despised. ruth, too, avoided ernie now. he noticed it, and did not attempt to approach her. the two were drawing away, and yet, ernie sometimes thought, coming closer--for all the girl's grave reserve. he at least was climbing heights where he had never been before. up there in the eternal snows it was lonely but bracing. he was putting on an armour of ice. clothed thus, knew that nothing could hurt him. he could bear all things, conquer all men. once at that time mr. pigott met him in old town. "ern," he said, eyeing the other curiously, "i've got a job for you in my yard, if you like it. what about it?" "no, sir," answered ernie, almost aggressively. "i'm going to stick where i am." "no offence anyway," growled the other, striding huffily on his way.... "i might have been insulting him instead of trying to help him," the aggrieved man reported to mr. trupp later. "yes," said the doctor. "he's under the lash again. i see that. and he's growing because of it. men do--if they are men. if they aren't they just break." "you and your lash," grumbled the other. "there are other stimulants in the world." mr. trupp pursed his lips. "perhaps," he grinned. "but none so effective." his father, too, noticed the change in his elder son. once as they were sitting together, above the chalk-pit, on one of ern's afternoons off, after a long silence, he said, "how goes it, boy-lad?" "what, dad?" "the affair." ernie looked away, teasing the bent between his teeth. "none too well, dad." the old man laid a hand on his. "wade out into it!" he said. "trust the stream! it'll carry you--if you'll let it." ernie's mother too, curiously sure in some of her intuitions, felt his trouble, was aware of his new-found courage, and came to him. it had always been so with her from his childhood. whenever he put out his strength she rallied to him in full force. when in weakness he fell away she left him. it was as though all her woman's power of buttressing had been given to the father, so that there was nothing left to satisfy the demands of her seeking elder son. that evening she gave him roses from her little garden before he went, and watched him round the corner. then she retreated indoors, and standing thin-shouldered in the door of the study, shot at the long loose figure by the fire one of her customary crude remarks. "he's hanging on the cross," she said. edward caspar stared into the grate. "he'll rise again," he answered. chapter xl clash of males ernie, carrying his roses, mounted the bus. opposite the _star_, he marked a gaunt figure, standing on the steps of the manor-house. there was something of the kindly vulture about the figure's pose that was strangely familiar. ernie leapt to sudden life. it was the colonel--without his sun-helmet. ernie was off the bus in a moment, and sidling shyly up to the object of his worship. the colonel, waiting on the steps, watched the antics of the approaching devotee with satirical indifference. "contemplating assault or adoration?" he asked mildly. then he stooped, extending a skinny claw. "what, caspar!" he called, his cadaverous face lighting up. "that's me, sir," grinned ernie, wagging his tail with furious enthusiasm. just then a chocolate-bodied car drove up, and ernie was aware of alf looking at him. the door of the car opened; and captain royal stepped out. "ah, colonel!" he cried in his brisk hearty voice. the colonel laid a finger on the other's sleeve. "you remember caspar, royal?" he said. "i do," replied royal briefly. "coming in, sir?" as mr. trupp's door opened at last. ernie turned down the hill, burning his white flare. the captain's brutal insolence had gone home. the colonel reported the incident to his wife that evening. "i could have struck the swine!" he said with unusual ferocity. "conky joe was right. he never was a white man. a piebald from birth, that feller." mrs. lewknor churned the incident in her mind. it was a slur on the regiment, and therefore a capital offence. "what a cad!" she said. "our dear caspar too! royal's the only officer in the regiment would behave like that. where's he stopping?" "my dear, where would royal stop?" said the colonel. "the hohenzollern--third floor--where caspar's working." he nodded his big head discreetly. "how do you know?" asked mrs. lewknor, eyeing him. "trupp told me," replied the colonel. ernie returned to the hotel with his roses. later that evening he went to the door of the dressing-room of and knocked quietly. there was no answer. he entered and laid the roses on the table. as he did so the door between the two rooms opened, and ruth stood in it, watching him with hostile eyes. in the room behind her ernie could see the captain in his smoking-jacket before the fire with a cigarette between his lips. then the captain saw him too. his easy expression changed in a flash; and he acted as always without a moment's hesitation. he strode towards the open door between the two rooms, brushing ruth almost rudely aside. "now no more of it!" he said with brutal savagery. "i've had enough!" there was no light in the dressing-room but that which came through the uncurtained window from the moonlit sea, and the beam from the bed-room. in the dimness the eyes of the two men clashed. for a second the habit of discipline, of inferiority, of bowing to the other's artificially imposed authority, overwhelmed ernie and he wavered. then strength came to him like a tidal wave: he steadied and stood his ground. in the eyes of his enemy he recognized in a flash the eternal brute, domineering, all-devouring, ruthless in the greed of its unbridled egotism, whose familiar features had been stamped indelibly, from the beginnings of time, upon the retentive tablets of his race-memory. ernie was face to face with something in which he had never entirely believed--the ogre of whom the socialists spoke: capitalism incarnate, stripped of its church-trimmings, the monster remorseless and obscene, to whom the children of men were but as the grass of the fields that went to feed the unquenchable fires in its sagging belly. quite suddenly the veil had been drawn aside, the roseate mists of sentimentality dispersed; and he beheld human nature, naked and terrible--the animal who called himself man--an animal inspired beyond belief by the devil of lust and cruelty, glowering out at him now from the ambush of a face created after the likeness of the son of god. he said slowly, more to himself than to his enemy: "my christ!" and left the room. in the basement, don john, bare-necked as a bird of prey, his cheek bulging with cheese, sat in a dingy apron and expounded his philosophy to a little group of disciples as tired and dirty as himself. "take advantage!--of course dey take advantage! so would i, so would you--if we was in their shoes. dey would be just pluddy fools not to. dere is only so much in de world. dey take what dey can get; and the veak to the vall. shentlemen and christians! dere is no such tings. tell the tale to mugs!--dere is just man and woman, both worms, wriggled up out of the mud. man wants woman; and woman wants it cushie. so de rich man buys her. can you compete against him?--is your body sleek with food and wine and lying in bed?--is your spirit nourished on books and music and plays?--can you fill her eye with your fatness, and clothe her body in furs, and adorn her hair with jewels, and fill her lap with gold?--no; de rich man buys what he wants, and he wants de best all de time. for you and me what is left over when he haf finished. dat is so all de way through--women, wine, horses, what you vill. touch your hat and say--tank you, sair. vair much obliged. it is always de same." he wagged a yellow fore-finger. "dere is only two tings ruling class leaves to you and me." he cackled horribly. "one is work"--he pronounced it vurk--"and de udder is war." chapter xli the decoy pond after the battle between the two men, ruth retired into the fortress from which ernie had lured her before the captain's arrival. the old restraint was on her, and hostility was now added. she barely noticed him when they met, and he, wary for once and wise, made no advances to her. but hope was quickening in his heart, for september was on them now, and the leave-season was drawing to an end. one afternoon céleste flitted past him like a wagtail. "cheer, ernie-boy," she mocked. "he's going away." "who is?" "captain, my captain." "when?" "at once." she halted. "but--he's taking her away with him." ernie turned grey. "who told you?" "one of the girls. they take it in turns to sit in the dressing-room of evenings to hear the latest. it's like an aviary, they say. _coo-bird! coo! now me! now you! you was good to me when i was ill, ruth,_ he says last night. _now i am going to give you a treat. i'm going to take you to paree for the week-end on my way back to india._" ernie came closer. he looked ugly. "if i catch any of you girls in there----" "baa-a-a!" mocked the naughty one. "who was caught in there himself?" ernie was now extraordinarily alert and vivid. the old sleepy benevolence had vanished: he was listening at last to that voice which none of us can afford to neglect, the voice which says at all times, to all men in all places-- _beware!_ salvation joe took a professional and proprietory interest in the change, which for some obscure reason he attributed to his own direct intervention in heavenly places. "what is it then?" he asked. "has he found you at last?" ernie, who as he gathered strength, gained also in flippancy, replied: "there was ninety-and-nine, you mean. that lay. no, sir, he ain't found me. i've found it though." "well, then, come round to the 'appy 'our on sunday next and tell us all about it," growled the great man. "there's none so 'umble and lowly but we can learn from them, as i often says." he tramped on his reverberating way.... that night, as ernie was on lift-duty, the telephone bell rang in the passage. he went. "who's that?" he asked. "mr. caspar from the garage, old town," came the answer. "could i speak to captain royal?" the captain had given orders that when he was in his room of evenings after dinner, he was not to be disturbed. "he's engaged," answered ernie. "could i give him a message?" for a moment there was a pause. then the voice began again. "who'm i speaking to?" "one of the porters, sir," ernie answered. there was no need for him to disguise his voice: for the telephone was out of repair, and speech muffled and uncertain accordingly. "well, will you take down this message and see it gets to him to-night. _the car will be at the decoy park, east gate, to-morrow afternoon at . ._" ernie wrote the message down, and repeated it. "very good, sir," he said briskly. "thank ye," answered alf, and rang off. later, when captain royal came down to the smoking-room for a last cigarette before bed, ernie took him the message. the captain, who had brought the art of insolence to his inferiors to a height that only a certain type of officer, sheltered by military law, attains, took the note without a word, glanced at it, and tossed it into the fire. ernie retired with burning heart. the conjunction of captain royal and alf seemed to him sinister. but he had his armour on now, his lance in rest. his brain was working with a swiftness and precision that astonished him. he was ready for whatever might come.... the old decoy was a survival of the remote days when beachbourne was a fishing-village, famous only for the duck-shooting on the levels hard by. when ernie was a lad the decoy pond, in its rough ambush of trees and thick undergrowth, was still the haunt of duck and snipe, and his favourite hunting-ground in the bird-nesting season. during ernie's absence in india the corporation had acquired it, and made of the tangled wilderness, formerly the home of fox and snipe and the shy creatures of the jungle, a fair pleasure-ground for their conquerors. green lawns now ran down amid forest-trees and clumps of flowering shrubs to a shining ornamental water on which floated stately swans, while moor-hen scudded here and there, and flotillas of foreign ducks paddled about islands gorgeous with crimson willow. a broad road ran from gate to gate; and in the woods of summer evenings young men now chased rarer game than ducks. it was at the eastern gate of this resort that alf was to meet the captain with a car. ernie would meet them there too. on that he was determined. it was not his afternoon off, but he arranged to change with a mate. a light railway ran from the east-end of the town along the edge of the levels to join the main line at the wayside station known as the decoy park between beachbourne and polefax. ernie took the two o'clock train, and, ensconced in a third-class smoker, watched. very soon the captain came swinging along the platform, a light burberry over his arm, athletic, resolute, and quite the english gentleman, his coloured tie striking a charming note of gaiety in his otherwise fresh but sober costume. ernie watched him critically. in externals the captain was the typical representative of a service in which men move, like wordsworth's cloud, all together or not at all. for the skilled observer, indeed, the history of the british army during the last seventy years is to be read in the evolution of the moustaches of its officers. at the moment now recorded the flowing _beau-sabreur_ moustache which dominated the service from balaclava to paardeberg had long gone out; while the tuft moustache which commemorated for the british army the advent of the great war had not yet come in. the tooth-brush or touch-me-not or crawling-caterpillar moustache, brief, severe, and bristling, which had held its own against all comers since south africa, was still the rage; and gave the wearer that suggestion of something between a hog-maned horse-in-training and a rough-haired terrier on the look-out for a row with a rat which was the fashionable pose for the british officer in the years between the two wars. to be quite _comme-il-faut_ royal should have had trailing at his heels a little bustling terrier, rather like himself, harsh in manner, but virile, aggressive and keen. but captain royal did not like dogs. ernie, chewing a fag in a corner, as he watched his enemy march by, remembered that; remembered too and suddenly that it had been common talk in the lines that royal was not popular among his brother-officers--"not class enough" the whisper went. ernie, who had wondered then, understood that now. at the decoy park the captain got out. ernie saw him off the platform, and well started down the road to the decoy woods before he followed. a chilly wind blew from across the levels. the captain marched along towards the park, the tail of his burberry floating out, his green hat with the feather in it cocked to meet the breeze, the shapely curves of his legs exposed by the wind. just outside the park he looked sharply behind him, but saw only a shabby figure slouching casually along some two hundred yards away. once inside the park ernie left the road and, walking swiftly among the trees at the wayside, drew closer. here in the woods peacocks strutted, and close by was an aviary in which parrots chuckled, golden pheasants preened themselves, and birds with gay plumage fluttered. on the rustic bridge across the ornamental water the captain paused and looked about him. nominally he was observing the swans; really he was looking to see if he was being watched. ernie, alert in every inch of him, recognized the ruse; and drew the correct deduction that his enemy had been at this game before. he waited in the shadow of the trees. the captain, satisfied, made now for the east gate. outside it a car was waiting. ern recognized that chocolate body; and he recognized too that little figure in the shining black gaiters who stood beside it, and touched his hat with a furtive grin. the two men exchanged a brief word. alf opened the door of the car, produced something, and held it out. ernie saw that it was a lady's fur coat. then captain royal climbed into the car, and alf put the hood up. ernie approached. just inside the east gate was a little wooden chalet, where teas were served. in this ernie took cover. a crowded motor-bus from beachbourne drove up. on the front seat was a girl in a terra-cotta-coloured felt hat. she got down and walked towards the car. ernie watched, quivering. there was only one woman in the world who walked with that direct and compelling grace. it was clear to him that the girl was happy--lyrically so--and shy. the flow and rhythm of her every motion betrayed it abundantly. alf touched his hat as she approached, and opened the door. the captain did not descend. he was waiting inside--the spider in the background lurking to pounce upon the fly, a spider who shot forth sudden grey tentacles to enfold his prey. ruth, clasped by the tentacles, was sucked out of sight. ernie was overwhelmed with a sudden desire to leap out into the road and cry: "_don't!_" he sweated and trembled. then the door of the car slammed. ruth was fast inside; and alf, wonderfully brisk, had hopped into his seat, and was fingering the levers. then the car stole forward swiftly, secretly, like a cat upon the stalk. it passed through the gate, would cross the park, strike the lewes road at ratton on the way to--lewes--brighton--where?... ern was standing up now, forgetful of concealment. as the car swept by, alf saw him and made a mocking downward motion with his hand, as of one pressing to earth an enemy struggling to his feet. ern was aware of it, of the look on alf's face, of the two in the car. they did not see him. the captain was bending over ruth, buttoning the fur coat round her throat. just then there rang through the silence a dreadful cry as of evil triumphant. a peacock in the wood had screamed. chapter xlii the captain's flight that night ernie was on late lift-duty. he was just about to lock the lift when the missing captain came striding across the empty hall with a peremptory finger raised. "you're late, sir," said ernie, unlocking grudgingly. "third floor," the other answered, curt as a blow. when the lift stopped, ernie went along the corridor to deliver a note to madame in her room. "thank-you, caspar," she said. "good-night." she had always felt a kindness for this soft-spoken son of the people, and the fact that he was reported to be of gentle birth had interested her. as he was going back to the lift he met ruth, still in her hat, coming along the corridor, bearing a tray. she had the merry, mischievous air of a girl just back from a sunday school treat, and still brimming with the laughter of primroses and april woods. his heart leapt up in joy and thankfulness as he beheld her. she gave him the old gay look of affectionate intimacy, which she had withheld from him for weeks past. "good-night, ernie," she said as she passed him, in a voice so low that but for its deep ringing quality he might almost have missed it. he half hesitated. "good-night, ruth," he answered, and as he disappeared down the shaft of the lift saw her, glowing with health and happiness, enter the captain's room with her tray. he locked the lift. in the hall the manager was shutting his desk in the office. he saw ernie and called: "has captain royal come in?" "yes, sir." "there's a telegram for him somewhere." he hunted about and at last found it. "take it up to him now, will you?" he said, "it's been waiting since three." ernie toiled up the stairs, and knocked at the door of . there was no answer. he opened it slightly. the light was on, and he entered. the room was empty. he stood a moment, quivering. then voices from the dressing-room came to him quietly and at intervals. he stood still, with head down, listening. the captain was speaking softly, insistently. ruth was dumb. ernie thought she was crying. then he heard her voice, panting and very low, "a-done, sir, do!" in a moment ernie was in eruption. he flung against the door and tore rabidly at the handle. there was no answer from within. ernie brought his fist down upon a panel with a left-handed punch that seemed to shake the hotel. "telegram, sir!" he called in stentorian tones, threw the flimsy envelope on to the bed, and was gone. next morning the captain was up early. ernie met him coming back from the bath-room, a towel over his arm. royal did not meet the eyes of his enemy. "have a taxi at the door at . ," he ordered. "yes, sir," answered ernie. a few minutes before that hour the captain rang for the lift. ernie found him waiting on the landing with his suitcase and took him down. in the hall royal, with averted shoulder, thrust a sovereign towards him. "here!" ernie flared white, and swept the outstretched hand aside with a gesture that was almost a blow. "never!" he cried. for the second time the two men's eyes met and clashed; and in a flash ernie knew that he had conquered. the captain had run up the sullen flag of spiritual catastrophe. then he turned away and marched rapidly across the hall. ernie went straight back to . the room showed every sign of a hasty departure. the floor was littered; the drawers open and still half full of clothes. under the dressing-table were boots and shoes, on it a pair of hair-brushes, a case of studs, and the lesser paraphernalia of a man's toilet. it was clear that the late occupant had stuffed a few things into his suit-case and bolted. the dressing-room door was shut. ernie went to it and listened. there was no sound within. "ruth," he called gently, and opened. she was lying across the bed in her simple print-gown as though she had been felled. it was clear that she had entered the room and been faced with--emptiness. her eyes were shut, and her face swam pale as the moon and still in the black circle of her hair. one foot had lost its shoe, and dangled black-stockinged and pathetic over the bed. in her hand, listlessly held, was a piece of crumpled paper--as it might have been her death-warrant. she did not seem to breathe. at first ernie thought that she was dead, so wan she was, so quiet, so unaware. he did not mind very much, because he had died too; and they were together still, and closer than they had ever been. quietly he knelt beside her. "ruth," he said, and kissed the hand that lay limp at her side. she stirred beneath his touch. "it's all right, ruth," he whispered. she opened her eyes. they lay like pools of beauty, dark in her white face, and fringed with black. they spoke to him in the silence, appealing to him. they drew him, they undid him, they purged him by their suffering of all sin, lifting him into a white heaven, where was no stain of earth, no discord, no breaking despair. he smiled at her through his tears. "it's all right, ruth," he repeated. she laid her hand on his in loveliest trust. "goo away, ernie," she sighed. "i just ca'a'n't a-bear it," and her eyelids closed again. he rose to his feet. the window was open, and the bit of crumpled paper she had been holding in her hand was tossing about the floor. he picked it up unconsciously and went out. it was not till some time later that he glanced at it casually before throwing it away and saw it was a ten-pound note. chapter xliii the ebb-tide three days later ernie met in the hall of the hotel a man he had known and disliked in the regiment in india. the two shook hands, ernie grinning feebly. he was not so keen about the regiment as he had been a few months before. "what you doin here then, mooney?" he asked. "i've come for captain royal's heavy baggage," the other answered. "say, which was his room?" "i'll show you," said ernie, and took him up. ruth helped in the packing. ernie, who came and went throughout the morning, was amazed at her. her heart was being eaten away; and yet she might have been packing for a stranger, so calm was she, so methodical and self-oblivious. once, when ernie looked in, he saw her kneeling by the window, her back to the door, her arms deep in a half-empty trunk. mooney winked at him and nodded over his shoulder. ernie, standing in the door, met him with the face of a hostile stone. "can i help?" he asked. "no, thank-you," ruth answered. "we're nearly through." by noon the task was finished, and the baggage downstairs piled at the back-door. mooney and don john lunched together in the basement. ernie, passing, saw them, and heard his own name mentioned. don john was telling a story. mooney, following ernie with his eyes, was unpleasantly amused. later ernie helped to put the luggage on a cab. he volunteered for the work and did it gladly. as the cab moved off, his heart seemed to lift and lighten. the burden he had carried for so many months was being borne away on the top of that oppressed and heavy-laden vehicle. then his eye caught mooney's. the man, smart almost as his master, was sitting back in the cab, his eyes half shut, and his lips slightly parted. between them protruded the tip of his tongue. mooney was mocking him. a few days later ernie missed ruth from the third floor. he asked céleste where she had gone. "gone to the second floor," the girl answered. "she's waiting on a missionary. makes a nice change after the captain." ernie was glad, yet sorry. he saw little of the girl thereafter; and she avoided him. but he still possessed the ten-pound note she had cast away on the morning of captain royal's departure, and was worried as to what he should do with it. he could not send it to her, for she would know the sender. he could not give it her, for it was the price of--what? and there was no one whom he could consult. his dad in such matters was a child; his mother would be unsympathetic; mr. pigott would be too simple to understand. then one autumn afternoon, as he was walking home across saffrons croft through rustling gold-drifts beneath the elms, he met mrs. trupp coming down the hill silvery-haired, gracious, and smiling in upon his gloom. "well, dreamer," she said. "not hard to know whose son you are!" ernie looked up, and made one of those lightning resolutions of his. "beg pardon, 'm," he said. "could i come and see you this evening?" "you could, ernie," answered the other. "and about time too!" that evening, when the blinds were drawn, and the lamps lit, ernie found himself alone with his godmother in the long-windowed drawing-room, telling his story. mrs. trupp, whom cruelty, in its manifold forms, could rouse to a white-hot anger that surprised those who did not know her, listened quivering and with downward eyes. "what was the man's name?" she asked at last. "captain royal," ernie answered without hesitation. she nodded. the captain had called at the manor-house once or twice during his stay, and his easy attentions to her bess had disquieted her for the moment; for she had disliked him from the first. but bess, sound in her intuitions, as she was strong in her antipathies, had proved well able to care for herself. "she's a good girl," said ernie, still rapt in his story. "too good for this world." "you won't tell me her name?" asked mrs. trupp. ernie shook his head doggedly, twisting the ten-pound note between his knees. it was his father's son who refused to speak. "of course," she went on slowly, "your friend has not been wise, ernie. the world would say she'd brought her troubles on her own head." ernie, well aware of the truth, looked at the note, and changed the subject clumsily. "what are i to do with this?" he asked. mrs. trupp had no doubts on that score. "the proper thing to do is to return it to captain royal," she said. ernie was quite gentleman enough to understand. "what'll be his address, i wonder?" he asked. mrs. trupp went to the telephone, rang up colonel lewknor, and made her inquiry. "army and navy club, piccadilly, will find him," replied the colonel. mrs. trupp went to her writing-table, addressed and stamped an envelope, and put the note inside. "register that, please, ernie," she said.... that evening, as she handed her husband his coffee, she remarked to him casually: "william, who looked after captain royal when he was ill?" mr. trupp shot two words at her. "ruth boam." mrs. trupp put down her sugar-tongs, quivering. "what about her?" grunted mr. trupp. "nothing," said the lady. she added after a pause with apparent irrelevance--"did she like you?" "i don't know," replied mr. trupp shortly. "all i know is that girl ought never to have been on the third floor. i told madame as much." the next time mrs. lewknor came to call, mrs. trupp told her the whole story, as ernie had told it her; but, like him, concealing the woman's name. her suppressed indignation made her almost terrible. mrs. lewknor listened doggedly, looking at her toes. she had her own views about captain royal, but he was in the regiment, and the regiment was her god, to whom she owed unquestioning allegiance. "there's no reason to suppose it was more than a stupid flirtation," she said lamely. "it was a _crime_ on his part!" cried mrs. trupp with a vehemence that astounded her visitor. "a man in his position, and a girl in hers!" that evening mrs. lewknor rehearsed the tale to her husband. "swine-man!" said the colonel. "just like him. and that man going about the country calling himself a hammerman! makes you sick." chapter xliv ernie leaves the hotel the winter came and began to go. in february the celandine peeped in the beech-woods in the coombe, and the lords and ladies began to unfurl their leaves, while in the little garden in rectory walk daffodils made a brave show. all through the dark months ernie had only caught an occasional glimpse of ruth. now he lost sight of her entirely. one afternoon céleste stopped him on the third floor. she looked at him curiously, with a touch of gauche diffidence he had never marked in her before. "was you very fond of her then, ernie?" she asked quietly. "who?" he inquired, surprised. "ruth." ernie stared at her. "what's happened?" "she's gone." "when?" "some time since. afore christmas." he saw that céleste, the kindest of creatures, was genuinely moved. she turned her back, and moved to the window, biting her handkerchief to restrain her tears. "of course she'd no business here at all," she sobbed. "she was an innocent. she didn't know nothing. if she'd mixed with us girls we could anyway have learned her enough to keep her out of trouble. but she was that proud. kept herself to herself." ernie devoured her with dark eyes. "where's she gone?" he asked. "london, i expect," céleste answered. "they always do." the flighty little creature dried her eyes and spread her wings in the sun once more. "poor old ern!" she cried. "but there's better fish in the sea than ever came out of it, as the sayin is.... i'm not aimin at meself, mind!" she added coquettishly. ernie, if he heard her badinage, ignored it. as always, where his heart was concerned, he struck instantly and without fear. he walked along the corridor and knocked at madame's door. she was, as usual, smoking. "what is it, caspar?" she asked kindly. ernie came to the point with almost brutal directness. "ruth boam, 'm." madame studied her rings. "she has left--while i was gone away," she said after a pause. "i am sorry. she was nice gurl." madame had only just returned from her annual visit to the sister-hotel at brussels. "could you tell me where she's gone, 'm?" quite suddenly her large fair face wrought. she rose out of the cloud of her own smoke, and just as céleste had done a few minutes before, went to the window and looked out. her great shoulders heaved. "i don't know," she said. "she has not gone home to aldwoldston. i haf written." then with an astonishing display of emotion: "that man!" she cried. "i will never haf that man in my hotels any mores." ernie retired, seeking and dissatisfied. the news of his search soon spread. in the boot-room next day, when the men were at their "elevens," don john met him with a jeer as he entered. "don't he know then?" mocked the austrian. "know what?" asked ernie. "where she's gone?" ernie put down his bread and cheese. "where has she gone, then?" "queen charlotte's, marylebone." "what's queen charlotte's?" asked ernie, the simple. a rumble of cruel laughter went round the room. "layin-in hospital," said don john, "for english gurls the chairman jews have sported with." ernie rose. very deliberately he took off his apron. "shut the door, will you?" he said in a curious white calm. "thank you, bill. now take his knife from him, some of you. you know these bloody aliens." a silence had fallen on all. "what's it all about?" tittered don john, trying to brave it out. "arf a mo," said ernie, rolling up his sleeves leisurely, "and then i'll show you. now chuck him out into the ring. i thank you, bert." in the hotel the feeling between the aliens and the englishmen ran high; and the latter obeyed ernie's injunction with a will all the more because the fame of ernie's left-handed punch had reached the hotel from old town long since. don john didn't like it, and he liked it less when ernie began on him in all seriousness. one of the foreigners slipped out. two minutes later salvation joe, magnificent in his red jersey, shouldered into the room. "what's all this then?" he growled in his voice of a drum-major. "thought you was a christian, caspar?" don john was spitting blood over the sink. ernie stood in the middle of the floor, his head a little forward, ignoring the head-porter, his fists still milling the air with a rhythmic purposefulness that was almost dreadful. "yes, i'm a christian all right," he replied in musing voice. "it is more blesseder to give than to receive. i've give your friend a middlin bunt, and there's more where the same come from. he's only got to arst for it." salvation joe marched away to report to the manager. "and went on after i'd spoken," he said. "saucy with it too." christmas was over; easter some weeks away; things were very slack. the manager was a thick young german with wavy black hair parted in the middle. he now sent for ernie. "you can go at the end of your month," he said. "i'm sick of it." "you ain't the only one," retorted ernie. "i'll go now." "then you'll go without your wages," replied the manager. ernie went upstairs to his dormitory, dressed, gathered his few belongings, and came downstairs deliberately and with dignity. he felt exalted. salvation joe met him with a sardonic smile. "what, reelly goin?" he asked. ernie experienced quite suddenly an immeasurable superiority to the head-porter. "i am, mr. conklin." "without your wages?" "i'll leave them to you, mr. conklin," said ernie quietly. "they're the wages of sin. this place is a brothel. and your christ is my devil." leisurely, with a certain joy in his heart, and his bundle in his hand, he crossed the road to the redoubt and climbed the motor-bus for old town. as he did so the memory of a like journey with a companion at his side was strong upon him. somehow he had a feeling that ruth would be on the top, awaiting him. standing on the steps he peeped warily. she was not there; and his heart, that had been soaring, crashed to earth. then he climbed up into the bleak unsympathetic sky. all around him were benches empty, ugly, comfortless. and looking back, he was aware of salvation joe standing with arms folded across his scarlet paunch, eructating on the steps of the hotel. book vi the quest chapter xlv old mus boam ernie was not adventurous except where his heart was concerned. he had the homing tendency of the affectionate nature. when he left the hohenzollern hotel in sea-gate he made straight as a bird for old town. but he did not go to rectory walk. he was out of work now, at the slack season of the year, too. he knew very well what his brother alf's attitude towards him would be, and was by no means certain of his mother's: for she, too, worshipped success and efficiency in all men but the one dependent on her. therefore he went to an old school-fellow of his, married now, and established in the moot at the back of the _star_, and made arrangements to lodge with him. his immediate future was secure, for he still had a pound or two in hand. and long ago he had adopted the outlook on life of the class which had absorbed him--an outlook natural to them, because inevitable, and acquired by him--the outlook that sees to-day but shuts its eyes to save itself from to-morrow. old town is small and has long ears. it was soon known that ernie caspar was "out," and the cause of his dismissal was discussed by all and hinted at by not a few. alf, sitting behind his wheel at mr. trupp's door, was one of the first to note his brother hanging about the street-corner. he reported the fact to his mother. "he's back on us," he said briefly. "who is?" "ernie." he laughed bitterly as he chewed his cigarette. "lost his job again and turned corner-boy. takes his stand opposite the _star_ so everybody may know he's my brother." mrs. caspar banged the pans upon the range. "why's he lost his job?" violently. alf lifted his hand to his mouth. his mother eyed him, and alf felt criticism in her stare. "i see joe conklin, the head-porter at the hotel," he said. "they give him one or two chances. but it was all no good. never is with that sort." anne caspar looked at him sharply. "are you tellin the tale, alfred?" her son looked up fiercely. "why ain't he come home then?--answer that." "he did come home saturday same as usual to take dad a walk." "that's his cunning--to bluff you he wasn't out," jeered alf. "he's lodging in borough lane. has been ten days past. mrs. ticehurt told the reverend spink. if he done nothing he ain't ashamed of, why not come home?" to do her justice, anne caspar was convinced against her will; but subsequent cogitation caused her to accept alfred's story as true. she felt that ernie had deceived her. why had he not told her that he was out when he came as usual on saturday for his dad? yet in reality the answer was very simple. it was that ernie chose to keep his troubles to himself. thereafter mother and son, by tacit consent, avoided each other in the steep streets of old town; and when ernie called next saturday he found the kitchen-door locked against him. he was not surprised, nor indeed greatly grieved. his heart was high and very steady as he turned into his father's study. the winter had tried the old man, who was no longer now able to take the hill as formerly. instead the pair dawdled along to beech-hangar; and there, sitting among the tree-roots, under the fine web of winter beech-twigs, ernie told his father the essential fact about his love. "i've lost her, dad," he said in his simple way. the old man's blue eyes, that seemed to brighten as his body dulled, shone on him mysteriously. "feel for her," he said, reaching out his hands like a blind man. "you'll find her." he added after a pause. "i don't think she's far." ernie chewed a grass-blade. "i shall find her," he said with quiet confidence, "because my heart ain't fell down--and won't." the old man was still blind and feeling. "spin," he said. "then pounce." ernie nodded. "that's it, and sooner or later my fly'll fall into the web." "it must," said the other, "if you keep on spinning till you cover the uttermost parts of heaven and earth." his father's words, as always, made a deep impression on ernie's suggestible mind. ruth was not far: dad had said so; and dad knew. next day was sunday. he determined to walk over the hill to aldwoldston to see what he could find. true, madame at the hotel had told him that the girl had not gone home; but did madame know? he started early, passed moot farm, where the turkey-cocks, stately and with spreading tails, played that they were peacocks, and disdained him for a vulgar fellow in spite of old acquaintance. it was february, and the beeches in the coombe at the back of ratton hall had not yet begun to warm and colour with the rising sap. the feel of the turf beneath his feet, the glimpse of shrouded waters beyond the seven sisters, uplifted and inspired him as of old. he could conquer; he could find. descending the long slope into cuckmere, he crossed the road at the racing-stables, took the hill again, and marched along, his head in the sky, and a song on his lips, to greet that of the lark pouring down on him from the unbroken dimness of the heavens. it was still early as he dropped down the bare bleak flank of wind-hover, scrawled upon with gorse; and came over the cultivated foot-hills into the valley, bright with brooks and the narrow ruther that winds like a silver slug down the green-way towards the sea. he crossed the stream by a white hand-bridge, passed along an upraised path under an avenue of willows, across the open field called parson's tye; up the narrow chapel-lane between back-gardens and high walls, into aldwoldston high street, curling narrow as a defile between crowding houses, yellow-washed, brown-timbered, amber-tiled. conspicuous by its air of age and dignity stood out the _lamb_, swarthy as the smugglers who once haunted it; a mass of black timber won, perhaps, from high-beaked galleons in elizabethan days, with small projecting upper windows through the leaded panes of which eyes watched the street of old, while ears strained for the clatter of the hoofs of tub-laden pack-horses hard-driven from the haven in the darks. a roof of horsham slats bowed it to earth; while a huge red ship's figure-head, scarred and hideous as an ogre, propped with its dreadful bulk the corner of the street as it had done for the hundred and fifty years since the vessel of which it was the guardian and the god had been lured to destruction against the ghastly wall of the seven sisters. and the carvings, quaint and coloured, on the centre-board reminded ernie that his father, when once of old their rambles had taken them thus far, had told him that the inn had been in days gone by a sanctuary under the jurisdiction of the abbot of battle and the next house of call after the _star_ at beachbourne for pilgrims on their way from pevensey to visit the shrine and relics of holy st. richard-de-la-wych at chichester. just beyond the _lamb_ in the little market-square, filled almost by a solitary chestnut-tree, stood the cross. around it, their backs against the brick pediment, gathered the village worthies as they and their fathers had gathered at that hour, under those skies, amid those hills, on sabbath mornings for centuries innumerable. standing round the four sides of it, men all, in sunday negligé and easy attitudes, buttressing the cross, they smoked and chewed and spat and ruminated. on the fringe of the centre-piece were groups of youths and boys, silent as their elders and as absorbed, whose age and worth did not yet entitle them to a place among the buttresses. no women or girls joined the sacred circle. these stood in the doors of their houses round the square, or sat on their doorsteps, or peeped through the low latticed windows of the _smugglers' house_ at their masters expectorating round the cross. but for a little white terrier, curled on the pediment at his owner's back, who bit his flank with furious zeal, ernie could have believed that here was a group of rustic statuary set up appropriately to embody the spirit of the place. a twinkle lurking in his eyes, he asked the most ancient of the buttresses the way to mr. boam's cottage. very slowly the group stirred to life with grunts, groans, and a shuffling of feet. then the ancient one removed his pipe, and, after a preliminary exercise, spoke. "old mus boam, t' chapel-maaster," he said. "down river lane yarnder. frogs' hall in t' brooks. i expagt yo'll find he a-settin on his bricks. most generally doos o sunday. for why? ca'an't get no furderer dese day, i rack'n. ate up with rheumatiz, he am. ca'an't goo to chapel. so chapel has to goo to he!--he!--he!----" a jest clearly almost as old as the toothless one who made it. ernie dropped down river lane into the valley again. just behind the willows at the foot of the lane stood a yellow-washed cottage, with a high-pitched roof like a truncated spire. sheltering the door from the sea-winds was a fine bay-tree, and in front of the house a little space of bricks on which sat an old man looking out across the stream towards wind-hover's bare dun flank, pale in the wintry sun. he, too, seemed pale and wintry, sitting there, one big hand on his ash-stick: a beautiful old fellow, very tall and sparse, his ruffled beard curling stubbornly up from beneath his chin towards the long shaven upper lip that added severity to his natural dignity. there was no question where ruth got her stature or her bearing from, if her colouring was all her own. ernie felt awkward in the presence of the still old man, but he introduced himself shyly as one who had been in service with ruth at the hotel. mus boam eyed him keenly, kindly, but with obvious reserve. "she'll ha left there now, i expagd," he said briefly, and called--"mother!" a woman came to the door. she was big, too, with the warm skin of her daughter, and the same distinguished foreign air. her hair was snow-white, her eye-brows black, her eyes and colouring of the south. surely she was descended from some spanish adventurer who had made of ruther haven a base for raids up the valley into the weald. but england, it was clear, and sussex in particular, had impressed their staid and ponderous selves upon the riotous foreign blood to the exclusion of all else. a gypsy queen, the mother of madonnas, bred among the baptists and saturated with their faith, there was about her the same atmosphere of large and quiet strength that characterized her man. and ernie could well understand that the pair had taught chapel, as ruth had once told him, for thirty years in the building at the back. mrs. boam stood in the door and looked at the visitor. he noticed at once about her the same cloud of reserve that he had remarked in her husband. she was clearly too well-bred to show hostility, but equally clearly she was exercising restraint. "she'll ha gone into service," she said in deep and humming voice, like an echo of her daughter's, but somewhat dulled and flat with wear. "in beachbourne?" asked ernie. "of course we doosn't see her as often as we used when she was at the hotel. d'idn't to be expected, surely," said the mother parrying. "and it bein winter and all," continued the old man, taking up the tale. "no coaches at this time o year. and dis a tidy traipse over the hill for a maid." he turned the conversation. "you'll ha walked, mr., to judge from yer boots." ... ernie trudged home over the greasy hills with certain clear impressions in his mind. the old folk were anxious: they did not know where ruth was: and they would not talk. was she writing? was she still in beachbourne? chapter xlvi ernie turns philosopher ernie was now steadily ablaze. his heart was set; his purpose resolved; there was no faltering in his faith. the armour in which his spirit was cased revealed no fissures under strain. he was amazed at his own strength, and at the illimitable resources on which he could draw at will. people who saw him at this time, swept by the march winds, haggard and pinched at the _star_ corner, wondered at the flame of determination burning in his face. "he seems always waiting for some one," said elsie pigott, who, like many another woman, was haunted by his wistful eyes at night. "perhaps he is," answered mrs. trupp. it was the slackest season of the year--between christmas and easter; and there was no work obtainable. building was held up by the frosts; visitors were sporadic; and in the east-end a strike of engineers in the great railway shops had dislocated trade. elsie pigott pleaded with her husband for her favourite; but for once she could not tease or taunt the manager of the southdown transport company in acquiescence with her wishes. "no," he said, sturdily, "if he wants my help he must come and ask for it. last time i offered him a job he snubbed me brutally. i've got my self-respect same as others." that evening she came to his door. "please, sir," she said, dropping a curtsey, "mr. ernest caspar!--will you see him?" he scowled at her over his _christian commonwealth_. "you've done this," he said. "no, sir," demurely bobbing. "he came." "show him in." ernie entered, shining and unshorn, a tatterdemalion with the face of a saint. the old schoolmaster thought how like his father he was growing: the same untidy garden of flesh, the same spirit at work behind the weeds. "well," he said, laying down his paper, "i don't see much of you at chapel these days." ernie smiled. "i'm in chapel all the time, sir," he said. "that's what i come about. i wanted you to know." he sat down suddenly. "you know what you used to tell me about prayer when i was a nipper. _ask, and it shall be given you_, and that." he leaned forward. "that's true--every word of it. you can have what you want for the askin--if you'll wait. now i want something; and i shall get it in time, because i'll be faithful." mr. pigott looked into the rapt eager eyes of the scare-crow opposite him. for some reason he felt humiliated, even afraid; and, man-like, he concealed his qualms behind an added gruffness. "your father's been talking to you," he said. "ah," said ernie. "but i been talking to myself, too. no one else can't teach you, only yourself." he began to expound his philosophy with tapping finger in the half-hushed voice of the priest revealing the mysteries of life and death to the neophyte. "see there's two minds in man," he began. "there's the big mind and the little one. the big mind's like a great dream--it's beautiful, like clouds, but it can't do much by itself: the little mind's like a tintack, sharp and to the point. now alf's got the one kind of mind, and me and dad the other. this here little mind helps you to get on: it thinks it's on its own, being conceited. but the big mind behind does the real work." his eyes burned. he spoke with a solemnity, a conviction that was overwhelming. mr. pigott was awed in spite of himself. "the little mind's clever like alf. and the big mind's wise like your father. that's it, is it?" he said lamely. ernie nodded. "and what about mr. trupp?" the other inquired. "ah," said ernie, with enthusiasm, "he's a great man, mr. trupp is. he lives by both minds--as a full man should. he don't neglect neether. they're meant to work together. ye see the little mind should be like a lantern for the big mind to work with--like a miner's lamp in the pit like. it's got no real life of its own--only what the miner chooses to give it. most folks neglect one or the other. dad and me neglect the little mind--so we don't do much; but we aren't afraid of nothin. alf, now, he neglects the big; so he's in fear of his life always, and good cause why, too. for he lives by the little mind. and sooner or later the little mind'll go out snuff. and then where'll alf be?" elsie pigott, in an apron, stood in the door. "we're discussing prayer," her husband informed her. "indeed," said the lady. "and now you'll discuss a plate of beef. at least ernie will." the starveling rose. "no, thank you, 'm," he said. "aren't you hungry then?" asked the young woman. "not as i'm aware of," laughed ernie. "nonsense," the other answered, "you can live by the spirit, but not on it." and she took him firmly by the arm and led him into the kitchen. her guest established, she returned to her husband. "have you found him a job, samuel pigott?" she asked. "i have not, elsie pigott. nor has he asked me for one." "mr. pigott," his wife retorted, "if you were not twenty years my senior i should call you the beast you undoubtedly are." all the same, when his wife had gone to bed that night, mr. pigott rang up the hohenzollern hotel and asked the manager why ernie had been dismissed. "got fighting drunk," replied the manager. "he'd been warned before." after that mr. pigott set his face like a flint. "it's now or never," he admitted to mr. trupp, and added reluctantly, "there may be something in your big stick sometimes, after all." chapter xlvii alf tries to help ernie was now in a bad way materially. he became seedy and slipshod, with hollow eyes, and clothes that hung loosely upon his diminishing frame. alf resented his presence and appearance as a personal injury. "does it to spite me, it's my belief," he told his mother furiously. "always at the _star_ corner lookin like a scare-crow and askin for pity. a fair disgrace on the family. of course all the folks want to know why i don't help him. what's the good of helping him? he's the sort the more you help the less he'll help himself. help him downhill, as reverend spink says." the thing became a scandal locally, and anne caspar shared something of the feeling of her younger son. if ern must starve, why do it at her door? happily her husband was, as always, blind to what was going on beneath his nose; and so long as he was not disturbed anne could stifle any pangs of conscience that might trouble her. alf, on the other hand, had no pangs to stifle: for to the hardness of the egoist he added the mercilessness of the degenerate. his mental attitude towards the weak was that of the lower animals towards the wounded of their kind. he wanted them out of the way. indeed, but for his ever-present sense of the man in blue at the corner of the street he would have dealt with ernie, dragging a broken wing, as the maimed rook is dealt with by its mates. he eased himself, however, and took characteristic revenge on his brother for the spiritual wrongs that the needy can inflict upon the prosperous by direct action. at a meeting of the church of england men's society in old town, he asked in laboured words and with obvious emotion for the prayers of those present for "a dear one who had gone astrye"; squeezing his eyes and contorting his features in a fashion that led certain ladies of the congregation of st. michael to whisper among themselves that mr. caspar was a very earnest young man. even in the c.e.m.s. alf had few friends and some enemies; and ernie heard from one of these--whom a sense of duty had compelled to speak--what had passed at the meeting in the church-room. ernie accordingly stopped his brother in the street next day. he looked white and dangerous. alf knew that look and halted. his heart, too, brought up with a jolt, and then began to patter furiously. "what's all this, then?" began ernie, breathing heavily through his nose. "what's what?" "at the men's society last night. can't do nothing to help your brother...." alf held up a deprecatory hand. "you don't know what you're talkin about, ernest," he said solemnly. "i'm doin more for you nor what you know." ernie came closer. there was in his eyes a surprising flash and glitter as of steel suddenly unsheathed; and he was kneading his hands. ern's "punch" had been famous in certain circles in old town long before he went into the army. now alf had a spot upon his soul. he, too, possessed a weakness of a sort that civilization in its kindest mood covers except in times of extraordinary and brutal stress. "i know _just_ what you're doing for me, alf," said ernie quietly. "let's have no more of it, see, or i'll bloody well bash you!" there was no question that ernie meant what he said. easy-going though he was, all his life he had been subject to these sudden eruptions which flooded the sunny and somnolent landscape with white-hot lava; as his brother knew to his cost of old. alf put his hand up as though he had been already bashed. "ow!" he gasped, "ow!" and passed on swiftly. that evening he went, as was very proper, to see and consult his spiritual director. the origin of the reverend spink was known to few. he was in reality the son of a nonconformist grocer in the north, and had been educated with a view to the ministry. his mother had been a governess, a fact of which her son at the outset of his career was perhaps unduly proud; though later in life, when referring to it, he would say with quite unnecessary ferocity, "and i'm not ashamed of it, eether." after his father's death the superior attraction of what his mother truly called "the church of the gentry" seduced him from his old-time allegiance. with the aid of the local bishop he was sent to a theological college, and shortly received what he was fond of naming in militarist moments, "a commission" in the established church. he did not like his brother-curates to have been public-schoolmen, and, when asked, would say that he himself had been educated privately. the archdeacon, who was not jealous of him, spoke of him to those of his staff he considered on his own social level as "dear brother spink." on the rare occasions when the lady augusta willcocks asked him to supper, he oiled his hair before the great event and prayed fervently for guidance at his bed-side. he was a small man, plump and rather puffy, who wore pince-nez, was spruce in his person, and walked about in a brisk, rather bustling way, as though he could not afford to lose a minute if all the souls waiting for him to save them were to be gathered in. he and alf were of much the same class if of somewhat different calibre. it was, indeed, from a close observation and imitation of the facial activities of the reverend spink at devotion that alf had been enabled to win the benedictions of the virgins of st. michael's. alf now called on his friend and pitched his tale. "past ope," he said lugubriously. "i'm sorry to say it of any man, let alone me own blood brother. but it's my true belief all the same." "to man, my dear friend," said the reverend spink, rising heavenward on his toes with a splendid smile, "much is impossible. not so to go-urd." alf looked into the fire very religiously. then he nodded his head and said after an impressive pause, "i believe you, sir." he lifted his face with a frankness the curate thought beautiful. "of course i ain't told you all i know about our ern," he said. "after all, he _is_ me own brother. and, as i often says, blood is thickerer nor what water is." it was some months later that alf swaggered into his mother's kitchen late one night. the knowing look upon his face was mingled with one of obvious relief. he sat down before the fire and smiled secretively. once he sighed, and then chuckled till his mother's attention was attracted. "what is it?" she asked. alf nodded his great head. "ah," he said. "he'll be easier now, you'll see. that's all. _she's_ left." his mother, who was stirring something in a saucepan, looked up. "who's left?" "her ern got into trouble with." anne caspar ceased to stir. "what's that?" she asked sharply. alf smirked as he stared into the fire. "one of the flash-girls from the hotel. i see her off to-day for mr. trupp." anne caspar was breathing deep. "was mr. trupp seeing to her?" "that's it," said alf. "sea view. you know." yes, anne caspar knew all about sea view. "was that why ernie left the hotel?" she asked at last, white as a sword. "ah," said alf, significantly. "it was one why, i reck'n." anne caspar was not critical nor logical nor even just. next saturday, when ern called to take his father out, his mother met him with terrible hostility. "she won't come on you now," she said with a white sneer. "you needn't worry no more." ernie was taken aback. "who won't come on me?" he asked. "that girl you got into trouble." ern turned ghastly. his mother's eyes held his face with cruel tenacity, although she was trembling. "she's gone away to london," anne continued,--"with her child." ernie threw back his head with a little hoary smile. "ah," he said, "alf," and went out slowly. his mother's voice pursued him, dreadful in its caressing cruelty. "i shan't tell dad," she said. it was not often ernie drew his sword. now he knew no mercy. "you can," he retorted. "he won't believe you." chapter xlviii two meetings after thirty years of following the wagon, colonel lewknor and his wife had returned home from india on a pittance of a pension. there was a grandson now, and that grandson had to be sent to eton like his father and his grandfather before him. mrs. lewknor was determined upon that. but the grandson's father was only a captain in the indian army; ways and means had to be found; and openings are not many in modern life for a retired couple on the wrong side of fifty. then the colonel's health became uncertain, and he was sent down to trupp of beachbourne. while there mrs. lewknor caught influenza, and mr. trupp attended both. a delightful intimacy sprang up between the three. the colonel's sardonic humour and detached outlook upon life appealed to the great surgeon almost as much as did mrs. lewknor's experience and width of view to his wife. mr. trupp attended his patients once a day for a fortnight. when he paid his last visit, mrs. lewknor thanked him and asked him for his account. "i'll see," answered mr. trupp. "what are you going to do when you leave here?" "go back to london and look out for a job, i suppose." mr. trupp shook his head. "the colonel mustn't go back to london," he said. "why not stay here and find your job here?" he expounded his pet plan, cherished faithfully for years, of an open-air hostel for his tuberculous patients. "there's a site available in coombe-in-the-cliff," he said, "just at the back. build a home. i'll fill it for you. you'll make a lot of money." mrs. lewknor was thrilled at the project. it was at least a great adventure; and, coming of the lion-hearted race that conquered canaan, she had no fears. the colonel, it is true, was more tempered in his enthusiasm, but then, as he was fond of saying, "i haven't the courage of a louse. no man has." and he was content to stand aside, as often before, and watch his wife's audacities with admiration not untinged with irony. she took a tiny house in holywell for herself and her husband, set out to raise money with which to buy the site in coombe-in-the-cliff, and sat down in earnest to work out the scheme in co-operation with the inspirer of it. her visits to old town to consult mr. trupp were almost daily. in fine weather she would walk across the golf links; and when the turf was like a soaped sponge she would go round by the road through beech-hangar. here one bitter april afternoon she marked a tall bowed old man walking dreamily under the beech-trees, the light falling through the fine net-work of twigs on his uplifted face. his hands were behind him, and he wore an old-fashioned roomy tail-coat. mrs. lewknor's swift feminine eyes took him in at a glance. he was a gentleman; he lived out of the world; and there was somebody at home who cared for him: for it was clear that he was not the kind of man who would care for himself. as she drew near, she glanced away, and yet confirmed her impression with that trick of the well-bred woman who somehow sees without looking. then, as she passed him, a wave of recognition overwhelmed her, and she stopped suddenly. "mr. edward caspar!" she cried. he, too, had half turned. "i was wondering if you'd remember me," he rumbled, beaming kindly down on the little lady through gold-rimmed spectacles. "you still walk as if you were dancing." "who am i?" she asked. "i don't know," he answered. "thirty years ago you were rachel solomons." the profound spiritual affinity which had made itself felt in that unforgettable moment under the palms in grosvenor square long ago manifested itself instantly. time was not. only two spirits were, who recognized the familiar beat of each other's wings in the dark spaces of eternity. she regarded him affectionately. "how's it gone?" she asked. "not so bad, i suppose," he mused. "better than i expected, if worse than i hoped. i'm dreaming still instead of doing." "any big things in your life?" "one." "a woman?" fearlessly. "no. my son. and he was taken from me--for ever, i thought at the time. and after that i made the discovery." the little lady nodded. "it's worth making," she said. "yes," replied the old man with the sudden leaping enthusiasm she remembered so well of old, and the same spreading flush, "and you don't make it till you've lost everything. that's the condition." he had turned and was rambling along at her side, as if he had belonged to her for the thirty years in which they had not met. they walked together thus down the new road, along rectory walk, and turned into church street. anne caspar from the bedroom-window saw them pass and wondered. they were not talking: anne was glad of that. her ned was ambling along, apparently unaware of the little lady, strong as she was fine, walking at his side. the pair turned down the hill at billing's corner. it was afternoon, and the street was almost empty save for a shabby man walking up the hill towards them from the _star_. they did not see him, absorbed more in themselves than in each other; but he saw them and stepped into the porch of the parish-church as though to avoid them. just opposite the porch edward caspar came to himself and said good-bye with grunts. mrs. lewknor looked after his heavy figure toiling laboriously up the hill. then her eyes caught the eyes peeping at her from the porch--eyes that possessed the same wistful quality as those of the man who had just left her side: eyes somehow familiar that were smiling at her. "why, caspar!" she cried, and crossed the road. the man left the beam against which he was leaning, and came towards her suddenly. there was a curious wan smile upon his face. he lurched, held out his hand like a child for help, and fell his length in the road. a man from the iron-monger's shop opposite came out. "he's out of work," he said. "he's half-starved. there's a lot the same. funny world." mrs. lewknor was horrified. "take him into the porch," she cried, "out of the road. he'll be run over here." "no, not into the church!" came an authoritative voice. "i know the man. the church is a sacred edifice." it was the archdeacon. he bent his somewhat dandiacal figure elaborately, put his nose close to ernie's lips, and sniffed deliberately. "no, sir, it's not that," said the iron-monger shortly. "it's food he wants." "ah," said the archdeacon, rising in gaitered majesty, his painful duty done. "i'm glad to heah it." mrs. lewknor was trembling with fury. ernie, on his back in the mud, stirred and opened his eyes. he saw wavering faces all about him. "guess i'm all right now," he said. "give him air!" ordered the archdeacon magnificently. "ayah, i say!" and he made a sweeping gesture with his arm to brush away the crowd who were not there. "he's had plenty of air," retorted mrs. lewknor with the curt brutality that distinguished her on rare occasions. "what he wants is something more solid than he gets from the pulpit." the archdeacon eyed her _de-haut-en-bas_. from his undergraduate days he had believed implicitly in the power of his eye to master and demoralize his enemies and those of his church, and the lady augusta willcocks had loyally fostered his belief. now, however, his antagonist refused to be demoralized. he saw that she was a lady, suspected that she might be "somebody," and with that fine flair for the things of this world which characterize the successful of his profession, he retired on gaitered legs with a somewhat theatrical dignity. ernie was helped to his feet. a car, coming slowly down the hill, ground to a halt. mr. trupp leaned out and took in the scene. "ernie, get up alongside your brother, will you?" he said. "mrs. lewknor!" the car rolled on its way with its two new occupants. "he don't want me," muttered mr. trupp in his companion's ear. "he wants my cook." mrs. lewknor, still seething, recorded the incident. "the church is the limit," she snapped. "i could have pushed that man over in the mud." "yes," said mr. trupp soothingly. "but you mustn't take the church too seriously. the right way to look on it is as rather a bad joke." that evening, after his coffee, mr. trupp laid down his evening paper and stared long into the fire as his manner was. his wife and daughter waited for the word that was slowly brewing. it came in time. "men grow when they've got to," he announced at last with humorous sententiousness. "they can't grow much without food," said bess with warmth. the incident of the afternoon had stirred her generous young soul to the deeps. "it's monstrous!" "it is," her father agreed. "and it's all because civilization has thrown up a class that's above the discipline it imposes upon others." mrs. trupp eyed her husband sternly. "william trupp!" she said, "i believe you're a socialist." "my dear," he answered, "i've been told that before." "bess and i don't want to hear your viewy views," continued the lady. "we want to talk about flesh-and-blood ernie and how to help him." "hear! hear!" said bess. "my dears," replied the annoying man, "it's just ernie i'm talking about. he's growing again. my old friend necessity's at work on him once more." chapter xlix alf marks time the scene outside the parish-church in old town, when mrs. lewknor challenged the archdeacon, marked the turn in ernie's material fortunes. the reverend spink handed on his version of the affair to mr. pigott at the relief committee that evening. "he was laying on his face in the road _dead_ drunk opposite the church-door when his brother picked him up," he reported, round-eyed and spectacled. "his poor, _poor_ people!" "ah," said mr. pigott, "was he?--i know where you got that story from." the curate tried to be rude in his turn, but he was not so good at it as the more experienced man. "such a place to choose!" he continued, turning to colonel lewknor. "opposite the church-door! just like him!" "such a place, indeed!" echoed the colonel, quiet and courteous. "what's the good of lying down to die of starvation at the door of the _church_ of all places? will she open to you?" mr. pigott disliked the reverend spink almost as much as he disliked the curate's protégé. next day the contrary man sent for ernie and offered him a job as lorry-man in the transport company. "i know you and you know me," he said in his most aggressive manner. "so it's no good telling a pack o lies to each other that i can see. start at twenty-three a week, with chances of a rise if you keep at it steady. begin monday.... and it's your last chance, mind!" ernie ignored the insults and leapt at the offer. the southdown transport company ran motor-lorries between newhaven and beachbourne, carrying seaborne coal and other merchandise from the harbour on the ouse to the town under beau-nez. ernie liked the work. it kept him out of doors, under the sky, and in touch with the old-world elemental things he loved. the breath and bustle of the harbour at newhaven; the long ride on the motor-lorry through the hill-country at all seasons of the year; even the pleasant acrid smell of the coal and coke in the lorry and on his overalls was pleasant and satisfying to him. he worked steadily, paid his debts, and for the first time in his life began gradually to save money. that autumn his father asked him if he wouldn't return home to live. "alfred's left us," said the old man. "has he?" asked ernie surprised. "where's he gone then?" "he's gone to live above his garage," replied the other. "something's happening to alfred," he added. "i don't know what." alf, in fact, was changing; and mr. trupp was watching the evolution of his chauffeur with a detached scientific interest that his wife defined as inhuman. and that evolution was proceeding apace. alf was living alone above his garage; he had introduced a girl into his office; and he was no longer getting on. mr. trupp noted the last as far the most significant symptom of the three. alf had climbed in his career to a certain point, and there he stuck fast. his business neither went ahead nor back. he was still doing well and saving money. the wonder was that he was not doing better. but the reason was clear enough to the penetrating eye of the old surgeon, to whom his chauffeur was an absorbing study in mental pathology: alf was no more a man of one idea; his energies were no longer concentrated solely on getting on to the exclusion of all else. the emotional side of him, battered down from infancy, was revenging itself at last. desperately it was seeking an outlet, no matter how perverted: certainly it would find one. "he's suffering from life-long repression," the doctor told his wife. "now he's got to find a safety-valve." in his own mind mr. trupp had no doubt as to the form the safety-valve would take. about that time mrs. trupp, meeting mr. pigott in the moot, asked him how his new hand was getting on. "working steady as old time," replied the other with satisfaction. "i like the look upon his face," mrs. trupp remarked. "he's always expecting." "yes," replied the old school-master, "expecting angels--like his father." "perhaps he'll find them," smiled mrs. trupp. that evening, as it chanced, she met her godson under the elms in saffrons croft, and stopped him. it was may now. the hope illuminating air and sky and every living thing was reflected in ernie's face. indeed the young man looked inspired. the two regarded each other affectionately. "ernie," said the lady, colouring faintly. "yes, 'm." "are you still thinking of that girl you told me about?" the other's face glowed like the moon. "i never hardly think of nothing else, 'm." "i knew you were," answered mrs. trupp. she added with a sudden lovely smile: "you'll find her--if you're faithful." "that's what dad keeps on, 'm," ernie answered. "and i know i shall too. see, i keep all the while a-drawin her to me." he made the motion of one hauling on a line. "she can't escape me--not nohows." he turned on her the earnest eyes of the evangelist, and began to wag an impressive finger in the way she loved. "see, you can draw down what you want--_only you must want it with all your heart_. 'taint no good without that. alf, now, he draws down money. for why?--that's what he wants. now i want something else." the lady regarded him with wise shrewd interest. this new thought, as the foolish called it, how old it was, how universal, how deeply embedded in the primitive consciousness of the common man! ernie, to be sure, did not read edward carpenter nor the works of any of that school; but instinct and experience had led him to knock at the same door. "and if alf wanted something different, too?" she asked. ernie shook a sceptical head. "he wouldn't--not really. that ain't alf. money's what alf wants and what he gets by consequence. he's only for himself, alf is. if he went out a'ter anything else he'd only go half-hearted like, therefore he wouldn't get it. he'd be a house divided against hissalf. so he'd fall." the two brothers now rarely met and never spoke. just sometimes ernie in his grimy overall, sitting with arms crossed and sooty face upon a load of coal in the jolting lorry, would be passed by alf at the wheel of his thirty horse-power car, stealing by without an effort or a sound, swift as the wind, silent as the tide. on these occasions ernie, perched aloft on his load, would detect the smirk on his brother's face, and knew that alf was feeling his own superiority and hoping that ernie felt it too. in those days ernie learned to know the corner of england in the triangle between lewes, the seven sisters, and beau-nez as he had never known it before. and the closer grew his intimacy the greater became his love. the quiet, the strength, the noble rounded comeliness of the hills reminded him of the woman he sought. true, she disturbed him, present or absent; while they, in act or retrospect, comforted. but their full round breasts, rising clean and clear before him, stubble-crowned, green, purple, or golden against the blue, gave him a sense of earth rooted in the immensity of spirit and washed by the winds of heaven as did nothing else he knew but the woman he had lost. "wish i were a poet," he sometimes said to his father. "to put it all down what i feel, so others could see it too." "perhaps you are," his father replied. and certainly if to be a poet is to love the familiar objects of the road, a poet ernie was: for he loved them all--lewes with its narrow streets, its steep hill to which you cling like a fly on a pane and look across to mount caburn for help; the old _pelham arms_, its walnut-tree at the back, the _fox_, the _barley mow_, the _newmarket_ on the brighton road; the hills running down in glorious nakedness to the highway, the tanned harvesters sitting among their sheaves; peeps of the blue weald islanded with woods; and always accompanying him the long wall of the downs, gloomy or gleaming, here smooth as the flanks of a race-horse, there scarred, grim, weather-worn and pocked, in winter dazzling white beneath the blue, ruddy in autumn sunsets, emerald in april days; and all the year gathering the shadows at evening in the northward coombes to spill them over the expectant weald like purple wine when the door of night had closed upon the sun. the lorries to and from newhaven always took their way through the valley of the ruther. once or twice in that winter, as they bumped down high'nd over from sea-foord into aldwoldston at evening, ernie was surprised to find the chocolate-bodied car lying apparently derelict in the roadway at the steep entrance to the village; and wondered if the surviving miss caryll who still lived in the dowerhouse at the foot of the hill was ill. and again one evening in the spring, as he jolted through the village-street, past the great chestnut lit with a thousand tapers in the market-square, he was aware of a man on a motor-bicycle pelting past him up the hill. the man wore motor-goggles; but there was no mistaking alf, bowed over his handles, flashing past the _lamb_, down the hill, and out of sight. what was alf doing at that hour of the evening on the road to sea-foord? book vii the outcast chapter l the crumbles nature's punishments of her erring children are slow as they are sure. if the inexorable dame cannot forget, neither can she hurry. therefore the shock of realization that the wages of sin are death--as our fathers used to put it; or that weakness brings its own reward--as we should more prosaically say; because it comes gradually to the human consciousness, is mercifully numbed. it was some time before ruth faced the fact that she was in the toils, and that there was no escaping. when at length the dreadful dream had become a reality, and she was forced to acknowledge to herself the life she bore within her, it seemed to her for a moment that the worst was passed. on the morrow of the night on which the hidden voice refused longer to be hushed, she went away by herself on to the crumbles: that bird-haunted waste of stagnant pools and tussocky shingles which stretches along the edge of the bay to pevensey. there at least she would be sure of being alone save for a rare creature of the wilderness, snipe or wild duck, hare or slow-winged heron. half a mile from the great hotel, rising sepulchre-wise from the surrounding desolation, her back to the town, and her face to the sea, she sat down on the lonely beach and girdled her knees with her arms. it was a dull november afternoon. the remorseless sea crawled like a serpent out of the gloom, curled an ugly lip at her as it reared to stare, then softly falling to the ground, scudded towards her with a hideous little hiss, to suck her down, the victim of its lust. the dumb sky offered her no help. there was neither song nor sun. and back in the west, amassed under significant gloom, lay the great camp of men, hostile now to her and hers, to which she must yet return. sitting thus by the scolding sea, her chin on her knees, she looked the situation in the sombre eyes. it was terrible enough. she had to pay the price every mothering woman must pay--disfigurement, pain, dependency, long-drawn physical disease, and, at the end of all, torment and possibly death: and in her case, added to the price nature asks of those women who obey her laws, there was the penalty man demands of those who violate his. for her, and such as her, there is in society, as at present organized, but one sure way of escape: and that way ruth was too near to nature, too healthy in mind and body, to contemplate save for a passing moment. her eyes travelled down her young figure, shapely yet. "all right, my darling," she cooed. "you shan't suffer--not if it were ever so." her face was to the future. at whatever cost, she would be true to the trust imposed on her unsought. indeed, so sane was she and strong, that but for the old couple in the little yellow-washed cottage in the valley of the ruther, who had taught bible-class there for thirty years, she believed her fear would have been blotted out by the hope her baby, pushing through the crust of her terror like a crocus through the chill wintry earth into february sunshine, brought her. for she recognized with a sob of bitterness that these brooding months, when her child, thrusting with tiny hands and inarticulate cries, was opening for her the door of escape into the open country that lies for each one of us outside the prison that is self, would have been the most beautiful in her life, if humanity had blessed her for the sufferings she was enduring on its behalf, if society had supported and pitied her when she had fallen into the trap that it had laid. as things were, she was an outlaw, who would be stoned alike by men and women when it was discovered that an innocent indiscretion, prompted by a noble natural impulse, had flung her into the miry pit. she turned and looked across the flats at her back to the great camp of men, crouching for their prey. the downs behind seemed to circle it as with a wall of dulled steel, making escape impossible; while over in the west was a murky glow as of damped-down furnaces, waiting to open their doors and pour down molten gloom on the city of the plain. ruth rose up swiftly and returned to the hotel. better even its unsympathetic walls than the naked desolation of the waste. there, however, was no one to whom she could turn. ernie was out of the question, while madame had retired, as always at this season of the year, to the sister-hotel at brussels. indeed in all beachbourne with its hundred thousand inhabitants, its temples and tabernacles at every street corner, its innumerable white-collared priests and ministers, its sacrament-taking women, and reform-talking men, was there one soul to whom she could look in her distress? ruth prayed as she had never prayed before. alone in the darkness on her knees, redeeming herself and mankind by her tears, she asked that the punishment for the mother's sin might not fall upon the child. "on my head, o lord, not hers," was the cry of her anguished heart. light came to her darkness. there was one man in beachbourne in whom she had detected, so she believed, the spirit of love. that man was mr. trupp, who had attended her miss caryll till she died. taking her courage in her hands one dark january evening, when she realized that her time at the hotel was short, she stood on the steps of the manor-house and rang. "why, you're quite a stranger, ruth!" said the smiling maid. "could i see mr. trupp?" asked the girl. "that i'm sure you can." she was shown into the long consulting-room, and sat down, trembling, her eyes upon her knees. she was staking her all upon a throw. mr. trupp came in. the young woman dressed in black, simply as a lady, rose. "who is it?" asked the surgeon, peering over his pince-nez. "ruth boam, sir," the other answered. "miss caryll." mr. trupp glanced at her. then he put his hand upon her shoulder, and she knew that she was safe. "sit down," he said gently. this large young creature, who had something of his own bess about her, went straight to his heart in her trouble. "ruth," he said gravely. "may i send mrs. trupp to you?" ruth sobbed and nodded. very slowly mr. trupp climbed the stairs to his wife's room. it was some time before mrs. trupp joined the girl. the room was dark, save for one shaded lamp. the lady came in quietly, dressed for the evening in a damson-coloured tea-gown that showed off her gracious beauty and silver hair. her face was wan and wistful, her bearing noble and full of tender dignity. the black figure on the chair did not move. the elder woman took her seat beside the younger and laid her hand upon the girl's. "ruth," she said at last, in a still voice with a quiver running through it. "i know more than you think. you loved him, didn't you?" the broken girl nodded; then shook her head. "it's not that," she said. "it's not him. it's my baby. i couldn't abear she should be born in the workhouse along of them." to mrs. trupp the workhouse system had been a nightmare ever since, as a young girl, she had first realized its existence and become dimly aware of the part it played in our imperial scheme. she believed that the institution which had its local seat in the old cavalry barracks at the back of rectory walk was no worse than others of its kind up and down the country. sometimes she visited its wards and nurseries with her old friend, edward caspar, and came away sick at heart and oppressed of spirit. more often, sitting in her garden, she listened to his quietly told stories of what he always called "our cess-pool." mrs. trupp stroked ruth's hand. "it shan't," she said, with the fierceness that sometimes surprised her friends. "you must trust us. mr. trupp'll see you through. but you must leave the hotel at once. i'm going to send you to a house of mine in sea-gate--now. i shall telephone for the car." and half an hour later ruth was sitting in the chocolate-bodied car that once before had carried her into the perilous unknown. chapter li evelyn trupp evelyn moray had been brought up in the church; and, like most englishwomen of her class and generation, she had as a girl looked to the church to enable her to realize her ideals. in her young days she and her neighbour of later life, edward caspar, had been of the little group of west-end people who had been drawn east by the couple who were making st. jude's, whitechapel, the home of real religion for more than the dwellers in the east-end. she would sometimes give a violin solo at the famous worship hour in the church off commercial street; while edward caspar would on rare occasions read browning or wordsworth there. the memory of those early days of dawning hopes served as a never-present bond between the pair when in later years chance caused them to pass their lives side by side in the little town on the hill under beau-nez. and the religious development of each had followed much the same lines. they had watched the fingers of love light a candle in the darkness of the late seventies and the early eighties, and ... "the candle went out," edward caspar would say. "candles always do in the church of england." "yet the light grows," his companion would answer. "assuredly," edward would agree. "everywhere but in the churches." evelyn moray's disillusionment had begun even before her marriage. for all her innocence she brought a singularly shrewd judgment to bear on the affairs of men. and if as she came to understand the truth, she suffered at first the pangs of betrayed love, she was too brave a spirit not to face the situation in its entirety. the noble words of the order of baptism--_manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil_--applied, she found, to a church the outstanding characteristic of which was that it never fought at all. when she was bogged in a quagmire of doubt and despair, fearful of the new, more than dissatisfied by the old, mr. trupp had come into her life. his sane judgment, his wide experience, and broad philosophy, landed her once more on _terra firma_. in a time before the great exodus from the temples of orthodoxy had assumed the proportions that we know to-day, she had left their gloomy portals to seek elsewhere that simple and direct service of mankind her spirit needed for its fulfilment. her father's death left her something of an heiress. forthwith she started a maternity home in a quiet street in sea-gate for young women of the middle-class who had fallen victims of a society which failed to protect them, to give them opportunity, to supply their honest needs. the conditions of entry to the home were strict; and mrs. trupp never wilfully departed from them. sometimes, it is true, she was taken in; often she was disappointed; but she persevered with the tenacity that is the inevitable outcome of continuous prayer. she ran her home very quietly; and mr. trupp was, of course, her medical officer. but the church, jealous of all trespassing within what it believed to be its own demesne, heard and objected. "making sin easy," said lady augusta willcocks, who wore short hair and cultivated the downright manner which she believed to be characteristic of the english aristocracy. she cherished a secret antipathy for "the doctor's wife," as in her more bitter moments she would describe her neighbour. lady augusta was indeed of the world of victoria and disraeli, opulent, pushing, loud; mrs. trupp of an older, finer, more deliberate age. there was between the temper and tradition of the two ladies a gulf no convention could bridge. lady augusta felt and resented the fact. archdeacon willcocks, on the other hand, reacted to the same stimulus in a different way. for him the fact that mrs. trupp was a moray of pole was paramount. and so--when mr. trupp had become famous--he hushed up his wife and schemed to run mrs. trupp's home in connection with the diocesan magdalen league. but mrs. trupp was not to be cajoled. she had her own way of doing things, and meant to stick to it. "i think perhaps we'd better go on working for the same end in our rather different ways," she told the archdeacon with that disarming courtesy of hers. "am i to understand that our way is not the christian way?" asked the archdeacon, smiling and satirical according to his wont, as he swayed his long thin body to and fro, serpent-wise. "it may be," replied the lady, faintly ironical in her turn. "it's not quite mine." "pity," said the archdeacon, mounting his favourite high horse with the little toss of his head, carefully cultivated, which so impressed the shop-keepers of old town. "i had hoped that you remained of the faith, even if you have seen good to desert your church." the lady looked at him with eyes that were a little wistful, a little whimsical. "i'm afraid we're mutually disappointed," she answered quietly. chapter lii the return of the outcast it was in mrs. trupp's home, in a back-water of the east-end, that ruth's child was born. the babe was beautiful, but over the mother a shadow lay. "it's her people," mr. trupp told his wife. "she hasn't broken it to them yet." "i know," mrs. trupp answered. "i must talk to her about it." ruth, curled in her bed, giving satisfaction to the babe in the hollow of her arm, showed every sign of distress when the other broached the topic. "will you trust me to tell them?" asked the lady gently. ruth raised her fine eyes, brimming with gratitude to the elder woman's face. mrs. trupp went. before she started on her pilgrimage of love she passed an hour in the parish-church, which was her favourite resort in all the crises of her life. there the archdeacon came on her, to his surprise. "i'm glad to see you here, mrs. trupp," he said with slight inevitable patronage. "i'm often here," she answered, smiling. "ah," said the archdeacon. "i've missed you." she could not tell him that this was because she avoided the church when he and his fellow-priests were ministering there. "i love the atmosphere," she said. "thank-you. it is nice, i think," he answered with a little bow; taking to himself, with childish ingenuousness, the credit for the conditions that six centuries of prayer and worship had created. an hour later mrs. trupp was face to face with ruth's mother in the kitchen of frogs' hall. hard by, the church-bell tolled for evening service. through the open window came the noise of homing rooks drifting up the valley from the haven; and under the hedge on the far side the brooks a cow bellowed. it was mrs. boam who began. "i allow you've come to tell me about our ruth," she said at last. "have you heard anything?" asked mrs. trupp. the other shook her head. "we'd be the last to hear," she said. "that's sure. but i knaw there's been something. it's seven month since she's been anigh us. that's not our maid--our ruth: so good and kind and considerate for her dad and me as she's always been." "there has been something," answered mrs. trupp, and told her tale.... the mother listened in silence, the tears streaming down her face, her hands upon her lap. when the story was finished, she rose. "thank you kindly, 'm," she said. "if you'll excuse me i'll tell dad. he's in the back." she went out, a big unwieldy woman, walking with the unconscious majesty of grief, and was absent some time. mrs. trupp sat in the kitchen with a somnolent rust-coloured cat, and listened to the willows rustling by the stream and the voices of children playing by the bridge. once she went to the window and looked across the cattle-dotted brooks to the long low foothill that raises a back like a bow, green now with young corn, against the bleak shaven flanks of old wind-hover. then reuben boam entered, erect as a soldier, and with the face of a puritan and prophet. mrs. trupp wondered, as she often had of late years, why the men of her own class never attained the dignity of the great amongst the simple poor. she rose humiliated, conscious of her own spiritual inferiority; and took his rough paw between her two delicate hands. "won't you sit down, boam?" she suggested, quite modern enough to realize what a topsy-turvy world it was in which she should have to make such a request to an old man in his own home. his long bare upper lip trembled and nibbled as he spoke. "she's a good maid," he said huskily--"our ruth. the mistus says it were a gentleman. it's hard for a working girl to stand up agen a gentleman that's set on despoilin her. but in my day gentlemen were gentlemen and kept emselves accardin. they tell me it's different now. accounts for the bit o bitterness, hap." the great hand lying in hers twitched. "she must come back home soon so ever she can move. there's not much. but we'll make out somehow. rebecca must goo to her. she'll need her mother now. they was always very close--mother and daughter." the old woman entered, tying her bonnet-strings beneath her chin. "yes, i'll take carrier's cart to ratton. then i can walk to the decoy and take train to the east-end." "won't you come with me?" said mrs. trupp. "i've got the car in the tye." ... she dropped her companion at the door of the house in sea-gate, and herself took a tram home. when mrs. boam emerged from the house an hour later a car was still at the door. the old lady looked about her, a little bustled. "could you tell me the way to the tram?" she asked the chauffeur. he touched his hat and smiled. if alf had a soft spot in his heart, it was for old women. "this is your tram, ma," he said, and helped her in. a fortnight later the same car stood at the same door, when ruth emerged, her baby in her arms. it was dusk, and she did not see the chauffeur, who leaned out towards her. "would you come up in front alongside me?" he said. "i put your box inside." ruth obeyed. they drove through the gathering shadows in the sweet-scented june evening, past ratton and polefax, all along the foot of the downs, the wilmington giant with his great staff gleaming wan and ogre-like on the hillside, and at the turn-pike, just where the spire of b'rick church is seen pricking out of trees, turned for the gap and ran down the valley towards the haven. a sea-wind with a sparkle in it blowing up the brooks seemed to meet the softer breezes of the weald and penetrate them. a young moon hung over the sharp crest of wind-hover. ruth, her baby in her arms, picked up familiar objects as they swung by: the long-backed barn on the left, the little red pillar-box on the wall, and occasionally the glimmer of a light in one of the homesteads among trees across the stream. on her right, unhedged cornlands swept away in a rustling sea towards the foot of the downs which made a bulwark of darkness against the firmament; while on the near rise a row of stacks, like immense bee-hives, stood sentinel under the stars. the car slid down a hill and up again. the valley lay naked alongside them now, cattle moving darkly in the moonlight and the tower of the church upon the hill black against the night in front. the chauffeur took out his clutch. the car was running so noiselessly that ruth could hear the ghostly stir and murmur of the willows that line the river-bank and cover the feet of the village with a green girdle. "you don't remember me then?" said the man beside her. they were the first words he had spoken. ruth glanced at the face beside her own, smooth and smiling in the moon, and clutched her baby to her so fiercely that it gave a little cry. "ah," said alf, "i thought you would then." the impression he had made seemed to please and satisfy him. he put his engine into gear, and was soon running through the village-street. at the foot of the hill, where a group of mighty elms on a high bank guard the seaward entrance to the village, he turned sharply to the left under a row of pollarded poplars, and bumped over parson's tye quiet in the moonlight, the church four-square among its trees upon the mound on the right. then he drew up by the stile leading into the brooks. ruth descended swiftly, and her babe lying like a snowdrift in her arms, disappeared in the darkness through the stile. alf waited beside his car, watching the river like a snake crawling and curling away in gleams of sudden silver under stark trees into the night. a few minutes later the bulk of a big woman in a white apron appeared at the stile. "could you take the box in?" said a gentle voice. "dad's crippled." alf swaggered. "very well. this once. to oblige." the job accomplished, he looked round the little plain kitchen with a proprietary air. "nice little place," he said. "would you take a cup of tea?" asked mrs. boam. ruth had disappeared. "no'w, thank you," said alf in his cockiest manner. "i dare say you'll see me round here again next time i'm this way." chapter liii the find it was rather more than a year later. ernie, in grimy overall strapped over his waistcoat, and grey shirt without a tie, was climbing the lower slopes of high-'nd-over from sea-foord in an empty lorry. beneath him lay the haven, buttressed by a gleam of white cliff, the old river blue-winding to the sea at exeat, and the new laid like a sword-blade across the curves of the old. the lorry bumped over the crest of the hill, austere and bare even in the sunshine, the sea broad-shining at its back, and dropped down out of the brilliant bleakness into the best wooded of the river-valleys that pierce the south downs. it was saturday evening early in july. there had been a fierce and prolonged drought. in the brooks all along the banks of the slug-like stream the hay had already been carried fine in quality and light in weight. on the sun-burnt foothills a belated farmer was working overtime to carry the last load before sunday. the long blue wain proceeded in lurches across the hill-side to the guttural exhortations of the wagoner, all about it a little busy knot of men and women raking and pitching. ernie sat with his back to the hill, his arms folded, looking across the valley to the tiny hamlets clustered round a spire, the huge black barns and clumps of wood beyond the stream, and the deep hedges running caterpillar-wise up the flank of the opposing down. the air was still keen and sparkling, yet full of scents rising from the fields that looked save in the brooks brown for once and parched instead of fresh and green as of wont after being shorn of their crop. ernie enjoyed those scents. there was nothing like them in the east, he remembered. was there indeed anywhere outside of england? the lorry ran past the dower-house in its rich old garden, the grey-shingled spire of the church opening to view at the back of the village across parson's tye. they rattled under the elms at the foot of the hill and up the steep street, where the same brown spaniel lay always in the same place asking to be run over. a jumble of houses pressed in upon them. sudden dormer-windows peeped from unexpected roofs. chimney-stacks would have tumbled on them but for the brilliant creeper that bound their old bricks together. while in odd corners behind the high brick path tall hollyhocks bowed as they passed. the high street was fuller than usual. labourers slouched along it, tired and contented. a wain, with a pole at each corner pointing to heaven, the carter with patched corduroys and long whip plodding at the head of his team, was carrying a party of haymakers home. under the great chestnut in the market-square a group of dusty horses stood, the sweat drying on them. wages had been paid--the best wages of the year too: for all had worked overtime; sunday was ahead of man and woman and beast alike; the most strenuous weeks of the year were over, and the most quiet to come. the lorry ran swiftly down the hill, out of the village. at the spot where a lane runs off to littlington, it swerved suddenly to the right. ernie, sitting on the rail, swayed over the side to look. they were passing a girl, walking soberly along, her back to the village. clearly she had just come from the fields, for she wore an orange-coloured turban wisped about her black hair, a long loose earth-coloured gabardine, stained with toil, and short enough to disclose the heavy boots of the agricultural worker. she was a big young woman, broad of shoulder, large of limb, who walked in spite of her heavy foot-wear with an easy rhythm that caused ernie's heart to leap. the lorry flashed by. the girl did not look up, marching steadfastly forward, careless of the passing vehicle; but ernie caught a glimpse of her profile. in a moment he was on his feet. the lorry was travelling fast. ernie tapped at the partition which divided the body of the car from the driver, and peered through the glass. the man at the wheel heard, but shook a grim head. he did not mean to stop. home and beer and the week-end rest lay before him. ernie, far too impetuous to think, did not hesitate. he jumped at the road, fleeting swiftly away beneath him. it rose up like a careering wave and struck him viciously. whether he fell on his feet, his hands and knees, or his back, he never afterwards knew. that he was shocked into unconsciousness is clear, and that his body continued its ordinary functions unconcerned and guided he knew not by what mysterious power. he woke, as it were, still jarred from shock, and aching throughout him, to find himself steadily tramping along a road. the objective world surged in on him. he put up his hand to ward off the huge green seas that came lolloping along to overwhelm him. riding the charging billows were a host of immense black ogres, dreadful in their impassivity, and with blind eyes, who yet had seen him and were set on his destruction. then he resumed himself. the billows were the hills; the careering ogres the row of bee-hive stacks dumped peacefully on the rise upon his right. he could not have been unconscious many minutes, for the sun still hung on the crest of the hill much where he had seen it last; but he was walking along the road on which he had fallen and must so have walked during his unconsciousness, seeing that he was now perhaps a quarter of a mile from the spot where he had jumped, and proceeding in the opposite direction to that in which the lorry had been travelling. his face was towards the sea and the village through which he had recently passed, his back to the weald. on his left was a wood, darkened by firs. a dusty motor-bicycle lay up against the bank. ernie was aware of the machine, as one is aware of something in a book. it was not real to him: he was not real to himself. indeed he was conscious of one thing only: that some power was guiding him and bidding him keep quiet. he did not attempt to take control. his brain, except as a mirror which reflected passing objects, was passive; and he was content that this should be so. dimly he wondered if he was dead. then he realized that the question had no interest for him, and he retired once more into the no man's land of the hypnoidal state. a villager was approaching. he saw the man marching towards him as on the screen of a cinema. the man said good evening. ernie answered, and found himself listening with interest to his own voice. it sounded so loud and alien. he was a puppet in a play, watching his own performance--actor and audience in one. except for a certain diffused physical discomfort on the remote circumference of his being, he was not happy or unhappy. he was a headache, and that was all he was. but he was a headache which could walk and if necessary talk. then, still obeying his unseen guide, he turned off the dusty road into the wood upon his left that stretched across the brooks down towards the stream. on the fringe of the wood he was bidden to stay.... the river ran in front of him a few yards away. on the other bank, immediately opposite him, was a clump of willows. there too was a big young woman in a tan overall. she was sitting on the tow-path, her back against a tree, her arms bound about her knees, her feet in heavy boots pressed close together in an attitude expressing doggedness. she was bare-headed; and her orange turban lay at her feet. ernie marked her gypsy colouring, red and gold, and the yellow necklace that bound her throat. the sullen expression of her face was enhanced by the gleam of teeth which her lips, drawn back almost to a snarl, revealed. here surely was a tigress, trapped and resentful. above her stood a little man in the shining black gaiters and great goggles of a chauffeur. he was talking and smiling. the young woman sat beneath him, her tense arms binding her knees, her eyes down. but this was not the usual drama when the serpent and the woman meet. here the serpent was taunting eve, not tempting her. so much her face betrayed. ernie watched the picture-play with absorbed interest. a great while ago he had known both actor and actress intimately, and still took an impersonal interest in them and their doings. then the little man's voice came to him across the stream, sharp and strident. he had a peculiar swaggering motion of the head and shoulders as he spoke, truculent yet furtive, that ernie knew well; and all the time his eyes were wandering uneasily about the brooks, searching for enemies. "you'll ask me to marry you next!" he sneered. "_me marry you!_" the young woman rose, ominous and passionate. she stood in her tan-coloured gabardine, like some noble barbarian at bay, a creature of the earth and elements, yet conquering them. she seemed to tower above the little man, and in her hand was the orange turban like a sling that swung heavily to and fro. ernie watched the scene with fascinated eyes, and, most of all, that bright slow-swinging thing that sagged so dreadfully. the little man watched its pendulum-like action too. he did not seem to like the curious slow swing of it, or the look upon the face of the swinger, for he withdrew a pace or two. "any more of it," said the girl, her voice deep and vibrating, "and i'll tell mr. trupp." the name struck ernie's subconsciousness with the disturbing effect of a pebble dropped into a still pool. ripples spread over the torpid surface of his mind, rousing it in ever-growing circles to life. the view was dissolving with extraordinary speed. it remained the same and yet was entirely changed. the play was becoming real.... the little man was now walking swiftly away along the tow-path. suddenly he turned and came back a pace or two, his hand out. the woman had not stirred. she stood bare-headed on the river-bank, one foot on a twisted root, one knee bent. "give me back my letter," said the man. "and i'll let it go at that." she met him squarely. "that i wun't then!" the little man hesitated and then turned about. ernie came to himself with a pop, as a man comes to the surface after long submersion in the deeps. chapter liv the brooks ruth was standing on the bank opposite him, but she had turned her back upon him and the river. he saw the heave of her shoulders, and the motion of her head, and knew that she was weeping. in a second he had flung himself into the water and was wading towards her. she turned at the sound of his surging, expecting fresh enemies, and prepared for them. he stood in mid-stream, a picturesque and dishevelled figure, grimy with coal-dust, collarless, touzle-headed, his greasy overall braced above his waistcoat. "ruth!" he called uncertainly. she stood on the bank among the willows and looked down on him. he ducked his face in the stream, and washed away the coal-dust. "now d'ye know me?" he grinned. her face glowed. "i knew you without that, ernie," she answered, her voice deep and humming, as of old, like an inspired silver-top. he surged towards her with wide arms amid the water-weeds. she stretched out a strong hand to help him up. he took it, and kissed the fine fingers. in another moment he was standing at her side. "o, ernie!" she said, and passed her hand across her forehead. "seems like you was sent." he gathered her in his arms. her eyes were closed; her face, wan now beneath the warm colouring, tilted back. he marked the perfect round, full and very large, of her sheathed pupils. then in her ear he whispered, "ruth, will you marry me?" she shook her head, the tears welling from under closed lids. then she withdrew quietly from his arms. "i couldn't do that, ernie," she said. he absorbed her with his eyes. her gabardine, smocked at the breast, shewed the noble lines of her bosom, fuller and firmer than of old. it was open at the neck and revealed the amber necklace bound about a throat that was round and massive as a pillar, and touched to olive by the sun. alf was walking away towards the bridge which threw a red-brick span across the stream some hundreds of yards distant. cows moved in the meadow. one came towards him along the tow-path, lowing in the dusk. alf stopped and watched it. he did not like cows: he did not like animals. "machines are my line," he would say. "more sense in em." the cow, unaware of the disturbance she was causing in the other's breast, mooned forward. that was enough for alf. on his right was a plank-bridge carelessly flung across the stream. alf did not like plank-bridges either, but he preferred them to cows. and placed as he now was between the devil and the deep sea, he chose the deep sea without a moment's hesitation, because he knew that here at least the sea was fairly shallow. he crossed the plank-bridge--on his hands and knees. the pair under the willow watched in silence with an awed curiosity. "he's frit," murmured ruth, the light and laughter peeping through her clouds. "he's always frit, alf is," ernie answered out of the experience of thirty years. "alfs always is," commented ruth. alf, the astounding, the perils of land and sea behind him, now rose from his humiliating position, and well knowing he had been watched, waved with the stupid bravado that is a form of self-defence towards the willow clump. then he disappeared into the wood. in another moment the swift thud-thud-thud of a motor-bike starting up was heard. ruth listened. "he ain't coming back," said ern comfortably. "ah," ruth answered, unconvinced. "you don't know him. you don't know alfs." she put out her hand towards him in that brave and gracious way of hers. "i'm glad you come though, ern," she said. ernie's eyes filled with tears, as he caught her fingers. "there!" he said. "he couldn't hurt you. he ain't no account, alf ain't." she answered soberly. "no, he couldn't hurt _me_--not my body leastways. but i was like to ha killed _him_." a little breeze stirred the willows. the turban on the ground flapped and fluttered like a winged bird. then it opened suddenly and discovered a jagged flint, wrapped in its folds. ruth took it out and tossed it into the stream. "it aren't pretty, i knaw," she said. "but life is life; and alfs are alfs; and you never knaw." he escorted her across the brooks to the road, moving leisurely behind her in the dusk, his shoulder mumbling hers. on the bridge she said good-bye. he was outraged. "i'm going home with you!" he cried. "i'd liefer not, if you please, ernie," she said, gently insistent. "not through the village, sadaday night and all." "very well," he answered reluctantly. "to-morrow then. a bit afoor cock-crow." book viii treasure trove chapter lv the pool ernie was up and away early next morning. it was sunday; and there was nobody about except the few hurrying to early service in the parish-church. amongst these he noted alf turning into the porch. at billing's corner he met the archdeacon, who passed him with disapproving eye, and the sour remark, "you're off early, caspar." "yes, sir," brightly. "i'm away over the hill." "ah," smirked the archdeacon, "there are better ways of passing the sabbath, i believe." "yes, sir," answered ernie. "you'll find alf awaitin you inside. he's doin it for us both." the archdeacon had never quite made up his mind whether ernie was ingenuous or impertinent or both. but then he had never made up his mind about ernie's father, though he had disliked his impalpable neighbour and feared him secretly for thirty years. ernie now turned into rectory walk, and paused outside no. . the habits of the inmates he knew to a minute, and had timed himself accordingly. his mother would be in the kitchen, preparing breakfast in her blue wrapper, while his father would be dressing. standing in the tiny square of garden among the tall tobacco plants, he tossed a cautious pebble through the upper window which was open. "dad!" he called, low. the old man, spectacled, but collarless, in all the purity of a clean sunday shirt, thrust out a touzled head. "found her," whispered ernie. his father nodded down benevolently. then there sparkled in his eyes that remote and frosty twinkle which was the outward and visible sign of the change that had been wrought in him. "and finding's keeping," he said. in the glorious morning ernie took the hill, marching through the gorse to the song of larks. on the one hand the weald lay spread beneath him like a green lagoon, dimming to blue; and on the other the great waters rose up to meet and mingle with the greater sky. it was still early when he dropped down kestrel-haunted wind-hover, over the corn-covered foothills, into the brooks. a white hand-bridge on red girders crossed the stream just under the mound on which stood the short-backed cathedral church with its thick-set tower, half-hidden by ash and sycamore. on the bridge ernie paused and looked across towards the village lying in the morning sunlight, a tumble of russet roofs hugger-mugger among gardens on the hill, the old brown tiles crudely patched here and there with raw red ones; beyond the roofs the bare downs; and at the foot of the hill, just across the green, tiny frogs' hall with the honeysuckle about the door, and mus boam sitting as always on his bricks, spectacles on nose, and book spread on his knees. then ernie was aware of a movement in the water underneath him and glanced down. just beside the bridge a willow leaned over the stream. here in a pool, sheltered by bridge and tree, a young woman stood, her skirts kilted, and the water to her knees. she wore the same orange scarf as on the previous evening, and the same earth-coloured gabardine; but her arms were bare; and in them was a naked babe. standing amid water-weeds, the stream glancing in the sunshine about her, and the lights and shadows dappling her face as the willow above her stirred, she dipped the child and cooed, and dipped and cooed again, while the babe kicked and flung its arms and laughed. beyond the stream heifers, black and red and white, moved leisurely in the flat green water-meadow or flicked their tails in the shadow of the straggling hedge that divided the brooks from the long foot-hill, of the form and colour of a rainbow, which curved against the background of smooth windhover. ernie, on the bridge, himself unseen, watched the young woman, with contented eyes. happy in her motherhood, ruth had clearly forgotten for the moment her troubles and her tragedy. quietly ernie moved off the bridge and took his stand beside the willow on the bank. ruth saw him now, smiled a casual greeting, and continued her labours. suffering, it was clear, had crushed all self-consciousness out of her. she knew no shyness, no false shame; performing her natural functions simple as a creature of the wilderness. then she came wading towards him, her baby wet and slippery in her arms. the sun had burnt her a rich olive hue, deepening the red in her cheek, touching her throat to gold. with her orange turban crowning her swarthy hair she looked a gypsy juno. more massive than of old, matured in face and figure, she was a woman now and not a girl: one who had fought and suffered and endured, and bore on her body the stigmata of her ordeal. there was no laughter in her, and no trace of coquetry. almost austere, nobly indifferent, she was facing life without fear and with little hope. ernie was shy and self-conscious as she was the reverse. "you don't go to the lock then?" he said stupidly. "nay," ruth answered. "the lock's for the lads. this'n's for baby and me. more loo like." "she seems to favour it," said ernie. "aye, she's unaccountable fond of the water, same as her mother." her speech had taken once again the tone of her village environment. the young mother sat down on the bank, and turning the child face down, began to stroke her back with strong caressing rhythmical sweep. ernie, watching, was amazed at the skill and easy masterfulness of her motions. "who learned you that?" he asked. "seems to coom like," she answered. "i doos it most days in general." "she likes that," said ernie wisely, watching the squirming rogue. "doosn't do her no harm anyways," answered the mother. she put the little naked thing to sprawl and crawl and scramble on the grass beside her. "sun and wind and water," she said. "give a child them three; and she wun't need for no'hun else--only food. that's what mr. trupp says. and i reck'n he says right." standing up, the water still covering her feet, she dropped her skirt. he gave her his hand to help her on to the bank. "the sun's burnt you," he remarked. "aye," she answered. "i been in the hay these three weeks past. we've carried all now, only pook's pasture." her humming voice soothed and satisfied him as of old. he listened to it as to a familiar song heard again after many years. he did not catch the words of the song, nor care to. it was the air and its associations that held his heart. then he woke from his dream to find the woman at his side saying: "i shall wait over harvest. i promised mr. gander that. see i work good as a man. better'n some, hap," with a gleam of the old ruth and a little backward toss of the head. "then i shall goo." ernie roused swiftly. "where'll you goo then?" "back to service." ernie was staggered. "and what about her?" nodding at the baby gurgling and squirming in the grass. ruth answered nothing, but her face stiffened. he felt in her the fierce and formidable power he had felt on the previous evening beside the stream. here was not the ruth he had known. nature had roused in the mother forces, beautiful but terrible, of which the maid had not been conscious. she stood with high head, like a roused stag, looking across the water-meadows to the foothills. then her chest began to heave. "there's not enough," she said deeply. "i been home more'n a twal month now. dad's got the pension, and there's what the squire allows him and the cottage; and i doos the milkin at the barton and earns well at whiles in the hay and harvest. but 'taren't enough. we can't make out--not the four of us and a growin child. i must just goo back to service. i made the mistake, and i must pay--not them." ernie came closer. "no, you won't," he said masterfully. "you'll marry me." she shook her head, swallowing her tears. then she laid her hand upon his arm. "thank-you, ernie," she said. "i just can't do that." "why not then?" fiercely. "ern," she panted, "if i married any i'd marry you. but i'll marry no'hun now." she sat down under the willow and began to dress her babe. ern stood above her, dogged and determined. "say! why can't you marry me then?" he persisted. as though in answer she dandled the child. then she lifted her face to his, and in her eyes there was the flash and challenge of a love so fierce that ernie felt himself suddenly afraid. "i doosn't regret it," she said. "never!--i'd goo through it all again for her sake and glad. she's worth it--every dimple of her!" and she laid her lips upon the child's with a passion that was almost terrible. "you done no wrong, whoever did," mumbled ernie, awed still by this eruption of reality. "'twarn't no fault o yours--or hers for the matter of that." ruth rose and tossed her baby over her shoulder with an easy careless motion that frightened ernie as much as it thrilled him. the child lying now face down, and doubled like a sack, sucked her thumb and regarded him with the blue eyes of her father. together they walked across the field towards the yellow-daubed cottage with the steep brown roof and mass of honeysuckle over the door, standing with its back to the tumbled houses on the hill behind. "mind, ruth. i won't take no," insisted ernie. "you need protection. a young woman like you do." "never!" said ruth. ernie, unconscious of his companion's irony, ploughed on his ox-like way. "you don't know what men are," he continued. her brown eyes flashed, and then dwelt on him with wistful humour. "i should," she said. "this last two year and all," she added with solemn bitterness. "i knaw now why girls go down. they makes one mistake, then the alfs get em. and when the alfs get em they're done. they're like stoats, alfs are; and we're the rabbits. hunt you down, jump on you, and then suck the blood out of your brain. often i've seen em at it in the hawth." "alf!" cried ernie, his blood a maelstrom within him. he tried to halt, but she marched on. "what's he been doin to you?" hoarsely pursuing. she answered painfully. "you knaw yesterday?" "yes." there was a harsh, almost cruel note in his voice. she turned on him, anger and laughter battling in her eyes. then she saw a look upon his face, dark, sullen, and suffering, such as she had never seen there before. "i done no wrong, ern," she said. "no need to be that savage wi me." he became quiet; and she resumed. "he's been goin on at me a year now--tryin to get me." "does he want to marry you?" ruth drew back her upper lip till the teeth gleamed white. she looked splendidly scornful. "marry me!" she sneered. "that isn't alf. he wants me--for his sport. alfs don't marry--not the likes o' me anyways. that ties em down. they want the pleasure, but they won't pay the price." they had reached frogs' hall, mounted the high step, and entered. ruth put the child to bed, and then rejoined ernie in the kitchen. "tell the rest," said ernie. he was white and dogged. again she gave him battle with her eyes; and again marked the look upon his face and relented. "last week he wrote. asked me to meet him in the willow-clump by the lock at sun-down. i thought best goo and have it out with him. it's been goin on over a year now." "wasn't you afraid?" asked ernie in awe and admiration. "afraid of him?" she scoffed, and stripped her arm that was smooth as marble, thick as a cable, and sinuous as a snake. "i can load against the men in the hay. you ask mus gander. and i knaw alf." ... an envelope was in her hand. "here's the latter." she gave it him. it was undated, and typewritten, and torn, but on the top there was still left enough of the heading to be decipherable--_caspar's garage, saffrons croft, beachbourne_. the letter contained an assignation, an indecent suggestion, and a threat; and it was signed _little cock robin_. a small fire spluttered in the grate. ernie flung the letter on to it, and held it down in the flame with vicious heel. ruth was on her knees in a moment, trying to rescue the charred fragments. "eh, but you shouldn't ha done that, ernie!" she cried. "why not then?" flashed the other. "hell's filth, flame's food." ruth rose, her attempt at salvage having failed. "ah," she said, "you're simple. you doosn't knaw men. you think they're all same as you. i've learned other. there's a kind of man who when he's got the sway over you there's only one way with him." "and what's that?" "get the sway over him." he looked at her sternly and with devouring eyes. "has alf got the sway over you?" she was stirred and tumultuous, the chords of her being swept by a mighty wind. "he thinks he has," she panted. "that's one why i'm gooin into service--to get away." "you could never leave the child!" cried ernie. "it's just her i'm thinking of." he came closer. "i claim her!" he cried passionately. "i've a right to her--and to her mother too." she smiled at him wistfully. "ah, you think you're strong!" "aye, i'm strong enough when i like. trouble with me is i don't often like." she shook her head; but he felt the resistance dying out of her. "goo away now, ernie!" she pleaded, choking. "don't tempt a poor girl! there's a dear lad!" "i'll goo away if you'll think it over." "i'll think it over--if you'll goo away." she threw up her head. beneath her eyelids the tears welled down. he drew her to him: his lips were close to hers; his eyes on hers. gently she disengaged. "nay, lad, you mustn't," she said. "i must just reap where i've sown, as the old book says, and make amends as best i can. no need to drag down all i love along o me." she added on that new note which thrilled him so strangely, "not as i regrets my child. never!" chapter lvi frogs' hall it was just about the time of ernie's discovery of ruth that mrs. trupp announced firmly to her husband one evening, a propos of nothing in particular, "i shall tell him where she is now." "she mustn't be let down again," grunted mr. trupp, who was devoted to ruth. "ernie won't let her down," answered mrs. trupp with bright confidence. "he's an absolute gentleman. all the beauregards are." "alf, for instance," commented the curmudgeon across the hearth. "so that's _that_," continued the lady with the emphasis of one who scents opposition. "she wants help; and he wants her. and he's been true to her for a year and a half now. that's a long time in that class," she went on with fine inconsistency. "so _that's_ settled." "pity," grumbled the recalcitrant. "he's doing nicely now, pigott tells me--and will so long as he doesn't get what he wants. if she marries him she'll make him happy and comfortable. she's just the sort of woman who would. and he'll go to pieces at once. there's nothing to muck a man's career like a happy marriage." mrs. trupp looked severely at the wicked man over her spectacles. "it's lucky _your_ marriage has proved such a failure, william trupp," she said. the other drank his coffee and licked his lips. "what's done can't be undone, my dear," he grinned. "bess, ask your mother to give me another cup of cawfee." mrs. trupp had no need to send for ernie after all. for he called, and sitting in the dusk of the great french-windowed drawing-room in the very chair in which eighteen months before he had told of his loss, he told now of his treasure trove. there was no reserve or concealment between the two. what one did not know of the story the other could add. they were friends, intimates, made one by their common feeling for a woman who had suffered and endured. "one thing i knaw," said ernie deeply. "she didn't commit adultery, whoever did." mrs. trupp, as often, wondered at and was made ashamed by the direct and spiritual insight of a rough-handed working man. "she loved him," said ernie. "that's just all about it. didn't know what he was, no more than a lamb knows what a tiger is till he's got her." "she's a good woman," responded mrs. trupp soberly; and added on a note, half-mischievous, half-cautious, not a little provocative--"i wonder if she'll have you." whatever fears for the outcome of his enterprise mrs. trupp might entertain, ernie himself had none. indeed for so diffident a man he was astonishingly confident in a quiet way; and besieged his lady with a conquering sense of victory that would brook no doubt and little delay. every sunday morning found him crossing the white bridge at aldwoldston; and many a week-day evening saw him in frogs' hall. it took him just an hour to trundle an ancient bicycle, lent by mr. pigott, from billing's corner to the market cross after his day's work was done; and an hour back, with the moon hanging over wind-hover and the night-jars purring in the woods under the northern escarpment of the downs. but he was young; the august evenings were long-drawn and full of scents and the cries of partridges; and the hour he spent with ruth in the brooks, strolling along the tow-path under the pollarded willows to the sound of rooks homing and high-strewn in the heaven, was worth the toil. the time was between the hay and the straw; and ruth, apart from her milking at the barton, was not pressed with work. she liked his visits, and looked for them; but she drew no nearer to him, nor ever invited him to come. friendly always, even affectionate, she kept between them a cloud, impalpable and impenetrable. at the end of a month he knew that he was no closer to his goal than when he had met her first upon the river-bank. the old folks grew to love the constant visitor, nor did he disguise the errand on which he was bent; while little alice, with her father's eyes peeping from beneath her mother's curls, greeted her new friend with screams of joy, bangings on her drum, and the loveliest and most intimate of smiles. ernie made the child a cradle-swing of willow-withes, hung it from the bough of an apple-tree, in the garden, and passed many a happy hour alone with her. one evening ruth, returning from the dower-house, her yoke upon her shoulders, found him in the garden on the hill at the back of the cottage, swinging the child and singing. she bent her knees and lowered her milk-cans to the ground. the clanking of the cans on the stone caught ernie's ears. he turned from his labour of love to see ruth standing in the door in her earth-coloured gabardine. she smiled at him; and in her eyes there was the gleam, mysterious and darkling, with which good men are sometimes blessed by their women. ernie bent over the cradle. "who'm i, baby?" he asked. the little singing voice from the basket-cradle made answer sweetly in one brief bubble-word. ruth heard it, put her hand to her heart, and turned slowly away, the chains of the yoke upon her shoulders jingling faintly. ernie came to her. "you mustn't, ernie," she murmured. "i must then," he whispered in her ear, "my dear love--my lady." his arm stole about her; but she put it aside, and regarded him with eyes that were great and grieved under the evening sky. "ernie," she said in her gently thrilling voice. "goo away, there's a dear lad--afoor worse comes of it. you can't help me; and i might harm you." he took her hands in his, and kissed them. a working-man in speech, in habit, and in garb, he made love always as a beauregard. indeed in the great moments of his life it was always one of those pale chivalrous gentlemen who stood out amid the motley and tumultuous concourse of the forbears who thronged his path. "but you _can_ help me, ruth," he told her. "i got my weakness. i dare say you've heard tell." for the first time the girl in her, long hidden, peeped out at him, shy yet shrewd. "i remember what they used to say at the hotel," she answered, with the overwhelming simplicity of the pure in heart. "you can help me conquer that," he urged. "no one else can, only you." she said nothing, but gazed at him with new eyes, sweet and very grave, that seemed to sum him up. at last he had moved her. swift and sensitive almost as was she, he saw it instantly; and with the profound wisdom of the true lover said no more. chapter lvii the surprise a few evenings later, he dropped off the lorry in the market-square, determined to pay ruth a surprise visit two hours before his time, and walk home over wind-hover afterwards. he ran down river lane at the back of the slaughter-house, grinning to himself. at the bottom of the lane a group of young willows bending plume-like over the wall at the corner ambushed him from frogs' hall. covered thus he approached the cottage on tip-toe with the grins, the conspicuous elbow-work and elaborate stealth of the happy conspirator. ruth would have put the babe to bed. he would surprise her alone. frogs' hall stood on a bank a foot or two above the brooks to lift it over the winter floods and high leap-tides. two windows only, one above the other, looked out over the river. ernie peeped from his ambush. the lower window was open; and a voice came through it. the voice was not that of ruth, nor of her father or mother, but it was strangely familiar. "you don't want me," it was urging. "very well. so be it. and i don't want to do you no harm. why should i?--i shan't tell no one what i know. only you must give me back that letter in exchange. fair is fair. see, we've both made mistakes, you and me. that's the short of it. but there's no reason any one should know if you'll only be sensible." ernie heard ruth's answer, low and passionate. "i wun't give it you then!--i'll hold it over you. then i'll know i got you safe. show it your church friends and mrs. trupp and all." alf laughed harshly. "think it over, my lass," he said. "i'll call again in a day or two. i can twist your tail, and i will if you want." he came out of the low-browed door, his eyes down, a thwarted look upon his face. it was not till he had descended the steps into the brooks that he was aware of the man standing against the bunch of willows on his left. he turned about with a grunt and made off in the direction of parson's tye. a few yards away he turned again and came back swiftly, his eyes down, and face troubled. "say, ernie!" he began. ernie, under the tossing willow-plumes, awaited him coldly. alf seemed to feel that he had run up against the wall of the other's hostility. he stopped short, turned abruptly once more, and bustled away, jerking a handful of words over his shoulder. "all right," he said. "have it your own way. only don't blame me. that's all. but there is a law in the land." ernie stood with folded arms, and watched his brother across the tye and out of sight. then thoughtfully he mounted the steps of the cottage, knocked at the door, and entered the kitchen. ruth sat by the fire, staring into it, on her face that formidable look of an animal driven to bay he had before remarked. he stood in the door and watched her. "ruth," he said at last. her profile was to him, her hands bound about her knees. she did not stir, but she was aware of his presence. "he ain't got nothing against you, alf ain't?" ernie continued. his face was wrung, his voice thick and unnatural. ruth rose slowly; slowly she came to him, and put both hands on his shoulders. she lifted her face, and it was blind and quivering. "o, ernie!" she cried. "it was him drove me that day." ernie smiled, in his relief his hands clasping her elbows, his eyes dwelling on her twittering lids. "i knaw'd that then," he answered broadly. she opened her eyes on him swiftly, and stared aghast. "did you?" she panted. "how?" "i saw ye." she huddled closer to him, and laid her head upon his shoulder as though to hide her face. "where did you see me?" she whispered. "at the decoy. east gate. that afternoon." suddenly she drooped, and seemed to hang about him. he put his arms about her; otherwise she would surely have fallen. he sank into a chair; and it was some while before she gathered herself and rose. one hand on the mantel-piece, she stood gazing into the fire, panting. "alf's the only one as knows who he was--only you and madame," she said at last. "and you're safe." she lifted her eyes to his and continued appealingly. "he done me wrong, ernie. but he's her father all said. and i wouldn't for worlds any harm come to him through me. he was mine one time o day, tany rate. and i must protect him, best i can." "he can protect himself, i reck'n," said ernie bitterly. "don't ardly need you to see to him, i reck'n." she looked up swiftly. "it'd wreck his career if it was known. they'd bowl him out of the army surely." "who told you that?" asked ernie. for a fraction of a second she hesitated. "he did," she said: and instantly saw her mistake. ernie rose, slow and white. "does he write then still?" she felt the storms beating about her, and her bosom heaved. "only that once," she answered at length and lamely. ernie came pressing in on her with ruthless determination. "may i see the letter?" she flashed up at him with astonishing ferocity. "no," and added heavily--"it's burnt." she was clearly fencing with him; clearly not telling all the truth. he did not blame her. but he felt that helplessness, that irritation, of the male whose bull-headed rush is baffled by the woman's weapon, imponderable as air, elusive as twilight, soft and blinding as a fog; the weapons she has wrought in self-defence upon the anvil of her necessities through the immemorial ages of her evolution. "he asked you to burn it, i suppose?" said ernie bitterly. her bosom heaved. she did not answer him. "ah," continued ernie remorselessly. "he knew you. took advantage to the end." ernie was troubled for the moment by the incident, but the emotion it aroused in him was pity rather than anger. ruth had deceived him, he was sure. he did not believe that royal had written her a letter. so skilled an adventurer, so expert a cad, would be little likely to commit himself on paper in such a matter. that ten-pound note had wound up the incident for him. but the shifts to which a girl in ruth's position must inevitably be driven seemed to him excusable, even in this case, admirable. royal had betrayed and deserted her; and she repaid his treachery by a steadfastness beyond words. with the capacity of true love, he made beauty out of an obvious blemish. here was a woman indeed!--here was a lover! quietly he persevered. chapter lviii the dower-house when his father asked him how the chase went, ernie answered with a grin, "she hangs back a bit, dad. i spun and i pounced. what next?" "spin again," said the old man. "first the web; then the fly; and last the cocoon." ernie chuckled. lying on the hillside amid the gorse and scrub he had often watched the spider at his work. the method was exactly as described by his father. the hunter spun his web and then retired to an ambush to wait. when the prey was caught and the wires brought the message to the citadel, he pounced. next with incredible speed he wrapped his victim round in silk till it was but a swathed mummy to be absorbed at leisure. "it's what i am a-doin, dad," said ernie, and continued to wind his silken meshes about his prey; while others aided in the pleasant conspiracy. one august afternoon mrs. trupp, after calling at the dower-house, looked in at frogs' hall. the little river ran like a white riband across the brooks under shaggy willows tossing silvery tails. a flotilla of ducks came down the stream and landed quacking under the white bridge clumsily to climb the bank and waddle towards parson's tye. on the lower slopes of wind-hover the corn still stood in sheaves, the stubble ruddy in the sunset on the bow-backed foothill across the stream. ruth sat and listened to her friend; on her face the perturbed look of the good woman genuinely determined to do what is right and honestly puzzled as to her course. "don't you love him, ruth?" asked the other. "is that the trouble?" the young woman was deeply moved. "i've left my heart behind me," she said. "i shall never love a man again--not like that. all that's left of me has gone to the child." "ruth," said the elder woman, "d'you know that most of the successful marriages i know are based on friendship? it's very few who pull off the big thing. and those that do often come to grief. they expect too much, and are disappointed." she found herself, as always, talking to ruth as she would have done to a girl of her own kind. there was no sense of class or caste between the two. they met simply on the ground of common humanity. "aye, i could be his friend," said ruth slowly. "and more than his friend. there's none like ernie. i'd give him all i got to give. that's a sure thing. i'd be that grateful to him and all." "and there's little alice," continued mrs. trupp. "that's just it," cried ruth passionately. "it's little alice is all i think on. it's that makes me afear'd--lest i should be unfair to ernie. see, i do love ernie. you ca'an't help it. he's that good and unselfish. and i wouldn't hurt him for all the world--not if it was ever so." "he's the kind of man who needs a woman to help him along the way," said mrs. trupp. ruth peeped at the other warily, even a thought jealously. what did she know of ernie's weakness? for ruth, if she was not in love with ernie, felt for him that profound protective sense which the mother-woman invariably feels for a man who has shown himself dependent on her. "cerdainly it aren't as if he were one of the ambitious ones," she mused. "cerdainly not. all for himself and gettin to de top, no matter about no one else." "like his brother," said mrs. trupp crisply. "aye," ruth agreed, "like alf. that's where it is. both brothers want me, only they want me different. alf thought i was his for the askin. because i made my mistake he thought i was anybody's wench--to be had for money. that's where the difference lays atween him and ernie. you could trust ernie anywheres, a woman could." "and that's the whole battle from the woman's point of view," said mrs. trupp, rising. "to trust your man. to know that, wherever he is and whatever he's doing, he won't let you down." after her visitor had left, ruth took the child and walked up river lane to the butcher's at the top. marching thoughtfully between high walls, she met miss eldred, the daughter of a neighbouring vicar. miss eldred was an austere and lonely young woman, with a reputation for learning and advanced views, who took no part in the church life of the locality, and was even said to be a rationalist. she and ruth had known each other from childhood, and had always been somewhat antipathetic. as the young woman coming down the lane saw the young woman coming up it, babe perched on shoulder, her lavender-grey eyes, remote and almost smouldering, kindled suddenly. the veil fell from before her face, and the spirit behind the clouds shone forth in wistful radiance. she stopped. "ruth," she said in her staccato voice, "i envy you." the young mother experienced a swift revulsion of feeling. a profound sympathy stirred her for this ungainly fellow-creature, the slave of circumstances, for whom the door of what ruth now knew to be eternity was little likely ever to open, unless forced. her instinct told her truly that she could best succour the other in her distress by herself seeking aid. "see, i got the chance to marry, miss," she began with beautiful awkwardness. "i don't rightly knaw what to be at." the other's eyes became shrewd and critical. "d'you like the man?" she asked harshly. "we fits in pretty fair like," ruth made answer without enthusiasm. "is he fond of the child?" continued the inquisitor. "o, aye. he fairly dotes on her." "i should take the chance," said the other with a gasp. "you've got the child.... that's the thing that matters.... you must put the child first.... nothing else counts.... she'll be the better for a father." next saturday ernie strolled across the brooks, as his custom on that evening was, to meet ruth on her return from milking. her course never varied. she milked at the barton, and carried the milk to the dower-house. there she emptied her cans and filled them again with water which she carried home to frogs' hall to serve the uses of the cottage. ernie wandered across parson's tye, with the long green-backed clergy-house showing its thatch and black and white timber work above the hedge of _arbor vitae_, and out on to the main road at the sea-ward end of the village. here the dower-house lay on the left of the road behind a wall. a solid building, comfortable and warm, with russet roof and dormer-windows under a dark sycamore, it had changed little maybe since the great days of old when aldwoldston on the ruther, with its tannery, its brewery, its river traffic, and procession of pilgrims passing through from sea-foord to michelham priory, had challenged the supremacy of lewes on the ouse, and been something of a city when beachbourne was still but a tiny hamlet on the hill between the sheep-runs of beau-nez and the snipe-haunted levels. ernie walked soberly along the dry moat that separated the garden-wall from the road. in the middle of the wall was a gate of open ironwork, wrought from sussex ore, smelted by a hammer pond on ashdown ridge, and dating from the days when heathfield was the centre of england's black country. the gate, high and narrow, made an eye in the wall with a heavy brow of ivy overhanging it. ernie crossed the little bridge that spanned the moat between box-hedges, and half-hidden under a lilac against the ivy-covered wall, he peered through the open-work of the gate. from his feet a long grass-path ran up between rank herbaceous borders to the house, ambushed by trees. the clink of cans told him he had timed himself aright. at the far end of the walk was a thick bower over which the leaves of a vine, already turning, scrambled. from the rich darkness of this bower ruth now emerged, marching solemnly down the path. her yoke was on her shoulders, her pails swinging, clanking, slopping. she walked very deliberately, dressed in the worn earth-coloured gabardine that fell in nobly simple lines about her figure. her eyes were down, her face grave; and the rakish orange turban wound about her head contrasted strangely with the noble seriousness of her face. ernie breathed deep as he watched her coming towards him down the grass-walk under pergolas crowned with roses and honeysuckle. from his covert his eyes followed her with tender content, for he thought she was not aware of his presence. but he was wrong. a few yards from him, with a graceful dipping motion of the knees, she lowered her shining cans to the ground, disengaged them, and came to him, paler than her wont, the chains of the yoke she still carried now swinging free. he opened the gate and approached her. "ernie," she said with a little sigh, "i'll marry you if you wish it." she paused. her bosom was heaving, her eyes shuttered. then she raised her head. "and i'm sure i thank you very much--me and baby." hard by a young fig-tree grew against the wall, low-branched and with long-fingered leaves. he drew her beneath the shelter of it, and gathered her slowly in his arms like a sheath of corn. he kissed her patient lips, her eyes; his tears bedewed her cheek; his hand was in hers, and she was kneading it.... both hands were rough with toil. then she opened her eyes; and down in the brown deeps of them shone a lovely star. "i pray i done you no wrong, ern," she said, and smiled at him through mists. tenderly he removed the yoke from her shoulders and placed it on his own. then he bowed to the burden, and taking the road trudged solemnly homeward by her side, the cans clinking and water spilling as he moved. chapter lix alf tries to save a soul of course there was trouble: alf saw to that. it was very seldom he came to rectory walk now; but he did come one evening after the news was common property in old town. he marched straight into the kitchen, kicked a chair into its place before the fire, and sat down without a word to his mother. it was dusk in there, but anne could see that he was terribly moved. "what is it?" she asked. "nothin," alf answered. "only my cart's broke." the mother waited for more, grimly amused. "he's done it this time," alf continued at last. "who has?" "old ern." the epithet of affection roused anne to swift suspicion. "what's he done then?" alf chewed the end of a cigarette. "don't ask me," he said. "talk o the town!--i could 'ide me ead with shyme." he looked up suddenly and stared his mother blankly in the face. "little better nor a common you know." "common what?" asked his mother harshly. alf, like many another sinner, had a genuine and almost child-like belief in his mother's innocence and lack of knowledge of those processes of nature with which she might be assumed to be familiar. he raised a deprecatory hand as though to brush her irritably aside. "you wouldn't understand if i was to tell you," he groaned, screwing up his little yellow face as he did when wrestling in prayer for sinners. "nor i wouldn't wish you to. my heart's fair broke. that's enough for you." he buried his face in his hands. "he's been a bad brother to me, very bad. couldn't well ha been worse. anybody could tell you that. but blood is blood, and blood is thicker nor what water is, as i'm finding now to my cost." anne caspar came closer. "is he goin to marry her?" she asked. "ah," said alf. "and that ain't all. not by no means--nor the lesser 'alf of it eether." his mother was still fiercely cold. "is she the one he got into trouble?" alf evaded her swiftly. "it ain't his child though." "what?" she snarled. "is there a brat?" she turned on the gas. the tears were rolling down alf's cheeks as he nodded assent. "me own blood-brother and all!" was what he said. "i can't look folks in the face, i can't." just then the study-door opened and shut again. ernie came out into the darkened passage. the kitchen-door was wide. through it the two brothers stared at each other, ernie standing in the dusk, alf sitting in the gas-light. then ernie spoke. "tellin the tale, alf?" he said with quiet irony. alf waved his brother away. "you've broke my eart," he said, "and your mother's. not as you care, not you!" "if that's all i've broke i ain't done much 'arm, old son," came the still voice out of the dusk; and the outer door shut. his wife was the one creature in the world to whom edward caspar was consistently hard; and her husband the only one to whom anne was unfailingly considerate. in her inmost consciousness she knew the reason of her husband's attitude, and bowed to it as to an inexorable ordinance of nature. throughout her married life she had paid the penalty of the woman who has taken the lead in matters of sex. fierce though she was, there were few more old-fashioned than anne caspar, and from the start she had seemed to recognize and be resigned to the justice of her fate. that night as the couple went to bed, edward said from the dressing-room with a touch of tenderness he rarely showed his wife: "mother, ern's going to be married." "you needn't tell me," said anne harshly. "there's a bastard. did he tell you that?" it was seldom that anne allowed herself to indulge in coarseness when addressing her husband. he gave his familiar little click of disgust, and shut the door between the two rooms. that night he did not join her but slept, if he slept at all, on the camp-bed in the dressing-room. next day, anne caspar went round to interview mrs. trupp. the years had brought the two women no nearer, rather the reverse indeed. mrs. trupp was soaring always into heaven: mrs. caspar chained to her prison-cell on earth. "she's a good woman," said mrs. trupp of ruth, with stubborn gentleness. "i don't know a better." "but she's had a illegitimate child. it's sin! it's wickedness!" "i know she's made a mistake," replied the other in her even voice. "but it's not for you and me to judge her. you and i were able to marry the men we loved. if we hadn't been...." "i should have stood up!" harshly. "you can't say," said mrs. trupp, calm as the other was ferocious. "you don't know. we've never been tested." then the devil entered into her as it does sometimes into the holiest of women, a naughty devil, very mischievous, who loathed pharisaism and loved to persecute it.... "_besides, should we have been right to stand up?_" anne caspar gasped. the lady wetted her cotton delicately, and threaded her needle against the dying light. "it's a nice point," she added in her charming voice. anne tramped home, meeting mr. pigott on the hill. he stopped to speak to her, but she trudged on surlily. "the world's gone mad," she said. "it's time it come to an end. it's a bad un." mr. pigott went on to the manor-house to put his question. "is she all right?" he asked--"this girl of ernie's." "right as rain," answered mrs. trupp. "but she's had a _rotten_ time." there was no doubt that alf was deeply stirred by this new happening in his brother's life. the whole of him resented it with the fury of a baffled sea. ern was about to possess a beautiful woman alf had desired, and ern was alf's brother. that deep-seated sense of competition and ineradicable jealousy that exists between members of a family--as profound and disruptive a force as any to be found in human consciousness, dating back as it does to the fierce struggles of nursery days--was at work within him. as always in moments of conflict, he had recourse to his spiritual director. the reverend spink was a sleek little man, solid in body if not in mind, and full of rather shoddy enthusiasms. "poor old ernie!" said alf. "he's been a bad brother to me. i will say that for him. but i wouldn't wish my worst friend to come to _that_." "but you must save him from himself!" cried the curate. "go out into the highways and hedges and _drag them in!_--that's the command. fling out the life-line!" and he flung out a plump little arm clothed in best broadcloth to show how it was done. alf nodded solemnly. "yes," he said. "i'll save him--if he is to be saved." he rose up grandly, loving himself. "cover me with hinsults; crucify me 'ands and feet; strike me in the face like as not. but i'll face it all. no cross, no crown, as the s'yin is." he went out on his errand of mercy. in a few moments he was round at the rooms of the lost sheep. ernie was at home. "you know i wish you well, ernest, don't you?" he began painfully. the other had not risen. "i know all about that," he answered enigmatically. alf drew a little nearer and dropped his voice, looking about him. "you can't marry her, ern," he whispered. ern was quite unmoved. "can't i?" he said. "and why not then?" "_because you can't!_" alf almost screamed. ernie was still amused. "i mustn't have her because you can't," he said. "that's the short of it." alf cackled horribly. "me!--want her?--i like that." "i know you did then!" "likely!" sneered alf, his pride swift to arms. "likely she'd ha took you and said no to me." he pressed closer, his face mottled. "_do_ you know what i'm worth as i stand here in me shoes? i got £ , saved away in the bank, and makin all the time. if i liked i could retire on meself--at --and be a gentleman. that's what i am! that's what i done! that's alf caspar! and you tell me she'd ha took up with a dirty coal-porter at s. d. a week when she could have had _me_!" ernie flared up. he leapt to his feet. "out of it!" he ordered. "what the bloody l's my marriage got to do with you?" alf tumbled down the wooden stairs with such a furious clatter as to bring the landlady to the kitchen-door. later that evening he reported his brother's saying to the reverend spink. "swore something fearful!" he said. "i couldn't tell you what he _did_ say. i couldn't reelly. couldn't defile me lips with the words. that's the army, i suppose. pick up a lot of dirt there, some of em." the reverend spink, who boasted a moustache he believed to be military, rocked judicially to and fro before the fire. since he had been ordained a minister of the established church, and had lived in touch with the archdeacon and lady augusta willcocks, he felt very profoundly that the maintenance of the aristocratic and imperial tradition had been entrusted to his special keeping. "had i not been called to a higher service," he said, enunciating his words with the meticulous care of one to whom correct pronunciation has always been a difficulty, "i should have gone into the army, meself." he added--"an officer, of course." "of course," repeated alf, "as is only befitting a gentleman of your rank and stytion in life. no, i got nothing against the army. armies must be, as i tell them, and navies too--if you're an island. only all i say is--_leave it to others_, i says. you don't want your own family mixed up with _that_." but alf was not done yet. he went over to aldwoldston and tried to see ruth. she refused, and reported him to mrs. trupp, who spoke very seriously to her husband. "william," she said, "you'll have to sack that man." he shook his head, grimly amused. "can't be done," he replied. "too interesting a study and too good a chauffeur," but he spoke to alf all the same. "you must let that girl be," he said gruffly. "ern's got her; and he's going to keep her." "ah," said alf, swaggering. "i know what i know, and what no one else don't know, only me; and i don't like it." "brothers never do," retorted mr. trupp. "especially if they wanted the girl themselves." "ah, 'taint that," said alf, sour and white. "i shan't marry off the streets, whatever else. no, sir. he's not been a good brother to me--nobody can't throw that up against him. but that's no reason why when i see him askin' for trouble i shouldn't try to save him. me own blood brother and all." mr. trupp got into the car. "i'll tell you what," he muttered. "you're a true churchman, alf, if you're nothing else. i will say that for you." chapter lx the end of a chapter the char-a-banc, called by courtesy a coach, which was bound for what is known locally as "the long drive," waited at billing's corner for any old town passengers. it had started from holywell, and colonel and mrs. lewknor sat beside the driver. a ramshackle old gentleman came rambling furtively across the road. the coachman nudged the colonel. "that's old mr. caspar," he whispered. he had for learning the profound respect of the illiterate. "they say he knows so much he don't know all he do know. talks hebrew in his sleep, they say." the colonel answered musingly. "is that caspar?" and thought how little this old man had changed from the young man who forty years before had shambled just thus about the courts of trinity. the old gentleman, who had the air of being pursued, climbed to his place at the back of the char-a-banc. mrs. lewknor turned. she knew that for some reason fear had laid hold once more of her man of faith. "ah, mr. caspar!" she called in her gay voice. "i thought it was you!--i forget if you've ever met my husband." "i knew your boy in india, mr. caspar," said the colonel in his delightful manner. "he was one of the best cricketers in the regiment." the friendly voices and kind eyes appeared to soothe the old man. "he's going to be married to-morrow," he panted. "i'm just going over to aldwoldston to see the lady." in the village the char-a-banc drew up under the great chestnut-tree by the market-cross; while the passengers descended for tea in the black-and-white-timbered _lamb_. mr. caspar, too, got down. mrs. lewknor heard him ask the way to frogs' hall, and saw him lumber off in that flurried way of his as if pursued. she followed him into river lane. he heard her and turned with eyes aghast behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. she met him with swiftest sympathy. "may i come with you, mr. caspar?" she asked. he seemed relieved. "yes," he panted, and started off down the steep lane, between the high flint-walls embedded in nettles, at a shuffling trot regardless of the little lady following at his heels. in the silence she gave him of her strength. in the brooks he paused and mooned helplessly across at the river and the hills squandered in the sunshine beyond and the cattle who mooned back. "this is it," said mrs. lewknor in her cool confident voice. "this yellow-washed one, the man said." "yes," grunted edward, once again relieved, and trotted off to the little cottage on the bank beside the willows. he went up the steps and knocked. mrs. lewknor loitered down to the stream. ruth opened. her visitor glanced at her through dim spectacles; and strength came to him. "are you ruth?" he asked. the young woman's face lit up. "yes, sir," she said. "and i know who you are. i been hopin you might happen along. come you in and sit down." the old man mopped his neck. "i mustn't," he said in tones that meant "i daren't," and continued hurriedly, "i should be getting back. i'm expected home. but i had to come and wish you well." he touched her arm tremulously. "bless you, my dear!--he's a good lad, only weak." he lowered his voice. "keep him on the curb a bit," he whispered hurriedly. "but not too much. that's where his mother made her mistake. drove him away from her." mrs. lewknor, standing by a willow on the river-bank, saw the old man turn. slowly she walked across the field to the cottage. the young woman in the door watched her with uncertain eyes that seemed to leap towards her and then retreat and leap again. "is that.... that aren't ern's mother?" she asked. the lady paused, her fine eyes dwelling on a distant roof. "no," said mr. caspar. "that's a friend." mrs. lewknor, who had the love of her race for beautiful things, allowed her eyes to rest on the noble creature in the door. "i know your ernie though," she said charmingly. "he's a very old friend of mine." the two women exchanged friendly glances and a few words. then edward caspar and his companion moved off into parson's tye. the church stood four-square on the mound above them, the red tiles of the roof peeping through the trees. "shall we go in?" said mrs. lewknor. "let's," replied the other. they sat together side by side in the aisle, amid the haunting memories of centuries. when they emerged the man of fear had given place once more to the child of faith. it was a very small party that started next day from old town for the wedding. besides mr. and mrs. trupp there were in the chocolate-bodied car mr. and mrs. pigott. the great surgeon was at his surliest. mrs. pigott noted it at once, and of course must take advantage. "do you like weddings, mr. trupp?" she asked brightly. "call it a wedding!" growled the other. "i call it a funeral. it's the end of a good man. he'll go to pieces now he's got all he wants. no: if you want to get the most out of a man, keep him asking. once he's sated he's done.... what does mrs. pigott say?" mrs. pigott said: "bob the cherry near his lips, but don't let him gobble it." the young woman gave a bird-like toss of her head and threw a teasing glance at her husband. "bob the cherry. that's it." when the car swung off the road at the foot of the village into parson's tye, mr. trupp was in more sober mood. as the other three crossed the green to the church, he lingered behind. "comin in then, alf?" he asked. the chauffeur shook his head. "i know's too much, sir," he said firmly. "no good won't come of evil--as ever i heard tell." mr. trupp rolled away, coughing. "alf turned moralist!" he muttered. the pair were to be married in church. for ruth herself was "church" in the sense the working-class understand that word. miss caryll had taken considerable pains to effect her conversion, while her people, with the quiet tolerance of their kind, had made no objection. ruth herself had been profoundly indifferent, and underwent the change mainly to oblige. but while she rarely attended divine service herself, and was neither interested in the religious community to which she belonged nor affected by it, on the vital occasions of her life she expected it to do its duty by her---to marry her, bury her, baptize and confirm her children; and she would have been astonished and aggrieved had it refused her the rites which were in her judgment her due. the great church with its hollow-timbered roof like the bottom of an upturned ship, its bell-ropes looped and hanging from the central tower above the transept, is called by some the cathedral of the downs. it was quiet now as a forest at evening, and empty save for mr. and mrs. boam, straight-backed in black, ruth sitting subdued between her father and mother, little alice on her granny's lap, and ernie alone in the pew upon the right. there was about the little gathering something of the solemnity of the hills which hemmed them round. mrs. trupp, walking in the stillness up the aisle, was aware of it as she took her place at ernie's side. then in the silence the singing voice of a little child floated out like a silver bubble of sound. "daddy," it said. ruth shot at the man across the aisle a sudden lovely look of affection and intimate confidence; and one soul at least, kneeling there in the sunshine, felt that the word sealed the covenant between this wayfaring couple, still only starting on their pilgrimage, as no offices of any priest could do. the end doubleday, page & co. hope to publish _one woman: being the sequel to two men_, next spring. the country life press garden city, n.y. sussex gorse _by the same author_ the tramping methodist starbrace spell land isle of thorns three against the world samuel richardson willow's forge and other poems sussex gorse the story of a fight by sheila kaye-smith [illustration: decoration] new york alfred a. knopf mcmxvi contents page prologue. the challenge book i the beginning of the fight book ii the woman's part book iii the elder children book iv treacheries book v almost under book vi struggling up book vii the end in sight book viii the victory sussex gorse prologue the challenge § . boarzell fair had been held every year on boarzell moor for as long as the oldest in peasmarsh could remember. the last thursday in october was the date, just when the woods were crumpling into brown, and fogs blurred the wavy sunsets. the moor was on the eastern edge of the parish, five miles from rye. heaving suddenly swart out of the green water-meadows by socknersh, it piled itself towards the sunrise, dipping to leasan house. it was hummocked and tussocked with coarse grass--here and there a spread of heather, growing, like all southern heather, almost arboreally. in places the naked soil gaped in sores made by coney-warrens or uprooted bushes. stones and roots, sharn, shards, and lumps of marl, mixed themselves into the wealden clay, which oozed in red streaks of potential fruitfulness through their sterility. the crest of boarzell was marked by a group of firs, very gaunt and wind-bitten, rising out of a mass of gorse, as the plumes of some savage chief might nod mangily above his fillet. when the gorse was in bloom, one caught the flare of it from the kentish hills, or away westward from brightling and dallington. this day in the october of , the flowerets were either nipped or scattered, or hidden by the cloths the gipsies had spread to dry on the bushes. the gipsies always camped on the flanks of the fair, which they looked on with greater detachment than the gaujos who crowded into its heart, either selling or buying, doing or being done. just within the semicircle of their earth-coloured tents were the caravans of the showmen, gaudily painted, with seedy horses at tether, very different from the romany gris. then came the booths, stalls piled with sweets in an interesting state of preservation, trays of neck and shoulder ribbons, tinsel cords, tin lockets with glass stones, all fairings, to be bought out of the hard-won wages of husbandry in love. then there was the panorama, creaking and torn in places, but still giving a realistic picture of the crowning of king william; there was the merry-go-round, trundled noisily by two sweating cart-horses; there was the cocoa-nut shy, and the fighting booth, in the doorway of which half-breed buck washington loved to stand and display his hairy chest between the folds of his dressing-gown; and there was the shooting-gallery, where one could pot at the cardboard effigies of one's hates, lord brougham who had robbed the poor working man of his parish relief, or boney, still a blood-curdler to those who had seen the building of the martello towers. to-day business was bad. here and there a ploughboy pulled up his slop and fumbled for pennies in his corduroys, but for the most part the stalls were deserted, even in certain cases by their holders. this was not because the fair was empty. on the contrary, it was much more crowded than usual; but the crowd clotted into groups, all discussing the same thing--the inclosure. it was some months since sir john bardon, squire of the manor of flightshot, had taken advantage of the inclosure act and manoeuvred a bill for the inclosure of boarzell. since then there had been visits of commissioners, roamings of surveyors, deliveries of schedules, strange talk of turbary and estovers, fire-bote and house-bote. the neighbourhood was troubled, perplexed. then perplexity condensed into indignation when all that inclosure stood for became known--no more pasturage for the cow or goat which meant all the difference between wheaten and oaten bread, no more wood-gleanings for fire or wind-beaten roof, no more of the tussocky grass for fodder, or of gorse to toughen palings against escaping fowls. then, when fair-time came, people began to mutter "no more fair." it was as hard to imagine boarzell without the fair as without its plume of firs. the squire gave out his intention of tolerating the fair, as long as it did not straggle from the crest. but this failed to soothe the indignant and sore, for it was humbling to have the fair as a matter of toleration. also at that time there was talk of fences. all the moor had been mapped out, the claims considered, the road repaired, and now nothing more was to be done except to put up the fences which would definitely seal boarzell as flightshot's own. there was naturally a party who championed manor rights--sir john bardon was a good landlord, and would have been better had his budget cramped him less. now he would sell boarzell in building plots, and his tenants would reap the benefit. he had not inclosed the land for himself. more houses would mean more trade for shops and farms, peasmarsh might flower into a country town.... but the majority was anti-bardon. there were grumblings about allotments, especially from copyholders. the commissioners had been off-hand in their treatment of claims, ignoring everyone except freeholders, of whom there were only two. "they say as how realf's not done badly fur himself at grandturzel," said old vennal of burntbarns; "forty acres they gave him, and all bush and timber rights." "and what about odiam?" asked ticehurst of hole. "i haven't seen backfield these three weeks, but there's a tale going räound as how the commissioners have bin tedious sharp, and done him out of everything he hoped to get--surelye!" "and him freehold!" "sixty acres." "how did they do it?" "oh, it's just a tale that's going räound--says they found some lawyer's mess in his title-deed. his father never thought of common rights when he bought the land, and it seems as how they must be written down just lik anything else.... but there's young ben backfield talking to coalbran. he'll tell us, i reckon." they went over to a man and a lad, standing together by the gingerbread stall. "we was wondering wot yer fäather had got out o' them commissioners, ben," said ticehurst. reuben backfield scowled. his thick black brows scowled easily, but the expression of his face was open and cheerful, would have been kindly even, were it not for a certain ruthlessness of the lips. there was more character in his face than is usual with a boy of fifteen--otherwise he looked younger than his age, for though tall and well-knit, his limbs had all the graceful immaturity and supple clumsiness one sees in the limbs of calves and foals. "fäather äun't got naun--haven't you heard? he made his claim, and then they asked to see the title-deeds, and it turned out as how he hadn't got no common rights at all--leastways so the lawyers said." "but he used to send the cows on, didn't he?" "yes--now and agäun--didn't know it wurn't right. seems it 'ud have been better if he'd sent 'em oftener; there's no understanding that lawyer rubbidge. now he mayn't täake so much as a blade of grass." "realf of grandturzel has got his bit all safe." reuben spat. "yes--they couldn't pick any holes in his claim, or they would have, i reckon. the squire 'ud like every rood of boarzell, though the lard knows wot he'll do wud it now he's got it." "your fäather must be in lamentable heart about all this, surelye." the boy shrugged and frowned. "he döan't care much. fäather, he likes to be comfortable, and this inclosure wöan't make much difference to that. 'täun't as if we wanted the pasture badly, and fäather he döan't care about land." he dragged the last word a little slowly, and there was the faintest hint of a catch in his voice. "and your mother, and harry?" "they döan't care, nuther--it's only me." "lard, boy!--and why should you care if they döan't?" reuben did not speak, but a dull red crept over the swarthiness of his cheeks, and he turned away. he walked slowly, his hands in his pockets, to where the gable of the booth jutted between him and his questioners. from here he could see the slope of boarzell, rolling slowly down to some red roofs and poplars. these roofs and poplars were odiam, the farm which his grandfather had bought, which his father had tilled and fattened ... and now it was humbled, robbed of its rights--and his father still went whistling to the barn, because, though fifty acres had been withheld from him by a quibble, he still had a bright fire, with a pretty wife and healthy boys beside it. reuben's lip curled. he could not help despising his father for this ambitionless content. "we're no worser off than we wur before," joseph backfield had said a day or two ago to his complaining boy--"we've our own meadows for the cows--'täun't as if we were poor people." "but, fäather, think wot we might have had--forty acres inclosed for us, like they have at grandturzel." "'might have--might have'--that döan't trouble me. it's wot i've got i think about. and then, say we had it--wot 'ud you mäake out o' boarzell?--nasty mess o' marl and shards, no good to anyone as long as thistles äun't fashionable eating." "_i_ cud mäake something out of boarzell." at this his father burst into a huge fit of laughter, and reuben walked away. but he knew he could do it. that morning he churned the soil with his heel, and knew he could conquer it.... he could plant those thistle-grounds with wheat.... coward! his father was a coward if he shrank from fighting boarzell. the land could be tamed just as young bulls could be tamed. by craft, by strength, by toughness man could fight the nature of a waste as well as of a beast. give him boarzell, and he would have his spade in its red back, just as he would have his ring in a bull's nose.... but it was all hopeless. most likely in future all that would remain free to him of boarzell would be this fair ground, crowded once a year. the rest would be built over--fat shop-keepers would grow fatter--oh, durn it! he dashed his hand over his eyes, and then swung round, turning back towards the groups, lest he should become weak in solitude. somehow the character of the crowd had changed while he had been away. angry murmurs surged through it like waves, curses beat against one another, a rumour blew like foam from mouth to mouth. "they're putting up the fences--workmen from tonbridge--fences down by socknersh." "drat 'em! durn 'em!" "and why shudn't there be fences? what good did this old rubbidge-pläace ever do anyone? scarce a mouthful fur a goat. now it'll be built on, and there'll be money fur everybody." "money fur bardon." "money fur us all. the squire äun't no tory grabber." "then wot dud he täake our land fur?" "wot wur the use of it?--save fur such as wanted a quiet pläace fur their wenching." "put up yer fists!" the fight came, the battering of each other by two men, seemingly because of a private insult, really because they were representatives of two hostile groups, panting to be at each other's throats. they fought without science, staggering up and down, swinging arms like windmills, grabbing tufts of hair. at last old buck washington the bruiser could stand it no longer, and with a couple of clouts flung them apart, to bump on the ground and sit goggling stupidly at each other through trickles of blood. that gave the crowd its freedom--hitherto the conflict had been squeezed into two representatives, leaving some hundred men merely limp spectators; but with the collapse of his proxy, each man felt the rage in him boil up. "come, my lads, we'll pull down their hemmed fences!" "down wud the fences! down wud bardon!" "stand by the squire, men--we'll all gain by it." "shut the common to wenchers!" but the anti-inclosure party was the strongest--it swept along the others as it roared down to socknersh, brandishing sticks and stones and bottles that had all appeared suddenly out of nowhere, shouting and stumbling and rolling and thumping.... reuben was carried with it, conscious of very little save the smell of unwashed bodies and the bursting rage in his heart. § . the fences were being put up in the low grounds by socknersh, a leasehold farm on the fringe of the manor estate. the fence-builders were not local men, and had no idea of the ill-feeling in the neighbourhood. their first glimpse of it was when they saw a noisy black crowd tilting down boarzell towards them--nothing definite could be gathered from its yells, for cries and counter-cries clashed together, the result being a confused "wah-wah-wah," accompanied by much clattering of sticks and stones, thudding of feet and thumping of ribs. when it came within ten yards of the fences, it doubted itself suddenly after the manner of crowds. it stopped, surged back, and mumbled. "down with the fences!" shouted someone--"long live the squire!" shouted someone else. then there was a pause, almost a silence. suddenly a great hullish lad sprang forward, rushed up to one of the fence-stakes, and flung it with a tangle of wire into the air. "down wud bardon!" the spell of doubt was broken. a dozen others sprang towards the palings, a dozen more were after them to smite. the workmen swung their tools. the fight began. it was a real battle with defences and sallies. the supporters of the inclosure miraculously knotted together, and formed a guard for the labourers, who with hammers ready alternately for nail or head, bent to their work. they had no personal concern in the matter, but they resented being meddled with. the squire's party was much the weakest in numbers, but luck had given it the best weapons of that chance armament. alce of ellenwhorne had a fine knobbed stick, worth a dozen of the enemy's, while lewnes of coldblow had an excellent broken bottle. young elphee had been through the bruiser-mill, and routed his assailants with successive upper-cuts. the anti-bardonites, on the other hand, were inclined to waste their strength; they fought in a congested, rabblesome way; also they threw their bottles, not realising that a bottle is much better as a club than a missile. the result was that quite early in the conflict their ammunition gave out, and they were reduced to sticks and fists. this made the two parties fairly equal, and the tide of battle ebbed and flowed. now a bit of fence was put up, then it was torn down again; now it looked as if the fence-builders were going to be swept off the moor, then it looked as if their posts were going to straggle up to totease. the fair was quite deserted, the tenants of socknersh and totease climbed to their windows. someone fetched the constable from peasmarsh, but after surveying the battlefield from a distance he strategically retired. at flightshot manor the squire was troubled. the inclosure of boarzell had been no piece of land-grabbing on his part, but a move for the good of his estate. he had always wanted to improve his tenants' condition, but had been thwarted by lack of means. he wondered if he ought to give orders to stop the fence-building. "sir, that would be folly!" cried his son. "but it seems that there's a regular riot going on--quite a number of people have been hurt, and two ploughlands trodden up. kadwell went over, but says he can do nothing." "send to rye, then. let 'em swear in some special constables, and drive the fellows off. but as for stopping the work--that would be to play into their hands." so the fight raged on, the battle of boarzell. unfortunately it did not rage on boarzell itself, but on its fruitful fringe, where the great ploughfields lapped up to the base of the moor, taking the sunset on their wet brown ridges. poor ginner's winter wheat was all pulped and churned to ruin, and the same doom fell on ditch's roots. sometimes it seemed as if the squire's men would attain their object, for the fence--very tottery and uncertain, it must be confessed--had wound a bit of the way past totease towards odiam. dusk had fallen, but the men still worked, for their blood was up. however, the squire's party began to feel their lack of numbers; they were growing tired, their arms swung less confidently, and then lewnes' bottle was broken right up at the neck, cutting his hand. he shouted that he was bleeding to death, and frightened the others. someone sent a stone into alce's eye. then he too made a terrible fuss, threw down his stick, and ran about bleeding among the workmen. the ground, soft with autumn rains, was now one great mud broth, and the men were daubed and spattered with it even to their hair. the attackers pressed on the wavering ring--one of the fence-builders was hit, and pitched down, taking a post and a whole trail of wire over with him--about thirty yards of fence came down with the pull, and flopped into the mud. the ring broke. "hop it, lads!" shouted a workman. their protectors were gone, mixed indescribably with their assailants. they must run, or they would be lynched. a hundred yards off a totease barn-door gaped, and the workmen sprinted for it. in the darkness they were able to reach it without losing more than one of their number, who fell down and had the wit to pretend to be dead. the crowd seethed after them, but the door was shut, and the heavy bolts rattled behind it. the barn was part of the farmhouse, and from one of the upper windows ditch, furious at having his roots messed up, made pantomime to the effect that he would shoot any man who came further than the yard. it was then for the first time that reuben was frightened. hitherto there had been too much violence and confusion for him to feel intensely, even rage. he had thrown stones, and had once been hit by a stone--a funny dull sore pain on his shoulder, and then the feeling of something sticky under his shirt. but he had never felt afraid, never taken any initiative, just run and struggled and shouted with the rest. now he was frightened--it would be dreadful if the farmer fired into that thick sweating mass in the midst of which he was jammed. then, just because he was afraid, he flung up his arm, and the stone he had been grasping crashed into ditch's window, sending the splintering glass into the room. he had no thought of doing it, scarcely knew he had done it--it was just because he was horribly frightened. the next moment there was a bang, and ditch's gun scattered duck-shot into the crowd. men yelled, fought, struggled, stumbled about with their arms over their faces. for a moment nothing but panic moved them, but the next rage took its place. a volley of stones answered the gun, which being an old one and requiring careful loading, could not be brought into action again for some minutes. "burn him down!--burn him down!--the hemmed murderer!" then began a regular siege. stones showered upon the farmhouse roof, the shiver of broken glass tinkled through the dull roar of the attackers, groans and screams answered the bursting bang of the shot-gun. men began to seize faggots from the wood-pile, and run with them towards the house. then some tore up a haystack, but the wind caught the hay and blew it everywhere, flinging swathes and streamers of it into the rioters' faces, giving them sudden armfuls of it, making their noses and eyes smart with the dust and litter. it was quite dark now. the hulk of boarzell loomed black behind the struggle, its fir crown standing out against a great wall of starless sky. then suddenly something began to blaze--no one seemed to know what, for it was behind the crowd; but it roared and crackled, and sparks and great burning strands flew out from it, threatening house and besiegers alike with destruction. they had piled the faggots against the door of the barn. the workmen inside were tumbling about in the dark, half ignorant of what was going on. "bring a light!" called someone. a boy dashed up with a handful of flaming straw--it blew out of his hand and flared away over the roof, scattering showers of sparks. a man yelled out that his shirt was burning. "bring a light!" someone called again. then someone else shouted--"the constables from rye!" the crowd ebbed back like a wave, carrying reuben, now screaming and terrified, towards where something unknown burned with horrible crackles and roaring. "the constables from rye!" the crowd was like a boa-constrictor, it seemed to fold itself round him, smashing his ribs. he screamed, half suffocated. his forehead was blistered with heat. again the crowd constricted. a dizziness came this time with the suffocation, and strange to say, as consciousness was squeezed out of him like wind out of a bellows, he had one last visit of that furious hate which had made him join the battle--hate of those who had robbed his father of boarzell, and hate of boarzell itself, because he would never be able to tame it as one tames a bull with a ring in its nose. he choked, and fell into the darkness. § . his first sensation on returning to consciousness was of being jolted. it was, like most half-realised experiences, on the boundary line between sensation and emotion, an affair almost of the heart. then gradually it became more physical, the heart-pain separated itself from the body-pain. his body was being jolted, his heart was just sick with the dregs of hate. then he saw orion hanging over him, very low in the windy sky, shaking with frost. his eyes fixed themselves on the constellation, then gradually he became aware of the sides of a cart, of the smell of straw, of the movement of other bodies that sighed and stirred beside him. the physical experience was now complete, and soon the emotional had shaped itself. memory came, rather sick. he remembered the fight, his terror, the flaming straw, the crowd that constricted and crushed him like a snake. his rage and hate rekindled, but this time without focus--he hated just everyone and everything. he hated the wheels which jolted him, his body because it was bruised, the other bodies round him, the stars that danced above him, those unknown footsteps that tramped beside him on the road. where was he? he raised himself on his elbow, and immediately a head looked over the side of the cart. "wot's the matter wud you?" asked a gruff voice. "i want to know where i'm going, surelye." "you're going to rye, that's where you're going, just fur a täaste of the rope's end, you young varmint." the tones were not unkindly, and reuben plucked up courage. "is the fight over?" "surelye! it all fizzled out, soon as them beasts saw the constables. fifty speshul constables sworn in at rye town hall, all of 'em wud truncheons! you couldn't expect any rabble-scrabble to face 'em." "reckon that lot had just about crunched me up. i feel all stove in." "and you'll feel stove in furder when the crier's done wud you." it was part of the rye town crier's duties to flog the unruly youth of the district. reuben made a face--not that he minded being flogged, but he felt badly bruised already. he fell back on the straw, and buried his head in it. they were on the playden road, near bannister's town, and he would have time for a sleep before they came to rye. sleep helped things wonderfully. but the strange thing was that he could not sleep, and stranger still, it was not the ache of his body that kept him awake, but the ache of his heart. reuben was used to curling up and going to sleep like a little dog; only once had he lain awake at night, and that was with the toothache. now he had scarcely any pain; indeed, the dull bruised feeling made him only more drowsy, but in his heart was something that made him tumble and toss, just as the aching tooth had done, made him want to snarl and bite. he rolled over and over in the straw, and was wide awake when they came to rye. neither did he sleep at all in the room where he and some other boys were locked for the night. the battery gaol was full of adult rioters, so the youthful element--only some half-dozen captured--was shut up in the constable's house, where it played marbles and twisted arms till daylight. the other boys were much younger than reuben, who thumped their heads to let off some of his uncomfortable feelings. indeed, there was talk of putting him with the grown-up prisoners, till the magistrate realised that juveniles were more easily disposed of. the scene at the court-house was so hurried that he scarcely knew he had been tried till the constable took him by the collar and threw him out of the dock. then came some dreary moments of waiting in a little stuffy, whitewashed room, while the town crier dealt with the victims separately. reuben did not in the least mind being flogged--it was all in the day's work--and showed scant sympathy for those fellow-criminals who cried for their mothers. most of the cramp and stiffness had worn off, and his only anxiety was to have the thing over quickly, so that he could be home in time for supper. at one o'clock he was given some bread and cheese, which he devoured ravenously; then he spent an hour in thinking of the sausages they always had for supper at odiam on fridays. at two the constable fetched him to his doom; he was grumbling and muttering to himself, and on arriving at the execution chamber it turned out that he had had words with the town crier, because the latter thought he had only six boys to flog, so had put on his coat and was going off to the new sluice at scott's float, meaning to get back comfortably in time for an oyster and beer supper at the london trader. having seven boys to flog made all the difference--he would be late, both at the sluice and the supper. he took off his coat again, growling, and for the first time reuben felt shame. it was such a different matter, this, from being beaten by somebody who was angry with one and with whom one was angry. he saw now that a beating was one of the many things which are all right as long as they are hot, but damnable when they are cold. he hunched his shoulders, and felt his ears burn, and just the slightest stickiness on his forehead. one thing he had made up his mind to--he would not struggle or cry. up till now he had not cared much what he did in that way; if yelling had relieved his feelings he had yelled, and never felt ashamed of it; but to-day he realised that if he yelled he would be ashamed. so he drove his teeth into his lower lip and fought through the next few minutes in silence. he kept his body motionless, but in his heart strange things were moving. that hatred which had run through him like a knife just before he lost consciousness in the battle of boarzell, suddenly revived and stabbed him again. it was no longer without focus, and it was no longer without purpose. boarzell ... the name seemed to dance before him in letters of fire and blood. he was suffering for boarzell--his father had not been robbed, for his father did not care, but he, reuben, had been robbed--and he had fought for boarzell on boarzell, and now he was bearing shame and pain for boarzell. somehow he had never till this day, till this moment, been so irrevocably bound to the land he had played on as a child, on which he had driven his father's cattle, which had broken with its crest the sky he gazed on from his little bed. boarzell was his, and at the same time he hated boarzell. for some strange reason he hated it as much as those who had taken it from him and as those who were punishing him because of it. he wanted to tame it, as a man tames a bull, with a ring in its nose. there, at the post, quivering with a pain he scarcely felt, reuben swore that he would tame and conquer boarzell. the rage, the fight, the degradation, the hatred of the last twelve hours should not be in vain. in some way, as yet unplanned, boarzell should one day be his--not only the fifty acres the commissioners had tweaked from his father, but the whole of it, even that mocking, nodding crest of firs. he would subdue it; it should bear grain as meekly as the most fruitful field; it should feed fat cattle; it should make the name of odiam great, the greatest in sussex. it should be his, and the world should wonder. he left the post with a great oath in his heart, and a thin trickle of blood on his chin. § . it was still early in the afternoon when reuben set out homewards, but he had a long way to go, and felt tired and bruised. the constable had given him an apple, but as soon as he had munched up its sweetness, life became once more grey. the resolve which for a few minutes had been like a flame warming and lighting his heart, had now somehow become just an ordinary fact of life, as drearily a part of his being as his teeth or his stomach. one day he would own boarzell moor, subdue it, and make himself great--but meantime his legs dragged and his back was sore. all the adventure and excitement he had been through, with no sleep, and eccentric feeding, combined to make him wretched and cast down. once he cried a little, crouching low under the hedge, and thoroughly ashamed of himself. however, things grew better after a time. the road broke away from the fields, and free winds blew over it. on either side swelled a soft common, not like boarzell, but green and watery. it was grown with bracken, and reuben laughed to see the big buck rabbits loppetting about, with a sudden scuttle and bob when he clapped his hands. then a nice grinning dog ran with him a mile of the way, suddenly going off on a hunt near starvecrow. reuben came to odiam aching with nothing worse than hunger. odiam farm was on the northern slope of boarzell--sixty acres, mostly grass, with a sprinkling of hops and grain. there was a fine plum orchard, full of old gnarled trees, their branches trailing with the weight of continued crops. the house itself was red and weather-stung as an august pippin, with strange curves in its gable-ends, which had once been kilns. it was one of those squat, thick, warm-tinted houses of sussex which have stood so long as to acquire a kind of naturalisation into the vegetable kingdom--it was difficult to imagine it had ever been built, it seemed so obviously a growth, one would think it had roots in the soil like an oak or an apple tree. reuben opened the door, and the welcome, longed-for smell stole out to him--smothering the rivalry of a clump of chrysanthemums, rotting in dew. "sossiges," he whispered, and ran down the passage to the kitchen. here the sound of voices reminded him that he might have difficulties with his family, but reuben's attitude towards his family, unless it forced itself directly into his life, was always a little aloof. "well, lad," said his father, "so you're back at last." "you knew where i wur?" "lucky we dud--or we'd have bin in tedious heart about you, away all night." reuben pulled up his chair to the table. his father sat at one end, and at the other sat mrs. backfield; harry was opposite reuben. "if only you wud be a good boy lik harry," said his mother. reuben looked at harry with detachment. he was not in the least jealous of his position as favourite son, he had always accepted it as normal and inevitable. his parents did not openly flaunt their preference, and they were always very kind to reuben--witness the gentleness with which he was received to-day after his escapade--but one could not help seeing that their attitude towards the elder boy was very different from what they felt for the younger. the reasons were obvious; harry was essentially of a loving and dependent nature, whereas reuben seemed equally indifferent to caresses or commands. he was not a bad son, but he never appeared to want affection, and was always immersed in dark affairs of his own. besides, harry was a beautiful boy. though only a year younger than reuben, in the midst of the awkward age, his growing limbs quite lacked the coltishness of his brother's. he was like reuben, but with all the little variations that make the difference between good and ordinary looks. just as he had reuben's promising body without that transitory uncouthness so natural to his years, so he had reuben's face, more softly chiselled, more expressive and full of fire. his brows were lighter, his eyes larger, his hair less shiny and tough, growing in a soft sweep from his forehead, with the faintest hint of a curl at his ears. neighbours spoke of him as "beautiful harry." reuben pondered him occasionally--he would have liked to know his brother better, liked to love him, but somehow could never quite manage it. in spite of his clinging nature, there was something about harry that was unhuman, almost elfin. the father and mother did not seem to notice this, but reuben felt it, scarcely knowing how or why. to-night harry did not ask him any questions, he just sat dreamily listening while reuben poured out his story, with all the enthusiasms and all the little reservations which were characteristic of him. once harry put out his hand and stroked his mother's, once he smiled at his father. "well, i shan't go scolding you, lad," said joseph backfield, "fur i reckon you've bin punished enough. though it wur unaccountable lucky you dudn't git anything worse. i hear as how pix and hearsfield are to be transported, and there'll be prison for some thirty more. wot dud yer want to go mixing up in them things fur?" "i wur justabout mad." "how, mad?" "mad that they shud shut up boarzell and that odiam shudn't have its rights." "wot's odiam to you?--it äun't yours, it's mine, and if i döan't care about the land, why shud you go disgracing yourself and us all because of it?" "you ought to care, surelye!" a dull brick-red had crept into the brown cheeks, and reuben's brows had nearly met over his nose. "ought to! listen to that, mother. dud you ever hear the like? and if i cared, my lad, where wud you all be? where wud be that plate o' sossiges you're eating? it's just because i äun't a land-grabber lik so many i cud näum that you and harry sit scrunching here instead of working the flesh off your böans, that your mother wears a muslin apron 'stead of a sacking one, that you have good food to eat, and white bread, 'stead of oaten. wot's the use of hundreds of acres if you äun't comfortable at höame? i've no ambitions, so i'm a happy man. i döan't want nothing i haven't got, and so i haven't got nothing i döan't want. surelye!" reuben was silent, his heart was full of disgust. somehow those delicious sausages stuck in his throat, but he was too young to push away his plate and refuse to eat more of this token of his father's apathy and odiam's shame. he ate silently on, and as soon as he had finished rose from table, leaving the room with a mumble about being tired. when he was half-way upstairs he heard his mother call him, asking him if he would like her to bathe his shoulders. but he refused her almost roughly, and bounded up to the attic under the crinkled eaves, which was his own, his sanctuary--his land. it was odd that his parents did not care. now he came to think of it, they did not seem to care about anything very much, except harry. it never struck him to think it was odd that he should care when they did not. he sat down by the window, and leaning his elbow on the sill, looked out. it was still windy, and the sky was shredded over with cloud, lit by the paleness of a hidden moon. in the kitchen, two flights below, a fiddle sounded. it was harry playing to his parents as he always played in the evening, while they sat on either side of the fire, nodding, smiling, half-asleep. clods! cowards! a sudden rage kindled in his heart against those three, his father, his mother, and beautiful harry, who cared nothing about that for which he had suffered all things. the crest of boarzell was just visible against the luminous sky. there was something sinister and challenging about those firs. the gorse round their trunks seemed in that strange half-stormy, half-peaceful night to throw off a faint glimmer of gold. the fiddle wept and sang into the darkness, and outside the window two cherry trees scraped their boughs together. reuben's head dropped on his arm, and he slept out of weariness. an hour later the cramp of his shoulders woke him; the fiddle was silent, the moon was gone, and the window framed a level blackness. with a little moan he flung himself dressed on the bed. book i the beginning of the fight § . it was five years later, in the february of . a winter sunset sparkled like cowslip wine on the wet roofs of odiam. it slipped between the curtains of the room where reuben watched beside his dead father, and made a golden pool in the dusk. joseph backfield had been dead twelve hours. his wife had gone, worn out with her grief, to rest on the narrow unaccustomed bed which had been put up in the next room when he grew too ill to have her at his side. reuben knew that harry was with her--harry would be sitting at her head, his arm under the pillow, ready for that miserable first waking, when remembering and forgetting would be fused into one pain. reuben knew that they did not need him, that they had all they wanted in each other--now, as during the nights and days of illness, when he had never felt as if he had any real link with those three, his father and mother and harry. this evening he sat very still beside the dead. only once he drew down the sheet from his father's face and gazed at the calm features, already wearing that strange sculpt look which is the gift of death. the peaceful lips, the folded hands, seemed part of an embracing restfulness. reuben's heart warmed with a love in which was little grief. he thought of his father's life--calm, kindly, comfortable, ambitionless. he had been happy; having wanted little he had attained it and had died enjoying it. reuben recalled the last five years--they had been fat years. one by one small comforts, small luxuries, had been added to the house, as the farm throve modestly, fulfilling itself within the narrow boundaries its master had appointed. and all the time that mocking furious crest of boarzell had broken the sky in the south--telling of beauty unseized, might unconquered, pride untamed. so now was it strange that clashing with his sorrow, and his regretful love for one who, if he had never truly loved him, had always treated him with generosity and kindness, there should be a soaring sense of freedom and relief?--a consciousness of standing on the edge of a boundless plain after years of confinement within walls? for reuben was master now. odiam was his--and the future of odiam. he could follow his own will, he could take up that challenge which boarzell moor had flung him five years ago, when he fought and was flogged because he loved the red gaping clay between the gorse-stumps. his plans of conquest were more definite now. he had been forming them for five years, and he could not deny that during his father's illness he had shaped them with a certain finality. the road was clear before him, and to a slight extent fate had been propitious, keeping open a way which might well have been blocked before he began to tread it. reuben had never been able to settle what he should do if the squire's first project were fulfilled and the moor sold in building plots. house property entered with difficulty into his imagination, and he coveted only boarzell virgin of tool and brick. luckily for him, bardon's scheme had completely failed. the position of the common was bad for houses, windy and exposed in days when the deepest hollows were the most eligible building sites; the neighbourhood was both unfashionable and unfruitful, therefore not likely to attract either people of means or people without them. also there were grave difficulties about a water supply. so boarzell remained desolate, except for the yearly jostle of the fair, and rumour said that bardon would be only too glad to sell it or any piece of it to whoever would buy. if sir peter had been alive he would probably have given the common back to the people, but sir miles was more far-sighted, also of prouder stuff. such a policy would give the impression of weakness, and there was always a chance of selling the land piecemeal. reuben's ambition was to buy a few acres at the end of that year, letting the squire know of his plan to buy more--this would encourage him to keep boarzell inclosed, and would act as a check on any weak generosity. there was no reason why this ambition should not be fulfilled, for now that he himself was at the head of affairs it would be possible to save money. reuben's lips straightened--of late they had grown fuller, but also sterner in that occasional straightening, which changed the expression of his mouth from half-ripened sensuality to a full maturity of resolve. now he was resolved--there should be changes at odiam. he must give up that old easy, "comfortable" life on which his father had set such store. a ghost seemed to whisper in the room, as if the voice of the dead man once more declared his gospel--"i've no ambitions, so i'm a happy man. i döan't want nothing i haven't got, and so i haven't got nothing i döan't want." yes--there was no denying his father had been happy. but what a happiness! even there by his side reuben despised it. he, reuben, would never be happy till he had torn up that gorse and lopped those firs from the top of boarzell. in a kind of vision he saw the moor with wheatfields rolling up to the crest, he smelt the baking of glumes in brown sunlight, the dusty savour of the harvest-laden earth. he heard the thud of horses' hoofs and the lumber of waggon-wheels, the shouts of numberless farm-hands. that sinister waste, profitless now to every man, should be a source of wonder and wealth and fame. "odiam--the biggest farm in sussex. backfield made it. he bought boarzell moor acre by acre and fought it inch by inch, and now there's nothing like it in the south." ... he sprang up and went to the window, pulling back the curtain. the sun had gone, and the sky was a grey pool rimmed with gold and smoke. boarzell, his dreamland, stood like a dark cloud against it, shaggy and waste. there in the dimness it looked unconquerable. suppose he should be able to wring enough money from the grudging earth to buy that wilderness, would he ever be able to subdue it, make it bear crops? he remembered words from the bible which he had heard read in church--"canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?" he brought his fist down heavily on the sill. he was just as confident, just as resolute as before, but now for the first time he realised all that the battle would mean. he could fight this cruel, tough thing only by being cruel and tough himself. he must be ruthless as the wind that blustered over it, hard as the stones that covered it, wiry as the gorse-roots that twisted in its marl. he must be all this if he was even to start the fight. to begin with, he would have to make his mother and harry accept the new state of things. they must realise that the old soft life was over, that they would have to work, pull from the shoulder, sacrifice a hundred things to help fulfil his great ambition. he must not spare them--he must not spare anyone; he would not spare them, any more than he would spare himself. § . joseph backfield was buried four days later. his body was carried to the church in a hay-waggon, drawn by the meek horses which had drawn his plough. beside it walked blackman, the only farm-hand at odiam, in a clean smock, with a black ribbon tied to his hat. five men from other farms acted with him as bearers--they were volunteers, for old joseph had been popular in the neighbourhood, dealing sharply with no man. immediately behind the cart walked reuben with his mother on his arm. her face was hidden in a clumsy black veil, which the rye mantua-maker had assured her was the london fashion, and she was obviously ill at ease in the huge black shawl and voluminous skirts which the same fashion, according to the rye mantua-maker, had decreed. her hand pulled at reuben's sleeve and stroked it as if for comfort. it was a smallish hand, and wonderfully soft for a farmer's wife--but then mary backfield had not lived like an ordinary farmer's wife. under the thick veil, her face still had a certain soft colour and youthfulness, though she was nearly forty, and most women of her position were wrinkled and had lost their teeth by thirty-five. also the curves of her figure were still delicate. she had been cherished by her husband, had done only light household work for him and borne him only two children. she carried the tokens of her happiness in smooth surfaces and soft lines. after mrs. backfield and her eldest son, walked harry and his sweetheart, naomi gasson. they had been sweethearts just three months, and were such a couple as romance gloats over--young, comely, healthy, and full of love. years had perfected the good looks of "beautiful harry." he was a tall creature, lithe and straight as a birch tree. his face, agreeably tanned, glowed with youth, half dreamy, half riotous; his eyes were wild as a colt's, and yet tender. naomi was a fit mate for him, with a skin like milk, and hair the colour of tansy. she wore a black gown like mrs. backfield, but she had made it herself, and it was friendly to her, hinting all the graciousness of her immaturity. these two tried to walk dejectedly, and no doubt there was some fresh young sadness in their hearts, but every now and then their bodies would straighten with their happiness, and their eyes turn half afraid from each other's because they could not help smiling in spite of the drooped lips. then came old gasson, naomi's father, and well-known as a shipbuilder at rye--for this was a good match of harry's, and reuben hoped, but had no reason to expect, he would turn it to odiam's advantage. after him walked most of the farmers of the neighbourhood, come to see the last of a loved, respected friend. even pilbeam was there, from beyond dallington, and oake from boreham street. the squire himself had sent a message of condolence, though he had been unable to come to the funeral. reuben did not particularly want his sympathy. he despised the bardons for their watery liberalism and ineffectual efforts to improve their estates. it was about half a mile to the church--over the hanger of tidebarn hill. the morning was full of soft loamy smells, quickening under the february sun, which is so pale and errant, but sometimes seems to have the power to make the earth turn in its sleep and dream of spring. peasmarsh church-tower, squab like a toadstool, looked at itself in the little spread of water at the foot of the churchyard. beside this pool, darkened with winter sedges, stood parson barnaby, the curate-in-charge of peasmarsh, beckley, and iden. his boots under his surplice were muddy and spurred, for he had just galloped over from a wedding at iden, and his sweat dropped on the book as he read "i know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." before committing the body to the ground, he said a few words in praise of the dead man. he spoke of his generosity to his neighbours, his kindness to his dependents, his excellences as a husband and a father. "this, brethren, was indeed a man after god's own heart. he lived simply and blamelessly, contented with his lot, and seeking no happiness that did not also mean happiness to those around him. the call of the world"--by which mr. barnaby meant babylonish rye--"fell unheard on ears attuned to sweet domestic sounds. ambition could not stir him from the repose of his family circle. like a patriarch of old, he sat in peace under his vine and his fig-tree...." reuben stood motionless at the graveside, erect, like a soldier at attention. people in the crowd, who wearied of the dead man's virtues, whispered about the eldest son. "surelye!--he's a purty feller, is young ben. to-day he looks nearly as valiant as harry." "he's a stouter man than his brother." "stouter, and darker. what black brows he has, mus' piper!" "how straight he stands!" "i wäonder wot he's thinking of." § . reuben was strangely silent on the walk home. his mother made one or two small remarks which passed unheeded. she noticed that his arm, on which her hand lay, was very tense. when they came to the group of cottages at the forstal, a girl ran down the garden path and leaned against the fence. she was a pretty brown girl, and as they went by she smiled at reuben. but he did not seem to see her, he walked steadily on, and she slunk back to the house, biting her lips. "dudn't he see me, or wur he jest pretending not to?" she muttered. at odiam dinner was waiting. it was a generous meal, which combined the good things of this world with the right amount of funereal state. several of the neighbours had been invited, and the housewife wished to do them honour, knowing that her table boasted luxuries not to be found at other farms--a bottle of french wine, for instance, which though nobody touched it, gave distinction to the prevalent ale, and one or two light puddings, appealing to the eye as well as to the palate. as soon as the meal was over and the guests had gone, reuben took himself off, and did not reappear till supper-time. during dinner he had been even more thoughtful than the occasion warranted, leaving his mother and harry to talk to the company, though he had taken with a certain dignity his place as host and head of the house. now at supper he was still inclined to silence. a servant girl laid the dishes on the table, then retired. mrs. backfield and harry spoke in low tones to each other. ... "mother, how much did this chocolate cost wot we're drinking?" reuben's voice made them both jump. "how much? why, two shillings a pound," said mrs. backfield, rather surprised. "that's too much." reuben's brows and mouth were straight lines. "wot d'you mean, reuben?" "why, two shillings is too much fur farm-folks lik us to give fur a pound of chocolate. it's naun but a treat, and we can do wudout it." "but we've bin drinking chocolate fur a dunnamany years now--your poor fäather always liked it--and i döan't see why we should stop it." "look'ee, mother, i've something to tell you. i've a plan in my head, and it'll justabout mean being shut of a lot of things besides chocolate. i know fäather dudn't care much about the farm, about mäaking it grow and buying more land, and all that. but i do. i mean to buy the whole of boarzell." there was a gasping silence. "the whole of boarzell," repeated reuben. he might have said the whole world, to judge by his mother's and harry's faces. "yes--i mean every bit, even the bit grandturzel's got now. squire he wöan't be sorry to sell it, and i mean to buy it piece by piece. i'll buy my first piece at the end of this year. we must start saving money at wunst. but i can't do naun wudout you help me, you two." "wot d'you want to go buying boarzell fur?" asked mrs. backfield in a bewildered voice; "the farm's präaper as it is--we döan't want it no bigger." "and boarzell's wicked tedious stuff," put in harry; "naun'll grow there but gorse." "i'll have a good grain growing there in five year--döan't you go doubting it. the ground wants working, that's all. and as fur not wanting the farm no bigger, that wur fäather's idea--odiam's mine now." "why can't we jest go on being happy and comfortable, lik we wur before?" "because i've thought of something much grander, surelye. i'm going to mäake us all gurt people, and this a gurt farm. but you've got to help me, you and harry." "wot d'you want us to do?" "well, first of all, we must save all the money we can, and not go drinking chocolate and french wine, and eating sweet puddens and all such dentical stuff. and then, harry and me, we're valiant chaps, and there never wur enough work for us to do. i'm going to send blackman away--harry and i can do quite easily wudout him and save his wages." "send away blackman!--oh, ben, he's bin with us fifteen year." "i döan't care if he's bin a hunderd. there äun't enough work for three men on this farm, and it's a shame to go wasting ten shilling a week. oh, mother, can't you see how glorious it'll be? i know fäather wanted different, but i've bin thinking and dreaming of this fur years." "you always wur queer about boarzell. but your fäather 'ud turn in his grave to think of you sending off blackman." "he'll easily git another pläace--i'll find him one myself. and, mother--there's something more. now you haven't got fäather to work fur, you'll find the time unaccountable long. wot if you let becky go, and did the cooking and that yourself?" "oh, reuben...." "you shouldn't ought to ask mother that," said harry. "she 'äun't used to work. it's well enough fur you and me, we're strong chaps, and there's no reason we shouldn't pull to a bit. but mother, she'd never do wudout the girl--you see, there's the dairy and the fowls as well as the house." "we could help her out of doors." "lard!--you want some work!" reuben sprang to his feet. "yes--i do! you're justabout right there. i'm starved fur work. i've never really worked in my life, and now i want to work till i drop. look at my arm"--and he showed them his brown hairy arm, where the muscles swelled in lumps under the skin--"that's a workman's arm, and it's never worked yet--präaperly. you let me send off blackman and becky, and see how we manage wudout 'em. i'll do most of the work myself, i promise you. i couldn't have too much." "you're a queer lad, reuben--and more masterful than your poor fäather wur." "yes--i'm master here." he sat down, and looked round the table quite calmly. a vague uneasiness disturbed mrs. backfield and harry. for some unfathomable reason they both felt a little afraid of reuben. he finished his supper and went out of the kitchen. harry and his mother sat for a moment or two in silence. "he always wur queer about boarzell," said mrs. backfield at last; "you remember that time years ago when he got mixed up wud the riot? i said to his fäather then as i was sure ben 'ud want to do something crazy wud the farm. but i never thought he'd so soon be mäaster," and a tear trickled over her smooth cheek. "i döan't see no harm in his buying a bit of boarzell if it's going cheap--but it äun't worth mäaking all ourselves uncomfortable for it." "no. howsumdever, we can't stand agäunst him--the pläace is his'n, and he can do wot he likes." "hush--listen!" said harry. the sound of voices came from the passage outside the kitchen. reuben was talking to the girl. a word or two reached them. "durn! if he äun't getting shut of her!" "i never said as i'd do her work." harry sprang to his feet, but his mother laid her hand on his arm. "döan't you go vrothering him, lad. it'll only set him agäunst you, and i döan't care, not really; there'll be unaccountable liddle work to do in the house now your poor fäather's gone, and blackman wöan't be eating wud us. besides, as he said, i'll find the days a bit slow wud naun to occupy me." "but it's sass of him to go sending off the girl wudout your leave." "he's mäaster here." "ho! we shall see that." "now you're not to go quarrelling wud him, harry. i'd sooner have peace than anything whatsumdever. i äun't used to being set agäunst people. besides, it wöan't be fur long." "no--you're justabout right there. i ought to be able to wed naomi next april year, and then, mother--think of the dear liddle house we shall live in, you and she and i, all wud our own fields and garn, and no trouble, and ben carrying through his own silly consarns here by himself." "yes, dearie, i know, and it's unaccountable good of you and naomi to let me come wud you. i döan't think we should ought to mind helping your brother a bit here, when we've all that to look forrard to. but he's a strange lad, and your fäather 'ud turn in his grave to see him." § . for the next few months odiam was in a transitional state. it was gradually being divested of its old comfortable ways, and clad in new garments of endeavour. gradually the life grew harder, and gradually the tense thought, the knife-edged ambition at the back of all the changes, came forward and asserted themselves openly. harry and his mother had not realised till then how hard reuben could be. hitherto they had never truly known him, for he had hidden in himself his dominant passion. but now it was nakedly displayed, and they began to glimpse his iron and steel through the elusive nebulousness that had veiled them--as one might see the body of a steam-engine emerge through the clouds of draping smoke its activity has flung round it. they could not help wondering at his strenuousness, his unlimited capacity for work, though they failed to understand or sympathise with the object that inspired them. blackman, grumbling and perplexed, had gone off early in march to the milder energies of raisins farm; becky, for want of a place, had married the drover at kitchenhour--and it was no empty boast of reuben's that he would take the greater part of their work on his own shoulders. from half-past four in the morning till nine at night he laboured almost without rest. he drove the cows to pasture, milked them, and stalled them--he followed the plough over the spring-sown crops, he groomed and watered the horses, he fed the fowls, watched the clutches, fattened capons for market--he cleaned the pigsty, and even built a new one in a couple of strenuous days--he bent his back over his spade among the roots, over his barrow, wheeling loads of manure--he was like a man who has been starved and at last finds a square meal before him. he had all the true workman's rewards--the heart-easing ache of tired muscles, the good bath of sweat in the sun's heat, the delicious sprawl, every sinew limp and throbbing, in his bed at nights--and then sleep, dreamless, healing, making new. but though reuben bore the brunt of the new enterprise, he had no intention of sparing others their part. all that he by any exertions could do himself he did, but the things which inevitably he could not compass, because he had only two hands, one back, one head, and seven days a week to work in, must be done by others. he showed himself unexpectedly stiff, and mrs. backfield and harry found themselves obeying him as if he were not the son of the one and only a year older than the other. as a matter of fact, custom gave reuben authority, in spite of his years. he was the master, the eldest son inheriting his father's lordship with his father's farm. mrs. backfield and harry would have been censured by public opinion if they had set themselves against him. besides, what was the use?--it was only for a few months, and then harry would be in a little house of his own, living very like his father, though more dreamily, more delicately. then mrs. backfield would once more wear muslin aprons instead of sacking ones, would sit with her hands folded, kid shoes on the fender.... sometimes, in the rare moments they had together, harry would paint this wonderland for her. he had been left a small sum by his father--resulting from the sale of a water-meadow, and securely banked at rye. naomi, moreover, was well dowered; and tom gasson, anxious to see the young couple established, had promised to help them start a grass farm in the neighbourhood. the project had so far gone no further than discussion. reuben was opposed to it--he would have liked harry to stay on at odiam after his marriage; naomi, too, would be useful in many ways, her dowry supplying a much-felt want of capital. however, he realised that in this direction his authority had its limits. he was powerless to prevent harry leaving odiam, and there was nothing to do but to wring as much as possible out of him while he stayed. of his mother's planned escape he knew nothing. naomi often came over to odiam, driving in her father's gig. reuben disliked her visits, for they meant harry's abandonment of spade and rake for the weightier matters of love. reuben, moiling more desperately than ever, would sometimes catch a glimpse of her coloured gown through the bushes of some coppice, or skirting a hedge beside harry's corduroy. he himself spoke to her seldom. he could not help being conscious of her milky sweetness, the soft droop of her figure under its muslins, her voice full of the music of stock-doves. but he disliked her, partly because she was taking harry from odiam, partly because he was jealous of harry. it ought to be he who was to make a wealthy marriage, not his brother. he chafed to think what naomi's money might do for the farm if only he had control of it. marriage was beginning to enter into his scheme. some day he must marry and beget children. as the farm grew he would want more hands to work it, and he would like to think of others carrying on its greatness after he was dead. he must marry a woman with money and with health, and he was not so dustily utilitarian as not also to demand something of youth and good looks. since his father's death he had denied himself woman's company, after two years lived in the throb and sweetness of it. a warm and vigorous temperament, controlled by a strong will, had promised a successful libertinism, and more than once he had drunk the extasies of passion without those dregs which spoil it for the more weakly dissolute. but now, with that same fierce strength and relentless purpose which had driven him to do the work of two men, to live hard, and sleep rough, he renounced all the delights which were only just beginning. henceforth, with his great ambition before him, there could be nothing but marriage--prudent, solid, and constructive. his girl at the forstal knew him no more, nor any of her kind. he had set himself to build a house, and for the sake of that house there was nothing, whether of his own or of others, that he could not tame, break down, and destroy. § . by the end of the year reuben had saved enough money to buy five acres of boarzell, in the low grounds down by totease. he had saved chiefly on the wages of blackman and becky, though, against that, he had been forced to engage outside help for the hay in june, and also for the wheat in august. however, he had been lucky enough to secure tramp labour for this, which meant payment largely in barn-room and bread. then there had been a host of minor retrenchments, each in itself so small as to be almost useless, but mounting together into something profitable. chocolate had vanished from the odiam supper-table, their bread was made of seconds, the genuines being sold to iden mill; they ate no meat on week-days except bacon, and eggs were forbidden in puddings. reuben managed to get a small sale for his eggs and milk at the manor and the curate's house, though he had not enough cows and poultry to make his dealing of much advantage. mrs. backfield was the one to bear the brunt of these economies. she had been a trifle pampered during the latter days of her marriage, and set far more store than her sons on dainty food; also the work which she performed so well was a tax on her unaccustomedness. but she never grumbled, and this was not only because escape was near at hand. strange to say, in these new days of his lordship, reuben began to fill a place in her heart which he had never filled before. while her husband was alive, he had never really come inside her life, he had been an aloof, inarticulate being whom she did not understand. but now that he had asserted himself, she found herself turning towards him. she would have worked without prospect of release--indeed, as the days went by, harry and his home and her promised idleness dwindled in her thoughts. when reuben told her he could now buy his first piece of boarzell, she went through the day's work full of joy. though, as far as the land itself was concerned, she would far rather have had new chintz covers for the parlour chairs. they never sat in the parlour now. harry's pleasure was obviously insincere, just a mask put on out of kindness to his brother. naomi was coming over on a few days' visit, and everything else was smoke. no one, reuben reflected, as he walked over to flightshot to see sir miles's agent, no one cared a rap about boarzell. his mother thought more of her food and of her furniture, thought more of him and harry, while harry thought of nothing but naomi. he would have to wage his fight alone. the transaction was prompt and satisfactory. reuben did not haggle over the price, and was careful to let the agent know of his eagerness to buy more--otherwise, he was afraid that the squire might either give the land back to the people, pushed by his liberal politics, or else part with it for a song to some speculator. so he paid really a bit more than the land was worth, and made the agent a confidant of his dreams. "it'll want a tedious lot of fighting, will that plot," he asserted, to counteract any idea his eagerness might give that boarzell was a mine of hidden fertility--"dunno as i shall mäake anything out of it. but it's land i want--want to mäake myself a sort of landed praprietor"--a lie--"and raise the old farm up a bit. i'd like to have the whole of boarzell. reckon as grandturzel 'ud sell me their bit soon as i've got the rest. they'll never mäake anything out of it." he walked home over boarzell, scarcely conscious of the ground he trod. he felt like a new-crowned king. as he looked round on the swart hummocks of the moor, and its crest of firs, dim and bistred against the grey afternoon clouds, he found it hard to realise that it was not all his, that he still had almost the whole of it to fight for, acre by acre. he hurried towards his own little plot, bought, but as yet unconquered, still shagged with gorse and brittle with shards. it was down in the hollow by totease, as unpromising an estate as one could wish, all on a slope, gorse-grown at the top, then a layer of bracken, and at the totease fence a kind of oozy pulp, where a lavant dribbled in and out of the grass; to reuben, however, it was a land of milk and honey. he turned up the soil of it with his foot, and blessed the wealden clay. "no flints here," he said; "reckon there's some stiff ground on the hill--but it's only the surface. heather äun't growing--that's a tedious good sign. i'll have oats here--the best in peasmarsh." he stood staring at the grass with its dribbles of lavant and spines of rushes. the wind brought the sound of someone singing. at first he scarcely noticed, then gradually the song worked in with his daydream, and ended by rousing him out of it. he strolled across his domain, and marked half a dozen sturdy willows which must come out somehow roots and all. he climbed into the bracken zone, and from thence saw harry sitting by a gorse thicket some hundred yards off with naomi gasson. the wind puffed gently towards him, bringing him the song and the soft peach-smell of the gorse. harry was a musician already of note among the farms; he had a beautiful voice, and there was very little he could not do with his fiddle, though of late this had been neglected for the claims of work and love. to-day he was singing an old song reuben knew well--"the song of seth's house": "'the blackbird flew out from the eaves of the manor, the manor of seth in the sussex countrie, and he carried a prayer from the lad of the manor, a prayer and a tear to his faithless ladie. "'to the lady who lives in the grange by the water, the water of iron in the sussex countrie, the lad of seth's house prays for comfort and pity-- have pity, my true love, have pity on me! "'o why when we loved like the swallows in april, should beauty forget now their nests have grown cold? o why when we kissed 'mid the ewes on the hanger, should you turn from me now that they winter in fold? "'o why, because sickness hath wasted my body, should you do me to death with your dark treacherie? o why, because brothers and friends all have left me, should you leave me too, o my faithless ladie? "'one day when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow, and years of despair and remorse been your fate, perhaps your cold heart will remember seth's manor, and turn to your true love--and find it too late.'" harry's voice was very loud and clear, with that element of wildness which is a compensation for no training. when he had finished "the song of seth's house" he started another, but broke off in the middle of it, and reuben saw the two heads suddenly droop together, and fuse, the golden hair and the brown. naomi leaned against harry, and his hand stole up and down her arm, stroking its whiteness. reuben stood watching them, and for a moment he hungered. this was what he had cast away. he turned from them sharply, and threw himself down on the dead bracken. then suddenly the hunger passed. the reek of the moist earth rose up in his nostrils; it was the scent of his love, who was sweeter to him than ever naomi was to harry. his hand stole over the short, mould-smelling grass, caressing it. he had a love more beautiful than harry's, whose comeliness would stay unwithered through the years, whose fruitfulness would make him great, whose allure was salted with a hundred dangers.... his fingers dug themselves into the earth, and he embraced boarzell with wide-flung trembling arms. "my land!" he cried--"mine!--mine!" § . the neighbourhood sniggered when it heard of odiam's new land. when it heard of reuben's plans for it and the oats that were to be it grew openly derisive. the idea of anyone thinking he could grow oats on boarzell was an excellent joke. young backfield, however, ignored public opinion, and bought rape-dust for manure. he was as jealous of this strip of earth as of a wife--he would allow nobody to work there but himself. alone and unhelped he grubbed up the bracken, turned the soil, and scattered rape-dust and midden till they had to shut their windows at burntbarns. he believed that if the ground was properly manured it would be ready for sowing in the autumn. the only difficulty now was the trees; they were casting malevolent shadows, and dredging up the goodness out of the earth. where ditch of totease or vennal of burntbarns would have taken a couple of woodmen and a saw, reuben took nothing but an axe and his bare arms. his muscles ached for this new carouse of exertion. "let me give you a hand," said harry that day at dinner. "no--why should i?" "you'll never do it yourself," said naomi, who was spending a few days at odiam. "oh, wöan't i!" and reuben showed his strong white teeth. "how many trees are there?" "half a dozen--willers. the real trouble will be gitting their roots out." "and will you do that alone?" "i'll see about it." naomi looked across at reuben without speaking. her lips, a pale coral-pink, were parted, showing two tiny teeth. she was not the type he favoured--she was too soft and bloodless--but he could not help feeling flattered by the frank admiration he saw in her eyes. he knew that this last year of wind and sun and healthy work had narrowed the gulf between him and beautiful harry. he was as hard as iron and as brown as a nut, and there was a warm red glowing through the swarthiness of his cheeks like the bloom on a russet pear. harry looked up from his plate, and the gaze became three-cornered. reuben, defiant of his brother, grew bold, and ogled, whereupon naomi grew timid, and dropped her eyes; harry found himself speaking with a rasp: "i'm coming to help you, reuben. you'll never tackle them rootses--it äun't everything you can do surelye!" "i can do that much. you stay here and play the fiddle to naomi." harry somehow felt he had been insulted, and opened his mouth to retort. but his brother suddenly began talking about an accident to a labourer at grandturzel, and the occasion dropped. after dinner reuben set out with his axe, and harry and naomi sat together on the floor beside the kitchen fire. he gave her kisses like the wind, swift and cool. she was the only woman he had kissed, and she had never been kissed by any other man. their love had its wildnesses, but not the wildnesses of fire--rather of the dancing boughs of some spring-caught wood, rioting together in may. now and then he would sing as he held her to him, his fresh young voice ringing up to the roof.... later in the afternoon they went out together. it seemed a pity to stay indoors in the soft swale, and harry had to look at some poultry at doozes. naomi walked with her arm through his, her grey cloak over her shoulders. "i wonder if reuben's still at it?" said harry, as the footpath began to skirt the new land. "yes--i see him yonder. he doesn't see us, i reckon." they stood on the hillside and looked down at reuben. he had felled five trees, and was now getting his axe into the sixth. they watched him in silence, and naomi found herself remembering the way he had looked at her at dinner. "he's a valiant man," said harry. naomi saw him sweep the axe above his shoulder, and the ease and strength of his swing gave her a strange tingling sensation in her breast. the axe crashed into the wood, then reuben pulled it up, and the muscles of his back made two long, ovoid lumps under his blue shirt. again the axe swung and fell, again naomi's body tingled as with a physical exhilaration. the january twilight deepened, and soon reuben's blue shirt was all that was clear in the hollow. the bites of the axe cracked out on the still air--and suddenly with a soft swish of boughs the tree fell. § . that night reuben came to supper as hungry as a wolf. he was in a fine good humour, for his body, pleasantly tired, glowing, aching, tickled with the smell of food, was giving him a dozen agreeable sensations. "got some splendid fire-wood fur you, mother," he said after a few minutes' silence enforced by eating. "and wot about the rootses?" asked harry, "wull you be digging those out to-morrer? it'll be an unaccountable tough job." "oh, i've found a way of gitting shut of them rootses--thought of it while i wur working at the trees. i'm going to blast 'em out." "blast 'em!" "yes. blast 'em wud gunpowder. i've heard of its being done. i'd never dig all the stuff out myself--yards of it there be--willer rootses always wur hemmed spready." "it's never bin done in these parts." "well, it'll be done now, surelye. it'll show the folk here i mean business--and that i'm a chap wud ideas." there was indeed a mild excitement in the farms round boarzell when reuben's new plan became known. in those times gunpowder was seldom used for such purposes, and the undertaking was looked upon as a treat and a display.... "backfield's going to bust up his willer-rootses--fine sight it'll be--like as not blow his own head off--i'll be there to see." so when reuben came to his territory the next afternoon he found a small crowd assembled--ditch, ginner, realf of grandturzel, coalbran of doozes, pilcher of birdseye, with a sprinkling of their wives, families, and farm-hands. he himself had brought naomi, and harry was to join them when he came back from an errand to moor's cottage. reuben felt a trifle important and in need of spectators. this was to be the crowning act of conquest. when those roots were shattered away there would be nothing but time and manure between him and the best oat-crop in peasmarsh. a quarter of an hour passed, and there was no sign of harry. reuben grew impatient, for he wanted to have the ground tidied up by sunset. it was a wan, mould-smelling afternoon, and already the sun was drifting through whorls of coppery mist towards the shoulder of boarzell. reuben looked up to the gorse-clump on the ridge, from behind which he expected harry to appear. "i can't wait any longer," he said to naomi, "something's kept him." "he'll be disappointed," said naomi softly. "i can't help that--the sun's near down, and i must have everything präaper by dark." he went to where the fuse lay like a snake in the grass, and struck his flint. "stand back everybody; i'm going to start her." the group huddled back a few yards. the little flame writhed along towards the stump. there was silence. reuben stood a little way in front of the others, leaning forward with eager, parted lips. suddenly naomi cried out: "there's harry!" a shadow appeared against the copper sky, and ran towards them down the hill. for a moment nobody seemed to realise what was boding. then they heard a shout that sounded like "wait for me!" naomi felt something rise in her throat and sear the roof of her mouth like a hot cinder. she tried to scream, but her parched tongue would not move. she staggered forward, but reuben flung her back. "stop!" he shouted. harry did not seem to hear. "stop!" yelled reuben again. then he cried, "stand back!" to the crowd, and ran towards his brother. but it was too late. there was a sudden roar, a sheet of flame, a crash, a dreadful scream, and then a far more dreadful silence. one or two flames sang out of a hole in the ground, but scarcely anything could be seen for the pall of smoke that hung over boarzell, black, and evil-smelling. the fumes made men choke, then they shuddered and drew together, for through the smell of smoke and gunpowder came the horrible smell of burnt flesh. reuben was lying on his face a few yards in front of the others. for some seconds nobody moved. then backfield slowly raised himself on his arms. "i'm not hurt," he said in a shaking voice. "harry!" cried naomi, as if someone were strangling her. reuben tottered to his feet. his face was black, and he was still half stunned by the explosion. "harry!" cried naomi--and then fainted. the smoke clouds were lifting, and now everyone could see a smouldering object that lay close to the hole, among bits of wood and stone. reuben ran towards it, ditch and realf followed him. the others huddled stupidly together like sheep. "his clothes are still burning--here, help me, you!" cried reuben, beating at the flames with his hands. "he's dead," said realf. "oh lord!" wailed ditch--"oh lord!" "he's bin hit on the head wud a piece of wood. i reckon he died painlessly. all this came afterwards." "wipe the blood off his face." "tell his poor girl he died wudout suffering." "he äun't dead," said reuben. he had torn off the rags from his brother's heart, and felt it beating. "he äun't dead." "oh lord!" wailed ditch.--"oh lord!" "here, you chaps, fetch a gëat and put him on it--and döan't let naomi see him." naomi had been taken back to odiam, when harry, still motionless and apparently dead, was lifted on a gate, and borne away. dark curds of smoke drifted among the willows, and the acrid smell of powder clung to the hillside like an evil ghost. the place where harry had lain was marked by charred and trampled grass, and a great pool of blood was sinking into the ground ... it seemed to reuben, as he turned shudderingly away, as if boarzell were drinking it up--eagerly, greedily, as a thirsty land drinks up its first watering. § . dr. espinette from rye stood glumly by harry's bed. his finger lay on the fluttering pulse, and his eye studied the little of the sick man's face that could be seen between its bandages. "it's a bad business," he said at last; "that wound in the head's the worst of it. the burns aren't very serious in themselves. you must keep him quiet, and i'll call again to-morrow morning." "when ull he wäake up?" asked mrs. backfield in the feeble voice her tears had left her. "i don't know--it may be in an hour or two, it mayn't be for a week." "a week!" "i've known them unconscious longer than that. but, cheer up, ma'am--we're not going to let him slip past us." the doctor went away, and after a time reuben was able to persuade his mother to go and lie down in the next room. he had quite recovered from the shock of the explosion; indeed, he was now the only calm person in the house. he sat down by harry's bed, gazing at the unconscious face. how horrible everything had been! how horrible everything was still, with that loggish, inanimate thing lying there, all that was left of beautiful harry. reuben wondered if he would die. if so, he had killed him--he had ignored his own inexperience and played splashy tricks with his new land. but no--he had not killed him--it was boarzell, claiming a victim in the signal-rite of its subjection. he remembered how that thirsty ground had drunk up harry's blood. perhaps it would drink up much more blood before he had done with it--perhaps it would one day drink up his blood.... a vague, a sudden, a ridiculous fear clutched his thoughts; for the first time he felt afraid of the thing he had set out to conquer--for the first time boarzell was not just unfruitful soil, harsh heather clumps and gorse-roots--it was something personal, opposing, vindictive, blood-drinking. he sprang to his feet and began pacing up and down the room. the window square was black. he was glad he could not see boarzell with its knob of firs. gradually the motion of his legs calmed his thoughts, he fell to pondering more ordinary things--had his mother remembered to stand the evening's milk in the cream pans? she had probably forgotten all about the curate's butter to be delivered the next morning. what had harry done about those mangolds at moor's cottage? durn it! he would have to do all the work of the farm to-morrow--how he was to manage things he didn't know, what with the dairy and the new chicks and the alderney having garget. he stopped pacing, and chin in hand was considering the expediency of engaging outside help, when a voice from the bed cried feebly: "oh!" reuben went to harry's side, and bent over him. "oh," moaned his brother, "oh!--oh!" "i'm here, old feller," said reuben with a clumsy effort at tenderness. "bring a light, do--i can't abide this dark." reuben fetched the candle to the bedside. "where's naomi?" "she's asleep. do you want her?" "no--let her sleep. but bring me a light fur marcy's sake." "i've brought it--it's here by the bed." "i can't see it." "you must--it's right in your eyes." "i can't--oh!" he started up in bed and gripped his brother's hand. he thrust his head forward, his eyeballs straining. "take it away! take it away!" he screamed. "wot?" cried reuben, sick with the new-born terror. "that black stuff in front of my eyes. take it away! take it away!" he tore his hand free, and began clawing and beating at his face. reuben's teeth were chattering. "kip calm, lad--kip calm. there's naun there, naun, i tell you." "oh, oh!"--screamed harry--"oh, oh, oh!" the outcry brought mrs. backfield from the next room, naomi shivering in her wake. reuben was trying to hold harry down in bed. through the long night they wrestled with him, blind and raving. at first it seemed as if naomi's presence soothed him, and he would let her stroke his arms and hands. but after a time he ceased to recognise her. he gabbled about her a good deal, but did not know she was there. his delirium was full of strange tags--a chicken brood he was raising, a sick cow, a jaunt into rye with realf of grandturzel, a dozen harmless homely things which were all transfused with an alien horror, all somehow made frightful, so that reuben felt he could never look on chickens, cows or rye again without a shudder. sometimes there were crises of extraordinary violence when he was with difficulty held down in bed, and these at last wore him out. towards dawn he fell into a troubled sleep. naomi slept too, huddled in a chair, every now and then a sob quivering through her. the winter dawn slowly crept in on her, showing her pitiful figure--showing mrs. backfield sick and puffy with tears, reuben dry-eyed beside the bed, and harry respited in sleep. outside the crest of boarzell was once more visible in the growing light--dark, lumpish, malevolent, against the kindling of the sky. § . the next few days were terrible, in the house and on the farm. indoors the women nursed harry, and outdoors reuben did double work, sleeping at night in an arm-chair by his brother's side. harry had recovered consciousness, but it could not be said that he had "come to himself." "beautiful harry," with all his hopes and ardours, his dreams and sensibilities, had run away like a gipsy, and in his place was a new harry, blind and mad, who moaned and laughed, with stony silences, and now and then strange fits of struggling as if the runaway gipsy strove to come back. dr. espinette refused to say whether this state was permanent or merely temporary. neither could he be sure whether it was due to his injuries or to the shock of finding himself blind. reuben felt practically convinced that his brother was sane during the few moments he had spoken to him alone, but the doctor seemed doubtful. reuben was glad to escape into his farm work. the atmosphere of sickness was like a cloud, which grew blacker and blacker the nearer one came to its heart. its heart was that little room in the gable, where he spent those wretched nights, disturbed by harry's moaning. out of doors, in the yard or the cowshed or the stable, he breathed a cleaner atmosphere. the heaviness, the vague remorse, grew lighter. and strange to say, out on boarzell, which was the cause of his trouble, they grew lightest of all. somehow out there was a wider life, a life which took no reck of sickness or horror or self-reproach. the wind which stung his face and roughed his hair, the sun which tanned his nape as he bent to his work, the smell of the earth after rain, the mists that brewed in the hollows at dusk, and at dawn slunk like spirits up to the clouds ... they were all part of something too great to take count of human pain--so much greater than he that in it he could forget his trouble, and find ease and hope and purpose--even though he was fighting it. he mildly scandalised his neighbours by blasting--privately this time--the tree stumps yet in the ground. according to their ethics he should have accepted harry's accident as the voice of providence and abstained from his outlandish methods--also some felt that it was a matter of delicacy and decent feeling not to repeat that which had had such dire consequences for his brother. "i wonder he can bear to do it," said ginner, when 'bang! bang!' came over the hummocks to socknersh. but reuben did it because he was not going to be beaten in any respect by his land. he was not going to accept defeat in the slightest instance. so he blew up the stumps, tidied the ground, and spread manure--and more manure--and yet more manure. manure was his great idea at that moment. he had carefully tilled and turned the soil, and he fed it with manure as one crams chickens. it was of poor quality marl, mostly lime on the high ground, with a larger proportion of clay beside the ditch. reuben's plan was to fatten it well before he sowed his seed. complaints of his night-soil came all the way from grandturzel; vennal, humorously inclined, sent him a bag of rotten fish; on the rare occasions his work allowed him to meet other farmers at the cocks, his talk was all of lime, guano, and rape-cake, with digressions on the possibilities of seaweed. he was manure mad. the neighbours despised and mistrusted his enthusiasm. there he was, thinking of nothing but his land, when harry, his only brother, lay worse than dying. but reuben often thought of harry. one thing he noticed, and that was that the housework was always done for him by his mother as if there were no sickness to fill her time. always when he came home of an evening, his supper was waiting for him, hot and savoury. he breakfasted whenever he had a mind, and there were slices of cold pie or dabs of bread and meat for him to take out and eat as he worked--he had no time to come home to dinner now. really his mother was tumbling to things wonderfully well--she looked a little tired sometimes, it is true, and the lines of her face were growing thinner, but she was saving him seven shillings a month and the girl's food; and all that money and food was feeding the hungry earth. naomi helped her with the nursing, and also a little about the house. she had refused to go home to rye, though harry did not seem to recognise her. "for sometimes," she said, "i think he does." § . towards the middle of february a change took place in harry. at first it was little more than a faint creep of life, putting a little glow in his cheeks, a little warmth in his blood. then the wounds which had been healing so slowly began to heal quickly, his appetite returned, and he slept long and sweetly at nights. mrs. backfield's hope rekindled, but the doctor soon damped it down. this sudden recrudescence of physical health was a bad sign, for there was no corresponding revival of intellect, and now the prostration of the body could no longer account for the aberration of the mind. it was unlikely that harry would ever recover his wits--the injuries to his skull, either with or without the shock of his blindness, had definitely affected his brain. the strong, clear will, the gay spirits, the quick understanding, the tender sensibilities which had made him so bright and lovable a being, were gone--how much of shreds and scraps they had left behind them to build up the semblance of a man, did not yet appear. his looks would be only slightly marred. it was the optic nerve which had been destroyed, and so far there was nothing ugly in the eyes themselves, except their vacant rolling. the eyelashes and eyebrows had been burnt off, but they were growing again, and a scar on his cheek and another on his forehead were not likely to show much in a few weeks' time. but all the life, the light, the soul had gone out of his face--it was like a house which had been gutted, with walls and roof still standing, yet with its essential quality gone from it, a ruin. reuben thought long and anxiously about his brother. he did not speak much of him to his mother or naomi, for he knew that they would not understand the problem that confronted him. he felt worn by the extra load of work, and his brain fretted, spoiling his good sleep. he was back in his own room now, but he slept worse than in harry's; he would lie awake fighting mentally, just as all day he had fought physically--life was a continuous fight. it was hard that just at the outset of his enterprise, fresh obstacles should be thrown in his way. he saw that it was practically impossible for him to go on working as he did; already he was paying for it in stiff muscles, loss of appetite, fitful sleep, and drugged wakings. also he was growing irritable and frayed as to temper. if he went on much longer doing the work of three men--he had always done the work of two--he would end by breaking up completely, and then what would become of odiam? he would have to engage outside help, and that would mean quite ten shillings a week--ten shillings a week, two pounds a month, twenty-six pounds a year, the figures were like blisters in his head during the long restless nights. they throbbed and throbbed through his dreams. he would have to spend twenty-six pounds a year, just when he was saving so desperately to buy more land and fatten what he already had. and in addition he would have to pay for harry's keep. not only must he engage a man to do his work, but he would have to support in absolute idleness harry himself. he was quite unfit for farm work, he would be nothing but an expense and an incubus. in those dark furious hours, reuben would wish his brother had died. it was not as if life could be sweet to him. it was terrible to see him mouching and mumbling about the house, to hold even the brief converse with him which everyday life enforced. he had not as yet grown used to his blindness, indeed it would be difficult for him to do so without wits to stimulate and direct his other senses, and it was dreadful to see him tumbling over furniture, breaking things and crying afterwards, spilling food on his clothes and his beard--for now that he could not shave himself, and others had no time to do it for him, he wore a large fair beard, which added to his uncouthness. oh that his brother had died! one day reuben was so tired that he fell asleep over his supper. his mother cleared the table round him, glancing at him with fond, submissive eyes. each day she had come to love him more, with an obedient love, almost instinctive and elemental, which she had never felt for the gentle husband or considerate son. this evening she laid her shawl over his shoulders, and went to her washing-up. suddenly a weird noise came from the parlour, a strange groaning and wailing. reuben woke up, and rubbed his eyes. what was that? it was horrible, it was uncanny--and for him it also had that terrifying unnaturalness which a sudden waking gives even to the most ordinary sounds. then gradually out of the horror beauty began to grow. the sound passed into an air, faltering at first, then flowing--"dearest ellen," on harry's violin. "i'm glad he's found something to amuse him, poor son," said mrs. backfield, coming in to see if reuben had waked. "he's not playing badly, is he, mother?" "not at all. they say as sometimes blind folk are unaccountable good at music." reuben did not answer; she knew by his attitude--chin in hand--that he was thinking. that night he thought it out. munds of starvecrow had had a brother who fiddled at fairs and weddings and earned, so munds said, thirty pounds a year. he had also heard of others who made as good a thing of it. if harry earned thirty pounds a year he would pay the wages of an extra farm-hand and also something towards his own keep. they must find out exactly how many of the old tunes he remembered, and get somebody musical to teach him new ones. the idea prospered in reuben's thoughts that night. the next morning he was full of it, and confided it to his mother and naomi. naomi, a little paler and more wistful than of old, still spent an occasional day or two at odiam. at first she had made these visits for harry's sake, flattering herself that he was the better for her presence; then when even her faith began to fail, she still came, partly to help mrs. backfield, partly driven by such feelings as might drive an uneasy ghost to haunt the house of his tragedy. reuben saw little of her, for his work claimed him, but he liked to feel she was there, helping his mother with work which it was difficult for her to carry through alone to odiam's best advantage. she heard of reuben's plan with some shrinking. "he--he wouldn't like it," she stammered after a pause. "you'll never go sending our harry to fiddle at fairs," said mrs. backfield. "why not? there's naun shameful in it. munds's brother did it for twenty years. and think of the difference it'll mäake to us--thirty pound or so a year, instead of the dead loss of harry's keep and the wages of an extra man beside. i tell you, mother, i wur fair sick about the farm till i thought of this." "it's always the farm wud you, reuben. you might sometimes think of your own kin." "i tell you harry wöan't mind--he'll like it. it'll be something to occupy him. besides, hem it all, mother! you can't expect me to kip him idling here, wud the farm scarce started yet, and nearly the whole of boarzell still to buy." but it was useless to expect either mrs. backfield or naomi to appreciate the momentousness of his task. were women always, he wondered, without ambition? however, though they did not sympathise, they would not oppose him--naomi because she was not skilful at opposition, his mother because he was gradually taking the place of harry in her heart. he had more trouble when a day or so later he asked naomi to inspect harry's musical equipment. "you see, i döan't know one tune from another, so i can't do it myself. you might git him to play one or two things over to you, naomi, and find out what he remembers." "i'd rather not," said naomi, shuddering. "why?" "oh--i just can't." "but why?" she could not tell him. if he did not understand how every note from harry's violin would jab and tear the tortured memories she was trying to put to sleep--if he did not understand that of himself, she would never be able to explain it to him. as a matter of fact he did understand, but he was resolute. "help me, naomi," he pleaded, "fur i can't manage wudout you." his eyes searched her face. people who met him only casually were generally left with the impression that he had black eyes, but as a matter of fact they were dark blue. a hidden power forced naomi's eyes to meet them ... they were narrow and deep-set, with extraordinarily long lashes. she gazed into them for a moment without speaking. then suddenly her own filled with an expression of hatred, and she ran out of the room. but he had won his point. that evening naomi made harry play over his "tunes," while reuben sat in the chimney corner watching them both. harry's memory was erratic--he would play through some well-known airs quite correctly up to a certain point, and then interpolate hysterical variations of his own. at other times memory failed him altogether, but his natural quickness of ear seemed to have increased since his blindness, and it only needed naomi to sing the passage over for him to fill up the gaps. she took him through "the woodpecker tapping," "dearest ellen," "i'd mourn the hopes that leave me," "the song of seth's house," and "the blue bells of scotland." each one of them was torment to her gentle heart, as it woke memory after memory of courtship--on the gorse-slopes of boarzell, among the chasing shadows of iden wood, on the rother marshes by thornsdale, where the river slinks up from the fivewatering ... or in this very kitchen here, where the three of them, divided from one another by dizzy gaps of suffering, desire and darkness, were gathered together in a horrible false association. but harry's face was blank, no memories seemed to stir for him, he just fiddled on, now and then receiving naomi's corrections with an outbreak of childish temper. on these occasions reuben would stamp his foot and speak to him in a loud, angry voice which inevitably made him behave himself. naomi always took advantage of these returns to docility, but later that evening in the dairy, she suddenly swung round on mrs. backfield and exclaimed petulently: "i hate that ben of yours!" § . harry made good progress, and reuben decided that he was to start his career at the october fair. there had been a fiddler at the fair for years, partly for the lasses and lads to dance to, partly for the less bacchic entertainments of their elders. it was at the fair that men took his measure, and engaged him accordingly for weddings and such festivals. luck would have it that for the last two years there had been no official fiddler--old abel pinch having been seduced by a semi-urban show, which wandered round london, camping on waste grounds and commons. the musical element had been supplied by strays, and reuben had no doubt but that he should now be able to instal his brother honourably as chief musician. he advertised him in the neighbourhood for some weeks beforehand, and gossip ran high. condemnation of backfield's ruthlessness in exploiting his brother was combined with a furtive admiration of his smartness as a business man. it was extraordinary how little he cared about "lowering himself," a vital matter with the other farmers of his position. just as he had thought nothing of working his own farm instead of indulging in the dignity of hired labour, so he thought nothing of making money at boarzell fair with the gipsies and pikers. naomi no longer protested. for one thing harry seemed to like his fiddling, and was quite overjoyed at the prospect of playing at the fair. strangely enough, he remembered the fair and its jollities, though he had forgotten all weightier matters of life and love. "where shall i stand?--by the gipsies' tent?--or right forrard by the stalls? i'd like to stand by the stalls, and then maybe when i'm not fiddling they'll give me sweeties." "you must behave yourself," said reuben, in the tones he would have used to a child--"you mustn't go vrothering people to give you sweeties." "i'll give you some sweeties, harry," said naomi. "oh, will you?--then i'll love you!" naomi turned away with a shudder, her eyes full of inexpressible pain. reuben looked after her as she went out of the room, then he took a couple of strides and caught her up in the passage. "it's i who'm täaking you to the fair, remember," he said, his hand on her arm. "oh, no ... i couldn't go to the fair." "nonsense--you're coming wud me." "oh, ben, don't make me go." it was the cry of her weakness to his purpose. "i shall mäake you ... dear." she flung herself from him, and ran upstairs. that night at supper she took no notice of him, talking garrulously all the time to mrs. backfield. but she went to the fair. in the soft grey gown that the first of the cold demanded she walked with her arm through reuben's up the moor. her bonnet was the colour of heather, tied with wide ribbons that accentuated the milkiness of her chin. reuben wore his sunday clothes--drab shorts and a sprigged waistcoat, and a wide-brimmed hat under which his face looked strangely handsome and dark. harry shuffled along, clutching his brother's coat-sleeve to guide himself. mrs. backfield preferred to stay at home, and reuben had not tried to make her come. all peasmarsh went to the fair. it was a recognised holiday. all farm work--except the most barely necessary--was put aside, and the ploughman and dairymaid rollicked with their betters. the road across boarzell was dark with them, coming from all quarters--playden, iden, beckley, northiam, bodiam--old turk's farm, baron's grange, corkwood, kitchenhour--even from blackbrook and ethnam on the kentish border. the tents and stalls were blocked as usual round the central crest of pines. it was all much as it had been five years ago on the day of the riot. there was the outer fringe of strange dwellings--tents full of smoke and sprawling squalling children, tilt carts with soup-pots hanging from their axles over little fires, and gorgeously painted caravans which stood out aristocratically amidst the prevalent sacking. there was a jangle of voices--the soft romany of the gipsies, the shriller cant of the pikers and half-breeds, the broad drawling sussex of the natives. head of all the fair, and superintending the working of the crazy merry-go-round, was gideon teazel, a rock-like man, son, he said, of a lord and a woman of the rosamescros or hearnes. he stood six foot eight in his boots and could carry a heifer across his shoulders. his wife aurora, a pure-bred gipsy, told fortunes, and was mixed up in more activities than would appear from her sleepy manner or her invariable position, pipe in mouth, on the steps of her husband's caravan. gideon loved to display his devotion for her by grotesque endearments and elephantine caresses--due no doubt to the gaujo strain in him, for the true gipsies always treated their women in public as chattels or beasts of burden, though privately they were entirely under their thumbs. reuben brought naomi and harry into the middle of the fair. many people stared at them. it was harry's first public appearance since his illness, and one or two comments louder than the general hum came to naomi's ears and made them pink. harry was soon established on the upturned cask beside the fighting booth which had always been the fiddler's place. he began to play at once--"nice young maidens"--to all appearances quite indifferent to the jostle round him. naomi could not help marvelling at reuben, too--he was so cool, possessed and assured, so utterly without anything in the way of embarrassment or self-consciousness. wonder was succeeded by wrath--how dare he be calm in the face of such terrible things? she tried to pull her hand out of his arm, but he held his elbow close to his side, and the little hand lay there like an imprisoned mouse. "let's go away," she whispered, half nervously and half angrily, "i hate standing here." "i want to see how he's going to manage," said reuben. "what'll he do when he comes to the end of this tune?" "oh, do let's go away." he did not answer, but stood there imperturbable, till harry, having successfully finished "nice young maidens," started "the woodpecker tapping" without any ado. "he's safe enough now--we may as well go and have a look round." naomi followed him out of the little crowd which had grouped round harry, and they wandered into the panorama tent to see the show. after having sat for half an hour on a crowded bench, in an atmosphere thick with foul tobacco and the smell of clothes long stored away--watching "the coronation of queen victoria" and "scenery on the west coast of scotland" rumble slowly past with many creaks--they moved on to the sparring booth, where buck washington, now a little knotted and disabled by a bout of rheumatism, arranged scraps between the ploughboys of the neighbouring farms. unluckily, the object of sparring, as practised locally, was to draw as much blood from the adversary as possible. the combatants went straight for each others' noses, in spite of the conjurations of buck, and naomi soon exercised her privilege as a town girl, and said she felt faint. reuben took her out, and they walked round the stalls, at one of which he bought her a cherry ribbon for her fairing. at another they bought gingerbread. gradually her spirits began to revive--she applauded his power at the shooting gallery, and when they came to the cocoanut shie, she was laughing out loud. reuben seemed to have an endless supply of money. he, whom she had seen deny himself white bread and tobacco, and scold his mother if she used eggs to make a pudding, did not seem now to care how much he spent for her amusement. he vowed, laughing, that she should not leave the shie till she had brought down a nut, and the showman pocketed pennies till he grinned from ear to ear, while naomi threw the wooden balls in all directions, hitting the showman and the spectators and once even reuben himself. at last he took her arm, and putting himself behind her managed after one or two attempts to guide a successful throw. they went off laughing with her prize, and came once more to the open ground where harry was still playing his fiddle. evidently he had pleased the multitude, for there was now a thick crowd in the central space, and already dancing had begun. farm-hands in clean smocks, with bright-coloured handkerchiefs round their necks, gambolled uncouthly with farm-girls in spotted and striped muslins. young farmers' wives, stiff with the sedateness of their bridehead, were drawn into reluctant capers. despairing virgins renewed their hope, and tried wives their liveliness in unaccustomed arms. even the elders danced, stumping together on the outskirts of the whirl as long as their breath allowed them. harry played "the song of seth's house," which in spite of--or because of--its sadness was a good dancing tune. there was no definite step, just anything the dancers fancied. some kicked up their heels vigorously, others slid them sedately, some held their partners by the hand, others with both arms round their waist. then suddenly naomi found herself in the thick of the crowd, at once crushed and protected by reuben's six foot three of strength. at first she was shocked, chilled--she had never danced at a fair before, and it seemed dreadful to be dancing here with reuben while harry fiddled. but gradually the jovial movement, the vigour and gay spirits of her partner, wore down her reluctance. once more she was impressed by that entire absence of self-consciousness and false pride which characterised him. after all, why should they not dance here together? why should they stand glum while everyone else was merrymaking? harry did not notice them, and if he did he would not care. "the blackbird flew out from the eaves of the manor, the manor of seth in the sussex countrie, and he carried a prayer from the lad of the manor, a prayer and a tear to his faithless ladie." she found herself bending to the rhythm of the music, swaying in reuben's arms. he held her lightly, and it was wonderful how clever he was in avoiding concussion with the other dancers, most of whom bumped about regardless of anybody else. "to the lady who lives in the grange by the water, the water of iron in the sussex countrie, the lad of seth's house prays for comfort and pity-- have pity, my true love, have pity on me!" a sudden weariness passed over naomi, and reuben led her out of the dance and brought her a drink of mild icy ale. he did not offer to take her home, and she did not ask to go. if he had offered she would have gone, but she had no will of her own--all desire, all initiative was drowned in the rhythm of the dance and the sadness of the old tune. "o why when we loved like the swallows in april, should beauty forget now their nests have grown cold? o why when we kissed 'mid the ewes on the hanger, should you turn from me now that they winter in fold?" he led her back into the crowd, and once more she felt his arms round her, so light, so strong, while her feet spun with his, tricked by magic. she became acutely conscious of his presence--the roughness of his coat-sleeve, the faint scent of the sprigged waistcoat, which had been folded away in lavender. and all the while she had another picture of him in her heart, not in his sunday best, but in corduroys and the blue shirt which had stood out of the january dusk, the last piece of colour in the day. she remembered the swing of his arm, the crash of the axe on the trunk, the bending of his back as he pulled it out, the muscles swelled under the skin ... and then the tingling creep in her own heart, that sudden suffocating thrill which had come to her there beside harry in the gloam.... the dusk was falling now, splashed by crude flares over the stalls, and once more that creep--delicious, tingling, suffocating--was in her heart, the intoxication of the weak by the strong. it seemed as if he were holding her closer. she grew warm, and yet she would not stop. there was sweat on her forehead, she felt her woollen gown sticking to her shoulders--but she would not rest. the same old tune jigged on--it was good to dance to, and harry liked playing it. "o why, because sickness hath wasted my body, should you do me to death with your dark treacherie? o why, because brothers and friends all have left me, should you leave me too, o my faithless ladie?" the dance was becoming more of a rout. hats fell back, even naomi's heather-coloured bonnet became disorderly. kerchiefs were crumpled and necks bare. arms grew tighter, there were few merely clasping hands now. then a lad kissed his partner on the neck while they danced, and soon another couple were spinning round with lips clinging together. the girls' hair grew rough and blew in their boys' eyes--there were sounds of panting--of kissing--naomi grew giddy, round her was a whirl of colour, hands, faces, the dusk and flaring lights. she clung closer to reuben, and his arms tightened about her. "one day when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow, and years of despair and remorse been your fate, perhaps your cold heart will remember seth's manor, and turn to your true love--and find it too late." § . reuben was pleased with the results of that fair day. harry had been a complete success. even on the day itself he was engaged to fiddle at a local wedding, and thenceforth no festival was complete without him. he became the fashion in peasmarsh. his birth and family gave proceedings an air of gentility, and his tragic story imparted romance. also his real musical gifts were appreciated by some, as well as his tirelessness and good nature. occasionally he would have fits of crazy ill-temper, but only required firm handling. reuben saw that his brother, instead of being entirely on the debit side of odiam's accounts, would add materially to its revenues. he became exceedingly kind to harry, and gave him apples and sweets. that autumn he had sown his oats. he sowed english berlie, after wavering for some time between that and barbachlaw. quantities of rape cake had been delivered in the furrows with the seed, and now the fields lay, to the eye, wet and naked--to the soul, to reuben's farmer-soul, full of the hidden promise which should sprout with may. he had a man to help him on the farm, beatup, an uncouth coltish lad, with an unlimited capacity for work. reuben never let him touch the new ground, but kept him busy in barn and yard with the cattle. mrs. backfield worked in the house as usual, and she now also had charge of the poultry; for reuben having given them up to her when he was single-handed, had not taken them back--he had to look after beatup, who wanted more watching than harry, and he also had bought two more pigs as money-makers. he was saving, stinting, scraping to buy more land. mrs. backfield sometimes had naomi to help her. naomi often came to stay at odiam. she did not know why she came; it was not for love of mrs. backfield, and the sight of harry wrung her heart. she had fits of weeping alternating with a happy restlessness. ever since the day of the fair a strange feeling had possessed her, sometimes just for fitful moments, sometimes for long days of panic--the feeling of being pursued. she felt herself being hunted, slowly, but inevitably, by one a dozen times more strong, more knowing, more stealthy than herself. she heard his footsteps in the night, creeping after her down long labyrinths of thought, sometimes his shadow sped before her with her own. and she knew that one day he would seize her--though she struggled, wept and fled, she knew that one day she would be his at last, and of her own surrender. the awful part of that seizing would be that it would be a matter of her will as well as his.... she was afraid of reuben, she fled before him like a poor little lamb, trembling and bleating--and yet she would sometimes long for the inevitable day when he would grasp her and fling her across his shoulders. she could not discipline her attitude towards him--sometimes she was composed, distant even in her thoughts; at others a kind of delirious excitement possessed her, she flushed and held down her head in his presence, could not speak to him, and groped blindly for escape. she would, on these occasions, end by returning to rye, but away from reuben a restless misery tormented her, driving her back to odiam. she sometimes asked herself if she loved him, and in cold blood there was only one answer to that question--no. what she felt for him was not love, but obsession--if she had never loved she might have mistaken it, but with her memories of harry she could not. and the awful part of it was that her heart was still harry's, though everything else was reuben's. her desires, her thoughts, her will were all reuben's--by a slow remorseless process he was making them his own--but her heart, the loving, suffering part of her, was still harry's, and might always be his. she was not continuously conscious of this--sometimes she forgot harry, sometimes he repulsed her, often she was afraid of him. but in moments of quiet her heart always gave her the same message, like distant music, drowned in a storm. one day she was in the dairy at odiam, skimming the cream-pans. the sunshine, filtered to a watery yellow by the march afternoon, streamed in on her, putting a yellow tinge into her white skin and white apron. her hair was the colour of fresh butter, great pats and cakes of which stood on the slabs beside her. there was a smell of butter and standing milk in the cold, rather damp air. naomi skimmed the cream off the pans and put it into a brown bowl. suddenly she realised that reuben had come into the dairy, and was standing beside her, a little way behind. "hullo, ben," she said nervously--it was one of her nervous days. "how's the cream to-day?" "capital." he dipped his finger into the pan, and sucked it. "oughtn't it to stand a bit longer?" "i don't think so." "taste it----" he dipped his finger again, and suddenly thrust it between her lips. she drew her head away almost angrily, and moved to the next pan. then he stooped and kissed her quite roughly on the neck, close to the nape. she cried out and turned round on him, but he walked out of the dairy. for a moment naomi stood stockish, conscious only of two sensations in her body--the taste of cream on her lips, and a little cold place at the back of her neck. she began to tremble, then suddenly the colour left her cheeks, for in the doorway of the wash-house, three yards off, stood harry. he did not move, and for some unaccountable reason she felt sure that he knew reuben had kissed her. a kind of sickness crept up to her heart; she held out her hands before her, and tottered a little. she felt faint. "harry!" she called. he came shuffling up to her, and for a moment stood straining his blind eyes into her face. "harry--will you--will you take this basin of cream to your mother?" he was still looking into her eyes, and she was visited by a terrible feeling that came to her sometimes and went as quickly--that he was not so mad as people thought. "will you take it?" he nodded. she gave him the cream bowl. their hands accidentally touched; she pulled hers away, and the bowl fell and was broken. § . the next day naomi left for rye, where she stayed three weeks. she was mistaken, however, in thinking she had found a place of refuge, the hunt still went on. reuben knew that his kiss had given him a definite position with regard to her, and naomi knew that he knew. twice he came over and visited her at rye. he never attempted to kiss her again, and carefully avoided all talk of love. indeed, her father was generally in the room. he was much taken with young backfield, who was ready to talk shipping and harbour-work with him for hours. "he's a solider man than ever poor harry was," said old gasson to naomi, "more dependable, i should think. reckon he'll do well for himself at odiam. she'll be a lucky girl whom he marries." naomi had no mother. reuben was pleased with the impression he had made. he was now working definitely. at first he had merely drifted, drawn by the charm of the female creature, so delicate, soft and weak. then commonsense had taken the rudder--he had seen naomi's desirableness from a practical point of view; she was young, good-looking, sound if scarcely robust, well dowered, and of good family--fit in every way to be the mother of his children. since harry was debarred from marrying her, his brother could even more profitably take his place. her money would then go direct to his ambition; he realised the enormous advantage of a little reserve capital and longed for a relaxation of financial strain. the gassons were an old and respected family, and an alliance with them would give lustre to odiam. also he wanted children. he was fond of naomi for her own sake. poor little chicken! her weakness appealed to him, and he rather enjoyed seeing her fluttering before his feet. towards the middle of april she came back to the farm to help mrs. backfield with her house-cleaning. she clung to the older woman all day, but she knew that reuben would at last find her alone. he did. she was laying the supper while mrs. backfield finished mending a curtain upstairs, when he marched suddenly into the room. he had come in from the yard, and his clothes smelt of the cow-stalls and of the manure that he loved. his face was moist; he stood in front of her and mopped his brow. "i'm hungry, naomi. wot have you got fur me?" "there's eggs...." "wot else?" "bread ... cheese...." she could scarcely frame the homely words. for some unaccountable reason she felt afraid, felt like some poor creature in a trap. "wot else?" "that's all." "all! but i'm still hungry. wot more do you think i want?" she licked her lips. he leaned over the table towards her. "wot more have you got fur me?" "nothing, i--i'm going upstairs. let me pass, please." "maybe i want a kiss." "oh, no, no!" she cried, trying to edge between him and the wall. "why not?" he put his hands on her shoulders, she felt the warmth and heaviness of them, and was more frightened than ever because she liked it. "maybe i want more than a kiss." she was leaning against the wall, if he had released her she could not have run away. she was like a rabbit, paralysed with fear. he bent towards her and his lips closed on hers. she nearly fainted, but she did not struggle or try to scream. it seemed years that they stood linked by that unwilling kiss. at last he raised his head. "will you marry me, naomi?" "no---- oh, no!" "why?" "no--no--i can't--i won't!" strength came to her suddenly; it was like awaking from a nightmare. she thrust him from her, slipped past, and ran out of the room. the next morning she returned to rye. but she could not stay there. her heart was all restlessness and dissatisfaction. soon mrs. backfield announced that she was coming back. "i reckoned she would," said reuben. she arrived in the swale. a tender grey mist was in the air, smeething boarzell, mingling with the smoke of odiam chimneys, that curled out wood-scented into the dark. as naomi climbed from the carrier's cart which had brought her, she smelled the daffodils each side of the garden path. the evening was full of pale perfumes, of ghostly yellows, massing faintly amidst the grey. reuben stood in the doorway and watched her come up the path, herself dim and ghostly, like the twilight and the flowers. when she was close he held out his arms to her, and she fell on his breast. § . from thenceforward there was no looking back. preparations for the wedding began at once. old gasson was delighted, and dowered his girl generously. as for naomi, she gave herself up to the joys of bride-elect. her position as reuben's betrothed was much more important than as harry's. it was more definite, more exalted, the ultimate marriage loomed more largely and more closely in it. she and reuben were not so much sweethearts as husband and wife to be. their present semi-attached state scarcely counted, it was just an unavoidable interval of preparation for a more definite relationship. she was glad in a way that everything was so different, glad that reuben's love-making was so utterly unlike harry's. otherwise she could never have plunged herself so deep into forgetfulness. she was quite without regrets--she could never have imagined she could be so free of them. she lived for the present, and for the future which was not her own. she was at rest. no longer the pursuing feet came after her, making her life a nightmare of long flights--she was safe in her captor's grasp, borne homeward on his shoulder. she was not exaltedly happy or wildly expectant. her anticipations were mostly material, buyings and stitchings. she looked forward to her position as mistress of odiam, and stocked her linen cupboard. as for reuben, her attitude towards him had changed at once with surrender. if he no longer terrified, also he no longer thrilled. she had grown fond of him, peacefully and domestically so, in a way she could never have been fond of harry. she loved to feel his strong arm round her, his shoulder under her head, she loved to nestle close up to him and feel his warmth. his kisses were very different from harry's, more lingering, more passionate, but, paradoxically, they thrilled her less. there had always been a touch of the wild and elfin in harry's love-making which suggested an adventure in fairyland, whereas reuben's suggested nothing but earth, and the earth is not exciting to those who have been in faery. at last the wedding-day came--an afternoon in may, gloriously white and blue. naomi stood before her mirror with delicious qualms, while one or two girl friends took the place of her mother and helped her to dress. she wore white silk, very full in the skirt, with a bunch of lilies of the valley in the folds of the bodice, which was cut low, showing the soft neck that in contrast to the dead white of the silk had taken a delicious creamy cowslip tint. her lovable white hat was trimmed with artificial lilies of the valley, and she had white kid gloves and tiny white kid shoes. she was very happy, and if she thought of harry and what might have been, it only brought a delightful sad-smiling melancholy over her happiness like a bridal veil. "how do i look?" she asked her friends. "you look charming!"--"how well your hat becomes you!"--"how small your feet seem in your new shoes!"--"how sweet you smell!"--chorused the girls, loving her more than ever because they envied her, after the manner of girls. naomi walked to church on her father's arm. she held her head down, and her bridesmaids saw her neck grow pink below the golden fluff on the nape. she hid her face from reuben and would not look at him as they stood side by side before rye altar. no one could hear her responses, they were spoken so faintly, she was the typical victorian bride, all shy, trembling, and blushing. only once she dared look up, and that was when they were walking solemnly from the communion table to the vestry--then she suddenly looked up and saw reuben's great strong shoulder towering above her own, his face rather flushed under its sunburn, and his hair unusually sleek and shining with some oil. they did not speak to each other till he had her in his gig, driving up playden hill. then he muttered--"liddle naomi--my wife," and kissed her on the neck and lips. she did not want him to kiss her, because she wished to avoid crumpling her gown, and also she was afraid reuben's horse might choose that moment to kick or run away. but of course such reasons did not appeal to him, and it was a dishevelled and rather cross little bride whom he lifted out at odiam. the wedding supper was to be held at the bridegroom's house, as old gasson's rooms were not large enough, and he objected to "having the place messed up." during the marriage service mrs. backfield had been worrying about her pie-crusts--indeed she almost wished she had stayed at home. naomi helped her dish up the supper, while reuben received the guests who were beginning to arrive, some from rye, some from the neighbouring farms. there had been a certain amount of disgusted comment when it became known that backfield was marrying his brother's sweetheart; but criticism of reuben always ended in reluctant admiration for his smartness as a business man. "he'll go far, that young feller," said realf of grandturzel. "where's harry?" vennal asked. "sh-sh--döan't you go asking ork'ard questions." "they wöan't have him to fiddle, i reckon," said realf. "i shud say even young ben wudn't do that." "why not?" put in ditch--"he döan't know naun about it. he's forgotten she ever wur his girl." "you can't be sure o' that, mus' ditch--only the lard knows wot mad folkses remember and wot they forget. but there's the supper ready; git moving or we'll have to sit by the door." odiam's strict rule had been relaxed in honour of the wedding, and a lavish, not to say luxurious, meal covered two long tables laid end to end across the kitchen. there was beef and mutton, there was stew, there were apple and gooseberry pies, and a few cone-shaped puddings, pink and white and brown, giving an aristocratic finish to the supper. naomi and reuben sat at the head of the table, mr. gasson and mrs. backfield on either side of them. harry was not present, for his methods of feeding made him rather a disgusting object at meals. naomi had put herself tidy, but somehow she still felt disordered and flustered. she hated all this materialism encroaching on her romance. the sight of the farmers pushing for places at the table filled her with disgust--the slightest things upset her, the untidy appearance of the dishes after they had been helped, some beer stains on the cloth, even her husband's hearty appetite and not quite noiseless eating. the room soon became insufferably hot, and she felt herself getting damp and sticky--a most unlovely condition for a bride. when the actual feeding was over there were speeches and toasts. vennal of burntbarns proposed the health of the bride, and realf of grandturzel that of the groom. then mrs. backfield's health was drunk, then mr. gasson's. there were more toasts, and some songs--"oh, no, i never mention her," "the sussex whistling song," and old farmhouse ballads, such as: "our maid she would a hunting go, she'd never a horse to ride; she mounted on her master's boar, and spurred him on the side. chink! chink! chink! the bridle went, as she rode o'er the downs. so here's unto our maiden's health, drink round, my boys! drink round!" naomi felt bored and sick; twice she yawned, and she stretched her tired shoulders under her dress. at last reuben noticed her discomfort. "you're tired--you'd better go to bed," he whispered, and she at once gladly rose and slipped away, though she would not have gone without his suggestion. "can i help you, dear?" asked mrs. backfield as she passed her chair. but naomi wanted to be alone. she stole out of the kitchen into the peace of the dark house, ran up the stairs, and found the right door in the unlighted passage. the bedroom was very big and cold, and on the threshold she wrinkled up her nose at a strange scent, something like hay and dry flowers. she groped her way to the chimney-piece and found a candle and a tinder-box. the next minute a tiny throbbing flame fought unsuccessfully with the darkness which still massed in the corners and among the cumbrous bits of furniture. naomi's new kid shoes were hurting her, and she bent down to untie them; but even as she bent, her eyes were growing used to the dim light, and she noticed something queer about the room. she lifted her head and saw that the outlines of the dressing-table and bed were rough ... the scent of dry grass suddenly revolted her. she looked round, and this time she saw clearly. about the mirror, along the bed-head, and garlanding the posts, were crude twists and lumps of field flowers--dandelions buttercups, moon daisies, oxlips, fennel, and cow-parsley, all bunched up with hay grass, all dry, withered, rotting, and malodorous. there was a great sheaf of them on her pillow, an armful torn up from a hay-field, still smelling of the sun that had blasted it.... in a flash naomi knew who had put them there. no sane mind could have conceived such a decoration or seeing eyes directed it. harry, exiled from church and feast, had spent his time in a crazy effort to honour the happy pair. he knew she was to marry reuben, but had not seemed to take much interest. doubtless the general atmosphere of festivity and adornment had urged him to this. how dreadful! already she saw an insect crawling over the bed--probably there were lots of others about the room; and these flowers, all parched, dead, and evil-smelling, gave a sinister touch to her wedding day. a lump rose in her throat, the back of her eyes was seared by something hot and sudden.... oh, harry ... harry.... then misery turned to rage. it was reuben who had brought her to this, who had stolen her from harry, forced her into marrying him, and exposed her to this anguish. she hated reuben. she hated him. with all the fierceness of her conquered soul and yielded body she hated him. she would have nothing more to do with him, she would be revenged on him, punish him ... a little hoarse scream of rage burst from her lips, and she turned suddenly and ran out of that dreadful room. she ran down the passage, panting and sobbing with rage. then at the stair head something even blacker than the darkness met her. it seized her, it swung her up, she was powerless as a little bird in its grasp. her struggles were crushed in the kind strong arms that held her, and rage was stifled from her lips with kisses. book ii the woman's part § . an elegy of oats. reuben's oats were a dismal failure. all the warm thrilling hopes which he had put into the ground with the seed and the rape cake, all the watching and expectation which had imparted as many delights as naomi to the first weeks of his married life--all had ended in a few rows of scraggy, scabrous murrainous little shoots, most of which wilted as if with shame directly they appeared above the ground, while the others, after showing him and a derisive neighbourhood all that oats could do in the way of tulip-roots, sedge-leaves, and dropsical husk, shed their seeds in the first summer gale, and started july as stubble. there was no denying it. boarzell had beaten reuben in this their first battle. that coarse, shaggy, unfruitful land had refused to submit to husbandry. backfield had not yet taken leviathan as his servant. his defeat stimulated local wit. "how's the peas gitting on, mäaster?" ditch of totease would facetiously enquire. "i rode by that new land of yours yesterday, and, says i, there's as fine a crop of creeping plants as ever i did see." "'täun't peas, thick 'un," vennal would break in uproariously, "it's turnips--each of 'em got a root like my fist." "and here wur i all this time guessing as it wur cabbages acause of the leaves," old ginner would finish, not to be outdone in badinage. reuben always accepted such chaff good-humouredly, for he knew it was prompted by envy, and he would have scorned to let these men know how much he had been hurt. also, though defeated, he was quite undaunted. he was not going to be beaten. that untractable slope of marl should be sown as permanent pasture in the spring, and he would grow oats on the new piece he would buy at the end of the year with his wife's fortune. naomi's money had been the greatest possible help. he had roofed the dutch barn, and retarred the oasts, he had bought a fine new plough horse and a waggon, and he was going to buy another piece of boarzell--ten or twelve acres this time, of the more fruitful clay-soil by the glotten brook. naomi was pleased to see all the new things. the barn looked so spick-and-span with its scarlet tiles, and the oasts shone like polished ebony, she loved to stroke the horse's brown, snuffling nose, and "oh, what a lovely blue!" she said when she saw the waggon. she could not take much interest in reuben's ambitions, indeed she only partly understood them. what did he want boarzell for?--it was so rough and dreary, she was sure nothing would grow there. she loved the farm, with the dear faces of the cows, and the horses, and the poultry, and even the pigs, but talk of crops and acres only bored her. sometimes reuben's enthusiasm would spill over, and sitting by the fire with her in the evening, he would enlarge on all he was going to do with boarzell--this year, next year, ten years hence. then she would nestle close to him, and murmur--"yes, dear" ... "yes, dear" ... "that will be glorious"--while all the time she was thinking of his long lashes, his strong brown neck, the clear weight of his arm on her shoulder, and the kiss that would be hers when he took his pipe out of his mouth. from this it may be gathered that the sorrow and hate of naomi's wedding night had been but the reaction of a moment. indeed she woke the next morning to find herself a very happy wife. she fell back into her old attitude towards reuben--affection, trust, and compliance, with which was mixed this time a little innocent passion. she loved being with him, was scrupulously anxious to please him, and would have worked her hands to pieces for his sake. but reuben did not want her to work. she was rather surprised at this at first, for she had expected that she would go on helping mrs. backfield as she had done before her marriage. reuben, however, was quite firm--his wife was not to redden her skin by stooping over fires, or coarsen her hands by dabbling them in soapsuds. an occasional visit to the dairy or some half-playful help on bread-baking days was all he would allow. "but won't it be too hard for mother?" naomi had objected. "mother?--she's used to it, and she's tougher than you, liddle creature." "but i could help just a bit." "no, no--i wöan't have you go wearing yourself out. döan't let's hear no more about it." naomi had submitted, as she always submitted, and after a while obedience was made easy. in august she realised that she was going to have a child and any conscientious desires which might have twinged her at the sight of mrs. backfield's seaming face and bending shoulders, were lost in the preoccupations of her own condition. at first she had not been pleased. she was only nineteen, not particularly robust, and resented the loss of her health and freedom; but after a while sweet thoughts and expectations began to warm in her. she loved little babies, and it would be delicious to have one of her own. she hoped it would be a girl, and thought of beautiful names for it--victoria, emilia, marianna, and others that she had seen in the keepsake. but her delight was nothing to reuben's. she had been surprised, overwhelmed by his joy when she told him her news. he, usually so reserved, had become transported, emotional, almost lyrical--so masterful, had humbled himself before her and had knelt at her feet with his face hidden in her gown. she could never guess what that child meant to reuben. it meant a fellow labourer on his farm, a fellow fighter on boarzell, and after he was dead a man to carry on his work and his battle. at last he would have someone to share his ambition--that child should be trained up in the atmosphere of enterprise; as other fathers taught their children to love and serve god, so reuben would teach this son to love and serve odiam. he would no longer strive alone, he would have a comrade, a soldier with him. and after this boy there would be other boys, all growing up in the love of odiam, to live for it. he treated his wife like a queen, he would not allow her the smallest exertion. he waited on her hand and foot and expected his mother to do the same. every evening, or, later in the year, in the afternoon, he would come home early from his work, and take her out for a walk on his arm. he would not allow her to go alone, for fear that she might overtire herself or that anything might frighten her. he insisted on her having the daintiest food, and never eating less than a certain quantity every day; he decided that the odiam chairs were too hard, and bought her cushions at rye. in fact he pampered her as much as he denied everybody else and himself. naomi soon came to enjoy her coddling, even though occasionally his solicitude was inclined to be tiresome. as time wore on he would not let her walk up and down stairs, but carried her up to bed himself, and down again in the morning. she grew fat, white, and languorous. she would lie for hours with her hands folded on her lap, now and then picking up a bit of sewing for a few minutes, then dropping it again. she was proud of her position in comparison with other farmers' wives in the same circumstances. their men kept them working up to the last week. during this time she saw very little of harry and scarcely ever thought of him. she no longer had any doubts as to his being quite mad. § . in the autumn reuben bought ten more acres of boarzell--a better piece of land than the first, more sheltered, with more clay in the soil. hops would do well on the lower part of it down by the brook. he also bought three jersey cows; they would improve the small dairy business he had established, and their milk would be good for naomi. his watchfulness of his wife had now almost become tyranny. he scolded her if she stooped to pick up her scissors, and would not let her walk even in the garden without him. naomi submitted languidly. her days passed in a comfortable heaviness, and though she occasionally felt bored, on the whole she enjoyed being fussed over and waited on. during those months her relations with reuben's mother became subtly changed. before her marriage there had been a certain friendship and equality between them, but now the elder woman took more the place of a servant. it was not because she waited on naomi, fetched and carried--reuben did that, and was her master still. it was rather something in her whole attitude. she had ceased to confide in naomi, ceased perhaps to care for her very much, and this gave a certain menial touch to her services. it would be hard to say what had separated the two women--perhaps it was because one toiled all day while the other lay idle, perhaps it was a twinge of maternal jealousy on mrs. backfield's part, for reuben was beginning to notice her less and less. after a time naomi realised this estrangement, and though at first she did not care, later on it came to distress her. somehow she did not like the idea of being without a woman associate--in spite of her love for reuben, now more passive and more languid, like every other emotion, she craved instinctively for someone of her own sex in whom she could confide and on whom she could rely. the year dipped into winter, then rose again into spring. lambs began to bleat in the pens, and with the last of them in march came naomi's baby. reuben was nearly mad with anxiety. his mother's calm, the doctor's leisureliness, the midwife's bustling common sense, struck him as callous and unnatural. even naomi greeted him with a wan, peaceful smile, when frantic with waiting, he stole up to her room. did they all realise, he wondered, what was at stake? suppose anything should happen.... in vain the doctor assured him that everything was normal and going on just as it should. he went out and did a little work, but after an hour or so flung down the chicken-coop he was making, and rushed into the house. his usual question received its usual answer. he thought the doctor a hemmed fraud and the doctor thought him a damned fool. the sun set, and reuben had given up even the attempt to work. he wandered on boarzell till the outline of its crest was lost in the black pit of night. then a new anxiety began to fret him. possibly all was going well since everybody said so, but--suppose the child was a girl! up till now he had scarcely thought of such a thing, he had made sure that his child would be a boy, someone to help him in his struggle and to reap the fruits of it after he was gone. but, suppose, after all, it should be a girl! quite probably it would be--why should he think it would not? the sweat stood on reuben's forehead. then suddenly he saw something white moving in the darkness. it was coming towards him. it was his mother's apron. he ran to meet her, for his legs tottered so that he could not walk. he could not frame his question, but she answered it: "all's well ... it's a boy." § . naomi spent a peaceful and happy convalescence. everything combined for her blessedness. the soft april days scattered their scent and sunshine on her bed, where she lay with her baby, full of drowsy hopes. even boarzell's firs had a mellowness about them, as if her motherhood had sweetened not only herself and those about her, but the grim face of nature militant. her memories of those days were full of the smell of daffodils blown in at her window from the garden and of primroses set by reuben in a bowl beside the bed--of reuben stooping over her, smoothing back her hair, and stroking her face with hands that quivered strangely, or holding the baby as if it were made of fire and glass. as soon as she was well enough the christening took place in peasmarsh church. the heir of all the backfields was important enough to receive three christian names--reuben after his father, thomas after old gasson, and albert after the prince consort. "i shall call him albert," said naomi. that spring and summer reuben worked with a light heart. his fatherhood made him proud and expansive. he would boast about the baby to beatup, tell him how many ounces it had gained in the week, enlarge on its strength and energy, with intimate details concerning its digestion--all of which were received open-mouthed by beatup who knew pretty well as much about babies as he did about oecumenical councils. "he'll soon be able to do a bit of work wud us, beatup," said reuben apocalyptically.--"i'll have him on when he's ten or thereabouts, and at fifteen he'll be doing full man's work. i shouldn't wonder as how i'd never want another hand but you--we could manage the pläace, i reckon, till the lad's old enough, and then there'll be others...." "yus, mäaster," said beatup. the second piece of land had thriven better than the first. the hops were sturdy and promising beside the brook, and on the higher grounds the new pastures fattened. reuben had decided to dig up a couple of his old grass meadows and prepare them for grain-sowing in the autumn. the soil was good, and it was only his father's want of enterprise which had kept so much of odiam as mere grazing land. as for the cows, there was ample provision for them on the new pastures, which boarzell would continue to yield, even if it refused oats--"but i'll have oats there some day, i reckon," said reuben, "oats, and barley, and maybe wheat." he pictured odiam chiefly as a great grain farm--though there might be more money in fruit or milk, these would be mere temporary profit-making concerns, means to an end; for glory and real permanent fortune lay in wheat. he was terribly anxious lest the corn laws should be repealed, a catastrophe which had threatened farming for several years. for the first time he began to take an interest in politics and follow the trend of public opinion. he could not read, so was forced to depend on naomi to read him the newspaper he occasionally had three days old from rye. the backfields had always been tory, just as they had always been church, because liberalism and dissent were "low," and unworthy of yeomen farmers. but they had never felt very keenly about politics, which, except at election times, had not come much into their lives. even at the elections the interest had been slight, because up till ten years ago rye had been a pocket borough, and its radical member went up to parliament without any of the pamphlet-writing, bill-sticking, mud-throwing, or free-fighting, which stirred the blood in other towns. now, however, having vital interests at stake, reuben became an absorbed and truculent conservative. he never called in at the cocks without haranguing the company on the benefits of the wheat-tax, and cursing cobden and bright. on the occasion of the ' election, he abandoned important obstetric duties in the cow-stable to beatup, and rode into rye to record his vote for the unsuccessful tory candidate. the neighbourhood was of whig tendencies, spoon-fed from the manor, but the backfields had never submitted to bardon politics; and now even the fact that the squire held reuben's land of promise, failed to influence him. the bardons were strongly anti-corn law, but their opposition had that same touch of inefficiency which characterised all their dealings and earned reuben's contempt. in spite of their liberalism they had been driven for financial considerations to inclose boarzell--then even the inclosure had failed, and they were now, also against their will, surrendering the land piecemeal to a man who was in every way their opposite and antagonist. they agitated feebly for repeal, but were unable to make themselves heard. they visited the poor, and doled out relief in ineffectual scraps. reuben despised them. they were an old line--effete--played out. he and his race would show them what was a man. § . that summer naomi realised that she was going to have another child. she was sorry, for her maternal instincts were satisfied for the present, and she had begun to value her new-returned health. it would be hard to have to go back to bondage again. however, there was no help for it. reuben was overjoyed, and once more she slipped under his tyranny. this time she found it irksome, his watchfulness was a nuisance, his anxiety was absurd. however, she did not complain. she was too timid, and too fond of him. "i hope it'll be a girl this time," she said one afternoon, when according to custom she was walking along totease lane, his arm under hers. "a girl---- oh, no! i want another boy." "but we've got a boy, reuben. it would be nice to have a girl now." "why, liddle creature?" "oh, i justabout love baby girls. they're so sweet--and all their dresses and that.... besides we don't want two boys." to her surprise reuben stopped in the road, and burst out laughing. "two boys!--not want two boys!--why, we want ten boys! if i cud have twenty, i shudn't grumble." "what nonsense you're talking, backfield," said naomi primly. "i äun't talking nonsense, i'm talking sound sense. how am i to run the farm wudout boys? i want boys to help me work all that land. i'm going to have the whole of boarzell, as i've told you a dunnamany times, and i'll want men wud me on it. so döan't you go talking o' girls. wot use are girls?--none! they just spannel about, and then go off and get married." "but a girl 'ud be useful in the house--she could help mother when she's older." "no, thankee. however hard she works she äun't worth half a boy. you give me ten boys, missus, and then i döan't mind you having a girl or so to please yourself." naomi was disgusted. reuben had once or twice offended her by his coarseness, but she could never get used to it. "oh, how can you speak to me so!" she gulped. "now, you silly liddle thing, wot are you crying for? mayn't i have a joke?" "but you're so vulgar!" reuben looked a little blank. none of the details of his great desire had hitherto struck him as vulgar. "vulgar, am i?" he said ruefully. "no matter, child, we wöan't go quarrelling. come, dry your dear eyes, and maybe to-morrow i'll drive you over to rye to see the market." naomi obediently dried her eyes, but it was rather hard to keep them from getting wet again. for in her heart she knew that it was not the vulgarity of reuben's joke which had upset her, but a certain horrible convincingness about it. it was not so merely a joke as he would have her think. during the days that followed her attitude towards him changed subtly, almost subconsciously. a strange fear of him came over her. would he insist on her bearing child after child to help him realise his great ambition? it was ridiculous, she knew, and probably due to her state of health, but sometimes she found herself thinking of him not so much as a man as a thing; she saw in him no longer the loving if tyrannical husband, but a law, a force, to which she and everyone else must bow. she even noticed a kind of likeness between him and boarzell--swart, strong, cruel, full of an irrepressible life. § . the following spring naomi gave birth to twin boys. with these twins really started the epic of her maternity. she was not to be one of those women for whom motherhood is a little song of baby shoes and blue sashes, and games and kisses and rockings to sleep. hers was altogether a sterner business, her part in a battle--it was motherhood for a definite purpose, man and woman taking a leaf out of nature's book, playing her game to their own advantage, using her methods only to crush her at last. in a word it was epic--and the one drawback was that naomi had never been meant for an epic part in life. she of all women had been meant for baby shoes and blue sashes, and here she was with her shoulder against reuben's, helping him in the battle which even he found hard.... however, as yet there were few misgivings. that faintness of spirit which had come over her during the last few months of her pregnancy, faded like a ghost in the first joyous days of her deliverance. reuben's pride, delight, and humble gratitude were enough to make any woman happy, even without those two dear fat little babies which the doctor said were the finest twins he had ever seen. naomi was one of those women who, even without very strong maternal instincts, cannot resist a baby. the soft limbs, the big downy heads, the groping wet mouths of her boys were a sheer physical delight to her. she even forgot to regret that one of them was not a girl. she made a quick recovery, and robert and peter were christened at easter-time. naomi looked every inch the proud mother. her slight figure had acquired more matronly lines, and she even affected a more elderly style of dress. for some time afterwards, proud and beloved, she really felt that motherhood was her vocation, and when in the course of the summer she realised that her experiences were to be repeated, she was not so sorry as she had been before. she hoped desperately it would be a girl--but this time said nothing to reuben. once more her attitude towards him had changed. she no longer felt the timid passion of the first months after her marriage, but she also no longer felt that sinister dread and foreboding which had succeeded it. she looked upon him less as her husband, inspiring alternately love and terror, than as the father of her children. she saw him, so to speak, through them. she loved him because they were his as well as hers. she spoke less of "i" and "he," and more of "us," "we," and "ours." all the same she was bitterly disappointed when the following year another boy was born. she sobbed into her pillow, and even reuben's delight and little richard's soft kicks against her breast, could not comfort her. in fact she felt secretly angry with reuben for his joy. he did not think of her and what she wanted. he thought only of his dirty old farm, and that dreary, horrible boarzell. as time wore on, and her hopes were once more roused, she became quite obsessed by the idea of having a girl. she thought of nothing but the little frocks, the ribbons with which she would tie the pretty hair. she pictured the times she and her daughter would have together, the confidences they would exchange--for old mrs. backfield grew more and more silent and unreceptive, and her neighbours were not of her mould. they would tell each other everything ... she had dreams of an impossible little pink-and-white girl like a doll, with golden curls and blue eyes and a white muslin frock. in her dreams she would stretch out her arms to this ached-for child, and would wake sobbing, with the tears running down her face. then, at last, after experiences which had had boredom added to their pain by repetition, she murmured--"what is it, mother?"--and a real, breathing, living, crying, little girl was put into her arms. § . the positions of husband and wife were now reversed. it was reuben who sulked and gloomed, looking at the baby askance, while naomi moved in a daydream of peace and rapture and desire satisfied. she was too happy to care much about her husband's disappointment. she would never have believed it if anyone had told her in the first weeks of her marriage that she could have a joy and not mind if he did not share it, a child and not fret if he did not love it. but now her child sufficed her, or rather she had learned the lesson of wives, to suffice herself, and could love and rejoice without a comrade. she had forgotten the arabellas and mariannas of the keepsake, and the baby was called fanny after naomi's own mother, whom she dimly remembered. fanny became the centre of naomi's life; she was not as healthy as the other children, and her little pains and illnesses were all so many cords drawing her closer to her mother's heart. though she required twice as much attention as the boys, naomi never fretted or grew weary, as she had sometimes done in the service of the other little ones--on the contrary, she bloomed into a new beauty, and recovered the youthfulness she had begun to lose. strange to say, harry, who had paid little attention to the earlier babies, seemed drawn to this one. he would hang round naomi when she had her in her lap, and sometimes gingerly put out a hand and stroke the child's limbs. naomi could not bear that he should touch her; but he amused fanny, so she tolerated him. he had fallen into the habit of many half-witted people and occasionally made strange faces, which though repulsive to everyone else, filled fanny with hilarious delight. indeed they were the first thing she "noticed." "oh, the pretty baby! save the pretty baby!"--harry would mutter and shriek, and he would wander about the house crying--"save the pretty baby!" till naomi declared that he gave her the shivers. "keep him out of the way, can't you, backfield?" she said to her husband. in reuben's eyes naomi was just as irritating and ridiculous as harry. she made foolish clothes for fanny, quite unfit for a child in her position--muslins and ribbon bows, little knitted shoes, which she was forever pulling off to kiss the baby's feet. she would seat her on some high big chair in which she lolled with grotesque importance, and would kneel before her and call her "miss fanny." "there, miss fanny--see what a grand baby you are. soon all the boys will be courting you--see if they don't. you shall always wear silk and muslins and sit on cushions, and you will always love your mother, won't you, dear little miss?" reuben was revolted--also a little hurt. it seemed to him that naomi was neglecting the boys he was so proud of. albert was nearly four years old, a fine sturdy child, worth a dozen puling fannys, and robert and pete were vigorous crawlers and adventurers, who ought to rejoice any mother's heart. richard was still in an uninteresting stage--but, hem it all! he was a boy. nearly as bad as her indifference to the children she had already borne, was her indifference to the child she was about to bear. she was expecting her confinement in the spring, but she did not seem to take the slightest interest in it or the slightest care of herself. again and again she would start up from the sofa where she had lain down by his orders, because she heard fanny crying upstairs. she risked injuring herself by continually carrying her about or by stooping over her as she rolled on the floor. reuben often spoke to her severely, but with no result. there was a time when he could never chide her without her crying, but now she hardly seemed to care. as the autumn wore on fanny became more and more ailing and naomi more and more preoccupied. there were doctor's visits to be paid for, and on one or two occasions naomi had sent for him unnecessarily. it maddened reuben to think that he was not master of his own household, but though he could always enforce obedience in person, he was compelled continually to be out of doors, even sometimes away from the farm, and he could not control what went on in his absence. odiam was passing through anxious times. the expected and dreaded had happened--the corn laws had been repealed, and cursing farmers grubbed up their wheatfields, hoping no more from grain. reuben was bitterly disappointed, the whole future of odiam was bound up with grain, the most honourable and--in the long run--most profitable of a farm's concerns. in his dreams he had seen wind-rippled waves of wheat rolling up to boarzell's very crest, he had seen the threshed corn filling his barn, or rumbling to iden mill. now the cheap abundant foreign grain would fight his home-sown harvests. he would have to depend for revenue on milk and hops, and grow wheat only as an expensive decoration. peel was a traitor; he had betrayed the staunch grain-growing tories who had inconvenienced themselves with muddy rides to vote for his supporters. for a year or so reuben hated the conservatives, and would not vote at all at the next election. he had trouble, too, with his new grass. one of his jersey cows suddenly died, and it turned out that it had eaten some poisonous plant which had insinuated itself into the pasture. it was as if boarzell fought treacherously--with stabbings in the dark as well as blastings in the open. the night the jersey died, reuben sat with his head buried in his arms on the kitchen table, while naomi carried her miss fanny about the room, and told her about the beautiful silk gowns she would wear when she grew up. § . that autumn he had sown catch-crops of italian rye grass, which gave the stock a good early winter feed. he had grown sharper in his dealings with the land, he knew how to take it at a disadvantage, snatch out a few roots. every inch of the farm was now at work, for every blade of grass now counted. he had even dug up the garden, casting aside rose-bushes, sweet-peas, and dahlias for dull rows of drum-head cabbages, potatoes, kale, and beans. and manure ... there was manure everywhere, lying under the very parlour windows, sending up its effluvium on the foggy winter air till it crept into even the close-shut bedroom, making naomi conscious of reuben in her dreams. she was inclined to be sulky in those days. she disliked the smell of manure, she disliked being made to dream of reuben, towards whom she now felt a vague hostility. what business had he to go and saddle her with another child? surely she had enough--four boys and a girl. what business had he to make her languid and delicate just when she needed all her health for the ailing fanny? he was so unsympathetic about fanny, too, one really might think he did not care what the poor little creature suffered. naomi began to complain about him to the neighbours. she joined in those wifely discussions, wherein every woman plaintively abused her own man, and rose at once in fury if another woman ventured to do so. "backfield he scarcely takes any notice of me now--always thinking about his farm. talks of nothing but hops and oats. would you believe it, mrs. ditch, but he hardly ever looks at this dear little fanny. he cares for his boys right enough, because when they're grown up they'll be able to work for him, but he justabout neglects his girlie--that's what he does, he neglects her. the other night, there she was crying and sobbing her little heart out, and he wouldn't let me send for the doctor. says he can't afford to have the doctor here for nothing. nothing, indeed!..." so naomi would maunder to her acquaintance; with reuben she confined herself to hints and innuendoes. sometimes she complained to mrs. backfield, but her husband's mother was unsympathetic. "you döan't know when you're in luck," she said as she thumped the dough--"nothing to do but bath and dress the children, and yet you grumble. if you had to work like me--" "i don't know why you do it. make backfield get a girl to help you." "and pay eight shillings a month when he wants the money so badly! no, if a woman can't work fur her son, i döan't see much good in her. some women"--rather venomously--"even work fur their husbands." "you know well enough he won't let me work for him." "i never said as you ought to work fur him--all i said wur as you shouldn't ought to grumble." a loud wail from fanny in her cradle drove the retort from naomi's lips. she sprang from the arm-chair where she had been resting, and ran heavily across the room to the baby's side. "what's the matter, my darling? come to mother, little miss fanny. oh, i know something's wrong with her, or she wouldn't cry so. she's got such a sweet temper really." she picked the child out of the cradle, and began to walk up and down the room, rocking it in her arms. fanny's wails grew louder, more long-drawn, and more plaintive. reuben came in, and his brows contracted when he saw what his wife was doing. there was a slight moisture on her forehead, and she strained the child violently to her breast. "come, naomi, put her down. it's bad for you to carry her about like this." "oh, reuben, i'm sure she's ill. can't we send beatup over for the doctor?" "no, we can't. there's naun the matter wud her really. she's always crying." naomi faced him almost spitefully. "if one of the boys had hurt his little finger you'd have doctor in at once. it's only because it's fanny. you don't love her, you----" "now none o' that, missus," said reuben roughly--"you put the child back in her cradle, and go and lie down yourself. i döan't want to have to fetch doctor in to _you_." naomi had not acquired the art of flouting him openly. she tearfully put fanny into her cradle, and lay and sulked on the sofa for the rest of the evening. that night she dreamed that her new baby was born, and that reuben had taken away fanny and given her to beatup. beatup was carrying her down to the pond to drown her as he drowned the kittens, and naomi stood in the garden with immovable weights on every limb listening to the despairing shrieks of her little girl. they were dreadful shrieks, not like a baby's at all. they still sounded when naomi woke. she sat up in bed, uncertain as to whether she were dreaming or not. then from fanny's little bed beside the big one came something terrible--a low long wail like an animal's dying into a moan. it seemed as if her heart stopped beating. she felt the sweat rush out all over her body. the next minute she was out of bed, groping for fanny in the darkness. she found her and lifted her in her arms; once more that dreadful wailing moan came from the little body, mingling this time with a snore from reuben. naomi, still grasping fanny, managed to light a candle. the child's face was deadly white and drawn in a strange way, while her lips were blue. "reuben!" shrieked naomi. he did not wake. worn out with hard work and his anxiety about his farm, he still slept heavily, rolled in the blanket. a sick insane rage seized naomi. she sprang on the bed, tore the clothes off him, shook him, beat him, pulled his hair, while all the time she grasped the now silent fanny convulsively between her left arm and her breast. "my child's dying. get up, you brute. fetch the doctor. my child's dying!" for a moment reuben was bewildered with his sudden waking, but he soon came to himself at the sight of his wife's distorted face and the inanimate lop-headed baby. he sprang up, pulled on his trousers, and in two minutes had bundled the half-conscious but utterly willing beatup out of his attic, and sent him off on the fastest horse to rye. then he came back into the bedroom. naomi was sitting on the floor, her hair falling over her shoulders, the baby unconscious on her lap. "give her to me, child--let me look." "no, no--get away," and naomi once more caught up fanny to her breast. "i'll go and fetch mother." mrs. backfield arrived in a washed-out bed-gown. a fire was lit and water put on to boil. fanny's, however, did not seem just an ordinary case of "fits"; she lay limp in her mother's arms, strangely blue round the mouth, her eyes half open. "oh, what is it?--what is it?" wailed naomi--"can't we do anything? oh, why doesn't the doctor come?" suddenly the baby stiffened on her lap. the limbs became rigid, the face black. then something rasped in its throat. "bring the water!--bring the water!" screamed naomi, hardly knowing what she said. mrs. backfield poured the water into a basin, and naomi lifted miss fanny to put her into the steaming bath. "it's no use," said reuben. he knew the child was dead. but naomi insisted on putting fanny into the basin. she held her up in it for a moment. then suddenly let her drop, and fell forward, wailing. reuben and mrs. backfield tried in vain to soothe her, and put her back to bed. she was like a mad woman. she who had always been so timid and gentle, peevish at the worst, now shouted, kicked and raved. "you've killed her! it's your doing ... you're a murderer!" she screamed at reuben. he lifted her bodily and laid her on the bed. but she was still half insane-- "i hate you! i hate you!" she cried, and threw herself about. when the doctor arrived an hour later, his services were needed after all. for naomi gave birth to a little boy at dawn. § . naomi had met her tragedy. in course of time she recovered from her confinement, but all the joy of life and motherhood had gone from her. it was inexplicable to reuben that she could mourn so hopelessly over the death of a little weak girl, who would have been nothing but a care and an expense if she had lived. it was inexplicable that she could take no interest in young benjamin, a sound, well-made little fellow in spite of his premature birth. for the first time she was unable to suckle her baby, and reuben was forced to engage a nurse, not liking the responsibility of bringing him up by hand. but he was very good to naomi. he tried to forget her indifference to his beloved boys, and to soothe and strengthen her into something like her old self. she did not repulse him. all the violence and the desperation in her had burnt themselves out during that night of frenzy. she lay in bed hour after hour without moving, her long hair--which was now beginning to come out in handfuls when she brushed it--spread over the pillow. her muscles were slack, she lay without any suppleness, heavy against the mattress. after some weeks she was able to get up, and go about her duties with the children. she never spoke of her misery, she ate, she sewed, she even gossiped with the neighbours, as before. but something was gone from her--her eye sometimes had a vacant, roving look, her shoulders stooped, and her skin grew sallow. she was still fond of her children, but in a listless, mechanical way. sometimes when she had them all gathered round her, for their bedtime or a bath, she would find the tears welling up in her eyes till all the little faces were blurred. poor mites! what future lay ahead of them? they were their father's slaves as well as she--the utmost would be ground out of them as it had been ground out of her. once more she had taken up her unwilling part in boarzell's epic. she was expecting another child for the following spring. this would be her seventh. she was no longer merely dissatisfied. in her heart she passionately rebelled. she hated herself, and her condition, for now she hated reuben. the vague hostility she had felt towards him during fanny's short life had given place to a definite hatred. she looked upon reuben as the murderer of her child, and she hated him. during the first days of her grief he had been so kind to her that she had grown dependent on him and hatred was delayed, but now dependence and dazed gratitude had passed away, and in their place was a sick, heavy loathing for the man whose neglect and indifference she believed had killed her child. she could not endure the thought of giving him another. sometimes she thought she would like to kill herself, but she was too weak a soul for anything desperate. in those days she could not bear the sound of harry's fiddle, and he was told he must not play it in the house. § . the repeal of the corn laws did not have such a bad effect on odiam as reuben had feared. the harvests in ' and ' were unusually good, and a general revival of prosperity throughout the country atoned for the low price of grain. it was not to be expected, however, that he would forgive at once the party which had betrayed agricultural interests. he transferred his political allegiance to disraeli, whose feudalistic attitude won his entire respect. it was a great trial to him that he could not read the newspapers, for nowadays he did not care to have naomi read to him. she used to sometimes, but her utter lack of interest and understanding was no longer atoned for by a voice love-modulated or a soft hand stroking his. he resolved that none of his children should share his disabilities, and already the infant albert toddled daily to a little house in the village where two vague-looking sisters taught the rising generation mysteries hidden from their parents. reuben could spell out one or two words, and could write "reuben backfield" in big printing letters at the bottom of any document he had to sign, but he had no time to educate himself further. he was now twenty-seven, looking in some ways strangely older, in others far younger, than his age. the boy in him had not had much chance of surviving adolescence. life had come down too hard on him. a grim struggle does not nourish youth, and mentally reuben was ten or twelve years ahead of twenty-seven. his splendid health and strength, however, had maintained a physical boyishness, expressing itself in zeal and high spirits, a keen appetite, a boundless capacity for work, an undaunted enterprise. he was always hungry, he fell asleep directly his head touched the pillow, and slept like a child beside the tossing and wakeful naomi. his work had made him splendid. his skin was the colour of the soil he tilled, a warm ruddy brown, his hair was black, growing low on the forehead, and curling slightly behind the ears. the moulding of his neck and jaw, his eyes, dark, bright, and not without laughter in them, his teeth, big, white, and pointed, like an animal's--all spoke of clean and vigorous manhood. he was now unmistakably a finer specimen than harry. harry had lost to a great measure his good looks. not only had the vacancy of his face robbed it of much of its attraction--for more beautiful than shape or colouring or feature had been the free spirit that looked out of his eyes--but his constant habit of making hideous grimaces had worked it into lines, while the scar of his burning sometimes showed across his cheek. add to this a stoop and a shambling gait, and it is no longer "beautiful harry," nor even the ghost of him, so much as some changeling, some ill-done counterfeit image, set up by vindictive nature in his stead. harry was no more his mother's favourite son. she was not the type of woman to whom a maimed child is dearer than half a dozen healthy ones. on the contrary he filled her with a vague terror and repulsion. she spoke to him gently, tended him carefully, even sometimes forced herself to caress him--but for the most part she avoided him, feeling as she did so a vague shame and regret. on the other hand, her devotion to reuben grew more and more absorbing and submissive. her type was obviously the tyrant-loving, the more primitive kind, which worships the strong of the tribe and recoils instinctively from the weak. where many a woman, perhaps rougher and harder than she, would have flung all the love and sweetness of her nature upon the blasted harry, she turned instead to the strong, stalwart reuben, who tyrannised over her and treated her with less and less consideration ... and this after twenty years of happy married life, during which she had idled and been waited on, and learned a hundred dainty ways. she had no patience with naomi's simmering rebellion; she scoffed at her complaints, and always took reuben's part against her. "as long as there's men and women in the world, the men 'ull be top and the women bottom." "why?" asked naomi. "because it wur meant so. if we'd bin meant fur masters d'you think we'd have bin made so liddle and dentical like?" "but we're a sight smarter than men." "yes--that makes up to us a bit, but it döan't do us any real good ... only helps us git round a man sometimes when we can't git over him." "then it does us some good after all. a sad state we'd be in if the men always had their own way." "you take it from me that it's much better when a man has his own way than when he hasn't. then he's pleased wud you and makes life warm and easy for you. it's women as are always going against men wot are unhappy. please men and they'll be good to you and you'll be happy, döan't please them and they'll be bad to you and you'll be miserable. but women who're for ever grumbling, and making a fuss about doing wot they've got to do whether they like it or not, and are cross-grained wives, and unwilling mothers ..." and so on, and so on. yet mrs. backfield did not, any more than naomi, understand reuben's great ambition. § . that autumn naomi entered on a time of black depression--an utter gloom and weariness of body and mind. it was no mere dull staggering under blows, merciful in its blindness and lack of acute feeling--it was a clear-eyed misery, in which every object was as distinct as it was dark, like one of those sudden clearings of a stormy landscape, when trees, hedges, meadows, loom under the frowning sky, outstanding and black in detail, more vivid than in sunshine. she saw now what she was--her husband's victim, the tool of his enterprise. he had never really loved her. he had been attracted by her--her beauty, her gentleness, her breeding, had appealed to him. but that was not why he had married her. he had married her for her money, which he was now spending on his farm, and he had married her because he wanted children and she was the most suitable mother he could find. he had never really loved her. and she had never really loved him. that was another of the things she saw clearly. she had married him because his strength and good looks, his ardent wooing, had turned her head, because she had been weak and he had been masterful. but she had never loved him. she had been a fool, and now she was paying the price of folly, which is always so much heavier than the price of sin. here she was at twenty-five, prematurely old, exhausted, sick of life, and utterly alone. there was no one to turn to in her wretchedness. her neighbours were incapable of giving her real help or sympathy, mrs. backfield invariably took reuben's part and resented the slightest criticism of him, old gasson was hard and selfish, and not particularly interested in his daughter. she wished, with all the wormwood that lies in useless regrets, that she had never married. then, paradoxically, she would not have been so utterly alone. she would have had at least the help of sweet memories undefiled. she could have taken refuge in them from her sorrow, built them perhaps at last into hope. now she had to thrust them from her, for they were one and all soiled by her unfaithfulness. for the first time she began definitely to reproach herself for her treatment of harry. though she could never have married him, she could at least have been faithful to him. "o why, because sickness hath wasted my body, should you do me to death with your dark treacherie? o why, because brothers and friends all have left me, should you leave me too, o my faithless ladie!" moreover, she still sometimes had a vague feeling that at the start harry had not been quite so mad as people thought, that he might perhaps have recovered if she had made him understand that she was true to him, still hoping. no doubt that was all nonsense, but she could not quite smother the idea that she had betrayed harry. perhaps it was partly because even before his accident she had cast longing eyes at reuben. once again she called up memories of him cutting down willows on his new land, and she acknowledged miserably to herself that in that hour she had already been unfaithful to harry in her heart, and that all that came afterwards was but the following up of that initial act of treachery. a strong arm, a broad back, a blue shirt in the january twilight ... and naomi had set out on a road every step of which was now over rough stones and broken shards. in february her child was born--another girl. but this time reuben was not sorry, for he realised that his mother would not last for ever, and that he must have a girl to take her place. it might have been expected that a baby girl would comfort naomi for the lost fanny, but such was not the case. it seemed as if with fanny she had lost all power of loving and of rising again. once more she was unable to feed the child, and her convalescence was dragging and miserable. when at last she was able to go about, a permanent ill-health seemed to have settled on her, the kind that rides tired women, making their faces sallow, their hair scanty, filling their backs with strange pains. she grew fretful, too, and her temper was none of the best. § . that year reuben bought ten more acres of boarzell, and limed them for oats. he felt that now he had strength to return to his first battle, and wring a grain crop out of that grudging soil. the new piece of ground abutted the odiam lands on the flightshot side, and he could see it from his window. before going to bed at night, he would lean out and feast his eyes on it as it lay there softly covered in the dark, or glimmering in the faint star-dazzle of spring. sometimes it seemed almost as if a breath came from it, a fragrance of sleep, and he would sit there inhaling it till naomi peevishly begged him to shut the window and come to bed. then in the mornings, when he woke according to healthy habit at five, he would sit up, and even from the bed he could see his land, waiting for him in the cold whiteness of dawn, silently calling him out to the freshness of its many dews. he still kept the farm modestly, for he was anxious to be able to do without help except from beatup. his young family were also an expense. for a few years more he must expect to have them rather heavily on his hands ... then albert and the twins would be able to do a little work, and gradually both the capacity and number of his labourers would increase, till at last perhaps he would be able to discharge beatup, and backfield alone fight backfield's battle. meantime he was worried about naomi. it says much for the ineffectiveness of her emotions that he had not till just then realised her hostility towards him. now that he saw it, he put it down to her ill-health, and re-established the tyrannous watch over her which he had kept up in the old days. he was sorry for her, and knew now that he had made a mistake in marrying her. he should have chosen a sturdier, more ambitious mate. however, there was no help for it, he could not give up the battle because his fellow-fighter had no stomach for it. he was grieved for the loss of her beauty, and would make things as easy for her as possible, but he could not let her off altogether. she must do her share in the struggle which was so much greater than either of them. she had rested from child-bearing a year, but he still longed desperately for children, and she became a mother again at the end of ' . the baby was a girl, and reuben was bitterly disappointed. one girl was quite enough, and he badly wanted more boys. besides, naomi was very ill, and the doctor told him in private that she ought not to have any more children, at least for some time. "she never was a strong woman, and these repeated confinements have quite worn her out. you have seven children, mr. backfield, and i think that ought to be enough for any man." "but two of them are girls--it's boys i want, surelye!" "aren't five boys enough for you?" "no--they äun't." "well, of course, if she has a thorough rest from all work and worry, and recovers her health in the meantime, i don't say that in three or four years.... but she's not a strong subject, mr. backfield, and you'd do well to remember it." § . reuben was very kind to naomi during her illness. he helped his mother to nurse her, and spent by her side all the time he could spare from the farm. he was too strong to vent on her personally the rage and disappointment with which circumstances had filled him. he pitied her fragility, he even pitied her for the antagonism which he saw she still felt towards him. at nights he slept upstairs in one of the attics, which always smelt of apples, because it was next to the loft where the apples were stored. he was happy there, in spite of some dark hours when the deadlock of his married life kept him awake. he wondered if there was a woman in the world who could share his ambitions for odiam. he expected not, for women were an ambitionless race. if naomi had had a single spark of zeal for the great enterprise in which he and she were engaged, she would not now be lying exhausted by her share in it. he had honoured her by asking her to join him in this splendid undertaking, and all she had done had been to prove that she had no fight in her. he could now gaze out on boarzell uninterrupted. the sight of the great moor made his blood tingle; his whole being thrilled to see it lying there, swart, unconquered, challenging. how long would it be, he wondered, before he had subdued it? surely in all sussex, in all england, there had never been such an undertaking as this ... and when he was triumphant, had achieved his great ambition, won his heart's desire, how proud, how glorious he would be among his children.... the wind would carry him the scent of gorse, like peaches and apricots. there was something in that scent which both mocked and delighted him. it was an irony that the huge couchant beast of boarzell should smell so sweet--surely the wind should have brought him a pungent ammoniacal smell like the smell of stables ... or perhaps the smell of blood. but, after all, this subtle gorse-fragrance had its suitableness, for though gorse may cast out the scent of soft fruit from its flowers, its stalks are wire and its roots iron, its leaves are so many barbs for those who would lay hands on its sweetness. it was like boarzell itself, which was reuben's delight and his dread, his beloved and his enemy. the day would come when boarzell would no longer drench the night with perfume, when the gorse would be torn out of its hide to make room for the scentless grain. then reuben would no longer lean out of his window and dream of it, for dreams, like the peach-scent of the gorse, would go when the corn came. but those days were not yet. naomi's illness dragged. sometimes reuben suspected her of malingering, she so obviously did not want to get well. he guessed her reasons, and took an opportunity to tell her of the doctor's verdict. the struggle was in abeyance--at least her share of it. nature--which was really what he was fighting in boarzell--had gained a temporary advantage, and his outposts had been forced to retire. naomi began now decidedly to improve. she put on flesh, and showed a faint interest in life. towards the end of april she was able to come downstairs. she was obviously much better, and old mrs. backfield hinted that she was even better than she looked. reuben watched over her anxiously, delighted to notice day by day fresh signs of strength. she began to do little things for the children, she even seemed proud of them. they were splendid children, but it was the first time that she had realised it. she helped the scholastic elders with their sums and made frocks for the little girls. she even allowed baby mathilda to wear fanny's shoes. the summer wore on. the sallow tints in naomi's skin were exchanged for the buttery ones which used to be before her marriage. her hair ceased to fall, her cheeks plumped out, her voice lost its weak shrillness. she made herself a muslin gown, and reuben bought ribbons for it at rye. the husband and wife now lived quite independently. they no longer made even the pretence of walking on the same path. naomi played with the children, did a little sewing and housework--exactly what she chose--and occasionally went over to totease or burntbarns for a chat with the neighbours. she once even spent a couple of nights at her father's, the first time since her marriage that she had slept away from odiam. as for reuben, he worked as hard as ever, but never spoke of it to his wife. he seemed to enjoy her society at meals, and now and then would take her out for a stroll along the lanes, or sit with her in the evening by the kitchen fire. once more he liked to have her read him the papers; and though she understood no more than she had ever done, her voice had ceased to be dull and fretful. then at night he would go up to his attic and drink in the smell of gorse at the window, till he grew drowsy and shut himself in with the smell of apples. after a time they began to notice a convergence in these independent ways. it seemed as if only by running apart had they learned at last to run together. a certain friendliness and comradery began to establish itself between them. reuben began to talk to naomi about politics and agricultural doings, and gradually her character underwent a strange blossoming. she became far more adult in her opinions; she took interest in matters outside her household and immediate surroundings. he never spoke to her of his plans for boarzell, for that would have brought them back into the old antagonism and unrest; but when she read the papers to him he would discuss them with her, occasionally interrupt her with comments, and otherwise show that he had to do with an intelligent being. she in her turn would enquire into the progress of the hops or the oats, ask him if his new insect-killer was successful, or whether ditch had done well with his harvest, or how much realf's had fetched at the corn-market. three months passed in this new way. reuben would never have believed that naomi could be a companion to him, especially after the last few hostile years. as for her, she looked young and pretty again; delicious slim lines had come into her figure--no longer the slack curves and emaciation of recent months, or the matronly fullness of earlier times. her health seemed completely restored. then came a day early in december, when they were walking home together through the mud of totease lane, their faces whipped into redness by the south-west wind. naomi wore a russet cloak and hood, and her hair, on which a few rain-drops glistened, was teasing her eyes. she held reuben's arm, for the ruts were treacherous, and he noticed the spring and freedom of her walk. a sudden turn of the lane brought them round due west, and between them and the sunset stood boarzell, its club of firs knobbily outlined against the grape-red sky. it smote itself upon reuben's eyes almost as a thing forgotten--there, half blotting out the sunset with its blackness. unconsciously his arm with naomi's hand on it contracted against his side, while the colour deepened on his cheek-bones. "naomi." "what is it?" "boarzell." she lifted her eyes to the shape between her and the sky, and as unconsciously he had flushed so unconsciously she shuddered. "well, what about it?" she asked in a voice that stuck a little. "it's wunnerful ..." he murmured, "all that great big dark moor, wot's going to be mine." she did not speak. "mine!" he repeated almost fiercely. then suddenly she began to plead: "can't you let it alone, reuben?--we--we've been so happy these last months not worrying about it. must we ever start again?" her voice came anxiously, timidly like a child's. he dropped her hand from his arm. "yes--we must," he said shortly. they reached odiam, both feeling that the glory of those last three months had departed. the sight of boarzell, lying black and hullish across their path, had made them realise that their happiness was but an interval, an interlude between more significant, more sinister things. naomi had lost her peace and confidence, she seemed to avoid her husband, was tongue-tied in his presence, gave him a hurried good night from the door. reuben was silent and meditative--when his eyes rested on naomi they were half regretful. that night he lay awake long hours in the smell of apples. he pondered many things. those past months had been sweet in their revived tenderness, their simple freedom. but boarzell had reasserted itself--naomi was now quite well again--she must no longer shirk her duties. she must have more children. it was cruel, he knew. she had already given him seven, she could not realise that her task was not yet done. she had just felt what it was to be well and strong again after long months of illness. it would be cruel to impose on her once more the pains and weariness of motherhood. it would be cruel.--but, hem it all! was not the thing he was fighting cruel? was not boarzell cruel, meeting his endeavours with every form of violence and treachery? if he was to conquer it he too must be cruel, must harden his heart, and press forward, without caring how much he or anyone bled on the way. he could not stop to consider even his nearest and dearest when his foe had neither mercy nor ruth for him. § . it was the august of another year. reuben's new land on boarzell was tawny with oats. he had at last broken into that defiant earth and taken handfuls of its treasure. to-day he inspected his crop, and planned for its reaping. with parted lips and a faint sensuous gleam in his eyes he watched it bow and ripple before the little breeze that stole over the hedges from tiffenden. he drank in the scent of the baking awns, the heat of the sun-cracked earth. it was all dear to him--all ecstasy. and he himself was dear to himself because the beauty of it fell upon him ... his body, strong and tired, smelling a little of sweat, his back scorched by the heat in which he had bent, his hand strong as iron upon his sickle. oh lord! it was good to be a man, to feel the sap of life and conquest running in you, to be battling with mighty forces, to be able to fight seasons, elements, earth, and nature.... he turned and walked slowly homewards, a smile on his lips. as he passed the orchard, where a crop of plums was ripening, the shrill whir of a bird-rattle made him look up. there in the long grass stood his young albert, dutifully scaring sparrows from the trees. he had been there all the afternoon, and reuben beckoned to him to come in to tea. further on, in the yard, he encountered robert feeding the chickens out of an enormous bowl carried by pete, whose arms with difficulty embraced its girth. he summoned these two in. his family trotted after him at a respectful distance. they did not speak, except to say "oo" occasionally to each other. in the kitchen a substantial meal was prepared. it was the children's supper, and was to last reuben till he came in at nine o'clock and had a bowl of broth before going to bed. old mrs. backfield was settling the children round the table. caro and tilly showed only their heads above the cloth, a piece of neck proclaimed benjamin's extra inches, while richard had quite two buttons to his credit. harry sat at the bottom beside caroline; when he heard albert's rattle, he seized it and began making a hideous din. caro and tilly began to cry, and reuben snatched the rattle away. he sat down, and immediately his mother put a plate of hot bacon before him. she was vexed because it was the only meat he allowed himself on week-days. the children ate bread and milk, and thrived on it, to judge by their round healthy faces. reuben was proud of them. they were fine children, and he hoped that the one that was coming would be as sturdy. "how is she?" he asked mrs. backfield. "she slept a bit this afternoon. i took her a cup of tea at five, but i think the heat tries her." "i'll go up and see her soon as i've finished--harry, täake your hand out of the baby's pläate." as soon as the supper was over, reuben still munching bread and bacon went up to his wife's room. the sunlight was gone, but the sky was blood-red behind boarzell's hulk, and a flushed afterglow hung on the ceiling and moved slowly like a fire over the bed. the corners of the room, the shadows cast by the furniture, were black and smoky. on naomi's face, on her body outlined under the sheet, the lights crimsoned and smouldered. there was a strange fiery reflection in her eyes as she turned them to the door. "well, my dear, how are you?" "i'm very well, thank you, backfield." she always said that. he came over to the bed and looked down on her. her eyes were haunting ... and the vestiges of youth about her face. but he no longer pitied or spared. boarzell had taught him his first lesson--that only the hard shall triumph in the hard fight, and that he who would spare his brother shall do no better than he who would spare himself. he sat down beside her and took her hand. "i hear you had some sleep this afternoon." "yes--i slept for an hour. i think i'm better." her voice was submissive--or indifferent. "i've bin on the new land all to-day. it's doing justabout splendid. those oats are as dentical as wheat--not a sedge-leaf adin them." she made a faint sound to show that she had heard him. "albert's bin in the orchard scaring sparrers, and robert and pete wur helping wud the chickens. my family's gitting quite valiant now, mrs. backfield." "yes." "i'll soon be able to have richard on, and then there's still jemmy to foller--and george." "mmm." "now döan't you put me off wud georgina." her mouth stretched mechanically into a smile, and at the same time a tear slid out of the corner of her eye, and rolled slowly over her thin cheeks. in the red, smouldering light of the sky behind boarzell it looked like a tear of blood. § . early in september george arrived. reuben's face kindled when the doctor told him he had escaped georgina. the doctor, however, did not look pleased. "perhaps now you have enough boys?" he said rather truculently. "well, there's six...." "i hope that's enough to satisfy you. because there won't be any more---- she's dying." "dying!" he repeated the word almost stupidly. "yes"--said dr. espinette. he did not feel inclined to mince matters with backfield. "but--but--can't you do anything for her, surelye?" "i'm afraid not. of course, one can never speak with absolute certainty even in a case like this. but----" and the doctor wasted some medical technicalities on reuben. the young man turned from him, half-dazed. dying! naomi! a sudden wild pang smote through his heart for the mother of his children. "do something for her! you can--you must." "i'm going over to gablehook now, but i'll call in on the way back. i'm afraid there's not much hope; however, i'll do my best." reuben's sudden pallor and blank eyes had softened his heart a little. but, he reflected the next moment, there was no sense in pitying backfield. reuben did not wait any longer--he dashed out of the room and upstairs to his wife's door. he knocked. from within came a faint sound of moaning. he knocked again. the midwife opened the door. "go away," she said, "we can't let you in." "i want to see naomi." "you can't." "i must. hem it! äun't i her husband?" "you can come back in an hour or two. but you must go now--" and she shut the door in his face. reuben slunk away, angry and miserable. he pottered about the farm all the morning. somehow these terrible events reminded him of the birth of his first child, when he had moped and fretted and sulked--and all for nothing. that seemed twenty years ago. now he did not fret for nothing. his wife was dying, still young, still sometimes beautiful. his mind was full of jumbled memories of her--he saw her as harry's sweetheart, sitting with him on boarzell while he sang; he saw her in the dairy where he had first kissed her stooping over the cream; he saw her as his bride, flushed and timid beside him at the wedding-feast, as the mother of his boys, proud and full-bosomed. but mostly his thoughts were more trivial and tattered--memories of her in certain gowns, in a cap she had bought because, having three little boys, she thought she must "dress older"; memories of little things she had said--"why don't you keep bees, reuben? why don't you keep bees? they're such pretty things, and i like the honey...." towards two in the afternoon he came in, tired and puff-eyed with misery, his brain all of a jangle. "why don't you keep bees, reuben? why don't you keep bees?" he sat down at the table which the children had left, and mechanically began to eat. his healthy young body claimed its dues, and almost without knowing it he cleared the plate before him. harry sat in the chimney corner, murmuring, "why döan't you kip bees, reuben? why döan't you kip bees?"--showing that he had uttered his thoughts aloud, just as the empty platters showed him he had made a very good dinner. at last, strengthened by the food, he went up to naomi's room again. this time he was admitted. she lay propped high on the pillows, and he was astonished to see how well she looked, much better than before the baby was born. the infant george lay like a rather ugly doll on his grandmother's lap. he was not so healthy as the other children, indeed for a time it had been doubtful whether he would live. naomi smiled feebly, and that smile, so wan, so patient, so utterly wistful, so utterly unregretful, with which almost every mother first greets the father of her child, went straight to reuben's heart. he fell on his knees by the bed, and covered her hand and her thin arm with kisses. "naomi, my darling, my love, git well--you mustn't die and leave me." actually his tears fell on her hand, and a rather bitter compassion for him drove away the more normal mood. he had killed her, and he was sorry for it. but if he had it all to do over again he would do it, for the sake of the land which was so much more to him than her life. "my sweet," he murmured, holding her palm against his mouth, "my liddle creature, my liddle sweet. git well, and you shan't never have to go through this agäun. six boys is all i'll want to help me, surelye--and you shall rest and be happy, liddle wife, and be proud of your children and the gurt things they're going to do." she smiled with that same bitter compassion, and stroked his head with her feeble hand. "how thick your hair is," she said, and weakly took a handful of it, as she had sometimes done when she was well. when he left her, ten minutes later, she struck him as better. he could not quite smother the hope that dr. espinette was mistaken and that she would recover with nursing and care. after all, even the doctor himself had said that one could never be certain. he felt his spirits revive, and called beatup to go with him to the hop-fields. naomi heard him tramp off, talking of "goldings" and "fuggles." she lay very still, hoping that the light would soon go, and give rest to her tired eyes--but she was too utterly weary to ask mrs. backfield to draw the curtains. her mother-in-law put the baby back in its cradle, then sat down at the foot of the bed, folding her arms over her breast. she was tired after her labours in the house and in the sick-room, and soon she began to doze. naomi felt more utterly alone than before. her fingers plucked nervously at the sheet. there seemed to be a strange tickling irritation in her skin, while her feet were dreadfully cold. she wondered rather dully about the baby--she supposed he could not come to any harm over there in the cradle by himself, but really she did not care much--it was all one to her what happened to him. gradually the sun slanted and glowed, and a faint ripple of air stole into the room, lifting the hair on her forehead, tangled and damp. it struck her that she must be looking very ugly--she who had used to be such a pretty girl. the light trembled and pearled, and in a swift last clearness she saw the great moor rolling up against the sky, purple with heather, golden with gorse, all strength and life. it seemed to mock her savagely--"i live--you die. you die--i live." it was this hateful land which had killed her, to which she had been sacrificed, and now it seemed to flaunt its beauty and life and vigour before her dying eyes. "i live--you die. you die--i live." yes, she was dying--and she hoped that she would die before reuben came back. she did not want to feel again that strange, half-bitter compassion for him. the tears ran quite fast down her cheeks, and her eyes were growing dim. this was the end, and she knew it. the evening was full of tender life, but for her it was the end. ambition and folly had stolen her out of all this freshness before the spring of her life had run. she was like a young birch tree blighted with its april leafage half uncurled. the tears splashed and dribbled on, till at last for some purely physical reason they stopped. then a familiar tune swam into her head. she had been told of people who heard music when they were dying. "at last when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow, and years of remorse and despair been your fate, perhaps your cold heart will remember seth's manor, and turn to your true love--and find it too late." but her mind was too dim even for regrets. instead, she seemed to see herself dancing with reuben at boarzell fair, when the dusk had been full of strange whirling lights, whispers, and kisses. dancing!... dancing!... dying!... dying! even the tune had faded now, and she could see nothing--only a grey patch where the window had been. she was not frightened, only very lonely. her legs were like ice, and the inside of her mouth felt all rough and numb. ... even the window had faded. her head had fallen sideways on the pillow, and behind boarzell the sky had kindled into a sheet of soaring triumphant flame. "i live--you die. you die--i live." book iii the elder children § . for some time after naomi's death reuben was sick with grief. her going had been so cruel, so unexpected--and he could not forget how they had found her, her eyelashes wetted with tears. he also missed her in the house--her soft pale face and gentle ways. he forgot the sallowness and the peevishness of later years, and pictured her always with creamy roseal skin and timid voice. he was the only one who missed her. mrs. backfield's softer feelings seemed to have been atrophied by hard work--she grew daily more and more like a machine; the children were too young to care much, and harry was incapable of regret. however, the strange thing about harry was that he did indeed seem to miss someone, but not naomi. for the first time since little fanny's death he began to ask for her, and search for her about the house--"where's the pretty baby?--oh, save the pretty baby!" he would wail--"she's gone, she's gone--the pretty baby's gone." reuben, as was usual with him, tried to drown sorrow in hard work. he spent his whole day either in the yard or in the fields or out on boarzell. he was digging a ditch round his new land, to let off the winter rain, and throughout the cool november damps he was on the moor, watching the sunset's fiery glow behind the gorse, seeing the red clay squash and crumble thickly under his spade--spouting out drops of blood. in time all this fire and blood brought him back into his old purpose. gradually the lust of conquest drove away regret. he had no more cause for self-reproach than an officer who loses a good soldier in battle. it is the fortune of war. and naomi had not died without accomplishing her work and giving him men to help him in the fight. the young backfields were beginning to grow into individualities. albert, the eldest, was eight, and showed certain tokens of a wilful nature, which had not much chance where his father was concerned. strange fits of dreaminess alternated with vigorous fits of passion. he was a difficult child to manage, for in addition to his own moods he had a certain corrupting influence over his more docile brothers. reuben already kept him at work most of the day--either at the village school, or scaring birds from the orchard or the grain fields. robert and peter also did their share, feeding fowls, weeding vegetables. robert was a stolid, well-behaved child, a trifle uninteresting, but hard-working and obedient. pete was reuben's delight--a wonderfully sturdy little fellow, who often amazed his father and beatup by his precocious feats of strength. to amuse them he would sometimes shoulder beatup's tools, or pick up a bag of chicken-meal with his teeth--he could even put his back against a young calf and prevent it entering a gate or reaching its stall. reuben was careful not to let him strain himself, but he loved to handle his son's arms and shoulders, feeling the swell of the muscles under the skin. he even taught him the rudiments of boxing; he had had some practice himself as a boy in the fair sparring booth, and though of late years he had been too busy to keep it up, he was a good teacher for little pete, who could soon lick all his brothers and even deliver respectable punishment on beatup's nether limbs. richard at the age of six was not of any great agricultural value, but at the village school he outshone the elder boys. sometimes he gave reuben anxious moments, for the smell of the midden now and then made him sick, which was scarcely a hopeful sign. the younger children were to their father so many bundles--meek and mute, but good to count as they sat at table with porridge bowls and staring eyes. it never occurred to him to pick any of them up and caress them. indeed they had no very distinct personalities apart from odiam, though tilly sometimes looked uncomfortably like naomi. § . towards the end of ' , reuben bought a pedigree bull at rye market. he knew that he could increase his importance and effectiveness in the neighbourhood if he started as a cattle-breeder, and there was also a sound profit to be made by the animal's hiring fees. the next year he bought ten acres more of boarzell for grass. he had now spent the whole of naomi's dowry, and knew that he was not likely to get anything more out of old gasson, whose housekeeper had during the last year smartly married him. however, he felt that the money had been laid out to the very best advantage, for odiam was paying its way, and had, besides, of late become the most important farm in the neighbourhood except grandturzel. reuben watched grandturzel jealously, though he was careful to hide his feelings. it had the advantage of forty acres of boarzell, granted by the commissioners. luckily old realf was not very enterprising. in spite of the farm's new activities, he found that he could still manage without engaging fresh labour. the odds and ends of work which his boys took off him and beatup left them free to attack the bigger enterprises. and as odiam grew the children would grow. even now they were all impressed for service, except little george, who was delicate and, moreover, subject to fits. their work was varied--they scared birds from the crops, fed the poultry, collected the eggs, drove the cows to and from pasture, fed the pigs, ran errands to the neighbouring farms. in course of time albert learned milking, and could saddle old crump the roan, or put him into the gig. then, in the house, the little girls were useful. mrs. backfield was not so energetic as she used to be. she had never been a robust woman, and though her husband's care had kept her well and strong, her frame was not equal to reuben's demands; after fourteen years' hard labour, she suffered from rheumatism, which though seldom acute, was inclined to make her stiff and slow. it was here that caro and tilly came in, and reuben began to appreciate his girls. after all, girls were needed in a house--and as for young men and marriage, their father could easily see that such follies did not spoil their usefulness or take them from him. caro and tilly helped their grandmother in all sorts of ways--they dusted, they watched pots, they shelled peas and peeled potatoes, they darned house-linen, they could even make a bed between them. needless to say there was not much playtime at odiam. § . during the next ten years the farm went forward by strides. reuben bought seven more acres of boarzell in ' , and fourteen in ' . he also bought a horse-rake, and threshed by machinery. he was now a topic in every public-house from northiam to rye. his success and the scant trouble he took to conciliate those about him had made him disliked. unprosperous farmers spoke windily of "spoiling his liddle game." ditch and ginner even suggested to vennal that they should club together and buy thirty acres or so of the moor themselves, just to spite him. however, money was too precious to throw away even on such an object, especially as everyone felt sure that backfield would sooner or later "bust himself" in his dealings with boarzell. after all, he had only fifty-six acres out of a possible three hundred, and had not made much profit out of them, judging by the austerity of ways at odiam. horse-rakes and steam-threshers could not blind his neighbours to the absence of muslin curtains and butcher's meat. "and the way he's working them pore childer, too ... all of 'em hard at it from mornun till evenun, surelye ... enough to make their mother turn in her grave, pore girl ... not but wot she hadn't every reason to expect it, considering the way he treated her," etc. etc. at flightshot manor comment was more enlightened. "i can't understand, papa," said anne bardon, "how you can go on selling land to that odious backfield." "well, my dear, he pays me good money for it, and i'm in precious need of that just now." "but in time the whole moor will fall into his hands--see if it doesn't. and he's a tory, a reactionary. it would be a dreadful thing for the parish if he became a big landowner." anne's politics were the most vigorous in the family. "my dear, if anyone else would buy the moor, i'd be only too pleased to sell it to them. but so far there hasn't been a nibble. backfield's the only man who has the temerity to think he could make anything out of a desert like boarzell, and i must say i admire his pluck." "it's only because he has no imagination. he's a thick-skinned brute, and i hate the idea of a man like that becoming powerful. why don't you give the land back to the parish? acknowledge that grandpapa's inclosure has failed, and let the people have their common again." "it's all very well for you to talk, anne," said her brother ralph, "you have your godmamma's fortune, and don't need to think of money. but papa and i have to think of it, and after all we're making a little, a very little, out of boarzell--just enough to keep up the village institute. as time goes on, and backfield gets richer and more ambitious, we shall sell larger pieces at higher rates, and then we'll be able to repair those wretched cottages at socknersh, and do a lot more besides." "i think it would be better if you gave up the institute and let the cottages tumble down. it's no good trying to raise the people if you leave a man like backfield loose among them." "i think you exaggerate his importance, and fail to realise that of the improvements we are making in peasmarsh. i can't help thinking, as most of the people round here think, that backfield will, as they call it, 'bust himself' over the moor. after all he's not educated, and an uneducated man is hampered even in the least intellectual undertakings." "i do not agree with you, papa." anne turned away from her father and brother, and walked towards the window. she disliked arguing, she thought it undignified. she was a tall woman, about twenty-eight years old, severely yet rather imposingly dressed, with a clear complexion, grey eyes, and a nose which was called by her friends aquiline, by her enemies hooked. she despised the squire in his truck with odiam, yet she was too fair-minded not to see the considerations that weighed him. and even she, as she gazed from the window, at the southward heap of boarzell--stony, gorsy, heather-shagged, and fir-crowned--could not withhold a certain admiration from the man who expected of his own arm and tool to subdue it. § . the crimean war had meant the stoppage for a time of russian grain supplies, and reuben had taken every advantage of this. he had some forty acres under grain cultivation, mostly oats, but also some good kinds of wheat and barley. in rotation with these were peas and clover, turnips and mangolds. he also had twenty acres of hops--the rest was pasture for his neat dutch and jersey cows, which, with the orchard and poultry yard, were still the most profitable if not the most glorious of his exploits. the bull had not proved so splendid an investment as he had hoped; the farmers of the district could not afford big hiring fees, and at present his space was too limited for extensive breeding of his own stock. however, he exhibited alfriston king at lewes agricultural show, and won a first prize for him. the next year he sold him to a big cattle breeder down horeham way, and bought a cheaper but more serviceable animal for his own business. his sons were now growing up--albert was nearly eighteen, and peter, though a year younger, looked a full-grown man, with his immense build and dark hairy skin. pete was still the most satisfactory of reuben's children, he had a huge and glad capacity for work, and took a real interest in odiam's progress, though it was not his life, as it was his father's. it was strange, reuben thought, that none of the other boys seemed to have a glimmer of enthusiasm. though they had grown up under the shadow of boarzell, and from their earliest childhood taken part in the struggle, they seemed still to think more about the ordinary things of young men's lives than the great victory before them. it was disappointing. of course one expected it of girls, but reuben's heart ached a little because the men children on whom he had set such hope and store cared so little about what was life itself to him. it is true that robert worked well, nearly as well as pete, but that was only because he was of a docile, tractable nature. he did not share his father's dreams--boarzell to him was only a piece of waste ground with some trees on it. as for albert and richard, they did not even work well, and they grumbled and shirked as much as they dared. they had ambitions, but so utterly at variance with odiam's as to be worse than none. albert wanted to be a poet and richard to be a gentleman. what there was in either reuben or naomi to make a poet of their eldest son would be hard to say. perhaps it was the glow of their young love, so golden and romantic during the first year of their marriage. if so, there was something of bitter irony in this survival and transmutation of it. odiam was no place for poets, and reuben tried by every means in his power to knock the poetry out of albert. it was not the actual poetry he objected to so much as the vices which went with it--forgetfulness, unpracticalness, negligence. albert would sometimes lose quite half an hour's work by falling into a dream, he also played truant on occasions, and would disappear for hours, indeed now and then for a day or more, wandering in the fields and spinneys, tasting the sharp sweetness of the dawn and the earth-flavoured sleep of the night. for though he did not care for odiam he loved the country round it, and made a wonderland and a dreamland of it. he did not see in boarzell robert's tree-capped waste, though neither did he see his father's enemy and heart's delight. he saw instead a kind of enchanted ground, full of mysteries of sun and moon, full of secrets that were sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying. it seemed to have a soul and a voice, a low voice, hoarse yet sweet; and its soul was not the soul of a man or of a beast, but the soul of a fetch, some country sprite, that clumped, and yet could skip ... he used to feel it skipping with him in the evening wind when the dusk made the heather misty round his knees ... but he knew that it danced heavy-footed round the farm at night, clumping, clumping, like a clod. reuben had no sympathy with these fancies when they took his son out of hard-working common sense into idle-handed, wander-footed dreams, or when perhaps he found them scribbled on the back of his corn accounts. he did not spare the rod, but albert had all the rather futile obstinacy of weak-willed people, and could be neither persuaded nor frightened out of his dreams. however, though he was a great trouble to his father, he was not so irritating as richard. he had the advantage that one could lay hands on him and vent one's fury in blows, but richard had an extraordinary knack of keeping just on the safe side of vengeance. for one thing he was the best educated of all reuben's children, and the result of education had been not so much to fill his mind as to sharpen his wits to a formidable extent. for another, he loathed to be beaten, and used all his ingenuity to avoid it. reuben could flog albert for going off to the moor when he was told to clean out the pigsties, but he could not flog richard for being sick at his first spadeful. as a matter of fact he did actually perpetrate this cruelty when richard's squeamishness caused him any gross inconvenience, but there was no denying that the boy was on the whole successful in avoiding his dues. richard had been the brightest light in the misses harmans' school. his teachers had often praised him, and on one occasion suggested in their ignorance that he should take up a more intellectual trade than farming. then when the curate-in-charge had inspected the school he had been struck by richard's clever, thoughtful answers, and had, for some months after his leaving, lent him books. reuben on discovering this, had gone over at once to the parsonage, and with all the respect due to a minister of the established church, had informed mr. munk that he didn't want no nonsense put into his boy's head, and spades and spuds were for richard's hands, not books. "i'm going to mäake a farmer of un, your reverence." "but he says he doesn't want to be a farmer." "that's why i've got to _mäake_ un one, surelye." § . reuben had sold alfriston king for two hundred pounds, and this new capital made possible another enterprise--he bought twenty head of sheep. for some time he had considered the advantages of keeping sheep. it was quite likely that his new land on boarzell would be mostly pasture, at all events for some time to come, and sheep, properly managed, ought to be a good source of revenue as well as a hall-mark of progress. he did not want odiam to be a farm of one idea; his father had kept it ambitionlessly to grass, but reuben saw grain-growing, dairy-keeping, cattle-breeding, sheep-rearing, hops, and fruit, and poultry as branches of its greatness. he decided that the sheep should be richard's special charge--they, at all events, could not make him sick; and if he was kept hard at work at something definite and important it would clear his mind of gentility nonsense. reuben also had rather a pathetic hope that it might stir up his ambition. richard grumbled of course, but discreetly. his brothers were inclined to envy him--albert saw more romance and freedom in keeping sheep than in digging roots or cleaning stables, pete was jealous of an honour the recipient did not appreciate, robert and jemmy would have liked a new interest in their humdrum lives. richard was initiated into the mysteries of his art by a superannuated shepherd from doozes, only too glad of a little ill-paid casual labour. none of the backfield boys was ever paid a penny of wages. reuben's idea in employing them was to save money, besides he feared that his young men with full pockets might grow independent. it was essential to his plan that he should keep them absolutely dependent on him, otherwise they might leave home, marry without his consent, or at best fritter away their--or rather his--time by running after girls or drinking at pubs. it is true that now and then stalwart pete made a few shillings in the sparring-booth at the fair, but reuben could trust pete in a way he could not trust the other boys, so he did not offer much objection. pete had once given a shilling to richard, who had bought with it a second-hand latin grammar, which he kept carefully hidden under his pillow by night, and in his pocket by day. he had an idea that the mastery of its obscurities would give him a key to freedom, but he had had so far little opportunity of studying it, as he worked and slept with his brothers. richard did not extort the same sympathy for his rebellion as albert. albert had a certain influence over pete and jemmy, which he maintained partly by a definite charm of personality, partly by telling them tales after they were in bed at night. they had never betrayed his copy of byron, also bought with a shilling from pete, but richard dared not trust them with his lilly. some day he would manage to irritate them--show his contempt for their bearish manners, scoff at their talk, or otherwise insult them--and they would deliver him over, grammar and all, into his father's hands. his new occupation, however, gave him undreamed-of opportunities. one of the advantages of shepherding was that it alternated periods of strenuous work with others of comparative idleness. during these richard would pore over his "hic, hæc, hoc," and parse and analyse on bits of waste paper. he learned very quickly, and was soon casting about for means to buy a greek grammar. he felt that his father could not possibly keep him at the farm if he knew both latin and greek. thus richard lived through the feasts and fasts of the shepherd's year. in spring there were hazy, drowsy days when he sat with his book under the hedge--some hole close by where he could stuff it if reuben came that way--now and then lifting an eye to the timid, foolish faces buried in the sun-stained meadow-grass. then later came the dipping, the collie havelock barking and blustering at one end of the bath, while old comfort poked the animals through it with his crook, and richard received them terrified and evil-smelling at the other side. he grew furious because his hands were all sore and blistered with the dip. reuben laughed at him grossly--"yur granny shall mäake you a complexion wash, surelye!" then came the shearing, that queen of feasts. the local band of shearers called at odiam for the first time, and were given an inaugural welcome. richard sulked at the honour paid him as shepherd--he felt it was indeed a case of king among sweepers. however, in point of fact, he enjoyed the actual shearing well enough. it was a warm july day, the air full of the scent of hayseed; the sheep came hustling and panting into the shearing-pens, and the shearers stripped them with songs and jokes and shouts of "shear close, boys!" there was also ale in buckets, brought out by a girl hired for the occasion, who was stout and pretty and smiled at richard. and it was good to watch the yellowish piles of fleece grow at one's knees, and comical to see the poor shorn sheep stagger up from the ground, all naked and confused, hardly knowing themselves, it seemed. when the shearing was done there was supper in the kitchen at odiam, with huge drinks of "black ram," and sheep-shearing songs such as "come, all my jolly boys," and "here the rose-buds in june." also the sussex whistling song: "there was an old farmer in sussex did dwell, and he had a bad wife, as many knew well." but richard did not enjoy the supper as much as the shearing, for most of the men over-ate themselves, and all of them over-drank. also the pretty serving-girl forsook him for albert, who on one occasion was actually seen to put his arm round her waist, and hold it there till a scowl from his father made him drop it. then in winter came the lambing, which is the shepherd's lent. richard and the old man from doozes kept long vigils in the lambing hut, and those nights and days were to young backfield dreams of red, fuggy solitude, the stillness broken only by the slip of coals in the brazier, or the faint bleating of the ewes outside--while sometimes mad harry's fiddle wept down the silences of boarzell. richard began to take a new interest in his flock--hitherto they had merely struck him as grotesque. their pale silly eyes, their rough, tic-ridden fleeces, their scared repulsiveness after the dipping, their bewildered nakedness after the shearing, had filled him either with amusement or disgust; but now, when he saw them weakly lick the backs of their new-born lambs, while the lambs' little tails quivered, and tiny, entreating sounds came from their mouths, he found in them a new beauty, which he had found nowhere else in his short, hard life--the beauty of an utterly loving, tender, and helpless thing. he had his lilly with him in the hut, for there were long hours of idleness as well as of anxiety, but he was careful to hide away the book if reuben came to inspect; for he knew that his father would have sat through the empty hours in concentration and expectancy, his ears straining for the faintest sound. he would have thought of nothing but the ewes, and he looked to everyone to think of nothing else. but richard studied latin, and the old doozes man put in plenty of light, easily startled sleep. § . towards the end of february there was a period of intense cold, and some heavy falls of snow. snow was rare in that south-east corner, and all farm-work was to a certain extent dislocated. reuben would have liked to spread blankets over his corn-fields and put shirts on his cattle. adverse weather conditions never failed to stir up his inborn combativeness to its fiercest. his sons trembled as his brain raged with body-racking plans for fighting this new move of nature's. richard was glad to be away from farmyard exertions, most of which struck him as absurd. he was now busy with the last of his lambing, the snow blew against the hut from the north-east, piling itself till nothing was to be seen from that quarter but a white lump. inside was a crimson stuffiness, as the fumes of the brazier found their way slowly out of the little tin chimney. sometimes before the brazier a motherless lamb would lie. there was a lamb there on the last evening in february, its tiny body and long, weak legs all rosed over with the glow. above it richard crouched, grammar in hand. there had been a lull in the snowstorm during the afternoon, but now once more the wind was piping and screaming over the fields and the whiteness heaping itself against the wall. suddenly he heard a knock at the door, and before he could answer, it flew open, and the icy blast, laden with snow, rushed in, and whirled round the hut, fluttering the pages of lilly's grammar and the fleece of the lamb. "shut that door!" cried richard angrily, and then realised that he was speaking to a lady. she had shut the door, and stood against it, a tall, rather commanding figure, in spite of her snow-covered garments and dishevelled hair. "oh--ma'am!" said richard, rising to his feet, and recognising miss anne bardon. "i trust i'm not in the way," she said rather coldly, "but the storm is so violent, and the drifts are forming so fast, that i hope you will not mind my sheltering here." richard was embarrassed. her fine words disconcerted him. he had often watched miss bardon from a respectful distance, but had never spoken to her before. "you're welcome, ma'am," he replied awkwardly, and offered her his chair. she sat down and held her feet to the brazier. he noticed that her shoes were pulped with wet, and the water was pouring off her skirts to the floor. he did not dare speak, and she evidently did not want to. he felt the colour mounting to his face; he knew that he was dirty and unkempt, for he had been hours in the hut--his hands were grimed from the brazier, and he wore an old crumpled slop. she probably despised him. suddenly he noticed that the wet of her garments was dropping on the lamb. he hastily gathered it up in his arms. "what a dear little creature!" she spoke quite graciously, and richard felt his spirits revive. "his mother's dead, and i have to be looking after him, surelye." "poor little thing!" she asked him a few questions about the lambing, then: "you're one of mr. backfield's sons, are you not?" "yes, ma'am. i'm richard." "i've seen you before--in church, i think. are you your father's shepherd?" "yes, ma'am." "again i hope i am not in your way. i've been over to see the carter's widow at socknersh--he died two days ago, you know, and she hasn't a penny to go on with. then when i saw the storm coming i thought i would take a short cut home across the fields; i was caught after all--and here i am!" she smiled suddenly as she finished speaking. it was a sweet smile, rather aloof, but lighting up the whole of her face with a sudden flash of youth and kindness. richard gazed at her, half fascinated, and mumbled lamely--"you're welcome, ma'am." she suddenly caught sight of his latin grammar. "that's a strange thing to see in a shepherd's hand." he felt encouraged, for he had wanted her to see the difference between him and an ordinary shepherd, but had been too awkward to show her. "i've had it three months--i can construe a bit of horace now." "acquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem," said anne. "onmes eodem cogimen," said richard, and blushed. there was silence, but not of the former discouraging sort. richard was even bold enough to break it: "i never knew ladies cud speak latin." "some can. i was educated with my brother, you know, and when we construed horace i was always five or six pages ahead. what made you want to learn latin?" "i want to git out o' this." "out of your farm duties, you mean?" "yes." "but surely your father would let you adopt some other profession if he knew you did not like this one?" richard shook his head. "he wants justabout all of us--we've got to push on the farm." "yes--i know he is ambitious, but surely he doesn't want unwilling helpers." "oh, he döan't mind who it is, so long as the work's done." "and don't you care about the farm?" "i, ma'am?--no. i want to be a gentleman." anne was growing interested. this farm boy was gloriously unlike others of his kind that she had met. "and you think that if you learn latin, it'll help you be a gentleman someday?" "yes--and greek, when i've adone wud the latin." "have you many books?" "no--only this one." "then i must lend you some books." richard flushed with pleasure. after all he was not acquitting himself so badly with this fine lady. they talked together for a few more minutes, the boy trying to clip his speech like hers. he noticed how much shorter and crisper it was than his--while he said "döan't," she could say "don't" twice. they were interrupted by the entrance of the doozes shepherd, accompanied by a swirl of flakeless wind. the old man was astonished and rather scandalised to find anne bardon. she looked positively rakish sitting there in her steaming clothes, her hat over one ear, her hair in wisps, and her face more animated and girlish than any of his kind had ever seen it. old comfort scraped and mumbled, and fussed over the lamb, which the two latinists had entirely forgotten. then richard, seeing himself free and the sky clear, offered to help her through the drifts to flightshot. she let him accompany her as far as the edge of the manor estate, where the going was no longer dangerous. "your servant, ma'am," he said, as he opened the gate; and she answered classically: "vale!" § . on the whole, the most unsatisfactory of reuben's sons was albert. richard might be more irritating, but albert had that knack of public sinning which gives a certain spectacular offensiveness to the most trivial faults. any trouble between reuben and his eldest son invariably spread itself into the gossip of ten farms; the covert misdoings of and private reckonings with the other boys gave place to tempestuous scandals, windy stormings, in which albert contrived to grab the general sympathy, and give a decorative impression of martyrdom. at the same time he tantalised reuben with vague hints of enthusiasm, sometimes almost making him think that, undependable and careless as he was, he had in him certain germs of understanding. but these were mere promises that were never fulfilled. albert would whet reuben's hopes by asking him questions about the country round: why was such and such a farm called stilliand's tower or puddingcake? why were there about six places called iden green within a square of twenty miles? was there any story to account for the names of mockbeggar, golden compasses, castweasel, or gablehook? but directly reuben digressed from these general questions to the holy particulars of odiam and boarzell, he would lose his interest and at last even his attention, escaping into some far-wandering dream. reuben could not understand how his sons could care so little about that which was all things to him. he had brought them up to his ambitions--they were not like naomi, thrust into them in later, less-impressionable years. he had not been weak with them, and not been cruel--yet only pete was at all satisfactory. however, he was not the man to sit down and despair before his obstacles. he made the best of things as they were--ground work out of his lads, since he could not grind enthusiasm, and trusted to the future to stir up a greater hope. he somehow could not believe that his boys could go through all their lives not caring for odiam. albert continued weakly and picturesquely to offend. he was now nearly twenty-one, and had begun to run after girls in a stupid way. reuben, remembering how sternly he had deprived himself of pleasures of this kind, ruthlessly spoiled his son's philanderings ... but the crime he could not forgive, which set the keystone on his and the boy's antagonism, was the publication of some verses by albert in the _rye advertiser_. to begin with, it was a liberal paper, and though the verses were of a strictly non-political kind, dealing chiefly with amelia's eyes, it seemed to reuben shockingly unprincipled to defile oneself in any way with radical print. but even without that the thing was criminal and offensive. "i wöan't have no hemmed poetry in my family!" stormed reuben, for albert had as usual stage-managed a "scene." "you've got your work to do, and you'll justabout do it." "but fäather, it didn't täake up any of my time, writing that poem. i wrote it at my breakfast one mornun two months ago----" "yes, that's it--instead of spending twenty minnut at your breakfast, you spend forty. you idle away my time wud your hemmed tricks, and i wöan't have it, i tell you, i wöan't have it. lord! when i wur your age, i wur running the whole of this farm alone--every ströak of work, i did it. i didn't go wasting time over my meals, and writing rubbidge fur low-down gladstone päapers. now döan't you go sassing me back, you young good-fur-nothing, or i'll flay you, surelye!" albert could not help a grudging admiration of his father. reuben could be angry and fling threats, and yet keep at the same time a certain splendour, which no violence or vulgarity could dim. the boy, in spite of his verses, which were execrable enough, had a poet's eye for the splendid, and he could not be blind to the qualities of his father's tyranny, even though that tyranny crushed him at times. reuben was now forty-three; a trifle heavier in build, perhaps, but otherwise as fine and straight a man as he had been at twenty. his clear brown skin, keen eyes, thick coal-black hair, his height, his strength, his dauntless spirit, could not fail to impress one in whom the sense of life and beauty was developing. albert even once began a poem to his father: "you march across the mangold field, and all our limbs do shake...." but somehow found the subject more difficult to grapple than the fascinations of amelia. with richard things were different. he despised reuben as bestial, and sometimes jeopardised his skin by nearly showing his contempt. he now had a peculiar friendship with anne bardon. they had met accidentally a second time, and deliberately half a dozen more. in richard anne had made a discovery--he appealed to her imagination, which ran on severe lines. she sympathised with his ambition to break free from the grind and grossness of odiam, and resolved to help him as much as she could. she lent him books, and guided him with her superior knowledge and education. their meetings were secret, from her family as well as his. but they were dignified--there was no scurrying like rabbits. richard's work kept him mostly on the flightshot borders of odiam, and often the grave anne would walk down to the hedge, and help him construe tacitus or parse from ovid. there was an old tree by the boundary fence, in the hollow of which she put new books for him to find, and into which he would return those he had finished. she was very careful to maintain the right attitude towards him; he was always her humble servant, he never forgot to call her "ma'am." but the disciple of anne bardon could aspire to be master among other men. richard began to startle and amuse his family by strange new ways. he took to washing his neck every morning, and neatly combed his hair. he cut up an old shirt into pocket-handkerchiefs. he began to model his speech on miss bardon's--clipping it, and purging it ridiculously. reuben would roar with laughter. "'pray am i to remove this dirt?'--did you ever hear such präaperness and denticalness?--all short and soft lik the squire himself. you wash out all that mucky sharn, my lad, if that's wot you mean." § . robert backfield was a member of peasmarsh choir. he had a good, ringing bass voice, which had attracted the clerk's notice, and though reuben disapproved of his son's having any interests outside odiam, he realised that as a good tory he ought to support the church--especially as the hours of the practices did not clash with robert's more important engagements. peasmarsh choir consisted of about eighteen boys and girls, with an accompaniment of cornets, flutes, and a bass viol--the last played by an immensely aged drover from coldblow, who, having only three fingers on his left hand, had to compromise, not always tunefully, with the score. the singing was erratic. eighteen fresh young voices could not fail to give a certain pleasure, but various members had idiosyncrasies which did not make for the common weal--such as young ditch, who never knew till he had begun to sing whether his voice would be bass or alto, all intermediary pitches being somehow unattainable--or rosie hubble from barline, who was always four bars behind the rest--or even young robert himself, who in crises of enthusiasm was wont to sing so loud that his voice drowned everyone else's, or in a wild game of follow-my-leader led the whole anthem to destruction. robert loved these choir practices and church singings. though he never complained of his hard work, he was unconsciously glad of a change from the materialism of odiam. the psalms with their outbreathings of a clearer life did much to purge even his uncultured soul of its muddlings, the hymns with their sentimental farawayness opened views into which he would gaze enchanted as into a promised land. he would come in tired and throbbing from the fields, scrape as much mud as possible off his boots, put on his sunday coat, and tramp through the dusk to the clerk's house ... the little golden window gleaming to him across peasmarsh street and pond was the foretaste of the evening's sweetness. the practices were held in the clerk's kitchen, into which the choristers would crush and huddle. on full attendance nights all elbows touched, and occasionally old spodgram's bow would be jolted out of his hand, or someone would complain that leacher was blowing his trumpet down his neck. afterwards the choristers would wander home in clusters through the fields; the clusters generally split into small groups, and then the groups into couples. the couples would scatter widely, and vex their homes with late returnings. robert was first of all part of a cluster which included young coalbran from doozes, tom sheane from dinglesden, the two morfees from edzell, emily ditch, and bessie lamb from eggs hole. then in time the company reduced itself to robert, emily, and bessie--and one wonderful night he found himself with bessie alone. how they had chosen each other he could not say. all he knew was that for sometime she had become woven with the music into his thoughts. she was a poor labourer's daughter, living in a crumbled, rickety cottage on eggs hole farm, helping her mother look after eight young children. she was only seventeen herself, sturdy yet soft, with a mass of hay-coloured hair, and rather a broad face with wistful eyes. robert thought she was beautiful--but robert thought that old spodgram's playing and the choir's singing were beautiful. though they were technically a couple, they never spoke of love. they never even kissed or held each other's hands, however tenderly the velvet darkness called. he told her about his work at odiam--about the little calf that was born that day, or the trouble he had had, patching the rent in the pigsty, or how the poultry had not taken well to their new food, but preferred something with more sharps in it. she in her turn would tell him how she had washed little georgie's shirt--taking advantage of a warm day when he could run about naked--how her mother had lamentable hard pains all down her back, how her father had got drunk at the harvest supper and tried to beat her. sometimes they looked in the hedges for birds' nests, or watched the rabbits skipping in the dusk. they would gape up at the stars together and call the constellations by names of their own--orion was "the gurt tree," and cassiopeia was "the sheep trough," and pegasus was "the square meadow." it was all very wonderful and sweet to robert, and when at last he crept under the sheets in the apple-smelling garret he would dream of him and bessie wandering in the peasmarsh fields--or sometimes in those starry meadows where the hedges shone and twinkled with the fruit of constellations, and charles drove his waggon along a golden road, and sheep ate from a flickering trough under a great tree of lamps. § . bessie tinted the world for robert like a sunrise. all through the day he carried memories of lightless woods, of fields hushed in the swale, of the smudge of her old purple cotton beside him--of, perhaps, some dim divine moment when his hand had touched hers hanging at her side. then winter came, with carol-singing, and the choristers tramped round, lantern-led, from farm to farm. there in the fluttering light outside kitchenhour, old turk, ellenwhorne, or edzell, robert would watch bessie's chicory-flower eyes under her hood, while the steam of their breath mingled in the frosty air, and they drooped their heads together, singing to each other, only to each other, "good king wenceslas," "as joseph was a-walking," or "in the fields with their flocks." as they were both simple souls, their love only made the words more real. sometimes it seemed almost as if they could see up in the white glistering field behind the barn, the manger with the baby in it, the mother watching near, and the ox and the ass standing meekly beside them in the straw. bessie said she felt sure that the shepherds watched their flocks by night in the little old meadow at the corner of totease ... she once thought she had heard them singing. but she would not go and look. as the year climbed up again into spring, a tender pity for bessie mingled with robert's love. it was not the pity which begets love, but the sweeter kind which is begotten of it. robert forgot all about his own hard life, the monotonous ruthless grind of work, the absence of all softness, homeliness, or sympathy, the denial of all gaiety and sport. he thought only of bessie's troubles, and would have given the world to lighten them. he longed to give her some little treat, or a present. but he had no money. for the first time he inwardly rebelled against the system which kept him penniless. none of the boys had any money, except pete on fair days--not even albert, for the _rye advertiser_ did not pay its poets. for the first time robert saw this as unjust. march blew some warm twilights to peasmarsh, and the choristers began their summer lingering. bessie and robert often took the longer way home by ellenwhorne--he would not leave her now till they were at her cottage door, and often he would run home hare-footed from eggs hole, afraid that he might be shut out of odiam, and perhaps his precious comradeship discovered and put under the tyrant's ban. then came an evening in april, when the air smelled of primroses and young leaves. the choir practice was early, and rifts of sunshine sloped up the clerk's kitchen, linking in one golden slant robert's dark healthy face just under the ceiling, bessie's shoulders pressed against his arm, the frail old hands of joe hearsfield on his flute, and the warm plum-brown of the bass viol close to the floor. to robert it was all a dream of holiness and harmony. old spodgram confined himself almost entirely to two notes, miss hubble insisted on her four bars of arrears, young ditch extemporised an alto of surprising reediness, and robert bellowed the last lines of the last verse just as the other choristers were loudly taking in breath preparatory to line three--but the whole thing was to him a foretaste of paradise and the angels singing ever world without end. when the practice was over it was still light, and robert and bessie turned inevitably along the little bostal that trickles through the fields towards ramstile. as usual they did not speak, but in each glowed the thought that they had a full two hours to live through together in the mystery of these sorrowless fields. the sun set as they came to ellenwhorne. they stood and watched it dip behind the little cluster of roofs and oast-houses in the west. the turrets of the oasts stood out black against the crimson, then suddenly they purpled, faded into their background of night-washed cloud. the fields were very dark in their low corners, only their high sweeps shimmered in the ghostly lemon glow. out of the rabbit-warrens along the hedges, from the rims of the woods, ran the rabbits to scuttle and play. bessie and robert saw the bob of their white tails through the dusk, and now and then a little long-eared shape. the boy and girl were still silent. but in the consciousness each had of the other, kindled and spread a strange dear poignancy. they walked side by side through the dusk, now faintly cold. dew began to tremble and shine on the grass, to pearl the brambles and glimmer on the twigs. robert looked sideways at bessie. she was colourless in the dark, or rather coloured all over with the same soft grey, which gathered up into itself the purple of her gown and the pale web of her hair. in her eyes was a quiver of starlight. their feet splashed on the soaking grass, and suddenly bessie stopped and lifted her shoe: "it's justabout wet, robby." he looked. "so it be--i shudn't have brought you through all this damp grass. we shud have gone by the lane, i reckon." "oh, no," she breathed, and her voice and the half-seen glimmer of her eyes troubled him strangely. "lookee, i'll carry you--you mustn't git wet." she opened her lips to protest, but the sound died on them, for he stooped and swept her up in his arms. she slipped her hand to his neck to steady herself, and they went forward again towards the south. bessie was a sturdily built little person, but the weight of her was a rich delight, and if his arms strained, they strained with tenderness as well as with effort. under them her frock crushed and gave out a fragrance of crumpled cotton, her hand was warm against his neck, and on his cheek tickled her soft hair. the shadows ran towards them from the corners of the field, slipping like ghosts over the grass, and one or two pale stars kindled before them, where the sky dropped into the woods.... an owl lifted his note of sadness, which wandered away over the fields to ellenwhorne.... her young face bowed to his neck, and suddenly his lips crept round and lay against the coolness of her cheek. she did not move, and he still walked on, the grass splashing under his feet, the rabbits scampering round him, showing their little cotton-tails in the dark. then his mouth stole downwards and groped for hers. their lips fluttered together like moths. then suddenly she put her arms round his neck, and strained his head to her, and kissed him and kissed him, with queer little sobs in her throat.... he still walked on through the deepening night and skipping rabbits. he never paused, just carried her and kissed her; and she kissed him, stroking his face with her hands--and all without a word. at last they reached the lane by eggs hole cottage, which with shimmering star-washed front looked towards the south. he stopped, and she slid to the ground. then suddenly the words came. "oh, my liddle thing! my dear liddle thing ... my sweet liddle thing!" "robby, robby...." they kissed each other again and again, eagerly like children, but with the tears of men and women in their eyes. "robby ... i love you ... i love you so!" "oh, you liddle thing!" they were hungry ... their arms wound about each other and their faces pressed close, now cheek to cheek, now with lips fluttering together in those sweet kisses of youth which have so much of shyness in their passion. suddenly a light kindled in the little house. bessie slipped from him, and ran up the pathway into the dark gape of the door. § . in august reuben bought ten more acres of boarzell, and the yoke tightened on odiam. all had now been pressed into service, even the epileptic george. from morning till night feet tramped, hoofs stamped, wheels rolled, backs bent, arms swung. reuben himself worked hardest of all, for to his actual labour must be added long tramps from one part of the farm to the other to superintend his sons' work. besides, he would allow nothing really important to be undertaken without him. he must be present when the first scythe swept into the hay, when his wonderful horse-reaper took its first step along the side of the cornfield, he must himself see to the spreading of the hops over the drying furnaces in the oasts, or rise in the cold twinkling hour after midnight to find out how buttercup was doing with her calf. pete made an able and keen lieutenant, but the other boys were still disappointing. it is true that benjamin worked well and was often smart enough, but he had a roving disposition, which was more dangerous than albert's, since it led him invariably down to the muddy rother banks at rye, where the great ships stood in the water, filling the air with good smells of fish and tar. jemmy would loaf for hours round the capstans and building-stocks, and the piles of muddy rope that smelled of ooze, and he would talk to the sailormen and fishermen about voyages to the azores and the cape or to the wild seas south of the horn, and would come home prating of sails and smoke-stacks, charts and logs, and other vain things that had nothing to do with odiam. reuben remembered that the boy's mother came of a family of ship-builders and sailormen, and he would tremble for jemmy's allegiance, and punish his truancies twice as severely as albert's. another trial to him now was that robert seemed half-hearted. hitherto he had always worked conscientiously and well, even though he had never been smart or particularly keen; but now he seemed to loaf and slack--he dawdled, slipped clear of what he could, and once he actually asked reuben for wages! this was unheard-of--not one of reuben's sons had ever dreamed of such a thing before. "wages!--wot are you wanting wages fur, young räascal? you're working to save money, not to earn it. you wait till all yon moor is mine, and odiam's the biggest farm in sussex, before you ask fur wages." up till then robert had never troubled much about money. he did not want to buy books like albert and richard, neither did he care for drinking in rye pubs with fishermen like jemmy. but now everything was changed. he wanted money for bessie. he wanted to marry her, and he must have money for that, no matter how meanly they started; and also he wanted to give her treats and presents, to cheer the dullness of her life. reuben had indeed been wise in trying to keep the girls away from his sons! there are no two such things for sharpening human wits as fullness of love and shortness of cash. robert's brain was essentially placid and lumbering, but under this double spur it began to work wonders. after much pondering he thought of a plan. it was part of his duties to snare rabbits on boarzell. every evening he went round and inspected the traps, killed any little squealing prisoners that were in them, and sold them on market days at rye. it was after all an easy thing to report and hand over the money for ten rabbits a week, while keeping the price of, say, three more, and any other man would have thought of it sooner. in this way he managed to do a few little things to brighten bessie's grey life--and his own too, though he did not know it was grey. every week he put aside a shilling or two towards the lump sum which was at last to make their marriage possible. it was reuben's fight for boarzell on an insignificant scale--though robert, who had not so much iron in him as his father, could not resist spending money from time to time on unnecessary trifles that would give bessie happiness. for one thing he discovered that she had never been to the fair. she had never known the delights of riding on the merry-go-round, throwing balls at aunt sally, watching the shooting or the panorama. robert resolved to take her that autumn, and bought her a pair of white cotton gloves in preparation for the day. unluckily, however, he was not made for a career of prolonged fraud, and he ingloriously foundered in that sea of practical details through which the cunning man must steer his schemes. he fixed the number of rabbits to be sold at rye as ten a week, pocketing the surplus whether it were one or six. this was a pretty fair average, but its invariable occurrence for seven or eight weeks could not fail to strike reuben, whose brain was not placid and slow-moving like his son's. the one thing against the idea that robert was swindling him was that he thought robert utterly incapable of so much contrivance. however, he had noticed several changes in the boy of late, and he resolved to wait another two weeks, keeping his eyes open and his tongue still. each week ten rabbits were reported sold at rye and the money handed over to him. on the morning of the next market day, when robert's cart, piled with eggs, fruit, vegetables, and poultry, was at the door, reuben came out and inspected it. "let's see your conies," he said briefly. it was as if someone had suddenly laid a cold hand on robert's heart. he guessed that his father suspected him. his ears turned crimson, and his hands trembled and fumbled as he opened the back of the cart and took out his string of properly skinned and gutted conies. reuben counted them--ten. then he pushed them aside, and began rummaging in the cart among cabbages and bags of apples. in a second or two he had dragged out five more rabbits. robert stood with hanging head, flushed cheeks, and quivering hands, till his father fulfilled his expectations by knocking him down. "so that's the way you queer me, you young villain. you steal, you hide, you try to bust the farm. it's luck you're even a bigger fool than you are scamp, and i've caught you justabout purty." he kicked robert, and called up richard to drive the cart over to rye. an hour later the whole of the boy's plans, and worse still his sinews of war, were in the enemy's possession. reuben ransacked his son's mind as easily as he ransacked his pockets and the careful obvious little hiding-place under his mattress where lay the twenty-two shillings of which he had defrauded odiam. his love for bessie, his degraded and treacherous hopes, filled the father with shame. had he then lived so meanly that such mean ambitions should inspire his son? "a cowman's girl!" he groaned, "at eggs hole, too, where they döan't know plums from damsons! marry her! i'd sooner have albert and his wenches." "i love her," faltered robert. "well, you'll justabout have to stop loving her, that's all. i'm not going to have my place upset by love. love's all very well when there's something wud it or when there's nothing in it. but marrying cowmen's girls wudout a penny in their pockets, we can't afford to kip that sort o' love at odiam." "fäather," pleaded robert, "you loved my mother." "yes--but she wur a well-born lady wud a fortun. d'you think i'd have let myself love her if she'd bin poor and a cowman's daughter? not me, young feller!" "but you can't help loving, surelye." "well, if that's wot you think, the sooner you find out that you can help loving the better. did i ever hear such weak womanish slop! help loving? you'll help it before you're many days older. meantime you kip away from that girl, and all them hemmed choir-singings which are the ruin of young people." the colour rushed into robert's cheeks, and something very unfamiliar and very unmanly into his eyes. "i'll----" he began desperately. but even robert had the wit not to finish his sentence. § . for the next two or three days the boy was desperate. his manhood was in a trap. he thought of a dozen plans for breaking free, but whichever way he turned the steel jaws seemed to close on him. what could he do? he was not strong and ruthless like his father, or he might have broken his way out; he was not clever like richard, or he might have contrived it. money, money--that was what lay at the bottom of his helplessness. even if he had a very little he could take bessie away and marry her, and then they could both find work together on a farm. but he had not a penny. he tried to borrow some of pete, but pete showed him his empty pockets: "if you'd asked me after the fair, lad, i might have been able to let you have a shillun or two. but this time o' year, i'm as poor as you are." meantime bessie knew nothing of the darkness in her lover's life. she was working away sturdily and patiently at eggs hole, looking forward to meeting him on practice night, and going with him to the fair a week later. saturday came, the day which had always been robert's sabbath, with a glimpse into paradise. he toiled miserably with the horses, reuben's stern eye upon him, while hatred rose and bubbled in his heart. what right had his father to treat him so?--to make a prisoner and a slave of him? he vowed to himself he would break free; but how?--how?... a chink of pence in reuben's pocket seemed like a mocking answer. in the evening the taskmaster disappeared, to gloat over his wheatfields. robert knew he would not be back till supper-time; only albert was working with him in the stable, and he felt that he could persuade his brother to hold his tongue if he disappeared for an hour or two. "i want to go into peasmarsh," he said to albert; "if fäather comes and asks where i am, you can always tell him i've gone over to grandturzel about that colt, can't you now?" "reckon i can," said albert good-naturedly, knowing that some day he might want his brother to do the same for him. so robert put on his sunday coat as usual and tramped away to the village. the only drawback was that from the high wheatfield reuben distinctly saw him go. he reached the clerk's house a little while after the practice had started, and stood for a moment gazing in at the window. a terrible homesickness rose in his heart. must he really be cut off from all these delights? there they stood, the boys and girls, his friends, singing "disposer supreme" till the rafters rang. perhaps after to-night he would never sing with them again. then his eyes fell on bessie, and the hunger drove him in. he took his place beside her, but he could not fix his mind on what they sang. in the intervals between the anthems he was able to pour out instalments of his tragedy. bessie was very brave, she lifted her eyes to his, and would not let them falter, but he felt her little coarse fingers trembling in his hand. "i döan't know what i'm to do, my dear," he mumbled; "i think the best thing 'ud be fur me to git work on a farm somewheres away from here, and then maybe in time i cud put a liddle bit of money by, and you cud join me." "oh, döan't leave me, robert." for the first time the courage dimmed in her eyes. "wot else am i to do?" he exclaimed wretchedly; "'täun't even as if i cud go on seeing you here. oh, bessie! i can't even täake you to the fair on thursday!" "wot does a liddle thing lik that count when it's all so miserable?" "disposer supreme, and judge of the earth, who choosest for thine the weak and the poor...." the anthem crashed gaily into their sorrow, and grasping the hymn-sheet they sang together. "wöan't you be never coming here no more?" whispered bessie in the next pause. "depends on if my fäather catches me or not." he drank in the heat and stuffiness of the little room as a man might drink water in a desert, not knowing when the next well should be. he loved it, even to the smoke-stains on the sagging rafters, to the faint smell of onions that pervaded it all. "all honour and praise, dominion and might, to god, three in one, eternally be, who round us hath shed his own marvellous light, and called us from darkness his glory to see." young ralph bardon had come into the room, and stood by the door while the last verse was being sung. he was there to give an invitation from his father, for every year the squire provided the choristers with a mild debauch at flightshot. robert had been to several of these, and they glittered in his memory--the laughter and games, the merry fooling, the grand supper table gay with candles. what a joke it had been when someone had given the salt to rosie hubble instead of the sugar to eat with her apple pie, and when some other wag had pulled away ern ticehurst's chair from under him.... "thank you, sir--thank you kindly." the invitation had been given, and the choristers were crowding towards the door. robert followed them mechanically. it was raining hard. "oh, dear, oh, dear," said bessie, "i never brought my cloak." "you must put on my coat." he began taking it off when he heard someone beside them say: "i have a great-coat here." robert turned round and faced bardon, whose eyes rested approvingly on the gleaming froth of bessie's hair. "i'm driving home in my gig with a rug and hood," continued the young man, "so i've no need of a great-coat as well." robert opened his mouth to refuse. he was offended by the way the squire looked at bessie. but on second thoughts he realised that this was no reason for depriving her of a wrap; his own coat was too short to be much good. after all he could see that the acquaintance went no further. bessie had, however, already taken the matter out of his hands by saying--"thank you kindly, sir." "you see, this is my very best gown," she confided to robert outside the house, "and i döan't know wot i shud do if anything happened to it." "well, you're not to täake that coat back to flightshot yourself. give it to me when we come to eggs hole, and i'll see that he has it." "very well, dear," she answered meekly. they did not speak much on that walk home. their minds seemed dank and washed out as the night. their wet fingers gripped and twined ... what was the use of speaking? everything seemed hopeless--no way to turn, no plans to make, no friends to look to. it was quite dark when they reached eggs hole, and parted after kisses no longer as shy as they used to be. on arriving at odiam, robert was seized by his father and flogged within an inch of his life. § . reuben thought that he had efficiently broken his son's rebellion. all the next day robert seemed utterly cowed. he was worn out by the misery of the last few hours, and by the blows which in the end had dulled all the sore activities of mind and soul into one huge physical ache. reuben left him alone most of the day, smiling grimly to himself when he saw him. robert spent several hours lying on the hay in the oast barn, his mind as inert and bruised as his body. he had ceased to contrive or conjecture, even to dread. towards evening, however, a new alarm stirred him a little. he remembered bardon's coat, which he had brought back with him to odiam. if he did not take it over to flightshot, the young squire might call for it at eggs hole. robert was most anxious that he should not meet bessie again; he could not forget the admiration in his eyes, and was consumed with fear and jealousy lest he should try to take his treasure from him, or frighten or hurt her in any way. it is true that bardon had a blameless record, and also a most shy and fastidious disposition, but robert was no psychologist. and if anyone had said that the squire's gaze had merely been one of tolerant approval of a healthy country-wench, and that he would not have taken the peerless bessie as a gift, and rather pitied the man who could see anything to love in that bursting figure and broad yokelish face--then robert would not only have disbelieved him, but fought him into the bargain. so he managed with an effort to pull himself together and walk a couple of miles across the fields to the manor. he was climbing the gate by chapel barn when something fell out of the pocket of the coat. unluckily it fell on the far side of the gate, and robert with many groans and curses forced his stiff body over again, as the object was a smart shagreen pocket-book, evidently of some value. it had dropped open in its fall, and as he picked it up, a bank-note fluttered out and eddied to the grass. it was a note for ten pounds, and robert scowled as he replaced it in the pocket-book. it was a hemmed shame--life was crooked and unfair, in spite of the disposer supreme and judge of the earth. for the first time he doubted the general providence of things. why should young bardon with his easy manners and roving lustful eye have a pocket full of money to spend as he pleased, whereas he, robert, who loved truly and wanted to marry his love, should not have a penny towards his desires? this was the first question he had ever asked of life, and its effect was to upset not only the little store of maxims and truisms which made his philosophy, but those rules of conduct which depended on them. one did not take what did not belong to one because in church the curate said, "thou shalt not steal," whereat the choristers would sing, "lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law." nevertheless, that bank-note spent the last mile of the way in robert's pocket. the act was not really so revolutionary as might at first appear, for up to the very steps of the manor he kept on telling himself that he would put it back. but somehow he did not do so--when he handed the coat to the man-servant the pocket-book was still in his stable-smelling corduroys. well, he had taken it now--it was too late to give it back. besides, why should he not have it? those ten pounds probably did not mean much to the squire, but they meant all things to him and bessie. he could marry her now. he could take her away, find work on some distant farm, and comfortably set up house. the possibilities of ten pounds were unlimited--at all events they could give him all he asked of life. in the middle of the night he woke up feeling quite differently. a sick and guilty horror overwhelmed him. he must have been delirious the day before, light-headed with pain and misery. now he saw clearly what he had done. he was a thief. he had committed a terrible sin--broken one of the ten commandments. he might be caught and put in prison, anyhow, the god who said, "thou shalt not" would punish him and perhaps bessie too. the sweat poured down robert's forehead and off his cheeks. the future seemed to be closing in upon him with iron walls. he trembled, cowered, and would have said, "our father" if he dared. oh god, why had he done this dreadful thing? luckily his body was so tired that even his kicking mind could not keep it awake. suddenly, in the midst of all his remorse and terror, he fell asleep, and did not wake till sunshine two hours old was on his pillow. when he woke, the nightmare had passed. instead, he saw things as he had seen them yesterday. he could marry bessie--and he must do so quickly, seize his chance for fear it should slip from him again. this time he must not muddle things. above all he must avoid coming into conflict with his father--he was more afraid of reuben than of all the police in sussex. § . all that day he expected to hear that the theft had been discovered. the squire would be sure to remember his pocket-book and where he had put it. however, time passed and nothing happened. it was possible that young bardon had not yet found out his loss. but robert felt sure that when, sooner or later, the money was missed, it would be traced to him. he must act quickly. oh lord! how he hated having to act quickly! it was now a race between him and fate--and fate must have smiled.... first of all he had to see bessie. he could not send her a letter, for she could not read. he must somehow manage to go over to eggs hole. he would not tell her how he had come by the ten pounds. a pang went into his heart like a thorn as he realised this, but he felt that if she knew she might refuse to go away with him. he would marry her first, and confess to her afterwards. perhaps some day they might be able to return the money--meantime he would say that a friend had lent it to him. the thought of this, his first lie to her, hurt him more than the actual theft. he managed to slip over to eggs hole that evening. albert, whom his father had not treated gently on the day of the choir practice, refused to be his accomplice a second time, but reuben, thinking his rebellion crushed, kept a less strict watch over him, and took himself off after supper to the cocks, where he had weighty matters of politics and agriculture to discuss. robert seized his opportunity, and ran the whole way to eggs hole--laid his plans before bessie--and ran the whole way back again. bessie was as surprised as she was delighted to hear that he should suddenly have found a friend to lend him ten pounds--"a feller called tim harman, lives over at rolvenden," said robert in a perspiring effort to be convincing. however, it never struck her to doubt his word, and she put down to emotion and hard running all that seemed strange in her sweetheart's manner. bessie was quicker and more practical than robert, and between them they evolved a fairly respectable scheme. next thursday was fair day, and all the backfield family, including robert, would be at the fair. she would meet him in meridiana the gipsy's tent at five--it was right on the outskirts of the fair, and they could enter separately without attracting attention, on the pretext of having their fortunes told. then they could easily steal off under cover of dusk. they would go to wadhurst, where there were many farms--get work together, and marry at once. meantime robert was to divert suspicion by his blameless conduct, and find out as well as he could exactly what one did to get married. on arriving home he was uncertain as to whether it would be more diplomatic to go straight to bed or let his father on his return from the cocks find him industriously working at the corn accounts. he decided on the latter, and was soon with many groans and lickings of his pencil crediting and debiting odiam's wheat. backfield came in about nine, by which time robert's panting had completely subsided and his complexion lost the beetroot shade which might have betrayed his exertions. his father was in a good temper, and over-flowed with the cocks' gossip--how realf had got twenty-five pounds for his heifer at battle, how the mustard had mixed in with ticehurst's beans and spoilt his crop, how dunk of old turk said he would vote radical at the next election, and how young squire bardon had been robbed of his pocket-book, with certificates for three hundred pounds of canadian stock and a ten-pound bank-note in it. robert bit off the end of his pencil, which his father, who was looking the other way, luckily did not see. the boy crouched over the fire, trying to hide his trembling, and longing yet not daring to ask a hundred questions. he was glad and at the same time sorry when reuben having explained to him the right and the wrong way of sowing beans, and enlarged on the wickedness of radicals in general and gladstone in particular, returned to bardon's loss. "of course he äun't sure as it wur stolen--he may have dropped it. but policeman döan't think that's likely." "then policeman's bin töald about it?" came faintly from robert. "surelye! i wur spikking to him over at the cocks. i said to him as i wur sartain as one of those lousy workman's institute lads of his had done it. that's wot comes of trying to help labourers and cowmen and such--there's naun lik helping the poor fur putting them above themselves, and in these times when everyone's fur giving 'em votes and eddicating them free, why----" and reuben launched into politics again. that night was another hell. robert lay wakeful in a rigor of despair. it was all over now. the constable would be at odiam the first thing next morning. bardon was bound to remember that his pocket-book was in the coat he had lent bessie. he might even think that bessie had taken it! this fresh horror nearly sent robert out of the window and over the fields to the manor to confess his crime. but he was kept back by the glimmerings of hope which, like a summer lightning, played fitfully over his mental landscape. he dared not stake everything. perhaps after all young bardon could not remember where he had put the pocket-book; he must have forgotten where it was when he offered the coat to bessie, and it was possible that he would not remember till the lovers had escaped--after which he might remember as much as he liked, for robert never thought for a moment that he could be traced once he had left peasmarsh. as a matter of fact his simplicity had done much for him in this matter. a man with a readier cunning would have taken out the money and restored the pocket-book exactly as he had found it. robert had blunderingly grabbed the whole thing--and to that he owed his safety. if bardon had found the pocket-book in his great-coat, he would at once have reconstructed the whole incident. as things were, he scarcely remembered lending the coat to bessie, and it had certainly never occurred to him that his pocket-book was in it. being rather a careless and absent-minded young man, he had no recollection of putting it there after some discussion with sir miles about his certificates. he generally kept it in his drawer, and thought that it must have been taken out of that. so no constable called at odiam the next morning, and at breakfast the whole backfield family discussed the squire's loss, with the general tag of "serve him right!" the following day was market-day at rye, and robert and peter were to take over the cart. robert was glad of this, for he had made up his mind that he must change the bank-note. if he tried to change it at the fair or after he had gone away with bessie it might arouse suspicion; but no one would think anything of his father having so large a sum, and he could offer it when he went to pay the harness bill at the saddler's. as for the pocket-book, he threw that into the horse-pond when no one was looking; it was best out of the way, and the three hundred pounds' worth of certificates it contained meant nothing to him. fate, having thus generously given him a start, continued to encourage him in the race he was running against her. on the way to rye he fell in with bertie ditch. bertie was going to marry a girl up at brightling, and robert found that there was nothing easier than to discuss with him the ways and means of marriage. from his ravings on his marriage in particular precious information with regard to marriage in general could be extracted. oh, yes, he had heard of fellows who got married by licence, but banns were more genteel, and he didn't doubt but that a marriage by banns was altogether a better and more religious sort. he and nellie, etc., etc.... oh, he didn't think a licence cost much--two or three pounds, and an ordinary wedding by banns would cost quite as much as that; when one had paid for the choir and the ringers and the breakfast. now he and nellie ... oh, of course, if you were in a hurry--yes; but anyhow he thought one of the parties must live a week or so in the parish where the marriage was to take place. robert, after some considering, decided to go with bessie to wadhurst, and ask the clergyman there exactly what they ought to do. he could easily find a room for her where she could stay till the law had been complied with. they would travel by the new railway. it would be rather alarming, but jenny vennal had once been to brighton by train and said that the only thing against it was the dirt. so gradually the difficult future was being settled. when they came to rye robert left peter to unpack the cart and went to pay the harness bill at the saddler's. reuben had given him five pounds, but he handed over the terrible bank-note, which was accepted without comment. fate still allowed him to run ahead. § . thursday broke clear and windy--little curls of cloud flew high against spreads of watery blue, and the wind raced over boarzell, smelling of wet furrows. as usual everyone at odiam was going to the fair--even mrs. backfield, for reuben said that he would not let the girls go without her. caro and tilly were now fifteen and sixteen, and their father began to have fears lest they should marry and leave him. tilly especially, with her creamy complexion like naomi's, and her little tip-tilted nose, freckled over the bridge, gave him anxious times. he sternly discouraged any of the neighbouring farmers' sons who seemed inclined to call; he was not going to lose his daughters just when mrs. backfield's poor health made them indispensable. it could not be long before his mother died--already her bouts of rheumatism were so severe that she was practically crippled each winter--and when she died tilly and caro must take her place. robert had not slept at all that night. already sleeplessness, excitement, and anxiety had put their mark on him, giving a certain waxiness to his complexion and dullness to his eyes; but this morning he had curled and oiled his hair and put on his best clothes, which diverted the family attention, and in some way accounted for his altered looks. everyone at the breakfast-table wore sunday-best, except beatup, who was to mind the farm in the morning, richard taking his place in the afternoon. peter's strong frame and broad shoulders were shown off in all their glory by his tight blue coat--he was spoiling for the fight, every now and then clenching his fists under the table, and dreaming of smart cuts and irresistible bashes. albert thought of the pretty girls he would dance with, and the one he would choose to lead away into the rustling solitude of boarzell when his father was not looking ... to lie where the gorse flowers would scatter on their faces, and her dress smell of the dead heather as he clasped her to him. richard was inclined to sneer at these rustic flings, and to regret the westward pastures where greek syntax and anne bardon exalted life. jemmy and george thought of nothing but the swings and merry-go-rounds; tilly and caro did not think at all, but wondered. reuben watched their big eyes, so different from the boys', tilly's very blue, caro's very brown, and felt relieved when he looked from them to their grandmother, sitting stiffly in a patched survival of the widow's dress, her knotted hands before her on the table, at once too indifferent and too devoted to pity the questing youth of these two girls. reuben himself, in his grey cloth suit, starched shirt, and spotted tie, was perhaps the most striking of the company. albert, the only one who had more than a vague appreciation of his father's looks, realised how utterly he had beaten his sons in their young men's game before cracked mirrors, showing up completely the failure of their waistcoats, ties, and hair oils in comparison with his. as was usual on festive occasions, his hair was sleeked out of its accustomed roughness, lying in blue-black masses of extraordinary shininess and thickness on his temples; his tight-fitting trousers displayed his splendid legs, and when he spoke he showed finer teeth than any of the youngsters. albert scowled as he admired, for he knew that no girl would take him if she had a chance of his father. next to reuben sat harry--the other man whom boarzell had made. he slouched forward over his plate, in terror lest the food which dropped continually out of his mouth should fall on the tablecloth, and he should be scolded. he looked at least ten years older than reuben, for his face was covered with wrinkles, and there were streaks of grey in his hair. as he sat and ate he muttered to himself. no one took any notice of him, for the children had been brought up to look upon uncle harry as a sort of animal, to whom one must be kind, but with whom it was impossible to hold any rational conversation. tilly was the most attentive to him, and would cut up his food and sometimes even put it in his mouth. after breakfast the whole family set out for the moor. odiam looked unnatural with its empty yard, where the discouraged beatup mouched, gazing longingly and chewing a straw. but every farm round boarzell looked the same, for boarzell fair emptied the neighbourhood as completely as a pilgrimage would empty a breton hamlet--only the beasts and unwilling house-keepers were left behind. though it was not yet ten o'clock the fair was crowded. a shout greeted harry's appearance with his fiddle, for it was never too early to dance. blind harry climbed on his tub, flourished his bow with many horrible smiles--for he loved his treats of popularity and attention--and started the new tune "my decided decision," which caro and tilly had taught him the day before. albert immediately caught a pretty girl by the waist, and spun round with her on the grass while pete vanished into the sparring-booth, his shoulders already out of his coat. mrs. backfield led off caro and tilly, looking sidelong at the dancers, to the more staid entertainment of the stalls. jemmy and george ran straight to the merry-go-round, which now worked by steam, and hooted shrilly as it swung. robert and richard stood with their arms folded, watching the dancing with very different expressions on their faces. at last robert decided to lead out emily ditch, thinking that it might lull his father's suspicions if he had any. as a matter of fact the son reuben watched most closely was albert. he looked upon robert's affair as settled, for the present at any rate, and credited him--perhaps rightly--with so poor a cunning that an occasional glance would serve; whereas albert's oiled hair, stiff shirt-front, and clean white handkerchief roused all his fears and carefulness together. after the dance, which did not last long, as poor robert trod so heavily on his partner's feet that she soon begged him to stop, they strolled off round the fair. robert thought that if he made it a custom to roam among the booths his father would not notice his final disappearance so quickly. lord! he was getting a hemmed crafty fellow. all the boys were allowed a shilling or two to spend at the fair, so robert treated emily to a ride on the merry-go-round and five sea-sick minutes in the swings. then he took mrs. button--realf's married daughter, who had come over from hove, to see the panorama and a new attraction in the shape of a fat lady, which struck him as disgusting, but made her laugh tremendously. he clung to mrs. button for most of the morning and afternoon, for he felt that she drove away suspicion, and at the same time had not the disadvantage of emily ditch, who had once or twice alarmed him by affectionately squeezing his hand. he did not take her to the fighting booth, as public opinion had shut that to ladies during the years that had passed since reuben had sat with naomi in the heat and sawdust--but she stood behind him in the shooting gallery, whilst he impartially scored bulls in the mouths of disraeli, gladstone, and the emperor of france. "let's go and dance now," she said as he pocketed his bag of nuts. robert wondered anxiously what time it was; already a faint blear of red was creeping into the cold, twinkling afternoon. the moon rose at a quarter to five--when he saw it come up into the sky out of iden wood he must go to meridiana's tent. he led mrs. button to where the dancers jigged to harry's unending tune. reuben stood on the outskirts, among the spectators, watching with a stern eye albert snatch kisses off a winchelsea girl's brown neck as he swung her round. luckily for robert his brother was behaving outrageously--his misdeeds were as usual flagrant; just at that moment he pulled down his partner's hair, and they whirled about together, laughing in the coarse mesh that blinded them both. reuben's mouth was a hard, straight line, and his eyes like steel. he scarcely noticed robert and mrs. button hopping about together, and he did not see when half an hour later the boy stole away alone. robert felt warm and glowing--he had enjoyed that dance, and wished he could have danced with bessie. perhaps he would dance with her some day.... behind him, the creak of harry's fiddle sounded plaintively, with every now and then a hoot from the merry-go-round. the dusk was falling quickly. yellow flares sprang up from the stalls, casting a strange web of light and darkness over the fair. gideon teazel looked like some carved colossus as he stood by the roundabout, his great beard glowing on his breast like flames ... behind, in the smeeth of twilight, with the wriggling flare of the lamps, the lump of dancers did not seem to dance, but to writhe like some monster on the green, sending out tentacles, shooting up spines, emitting strange grunts and squalls--and at the back of it all the jig, jig, jig of harry's tune. further on, in the secrecy of the tents and caravans, the dusk became full of cowering shapes, sometimes slipping and sliding about apart, sometimes blotted together ... there were whispers, rustlings, strugglings, low cries of "döan't" and "adone do!"--the sound of kisses ... kisses ... they followed robert all the way to meridiana's tent, where, standing in the brazier glow, and flushed besides with crimson of her own, stood bessie. their eyes met over the flames, then robert remembered the need for keeping up appearances, and said he wanted his fortune told. he could scarcely wait while meridiana muttered about a fair young lady and a heap of money coming to him in a year or two. bessie slipped round the brazier and stood beside him, their hands impudently locked, each finger of the boy's clinging round a finger of the girl's. meridiana's low sing-song continued: "it's a gorgeous time i see before you, dear; riches and a carriage and servants in livery, and a beautiful wife decked over with jewels and gold as bright as her hair--success and a fair name, honour and a ripe old age--and remember the poor gipsy woman, won't you, darling?" but he had already forgotten her. he stood with his arm round bessie, stooping under the canvas roof, half choking in the brazier reek, while his lips came closer and closer to her face.... "hir me duval!" said meridiana to herself, "but they've forgotten the poor person's child." she saw them go out of the tent, still linked and in their dream, then watched their dark shapes stoop against the sky. they clung together panting and trembling, for she was really his at last, and he was hers. before them lay the darkness, but they would go into it hand in hand. she was his, and he was hers. at last they dropped their arms and stood apart. the dusk was full of rustlings, flittings, scuttlings, kisses.... "god bless you, gorgeous lady and gentleman," cried meridiana shrilly from the tent--"the dukkerin dukk tells me that you shall always wear satin and velvet, and have honour wherever you go." then suddenly a heavy hand fell on robert's shoulder, and a voice said: "robert backfield, i arrest you on the charge of stealing a pocket-book containing bonds and money from squire ralph bardon of flightshot." § . with many tears, and the help of the kindly farmer's daughter at eggs hole, who acted as penwoman, bessie wrote a letter to robert in the battery gaol: "you must not think, my dearest lad, that anything what you have done can separate you and me. we belong to each other as it seems, and what you have done i forgive as you would if i had done it. i shall always be yours, robby, no matter how long you are in prison, i shall be waiting, and thinking of you always. and i forgive you for not telling me you had taken the money, but that a friend had lent it to you, because you thought i would not have gone away with you, but i would have, surely. be brave and do not fret. i wish it was all over, but we must not fret. "from your loving "bessie." the proceedings before the rye magistrates had been brief, and ended in robert's committal for trial at quarter sessions. he had made no attempt to deny his guilt--it would have been useless. he was almost dumb in the dock, for his soul was struck with wonder at the cruel circumstances which had betrayed him. he had been tracked by the number on the note--it was the first time he realised that notes had numbers. this particular note had been given by sir miles bardon to his son as a part of his quarterly allowance, and though ralph was far too unpractical to notice the number himself, his father had a habit of marking such things, and had written it down. the saddler at rye had not heard of the theft when young backfield handed over the note in payment of the harness bill. he had at the time remarked to his wife that old ben seemed pretty flush with his money, but had thought no more of it till the matter was cried by the town crier that evening, after robert and pete had gone home. then out of mere curiosity he had looked at the number on his note, and found it was the same as the crier had announced. early the next day he went to the police station, and as young bardon now remembered lending his coat to robert backfield it was fairly easy to guess how the theft had been committed. the squire regretted the matter profoundly, but it was too late now not to proceed with it, so he made it a hundred times worse by writing an apologetic letter to reuben, and asking the magistrate to deal gently with the offender. robert's pathetic story, and the tearful evidence of his sweetheart, gave him at once all the public sympathy; the blame was divided pretty equally between the bardons and backfield. richard bitterly abused his father to anne, as they met in the midst of the strife of their two families: "it's always the same, he keeps us under, and makes our lives a misery till we do something mad. he's only got himself to thank for this. we're all the slaves of his tedious farm----" "i should rather say 'abominable,'" anne interrupted gently. "his abominable farm--he gets every bit of work out of us he can, till we're justabout desperate----" "till we're absolutely desperate." "and he expects us to care for nothing but his vulgar ambitions. oh lord! i wish i was out of it!" "perhaps you will be out of it some day." he shrugged. "how should i get free?" "perhaps a friend might help you." he looked into her face, then suddenly crimsoned--then paled, to flush again: "oh, ma'am, ma'am--if ever you cud help me get free--if ever ... oh, i--i'd sarve you all my life--i'd----" "hush," she said gently--"that's still in the future--and remember not to say 'sarve.'" the quarter sessions were held early in december, and robert's case came wedged between the too hopeful finances of a journeyman butcher and the woes of a farmer from guldeford who had tried to drown himself and his little boy off the midrips. robert was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. there was nothing remarkable about the trial, and nothing to be said against the sentence from the point of either justice or humanity. ten years ago the boy would have been transported to van diemen's land. the bardons took it upon themselves to be outrageously sorry, and were rather mystified by reuben's contemptuous attitude towards them and their regrets. the evidence had been merely a repetition of that which had been given before the magistrate, though bessie did not cry this time in the witness-box, and robert in the dock was not dumb--on the contrary, he tried to explain to the recorder what it felt like to have absolutely no money of one's own. reuben was present at the trial, and sitting erect, in his good town clothes, drew the public glance away both from the prisoner and the recorder. feeling was against him, and when in his summing-up mr. reeve remarked on the strangeness of a young man of backfield's age having no money and being compelled to work without wages, a low murmur went round the court, which reuben did not seem to hear. he sat very stiffly while the sentence was pronounced, and afterwards refused to see his son before he was taken away to lewes. "poor feller, this 'ull be the breaking of him," said vennal outside the court-house. "no more'n he deserves. he's a hard man," said ditch. "thinks only of his farm and nothing of his flesh and blood," said old realf. "it sarves un right," said ginner. so it was throughout the crowd. some said "poor man," others muttered "his own fault." but all words, either of pity or blame, were silenced when backfield came out of the court-house and walked through the people, his head high, his step firm, his back straight. § . the next few weeks were for reuben full of bitter, secret humiliation. he might show a proud face and a straight back to the world, but his heart was full of miserable madness. it was not so much his son's disgrace that afflicted him as the attitude of people towards it--the bardons with their regrets and apologies, the small fry with their wonder and cheap blame. what filled him with rage and disgust beyond all else was the thought that some people imagined that robert had disgraced odiam--as if a fool like robert, with his tinpot misdoings, had it in his power to disgrace a farm like odiam! this idea maddened him at times, and he went to absurd lengths to show men how little he cared. yet everywhere he seemed to see pity leering out of eyes, he seemed to see lips inaudibly forming the words: "poor fellow"--"what a blow for his schemes!"--"how about the farm?--now he'll lie low for a bit." this was all the worse to bear, as now, for the first time, he began seriously to dread a rival. the only farm in the district which could compete with odiam was grandturzel, but that had been held back by the indifference of its owner, old realf. early in the march of ' old realf died, and was succeeded by his son, henry realf, whom rumour spoke of as a promising and ambitious young man. skill and ambition could do even more with grandturzel than they could with odiam, for the former had the freehold of forty acres of boarzell. reuben had always counted on being able to buy these some day from old realf, but now he expected his son to cling to them. there would be two farms fighting for boarzell, and grandturzel would have the start. all the more reason, therefore, that odiam should stand high in men's respect. now, of all times, reuben could not afford to be looked upon with contempt or pity. he must show everyone how little he cared about his family disgrace, and do everything he could to bring himself more prominently into the social and agricultural life of the district. for the first time since his father's death he gave suppers at odiam; once more he spent money on french wines which nobody wanted to drink, and worked his mother and daughters to tears making puddings and pies. he bought a new gig--a smart turnout, with a sleek, well-bred horse between the shafts--and he refused to let harry fiddle any more at fairs and weddings; it was prestige rather than profit that he wanted now. in may people began to talk of a general election; the death of palmerston and the defeat of gladstone's reform bill made it inevitable. early in june parliament was dissolved, and rye electors were confronted with the postered virtues and vices of captain mackinnon (radical) and colonel macdonald (conservative). reuben had not hitherto had much truck with politics. he had played the part of a convinced and conscientious tory, both at home and in the public-house; and every evening his daughter tilly had read him the paper, as naomi had used to do. but he had never done more at an election than record his vote, he had never openly identified himself with the political life of the district. now it struck him that if he took a prominent part in this election it would do much to show his indifference to the recent catastrophe, besides giving him a certain standing as a politician, and thus bestowing glory and dignity on odiam. the local tories would be glad enough of his support, for he was important, if not popular, in the neighbourhood, and had always been known as a man who took an intelligent interest in his country's affairs. not that rye elections had ever been much concerned with national events. borough had always been a bigger word than country on those occasions. it was the question of the harbour rather than the ballot which had sent up captain curteis in , while later contests had centred round the navigation of the brede river, the new sluice at scott's float, or the landgate clock. reuben, however, cared little for these petty town affairs. his chief concern was the restoration of the tax on wheat, and he also favoured the taxing of imported malt and hops. he hated and dreaded gladstone's "free breakfast table," which he felt would mean the ruin of agriculture in england. he would like to concentrate country toryism into an organised opposition of free trade, and his wounded pride found balm in the thought of founding a local agricultural party of which he would be the inspirer and head. § . reuben began to attend the tory candidate's meetings. colonel macdonald was not a local man, any more than captain mackinnon, but he had some property in the neighbourhood, down on the marsh by becket's house. like the other candidate, he had spent the last month or so in posting himself in local affairs, and came to rye prepared, as he said, "to fight the election on herrings and sprats." however, at his first meeting, held at guldeford barn, he was surprised to find a strong agricultural element in the audience. he was questioned on his attitude towards the wheat tax and towards the enfranchisement of six-pound householders. the fact was that for a fortnight previously reuben had been working up public opinion in the cocks, and also in the london trader, the rye tavern he used on market-days. he had managed to convince the two bars that their salvation lay in taxing wheat, malt, and hops, and in suppressing with a heavy hand those upstarts whom radical sentimentalists wanted at all costs to educate and enfranchise. reuben could speak convincingly, and his extraordinary agricultural success gave weight to his words. if not liked, he was admired and envied. he was "a fellow who knew what he was doing," and could be trusted in important matters of welfare. in a word, he achieved his object and made himself head of an agricultural party, large enough to be of importance to either candidate. it was not long before he had overtures from captain mackinnon. the captain had expected an easy triumph; never since it became a free borough had rye sent a tory to parliament. now he was surprised and a little alarmed to see signs of definite tory enterprise, banded under one of the most important and successful farmers in the district. it is true that he had the bardons on his side, but the bardons were too gentlemanly to be useful. he would have given much to corrupt reuben, but flightshot, which held the only bribe that could have made him so much as turn his head, insisted on keeping pure. he tried to hold his own by appealing to the fishermen and sailors against the agriculturists--but as these in the past had made little fortunes by smuggling grain, they joined the farmers in demanding a wheat-tax. he then turned to the small householders and shop-keepers, dazzling them with visions of gladstone's free breakfast table--he even invited the more prominent ones to an untaxed breakfast in the town hall; whereat the colonel, at reuben's instigation, retaliated with a sumptuous dinner, which he said would be within the reach of every farmer when a moderate wheat-tax no longer forced him to undersell his harvests. rye platforms, instead of being confined to arguments on herrings and sprats, rang unusually with matters of national import. the free education of the poor was then a vital question, which reuben and his party opposed with all their might. educated labourers meant higher wages and a loss of that submissive temper which resulted in so many hours' ill-paid work. here the bardons waxed eloquent, but backfield, helped by ditch of totease, who could speak quite well if put through his paces beforehand, drew such a picture of the ruin which would attend an educated democracy, that the voice of flightshot, always too carefully modulated to be effective, was silenced. as usual the local printing-presses worked hard over pamphlets and posters, and as a rye election was nothing if not personal, reuben was soon enlightened as to the radical opinion of him. posters of a startlingly intimate and insulting nature began to appear about the town; a few were displayed in peasmarsh, and some were actually found on the walls of his own barns. "bribed, stolen, or strayed, an ugly gorilla, answering to the name of ben. the animal may be distinguished by his filthy habits, associates frequently with swine and like hogs, delights in rolling in manure, and is often to be found in ditches. is remarkable for his unnatural cruelty towards his own young, whom he treats with shocking unkindness. the animal has likewise a propensity for boasting and lies. the gorilla's temper is dreadfully bad, horribly vicious, and fearfully vindictive. a reward of five pounds will be given by jothan true blue, chairman of the poor man's big loaf association, to any blue lamb who may find this odious creature, as his one object while at large is to steal the poor man's loaf. he would also take, if he could, the poor man's vote, and confine the poor man's children to the dirt and ignorance in which he himself wallows, being unable to read or write, and was once heard to ask the cringing colonel, his keeper, what was the meaning of tory principle and purity' on his election banners. we too would like to know." reuben tore the posters down whenever he found them, but this kind of attack did not humiliate him as the old pitying curiosity had done. he was not lowered in his own esteem. on the contrary, he enjoyed the fame which radical hate conferred on him. there was no doubt about odiam's importance now. the tories were not to be beaten in invective, and posted rye with enquiries after the rabid hybrid or crazy captain: "the habits of this loathsome creature are so revolting that all who have beheld them turn from them in horror and disgust. it is afflicted with a dirty disease called gladstone fever, and in its delirium barks horribly 'educate! educate!'" much more was written in this strain on both sides, and colonel macdonald hired a band of youths to parade the streets singing: "conservatives, 'tis all serene-- macdonald for ever! long live the queen!" or: "the people of rye now they all seem to say that macdonald's the man who will carry the sway, triumphant he'll drive old mackinnon away-- for macdonald's the man for the people!" reuben did not care much for these doings; they were, he thought, a mere appeal to scum, and he preferred to give his mind to weightier things. he organised meetings in the furthest hamlets of the district, and managed to stir up the interest of the farmers to such a pitch that it soon looked as if the tory candidate would carry all before him. mackinnon could not open his mouth on the platform without shouts of: "wheat at seventy shillings a quarter!" or "what's the use of a big loaf if we've got no money to buy it with?" the radicals began to quake for their victory. speakers were sent for from london, but could not even get a hearing, owing to the enemy's supplies of bad eggs. meetings were everywhere broken up in disorder, and the captain was reported to have said that the liberal party ought to offer a knighthood to anyone who would poison backfield's beer. § . so time passed till within a week of polling day. the feeling in the district grew more and more tense--no prominent member of either party could appear in rye streets without being insulted by somebody on the opposite side. meetings were orgies of abuse and violence, but whereas the radical meetings were invariably broken up in disorder by their opponents, interruptions at tory meetings resulted only in the interrupters themselves being kicked out. for the first time it looked as if a conservative would be returned for rye, and the colonel knew he owed his success to backfield's agricultural party. then suddenly the unexpected happened. at the end of one of reuben's most successful meetings in iden schoolhouse, a mild sandy-haired person, whom nobody knew, rose up and asked meekly whether it was true that the scott's float toll-gate was on colonel macdonald's estate, and if so, what use did he make of the tolls? he was answered by being flung into the street, but afterwards the conservative tenant of loose farm on the marsh remarked to reuben that it was "a hemmed ark'ard question." reuben, however, absorbed by his enthusiasm for protection and a restricted franchise, scarcely thought twice about the toll-gate, till the next day a huge poster appeared all over the district: "macdonald's gate" "sing ye who will of love, or war, or wine, of mantling cups, bright eyes, or deeds of might-- a theme unsung by other harps is mine-- i sing a gate--a novel subject quite. o tolls! ye do afflict us all--a bore! e'en when by law imposed on evil slight! who has not loaded ye with curses sore when in this coat of proof enveloped tight? therefore to what is law i say 'content'-- but for a private man to raise a toll, to stop the public, tax them, circumvent, moves me to passion i can scarce control, makes boil the rushing blood and thrills my very soul." hitherto any verse that had been written in the controversy had been meant for street singing, and turned out in the less serious moments of politicians who certainly were not poets. but "macdonald's gate" impressed the multitude as something altogether different. the sounding periods and the number of capitals proclaimed it poetry of the very highest order, and its prominent position throughout the town soon resulted in the collection of excited groups all discussing the scott's float toll-gate, which nobody hitherto had thought much about. the tories were a little disconcerted--the toll-gate did not fit into their campaign. tolls had always been unpopular in the neighbourhood, even though government-owned, and it was catastrophic that the enemy should suddenly have swooped down on the colonel's private venture and rhymed it so effectively. of course a counter-attack was made, but it had the drawback of being made in prose, none of the tory pamphleteers feeling equal to meeting the enemy on his own ground. also there was not very much to be said, as it was impossible to deny the scott's float toll-gate. so the writers confined themselves to sneering at the radical poet's versification, and hinting that captain mackinnon had done many worse things than own a toll-gate, and that all the money the colonel had from his went to the upkeep of his land, a statement which deceived nobody. the next day a fresh poster appeared, printed this time in flaming red letters: "if you'd know what the colonel is, pray travel over the sluice at scott's float--and then drive on to dover-- you'll find yourself quickly brought up by a gate where a toll they will charge at no moderate rate. oh why is a gate stuck across at this spot? is the colonel so poor or so grasping--or what? 'tis that he may gain some more hundreds this way in, to swell out the purse where his thousands are laying. awake, oh, for shame, ye electors of rye! let the banner of freedom float gaily on high, throw your bonds to the winds, ye electors--for know that he who'd be free must himself strike the blow." thenceforward the whole character of the election was changed. the poor man's loaf was forgotten as completely as the wheat-tax which should make the farmer rich. six-pound householders became as uninteresting as anybody else who had not a vote. nobody cared a damn whether the poor were educated at the nation's expense or not. the conflict raged blindly, furiously, degradingly round the scott's float toll-gate. no one thought or spoke or wrote of anything else. if at meetings reuben tried to introduce protection or the franchise, he was silenced even by his own party. the scott's float toll-gate became as important as the sluice or the brede river or the landgate clock had been in other elections, and nothing, no matter of what national importance, could stand against it. reuben cursed the base trucksters who had brought it forward, and he cursed the scummy versifier who was its laureate--whose verses appeared daily on six-foot hoardings, and were sung by drunken radicals to drown his speeches. no one knew who the radical poet was, for his party kept him a mystery, fearful, no doubt, lest he should be bribed by the other side. some said that he was a london journalist, sent down in despair by the liberals at head-quarters. if so they must have congratulated themselves on their forlorn hope, for the tide of events changed completely. the worst of that toll-gate was that the conservatives could never explain it away. they printed posters, they printed handbills, they attempted verse, they made speeches, they protested their disinterestedness, they even tried to represent the abomination as a philanthropic concern, but all their efforts failed. they quickly began to lose ground. it was the conservative instead of the liberal meetings that were broken up in disorder. colonel macdonald was howled down, and reuben came home every evening his clothes spattered with rotten eggs. § . polling day broke gloomily on rye tories. the country voters were brought into town at the candidates' expense, having received according to custom printed notices that the colonel, or the captain, "would endeavour to ensure to every elector access to the poll free from every sort of insult." in rye bells were ringing and bands were playing, and the town looked quite strange with huge crowds surging through its grass-grown streets, which were, moreover, blocked with every kind of trap, gig, cart, and wain. about three hundred special constables had been enrolled for the occasion, and it was likely that they would be needed, for all the public-houses had been thrown open by the candidates. in the market-place, where the hustings stood, a dense throng was packing itself, jostling and shoving, and--reuben saw to his dismay as he drove up to the london trader--showing strong radical tendencies. several conservative banners waved from the windows of the public-house--"macdonald the farmer's friend"--"macdonald and protection"--"wheat at seventy shillings a quarter"--"ratepayers! beware of radical pickpockets." these had all been prepared at the beginning of the contest. the radical banners bore but one device--"the scott's float toll-gate." it waved everywhere, and any other banner which appeared in the streets was immediately seized and broken, the bearer being made to suffer so horribly for his convictions, that soon nobody could be found to carry one. every now and then the crowd would break into the latest rhymings of mackinnon's poet: "who fill their pockets at scott's float, and on their private toll-gate doat, while o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat? the tories." reuben felt his heart sink, and his beer nearly choked him. soon a vast struggle was raging round the hustings, as the voters fought their way through fists and sticks, often emerging--especially the conservatives--with their clothes half torn off their backs and quite ruined by garbage. the special constables were useless, for their own feelings betrayed them, and unluckily even in their ranks the radicals predominated. the state of the poll at ten-thirty was twenty-seven for captain mackinnon and only eleven for colonel macdonald. speeches were made from time to time, but were lost in the general hubbub. one of the local butchers had delivered over his entire stock of entrails, skin and hoof cuttings, and old blood-puddings to the radical cause, and conservative speakers were soon a sight to behold. when reuben stood up his voice was drowned in shouts of "ben the gorilla! stop the dirty animal!" while a bleeding sheep's head caught him full on the chest. too proud to take his dismissal from the mob, he spoke unheard for five minutes, at the end of which he was silenced by half a brick, which hit his temple and stunned him sufficiently for ditch and macdonald to pull him away. at twelve the poll stood at a hundred and one for the captain and sixty-five for the colonel. the tories were getting desperate--they threw into the crowd handbills wet from the printers, declaring that macdonald's toll-gate should not stand an hour after he was elected. but the crowd only sang derisively: "who fill their pockets at scott's float, and on their private toll-gate doat, while o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat? the tories." at three o'clock the poll stood at two hundred and twelve and eighty-three. then came the close--captain mackinnon elected by a majority of sixty-nine. loud cheers rose up from the struggling, drunken mass in the market-place. "hurray for mackinnon!--down with the tollkeepers!" in the court-house the beaten conservatives heard the shouts and turned fiercely--on one another. "it's that hemmed gëate of yourn--lost everything!" cried reuben. "by god, it's not my gate--it's your wheat." "my wheat!--wot d'you mean, sir?" "i mean that, thanks to you, we wasted about three weeks talking to those damned fools about a matter they don't care twopence about. you worked up a false interest, and the result is, that when anything that really touches them is brought forward, the whole campaign drops to pieces." "it's unaccountable easy to put the blame on me, when it's your hemmed gëate----" "i tell you, sir, it's your damned wheat----" "and your damned son!" furiously cried ditch of totease. "my son!"--reuben swung round on the men who had once rallied under his leadership, but now stood scowling at him and muttering to themselves. "my son!" "yes," said coalbran of doozes, "you know as well as us as how it wur your albert wrote them verses about the gëate, wot have bust up everything." "you're a liar!" cried reuben. "you dare miscall me," and the two men, mad with private hate and public humiliation, flew at each other's throats. ditch and the colonel pulled them apart. "hang it all, coalbran, we don't know it's his son. but we do know it's his wheat. good god, sir--if only you'd kept your confounded self out of politics----" reuben did not wait to hear more. he pushed his way out of the room and downstairs to where his trap was waiting. the crowd surged round him as he climbed into it. an egg burst against his ear, and the filthy yolk ran down his cheek to mingle with the spatter of blood on his neck and shirt-front. "ben the gorilla! ben the gorilla! give him tar and feathers!" reuben struck his horse with the whip, and the animal sprang forward. a man who had been trying to climb into the gig, fell off, and was nearly trampled on. reuben flogged his way through the pack, a shower of missiles hurtling round him, while his ears burned with the abuse which had once been his badge of pride, but now in the hour of defeat smote him with a sick sense of impotence and degradation. "ben the gorilla! ben the gorilla!" he was free of them at last, galloping down the landgate hill towards rye foreign. "i'm hemmed," he muttered, grinding his teeth, "if i ever touch their dirty politics again--from this day forward--so help me god!" § . on reaching odiam, reuben did not go into the kitchen where his children were gathered, expectant and curious. he went straight upstairs. caro, who caught a glimpse of him in the passage, ran away in terror--he looked so dreadful, his face all dabbled with blood and yolk of egg. he went up to albert's room. he had furiously given ditch the lie in the courthouse, but he had never trusted his son, and the accusation had poured over him a flood of shame which could be quelled only by its proof or its refutation. if albert's guilt were proved--which reuben, now bathing in this luminous shame, saw was quite probable--then he knew what to do to clean the smirch off odiam; if, on the other hand, his innocence were established, then he would punish those swine who threw mud at him and his farm. albert slept in one of the attics with jemmy and pete. reuben had no intention of meeting him till he had something to confront him with, for he was pretty sure that the boy would lie to him. he began turning the room topsy-turvy, and had soon found in a drawer a heap of papers scrawled over with writing. it was unlucky that he could not read, for he could not even tell whether the handwriting were albert's--these might be some letters he had received. suddenly, however, a word caught his eye which he had seen a hundred times on hoardings, letters, bills, and other documents--mackinnon. he could trace it out quite clearly. what had albert to do with mackinnon? reuben clenched the papers together in his fist, and went downstairs to the kitchen. albert was not there. all the better! reuben strode up to tilly, unaware of how terrible he looked with the traces of his battle not yet washed from his face, and banged the papers down in front of her. "wot's all this?" tilly was frightened. "it's--it's only poetry, fäather." "read me some of it." "it's only albert's." "that's why i want to hear wot it's about. you read it." tilly began to read in a faltering voice: "if you'd know what the colonel is, pray travel over the sluice at scott's float--and then drive on to dover-- you'll find yourself quickly brought up by a gate...." reuben struck his fist on the table, and she dropped the paper with a little cry. "it's true, then! oh lard! it's true!" "wot, fäather?" "them's albert's verses right enough?" "yes, fäather, but----" "fetch him here." tilly was more frightened than ever. she had never heard anything about the great gate controversy, and could not understand why reuben was so angry with albert. the verses seemed to her quite harmless, they were not even about love. however, she could not disobey her father, so she ran and fetched albert out of the corn-chamber, begging him to be careful what he said, "fur fäather's unaccountable vrothered to-night about something." "how did the election go?" "i never asked." "oh, you gals! well, i expect that's wot's the matter. the liberal's got in." "but why should that mäake fäather angry wud you?" albert stuck out his chest and looked important, as he invariably did before an encounter with reuben, in spite of the fact that these always ended most ingloriously as far as he was concerned. "he's bin reading some poetry of yours, bertie," continued his sister, "and he's justabout dreadful, all his clöathes tore about, and a nasty mess of blood and yaller stuff on his face." albert suddenly began to look uneasy. "oh lard! perhaps i'd better bolt fur it.--no, i'll square him out. you'll stand by me, tilly?" "yes, but döan't mäake him angry--he might beat you." bertie's pride was wounded by this suggestion, which was, however, soundly based on precedent, and he entered the kitchen with something very like a swagger. reuben was standing by the table, erect, and somehow dignified in spite of the mess he was in. "well," he said slowly, "well--mackinnon's hound!" albert saw the heap of scribbled paper on the table, and blenched. reuben walked up to him, took him by the shoulders, and shook him as a dog might shake a rabbit. "you hemmed, scummy, lousy radical!" albert could not speak, for he felt as if his brains and teeth were rattling about inside his head. the rest of the family hunched together by the door, the boys gaping idiotically, the girls in tears. "well, wot've you got to say fur yourself before i kick you round the table?" "i'll write wot i please, surelye," growled albert, trying rather unsuccessfully to resume his swagger. "oh, will you! well, there'll be naun to prevent you when you're out of this house--and out you go to-night; i'll have no radical hogs on my farm. i'm shut of you!" "fäather!" cried tilly. "hold your tongue! does anyone here think i'm going to have a radical fur my son?--and a tedious lying traitor, too, wot helps his fäather's enemies, and busts up the purtiest election that wur ever fought at rye. do you say you didn't write those lousy verses wot have lost us everything?" "no--i döan't say it. i did write 'em. but it's all your fault that i did--so you've no right to miscall me." "my fault!"--reuben's jaw dropped as he faced the upstart. "yes. you've allus treated me lik a dog, and laughed at my writing and all i wanted to do. then chaps came along as didn't laugh, and promised me all sorts o' things if i'd write fur them." "wot sort o' things?" "mr. hedges, the liberal agent, promised that if i'd write fur him, he'd git me work on a london paper, and i could mäake my fortune and be free of all this." "all wot?" "odiam!" shrieked albert. reuben faced him with straight lips and dilated nostrils; the boy was now quivering with passion, hatred seemed to have purged him of terror. "yes--odiam!" he continued, clenching his fists--"that blasted farm of yourn wot's the curse of us all. here we're made to work, and never given a penny fur our labour--we're treated worse than the lowest farm-hands, like dogs, we are. robert stole money to git away, and can you wonder that when i see my chance i should täake it. i'm no radical--i döan't care one way or t'other--but when the radicals offered me money to write verses fur 'em, i wurn't going to say 'no.' they promised to mäake my fortun, and save me from you and your old farm, which i wish was in hell." "stop your ranting and tell me how the hogs got you." "i met mr. hedges at the pub----" "wur it you or him wot thought of the scott's float gëate?" "i heard of it from old pitcher down at loose, and i töald hedges. i justabout----" a terrific blow from reuben cut him short. § . the rest of the family had gone to bed, though scarcely to sleep. reuben had washed the blood and filth off his face, and had stripped to his shirt, but he felt too sick and restless to lie down. he sat at his window, staring out into the dark gulf of the night. his skin burned, his pulses throbbed, in his head was a buzzing and humming. "wished my farm wur in hell, dud he? he cursed my farm, dud he? the young whelp!" he peered out into the blackness. was that something he saw moving against the sky on the shoulder of boarzell? it was too dark for him to make sure. where had albert gone? to his radical friends, of course. they had offered to make his fortune--well, let them make it, and durn them! two sons were gone now. life was hitting him hard. but he would have no traitors in his camp. albert was his son no longer. he bowed his head on the sill, and his throbbing brain revisualised the whole horrible day. he owed the humiliation and defeat of it all to albert, who for the sake of money and a milk-and-water career, had betrayed odiam's glory, and foully smirched its name. there was no denying it--he had been basely dealt with by his elder children. robert was in prison, albert existed no longer except in the memory of a bitter disgrace, richard was contemptuous, and, his father suspected, up to nothing good.... and he had looked to them all to stand and fight by his side, to feel his ambition, and share his conquest. pete was a good lad, but what was one where there should have been four? he could not deny it--his elder children had failed him. something almost like a sob shook reuben. then, ashamed of his weakness, he raised his head, and saw that behind boarzell the night had lifted, and a cowslip paleness was creeping into the sky. the great dark hump of the moor showed clearly against it with its tuft of firs. a faint thrill stole through reuben's tired limbs. boarzell was always there to be loved and fought for, even if he had no heart or arm but his own. gradually hope stirred as the dawn crept among the clouds. the wind came rustling and whiffling to him over the heather, bringing him the rich damp smell of the earth he loved. oh, boarzell, boarzell!... his love, his dream, his promised land, lying there in the cold white hope of morning! no degenerate sons could rob him of his moor, though they might leave him terribly alone on it. after all, better be alone with his ambition, than share it with their defiling thoughts, their sordid, humdrum, milk-and-water schemes. in future he would try no more to interest his children in boarzell. he had tried to thrill robert and albert and richard with his glorious enterprise, and they had all forsaken him--one for love, one for fame, and one for some still unknown unworthiness. he would not trouble about the others; they should serve him for no other reason but that he was a hard master. he had been hard with the three boys, but he had been exciting and confiding too. now he would drop all that. he would cease to look for comradeship in his children, as years ago he had ceased to look for it in his wife. it would be enough if they were just slaves working under his whip. he had been a fool to expect sympathy.... boarzell, looming blacker and blacker against the glowing pinks and purples of the sky, seemed to mock at sympathy and its cheap colours, seemed to bid him be hard, be strong, be remorseless--be alone. book iv treacheries § . reuben's domestic catastrophes might be summed up in the statement that he had lost two farm hands. it is true that albert had never been much good--if he had his father would probably not have turned him away--but he had been better than nothing, and now reuben would have to hire a substitute. one would be enough, for jemmy and george were now able to do a man's full work each. so another hand was engaged for odiam--piper, a melancholy, lean-jowled cowman from moor's cottage. the family was forbidden to speak of the absent sons. no one ever wrote to robert in lewes gaol or to albert living on london's cruel tender-mercies. the shame of them was to be starved by silence. soon most of the children had forgotten them, and they lived solely in tilly's unhappy thoughts or richard's angry ones, or in certain bitter memories of their father's, sternly fought. reuben had learnt his first lesson from experience. quietly but decidedly he altered his conduct. he no longer made the slightest appeal to his family's enterprise or ambition, he no longer interrupted his chidings with those pathetic calls to their enthusiasm which had mystified or irritated them in times past. on the other hand he was twice as hard, twice as fierce, twice as ruthless and masterful as he had ever been. old mrs. backfield was getting very decrepit. she could not walk without a stick, and her knotted hands were of little use either in the kitchen or the dairy. reuben was anxious to avoid engaging anyone to help her, yet the developments of her sphere made such help most necessary. odiam now supplied most of the neighbouring gentry with milk, butter, and eggs; the poultry-yard had grown enormously since it had been a mere by-way of mrs. backfield's labours, and she and the girls also had charge of the young calves and pigs, which needed constant attention, and meant a great deal of hard work. besides this, there was all the housework to do, sweeping, dusting, cooking, baking, and mending and washing for the males. it occurred to reuben that harry might be of some use to the women. since he had given up fiddling he was entirely on the wrong side of odiam's accounts; it would do much to justify his existence if he could help a little in the house and thus save engaging extra labour. unfortunately harry's ideas of work were fantastic, and he was, besides, hindered by his blindness. any use he could be put to was more than balanced by the number of things he broke. his madness had of late developed both a terrible and an irritating side. he was sometimes consumed by the idea that the house was burning, and had on one or two occasions scared the family by jumping out of bed in the middle of the night and running about the passages shouting--"the house is afire! the house is afire! oh, god save us all!" after he had done this once or twice, young piper was made to sleep in his room, but even so he was often visited by his terrors during the day, and would interrupt work or meals with shrieks of--"the house is afire! oh, wot shall we do! the house is afire, and the children are burning." another habit of his, less alarming, but far more annoying, was to repeat some chance word or sentence over and over again for hours. if his mother said "take these plates into the kitchen, harry," he would spend the rest of the day murmuring, "take these plates into the kitchen, harry," till those about him were driven nearly as mad as he. it was soon found that he hindered rather than helped the work, so reuben had to cast about for fresh plans. he felt utterly ruthless now, and was resolved to make his daughters manage the house alone. he redistributed the labour, and by handing over the poultry, calves, and pigs to beatup, and taking some of his work upon his own shoulders, made it physically possible for caro and tilly to run the house and dairy with the feeble help of old mrs. backfield. he told them that he could not afford to engage a woman, and that they must do without her--making no appeal to their interest or ambition as he might have done six months ago. caro and tilly did not rebel. somehow or other their young backs did not break under the load of household toil, nor, more strangely, did their young hearts, in the loneliness of their hard, uncared-for lives. tilly was now nearly eighteen. she had always been like her mother, but as she grew older the likeness became more and more pronounced, till sometimes it seemed to reuben as if it were naomi herself with her milky skin and fleeting rose-bloom who sat at his table and moved about his house. the only difference lay in a certain prominence of the chin which gave her an air of decision that naomi had lacked. not that tilly was ever anything but docile, but occasionally reuben felt that some time or other she might take her stand--a fear which had never troubled him with naomi. caro was not like her sister; she was of larger build, yet thinner, and much darker, inheriting her father's swarthy skin and thick black hair. she did not give reuben the same anxiety as tilly--she was heavy and coltish, and, he felt, would not appeal to men. but tilly, especially when the summer heats had melted together the little freckles over her nose, struck his masculine eye in a way that made him half proud, half fearful. no young men ever visited odiam. the young ditches, the young vennals, or coalbrans, or ginners, who had business to transact with backfield, did so only at a safe distance. reuben could not as yet afford to lose his housemaids. some day, he told himself, he would see that the girls married to the honour of his farm, but at present he could not do without them. they did not murmur, for they had known no different life. they had never, like other girls, wandered with bevies of young people through the lanes at dusk, or felt in the twilight a man's hand grope for theirs. they had not had suitors to visit them on sundays, to sit very stiff and straight in the parlour, and pass decorous remarks about the weather all the while their eyes were eating up a little figure from toe to hair. nevertheless when they worked side by side in the kitchen or dairy, skimming milk, churning butter, watching puddings bubble and steam, or when they made reuben's great bed together, they had queer, half-shy, half-intimate talks--in which their heads came very close and their voices sank very low, and an eavesdropper might have often caught the word "lover," uttered mysteriously and sometimes with an odd little sigh. § . that spring the news flew round from inn to inn and farm to farm that realf of grandturzel had bought a shire stallion, and meant to start horse-breeding. this was a terrible shock to reuben, for not only was horse-breeding extremely profitable to those who could afford it, but it conferred immeasurable honour. it seemed now as if odiam were seriously threatened. if realf prospered at his business he could afford to fight reuben for boarzell. as a man in love will sometimes see in every other man a plotter for his beloved, and would never believe it if he were told that he alone sees charm in her and that to others she is undesirable, so reuben could not conceive ambition apart from the rugged, tough, unfruitful boarzell, whom no man desired but he. he at once started negotiations for buying another twenty acres, though at present he could ill afford it, owing to the expenses involved by his family misfortunes and his new mania for prestige. he watched grandturzel's developments with a stern and anxious eye, and kept pace with them as well as he could. the farm consisted of about fifty-five acres of grass and tilth, apart from the forty acres of boarzell, which neither realf nor his father had ever attempted to cultivate, using them merely for fuel and timber, or as pasturage for the ewes when their lambs were taken from them. old realf had allowed the place to acquire a dilapidated rakish look, but his son at once began to smarten it up. he tarred the two oast-houses till they shone blue with the reflected sky, he painted his barn doors green, and re-roofed the dutch barn with scarlet tiles that could be seen all the way from tiffenden hill. he enriched his poultry-yard with a rare strain of orpington, and was the only farmer in the district besides reuben to do his reaping and hay-making by machinery. realf was about twenty-five, a tall, well-set-up young fellow, with certain elegancies about him. in business he was of a simple, open-temperament, genuinely proud of his farm, and naïve enough to boast of its progress to backfield himself. indeed he was so naïve that it was not till reuben had once or twice sneered at him in public that he realised there was any friction between grandturzel and odiam, and even then he scarcely grasped its importance, for one night at the cocks, coalbran said rather maliciously to reuben: "which of your gals is it that young realf is sweet on?" "my gals! neither of 'em. wot d'you mean?" "only that he walks home wud them from church every sunday, and föalkses are beginning to wonder which he's going to mäake mrs. realf, surelye!" reuben turned brick-red with indignation. "neither of my gals is going to be mrs. realf. i'd see her dead fust! and the fellers as spread about such ugly lying tales, i'll----" and reuben scowled thunderously at coalbran, whom he had never forgiven since the scene in rye court-house. "he slanders my sons and he slanders my daughters," he muttered to himself as he went home, "and i reckon as this time it äun't true." however, next sunday he astonished his family by saying he would accompany them to church. hitherto reuben's churchmanship had been entirely political, he had hardly ever been inside peasmarsh church since his marriage, except for the christenings of his children--though he considered himself one of the pillars of the establishment. his family were exceedingly suspicious of this change of heart, and the girls whispered guiltily together. "he's found out," said caro, and tilly sighed. there was much turning of heads when ben backfield was seen to take his place with his children in their pew.... "wot's he arter now?"--"summat to do wud his farm you may be sartain."--"he's heard about his gals and young realf."--"ho, the wicked old sinner! i wish as passon 'ud tip it to un straight." realf of grandturzel sat a little way ahead on the opposite side, and reuben watched him all through the service. times had changed since robert had hurled his big voice among the rafters with the village choir. the choir now sat in the chancel and wore surplices; the parson too wore a surplice when he preached; for the oxford movement had spread to peasmarsh, and mr. barnaby, the new clergyman, lived at the rectory, instead of appointing a curate to do so, and unheard-of things happened in the way of week-day services and holy communion at eight o'clock in the morning. reuben, however, scarcely noticed the changes, so absorbed was he in young realf. occasionally the boy would turn his head on his shoulder and rashly contemplate the backfield pew. reuben invariably met him with a stare and a scowl. all through the sermon he sat with his eyes fixed on realf's profile. there was his rival, the man with whom he would have to reckon most during the difficult future, with whom he was fighting for boarzell. he looked marvellously young and comely as he sat there in the fretted light, and suddenly for the first time reuben realised that he was not as young as he had been. he was forty-six--he was getting old. something thick and icy seemed to creep into his blood, and he gripped the edge of the pew, as he stared at realf, sitting there so unconsciously, his damped and brushed hair gleaming ruddily in the light that poured through some saint's aureole. he must not let this youngster beat him.... beat him?--the ice in his blood froze thicker--after all he had not done so very much during the twenty-six years he had toiled and struggled; he had won only a hundred acres of boarzell--little more than realf had to start with ... and realf was only twenty-five. caro and tilly, sitting carefully so as not to crush their muslins, both their heads slewed round a little towards realf, noticed how their father's throat was working, how hot flows of colour rushed up and ebbed away under the tan on his cheeks. for the first time reuben was contemplating failure, looking that livid horror full in the face, seeing himself beaten, after all his toil and heartache, by a younger man. but the next moment he cast the coward feeling from him. his experience had given him immeasurable advantage over this babe. realf who had never felt the sweat pouring like water down his tired body, who had never swooned asleep from sheer exhaustion, or lain awake all night from sheer anxiety, who had not sacrificed wife and children and friends and self to one dear, loved, darling ambition ... bah! what could he do against the man who had done all these things, and was prepared to go on doing them to the end? when the congregation rose to sing reuben held his head proudly and his shoulders square. he felt himself a match for any youngster. § . that summer old mrs. backfield became completely bedridden. the gratefulness of sunshine to her old bones was counteracted by the clammy fogs that streamed up every night round the farm. it was an exceptionally wet and misty summer--a great deal of reuben's wheat rotted in the ground, and he scarcely took any notice when tilly announced one morning that grandmother was too ill to come downstairs. when the struggle on the lower slopes of boarzell between the damp earth and the determined man had ended in the earth's sludgy victory and a pile of rotten straw which should have been the glory of the man--then reuben had time to think of what was going on in the house. he sent for the doctor--not dr. espinette, but a cockney successor who boiled his instruments and washed his hands in carbolic--and heard from him that mrs. backfield's existence was no longer justified. she could not expect to work again. reuben was grieved, but not so much grieved as if she had been cut down in her strength--for a long time she had been pretty useless on the farm. he handed her over to the nursing of the girls, though they were too busy to do more for her than the barest necessities. now and then he went up himself and sat by her bed, restlessly cracking his fingers, and fretting to be out again at his work. sometimes harry would sit by her. he had wandered in one day when she was feeling especially ill and lonely, and in her desperation she had begged him to stay. at all events he was someone--a human being, or very nearly so. he shuffled restlessly round and round the room, fingering her little ornaments and pictures, and muttering to himself, "stay wud me, harry." he liked her room, for she had a dozen things he could finger and play with--little vases with flowers modelled over them, woolly mats, a velvet pincushion, and other survivals of her married life, all very dusty and faded now. soon she began to find a strange comfort in having him there; the uneasiness and vague repulsion with which he had filled her, died down, and she began to see in him something of the old harry whom she had loved so much better than reuben in days gone by. as the summer wore on she grew steadily worse. she lay stiff and helpless, through the long august days, watching the sunlight creep up the wall, slip along the ceiling, and then vanish into the pale, heat-washed sky that gleamed with it even after the stars had come. she did not fret much, or think much--she watched things. she watched the sunshine from its red kindling to its red scattering, she watched the moon slide across the window, and haunt the mirror after it had passed--or the sign of the scales dangling in the black sky. sometimes the things she looked at seemed to fade, and she would see a room in which she and her husband were sitting or a lane along which they were walking ... but just as she had begun to wonder whether she were not really still young and happy and married and this vision the fact and the sickness and loneliness the dream, then suddenly everything would pass away like smoke, and she would be back in her bed, watching the travelling sun, or the haunting moon, or the hanging stars. in october a steam-thresher came to odiam. the wheat had been bad, but there was still plenty of grain to thresh, and for a whole day the machine sobbed and sang under the farmhouse walls--"urrr-um--urrr-um--urrr-um." mrs. backfield lay listening to it. she felt very ill, but everyone was too busy to come to her--reuben was out in the yard feeding his monster, while the boys gathered up and sacked what it vomited out; caro and tilly were washing blankets. harry had gone off on some trackless errand of his own. the afternoon was very still and soft. it was full of the smell of apples--of apples warm and sunny on the trees, of apples fallen and rotting in the grass, of apples dry and stored in the loft. there were little apples on the walls of the house, and their skins were warm and bursting in the heat. the thresher purred and panted under the window--"urrr-um--urrr-um." now and then reuben would call out sharply, "now then! mind them genuines--they're mixing wud the seconds!" or "kip them sacks closed, beatup." but for most of the afternoon the stillness was broken only by the hum of the machine which sometimes almost seemed a part of it. mrs. backfield according to her custom watched the sun. it bathed the floor at first, but gradually she saw the square of the window paint itself on the wall, and then slide slowly up towards the ceiling. her eyes mechanically followed it; then suddenly it blazed, filmed, flowed out into a wide spread of light, in the midst of which she saw the kitchen at odiam as it used to be, with painted fans on the chimney-piece and pots of flowers on the window-sill. her husband sat by the fire, smoking his pipe, while harry was helping her tidy her workbasket. "there now!" she said to him, "i knew as it really wur a dream." "wot?" he asked her, and she, in her dream, felt a spasm of delight, for it was all happening so naturally--it must be true. "about fäather being dead, and you being blind, and ben having the farm." "of course it's a dream--fäather äun't dead, and i äun't blind, and ben's picking nuts over at puddingcake." "you couldn't spik to me lik this if it wur a dream, harry--could you, dear?" he didn't answer--and then suddenly he turned on her and shouted: "sack your chaff, now--can't you sack your chaff?" "harry! harry!" she cried, and came to herself in the little sun-smouldering room, while outside reuben stormed at his boys to "sack their chaff," and the machine purred and sang--"urrr-um--urrr-um." a sudden terrible lucidity came to mrs. backfield. "it's machines as he wants," she said to herself, "it's machines as he wants...." then a gentle darkness stole upon her eyes, as her overworked machine of flesh and blood ran down and throbbed slowly into stillness and peace. outside the great fatigueless machine of steel and iron sang on--"urrr-um--urrr-um--urrr-um." § . the girls cried a great deal at their grandmother's death--she had never taken up enough room in the boys' lives for them to miss her much. as for reuben, though he had been fond of her, he could not sincerely regret her, since for the last few months she had, so to speak, been carried on entirely at a loss. he needed every penny and every minute more desperately than ever, for grandturzel ran odiam closer and closer in the race. realf now plainly saw how matters stood. as yet there was no open breach between him and reuben--when one of them came into the public-house the other always waited a decent interval before clearing out--but if there was no open breach, there was open rivalry. all the neighbourhood knew of it, and many a bet was made. the odds were generally on reuben. it was felt that a certain unscrupulousness was necessary to the job, and in that backfield had the advantage. "young realf wudn't hurt a fly," his champions had to acknowledge. though the money was with reuben, the sympathy was mostly with realf, for the former's dealings had scarcely made him popular. he was a hard man to his customers, he never let them owe him for grain or roots or fodder; his farm-hands, when drunk, spoke of him as a monster, and a not very tender-hearted peasantry worked itself sentimental over his treatment of his children. for some months the antagonism between odiam and grandturzel remained in this polite state, most of the fighting being done by their champions. the landlord of the cocks grew quite tired of chucking out odiamites and grandturzelites who could not, like their leaders, confine their war to words. but it only wanted some cause, however trivial, to make the principals show their fists. the time that reuben would stay in the bar after realf had entered it grew shorter and shorter, and his pretexts for leaving more and more flimsy. realf himself, though a genial, good-tempered young man, could not help resenting the scorn with which he was treated. he once told ginner that backfield was an uncivilised brute, and ginner took care to forward this remark to the proper quarter. at last the gods, who are more open-handed than ungrateful people suppose, took pity on the rivals, and gave them something to fight about. the pretext was in itself trivial, but when the gunpowder is laid nothing bigger than a match is needed. this particular pretext was a barrow of roots which had been ordered from kitchenhour by reuben and sent by mistake to grandturzel. realf's shepherd, not seeing any cause for doubt, gave the roots as winter fodder to his ewes, and said nothing about them. when reuben tramped over to kitchenhour and asked furiously why his roots had never been sent, the mistake was discovered. he came home by grandturzel, and found his precious roots, all thrown out on the fields, being nibbled by realf's ewes. realf himself was away, but reuben left such a stinging message for him, that apology was impossible except in a form that could only be regarded as a fresh insult. an apology in this shape reached odiam at dinner-time, and reuben at once sent off beatup with an acceptance of it that was very nearly obscene. the result was that realf himself arrived about three o'clock furiously demanding an explanation of his neighbour's insulting conduct. the two men met in the kitchen, peter backing up his father, and for a long time the scene was stormy, the word "roots" whirling about the conversation, with the prefix "my good" or "your hemmed" as the case might be. realf was genuinely angry--reuben's attitude of mingled truculence and scorn had wounded even his easy pride. "you're justabout afeard of me, that's wot you are. you think i'll bust up your old farm and show myself a better man than you. you're afeard of me because i'm a younger man than you." "ho, afeard of you, am i?--and because you're a youngster? i'll justabout show you wot a youngster's worth. a better man, are you?--put up your fists, and we'll see who's the better man." reuben began to take off his coat--young realf drew back almost in disgust. "i'm not going to fight a man old enough to be my father," he said, flushing. "ho, äun't you?--come on, you puppy-dog, and see fur yourself if you need täake pity on my old age." he had flung off his coat, and squared up to realf, who, seeing no alternative, began to strip. peter interposed: "let me täake him on, fäather. i'll show him a thing or two." reuben turned on him savagely. "stand clear!--who wants your tricks? i'm going to show him wot a man's worth--a man wot's had his beard longer than this puppy's bin in the warld." "but you're out of training." "i'm in training enough to whip boys. stand clear!" pete stood clear, as the two combatants closed. neither knew much of the game. realf had been born too late for boxing to have been considered a necessary part of his education, and reuben had been taught in an old school--the school of bendigo and deaf burke--mighty bashers, who put their confidence in their strength, despised finesse, and counted their victories in pints of blood. he fairly beat down on realf, who was lithe enough generally to avoid him, but not experienced enough to do so as often as he might. every time reuben struck him, the floor seemed to rush up to his eyes, and the walls to sag, and the house to fill with smoke. pete danced round them silently, for while his sympathies were with his father his sporting instincts bade him keep outwardly impartial. he was disgusted with their footwork, indeed their whole style outraged his bruising ideals; but it pleased him to see how much reuben was the better man. they hardly ever clinched--on the other hand, there was much plunging and rushing. reuben brought down realf three times and realf brought down reuben once. it was noticeable that if the younger man fell more easily he also picked himself up more quickly. between the rounds they leaned exhausted against the wall, pete prowling about between them, longing to take his father on his knee, but still resolved to see fair play. it was not likely that the fight would be a long one, for both combatants were already winded. realf, moreover, was bleeding from the nose, and reuben's left eye was swollen. once he caught a hit flush on the mouth which cut his nether lip in two, and, owing to his bad footwork, brought him down. but he was winning all the same. for once that realf managed to land a blow, reuben landed a couple, and with twice as much weight behind them. the younger man soon began to look green and sick, he staggered about, and flipped, while the sweat poured off his forehead into his eyes. reuben breathed stertorously and could scarcely see out of his left eye, but was otherwise game. pete felt prouder of him than ever. suddenly backfield's fist crashed into realf's body, full on the mark. the wind rushed out of him as out of a bellows, and he doubled up like a screen. this time he made no effort to rise; he lay motionless, one arm thrown out stiff and jointless as a bough, while a little blood-flecked foam oozed from between his teeth. "you've done it!" cried pete. reuben had flopped down in a heap on the settle, and his son ran off for help. he flung open the door, and nearly fell over tilly who was cowering behind it. § . "here--bring some water!" cried peter, too much relieved to see her to be surprised at it. tilly flung one wide-eyed glance over her shoulder into the room where young realf lay, and dashed off for water and towels, while pete fetched a piece of raw meat out of the larder. it was a minute or two before realf opened his swollen, watering eyes, and gazed up bewildered into the face of the woman he had said his prayers to for a dozen sundays. she held his head in the crook of her arm, and wiped the froth and blood from his lips. "better now?" asked pete. realf suddenly seemed to shrink into himself. the next minute he was swaying unsteadily on his legs, refusing the hands held out to support him. "i'm going home," he mumbled through his bruised lips. "i'll täake you," said pete cheerily. but realf of grandturzel shook his head. his humiliation was more than he could bear. without another look at pete or tilly, or at reuben holding the raw chop to his eye, he turned and walked out of the room with bent head and dragging footsteps. for a moment pete looked as if he would follow him, but reuben impatiently called him back. "leave the cub alone, can't you? let him go and eat grass." tilly stood motionless in the middle of the room, her little nose wrinkled with horror at the bloodstains on the floor and at reuben whose face was all bruised and swollen and shiny with the juice of the raw meat. pete saw her shudder, and resented it. "it wur a präaper fight," he declared. "you want to manage them feet of yourn a bit slicker, fäather--but you wur justabout smart wud your fists." tilly's blood ran thick with disgust; she turned from them suddenly--that coarse, bloodthirsty, revolting pair--and ran quickly out of the room. she ran out of the house. away on boarzell a man plodded and stumbled. she saw him stagger as the wind battered him, reel and nearly fall among the treacheries of the dead heather. he was like a drunken man, and she knew that he was drunk with shame. all flushed with pity she realised the bitterness of his fate--he who was so young and strong and clean and gay, had been degraded, shamed by her father, whom in that moment she looked upon entirely as a brute. it must not be. he had been so good to her, so friendly and courteous in their sunday walks--she must not let him go away from her shamed and beaten. she gathered up her skirts and ran across the garden, out on to the moor. she ran through the heather, stumbling in the knotted thickness. the spines tore her stockings, and in one clump she lost her shoe. but she did not wait. her little chin was thrust forward in the obstinacy of her pursuit, and when she came closer to him she called--"mr. realf! mr. realf!" he stopped and looked round, and the next minute she was at his side. her hair was all blown about her face, her cheeks were flushed the colour of bell-heather, and her breast heaved like a wave. she could not speak, but her eyes were blessing him, and then suddenly both her hands were in his. § . early in the next year sir miles bardon died, and his son ralph became squire. reuben had now, as he put it, lived through three bardons. he despised the enfeebled and effete race with its short life-times, and his own body became straighter when he thought of sir miles's under the earth. for every reason now, odiam was being forced on. realf had sought comfort for his personal humiliation in making his farm more spick and span than ever. reuben became aware of a certain untidiness about odiam, and spent much on paint and tar--just as the frills of a younger rival might incite to extravagance a woman who had hitherto despised the fashions. he painted his waggons a beautiful blue, and his oasts were even blacker and shinier than grandturzel's. he had wooden horses to dance on their pointers, whereupon realf put cocks on his. the thought of tilly did not check the young man in this beggar-my-neighbour, for he knew that her father's ambition meant her slavery. so when reuben added a prize jersey heifer to his stock, realf bought a newlands champion milker, and when reuben launched desperately on a hay-rope twister, realf ran him up with a wurzel-cutter. finally reuben bought twenty acres, of boarzell, in which realf did not attempt to rival him, for he already had forty which he did not know what to do with. reuben's strugglings with boarzell struck him as pathetic rather than splendid, an aberration of ambition which would finally spoil the main scheme. so realf's answer took the form of an extra cowman, whereupon reuben hired a couple of new hands, causing his family to leap secretly and silently for joy and to bless the man who by his rivalry had lightened their yoke. as a matter of fact, reuben would have been forced to engage one man, anyhow; for the new piece of land had at once to be prepared for cultivation, and gave even more trouble than the pieces which had already been cultivated but showed a distressing proneness to relapse into savagery. the lower slope of boarzell was now covered with fields, where corn grew, as the neighbours said, "if one wur careful not to spik too loud," and the ewes could pasture safely if their shepherd were watchful. but it somehow seemed as if all these things were only on sufferance, and that directly reuben rested his tired arm boarzell would snatch them back to itself, to be its own for ever. reuben swaggered a little about his new farm-hands, especially as realf showed no signs of going any further in hirelings. one man, boorman, came from shoyswell near ticehurst, and was said to be an authority on the diseases of roots, while the other, handshut, came from cheat land on the western borders of peasmarsh. reuben went over to get his "character" from jury the tenant--and that was how he met alice jury. § . the door was opened to him by a tall young woman in a grey dress covered by an apron. reuben was struck by that apron, for it was not the sacking kind to which he was accustomed, or the plain white muslin which his women-folk wore on sundays, but a coarse brick-coloured cotton, hanging from her shoulders like a pinafore. the girl's face above it was not pretty, but exceptionally vivid--"vivid" was the word, not prominent in reuben's vocabulary, which flashed into his mind when he saw her. her colouring was pale, and her features were small and irregular, her hair was very frizzy and quite black, while her grey eyes were at once the narrowest and the liveliest he had ever seen. "i'm sorry--father's not at home," she said in answer to his question. "but i töald him as i wur coming over--it's about that handshut." she smiled. "i'm afraid father forgets things. but come in, he's bound to be home to his dinner soon." reuben grumbled and muttered to himself as he crossed the threshold--small fry like these jurys must not be allowed to think that he had any time to spare. the young woman led him into the kitchen and offered him a seat. reuben took it and crossed his legs, looking appraisingly round the room, which was poorly furnished, but beautifully kept, with some attempts at decoration. there was a print of rossetti's "annunciation" above the meal-chest, and a shelf of books by the fireplace. it all struck him as strange and rather contemptible. he remembered what he had been told about the jurys, who had only just come to cheat land. tom jury had, so rumour said, kept a bookshop in hastings, but trade had gone badly, and as his health demanded an outdoor life and country air, charitable friends had established him on a small holding. he had an invalid wife, and one daughter, who was not very strong either--an ignoble family. the daughter must be the girl who was talking to him now. she sat on a little stool by the fire, and had brought out some sewing. "you come from odiam, don't you?" she asked. "yes, that's it." "is odiam that farm near totease?" reuben looked as if he had swallowed the poker. he stared at her to see if she were making fun of him, but her bright eyes were quite innocent. "yes," he said huskily--"it is." "we've only been here a month, so i haven't got the neighbourhood quite clear. you see i can't often go out, as my mother's generally in bed, and i have all the house-work to do. that's why my father has to have a man to help him out of doors. it's a pity, for wages are so high--handshut's leaving us because we could do with someone cheaper and less experienced." reuben liked her voice, with its town modulation, the only vestige of sussex taint being a slight drawl. it struck him that alice jury was a "lady," and that he was not condescending very much in speaking to her. "it's unaccountable hard to know what to do about labour. now as these fellers are gitting eddicated they think no end of theirselves and 'ull ask justabout anything in wages--as if a man hoed turnups any better for being able to read and write." "but don't you think he does?" "no--i döan't. i'm all agäunst teaching poor people anything and setting them above theirselves. it's different fur their betters. now i've got six boys, and they can all read and write and cast accounts." "six boys, have you? are they grown up?" "yes, the youngest's sixteen." "and do they help you on the farm?" "yes--leastways four of 'em do. two have--have left home." "i suppose they didn't care for farming?" "one's in prison, and t'other i turned away." reuben had no idea why he said this. it must have been the way her eyes were fixed on him, glowing above bistred shadows. "oh, indeed!--how sad." he flushed the colour of her apron. what a fool he was!--and yet after all she would be bound to hear the truth sooner or later; he had only been beforehand. all the same he was surprised at himself. a sudden tide of anger went over him. "sad fur them, i reckon, but not fur me. i'm well shut of them." "don't you miss them at all?" "naun particular. robert he wur good and plodding-like, but you couldn't trust his stacking, and he'd be all nohow wud the horses--and albert he'd shirk everything wotsumdever, he'd go off into dreams in the middle of killing a pig--surelye!" "but in themselves, i mean." "wot's that--in themselves?" "well, as boys, as sons, not as farm-servants." "i döan't never think of them that way. one's no good to me wudout t'other." alice jury said nothing, and reuben began to feel vaguely uncomfortable. what queer eyes she had!--they seemed to bore into him like nails. he suddenly rose to his feet. "see here--i must be going." "but father won't be long now." "i'm sorry--i can't wait. i've a load of field-bean coming in. i'll be round agäun to-morrow." "what time?--and i'll promise father shall be here to see you." "about eleven, say. good-bye, miss." "good-bye." she went with him to the door. a great lump of phlox grew on either side of it. she stood between them, and suddenly pointed out over jury's miserable little root-patch towards boarzell, heaving its great hummocks against the east. "what's that?" she asked. § . reuben came away from cheat land with odd feelings of annoyance, perplexity, and exhilaration. alice jury was queer, and she had insulted him, nevertheless those ten minutes spent with her had left him tingling all over with a strange excitement. he could not account for it. women had excited him before, but merely physically. he took it for granted that they had minds and souls like men, but he had not thought much about that aspect of them or allowed it to enter his calculations. of late he had scarcely troubled about women at all, having something better to think of. now he found himself thrown into a kind of dazzle by alice jury. he could not explain it. her personal beauty was negligible--"a liddle stick of a thing," he called her; their conversation had been limited almost entirely to her tactless questions and his forbearing answers. "she äun't my sort," he mumbled as he walked home, "she äun't at all my sort. dudn't know where odiam wur--never heard of boarzell--oh, yes, seems as she remembered hearing something when i töald her"--and reuben's lip curled ironically. he had not told her of his ambitions with regard to boarzell, and now he found himself wishing that he had done so. he had been affronted by her ignorance, but as his indignation cooled he longed to confide in her. why, he could not say, for unmistakably she "wasn't his sort"; it was not likely that she would sympathise, and yet he wanted to pour all the treasures of his hope into her indifference. he had never felt like this towards anyone before. he spent the day restlessly, and the next morning walked over to cheat land before half-past ten. alice jury opened the door, and looked surprised to see him. "you said you were coming at eleven. i'm afraid father's out again." "i wur passing this way, so thought i'd call in on the chance," said reuben guiltily--"i döan't mind waiting." she called a long-legged boy who was weeding among the turnips, and bade him go over to puddingcake and fetch the master. then she led the way to the kitchen, which smelled deliciously of baking bread. "you don't mind if i go on with my baking? i've twelve loaves in the oven." "oh, no," said reuben, sitting in yesterday's chair, and gazing up at the rossetti. "do you like pictures?" asked alice, thumping dough. "some," said reuben, "but i like 'em coloured best." "i paint a little myself," said alice--"when i've time." "wot sort o' things do you paint?" "oh, landscapes mostly. that's mine"--and she pointed to a little water-colour sketch of a barn. "could you paint a picture of odiam?" "i expect i could--not really well, you know, just something like this." "could you paint boarzell?" he leaned towards her over the back of his chair. "yes, i dare say." "could you do it wud all the colours on it and all that?--all the pinks you git on it sometimes, and the lovely yaller the gorse mäakes?" she was surprised at his enthusiasm. his eyes were kindling, and a blush was creeping under his sunburn. "oh, i could try! do you want a picture of boarzell?" "i'd like one if you could really do it to look natural." she smiled. "perhaps i could. but why do you think so much of boarzell?" "because i'm going to mäake it mine." "yours!" "yes--i mean to have the whole of it." "but can you grow anything on a waste like that?" "_i_ can. i've got near a hundred acres sown already" ... and then all the floodgates that had been shut for so long were burst, and the tides of his confidence rolled out to her, moaning--all the ache of his ambition which nobody would share. her eyes were fixed on him with their strange spell, and her sharp little face was grave. he knew that she did not sympathise--he had not expected it. but he was glad he had told her. her first words startled him. "do you think it's worth while?" "wot's worth while?" "to give up so much for the sake of a piece of land." reuben gaped at her. "i've no right to preach to you; but i think i may be allowed to ask you--'is it worth while?'" he was too flabbergasted to be angry. the question had simply never come into his experience. many a man had said, "do you think you'll do it?" but no one had ever said, "do you think it's worth while?" alice saw her blunder. she saw that she had insulted his ambition; and yet, though she now understood the ferocities of that ambition, it filled her with a definite hostility which made her want to fight and fight and fight it with all the strength she had. at the same time, as his surprise collapsed, his own antagonism rose up. he felt a sudden hatred, not for the girl, but for the forces which somehow he knew she was bringing to oppose him. they faced each other, their eyes bright with challenge, their breasts heaving with a stormier, earthlier emotion--and the white flame of antagonism which divided them seemed at the same time to fuse them, melt them into each other. § . reuben was going through a new experience. for the first time in his life he had fallen under the dominion of a personality. from his boyhood he had been enslaved by an idea, but people, in anything except their relation to that idea, had never influenced him. now for the first time he had a life outside boarzell, an interest, a set of thoughts, which were not only apart from boarzell but antagonistic to it. hitherto he had always considered the opposite of his ambition to be the absence of it. either one lived to subdue the hostile earth, or one lived with no object at all. it was a new experience to find someone whose life was full of hopes, ideals, and ambitions, all utterly unconnected with a farm, and it was even more strange than new that he should care to talk about them. not that he ever found himself being tempted from his own--the most vital part of his relations with alice jury lay in their warfare. he fought her as he fought boarzell, though without that sense of a waiting treachery which tinctured his battles with the moor; their intercourse was full of conflict, of fiery, sacred hostilities. they travelled on different roads, and knew that they could never walk together, yet each wanted to count the other's milestones. sometimes reuben would ask himself if he was in love with her, but as the physical element which he had always and alone called love was absent, he came to the conclusion that he was not. if he had thought he loved her he would have avoided her, but there was no danger in this parliament of their minds. her attitude towards life, though it obsessed him, no more convinced him than his convinced her. they would rail and wrangle together by the hour. "life is worth while," said alice, "in itself, not because of what it gives you." "i agree with you there," said reuben, "it's not wot life gives that's good, it's wot you täake out of it." "i don't see that. suppose that because i liked that girl's face in the picture i tore it out and kept it for myself, i should only spoil the picture--the piece i'd torn out wouldn't be any good to me away from the rest." "i can't foller you," said reuben gruffly. "now don't pretend to be stupid--don't pretend you can't understand anything but turnips." "and döan't pretend you can't understand naun but picturs. a good solid turnup in real life is worth a dozen pretty gals in picturs." "that's right--have the courage of your earthiness. but don't try to make me think that when you look out of the window at boarzell, you don't see the sky beyond it." "and döan't you try and make out as when you're looking at the sky you döan't see boarzell standing in between." "i don't try and make it out. i see your point of view, but it's only 'in between' me--and you--and something greater." "rubbidge!" said reuben. he always came away from these wrangles with a feeling as if he had been standing on his head. he was not used to mental scoutings and reconnoitrings. also, he felt sometimes that alice was laughing at him, which irritated him, not so much because she mocked as because he could never be really sure whether she mocked or not. her laughter seemed to come from the remotest, most exalted part of her. the gulfs between their points of view never gaped so wide as when she laughed. § . reuben's constant visits to cheat land were soon noticed at odiam, and every advantage was taken of them. a period of licence set in. richard read anne bardon's homer quite openly by the kitchen fire, caro dropped tears over east lynne in the dairy, and jemmy spent long tarry hours at rye, coming home with a rank chew in his mouth, and sailors' oaths to salt his work on the farm. tilly had private affairs of her own which occasionally led her out on boarzell of an afternoon. she always took her sewing, for she dared not be behindhand with it. strangely enough, in spite of jemmy's and tilly's truancies, the work was somehow got through as usual, for shortcomings would have been found out and punished on the master's return--or worse still, he might have stayed at home. for the first time a certain freemasonry was established between the brothers and sisters. hitherto their rebellion had been too secret even for confederacy, but now some of the crushing weight was lifted, and they could combine--all except peter, who was too much reuben's man for them to trust him; luckily he was rather stupid. so peter did not see and no one else took any notice if caro read and wept over sentimental novels, or jemmy brought home harbour mud on his shoes, or george, who was delicate and epileptic, slept away an hour under a haystack, or richard pondered the iliad, or tilly ran out on the moor--even though she went to meet realf of grandturzel. they met on the further side of the fir clump, on the edge of grandturzel's inclosure. here tilly would sit under a gorse-bush with her sewing, while young realf lay along the grass at her feet. they did not talk much, for tilly was busy, and generally had her mouth full of pins; but realf's manhood worshipped her as she sat there, her delicious head bowed, and stains of sunshine, with sprinkled gorse-petals, in her hair. he loved her little determined chin, and the sweet smudge of freckles on her nose. love filled their simplest actions, kindled their simplest words; it dreamed in their eyes and laughed on their lips; its silences linked them closer than the most passionate embraces. both unconsciously dreaded the time when they should demand more of each other--when the occasional enlacing of their hands would no longer be enough to open paradise, when from sweet looking and longing they would have to pass into the bitterness of action. tilly, though essentially practical and determined, was enjoying her first visit to faery, and also inherited her mother's gift of languor. she basked in those hours of sun and bees. she, like her father, was passing for the first time into a life outside the dominion of the farm--but, whereas he fought it, and sought it only to fight it, she submitted to it as to a caress. she cared nothing for odiam; it was no thought of disloyalty to it and her father, of breaking from her service, which made her mark time in dreams. as the weeks went by she felt more and more the hatefulness of the yoke. she now had a standard of comparison by which to judge reuben and odiam. she saw herself and her brothers and her sister more and more as victims. other farmers' children were not slaves. other farms did not hang like sucking incubuses on boys' and girls' backs, draining all the youth and joy and sport out of them. it made her blood boil to think of robert and albert in their exile. robert had now been released from gaol, and had been sent by a charitable society to australia. reuben had refused to move a hand to help him. as for albert, a few months ago a piteous letter had arrived, begging for money. he had, through mr. hedges, found work on a small radical paper which soon came to grief, and since then had been practically starving, having had no success as a freelance. a friend of his wanted to start a weekly review--tory this time, for albert's politics were subservient to occasion--and only required funds. did reuben feel prepared to make an investment? thus poor albert cloaked and trimmed his begging. of course reuben had refused to help him, and tilly had been unable to get any money out of pete. her heart bled for her brothers, and at the same time she could not help envying their freedom, though one enjoyed it as a beggar and the other as a felon. § . at last the crisis came--through george, the youngest, least-considered son at odiam. he had always been a weakling, as if naomi had passed into his body her own passionate distaste for life. also, as is common with epileptic children, his intellect was not very bright. it had been the habit to spare him, even reuben had done so within reason. but he should not really have worked at all, or only in strict moderation--certainly he should not have been sent out that october evening to dig up the bracken roots on the new land. tilly expostulated--"anyhow he didn't ought to work alone "--but reuben was angry with the boy, whom he had caught loafing once or twice that day, and roughly packed him off. he himself went over to moor's cottage about a load of trifolium, and returning in the darkness by cheat land was persuaded to stay to supper. that was one of the nights when he did not like alice jury--he sometimes went through the experience of disliking her, which was an adventure in itself, so wild and surprising was it, so bewildering to remember afterwards. she seemed a little colourless--she was generally so vivid that he noticed and resented all the more those times when her shoulders drooped against her chair, and her little face looked strangely wistful instead of eager. it seemed as if on these occasions alice were actually pleading with him. she lost that antagonism which was the salt of their relations, instead of fighting she pleaded. pleaded for what? he dared not ask that question, in case the answer should show him some strange new canaan which was not his promised land. so he came away muttering--"only a liddle stick of a woman. i like gurt women--i like 'em rosy, i like 'em full-breasted.... she'd never do fur me." he tramped home through the darkness. a storm was rising, shaking the fir-plumes of boarzell against a scudding background of clouds and stars. the hedges whispered, the dead leaves rustled, the woods sighed. every now and then a bellow would come from the moor, as the sou'wester roared up in a gust, then a low sobbing followed it into silence. on the doorstep reuben was greeted by tilly--where was george? he had not been in to supper. "have you looked in the new field?" "yes--benjamin went round. but he äun't there." "well, i döan't know where he is." "reckon he's fallen down in a fit somewhere and died." tilly was not looking at all like naomi to-night. "nonsense," said reuben, resenting her manner. "it äun't nonsense. i always know when his fits are coming on because he's tired and can't work präaperly. he was like that to-day. and you--you drove him out." reuben had never been spoken to like this by his daughter. he turned on her angrily, then suddenly changed his mind. for the first time he really saw what a fine girl she was--all that alice was not. "we'll go and look for him," he said--"send out the boys." all that night they hunted for george on boarzell. it was pitch dark. soon great layers of cloud were sagging over the stars, and boarzell's firs were lost in the blackness behind them. reuben, his sons, beatup, piper, handshut, boorman, fought the dark with lanterns as one might fight behemoth with pin-pricks. they scattered over the moor, searching the thorn-clumps and gorse-thickets. it was pretty certain that he was not on the new ground by flightshot. richard said openly that he did not believe in the fit and that george had run away, and--less openly--that it was a good job too. the other boys, however, did not think that he had enough sense to run away, and agreed that his condition all day had foretold an attack. reuben himself believed in the fit, and a real anxiety tortured him as he thrust his lantern into the gaping caverns of bushes. he had by his thoughtless and excessive zeal allowed boarzell to rob him of another man. of course, it did not follow that george was dead, but unless they found him soon it was quite likely that he would not survive exposure on such a night. if so, reuben had only himself to thank for it. he should have listened to his daughter, and either let george off his work or made him work near home. he did not pretend to himself that he loved this weakling son, or that his death would cause his fatherhood much grief, but he found himself with increasing definiteness brought up against the conviction that boarzell was beating him, wringing its own out of him by slow, inexorable means, paying him back a hundredfold for every acre he took or furrow he planted. he had become separated from the other searchers, and was alone on the west side of the moor. the wind barked and howled, hurling itself upon him as he stood, beating his face with hail, which hissed into the dead tangles of the heather, while the stripped thorns yapped and rattled, and the bushes roared. so great was the tumult that he seemed to fall into it like a stone into a wave--it passed over him, round him, seemed even to pass under him, he was hardly conscious of the solid ground. the blackness was impenetrable, save where his lantern stained it with a yellow smudge. he shouted, but his voice perished in the din--it seemed as if his whole man, sight, voice, hearing, and sensation, was blurring into the storm, as if boarzell had swamped him at last, made him merely one of its hundred voices, mocking the manhood which had tried so much against its earth. the wind seemed to be laughing at him, as it bellowed up in gusts, struck him, sprayed him, roughed his hair out madly, smacked his cheeks, drove the rain into his skin, and then rumbled away with a hundred chatterings and sighings. it seemed to be telling him that as his breath was to this wind so was he himself to boarzell. the wind was the voice of the moor, and it told him that in fighting boarzell, he did not fight the mere earth, an agglomeration of lime and clay which he could trample and compel, but all the powers behind it. in arming himself against boarzell he armed himself against the whole of nature's huge resources, the winds, the storms, the droughts, the early and the latter rain, the poisons in plants, and the death in stones, the lusts which spilling over from the beasts into the heart of man slay him from within himself. he had armed himself against all these, and once again the old words sang in his head--"canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?" he had shrunk into the rattling shelter of some thorn-bushes. they scraped their boughs like grotesque violins, and every other moment they would sweep down over him and shut him into a cavern of snapping twigs. he was soaked to the skin and his teeth chattered. he lay close to the earth, seeking shelter even from the skeleton heather which writhed woody stems all round him. he cursed. must he spend the night here, lost and grovelling, to listen while boarzell screeched its triumph over his cold, drenched body.... "canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? "his heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. "the sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold; the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. "he esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. "sharp stones are under him...." a crash of thunder and a spit of lightning tore open the sky, and for a moment reuben saw the slope of the moor livid in the flash, and the crest of firs standing against the split and tumbling clouds. the air rang, screamed, hissed, rushed, and rumbled. reuben, hardly knowing what he did, had sprung to his feet. "i'll have wheat growing here in a twelvemonth!" he shouted. § . the dawn broke over boarzell like a reconciliation. the clamouring voices of wind and trees were still, and only a low sobbing came now and then from the woods. in the sky pale streamers of rose barred and striped a spreading violet. one or two clouds flew low, and slowly pilled themselves, scattering into the fields. on every blade of grass and twig of thorn, on every leaf and spine, glimmered pearls of rain, washing the air with a faint scent of stagnant water, perfuming it with the steams of sodden grass. reuben crept out of his thorn cavern and looked down the slope. at the bottom by socknersh one or two lanterns moved through the dusk. he stiffly threw up his arm and tried to shout. his throat felt cramped and swollen, and it was not till after one or two attempts that a sound pitifully like a bleat came out of it. a voice answered him from the hollow, and then he saw that they were carrying something. he limped painfully down to them. richard, boorman, and handshut carried a hurdle between them, and on the hurdle lay a draggled boy, whose clenched hand clutched a tuft of earth and grass as a victim might clutch a handful of his murderer's hair. "is he dead?" asked reuben. "yes, mäaster," said boorman. richard's mouth twisted in contemptuous silence--handshut being young and silly was crying. "he wurn't on the new land," continued boorman, "he'd fallen into the ditch by socknersh palings--that's why we cudn't find un. reckon as he'd felt the fitses coming on un, and tried to git höame, pore souly." "when did you find him?" "half an hour agone. he'd bin dead for hours, mäaster. he must have choked in the ditch--see, his mouth is full of mud." reuben drew back with a shiver. he limped behind the little procession towards odiam, slouching for the first time in his life. in spite of his conquests he and boarzell still were quits, still had to prove which was the better man. george, lying there muddy, white, and crumpled, was a sign that the moor had its victories, in spite of the spreading corn. he looked down at george--the boy's face had an unhuman chalky appearance under the mudstains; on the forehead a vein had swollen up in black knots, others showed pale, almost aqueous, through the stretched skin. after all, george was the weakest, the best-spared of his children. this thought comforted and stiffened him a little, and he went into the house with something of his old uprightness. the other children were in the kitchen. they had seen their dead brother from the window, and stood mute and tearless as he was carried into the room. reuben gave orders for him to be taken upstairs and the doctor to be sent for. no one else spoke. tilly's breast heaved stormily, and he did not like the dull blaze in her eyes. strange to say, of his whole family, excepting pete, she was the only one of whom he was not faintly contemptuous. she had spirit, that girl--he prophesied that she would turn out a shrew. for the very reason that he could not despise her, he took upon himself to bully her now. "get me some tea," he said roughly, "i'm cold." § . though there had been no open rupture, from that day forward odiam was divided into two camps. on one side were reuben and pete, on the other, tilly and richard. benjamin and caro were neutrals; they were indifferent to vital issues, one engrossed in snatching holidays, the other in hankering after she did not quite know what. pete had always been a good son, hard-working and enthusiastic, not exactly a comrade, but none the less an ally, always to be depended on and now and then taken into confidence. he seemed to accept his father's attitude towards george's death and to resent richard's and tilly's. that spring he beat squinty bream at robertsbridge fair, and gave half the purse to reuben to buy a chaff-cutter. of the enemy tilly was the most effective--reuben did not quite know how to deal with her. his inability to despise her told heavily against him. richard, on the other hand, he despised from the depths of his heart. the boy was insufferable, for he still had his old knack of saving his skin. it was nearly always impossible to pick any definite faults in his work--it was wonderful how he managed to combine unwillingness with efficiency. he also had an irritating habit of speaking correct english, and of alluding to facts and events of which reuben had never heard in such a manner as to make it impossible for him not to show his ignorance. reuben never lost a chance of baiting him, he jibed at his squeamishness and fine manners, at his polite way of eating and the trouble he took to clean his nails; he despised him all the more for occasionally getting the better of him, verbally at any rate, in these encounters. one night at supper reuben, having actually succeeded in finding this sneering son at fault, abused him roundly for the shocking condition of the ewes' fleeces. richard had the bad sense to quote shakespeare, whereat reuben told him that if he could not speak english he could leave the room. richard replied that he would be very pleased to do so, as certain people's table-manners made supper rather an ordeal. reuben helped him out with a kick most vulgarly placed. the next day backfield was due at an auction at northiam, but before leaving he ordered richard to clean out the pig-sties. it was not, properly speaking, his work at all, but reuben hoped it would make him sick, or that he would refuse to obey and thus warrant his father knocking him down. "certainly," said richard without a tremor. "oh, thank you," said reuben, bowing in mock politeness, and trying to copy his clipped english. ten minutes later he rode off, and the family separated to their tasks, or to such evasions of them as were possible in the master's absence. tilly cleared the table and began to prepare the dinner. she had promised the boys a bag pudding, and must start it early. she had not been cooking more than half an hour when the door opened, and richard came in, dressed in a neat black suit with a stiff gladstone collar. his hair was nicely brushed, and he carried a pair of gloves and a little valise. "oh!" cried tilly. "i'm off," said richard shortly, banging down his valise on the table. "off!--where?" "to london." tilly gaped at him. "i'm sick of all this, i'm sick of the old man and his beastliness. miss bardon is lending me money to go to london university, and perhaps i shall read for the bar." "the bar," repeated tilly vaguely. "yes, i've learned a heap of latin and other things during the last five years, and two or three years at the university ought to be all i want. miss bardon's taught me--i owe everything to her." "i must say as how you've kept it dark." she knew of his friendship with anne bardon, but had never expected it to bear such generous fruit. "well, it would never have done if the old man had got to know of it. good heavens, tilly! how can you live on with that old brute?" "maybe i shan't much longer," said tilly, looking down at her rolling-pin. richard stared at her for a moment--"i'm glad to hear it. but the others--oh, my dear girl, this is damnable!" tilly sighed. "the law ought to suppress such men--it ought to be a criminal offence to revert to type--the primordial gorilla." "but fäather's a clever man--albert always used to say so." "yes, in a cunning, brutish sort of way--like a gorilla when he's set his heart on a particular cocoanut. boarzell's his cocoanut, and he's done some smart things to get it--and in one way at least he's above the gorilla, for he can enslave other people of superior intelligence to sweat under his orders for what they care nothing about." "we're all very unlucky," said tilly, "to have been born his children. but one by one we're gitting free. there'll soon be only pete and jemmy and caro left." "and i hope to god they'll have the wit to follow the rest of us. i'd like to see that old slave-driver left quite alone. heavens! i could have strangled him yesterday--i should have, if i hadn't had this to look forward to." "where are you going to stay in london?" "miss bardon's taken some rooms for me in montague street." "she's good to you, richard." "she's an angel "--he lifted his eyes, and his mouth became almost worshipful--"she's an angel, who's raised me out of hell. i shall never be able to repay her, but she doesn't expect it. all she wants is my success." "i wish caro or jemmy cud meet someone like her. i döan't think as pete minds." "no, he's quite the young gorilla. now i must be off, tilly. i'll write to you." "oh, wöan't fäather be in a taking!" "i reckon--i expect he will. but don't you mind him, little sister. he isn't worth it." he stooped and kissed her. "good-bye. say it to the others for me." "good-bye--good luck to you." ... and he was gone--walking past the window in a top-hat. § . it would be mere politeness to describe as a "taking" reuben's condition when he heard richard had gone. he was in a stamping, bellowing, bloodshot rage. he sent for various members of his family, questioned them, stormed at them, sent them away, then sent for them again. he boxed caro's ears because she cried--hitherto he had kept his hands off the girls. as for tilly, he would have liked to have whipped her--he felt sure that somehow it was all her doing--but the more furious he grew, the more he felt himself abashed by her manner, at once so soft and so determined, and he dared do no more than throw his boots at her. after a night of cursings and trampings in his room, he took the fermenting dregs of his wrath to cheat land. it was queer that he should go for sympathy to alice jury, who was chief in the enemy's camp. but though he knew she would not take his part, she would not be like the others, leering and cackling. she would give him something vital, even if it was only a vital opposition. that was all the difference between her and everyone else--she opposed him not because she was flabby or uninterested or enterpriseless, but because she really hated what he strove for. she was his one strong candid enemy, so he went to her as his only friend. she was shocked at his white twitching face and bloodshot eyes; for the first time since she had known him, reuben came to her bereft of that triumphant manhood which had made him so splendid to watch in his struggles. "the hound!" he cried, striking his fists together, "the miserable, cowardy hound!--gone and left me--gone to be a gentleman, the lousy pig. oh, lard, i wish as i had him in these hands o' mine!--i'd mäake a gentleman of him!" alice, as he expected, had caustic for him rather than balm. "once again," she said slowly, "i ask you--is it worth while?" "wot's worth while?" "you know. i asked you that question the first or second time i saw you. no one had ever asked it you before, and you would have liked to beat me." "i shud like to beat you now--talking of wot you know naun about." "i daresay--but i'm not your son or your daughter or your wife----" "i never beat my wife." "chivalrous, humane man!--well, anyhow i'm not anyone you can beat, so i dare ask--is it worth while?" "and i ask wot d'you mean by 'worth while'?" "you know that it's boarzell and your farm which have lost you your boys." "i know nothing of the sort." "well, would robert have stolen money, or albert disgraced your name, to get free, if you and your farm hadn't made them slaves? if you hadn't been a heartless slave-driver would george have died the other night alone on the moor?--or would richard have taken advantage of a neighbour's charity to escape from you? don't you see that your ambition has driven you to make slaves of your children?" "well, they wöan't wark fur me of their free will. lard knows i've tried to interest 'em...." "but how can you expect them to be interested? your ambition means nothing to them." "it ought to--odiam's their home jest as it's mine." "but don't you see that you've forced them to give up all the sweet things of life for it?--robert his love, and albert his poetry, and richard his education." "well, i gave up all the sweet things of life, as you call 'em--and why shudn't they?" "because you gave those things up of your free will--they were made to give them up by force. you've no right to starve and deny other people as you have to starve and deny yourself." "i döan't see that. wot i can do, they can." "but--as experience has taught you--they won't. you can see now what your slave-driving's brought you to--you've lost your slaves." "well, and i reckon they wurn't much loss, nuther"--the caustic was healing after all--"robert wur a fool wot didn't know how to steal a ten-pound note, albert wur always mooning and wasting his time, and george wur a pore thing not worth his keep. as for richard--that richard--who wants a stuck-up, dentical, high-nosed, genteel swell about the pläace? i reckon as i'm well shut of the whole four of 'em. they wurn't worth the food they ate, surelye!" "that's what strikes me as so pathetic." "wot?" "that you should be able to comfort yourself with the thought that they weren't worth much to you as a farmer. what were they worth to you as a father?" "naun." "quite so--and that's what makes me pity you," and suddenly her eyes kindled, blazed, as with her spirit itself for fuel--"i pity you, i pity you--poor, poor man!" "adone do wud that--though you sound more as if you wur in a black temper wud me than as if you pitied me." "i am angry with you just because i pity you. it's a shame that i should have to pity you--you're such a splendid man. it ought to be impossible to pity you, but i do--i pity you from my soul. think what you're missing. think what your children might have been to you. how you might have loved that dear stupid robert--how proud you might have been of albert, and of richard leaving you for a professional career ... and poor little george, just because he was weak and unlike the rest, he might have been more to you than them all. then there's your brother harry----" "come, come--stick to the truth. i äun't to blame for harry." "but can't you see that he's the chief part of the tragedy you're bringing on yourself and everyone?--he's the type, he's the chorus, the commentary on every act. reuben, can't you see--oh, why won't you see?--he's you, yourself, as you really are!" "nonsense!--döan't be a fool, my gal." "yes--you--blind, crazy with your ambition, repulsive and alone in it. don't you see?" he smiled grimly--"i döan't." "no--you don't see this hideous thing that's pursuing you, that's stripping you of all that ought to be yours, that's making you miss a hundred beautiful things, that's driving you past all your joys--this boarzell...." "--äun't driving me, anyhow. i'm fighting it." "no," said alice. "it's i who am fighting boarzell." § . early the next year, tilly married realf of grandturzel. reuben received the blow in silence--it stunned him. he did not go over to cheat land--something, he scarcely knew what, kept him away. in the long yellow twilights he wandered on boarzell. the rain-smelling march wind scudded over the grass, over the wet furrows of his cornfields, over the humming tops of the firs that, with the gorse splashed round their trunks, marked the crest of the moor and of his ambition. would they ever be his, those firs? would he ever tear up that gorse and fling it on the bonfire, as he had torn up the gorse on the lower slopes and burned it with roars and cracklings and smoke that streamed over the moor to totease? perhaps realf would have the firs and the gorse, and pile that gorgeous bonfire. tilly would put him up to her father's game--reuben's imagination again failed to conceive the man who did not want boarzell--she would betray odiam's ambitions, and babble its most vital secrets. tilly, reuben told boarzell, was a bitch. it became now all the more necessary to smash realf. he could no longer be content with keeping just ahead of him; he must establish a sort of two-power standard, and crush his rival to the earth. that was not a good summer for expansion--a drought baked up the greater part of sussex, and there was an insect plague in the hops--nevertheless, reuben bought thirty-five acres of boarzell, on the east slope, by the road. he was tormented by a fear that realf would buy the land if he did not, and, moreover, during may two boards had appeared advertising it as "an eligible building site"; which was possibly bluff, possibly unusual cunning on the part of flightshot, made resourceful by its straits. he no longer had any direct intercourse with the bardons. their latest impropriety had put them beyond even the favour of a casual nod. if they chose to break up his family they must take the consequences. he only wished he could break up their estate, sell their rat-holed old manor over their heads, and leave them unprotected by landed property to the sure workings of their own incompetence. he did not fail to show his neighbours how he despised flightshot, and the more humorously inclined among them were never tired of asking how soon it would be before richard married anne. "your family seems to be in a marrying way jest now, mus' backfield--there's your daughter made an unaccountable fine match, and it's only nat'ral as young richard shud want to do as well fur himself." reuben treated these irreverences with scorn. nothing would make him abate a jot of his dignity. on the contrary, his manner and his presence became more and more commanding. he drove a splendid blood mare in his gig, smoked cigars instead of pipes, and wore stand-up collars about four inches high--when he was not working, for it had not struck him that it was undignified to work, and he still worked harder on his farm than the worst-paid pig-boy. he was more stoutly resolved than ever that the mob of small farmers and incompetents should not gape at his misfortunes. so he hid under a highly repulsive combination of callousness and swagger his grief for his sons' defection, his rage and shame at tilly's marriage, and his growing anxiety about odiam. that summer had been terrible--a long drought had been followed too late by thundery rains. his harvest had been parched and scrappy, most of the roots shedding their seed before reaping; the green-fly had spoiled several acres of hops, which otherwise would have been the one bright patch in the season; his apples and pears had been eaten by wasps; and then a few untimely showers had beaten down two fields of barley yet unreaped and his only decent crop of aftermath hay. if grandturzel had fared as badly he could have borne it, but grandturzel, though scarred, came out of the summer less battered than he. realf's oats, being in a more sheltered position, did no private threshing of their own; his hops for the most part escaped the blight, and though he lost a good deal on his plums, his apples were harvested at a record, and brought him in nearly ten pounds an acre. on both farms the milk had done badly, but as realf's dairy business was not so extensive as backfield's, he was better able to stand its partial collapse. reuben felt that tilly was at the bottom of his rival's success. she was practical and saving, the very virtues which realf lacked and the want of which might have wrecked him. she doubtless was responsible for the good condition of his orchards and the immunity of his hops; she had probably told her husband of that insect-spray of her father's--which had failed him that summer, being too much diluted by the fool who mixed it, but had proved a miracle of devastation in other years. he wanted to smash tilly even more than he wanted to smash realf. he had seen her twice since her marriage--meeting her once in rye, and once on boarzell--and each sight had worked him into a greater rage. her little figure had strengthened and filled out, her demure self-confidence had increased, her prettiness was even more adorable now that the rose had deepened on her cheeks and her gowns strained over her breast; she was enough to fill any man with wrath at the joke of things. tilly ought to be receiving the wages of her treachery in weariness and anxiety, fading colour and withering flesh--and here she was all fat and rosy and happy, well-fed and well-beloved. he hated her and called her a harlot--because she had betrayed odiam for hire and trafficked in its shame. § . he had been forced to engage a woman to help caro in the house, and also a shepherd for richard's work. his family had been whittled down to almost nothing. only caro, pete, and jemmy were left out of his eight splendid boys and girls. caro, pete, jemmy, and hideous, mumbling harry--he surveyed the four of them with contemptuous scowls. pete was the only one who was worth anything--caro and jemmy would turn against him if they had the slightest chance and forsake him with the rest. as for harry, he was a grotesque, an image, a hideous fum--"reuben himself as he really was." he! he! the weeks wore on and it dawned on him that he must pull himself together for a fresh campaign. he must have more warriors--he could not fight boarzell with only traitors and hirelings. he must marry again. it was some time since the abstract idea of marriage had begun to please him, but lately the abstract of marriage had always led to the concrete of alice jury, so he had driven it from his thoughts. now, more and more clearly, he saw that he must marry. he wanted a woman and he wanted children, so he must marry. but he must not marry alice. of late he had resumed his visits to cheat land, discontinued for a while at tilly's marriage. the attraction of alice jury was as strong, unfathomable, and unaccountable as ever. since the stormy interview after richard's desertion they had not discussed his ambitions for odiam and boarzell, but that meeting was none the less stamped on reuben's memory with a gloomy significance. it was not that alice's arguments had affected him at all--she had not penetrated to the springs of his enterprise, she had not touched or conjured the hidden part of him in which his ambition's roots were twined round all that was vital and sacred in the man. but somehow she had expressed her own attitude with an almost sinister clearness--"it's i who am fighting boarzell." what should she fight it for?--imagine that she fought it, rather, for a woman could not really fight boarzell. she was fighting it for him. she wanted him. he knew that alice wanted him, and he knew that he wanted alice. he did not know why he wanted alice any more than he knew why alice wanted him. "wot is she?--a liddle stick of a creature. and i like big women." there was something in the depths of him that cried for her, something which had never moved or cried in him before. in spite of her lack of beauty and beguilement, in spite of her hostility to all his darling schemes, there was something in him to which alice actually and utterly belonged. he did not understand it, he could not analyse it, he scarcely indeed realised it--all he felt was the huge upheaval, the conflict that it brought, all the shouting and the struggling of the desperate and motiveless craving that he felt for her--a hunger in him calling through days and nights, in spite of her insignificance, her aloofness, her silences, her antagonism. "i reckon as how i must be in love." that was the conclusion he came to after much heavy pondering. he had never been truly in love before. he had wanted women for various reasons, either for their charm and beauty, or because, as in naomi's case, of their practical use to him. alice had no beauty, and a charm too subtle for him to realise, though as a matter of fact the whole man was plastic to it--as for practical usefulness, she was poor, delicate, unaccustomed to country life, and hostile to all his most vital ambitions. she would not bring him wealth or credit, she was not likely to bear him healthy children--and yet he loved her. sometimes, roaming through murky dusks, he realised in the dim occasional flashes which illuminate the non-thinking man, that he was up against the turning-point of his fight with boarzell. if he married alice it would be the token of what had always seemed more unimaginable than his defeat--his voluntary surrender. sometimes he told himself fiercely that he could fight boarzell with alice hanging, so to speak, over his arm; but in his heart he knew that he could not. he could not have both alice and boarzell. yet, in spite of all this, one day at cheat land he nearly fell at her feet and asked her to be his ruin. it was a march twilight, cold and rustling, and tart with the scents of newly turned furrows. reuben sat with alice in the kitchen, and every now and then jury's wretched house-place would shake as the young gale swept up rainless from the east and poured itself into cracks and chimneys. alice was sewing as usual--it struck reuben that she was very quick and useful with her fingers, whatever might be her drawbacks in other ways. sometimes she had offered to read poetry to him, and had once bored him horribly with in memoriam, but as he had taken no trouble to hide his feelings she had to his great relief announced her intention of casting no more pearls before swine. she was silent, and the firelight playing in her soft, lively eyes gave her a kind of mystery which for the first time allowed reuben a glimpse into the sources of her attraction. she was utterly unlike anything there was or had been in his life, the only thing he knew that did not smell of earth. the pity of it was that he loved that strong-smelling earth so much. "alice," he said suddenly--"do you think as how you could ever care about boarzell?" "no, i'm quite sure i couldn't." "not ever?" "never." "why?" "because i hate it. it's spoiling your life. it's making a beast and a maniac of you. you think of nothing--absolutely nothing--but a miserable rubbish-heap that most people would be throwing their old kettles on." "that's just the point, my gal. where most föalkses 'ud be throwing old kettles, i shall be growing wheat." "and what good will that do you?" "good!--when i've two hundred acres sown with grain!" "yes, grain that's fertilised with the rotting remains of all that ought to have made your life good and sweet." "you wöan't understand. there's naun in the world means anything to me but my farm. oh, alice, if you could only see things wud my eyes and stand beside me instead of agäunst me." "then there would be no more friendship between us. what unites us is the fact that we are fighting each other." "döan't talk rubbidge, liddle gal. it's because i see, all the fight there is in you that i'd sooner you fought for me than agäunst me. couldn't you try, alice?" his voice had sunk very low, almost to sweetness. a soft flurry of pink went over her face, and her eyelids drooped. then suddenly she braced herself, pulled herself taut, grew combative again, though her voice shook. "no, reuben, i could never do anything but fight your schemes. i think you are wasting and spoiling your life, and there's no use expecting me to stand by you." he now realised the full extent of his peril, because for the first time he saw her position unmasked. she would never beguile him with the thought that she could help him in his life's desire; she would not alter the essential flavour of their relationship to suit his taste--rather she would force him to swallow it, she would subdue by strength and not by stealth, and fight him to the end. he must escape, for if he surrendered now the battle was over, and he would have betrayed boarzell the loved to something he loved less--loved less, he knew it, though he wavered. he rose to his feet. the kitchen was dark, with eddying sweeps of shadow in the corners which the firelight caressed--while a single star put faint ghostly romance into the window. "i--i must be gitting back home." alice rose too, and for a moment he was surprised that she did not try to keep him; instead, she said: "it's late." he moved a step or two towards the door, and suddenly she added in a low broken voice: "but not too late." the floor seemed to rise towards him, and the star in the window to dance down into castweasel woods and up again. alice stood in the middle of the room, her face bloomed with dusk and firelight, her hands stretched out towards him.... there was silence, in which a coal fell. she still stood with her arms outstretched; he knew that she was calling him--as no woman had ever called him--with all that of herself which was in his heart, part of his own being. "reuben." "alice." he came a few steps back into the room.... it was those few steps which lost him to her, for they brought him within sight of boarzell--framed in the window, where castweasel woods had been. it lay in a great hush, a great solitude, a quiet beast of power and mystery. it seemed to call to him through the twilight like a love forsaken. there it lay, boarzell--strong, beautiful, desired, untamed, still his hope, still his battle. and alice?... he gave her a look, and left her. "i once töald a boy of mine," he said to himself as he crossed the moor, "that the sooner he found he could do wudout love the better.... well, i reckon i'm not going to be any weaker than my words." book v almost under § . reuben did not go back to cheat land for several weeks. those five minutes had been too much for him. he would never again risk putting himself in the power of things he did not understand. besides, he felt vaguely that after what had happened alice would not want to see him. she had humiliated herself, or rather he had humiliated her--for she had put out in one swift dark minute all the powers of her nature to bind him, and she had failed. he remembered her voice when she whispered, "but not too late," and her eyes afterwards, smouldering in shadow, and her little hands held out to him.... there had been nothing definite, obvious, or masterful, yet in those few words and actions her whole self had pleaded on its knees--and he had turned away. but sometimes what kept him from her more than the thought of her humiliation was the thought of his own. for sometimes it seemed almost as if she had humbled him more than he had humbled her. he could not tell whether this sick feeling of shame which occasionally swamped him was due to the fact that he had so nearly surrendered to her or to the fact that he had not quite done so. sometimes he thought it was the latter. the whole thing was ridiculous and perplexing, a lesson to him not to adventure into subtleties but to keep in communion with the broad plain things of earth. early in may he found a visit to cheat land forced upon him. jury wanted to buy a cow of his, but one of the sudden chills to which he was liable kept him indoors. reuben was anxious to sell the animal, and, there being one or two weak points about her, would trust nobody but himself with the negotiations. however, the visit would be quite safe, for he was not likely to see alice alone, indeed it was probable that he might not see her at all. on reaching the farm he heard several voices in the kitchen, and found the invalid in an arm-chair by the fire, talking to an oldish man and a rather plump pretty girl of about twenty. jury was an intellectual, incompetent-looking fellow, who seemed elderly, but at the same time gave one the impression that this was due to his health. his grey hair straggled over temples where the skin was stretched tight and yellow as parchment, his cheeks were hollow, his eyes astonishingly like his daughter's. he was one of the arguments against the marriage. alice had let reuben in. she looked a little tired, but otherwise quite cheerful, and she welcomed him simply and naturally. "this is miss lardner," she said, introducing him to the girl, "and mr. lardner of starvecrow." "i heard as how starvecrow had been bought at last," said reuben; "not a bad farm, muster, if you're fur green crops mostly." "potatoes," said lardner, "potatoes--if farmers 'ud only grow potatoes and not think so much of grain and rootses, we shudn't hear of so many of 'em going bust." the conversation became agricultural, but in spite of the interest such a topic always had for him, reuben could not help watching the two girls. miss lardner, whom alice called rose, was a fine creature, so different from the other as to make the contrast almost laughable. she was tall and strapping--in later life she might become over stout, but at present her figure was splendid, superbly moulded and erect. she looked like a young goddess as she sat there, one leg crossed over the other, showing her white stocking almost to the knee. there was something arrogant in her attitude, as if she was aware of the splendour of her body, and gloried in it. her face too was beautiful--though less classically so--rather broad, with high flat cheek-bones, and a wide full-lipped mouth which would have given it almost a creole look, if it had not been for her short delicate nose and her fair ruddiness. her hair seemed to hesitate between gold and brown--her eyes between boldness and languor. reuben found himself glancing at her continually, and though she seldom met his eyes, he knew that she was aware of his scrutiny. he sometimes felt that alice was aware of it too. as the conversation wore on, and became more general, lardner said something about going over to snailham and taking rose home on the way. "oh, no, uncle--i don't want to go. alice has asked me to stay to supper." "but you can't go home alone, and i can't wait wud you, surelye." "i'll take miss lardner home," said reuben. directly he had said the words, he looked over at rose to see how she would receive them. her eyelashes lay black and curly against her cheek, then they lifted slowly, and her eyes looked out from under the half-raised lids with a kind of demure roguishness. at the same time her lower lip seemed to quiver and plump out, while the corners of her mouth rose and curled. he suddenly felt a desire to plant a kiss fairly on that wet red mouth, which from away across the room seemed to pout towards him. § . supper was a quiet meal. old jury and his invalid wife sat at each end of the table, while alice did most of the helping and waiting. they seemed a sorry three to reuben, pale, washed out, and weakly, their eyes bright as birds' with the factitious light of their enthusiasms for things that did not matter. they ate without much appetite, picking daintily at their food, their knives never in their mouths. reuben found himself despising them as he despised the bardons. rose did not talk much, but she ate heartily--she must be as healthy as she looked. once or twice during the meal reuben caught himself staring at her lips--they were extraordinarily red, and at the end of the meal the juice of her pudding had stained them purple. she said that she must leave directly after supper. alice fetched her hat, which was not the kind that reuben had ever seen on country girls, being of the fashionable pork-pie shape. all her clothes were obviously town-made; she wore a blue stuff dress, tight-fitting round her bust and shoulders, full and flounced in the skirt--afterwards he heard that rose had spent some years with relations in london before coming to live at starvecrow. he gave her his arm, said good-bye to alice in the doorway, and went through the little garden where flowers crowded out vegetables in a very unbusiness-like way, into the lane which wound past cheat land and round the hanger of boarzell, to the farms of the brede valley. rose, a little to his surprise, began to chatter volubly. she talked very much like a child, with naïve comments, about simple things. she asked trivial questions, and screamed with delight when some dusk-blinded bird flew against her breast and dashed down heavily into the ruts. she exclaimed at the crimson moon which rose behind the hedge like a hot penny--she laughed at the slightest provocation; and yet all the while he was conscious of an underlayer of shrewdness, he had an extraordinary conviction of experience. besides, while she laughed and babbled like a child, her eyes continually rose towards his with a woman's calculated boldness. they spoke something quite different from her lips--the combination was maddening; and those lips, too, in their rare silences, were so unlike the words they uttered that he scarcely knew whether he wanted most to silence them completely or never let them be silent. "i don't like alice jury," she prattled, "she says just the opposite of what you say. she never lets herself agree with anyone. she's a contradictious female." then suddenly she was silent--and reuben kissed her. he crooked his arm round her and held her close to him, standing there in the lane. her lips slowly parted under his, then suddenly she threw her head back in a kind of ecstasy, giving him the white expanse of her neck, which he kissed, giddy with a soft fragrance that rose from her clothes, reminding him a little of clover. she was so obviously and naïvely delighted, that when he drew himself up, his idea of her was again one of extreme childishness. and yet it was evident that she was used to kisses, and that he had kissed her at her own unspoken invitation. they walked on down the lane. rose's chatter had ceased, and a complete silence dropped between the hedges. the moon had risen higher, and the western hazels were bloomed with light. the moon was no longer crimson in the dark sky, but had burnt down to copper, casting a copper glow into the mists, staining all the blues that melted into one another along the hills. only the middle of the lane was black--like a well. reuben and rose could see each other's faces in a kind of rusty glimmer, but their feet stumbled in the darkness, and her hand lay clutching and heavy on his arm. at last they came to castweasel--three old cottages and a ruined one, leaning together in a hollow like mushrooms. beside the ruined cottage a tree-trunk was lying, and rose suddenly stretched herself with a little sigh. "i'm tired--let's sit down and rest a bit." they sat down on the log, and she immediately crept close to him like a child. he put his arm round her, and once again she thrilled him with her own delight--she stole her arms round his neck, holding his head in the crook of her elbows, and laughed with her mouth against his. then her hands crept into his hair, and rumpled it, while she whispered like a child finding some new virtue in its toy--"how thick! how thick!" at last she drew his head down to her breast, holding it there with both hands while she dipped her kisses on his eyes.... reuben was in ecstasy by this time. it was years since he had caressed a woman, except casually, for he considered that women interfered with his work. rose's eagerness could not cheapen her, for it was so childlike, and she continued to give him that sense of deep experience which robbed her attitude of insipidity. her delight in his kisses was somehow made sweeter to him by the conviction that she could compare them with other men's. she began to laugh--she became gay and mettlesome. her whole nature seemed changed, and he found it hard to think of her as the beautiful yet rather lumpish girl who had sat in the silence of a good appetite at the cheat land supper-table. behind them the ruin of the old cottage sent out bitter-sweet scents of decay--its crumbling plaster and rotting lath perfumed the night. fragrances strove in the air--the scent of rose's clothes, and of her big curls tumbling on his shoulder, the scent of still water, of dew-drenched leaves, and damp, teeming soil--sweet vagabond scents of bluebells, puffed on sudden breezes.... reuben was growing drunken with it all--he strained rose to him; she was part of the night. just as her scents mingled with its scents, so he and she both mingled with the hush of the lightless, sorrowless fields, the blots of trees, the woods that whispered voicelessly.... above the hedges, stars winked and flashed, dancing in the crystalline air. right overhead the sign of cancer jigged to its image in castweasel pool. reuben looked up, and through a gate he saw boarzell rearing like a shaggy beast towards him. he suddenly became more aware of boarzell than of anything in the night, than of the flowers or the water or the stars, or even rose, drowsing against his shoulder with parted lips. boarzell filled the night. the breeze became suddenly laden with scents of it--the faint bitterness of its dew-drenched turf where the bracken-crosiers were beginning to uncurl, of its noon-smelling gorse, of its heather-tangle, half budding, half dead, of its fir-needles and its fir-cones, rotting and sprouting. all seemed to blend together into a strong, heady, ammoniacal smell ... the great beast of boarzell dominated the night, pawed reuben, roared over him, made him suddenly mad, clutching rose till she cried out with pain, kissing her till she broke free, and stood before him pale and dishevelled, with anger in her eyes. he sprang to his feet, the mood had passed--the beast of boarzell had ceased to worry him. "i'm sorry," he said sheepishly. "and well you may be," said rose, "you've torn my gown." they walked on down the lane; she pouted and swung her hat. reuben, anxious to propitiate, picked primroses under the hedge and gave them to her. she looked pleased at once, and began to eat them. "wot," said reuben, "you eat flowers?" "yes," she answered, "i love eating primroses--pick me some more." so for the rest of the walk to starvecrow, he picked primroses, and she nibbled them with her white teeth, which were small and even, except for the two canines, which were pointed like a little animal's. § . during the next day or two reuben thought a great deal about rose lardner. he made covert enquiries about her in the neighbourhood. he found out that she was an orphan and old lardner's only surviving relative. he was an extremely prosperous man, and at his death rose would have all his money. moreover, rumour gave him a cancer which would carry him off before very long. reuben turned over these facts in his mind. he realised what a fine thing it would be for odiam if he married rose. here was the very wife he wanted--of good standing in the neighbourhood, and something of an heiress, young and healthy, and likely to give him stout boys, and also exceedingly attractive in herself. under the circumstances he hardly knew what held him back, what made the whole idea vaguely repugnant to him. surely it could not be his feeling for alice jury. the terrible thought suggested itself that his love for alice would survive all the outward signs of its demolition, that though beaten and killed and destroyed it would haunt him disembodied. that was the secret of its power--its utter lack of corporiety, its independence of the material things a strong man could bend to his will, so that, as it were, one could never lay hands on it, but chased it for ever like a ghost. nevertheless, he called at starvecrow and renewed his impressions of rose. they did not want much adjustment; he found her as he had found her that first evening--childlike in all things save love, indolent, languorous, and yet with gay bursts of spirit which made her charming. he noticed too how well dressed she was--he admired her stuff gown and neat buttoned boots, so different from what he was accustomed to see on the feet of his womenfolk; he admired the crinkle and gloss of her hair, so beautifully waved and brushed, and scented with some lotion--her hands, too, well kept and white with shining pink nails, her trim muslin collar, the clover scent of her garments ... it was all new, and gave him somehow a vague feeling of self-respect. when they were alone she was as eager as ever for his love. he had a precious ten minutes with her in the parlour at starvecrow, at the end of which in came old lardner, with talk of crops and beasts. reuben considered that he had some knowledge of farming--which was a long way for him to go--and took him into confidence about some of odiam's affairs. the farm was still causing him anxiety, and he felt in need of ready money. he wanted to establish a milk round, with a dairy shop in rye, but he could not spare the capital. that visit was the first of several others. starvecrow took the place of cheat land--indeed, he seldom went near cheat land now. rose gave him all the refuge he wanted from the vexings and thwartings of his daily life. she was not, like alice, a counter-irritant, but a sweet drowse of tenderness and beauty in which he forgot his disappointment, thinking of nothing but the lovely woman he caressed. she gave him sympathy, too, in a childlike way. she did not like it if he interrupted his love-making to tell her about his plans for boarzell, but at other moments she seemed to enjoy hearing him talk of his ambition; and often, when the jar and failure of things depressed him, she would take him in her arms, and soothe him like a baby with--"of course you'll have boarzell, my reuben; of course it will be yours--you're so strong and masterful, you're bound to get all you want." her delight in him never seemed to fail. sometimes it seemed to him strange that the difference in their ages did not affect her more. she never gave him a hint that she thought him too old for her. he once told her that he was nearly fifty, but she had answered with a happy laugh that she did not like boys. as a matter of fact, reuben at fifty was a lover of whom any girl might still be proud. if a little grey had come into his hair, it had merely been to give it the gleam of polished iron, and contrast it more effectively with the swarthiness of his skin. his teeth were as white and even as when he was twenty, for he had never risked spoiling them by too much tobacco--his eyes, dark and bright, were like a boy's; his broad back was straight, and his powerful arms could lift even the plump rose to his shoulder. he once carried her on his shoulder all the way from tide barn to the beginning of starvecrow lane. § . towards the end of august, reuben asked rose to marry him. the request was not so much the outcome of passion as might have been imagined from the form it took. it was true that he was deeply enamoured of her, but it was also true that for three months he had endured the intoxication of her presence without definitely, or even indefinitely, claiming her for his own. he had held himself back till he had thoroughly weighed and pondered her in relation to his schemes--he was not going to renounce alice for a wife who would be herself a drawback in another way. however, though he had never deceived himself that rose's sympathetic tendernesses meant any real sharing of his ambition, he was soon convinced that to marry her would be materially to help himself in the battle which was now dragging a little on his side. he wanted ready money--her settlements would provide that; and her heirship of lardner held out dazzling hopes for the future. he wanted children--where could he find a healthier mother? he wanted to raise the dignity of odiam, and could hardly have thought of a better means than marriage with the niece of one of the wealthiest and most important farmers in the parish. to crown all, he gave himself an adorable woman, young, lovely, tender, and gay. this consideration could not have dragged him contrary to his ambition, but combined with it, it could give to an otherwise very practical and material plan all the heats of passion and the glories of romance. the only disappointment was rose's reception of his offer. at first she was unaffectedly surprised. she had looked upon the whole affair as a flirtation, of which she had had several, and had never expected it to take such a serious turn. even when she had recovered from her surprise, she refused to give him an answer. he became suddenly alarmed lest she thought him too old, and pressing her for her reasons, found that the real matter was that she did not want to sacrifice her freedom. "wot do you mean, sweetheart? döan't you love me?" "of course i love you--but it doesn't follow i want to belong to you. can't we go on as we are?" "you queer me, rose. how can we go on as we are?--it's like walking on a road that never leads nowhere." "well, that's very nice--i don't always want to go somewhere every time i take a walk, i much prefer just wandering." "i döan't." "because you're so practical and business-like, and i'm afraid you'd try and make me practical and business-like too. that's why i said i wanted to be free." "you shall be free, rose--i promise you. you shall do wotsumdever you please." "absolutely 'wotsumdever'?" "yes--wudin reason, of course." "ah, that's it. your reason mightn't be my reason." "you wudn't find me unreasonable, dear." "well, i shall have to think it over." she thought it over for two months, during which reuben suffered all the torments of his lot. she soon came to realise and appreciate her powers; she dangled hopes and fears with equal zest before his eyes, she used his anxieties to stoke the furnaces of his passion, till she had betrayed him into blazes and explosions which he looked on afterwards with uneasy shame. once in sick amazement at himself he took refuge at cheat land, and sat for an hour in alice jury's kitchen, watching her sew. but the springs of his confidence were dried, he could not tell alice what he felt about rose. she knew, of course. all the neighbourhood knew he was in love with rose lardner, and watched the progress of his courtship with covert smiles. rose used often to come to odiam, where she was at first rather shy of reuben's children, all of whom were older than herself. in time, however, she outgrew her shyness, and became of an exceedingly mad and romping disposition. she ran about the house like a wild thing, she dropped blackberries into caro's cream, she tickled pete's neck with wisps of hay, she danced in the yard with jemmy. reuben grew desperate--he felt the hopelessness of capturing this baby who played games with his children; and yet rose was in some ways so much older than they--she loved to say risky things in front of the innocent caro, and howled with laughter when she could not understand--she loved to prod and baffle the two boys, who in this respect were nearly as inexperienced as their sister. then, on the walk home with reuben, over boarzell, she would retail these feats of hers with gusto, she would invite his kisses, sting up his passion--she tormented him with her extraordinary combinations of childishness and experience, shyness and abandonment, innocence and corruption. in time the state of his own mind reduced reuben to silence about his longings. he somehow lost the power of picturing himself married to this turbulent, bewildering creature, half-woman, half-child. he clung to her in silent kisses; leading her home over boarzell, he would suddenly turn and smother her in his arms, while his breast heaved with griefs and sighings he had not known in the earlier weeks of his courtship. rose noticed this difference, and it piqued her. she began to miss his continual protestations. sometimes she tried to stir them up again, but her bafflings had reacted on herself; she handled him clumsily, he was too mazed to respond to her flicks. then she became sulky, irritable, slightly tyrannous--even stinting her kisses. one night early in october he was taking her home. they had crossed boarzell, and were walking through the lanes that tangle the valley north of udimore. she walked with her arm conventionally resting on his, her profile demure in the starlight. he felt tired, not in his body, but in his mind--somehow life seemed very aimless and gloomy; he despised himself because he craved for her arms, for her light thoughtless sympathy. "why döan't you speak to me, rose?" "i was thinking." "wot about?" "oh, clothes and things." he stopped suddenly in their walk, as he had often done, and seized her in his arms, swinging her off her feet, burying his face in her wraps to kiss her neck. she kicked and fought him like a wild cat, and at last he dropped her. "why wöan't you let me kiss you?" "because i won't." she walked quickly, almost running, and he had to stride to keep up with her. "you're justabout cruel," he said furiously. "and so are you." "wot have i done?" "you've changed your mind about wanting to marry me." he stared at her with his mouth open. "rose...." "well, don't gape at me. you know you have." "i justabout haven't. it's you----" "it isn't me. i only asked for a little time to think it over, and then you go and cool off." "i--cool off! my dear, i dudn't ever. i never understood--you're such a tedious liddle wild thing." "well, do you want to marry me?" "rose!" "and you'll let me do as i like?" "rose, marry me." "very well--i will. but it's funny i should want to." then suddenly her expression changed. her eyes half closed, her lips parted, and she held out her arms to him with a laugh like a sob. § . reuben and rose were married in the january of ' . it was the earliest date compatible with the stocking of her wardrobe, a business which immediately absorbed her to the exclusion of everything else. meantime reuben, having repapered the parlour and given a new coat of whitewash to the best bedroom ceiling, discussed settlements with old lardner. these did not turn out as large as he had hoped--the old man was close, and attempts on his generosity only resulted in embarrassing doubts as to the disinterestedness of his son-in-law's affections. reuben comforted himself with the thought that lardner most certainly had a cancer. at the wedding rose fairly dazed the onlookers. she wore a dress of heavy white satin, with a white lace veil--and a bustle. it was the first bustle that had ever been seen in peasmarsh, or even in rye. in itself it was devastating enough, but it soon acquired a prophetic and metaphorical significance which made it even more impressive. spectators saw in it the forecast of odiam's downfall--"he can't stand that," said brazier, the new man at totease, "she's a jezebubble."--"only it äun't her head as she's tired this time," said ticehurst.--"she shud have worn it in front of her, and then we shud have bin interested," said cooper of kitchenhour. alice jury and her father were in church. reuben saw them as he marched up the aisle with an enormous flower in his buttonhole, accompanied by ginner of socknersh as his best man. it struck him that she looked more pretty and animated than usual, in a woolly red dress and a little fur cap under which her eyes were bright as a robin's. even then he felt a little offended and perplexed by her behaviour--she should have drooped--it would have been more becoming if she had drooped. the remnants of his family were in a front pew--pete with an elaborately curled forelock, jemmy casting the scent of cheap hair oil into the prevalent miasma of camphor and moth-killer, and between the two boys, caro in an unbecoming hat which she wore at a wrong angle, while her dark restless eyes devoured rose's creamy smartness, from her satin shoes to the wave of curling-irons in her hair. harry had been left at home--he was in an impossible mood, tormented by some dark current of memory, wandering from room to room as he muttered--"another wedding--another wedding--we're always having weddings in this house." after the ceremony nearly a hundred guests were fed at starvecrow. all the most important farmers of the neighbourhood were there, except of course realf of grandturzel. rose was like her name-flower, flushed and scented. very different from his earlier bride, she sat beside reuben with head erect and smiling lips--she drank with everyone, and the wine deepened the colour of her cheeks and made her eyes like stars. she talked, she laughed, she ate, she was so happy that her glances, full of bold languor, swept round the table, resting on all present as well as the chosen man--she was a gay wife. dancing at weddings was dying out as a local fashion, so when the breakfast was over the guests melted away, having eaten and drunk themselves into a desire for sleep. reuben's family went home. he and rose lingered a little with her uncle, then as the january night came crisping into the sky and fields, he drove her to odiam in his gig, as long ago he had driven naomi. she leaned against his shoulder, for he wanted both hands for his horse, and her hair tickled his neck. she was silent for about the first time that day, and as eager for the kisses he could give her while he drove as naomi had been shy of them. above in the cold black sky a hundred pricks of fire shuddered like sparks--the lump of boarzell was blocked against a powder of stars. at odiam rose shook off her seriousness. supper was ready, and undaunted by the huge meal she had already eaten, she sat down to it with a hearty appetite. her step-children stared at her curiously--rose had a gust of affection for them. poor things!--their lives had been so crude and dull and innocent. she must give them a little brightness now, soften the yoke of reuben's tyranny--that girl caro, for instance, she must give her some pretty clothes and show her how to arrange her hair becomingly. supper was a very gay meal--the gayest there had ever been at odiam. rose laughed and talked, as at starvecrow, and soon her husband and the boys were laughing with her. some of the things she said were rather daring, and caro had only a dim idea of what she meant, but rose's eyes rolling mischievously under the long lashes, and the tip of her tongue showing between her lips, gave her words a devilish bite even if only half understood. somehow the whole atmosphere of the odiam kitchen was changed--it was like the lifting of a curtain, the glimpsing of a life where all was gay, where love and ambition and all solemn things were the stuff of laughter. the boys beat the handles of their knives on the table and rolled in their chairs with wide-open mouths as if they would burst; reuben leaned back with a great pride and softening in his eyes, round which many hard lines had traced themselves of late; caro's lips were parted and she seemed half enchanted, half bewildered by the other woman's careless merriment. only harry took no interest and looked dissatisfied--"another wedding," he mumbled as he dribbled his food unnoticed over the cloth--"we're always having weddings in this house." it was strange that during this gay meal the strongest link was forged between rose and caro. two natures more utterly unlike it would be hard to find--caro's starved ignorance of love and aged familiarity with dustier matters made her the antithesis of rose, a child in all things save those of the affections; but the two women's hearts met in their laughter. it was rose who invited, caro who responded, for rose in spite of her years and inexperience had the one advantage which made her the older of the two. she was drawn to caro partly from essential kindness, partly because she appreciated the luxury of pitying her--caro responded with all the shy devotion of a warped nature going out towards one who enjoys that for which it unconsciously pines. rose's beauty, jollity, and happiness made her a goddess to the less fortunate girl. after supper rose turned towards her. "will you come up and help me unpack?" caro flushed with pleasure--a light had kindled in her grey life, and she found herself looking forward to days of basking. they went up together to the huge low-raftered bedroom, which struck horribly cold. "ugh!" said rose--"no fire!" "but it's a bedroom." "that's no reason for not having a fire. i shall freeze. let's have the servant up to light one." "oh, no. i'll light it; mary's busy clearing the table. but i reckon as fäather wöan't be pleased." "i'll make him pleased. you leave father to me for the future." caro fetched some wood and turf and laid the fire, to which rose applied a match, feeling that by this she had done her share of the work. then they began to unpack. there were two trunks full of clothes, and rose complicated matters by refusing to take things out as they came but diving after various articles she particularly wanted. "i want my blue negleegy--i must show you my blue negleegy," she panted, up to her elbows in underlinen. "oh, here it is! what do you think of it?" "it's silk!" said caro in a hoarse whisper. "of course it is--and the very best silk too. i'll put it on. please undo my dress." caro helped her off with her wedding-dress, and after having recovered her breath, which she lost completely at the sight of the lace on her chemise, she helped her arrange the "negleegy," and watched her open-mouthed as she posed in it before the fragment of looking-glass. "isn't it chick?" said rose, "i got it in hastings--they say it is copied from a paris model. now let's go on with the unpacking." they went on--that is to say rose leaned back in her chair and directed caro as she took the things out of the trunks. the girl was fairly bewildered by what she saw--the laced chemises, the flounced petticoats, the dainty nightgowns with transparent necks. "but you'll show through," she said in tones of horror as she displayed one of these, and could not understand why rose rolled in her chair with laughter. there were little pots of cream and bottles of hair-lotion, there were ebony-backed brushes, patent leather shoes, kid gloves, all sorts of marvels which caro had seen nowhere but in shops. as she unpacked she felt a kind of soreness in her heart. why should rose have all these beautiful things, these laces, these perfumes, these silks and ribbons, while caro wore nothing but stuff and calico or smelt of anything sweeter than milk? as she glanced at rose, leaning back in the most comfortable chair to be found in that uncomfortable room--the firelight dancing on the silken ripples of her gown, her neck and arms gleaming through clouds of lace--the soreness woke into a pain. rose had something more even than silks and laces. she had love. it was love that made her hold her chin so proudly, it was love that made her cheeks flush and her eyes glow. and no one had ever loved caro--she had never heard a man's voice in tenderness, or felt even so much as a man's hand fondle hers.... "caro, would you mind brushing my hair?" rose was taking out the pins, and curls and tendrils of hair began to fall on her shoulders. caro took the brush, and swept it over the soft mass, gleaming like spun glass. a subtle perfume rose from it, the rub of it on her hand was like silk. rose's eyes closed as the brush stroked her, and her lips parted slowly into a smile. then suddenly, without warning, all this love and happiness and possession became too much for caro--she dropped the brush and the scented hair, and burst into passionate tears. § . reuben at once laid out his wife's money to the best advantage. he bought twenty cows, good milkers, and started a dairy business in rye. a shop was opened near the landgate, which sold milk, butter, cream, and eggs from odiam. he also tried to establish a milk-round in rye, sending circulars to inns and private houses. he engaged a young woman to serve in the shop, and boys to drive his milk-carts. this meant a big expenditure, and almost all rose's money was swallowed up by it. reuben was surprised at lardner's attitude. the old man refused to look upon this spending of his niece's dowry as an excellent investment, which would soon bring in returns a hundredfold--he would have preferred to see her money lying safe and useless in lewes old bank, and accused backfield of greed and recklessness. reuben in his turn was disgusted with lardner's parsimony, and would have quarrelled with him had he not been afraid of an estrangement. the farmer of starvecrow could not speak without all sorts of dreadful roars and clearings in his throat, and reuben hopefully observed the progress of the cancer. rose herself did not much care how her money was spent as long as she had the things she wanted. first of these at present was reuben's love, and that she had in plenty. she was a perpetual source of delight to him; her beauty, her astounding mixture of fire and innocence, her good humour, and her gaiety were even more intoxicating than before marriage. he felt that he had found the ideal wife. as a woman she was perfect, so perfect that in her arms he could forget her short comings as a comrade. after all, what did it matter if she failed to plumb the depths of his desire for things outside herself, as long as she herself was an undying source of enchantment?--smoothing away the wrinkles of his day with her caresses, giving him love where she could not give him understanding, her heart where she could not give her brain. during the hours of work and fret he would long for her, for the quiet warm evenings, and the comfort which the wordless contact of her brought. she made him forget his heaviness, and gather strength to meet his difficulties, giving him draughts of refreshment for to-morrow's journey in the desert. his times were still anxious. even if the milk-round turned out a success, it was bound to be a loss to him during the first year. a multiplication of servants also meant for a man like reuben a multiplication of trials. he would have liked to do all the work himself, and could trust no one to do it properly for him. his underlings, with their detached attitude towards the farm, were a perpetual source of anxiety and contempt. his heart sickened for those stalwart sons he had dreamed of in the days of his first marriage--a dream which mocked him daily with its pitiful materialisation in the shred of family that still worked for odiam. reuben longed for rose to have a child, but the months passed, and she had no favourable answer to his repeated questionings, which struck her at first as amusing, later as irritating, and at last--at the suggestion of one or two female friends--as indelicate. she herself had no wish for motherhood, and expressed this so openly that in time reuben began to entertain dark doubts of her, and to feel that she would avoid it if she could. yet she in herself was so utterly sweet that he could not find it in his heart to be angry, or use anything but tender remonstrance when she vexed him with her attitude towards life in general and marriage in particular. she gulped at pleasure, and she gave him so much that he could not deny her what she craved for, though the mere decorativeness of her tastes amazed and sometimes appalled him. she coaxed him to buy her new curtains and chair-covers for the parlour, and to turn it into a room which could be used, where she could lounge in her pretty frocks, and entertain her women-friends--of whom she had a startling number--to afternoon tea, with cream, and little cakes that cost an amount of money altogether disproportionate to the space that they filled in one's inside. she demanded other entertainments too--visits to rye, and even to hastings, and jaunts to fairs other than the sanctioned one on boarzell. reuben was delighted with her fashionable clothes, the dainty things with which she managed to surround herself, her fastidious care for her person, her pomadings, her soapings, her scentings--but he sometimes had vague doubts of this beautiful, extravagant, irresponsible creature. he was like a man stirring in a happy dream, realising in the midst of it that he dreams, and must some day awake. § . the year ' was on the whole a bad one. the summer was parched, the autumn sodden, and the winter frozen. reuben's oats after some excellent promises failed him abruptly, as was the way with crops on boarzell. his wheat was better in quality but poor in quantity, his mangolds had the rot, and his hops, except for the old field by the lane, were brown and ragged with blight. this would have been bad enough in any year, but in times when he bore the burden of his yet profitless milk-round it was only a little short of catastrophe. making every allowance for a first year, that milk-round had disappointed him. he found private custom hard to win, and even the ceasing of french dairy supplies, owing to the franco-prussian war, did not bring him the relief he had hoped. one or two small farms on the borders of rye catered in dairy stuff for its inhabitants, and he found them hard to outbid or outwit. also, owing to the scarcity of grass feed, it was a bad milk year, and poor supplies were put down by consumers to the new milkman, and in more than one case custom was withdrawn. reuben faced his adversity with set teeth and a dogged countenance. he had not been farming thirty odd years to be beaten casually by the weather. scorching heat and blighting cold, the still blanker doom of the trickling, pouring rain--the wind that seeded his corn, and beat down his hay, and flung his hop-bines together in muddled heaps--the pests that nature breeds by the ten million out of her own putrefyings and misbegettings--all things in life from the lowest maggot to the fiercest storm--he was out to fight them. in challenging boarzell he had challenged them all. in time his struggle began to modify his relations with rose. at first he had told himself that her uselessness was only apparent. though she herself did no fighting, she gave such rest and refreshment to the soldier that he went forth strengthened to the war. he had almost begun to attribute to her his daily renewed courage, and had once or twice been moved to show his gratitude by acts of expensive indulgence. now slowly he began to see that this gratitude was misleading--better receive no comfort from rose than pay for it too dear. he must make her understand that he could not afford to keep a useless and extravagant wife, however charming she might be. rose must do her share, as naomi had done, as his mother had done, as his children had done. sometimes he would expostulate with her, and when she met his expostulations with blandishments, he would feel himself yielding, and grow so furious that he would turn upon her in rage and indignation. rose was not like naomi; in her own words "she gave as good as she got," and once or twice, for the first time in his life, reuben found himself in loud and vulgar altercation with a female. he had never before had a woman stand up to him, and the experience was humiliating. he had used to turn from boarzell to her for rest, and now he found himself turning from her to boarzell. it was part of the baffling paradox that the thing he fought should also be the thing he loved, and the battlefield his refuge. out on the moor, with the south-west wind rolling over him like the waves of some huge earth-scented sea, he drank in the spirit of conflict, he was swept back into the cleanness and singleness of his warfare. it was then that boarzell nerved him for its own subduing, stripped his heart of softness, cleansed it of domestic fret. rose and her love and sweetness were all very well, but he was out for something greater than rose--he must keep in mind that she was only a part of things. why, he himself was only a part of things, and in his cravings and softenings must be conquered and brushed aside even as rose. in challenging boarzell he had challenged the secret forces of his own body, all the riot of hope and weakness and desire that go to make a man. the battle was not to be won except over the heaped bodies of the slain, and on the summit of the heap would lie his own. § . the last piece of land had been exceptionally tough even for boarzell. it was a high strip, running right across the moor from the edge of the twenty-acre piece acquired in ' , over the high-road, to the borders of doozes. the soil was amazingly various--it started in the low grounds almost as clay, with runnels of red water in the irrigation ditches, then passing through a stratum of marl it became limish, grey and brittle, powdering under the spade. reuben's ploughs tore over it, turning up earth of almost every consistency and colour, till the new ground looked like a smeared palette. towards doozes it became clay again, and here oats would grow, sedge-leaved and tulip-rooted, with puffy awns. on the crest was rubble, poor stuff where even the heather seemed to fight for existence. reuben struggled untiringly--he tried manure as in his first enterprising days, and a horrible stink of guano told traffic on the road it was passing through odiam territory. spades and ploughshares and harrows scored and pulped the earth. sometimes with breaking back and aching head, the sweat streaming over his skin, he would lift himself stiffly from the plough-handles, and shake his fist at the desert round him. he had never had such a tussle before, and put it down to the fact that he was now for the first time on the high ground, on the hard and sterile scab of the marl, where it seemed as if only gorse would grow. he felt as if now for the first time he was fighting against odds, his earlier struggles were tame compared with this. often in the evenings, when the exhausting work of the day was done, he would wander out on the moor, seeking as usual rest on the field of his labours. the tuft of firs would grow black and featureless against the dimming sky, and stars would hang pale lamps above the fog, which smoked round boarzell, veiling the fields, till it seemed as if he stood alone on some desert island, in the midst of a shoreless sea. all sounds would be muffled, lights and shadows would blur, and he would be alone with the fir-clump and the stars and the strong smells of his land. he would wait there till the dew hung in pearls on his clothes and hair, and the damp chills of the night were in his bones. then he would creep down from the moor, and go back into the warmth and love of the house--yet with this difference now, that he never quite forgot. he would wake during the night after cruel dreams of boarzell stripped of its tilth, relapsed into wildness; for a few agonised moments he would wonder if the dream were true, and if he had not indeed failed. sometimes he had to get out of bed and steal to the window, to reassure himself with the sight of his diggings and fencings. then a horrible thought would attack him, that though he had not yet actually failed, he was bound to fail soon, that his task was too much for him, and only one end possible. he would creep back into bed, and lie awake till dawn and the restarting of the wheel. one comfort was that these evil summers had blighted grandturzel too. realf's fruit and grain had both done badly, and he had been unfortunate with his cows, two of which had died of garget. it was now that the characters of the two rivals were contrasted. realf submitted at once to adversity, cut down his expenses, and practically withdrew from the fight. ambitious and enterprising when times were good, he was not the man to be still ambitious and enterprising when they were bad. the greatness of his farm was not so much to him as the comfort of his family. he now had a little son, and was anxious that neither he nor tilly should suffer from bad speculations. he despised reuben for putting odiam before his wife and children, and defying adversity at the expense of his household. "he'll do fur himself," he said to tilly, as he watched her bath the baby before the fire, "and where'll his old farm be then?" "he's more likely to do fur someone else," said tilly, who knew her father. "wot about this gal he's married?" "i'm sorry fur her." "but she döan't look as if she wanted it, surelye. i never see anything so smart and well-set-up as she wur in church last sunday." "still, i'm sorry fur her--i'm sorry fur any woman as he takes up with. now, henry, you can't kiss baby while i'm bathing him." it sometimes grieved tilly that she could not do more for her brothers and sister. pete did not want her help, being quite happy in his work on the farm. but jemmy and caro hated their bondage, and she wished she could set them free. reuben had sternly forbidden his children to have anything to do with the recreant sister, but they occasionally met on the road, or on the footpath across boarzell. once caro had stolen a visit to grandturzel, and held the baby in her arms, and watched her sister put him to bed; but she was far too frightened of reuben to come again. on reuben's marriage tilly had hoped that rose might do something for caro, and indeed the girl had lately seemed to have a few more treats and pleasures in her life; but from what she had heard and from what she saw, the younger sister was afraid that rose's good offices were not likely to make for caro's ultimate happiness. then comfortable little tilly would sigh in the midst of her own, and wish that everyone could have what she had been given. benjamin occasionally stole afternoons in rye--if he was discovered there would be furious scenes with reuben, but he had learned cunning, and also, being of a sporting nature, was willing to take risks. some friends of his were building a ship down at the camber. week by week he watched her grow, watched the good timber fill in her ribs, watched her decks spread themselves, watched her masts rise, and at last smelt the good smell of her tarring. she was a three-masted schooner, and her first voyage was to be to the canaries. her builders drank many a toast with backfield's truant son, who gladly risked his father's blows to be with them in their work and hearty boozing. he forgot the farmyard smells he hated in the shipyard smells he loved, and his slavery in oaths and rum--with buckets of tar and coils of rope, and rousing chanties and stories of strange ships. next spring the news came to odiam that benjamin had run away to sea. § . it was rose who had to tell reuben. benjamin had given no one the faintest hint of his plans; indeed for the last two or three weeks his behaviour had been unusually good. then one morning, when reuben was at robertsbridge market, he disappeared--handshut could not find him to take his place in the lambing shed. rose was angry, for she had wanted young handshut to hang some curtains for her--one cause of disagreement between her and reuben was her habit of coaxing the farm-hands to do odd jobs about the house. that same evening, before her husband was back, a letter came for rose. it was from benjamin at rye, announcing that he was sailing that night in the _rother lady_ for las palmas. he was sick of the farm, and could not stand it any longer. would rose tell his father? rose was not sorry to see the last of benjamin, whom she had always despised as a coarse lumpkinish youth, whose clothes smelt strongly either of pitch or manure. but she dreaded breaking the news to reuben. she disliked her husband's rages, and now she would have to let one loose. then suddenly she thought of something, and a little smile dimpled the corners of her mouth. reuben came in tired after a day's prodding and bargaining in robertsbridge market-place. rose, like a wise woman, gave him his supper, and then, still wise, came and sat on his knee. "ben ..." "well, liddle rose." "i've some bad news for you." "wot?" "jemmy's gone for a sailor." he suddenly thrust her from him, and the lines which had begun to soften on his face as he held her, reappeared in their old harshness and weariness. "gone!" "yes. i had a letter from him this evening. he couldn't stand odiam any longer, so he ran away. he's sailed for a place called palma." reuben did not speak. his hands were clenched on the arms of his chair, and for the first time rose noticed that he looked old. a faint feeling of disgust came over her. she shivered, and took a step backwards as if she would leave him. then her warm good nature and her gratitude to the man who had made her so happy, drove away the unnatural mood. she came close, and slipped her soft arms round his neck, pressing her lips to his. he groaned. "you mustn't fret, reuben." "how can i help it?--they're all gone now save one ... my boys...." "perhaps there'll be others." she had slid back to his knee, and the weight and warmth of her comforted him a little. he lifted his head quickly at her words. "others?" "yes, why not?" her bold sweet eyes were looking into his and her mouth was curved like a heart. "rose, rose--my dear, my liddle dear--you döan't mean----" "of course i mean. you needn't look so surprised. such a thing has been known to happen." "döan't go laughing at me, but tell me--when?" "in october." "oh, god! oh, god!" his rapture and excitement alarmed her. his eyes blazed--he threw back his head and laughed in ecstasy. then he seized her, and crumpled her to him, covering her face, her neck, her hair, her ears, with kisses, murmuring broken phrases of adoration and gratitude. rose was definitely frightened, and broke free with some violence. "oh, stop it, ben! can't you see you're spoiling my dress? why should you get in such a taking? you've had children before, and they've all been failures--i expect this one will only be like the rest." § . rose's child was born towards the end of october. once more reuben had a son, and as he looked down on the little red hairless thing all his hopes and dreams were built anew. he had always lived too near the earth to let experience thump him into cynicism. he raised as glorious dreams over this baby as he had raised over the others, and seen crumble into ashes. indeed, the fact that his earlier hopes had failed made him warm himself more gratefully at this rekindling. he saw himself at last raised out of the pit of difficulty--he would not lose this boy as he had lost the others, he would perhaps be softer and more indulgent, he would at all events be wiser, and the child should indeed be a son to him and to odiam. "unto us--reuben and odiam--a child is born; unto us a son is given." he was soon confirmed in his idea that the birth had brought him luck. before little david was a week old, the welcome news came that lardner had died. for some time he had been able to swallow only milk food, and his speech had been reduced to a confused roaring, but his death at this juncture seemed to reuben a happy coincidence, an omen of good fortune for himself and his son. he was so pleased that he forgot to veil his pleasure before rose, whose grief reminded him of the fact that lardner was a near and dear relation, whose death must be looked upon as a chastisement from heaven. in a fit of compunction for his behaviour, he ordered a complete suit of mourning, in which he attended the funeral. he was soft and benign to all men now, and soothed rose's ruffled spirit by showing himself to her in all the glory of a top-hat with crape weepers before setting out for starvecrow. he himself had helped plan the obsequies, which were carried out with all possible pomp by a rye undertaker. after the ceremony there was a funeral meal at starvecrow, where sedate joints and solemn whiskies were partaken of in the right spirit by the dozen or so men and women who were privileged to hear old lardner's will. this was read by the deceased's lawyer, and one or two pleased malicious glances were darted at reuben from under decorously lowered lids. he sat with his fists doubled upon his knees, hearing as if in a nightmare: "i bequeath the farm of starvecrow, with all lands, stock, and tools pertaining thereto, also the house and fixtures, together with seven thousand pounds to henry robert crick of lone mills, ontario, canada, my dear son by marion crick.... my household furniture and fifty pounds free of legacy duty i bequeath to my niece, rose backfield, wife of reuben backfield of odiam." reuben felt dazed and sick, the solemn faces of the mourners seemed to leer at him, he was seized by a contemptuous hatred of his kind. there was some confused buzzing talk, but he did not join in it. he shook hands deliriously with the lawyer, muttered something about having to get back, and elbowed his way out of the room. pete had driven over to fetch him in his gig, as befitted the dignity of a yeoman farmer and nephew-by-marriage of the deceased, but reuben angrily bade him go home alone. he could not sit still, he must walk, stride off his fury, the frenzy of rage and disgust and disappointment that consumed him. what business had old lardner to have a natural son? never had the laws of morality seemed to reuben so august and necessary as then, or their infringement more contemptible. he was filled with a righteous loathing of this crapulous libertine who perpetuated the vileness of some low intrigue by bequeathing his worldly goods to his bastard. meantime his virtuously married niece was put off with fifty pounds and some trashy furniture. reuben fairly grovelled before the seventh commandment that afternoon. he staggered blindly along the road. his head swam with rage, and also, it must be confessed, with something else--for he was not used to drinking whisky, which some obscure local tradition considered the only decent beverage at funerals. his face was flushed, and every now and then something would be whirled round by the wind and whip his cheeks and blind him momentarily in a black cloud. at first he was too confused to grapple with it, but when two long black arms suddenly wound themselves about his neck, nearly choking him, he remembered his hat with the crape weepers, and his rage from red-hot became white-hot and cinerating. he tore off the hat with its long black tails, and flung it into the ditch with a volley of those emasculate oaths which are all the swearing of a sussex man. afterwards he felt better, but he was still fuming when he came to odiam, and dashed up straight to rose's bedroom, where she lay with the ten-days-old david and a female friend from rye, who had come in to hear details about her confinement. both, not to say all three, were startled by reuben's sudden entrance, crimson and hatless, his collar flying, the dust all over him. "here! wot d'you think?" he shouted; "if that old man äun't left all his money to a bastard." "don't be so excited, ben," said rose; "you've no business to come bursting in here like this." "remember your wife's delicate," said the lady friend. "well, wot i want to know is why you dudn't tell me all this afore." "how could i? i didn't know how uncle was going to leave his money." "you might have found out, and not let me in fur all this. here i've bin and gone and spent all your settlements on a milk-round, which i'd never have done if i hadn't thought summat more 'ud be coming in later." "well, i can't help it. i expect that as uncle knew i was well provided for, married and settled and all that, he thought he'd rather leave his stuff to someone who wasn't." "i like that--and you the most expensive woman to keep as ever was. "hold your tongue, ben. i'm surprised at you." "i justabout will speak. a purty mess you've got me into. you ought to have told me before we married as he had a son out in canada." "i didn't know. this is the first i've heard of it. anyhow, you surely don't mean to say you married me for my money." "well, i wouldn't have married you if you hadn't got none." "for shame!" said the lady friend. rose burst into tears, and young david, interrupted in the midst of an excellent meal, sent up a piercing wail. "you'd better go downstairs till you know how to speak to your wife properly," said the female from rye. "my wife's deceived me!" shouted reuben. "i made sure as she'd come in fur thousands of pounds when old lardner died, and all she's got out of him is fifty pounds and his lousy furniture." "furniture?" said rose, brisking up; "why from what you said i thought there was nothing. i could do with some furniture. i want a bedstead with brass knobs." "well, you shan't have it. i'll justabout sell the whole lot. you can't prevent me." rose's sobs burst forth afresh. her friend ran up to her and took her in her arms, badly squeezing poor david, who became purple and entirely animal in his remonstrances. then the two women fairly stormed at reuben. they told him he was a money-grubber, an unnatural father, that he had been drinking, that he ought to be ashamed of himself, that he had only got what he deserved. reuben tried to stand up to them, but rose had an amazing power of invective, and her friend, who was a spinster, but sometimes forgot it, filled in the few available pauses so effectively that in the end the wretched husband was driven from the room, feeling that the world held even worse things than wealthy and perfidious libertines. § . of course there was a reconciliation. such things had begun to loom rather large in reuben's married life. he had never had reconciliations with naomi--the storms had not been fierce enough to warrant a special celebration of the calms. but he and rose were always being reconciled. at first he had looked upon these episodes as sweets of matrimony, more blessed than any amount of honeymoon, but now he had gone a stage further and saw them merely as part of the domestic ritual--that very evening when he held rose and the baby together in his big embrace he knew that in a day or two he would be staling the ceremony by another repetition. he now began to crave for her active interest in his concerns. hitherto he had not much missed it, it had been enough for him if when he came in tired and dispirited from his day's work, she had kissed him and rumpled back the hair from his forehead and called him her "poor old man." her caresses and sympathy had filled the gap left by her help and understanding. but now he began to want something more. he saw the hollowness of her endearments, for she did nothing to make his burden lighter. she refused to realise the seriousness of his position--left stranded with an under taking which he would never have started if he had not been certain of increased capital in the near future. she was still extravagant and fond of pleasure, she either could not or would not master the principles of economy; she saw the fat lands of odiam round her, and laughed at her husband when he told her that he was crippled with expenses, and in spite of crops and beasts and barns must live as if he were a poor man. of course, he had been rash--he saw now that he had been a fool to speculate with the future. but who could have foretold that heir of lardner's?--no one had ever heard of him in peasmarsh, and most people were as astonished as reuben though not so disgusted. sometimes he had an uneasy feeling that lardner himself had not thought much about his distant son till a year or two ago. he remembered how the old man had disapproved of the way rose's settlements were spent, and horrible conjectures would assail him that some earlier will had been revoked, and rose disinherited because her uncle did not wish to put more money into her husband's pocket. after all, fifty pounds and some furniture was very little to leave his only niece, who had lived with him, and had been married from his house. it was nonsense to plead the excuse that she was comfortably settled and provided for--the old man knew that backfield had made a desperate plunge and could not recoup himself properly without ready money. he must have drawn up his will in the spirit of malice--reuben could imagine him grinning away in his grave. "well, ben backfield, i've justabout sold you nicely, haven't i?--next to no capital, tedious heavy expenses, and a wife who döan't know the difference between a shilling and a soverun. you thought you'd done yourself unaccountable well, old feller, i reckon. now you've found out your mistake. and you can't git even wud me where i am. he! he!" reuben would imagine the corpse saying all sorts of insulting things to him, and he had horrible nightmares of its gibes and mockery. one night rose woke in the dubious comfort of the new brass bed--which she had wheedled reuben into sparing from the auction--to find her husband kneeling on his pillow and pinning some imaginary object against the wall while he shouted--"i've got you, you old grinning ghosty--now we'll see who's sold!" she thought this immensely funny, and retailed it with glee to her female friends who continued to invade the place. the multitude of these increased as time went by, for rose had the knack of attaching women to herself by easy bonds. she was extremely confidential on intimate subjects, and she was interested in clothes--indeed in that matter she was even practical, and a vast amount of dressmaking was done on the kitchen table, much to the disorganisation of caro's cooking. sometimes there would be males too, and reuben found that he could be jealous on occasion. it annoyed him to see a young counter-jumper from rye sitting in the parlour with an unmanly tea-cup, and he would glare on such aristocracy as a bank-clerk or embryo civil servant, whose visits rose considered lent a glamour to odiam. like a wise woman she used her husband's jealousy to her own advantage. she soon grew extremely skilful in manipulating it, and by its means wrung a good deal out of him which would not otherwise have been hers. it was true that her young men were not always on the spot when she wanted them most, but on these occasions she used the drover handshut, a comely, well-set-up young fellow, of independent manners. reuben more than once had to drive him out of the kitchen. "i wöan't have my lads fooling it in the house," he said to his wife, when he found her winding a skein of wool off handshut's huge brown paws--"they've work enough to do outside wudout spannelling after you women." rose smiled to herself, and when she next had occasion to punish reuben, invited his drover to a cup of tea. then there was an angry scene, stormings and tears, regrets, taunts, and abuse--and another reconciliation. § . in time, as these battles became more usual, the family were forced to take sides. peter supported reuben, caro supported rose. there had been an odd kind of friendship between the downtrodden daughter and the gay wife ever since they had unpacked the latter's trunks together on her wedding night and caro had cried because rose had what she might never have. rose approved of this attitude--she liked to be envied; also caro was useful to her in many ways, helping her in the house, taking the burden of many irksome duties off her shoulders, leaving her free to entertain her friends or mix complexion washes. moreover, there was something in caro which appealed in itself, a certain heavy innocence which tickled the humour of the younger, more-experienced woman. once her stepdaughter had asked her what it felt like to be kissed, which had sent rose into rockings of laughter and a carnival of reminiscence. she liked to dazzle this elderly child with her "affairs," she liked to shock her a little too. she soon discovered that caro was deeply scandalised at the thought of a married woman having men friends to visit her, so she encouraged the counter-jumpers and the clerks for caro's benefit as well as reuben's. it never occurred to her to throw these young people together, and give the girl a chance of fighting her father and satisfying the vague longings for adventure and romance which had begun to put torment into her late twenties. she often told her it was a scandal that she had never been allowed to know men, but her own were too few and useful to be sacrificed to the forlorn. besides, caro had an odd shy way with men which sometimes made them laugh at her. she had little charm, and though not bad-looking in a heavy black-browed style, she had no feminine arts, and always appeared to the very worst advantage. those were not very good times for caro. she envied rose, and at the same time she loved her, as women will so often love those they envy. rose's attitude was one of occasional enthusiasm and occasional neglect. sometimes she would give her unexpected treats, make her presents of clothes, or take her to a fair or to see the shops; at others she would seem to forget all about her. she thought caro a poor thing for not standing up to reuben, and despised her for her lack of feminine wiles. at the same time she would often be extremely confidential, she would pour out stories of love and kisses by moonlight, of ardent words, of worship, of ecstasy, and send caro wandering over strange paths, asking strange questions of herself and fate, and sometimes--to the other's delight--of rose. "wot do you do to make a man kiss you?" "oh, i dunno. i just look at him like this with my eyes half shut. then if that isn't enough i part my lips--so." the two women had been bathing. it was one of rose's complaints that odiam did not make enough provision for personal cleanliness in the way of baths and tubs. reuben objected if she made the servant run up and downstairs ten times or so with jugs of hot water to fill a wash-tub in her bedroom--they had once had a battle royal about it, during which rose had said some humorous things about her man's washing--so in summer she relieved the tension by bathing in the glotten brook, where it ran temporarily limpid and reclused at the foot of the old hop-garden. she had persuaded caro to join her in this adventure--according to her ideas it was not becoming for a woman to bathe alone; so caro had conquered her objections to undressing behind a bush, and tasted for the first time the luxury of a daily, or all but daily, bath. now they were dry and dressed once more, all except their stockings, for rose loved to splash her bare feet in the water--she adored the caress of water on her skin. it was a hot day, the sun blinked through the heavy green of the sallows, dabbling the stream with spots and ripples of light. june had come, with a thick swarthiness in the fields, and the scent of hayseed scorching into ripeness. rose leaned back against a trunk, a froth of fine linen round her knees. she splashed and kicked her feet in the stream. "yes--i've only to look at a man like this ... and he always does it." "but not now!" cried caro. "what do you mean by 'not now'?" "now you're married." "oh, no--i'm talking of before. all the same...." "wot!" "nothing. you'd be shocked." caro looked gloomily at the water. she did not like being told she would be shocked, though she knew she would be. at that moment there was a sound of "git back" and "woa" beyond the hedge. the next minute two horses stepped into the glotten just by the bend. "that must be handshut," said rose. it was. he came knee-deep into the water with the horses, and, not seeing the women, plunged his head into the cool reed-sweetened stickle. "take care--he'll see us!"--and caro sharply gathered up her legs under her blue and red striped petticoat. rose continued to dabble hers in the water, even after handshut had lifted his head and looked in her direction. "rose!" cried caro. "well, why shouldn't he see my legs? they're unaccountable nice ones." "all the more reason----" "not at all, miss prude." caro went crimson to the roots of her hair, and began pulling on her stockings. rose continued to splash her feet in the water, glancing sidelong at handshut. "he's a nice lad, ain't he?" caro vouchsafed no reply. "reuben knows he's a nice lad, and he knows i know he's a nice lad. hasn't he got a lovely brown skin?" "hush." but rose was in a devilish mood. "look here," she said suddenly, "i'm going to prove the truth of what i told you just now. i'm going to make that boy kiss me." "indeed you äun't." "yes i am. i'll go down and talk to him at the bend, and you can creep along and watch us through the hedge; and i'll shut my eyes and maybe part my lips, and he'll kiss me, you see if he don't." "i won't see anything of the kind. i'm ashamed of you." "nonsense--it's only fun--we'll make a bet on it. if i fail, i'll give you my new white petticoat with the lace edging. and i'll allow myself ten minutes to do it in; that's quite fair, for it usually takes me longer." "and what am i to give you if you succeed?" "nothing--the kiss'll be enough for me. i've been wanting to know what he was like to kiss for many a long day." "well, i'm justabout ashamed of you, and i wöan't have anything to do with it." "you can keep out then." "wot if i tell fäather?" "you wouldn't tell him--you wouldn't be such a sneak. after all, what's a man for, if it isn't to have a bit of fun with? i don't mean anything serious--it's just a joke." "what'll handshut think it?" "just a joke too. you're so glum, caro--you take everything so seriously. there's nothing really serious in a kiss." "oh, äun't there!" "no--it's just something one enjoys, same as cakes and bull's-eyes. i've kissed dozens of people in my time and meant nothing by it, nor they either. it's because you've no experience of these things that you think such a lot of 'em. they're quite unimportant really, and it's silly to make a fuss." for some obscure reason caro did not like to see herself credited with the harshness of inexperience. she did her best to assume an air of worldly toleration. "well, of course if it's only fun.... but fäather wudn't think it that." "no, and i shouldn't like him to. you _are_ funny, caro. don't watch me if you're shocked--you can know nothing about it, and then you won't be to blame. but i'm going to have my lark in spite of you." "put on your stockings first," said caro sternly. rose made a face at her, but pulled on a pair of gauzy stockings, securing them with garters of pale blue ribbon. then she scrambled to her feet and edged her way through the reeds and bushes to where young handshut stood at the bend. he was not visible from where caro sat, for he had come out of the water, and for a minute or two she vowed that she would have nothing to do with rose's disgraceful spree. but after a time her curiosity got the better of her. would rose be able to do as she said--persuade her husband's drover to kiss her, simply by looking at him through half-closed eyes? of course handshut was very forward, caro told herself, she had often disliked his attitude towards his mistress--he would not want much encouragement. all the same she wanted to see if rose succeeded, and if she succeeded--how. she craned her neck, but could see nothing till she had crept a few yards through the reeds. then she saw rose and handshut sitting just beyond the hedge, by the water's rim. the horses were drowsing in the stream, flicking at the flies with their tails. rose's dress made a brave blue splash against the green, and the gold-flecked chestnut of her hair was very close to handshut's brown curls. caro could dimly hear their voices, though she could not distinguish what they said. five minutes had passed, and still, though close, there was a decent space between them. then there was a little lull in the flow of talk. they were looking at each other. caro crept nearer, something like a hot cinder in her heart. they were still looking at each other. then handshut began to speak in a lower voice than usual; he stopped--and suddenly their heads stooped together, the gold and the brown touched, mingled, lingered, then drew slowly apart. caro sprang to her feet. the couple in the field had risen too, but they did not see her through the hedge. her heart beat fiercely with an uncontrollable anger. she could have shouted, screamed at them--at her rather, this gay, comfortable, plump, spoilt wife, who had so many kisses that she could look upon one more or less as fun. rose's merry, rather strident laugh rang out on the hushed noon. handshut stood facing her with his head held down; then she turned away from him and laughed again. her laugh rose, fluttered--then suddenly broke. it snapped like a broken knife. she turned back towards handshut, and they faced each other once more. then caro saw a strange and rather terrible thing. she saw those two who had kissed for fun stumble together in an embrace which was not for fun at all, and kiss with kisses that were closer to tears than laughter. § . there was a convention of silence between caro and rose. from that day forward neither made any allusion to the escapade which had ended so unexpectedly. at the same time it was from the other's silence that each learned most; for caro knew that if her eyes had deceived her and that last kiss been like the first, for fun, rose would have spoken of it--while rose knew that caro had seen the transmutation of her joke into earnest, because if she had not she would have been full of comments, questions, and scoldings. sometimes caro in her innocence would think that she ought to speak to rose, warn her, and plead with her to go carefully. but a vague fright sealed her lips, and she was held at a distance by the reserve in which the merry communicative rose had suddenly wrapped herself. those few minutes by the brookside had changed her, though it would be hard to say exactly in what the change lay. caro was both repelled and baffled by it. a more skilled observer would say that rose had become suddenly adult in her outlook as well as her emotions. for the first time she had seen in its sorrowful reality the force which she had played with for so many years. the shock disorganised her, drove her into a strange silence. love and she had always been hail-fellow-well-met, they had romped and rollicked together through life; she had never thought that her good comrade could change, or rather--more unimaginable still--that she should suddenly discover that she had never really known him. she was sobered. her attitude towards things insensibly altered--to her husband, her child, her servants she was different, and yet in such a manner that none could possibly lay hands on the difference. reuben's jealousies and suspicions were increased. she avoided handshut, and she flourished the shopmen and clerks but feebly, yet he mistrusted her in a way he had never done when her enthusiasms were flagrant. this was not due to any psychological deduction, rather to a vague kind of guess, an intuition, an uneasiness that communicated itself from her to him. rose had begun to question her attitude towards her husband. she had hitherto never doubted for a moment that she loved him--of course she loved him! but now she asked herself--"if i love him, how is it that our most tender moments have never meant so much to me as that second kiss of handshut's?" none of reuben's kisses stood out in her memory as that kiss, he had never made the thrill of life go through her, he had never filled her heart to bursting with joy so infinite that it was sorrow, and sorrow so exquisite that it was joy. she would observe reuben, and she would see him--old. he was fifty-four, and his hair was grey; there were crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes, and straight lines between his brows, where he had furrowed them as the pitiless sun beat down upon his face. there were other lines too, seamed and scored by hard struggles. he was strong as an ox, but she told herself he was beginning to move a bit stiffly. he had exposed himself so ruthlessly to the wet and cold that his joints had become rheumatic. it was nothing very much, but he liked to have her rub them occasionally, and up till then she had liked it too. now she suddenly saw something dreary and preposterous in it--here she was married to a man thirty years older than herself, his chattel, his slave. she did not really love him--how could she, with all those years between them? she was fond of him, that was all--and he was getting older, and horribly cantankerous; and she was young--oh, god! she had never known till then how young. then suddenly it all changed. one day she found herself alone with handshut--and nothing happened. his manner was quite that of the respectful servant towards his mistress, he made no allusion to the scene by the brook, spoke entirely of indifferent things. and she, she herself--that was the biggest, best surprise of all--did not feel the slightest embarrassment, or the slightest pang. on the contrary, all the passion which had scorched and withered her heart since the day of the kiss, seemed to die away, leaving her the old rose, gay, confident, and at peace with all men. she had been a fool--she had brooded over a little trivial incident till it had assumed unwarranted proportions and frightened her. nothing whatever had happened to her and handshut--they had shared a joke, that was all. she did not love him, she loved her husband, and she was a fool to have thought anything else. love was not a drama or a tragedy, but a game and a lark, or at times a comfortable emotion towards one's lawful husband, who was the best and finest man in the world. the joy of this discovery quite restored rose, and she flirted with handshut so outrageously in front of reuben, that afterwards they had one of the biggest quarrels of their lives. § . 'seventy-four was another bad year for odiam, and it was more hopeless than its predecessors, for reuben had now no expectations to sustain him. his position was really becoming serious. in ' he had bought more land than he could afford, for fear that grandturzel would buy it if he did not, and in ' he had started his accursed milk-round, which had proved nothing but an expense and a failure. he still clung to it, for the shop by the landgate gave him prestige, and he had always hoped that affairs would mend, but he was gradually coming to realise that prestige can be bought too dear, and that his affairs were too heavily clogged to improve of their own accord. he must take steps, he must make some sacrifice. he resolved to sell the milk-round. it was either that or a mortgage, and a mortgage was far the greater ignominy. after all he had not had the round more than two or three years, it had never flourished, and the parting wrench would not be a bad one. of course his reputation would suffer, but hard cash was at the present moment more valuable than reputation. unfortunately it was also more difficult to get. those years had been bad for everybody, and none of the surrounding farmers seemed disposed to add to his burdens by so uncertain a deal. if the thing had not thriven with backfield it was not likely to thrive with anyone else. for the first time reuben cursed his own renown. however, he hoped better things from the next spring. if lambing was good and the season promising, farmers would not be so cautious. meantime he would keep odiam in chains, he would save every penny, skim, pare, retrench, and learn the lesson of his lean years. unfortunately he had reckoned without rose--rose saw no need for such drastic measures. because her man had been venturesome and stupid, made rash speculations, and counted on a quite unwarranted legacy, that was no reason for her to go without her new spring gown or new covers for her parlour chairs. she was once more expecting motherhood, and considered that as a reward for such self-sacrifice the most expensive luxuries were inadequate. at the same time, feeling quite at ease about herself and handshut, she led reuben a freakish dance of jealousy, going to extravagant lengths in the hope of breaking down his resistance and goading him into compliance. but she did not find jealousy such a good weapon as it had used to be. reuben would grow furious, thundery and abusive, but she never caught him, as formerly, in the softness of reaction, nor did the fear of a rival stimulate any more profitable emotion than rage. the truth was that reuben had now become desperate. he could not give in to rose. if he sacrificed his farm to her in the smallest degree he ran the risk of ruin. he was torn in two by the most powerful forces of his life. on one side stood odiam, trembling on the verge of catastrophe, needing every effort, every sacrifice of his, every drop of his sweat, every drop of his blood. on the other stood rose, the dearest human thing, who demanded that for her sake he should forget his farm and the hopes bound up in it. he would not do so--and at the same time he would not lose rose. though her love no longer gave him the gift of peace, he still clung to it; her presence, her voice, her touch, still fired and exalted him. he would not let her go--and he would not let odiam go. the struggle was terrible; it wore him out. he fought it desperately--to neither side would he surrender an inch. sometimes with rose's arms about him, her soft cheek against his and her perfidy forgotten, he would be on the brink of giving her the pretty costly thing, whatever it was, that she wanted at the expense of odiam. at others, out in his fields, or on the slope of boarzell--half wild, half tamed--with all those unconquered regions swelling above him, he would feel that he could almost gladly lose rose altogether, if to keep her meant the sacrifice of one jot of his ambition, one tittle of his hope. then he would go home, and find her ogling handshut through the window, or giving tea in her most seductive manner to some young idiot with clean hands--and round would go the wheel again--round and round.... as a matter of fact he had never been so secure of rose as then; the very shamelessness of her flirtations was a proof of it--a whoop of joy, so to speak, at finding herself free of what she had feared would be a devastating passion. but who could expect reuben to guess that? he saw only the freak of a treacherous nature, turning from him to men younger and more compliant than himself. jealousy, from a fit, became a habit. he grew restless and miserable--he would run in suddenly from his work to see what his wife was doing, he would cross-examine caro, he would even ask pete to keep an eye on her. sometimes he thought of dismissing handshut, but the lad was an excellent drover, and reuben had bursts of sanity in which he saw the foolishness of such a sacrifice. rose flirted nowadays with every man she met--she was, he told himself furiously, a thoroughly light and good-for-nothing girl--she was not worth the loss of a fellow like handshut. thus the days dragged on wretchedly for everyone except rose, and in time they grew wretched for her too. she began to tire of the cracklings of the flame she had kindled, of reuben's continued distrust and suspicion, of caro's goggle-eyed disapproval, of peter's spying contempt. the time of her lying-in drew nearer, she had to give up her gay doings, and felt frightened and alone. everyone was against her, everyone disapproved of her. she began to wish that she had not found her love for handshut to be an illusion, to wish that the kiss beside the glotten brook had been in reality what she had dreamed it.... after all, is it not better to embrace the god and die than to go through the unhappy days in darkness? § . one evening when reuben was out inspecting a sick cow, rose lay on the sofa languidly shelling peas. once more it was june, and a rusty heat was outside blurring the orchard. her fingers often lay idle in the bowl of peas, for though her task relieved the sweltering boredom which had weighed on her all day, every now and then a great lassitude would sweep over her, slacking her muscles, slacking her thoughts, till she drooped into a vague stagnation of sorrow. she felt horribly, uselessly tired, her gay spirits had trickled from her in sheer physical discomfort, and in her heart an insistent question writhed like a little flame. two tears formed slowly in the corners of her eyes, welled at last over the silky, spidery lashes, and rolled down her cheeks. in themselves they were portents--for rose hardly ever cried. more wonderful still, she did not know that she was crying, she merely became stupidly conscious of a smudging of those motionless trees beyond the garden, and a washing of the hard, copper-coloured sky. she feebly put up her hand and brushed the veil away--already something strange had loomed through it, whipping her curiosity. a man was at the window, his head and shoulders dark against the sunset. "handshut!" "yes, ma'am." she frowned, for she seemed to catch a ring of mockery in the respectful words. she wondered if it had always been there. "where's master?" "in the shed with brindle." "and how is she?" "i dunno--we've sent for the veterinary." there was silence. outside the flowers rustled in the slow hot breeze. the background of trees was growing dim, a web of shadow at the foot of the garden. handshut still leaned on the sill, and she realised that if his words were decorous, his attitude was not. surely he had something better to do than hang in at her window. half his face was in shadow, half was reddened by the smouldering sky--it was the face of a young gipsy, brown, sullen, and mocking. she suddenly pulled herself into a sitting posture. "what are you staying for?--i reckon the master wants you." "no--it's you that wants me, surelye." the blood ebbed from her lips. she felt afraid, and yet glad. then suddenly she realised what was happening and dragged herself back into dignity and anger. "i don't want you." "yes you do." "kindly go at once, or i shall call someone." "rose!" once more she fell back into her state of terror and delight. his coolness seemed to paralyse her--she could not act. she could only lie and watch him, trembling. why had he changed so?--he, who had never faltered in his attitude of stiff respect under her most outrageous and flirtatious digs. "rose," he said again, and his voice quivered as he said it, "you do want me a liddle bit now." "what--what makes you think so?" he shrugged his shoulders--there must have been some foreign streak in his yokel's blood. "i döan't think it--i know. a year agone you dudn't want me, so i kipt back, i wurn't a-going to mäake you suffer. you wur frightened of that kiss...." he had spoken it--her terror. "don't!" she cried. "you wur frightened, so i saw you wurn't ready, and i tried to mäake you feel as naun had happened." "yes, i thought you were a gentleman," she said with a sudden rap of anger. "i äun't that. i'm just a poor labouring man, wot loves you, and wot you love." she tried to speak, but the words burnt up in her mouth. "and a labouring man you love's worth more than a mäaster you döan't love, i reckon." she shrank back on the sofa, folding her arms over her breast and gripping her shoulders. "you needn't look so frightened. i'm only saying it. it wöan't mäake no difference--unless you want it to." "how dare you speak to me like this?" "because i see you're justabout miserable, and i thought i'd say as how i'm beside you--only that." "how--how d'you know i'm miserable?" "plain enough." the sky had faded behind him and a crimson moon looked over his shoulder. "plain enough," he repeated, "but you needn't be scared. i'll do naun you döan't want; i'll come no nearer you than i am now--unless you call me." she burst into tears. he did not move. his head and shoulders were now nothing but a dark block against the purple and blue of the sky. the moon hung just above him like a copper dish. "döan't cry," he said slowly--"i'm only looking in at the window." she struggled to her feet, sobs shaking and tearing her, and stumbled through the darkness to the door. still sobbing she dragged herself upstairs, clinging to the rail, and every now and then stopping and bending double. her loud sobs rang through the house, and soon the womenfolk were about her, questioning her, soothing her, and in the end putting her, still weeping, to bed. while outside in the barn reuben watched in agony beside a sick cow. § . when late the next morning a woman ran out of the house into the cow-stable, and told reuben that his wife had given him a fine boy, he merely groaned and shook his head. he sat on a stool at the foot of brindle's stall, and watched her as she lay there, slobbering her straw. his face was grim and furrowed, lines scored it from nose to mouth and across the forehead; his hair was damp and rough on his temples, his eyes were dull with sleeplessness. "wöan't yer have summat t'eat, mäaster?" asked beatup, looking in. all reuben said was: "has the inspector come?" "no, mäaster--i'll bring him räound soon as he does. wöan't you have a bite o' cheese if i fetch it?" reuben shook his head. "mäaster----" continued the man after a pause. "well?" "i hear as how it's a liddle son...." reuben mumbled something inarticulate, and beatup took himself off. his master's head fell between his clenched hands, and as the cow gave a sudden slavering cough in the straw, a shudder passed over his skin, and he hunched himself more despairingly. odiam had triumphed at last. just when reuben's unsettled allegiance should have been given entirely to the wife who had borne him a son, his farm had suddenly snatched from him all his thought, all his care, his love, and his anxiety, all that should have been hers. it seemed almost as if some malignant spirit had controlled events, and for rose's stroke prepared a counter-stroke that should effectually drive her off the field. the same evening that rose had gone weeping and shuddering upstairs, reuben had interviewed the vet. from rye and heard him say "excema epizootica." this had not conveyed much, so the vet. had translated brutally: "foot-and-mouth disease." the most awful of a farmer's dooms had fallen on reuben. the new contagious diseases of animals act made it more than probable that all his herd would have to be slaughtered. of course, there would be a certain amount of compensation, but government compensation was never adequate, and with the multitudinous expenses of disinfecting and cleansing he was likely to sustain some crippling losses, just when every penny was vital to odiam. he knew of a man who had been ruined by an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia, of another who had been forced by swine-fever to sell half his farm. besides, any hope of a deal over his milk-round was now at an end. his dairy business, whether in town or country, was destroyed, and his reputation would be probably as unjustly damaged, so that he would not be able to adventure on that road for years--perhaps never again. small wonder, then, that the birth of a son brought no joy. the child was born to an inheritance of shame, the heir of disaster. reuben's head bowed nearly to his knees. he felt old and broken. he began to see that it was indeed dreadfully possible that he had thriven all these years, conquered waste lands, and enriched fat lands, only to be overthrown at last by a mere arbitrary piece of ill-luck. how the disease had broken out he could not tell--he had bought no foreign cattle, indeed recently he had bought no cattle at all. he could not blame himself in the smallest degree; it was just a malignant capricious thrust--as if fate had wanted to show him that what had taken him years of labour and battle and sacrifice to build up, could be destroyed in as many days. a little hope sustained him till the inspector's visit--the vet. might have been mistaken, the inspector might not order a wholesale destruction. but these faint sparks were soon extinguished. the loathed epidemic had undoubtedly lifted up its head at odiam, and reuben's entire herd of jersey, welsh, and sussex cattle was doomed to slaughter. the next few days were like a horrible jumbled nightmare, something malignant, preposterous, outside experience. three men came over from the slaughterhouse at rye, and plied their dreadful work till evening. the grey and dun-coloured jerseys with their mild, protruding eyes, the sturdy welsh with their little lumpy horns, the sussex all coloured like a home-county landscape in reds and greys and browns--bowed their meek heads under the ox-killer, and became mere masses of meat and horn and hide. profitless masses, too, for all the carcases were ordered to be burned. the nightmare had its appropriate ending. sixty dead beasts were burned in lime. boarzell became hinnom--it was the most convenient open space, so reuben's herd was burned on it. from a dozen different pyres streamers of white smoke flew along the wind, and a strange terrible smell and tickling of the nostrils troubled the labourer on the westward lands by flightshot or moor's cottage. the neighbourhood sat up in thrilled dismay, and watched odiam pass through its hour. the farm was shut off from civilisation by a barrier of lime--along every road that flanked it, outside every gate that opened on it, the stuff of fiery purification was spread. the fields with their ripening oats and delicately browned wheat, the orchards where apples trailed the boughs into the grass, the snug red house, and red and brown barns, the black, turrets of the oasts, all cried "unclean! unclean!" odiam was a leper. none might leave it without rubbing his boots in lime, no beasts could be driven beyond its hedges. more, the curse afflicted the guiltless--the markets at rye and battle were forbidden, the movements of cattle were restricted, and coalbran once indignantly showed reuben a certificate which he found he must have ready to produce every time he moved his single cow across the lane from the hedge pasture to the stream fallow. public opinion was against backfield, and blamed him surlily for the local inconvenience. "döan't tell me," said coalbran in the bar, "as it wurn't his fault. foot-and-mouth can't just drop from heaven. he must have bought some furriners, and they've carried it wud 'em, surelye." "serve un right," said ticehurst. "still, i'm sorry for him," said realf of grandturzel--"he's the only man hereabouts wot's really made a serious business of farming, and it's a shame he should get busted." "he äun't busted yet," said coalbran. "but you mark my words, he will be," said ticehurst; "anyways i shud lik him to be, fur he's a high-stomached man, and only deserves to be put down." "he's down enough now, surelye! i saw him only yesterday by the glotten meadows, and there was a look in his eye as i'll never forget." "and yit he's as proud as the old un himself. i met him on thursday, and i told him how unaccountable sorry we all wur fur him, and he jest spat." "i offered to help him wud his burning," said realf, "and he said as he'd see me and my lousy farm burnt first." "he's a tedious contradictious old feller--he desarves all he's got. let's git up a subscription fur him--that ud cut him to the heart, and he wudn't täake it, so it ud cost us naun, nuther." the rest of the bar seemed to think, however, that reuben might take the money out of spite, so coalbran's charitable suggestion collapsed for lack of support. meantime, so fast bound in the iron of his misery that he scarcely felt the prick of tongues, reuben lived through the final stages of his nightmare--those final stages of shock and upheaval when the fiery torment of the dream dies down into the ashes of waking. he wandered over his land in his lime-caked boots, scarcely talking to those at work on it, directing with mere mechanical activity the labour which now seemed to him nothing but the writhings of a crushed beetle. everyone felt a little afraid of him, everyone avoided him as much as possible--he was alone. his nostrils were always full of the smart of lime, and the stench of those horrible furnaces belching away on the slopes of the moor. would that burning never be done? for days the yellowy white pennons of destruction had flown on boarzell, and that acrid reek polluted the harvest wind. boarzell was nothing but a huge funeral pyre, a smoking hell.... "and the smoke of her went up for ever and ever." § . an atmosphere of gloom lay over odiam; reuben brought it with him wherever he went, and fogged the house with it as well as the barns. even rose felt an aching pity for her strong man, something quite different from the easy gushes of condolence which had used to be all she could muster in the way of sympathy. but reuben did not take much notice of rose, nor even of his little son. now and then he would look at them together, sigh impatiently, then go out of the room. sometimes he would be more interested, and, in a fit of reaction from his proud loneliness, turn to her as of old for comfort. but those were the bitterest hours of all, for in them he would glimpse a difference, an aloofness. she had been much quieter since the birth of the second boy, she had not recovered her health so rapidly, and her eyes were big in the midst of bistred rings. she had given up flirting with handshut, or with the young men from rye, but she did not turn from them to her husband. though he could see she was sorry for him, he felt--vaguely, uncertainly, yet tormentingly--that she was not all his, as she had been in brighter months. sometimes he did not much care--sometimes a dreadful passion would consume him, and once he caught her to his breast and bruised her in his arms, crying--"i wöan't lose you--i wöan't lose you too." rose could not read his mood; one day she would feel her husband had been alienated from her by his sorrow, another that his need of her was greater than ever. she herself carried a heavy heart, and in her mind a picture of the man who was "only looking in at the window." she seemed to see him standing there, with the moon rising over his shoulder, while from behind him something in the garden, in the night, called ... and called. she could still hear that call, muted, tender, wild--the voice of her youth and of her love, calling to her out of the velvet night, bidding her leave the house where the hearth was piled with ashes, and feel the rain and the south wind on her lips. there was no escape in sleep, for her dreams showed her that window framing a sky soft and dark as a grape, with the blackness of her lover's bulk against it, while the moon rose over his shoulder, red, like a fiery pan.... she felt afraid, and did not know where to turn. she avoided handshut, who stood remote; and though her husband sometimes overwhelmed her with miserable hungry love, he often scarcely seemed to notice her or her children, and she knew that she counted far less than his farm. he was terribly harsh with her now, frowning by the hour over her account-books, forbidding this or that, and in his gloom scarcely noticing her submission. july passed. odiam was no longer cut off from the rest of the world by lime. reuben with the courage of despair began to organise his shattered strength. he discharged piper--now that his cows were gone he could easily do with a hand less. he sometimes wondered why he had not discharged handshut, but the answer was always ready--handshut was far the better workman, and odiam now came easily before rose. not that reuben's jealousies had left him--they still persisted, though in a different form. the difference lay in the fact that now he would not sacrifice to them the smallest scrap of odiam's welfare. he sometimes asked himself why he was still jealous. rose no longer gave him provocation, she was much quieter than she had used to be, and seemed busy with her children and straitened house-keeping. it was once more a case of instinct, of a certain vague sensing of her aloofness. often he did not trouble about it, but sometimes it seared through him like a hot bar. one evening he came home particularly depressed. he had just finished the most degrading transaction of his life--the raising of a mortgage on the flightshot side of his land. it was horrible, but it was unavoidable. he could not now sell his milk-round, and yet he absolutely must have ready money if he was to stand up against circumstances. the mortgagee was a wealthy rye butcher, and reuben had hopes that the disgraceful affair might be kept secret, but also an uneasy suspicion that it was at that moment being discussed in every public-house. he went straight to find rose, for that mood was upon him. the due of loneliness which his shame demanded had been paid during the drive home from rye, and now he quite simply and childishly wanted his wife. she was in the kitchen, stooping over some child's garment, the little frills of which she was pleating in her fingers. she lifted her head with a start as he came in, and he saw that her face was patched with tearstains. "wot've you bin crying for?" he asked as he slid a chair close to hers. he wondered if the humiliation of odiam had at last come to mean to her a little of what it meant to him. "i haven't been crying." "but your face ..." "that's the heat." he drew back from her a little. why should she lie to him about her tears? "oh, well, if you döan't choose to tell me ... but i've eyes in my head." she seemed anxious to propitiate him. "how did it go off? have you settled with apps?" he nodded. "it's all over now--i've touched bottom." "nonsense, ben. you mustn't say that. after all there's nothing extraordinary about a mortgage--uncle had one for years on a bit of his farm at rowfant. besides, think of all you've got left." he laughed bitterly. "i äun't got much left." then suddenly he turned towards her as she sat there by him, her head bowed over her work--her delicate, rather impertinent nose outlined against the firelight, her cheek and neck bewitched with running shadows. "but i've got you." a great tenderness transported him, a great melting. he put his arm round her waist, and made as if to pull her close. she drew back from him with a shudder. it was only for a moment--the next she yielded. but he had seen her reluctance, felt the shiver of repulsion go through her limbs. he rose, and pushed back his chair. "i'm sorry," he said in a low thick voice--"i'm sorry i interrupted your--crying." then he went out, and gave handshut a week's notice. § . rose was intensely relieved. she felt that at last and for ever the tormenting mystery would have gone from her life. once handshut was away, she told herself, she would slip back into the old groove--a little soberer and softer perhaps, but definitely free of that reality which had been so terribly different from its toy-counterfeit. once handshut was gone, her heart would not pursue him. it was his continual presence that tormented. true, he never sought her out, or persecuted her, or even spoke to her without her speaking first--he only looked in at the window.... but a woman soon learns what it means to have a man's face between her and the simplicities of life in her garden, between her and the divinities of the stars and moon. rose did not find in her love a sweetness to justify the bitterness of its circumstances. the fact that it had been awakened by a man who was her inferior in the social-agricultural scale, who could give her nothing of the material prosperity she so greatly prized, instead of inspiring her with its beauty, merely convinced her of its folly. she saw herself a woman crazed, obsessed, bewitched, and she looked eagerly forward to the day when the spell should be removed and she should go back chastened to the common, comfortable things of life. but meantime a strange restlessness consumed her, tinctured by a horrible boldness. there were moments when she no longer was afraid of handshut, when she felt herself impelled to seek him out, and make the most of the short time they had together. there could be no danger, for he was going so soon ... so few more words, so few more glances.... thus her mind worked. she was generally able to control these impulses, but as the days slipped by they grew too strong for her untrained resistance. she felt that she must make the most of her chances because they were so limited--before he went for ever she must have one more memory of his voice, his look--his touch ... oh, no! her thoughts had carried her further than she had intended. she found herself beginning to haunt the places where she would be likely to meet him--the edge of the horse-pond or the glotten brook, the door of the huge, desolate cow-stable, where six cheap suffolks emphasised the empty stalls. reuben did not seem to take any notice of her, he had relieved his feelings by dismissing handshut, and his farm had swallowed him up again. rose felt defiant and forlorn. both her husband and her lover seemed to avoid her. she would lean against the great wooden posts of the door, in the listless weary attitude of a woman's despair. then two days before the end he came. as she was standing by the barn door he appeared at the horse-pond, and crossed over to her at once. he had seen that she was waiting for him--perhaps he had seen it on half a dozen other occasions when she had not seen him. rose could calm the silly jumps of her heart only by telling herself that this was quite an accidental meeting. she made an effort to be commonplace. "how's topsy's foal?" "doing valiant. will you come out wud me to-morrow evenun to see the toll-burning?" she flushed at his audacity. "no!--how can i?" "you can quite easy, surelye. mäaster's going to cranbrook fair, and wöan't be home till läate. it's the last night, remember." she made a gallant effort to be the old rose. "what's that to me?--you've got some cheek!" "i'm only not pretending as much as you are. why shud you pretend? pretending 'ull give you naun sweet to remember when i'm gone." "what tolls are they going to burn?" "the gëates up at leasan and mockbeggar, and then over the marsh to thornsdale. it 'ud be a shame fur you to miss it, and mäaster can't täake you, since he's going to cranbrook." "it would never do if people saw us." "why? since your husband can't go, wot's more likely than he shud send his man to täake you?" rose shuddered. "i'm not coming." handshut turned on his heel. § . already the turnpike gates had disappeared from the greater part of sussex, but they still lingered in the rye district, for various reasons, not always bearing close inspection. there had been an anti-toll party both before and after the famous scott's float gate had catastrophically ended reuben's political career--and at last this had carried the day. all the gates were to come down except those on the military road, and the neighbourhood was to celebrate their abolition by burning them in tar. reuben, still proud and sore, stood aloof from local jollities--besides, he had heard that there were to be some cheap milkers for sale at cranbrook fair, and he was anxious to add a little to his dairy stock. though a large milk-round was out of the question, the compensation money he had received from government would allow him to carry on a small dairy business, as in humbler days. of course, the fact that he had lost over sixty cows from foot-and-mouth disease would materially damage his prospects even in a limited sphere, but a farm which let its dairy rot was doomed to failure, and reuben was still untamed by experience, and hoped much from small beginnings. so early that morning he drove off in his gig, accompanied by pete, who had a good eye for cattle, and had moreover challenged the canterbury kid for a purse of five guineas. rose watched them go, and waved good-bye unnoticed to her man, as he leaned forward over the reins, thinking only of how much he could spare for a yearling. she went back into the house, and stoned plums. after dinner she mended the children's clothes, with a little grimace for the faded ribbons and tattered frills which reuben would not allow her to renew. then she took the baby and little david for an airing in the orchard--handshut, raking unromantically in the midden, saw her sitting, a splash of faded violet under an apple tree--then she bathed them and put them to bed. all this was a propitiatory offering to the god of the hearth, who, however, did not take the slightest notice, or stay as he so easily might (so the scripture saith) that hunger for her beloved which was gnawing at the young wife's heart. instead, it seemed to grow in its devouring pain--her domesticity stimulated rather than deadened it, and by the time her day's tasks were over it had eaten up her poor heart like a dainty, and she was its unresisting prey. after the children were in bed she changed her dress, putting on the best she had--a washing silk with pansies sewn over it, one of her wedding gowns. she frowned at it as she had frowned at the babies' dresses--it was so old-fashioned, and worn in places. she suddenly found herself wishing that she loved reuben so much as not to mind wearing old clothes for his sake. for the first time she could visualise such a state of affairs, for she had met the man for whom she would have worn rags. if only that man had been reuben, her lawful husband, instead of another! "but i'll be true to him! i'll be true to him!" she murmured, and found comfort in the words till she realised that it was the first time that she had ever glimpsed the possibility of not being true. she went down into the kitchen, where caro was baking suet. "caro, i'm going out to see the gates burned. i expect i'll be back before ben is, but if i'm not, tell him where i'm gone." "you can't go by yourself--he wudn't like it." "i'm not going by myself--handshut's taking me." caro's suety hands fell to her sides. "rose--you know--how can you?--that's worse than alone, surelye!" "nonsense! what's more natural that one of my servants should come with me, since my husband can't?" "your servant...." "yes, my servant." caro, regardless of the suet on her hands, hid her face in them. "oh, rose, i can't tell him--i daren't. why, he turned away handshut because of you." "he did not, miss--you're impudent!" "well, why shud fäather git shut of the best drover he ever had on his farm, if it äun't----" "be quiet! i won't hear such stuff. i'm not going to be a prisoner, and miss my fun just because you and ben are jealous fools." "but i daren't tell him where you've agone." "i dare say you won't have to--i'm not staying out all night." she laughed one of her coarse screaming laughs, with the additional drawback of mirthlessness; then she went out of the room, leaving caro sobbing into suety palms. outside in the yard, handshut stood by the pump, apparently absorbed in studying the first lights of triangulum as they kindled one by one in the darkening sky. rose pattered up to him in the shabby white kid shoes that had been so trim and smart five years ago. "i've changed my mind." "then you äun't coming." "yes, i am." "then you haven't changed it." § . the roads outside rye were dark with people. a procession was forming up at rye foreign, and another at the foot of cadborough hill. outside the railway station a massed band played something rather like the marseillaise, while the grass-grown, brine-smelling streets were spotted with stragglers, hurrying up from all quarters, some carrying torches that flung shifting gleams on windows and gable-ends. immense barrels of tar had been loaded on four waggons, to which four of the most prosperous farmers of the district had harnessed teams. odiam was of course not represented, nor was grandturzel, but three bell-ringing sorrels had come all the way from kitchenhour, while the marsh farms of leasan, the loose, and becket's house, accounted for the rest. the crowd surged round the waggons, cheered, joked, sang. the whole of rye was there--prosperous tradesmen from the high street or station road, innkeepers, farmers, shop-assistants, chains of fishermen in high boots, jerseys, and gold ear-rings, coast-guards from the camber, and one or two scared-looking women clinging to stalwart arms. rose shrank close to handshut, though she did not take his arm. sometimes the crowd would fling them together, so that they were close as in an embrace, at others they would stand almost apart, linked only by sidelong glances. the flare of a torch would suddenly slide over handshut's face, showing her its dark gipsy profile, and she would turn away her eyes as from something too bright to bear. every now and then the crowd would start singing inanely: "soles, plaice, and dabs, rate, skate, and crabs. god save the queen!" it was like a muddled dream--people seemed to have no reason for what they did or shouted; they just ebbed and flowed, jostled and jambed, ran hither and thither, sang and laughed and swore. rose looked round her to see if she could recognise anyone; now and then a face glowed on her in the torch-light, then died away, once she thought she saw the back of a tradesman's daughter whom she knew--but her chief feeling was of an utter isolation with her loved one, as if he and she stood alone on some sea-pounded island against which the tides of the world roared in vain. at last the crowd began to move. the band had crushed through to the front of it, and was braying rule britannia up playden hill; then came the waggons, then the stout champions of freedom, singing at the pitch of their lungs: "soles, plaice, and dabs, rate, skate, and crabs. god save the queen!" the stars winked on the black zenith, while troubled winds sped and throbbed over the fields that huddled in mystery and silence on either side of the road--where noise and skirmish and darting lights, with the odours of warm human bodies, and the thudding and scrabbling of a thousand feet, proclaimed the people's holiday. they flowed through playden like a torrent through an open sluice, sweeping up and carrying on all sorts of flotsam--villagers from cottage doors, ploughboys from the farms down by the military canal, gipsies from iden wood ... a mixed multitude, which the central mass absorbed, till all was one steaming and shouting blackness. the first gate was at mockbeggar, where the road to iden joins that which crosses the marsh by corkwood and baron's grange. in a minute it was off its hinges, and swealing in tar, while lusty arms pulled twigs, branches, even whole bushes out of the hedges to build its pyre. rose shrank close to handshut, so close that the clover scents of her laces were drowned in the smell of the cowhouse that came from his clothes. she found herself liking it, drinking in that soft, mixed, milky odour ... till a cloud of stifling tar-smoke swept suddenly over them, and she reeled against him suffocating, while all round them people choked and gasped and sneezed. the fire was lighted, a great crimson tongue screamed up in front of two motionless poplars, leaped as high as their tops, then spread fan-shaped, roaring. men and women joined hands and danced round the blaze--in the distance, above the surging pack of heads, rose could see them jumping and capering, with snatches of song that became screams every minute. the fire roared like a storm, and the wood crackled with sudden yelping reports. the dancing girls' hats flew off, their hair streamed wide, their skirts belled and swirled ... there was laughter and obscene remarks from the onlookers. many from the rear pressed forward to join the dance, and those who were trampled on screamed or cursed, while one or two women fainted. rose felt as if she would faint in the heat and reek of it all. she leaned heavily against handshut and closed her eyes ... then she realised that his arm was round her. he held her against him, supporting her, while either she heard or thought she heard him say--"döan't be scared, liddle rose--i'm wud you. i wöan't let you fall." she opened her eyes. the people were moving. the mockbeggar gate had been accounted for, and they rolled on towards thornsdale. the jamb was not so alarming, for a good many revellers had been left behind, dancing round the remains of the bonfire, crowding into the public-house, or scattering in couples over the fields. but though the jostling was no longer dangerous, handshut still kept his arm about rose, and held her close to his side. now and then she made a feeble effort as if to free herself, but he held her fast, and she never put out her full strength. they walked as if in a dream, they two together, not speaking to anyone, not speaking to each other. rose saw as if in a dream the sign of virgo hanging above stone. the dipping of the lane showed the kentish marshes down in the valley, with the hills of kent beyond them, twinkling with lights. the band lifted the strains of hearts of oak and cheer, boys, cheer above the thud of marching feet, or occasionally drifted into sentiment with love's pilgrim--while every now and then, regardless of what was being played, two hundred throats would bray: "soles, plaice, and dabs, rate, skate, and crabs. god save the queen!" it was about nine o'clock when they came to thornsdale, down on the rother levels; the moon had risen and the marsh was smeethed in white. the air was thick with a strong-scented miasma, and beside the dykes long lines of willows faded into the mist. here another orgy was started, in grotesque contrast with the pallid sleep of water. the gate that barred the kent road was torn down, the bonfire prepared, the dance begun. the mists became patched with leaping shadows, and a dull crimson wove itself into the prevailing whiteness. flaming twigs and sparks hissed into the dykes, rolls of acrid tar-smoke spread like a pall over the river and the highnock sewer, under which their waters were spotted with fire. the ground was soon pulped and poached with the jigging feet, and mud and water spurted into the dancers' faces. it was all rather ugly and ridiculous, and as before at mockbeggar, the crowd began to straggle. this time there was no public-house to swallow up strays, but the marsh spread far and wide, a land of promise for lovers, who began to slink off two by two into the mists. some who were not lovers formed themselves into noisy groups, and bumped about the lanes--waking the farmers' wives from bosney to marsh quarter. rose felt handshut's arm clinging more tenderly about her, and she knew that he wanted to lead her away from the noise and glare, to the coolness and loneliness of the waterside. she wanted to go--her head ached, her nostrils tingled, and her eyes were sore with the fumes of tar, her ears wearied with the din. "let's go home," she said faintly--"it's getting late." "we can go back by corkwood across the marshes. it'll be quicker, and we shan't have no crowd spanneling round." they elbowed their way into the open, and soon the noise had died into a subdued roar, not so loud as the sigh of the reeds, while the bonfire showed only as a crimson stain on the eastward piling fogs. in time the contrast of silence grew quite painful. it ached. only the sough of the wind in the reeds troubled it--the feet of rose and handshut were noiseless on the grass, they breathed inaudibly, only the breath of the watching night was heard. they skirted the corkwood dyke, from which rose the stupefying, sodden, almost flavorous, smell of dying reeds--a waterfowl suddenly croaked among them, and another answered her with a wail from beyond ethnam. the willows were shimmering silver dreams, bathed in the light of the moon which hung above the fivewatering and had washed nearly all the stars out of the sky--only sirius hung like a dim lamp over great knell, while lyra was faint above reedbed in the north. rose walked half leaning against handshut. she felt a very little feeble thing in the power of that great amorous night. the warm breath of the wind in her hair, the caress of moonlight on her eyes, the throbbing, miasmic, night-sweet scents of water and grass, the hush, the great sleep ... all tore at her heart, all weakened her with their huge soft strength, all crushed with their languors the poor resistance of her will. the tears began to roll down her cheeks, they shone on her face in the moonlight--they fell quite fast as she walked on gripped against her lover's heart. she was leaning more and more heavily against him, for her strength was ebbing fast--oh, if he would only speak!--she could not walk much further, and yet she dared not rest beside him on that haunted ground. at last they came to where the high land rose out of the levels like a shore out of the sea, with a lick of road on it, winding up to peasmarsh. it was here that rose's uncertain strength failed her, she lurched against handshut, and still encircled by his arms slid to the grass. they were in a huge meadow, sloping upwards to mysterious, night-wrapped hedges. the moonlight still trembled over the marsh, kindling sudden streaks of water, steeping fogs, silvering pollards and reeds. one could distinctly see the little houses on the kent side of the rother, ethnam, and lossenham, and lambstand, some with lights blinking from them, others just black patches on the moon-grey country. rose looked out towards them, and tried to picture in each a hearth beside which a husband and wife sat united ... then suddenly they were blotted out, as handshut's face loomed dark between her and them, and his lips slowly fastened on her own. for a moment she yielded to the kiss, then suddenly tore herself away. "rose ..." "let me go--i can't." "rose, why shud you pretend? you döan't love the mäaster, and you do love me. why shudn't we be happy together?" "we--i can't." "why?--i love you, and you love me. come away wud me--you shan't have a hard life----" "--it's not that." "wot is it then?" "it's--oh, i can't--i'm his wife." she pushed him from her as he tried to take her in his arms again, and stumbled to her feet. "it's late--i--i must go home." "rose, you queer me." he had risen too, and stood before her in mingled pain and surprise. he thought her resistance mere coyness, and suddenly flung his arms round her as she stood. she began to cry. "no, no--don't be so cruel! let me go!--i'm his wife." § . the walk home was dreary, for rose and handshut misunderstood each other, and yet loved each other too. she was silent, almost shamefaced, and he was a little disgusted with her--he felt that she had misled him, and in his soreness added "willingly." they scarcely spoke, and the night spread round them its web of pondering silence. aldebaran guttered above kent, and the blurred patch of the pleiades hung over the curded fogs that hid the rother. there was no wind, but every now and then the grass rippled and the leaves fluttered, while a low hissing sound went through the trees. sometimes from the distance came the shouts of some revellers still at large, echoing weirdly over the moon-steeped fields, and divinely purged by space and night. sobs were still thick in rose's throat, when they came to handshut's cottage, a little tumble-down place, shaped like a rabbit's head. she stopped. "don't come any further." "why?" "it would be better if i wasn't seen with you." he looked at her white face. "you're frighted." "no." "yes--and i'm coming wud you, surelye." "i should be frightened if you came." she managed to persuade him to go his different way--though the actual moment of their parting was always a blur in her memory. afterwards she could not remember if they had kissed, touched hands, or parted without a word. her throat was still full of sobs when she came to odiam; she was panting, too, for she had run all the way--she did not know why. the house was swimming in the light of the western moon. its strange curves and bulges, its kiln-shaped ends, and great waving sprawl of roof all shone in a white glassy brilliance, which was somehow akin to peace. there was a soft flutter of wind in the orchard and in the sentinel poplars, while now and then came that distant night-purged scrap of song: "soles, plaice, and dabs, rate, skate, and crabs. god save the queen!" rose wondered uneasily what time it was. surely it could not be very late, and yet the house was shut up and the windows dark. she gently rattled the door-handle. there was no denying it--the house was locked up. it must be later than she thought--that walk on the rother levels must have been longer than it had seemed to her thirsty love. a thrill of fear went through her. she hoped reuben would not be angry. she was his dutiful wife. she stood hesitating on the doorstep. should she knock? then a terrible thought struck her. reuben must have meant to lock her out. otherwise he would have sat up for her, however late she had been. she started trembling all over, and felt her skin grow damp. she began to knock, first softly, then more desperately. she must get in. nothing was to be heard except her own despairing din--the house seemed plunged in sleep. rose's fear grew, spread black bat's wings, and darkened all her thoughts--for she knew that someone must have heard her, she could not make all this racket quite unheard. what could she do? caro slept at the back of the house, and it struck her that she had better go round, and throw up some earth at her window. perhaps caro would let her in. she stepped back from the door, and was just turning the corner of the house when a window suddenly shot open above her, and reuben's tousled head looked out. "there's no use your trying to git in." rose gave a faint scream. in the moonlight her husband's face looked distorted, while his voice came thick and unnatural. "ben!" "go away. go away to where you've come from. i shan't let you in." "you can't keep me out here. it isn't my fault i'm late--and i'm not so very late, either." "it's one o'clock o' the marnun." she felt her heart grow sick. if she had been happy for four hours, why, in god's name, had they not passed like four hours instead of like four minutes? "ben, i swear i didn't know. i was up to no harm, i promise you. please, please--oh please let me in!" "not i--at one o'clock o' the marnun--after you've bin all night wud a----" "ben, i swear i'm your true wife." she fell against the wall, and her hair, disordered by embraces, suddenly streamed over her shoulders. the sight of it made reuben wild. "git off--before i täake my gun and shoot you." "oh, ben!..." "höald your false tongue. you're no wife o' mine from this day forrard. i wöan't be cuckolded in my own house." his face was swollen, his eyes rolled--he looked almost as if he had been drinking. "ben, don't drive me away. i've been true to you, indeed i have, and handshut's going to-morrow. let me in--please let me in. i swear i've been true." "i want none o' your lying swears--at one o'clock o' the marnun. go back to the man you've come from--he'll believe you easier nor i." "ben, i'm your wife." "i tell you, you're no wife of mine. i'm shut of you--you false, fair, lying, scarlet woman. you needn't cry and weep, nuther--none 'ull say as ben backfield wur a soft man fur woman's tears." he shut the window with a slam. for some moments rose stood leaning against the wall, her sobs shaking her. then, still sobbing, she turned and walked away. she walked slowly down the drive till she came to the little path that led across the fields to handshut's cottage. a light gleamed from the window, and she crept towards it through tall moon-smudged grass--while from the distance came for the last time: "soles, plaice, and dabs, rate, skate, and crabs. god save the queen!" § . a glassy yellow broke into the sky like a curse. it shone on reuben's eyes, and he opened them. they were pink and puffed round the rims, and the whites were shot with little blood-vessels. his cheeks were yellow, and round his mouth was an odd greyish tinge. he had lain dressed on his bed, and was surprised to find that he had slept. but the sleep had brought no refreshment--there was a bad taste in his mouth, and his tongue felt rough and thick. he sat up on the tumbled bed and looked round him. rose's nightgown was folded on her pillow, and over a chair lay a pair of the thin useless stockings he had often scolded her for wearing. a drawer was open, and from it came the soft perfume that adhered to everything she put on. he suddenly sprang out of bed and shut it with a kick. "durn her!" he said, and then two sobs tore their way painfully up his throat, shaking his whole body. an hour later he went down. he had washed and tidied himself, none the less he disconcerted the household. caro had lain awake all night, partly from misery, partly because of the baby, which she had been obliged to take charge of in the mother's absence. she had brought it down into the kitchen with her, and it had lain kicking in its cradle while she prepared the breakfast. she was worn out already after her sleepless night, and could not prevent the tears from trickling down her face as she cut bread for the meal. "stop that!" said reuben roughly. except for this, he did not speak--nor after a few attempts on the former's part did pete and caro. they sat and gulped down their food in silence. even harry seemed to realise the general unrest. he would not sit at table, but wandered aimlessly up and down the room, murmuring, as was now his habit in times of domestic upheaval, "another wedding--deary me! we're always having weddings in this house." then the baby began to howl because it was hungry. rose had nursed it herself, and its wants had not occurred to the unhappy caro or her father. there was delay and confusion while a bottle was fetched and milk prepared, and then--to crown all--cow's milk upset it, and it was sick. but reuben escaped this final tragedy--he had left the room after a few mouthfuls, and gone to handshut's cottage. he could not restrain himself any longer. he must see rose, and vent on her all the miserable rage with which his heart was seething. he longed to strike her--he longed to beat her, for the wanton that she was. and he longed to clasp her in his arms and weep on her breast and caress her, for the woman that she was. but the cottage was shut. with its red-rotting roof between two tall chimneys it looked exactly like a rabbit's head between its ears; the windows were blind, though it was past seven o'clock, and though reuben knocked at the door loudly, there was no one to be seen. he prowled once or twice round the house, fumbling handles and window-latches, but there was no way of getting in. he listened, but he could not hear a sound. he pictured rose and handshut in each other's arms, laughing at him in his wretchedness and their bliss--and all the time he wanted the woman's blood more than the man's. at last he wandered desperately away, treading the furrows of his new ground on boarzell, reckless that he trod the young seed harrowed into them. in that black moment even his winter crops were nothing to him. he saw, thought of, realised only one thing--and that was rose, the false, the gay, the wanton, and the beautiful--oh the beautiful!--laughing at him from another man's arms. he could see her laughing, see just how her lips parted, just how her teeth shone--those little teeth, so regular except for the pointed canines--just how the dimples came at the corners of her mouth, those dear little hollows which he had dug with his kisses.... he ground his heel into the soft harrowed earth, and it cast up its smell into his nostrils unheeded. but the day of boarzell was coming--its rival had been cleared out of the field, and the great hump with its knob of firs seemed to be lying in wait, till the man had pulled himself out of the pit of a false woman's love and given himself back to it, the strong, the faithful enemy. about an hour later reuben was down again at handshut's cottage, but this time a change had worked itself. the door hung wide open--and the place was empty. he went through the two miserable little rooms, but there was no one, and nowhere for anybody to hide. the remains of a meal of bread and tea were on the table, and a fire of sticks was dying on the hearth. the lovers had flown--to laugh at him from a safe distance. all the rest of the day he prowled aimlessly about his land. his men were afraid, for it was the first time they had seen him spend a day without work. he touched neither spade nor pitchfork, he gave no orders, just wandered restlessly about the fields and barns. he ate no supper, but locked himself into his room, while the baby's thin wail rose through the beams of the kitchen ceiling, and little david cried fractiously for "mother." the next day caro, haggard after another night made sleepless by her charges, knocked at his door. he had not come down to breakfast, and at eight o'clock the postman had brought a letter. "it's from rose," said caro timidly. "to me?" "no, to me." "read it." caro read it. rose was in london, but left that day for liverpool. handshut had saved a little money, and they were going to canada. "i don't ask ben to forgive me, for i know he never will." "she's right there," said reuben grimly. caro stood before him, creasing the letter nervously. her father's wrath broke upon her, for want of his proper victim. "git out, can't yer--wot are you dawdling here for? you women are all the same--you'd be as bad as her if you cud only git a man." caro shrank from the jibe as if from a blow, and reuben laughed brutally. he had made one woman suffer anyway. § . of course the neighbourhood gloated; and the rustic convention was set aside in rose's favour, and all the shame of her elopement heaped on reuben. "no wäonder as she cudn't stick to him--hard, queer chap as he be." "and thirty year older nor she, besides." "young handshut wur a präaper lad, and valiant. i äun't surprised as she'd rather have un wudout a penny than old ben wud all his gold." "and he äun't got much o' that now, nuther. they say as he'll be bust by next fall." heads were shaken in triumphant commiseration, and the stones which according to all decent tradition should have been flung at rose, hurtled round her husband instead. far away at cheat land, alice jury watched them fall--alice jury five years older than when she had struggled with boarzell for reuben before he married rose. her parents thought he had treated her badly, even though they did not know of the evening when she had humbled herself to plead for her happiness and his. she remembered that moment uneasily--it hurt her pride. but she could not regret having used her most desperate effort to win him, and she felt sure that he had understood her motive and realised that it was for him as well as for her that she had spoken. now, when she heard of his catastrophe, she wondered if he would come back. did men come back?--and if they did, was she the type of woman they came back to? perhaps she was too quick, too antagonistic. she told herself miserably that a softer woman could have saved reuben, and yet, paradoxically, a softer woman would not have wished to do so. she had seen very little of him or of rose since their marriage. rose and she had never been friends, and reuben she knew was shy of her. he had been angry with her too, because she had not carried her aching heart on her sleeve. outwardly she had worn no badge of sorrow--she was just as quick, just as combative, just as vivaciously intellectual as she had always been. though she knew that she had lost him through these very characteristics, with which she had also attracted him, she made no effort to force herself into a different mould. she refused to regret anything, to be ashamed of anything, to change anything. if he came back he should find the same woman as he had left. she felt that he would come--he would return to her in the reaction that swung him from rose. but would she be able to keep him? she did not feel so sure of that--for that did not depend on her or on him, but on that mysterious force outside themselves with which they had both already struggled in vain. § . reuben scarcely knew what brought him to cheat land. it was about a week after the blow fell that he found himself treading the once familiar lane, lifting the latch of the garden gate, and knocking at the green house-door. nothing had changed, except to fade a little and show some signs of wear and tear. alice herself had not changed, nor had she faded, though her cheeks might have fallen in a trifle and a few lines traced themselves round her mouth. "welcome," she said, and laughed. he took her hand, and forgot to be angry because she had laughed. "come in, and we'll have a talk. father's out, and mother's upstairs." she led the way into the queer little kitchen, which was also unchanged except for the fading of the curtains, and the introduction of one or two new books on the shelves. alice pulled forward his old chair, and sat down opposite him on the settle. she wore one of her long wrapper-pinafores, this time of a warm clay-colour, which seemed to put a glow into her cheeks. "well, alice," he said huskily. "well, reuben, i'm glad to see you." "you've heard?" she nodded. then she said gently: "poor rose." reuben flushed. "one o' my victims, eh?" "well, i knew you'd rather i said that than 'poor reuben.'" "reckon i would. i remember as how you wur always trying to make out as my lazy good-fur-naun sons wur my victims, and as how i'd sacrificed them all to my farm; now i reckon you're trying to do the same wud rose." "where is she?" "i dunno. somewheres between here and canada. may she rot there lik a sheep on its back, and her man too. now say 'poor rose.'" he turned on her almost fiercely, his lips curled back from his teeth in a sneer. "if you speak like that i'll say 'poor reuben.'" "well, say it--you wöan't be far wrong. wot sort o' chap am i to have pride? my farm's ruined, my wife's run away, my children have left me--wot right have i to be proud?" "because, though all those things have happened, you're holding your head up still." "but i äun't--yesterday i wur fair crying and sobbing in front of all the children. in the kitchen, it wur--after supper--i put down my head on the table, and----" "hush, i don't want to hear any more. i can guess what you must have suffered. i expect you miss rose." "i do--justabout." "so should i in your place." "she wur a beautiful woman, alice." alice nodded. "oh, and her liddle dentical ways!" alice nodded again. "you döan't mind me talking to you of her?" "no, of course not." "she wur the beautifullest i've known, and gay, and sweet, and a woman to love. but she deceived me. i married her expecting money, and there wur none--i married her fur her body, and she's given it to another." "well, you're not a hypocrite, anyway. you don't pretend you married her for any but the lowest motives." "wot should i have married her fur, then?" "some people marry for love." "love i--no. i've loved but one woman." "me!" they had both said more than they intended, and suddenly realised it. though the self-betrayal meant most to alice, she was the first to recover a steady voice. "but that does not matter now," she said calmly. he leaned suddenly forward and took her hand. "alice." her hand lay in his, a very small thing, and her head bent towards it. she did not want him to see her cheeks flush and her eyes fill at this his first caress. "alice--how did you know?" "i'm not a fool." "i guessed too." "of course you did. i--i gave myself away. i pleaded with you." he raised her hand slowly to his lips. "i forgot you all the time i wur wud rose," he remarked naively. "you needn't tell me that." "but now i--well, it's too late anyhow. i'm a married man, no matter that my wife's in canada. of course, i could git a divorce--but i wöan't." "no--it would cost money." "more than i could spare." alice laughed. "i never looked upon rose as my rival--i always knew my real rival was your farm, and though now rose is out of the way, that still stands between us." reuben was silent. he sat leaning forward in his chair, holding alice's hand. then he abruptly rose to his feet. "well, i must be going. it's done me good, our talk. not that you've said anything particular comforting, but then you never did. it's good anyway to sit wud a woman wot's not lik a fat stroked cat--not a thin kicked one, nuther," he added viciously, remembering caro. "you're lik a liddle tit-bird, alice. i love you. but i'm not sorry i didn't marry you, for you'd have busted me same as rose, only in a different way." "most likely." she laughed again. he stooped forward and kissed her forehead, and the laugh died on her lips. § . the rest of that day reuben was a little happier. he felt comforted and stimulated, life was not so leaden. in the evening he worked a little in the hop-gardens. they were almost cleared now, and the smoke of the drying furnaces was streaming through the cowls of the oasts, shedding into the dusk a drowsy, malt-sweetened perfume. when the moon hung like a yellow splinter above iden wood, the pickers went home, and reuben turned in to his supper, which for the first time since rose's flight he ate with hearty pleasure. he could not tell exactly what it was that had invigorated him, and jerked him out of his despair. it would seem as if alice's presence alone had tonic qualities. perhaps the secret lay in her unchangeableness. he had gone back to her after an absence of five years, and found her just the same, still loving him, still fighting him, the old alice. everything else had changed--his farm which in the former days had been the thriving envy of the countryside was now little better than a ruin, his home life had been turned inside out, but in the woman over at cheat land nothing had altered, love and strength and faithfulness still flourished in her. it was as if a man stumbling in darkness should suddenly hear a loved, familiar voice say "here i am." the situation summed itself up in three words--she was there; and his heart added--"for me to take if i choose." in spite of his revived spirits he could not sleep, but he went up early to his room, for he wanted to think. during the evening the idea had gained on him that he could still have alice if he wanted her, and with the idea had grown the sensation that he wanted her with all his heart. his return had been complete. all that she had ever had and lost of empire had re-established itself during that hour at cheat land. he wanted her as he had wanted her before he met rose, but with a renewed intensity, for he was no longer mystified by his desire. he no longer asked himself how he could possibly love "a liddle stick of a woman like her," for he saw how utterly love-worthy she was and had always been. for the first time he saw as his, if only he would take it, a great woman's faithful love. this love of alice jury's had nothing akin to naomi's poor little fluttering passion, or to rose's fascination, half appetite, half game. someone loved him truly, strongly, purely, deeply, with a fire that could be extinguished only by death or--he realised in a dim way--her own will. the question was, should he pay the price this love demanded, take it to himself at the cost of the ambitions that had fed his life for forty years? he sat down by the open window, leaning his elbow on the sill. the night was as soft as honey, and dark as a bowl of wine. the stars were scattered and dim, the moon had dipped into a belt of fogs, the fields were bloomed with darkness and sleep. the ridge of boarzell was just visible under the dog star--the lump of firs stood motionless, for the wind had dropped, and not even a whisper from the orchard proclaimed its sleeping place. reuben's eyes swept the dim outlines of his farm--the yard, the barns, the oasts, the fields beyond, up to where his boundaries scarred the waste. it was all blurred and blanketed in the darkness, but his mind could see it in every detail. he saw the cow-stable empty except for the six cheap suffolks which just supplied his household and one or two gentry with milk; he saw doors split and unhinged that he could not afford to mend, gaping roofs that he could not afford to retile, while the martins stole his thatch for their autumn broods; he saw his oat-harvest mostly straw, his hop-harvest gathered at a loss, his hay spoiled with sorrel; he saw himself short of labour, one man turned off, another run away; and he saw all the flints and shards and lime of boarzell breaking his plough, choking his winter wheat, while on the lower ground runnels of clay made his corn sedgy, and everywhere the tough, wiry fibres of the gorse drank all the little there was of goodness out of the ground and scattered it from its blossoms in useless fragrance. this was what his forty years of struggle had brought him to. he saw himself in the midst of a huge ambitious ruin. he had failed, his hopes were blighted--what could he expect to pull out of this wreck. it would be far better and wiser if he gave up the dreary uncertain battle, and took the sure rest at hand. if he sold some of the more fruitful part of his land he would be able to divorce rose, then he could marry alice and live with her a quiet, shorn, unambitious life. no one would buy the new ground on boarzell, but he could easily sell the low fields by the glotten brook; that would leave him with twenty or thirty acres of fairly good land round the farm, and all his useless encroachments on boarzell which he would allow to relapse into their former state. he would have enough to live upon, to support his children and his delicate wife--he would be able to take no risks and make no ventures, but he would be comfortable. his old father's words came back to him--"i've no ambitions, so i'm a happy man. i döan't want nothing i haven't got, so i haven't got nothing i döan't want." perhaps his father had been right. after all, what had he, reuben, got by being ambitious? comfort, peace, home-life, wife, children, were all so many bitter words to him, and his great plans themselves had crumbled into failure--he had lost everything to gain nothing. far better give up the struggle while there was the chance of an honourable retreat. he realised that he was at the turning point--a step further along his old course and he would lose alice, a step along the road she pointed, and he would lose boarzell. after all he had not won boarzell, most likely never would win it--if he persisted on his old ways they would probably only lead him to ruin, and later there might be no alice to turn to. if he renounced her now, he would be definitely pledging himself to boarzell and all his soaring, tottering schemes--he would not be able to "come back" a second time. if he lost alice now he might be losing her for a dream, a bubble, a will-o'-the-wisp. surely he would be wise to pull what he could out of the wreck, take her, and forget all else. only a fool would turn away from her now, and press forward. in the old days it had been different, he had been successful then--now he was a failure, and saw his chance to fail honourably. better take it before it was too late. his mind painted him a picture it had never dared paint before--the comfortable red house basking in sunshine, with a garden full of flowers, a cow or two at pasture in the meadow, the little hop-field his only tilth--his dear frail wife sitting in the porch, his children playing at her feet or reading at her knee--perhaps they were hers too, perhaps they were not. he saw himself contented, growing stout, wanting nothing he hadn't got, so having nothing he didn't want ... he was leaning over her chair, and gazing away into the southern distance where boarzell lay against the sky, all patched with heather and thorns, all golden with gorse, unirrigated, uncultivated, without furrow or fence.... ... a shudder passed through reuben, a long shudder of his flesh, for in at the open window had drifted the scent of the gorse on boarzell. it came on no wind, the night was windless as before. it just seemed to creep to him over the fields, to hang on the air like a reproach. it was the scent of peaches and apricots, of sunshine caught and distilled. he leaned forward out of the window, and thought he could see the glimmer of the gorse-clumps under the stars. the edge of boarzell was outlined black against the faintly paler sky--he traced it from the woods in which it rose, up to its crest of firs, then down into the woods again. once more it lay between him and the soft desires of his weakness; as long ago at cheat land, it called him back to his allegiance like a love forsaken. in the black quiet it lay hullish like some beast--but it was more than a beast to-night. it was like the gorse on its heights, delicate perfume as well as murderous fibre, sweetness as well as ferocity. the scent, impregnating the motionless air, seemed to remind him that boarzell was his love as well as his enemy--more, far more to him than alice. his ambition flared up like a damped furnace, and he suddenly saw himself a coward ever to have thought of rest. boarzell was more to him than any woman in the world. for the sake of one weak woman he was not going to sacrifice all his hopes and dreams and enterprises, the great love of his life. boarzell, not alice, should be his. he muttered the words aloud as he strained his eyes into the darkness, tracing the beloved outline. he despised himself for having wavered even in thought. through blood and tears--others' and his own--he would wade to boarzell, and conquer it at last. from that night all would be changed, the past should be thrust behind him, he would pull himself together, make himself a man. alice must go where everything else had gone--mother, wife, children, friends, and love. thank god! boarzell was worth more to him than all these. leaning out of the window, he breathed in the scent of his slumbering land. his lips parted, his eyes brightened, the lines of care and age grew softer on his face. with his darling ambition, he seemed to recover his youth--once more he felt the blood glowing in his veins, while zeal and adventure throbbed together in his heart. he had conquered the softer mood, and banished the sweet unworthy, dreams for ever. alice--who had nearly vanquished him--should go the way of all enemies. _and the last enemy to be destroyed is love._ book vi struggling up § . that night was a purging. from thenceforward reuben was to press on straight to his goal, with no more slackenings or diversions. he had learned one sound lesson, which was the superfluousness of women in the scheme of life. from henceforward he was "shut of" them. long ago he had denied himself women in their more casual aspect, using them entirely for practical purposes, but now he realised that women no longer had any practical purpose as far as he was concerned. the usefulness of woman was grossly overrated. it is true that she produced offspring, but he thought irritably that providence might have found some more satisfactory way of perpetuating the human race. everything a woman did was bound to go wrong somehow. she was nothing but a parasite and an incubus, a blood-sucking triviality, an expense and a snare. so he tore woman out of his life as he tore up the gorse on boarzell. it was wonderful how soon he adapted himself to his new conditions. at first he missed rose, but by the time he had got rid of her clothes and swept the perfume of her out of his room, he had ceased to hunger. he never heard of her again--he never knew what life she led in the new land, whether the reality of love brought her as much happiness as the game, or whether her old taste for luxury and pleasure reasserted itself and ruined both love and lover. as for alice, he found to his surprise that she was not so dangerous even as rose, for an ideal is never so enslaving as a habit. he avoided cheat land, and there was nothing to bring her across his path as long as he did not seek her. so the yoke of woman dropped from reuben's neck, leaving him a free man. he formed a plan of campaign. the large unreclaimed tracts of boarzell must be left for a time, while he devoted his attention to the land already cultivated. he must economise in labour, so he hired no one in handshut's place, but divided his work among the other men. his rekindled zeal was hot enough to ignite even the dry sticks of their enterprise, and odiam toiled as it had never toiled before. even harry was pressed for service, and helped feed the pigs and calves, besides proving himself a most efficient scarecrow. early the next spring reuben had a stroke of luck, for he was able to sell the remainder of his lease of the landgate shop to a greengrocer. with the proceeds he bought half a dozen more cows, and grounded his dairy business more firmly. in spite of his increased herd he still had several acres of superfluous pasture, and pocketing his pride, advertised "keep" for stock, which resulted in his pocketing also some much-needed cash. his most immediate ambition was to pay off the mortgage he had raised a year ago, and restore to odiam its honourable freedom. it seemed almost as if his luck had turned, for the harvests that year were exceedingly good. in most of his fields there were two hay-crops, while the oats and wheat yielded generously, even on boarzell. as for the hops, he reaped a double triumph, for not only did his hop-gardens bring in more than the average to the acre, but almost everyone else in the neighbourhood did badly, so prices rose in a gratifying way. under this encouragement, part of the old adventurous spirit revived, and reuben bought a highly commended bull at lewes fair, and advertised him for service. in spite of catastrophe, he still believed cattle-rearing to be the most profitable part of a farmer's business, and resolved to build up his own concern on its old lines. with regard to the dairy, caro was an excellent dairy woman, besides looking after the two little children, and odiam had a fair custom for its dairy produce, also for fruit and vegetables. thus, in a very small way, and with continual hard work and anxiety, the farm was beginning to revive. reuben felt that he was recapturing his prestige in the neighbourhood, and, when his labours allowed him, assisted the good work by drinking slow glasses of sherry in the bar of the cocks, and making patronising remarks about his neighbours' concerns. he was glad from the bottom of his heart that he had not been wooed from his ambition, in a moment of weakness, by softer dreams which he now looked upon as so much dust. § . in the course of the following year reuben had news of all his absent sons, except benjamin, who was never heard of again. one day caro came home from rye, where she had gone with the vegetables to market, and said that she had met bessie lamb. bessie was on her way to the station, where she would take the train for southampton. robert had written that he was now able to have her with him in australia, and she had at once packed up her few belongings and set out to join him in the unknown. bessie was now thirty, and looked older, for she had lost a front tooth and her pretty hair had faded: but she was as confident of robert's love as ever. he had written to her by every mail, she told caro, and they had both saved and scraped and waited and counted the days till they could consummate the love born in those fields eternally fixed in twilight by their memory. there had been no intercourse between odiam and eggs hole, so, as robert had never written to his family, caro heard for the first time of the sheep-farm in queensland and its success. he had done badly at first, bessie said, what with the drought and many other things against him, but now he was well established, and she would be far better off and more comfortable as the felon's wife than she had ever been as the daughter of honest parents. she left caro with a restless aching in her heart. in spite of the lost front tooth and the faded hair, she had impressed her in much the same way as rose on her wedding night. here was another woman sure of love looking confidently into a happy future, wooed and sought after, a man's bride.... jolting home in the empty vegetable cart beside peter, one or two tears found their way down caro's cheek. oh, if only some man, no matter whom, tyrant, criminal, no matter what, would love her, give her for one moment those divine sensations which she had seen other women enjoy! why must she alone, of all the women she knew, be loveless? it was her father's fault, he had kept her to work for him, he had starved her purposely of men's society--and now her youth was departing, she was twenty-nine, and she had never heard a man speak words of love, or felt his arms about her, or the sweetness of his lips on hers. when they came to odiam, she told reuben what she had heard about robert. "would you believe it, he has a hundred sheep--and a man working under him--and money coming in quite easy now. it wur hard at first, bessie says, and he wur in tedious heart over it all, but he pulled through his bad times, and now he's doing valiant." "and who has he got to thank fur it, i'd lik to know? who taught him how to run a farm, and work, and never spare himself and pull things through? there he wur, wud no sperrit in him, grudging every ströake he did fur odiam. if i hadn't kept him to it, where 'ud he be now?" news of richard came a few months later. he was heard of as a barrister on the southern circuit, and defended a gipsy on trial for turnip-stealing at lewes. rumours of him began to spread in the neighbourhood--he was doing well, anne bardon was working for him, and he was likely to be a credit to her. at the cocks he was the subject of much respectful comment, and for the first time reuben found himself bathed in glory reflected from one of his children. he could not help feeling proud of him, but wished he did not owe anything to the bardons. "tedious argumentatious liddle varmint he wur--i'm not surprised as he's turned a lawyer. and he had good training fur it, too. there's naun to sharpen the wits lik a farmer's life, and i kept him at it, tough and rough, though he'd have got away if he cud. many's the time i've wopped him near a jelly fur being a lazy-bones, and particular, which you can't be and a lawyer too. but i reckon he thinks it's all that bardon woman's doing." a few weeks later richard wrote himself, breaking the silence of years. success had made him feel more kindly towards his father. he forgave the frustrations and humiliations of his youth, and enquired after his brothers and sisters and the progress of the old farm. anne bardon had kept him fairly well posted in backfield history, but though he knew of reuben's unlucky marriage and of the foot-and-mouth catastrophe, he had evidently lost count of absconding sons, for he seemed to think pete had run away too, which reuben considered an unjustifiable aspersion on his domestic order. however, the general tone of his letter was conciliatory, and his remarks on the cattle-plague "most präaper." as for himself, his life had been full of hard work and the happiness of endeavour crowned at last by success. anne bardon he referred to as an angel, which made reuben chuckle grimly. he had already had a brief, though he was called to the bar only two years ago--which struck his father as very slow business. he also gave news of albert, but not good news. he had kept more or less in touch with his brother, and had done what he could to help him, yet albert had made a mess of his literary life, partly through incapacity, partly through dissipation. he had wasted his money and neglected his chances, and his friends could do little for him. richard had come more than once to the rescue, but it was impossible to give real help to one of his weak nature--also richard was still poor, and anxious to pay off his debts to anne bardon. "i reckon," said reuben, "as how they'd all have been better off if they'd stayed at home." § . soon afterwards a letter came from albert, asking for money, but again reuben forbade any notice to be taken of it. for one thing he could not afford to help anyone, for another he would not even in years of plenty have helped a renegade like albert. his blood still boiled when he remembered the boy's share in his political humiliation. he had shamed his father and his father's farm. let him rot! so albert's letter remained unanswered--caro felt that reuben was unjust. she had grown very critical of him lately, and a smarting dislike coloured her judgments. after all, it was he who had driven everybody to whatever it was that had disgraced him. he was to blame for robert's theft, for albert's treachery, for richard's base dependence on the bardons, for george's death, for benjamin's disappearance, for tilly's marriage, for rose's elopement--it was a heavy load, but caro put the whole of it on reuben's shoulders, and added, moreover, the tragedy of her own warped life. he was a tyrant, who sucked his children's blood, and cursed them when they succeeded in breaking free. caro had been much unhappier since rose's flight. she had loved her in an erratic envious way, and rose's gaiety and flutters of generosity had done much to brighten her humdrum life. now she was left to her brooding. she felt lonely and friendless. once or twice she went over to grandturzel, but the visits were always difficult to manage, and somehow the sight of her sister's happiness made her sore without enlivening her. it was only lately that her longing for love and freedom had become a torment. up till a year or two ago her desires had been merely wistful. now a restless hunger gnawed at her heart, setting her continually searching after change and brightness. she had come to hate her household duties and the care of the little boys. she wanted to dance--dance--dance--to dance at fairs and balls, to wear pretty clothes, and be admired and courted. why should she not have these things? she was not so ugly as many girls who had them. it was cruel that she should never have been allowed to know a man, never allowed to enjoy herself or have her fling. even the sons of the neighbouring farmers had been kept away from her--by her father, greedy for her work. tilly, by a lucky chance, had found a man, but lucky chances never came to caro. she saw herself living out her life as a household drudge, dying an old maid, all coarsened by uncongenial work, all starved of love, all sick of, yet still hungry for, life. sometimes she would be overwhelmed by self-pity, and would weep bitterly over whatever task she was doing at the time, so that her tears were quite a usual sauce to pies and puddings if only reuben had known it. the year passed, and the new year came, showing the farm still on the upward struggle, with everyone hard at work, and no one, except reuben, enjoying it particularly. luck again favoured odiam--the lambing of that spring was the best for years, and as the days grew longer the furrows bloomed with tender green sproutings, and hopes of another good harvest ran high. caro watched the year bud and flower--may came and creamed the hedges with blossom and rusted the grass with the first heats. then june whitened the fields with big moon-daisies and frothed the banks with chervil and fennel. the evenings were tender, languorous, steeped in the scent of hay. they hurt caro with their sweetness, so that she scarcely dared lift her eyes to the purpling twilight sky, or breathe the wind that swept up heavy with hay and roses from the fields. july did nothing to heal her--its yellow, heat-throbbing dawns smote her with despair--its noons were a long-drawn ache, and when in the evening hay and dust and drooping chervil troubled the air with shreds and ghosts of scent, something almost akin to madness would twist her heart. she felt as one whose memory calls and yet has nothing to remember, whose thoughts run to and fro and yet has nothing to think of, whose hopes pile themselves, and yet is hopeless, whose love cries out from the depths, and yet is loveless. one evening at the beginning of august she wandered out of the kitchen for a breath of fresh air in the garden before going up to bed. her head ached, and her cheeks burned from the fire. she did not know it, but the flush and fever made her nearly beautiful. she was not a bad-looking woman, though a trifle too dark and heavy-featured, and now the glow on her cheeks and the restless brilliancy of her eyes had kindled her almost into loveliness. she picked one or two roses that drooped untended against the fence, she held them to her breast, and the tears came into her eyes. it was nearly dark, and the lustreless cobalt sky held only one star--aldebaran, red above boarzell's firs. a puff of wind came from the west, and with it a snatch of song. someone was singing on the moor, and the far-away voice wove itself into the web of trouble and yearning that dimmed her heart. she moved down to the gate and leaned over it, while her eyes roved the twilight unseeing. the voice on the moor swelled clearer. it was a man's voice, low-pitched and musical: "farewell, farewell, you jolly young girls! we're off to rio bay!" she remembered that there had been a wedding at gablehook. one of the farmer's girls had married a rye fisherman, and this was probably a guest on his way home, a little the worse for drink. "at vera cruz the days are fine-- farewell to jane and caroline!" the song with its hearty callousness broke strangely into the dusk and caro's palpitating dreams. something about it enticed and troubled her; the singer was coming nearer. "at nombre de dios the skies are blue-- farewell to moll, farewell to sue!" she stood at the gate and could see him as a blot on the moor. he was coming towards odiam, and she watched him as he plunged through the heather, singing at the pitch of his lungs: "at santiago love is kind, and we'll forget those left behind-- so kiss us long, and kiss us well, polly and meg and kate and nell-- farewell, farewell, you jolly young girls! we're off to rio bay." he had struck the path that ran by the bottom of the garden, and swaggered along it with the seaman's peculiar rolling gait, accentuated by strong liquor. caro felt him coming nearer, and told herself uneasily that she had better go back into the house. he was drunk, and he might speak to her. still she did not move, she found herself clinging to the gate, leaning her breast against it, while her tongue felt thick and dry in her mouth. he was quite close--she could hear the thud of his step on the soft earth. her hands grasped the two gate-posts, and she leaned forward over the gate, so that her face caught the faint radiance that still lingered in the zenith. he had stopped singing, but she could see him now distinctly--a tall, loosely-built figure, with dark face, and woolly hair like a nigger's, while his seaman's earrings caught the starlight. he drew level with her, not seeing her. she did not move, she scarcely breathed, and he had almost passed her ... then suddenly his eyes turned and met hers. "hello, susan!" he stood swaying before her on his heels, his hands in his trouser-pockets, his head a little on one side. caro did not speak--she could not. "what time is it, dear?" "i--i dunno," she faltered, her voice sounding squeaky and unlike her own: "it might be nine." "it might be wales or madagasky, it might be rio de janeiro." he trolled, and caro was suddenly afraid lest someone should hear in the house. she glanced back uneasily over her shoulder. "papa on the look-out?" she coloured, and began to stutter something. "i've been to a wedding," he said conversationally; "a proper wedding with girls and kisses." he suddenly leaned over the gate and kissed caro on the lips. she gave a little scream and started back from him. for a moment earth, sky, and trees seemed to reel together in one crazy dance. she was conscious of nothing but the kiss, her first kiss; it had smelt and tasted strongly of brandy, if the truth were told, but it had none the less been a kiss, and her sacrament of initiation. she stood there in the darkness with parted lips and shining eyes. the dusk was kind to her, and she pleased the sailor. "come out for a walk," he said, and lifted the latch. caro trembled so that she could hardly move, and once again came the feeling that she ought to turn and run back into the house. but she was powerless in the clutch of her long-thwarted emotions. the tipsy sailor became god to her, and she followed him out on to the moor. after all he was not really drunk, only a little fuddled. he walked straight, and his roll was natural to him, while though he was exceedingly cheerful, and often burst into song, his words were not jumbled, and he generally seemed to have a fair idea of what he was saying. she wondered if she were awake--everything seemed so strange, so new, and yet paradoxically so natural. was she the same caro who had washed the babies and cooked the supper and resigned herself to dying an old maid? she could not ponder things, ask herself how it was that a man who had not known her ten minutes could love her--all she realised was his arm round her waist, and in her heart a seethe of happy madness. "when the stars are up above the main and winking in the sea, 'tis then i dream of thee, emilee! and my dreams are full of pain." --sang the sailor sentimentally. his arm crept up from her waist to her shoulder and lay heavy there. they strolled on along the narrow path, and the darkness stole down on them from the moor, wrapping them softly together. they told each other their names--his was joe dansay, and he was a sailorman of rye, who had been on many voyages to south america and the coral seas. he looked about twenty-five, though he was tanned and weather-beaten all over. his eyes were dark and foreign-looking, so was his hair. his mouth was a trifle too wide, his nose short and stubborn. he was now leaning heavily on caro as he walked, and too shy, and perhaps reluctant, to ask him to lift his arm, she naively suggested that they should sit down and rest. dansay was delighted--she was not the timid little bird he had thought, and directly they had sunk into the heather he seized her in his arms, and began kissing her violently on neck and lips. caro was frightened, horrified--she broke free, and scrambled to her feet. she nearly wept, and it was clear even to his muddled brain that her invitation had been merely the result of innocence more profound than that which had stimulated her shyness. rough seaman though he was, he was touched, and managed to soothe her, for she was too bashful and frightened to be really indignant. they walked a few yards further along the path, then at her request turned back towards odiam. they parted uneasily, without any arrangement to meet again. § . for the first few hours of her sleepless night, caro's happiness outweighed her regret. her mind sucked her little experience like a sugar-plum and filled her thoughts with sweetness. she lived over the adventure from its birth in a song on boarzell to its consummation in the blessedness of a kiss. afterwards it became a little smudged, a little terrifying, and the end had not been in keeping with the beginning. none the less, the fact remained that she had been kissed, that she had tasted at last of the glories of love, felt the touch of a man's lips, of his arm about her ... she was no longer without knowledge; when other women spoke of these things, an answering thrill would creep into her heart, and words of experience to her tongue. then she asked herself--would he come again? her joy seemed almost too divine to be renewed, she could hardly picture such a profanity as its repetition. yet as the night wore on, the question began to loom larger than all her blessed certainties--and with it came a growing tendency to dwell on the latter part of her experience, on the awkward aloofness of the walk home, and the uneasy parting at the gate. it struck her that she had been a fool to take fright at his violence. after all, if he loved her so much ... it was wonderful how quickly he had fallen in love, and quick things are more apt to be violent than slow ones. besides, men were inclined to be rough and fierce by nature. thus she reassured and reproached herself. perhaps she had driven him away, perhaps her timidity had made him doubt her love. perhaps she had been too squeamish. after all.... she rose the next morning with a bad headache and her eyes staring rather plaintively out of black saucers. none the less she was happy, even in spite of her regrets. she loved and had been loved, so she told herself over and over again as she dressed david and bill and prepared the breakfast. why, even if, when he got home, joe dansay discovered that he did not really love her, she would still have had his love, and as for herself, she would go on loving him for ever--"for ever and ever and ever," she repeated in a low, trembling voice as she cut her father's bacon. during the rest of the day it was the same--she moved in a kind of exalted dream. the most common objects thrilled her, and gave her unexpected tokens of divinity. her work was consuming, her leisure beatific. the children loved her, for that day she could do what she had never done properly to their mind, and that is--play; while with harry, dribbling and muttering, she was tender, as no one but naomi had been. towards evening uneasiness sprang up again, with the old question--would he return? she told herself that if he did, she would not hold back, she would not let her inexperience and timidity rob her or him of their love. she would let him kiss her as he pleased--love was too good a thing to risk for a few qualms. but would he come?--would he give her the chance of reparation? the sun dipped behind castweasel, the hot sky cooled into a limpid green--stars specked it in the north, and the moon came up behind iden woods, huge and dim. caro ran out once or twice into the garden; the flowers hung pale and stirless on their stems, and from the orchard, full of the babble of a hidden wind, came a faint scent of plums. the old walls of odiam seemed to smell of the sunshine they had caught and held during the day. the gable-ends broke into the stars, and the windows gleamed in the yellowing light of the moon. up towards the south the mass of boarzell rose hullish and deserted--far away at ellenwhorne a dog was barking, but all else was still. § . there was no doubt that joe dansay had got drunk at willie tailleur's wedding. the fact was cruelly emphasised by the headache with which he woke up the next morning. he thought it very hard luck, for after all, he had not got nearly so drunk as he might have, as he often had. however, he had been forced into abstinence by a long voyage from sierra leone, and put down his sufferings to nature's mutiny at such an unwholesome state of affairs. at present he lodged with some relations in watchbell street, and round him were all the dansays and tailleurs and espinettes and perrots, the rye fisher tribe, of french origin--which was still traceable in their names, in their brown eyes, and the sensitiveness of their mouths. he nearly always went to his people between voyages, for the rye girls took his fancy. there was at this moment a charmer in wish ward on whom a good part of his pay had already been spent. sometimes he went out in his uncle bob dansay's fishing boat, for he was not above handling a net between his ventures on the high seas. he mumbled curses as he dressed, and bathed his head in cold water. he did not deserve this visitation--usually he regarded an after-debauch headache as one of the marvellous acts of providence, in which he, like most sailormen, believed with a faith which though conveniently removed from works was deeply tinged with admiration. but yesterday he had not been really drunk--why, he could remember nearly everything that had happened, the dancing, the songs, the girls, how he had walked home singing "rio bay," and how he had met that queer girl at the farmhouse gate, and thought he was going to have some fun with her and been disappointed. though he had spent, on and off, some years in rye, he had seen very little of the surrounding country, and did not know that odiam was the farm of his adventure. caro had told him her name, and he had heard of ben backfield, but did not remember much about him. the episode did not affect him very deeply. at dinner he asked his aunt the name of backfield's farm, and forgot it as he walked down wish ward that evening, wearing his best guernsey and breeches, his hands in his pockets, his pipe in his mouth, his earrings glittering in the forest of his hair. his headache had passed off, and he felt a man again; so he sought the woman. she lived in a small old house wedged tight between two new ones; her window was dark, and her threshold silent, though he knocked again and again. he walked up and down once or twice in front of the cottage whistling "ropes and rum"--perhaps she had gone to do some shopping; he saw himself sitting down to a feast of pickled herrings in her kitchen. then when he was about a hundred feet from the house the door opened stealthily and a man slunk out. the gleam of a street lamp passed over his face, and dansay rushed at him with his fists up. the story of joe dansay has nothing to do with us except so far as it affects caro backfield, so there will be no digression to explain why he and albert cock fought each other up and down wish ward till the police came running up and hauled them off to gaol. the next morning he came before the magistrate, and was fined ten shillings and costs or fourteen days. he was able to find the money, but it was not the fine which made him drag his footsteps and hang his head as he walked home, it was the sight of his victim of the night before leaving the court arm-in-arm with a certain pretty witness. evening came, the dusk fell, stars floated up out of the mists that piled themselves along the shore, the bleat of sheep came from the marsh, and the eye of dungeness lighthouse flashed off the point into the fogs. inland the country was wrapt in a tender haze, perfumed with hops and harvest. the moon rose above the fivewatering, and bronzed the dark masses of wood huddling northward. the scented wind seemed to sigh to him of a woman's hair and lips, of the softness of a woman's hand in his, of her silly little voice talking love and nonsense. but the house in wish ward was shut to him--perfidious woman had added yet another perfidy to her score. for about the twentieth time his love dream had been shattered. now she was eating pickled herrings with another man. a kind of defiance, a kind of swagger possessed him. he would show her and himself how little he cared. he would find another woman this very night. he remembered the dark-browed, demure little thing of the farmhouse gate. he would go back to her, and she would not be so timid this time--they never were. § . "oh, i thought you wur never coming back." she murmured it over and over again as he kissed her, and she clung to him like a child. there was something about her words and about herself as she quivered in his arms that touched him inexpressibly. he swore that he loved her, and forgot all about the woman in wish ward. that evening caro remembered her own counsels and did not draw back from his love. she let him kiss her as much as he chose, though he saw with amusement that he frightened her sometimes. they wandered on boarzell through webs of star-fretted mist, they drank the night together, and sacramental silences. it was only when she realised that her father would be shutting up the house that caro was able to tear herself away, and this time they parted with many kisses and vows to meet again. he came nearly every night. if she was not at the gate he would whistle a few bars of "rio bay," and she would steal out as soon as she could do so without rousing suspicion. boarzell became theirs, their accomplice in some subtle, beautiful way. there was a little hollow on the western slope where they would crouch together and sniff the apricot scent of the gorse, which was ever afterwards to be the remembrancer of their love, and watch the farmhouse lights at castweasel gleam and gutter beside ramstile woods. sometimes he would talk to her of the strange voyages he had made--how he had lived on ships ever since he was a boy of twelve, and had seen nearly the whole world, from the fiery steaming forests of equador to the northern lights that make a mock day in spitzbergen. he told her strange tales of wooded atolls in the south seas, painting a fairyland she had scarcely dreamed, of palms motionless in the aromatic air, of pink and white shores, and lagoons full of fish all winged and frilled and iridescent--of the sudden swift sunrises and sunsets between cancer and capricorn, of the great ice-wall in the south, below tasmania, which he had longed to penetrate, for who knew what lay beyond it in the unknown? "and there's another like it what i've seen from franz josef land--maybe there's countries beyond it, with gold." then he told her of the terrible storms south of the horn, of the uncharted nelson strait--of northern baffin land, where he had once gone on a whaler, of rio grande and the buried city of tenoctitlan--"where there's gold." gold seemed to be hidden in large quantities all over the world according to dansay, and caro once asked him why he had never brought any back. "because i love what's better than gold," he answered, and drew her, happy and quivering, into his arms. she became inexpressibly dear to him during those meetings. her timidity and innocence charmed him so completely that he preserved them longer than he had at first felt inclined to do. his vanity was tickled to think that though she was past thirty he was the first man who had kissed her. she was not bad-looking, either, with her straight black brows and huge eyes--in spite of toil she did not look her years, and during the weeks of his courtship she seemed to grow younger and prettier, she grew daintier. yet she largely retained the qualities that had first attracted him, her admiration for him was unbounded and guilelessly expressed--she would listen in tender reverence to his yarns, and received his caresses with a humble gratitude that went straight to his heart. as for caro, life was a rainbow dream. the hardships of the day were gladly lived through in expectation of the joys of the evening. she felt very few qualms of conscience, even when the barrier was past which she had thought impassable. somehow love seemed to alter her whole point of view, or rather stripped her of one altogether--after all, her point of view had never been more than the acceptance of other people's. besides, there were things in love that she had never guessed; nobody had ever done anything to make her realise that there was beauty in it--rose's flirtations, her father's jealous passion had never suggested such a thing. but now her life was brimmed with beauty, unimaginable beauty that welled up into the commonest things and suffused them with light. also, about it all was that surprising sense of naturalness; which almost always comes to women when they love for the first time, the feeling of "for this i was born." sometimes she would have anxious moments, a strange sense of fear. "i'm a bad woman," she would repeat to herself, and she would dread the thought of her sister tilly. but the terrors did not last, they were driven away by the remembrance of what her life had been before she met joe--its drabness, its aimless toil, its lassitude, its humiliations. she would have been a fool to spurn her golden chance when it came. it had been her only chance; after all it was not as if she ever could have married. she had had to choose between the life she had led up to that august evening and the life she was leading now, and she could not regret her choice. she never asked dansay to marry her. he had given her pretty clearly to understand that he was not a marrying man, and she was terrified of doing or saying anything that might turn him against her. one of the things about her that charmed him most was the absence of all demand upon him. she never asked for presents, and the few things he bought her stimulated both her humble gratitude and her alarm lest he should have spent too much money. one day he suggested that he should take her to boarzell fair. "oh, joe, would you really!" "of course, if you can manage it without us being spotted." "i reckon i cud, for fäather äun't going this year, he's got an auction at appledore." "then you come along; i'll take you, and we'll have some fun." "but i döan't want you to waste your money." "it won't be wasting it. why, lord love ye, i'd rather spend it on you than anything in the world." her look of surprise and adoration was his reward. § . boarzell fair was in many ways a mark of the passage of the years and a commentary on history. not only did the atmosphere and persons of it change very much as the nineteenth century changed, but the side-shows were so many lights cast on popular opinion, politics, and progress. for instance, in the year , the panorama which had started with the battle of trafalgar and the royal gardens of vauxhall, now gave thrilling if belated episodes of the siege of paris, and a gorgeous picture of the queen being declared empress of india at delhi. the merry-go round not only went by steam, but was accompanied by a steam organ playing "the swell commercial" and "married to a mermaid" unfalteringly from noon till night. in the shooting gallery men potted mr. gladstone, mr. dillon, and charles peace, instead of the russian czar or nana sahib of their youth, or the hated boney of their fathers. it all moved with the times, and yet remained four or five years behind them. one came in contact with movements which had just ebbed from the country, waves that had rolled back everywhere except in these lonely rural districts where interests and hatreds came later and lingered longer than in more accessible parts. the population had altered too. old gideon teazel had died some years ago, and his son jasper was boss in his place. he was unlike his father both in character and physique, an undersized little ruffian, seasoned by a long career in horse-stealing, who beat his wife openly on the caravan steps, and boasted that he had landed more flats at thimble-rig than any thimble-engro in england. he would have cheated the shirt off any man at the show, and established a sort of ascendancy through sheer dread of his cunning. the only man who did not fear him was mexico bill, a half-breed in charge of the cocoanut shie. mexico bill feared only the man who could knock him out, and that man had not yet been found in boarzell fair. as a matter of fact he was usually pretty genial and docile, but he had been wounded in the head by indians long ago, and sometimes went mad and ran amok. on these occasions the only thing to do was to trip him up, and enrol as many volunteers as possible to sit on him till he came to his senses. there was no longer any fiddler at the fair. harry backfield's successor had been a hurdy-gurdy which played dance music louder and more untiringly than any human arm could do. dancing was still a vital part of the festivities, but it was more decorous than in the days when reuben and naomi had danced together to the tune of "seth's house," or robert and bessie to "my decided decision." only in the evening it became rowdy, when the sun had set and the mists had walled in the show with nacreous battlements. joe and caro joined the dancers on their arrival. it was the first time in her life that caro had danced at the fair, and the experience thrilled her as wonderfully as if it had not been just a link in the chain of a hundred new experiences. the hurdy-gurdy was playing "see me dance the polka," and off they skipped, to steps of their own, betraying in dansay's case a hornpipe origin. she saw people that she knew, but had no fear of betrayal, unless from pete, who was, however, safe in the fighting-booth, now conveniently banished by public opinion to the outskirts of the fair. pete would "tell on" her, she knew, but no one else cared enough for reuben to betray his daughter to him. she looked with kindly eyes on all the world as her accomplice--that all the world loves a lover is primarily the lover's point of view. besides, she was lost in the crowd which jigged and clumped around her, not even daunted by the unfamiliar waltz that the hurdy-gurdy struck up next. nobody, except fanatics, bothered about steps, so one could dance to any tune. in time caro grew tired, and they wandered off to the shooting-gallery and the merry-go-round. they patronised the cocoanut shie, and won a gilt saucer at the hoop-là stall. in the gipsy's tent caro was told that she would ride in a carriage with a lord, and have six fine children, all boys, while dansay was promised such wealth that he would be able to throw gold to crossing-sweepers. they sat in the panorama till it stuck fast at a gorgeous tableau of britannia ruling the waves from what looked like a bath chair. joe bought caro a pie at the refreshment stall, and himself ate many beef rolls. she was overwhelmed by the lavish way he spent his money, and quite relieved for his sake when they went back to the dancing green. the day had slipped by, and twilight was settling down on the fair. the stalls flared up, a red glow streamed into the sky, and patched the shagginess of boarzell's firs with crimson shreds. the dancing had become more disorderly, the decent folk had retired, and left the madder element to its revels. the mass of the dancers was blurred, confused in the grey smeeth. it seemed to invite joe and caro, for now in the thick of it one could give and take surreptitious kisses; some of the kisses were not even surreptitious--the love-making was becoming nearly as open as in the days when reuben and naomi had danced together. caro was no longer shocked at the "goings-on," which had used to scandalise her in earlier years when she knew them scarcely more than by hearsay. her very innocence had made her easier to corrupt, and she now joined in the revel with a delight scarcely less abandoned, if more naïve, than that of the cottage wantons who bumped round her. it was all so new, and yet so natural, this kicking and capering to a jigging tune. who would have imagined that the lonely bitter caro, enviously watching the fun in earlier years, should now have both a partner and a lover? she laughed like a child at the thought. then suddenly her laughter died; her expression became fixed, and she swayed a little in joe's arms, as she stared into the crowd of spectators. they were on the outskirts of the dancers, and quite close to them stood pete. he had come out of the fighting-booth, still in his bruiser's dressing-gown, evidently to watch the fun. he was looking straight at caro as she danced dishevelled, and both he and dansay knew that he had recognised her. they saw his lips tighten, and an angry look came on his face which his profession had not made more benevolent than nature intended. "quick," muttered joe, and he guided her cleverly enough through the pack of dancers, leading her out on the opposite side. "oh, joe, he's seen us." dansay bit his lip--he was afraid so. caro began to cry. "my fäather will kill me, surelye." she knew for certain that pete would tell him, and then almost quite as certainly she would lose the adventure which had become life itself to her. she would be driven back into the old prison, the old loneliness, the old despair. she clung to dansay, weeping and frantic: "oh, joe--döan't let them find me. i can't lose you--i wöan't lose you--i love you so." he was leading her away from the people, to the back of the stalls. he was nearly as miserable and aghast as she. for he had become extraordinarily fond of her during those few weeks, and the thought of losing her turned him cold. he had been a fool to bring her to the fair. "you must come away with me," he said abruptly. "oh, joe!" it was a bold step, but he saw that none other would serve, and he realised that she was not the kind of woman to take advantage of him and make herself a permanent encumbrance. "yes--there's nothing for it but that. we'll go down and stay at the camber. you'll be safe with me, and i've got a little money put by." considering how much she had already given him, it was perhaps strange that she shuddered a little at this open venture. "you'll be good to me, joe!" "won't i, just!" something in the wistfulness and humility of her appeal had touched him to the heart; he clasped her to him with a passion for once free from roughness, and for one moment at least had every intention of sticking to her for ever. § . it was not from pete that reuben first heard of his daughter's goings-on. caro's benevolent trust in humanity had been misplaced, and at the seven bells where he called for a refresher on arriving at rye station, various stragglers from boarzell eagerly betrayed her, "just to see how he wud täake it." reuben received the news with the indifference due to outsiders. but he was not so calm when pete told his tale at odiam. "the bitch," he growled, "i'll learn her. dancing wud a sailor, you say she wur, pete?" "yes," said pete, "and wud her hair all tumbling." "i'll learn her," repeated reuben. but he never had the chance. by the time the two males had sat up till about three or four the next morning, they came to the conclusion that caro must have seen pete watching her and run away. "she'll never come back," said pete that evening--"you täake my word fur it." "that's another of my daughters gone fur a whore." "who wur the fust?" "why tilly--goes off wud that lousy pig-keeper up at grandturzel. she's no better than caro." "and there wur rose," added pete, anxious to supply instances. reuben swore at him. he felt caro's disappearance more acutely than he would allow to show. first, she had left him badly in the lurch in household matters--he had to engage a woman to take her place, and pay her wages. also she had caused a scandal in the neighbourhood, which meant more derisive fingers pointed at odiam. pete was now the only one left of his original family--his children and their runnings-away had become a byword in peasmarsh. in the course of time he heard that caro was living with joe dansay down at the camber, but he made no effort to bring her back. "i'm shut of her," he told everyone angrily. if caro preferred a common sailor and loose living to the dignity and usefulness of her position at odiam, he was not going to interfere. besides, she had disgraced his farm, and he would never forgive that. it struck him that his relations with women had been singularly unfortunate. caro, tilly, rose, alice, had all been failures--indeed he had come to look back on naomi as his only success. women were all the same, without ambition, without self-respect, ready to lick the boots of the first person who stroked them and was silly enough not to see through their wiles. during those days he spent most of his time digging on boarzell. it relieved him to thrust viciously into the red dripping clay, turn in on his spade, and fling it back over his shoulder. it was strange that so few men realised that work was better than women--stranger still that they did not realise how much better than a woman's beauty was the beauty of the earth. toiling there on the moor, reuben's heart gave itself more utterly to its allegiance. the curves of boarzell against the sky, its tuft of firs, its hummocked slopes, its wet life-smelling earth, even its savagery of heather, gorse, and thorn brought healing to his heart, and strength. caro and other women could do what they chose, love, hate, follow, cheat, and betray whom they chose, as long as they left him the red earth and the labour of his hands. § . early the next year reuben heard that caro and her lover had left camber, and gone no one knew where, but by that time the elapse of months had dulled his feelings on the matter, and caro, never very important in herself, was buried under the concerns of his farm. odiam, after superhuman efforts, was looking up again. years of steady work and strenuous economy had restored it to something like its former greatness. reuben was no longer hampered by an extravagant wife, and he also had the advantage of a clear field. for at last grandturzel had given up the battle. realf and tilly were now the parents of four healthy, growing, hungry children, and had come to the conclusion that domestic happiness was better than agricultural triumph. they were contented with their position on a farm of considerable importance and fair prosperity. they took no risks, but lived happily with each other and their children, satisfied that they could comfortably rear and educate their little family, and leave it an inheritance which, if not dazzling, was not to be despised. this was an infinite relief to reuben. he was now no longer under the continual necessity of going one better than somebody else--he could rebuild along his own lines, and economise in the way he chose. however, this very convenient behaviour of grandturzel did nothing to soften his resentment. tilly and realf were, and were always to be, unforgiven. sometimes he could see that they seemed inclined to be friendly--realf would touch his hat to him if they met, and perhaps tilly would smile--but reuben was not to be won by such treacly tactics. it was largely owing to the rivalry of grandturzel that ruin had nearly swallowed him up four years ago--and he would never be weak enough to forget it. meantime it was soothing to contemplate the result of his efforts. after all, his own striving had done more for him than any slackness or grass-fed contentment on the part of grandturzel. his greatest achievement was the paying off of his mortgage, which he managed in the spring of ' . now he could once more begin saving money to buy another piece of boarzell. there was something both novel and exhilarating about this return to old ways. it was over ten years since he had bought any land, but now were renewed all the ticklish delights of calculation, all the plannings and layings-out, all the contrivances and scrapings and wrestlings. there were still about two hundred acres to acquire, including the grandturzel inclosure, on which, however, he looked more hopefully than of old. he had so far subdued not more than about a hundred and forty acres--most of the northern slope of boarzell adjoining odiam and totease, and also a small tract on the flightshot side. this was not very encouraging, for it represented the labours of two-thirds of a lifetime, and at the same time left him with more than half his task still unaccomplished. if it had not been for his setback ten years ago he would now probably have over two hundred and fifty acres to his credit. but he told himself that he would progress more quickly now. also, though he had not enlarged his boundaries during the last ten years, he had considerably improved the quality of the land within them. the first acquired parts of boarzell were nearly as fruitful and richly cultivated as the original lands of the farm, and even the ' ground was showing signs of coming into subjection. besides, reuben had now a respectable herd of cattle--not quite so numerous or valuable as the earlier lot which had been sacrificed, but none the less respectable, and bringing him in good returns. he had made some sound profit out of his service-bull, and his sheep were paying better than they had paid for years. he no longer "kept" other people's cattle. odiam, whether in stock or cash, was now inviolate. soon the rumour spread round peasmarsh that backfield was going to buy some more land. reuben himself had started it. "he's done better nor he desarved," said coalbran of doozes. "he's warked fur it all the same, surelye," said cooper of kitchenhour. "he's worked like the old un fur the last five year," said dunn, the new man at socknersh. "well, let's hope as he's found it worth while now as he's lost two wives and eight children," was the sage comment of old vennal of burntbarns. then the conversation wandered from reuben's successes to the price he had paid for them, which proved more interesting and more comforting to those assembled. at flightshot the squire viewed odiam's recovery with some uneasiness. it would be a good thing for him if he could sell more land to old backfield, but at the same time his conscience was restless about it. backfield was a rapacious old hound, who forced the last ounce of work out of his labourers, and the last ounce of money out of his tenants. he was a hard master and a hard landlord, and ought not to be encouraged. all the same, bardon did not see how he was to avoid encouraging him. if backfield applied for the land it would be suicidal folly to refuse to sell it. he was in desperate straits for money. he had appealed to anne, who had money of her own, but anne's reply had been frigid. she wrote:-- "i do not see my way to helping flightshot while i have so many other calls upon me. richard is still unsettled, and unable entirely to support himself. i should be a poor friend indeed if after having induced my protégé to abandon his home and rely on me, i should forsake him before he was properly established. be a man, ralph, and refuse to sell any more land to that greedy, selfish, unscrupulous old backfield." but ralph only sighed--it was all very well for anne to talk! § . except for a steady maintenance of prosperity by dint of hard work, the year was uneventful. autumn passed, and nothing broke the strenuous monotony of the days, not even news of the absent children. then came an evening in winter when reuben, pete, and harry were sitting in front of the kitchen fire. reuben and his son were half asleep, harry was mumbling to himself and playing with a piece of string. a great quiet was wrapped round the house, and a great darkness, pricked by winking stars. the barns were shut, the steamings of the midden were nipped by brooding frosts--now and then the dull movements of some stalled animal could be heard, but only from the yard; in the house there was silence except for the singing fire, and harry's low muttering which seldom rose into words. then suddenly there was a knock at the door. reuben started, and pete awoke noisily. harry was frightened and dropped his string, crying because he could not find it. the knock came again, and this time pete crossed the room yawning, and opened the door. for a moment he stood in front of it, while the icy wind swept into the room. then he dashed back to reuben's chair. "fäather--it's albert!" reuben sprang to his feet. he was still only half awake, and he rubbed his eyes as he stared at the figure framed in the doorway. then suddenly he pulled himself together. "come in, and shut the door behind you." the figure did not move. reuben took a step towards it, and then it tottered forward, and to his horror fell against him, almost bearing him to the floor. pete, who had recovered his faculties to some extent, helped support his brother. but he had fainted clean away, and the only thing to do was to let him down as gently as possible. "lordy!" said pete, and stooped over albert, his hands on his knees. "you're sure that's albert?" asked reuben, though he really did not doubt it for a moment. "course i am. that's his face sure enough, though he's as thin as wire." "it's nigh fifteen year since he went away. wot did he want to come back fur?" "i reckon he's half starved--and he looks ill too." "well, he's swooneded away, anyhow. can't you do something to mäake him sensible?" "poor feller," said pete, and scratched his head. reuben was irritated by this display of sentiment. "you needn't go pitying him, nuther--he's a lousy radical traitor. you do something to mäake him sensible and out he goes." at this juncture albert opened his eyes. "hullo," he said feebly. "hullo," said pete. something in his brother's pitiable condition seemed to have touched him. albert sat up--then asked for some water. pete fetched a jug, which he held awkwardly to albert's lips. then he helped him to a chair, and began to unlace his boots. "stop that," shouted reuben--"he äun't to stay here." "you'll let me stop the night," pleaded albert. "i'll explain things when i'm better. i can't now." "you can go to the cocks--i wöan't have you in my house." "but i haven't got a penny--cleaned myself out for my railway ticket. i've walked all the way from the station, and my lungs are bad." "wot did you come here fur?" "it struck me that you might have some natural affection." "me!--fur a hemmed radical! you'd better have saved your money, young feller--i'm shut of you." "if you're still harping on my politics," said albert fretfully, "you needn't worry. either side can go to the devil, for all i care. i suppose it's natural to brood over things down here, but in london one forgets a rumpus fifteen years old." "i'll never disremember the way you shamed me in ' ." "i don't ask you to disremember anything. only let me have supper and a bed, and to-morrow----" a fit of coughing interrupted him. he strained and shook from head to foot. he had no handkerchief, and spat blood on the floor. "fäather!" cried pete, "you can't turn him out lik this." "he's shamming," said reuben. "quite so," said albert, who seemed to have learned sarcasm in exile--"hæmorrhage is so deuced easy to sham." "he's come back to git money out of me," said reuben, "but he shan't have a penny--i've none to spare." "i don't ask for that to-night--all i ask is food and shelter, same as you'd give to a dog." "well, i'll leave you to pete," said reuben, and walked out of the room. he considered this the more dignified course, and went upstairs to bed. the brothers were left alone, except for harry, who was busy imitating albert's cough, much to his own satisfaction. pete fetched some soup from the larder and heated it up to a tepid condition; he also produced bread and cold bacon, which the prodigal could not touch. albert sat hunched up by the fire, coughing and shivering. he had not altered much since he left odiam; he was thin and hectic, and had an unshaved look about him, also there were a few grey streaks in his hair--otherwise he was the same. his manner was the same too, though his voice had changed completely, and he had lost his sussex accent. pete ministered to him with a strange devotion, which he carried finally to the pitch of putting him into his own bed. the absence of so many of the children did not make much more room in the house, as reuben's ideas on sleeping had always been compact--also there were the little boys, the new dairy woman, and a big store of potatoes. pete's large untidy bed was the only available accommodation, and albert was glad of it, for he had reached the last stage of exhaustion. "i bet you anything," he said before he fell asleep, "that now i'm here the old boy won't be able to turn me out, however much he wants to." § . whether reuben would have succeeded or not is uncertain, for he was never put to the proof. the next day albert was feverish and delirious, and the doctor had to be sent for. he cheerfully gave the eldest backfield three months to live--his lungs were in a dreadful state, one completely gone, the other partly so. he had caught a chill, too, walking in the dark and cold. there could be no thought of moving him. so albert stayed in pete's room, almost entirely ignored by his father. after some consideration, reuben had come to the conclusion that this was the most dignified attitude to adopt. now and then, when he was better, he sent him up some accounts to do, as it hurt him to think of his son lying idle week after week; but he never went near him, and albert would never have willingly crossed his path. those were not the days of open windows and fresh-air cures, so there was no especial reason why he should ever leave the low-raftered stuffy room, where he would lie by the hour in a frowsty dream of sickness, broken only by fits of coughing and hæmorrhage. his return had created a mild stir in the neighbourhood, and in reuben's breast, despite circumstances and appearances, many thrills of gratification. albert's penniless and broken condition was but another instance of the folly of those who deserted odiam. none of the renegades, reuben told himself, had prospered. here was albert come home to die; robert, after a prelude in gaol, had exiled himself to australia, where the droughts lasted twenty years; richard, in spite of studyings and strivings and spendings, had only an occasional brief, and was unable to support himself at thirty-five; tilly was living on a second-rate farm instead of a first-rate one; caro was living in sin; benjamin was probably not living at all. there was no denying it--they had all done badly away from odiam. however, he refused all temptations to discuss this latest prodigal. if anyone asked him how his son was doing, he would answer, "i dunno; ask pete--he's the nurse." pete's attitude was reuben's chief perplexity. it is true that in early years albert seemed to have exercised a kind of fascination over his younger brothers and sisters; still that was long ago, and pete did not appear to have given him a thought in the interval. but now he suddenly developed an almost maternal devotion for the sick and broken albert. he would sit up whole nights with him in spite of the toils of the day, he trod lumberingly about on tiptoe in his presence, he read to him by the sweat of his brow. something in his brother's weakness and misery seemed to have appealed to his clumsy strength. the root of sentimentality which is always more or less encouraged by a brutal career was quickened in his heart, and sprouted to an extent that would have mystified the many he had bashed. it perplexed and irritated his father. to see pete hulking about on tiptoe, carrying jugs of water and cups of milk, shutting doors with grotesque precaution, and perpetually telling someone upstairs in a voice hoarse with sympathy that he "wurn't to vrother, as he'd be better soon"--was a foolish and maddening spectacle. also reuben dreaded that pete would scamp his farm work, so he fussed round after everything he did, and called him from albert's bedside times without number to hoe turnips or guide the plough. however, someone had to look after the invalid, and pete might as well do it as anybody else--as long as he realised that his sick-nursing was a recreation, and not a substitute for his duties on the farm. spring came on, and albert grew worse. pete began to look haggard; even his bullish strength was faltering under sleepless nights, days of moil and sweat, and constant attendance on the sick man. the dairy-women helped a little, but what they did they did unwillingly; and as the dairy was short-handed, reuben did not like them to take up any extra work. pete's existence was a continual round of anxiety and contrivance, and he was not used to either. there was also another depressing factor. as he felt his end approaching albert began to develop a conscience and remorse. he said he had wasted his life, and as time wore on and he became weaker he passed from the general to the particular. the memory of certain sins tormented him, and he used pete as his confessor. pete was a very innocent soul. he had spoilt many a man's beauty for him, but he had never been the slave of a woman's. he had broken arms and ribs, and noses by the score--and he had once nearly killed a man, and only just escaped being arrested for manslaughter; but he had remained through it all an innocent soul. he had always lived in the open air, always worked hard, always fought hard--his recreations had been whistling and sleep. he had never thought about sin or evil of any kind, he had never troubled about sex except as it manifested itself in the brutes he had the care of, he had never read or talked bawdry. all the energies of his nature had been poured into hard work and hard blows. therefore the confessions of a man like albert came upon him as a revelation. indeed, at first he scarcely understood them. they disquieted him and sometimes made him nervous and miserable, not because he had any very definite moral recoil, but because they forced him to think. few can gauge the tragedy of thinking when it visits an unthinking soul. for the first time in his life pete found himself confused, questioning, lying awake of nights and asking "why?" the world suddenly showed itself to him as a place which he could not understand. it frightened him to think about it. sometimes he was acutely miserable, but he would not betray his misery to albert, as the poor fellow seemed to find relief in his confidences. and on and on the stream flowed, swifter and muddier every day. § . at last matters reached a climax. it was late in march; albert was much worse, and even the doctor looked solemn. "he won't last till the summer," he said in answer to one of pete's questions, and unluckily the sick man heard him. when pete went back into the room he found him struggling under the bedclothes, the sweat trickling down his face. "pete!" he cried chokingly--"i won't die!--i won't die!" "and you wöan't, nuther," said pete, soothing him. "but i heard what the doctor said to you." pete was at a loss. he could lie if the lie were not too constructive, but in a case like this he was done for. "well, döan't you fret, nohow," he murmured tenderly. but it was no good telling albert not to fret. he threw himself from side to side in the bed, moaned, and almost raved. for months now he had known that he must die soon, but somehow the idea had not really come home to him till this moment. he would not let pete leave him, though there was a load of mangolds to be brought in; he clung to his brother's hand like a child, and babbled of strange sins. "i've been so wicked--i daren't die. i've been the lowest scum. i'm lost. pete, i'm damned--i shall go to hell." albert had been known openly to scoff at hell, whereas pete had never thought much about it. now it confronted them both under a new aspect--the scoffer trembled and the thoughtless was preoccupied. "döan't fret," reiterated poor pete, desperate under the fresh complication of theology, "i reckon you're not bad enough to go to hell, surelye." "but i'm the worst--the worst that ever was. i'm scum, i'm dirt"--and out poured more of the turbid stream, till pete sickened. "if i could only see a parson," sobbed albert at last. "a parson?" "yes--maybe he could comfort me. oh, i know i've mocked 'em and scoffed 'em all my life, but i reckon they could do summat for me now." in his weakness he had gone back not only to the religious terrors of his youth, but to the sussex dialect he had long forgotten. pete scarcely knew what to do. he had become used to his brother's gradual disintegration, but this utter collapse was terrifying. he offered his own ministrations. "you've told me a dunnamany things, and you can tell me as many more as you justabout like"--touching the climax of self-sacrifice. but albert's weak mind clung to its first idea with scared tenacity. he was still raving about it when pete came in from his work that evening. "i want a parson," he moaned, throwing himself about the bed, and his terrors seemed to grow upon him as the darkness grew. neither of them slept that night. albert was half delirious, and obsessed by the thought of hell. the room looked out on boarzell, and he became convinced that the swart, tufted mass outlined against the sprinkled stars was hell, the country of the lost. he pictured himself wandering over and over it in torment. he said he saw fire on it, scaring the superstitious pete out of his life. "on the great moor of the lost wander all the proud and dead-- those who brothers' blood have shed, those who brothers' love have crossed." he broke into his own verse, pouring it out deliriously: "there's the shuddering ghost of me lips all black with fire and brine, chained between the libertine and the fasting pharisee." then he became obsessed by the idea that he was out on the moor, wandering on it, and bound to it. the earth was red-hot under his feet, and he picked them up off the bed like a cat on hot bricks, till pete began to laugh inanely. he saw round him all the places he had known as a child, and called out for them, because he longed to escape to them from the burning moor--"castweasel! castweasel!... ramstile!... ellenwhorne...." it was strange to hear a man calling out the names of places in his fever as other men might call the names of people. it was all a return to albert's childhood. in spite of fifteen years in london, of a man's work and a man's love and a man's faith, he had gone back completely to the work and love and faith of his childhood. odiam had swallowed him up, it had swallowed him up completely, his very hell was bounded by it. he spoke with a sussex accent; he forgot the names of the women he had loved, and cried instead the names of places, and he forgot that he did not believe in hell, but thought of it as boarzell moor punctured by queer singing flames. pete lay and listened shuddering, waiting with sick desire for the kindling of the dawn and the whiteness that moved among the trees. at last they came, the sky bloomed, and the orchard flickered against it, stirred by a soundless wind. the poor fellow sat up in bed, all troubled and muddled by things that had never touched him before. he stretched himself and yawned from force of habit, for he was not in the least sleepy, then he began to dress. "what is it?" mumbled albert, himself again for a moment. "i'm going to fetch a parson," said pete. it was very gallant of him to do so, for it meant venturing still further into new spheres of thought. none of the backfields had been to church for years, though reuben prided himself on being a good churchman, and pete was rather at a loss what to do in a ghostly crisis such as this. however, on one thing he was resolved--that he would not go through another night like the last, and he credited a parson with mysterious cabalistic powers which would miraculously soothe the invalid and assure him of sleep in future. so he tramped off towards the rectory, wondering a little what he should say when he got there, but leaving it to the inspiration of the moment. he warmed his honest heart with thoughts of albert sleeping peacefully and dying beautifully, though it chilled him a little to think of death. why could not albert live?--pete would have liked to think of him lying for years and years in that big untidy bed, pathetic and feeble, and always claiming by his weakness the whole strength that a day of unresting toil had left his brother. the morning flushed. a soft pink crept into ponds and dawn-swung windows. the light perfumes of april softened the cold, clear air--the scent of sprouting leaves in the woods, and of primroses in the grass, while the anemones frothed scentless against the hedges. pete was about half a mile from the village when he heard the sound of angry voices round a bend in the lane, pricked by little screams from a woman. expecting a fight he hurried up eagerly, and was just in time to see one of the grandest upper cuts in his life. a short, well-built man in black had just knocked down a huge, hulking tramp who had evidently been improving the hour with a woman now blotted against the hedge. he lay flat in the road, unconscious, while his adversary stood over him, his fist still clenched and all the skin off his knuckles. "lordy! but that wur justabout präaper!" cried pete, bustling up, and sorry that the tramp showed no signs of getting on to his feet. "it's settled him anyhow," said the man in black. they both stooped and eyed him critically. "you've landed him in a good pläace," said pete; "a little farther back and he'd have been gone." "praise be to god that his life was spared." pete looked in some surprise at the bruiser, who continued: "i'm out of practice, or i shouldn't have skinned myself like this--ah, here's coalbran's trap. perhaps he'll give you a lift, ma'am, into peasmarsh." the woman was helped into the trap, and after some discussion it was decided not to give themselves the trouble of taking the tramp to the police station, but to pull him to the side of the road and leave him to the consequences he had brought upon himself. "he's had some punishment," said pete when they were alone. he inspected the tramp, now feebly moaning, with the air of a connoisseur. "i'm hemmed if i ever saw a purtier knock-out." "i'm out of training, as i told you," said the stranger. "then you must have bin a valiant basher in your day. it's a pity you let yourself go slack." "it was not becoming that i should use my fists, except to defend the weak. i am a minister of the lord." "a parson!" cried pete. "a minister of the lord," repeated with some severity the man in black, "of the brotherhood named ebenezer." pete remembered hearing that a new parson was coming to the local methodists, but nothing had led him to expect such thrilling developments. "i used to be in the fancy," said the minister, "but five years ago the lord challenged me, and knocked me out in the first round." pete was following a train of thought. "is a minister the same as a parson?" he asked at length. "is a priest of jehovah the same as a priest of baal? for shame, young man!" "i mean can a minister do wot a parson does?--tell a poor feller wot's dying that he wöan't go to hell." "not if he's washed in the blood of the lamb." "that's wot i mean, surelye. could you come and talk to a sick man about all that sort of thing?" a gleam came into the minister's eyes, very much the same as when he had knocked out the tramp. "reckon i could!" he cried fierily. "reckon i can snatch a brand from the burning, reckon i can find the lost piece of silver; reckon i can save the wandering sheep, and wash it in the blood of the lamb." "same as a parson?" enquired pete anxiously. "better than any mitred priest of ammon, for i shall not vex the sinner's soul with dead works, but wash it in the crimson fountain. you trust your sick man to me, young feller--i'll wash him in blood, i'll clothe him in righteousness, i'll feed him with salvation." "i'll justabout täake you to him, then. he asked fur a 'stablished parson, but i'd sooner far bring you, for, lordy, if you äun't the präaperest bruiser i've ever set eyes on." § . that was how the rev. roger ades started his ministrations at odiam. at first reuben was disgusted. he had never before had truck with dissenters, whom he considered low-class and unfit for anyone above a tenant farmer. he was outraged by the thought of the pastor's almost daily visits, accompanied by loud singing of hymns in albert's bedroom. however, he did not actually forbid him the house, for pete had brought him there, and reuben never treated pete exactly as he treated his other sons. pete was the only member of his family who had so far not disgraced odiam--except the two little boys, who were too young--and he was always careful to do nothing that might unsettle him and drive him into his brother's treacherous ways. so the pastor of ebenezer came unchecked, and doubtless his ministrations were appreciated, for as time went by the intervals between them grew shorter and shorter, till at last mr. ades was more often in the house than out of it. though strengthened in soul, albert grew weaker in body, and pete began to scamp his farm work. even when the minister was present, he would not leave his brother. it grieved reuben that, while outside matters prospered, indoors they should remind him of a methodist conventicle. the house was full of hymns, they burst through the close-shut windows of albert's bedroom and assaulted the ears of workers on boarzell. in the evenings, when ades was gone, pete whistled them about the house. reuben was ashamed; it made him blush to think that his stout churchmanship should have to put up with this. "i scarcely dare show my face in the pub, wud all this going on at höame," he remarked sorrowfully. meanwhile, the farm was doing well; indeed, it was almost back at its former glory. having laid the foundations, reuben could now think of expansion, and he engaged two more farm-hands. he had quite changed the look of boarzell. instead of the swell and tumble of the heather, were now long stretches of chocolate furrows, where only the hedge mustard sometimes sprang mutinously, soon to be rooted up. reuben, however, looked less on these than on the territories still unconquered. he would put his head on one side and contemplate the moor from different angles, trying to size the rough patch at the top. he wondered how long it would be before it could all be his. he would have to work like a fiend if he was to do it in his lifetime. there was the grandturzel inclosure, too.... then he would go and whip up his men, and make them work nearly as hard as he worked himself, so that in the evening they would complain at the cocks of "wot a tedious hard mäaster mus' backfield wur, surelye!" one day albert sent his father a message through pete. "he wanted me to tell you wot an unaccountable difference he sees in boarzell now he's come back. he'd never have known it, 'tis so changed. all the new bit towards doozes is justabout präaper." reuben said nothing, in spite of the entreaty in pete's honest eyes, but his heart warmed towards his son. albert had shown at last proper spirit; he had no doubt realised his baseness, and acknowledged that he had been a fool and villain to betray odiam. now he saw how mightily the farm prospered in spite of adversity, he praised its greatness, and no man could praise odiam without winning a little of reuben's goodwill. he softened towards the prodigal, and felt that he would like to see the boy--he still called him "the boy," though he was thirty-seven--and if he behaved penitently and humbly, forgive him before he died. that evening he went up to pete's room. the sound of voices came from it, one exceedingly loud, and it struck reuben that "that hemmed methody" was there. he opened the door and looked in. albert lay propped up in the bed, his hands, wasted into claws, clasped in the attitude of prayer, his eyes protruding strangely above his sunken cheeks, where the skin was stretched on the bones. pete knelt beside him, his eyes closed, his hands folded, like a child saying its prayers, and at the foot of the bed stood the rev. roger ades, his face contorted with fervour, his arms waving in attitudes that were reminiscent of the boxing ring in spite of his efforts. none of them saw or heard reuben's entrance, and at that moment they all burst into a hymn: "there's life in the crimson fountain, there's peace in the blood of the slain." a long shudder of disgust went over reuben's flesh. he was utterly shocked by what he saw. that such things could go on in his house struck him with horror, tinctured by shame. he went out, shutting the door noisily behind him--the softer feelings had gone; instead he felt bitterly and furiously humiliated. the hymn faltered and stopped when the door banged, but the next moment the minister caught it up again, and hurled it after reuben's indignant retreat: "my soul is all washed to whiteness, and i'll never be foul again. salvation! salvation full and free!" § . early in may, pete came out to reuben on boarzell and told him that albert was dead. reuben felt a little awkward and a little relieved. "he died quiet, i hope?" "oh, yes," said pete, "he laid hold on the merits of jesus." reuben started. "it wur a präaper death," continued pete; "his soul wur washed as white as wool. he wur the prodigal son come höame; he wur the lord's lost sixpence, i reckon." "and that son of a harlot from little bethel wurn't wud him, i trust?" "no, i'm going to fetch him now." his father opened his mouth to forbid him angrily, but changed his mind and said nothing. pete walked off whistling--"when the cleansing blood is poured." reuben could not help feeling relieved at albert's death, but he had noticed with some alarm pete's definitely religious phraseology. he hoped that ades had not corrupted him from his pure churchmanship, the honourable churchmanship of the backfields. being a dissenter was only one degree better than being a liberal, and reuben swore to keep a firm hand over pete in future. that evening he and his son had their first conflict. pete announced that he had made arrangements with ades for albert's funeral, and reuben announced with equal conviction that he was hemmed if ades had any truck in it wotsumdever. albert should be buried according to the rites and ceremonies of the church of england, he wasn't going to have any salvation sung over his grave. pete, on the other hand, stuck to his point, and alarmed reuben with more religious phraseology. "it wur ades wot gave him to the lord, wot found him salvation in the blood of the lamb." "i döan't care two straws about that. albert wur born and christened church, and he's not going to die chapel because a lousy methody sings hymns over him when he's sick and döan't know better. if i find that feller on my pläace again, i'll break every bone in his body." pete angrily defended the minister, which caused reuben fresh alarm; for in the old days when his father abused ades he had tried to conciliate him by laying stress on the latter's prowess as a bruiser, but now he never once mentioned his fists, enlarging instead on his qualities of soul and on the fact that he had found christ. the two theologians carried on their argument till well past bedtime, and at last separated in a great state of dogma and indignation. in the end it was the church that won. reuben went over early the next morning to the rectory, and made arrangements for albert's funeral on the following monday. he enlarged on the conflict he had had with pete, and was a little dashed by the rector's want of enthusiasm. albert was buried with all the decent rites of the establishment. he was laid to rest in the christian company of his mother and his brother george, at the bottom of the churchyard where it touched the pond; a little way from him was the old yeoman who had "never wanted anything he hadn't got, and so hadn't got anything he didn't want." it relieved pete a little to think that from where he lay his brother could not see boarzell--"not even if he sat up in his grave." the funeral was dignified and impressive, and every now and then reuben glanced across at his son with eyes that said--"wot could ebenezer have done compared wud this?" all the same, he was disappointed. somehow he had expected his churchmanship to strike the rector and the curate very favourably; he had expected them metaphorically to fall on his neck; he saw himself as a champion of established christendom, of tithes and glebes and cosy rectories and "dearly beloved brethren" on sundays. it was humiliating to find himself ignored, indeed treated as an outsider, simply because he had not been to church for ten years. he had had his children baptised into the establishment, and now he was burying his son according to its rites, in spite of opposition, even persecution. these parsons were ungrateful, bigoted, and blind. perhaps though, he thought, their behaviour was partially accounted for by that of pete, who stood beside the grave with his eyes shut, saying "a-aaa-men" at unliturgical intervals, as only dissenters can say it. § . pete spent that evening with ades, and reuben's fireside slumbers were unrestful because he missed pete's accustomed snore from the other end of the settle. the next morning his son did not appear, though there was plenty of work to be done in the hop-fields. the young hops were now well above ground, and exposed to the perils of blight, so reuben and beatup were spraying them with insect-killer, badly in need of a third man to do the mixing. "where's pete?" asked reuben. "i dunno--äun't seen un this mornun. ah--thur he be!" "where?" "cöaming up by the brook, surelye." reuben stared in amazement. the approaching figure undoubtedly was pete, but a pete so changed by circumstances and demeanour as to be almost unrecognisable. he wore his sunday black clothes, which--as, with the exception of the funeral, he had not put them on for ten years--were something of a misfit. on his head was a black hat with a wide flapping brim, he walked with a measured step and his hands folded in front of him. "well," cried reuben, calling abuse to the rescue of surprise--"you hemmed lazy good-fur-nothing, you!--wud all the glotten hay to be cut, and ten acres o' hops to be sprayed, and you go laying in bed lik a lady, and then come out all dressed as if you wur going to church. where's your corduroys?" "in my box--you can clöathe the naked wud 'em--i'm never going to put 'em on no more." "i'm hemmed if i'll have you working on my farm in that foolery. you'll mäake us the laughing-stock of peasmarsh. you've got ebenezer on the brain, you have, and you can justabout git it off again." "i'm never going to do another ströake of wark on your farm as long as i live. salvation's got me." reuben dropped the insect-killer. "i'm the lord's lost lamb," announced pete. "the lord's lost----!" cried his father angrily. "you täake off them blacks, and git to work lik a human being." "i tell you i'm never going to work fur you agäun. i'm going forth to spread the word. salvation's got me." "you wait till _i_ git you, that's all," and reuben ran at pete. "kip off, or i'll slosh you one on the boko," cried the lord's lost lamb swinging up a vigorous pair of fists. reuben breathed a sigh of relief. "there--i knew as there wur reason in you, pete. you wöan't go and leave your fäather lik the rest, all fur a hemmed methody." "hemmed methody! that's how you spik of the man wot's säaved my soul. i tell you as there i wur lost in trespasses and sins, and now i'm washed white as wool--there wur my evil doings sticking to my soul lik maggots to a dead rat, and now my soul's washed in the blood of the lamb, and i'm going out to spread the word." "where are you going?" "unto the ends of the earth--hastings. there's a friend of ades there wot'll guide me into the spirit's ways." "but you'll never leave me at the time of the hay-harvest, and emily due to calve in another month?" "i tell you i'm shut of your farm--it's wot's led me astray from a lad. instead of settin' and reading godly books and singing wud the saints i've gone and ploughed furrers and carted manure; i've thought only of the things of the flesh, i've walked lik accursed adam among the thistles. but now a voice says, 'work no more!--go and spread the word!' and if you're wise, fäather, you'll cöame too, and you, beatup. you'll flee from the wrath to cöame, when he shall shäake the earth and the elimunts shall dissolve in fervient heat, and he ..." "have adone do wud your preaching. i'm ashamed of you, led astray by lunies as if you wur no better nor poor harry. you're a hemmed lousy traitor, you are, the worst of 'em all." "i'm only fleeing from the wrath to cöame--and if you're wise you'll foller me. this farm is the city of destruction, i tell you, it's a snare of the devil, it's naboth's vineyard, it's the lake that burneth wud fire and brimstone. cöame out of her, cöame out of her, my peoples!" reuben was paralysed. his jaw worked convulsively, and he looked at pete as if he were a specially new and pestilential form of blight. "save yourself, fäather," continued the evangelist, "and give up all the vain desires of the flesh. is this a time to buy olive-yards and vineyards? beware lest there cöame upon you as it did to him wot purchaised a field, the reward of inquiety, and falling headlong he bust asunder in the midst and his bowels goshed out----" but reuben had found his voice. "git out of this!" he shouted. "i wöan't stand here and listen to you miscalling the farm wot's bred you and fed you over thirty year. git out, and never think you'll come back again. i'm shut of you. i döan't want no more of you--i'm out of the wood now, i've got all the work out of you i've needed, so you can go, and spread your hemmed word, and be hemmed. i'm shut of you." pete fixed upon his father a gaze meant to inspire the utmost terrors of conscience, then turned on his heel and slowly walked away. the sight of his broad black back disappearing among the hop-bines was too much for reuben. he picked up the can of insect-killer and hurled it after his son, splashing his respectability from head to foot with the stinking fluid. pete flung round with his fists up, then suddenly dropped them and raised his eyes instead. "you wudn't daur do that if i hadn't been saved!" he shouted. then he walked off, beautiful of soul no doubt, but highly unpleasant of body. book vii the end in sight § . the next five years were comparatively uneventful. all that stood out of them was the steady progress of the farm. it fattened, it grew, it crept up boarzell as the slow tides softly flood a rock. reuben was now alone at odiam with his two small children and harry. david and bill, unlike their predecessors, did not start their career as farm-hands till well past babyhood. reuben no longer economised in labour--he had nearly a dozen men in regular employ, to say nothing of casuals. sometimes he thought regretfully of the stalwart sons who were to have worked for him, to have run the farm without any outside help ... but that dream belonged to bygone days, and he resolutely put it from him. after all, his posse of farm-hands was the envy of the neighbourhood; no one in peasmarsh employed so many. reuben himself was still able for a great deal of work. though over sixty, he still had much of the vigour, as he had all the straightness, of his youth. work had not bent him and crippled him, as it had crippled beatup, his junior by several years. the furnace of his pride and resolution seemed to have dried the damps steamed up by the earth from her revengeful wounds, so that rheumatism--the plague of the labourer on the soil--had done no worse for him than shooting pains in the winter with a slight thickening of his joints. his hair had been grey for years, and as he grew older it did not whiten, but stayed the colour of polished iron, straight, shining, and thick as a boy's. he had lost two back teeth, and made a tremendous fuss about them, saying it was all the fault of the dentist in rye, who preferred a shilling extraction to a threepenny lotion--but the rest of his teeth were as good as ever, though at last a trifle discoloured by smoking. his face was a network of wrinkles. he was not the sort of countryman whose skin old age stretches smoothly over the bones and reddens benignly as a sun-warmed apple. on the contrary, he had grown swarthier with the years, the ruddy tints had been hardened into the brown, and from everywhere, from the corners of his eyes, of his mouth, of his nose, across his forehead, along his cheeks, under his chin, spread a web of lines, some mere hair-tracery on the surface, others wrinkled deep, others ploughed in like the furrows of his own fields. harry had not aged so successfully. he was terribly bent, and some of his joints were swollen grotesquely, though he had not had so much truck as reuben with the earth and her vapours. he was so thin that he amounted to little more than shrivelled yellow skin over some twisted bones, and yet he was wiry and clung desperately to life. reuben was sorry for this--his brother annoyed him. harry grew more irritating with old age. he still played his fiddle, though he had now forgotten every semblance of a tune, and if it were taken away from him by some desperate person he would raise such an outcry that it would soon be restored as a lesser evil. he hardly ever spoke to anyone, but muttered to himself. "salvation's got me!" he would croak, for his mind had been inexplicably stamped by pete's outrage, and he forgot all about that perpetual wedding which had puzzled him for so many years. "salvation's got me!" he would yell, suddenly waking in the middle of the night--keeping the memory of the last traitor always green. but it was for other reasons that reuben most wished that harry would die. harry was a false note, a discord in his now harmonious scheme. he was a continual reminder of the power of boarzell, and would occasionally sweep reuben's thoughts away from those fat corn-fields licking at the crest to that earliest little patch down by totease, where the moor had drunk up its first blood. he called himself a fool, but he could not help seeing something sinister and fateful in harry, scraping tunelessly at his fiddle, or repeating over and over again some wandering echo from the outside world which had managed to reach his dungeoned brain. reuben wished he would die, and so did the farm-boy who slept with him, and the dairy-woman who fed him at meals. the only people who would have been sorry if he had died were the children. harry was popular with them, as he had been with baby fanny long ago, because he made funny faces and emitted strange, unexpected sounds. he was unlike the accepted variety of grown-up people, who were seldom amusing or surprising, and one could take liberties with him, such as one could not take with fäather or maude. also, being blind, one could play on him the most fascinating tricks. these tricks were never unkind, for david and william were the most benevolent little boys. they saw life through a golden mist, it smelt of milk and apples, it was full of soft lowings and bleatings and cheepings, of gentle noses to stroke and little downy things to hold. for the first time since it became reuben's, odiam made children happy. the farm which had been a galley and a prison to those before them, was an enchanted land of adventure to these two. old beatup, who remembered earlier things, would sometimes smile when he saw them trotting hand in hand about the yard, playing long hours in the orchard, and now and then pleading as a special favour to be allowed to feed the chickens, or help fetch the cows home. he seemed to see the farm peopled by little ghosts who had never dared trot about aimlessly, or had time to play, and had fed the fowls and fetched the cows not as a treat and an adventure, but as a dreary part of the day's grind ... he reflected that "the mäaster had learned summat by the others, surelye." of course, one reason why david and billy were so free was because of the growing prosperity of the farm, which no longer made it necessary to save and scrape. but on the other hand, it was a fact that the mäaster had learned summat by the others. he was resolved that, come what might, he would keep these boys. they should not leave him like their brothers; and since harshness had failed to keep those at home, he would now try a slacker rule. he was growing old, and he wanted to think that at his death odiam would pass into loyal and loving hands, he wanted to think of its great traditions being carried on in all their glory. sometimes he would have terrible dreams of odiam being divided at his death, split up into allotments and small-holdings, scrapped into building plots. such dreams made him look with hungry tenderness at the two little figures trotting hand in hand about the orchard and the barns. § . it was about that time that the great lewin case came on at the old bailey. the papers were full of it, and reuben could not suppress a glow of pride when maude the dairy-woman read out the name of richard backfield as junior counsel for the defence. but his pride was to be still further exalted. the senior counsel collapsed with some serious illness on the very eve of the trial, and richard stepped into his shoes. the papers were now full of his name, it was on everyone's lips throughout the kingdom, and especially in the public-houses between rye and the kent border. men stopped drinking at the cocks when reuben came in, and women ran down to their garden gates when he passed by. reuben himself did not say much, but he now regularly took in a daily paper, and being able to recognise the name of backfield in print, sat chasing the magic word through dark labyrinths of type, counting the number of its appearances and registering them on the back of his corn accounts. "how's the lewin cäase gitting on?" someone would ask at the cocks, and reuben would answer: "valiant--my näum wur sixteen times in the päaper this mornun." he almost taught himself to read by this means, for it was the first time he had ever studied a printed page, and he had soon picked up several words besides backfield. not that he took much interest in the case beyond richard's--that is to say, odiam's--share in it, but soon it became clear that richard was leading it to marvellous developments. lewin was a bank-manager accused of colossal frauds, and richard amazed the country by dragging a couple of hitherto respected banking knights into the business. at one time it was thought he would get an acquittal by this, but richard was a barrister, not a detective, and he brilliantly got his client acquitted on a point of law, which though it may have baffled a little the romantic enthusiasm of his newspaper admirers, made his name one to conjure with in legal circles, so that briefs were no longer matters of luck and prayer. his fortune was made by the lewin case. he wrote home and told his father that he had now "arrived," and was going to marry anne bardon. the excitement created by his defence of lewin was nothing to that which now raged in rye and peasmarsh. reuben was besieged by the curious, who found relief for a slight alloy of envy by pointing out how unaccountable well the young man had done for himself by running away. "reckon you dudn't think as how it 'ud turn out lik this, or you wudn't have been in such tedious heart about it." "i can't say as i'm pleased at his marrying miss bardon," reuben would say. "she's ten year older than he if she's a day. 'twas she who asked him, i reckon. he could have done better fur himself if he'd stayed at höame." § . reuben had bought thirty-five more acres of boarzell in ' , and thirty in ' . the first piece was on the flightshot side of the moor, by cheat land, the second stretched from the new ground by totease over to burntbarns. now only about fifty acres, including the fair-place and the crest, remained to be won outside the grandturzel inclosure. bardon publicly announced his intention never to sell the fair-place to backfield. flightshot and odiam had not been drawn together by richard's marriage. at first reuben had feared that the squire might take liberties on the strength of it, and had been stiffer than ever in his unavoidable intercourse with the manor. but bardon had been, if anything, stiffer still. he thoroughly disapproved of backfield as an employer of labour--some of his men were housed, with their families, in two old barns converted into cottages at the cheapest rate--and as he was too hard up to refuse to sell him boarzell, he could express his disgust only by his attitude. fine shades of manner were apt to be lost on reuben, but about the refusal to sell the fair-place there could be no mistake. meantime he cast covetous and hopeful eyes on the grandturzel inclosure. realf was doing nothing with it, and his affairs were not so prosperous as they used to be. his abandonment of the struggle had not changed his luck, and a run of bad luck--the usual farmer's tale of poor harvests, dead cows, blighted orchards, and low prices--had plunged grandturzel nearly as deep as odiam had once been. realf had shown himself without recuperative powers; he economised, but inefficiently, and reuben foresaw that the day would come when he would be forced to part with some of his land. he was in no immediate hurry for this, as he would be all the readier to spend his money in a few years' time, but occasionally he gave himself the treat of going up to the grandturzel inclosure and inspecting it from the fence, planning exactly what he would do with it when it was his. more than once realf and tilly saw him in the distance, a tall, sinister figure, haunting their northern boundaries. "fäather's after our land," said tilly, and shuddered. § . the little boys grew big and went to school. this time it was not to the dame's school in the village, for that had collapsed before the new board-school which had risen to madden reuben's eyes with the spectacle of an educated populace. they went to rye grammar school and learned latin and greek like gentlemen. there was something new in reuben's attitude towards these boys, for his indulgence had deeper roots than expediency. sometimes of an evening he would go to the bottom of the totease lane, where it joins the peasmarsh road, and wait there for his sons' return. they would see him afar off, and run to meet him, and they would all three walk home together, arm-in-arm perhaps. he would have been exceedingly indignant if in bygone days anyone had ever hinted that he did not love the sons and daughters whom he had beaten, kicked out of doors, frustrated, suppressed, or driven to calamity. all the same, he acknowledged that there was a difference between his feelings towards rose's children and naomi's. though naomi was the wife more pleasant to remember, rose's were the children he loved best. they had not grown up in the least like her, and he was glad of that, for he would have hated to confront again her careless, lovely face, or the provoking little teeth of her smile; they were backfields, dark of hair and swarthy of skin, david with grey eyes, william with brown. when he saw them running along the lane from school, or tramping the fields together--they were always together--or helping with the hops or the hay, his heart would stir with a warm, unwonted sense of fatherhood, not just the proud paternal impulse which had visited him when he held his new-born babies in his arms, but something belonging more to the future than the present, to the days when they should carry on odiam after his death. for the first time he had sons whom he looked upon not merely as labourers to help him in his work, but as men created in his own image to inherit that work and reap its fruits when he was gone. he was pleased to see their evident love of the farm. they begged him not to keep them too long at school, for they wanted to come home and work on odiam. so he took david away when he was sixteen, and william when he was fifteen the next year. meantime it seemed as if in spite of his absorption in his new family he was not to be entirely cut off from the old. in the summer of ' , just after the jubilee, he had a letter from richard, announcing that he and his wife were coming for a week or so to rye. reuben had not heard of richard for some years, and had not seen him since he left odiam--he had been asked to the wedding, but had refused to go. now richard expressed the hope that he would soon see his father. his was a nature that mellows and softens in prosperity, and though he had not forgotten the miseries of his youth, he was too happy to let them stand between him and reuben now that they were only memories. anne was not so disposed to forgive--she had her brother's score as well as her husband's to settle, and concealed from no one that she thought her father-in-law a brutal and conscienceless old slave-driver whose success was a slur on the methods of providence. she refused to accompany richard on his first visit to odiam, but spent the afternoon at flightshot, while he tramped with reuben over the land that had once been so hateful to him. reuben, though he would not have confessed it, was much taken with his son's appearance. richard looked taller, which was probably because he held himself better, more proudly erect; his face seemed also subtly changed; he had almost a legal profile, due partly no doubt to a gold-rimmed pince-nez. he looked astonishingly clean-shaven, he wore good clothes, and his hands were slim and white, not a trace of uncongenial work remaining. he had quite lost his sussex accent, and reuben vaguely felt that he was a credit to him. their attitude, at first constrained, soon became more cordial than either would have thought possible in earlier days. richard made no tactless references to his brothers and sisters, and admired and praised everything, even the pigsties that had used to make him sick. they went out into the fields and inspected the late lambs, richard showing that he had lost every trace of shepherd-lore that had ever been his. his remarks on shearing gave reuben a very bad opinion of the english bar; however, they parted in a riot of mutual civility, and richard asked his father to dine with him at the mermaid in a couple of days. anne was furious when she heard of the invitation. "you know i don't want to meet your father--and i'm sure he'll disgrace us." "he's more likely to amuse us," said richard; "he's a character, and i shall enjoy studying him for the first time from an unbiassed view-point." "it won't be unbiassed if he disgraces us." however, reuben did not disgrace them. on the contrary, more than one admiring glance drifted to the backfields' table, and remarks were overheard about "that picturesque old man." reuben had dressed himself with care in a suit of dark grey cloth and the flowered waistcoat he had bought when he married rose. his collar was so high and stiff that he could hardly get his chin over it, his hair was brushed and oiled till its grey thickness shone like the sides of a man-o'-war, and his hands looked quite clean by artificial light. richard had invited his young half-brothers too, for they had been at school when he visited odiam. they struck him as quite ordinary-looking boys, dressed in modern reach-me-downs, and only partially inheriting their father's good looks. as for them, they were cowed and abashed past all words. it seemed incredible that this resplendent being in the white shirt-front and gold-rimmed eye-glasses was their brother, and the lady with the hooked nose and the diamonds their sister-in-law. they scarcely ventured to speak, and were appalled by the knives and forks and glasses that lay between them and their dinner. reuben too was appalled by them, but would not for worlds have shown it. he attacked the knives and forks with such vigour that he did not get really involved in them till the joint, and as he refused no drink the waiter offered he soon had all his glasses harmlessly occupied. nor was he at a loss for conversation. he was resolved that neither richard nor anne should ignore the greatness of his farm; if only he could stir up a spark of home-sickness in his son's white-shirted breast, his triumph would be complete. "i reckon i'm through wud my bad luck now--odiam's doing valiant. i'm shut of all the lazy-bones, grandturzel's beat, and i've naun to stand agäunst me." "what about nature?" asked richard, readjusting his pince-nez and thrusting forward his chin, whereby it was always known in court that he meant to "draw out" the witness. "nature!" snorted reuben--"wot's nature, i'd lik to know?" "the last word on most subjects," said richard. "well, is it? i reckon it äun't the last word on your wife." "i beg your pardon!"--anne's chin came forward so like richard's that one might gather he had borrowed the trick from her. "well, 'carding to nature, ma'am, and saving your presence, you're forty-five year if you're a day. i remember the very 'casion you wur born. well, if i may be so bold, you döan't look past thirty. how's that? just because you know some dodges worth two of nature's, you've a way of gitting even wud her. now if a lady can bust nature at her dressing-täable, i reckon i can bust her on my farm." "this is most interesting," said anne icily, raising her lorgnette and looking at reuben as if he were a bad smell. "he means to be complimentary," said richard. "reckon i do!" cried reuben genially, warmed by various liquors--"naun shall say i döan't know a fine woman when i see one. and i reckon as me and my darter-in-law are out after the säum thing--and that's the beating of nature, wot you seem to set such a store by, richard." "well, she'll have you both in the end, anyhow." "she! no--she wöan't git me." "she'll get you when you die." "oh, i döan't count that--that's going to good earth." "perhaps she'll get you before then." reuben banged the table with his fist. "i'm hemmed if she does. she'd have got me long ago if she'd ever been going to--when i wur young and my own hot blood wur lik to betray me. but i settled her then, and i'll settle her to the end of time. mark my words, richard my boy, there's always some way of gitting even wud her. wot's nature?--nature's a thing; and a man's a--why he's a man, and he can always go one better than a thing. nature mäakes potato-blight, so man mäakes bordeaux spray; nature mäakes calf-husk, so man mäakes linseed oil; nature mäakes lice, so man mäakes lice-killer. man's the better of nature all along, and i döan't mind proving it." having thus delivered himself under the combined fire of the lorgnette and the pince-nez, reuben poured himself out half a tumblerful of _crème de menthe_ and drank the healths of them both with their children, whereat anne rose quickly from the table and sought refuge in the drawing-room. it was after ten o'clock when her father-in-law and his two silent boys climbed into their trap and started homewards over the clattering cobbles of mermaid street. in the trap the two silent boys found their tongues, and fell to discussing their brother richard in awestruck voices. they whispered about his dinner, his wife, his hands, his eye-glasses, his voice, while old dorrington picked his way up playden hill in the white starshine. reuben heard them as if in a dream as he leaned forward over the reins, his eyes fixed on capella, bright and cold above bannister's town. he had drunk more liberally and more variously than he had ever drunk in his life, but he carried his liquor well, and all he was conscious of was a slight exaltation, a feeling of triumph, as if all these huddled woods, lightless farms, and cold winking stars were in some strange way his by conquest, the tokens of his honour. the wind lapped round him, baffing at his neck--it sighed in the woods, and rocked them gently towards the east. in the south orion hung above stonelink, with sirius at the end of his sword ... the constellation of the ram was high.... then suddenly his sons' voices floated up to him in his dream. "i wish i could be like richard, bill." "so do i--but i reckon we never shall." "not if we stick to the farm. did you notice that ring on his little finger?" "yes, quite a plain one, but it looked justabout fine." "and he had a gold watch-chain across his waistcoat." "i reckon he's done well fur himself by running away." "yes, if he'd stayed he'd never have married miss bardon and had his name in all the papers." "we'll never do anything fur ourselves if we stay at odiam." "no--but we'll have to stay. fäather will make us." "he couldn't make richard stay." reuben listened as if in a nightmare--the blood in his veins seemed to turn to ice. he could hardly believe his ears. "richard's made his fortune by quitting odiam. 'tis a good place, but he'd never have done half so valiant for himself if he'd stayed." reuben pulled himself together, and swinging round cuffed both speakers unaccustomedly. "döan't let me hear another word of that hemmed nonsense. if you think as richard's bettered himself by running away from odiam, you're unaccountable mistaken. wot's a dirty lawyer compared wud a farmer as farms three hundred acres, and owns 'em into the bargain? all my boys have busted and ruined them selves by running away--richard's the only one that's done anything wotsumdever ... and if he's done well, there's one as has done better, and that's his fäather wot stayed at home." § . about three years later sir ralph bardon died. he died of typhus caught on one of reuben's insanitary cottages, where he had been nursing a sick boy. the village was inclined to look upon him as a martyr and reuben as his murderer, but reuben himself preserved a contemptuous attitude. "if i'd wanted anything as much as he wanted them houses o' mine, i'm hemmed if i wudn't have had 'em," he said, "and all he could do wur to die of 'em"--and he spat. sir ralph had never married and there was no direct heir; anne was about as likely to produce offspring as a latin grammar, and the property went to a distant cousin, eustace fleet. the very name of bardon was now extinct. for two hundred years it had been coupled with flightshot and whig politics and the idea of a gentleman, till the last had finally been the downfall of the other two. the race of bardon had died of its own virtues. reuben's hopes of the fair-place now revived, and he at once approached the new squire with a view to purchase; but sir eustace turned out to be quite as wrong-headed as sir ralph on the matter of popular rights. "of course i know the fair has no legal title to this ground, but one must respect public feeling. i will sell you the forty acres adjoining the crest with pleasure, mr. backfield, they are no use to me, and you certainly seem to do wonders with the land when you get it--but the place itself must be preserved for the people. i'm sure you understand." reuben didn't, nor pretended that he did. he started licking his forty acres into shape, with many inward vows that he would have the rest of them soon, he was hemmed if he didn't. he was on the high ground now, he could throw a stone into the clump of firs which still mocked his endeavours. the soil was all hard and flinty, matted with heather roots and the fibres of gorse. reuben's men grumbled and cursed as the earth crumbled and rattled against their spades, which sometimes broke on the big flints and bits of limestone. they scoffed incredulously when old beatup told them that the lower pastures and the totease oatfields had once been like this. boarzell was almost unrecognisable now. when one climbed the forstal hill behind peasmarsh and looked southward, one no longer saw a great roughness of moor couching like something wild and untrapped in the midst of the tame fields and domestic cottages. the fields had licked up its sides till all they had left was the brown and golden crest with its central clump of firs. behind this to the north was the grandturzel inclosure, but reuben's land was nibbling round the edge of it, and everyone knew that grandturzel would not be able to hold out much longer. opinion in peasmarsh was divided. there was a general grudging admiration of the man who seemed able, in defiance of the scriptures, to make leviathan his servant. no one could deny that backfield had performed a job which the neighbourhood from the first had declared to be impossible. he was disliked--not because anyone particularly envied him the land he bought so eagerly and so strenuously shaped, but because of his utter disregard of what other men prized and his willingness to sacrifice it for the sake of what they did not prize at all. he was a living insult to their hearths, their homes, their wives, their children, their harmless recreations, the delights of their flesh, all those things which he had so readily set aside to win his great ambition. it was not for what he wanted that they hated him so much as for the things he did not want. however, everyone viewed with dislike and suspicion his covetous eye cast on the fair-place. he might have the rest of boarzell and welcome, for no other man had any use for flints, but the fair was sacred to them through the generations, and they gauged his sacrilegious desire to rob them of it for his own ends. he might have the grandturzel inclosure, though all the village sympathised with the beaten realf--beaten, they said, because he hadn't it in him to be as hard-hearted as the old gorilla, and sacrifice his wife and children to his farm--but they would far rather see grandturzel swallowed up than boarzell fair. when his failure to buy the crest became known there were great rejoicings throughout peasmarsh. the fair that year was more than usually crowded, and the merriment was increased by the sight of reuben stalking among the booths, and glaring at them as if he wished them all at blazes. § . the boys were now sixteen and eighteen, fine, manly young fellows, working cheerfully on odiam and rejoicing their father's heart. reuben watched over them sometimes with an odd kind of anxiety--they were so satisfactory that he felt it could not last. he remembered that conversation he had overheard in the trap on the way home from rye, and though nothing had happened since to remind him of it or cause him fresh alarm, he could never quite shake off the cold thrills it had given him. besides, david and william had come to a dangerous age, they were beginning to form opinions and ideas of their own, they were beginning to choose their own friends and pastimes. but what reuben distrusted most was their affection for each other, it was more fundamental to his anxieties than any outside independence. from childhood they had been inseparable, but in past years he had put this down to the common interests of their play, for there were few boys of their own age on the neighbouring farms. but now they were grown up the devotion persisted--they still did everything together, work or play. reuben knew that they had secrets from him, their union gave him a sense of isolation. they were fond of him, but he was not to them what they were to each other, and his remoteness seemed to grow with the years. in his alarm he made plans to separate them. he discovered that the big attic they slept in was not healthy, and moved their beds to two rooms divided by his own. he now felt that he had put an end to those bedtime conferences which must have done so much to unite the brothers and set him at a distance. his vigilance increased when their first love affairs began. at first they would gabble innocently to him about pretty girls they had seen in rye, but they soon found out such conversation was most unwelcome. reuben looked upon love as the biggest curse and snare of life; if david and william fell in love they would lose interest in odiam, they would do something silly like robert, or mad like caro, or bad like rose. love was the enemy of odiam, and reuben having trodden it down himself was not going to see it rise and stamp on his boys. he gave them the benefit of his experience in no measured terms: "if you fall in love wud a gal you can't say no to her, and she'll find it out lamentable soon. when either of you boys finds a nice strong, sensible gal, wud a bit o' money, and not self-willed, such as 'ull be a good darter-in-law' to me, i shan't have nothing to say agäunst it. but döan't you go running after petticoats and mäake fools of yourselves and disgrace odiam, and call it being in love. love mäakes you soft, and if you're soft you might just as well be buried fur all the good you're likely to do yourself." david and william seemed much impressed, and reuben congratulated himself. two days later he went into the dairy to give an order, and saw one of the dairy girls bending over a pan of cream. something in her attitude and in the soft curly down on the nape of her neck reminded him of naomi and that early courting scene, now nearly fifty years ago; but before he had time to recall it, david came in by another door, not seeing his father, and running lightly up to the dairymaid suddenly kissed the back of her neck and ran away. she turned round with a scream, just in time to see him disappearing through one door, while in the other stood reuben with grimly folded arms. he gave her a week's wages and sent her away. "where's agnes?" asked david with laboured carelessness a day or two later. "she wasted her time," said reuben, "so i got shut of her." "she's gone!" "yes--back to her parents at tonbridge"--and reuben grinned. david said no more, but for the rest of the day he seemed glum and abstracted. in the evening reuben found him sitting at the corn accounts, staring through the open window into the dusk. "wot's fretting you, boy?" he asked. "naun--i'm thinking." once or twice reuben caught him in the same mood, and questioned him. but david still answered: "i'm thinking." § . that autumn david and william went to newhaven to see the rye football club play the west sussex united. they had more than once gone on such jaunts together, and on this occasion, trains being difficult, they put up for the night at a small hotel near the port. it was the first time they had spent a night away from odiam, and a certain thrill attached to it. when the match was over they went for a stroll on the parade. there was not much daylight left, but the evening was warm, and the parade was crowded with saunterers. the young men were glad to think that there was no homeward train to be caught, or account of the day's doings to be given to their father. he always asked minutely how they spent their time, and it annoyed them a little. to-night they would walk and sit on the parade till supper time, then go to some coffee-house, and wind up at a music-hall. it was a gay programme and they discussed it happily, glanced at the passers-by, inspected the empty bandstand, and finally sat down on one of the seats to watch the fishing-boats trim their lamps in the amethyst fog of the sea. for some time they talked about the terrible licking the united had given rye, arguing about this or that player, and speculating as to what would be the club's fate at hythe next week. it was david who drew william's attention to the woman sitting at the other end of their seat. david piqued himself on his knowledge of the world. "she's a--you know," he said. william peeped round his brother's shoulder. "how can you tell?" "why, you kid, it's as plain as the nose on your face--look at her paint." bill looked, his eyes opening wider than ever. she certainly was a disreputable female, or there was no judging by appearances. she wore a big frowsy hat trimmed with roses and ears of corn, under which her thick black hair was held up by several tawdry pins; her face was more lavishly than artistically adorned with rouge and _blanc de perle_, and she pulled a cape of lavender velvet closely round her shoulders as if she were cold--which might well have been, for, as far as they could see, her bodice consisted almost entirely of lace. "it's early for her to be prowling," said the man of the world. "i reckon she's having just a breath of fresh air before she starts work." "where'll she go then?" asked billy. "oh, to the more crowded streets, round about the pubs and that." "i wonder how much she mäakes at it." "not much, i reckon. she's a very low-class sort, and not at all young." "täake care--she might hear you." "oh, don't you worry," said the lady blandly; "i like listening to you, and i was only waiting till you'd stopped before i introduced myself." bill gasped, and david forgot that he was a man of the world, and sidled against his brother. "don't you know me?" continued the siren, tilting her hat back from her face. "no-o-o." "ever heard of your sister caro?" both boys started, and stared at her in utter blankness. "well, it wasn't to be expected as you'd recognise me. you were only little boys, and i've changed a bit. maybe i shouldn't have spoken to you--got no decent feelings, some people would say; but i justabout couldn't help it. i heard you call each other david and bill, and talk about odiam and that, so i'd have known you even if you hadn't been the dead spit of your father." the boys still didn't seem to have much to say, so she continued: "i heard of your brother pete the other day--never knew he'd left home till i saw his name down to preach at piddinghoe mission hall last month. he's called salvation pete now, as i daresay you know, and i half thought of going to hear him, only times are so bad i couldn't afford an evening off. when did he leave odiam?--i should like some news of home." "he quitted years ago, when we were little chaps. salvation got him." "i reckon that must have come hard on fäather--he always was unaccountable set on pete. heard anything of tilly lately?" "no, nothing particular. but fäather's going to buy the grandturzel inclosure." "and rose?" "who's rose?" "your mother, my precious innocents. but look here, you shall ask me to supper--it'll only be doing the decent thing by me--and you shall tell me about them all at odiam--as used to be at odiam, rather, for i reckon there's nobody but yourselves there now." david and william looked at each other uneasily; however, there was nothing else to be done, and also a certain excitement and curiosity inspired them. so they set out with caro to an eating-house chosen by herself in a small fish-smelling back street. they were much too embarrassed to order supper, so caro good-naturedly did this for them--fish and chips, and three bottles of six ale. "i don't often come here," she said--"this is a bit too classy for me. i go mostly to the coffee stalls down by the harbour. you mustn't think as i'm coining money at this, you know. i work mostly among the fishermen, and they're a seedy lot. i started up town, but i'm not so young as i was, and sometimes even at the harbour i find it unaccountable hard to git off." with the gas-light flaring on her raddled face, showing up mercilessly the tawdriness and shoddiness of her clothes, which reeked of a cheap scent, the boys did not find it hard to believe that she often had a struggle to "git off "--indeed, it was a mystery how any man, however unfastidious, however fuddled, could kiss or take kisses from this bundle of rags and bones and paint. caro seemed to notice the disparaging look. "oh, i'm a bit off colour to-night, but i can tell you i was a fine girl when i went away with joe--and all the time i lived with him, too, first at the camber and then at new romney; there was many as 'ud have been proud to git me from him. but i stuck to him faithful, i did, till one morning i woke up and found him gone, off on a voyage to australia--wonder if he met robert--having given me over to a pal of his for five pounds and a set of oilskins. oh, i can tell you i took on something awful--i wasn't used to men in those days. but joe's pal he was a decent chap--there was nothing the matter with him save that he wasn't joe. he was unaccountable good to me, and i stayed with him three years--and then i hooked it, scarcely knew why. i got a post as barmaid in seaford, but the landlord took up with me and his missus chucked me out. and now i'm here." "have--have you been here long?" stammered david, feeling he must say something. "three year or so. i started up town. but we've spoken enough about me. let's hear about you, and the farm. how's richard?" the boys told her; they described their prosperous brother with his white shirt-front, his pince-nez, his ring, and his high-born wife. as they talked they grew more at their ease. "well," said caro, "i reckon he got away in time." "from what?" "from odiam, of course. i stayed too long. i stayed till i was half killed by the place. if i'd gone off as a young girl i reckon i'd have done well by myself, but i waited on till i was ready to take anything that was going, and when you're like that it's too late." "i shouldn't think richard was sorry he left." "no--and mark you, nor am i. it 'ud have been worse for me if i'd stayed. i'm miserable in a different way from what i was there--somehow the life's easier. i'm not happy, but i'm jolly. i'm not good, but i'm pleasant-like. it's all a change for the better. see?" "then you don't wish as you wur back again?" "back! back with fäather! not me! now let's hear some more about him--does he ever speak to you of your mother?" for the rest of the meal they discussed the absent ones--rose, robert, albert, benjamin, tilly, the boys hearing a great deal that had never come to their ears before. caro ordered two more bottles of six, and in the end the party became quite convivial, and david and william, forgetting the strangeness of it all, were sorry when their sister at last stood up and announced that she must wobble off or she'd be late. "you'll tell father you met me?" she said as they left the eating-house. david and william looked at each other, and hesitated. "you've no call to be ashamed of me," said caro rather irritably. "we--we äun't ashamed of you." "that's right--for you've no call to be. i was driven to this, couldn't help myself. besides, i'm no worse than a lot of women wot you call respectable--at least, i put some sort of a price on myself, if it's only five shillings. now good night, young men, and thank you for a very pleasant evening. i don't suppose as you'll ever see me again. and mind--you tell father as, no matter the life i lead and the knocks i get, i've never once, not once, regretted the day i ran off from his old farm. now mind--you tell him that." § . the boys told him. reuben listened in silence save for one ejaculation of "the dirty bitch!" david nudged william. "and she asked us particular to say as she'd never regretted the day she left odiam, or wished herself back there, nuther." "she wur purty säafe to say that--for who'd have her back, i'd lik to know? larmentable creature she always wur, spanneling around lik a mangy cat. always thin and always miserable--i'm glad to be shut of her. but she seemed cheery when you saw her?" "unaccountable cheery--and she drank three bottles of six ale." "um," said reuben. the boys had one or two secret talks about caro. she also stimulated that habit of "thinking" which their father so thoroughly disapproved of. somehow their encounter with her, combined with their encounter with richard, seemed to have modified their enthusiasm for odiam. they could not help comparing that supper at newhaven with that dinner at rye, and wondering if it was true what she had said about richard having got away in time, whereas she had been too late. "and yet she was glad she'd gone--she'd rather be free too late than not at all." "bill, do you think that if we stay here, odiam 'ull' do for us wot it did for caro?" "i döan't think so. fäather was much harder on caro than he is on us." "he's not hard on us--but he's unaccountable interfering; it maddens me sometimes." "seems as if he didn't trust us--seems sometimes as if he was afraid we'd go off like the others." "reckon he is--he saw how we envied richard." "davy, it 'ud be cruel of us to go and leave him." "i döan't say as i want to do that." "besides, it äun't likely as we'd do as well fur ourselves as richard. we've no miss bardon to trouble about us--reckon we'd come to grief like albert." "maybe we would." § . four years later reuben bought the farmstead of totease. brazier died, and the manor, anxious as usual for ready money, put up his farm for sale. it was a good place of about sixty acres, with some beautiful hop gardens and plenty of water. reuben felt that it would be unwise to neglect such an opportunity for enlarging the boundaries of odiam. he outbid one or two small farmers, put the place under repair, engaged more hands, and set to work to develop a large business in hops. his enthusiasm was immense; he saw quicker returns from hops than from anything else, and the sheltered position of totease made it possible to cover the whole of it with goldings and fuggles. he built a couple of new oasts with concrete roofs, and announced his intention of engaging london pickers that autumn. there was great perturbation at the rectory--the manor had long since abandoned social crusades--because reuben housed these pickers indiscriminately in a barn. it was also said that he underpaid them. the rector was quite insensible to his argument that if a man were fool enough to work for two shillings a day, why should wise men lose money by preventing him? also he compelled no one to come, so the indiscriminate sleepers were only, so to speak, volunteers--and when the rector persisted he became coarse on the subject. his temper had grown a little difficult of late years--it had never been a particularly pleasant one, but it had been fierce rather than quick. his sons felt uneasily that they were partly responsible for this--they irritated him by asserting their independence. also he suspected them of a lack of enthusiasm. he had tried to arrange a marriage for david with the daughter of the new farmer at kitchenhour. she was ten years older than he, and not strikingly beautiful, but she satisfied reuben's requirements by being as strong as a horse and having a hundred a year of her own. his indignation was immense when david refused this prize. "i can't abear the sight of her." "you'll git used to her, lad." "well, i want something better than that." "she's got a hundred a year, and that 'ud mäake our fortunes at odiam." "odiam's doing splendid--you don't want no more." "i justabout do. i shan't be satisfied till i've bought up grandturzel säum as i've bought totease." "well, i'm not going to sacrifice myself for odiam, and you've no right to ask me, dad." "if i haven't got a right to ask you that, wot have i, i'd lik to know?" § . in the spring of ' old jury died over at cheat land. his wife had died a year or two earlier--reuben had meant to go over and see alice, but the untimely calving of a new alderney had put the idea entirely out of his head. on this occasion, however, he attended the funeral, with the other farmers of the district, and at the churchyard gate had a few words with alice before she went home. she was a middle-aged woman now, but her eyes were as bright as ever, which made her look strangely young. her hair had turned very prettily grey, she was fatter in the face, and on the whole looked well and happy, in spite of her father's death. she told him she was going to live at rye--she had a tiny income, derived from jury's life insurance, and she meant to do art needlework for an ecclesiastical firm. reuben experienced a vague sense of annoyance--not that he wanted her to be unhappy, but he felt that she had no right to happiness, going out into the world, poor and alone, her parents dead, her life's love missed.... that summer the country was shaken by rumours of war, reuben; having more leisure on his hands, spent it in the study of his daily paper. he could now read simple sentences, and considered himself quite an educated man. when war at last broke out in south africa he was delighted. it was the best of all possible wars, organised by the best of all possible governments, under the best of all possible ministers. chamberlain became his hero--not that he understood or sympathised with his imperialism, but he admired him for his attitude towards the small nations. he hated all talk about preserving the weak--such was not nature's way, the way of farms; there the weakest always went to the wall, and he could not see why different methods should obtain in the world at large. if reuben had been a politician he would have kept alive no sick man of europe, protected no down-trodden balkan states. one of the chief reasons why he wanted to see the boers wiped out was because they had muddled their colonisation, failed to establish themselves, or to make of the arid veldt what he had made of boarzell. "they're no good, them boers," he announced at the cocks; "there they've bin fur years and years, and they say as how that transvaal's lik a desert. they've got mizzling liddle farms such as i wudn't give sixpence for--and all that gurt veldt's lik the palm of my hand, naun growing. they döan't deserve to have a country." he expressed himself so eloquently in this fashion that the member for the rye division of sussex--the borough had been disenfranchised in ' --asked him to speak at a recruiting meeting at the court hall. unluckily reuben's views on recruiting were peculiar. "now's your chance," he announced to the assembled yokels; "corn prices is going up, and every man who wants to do well by himself had better grub his pastures and sow grain. suppose we wur ever to fight the french--who are looking justabout as ugly at us now as they did in boney's time--think wot it 'ud be if we had grain-stocks in the country, and cud settle our own prices. my advice to the men of rye is the same as wot i gave in this very hall thirty-five years ago--sow grain, and grain, and more grain." the member, the colonel of the volunteers, and others present, pointed out to reuben afterwards that the situation was military, not agricultural; but it was characteristic of him to see all situations from the agricultural point of view. his old ideas of an agricultural combine, which had fallen miserably to pieces in ' , now revived in all their strength. he saw east sussex as a country of organised corn-growing, odiam at the head. his rather eclectic newspaper reading had impressed him with the idea that england was on the verge of war with one or two european powers, notably the french, whose ribald gloatings over british disasters stirred up all the fury of the man who had been born within range of the napoleonic wars and bred on tales of boney and his atrocities. he was dismayed by the lack of local enthusiasm. he dug up one or two of his own pastures and planted wheat; he even sacrificed ten acres of his precious hops, but nobody seemed inclined to follow his example. the neighbourhood was ornately patriotic, flags flew from the oast-houses at socknersh, union jacks washed to delicate pastel shades by the chastening rain--while the standard misleadingly proclaimed that the royal family was in residence at burntbarns. on odiam the boys sang: "goodbye, dolly, i must leave you though it breaks my heart to go-- something tells me i am wanted at the front to drive away the foe." some of them in fact did go. others remained, and sang: "good-bye, my bluebell, farewell to you, one last long look into your eyes of blue-- 'mid camp-fires gleaming, 'mid shot and shell, i will be dreaming of my own bluebell." § . quite early in the war david and william walked home in silence after seeing a troop-train off from rye, then suddenly, when they came to odiam, shook hands. "it's our chance," said bill. "we've waited for it long enough." "i couldn't have stood much more, and this will be a good excuse." "the old man 'ull take on no end--wot with his corn-growing plans and that." "funny how he never seems to think of anything but odiam." "strikes me as he's mad--got what you call a fixed idea, same as mad people have." "he's sensible enough--but he's unaccountable hard to live with." "yes--he's fair made me hate odiam. i liked the place well enough when i was a little lad, but he's made me sick of it. it's all very well living on a farm and working on it, but when you're supposed to give up your whole life to it and think of nothing else, well, it's too much." "we won't tell him that, though, davy--we'll make out as it's pure patriotic feeling on our part." "yes; i don't want him to think we're set on getting away--but, by gum, bill! we are." "if this war hadn't happened we'd have had to have thought of something else." so they went and broke their news to reuben. they were careful and considerate--but he was knocked out by the blow. "going!--both of you!" he cried. "we feel we've got to. they want all the young men." "but you could help your country just as well by staying at höame and growing corn." "you can grow corn without us--we're wanted out there." "but you're all i've got--one go, and t'other stay." "no, we must stick together." "oh, i know, i know--you've always thought more of each other than of your father or of odiam." "don't say that, dad--we care for you very much, and we're coming back." "there's no one gone from here as has ever come back." for the first time they noticed something of the cracked falsetto of old age in his voice, generally so firm and ringing. their hearts smote them, but the instinct of self-preservation was stronger than pity. they knew now for certain that if they stayed odiam would devour them, or at best they would escape maimed and only half alive. either they must go at once--in time, like richard, or go in a few years--too late, like caro. besides, the war called to their young blood; they thought of guns and bayonets, camp-fires and battlefields, glory and victory. their youth called them, and even their father's game and militant old age could not silence its bugles and fifes. the next day they left odiam for the recruiting station at rye. reuben and the farm-hands watched them as they marched off whistling "good-bye, dolly, i must leave you," shaking their shoulders in all the delight of their new freedom. they had gone--as albert had gone, as robert, as richard, as tilly, as benjamin, as caro, as pete had gone. reuben stood erect and stiff, his eyes following them as they turned out of the drive and disappeared down the peasmarsh road. when they were out of sight he walked slowly to the new ground near the crest of boarzell, which was being prepared for the winter wheat. he made a sign to the man who was guiding the plough, and taking the handles himself, shouted to the team. the plough went forward, the red earth turned, sprinkled, creamed into long furrows, and soothed reuben's aching fatherhood with its moist fertile smell. it was the faithful earth, which was his enemy and yet his comforter--which was always there, though his children forsook him--the good earth to which he would go at last. § . reuben was now alone at odiam--for the first time. of course harry was with him still, but harry did not count. there was an extraordinary vitality in him, none the less; it was as if the energies unused by his brain were diverted to keep together his crumbled body. he grew more shrivelled, more ape-like every day, and yet he persisted in life. he still scraped at his fiddle, and would often sit for hours at a time mumbling--"only a poor old man--a poor old man--old man--old man," over and over again, sometimes with a sudden shrill cry of "salvation's got me!" or "another wedding!--we're always having weddings in this house." his brother avoided him, and did his best to ignore him--he was the scar of an old wound. his loneliness seemed to drive reuben closer to the earth. he still had that divine sense of the earth being at once his enemy and his only friend. just as the gorse which murders the soil with its woody fibres sweetens all the air with its fragrance, so reuben when he fought the harsh strangling powers of the ground also drank up its sweetness like honey. he did not work so hard as formerly, though he could still dig his furrow with the best of them--he knew that the days had come when he must spare himself. but he maintained his intercourse with the earth by means of long walks in the surrounding country. hitherto he had not gone much afield. if affairs had called him to battle, robertsbridge, or cranbrook, he had driven or ridden there as a matter of business--he had seldom walked in the more distant bye-lanes, or followed the field-paths beyond the marshes. now he tramped over nearly the whole country within a radius of ten miles--he was a tireless walker, and when he came home knew only the healthy fatigue which is more delight than pain and had rewarded his dripping exertions as a young man. he would walk southwards to eggs hole and dinglesden, then across the tillingham marshes to coldblow and pound house, then over the brede river to snailham, and turning up by guestling thorn, look down on hastings from the mill by batchelor's bump. or he would go northwards to strange ways in kent, down to the rother marshes by methersham and moon's green, then over to lambstand, and by side-tracks and bostals to benenden--back by scullsgate and nineveh, and the lonely furnace road. he learned to love the moving shadows of clouds travelling over a sunlit view--to love ridged distances fading from dark bice, through blue, to misty grey. he used to watch for the sparkle of light on far cottage windows, the white sheen of farmhouse walls and the capped turrets of oasts. but he loved best of all to feel the earth under his cheek when he cast himself down, the smell of her teeming sap, the sensation that he lay on a kind breast, generous and faithful. it was strange that the result of all his battles should be this sense of perfect union, this comfort in his loneliness. reuben was not ashamed at eighty years old to lie full length in some sun-hazed field, and stretch his body over the grass, the better to feel that fertile quietness and moist freshness which is the comfort of those who make the ground their bed. he never let anyone see him in these moments--somehow they were almost sacred to him, the religion of his godless old age. but soon the more distant cottagers came to know him by sight, and watch for the tall old man who so often tramped past their doors. he always walked quickly, his head erect, a stout ash stick in his hand. he was always alone--not even a dog accompanied him. he wore dark corduroys, and either a wide-brimmed felt hat, or no hat at all, proud of the luxuriance of his iron-grey hair. they soon came to know who he was. "'tis old mus' backfield from odiam farm by peasmarsh. they say as he's a hard man." "they say as he's got the purtiest farm in sussex--he's done wäonders fur odiam, surelye." "but his wife and children's run away." "they say he's a hard man." "and he's allus alöan." "he döan't seem to care for nobody--never gives you the good marnun." "it's larmentäable to see an old feller lik that all alöan, wudout friend nor kin." "he's straight enough in spite of it all--game as a youngster he is." § . meanwhile the south african war dragged its muddled length from stormberg to magersfontein, through colenso to spion kop. it meant more to reuben than any earlier war--more than the crimea, for then there were no newspaper correspondents, more than the indian mutiny, for that was with blacks, or the franco-prussian, for that was between furriners. besides, there were two additional factors of tremendous importance--he could now spell out a good deal of his daily paper, and his sons were both fighting. they had gone out early in november, and were very good about writing to him. they could afford to be generous now they were free, so they sent him long letters, carefully printed out, as he could not read running hand. they told him wonderful stories of camps and bivouacs, of skirmishes and snipings. they enlarged on the grilling fierceness of the december sun which had burnt their faces brick-red and peeled their noses--on the flies which swarmed thicker by far than over odiam midden--on the awful dysentery that grabbed at half their pals--on the hypocritical boers, who read the bible and used dum-dum bullets. they came safely through magersfontein, the only big encounter in which they were both engaged. david was made a sergeant soon afterwards. reuben sent them out tobacco and chocolate, and contributed to funds for supplying the troops with woollen comforts. he felt himself something of a patriot, and would talk eagerly about "my son the sergeant," or "my boys out at the front." he was very busy over his new corn scheme, and as time went on came to resent the attitude of the european powers in not attacking england and forcing her to subsist on her own grain supplies. all europe hated britain, so his newspapers said, so why did not all europe attack britain with its armies as well as with its press? we would beat it, of course--what was all europe but a set of furriners?--meantime our foreign wheat supplies would be cut off by the prowling navies of france, germany, russia and everywhere else, which reuben imagined crowding the seas, while the true-born sons of britain, sustaining themselves for the first time on british-grown corn, and getting drunk for the first time on beer innocent of foreign hop-substitutes, would drive upstart europe to its grave, and start a millennium of high prices and heavy grain duties. however, europe was disobliging; corn prices hardly rose at all, and reuben was driven to the unwelcome thought that the only hope of the british farmer was milk--at least, that was not likely ever to be imported from abroad. the year wore on. kimberley and ladysmith were relieved. rye hung out its flags, and sang "dolly grey" louder than ever. then mafeking was saved, and a bonfire was lit up at leasan house, in which a couple of barns and some stables were accidentally involved. everyone wore penny medallion portraits of officers--roberts and baden-powell were the favourites at odiam, which nearly came to blows with burntbarns over the rival merits of french. while reuben himself bought a photograph of kitchener in a red, white, and blue frame. then suddenly an honour fell on odiam. the war office itself sent it a telegram. but the honour was taken sadly, for the telegram announced that sergeant david backfield had been killed in action at laing's nek. § . it was not the first time death had visited reuben, but it was the first time death had touched him. his father's death, his mother's, george's, albert's, had all somehow seemed much more distant than this very distant death in africa. even naomi's had not impressed him so much with sorrow for her loss as sorrow for the inadequacy of her life. but david's death struck home. david and william were the only two children whom he had really loved. they were his hope, his future. once again he tasted the agonies of bereaved fatherhood, with the added tincture of hopelessness. he would never again see david's brown, strong, merry face, hear his voice, build plans for him. for some days the paternal feeling was so strong that he craved for his boy quite apart from odiam, just for himself. it had taken eighty years and his son's death to make a father of him. an added grief was the absence of a funeral. reuben did not feel this as the relief it would have been to some. he had given handsome and expensive funerals to those not half so dear as this young man who had been hurried into his soldier's grave on the lonely veldt. in course of time william sent him a snapshot of the place, with its little wooden cross. reuben dictated a tremendously long letter through maude the dairy-woman, in which he said he wanted a marble head-stone put up, and "of odiam, sussex," added to the inscription. the neighbourhood pitied him in his loss. there was indeed something rather pathetic about this old man of eighty, who had lost nearly all his kith and kin, yet now tasted bereavement for the first time. they noticed that he lost some of the erectness which had distinguished him, the corners of his mouth drooped, and his hair, though persistently thick, passed from iron grey to a dusty white. one day when he was walking through the village he heard a woman say as he passed--"there he goes! i pity un, poor old man!" the insult went into him like a knife. he turned round and gave the woman his fiercest scowl. old indeed! had one ever heard of such a thing! old!--and he could guide the plough and dig furrows in the marl, and stack, and reap with any of 'em. old!--why, he was only-- --he was eighty. he suddenly realised that, after all, he _was_ old. he did not carry himself as erectly as he had used; there were pains and stiffness in his limbs and rheumatic swellings in his joints. his hair was white, and his once lusty arms were now all shrivelled skin and sinew, with the ossified veins standing out hard and grey. he was what harry was always calling himself--"only a poor old man"--a poor old man who had lost his son, whom cottage women pitied from their doorsteps--and be hemmed to them, the sluts! § . meantime affairs at grandturzel were going from bad to worse. reuben did not speak much about grandturzel, but he watched it all the same, and as time wore on a look of quiet satisfaction would overspread his face when it was mentioned at the cocks. he watched the tiles drip gradually off its barn roofs, he watched the thatch of its haggards peel and moult, he watched the oasts lose their black coats of tar, while the wind battered off their caps, and the skeleton poles stuck up forlornly from their turrets. holes wore in the neat house-front, windows were broken and not mended, torn curtains waved signals of distress. it was only a question of waiting. reuben often went to the cocks, for he had heard it said that one's beer-drinking capacities diminished with old age, and he was afraid that if he stayed away, men would think it was on that account. so he went frequently, particularly if the weather was of a kind to keep old people at home. he did not talk much, preferring to listen to what was said, sitting quietly at his table in the corner, with the quart of barclay and perkins's mild which had been his evening drink from a boy. it was at the cocks that he learned most of grandturzel's straits, though he occasionally made visits of inspection. realf had messed his hops that autumn, and the popular verdict was that he could not possibly hold out much longer. "wot'll become of him, i wäonder?" asked hilder, the new man at socknersh. "someone 'ull buy him up, i reckon," and young coalbran, who had succeeded his father at doozes, winked at the rest of the bar, and the bar to a man turned round and stared at old reuben, who drew himself up, but said nothing. "wot d'you think of grandturzel, mus' backfield?" someone asked waggishly. "naun," said reuben; "i'm waiting." he did not have to wait long. a few days later he was told that somebody wanted to see him, and in the parlour found his daughter tilly. he had seen tilly at intervals through the years, but as he had never allowed himself to give her more than a withering glance, he had not a very definite idea of her. she was now nearly fifty-five, and more than inclined to stoutness--indeed, her comfortable figure was almost ludicrous compared with her haggard, anxious face, scored with lines and patched with shadows. her grey hair was thin, and straggled on her forehead, her eyes had lost their brightness; yet there was nothing wild or terrible about her face, it was just domesticity in desperation. "fäather," she said as reuben came into the room. "well?" "henry döan't know i've come," she murmured helplessly. "wot have you come fur?" "to ask you--to ask you--oh, fäather!" she burst into tears, her broad bosom heaved under her faded gown, and she pressed her hands against it as if to keep it still. "döan't täake on lik that," said reuben, "tell me wot you've come fur." "i dursn't now--it's no use--you're a hard man." "then döan't come sobbing and howling in my parlour. you can go if you've naun more to say." she pulled herself together with an effort. "i thought you might--perhaps you might help us ..." reuben said nothing: "we're in a larmentable way up at grandturzel." her father still said nothing. "i döan't know how we shall pull through another year." "nor do i." "oh, fäather, döan't be so hard!" "you said i wur a hard man." "but you'll--you'll help us jest this once. i know you're angry wud me, and maybe i've treated you badly. but after all, i'm your daughter, and my children are your grandchildren." "how many have you got?" "five--the youngest's rising ten." there was a pause. reuben walked over to the window and looked out. tilly stared at his back imploringly. if only he would help her with some word or sign of understanding! but he would not--he had not changed; she had forsaken him and married his rival, and he would never forget or forgive. she had been a fool to come, and she moved a step or two towards the door. then suddenly she remembered the anguish which had driven her to odiam. she had been frantic with grief for her husband and children; only the thought of their need had made it possible for her to override her inbred fear and dislike of reuben and beg him to help them. she had come, and since she had come it must not be in vain; the worst was over now that she was actually here, that she had actually pleaded. she would face it out. "fäather!" she called sharply. he turned round. "i thought maybe you'd lend us some money--just fur a time--till we're straight agäun." "you'd better ask somebody else." "there's no one round here as can lend us wot we need--it's--it's a good deal as we'll want to see us through." "can't you mortgage?" "we are mortgaged--the last foot"--and she burst into tears again. reuben watched her for a minute or two in silence. "you've bin a bad daughter," he said at last, "and you've got no right to call on me. but i've had my plans for grandturzel this long while." she shuddered. "this mortgage business alters 'em a bit. i'll have to think it over. maybe i'll let you hear to-morrow mornun." "oh, fäather, if only you'll do anything fur us, we'll bless you all our lives." "i döan't want you to bless me--and maybe you wöan't täake my terms." "i reckon we haven't much choice," she said sorrowfully. "well, you've only got wot you desarve," said reuben, turning to the door. tilly opened her mouth to say something, but was wise, and held her tongue. § . the next morning reuben sent his ultimatum to grandturzel. he would pay off realf's mortgage and put the farm into thorough repair, on condition that grandturzel was made over to him, root, stock, crop, and inclosure, as his own property--the realfs to live in the dwelling-house rent free and work the place for a monthly wage. these rather strange terms had been the result of much thought on his part. his original plan had been simply to buy the farm for as little money as realf would take, but tilly's visit had inspired him with the happy thought of getting it for nothing. as the land was mortgaged it would be very difficult for realf to find buyers, who would also be discouraged by the farm's ruinous state of disrepair. indeed, reuben thought himself rather generous to offer what he did. he might have stipulated for realf to pay him back in a given time part of the money disbursed on his account. after all, mortgage and repairs would amount to over a thousand pounds, so when he talked of getting the place for nothing it was merely because the mortgage and the repairs would have to be tackled anyhow. he had little fear of realf's refusing his terms--not only was he very unlikely to find another purchaser, but no one else would let him stay on, still less pay him for doing so. reuben had thought of keeping him on as tenant, but had come to the conclusion that such a position would make him too independent. he preferred rather to have him as a kind of bailiff--the monthly, instead of the weekly, wage making acceptance just possible for his pride. of course reuben himself would rather have wandered roofless for the rest of his life than live as a hireling on the farm which had once been his own. but he hardly thought realf would take such a stand--he would consider his wife and children, and accept for their sakes. "if he's got the sperrit to refuse i'll think better of him than i've ever thought in my life, and offer him a thousand fur the pläace--but i reckon i'm purty safe." he was right. realf accepted his offer, partly persuaded by tilly. his mortgage foreclosed in a couple of months, and he had no hopes of renewing it. if he rejected reuben's terms, he would probably soon find himself worse off than ever--his farm gone with nothing to show for it, and himself a penniless exile. on the other hand, his position as bailiff, though ignominious, would at least leave him grandturzel as his home and a certain share in its management. he might be able to save some money, and perhaps at last buy a small place of his own, and start afresh.... he primed himself with such ideas to help drug his pride. after all, he could not sacrifice his wife and children to make a holiday for his self-respect. tilly was past her prime, and not able for much hard work, and though his eldest boys had enlisted, like reuben's, and were thus no longer on his mind, he had two marriageable girls at home besides his youngest boy of ten. one's wife and children were more to one than one's farm or one's position as a farmer--and if they were not, they ought to be. so a polite if rather cold letter was written accepting odiam's conditions, and tilly thanked heaven that she had sacrificed herself and gone to plead with her father. § . the whole of boarzell now belonged to odiam, except the fair-place at the top. reuben would stare covetously at the fir and gorse clump which still defied him; but he had reached that point in a successful man's development when he comes to believe in his own success; bit by bit he had wrested boarzell from the forces that held it, and he could not think that one patch would withstand him to the end. as luck would have it, the only piece that was not his was the moor's most characteristic feature, the knob of firs that made it a landmark for miles round. while they still stood men could still talk of and point at boarzell, but when he had cut them down, grubbed up the gorse at their roots, ploughed over their place--then boarzell would be lost, swallowed up in odiam; it would be at most only a name, perhaps not even that. sometimes reuben shook his fist at the fir clump and muttered, "i'll have you yet, you see if i döan't, surelye." meantime he devoted his attention to the land he had just acquired. the grandturzel inclosure was put under cultivation like the rest of boarzell, and a stiff, tough, stony ground it proved, reviving all reuben's love of a fight. he was glad to have once more, as he put it, a piece of land he could get his teeth into. realf could not help a half resentful admiration when he saw his father-in-law's ploughs tearing through the flints, tumbling into long chocolate furrows what he had always looked upon as an irreclaimable wilderness. he accepted his position with a fairly good grace--to complain would have made things worse for tilly and the children. he was inclined privately to scoff at some of reuben's ideas on farming, but even as he did so he realised the irony of it. he might have done otherwise, yes, but he was kicked out of his farm, the servant of the man whose methods he thought ridiculous. reuben on his side thought realf a fool. he despised him for failing to lift grandturzel out of adversity, as he had lifted odiam. he would not have kept him on as bailiff if he had thought there would have otherwise been any chance of his accepting odiam's terms. he disliked seeing him about the place, and did not find--as the neighbourhood pictured he must--any satisfaction in watching his once triumphant rival humbly performing the duties of a servant on the farm that used to be his own. reuben's hatreds were not personal, they were merely a question of roods and acres, and when that side of them was appeased, nothing remained. they were, like almost everything else of his, a question of agriculture, and having now settled realf agriculturally he had no grudge against him personally. about this time old beatup died. he was odiam's first hand, and had seen the farm rise from sixty acres and a patch on boarzell to two hundred acres and nearly the whole moor. reuben was sorry to lose him, for he was an old-fashioned servant--which meant that he gave much in the way of work and asked little in the way of wages or rest. the young men impudently demanded twenty shillings a week, wanted afternoons in the town, and complained if he worked them overtime--there had never been such a thing as overtime till board schools were started. however, of late beatup had been of very little use. he was some years younger than reuben, but he looked quite ten years older, and his figure was almost exactly like an s. the earth had used him hardly, steaming his bones into strange shapes and swellings, parching his skin to something dark and crackled like burnt paper, filling him with stiffness and pains. reuben had straightened his shoulders, which had drooped a little after david's death, and once more carried his old age proudly, as the crown of a hale and strenuous life. he looked forward to william coming back and settling down at odiam. it would be good to have companionship again. the end of the war was in sight--only a guerilla campaign was being waged among the kopjes, kruger had fled from pretoria, and everyone talked of peace. at last peace became an accomplished fact. reuben could not help a few disloyal regrets that his corn-growing had been in vain, but he consoled himself with the thought that now he would have william back in a few weeks. he expected a letter from him, and grew irritable when none came. billy had not been so good about writing since david's death, but his father thought that he at least might have written to announce his return. as things were, he did not know when to expect him. he supposed he was bound to get his discharge, and he would have heard if anything had happened to him. why did not william hurry home to share odiam's greatness with his old father? at last the letter came. reuben took it into the oast-barn to read it. his hands trembled as he tore the envelope, and there was a dimness in his eyes, so that he could scarcely make out the big printing hand. but it was not the dimness of his eyes which was responsible for the impossible thing he saw; at first he thought it must be, and rubbed them--yet the unthinkable was still there. william was not coming back at all. "this place suits me, and i think i could do well for myself out here. i feel i should get on better if i was my own master.... she was good and sensible-like, and looked as if she could manage things. so i married her.... we're starting up on a little farm near jo'burg ... i can't see it matters her being dutch ... fifty acres of pasture ... ten head of cattle ... niggers to work ..." ... the words danced and swam before reuben, with black heaving spaces between that grew wider and wider, till at last they swallowed him up. for the first time in his life he had fainted. § . reuben's last hope was now gone--for his family, at least. he was forced regretfully to the conclusion that he was not a successful family man. whatever methods he tried with his children, severity or indulgence, he seemed bound to fail. he had had great expectations of david and william, brought up, metaphorically, on cakes and ale, and they had turned out as badly as albert, richard--reuben still looked upon richard as a failure--tilly, or caro, who had been brought up, literally, on cuffs and kicks. and the moral of it all was--not to trust anyone but yourself to carry on with you or after you the work of your life. your ambition is another's afterthought, your afterthought his ambition. he would not give a halfpenny for that for which you would give your life. if you have many little loves, you have always a comrade; if you have one great love, you are always alone. this is the law. his pride would not let him give way to his grief. he was not going to have any more of "pity the poor old man." he mentioned william's decision almost casually at the cocks. however, he need not have been afraid. "no more'n he desarves," was the universal comment ... "shameful the way he treated grandturzel" ... "no feeling fur his own kin" ... "the young feller was wise not to come back." indeed, locally the matter was looked upon as a case of poetic justice, and the rector's sermon on sunday, treating of the wonderful sagacity of providence, was taken, rightly or wrongly, to have a personal application. meantime, in reuben's heart was darkness. as was usual when any fear or despair laid hold of him, he became obsessed by a terror of his old age. generally he felt so well and vigorous that he scarcely realised he was eighty-two; but now he felt an old man, alone and childless. harry's reiterated "only a poor old man ... a poor old man," rang like a knell in his ears. it was likely that he would not live much longer--he would probably die with the crest of boarzell yet unconquered. he made a new will, leaving his property to william on condition that he came home to take charge of it, and did not sell a single acre. if he refused these conditions, he left it to robert under similar ones, and failing him to richard. it was a sorry set of heirs, but there was no help for it, and he signed his last will and testament with a grimace. fair day was to be a special holiday that year because of the coronation. reuben at first thought that he would not go--it was always maddening to see the booths and shows crowding over his canaan, and circumstances would make his feelings on this occasion ten times more bitter. but he had never missed the fair except for some special reason, such as a funeral or an auction, and he felt that if he stayed away it might be put down to low spirits at his son's desertion, or, worse still, to his old age. so he came, dressed in his best, as usual, with corduroy breeches, leggings, wide soft hat, and the flowered waistcoat and tail-coat he had refused to discard. he was no longer the centre of a group of farmers discussing crops and weather and the latest improvements in machinery--he stood and walked alone, inspecting the booths and side-shows with a contemptuous eye, while the crowd stared at him furtively and whispered when he passed ... "there he goes" ... "old ben backfield up at odiam." reuben wondered if this was fame. the fair had moved still further with the times. the merry--go-round organ played "bluebell," "dolly grey," and "the absent-minded beggar," the chief target in the shooting-gallery was kruger, with cronje and de wet as subordinates, and the panorama showed queen victoria's funeral. the fighting booth was hidden away still further, and dancing now only started at nightfall. there were some new shows, too. the old-fashioned thimble-rigging had given place to a modern swindle with tickets and a dial; instead of the bearded woman or the pig-faced boy, one put a penny in the slot and saw a lady undress--to a certain point. there was a nigger in a fur-lined coat lecturing on a patent medicine, while the stalls themselves were of a more utilitarian nature, selling whips and trousers and balls of string, instead of the ribbon and gingerbread fairings bought by lovers in days of old. reuben prowled up and down the streets of booths, grinned scornfully at the efforts in the shooting gallery, watched a very poor fight in the boxing tent, had a drink of beer and a meat pie, and came to the conclusion that the fair had gone terribly to pieces since his young days. he found his most congenial occupation in examining the soil on the outskirts, and trying to gauge its possibilities. the top of boarzell was almost entirely lime--the region of the marl scarcely came beyond the outskirts of the fair. of course the whole place was tangled and matted with the roots of the gorse, and below them the spreading toughness of the firs; reuben fairly ached to have his spade in it. he was kneeling down, crumbling some of the surface mould between his fingers, when he suddenly noticed a clamour in the fair behind him. the vague continuous roar was punctuated by shrill screams, shouts, and an occasional crash. he rose to his feet, and at the same moment a bunch of women rushed out between the two nearest stalls, shrieking at the pitch of their lungs. they ran down towards the thickset hedge which divided the fair-place from odiam's land, and to his horror began to try to force their way through it, screaming piercingly the while. reuben shouted to them: "stop--you're spoiling my hëadge!" "he's after us--he'll catch us--o-o-oh!" "who's after you?" but before they had time to answer, something burst from between the stalls and ran down the darkling slope, brandishing a knife. it was mexico bill, running amok, as he had sometimes run before, but on less crowded occasions. the women sent up an ear-splitting yell, and made a fresh onslaught on the hedge. someone grabbed the half-breed from behind, but his knife flashed, and the next moment he was free, dashing through the gorse towards his victims. reuben was paralysed with horror. in another minute they would break down his hedge--a good young hedge that had cost him a pretty penny--and be all over his roots. for a moment he stood as if fixed to the spot, then suddenly he pulled himself together. at all costs he must save his roots. he could not tackle the women single-handed, so he must go for the madman. "backfield's after him!" the cry rose from the mass up at the stalls, as the big dark figure with flapping hat-brim suddenly sprang out of the dusk and ran to meet mexico bill. reuben was an old man, and his arm had lost its cunning, but he carried a stout ash stick and the maniac saw no one but the women at the hedge. the next moment reuben's stick had come against his forehead with a terrific crack, and he had tumbled head over heels into a gorse-bush. in another minute half the young men of the fair were sitting on him, and everyone else was crowding round backfield, thanking him, praising him, and shaking him by the hand. the women could hardly speak for gratitude--he became a hero in their eyes, a knight at arms.... "to think as how when all them young tellers up at the fair wur no use, he shud risk his life to save us--he's a präaper valiant man." but reuben hardly enjoyed his position as a hero. he succeeded in breaking free from the crowd, now beginning to busy itself once more with mexico bill, who was showing signs of returning consciousness, and plunged into the mists that spread their frost-smelling curds over the lower slopes of boarzell. "thank heaven i saved them rootses!" he muttered as he walked. then suddenly his manner quickened; a kind of exaltation came into his look, and he proudly jerked up his head: "i'm not so old, then, after all." book viii the victory § . the next year, richard and anne backfield took a house at playden for week-ends. anne wanted to be near her relations at the manor, and richard, softened by prosperity, had no objection to returning to the scene of his detested youth. a week or two before they arrived reuben went to playden, and looked over the house. it was a new one, on the hill above star lock, and it was just what he would have expected of richard and anne--gimcrack. he scraped the mortar with his finger-nail, poked at the tiles with his stick, and pronounced the place jerry-built in the worst way. it had no land attached to it, either--only a silly garden with a tennis court and flowers. richard's success struck him as extremely petty compared with his own. he did not see much of his son and daughter-in-law on their visits. richard was inclined to be friendly, but anne hated odiam and all belonging to it, while reuben himself disliked calling at starcliffe house, because he was always meeting the manor people. the family at flightshot consisted now of the squire, who had nothing against him except his obstinacy, his lady, and his son who was just of age and "the most tedious young rascal" reuben had ever had to deal with. he drove a motor-car with hideous din up and down the peasmarsh lanes, and once odiam had had the pleasure of lending three horses to pull it home from the forstal. but his worst crimes were in the hunting field; he had no respect for roots or winter grain or hedges or young spinneys. twice reuben had written to his father, through maude the scribe, and he vowed openly that if ever he caught him at it he'd take a stick to him. the result of all this was that george fleet, being young and humorous, indulged in some glorious rags at old backfield's expense. he had not been to cambridge for nothing, and one morning reuben found both his house doors boarded up so that he had to get out by the window, and on another occasion his pigs were discovered in a squalling mass with their tails tied together. there was no good demanding retribution, for the youth's scandalised innocence when confronted with his crimes utterly convinced his fools of parents, and gave them an opinion of his accuser that promised ill for his ultimate possession of the fair-place. reuben still dreamed of that fair-place, and occasionally schemed as well; but everything short of the death of the squire--and his son--seemed useless. however, he now had the rest of boarzell in such a state of cultivation that he sometimes found it possible to forget the land that was still unconquered. that year he bought a hay-elevator and a steam-reaper. the latter was the first in the neighbourhood--never very go-ahead in agricultural matters--and quite a crowd collected when it started work in the glotten hide, to watch it mow down the grain, gather it into bundles, and crown the miracle by tying these just as neatly as, and much more quickly than, a man. though reuben's corn had not done much for him materially, it had far-reaching consequences of another kind. it immensely increased his status in the county. odiam had more land under grain cultivation than any farm east of lewes, and the local tories saw in backfield a likely advocate of tariff reform. he was approached by the rye conservative club, and invited to speak at one or two of their meetings. he turned out to be, as they had expected, an ardent champion of the new idea. "it wur wot he had worked and hoped and prayed fur all his life--to git back them corn laws." he was requested not to put the subject quite so bluntly. so in his latter days reuben came back into the field of politics which he had abandoned in middle age. once more his voice was heard in school-houses and mission-halls, pointing out their duty and profit to the men of rye. he was offered, and accepted, a vice-presidentship of the conservative club. politics had changed in many ways since he had last been mixed up in them. the old, old subjects that had come up at election after election--vote by ballot, the education of the poor, the extension of the franchise, gladstone's free breakfast table--had all been settled, or deformed out of knowledge. the only old friend was the question of a tax on wheat, revived after years of quiescence--to rekindle in reuben's old age dreams of an england where the corn should grow as the grass, a golden harvest from east to west, bringing wealth and independence to her sons. § . the only part of the farm that was not doing well was grandturzel. the new ground had been licked into shape under reuben's personal supervision, but the land round the steading, which had been under cultivation for three hundred years, yielded only feeble crops and shoddy harvests--things went wrong, animals died, accidents happened. realf had never been a practical man--perhaps it was to that he owed his downfall. good luck and ambition had made him soar for a while, but he lacked the dogged qualities which had enabled reuben to play for years a losing game. besides, he had to a certain extent lost interest in land which was no longer his own. he worked for a wage, for his daily bread, and the labour of his hands and head which had once been an adventure and a glory, was now nothing but the lost labour of those who rise up early and late take rest. also he was in bad health--his hardships and humiliations had wrought upon his body as well as his soul. he was not even the ghost of the man whose splendid swaggering youth had long ago in peasmarsh church first made the middle-aged reuben count his years. he stooped, suffered horribly from rheumatism, had lost most of his hair, and complained of his eyesight. reuben began to fidget about grandturzel. he told his son-in-law that if things did not improve he would have to go. in vain realf pleaded bad weather and bad luck--neither of them was ever admitted as an excuse at odiam. the hay-harvest of was a good one--of course realf's hay had too much sorrel in it, there was always something wrong with realf's crops--but generally speaking the yield was plentiful and of good quality. reuben rejoiced to feel the soft june sun on his back, and went out into the fields with his men, himself driving for some hours the horse-rake over the swathes, and drinking at noon his pint of beer in the shade of the waggon. in the evening the big hay-elevator hummed at odiam, and old backfield stood and watched it piling the greeny-brown ricks till darkness fell, and he went in to supper and the sleep of his old age. it took about a week to finish the work--on the last day the fields which for so long had shown the wind's path in tawny ripples, were shaven close and green, scattering a sweet steam into the air--a soft pungency that stole up to the house at night and lapped it round with fragrance. old reuben stretched himself contentedly as he went into his dim room and prepared to lie down. the darkness had hardly settled on the fields--a high white light was in the sky, among the stars. he went to bed early with the birds and beasts. before he climbed into the bed, lying broad and white and dim in the background of the candleless room, he opened the window, to drink in the scent of his land as it fell asleep. the breeze whiffled in the orchard, fluttering the boughs where the young green apples hid under the leaves, there was a dull sound of stamping in the barns ... he could see the long line of his new haycocks beyond the yard, soft dark shapes in the twilight. he was just going to turn back into the room, his limbs aching pleasantly for the sheets, when he noticed a faint glow in the sky to southward. at first he thought it was a shred of sunset still burning, then realised it was too far south for june--also it seemed to flicker in the wind. then suddenly it spread itself into a fan, and cast up a shower of sparks. the next minute reuben had pulled on his trousers and was out in the passage, shouting "fire!" the farm men came tumbling from the attics--"whur, mäaster?" "over at grandturzel--can't see wot's burning from here. git buckets and come!" shouts and gunshots brought those men who slept out in the cottages, and a half-dressed gang, old reuben at the head, pounded through the misty hay-sweet night to where the flames were spreading in the sky. from the shoulder of boarzell they could see what was burning--realf's new-made stacks, two already aflame, the others doomed by the sparks which scattered on the wind. no one spoke, but from realf's yard came sounds of shouting, the uneasy lowing and stamping of cattle, and the neigh of terrified horses. the whole place was lit up by the glare of the fire, and soon reuben could see realf and his two men, dunk and juglery, with mrs. realf, the girls, and young sidney, passing buckets down from the pond and pouring them on the blazing stacks--with no effect at all. "the fools! wot do they think they're a-doing of? döan't they know how to put out a fire?" he quickened his pace till his men were afraid he would "bust himself," and dashing between the burning ricks, nearly received full in the chest the bucket his son-in-law had just swung. "stop!" he shouted--"are your cattle out?" "no." "then git 'em out, you fool! you'll have the whole pläace a bonfire in a minnut. wot's the use of throwing mugs of water lik this? you'll never put them ricks out. säave your horses, säave your cows, säave your poultry. anyone gone for the firemen?" "yes, i sent a boy over fust thing." "why didn't you send to me?" "cudn't spare a hand." "cudn't spare one hand to fetch over fifteen--that's a valiant idea. now döan't go loitering; fetch out your cattle afore they're roast beef, git out the horses and all the stock--and souse them ricks wot äun't burning yit." the men scurried in all directions obeying his orders. soon terrified horses were being led blindfold into the home meadow; the cows and bullocks, less imaginative, followed more quietly. meantime buckets were passed up from the pond to the stacks that were not alight; but before this work was begun reuben went up to the furthest stack and thrust his hand into it--then he put in his head and sniffed. then he called realf. "cöame here." realf came. "wot's that?" realf felt the hay and sniffed like reuben. "wot's that?" his father-in-law repeated. realf went white to the lips, and said nothing. "i'll tell you wot it is, then!" cried reuben--"it's bad stacking. this hay äun't bin präaperly dried--it's bin stacked damp, and them ricks have gone alight o' themselves, bust up from inside. it's your doing, this here is, and i'll mäake you answer fur it, surelye." "i--i--the hay seemed right enough." "maybe it seems right enough to you now?"--and reuben pointed to the blazing stacks. realf opened his lips, but the words died on them. his eyes looked wild and haggard in the jigging light; he groaned and turned away. at the same moment a pillar of fire shot up from the roof of the dutch barn. the flying sparks had soon done their work. fires sprang up at a distance from the ricks, sometimes in two places at once. everyone worked desperately, but the water supply was slow, and though occasionally these sporadic fires were put out, generally they burned fiercely. wisps of blazing hay began to fly about the yard, lodging in roofs and crannies. by the time the fire engine arrived from rye, the whole place was alight except the dwelling-house and the oasts. the engine set to work, and soon everything that had not been destroyed by fire was destroyed by water. but the flames were beaten. they hissed and blackened into smoke. when dawn broke over the eastern shoulder of boarzell, the fire was out. a rasping pungent smell rose from a wreckage of black walls and little smoking piles of what looked like black rags. water poured off the gutters of the house, and soused still further the pile of furniture and bedding that had been pulled hastily out of it. the farm men gathered round the buckets, to drink, and to wash their smoke-grimed skins. reuben talked over the disaster with the head of the fire brigade, who endorsed his opinion of spontaneous combustion; and realf of grandturzel sat on a heap of ashes--and sobbed. § . that morning reuben had a sleep after breakfast, and did not come down till dinner-time. he was told that mrs. realf wanted to see him and had been waiting in the parlour since ten. he smiled grimly, then settled his mouth into a straight line. he found his daughter in a chair by the window. her face was puffed and blotched with tears, and her legs would hardly support her when she stood up. she had brought her youngest son with her, a fine sturdy little fellow of fourteen. when reuben came into the room she gave the boy a glance, and, as at a preconcerted signal, they both fell on their knees. "git up!" cried backfield, colouring with annoyance. "we've come," sobbed tilly, "we've come to beg you to be merciful." "i wöan't listen to you while you're lik that." the son sprang to his feet, and helped his mother, whose stoutness and stiffness made it a difficult matter, to rise too. "if you've come to ask me to kip you and your husband on at grandturzel," said reuben, "you might have säaved yourself the trouble, fur i'm shut of you both after last night." "fäather, it wur an accident." "a purty accident--wud them stacks no more dry than a ditch. 'twas a clear case of 'bustion--fireman said so to me; as wicked and tedious a bit o' wark as ever i met in my life." "it'll never happen agäun." "no--it wöan't." "oh, fäather--döan't be so hard on us. the lord knows wot'll become of us if you turn us out now. it 'ud have been better if we'd gone five years ago--realf wur a more valiant man then nor wot he is now. he'll never be able to start agäun--he äun't fit fur it." "then he äun't fit to work on my land. i äun't a charity house. i can't afford to kip a man wud no backbone and no wits. i've bin too kind as it is--i shud have got shut of him afore he burnt my pläace to cinders." "but wot's to become of us?" "that's no consarn of mine--äun't you säaved anything?" "how cud we, fäather?" "i could have säaved two pound a month on realf's wage." tilly had a spurt of anger. "yes--you'd have gone short of everything and made other folks go short--but we äun't that kind." "you äun't. that's why i'm turning you away." her tears welled up afresh. "oh, fäather, i'm sorry i spöake lik that. döan't be angry wud me fur saying wot i did. i'll own as we might have managed better--only döan't send us away--fur this liddle chap's sake," and she pulled forward young sidney, who was crying too. "where are your other sons?" "harry's got a wife and children to keep--he cudn't help us; and johnnie's never mäade more'n fifteen shilling a week since the war." reuben stood silent for a moment, staring at the boy. "does realf know you've come here?" he asked at length. "yes," said tilly in a low voice. there was another silence. then suddenly reuben went to the door and opened it. "there's no use you waiting and vrothering me--my mind's mäade up." "fäather, fur pity's säake----" "döan't talk nonsense. how can i sit here and see my land messed about by a fool, jest because he happens to have married my darter?--and agäunst my wish, too. i'm sorry fur you, tilly, but you're still young enough to work. i'm eighty-five, and i äun't stopped working yet, so döan't go saying you're too old. your gals can go out to service ... and this liddle chap here ..." he stopped speaking, and stared at the lad, chin in hand. "he can work too, i suppose?" said tilly bitterly. "i wur going to say as how i've täaken a liking to him. he looks a valiant liddle feller, and if you'll hand him over to me and have no more part nor lot in him, i'll see as he doesn't want." tilly gasped. "i've left this farm to william," continued reuben, "because i've naun else to leave it to that i can see. all my children have forsook me; but maybe this boy 'ud be better than they." "you mean that if we let you adopt sidney, you'll mäake odiam his when you're gone?" "i döan't say for sartain--if he turns out a präaper lad and is a comfort to me and loves this pläace as none of my own children have ever loved it----" but tilly interrupted him. putting her arm round the terrified boy's shoulders, she led him through the door. "thanks, fäather, but if you offered to give us to-day every penny you've got, i'd let you have no child of mine. maybe we'll be poor and miserable and have to work hard, but he wöan't be one-half so wretched wud us as he'd be wud you. d'you think i disremember my own childhood and the way you mäade us suffer? you're an old man, but you're hearty--you might live to a hundred--and i'd justabout die of sorrow if i thought any child of mine wur living wud you and being mäade as miserable as you mäade us. _i'd rather see my boy dead than at odiam._" § . there was a big outcry in peasmarsh against backfield's treatment of the realfs. not a farmer in the district would have kept on a hand who had burnt nearly the whole farm to ashes through bad stacking, but this fact did little to modify the general criticism. a dozen excuses were found for realf's "accident," as it came to be called--"and old ben cud have afforded to lose a stack or two, surelye." reuben was indifferent to the popular voice. the realfs cleared out bag and baggage the following month. no one knew their destination, but it was believed they were to separate. afterwards it transpired that realf had been given work on a farm near lurgashall, while tilly became housekeeper to a clergyman, taking with her the boy she would rather have seen dead than at odiam. nothing was heard of the daughters, and local rumour had it that they went on the streets; but this pleasing idea was shattered a year or two later by young alce, the publican's son, coming back from a visit to chichester and saying he had found both the girls in service in a canon's house, doing well, and one engaged to marry the butler. reuben did not trouble about the realfs. tilly had been no daughter of his from the day she married; it was a pity he had ever revoked his wrath and allowed himself to be on speaking terms with her and her family; if he had turned them out of grandturzel straight away there would have been none of this absurd fuss--also he would not have lost a good crop of hay. but he comforted himself with the thought that his magnanimity had put about a thousand pounds into his pocket, so he could afford to ignore the cold shoulder which was turned to him wherever he went. and the hay was insured. he gave up going to the cocks. it had fallen off terribly those last five years, he told maude the dairy-woman, his only confidant nowadays. the beer had deteriorated, and there was a girl behind the counter all painted and curled like a jezebubble, and rolling her eyes at you like this.... if any woman thought a man of his experience was to be caught, she was unaccountable mistaken (this doubtless for maude's benefit, that she might build no false hopes on the invitation to bring her sewing into the kitchen of an evening). then the fellows in the bar never talked about stocks and crops and such like, but about race-horses and football and tomfooleries of that sort, wot had all come in through the poor being educated and put above themselves. moreover, there was a gramophone playing trash like "i wouldn't leave my little wooden hut for you"--and the tale of reuben's grievances ended in expectoration. all the same he was lonely. maude was a good woman, but she wasn't his equal. he wanted to speak to someone of his own class, who used to be his friend in days gone by. then suddenly he thought of alice jury. he had promised to go and see her at rye, but had never done so. he remembered how long ago she had used to comfort him when he felt low-spirited and neglected by his fellows. perhaps she would do the same for him now. he did not know her address, but the new people at cheat land would doubtless be able to give it to him, and perhaps alice would help him through these trying times as she had helped him through earlier ones. a few days later he drove off in his trap to rye. though he had scarcely thought of her for ten years, he was now all aflame with the idea of meeting her. she would be pleased to see him, too. perhaps their long-buried emotions would revive, and as old people they would enjoy a friendship which would be sweeter than the love they had promised themselves in more ardent days. alice lived in lodgings by the ypres tower. the little crinkled cottage looked out over the marshes towards camber and the masts of ships. reuben was shown into a room which reminded him of cheat land long ago, for there were books arranged on shelves, and curtains of dull red linen quaintly embroidered. there was a big embroidery frame on the table, and over it was stretched a gorgeous altar-cloth all woven with gold and violet tissue. he was inspecting these things when alice came in. her hair was quite white now, and she stooped a little, but it seemed to reuben as if her eyes were still as lively as ever. something strange suddenly flooded up in his heart and he held out both hands. "alice ..." he said. "good afternoon," she replied, putting one hand in his, and withdrawing it almost immediately. "i--i--äun't you pleased to see me?" "i thought you'd forgotten all about me, certainly." she offered him a chair, and he sat down. her coldness seemed to drive back the tides that had suddenly flooded his lips, and slowly too they began to ebb from his heart. whom had he come to see?--the only woman he had ever loved, whose love he had hoped to catch again in these his latter days, and hold transmuted into tender friendship, till he went back to his earth? not so, it seemed--but an old woman who had once been a girl, with whom he had nothing in common, and from whom he had travelled so far that they could scarcely hear each other's voices across the country that divided them. alice broke the silence by offering him some tea. "thanks, but i döan't täake tea--i've never held wud it." "how are you, reuben? i've heard a lot about you, but nothing from you yourself. is it true that you've sent away your daughter and her family from grandturzel?" "yes--after they burnt the pläace down to the ground." "and where are they now?" "i dunno." alice said nothing, and reuben fired up a little: "i daresay you think badly of me, lik everyone else. but if a man mäade a bonfire of your new stacks, i reckon you wouldn't say 'thank'ee,' and raise his wages." another pause--then alice said: "how are you getting on with boarzell? i hear that most of it's yours now." "all except the fair-pläace--and i mean to have that in a year or two, surelye." this time it was she that kindled: "you talk as if you'd all your life before you--and you must be nearly eighty-five." "i döan't feel old--at least not often. i still feel young enough to have a whack at the fair-pläace." "so you haven't changed your idea of happiness?" "how d'you mean?" "your idea of happiness always was getting something you wanted. well, lately i've discovered my idea of happiness, and that's--wanting nothing." "then you _have_ got wot you want," said reuben cruelly. "i don't think you understand." "my old fäather used to say--'i want nothing that i haven't got, and so i've got nothing that i döan't want, surelye.'" "it's all part of the same idea, only of course he had many more things than i have. i'm a poor woman, and lonely, and getting old. but"--and a ring of exaltation came into her voice, and the light of it into her eyes--"i want nothing." "i wish you'd talk plain. if you never want anything, then you äun't präaperly alive. so you äun't happy--because you're dead." "you don't understand me. it's not because i'm dead and sluggish that i don't want anything, but because i've had fight enough in me to triumph over my desires. so now everything's mine." "fust you say as how you're happy because you've got nothing, and now you say as everything's yourn. how am i to know wot you mean?" "well, compare my case with yours. you've got everything you want, and yet in reality you've got nothing." "that's nonsense, alice." he spoke more gently, for he had come to the conclusion that sorrow and loneliness had affected her wits. "it isn't. you've got what you set out to get--boarzell moor, and success for odiam; but in getting it you have lost everything that makes life worth while--wife, children, friends, and--and--love. you're like the man in the bible who rebuilt jericho, and laid the foundations in his firstborn, and set up the gates in his youngest son." "there you go, alice! lik the rest of them--no more understanding than anyone else. can't you see that _it's bin worth while_?" "what do you mean?" "why, that it's worth losing all those things that i may get the one big thing i want. döan't you see that boarzell and odiam are worth more to me than wife or family or than you, alice. come to that, you've got none o' them things either, and you haven't a farm to mäake up fur it. so even if i wur sorry fur wot i'm not sorry fur, i'm still happier than you." "no you aren't--because you want a thing, and i want nothing." "i've got a thing, my girl, and you've got nothing." they had both risen and faced each other, anger in their eyes. but their antagonism had lost that vital quality which had once made it the salt of their friendship. "you döan't understand me," said reuben--"i'd better go." "you don't understand me," said alice--"you can't." "we've lost each other," said reuben--"good-bye." alice smiled rather bitterly, and had a moment of vision. "the fact is that we can't forgive each other--for being happy in different ways." "i tell you i'm sorry for nothing." "nor i." so they parted. reuben drove back slowly through the october afternoon. a transparent brede of mist lay over the fields, occasionally torn by sunlight. everything was very quiet--sounds of labour stole across the valley from distant farms, and the barking of a dog at stonelink seemed close at hand. now and then the old man muttered to himself: "we döan't understand each other--we döan't forgive each other--we've lost each other. we've lost each other." he knew now that alice was lost. the whole of boarzell lay between them. he had thought that she would be always there, but now he saw that between him and her lay the dividing wilderness of his success. she was the offering and the reward of failure--and he had triumphed over failure as over everything else. he drove through peasmarsh and turned into the totease lane. the fields on both sides of it were his now. he sniffed delightedly the savour of their sun-baked earth, of the crumpling leaves in their hedges, of the roots, round and portly, that they nourished in their soil--and the west wind brought him the scent of the gorse on boarzell, very faintly, for now only the thickets of the top were left. almost the whole south was filled by the great lumpish mass of the moor, no longer tawny and hummocky, but lined with hedges and scored with furrows, here and there a spread of pasture, with the dotted sheep. a mellow corn-coloured light rippled over it from the west, and the sheep bleated to each other across the meadows that had once been wastes.... "my land," murmured old reuben, drinking in the breeze of it. "my land--more to me than alice." then with a sudden fierceness: "i'm shut of her!" § . the next year came the great unionist collapse. the government which had bumped perilously through the south african war, went on the rocks of an indignant peace--wrecked by tariff reform with the complication of chinese labour and the education bill. once more reuben took prominent part in a general election. the circumstances were altered--no one threw dead cats at him at meetings, though the common labouring men had a way of asking questions which they had not had in ' . old backfield spoke at five meetings, each time on tariff reform and the effect it would have on local agriculture. the candidate and the unionist club were very proud of him, and spoke of him as "a grand old man." on election day, one of the candidates' own cars was sent to fetch him to the poll. it was the first time reuben had ever been in a motor, but he did his best to dissemble his excitement. "it's lik them trains," he said to the chauffeur, "unaccountable strange and furrin-looking at first, but naun to spik of when you're used to 'em. well i remember when the first railway train wur run from rye to hastings--and most people too frightened to go in it, though it never mäade more'n ten mile an hour." though the country in general chose to go to the dogs, reuben had the consolation of seeing a conservative returned for rye. he put this down largely to his own exertions, and came home in high good humour from the declaration of the poll. mr. courthope, the successful candidate, had shaken him by the hand, and so had his agent and one or two prominent members of the club. they had congratulated him on his wonderful energy, and wished him many more years of usefulness to the conservative cause. he might live to see a wheat-tax yet. he compared his present feelings with the miserable humiliation he had endured in ' . queer!--that election seemed almost as real and vivid to him as this one, and--he did not know why--he found himself feeling as if it were more important. his mind recaptured the details with startling clearness--the crowd in the market-place, the fight with coalbran, the sheep's entrails that were flung about ... and suddenly, sitting there in his arm-chair, he found himself muttering: "that hemmed gëate!" it must be old age. he pulled himself together, as a farm-hand came into the room. it was boorman, one of the older lot, who had just come back from rye. "good about the poll, mäaster, wurn't it?" he said--the older men were always more cordial towards reuben than the youngsters. they had seen how he could work. "unaccountable good." "i mäade sure as how mus' courthope ud git in. 'täun't so long since we sent up another unionist--seems strange when you and me remembers that a tory never sat fur rye till ' ." "when did you come back?" "i've only just come in, mäaster. went räound to the london trader after hearing the poll. by the way, i picked up a piece of news thur--old jury's darter wot used to be at cheat land has just died. bob hilder töald me--seems as she lodges wud his sister." "um." "thought you'd be interested to hear. i remember as how you used to be unaccountable friendly wud them jurys, considering the difference in your position." "yes, yes--wot did she die of?" "bob dudn't seem to know. she allus wur a delicate-looking woman." "yes--a liddle stick of a woman. that'll do, now." boorman went out, grumbling at "th' öald feller's cussedness," and reuben sat on without moving. alice was dead--she had died in his hour of triumph. just when he had succeeded in laying his hands on one thing more of goodness and glory for odiam, she who had nothing and wanted nothing had gone out into the great nothingness. a leaden weight seemed to have fallen on him, for all that he was "shut of her." the clock ticked on into the silence, the fire spluttered, and a cat licked itself before it. he sat hunched miserably, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. in his breast, where his heart had used to be, was a heavy dead thing that knew neither joy nor sorrow. reuben was feeling old again. § . "please, mäaster, there's trouble on the farm." reuben started out of the half-waking state into which he had fallen. it was late in the afternoon, the sunlight had gone, and a wintry twilight crept up the wall. maude the dairy-woman was looking in at the door. "wot is it? wot's happened?" "boorman asked me to fetch you. they've had some vrother wud the young squire, and he's shot a cow." "shot one of my cows!" and reuben sprang to his feet. "where woman? where?" "down at totease. he wur the wuss for liquor, i reckon." reuben was out of the house bare-headed, and running across the yard to the totease meadows. he soon met a little knot of farm-hands coming towards him, with three rather guilty-looking young men. "wot's happened?" he called to boorman. "only this, mäaster--dunk and me found mus' fleet a-tearing about the glotten meadow wud two of his friends, trying to fix radical posters on the cows--seems as they'd räaked up one or two o' them old ben the gorilla posters wot used to be about peasmarsh, and they'd stuck one on tawny and one on cowslip, and wur fair racing the other beasts to death. then when me and the lads cöame up and interfere, they want to fight us--and when we täake höald of 'em, seeing as they 'pear to be a liddle the wuss for drink, why mus' fleet he pulls out a liddle pistol and shoots all around, and hits poor öald dumpling twice over." "look here, farmer," said one of the young men--"we're awfully sorry, and we'll settle with you about that cow. we were only having a rag. we're awfully sorry." "ho, indeed! i'm glad to hear it. and you'll settle wud me about the cow! wur it you who shot her, i'd lik to know?" "i didn't actually fire the pistol--but we're all in the same boat. had a luncheon over at rye to cheer ourselves up after seeing the tory get in. we're awfully sorry." "you've said that afore," said reuben. he pondered sternly over the three young men, who all looked sober enough now. as a matter of fact, dumpling was no great loss; fifteen pounds would have paid for her. but he was not disposed to let off george fleet so easily. against the two other youths he bore no grudge--they were just ordinary ineffective young asses, of radical tendencies, he noted grimly. george, however, stood on a different footing; he was the mocker of odiam, the perpetrator of many gross and silly practical jokes at its expense. he should not escape with the mere payment of fifteen pounds, for he owed reuben the punishment of his earlier misdeeds. "the man as shot my cow shall answer fur it before the magistrate," he said severely. "look here----" cried george fleet, and his two friends began to bid for mercy, starting with twenty pounds. "be a sport," pleaded one of them, when they had come to forty, "you simply can't hand him over to the police--his father's squire of the manor, and it would be no end of a scandal." "i know who his fäather is, thank'ee," said reuben. then suddenly a great, a magnificent, a triumphant idea struck him. he nearly staggered under the force of it. he was like a general who sees what he had looked upon hitherto as a mere trivial skirmish develop into a battle which may win him the whole campaign. he spoke almost faintly. "someone go fur the squire." "sir eustace!" "yes--fetch him here, and i'll talk the matter over wud him." "but----" "either you fetch him here or i send fur the police." the two young men stared at each other, then george fleet nodded to them: "you'd better go. the dad'll be better than a policeman anyhow. try and smooth him down a bit on the way." "right you are"--and they reluctantly moved off, leaving their comrade in the enemy's hands. however, reuben's whole manner had changed. his attitude towards george fleet became positively cordial. he took him into the kitchen, and made maude give him some tea. he himself paced nervously up and down, a queer look of exaltation sometimes passing over his face. one would never have taken him for the same man as the old fellow who an hour ago had huddled weak and almost senile in his chair, broken under his life's last tragedy. he felt young, strong, energetic, a soldier again. the squire soon arrived. reuben had him shown into the parlour, and insisted on seeing him alone. "you finish your tea," he said to george, "and bring some more, maudie, for these gentlemen," nodding kindly to the two young men, who stared at him as if they thought he had taken leave of his senses. in the parlour, sir eustace greeted him with mingled nervousness and irritation. "well, backfield, i'm sorry about this young scapegrace of mine. but boys will be boys, you know, and we'll make it all right about that cow. i promise you it won't happen again." "i'm sorry to have given you the trouble of coming here, squire. but i thought maybe you and i cud come to an arrangement wudout calling in the police." "oh, certainly, certainly. you surely wouldn't think of doing that, backfield. i promise you the full value of the cow." "quite so, squire. but it äun't the cow as i'm vrothered about so much as these things always happening. this äun't the first 'rag,' as he calls it, wot he's had on my farm. i've complained to you before." "i know you have, and i promise you nothing of this kind shall ever happen again." "how am i to know that, squire? you can't kip the young man in a prammylator. now if he wur had up before the magistrate and sent to prison, it 'ud be a lesson as he'd never disremember." "but think of me, backfield! think of his mother! think of us all! it would be a ghastly thing for us. i promise to pay you the full value of the cow--and of your damaged self-respect into the bargain. won't that content you?" "um," said reuben--"it might." the squire thought he had detected backfield's little game, and a relieved affability crept into his manner. "that'll be all right," he said urbanely. "of course i understand your feelings are more important to you than your cow. we'll do our best to meet you. what do you value them at, eh?" "the fair-pläace." § . he had triumphed. he had beaten down the last resistance of the enemy, won the last stronghold of boarzell. it was all his now, from the clayey pastures at its feet to the fir-clump of its crown. a trivial event which he had been able to seize and turn to his advantage had unexpectedly given him the victory. the squire had called it blackmail and made a terrible fuss about it, but from the first the issues had been in reuben's hands. a public scandal, the appearance of flightshot's heir before the county magistrates on the charge of shooting a cow in a drunken frolic, was simply not to be contemplated; the only son of the manor must not be sacrificed to make a rustic holiday. after all, ever since the inclosure the fair had been merely a matter of toleration; and as backfield pointed out, it could easily go elsewhere--to the big tillingham meadow outside rye, for instance, where the wild beast shows pitched when they came. all things considered, resistance was not worth while, and flightshot made its last capitulation to odiam. of course there was a tremendous outcry in peasmarsh and the neighbourhood. everyone knew that the fair was doomed--backfield would never allow it to be held on his land. his ploughs and his harrows were merely waiting for the negotiations to be finished before leaping, as it were, upon this their last prey. he would even cut down the sentinel firs that for hundreds of years had kept grim and lonely watch over the sussex fields--had seen old peasen mersch when it was only a group of hovels linked with the outside world by lanes like ditches, and half the country a moor like the boar's hyll. the actual means by which he acquired the fair-place never quite transpired, for the farm-men were paid for their silence by sir eustace, and also had a kindly feeling for young george which persisted after the money was spent. however, one or two of the prevalent rumours were worse for reuben than the facts, and if anyone, in farmhouse or cottage, had ever had a grudging kindness for the man who had wrested a victory out of the tyrant earth, he forgot it now. but reuben did not care. he had won his heart's desire, and public opinion could go where everything else he was supposed to value, and didn't, had gone. in a way he was sorry, for he would have liked to discuss his triumph at the cocks, seasoning it with pints of decadent ale. as things were, he had no one to talk it over with but the farm-men, who grumbled because it meant more work--maude, who said she'd be sorry when all that pretty gorse was cleared away--and old mad harry, now something very like a grasshopper, whose conversation since the blaze at grandturzel had been limited entirely to the statement that "the house was afire, and the children were burning." but this isolation did not trouble reuben much. he had lost mankind, but he had found the earth. the comfort that had sustained him after the loss of david and william, was his now in double measure. the earth, for which he had sacrificed all, was enough for him now that all else was gone. he was too old to work, except for a snip or a dig here and there, but he never failed to direct and supervise the work of the others. every morning he made his rounds on horseback--it delighted him to think that they were too long to make on foot. he rode from outpost to outpost, through the lush meadows and the hop-gardens of totease, across the lane to the wheatlands of odiam, and then over boarzell with its cornfields and wide pastures to grandturzel, where the orchards were now bringing in a yearly profit of fifteen pounds an acre. all that vast domain, a morning's ride, was his--won by his own ambition, energy, endurance, and sacrifice. in the afternoon he took life easy. if it was warm and fine he would sit out of doors, against the farmhouse wall, his old bones rejoicing in the sunshine, and his eager heart at the sight of boarzell shimmering in the heat--while sounds of labour woke him pleasantly from occasional dozes. when evening came and the cool of the day, he would go for a little stroll--round by burntbarns or socknersh or moor's cottage, just to see what sort of a mess they were making of things. he was no longer upright now, but stooped forward from the hips when he walked. his hair was astonishingly thick--indeed it seemed likely that he would die with a full head of hair--but he had lost nearly all his teeth--a very sore subject, wisely ignored by those who came in contact with him. the change that people noticed most was in his eyes. in spite of their thick brows, they were no longer fierce and stern;--they were full of that benign serenity which one so often sees in the eyes of old men--just as if he had not ridden roughshod over all the sweet and gentle things of life. one would think that he had never known what it was to trample down happiness and drive love out of doors--one would think that having always lived mercifully and blamelessly he had reaped the reward of a happy old age. § . reuben did not go to the fair that autumn--there being no reason why he should and several why he shouldn't. he went instead to see richard, who was down for a week's rest after a tiring case. reuben thought a dignified aloofness the best attitude to maintain towards his son--there was no need for them to be on bad terms, but he did not want anyone to imagine that he approved of richard or thought his success worth while. richard, for his part, felt kindly disposed towards his father, and a little sorry for him in his isolation. he invited him to dinner once or twice, and, realising his picturesqueness, was not ashamed to show him to his friends. there were several of his friends at starcliffe that afternoon--men and women rising in the worlds of literature, law, and politics. it was possible that richard would contend the rye division--in the liberal interest, be it said with shame--and he was anxious to surround himself with those who might be useful to him. besides, he was one of those men who breathe more freely in an atmosphere of culture. apart from mere utilitarian questions, he liked to talk over the latest books, the latest _cause célèbre_ or diplomatic _coup d'étât_. anne, very upright, very desiccated, poured out tea, and reuben noted with satisfaction that nature had beaten her at the battle of the dressing-table. richard, on the other hand, in spite of an accentuation of the legal profile, looked young for his age and rather buckish, and rumour credited him with an intrigue with a lady novelist. he received his father very kindly, giving him a seat close to the table so that he might have a refuge for his cup and saucer, and introducing him to a gentleman who, he said, was writing a book on sussex commons and anxious for information about boarzell. "but i owe you a grudge, mr. backfield, for you have entirely spoilt one of the finest commons in sussex. the records of boarzell go back to the twelfth century, and in the visitations of sussex it is referred to as a fine piece of moorland three hundred acres in extent and grown over with heather and gorse. i went to see it yesterday, and found only a tuft of gorse and firs at the top." "and they're coming out this week," said reuben triumphantly. "can't i induce you to spare them? there are only too few of those ancient landmarks left in sussex." "and there'd be fewer still, if i had the settling of 'em. i'd lik to see the whole of england grown over wud wheat from one end to the other." "it would be a shame to spoil all the wild places, though," said a vague-looking girl in an embroidered frock, with her hair in a lump at her neck. "one wants a place where one can get back to nature," said a young man with a pince-nez and open-work socks. "but my father's great idea," said richard, "is that nature is just a thing for man to tread down and subdue." "it can't be done," said the young man in the open-work socks--"it can't be done. and why should we want to do it?--is not nature the mother and nurse of us all?--and is it not best for us simply to lie on her bosom and trust her for our welfare?" "if i'd a-done that," said reuben, "i shouldn't have an acre to my näum, surelye." "and what do you want with an acre? what is an acre but a man's toy--a child's silly name for a picture it can't understand. have you ever heard pan's pipes?" "i have not, young man." "then you know nothing of nature--the real goddess, many-breasted ceres. what can you know of the earth, who have never danced to the earth's music?" "i once stayed on the downs," said the girl in the embroidered frock, speaking dreamily, "and one twilight i seemed to hear elfin music on the hill. i tore off my shoes and let down my hair and i danced--i danced...." "ah," said the youth in the open-work socks approvingly. "that's very like an episode in 'meryon's house,' you know--that glorious scene in which jennifer the prostitute goes down to the new forest with meryon and suddenly begins dancing in a glade." "of course, being a prostitute, she'd be closer to nature than a respectable person." "i thought 'meryon's house' the worst bilge this year has given us," said a man in a braided coat. "or that meryon has given us, which is saying more," put in someone else. "i hate these romantic realists--they're worse than the old-fashioned zola sort." the conversation had quite deserted reuben, who sat silent and forgotten in his corner, thinking what fools all these people were. after he had wondered what they were talking about for a quarter of an hour, he rose to go, and gave a sigh of relief when the fresh air of iden hill came rustling to him on the doorstep. "he's a fine old fellow, your father, backfield," said the man who was writing a book on sussex commons. "i can almost forgive him for spoiling one of the best pieces of wild land in the county." "a magnificent old face," said a middle-aged woman with red hair--"the lining of it reminds me of those interesting italian peasants one meets--they wrinkle more beautifully than a young girl keeps her bloom. i should like to paint him." "so should i," said the girl in the embroidered frock--"and i've been taking note of his clothes for our earlscourt morris dancers." richard felt almost proud of his parent. "he's certainly picturesque--and really there's a good deal of truth in what he says about having got the better of nature. thirty years ago i'd have sworn he could never have done it. but it's my firm conviction that he has--and made a good job of it too. he's fought like the devil, he's been hard on every man and himself into the bargain, he's worked like a slave, and never given in. the result is that he's done what i'd have thought no man could possibly do. it's really rather splendid of him." "ah--but he's never heard pan's pipes," said the youth in the open-work socks. § . reuben drove slowly homewards through the brooding october dusk. the music of the fair crept after him up the foreign, and from the crest he could see the booths and stalls looking very small in the low fields by the rother. "i wouldn't leave my little wooden hut for you," played the merry-go-round, and there was some mysterious quality in that distant tune which made reuben whip the old horse over the hill, so as to be out of reach of it. so much of his life had been bound up with the fair that somehow a part of him seemed to be jigging at it still, down in the rother field. it was at the fair that he had first resolved to conquer boarzell, and he saw himself rushing with the crowd to totease, scuffling round the barns while the big flames shot out ... and later he saw himself dancing with naomi to harry's fiddle. what had harry played?--a strange tune, "the song of seth's home"--one never heard it now, but he could remember fragments of it.... these troubling thoughts were forgotten when he came to his own frontiers. he drove up to the farmhouse door, and handing over the trap to a boy, went out for his evening inspection of boarzell. the sunset guttered like spent candles in the wind--the rest of the sky was grey, like the fields under it. the distant bleating of sheep came through the dropping swale, as reuben climbed the moor. his men were still at work on the new ground, and he made a solemn tour of inspection. they were cutting down the firs and had entirely cleared away the gorse, piling it into a huge bonfire. all that remained of boarzell's golden crown was a pillar of smoke, punctured by spurts and sparks of flame, rising up against the clouds. the wind carried the smell away to socknersh and burntbarns, and the farm-men there looked up from their work to watch the glare of boarzell's funeral pyre. reuben moved away from the crest and stood looking round him at what had once been boarzell moor. a clear watery light had succeeded the sunset, and he was able to see the full extent of his possessions. from the utmost limits of grandturzel in the south, to the glotten brook in the north, from socknersh in the east to cheat land in the west--all that he could see was his. out of a small obscure farm of barely sixty acres he had raised up this splendid dominion, and he had tamed the roughest, toughest, fiercest, cruellest piece of ground in sussex, the beast of boarzell. his victory was complete. he had done all that he had set out to do. he had done what everyone had told him he could never do. he had made the wilderness to blossom as the rose, he had set his foot upon leviathan's neck, and made him his servant for ever. he stood with his arms folded over his chest, and watched the first stars flicker above castweasel. the scent of the ground steamed up to mingle with the mists, a soft rasp of frost was in the air and the earth which he had loved seemed to breathe out towards him, and tell him that by his faithful service he had won not only boarzell but all gracious soil, all the secrets of seed-time and harvest, all the tender mysteries of sap, and growth. he knew that not only the land within these boundaries was his--his possessions stretched beyond it, and reached up to the stars. the wind, the rain, dawns, dusks, and darkness were all given him as the crown of his faithfulness. he had bruised nature's head--and she had bruised his heel, and given him the earth as his reward. "i've won," he said softly to himself, while behind him the blazing gorse spat and crackled and sent flames up almost to the clouds with triumphant roars--"i've won--and it's bin worth while. i've wanted a thing, and i've got it, surelye--and i äun't too old to enjoy it, nuther. i may live to be a hunderd, a man of my might. but if i go next week, i shan't complain, fur i've lived to see my heart's desire. i've fought and i've suffered, and i've gone hard and gone rough and gone empty--but i haven't gone in vain. it's all bin worth it. odiam's great and boarzell's mine--and when i die ... well, i've lived so close to the earth all my days that i reckon i shan't be afraid to lie in it at last." printed by william brendon and son, ltd., plymouth, england file was produced from images generously made available by the babel.hathitrust.org. transcriber's notes. differences in hyphenation of specific words and missing punctuation have been rectified where applicable. other changes made are noted at the end of the book. margaret maliphant a novel by mrs. comyns carr author of "paul crew's story" etc. new york harper & brothers, franklin square prologue. it is twilight upon the marsh: the land at the foot of the hill lies a level of dim monotony, and even the sea beyond is lost in mystery. in the middle of the plain one solitary homestead, with its clump of trees, stands out just a little darker than anything else, and from afar there comes to me the sound of the sea, sweetly lulling, as it has come to me ever since i was a little child. a chill breeze creeps up among the aspens on the cliff, and for a moment there steals over me the sense of loneliness of ten years ago, and i seem to see once more a tall, dark figure thread his way down among the trees, and disappear forever onto the wide plain. but this is only for a moment; for as i look, the past lies stretched, as the plain is stretched, before me--vivid, yet distant as a dream. the white mill detaches itself upon the dark hill-side, the cattle rest upon the quiet marsh; and still the sound of the sea comes to me, tenderly murmuring, as it did when i was a happy child, and tells me of a present that is wide and fair as, above the lonely land, the coming night is blue and vast. chapter i. my sister joyce is older than i am. at the time of which i am thinking she was twenty-one, and i was barely nineteen. we were the only children of farmer maliphant of knellestone grange, in the county of sussex. the maliphants were an old family. their names were on the oldest tombstones in the graveyard of the abbey, whose choir and ruined transepts were all that was left standing of a splendid church that had been the mother of a great monastery, and of many other churches in the popish days, when our town was a feature in english history. i am not sure that our family dated as far back as that. i had read of knights in helmets and coats of mail skirmishing beneath the city wall, of which there were still fragments standing, and of gallant captains bringing the king's galleys to port in the bay that had become marsh-land, and i hoped that there might have been maliphants too, riding up and down the hill under the gate-ways that were now ivy-grown; but i am afraid that, even if the family had been in existence at the time, they would only have been archers, shooting their arrows from behind the turrets on the hill. at all events--to leave romancing alone--maliphants had owned or rented land upon the udimore hills and the downs of brede for more than three hundred years, and it must have been nearly as long as that that they had lived in the old stone house overlooking the romney marsh. for almost all our land had been a manor of the old abbey, and had been granted to my father's family at the dissolution of the monasteries in , and it was not much more than a century since the maliphants had been obliged to sell most of it to the ancestors of him who was now squire at the big house. but they had never left the old home, renting the land that they had once owned, and tilling the soil that they had once been lords of. our house was the oldest house in the place, antiquaries testifying to the fact that it was built of the same foreign stone that fashioned the walls of the old abbey; and our name was the oldest name, a fact which my father, democrat as he was, never really forgot. but we were not so well-to-do as we had once been, even in the memory of living folk. family portraits of ladies in scanty gowns and high waists, and of gallants in ruffled shirts, made pleasant pictures in my fancy, and there were whispered stories of kegs of spirits stored at dead of night in the old cellars beneath the house in my grandfather's time, and of mother's old mechlin lace having been brought, at the risk of bold lives, in the merry little fishing-smacks that defied the revenue-cutters. but smuggling was a dead art in our time, and respectable folk would have been ashamed to buy smuggled goods. we lived the uneventful life of our neighbors, and were no longer the great people that we had been even in my grandfather's time; for farming was not now so lucrative. my sister joyce was very handsome. i have not seen much of the world, but i am sure that any one would have said so. she was tall, taller than i am, and i am not short, and she was slight, and fair as a rose. there was a sort of gentle quaker-like dignity about joyce which i have never seen in one so young. she had it of our mother. both women were very tall, and both bore their height bravely. sometimes, it is true, when joyce walked along the dark passages of the old grange, her arms full of sweet-scented linen, and bending her little head to pass under the low door-ways, or when she made the jam in the kitchen, or pats of butter in the dairy, she stooped just a little over her work; but when--of a june evening--she would come across the lawn with her hands full of guelder-roses and peonies for the parlor, no one could have said that she was too tall, so erect and gracefully did she seem to flit across the earth. of course i did not consciously notice these things when i was nineteen; but as i think of her again now, i can see that it was not at all to be wondered at that the country-folk used to talk of joyce maliphant as a poor slip of a thing, not fit to be a countryman's wife. there was an over-sensitiveness about her--a sort of tremulous reserve--that marked her as belonging to a different order of beings. it was not that she was weak either in mind or in body. joyce would often surprise one by her sudden purposes; and as for fatigue, that slender figure could work all day without being tired, and though the cheek was as dainty as the petal of a flower, it had nothing frail about it: it told of health, just as did the clearness of the blue eye and the wealth of the rippling auburn hair. joyce kept her complexion, partly because she was less out-of-doors than i was; but if i had known that i could have had her lovely skin instead of my own freckled face, i do not believe that i would have changed with her. no doubt mother was right, and i might have kept that--my one good point--if i had cared to. red-haired people generally do have fresh skins, and my hair is just about the color of virginia-creeper leaves in autumn, or of the copper kettle in the sunlight. i was very much ashamed of it in those days. luckily, i gave little heed to my appearance. i was quite content to leave the monopoly of the family beauty to my sister, if i might have freedom to scour the marsh-land with taff, the big st. bernard; and so long as my father treated me like a boy, and let me help him superintend the farm, he might banter as much as he liked about "margaret's gray eyes that looked a different color every day," and even rail at me for heavy eyelids that didn't look a bit as if i led a healthy out-door life. but i did: when there was neither washing nor baking nor butter-making to help with, i was out-of-doors from morning to night. when i was a child it was with reuben ruck the shepherd, and his black collie luck, who was the best sheep-dog in the country. reuben taught me many things--where to find the forms of the hares upon the marsh-land, the nests of the butcher-birds and yellow-hammers and wheat-ears that were all peculiar to our home; he taught me to surprise the purple herons upon the sands or by the dikes at eventide, to find the pewits' eggs upon the shingle, to tame the squirrels in the manor woods, to catch gray mullet in the channel, to spear eels in the dikes, to know when every bird's brood came forth, to welcome the various arrivals of the swifts and martins and swallows. at the time of which i write, reuben had had to give up his shepherd's duties, owing to ill health, and used to do odd jobs about the house and garden; but he had bred the love of the country in me, and now it was useless for mother to bemoan my wandering habits, or even for our old nurse, deborah, to take me to task for not caring more about the home pursuits in which my sister so brilliantly excelled. whatever related to a bird or a beast i would attend to with alacrity; but as for household duties, i only got them over as quickly as i could, that i might the sooner be out in the air. i knew every hill's crest inland, every headland out to sea, every shepherd's track across the marsh, every plank across the channels. the shepherds and the coast-guards were all my friends alike, and i think there was not one of them who would not have braved danger rather than i should come to harm, although i do not suppose that i ever exchanged more than six words' conversation with any of them in all my life. words were not necessary between us. "farmer maliphant's little miss" had always been a favorite, and "farmer maliphant's little miss" was always his youngest daughter. i like to remember the title now; i like to remember that if joyce was mother's right hand in the house, i was father's companion in the fields. i was very fond of father; i was very fond of any praise of his. i did not get on so well with mother. i suppose daughters often do not get on so well with their mothers. for though joyce was a fresh, neat, deft girl, just after mother's own heart, and i know that she thought there was none to equal her, they never got on well together. i was always fighting her battles. she was too gentle, or too proud--i was never sure which--to fight them for herself. a cross word, only spoken in the excitement of a domestic crisis--which meant worlds to a woman to whom house-keeping was an art--would shut joyce up in an armor of reserve for days, and i often laughed at her even while i fought for her. as for me, i used to think i could manage mother. i wish i had the dear old days back again! it's little managing i would care to do. it came to very little good. i believe that every quarrel i had for joyce only did her harm with mother; i was such a headstrong girl that it took a deal to set me down, and i am afraid that she got some of the thrusts that were meant for me in consequence. one of the special, though tacit, subjects of difference between mother and myself was upon the choice of a husband for my sister. i quite agreed with the country-folk, that she was not suited to be a countryman's wife, but i did not agree with mother's idea of a suitable husband for her. mother was a very ambitious woman. she wanted us to rise in the world; she wanted us to hold once more something of the position she knew the family had once held. she was not a highly educated woman herself, but she was a shrewd woman. she had had us educated to the best of her abilities, a little better than other farmers' daughters; if she had had her way, she would have sent me, as the cleverer, to school in london. but father would have none of it. he never denied her a whim for herself, but he did not hold with boarding-school learning. i was left to finish my education by living my life. but mother was none the less ambitious for us, and being an old-fashioned woman, her ambition aspired to good marriages for us. and i--foolish girl that i was--chose to think that the particular man whom she hoped that joyce's beauty would secure was a very commonplace lover, and not at all worthy of her. in the first place, he occupied a better position in the world than she did, and would probably consider that he was raising her by the marriage, which my pride resented. for, after all, it was only what the world considered a better position; he owned the land that we worked. but the land had only been bought by his ancestors; whereas our forefathers had owned it for more than two hundred years before that, so that we considered that we were of the finer stock. as i set this down now in black and white i smile to myself; it represents so very badly the real relations that existed between our two families, for the man of whom i speak has always been to us the best and stanchest of friends, and even at that time there was hearty simple intercourse between us that was quite uninfluenced by difference of rank or party-spirit. but the words express a certain side of our feelings, especially a certain side of my own particular feelings, and therefore they shall stand. the man whom mother hoped joyce might marry was squire broderick. ever since we girls could remember, he had been squire at the big house, for his father had died when he was scarcely twenty-one, and from that time he had been master of the thousand rooks that used to fly across the marsh at even, to their homes in the beeches and elms that sheltered the manor from the sea-gales. i remember thinking when i was a child that it was very strange the rooks should always fly to squire broderick's trees rather than to ours. for we had trees too, although not so many nor so big, and our house only stood at the other end of the hill, that sloped down on both sides into the marsh. his house was large and square and regular--a red brick elizabethan house--and had a great many more windows and chimneys than ours had, and a great many more flower-beds on the lawn that looked out across the marsh to the sea. but although the grange had been often added to in the course of its history, and was therefore irregular in shape and varied in color, according to the time that the stone had stood the weather, or to the mosses and ivy that clung to its gray walls, i am sure that it was just as fine an old structure in its way, with its high-pitched tiled roof and the lattice-windows, that only looked like eyes in the empty spaces of solid stone. we certainly had a better view than the squire. from the low windows of the front parlor we could see the red-roofed town rise, like a sentry-tower out of the plain, some three miles away; and, beyond the ruin of the round stone fortress, lying like a giant asleep in the tawny marsh-land, we looked across the wide stretch of flat pasture-land to the storms and the blue of the sea in the distance. i do not suppose that i was conscious of the strange beauty of this marsh-land as i am conscious of it now; but i know that i loved it--though people do say that country-folk have no admiration of nature--and i know that i was glad that we saw more of it than they did from the manor, where a belt of trees had been allowed to grow up and shut out the view. but the rooks loved that lordly belt of trees, and i think that, as a child, i envied the squire the rooks. if i did, it was the only thing i ever did envy him. as the child of the squire's tenant, and proud of my family pride, it was born in me rather to dislike him than otherwise for his fine old house and his many acres. but this was only when something occurred to remind me of these sentiments--to wit, mother's desire for a marriage between my sister and the village big-wig. otherwise i did not think of him in this light at all, but rather as the provider of the only treats that ever came our way in that quiet life; for it was he who would make up a party to take us to the travelling shows in the little town when they came by, or even sometimes to the larger seaport ten miles off. i can still remember the school feasts at the manor when we were little girls, and the squire had but just come into his own; and how, when the village tea and cake had been handed round, he would take us two all over the grounds alone, and give us lovely posies of hot-house flowers to take back to the grange parlor. i can even recollect a ride on his back round the field when i tried to catch the pony, and how wildly i laughed all the time, making the meadows ring with my merriment; but that must have been when i was scarcely more than five years old. since then he had been a husband and a father, and now he was a widower, and in my eyes quite an old man; although, i suppose, he can have been little more than five-and-thirty. i do not remember mrs. broderick. i asked mother about her once, and she told me that she had died when i was scarcely ten years old. and from our old servant, deborah, i had further gleaned that it was in giving birth to a little son, who had died a year after her, and that mother could not bear to speak of it, because it was just at the same time that we lost our little brother john. both children had died of scarlet-fever, and mother had nursed the squire's motherless boy before her own. i suppose that was why the squire was always so tender and reverential to her. i know i was sorry for the squire; for it seemed hard he should have no heir to all his acres, and should have to live in that big house all alone. but he did not seem to mind it much: he was always cheery; his fair, fresh face always with a smile on it; his frank, blue eyes always bright. it did one good to see him; it was like a breath of fresh air. i think everybody felt the same thing about him. it was not only that he was generous, a just landlord, "always as good as his word"--there was something more in it than that; there was something that made everybody love him, apart from anything that he did. and as i look back now to the past, i can see that the squire can have had no easy time of it among the people. he had a thorn in the flesh, and that thorn was my father. the squire was an ardent conservative, and father was--well, whatever he was, he was opposed to the squire; and as he was one of those people who have the rare gift of imparting their convictions and their enthusiasms to others, he had great influence among the working-classes, and his influence was not favorable to the squire's party. and yet father was no politician. i knew nothing about shades in these matters at that time, and because father was not a tory i imagined that he must be a liberal. but he was not a liberal, still less was he a radical, in the party sense of the word. as i have said, he belonged to no party. the reforms that he wanted were social reforms, and they could only be won by the patient struggles of the people who required them. that was what he used to say, and i suppose that was why he devoted all his strength to encouraging the working-classes, and cared so little for their existing rulers. but i did not understand this at the time; it was not till long afterwards that i appreciated all that my father was. then it occurred to me to wonder how he had come by such advanced ideas living in a quiet country village, and i remembered of a sudden some words that he had said to me one day when i had asked him about a little crayon sketch that always hung above the writing-table in his business-room. it was the portrait of a young man with a firm square chin, a sensitive mouth, liquid, fiery eyes. he wore his hair brushed back off his broad forehead, and had altogether a foreign air. it was a fascinating face. "that, meg," he had said, "was a great man--a man who made war against the strong, who helped the poor and down-trodden, and fought for the laws of justice and liberty. he gave his affections, his goods, his brains, and his life to the service of others. he died poor, but was rich. he was a real christian. his name was camille lambert." he said no more, and i never liked to broach the subject again; for mother had told me afterwards that he had had a romantic friendship for the young frenchman shortly after her engagement to him, and that he could never bear to speak of him after the time when he laid him to rest under the shadows of the old abbey church. mother could tell me little about him beyond the fact that he was some years older than father, and that his parents had belonged to the remnants of that colony of french refugees who had inhabited our town during the last century, and still left their names to many existing houses. indeed, i thought no more of it at the time; but when long afterwards i remembered the matter, i hunted up a little manuscript pamphlet in father's handwriting, telling the story of his friend's life. camille lambert was a disciple of st. simon, who had died when my father was yet but a lad. of an eager and romantic temperament, his enthusiasm had been early fired by those exalted doctrines, and he had given all his substance to the great "school," which had just opened its branch houses in the provinces. in all the works connected with it, camille lambert had taken an active part; and when financial troubles and dissensions between the leaders led popular ardor to cool and the scheme to be declared unpractical, he broke his heart over the failure of his hopes, and came home to the little english village to die. as i read those pages in after years, i felt that it was no wonder that such an enthusiasm should have kindled a kindred flame in the heart of a man so just and so tender as i knew my dear father to be. i love to think of that friendship now; it explains a great deal to me which has sometimes been a puzzle, when i have looked at my father's character with the more mature eyes of my present years. but in those days i did not think deeply enough for anything to be a puzzle. i was proud of my father's influence among the country-folk; i liked to hear the shouts of applause with which he was greeted when he stood up to speak at winter evening assemblies in the old town-hall. i knew that the crusade he preached was that of the poor against the rich; and a confusion had arisen in my mind as to our attitude towards the squire. i fancied i noticed a restive feeling in father towards the man to whom he paid the rent of his land; and when i guessed at that secret hope in mother's heart, i began to class the squire with "the rich" against whom he waged war in theory, and forgot the many occasions in which they were one at heart in the performance of kindly and generous actions. my mood did not last long, for the old habit of a lifetime was stronger than a mood, and the squire was our friend, but for the moment that was my mood. the squire belonged to an antagonistic class; perhaps, even worse than that in my eyes, he was a middle-aged man, and joyce must not marry him. mother never spoke of her hopes to me. it was old deborah who sometimes discussed them; she always did discuss the family concerns far more freely than any one else in the house. she was with us when joyce was born, and it was natural she should talk most of what mattered to those whom she loved most in the world. but deborah could not be expected to enter into the delicacy of such a situation, and i felt sure that on me fell the duty of fighting to the death before my beautiful sister should be sacrificed to commonplace affluence, instead of shining in the world of romance that i loved to fancy for her. chapter ii. captain forrester was the hero of the romance that i had fashioned in my head for joyce. one bright, frosty winter's day i had driven her into town to market. the sky was blue, the air was sharp, the little icicles hung glittering from the trees and hedge-rows as we drove down the hill; the sea lay steely and calm beyond the waste of white marsh-land that looked so wide in its monotony. the day was invigorating to the spirits, and it had the same effect on father's new mare as it had on us; the road, besides, was as hard as iron and very slippery. joyce was nervous in a dog-cart, and she had her doubts of the new purchase. for the matter of that, so had i. the mare pulled very hard. however, we got into town well enough, and in the excitement of her purchases joyce forgot her uneasiness. it was a long time before she was quite suited to her mind in the matter of soap, and ham, and kitchen utensils; and just as we were leaving i remembered that mother had told me to bring her some tapes and needles. "i've forgotten something, joyce," said i. "get in a minute and take the reins. i'll call a boy to hold the horse's head." she got in, and i beckoned a lad hard by, who went to the animal's head. but before i had been in the shop a moment a cry from joyce called me back. the mare was rearing. whether the lad had teased her or not i do not know, but the mare was rearing, and at her head, instead of the lad i had called, was captain forrester. we did not know what his name was then; we merely saw a tall, good-looking man in smarter clothes than were usually worn by the dandies of the neighborhood, soothing the restless animal, who soon showed that she recognized a friend. joyce was as white as a sheet; but when the young man turned to me and said, raising his hat, "miss joyce maliphant, i believe," she blushed as red as a poppy. it was strange that he should know her name so well. "no," said i, "i am not joyce; i am margaret maliphant. my sister's name is joyce." i waved towards her as i spoke. perhaps i was a little off-hand; folk say i always am. i suppose i must have been, for he muttered a half-apology. "i should not have ventured to intrude," said he, "but that i know the nature of this animal. strangely enough, she belonged to me once. she is not suitable for a lady's driving." "why," said i, puzzled and half doubtful, "father bought her only last week from squire broderick." "exactly," smiled he, and i noticed what a pleasant, genial smile he had. "i sold the mare to squire broderick myself. i know him very well." "oh!" ejaculated i, i am afraid still far from graciously. he was still standing by the horse, stroking its neck. "yes," he repeated, and his tone was not a jot less pleasant because i had spoken so very ungraciously. "she used to belong to me. she has a bit of a temper." "i like a horse with a little temper," answered i. "a horse that has a hard mouth is dull driving." i said it out of pure intent to brag, for i had been offended at its being supposed i could not drive any horse. as i spoke, i put my foot on the step to mount the dog-cart. as soon as the mare felt the movement behind her she reared again slightly. captain forrester quieted her afresh, but still there was no doubt about it, she had reared. "oh, margaret," sighed joyce, "i'm sure we shall never get home safely!" "nonsense!" cried i, impatiently. i hated to have joyce seem as though she mistrusted my power of managing a restive horse, and i hated equally to have her show herself off as a woman with nerves. i had already got up into my place, and i now took the reins from her hands and prepared to give the mare her head. "i think i shall walk, margaret," said joyce, in a voice which i knew meant that there would be no persuading her from her purpose. she was not generally obstinate, but when she was frightened she would not listen to any reason. rather than have a scene, i knew it would be best to give in. "very well; then we will both walk," said i. "you had better get down, and i will drive on and put the cart up at the inn. reuben will have to walk out this evening and take it home." i know i spoke crossly; it was wrong, but i was annoyed. however, before joyce had had time to get down i saw that our new friend had gone round to the other side of the dog-cart and was talking to her. "miss maliphant," said he--and i could not help remarking what a charming manner he had, and what a fascinating way of fixing his wide-open light-brown eyes full in the face of the person to whom he was speaking, and yet that without anything bold in the doing of it--"miss maliphant, will you let me drive you and your sister home? i know how uncomfortable it is to be nervous, and i don't think you would be frightened if i were driving, for, you see, i understand the mare quite well." joyce blushed, and i bit my lip. it certainly was very mortifying to have a perfect stranger setting himself up as a better whip than i was. joyce answered, "oh, thank you, i don't think we could trouble you to do that," she said, with a bend of her pretty head. "it would be no trouble," replied he, looking at her. "i am going in your direction." he did not say it eagerly, only with a pleasant smile as though his offer were made out of pure politeness. i looked at him. he was young and handsome, and he was most certainly a gentleman, for he had the most perfect and easy manners that i had ever met with in any man; and he was looking at joyce as i fancied a man might look at the woman whom he could love. suddenly all my offence at his want of respect to my powers of driving evaporated; for a thought flashed across my mind. might this be the lover of whom i had dreamed for my beautiful sister? he had learned her name beforehand; therefore he must have seen her, and also have been sufficiently attracted by her to wish to find out who she was. why was it not possible that he had fallen in love with her at first sight, and that he had sought this opportunity of knowing her? such things had been known to happen, and joyce was certainly beautiful enough to account for any ardor in an admirer. i stood a moment undecided myself. a young man from the shop where i had made my little purchase came out and put the parcel in the dog-cart. he held another in his hand. "this is for the manor, captain," said he. "shall i put it in the carriage?" "no, no, thank you," answered our new friend. "the squire will be driving over one of these days and will fetch it." this settled the question for me. "captain!" there was something so much more romantic about a captain than about a plain mister. and such a captain! i had met captains before at the volunteer ball, but not like this one. it did not occur to me for a moment that if the gentleman was a friend of the squire's he must needs belong to the class which i thought i abhorred, and therefore should not be a suitable lover for my sister. i was too much fascinated by the individual to remember the class. joyce looked at me for help. "i don't know what to say, i'm sure," murmured she. the horse began to fidget again at being kept so long standing. there could be no possible objection to a friend of the squire's driving us over. "thank you," said i, trying to be cool and dignified and not at all eager. "if you would be so kind as to drive us, i shall be very much obliged to you." and turning to the shop-boy i added, "put the parcel into the carriage." i do not know what the captain must have thought of my sudden change of manner; i did not stop to consider. i jumped to the ground before he had time to help me, and began to let down the back seat of the cart. "no, no; don't leave the horse," cried i, as he came round to the back to help me. "i know how to do this perfectly well. do get up. joyce is so very nervous." "as you like," said he, still smiling; and he got up beside joyce. in a moment i had fixed the seat and jumped into it, and we started off at a smart trot down the village street. joyce was not entirely reassured, although vanity prevented her from openly expressing her alarm, as she would have done if i had been at her side. she sat holding on to the cart, with lips parted and eyes fixed on the horse's ears. i had turned round a little on the seat so that i could see her, and i thought that she looked very lovely. i thought captain forrester must be of the same mind; but i think he had not much time to look at her just then--the mare kept his hands full. we rattled down the hill over the cobble-stones and out of the town. soon its red roofs, crowned by the square tower of the ancient church at its summit, were only a feature in the landscape, which i watched gradually mellowing into the white background as i sat with my back to the others. before long i was lost in one of what father would have called my brown studies, and quite forgot to notice whether the two in front of me were getting on well together or not. the vague dream that i had always had about my sister's future was beginning to take shape--it unrolled itself slowly before me in a sweet and delightful picture, to which the fair scene before me imparted life and brilliancy as the sense of it mingled imperceptibly with my thoughts. i had never known what it really was that i desired for my sister's lot. to be the wife of a country bumpkin she was far too beautiful; and yet i thought that nothing should have induced me to help towards mating her with one of the gentry who crushed the people's honest rights. sir walter scott's "fair maid of perth," which i had just finished reading, had lent wings to my youthful imagination; but there were no burghers in these days who held the honorable positions of those smiths and glovers, although no doubt at that time there had been many such living in the very town where we had just been to market, and which was in days of old one of the strongholds of his majesty's realm. if there had been any such suitors, i think i would have given our "fair maid" to one of them; but there was all the difference between the man who owned the linen-draper's shop--even if he did not measure off yards of stuff behind the counter--and the man who fashioned the goods with his own hand and took a pride in making them beautiful. and nowadays there were no men who made armor--there were no men who needed it. war had become a very brutal thing compared to what it was then, when it really was a trial of individual strength; nevertheless, of the professions of which i knew anything, it was still to my mind the finest, and it seemed to me that a fine profession was the only thing between a countryman and a landed proprietor such as squire broderick. i wonder if i should have thought all this out so neatly if the fine, handsome, and gentlemanly young man who had come across our path had not borne the title of "captain?" anyway, it had struck my fancy, as he had struck my fancy--for joyce. there was something fresh and brave and bright about him, with those wide-open brown eyes, that he fixed so intently upon one's own. i felt sure that he was full of enthusiasm, full of courage and of loyalty--every inch a soldier. he was the first man i had ever seen who impressed me by his personality; and yet with all that, he was so simple, so light and easy. as i look back now upon my first impression of captain forrester, i do not think it was an unnatural one; i think that he really had a rare gift of fascination, and it was not to be wondered at that i said to myself that this was the noble hero of whom i had dreamed that he should carry off the lily nurtured in the woodland shade. he was just the kind of man to fit in with my notion of a gallant and a hero--a notion derived solely from those old-fashioned novels of father's library which i devoured in the secrecy of my bedchamber when i could snatch a moment from household darning, and mother was not by to pass her scathing remarks upon even such profitable romance-reading as the works of sir walter scott and jane austen. as i sat there in the midst of the snow-plain, with the ocean beyond it, and the weather-worn old town the only human thing in the wide landscape, i fixed my thoughts upon that one little spot with all the concentration of my nature, and fell to weaving a romance far more brilliant than anything i had read, or than anything that had yet suggested itself to me in my quiet every-day life. the days of gay tournaments, and fierce hand-to-hand combats, and warriors clad in suits of mail, were no longer; but still, to fight for one's country's fame, to win one's bread by adventure and glory, to kill one's country's foes and save the lives of her sons, was the grandest thing that could be, i thought; and this captain forrester did. as i dreamed, my eyes grew dim thinking of the wife who must send her lover from her, perhaps forever--even though it be to glorious deeds; and as i dreamed, the dog-cart gave a jolt over a stone, and i awoke from my foolish fancies to see that captain forrester's hard driving had taken all the mischief out of the mare, and that she was trotting along quite peaceably, while he let the reins hang loose upon her neck, and turned round to talk to my sister joyce. and as we passed the clump of tall elms at the foot of the cliff, and began slowly to climb the hill towards the village, i looked out across the cold expanse of white marsh-land to the calm sea beyond, and wondered whether it were true what the books said that the peace of a perfect love could only be won through trouble and heartache. anyway, the trouble must be worth the reward, since we all admired those who fought for it, and most of us entered the lists ourselves. but no doubt the trouble and the fighting was always on the man's side, and as i caught a glimpse of joyce's blushing profile and of the captain's eager gaze, i said to myself that joyce was beautiful, and that joyce was sweet, and that joyce would have a lover to whom no trouble in the whole world would be too much for the sake of one kiss from her lips. chapter iii. i had jumped down as we ascended the hill, and had walked by the side of the cart. captain forrester had turned round now and then to say a word to me, making pleasant general remarks upon the beauty of the country and the healthiness of the situation. but he did it out of mere politeness, i knew. when we reached the top of the hill, he gave the reins to joyce and got down. "you'll be all right now, won't you?" said he, helping me in. "i won't come to the door, for i'm due at home;" and he nodded in the direction of the manor. then he must be staying in our village. i said aloud, laughing, "well, we could hardly get into trouble between this and our house, could we?" "hardly," laughed he back again, looking down the road to the right, which led to the ivied porch of our house. how well he seemed to know all about us! was he the squire's guest as well as his friend? if so, joyce would see him again. "won't you come in and see my father and mother?" said i. i was not sure whether it was the thing to do in good society, such as that to which i felt instinctively that he belonged, but i knew that it was the hospitable thing to do, and i did it. joyce seconded my invitation in an inarticulate murmur. i think we were both of us considerably relieved when he said with that same gay smile, and speaking with his clear, well-bred accent: "not now, thank you. but i will come and call very soon, if i may." he added the last words turning round to joyce. she blushed and looked uncomfortable. we were both thinking that mother might possibly not welcome this stranger so cordially as we had done. however, i was not going to have this good beginning spoiled by any mistake on my part, and i hastened to say: "oh yes, pray do come. i am sure mother will be delighted to welcome any friend of squire broderick's." he gave a little bow at that, but he did not say anything. he held out his hand to me, and then turned to joyce. i fancied that hers rested in his just a moment longer than was necessary; but then i was in the mood to build up any romance at the moment, and no doubt i was mistaken. but anyhow, i turned the dog-cart down rather sharply towards the house, and captain forrester had to stand aside. i was not going to have the villagers gossiping; and such a thing had not been seen before, as farmer maliphant's two daughters talking with a stranger at the corner of the village street. "i wonder whether he is staying at the manor," said i, as we drove up the gravel. and joyce echoed, "i wonder." but she had plenty to do when she got in, showing her new purchases to mother, and telling her the market prices of household commodities, and i do not suppose that she gave a thought to her new admirer for some time. at all events, she did not speak of him. neither did i. i did not go in-doors. i always was an unnatural sort of a girl in some ways, and shopping and talk about shopping never interested me. i preferred to remain in the yard, and discuss the points of the new mare with reuben. but all the time, i was thinking of the man whom we had met in town, and wondering whether or not he would turn out to be joyce's lover. as i have said before, reuben and i were great friends. he was a gaunt, loose-limbed old fellow, with a refined although by no means a handsome face, thin features, a fair pale skin, with white whiskers upon it. in character he was simple, obstinate, and taciturn, and had a queer habit of applying the same tests to human beings as he did to dumb animals. in the household--although every one respected his knowledge of his own business--i think that he was regarded merely as an honest, loyal nobody. it was only i who used sometimes to think that it was not all obtuseness, but also a laudable desire for a quiet life, which led reuben to be such an easy mark for deborah's wit, and apparently so impervious to its arrows. "she pulled, did she?" said he, with a smile that showed a very good set of teeth for an old man. "ah, it takes a man to hold a mare, leastways if she's got any spirit in her." "she didn't pull any too much for me," answered i, half vexed. "what makes you fancy so?" "i seed the young dandy a-driving ye along the road," said he. "i can see a long way. she pulled at first, but he took it out of her." if there was any secret in our having driven out of town with captain forrester, reuben had it. "joyce was frightened, and he had driven the mare at the squire's," said i. "she reared a bit in town, but i don't think he drove any better than i could have done." reuben took no notice of this remark. "she's a handsome mare," said he. "the handsomer they be, the worse they be to drive. women are the same--so i've heard tell; though, to be sure, the ugly ones are bad enough." deborah was not handsome; but then, had reuben ever tried to drive her? oh, if she could have heard that speech! she came up the garden cliff in front of us as i spoke, with some herbs in her arms--a tall, strong woman, with a wide waist and shoulders, planting her foot firmly on the ground at every step, and swaying slightly on her hips with the bulk of her person. when she was young she must have had a fine figure, but now she was not graceful. "yes, she's a beauty," said i, stroking the mare's sleek sides, and alluding to her and not to deborah. "when we are alone together we'll have fine fun." the mare stretched out her pretty neck to take the sugar that i held in my hand. she was beginning to know me already. "yes, miss joyce is nervous," said reuben, meditatively. "most like she _would_ have more confidence in a beau. them pretty maids are that way, and the beaux buzz about them like flies to the honey. but the beasts be fond of you, miss," he added, admiringly, watching me fondling the horse. it was the higher compliment from reuben, and it was true that every animal liked me. i could catch the pony in the field when it would let no one else get near it. i could milk the cow who kicked over the pail for any one but deborah. i could coax the rabbits to me, and almost make friends with the hares in the woods. the cat slept upon my bed, and taff watched outside my door. i laughed at reuben's compliment; but deborah strode out of the back door just then, to hang linen out to dry, and reuben never laughed when she was by. she gave me a sharp glance. "you've got your frock out at the gathers again," said she. she did not often trouble to give us our titles of "miss." "have i?" replied i, carelessly. "yes, you have; and how you manage it is more than i can tell," continued she, tartly. "now you're grown up, i should think you might have done with jumping dikes, and riding horses without saddles, and such-like." "why, deb," cried i, laughing, "i haven't jumped a dike since i was fourteen. at least, not when any one was by," added i, remembering a private exploit of two days ago. "yes; i suppose you don't expect me not to know where that black mud came from on your petticoat last night," remarked she, sententiously. "anyhow, i'd advise you to mend your frock, for the squire's in the parlor, and your mother won't be pleased." "the squire!" cried i. "is he going to stay to dinner?" "not as i know of," answered the old woman. "but you had better go and see. joyce let him in, for i hadn't a clean apron, and i heard him say that he had come to see the master on business." "well, so i suppose he did," answered i. deborah smiled, a superior sort of smile. she did not say anything, but i knew very well what she meant. she was the only person in the house who openly insisted that the squire came to the grange after joyce. mother may have thought it; i guessed from many little signs that she did think it, but she never directly spoke of it. but deborah spoke of it, and spoke of it frankly. it irritated me. i pushed past her roughly to reach the front parlor windows. i wanted to see the squire to-day, for i wanted to find out whether our new friend was staying at the manor. "you're never going in like that?" cried she. "certainly," replied i. "what's good enough for other folk is good enough for the squire. the squire is nothing to me, nothing at all." "that's true enough," laughed deborah. "i don't know as he is anything to you. but he may be something to other folk all the same. and look here, miss spitfire, there may come a day, for all your silly airs, when you may be glad enough that the squire is something to some of you, and when you'd be very sorry if you'd done anything to prevent it. you go and think that over." i curled my lip in scorn. "you know i refuse to listen to any insinuations, deborah," said i. "the squire comes here to visit my father, and we have no reason to suppose that he comes for anything else." this was quite true. the squire had certainly never said a word that should lead us to imagine that he meant anything more by his visits to the grange than friendship for an old man laid by from his active life by frequent attacks of gout; but if i had been quite honest, i should have acknowledged that i, too, entertained the same suspicion as deborah did. "the women must always needs be thinking the men be coming after them," muttered reuben, emerging from the darkness of a shed to the left with an axe over his shoulder. if i had been less preoccupied i should have laughed at the audacity of this remark, which he would certainly not have dared to make unless it had been for the support of my presence. "it don't stand to reason," went on deborah, scorning reuben's remark, "that a gentleman like the squire would come here and sit hours long for naught but to hear the gentry-folk abused by the master. it is a wonder he stands it as he do, for master is over-unreasonable at times. but, lord! you can't look in the squire's eyes and not know he's got a good heart, and it's miss joyce's pretty face that'll get it to do what she likes with, you may take my word for it. the men they don't look to the mind so much as they look to the face, and the temper--and joyce, why, her temper's as smooth as her skin; you can't say better than that." this was true, and deborah was right to say it in praise, although i do believe in her heart she had even a softer spot for me and my bad temper than for joyce and her gentle ways. "birds of a feather, i suppose." "you seem to think that it's quite an unnatural thing for two men to talk politics together, deborah," said i, with a superior air of wisdom. "but perhaps the squire is wiser than you fancy, and thinks that at his time of life politics should be more in his way than pretty faces." deborah laughed, quite good-humoredly this time. "hark at the lass!" cried she. "the time may come when you won't think a man of five-and-thirty too old to look at a woman, my dear." "oh, _i_ don't mind how old a man is!" laughed i, merrily, recovering my good-humor at the remembrance of that second string i had to my bow for my sister. "the men don't matter much to me--they never look twice at me, you know well enough. but joyce is too handsome to marry an old widower, and i dare say if she waits a bit there'll come somebody by who'll be better suited to her." "well, all i can say is, i hope she may have another chance as good," insisted the obstinate old thing, shaking out the last stocking viciously and hanging it onto the line. "but she hasn't got it yet, you know; and if folk all behave so queer and snappish, maybe she won't have it at all. but you must all please yourselves," added she, as though she washed her hands of us now. and then giving me another of her sharp glances, she said, in conclusion, "and you know whether your mother will like to see you with a torn frock or not." i went in with my head in the air. i thought it was very impertinent of deb to talk of "good chances" in connection with my sister. i have learned to know her better since then. her desire for that marriage was not all ambition for joyce. but at that time i little guessed what she already scented in the air. chapter iv. it was a quarter of an hour before i reached the parlor, for i did mend my frock in spite of my bit of temper. the cloth was laid for dinner--a spotless cloth, for mother was very particular about her table-linen--and the bright glass and the dinner-ware shone in the sunlight. i can see the room now: a long, low room, with four lattice-windows abreast, and a seat running the length of the windows; opposite the windows a huge fireplace, across which ran one heavy oaken beam bearing the date and the name of the maliphants, and supported by two stout masonry pillars, fashioned, tradition said, out of that same soft stone of which a great part of the abbey was built. two high-backed wooden chairs, with delicate spindle-rails, highly polished, and very elegant, stood close to the blaze. there was also a pretty inlaid satinwood table in the far corner that had belonged to mother's grandfather, and had been left to her; but the rest of the furniture was plain dark oak, and had been in the house ever since the maliphants had owned it. it was a sweet, cosey room, and if the windows, being old-fashioned and somewhat small, did not admit all the sunlight they might, they also did not let in the wind, of which there was plenty, for the parlor faced towards the sea, and the gales in winter were sometimes terrific. we had another best-parlor, looking on the road, where were the piano and the upholstered furniture, covered in brown holland on common days; but though the pale yellow tabaret chairs and curtains looked very pretty when they were all uncovered, we none of us ever felt quite comfortable excepting in the big dwelling-room that looked over the marsh. how well i remember it that day when we were all there together! father sat by the fire with his boots and gaiters still on. he had been out for the first time after a severe attack of his complaint, and he was very irritable. i thought joyce might have helped him off with the heavy things, but no doubt he had refused; any offer of help was almost an insult to him. they used to say i took after father in that. he was bending over the fire that day, stretching out his fingers to the blaze--a powerful figure still, though somewhat worn with hard work and the sufferings which he never allowed to gain the upper-hand. but his back was not bent--an out-door life, whatever other marks it may leave, spares that one; his head was erect still--a remarkable head--the gray hair, thick and strong, sticking up in obstinate little tufts without any attempt at order or smoothness. it was not beautiful hair, for the tufts were quite straight, but at least it was very characteristic; i have never seen any quite like it. it was in keeping with the bushy eyebrows that had just the same defiant expression as the tufts of hair. the brow was high and prominent, the eyes keen and quick to change, the jaw heavy and somewhat sullen. at first sight it might not have been called a lovable face; it might rather have been called a stern, even an unbending one; but that it was really lovable is proved by the sure love and confidence with which it always inspired little children. they came to father naturally as they would have gone to the tenderest woman, and smiled in his face as though certain beforehand of the smile that would answer theirs in return. but father's face was sullen sometimes to a grown-up person. it looked very sullen as he sat by the fire that day. i knew in a moment that something had ruffled him. mother seemed to be doing her best, however, to make up for the ill reception which her husband was giving his guest; and mother's best was a very pretty thing. she was a very pretty woman, and she looked her prettiest that day. she was tall--we were a tall family, i was the shortest of us all--and her height looked even greater than it was in the straight folds of the soft gray dress that suited so well with her fair skin. she had a fresh white cap on; the soft fluted frills came down in straight lines just below her ears, framing her face; and the bands of snow-white hair, that looked so pretty beside the fresh skin, were tucked away smoothly beneath it. mother's face was a young face still--as dainty in color as a little child's. joyce took her beauty from her. mother was standing up in the middle of the room talking to the squire, who apparently was about to take his leave. joyce was putting the last touches to the dinner-table. she looked up at me in an appealing kind of way as i came in, and i felt sure that there had been some sort of difference between father and the squire. they often did have little differences, though they were the best of friends in reality; but i always secretly took father's side in every argument, and i never liked to see mother, as it were, making amends for what father had said. yet it was what she was doing now. "i'm sure, squire broderick," she was saying, "we take it very kindly of you to interest yourself in our affairs. laban is a little tetchy just now, but it's because he ain't well. he feels just as i do really." father made an impatient sound with his lips at this, but mother went on just the same. "i'm quite of your mind," she declared, shaking her head. "i've often said so to laban myself. we can't go against providence, and we must learn to take help where we can get it, though i know ofttimes it's just the hardest thing we have to do." what could this speech mean? i was puzzled. i glanced at father. he sat quite silent, tapping his foot. i glanced at joyce. there was nothing in her manner to show that the subject under discussion had anything whatever to do with her. the squire had turned round as i came into the room, but mother kept him so to herself that he could do no more than give me a smile as i walked across and sat down in the window-seat. "i know it would be the best in the end," mother went on, with a distressed look on her sweet old face. it rather annoyed me at the time, simply because i saw that she was siding with the squire against father; but i have often remembered that, and many kindred looks since, and have wondered how it was that i never guessed at the anxiety of that tender spirit that labored so devotedly to cope with problems that were beyond its grasp. "however," added mother, with the pretty smile that, after all, i remember more often than the knitted brow, "he'll come round himself in time. he always does see things the way you put them after a bit." she said these words in a whisper, although they were really quite loud enough for any one to hear. i saw father smile. he was so fond of mother, and the words were so far from accurate, that he could afford to smile; for there were very few instances in which he came round to the squire's way of seeing things at that time, although he was very fond of the squire. the squire himself laughed aloud. he had a rich, rippling laugh; it did one good to hear it. "no, no, ma'am," he said, "i can't agree to that; and no reason why it should be so either." he held out his hand to mother as he spoke. "i must be off now," he added. "i ought to have gone long ago. we'll talk it over again another time." "oh, won't you stay and have a bit of dinner with us, squire?" cried mother, in a disappointed voice. "it's just coming in. i know it's not what you have at home, but it is a fine piece of roast beef to-day." "fie, fie, mrs. maliphant! don't you be so modest," said the squire, with his genial smile, buttoning up his overcoat as he spoke. he always had a gay, easy manner towards the mother--something, i used to fancy, like what her own younger brother might have had towards her, or even her own son, although at that time i should have thought it impossible for a man as old to be mother's son at all. i suppose it was in consequence of that sad time in the past that he had grown to love her as i know he did. "i don't often get a dinner such as i get at your table," added he; "but i can't stay to-day, for i'm due at home." just the words that young man had used at the foot of the village street. i was determined to find out before the squire left whether that young man was staying at the manor or not. "perhaps mr. broderick has visitors, mother," i suggested. i glanced at joyce as i spoke. her cheeks were poppies. "what makes you think so?" asked the squire, turning to me and frowning a little. "we met a gentleman in town," said i, boldly, although my heart beat a little; "he helped us with the mare when she reared, and he said he was a friend of yours." mother looked at me, and joyce blushed redder than ever. certainly, for a straightforward and simple young woman who had no more than her legitimate share of vanity, joyce had a most unfortunate trick of blushing. i know it was admired, but i never could see that folk must needs be more delicate of mind because they blushed, or more sensitive of heart because they cried. the squire frowned a little more and bit his lip. "ah, it must have been frank," said he. "he did say he was going to walk into town this morning. my nephew," added he, in explanation, turning to mother. "captain forrester." "your nephew!" exclaimed mother, quite reassured. "he must be but a lad." "oh, not at all; he's a very well-grown man, and of an age to take care of himself," answered the squire, and it did not strike me then that he said it a little bitterly. "my sister is a great deal older than i am." "of course i have seen mrs. forrester," said mother, "and i know she's a deal older than you are, but i never should have thought she had a grown-up son--and a captain, too!" "oh yes, he's a captain," repeated the squire, and he took up his hat and stick from the corner of the room and put his hand on the door-knob. "good-bye, mr. maliphant," cried he, cheerily, without touching any more on the sore subject. father did not reply, and he turned to me and held out his hand. "good-bye," he said, more seriously than it seemed to me the subject required. "i'm sorry the mare reared." "see the squire to the door, joyce," said the mother. and joyce, blushing again, glided out into the hall and lifted the big latch. chapter v. i was dying to hear what had been the subject of the difference between squire broderick and father, for that it was somehow related to something more closely allied to our own life than mere politics, i was inwardly convinced. i came up to the fireplace and began toasting my feet before the bars. i hoped father would say something. but he did not even turn to me, and deborah coming in with the dinner at that moment, mother took her place at the head of the table, and father asked a blessing. mother did not look sad; she looked very bright and pretty, with the sunshine falling on her silvery hair, and on her white dimpled hands, lovely hands, that were wielding the carvers so skilfully. i thought at the time that she did not notice father's gloomy face, but i think it is far more likely that she did notice it, but that she thought it wiser to leave him alone; those were always her tactics. "father," began she, as soon as she had served us all and had sat down, "the girls mustn't drive that mare any more if she rears; it isn't safe." "no, no, of course not," assented father, absently. then turning to me, "what made her rear, meg?" "i don't know, father," answered i. "i was in a shop when she did, and a boy was holding her. i suppose he teased her. but it's not worth talking about; it would have been nothing if joyce hadn't been so easily frightened." "i couldn't help it," murmured joyce. "i know i'm silly." "well, to be sure, any old cart-horse would be better for you than a beast with any spirit, wouldn't it?" laughed i. "well, margaret, the animal must have looked dangerous, you know," said mother, "for no strange gentleman would have thought of accosting two girls unless he saw they were really in need of help." i laughed--i am afraid i laughed. i thought mother was so very innocent. "i hope you thanked him for his trouble," added she. "being the squire's nephew, as it seems he was, i shouldn't be pleased to think you treated him as short as you sometimes treat strangers. you, margaret, i mean," added mother, looking at me. "oh yes, we were very polite to him," said i. and then i grew very hot. of course i knew i was bound to say that captain forrester had driven us home. i hoped mother would take it kindly, as she seemed well disposed towards him, but i did not feel perfectly sure. "we asked him to come in, didn't we, joyce?" added i, looking at her. "yes, we did," murmured my sister, bending very low over her plate. "asked him to come where?" asked mother. "why, here, to be sure," cried i, growing bolder. "he drove us home, you know." mother said nothing, for deborah had just brought in the pudding, and she was always very discreet before servants at meal-times. but she closed her lips in a way that i knew, and her face assumed an aggrieved kind of expression that she only put on to me; when joyce was in the wrong, she always scolded her quite frankly. there was silence until deborah had left the room. she went out with a smile on her face which always drove me into a frenzy, for it meant to say, "you are in for it, and serve you right;" and i thought it was taking advantage of her position in the family to notice any differences that occurred between mother and the rest of us. when deborah had gone out, shutting the door rather noisily, mother laid down her knife and fork. she did not look at me at all, she looked at joyce. that was generally the way she punished me. "you don't mean to say, joyce, that you allowed a strange gentleman to get into the trap before all the townsfolk!" said she. "you're the eldest--you ought to have known better." i could not stand this. "it isn't joyce's fault," said i, boldly; "i thought we were in luck's way when the gentleman offered to drive us. he knew the mare, and of course i felt that we were safe." "it will be all over the place to-morrow," said mother, pathetically. "well, the gentleman is the squire's nephew, and everybody knows what friends you are with the squire," answered i, provokingly. "you might see that makes it all the worse," answered mother. "i don't know how ever i shall meet the squire again. i'm ashamed to think my daughters should have behaved so unseemly. but the ideas of young women in these days pass me. such notions wouldn't have gone down in my day. young women were forced to mind themselves if they were to have a chance of a husband. your father would never have looked at me if i had been one of that sort." father was in a brown-study. i do not think he had paid much attention to the affair at all, but now he smiled as mother glanced across at him, seeming to expect some recognition. she repeated her last remark and then he said, bowing to her with old-fashioned gallantry, "i think i should have looked at you, mary, whatever your shortcomings had been. you were too pretty to be passed over." and he smiled again, as he never smiled at any one but mother; the smile that, when it did come, lit up his face like a dash of broad sunshine upon a rugged moor. "but mother's quite right, lassies," added he; "a woman must be modest and gentle, not self-seeking, nor eager for homage, or she'll never have all the patience she need have to put up with a man's tempers." he sighed, and the tears rose to my eyes. a word of disapproval from my father always hurt me to the quick, and i felt that in this case it was not wholly deserved, as, however mistaken i might have been, i had certainly not been self-seeking or eager for homage. "i'm very sorry," said i, but i am afraid not at all humbly; "i didn't know i was doing anything so very dreadful. anyhow, it wasn't i who was afraid of the horse, and it wasn't for me that captain forrester took the reins." this was quite true, but i had no business to have said it. i wished the words back as soon as they were spoken. joyce blushed scarlet again, and mother looked at me for the first time. i felt that she was going to ask what i meant, but father interrupted her. "there, there," said he, not testily, but as though to put an end to the discussion. "you should not have done it, because mother says so, and mother always knows best, but i dare say there's little harm done. a civil word hurts nobody; and as for the mare, you needn't drive her again." so that was all that i had got for my pains. i opened my mouth to explain and to remonstrate, but father rose from the table and said grace, and i dared not pursue the subject further. for the matter of that, the look of pain in his face, as he moved across the room and sat down heavily in the chair, was quite enough to chase away my vexation against him. "meg, just take these heavy things off for me, i'm weary," said he. i knelt down and unfastened the gaiters, and unlaced the heavy boots, and brought him his slippers. he lay back with a sigh of relief. "the walk round the farm has been too much for you, laban," said mother, sitting down in the other high-backed chair near him. "let be, let be," muttered he. "nay, i can't let be, laban," insisted mother. "i must look after your health, you know. i can see very well that it is too much for you seeing after the farm as it should be seen after. and that's why i don't think the squire's notion is half a bad one." i stopped with the spoons and forks in my hand that i was taking off the table. father made that noise between his teeth again. i always knew it meant a storm brewing. "anyhow, i hope you won't bear him a grudge for what he thought fit to advise," mother went on. "he did it out of friendship, i'm sure. and the squire's a wise man." father did not answer at first. he had risen and stood with his back to the fire. his jaw was set, his eyes looked like black beads under the overhanging brows. "of course i know you'll say he just wants to get a job for his friend's son," continued mother. "and no doubt he mightn't have thought of it but for this turning up. but he wouldn't advise it if he didn't think it was for our good. the squire has our interests at heart, i'm sure." "d--n the squire," said father at last, slowly and below his breath. mother laid her hand on his arm. "hush, laban, hush; not before the girls," said she, in her gentle tones. "well, well, there," said he, "the squire's a good man and an honest man, but i say neither he nor any one else has a right to come and teach a man what to do with his own." "he doesn't do it because of any right," persisted mother. "he does it because he's afraid things don't work as well as they used to do, and because he's your friend." "and what business has he to be afraid?" retorted father. "i say the land's my own, though i do pay him rent for it, and it's my business to be afraid. does he think i shall be behind-hand with the rent? i've been punctual to a day these last twenty years. what more does he want, i should like to know?" "now, laban, you know that isn't it," expostulated mother. "he knows he is safe enough for the rent, but he's afraid you ain't making money so fast as you might. and of course if you aren't, it's clear it's because you're not so strong to work as you were, and you haven't got a son of your own to look after things for you." mother sighed as she said this, but i am afraid i looked at her with angry not sympathetic eyes. "the squire takes a true interest in us all," repeated she for the third time, her voice trembling a little. "well, then, let him take his interest elsewhere this time, ma'am, that's all i've got to say," retorted father, in no way appeased. "if things were as they should be, there'd be no paying of rent to eat up a man's profits on the land, but what he made by the sweat of his brow would be his own for his old age, and for his children after him. and if we can only get what ought to belong to the nation by paying for it, then all i bargain for is--let those who get the money from me leave alone prying into how i get it together." i had stood perfectly still all this time, with the spoons and forks in my hand, listening and wondering. father's last speech i had scarcely given heed to. i had heard those opinions before, and they had become mere words in my ears. i was entirely engrossed with wondering what was the exact nature of the squire's suggestion, and with horror at what i feared. i was not long left in doubt. "well, you make a great mistake in being angry with squire broderick, laban, indeed you do," reiterated mother, shaking her head, and without paying any attention to his fiery speech. she never did pay any attention to such speeches. she always frankly said that she did not understand them. "if the squire recommends this young mr. trayton harrod to you, it is because he knows him and thinks he would work with you, and not be at all like any common paid bailiff, i'm sure of that." "well, then, mother, all i can say is--it's nonsense--that is what it is. it is nonsense. if a man is a paid bailiff, the more like one he is the better. and i don't think it is at all likely i shall ever take a paid bailiff to help me to manage knellestone." with that he strode to the door and opened it. "meg, will you please come to me in my study in a quarter of an hour?" said he, turning to me as he went out. "there are a few things in the farm accounts that i think you might help me with." chapter vi. i went into the sunlight and stood leaning upon the garden-hedge looking out over the glittering plain of snow to the glittering blue of the sea beyond. the whole scene was set with jewels of light, and even the gray fortress in the marsh seemed to awaken for once out of its sleep; but i was in no mood to laugh with the sunbeams, for my heart was beating with angry thoughts. a bailiff, a manager for knellestone--and knellestone that had been managed by nobody but its own masters for three hundred years! it was impossible! why, the very earth would rise up and rebel! from where i stood i could see our meadows down on the marsh, our fields away on the hills towards the sunset, the pastures where our shepherds spent cold nights in huts at the lambing-time, the land where our oxen drew the plough and our laborers tilled the soil and harvested the ingatherings. would the men and the beasts work for the manager as they worked for us? would the land prosper for a stranger and a hireling, who would not care whether the cattle lived or died, whether the seasons were kind or cruel, whether the trees and the flowers flourished or pined away, who would get his salary just the same, though the frost nipped the new crops, though the wheat dried up for want of rain or rotted in the ear for lack of sun, though the cows cast their calves and the lambs died at the birth? how absurd, how ridiculous it was! did it not show that it had been suggested by one who took no interest in the land, but who let it all out to others to care for? of course this was some spendthrift younger son of a ruined gentleman's family, or some idiot who had failed at every other profession, and was to be sent here to ruin other people without having any responsibility of his own--somebody to whom the squire owed a duty or a favor. perhaps a man who had never been on a farm in his life, maybe had not even lived in the country at all. in my childish anger i became utterly unreasonable, and gave vent in my solitude to any absurd expressions that occurred to me. i smile to myself as i remember the impotent rage of that afternoon. indeed, i think i hated the squire most thoroughly that day. it was the idea, too, that i was being set at naught that added to my anger. hitherto it was i who had transmitted father's orders to the men whenever he was laid by or busy; and, as i have said before, he often trusted me to ride to the bank with money, and even to take stock of the goods before sales and fairs came on. of course i know now that i was worse than useless to him. i was a clever girl enough, and dauntless in the matter of fatigue or trouble, but i was entirely ignorant of the hundred little details that make all the difference in matters of that kind, and pluck and coolness stood me in poor stead of experience. but at that time i was confident, and as i stood there looking at the brightness that i did not see, tears came into my eyes--tears of mortification, that even the squire should have considered me so perfectly useless that i could be set aside as though i did not exist. how often i had wished to be a boy! how heartily i wished it that afternoon! if i had been a boy there would never even have been a question of getting a paid manager to help father. i should have been a man by this time, nearly of age, and no one would have doubted that i was clever enough and strong enough to see after my own. father called from the window, and i went in. he was sitting by the table, surrounded by papers, his foot supported on a chair. "sit down, meg," said he. "i want you to help me remember one or two things in the books that i don't quite understand--i think you can." he spoke quite cheerfully. i had been setting down things in the book while he had been ill, and paying the wages to the men, and it was quite natural he should want to see me about it. i sat down, and we went over the books item by item. we had had a very sound education, though simple, quite as good as most girls have, and i had been considered more than usually smart at figures. but that day i think i was dazed. i could not remember things; i could not tell why the books were not square; my wits were muddled on every point. father was most patient, most kind. i think he must have seen that i was over-anxious, but his kindness only made me more disgusted with myself; for i knew that that dreadful question was in his mind the whole time, as it was in mine. whenever i told him anything that was not satisfactory in the conduct of affairs, or anything that had failed to turn out as he expected, i knew that it was in his mind, although he did not think i saw it. "we can't expect old heads to grow on young shoulders," said he at last, patting mine gently, a thing most rare for him to do. "it takes many a long day to learn experience, my dear. and sometimes we don't do so much better with it than we did without it." he put the books away as he spoke, and leaned back in his chair. "that'll do now, child," he added; "to-morrow i shall be able to see the men myself. i am well and hearty again now--thank the lord--and a good bit of work will do me good." "you mustn't begin too soon, father," said i, timidly; "you know the weather is very cold and treacherous yet." "oh, you women would keep a man in-doors forever for fear the wind should blow in his face," cried he, testily. "but there's an end to everything. when i'm ill you shall all do what you like with me, but when i'm well i mean to be my own master." "but i shall still be able to help you, father, as i have done before, sha'n't i?" added i, still, singularly, without my accustomed self-confidence. "why, yes, child, of course," he replied. "and you and i will be able to get on yet awhile without a stranger's help, i'll warrant." it was the only allusion he had made to the horrible subject during the whole of our interview. it was the only allusion he made to it in my presence for many a long day. he rose from his chair as he spoke the last words, and walked across to the window. the afternoon was beginning to sink, and the sun had paled in its splendor. the lights were gray now over the whiteness of the marsh, and the snow looked cold and cruel. something made my heart sink, too, as i noticed how gray was father's face in the scrutinizing light of the afternoon. i had not noticed before that he had really been ill. i left the room quickly, and went out again. the stinging march air struck a chill into my bones, and yet it was scarcely more than four o'clock. two hours of daylight yet! how was it possible that any man but the strongest should work as a man must work whose farm should prosper? and was father really a strong man? i was sick with misgivings. what if, after all, the squire were right? but i would not believe it. father had had the gout; it was always the strongest men who had the gout. i turned to go in-doors. a laugh greeted my ears from the library. i passed before the window. yes; it was father who was laughing as he shook hands with a man who had just entered the room. i looked. the man was a tall, blond, spare fellow, with a sanguine complexion, very marked features, small gray eyes, and a bald head. i knew him to be a mr. hoad, father's solicitor in town. he was well dressed in a black suit and gray trousers. he was a very successful man for his time of life, people said. i knew that father liked him, and i was glad that father should have a visitor who cheered him to-day. but for my own part, i knew no one who filled me with such a peculiar antipathy. i could not bear the sight of the man. yet he was a harmless kind of fellow, and very polite to ladies. joyce often used to take me to task for my excessive dislike to him. if it was because i did not consider him on equal terms with us, from a social point of view--for i must confess i was ridiculously prejudiced on this score, and where i had learned such nonsense i do not know--then the ship-owners and other people of that class to whom i could give "good-day" in town were much less so. but i could not have told why i disliked him so particularly; i could not have told why i wondered that father could have any dealings with him--why i was always on the watch for something that should prove that i was in the right in my instinct. and somehow his appearance on this particular evening affected me even more uncomfortably than usual, and i felt that i could not go in and see him--perhaps even have to discuss the very subject that was weighing on my mind, when i wanted to be alone to nurse my own mortification, and lull my fears to rest by myself. i crept into the hall quietly and fetched a cloak and hood, and then, running round to the yard, i called the st. bernard. he came, leaping and jumping upon me, this friend with whom i was always in tune. i opened the gate gently, and together we went out upon the road. i think taff and i must have walked three miles. the roads were stiff and slippery, the air was like a knife; but i did not care. the quick movement and the solitude and the quiet of the coming night soothed me. we got up upon the downs where lonely homesteads stud the country here and there, and came back again along the cliffs that crown the marsh-land. there i stood a long while face to face with the quiet world upon which the moon had now risen in the deep blue of a twilight sky. it looked down upon the wide, white marsh upon whose frozen bosom gray vapors floated lightly; it looked down upon the dark town that rose yonder so sombre and distinct out of the mystery of the landscape; the channel that flows to the sea lay cold and blue and motionless at the foot of the hill like a sheet of steel. it made me shudder. there was not a ripple upon its deathly breast. the snow around was far more tender. for the first time in my life i felt the sadness of the world; i realized that there was something in it which i could not understand; i remembered that there was such a thing as death. chapter vii. i did not escape mr. hoad by my walk. he had stayed to tea. i do not think that he was a favorite of mother's, but she always made a great point of welcoming all father's friends to the house, and i saw that she had welcomed him to-night. he sat in the place of honor beside her, and there were sundry alterations on the tea-table, and a pot of special marmalade in the middle. it was very late when i came in. i took off my things in the hall and went in without smoothing my hair. i thought i should have been in disgrace for coming in late, and for having my hair in disorder when a guest was present; but mother had forgotten her displeasure, and smiled as she pushed my cup towards me. she never made any allusion to by-gone differences--her anger never lasted long. the mood that i had brought with me from without was still upon me, and when i saw that father's face had lost its gray pallor, that his eyes shone with their usual fire, and that his voice was strong and healthy, i sighed a sigh of relief and told myself that i was a fool, and that mr. hoad must really be a good fellow if he could so soon chase away the gloom from my parent's brow. "your husband looks wonderfully well again, mrs. maliphant," he was saying; "it's quite surprising how soon he has pulled round. when i met the doctor the other day driving from town, and stopped to ask after him, he said it would be weeks before he could be about again. but he has got a splendid constitution--must have. not that i would wish to detract from your powers of nursing. we all have heard how wonderful they are." mr. hoad smiled at mother, but she did not smile back again. there were people whom she kept at arm's-length, even though carefully civil to them. i don't suppose she knew this, for she was a shy woman, but i recollect it well. "we can all nurse those we are fond of," she said. "i'm sure i'm very pleased to think you should find mr. maliphant looking better." "better! nonsense!" exclaimed father. "i'm as well as i ever was in my life. don't let's hear any more about that, wife, there's a dear soul." "nay, you shall hear no more about it than need be from me, laban, i can promise you that," smiled mother, pouring out the tea, while joyce, from the opposite side of the table, where she was cutting up the seed-cake that she had made with her own hands the day before, asked the guest after his two daughters. "they are very busy," answered mr. hoad. "a large acquaintance, you know--it involves a great deal of calling. i'm afraid they have been remiss here." "oh, i pray, don't mention such a thing, mr. hoad," exclaimed mother, hastily. "we don't pay calls ourselves. we are plain folk, and don't hold with fashionable ways." mr. hoad smiled rather uncomfortably. "and we have not much to amuse them with," i put in. "we do nothing that young ladies do." i saw mother purse up her lips at this, and i was vexed that i had said it, but father laughed and said: "no, hoad, my girls are simple farmer's daughters, and have learned more about gardening and house-keeping than they have about french and piano-playing, though meg can sing a ballad when she chooses as well as i want to hear it." i declared my voice was nothing to miss hoad's; and joyce, always gracious, looked across to mr. hoad and said: "i wonder whether miss jessie would sing something for us at our village concert?" "i'll ask her," said mr. hoad, a little diffidently. "i'm never sure about my daughters' engagements. they have so many engagements." "we shall be very pleased to see them here any afternoon for a practice, sha'n't we, mother?" added joyce. "the young ladies will always be welcome," replied mother, a little stiffly; and i hastened to add, i fear less graciously: "but pray don't let them break any engagements for us." mr. hoad smiled again, and then father turned to him and they took up the thread of their own talk where they had left it. "you certainly ought to know that young fellow i was speaking of," mr. hoad began. "i was struck with him at once. a wonderful gift of expressing himself, and just that kind of way with him that always wins people--one can't explain it. handsome, too, and full of enthusiasm." "enthusiasm don't always carry weight," objected father. "it's rather apt to fly too high." "bound to fly high when you have got to get over the heads of other folks," laughed mr. hoad. father looked annoyed. "i wasn't joking, i wasn't joking," said he. "if men want to go in for great work, they can't afford to take it lightly." and then he added with one of his quick looks, "but don't misunderstand me, hoad. enthusiasm of the right kind never takes things lightly. it's the only sort of stuff that wins great battles, because it has plenty of courage and don't know the meaning of failure. only there's such lots of stuff that's called enthusiasm and is nothing but gas. i should like to see this young man and judge for myself. god forbid i should think youth a stumbling-block. youth is the time for doing as well as for dreaming." father sighed, and though i could not tell why at the time, i can guess now that it was from the recollection of that friend of his who must have been the type of youthful enthusiasm thus to have left his memory and the strength of his convictions so many years in the heart of another. "well, you can see him easily enough," said mr. hoad. "he's staying in your village, i believe. he's a nephew of squire broderick's." "what! captain forrester?" cried i. "ah, you know him of course, miss maliphant. trust the young ladies for finding out the handsome men," said mr. hoad, turning to me with his most irritating expression of gallantry. i bit my lips with annoyance at having opened my mouth to the man, especially as he glanced across at joyce with a horribly knowing look, at which of course she blushed, making me very angry. "i fancy the squire and he don't get on so extra well together," said mr. hoad. "squire don't like the look of the lad that'll step into his shoes, if he don't make haste and marry and have a son of his own, i suppose." "i should think this smart captain had best not reckon too much on the property," said mother, stiffly, up in arms at once for her favorite. "the squire's young enough yet to marry and have a dozen sons." "yes, yes, ma'am, only joking, only joking," declared mr. hoad. "i shouldn't think the lad gave the property a thought." "if he's the kind of man you say, he can't possibly care about property," said i, glibly, talking of what i could not understand. father smiled, but smiled kindly, at me. mr. hoad laughed outright and made me furious. "i see you're up in all the party phrases, young lady," said he. "how did you come to know the young man, hoad?" asked father, without giving me time to reply. "you seem to have become friends in a very short time." "he came to me on a matter of business," repeated hoad, evasively. "i fancy he's pretty hard up. only got his captain's pay and a little private property, on his father's side, i suppose, and no doubt gives more than he can spare to these societies and things." father was silent. probably he knew, what i had no notion of, that there was another branch to mr. hoad's profession besides that of a solicitor. evidently he did not like to be reminded of the fact, for he knitted his brow and let his jaw fall, as he always did when annoyed. "i don't know how we came to talk politics," hoad went on, "but we did, and i thought to myself, 'why, here's just the man for maliphant.' i never knew any one else go as far as you do; but this young fellow--why, he nearly beat you, 'pon my soul he did!" "politics!" echoed father, frowning more unmistakably than ever; "what have they got to do with the matter?" "come, now, maliphant, you're not going to keep that farce up forever," cried mr. hoad, in his most intimate and good-natured fashion. oh, how i resented it when he would treat father as though he were on perfect equality with him! for my father's daughter i was intolerant; but then mr. hoad patronized, and patronizing was not necessary in order to be consistent. "what do you mean?" asked father. "it was all very well for you to swear you would have nothing to do with us before," continued mr. hoad. "you did not think we should ever get hold of a man who looked at things as you do. but now we have. and if you really have the radical cause at heart, as you say, you will be able to get him in for the county. he has got everything in his favor--good name, good presence, good-breeding. those are the men to run your notions; not your measly, workaday fellows--they have no influence with the masses." father rose from the table. his eyebrows nearly met in their overhanging shagginess, and his eyes were small and brilliant. "i don't think i understand you, hoad," said he. "we seem to be at cross-purposes. do you mean to say that this young man wants to get into parliament?" "oh, no plans, no plans whatever, i should say," said hoad. "he merely asked me who was going to contest the tory seat; and when i asked him if he was a radical, he aired a few sentiments which, as i tell you, are quite in your line. but i should think we might easily persuade him--he seemed so very eager. if you would back our man, maliphant, we should be safe whoever he was, i do believe," added the solicitor, emphatically. "he has a really wonderful influence with the working-classes, that husband of yours, ma'am," he finished up, turning to mother. "yes," said she, proudly; "laban's a fine orator. when i heard him speak at the meeting the other day he fairly took my breath away, that he did." mother looked up at father with a pleased smile, for she loved to hear him praised, but for my own part i knew very well that he was in no mood for pleasant speeches. "i have always told you, hoad, that it's no part of my scheme to go in for politics," said he, in a low voice, but very decisively. "i see no reason to change my mind." "well, my dear fellow, but that's absurd," answered mr. hoad, still in that provokingly friendly fashion. "however do you expect to get what you want?" "not through parliament, anyhow," said father, laconically. "i never heard of any act of parliament that gave bread to the poor out of the waste of the rich. i'll wait to support parliament till i see one of the law-makers there lift up a finger to right the poor miserable children who swarm and starve in the london streets, and whose little faces grow mean and sharp with the learning to cheat those who cheat them of their daily bread." i can see him now, his lip trembling, his eye bright, his hands clinched. it was the cry with which he ended every discourse; this tender pity for the many children who must needs hunger while others waste, who must needs learn sin while others are shielded from even knowing that there is such a thing; those innocent sinners, outcasts from good, patient because hopeless, yet often enough incurably happy even in the very centre of evil--they were always in his heart. it was his most cherished hope in some way to succor them, by some means to bring the horror of their helplessness home to the hearts of those who had happy children of their own. i held my face down that no one should see my tears, and i knew that father took out his big colored pocket-handkerchief and blew his nose very hard. mr. hoad, however, was not so easily affected. "ah, you were right, mrs. maliphant," said he, in a loud, emphatic voice. "your husband would make a very fine orator. all the more reason it's a sin and a shame he should hide his talents under a bushel. now, don't you agree with me?" "oh, laban knows best what he has got to do," answered mother. "i think it's a great pity for women to mix themselves up in these matters. they have plenty to do attending to the practical affairs of life." mr. hoad burst into a loud fit of laughter. "ah, you've got a clever wife, maliphant," cried he. "she's put her finger upon the weak joint in your armor! yes, that's it, my boy. they're fine sentiments, but they aren't practical; they won't wash. but you would soon see, when you really got into the thing, that the best way to make the first step towards what you want is not to ask for the whole lot at once. the thin edge of the wedge--that's the art. and i should be inclined to think this young fellow was not wanting in tact." "anyhow," answered father, quietly, "if squire broderick's nephew were minded to oppose the tory candidate for this county, i should certainly not wish--as squire broderick's old friend--to support him in his venture." "ah, you're very scrupulous, maliphant," laughed mr. hoad. but then, seeing his mistake, he added, quickly, "quite right, perfectly right of course, and i don't suppose the young man has any intention of doing anything of the kind." "no doubt it was rather that the wish was father to the thought in you, hoad," answered father, frankly. "ah, well, you may be as obstinate as you like, maliphant," said the solicitor, trying to take father's good-tempered effort as a cue for jocoseness, "but we can get on very well without you if the young ladies will only give us their kind support. i hope you won't be such an old curmudgeon as to forbid that; and i hope," added he, turning to joyce with that sugary smile of his, "that the young ladies will not withdraw their patronage if, after all, a less handsome man than captain forrester should be our radical candidate." "oh, thank you," said joyce, blushing furiously, and looking up with distressed blue eyes; "indeed, we scarcely know captain forrester at all. we couldn't possibly be of any use to you." "of course not," cried i. "whoever were the candidate we should not canvass. we never canvass. we are not politicians." i wonder that nobody smiled, but nobody did. father was too busy with his thoughts, and perhaps mr. hoad was too much astonished. but as though to cover my priggishness, joyce said, sweetly, when mr. hoad rose to go: "you won't forget the concert, will you? and, please, will you tell miss bessie that i shall be very glad to do what i can to help her with her bazaar work?" he promised to remember both messages, and shook hands with her in a kind of lingering way, which i remember was a manner he always had towards a pretty girl. i thought mother took leave of him a little shortly. father alone accompanied him out into the hall, and saw him into the smart little gig that came round from the stable to pick him up. i went to the pantry for the tray to clear the tea-things. when i came back again into the parlor joyce had gone up-stairs, and father and mother were alone. i do not know why it was, but as soon as i came in i felt sure that the discussion with hoad, eager as it had been at the time, was not occupying father's mind. i felt sure that mother had alluded to that more important matter hotly spoken of after the squire's visit. she was standing by the fire, and father held her hand in his. he asked me to bring a lamp into his study, and went out. i glanced at mother. "what does father want to go to work for so late?" said i. "why don't he sit and smoke his pipe as usual?" mother did not answer; her back was turned towards me, but there was something in its expression which made me feel sure that she was crying. "but he seems much better to-night, mother," i added, coming up behind her; "he was quite himself over that argument." "yes, dear, yes; he can always wake up over those things," answered she, and sure enough there was a tremble in her voice, and every trace of the dignity that she had used towards me since the scene at the dinner-table had entirely disappeared. "dear mother, why do you fret?" said i, softly. "i'm sure there's no need." "no, no, of course there's no need," she repeated. "but, margaret," added she, hurriedly, as though she were half ashamed of what she were saying, "if he could be brought to see that plan of the squire's in a better light, i'm sure it would be a good thing. i don't think his heart has ever been in farm-work, and i can't a-bear to see him working so hard now he is old. it would have been different, you see, if--if little john had lived." i kissed her silently. the innocent slight to my own capacities, which had so occupied my mind an hour ago, passed unnoticed by me. and as father that night at family prayers rolled forth in his sonorous voice the beautiful language of the psalms, the words, "he hath respect unto the lowly, but the proud he knoweth afar off," sank into my heart, and i thought that i should never again want to set myself up above my betters. chapter viii. i lay awake quite half an hour that night, and i made up my mind--just as seriously as though my feelings were likely to prove an important influence--that i would in no way try to bias my father in his decision about taking a bailiff. but real as was my trouble about this matter that to me was so mighty, it was all put to flight the next morning by an occurrence of more personal and immediate interest. such is the blessed elasticity of youth. the occurrence was one which not only brought the remembrance of captain forrester, and my romantic dreams for joyce, once more vividly to my mind, but it also gave no small promise of enjoyment to myself. it consisted in the sudden appearance of a groom from the manor, who delivered into my hands a note for mother. it was morning when he came; mother was still in the kitchen with deborah, and joyce and i had not finished making our beds and dusting our room. but i do not think there was any delay in the answering of that door-bell. i remember how cross i was when mother would insist on finishing all her business before she opened the note; she went into the poultry-yard and decided what chickens and what ducks should be killed for the week's dinners, she went into the dairy to look at the cream, she even went up herself into the loft to get apples before she would go and find her spectacles in the parlor. and yet any one could have imagined that a note from the squire meant something very important. and so, indeed, it did. it contained a formal invitation to a grand ball to be given at the manor-house. the card did not say a "grand" ball, but of course we knew that it would be a grand ball. we were fairly dazed with excitement. actually a ball in our quiet little village. such a thing had not been known since i had been grown up, and i had not even heard of its having occurred since the days when young mrs. broderick had come to the manor as a bride. of course we had been to dances in town once or twice--once to the hoads', and once to a county ball, got up at the white hart inn, but i think these were really the only two occasions on which i had danced anywhere out of the dancing academy. joyce, being a little older, could count about three more such exciting moments in her life. the card was passed round from hand to hand, and then stuck up on the mantle-shelf in front of the clock, as though there were any danger that any of the family would be likely to forget on what day and at what hour squire broderick had invited us to "dancing" at the manor. "i wonder what has made the squire give a ball now," said mother. "i suppose it's the prospect of the elections. he thinks he owes it to the county." "why on earth should he owe the county a ball because of the elections?" cried i. "he is not going to stand, and i don't think he can suppose that a ball would be likely to do the farnham interests much good, if that's the only man they have got to put forward on the conservative side." "i don't think it's a young girl's business to talk in that flippant way, margaret," said the mother. father was not present just then. "i don't think it's becoming in young folk to talk about matters they can't possibly understand." i was nettled at this, but i did not dare to answer mother back. "you never heard your father talk like that of mr. farnham, i'm sure," added mother. "he likes him a great deal better than he does mr. thorne, although mr. thorne is a radical." "well, i should think so! mr. thorne is a capitalist, and father doesn't think that men who have made such large fortunes in business ought to exist," cried i, boldly, applying a theory to an individual as i thought i had been taught. "it is no use his being a radical, nor giving money to the poor, because he oughtn't to have the money. it's dreadful to think of his having bought a beautiful old place like the priory with money that he has ground out of his workpeople. no, nobody will ever like mr. thorne in the neighborhood." "i know squire and he don't hold together at all," answered mother. "though they do say mr. thorne bought the property through that handsome young spark of a nephew of the squire's. the families were acquainted up north." "who told you that, mother?" asked i, quickly. "miss farnham said so when she called yesterday," replied mother. "and she said it was mr. thorne was going to contest the seat with her brother, so i don't know how mr. hoad could have come suggesting that young captain to your father as he did yesterday. a rich man like the manufacturer would be sure to have much more chance." i was silent. i was a little out of my depth. "i don't believe mr. hoad knew anything at all about it," i said. "how could a man be going to contest a seat against the candidate that his own uncle was backing? it's ridiculous. mr. hoad has always got something to say." "margaret, you really shouldn't allow yourself to pass so many opinions on folk," repeated mother. "first mr. farnham, and then mr. thorne, and now mr. hoad. it's not pretty in young women." "very well, mother, i won't do it again," said i, merrily. "at all events parliament doesn't matter much, father says so; and anyhow, squire's going to give us a ball, and nothing can matter so much as that." nothing did matter half so much to us three just then, it is true. mother was just as much excited as we were, and we all fell to discussing the fashions with just as much eagerness, if not as much knowledge, as if we had been london born and bred. "you must look over your clothes and see you have got everything neat. joyce, i suppose you will wear your white embroidered 'india'?" said the mother. and from that it was a very natural step to go and look at the white muslin, and at the other clothes that our simple wardrobes boasted, so that we spent every bit of that morning that was not taken up with urgent household duties in turning over frocks and laces and ribbons, and determining what we should wear, and what wanted washing before we did wear it. yes, i think i thought of my dress that day for the first time in my life. there was no need to think of joyce's, because she was sure to be admired, but if there was any chance of my looking well it could only be because of some happy thought with regard to my costume; and so when mother suggested that she should give me her lovely old sea-green shot silk to be made up for the occasion, my heart leaped for joy. i was very much excited. for joyce, because i had quite made up my mind that it was captain forrester who had persuaded the squire to give this ball; and for myself, because it was really a great event in the life of any girl, and i was passionately fond of dancing. i spent the afternoon washing my old lace ruffles, and pulling them out tenderly before the fire, and all the time i was humming waltz tunes, and wondering who would dance with me, and picturing joyce to myself whirling round in the arms of captain forrester. i thought of joyce and her lover so much that it was scarcely a surprise to me when, just as the light was beginning to fade and tea-time was near, i heard a sharp ring at the front door, and running to the back passage window with my lace in my hand, i saw that squire broderick was standing in the porch, and with him his nephew captain forrester. i heard joyce fly through the hall to the kitchen. i think she must have seen the two gentlemen pass down the road, and then she ran back again into the parlor, and deborah went to the door. "mrs. maliphant at home?" said the squire's cheery voice; and scarcely waiting for a reply, he strode through to the front room. i threw down my lace, turned down my sleeves, and without any more attention to my toilet i ran down-stairs. mother had gone to do some little errands in the village and had not come in; joyce stood alone with the visitors. she had her plain dark-blue every-day gown on, but the soft little frills at her throat and wrists were clean. i remember thinking how fortunate it was that they were clean. she was standing in the window with captain forrester, who was admiring our view over the marsh. "it's a most beautiful country," said he. and his eyes wandered from the plain without that the shades of evening were slowly darkening to the face at his side that shone so fair against the little frilled muslin curtain which she held aside with her hand. the squire sat at the table; he had taken up the morning paper, and i supposed that the frown on his face was summoned there by something that he read in the columns of this the liberal journal. captain forrester left joyce and came towards me as soon as i entered the room. "miss maliphant, i am delighted to meet you again," said he, with his pleasant polished manner that had the art of never making one feel that he was saying a thing merely to be agreeable. "after our little adventure of the other day, i felt that it was impossible for me to leave the neighborhood without trying to make our acquaintance fast." "oh, are you leaving the neighborhood?" said i--i am afraid a little too anxiously. "well, not just yet," smiled captain forrester. "i think i shall stay till over the ball." "nonsense, frank," said the squire, rising and pushing the paper away from him. "of course you will stay over the ball." then turning to me, he said, merrily, "no difficulty about you young ladies coming, i hope?" "i don't know, mr. broderick," answered i. "you must wait and ask mother. it's a very grand affair for two such simple girls as joyce and me." "oh, margaret, i think we shall be allowed to go," put in joyce, in her gentle, matter-of-fact voice. "you know we went to a very late ball last christmas in town." considering that we had been sitting over frocks all the morning, this would have been nonsense, excepting that joyce never could see a joke. "i think i shall have to take mrs. maliphant in hand myself if she makes any objection," said the squire, "for we certainly can't spare you and your sister." joyce blushed, and captain forrester turned to her and was going to say something which i think would have been complimentary, when father entered the room. he had his rough, brown, ill-cut suit on, and his blue handkerchief twisted twice round his neck and tied loosely in front, and did not look at all the same kind of man as the two in front of him. i noticed it for the first time that evening. i was not at all ashamed of it. if i had been questioned, i should have said that i was very proud of it, but i just noticed it, and i wondered if captain forrester noticed it too. it certainly was very odd that it never should have occurred to me before, that this lover whom i had picked out for joyce belonged to the very same class as the squire, whom i thought so unsuitable to her. i suppose it was because captain forrester was not a landed proprietor, and that any man who belonged to the noble career of soldiering atoned for his birth by his profession. "how are you, maliphant?" said the squire, grasping him by the hand as though there had been no such thing as any uncomfortable parting between them. "i'm glad to see you are none the worse for this cursed east wind. it's enough to upset many a younger and stronger man." father had taken the proffered hand, but not very cordially. i am not sure that he ever shook hands very cordially with people; perhaps it was partly owing to the stiffness in his fingers, but i believe that he regarded it as a useless formality. i imagine this because i, too, have always had a dislike to kissings and hand-shakings, when a simple "good-day" seemed to me to serve the purpose well enough. "pooh!" said father, in answer to the squire's remark. "a man who has his work out-doors all the year round, squire broderick, needs must take little account whether the wind be in the east or the south, except as how it'll affect his crops and his flock." the squire took no notice of this speech. it was so very evident that it was spoken with a view to the vexed question. "i've brought my nephew round," said he, and captain forrester left joyce's side as he said it, and came forward with his pleasant smile and just the proper amount of deference added to his usual charming manner. "he wanted to see the grange," added the squire, again with that frown upon his brow that i could not understand, but which no doubt proceeded, as he had affirmed, from the effect of the east wind upon his temper. "i'm very glad to see you, sir," said father, shortly. "i hear you rendered my daughters some assistance the other day." captain forrester smiled. "it could scarcely be called assistance," he said. "your daughter"--and he looked at me to distinguish me from joyce--"would have been capable of driving the horse, i am sure." "oh, i understood the mare reared," answered father. "well, she is not a good horse for a lady to drive," allowed captain forrester, as though the confession were wrung from him; and i wondered how he guessed that it annoyed me to be thought incapable of managing the mare. "but some women drive as well as any man." the squire took up the paper again. i did not think it was good-manners of him. "what a splendid view you have from this house," continued captain forrester. "i think it's much finer than from our place." the squire's shoulders moved with an impatient movement. the article he was reading must decidedly have annoyed him. "yes," answered joyce; "but you should come and see it in summer or in autumn. it's very bleak now. the spring is so late this year." "ay; i don't remember a snowfall in march these five years," said father. "but it has a beautiful effect on this plain," continued the young man, moving away into the window again. and then turning round to joyce, he added, "do you sketch, miss maliphant?" "no, no," answered father for her. "we have no time for such things. we have all of us plenty to do without any accomplishments." "miss margaret can sing 'robin adair,'" put in the squire, "as well as i want to hear it, accomplishments or not." "indeed," said captain forrester, with a show of interest. "i hope she will sing it to me some day." he said it with a certain air of patronage, which i found afterwards came from his own excellent knowledge of music. "are you fond of singing?" said i, simply. i was too much of a country girl to think of denying the charge. i was very fond of good music; it was second nature to me, inherited, i suppose, from some forgotten ancestor, and picking out tunes on the old piano was the only thing that ever kept me willingly in-doors. father delighted in my simple singing of simple ditties, and so did the squire; i had grown used to thinking it was a talent in me, my only one, and i was not ashamed of owning up to it. "i'll sing it to you now if you like." "that's very kind of you," said the young man, with a little smile. and i sat down and sang the old tune through. i remember that, for the first time in my life, i was really nervous. captain forrester stood by the piano. he was very kind; i don't know that any one had ever said so much to me about my voice before, but in spite of it all i knew for the first time that i knew nothing. i felt angrily ashamed when joyce, in reply to pressing questions about her musical capacity, answered that i had all the talent, and began telling of the village concerts that i was wont to get up for the poor people, and of how there was one next week, when he must go and hear me sing. "certainly i will," he answered, pleasantly, "and do anything i can to help you. i have had some practice at that kind of thing." "why don't you say you are a regular professional at it, frank?" put in the squire, i fancied a little crossly. "he's always getting up village concerts--a regular godsend at that kind of thing." frank laughed, and said he hoped we would employ him after such a character, and then he asked what was our programme. joyce told him. i was going to sing, and miss hoad was going to sing--and she sang beautifully, for she had learned in london--and then i would sing with the blacksmith, and miss thorne would play with the grocer on the cornet, and glees and comic songs would fill up the remainder. the smile upon captain forrester's face clouded just a little at the mention of miss thorne. "miss thorne is not very proficient on the piano," said he. "have you already asked her to perform?" "do you know miss thorne?" asked joyce, surprised. "yes," answered the captain; "she lived in the village where i was brought up as a boy--not far from manchester. her father was a great manufacturer, you know." "yes; we know that well enough." and i glanced uneasily at father; for if he knew that this young fellow was a friend of the thornes, i was afraid it would set him against him. luckily, he was busy talking to the squire. "she's a very nice girl," said joyce, kindly, wanting to be agreeable, although indeed we knew no more of mary thorne than shaking hands with her coming out of church on a sunday afternoon. "charming," acquiesced the captain; "but she's not a good musician, and i shouldn't ask her to perform unless you're obliged to." we said we were not obliged to; but joyce said she wouldn't like to do anything unkind, and she was afraid mary thorne wanted to be asked to perform. and then they two retired into the window again, discussing the concert and the view, and i soon saw proudly that they were talking as though they had known one another for years. it generally took a long while for any one to get through the first ice with joyce, but this man had an easy way with him; he was so sympathetic in his personality--so kind and frank and natural. "that's a most ridiculous article in the _herald_," said the squire to father. "i wonder blair can put in such stuff. he's a sensible man." "i wonder you'll admit even that, squire," answered father, with a little laugh. the paper, i need not say, was the liberal organ. "oh, well," smiled the other, "i can see the good in a man though i don't agree with him. but i think _that_"--pointing to the print--"is beneath contempt." "i don't hold with it myself," answered father; "the man has got no pluck." "oh no, of course--doesn't go far enough for you, maliphant," laughed the squire; and at that moment mother came in or i do not know what father would have answered. she came in slowly, and stood a moment in the door-way looking round upon us all. joyce blushed scarlet, and came forward out of the recess. the squire rose and hastened towards her. "we have been invading your house while you have been away, mrs. maliphant," said he. "that wasn't polite, was it? but you'll forgive me, i know." mother's eyes scarcely rested on him; they travelled past him to captain forrester, who stood in the window. "my nephew, frank forrester," said the squire, hastily following her look. the captain advanced and bowed to mother. he could do nothing more, for she did not hold out her hand. "i am very glad to see any friend of yours, squire," said she. and then she turned away from him, and unfastened her cloak, which i took from her and hung up in the hall. "joyce, lay the cloth," said she. "we'll have tea at once." i left the room with sister. "never mind," whispered i, outside, as we fetched the pretty white egg-shell cups that always came out when we had any company; "mother doesn't mean to be queer. she is just a little cold now, because she wants captain forrester to understand it wasn't with her leave we let him drive us home. but she isn't really cross." "cross! oh, margaret, no--of course not," echoed joyce. she was taking down a plate from under a pile of cups, and said no more at the moment. i was ashamed and half vexed. that was the worst of joyce. sometimes she would reprove one when one was actually fighting her battles. "of course we ought not to have done it," continued she, setting the cups in order on the tray. "i felt it at the time." "then, why in the world didn't you say so?" cried i. "i didn't know how to say so; you scarcely gave me a chance," answered she. "of course, i know you did it because i was so stupidly frightened, but it makes me rather uncomfortable now." "oh, i thought you seemed to get on very well with captain forrester, just now," said i, huffily, kneeling down to reach the cake on the bottom shelf. "you seemed quite civil to him, and you didn't look uncomfortable." "didn't i? i'm glad," answered joyce, simply. "of course one wants to be civil to the squire's friends in father's house. and i do think he is a very polite gentleman." she took up the tray and moved on into the parlor, and i went across into the kitchen to fetch the urn. i had never been envious of joyce's beauty up to the present time. nothing had happened to make me so, and i was fully occupied in being proud of it. but if her beauty was of such little account to her that she had not even been pleased by this handsome man's admiration of it--well, i thought i could have made better use of it. when i went into the parlor again the groups were all changed. father stood by the fire and the squire had risen. father had his hands crossed behind his back and his sarcastic expression on, and the squire was talking loudly. joyce was laying the cloth, and mother stood by the window where sister had stood before; captain forrester was talking to her as if he had never cared to do anything else. i could not hear what they were saying, the squire's voice was too loud; but i could see that mother was quite civil. "i never liked that man hoad," the squire was saying, and i felt a throb of satisfaction as i heard him. "i don't believe he's straightforward. do anything for money, that's my feeling." "he's a friend of mine," said father, stiffly. "oh, well, of course, if he's a friend of yours, well and good," answered mr. broderick, shortly. "you probably know him better than i do. but i don't like him. i should never be able to trust him." "perhaps that is because you do not know him," suggested father. "no doubt, no doubt," answered the squire. "i hear he has turned radical now," added he, coming to the real core of the grievance. "he used to call himself a liberal, but now i hear he calls himself a radical, and is going to put up some radical candidate to oppose us." "yes, i know," answered father, too honest to deny the charge. "oh, do you know who it is?" asked the squire, sharply. "no, i don't," answered father, in the same way. the squire paused a moment, then he said, unable to keep it in, "are you going to support him too?" the color went out of father's face; i knew he was angry. "well, mr. broderick, i don't know what sort of a candidate it'll be," said he, in a provoking manner. "there's radicals and radicals." the squire smacked his boot with his walking-stick and did not answer. captain forrester came forward, for mother had gone to the table to make the tea. "did i hear you say that you were a radical, mr. maliphant?" asked the young man, looking at father. "i am not a tory," answered father, without looking up. i thought his tone was cruelly curt. "well, i am a socialist," answered frank forrester, with an air that would have been defiant had it not been too pleasant-spoken. father smiled. the words must have provoked that--would have provoked more if the speaker had not been so good-tempered. "ah, i know what you young fellows mean by a socialist," he murmured. "i should say i went about as far as most men in england," said frank, looking at him in that open-eyed fixed way that he used towards men as well as towards women. "i should say that you went farther than you can see," said the squire, laconically. frank laughed, good-humoredly. "ah, i refuse to quarrel with you, uncle," said he, taking hold of the squire's arm in a friendly fashion. it was said as though he would imply that he could quarrel with other people when he liked, but his look belied his words. "if you will let me, i'll come in and have a chat one of these days, mr. maliphant," continued he. "when uncle is not by, you know." he said the words as though he felt sure that his request would be granted, and yet with his confidence there was a graceful deference to the elder man which was very fascinating. why did father look at him as he did? did he feel something that i felt? and what was it that i felt? i do not know. "i am a busy man and haven't much time for talk, sir, but you're welcome when you like to call," answered father, civilly, not warmly. the squire had sat down again while his nephew and father were exchanging these few words. he crossed one knee over the other and sat there striking his foot with his hand--a provoking habit that he had when he was trying to control his temper. "there'll be a nice pair of you," said he, trying to turn the matter off into a joke. "it's a pity, frank, that you have no vote to help mr. maliphant's candidate with." "i don't know that any so-called radical candidate would or could do much in parliament to help the questions that i have at heart," said captain forrester. "as mr. maliphant justly observed, there are radicals and radicals, and the political radical has very little in common with those who consider merely social problems." father did look up now, and his eyes shone as i had seen them shine when he was talking to the working-men, for though i had not often heard him--the chief of his discourses being given in the village club--i had once been to a large meeting in town where he had been the chief speaker. "one never knows where to have any of you fellows," laughed the squire, rather uncomfortably. "you always led me to believe, maliphant, that you would have nothing to do with political party spirit. you always said that no party yet invented would advance the interests of the people in a genuine fashion, and now, as soon as a radical candidate appears, you talk of supporting him." "i am not aware that i talked of supporting him," said father. "but you won't return a radical," continued the squire, not hearing the remark. "the country isn't ripe for that sort of thing yet, whatever you may think it will be. you're very influential, i know. and if you're not with us, as i once hoped you might be, you'll be a big weight against us. but with all your influence you won't return a radical. the tories are too strong; they're much stronger than they were last election, and then sethurst was an old-fashioned liberal and a well-known man in the county besides. you won't return a radical. i don't believe there's a county in england would return what you would call a radical, and certainly not ours." "i don't believe there is," said father, quietly. "then why do you want to support this candidate?" "i don't," answered father. "i'm a man of my word, squire broderick. i told you long ago i'd have nothing to do with politics, and no more i will. if i am to be of any use, i must do it in another way--i must work from another level. the county may return what it likes for all i shall trouble about it." "well, 'pon my soul," began the squire, but at that moment mother's voice came from the tea-table. she saw that a hot argument was imminent, and she never could abide an argument. i think that father, too, must have been disinclined for one, for when she said, "father, your tea is poured out," he took the hint at once. the squire looked disappointed for a moment, but i think he was so glad that father's influence was not going to take political shape against his candidate that he forgave all else. mother was just making captain forrester welcome beside her as the newest guest, when deborah opened the door and ushered in mr. hoad. i had quite forgotten that father had invited him. he stood a moment as it were appraising the company. his eyes rested for less than an instant on squire broderick, on captain forrester, and then shifted immediately to mother. "oh, i am afraid that i intrude, mrs. maliphant," said he. "not at all, not at all, hoad," declared father. "come in; we expected you." mother rose and offered him her hand. then captain forrester, who had been looking at him, came forward and offered his too in his most genial manner. it was not till long afterwards that i found out that he made a special point of always being most genial to those people whom he considered ever so little beneath him. "oh, how are you, hoad?" said he. "i thought i recognized you, but i wasn't quite sure. i didn't expect to meet you here." "no; nor i you!" exclaimed hoad, gliding with ready adaptability into the position offered him--a quality which i think was perhaps his chief characteristic. "delighted to see you." forrester gave up his place next mother, and sat down beside joyce. the squire just nodded to mr. hoad, and then the conversation became general till the squire and his nephew left, very shortly afterwards. chapter ix. three weeks had passed since the day when captain forrester drove us out from town. winter was gliding slowly into spring. the winds were still cold and piercing, and the bright sun and keen air sadly treacherous to sensitive folk, but the snow had all melted and the grass sprung green upon the marsh, throwing the blue of the sea beyond into sharp contrast; the cattle came out once more to feed; yellow-hammers and butcher-birds began to appear on the meadows; and over earth and sea, soft gray clouds broke into strange shapes upon the blue. i remember all this now; then i was only conscious of one thing--that, in spite of the east wind, i was happy. father was well again; he rode over the farm on his cob just as he used to do, and mother had forgotten the very name of a poultice. joyce and the captain showed every sign of playing in the romance that i had planned for them; no one had mentioned the subject of a bailiff for knellestone from that day to this; and the squire's ball was close at hand. how was it possible that i should be otherwise than happy? it was the very night before the dance. jessie hoad, who had consented to sing for our village concert, had been over and we had been having a practice under captain forrester's directions. she was a fashionably dressed, fashionably mannered, fashionably minded young woman, and quite content with herself; she generally resented directions, but she had submitted with a pretty good grace to his. miss thorne had also been in. joyce in this had shown one of those strange instances of obstinacy that were in her. mary thorne had asked to come, and she should not be refused. i remember noticing that captain forrester and that particularly gay-tempered young lady seemed to be very intimate together; just, in fact, as people who had known one another from childhood would be. they took the liberty of telling one another home-truths--at least mary thorne did (i fancied frank responded less promptly), and did it in a blunt fashion that was peculiar to her. but i liked blunt people. i liked mary thorne very much. although she was an heiress to money that had been "sucked from the blood of the people"--to money made from a factory where girls and little children worked long hours out of the sunlight and the fresh air--although she lived in a great house that overlooked acres of land that belonged to her--and although my father could scarcely be got to speak to hers--i liked mary thorne. she was so frank and jolly, and took it so as a matter-of-course that we were to be friends, that i always forgot that she rode in a carriage when i walked, and that she and i ought, by rights, not to be so much at ease. that day she was particularly jolly, and she and i and captain forrester laughed together till i was quite ashamed to see that i had left joyce all the entertaining of miss hoad to do in the mean time. for the captain had not paid so much attention to joyce on that day as on most others; i suppose he thought it was more discreet not to do so before strangers. both our lady visitors had left, however, by half-past five o'clock, and captain forrester stood on the garden terrace now with joyce alone, while i had returned to the darning of the family socks. it was close upon sunset, and they were looking at the lilacs that were beginning to swell in the bud. joyce wore a lilac gown herself, i remember. the captain had once admired it, and i had noticed that she had put it on very often since then. i watched them from the parlor window where i sat with my work. for the first time i was half frightened at what i had done. i wondered what this romance was like that i had woven for joyce. i felt that she was gliding away out of my ken, into an unknown world where i had driven her, and where i could not now follow her. was it all happiness in that world? although the light was fading, and i wanted it all for my work, i moved away from the window-seat farther into the room. it seemed indelicate to watch them; although, indeed, they were only standing there side by side quietly, and what they were saying to one another i could not have heard if i had wished to do so. but it was my doing that they were alone at all. joyce had stockings to darn too, but i had suggested that the parlor posy wanted freshening, and that there were some primroses out on the cliff. mother was out; she had gone to assist at the arrival of a new member of the population, and such an event always interested her so profoundly that she forgot other things for the moment. such an opportunity might not occur again for a long time, and i was not going to miss it--otherwise those two had not been alone together before. at least not to my knowledge. once joyce had gone out into the village marketing by herself, and when she had come home she had run straight up into her room instead of coming into the parlor. i had gone up to her after a little while, as she did not come down, and had found her sitting by the window with her things still on, looking out to the sea with a half-troubled expression on her face. i had asked her what was the matter, and she had smiled and said, "nothing at all," and i had believed her. however, even in the most open way in the world, captain forrester had managed to get pretty well acquainted with joyce by this time, for he had come to the grange almost every day since the squire had brought him to pay that first call. he came on the plea of interest in father's views; and though mother, i could see, had taken a dislike to him, simply because he was a rival to the squire, and took every opportunity of saying disparaging things about him to us girls when he was not present, even she felt the influence of the friendly manner that insisted on everything being pleasant and friendly in return, and did not seem somehow to be able to deny him the freedom which he claimed so naturally, of coming to the house whenever the fancy seized him. certainly it would have been very difficult to turn captain forrester out. although it was evident enough to every one but father, in his dreamy self-absorption, that the young man came to see my beautiful sister, and was quickly falling hopelessly in love with her, still he was far too courteous to neglect others for her--he was always doing something for mother, procuring her something that she wanted, or in some way helping her; and as for me, he not only took all the burden of the village concert off my shoulders, the musical part of which always fell to my lot, but he also taught me how to sing my songs as i had no idea of how to sing them before, and took so much interest in my voice and in my performance that he really made me quite ambitious for the time as to what i might possibly do. and however much mother might have wished to turn the captain out, there were difficulties attending this course of action. in the first place, he was the squire's nephew, and she could not very well be rude to the squire's nephew, however much she may have fancied that the squire would, in his heart, condone it; and then father had taken such an unusually strong fancy to the young man, that it would have been more than mother had ever been known to do to gainsay it. this friendship between an old and a young man was really a remarkable thing. father was not at all given to marked preferences for people; he was a reserved man, and his own society was generally sufficient for him. even in the class whose interests he had so dearly at heart--his own class he would have called it, although in force and culture he was very far above the typical representatives of it--he was a god to the many, rather than a friend to the individual. and apart from his friendship with the squire, which was a friendship rather of custom than of choice, i do not remember his having a single intimate acquaintance. for i do not choose to consider that hoad ever really was a friend in any sense of the word. i have always fancied that father's capacity for friendship was swallowed up in that one romantic episode of his youth, that stood side by side with his love for our mother, and was not less beautiful though so different. at first i think forrester's aristocratic appearance, his knowledge of hunting and horse-flesh, and music and dancing, and all the pleasures of the rich and idle, his polished manners, and even his good coat, rather stood in his light in the eyes of the "working-man;" but it was only at first. forrester's genuine enthusiasm for the interests that he affected, and his admiring deference for the mind that had thought the problem out, were enough to win the friendship of any man; for i suppose even at father's age one is not impervious to this refined sort of flattery. those were happy days in the dear old home, when we were all together, and none but the most trivial cloud of trouble or doubt had come to mar the harmony of our life. i never remember father merrier than he was at that time. he and frank would sit there smoking their pipes, and laughing and talking as it does one's heart good to remember. there was never any quarrelling over these discussions, as there used to be over the arguments with the squire. not that the young man always agreed at once about things. he required to be convinced, but then he always was convinced in the end. and his wild schemes for the development of the people and the prevention of crime, and the alleviation of distress, all sounded so practical and pleasant, as set forth in his pleasant, brilliant language, full of fire and enthusiasm, and not at all like the same theories that father had been wont to quarrel over with the squire in his sullen, serious fashion. everything that the captain proposed was to be won from the top, by discussions and meetings among the great of the land. he could shake hands on terms of equality with the poorest laborer over his pot of beer, but it was not from the laborer that the reform would ever be obtained; and he quite refused to see the matter in the sombre light in which father held it, who believed in no reform--if reform there could be--that did not come from the class that needed it, and that should come without bitter struggles and patient, dogged perseverance. and in the end he convinced--or seemed to convince--frank that this was so. i noticed how, imperceptibly, under the influence of father's earnest, powerful nature, the young man slowly became more earnest and more serious too. he talked less and he listened more; and truly there was no lack of food. the great subjects under discussion were the nationalization of land and the formation of trade corporations for the protection of the artisan class. these corporations were to be formed as far as possible on the model of the old guilds of the middle ages; they were to have compulsory provident funds for widows, orphans, and disabled workmen; they were to prevent labor on sundays, and the employment of children and married women in factories; they were to determine the hours of labor and the rate of wages, and to inquire into the sanitary condition of workplaces. there were many other principles belonging to them besides these that i have quoted, but i cannot remember any more, though i remember clearly how father and frank disagreed upon the question of whether the corporations were to enjoy a monopoly or not. i suppose they agreed finally upon the point, for i know that frank undertook to air the matter at public meetings in london, and seemed to be quite sure that he would be able to start a trial society before long. i recollect how absolutely he refused to be damped by father's less sanguine mood; and best of all, i remember the smile that he brought to father's face, and the light that he called back to his drooping eye. there was only one blot: the squire did not come to see us. no doubt i should not have allowed at this time that it was any blot, and when mother remarked upon it, i held my tongue; but i know very well that i was sorry the squire kept away. on this evening of which i am thinking, however, the squire did not keep away. i am afraid i had hurried a little over the darning of father's socks, that i might get to the making up of my own lace ruffles for the great event of the next night, and as i was sitting there in the window, making the most of the fading daylight, he came in. i heard him ask deborah for father in the hall, and when she answered that she thought he was still out, he said he would wait, and walked on into the parlor. he was free to come and go in our house. i fancied that he started a little when he saw me there alone; i suppose he expected to find the whole party as usual. "oh, how are you?" said he, abruptly, holding out his hand without looking at me. "is your mother out?" i explained that mother had gone to the village to see a neighbor. "i'll just wait a few minutes for your father," said he. "i want particularly to see him to-night." "is it about that young man?" asked i. i do not know what possessed me to ask it. it was not becoming behavior on my part, but at his words the recollection of that mr. trayton harrod, whom he had recommended to father as a bailiff, had suddenly returned to me. no mention having been made of him again, i had really scarcely remembered the matter till now, the excitement of the past three weeks had been so great. he knit his brows in annoyance, and i was sorry i had spoken. "what young man?" asked he. "that gentleman whom you recommended to father for the farm," said i, half ashamed of myself. "oh, trayton harrod!" exclaimed the squire, with a relieved expression. "oh no, no, i shall not trouble your father again about that unless he speaks to me. i thought it might be an advantageous thing, for i have known the young man since he was a lad, and he has been well brought up--a clever fellow all round. but your father knows his own business best. it might not work." it was on my lips to say that of course it would not work, but i restrained myself, and the squire went on: "i'm so delighted to see your father himself again," he said. "there's no need for any one to help him so long as he can do it all himself; and of course you, i know, do a great deal for him," added he, as though struck by an after-thought. "i saw you walking round the mill farm this morning." "did you?" answered i. "i only went up about the flour. i didn't see you." "no," he said. "i was riding the other way." he walked up to the window as he spoke, and looked out over the lawn. somehow i was glad that i had just seen joyce and captain forrester go down the cliff out of sight a few minutes before the squire arrived. "everybody out?" asked he. "yes," answered i. "everybody." he did not ask whether his nephew had been there. he drew a chair up to the table and began playing with the reels and tapes in my work-basket. mother and joyce would have been in an agony at seeing their sacred precincts invaded by the cruel hand of man, but it rather amused me to see the hopeless mess into which he was getting the hooks and silks and needles. my basket never was a miracle of orderliness at any time. "is miss joyce quite well?" said he at last, trying to get the scissors free of a train of cotton in which he had entangled them. i felt almost inclined to laugh. even to me, who am awkward enough, this seemed such an awkward way of introducing the subject, for of course i had guessed that he had missed her directly he had come into the room. "yes, quite well, thank you," answered i. and then i added, laughing, and seeing that he had got hold of a bit of my lace, "oh, take care, please, that's a bit of my finery for to-morrow night." he dropped it as if it had burned him. "oh dear, dear, yes, how clumsy i am!" cried he, pushing the work-basket far from him. "i hope i have spoiled nothing." "why, no, of course not," laughed i. "i oughtn't to have spoken. but you see i have only got that one bit of lace, and i want it for to-morrow night." "oh yes; i suppose you young ladies are going to be very grand indeed," smiled he. "oh no, not grand," insisted i, "but very jolly. we mean to enjoy ourselves, i can tell you." "that's right," said he; "so do i." but he could not get away from the subject of joyce. "has your sister gone far?" asked he, in a minute. "i don't know," i answered, quite determined to throw no light upon the subject of where she was and with whom. a direct question made it difficult now to keep to this determination. "do you know if my nephew has been here this afternoon?" was the question. i looked down intently at my work. "yes, he came," answered i. "he sat some while with father, till father went out." i did not add any mention of where he had been since. it was a prevarication of course, but i thought i did it out of a desire to spare the squire's feelings. he asked no more questions. he sat silent for a while. "your father and frank seem to be great friends," observed he, presently, and i fancied a little bitterly. "yes," i replied, "captain forrester has quite picked father's spirits up. he has been a different man since he had him to sympathize with over his pet schemes." i felt directly i had said the words that they were inconsiderate words, and i regretted them, but i could not take them back. squire broderick flushed over his fair, white brow. "yes; my nephew professes to be as keen after all these democratic dodges as your father himself," he said, curtly. "oh, it's not that," cried i, anxious to mend matters. "father doesn't need to have everybody agree with him for him to be friends with them." "no, i quite understand," answered the squire, beginning again on the unlucky basket. and after a pause he added, as though with an effort, "frank is a very delightful companion, i know, and when he brings his enthusiasm to bear upon subjects that are after one's own heart, it is naturally very pleasant." "yes," i agreed. "that's just it, he is so very enthusiastic. he would make such a splendid speaker, such a splendid leader of some great democratic movement." the squire left my work-basket in the muddle in which he had finally put it, and stuck his hands into his pockets. "do you think so?" he said. "oh yes, i'm sure of it," continued i, blindly. "and i am sure father thinks so too." "indeed!" answered the squire, i thought a little scornfully. "and, pray, how is my nephew going to be a great democratic leader? is he going into parliament? is he going to contest the county at the next election?" "why, how can you think he would do such a thing, mr. broderick," exclaimed i, "when he knows that you are supporting the opposite side?" "oh, that would be no objection," said the squire, still in the same tone of voice. "the objection would be that a radical stands such a small chance of getting in." "besides," added i, collecting myself, "i am sure he has no wish to go into parliament. father and he both agree that a man can do a great deal more good out of parliament than in it. they say that the finest leaders that there have been in all nations have been those who have got at the people straight--without any humbug between them." "pooh!" said the squire. then controlling himself, he added, "well, and does frank think that he is going to get at the people that way? does he suppose it will cost him nothing?" "oh no; i suppose it will cost money," assented i. "ah!" said the squire, in the tone of a man who has got to the bottom of the question at last. "well, then, i think it's only fair that your father should know that there is very little chance of frank's being of any use to him. if he is pinning his faith on frank as a possible representative of his convictions, he is making a mistake, and it is only right that he should be warned. frank has no money of his own, no money at all. he has nothing but his captain's pay, and that isn't enough for him to keep himself upon." the squire spoke bitterly. even i, girl as i was, could see that something had annoyed him to the point of making him lose control over himself. "i don't think father has pinned his faith on captain forrester," said i, half vexed. "i don't think there has been any question between them such as you fancy. i think they are merely fond of discussing matters upon which they agree. at all events, i am sure it has never entered father's head to consider whether captain forrester had money or not." "well, i think, for several reasons, it is just as well there should be no mistake about the thing," repeated the squire, vehemently, walking up and down the room in his excitement. "frank has no money and no prospects, excepting those which he may make for himself. i sincerely hope that he may do something better than marry an heiress, which is his mother's aim for him, but meanwhile he certainly has very little property excepting his debts." a light suddenly broke upon me. the words "marry an heiress," had suddenly flashed a meaning on squire broderick's strange attitude. he was afraid that captain forrester was winning joyce's affections. he was jealous. i would not have believed it of him; but perhaps, of course, it was natural. i was sorry for him. the remembrance of the sad bereavements of his youth made me sorry for him. after all, though i did not then consider him a young man, it was sad to have done with life so early, to have no chance of another little heir to the acres that he owned, instead of that poor little baby of whom mother had told us. for, of course, there was no chance of that, and captain forrester would finally inherit them. i had not thought of that before. no wonder he was bitter, and i was sorry for him. he spoke no more after that last speech. he came and stood over me where i was working. "but after all," said he, presently, in his natural genial tones, "i don't know why i troubled you with all that. you are scarcely the person whom it should interest. i beg your pardon." i did not know what to say, so i said nothing. the squire moved to the window, and i put down my work and followed him. the daylight had gone; there was no more sewing to be done that evening without a lamp. as i came up i saw the tall, slight figure of captain forrester standing up against the dim blue of the twilight sky, and holding out his hand to help my sister up the last, steepest bit of the ascent to our lawn. i glanced at the squire. his face was not sad nor sorry, but it was angry. he turned away from the window, and so did i, and as we faced round we saw mother standing in the door-way. she had her bonnet and cloak still on; she must have come in quietly by the back door, as she had a habit of doing, while we were talking. how much had she heard of what the squire had said? he went up to her and bade her good-day and good-bye in one breath. he said he would not wait longer to see father. he went out and away without meeting his nephew. i was very glad that he did, for thus mother went up-stairs at once to take off her things, and being in a garrulous frame of mind, from her experiences of the afternoon with the new-born baby, she stayed up-stairs some time talking to deborah, and did not come down to the parlor again till after captain forrester had taken his leave. so she never knew anything of that long half-hour spent upon the garden cliff at the sun-setting. chapter x. i think i saw the dawn that day on which the ball was to be. whether i did or not, the morning was still very gray and cold when i crept out of my bed and stole to the wardrobe to look at our two dresses. there they hung, carefully displayed upon shifting pegs such as were used in old-fashioned presses: one soft white muslin; the other of that pale apple-green shot silk which had belonged to mother in the days of her youth, and which i had been allowed to make up for the occasion. we had worked at them for days. joyce was clever at dress-making: she was clever at all things that needed deftness of fingers. she had fitted me with my frock, and we had both worked together. but now the dresses were finished, the last ruffle had been tacked in; there was nothing more to do, and the day wore away very slowly till evening. at last the hour came when it was time to dress, and such a washing of faces and brushing of hair as went on in that little attic chamber for half an hour no one would believe. joyce insisted on "finishing" me first. she coiled up my hair at the back of my head, brushing it as neatly as she could, and laying it in two thick bands on either side of my temples. it never will look very neat, it is such vigorous unruly hair, this red hair of mine, and to this day always has tendrils escaping here and there over forehead and neck. but she did her best for it, and i was pleased with myself. i was still more pleased with myself when i got on the green shot silk with the lace ruffles. joyce said she was surprised to see what a change it made in me. so was i. my skin was very pink and white wherever it was not spoiled by freckles, and the green of the frock seemed to show it up and make the red lips look redder than ever. it is true that my neck and arms were frail still with the frailness of youth, but then my figure was slim too, and my eyes were black with excitement, and shone till they were twice their usual size. i thought, as i looked in the glass, that i was not so very plain. yes, i was right when i had begged the shot silk. joyce could wear anything, but i, who was no "fine bird" by nature, needed the "fine feathers." i was pleased with myself, and i smiled with satisfaction when joyce declared again that she was quite surprised to see what a good appearance i had. "if you would only keep yourself tidy, margaret, you have no idea how much better you would look," said she. it was what deborah was always saying, but i did not resent it from joyce--she was gentle in her way of saying it; and i remember that i promised i would brush my hair smooth in future, and wear my collars more daintily. i do not believe that i kept to my resolution, but that evening i was not at all the margaret of every-day life as i surveyed myself in the glass. "but come," said i, hurriedly--half ashamed of myself, i do believe--"we shall be late if we don't make haste. do get on, joyce." joyce began brushing out her long golden hair--real gold hair, not faint flaxen--and coiled the smooth, shining bands of it round her little head. it was a little head, such as i have seen in the pictures of the virgins painted by italian painters of long ago. "i sha'n't be long," said she. i sat down and watched her. she would not have let me help her if i had wanted to do so. she would have said that i should only disarrange myself, and that i should be of no use. certainly nothing was wanted but what she did for herself, and she did it quickly enough. when she stood up before the mirror--tipped back to show the most of her person, for we had no pier-glasses at the grange--i do not believe that any one could have found a thing to improve in her. her figure looked taller and slenderer than ever in the long white dress, and the soft little folds of the muslin clung tenderly around her delicate shape, just leaving bare her neck and arms, that were firm and white as alabaster. her face was flushed as a may rose; her lips were parted in her anxiety to hasten, and showed the little even white teeth within. her blue eyes were clear and soft under the black lashes. she moved before the glass to see that her dress was not too long, and bent back her slender throat, upon which she had just clasped mother's delicate little old-fashioned gold necklace with the drops of yellow beryl-stone. it was the only bit of good jewellery in the family, and joyce always wore it, it became her so well. "come now, meg," said she, "i am quite ready. let's go and see if we can do anything to help mother." we went down-stairs. deborah was there in mother's room waiting to survey us all. she had just fastened mother's dove-colored satin gown that had served her for every party she had been at since she was married. mother had just the same shaped cap on that she always wore; she never would alter it for any fashion, but that night the frill of it was made of beautiful old lace that she kept in blue paper and lavender all the rest of the year. i thought she looked splendid, but joyce was not so easily pleased. "dear mother, you really must have another gown before you go anywhere again," said she, shaking out the skirt with a dissatisfied air. "this satin has lost all its stiffness." mother looked at it a little anxiously herself, i remember, when joyce said this. we considered joyce a judge of dress and the fashions, and of course the squire's ball was a great occasion. but she said she thought it did very well for an old lady, and indeed so did i, although that may perhaps have been because i was very anxious to be off. dear mother! i do not think she gave much thought to herself; she was taken up with pride in us. yes, i do believe that night she was proud even of me. she smiled when deborah, with her hand on the door-knob, said, patronizingly, that although she did not hold with bare arms and necks for modest females, she never would have thought that i should have "dressed up" so well. mother bade her begone, but i think she was pleased. "dear me!" said she, looking at me. "i recollect buying that silk. it must have been in ' , when father took me up to town to see the exhibition. it was cheap for the good silk it is. it has made up very well." she turned me all round. then she went to her jewel-case, unlocked it, and took out a row of red coral beads. "that's what you want with that dress," said she, fastening them round my throat. "and you shall have them for your own. red-haired women ought to wear coral, folk say. though for my part, i always thought it was putting on too many colors." how well i remember my pleasure at that gift! joyce wanted to persuade me not to wear them; she said the pale green of the frock was prettier without the red beads. but i wouldn't listen to her; i was too pleased with them, and i do not believe that it was entirely owing to gratified vanity; i think a little of it was pleasure that mother thought my appearance worth caring for. i should not have thought it worth caring for myself two days ago, and i should not have cared whether mother did or not. but something had happened to me. was it the sight of joyce and her lover that had made me think of myself as a woman? i cannot tell. all i know is that when we walked into the squire's ball-room a quarter of an hour afterwards, i felt my face flame as i saw his gaze rest upon me for a moment, and i longed most heartily to be back again in my high-necked homespun frock, with no corals round my throat at all. so inconsistent are we at nineteen! fortunately my awakening self-consciousness was soon put to flight by other more engrossing emotions. there was a fair sprinkling of people already when we got into the room, and more were arriving every moment. mr. farnham and the maiden sister with whom he lived were going busily about welcoming the squire's guests almost as though they were the host and hostess themselves: he was the conservative member. a quiet, inoffensive old gentleman himself, who would have been nothing and nobody without the squire; but blessed with a most officious lady for relative, who took the whole neighborhood under her wing. she rather annoyed me by the way she had of trading on the squire's support of her brother. he supported her brother because he was a conservative, not at all because he was mr. farnham, or even miss farnham's brother. poor mr. broderick, i dare say, if the truth had been known, he must often heartily have longed to get rid of them. but the old thing was a good soul in her way, if it _was_ a dictatorial, loud-voiced way, and was very active among the poor, although it was not always in the manner which they liked. she and mother invariably quarrelled over the advantages of soup-kitchens and clothing clubs; for mother was every bit as obstinate as miss farnham, and being an old-fashioned woman, liked to do her charity in a more personal fashion. i looked with mingled awe and amusement upon their meeting to-night. miss farnham had an aggressive sort of head-dress, with nodding artificial flowers that seemed to look down scornfully upon mother's old lace and soft frills. she had not seen me for some time, and when mother introduced me as her youngest daughter, she took my hand firmly in hers, and held it a while in her uncompromising grip while she looked at me through and through. "well, i never saw such a thing in my life!" exclaimed she presently, in a loud voice that attracted every one's attention. i blushed. i was not given to blushing, but it was enough to make any one blush. i thought, of course, that she was alluding to my attire, in which i had felt so shy and awkward from the moment that i had entered the ball-room, from the moment that i had felt the squire's glance rest upon my neck and arms. she dropped my hand. "the very image of him," said she, turning to my mother. "yes, she is very like her father," agreed the mother. "why, my dear, the very image of him," repeated the aggravating creature. "got his temper too?" asked she, turning to me again. "i don't know, ma'am, i'm sure," answered i, half amused, but still more annoyed. "i dare say." "oh, i'll be bound you have, and proud of it too," declared she, shaking her head emphatically. "girls are always proud to be like their fathers." "i don't suppose it'll make any very particular difference who i'm like," said i. "things will happen just the same, i expect." miss farnham laughed and patted me boisterously on the back. i do not think she was an ill-natured woman, although she certainly had the talent of making one feel very uncomfortable. "well, you're not so handsome as your sister," added she. "but i don't know that you hadn't better thank your stars for that." with that she turned away from me and sat down beside mother, arranging her dress comfortably over her knees as though she meant to stay there the whole evening. the people kept coming fast now. the squire stood at the door shaking hands as hard as he could. there was the old village doctor with his pretty granddaughter, and the young village doctor who had inherited the practice, and had just married a spry little wife in the hope of making it more important. and then there was the widow of an officer, who lived in a solid brick house that stood at the corner of the village street, and had two sons in the ship business in town. and there was the mild-eyed clergyman with his delicate young wife, who had more than enough babies of her own, and was only too thankful to leave the babies of the parish to miss farnham or any one else who would mother them. she was a sweet little woman, with a transparently white face and soft silky hair, and she wore her wedding-dress to-night, without the slightest regard to the fact that it was made in a somewhat elaborate fashion of six years back, and was not exactly suited to her figure at that particular moment. she sat down between mother and miss farnham, and must have been considerably cheered by that lady's remark to the effect that she looked as if she ought to be in her bed, and that if she did not retire to it she would most likely soon be in her grave. i left mother and went up to greet mary thorne, who had just come in with her father. he was a great, strong, florid man, rather shaky about his _h's_, but very much the reverse of shaky in any other way; shrewd and keen as a sharp knife or an east wind. i don't know that i ever spoke to him but this once in my life. father had such an overpowering aversion to him that we were not allowed to keep even the daughter's acquaintance long after this, but he made that impression on me: that there was only one soft spot in him, and that for the motherless girl, who was the only person allowed to contradict him. she contradicted him now. the squire had gone up to receive them bluntly enough, even i could see; but the squire might be allowed to have an aversion to the man who was going in as a radical to contest his conservative's long-occupied seat, though indeed i believe his dislike to the manufacturer was quite as much, because he had bought up one of the old places in the neighborhood with money earned in business. i fancy the thornes were only invited that night as old friends of frank forrester's, and i don't think frank was thanked for the necessity. "you must have had a rare job, broderick, lighting this old place up," he was saying as i came up; "all this dark oak, so gloomy looking!" "oh, papa, how can you!" laughed his daughter. "why, it's what everybody admires; it's the great sight of the whole neighborhood." "yes, yes; i know, my dear," answered mr. thorne; "you mean to say that we should like to live here ourselves. well, yes, i should have bought the place if it had been in the market, but--" "but you would have done it up," broke in the squire, bristling all over; "whereas there's been nothing new in the manor since--" he stopped. i fancied that he was going to say, "since i brought my bride home;" but he said, after a pause, "since my father died." "well, to be sure, i do like a bit of brightness and color," acknowledged thorne, whose fine house, although in excellent taste, was decidedly ornate and splendid; "and it is more suited to festal occasions." "there, papa, you know nothing about it," declared mary, emphatically. "i declare i never saw the manor look better. those flags and garlands are beautiful." "oh, my nephew frank did all that," answered the squire, carelessly; "he likes that sort of thing." "captain forrester?" repeated the girl, with just a little smile on her frank, fresh face. "well, it does him credit then. it isn't every one would take so much trouble." "he likes taking trouble," said i. "just look at the trouble that he has taken over our concert." "he likes playing first-fiddle," laughed miss thorne, gayly, her rosy face--that was too rosy for prettiness, although not too rosy for the perfection of health--flushing rosier than ever as she said it; "i always tell him so." i did not answer. mr. thorne and his daughter moved on, and i looked round the room in search of the captain. the place did look very beautiful, although i do not think that i should like now to see its severe proportions and splendid wood wainscoting disfigured by flags and garlands. we were dancing in what used long ago to be the monks' refectory. the house had been built on the site of a part of the monastic buildings belonging to the abbey, and this portion of the old edifice had been retained, while the remainder of the house was in tudor style. i heard the squire explaining it to the new parson, who had lately come to the next parish. i had heard him explain it before, or i do not suppose that i should have known anything at all about it. "i suppose you consider it shocking to be dancing in any part of the monastery?" i could hear him say, laughing; "but it isn't so bad as a friend of mine who gives balls in what used to be the chapel." the parson was a young man, with a sallow, shaven face and very refined features; the expression of his mouth was gentle, almost tremulous, but his eyes were dark and penetrating. "i'm not quite so prejudiced as that," he said, laughing also, "although i do wear the cloth." "that's right," said the squire, heartily. "we have the remains of a thirteenth-century chapel of the purest period in the grounds, and we don't desecrate that even by a school-feast. you must come and see it in the day-time." father came up at that moment. he was dreadfully like a fish out of water, poor father, in this assembly, and looked it. the squire, in a hasty fashion, introduced him to the rev. cyril morgan, and passed on to shake hands with a portly wine-merchant, who had lately retired from business in the neighboring town, and had taken one of the solid red-brick houses that were the remnants of our own town's affluence. this gentleman introduced his wife, and she had to be introduced to the company, and the host's hands were full. father moved away with the parson. he looked rather disgusted at first, but the young man looked at him with a smile upon his gentle mouth and in his dark eyes, and said, diffidently, "i have heard a great deal of you, mr. maliphant--the whole neighborhood rings with your name. i am proud to meet you." of course, i liked that young man at once, and as i went to sit down again beside the mother and joyce, i was pleased to see across the room that father and the rev. cyril morgan had entered upon a conversation. but, to tell the truth, i soon forgot him; i was too busy looking about me. i could not help wondering where captain forrester could be, and i was quite angry with joyce for being so dignified and seeming to care so little. she seemed to be quite engrossed with the hoad girls, who sailed in, followed by their father, just late enough to be fashionable, and to secure a good effect for their smart new frocks. i am afraid i was not gracious to the hoads. i could not be so gracious as joyce, who took all their patronizing over the concert in the utmost good faith. i turned away from them, and continued my search for joyce's admirer. i disliked them, and i am afraid that i showed it. but they passed on, bella, who was the better-looking of the two, pursued by two town-bred youths asking for a place on her card; jessie, the elder, talking with an old lady of title from the seaport town, who wished her to sing at a charity concert. they seemed to be very much engrossed; nevertheless, when presently the band struck up the first waltz, they, as well as many other people in the room, turned round to look who was dancing it. they put up their long-handled eye-glasses and fairly stared; for, as soon as the music began, the squire had walked up to my sister and had asked her to open the ball with him. mother blushed with pleasure and triumph; her dear blue eyes positively shone. she did not say a word, but i know that if she had spoken she would have said that she was not surprised. i was not surprised either, but i was very much annoyed, and i was not at all in a good temper with captain forrester when, two minutes afterwards, he appeared coming out of the conservatory with mary thorne upon his arm. what had he been about? no wonder that his face clouded when he saw that he was too late. but it was his own fault; i was not a bit sorry for him. mary thorne was laughing and looking up half-defiantly in his face. she looked as if she were saying one of those rough blunt things of which she was so fond; and she might well say one at this moment to captain forrester, although i scarcely supposed it could be on the topic on which he deserved it. could she possibly be chaffing him on having missed the first dance with my sister? no; for she had had no opportunity of noticing his devotion to her. she dropped his arm and nodded to him merrily, as much as to bid him leave her--as much as to say that she knew there might be better sport elsewhere. and after a word in reply to what she had said, he did leave her and came across to me. there was a troubled, preoccupied look on his bright face, which was scarcely accounted for by the fact that he had missed a dance with joyce. he greeted me and sat down beside me without even asking after father. we sat and watched joyce float round in the strong grasp of the squire, but i do not think that we were either of us quite so pleased at the sight as was mother, upon whose face was joy unalloyed. she was simply genuinely proud that the squire should have opened the ball with her daughter. i think she would have been proud of it had there been no deeper hopes at the bottom of her heart. but there were deeper hopes, and as i watched joyce that night i remembered them. in the excitement of watching the romance that i had fancied developing itself more quickly and more decisively than i had even hoped, i had at first quite forgotten my fears about the squire wanting to marry joyce. they had not occurred to my mind at all until that afternoon two days ago, when he had talked so vehemently about frank's position. but now, as i watched him with her, the notion which i had rather refused to entertain at all before took firmer shape. i was afraid that the squire really did mean something by this very marked attention to his tenant's daughter. it must needs excite a great deal of comment even among those who knew our rather particular position in the village, and the unusual intimacy between two families of different social standing. would he have courted that comment merely for the sake of gratifying his old friend? what if he should propose to joyce--if he should ask our parents' consent to the marriage at once? would captain forrester, the unknown stranger, have any chance beside the friend of years? would the soldier, who had nothing but what he earned by his brave calling, have a chance against the man who could give her as fine a home as any in the county? not with mother; no, i felt not for an instant with mother. but with father? i knew very well that father, whatever his respect for the man, would never see a marriage between the squire and his daughter with pleasure, and i even thought it likely that he would downright forbid it. but what would be his feelings with regard to the captain? would they be any different because, belonging by birth to another class, he yet desired to work for the interest of the class that was ours? i could not tell. i was roused from my dream by the voice of captain forrester at my side. he was asking me for a dance--this very next one. there was something in the tone of his voice that puzzled me--a harsh sound, as though something hurt him. of course i gave him the dance. i was only too delighted. my feet had begun to itch as soon as i had heard the music, and when i had seen joyce sailing round, and no one had come to ask me, i had felt very lonely. we stood up, even before the squire had brought joyce back to mother--we stood up, and with the first bars of the new waltz we set forth. i soon forgot all thought of joyce, or any one else, in the pure joy of my own pleasure. i did love dancing. i did not remember that it was captain forrester with whom i was dancing, i only knew that it was a man who held me firmly, and whose limbs moved with mine in an even and dreamy rhythm as we glided across something that scarcely seemed to be a floor, to the slow lilt of magic music. i was very fond of dancing. i suppose captain forrester guessed it, for he never paused once the whole dance through. when we stopped, just pleasantly out of breath, as the last chords died slowly away, he said, with his eyes on my face in that way that i have described, "why, miss maliphant, you are a heavenly dancer. where did you learn it?" "i had six lessons at the academy in the town," answered i, gravely; and i wondered why he burst out laughing, "but joyce gets out of breath sooner than i do, although she had twelve lessons." the laughter faded out of his face as i mentioned joyce's name. "i don't mean to say that joyce doesn't dance beautifully," i added, hastily, "she dances better than i do, because she is so tall and slight, but she does get out of breath before the end of a waltz." he did not make any remark upon this. he only said, "shall we go back to your mother?" we got up and walked across the room. miss thorne was talking to mother, and a clean-shaven, fresh-colored young officer was inscribing his name on joyce's programme. captain forrester just shook hands with joyce, and then he came and sat down beside mother and began talking away to her in his most excited fashion, telling her all about the waxing of the floor and the hanging of the banners and the trimming of the evergreen garlands, and how the gardener would put the union jack upside down, until she was forced to be more gracious with him than was her wont. joyce's sweet mouth had the look upon it that i knew well when mother and she had had an uncomfortable passage, but i could not imagine why she should wear it to-night. i could look across upon her programme, and i could see that there were names written nearly all the way down it, although i could not read whose names they were, and especially after my one taste of the joy of waltzing, i was beginning to think that no girl could have cause for sadness who had a partner for every dance. alas! i had but one, and my spirits were beginning to sink very low. i had forgotten love affairs; i wanted to waltz. "there is a dreadful lack of gentlemen," said jessie hoad, who had come up beside us, putting up her eye-glass and looking round the room. "that unfortunate man must have his hands full." "do you mean squire broderick?" asked miss thorne. "i don't think he considers himself unfortunate. he looked cheerful enough just now, dancing with miss maliphant." miss hoad vouchsafed no reply to this; she moved off to where her father was talking to mine in a corner, and passing her arm within his, walked him off without the slightest ceremony to be introduced to the old lady with the handle to her name who had come over from our fashionable seaport. i thought it was very rude, but mr. hoad was not quite as affable himself to-night as he was in the privacy of our own grange parlor. "i hate that kind of thing," said miss thorne to me, in her out-spoken way. "when are there ever men enough at a country dance unless you get in the riffraff from behind the shop counters? we come to meet our friends, not to whirl round with mere sticks." i thought it was very nice of miss thorne, but i wished there were just men enough to dance with me. the music struck up again and joyce went off with her partner. i felt as though life indeed were altogether a disappointment; and it did not give me any pleasure to hear miss thorne commenting upon joyce's beauty, nor laughing in her frank, good-natured way about the squire's attentions, any the more than it amused me to hear fragments of the gay descriptions with which captain forrester was making the time pass for mother. but, after all, i began to despair too soon; it was only the fourth dance of the evening. before it was over the squire came up to me. "i have been so busy," said he, "i haven't been able to come before, but i hope you haven't given all your dances away?" although i was new to the ways of the world, an instinct within taught me to say, coolly, "oh no, not all." "what can you give me?" asked he. and he quoted three numbers further on in the evening. "i think, being old friends, we might dance three dances together," added he, with a smile. "oh yes," cried i. "i should like to dance them with you." the squire was a beautiful dancer, although he was not a young man; or rather, although he was not what i then considered a young man. i fancied he did not smile at my enthusiastic reply. he even looked rather grave. i was too simple to think of not giving him my programme. i saw him glance at it and then at me. from that moment i did not lack partners, and as far as the company could provide them, good ones. to be sure i jostled round the room with a raw youth or two, and guided a puffing gentleman through the maze, and let my toes be trodden upon by a tall gentleman with glasses on his nose, who only turned round when he thought of it; but on the whole i enjoyed myself, and it was all thanks to my host. i scarcely knew a man when i went into the room, and certainly, save for that one wild, delightful waltz, captain forrester had taken no account of me, although he had sat close to me half the evening, and one would have thought he would have noticed that i was not dancing. but then, of course, he was preoccupied. i could not make him out at all. all the evening i could not once catch him even talking to joyce, and i am quite sure that when i went in to supper he had not asked her to dance once. if i had been enjoying myself less i might have thought more of it, but i was too happy to remember it until the breathing-time came, when i went into the dining-room. then, when i saw captain forrester sitting in one of the best places with that horrid old miss farnham, and joyce at a side-table, with scarcely room to stand, and no one but my pet aversion, mr. hoad, even to get her something to eat, my blood boiled, and i could scarcely speak civilly to him. and he seemed so interested too, so wrapped up in what the silly creature was saying, with that nodding old topknot of hers! i was thankful when he rose and took her outside to finish their discussion about the poor-laws in the seclusion of some corner of the drawing-room. i was very angry with him. i looked suspiciously at the squire, who had taken mother in to supper and sat at the head of the table with her. mother was smiling happily: she was proud of the honor that the squire was doing to her and hers. but i could not look kindly at the squire. it was infamous if, out of mere jealousy, he had tried to spoil two lives. instead of being proud that he had done my sister the honor of opening the ball with her, instead of being grateful to him for his kindness to me, and pleased to see all the attention that he was paying to our mother amid the county magnates whom he might have preferred, i was eaten up with this new idea, and felt my heart swell within me as joyce passed me presently with that calm and yet half-tired look on her beautiful face. midnight was long past, and it was nearly time to go home. in fact, father had said that it was time to go home long ago. he had made a new friend in the young parson, and seemed to have passed an hour happily with him, but the parson had left, and he had exhausted every argument that he would consent to discuss with the people whom he met in ordinary society and had been persuaded by mr. hoad to speak a civil word on commonplace subjects to his pet aversion mr. thorne, and now he was thoroughly sick of the whole thing, and would have no more to do with it. he came up to mother and begged her to come home, but mother had heard the squire ask joyce for another dance later on, and i knew very well that she would not leave till that was through; besides, she was the most unselfish old dear in the world, for all her rough words sometimes, and would never have consented to deprive us of an inch of pleasure that she could procure us. personally i was very grateful to her. i had a dance left with the squire myself, and besides the pleasure of it, i had been arranging something that i wanted to say to him. i was standing alone in the entrance to the conservatory when he came to claim it. i was looking for joyce. i had missed her ever since supper. i had thought--i had hoped--that she was with captain forrester, but when miss thorne told me he was talking politics with mr. hoad in the drawing-room, i believed her, and was at a loss to understand my sister's absence. could she be unwell? but i did not confide my doubts to the squire. he put his arm around me and swept me off onto that lovely floor, and i thought of nothing else. i remember very clearly how well the squire looked that night--fresh and merry, with bright keen eyes. "that's a pretty frock, miss margaret," said he, as we were waltzing round. "oh, i'm so glad you like it," answered i. "i was afraid it wasn't suitable." in the excitement of the ball i had entirely forgotten all about my appearance, but now that the squire remarked upon it, i remembered how uncomfortable i had felt in it at first. "why not suitable?" asked he. "mother bought it at the great exhibition in ' ," said i. but the real cause of the awkwardness of my feeling had arisen from the fact that i felt unlike myself in a "party frock," and not at all from any fear that the frock might be old-fashioned. "oh! and miss hoad considers that an objection, i suppose," smiled he. "well, i don't. there's only one thing i don't like," added he, in his most downright manner. "i don't like the trinkets. you're too young for trinkets." he had felt it. he had felt just what i had felt--that it was unsuitable for a girl like me to be dressed up. "you mean the corals," said i; and my voice sank a little, for i was proud of the corals too, and pleased that mother should have given them to me. "yes," he answered. "they are very pretty; but," he added, gently, "a young girl's neck is so much prettier." we waltzed round two turns without speaking. then he said abruptly, "perhaps, by-the-way, i ought not to have said that, but i think such old friends as we are may say anything to one another, mayn't we?" "why, of course," said i, rather surprised. the speech was not at all like one of the squire's. i had always thought that he said just whatever he liked to any of us. but to be sure, until the other evening, he had never spoken very much to me at all. i laughed--a little nervous laugh. i was stupidly nervous that night with the squire. "i think we should be very silly if we didn't say whatever came into our heads," said i. "i don't think i like people who don't say what they think. although, of course, it is much more difficult for me to say things to you than for you to say them to me." "why?" asked he. "well, of course, because you're so much older," answered i. he was silent. for a moment the high spirits that i had so specially noticed in him seemed to desert him. "well, what do you want to say to me that's disagreeable?" said he presently, with a little laugh. "oh, nothing disagreeable," declared i. "it's about your nephew, captain forrester." "oh!" said he. his expression changed. it was as though i had not said what he had expected me to say. but his brow clouded yet more, only it was more with anger than sadness--the same look of anger that he had worn the other afternoon. he certainly was a very hot-tempered man. "i don't think you are fair to him," said i, boldly. he looked at me. he smiled a little. "in what way not fair to him?" said he. "well, if it had been any one else but me," answered i, "and you had said all that you did say the other day in the grange parlor, i think the person would have been set against captain forrester. of course it made no difference to me, because i like him so much." he winced, i fancied. "you don't understand, my dear young lady," said he. "i merely wished that there should be no misunderstandings." "i don't think there were any misunderstandings," answered i. "we always knew that captain forrester was not a man of property. he told us so himself." "well, then, that's all right," said the squire. "we liked him rather the better for it," concluded i, prompted by a wicked spirit of mischief. the squire did not reply to this. of course there was nothing to reply to it. it was a rude speech, and was better taken no notice of. he merely put his arm round my waist again, and asked if we should finish the waltz. i was sorry for my discourtesy before we had done, and tried to make up for it. although the weather was still very treacherous in spite of the clear sky, couples had strayed out through the conservatory onto the broad terrace outside. i suggested to the squire that we should do the same. he demurred at first, saying it was too cold; but as i laughed at this, and ran outside without any covering over me, he came after me--but he passed through the entrance-hall on his way and fetched a cloak, which he wrapped round me. in spite of my naughtiness, he had that care for the daughter of his old friends. the moon was shining outside. it made dark shadows and white lights upon the ivied walls and upon the slender gray pillars of the ruined chapel; within, beneath the pointed arches, black patches lay upon the grass, alternated with sharp contrasts of lights where the moonbeams streamed in through the chancel windows. the marsh was white where the silver rays caught the vapors that floated over it, and dark beyond that brilliant path-way; there was a track of light upon the sea. we stood a moment and looked. even to me it seemed strange to leave the brightness of within for this weird, solemn brightness of the silent world without. i think i sighed. i really was very sorry now for having made that speech. we walked round the terrace outside the chapel. we scarcely spoke five words. when we came to the wood that shades the chapel on the farther side we stopped. the path that led into it lost itself in blackness. "it's quite a place for ghosts, isn't it?" said i. "yes; it's not the place for any one else," laughed the squire. "any one less used to dampness would certainly catch their death of cold." "oh, you mustn't laugh at ghosts," answered i. "i believe in ghosts. and i'm sure this wood must be full of ghosts--so many wonderful people must have walked about in it hundreds of years ago." "so long ago as that?" said he. he was determined to treat my fancy lightly. but his laugh was kindly. we turned back to the white moonlight, but not before i had noticed a tall, white figure in the black depths, which i should have been quite sure was a ghost if i had not been equally sure of the contrary. the figure was not alone. if it had been, i should have accosted it. as it was, i took the squire's arm and walked away quickly in the direction of the house. the music had struck up again. the swing of an entrancing strauss waltz came floating out on the night wind. "we must go in-doors," said the squire, not at all like a man who was longing to dance to that lovely air; "i'm engaged for this to miss thorne." poor man! no doubt he had had nearly enough by that time of playing the host and of dancing every dance; he wanted a few minutes' rest. i too was engaged, but not to a very delightful partner. after one turn round the room with him, i complained of the heat, and begged him to take me outside. of course we went towards the ruin. of the few couples who had come out, all had gone that way, because from that point there was a break in the belt of trees, and one could see to the marsh and the sea. but we went round the chapel to the wood on the other side. "i say, it looks gloomy in there, doesn't it?" said the young man at my side. "yes," answered i, but i was not looking into the wood now. i had glanced into the interior of the ruin as we had passed, and i had seen a tall black figure leaning up in the deep shadow against the side of the central arch that stood up so quietly against the soft sky. i felt quite sure that the "ghost," whom i had seen a few minutes before, was close by. i was nearly certain that i saw a white streak that was not moonlight beyond the bend of the arch. i turned round and went down the lawn a few steps, my companion following. he began to talk to me, but i did not know what he said. i was listening beyond him to another voice. it fell sadly upon my ear. "i've no doubt the girl was right," it said. "i'm sure she was right. i had never noticed it before, but his leading you out to-night before every one was very significant." it was my sister's voice that answered, but she must almost have whispered the words, for i could not hear them at all. the man spoke again. "yes; that's not very likely," answered he, with a soft laugh. "of course, how could he help it? oh, i ought to have gone away," he added; "i ought to have gone away as soon as i had seen you. but i couldn't. you see even to-night, when i have tried to keep away from you, you have made me come to you at last. and i didn't think that i was doing you any harm till now." he emphasized the word "you." i did not notice it then, but i recollect it now. again my sister's voice said something; what, i could not hear. "do you mean that, dearest? do you mean that?" said he, softly. "that you would not marry him if you could help it, although he would make such a lady of you? ah, then i think i can guess something!" a fiery blush rose to my cheek. i was glad that in the white moonlight my companion could not see it. i ran quickly down the slope of grass onto the gravel walk. it was dreadful, dreadful that i should have listened to these words which were meant for her ear alone. "come," i called to the lad, who loitered behind; "come, it's cold, we must go in." he followed me slowly. "i believe there were a man and a girl spooning behind that wall," he said, with a grin. how i hated him! i have never spoken to him from that day to this, and yet, was it his fault? we went back into the ball-room. the waltz was over. i had a partner for the last one, but i did not care to dance it. i was watching for joyce, and when i saw her presently floating round with her hand on captain forrester's arm, i thought i was quite happy. but mother was not happy. she had thought that joyce would dance the last dance with squire broderick. she said that father was tired, and that she wanted to go. and indeed his face looked very weary, and his heavy lips heavier than ever. no doubt we were all tired, for the squire too had lost the cheerful look that he had worn all through the evening. i sat and waited for joyce, and i wondered to myself whether any one would ever make love to me with his heart in his voice. chapter xi. time dragged heavily on my hands after the excitement of the squire's ball was over. it was not only that i had to go back to the routine of every-day life--for there was still the concert to look forward to, which gave us plenty of interest--but it was that during a whole fortnight i had been looking for news from joyce, and that joyce had said never a word. no; she had rather been more silent than usual, constrained and unlike her own serene and happy self; and i had been frightened, frightened at sight of the torrent that i had let loose, and doubtful whether, in spite of all his democratic theories, this handsome, courtly, chivalrous knight, who was my embodiment of romance, was really a fit mate for the humble damsel nurtured in the quiet shade. well, anyhow the torrent rolled on, whether it was really i who had set it free or not, and i was forced to stand aside and watch its course without more ado. there had been plenty to watch. the village concert had come and gone; it had taken place a week after the squire's ball. captain forrester had worked us very hard for it towards the end. we had had practisings every afternoon, and i had rehearsed my solos indefatigably; but, save for singing in the glees and playing an accompaniment now and then, joyce had taken no active part in the musical performance, and i had fancied that she had kept out of the way a great deal more than she need have done. i could not understand her at all. she would not give frank the ghost of a chance of saying a word to her alone; she shunned him as she shunned me. on the night of the concert he was, of course, too much excited until the performance was over, to remember even joyce at first; for he was one of those natures who throw themselves ardently into whatever they take up; and he was just as eager over this entertainment, of which he had accepted the responsibility, as though it were going to be given before a select company instead of before a handful of country bumpkins. well, he was rewarded for his pains. the concert was voted a brilliant success, and by a long way the best that had ever been given in the village. "when stars are in the quiet skies," and "robin adair," which i sang "by request," as an _encore_, were greatly applauded, as were also the glees that we had so patiently practised; and though, of course, the crowning point of the evening was captain forrester's own song, poured forth in his rich, mellow barytone, we had none of us reason to complain of the reception that we got; and the stone walls of the old town-hall, that had stood since the days when the headsman was still an institution, responded to the clapping of the people. to be sure, they wanted father to stand up and give them a speech, but he would have nothing to do with that on this occasion; he said it was one of relaxation and not of work; and he always refused to touch upon things that were sacred to him, for mere effect, or in anything but the most serious spirit. he wished them all good-night, and told them so. i remember a curious incident that occurred that night. one of the american oil-lamps that lighted the hall took fire; a panic arose in the little crowd; the women pressed to the door. but captain forrester, calling out to the people in strong, reassuring tones to keep their seats, seized the lamp, carried it burning above the heads of the throng, and threw it down into the little court-yard without. when the fright was over i missed father and joyce. him i found at once, sitting on the steps with two sobbing little ones on his knees--two little ones whose sisters had run out without them, and whose little hearts had been numbed with fear. father would generally neglect any grown-up person in preference to a child. but joyce i could not see. i felt sure that she must have gone to look after captain forrester; but when presently he came back with his hand bandaged, and said that he had seen nothing of joyce, i was really frightened. i discovered her sitting down in a dark corner of the court-yard, crying. she said that she had been terrified by the accident, and had run out for safety before any one else. but her manner puzzled me. and for a whole week after that her manner continued to puzzle me. frank forrester came every day to the grange to see father. they had a new scheme on hand, an original scheme, a pet scheme of my dear father's--the scheme of all his schemes which he held most dear, and one which i know he had had for years, and had never dared hope would find favor with any one. it was a scheme for the succor of those poor children who had either no parents, or whose parents were anxious to get rid of them. of course i did not understand the workings of it at the time, it not being possible that i should understand the requirements of the case; but from what i can recollect, gleaned from the scraps of talk that fell from father and captain forrester, i think it was intended to pick up cases which were not provided for in the ordinary foundling hospitals, and to rescue those poor wretched little creatures whose parents were willing to part with them, from a life of sin and degradation. the children were to be taught a trade, and were to be honorably placed in situations when they left the home. of course it was a vast scheme--how vast i am sure father cannot have grasped at the time; but although he must have had grave doubts of the possibility of its success, he was carried away for the moment by frank forrester's wild enthusiasm upon the subject, and was persuaded by him to try and put it into immediate practice. i think he was more drawn to frank than ever by this. i think he was drawn to every one who cared for children. but although the captain was very enthusiastic over this scheme, he found time to look at joyce and to sigh for a word from her, for a chance of seeing her alone, and she would not give it him. for a whole fortnight after that memorable evening of the squire's ball she had kept him sighing; at least, i think that she had, and i was very sorry for him. to be sure, mother's eyes were vigilant--it needed some bravery to elude mother's eyes but then i thought that if one wanted a thing very much one would be brave. was joyce cold-hearted? was that why her face was so calm and so beautiful. but one day, at last, the squire and his nephew came and went away together, and mother, thinking the visit was over for the day, had gone out on household errands. i was coming in from taking a parcel of poor linen to the vicarage when deborah met me in the hall. "that there captain's in with miss joyce in the parlor," said she. "they didn't want no light, they didn't. but i've took 'em in the lamp just this minute." she said this with grim determination, and went off grumbling. deborah wanted joyce to marry the squire, and i fancy she suspected me of furthering her acquaintance with the captain. i did not go in as deborah suggested, not until close upon the time when i was afraid mother would come home. joyce was sitting in the big arm-chair with her hands clasped across her knees, gazing into the fire. captain forrester sat at the old spinet--our best new piano was in the front parlor--and touched its poor old clanging keys gently, and sang soft notes to it in his soft, mellow voice. they were passionate love-songs, as i now know; but the words were in foreign tongues, and i did not understand them; no doubt joyce did. he rose when i came in, and asked what o'clock it was. i told him, and he laughed his gay, sympathetic laugh, and declared that at the grange he never knew what the time was; he believed we kept our clocks all wrong. then he said that he could not wait any longer for father that evening, but would come to see him in the morning. he went up to joyce, and held out his hand. she shook herself, as though to rouse herself from a dream, and rose. this time it was no mistake of mine. captain forrester held joyce's hand a long while. "good-bye--till to-morrow morning," said he, in a low voice. she did not answer, and he turned to me. "good-night, miss margaret," he said, and there was a ring in his voice--an impressiveness even towards me--which seemed to say that something particular had happened. when he was gone, i felt that i must know what it was. this barrier of reserve between two sisters was ridiculous. "joyce," said i, half impatiently, "have you nothing to tell me?" she looked up at me. a flush spread itself all over her neck and face, her short upper lip trembled a little--it always did with any emotion. "yes," answered she, simply; "captain forrester wants to marry me." i did not reply. now that it had come to this pass as i wished, i was frightened, as i have said. but joyce was looking up at me with an appealing look in her eyes. i stooped down and kissed her. "you dear old thing," i said; "i'm so glad. i hoped he had--i have hoped all along he would." "i thought you wished it," she said, with child-like simplicity. i laughed. "of course i knew from the very beginning that he would fall in love with you," i said. "oh, margaret, don't say that!" pleaded she. and then, after a pause, with a little sigh she added, "i should have thought he would have been wiser than to fall in love with a country girl, when there must be so many town girls who are better fitted to him." "nonsense!" cried i. "the woman who is fitted to a man is the woman whom he loves." "do you think so?" murmured she, diffidently. "why, of course," i cried, warming as i went on, and forgetting my own doubts in laughing at hers. "a man doesn't marry a woman for the number of languages that she speaks, and that kind of thing--at least not a man like captain forrester. i don't know how you can misjudge him so. don't you believe that he loves you?" "oh yes," she murmured again; "i think that he loves me." i said no more for a while. joyce's attitude puzzled me. that she should speak so diffidently of the adoration of a man who had addressed to her the passionate words which i had overheard, passed my comprehension. i fell to wondering what was her feeling towards him. more than ever i felt that she had passed beyond me into a world of which i knew only in dreams. i had risen now, and stood over the fire. "i always dreamed of something like that for you, joyce," said i. "i always felt that you weren't a bit suited to marry a country bumpkin, but i never pictured to myself anything so good as this for you. mother had grand ideas for you, i know. oh yes; and you know she had, now," added i, in answer to a deprecatory "oh, don't!" from my sister. "but i should have hated what she wanted; and i don't believe you would ever have consented. but captain forrester is not a landed proprietor; he cares for the rights of the people as father does. he is a fine fellow; and then he is young, and has never loved any one else," added i, dropping my voice. i suppose i said this in allusion to the squire's first wife. she did not say anything, and i kneeled down beside her. "dear joyce," i whispered--and i do believe my voice trembled--"i do want you to be happy. and though i shall feel dreadfully lonely when you have gone away and left me, i sha'n't be sorry, because i shall be so glad you have got what i wanted you to have." she squeezed my hand very tight. "oh, but i sha'n't be married, dear, not for ever so long yet," said she. "why, you forget, we don't know what father and mother will say." "why, father and mother can only want what is best for you," answered i. and i believed it. nevertheless, what father and mother, or at all events what mother thought best, was not what i thought best. when captain forrester came the next morning, i knew before he passed into father's business-room that he was not going to receive a very satisfactory answer. he was expected; his answer was prepared, and i was to blame that it was. that evening, after the captain's proposal to joyce, the squire sent down a message to ask whether father would be disengaged; and if he were, whether he might come down after supper to smoke a pipe with him. we were seated around the meal when deborah brought in the message. "certainly," answered father. "say that i shall be pleased to see mr. broderick." but when she was gone out, he added, gruffly: "what the deuce can the squire want to see me for? i don't know of anything that i need to talk to him about." he looked at mother, but mother did not answer. she assumed her most dignified air, and there was a kind of suppressed smile on her face which irritated me unaccountably. as soon as the meal was over, she reminded us that we had the orange marmalade to tie up and label, and we were forced to leave her and father together. i went very reluctantly, for i wanted to hear what they had to say, and deborah was in a very inquisitive mood--asking us how it was that the squire had not invited us up to supper at the manor these three weeks, and when this fine gentleman from london was going to take himself back again to his own home. i left joyce to answer her, and found an excuse to get back again to the parlor as fast as i could. father and mother sat opposite to one another in their high-backed chairs by the fire. father had not been well since that night of the ball. i think he had caught a chill in the east wind and was feeling his gout again a little. i think it must have been so, or he would scarcely have remained sitting. knowing him as i did, i was surprised; for i knew by his face in a moment that he was in a bad temper, and he never remained sitting when he was in a bad temper. "nonsense, mary, nonsense!" he was saying. "i'm surprised at a woman of your good-sense running away with such ideas! mere friendship, mere friendliness--that's all." "well," answered mother, stroking her knee, over which she had turned up her dress to save it from scorching at the fire, "it was not only his taking joyce out to dance first before all the county neighbors, but he took me into supper himself--and, i can assure you, was most attentive to me." "well, and i should have expected nothing less of him," said father. "the man is a gentleman, and you have been a good friend to him. no man, squire or not, need be ashamed of taking my wife into supper--no, not before ten counties!" mother smiled contentedly. "every one can't be expected to see as you do, laban," said she. "i think it was done with a purpose." "oh! and, pray, what purpose?" asked father, in his most irritating and irritated tone. mother was judicious; perhaps even she was a little frightened. she did not answer just at first. i had slid behind the door of the jam-press in the corner of the room, and now i began putting the rows of marmalade pots in order. she had not noticed me. "i think the squire wishes to marry our eldest daughter," said she, slowly; and then she reached down her knitting from the mantle-piece and began to ply her needles. there was a dreadful silence for a minute. "i have thought so for a long time," added mother. "i have felt sure that he must have some other reason for coming here so often besides mere friendship for two old people." father leaned forward in his chair, resting his hand on the arm of it, as though about to rise, but not rising. "well, then, if he has any other reason, the longer he keeps it to himself the better," said he, in a voice that he tried to prevent from becoming loud. "but we have no right to judge him until we know," added he. "you've made a mistake, mother. the squire isn't thinking of marrying again. he's no such fool." "i don't see that he'd be such a fool to wish to marry a sweet girl that he has known all his life," remonstrated mother. "he can marry no girl of mine, at least not with my consent," declared father, loudly, his temper getting the better of him. "my girls must marry in their own rank of life, or not at all. i have no need of the gentry to put new blood into our veins. we are good enough and strong enough for ourselves, any day. but come, old lady, come," he added, more softly, trying to recover himself, "you've made a mistake. it's very natural. mothers will be proud of their children, and women must always needs fancy riches and honors are the best things in the world." "oh, i don't fancy that, i'm sure, laban," answered mother. "but i can't think you would really refuse such a true and honest man for joyce." "well, then, mary, look here; you be quite sure that i shall never consent to my daughter marrying a man who must come down a peg in the eyes of the world to wed her," began he, raising his voice again, and speaking very slowly. he looked mother keenly in the face, but he got no further than that, for i emerged from the jam-cupboard with a pot in my hand; and at the same time deborah flung open the door and announced squire broderick. mother put down her skirt quickly and father sank back in his chair. there was an anxious look upon the squire's face which puzzled me, but he tried to laugh and look like himself as he shook hands with us. "you mustn't speak so loud, maliphant, you mustn't speak so loud, if you want to keep things a secret," laughed he. "marrying? who is going to be married, if you please?" mother blushed, and even father looked uncomfortable. "we were only talking of possibilities, squire, very remote possibilities," said he. "the women are fond of taking time by the forelock in such matters, you know. but now we'll give over such nonsense, and bring our minds to something more sensible. you wanted to see me?" "yes," answered the squire. "and i have only a few minutes. my nephew leaves to-morrow, and we have some little affairs to attend to." "your nephew leaves to-morrow!" cried i, aghast. they all turned round and looked at me, and i felt myself blush. "he never said so when he was here this afternoon," i added, hurriedly, with a little nervous laugh. "no, i don't suppose he knew it when we were here," answered the squire, evidently ignorant of the captain's second visit alone. "he had a telegram from his mother this evening, begging him to return home at once." i said no more, and squire broderick turned to father. "can you give me a few minutes?" asked he. father rose. it vexed me to see that he rose with some difficulty. he was evidently sadly stiff again, and it vexed me that the squire should see it. without uttering a word, he led the way to his business-room. i remained where i was, with the jam-pot in my hand, looking at mother, who sat by the fire knitting. there was a little smile upon her lips that annoyed me immensely. "i think i ought to tell you, mother, that i was behind the jam-cupboard door while you and father were talking, and that i heard what you said," said i, suddenly. "well, of course i did not expect you to come intruding where you were not wanted, margaret," said mother; "but i don't know that it matters. i'm not ashamed of what i said." "of course not," answered i; "and i've guessed you had that notion in your head these months past." "i don't know, i'm sure, what business you had to guess," said mother. "it wasn't your place, that i can see." "and i may as well tell you that i'm quite sure joyce would never think of the squire if he did want to marry her," continued i, without paying any attention to this remark. i paused a moment before i added, "she couldn't, anyhow, because she's in love with another man." mother looked at me over her spectacles. she looked at me as though she did not see me, and yet she looked me through and through. "margaret," said she, at last, loftily, "i consider it most unseemly of you to say such a thing of your sister. a well brought up girl don't go about falling in love with men in that kind of way." "a girl must fall in love with the man she means to marry, mother; at least, so i should think," said i. and i marched off into the kitchen with the jam-pot that wanted a label, and did not come out again till i heard the study door open, and the squire's voice in the hall. "well, you'll come to dinner on thursday, anyhow, and see him," he was saying; "it need bind you to nothing." father grumbled something as he hobbled across, and i noticed again how lame he was that day. the squire, seeing mother upon the threshold of the parlor door, stopped and added, pleasantly, "maliphant has promised to bring you up to dine at the manor, so mind you hold him to his word." mother assured him that she would, and the squire went out. "well?" asked she, turning to father with a questioning look on her face, which was neither so hopeful nor so happy as it had been ten minutes ago. "well?" echoed he, somewhat crossly. then his frown changing to a smile, he patted her on the arm, and said, merrily, "no, mother, no. wrong this time; wrong, old lady, upon my soul. the time hasn't come yet when we are to have the honor of having our daughters asked in marriage by the gentry." "hush, laban, hush," cried mother, vexed; for the kitchen door stood open, and joyce was within ear-shot. and then, following him into the parlor, whither i had already found my way, she added, "maybe i'm not quite such a fool as you think, and the time will come one day, although it's not ripe just yet." "a fool! who ever called you a fool, mary? not i, i'm sure," declared father. "no, you're a true, shrewd woman, and as you are generally right in such matters, i dare say you may prove right now; but all i want to make clear to you is that whatever time the squire's question comes--if it be a question of that nature--his answer will always be the same." mother said no more. she was a wise woman, and never pursued a vexed question when there was no need to do so. i, who was not so wise, thought that i now saw a fitting opportunity for putting in my own peculiar oar amid the troubled waters. "i don't think you need trouble your head about it, father," i said. "joyce will never marry squire broderick, even if he were to ask her. she's in love with captain forrester." father turned round with the pipe he was filling 'twixt his finger and thumb and looked at me. "margaret," said mother, "didn't i tell you just now that that was a most strange and unseemly thing to say?" i did not answer, and father still looked at me with the pipe between his finger and thumb. "in love with captain forrester, indeed!" continued mother, scornfully. "and pray, how do you know that captain forrester is in love with joyce?" "well, of course," answered i, with a toss of my head, "girls don't fall in love with men unless the men are in love with them first. who ever heard of such a thing? of course he's in love with joyce." "stuff and nonsense!" said mother, emphatically, tapping the floor with her foot, as she was wont to do when she was annoyed. "captain forrester and your sister haven't met more than half a dozen times in the course of their lives. i wonder what a love is going to be like that takes the world by storm after three weeks' acquaintance." "there is such a thing as love at first sight," answered i, with what i know must have been an annoyingly superior air. it did not impress mother. "a wondrous fine thing i've been told," was all that she said. i turned to father, who had not spoken. "well, anyhow, they're in love with one another," i repeated. "i know it as a fact, and he's coming here to-morrow morning to ask your leave to marry her." "the devil he is!" ejaculated father, roused at last. mother dropped her knitting. i do believe her face grew white with horror. "i always thought, laban, it was a pity to have that young man about so much when we had grown-up girls at home," moaned she, quite forgetting my presence. "but you always would be so sure he was thinking of nothing but those politics of yours." "to be sure, to be sure," murmured father. "and he was always so pleasant to all of us," she went on, as though that, too, were something to deplore in him; "but i never did think he'd be wanting to marry a farmer's daughter. and i should like to know what he has got to marry any one upon," added she, after a pause, turning to me indignantly, as though i knew the captain's affairs any better than she did. "his captain's pay," answered i, glibly, although i had been chilled for a moment by this remark. "and why should you consider him a ne'er-do-well because he earns his living in a different way to what you do? he kills the country's enemies, and you till the country's land. they are both honorable professions by which a man gets his bread by the sweat of his brow." i looked at father; all through i had spoken only to him. he smiled and began to light his pipe. it was a sign that his mind was made up. which way was it made up? "joyce is just the girl men do fall in love with," said i, wisely; "and as for her--well, you can't be surprised at her falling in love with a man whom you like so much yourself." "ay, i do like the young man," agreed father, stanchly. "i can't help it. they're precious few such as he whose heads are full of aught but seeking after their own pleasure." "well, if you like him so much, why are you sorry that he wants to marry joyce?" asked i, boldly. "i did not say that i was sorry, lass," said father, calmly. my heart throbbed with pleasant triumph, but the battle was not over yet. "well, laban, i don't suppose you can say that you're glad," put in mother, almost tartly, "after what i've heard you say about girls marrying out of their own class in life." "captain forrester is not rich and idle," said i. "no," answered mother, scornfully, "he is not rich, you're right enough there; but he is a good sight more idle than many men who can afford to keep a wife in comfort. i know your sort of play soldiers that never see an enemy." "he's rich enough for a girl of mine," replied father. "as to his being idle, i hope maybe he's going to do better work saving the lives of innocent children than he could have done slashing at what are called the nation's foes." "yes, yes," said mother, a trifle impatiently. "i make no doubt you're right. i've nothing against the young man, but i can't believe, laban, as you really mean to say that you'd give your girl to him willingly." "well," answered father, "i'm bound to say i'm surprised at the news; but we old folk are apt to forget that we were young once; and when i was a lad i loved you, mary, so we mustn't be hard on the young ones. it's neither poverty nor riches, nor this nor that, as makes happiness; it's just love; and if the two love one another, we durstn't interfere." "i don't understand you, laban; indeed i don't," cried poor mother, beside herself with anxiety. "it's not according to what you were saying a few minutes ago, and you can't say it is." father was silent. i suppose he could not help knowing in his heart that the objections to captain forrester must be practically the same as those to squire broderick, with the additional one that he was almost a stranger to us. but his natural liking for the young man obscured his vision to plain facts. father and i were very much alike; what we wanted to be must be. but when i look back at that point in our lives, i pity poor mother, who was really the wisest and the most practical of us all. "well, mother, the lass must decide for herself," said father. "she's of age; she should know her own mind." "joyce knows her own mind well enough," said i. "she has told frank forrester that she will marry him subject to your approval." "i wonder she took the trouble to add so much as that," said mother at last. "young folk nowadays have grown so clever they seem to teach us old folk." there was a tremor in her voice, and father rose and went across to her, laying his hand on her shoulder. "meg, go and tell your sister to come here," said he in a moment. "you need not come back." i was hurt at the dismissal, and i waited in the passage till joyce came out from the interview; but her face was very white, and all that she would say was: "oh, margaret, let them settle it. i don't want to have any will of my own." i was very much disappointed, and was fain to be agreeably surprised, when on the following morning i heard that, after mature deliberation, our parents had decided to allow the captain a year's probation. i had been afraid that mother would entirely override all father's arguments; she generally did. the affair was not to be called an engagement--both were to be perfectly free to choose again; but if at the end of that time both were of the same mind, the betrothal should be formally made and announced. mother must, however, have been very hard in her terms; for the young folk were neither to meet nor to write to one another, nor to have any news of one another beyond what might transpire in the correspondence that father would be carrying on with frank on outside matters. frank told me the conditions out in the garden, when i caught hold of him as he came out of father's study. the whole matter was to be a complete secret, shut closely within our own family. this mother repeated to me afterwards, i guessed very well with what intent. but although frank must have guessed at a possible rival in his uncle, he absolutely refused to be cast down. the thought even crossed my mind that i should have liked my lover to have been a little more cast down. but no doubt he felt too sure of himself, even after the slight shock of surprise that it must have been to him to find his suit not at once accepted. nevertheless, as he passed out of the room where he had taken leave of joyce alone, he bent forward towards me as i stood in the hall, and said, gravely, "miss margaret, i trust her to you. don't let her forget me." my heart ached for him, and from that moment it was afire with the steadfast resolve to support my sister's failing spirits and preserve for her the beautiful romance which had so unexpectedly opened out before her. chapter xii. joyce and i sat in the apple orchard one may afternoon. it was not often we sat idle; but joyce was going away on the morrow on a visit to sydenham, and we wanted a few minutes' quiet together. there was no quiet in-doors; mother was in one of her restless moods, and mr. hoad was with father. i supposed he was still harping on that subject of the elections, for i could not tell why else he should come so often; but i could have told him that he might have spared his pains, for that father never altered his mind. however, on this particular occasion i was glad that he came, for i thought that it might save father from missing frank too much--although, to be sure, they did not seem to get on so well as before frank's coming; and i fancied that there was even the suspicion of a cloud on father's face when he closed the door after his man of business. who could wonder? who would like hoad after frank forrester? for my own part, i always avoided him, and that was why i had taken joyce out-of-doors. an east wind blew from the sea, and the marsh was bleak, though the lengthening shadows lay in soft tones across its crude spring greenness. the sun shone, and the thorn-trees that were abloom by the dikes made white spots along their straightness--softer memories of the snow that had so lately vanished, kindly promise of spring to come. under the apple-trees, heavy with blossom, the air was blue above the vivid emerald of the springing grass, and all around us slenderly sturdy gray trunks and angular boughs, softened by a wealth of rose-flushed flower, made delicate patterns upon the sky or against the glittering sea-line beyond the marsh. but a spring scene, with its frank, passionless beauty, its tenderness that is all promise and no experience, its arrogance of coming life, does sometimes put one out of heart with one's self, i think, although it should not have had that effect on one who stood in the same relation to life as did the spring to the year. anyhow, i was not in my most cheerful frame of mind that day--not quite so arrogant and sanguine myself as was my wont. since the day when captain forrester had left the village three weeks ago, things had not gone to my liking. in the first place, i was not satisfied with this engagement of a year's standing, that was to be kept a profound secret from every one around. i thought it was not fair to joyce. and then, and alas! i fear an even more active cause in my depression of spirits--mr. trayton harrod had been engaged as bailiff to knellestone farm! yes; never should i have expected it. it was too horrible, but it was true. father and mother had gone up to meet him at dinner at the manor two days after the captain's departure, and father had been forced to confess that he was a quiet, sensible, straightforward fellow, without any nonsense about him, and that there was no doubt that he knew what he was about. it was very mortifying to me to hear father speak of him in that way, when i had quite made up my mind that he was sure not to know what he was about. but it seems that i was curiously mistaken upon this point. far from being a mere amateur at the business, he had been carefully educated for it at the agricultural college at ashford. his father had been of opinion that his own ventures had failed because of a too superficial knowledge of the subject--a knowledge only derived from natural mother-wit and practical observation, and he wished his son to labor under no such disadvantages. i fancy mr. harrod's father had been, as the country-folk say, "a cut above his neighbors" in culture and social standing, and had taken to farming as a speculation when other things had failed. but of course this was no reason why his son should not make a good farmer, since he had been carefully educated to the business. he was not wanting in practical experience either. he had done all he could to retrieve the fortunes of his father's farm, but the speculation was too far gone before he took the reins; and the elder harrod had died a ruined man, leaving his son to shift for himself. all this i had gleaned from talk between my parents and the squire in our own house; but it was mortifying, even though i had not guessed at that time that there was any real danger of his coming to knellestone. for that had only been settled two days ago, and i could not help fancying that mr. hoad was partly to blame. of course there was no denying that father had been ill again--not so seriously ill as in the winter, but incapacitated for active life. he had not been able to mount his horse nor to walk farther than the garden plot at the top of the terrace for over a fortnight. the doctor had suggested a bath-chair; but the idea of a farmer being seen in a bath-chair was positively insulting, and i would rather have seen him shut in-doors for a month than showing himself to the neighbors in such a plight. the idea was abandoned; but gradually, and without any sign, his mind came round to the plan which he had at first so violently repudiated--that of a bailiff for knellestone. i do not know whether it was really mr. hoad who had anything to do with his decision. he certainly had influence over father, and had been very often at the grange of late, but it may have been merely the effect which mr. harrod himself produced. anyhow, a fortnight or so after the dinner at the manor, father announced to us abruptly at the dinner-table that he had that morning written to engage "that young man of the squire's" to come to knellestone. his manner had been so queer when he said it that nobody had questioned him further on the matter; and as for me, i had been so thoroughly knocked down by the news that i do not think i had spoken to father since! if my sister's departure had not been arranged--and in a great measure arranged by me--before this news had come, i am sure that i should not have suggested it; for it was the first time in our lives that we had been parted, and, reserved as i was, i felt that i wanted joyce to be there during this family crisis. she at least never allowed herself to be ruffled, and though this characteristic had its annoying side, there was comfort in it; and just at that particular moment we needed a soother, for the family was altogether in a somewhat ruffled condition. father was cross because of what he had been driven into doing with regard to the bailiff. mother was cross because the squire had not proposed for joyce, and captain forrester had. and i was cross--more cross than any one--because i was an opinionated young woman, and wanted to have a finger in the management of every pie. it was a good thing that joyce took even her own share in these matters more quietly than i took it for her. nevertheless, even she was a little dismal that evening. how was it possible that she could be happy parted, without even the solace of correspondence, from the man whom she loved? i believe in my secret soul i set joyce down as wanting in feeling for not fretting more than she did; but she _was_ out of spirits, and mother had agreed with me that joyce was pale, and had better choose this time for a visit to aunt naomi, which had been a promise for a long time. and now it was impossible to put it off. joyce came back from a dream with a little sigh, and turned towards me. "well, did you see mr. trayton harrod this morning, margaret?" asked she. "deborah says he was here to see father. when does he come for good?" "i don't know," answered i, shortly. "i know nothing at all about mr. trayton harrod." joyce sighed a little. "deborah says he is a plain kind of man," continued she--"very tall and broad, and very short in his manners." "he can't be too short in his manner for me," answered i. "he'll find me short too." joyce stretched out her hand and laid it on mine. it was a great deal for her to do. in the first place, we were not given to outward demonstrations of affection; and in the second place, joyce knew that i abhorred sympathy, and that from my earliest childhood i had always hit out at people who dared to pity me for my hurts. "dear margaret," said she, "i want you not to be so much set against this young man. father said he was a straightforward, good sort of fellow, you know; and you can't be sure that he will be disagreeable until you know him." "i don't suppose he is going to be disagreeable at all," declared i. "he may be the most delightful man in the world; i've no doubt he is. i only say that he is nothing to me. i shall have nothing to do with him, and i sha'n't know whether he is delightful or not." "well, if you begin like that, it _will_ be setting yourself against him," said joyce, bravely. she paused a moment, and then added, "i'm in hopes it will be a good thing for father. i've often thought of late that the work was too hard for him. father's not the man he was." "father's all right," insisted i. "it's always the strongest men who have the gout. you'll see father will walk the young ones off the ground yet when it comes to a day's work. a man can work for his own--he works whether he be tired or not; but a hireling--why should a hireling work when he hasn't a mind to? it's nothing to him; he gets his wage anyway." this theory seemed to trouble joyce a bit, for she was silent. "no," said i, "it'll be no go. he won't understand anything at all about it, and all he will do will be to set everybody by the ears." "i don't see why that need be," persisted joyce. "the squire says that he has been brought up to hard work, and that he has quite a remarkable knowledge of the country." "yes, what good did his knowledge of the country do him?" asked i, scornfully. "he managed his father's farm in kent, and his father died a bankrupt. i don't call that much of a recommendation." i had been obliged to come down from my high horse as to this friend of the squire's being one of his own class, an impoverished gentleman who wanted a living, for there was no doubt that he had been born and bred on a farm, and had been, moreover, specially educated to his work, but i had managed to find out something else in his disfavor nevertheless. my sister was puzzled as to how to answer this. "i did not know that that was so," said she. "of course it is so," repeated i. "that's why he must needs take a job." "poor fellow!" murmured joyce. "nonsense!" cried i. "he ought to have been able to save the farm from ruin. it's no good pitying people for the misfortunes they bring upon themselves. the weak always go to the wall." i did myself injustice with this speech. it did not really express my feelings at all, but my temper was up. joyce looked pained. "perhaps the affairs of the farm were too bad to be set right before he took up the management," suggested she. "at all events, i suppose father knows best." "i can't understand father," exclaimed i, hastily. "he seems to me to take much more interest in plans for saving pauper children than he does in working his own land." "oh, margaret! how can you say such a thing?" cried joyce, aghast. "you know that father is often laid by, and unable to go round the farm." "yes, yes, i know," i hastened to answer, ashamed of my outburst, and remembering that i was flatly contradicting what i had said two minutes before. "nobody really has the interest in the place that father has, of course. that's why i don't want him to take a paid bailiff. when he is laid by he can manage it through me." "i'm afraid that never answers," said joyce, shaking her head; "i'm afraid business matters need a man. people always seem to take advantage of a woman." i tried to laugh. "i wonder what deborah would say to that?" i said, trying to turn the matter into a joke. "deborah doesn't attempt anything out of her own province," answered joyce. it was another of her quiet home-thrusts. she little guessed how they hurt, or she would never have dealt them--she who could not bear to hurt a fly. "margaret," began she again, her mind still set on that conciliatory project which she had undertaken, "do promise me one thing before i go. i don't like going away, and it makes me worse to think you will be working yourself up into a fever of annoyance at what can't be helped. do promise me that you won't begin by being set against the young man. it'll make it very uncomfortable for everybody if you are, and you won't be any the happier. you can be so nice when you like." i looked at her, surprised. it was so very rarely that joyce came out of her shell to take this kind of line. it showed it must have been working in her mind for long. "yes, dear, yes," said i, really touched by her anxiety, "i'll try and be nice." "you do take things so hard," continued she, "and it's no use taking things hard. now, if you liked you might help father still, with mr. harrod, and he might be quite a pleasant addition to your life." "that's ridiculous, joyce," i answered, sharply. "you must see that he and i could never be friends. all i can promise is not to make it harder for him to settle down among the folk, for it'll be hard enough. however clever the squire may think him, he won't understand this country, nor this weather, nor these people at first, there's no doubt of that. he'll make lots of mistakes. but there, for pity's sake don't let's talk any more about him," cried i, hastily. "i'm sick of the man; and on our last evening too, when i've such a lot to say to you." "what have you to say to me?" asked my sister, looking round suddenly, and with an uneasy look in her face. "oh, come, you needn't look like that," laughed i. "it's nothing horrid like what you have been saying to me. it's about captain forrester." her face grew none the less grave. "what about him?" asked she, in a low voice. "well, i'm going to fight for you, joyce, while you're away," said i. "i don't think you've been over-pleased about having to go to aunt naomi, and perhaps you have owed me a grudge for having had a finger in settling it. it will be dull for you boxed up with the old lady and her rheumatism, but you must bear in mind that i shall be working for you here, better than, maybe, i could if you were by." "why, meg, what do you want to do?" asked my sister, aghast. "i'm going to get mother to make your engagement shorter," said i, getting up and standing in front of her, "and i'm going to make her allow you and frank to write to one another." "oh, meg, how can you?" gasped joyce. "well, i'm going to," repeated i, doggedly. she did not reply. she clasped her hands in her lap with a nervous movement, and dropped her eyes upon them. "mother said that the year's engagement was so that you and captain forrester should learn to be quite sure of yourselves. now, how are you to be any surer of yourselves than you are now if you don't get to know one another any better? and how are you going to know one another any better if you never see one another, and never write to one another?" joyce paused before she replied. she lifted her eyes and fixed them on the channel, of which the long, tortuous curves, winding across the marsh to the sea, were blue now with an opaque color in the growing grayness of the evening. "perhaps mother don't wish us to know one another any better. perhaps she wishes us to forget one another," said she at last, slowly. "i know mother wants you to forget one another, because she wants you to marry the squire," said i, bluntly, "but father doesn't." "oh, meg, don't," whispered joyce. "well, of course you know it," laughed i, a little ashamed of myself, "and you know that i know it. but you never would have married him, dear, so mother is none the worse off if you marry captain forrester, and you are not going to forget him because they want you to." "no," murmured she. "but oh, meg," she added, hastily rising too, and taking my hand, "i don't want you to say anything to them about it. it's settled now, and it's far best as it is. i had far rather let it be, and take my chance." "what do you mean by taking your chance?" cried i. "you mean to say that you can trust to your lover not to forget you? well, i suppose you can. he worships you, and i suppose one may fairly expect even a man to be faithful one little year. but, meanwhile, you will both of you be unhappy instead of being comparatively happy, as you would be if you could write to one another and see one another sometimes. now, that seems to me to be useless, and i don't see why it need be. at all events, i shall try to prevent it." "you're a good, faithful old meg, as true as steel," said joyce, tenderly, taking my hand; "and i suppose you can't understand how i feel, because we are so different. but i want you to believe that i would much rather wait. indeed, i would much rather wait." i gazed at her in silence. once more there stole over me a strange feeling of awe, born of the conviction that joyce had floated slowly away from me on the bosom of a stream that was to me unknown. whither did it lead, and what was it like? what was this "being in love," of which i had dreamed of late--for her if not for myself? i laughed constrainedly. "well, i never was in love," said i, "and perhaps i never shall be. but i feel pretty sure that when a girl loves a man and he loves her, being parted must be like going about without a piece of one's own self. no, joyce, you can't deceive me. i know that you want to see him every hour and every minute of your life, and that when you don't something goes wrong inside you all the while." joyce sighed gently, and drew her shawl around her. "you're so impetuous," sighed she. "liking one person doesn't make one forget every one else." "_liking_, no," said i, and then i stopped. the marsh-land had grown dark with a passing cloud, and the aspens on the cliff shivered in the rising wind. a window opened in the house behind, and deborah's voice came calling to us across the lawn. "well, whatever you two must needs go catching your deaths of cold out there for, i don't know," cried she, as we came up to her. "and not so much as a young man to keep you company! oh, there's two dismal faces!" laughed she, as i pushed past her. "well, i was wiser in my time. the men never gave me no thoughts--good nor bad." "no, you never got any one to mind you then as reuben minds you now," cried i. but joyce stopped the retort by asking what we were wanted for. "there's company in the parlor," answered she, speaking to me still. "the squire's come to bid miss joyce good-bye, and there's your friend mr. hoad." i made no answer to this thrust, but as we passed through the passage, the door of father's room opened, and the voice of mr. hoad said, with a laugh: "no, i'm afraid you will never get any good out of him. a brilliant talker, a charming fellow, but no backbone in him. i was deceived in him myself at first, but he's no go. i should think the less any one reckoned on him for anything the better." "you don't understand him," began father, warmly; but he stopped, seeing us. my cheeks flushed with anger. there was a grin on deborah's face, but my sister's was serene. she could not have understood. chapter xiii. joyce had been gone a week before mr. trayton harrod arrived. i had preserved my gloomy silence on the subject of his coming, although i was dying to know all about it; and as father had given in to my mood by telling me no particulars, it so happened that i did not even know the exact day of his arrival. it was a monday and baking-day. there was plenty to do now that joyce was gone, and i did not do her work as she did it. mother was constantly reminding me of the fact. it did not make me do the work any quicker, or like doing it any better; but, of course, it was natural that mother should see the difference, and remark on it. at last, however, the baking and mending and dusting was all done, and mother gave me leave to take a little basket of victuals to an old couple who lived down by the sea. i had been very miserable, feeling pitiably how little i had done at present towards fulfilling my promise to joyce of trying to make things pleasant, and sadly conscious that i was not in mother's good books, or for that matter, in father's either, for which i am afraid i cared more. he had scarcely spoken a word to me all the week. poor father! why did i not remember that it was far worse for him than it was for me? but as i ran across the lawn, with taff yelping at my heels, i do not believe that i gave a thought to his anxieties, although i must have seen his dear old head bending over the farm account-books through the study window as i passed. i was so glad to have done with the house-keeping that i forgot everything else in the tender sunshine of a may afternoon that was flecking the marsh with spots of light, shifting as the soft clouds shifted upon the blue sky. how could any troubles matter, either my own or other people's, when there was a chance of being within scent of the sea-weed and within taste of the salt sea-brine? i whistled the st. bernard, and we set off on a race down the cliff. my hat flew off, i caught it by the strings; all the thickness of my hair uncoiled itself and rippled down my back. i felt the hair-pins tumble out one by one, and knew that a great curly, red mass must be floating in the wind; but i had a hundred yards to run yet before i came to the elms at the foot of the hill--and taff was hard to beat. alongside the runnels that hemmed the lane, a ribbon, bluer than the sea or sky, ran bordering the green; it was made up of thousands of delicate veronica blossoms, opening merry eyes to the sun, and the red campion dotted the bank under the cliff, and the cuckoo flowers nodded their pale clusters on edges of little dikes. but i did not see the flowers just then; i ran on and on, jumping the gate that divides the marsh from the road almost as taffy jumped it himself--on and on along the dike, without stopping, till i came to the first thorn-tree that grows upon the bank; and there, at last, i was fain to throw myself down to rest, out of breath and trembling. what a run it was! i remember it to this day. it drove away all my ill-temper; and as i sat there twisting up my hair again, and laughing at taff, who understood the joke just as if he were a human being, i had no more thought of anything ajar than had the white may-trees that dotted the marsh all along the brown banks of the dikes, and lay so harmoniously against the faint blue of the sky, where it sank into the deeper blue of the sea beyond. dimly, beyond the flaxen stretch of plain that was slowly flushing with the growing green, one could see the little waves rippling out across the yellow sands, with the sunlight flashing upon their crests; over the meadows red and white cattle wandered, and little spotless lambs played with their mothers on the fresher banks; tufts of tender primroses grew close to my hand, fish leaped in the still gray waters of the dike, birds sang in the belt of trees under the manor-house, lapwing made strange bleating and chirping sounds amid the newly sprouting growth of the rushes that mingled softly with the faint gold of last year's mown crop; the cuckoo's note came now and then through the air. the spring had come at last. i tied on my hat again and jumped up. i began to sing, too, as i walked. i was merry. what with captain forrester, and what with the trouble about the bailiff, and what with joyce's departure, and the household duties falling upon me, i had not been out among my favorite haunts for a long time, and the sight of the birds and the beasts and the flowers was new life to me. i noted the marks of the year's growth as only one notes them who knows the country by heart; i knew that the young rooks were already on the wing, that the swifts and the swallows had built their nests, that the song-thrush was hatching her brood, and that a hunt along the sunny, sandy banks under the lea of the hill would discover the round holes where the little sand-martin would be laboriously scooping her nest some two feet deep into the soft ground. i promised myself a happy afternoon when next i should have leisure, searching for plovers' eggs along the banks of the dikes where the moor-hen and lapwing make their homes; but to-day i dared not loiter, for the old couple for whom i was bound lived under the shadow of the great rock, where the marsh ends and the land swells up into white chalk-cliffs fronting the sea; and that was four good miles from where i now was. taff and i put our best legs foremost, vaulting the gates that separated the fields, and crossing the white bridges over the water, until at last we came to where the dike meets the sea, and the martello towers stud the coast. i confess we had not always walked quite straight. once my attention had been caught by the hovering of a titlark in the vicinity of a bank by the way-side, and i had not been able to resist the temptation of climbing a somewhat perilous ascent to look for the nest, whose neighborhood i guessed. it was on the face of a curious sort of cliff that lay across the marsh; one side of it sloped down into the pasture-land, but the other presented a gray, rugged front to the greensward below, and told of days when the sea must have lapped about its massive sides, and eaten its way into the curious caves where now young oaks and mountain-ash clove to the barren soil. about half-way up the nethermost bank of this cliff i found the nest of the titlark beneath a heather bush. but in it sat a young cuckoo alone and scarcely fledged, while lying down the bank, about a foot from the margin of the nest, lay the two little nestlings of the parent bird. i picked them up and warmed them in my hand, and put them back in the nest, where they soon lifted their heads again. then i stood a moment and watched. the young cuckoo began struggling about till it got its back under one of them, and, blind as it still was, hitched it up to the open part of the nest, and shoved it out onto the bank. once more i picked the poor little bird up and put it back into its mother's nest. then seeing that the cruel little interloper seemed to have made up its mind to try no more ejecting for the moment, i slid down the bank again and went on, promising myself, however, to look in upon this quarrelsome family on my way home. this little adventure delayed us, but we ran a great part of the remainder of the way to make up for it, and reached old warren's cottage somewhat out of breath, and i with red cheeks and hair sorely dishevelled by the journey. however, as we were old friends, we were soon restored by the kindly welcome that we got. taffy lay down on the hearth with the great persian cat, and i took my seat in the chimney corner, mrs. warren insisting on preferring the bed for a seat. it was a funny little hut, nestled away under the shadow of the towering cliff, with the sea lapping or roaring within fifty yards of it, and the lonely marsh stretching away miles and miles to the right of it. no one knew why warren had built it, but some fancied that he still had smuggled goods hidden away in the caves of the cliffs, and if so, he naturally chose a dwelling-place hard by, and not too much under the eye of man. it was a poor hovel, better to die in than to live in, one would have thought; but old warren seemed to be of a contented disposition, and to enjoy his life well enough, although as much could not apparently be said of his wives, of whom he had had three already. the present one had lasted the longest, the former two having been killed off in comparatively early life (according to warren) by the loneliness of their life and the terrors of the elements which they had witnessed. warren was a dramatic old fellow, and could tell many a story of shipwreck and disaster, and even (when pressed) of encounters between the revenue-cutters and the smugglers' boats, of dangerous landings on this dangerous bit of coast, and of nights when it was all the "boys" could do to get their kegs of spirits safely ashore and buried in the sand before morning. this afternoon he was in particularly good spirits. something in the color of the land and the sea and in the direction of the wind had reminded him of a day when the fog had come up suddenly and had caused disaster, although, to my eye, the heavens were clear and fair as any one could wish. i soon drew from him the account of a terrible struggle between the government officers and the smugglers, when the fog had given the latter a miraculous and unexpected triumph, and this led on to the tale--oft-repeated but never stale--of the wreck of the portuguese "merchant," when the "lads" picked up the wicker bottles that floated ashore, and drank themselves sick with eau-de-cologne in mistake for brandy. this was my favorite story; but it was hard to know whether to laugh or to cry when mrs. warren number three would shake her head sympathetically at the tearful account of the demise of mrs. warren number two, who "lay a-dying within, while the lads drank the spirits without," and old warren was forced to take a drain himself to help him in his trouble. the time always passed quickly for me with the funny old couple in their funny old hovel under the cliff, and it was late afternoon before i got out again onto the beach. warren's memories had not been awakened by mere fancy; his prophecy was right. there was a heavy sea-fog over the marsh, blown up by a wind from the east. i gathered my cloak around me and set off walking as fast as i could. the mist was so thick that the dog shook himself as he ran on in front of me; the damp stood in great drops on the bristles of his shaggy coat and of my rough homespun cloak; it took the curl even out of my curly hair, which hung down in dank masses by the side of my face. i could not see the sea, though i could hear it lapping on the shore close by; i could not even see the dike at my left, and yet it was not thirty yards away. i knew the way well enough, however, and the fog only made an amusing variety to an every-day walk. i started off merrily, avoiding the road, which was not the shortest way, and making, to the best of my belief, a straight line across the marsh, as i had done hundreds of times before. but a mist is deceptive, and i could not have been walking more than a quarter of an hour when i felt the ground suddenly give way beneath me, and i found myself disappearing into one of the deep ditches that intersect the marsh between the broader dikes. i knew that there was brackish water at the bottom of the ditch, and though i did not mind a ducking, i did not care for a ducking in dirty water, and so far from home. by clutching onto the docks and teasels on the bank, i managed to hold myself up and get my heels into the soil, and then, with one spring, i landed myself on the opposite bank. my petticoats would not escape deborah's notice, but my feet were dry, and even my skirts would not attract immediate attention. but how had i got to the ditch? and where was i now? yes, i must have borne farther to the left than i had intended; but it did not much signify--one way across the marsh was as good as another to me, and i had better keep to this side now, and go home under the lea of the hill. there would be the advantage that i might be able to find my little titlark again. i whistled, for i could not see the dog, and presently my call was answered by a loud barking close in front of me, and lifting up my face, i vaguely saw taff chasing some larger object before him into the mist. i knew at once that in coming to this side of the ditch i had landed myself among a herd of the cattle that had now taken up their summer quarters upon the marsh. i was not afraid of the cattle; i had seen them there ever since i had been a child, browsing in the warm weather; they were part of the land. but i wondered just where i had got to, and i stopped to think where the sea was, and where the dike. without these two landmarks i was somewhat bewildered. the cattle closed around me. they, too, seemed to be doubtful about something, but they kept their eyes on me. i wished taff would not bark so. i turned round, and once more began walking briskly in the direction which i thought was the right one. a great brown beast stood just in front of me. i had not noticed him before, but he had come up over a mound of the uneven marsh-land and stood staring at me with head gently rocking. up till now i had not had a moment's uneasiness, but i began to wonder whether the marsh cattle were always safe. i moved, and the bull moved too. taff barked louder than ever, and the bull began to bellow softly. i was never so cross with the dog in my life, and i could not punish him, for i dared not take my eyes off the brown beast. i moved forward till i had passed the place where the bull stood. but now it was worse than ever. the mist was so thick, and i had so entirely lost my way, that i dared not retreat backward for fear of falling into an unseen dike, and some of the dikes were deep at this time of the year. i began to run gently, but my heart failed me as i heard behind me the bull following, still bellowing softly. if i were only on the right road there must be a gate soon, but i feared i was not on the right road. taff kept running round in front of me, hindering my speed. i felt that the creature was gaining on me. i don't think i was ever so frightened before. i don't remember that my presence of mind ever so entirely failed me as it did on that day. but my legs seemed as though they were tied together. i stood still, waiting, and then i think i must have fallen to the ground. i knew that the bull must be close upon me, and it was no more than what i expected when i felt myself suddenly lifted up by the waist and flung to what seemed to me an immense distance through the air. for a moment i lay stunned. the bellowing of the bull, the barking of the dog, the murmur of the sea--all mingled in my ears in one great booming sound. then slowly i became conscious that there was a human presence beside me in the fog. i opened my eyes. i was lying close under a five-barred gate. the bull was on the other side of it; taffy lay whining beside me, and over me stood a big, tall man, looking down at me quietly. "are you hurt, miss?" said he. i struggled into a sitting posture, and pulled myself up on my feet by the help of the gate. "no; no, thank you," answered i. but my head was dizzy, and my arm ached dreadfully. "i'm afraid i flung you over rather hard," said he. "but there wasn't time to do it nicely." "you flung me over!" cried i, aghast. "to be sure," answered he, "did you think it was the bull?" he gave a short laugh, scarcely a laugh, it was so very grim and quiet. but when he laughed his smile was like a white flash--i remember noticing it. i gazed at him. angry as i was--and i was absurdly, childishly angry--i could not help gazing at this man, who could take me up like a baby and fling me over a five-barred gate in a twinkling. he was very broad and strong, his eyes were dark brown, his hair was black and curling, and so was his beard. he had neither a pleasant face nor a handsome face--until he smiled. i was not conscious at the time of any of these details; but there in the fog i thought he looked very imposing. "i'm afraid if it had been the bull he would have flung you farther, and hurt you more," said he. "you lay there very handy for him." how i hated myself for having fallen to the ground! "come, taff," said i, giving the dog a little kick, "get up." the dog sprang to his feet with his tail between his legs. no wonder he was frightened and surprised. i had never done such a thing to him before. but i had a vague feeling that if he had not hindered me i should have got over the gate alone, and i was savage at the idea of having needed help from a man. "good-evening to you," said i, curtly, nodding my head in the direction of the man, but without looking at him again. "good-evening," answered he, raising his hat. "i hope you'll be none the worse for your fall." i vouchsafed no answer to this speech, but strode on down the track as fast as my aching limbs and dizzy head would allow me to do. the sea murmured on the beach at my right. i could not see it for the fog, but i could hear it. after a while i think it must have lulled my anger to rest. the sea has always been a good friend to me, in its storms as in its calm. i like to see it rage as i dare not rage, and i like to see it calm as i cannot be calm. the restless sea has taught me as many things as the quiet marsh; they are both very wide. and that day i am sure it lulled my irritable temper. before long i began to think that i, to say the least of it, had treated my deliverer with scant courtesy. when i got to the farm that divides the marsh from the beach i turned round to see if he were following. the fog was beginning to lift. the distant hills of the south downs rose out of the sea of vapor, and were as towering mountains in the mystery, lying dim and yet blue against the struggling light of the sunset behind. the white headland that i had left detached itself boldly against the sea-line--for the mist was only on the level land now, where it lay like a sheet a few feet above the marsh, so that the objects on the ground itself shone, illumined by the slanting rays of the sun, till each one had a value of its own in the scene. through the golden spray of the sunlit vapor the red and the white cattle shone like jewels upon the brown land, where every little line of water was like a snake in the vivid light; and as i turned and looked towards the gray cliff, where i had climbed the bank after the bird's-nest an hour ago, the long line of hill behind, dotted with fir-trees and church-steeples and little homesteads, lay midway in the air through the silver veil. i stood a while looking back. i do not know that i was conscious of the wonder of the scene, but i remember it very vividly. at the time i think i was chiefly busy wishing the stranger to come up that i might rectify my lack of courtesy. i saw him at last. he came in sight very slowly, and stood a long while leaning against the last gate lighting his pipe. i watched him several minutes, and he never once looked along the path to see if i was there. why was i annoyed? i had dismissed him almost rudely. he did but do as he was bid. and yet i do believe i was annoyed; i do believe i was unreasonable to that point. chapter xiv. when i came into supper that evening my friend of the fog was standing beside father on the parlor hearth-rug. directly i saw him, i wondered how i could have been such a fool as not to have guessed at once that that was mr. trayton harrod. but it had never occurred to me for a moment; and when i recognized in the man to whom i had promised to be friendly, also the person who had presumed to take me by the waist and pitch me over a gate, all my bad temper of before swelled up within me worse than ever, and i felt as though it would be quite impossible for me even to be civil. and yet i had since promised somebody, even more definitely than i had promised joyce, that i would do my best to make matters run smoothly. on that very evening father had made an appeal to my better feelings. it seems that, while i had been out, reuben ruck and mother had had a real pitched battle. mother had told him to do something in preparation for the arrival of the bailiff, which he had refused to do; and upon that mother had gone to father, and had said that it was absolutely necessary that reuben should leave. when i came home i had found father standing on the terrace in the sunset. it was a very unwise thing for him to do, for the air was chill. i wondered what had brought him out, and whether he could be looking for me. the little feeling of estrangement that had been between us since he had settled for the bailiff to come to the farm had given me a great deal of pain, and a lump rose in my throat as i saw him there watching me come up the hill. it was partly repentance for the feelings i had had towards him, partly hope that he was going to want me again as he used to do. "where have you been, lass?" said he, when i reached him. "you look sadly." i laughed. the tears were near, but i laughed. my arm hurt me very much, and my head ached strangely; but i was so glad to hear him speak to me again like that. "the mist has taken my hair out of curl," said i; "that's all. i have been down to the cliffs to take old warren some tea. did you want me?" "yes," answered he; "i want to have a talk with you." "well, come in-doors then," said i. "you know you oughtn't to be out so late." we went into the study. mother and deb were getting supper ready in the front dwelling-room. there was no lamp lit; we sat down in the dusk. "your mother and reuben have had a row, meg," began father, with a kind of twinkle in his eye, although he spoke gravely. "a row!" echoed i; "what about?" "about mr. trayton harrod," answered father; "she wants me to send reuben away." "send reuben away!" cried i, aghast. "why, it wouldn't be possible. there would be more harm done by the old folks going away than any good that would come of new folks coming; that i'll warrant." "that's not the question," said father, tapping the table with his hand. "mr. harrod has got to come, you know, and if the old folks don't like it, why, they'll have to go." "there's one thing certain," added i, "reuben wouldn't go if he were sent away fifty times." father laughed; the first time i had heard him laugh for a fortnight. "well, he'll have to be pleasant if he does stay," said he. "oh, you none of you understand reuben," said i. "he's not so stupid as you all think. he'll be pleasant if he thinks it's for our good that he should be pleasant. he wishes us well. but he'll want convincing first. and," i added, with a little laugh, "maybe i want convincing myself first." and it was then that father appealed to my better feelings. "yes, meg," said he, "i know that. i've seen that all along, and maybe it's natural. we none of us like strangers about. but i thought fit to have mr. harrod come for the good of the farm, and now what we all have to do is to treat him civilly, and make the work easy for him." i was silent, but father went on: "and what i want you to do, meg, is to help me make the work easy for him. it won't be easier to him than it is to us. if his father had not died beggared i suppose he would have had his own by now. it is a hard thing for children when their parents beggar them." it being dark, i could not see his face, but i heard him sigh, and i saw him pass his hand over his brow. "mother is right," he added. "we ought to make him feel it as little as we can, and as joyce is away, you're the daughter of the house now, meg. i want you to remember that. i want you to do the honors of the house as a daughter should. what a daughter is at home a wife will be when she is married." "i shall never marry," said i, with a short laugh. "but i'll behave properly, father, never fear." "that's right, my lass," said father, who seemed to take this speech as meaning something more conciliatory than it looks now as i set it down. "he is coming to-night to supper. mother means to ask him to come every night to supper. she would have liked to give him house-room, but that don't seem to be possible. so we mean to make him welcome to our board." "all right," said i. "i suppose mother knows best." "yes," echoed father; "mother always knows best. she's a wise woman, that's why every one loves her." again i promised to do what i could to resemble mother--to conciliate reuben, and to make myself agreeable to our guest. and yet, alas! in spite of all that, i could not conquer my petty feelings of ill-temper when i came into the parlor and found that the man to whom i intended to be polite was the man who had offended me by being polite to me. what a foolish girl i was! as i look back upon it now i am half inclined to smile. but i was only nineteen. mr. harrod had his back towards me when i came into the room. but i could not have failed to recognize the broad, strong shoulders and the very black curly hair. i must have been the more changed of the two, for i had brushed and braided my locks, which curled all the merrier for the wetting, and i had put on another dress. nevertheless, his eyes had scarcely rested upon me before his mouth broke again into that smile that showed the strong white teeth. "i hope you're none the worse, miss," said he. "i was afraid you had got a bad shaking." deborah, who was bringing in the supper, looked at me sharply. mother had not yet come in, and father was in a brown-study, but the remark had not escaped old deb. she could not keep silence even before a stranger. "i thought you looked as if you had been up to some mischief again," said she. "your face is a nice sight." i flushed angrily. i think it was enough to make any girl angry. it was bad enough to know that i was disfigured by a scratch on my cheek without having a stranger's attention attracted to it, and running a risk besides of a scolding from mother, who came in at the moment. luckily she did not hear what deborah had said. she was too much engaged in welcoming her guest, which she did with that gentle dignity that to some might have looked like a want of cordiality, but to me seems, as i look back upon it, to be just what a welcome should be--hospitable without being anxious. but when we were seated at the supper-table she noticed the mark on my face. "it's only a fall that i got on the marsh," said i, in answer to her inquiry. "it isn't of the slightest consequence." she said no more, neither did mr. harrod. i must say i was grateful to him. he saw that i wished the matter to be forgotten, and he respected my desire; but i have often wondered since, what construction he put upon my behavior. if he thought about me at all, he must have considered me a somewhat extraordinary example of a young lady, but i do not suppose that he did consider me at all. of course i was nothing but a figure to him; he had plenty to do feeling his level in the new life upon which he had just entered. i am sure that mr. harrod was a very shy and a very proud man. when mother said that she should expect him every evening to sup at the grange, he refused her invitation with what i thought scant gratitude, although the words he used were civil enough; and when father spoke of his friendship with the squire, he said that he was beholden to the squire for his recommendation, but that he should never consider himself a friend of a man who was in a different station of life to himself. i think in my heart i admired him for this sentiment, and father should also have approved of it; but if i remember rightly, mother made some quiet rejoinder to the effect that it was not always the people who were on one's own level that were really one's best friends. i recollect that she, who was wont generally to sit and listen, worked hard that evening to keep up the conversation. dear mother! whom with the arrogance of youth i had never considered excellent excepting as a housewife or a sick-nurse. county news, the volunteer camp, the drainage of the marsh, the scarcity of well-water, the want of enterprise in the towns-people, the coming elections--dear me, she had them all out, whereas father and i, who had undertaken, as it were, to put our best legs foremost, sat silent and glum. to do myself justice, i had a racking headache, and for once in my life i really felt ill, but i might have behaved better than i did. mr. harrod began to thaw slowly under the influence of mother's kindness. she had such a winning way with her when she chose, that everybody gave way before it; and i noticed that even from the very first, when he was certainly in a touchy frame of mind towards these, his first employers, mr. harrod treated mother with just the same reverential consideration that every one always used towards her. in spite of it all that first evening was not a comfortable time. father and mr. harrod compared notes upon different breeds of cattle and upon different kinds of grains; but there was a restraint upon us all, and i think every one was glad when mother made the move from the table and father lit his pipe. i have no knowledge of how they got on afterwards over their tobacco; when i rose from the table the room swam around me, and if it had not been for deborah, who, entering on some errand at the moment, took me by the shoulders and pushed me out of the door in front of her, i am afraid i should have made a most unusual and undignified exhibition of myself in the grange parlor. as it was i had to submit to be tucked up in bed by the old woman, and only persuaded her with the greatest difficulty not to tell mother of my accident, some account of which, as was to be expected, she wrung from me in explanation of mr. harrod's words in the parlor. "i'd not have been beholden to him if i could have helped it," were the consoling words with which she left me; and as i lay there, aching and miserable, i became quite convinced that any comradeship between myself and my father's bailiff had become all the more impossible because of the occurrence of the afternoon. chapter xv. i got up the next morning just as usual. nothing should have induced me to confess that there was anything the matter with me, although my arm was so stiff that it was with the greatest pain that i carried in the breakfast urn, and my head ached so from my fall that it was hard enough to put a good face upon it when mother remarked again upon the disfigurement that i had upon my cheek. but although i gave no sign, i was not used to being ill, and it did not improve my temper. things were not comfortable in the house, and i did nothing to make them better. to be sure, i kept my promise of talking to reuben, but i'm afraid that i did not even do that in a manner to be of any use. i met mr. harrod as i passed out into the stable-yard, and he asked me how i did? that alone put me out. to have been asked how i did by any one that morning would have annoyed me, but to be asked how i did by the man who was somehow connected with my doing ill annoyed me specially. i fancied it would have been in better taste if he had not remarked upon a body's appearance when she was looking her worst; and anyhow it seemed to me an unnecessary formality. i feel really ashamed now to write down such nonsense, but there is no doubt that such were my feelings at the time. i do not think that i even answered him by anything more than a "good-morning," but passed on as though i had the affairs of the world on my shoulders. i found reuben rubbing down the mare who was to go into town with father. she neighed as i came in, and stretched out her neck. i had no sugar, but she licked my hand nevertheless; and i remembered reuben's compliment to me about my ability to win the love of beasts. it consoled me a little at a time when i thought i should always stand aloof, not only from the love but even from the comradeship of human beings. and it gave me courage to say what i wanted to say to reuben. it was something to know that i was at least the old man's favorite. "reuben," i began, plunging boldly into the matter, "whatever made you behave so badly to father's bailiff when he came round the place?" there had been a special cause of complaint that very morning when father had first taken mr. harrod round the farm, so i had a handle upon which to begin. "don't you know," i went on, "that this gentleman has got to be master over you?" "master!" repeated reuben, stopping his work, and looking straight at me; "no, miss, i knows nothing about that." i had used the word on purpose to draw out the whole sting at once. "yes," continued i, "he's going to be father's bailiff." "bailiff!" repeated reuben, again putting on his most stolid air. "i knows nothing about that." "well," explained i, trying neither to laugh nor to be annoyed, "that means that he is going to manage the land and give orders the same as father, so that there'll be two masters instead of one." reuben continued rubbing down the mare's coat till it began to shine like satin. "i've heard tell," answered he at last, "there's something in the book that says a man don't have no call to serve two masters." this time i did laugh outright. "oh, that's different, reuben," said i--"that's different; but these two masters will both be good, and both will want you to do the same thing." "do ye know that for sure, miss?" asked reuben, again, and i had a lurking suspicion that he did not ask in a perfectly teachable spirit. "i've heard tell as when there be two masters, they always wants a man to do just the opposite things." i paused a moment. i did not know what to answer, for it seemed to me as though there might be a great deal of truth in this. but i said, bravely, "oh no, reuben." reuben scratched his head. "well, miss, farmer maliphant, he have been my master fifteen year come michaelmas, and he have been a good master to me. many another would have turned me away because o' the drink. it was chill work at times down there on the marsh when i was with the sheep, and the drink was a comfort. i nigh upon died o' the drink, but farmer maliphant he have been patient with me, and he give me another chance when others would have sacked me without a word. and now i be what parson calls a reformed character." "well, you are quite right to avoid drinking, reuben," said i, chiefly because i did not know what to say. "yes; but i don't mind tellin' you, miss," continued reuben, confidentially, "that farmer he have more to do with making a pious man of me than parson had; not but what i respec's the church; but bless you, parson wouldn't ha' given me nothing for giving up o' my bad ways, and where's the use of doing violence to yerself if ye ain't a goin' to get something by it?" reuben wiped his brow. this long and unwonted effort of speech was almost too much for him. "nay, parson he didn't offer me no reward," added he, "but farmer he did. he says to me, 'reuben,' he says, 'if you give up the drink you shall stay on as long as i'm above-ground;' and three times i backslided, i did, and three times he give me another chance; and now as i'm a respectable party, and a honor to any club as i might belong to, i means to stick to my old master, and not be for going after follerin' any other mammon whatsomever." i brightened up at this declaration. "well, i'm glad of that, reuben," said i. "i'm sure we none of us want you to leave us after all these years." "lord bless you, i ain't a-going to leave," answered he, simply. "then that's all right," answered i. "if you have made up your mind to do as you're bid, i know father will be true to his word, and will never turn you off so long as he is alive." "ay, the master'll be true to his word," echoed the old man, nodding his head, "and i'll be true to mine, but i won't go follerin' after no new masters. one master's enough for me, and him only will i serve." he gave the mare a smack upon her haunches, and turned her off; the light of reason faded from his face, and i knew that it was absolutely useless to say another word to him on the subject. i turned to go within, and in the porch, with a bowl in her hand, stood deborah facing me, with an exasperating smile on her wide red face, and something more than usually aggressive in her broad, strong figure. i looked round and saw that the gate of the yard was open, and that mr. harrod, with his heavy boots and gaiters on, ready for work, stood just behind me. i could have cried with vexation. "mr. maliphant is waiting," said he, going up to the animal that reuben had just finished harnessing, and fastening the last buckle himself. "i'll drive the cart round to the front myself." and he took the reins and jumped up while reuben, in gloomy silence, tightened up one of the straps. i went and opened the gates, and with a nod of thanks to me, mr. harrod dashed out. i cannot tell whether it was the strap that he had fastened himself, or whether the one that had been reuben's doing, but something galled the mare. she reared and began to kick. without a smile upon his face, and without moving an inch, reuben said, "ay, it takes a man to hold that mare." "you fool!" cried i, quite forgetting myself. "it isn't the man, it's the harness." i flew down the gravel after the cart. the horse was still kicking violently. every muscle on mr. harrod's dark face was set in hard lines. "leave her alone," cried he, as i approached; "don't touch her." something in his voice cowed me, and apparently cowed the horse also, for she was quiet in an instant, her sides only quivering with nervousness. i sprang to her and unloosed the cruel strap. she turned to me, and i held her by the bridle and patted her neck. mr. harrod got down and examined the cart. fortunately it was not materially hurt. "what can reuben have been about to tighten that so," said i. "it was enough to madden any horse." he did not answer. "i'm afraid he was angry at your giving him an order," said i. "you must excuse him. he's an obstinate old fellow, but he is a good servant, and he has been with us many years." "it's the most natural thing in the world that he should dislike me at first," answered trayton harrod, with that smile of his that was such a quick, short flash. "i rather like the sort of people who resent interference. but i don't suppose it was his doing for a moment. i buckled this up wrong." he pointed to his part of the job. father came up, and they drove off quietly together. i went back into the yard, musing on his words. "i don't believe you'll find mr. harrod an unjust master, reuben," said i. reuben took no notice; but deborah laughed, and said, grimly: "well, he's a fine-grown young man, anyhow; and he'll know how to drive a mare, i don't doubt." but i paid no attention to her words. i was wondering why mr. harrod had said that he rather liked people who resented interference. chapter xvi. a fortnight passed. i had seen little or nothing of mr. harrod till one afternoon when, with a volume of walter scott under my arm, i had taken my basket to get some plovers' eggs off the marsh. i had wandered a long way far beyond that part of the dike that lay beneath the village and was apt to be frequented by passers-by, and i had already about a dozen eggs in my little basket, when i heard some one whistling down behind the reeds on the opposite side of the bank. it might have been a shepherd. there was a track across the level here, and none but the shepherds knew it; but somehow i did not think it was a shepherd. i sat down upon the turf, for the bulrushes in the dike had not yet grown to any height, and i did not want to be seen. "taff!" called a voice. yes, it was mr. harrod. i had missed the st. bernard when i had been coming out, and had wondered where he had gone, for i had wanted him for a companion--luck, the sheep-dog being out with reuben. i wondered how it was that mr. harrod could have taken him. i sat quite still among the rushes, where i had been looking for the birds'-nests. i did not want to be seen, and, as far as i remembered, there was no plank over the dike just here. but there was some one who knew the marsh better than i did. it was the dog. as soon as he got opposite to where i was, he began barking loudly, and then he ran back some hundred yards and stood still, barking and wagging his tail, and as plainly as possible inviting his companion to follow him. mr. harrod must have loved dogs almost as much as i did, for he actually turned back, and when he came to where taff stood he laughed. there was evidently a plank there, and i suppose he must have guessed that he was expected for some reason to cross over. he did so, and taff followed. the dog tore along the path to me, and mr. harrod followed slowly. he did not seem at all surprised to see me. he came towards me with a book in his hand. "i think you must have dropped this," he said, handing it to me. "we found it just down yonder." he said "we." it must have been the sagacity of that wretched dog which had betrayed me, for there was no name in the book. i took it reluctantly; i was rather ashamed of my love of reading. girls in the country were not supposed usually to be fond of reading. if it hadn't been for those good old-fashioned novels in father's library, mother would have considered the bible, and as much news as was needed not to make one appear a fool, as much literature as any woman required. a love of reading might be considered an affectation in me, and there was nothing of which i had such a wholesome horror as affectation. i took the book in silence--my manners did not mend--and stooped down to pat the dog. i wanted to move away, but i didn't quite know how to do it. taffy wagged his tail as if he hadn't seen me for weeks. foolish beast! if he was so fond of me, why did he go after strangers so easily? "taff knows the marsh," said i, for the sake of saying something. "famously," said mr. harrod. "he shows me the way everywhere. we are the best of friends." i frowned. was it an apology for having taken my dog? "taff will follow any one," i said, roughly. it was not true, for taff had never been known to follow any one before; and even as i said it, i wondered if mr. harrod were one of those whom "the beasts love," but he took no notice of my rudeness. "what have you got there?" asked he, looking into my basket. "plovers' eggs," answered i. "there are lots on the marsh nearer the beach." "lapwings' eggs," corrected he, taking one in his hand. "oh no! plovers' eggs," insisted i. "they are sold as plovers' eggs in the shops in town as well as here." "yes," smiled he. "they are sold as plovers' eggs all over the london market also, but the lapwing--or the pewit, as you call it--lays them for all that. it is a bird of the plover family, but it should not properly be called a plover." i bit my lip. "of course those are not all plovers' eggs," said i, taking up one of a creamy color spotted with brown, which was quite different to the gray ones mottled with black, that seemed to have been designed to escape detection on the gray beach, where they are generally found. "this is a dabchick's egg." "i see you know more about birds than most young ladies do," said mr. harrod; "but i should call that a moor-hen's egg. and as for the gray plover, it is a migratory bird; it does not breed in england." i suppose i still looked unconvinced, for he added, pleasantly, "come, i'll bet you anything you like; and if we can be lucky enough to find a bird on the eggs, i'll prove it you now." he turned round and began walking slowly along the bank of the dike, close to the water's edge. i gave taff a friendly cuff to keep him quiet, for he was rather excitable, and it was necessary that we should be very wary if we wanted to surprise the bird sitting. mr. harrod crept cautiously along, and i followed; i was as anxious now as he was, and by this simple means i was entrapped into a walk with my sworn enemy. a brown bird with a long bill got up among the reeds, and flew in a halting manner down to the water. it was a water-rail, and mr. harrod said so--for these birds are rarer upon the dike than the moor-hens and pewits, of which there are a great number, and i suppose he imagined i would not know it. something moved in the growing rushes at our feet; but it was only a couple of black moor-hens, who took to their heels, so to speak, with great velocity, and made little flights in the air with their legs hanging down and their bodies very perpendicular. we stood and laughed at them a minute, they were so very absurd out of their proper element; but when they took to the water they were pretty enough, the little red shields standing out upon their black foreheads as they jerked their heads in swimming. i came upon a mother moor-hen presently tending her little brood; the large flat nest, built of dried rushes, lay in the overhanging branches of a willow-shrub, and she stood on the bank hard by. she did not fly or run away as other birds do when frightened, but stood there croaking as if in anger, and fluttering anxiously round the place where the six little balls of black down showed their red heads above the edge of the nest. i held taff by the collar, to prevent his doing any mischief, and we left the poor faithful mother undisturbed. we had not found any plovers' eggs since we had begun to look. they are always hard to find, being laid upon the open ground, sometimes on the very beach, where they almost look like little pebbles themselves, and sometimes in furrows and clefts of the earth, but always without any nest to mark the place. i suppose i had pretty well scoured this particular reach. about a hundred yards farther on, however, the strange cry that distinguishes the bird we sought fell upon our ears; a cock lapwing flew up, his long feathery crest erect, and tumbled over and over in the air in the manner peculiar to his kind, uttering all the while the plaintive "cheep, cheep" that means distress and anxiety. mr. harrod held out a warning hand behind him as he crept forward gently on tiptoe, and i was obliged to be silent, although i was particularly anxious to speak. presently he beckoned to me to advance, and as i did so i saw the hen-bird running along the bank as close to the ground as possible, while in a furrow close by my feet lay the pretty, gray-spotted eggs that we were looking for. mr. harrod turned and looked at me with a little smile, which i chose to think was one of triumph. "that proves nothing," said i. "i call that bird a plover, a green plover. i can't help it if you call it something else. of course, i know there's another sort of plover; the golden plover, but no one could confuse the two, for this one has got a crest on its head which it lifts up and down when it likes." "oh, i beg your pardon," answered he. "i see you know all about it. it's only a confusion of terms." i flushed and stooped down to pick up the eggs. "no, don't," said he; "let the poor thing have them. you will see, she will fly back as soon as we have gone away." we stepped back into the path, and surely, in a moment, the two parents met in the air, tumbling over together, and still uttering their plaintive cry. then presently the hen-bird floated down again and returned to her patient duty; and soon her mate followed her also, and both were hidden among the rushes. i turned round with a little laugh. i had thought i was annoyed; but the fact is, i was too happy to be annoyed. the panoply of a tender gray sky, fashioned of many and many soft clouds, floating over and past one another, and lightening a little where the sun should have been, was spread over the placid ground; the sea was gray, too, beyond the flats, melting into the gray sky, the white headland in the distance, and the gray towers along the shore seemed very near and distinct; sheep wandered up and down the banks of the dike, cropping steadily; the air was soft and kindly. my heart beat with a sense of satisfaction that was unlike anything i had ever felt before; and yet many was the time that i had been out on the marsh on just such a soft day, among the birds and the beasts whom i loved. "listen," said i, presently, breaking the pleasant silence, as a loud, screaming bird's note, by no means beautiful, but full of delightful associations, came across the marsh. "the swifts are beginning to sing; that means summer indeed." a little company of the lovely black birds came towards us, flying wildly in circles above the dike, sipping the water as they skimmed its surface, and then away again over the meadows. "i wonder how it is that they are so black and glossy when they come over to us, and so gray and dingy when they go away?" said i. "have you noticed that as a fact?" asked he. "oh yes," i replied; and i am sure that i was very proud to be able to say so. "they come for may-day, looking as smart as possible; and they don't look at all the better for their seaside season when they leave at the end of august." "i expect they moult in those other countries to which they go when they leave us. but i haven't noticed very many swifts about here, anyhow. perhaps the country is too wild for them." "well, we have plenty of swallows," said i, "and martins too. and i don't know why swifts should be so much more particular than the rest of their family. but i have a standing disagreement upon that point with our old servant reuben. he swears that there are only eight pairs of swifts in the village, and that the same birds come back every year to the same place." "that sounds rather incredible," said mr. harrod. "so i say," rejoined i. "but he insists that he has counted the pairs, and that they are always the same number. and as, of course, there must be a pair of young to every pair of old birds when they leave us, he argues that the parent birds refuse to allow the young ones to inhabit the same place when they return. reuben is as positive about it as possible," added i, laughing. "these swifts live under the eaves of the old church; and i do believe he greets them as old friends every year." "i shouldn't venture to say that he was mistaken," said mr. harrod. "so many curious things happen among beasts and birds, and swifts are particularly amusing creatures. reuben appears to be quite a naturalist." i had quite forgotten my self-imposed attitude of defiance in the keen interest of this talk; but something in the tone of this remark roused it afresh. "if that means some one who knows about birds and things, yes--he is," answered i, with a shake of my head--a foolish habit which i know i had when i wanted to be emphatic. "probably a much better naturalist than people who learn only from books. he taught me all i know," added i, proudly, and not for a moment perceiving the construction that might be put upon this remark. "i used to be out here with him whole days when i was a child, and we both of us got into no end of scrapes for 'doing what we ought not to do, and leaving undone what we had to do.' oh, but it was fun!" added i, with a sigh. my companion laughed. "delightful, i am sure," said he; "and it did you a great deal more good than sticking to books, i'll be bound." he looked at me straight as he said this, as though he were taking my measure. "i did stick to my books, too," cried i, quickly, anxious that he should not think me an ignoramus. "mother was always very particular about that." "yes, yes, of course," said he. and then he added, with what i fancied was a twinkle of fun in his eye, "'the fair maid of perth' is not every young lady's choice." i blushed. perhaps, after all, he did not think me ridiculous for reading novels. i was half angry, half ashamed, but it never occurred to me to wonder why i should care what this new acquaintance said or thought. "we didn't read novels in lesson-time," said i, stiffly; "we didn't read many novels at all. father and mother don't hold with novels for girls, and mother don't hold with poetry either, but father likes milton and shakespeare." "i dare say they are quite right," said my companion. "but you are not of the same mind i suppose?" "no," answered i, boldly, determined to be honest. "i think sir walter scott's novels are lovely; and i like poetry--all that i can understand." mr. harrod laughed. "i don't think i should have been willing to admit there was anything i couldn't understand when i was your age," he said. i looked at him surprised. he talked as though he were ever so much older than i was, although he did not look more than six or seven and twenty. i forgot that even then there would be years between us. i always was forgetting that i was scarcely more than a child. "i think that would be silly," said i, loftily. i forgot another thing, and that was that i had shown mr. harrod pretty constantly since he had been at the grange, that i was not fond of admitting there was anything i could not understand, and that if there were any shrewdness in him, he must have set it down by this time as a special trait in me. "well, anyhow you understand the 'fair maid of perth,'" added he. "yes," answered i. "the heroine is like my sister, beautiful, and dreadfully good." i was ashamed directly i had said it: praising one's sister was almost like praising one's self. "indeed," said he; "that's not a fault from which most of us suffer, but then very few of us have people at hand ready and generous enough to sing our praises." i might have taken the speech as a compliment, i suppose, but it seemed so natural to praise joyce that i confess it rather puzzled me. "you must miss your sister," added mr. harrod. "of course i do," cried i, warmly. "luckily she isn't going to be away for long, or i don't know what mother would do. she's mother's right hand in the house. i'm no use in-doors." "you always seem to me to be very busy," said harrod. "oh no," insisted i; "it was father i used to help." "don't you help him now?" asked he. "no," i answered, shortly; and as i spoke the recollection of my grievance swept over me, and brought the tears very close, "he doesn't need me." mr. harrod did not say a word, he did not even look at me, and i was grateful to him for that; but i was sure that he had understood, and i grew more sore than ever, knowing that i had let him guess at my sore place. we walked on in silence. "i used to love the waverley novels when i was a lad," said he, changing the subject kindly. "don't you now?" asked i. "i dare say i should if i read them, but i have to read stiffer books now--when i read at all." "books on agriculture! i suppose," said i, scornfully; "but father says a little practical knowledge is worth all the books in the world." it did not strike me at the moment how very rude this speech was; but mr. harrod smiled. "your father is quite right, miss maliphant," said he. "books are of little use till tested by practical knowledge; but after all, if they are good books, they were written from practical knowledge, you know, and perhaps it would take one a lifetime to reap the individual knowledge of all that they have swept together." "i only know what father said," repeated i, half sullenly. "perhaps you don't remember it all," said he. "i think your father would agree with me this time; he is a very wise man, and i fancy i have stated the case pretty fairly." "i should think he _was_ a wise man!" i exclaimed, and i think my pride was pardonable this time. "all the country-side knows that." "i know it," he answered. "one can't go into a cottage without hearing him spoken of with love and reverence." "yes; i never saw any one so sorry for people as father is," answered i. "i'm frightened of people who are ill and unhappy; but father--he wants to help them--well, just as i wanted to help the beasts and birds," i ended up with a laugh. as i spoke the curious twittering note of the female cuckoo sounded in one of the trees upon the cliff, and immediately from four different quarters, one after the other, the reply came in the two distinct notes of the male bird. i stood still upon the path, and looked about me. the sound, and perhaps partly what i had just said, reminded me of one of the objects of my walk. "i declare i had almost forgotten," i cried, and without another word of explanation i dashed up the bank of the cliff, taff following. mr. harrod stood below on the path. a few minutes more were enough to enable me to find the bush, which i had marked with a bit of the braid off my cloak on that memorable evening a few nights ago. the lark's nest was still there. the cruel little cuckoo sat in it alone, while hovering in the air, close at hand, was the foolish mother waiting, with a dainty morsel in her beak, till i should be gone, and she could safely feed the vicious little interloper who had destroyed her own brood. the bodies of the little titlarks lay upon the bank. i jumped down to the path again and told mr. harrod the tale. "i wish i had put the cuckoo out," i said. "i hate cuckoos--all the more because every one admires them." and i remember that all the way home i kept reverting to that distressing little piece of bird-tragedy. we returned by the sea-shore. it was a longer way, but i declared that i must have a sight of the ocean on this soft, calm day. and soft it was, and calm and gray and mild. the sun was setting, but there was no sunset. only behind the village on the hill the clouds lifted a little towards the horizon, and left a line of whiter light, against which the trees and houses detached themselves vividly; the marsh was uniform and sober. when we had climbed the steep road and were at the grange gates, mr. harrod held out his hand and said, as he bade me good-night, "i don't see why you shouldn't be of just as much use to your father as ever you were, miss maliphant. please be very sure that no one ever would or ever could replace you to your father." he spoke as though it were not altogether easy for him to do so; but there was a ring of honest kindliness in his voice that left me mute and almost ashamed. he held my hand a moment in his strong grip, but he did not look at me; and then he turned and almost fled down the road, as if he, too, were almost ashamed of what he had said. and i had not answered a word. i stood there surprised, perplexed, and even a little frightened, surrounded by new and curious emotions, which i did not even try to unravel. chapter xvii. i do not suppose that i had the dimmest notion at the time that this man, whom i considered my foe, had sprung surely, and as soon as i saw him, into that mysterious blank space that exists in every woman's imagination, waiting to be filled by the figure that shall henceforth bound her horizon. i do not suppose that i guessed at my real feelings for a moment. if i had done so, i am sure that it would only have aggravated my hostile attitude, whereas my first most unreasonable mood was beginning slowly to lapse into one of friendly interest, and of eager desire to be of use. it is poor sport keeping up an attitude of defiance towards a person who is entirely unconscious of one's intention; and whether mr. harrod was really unconscious of my intention or not, he certainly acted as if he were, and was, as far as his reserved nature would allow, so friendly towards me, that i could not choose but be friendly towards him in return. anyhow, it is true that ere three weeks had passed, that began to happen which joyce had so anxiously desired: mr. harrod and i began to make friends over our common interests. a certain amount of defiance had begun to be transferred in me from him, whose coming i had so bitterly resented, to those who shared that resentment of mine. reuben was still sadly refractory. luckily he was not much among the men; but where there's a will there's a way; and i'm afraid he had influence enough to do no good. and deborah troubled me more. although mother was for the bailiff, because he was the squire's friend, and also because, i think, she was really far more anxious about father's health than she allowed us to guess, and wanted him to be saved work--deborah had not really allowed herself to be convinced as she generally was. she was not unreasonable; she was too clever to be unreasonable, and she loved us all too dearly to resent any step which she chose to believe was for the good of any of us. but i am sure she never believed that this step was for the good of any of us. from beginning to end she never liked trayton harrod. and what specially annoyed me about her at this time was that she pretended to be trying to make me like him; and as i innocently began to change my own feelings, so i naturally began to resent this attitude in her. on the very afternoon of which i am thinking, i resented deborah's attitude. i had been in the kitchen making cakes (when joyce was away it was i who had to make the cakes), and deborah had taken advantage of the opportunity to follow up the line already begun by my sister, and to beg me, for father's sake, to forget my grievance and to be gracious to the young bailiff. as may be imagined, deborah did not consider that she was bound to show any consideration in the matter of what she said to us girls. "i know it comes hard on you, my dear," said she. "there's lots of little jobs you used to do afore, and no doubt did just as well, that'll be this young man's place to do now, and he won't notice whether you mind it or no. 'tain't likely. but so long as he don't interfere with what we've got to do, we'll mind our own business and never give him a thought. you see, child, it's your father has got to say whether the young man's a-helping or a-hindering. maybe he'll find out these chaps, that have learned it all on book and paper, don't know the top from the bottom any better nor he do himself. but that's for them to settle atween 'em, and it's none of our lookout." i don't know why this speech should specially have irritated me, but it did. even if i had begun to guess that i was growing to like mr. harrod better than i had intended to like him, i certainly should not have been glad that any one else should guess it. but the fact is that i believe i had lived the last fortnight without any thought, and that this speech of deborah's roused me to an investigation of my feelings which was annoying to me. "i have no intention at all of being rude, deb," exclaimed i. "i leave that to you. i don't think it's lady-like to be rude." deb laughed. "oh, come now, none of your hoighty-toightyness!" exclaimed she. "who carried on up-stairs and down when first squire talked about a bailiff to master at all? i haven't nursed you when you were a baby not to know when you're in a bad temper. it's plain enough, my dear." "i know i have a bad temper," said i; "but i don't see that that has anything to do with the matter." i suppose something in the way i said it must have touched old deb, who had a soft heart for all her rough ways, for she said in her topsy-turvy way: "well, there--no more i don't see that it has. all i mean is that if you let him alone he'll let you alone, and no harm done. you'll have the more time for your books and for looking after your clothes a bit. you know i've often told you you'll never get a beau so long as you go about gypsying as you do." "deborah, how dare you!" cried i, angrily. "you know very well that--" "that i wouldn't have a lover for anything in the world," i was going to say, and deeply perjure myself; but at that very moment mother opened the door and looked into the kitchen. she had her spectacles still on her nose, and an open letter in her hand. "margaret, i want you," said she, shortly, "in the parlor." "i can't come just now, mother," answered i. "the cakes will burn." "deborah will see to the cakes," said mother, and i knew by her tone of voice that i must do as she bade me. "i want you at once." i knew what it was about. two days ago i had had a letter from joyce. it gave me no news; she had got on with her tapestry; she had trimmed herself a new bonnet; aunt naomi's rheumatism was no better; she hoped that father's gout had not returned--no news until the very end. then she said she had been to the royal academy of pictures in london, with an old lady who lived close to aunt naomi, and that she had there met captain forrester. certainly this was a big enough piece of news to suffice for one letter. but why had joyce put it at the very end? and why did she hurry it over as quickly as possible, making no sort or kind of comment upon it? it was another of the things about joyce that i could not make out. why was she not proud of her engagement? why did she never care to speak of it? i thought that if i were engaged to a man whom i loved i should be very proud of it, whereas she always seemed anxious to avoid the subject. of course it was horrible to be parted from him, but then it should lighten her burden to speak of it to some one who sympathized with her as i did. but i knew well enough why it was. it all came from that overstrained notion of duty. she had promised mother that she would not see frank, and would not write to frank, and would not speak of frank, and she kept so strictly to the letter of this promise that she would not speak of him even to me. when first i had read joyce's letter i had been angry with her for a cold-hearted girl, but now i was not angry with her. i admired her, but i made up my mind that her passion for self-sacrifice should not wreck her life's happiness if i could prevent it. face to face it was difficult to scold joyce. there was a kind of gentle obstinacy about her which took one unawares, and was very hard to deal with. but in a letter i could speak my mind, and i would speak my mind--not only to her, but, what was far more difficult, to mother also. so that when mother put her head in at the kitchen door and summoned me to the parlor, i guessed what it was about, and i knew pretty well what i was going to say. she put the letter into my hand and sat down, looking up at me over her spectacles as i read it, with her clear blue eyes intent and a little frown on her white brow. it was from aunt naomi, and it said that a young man named captain forrester had just been to call upon joyce; she thought she noticed a certain confusion on joyce's part during his presence, she therefore wrote at once to know whether his visits were sanctioned by her parents, as she did not wish to get into any trouble. oh, what a horrid old woman she was! "how could people be narrow-minded and selfish to such a point as that?" i said to myself. mother watched me, and deborah came into the room to lay the cloth. it was just curiosity that brought her. "it's a ridiculous letter," said i, roughly, throwing it down with an ill grace, and looking defiantly, not at mother, but at the old woman, who regarded me with reproving eyes. "why in the world shouldn't joyce receive a visit from a gentleman--still more from the man she's going to marry?" "she's not going to marry him, at least not with my free consent," said mother, putting her lips together in a set curve that i knew. "well, then, of course it will be a great pity, but i suppose it will have to be without your consent," said i, rashly. "well, i'm sure!" ejaculated deborah, under her breath, and looking at me with something like remonstrance. mother rose with dignity, and turning to the table she said, "deborah, would you be so kind as to fetch in the cold ham?" of course deborah knew that she was being sent out of the room that i might have a piece of mother's mind, and my own was a struggle between pleasure that deborah should for once be set down, and anger that she should know the reason of her dismissal. she stayed a moment, setting the forks round the table to a nicety of precision; then, as she passed out of the room she gave me a friendly nudge, and looked at me a moment with a sort of humorous kindliness in her shrewd gray eyes. mother took up the letter again. "do you know how captain forrester knew where joyce was staying?" asked she. "no, how should i know?" answered i. "joyce told me that she had met him accidentally at the royal academy. i suppose he found out where she was. where there's a will there's a way." "but he undertook not to try and see her," remarked mother, severely. "his conduct is dishonorable." "well, you might make some allowances," cried i. "it shows he loves her; it shows she will be happy with him. and look here, mother," added i, in a sudden frenzy of frankness, "i believe that if i were to get the chance of doing anything to help to bring them together, i should do it." mother looked at me fixedly. "no, you wouldn't," said she at last. "you're headstrong and mistaken, but you're honest. you've taken your word you wouldn't interfere nor mention the matter to any one for a year, and you'll keep your word." i knew very well that she was right, but i said boldly, "joyce is my sister, i love her, i want her to be happy, and i shall do what i can to make her so." still mother looked at me. "you forget that i want joyce to be happy too," said she. "if she is your sister she is also my daughter." there was a tremble in her voice, whether of anger or distress, i did not know. "of course i know very well that you care about her and her happiness," said i; "but perhaps you don't see what is best for it. how can old people, whose youth is past ever so long ago, remember how young people feel? they can't know what young folk need to be happy as well as others of their own age can." "maybe they can look ahead a bit better, though," said mother, without deigning to argue with me. "be that as it may, i don't think i'll ask you to teach me what's best for my children's happiness. i may be all wrong, of course, but i mean to try and have my own way as long as i can, though i know very well we can't expect the duty and reverence we used to pay our parents when i was your age." i felt that the rebuke was deserved, and i was silent. "at all events, it's no business of yours," continued mother. "if the thing has got to be fought out, i would rather fight it out with joyce herself. if she insists upon marrying the young man, i suppose she can do so. she is of age." i did not answer her, but i laughed. the idea of joyce insisting upon doing anything was too ridiculous. and, of course, mother knew this quite well, so that it was not quite fair of her. having once begun to laugh, the spell of my ill-humor was, however, broken, and it was in a very different tone of voice that i said, "come, mother, you know very well that sister is far too gentle, and loves you far too much, ever to do anything against your wish, so that's ridiculous, isn't it?" mother smiled. "yes, yes, she's a good girl," she said. "you are both of you good children, but you mustn't be so self-sufficient and headstrong." "well, i suppose i am headstrong," said i; "i'm sorry for it. but joyce isn't. i do think she ought to be put upon less than folk who are. i believe if nobody fought joyce's battles she'd let herself be wiped right out." and sure enough, by the afternoon post there came a letter from joyce which satisfied mother more than it did me. it explained that captain forrester had come to sydenham uninvited and unwelcome; and it begged mother to believe that he would never come again. chapter xviii. thursday was the day for making the butter, and one thursday in the beginning of june of the year i am recording, i walked along the flag-stones of the court-yard towards the dairy, that stood somewhat detached from the house. i hummed softly to myself as i went; i was happy. i could not have told why i was happy--for joyce was away, and i should have been lonely. but the june was fair and pleasant, and i was young and strong. mother had a special pride in her dairy. the broad, low pans stood in their order on the dressers along the white-tiled walls, each of the four "meals" in its place; the household cream set apart, and other clean pans ready for the fresh setting. the warm summer breeze came through the trellised shutters, that let the air in day and night, and through the open door, around which the midsummer roses clustered thickly and the honeysuckle twined its sweet tendrils. beyond the door one could see the square of grass-plot, with the wide border running round it, in which old-fashioned flowers stood up against the brick wall; and over the wall one could see just a little strip of marsh and sea in the distance. mother had not come in yet; but reuben had churned before daybreak, and now deborah stood lifting the butter out of the churn ready for the washing and pressing. "have you seen reuben anywheres about?" said she, sharply, as i came in. i knew by her voice that she was annoyed. "yes," said i; "i've just left him. do you want him?" "i want a few fagots for my kitchen fire; but nowadays there's no getting no one to do nothing," answered she. "reuben was never much for brains, but he used to be handy; but now--if there's nothing, there's always something for reuben to do." "dear me! how's that?" asked i. deborah was silent. she had said already far more than was her wont--for deborah was not one to talk, and generally kept her grievances to herself. "the butter'll want a deal o' pressing and washing this morning," said she. "the weather's sultry, and it hasn't come clean." i was turning up my sleeves. "dear me! then it'll take a long time?" said i. i hated washing the butter; it was dull work. "sure enough it will," laughed deborah, grimly. "what do you want to be doing? you haven't half the heart in the work that your sister has!" "ah no," i agreed. "i'm not so clever at it as joyce is." "you can be clever enough when you choose," said the old woman, sagely. "i dare say you could be clever enough teaching this mr. harrod his way about the farm if you were wanted to." i looked up quickly. i think i blushed. why did deb say that? but why should i blush because she had said it? "indeed, i shouldn't think of trying to teach mr. harrod anything," said i, trying to laugh. "what! has he turned out sharp enough to please you after all?" asked she, with that peculiar snort which it was her fashion to give when she wanted to be disagreeable. "i thought you were of a mind that nobody could be clever enough over this precious farm, unless you was to show them how." "fiddlesticks!" said i. it was very annoying of deborah to want to put me in a bad temper when i had come in in such a good one. "have you seen your father?" asked she, presently. "no," replied i. "does he want me?" "he was asking for you. wanted you to go up and show this young chap the field where he wants the turnips put." the bailiff again. what was the matter with deborah, that she could not leave me and him alone? "mr. harrod knows his way about the country quite well enough by this time to find it for himself," i said. i did not look at deborah, but i knew very well that her face wore a kind of expression of defiant mischief with which i was familiar. "i'm sorry you're still set again the poor young man," said she, provokingly. but there was a very different ring in her voice when she spoke again in a few minutes, and when i looked up i saw that an unwonted gentleness had overspread her hard, rough features. "if you haven't seen your father since breakfast," she added, "maybe you don't know as he's had another o' them queer starts at his heart." "no. what kind of thing?" asked i, frightened. "oh, you know; same as he had in the winter, only not so bad. there, you needn't be terrified," added she; "it's nothing bad much--only lasted a minute or two. he called and asked me for a glass of water, and i fetched the missis. he was better afore she came. but it's my belief he's neither so young nor so well as he was." this was evident; but neither deb nor i saw the joke--we were too serious. "and it's my belief he's fretting over something, margaret," added she, gravely. "so if this here new chap saves him any bother, i suppose folk should need be pleased." i wondered whether deborah meant this as an excuse for my being pleased, or as a rebuke for my not being pleased. i think now that she meant it as neither, but rather as a rebuke to herself. i took it to heart, however, and the tears rushed to my eyes. had i been really anxious to save father all possible worry over this innovation? had i done all i could to help mr. harrod settle down in his place? i was not sure. i thought i would do more, and yet i thought i would not do more. oh, margaret, margaret! were you quite honest with yourself at that time? i took up a fresh lump of butter and began washing it blindly. "come, come, you're not going the right way about it! you'll never get the milk out that way!" cried deborah, coming up to me. "no, no--i know," answered i, impatiently; and then, incoherently, "but, oh dear me! what is the right way?" deborah laughed, but gently enough. she was a clever old woman, and she knew that i was not alluding to the butter. "well, i don't rightly know myself," said she, without looking at me. "what you thinks the right way, most times turns out to be the wrong way; and when you make folk turn to the right when they was minded to turn to the left, it's most like the left would ha' been the best way for them to travel after all. i've done advisin' long ago; for it's a queer tract of country here below, and every one has to take their own chance in the long-run." this speech of deb's had given me time to choke down my ridiculous tears and put on my usual face again; for i should indeed have been ashamed to be caught crying when there was nothing in the world to cry about; and just as she finished speaking, mother's figure came past the window, walking slowly, squire broderick at her side. "oh dear me! whatever does squire want at this time o' day?" cried i, impatiently. "he shouldn't need to come so often, now joyce is away." deborah looked at me warningly. the latticed shutters, although they looked closed, let in every sound; and indeed i don't know what possessed me to make the speech, for i had no dislike to the squire. i suppose i was still a little ruffled. "you might keep a civil tongue in your head?" grumbled deborah, angrily. the squire was, i have said, a great favorite with the old woman, who was, so to speak, on the tory side of the camp, although she would have been puzzled to explain the meaning of the word. mother was talking to the squire in her most doleful voice--a voice that she could produce at times, although she was certainly not by nature a doleful woman. "it has upset me very much," she was saying, and i knew she was alluding to father's indisposition. "he says it is only rheumatics, and i hope it is; but it makes me uneasy. he's not the man he was, and i can't help fancying at times that he has something on his mind that worries him." the very same words that deborah had used; but what father should have specially to worry him i could not see. "he gives too much thought to these high-flown notions of his, mrs. maliphant, that's what it is," answered the squire, testily. "it's enough to turn any man's brain." "oh, i don't think it's that. i think it cheers him up to think of the misery of the working-classes," declared mother, simply, without any notion of the contradiction of her speech. "i'm sure he's quite happy when he gets a letter from your nephew about the meetings over this children's institution. it's a notion of his own, you see, and he's pleased with it, as we all are with what we have fancied out. not but what i do say it is a beautiful notion," added mother, loyally. "i pity the poor little things myself; no one more." this was true. it was the only one of father's "wild notions" that mother had any touch of. i noticed that the squire had frowned at the mention of frank's name. he always did; i thought i knew why. "yes; that's all very fine, ma'am," he said, "but the trouble is that it won't make his crops grow. no; and paying his laborers half as much again as anybody else won't make his farm pay." mother looked at the squire anxiously. "do you think the farm doesn't pay?" asked she. "do you suppose it's that as is making laban fidgety?" "how should i know, my dear lady?" answered the squire, in the same irritable way--he was very irritable this morning--"maliphant knows his own affairs." mother was silent. "well, i hope this young fellow is going to do a deal o' good to the farm, and to my husband too," added she, cheerfully. "i look to a great deal from him, and i can't be grateful enough to you, squire broderick, for having settled the matter for us. he's a plain-speaking, sensible young man, and i like him very much." "yes, harrod is a thorough good-fellow," answered the squire, warmly. "he _is_ plain-speaking, too much so to his elders sometimes; but it's because he has got his whole heart in his work. he cares for nothing else, and you can't say that of every man that works for another man's money." they had stopped outside the window, and had stood still there, talking all this while. i suppose mother forgot that deb and i were bound to be inside doing our business, and that the lattice was open. "i like him very much," continued she; "but i don't think laban fancies him much, nor yet margaret. margaret set her face against his coming from the first, you see. it was natural, i dare say. she had been used to do a good bit for her father; and when margaret sets her face against anything--well, you can't lead her, it's driving then. it's just the same when she wants a thing. you may drive and drive, but you won't drive her away from that spot. it's very hard to know how to manage a nature like that, mr. broderick, especially when you've been used to a girl that's as gentle as joyce is. but there, they both have their goods and their ills. far be it from their mother to deny that." squire broderick laughed, and then mother laughed too, and they both came forward round the corner and in at the door. mother started a little when she saw me, and the squire smiled curiously. but i did not smile; i was boiling over with anger. "why, deborah, you have set to work early," said mother, without looking at me. "why didn't you call me?" "i didn't know as there was any need to call," answered deborah, roughly, and i believe in my heart that she was the more rough because she didn't like mother's speech about me. "you've your work to do, ma'am, and i've mine. i supposed as you'd come when you wanted to, but that was no reason why margaret and i should wait about, twirling our thumbs." mother did not reply. i felt the squire's gaze still upon me, and i looked up and gave him a bold, angry glance. i am sure that my eyes must have flashed, and i think that my lips were set in the hard lines that mother used to tell me made me look so ugly. i hated the squire to look at me, and he seemed to guess it, for he turned away at once, and afterwards i remembered how he had done it, and that somehow his face had looked almost tender. but mother did not seem to care a bit that i should have overheard what she said; she began turning up the skirt of her soft gray gown, and rolling up her sleeves. mother always wore gray when she did not wear the old black satin brocade that had belonged to her own mother, and which only came out on high-days and holidays. she had said she would never put on colors again when our little brother died many years ago; and i am glad she never did, for i should not like to remember her in anything but the soft tones that became her so well. black, gray or white--she never wore anything else. "the dairy is not what it is when joyce is at home," said she, deprecatingly, to the squire. "well, to be sure, ma'am, i don't see what's amiss with it," declared deborah. "it's hard as them as go away idling should be put above them as stay at home and work." i looked at deborah in surprise. she was not wont to set joyce down. "why, the place looks as if you could eat off the floor. what more do you want, mrs. maliphant?" laughed the squire, coming up and standing beside me. "and i'm sure nobody could make up a pat better than miss margaret." "margaret has been more used to out-door work," said mother, at which deb gave one of her snorts, i did not know why, except out of pure contradiction, for she had blamed my butter-making herself five minutes before. "you seem to have plenty of cream," said the squire, walking round. "yes," answered mother; "our cows are doing well now, though daisy will give richer cream to her pail than all the rest put together." then she added, without looking at me, "margaret, you need not do any more just now. your father was asking for you. go to him, and come back when he has done with you." i wiped my arms silently, and turned down my sleeves. i had not said a single word since she had come in. she looked at me, but i would not return her glance. i was a wrong-headed, foolish girl, and when i thought that mother had been unjust to me i tried to make her suffer for it. i walked straight out of the dairy without a word to any one, and it was not till i was outside that i saw that the squire had followed me. he was talking to me, so i had to listen him. "yes," i said, vaguely, in answer to him--for of course the remark, although i had not entirely caught it, had been about my sister, "yes, joyce is very well; but she is not coming back just yet. i don't want her to come back just yet. i think it's so good for her to be away. when she is at home, mother wants her every minute. it isn't always to do something, but it's always to be there. and joyce is good. she always seems pleased to have no free life of her own. but she can't really _be_ pleased. _i_ couldn't. anyhow, it can't be good for her to be so dreadfully unselfish; do you think so?" in my eagerness i was actually taking the squire into my confidence. he smiled. "miss joyce always appeared to me to be very contented, doing the things about the house that your mother wished," said he. "you mustn't judge every one by yourself. people generally try to get something of what they want, i fancy. your sister isn't so independent as you are." "no," agreed i, gloomily, "she isn't. she's what folk call more womanly. i never was intended for a woman. father always says i ought to have been a boy." "i don't think women are all unwomanly because they're independent," said the squire. and then he added, in a lower voice, "i don't think you're unwomanly." we had come round by the lawn, and we stood there a moment before the porch. the bees were busy among the summer flowers, and the scent of roses and mignonette, of sweet-peas and heliotrope, was heavy upon the air. the sun streamed down on our heads and upon the green marsh beneath the cliff and upon the sea in the distance. it was a bright, hot, june day. i was just going in-doors, when the squire laid his hand on my arm. "wait a minute, miss margaret, i want to say something to you," he said. i looked at him, surprised. was he going to ask me to intercede with joyce for him? if so, he had come very decidedly to the wrong person. but something in his face made me look away. "i won't keep you long," said he. and then he paused, while i waited with my face turned aside. "i don't think you'll take what i'm going to say amiss, miss margaret," he went on at last. "i've known you such a long time--ever since you were a little girl--that i don't feel as though i were taking a liberty, as i should if you were a stranger. i don't suppose you remember how i used to help you scramble out of the dikes when you got a ducking on the marsh after the rainfalls, and how i used to take you into the house-keeper's room at the manor to have your frock dried, so that you should not get into a scrape? but _i_ remember it very well, and the cakes that you used to love with the blackberry jam in them, and the rides that you used to have on my back after the school feasts." he paused a moment, as though for an answer. i gave him none, but i remembered all that he alluded to very well. "you don't mind my speaking, do you?" repeated he again. "oh no, i don't mind," answered i, with a little laugh. "having known you like that all your life, i care for you so much," continued he, "that i can't bear to see you doing yourself an injustice." i looked at him now straight. i felt annoyed, after all, at what i knew he was going to say. but the kindness and gentleness of his face disarmed me. "you mean that i don't behave well to my mother," said i, the flush of sudden vexation dying away from my face. "mother doesn't understand me. i can't always be of the same mind as she is. i don't see why people need always be of the same mind as their relations; but it doesn't follow that they're ungrateful and heartless, because they are not. i've heard mother say that she doesn't believe that i care any more for her than for any tramp upon the high-road; but that isn't true." the squire laughed. "no; of course it isn't true," said he, "and mrs. maliphant doesn't think it." "oh yes, i think she does sometimes," persisted i. "she would like me to be like joyce. but i shall never be like joyce!" "no," assented the squire, decidedly, "i don't think you ever will be. but it was not specially with reference to your mother that i was going to speak to you, although what i was going to say bears, i fancy, on what vexed her to-day." i bit my lip. was he going to refer to mr. harrod? he paused again. "your father is very much harassed and troubled, i fear, miss margaret," he said next. "i have noticed, with much grief of late, how sadly he seems to have aged." "do you think so?" said i. "i don't know what he should have to be harassed about." "the conduct of a farm is a very harassing thing: it takes all a man's thought and care. and even then it doesn't always pay," said the squire, gravely. i did not answer; i was puzzled. "your father is getting old," continued he, "and it is hard for a man, when he is old, to give as much attention to such things as in youth and strength." "i don't think he is so very old," i said, half vexed; "but perhaps he doesn't care so much about farming as some people do. perhaps he cares more about other things." "perhaps," said the squire, evasively. then starting off afresh, he added, quickly, "i had hoped that this new bailiff would have relieved him of some anxiety; but i am afraid there are inconveniences connected with his presence which, to a man of your father's temperament, are particularly galling." "well, i suppose it's natural that a man who has been his own master all his life should mind taking a younger one's advice," said i, pretty hotly this time. "of course it is," agreed the squire; "but all the same, the farm needs a younger man's head and a younger man's heart in it before it'll thrive as it ought. and now i'm coming to what i wanted to say, miss margaret. _you_ can do more than any one else to smooth over the difficulties. you must persuade your father to let harrod have his own way. he's a headstrong chap, i can see that; and he'll do nothing, he'll take no interest, if he's gainsaid at every step. nobody would. there are many kinds of modern improvements that are needed at knellestone. your father has always stood against them, because he fancied it wasn't fair to the laborers; but they'll have to come, and i know very well harrod won't stay here long and not get them. no man who is honest to his employer would. now, you must be go-between," he went on, still more earnestly, although speaking in a low voice. "you must get your father to see things reasonably, and you must be friendly to harrod: show him that you take an interest in his improvements, and persuade him that your father does also. so he will, when he sees how they work. i can see that a vast deal depends upon you, miss margaret. you're a clever girl; you can manage it--_if you will_." i turned my face farther aside than ever; in fact, i think i turned my back. i did not answer--i did not know what to answer. "and you _will_, i know," added he, in a persuasive voice. "i quite understand that it isn't pleasant to you at first, but it will become so when you see that _you_ can do a great deal to make things smooth when difficulties occur. i am sure it must be a great comfort to you to think of how much there still is in which you can help your father--quite as much as there used to be in the past, when you had it more your own way. no one else can help him as you can help him." "oh, i don't really think he wants help," said i--but rather by way of saying something than from conviction. "well, i think he wants more than you fancy," persisted the squire. "i would not for worlds cast a shadow over your young life, miss margaret," he went on, earnestly; "but i feel that it is the part of a true friend that i should, in a certain measure, do so. your mother is a tender helpmeet and an admirable nurse, i know; but there are other things needed for a man besides physic and poultices. the time may come when he may turn to you for some things, and i think you should make yourself ready for that time." he said no more. but after a few moments he held out his hand. "good-bye," said he. "whenever you want a friend, i don't need to tell you that you have got one at the manor." he was gone, and i had stood there with downcast head, and had answered never a word. i did not at the time understand all that he had said, nor what he had meant by his doubts and his fears, although in after-years his words came back to me very vividly, as did also other words of deborah's; but one thing was very clear to me even then, and that was that everybody--from joyce and deborah to mother and the squire--considered that i ought to make friends with the new bailiff, and that i had not yet done so sufficiently. chapter xix. from that time forth i gave myself up unreservedly to following the squire's advice. yes, i did not even shrink from any possible charge of inconsistency. deborah might laugh at me if she liked, reuben might look askance out of his stolid silence, mother might ponder; but i had been convinced; i knew what i had to do, and i would stand trayton harrod's friend. that was what i argued to myself. was i quite honest? at all events i was very happy. one morning--it must have been about a week after the squire's words to me--i had occasion to go out onto our cliff to plant out some cuttings that joyce had procured and sent me from london. reuben was in the orchard hard by, mowing the grass under the apple-trees. he did such work when hands were few. the orchard was only divided by a wall from the garden, and reuben and i kept up a brisk conversation across it. "i've heard say as mister harrod be for persuading master to have new sorts o' hops planted along the hill-side this year, miss," reuben was saying. "indeed," said i. "well, i suppose ours aren't a good sort, then." "that's for them as knows to say," replied the old man. "the lord have made growths for every part, and it's ill flyin' in the face of the lord." "well, mr. harrod knows," declared i. "nay, miss, he warn't born and bred hereabouts. but i says to him, 'you ask jack barnstaple,' says i. 'he knows,' says i." "you said that to mr. harrod, reuben!" i exclaimed. "yes, miss," he answered, "i did." "well, then, i think it was very rude of you, reuben. that's all i have to say." "nay, miss, i heard you say as how a stranger wouldn't be o' no good to master," grinned reuben. "they don't understand." "if i said that i made a great mistake," answered i, half angrily. "i think mr. harrod is a great deal of use." "well, miss, if he be agoing to have goldings planted in instead of early prolifics, he won't get no change out o' the ground, that's what i say. they won't thrive for nobody, and they won't do it to please him." reuben shouldered his scythe as he said the last words, and went off to a more distant part of the orchard, and i set to work at my planting. i knew pretty well by this time that it was worse than waste of time taking mr. harrod's side against reuben. i wondered what he would have thought if he could have heard me taking his side. but i don't think he thought much about having a "side." he was too eager about his work. i set to planting my cuttings busily--so busily that i did not hear steps on the gravel behind me, and looked up suddenly to see mr. harrod on the path beside me. he did not say anything, but stood a while watching me. at last i stood up, with the trowel in my hand, and my face, i do not doubt, very red and hot beneath my big print sun-bonnet. "did you meet reuben just now?" asked i, rather by way of saying something. "no," answered he; "i've come straight from your father's room. he wants you." "does he? well, i can't go this minute. i must finish this job. i've neglected it for a week. what does he want me for?" i kneeled down and began my work again. "he and i have been discussing a new scheme," said mr. harrod, without answering my question. "what, about co-operation, and children's schools and things?" cried i, with a smile. "is he going to press you into it too?" "oh no; about the farm," answered he. "his possessions in hops are very small, and there's a fine and unusual chance just turned up of making money. i want him to take on another small farm--specially for hops." "to take on another farm!" repeated i. "yes," said he; "but he doesn't take to it. i think he must have something else in his head. but the matter must be decided at once, for i hear there's another man after it." "where is it?" i asked, a secret glow of satisfaction at my heart to think he should come and tell me of this as he did. "it's 'the elms,'" he answered, "below the mill on the slope yonder." i stood up and stopped my gardening to show i took an interest in what he was saying. "i know 'the elms' well enough," i said, "but i didn't know it was to let." "yes," he replied. "old searle left his affairs in a dreadful mess when he died, and the executors have decided to sell the crops at a valuation, and let the place at once without waiting till the usual term." "dear me, what an odd thing!" said i. "i thought farms were never let excepting at michaelmas." "never is a long word," smiled mr. harrod. "it is unusual. but i suppose the executors don't care for the expense of putting in a bailiff till october. anyhow, they appear to want to realize at once; and it's a good chance for us." "it's all hop-gardens at 'the elms,' isn't it?' asked i. "yes, chief part." "it seems to me it must either be a very poor crop, or they must want a good price for it so late in the season," said i, not ill pleased with myself for what i considered the rare shrewdness of this remark. but mr. harrod smiled again. "the price will be the average of what the crops fetched during the past three years," said he. "that's law now. i should say about £ to the acre. leastways, that would be the price ready for picking, but there'll be a reduction at this time of year. that'll be a matter for private bargain." "yes," said i. "there'll be many a risk between now and picking." "of course," said the bailiff, half testily. "but it's just about the best-looking crop in these parts at the present time. they _will_ plant those early prolifics about here. i suppose it's because they can get them sooner into the market. but they're a poor hop. now, the plants at 'the elms' are all goldings or jones." "but they say the goldings will never thrive in our soil," said i. "_they_; who are _they_?" retorted harrod. "they know nothing about it." "no; i dare say you're right," i hastened to say. "only hops are always considered risky, aren't they?" "everything is risky," answered he, more gently. "but as i have an interest in selling the crop to advantage if it turns out well, i don't believe your father could go very far wrong over it." "well, if you think it would be such a safe speculation, of course father ought to be persuaded to go in for it," said i. "i really think so," answered harrod, confidently. "but perhaps he doesn't think he can afford the rent of it," suggested i, after a pause; "perhaps he hasn't the ready money." "i can scarcely believe that, miss maliphant. your father passes for a rich man in the county," answered he, with a smile. "no; he thinks the property is good enough as it has stood all these years; but, as a matter of fact, it would be a far more valuable one if it had better hop-gardens. hops are the staple produce of the county, and i am sorry to say he doesn't stand as well in that line as many of the farmers about; he wants some one to give him courage to make this venture. unluckily, he has not confidence enough in me, and squire broderick is away in london." "is the squire away?" asked i. "yes; i have just inquired, by your father's wish." "i'll go and talk to father," said i, with youthful self-confidence, gathering up my tools, and too happy in feeling that i was the supporter of the man who but a fortnight ago i had sworn to treat as an open enemy to be troubled by any misgivings. as i might have known, i did not do very much good. but what mr. harrod had said was true--father was in some way preoccupied. i think he had had a letter from frank forrester about the children's charity houses scheme, and it had not been a satisfactory one; for when i went into his business-room i found him busily writing to frank, and i could not get him to pay any attention to me until after post-time. then he let me speak. "meg, child," he said, when i had done, "i don't feel quite sure that you know a vast deal yourself about such things, but maybe you're right in one item, and that is, if i engage a man to look after my property, i ought to be willing to abide a bit by his advice. so we'll have a drop o' tea first, and then we'll go up and have a look at these hops of his." and that is what we did. mr. harrod didn't come into tea, but we met him outside and walked up the hill together. it was still that bright june weather of the week before; we never had so hot and fair a summer i believe as that year. after our hard long winter the warmth was new life, and the long evenings were very exquisite. the breath of the lilac--just on the wane--of the bursting syringa, of the heavy daphne, lay upon the air, and was wafted from behind garden walls up the village street. as we passed the old town-hall and came out at the end of the road, the white arms of the mill detached themselves against the bright sky where the sun, sinking nearer to the horizon, rayed the west with glory. father stood a moment on the crest of the hill looking down into the valley, upon whose confines the broad meads of the south downs swelled into rising ground again; a stream wound across the plain, that was intersected by dikes at intervals; far to the left lay the sea--a dim, blue line across the stems of the trees, breaking into a little bay in the dip of the hill where the valley met the marsh. "the elms" stood on the brow of the hill nearer the sea; the hop-gardens that belonged to it lay close at our feet. we went down the hill among the sheep and the sturdy lambs that leaped lightly still after their dams; father walked slowly in front, mr. harrod and i followed. the hop plantations covered the slopes, and swept across the valley to the other side. we left the house to our left above us, and went down into the valley. the hops, according to their sort, had grown to various heights: some three feet, some less, and the women and girls from the village had been out during the last month tying them, so that they were now past the second bind. father and mr. harrod walked in a critical way through the lines of plants, examining them carefully. here and there trayton harrod pinched off the flower of a bine that had been left on. "it's very strange," said he, "that pruning and branching of the hops used not to be done some years ago. i read in an old book that the practice was first introduced since farmers noticed how hailstones, nipping off the bine-tops early in the summer, made the plants grow stronger." they walked on again, harrod showing father where the jones hops grew, and where the goldings, and arguing that, for purposes of early foreign export, the jones hops easily took the place of the early prolifics, and came to a far finer, taller growth, while for later introduction into the market the goldings were the best grown. father stated the same objections that reuben had stated--trayton harrod fighting each one vigorously, and coming off victorious, as he somehow always did. we walked on through the gardens and then up by the house and back along the brow of the hill. the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the crimson of the after-glow lay, a lump of fire, in the purple west, and sent rays of redness far into the heavens on every side, washing the clouds with a hundred tints from the brightest rose to the tenderest violet, the faintest green, the softest dove-color above our heads. behind the village and its houses a row of dusky-headed pines stood tall or bent their trunks, bowed by the storm-winds, across the road; father stopped there a moment and looked at the glowing sky from between their red stems. the hills lay round the plain, wonderfully blue; the sunset gilded the quiet little stream upon the marsh till it looked like a streak of molten metal. he had not spoken a word, and now he sighed, half impatiently, as he turned homeward. i remember that mr. harrod left us at that point. he promised to be in to supper, and father and i walked on alone. when we got to the dip of the road where the hill begins to go down towards the sea-marsh, we met mr. hoad coming up in his smart little gig, with his daughter jessie at his side. i was for passing them with merely a bow, for they showed no signs of stopping, and i desired no conversation with either of them; but father stopped the gig. "hoad, can you spare me a few minutes?" asked he. "i should be much obliged to you. miss jessie, you'll come in and have a cup of tea," added he, courteously. miss jessie said that she should be very pleased to come; but she did not look pleased, and for the matter of that i fear neither did i. i could not think why father should want mr. hoad's company again so soon; but i supposed it must be about that letter of frank's. he had evidently seemed annoyed about it, although i did not know at that time why it was. i took jessie hoad into the parlor while the two men went into the business-room. mother was rather flurried when i announced, in my blunt way, that these visitors were going to stay to tea. the presence of a strange woman always _did_ trouble mother a bit, and jessie having been the head of her father's house since her mother died, she considered her in the light of a housewife. i knew that she was longing to have her best china out and the holland covers off in the front parlor. she was far too hospitable, however, to allow this feeling to be apparent, and she rose at once to welcome her guest. "i'm very pleased to see you, miss hoad," said she; "i'm sorry joyce is away." "oh, not at all; pray don't mention it, mrs. maliphant," declared jessie, in her hard, high voice, sitting down and settling her dress to advantage. "of course i'm sorry to miss joyce, but i'm very glad to see you and margaret." my blood boiled to hear her call us like that by our christian names, and to see the way she sat there with her little smart hat and her little nose turned up in the air, chatting away to mother in a patronizing kind of way, and keeping the talk quite in her own hands with all the town news she had to tell. "yes, the thornes' is a beautiful house," she was saying, "all in the best style, and quite regardless of expense. i assure you the dessert service was all gold and silver the other night when father and i dined there. of course it was a grand affair. all the county swells there. but the thing couldn't have been done better in london, i declare." "indeed!" answered mother. "i haven't much knowledge of london." "no, of course not," said jessie. "but you have seen the thornes' house, i suppose?" "no," answered mother. "we don't go there. my husband and mr. thorne don't hold together." "oh, indeed!" exclaimed jessie; "that's a pity. he and his daughter are the nicest people in the county. but as i was saying to mary thorne, there's something very quaint in your old house, and i can't help fancying the new style does copy some things from the old houses." "oh, i can't believe that," said i, half piqued. "it wouldn't be worth its while." she looked round at me, a little puzzled, i think, but any rub there might have been between us was put a stop to by the entrance of father and mr. hoad from the study. mr. hoad was, if anything, in better spirits than ever; his eyes were bright, and he rubbed his hands as a man might do when anything had gone to his satisfaction. father's brow, on the contrary, was heavy. we sat down to tea. mr. harrod came in a little late. he was about to retire when he saw that we had company; but mother so insisted on his taking his usual seat that it would have been rude to refuse, although i could see that he did not care for the society. mother introduced him to miss hoad, who just looked up under the brim of her hat, and then went back to her muffin as if none of us were much worth considering. there was altogether an air about her as though she wanted to get over the whole affair as soon as possible. and she did. that bland father of hers had not time for more than half the pleasant things that he usually said to us all before she whipped him off. "it'll be quite too late to pay our call at 'the priory' if we don't go at once, papa," said she, rising, and looking at a dainty gold watch at her waist. i suppose she did not trust the time of our old eight-day clock that stood between the windows, yet i'll warrant it was the safer of the two. she turned to mother. "i'm sorry to have to run away so soon," said she, with an outward show of cordiality, "but you see it's very important to leave cards on people like the thornes directly after a large party. and if i don't do it to-day i must drive out again on purpose to-morrow." "have you been dining at thorne's, hoad?" asked father. "yes," answered the solicitor. "he's a rare good-fellow, and he gave us a rare good dinner." father did not say a word, and the hoads took their leave. "i'll let you have that the first thing in the morning," said mr. hoad, as he shook hands with father. father nodded, but otherwise made no remark. when the visitors were gone he turned to mr. harrod: "i've made up my mind to rent 'the elms,'" said he, shortly. "we'll drive into town to-morrow and see searle's executors about it." "that's right, sir," said harrod, cheerfully. "i feel sure it will turn out a sound investment." "'the elms!'" exclaimed mother. "are you thinking of that, laban?" "yes," answered he. "harrod advises it." "well, of course i shouldn't like to set myself against mr. harrod," said mother, half doubtfully. "but i should have thought our own farm was enough to see after. it seems a deal of responsibility and laying out of money." "there's no farm to speak of at 'the elms,' ma'am," answered harrod. "it's all hop-gardens. that's why i advised mr. maliphant buying it." "dear," said mother, nowise reassured. "isn't that very risky? i've always heard of hops as being riskier than cows, and i'm sure they're bad enough, though reuben will have it they're nothing to sheep at the lambing." harrod had frowned a little at first, but now he smiled. "there's a risk in everything," he said. "you might break your leg walking across the room." "you'll live up at the house, harrod," put in father. "i've been sorry there's been no better place for you up to the present time." "oh, i've done very well," laughed the young man; "but it'll be best i should go over there now. it's only a step for me to get here of mornings." "well, i'm glad of _that_ at any rate," said mother. "father's quite right. it wasn't fitting for you as our bailiff not to have a proper place. and now you'll have it. meg, you and i must go up and see as everything's comfortable. and we must get a woman in the place to see after him. old dorcas's niece might do. she's a widow--she'd want to take her youngest with her, but you wouldn't mind that," added she, turning again to harrod. her mind was full of the matter now. so was mine. we were quite at one upon it, and discussed it the whole evening. nevertheless, i found time to wonder now and then how it was that it was only after his talk with mr. hoad that father had made up his mind to take on "the elms." it rather nettled me. mr. hoad could not possibly know as much about farming as did trayton harrod. however, the thing was done, that was the main thing. mr. harrod had had his way, and i tried to flatter myself that i was in some way instrumental in procuring it. chapter xx. the time was coming near when joyce was to come home, and i had done positively nothing in the matter in which i had promised to fight her battle. it is true that she had begged me not to fight her battle, but i wanted to fight it, and i was vexed with myself that i had so allowed the matter to slide. in the one tussle that i had had with mother, i had been so worsted that i felt, with mortification, my later silence must look like a confession of defeat. the fact is that i had been thinking of other things. trayton harrod and i had had a great many things to think of. he had started a new scheme for the laying on of water. our village abounded in wells; they, too, were the remnants of the affluence of the town in by-gone days, but they were all at the foot of the hill. trayton harrod wanted to bring the water from the spring at the top of croft's hill, in pipes through the valley, and up our own hill again. he wanted to form a co-operation among the inhabitants for the enterprise. if this was impossible, he wanted father to do it as a private undertaking, and to repay himself by charging a rental to those people who would have it brought to their houses. but he met with opposition at every turn. the inhabitants of marshlands were a stubborn lot; they did not believe in the possibility of the thing; they did not care for innovations; they had done very well all these years with carts that brought the water up the hill and stored it in wells in their gardens, and why not now? he had not gained his point yet, either in one way or in the other, and i had been very busy fighting it for him; that was how it had come to pass that i had forgotten joyce's business. mother and i sat in the low window-seat of the parlor straining our eyes over the mending of the family socks and stockings by the waning light of the june evening. mother had missed joyce very much. i had not been all that a daughter should have been to her since i had been in sole charge; i had been preoccupied, and she had missed joyce much more, i knew very well, than she chose to confess. knowing this as i did, i thought the moment would be well chosen to speak of what should affect joyce's happiness; i thought her heart would be soft to her. but on this point i was mistaken. mother did not alter her opinion because her heart was soft. she could be very tender, but she was most certainly also very obstinate. i opened the conversation by alluding to the letter which father had had from captain forrester. "that scheme of his for poor children doesn't seem to be able to get started as easily as he hoped," i said. "i'm sorry. it would have been a beautiful thing, and father will break his heart if it falls through." "he seems to think the young man hasn't gone the right way to work," said mother. "i could have told him he wasn't the right sort for the job." i tried to keep my temper, and it was with a laugh that i said, "well, if anything could be done i'm sure he would do it, if it was only for the sake of pleasing joyce." mother said nothing. she prided herself upon her darning, and she was intent upon a very elaborate piece of lattice-work. "he would do anything to please joyce. i never saw a man so much in love with a girl," i said. "have you had great experience of that matter?" asked mother, in her coolest manner. "because if you have, i should like to hear of it; girls of nineteen don't generally have much experience in such matters." "i can see that he is in love well enough," said i, biting my lip. then warming suddenly, i added: "i don't see why, mother, you should set your face so against the young man? you want joyce to be happy, don't you?" "yes," said mother, quietly. "i want her to be happy." "well, it won't make her happy never to see the man she loves," cried i; "no, nor yet to have to wait all that time before she can marry him. i've always heard that long engagements were dreadfully bad things for girls." mother smiled. "i waited three years for your father," she said, "and i'm a hearty woman of my years." "perhaps you were different," suggested i. "maybe," assented mother. "women weren't so forward-coming in my time, to be sure." "i don't see that joyce is forward," cried i. "no, joyce is seemly behaved if she is let alone. she'll bide her time, i've no doubt," said mother. i felt the hidden thrust, and it was the more sharply that i replied, "you're so fond of joyce, i should have thought you wouldn't care to make her suffer." mother gave a little sigh. she took no notice of my rude taunt. "the lord knows it's hard to know what's best," said she. "but i'd sooner see her pine a bit now than spend her whole life in misery, and there's no misery like that of a home where the love hasn't lasted out." the earnestness of this speech made me ashamed of my vexation, and it was gently that i said: "but, mother, i don't see why you should think a man must needs be fickle because he falls in love at first sight. i don't see how people who have known one another all their lives think of falling in love. when do they begin?" "i don't know as i understand this mighty thing that you young folk call 'falling in love,'" said mother. "i was quite sure what i was about when i married your father." "well, now, mother, i don't see _how_ you can have been quite sure beforehand," argued i, obstinately. "you have been lucky, that's all." "nay, it's not all luck," said mother. "it isn't all plain sailing over fifty or sixty years of rubbing up and down; and they'd best have something stouter than a mere fancy to stand upon who want to make a good job of it." "i don't see what they are to have stouter than love to stand upon," said i. "and i always thought love was a thing that came whether you would or not, and had nothing to do with the merits of people." it was all a great puzzle. did mother make too little of love, and did i make too much? "that's not love," said mother; "that's a fancy. i misdoubt people who undertake to show patience and steadiness in one thing, before they have learned it in anything else." "what has frank forrester done, i should like to know?" asked i, feeling that she was too hard on him. "nothing, my dear," answered mother, laconically. and i sighed. it was very evident there would be no convincing mother, and that if there was to be any relaxation in the hardness of the verdict for joyce, it must come through father, and not through her. she rose and moved away, for the light had waned, and we could not see to work. "if i loved a man i'd take my chance," was my parting shot. "then, my dear, it's to be hoped you won't love a man just yet," said mother, as she went out of the room. and that was all that i got by my endeavor to further my sister's cause with mother. i think, however, i soon forgot the annoyance that my failure caused me; it was driven out of my head by other and more engrossing interests. mother and i had been up at "the elms" that very day getting things in order for mr. harrod. we had found a tidy widow woman to wait on him, and mother had put up fresh white dimity curtains from her own store to brighten up his little parlor. when he came in to supper he was full of quiet delight. i forget what he said; he was not a man of many words; he was always wrapped up in his business; but i recollect that, however few they were, they were words of affectionate gratitude to mother for a kind of care which he seemed never to have known before, and i know that i was grateful to him for them--so sensitively responsible is one for the actions of another who is slowly creeping near to one's heart. harrod sat some time with mother on the lawn discussing the qualities of cows; she wanted father to give her a new one, and she wanted harrod to find her one as good as daisy, if such a thing were possible. he listened with great patience to her reminiscences of past favorites, and promised to do his best; but i could see that there was something on his mind. i fell to wondering what it was. i fell to wondering whether trayton harrod ever thought of anything else but the work he had to do, the dumb creatures that came his way in the doing of it, and the fair or lowering face of the world in which he did it. i soon learned what it was. it was something that had been discussed many times, but it had never been discussed as it was discussed that evening. father came out with his pipe a-light; his rugged old face wore its most dreamy and contented expression. he had evidently been thinking of something that had given him pleasure; but i do not think it had to do with the farm. but mr. harrod went to meet him, and they strolled down the garden together, and stood for about ten minutes talking hard by the bed where the golden gillyflowers and the purple iris bloomed side by side. "well, you know what i have told you, mr. maliphant," said harrod. "you never can make the farm pay so long as you hold these theories. your men work shorter hours and receive higher wages than anybody else's; and, added to that, you absolutely refuse to have any machinery used. it'll take you twice as long to get in your hay and your wheat as it will take the other farmers. how can you possibly compete with them?" "i don't want to compete with them," said father--"not in the sense of getting the better of them. i merely want the farm to yield me sufficient for a modest living; i don't need riches." "well, and you won't do it in the way you are going on," said harrod, calmly. "you won't do so, unless you allow me to stock the farm with the proper machines, and to get the proper return of labor out of the men." "what is the proper return?" asked father, his eye lighting up. "that i should get three times the profit the laborer gets? i'm not sure of it. my capital must be remunerated, of course; but i am not sure that that is the right proportion." his heavy brows were knit, his hair was more aggressive than ever, his lower lip trembled. harrod stared. he had not yet heard father give vent to his theories, and he stared. "and as for machines," continued father, "i don't choose to have them used, because i consider it unjust that hands should be thrown out of work in order that i may make money the faster. my notions may be quixotic, but they are mine, and the land is mine, and i choose to have it worked according to my wish." "certainly, sir," answered harrod, stiffly. "only, as i'm afraid i could not possibly make the farm succeed under these conditions, i would prefer to throw up my situation." "very good," said father; "that is as you wish." and he moved on into the house. mother looked at mr. harrod a moment as though she were about to beg him to take no notice, and to recall his hasty resignation. her eyes had almost a supplicating look; but apparently she seemed to think that her appeal would be best made to father, for she hurried after him through the open door. trayton harrod and i were left alone on the terrace. his mouth was set in a hard curve that was all the more apparent for his clean-shaven chin; his eyes seemed to have grown quite small. i was almost afraid to speak to him. he stood there a moment, with his hands in his pockets, looking out across the marsh where the coming twilight was already beginning to spread brown shades, although there was still a reflection of the distant sunset upon the clouds overhead. he looked a moment, and then he turned to go; but i could not let him go like that. my heart had gone down with a sudden, sick feeling when he had said he must leave knellestone. i can remember it now. i did not ask myself what it meant. i suppose i thought, if i thought at all, that it was anxiety for the welfare of the farm; but i remember very well how it felt. "oh, mr. harrod, you don't really mean that!" said i, hurriedly. "mean what?" answered he, without relaxing a muscle of his face. "that you will give up your work here." "indeed i do," answered he, with a little hard laugh, showing those white teeth of his. "a man must do his work his own way, or not at all." i did not know what more to say. but he did not offer to go now; he stood there, with his hands in his pockets and his back half turned to me. "do you think so?" said i, at last, doubtfully. "well, if i can't do my work here so that it should be to your father's advantage, i'm cheating him, miss maliphant--that's evident, isn't it? and i have a particular wish to be an honest man." there was bitterness in his voice. "i see that," said i. "only, if you go away the work will be done much less to father's advantage than if you stay--even though you can't do it just as you wish." "that has nothing to do with me," answered harrod, in his hardest voice. "i should harm my reputation by remaining here." a wave of bitterness swept over me too at that. "i see," i replied, coldly. "you are considering your own interest only. well, we have no right to expect any more. you have only known us a short time." he did not speak, and i walked forward to the palisade that hedged the garden, and leaned my arms upon it, looking out to the sea. after a little while he came to my side. "well, you see," said he, in a softer voice, "a man is bound to consider his own interests to that extent at least--so far as doing his work honestly is concerned. i consider a man a thief who doesn't do what he has to do to the best of his lights." "i quite understand that," answered i. "i quite understand that it would be more comfortable for you to go away." "i should be very sorry to go away," replied he, simply. "i like the place, and i like the work, and i like the people." "then why do you go?" asked i, bluntly. "a man must have his convictions," repeated he, doggedly. i looked up at him now. "yes," i said, firmly. "father has his convictions too. they are not your convictions, but he cares just as much about them. you ought to make allowances for that." "i make every allowance for it," answered he; "only, i don't see how the two lots can mix together." "you said just now that a man must do his work his own way, or not at all," i went on, without heeding him. "but i don't see that." this time mr. harrod did more than smile, he laughed outright. i suppose even in the short time that we had been friends he had learned to know me well enough to see something amusing in my finding fault with any one for obstinacy. but i was not annoyed with the laugh; on the contrary, it restored my good-temper. "well, i don't see why you shouldn't go a little way to meet father," insisted i, boldly. "of course he won't give in to you about everything; it isn't likely he should. but you might do a great many things that he wouldn't mind, which would make the farm better; and then, when he saw they made it better, and that the laborers went on just as well, maybe he would let you do a few more. i can't discuss it," added i, seeing that harrod was about to speak, "because i can't understand it. but i see one thing plain, and that is that folk think the farm wants doing something with that father doesn't do--and if so, you're the man to do it." i paused. had i not followed the squire's instructions well? had i not done my very best to "smooth over difficulties?" "i don't think that i am the only man who could do it, by any means," answered harrod. but he said it doubtfully--pleasantly doubtfully. it made me bold to retort with greater determination: "well, _i_ think so, then. and if you say you are comfortable here, if you say you like the place--and the people," added i, hurriedly, "why don't you try, at least, to stay on and help us?" he did not reply. we stood there what must have been a considerable time looking before us silently. the wane of the day had fallen into dusk, the brown had settled into gray, now that the gold of the sunset reflections had faded; the marsh-land was very still and sweet, the sheep were not even white blots upon it, so entirely did the tender pall harmonize all degrees of hue, so that the kine seemed no longer as living beings, but as mysterious shapes bred of the very land itself; even the old castle, so grand and solid in the day-time, was now like some phantom thing in the solitude--every curve and every circle defined more clearly than in sunlight, yet the whole transparent in the transparent gloaming of the air. the most solid thing in all this varied uniformity, this intangible harmony, was a clump of trees in the near distance that told a shade blacker than anything else; for the turrets of the distant town lay only as a faint mass of purple upon the land, the little lights that twinkled in it here and there alone betraying its nature; long, living lines of strange clouds, that were neither violet nor gray nor white, lay along the blue where sea and sky were one. "before you came," said i, at last, in a low voice, "i used to think that i could help father as well as any _man_. i thought that i understood very nearly as much about farming as he did. i thought i could do much better than a stranger, who would not understand the land or the people. but now i think differently. i see how much more you know than i had dreamed of. you have made me feel very foolish." "i am sorry for that," said he. "it was far from my intentions--very far from my thoughts." he said no more, neither did i. perhaps, to tell the truth, i was half sorry for what i had said, half ashamed of even feeling my inferiority, more than half ashamed of having confessed it to any one. ashamed, sorry--and yet-- mother called us to go in-doors. "if your father asks me to remain, i will remain, and do my best," said trayton harrod, as we walked slowly up the lawn. and the glow that was upon my heart deepened. it was a concession, and wherefore was it made? chapter xxi. for two days not a word was spoken on the sore subject between father and mr. harrod, and on the evening of the second day the squire returned from town. father and i had gone down on the morning after the quarrel to see the sheep-shearing at the lower farm. by a corruption of the name of a former owner the country-folk had come to call it "pharisee farm," and pharisee farm it always was. it lay on the lower strip of marsh towards the castle, with the southern sun full upon it. as we came down the hill i heard steps behind us, and without turning i knew that trayton harrod was following us. father gave him good-day quite civilly, and i held out my hand. i do not know why i had got into the habit of giving my hand to trayton harrod; it was not a usual habit with me. "it has turned a bit cooler, mr. maliphant, hasn't it?" said harrod. "yes," answered father; "but we must be glad we have had the rain before we had to get the hay in." "that we must," replied harrod. "the hay looks beautiful." we were passing along through the meadows ready for the scythes; they stretched on every side of us. meadows for hay, pastures for sheep, there was scarcely anything else, save here and there a blue turnip-field or a tract of sparsely sown brown land, where the wheat made as yet no show. the one little homestead to which we were bound made a very poor effect in the vast plain; there was nothing but land and sea and sky. a great deal of land, flat monotonous land, more monotonous now in its richness and the brilliant greenness of its early summer-time than it would be later when the corn was ripe and the flowering grasses turning to brown: an uneventful land, relying for its impressiveness on its broad simplicity, that seemed to have no reason for ending or change; above the great stretch of earth a great vault of blue sky flecked with white vapors and lined with long opal clouds out towards the horizon; between the land and the sky a strip of blue sea binding both together; sea, blue as a sapphire against the green of the spring pastures. far down here upon the level we could not see the belt of yellow shingle that from the cliff above one could tell divided marsh and ocean: right across the wide space it was one stretch of lightly varied tints away to the shipping and the scattered buildings at the mouth of the river. we walked on, three abreast. our talk was of nothing in particular; only of the budding summer flowers--yellow iris, and meadowsweet along the dikes, crowfoot making golden patches on the meadows, scarlet poppies beginning to appear among the growing wheat--but i don't know how it was that, in spite of father's presence, there was a kind of feeling in my heart as though trayton harrod and i were quite on a different plane to what we had been two days ago; i don't know why it was, but i was very happy. the sheep were gathered in the fold when we reached the farm, and tom beale, the shepherd, was clipping them with swift and adroit hands. reuben and his old dog luck were there also; they were both of them very fond of having a finger in the pie of their former calling, but i think there was no love lost between them all. luck could be good friends enough with taff, but he never could abide that smart young collie who followed tom beale's lead; and as for reuben, he was busy already passing comments in a low voice to father on the way in which beale was doing his work. father humored the old man to the top of his bent--he was very fond of reuben--but beale went his way all the same, and sent one poor patient ewe after another out of its heavy fleece, to leap, amazed and frightened, among the flock, unable to trace its companions in their altered condition. one could scarcely help laughing, they looked so naked and bewildered reft of their warm covering, and just about two-thirds their usual size. "ay, the lambs won't have much more good o' their dams now," chuckled reuben. "they're forced to wean themselves, most on them, after this, for there are few enough that knows one another again." "they do look different, to be sure," laughed i. "you might get your 'tiver' now, reuben ruck," said beale, "if you have a mind to give a hand with this job. they're most on 'em tarred." the "tiver" was the red chalk with which the sheep were to be marked down their backs, or with a ring or a half-ring round their necks, according to the kind and the age. a shepherd had been tarring them on their hindquarters with father's initials, each one as it leaped from out of its fleece. the work went on briskly for a while, and we were all silent watching reuben mark the two and three and four year olds apart. "it's a pity there aren't more southdowns among the flock," put in harrod at last. i turned round and looked at him warningly. it was a mistake, i thought, that under the strained relations of the moment he should choose to open up another vexed question. "southdowns!" echoed reuben, who was listening. "you'd drop a deal o' master's money if you began getting southdowns into his flocks." i bit my lip, furious with the old servant for his officiousness, but to my surprise father himself reprimanded him sharply for it, and, turning to his bailiff, led him aside a few steps and discussed the question with him at length. my heart glowed with pleasure as i overheard him commission harrod to go to the fair at ashford next week and see if he could effect some satisfactory purchase. i was quite pleased to note reuben's surly looks. how sadly was i changing to my old friends! and yet so much more pleased was i to see the honest flush of satisfaction on harrod's face as father left him, that i felt no further grudge against the old man, and nodded to him gayly as i followed father across the marsh. when we reached the bottom of the hill we met the squire. he was coming down the road full tilt with the collie who was his constant companion, and before we came within ear-shot i could see that his face was troubled. i knew him well enough now to tell when he was troubled. "why, maliphant, what's this i hear?" said he, as he came up to us. father leaned forward on his stick, looking at the squire with a half-amused, half-defiant expression in his eyes. "well, squire broderick, what is it?" asked he. "i hear in the village that you have leased 'the elms,'" answered the other, almost severely. i happened to be looking at father, and i could see that his face changed. "yes," he said, quietly, "i have. what then?" the squire laughed constrainedly. "well," he began, and then he stopped, and then he began again. "'tis a large speculation. what made you think of it?" "mr. harrod advised father to take on 'the elms,'" i put in, quickly. i was vexed with the squire for saying anything that was a disadvantage to trayton harrod in the present state of affairs. "harrod!" cried the squire. he began beating his boot with his stick in that way he had when he was annoyed. "i thought it was hoad," he said at last beneath his breath. father's eyes were black beads. "pray don't trouble yourself to think who it was who advised me, squire," said he. "if it's a bad speculation nobody is to blame but myself. i am entirely my own master. i was told 'the elms' was to be had, and i chose to take it. my hop-gardens were not as extensive as i wished." he had raised his voice involuntarily in speaking. a man passing in the road turned round and looked at him. "hush, father," whispered i. it was one of his own laborers, one of father's special friends. "wait a bit, joe jenkins, i'm coming up the road. i want a word with you," said father. he held out his hand to the squire, but without looking at him, and then went on up the hill. i stayed a moment behind. the squire looked regularly distressed. "your father is so peppery," he said, "so very peppery." "well, i don't understand what you mean," said i, but not in allusion to his last remark. "why isn't the thing a good speculation?" "oh, my dear young lady, it's very difficult to tell what things are going to turn out to be good speculations and what not," answered he. "at all events, i'm afraid you and i would not be able to tell." it was very polite of him no doubt to put it like that, but i did not like it: it was like making fun of me, for of course no one had said that i should be able to tell. "i understood that you thought a great deal of mr. harrod's judgment," said i, coldly. "so i do, so i do," repeated the squire, eagerly. "i believe it to be most sound." "well, anyhow, father won't have it much longer, sound or unsound, unless things take a different turn," continued i, with a grim sense of satisfaction in hurting the squire for having hurt harrod's case with father. "why, what's up?" asked he. "they have had a quarrel," explained i, carelessly. "mr. harrod wanted father to reduce the men's wages, and to make them work as long hours as they do for the other farmers hereabouts, and of course father wasn't going to do that, because he thinks it unjust." "i knew it would come--bound to come," muttered the squire beneath his breath. "and then he wanted him to buy mowing-machines for the haymaking," continued i, "and you know what father thinks of machines. so he refused, and then mr. harrod said that if he couldn't manage the farm his own way he must leave." "dear! dear!" sighed good mr. broderick. and dear me, how little i realized at the time all that it meant, his taking our affairs to heart as he did! "this must be set straight." "i tried my best," concluded i. "it's no good talking to father; but mr. harrod promised me that he would take back his word about leaving if father asked him to." the squire looked at me sharply. "harrod promised you that?" he asked. "yes," repeated i, looking at him simply, "he promised me that." the squire said no more, but his brow was knit as he turned away from me. "i'll go and see harrod," said he. "can you tell me at all where i shall find him?" "he's down at pharisee farm at the sheep-shearing," said i. "he and reuben are having a quarrel over southdowns. he wants to have southdowns in the flock. but if he goes away there'll be no southdowns needed." mr. broderick made no answer to this, he strode on down the road. but when he had gone a few steps he turned. "by-the-bye, will you tell your father," he said, "that my nephew came down with me last night? i believe he wants to see him on some affair or other. no doubt he'll call round in the afternoon." he went on quickly, and i stood there wondering. frank forrester back again at the manor! did he suppose that joyce had returned? did he hope to see her? poor fellow! he little knew mother. "father," said i, as i joined him on the hill, "do you know that captain forrester has come down again?" he stopped, he was a little out of breath; i even fancied that his cheek was flushed. "you don't say so!" said he. "he gave me no idea of it in his letter. no idea at all." a light had kindled in his eye. "when does your sister come home?" he asked. "she was to have come next week," answered i. "but i suppose mother will put it off now." "yes, meg," said he, with a twinkle in his eye, "i suppose she'll put it off. and yet the lad is a good lad, but mother knows best, mother knows best." we turned up the road, and as we came to the corner of the village street we saw two figures coming along towards us. one of them was mary thorne and the other was captain forrester. i had not known the thornes were back at the priory: they had left it for the london season. the two were laughing and talking gayly. she came forward cordially as soon as she saw me and held out her hand. her round, rosy face shone with merriment, and her brown hair caught the sunlight. she spoke to me first while frank was shaking father warmly by the hand. "how are you, mr. maliphant?" cried he. "it's delightful to see you again. you see i could not keep away. i had to come down and get a fresh impetus, fresh instructions." mary thorne laughed. "oh, he talks of nothing else," said she. "he's quite crazed over this wonderful scheme, i can assure you, mr. maliphant." father's brow clouded, and to be sure i could not bear to hear her talk like that, though why, i could not exactly have told. "and so we made it an excuse to snatch a couple of days from balls and things, and come down here for a breath of fresh air," she continued. i wondered why she said "we." but frank explained that. "mr. thorne is quite interested in the affair, i can assure you, mr. maliphant," said he. "he's going to put a splendid figure to head our subscription list." father did not say a word. his shaggy eyebrows were down over his eyes. "oh, well, father never is stingy with his money; i must say that for him," said mary. "he'll give anything to anything." then turning to me, she added: "we're going to squeeze in a garden-party next week, before we run up to town again. they say one must give entertainments this electioneering-time. at least that mr. hoad says so, and he seems to have done a great deal of this kind of thing from what he says. we did two dinners before we went up to london, but a garden-party is jolly--it includes so many. you'll come, won't you? all of you. you're just about the only people i care to ask, you know." she ran on in her frank, funny way--always quite transparent--not noticing father's scowl and frank forrester pulling his mustache, and trying to catch her eye. if she had she would have turned the matter off; she was no fool, but what she had said was what she thought. father answered before i could speak. "my eldest daughter is away, miss thorne," he said, "and i'm sorry to say margaret must refuse your kind invitation. my girls are farmer's children, and are not used to mixing with folk in other stations of life." i felt the color fly to my face, for it was a discourteous speech, and not even perfectly honest, for mary thorne had met us at the squire's house although we _were_ only farmer's daughters. it mortified me to have father do himself injustice before frank forrester. but mary took it charmingly. for a moment she looked astonished, then she said, with a merry laugh: "ah, i see what it is, mr. maliphant; you're a tory. i beg your pardon, i forgot you were the squire's friend. i'm dreadfully stupid about politics. i'm quite ashamed of myself." father seemed about to reply, but was stopped by a merry laugh from frank, whom mary, however, silenced by a pretty little astonished stare. "oh, pray don't apologize," said she to father. "only don't you try to tell me another time that your daughters are not used to good society. i know better," added she, smiling at me. "i know who was voted the best dancer at the squire's ball. and as for your eldest daughter--well, we know how many heads _she_ has turned with her beauty." she glanced up teasingly at captain forrester as she spoke. she was a little woman, and had to glance up a long way; but although he laughed, his face was troubled; and i could see he was trying to catch my eye. "well, good-bye," said mary to me. "i'm sorry you mayn't come." i took the hand which she offered, but when she held it out afterwards to father he only bowed with laborious politeness. i think i blushed with annoyance as we turned away, but he made no allusion to the meeting; only his brightened humor of five minutes ago had evaporated, and his features were working painfully. "i shall go and fetch little david jarrett, meg," said he. "the sun is warm now, and it'll do him good to lie a bit in the garden. go home and tell mother." i went, and a quarter of an hour later he carried the boy in--a poor little delicate fellow, whose father had knocked him down in a drunken fit, and who had been a cripple ever since. we had heard of the misfortune too late to be of much use; for continued want of proper nourishment on a sickly frame had caused the accident to set up a disease from which the poor child was scarcely likely to recover; but all that could be done father had had done, and he was his special favorite among many friends in the younger portion of the community. we spread a mattress on the garden bench and laid him there, and mother sent me out with port-wine and strengthening broth for him, and father spent all the afternoon beside the little fellow, reading and talking to him. beyond alluding to captain forrester's arrival when mother spoke of it, he made no mention of his young friend or of what had hurt him in the passing meeting with him. but when frank came, as promised, in the evening, the storm broke. he came in just as if he had not been away from us these two months; just as kindly, just as interested in all we had been doing, just as easy and charming. but when, i fancied a trifle diffidently, he opened up the subject of the charity scheme, father suffered no misunderstanding to abide. "i know thorne is an old friend of your family's, my lad," he said, "and i understand that you can't throw off an acquaintance of your youth; but as to this affair, i want to make it quite clear that i'll have no influence of his to start the school with. if i could help it i'd have none of his money. i can't help that, and the 'big figure' must stand; but i'll have none of him, or the likes of him, on any committee that may be formed, not while i'm in it." father always became vernacular when he was excited. "very well, sir," smiled frank. "it's your affair, and i must be led by you. i think you're mistaken. you miss the valuable help of a large and influential class, and why you should forbid manufacturers to remedy an evil which they may have been partly instrumental in increasing, i don't know. but you have your reasons, and i am in your hands." "yes, i have my reasons," repeated father, laconically. and then the conversation became general, and frank, with his usual amiable courtesy, drew trayton harrod into it, as far as the somewhat morose mood of the latter would allow. he seemed to have taken no fancy to the new-comer, and responded but surlily to his interested questions upon the country and country matters. frank forrester was always interested in everything; always seemed to be most so in the subject which he thought interested the particular person to whom he was speaking. but harrod would betray no enthusiasm on his own pursuits to an outsider. he was very surly that night. i think he was not well. mother taxed him with it. as i have said, she took a motherly interest in him always. he allowed that he had a bad headache, and rose to leave. i recollect that she went up-stairs to fetch him some little medicament. father, too, followed him out into the hall. they stood there some five minutes talking, during which time i am afraid that i tried more to listen to what they were saying than to what frank forrester took the opportunity to say to me. i brought my mind to it, however, and told him what i could about joyce. there was so little to tell; there was always so little to tell about joyce--nothing very satisfactory to a lover in this instance. and i was forced to allow what he half gayly asserted--that mother was none the more cordial to him than she had been in the past. he did not seem to be cast down about it, he only asserted it. he did not seem to be in any way cast down. he looked at me with those wide-open brown eyes just as confidently and gayly as ever, and bent towards me with his tall, slim, lissome figure, and took my two hands in his and told me to tell joyce that he had come hoping to see her for a moment, even though it had been but in mother's presence. "she forbade me to see her against your mother's wishes," said he, "but openly there would have been no harm." i felt quite sure that he loved her just as much as ever, and i willingly promised to give his messages to her. but i hurried over the little interview; i wanted to get out into the hall before harrod left, and i shook hands with frank hastily as i heard mother coming down-stairs with the physic. i was too late, nevertheless. frank had kept me for a last word, and the front door closed as i came out of the room. i went up to bed in a bad temper. chapter xxii. trayton harrod did not leave knellestone. i think we had to thank the squire for that. father and he being so proud and obstinate, they would never have come to an understanding alone, nor would either certainly have accepted me for a mediator. i don't know whether mr. broderick persuaded father to ask his bailiff to remain, or how the matter was arranged. i only know that a few days after the squire's return i met harrod down at the haymaking on the eastern marsh, and that he told me he was not going to leave us. i remember very well how he told it me with a smile; not that quick flash which i have sometimes noticed before as being characteristic of him when moved to sudden mirth, but a kind of half-smile that had something triumphant in it. "yes," he said, looking round on the meadows that were ready for the scythe, "we shall have a mowing-machine on them before the week's out." that was all; but the words told me he was going to remain. i know i looked up with an answering smile of satisfaction, but it faded as i saw jack barnstaple's gloomy eye fixed on me. the very silence of a faithful servant reproved me for my disloyalty. for in my first content i had forgotten that satisfaction to such a speech _was_ disloyalty to father, to the horror of machines that had always been my creed till now. "i'm sorry--" i began, but then i stopped, confused. i was too honest to tell a lie. how could i say that i was sorry he had triumphed? he turned and said some word to the laborer, and i had time to lose my sudden blushes. had he noticed them? i think i scarcely cared. i was strangely happy. all that day i was happy. in the eventide we followed the last wagon up the hill. tired horses, teased to madness by the ox-fly in the heat, tired men shouldering their forks, tired women in curious sun-bonnets, and girls not too tired yet to laugh with the lads, went before, and we two followed afterwards, not at all tired of anything--at least i speak for myself. a long line of flame marked the horizon behind the hill and upon the red sky, the houses of the village, the three roofs and the square tower of the old church, the ivied grayness of the ancient gate-way, and the solitary pines that marked the ridge here and there, all lay dark upon the brightness, their shapes defined and single. close behind us the sea was cool and fragrant. upon the hem of the wide soft sands that shone in sunset reflections, a regal old heron had fetched his evening meal from out of the little pools that the sea had left, and unfolding his huge pinions, sailed away in a queer oblique and apparently leisurely flight to the tall trees that were his inland home. we left the haymakers to take the road, and followed the heron across the marsh. a wheat-ear's nest that i found in a furrow and carried home with its five little dainty blue eggs gave rise to a discussion about the rarity of these pretty little structures compared with the numbers of the tiny builders who are so plentiful in harvesting that the shepherds make quite a perquisite from the sale of them; an old hare that the bailiff started from its form on the unbeaten track made him wonder at the unusual size of these marsh inhabitants, and as we came along the dike where the purple reeds were already growing tall, i remember his noticing how changing was their color on the surface as they swayed in great waves beneath the breeze, how blue one way, how silver-gray the other; i recollect every word that we spoke. it was commonplace talk enough, but it was the talk that had first begun to bind us together, and now there was beginning to be something in it that made every word very much the reverse of commonplace to me. what was it? i did not ask myself, but i knew very well that since that night when trayton harrod had promised to try and remain on knellestone, because i had asked him to do so, that something had grown very fast, so fast that i was conscious of a happy state of guilt, and wondered whether old deborah knew anything about it as she watched me bid the bailiff good-bye at the gate while she was picking marjoram on the cliff-garden above our heads. i know that at first i was angry because of her keen little dark eyes and her short little laugh, and i loftily refused to discuss either with her or with reuben the advantages of mr. harrod's remaining on the farm, or the indignity of having machinery at knellestone and southdowns on the marsh. there was no delay about either of these matters. mr. harrod was a prompt man. i recollect the very day he bought the sheep--yes, i recollect it very well. it was a very hot day, one of the first days of july. he had had the mare--my restive mare--put into the gig, and had started off very early in the morning to ashford market. it was a long way to ashford market, but you could just do it and get back in the day if you started very early, and if you had a horse like my mare to go. there was a haze over the sea and even over the marsh; down in the hayfield, where i had been all the morning, the heat was almost unbearable. when five o'clock came i went in to mother in the parlor. "it's such a nice evening for a ride, mother," said i. "i think i'll just take that pot of jelly over to broadlands to old mrs. winter. she'd be pleased to see me." mother looked up, surprised. "i thought you didn't care for riding that old horse," said she. "well, i _can't_ have the mare, so it's no use thinking of it," i answered. "you can't have her to-day, because the bailiff has got her, but you can have her to-morrow," said mother. "and it's full late to start off so far." i walked to the window and looked out. "i think i'll go to-day," said i. "it may blow up for rain to-morrow. as likely as not we shall have a storm. it's light now till after nine." "very well," said mother; "you can please yourself. you'd better take some of that stuff for the old body's rheumatism as well." so i put on my habit and set out. it was quite true that the old black horse did not go so well as the mare, but for some reason best known to myself i had a particular desire to ride to broadlands that particular afternoon. i let the poor beast go at his own pace, however, for the heat was still very great; the plain was opal-tinted with it, and the long, soft, purple clouds above the sea horizon had a thundery look. i jogged along dreamily until i was close beneath the old market-town upon the hill. somehow the memory of that winter drive with joyce, when we had first met captain forrester, came back to me vividly. i don't know how it was, but i began to think of how he had looked at her, of how he had bent towards her hand just a moment longer than was necessary in parting from her. i wondered if those were always the signs of love. i wondered if a man might possibly be in love and yet give none of those signs. i rode on slowly, watching the rising breeze sweep across the meadows, swaying the long grass in a rhythmic motion like the waves of a gentle sea. i had passed the town by this time, and had come down the little street paved with cobble-stones, and through the grim old gate onto the marsh again. the river ran turbidly by, between its mud banks and across its flat pastures to the sea a mile beyond. above the river the houses of the town stood, in steps, up the hill, flanked by the dark gray stone of the old prison-house, and crowned by the church with its quaint flying-buttresses; the wall of the battlements hemmed the town; beneath it lay the marsh and then the sea. this was all behind me; around and in front was the faint, gray flat land, scarcely green under the creeping haze of heat, with the breeze undulating over the long grass, and the light-house, the brightest spot on the scene as it shone white through the mist, on the distant point of beach. i took the shortest way, avoiding the regular road, and was soon lost upon the grassy sea. the soft, bright monotony of the landscape was scarcely broken by a single incident, save for the martello towers that stood at regular intervals along the coast, or the sheep and cows that were strewn over the pasture-land lazily cropping and chewing the cud; there was not a house within sight, and even the low line of the downs had dipped here into the flatness of the marsh. i tried to whip the horse into a canter, but the poor beast felt the heat as i did, and i soon let him fall again into his own jog-trot. it was not at all my usual method of riding, but that day i did not mind it so much; i had my thoughts to keep me busy. they were pleasant thoughts--if so vague a dream was a thought at all--and kept me good company. the dream was a dream of love, but i am not sure whether that time joyce was the heroine. i think, if i had been asked, that i should have said that there was no heroine to my dream--that it was far too vague, too entirely a dream to have one. i rode on for another hour across the hot plain before i came to the village of broadlands. it lay there sleepily upon the bosom of the marsh, with scarce a tree to shelter it from the fierce midsummer sun or the wild sea winds, and until my horse's hoofs were clattering up the little street i scarcely saw man, woman, or child to tell me that the place was alive. but around the woolsacks some half-dozen men lounged, smoking, and a fat farmer in a cart had stopped in the middle of the road to exchange a few observations on agricultural news. it was the inn at which trayton harrod must have put up in the middle of the day for dinner. this farmer had evidently returned from market. i wondered how long it would be before trayton harrod would also come along the same road and stop at the woolsacks for a drink. i don't think i deceived myself as to there being a little hope within me that i might meet him somewhere on the road. but i reckoned that he could not possibly be as far on his homeward route yet a while, for he probably had had much farther to come than the farmer in the cart, and had not reached the market so early. i trotted on up the street to mrs. winter's cottage, which stood at the extreme end of the village, looking out along the ashford road. i am afraid that all the time i was in the cottage--although i gave all mother's messages, and inquired with due attention after every one of the old lady's distinct pains--my eyes were ever wandering along that dusty road and listening for horse's hoofs in the distance. but mrs. winter noticed no remissness on my part--she was too pleased to see me, too glad to have news of mother, who had been her friend and benefactress these many years past. i took her a pair of stockings that i had knit for her in the long winter evenings, and i can remember now the matter-of-fact way in which she received the gift, and how, when i said that i hoped they would fit, she answered, with happy trustfulness, "oh yes, miss; the lord he knows my size." we drank tea out of the white-and-gold cups that had been best ever since i could remember, and then she kissed me and bade me be going lest the darkness should overtake me. i laughed, and declared that the long twilight would more than last me home; for i did not want to be going until i was sure that mr. harrod was on my road; the vague hope that i had had of meeting him had grown into a settled determination to wait for him if i could. but the old lady would not be pacified by any assurances that i was not afraid of darkness; and to be sure there was a strange shade in the air as i got outside and mounted the black horse again. when i got beyond the village again i saw what it was--there was a sea-fog creeping up the plain. such fogs were common enough in the hot weather, and gave me no concern at all; but i saw with some dismay that the sun must have set some time, for the twilight was falling in the clear space that still existed above the mist. i looked back upon the road. surely he could not have passed. i could not bear to give up the hope of this ride home with him, and yet i scarcely dared loiter lest mother should grow anxious. i put the beast to a gentle trot and rode forward slowly. i knew of no other way that harrod could have taken, and i felt sure that he had not passed that cottage without my knowledge. but the mist thickened. i could not see before me or behind; it was not until i was close upon it that i could tell where the path branched off that led across the meadows to the town. it did not strike me at the time that i was foolish to take it; i only wondered whether harrod would be sure to come that way. i only thought of whether i should recognize the sound of the mare's trot, for that was the only means by which i could be sure of his approach before he was close upon me. i rode on slowly, listening always. i rode on for what seemed to me to be a very long time. the mist was chill after the hot day, and i had no covering but my old, thin, blue serge habit, which had seen many a long day's wear. the fog gathered in thickness, and darkened with the darkness of the coming night. i began to think that, after all, i had made a mistake in taking the short-cut. perhaps mr. harrod had kept to the high-road, as safer on such a night; perhaps thus i should miss him. i was not at all afraid of the fog, but i was very much afraid of missing the companion for whose sake i had come this long ride on a hot day. and with the fear in my mind that i might miss him, i did a very foolish thing--i turned back upon my steps. i put the horse to a canter, and turned back to regain the high-road. i rode as fast as i could now, urging the beast forward; but though i rode for a much longer distance than i had ridden already since i left mrs. winter's cottage, i saw no trace of the road. i stood still at last and tried to determine where i was. my heart was beating a little. presently--through the stillness, for the air was absolutely lifeless--i heard the sound of voices. i listened eagerly. but, alas! there was no sound of horse's hoofs: the wayfarers, whoever they were, were on their feet. mr. harrod could scarcely be one of them. i stopped, waiting for them to come up. they were tramps. their figures looked wavering and uncertain as they came towards me through the mist. they walked with a heavy lounging gait, smoking their clay pipes. "can you tell me if i'm in the right way for the high-road?" said i, as they came within ear-shot. they stopped, and one of them burst into a laugh and said something afterwards in an undertone to his companion. "you're a long way from wherever it is you're bound for," said he; and as he spoke he came up to me and took hold of the horse's bridle. something in his face displeased me. i gave him a sharp cut across it with my whip. he yelled with rage, but he let go the bridle; and another cut across the horse's neck sent him forward with his hind-hoofs in the air. i had never known him answer like that to the whip before. i think he can have liked the look of the men no better than i did. before i knew that there was a dike before me, i found myself safely landed on the other side of it; and it was only then that i pulled the poor old beast up and looked round. of course i could see nothing: the mist would have been too thick, even had the growing darkness not been sufficient to obscure any object not close at hand. but i could hear no voices, and i felt that i was safe. how a girl, with nothing but a little whip in her hand, had prevailed against two strong men--even though she was on a horse and they on foot--i did not pause to consider. i was safe; but the little adventure had frightened me, and i thought i would try to get home as fast as i could. but how? i was absolutely uncertain where i was. i had crossed a dike, which i should not have done; but one dike was much like another, and that was no guide. i could see nothing, and i could hear nothing. nothing? yes; as i listened i did hear something. it was the sound of distant waves lapping gently upon the beach. i must indeed have strayed far from the high-road if i had come near enough to the sea to hear the sound of its waves. i stopped and waited again. i thought i would wait until those men had got well ahead. then, after a while, i put the horse across the dike again, and went forward slowly, straining every nerve to determine whether the sound of the sea was growing louder or less in my ears. i felt sure after a while that it was growing less, and yet i could not be absolutely certain, for there was a strange feeling in my head; and i was soon obliged to acknowledge to myself that i was getting very sleepy. the mist, i knew, was apt to make people sleepy if they were out long in it; but i had often been out in a sea-fog before, and i had never felt so sleepy. i wondered what o'clock it was. i struggled on a little longer, but i felt that unless i were to walk i should fall off the horse, so i got down and led him on by the bridle. for another reason it was better to walk--i was chilled to the bone. i turned the end of my habit up over my shoulders, and although it was wringing wet, it served as a kind of poultice; but i cannot say that i was either cheerful or comfortable. the night was perfectly still, the mist perfectly dense. once a hare, startled i suppose by the sound of the horse's hoofs, ran across in front of me, and retreated into his form; but i think that that was the only time i saw a living thing. i got so used to the silence and loneliness that when at last another sound began to mingle with the monotonous tread of the weary beast, i scarcely noticed it. perhaps it was because it was only an increase of the same sound: it was the tread of another weary beast. but whether that was the reason, or whether it was that i was gradually growing more and more sleepy, certain it is that the sound grew to a point, and then began slowly to fade away again before i was quite conscious of its existence. then suddenly i realized what it might be, and with all the strength of my being i shouted through the mist. once--twice i shouted, and then i stood still and listened. the sound of the hoofs and the wheels--yes, the wheels--still went on faintly. my heart grew sick, and again i shouted into the night; this time it was almost a cry. the wheels stopped. i shouted again, and there came back a faint holloa that told me how much fainter still must have been my own voice through the fog. i leaped onto the horse, and urged him forward as near as i could tell in the direction of the voice. and all the time i continued shouting. thank heaven! i heard the answering cry clearer and clearer each time. at last--at last i saw a horse and gig just discernible through the steaming darkness. "who is there?" cried a voice; and--how can i describe my happiness?--it was the voice of trayton harrod. i don't think i answered. i think there was something in my throat which prevented me from answering; but he must have recognized me at once, for he gave vent to an exclamation which i had never heard him use before--he said, "great heavens!" then he got down out of the gig, and came towards me quickly. "miss margaret!" he exclaimed. "how did you ever get here?" i had recovered my usual voice by this time, and i replied, quietly enough, to the effect that i had been on an errand to broadlands, and had lost myself coming home in the fog. "lost yourself! i should think you had lost yourself," ejaculated he, half angrily. "i was uncertain of my own road before you called, but i know well enough that you are entirely out of the beaten track here." "oh, then i'm afraid i shall have made you miss your way too," said i, apologetically. i don't know what had come to me, but i was so glad to see him that i could not bear he should be angry with me. "that doesn't signify in the least," said he. "it's you of whom i am thinking. i am afraid you must be cold and tired, and i fear we shall be a long while getting home yet." he was close to me now. "you had better get into the gig," said he; "i'll tie the horse to it." he held out his hands to help me down, and i put mine in his. "why, you are chilled to the bone," murmured he. "you'll take your death of cold." he lifted me from the horse, for indeed i was numb with the penetrating damp, and led me to the gig. then he took the horse-cloth which lay across the seat and wrapped it round me as tightly as he could. "haven't you a pin?" he asked. i tried to laugh but i could not; something stuck in my throat. "i thought women always had pins," he added. then i did laugh a little; but i must have been very much tired and overwrought, for the laugh turned into a sort of sob. i could only hope he did not notice it. he made no remark, at all events; he only wrapped the rug as closely as he could around me, and took hold of my hands again, as though to feel if they were any warmer. he held them in his own a long time; he held them very fast. the blood seemed to ebb away from my heart as i stood there with my hands in his. my face was turned away, but i felt that his keen dark eyes were fixed upon mine, concernedly, tenderly. a strange, new happiness filled my whole being; i did not know what it meant, but i knew that i wanted to keep on standing there like that, in spite of the cold and the dampness and the dark; i knew that what i felt was sweeter than any joy that had come to me before in my life. but trayton harrod took away his hands. he passed his arm round my waist, and holding me by my elbows so as not to displace the plaid which he had wrapped so carefully around me, he helped me up into the gig. i let him do just what he liked. i, who had been so defiant and proud before, and who thought that i scorned such a thing as a beau, i was letting this man behave to me just as captain forrester might have behaved to joyce; i was as wax in his hands. i did not think of that at the time; i do not know that i ever thought of it. it only strikes me now as i write it down. i sat there without saying a word while harrod fetched the horse and tied him to the back of the gig. i was not conscious of anything, save that i was perfectly contented, and waiting for him to come up and sit beside me. all my fatigue had disappeared, all my desire to be home, all my remembrance of mother's anxiety. but why should i dwell further upon all this? if any one ever reads what i have written, they will understand what i felt far better than i can describe it. every one knows that love is self-absorbed, and, save towards the one being for whom it would sacrifice all the world, utterly selfish. and what i was slowly beginning to feel was love. we moved away into the misty night. mr. harrod did not speak for some time. he was busy enough trying to find out which was the right way. we had no clew. the sound of the sea, it is true, had grown faint in our ears, so that we were farther inland; but, excepting for the dike which i had crossed after my meeting with the tramps, we had no landmark to tell us where we were. harrod thought he remembered the dike; but how far it was from the high-road that we wished to reach, we could neither of us exactly determine. the tract of country was a little beyond our usual beat, or we should have been less at a loss. but there was no sign or sound yet of the market-town through or by which we must pass before we reached our own piece of marsh-land. there was no doubt about it that we were lost on the marsh, and all that we could do was to jolt slowly along, avoiding dikes and unseen pitfalls, and waiting quietly for the day to show us our whereabouts. luckily, in these midsummer nights the hours betwixt dusk and dawn are but short. only harrod seemed to be concerned about it; he kept asking me whether i was warm; he kept begging me not to give up and go to sleep. i suppose he was afraid of the fever for me. but for my own part i felt no inconvenience; i was not cold, and i had no more inclination to go to sleep. i do not remember that we talked of anything in particular; i do not remember that we talked much at all. i think i was afraid to speak; i think i was afraid that even he should speak; the silence was too wonderful, and the vague sense of something unspoken, unguessed, was sweeter than any words. it was the deepest silence i have ever felt; there wasn't so much as the sound of a bird, or of a stirring leaf, or of the breath of the sleeping cattle; even the gentle moaning of the sea was hushed now in the distance; it was as though we two were alone in the world. sometimes i could see that smile of mr. harrod's flash out even in the darkness as he would turn and ask if i was quite warm, and sometimes he would merely bend over me and wrap the rug--tenderly, i fancied--more closely around me. ah, it was a midsummer-night's dream! but at last nature was stronger than inclination--i was young and healthy--and i dropped asleep. when i awoke, a promise of coming light was in the east, the sea was tremulous with it, and long purple streaks lined the horizon. overhead the sky was fair, although the thick, white fog still lay in one vast sheet all around us. out of it rose the market-town straight before us, dark and sombre, out of the shining sea of mist. we were trotting now along the beaten track towards it, and mr. harrod was urging on the weary mare with one hand, while the other was round my waist. the gig was narrow for two persons, and i suppose i should have risked being thrown out in my unconscious state if he had not done so. he took away his arm as soon as i stirred, and i shook myself and looked at him. had my head been resting on his shoulder? and if it had, why was i so little disturbed? "i am afraid i have been asleep," said i. "yes," answered mr. harrod, "you have been asleep. i hadn't the heart to rouse you again, you were so tired. but we shall soon be at home now." "why, we've got back into the track!" i exclaimed. "yes," laughed he. "when the town began to appear through the mist it was a landmark to me, though i believe i tumbled over the path at last by a mere chance." he said no more. we were soon out into the high-road again, and climbing the street of the town. we were the only stirring people in it, and this made me feel more conscious of my strange adventure than all the hours that i had spent alone on the marsh with my companion. for the first time i began to wonder what mother would say. once out of the town, we sped silently along the straight, familiar road that led towards our own village. the mist was beginning slowly, very slowly, to clear away, and the hills upon which our farm stood loomed out of it in the distance. in the marsh, on either side of us, the cattle began to stir like their own ghosts in the white vapor, and gazed at us across the dikes with wondering, sleepy eyes. the stars were all dead, and above the mist the quiet sky spread a panoply of steely blue, while out above the sea the purple streaks had turned to silver and sent rays upward into the great dome. hung like a curtain across the gates of some wonderful world unseen, a rosy radiance spread from the bosom of the ocean far into the downy clouds above that so tenderly covered the naked blue--a radiance that every moment was more and more marvellously illumined by that mysterious inward fire, whose even distant being could tip every hill and mountain of cloudland with a lining of molten gold. unconsciously my gaze clung to the spot where a warmth so far-reaching sprung from so dainty a border-land of opal coloring; and when at last the great flame was born of the sea's gray breast, i felt the tears come into my eyes, i don't know why, and a little sigh of content rose from my heart. i was tired, for the sunrise had never brought tears to my eyes before. "i hope you'll be none the worse," said harrod, glancing at me uneasily, and urging the horse with voice and hand; "but i'm afraid your parents will have been sadly anxious anyhow." alas! i had not thought of it again. i sat silent, watching where the familiar solid curves of the fortress upon the marsh began to take shape out of the fog. "if i hadn't met you i should have been out on yonder marsh now," i said. i thought he would have said something about being glad he had met me, but he did not. he only answered, "i ought not to have allowed you to fall asleep." i laughed at that. "if it had not been for you i should be asleep now on that bank where i first heard you," i declared. "and i should have got my death of ague by this time, i suppose." still he said nothing. there was some misgiving on his mind which no words of mine removed. i felt it instinctively. even when i said--and as i write it down now i marvel how i _could_ have said it--even when i said, softly, "well, i regret nothing. i have enjoyed myself," he did not reply. i wondered at it just for a moment, but no mood of his could damp my complete content. even though, as i neared home, i began to be more and more uneasy about my parents' anxiety, no cloud could rest on the horizon of this fair, sweet dawn of day. i could not see beyond the barrier of that ever-widening, ever-brightening curtain of glorious light; but there it was, making glad for the coming of the blessed sun that would soon fill the whole space of heaven's free and perfect purity. the coldness of the sky and of all the world was slowly throbbing with the wakening warmth. what was there beyond that burning edge of the world, beyond that sea of strange, exultant brightness? we began to climb the hill, and on the garden terrace stood my father. he was waiting for me just as he had waited for me on that night in may when he had told me to be friends with trayton harrod. chapter xxiii. mother never scolded me at all for my adventure, and of course i was much more sorry than i should have been if she had done so. as i stood there in the cool, gray dawn, with my wet habit, the dew-drops still standing on the curls of my red hair, my face--i make no doubt--pale with distress, and my gray eyes at their darkest from the same cause, i suppose i looked rather a sorry spectacle, and one that melted her heart; anyhow, i know that she put her arm round me and gave me a hasty kiss before she pushed me forward to meet father. for a moment i felt something rise in my throat, and i suppose i ought by rights to have cried. but i did not cry; i was too happy in spite of it all, and luckily neither father nor mother was of those people who expect one to cry because one is sorry. as i have said, they neither of them said a word of rebuke. i gave my explanation, and it was accepted; father only declared that it was a very good thing trayton harrod had met me when he did; and mother only remarked that "least said soonest mended." i suppose they were both glad to have me safe home. and that drive with father's bailiff, which had meant so much to me, was thus buried in sacred silence. it was the day that joyce was to come home. as i dressed myself again after the couple of hours' sleep, which i could not manage to do without, i remembered that it was the day for joyce to come home. how was it that i had not thought of it? how was it that i had not thought of it all yesterday, nor for many yesterdays before it? i was conscious that even my letters to my sister had been fewer and more hurried than they were at the beginning of her absence. i was angry with myself for it, for i would not have believed that any length of absence could have made her anything but the first person of importance in my life. but of course now that she was home again, everything would be as before. i felt very happy to think that i was to see her again. i begged the gig to go down to the station and meet her myself. the mare was used to me now, so that even joyce would not be nervous. her face lit up with her own quiet smile as she saw me, breaking the curves of the sweet mouth, and depressing, ever so little, that short upper lip of hers, that always looked as if it had been pinched into its pretty pout. she looked handsomer than ever; i don't know whether it was because it was so long since i had seen her, but i thought she was far more beautiful than i had ever imagined. i pitied poor frank more than ever for having to wait so long for a sight of her. "why, meg," said she, as she came out with all her little parcels, "how tanned you are! i declare your hair and your face are just upon one color." i laughed aloud merrily. "well, if my face is the color of my hair, it must be flame indeed," i cried. "but i've been out haymaking, you see, all the time that you, lazy thing, have been getting a white skin cooped up in a london parlor. oh, my dear! i wouldn't have been you." "no, you wouldn't have liked it," answered she. "i was pleased to be of use to poor old aunt, but it was rather dull, and i must say i'm glad to be home." "everybody has missed you dreadfully," said i. "as for mother and deb, they can't tell me often enough that i can't hold a candle to you." "oh, what nonsense, meg!" murmured she. "you know well enough they don't mean it." "my dear, i don't mind," cried i. "i know it well enough, and i can do my own bit of work in my own way all the same. but mother has missed you and no mistake," added i, "though as likely as not she won't let you guess it. she wanted you home long ago, only then captain forrester came down again." a troubled shade came over joyce's face, as i had noticed it come once or twice before, at mention of her lover's name. "he came down for a few days a week ago, you know," i added. "i told you so, didn't i?" i was not quite sure whether i had even remembered to give that great piece of news. "oh yes, you told me," replied joyce, in a slow voice. "he inquired a great deal after you, of course," i went on. "he asked me to give you a great many messages." she did not answer. a blush had crept up on her dainty cheek, as it was so apt to do. but we had reached the hill, and i jumped down and walked up it, giving her the reins to hold. and when we got to the top, deborah was there hanging clothes in the back garden ready to catch the first sight of us along the road, and reuben at the gate looking half asleep because he had been out the best part of the night with jack barnstaple, looking for me in the fog. there was no time for any more private talk. mother, it is true, did not come to the gate, that not being her way, and when we got inside, you might have thought joyce had been no farther than to market from the way in which she received her; but that meant nothing, it was only maliphant manners, and father said no more than, "you're looking hearty, child," before he took me away to write out his prospectus for him because his hand was stiff. it was not till late in the evening that i got time to have a chat with joyce in the dear old attic bedroom that she and i had always shared, and i was anxious for a chat. she had brought back two new gowns for us, and apart from all i had to say to her, i wanted to see the new gowns. i had never cared for clothes till quite lately; i used to be rather ashamed of a new frock, as though folk must think me a fool for wearing it, and had been altogether painfully wanting in the innocent vanity which is supposed to be one of a young girl's charms. but lately it had been different. i wanted to look nice, and i had my own ideas of how that was to be achieved. alas! when i saw the gowns, i knew that they did not meet my views. joyce was settling her things--laying aside her few laces and ribbons with tender care; she opened the heavy old oak press and took out the gowns with pride. i think that she was so busy shaking them out that she did not see my face; i hope so, for i know it fell. the gowns were pale blue merino, the very thing for her dainty loveliness, but not, i felt instinctively, the thing for a rough, ruddy colt like me. "won't they spot?" said i, diffidently. "that's what mother said," replied she, a little sadly; "but, dear me, they're our only best frocks; we sha'n't wear them o' bad weather." i am so glad i said no more, for she had brought me a book from london--it was a novel by a famous author of whom we had heard; the author was a woman, and i had expressed a great wish to read it in consequence. i was very pleased to think that joyce should have remembered it. i recollect that i kissed her for it, and i thought no more about the frocks, i only felt that it was nice to have sister home. i had not known until now how much i had missed her. "i wonder how we shall all get on when you go away for good and marry that young man of yours?" said i. "it don't seem as if the place were itself somehow when you are not there." "time enough to think of that when the day comes," answered joyce, i thought a trifle sadly. "well, yes, maybe," said i, doubtfully; "and yet it isn't so very far off, you know. and if only you had a little more determination in you it might be a great deal nearer." "you seem to be very anxious to get rid of me just as soon as you have got me home," said she, with just the merest tone of wounded sensibility in her voice. of course i laughed at that--it wasn't really worth answering. but i could have said that since three weeks ago, i had learned that which made me think it harder than ever that joyce should be separated from the man she loved. i had not thought much of her or her concerns of late, but now that she was close to me i felt very sorry for her. when joyce had gone away i had been conscious of a curious feeling of inferiority with regard to her as though she knew some secret which was to me sealed, but now--now i felt that there was a rent in the cloud that divided us; i felt that i could look into her world, i felt that i was on her level. and it was only with a more delicate feeling of sympathy than formerly that i began to give her some of the messages with which frank had intrusted me. i could not exactly pretend that he had looked very miserable, but i could assure her of his continued ardent devotion to her, and this i did most fervently. somehow, when i had entered upon this task i began to feel that it was rather a queer compliment to assure a girl that her lover was not forgetting her, and i asked myself why i felt obliged to do it. she listened quietly to all that i repeated to her of the short interview, but when i began to speak of my endeavors to induce mother to cut the term of the engagement short, she interrupted me with that serene air of determination which i knew there was no gainsaying. "meg," she said, "i want you never to do that again. i want you to understand once and for all that if things don't come naturally, it's because i believe that they oughtn't to come at all. if frank cares for me as he says, he will care for me just as much at the end of a year, and i had rather wait and see." i looked at her open-mouthed. "i think you're a queer girl," i said at last. "i shouldn't have thought you wanted to punish yourself for the sake of putting a man to a test. but i suppose i don't understand. that's the sort of way mother talks, and i know it's very wise, and all that; but, dear me, i think it's all stuff wanting to sit down and wait till the wave comes over you. i'm sure that if _i_ wanted a thing very badly i should love to fight for it--i should _have_ to fight for it." joyce sighed a little sigh, and sat down by the window, looking out into the deepening twilight. it was close upon midsummer, and the evenings were exquisitely long and luminous, the twilight stretching almost across to the dawn. after the heat of the day, lovely soft gray mists rose in transparent sheets off the marsh below us, and floated upward towards the hill. it was not a thick fog, as it had been the night before, but just a ghostly veil thrown across the land, above which lights twinkled amid dark houses on the distant hill. there was not a breath of wind, and in the silence the lapping of the sea came faintly to our ear. joyce looked out into the mist. "of course," continued i after a while, "i'm not engaged to a man, and so i don't know what i should do if i were." "i think you would do what you do in other matters," answered joyce. "i think you would try very hard to get your own way. but then you and i are not alike." no, we were not alike, i felt that. and i supposed that my sister was right, and that the only difference lay in my being more obstinate. "i don't think that a woman ought to fight to have her own way," added she, in a low voice. i considered a moment before i understood what she meant. "do you mean to say that if any one fights, it ought to be the man?" asked i. "well, you _are_ an unreasonable girl! good gracious me! when frank lifts a finger you are angry with him." joyce smiled a faint smile like the gray mists below. "i don't think you know _what_ you mean nor _what_ you want," added i, impatiently. without taking any notice of my short tone, she said, gravely, "i know that it will be all as it is ordained." when joyce talked about things being as they were ordained, it always put me in a horrible temper; and it was either this or some little feeling of awkwardness in my mind about harrod which made me reply very shortly when she began asking me presently about the new bailiff. from some motive entirely incomprehensible to myself, there arose within me a sudden dislike to the idea that joyce should guess at my liking for him. and so when she asked what he was like, i replied, gruffly, "oh, like many other men--plain and very obstinate." this was true, but the impression that i gave in saying it was false; i knew that perfectly well, but i was too proud to change it, although in my heart i felt ashamed that i should be guilty of any sort of deception towards my dear, simple joyce, and when i was really so glad to have her back again. she looked distressed for a moment, but then she brightened up and said, gayly, "well, many a good-fellow is plain, and as for being obstinate, that should be to your liking." "so it is," said i. "of course." "i hope father and he get on nicely. i hope he isn't obstinate with father." i laughed. "oh, birds of a feather, you know," said i. "we're all obstinate together. but we none of us waste words, so we get on first-rate." joyce sighed a little. "mother said what a good-fellow he was, but father wouldn't say a word about him to me," she said. "of course he never does. but i don't think he's looking well. he has aged so of late." i looked at her defiantly. so many people had said the same thing during the last few months. "good gracious, joyce!" i cried. "you're always saying that. father's hale and hearty enough. folk are bound to grow older. and i can tell you one thing, he's not half so touchy as he was. he and squire haven't had more than two rows since you left. that's a very good sign." "yes, i _am_ glad of that," agreed joyce. "the squire's too good a friend to quarrel with. and though of course i know the quarrels never meant anything, they used to make me uncomfortable, meg, and worse than ever when you used to follow father's way. it didn't seem pretty in one of us girls, dear. something's good for mere manners. we don't think enough of them." i was silent. my manners were certainly of the worst when my heart did not go with them. but i was conscious that i was not quite the same girl as i had been when my sister left. even to the squire i was different; since his talk to me on the garden terrace i had felt no inclination to be anything but gentle to him. "of course, if father quarrels with the bailiff it's as bad for his own health as if he quarrelled with the squire," went on my sister, concernedly. "why, dear me, joyce, who said he quarrelled with him?" cried i. "i only said they were both obstinate. father wouldn't think of quarrelling with his bailiff." i took off my dress and hung it up, and shook out my red mop of hair before i said another word. then i added, "and i think mr. harrod is very considerate towards father. he's far too good a fellow not to be respectful to an old man." i felt bound to say that much for honesty. "well, then, you do like him?" cried joyce. "who said i didn't?" answered i. "he's a downright honest fellow, with no nonsense about him." it wasn't quite what i felt about trayton harrod, but it was as near as i could get to the truth, and it seemed to give joyce some idea of my liking him, for she turned round with a brightened face, and laid her hand on my shoulder. "oh, meg, you can't think how pleased you make me by saying that," she murmured, softly; "i have been afraid you would just set your face against the poor man out of mere obstinacy, and make things unpleasant for everybody. you do sometimes, you know. and when you never mentioned him in your letters, i made sure that was the reason. i thought you were just making yourself as disagreeable as ever you could to show you hated his coming to knellestone." "well, you must think me a dreadful old cross-patch," laughed i, awkwardly. "you _are_ tetchy when you have a mind to be, you know, though you can be so bright when you're pleased that one's forced to love you. that's just the pity." "well, of course, i _did_ hate a bailiff coming to knellestone," answered i; "but now that i see how much cleverer he is about farming than we are, i'm pleased." "i see," said joyce. "then he _is_ clever?" "oh yes," answered i. "he's clever." joyce paused. "well, then," she said, diffidently, "i hope before long you'll be real good friends. i have often thought, meg, that the folk here aren't bright enough for you. i believe if you weren't set down in a country village you'd be a real clever girl." i laughed, not ill pleased. "oh no, joyce," said i. "i expect what you and i think clever wouldn't really be so." "i know more than you think," said joyce, sagely, nodding her pretty head with an authoritative air. "i don't mean book-learning clever, i mean mother-wit. and do you know, meg, i do so hope that mr. harrod being here may make a difference to you! but you don't seem to have seen much of him yet." "oh yes," said i, evasively. "he comes in to supper most nights; and of course one meets out-doors now and then in a country place." "well," concluded joyce, with a sort of air of resignation, "of course it wasn't to be expected you'd be great friends just at once. it's a great deal to be thankful for you don't quarrel." "oh no," said i; "we don't quarrel." and then we both said our prayers and got into bed. but for a long while i lay awake thinking--wondering why i had pretended that i did not like the new bailiff, and whether i really was a clever girl; and--shall i confess it?--hoping a little that the pale blue dress would become me. and then, as i fell asleep and far into my dreams, the memory of my ride with trayton harrod shone through the mist, and i thought again of that bar of silver promise across the dawn beyond which i had not been able to see. chapter xxiv. two whole days passed without mr. harrod coming to the grange. i dare say nobody else noticed it; i dare say _i_ should not have noticed it if--if i had not thought that he would come to inquire how i did after our adventure. i was always supposed to resent being asked how i did: and here i was, quite hurt because a young man whom i had known not three months had omitted to do so. i took covert means of finding out that father and reuben had seen him, and that he was well; and i am quite sure that i blushed with pleasure when, on the morning of the third day, mother said that she was certain the white curtains at "the elms" must be getting soiled, and suggested that i should carry up a new pair. harrod was becoming quite a favorite with her, or she would never have taken so much trouble for his comforts--it was no necessary duty on her part. i blushed, but i did not think that any one had noticed it. when mother had left the kitchen, however, with the key of the linen press, i saw that two little black eyes were fixed on me with a merry twinkle. they made me angry for a moment, i don't know why; but it was a shame to be angry with old deb, especially when her dear old red face was so kindly and affectionate: it was not always wont to be so. "well, well, i'm glad to see folk are for forgiving that poor young man for being bailiff at knellestone," said she, with good-humored banter. "when i see'd what a fine masterful chap it were, i had my doubts it ud end that way." "what way, if you please?" asked i, haughtily. deborah laughed. "what do you say, joyce?" said she, turning to my sister, who was intent upon some one of the household duties that she was so glad to be back at. "they aren't quite so hard on the young man as they were for going to be, are they?" "i don't quite understand," said joyce, with perfectly genuine innocence. "why should mother be hard upon him? it isn't his fault if he's father's bailiff. besides, i'm sure mother sees how useful he is to father." deb laughed louder than ever. "there, bless you, my dear," said she; "you never could see round a corner; but you've more common-sense than the lot of 'em. why should folk owe the man a grudge, to be sure? all the same, your mother'll spoil him afore she's done with him. curtains, indeed! i never knowed a bailiff as needed 'em before." mother came back at that moment with the things, and i hastened to beg joyce to accompany me up to "the elms" after dinner. somehow, although in my heart i knew that i was longing to see trayton harrod again, a sudden shyness had come over me at the thought of meeting him, and i wanted joyce to be there. joyce, however, would not come; she begged off on the score of many household jobs that had got behind-hand in her absence, and mother said that i might just as well go alone and get the thing done with dorcas's help, for that of course the bailiff was sure to be out at that time of day. so alone i was forced to go. most likely, as mother said, mr. harrod would be out; but i took taff with me--a dog was better than most human beings; and with taff at my heels i felt my self-consciousness evaporate. i crossed the lane and skirted the brow of the hill behind the pine-tree lane; the mill-arms faced the village with a west wind, but the breeze had dropped since morning, and the air was heavy and thunderous. i thought i would go round by the new reservoir and see how the work was getting on. mr. harrod would very likely be there: it was that one among his new ventures about which at the moment he was the most excited, and the pipes were just about to be laid; even if i met him he was not obliged to know that i was going to "the elms." my heart began to beat a little as i drew near the group, but the bailiff was not there; only old luck, the sheep-dog, ambled towards me wagging his tail, and i knew that reuben could not be far off. sure enough, there he was among the men, who were just leaving off work, talking to jack barnstaple. "i want to know whatever he needs to come stuffing his new-fangled notions down folk's throats as have thriven on the old ones all their lives?" the latter was saying. "we don't understand such things hereabouts. we haven't been so well brought up. he'd best let us alone." "yes, i telled him so," said reuben, sagely, shaking his stately white head, that looked for all the world like parson's when he had his hat off; "but these young folk they must always be thinking they knows better than them as has a life's experience. but look 'ere, lads, we hain't been educated at the agricultural college at ashford, ye know." "blow the agricultural college," muttered jack barnstaple. "yes; and so he'll say when he finds out he's none so sure about these golding 'ops. and so master'll say when he finds as he's dropped all his money over pipes and wells as was never meant to answer." "what do you mean by that, reuben?" said i, coming up behind him. and i am sure that my cheeks were red, and my eyes black, as father would declare they were when the devil got into me. "what was never meant to answer?" reuben looked crestfallen, for of course i know he had not expected me to be within hearing, and the other men began to pack up their tools for going home. "well, miss, it don't stand to reason that a man can expect water to go uphill to please him," said reuben, with a grim smile. "water finds its own level, reuben," explained i, sagaciously; "mr. harrod told me that, and father said so too. the spring is on yonder hill, and if the pipes are laid through the valley to this hill, the water is bound to come to the same level." i saw smiles upon the men's faces, and reuben shook his head. "there's nothing will bring water uphill saving a pump, miss," said jack barnstaple, gloomily. he always said everything gloomily--it was a way he had. "nay," added reuben, looking at me with those pathetic eyes of his that seemed to say so much that he can never have intended; "it may be a man or it may be a beast, but some one has got to draw the water uphill afore it'll come. it may run down yonder hill, but it won't run up this un of its own self. 'tain't in nature." "well, reuben, i advise you to keep to talking of what you can understand," said i, crossly. "i should have thought you would have had sense enough to know that mr. harrod must needs know better than you." a faint provoking smile spread over reuben's lips. "young folk holds together," said he, laconically. "'tis in nature." i flashed an angry glance at the old man, but i saw a lurking smile--for the first time in my experience--on the face of stolid jack barnstaple, who had lingered behind the others. my face went red, as red as my red hair, and i stooped down to caress the dog. what did the man mean? what had deb meant that morning in the kitchen? but i raised my head defiantly. "well, i think you had just best all of you wait and see," said i, severely. "you'll feel great fools when you find you have made a mistake." i was alluding to the water scheme; but it struck me afterwards that the men might have misunderstood me. but it was too late to correct the mistake, and without another word i ran down the hill to the path that led to "the elms." my cheeks were hot with the consciousness that i had a secret that could be guessed even by reuben ruck; the consciousness made my heart beat again very fast; but it need not have done so: as was to have been expected, mr. harrod was not at home. dorcas and i put up the curtains together, and then i was left alone in the little parlor while she went to make me a cup of tea. it was the first time i had been alone in that room--his room. a bare, comfortless, countryman's and bachelor's room, but more interesting to me than the daintiest lady's parlor. by the empty hearth the high-backed wooden chair in which he sat; beside the wide old-fashioned grate the hob upon which sang the kettle for his lonely breakfast; in the centre of the rough brick floor the large square oaken table at which he ate; on the high chimney-piece the pipes that he smoked, the tobacco-jar from which he filled them, a revolver, and an almanac; on the walls two water-color drawings, one representing an old gentleman in an arm-chair, the other the outside of a country house overgrown with wistaria; standing in the corner a handsome fowling-piece, which i had seen him carry; in the bookshelf between the windows the books that he read. i wandered up and looked at them: a curious assemblage of shabby volumes, although at that time they embodied to me all that was highest in culture. that was ten years ago, and i was in love. had it not been so i might have remembered that father's library was at least as good. milton, a twelve-volumed edition of shakespeare, a bible, a pilgrim's progress, a volume of cowper's poems, a volume of percy's reliques, adam smith's wealth of nations, chaucer's canterbury tales, sir walter scott's novels, byron, burns, some odd volumes of dickens, and then books on agriculture, the authors and their titles strange to me; this is all i remember. a mixed collection--probably the result of several generations, but not a bad one if trayton harrod read it all and read it well. i looked at it sadly. save the walter scott novels, the burns poems, the bible, and the pilgrim's progress, i knew none of them excepting by name, and not all of them even then. i felt very ignorant and very much ashamed of myself; for i never doubted that harrod read and knew all these books, and how could a man who knew so much have anything in common with a girl who knew so little? i resolved to read, to learn, to grow clever. joyce had said that i was clever, joyce might know; why not? i took the volume of milton down and sat upon the low window-seat reading it. it was rather dreadful to be immediately confronted with satan as an orator, for i had never been used to consider him as a personage, but rather as a grim embodiment of evil too horrible to be named aloud. but the rich and sonorous flow of the splendid verse fascinated me and i read on, although i didn't understand much that i read. my thoughts wandered often to notice that the square of carpet was threadbare, and that i must persuade mother to get a new one; or to gaze out of the window upon the sloping bosom of the downs whereon this house stood lonely--a mark for all the winds of heaven; in the serene solitude the sleepy sheep strayed idly--cropping as they went--white blots upon the yellow pastures. and all the while i was listening for a footstep that i feared yet hoped would come, longing to be away and yet incapable of the determination which should take me from that chance of a possible meeting. but, long as i have taken to tell it, the time that i waited was not ten minutes before a heavy foot made the boards creak in the passage and a hand was on the door-knob. i started up, my cheeks aflame--the volume of milton on the floor. but when the door opened it was squire broderick who stood in the opening. i don't think the red in my face faded, for i was vexed that he should see me there, and i fancied that he looked surprised. "oh, do you know if harrod is at home?" asked he. "no, he's not," answered i, glancing up at the clean windows; "and i've been putting up fresh curtains meanwhile." "they look delicious," said the squire, with a little awkward laugh, not quite so hearty as usual. "what care you take of him!" "mother is a dreadful fidget, you know," murmured i. "and at the same time you took a turn at harrod's library," smiled he, picking up the volume which lay near my foot. "milton! rather a heavy order for a child like you, isn't it?" i flushed up angrily. a child! "do you understand it?" asked he. i struggled for a moment between pride and truthfulness. "no," said i, "not all. do you?" he smiled, that kind, sweet smile that made me ashamed of being cross. "come, i'm not going to confess my ignorance to you," he laughed. "i'm too old;" and he took hold of my arm to help it into the sleeve of my jacket, which i was trying to put on. but at that moment dorcas brought in the tea, and of course i was obliged to stay and have some, and even to hand a cup to the squire to please her; country-folk stand on ceremony over such things, and i did not want to offend dorcas. "you'll stop in to-night and see joyce, won't you?" said i, for want of something to say, for i felt more than usually awkward. "she looks better than ever. she hasn't lost her country looks." "i am glad of that," said he, glancing at me, although of course he must have been thinking of sister; "they're the only ones worth having." and then, although he promised to come in and welcome her home, he went back to our first subject of talk. "as you're so fond of reading, you ought to get hold of a bit of shakespeare," said he. "should i like that?" asked i. "i like poetry when it sounds nice, but i like the waverley novels best." "but shakespeare is novel and poetry too," said the squire. "i'm no great reader of anything but the news myself, but i like my shakespeare now and again." "father keeps all those nice bound books in the glass-case," said i, "and i don't believe mother would let _me_ have them." the squire laughed. "your mother thinks girls have something better to do than to read books," smiled he. "reading is for lonely bachelors like trayton harrod." "he's no more lonely than you are, mr. broderick," said i, "and yet you always seem to be quite happy." he did not answer, and i was sorry for my thoughtless words, remembering that brief episode in his life when he had not been lonely. "so you think i am always quite happy?" said he at last. i blushed. somehow the question was of a more intimate kind than the squire had ever addressed to me before, for although he had spoken familiarly to me on my own account, he had never allowed me to know any feeling of his own. i was afraid he must be going to speak to me about joyce. "oh yes," i replied, lightly; "i think you're one of the jolliest people i know." "well, you're right, so i am," said he, gayly; "and i'm blessed in having rare good friends. but it does sometimes occur to me to think that i am pretty well alone in the world, miss margaret." he looked round at me in his frank way, but i noticed that the hand which held his stout walking-stick trembled a little. i blushed again. it was very unusual for me, but he made me feel uncomfortable; i did not want him to tell me of his love for my sister, for i felt that if he did i _must_ tell him of her secret engagement to his nephew, and that would be breaking my promise to my parents. suddenly an idea struck me; i thought i would take the bull by the horns. "you should marry," said i, boldly. he looked at me in blank astonishment. "of course," added i, "there's no one hereabouts that would be good enough for you--unless it might be mary thorne, and she is only a manufacturer's daughter. you must have a real lady, of course. you should go and spend a bit of time up in london, and bring back a nice wife with you. wouldn't it brighten up the country-side!" i marvel at myself for my boldness; i, scarcely more than a child, as he had said, to a man so much older than myself! but the squire did not seem in the least offended, only he looked very grave. "you don't approve of people not marrying in what is called their own rank of life, i see," he said presently, with a twinkle of humor in his eye. "no," said i, gravely; "i agree with father." "ah!" said the squire, with the air of a man who is getting proof of something that he has affirmed. "i told frank so the other day. as a rule, the farmer class consider it just as great a disadvantage to mate with us as we do to mate with them." i bit my lip. so he did consider it a falling down for a gentleman to marry a farmer's daughter! well, let him just keep himself to himself, then. but what business had he to go meddling with frank's opinions? i was very angry with him. "i think you're quite right," i said, shortly. "they do." "it takes a very great attachment to bridge over the ditch," said he, meditatively. there came a time when i remembered those words of his, but at the moment i scarcely noticed them. i thought i heard a footstep on the gravel without, and my fear of being surprised by the master of the house came back stronger than ever, because of the presence of the squire. "i must be getting home now," said i, hastily. "i'm afraid there's a storm coming up;" and even as i spoke, a deep, low growl echoed round the hills. the squire fully agreed that there was no time to be lost if one did not want to get a drenching, and on the slope outside we parted company, he promising once more to come up in the evening and see joyce. the bailiff was not within sight. i had got over my visit quite safely; but, alas! i am not sure that i was relieved. i walked homeward as fast as i could, for heavy drops had begun to fall, and flashes of light rent the purple horizon. the sun had set, leaving a dull red lake of fire in the cleft, as it were, of two purple-black cloud-mountains; above the lake a tongue of cloud, lurid with the after-glow, swooped like a vulture upon the land, where every shape of hill and homestead and church-spire lay clearly defined, and yet all covered as if with a pall of deathly gloom. the storm advanced with terrible swiftness. by the time i had crossed the hop-gardens and was climbing the opposite lane, it had burst with all its strength, and was tearing the sky with seams of fire, and emptying spouts of rain upon the land. i was not afraid of a storm, but certainly i had never seen a fiercer one. i ran on, forgetful for the moment of everything but the desire to be home, and thus it was that i did not notice footsteps behind until they were alongside of me, and mr. harrod's voice was saying, almost in my ear, "miss maliphant!" the voice made me start, but the tone of it sent a thrill through me. "i should have thought that one piece of foolhardiness was enough for one week," added he, with a certain look of feeling, veiled under roughness, that always seemed to me to transform his face. "i took no harm from the other night," said i. "well, you may thank your stars that you didn't," answered he; "and you certainly will get wet through now." i laughed contentedly. "_that_ won't hurt me," i said. "i've been up at 'the elms' to put up fresh curtains." i hadn't meant to tell him, but a sudden spirit of mischief, and i don't know what sort of desire to know the effect of the speech on him, prompted me. "to 'the elms!'" cried he, in a disappointed tone. and then, in a lower voice, "to put up the curtains for me." "yes," answered i, demurely, "mother sent me?" what he would have answered to that i don't know; for at that moment the sky seemed suddenly to open and to be the mouth of a flaming furnace full of fire, far into the depths of the heavens; it was the hour that should have been twilight, but it was dark, save when that great sheet of blue light wrapped the marsh in splendor; then the brown and white cattle huddled in groups on the pastures, the heavy gray citadel on the plain, the wide stretch of sea that, save for the white plumes of its waves, was ink beyond the brown of its shallows, the wide stretch of monotonous level land, the rising hill, with the old city gate close before is--all was suddenly revealed in one vivid panorama and faded again into mystery. the thunder followed close upon the lightning--a deafening crash overhead. "by jove!" said harrod. "that's close. i hope you're not frightened of a storm." "frightened!" repeated i, scornfully. "some girls are," said he, half apologetically, looking at me with admiration. "not i, though," i laughed. but as i spoke my heart stood still. we had climbed the hill and had reached a spot where the trees overshadowed the road, nearly meeting overhead; a fiery fork crossed the white path in front of us, there was a kind of crackle in the wood, and a blue flame seemed to dart out of the branch of an elm close at hand. "great god!" ejaculated trayton harrod under his breath, and he flung his arm around me and dragged me to the other side of the path. i had said an instant before that i was not frightened, and i had spoken the truth; but if i had said now that i was not frightened it would have been because the sweet sense of protecting strength, which this danger had called forth, had brought with it a happiness stronger than fear. "can you run?" said he. "we must get away from these trees." i could not speak, something was in my throat, but i obeyed him. we ran till we reached the abbey, where it stood in the great open space of its own graveyard, and there we drew aside under the shadow of the eastern buttress, protected a little by the projecting arch. "you're wet through," said he, laying his hand upon my arm. i laughed again, not in the sort of exultant way i had laughed when he had asked me if i was afraid of lightning, but in a low, foolish kind of fashion. "it won't hurt me," murmured i. "nothing hurts me. i'm so strong." "oh yes, you're the right sort, i know," said he; "but all the same, you ought to have stayed at 'the elms' till it was over. if i had been there i should have made you stay." how angry those words would have made me a week ago! but now they thrilled me with delight, and with that same tender fear and longing of fresh experience that had haunted me ever since the night upon the garden cliff. could he really have "made" me do anything? "i shouldn't have stopped," i said; "no, not for any one. i'm not afraid of a storm." but i think there was very little of my old defiance in the tone. he laughed gently, and i added, "i don't see any use in waiting here." i advanced forward into the open, but as i did so a fresh flash rent the clouds and illumined the ground all about us, revealing darkest corners in its searching light. he took me by the hand and drew me once more into the shadow--not only into the shadow of the buttress this time, but of the ruined roof of a transept, where only the lightning could have discovered us. "not yet," he said, gently; and although there was no need for it, he still held my hand in his. my foolish heart began to beat wildly. what did it mean? was that coming to pass about which i had wondered sometimes of late? i wanted to get away, and yet i could not have moved for worlds. i waited with my heart beating against my side. but he did not speak, he only held my hand in his firmly, and i felt as though his eyes were upon me in the dark. i may have been wrong, but i felt as though his eyes were upon me. all at once in the ivied wall above our heads an owl shrieked. we started asunder, and i felt almost as though i must have been doing something wrong, so hard did my heart thump against my side. "fancy that poor old barn-owl being able to frighten two sensible people," laughed trayton harrod. "but upon my word i never heard him make such a noise before." i made no reply. i came out once more into the path, and, turning, held out my hand. "the storm is over," i said. "good-night." "oh, i must see you home," said he. "it's getting quite dark." he walked forward with me, but the spell was broken, only my heart still beat against my side. "you'll come in to supper?" said i, when we reached the gate. i felt myself speaking as one in a dream. the only thing that i was conscious of was a strange and foolish longing that he should not go away from me. he did not answer for a moment, but then he said: "i'm afraid i mustn't. i'm drenched through; i shouldn't be presentable." i had forgotten it; we were, in truth, neither of us presentable. "well, you must come to-morrow," said i, in as matter-of-fact a tone as i could muster. "mother expects you, and my sister is home now." he stepped forward in front of me and opened the front door, which always stood on the latch. the brightness from within dazzled me for a moment as he stood aside to let me pass, and there in the brightness stood joyce. how well i remember it! she had on a soft white muslin dress, that fell in straight, soft folds to her feet, and made her look very tall and slender, very fair and white. the light from the lamp fell down on her shining golden hair; her blue eyes were just raised under the dark lashes, gentle and serene. suddenly, for the first time in my life, there flashed upon me a sense of the contrast between myself and her. i stood there an instant in my dripping old brown frock looking at her. then i turned round to introduce mr. harrod. but the house door had closed behind me again. he was gone. chapter xxv. trayton harrod did come to supper the next day. i remember that mother upbraided him for having been so many days absent, and that he made some kind of an excuse for himself; and i remember that i blushed as he made it, and felt quite awkward when he shook hands with me and asked if i had taken any cold of the night before. but i was happy--very, very happy. i was happy even in fancying that i saw a certain self-consciousness in him also, in the persistence with which he talked to mother, and in something that crossed his face when our eyes met, which was almost as often as his were not fixed on joyce, where she sat in her old place by the window. every one always was struck with joyce at first, and i had been so anxious that harrod should duly admire her that i had purposely refrained from saying much to raise his expectations, so that no doubt his surprise was as great as his admiration; and i had never seen my sister look handsomer than she did that night. there was a little increased air of dignity about her since she had been to london, and had been thrown a little more on her own resources, which sat with a pretty style upon her serene and modest loveliness. she looked people in the face as she never used to do, raising her eyes without lifting that little head of hers that was always just slightly bent, like some regal lily or drooping tulip. she talked a little more, and she blushed seldomer. she did not talk much to mr. harrod, but then he was very busy explaining his scheme of water-supply to mr. hoad, who had dropped in to supper. but she talked quite brightly to squire broderick when he came, as he had promised, to bid her welcome home, and shone in her very best light, just as i had wished she should shine--the beautiful hostess of our home. it was a happy evening, typical of our happy home-life, that, flecked as it may have been by little troubles, as the summer sky is flecked with clouds, was yet fair and warm as the bright july days that followed one another so radiantly. ah me, how little i guessed that night that there were not many more such happy family parties in store for us when we should sit around that board united, and without a gap in the family circle! it is good that we cannot see into the future. no gathering cloud disquieted me that night; no fears for myself nor for any of those whom i loved; i was absorbed in that one throbbing, all-engrossing dream which was slowly beginning to fill my life. absorbed, yet not quite so much absorbed but that i could feel sorry for my sister's sake that one who had been there was now absent: where frank forrester had been trayton harrod now was. i could not honestly say to myself that i wished it differently, but i was sorry for joyce. she, however, did not seem to be depressed, she was very bright; the gladness she had in being at home again gave her beauty just that touch of sparkle which it sometimes lacked. it was a warm evening, and when supper was over we drew our chairs around the low porch that led onto the lawn, and took our ease in the half-light. it was very rarely that we sat thus idle, but sometimes, of summer evenings, mother was fond of a bit of leisure herself, and she never made us work when she was idle. the scent of the sweet-peas and the roses came heavy upon the air; the dusk was still luminous with lingering daylight, or with heralding a moon that had not yet risen. "i hear you have got southdowns into your flock, harrod," said the squire. "i hope you won't have any difficulty with them. i feel confident they ought to do, but when i tried the experiment it certainly failed." "perhaps they weren't carefully looked after," answered harrod. "of course you have got to acclimatize animals just as well as people, and the more carefully the more delicate they are." "ah, i dare say it may be a matter of management," agreed the squire. "i hadn't a very good shepherd at the time." "i don't leave it to a shepherd," said harrod. "shepherds are clever enough, and there are plenty of things i learn from them and think no shame of it; but they know only what experience has taught them, and these shepherds have no experience of southdowns. besides, they are a prejudiced lot, and they set their faces against new ventures." the squire laughed, a laugh in which mr. hoad--subdued as he always was by mr. broderick's presence--ventured to join. "yes, you're right there," he said. "you get it hot and strong, i dare say, all round. they snigger at you pretty well in the village for this water scheme of yours, i can tell you, mr. bailiff." my cheek flamed, and mr. hoad went down one step lower still in my estimation. "i dare say," said harrod, shortly, and he said it in a tone of voice as much as to say, "and i don't care." "but it's a very clever thing, isn't it?" asked dear old mother, in her gentle voice. "i never could have believed such a thing was possible." i could have said that reuben declared it was not possible, but i would not have told on reuben for worlds. "it's not a new discovery," answered the squire, who had taken no notice of the solicitor, and took mother's question to himself, "but it's a very useful one." "i wonder you haven't thought of using it before for the manor," put in father. "you must need a deal of water there." i felt a glow of satisfaction at seeing father stand up for harrod; for, as far as i knew anything of their discussions, i had fancied he was not very keen upon the scheme. "i had thought of it," answered mr. broderick; "but i didn't think i could afford it. i didn't think it would pay for one individual." i fancied father was vexed at this. he began tapping his foot in the old irritable way, which i had not noticed in him of late; for, as i had remarked to joyce on her return, i thought he was far less peppery than he used to be, and i fancied it was a good sign for his health. "neither do we think it will pay for one individual," said he. "we intend to make many individuals pay for it." he said "we" and i was pleased. "well, of course i shall have the water laid on to the manor, and am grateful to the man who started the thing," said the squire, in a conciliatory tone; "but i'm a little doubtful as to your making a good job of it all round. marshlands folk are very obstinate and old-fashioned." "oh, they'll come to see which side their bread's buttered on in the long-run," declared harrod, confidently. but mr. hoad smiled a sardonic smile, and the squire added: "i'm afraid it will cost you a good bit of money meanwhile, maliphant. however, as i sincerely hope you are going to make your fortune over these new hop-fields, it won't signify." it was, to say the least of it, an indiscreet speech, not to say an unallowable one; for i believe there is nothing a man dislikes so much as having his affairs talked of in public. it was not at all like the squire, and i could not help thinking, even at the time, that harrod must have in some way nettled mr. broderick, although i was very far from guessing at the cause of the annoyance. father rose and walked slowly down to the edge of the cliff. i could not tell whether he did it to keep his temper or to conceal his trouble, for i fancied he looked troubled as he passed me. "the hops are a splendid crop now," said harrod, without moving, as he lighted a fresh pipe. he never allowed himself to show if he were vexed. but the squire did not reply. he rose and followed father. i'm sure he was sorry for what he had said. it was the solicitor who answered. "it ought to be a fine crop," he said. "maliphant paid a long price for it." "how do you know what price he paid for it?" asked harrod, sharply. i fancied mr. hoad looked disconcerted for a moment, but he soon recovered himself. "well, to tell the truth, he did me the honor to ask my advice," he replied, with a sort of smile that i longed to shake him for. "no offence to you, mr. harrod, i hope," he added, blandly. "i know maliphant holds your opinion in the highest reverence; but--well, i'm an old friend." my blood boiled in the most absurd way; but harrod was far too wise to be annoyed, or at any rate to show it. he only remained perfectly silent, smoking his pipe. father and the squire came up the lawn again; i wondered what they had said to each other. the evening was fresh and fragrant after the rain of the night before upon the hot earth; the dusky plain lay calm beneath us; the moon had just risen and lit the sea faintly in the distance; nature was quiet and sweet, but i felt somehow as though the pleasure of our evening was a little spoiled. mother tried to pick up the talk again, but she was not altogether lucky in her choice of subjects. "why, squire, the girls tell me the right-of-way is closed across that bit of common by dead man's lane," said she. "do you know whose doing it is?" father turned round sharply. "it never was of much use," said mr. hoad, answering instead. "the way by the lane is nearly as short, and much cooler." "it depends where people are going whether it is as short," said father. "it's a flagrant piece of injustice. do you know who's to blame for it?" mr. hoad looked uneasy, and did not reply; and the squire burst into a loud laugh. "why, the radical candidate, to be sure," said he, with a pardonable sneer in his hearty voice. "those are the men for that kind of job." "mr. thorne!" exclaimed mother. "no, never!" "ay," said father under his breath; "a man who can rob his fellow-creatures in big things won't think much of robbing them in little things!" "you shouldn't run down your own party, maliphant," laughed the squire. "thorne is no particular friend of mine, but robbery is too big a word." "i understand he's a very charitable man," said mother, who always would have fair play. "yes," echoed joyce. "you don't know, father, what a deal of good mary thorne does among the poor." father rose; he was trembling. i saw a fire leap in his eye. "it's easy to give back with your left hand half of what you robbed with your right," said he, in a low voice, that yet resounded like the murmur of distant thunder; "but it isn't what those who are struggling for freedom will care to see in their representative." "oh, i don't believe in a radical party--here anyhow," said the squire, abruptly; "not even if you began to back the candidate, maliphant." "i shall not back the candidate," said father, grimly. "no," laughed the squire. "he has done for himself with you over this right-of-way." "when i see a man who declares he is going into parliament on the people's side deliberately try to rob the people of their lawful possessions, i feel more than ever that the name of radical is but a snare," said father. his face had grown purple with emotion; his voice quivered with it; his hand shook. i saw mother look at him anxiously, and i saw a sullen expression settle down upon mr. hoad's detested face. "now, laban, don't go getting yourself into a heat," said mother, in her quiet, sensible voice. "you know how bad it is for your health, and it's unpleasant for all parties besides." "i can't make head or tail of the radicals myself," began the squire, who, it must be remembered, spoke ten years ago. but mother interrupted him. "come, come, squire," said she, in the pretty familiar way in which she always addressed him, "we'll have no more politics. the girls and me don't understand such talk, and it isn't civil to be leaving us o' one side all the evening." he laughed, and asked what we wanted to talk about, and at the same time mr. hoad came forward to take his leave. he smiled, shaking hands with mother, but his smile was a sour one, and i noticed that he scarcely touched father's hand. "i suppose hoad is in a bad temper because you won't take up thorne's cause," said the squire, as soon as the solicitor had passed up the passage. father gave a grunt of acquiescence, and the squire turned to us with most marked and laudable intent to obey mother and change the talk. "have you heard the news?" he asked. "young squire ingram is to be married to miss upjohn. i heard it yesterday riding round that way." mother looked up eagerly. the subject was one quite to her own mind, but the news was startling. "never to nance upjohn of bredemere farm?" asked she. "the very same, mrs. maliphant," replied the squire. "folk say they are to be married at michaelmas." "heart alive!" ejaculated mother, lapsing into the vernacular in her excitement. "isn't old squire in a fine way?" "i believe he doesn't like it," agreed mr. broderick, evasively. "why not, pray?" asked father, rousing from his reverie. i always noticed that once he had been brought to arms upon the real interest of his life, he was the more ready to take fire upon secondary subjects, even remotely connected with it. no one answered him, and he repeated his question. "why not, pray? the upjohns come of as good a stock as we do, though they haven't been so long upon the soil." "to be sure," put in mother, quickly. "and i've been told she's as well schooled as any town miss. i don't mean to say she isn't good enough for the young squire, only i've heard say the old gentleman is so terribly particular." "yes, indeed, she's as well-behaved and pretty a young woman as you could find anywhere," declared mr. broderick, warmly. "old ingram can have no objection on anything but the score of connection." "connection! what's that?" exclaimed father. "if the girl comes of a different stock to the lad, why must it needs be of a worse one? faith, if i were neighbor upjohn, 'tis i would have the objection." "nonsense, laban," said mother, half annoyed. "no; i wouldn't let any girl of mine wed where it was made a favor to receive her," continued father, hotly. "there are plenty among the gentry too that would make it no favor at all to receive a nice young woman just because she came of another class," added mother, with a vexed manner. "there's good honest folk all the world over, and bad ones too." "right you are, old woman," answered father, after a moment's hesitation, with generous repentance. "there's some among them that i'm proud to shake by the hand. but all the same, a prejudice is a prejudice, and a class is a class." "you'd best come in-doors," said mother, still annoyed. "it's getting chill, and you've been out too long already, i believe." he rose with the habit of obedience, and we all stood up, but he tottered as he walked. i saw harrod, who was beside him, stretch out his arm. he did not take it, he walked in bravely, the others following--all but myself and the squire. i saw he was troubled--i saw he wanted to speak to me, and i did not like to move. "your father is so emphatic, so very emphatic," he murmured; "but i hope, miss margaret, that you do not misunderstand me." i looked at him a little surprised. i could not see how it could signify to him whether i misunderstood him or not. if it had been joyce it would have been different. "oh no, i don't misunderstand you," said i, a little hurriedly, for i wanted to get in-doors. "it was quite clear." i was vexed with the squire. i was angry with him for having seemed to make light of harrod's knowledge and of harrod's schemes. i thought it was not fair of him before father--and when he had always bidden me fight the bailiff's battles for the good of the farm. so i answered, a little proudly, "you can't grumble if father and i have our pride of class as well as you yours." "no, i don't grumble," said he, with a smile, and yet i fancied with something half like a sigh too. "only i, personally, have very little pride of class." "i'm glad to hear it," said i, and i ran in-doors. i wanted to say good-night to trayton harrod. but in the parlor there was nobody but my sister, leaning up against the open casement and looking out into the fragrant summer night. "what are you doing?" i asked, abruptly. "where are they all?" and as i spoke i heard a step die away on the gravel outside. "i have just let mr. harrod out," answered she, "and i came to close up the windows. i think mother has gone up-stairs with father. i don't believe he is well." i did not answer. it was joyce's place again, now that she was home, to close the front door after the guests. but it was the first time that harrod had left the grange without bidding me good-night. when joyce asked me where the squire was i did not care. it was she who hastened out to meet him and made mother's apologies; it was she who let him out as she had let out the bailiff. it needed a sudden scare about my dear father to bring me back to myself. he had had a bad fainting fit--the worst we had ever seen him in. it was the bell ringing up-stairs, and mother's frightened voice calling, that waked me from a dream. and the evening ended badly, as i had had a silly presentiment that it would end. chapter xxvi. the next morning the sun shone, and the world was as gay as ever. father declared himself well and hearty; complained of no pain and betrayed no weakness, was merry at the breakfast-table over a letter of frank forrester's, and withdrew with it as usual to his study, where he spent more and more time opposite the portrait of camille lambert, and left farm matters more and more to his bailiff. for me the sun shone the more brightly because of a short, delightful ten minutes with trayton harrod, in which we said nothing in particular, but that chased away the tiny shadow of disappointment that had crossed the horizon of my sweet, dawning experience, and banished it--disgraced and ashamed--into oblivion. it was a very short ten minutes. miss farnham and the vicar's wife had been to call, and the hoad girls had come to ask us to go to a ball at the town-hall. "oh, do come," they had said, "and bring the bailiff;" and my dignity had flamed into my cheek, and i had been grateful to mother for promptly refusing for us, and even to old miss farnham for declaring that we were more sensible than most girls, and weren't always on the watch for new occasions to pinch in our waists. miss farnham, i recollect, had declared afterwards that it was only a dodge to catch father. it was after the guests had left, and while we were waiting for mother to get her bonnet on for a drive, that harrod and i got those short ten minutes to ourselves. joyce had gone to guestling to lunch with some friends, and mother had proposed to harrod to drive us over to fetch her, so that at the same time she might look at a cow which he had found for her there for sale. we set forth, harrod driving mother in the cart with the steady old black horse, and i riding marigold alongside. i saw as soon as we set out that he was just a little shade out of spirits. it troubled me at first, but i soon guessed, or thought i guessed, what it was about. "wasn't that mr. hoad i saw up atop of the hill with you and laban?" asked mother, just after we had set out. harrod nodded. "what does the man want meddling with farming?" asked mother. "i shouldn't have thought he was a wiseacre on such-like." harrod shrugged his shoulders; he evidently didn't intend to commit himself. "mr. hoad wouldn't wait to hear if other folk thought him a wiseacre before he'd think he had a right to interfere," laughed i. "those smart daughters of his came inviting joyce and me to a ball just now." "you're not going?" asked harrod, quickly. "no, no," answered mother. "i don't hold with that kind of amusement for young folk. there's too many strangers." "why don't you want us to go?" asked i, softly. he didn't reply; he whipped up the horse a little instead. "miss farnham declared our going would have been made use of to try and draw father into the election against his will," said i. "but she's always got some queer notion in her head." "well, upon my word, i don't believe there's much these electioneering chaps would stick at," declared harrod, contemptuously. "i declare i believe they'd step into a man's house and get his own chairs and tables to go against him if they could." mother laughed, but harrod did not laugh. "and if they can't have their way, there's nothing they wouldn't do to spite a fellow," added he. "why, what has mr. hoad been doing to spite you?" asked mother. "nothing, ma'am, nothing at all," declared the bailiff. "there's nothing he could do to spite me, for i don't set enough store by him; and i should doubt if there's any would be led far by the words of a man that shows himself such a time-server." he spoke so bitterly that i looked at him in sheer astonishment. "i thought mr. hoad seemed to have taken quite a fancy to you last night," said mother. harrod laughed harshly. "yes," he said; and then he added, abruptly, "there's some folk's seemings that aren't to be trusted. they depend upon what they can get." "good gracious!" said mother. "whatever could mr. hoad want to get of you?" "excuse me, ma'am, i don't know that he wanted to get anything," declared harrod, evidently feeling that he had gone too far. "i know no ill of the man. i don't like him--that's all." mother was silent, but i said, boldly, "no more do i." and there talk on the subject ended. it was not until many a long day afterwards that i knew that hoad--moved, i suppose, by harrod's argument against father on the previous evening--had tried to persuade him to help in some sort against his employer in the coming political struggle. he little knew the man with whom he had to deal, and that no depreciatory remarks which spite might induce him to make to father upon his farming capacities would have any influence upon father's bailiff. only i was glad i had agreed with him in not liking mr. hoad. it got me a reproving look from mother, but it got me a little smile from him, which in the state of my feelings added one little grain more to the growing sum of my unconfessed happiness. it was a long way to guestling. away past "the elms" and its hop-gardens, and many other hop-gardens again, where the bines were growing tall and rich with their pale green clusters; away between blackberry and bryony hedges that the stately foxglove adorned, between banks white with hemlock; away onto the breast of the breezy downs, where the hills were blue for a border, and solitary clumps of pines grew unexpectedly by the road-side. the west became a sea of flame beyond the vastness of that swelling bosom, just as it had been almost every evening through that glorious summer, and set a line of blood-red upon the horizon for miles around, firing clots of cloud that floated upon lakes of tender green, and hemming other masses with rims of gold that were as the edges of burning linings to their softness. mother was almost afraid of it. she declared that she had never seen a sunset that swallowed up half the heavens like that, and she wondered what it boded; for even after we had turned and left the west behind us the clouds that sailed the blue were red with it still. when we got near to guestling we were overtaken by squire broderick on his roan cob. i think he had intended to ride farther but he seemed so delighted to find mother out-of-doors that he could not detach himself from our party. "why, mrs. maliphant," i remember his saying with that half-respectful, half-affectionate air of familiarity that he always used to our mother, "if you knew how becoming that white bonnet is you would put it on oftener. it's quite a treat to see you out driving." mother declared that only business had brought her out now; and i remember how the squire told her she would never find a new friend to take the place of an old one, not if harrod were to find her a cow with twice the good points of poor old betsey. and while mr. broderick was paying sweet compliments to mother, harrod and i exchanged a few more of those commonplace words, the memory of which made me merry, even when presently i was obliged to drop behind and ride alongside of the squire. i had something to say to him, and as it related to the bailiff, i was not unwilling to drop behind. the night before he had made light of those schemes and improvements on the farm of which i was beginning to be so proud, and i had not thought it fair of him to try and set his own protégé in a poor light before father. i meant to tell him so, and this was the opportunity. "mr. broderick," said i, driving boldly into my subject, "why did you talk last night as if things were going badly on the farm? you told me a while ago that all the farm wanted was a younger head and heart upon it--somebody more ambitious to work for it. yet now one would almost fancy you mistrusted the very man you recommended, and wanted to make father mistrust him." i saw the squire start and look at me--look at me in a sharp, inquiring sort of way. "i did not intend to give that impression," he said. "well, then, you did," said i, wisely shaking my head. "any one could have seen it. you were quite cool about the water scheme. why, father took his part against you." "i think you exaggerate, miss margaret," murmured he. "oh no, i don't," i insisted. "and if i am rude, i beg your pardon; but i think it a pity you should undo all the work i have been doing. besides," added i, in a lower voice, "it's not fair. you said you were 'afraid' he was spending too much money, and you 'hoped' he would make a fortune over the hops. it didn't sound as if you believed it would be so." "well, so i do hope a fortune will be made," smiled he. "ah, but you said it as if it might have been quite the contrary," insisted i. "did i?" repeated he, humbly. "yes," declared i. "if you don't think mr. harrod manages well, you should tell him so; you are his friend." the squire was silent, moodily silent. "ah, who can tell what is good management in hops?" sighed he at last. "the most gambling thing that a man can touch. all chance. twelve hours' storm, a few scalding hot days, and a few night-mists at the wrong moment, may ruin the most brilliant hopes of weeks. i have seen fortunes lost over hops. a field that will bring forth hundreds one year will scarcely pay for the picking the next. no man ought to touch hops who has not plenty of money at his back." "do you think father knows that hops are such a tremendous risk?" i asked. "oh, of course he must know it," answered the squire. and there he stopped short. i did not choose to ask any more. it seemed like mistrusting father to ask questions about his affairs. but i wondered whether he was a man who had "plenty of money at his back." "i think harrod is a safe fellow, and a clever fellow," added the squire. "a cool-headed, hard-headed sort of chap, who ought not to be over-sanguine though he is young." the words were not enthusiastic, they were said rather as a duty--they offended me. "oh, i am sure you would not have recommended him to father unless you had had a high opinion of him," said i, haughtily. "and i am glad to say that father has a high opinion of him himself, and always follows his advice. i do not suppose that anything that any one said would prejudice father against mr. harrod now. in fact we all have the highest opinion of him." with that i touched marigold with the whip and sent her capering forward to the cart. mother started, and reproved me sharply; but at that moment we drew up at the farm gates, and she turned round to beg the squire would spare her a few minutes to give his opinion also upon the contemplated purchase. harrod looked round, and i was angry, for she had no right to have done it. i do not know how the squire could have consented, but he did so, though half unwillingly, and demurring to harrod's first right. "the squire is such a very old friend of ours," i murmured, half apologetically, to the bailiff on the first opportunity. "mother has so often asked his advice." "yes, yes, i quite understand," replied he. and then he added--i almost wondered why--"i suppose you remember him ever since you were a child?" "oh yes," laughed i; "he used to play with us when we were little girls and he was a young man." "a young man!" smiled harrod. "what is he now?" "i should think he must be nearly thirty-five," said i, gravely. "and you know he's a widower." "indeed! well, he's not too old to marry again," smiled trayton harrod, looking at me. "that's what mother says," answered i. and then i added--and heaven knows what induced me to do it, for i had no right to speak of it--"some folk think he's sweet on my sister." it was unlike me to babble of family secrets. i glanced at my companion. there was a little scowl upon his brow; it was usually there when he was thinking, and he was ruffled still with vexation at mother's unusual want of tact. he looked after her where she was talking with the squire. "oh, is it to be a match?" he asked, carelessly. "oh, dear no," laughed i. "joyce--" i was going to say, "joyce cares for some one else," but luckily i remembered that solemn promise to mother just in time. "joyce doesn't even think he likes her," i added instead. he turned to me and broke into a little laugh. i thought it almost rude of him, and wondered whether he, too, thought that a farmer's daughter was not worthy of marriage with a squire. but he was looking at me--he was looking at me with a strange look in his eyes. yes, there was no mistaking it--it was a look of admiration, a look of almost tender admiration, and as i felt it upon me a blush rose to my cheek that so rarely blushed, and the power of thinking went from me; i only felt his presence. i don't know how long we stood thus; i suppose it was only seconds before he said, "i believe you would put that sister of yours before you in everything, miss margaret." i made an effort to understand him, for i think i was in a dream. "yes, she's so beautiful!" i murmured. "beautiful!" echoed he. there was something in the tone of his voice that made me lift my eyes to his face. his gaze was fixed on the gate of the farm-yard. i followed his gaze. joyce had entered and was coming towards us. this was where we had arranged to meet. she shook hands with harrod and then with the squire, who joined us with mother. we all went together into the cow-shed. i don't remember what remarks were made upon betsey's proposed successor; i don't even remember if we bought her or not. i don't think i was in the mood to attend much to the matter. i was roused from a brown-study by a curious remark of trayton harrod's. mother had found occasion to ask him whether the woman whom she had provided for him at "the elms" made him comfortable, and was pleasant-spoken. it had been on her mind, i know, ever since he had been there. "she does her work," answered the bailiff. "i don't know if she's pleasant-spoken. i never speak to her." "that's not the way to get the best out of a woman," laughed the squire. "we poor bachelors need something more than bare duty out of our servants." he said it merrily, and yet i did not think he was merry. "i want no more than duty," repeated harrod. "talking, unless you have something to say, is waste of time." "you'll have to mend your manners, my lad, if ever you hope to persuade any young lady to become your wife," laughed the squire again. "i never should hope to do any such thing," answered harrod. "i shouldn't be such a fool." and with that he walked away out of the farm-yard and began untying the cart for the homeward journey. mother looked after him, puzzled for a moment. then, nodding her head at the squire, she said, softly: "ah, that's what all you young men say till you've fixed on the girl you want. you're none so backward then." i fancied the squire looked a little uncomfortable, but he said, lightly: "do you think not, mrs. maliphant? well, nothing venture, nothing have, they say. harrod has had his fingers burned, i suppose. a bit sore on the subject, but he'll get over it. he's a nice lad; though, to take his word for it, his wife wouldn't have a very cheerful life of it!" "well, we needn't take his word for it," said mother. "and, good gracious me! it's fools indeed that would want to wed upon nothing but sugar. there'd be no grit in love at all if we hadn't some duties towards one another that weren't all pleasant. 'tis in the doing of them that love grows stronger. i've always thought you can't smell the best of roses till you get near enough to feel the thorns." this speech of mother's comes back to me vividly now, but at the time i was scarcely conscious of it. trayton harrod's words--"i shouldn't be such a fool"--were ringing in my ears. what did he mean by them? i looked round after him and saw that my sister had strolled across to where he was waiting by the cart. it was natural enough--it was time to be getting homeward. but as i looked i saw him bend towards her just a little and say something. the expression of his face had softened again, and the scowl on his sunburnt brow had faded, but his lips were pressed together so that they were quite thin instead of full, as they appeared in their normal shape; and i wondered why he looked so, and why what he said made the blush, that was now so much rarer than it used to be, creep up joyce's cheek till it overspread her fair brow and tipped her delicate little ears with red. an uncontrollable, unreasonable fit of anger took possession of me. i flew across the yard to that corner where marigold was tied beside the dog-cart. "i suppose you read a great deal of evenings?" joyce was saying. and harrod answered, shortly, "no, i don't so much as i used to do. i am too much taken up with other things." simple words enough, but they set my heart aflame, yet left me sick and sore. i undid the mare with a rough hand, and, before she had time to see what i was about, i set my foot in the stirrup and sprang into the saddle. she was used to my doing that, but she was not used to my doing it in that way. she reared and kicked. my thoughts were elsewhere, and it served me right that, for the first time in my life, she threw me. i heard a scream from mother, and the next moment i felt that a man's arm had helped me up from the ground. i was not hurt, only a little stunned, and when i saw that it was trayton harrod who had picked me up, i broke away from him and staggered forward to mother. "i'm not hurt, mother, not a bit," said i, and then i burst into tears. oh, how ashamed i was! i who prided myself on self-control. but she put her arm round me and laid my head on her shoulder, and her rare tenderness soothed me as nothing else in the world could have done. i kept my face hid on her neck, as i had done when i was a little child, and used to be quite confident that she could cure every wound. yet it was only for a moment. "i had better ride, and lead the mare," i heard the squire say in a low, concerned voice. "she won't be fit to mount again, or even to drive the cart." i lifted my head. "oh, indeed, squire broderick, i'm not in the least hurt," said i, as cheerfully as i could, for i was grateful for those kindly tones. "i can ride marigold home perfectly well." "no, my dear, that you won't," said mother, all her decision returning now that her alarm was over. "i've had quite enough of this fright for one day." joyce returned from the farm with a glass of water, and harrod by her side with some brandy that he had begged at the doctor's house hard by. i drank the water but i refused the brandy, and scoffed at the notion of the doctor coming out in person. then i got into the cart. i insisted on driving, and as the horse was the quiet old black dobbin, mother consented. joyce sat behind, and harrod rode after upon marigold. the squire showed signs of joining our caravan at first; but as i turned round and assured him once more that i was perfectly well, and begged him to continue his road, he was almost obliged to turn his horse back again in the direction in which he had been going when he overtook us. but he still looked so very much concerned that i was forced to laugh at him. i think it was the only time i laughed that day. the drive home was soothing enough across those miles of serene pasture-land whose marge the sea was always kissing, and where the sheep cropped, in sleepy passiveness, beneath faint rosy clouds that lay motionless upon the soft blue; the vast dreamy pastures, browning with autumn tints of many planes of autumn grasses that changed as they swayed in the lazy breeze, were hemmed by a winding strip of beach, pink or blue, according as the sun was behind or above one, and to-night bordered beyond it by a stretch of golden sand, over which rows upon rows of little waves rippled with the incoming tide. we drove along the margin of the beach; the yellow sea-poppies bloomed amid their pale, blue-green leaves upon every mound of shingle, and not even the distant church-spires and masts of ships, that told of man's presence, could disturb the breathless placidity that no memory of storm or strife seemed to awaken into a throb of life. but suddenly upon the vast line of wide horizon, where the sea melted into the sky with a little hovering streak of haze, a throb of light stirred; at first it was but a spot of gold upon the bosom of the distance, but it was a spot that grew larger, though with a soft and rayless radiance unlike the dazzle of the sun-setting; then out of the breast of it was made a red ball that sent a path of gilded crimson down the sea, and tipped the crest of every little wave that crept towards us with a crown of opalescent light; it was the sun's last kiss welcoming the moon as she rose out of the sea. it was a rare and a beautiful sight, and to me, who loved the world in which i lived so well, it should have brought joyousness. and yet it did not please me. i would rather have had it chill and stormy, with a thick fog creeping up out of the sea--a fog such as that through which trayton harrod's tall figure had loomed the first time that i had met him, just on this very tract of land. chapter xxvii. on the day following i met frank forrester in the lane by the vicarage. i verily believe i had forgotten all about him during the past few days, but that very morning i had remembered that he was most likely at the priory for that garden-party to which father had so annoyingly forbidden us to go; and i vowed in my heart that, by hook or by crook, my sister should see him before he left the neighborhood. it was a regular piece of good-luck my meeting him thus; but i thought, when he first saw me, that he was going to avoid me. he seemed, however, to think better of it, and came striding towards me, swaying his tall, lithe body, and welcoming me even from a distance with the pleasant smile, without which one would scarcely have known his handsome face. i was glad he had thought better of it, for i should certainly not have allowed him to pass me. "holloa, miss margaret," said he, when we were within ear-shot; "this is delightful. i was afraid i shouldn't get a chance of seeing any of you, as i am forbidden the house. how are you?" "i am very well," said i, looking at him. i fancied he had grown smarter in his appearance than he used to be; there was nothing that i could take hold of, and yet somehow he seemed to me to be changed. "why weren't you at the garden-party yesterday?" asked he. "it was quite gay." "yesterday! was it yesterday?" said i, half disappointed. "we weren't allowed to go, you know. we wanted to go very much." he looked at me in that open-eyed way of his for a moment, and then he shifted his glance away from my face and laughed a little uneasily. "was i the cause?" he asked. "oh, dear no," cried i, eagerly, although in my heart i knew well enough that, with mother, he had been. "but you know father never did like the thornes. they belong to that class that he dislikes so. what do you call it--capitalists? why, he hates them ever so much worse than landed proprietors, and they are bad enough." i said this jokingly, feeling that, as of course frank sympathized with all these views and convictions of father's, he would understand, even though he might not himself feel just as strongly towards those members of the obnoxious class who had been his friends from his youth upward. but a shadow of annoyance or uneasiness--i did not know which--passed over his face like a little summer cloud, although the full, changeful mouth still kept its smile. "and mr. thorne has done something special to vex him," i continued. "he has closed the right-of-way over the common by dead man's lane. so now father has forbidden us to go to the house." the slightest possible touch of scorn curled frank's lip under the silky brown mustache. "that's a pity," said he. "well," said i, "you would feel just the same, of course, if these people didn't happen to be old friends of yours, and they never were friends of father's. he disliked them buying the property from the very first." "it makes things rather uncomfortable to drive a theory as far as that," laughed frank. of course it was what i often felt myself, but somehow it vexed me to hear him say so; if he was the friend to father that he seemed to be, he had no business to say it, and specially to me. "well, anyhow, it's the reason we didn't go to the garden-party," said i, shortly. and then i repeated again, and in a pleasanter tone, "but we wanted to go very much, of course." "ah yes," answered he, glancing at me and then away again, and referring, i suppose, to the pronoun i had used, "your sister is home again now. of course i heard it in the village. what a pity you couldn't come! we had a dance afterwards--altogether a delightful evening, and you would have enjoyed it immensely. besides," he began, and then stopped, and then ended abruptly, "every one missed you." i laughed. "that means to say every one missed joyce," i said. "i am not so silly as to think people mean me when they mean joyce--some people, of course, more particularly than others." it was rather a foolish remark, and he took no notice of it. "your sister is well, i hope," was all he said. "oh yes, she's well," i answered. and then there was an awkward pause. i wondered why in the world he did not ask any of the innumerable questions that must be in his mind about her, and yet i felt that it was natural he should be awkward, natural that he should not want to talk to me about her. i did not know exactly what to say, and yet i would not let this golden opportunity slip. "you must come and see for yourself," said i, boldly, without in the least considering what this course of action laid me open to from mother. "she's prettier and sweeter than ever, joyce is, since she's been to london." he turned quickly, and looked at me with his wildest gaze. "come and see her! why, miss margaret, you know that's impossible!" ejaculated he. "you came to see us the last time you were in marshlands," said i. "you don't come to see joyce, you come to see father. father would be dreadfully hurt to think you were in marshlands and didn't see him. he doesn't know you are here." this was true, but whether father would have wished me to run so against mother's wishes, i did not stop to think. "your sister was not at home when last i came to the grange," said he, softly. i almost stamped my foot with vexation at the lack of recklessness in this lover of joyce's, whose ardent devotion i had begun by envying her once upon a time. but i reflected that it was both foolish and unfair to be vexed, because frank forrester was only keeping to the word of his agreement. "you come to see father, not to see joyce," i repeated, dogmatically. "father doesn't seem to be happy about the way that notion of his is turning out." "that notion?" repeated the young man, in an inquiring tone of voice. i looked at him. "yes," said i. "i don't know exactly what it is, but something or other that father and you have got up between yourselves." still he looked puzzled. "some school, or something for poor children," explained i, i think a trifle impatiently. "oh, of course, of course," cried frank. "i didn't quite understand what you were referring to, and one has so many of those things on hand, so many sad cases, there is so much to be done. but i remember all about it. we must push it. it's a fine scheme, but it will need a great deal of pushing, a great deal of interest. it's not the kind of thing that will float in a day. your father, of course, is apt to be over-sanguine." i did not answer. it crossed my mind vaguely that three months ago it had been father who had said that frank was apt to be over-sanguine; or rather, who had given it so to be understood, in words spoken with a kindly smile and some sort of an expression of praise for the ardor of youth. "it's to the young ones that we must look to fly high," he had said, or words to that effect. "well, you must come and talk it over with father," said i, somewhat puzzled. "he thinks a great deal of you." "ah! and so do i think a great deal of him, i assure you," cried frank. "he's a delightful old man! so bright and fresh and full of enthusiasm! one would never believe he had lived all his life in a place like this, looking after cows and sheep. there are very few men of better position who can talk as he talks." i suppose i ought to have been pleased at this, but instead of that it made me unaccountably angry for a moment. i thought it a great liberty on the part of a young fellow like captain forrester to speak like that of an old man like my father. but one could not be exactly angry with frank. in the first place, he was so pleasant and good-natured and sympathetic that one felt the fault must be on one's own side; and then it would have been waste of time, for he would either never have perceived it, or he would have been so surprised that one would have been ashamed to continue it. however, i tried to speak in an off-hand way as i said, "yes, he doesn't often get any one here whom he cares to talk to, so of course he is very glad of whoever it is that will look at things a bit as he does." and then, afraid lest i should have said too much, and prevent him from coming to the grange after all, i added, "but he's really fond of you, and if he thinks you have been so near the place and haven't been to see him, i'm afraid he'll be hurt." frank looked undecided a moment, and i glanced at him anxiously. truly, i was very eager that day to secure a companion for my father. "father is depressed," i added. "i don't think he's quite so cheerful and hopeful as he used to be, and i am sure you would do him good." frank laughed. "very well," said he, turning down the lane with me, "if your mother is displeased, miss margaret, let it be on your head." "oh, i'm not afraid of mother," i said, although in truth i was very much afraid of her. "she will be pleased enough if you cheer up father. and if you tell him some good news of his plan about the poor little children, you will cheer him up." "he mustn't set his heart too much upon that just at present," said frank, in a cool, business-like kind of way. "there's a deal of hard, patient work to be done at that before it'll take any shape, you know." "yes, i understand," said i; "but who is going to do the work?" he looked a bit put out for the moment, but he said, cheerily: "ah, that's just it. we must find the proper man--the man for the place--then it'll go like a house on fire." and then he turned and fixed his brown eyes on me, as was his wont, and said, "but how is it that this bailiff hasn't roused your father's heart in his own work more, and made him forget these outside schemes?" i flushed with anger; i thought the remark unjustifiable. "i hear he's a clever fellow," continued the captain. "that's it, i suppose. he prefers to go his own gait. although they tell me"--he said this as if he were paying me a compliment--"they tell me you can twist him round your little finger." "who are they?" cried i, my lip trembling. "they had best mind their own business." he laughed gayly. "the same as ever, i see," he said. "but you might well be proud of such a feat. he struck me as a tough customer the only time i saw him." i set my lips tight together and refused to answer another word; but when we had left the pines, and turned out of the lane into the road, i was sorry for him, and forgave him; for glancing at him, i saw that his cheek was quite pale. "i'm dreadfully afraid of your parents," laughed he. "your mother won't deign to shake hands with me, and your father will be hurt because i haven't brought a train of little london waifs at my heels." of course it was neither the prospect of mother's cold welcome nor the thought of father's disappointment at the stagnation of the scheme which had really made his cheek white. i understood things better than that; it was that he was going to see joyce, whom he had not seen for three months. i was sorry for the poor fellow, in spite of his having offended me. on the top of my original plan, which had only been to get him to the grange, another took sudden shape. it was a thursday--dairy morning. but as we had come down the street i had seen mother's tall back beside the counter of the village grocer's shop, and i determined to risk deborah's presence, and to bring frank straight in through the back door to the milk-pans and joyce's face. luck favored me. deborah had gone outside to rinse some vessel not quite to her mind, and joyce stood alone with a fresh pink frock and a fresh fair face against the white tiles, kneading the butter with sleeves upturned. i left frank there, and ran on to deborah, who showed signs of returning. "whatever does that dandified young beau want round about again?" said she. "i thought he had taken those handsome calves of his to london to make love to the ladies." i must mention that frank always wore a knickerbocker suit down at marshlands--a costume less in vogue ten years ago than it is now, and an affectation which found no favor in deborah's sight. to tell the truth, it did not please me that day; nothing about him quite pleased me, yet indeed i think he was the same as he had always been. but i was not going to let myself dwell upon anything that was not in the captain's favor, and certainly i was not going to let deborah comment upon it. after all, as i had once said to mother, he was my sister's lover, not mine; but he was my sister's lover, and as such i should stick up for him through thick and thin. "he's come to see father," said i, shortly. "that's the first time i knew that the way to your father's room was through the dairy," grinned deborah. "but look here, margaret"--and here old deb grew as solemn as a judge--"you'd no business to bring him in there when your mother was away. you know very well you hadn't. you'll get into a scrape." how much deb really knew about the particulars of joyce's engagement i have never found out, but that she guessed what she did not know was more than likely. "why not?" asked i. "why not? because he's a slippery young eel, that's why not," said deborah. "if joyce cares for him, the sooner she leaves off the better. but it's my belief she's got more sense in her head than some folk give her credit for." "of course joyce cares for him," cried i, angrily, "and he's not slippery at all. he can't come courting her when mother forbids him the house. but it's very unkind of mother, and that's why i brought him. i don't care if i do get into a scrape for it. you're a hard-hearted old woman to talk so. but i suppose you've forgotten what it was to be young--it's so long ago." "i remember enough about it to know how many men out of a dozen there are that are fit to be trusted, my dear," smiled deborah, grimly. "and my old ears haven't grown so queer yet but they can tell a jig from a psalm tune." "i don't think you go to church often enough to know them apart," sneered i; for deb was not as conspicuous for piety as reuben, and was wont to declare that when she listened to parson her head grew that muddled and stagnated she couldn't tell her left hand from her right. "ah, i'm not like some folk as likes to go and be told o' their sins," said she, alluding, as usual, to the unlucky reuben. "i know mine well enough, and on the sabbath i likes to put up my legs and give my mind to 'em in peace and quiet. but i'm not afraid i shall hear the old hundredth if i go into the dairy just now," grinned she, catching up the milk-pail, which she had been scrubbing viciously, "so i'll just go back and finish my work." i laid my hand on her arm to detain her, but at that moment trayton harrod appeared round the corner from the garden. "where's reuben?" asked he, with a thunder-cloud upon his brow. "that's more than i can tell you," answered deb, shortly. "i'm not the man's keeper." "what's the matter?" i asked. "some malicious persons have been taking the trouble to break the pipes that have just been laid across to the new reservoir," he answered. "they were not yet covered in. but i'm determined to find out the offenders." "well, you needn't come asking after reuben, then," said old deb, with rough stanchness, "the man mayn't be much for brains, but he ain't got time to plan tricks o' that sort." "i'm not suspecting reuben," answered harrod, "but i look to reuben to help me to find out who's to blame." "well, if there's wrong been done against master, so he will," declared deborah again. "reuben's a true man to his master, say what you may of him. you'd best not come telling any tales of reuben to me." "no, no," replied harrod, hurriedly, "i want to tell no tales of reuben nor any one else, but i must get to the bottom of the matter;" and then turning to me, he added, "i must see your father at once." he moved across the yard to the outer door, but midway he stopped, listening. the voices in the dairy had attracted his attention. i think he was going to ask me who was there, when suddenly joyce came out of the door, her cheeks red, her eyes wet with tears. as soon as she saw him she ran quickly by, and round the corner of the yard to the front of the house; but i knew by the way that he glanced at me that he had seen that her eyes were full of tears. he did not speak, however, neither did he look after her. he first glanced across to the dairy, but frank forrester did not show himself, and he strode across to the gate of the yard and let himself out into the road. "i'll see your father another time," he said to me as he went past. i went round the corner, meaning to follow joyce, but remembering that frank must be in a very uncomfortable position, and that i was rather bound to see him through with it, i went back and found him bidding deborah tell me he would come again in the evening. "the master'll be busy all the evening," she said; and her inhospitality decided me to make a bold move. "father is at liberty now," i said. "please come this way." and he had no choice but to follow me round to the front. luckily for me, father was there alone, reading his newspaper in the few spare minutes before dinner; neither joyce nor mother was visible. he welcomed frank even more cordially than i had hoped. "how are you, lad?" he cried, heartily. "why, i didn't know you were near the place at all. when did you come?" frank sat down in his usual place, and the two talked together just as if they had never parted. all frank's cautiousness, not to say half-heartedness, about father's scheme seemed to have evaporated, now that he was in his presence, just as if he were afraid or ashamed not to be as enthusiastic as he was. as i listened to them i couldn't believe that he had told me ten minutes before that father was "apt to be over-sanguine," and that he must not "set his heart too much" upon the matter. on the contrary, it seemed to be frank who was sanguine, and father who was suggesting the difficulties of working; father, moreover, who used almost the very phrase about its being necessary to get the proper man to work the details, and frank who declared, as he had declared before, that _he_ would be the man. how was it that, as soon as his back was turned, the fire seemed to die out of him? was he like some sort of fire-bricks that can absorb heat, and give it out again fiercely while the fire is around them, but that grow dead and cold as soon as the surrounding warmth is withdrawn? but it was very pleasant to see them there talking as merrily as ever. merrily? well, yes, with frank it was "merrily," but with father i don't think it had ever been anything but earnestly, and now i fancied that there was even a tinge of hopelessness about him which had not been there of old. yet he smiled often, and treated frank just in that half-rough, half-affectionate way that he had always had towards him--something protecting, something humorous, almost as though he traced in him a streak of weakness, but could not help being fascinated by the bright kindliness, the sympathetic desire to please in spite of himself. perhaps it was so with all of us--with all of us, excepting mother. she had never felt the fascination, she had always seen straight through the mirror. and as she had always been inexorable, so she was inexorable that day. father, in his eagerness about the interest that he had at heart, had forgotten all about joyce, all about the reason why frank forrester should not be at the grange. but i had not forgotten it; i knew mother would not have forgotten it, and i stood, with a trembling heart, listening for her step upon the stairs within. she came at last, and one glance at her face told me that frank's presence was no surprise to her; that she knew of it, and knew of it from joyce. her lips were pressed together half nervously, her blue eyes were smaller than usual; and she rustled her dress as she walked, which somehow always seemed to me a sure sign of displeasure in her. she did not hold out her hand to him, although he advanced with every show of cordiality to greet her as usual. "oh, mrs. maliphant, you are angry with me for coming here," cried he, in a half-humorous, half-appealing voice, that he was wont to use when he wanted to conciliate. "you're quite right. what can i say for myself?" he did not say that i had persuaded him. i liked him for that, but i said it for him. "_i_ brought captain forrester here, mother," said i, in my boldest manner, trying neither to blush nor to let my voice quaver. "i knew father would want to see him, and he is in marshlands for only one day." "captain forrester is always welcome in my house," said father, and his voice did shake a little, but whether from annoyance or distress it was not possible to tell. but mother said nothing. she kept her hands folded in front of her. it was joyce who spoke--joyce, who had followed mother down the stairs and out into the porch. "father, i have been telling mother," said she, coming very close to him, "that i knew nothing of captain forrester's coming here to-day. i did not wish to see him." she kept her head bent as she said the words, but she said them quite firmly, although in a low voice. certainly joyce, for a gentle and diffident girl, had a wonderful trick of courage at times. i admired her for it, although to-day she angered me; she might have allowed her love to shine forth a little--for her lover's sake if not for her own. "all right, my girl," answered father, without looking at her. "i understand." and then he turned again to frank. "you'll stay and have a bit of dinner with us?" he said. i was grateful to him for saying it, for things were altogether rather uncomfortable. the honesty and frankness of our family is a characteristic of which i am proud, but it certainly has its uncomfortable side. fortunately captain forrester's pleasant and easy manners were second nature, and cost him no trouble. they came to the aid of us all that day. "oh, mrs. maliphant does not echo that kind invitation of yours," said he. "i know i have deserved her wrath. a bargain is a bargain." he put out his hand again. "but she will shake hands with me before i go?" he added. who could have resisted him? mother put out her hand. "you're welcome to our board, captain, if you will stay," said she. "thank you, that is kind of you," answered he, with real feeling in his voice. "i mustn't stay, i am due elsewhere, but i appreciate your asking me none the less." he turned to me and shook hands with me warmly. then he stopped in front of joyce. she did not lift her eyes; she put her hand silently into his out-stretched palm without, so far as i could see, the slightest tremor. he pressed the soft long fingers in his for a moment, and then he turned away without speaking. father and he went along the passage together, talking; and it was father who showed him out of the front door. i was sorry that i had persuaded him to come to the grange. harrod had seen joyce in tears, and would wonder what was the cause; and was it worth while to have gone through the very uncomfortable scene which had just taken place for anything that had been gained? it was joyce's own fault, but it showed me how idle it was to hope to move her in any line of conduct which she had laid out for herself. chapter xxviii. the next morning i was still more sorry that i had brought frank to the grange. mother very rightly upbraided me for it, and in a way that showed me that she was more than ever determined that joyce should not marry captain forrester if she could help it. she said that joyce was beginning to forget this dandy love affair, and that it was all the more annoying of me to have gone putting my finger in the pie and stirring up old memories. i declared that joyce was not forgetting frank at all, and told mother i wondered at her for thinking a daughter of hers could be so fickle, and for supposing that her manner meant anything but the determination to keep to the unfair promise that had been extracted from her. ah, dear me, if i could have believed in that other string that mother had to her bow for joyce! but although the squire came to the grange just as often as ever, i could not deceive myself into thinking his coming or going made any difference to my sister, whatever might be his feelings towards her. if joyce had not encouraged her lover, as i thought she ought to have done, that was not the reason. i told myself that the reason was in the different way in which we looked at such matters; but i was sorry i had brought frank to the grange. with my arrogance of youth, i might have got over mother's scolding if i could have persuaded myself that i had done any good; but i could not but think that i seemed to have done nothing but harm. joyce was almost distant to me in a way that had never happened before in our lives; and when i tried to upbraid her for her coldness, she choked me off in a quiet fashion that there was no withstanding and left me alone, sore and silent and angry. oh, and there was a worse result of that unlucky visit than all this, although i would not even tell my own heart of it. joyce, as i have said, was moody and silent all the next day. to be sure, the weather had turned from that glorious heat to a dull gray, showery fit that was most depressing to everybody. it had most reason to be depressing to trayton harrod, who had his eye on the crops even more anxiously than father had himself. the rain had not as yet been heavy or continuous enough to do more than refresh the parched earth, but a little more might make a serious difference to the wheat and the hops, of which the one harvest was not yet all garnered, the second nearly ready for picking. this, and the annoyance about the broken water-pipes--in which matter he had failed to discover the offenders--were quite enough, of course, to account for the cloud upon the bailiff's brow as i came across him that evening on the ridge of the downs by the new reservoir. i ought to have remembered this; i ought to have soothed the trouble; i should have done so a fortnight ago. but i was ruffed, unreasonable, unjust. "well, have you discovered anything more about that ridiculous affair?" i asked, nipping off the twig of a bush in the hedge pettishly as i spoke. "what affair?" asked he, although i knew that he knew perfectly well what i meant. "well, about those water-pipes that you fancy the men have stamped upon to spite you," laughed i, ill-naturedly. he pressed his lips together. "i think i guess pretty well who was at the bottom of it," he said. "but the work is finished now and in working order, so i shall say no more about it." i knew very well that if he could have been certain of his facts he would have said a great deal more about it, and in my unreasonable ill-temper i wanted to make him feel this. "guessing isn't enough," i replied. "but if you could be sure, it would be far better to let the man know that you have discovered him. you'll never get anything out of these sussex people by knuckling under to them." i was sorry for the words as soon as i had said them, for it was an insulting speech to a man in his position; but i wouldn't show any humility. "thank you," he answered, coldly. "i must do the best i can, of course, in managing the sussex people. but, anyhow, it is _i_ who have to do it." i would not see the just reproof. "well, if any one is to blame in this it isn't poor old reuben," i declared, stoutly; "he's obstinate, but he isn't mean. it _might_ be jack barnstaple. i don't say it is, but it _might_ be. it isn't reuben." "i am quite of your opinion," answered he. "but as you say, guessing is of no avail, so we had best let the matter drop." he turned to go one way and i the other. but just as we were parting, reuben appeared upon the crest of the hill with luck at his heels. they were inseparable companions. luck was the one sign of his former calling that still clung to poor old reuben. but he was very old, older than his master; both had done good work in their day, but both were nearly past work now. "that dog will have to be shot soon," said trayton harrod, looking at the way the poor beast dragged itself along, stiff with rheumatism, which the damp weather had brought out. "i told reuben so the other day." "shot!" cried i, with angry eyes. "no one shall shoot that dog while i have a word to say in the matter." and i ran across to where luck was coming to meet me, his tail wagging with pleasure. "poor old luck! poor old fellow!" i murmured, stooping to caress him. "they want to shoot you, do they? but i won't allow it." "shoot him!" growled reuben, looking round to the bailiff, who had followed me. "shoot my dog?" "he's not _your_ dog, reuben," i said. "he's father's, although you have had him for your own so long. and father will have a voice in the matter before he's shot. don't be afraid. he sha'n't be shot. we can nurse him when he needs nursing, and he shall die peaceably like a human being. he deserves as much any day, i'm sure. he has worked as well." taff was my special dog, and it was true that luck had always, as it were, belonged to reuben, but now that i fancied him in danger, all my latent love of the weak and injured rose up strong within me, and i fought for the post of luck's champion. perhaps my mood of unreasonable temper had just a little to do with it too. "you are mistaken," said trayton, coldly. "the poor beast is ill and weary. it would be a far greater kindness to shoot him." "well, he _sha'n't_ be shot, then, so there's an end," cried i, testily, rising to my feet and looking harrod in the face. "oh, very good; of course it's not my business," said he. he turned away up the slope. but the spirit of annoyance was in reuben as it was in me that day. "i came to have a bit of a look at the 'op-fields, master," said he. "the sky don't look just as we might choose, do it?" "this rain is not enough to hurt," growled harrod, without looking round. "no, no; we might put up with this so long as it don't go on," agreed reuben, slowly. "we want a bit of rain after all that dry weather. you didn't get your water-pipes laid on in time for the dry weather, did you, master harrod? begging your pardon," asked the old man, slyly. "no; some mischievous persons took a childish delight in putting them out of order," said the bailiff, turning round sharply; "but i have my eye on them." "they're dreadful brittle things, them china things, for such work," said reuben, in a slow, sleepy voice. "i doubt you'll never get the water to go just as you fancy. they do say there's another broke down by widow dawes," he added, with a grin. harrod turned round, with a muttered imprecation. "but there, i'm thinking you won't want no water round about for some while to come, mister. the lord'll do it for ye." "i tell you the weather hasn't broken up, man. this rain is nothing," growled harrod again, striding up the bank as he spoke. "right, right," agreed reuben, nodding his head; "we must trust the lord, we must. though, for my part, i'd sooner trust him with anything rather than a few gardens of 'ops." reuben sighed as he looked out across the valley that was so rich now with the tall and graceful growths. "they're a fine sight now," said he, "but the lord can lay 'em low." and with that comforting reflection, he turned his back on me and went down the path. luckily for reuben, i had not leisure just then to think of him or his words; my thoughts were elsewhere. trayton harrod had reached the top of the slope. he was nearly out of ear-shot. i watched his figure grow longer and longer upon the softening sky, that was slowly clearing with the coming twilight. how could i bear to let him go from me like that? was it for this that we had had those good times together, those happy, happy hours, that lived in my memory like stars upon a bright sky? was it for nothing that he had held my hands in his and tuned his voice to gentleness in speaking to me? was it for nothing that my heart beat wild and hot, so full of longing, so full of devotion? oh, and yet it was i who had made this foolish quarrel! how could i have allowed my unreasonable temper to get the better of me like that? it was my fault, all my fault! what devil had taken possession of me to fill my heart with wicked and unjust fancies, to imbitter all that was but a little while ago so sweet? my heart was heavy, the tears came into my eyes. if he loved me he would forgive me, i said to myself, and i forgot all of what i had been wont to consider proper pride, and ran after him. "mr. harrod," i called. he turned at once and waited for me. "you're going to london one of these days, aren't you?" i said, breathlessly, for i had run up the bank. "one day before the hop-picking begins," he said, hurriedly, impatient to get on; "but not before the harvest is all in." he turned, walking on, and i walked by his side. "well, when you go, i want you to do something for me," i said. "i want you to buy some books for me." "buy some books!" ejaculated he. "what books?" "i don't know," i answered. "i have saved some money, and i want to buy some books with it. but i don't know what books. i thought you would advise me." he laughed. "i don't think i'm at all the proper person to advise you what books to buy. i'm not much of a reader myself. i've got my father's books, and have had some pleasant hours with them too, but i don't know if they're the best kind of books for a young woman to read. no, i'm not the proper person to advise you, i'm sure. you'd better ask the squire." "the squire!" cried i, vexed. "and pray, why should i ask the squire?" "well, he's an older friend of yours than i am, and far better suited to advise you," answered harrod. "and he would do anything for you, i'm sure." was it possible that harrod might be under a delusion? somehow it gave me pleasure to think that it might be possible. "the squire is no friend of mine," said i. i was ashamed of the words before they were spoken, they were so untrue; but i spoke them under the smart of the moment. "how can you say such a thing?" said harrod, sternly. "i don't mean to say that he wouldn't do anything for any of us," i murmured, ashamed. "i only meant to say that he would be more likely to do it--for joyce." i felt his eyes turn upon me, and i raised mine to his face. it was quiet, all trace of the temper that had been there five minutes ago had vanished; but his eyes, those steely gray eyes, looked me through. but it was only for a moment. then the shade upon his brow melted away, and the hard lines of his mouth broke into that parting of the lips which was scarcely a smile yet lit his whole face as with a strong, sharp ray of light. there never was a face that changed as his face changed; not with many and varying expressions as with some folk--for his was a character reserved almost to isolation, and if he felt many things he told but few of them, either tacitly or in words--but with a slow melting, from something that was almost akin to cruelty into something that was very much akin to good, honest tenderness. it was as the breaking of sunlight across some rugged rock where the shadow has hidden every possible path-way; when the sunlight came one could see that there was a way to ascend. judging with the dispassionateness of distance, i think that harrod feared any such thing as feeling. life was a straightforward and not necessarily pleasant road, which must be travelled doggedly, without pausing by the way, without stopping to think if there were any means by which it might be made more agreeable. life was all work for trayton harrod. and as a natural consequence, if he had any feelings he instinctively avoided dwelling on the fact; therefore he mistrusted any expression of them in others. he was cruel, but if he was cruel to others he was also cruel to himself. that evening, however, the sunshine broke out across the rock. it melted the last morsel of pride in me. he turned away his eyes again without a word, after that long, half-amused, half-reproachful, and wholly kind look. it puzzled me a little, and yet it gave me courage. "i think i'm in a very bad temper to-day," said i, with a little awkward laugh. "i think i was very rude to you just now." "rude!" echoed he, turning to me quickly. "why, when were you rude?" "just now, about the hops and everything." he laughed aloud, quite merrily. "good gracious! surely we are good friends enough to stand a sharp word or two," cried he. i was silent. harrod walked very fast, and talking was difficult. when he reached the top of the hill he held out his hand, and said, in a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice, "good-night; i must be getting along to widow dawes as fast as i can." i stood watching him as he ran down the slope. at any other time i should have been just as much excited as he was about the breakage of the pipes, but that night there was a dull emptiness about things for which i had no reason. the west was still clouded, and in the plains the struggling rays of the sinking sun made golden spray of the mists that the rain had left; but to the eastward the sky was clear of showers. the mill was quite still, its warning arms were silent; it stood white upon the flaxen slope, where the short grass was burned to chaff by the rare summer heat--white and huge against the twilight blue. behind it--slowly, slowly out of the blue sea--rose the golden august moon. i turned my back to the clouds and faced the golden moon. chapter xxix. and now let me pause a while and think. ten years have passed since the time of which i write. i am a woman, twenty-nine years old--a woman in judgment as well as in years, for many things have happened since then which have taught me more than the mere passage of time. and i can see clearly enough now that what i am going to tell happened through no fault of others; my pain and my disappointment were the result only of my own mistake; let me state that as a fact--it will be a satisfaction to my own conscience. i never had any excuse for that mistake. i was a foolish, passionate, romantic girl, and out of the whirlwind of my own love i conjured up the answering love that i craved; but it was never there--it was a phantom of my own making. a month had passed since joyce had come home, since that night when trayton harrod and i stood under the abbey eaves in the lightning and the storm--a long, long summer's month. the hay had all been gathered in long ago, and the harvest was golden and ready for the reaping; the plain that had once been so green was growing mellower every day; the thick, reedy grass that blooms with a rich dark tassel upon our marsh made planes of varied brown tints over the flatness of the pastures--the whole land was warm with color; the gray castle lay sleeping upon the flaxen turf, with the gray beach beyond; the white sheep cropped lazily what blades they could find; between the two lines of tall rushes yellow and white water-lilies floated upon the dikes, and meadowsweet bloomed upon their banks; the scarlet poppies had faded from the cornfields, and the little harvest-mouse built her nest upon the tall ears of wheat. every sign told that the summer would soon be fading into autumn; the young broods were all abroad long ago; the swallows and the martins were preparing for a second hatching; the humming of the snipe, as his tardy mate sat on her nest, made a pleasant bleating sound along the dikes near to the sea; the swift, first of all birds to leave us, would soon be taking her southward flight; on the beach the yellow sea-poppies bloomed amid their pale green leaves. there had been the same little trouble over the bringing of reaping and threshing machines onto the farm as there had been over the mowing. poor father did not appear to be reconciled to these innovations, although he seemed to have made up his mind to give in to trayton harrod up to a certain point; he had not, however, wavered an inch on the subject of the length of the laborers' working-hours; on that he and the bailiff still preserved an ill-concealed attitude of hostility. i did what i could to preserve the peace, so did mother, so did we all; but i don't think that father grew to like trayton harrod any better as time went on. i think he respected him thoroughly. more than once, i recollect, he took occasion to observe that he was an upright and honorable man, and yet, somehow, he scarcely seemed even to thoroughly trust him. i know, at least, that one morning about this time he called me into his study and bade me ride into town at once with a letter for mr. hoad, which i was to deliver privately into his own hands, letting nobody know my errand. three months ago how proud i should have been of this trust, which might have been given to the man who had been called in to supplant me! but now i did not like it; it filled me with apprehensions, with misgivings, with anger at the slight to him. "are you afraid to go, meg?" father had asked, seeing me hesitate. "i'll go myself." the word must have lit up my gray eyes with the light that he was wont to laugh at, for he put down his stick and sank into his chair. "there," said he, patting my cheek, "i thought she hadn't lost her pride." and neither had i; but the strangeness of the request, and the strangeness of mr. hoad's face as he read the letter, set me thinking most uncomfortably all the way home. nor was it only on that occasion that i had need to ponder somewhat anxiously on matters that were not my own. a sunday morning about this time comes back to my mind. father had been up to london during the week on one or two matters of business. it was an event in those days for a farmer to go up to london. to father it was specially an event, for he always had been a more than usually stay-at-home man. but there must have been some special reason that took him up; he had seemed disquieted for some time. i had fancied that it was purely on account of that scheme that frank forrester had not yet succeeded in floating, and i was angry with frank for that cooling down which i have noticed as happening in him whenever he got away from the fiery influence. i was angry with joyce for not keeping him up to his first ardor, angry with mother for not allowing them to correspond, so that she might do so. but after all, i don't believe that father's uneasiness was entirely owing to frank forrester, for his journey to london was suddenly decided upon one afternoon after he and mr. hoad had had a long talk together in the business-room. father had seen harrod afterwards, and had then announced his proposed journey at the tea-table. he had been away only two days; but although he said that he had been made a great deal of by the old friend with whom he had stayed, and though he declared that frank was just the same as ever, and it was therefore to be supposed that they had been as good comrades as usual, father looked none the better for his little change. as we all stood up in the old church to say the creed, i remember noticing how ill he looked. it was not only that he bent his tall, massive figure over the desk, leaning heavily upon it with both hands, as if for needful support; it was not even that his cheeks were more sunken, and that he bowed his head wearily; it was that in his dull eyes and set lips there was an air of suffering, of dejection and hopelessness, that was pathetic even to me who should have known nothing of pathos at nineteen. it struck me with sad forebodings, and those words of the squire's a few weeks before came back to my mind. i glanced at mother's face--beautiful and serene as ever--with the little net-work of delicate wrinkles spread over its soft surface, and the blue eyes content as a young girl's beneath the shadow of the thick white hair. it was what joyce's face might grow to be some day, although at that time there were lines of character about the mouth which my sister's beauty lacked; it was what my face could never grow to. but surely neither of those two had any misgivings. "and the life of the world to come," repeated mother, gravely, saying the words a little after everybody else in a kind of conclusive way. but, somehow, i wondered whether she had really been thinking of what they meant, for she sat down again with almost a smile upon her lips and smoothed out her soft old black brocade without any air of undue solemnity. i glanced at joyce. her eyes were bent down looking at her hands--large, well-shaped, useful hands, that looked better in the dairy or at her needle than they did in ill-fitting kid-gloves; her face was undisturbed, the lovely little chin resting on the white bow of the ribbon that tied on her fresh chip-bonnet. it was before the days when it was considered respectable to go to church in a hat. i, too, had a white chip-bonnet--joyce had brought them both from london, together with the blue merino frocks, which we also wore that day; but i did not look as well in a chip-bonnet as joyce did. i glanced along the row of pews. at the end of the one parallel with ours across the aisle sat reuben in his clean smock, his fine old parchment-colored face set in the quiet lines induced by sleepiness and the suitable mood for the occasion. deborah, as i have said, came rarely to church; she always declared that a deafness, which i had never noticed in her, made the coming but a mere form, for "what was the use if you couldn't extinguish the parson?" but reuben was a pious and constant attendant, and looked better in keeping with the place than did the owner of two keen gray eyes, just beyond him, that i noticed were fixed upon my sister's face. they were withdrawn as soon as i turned my head, although they did not look at me, but i paid no further attention to the service that day, and for all the good i got of the sermon i might as well have stayed at home. and yet we had a fine discourse--or so father said as we came out of church--for it was from the curate of the next parish, that young mr. cyril morland, to whom he had taken such a fancy, and it was for the ragged schools, and touched on father's subject in father's own way. if i had cared to look round at him again i should have seen that his weary eyes had regained all their usual fire, and that his head was raised gazing at the impassioned young speaker. but i did not look at father again. i sat with my eyes fixed on the old tombstone at my right, on which reposed the mail-clad figure of an ancient knight; and, for aught i knew or cared, the preacher might have been the sleepy old vicar himself, clearing his throat and humbly enunciating his well-worn sentiments. i don't remember just what my thoughts were--perhaps i could not have put them into words even then; but i know they were not of god, nor of the poor little wretched children for whom our charity was asked. when the plate came round at the end it awoke me from a dream; ah me! it was not a good dream nor a happy dream. i wondered if people were often so wicked in church. when the service was over father went round to the back and took up little david jarrett, whom he had carried into church. the little fellow was supposed to be better, but he did not look as though he would be long for this world, and i think he grew nearer every day to father's heart. the vicar's young wife spoke to him as he went out in father's arms. "you've got a very kind friend, david," she said to the child, in her weak, whining voice. "i hope you're very grateful." a smile came over the little pinched face. the boy did not reply, but he put his arm round father's neck to make the burden easier, and looked into his eyes. "i'm going to take you to the grange to-day for a bit of roast beef, david. what do you say?" asked father. "i should like to go to the grange," said david, without making any allusion to the roast beef. "come, you youngster," said the squire, coming down the path with mary thorne, and speaking in his hearty, healthy voice, "isn't that leg of yours well enough yet for you to walk alone and not trouble a poor old man?" the child flushed scarlet, and father said, in a vexed tone, "i'm not so very old yet, squire, but i can carry a poor little cripple a couple of hundred yards." the squire had spoken only in joke, and he said so; it was his way, for in reality he was as kind a man as father himself, but i don't think father forgave him for quite a little while. "well, did you see anything of that good-for-nothing nephew of mine up in london?" asked the squire again. we were all standing round in a little group, as folk are wont to do coming out of church, when they rarely get time to meet on week-days. mother was talking to that aggressive old lady, miss farnham; joyce stood at her side. i could not see harrod anywhere, but it was just like him to have disappeared; he hated a concourse of people. "oh, come, mr. broderick, i don't think you ought to take away a poor fellow's character when he's absent," laughed mary thorne, in her jolly way. "here's miss maliphant," added she, pointing at joyce, "might be prejudiced against him by it, and he thinks a very great deal of what miss maliphant's opinion of him may be, i assure you." she said it in a good-natured, bantering kind of way, but not at all as if she guessed at the real relations that existed between joyce and her childhood's friend. the squire frowned, and mother turned away from miss farnham. "now, miss thorne, i should take it very kindly if you wouldn't bring my girl into it," said she. "i'm an old-fashioned woman, and i don't hold with jokes of that sort." mary looked rather surprised, but it was just like mother to speak up like that; she never was afraid of anything or anybody, although she did seem so gentle. "ah, i often have my suspicions that mrs. maliphant is a good old tory at heart," said the squire, trying to turn the matter off lightly. "no, no, squire, don't you try to make more out of my words than's in them," declared mother, shaking her head. "i never was for politics. i make neither head nor tail of them." of course everybody laughed at this, and the squire added, "i'll be bound frank won't show himself till after we have got my friend farnham in for the county." "he said nothing about coming down," said father, who had withdrawn from the group since the thornes had joined it, and stood by the old stone wall, on which he had rested little david; "but i don't think that's the reason." "he'd have been down before now to torment me about those new stables unless there were something particular keeping him away," went on mr. broderick. "he keeps writing to me about them, but i tell him i'll have the men and women housed before the dogs and horses. there are two new cottages wanted on the estate, and they're going to be done first." "ah, you're a decent sort of landlord; they're few enough like you," declared miss farnham, nodding her ever-bugled head before she turned up her black silk gown over her white petticoat, and trudged off across the church-yard; "and that's a sight better than going about making mischief, as some seditious folk must needs do." this was a parting thrust at father, but he did not seem to have even noticed it. "mother, i'll just take the little chap home," said he. "you get hold of mr. morland, and ask him to come and have a bit of dinner with us, will you?" the squire looked after him. "you oughtn't to let him carry that child about, mrs. maliphant," said he. "he's not the man he was." "oh, squire, what a job's comforter you are, to be sure!" sighed mother, half fretfully. "why, i think laban's quite himself again since the summer weather has come in. he's a bit cast down to-day, i've noticed it myself; but that's in his spirits. i don't think that trip to london did him any good. those railways are tiring things, and then i can't help fancying he's a bit disappointed about this notion of his for getting the charity school, or whatever it is. he's so set on those things. i tell him it's a pity. he wears himself out and neglects his own work. and no offence to you, squire, that young nephew of yours isn't so smart about it as he might be. i always warned laban against putting too much trust in him. not that he has said anything, but if matters were going as he wants, he would have had something to say, you see. the young man seemed just as eager about it as my old one once upon a time, but young folks haven't the grit." mother made the whole of this long speech in a confidential manner to the squire, but i heard every word of it. so must joyce have done, for she and mary thorne had been talking, and were standing side by side, but she gave no sign at all, although mary said, with a loud laugh: "is that frank you're talking of? why, dear me, you don't expect him to hold long to one thing, do you? the squire knows him better than that. as jolly an old chap as ever was, but never of the same mind for ten minutes together; at least," added she, quite gravely for her, "not about things of that sort. dear me, i know at least five things he has taken up wildly for the time being, and wearied of in six months." the squire smiled a little maliciously. "there's a bit of truth in that," he agreed, "though i don't know that i could have told it off so glibly. oh, miss mary, miss mary, what a wicked tongue you have got!" i fancied she looked distressed. "come, who was it stood up for him just now?" cried she. "you can't call black white because you happen to like a person." he laughed. i couldn't help thinking that he was very well pleased with what she had said, and i thought it was very unkind of him. as for me, i was furious with the girl. i had always liked her before, but that day i positively hated her. what business had she to go telling tales about frank? it never occurred to me for a moment that she might possibly have a reason for wanting to set joyce against frank, for making her think that his liking for people as well as for pursuits was of a very transitory nature. i went home in a very bad temper. why was i so specially angry now every time that joyce was lukewarm where her absent lover was concerned? i had often secretly accused her in my heart of being lukewarm before. she was not of a forthcoming temperament; she never had expressed her emotions freely, and she never would do so; it was not in her nature. why did it trouble me more now than it used to do? why did it trouble me so much that, when i reflected that joyce had not said a single word during the whole of that scene, i could not find it in my heart to speak to her? a month ago i should have scolded her for letting mother awe her into silence--i should have laughed at her for her timidity. but that day i could not. i let her go up-stairs alone into our little bedroom to take off her bonnet, and found an excuse to lay mine aside down-stairs. i heard the rev. cyril morland talking the management of the ragged schools over with father, and considering his suggestions of improvement. at any other time i should have been proud to notice the deference that he showed to the old man. i should have liked to listen to the comparison of their ideas and plans. but then i was afraid. the pity of suffering, the zeal for succoring it, seemed to me so much more akin between the curate and father than they had ever really been between him and frank. i could not bear to acknowledge it, yet i could not but instinctively feel that it was so. i did not guess at possible rocks and quicksands of creeds that might be ahead in any intercourse between father and his new friend, but i felt that in him was the spirit of endurance and self-sacrifice which, girl as i was, i could not but fear was lacking in the sympathizing, sympathetic nature of my sister's lover. it was only since he had been at the grange the last time that i had begun to fear it; but after that, that waxing and waning in the heat of his enterprise was apparent even to me. i felt that mother was right when she said that you knew where you were with a man who had troubled himself to put some of his ideas into practice, and could not blame her for being glad that father had put his scheme into the hands of one who had shown that he could work as well as talk. i could not blame her; she had no reason for making excuses for frank forrester; on the contrary, she had every reason for wishing father to see him in what she called his true colors, so that their intercourse should be at an end. but i--i had a reason best known to myself for wishing to strengthen every little thread that could bind frank to father and the grange. and even though this fervent young curate should turn out to be that man of whom frank himself had spoken--he who was the "right man to do the work"--i could not like him. how could i like any one who showed signs of taking frank's place with father? i sat silent at the board, and well deserved mother's just reproof afterwards for my lapse into the old, ill-mannered ways out of which she hoped i was growing. i was cross--i was cross with joyce; but it was unjustly so, and i felt it. when i had said my prayers that night i went up and kissed her where she lay with her golden heaps of hair upon the white pillow. chapter xxx. there is no season so bad but there are some fine days in it, and there is no time so heavy but it has some happy hours. that stormy summer-time had its happy hours, although i must needs tell also of its clouds. the earth was the same, although the eyes with which i saw it saw another image before they reached it, and sometimes the sense of its eternal beauty came to my spirit with a soothing song, and whispered of an enduring life that was beyond the changes and chances of varying weathers, bidding me be still and wait. i don't know that i was still, i don't know that at that time i was content to wait; but those voices that were so familiar made me glad as nothing else did, and, though i knew it not, made me strong. the wind that breathed soft from over the downs, heavy with the scent of the hops; the wind that smote salt upon my cheek with the fresh sea-brine; the lap of the waves upon the sand's soft lip, or their fretful flow upon the steeper beach whence they would suck the pebbles back again to the ocean's heart; the rush and rustle of birds in the air--rooks, or starlings, or fieldfares in great congregations that blackened the sky; the clouds hastening over the blue that lay so wide a covering over the wide level land, and made the red roofs of the town purple beneath their touch; the rippling of a breeze in the ash-trees, and the moaning of it in the pines; the pattering of rain, the lowing of cattle; the hundred notes of birds, and sounds of beasts upon the land; the throbbing sunlight, and the cold moon--all these things, and many, many more, spoke to me, gay or pitiful, in tones that i had learned from my childhood up, and told me of that wide sea of life that was there for me, whether i would or not, beyond the present, beyond selfish longings, beyond happiness or unhappiness. yes, i think something of all this came to me even then, although i could not have told it in words, as i try to do now--ten years afterwards. it was late august--the last of the harvesting. i had gone down to those wheat-fields upon the marsh that lie almost alongside of the beach. the day's work was nearly done, the reapers were binding up the last sheaves, and only a few solitary gleaners were still busy where the hated machines had left off their monotonous grind. i don't know how it was the men had done work so early that day, for it was an hour off sundown yet, but i think it was the very last field they had to reap upon father's land. trayton harrod had been there, but i had not spoken to him all the afternoon, and now, as i stood looking at him from afar through the late golden sunshine, and one of those strange showers of cobwebs that sometimes fall about this time of year upon our sussex levels, i saw the squire upon the path hard by that led to the beach. i had seen him coming down the road before with his bailiff, but had scarcely noticed him then--he was such a familiar figure in the landscape. only when he was comparatively close at hand something occurred to me with regard to him. i gave up a foolish wish that i had had to walk up to the village with trayton harrod after work was done, and jumped the dike, beyond which only a narrow strip of pasture-land was between me and the road. i remember how i stopped to pluck meadowsweet and flowering willow as i stepped across, that i might just climb the bank not too long before the squire should have reached that point. "been harvesting, miss margaret?" said he, in, i fancied, rather a preoccupied manner. "we have all got plenty of that to do just now, haven't we?" the squire had more of it to do than we had, for he had more wheat, and the ugly weather having given place that week to a fresh burst of summer, all we who still had crops on the ground were anxious to take advantage of the unexpected good-fortune. i did not reply; i was thinking how to begin what i had to say, and i took my knife out of my pocket, and stooped to cut a tall teasel that was turning brown on the dike-side, and a spray of ruddy dock that grew beside it. "the weather is splendid now for harvesting," said i, finding the squire did not speak again, "and mr. harrod says the crop of wheat will be finer than he once thought." "why shouldn't he have thought it would be fine?" grumbled the squire, looking in the direction where our bailiff stood in the wheat-field talking to the bailiff from the manor. "we have rarely had such a hot summer." the field was hot and golden, the hill behind cool and dark. i pulled one of the heads of dock to pieces in my hand, and said, "he says that a hot early summer doesn't always do good; it sucks the juices out while the straw is milky, and impoverishes the strength of the plant." the squire laughed, and i grew scarlet with vexation. "why, you'll be quite a farmer under harrod's auspices," he said. "you were nearly fit to manage the farm before he came, and i'm sure you'll soon be able to turn him off." "no, indeed," said i, trying to speak quietly. "i'm only just beginning to learn that i know nothing." "ah! well, they say that's the first step to growing clever," he replied. "and, joking apart, of course harrod's a very able fellow, and can teach us both a lot of things, i've no doubt, though he does have queer notions at times, i'm bound to say. he is a business man, and no mistake." "of course mr. harrod is a good man of business," said i, haughtily. "we all know that. that's why you recommended him to father, i suppose." whenever the squire was rough on harrod for his energy--which somehow seemed to me to be rather often of late--i always reminded him that he had recommended him for that very quality. i don't think he liked to be so reminded. i don't know why, but i am sure he did not like it. "mr. broderick," i said, striking a bold tangent, "when is captain forrester coming down again to the manor?" he looked at me, surprised. "i don't know, i'm sure," he said. "he never used to come at all. he has never been at the manor before for so long a time as he was here this spring." "no, perhaps not," i said. he looked at me sharply, and remembering the warning he had given me against any intimacy between my sister and frank, it occurred to me that he might be to blame for frank's long absence. this thought made a sudden flame of anger leap up within me towards the squire. i could not help being angry with him if he were doing anything to keep joyce and frank apart. i longed to tell him so, but with that promise to mother at my back i did not dare. "he might come for the election," said i. "i think he ought to come for the election." the squire laughed again. "on which side do you suppose he would throw in his interest, miss margaret?" he said. i saw that i had said a silly thing, and flushed. of course if frank put any interest in the election it would be on the side that was not the squire's. "but, upon my soul, i scarcely know myself," added he. "the lad is a slippery sort of fellow." this speech pleased me no more than the former one. it pleased me none the more because it awakened a certain uneasiness that i had felt myself about frank. girl as i was, i, too, had fancied he was not always the same; but i stood up for him. "i think it's very unfair of you to say that of your own nephew," i said. the squire fixed his blue eyes upon me with an amused expression. "why, miss margaret, you're a very stanch champion of that young scapegrace," said he. "what makes you so bold at fighting his battles, and so eager that he should come back again to the manor?" "i fight his battles because i think you are unjust," i said. "and i want him to come back because father looks to him to help him in his work." "oh, i see," said the squire, somewhat doubtfully. "but you mustn't fancy that he is so necessary to your father as all that. i am sure my friend maliphant is far too wise a man to set much store by the talk and opinions of a young and idle fellow like my nephew. he is far more likely to value the advice of a man such as this new parson over at iden. i am glad to see they have struck up quite a friendship together. i wish he wouldn't wear such a long coat, but i can see that he is an honest chap in spite of it." at any other time i might have been willing to enter into a discussion as to the merits of the rev. cyril morland, but at that moment i was only annoyed with the squire for having noticed father's liking for him. however, he gave me no more time for further talk. whether i had said anything to annoy him, or whether he was really busy, i don't know; but he bade me good-bye abruptly, only asking me, if i should meet harrod, to tell him that he would call round at "the elms" and see him later on. i strolled down to the sea-shore that hemmed the margin of the marsh, and sat down upon the beach to listen to the wash of the water upon the pebbles as the tide went out. it was one of those serene evenings that are made for dreaming; the sea was calm, and melted into the sky, with a little haze upon the horizon; streaks of varied shades crossed it in lines, brown upon the shallows, palest green beyond, blue where the water deepened, and darker still where the shadow of passing clouds fell upon its bosom. a fishing-boat, with brown sail flapping idly, lay becalmed in the offing; a steamer crossed the distance. the light-house at the end of the long, faint pink line, that was the far point that swept out into the ocean, seemed scarcely to be on land at all, but a mere speck of white in a veil of haze at sea; even the shipping in the harbor, but two miles away, had a phantom look, although the distant cliffs to my right could not but be stable and stately even in that languid atmosphere. it was all so peaceful and pleasant that i forgot the storms that oftentimes raged upon it, and although i was not actively happy i was passively content, involuntarily wrapped around by the soothing influence of the world that had been all the world to me until six months ago. i began thinking of the days--not so very long past--when i knew no excitement so great as to be out with the fisher-lads fishing for mackerel. mother would not allow me to go out when it was very stormy, so it was days of comparative calm that i remembered, and one night in special when i had leave to go out with reuben and an old fisherman by torchlight. it was in the month of november--a cold, clear night--and we fished for herring. there had been just enough of a swell not to make the adventure tame, but the stars had shone calmly, and the haul had been a good one. at the time, i had thought much more about the haul of fish than about the stars, but now i remembered that the stars had shone calmly. a longing came over me to be once more on the sea. the old fisherman with whom i had been out that night was dead, i knew; but there were others whom i had known, and with a sudden impulse i got up from the shingle, and began walking towards the fishing village hard by. it was but a handful of little low cottages, with a rough inn in the middle--a wild, strange place, alone on the border of the marsh with the wind and the sea. i met one of my friends coming along the beach; he was going for his shrimping-net, for the tide was going out, and in another hour the work would begin. he came slouching along, with his old faded blue jersey rolled up around his waist, and his woollen cap cocked over his eyes to keep out the slanting rays of the late sun. "good-day to you, eben," i called out. his name was ebenezer, but everybody called him eben. "are you going to take up the nets this afternoon, or it is too calm?" the old fellow--not so very old, but weather-beaten into an appearance that might mean any age from forty to sixty--pursed up his dry lips and looked out over the water. the yellow sail of the fishing-boat yonder had swelled out; there was a little breeze getting up. "we might put out," he said, "though it's touch and go if it'd be worth while. do you want to go out?" "yes, i should like to go," said i. "it's a long while since i've been on the water." eben looked at me. i don't know if he saw anything in my face different from what used to be there, but he said, quite sympathetically, "well, 'tis mopin' work being always on dry land." i laughed. "i'd rather have the land than the sea all the year round," i said; "but i should like to taste the salt again." "i've my shrimpin' to do," said he. "and we can't go afore the turn o' the tide, anyhow." "all right," answered i. "i'll wait a bit." "there won't be more than a handful of codling and p'r'aps a sole," declared the old man, doubtfully. "never mind," answered i. "how's the old chap up at the farm?" said he, as he was moving off. one might have imagined that he meant reuben, but i knew well enough that he meant father. "father's well," i said. "he have got a bailiff to look after the place now, haven't he?" asked eben. "don't work very well, do it?" "why, yes; it works all right," said i. i did not ask whether it was reuben who had said it did not work, but of course i knew, and wondered what i could do to punish reuben for it. "he's a nice-spoken chap," added the man. "i've seed him about here many's the time, and he's always spoke civil to me. ain't that him coming along now?" i turned round sharply. yes, walking along the beach towards us was trayton harrod. he too was taking a rest after his day's work. the glare on the shingle dazzled me so that i could not see him, for the sun was behind me, sinking towards the hill, and shone onto the face of the pebbles, making the long stretch of beach shine rosy gray. was he coming towards us? no, most likely he had not recognized me talking to the fisherman. should i go to meet him? i had the squire's message to deliver. but i thought i would not go. of late there had come upon me a resolve to wait until he should seek me. foolish and useless effort of pride! was i even true to it? he turned across the beach back again to the road, but in the direction of the cliff. "well, i'll be back again in an hour or so, eben," i said. "you'll know by that time whether you mean to go out or not." he nodded, and shouldered the pole of his big square net. i stood and watched him wade into the water. but when he had distanced me by some couple of hundred yards, plodding through the rippling waves, and pushing the big square net in front of him, then i turned and crossed the shingle back to the short brown turf, where the rabbit-warrens are thick upon the uneven ground, and the blue bugloss and sea-gillyflower bloom sparsely upon the dry soil. i had suddenly resolved to use up the spare hour in a sharp walk to the cliffs. i did not know, or did not confess to myself, that i had any special object in view in coming to this determination; but i think my heart beat a little as i walked, wondering whether some one else was advancing in the same direction behind me. i walked without turning, however, till i came to certain pools in the beach that tides no longer reach--pools housed behind banks of shingle, and scarcely even remembering the sea their mother; quiet havens where rushes grow and moor-hen make their nests, and the stately purple heron comes for his meal at dawn and sunset. one flew across from trees inland, obliquely, slowly sailing, just as i reached the last of these seeming remnants of a primitive world, and stood bathing his feet on the shallow lip, erect and imposing, the only inhabitant fitted to the spot. he did not see me nor move, even though i stooped down as i neared him to pluck a bunch of the yellow sea-poppies that bloomed amid the very pebbles. the beach stretched blue now in front of me as i raised my head, for the sun was before me--nearing the edge of the hill; i looked back along the way, that was pink, but trayton harrod was not in sight, and with something that was very like disappointment at my heart, i went on again, following the dike, that now ran not far from the shore, until i came to where it widens into a channel between a greensward on one side and the high ridge of shingle on the other. its end is in a deep pool sheltered beneath the hood of a gray cliff--a cliff adorned at its base with the blackberry and ash, and whitening at its top into the chalk that here begins to give its glistening frontal to the gales of the turbulent sea. upon a bank of bracken that september promised to gild with amber, i sat down to rest. poor foolish child! how faint was my heart when my hope was vain--how wild when i saw it fulfilled! for he came at last, leisurely, reading as he came. i had not been mistaken: for him too this was a favorite spot, this corner forsaken of the world, but loved all the more of the sleepy marsh and of the sleepless sea, of the raging winds of heaven and of the tender summer sunshine. "why, miss margaret!" said he, as he came up, with something of surprise, but also--ah yes--something of pleasure, in his tone. "fancy finding you such a long way from home!" "oh, i often come here," i said. "it is but a step." i was longing to remind him that it was but just yonder on the marsh that i had met him for the first time, but i could not. "what is that?" i asked, abruptly, instead, as a bird flew out of one of the caves that the sea once filled, and hovered over our heads. it hung there some forty feet aloft, winnowing the air gently; then fell like a stone upon the field. "a hawk, i call it," added i; "but i know you have some strange name for it." when we were together we went back naturally, i think, with one accord to our little altercations about the names and manners of beasts and birds; it was on such little things that the first good beginning of our friendship had been built. it set me at my ease that day. "it's a kestrel, not a sparrow-hawk," said harrod. "it's a pity keepers ever mistake them. the kestrels are useful birds. they kill mice. that was a mouse it got now." "what is your name for it?" i repeated. "windhover," he answered. "ah yes, it's a pretty name," i said. and we went on discussing the habitations of the bird, and how it loved to dwell in old buildings; and as we talked we climbed the flight of rough steps, hewn, winding up the face of the rock, and stood on the bald top, with the wind fresh in our faces and nothing but sea, sea all around, in the midst of which we almost seemed to stand as on an island. the little struggle with the breeze did me good, and the familiar way in which he went from one subject to another of our every-day interests put stormier thoughts for a moment out of sight. as we walked back along the beach--colorless now that the sun had sunk, with the silvery curves of the gull's white wings bright upon the blue waters--the sympathy that he sought from me once more, as of old, upon the things of his ambition, the daily and engrossing interest of his work, all made me happy again, as i had not been happy for many a day, and i think that for the moment i scarcely thought of anything better than that this sympathy should go on like that forever. a flight of starlings, beginning with companies of fifties, till, as day waned, the army counted thousands, blackened the sky. flying towards us, with wings perpendicular and wide-spread, they were a dark cloud high in the air; but presently, as though by silent command, they changed their course, and in the twinkling of an eye the cloud became a mere patch of faint gray upon the sky, although the birds were still as close to us as before; they had but altered the poise of their bodies, and the wings, presented horizontally, made only little lines where before they had been black blotches. but once more they varied their flight, the sky darkened again, the compact mass became a long, sweeping curve that, with one great rush and rustle, descended across the belt of trees that clothe the manor cliff above the marsh, and with a roar of wings and a very babel of chirping that was like the noise of a mountain torrent, they buried themselves completely out of sight in the bank of tall reeds and bulrushes that here clothe the dike-banks. "it's a parliament," said harrod. "now, i wonder what they have got to talk about. if the truth were ever known, i dare say they know more about co-operation than we do." he laughed, and so did i. "you see i've got co-operation on the brain, miss margaret," he said. "i've set my heart upon making your father see what an advantage it would be for the farmers." "i thought that was one of his own favorite things," said i. "i'm afraid that's not exactly the sort i mean," replied he. "he means co-operation between laborers or artisans to thwart their employers--or at least to get on without them. i mean co-operation between land-owners to keep their goods up to the prices that will repay them for their outlay." "oh, i'm afraid that is a very different thing," murmured i. i felt in my bones that father would never take part in it. "yes, i know," he answered. "but i want to see the squire about it. i hope to bring him round to my views. i am to meet him to-night." he looked at his watch. we had not noticed how the twilight was falling. "well, you hurry on and meet the squire," said i, just a trifle nettled at the way he said it. "_i'm_ going out in the boat with old eben." "that'll make you very late," said harrod. "i mean to go," said i, obstinately. he looked at me and smiled, shaking his head a little, reprovingly. the smile made me forget everything. "won't you put the squire off a little to come out with me?" i begged, wistfully. "it's so beautiful on the sea." he hesitated a moment, and i ran down to the shore, where old eben was waiting for me. but before i had reached it i heard harrod's firm, light step following me. "is this the right time to take up nets?" he asked of the fisherman. "women always thinks it's the right time to do a thing when they wants it," said eben. "but i've knowed missie a little one," he added, stolidly. he was going to call his "mate" for the other boat, two being necessary to do what they called the "seining"--that is to say, the drawing in of the net from opposite angles--but harrod stopped him. "i'll go out in one boat with the young lady, if you'll take the other," he said. my heart grew big. eben asked him if he knew anything about the work, very doubtful as to the competency of a mere pleasure-seeker, but suddenly his face lit up. he looked from me to harrod. "it works all right, eh?" he asked of me. i thought he had lost his wits, until suddenly it occurred to me that those were the words i had used when he had suggested that the new bailiff did not "work well" at the farm. what did he mean? i think i grew red as i jumped into the boat, and was glad that it was so dark that nobody could see me--for the twilight was dying fast, and the stars were coming out faintly. it was cold on the water after the hot day. harrod rowed, and once, as before, he took a warm garment and wrapped it about my shoulders; this time it was his own coat. we sat there a long hour, throwing pebbles at the net to make the fish sink down in it, and rowing hither and thither to gather it in. now that he was at it, harrod was keen upon the sport; i think he was always keen upon all sport. but eager as i had been a while ago to see the fish brought in once more, i was not a bit eager now; though the "take" was not a good one, i was not a bit disappointed. the stars shone brighter every moment as the sky grew darker; they shone calmly. i looked up at the vault--deep and blue, with the perfect blue of a summer's night, and studded over so thick and bright with those thousands of wonderfully piercing eyes. half an hour ago i had thought i wanted no more than that quiet sympathy of friendship--but now, did i want no more? i scarcely knew myself. but the stars shone calmly. they shone as we crossed the solitary marsh and roused the timid night-jar upon the road-side. he uttered his weird and plaintive note like the speechless cry of some sorrowing soul, and fluttered away in short little flights along the path-way till he reached the dark wood under the cliff; and there he hid himself from our sight, still sending his mournful appeal at intervals through the darkness. no wonder that the country-folk hold the bird in horror, and still imagine that its presence in the neighborhood of any dwelling is an omen of coming death or misfortune. one could fit the cry with words if one would, so far is it from the senseless utterance of a senseless creature, so near to the pathetic appeal of a human soul. but the stars shone, and not even mother's just upbraiding, nor a certain silent surprise on my sister's countenance, which troubled me far more, could take away from me the good hours which had been mine, could make the stars stop shining in the great fathomless blue. chapter xxxi. a week or more had passed by since the night when i had drawn the nets. it was the first of september, and my birthday. i was nineteen years old. a hot, fair day; all the cloudiness and rain of a fortnight since forgotten in bright sunshine and in the scent of the roses, that were making their second bloom. i was hardly up in the morning before joyce brought me a little gift which she had been busy preparing for me; it was a handkerchief that she had embroidered for me herself. it must have cost her all her leisure. i had often laughed at her, telling her that a piece of needle-work was far more beautiful to her than all the lovely things that god had made in the world; but that day i wondered why it was that joyce loved to work a handkerchief for me when i had never cared to sit long enough in-doors to do such a thing for her in all my life. i turned and kissed her. i hoped she did not see that there was a tear in my eye. i turned away very quickly so that she should not do so; but i know that there was one. father and mother gave me a black silk dress. it was a sign that i was now quite grown up, and i think i appreciated it more on that account than for its own particular value; certain ideas about "looking nice" were slowly beginning to develop in me, but they were not altogether associated with a black silk dress, although indeed this was a very good one, soft and rich, as much like mother's own old-fashioned one as could be obtained in those more modern days. deborah too had her little gift for me, although with a comment upon the absurdity of such things; and even reuben found a word to say on the subject. ah me, why was i not contented, as i had always been contented before, with these tender signs of the quiet affection which had filled my life up till now? when father gave me one of his rare kisses before the others came in to dinner, and bade me be a good girl and a happy one, i was ashamed to think that there was anything else in the world that i wanted besides his love and care. we sat down rather silent to the meal. even though it was my birthday, nobody was in good spirits. father had ridden up to "the elms" that morning, and i suppose he was tired; he was often tired with a very slight exertion nowadays. and the weather was hot. mother declared that the weather was so hot that her marrow-bone was melted to a pulp. she never could abide the hot weather, and always had the strongest figures of speech ready to hand to express its effect upon her. "i should think it'll kill off all the old folk in the village," said she. "oh no, mother," i laughed; "it's the frost kills off old folk. this will do them good. it ought to do little david jarrett good too." father shook his head sadly. "mother, i want you to send the poor little lad some more broth," said he. "i've been round to see him this morning. he won't be long for this world, and while he's in it i want him to have all that his own mother ought to get him and don't." mother promised to take him the broth herself, and then she asked, what i had been dying to ask ever since father had come in, whether he knew when the bailiff was expected back from london, whither he had gone on farm business some three days ago. "dorcas expected him home to-day," said father; "but she didn't know what time." "well, i shall be right glad to see him," declared mother. "i don't believe he's been near the place this week past; and as for the squire, why, i can't but think there must something have happened to him." "nonsense, mary; what should the squire want to come for, save now and then for friendship?" said father. "he hasn't got work upon the place, and i'm sure we're not such good company all the year round as to tempt folk to come here to do nothing. we're working men and women, and have no time for talk." mother laughed. "well, laban, i have seen you get time to talk over some things," said she. "it's natural, i'm sure. and when it's the rev. mr. morland, that knows something about doing good, i'm pleased myself. not but what you used to have many a nice chat with the squire too, times ago, before you got so set upon other things." this was all a hit at frank, i knew; but father did not answer. he tapped his fingers impatiently on the table-cloth, waiting for his helping of pudding, and at that moment a dark figure passed across the lawn to the porch, and my heart went thump upon my side as mother declared gladly that it was mr. trayton harrod, and bade joyce go bid him welcome. "now, laban," said she, "you won't go and be tetchy with the man, will you? he has done you a world of good with the farm, and you might be beholden to him for it, instead of being so worriting as you have been of late." whether father was "tetchy" or not i never knew. it was my place to leave him alone with his bailiff when they had to talk business; and, moreover, i did not want to meet him there among so many; i had a craving for just one quiet word. i went and sat outside on the lawn, just under the big square window-seat of the dwelling-room. there was a seat there in the shade, and i took a book and waited. i heard the voices of the two men inside rising and falling in eager discussion; then mother's voice in gentle remonstrance, for she had not left the room when joyce and i did, and a moment later i heard father pass out, still talking, and harrod after him. mother came to the window and opened it wide just above where i was sitting, and then went out also; the room was empty. i fell to wondering how it was that men who all seemed to me good and admirable could differ so very materially; father, the squire, trayton harrod--all good in their own way, and none agreeing; father's warmest welcome for a new-comer, who did not really give him what the others did. yes, i felt _that_, although i recognized frank forrester's fascination, and declared to myself that he had fascinated, and always would fascinate, my sister joyce. she came into the room above my head just as i made this reflection. she was singing to herself. i wondered how it was that she could sing. if she really loved frank, could she sing like that now that he was away, that she could never see him, never have any news of him? if she really loved frank? something that was like an iron hand seemed to grip my heart and turn me sick. could i have sat there singing to myself when the man i loved was far away? no, i knew that i could not. even now, i felt as though i should never sing again; never sing again as i had sung that bright may morning when i had raced along the dike with taff, before i had ever met trayton harrod. yet he was here, within hail; the word that i wanted of him might be spoken any day. even a week ago, on the sea, under the stars, had it not been near to being spoken? i was not unhappy, but i could not have sung as joyce was singing. i kept quite still under the window; i did not want her to know i was there, i did not want to speak to her, i wanted to think. involuntarily there came to my mind that time on the cliff, the night before she went away to sydenham, when i had told her that she was overrating her own strength--that she would never be able to live without frank. i had not met trayton harrod then, but now i knew that what i had said was true: "when a girl loves a man she wants him every minute of her life, and something goes wrong in her heart all the time that she is parted from him." it would be true for me, but was it true for joyce? was it only that we were different? i sat still and joyce went on singing. she was singing "annie laurie"--one of the songs that i used to please father and the squire with when the long winter evenings made time. but suddenly she stopped. some one had come into the room; it was harrod. i knew it before he spoke. and he did not speak for a long while, for such a long while that i wondered. "you're not looking well, miss maliphant," he said at last. "the heat tells on you." "oh, indeed," answered she, in a low voice, "i'm quite well. i never have such a color as margaret has, you know." "but i think you work too hard in the house. you don't get out-doors enough." she laughed a little shy laugh. "i like working," said she. "i'm not so fond of out-doors as meg is." he said no more, and presently i heard the rustle of brown paper. i had noticed when i met him in the hall that he had a small parcel in his hand. "how did you like london?" asked joyce. "it must have been very hot there." "it was," replied he. "i didn't like it at all. i'm heartily glad to get back. but i found a minute to run up to regent street to look at those shops you told me of. i bought this. i want your opinion on it." i wondered what it was. a smothered exclamation came from joyce. "you like it," asked he, in a pleased tone. "oh yes, i think it's lovely," answered she, "lovely!" i had never known joyce so enthusiastic over anything. "well, miss maliphant, will you--" he began, and then he stopped. i raised myself a little on the seat lest i should miss the words. but no words came; and then suddenly it struck me that i was playing a mean part, listening here to what was not meant for my ears, and i rose, rustling the leaves of the shrubs as i went by. even then there was no sign from those two within the room. what ailed the man? he was not wont to be so awkward. and i felt that joyce was blushing; it made me furious. i moved on, meaning to go in, but the next words arrested me. "at least," said joyce, "i think it would be lovely for a lady to wear in town." then it was some article of dress. "i see you don't really admire it," replied harrod, in a disappointed voice. "i was afraid i shouldn't know how to choose such a thing properly. i'm sorry. i was thinking--" he made a long pause, and then he added, abruptly, almost savagely: "well, i was thinking of offering it to your sister. i hear it is her birthday." a blush crept over my cheek, even out there where there was no one to see me. but i could not have told whether i was pleased or not. "oh, do, do please give it to her, then," cried my sister, eagerly. "i'm sure she'll be pleased. i'm sure she would like to have it. don't think of what i said." she was quite distressed. why was she so much distressed over it? "i don't think it's really worth giving to any one," said he, with a laugh; and then he said something quite commonplace, i forget what, and i heard him throw down the parcel and go out of the room. what did it mean? his behavior was scarcely even polite. i waited a minute, wondering; i thought i heard a little sob through the window. i hastened in-doors and into the parlor. yes, joyce turned away hastily as i came in, and i could see that she dried her eyes furtively; she had been crying. "whatever is the matter, joyce?" cried i, i'm afraid, crossly enough. she turned her face round to me smiling. i felt a throb of shame. only that very morning tears of tenderness had come into my eyes, as i thought of the pleasure she had taken in sitting hours together to do fine embroidery for me when she might have been in the fields! but before i could say any more, and before she could answer, mother came in. "joyce," said she, "here's mr. hoad with his daughters, and father wants us to make 'em welcome to tea. i'm sure we're not fit to make any one welcome to-day--the butter coming so bad, and all the ironing to do, and the best-parlor not turned out this week past. but whatever father says is right, of course, so i suppose they must stay." joyce looked up with her patient, gentle eyes. "of course we will make them welcome," said she. "i'll set the drawing-room straight." and she and mother went out together to see to the washing of the best teacups, and the uncovering of the best furniture. i had not said a word. mother and joyce no doubt found it natural enough that i should not speak, for they both knew my aversion to the hoad family. but at that moment i was not thinking of the hoads. i was thinking of nothing but joyce and harrod, and the parcel which still lay on the table. mother had not noticed it. as soon as she and my sister were gone out, i darted towards it and opened it. had he not said that it was meant for me? it contained a delicate rose-colored silk shawl, strewn with little white flowers, and finished with long fringes--a soft, quaint garment that reminded one of one's grandmothers even then, and was choice and dainty enough for the sprucest of them. it was perfectly suited to joyce, who always had something of the air of an old picture; but to me--commonplace, workaday me, with my red hair--how could he have thought of such a thing? i held it in my hand a long time, looking at it and wondering. it was not that i was surprised that he should give me a present; to tell the truth, i had looked for a present from him, but i had thought it would be a book--a book like one of those in his father's old library that i had so much envied. how was it that he had chosen a thing so unsuited to me, and so well suited to joyce? i was still standing there, with the soft, pretty folds crushed up in my hand, when the door opened suddenly and trayton harrod stood on the threshold. i had no time to put the shawl away; i remained there with it in my hand--awkwardly. and he did not say a word to help me out of the difficult position; he only looked at me in a morose sort of fashion. i was obliged to make the best of it. "i beg your pardon," i stammered; "but joyce said--that is to say--" i stopped, blushing furiously. i had meant to be quite frank, and to confess that i had overheard the conversation, but my courage failed in his sight. he did not speak, and i felt very foolish. why did he stand there, silent, with that frown upon his wide brow, that frown that never used to be there! "it's a very beautiful shawl," i said, timidly, "and it would look lovely, i am sure, upon some grand lady who drives in her own carriage." "yes," said he, speaking at last; "things aren't pretty if they don't suit." "well, of course, finery is _not_ in our line; at least not in--in my line," i stammered. i added the last words so low that i don't think he heard them. he almost snatched it out of my hand. "no, thank heaven, it's not," he answered. "so we'll say no more about it." but when he took it from me, there came over me a wild, foolish longing to have the thing. what at another time i should have laughed at possessing, i wanted now more than all the books that i had envied, more than any other gift in the world. and it belonged to me; he meant it for me, it was mine and i would not part with it. "oh, please, please, mr. harrod," i cried, "don't misunderstand me. i am very much obliged to you for having thought of my birthday. i like it very much indeed. i--thank you with all my heart." i stretched out my hand for it again, but he only looked at me. i fancied there was a sort of surprise in his gaze. "of course, of course," he murmured at last, as if he were pulling himself together. "i'm afraid it will be of no use to you, miss margaret, as you say it is not a suitable gift; but if you will take it, of course you are welcome." i took it; but a chill fell upon my heart. "you did not remember my commission when you were in london, mr. harrod?" i asked, with, i am afraid, something of bitterness in my voice. "no," he answered, quickly. "did you give me a commission? i'm very sorry if i forgot any wish of yours." "a commission to buy me some of those books that you have in your library," i said. i saw him bite his lip as though vexed. perhaps he _was_ vexed to think that he had forgotten something which might have given me pleasure. but if he was, he was too proud to confess it. "oh, that was no commission," he said, with a little cold laugh. "you know i would not take it. i told you i was not the person for such a job. i advised you to ask squire broderick." i tossed my head. "yes, and i think i answered you that the squire was no such friend of mine that i should ask favors of him," i replied, hotly. my temper was rising, but luckily he had more self-control than i had; he saved me from making an exhibition of myself. "i ought not to have forgotten any request of yours," said he. "i'm sorry. if you'll give me the names of the books you want, i'll write to-night." i thanked him, but i said i did not know the names of the books, which indeed was true enough; and we turned the talk round to every-day things, until luckily some one came into the room. but there was some one else who knew the names of books, and who, moreover, remembered that i cared about them. it was squire broderick. he came in that evening with a case of twelve little volumes of shakespeare's complete works under his arm. "i know you're very keen about reading, miss margaret," said he, with his sunny smile. "i've often thought of you trying to puzzle out milton's 'paradise lost' up there on the old window-seat at 'the elms.' but i think you'll find this easier reading than 'paradise lost,' and more amusing." i blushed a fire-red, for they were all standing by: father, mother, and joyce, and trayton harrod. i almost fancied that i saw a suspicion of a smile break round his mouth as the offering was made. i am afraid that i scarcely even thanked the squire audibly for it. i can only hope that that fiery blush appealed to him somehow as a recognition of his kindness to me, and not as what it really was. good mr. broderick! how far too good to me always! even to this day it hurts me to think that perhaps i hurt him. but something in the way father shook him by the hand, and something in his voice as he said, "oh, meg, it isn't every girl has such a kind and thoughtful friend," made up, a little, i hope, for my curtness, although indeed the squire went away as soon as he had given his gift, and with something in his face that was not quite like his usual cheeriness. i am afraid that neither father's warmth of manner nor mother's thanks, hearty as they were, were enough for him. could he have been wishing that it had been joyce's birthday, that the gift might have been made to her? for no one had been so enthusiastic as joyce over my good-fortune. "the very thing for you, dear," she had said, after the squire was gone, taking up the books and looking at them admiringly. "isn't it, mr. harrod?" harrod agreed warmly that there was no doubt about their being the very thing for me, and every one declared that i was a very lucky girl. but no one knew anything about that pale pink shawl, with the white flowers, that had fallen into my hands in so strange a manner. i don't know why, but i kept that gift a secret from every one. and to this day it lies in the same folds, in the same piece of gray-blue paper in which it was originally given me. did i think myself a very lucky girl? chapter xxxii. frank forrester did not come down to marshlands for the elections. he did not come, but he was very near coming. i met mary thorne and the hoad girls out canvassing two days before. mary would have passed me with a nod, but jessie hoad had something to say. "i don't think it's at all nice of your father not to let you help us canvass for mr. thorne, margaret maliphant," said she, tartly. "father says he can't make it out at all. he always understood that mr. maliphant would support the radical cause, and now that for the first time they have got a candidate who has some chance of getting in, he won't have anything to do with him." "i suppose my father knows what he is about," answered i, proudly. "does he?" retorted she. "it's more than any one else knows, then." i bit my tongue in my efforts to keep it from saying something rude, yet i am afraid the tone was not quite conciliatory in which i retaliated. "his friends seem to know well enough to trust him! you've only got to ask the people round about to hear whose advice they would soonest follow on the country-side." it was true, but i should not have said it. jessie turned to mary thorne. "we ought to have her with us," said she. "the funny thing is she's right enough. the laborers hereabouts do look to farmer maliphant in the most extraordinary way. he don't hold any meetings, or work at the thing like other folk work. but there's the fact, and that's why it's so aggravating of the man to hold aloof. what does he do it for, eh, my dear?" asked she, looking at me again. "i don't know," i said, sullenly; "i'm not clever enough to understand father's motives. i only know that he says that parliament's no good." jessie was going to retaliate, but the other stopped her. "come, don't bother any more about it, jessie," said she, with the frank, good-natured smile that had always drawn me towards her, in spite of my father. "we're not going to get farmer maliphant's vote nor his support either, and what's the good of going on at it?" "oh, my dear, going on at it is the only way to get anything; and one doesn't like to be beaten without knowing the reason why. however, we shall have some one down to-night who will make a finer speech at the meeting than ever farmer maliphant would have made, even if he had consented to give us a glimpse of those grand deep notions of his." mary thorne laughed in a sort of self-conscious way; i wondered why. "who is coming to speak at the meeting?" i asked. "why, squire broderick's nephew, captain forrester, to be sure," laughed miss hoad. "he'll make an effect on the people, i'll be bound. so fascinating and so handsome. i've never heard him speak, but father says he's awfully enthusiastic, and all that kind of thing." i felt myself grow red or pale, i don't know which. i had wanted him to come, but i had not thought it would be in that way. yet it was what i should have known must happen if frank came down to the elections at all. "i'm sure he will make a splendid speech," said mary thorne, with a sort of pride. "i told father it would be everything if we could get him to come down." "he has been a long while making up his mind," said jessie. "well, it is awkward for him, you see," said the other. "he naturally doesn't care to go against his uncle." "it's worse to go against one's principles," declared jessie, loftily. "i quite understand it," declared mary, loyally. "he mightn't mind it if the squire weren't such a dear old fellow, but it is awkward, and i consider it a great mark of friendship that he should do it for us." "is he going to stay at the manor or at the priory?" i put in, bluntly. "oh, at the priory with us, of course," replied she. "and i must send the carriage for him in an hour. so, please, we must get on, jessie, or i shall never be home in time." she held out her hand to me, and of course i took it, as i took also jessie hoad's when she offered it, but i was not comfortable. why was frank always going to stay at the priory now, and why was he willing to risk hurting his uncle's feelings solely for the sake of doing an act of friendship to the thornes? i could not understand it, any more than i could understand why mr. hoad should be so extravagantly anxious that thorne should succeed. miss jessie was not in the habit of troubling herself about things that, as she would have expressed it, "didn't pay"; yet here she was putting herself to all manner of inconvenience to go canvassing with mary thorne, while mr. hoad was scouring the county for votes and spending his evenings writing flaming articles for country papers, or making emphatic speeches at country meetings. i might have thought about it more than i did if i had not had the more interesting matter of frank's arrival to occupy me. would father let us go to the meeting that we might hear frank speak? would mother let joyce have a word with him? how were they to meet, and most important of all, how would joyce behave towards him? i flew home to tell her, but she was not in the house. deb did not know where she was. deb only gave vent to a loud fit of laughter when i told her that captain forrester was coming down to speak at the meeting, and that i wanted to give my sister the news. she made me angry--it was no good speaking to deb. i caught up my hat again, and rushed off, seized with a sudden inspiration to take a walk that evening and find myself at the station at the time that frank forrester would arrive. in common civility he could not do less than offer me a lift up in the carriage which would have been sent to meet him; and anyhow, i could not fail to get a few words with him. yes, i would talk to him of joyce; i would tell him that her manner was deceptive; i would tell him how reserved we all were; how different to himself; how rarely we showed what we really felt; i would tell him that her cold manner the day when i had taken him to the grange was but from her desire to be loyal to the promise she had sworn our parents, that in truth she loved him; i would tell him how changed she was--for indeed it was true. i would try and not be shy; i would try and give him fresh heart. i sped away over the downs and along the hill, taff following me uninvited. it was a long way to the station, and i was afraid of missing the train. ah, i had missed it! just as i was crossing the last strip of level road before reaching the rails, i saw the priory carriage bowling towards me on its return journey. "what a pity!" said i to myself. but it came near and nearer, and at every bit that shortened the distance between us i became more and more sure that frank was not in it; there was only one person, and that person was mary thorne. she stopped the carriage as she saw me. her face was very pale, and i saw that she held the yellow envelope of a telegram in her hand. "oh, miss maliphant, do you think it would really be quite impossible to persuade your father to address the meeting for us to-night?" she said, hurriedly. "we are disappointed of captain forrester, who was to have spoken." her lip trembled a little. "i hope he's not ill?" i said. she did not answer at once. "i hope nothing has happened to him?" i repeated. i saw her fingers close tightly over the yellow envelope until they were quite white. "yes," she said, slowly. "he was riding in a steeple-chase not far from here; he has been thrown. they say--" her lip trembled again. she could not go on. "but he's not much hurt, not badly hurt?" i cried, in a fury of anxiety. "do speak!" she looked at me sadly, but a little surprised; and no wonder. i did not know how loud or how eagerly i had spoken till i saw the coachman look round. "father is so fond of him," i said. "i should be so sorry if he were hurt." "they say only slightly injured; no cause for alarm," she answered. "but one never knows." she turned away her head. i knew very well that she was crying. i ought to have been sorry; i was only angry. "oh, i dare say it's a mere excuse," i said, ill-naturedly. "men are so clever at excuses. he has got scratched just enough to say so. he didn't want to come." she turned round. her eyes were dry again. but she must, indeed, have been a good-natured girl, for there was no trace of anger in her face. "you don't know him; that's not his way," she said, quietly. and then she added, "you'll try and persuade your father, won't you?" "i'll give him your message," i answered. "but i know perfectly well he won't speak." "well, then, we must do the best we can without him," she said. "it's too late to get any one else. i must get home quickly. good-night." she drove on and left me standing in the road. another time i might have thought it rude of her; but then i noticed nothing, i thought of nothing, just as she, probably, thought of nothing, but that frank forrester was hurt. and for my own part, i thought of nothing so much as that joyce would--_must be_--heart-broken. taff, seeing me standing there as though turned to stone, leaped upon me, barking. i took no notice of him, but he roused me, and i tore up the hill as fast as i could to carry my grewsome message. instinctively, i felt that this, at last, must rouse my sister to show her true feelings, and if there were a mask on her face, that this at last must strip it off. i did not want to see deborah, and i did not stop to go in by the front door. i climbed the hedge and crossed the lawn to the parlor window. through the tangle of traveller's-joy and frail old-fashioned jasmine that framed it around, i looked into the room. father and trayton harrod sat by the fireless hearth smoking their pipes, and at the table was joyce, with the inevitable basket of family darning; her profile was turned towards me, listening intently, with eyelids raised and needle poised idle in her hand, to something the bailiff was saying. what was there in anything there to vex and sour and wound me? yet i went in hastily, letting the door slam behind me. "good gracious me! fancy sitting in-doors this lovely fine evening!" said i. "we sha'n't have so many more of them that we need waste one. the summer is nearly over." "why, what's the matter, meg?" asked father. "let folk please themselves, child." "oh, dear, yes; they can please themselves," i answered. "is that all you came in-doors to say?" laughed he again. harrod was busy filling his pipe, ramming in the tobacco with a stern hand, while joyce bent forward again over her work. "no," answered i, promptly. "i came with a message for you, father, from miss thorne. she wants you to oblige her by speaking at the radical meeting to-night." a cloud gathered on father's brow. "speak at the radical meeting!" echoed he. "what ails the girl to make such a request, or you, meg, to bring it? you know very well i shall speak at no meeting." "i told her so," said i, curtly; "but she would not take my word." "this is some of hoad's work," he said, excitedly. "why can't the man understand that he won't bully me into doing what i don't intend to do? i don't intend to support james thorne. i don't consider james thorne an honest man. why can't he leave off worrying?" this speech was not at all like father. there was an amount of irritability, almost of pettiness, in it, which was quite foreign to him; and his saying that hoad couldn't "bully" him into anything struck me as odd even then, though the more weighty matter that was in my mind made me chiefly impatient to hear my own voice. "well, it isn't mr. hoad this time, father," said i, hastily. "i'm sure he knew nothing about it. captain forrester was to have spoken." joyce did not raise her head, but i saw a little frown trouble her smooth brow. "forrester!" echoed father. "no, no! you're mistaken, child. i should be disappointed, grievously disappointed," he added, tapping the fingers of one hand on the knuckles of the other, "to think he should be led astray to throw himself in with that lot. are you quite sure of it, meg?" "i am quite sure he _was_ going to speak," said i; "but--" "ah, i'm sorry, i'm very sorry," repeated father. "but he's young--easily misled. i must have a talk with him. i didn't know the lad was in these parts." "he's not," said i. "he was to have come, but he has had an accident; he has been thrown from his horse in a steeple-chase." "god bless my soul!" cried father, starting up from his chair. "why didn't you say so? not killed?" my eyes were on joyce's face. she had looked up anxiously, but she had not changed color one bit. "no, not killed," answered i, slowly; "but i don't know how badly hurt. the telegram didn't say." "poor lad, poor lad! murmured father, concernedly, as he sat down again. but still joyce did not speak. she looked serious and distressed, and a faint pink flush had deepened on her cheek, but there was no horror in her eyes. "men shouldn't ride in steeple-chases," said harrod. "it's the most dangerous of all riding--and only for amusement, after all." "i should have thought captain forrester was such a splendid rider that he could have managed any horse," said joyce. "oh, it's not always a matter of mere management in a steeple-chase," said harrod. and i do believe my sister was actually opening her mouth to reply to him, when i said, sharply, "joyce, mother wants you," and by that means got her out of the room. "poor lad!" i heard the old voice murmur again as i closed the door. "father's sorry," said i, as i turned round and faced my sister. "yes," said she; "of course. who could help being sorry?" "some folk seem to be able to help it very well," laughed i. "_i_ couldn't have sat there discussing with another man how my lover had nearly come by his death! at least i can scarcely fancy that i could. of course i'm not engaged to be married to anybody, so perhaps i don't know how i should feel." joyce looked at me aghast. "good gracious, meg!" said she, in a half-frightened whisper, "what is the matter?" i suppose my face had told her something of what i was feeling; i suppose it had become white, and the gray eyes were black in it, as father used to declare they were wont to become when i was angry. "the matter?" cried i. "oh, there's nothing the matter. only i was a little surprised to see how coolly you took the news of frank's accident." "why, what was i to say?" said she. "i am very sorry, and i sincerely trust that it is nothing serious." "well," answered i, scornfully, "i should think you would feel as much as that if joe millet had been run away with by the old dray-horse, or even if luck were to have a fit. i'm sure i should. i was afraid you would be very unhappy when i brought you that bad piece of news. i was afraid you would be quite upset. i didn't know whether i ought to tell you before a stranger, but i needn't have troubled myself. you took it very well. perhaps poor frank would have been a little hurt to see how well you took it." "i don't know what right you have to speak to me like that, meg," said my sister, in a low voice. "how do you know what i feel? people aren't all alike. you take things very hard. you must have everything your own way, or else you fight and struggle. but i'm not like that. i believe that whatever happens is all for the best. why can't you let me take things my own way?" "good gracious me!" cried i; "take them your own way by all means, only you might argue till you're black in the face, but you'll never get me to believe that it's all for the best whether the man one cares for breaks his neck or not." "oh, meg, you know i didn't mean that," murmured joyce, in a low, disheartened voice. the tears gathered over those clear blue eyes of hers, that were as untroubled waters whose transparent depths could be fathomed at a glance. there was never anything mysterious about my sister's eyes; they were simple as a little child's, but, unlike a child's, they had ceased to wonder. the tears irritated me, but they made me ashamed of my unreasonable temper, and i said, quickly, with sudden change of mood: "well, i'm a cross-patch of course; but you know it was enough to make anybody angry to see you sitting there so meek and patient when i knew you must be dying of anxiety. and all for nothing but to please two dear old people who have forgotten what it was to be young and eager. but you must write to frank at once." "he knows very well how sorry i am," said joyce. i think my face must have darkened again, for she added, almost humbly, "you know i never could write letters, and i had rather not vex mother." "then you'd rather let that poor fellow think you didn't care whether he was dead or alive than show mother you've got a mind and ten fingers of your own?" i cried. "he must think what he likes," said joyce, in her most quietly obstinate voice; "i don't want to write." and that was all i could get from her. "very well, _i'll_ write, then," i said, with ill-concealed anger. "i like writing letters, and i am not afraid of mother." i flew up-stairs; i did not dare trust myself to say another word, but on the first landing i looked down and saw her head upturned towards me. there was a pitiful look in the blue eyes. "don't think me heartless, meg," she murmured. "oh no; i understand," said i, wearily. "i dare say you're quite right. i dare say it's much better not to take things too hard." after all, she might be right. she had said, "how can you know what i feel?" and, indeed, how could i possibly know? "how could one ever know what anybody else felt?" i repeated once more, as if to convince myself of it; and i am afraid, i am sadly afraid, that my own voice broke a little. "i know i'm not always happy, and perhaps it's because i take things too hard." chapter xxxiii. girls such as we were got little time for sentimental brooding, however, and though up-stairs in the little attic where joyce and i had always slept, i threw myself on the bed and looked sadly out across the marsh with eyes that saw none of its plaintive placidity, mother soon waked me from day-dreams, and called me down-stairs to active employment that did its best to drive love and its torments from my mind. the squire was ill; he had taken a bad cold out partridge-shooting, and mother was making him some of her special orange-jelly as a salve for his cough. those who were interested in the conservative success at the elections were much concerned at the squire's illness just at this time; and mr. hoad, who had, it seems, been round that afternoon, had been heard to declare that it was all to "our" good that the squire should not have been able to hold forth at the rival meeting that evening. but mother did not regard the matter in that light, and i believe she told mr. hoad so. i was not present; it had happened at the time i had been gone to the station, but according to joyce, she had told him so very plainly. mother, as i have often said, was as loyal to squire as if he had been her own son, and on this occasion so, i believe, was father also. looking back to that time, i seem to remember the sort of rough stand-aloofness which had characterized father's attitude towards the squire, giving place of late to a curious sort of half-unwilling consideration and tenderness. when mother called me from my bedroom to the kitchen, she was full of the squire's illness. "i hope it's nothing serious," she kept saying; "and that he won't go worrying himself any way about this accident to his nephew." "oh, you have heard about it, have you?" answered i. "well, i don't see why the squire can't afford to worry a little about it, i'm sure. and i'm certain he does; anybody with any heart in them would." i said it bitterly, but i did not anger mother. "well, there, margaret," she said, abruptly, "you know i never did like the young man, and i can't pretend to break my heart over this. i'm sorry he's come to harm, of course, but i can't help feeling glad joyce takes it as she does. we can't expect her to forget all at once, but please god she _will_ forget, and things perhaps be even as i hoped for." "i can't think how you can suppose it would please god your daughter should be a fickle, shallow-hearted creature, i'm sure," said i, hotly. "you and i never were of one mind over that matter, were we?" smiled mother, quite good-temperedly. "but the day'll come when perhaps you'll say i was right. you're but a child yet; you know nothing about such things saving what you've got out of books, and that ain't much like it. perhaps you may come to know what it is yourself one day, and then you'll tell the difference between the real stuff and the make-believe." a child! was my waywardness, my impetuosity, my passionate longing only childishness? now that i am a woman, i wonder whether mother was partly right in her simple intuition? only partly: i did know something about "such things." "i don't believe joyce hasn't taken it to heart," said i, doggedly. "well, her eyes aren't so heavy as yours by a long way," answered mother. "i don't know what's come to _you_ of late. you used not to be mopy. nobody could say it of you whatever else they might say. you had your tantrums, and you always have been a dreadful one for wearing out your clothes, but mopy you were not. but i'm sure you fret more over this business than joyce herself does. i've no patience with you. as for any work you do for me, i'd as soon have your room as your company. i like to see a body put her heart into whatever comes to hand, if it's only boiling a potato. you take my word for it, my girl, it's the only way to be happy." the tears came into my eyes, for i knew very well that mother was right. i turned away that she should not see them, for i was ashamed of tears, but she did see them nevertheless. "there, there," she added, kindly; "i don't want to rate you. be a good girl, and look more like yourself again. half-hearted ways won't bring anybody on; and as for your complexion, well, you used to have a skin that i could boast of. 'red hair she may have,' i used to say, 'but look at her skin.' and now it's no better than curds and whey. come, get the muslin and strain off that jelly." i did as i was bid, but i'm afraid not with my whole heart. had it come to that, that anybody could say of me, margaret maliphant, that i had taken to moping after anybody? "you shall take it up to the manor yourself and leave it with the house-keeper, as soon as it's set, in the morning," said mother, tasting the liquid to see that it had just enough flavoring in it. "you can say it's from an old friend, and then it won't hurt her feelings." we finished the job and set it down to cool before we went in to tea. joyce was there, with her hair smoothed and her face fresh, and i had red cheeks from stooping over the fire, and red eyes from something else that i would not remember. but i forced myself to look harrod boldly in the face, asking what had become of father, and learning that they had been up to "the elms" together, and that the walk had been too much for him. "mr. maliphant will take things so hard," added the bailiff, and the words sounded sadly familiar to me. father came in presently and handed me a letter addressed to frank. "take that up to the manor presently, meg," said he; "and get the address and ask for news." "margaret is going up in the morning with some jelly for the squire; i suppose that'll do," said mother. "i don't expect it's near so bad as it was made out. those things are always worse in the telling, and these young beaus are just the ones to get a sorry tale abroad about themselves." "hush, hush, mother; that's not like your kind heart," said father, reproachfully; and mother laughed, and said she had meant no harm to him, and joyce looked down on her plate uncomfortably. but i heard nothing, and as soon as i had swallowed my meal i got up and went out. i recollect with what relief i welcomed reuben on the terrace with his old dog, and began to talk of commonplace simple things. feeling hurt me too much, and reuben did not foster feeling. "dear old luck," said i, stooping down to pat the dog, who looked up at me with tender eyes out of his dusky black and white face, and would have wagged his tail if there had been a long enough piece of it to wag. "i hope there has been no more talk of shooting you. we couldn't spare the sight of you about the farm." "nay," said reuben, shaking his head; "when the dog goes, reuben'll go too. no mistake about that. he's been my luck, and when they take him they take me." "ah, well, you aren't either of you going yet a while," said i, consolingly. "there's lots of life in you both." "ay, miss, ay," grinned the old man, well pleased. "we sent the sheep home last night, luck and i; didn't we, old boy? beale he have taken his sweetheart on a spree somewhere out eastbourne way, and he asked me to see to the folding. i'm spry in the summer-time, and i was pleased enough. but i wouldn't have none o' them ondependable, skittish young uns. not i." "whom do you mean?" i asked. "nay, i place no dependence on young things," repeated he, doggedly. "they're sure to have their eye on a bit of fun somewheres, and they be allays for trying new dodges. now, luck he's safe and he's sure. he's got sperience, luck has. he knows." he nodded his head to and fro with an air of profound wisdom, and i burst out laughing. it did me good. i had not laughed that day. "what? you mean the young sheep-dog, i suppose?" i said. "ay, miss," answered reuben. "a 'andsome young chap enough, but ondependable." he paused, waiting for me to speak, but i saw whither he was drifting, and was silent. "there's others besides dogs as is ondependable!" he added, slowly. "such as we durstn't understand the ways o' them that are learned. nay, would we presume? but there's others as is ondependable. poor master! but the lord knows what is best for us all." "well, he is sending us glorious weather for the crops, anyway," said i, with determined cheerfulness. "it's quite too hot for me." "ay, so be it for the 'ops, miss," grinned the old man. "i don't believe it," cried i. he took me by the arm and led me forward to the edge of the cliff, whence we could see the marsh in its whole wide expanse. the day, as i had said, had been very hot, but the sun had set now--it was full seven o'clock, and the long twilight had begun her peaceful reign, exquisite in sober tints and fragrant coolness of silent air. the plain was slowly sinking into mystery, but silver-gray upon the bosom of the dikes, clearly defining their long, straight lines wherever they crossed the marsh; ribbons of white mist unrolled themselves in the dim light. "they're thicker than that back yonder," said he, "where the 'op-gardens be." "well, what harm do the mists do?" laughed i. "the hops haven't got the rheumatics." "nay, miss, but the mists, this 'ot weather, and the scalding sun atop'll spoil 'em worse nor they'll 'arm my old bones. they'll be as brown as brushwood." reuben delivered this speech in a low tragic whisper, and with the most ominous of expressions, holding my arm the while. "oh, reuben, you always were a gloomy creature," said i. "i believe you like making the worst of things." "nay, it's the lord's doing," said reuben, piously; "but if he had a-planted early perlifics they would ha' been all safe and garnered by now." "well, it isn't you that'll be afflicted if the hops fail, reuben," said i, tartly, "so you needn't be so pious and resigned over it;" and with that i walked off back into the house. what reuben had said had set me thinking. i wondered whether it was neither altogether distress at frank's accident, nor fatigue from the walk, that had made father depressed at tea-time. he was not in the dwelling-room, neither was mother. there were papers strewn over the table, and an inkstand with pen aslant across it stood in the midst. the papers were evidently accounts, and somebody had been working at them. i supposed it might be trayton harrod, for he was still there, contrary to his wont; but he was not seated at the table. he was standing up before the big, empty fireplace, and in one of the deep spindle-railed chairs at the side sat my sister joyce. i fancied that he moved a little as i came in, but i was not sure. "where's father?" asked i, sharply. i looked at joyce, but she did not reply. "your father is in the study, i believe," said harrod. "he was here doing some work with me, and did not feel so very well. i believe your mother is with him." "oh, i suppose the news of captain forrester's accident upset him," said i. "he is so very fond of him." there was silence. the fact of joyce's not speaking somehow exasperated me. "do you think that was the reason, joyce?" asked i. "i don't know, i'm sure," she answered. and when she spoke i saw why it was she had not spoken before: she had been crying. "dear me!" said i, half frightened. "is he so bad as that?" again she did not answer; it was harrod who replied for her. "no, no, miss margaret," he said; "i assure you it's nothing of consequence." which did he mean? father's illness, or joyce's distress? "i must go and see," said i. but i did not move. i was anxious about father, and yet i had not the courage to go and leave those two together. i stood looking at them. joyce sat just where she had sat that cold spring evening not six months ago, when she had told me that frank forrester had asked her to marry him. she even sat forward and clasped her hands over her knees, as she had clasped them then; only there was no bright fire now in the hearth to illumine her golden hair; the hearth was empty, but there was a curious sense of gold in the twilight. in the flash of a moment the scene came back to me; the strangeness of it; the absence of the glow of romance that i had dreamed of when i had first dreamed of romance for my beautiful sister. i had not guessed then that it was the lack of that golden glow that had chilled me. i had wanted it so; i had felt that, outwardly, everything was fitting for it to be so, and i had chosen to believe that it was so; but now i knew very well that it had never been so. the fire was dead to-night, but the sense of the glow was there--too, too brightly. "i must go and see about father," i repeated, in a kind of dull voice. i wondered to hear the sound of it myself. "don't _you_ go, meg," said joyce. "i haven't washed up the tea-things yet, and deb is busy. i must make haste. i'll look in as i go past." her voice had recovered its serenity, and she spoke brightly and sweetly. "very well, i'll come, too, in a minute, and help you," answered i, going through the hollow pretence of looking for something that i didn't want. she got up and glided across the room, and out of the door, with that soft way she had. harrod had sat down again to the table and the papers. "what's the matter with joyce?" i asked, bluntly, almost before the door had closed. he looked at me with those honest eyes of his. i could see that he scorned to make any pretence, any evasive answer. "i have been speaking to her of something that distressed her," he said. "i should not have done it. i am sorry. i did not think it would have distressed her." it was on the tip of my tongue to ask what it was. i don't know whether it was natural good-feeling and politeness that prevented me, or whether i simply dreaded the answer. i tried to think that the "something" related to frank forrester's accident, but i did not ask. "i did not think it would have distressed her" might point to that explanation, as of course harrod knew nothing of any relations between her and the captain. it might, but there was an undefined fear within me that it did not. harrod dropped his eyes again on the papers on the table, and took up the pen. an insane, wicked desire came upon me to hurt him for innocently hurting me. "mr. harrod," said i, roughly, "reuben has been talking to me outside. he thinks the hops are looking very badly." he laid down the pen, and looked up, with an underlip that quivered a little. "reuben's opinion is not so infallible as i fancy you suppose, miss margaret," said he, trying to smile. "your father has been round the property, and is, i fancy, quite as well able to judge of it as reuben ruck." "oh, did father think the hops looked well, then?" asked i. i thought harrod winced. "hops are a very difficult growth," he answered. "i don't suppose a perfect crop is gathered more than once in twenty years. a hundred chances are against it; your father knew this well enough when he went in for the speculation. he is a reasonable man." i knew that this was intended as a reproof to me, and i knew that i deserved it. i had prided myself on being wise and calm over the business affairs of the farm, as i should have been if i had been father's son instead of his daughter; i had prided myself that harrod considered me so by talking things over with me as he often had done. but of late i had not been reasonable. i knew it; i knew that i was straining the very cord that i most counted upon, perhaps even to breaking-point. i knew it, i could have bitten my tongue out, and yet my wounded feelings got the better of me and carried my tongue away. i stood there ashamed, sick at heart. i wanted to make it up, i wanted to be forgiven, but i did not know what to say. and while i was thinking what to say, the door opened, and father and mother came in. father's face was pale, and he walked uncertainly. "there, there, that'll do, mary," he said, testily. "i'm all right now. the weather is a bit oppressive, that's all. i want to finish this bit of business with harrod, if you'll leave us quiet." mother knew better than to say a word. father sat down in the chair which harrod got up to give him, and mother and i went out of the room. my chance of reconciliation that evening was over. i had to listen to mother's very natural distress about father's fresh indisposition, and her expressions of annoyance at its having been brought on, as she supposed, by the piece of news about "that young good-for-nothing." then i had the tea-things to wash up with joyce, and the clean linen to put away. and when all our work was done trayton harrod had gone, and i went up into the little attic whence mother had called me in the early evening, and sat down again in the dark to have it out with myself about all the puzzling events of this puzzling day. joyce had not yet come up to bed; i was all alone. the twilight was dead; the stars shone above--thousands of stars looking down upon me with a story of courage and hope in their bright eyes--i wonder whether i understood it! deborah came in with a candle. she had forgotten to give us one. i was sorry she brought it. "lord bless my soul, margaret, you startled me," said she. "whatever are you doing? why don't you get to bed?" "joyce hasn't come up yet," i said. she put down the candle, and came up to me and took hold of me by the shoulders. "you've been frettin'," said she, sharply, looking down into my eyes. "now, whatever is that for?" "how dare you say such a thing?" answered i, pulling myself away. "i've not been fretting. i've nothing to fret about." "well, i don't know as you have," answered she; "but you've been fretting for all that. i've seen it for weeks past. what's it for?" she stood there above me, with her arms akimbo, and her keen, round, dark eyes fixed upon me. it never occurred to her that i was not going to tell her what it was for. "you've been frettin'," repeated she. "and what call you have to fret because joyce's beau goes and falls off his horse is more than i can understand." "i tell you i'm not fretting," repeated i, emphatically. "of course what should it matter to me? i was surprised that joyce took it so coolly. some folk are so quiet. i suppose they feel just the same, but i'm sure you'd never know it. it's a mercy for them they don't make so much noise." "oh, that's where it is," said deb, sagely, as if she had guessed a secret. "you're so set on joyce frettin' over that young spark. but, lor' bless my soul, joyce don't care for him. she never have cared for him, so as to say, properly. she was took at first by his being such a fine fellow and seemin' so fond of her. 'twas natural enough. and you was so set on it you made her believe she liked him better nor she did. but that ain't what's going to wash. she never loved the fellow." "it's not true," cried i, with flaming eyes. "she did love him always, and she loves him just as much now." deb was not a bit put out by my impetuous sally. she only shook her head quietly, and repeated, "no, she don't. and a precious good thing, too, seeing he's so like to forget her and mate with his own class." "you're talking nonsense, deb," cried i, hotly. "mate with his own class, indeed! we're as good as he any day." "that may be," answered deb, calmly, "but he don't think so. he were keen upon her pretty face at first, but he's cooled down now, and sees it wouldn't be a wise thing for him to do. it's a precious good thing joyce don't care for him." "i tell you joyce does care for him," reiterated i, savagely. "now, i wonder whatever makes you so set upon joyce being in love with that young man," said the old woman, looking at me sharply, and without paying the slightest attention to my passionate vindication of my sister's constancy. "oh, i know, you want her to marry the squire and be a lady, as mother does," retorted i. "but you needn't bother. the squire'll never propose to her." "no, you're right there," laughed deb, with a loud laugh that both puzzled and irritated me. "he won't. i don't rightly see as he could propose to any one in this house till folk are minded to give him a civil word now and then. but that ain't no reason why you should want your sister to wed where she don't love. nay, margaret, there's somethin' under that as we don't know of. what is it, eh?" i looked at deb defiantly, but her round black eyes were full of a rough and simple sympathy. i knew deb well enough to recognize the signs of it, and my sore, struggling pride gave way. i forgot all about having insisted a minute ago that i had nothing to fret about, and that i was not fretting. just as i had used to do when i was a child and mother had whipped me for messing my frock, i put my head upon her broad bosom and began to cry. deb offered me no caress; she didn't know how, and she knew well enough i should be ashamed of my unusual behavior later; but after a few minutes she said, grimly: "i thought as much. bother the men!" i dried my eyes at that, and between a laugh and a sob i said: "why should you say that? what have they to do with it?" "what have they to do with it?" cried deb. "why, everything. they always have. folk may say it was the woman made adam to sin, but she's been punished for it ever since if she did, and it's just about time it should stop. men are at the bottom of every trouble that comes our way, though we ought to be ashamed to say so. if it's not loving of 'em, it's hating of 'em, and that's just as bad. what i want to see is a man a-worriting _his_ life out for one of us. they take it so easy, they do. but there, dearie me," smiled the old woman, "i weren't always so wise; and you mark my words, if folk go fixin' their hearts on what's not meant for them, they can't expect to be easy nor comfortable no ways. ah, i'm not talking stuff, i can tell you. old deb isn't such a fool as she looks. you wouldn't think i'd ever had a lover, would you, my dear? but i had, once upon a time. i was a smart, bright lass, though i never was pretty, and the lads they were all fond of me. there was one of 'em fond of me for many a long year, just as patient as could be. he was better to do than i was, and would ha' been a good match for the likes o' me. but, lord, i must needs go snubbin' of 'im, nasty uppish-like as i always was. ah, many's the time poor mother has told me i was a fool for my pains. i might have had him if i had liked. but i never so much as cared to think he was coming after me. he was a good body for a friend--as you might say, a walking-stick of a summer evening, and there was an end." "well, but you couldn't have married him if you didn't like him, anyway, deb," said i, interested in spite of myself by the story. "ah, i should have liked the man well enough if there hadn't been somebody else by, my dear," said deb, "and that's just the pity. but one fine day there comes along a stranger lad, a lad as i didn't seem to want to snub--well, not for more than the first week. it was hop-picking time, and we used to be in the fields together all day. he never took particular account of me, more than for a joke and a laugh with the rest; but, my dear, he was as the light o' my eyes to me from morning till night again. i'm not ashamed to tell you now, it's so long ago. i dare say they all saw how it was; i dare say i was the jest o' the field. it don't matter now. i don't know as i much minded then, so long as i could get a word from him. he had always been kind and civil, helping me with the poles over the bin when they were too long and heavy for me to lift; and one day i was ailing and couldn't do my work, and he picked for me, and spoke so as i thought he meant courtin'. but, lor' bless your soul, he didn't. it was only his nice, pleasant way. afore the hopping was over i saw him kissing bess dawe down by tower of a sunday evening. the girls told me they'd been trysting it all the time, and he was going to wed her." "poor deb," murmured i, softly, "poor deb!" "oh, it's all past and gone now, child," laughed the old woman. "i've forgotten it, i think. it served me right enough for going for to fix my fancy on a man that didn't want none of me." "i don't see how you could help that," said i, passionately. "i don't see how it's loving at all unless folk can't help it. and how were you to guess he wouldn't want you? it was cruel, cruel!" "nay, child, it weren't cruel. it were just natural, just as it had for to be," said deb, quietly. and then, in her most matter-of-fact tones, she added, "but it were a rare pity i hadn't wedded the other one, for he'd have made me a good husband." "oh, how can you talk so?" cried i. "why, you wouldn't have loved him." "maybe it ain't seemly for a woman to love," said deb, considering. "the run of women marries the men because it's comfortable, and i'm thinkin' it's the best way. when a woman begins loving she do fret so over it. but the men, they takes it cool and easy, and does their work atween whiles." "well, i'm very glad you didn't do it that way at all events, deb," said i. "ah, you wouldn't have had a sour old thing to rate ye if i had," laughed deb. "but, lor', i'm content enough. if i'd had a 'ome i'd have had cares, and a man alongside the whole blessed time, which i never could abide. but the bible do tell us man ain't made to bide single, don't it? that's as much as to say a girl durstn't throw away her chances. and so that's what old deb's story was for." "if you mean to say joyce is to marry the squire for fear frank mightn't be faithful to her, all i have got to answer is, you're a horrible old woman, and i won't be a party to any such thing." "well, of all the obstinate, contrairy-headed, blind-eyed young women that ever i see'd in my whole life!" began deb, planting her arms akimbo and looking me full in the face. but she got no further in what seemed very much like the beginning of a sound rating of me. joyce was coming up-stairs. the old boards cracked even under her light footfall. she was very late. mother had been keeping her talking. deb just nodded her head at me with an expression of anger, disappointment, impatience, and warning mysteriously mixed, and went down-stairs without so much as a good-night to my sister. it was the last i ever heard from her on matters relating to the sentiments and affections. such an upheaval of her busy, business-like temperament i should have thought not possible; it never was possible again to my knowledge, and the strange revelations in that apparently rough nature remain a marvel to me to this day. chapter xxxiv. the elections were over. they had passed quietly enough, and mr. farnham was returned for our division of sussex, as squire broderick had always said he would be. as far as i recollect, it was as every one had expected, and i don't even remember that any one was particularly disappointed excepting the thornes themselves and mr. hoad. he, i remember, came to see father the very next day on business, and whether it was the "business" or the radical failure i don't know, but his face wore that expression of mean vindictiveness which i had always instinctively felt it could wear, although i had never actually seen it as i saw it that day. he was closeted some time with father in the study. i met them in the hall as they came out; i was just starting for the manor with the basket of jelly. "ah, we should have won it if you had helped us," the solicitor was saying. "and i must say, maliphant, it doesn't seem to me to be right to hold aloof when energy is required in the cause." father's underlip swelled portentously; it was the sign of a storm within him; but he controlled himself and did not reply. he turned to me instead, and said: "are you off to the manor, meg? well, ask the squire if i shall come and spend an hour or two with him to-night, as he's laid up." the disagreeable expression deepened on hoad's face. "ah, your friend the squire'll be in fine feather," said he to father. "it's a precious good thing for him and his friend farnham that that smart young nephew of his didn't come down and address the meeting the other night. he's an influential chap, and he's an honest fellow; he sticks by the ship." father looked towards me, and said, quietly, "well, be off, my girl." it seemed to bring mr. hoad to his senses. he turned to me with that particular smile which i so much disliked, and said: "ah, squire broderick is a great friend of miss margaret's; we all know that. it's not always the young and handsome that succeed with the fair sex, and we can't blame a lady if she should put in her oar on the side it suits her to trim the boat." "don't talk nonsense to my girl, hoad, if you please," cried father, angrily. "she doesn't understand that kind of stuff." i didn't wait to hear any more. i lifted the latch and went out; but i heard hoad laugh loudly, and as i closed the gate i heard him say: "well, good-bye, maliphant. you understand me about the loan? i'm glad the hops are looking well; but i'm afraid i can have nothing to do with any such negotiations as you propose about them." i walked down the road with my little basket on my arm, pondering this sentence and hoad's attitude altogether. it puzzled me. it almost seemed as though he wanted to pay father out for something. but what? why should the election matter so very much to mr. hoad? and in what way could he pay father out? i could not understand, but i hated mr. hoad worse than ever, and none the less for his vulgar banter about squire and me. i suppose he thought girls liked such stuff, but he was oddly out of it in every way. but neither mr. hoad nor his words were long in my thoughts, i am bound to say. my head was so full of other things--of things that seemed all the world to me, because they concerned, and vitally concerned, that poor little, throbbing, aching piece of selfishness, margaret maliphant--that i had little thought left for anything else. the day before had left a vivid impression on me; it seemed almost like an era in my life. the way in which joyce had received the news of frank's accident, the strange and puzzling scene with deborah, and last but not least, the chance discovery of my sister and harrod in the parlor, and the manner in which harrod had answered me about it, inducing me, to my bitter regret, to try and quarrel with him in return--was it not enough to distress such a girl as i was then, living so much on sentiment and emotion? all the morning i had been hoping to see harrod, to have a little word with him that should set matters straight again between us; at all events, set them where they were before. only two days ago i had been so happy with him on the ridge of the open cliff, i had felt so confident that my companionship was sweet to him, and now ajar again! what was the reason? and even as i asked myself that question, i saw joyce sitting in the low chair by the fireplace, with the tears on her long lashes, and the dusky light upon her golden hair. i was so intent upon my dream that i did not see the chief figure of it walking towards me until he was close at my side. my heart leaped within me for gladness; here was my opportunity. the demon--i _would_ not give it its name--fled in the presence of a happy humility that surged up within me, and made me almost glad to have put myself in the wrong, that i might say so and be forgiven. ah, what was this terrible unseen power, that rode rough-shod over every sense that had ruled me up till now? how was it that i fell so passively, so imperceptibly, beneath its might? how was it that i did not struggle? how was it that i had forgotten to be proud? i think that there was a smile on my face as i looked up into harrod's. i know there was a smile in my heart, but it must have faded away very quickly, for his was quite cold. my courage sank. i don't know what i feared, but i felt as if some unknown evil were going to happen. yet, if i had been cool enough to notice him critically, i should have seen that he was not thinking of me. "has hoad been with your father?" he asked. "yes," i answered. "he has only just left him." "i suppose he is very much annoyed about the failure of this election," he said. "i don't know," answered i, not caring at all about the election. "i don't know why he should mind so very much." "oh, i do," growled harrod, striking his left hand smartly with a newspaper which i now saw he held in his right. "the vil--" he stopped himself, and set his teeth. "yes, he _was_ angry, i suppose," added i, recollecting the man's face. "but--" i wanted to say, "but don't let us talk of mr. hoad," and i hadn't the courage. "well, i wish you would try and keep the paper out of your father's way to-day, if you can," added he, more quietly. "there's something in it i'm afraid might distress him." at any other time this speech would have filled me with curiosity and probably alarm, but just now i was so intent upon that idea of humbling myself and "putting matters straight" that i scarcely even noticed it. "i suppose he doesn't often read it before the evening, does he?" added harrod. "sometimes he does," said i. "i'll do my best. what is there in it--something bad about hops?" the preoccupied look changed into one of simple annoyance and anger. "i'm afraid it is," said i, blundering, and trying to find my way to the explanation that i wanted. "but never mind. as you said yesterday, hops are always very difficult things, and father must know that quite well. it was very stupid of me to say what i did yesterday about them, mr. harrod. i was talking foolishly. but i do know better than that, you know." i spoke gently, but the frown deepened almost into a scowl on the bailiff's face. "what on earth makes you think hops have anything to do with the matter?" cried he. his lip trembled in that dreadful way i have noticed in him before. it was very slight, so slight that any one else might not have noticed it, but to me it was horrible--it terrified me. yes; and two months ago i had never seen him look so--i did not know it was possible. "i beg your pardon," said he, in a low voice; "but indeed the subject that i referred to in the paper has nothing at all to do with agriculture of any sort." i did not say anything. i could not have spoken a word. he stood a moment with his face turned from me, and then he said "good-day," abruptly, and walked down the road. without looking after him i went on my way. i had forgotten where i was going; a great weight hung at my heart. yet nothing had happened. i had stupidly harped on a matter which, i might have seen, annoyed him; he _had_ been annoyed, and he had been sorry for it. what was there in that? nothing. no, it was not that anything had happened, it was that nothing had happened; it was that every little thing that occurred day by day showed me more clearly that nothing could happen, that i had no hold, that the ground was slipping away from under my feet. i walked mechanically forward, i was giddy, the air danced around me, and my heart went beating about in its cage. i kept repeating to myself that i had not said what i had meant to say, that if i had said what i had meant to say all would have been well. i felt instinctively that i had not touched at the root of the matter; but i did not know that i could not have touched at the root of the matter, that i should not have dared to go within miles of it. and still i went on under the leafy trees, with that unexplained hunger within me, until, as in a dream, i stood upon the broad steps of the manor gate-way. was it forgiveness that i wanted of him? he would only have wondered to hear me say that it was needed. what was it that i wanted? i rang the great bell, which sounded so emptily through the hall. the sound called me back to myself, but even as the words of the message that i had come to deliver formed themselves upon my lips, a sudden resolve formed itself within my heart. when the door opened, instead of merely giving my message, i asked if the squire was at home. i dare say the man was astonished. it did not occur to me to think whether he was or not; i had not had enough experience of the world to think much of such a matter; and my purpose burned too bright in me for such reflections. i was shown through the great hall, which frank forrester had so cleverly decorated with flags and garlands on the night of the county ball, to the long room beyond that looked out onto the fine lawn through three great deep-embrasured windows that enclosed the landscape in their dark oak frames. i leaned upon one of the faded cushions of the window-seat and looked out to the garden. it was laid out in a large square of lawn, with a broad old-fashioned flower-bed flanking it on either side; but to the belt of trees towards the marsh it was free, and through the trees one had glimpses of the wide, sad land, with the sea in the distance, that we saw from the grange; to the right of the lawn was the ruin of the thirteenth-century chapel, the tall, slender arch of the chancel, and the graceful little turret of the bell-tower standing out against the elms and sycamores. how well i remembered that night of the ball, when we had strayed out into the moonlight--the squire and i--and when i had envied joyce for having a lover! yes, i had wondered to myself whether i should ever have a lover who would speak to me like that in the moonlight with his heart in his voice. joyce's white dress had fluttered in the shade of that dark ruin--cold as the shrouds of the ghosts who might have peopled it. i remembered that now, as though it had been an evil omen. but then nothing had seemed to me cold. i had envied joyce for having a lover. did i still envy her her lover? a step sounded in the hall, and i stood up holding my basket with the jelly in it; my heart was beating a little with the strangeness of the place, for of the squire i was not afraid. the dark oak room was getting a little dim; i had not been able to get off in the morning, it was afternoon--late afternoon, because harrod had detained me. a shadow over the sky without made very dark corners in the old wainscoting, that the heavy tapestry curtains made darker still. everything was dark and old-fashioned, with a solid serviceable goodness, in the squire's house. there were bits of delicate satinwood furniture, as i knew, in the citron-colored drawing-room with its canary hangings, but here, in the room where the squire sat, everything was for use. i took it all in at a glance; the shelves that lined the walls--books and books and books for him who declared he did not read--the carved settee by the hearth, the old leather arm-chair whence he must just have risen, the large table strewn with newspapers and pamphlets, driving-gloves, hunting-crops, dog-collars, and all kinds of strange implements that country gentlemen seem to require. an old turkey carpet covered the floor, and a heavy curtain kept the draught from the door; it was a comfortable winter room, dim and hot on this warm september evening. as i looked i remembered another room that i had been in alone not a long while since--a different room, looked at with different feelings. i shivered as i thought of it, just as i had shivered a moment since in the hot air without. the squire came in. he looked as though he had been ailing, but he did not look ill, and his smile was sunshine in its welcoming. "why, miss margaret, this is an honor for an old bachelor," said he. "it's worth while being ill for--or _saying_ one has been ill, for there has been precious little the matter with me. i should have been out long ago if it hadn't been for that tiresome doctor that mrs. dalton insisted on calling in." i smiled. i did not know what to say--how to begin. "mother sent you this jelly," i said, hurrying to get over the avowed object of my visit. "it's some we make at home, and she thinks it'll cure anything." i held out the basket, and then placed it on the big table behind me. "and father wants to know if you would like him to come to-night and have a chat," i went on, hurriedly, before he had time to answer. "oh, i couldn't let him do that," said the squire. "i heard he wasn't so well again the other day. i'm quite recovered now. i'll come down to the grange. i should like to have a chat with him about the election. i hope your father isn't disappointed?" "oh dear, no; father doesn't mind a bit," said i, impatiently. "but do come. i'm sure mother'll be downright glad to see you at the grange again. she says you never come near us nowadays." "what, have i been missed?" said he, with just the very tiniest bit of sarcasm in his good voice. "why, of course," i answered, simply. "you know how fond mother is of you--and father too. excepting captain forrester, i don't think he gets on so well with anybody." his face fell, and i was sorry. "he's had more practice with me," he laughed. "yes," said i. "but he is so fond of captain forrester. he's dreadfully cut up about this accident of his. if it hadn't been for that mr. hoad coming in and worrying him this afternoon he was coming up to see you about it. but he gave me this letter and told me to ask you to put the address on." "oh, frank's all right," said the squire, a trifle impatiently. "it's nothing but a sprained wrist and ankle. only he didn't feel like coming down; perhaps he was half glad to get out of it; i'm sure he ought to have been ashamed ever to have promised to come." it was rather a fall, after all the sympathy i had tried to win for frank, and the reproaches i had made to joyce for her coldness! but joyce's strange conduct was none the less so because he had only sprained his ankle. "i'm glad he is no worse hurt," said i; and as it came home to me how very glad i was i added, "oh, i'm very glad." "the boy's right enough," repeated the squire, in the same manner. he advanced to the table, against which i had been leaning all this time, and said, in a very grateful sort of way, "so you really made this jelly for me, and came all the way across here on purpose to bring it to me?" i looked at him, astonished. one would have thought making jelly was dreadfully hard work, and the distance from the grange to the manor at least five miles instead of not one. "oh dear, no," said i. "i didn't make it. mother made it; i only helped her strain it. and i didn't come here on purpose to bring it." it was the squire's turn to look at me, astonished. "no, i came to ask you something," continued i, hurriedly, rushing violently upon my subject. "do you remember once--in the summer--mr. broderick, you told me that if ever i was in any trouble, that if ever i wanted help, i was to come to you?" "yes, i remember it very well," answered he. "i meant what i said." "i knew you did," said i. "that's why i've come." he came close up to me. "thank you," he said, and at the time it did not strike me that it was strange he should say "thank you." "i'm glad you have come. so you are in trouble up at the grange! ah, i was afraid, i was sorely afraid it was coming! come and sit down and tell me all about it." he took hold of my hand and led me towards the oaken settle. we had not sat down before; i don't think either of us had supposed that i was going to remain more than a minute. "it's about joyce," i said. he started, but he did not look distressed, rather more surprised. "i'm dreadfully unhappy about joyce," i repeated. "indeed!" answered he, concernedly. "how's that?" "i promised mother not to tell anybody," i replied; "but i can't help it--i must tell some one, for i don't know what to do." "yes, tell me," he repeated. "do you remember that ball you gave here at the manor last spring?" asked i. "ah, yes, i remember," answered he, i thought sadly. "well, joyce was engaged to captain forrester that night," said i. i saw his face grow stern as it had grown when he had warned me about frank at first. "mother didn't like it, she--she wanted something else for joyce," i went on, evasively, not caring to let the squire think that mother had noticed his liking for my sister--"she said they must wait for a year. yes, and not meet all the time, and not write to one another. but it's not possible that two people who care for one another can go on like that. is it, now?" cried i, eagerly. "yes, it would be possible if they really cared for one another, miss margaret," he said, presently; "but it would be hard." "oh yes, yes, too hard," cried i. "they _have_ met. i managed it once. but now i want them to meet again." "that's why you were so anxious that frank should come down for the elections," he said. "i wondered why you were so anxious." "yes, that's why. don't you see?" i explained. "and now that he has had this accident it's worse than ever. you say it isn't very bad, and i'm glad; but don't you see how bad it must be for joyce? it can't be good for her, can it? and so i want you to get him down here so that they can meet sometimes. you easily could. it would only be kind of you. he ought to be nursed up and made well again." he dropped his eyes from my face, where they had been fastened, and got up and walked away towards the window. "there is no one to do any nursing here," he said. "frank can go to his mother to be nursed." "oh, well, i didn't mean nursing," i hastened to say, correcting myself. "i don't suppose he needs nursing, if it's no worse than you say." there was a silence. "you _will_ ask him to come, won't you?" repeated i, softly. the squire turned round. his face was quite hard. "no, miss margaret," he said. "i can't do it. i would do anything to please you, but i can't do that. what you have told me distresses me very much--far more than you can guess. i had feared something of the sort in the spring; but then frank went away, your sister and he were separated, and when she came back from her holidays, well--especially of late--i made sure that there had been nothing at all in it." he paused, and i wondered why, especially of late, he had made sure that there was nothing in it. "if your sister cares for frank, i am very sorry," he went on, gently; "but i cannot but hope that you are mistaken." "i am not mistaken," cried i, vehemently, starting to my feet. he looked at me with a strange pity in his eyes. "well, then, i can only hope she will forget him," added he. "forget him!" cried i. "do you think girls so easily forget the men they love?" "i think it depends partly on the girl," said he, still with an unwonted gravity in his tone, "and partly on the kind of love." the words stunned me for a moment; they seemed to be an echo of something in my own brain that kept resounding there and deafening me. "i don't think that joyce will ever forget frank," repeated i, doggedly. "well, then, i can only say again that i trust you may be mistaken," answered the squire, firmly; "for i'm afraid that he will certainly forget her." "i don't believe it," cried i. "you can imagine that i do not willingly say such a thing of my own kith and kin," he answered, with just a touch of his old irritability in his voice, "but i fear that it might be so. frank's mother is an ambitious woman, the family is poor, and she has set her heart upon his marrying an heiress. in fact, there is a particular heiress to whom she is now urging him to pay his suit. he is a fascinating fellow when he likes. i dare say he will succeed if he tries. and he appreciates the comfort of having his bread buttered without any trouble. i'm afraid he might try." i was silent--dumfounded. "no," added the squire; "far from trying to bring your sister and frank together again, i shall do my uttermost to keep them apart. i shall work upon every sense of honor that frank has--and, thank god! he may be weak, but he is not wanting in a sense of honor--to induce him never to see her again. then you will see soon, very soon, she will release him from the fictitious tie that binds them, and will leave herself free to choose again, and to choose more wisely." "joyce will never choose again," muttered i. there was a great lump in my throat that almost prevented me from getting out the words. my tongue was quite dry and would not move, and i was conscious of a cold chill upon my forehead and upon my lips, even though they were parched. i locked my hands together--they, too, were quite cold. the squire came towards me, he came quite close. the room was very dim now, although the sun had only just set without, for the windows did not look towards the sun-setting. all the irritability called up by my insane obstinacy had melted out of his face; it was very tender. he looked at me again with that strange pity in his eyes. "ah, my child," said he, taking one of my hands in his, "why do you try so hard to persuade me that your sister loves frank? why do you try so hard to persuade yourself of it?" yes, why did i try so hard? i did not answer, but the lump swelled bigger than ever in my throat. i unclasped my hands, and let my arms fall down straight at my sides, and looked up into his face. for a moment a wild impulse seized upon me to tell the squire something of why i tried to persuade myself of that thing. i felt so sure of the deep, loyal friendship that shone out of his eyes as he looked at me. it was as though he were some big, strong, unknown brother come to help me in my trouble; i had never had a brother. but the moment passed. "you must surely know that it is not really so," he added. and then i snatched away my hand. "i know nothing of the kind," i said, fiercely. "you said you would help me whenever i came to you, but you did not mean it. now that i come to ask you, you will not help me. but i will help myself, i will help joyce. i will write to frank, and tell him that he must come back to her. i don't care what he thinks of me--what any one thinks of me. you are cruel, you are all of you cruel; but i do not believe that he will be cruel." "no, i am not cruel," answered the squire. "i am only doing what is right--what i believe to be best for your sister." "yes, you are cruel," cried i, beside myself. "you are all of you cruel and selfish. mother is cruel too. i know why she is cruel--it is because she wants joyce to marry you. and i know why you are cruel--it is because you want to marry joyce." oh that the darkness might have come, might have come quickly and at once, to cover the blush of shame that rose to my brow! oh that the great window would have opened, that i might have rushed forth into the open air--away, away from everybody! how could i have been so unwomanly, so cowardly, so ungrateful? i stood still--even to my heart--waiting for the squire to speak. at last he said, in a voice that was not in the least angry, as i had expected it to be, but that sounded to me deep and far away, and quite unlike his own, "what made you say that?" the voice was so gentle that it gave me courage to look up. if all the regret that was in my heart, and all the sorrow for having hurt him, rose into my eyes, they must have been very big and sorrowful that day. "oh, i don't know," i said, lifting up my hands as i used to do when i said my prayers, only that i don't think i had ever hitherto said my prayers with so much feeling--"i don't know. i don't know anything. i think i am losing my wits. will you forgive me?" "there is nothing to forgive," answered he. "but tell me what made you think that?" "oh no, no; don't make me say any more," i implored. "yes, you must tell me that," insisted he. "everybody always thought it," murmured i. "mother used to say you would never think of coming down to the grange so often as you used to do only to quarrel over things with an old man. oh, i can't think how i can repeat such things! it's dreadful. but, you see, mother thinks such a deal of joyce. she has been quite unhappy because you so rarely come now. you must forgive her and me too. _i_ thought it just the same. only joyce didn't. she's not that sort of girl. and father didn't. if mother ever hinted at it, he told her that you would never think of wedding out of your own class, and that, indeed, he would never have allowed it. father is very proud." "yes," answered the squire, "and he is right. but such pride is a poor thing compared with a deep and honest love. there is a girl, not of what is called my own class, whom i would marry if she would have me, but her name is not joyce maliphant." "not joyce!" cried i, genuinely surprised, genuinely disappointed, and for a moment forgetting all my many emotions. "no," he said, gravely. he did not try to take my hands again. i dropped them down once more, and stood looking at him. his eyes seemed to travel through mine into my heart. their look frightened me, it was full of such a wonderful tenderness. i had never thought before that his eyes were beautiful; good, kind, frank blue eyes--nothing more. but as i remember them that night, i think they must have been beautiful. "what do you mean?" i murmured. "i mean that i love _you_," answered he. i don't know what i did. i think i crept backward, away from him, till i stumbled upon a chair, and that then i fell into it. i was stunned. "how is it that you didn't guess it?" asked he, tremulously. i did not answer; i could not. i believe i covered my face with my hands. "i don't want it to distress you," said he. "whatever you may do about it, please remember that it will not have distressed me. at no time will you have brought me anything but pleasure. i think i understand a little, and i will not trouble you now. i did not mean to have told you. it slipped out because of what you said. go home and forget it. only, if at any time you should be lonely and need love, remember that i have always loved you. yes, ever since you were a little girl, and used to come and have your frock mended in the house-keeper's room. i am not a sentimental sort of fellow, you know. it's not my way. i shall never be that; i shall never fret. but i shall always love you as i do now." he did not make one step towards me; he remained where i had left him--standing in the middle of the hearth-rug. still stunned, bewildered, ashamed, i struggled to my feet and walked towards the door. "good-bye," said he. "good-bye," murmured i, mechanically. i stood outside in the quiet evening, on the steps of the manor gate-way. vaguely i remembered that as i had rung the great echoing bell there had been a craving in my heart for something that i could not reach--for something which the request i was going to make might perhaps help me to secure. was that something love, and had i secured it? chapter xxxv. one morning about a week after my visit to the manor, mother and i chanced to be alone together in the dairy. i had spent the last days in a trance; i seemed to have lost all count with myself, only, as i look back across the years that intervene, i am certain of one thing--i was glad that the squire loved me. in the turmoil of surprise, of something akin to fear, of the vague, wretched sense of crookedness throughout, and of a touch of some sort of remorse at what i had unwittingly done, there shone forth one bright, sharp ray of light; it was a sense of pride and satisfaction that this man, whom every day i felt more sure was good and loyal, should have chosen _me_ to love. beyond that i was sure of nothing, and was chiefly thankful that there was no decision to take, and that i need tell no one of what had happened. the squire had been kind, he had asked no question and needed no answer. the hop-picking was about to begin, and mother was arranging how much milk should be set apart for the hoppers; she never made her usual quantity of butter in hopping-time; she always said that butter was a luxury, and that she wasn't going to have working-folk deprived of their proper quantity of milk so that those who didn't work should have butter. things had not been cheerful at home this while past. to be sure, though i went about my duties with a feverish energy, and mother had no more occasion to upbraid me for those "moping silly ways," i was seeing things myself through a dark haze; yet i do not think it was entirely my fancy that matters seemed gloomy. i had not been able to get hold of that newspaper that harrod begged me to keep out of father's way; he had seen it before i got home, and had taken it away with him, and i never found it afterwards; all that i could make out about it had been from harrod, who had answered my questions somewhat curtly, but had led me to understand that it had been some kind of attack on father for having held aloof from the liberal cause, with covert allusions to certain reasons for his doing so remotely connected with the condition of his finances. i could not make head or tail of it at the time, though a day came when i learned how a vile man can suspect an honorable one of his own doings, and then i was thankful to trayton harrod for having fired up for father as he had done. but at that time i only saw that father was visibly depressed. i could see that he could scarcely even bear harrod to talk about the farm matters. there was a dreadful kind of irritability upon him which is piteous now to think of, as i remember how it was varied with moods of strange gentleness towards every one, and of an almost child-like humility towards mother whenever he spoke so much as a keen word to her. even to harrod, with whom i don't think he ever had any real sympathy, he showed sorrow for any sharp speaking by a very patient hearing, from time to time, of all the new schemes of that busy practical mind. but he seemed to have lost his love of argument, once such a feature in him; he seemed to be withdrawing himself more and more into himself. selfish as i was, and absorbed in my own hopes and fears, it made me sad. even in his dealing with the rev. cyril morland that feature seemed to have vanished. he was as eager about the philanthropic scheme as ever; more eager, as if with a feverish longing that _something_ he had undertaken should be brought to a good issue quickly; but though the two sat hours together, wrapt over details and figures, it was hard, silent work now, with none of that brilliant enthusiasm that there had been about it in frank's day, none of the pleasant dreams, none of the sympathetic affection; and when, one evening, i surprised him in his study, standing almost as though entranced before that portrait sketch of the young camille lambert, i hated frank for a new reason for not coming to marshlands. but we none of us spoke of him now. even i did not--not even to joyce. i had written him that letter that i had intended to write, and was awaiting the answer to it, but i did not speak of him. mother was the only one who did; she spoke of him that morning in the dairy. "meg," she began, "i can't make out how it is that the squire don't come to see us as he used to do. i've sometimes thought that you might have something to do with it." i looked round quickly. i was alarmed. "why on earth should _i_ have anything to do with it?" i cried. but i saw that i was distressing myself needlessly; mother was as far as ever from guessing the truth. "none so very unlikely, i'm afraid, my dear," she replied. "you're but young, and you might even let a thing slip out without meaning it. and then you're masterful, and you've set your heart upon this affair coming straight between joyce and the captain, though the lord alone knows why you should suppose a young butterfly such as that would make a better husband than squire broderick. the truth is, margaret, i'm afraid you have been telling tales." she had guessed part of the truth, but what a little part of it! i was silent, and she looked at me sharply. "of course if you have," said she, severely, "it's just about the worst piece of mischief you could well have set your hands to. that other affair 'll never come to anything, as i guessed pretty well from the first it never would. the dandy young beau has got other fish to fry by this time, and, luckily enough, joyce is too sensible to fret after a bird that has flown. she never did set that store on him that you fancied, and before the year's out she'd be very sorry to have to keep to her bargain." "well, however that may be," answered i, with an inward sense of superiority, "joyce will never marry the squire, so you needn't bother about that." "you'll please to keep such remarks to yourself, margaret," said mother, coldly. "you can't possibly know anything at all about the matter." alas! but i was just the one who could and did know everything about the matter. as i think of it now, it is a marvel to me that mother should have guessed nothing at all of what was really going on; but it was too evident that she did not. i suppose her mind was so fixed upon one thing that she thought of nothing else. after all, it is the way with us all. "am i to understand that you _have_ been talking nonsense to the squire, then, margaret?" asked she, in her most dignified manner. it was not in me to tell a lie. "i told the squire that joyce and frank were engaged," said i, "if that's talking nonsense." i did not say it crossly. i think my fits of fiery temper were becoming less frequent, but i said it without wincing, although i knew what mother's feelings would be. she sat down in a despairing kind of manner, and drew in her breath, rather than let it out, in a long sigh. "engaged!" ejaculated she at last, with a withering accent of scorn. "well, it's the truth," insisted i, doggedly. "no, it's not the truth, margaret," replied mother, emphatically. "_you_ may choose to consider them engaged, but _i_ don't. and what's more, joyce don't. i'm thankful to say i've one daughter who always had a grain of good-feeling and respect towards her elders and betters. your sister _never_ considered herself engaged to the captain." "they were to be engaged if they were of the same mind in a year," said i. "well, they are of the same mind so far, so it's practically the same thing." "i don't think so," said mother, in a conclusive sort of voice. "but i don't need to discuss the matter with you. i must acquaint squire broderick that he has been misinformed. and meanwhile i'll trouble you to keep yourself to yourself, and not discuss things that don't concern you with people outside the family." of course i deserved the rebuke, and i took it silently. but i could not help feeling a little anxious as to how that proposed conversation between mother and the squire would resolve itself. if mother allowed the squire to see--as i feared she would do--what she supposed to be the state of his feeling, would he be able to keep from telling her that she was mistaken? it was at the first of the hop-picking that she met him. that odd medley of strange folk who go by the name of "foreigners" among the village hop-pickers had already begun to appear upon the scene, and mother always went down at the beginning of the season to see that the poor creatures were as comfortable as possible in their straw huts, and generally to inquire into the condition of life with them. i can see her now scolding careless mothers for unkempt children, and careless maidens for rent skirts and undarned elbows, inquiring into the cause of pale faces, suggesting remedies, procuring relief. she had gone down to the camp with joyce, for she had sent me riding over to craig's farm for some butter, ours had come so badly. trayton harrod overtook me as i came home. i had seen him in the neighboring village, but i had spurred marigold on, for i did not want to speak with him. "you shouldn't ride that poor beast so hard, miss margaret," i remember him saying as he came up with me; "you'll break her wind." "oh dear, no," declared i, laughing harshly, for i was in no soft mood towards him; "she's a very different creature to that old black thing you're riding, and she understands me. mother's at the hopping to-night, and i want to get on to meet her there." i lashed the horse again as i spoke, and she started forward wildly. we had just come to the place where there is a short-cut across the marsh, and i set her to the gate. she took it like a deer, and flew as though she were borne on wings when she felt the turf beneath her feet. she made me dizzy for a moment, and when i looked back i saw that harrod was on the ground--his horse had refused to take the fence. but even as i meditated turning back i saw him leap into the saddle again, and in a few minutes he was beside me once more. "what possessed you to do that?" he cried, out of breath. "you might have had a serious accident. it was folly." i did not answer. indeed the pace at which i was going made speech difficult, and he could not expect it. "you're going too hard, miss maliphant," cried he again. "stop the mare, if you please." the peremptory tone irritated me, and far from doing as i was bid, i gave marigold a touch with the whip. her blood was already up; she reared and tried hard to throw me. mr. harrod leaned forward and caught at her bridle. "don't, don't," cried i, petulantly. "you only chafe her; leave her alone." but still he leaned forward towards me and held on to the horse, and still we thundered on over the soft ground across the empty plain. there was no road; we were quite alone; and at any moment i knew we might come upon some unseen dike that would send marigold upon her knees and me over her neck. i knew that if ever i were in danger of my life i was in danger of it then; but the sense of peril, and of the strong arm--_that_ strong arm--ready to save me if it could, his breath that came hot upon my cheek, his eyes that burned upon me though i could not see them--all lifted me into a strange delirium of excitement, of anger, of delight. yes; i think that, if i thought at all, i wished that that ride might go on forever. but it came to an end soon enough. marigold stumbled at nothing, she flew straight as an arrow from a shaft, until at last she knew her master, and was still. "now, miss maliphant," said he, quietly, after a panting minute or two, "won't you be so kind as to give me that whip?" i looked at him; my cheek was burning, my bosom rose and fell wildly. "no," answered i; "why should i?" he smiled. "well, i know you won't use it again," he answered, almost vexatiously careless of my discourtesy. "i hope you have had a lesson that marigold can't be tampered with." "i wasn't in the least bit frightened," i said, in a low voice. "upon my word you're a splendid girl," said he, still looking at me. i felt my face grow redder than ever, but what i had said was no mere boast. "but _i_ was frightened," added he; and then, in a very gentle voice, "you won't do it again, will you?" his temper had done me good, his tenderness was almost too much for me. "no," murmured i; and the sense that he _cared_ made my voice tremble so that i dared say no more. "a girl doesn't know how soon she has played one prank too many. i can tell you that we ran a greater danger just now than we did when the bull was near tossing you. do you remember it?" did i remember it? ay, and many other things since then. the thought of them kept me silent, and kept my heart beating till i was afraid he would see it. ah me, what would i have given to be back again under that five-barred gate, with trayton harrod standing over me, and all the future before me! but now--what was the future? "will you promise me not to be so foolish again?" repeated he, gently. "there's no fun in breaking one's neck, you know." my heart was big; he was very kind to me, very careful of me--just as he had been always. i waited--waited for him to say something more, for him to lay his hand once again upon mine, though it were to check marigold's bridle. but the mare was going quite quietly now, and there was no need for him to lay his hand on her bridle. he did not seem even to notice that i had not answered his question. we were riding up alongside the hop-fields where the camp was set. along the lanes groups of village hop-pickers were coming home; whole families, who sallied forth every morning with dinners in bag and basket, and babies in blue-shaded perambulators. the conical straw huts made a circle under the maple hedge, and in the middle of the field the folk were filling their pitchers and kettles at two large water-butts on wheels drawn up there for their use. we tied our horses to the fence, and walked up. the women were beginning to light their fires, and father was expostulating with a tall, handsome girl who had begun to lay hers too near the dangerous straw. she lifted a pair of splendid eyes upon him, insolently, but the words upon her lips were swamped in a smile, for he had stooped to pick up a crying child, and the little one had stopped its whimper at his tender words, and was gazing up at him confidingly. "it ain't often she takes to strangers," said the young mother. "she's proud and masterful--and a good job too. she ain't got no father to fight for her, and she may well learn not to trust the men-folk." i don't know what father said, i didn't listen. mother was talking to the squire in a far corner of the field, and, though i was shy of seeing the squire, i wanted to know what he was saying to mother. but it seemed only to be commonplace talk. mother took me to task for my disordered appearance, and asked me what i had been doing to get the mare in such a state, and harrod came up and gave some kind of explanation for me, and then the squire, shaking hands with me, asked me what i thought of the weather. he was self-possessed. it was i who was shy and who could find no words. "i'm afraid we shall have a pocketful of wind," said he, looking up anxiously at the sky. it was a gorgeous sunset. banks upon banks and piles upon piles of cloud, fortifying the horizon, and flung wildly across the heavens till, overhead, they were airy puffs upon the blue vault; seas and billows and cataracts of cloud, all of them suffused with rosy remembrance of the fiery furnace on the ridge of the purple downs--a gorgeous sunset; but the squire was right--a stormy one. "'tis the lord sends mists and 'eat, rain and gales, and we've got to submit, whether or no," murmured reuben behind my back. "i've thought of late mr. harrod seemed anxious about the crop," said mother, "but it's _my_ belief it's above the common." i looked quickly round for harrod, afraid lest he should have heard the remark. i need not have feared: he stood beside my sister, with a strange, dreamy look upon his face which i had never seen there before. there was nothing in their standing together side by side, but there was something in the way they thus stood, an indefinable sense of a companionship in suffering which hardened me to stone. "i wonder you venture to have an opinion on such things, mother," said i, in a voice loud enough for him to hear. "men don't like us women to have any opinions. they only like women who care for nothing but house-keeping." mother looked at me dumfounded, and the squire turned grieved eyes on me; joyce bent her head, but harrod glanced round at me with anger on his heavy mouth. ah me, how sharply two-edged a sword was that bitter pride of mine! i turned away and began to untie the mare from the hedge. the squire came to help me. he did not speak, but he held my hand a moment longer than usual in his own, and i felt that _his_ trembled. and when he had done at last arranging my habit over the saddle, he looked up at me with that same pity in his blue eyes that had made me feel so strangely a week ago. a disturbed feeling, half pleasure, half pain, stole over me, and as i rode up the steep lane in the dusk, under the arching ash and pine trees, the memory of the squire's face made me feel things less entirely dead and dreary in the midst of those vain and endless self-torturings, those angry struggles, those heart-sickening hopes and fears. chapter xxxvi. the reply to my letter came on the morrow from frank forrester. what a day it was! i recollect it well. all the summer had gone in one terrible storm of wind. alas! reuben had been only too just in his sad prophecy: the red sunset upon the citadels of cloud had meant mischief indeed. the gale had burst that very night. before midnight the wind was tearing up across the marsh like some live thing, rending the air with its threatening voice, almost rending the earth with its awful tread, as it swept, grieving, muttering, moaning, and rushed at last with a wild shriek upon us--a restless, relentless, revengeful foe. even to me, strong and hearty girl, whom not even trouble and heartache, that was sore enough in those days, could keep from the constraining sleep of a healthy youth--even to me that night the voice of the wind was appalling. i lay in bed waiting and listening for its grim footsteps as they sped across the dark waste without, distant at first and almost faint, growing nearer and nearer, louder and louder, till with a yell, as of fierce triumph, the maniac burst against the windows, as though it would rend the house in pieces for its sport. afar the sullen roar of the sea mingled with the lash of the pitiless gusts breaking, baffled, upon the distant beach, only to renew its unwearied attack with ceaseless, weary persistence. i got up and looked out of the window. there was a cold moon shining faintly in a gray sky, where the clouds hurried wildly about as though seeking to escape some fierce pursuer; it gave a veiled feeble light, in which the near farm buildings looked like unsubstantial things that the wind might lift in its unseen hands and scatter like dead leaves upon the ground; in the phantom whiteness the black trees waved helpless, beseeching arms, bowing themselves to earth beneath the mighty grasp of that great, invisible strength; one could almost fancy it might pass into shape, so near and terrible seemed its personality as it advanced, sure and strong, across the wide, dim distance that was only marsh-land to me who knew that it was not sea. some one stirred in the house. it was father; he was coming up-stairs; he was still dressed; he had been sitting up all this time with those papers of his. i upbraided him for it, and said it was enough to give him his death of cold, but he seemed scarcely to hear me. his face was very pale. "it's a rough night, a very rough night, meg," he said, sorrowfully. "oh yes, father, it is," answered i, sympathetically, thinking of the hops that this would be the ruin of. but he made no allusion to them, he only said: "those poor creatures down in the huts will have a bad time of it. and so many children too! they will be frightened, poor lambs." and then after a pause he added: "little david jarrett was very weak when i called this afternoon, meg. i'm afraid he'll not last out this gale. i think he would like me to go round and see him." "not now, father, not to-night?" i cried. but he did not answer, and i remember that it was with the greatest difficulty that i persuaded him to go to bed. in the morning i was sorry that i had done so. the little lad was dead. we were all seated at breakfast. the gale still raged outside; the garden was strewn with boughs of fruit-trees and blossoms of roses that the wind had ruthlessly torn from their stems; even from the distance of our hill we could see the white storm-crests upon the bosom of the laboring sea, and the snow of the foam as it dashed against the strong towers upon the coast. mother sat silently pouring the tea and looking anxiously across at father, who was eating no breakfast; joyce alone was much the same as usual, for i--well i don't know what i _looked_ like--i felt wretched. the post had brought me the reply to my letter to frank forrester, and it was not what i wanted. i sat moody and miserable. and to us all sitting there--very unlike the bright family that we generally were--came a messenger with the news--little david jarrett had passed away in the night. i can see father's face now; not sad, no: grave, and with a strange drawn look upon it that i could not understand. his eyes shone out very dark and deep from the white face that almost looked like parchment; the shaggy eyebrows and strong tufts of gray hair a mockery of strength upon it. but this is as it rises up before me now in terrible reality; then i saw nothing, i guessed nothing. oh, father, father, that the old days might come back once more! he said nothing, he gave no outward sign of trouble; he got up and went out, and we cleared away the breakfast-things. we were not given to expressing ourselves. i took frank's letter out of my pocket and read it over and over again; it was very short--there was scarcely anything in it, and yet i read it over and over again. he thanked me for writing; it was very kind of me to write; he was sorry his friends had been so anxious about him; it had been a needless "scare," there never had been much amiss, and he was all right again now. he was sorry his friend thorne had lost the election. what did my father think of it? he was afraid it would be a long while before he should get time to come to marshlands again. that was all. no wonder i read it over and over again to try and find something more in it than was there! there were only two sentences that meant anything at all, and they made my heart wild with anger. "what did my father think of it?" and "he was afraid it would be a long while before he should _find time_ to come to marshlands again." they were insulting, heartless sentences. yes, even as i look back upon it now, with all the bitterness of the moment passed, i think they were that. as if he--who had been honored by my dear father's intimate friendship, who knew his views as few of his friends knew them--should not have known better than i "what my father thought of it." if he ever _found time_ to come to marshlands again perhaps he would find out. not a word of joyce in it--not a stray hint, not a hidden allusion! was it possible, was it really possible, that a man could seem to love so bravely, and could forget in a few short months? were the squire's warnings just after all? forget, forget? i repeated the word to myself, to me it seemed so impossible that one should ever be able to forget. at that time i don't believe i even thought it possible that one should live without the thing that one most craved for. i sat there on the low window-seat, crushing the letter in my hand, looking out at the wild clouds that hurried across the sky, looking out at the havoc that the gale had made, and thinking perhaps of another havoc than the havoc wrought by the wind. but it was all joyce's fault, i said to myself; she might have prevented it if she had liked. why had she not prevented it? some one came into the room. i crushed the letter into my pocket and started up. it was trayton harrod. he wore that same harassed, preoccupied look that i had noticed in him before; it maddened me, though i might have known well enough why he was preoccupied--there was anxiety enough on the farm. "where's your father?" asked he, quickly. "he's out," i answered, shortly. "i wanted him particularly," said harrod again. "well, he's out," repeated i. "he has gone to mrs. jarrett's. the little boy died last night." "oh, i'm sorry, very sorry," said he. "i know he was very fond of the child." and then, after a minute, he added, "but it's really very important that i should see your father at once, miss margaret. could you not go across and tell him so?" "no," said i, ungraciously. "i don't think i could; i shouldn't like to disturb him." and then, half penitently, i added, "can't _i_ help you?" he smiled, but gravely. "no," answered he; "i'm afraid this time your father must decide for himself." "is it ruin?" i asked, after a minute. "i suppose so." he started and looked at me sharply. "what do you mean?" he asked. "no, i sincerely hope it's nothing of the kind." "oh," answered i, "i was afraid there wasn't a chance after this gale of anything but ruin to the whole crop." "you mean the hops," replied he, as if relieved; and it did not strike me at the time to wonder what he could have thought i meant. "i'm afraid it's a bad lookout for them. that's why i want to see your father at once. it _must_, i fear, alter some arrangements i have made. i must telegraph." he paused a moment, thinking; then he added, "is the squire expected here to-day, do you know?" i flushed. "not that i know of," said i; "but how should i know? he never comes to the grange now." i jerked out these sentences foolishly, incoherently. "no, i know he has not been here quite so often of late," said he. "i've noticed it, and i've been sorry. but he'll come back. never fear, he'll come back," smiled he, looking at me. the heat in my face grew to fire. "i don't care whether he comes back or not," stammered i. "no, no, of course not," answered harrod, quickly, as though he were afraid he had said a foolish thing; "but _i_ care very much. i have pinned my faith on the squire." something rose, choking, in my throat. how dared he say that he had pinned his faith on the squire! in what way had he done so; what did he mean? "i want to have a long talk with you one of these days," he added, gravely. i looked at him. i think my face must have grown white. i could not make my lips form the words, but i suppose my eyes spoke them, for he added, "about many things." and then after a pause again: "there's something i think squire may be able to do that i haven't been able to do. i want you to ask him." he spoke in his most hard voice; evidently it cost him a pang to have to say that he had not been able to do that something. "of course it would be in a different way," he said, half to himself, "and the old man is proud; but it's the only chance." and then he added, "and he would do anything for you." my eyes must have flamed, for he stopped. "i shouldn't think of asking the squire anything--no, not anything at all," said i, trying to speak plainly. "i don't understand you." "well," said he, as if that settled the question, "anyhow, i must get a word with your father this morning. do you think you can help me?" "no," repeated i, my voice trembling, "i can't. you had better ask joyce. she will be able to do any of these things that you want, i dare say." he did not reply. he just turned his back and went out. i think it was all there was for him to do. and as i stood there, looking after him, with my heart swelling big, and frank's letter crushed in my hand, joyce passed across the lawn to the parlor porch. in a moment, unbidden, unsuspected, like a watercourse broken from its banks, a great anger surged up in my heart towards her. she came gliding into the room with her usual quiet, graceful gait, and went up to the old bureau to get a china bowl that stood there and wanted washing. she fetched it and was going out again, but i stopped her. "joyce, i want to speak to you," i said. i suppose there was something in my voice that betrayed my feelings, for as she turned and stood there with the bowl in her hand her face wore just the faintest expression of alarm. "what is it?" she asked. "i have had a letter from frank forrester," said i. her face flushed slightly. "oh, meg!" said she. "yes," answered i, defiantly; "i wrote to him. there was no reason why, because you were heartless, i should be heartless too. i have no reason for being so prudent. i wrote to him." joyce flushed a little deeper, but she did not answer a word to my cruel and unjust accusations; she was always patient and gentle. "what did he say?" she asked, presently. "what _could_ he say?" i said, scornfully. "he thanks me for writing; but i ask you how much he can have cared for my writing when the person whom he supposed loved him didn't care to know whether he was dead or alive?" "that's nonsense, meg," said joyce, quietly. "he knew very well that i cared; he knew very well why i didn't write. why should he expect me to break my word?" "why?" cried i, vehemently. "because if you had had a grain of feeling in you, you _must_ have broken your word; you couldn't have helped yourself. but you haven't a grain of feeling in you. you are as cold as ice. people might love you till they burned themselves up for loving you, but they would never get a spark to fly out of you in return. i suppose you _think_ you loved frank. why else should you have said you would marry him? was it because he was a gentleman, and you were only a farmer's daughter? no; i never imagined that," i added, confidently, seeing that she made a movement of horror. "you're too much of a maliphant. it _must_ have been because you loved him as much as you can love anybody. and you'll be faithful to him--oh yes, you're too proud to be fickle! you'll hold on silently to the end, just as you said you would hold on! but, good gracious me, does it never occur to you to think that perhaps such milk-and-water stuff might put a man out of heart? he may wait and wait for the ice to melt, but, upon my word, i don't think it would be so very astonishing if, at last, the fire went out with the waiting!" i stopped, panting, and waited for what she would say. she lifted her eyes to my face--her dark-blue limpid eyes; there was no anger in them, only surprise and distress. "oh, meg," she said, sadly, "do you know that i think you sometimes make up things in your own mind as you want them to be, and then you're angry because they're not like that. can't you be different?" "no," said i; "of course i can't be different any more than you can be different. we've got to make the best of one another as we are." "well, then, let's make the best of one another, meg," said joyce, gently. "we have always done it before, let us do it now." "i can't make the best of you, joyce," answered i, half appeased, "when i see you so cold towards the man whom you have sworn to love. i can't. i know you can't be different--people never become different--but, oh, you do make me angry." "i'm sorry," said joyce, penitently. "don't be angry. perhaps you don't quite understand, although you think you understand so well. i _am_ proud, and i don't think i am fickle; but i am not cold either." why should her words have poured oil upon the flame which her gentleness but two minutes before had allayed? i don't know, but they maddened me. "you're one or the other," i said. "you are cold, or you are fickle." i went up to her and took hold of her by the wrist--the left wrist, for the right hand still held the blue bowl. "which is it?" i said, in a low voice; "which is it?" her face grew very pale, but she neither winced nor struggled. "don't, meg," she said. "yes, i will," cried i, fiercely. "which is it, tell me?" "it's neither," repeated she. "i tell you you lie!" cried i. "you are as cold as ice. frank knows it; frank feels it. it is killing his love for you. ah, go away; for pity's sake, go away, or i don't know what i shall say!" i flung her hand away from me and rushed towards the door; but the sudden movement had jerked the bowl that she held out of her other hand; it fell onto the floor and was smashed into many pieces. i turned round. joyce had stooped down and was tenderly picking up the fragments. she had self-control enough to make me no reproach--she was always self-controlled; but the bowl was mother's best blue bowl. the sight of her there, with her concerned face, irritated me beyond endurance. was there nothing in the world that was worse to break than a blue bowl? i went back to her again and stood over her, watching her with hands that trembled and heart that beat to very pain. "if you are not heartless," i said, in a low voice; "if you _can_ care for anybody's feelings as much as you care when the china is broken, who is it that you can feel for? you didn't seem to care very much when we thought that frank had broken his back. whom _do_ you care for, then?" i felt my lips tremble with anger, and for one moment i hated her. oh that i should have to write it down! my own sister, who had been all the world to me two months ago! but it was true. even through all the crystallizing, cooling mists of distance, i can recall the horrible feeling yet: i knew that--for one moment--i hated her. "what do you mean?" said she, below her breath, trying to draw back. "ah, i can see very well how it might be," continued i, hurrying my words one on top of the other breathlessly--"how you might persuade yourself that you were true to him, and persuade yourself that you were doing a fine honorable thing keeping so strictly to your bargain with mother, when all the time it was because you never wanted to see him, and didn't care whether he loved you or not, and cared very much more whether somebody else loved you--somebody else who, but for you, might have belonged to another person. i can fancy it all very well," cried i, tearing frank's letter that i held in my hand into little atoms and scattering them about the floor; "i can see just how it might happen, and nobody be to blame. no, nobody be to blame at all." "margaret, margaret, for god's sake, collect yourself!" cried joyce, her voice breaking into something like a sob. "you frighten me. what do you mean? what can you mean?" "no, nobody to blame," repeated i, wildly, without paying any heed to her; "only just what one might have known would happen. one, with every gift that god can give, and the other, with--nothing but a vile temper that makes folk shun her even after they've seemed to be friends with her. what does it matter that you have promised to marry another man? nobody knows it; and when one is as beautiful as you are, i suppose it isn't in human nature not to like to see one's beauty draw people away from what had been good enough for them before. i ought to have known it. there's nobody to blame, of course." "margaret," said my sister--and even in the midst of my fury the firm tone of her voice surprised me and checked me for a moment--"you must explain yourself. i don't understand you; i don't, indeed. perhaps, if you knew everything, you wouldn't have the heart to speak so. you are cruel, and you are unjust. you say i am cold; but even if i am cold i can suffer, meg; you must recollect that i can suffer." "suffer!" cried i, bitterly. "i wish you could suffer one little tiny bit of what i suffer. ah, for pity's sake, don't let me say any more; don't let me go on; let me go!" "i can't let you go," said joyce, with that unusual firmness that did crop up at times so unexpectedly in her. "you must tell me first what you meant when you said that i took people away from what had been good enough for them before." "meant!" cried i. "you know well enough what i meant. i meant that it was easy enough for you to be noble and self-sacrificing, when all the time your thoughts were elsewhere. yes, very easy for you to be patient, waiting for your own lover, when you were busy robbing me of my lover. oh, don't speak, don't deny it! it's useless. you have done it, and you know that you have done it." i think i expected joyce to be crushed--i expected her to cry. i stood there panting and waiting for it. but she was neither crushed nor did she cry; she was not even angry. she stood there quietly, looking away from me out of the window, and at last she said: "you're mistaken, meg; i never wanted to rob you of your lover. if you remember, when first i came home i told you that it was my hope such a thing might happen between you. i always thought you were too clever for the folk about here, and i thought he was clever. but you know you told me it never could be. you led me to believe you hated him, and always should hate him, because he had come to the farm to do your work. i believed it. yes, until quite a little while ago i believed it. then--" "well?" asked i, scornfully. "then? what then?" "then, when i began to suspect that i might be mistaken, i resolved to go back and live with aunt naomi until matters were settled between you. that's what i was telling mr. harrod the day you came into the parlor last week." "oh, that's what you were telling him," cried i. "you don't say what he said to you that made you tell him that. you don't say if you also told him that you were engaged to another man." "i didn't, because he said nothing to me to warrant it," answered my sister. "if he had i should have told him that i was not free." "ah, you do mean to keep your word to frank, then?" asked i. "i mean to keep my word to him if he wishes it," answered she, in a low voice. her face ought to have shamed me, but it raised the devil in me. "well, if you still love frank there is no need for you to go away," said i, brutally. "or is it because you are afraid of mr. harrod's peace of mind that you want to go?" "oh, meg, how can you?" murmured joyce. yes, how could i? the evil spirit was stronger than myself. "it doesn't occur to you that this fine generosity of yours comes too late," cried i. "but the mischief is done. i won't have you go away now. i will go away." "you!" exclaimed joyce. "where?" "not to aunt naomi's," i began, scornfully; and for a moment the temptation rose up in me to show her that i too was loved, was sought--to tell her where i might go if i chose, and be cherished, i knew it, for a lifetime. but the memory of the squire's face, of the little tremble in his voice, came back to me, and i could not speak of his love. "not to aunt naomi," i said. "to be a governess." "oh no, meg, i couldn't let you do that," said joyce, concernedly. "i thought perhaps you were going to say something quite different. i have had a fancy now and then of late that we were all of us mistaken in that foolish notion of the reason why the squire has been such a faithful visitor to us all these years. supposing it were as i fancy, don't you think you could grow to love him, meg? he is worthy of you in every way." she spoke with a strange pleading; her words heaped fuel on the fire within me; she paused for an answer, but i gave her none. "he is coming here to-night. i heard him promise mother he would come. oh, how i wish it might be about you! do you think there is any chance?" her voice flew at me like a shaft from a bow. i felt myself grow cold. "how dare you?" i cried. "how dare you?" i could say no more--i was paralyzed--i had no words. poor transparent joyce, who had meant to be so generous, and who undid her work so thoroughly! how little i repaid her with my gratitude. she stood there gazing at me with a frightened expression on her lovely face. "go away, go away!" i stammered, wildly. "i want you to go away." she made a movement forward as if to beg my pardon for anything she had said amiss. there was concern, pity, distress in her eyes, but i put her away. she went out of the room slowly, clasping the fragments of the broken bowl in her apron. i threw myself down on the far window-seat. i did not cry, i never cried; but my whole body was trembling convulsively. i sat there in a trance till the latch of the front door roused me, and i heard some one come slowly, very slowly, across the hall. father came into the parlor; he came across to where i was, and laid his hand upon my head. the touch of it seemed to pass into me and soothe my troubled spirit. "god help us to forget our troubles in those of others, meg," he said, gravely, after some minutes. and then i remembered that he had just come from the death-bed of that little lad whom he had loved so well. i think there were tears in my eyes then. chapter xxxvii. the squire came that night to visit us, as joyce had predicted. we were still sitting round the supper-table when he came in--a gloomy party. how unlike the merry, argumentative gatherings of old! joyce and i did not look at one another, but trayton harrod glanced now and then at us both. the traces of tears were on my sister's face. but father pushed his plate aside untouched, and turned to the bailiff with his business manner. "will you see to those poor folk down at the camp having a week's wage before they are discharged, harrod?" said he. "those of them who won't be needed, i mean." "we'll see first how many will be needed, sir," answered harrod, trying to be cheerful. "our own folk will be enough," replied father, quietly. "it's rough weather, and there are children down there. it's useless keeping them about for nothing." harrod was silent, and father lit his pipe. we none of us spoke of the little child who we knew was in his thoughts, but mother sighed. i think that little grave was very near to another little grave that she had in the abbey church-yard. the squire shook hands with me just as usual when he came in, looking full into my eyes, with such a concerned look of kind inquiry as made me feel ashamed of my heavy face; but i made an excuse to get away at once--i could not stay in the room. i went into the kitchen to make cakes. not long afterwards i heard the front door close upon trayton harrod--i knew his step well enough--and then joyce came into the kitchen. i know i asked her what she wanted in there at that time of day, for i did not care for the squire to be left alone with my parents, but she said that mother had sent her away. i saw deb raise her eyebrows and purse her mouth in a way that was, as we knew, a sure forerunner of some sharp, good-natured raillery. "oh, what was that for, i wonder? what's the secret now?" said she, wiping her big red arms, and then stirring up the fire with a sharp brisk motion that betokened her most biting mood. "i don't know," said joyce, but in a tone that said she knew very well. "well, well, we've all expected it this long while past," said deb. "i'm glad it's come at last." she plunged her hands into the dish-tub once more, and looked up with a comical expression of triumph on her ugly old face. "i don't know what you mean," said joyce, faintly. "oh, don't you?" answered she. "perhaps meg does. eh, do you know, margaret?" "i think you had better mind your own business, or talk of things you know something about," said i, tartly. but deb only laughed good-humoredly. "i suppose you make no doubt it's your pretty face the squire's after, eh, joyce?" persisted she, mercilessly. joyce flushed painfully. "don't, deb, don't," said she. "well, my dear, no shame to you," added the old woman; "we have all thought the same thing. but maybe it isn't. maybe meg knows what he has come for, and is thinking over what answer she'd give him now." "it wouldn't take me long to think what answer i should give _you_," cried i, fairly out of patience. "if the squire wanted an answer from me i could give him one without asking your advice, i dare say. but he's not such a fool." "no, the squire's no fool," retorted deb; "but i'm thinking other folk aren't so very far off it. the lord grant you don't all of you get a lesson stiffer than you reckoned for one of these days, my dears," added she, with a little sigh. we said no more on the subject. joyce soon went up-stairs on some household job, and deb and i went on silently with our work. but before my cakes were ready for the oven mother called me into the parlor. the squire had left. as joyce had hoped, he had spoken to mother about me. i knew it the moment i went into the room. i am sure he had not spoken willingly; but that he had said something, i knew the moment i looked at mother. there was a flush upon her cheek and a light in her eye that told of surprise, but of pride and pleasure also. it proved how there was never really any favoritism in her for my sister, for she showed not the slightest disappointment that the squire's proposal was for me and not for joyce. "margaret," said she, sitting down in the big wooden chair opposite to father, who leaned forward in his favorite attitude, as though about to rise--"margaret, the squire has just been here." she stopped a moment and half smiled. "the squire is very fond of you, margaret," she added, gravely, going at once, as was her way, to the heart of the matter. "the squire is fond of us all, i know," i answered, evasively. "he has known us such a long time." "but he is fond of you in a different way to that," continued mother. "he loves you as a man loves the woman whom he could make his wife." i did not answer for a bit, and mother, fancying, i suppose, that i must be as surprised as she was at the news, went on: "i had thought once it would be different, but now many things are explained. i think he has loved you ever since you began to grow up. it ought to make any girl feel proud, i'm sure." "yes," said i, softly. and i did feel proud, quite as proud as mother could wish, but i was not going to show it in the way that mother expected. "of course," she went on, after i had been silent a little while, "i quite understand how such a piece of news must come as a great surprise to you, almost as though it would take your breath away, i dare say. i don't wonder you don't know what to say." still i was silent. i stood by the table, twisting the fringe of the table-cover in my hand. "i don't want to press you now," continued she. "take your time about it, and tell me your mind in a day or two." "did the squire ask you to ask me my mind?" i said then, hurriedly. it was mother's turn to be silent at that. and i knew that i had guessed aright, and that the squire had probably only had his secret drawn from him against his will by some remark showing the mistake that mother too had made about his love for joyce. i even felt sure that he had specially begged that i should not be spoken to on the matter. "squire broderick was speaking mostly about your sister," answered mother, evasively. "you know i told you i felt it my duty to set him straight about what you allowed you had made him think mistakenly about. and he was very much relieved when i told him there was no engagement between joyce and that nephew of his. it's plain to see he thinks no good of him." "gently, gently, mother," murmured father, in remonstrating tones. "but i suppose in that way he came to guess what was in my mind about him and her, and thought it best to put it right," concluded mother. of course i saw in a moment that it had all happened exactly as i might have been sure from the squire it would happen. the knowledge gave me courage. "i will give my answer to the squire himself when he asks me," i said, bravely. mother looked at me. i fancied there was a half-apologetic look in her eyes. "the squire will not ask you, margaret," said she. "i suppose he's timid. i suppose all good men are timid before the woman they love, however much they may really be worthy of her--the worthier perhaps the more so. it seems strange, but the squire'll never ask you to your face. so you'd better make up your mind to it. your answer'll have to come through your parents in the old-fashioned way." i went back to my occupation of pulling the fringe of the table-cover. "but there's no need for you to say anything yet a while, lass," said father, after a few minutes. it was the first time he had spoken, and i looked at him reassured. "oh yes, i think i had just as well say what i have to say now," i answered, with sudden boldness. "what's the good of waiting? i sha'n't change my mind. i can never change my mind. i can't marry squire broderick, if that's what you mean he wants." there was silence. mother seemed to be actually stupefied. "but perhaps, after all, it isn't what he wants," added i, cheerfully, after a bit. "he's fond of me, because he has known me ever since i've been a little girl, and--well, because he is fond of me. but perhaps, after all, he doesn't want to marry me. i shouldn't think he would be so silly. i shouldn't be a bit of credit to him. i shouldn't be a bit suited to it. not because father's a farmer, but because--well, because i'm not that sort of girl, like joyce." mother had found her tongue. "that's for the squire to decide," said she. "i know well enough it's a rise for any daughter of mine to marry into the brodericks. yes, you may say what you like, laban," insisted she, fearlessly, turning to father, who had looked up with the old fire in his eye. "our family may be older than his, but as the world goes now he's above us, and marriage with him would be a rise for our child. and i think that it would be a very good thing for one of our girls to be wed with the squire, and that's the truth." mother spoke emphatically, as though this were a question that had often arisen between her and father, as indeed i knew that it had, although not on my account. i looked round to see him fire up as i had seen him do before. i waited to hear him say that if the squire thought he was doing us a favor by asking one of us to marry him he was mistaken; but the light had all died out of his eye, and if his lip trembled, it was plain enough that it was not with anger. "no doubt you're right, mary," he said, very slowly. "let class and family and such-like be. there's times when we forget all that. the squire's a good man, a good man." i was dumb. i had certainly never thought that father would want me to marry the squire. but a retort that had risen to my lips at mother's speech, to the effect that i certainly shouldn't marry the squire, because it would be "a good thing" for me, died away. i was ashamed of it. it was so true that the squire was "a good man," and i was proud of his love. "i can't marry the squire, mother, because i don't love him," said i, humbly. mother rose from her seat in all the height and breadth of her soft gray skirts. "you and i never were of one mind as to what we meant by love, margaret," said she. "but you take my advice. you don't say anything about this now, but just go away and think things over in your own mind for a while. maybe you'll see you're not likely to be loved again as squire loves you. and maybe you'll say to yourself there ain't anything very much better to do than to make yourself worthy of it. of course i don't know; folk are so different; and there's such a deal talked about love nowadays that most like it's grown to be something better than it was when i was young. but it won't hurt you to consider a while anyway." "it's no use," said i, doggedly. "i suppose folk _are_ different; but i can never marry a man i don't love as he loves me. i can't help it. that's the truth." mother had reached the door; she was going out, but she turned round. she was angry. the squire was rich, a gentleman. she had known him all his life, and knew that he was a good and kind man, and would make a good and true husband. would not any mother have desired him for a son-in-law? she guessed at no reason why i should not wed him, and i think it was natural that she should be angry at mere obstinacy. i think so now, but i did not think so then. "you can't marry a man you don't love as he loves you," repeated she, with an accent of something very like scorn. "well, my girl, let me tell you that the very best sort o' love a woman can have for a man is gratitude, and if she can't live happy with that she's no good woman. there's no happiness comes of it when the woman's the first to love, for it's heartache and no mistake when she must needs pass her life with a man she loves more than he do her. there--i'm prating to the wind, i know. there never was a girl yet thought an old woman had once known what love was. you must go your own way, but you may take my word for it that your opinion about love'll be more worth knowing in twenty years' time than it is now. a chit like you, indeed! at least squire knows what he is about." and with that she went out of the room and left me standing there, frozen into silence. the torrent of her unwonted speech, poured forth from the furnace of an unwonted fire in her, had fallen upon me like a cold stream of icy water. had she guessed? had every one guessed? was i the sport of the community? had i worn my heart upon my sleeve indeed? i turned round to find father's gaze fixed upon me anxiously. i couldn't make out just what it meant--it was so full of a keen yet half-puzzled inquiry; but it was tender and sympathetic, and it soothed my ruffled spirit. "you mustn't let mother's words hurt you, child," he said, kindly. "mother's tongue is sharp sometimes, because she puts things in plain english; but she's a wise woman, meg, a wise woman. there are never any clouds and mists round the tract of country mother travels. she sees things straight." "i don't believe one person can ever see for another," declared i, stoutly. "however poor my opinion may be, it's all the light i have. i can't wait twenty years to decide what to do now." father smiled, but sadly. "yes, we must all fight our own fight," he said, with a sigh. "oh, father, i can't believe you want me to marry squire broderick," said i, turning from the reflective which father so loved to the practical side of the question. "you always used to say that you wouldn't like us to marry out of our station." "my dear," he said, "there's many windows that'll let in light if we'll only open them. but sometimes we're a long while before we'll open more than one window. i dare say, if the truth were known, it wasn't all at once the squire made up his mind that he wanted to marry out of _his_ station. we mustn't forget that, meg. it shows he loves you truly, child, and that he's a man above the common. the squire's a good man, a good man and true. and, after all, that's more than theories and such like." i looked up at father anxiously. "would you have liked to see me the squire's wife, father?" asked i. he held out his hand, beckoning me to him, and i went and knelt down at his side. "meg," said he, "you've always been a good girl, a bright, brave, smart girl, with understanding of things beyond your years, though, maybe, sometimes that very thing in you has led you to be less wise than quieter folk. you've often been a help and a comfort to me." my heart swelled big within me, and i could not speak. "now, if i say something to you that i wouldn't trust every girl with, will you promise me to be just as wise as you are brave?" "yes, father," whispered i. "i'm afraid when i'm gone, meg, that mother won't be so well off as i had hoped to leave her." "why, what does that matter?" cried i, with the scorn of a youthful and energetic, and also of an inexperienced spirit for such a thing as poverty. "so long as we live in the old place we needn't mind having to be a little more economical. mother's very lavish now." father only sighed. "besides," continued i, "you're not an old man yet, father. you've many years before you, and the hops'll be better another time." i said it hopefully, but something in my heart misgave me. i lifted my face to find those gray eyes, dark in the fire's uncertain light, fixed upon me tenderly. "child, i don't believe i'm long for this world," said he, gravely. "i don't want mother to know it. time enough when the day comes, but the doctor has told me that i carry a disease within me that may kill me at any moment." i felt all the blood ebb away from my heart. i clasped his hand tightly, but i did not speak. "that's right. you're a brave girl," said he, with a smile. "but you see, when i'm gone, there'll be nobody but you to take care of mother." "doctors are often wrong," murmured i, faintly. "yes, yes, so they are," answered father, "and i may last many a year yet; but if it were possible, i want to be prepared--i want some one else to be prepared. perhaps i've done wrong to tell you, meg. perhaps it's too heavy a burden for a young heart." "no, no," cried i, eagerly, though in truth i was frozen with a terrible fear. "i like you to trust me--i like to think you lean upon me." "i do trust you," repeated he, resting his hand upon my head in that way that he sometimes had. and then he added, "and i trust squire broderick too." i was silent. i began to see his drift. "the squire will always be our friend," i said. "he has told me so." "i'm sure of that," replied my father; "but don't you see, meg, that if the squire wants to marry you, it will be difficult for him to be just the same to you as he has always been." "will it?" said i, doubtfully. "i'm afraid it might be so," answered he; "but of course that must make no difference. i can't teach you what to do in this matter. nobody can teach you. you must do what your heart tells you. but you're a young lass yet, and if ever you come to think differently of the thing, remember what i said to you to-day, dear, and don't let any fancied pride stand in your way. where hearts are true and honest, there's no such thing as pride; i learn that the older i grow." "i will remember it, father," answered i, religiously; and something in my heart forbade me to add, as i wanted to, "but i never shall think differently." how could i tell him that i loved a man who had never spoken to me of love, who i had every reason to suppose loved another woman, and that woman my own sister? no; i had not the courage so to humble myself; i had not the courage so to grieve him. mother's voice sounded without. "bring in prayers, joyce," called she, using the well-known topsy-turvy phrase that i had known ever since i was a child. "it's late enough." but as i knelt there that night, mingling my voice with the voices of all those i loved, in the familiar words of the lord's prayer, i thought god had been very hard to me, and the fear that he might even take away my father from me brought such a storm of terrified and rebellious agony that i felt i could not honestly say the words that had passed so easily over my head these fifteen years, "thy will be done." chapter xxxviii. a week went by--silent, uneventful--the world of action and emotion as leaden as the sky was leaden above our heads. father led his usual life, and seemed in no way worse than he had been for some time; so that the sick fear within me was lulled for a while to rest, and, realizing the emptiness of the present, i forgot the possibility of even greater evil in the future. the summer was gone--the summer that even the oldest people in the village declared to have been more wonderfully bright and long than any they had ever seen; september closed with a whirl of storms and a drenching of bitter rain. in the deserted hop-gardens--strewn with the unpicked tendrils of the ruined crops, or studded with the conical tents of the stacked ash-poles--only dead ashes recorded the merry flames that had leaped up towards the merry faces; the summer was gone, and everywhere trees and hedges were turning to ruddy tones upon the brooding sky. ah me! harvesting had slipped into winter before, and green leaves had turned to gold, and summer birds had flown to southern homes, but never had storms followed so quickly upon sunshine, nor flowers withered so fast upon their stems, nor hopes fallen so quickly to the ground! but the uneventful week was to end in events. it was the st of october. i remember it because it was mother's birthday, and the esquire, who had never before failed to come and congratulate her personally, only sent his gift of flowers by a servant. i know i felt guilty, and realized something of what father had meant, for i fear mother was hurt. when i went into the parlor at tea-time, mother and the bailiff were there alone. they were evidently engaged in a deep and earnest conversation. i thought it was about mr. hoad, who had rarely been at the grange of late, but who was closeted with father that afternoon, somewhat to my own vague anxiety. i had a notion that mother had spoken to harrod upon the subject before, and thought at first that her sudden silence was only because she did not care for one of us girls to know that she so far confided in the bailiff. but a certain half-confused look, that was very foreign to mother, led me to wonder whether, after all, she had been talking to him about mr. hoad that time; and when she sent me to call father in, she bade me shut the door after me, although i was only going across the passage. if i had not been so very preoccupied i should have been more alarmed than i was at the sound of mr. hoad's voice, raised in loud tones, as i approached the library door, and i should have taken more anxious note of father's face, as he only just opened it to bid me tell mother he was busy just now but would come presently. she looked vexed when i gave her the message, and took her seat before the tea-tray with an aggrieved air. "i don't know why, if mr. hoad doesn't care to drink tea with us himself, he should choose this particular moment to keep your father busy and away from his food," she complained. "i suppose it's something very particular," said joyce, in her even tones, and without noticing the frown on harrod's brow. "mr. hoad is always so polite; it must be something particular." "very particular!" repeated mother, pursing up her lips. "i don't know why it should be so particular it couldn't be said at the table, only that men must always needs fancy they've got very weighty and secret matters on hand. it was only about those unlucky hops, for i heard him mention them as he went in. why he must needs remind father of his losses, i don't know. it's bad enough without that, and when i wanted him to cheer up a bit. the hops can't matter to mr. hoad. but men are so stupid and inconsiderate!" we finished tea and drew round the fire. it was dark--half-past six o'clock and more--and we had had tea by lamplight. mother remarked how quickly the evenings were drawing in. then she suggested sending again for father, but harrod begged her to be patient. "mr. hoad must be going soon or he will have a dark drive home," he said. i laughed. "there is a moon," said i, "unless the clouds have swallowed it." and i got up to go out on the terrace and see. the voices in the library rose and fell as i opened the door. i heard father's deep tones, strong and firm, and mr. hoad's, lighter and jarring. joyce rose too and followed me, and so did trayton harrod. the library window stood ajar as we crossed the lawn. "you'll pull through all right," came mr. hoad's voice; "squire broderick's your friend. you were wise not to stick to your colors over that election business. it would have offended him. he's not a poor devil like me who must needs look to the pence. he can afford to be generous about debts and rents. and if rumor says true, there's one of your young ladies can give him all he needs for reward." i stopped, paralyzed. had joyce heard? but trayton harrod strode past me to where she stood a few steps before us. "miss maliphant, you must fetch a wrap for your head," he said, hurriedly; "the mist is falling." she went in obediently. i noticed she always did behave obediently towards him now. if she had heard, she gave no sign of it. probably she had not understood. some one stepped forward inside the room and fastened the window. i heard no more. "come down onto the terrace," said harrod, authoritatively. "we can wait for your sister there." he led the way and i followed, but i looked at him. had he also not heard, not understood? oh yes, he had heard, and he had understood--as i had understood. "what did that man mean?" cried i, looking at him straight in the eyes. we had not spoken to one another frankly and freely for some time, but this had roused me. "the fellow is a low cur," he said. "yes; but what did he mean?" insisted i. "i've always known that; but i want to know what he meant by talking as he did of squire broderick." trayton harrod was silent. "mr. harrod, if you know, you must, please, tell me," said i, firmly. he had looked away from me, but now he turned his face to me again. "yes, i will tell you," answered he, simply. "i think it is well you should know. the farm is in a bad way; perhaps you have guessed that. i have not been able to do what i hoped to do when i first came to it. i have not been successful." he spoke in a heavy, dispirited tone; it roused afresh all the sympathy that had been stifled a while by my bitter passion. "don't say that," i cried. "you have done a great deal. i am sure father thinks so, and i think so," i added, softly. "but you have been hampered." "well, anyhow i have failed, and the farm is in a bad way," he repeated, rather shortly. "your father has been pressed for money, probably not only since i have been here; he has been obliged to get it as best he could to pay the men's wages. he has got some of it from hoad." "from hoad!" repeated i. "not as a favor?" "no," continued he, with a laugh; "your father is indebted to hoad, probably for a large amount. i fear it. but not as a favor. hoad is the man to know well enough what rate of interest to charge; and he is threatening now to press him for payment. so long as your father could be useful to him, so long as he hoped to get his help towards securing the radical seat for thorne, he was forbearing enough--made out that he would wait any length of time for it, i dare say; but now it's a different matter. thorne lost the seat and mr. hoad some advantage he would have had out of the affair. he doesn't mean to be considerate any more. he means to press for his money." "how could father ever trust such a man, ever have any dealings with him?" cried i, indignantly. "it's horrible to think he could have done it. but now, of course, he must be paid at once, and we must never, never see him again." harrod was silent. "why does father stop there arguing with him?" cried i, looking back towards the library window. "how can he condescend to do it? why doesn't he pay him his money and tell him to be off?" "perhaps your father hasn't got the money, miss margaret," said harrod, slowly, after a pause. "not got it!" cried i. "how much is it?" "i don't know," he answered, "but i'm afraid it's more than your father has at hand at the moment. he must need all his ready cash to pay the men, and there's the rent due presently." "the rent!" echoed i, under my breath. "the rent is due to squire broderick." "yes," agreed harrod. "father has been punctual with his rent all his life," continued i, proudly, "i've often heard him say so. nothing would persuade him to be a day late with the rent." "no, of course," said harrod, quickly. and then he was silent. i flushed hot in the dim light. i knew now what mr. hoad had meant, and i hated him in my heart worse than i had ever hated him before, for what he had meant. "but that's what hoad counts on," continued harrod, rapidly, as though suddenly making up his mind to speak. "he is a low, vulgar fellow, and he would think such a thing natural enough. he can see no other reason why your father should not have consented to stand by his candidate at the election." a sudden revelation came to me. "was that what the article was about that you tried to keep out of father's way?" i asked. he nodded. my heart flamed with anger at the treachery of the man who had called himself father's friend, but through it there was a very broad streak of gratitude to the man who had been his friend without calling himself so. but i did not say so; i only repeated aloud what i had told myself inwardly. "i hate him," i said. "whatever happens, he will never get his money that way. but, oh, isn't it horrible to think that father should owe money to such a man! is there no way in which he could be paid off now--at once?" "not any that i can see," said harrod, sadly. "won't there be any money coming in for the hops?" i asked again, eagerly. "oh, if the season had been good for the hops!" echoed harrod. and then he stopped short. i did not ask any more, but i understood a great deal in that short sentence, and when i thought over all that he had said, i understood more still: that perhaps he had guessed long ago, when he first came, in what position father then stood; that perhaps he had even advised the hop speculation as a last chance, having as i knew he had, special facilities for disposing of a good crop. he had worked for us, he had our interests at heart, but the task that he had undertaken had been harder than he had guessed; knowing him as i did, i knew how very, very bitter must be to him the sense of failure. his work: that was the first thing with him, and he had failed in it. "if it hadn't been for you, things would be much worse than they are," said i at last, full of a really simple and unselfish sympathy. "you have done a great deal for the farm." "it might have been of some use if the circumstances had been different," said he, half testily. "as it is, i have done no good, no good at all. but that's neither here nor there. the thing is what to do now." "must something be done at once?" i asked, anxiously. "yes," answered he, briefly, "at once." i was silent, looking out over the plain. the last of the daylight was dead; the moon fled in and out among the clouds that swept, swift and soft, over the blue of the deep night sky, on whose bosom she lay cradled sometimes as in a silver skiff, but that again would cross her face with ugly scars or hide her quite from sight--a murky veil that even her rich radiance could only inform with brightness as a memory upon the hem of it. the marsh always looked wider and more mysterious than ever under such a sky as that, until no one could have told where the land ended and sea began; it was all one vast, dim ocean--billows of land and billows of water were all one. i could not but think of the night, three months ago, when i had stood there on that very spot with trayton harrod, and when, at my request, he had consented to stay on at the farm and help us. he had stayed on, and he had done what he could. was it his fault if he had not brought us help and happiness? i remembered the night well; i remembered that then it had been warm, whereas now it was chilly. the twilight had faded and the night was dark, save for that fitful, fickle moon. a thin gauze of cloud hung now before the white disk, and the light that filtered through it showed another thin gauze of mist floating above the sea of dark marsh-land; the breeze that crept up among the aspens on the cliff had scarcely a memory of summer. "what can be done?" asked i, in answer to that brief, terse declaration. "there is only one thing that i can see," said he. "you are right; hoad must be paid. it is not a matter of choice. the money must be borrowed to pay him with." "borrowed!" cried i. "from whom could we borrow it, even if we would? there is nobody who would lend us money." "yes, there is one man," said harrod, quietly. "you mean captain forrester," said i, "because you have seen him here so intimately with father; but i assure you"--i stopped; i had begun disdainfully, but i ended up lamely enough--"he has no money." "no, i did not mean captain forrester," answered harrod, with what i fancied in the half-light was a smile upon his lips, "i mean squire broderick." i flushed again. i did not look at him. "father would never think of asking squire broderick to lend him money," i said, quickly. "no, i dare say not," answered the bailiff. "your father is a very proud man, and however well he may know the squire is his friend, they have not always exactly hit it off. but you, miss margaret, you could ask him, and for your father's sake, you would." "oh no, indeed, i wouldn't," said i, almost roughly. "it's the last thing in the world that i would do." and then i turned quickly round. "joyce hasn't come down," i added. "we had better go back and look for her." i moved away a couple of steps, but he didn't follow, and i stopped. "don't go in just yet," he said. "your mother does not need you. i want to talk to you a little. we used always to be such good friends; but we haven't had a talk for a long while." i stood still where i was. "if it's about borrowing money of the squire that you want to talk to me, i don't think it would be any use for you to trouble," said i, with my back still turned to him. "i shouldn't think of asking him to lend father money--not if i thought ever so that he would do it." "of course he would do it to please you," said harrod, frankly. "he loves you. but i quite understand how that might be more than ever the reason for your not asking him." i did not answer; the suddenness of the way in which this had come from him had taken away my breath. it had not even struck me that he could have guessed it; and now that he should speak of it--_he_ to _me_! "it would be a reason if you did not mean to accept his love," continued harrod, ruthlessly. "but since that could not surely be the case, are you not over-delicate; do you not almost do him an injury by not trusting him to that extent?" "mr. harrod, i don't know how you dare to talk to me so," said i, fiercely, but under my breath. "dare!" echoed he, with a little laugh that had an awkward ring in it, and yet at the same time a little tone of surprise, "i thought we were friends. surely one may say as much to a friend?" "you may not say as much to me," retorted i, in the same tone. "and i don't know why you should think that the squire loves me." "is there any insult in that?" smiled he. "i did not suppose so. surely it is clear to every one that he loves you? i have seen it ever since i have been at the grange." "you have seen it!" ejaculated i, dumfounded. "why, it was joyce! we all thought it was joyce!" "i did not think it was joyce," said he. i was silent once more. ever since he had been at the grange he had seen that the squire loved me. what, then, had been his attitude towards me? what had ever been his attitude towards me? "well, if the squire loves me, he will have to get over it," said i, in a hard, cold voice. i was hurt and sore, and my soreness made me hard for the moment towards the man to whom in my heart i was never anything but reverent. but the very next moment i was sorry; i was ashamed of even a thought that was not all gratitude towards him. "perhaps," i added, gently, "it is not exactly as you fancy. i am not good enough for the squire." "not good enough!" echoed he, and there was a ring of genuine appreciation and loyalty in his voice which set my foolish heart aglow. "i don't see why not. anyhow, _he_ does not seem to be of that opinion, from what your mother tells me." mother! that was what they had been discussing so secretly. "i'm sorry mother could talk about it," said i. "it wasn't fair. it's a pity such things should be talked about when they are never going to come to anything." "why is it never going to come to anything?" asked trayton harrod. "that's my own business," said i, defiantly. "yes, that's true," answered he; "but i had thought, as i have said, that we were good enough friends for you to let a little of your business be mine also. i beg your pardon." his tone unaccountably irritated me, but his allusion to our friendship touched me nevertheless. "you needn't beg my pardon," said i, more quietly; "only i don't want you to talk any more about that. mother may be mistaken about the squire wanting to marry me. i hope he does not. if he does, i shall find my own way of telling him it couldn't be." "well, miss margaret, if i'm offending you by speaking of the matter, i must hold my tongue," said harrod; "but i feel as if i must tell you that i think you are making a great mistake." i did not answer, and he went on: "your father is in a bad way. he would be very much relieved to think that one of you was comfortably settled for life. apart from anything that you could do for him in this crisis, and which, no doubt, he has not thought of, you must see for yourself how that would be so." "a girl can't marry to please her father," said i, "and _my_ father is the last one to wish it." "of course," said he, persistently, "neither your father nor your friends would wish you to marry against your will for _any_ advantage that might result. but why should it be against your will? the squire is such a good-fellow." "oh, don't ask me to talk about it," cried i. "i know he is good; i know all you say." "if the truth were known, i expect there's a good bit of pride in it," smiled he. "you are your father's own daughter about that. and there's the squire, no doubt, thinks he's not half good enough for you. a man mostly does if he cares for a woman." "it isn't that. i can't marry the squire, because i don't love him, and there's an end," cried i, desperately. i wished he had never spoken to me about it; i could not understand how he _could_ do so, even to please mother, at whose instigation i felt sure it was done. it seemed to me to be very unlike him, but since he had forced himself to speak, i must force myself to tell him that much of the truth. but i turned down away from him, and walked to the edge of the terrace. harrod, however, again followed me. "perhaps you don't know exactly what you mean by that," said he, gently. "young girls don't always. and they think, because a man is a few years older than themselves, that it can't be a love-match. but sometimes they find out, after all, that it was a love-match, only they didn't know it at the time. wise folk say that the best sort of love comes of knowledge, and isn't born at first sight, as some think it is." they were mother's arguments. it was out of friendship for me, no doubt, that he repeated them, but they were mother's words, and they didn't touch me at all. all that i felt was a rage, rising horribly and swiftly within me, against the man who dared to utter them. i did not reply. i only drew my cloak closer around me, for the marsh wind rose now and then in sudden puffs that found their way to the very heart of one; they sent the clouds flying across the sky, and the moon disappeared deep down into a bed of blackness--so deep that not even the hem of it was fringed as before with the silver rim; upon the marsh was unbroken night. i can see it still, i can feel the chill of it. and yet, within, my heart was hot, and it was out of the heat of it that i spoke. shall i write down what i spoke? i can hardly bear to do it. even after all these years, when fate, kinder than her wont, has helped me to bury all that spoiled past, and to begin a future upon the grave of it that has its foundations deeper still. even now i am afraid to look at the stern record of my words in black and white before me. i am ashamed--not of my love, but of my selfishness, though these pages are for no other eyes than mine, i am afraid. but i have set myself the task, and it shall be accomplished to the end. "can't you understand," said i, in a low voice, "that perhaps i cannot love the squire because i love somebody else better?" he was silent--he did not even look at me. he gave no sign of being surprised at my revelation. "are you sure of that?" he said, after a pause. "and is he as worthy of you as squire broderick?" "worthy!" echoed i. for a moment a proud, rebellious answer flashed through my mind. was he worthy of me--he who gave so much the less, for mine that was so much the more? but i trod the demon out of sight. was he to blame if i gave the more? "what is worthiness?" asked i. he did not reply at first, and then it was in a voice that somehow seemed to me different to any i had heard him use before. "i don't know that there's any such thing," he said, with a sort of grim seriousness. "but a man can give the best he has, and i don't think a woman should put up with less." queer, plain words; there was nothing in them to hurt me, and yet they seemed to fly at me. my heart beat wildly; i could feel it, i could hear it, fluttering like a caged bird against the hard-wood of the fence against which i leaned. "the squire gives you the best he has," said trayton harrod. "does the man you think you love do as much?" i don't know whether it was my fancy or not, but his voice seemed to tremble. i had never heard his voice tremble before. "how can i tell?" said i, as well as i could speak the words for shame and heartache. "a woman can tell fast enough," murmured he. and then he stopped; he came one step nearer to me. "and the fact is," said he, emphatically, "it seems a shame for a fine, clever girl like you to throw away such a man as the squire for the sake of a fellow who she isn't even sure gives her the best he has. i've no right to talk so to you, and i couldn't have done it if your mother hadn't made me promise to. she seemed to think i ought. but, upon my word, i'm of her mind. you think you care for that other fellow now, but if he don't give you what you've a right to expect, you wouldn't be the girl i take you for if you didn't put him out of your mind. there isn't anything in the world can live when it has nothing to feed on." how every word seemed to fall like a stone into the bottom of a well! they echoed in my head after he had finished speaking. another gust of wind came sweeping up from the invisible sea of water across the just visible sea of land. the moon made a little light again through a softer gray cloud, and shone with a wan, covered brightness upon us; the aspens on the cliff shivered--and i shivered too. the fire in my blood had burned itself out, i suppose, and the cold from without struck inward, for i felt as though i were frozen into a perfectly feelingless lump of ice. "i wonder what would have happened if the squire's proposal had been made to joyce, as we all supposed it would be?" said i, slowly. i did not look at him, but i felt him start. "do you think she would have accepted him?" asked he. his voice did not tremble now; it was hard and metallic; it did not sound like his own. it drove me into a frenzy. all that had happened of late, all that had happened in the last half-hour, had been piling up the fuel, and now the instinctive knowledge of the feelings that had prompted that last speech of his set a light to the fire. i was mad with jealousy. "i don't know," said i. "if the squire had proposed to joyce, and she had known that she would help father, as you say, by marrying him, she might have brought herself to it. she is more unselfish than i am. _she_ might have brought herself to marry one man while she loved another." harrod did not answer at first, but i felt his face turned upon me waiting for me to go on, and i heard him draw in his breath and breathe it out again, as if he were relieved. "what makes you think she is in love with another man?" asked he, in a low voice. "oh, i know it," said i, stung to the utterance by the knowledge that he thought i meant with himself. "she is engaged to him." my heart almost stopped beating, waiting to see where the shaft would strike. it struck home. "engaged!" muttered he. "yes," i went on, quickly, perhaps lest i should repent of my wicked purpose. "she is engaged to captain forrester. they do not meet, because my parents wished it to be kept secret for a year. but they love one another." oh, joyce, joyce! how could i have said it? a hundred excuses came swarming into my head, but in every one of them there was a sting, for through the buzz of them all came a strong, clear voice telling me that the man whom joyce really loved stood at my side. i knew it, i knew it, and yet i let him think that she loved some one else; i let him go away with an aching heart. that was my love for him--that was my love for joyce, who, until he crossed my world, had been all my world to me. i remember nothing more. i suppose he said something and i answered it, or else i said something and he answered it; but i remember nothing--nothing until i saw him thread his way down among the aspens on the cliff and disappear onto the desolate marsh-land. that i remember. i often see it happening. the moon still hung behind that veil of gray cloud; the breeze still crept chill among the trees, piercing to the heart; the faint white light showed a very wide world, wider far than in the brightness of day; there seemed to be a great deal of room for longing and heartache. but was the heartache in it all mine? in a moment the horror of what i had done came home to me. i who suffered had made others suffer. "oh, come back! come back!" i cried, in an agony of grief, hurrying down the cliff till i stood over the marsh, waving my arms wildly in the dark night. "come back! i have something more to say." but he was gone. the moon was the same moon looking sadly on; the world was the same world as it had been ten minutes ago, but he was gone. and who was to blame? i came slowly up the cliff again--cold, stunned. what had i done? where should i go? "margaret! margaret!" came a loud, terrified cry from the porch. it was the voice of my sister joyce. chapter xxxix. that night father was struck down with the stroke that was to end in his death. that was what the terror in my sister's voice had meant when she had called down the garden to me through the chill darkness. her cry had roughly summoned me from the contemplation of my own woes, and the mourning of my own cruelty, to a sterner death-bed than the death-bed of my own selfish hopes, to the darkest experience that can cross any loving human creature's path. he lay ill three weeks, but from the first we knew that there was no hope, and knew that none could tell when he might finally be taken. we took turns night and day watching beside him, and during the first dreadful night following his seizure i was sitting alone in the dim parlor waiting for my turn, when, towards midnight, there was a knock at the door. i thought it was the doctor, who had promised to come again before morning; but when i opened the door the squire stood outside. the bad news had crept up to the manor during the evening, and he had come to learn if it was true. for the first time that evening a little breath of something that was warm crept about my cold heart. i forgot that the squire had wanted to marry me, and that i had practically refused him; i forgot everything but that here was a friend full of real sympathy in our trouble, and thinking at that moment of nothing else--perhaps the only friend whom i instinctively counted upon in a world that seemed to me just then very wide and empty. he stepped inside at once, and i told him what had happened, there in the hall, in a quick, low whisper. "there is no hope," i said. "i knew that quite well, although the doctor said that there was just a chance. he knew himself that he might die at any moment. he told me so yesterday, only i didn't really believe him." my heart swelled at the recollection of that scene, but i did not cry. i wonder if he thought me heartless. "how did it happen?" asked the squire. "mr. hoad was with him. i heard them talking as i went out into the garden," answered i, sickening with the recollection of what i had gone there for. "joyce says mr. hoad went out suddenly, and then they heard father fall. he has never spoken since." "ah, if we could only have kept that man away from him!" murmured the squire. "yes; and i feel as if it were my fault," whispered i. "he owed him money, and he came to press for it just now when the hops have failed and the rent is due. he is so mean that he had a grudge against father for not helping on mr. thorne. but how was i to get the money? it was cruel, cruel to suggest it!" i caught the squire's eyes fixed upon me with a strange, pitying, questioning look. i did not understand it at the moment, but in the light of what i afterwards learned i understood its meaning. i stopped abruptly. i felt as though my senses were leaving me--my head was whirling. i knew i had said something, in this moment of unusual craving for sympathy and support, which i should never have said at any other moment. but there was no time to go back upon my words, even if that had been possible. i just caught those eyes that shone so blue out of the squire's bronzed face fixed intently upon me in the dim light of the little hall, when joyce ran quickly down the stairs. "father wants to see you, squire broderick," said she, eagerly. "he heard your voice and he wants to see you." "oh, then he _is_ conscious again!" cried i, joyfully. "yes," said joyce; "he is conscious." she said it with a marked accent on the word. "but--" asked the squire. "he can't speak," added she. i turned my face away from them. "that means he is dying," said i. "the doctor said it might be before dawn." all at once a cowardly, horrible longing to run away took possession of me. "oh, perhaps not," said joyce, gently. "we must hope while there is life. we can do nothing; he is beyond us. we must submit ourselves to whatever is god's will." she was right. perhaps for the first time in my life i felt all the awful force of it--that we could do nothing, absolutely nothing; that we must submit ourselves. but why was it god's will? again it angered me, as it had angered me once before, that joyce should be able to submit herself apparently so easily to what was god's will. i was unjust. there were tears on her cheeks and mine were dry. we were different, that was all. "come," said she, turning again to the squire, "he is impatient." she turned up the stairs, flitting softly in her blue flannel dressing-gown, with the golden hair slipping a little from its smooth coils. the squire followed. i sat down on the old oaken bench below to wait. "you, you too, meg," said she, turning round. the oak staircase was dark, but a yellow ray from the oil-lamp hung on the wainscoting showed her face surprised. mother's voice came from above, and she ran on up the stairs. the squire came back again to me. "come, dear," said he--and even at that solemn moment i could not help noticing the word of tenderness that had unconsciously slipped from him. "i want you to come, because afterwards you would be sorry you had delayed. when you see him you will not be afraid." he took my hand and led me up the stairs, so that we entered father's room together. yes, he was quite conscious. those piercing gray eyes of his shone as with a fire from within like coals in his white face; they were terrible in their acute concentration, as though all the strength of that once strong frame, of that once active mind, had retired to this last citadel; but, black under the shadow of the overhanging brows, they were the dear familiar eyes of old to me, and i was not frightened. as we approached--i in my trouble still letting my hand lie unconsciously in the squire's--i saw one of those gleams that i have said were often as of sunshine on a rugged moor cross the whiteness of his face. for a moment the effort to speak was very painful, but he took the squire's hand in his--in both of his--and looked at me, and i knew well enough what he meant to say. i did not speak. i could not have spoken if i would, for there was a lump in my throat that choked me; but i had nothing to say. how could i have found it in my heart to tell him that what he had seen meant nothing, yet what words would my tongue have made to tell him that i would give my hand to the squire forever? it was not possible. i slipped my hand out of his, but father did not see it. he was looking more at the squire than at me; upon him his eyes were fixed with a strangely mingled expression of pride and entreaty. thinking of it now, it comes before me as a most pathetic picture of proud self-abandonment and generous appeal. it was almost as though he said: "i have wronged you. creeds and convictions are nothing. we have always been one, and you are my only friend. help me in my need." so i have often since read that look in his deep, sorrowful eyes. my dear father! should i say my poor father? no, surely not. yet at that moment i thought so; i wanted to do something for him, and the only thing that i might have done i would not do. but the squire came to the rescue. "i know," he said, tenderly; "be at rest. i will take care of them all." not i will take care of _her_. "i will take care of them all." my heart went out to him in thanks. he had said i should have courage. he had given me courage. when he was gone, i took my place at the bedside; i was no longer afraid of death, or if i was afraid, my love was more than my fear; i stayed beside father till the end. i was thankful that the end did not come for those three weeks. he did not suffer, and he grew to depend upon me so, to turn such trustful and loving eyes upon me whenever i came near him, that they took me out of myself as nothing else could have done. dear eyes that have followed me all through the after-years to still the pangs of remorse, and to warm the coldness of life. ah me! and yet those were sore days. knowing that he was taking comfort as he lay there from the thought that i and the squire would one day be one, i longed to make a clean breast of it. i longed to tell him that a very different figure from good squire broderick's crossed my mind many times a day, unbidden and horrible to me, who wanted to give every fibre of myself to him who lay a-dying. i cannot explain it, i can only say that it was so: dearly as i loved my father, the thought of him did not keep out every other thought. all through those weary watching hours, i was watching for other footsteps besides those that were coming--so slow and sure--to take away what i had loved all my life; black upon my heart lay the shadow of a deeper remorse than that of letting a dying man believe in a possibility that set his mind at rest: i wanted to see trayton harrod that i might undo what i had done, that i might tell him the truth about joyce. yes, though i knew well enough that i loved him far too well to think of another, it was not of my love that i thought, sitting there through the dark hours with the sense of that awful presence upon me that might at any moment snatch, whither i knew not, the thing that i had known as my dear father. i only wanted to see him that i might rid my conscience of that mean lie, that i might make him happy, and hear him say that he forgave me; and many is the time i started beside the still bed, thinking i heard that light firm step on the gravel without, or the click of the latch in the front door as the bailiff had been wont to lift it. but trayton harrod did not come, and, with the self-consciousness of guilt, i dared not ask for any news of him. it was not until more than a week after father's first seizure that i learned he had gone to london at daybreak on the morning following our parting, and had not yet returned. my heart sank a little at the news, although i knew he had intended going away for a little just about this time, and i guessed, of course, that he could have heard nothing of our trouble before he left. deborah said that one of the men had left a note from him the morning of his departure, but in the confusion of father's illness neither she nor i could find it, and i was reduced to sitting down once more to wait face to face with another grim phantom of death besides that one that was keeping the house so quiet and strange for us all. once i think mother said harrod must be sent for, but nobody thought of it again, for everything was really swallowed up in that great anxiety, while we waited around that bedside hoping against hope, watching for that partial return of speech which the doctor had told us might perhaps be given to him once more. the rev. cyril morland came to see him, and told him all that he had been able to do about that scheme for the protection of little children which lay so near his heart. i well remember, though his poor body was half dead, how pathetic in its keenness was the effort to understand all as he had once understood it--how touching the fire that still burned in his sunken eyes--how touching the smile that still played about his white lips. yes, i remember it all; i remember how, after many attempts, he made me understand that i was to fetch that crayon sketch of the young man's head that hung above the writing-desk in his study, and put it opposite his bed. i remember how his eyes were turned to it then, as he listened to the good young parson's explanations of what had already been achieved in that branch of the great question upon which his mind had so long been concentrated. the minister had scarcely gone out before deborah came into the room with a message. she whispered it to mother: captain forrester was staying at the priory, and had sent round to ask how mr. maliphant did. father's eyes were closed, he did not open them, but i saw a look of suffering, as though a lash had passed over him, cross his features. mother sent deborah hastily out of the room with a whispered reprimand, and father beckoned me to his side. as far as i could make out, he wanted me to send for frank. a few weeks ago how gladly would i have done it! but now i knew too well that it was too late; and when i saw the telltale flush of trouble on joyce's face, and her quick glance of entreaty, i was loath to do father's bidding. i could see that she had it on her lips to tell him something--something that she no longer made a secret of soon afterwards; but how could any of us dare to disturb him, dare to do anything but simply what he wished? even mother, much as it cost her to let me send that summons, would not interfere. we felt instinctively that the visit could do neither good nor harm. we need not have troubled ourselves. father died before frank came. he had seemed a little better; in fact, just for a day we had been quite hopeful. the squire had been sitting with him, and when he left him alone with mother and came down-stairs, i met him in the hall; i had been waiting for him. i led the way into the deserted parlor, and the squire--i fancied, half-unwillingly--followed. "i hope i haven't kept you away," began he, concernedly. "he's dozing now, and your mother is with him. but he'll be asking for you again presently." "yes, i know, i know," answered i, absently. "but, mr. broderick, i wanted to ask you whether you don't think mr. harrod ought to be sent for?" said i, hastily. he turned away his head; i could not help noticing that he looked embarrassed. "i'm sure he can't know of father's illness, and i feel that he ought to be told," said i. "i know very well he would never choose this time for a holiday if he knew how very urgently his presence is needed. everything must be going at sixes and sevens on the farm." "i see that things aren't going at sixes and sevens," murmured he. "you!" cried i, aghast. "oh, but that isn't fitting." still he looked awkward. "don't you trouble your head about it," said he, kindly. "you have enough to do without that. my bailiff has very little work just now, and he can as easily as not see to things a bit." something in his whole manner froze me, but i cried, eagerly, almost angrily, "but he _must_ come back; it's his duty to come back. you are too kind--you don't want to spoil his holiday; but that isn't fair, and not real kindness. he would much rather come back, i know. if you won't write to him, i will." i spoke peremptorily, but something in the way the squire now looked at me--pitifully, and yet reproachfully--made me ashamed, and i lowered my eyes. he came up to me and said, in a low voice, for i had raised mine: "will you leave it all to me? do. i promise you that i will do you right; and for you, just now, anything--everything but one thing, must remain in abeyance." i could not answer, something choked me. he took my hand in his to say good-bye. "i thought he seemed easier, less restless to-night," said he. i nodded, and he pressed my hand and went out. not till the last yellowness had died out of the twilight did i go up again to the sick-room. mother sat on a low chair by the bed; her hand was in father's, and her head rested on her hand. there was no light, only just the grayness of the twilight. one might have thought it was a young girl's figure that crouched there so tenderly. all through the years of my childhood i had very rarely seen any attitude of affection between my parents; i scarcely ever remember father kissing mother in our presence, although his unfailing chivalry towards her, and the quiet, matter-of-course way in which her opinion was reverenced, had grown to be an understood thing among us. i felt now that i had intruded on a sacred privacy. mother turned as i came in, and drew her hand very gently away from father's; he was dozing. she rose and walked away towards the window. "shall i bring the lamp, mother?" asked i. i felt that there were tears in her voice as she answered. it was the first time i had been aware of this in all the time that father had been ill, she had been so very quiet and brave. i went up to her where she stood in the dim light of the window-seat, with her back towards me, and after a moment i kissed her reverently, as i never remember to have done before, save that once when she said that things would have been different on the farm if our little brother had lived. her tears welled over, but she did not speak, only when i said, "he is better to-night, mother, don't you think so?" she nodded her head, and turned and went out of the room. that night the wave we had been watching so long broke over our heads. mother had sat up the night before, and had gone to rest; joyce held watch till midnight, and then i took her place. the hours wore away wearily through the darkness. father was very restless, moaning often, and throwing his arms from side to side. once he had held his hand a long while on my head in the old, affectionate way, and had looked with mute, passionate entreaty into my eyes. what did he want to know? if i guessed, i did not satisfy the craving. i only murmured vague words here and there, smoothed his pillow and his brow, putting water to his dry lips, ministering to a physical thirst, and ignoring the bitterer thirst of the mind. i was a coward. at last he fell into a restless doze. i left the bedside and went to the window. the dawn was breaking; behind a rampart of purple clouds a pale streak of orange light girdled the marsh around; sea there was none, or rather it was all sea--silent waves of desolate land, silent waves of distant water, and over all a sullen surf of mist that hid the truth; out of the surf rose the far-off town, like some dark rock amid the waters, statelier than ever above the ghostly bands of vapor that crossed its base, and made the crown of its square belfry loom like some fortress on a towering alpine height. purple was the town, and purple the cloud battlements, but overhead the sky was clear, where one patient yellow star waited the coming of day. at the foot of the cliff the water was up in the tidal river; it lay blue and cold amid the dank, white mist. i remembered the day, six months ago, when i had stood and watched it, just as blue and cold against the white winter snow; i had thought it looked colder than the snow in its iron depths; i had thought it looked like death. yes, how i remembered it! it was the first time i had ever thought of death. i went back to the bed. i fancied father had moved; but he lay there quite still, with his face upturned, and a strange blue grayness on it. i stood over him a long time, till my hands were so cold with fear that i could scarcely feel if his had still the warmth of life. i thought i would call mother, but the breath still came faintly from his lips; so i waited a while, creeping softly back to the window, whence i could see the living world. the yellow star was no more, for slowly from behind the purple ramparts a glory of silver rays grew up; the purple became amethyst, the sullen cloud-cliffs broke into soft flakes of down; they cradled the rising sun, whose fire flushed their softness; they bore him up until he was full-orbed above the horizon; then suddenly a rent ran across them, and it was day. but the white mist still lay just as thickly on the ground; it was gray with shadows, and the water was cold, and the wide, wide sea of surf-bound marsh was desolate. a sound came from the bed. my heart stood still. it was so long since we had heard father speak that to hear him now seemed like a voice from the grave. "meg," he said, distinctly. i did not turn. he repeated the word, and it was his own voice, and i went to him. he lay there just as i had left him, excepting that he had turned just a little on his side, so that the portrait of his friend should be the better within his view. the same blue shadow was on his face. "meg," said he, slowly, "mother will be very lonely when i'm gone. you will take care of mother." i sank slowly upon my knees so as to bring my face on a level with his. i wanted to hide it away from him, but by a great effort i kept my gaze upon him. "yes," i answered, firmly. "you've always been a good girl, my right hand," continued he. "take care of them both." his voice was getting weak; i could see the drops of perspiration standing on his brow. i tried to get up that i might call mother and joyce, but he held me fast. "the squire--trust the squire," he murmured. "he loves you as i loved your mother." and then, with a smile of peace, he added, "the squire said he would take care of you all." i was too much awed to speak, but i put my lips gently to his hand. it was quite cold, and a shiver ran through me. his eyes were closed, and i drew my arm as well as i could from his grasp, and flew to the door. in a moment i was in the room where mother and joyce lay resting together; my presence was enough to tell them what was the matter. when i got back to father, his eyes were open again--fixed on that picture opposite to him. "now we see through a veil darkly," he murmured. "ah, camille, i have done what i could;" and then, "god has a home of his own for the little ones." he was wandering. "laban!" cried mother, with a low cry. a smile broke through that gray shadow, as light had burst through the purple clouds when the sun rose. his lips seemed to move as if in some request. "'the peace of god, which passeth all understanding,'" began mother, in a broken voice. there was a long silence in the room, and then a sound: it was a sob from our mother's heavy heart. his voice was still forever. chapter xl. on the day of father's funeral the sun shone and all the summer had come back. against a pale, fair sky, dashed with softest clouds, golden boughs of elms made delicate metallic traceries, and crimson creepers shot like flames across the gray walls of sober cottages. even passing birds had not all deserted us, and swallows swept again around the ancient ivied aisles of the old cathedral, under whose shadows we laid him away in the earth. we put him under the yew-trees beside our little brother john, with his face towards the sun's setting behind the pine-trees; every one said it was a beautiful place for him to rest in; and joyce wept her simple, silent tears over the hopeful words spoken by the rev. cyril morland, whom mother had chosen to read the service. but as for me, my heart was too hot and rebellious to shed any tears or to see any hope or comfort; i hated the sun for shining so brightly, the world for being so fair, and folk for thinking it natural enough that an old man should come to an end of his life. yes, they spoke of it sadly, compassionately--all those many folk who followed him to the grave; folk to whom he had told his thoughts, whom he had helped and taught, and with whom he had sympathized in his life; folk who would not have been what they were without him--whose friend he had been, who would never find such another to lead them! but for all their honest tears, they spoke of it as a worthy life brought worthily to an end--they could think of his grave as beautiful, whereas to me god was cruel to have taken him, and no place in the world could be anything but cold earth that hid him from my sight. towards mother and joyce my heart was soft because of the promise i had given him with his darkening eyes looking into mine, but even towards joyce i was sore when i saw her bend her head towards mr. hoad as he held open the gate of the graveyard for her; and it was with a grim feeling of satisfaction, and no sense at all of the unfitness of the occasion, that i turned aside from his out-stretched hand, and said, in a loud voice, that every by-stander could hear: "no, mr. hoad, i don't think i shall ever care to shake hands with you again. you don't fight fair. it is through you my father lies there, and i'll never forgive you." i swept on after mother without even giving one glance at the angry face i left behind, without listening to the suppressed murmur that ran round, without even seeing the vexed, distressed look on the squire's face close beside me. my heart was very sore, and not the less so because i had missed around the grave one face that i had made quite sure would be there. the squire and i had never spoken again of trayton harrod since that day when he had begged me to leave the recalling of him to his discretion. i don't think i had seen him more than once during that time, and then it had been about the arrangements for the funeral, when i should not have liked to speak to him on such an apparently trivial matter, however much i might have wished to do so. but all through the dreadful days when we three had sat silently in the darkened parlor, hearing no news from without save messages of condolence and flower-tokens of humble friendship, brought in by old deb with her swollen eyelids--all through the time when we were waiting till they should take away from us forever that which was left of what had once been our own, there had come sudden waves of unbidden remembrance mingling with my holy sorrow for the dead, and interwoven with my regrets over the much i might have done for my dear father which it was now too late ever to do, were other genuinely contrite thoughts, which i resolved should not be without fruit. i wanted to make amends for my wrong-doing, and trayton harrod would not give me the chance. where was he? surely by this time he must have heard of our trouble. how could he remain away? and as the dull hours wore on from morning to evening and from evening to morning again, i longed to see him with a heart-sick longing that not even my tears could quench; i longed to see him, though his face might be ever so stern, his voice ever so cruel, his hand ever so cold. but he did not come, and on the fourth day after the funeral, mother, awaking slowly to the knowledge of outer things and people, asked for him. "meg," she said, "it's very strange that mr. harrod hasn't been near us all this time of our trouble. is he sick, do you know?" "i haven't heard, mother," said i, faintly; "but i believe he has been away." "away!" echoed mother. "well, then, he might have come back again, i think. i wouldn't have believed he was such a fair-weather friend as that. i thought of him so differently." my heart swelled with a bitter remorse, for deep down there was a little voice that told me that if harrod was away i was not without blame for it. "you and he haven't had a quarrel, have you?" said mother, after a bit. "a quarrel!" repeated i, faintly. "oh no!" "well, i'm glad of that," answered she. "he's a nice lad, and it's a pity to lose a friend. i fancied he might have been speaking to you about something you didn't choose to be spoken to about. i'm glad it isn't so. i wonder what keeps him away. and not so much as a line. well, i dare say he'll be back to-morrow." her voice dropped wearily; in truth, she cared very little whether he came or not; there was only one whom she longed for, and he could never come again. but i--sorely as i too longed for that presence that she mourned--_i_ cared whether trayton harrod came again, and when he did not come i went to get news of him. joyce thought it very dreadful of me to go for a walk when our dead had been but so lately laid to rest, but joyce did not know. she too, perhaps, wondered at his absence, but she did not know, as i did, the reason for it. i went out of the house, across the garden, down the cliff where i had seen him disappear on that weird, moonlight night a month ago, down onto the marsh. the sun had gone behind the hill, for it was afternoon, but the sky was clear and limpid, the sea blue beyond the mellow marsh-land; along the banks of the dikes thorn-bushes studded the way--rosy-flushed from afar, but close at hand coral-tipped on every slender branch; and the water, shorn of its green rush-mantle, lay still and bare to the sky. i walked fast till i came to the white gate that divides sheepfold from cattle-pasture, and then i turned round to look back: if i chanced on the squire i should get news; but there was not a living thing to be seen on the land--i was alone with the birds and the water-rats. the cattle had been called off the marsh when the stormy weather set in, and i had forgotten to bring even the dog with me; it was so long since i had been for a walk. but the dear familiar land soothed me with its sadness. far away upon dikes where the scythe had not yet mown the rushes, broad streaks of orange color followed the lines of the banks or were dashed across the stream, tongues of flame in the sunlight. in the distance blue smoke soared slow and straight into the pale air from the fires of weed-burners in the ploughed furrows, and a shadow crossed the base of the town, whose pinnacle was still white in the afternoon light. along the under-cliff of the manor woods the crimson of beeches made gorgeous patches of painting upon the sombre background of pines, and larches held amber torches up among the paler gold of elm-trees. god's earth was very fair, but why had he taken away all that made it glad? not far from here had we two first met in the rain and mist; here had we started the lapwing in the green spring-time and scared the cuckoo from its nest, usurped; here had we many a time followed the game and learned the ways of birds and beasts; here had we gathered the hay and the harvest, and watched the sheep-shearing; here had we crossed the plain in the thunder and lightning of the storm. and all these things would happen again--the spring and the summer and the winter would come with their sights and their sounds, their life and their duties; the marsh-land would always be the same, but would it ever be the same again to me? ah, that day i did not think so! a shot sounded in the woods. it was the squire's keeper after the pheasants. it awoke me from my dream, but i must have been so still that even the rabbits thought i was not alive, for two of them ran out across my path. was i alive after all? i shook myself and went slowly on to where the marsh meets the road, and then i turned up across the ash copse on the hill--bare already of leaves--and took the path towards "the elms." yes, i had come out to hear news of trayton harrod, and i would not go back without it; somehow and from somebody i would learn where he was, and why he had gone. i walked fast when once i got in sight of the house; my heart was beating. it stood there--serene and solitary as usual--a bare, lonely, uninviting house, looking out from its quiet height upon the downs and the sheep-pastures, the sun-setting and the sunrising. there was never anything human about "the elms." it seemed to be intent just upon its daily work and its daily duties, and as though it might think that anything which interfered with them was not to be considered or countenanced. that day it looked more inhuman, more uninviting than ever; its white walls seemed to grin at me; its straight, tall chimneys, whence no friendly blue smoke sought the sky, seemed to point jeeringly away into the void. my heart sank as i climbed the hill and opened the gate of the farm-yard. i knew why the place looked more uninviting than ever--it was deserted, the shutters were closed, the house door was bolted; it was as if some one had died there, as some one had died at home. i knocked once, loudly, in desperation, but i knew that nobody would come. nobody did come; nobody came, though i knocked three times; all was still as the grave. as i walked down the hill again at last, i met dorcas's niece with her "youngest" in her arms. "lor', miss, who would ha' thought to meet you so soon after your poor father died!" said she, reproachfully. "i've just been down to the village to fetch some soap." "oh, i see. is mr. harrod expected home?" asked i, lamely. "home!" repeated she, gaping. "why, he's left the place this month past. all his traps went last week." i suppose my face showed how my heart had sunk down, for she added, half compassionately, "didn't you know he was going, miss?" i pulled myself together. miserable as i was, there was an instinct within me that did not want strangers to guess at my misery. "oh yes, i knew he was going," said i, carelessly; "but of course we have had too much to think about at home for me to remember just when it was." "why, yes, of course," echoed the woman, in the commiserating tone of her class under such circumstances. "ah, farmer was a good man, and none can say different! and, to tell the truth, many's the one have thought it queer mr. harrod should choose this time to go away. but he always were odd, and i suppose we must all look to our own advantage. there's no more work to be done on poor old knellestone farm--so folk say--and i suppose he had heard of something as would suit him. ah, it's very sad after all the years the family have been on the place." i dared not think what she meant, although i knew well enough; but this other blow had stunned me, and i could not speak, even had i chosen to bandy words, about poor father's affairs with a village gossip. "i'll go up with you and look round the house," said i. "it ain't tidied yet, miss," answered she, apologetically. "i was just going to wash and settle it all up." "never mind," insisted i. "i want to look for a book," and i led the way up the hill. "lor'! you won't find anything there," laughed she, following. "there isn't anything in the place." i went in, nevertheless. but she was right, he was gone indeed. the homely room was deserted where i had sat in the window-seat that summer evening reading words of milton that i did not understand, and watching the rising storm and the sheep cropping sleepily over the grassy knolls. there was not a book left of all those books that i had envied, and had thought he would think the better of me for reading; not a pipe on the rack above the mantle-shelf; not a sign to show that he had ever been there. and yet i saw it all before me just as it had been that day; i felt that unseen presence that i had never seen there, just as if he might open the door at any moment and come in. the woman left me for a moment, and i sat down on that window-seat once more. the sun was setting redly, as it so often set beyond those wide marsh-lands and their boundary line of downs; the valley was full of blue mist--blue as a wild hyacinth--against which the bended, broken, broad-topped pine-trees laid every branch of their dark tracery, abrupt, unsuspected, alert with individuality, strangely full of a reserved irregular grace. i remember the picture, yet i scarcely saw it; it must have fastened itself upon my memory, simply because it fitted so well with my own mood. oh me! when i had last been there harrod had not seen joyce, and now i said from my heart, "would to god he had not seen me!" yes, i said it from my heart; so much so that i was not content with mere regrets, i was resolved that trayton harrod should not go out into the world with that lie of mine in his heart--not if i could help it. i started up. i would go to the squire; i felt convinced now that the squire knew all about harrod's departure. the squire could at least tell me where he was that i might write to him. i walked across the empty room, and at the same moment mr. broderick opened the gate of the yard without. everything was happening just as it had happened that day; but oh, with what a difference! the squire's face grew pale--i could see that through the tanning on it; he had not expected to see me here, and his hand trembled as he took mine. but he said, gently: "i'm glad to see you out again. i came to look round the place. i hope we have been lucky enough to sublet it till your lease is up." from a business point of view the words swam over my head, but they were ominous. i felt that they confirmed what the woman had said. "you think we can't afford to keep on 'the elms?'" i asked, absently, not daring to put the question that was at my heart. "i think it would be unwise," answered he, evasively. "i think any one who manages your property will have enough to do without it." "mr. broderick," said i, suddenly, looking him full in the face, "has mr. harrod left us for good?" "yes," he answered, firmly, "for good." i could not speak for a moment, then trying hard to steady my voice, i said, "did you know it?" "yes," he answered. "i knew it." he no longer looked at me now, nor did either of us say anything for some time. he spoke first, saying, in quite an ordinary voice: "i don't think he was quite the fellow for the place. an older man with fewer new ideas would have been better." "was that the reason that he left?" asked i, in a muffled voice, although indeed i knew well enough that i was talking idly. "father did not send him away because of his new ideas." the squire brought his eyes round to my face. "i don't know the reason that he left," said he. and although i said nothing, i suppose there was some sort of an appealing look in my face that made him go on: "i only know that he came to me the night before your father was taken ill, and asked me, as a friend, to see after his work for him until a substitute could be found, because he was obliged to leave immediately. i asked no questions, and he told me nothing. of course i was glad to do what i could for--you all." he was silent, but i felt his eyes upon me. i met them, with that tender, pitying gaze in them, when at last i lifted mine. "mr. broderick," said i--and i felt that my voice faltered--"will you give me his address? i must write to him. there is something that i must say to him. i thought i should have seen him again, but--i must write it." he took out his note-book and wrote it down, handing me the leaf that he tore out. i don't think i even thanked him; i don't think i said good-bye; i just walked out of the door. the squire followed me for a few, steps. "i want to have a talk with you soon about your father's affairs," said he, trying to reach a cheerful and commonplace tone of voice. "yes--some day," said i, in a dull way. and i don't think i even turned round again to look at him. it was very rough, very ungrateful of me, but i couldn't bear another word. the only thought in my heart was to be at home--to be alone--to write my letter. i tore down the lane under the pine-trees in the gloaming. i ran so fast that i did not even notice two figures that passed me under the shadow of the wall on the opposite side; their heads were close together, and the woman, who was much shorter than the man, clung very close to his tall, slim person. it was not till some days afterwards that it occurred to me who those figures had been. i had not even a word for poor taffy, who sprang upon me reproachfully as i opened the gate of the farm-yard. i had forgotten to take him, but i had no thought even for that dumb and faithful companion just then; i only wanted to write my letter. i wrote it, but it was returned to me from the dead-letter office. two days afterwards deborah, taking courage at last to clean up the poor deserted parlor, found another letter in the old nankin jar on the mantle-piece, which served well enough as an answer to mine although it was sent so long before it; it was the letter which trayton harrod had written to father the day before he left. i had been in the garden, and when i came in mother sat with it in her lap. there was a shade more trouble than before on her worn white face, whence the dainty tints had all fled in these hard weeks. directly i came into the room i knew what the letter was. i had never had a letter from him--no, not a line. i don't remember that i had even seen his handwriting, but i knew whose the rugged uncompromising capitals were the moment i looked at them. i took the letter up and read it, and when i had read it i found some means of slipping it into my pocket; i wanted to keep it--it was the only letter i could ever have from him, but a strange love-letter truly. it was written in his curtest, most uncompromising style, saying what it had to say and no more. somehow i was glad that father had never seen it; it did my friend such grave injustice. it made no sort of excuse for quitting the place as he did, it merely said that as he felt he was useless there, he had decided to accept a post in australia, which would, however, oblige him to leave knellestone without the usual warning. it enclosed the sum of three months' salary, which he would have been supposed to forfeit for leaving without notice. it gave no address, and left no message; that was all. "it's very odd," said mother, looking at me as i read it, and slowly opening and shutting her spectacles in a nervous manner. "i don't at all understand it. but i suppose he had something better in view--and the farm is not what it was. it shows how one can be deceived in folk." and that was my punishment. i was obliged to let people think that they had been deceived in him. it was on my tongue to tell mother what i could. was it cowardice that kept me back, or was it that i scarcely knew what to tell? there seemed so little that was not bred of my own fancy--only i knew well enough that my fancy was right. and as the time passed, i knew more surely than ever that my fancy was right. he had said in his letter that there was nothing to keep him in the old country, but if he had seen joyce as i saw her, surely he would have guessed at my lie--he would have known that there _was_ something to keep him! two days after the discovery of trayton harrod's letter my sister told me that she had broken off her engagement with frank forrester. there had never been quite the same understanding as of yore between us two since that horrible scene of passion, when i had been so cruelly unjust to my poor joyce. she would have forgiven me, no doubt, but i was too proud to invite it. that day, however, she told me quite simply that she had broken off her engagement. "i ought never to have made it, meg," said she. "i did not think it was wicked then; i liked him to love me; but now i think it was wicked. it may be wrong to depart from one's word, but--i can't marry him." she spoke in a half-apologetic kind of way--as she had, no doubt, written to him. she had not seen those two figures pass along under the wall in the twilight, as i now remembered for the first time that i had seen them. but i said nothing; i was dumb. i think from that time forward i was dumb for a long time--dumb with remorse and the sense of my own utter helplessness--standing alone to see the river run by, which i had once fancied i could set in motion or stem at will. but her face, though stained with tears, which mine was not, was calm, her blue eyes were serene and trustful as ever. yet, ah me! how guiltily did i creep about her, how hungrily watch for every piece of news--for her! but he was gone, and it was through my fault. chapter xli. what more is there to say? if i had written all this ten years ago i should have said that there was nothing more to say, i should have said that my life was ended. but now i am not of that mind. thank god! there is more to say, and though there have been sad hours to live through, the haven has been reached at last. when father was dead and buried, they told us that we should have to leave the grange. i can remember how the blow fell on me. reuben had just buried luck, the old sheep-dog, under the big apple-tree. "the lord'll have to take me now," he had said, with tears in his dim eyes; "but i'd sooner die than see the old place go to the bad. i knowed what it 'd be when the master was called; and now that the dog's gone as well, there's no more luck for us. ay, if he'd ha' stuck to early perlifics we shouldn't ha' seen old knellestone come to the hammer." i don't believe i felt the thrust, i don't believe i ever saw the comic incongruity of the situation, when, leaning forward on his spade and gazing tearfully at the grave of his old dumb comrade, he had turned to me saying, confidentially: "there'll be a rare crop of apples this year, miss. there's nothing for an apple-tree like a dead dog." but reuben was a philosopher and i was no philosopher; and of the days that followed, the days when deborah went about with a grim, wise air, as one who had known all along what would happen--the days when mother wandered aimlessly from the chairs and presses to the old writing-table where father had sat so many years, and the eight-day clock that had summoned us as children to breakfast and prayers--of those horrible days i cannot speak. i dare not remember the guilty feeling with which i felt mother's eyes upon me when the squire delayed to come for that "business talk" that he had asked leave for; i might have found spirit once more to scorn deborah's more openly expressed upbraiding, but mother's silent reproach made my heart sick. we were wrong, however, to doubt the squire. he came in spite of deb's cruel, covert taunts, in spite of mother's hopeless eyes. if he had not come earlier, it was only because he was waiting till he had good news to bring. i can see him now as he walked once more into that parlor where we had had so many eager discussions, so many friendly meetings and half-fancied quarrels, so many affectionate reconciliations! the late autumn sun shone in through the three deep windows upon the worn old turkey carpet and leather chairs, upon the polished spindle-backed seats that stood on either side of the hearth--one empty now forever; it almost put the fire out, and touched the copper fire-irons into flame. i suppose it was the sun that made the squire's face look so ruddy and so radiant. radiant it most certainly was, and yet, at the same time, half shamefaced too as he said that he had just come from a meeting of the creditors, and that he had every reason to hope that father's affairs would be satisfactorily arranged. i don't think i believed him at the time, i think i was almost hurt when he met my trembling question, as to whether we should have to leave knellestone, with a laugh. but oh, what a relief was that laugh from the visits of condolence we had had! he did not forget father although he did not speak of him in words: the awe that had surrounded the death-bed was gone, but not the sacred burden that it had left. yet i did not understand when he said that the creditors had been satisfied. even when the dreaded day of the sale came, and mother kept her old friends in chairs and tables and presses, and linen within the presses, and joyce kept her favorite cows in the dairy, and i even the mare that had been the innocent means of first bringing romance within our quiet family--when the farm was not even deprived of a single one of the mowing and threshing machines that had caused so much strife--i, ignorant as i was of business, never even guessed in what way an "arrangement" had been come to! it was old reuben again--sitting by the chimney-corner crippled with rheumatism, or, as he himself expressed it, with all his constitution run into his legs--it was poor old reuben who had told me the truth. shrewd deb knew it and was silent, but reuben--too shrewd or not shrewd enough to be silent, told me the tale: if squire had not bought in all the stock and the furniture before it ever came to the hammer, we shouldn't have been in the grange now, living practically very much the same life as we had always lived. ah me! i knew well enough why the squire had taken such pains to conceal from us all that he had done anything more than effect a compromise with the creditors. but i ought to have guessed. if i had not been so much wrapped up in my own personal pains and feelings i _should_ have guessed it, and when i next met him i nerved myself to speak on the subject. how well i recall his explanation! "folk in the country grow to depend so on one another that i couldn't do with strangers at the grange while i'm alive," he had said; "so you must forgive me if i played a game to serve my own ends. the place might have stood empty ever so long. farms do nowadays." we must have been riding eastward over the downs, for i can remember that the wind blew keen in our faces, and that the sky was leaden overhead, almost as dull as the wide, dull marsh below it: it was winter. i know that, even at the time, i recalled another night when i had ridden with the squire; then the west was raging crimson behind us, and the moon rose yellow out of the sea; it had been summer. "there is no one else in the world who would have done for us what you have done for us, nor any one else in the world from whom we could take it," i had murmured, in a trembling voice. "it is for father's sake." "it is not all for your father's sake," the squire had answered, softly, with grave and tender face, his blue eyes shining down on me with a deep, bright light. by a sudden impulse i recollect holding out my hand to him. "i know you are my friend and i am your friend," i had said. "we shall always be friends till we die." and all through the dreary days that followed, that friendship, that needed no words to tell and that no parting could weaken, warmed my empty heart at a time when the world seemed to hold no further joy nor even such comparative content as a respite from remorse. for, alas! joyce slowly faded and saddened before my eyes, and all my passionate love for her came back, making the thought of her wasted youth, her tarnished loveliness, her happiness uselessly spoiled through my fault, almost heavier than i could bear. for it was spoiled though she spoke no word. at first the tall, slim figure--more quakerly neat than ever in its straight black gown--went about the household duties just as serenely as before, and the face, so dazzlingly fair a flower on the dark stem, shone as innocently content as of yore. i could scarcely believe that she could have seen that cruel letter, with its upright, rugged characters, that seemed to have sent away the last drop of blood from my heart. her hope must have been high or she could never have kept so patient a countenance. but however high it may have been, it began to fade. i had said to myself that joyce could not feel, but--ah me, how little can we know how much other people feel! i could see her feeling through the tremulous sensitiveness of the face that once seemed to me so impossible to ruffle--i could hear it through the thin sound of her timid voice, in her rare speech and rarer laughter--and i knew that my loved sister was unhappy. yes, she was unhappy; life was as dead to her as it was to me, and it was i--i, loving her--who had killed her joy for her, and killed it wilfully. may no one whom i love ever know, what it is to feel remorse! a whisper ran round the village that joyce maliphant was pining away her beauty for love of the gay young captain who had once courted her, and who was now going to wed with miss mary thorne, the heiress. deb told me of it, she had heard the rumor coming out of church; but i don't believe we, any of us, thought that it mattered much what frank forrester did. he could never have made joyce happy, why should he not make mary thorne happy? there had been tears in her eyes when the news of his accident had come, there had been no tears in joyce's. no, what really mattered was that my sister's face was growing paler and thinner, and that at last the day came when they told us that unless we could make up our minds to part from joyce for a while, we might have to part from her forever. i hope i may never feel again the heart-sick pang that went through me as the doctor said those words. i had thought that no such pang could be worse than that i had felt when father had told me he was going to die; but this was worse, for joyce was young, and had the right still to a long and happy life, and if she was deprived of it, it was i who had deprived her. i went to work with an aching spirit to arrange how it should be that joyce should leave us for warmer lands. mother had a married brother living at melbourne, and to him it was decided at last that joyce should go for a couple of years. we found her an escort in some friends of the squire's, and the only little grain of comfort i had in the whole matter was that if joyce was to leave us, it was to go to the same country whither trayton harrod had fled a year before. but australia was a large field, and unless they were to meet by the purest accident, trayton harrod was not likely ever to seek joyce out. was it some such faint and wild hope, i wonder, or merely the feeling that i could not part from that dear heart without making a clean breast of my sin to it, which made me say what i did when the last moment came? i don't know. i only know that as we stood there in the little waiting-room of the london docks, while mother stooped from her usual shy dignity to beg the kindness and care of this unknown friend of the squire's for her suffering child, i felt suddenly that i could not let joyce go from me with that lie weighing on my heart--i felt that i _must_ have her forgiveness! i cannot imagine how i had endured so long without it. i had hungered for _his_ forgiveness, whom i had wronged less cruelly, because i owed him less devotion, and had been able to live side by side with her without asking for her pardon whose life i had so wrecked. many a time in those past months i had started to find the squire's perplexed eyes upon me, following mine that were fixed upon joyce, and i had blushed with shame, knowing what it was that put that look in me which puzzled him; and many a time i had vowed that i would abase myself and tell her all, yet never had found the courage. but now, when the last chance was slipping from me, the courage came. it came, i think, because joyce stood suddenly revealed before me in the grandeur of her simple goodness, her power of silent and loving sacrifice; it came because i had no fear, because i was ashamed of my very shame, because i was sure of her forgiveness. she stood with her hand in mine, her figure very tall and slim in the straight black gown, her face very fair and fragile in the frame of the neat little close bonnet. she might have been a nun, so quiet and orderly her outward demeanor, so calm her beautiful face, and yet when i looked again i saw that there were tears in the blue eyes that looked away from me to the tangled mass of shipping in the dock, and to the confused net-work of masts and rigging that lay black against the leaden, wintry sky. "o joyce, darling," i cried, seizing her hand wildly, "don't cry! i can't bear it." she did not answer, she was afraid of trusting herself to speak, but, true to her perfect unselfishness, she turned to me and smiled. "you'll get well, you know," i went on, with determined cheerfulness; "you'll get quite well and come back to us very soon." still she smiled that heart-breaking smile, nodding her head, however, as though to confirm my cheerful words. then came my burst of confidence. "if you were _not_ to come back quite well," said i, in a low voice, "i think, joyce, i should die. it's all my fault." at that she spoke. she did not seem surprised at my words, but only anxious to deny them so as to remove any pain of my self-reproach. "oh no, no, meg," she said, softly. "not your fault, dear. things like that are never any one's fault." she thought i only meant that my love for harrod had stood in the way of her accepting his, because _she_, brave and unselfish in what i used to call her coldness, would have given him up to me. but i couldn't let her think that i had meant only that. "joyce," said i, firmly, "if it hadn't been for me, trayton harrod would have married you." i saw that the name hurt her like the lash of a whip. "oh, don't, don't!" she murmured, with pain in her eyes. "i beg your pardon," said i, humbly, "but i must tell you. i can't let you go away without telling you the truth. o joyce, my poor, dear joyce, however much it pains you i must tell you. i don't mean only what you think. i don't mean only that i didn't go away, that i didn't behave as generously towards you as you would have done towards me. i mean--o joyce, how can i tell you? but i was mad with jealousy, and i told him that you loved frank. i sent him away from you." i had hurried the words out without preparation, i was so afraid of being interrupted--and now i was frightened. every drop of the blood that was left in that poor, wan face fled from it. i thought she was going to faint, but she stood firm, only her eyes seemed to turn to stone, to see nothing. "o joyce, darling, don't look like that!" cried i, in an agony. "speak to me. say something." she closed her hand over mine, and her lips moved, but i could not hear a word. "i shall never, never forgive myself so long as i live," murmured i, a sob rising in my throat; "but if _you_ do not forgive me, joyce, i think i shall die, joyce." "poor meg!" murmured my sister at last, and then the lump that had been rising in my throat broke into a sob, and the tears rushed to my eyes. for a moment i could not speak. i got rid of my tears as well as i could, and looking at her, i saw, yes, thank god! i saw that her eyes were wet too. "can you forgive me, joyce?" i faltered. "yes, i think _you_ can. you are good enough." "forgive you!" echoed she, faintly. and her sweet mouth breaking into the tremulous smile that was its familiar ornament, she added, "dear, _you_ have been unhappy too." they were few words, but what more perfect expression of tenderest forgiveness could there be? i wanted no more. i knew there was no bitterness, that there never would be any bitterness, in my sister's heart towards me. there was no one in the waiting-room, mother had gone out onto the wharf with the strange lady; i put my arms round joyce's neck, and drew her face down to mine. "god bless you!" i said, reverently, and i think for the first time in my life i felt what the words meant. "it's all for the best, dear," added she, gently, leaning her cheek against my hair. "you know we never really do alter things that are going to happen by anything we do. it's arranged for us by a wise providence." it was the simple faith that had always guided her life; it had often annoyed my more impetuous and self-willed spirit, but it did not annoy me now; there was a soothing in it. but there was no time for further speech; mother came back again, it was time to go on board. i busied myself with the luggage and with talking to joyce's escort--a kindly, good-natured couple--and left mother and daughter together. the parting was over all too quickly, and we were left standing on the wharf alone, mother and i, watching the big black mass steer its way slowly among the crowd of shipping, watching the tall black figure on the deck until, even in imagination, it faded from us, and we looked but on the interminable rows of black masts against the lurid sunset of a bleak winter evening. when we were safe in the cab again, homeward bound, i did what i had done only once in my life before, and that was on the night when the mare threw me and i had first fancied that trayton harrod loved my sister--i put my head down on my mother's breast and wept my heart out on hers. it was selfish of me, for i should have thought of her grief, and yet i do not think that it intensified it; i think, somehow, my tears did her good. she said nothing, but she stroked my hair tenderly, and from that moment there was opened up between us a new vein of sympathy that had never been there before, and that left something sweet in life still, even in the sad and empty home to which we came back. it was an empty home indeed. the squire could no longer cheer its solitude with his genial presence. he had gone abroad. the manor was shut up, and there was no sign of life about the dear old place, that held so many happy memories, but the sound of the keeper's gun in the copses above the marsh, and the cawing of the familiar rooks that circled round the old chapel at eventide. i dared not complain, things might have been so much worse. the farm was still our own. a new bailiff and i managed it together, but though i had reached what, a while ago, would have been the summit of my ambition, it was gone. i no longer cared to have my own way; save for a somewhat vain struggle to keep up father's theories as far as i could, i let the new man do as he liked; he made the farm pay us a moderate income, and i asked no questions. my duty to mother was the plain thing before me, and i threw myself into that now, as i had thrown myself into personal ambition before--the farm must be made to keep her comfortably. but for all my devotion to her, these were dreary days. with my new passion for self-sacrifice, i refused to leave her for the rambles of old, and the want of fresh air and exercise told on me a bit. the only things that broke the monotony of our life were our letters from joyce and from the squire. he wrote to me regularly, telling me of all that he was seeing, of all that he was doing--the kind letters of a friend, from whose thoughts, it made me happy to think, i was never long absent. i would scarcely have believed a year ago that it would have made me as low-spirited as it did, when one of the squire's letters was a little delayed. i think i missed them almost more than i should have missed one of joyce's, for--save for knowing that she was better, and, as i faintly began to hope, a little happier--her letters were so entirely unlike herself that they gave one but scant satisfaction; whereas the squire's, without breathing a word that was out of the common, were full of himself and his own characteristics. in spite, however, of these red-letter days, the hours were long hours, and the days gray days for me. i worked as of old through summer and winter, spring and autumn, flower and fruit, sowing and reaping, but the seasons were not the same to me as they once had been. i loved the sunless days, with their fields and mysteries of cloud, soft promises of a far-off heaven, ever-changing, ever-unknown depths--i loved them as i could not love the sunshine. i was not always unhappy, for i was young, and out of the past upon which i mused, many a note of suffering had had its answering whisper of joy; but upon the marsh there lay a shade which had not been there when i was a merry, thoughtless girl. * * * * * thus far had i written, and i thought my task was finished; but to-night, as i lean out of my window, watching the pale moon sink cradled in gray clouds, and make a misty silver path across the lonely land that is woven into my life, i want to reopen my book that i may set down in it one last word. it is not half an hour since i stood down there on the cliff waiting for a carriage to come along the white road that crosses the plain. two were in that carriage--the sister whom i had loved and betrayed, the man whom i had loved, and for whom i had betrayed her. they were returning together from a distant land, where they had met once more. my heart was full of thankfulness, and yet--when i felt the aspens shiver again in the night breeze as they had done that evening ten years ago--i seemed to hear the deep voice in my ear, and to feel the cold strike to my heart as it spoke. but it was not _his_ voice that spoke; another stood at my side, one who had come back to me from a long parting, the friend of my life, the lover of ten years who had never spoken but once of his love, who had never put a kiss upon my lips. i scarcely know what he said--simple words enough, but they told me of his tender pity and untiring sympathy, they opened the floodgates of my burdened heart, and i told him all my tale. i shrank from nothing. i told him of my wild, unreasoned passion that, deep as it had been, was not all that i could imagine love might be; i told him of my selfish sin, of my long and bitter remorse, of my thankfulness that the punishment was removed, and that joyce was coming back to me happy in spite of my great wrong to her. i did not ask myself what this longing to confess to the squire meant in me, and yet the confession was by no means an easy matter; and when all was told, my heart sank within me at his silence, and i felt as though i could not bear it if _he_ should be ashamed of me, if he should take away his friendship from me because i had done an unworthy thing. but i suppose one does not love people nor cease to love them for what they do or for what they leave undone; for certain it is that when the squire spoke at last there was something in his voice that told me he was not ashamed of me, that same "something" that had been so silent all these years, that i sometimes wondered if it was still alive. the squire has gone home, and all the house is at rest; but i still look out of my little attic window whence i have seen the sea for so many years. below me a mist lies upon the dike like a white pall upon some cherished grave. it is just such a night as that night ten years ago--only with a difference: the dim plain is not so cold, the light has a promise of brightness. and in my heart, too, there is a brightness which i am almost afraid to believe can be mine. i am happy because joyce is happy, because joyce is beautiful once more as she was beautiful when i first wanted a lover to love her. but it is not only thankfulness for the stain blotted out, peaceful resignation to the inevitable, which makes light in my soul to-night. there is a new picture growing slowly out of the clouds as they part and melt around the moon; there is a new harmony coming to me at last out of the very monotony of the marsh-land. above the lonely plain the night is blue and vast. the end. transcriber's notes. page : changed ofter to after page : changed you've sister to your sister page : changed heeard to heard page : removed the word 'the' from 'said the mother' page : changed instincttively to instinctively proofreading team. [illustration: hurstmonceux.] seaward sussex the south downs from end to end by edric holmes one hundred illustrations by mary m. vigers maps and plans by the author london: robert scott roxburghe house paternoster row, e.c. mcmxx "how shall i tell you of the freedom of the downs-- you who love the dusty life and durance of great towns, and think the only flowers that please embroider ladies' gowns-- how shall i tell you ..." edward wyndham tempest. every writer on sussex must be indebted more or less to the researches and to the archaeological knowledge of the first serious historian of the county, m.a. lower. i tender to his memory and also to his successors, who have been at one time or another the good companions of the way, my grateful thanks for what they have taught me of things beautiful and precious in seaward sussex. e.h. contents chap. introduction i lewes ii to eastbourne and pevensey iii shaford to brighton iv brighton v shoreham and worthing vi arundel and the arun vii the valley of the rother viii goodwood and bognor ix chichester x selsey and bosham appendix-- the sussex downs from end to end. london to the south downs. the weald. railway routes. index the traveller through sussex, as through every other english shire, will find many reminders of the great war in church, churchyard or village green. some are imposing or beautiful, some, alas, are neither, or are out of keeping with the quiet peace of their surroundings. to mention any, however striking in themselves or interesting in their connexion, would be invidious as, at the time of writing, lack of labour or material has prevented the completion of a great number of them. the local historian of the future will bring a woeful number of his family records to a final close with the brief but glorious inscription on the common tablet where plough-boy and earl's son are commemorated side by side. the sketch maps accompanying this book are simply for convenience in identifying the route followed therein. wanderers upon the downs and in the highways and byways at their feet will find bartholomew's "half-inch" map, sheet , the most useful. this scale is much to be preferred to the "one inch" parent which lacks the contour colouring. list of illustrations hurstmonceux _frontispiece_ near alciston market cross, alfriston a sussex lane, jevington willingdon lamb inn, eastbourne wannock old house, petworth the barbican, lewes castle st. anne's church, lewes the priory ruins, lewes anne of cleves house, southover the grange, southover cliffe firle beacon alfriston church alfriston lullington church litlington west dean east dean beachy head old parsonage, eastbourne jevington pevensey westham wilmington green newhaven church bishopstone church porch seaford church seaford head rottingdean brighton the pavilion, brighton st. nicholas, brighton st. peter's, brighton poynings danny hurstpierpoint wolstonbury portslade harbour shoreham and the adur new shoreham old shoreham sompting coombes upper beeding bramber st. mary's, bramber steyning grammar school, steyning old houses, steyning chanctonbury ring findon broadwater salvington mill old houses at tarring beckets' palace, tarring arundel from the river arundel castle the keep, arundel arundel gateway arundel church lyminster clymping church street, littlehampton littlehampton harbour amberley castle stopham bridge byworth petworth church petworth house saddler's row, petworth cowdray the granary, cowdray market square, midhurst midhurst church east lavant felpham boxgrove priory church chichester cathedral chichester palace and cathedral bell tower, chichester chichester cross st. mary's hospital, chichester fishbourne manor fishbourne church bosham bosham mill bosham, the strand harting cowdray cottage middle house, mayfield high street, east grinstead sackville college causeway, horsham pond street, petworth steyning church north mill, midhurst knock hundred row, midhurst plans. geology of the downs lewes the eastern downs the brighton downs old and new shoreham the valley of the arun arundel chichester chichester cathedral the lowlands the western downs the roads from london to the downs architectural terms _the following brief notes will assist the traveller who is not an expert, in arriving at the approximate date of ecclesiastical buildings._ saxon - . simple and heavy structure. very small wall openings. narrow bands of stone in exterior walls. norman - . round arches. heavy round or square pillars. cushion capitals. elaborate recessed doorways. zig-zag ornament. transition - . round arched windows combined with pointed structural arch. round pillars sometimes with slender columns attached. foliage ornament on capitals. early english - (including geometrical). pointed arches. pillars with detached shafts. moulded or carved capitals. narrow and high pointed windows. later period--geometrical trefoil and circular tracery in windows. decorated - . high and graceful arches. deep moulding to pillars. convex moulding to capitals with natural foliage. "ball flower" ornament. elaborate and flamboyant window tracery. perpendicular - . arches lower and flattened. clustered pillars. windows and doors square-headed with perpendicular lines. grotesque ornament. (the last fifty years of the sixteenth century were characterized by a debased gothic style with italian details in the churches and a beauty and magnificence in domestic architecture which has never since been surpassed.) jacobean and georgian - are adaptations of the classical style. the "gothic revival" dates from . [illustration: near alciston.] introduction "then i saw in my dream, that on the morrow he got up to go forwards, but they desired him to stay till the next day also, and then said they, we will (if the day be clear) show you the delectable mountains, which they said, would yet further add to his comfort, because they were nearer the desired haven than the place where at present he was. so he consented and staid. when the morning was up they had him to the top of the house, and bid him look south, so he did; and behold at a great distance he saw a most pleasant mountainous country, beautified with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts; flowers also, with springs and fountains, very delectable to behold." every one who has followed the fortunes of christian in the stately diction of the _pilgrim's progress_ must wish to know from whence came those wonderful word pictures with which the dreamer of bedford jail gems his masterpiece. that phrase "delectable mountains" conjures up in each individual reader's mind those particular hills wherever they may be, which are his own peculiar delight, and for which, exiled, his spirit so ardently longs. it is not presuming too much to suppose that the scene in bunyan's mind was that long range of undulating downs sometimes rising into bold and arresting shape, and always with their finest aspect toward the bedford plains and him who cast longing eyes toward them. from almost any slight eminence on the south of bedford town on a clear day the dunstable and ivinghoe hills are to be seen in distant beauty, and there is the strongest similarity between them and those glorious summits which every man of sussex knows and loves so well. the chiltern hills and the south downs are built up of the same material, have had their peculiarities of shape and form carved by the same artificers--rain and frost, sun and wind; their flowers are the same, and to outward seeming their sons and daughters are the same in the way that all hill folk are alike and yet all differ in some subtle way from the dweller in the plains. be this so or not our downs are to us delectable mountains, and let the reader who scoffs at the noun remember that size is no criterion of either beauty or sublimity. that sussex lover and greatest of literary naturalists, gilbert white, in perhaps his most frequently quoted passage so characterizes the "majestic chain"; to his contemporaries such a description was not out of place; our great grandfathers were appalled when brought from the calm tranquillity of the southern slopes to the stern dark melancholy of the mountains of cumberland and westmoreland. the diary descriptions of those timid travellers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are full of such adjectives as "terrible," "frightful," "awful." one unlucky individual's nerves caused him to stigmatize as "ghastly and disgusting" one of the finest scenes in the lake district, probably unsurpassed in europe for its perfectly balanced beauty of form and splendour of colouring. to the general reader of those times the descriptive poems of wordsworth were probably unmeaning rhapsodies. our ancestors, however, were very fond of "prospects." an old atlas of the counties of england, published about , came into the writer's hands recently. the whole of the gentler hills, including every possible vantage point in the downs, had been most carefully and neatly marked with the panorama visible from the summit; but even kinder scout and the malverns came in for the same fate as the welsh and cumberland mountains, all of which had been left severely alone, though the intrepid traveller had braved the terrors of the wrekin, while such heights as barton hill in leicestershire and leith hill in surrey were heavily scored with names of places seen, the latter including that oft-told tale--a legend, so far as the present writer is aware--of st. paul's dome and the sea being visible with a turn of the head. though our idea of proportion in relation to scenery has suffered a change, gilbert white's phrase must not be sneered at; and most comparisons are stupidly unfair. the outline of mount caburn is a rounded edition of the most perfect of all forms. the rolling undulations of the tamest portions of the range are broken by combes whose sides are steep enough to give a spice of adventure to their descent. the "prospects," as such, are immeasurably superior to those obtainable from most of the mountains of the north and west, where a distant view is rare by reason of the surrounding chain of heights, and where the chance of any view at all to reward the climber is remote unless he chooses that fortnight in early june or late september when the peaks are usually unshrouded. really bad weather, long continued, is uncommon in the down country. a dull or wet spell is soon over. the writer has set out from worthing in a thin drizzle of the soaking variety, descending from a sky of lead stretching from horizon to horizon, which in the north would be accepted as an institution of forty-eight hours at least, and on arriving at the summit of chanctonbury has been rewarded by a glorious green and gold expanse glittering under a dome of intense blue. [illustration: market cross, alfriston.] from the wooded heights of the hampshire border to that grand headland where the hills find their march arrested by the sea, the escarpment of the downs is sixty miles long and every mile is beautiful. it would be an ideal holiday, a series of holy days, to follow the edge all the way, meeting with only three valley breaks of any importance; but the charm of the hill villages nestling in their tree embowered and secluded combes would be too much for any ordinary human, especially if he were thirsty, so in this book the traveller is taken up and down without any regard for his consequent fatigue, when it is assured that his rest will be sweet, even though it may be only under a hawthorn bush! [illustration: a sussex lane, jevington.] "no breeze so fresh and invigorating as that of the sussex downs; no turf so springy to the feet as their soft greensward. a flight of larks flies past us, and a cloud of mingled rooks and starlings wheel overhead.... the fairies still haunt this spot, and hold their midnight revels upon it, as yon dark rings testify. the common folk hereabouts term the good people 'pharisees' and style these emerald circles 'hagtracks.' why, we care not to enquire. enough for us, the fairies are not altogether gone. a smooth soft carpet is here spread out for oberon and titania and their attendant elves, to dance upon by moonlight...." (ainsworth: _ovingdean grange_.) "he described the downs fronting the paleness of the earliest dawn and then their arch and curve and dip against the pearly grey of the half-glow; and then among their hollows, lo, the illumination of the east all around, and up and away, and a gallop for miles along the turfy, thymy, rolling billows, land to left, sea to light below you.... compare you the alps with them? if you could jump on the back of an eagle, you might. the alps have height. but the downs have swiftness. those long stretching lines of the downs are greyhounds in full career. to look at them is to set the blood racing! speed is on the downs, glorious motion, odorous air of sea and herb, exquisite as the isles of greece." (geo. meredith: _beauchamp's career_.) the most delightful close springy turf covers the downs with a velvet mantle, forming the most exhilarating of all earthly surfaces upon which to walk and the most restful on which to stretch the wearied body. most delightful also are the miniature flowers which gem and embroider the velvet; gold of potentilla, blue of gentian, pink and white of milkwort, purple of the scabious and clustered bell-flower; the whole robe scented with the fragrance of sweet thyme. several unfamiliar species of orchis may be found and also the rare and beautiful rampion, "the pride of sussex." the hills are a paradise for birds; the practice of snaring the wheatear for market has lately fallen into desuetude and the "sussex ortolan" is becoming more numerous than it was a dozen years ago. every epicure should be interested in the numerous "fairy rings," sufficient evidence of the abundance of mushrooms which will spring up in the night after a moist day. one of the most comfortable traits of our chalk hills however is the marvellous quickness with which the turf dries after rain. those who have experienced the discomfort of walking the fells of cumberland and westmoreland, which at most seasons of the year resemble an enormous wet sponge, often combined with the real danger of bog and morass, will appreciate the better conditions met with in sussex hill rambling. where the chalk is uncovered it becomes exceedingly slippery after a shower, but there is rarely a necessity to walk thereon. the pedestrian on the downs should use caution after dusk; chalk pits are not seen, under certain conditions, until the wayfarer is on the verge. holes in the turf are of frequent occurrence and may be the cause of a twisted ankle, or worse, when far from help. the "dene holes" are of human origin. once thought to be primitive dwelling places, they are now supposed to have been merely excavations for the sake of the chalk or the flints contained therein, and possibly adapted for the storage of grain. of equal interest are the so-called "dew ponds," of which a number are scattered here and there close to the edge of the northern escarpment. undoubtedly of prehistoric origin, the art of making the pond has become traditional and some have been built by shepherds still living. these pools of clear cool water high up on the crest of a hill gain a mysterious air by their position, but their existence is capable of a scientific explanation. built in the first place to be as nearly as possible non-conducting, with an impervious "puddled" bottom, the pond is renewed every night to a certain extent by the dew which trickles down each grass and reed stem into the reservoir beneath, and to a much greater extent by the mists which drift over the edge to descend in rain on the weald. the pools might well be called "cloud ponds." [illustration: willingdon.] the most lovely scenes, the best view points, are described in their proper place. the question as to which is the finest section of the downs must be left to the individual explorer. to some natures the free bare wind-swept expanse at the back of brighton will appeal the most. by others the secret woods which climb from hidden combe and dry gully, mostly terminating in a bare top, and which are all west of the arun, will be considered incomparably the best. to every man of lewes the isolated mass of hills which rise on the east of the town are _the_ downs. but all must be seen to be truly appreciated and loved as they will be loved. hotels will not be found in the downs; the tourist who cannot live without them will find his wants supplied within but a few miles at any of the numerous londons by the sea; but that will not be sussex pure and undefiled, and if simplicity and cleanliness, enough to eat and drink, and a genuine welcome are all that is required, he will find these in our downland inns. it is in the more remote of these hostelries that the inquisitive stranger will hear the south saxon dialect in its purity and the slow wit of the sussex peasant at its best. the old downland shepherd with embroidered smock and pyecombe crook is vanishing fast, and with him will disappear a good deal of the character which made the sussex native essentially different from his cousins of essex and wessex. [illustration: lamb inn, eastbourne.] one of the most delightful records of rustic life ever printed is that study in the "wealden formation of human nature" by the former rector of burwash, john cocker egerton, entitled _sussex folk and sussex ways_. true, the book is mainly about wealden men and we are more concerned with the hill tribes, but the shrewd wit and quaint conceits of the south saxon portrayed therein will be readily recognized by the leisurely traveller who has the gift of making himself at home with strangers. it is to be hoped that in the great and epoch-making changes that are upon us in this twentieth century some at least of the individual characteristics of the english peasantry will remain. it is the divergent and opposite traits of the tribes which make up the english folk that have helped to make us great. may we long be preserved from a wellsian uniformity! a brief description of the geological history of the range may not be amiss here. it will be noted by the traveller from the north that the opposing line of heights in surrey have their steepest face (or "escarpment") on the south side, while the sussex downs have theirs on the north. a further peculiarity lies in the fact that the river valleys which cut across each range from north to south are opposite each other, thus pointing to the probability that the fracture which caused the clefts was formerly continuous for fifty miles through the great dome of chalk which extended over what is now the weald. the elevation of this "dome," caused by the shrinking and crumpling of the earth's crust and consequent rise of the lower strata, was never an actual smooth rise and fall from the sea to the thames valley; through the ages during which this thrust from below was in progress the crown of the dome would be in a state of comparatively rapid disintegration, and it is because of this that we have no isolated masses of chalk remaining between the two lines of hills. the highlands called by geologists the "forest ridge" are in the centre and are the lowest strata of the upheaval; they are the so-called hastings sands which enter the sea at that town half-way between beachy head and dover cliffs. north and south of this ridge is the lower greensand, forming in sussex the low hills near heathfield, cuckfield and petworth, and which reaches the sea south and north of hastings. it was at one time supposed that the face of the downs originally formed a white sea cliff and that an arm of the sea stretched across what we know as the weald, but the simpler explanation is undoubtedly the correct one. [illustration: wannock.] the downs themselves are composed of various qualities of chalk; some of such a hard, smooth and workable material that, as will be seen presently, the columns in some of the downland churches are made from this native "rock." while the upper strata is soft and contains great quantities of flints, the middle layers are brittle and yield plenty of fossils, lower still is the marl, a greyish chalk of great value in the fertilization of the gault. this latter forms an enormous moist ditch or gutter at the foot of the escarpment, and from the farmer's point of view is essentially bad land, requiring many tons of marl to be mixed with it before this most difficult of all clays becomes fertile. between the chalk and the gault clay is a very narrow band of upper greensand, only occasionally noticeable in the southern range, but strongly marked in the north downs. "the chalk is our landscape and our proper habitation. the chalk gave us our first refuge in war by permitting those vast encampments on the summits. the chalk filtered our drink for us and built up our strong bones; it was the height from the slopes of which our villages, standing in a clear air, could watch the sea or the plain; we carved it--when it was hard enough; it holds our first ornaments; our clear streams run over it; the shapes and curves it takes and the kind of close rough grass it bears (an especial grass for sheep) are the cloak of our counties; its lonely breadths delight us when the white clouds and the necks move over them together; where the waves break it into cliffs, they are characteristic of our shores, and through its thin coat of whitish mould go the thirsty roots of our three trees--the beech, the holly, and the yew. for the clay and the sand might be deserted or flooded and the south country would still remain, but if the chalk hills were taken away we might as well be in the midlands." (hilaire belloc: _the old road_.) [illustration: geology of the downs.] a description of these hills, however short, would be incomplete without some reference to the sheep, great companies of which roam the sunlit expanse with their attendant guardians--man and dog (who deserve a chapter to themselves). southdown mutton has a fame that is extra-territorial; it has been said that the flavour is due to the small land snail of which the sheep must devour millions in the course of their short lives. but the explanation is more probably to be found in the careful breeding of the local farmers of a century or so ago. gilbert white refers to two distinct breeds--"to the west of the adur ... all had horns, smooth white faces and white legs, but east of that river all flocks were poll sheep (hornless) ... black faces with a white tuft of wool." since that day, however, east has been west and west east and the twain have met. [illustration: old house, petworth.] the traveller _may_ be fortunate enough to come across a team of oxen ploughing. the phenomenon is yearly becoming more rare; but within sight and sound of the eastbourne expresses between plumpton and cooksbridge this archaic survival from a remote past is more likely to be seen than elsewhere. the oxen are usually black and are the remnants of a particular breed, the outcome of a long and slow experiment in getting the right sort of draught animal. the ploughs themselves, as jefferies says, "must have been put together bit by bit in the slow years--slower than the ox.... how many thousand, thousand clods must have been turned in the furrows before ... the curve to be given to this or that part grew upon the mind, as the branch grows upon the tree!" but the downs are not scarred to any great extent by cultivation. the sheep and the birds are mostly in sole possession and are almost the only living moving things on the hills. the fox, though at one time common, is now very rarely seen, for game, with the disappearance of gorse and bramble, has almost vanished, and other beasts of prey, weasel and stoat, shun the open uplands where the only enemy of field mouse and vole is the eagle of the south country, the peregrine falcon. [illustration: the barbican, lewes castle.] seaward sussex chapter i lewes "lewes is the most romantic situation i ever saw"; thus defoe, and the capital of sussex shares with rye and arundel the distinction of having a continental picturesqueness more in keeping with old france than with one of the home counties of england. this, however, is only the impression made by the town when viewed as a whole; its individual houses, its churches and castle, and above all, its encircling hills are england, and england at her best and dearest to those who call sussex home. the beauty of the surroundings when viewed from almost any of its old world streets and the charm of the streets themselves make the old town an ever fresh and welcome resort for the tired londoner who appreciates a quiet holiday. as a centre for the exploration of east sussex lewes has no equal; days may be spent before the interest of the immediate neighbourhood is exhausted; for those who are vigorous enough for hill rambling the paths over the downs are dry and passable in all weathers, and the downs themselves, even apart from the added interest of ancient church or picturesque farm and manor, are ample recompense for the small toil involved in their exploration. [illustration: sketch plan of the borough of lewes.] the origin of lewes goes back to unknown times, the very meaning of the name is lost, its situation in a pass and on the banks of the only navigable river in east sussex inevitably made it a place of some importance. it is known that athelstan had two mints here and that the norman castle was only a rebuilding by william de warenne on the site of a far older stronghold. to this de warenne, the conqueror, with his usual liberality, presented the town, and it is from the ruins of his castle that we should commence our exploration. of de warenne's building only the inner gateway remains. the outer gate and the keep date from the reign of the first edward; the site of a _second_ keep is shown in private grounds not far off, a feature very rare in this country if not unique. the summit of the tower is laid out as an old world garden; and here is also the interesting museum of the sussex archaeological society, but the visitor will be best repaid by the magnificent view of the surrounding country spread out before him. to the north-west rises mount harry, and to the right of this stretches the wide expanse of the weald bounded by the sombre ridges of ashdown forest, dominated by crowborough beacon slightly east of due north. the quarries and combe of cliffe hill stand up with fine effect immediately east of the town, which sinks from where we stand to the ouse at the bottom of the valley. more to the south-east is mount caburn above the bare and melancholy flats through which the ouse finds its way to the sea; due south-west the long range of newmarket hill stretches away to the outskirts of brighton, and the race course hill brings us back to our starting point. beautiful as is the distant prospect the greatest charm of this unique view is in the huddle of picturesque red-tiled roofs and greenery beneath us. of the history of the castle there are but scanty records; its part in the making of east sussex seems to have been fairly quiescent, and in the great struggle of may between the forces of the barons and henry iii, for which lewes will always be famous, the fortress took no actual part and merely surrendered at discretion. "the battle was fought on the hill where the races are held. simon de montfort, earl of leicester, headed the baronial army. the royal forces were divided into three bodies; the right entrusted to prince edward; the left to richard, earl of cornwall, king of the romans; and the centre to henry himself. prince edward attacked the londoners under nicholas seagrave with such impetuosity that they immediately fled and were pursued with great slaughter. montfort taking advantage of this separation, vigorously charged the remaining division of the royalists, which he put to rout. the king and the earl of cornwall hastened to the town, where they took refuge in the priory. prince edward, returning in triumph from the pursuit of the londoners, learned with amazement the fate of his father and uncle. he resolved to make an effort to set them at liberty, but his followers were too timid to second his ardour, and he was finally compelled to submit to the conditions subscribed by his father, who agreed that the prince and his cousin henry, son of the earl of cornwall, should remain as hostages in the hands of the barons till their differences were adjusted by parliament. in this contest , men were slain. the king, who had his horse slain under him, performed prodigies of valour. richard, earl of cornwall, was taken prisoner." by all accounts it was a good fight, and the best men won. a touch of humour is added to one record wherein it is related that richard, king of the romans, took refuge in a windmill, wherein he was afterwards captured amid shouts of "come out, thou bad miller." this mill stood near the old black horse inn, but has long since been burnt down. accounts vary exceedingly as to the number of the slain, some authorities giving as many as , , others no more than , . "many faire ladie lose hir lord that day, and many gode bodie slayn at leans lay. the nombre none wrote, for tell them might no man. but he that alle wote, and alle thing ses and can." (robert brune.) there are certain times, especially in the early hours of a fine autumn day, when the mass of old grey stone is seen rising above its vassal town through golden river mists which veil the modernities of the railway and its appurtenancies, and one feels that the battle might have taken place yesterday. strange that this town is an important and busy railway junction and yet so little has the old-world appearance of the place suffered in consequence; here are no ugly rows of railwaymen's cottages in stark evidence on the hillsides; in actual fact the coming of the railway has added to the antiquarian and historical interest of the town, as will be seen presently. a short distance along high street stands st. michael's church, which has one of the three curious round towers for which the valley of the ouse is famous. the style of the tower is norman, but the body of the church is of later dates. here are some fine brasses; one is supposed to commemorate a de warenne who died about ; another is to john bradford, rector, dated . the monument to sir nicholas pelham ( ) has an oft-quoted punning verse-- "what time the french sought to have sacked sea-foord this pelham did repel-em back aboord." st. anne's church is nearly a quarter of a mile farther on. the style is transitional. there are several interesting items, including a very fine and ancient font of a "basket" pattern. note the uncommon appearance of the capitals on the south side pillars, an ancient tomb in the chancel wall, and, not least, the doorway with norman moulding. there is in this church a window in memory of lower, a fitting tribute to the historian of sussex, but his best memorial will always be that work that is still the basis of most writings on the past of the county. the road continues to the battlefield and mount harry, but to explore the lower portion of the town a return must be made to high street. at the corner of bull lane, marked by a memorial tablet and with a queer carved demon upon its front is tom paine's house. note the unusual milestone on a house front opposite keere street, down which turning is presently passed (on the left) southover house ( ), a good example of elizabethan architecture. keere street has another remnant of the past in its centre gutter, the usual method of draining the street in medieval times, but now very seldom seen except in the city of london. at the foot of the street is the (probably dry) bed of the winterbourne, so called because, like other streams of the chalk country, it flows at intermittent times. a short distance farther, to the right, and just past st. john's church, will be found the entrance to the space once occupied by the first priory of the cluniacs in england. [illustration: st. anne's church, lewes.] founded in by william de warenne and his wife gundrada and dedicated to st. pancras, the priory was always closely allied with the parent house on the continent. at the dissolution more than the usual vandalism seems to have been observed and cromwell's creatures must have vented some personal spite against the monks in their wholesale demolition of the buildings. a mound to the north-east is supposed to be the site of a calvary, and until quite recently a "colombarium" or dovecote was allowed to stand which contained homes for over three thousand birds. "the priory building was probably irregular, varying in its form as the increase of inmates demanded additional room. but though irregular, it was certainly a noble edifice, faced with caen stone, and richly adorned by the chisel of the sculptor. its walls embraced an area of acres, rods, perches, and it was not less remarkable for its magnificence than extent. the length of the church was feet, having an altitude of feet. it was supported by thirty-two pillars, eight of which were very lofty, being feet high, feet thick, and feet in circumference; the remaining twenty-four were feet thick, feet in circumference, and feet in height.[ ] the belfry was placed over the centre of the church, at an elevation of feet, and was supported by the eight lofty pillars above mentioned. the roof over the high altar was feet high. its walls were feet thick. on the right side of the high altar was a vault supported by four pillars, and from this recess branched out five chapels that were bounded by a wall yards long. a higher vault supported by four massive pillars, feet in diameter, and feet in circumference, was probably on the left side of the high altar, and corresponded with the one just mentioned, from which branched out other chapels or cells of the monks. how many chapels there were cannot be ascertained; the names of only three are known, the virgin mary, st. thomas the martyr, and st. martin. the chapter-house and church were by far the most splendid apartments of this stately pile; the latter was richly adorned by the painter and the sculptor." [ ] these measurements are confusing, unless the pillars were of an unusual shape. a round column feet thick would be feet in circumference. the wooden chapel of st. pancras which existed here in saxon times probably stood where later the high altar of the great norman church was reared, and across this site the eastbourne trains now run. the station itself is supposed to be on the site of the convent kitchens and consequently the present ruins are very scanty. though the foundations laid bare at the cutting of the railway in show the great extent of the buildings, the battered walls which now remain give but little indication of the imposing dimensions quoted above, and the visitor will have to depend on sentiment and the imagination rather than on actual sightseeing. the excavators in had a gruesome experience, for they discovered a charnel pit containing thirteen cart loads of bones of the fallen warriors at the battle of lewes. although nearly six centuries had elapsed the stench was dreadful. that the archaeological interest of lewes owes much to the making of the railway will now be seen. [illustration: the priory ruins, lewes.] the following account appeared in the _gentleman's magazine_, :-- "on the morning of tuesday, october , a most interesting discovery was made by the workmen employed in forming a cutting for the lewes and brighton railway, through the ground formerly occupied by the great cluniac priory of st. pancras, at lewes. it is well-known that the original founders, in , were william de warenne, earl of surrey, of a great norman family, and his wife gundred, the daughter of william the conqueror and his queen matilda; that they pulled down an old wooden church to replace it by a stone one, and that after their deaths in and , they were buried in the chapter-house of their priory. so effectual, however, was the destruction of the buildings in by the ecclesiastical commissioners of henry viii that the very site of the church has been uncertain, and there has long been nothing visible of the ruins but a confused mass of broken walls and arches half buried under the soil. the bold intrusion of a railway into these hallowed precincts has thrown light upon this obscurity, and in the course of their excavations the workmen have found, covered by some slabs of caen stone, two leaden chests containing the bones of the founders, and inscribed with their names. they are not coffins, but cists or chests, and are both of similar form and dimensions, ornamented externally by a large net-work of interlaced cords moulded in the lead. the cist of william de warenne measures feet inches long, by - / inches broad, and is inches deep, all the angles being squared, and the flat loose cover lapping an inch over. on the upper surface at one end is inscribed in very legible characters 'willelmus.' the cist of the princess his wife is inches shorter and inch deeper, and the word 'gvndrada' is very distinctly inscribed on the cover. it is worth remarking that her father, the conqueror, in his charter, calls for gundfreda, and her husband, who survived her, calls her gundreda in his charter. "it is obvious, from the length of these receptacles, that their bones have been transferred to them from some previous tombs, and it is not difficult to suppose that, the chapter-house not being built at the time of their deaths, the founders were buried elsewhere until its completion, and that the bodies were then found so decayed that their bones only remained for removal to a more distinguished situation, and were, on that occasion, placed in these very leaden chests. a rebuilding of the priory church was begun on the anniversary of william the founder's death in , and from the antique form of the letters g and m the inscriptions cannot be fixed at a later period. the characters, indeed, more resemble the form used in the twelfth century. of the genuine antiquity of these relics there cannot be the slightest doubt. it is locally notorious that the black marble slab which formerly covered the remains of gundrada, beautifully carved and bordered with nine latin verses in her honour cut in the rim and down the middle, was discovered in in isfield church, misappropriated as a tombstone over one of the shirley family, and by the care of sir william burrel removed to the church of southover, immediately adjoining the ruins of the priory. it is very singular that now, after an interval of eight years, her very bones should be brought to the same church (under the superintendence of the rev. mr. scobell) there to undergo a third burial under gundrada's marble slab. "the tombstone of gundred countess of warren was discovered about the year , by dr. clarke, rector of buxted, in the shirley chancel of isfield church, forming the table part of a mural monument of edward shirley, esq., by whose father probably it was preserved at the demolition of the priory, and conveyed to isfield, his manorial estate. at the expense of dr., afterwards sir william, burrell, it was removed from its obscure station, and placed upon a suitable shrine, in the vestry-pew of southover church, that being the nearest convenient spot to its original station. the stone is of black marble, sculptured in very high relief. the lower end had been broken off before its discovery at isfield. around the rim, and along the middle, is the following inscription: stirps gundrada ducum, decus evi, nobile germen, intulit ecclesiis anglorum balsama morum, martir (is hanc aedem struxit pancrati in honorem) martha fuit miseris, fuit ex pietate maria; pars obiit marthe, superest pars magna marie. o pie pancrati, testis pietatis et equi, te facit heredem, tu clemens suscipe matrem. sexta kalendarum junii lux obvia carnis fregit alabastrum (superest pars optima coelo). (_conjectured words in parenthesis_.) "another leaden coffin, full of bones, but without any inscription, has also been found, longer than those of the founder's, having a semicircular top, and six large rings of - / inches diameter attached to the outsides. at a little distance from the two small chests, there was also found the remains of an ecclesiastic, buried without any coffin, but lying upon a bed of coarse gravel within a hollow space formed by large flat stones. his hands were in a position indicating that they had been joined together in the attitude of prayer over his breast, as usual. not only his bones, but much of his thick woollen gown, his under-garment of linen, and his leather shoes have been preserved. these, too, have been carefully transferred to southover church. it has been conjectured with much probability that these remains were those of peter, the son of john, earl de warren, the patron of the monastery, who was appointed prior contrary to the nomination of the pope in favour of the suggestion that the reinterment of the remains of the founders took place about the beginning of the thirteenth century." [illustration: anne of cleve's house, southover.] a chapel specially designed to receive the leaden caskets was erected in excellent taste at st. john's, southover, in . the names are plainly decipherable. the tombstone on the floor is that of gundrada, brought here from isfield. the effigy in the wall of the chapel is conjectured to be that of john de braose, who died in . the picturesque old house on the north side of the street is called anne of cleve's house, but this title appears to be contradicted by the date on the front of the building; there is a possibility that this date was added when certain alterations took place; it is certain, however, that when thomas cromwell's time was past the property was made over to the king, of whom a very startling legend is told locally to the effect that he murdered one of his wives on a stairway in the priory! the rebuilt church of st. john-sub-castre has its ugliness redeemed in the antiquary's eye by the round saxon arch retained in the outside wall and by the "magnus memorial" as certain stones, bearing a latin inscription in anglo-saxon characters, are called. here is also a fourteenth century tomb and an old font. the churchyard forms the site of a roman camp, the vallum of which may still be seen. [illustration: the grange, southover.] st. thomas-at-cliffe has several interesting details including an uncommon and elaborate "squint" with two pillars; a modern painting of st. thomas of canterbury, patron saint of the church, and an old dutch representation of the ascension. among the many famous men of lewes must be mentioned tom paine who came here in , marrying in a daughter of the town named elizabeth ollive and in due time succeeding to her father's business of tobacconist. the house has already been noticed, it bears a memorial tablet and also a very quaint carved demon. it is just off the high street and near st. michael's church. lewes cannot claim the honour of seeing the birth of _the rights of man_ (a rather dubious honour in those days); the book was written while paine stayed with his biographer, thomas rickman the bookseller, in london. another famous resident of lewes was john evelyn, who spent a great part of his schooldays in the grammer school at southover. here also was educated john pell, the famous mathematician. a house at the end of the town on the newhaven road belonged to the shelleys, and dr. johnson once stayed here on his way to the thrales in brighton. the old "star" inn has been converted into municipal offices, but the fine front still remains and most of the old work in the interior. in the tower close by, in the market-place, is "great gabriel," a bell dating, it is said, from the time of henry iii. lower has the following lines on the bells of lewes:-- "oh, happy lewes, waking or asleep, with faithful _hands_ your time _archangels_ keep! st. _michael's_ voice the fleeting hour records, and _gabriel_ loud repeats his brother's words; while humble _cliffites_, ruled by meaner power, by tom the _archbishop_ regulate their hour." it was hereabouts that a great burning of heretics took place in . among the honoured names recorded upon the martyr's memorial is that of richard woodman, ironmaster, of warbleton, whose protests against his pastor's weathercock attitude during the marian persecutions resulted in the stake. the memorial perpetuates the names of sixteen persons who suffered the fiery death at this time. the consequence is that the zeal of the townsmen on the th of november is orange in its fervour, and the streets are given up to various "fireworks" clubs whose members have been subscribing their spare shillings for months past. crowds ascend saxon down and the surrounding hills to see the display from a distance; still greater crowds throng the streets to watch the destruction in effigy of some unpopular local or national celebrity. of the down land walks we have mentioned the most interesting, by reason of its fine views of the town, is to cliffe hill. an extension may be made to saxon down, a glorious expanse of wind-swept hill; and farther on to the conical mount caburn, with magnificent marine views; from this point a descent may be made to glynde, which will be described presently. the long street of cliffe leads northwards to south malling; here is a conventicle named "jireh" erected by j. jenkyns, w.a. these cryptic initials mean "welsh ambassador." in the cemetery behind is the tomb of william huntingdon, the evangelist, whose epitaph is as follows:-- "here lies the coalheaver, beloved of his god, but abhorred of men. the omniscient judge at the grand assize shall ratify and confirm this to the confusion of many thousands; for england and her metropolis shall know that there hath been a prophet among them. "w.h., s.s." (sinner saved.) the evangelist was wont to say "as i cannot get a d.d. for want of cash, neither can i get a m.a. for want of learning, therefore i am compelled to fly for refuge to s.s." [illustration: cliffe.] malling church is of no interest except perhaps for the fact that john evelyn laid the foundation stone. at old malling once stood a saxon collegiate church founded by caedwalla in and therefore one of the first christian churches erected in sussex. the archbishops of canterbury had a residence near, and in the _memorials of canterbury_ dean stanley tells how becket's murderers entered the house and threw their arms on the dining-table, which immediately threw them off; replaced, they were again thrown farther off with a louder crash. one of the knights then suggested that the table refused to bear its sacrilegious burden. this is still a popular local legend. ringmer, about two miles to the north-east, is closely connected with gilbert white; the oft-quoted letter in which he says "i have now travelled the downs upwards of years, yet i still investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year by year" was written from here. there are several interesting monuments and brasses in the church, especially those to the springett family. [illustration: the eastern downs.] chapter ii to eastbourne and pevensey two miles distant from lewes on the eastbourne road is beddingham, whose church shows a medley of styles from norman to decorated. about one hundred years ago a discovery was made near the village of a quantity of human remains together with weapons and accoutrements, pointing to the probability of a forgotten battle having taken place in the pass between the hills. a religious house dedicated to st. andrew is conjectured to have existed at one time in or near the village. monkish records relate that a ship hailing from dunkirk and having on board a monk named balger was driven into seaford by a storm. this balger was of an enterprising turn; making his way inland he helped himself to the relics of st. lewinna, a british convert, which reposed in st. andrew's monastery. the adventures that overtook the relics and their illegal guardian during the journey back to flanders make up a medieval romance of much interest and throw a curious light on the mental attitude of the religious, as regards the rights of property, during the dark ages. [illustration: firle beacon.] a mile farther along the high road is the turning which leads to glynde station and village, for which the most pleasant route is over the hills. the name is possibly a celtic survival and describes the situation between opposing heights. "glyn" is common throughout the whole of wales. the church is in a style quite alien to its surroundings and might well belong to clapham or bloomsbury. it is a grecian temple built about by the then bishop of durham, dr. trevor, and here the bishop was buried. there are few more charming groups of cottages in sussex than this beautiful village. glynde place, the seat of a former speaker of the house of commons, boasts the largest dairy in sussex if not in england; between and pounds of butter are made here daily. john ellman, the famous breeder of southdown sheep lived here for nearly fifty years ( - .) a short way farther, on the main road, is a turning to west firle, on the east of which is the fine firle park belonging to the gage's, a very ancient local family whose tombs and brasses may be seen in the church. the pedestrian is advised to press on to firle beacon from which a descent may be made to alciston (pronounced "aston") on the high road. the heap of flints on the summit of the beacon is feet above the sea, and therefore the hill is not so high as it looks, nor is it, as was formerly supposed to be the case, the second highest summit of the downs. the view is superb both northwards to the weald and southwards over the channel. alciston calls for little comment, the charm of the place consists in its air of remoteness and peace. the small church is partly norman, and in the walls of court house farm are the remains of a religious house. note the ancient barn and dovecote. a mile to the north is another little hamlet called "simson," and spelt selmeston. the curious wooden pillars in the church were fortunately untouched when the building was restored. the old altar slab has five crosses, and there are one or two interesting brasses. [illustration: alfriston church.] berwick is a scattered village on the western slopes of the cuckmere valley; the early english church is embowered in trees on a spur of the downs; there is a fine canopied tomb in the chancel, an old screen and an uncommon type of font built in the wall. note the eloquent epitaph to a former rector. half a mile farther is a turning on the right that passes winton street, where, a few years ago, there was a rich find of anglo-saxon antiquities. in two miles this byway reaches alfriston. ("_all_-friston.") the church has a very common legend associated with it; the foundations are said to have been again and again removed by supernatural agency from another site to the spot where the solemn and stately old building now stands. it is a perpendicular cruciform church and has an easter sepulchre and three sedilia. the register is said to be the oldest in england, its first entry bearing the date of . "a few years since as many as seventy 'virgins' garlands' hung in alfriston church at once" (hare). close by is a delightful pre-reformation clergy house. antiquaries are perhaps as concerned with the "star" inn, one of the most interesting in the south of england and dating from about . the front of the house is covered with quaint carvings including st. george and the dragon, a bear and ragged staff and what appears to be a lion. on each side of the doorway arc mitred saints conjectured to represent st. julian and st. giles. the inn is reputed to have been a place of sanctuary under battle abbey; it stands within the abbot's manor of alciston and was undoubtedly the recognized hostel for pilgrims and mendicant friars. another old inn, once a noted house of call for smugglers, is market cross house, opposite all that remains of the cross, a mutilated and battered stump, and the only example, except that at chichester, in the county. [illustration: alfriston.] alfriston once had a race week, the course being on the side of firle beacon; in those days the resident population was probably greater than it is now. not only were more souls crowded into the old houses still standing in the village street but tradition tells that the place was larger and more suited to its spacious old church which is now barely half filled on an ordinary sunday. a footpath may be taken over the cuckmere and up the hill beyond to the little dependency of lullington. the church calls itself the smallest in sussex but this depends upon what constitutes a church. the existing building is actually the chancel of a former church, perhaps another proof of a dwindling population. [illustration: lullington church.] the winding lane on the eastern bank of the cuckmere is thick with a glaring white dust on the dry days of summer, but there is no other practicable route to litlington; where is a quaint and interesting old church with arches formed of the native chalk. this village is growing rather than decaying, and appears to be, in a small way, an asylum for those who have grown weary of the broader highways. it is in a most delightful situation and is even within reach of a morning dip in the sea for those vigorous enough to undertake a three mile walk each way. "tea" placards nestling among the roses and ivy on the cottage walls also testify its attractions to holiday wayfarers, though the way to litlington, even for the motor-cyclist, is too strenuous for the village to become overcrowded or vulgar. [illustration: litlington.] the cuckmere now begins to widen its banks and the theory that the waters once extended from side to side of the valley seems tenable as we view the wide expanse of sedgy swamp through which the present channel has been artificially cut. cuckmere haven is the name given to the bay between the last of the "seven sisters" and the eastern slopes of seaford head which should be ascended for the sake of the lovely view up the valley, seen at its best from this end. "the only light that suits the tranquillity and tender pathos of the region is that which fills the dimples of the downs with inexpressibly soft and dreamy expressions, and quickens the plain by revealing the individuality of every blade of grass and plough-turned clod by its own shadow." (coventry patmore.) nearly all the villages of the cuckmere are in sight and make together perhaps the most likely to be remembered of sussex pictures. it is surprising how little this tranquil vale is known except to the chance visitor from seaford. when one remembers the much exploited and spoilt beauty spots of dorset and devon one feels nervous for the future of these lesser known but equally charming sea-combes of sussex. a short distance from the haven a steep gulley leads to the beach with a convenient chain and rope to prevent too sudden a descent. it has been suggested that through this gap the romans passed from their moored fleets to the fortified settlements above. it was at one time possible to descend by another opening higher up the cliff to a ledge called "puck church parlour." this is now inaccessible except to seabirds. the well-known view of the "seven sisters" is taken hereabouts and the disused "belle tout" lighthouse stands up well on the western slopes of beachy head, looking no distance across the cuckmere bay. on the way from litlington a slight divergence of half a mile or so might have been made to west dean; this is a most sequestered little hamlet, famous only as the meeting place between the great alfred and asser, though some authorities claim the west dean between midhurst and chichester as the authentic spot. there is a norman arch in the tower of the church and also several canopied tombs and some good stained glass. here is another priest's house even older than the one we have seen at alfriston. george gissing well describes the village and the surrounding country in his novel _thyrza_. [illustration: west dean.] a downland road can be taken from here to friston, eastdean and eastbourne, saving some miles of up and down walking, but the most enjoyable though more strenuous route is by the cliff path from cuckmere haven over the "seven sisters" cliffs to beachy head; a glorious six miles with the sea on one side and the downs on the other, culminating in the finest headland on the south coast, feet high, the magnificent end of the downs in the sea. all these cliffs provide nesting-places for wild birds. "i was much struck by the watchful jealousy with which the peregrines seemed to guard the particular cliff--more than feet from the sea--on a lofty ledge of which their nest was situated, and which, indeed, they evidently considered their especial property; with the exception of a few jackdaws who bustled out of the crevices below, all the other birds which had now assembled on this part of the coast for the breeding season--it being about the middle of may--seemed to respect the territory of their warlike neighbours. the adjoining precipice, farther westward, was occupied by guillemots and razorbills, who had deposited their eggs, the former on the naked ledge, the latter in the crevices in the face of the cliff here the jackdaws appeared quite at their ease, their loud, merry note being heard above every other sound, as they flew in and out of the fissures in the white rock or sate perched on a pinnacle near the summit, and leisurely surveyed the busy crowd below." (a.e. knox.) at birling gap, just short of the head, is a coast-guard station and the point of departure for the cable to france where we may descend to the coast by an opening which was once fortified. in history beachy head (possibly "beau chef") is chiefly remembered for the battle between the combined english and dutch fleets and the french, in which the english admiral did not show to the best advantage. [illustration: east dean.] before the erection of the belle tout light wrecks off the head were of frequent occurrence and many are the tales of gallant fight and hopeless loss told by the coast dwellers here. "parson darby's hole" under the belle tout is said to have been made by the vicar of east dean ( ) as a refuge for castaways. we can but hope that his parishioners were as humane, but the probability is that the parson's efforts were looked on askance by his flock, who gained a prosperous livelihood by the spoils of the shore; and perhaps this feeling gave rise to the unkind fable that the cave was made as a refuge from mrs. darby's tongue. "sussex men that dwell upon the shore look out when storms arise and billows roar; devoutly praying with uplifted hands that some well-laden ship may strike the sands. to whose rich cargo they may make pretence." (congreve.) the fine carriage-road which leaves beachy head leads directly into eastbourne and is called the duke's drive. it was owing to the initiative of the grandfather of the present duke of devonshire, whose local seat is at compton place on the west of the town that the little hamlet of sea houses became the present beautiful and fashionable resort, with a sea-front of nearly three miles of gardens backed by hotels, boarding-houses and schools. as at folkestone, education is here a strong feature, and a few years ago demure files of young ladies with attendant dragon taking the air between breakfast and study might have been seen. the epoch-ending events of the last few years, however, appear to have killed the "caterpillar." eastbourne seems to have carefully pushed its workers, together with the gasworks, market gardens, and other utilitarian features round the screen of splash point. the boulevards going west and north are full of fine houses and brilliant shops and are lined with well grown trees. the continuation of terminus road will take us in a little over a mile to the old town; here is the parish church, mostly transitional, and with many interesting features which should on no account be missed. note the oak screen in the chancel; sedilia and piscina; also an easter sepulchre. there is some old flemish glass in the east window of the nave aisle; that of the chancel is modern but good. near the church is a farmhouse, once a priory of black friars. the ancient "lamb inn" has an early english crypt which may be seen on application. [illustration: beachy head.] the most popular excursion from eastbourne after "the head" is to willingdon, near which is hampden park and wannock glen, and, farther afield, jevington. willingdon has an interesting old church and is pleasantly situated, but the village is too obviously the "place to spend a happy day" to call for further comment. on the other hand, jevington with its ancient but over-restored church, is quite unspoilt and, lying in one of the most beautiful of the down combes, should certainly be visited. we are now at the end of the downs and the scenery eastwards takes on an entirely different character:-- "the great and fertile plain stretching along the sussex coast from the eastward of beachy head in the direction of hastings, and inland towards wartling, hurstmonceux and hailsham, now studded with fat beeves, was at some remote era, covered by the sea, and what are known as 'eyes,' or elevations above the surrounding level--such as chilleye, northeye, horseye, richeye, &c.--must have been islands, forming a miniature archipelago. as all these are of saxon meaning, it may be presumed that, at the time of the saxon colonization, they were frequently or constantly insulated." [illustration: old parsonage, eastbourne.] (lower.) five miles from eastbourne across the dreary flats of pevensey level lies all that remains of the city of anderida, the headquarters of the roman "count of the saxon shore" and one of the last strongholds of rome in britain. the melancholy tale of the overthrow of ancient civilization in this corner of england by the barbarous saxon invaders is summed up in the terse words of their own chronicle--"they slew all that dwelt therein, nor was there henceforth one briton left." the name "andredes weald" is derived from the british--an tred--"no houses," and it correctly described the surrounding country at the time of the roman occupation. the great weald or forest actually extended from the coast to the thames valley, broken only by the "old road" along the side of the north downs, traversed by far-off ancestors of ours whose feelings as they gazed fearfully down into the depths of the primeval wood must have been on a plane with those of the earliest african explorers in the land of pygmies. here were the very real beginnings of those countless tales of gnome and fairy--ferocious tribe and gentle tribe--with which our folk-lore abounds. [illustration: jevington.] as to the existence of a british town here before the coming of the romans nothing is known, but that pevensey bay witnessed the landing of julius caesar is tolerably certain, and here the custodians of britain erected a great stronghold of whose walls we shall see the remnants as we first enter the castle. in ella besieged the city and, as quoted above, put it to fire and sword in effectual fashion; from this period therefore must be dated the foundations of the south saxon kingdom. after upwards of five hundred years another conqueror appeared on the old roman wall. on the twenty-eighth september william i landed, stumbled and fell, and "clutched england with both hands." pevensey (peofn's island) was given to robert of mortain, and he it was who built the massive castle of the "eagle" which we see rising inside the roman wall. this name arose from the title "honour of the eagle" which was given to de aquila, holder of the fortress under henry i. after many changes of owners who included edward i, edward iii and john of gaunt, and after being besieged by stephen against matilda, by the barons against henry iii, and by richard ii against bolingbroke it fell on evil times and was actually sold for forty pounds by the parliamentary commissioners as building material. the keep is in ruins and the chapel can only be traced in the grassy floor; here may still be seen the old font covered by an iron frame, and the opening of the castle well, in which, as related by hare, skulls of the wolves which once roamed the great forest have been found. in connexion with the norman occupation of sussex the curious and arbitrary system of "rapes" by which the county is divided should be noticed. these six blocks of land have no apparent relation to the natural features of the country; each contains a powerful castle to overawe the division to which it belongs. the whole plan is eloquent of the method by which the norman ruled the conquered race and kept them in subjection. [illustration: pevensey.] pevensey shore is very trying for the pedestrian. the great expanse of shingle is of that drifting variety which makes walking almost an impossibility. pevensey church is to the east of the castle; the interior is graceful and it has some interesting details. note the case of local curiosities, title deeds, etc. westham, that part of the village nearest the station, was the overflow settlement from the walled town; this has a much finer church with norman remains dating from the conqueror's time, and the tower is noble in its massive proportions. visitors should purchase the interesting little booklet shown on the table within the porch. the church has a fine oak screen in the south chancel and a stone altar with five crosses in the north aisle. not far away is a large farmhouse known as "priest-house"; this was once a monastic establishment. [illustration: westham.] close to westham is pevensey station, from which the traveller can proceed to hastings, rye and winchelsea; this beautiful and interesting district of sussex is dealt with in mr. bradley's _an old gate of england_, and we must regretfully turn westwards. the return journey to lewes may be made by the railway, though the downs, for the unfatigued traveller, should prove the most alluring route. after passing polegate a good view may be had on the left of the "long man of wilmington" a figure feet in length with a staff in each hand cut in the escarpment of windover hill; this is the only prehistoric figure on the sussex downs. its origin has never been satisfactorily explained. lower has suggested that it was the work of an idle monk of wilmington. this is most unlikely. the theory has lately been put forward that the "staff" which the figure appears to be holding in each hand is really the outline of a door and that the effigy is that of balder pushing back the gates of night. wilmington village has an interesting norman church with a very fine yew in the churchyard. built into the walls of a farmhouse close by are some remains of a benedictine priory. beautiful walks into the nearer woodlands of the weald are easily taken from this pleasant village and the hill rambles toward jevington are delightful. before leaving this district mention must be made of hurstmonceux. the nearest station is pevensey, from which there is a rather dull walk of four miles across the pevensey levels. the more picturesque route is from hailsham, though this is longer and belongs more to a tour of the weald. the only village passed on the way from pevensey is wartling, beyond which a footpath can be taken across the meadows with a fine view of the ruins ahead. the present castle was built by sir roger de fiennes in the reign of henry vi. the name is taken from the first lord of the manor, waleran de monceux. [illustration: wilmington green.] the outer shell is all that remains of what was once one of the grandest fortified mansions in england; it is now but a subject for artists and photographers, though at one time, since its dismantling, it made a good secret wine and spirit vaults. the colour of the walls is a surprise until it is realized that the building is of brick. the southern entrance, by which we approach, is the most imposing part of the ruin. we enter by a wooden bridge across the moat; this replaces the drawbridge. in the recessed chamber behind the central arch a ghostly drum was sometimes heard, and the supernatural drummer was supposed to guard hidden treasure. this legend was made good use of by the smuggling fraternity, the thumping of an empty keg being sufficient to scare away inconvenient visitors. within the walls we are in a wilderness of broken brickwork covered with an enormous growth of ivy. notice the great oven, and the ruins of the private chapel on the north side. the circuit of the walls should be made as far as is practicable; the magnificent row of spanish chestnuts is much admired. the story of the demolition of hurstmonceux is unhappy reading; the act of vandalism for which the architect wyatt was officially responsible seems to have been prompted by family spite. the church is of great interest. the dacre chantry and the splendid tomb of thomas fiennes, lord dacre, must be noticed; also a brass of sir william fiennes, . the association of the place with the hares, who are buried under the yew in the churchyard, although of recent date is nevertheless of much interest. the property and the living, which passed in , came to the family through george naylor of lincoln's inn, who bought them in . near the church stands a fine fourteenth-century barn. the village is remarkable for a local industry--the making of "trug" baskets for the carriage of fruit. chapter iii seaford to brighton the direct route to brighton for pedestrians is by a footpath which leaves lewes at the west end of southover street; this leads to the summit of newmarket hill and thence to the racecourse and kemp town. no villages are passed and but few houses, and the six miles of down, although so near a great town, are as lonely as any other six in sussex. the high road leaves the town by the battlefield road past st. anne's church and follows the railway closely until the tram lines on the outskirts of brighton are reached; this route passes falmer, north-west of which lies the beautiful stanmer park, seat of the earl of chichester. [illustration: the brighton downs.] it will be best, however, to take the newhaven road from southover which hugs the foot of the downs and in a short two miles reaches iford. about half-way a turning to the right leads to the snug little village of kingston with the hills rising closely all round. this place was once the property of sir philip sidney. the remains of an ancient house belonging to the priory at lewes are to be seen in the old farmhouse named swanborough which lies between kingston and iford. the architecture is perpendicular, and early english; permission should be obtained to examine the interesting details which, include a venerable oak table in the kitchen. iford church is a norman building with a central tower and an early english font. a little over a mile farther is rodmell with very fine norman details in the church, which has the rare feature of a baptistery. the early decorated screen is good; note also the squint with a shaft in the centre. here is a brass dated in memory of agatha broke, on the back of which is another inscription to some one else of the seventeenth century. the church is surrounded by magnificent trees, and of especial note is the huge holm oak which overshadows the rest. the village inn has on its walls a quaint and amusing collection of precepts for its habitués which might well be duplicated elsewhere. southease, the next village, has another of the three round towers of sussex, and piddinghoe, two miles farther, the third. these towers are a matter of puzzled conjecture to archaeologists; all three, lewes, southease and piddinghoe are on the western bank of the ouse. the suggestion that they were originally beacon towers is not very convincing, though the ouse at the time they were built was a wider and deeper stream, forming in fact an estuary haven. the more prosaic explanation is that lack of stone for the quoins, which every square flint tower must have, led the builders to adopt this form. in any case, a beacon fire from a square tower is as effectual as from a round one. piddinghoe has many associations with the smuggling days which have given birth to some quaint sayings, as "pidd'nhoo they dig for moonshine,"--"at pidd'nhoo they dig for smoke," etc., but we fail to see the point in "magpies are shod at pidd'nhoo." [illustration: newhaven church.] seven miles from lewes stands the rather mean port of newhaven. after many years of neglect and decay this elizabethan sea-gate is once more of great importance in continental traffic. much money and skill were expended during the latter half of the nineteenth century in improving the harbour and building a breakwater and new quays. louis philippe landed here in , having left havre in his flight from france in the steamer "express"; he was received by william catt, who at one time owned the tide mills at bishopstone; this worthy was a well known sussex character and is immortalized by lower. newhaven has little to show the visitor beyond the small norman church which has a chancel apse at the east of the tower. this portion is interesting but the nave has suffered from ignorant tinkering under the alias of "restoration." in the churchyard is a monument to those who perished in the wreck of the "brazen" sloop of war in off the harbour, and another to a local brewer of the one-time famous "tipper" ale, made from brackish water. the town was once called meeching; this name is perpetuated in "meeching place" where a descendant of william catt still lives. [illustration: bishopstone church porch.] on the east of the ouse is a much more interesting halt for the tourist in the small village of bishopstone. the small remains of the tide mills just referred to are near the station. the very fine norman church is about a mile away on the road to the downs. the four storied tower is almost unique. each stage diminishes in size, thus dispensing with buttresses; in this respect it is similar to newhaven. notice under the short spire a quaint corbel table. the south porch is extremely interesting as saxon work though the mouldings are probably later enrichments by norman workmen. over the door is a stone dial with a cross and the name eadric. the interior is a good example of the change from round to pointed, the pure norman of the east end gradually changing to early english at the west. the combination of norman ornament with the later style is almost unique in sussex. in the vestry an interesting stone slab is shown; this was discovered during the restoration. it bears the carved presentment of a lamb, a cross, and two doves drinking. at this time a stone coffin lid, and a hidden fourteenth-century niche in the porch were also discovered. in the chancel is a memorial to james hurdis, formerly vicar of the parish, the author of _the village curate_, which has been likened to cowper's _task_; the verses are full of shrewd wit and local colour. one mile south-east is the village of east blatchington, now a suburb of seaford; the restored church is norman and early english. in the south wall is a curious recess in decorated style, the real use of which has not yet been discovered. notice the sedilia and projecting piscina, and the tablet to the memory of the famous aeronaut, coxwell, who died here in . seaford was once an ancient port at the mouth of the ouse before that river forsook its old channel for the outlet where is now the "new haven." an important satellite of hastings and ranking as one of the lesser cinque ports, the old town saw much history-making during the french wars and suffered accordingly. its actual foundation dates at least from roman times as is proved by the fragments of sculpture, coins, etc., dug up at different times during the last two hundred years. at the rear of the east cliff, near a footpath leading to chyngton, are traces of a roman cemetery with possible evidence of earlier british burials. in the town itself are some interesting though scanty remains of mediaeval times. in the garden of a house named "the folly" is a vaulted room the origin of which has never been satisfactorily explained. it is possibly part of the ancient hospital of st. leonard. the open space at the higher end of the town is called "the crouch" a name that is a corruption of "the crux." the fine old hardwicke house in broad street is dated . at one time it was a lodging-house, but its fortunes have lately risen. seaford house was once the temporary residence of tennyson. seaford church is dedicated to st. leonard and is norman as far as the tower is concerned, of which the embattlement is modern; note the crosses in black flints on three of the sides. the base of the walls of the church date from this period, rising through transitional to perpendicular. the detail has been largely spoilt through restoration. note the capitals of the pillars which are most elaborately worked, that near the south door having a representation of the crucifixion carved upon it. [illustration: seaford church.] millburgh house was once the property of a noted smuggler named whitfield, whose immunity from punishment was obtained by judicious presents of choice wines in high quarters. tales of the old smuggling days would fill many pages, and undoubtedly the profession formed the major commercial asset not only of seaford but of more important sussex towns both on the coast and on the roads leading to the capital. lower has recorded many interesting facts about the long war between the revenue officers and the natives, relieved at all times by the unfailing humour of the law-breakers, who took a keen delight in fooling the exciseman. it was but infrequently that real tragedy took place; considering the times, and the manner of those times, the records of sussex are fairly clean. such brutal murders as that of chater in , which crime was expiated at chichester, were rare. the professionals were nearly all men of substance and standing in the land. the marine smuggler was of course a separate breed whose adventures and danger were of a different sort and, despite the glamour of the sea, of much less interest and excitement; on the other hand most of the inhabitants of such places as alfriston had one or more of the male members of the family engaged in the trade, and many are the houses which still have secret vaults and chambers for the reception of the goods, chiefly wine, brandy, silk and tea. most of the churches between seaford and lewes have at one time or another proved convenient temporary storage places, and on more than one occasion sunday service has had to be suspended, on one excuse or another, until the building could be cleared of its congregation of tubs. lower records that at selmeston the smugglers actually used an altar tomb as a store for spirits, always leaving a tub for the parson. seaford in its new rôle as a holiday resort has a serious obstacle to surmount; the only sea "front" possible is a wide shingle beach separated from the old town by a nondescript stretch of sandy desert; when and if this is filled in or converted into a garden the town should prosper exceedingly, for it has great natural attractions in seaford head which rises to the east and in the glorious down walks within easy distance. in actual distance by rail it is, next to brighton, the nearest south coast resort to london and without doubt has a successful future before it. it is but little over two miles to the cuckmere valley past the roman camp and over the head. the views of the "seven sisters" and on to beachy head from this point are very fine, and the great cliff itself, though much lower, is almost as interesting as the eastbourne height. for one thing the wild life of the precipice is more easily studied, the crowds which on most summer days throng the more popular head are not met with here. the writer has spent a june morning quite alone but for the myriad birds wheeling around and scolding at his presumption in being there at all. [illustration: seaford head.] the route now follows the coast road from newhaven westwards. from the portobello coastguard station, four miles from newhaven bridge, a road runs across the downs to the beautiful little village of telscombe, nestling in a secluded combe in the heart of the hills; by-roads and footpaths also lead here by delightful ways from southease and piddinghoe. the church is old and interesting, quite unspoilt by any attempt at restoration; note the beautiful font on a marble platform. both here and at rottingdean the artificial height of the churchyard above the surrounding land will be noticed. cobbett's explanation for this is the obvious but rather gruesome one that dust added to dust has more than doubled the contents of the consecrated ground. from the comparative heights of the enclosure the author of _rural rides_ reckoned the age of the building, a method which made a greater appeal to him than the rule of norman round or english point. rottingdean has lately made a name for itself by reason of its modern literary associations. its connexion with william black and rudyard kipling is well known. cardinal manning and bulwer lytton both attended a once celebrated school kept here by dr. hooker. edward burne-jones has left a lasting memorial of his association with the place in the beautiful east window of the church which was designed and presented by the artist. certain columns in the walls point to the existence of a saxon building of which these are the remains. notice the effect of the tower in its unusual position between chancel and nave. the village has a deserved place in the national history, as the following account will show:-- "in hastings was burnt by the french, who also attempted to burn winchelsea, but were foiled. they also attacked rye, where they landed from five vessels. after plundering and setting it on fire they went away, leaving the town desolate. they landed at rottingdean, advanced over the downs with the design of laying waste lewes, but in this were disappointed by the valour of john de cariloce, prior of lewes, sir thomas cheney, constable of dover castle, sir john falsley, and others, who upon apprisal of it, hastened their vassals, and were joined by a number of peasantry, who boldly ascended the downs, resolved to repel the invaders. they were insufficient both in number and skill to cope with the well-trained troops of france. the brave peasantry were totally routed, but not till one hundred of their party had sacrificed their lives, and the prior and the two knights had been made prisoners. the loss which the french had sustained prevented further encroachments, and they returned to their ships with their prisoners, who were conducted to france." that rottingdean was known and appreciated over one hundred years ago will come as a surprise to many. the following account appeared in the _gentleman's magazine_, :-- "the pleasant and delightful village of rottingdean is situated on the newhaven road, at the distance of nearly four miles from brighthelmstone, a popular watering place. this place is no otherwise remarkable than for its wells, which are nearly empty at high water, but which rise as the tide declines. this little village has of late been the resort of a considerable number of genteel company, for which bathing-machines and every accommodation have been provided. here are a variety of lodging houses, a good inn, with convenient stables, coach-houses, etc. it is most frequented by such families as prefer a little retirement to the bustle and gaiety of brighthelmstone, and who occasionally may wish to mix with the company there, for which its situation renders it at any time perfectly convenient. the road from rottingdean to brighthelmstone is delightfully pleasant in the summer season. on one side you have an extensive view of the sea, and on the other the downs, covered with innumerable flocks of sheep, so justly held in estimation for their delicious flavour." [illustration: rottingdean.] about two and a half miles from rottingdean in a lonely dene surrounded by the downs is the little hamlet of balsdean; there is nothing to see here but a building locally called "the chapel" (the architecture is decorated, with an ancient thatched roof) but the walk will give the stranger to the district a good idea of the solitude and unique characteristics of the chalk hills. the curious t-shaped cuttings still to be seen in the sides of the downs may be remarked; these are where the traps set to catch wheatears were set. a great trade was once done by the downland peasantry in these "sussex ortolans," as they were called, but of late years the demand has dwindled to vanishing point. the lover of the picturesque will feel grateful to the powers who refuse to destroy the deserted windmills which stud the downs and of which there is one good example near here. one cannot suppose however that the object of letting them stand is other than utilitarian; after a long life of service in their original capacity these daylight beacons perform the duty of landmarks for seamen in the channel. a footpath from rottingdean just a mile long crosses the downs to ovingdean, another lonely hamlet without inn or shop. an ancient church, possibly saxon in part, and a few houses hidden by trees make a goal of a favourite walk from brighton. harrison ainsworth has made the little place famous in "ovingdean grange," in which romance the novelist makes it one of the scenes in the flight of charles ii; this however is incorrect, as it is certain that brighton was the limit of the royal fugitive's journey eastwards. the large building on the hill above ovingdean is roedean college for girls; its fine situation and imposing size make it a landmark, and the seascape from its windows must be unrivalled. [illustration: brighton.] chapter iv brighton "kind, cheerful, merry dr. brighton." thackeray's testimonial is as apt to-day as when it was written, but the doctor is not one of the traditional type. here is no bedside manner and no misplaced sympathy, in fact he is rather a hardhearted old gentleman to those patients who are really ill in mind or body and his remedies are of the "hair of the dog that bit you" type. londoners take brighton as a matter of course and--as londoners--are rarely enthusiastic. it takes a frenchman to give the splendid line of buildings which forms the finest front in the world the admiration that is certainly its due. when one has had time to dissect the great town, appreciation is keener; there are several brightons; there is a town built on a cliff, another with spacious lawns on the sea level, and a third, the old brighton, bounded by the limits of the original fishing village, and, with all its brilliance, having a distinctly briny smell as of fish markets and tarred rope and sun-baked seaweed when you are near the shingle. this last is nearly an ever-present scent, for the sun is seldom absent summer or winter; in fact it is when the days are shortest that brighton is at its best; the clear brilliance of the air when the capital is full of fog and even the weald between is covered with a cold pall of mist, makes the south side of the downs another climate. richard jeffries, almost as great a town hater as cobbet, has a good word for brighton. "let nothing cloud the descent of those glorious beams of sunlight which fall at brighton" (referring to its treelessness). "watch the pebbles on the beach; the foam runs up and wets them, almost before it can slip back the sunshine has dried them again. so they are alternately wetted and dried. bitter sea and glowing light, dry as dry--that describes the place. spain is the country of sunlight, burning sunlight, brighton is a spanish town in england, a seville." the history of brighton is the history of piccadilly, but although the prince regent is usually credited with the discovery of the town, this title to fame must be given to a doctor of lewes named russel, who wrote a book on the virtues of sea water as applied to the person. this was published in , and from that time must be dated the rise of england's first sea resort, for almost immediately patients eager for the new cure came thronging from london by post-chaise and family coach, and the doctor soon removed from his native town to attend them. the "cure" became the mode, and in , when the prince made his first visit, the fortune of the town was assured. after a hundred years that ended with the mid-victorians the exclusiveness of brighton gave way to the excursion train, and though still a fashionable place, it is now more than ever london-by-the-sea and caters with true courtliness for coster and duke. brighton was never a "steps to the sea" for anywhere but london, and its beginnings as a small but independent fishing settlement are very remote; according to some seventeenth century writers it once boasted walls and upwards of two thousand inhabitants, but through the depredations of the sea, it had dwindled to a mere hamlet, and cut off by the downs and away from all the usual channels of communication, the self-sufficiency of the place must have received a rude shock when the first visitors arrived, but natives of the coast are notoriously adaptable and know a "sure thing." the following account written in shows how quickly the town was preparing for its great future. "brighthelmstone, in the county of sussex, is distant from london miles, is a small, ill-built town, situate on the sea coast, at present greatly resorted to in the summer time by persons labouring under various disorders for the benefit of bathing and drinking sea water, and by the gay and polite on account of the company which frequent it at that season. until within a few years it was no better than a mere fishing town, inhabited by fishermen and sailors, but through the recommendation of dr. russel, and by the means of his writing in favour of sea water, it is become one of the principal places in the kingdom for the resort of the idle and dissipated, as well as the diseased and infirm." "it contains six principal streets, five (east street, black lion street, ship street, middle street, west street) lie parallel with each other, and are terminated by the sea. the sixth, north street, running along the ends of the other five, from the assembly house almost to the church. the church, which is a very ancient structure, is situate at a small distance from the town, upon an eminence, from which there is an exceedingly fine view of the sea, and in the churchyard is a monument erected to the memory of captain nicholas tattersell, who assisted king charles ii in his escape after the battle of worcester. "the house in which the king was concealed is kept by a publican who has hung the king's head for his sign. the church is a rectory, and the rev. mr. mitchell is the present incumbent; besides the church there are three other places of worship, one for presbyterians, another for quakers, and a third for methodists, which last is lately erected at the expense of the countess of huntingdon adjoining her house, through which there is a communication. there are two assembly rooms, which are opened on different nights, one kept by mr. shergold, and the other by mr. hicks, who also keeps the coffee-house. the place on which the company usually walk in the evening is a large field near the sea, called the stean, which is kept in proper order for that purpose, and whereon several shops with piazzas and benches therein are erected, as is also a building to perform in when the weather will permit. there is also a small battery towards the sea. at a little distance from the town is a mineral spring which is said to be a very fine one though little used. upon the hills near the church the isle of wight is frequently seen on a clear day. about the town are very pleasant downs for the company to ride on, the air of which is accounted extremely wholesome, and about eight miles from brighthelmstone on the downs is one of the finest prospects in the world called devil's dyke." the literary associations of brighton are many and various. charles lamb lived for some years is sussex house, ship street. paston house was the home of william black before he removed to rottingdean. ainsworth produced a goodly portion of his historical novels at no. , arundel terrace, and at percival terrace, herbert spencer spent the last years of his life and here died. the name of holyoake, the social reformer, is connected with eastern lodge, camelford street. a list of such names might be extended indefinitely, and if the celebrities who have been regular visitors were mentioned the record would be endless, though it is said that robert browning never entered the town. dr. johnson stayed in west street, when the thrales lived there; he bathed with the rest and, unlike the rest, abused the surroundings in his usual manner, declaring that a man would soon be so overcome by the dismalness of the downs that he would hang himself if he could but find a tree strong enough to bear his weight! every dickensian would like to identify the house which the creator of paul dombey had in mind when he painted the inimitable portrait of mrs. pipchin, "ogress and child queller," whose castle "was in a steep bye street.... where the small front gardens had the property of producing nothing but marigolds, whatever was sown in them; and where snails were constantly discovered holding on to the street doors.... in the winter time the air couldn't be got out of the castle, and in the summer time it couldn't be got in.... it was not naturally a fresh smelling house; and in the window of the front parlour, which was never opened, mrs. pipchin kept a collection of plants in pots, which imparted an earthy flavour of their own to the establishment." little paul afterwards went to dr. blimber's, which "was a mighty fine house fronting the sea"; this has been identified as being on or near the site now occupied by the metropole. thackeray, whose verdict on the town is quoted at the head of this chapter, laid several scenes among these squares and crescents and gave to one of his greatest characters the town's best known feature as a title. the extraordinary and incongruous building in the steyne known as the pavilion was built by nash at the instigation of george iv. the architect cannot be entirely blamed for the monstrosity, the general idea and "style" was no doubt conceived by his patron. this is how the pavilion impressed cobbett: "take a square box the sides of which are three feet and a half and the height a foot and a half. take a large norfolk turnip, cut of the green of the leaves, leave the stalk nine inches long, tie these round with a string three inches from the top, and put the turnip on the middle of the top of the box. then take four turnips of half the size, treat them in the same way, and put them on the corners of the box. then take a considerable number of bulbs, of the crown-imperial, the narcissus, the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus and others; let the leaves of each have sprouted to about an inch more or less according to the size of the bulb; put all these pretty promiscuously but pretty thickly on top of the box. then stand off and look at your architecture." [illustration: the pavilion, brighton.] the building now belongs to the town, and the stables (the "dome") form a very fine concert hall. the adjacent buildings, all part of the pavilion, are used as museum, library and picture gallery. the residence of mrs. fitzherbert still overlooks the steyne, up the steps of this house barrymore drove his carriage and pair to the great detriment of both house and equipage. the y.m.c.a. now occupy the premises. one of the best descriptions of the regent's brighton is in "rodney stone." it was about that the greatest growth in building took place; from about this period date those magnificent squares, regency and brunswick in hove, and sussex square in kemp town. the steyne is now a pleasant public garden; it was originally the "stane" or rock upon which fishing nets were dried. st. peter's church at the north end was built in by barry, and for its period is not unpleasing. in church street is the only ancient church in brighton; it is dedicated to st. nicholas; and was to a great extent rebuilt in . note its fine gilt screen and the norman font with a representation of the lord's supper and certain scenes connected with the sea, but too archaic to be actually identified. in a chantry chapel is the wellington memorial, an ornate cross eighteen feet high. the duke was a worshipper here while a pupil of the then vicar, and the restoration of the church was a part of the memorial scheme. captain tattersell, who was instrumental in the escape of charles ii, is buried in the churchyard and a monument sets forth-- "when charles ye great was nothing but a breath, this valiant soul stept between him and death." here is also a memorial to phoebe hessel, who fought as a private in the fifth regiment of foot at the battle of fontenoy and died here aged . there are several fine churches which have been built during recent years, including st. paul's in west street; every excursionist knows this, and to thousands it is the only church in brighton, being on the direct route from the station to the sea. st. martin's and st. bartholomew's are open all day and are well worth a visit. trinity chapel was the scene for six years of the incumbency of f.w. robertson, and another preacher of more recent fame, r.j. campbell, was for a time the minister of union street congregational church. [illustration: st. nicholas, brighton.] the old chain pier was, next to the pavilion, the most distinctive feature of the town; built in and paved with stone, it was historic as the first pleasure pier. swept away by a storm on the night of december , , old brightonians must have felt that something had gone from their lives when they looked from their windows next morning. one of the "institutions" of brighton is the aquarium; it contains a very good collection of marine exhibits, not as much appreciated as they should be. of late years extra attractions have had to be added and concerts and other entertainments help to keep the glass tanks and their occupants popular. kemp town, named after its speculative builder, has been but briefly alluded to; it is to many the most attractive part of the great town, rising at the east end to a respectable height above the sea and with fine views of the channel. unlike its parent it has no "history" whatever. king edward, during the last years of his life, took a liking to this part of brighton, and in his honour the district was officially renamed "king's cliff," but the new style does not seem to have become popular. on the other hand hove, with its "lawns" and imposing squares, has a past; the following note appears in the _gentleman's magazine_ dated : "hoove, by some spelled hove or hova, lies on the road between brighthelmstone and new shoreham, about two miles from the former and four from the latter. it was one of the many lordships in the county of sussex which the conqueror's survey records to have been the estate of godwin earl of kent, in edward the confessor's time, and which after his death passed to his eldest son harold, who being afterwards king, was slain by the norman duke, who seized his lands and gave them to his followers. long after this time, this place was as large and as considerable a village as the county could boast; but it is reduced, by the encroachment of the sea at different times, to about a dozen dwellings. this place gives title to a prebend in the cathedral of chichester; and the living, which is a vicarage united to preston, is in the gift of the prebendary. divine service is only performed in the church once in six weeks, and, by appearance of the ruinous state in which it at present is, that will be soon entirely neglected." this church, dedicated to st. andrew, has been practically rebuilt, though some of the ancient features have been retained. near the chancel door is the grave of charlotte elliot, the hymn writer. admiral westphal, one of the officers of nelson's "victory," is also interred here. the new parish church--all saints--is of great magnificence and has cost about £ , . [illustration: st. peter's, brighton.] the western end of hove, if we may believe some experts, has claims to a higher antiquity than any other locality between pevensey and bosham. aldrington, as this district is called, is conjectured to have been the roman "portus adurni," of which shoreham would then be the lineal descendant. on the other hand the identification of this mysterious place with any part of sussex has been seriously challenged. the estuary of the adur then extended to bramber. a glance at the two-inch ordnance map of the district will make the old course of the river quite clear. in hove park is the famous "grey wether," called the "goldstone." this used to lay in goldstone bottom between the railway and the downs. inspecting antiquaries proved such a nuisance that the farmer on whose land it lay determined to bury it out of sight; this almost superhuman task was performed in and the stone remained in the ground until when it was exhumed. preston, the northern extension of brighton, originally a small place on the london road, has a pleasant park from which the suburb takes its name. the one object of interest to the tourist is the early english church which has some remarkable frescoes; these represent the murder of st. thomas of canterbury, with our lord revealing himself to the martyr; on the opposite side st. michael is shown weighing a soul. in the nave is another picture of the nativity. a destructive fire, a few years ago, greatly damaged these and also the fabric of the church. careful repair, however, has to a great extent restored the building to its original condition the altar consists of a seventeenth century tomb. the old font was taken away to st. saviour's church, but has been very properly replaced. brighton is not the best centre for the exploration of the central down country. if a coast town is chosen worthing is much better; from there the real country is quickly reached, although the hills themselves are farther away. but there are one or two excursions which obviously belong to brighton, the most important being that to the devil's dyke and poynings. a rather dull walk of over five miles from the steyne, retrieved during the last two by fine views on the left hand, will bring us to the old stone posts labelled "the dyke." this road passes an interesting museum of ornithology collected by the late e.t. booth. here are to be seen cases of wild birds in their natural surroundings planned with greatest care by mr. booth, who gave a lifelong study to the habits and environment of british birds. on the occasions on which the writer has visited the collection no other persons were present, and few residents seem to have heard of it. trains run at frequent intervals from brighton central to the dyke and public conveyances from the aquarium. the excursion should not be missed, though the visitor who is a stranger must be prepared for a regrettable amount of waste paper and broken bottles left about to mar what would otherwise be one of the finest scenes in the downs. refreshment stalls and tea gardens help to vulgarize the surroundings, though the added desecration of aerial railway across the dyke has been removed. the local legend is almost too well known to bear repetition. the sussex native has a dislike, probably derived from his remote ancestors, to refer directly to the devil, so the story has it that the "poor man," becoming enraged at the number of churches built in the weald, conceived the idea of drowning them by letting in the sea; he had half finished the great trench, being forced (like his remote prototype) to work at night, when an old lady, hearing the noise of digging, put her candle in a sieve and looked out of the window. the devil took it for sunrise and disappeared, a very simple fiend indeed! [illustration: poynings.] the view from the edge of the escarpment with poynings just below to the right is very beautiful; away to the south-west is an eminence called "thunder's barrow," probably thor's barrow; at the lower end of the dyke is the devil's punch bowl, here are two more barrows "the devil's grave" and "the devil's wife's grave." a visit to poynings (locally "punnings") should be combined with this excursion; this is a really pleasant and, as yet, unspoilt village. one feels nervous for its future, but the good taste of the inhabitants, combined with the formidable barrier of the hills, will, it is hoped, prevent it ever becoming a mere congeries of tea gardens and like amenities. the fine cruciform church has a central tower and is early perpendicular; built by baron de poynings in the late fourteenth century it has many interesting details. note the old thurible used as an alms box. the great south window was brought here from chichester cathedral. there is some good carved wood in the pulpit and rails. the ruins of poynings place, the one-time home of the fitz-rainalts, barons of poynings, may still be seen. newtimber hill immediately east of the village is rarely visited and therefore is not rendered unsightly in the manner of the dyke. the view is equally good and the downs westward appear to even better advantage from this outlying point. a return could be made from newtimber to pycombe, once famous for its manufacture of shepherds crooks--"pycoom hooks." the village lies in the pass by which the london-brighton road crosses the downs. the old church has a twelfth century leaden font and a double piscina and is one of the highest in sussex, being situated feet above the sea. this walk could very well be extended to include wolstonbury hill and hurstpierpoint. the road running west from poynings at the foot of the downs would bring us to fulking where is a memorial fountain to john ruskin erected by a brewer. another two miles along it is edburton, an unspoilt village under the shadow of trueleigh hill; the fine early english church has a pulpit and altar rails presented by archbishop laud and a leaden font of the early twelfth century. nine miles north of brighton by road, and about half-way between the two london highways, either of which may be taken, lies the large village or small town locally called "hurst" and by the world at large, more romantically, hurstpierpoint. the situation, with its wide and beautiful views over the surrounding country from leith hill and blackdown to the ever present line of the downs on the south, make it one of the pleasantest places in sussex for a prolonged stay. st. john's college is one of the woodard schools in connexion with lancing foundation (see page ); it is a fine building with an imposing chapel. the church is modern and was designed by sir charles barry. in the south transept is an effigy of an unknown crusader and another of a knight in the north aisle. a brass in the chapel commemorates the fact that the martyred bishop hannington was born and held a curacy here. there are a number of memorials to the campions, local squires and present owners of danny; one of them runs thus:-- "reader, bewail thy country's loss in the death of henry campion. in his life admire a character most amiable and venerable, of the friend and gentleman, and christian." [illustration: danny.] danny is a beautiful specimen of the elizabethan mansion at its best; it is built under the shadow of wolstonbury hill, one of the finest in shape of the outstanding bastions of the downs, on the top of which is a circular camp with several pits within the vallum. the twin woods on the slope of the hill are locally known as "campion's eyebrows," they are well seen in the accompanying sketch. [illustration: hurstpierpoint.] hurstpierpoint may also be easily visited from hassocks station ( miles), from which we may also start on the last stage of our return to lewes. one mile east of the station is keymer, a pleasant little place with an uninteresting church which has been practically rebuilt. ditchling, a mile further, has a very fine transitional and early english church which will repay a visit. the nave is severely plain in the older style; the chancel shows some untouched and very beautiful workmanship. the east window is geometrical, as are several in the nave, others are decorated and, in the transept, perpendicular. note the old font which was evidently at one time coloured; also the aumbry, piscina and sedile. the chalk arches are finely worked. in the village are several old timber houses, including one said to have been inhabited by anne of cleves. a walk of about two miles past wick farm or by westmeston, over half a mile farther, brings the traveller to the summit of this section of the downs--ditchling beacon ( feet). until more accurate surveys were made this was supposed to be the highest point of the whole range. "this most commanding down is crowned with the grassy mound and trenches of an ancient earthwork, from whence there is a noble view of hill and plain. the inner slope of the green fosse is inclined at an angle pleasant to recline on, with the head just below the edge, in the summer sunshine. a faint sound as of a sea heard in a dream--a sibilant 'sish, sish'--passes along outside, dying away and coming again as a fresh wave of the wind rushes through the bennets and the dry grass." (richard jefferies.) [illustration: wolstonbury.] the views from ditchling, though fine, are not nearly the best, for there is a tameness in the immediate country to the north. a glorious walk, however, can be taken by keeping along the edge past "black cap," the clump of trees about two miles east, and then either over or round mount harry to lewes. those who must see all the settlements of men should proceed downwards to westmeston, a beautiful little place embowered in trees, some of which are magnificent in shape and size, particularly the great ash at the east of the church which is literally overshadowed by the beacon. the building is uninteresting and the mural paintings dating from the twelfth century, which were discovered about fifty years ago, have not been preserved. it was near here that baring gould speaks of seeing the carcasses of two horses and three calves hanging in a elm; on inquiry he was informed that this was considered "lucky for cattle." about a mile and a half north and two miles east of ditchling village is the lonely hamlet of street. the "place" is a grand old house dating from the reign of the first james; behind the chimney of the hall was once a spacious hiding place and a story is told of a royalist fugitive who _rode into it on his horse_ and was never again seen. the restored church has a number of iron grave slabs and a monument to martha cogger, who was a "pattern of piety and politeness." nearly two miles on the lewes road is plumpton, chiefly famed for its steeplechases which are held two miles away in the weald and close to plumpton station. the church is uninteresting. the "place" is an old moated house, the property of lord chichester. the leonard mascall who lived here in the sixteenth century is said to have introduced the first carp from the danube, the moat being used as their nursery. notice the great v in firs on the face of the downs; this is a memorial of the victorian jubliee; not particularly beautiful and leading one to speculate upon its permanence. a cutting in the chalk would probably recommend itself to the pious care of coming ages when the personage commemorated had either been entirely forgotten or had developed into a legendary heroine of fictitious character. that even cuttings are not always permanent is proved close by, for only occasionally can the cross cut to commemorate the great battle of lewes be seen; the turf shows but a different shade of green at certain times and under certain atmospheric conditions. the road to lewes continues under the shadow of mount harry and eventually drops to the lewes-london highway near offham, remarkable as being the first place in the south where a line of rails was used for the passage of goods. a turn to the right and we soon reach lewes near st. anne's church. chapter v shoreham and worthing public conveyances run from brighton to shoreham several times each day by portslade and southwick; the railway to worthing also follows the road and little will be lost if the traveller goes direct to new shoreham. portslade and southwick churches have some points of interest, the latter a one time church of the knights templar, but they are not sufficient compensation for the melancholy and depressing route. after passing hove the road is cut off from the sea by the eastern arm of shoreham harbour, and there follows a line of gas works, coal sidings and similar eyesores, almost all the way to shoreham town. however, the explorer will be amply recompensed when he arrives at the old port at the mouth of the adur. the original saxon town had its beginnings at old shoreham, but, as the harbour silted up, the importance of the new settlement under norman rule, exceeded all other havens between portsmouth and rye. the overlords were the powerful de braose family, who have left their name and fame over a great extent of the sussex seaboard. [illustration: portslade harbour.] king john is known to have landed here after the death of richard, and charles ii sailed from shoreham after the battle of worcester. the fugitive came across country accompanied by lord wilmot, and at brighton fell in with the captain tattersell, whose grave we have seen there. an arrangement was made by which he was to leave shoreham in the captain's vessel; this was done the next morning and the king in due time reached fecamp safely. at the restoration the gallant captain received an annual pension of one hundred pounds. shoreham is decidedly not the town to visit for an hour or two or for half a day. no one can possibly gain a correct impression of these smaller english towns by a casual call, as it were, between trains. a short stay, or two or three day visits (_not_ on "early closing" day) is the least one can do before claiming to know the place. new shoreham is almost certain to disappoint on first acquaintance. in fact it may be described as mean and shabby! other and competent judges have felt the charm of this old seagate and one--algernon charles swinburne--has immortalized it in his glowing lines "on the south coast":-- "shoreham, clad with the sunset glad and grave with glory that death reveres." shoreham church is second only to the cathedral at chichester and boxgrove priory in interest. as will be seen by the fragments in the churchyard a nave once made the building cruciform, and its proportions then would not have disgraced a small cathedral. a movement has been on foot for some time to rebuild the nave on the old site and an offertory box for this purpose will be seen within the church. [illustration: shoreham and the adur.] the prevailing effect of both exterior and interior is of solemn and stately age. the upper part of the tower is transitional with certain later additions. the base of the tower, the choir transepts, and the fragment still remaining of the nave are norman and transitional of very noble and dignified proportions. the vaulting will be noticed. this is early english, also the beautiful ornament on the capitals and the interesting mason's marks on the pillars. the marble font is a very good specimen of the square type common in this locality. a brass in the nave of a merchant and his lady should be noticed, also a piscina with trefoil ornament and a modern window in the north transept to the infants who died between and . there are a number of memorials to the hooper family hereabouts. in this portion of the building the election of parliamentary candidates once took place. the church owes nothing of its stateliness to a past connected with priory or monastery, it has always been a parish church and is of additional interest thereby. that it always will hold this rank is another matter; in these days of new sees one cannot tell that the parish church of to-day will not be the cathedral of to-morrow. certainly shoreham would wear the title with dignity. there are many quaint corners left in the town (which since has been officially styled "shoreham by sea "), but the individuality of the place is best seen on the quay where a little shipbuilding is still carried on; in the reign of edward iii it supplied the crown with a fleet of twenty-six sail. the figure-head sign of the "royal george" inn may be noticed; this was salvaged from the ill-fated ship of that name which sunk in portsmouth harbour. the norfolk suspension bridge, still retaining its old-fashioned toll, carries the worthing road across the river, at high tide a fine estuary, but at low a feeble trickle lost in a waste of mud. the view of the town from the bridge is very charming, especially in the evening light. [illustration: sketch plan of old & new shoreham.] at old shoreham, a mile up stream, is another bridge which, with the church, is the most painted, sketched and photographed of all sussex scenes; few years pass without it being represented on the walls of the academy. this bridge is a very ancient wooden structure which has been patched and mended from time to time into a condition of extreme picturesqueness. the bridge leads to the "sussex pad," a noted smuggling hostelry in a situation ideal for the purpose, and then on to lancing and sompting. the sturdy and grey old church which has seen so many centuries of change and decay in the life around it, which has even seen the very face of nature alter in the haven beneath, has not changed in any essential since the great de braose of the eleventh century built it on the foundations of its saxon predecessor, whose massive walls still support a goodly part of the norman building. almost the whole of the upper part of the church is norman, though the chancel appears to have been restored at a later date. note the fine pointed screen and the rich moulding of the arches and door, also the carved tye-beam above the great arch which leads to the crossing. the nave is curiously dark, through the absence of windows; here may be seen the remains of the saxon wall projecting beyond the line of the newer work. a low side window near the southwest corner has been variously described as a confessional, a hagioscope, and a leper window. the few small houses to the south of the church are all that now remain to show where the one time port stood; though none of the existing buildings are contemporary with that period. [illustraton: new shoreham.] there is now a choice of ways. the direct route to worthing goes across the norfolk bridge and then by south lancing ("bungalow town ") and calls for no comment other than its fine marine views. the valley road to bramber and steyning we propose to travel presently, and we will now cross the old bridge by the "sussex pad," lately rebuilt. half a mile from the inn the down road to the right leads direct to the prominent group of buildings on a spur of the downs which have been constantly in view during the walk from shoreham. st. nicholas', or lancing, college was founded in by nicholas woodard, an anglican priest. it is part of a larger scheme, other colleges in connexion being at hurstpierpoint and ardingly. the original school, established in at shoreham, may still be seen at the corner of church street; it is now a laundry. the buildings are dominated most effectively by the great pile of the college chapel feet from roof to floor. the general effect is most un-english and gives the west side of the adur an air reminiscent of normandy or picardy. lancing is supposed to be derived from wlencing, one of the sons of ella. the church, originally norman, has been much altered at various times and is mainly early english. the remains of an easter sepulchre may be seen in the north wall of the chancel and at the door the mutilated fragment of a stoup. [illustration: old shoreham.] at the third mile from shoreham is sompting, famous for its church and well known to worthing visitors, who have a pleasant walk of about two and a half miles by shady road and field path through broadwater. the church stands in a group of elms on the slope to the north of the village. the tower and part of the chancel are undoubtedly saxon, the remainder of the church having been rebuilt in norman and early english times. notice the characteristic bands of stonework which run round the tower and the long capitals of the central ribs. the gabled spire is almost unique in this country and will awaken memories of alsace for those who know that land. a similar spire may be seen in another down country, at sarratt in hertfordshire, and a modern example at southampton. between the north side of the tower and the nave are the remains of a chapel erected by the peverells. the interior of the church is equally uncommon and interesting, and the distressing newness which follows most restorations is not seen here, the work of the restorer, mr. carpenter, having been most careful and sympathetic. the outline of the original windows may be traced in the chancel which is now lit by perpendicular openings. over the altar is a tabernacle, not very well seen. notice the piscina with triangular arch, and a tomb, it is supposed, of richard bury, dating from the time of henry vii; also the curious corbel face in the east aisle of the vaulted north transept. the south transept is below the level of the nave; here are two mutilated pieces of sculpture, representing our lord with a book and a seated bishop with his crozier. the font is placed in a recess which formerly held an altar. the church became the property of the knights templar and a portion of the manor was held by the abbey of fécamp; the adjoining manor-house being still known as sompting abbotts; this house was for a short period the home of queen caroline. [illustration: sompting.] enjoyable rambles may be taken by any of the numerous by-roads which lead northwards into the heart of the downs by roman ditch, beggar's bush and cissbury. it is proposed, however, to leave a more particular description of this country to that portion of our longer route to worthing viâ washington, for which we must return to shoreham, and now to take the road which runs by the adur to upper beeding. on the way will be noticed the little church at coombe backed by the downs; this has an unmistakable saxon window in the nave, and a medieval crucifix discovered in . higher up the river is the little old church of botolph's, which may be saxon so far as the chancel arch is concerned, both these churches are very old and quite untouched by the restorer. at upper beeding the priory of sele once stood where is now the vicarage; the early english church is of small interest and need not detain us. [illustration: coombes.] bramber (brymburgh) castle holds the same position for the valley of the adur that lewes does for the ouse and arundel for the arun. the stronghold antedates by many centuries the great norman with whose name it is always coupled. some authorities claim bramber to have been the portus adurni that we have already connected with aldrington; however that may be, roman remains have been discovered here in the form of bridge foundations and it is more than possible that a british fort stood either on or near the hillock where william de braose improved and rebuilt the then existing castle; this, with the barony, was granted to him by the conqueror, and the family continued for many years to be the most powerful in mid-sussex. after the line failed, the property went to the mowbrays and afterwards to the howards, in whose hands it still remains. it was through this connexion that the title of duke of norfolk came to the holders of arundel. thomas mowbray was made first duke in , and when the line ceased and the property changed hands the title went with it. it is possible that the army of the parliament destroyed the castle in the civil war, though no actual records prove this. a skirmish took place here between the royalists and their opponents and is described in a letter addressed to a certain samuel jeake of rye by one of the latter:-- "the enemy attempted bramber bridge, but our brave carleton and evernden with his dragoons and our horse welcomed them with drakes and muskets, sending some eight or nine men to hell, i feare, and one trooper to arundell prisoner, and one of captain evernden's dragoons to heaven." it was the scene of a narrow escape for charles ii in his flight to brighton. the poor remnants of the castle are now an excuse for picnickers who are not always reverent, in point of tidiness, towards what was once a palace of the saxon kings. [illustration: upper beeding.] bramber village is most picturesque and attractive; its size renders it difficult to believe that within living memory it returned two members to parliament. some amusing stories are told of the exciting elections in olden days, when as much as £ , were offered and refused for a single vote. this "borough" once returned wilberforce the abolitionist, of whom it is told that on passing through and being acquainted with the name of the village exclaimed "bramber? why that's the place i'm member for." [illustration: bramber.] the church lies close under the south wall of the castle; only the nave and tower remain of the original cruciform building. although the arches are norman and show the original frescoes, a claim was made by dr. green, rector in , that "in rebuilding the church at his own expense about twenty years before, he had no assistance except that the duke of rutland and lord calthorpe, joint proprietors of the borough, each gave £ , magdalen college £ and mr. lidbetter, an opulent local farmer, £ ; but the duke of norfolk, lord of the manor, nothing!" this "rebuilding" refers to the re-erection of the tower arches, the space between being converted into a chancel. new windows in norman style were inserted in to bring the east end into harmony with the nave. [illustration: st. mary's, bramber.] st. mary's is the first house to be seen on approaching the village from the east. it is a beautiful specimen of a timber-built sussex house; notice the open iron-work door with its queer old bell-pull. every visitor should inspect the quaint museum of taxidermy in the village street; here guinea-pigs may be seen playing cricket, rats playing dominoes and rabbits at school; the lifelike and humorous attitudes of the little animals reflect much credit on the artist. steyning is a short mile farther on our way (both bramber and steyning are stations on the brighton railway). this was another borough until but, unlike its neighbour, it was of considerable importance in the early middle ages and at the domesday survey there were two churches here. the one remaining is of great interest; built by the abbey of fécamp to whom edward the confessor gave steyning, it was evidently never completed; preparations were made for a central tower and the nave appears to be unfinished. the styles range from early norman to that of the sixteenth century when the western tower was built. particular notice should be taken of the pier-arches which are very beautifully decorated; also the south door. the original church was founded by st. cuthman. travelling from the west with his crippled mother, whom he conveyed in a wheelbarrow, he was forced to mend the broken cords with elder twigs. some haymakers in a field jeered at him, and on that field, now called the penfold, a shower has always fallen since whenever the hay is drying. the elder twigs finally gave way where steyning was one day to be and here cuthman decided to halt and build a shelter for his mother and himself. afterwards he raised a wooden church and in this the saint was buried. the father of the great alfred was interred here for a time, his remains being afterwards taken to winchester when his son made that city the capital of united england, though the anglo-saxon chronicle asserts that the king was buried at worcester. [illustration: steyning.] steyning was once known as portus cuthmanni and to this point the tidal estuary of the adur then reached. there are a number of fine old houses in the little town, some with details which show them to date from the fifteenth century. the gabled house in church street was built by william holland of chichester as a grammar school in ; it is known as "brotherhood hall." the vicarage has many interesting details of the sixteenth century and in the garden are two crosses of very early date, probably saxon. [illustration: grammar school, steyning.] the bygone days of steyning seem to have been almost as quiet as its modern history. a burning of heretics took place here in ; and the troops of the parliament took quiet possession of the town when besieging near-by bramber, but steyning had not the doubtful privilege of a castle and so its days were comparatively uneventful. [illustration: old houses, steyning.] the main road may be left at the north end of steyning by a turning on the left which rises in a mile and a half to wiston ("wisson") park and church; this is the best route for the ascent of chanctonbury. the park commands fine views and is in itself very beautiful; the house dates from , though several alterations have spoilt the purity of its style. this manor was once in the hands of the de braose family, from whom it passed by marriage to the shirleys, another famous family. sir thomas shirley built the present house about . it was sir hugh shirley to whom shakespeare referred in _king henry iv_. "hold up thy head, vile scot, or thou art like never to hold it up again. the spirits of shirley, stafford, blount, are in my arms." his great-grandsons were the famous shirley brothers, whose adventures were so wonderful that their deeds were acted in a contemporary play. one went to persia to convert the shah and bring him in on the side of the christian nations against the ottomans. on the way he discovered coffee! his younger brother, who accompanied him, remained in persia and married a circassian princess. the elder, after being taken prisoner by the turks, was liberated by the efforts of james i and then imprisoned in the tower by the same king for his interference in the levant trade. ruined in pocket and with a broken heart he sold wiston and retired to the isle of wight. the estates soon afterwards passed to the gorings, who still own them. wiston church, which stands in the park and close to the house, contains several monuments to the shirleys and one of a child, possibly a son of sir john de braose; a splendid brass of the latter lies on the floor of the south chapel; it is covered with the words 'jesu mercy.' there are a number of dilapidated monuments and pieces of sculpture remaining in the church, which has been spoilt, and some of the details and monuments actually destroyed, by ignorant and careless "restoration." to the north-west of wiston park is buncton chapel, a little old building in which services are occasionally held. the walls show unmistakable roman tiles. chanctonbury (locally "chinkerbury"), one of the most commanding and dignified of the down summits, rises feet on the west of wiston; the climb may be made easier by taking the winding road opposite the church. the "ring" which is such a bold landmark for so many miles around makes a view from the actual top difficult to obtain. the whole of the weald is in sight and also the far-off line of the north downs broken by the summits of holmbury and leith hill with blackdown to the left. in the middle distance is st. leonard's forest, and away to the right ashdown forest with the unmistakable weird clump of firs at wych cross. but it is the immediate foreground of the view which will be most appreciated. the prehistoric entrenchment is filled with the beeches planted by mr. charles goring of wiston when a youth (about ). in his old age ( ) mr. goring wrote the following:-- "how oft around thy ring, sweet hill, a boy, i used to play, and form my plans to plant thy top on some auspicious day. how oft among thy broken turf with what delight i trod, with what delight i placed those twigs beneath thy maiden sod. and then an almost hopeless wish would creep within my breast, oh! could i live to see thy top in all its beauty dress'd. that time's arrived; i've had my wish, and lived to eighty-five; i'll thank my god who gave such grace as long as e'er i live. still when the morning sun in spring, whilst i enjoy my sight, shall gild thy new-clothed beech and sides, i'll view thee with delight." chanctonbury must have had an overpowering effect on our ancestors; the correspondent quoted below perhaps saw the hill through one of the mists which come in from the sea and render every object monstrous or mysterious. "chanckbury, the wrekin or cenis of the south downs, is said to be , _perpendicular yards_ above the level of the sea; on the summum jugum, or vertex, is a ring of trees planted by mr. goring of whiston, and if they were arrived at maturity, would form no indifferent imitation of an ancient druidical grove." (_gentleman's magazine_, .) the descent from the ring is made past a pond whose origin is unknown; judging by its appearance it may well have supplied the men who first occupied the fortifications on the hill top. the white path below eventually leads, by a narrow and steep gully, very slippery after rain, directly to the village of washington on the horsham-worthing high road. the church stands above the village in a picturesque situation, but is of little interest. with the exception of the tower, it was rebuilt in . here is a sixteenth-century tomb of john byne from the old building, and in the churchyard may be seen the grave of charles goring. hillaire belloc has immortalized the village inn thus:-- "they sell good beer at haslemere and under guildford hill; at little cowfold, as i've been told, a beggar may drink his fill. there is good brew at amberley too. and by the bridge also; but the swipes they takes in at the washington inn is the very best beer i know." a great find of silver coins of the time of the last saxon kings was made in on chancton farm; a ploughman turning up an urn containing over three thousand. this was an effective rebuke to those who laugh at "old wives' tales," for a local tradition of buried treasure must have been in existence for eight hundred years. [illustration: chanctonbury ring.] a motor-bus runs here from worthing and then westwards as far as storrington on the branch road to pulborough. storrington has almost the status of a small town and lays claim to fame as the birthplace of tom sayers, the prize-fighter, and of an equally famous prince of commerce in whose honour a metropolitan street has recently been renamed "maple" (late "_london_") street. the church has been almost spoilt by "restorers," but there are fine tombs by westmacott and a brass of the sixteenth century. near the church is a modern roman catholic priory; the beautiful chapel is always open and should be seen. it is, however, for its fine situation opposite kithurst hill and its convenience as a centre from which to explore this beautiful section of the down country that storrington is important to the explorer of downland. within easy reach are the quiet stretches of the arun at pulborough and amberley, and parham (p. ) is within three miles. the line of lofty hills on the south are seldom visited, most tourists being content with chanctonbury. near the downs, about a mile south-east, lies the little church of sullington under its two great yews, very primitive and at present unrestored; most of the work seems to be early english. here is an effigy of an unknown knight, also an old stone coffin. a footpath leads direct to washington where we turn towards the sea, climbing by the worthing road the narrow pass which cuts between the downs and drops to findon. this is another beautifully placed village with a transitional and early english church in an adjacent wood and, for strangers, rather difficult to find. in the chancel is a doorway in a curious position between two seats. a norman arch, probably the relic of an older building, fills the opening of a transept on the south side. a former rector in must have broken all records in the matter of pluralities; besides findon he held livings in salisbury, hereford, rochester, coventry, two in lincolnshire, and seven in norfolk, also holding a canonry of st. paul's and being master of st. leonard's hospital in york. [illustration: findon.] findon is noted for its racing stables; the hills and combes on the east forming an ideal galloping ground. the walks over black patch and harrow hill are among the best in the central downs. east of the village a path leads to cissbury ring ( feet). "cissa's burgh" was the saxon name for this prehistoric fortress which was adapted and used by the romans, as certain discoveries have proved. cissa was a son of ella and has given his name to chichester also. the foundations of a building may be seen in dry summers within the rampart; this is probably roman. on the western slopes are some pits which may be the remains of a british village. but stone weapons, some of rude form and others highly finished, prove the greater antiquity of the camp. about sixty acres are enclosed within the trench, and approaches to it were made on the north, east and south. cissbury is thus the largest entrenchment on the downs and must have been one of the most important in the south. the views seawards are very fine and the stretch of coast is one of the longest visible from any part of the range below the southern side of the fosse, on the slope that brings us down to broadwater, is the reputed site of a roman vineyard; the locality still goes by this name and certainly the situation, a slope facing south and protected from cold winds, is an ideal one for the culture of the grape. broadwater is now a suburb of worthing. here is a very interesting transitional-norman cruciform church, at one time magnificent in its appurtenances, no fewer than six chantry chapels being attached; the remains of these were done away with in the early nineteenth century. note the old altar stone in the floor of the chancel, also on the exterior north wall a dedication cross in flints. in the chancel is a brass to john mapleton, , chancellor of joan of navarre, and there are two fine tombs, one of thomas lord de la warre ( ) and the other of the ninth of that line ( ). john bunnett, interred in , aged , had six wives, three of whom he married and buried after he was ! the church has a modern association which will be of interest to all lovers of wild nature; here in richard jeffries was buried. one cannot but think that the great naturalist would have been more fittingly laid to rest in one of the lonely little god's-acres which nestle in the downs he loved so well. [illustration: broadwater.] worthing until the end of the eighteenth century was a mere suburb of broadwater; its actual beginnings as a watering place were nearly contemporary with those of brighton. when the princess amelia came here in the fortunes of the town were made, and ever since it has steadily, though perhaps slowly, increased in popular favour. the three miles of "front," which is all that fifty per cent, of its visitors know of worthing, are unimposing and in places mean and rather depressing in architecture, but this is atoned for by the stretch of hard clean sands laid bare at half tide, a pleasant change after the discomfort of brighton shingle. as a residential town, pure and simple, worthing is rapidly overtaking its great rival, and successful business men make their money in the one and live in the other, as though the queen of watering-places were an industrial centre. worthing has a great advantage in its fine old trees; as a matter of fact the place would be unbearably arid and glaring without them in the summer months, for it has undoubtedly proved its claim to be the sunniest south coast resort; a claim at one time or other put forth by all. the most convincing proof to the sceptical stranger will be the miles of glass houses for the culture of the tomato with which the town is surrounded. its chief attraction lies in the number of interesting places which can easily be reached in a short time and with little trouble. the downs here are farther off than those at brighton, but are of much greater interest, and public motors take one easily and cheaply into their heart as we have already shown. the south coast railway runs east and west to shoreham and arundel, reaching those super-excellent towns in less than half an hour; and of the walks in the immediate neighbourhood, all have goals which well repay the effort expended in reaching them. sompting, which can be combined with broadwater as an excursion, has already been described; we therefore turn westward again and passing the suburb of heene, now called west worthing, arrive, in two and a half miles from the town hall, at the village of goring. its rebuilt church is of no interest. here richard jeffries died in the august of . a mile farther is west ferring with a plain early english church; notice the later perpendicular stoup at the north door and the piscina, which has a marble shelf. the manor house is on the site of an ancient building in which st. richard of chichester lived after his banishment by henry iii, and here the saint is said to have miraculously fed three-thousand poor folk with bread only sufficient for a thirtieth of that number. [illustration: salvington mill.] a pleasant ramble through the lanes north of the village leads to highdown hill, perhaps the most popular excursion from worthing; the top has an earthwork probably dating from the stone age. human remains of a later date were found here in , also coins, weapons and personal ornaments belonging to the time of the roman occupation. the "miller's tomb" is on the side nearest worthing; it has representations of time and death with some verses composed by the miller, john olliver. a cottage on the other side of the hill stands on the site of the mill. the view is particularly fine both downwards and seawards, though the hill is not half the altitude of cissbury. northwards are the beautiful woods of castle goring, once the residence of the shelleys, through which we may walk to clapham and patching, villages on southern spurs of the downs; the latter has a restored early english church with a very beautiful modern reredos. clapham has a transitional church containing memorials of the shelley family. notice the blocked-up norman arch which proves the existence of an earlier building. on the south is a venerable farmhouse, ancient and picturesque. [illustration: old houses at larring.] the return journey to worthing may be taken through salvington, passing the ruins of durrington chapel; at the south end of the village at the cottage named "lacies" john selden was born in . on the door post is a latin inscription said to have been composed by him when ten years old; it runs thus:-- gratus, honeste, mihi, non claudar, initio sedebis, fur abeas non sum facta soluta tibi. translated by johnson:-- walk in and welcome; honest friends, repose; thief, get thee hence, to thee i'll not unclose. selden's father was a wandering minstrel and the birthplace of the great jurist was humble even for those days. [illustration: becket's palace, tarring.] a short walk southwards brings us to west tarring, which is practically a suburb of worthing. here is a very fine early english and perpendicular church with a lofty spire. notice the beautiful modern mosaics depicting the prophets and apostles. also the old miserere seats and an ancient muniment chest. the window under the tower is in memory of robert southey whose daughter married a onetime vicar of tarring. another incumbent here was stripe the historian. a peculiarity noticeable in many country churchyards may be remarked here--the reluctance to bury on the north side of the church (though strangely enough this has been reversed at near-by ferring). in many churchyards, where the ground is as extensive on the north side as on the others, the grave digger's spade has left it either quite untouched or the graves are few in number and mostly of recent date. west tarring was once a market town and several good specimens of medieval and tudor domestic architecture still exist. it was once a "peculiar" of the archbishops of canterbury, and the remains of the archiepiscopal palace may be seen in the school house on the east of the church. in the rectory orchard close by is the "columbarium," or all that is left of it. becket is said to have occupied the palace. the celebrated fig orchard is supposed to have been raised from slips planted by him, though another story has it that the original planter was st. richard. the present orchard is of much interest and dates from the year of the "forty-five," though it can well be believed that some of the trees are older; the venerable patriarch in the centre is known as "st. thomas," but this is of course impossible. a most remarkable occurrence takes place annually at the ripening of the fruit; a small bird similar to, if not identical with the _beccafico_ ("figeater") of italy visits the orchards here and at sompting, stays a few weeks and then departs until the next season; it is seen in no other part of england. chapter vi arundel and the arun there is a choice of roads between worthing and arundel: that which keeps to the low lands has been partly traversed in the journey to west ferring. about two miles east of this village, and close to angmering station, are the twin villages of east and west preston; the former has a norman and transitional church with one of the four stone spires in sussex. at rustington, a mile farther, is a more interesting early english church with a transitional tower. note the ancient sculpture in the north transept, also the squint and rood-loft steps. this village is but a short distance from littlehampton, which may be approached by the shore road. the country about here seen from the flats appears to be thickly wooded, an effect that is produced by the screen of tall trees in every hedgerow, untouched until time levels them, in return for their protection of the growing crops from the searching sea winds which sweep across the level fields to the downs. vegetation here has a different aspect from that on the other side of the wall of hills. in may and early june one may come from the tender green of the washington lanes over the pass through findon and find the spring livery of the lowland hedgerows temporarily blackened and withered. [illustration: the valley of the arun.] the direct way to arundel, and also the most interesting and beautiful, is by castle goring, reached by the broadwater road. a short distance past the goring woods a side road on the left leads to angmering. here the rebuilt church retains its old chancel and tower with an inscribed stone over the doorway. returning by a shorter lane northwards to the main road we pass new place, once a mansion but now converted into a group of cottages; it is famous as the birthplace of the three sons of sir edward palmer, who were born on three consecutive sundays, a circumstance probably unique in natal annals. all three were afterwards knighted by henry viii. the foothills of the downs to the right are hereabouts very beautiful; one of the spurs is occupied by angmering park belonging to the duke of norfolk. at poling, on a tributary of the arun southwards, is a decoy for wild fowl. here is a perpendicular church containing a fourteenth-century brass to a former priest, one walter davey. a chapel belonging to a commandery of the knights of st. john still stands near the church; it has been converted into a modern dwelling house. [illustration: arundel from the river.] the first view of arundel as it is approached from the worthing road or from the railway station is almost unique in england. bridgnorth, the northern richmond, rye, all cities set on a hill, come to the mind for comparison, but none have the "foreign" look of arundel; this is to a large extent helped by the towering church of st. philip neri; the apsidal end and the great height of the building in proportion to its length, appear more in keeping with northern france than southern england. the town, when one comes to close quarters with it, has a feudal air, and indeed this is as much a matter of fact as of fancy. arundel is a survival, and depends for its existence on the magnificent home of the howards which dominates domestically and ecclesiastically the town at its feet. the castle has the same relation to the pass of the arun that bramber and lewes have to the adur and ouse, but the fact that it is still the ancestral home of an ancient and historic family gives it a far greater interest than either of the others possesses. the castle is mentioned in domesday book, and prior to this in the will of alfred the great. the earldom was given by the conqueror to roger of montgomery; in addition to the castle and its immediate neighbourhood it comprised wide and rich possessions in the surrounding country. by their treason to the crown the montgomerys soon forfeited the estates and the earldom passed through the hands of queen adeliza, and her son de albrin, and then to the fitz-alans, who held it for over three hundred years. the daughter of the last earl married the fourth duke of norfolk and this family have held it ever since. they have made it their principal home and have built in recent years the magnificent temple of the older faith which dwarfs and overshadows the parish church. this itself has felt the might of the great family who, as we shall presently see, imposed their will on the representatives of the establishment. [illustration: arundel castle.] "what house has been so connected with our political and religious annals as that of howard? the premiers in the roll-call of our nobility have been also among the most persecuted and ill-fated. not to dwell on the high-spirited isabelle, countess dowager of arundel, and widow of hugh, last earl of the albini family, who upbraided henry iii to his face with 'vexing the church, oppressing the barons, and denying all his true born subjects their right'; or richard, earl of arundel, who was executed for conspiring to seize richard ii--we must think with indignation of the sufferings inflicted by elizabeth on philip, earl of arundel, son of the 'great' duke of norfolk, beheaded by elizabeth in for his dealings with mary queen of scots. in the biography of earl philip, which, with that of ann dacres his wife, has been well edited by the fourteenth duke, we find that he was caressed by elizabeth in early life, and steeped in the pleasures and vices of her court by her encouragement, to the neglect of his constant young wife, whose virtues, as soon as they reclaimed him to his duty to her, rendered him hated and suspected by the queen, so that she made him the subject of vindictive and incessant persecution, till death released him at the age of thirty-eight. to another howard, thomas, son of earl philip, the country is indebted for those treasures of the east, the arundel marbles." (_quarterly review_: hare.) [illustration: the keep, arundel.] the castle, though not that portion at which we have been looking, has been besieged on three important occasions; in by henry i, to whom it surrendered. by stephen, on its giving hospitality to the empress maud; and by waller, who captured it after seventeen days' siege with a thousand prisoners. artillery mounted on the tower of the church played great havoc with the building and it remained in a ruinous condition until practically rebuilt by the tenth duke in the latter part of the eighteenth century. we commence the ascent of the keep, which is the only part shown to the public (usually on mondays only) by way of the clock tower which once formed the entrance to the inner courts. we can now see the remnants of richard fitz-alan's buildings ( ). a flight of steps leads to the keep, the older portion of which was built by the same earl; the walls are in places ten feet thick. in the centre a well descends to the storeroom of the garrison, which is cut out of the solid chalk. over the entrance note the remains of st. martin's chapel; from the window is a magnificent view towards littlehampton. the openings in the floor suggest the use of boiling liquid for the heads of besiegers. the keep was once famous for its owls, the older members of the colony being known by appropriate names, such as that recorded in the story of the ducal butler who convulsed the guests one evening by announcing, "please, your grace, lord thurlow has laid an egg." [illustration: arundel gateway.] the views in every direction are very fine and the nearer prospect proves to the observer the unrivalled position which the fortress held as guardian of one of the most important of the routes between london and the continent by way of the port of littlehampton. in the distant view "the island" is conspicuous on clear days with chichester cathedral spire in the middle distance. eastwards is highdown hill and the country round worthing, north the beautiful valley of the arun and the lovely tree-clad slopes of the downs of which the nearer spurs form arundel park. the "state" and residential portions of the castle are never shown to the general public. in the fine collection of pictures are a number of van dycks and holbeins, mostly portraits of the fitz-alans and howards. the entrance to the chancel of arundel church, now the fitz-alan chapel, is from the castle grounds. permission to inspect the famous tombs is rarely given. a lawsuit in the last century attempted the recovery of the chancel for the parishioners of arundel, but was ineffectual owing to the fact that the chapel was originally that of the college of holy trinity, founded in by richard fitz-alan; this passed to its present possessors at the dissolution. the lady chapel retains its old altar stone with consecration crosses, and above is a window with some fragments of stained glass. in the centre is the tomb of the sixteenth earl ( ) and a modern tomb of lord henry howard. a number of interesting brasses may also be seen. the main portion of the chapel contains the more famous tombs, the effigies being highly interesting studies of the state dress of various periods. earl thomas and his countess, daughter of king john of portugal, ( ) occupy the centre; the others are earl john ( ) under the east arch. william, nineteenth earl ( ), in a chantry on the south side. on the north are thomas ( ) and william ( ). a tablet over earl william's chantry is in memory of the last fitz-alan, earl henry ( ). [illustration: arundel church.] the fine parish church is separated from the chancel by a screen wall. it dates from and now consists of nave and transepts, the space under the tower being used as the choir. an ancient canopied pulpit is placed against the south-west pier. on the north side are frescoes of the seven deadly sins and the seven works of mercy. the modern ornate reredos shows with great effect against the curious arrangement of iron grill and bare brick which forms the screen wall. the church was once attached to the monastery of seez in normandy. the magnificent modern roman catholic church of st. philip neri is open to visitors between the services. it is built in the purest style of decorated gothic and has already cost over one hundred thousand pounds. notice, before entering, the statues of the twelve apostles at the west end beneath the fine "rose" window. on entering, the imposing effect of the clustered columns and beautiful apse will be admired. unlike most roman churches there is but little colour displayed, the "stations of the cross" being bas-reliefs in the aisle walls. the subdued yet glowing tints in the stained glass help the general effect of restrained dignity. [illustration: plan of the castle & town, arundel.] in the lower portion of the town, the scanty remains of maison dieu show the position of that retreat, founded by earl richard, who built the church; the house provided for twenty inmates. the piers of arun bridge were built out of the ruins in . the park will probably prove the most satisfactory of the sights of arundel to the ordinary visitor, who is here allowed to wander where he will. the road passing under the castle to the right should be taken as far as a small gate on the left, by the mill, entering which we immediately see the swanbourne lake in all its beauty. "the mill is situated beneath the castle, on the east side, at the head of the stream by which the ancient swanbourne lake discharges itself into the river, and most probably occupies the site of the original building mentioned in _domesday_. perhaps, of all the beautiful spots in the neighbourhood of arundel, none comprises more real beauty than this. the valley in front, shaded by the willows and the ash which adorn the little islands of the lake, and winding its way in the distance among the hills; the castle projecting boldly from the eminence on the left; the steep acclivities on each hand, clothed to their summit with luxuriant forest trees ... present a scene in whose presence the lapse of centuries will be easily forgotten." (tierney.) the charm of the spot is not in any way spoilt, obvious care being taken to keep the surroundings spotless; although picnickers are allowed where they will, here are no scraps of paper or broken bottles, the efficient service of "clearing up" is at work in the early hours of the morning, which is the right time to see the park. the visitor should continue round the left bank and up the hill to hiorne's tower, from which a magnificent view of the arun valley and the surrounding downs is to be had. equally beautiful is that from the brow of the hill overlooking the arun, from which point the castle makes an effective picture with the broad sweep of the sea and lowlands behind. the downs are here at their best and the glorious woods of beech and oak are superb in october, and that month, with late may as an alternative, is the best time to see the western downs. the castle dairy is open to the public, usually on the same days that the keep may be seen. the dairy dates from and has the appearance more of a monastic establishment than of farm buildings. [illustration: lyminster.] the exploration of the valley of the arun must be commenced by turning down the stream to see that least interesting section which lies between arundel and the sea. at the mouth of the river stands the old port of littlehampton, the direct road to which leaves the arun to the right and passing lyminster (lemster), sometimes spelt leominster, which has a restored transitional church, enters littlehampton near the railway station. the river road goes by way of ford, where there is a little church interesting by reason of its many styles. according to mr. p.m. johnson they range from norman (and perhaps saxon) right through to caroline. nearly two miles west is another interesting church at yapton, which has a black granite font, ornamented with crosses and probably pre-norman. the interior of the church shows work of an archaic character usually described as early norman. the inn here has a sign--"the shoulder of mutton and cucumbers"--which must be as unique as it is mysterious. [illustration: clymping.] continuing south we reach in another mile the very fine early english church at clymping. the tower is transitional. the artist has sketched the beautiful doorway, one of the finest in sussex. notice also the old stone pulpit and ancient chest. the road running directly south leads to the coast at atherington, where are the remains of a chapel attached to the "bailiff's court house," a moated mediaeval building with portions of a cloister. the bailiff was the local representative of the abbey of seez already referred to. the littlehampton road turns east half a mile beyond clymping and after a dull stretch of over a mile crosses the arun by littlehampton (swing) bridge. the ancient seaport, never of more than local importance, has given way to a watering place almost entirely devoted to children. from the number of nursemaids seen on the beach on an average summer day and the scarcity of other adults one is forced to the conclusion that patrons of this resort use it as a dumping ground for their offspring while they enjoy themselves elsewhere. the firm clean sands are ideal for paddling and castle building, and many ephemeral arundels arise between tides. the ebb and flow in the arun interfere with what would otherwise be an enjoyable trip up stream, but with skill and care there is little danger. littlehampton shows few traces of its antiquity, the church was rebuilt in the last century and is of no interest, but there are many good walks in the neighbourhood and the immediate country is beautifully wooded, with the distant downs as an occasional background. [illustration: church street, littlehampton.] to explore the valley of the arun to the north a return must be made to arundel, and either the path through the park or the road to south stoke may be taken. the latter runs between park and river and soon reaches the two villages of north and south stoke, both charming little hamlets without any communication by road, though a footpath unites the two. the first village, south stoke, has an early english church with sedilia and other details. north stoke has a fine norman door worthy of inspection. here a british canoe was discovered in the last century; it may be seen in the lewes museum. across the river, and only to be approached by a detour past amberley station, is houghton. from the bridge over the arun is a very beautiful retrospect of the valley towards arundel with the hills falling in graceful curves to the river. the church is early english of a severe type; here is a fifteenth century brass but nothing more of much interest. a mile from houghton bridge will bring us to amberley. the village is built on a low hill or cliff immediately above the "wild brooks" or water meadows of the arun, and is famous for the picturesque remains of the palace of the bishops of chichester, which still edge the sandy hill in front of the village. amberley castle, as the residence has always been called, was built in the reign of richard ii, about , and then consisted of a crenellated building with square corner towers and two round gate towers; the present house, which stands within the walls, was erected in the early sixteenth century by bishop sherbourne. this has probably been the site of an episcopal residence since before the conquest and is in as beautiful a situation as is to be found in sussex, though judging by a local saying quoted by lower, it would not appear to be as perfect in the winter. an amberley man when asked from where he comes then answers "amberley, god help us," but in the summer--"amberley, where _would_ you live?" "amerley" is immortalized by izaac walton for its trout, and by fuller, who speaks of them as "one of the four good things of sussex." [illustration: littlehampton harbour.] amberley church is a small norman building with early english additions; note the brass to john wantle ( ) and the beautifully ornamented door in the south aisle. there is an hour-glass stand in the pulpit. notice also the ancient font and the remains of frescoes at the east end of the nave. the road now runs eastwards with the fine escarpment of rackham hill to the right and in about two miles reaches parham park, the seat of lord zouche. a short distance further east is storrington, which we have seen on our way to worthing. delightful walks may be taken across the park, which is freely open to the pedestrian. this stretch of sandy and picturesque wild land is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful domains in the south. its fir-trees are characteristic of the sandstone formation which here succeeds the chalk. visitors should make their way to the lake where the scene, with the downs as a background, is one of extreme beauty. the heronry here is famous; the birds were originally brought from wales to penshurst, from which locality they migrated to angmering and then to parham. lady dorothy nevill, in her interesting "leaves," refers to parham as a favourite resort of smugglers. a former lady de la zouche, while a little girl, was made to open a gate for the passage of a long procession of pack-horses laden with kegs. parham house is a fine elizabethan manor, although partly spoilt by some modern additions; built by sir thomas palmer about it passed to the present family in . the house is famous for the magnificent collection of works of art, early printed books and ancient illuminated ms.; permission to inspect these may be obtained by written application when the family are not in residence and for purposes of research this important collection is always available. some time since the most valuable items were removed to the british museum for safety. the house contains a priest's hole, the entrance to which is from a window seat in the long gallery; one of the babington conspirators--charles paget--was hidden here. south of the house is parham church, possessing one of the three leaden fonts of sussex. [illustration: amberley castle.] it is now proposed to visit pulborough and the valley of the rother. though rather far afield from seaward sussex and the chalk lands, this district comes naturally within the down country, but must have a chapter to itself. from parham we may either go direct to pulborough by the highroad or, more profitably, by greatham to coldwaltham on the roman stane street, the great highway from chichester to london; here we turn north east and in a mile (just past the railway) note the scanty ruins of hardham priory on the right; another mile and, crossing the old arun bridge, we are in pulborough. [illustration: stopham bridge.] chapter vii the valley of the rother pulborough on stane street was once a roman station. relics of the occupation are constantly turning up in the neighbourhood. near the church is a mound, on which stood the "castellum." a glance at the map will show the commanding position the station held over the meeting of the arun and rother. there are traces of a roman villa at borough hill north-east of the village. the fine church is mostly perpendicular, though there are early english portions. note the archaic norman font and several interesting brasses, especially that of thomas harlyng, canon of chichester and rector here in ; also the restored sedilia and beautiful modern reredos. not far from the church are the remains of the ancient "old place" once belonging to the apsleys; the neighbouring barn is even older than the house; "new place," a little farther north, is another picturesque house with a fine hall. pulborough is, with amberley, a mecca for weekend anglers; it has a famous inn, the "swan," and is a good halting place before proceeding westwards, in which direction our road now runs. a mile out of the town we take final leave of the arun at stopham bridge, a fine medieval structure of many arches. the rother joins the larger river just below the bridge and between the two streams may be seen stopham house, the home of the bartelotts, seneschals of the earls of arundel; their monuments and brasses for several centuries are in the church, an ancient building among trees some distance from the bridge. we now approach fittleworth, another favourite place for anglers, whose rendezvous must be looked for nearly a mile away near the bridge and station. the early english church, unrestored and interesting, has in the vestry a curious stone coffin lid with a greek cross upon it. the famous "swan" inn is a well-known feature of the little town and a great resort for artists, who find endless subjects in the beautiful district we are now traversing. egdean has a church dating from the early seventeenth century. about fifty or more years ago it was "restored" in a way which even among restorers must be unique, "early english" details being imposed upon the original work. byworth is picturesque, as miss vigers sketch will show; but, apart from its situation, it calls for no other comment. the scenery around petworth is characteristic of the lower greensand country and the picturesque wooded outcrop north-east of byworth is perhaps as beautiful as any other part of this distinctive belt. in no part of this miniature range, about three miles long, is the altitude over feet, but the charm of the woodland dells and meandering tracks which cross and traverse the heights between the "fox" on the north-west and the arun at hardswood green, is quite as great as in localities of more strongly marked features and greater renown. [illustration: byworth.] the road trends north-west by egdean and byworth to petworth. petworth town consists of a number of old-world streets extremely crooked, narrow, and picturesque. seen from any near point the grouping of roofs is as artistically good as any in sussex. petworth church has been practically rebuilt. the north chantry contains the tombs of some of the percy family, including that of the ninth earl, who was imprisoned in the tower on suspicion of being concerned in the gunpowder plot. here is also the monument to lord egremont ( ), a fine seated figure. notice several interesting brasses and a sixteenth century tomb of the dawtreys. near the church is an old house belonging to this family. one of the rectors of petworth was francis cheynell, the antagonist of chillingworth. just below the church is the somerset hospital, eighteenth century almshouses founded by a duke of somerset. in north street is thompson's hospital, another picturesque group. in the centre of the town stands the market house built by the earl of egremont. in its front is a bust of "william the deliverer." [illustration: petworth church.] petworth is another instance of feudal foundation. the manor, at present owned by lord leconfield, was for centuries in the possession of the percy family. the house is said to have the finest private collection of pictures in the kingdom, most of which are due to the collecting zeal of the third earl of egremont; they are usually shown on tuesdays and thursdays, and visitors are handed a list of the paintings by the guides. the hurried round of the pictures takes about an hour. a wide range of schools are represented, but the most interesting is perhaps the splendid show of turners. [illustration: petworth house.] the present mansion is one of the ugliest in the county and replaced in a beautiful medieval pile; the latter had been the scene of some historic visits, notably that of edward vi, and in charles iii of spain, who was met by prince consort george of denmark. the prince regent with the allied rulers visited the earl of egremont in . three interesting relics shown are a piece of needlework made by lady jane grey, the sword of hotspur used at the battle of shrewsbury, and an illuminated chaucer ms. the chapel is the only portion of the old building remaining. petworth park is quite free and open to the pedestrian. the entrance is in the tillington road. although of an entirely different character from the scenery we have already passed through, partaking more of the nature of an east midland demesne, especially in the lower, or south end, the magnificent stretches of sward interspersed with noble groups of native trees will amply repay the visit. for those who have time to extend the ramble to the prospect tower in the northern portion of the park there is a magnificent view in store, especially south and west. herds of deer roam the glades and there are two fine sheets of water. [illustration: saddler's row, petworth.] the author of _rural rides_ thus describes petworth: "the park is very fine and consists of a parcel of those hills and dells which nature formed here when she was in one of her most sportive moods. i have never seen the earth flung about in such a wild way as round about hindhead and blackdown, and this park forms a part of this ground. from an elevated part of it, and, indeed, from each of many parts of it, you see all around the country to the distance of many miles. from the south-east to the north-west the hills are so lofty and so near that they cut the view rather short; but for the rest of the circle you can see to a very great distance. it is, upon the whole, a most magnificent seat, and the jews will not be able to get it from the _present_ owner, though if he live many years they will give even him a _twist_." the road now goes directly west and in a mile reaches tillington, which has a transitional church modernized and practically rebuilt by the earl of egremont; here are several interesting tombs and brasses. a divergence two miles further will take us downhill across the rother to selham (with a station close to the village). the norman and early english church has a chancel arch with finely carved and ornamented capitals. proceeding westwards between high banks of red sandstone our road soon approaches cowdray park, across which it runs without hedge or fence. [illustration: cowdray.] the park is a beautiful pleasaunce for the inhabitants of midhurst; thickly carpeted with bracken and heather and broken by many picturesque knolls and hollows. the famous burned and ruined mansion lies on the west, close to the town and river. this beautiful old house was destroyed in through the carelessness of some workmen employed in repairing the woodwork of some of the upper rooms. within a month of the calamity the last of the montagues, a young man of , was drowned while shooting the falls of the rhine at schaffhausen. these tragic happenings were supposed to fulfil a curse of the last monk of battle pronounced against sir anthony browne when he took possession of the abbey. "thy line shall end by fire and water and utterly perish." the following is a contemporary account of the tragedy: "lord montague was engaged to the eldest daughter of mr. coutts (the present countess of guildford) and, with a view to his marriage on his return to england, the mansion house had been for several months undergoing a complete repair and fitting up. the whole was completed on the day preceding the night on which it was consumed, and the steward had been employed during the afternoon in writing the noble owner an account of its completion. this letter reached his hands. on the following day the steward wrote another letter announcing its destruction: but in his hurry of spirits, he directed it to lausanne instead of lucerne, by which accident it was two days longer in its passage to his lordship's place of abode than it otherwise would have been. had it not been for that fatal delay, in all human probability this noble family would not have had to deplore the double misfortune by which its name and honours have become extinguished; for the letter arrived at his lordship's lodging on the morning of his death, about an hour after he had left them, and, as nearly as can be computed at the very moment in which he was overwhelmed by the torrent of the rhine." [illustration: the granary, cowdray.] the turreted entrance gateway is less ruinous than the remainder of the buildings and, with the banqueting hall, is as fine a specimen of early sixteenth-century architecture as will be found in england. notice the vaulted entrance to the hall. on the north side, looking towards the guard house is the state bedchamber, wherein queen elizabeth slept in . there are several contemporary accounts of the stately merrymakings which took place during the visit, including the "hunting" scene in which buck deer were guided past gloriana's bower, from which she made dead shots at them, reminding one of the "bulls-eyes" with which a later queen opened the national shooting competition for her worshipping subjects. on st. ann's hill near the town may be traced the outlines of the stronghold erected by the de bohuns; the town and surrounding country remained in their hands until sir david owen, uncle of henry vii, married the last of the line. sir david sold the estate to the earl of southampton, whose son left it to his half brother sir anthony browne, standard bearer of england; his son became the first viscount montague. the estate is now held by lord cowdray, who has a modern mansion, built in a flamboyant elizabethan style, near-by. midhurst is a pleasant old place with some good ancient houses here and there. those in the centre which form the subject of miss vigers' sketch, are being demolished as this is written; their disappearance will be appreciated by motorists in a hurry but by no one else. the perpendicular church has been largely rebuilt during the last century and the montague chantry lacks its tomb, which has been removed to easebourne. richard cobden was educated in the grammar school (founded in ). during the last few years midhurst has become to some extent a resort for londoners who appreciate a quiet country town amid beautiful surroundings which may be explored easily. the walks, not only to the downs on the south but northwards to the lovely and remote hills which culminate in blackdown, are among the best in west sussex. south, west, and east the town is well served by the brighton and south-western railways, a single line in each direction. [illustration: market square, midhurst.] the road to henley is one of the loneliest as it is one of the loveliest in south-west sussex. the writer has tramped the long miles to henley (uphill all the way) without meeting a single pedestrian. even the advent of the great sanatorium on the southern slopes of bexley hill does not seem to have made any difference. possibly visitors use the public motor which runs between midhurst and haslemere. by so doing they miss one of the finest woodland walks in the south, indescribably beautiful in the scarlet and gold of late autumn. the traveller in downland is advised for once to turn his back on the hills and walk as far as the summit of the haslemere road where the new route turns sharp round to the left and hugs the escarpment of bexley hill. in front will be seen an overgrown track, the old highway, plunging down the face of the hill. a few feet down this causeway, paved with large slabs of stone, brings us to a surprising hamlet clinging to the hillside and, with its "duke of cumberland" inn, looking across the wide fernhurst vale to where blackdown lords it on the other side. [illustration: midhurst church.] at easebourne, about a mile north-east of midhurst, is a benedictine priory used, until quite lately, as a farmhouse. it is close to the church, which, with the buildings of the nunnery, form three sides of a hollow square. the restoration has been carried out with taste and care and the whole is worth seeing. the nuns of easebourne would seem to have been "difficult females," for a bishop of chichester in was obliged to call the prioress to order for wearing sumptuous clothes with fur trimmings and for using too many horses when travelling, the penance being a restriction to four. the nuns were spoken of by a contemporary writer as "wild females of high family put at easebourne to keep them quiet." the church, besides the tomb of the first viscount montague, removed from midhurst, contains a figure of sir david owen ( ); also a transitional font. chapter viii goodwood and bognor we now leave the rother, turn south by the chichester road and passing over cocking causeway reach, in three miles, that little village at the foot of the pass through the downs to singleton, or better still, by taking a rather longer route through west lavington we may see the church in which manning preached his last sermon as a member of the anglican communion. the church and accompanying buildings date from and were designed by butterfield; they are a good example of nineteenth-century gothic and are placed in a fine situation. in the churchyard, which is particularly well arranged, lies richard cobden not far from the farmhouse in which he was born. dunford house is not far away; this was presented to cobden by the anti-corn-law league, and here the last years of his life were spent. cocking once had a cell belonging to the abbey of seez in normandy but of this nothing remains. this beautifully situated little place has a primitive norman church with a fine canopied tomb and an old painting of angel and shepherds. we are now at the foot of charlton forest covering the slopes of the downs which stretch eastwards to duncton beacon; and along the edge of this escarpment it is proposed to travel. this is one of the loneliest and most beautiful sections of the range. "a curious phenomenon is observable in this neighbourhood. from the leafy recesses of the layers of beech on the escarpment of the downs, there rises in unsettled weather a mist which rolls among the trees like the smoke out of a chimney. this exhalation is called 'foxes-brewings' whatever that may mean, and if it tends westwards towards cocking, rain follows speedily." (lower.) the hamlet of heyshott need not tempt us from the hill, though graffham, one of the loveliest villages in downland, might well be visited. where at last it is necessary to drop toward the petworth chichester road a divergence may be made to east lavington with its associations and memories of samuel wilberforce, who is buried here and in whose memory a memorial brass may be seen in the church; note also the bishop's pastoral staff fixed to the wall near the altar. there are still "oldest inhabitants" of this peaceful place who remember the celebrated victorian, whose rather unkind sobriquet was really but a tribute to his genial kindliness of disposition. here he married in the local heiress, miss emily sergent, and here mrs. wilberforce was buried in . it is said that at oxford, or wherever the bishop was resident, there hung in his bedroom a picture of lavington churchyard "that i may ever see my own resting place." directly south of lavington rises the _summit_ of the downs--duncton beacon ( feet), like many other "highest tops" a great disappointment after visiting some of the lesser heights, for the beacon, which is named "littleton down" on the ordnance map, is not on the edge of the range but stands back among encircling lesser heights and is itself partly covered with trees which to a great extent cut off the view. barlavington down, about half the height of duncton, and farm hill face east and both command fine views in this direction. the latter is above bignor, to which village we now descend. this is a place beloved of archaeologists, for here is the site of the famous roman villa. bignor church is remarkable for the chancel arch which most authorities admit to be a genuine roman work. note also the long lancet windows in the chancel and the magnificent yews in the churchyard. enquiry must be made in the village for the farm at which the keys of the villa enclosure are kept. (notice the beautiful old house, timbered and with a projecting upper story, near the lane leading to the villa.) authorities are at variance as to the actual history of the remains which were discovered in . the conjecture that this was the fortified station on stane street (which may be seen descending the hills south-west), at the tenth milestone, "ad decimum," seems lately to be discredited, and the supposition gains ground that the villa was simply the country palace of a great roman, or possibly a civilized british prince. however that may be, the discoveries revealed one of the most important and interesting remains of the roman occupation in britain, and cover an area of no less than feet in length by feet in breadth. the principal pavement may be that of the banqueting hall, in the centre of which is a stone cistern, probably a fountain. the hypercaust below has caused the floor to give way in several places. the pavement of a smaller room is perfect and shows a finely executed design; another is decorated with cupids fighting. the details of the building, too numerous to be mentioned here, deserve careful attention even by the uninitiated and prove more forcibly than history-books the magnificence of the civilization which once was, before sussex became an entity, and which the first sussex men so wofully destroyed. the old roman way could be followed directly across the hills for four miles until the high road is joined near halnaker hill, where we shall presently arrive from goodwood, but a longer route must be taken to explore the lovely and retired part of the downs which lies between bignor and singleton. a path between farm hill and barton down leads to up waltham where is a little early english church with the rare feature of a circular apse. just south of the village an exquisite combe opens out to the south-west and is traversed by a rough and stony hill road leading to east dean; this claims to be the _real_ east dean where alfred met asser, but its beautiful situation will be its chief recommendation to the traveller. another mile brings us to the hamlet of charlton from which the extensive forest to the north takes its name. a short distance further and the midhurst-chichester road is joined at singleton, which village, very pleasantly situated, has a perpendicular church with a norman tower, so ancient that some authorities name it saxon; it is at the latest very primitive norman. notice the quaint wooden gallery and the stairs to the rood loft, and also a stoup in good preservation. the village is in a most beautiful situation, surrounded by groups of low wooded hills. there is a station here on the midhurst railway. the high road now winds through west dean to mid-lavant and chichester. both villages have "restored" churches. the first named contains a notable monument--the lewknor. near by is the beautiful west dean park. mid-lavant church is early english but boasts a norman window. the name of this village perpetuates a phenomenon which is becoming more rare each year. at one time erratic streams would make their appearance in the chalk combes in the head of the valley and combining, cause serious floods or "lavants." for some unknown reason the flow of water is gradually becoming smaller and of late years it has been quite insignificant. [illustration: east lavant.] to resume the route a return must be made to singleton and the path taken which leads over the goodwood hills past the race course to halnaker. the whole of this beautiful stretch of downland is open to the stranger; the best views are undoubtedly from the race course, which dates from . this is the most fashionable of all race-meetings and the course is in the most beautiful situation. to the west of the course, on an isolated eminence, sometimes called "roche's hill" and sometimes "the beacon" is an ancient camp with double vallum and fosse enclosing over five acres. on the slope due south of roche's hill are some caves supposed to have been prehistoric dwelling-places. a mile to the south is goodwood house (duke of richmond), on certain days and during certain seasons open to the public. the house, so far as its exterior is concerned, is exceedingly ugly, but contains a magnificent collection of paintings, chiefly portraits, the most famous of which are by lawrence, gainsborough, romney and vandyke, the last named being represented, among other works, by the well-known painting of charles i with his queen and children. the most striking view in the neighbourhood of the house is from "carney's seat" above the pheasantry, a magnificent prospect of the coast extending for many miles in each direction. there are grand groups of cedars here and throughout the park; these add materially to the foreground of the prospect. the timber generally is very fine, as is almost always the case in the enclosed parklands of west sussex. in high wood is a temple which contained until recently an inscribed slab discovered in chichester when the foundations of the council chamber, erected in , were being excavated. this stone, of the greatest interest to antiquaries, has been returned to the town and will be noticed when we arrive there. the ruins of halnaker are on the south-east of the park. the house was built in the reign of henry viii by sir thomas west, lord de la warr. before being allowed to fall into ruin the best of the fittings were removed to the "chantry" in chichester. at the distance of a mile south of halnaker, stane street is reached at a point about four miles from chichester. there are, however, still some interesting places to be seen before, for almost the last time, we turn west. these include boxgrove, which must on no account be missed. eartham is a beautifully situated village about two miles directly east of halnaker. it is chiefly of interest for its associations with the poet hayley, who lived at eartham house, now the residence of sir p. milbanke. the house became for a time the rendezvous of many celebrities, including cowper, flaxman, blake and romney. a very fine flaxman monument in memory of hayley's son may be seen in the church; notice also the memorial of william huskisson the statesman, who lived near here and who was afterwards killed at the opening of the liverpool and manchester railway. the church has a norman arch in the chancel, much admired for its graceful proportions and details. even more beautiful a village is slindon, about two miles farther east and about three miles from arundel. its perfect situation is enhanced by the picturesque clumps of beech trees on the sides of the hills that encircle it. in the restored church, which was built at various periods, is the effigy of a knight in wood. note the curious shorn pillars in the nave. here is an old elizabethan hall, and the park, with its magnificent beech woods, is very fine. slindon is becoming a favourite resort for those who desire a quiet holiday in delightful rural surroundings. two miles south of slindon lies walberton. the church walls have roman bricks worked into saxon masonry. the upper part of the nave is of the usual heavy norman type. eastergate, the next village on the main road to bognor, has an untouched saxon chancel, with a good deal of roman masonry mixed with later material built into the walls. these interesting little villages may be easily reached from bognor. the last years of the eighteenth century were prolific in the birth of south-coast watering places or in the transformation of decayed ports or remote seaside hamlets into fashionable bathing places. bognor is a case in point and comes within the latter category. a successful hatter of southwark named hotham, having "made his pile" built himself a house near the little manor hamlet of bognor, which boasted a single inn but no church. the example of brighton and the nearer neighbour worthing being constantly before the then member of parliament and one-time business man, the possibilities of the land he had acquired, with its fine fringe of firm sand, soon made themselves apparent, and the crescent, hothampton place and several other terraces in what is now the centre of modern bognor quickly appeared. a determined attempt to change the name to hothampton failed, and as soon as the speculator died, his gamble a personal failure, the town reverted to the original saxon bognor (bucganora). the young town had the usual royal send-off; the princess charlotte stayed here for a short time and was followed in due course by the little princess who was one day to become so famous a sovereign. it will be seen that bognor has nothing to interest the visitor who requires something besides a rather homely home from home with good air, bright sunshine and almost the nearest stretch of good sand to london, which delights the shoals of juveniles who give to the front its air of busy animation. the famous bognor rocks provide an additional attraction; the sea at low tide retires for a considerable distance and exposes a line of rocks which indicate the general trend of the ancient coast. here treasures of the sea may be found in profusion and variety. during spring and leap tides the waves, backed by a strong wind, may cause great excitement by dashing across the front and invading the back streets; until the present wall was built this was of frequent occurrence. bognor has a very mild winter temperature and runs worthing very close for sunshine. the old parish church is at south bersted. it is of norman origin with some remains of this period and possibly of saxon times; the main portion is, however, early english. note the stone slabs outside the porch; these were brought from bosham by a former incumbent. there is a sixteenth-century fresco on one of the nave pillars depicting st. thomas aquidas disputing with the doctors. in the churchyard are several interesting graves and a very ancient yew reputed to be over years old. felpham is now the eastern suburb of bognor, and is linked to the town by a small bungalow colony. here hayley came after selling eartham, but the place is now more famous for its associations with the poet's friend blake, who lived for three years in the small thatched cottage which still stands at the seaward end of the village. hayley was buried in the churchyard, which also contains the tomb of dean jackson, once tutor to george iv. the church is a mixture of styles, one row of pillars being early english the other transitional. the much quoted epitaph on a blacksmith written by hayley runs as follows:-- "my sledge and hammer lie reclin'd; my bellows, too, have lost their wind; my fire's extinct, my forge decay'd, and in the dust my vice is laid; my coal is spent, my iron gone, the nails are driven, my work is done." blake's associations with the village came to a sudden end in consequence of a stupid and unwarranted prosecution for treason, the outcome of a struggle with a drunken soldier. the mystic poet-artist gained some of his most characteristic inspirations while staying here, and it was in the garden of his cottage that he saw a "fairy's funeral," the description of which has been often quoted; it is difficult to judge how much of his visions were, to himself, poetic fancy or actual fact. [illustration: felpham.] we now resume our journey towards chichester at walberton, north of which the high road runs west, with little of interest until a turning on the right brings us to the finest ecclesiastical building in the county excepting the cathedral. the priory church of st. mary and st. blaise _bosgrave_ was founded in the reign of henry i by robert de haia of halnaker. being a benedictine church, the nave, now in ruins, formed the parochial section. the choir, transepts and tower, which remain, belonged to the monks, and this portion, with the exception of the norman tower, forms one of the most beautiful examples of early english in the kingdom and dates from about . the fine purbeck marble columns are much admired, as are also the graceful clerestory and vaulting. the galleries of the transepts have ornamented oak fronts, and were used by the lay portion of the ancient congregation. there is a frescoed ceiling belonging to the sixteenth century. notice the renaissance tomb of lord de la warr ( ) on the south side of the chancel with its curious carvings and in the south transept those of countess phillippa of arundel ( ) and her second husband, adam de poynings; also several others, some of which are without inscriptions, but possibly including those of the daughters of that countess of arundel who was once the first henry's queen. the ruins of the priory may be traced and several of the beautiful norman arches belonging to the cloisters still remain. [illustration: boxgrove priory church.] tangmere has a norman and early english church with a wooden tower. the village is on the south side of the main road but need not detain us. west hampnett, nearer chichester, is of more interest; here saxon work in roman materials may be seen; notice the fine tomb of richard sackville and the representation of the trinity between the kneeling figures of richard and his wife. on the left of the road will be seen an old tudor house which has been converted into a workhouse. the road now enters the suburbs of chichester. [illustration: sketch plan of the city of chichester.] chapter ix chichester the brito-roman city of regnum has left its mark on modern chichester in the regularity of the streets, which follow the lines of the ancient thoroughfares. the actual beginnings of the town may antedate the romans, but of this we know nothing. it was to the british chief cogi, whose name was romanized into cogidubnus, that the foundation of chichester was probably due; this briton was a chief of the native tribe of the regni who inhabited the down country and the adjacent seaboard. instead of opposing the conquerors this astute statesman welcomed and allied himself to them and in return received the unique honour, for a native, of the title "legate of the emperor." it is probable that the city was built on the fork of two important existing roads, stane street--the new stone causeway from london to the harbours on the coast between modern bosham and portsmouth--and the adapted and straightened ancient trackway running parallel to the sea and serving the settlements and ports east and west of the junction. at that time small ships were able to approach within a short distance of the meeting place and here the new town would naturally arise. many remains of the roman period have from time to time been excavated; a pavement was found in below the retro-choir of the cathedral and some ancient graves in st. andrew's churchyard were found to have the coffins resting on a tessellated pavement. old buildings in various parts of the town, notably st. olave's church, have much roman brickwork, and the usual treasure of denarii and broken pottery is found whenever an exceptional turning over of the foundations of the town takes place. but the most remarkable of all these earlier relics is the so called "pudens stone" to which reference has been made in speaking of goodwood park. this slab was discovered while digging the foundations of the council chamber and after being kept at goodwood for many years has been returned to the council house in north street, where it may now be seen. the stone is purbeck marble and bears the following inscription:-- (n)eptuni et minervae templum (pr)o salute d(omus) divinae (ex) auctoritat(e tib) claud. (co)gidubni r. leg. aug. in brit. (colle)gium fabror. et qui in eo (a sacris) sunt d.s.d. donati aream (pud)enti pudentini fil. (the conjectural restorations are given in parentheses.) (_translation_.) "the temple of neptune and minerva, erected for the health and preservation of the imperial family by the authority of the emperor tiberias claudius and of cogidubnus, the great king of the britons. the company of artificers, with others, who were ambitious of supplying materials, defrayed the expense. pudens, son of pudentinus, gave the ground." (hare.) the great interest of the inscription is in that part which refers to pudens; a controversy raged for a long time during the middle of the last century around the question of the identity of this individual, the results of which seem to favour the connexion between chichester and the pudens of st. paul's second epistle to timothy. the town seems to have been of little importance in south saxon times, although the modern name dates from that period--"cissa's ceaster." cissa was one of the sons of ella who landed on the selsey peninsula. during the conqueror's reign chichester regained some of its former dignity when the seat of the sussex see was removed hither from selsey. at the same time the town was presented to roger montgomery, earl of alencon, together with most of south-west sussex. the earl built a castle, but nothing of this remains, though the mound in the priory park is said to be the site. the troops of the parliament--led by sir william waller, besieged chichester in ; after ten days the city fell and much ill work, especially in the cathedral, followed. since then its history has been uneventful. some days may be spent in this pleasant town without exhausting its interest and charm and the cathedral cannot be seen in one visit without fatigue. as a centre for the exploration of west sussex chichester is much better than one of the smaller towns. (i am not now advising that adventurous traveller who, fearing nothing, will trust himself to a remote village hostelry among the downs.) the south coast railway runs in three directions and all high roads converge on the city. [illustration: chichester cathedral.] chichester cathedral is the second on the site, and much of this building has been added to and altered at various dates. the original cathedral is supposed to have been for a time the adapted church of st. peter's monastery which stood on or near the south-west corner of the city cross-roads. bishop ralph's building, erected in , was destroyed by fire in . the same bishop started to build the older portions of the church which we now see. the most striking object in the exterior view is the modern spire, built by scott to replace the tower which fell in while repairs to the piers were in progress. the summit is exactly equidistant from the west porch and the end of the lady chapel. the most effective, if not the most picturesque view, is from the north, where the sturdy campanile makes a good foil to the graceful spire. until the enormous bulk of the new liverpool cathedral rose above the great city in the north, chichester was the only english cathedral visible from the sea. [illustration: sketch plan of chichester cathedral.] the nave should be entered from the west porch, a much admired specimen of early english. we are at once aware of the fine effects of light and shade produced by the four aisles. the cathedral is one of the widest in england (though those usually quoted as excelling it--york minster and st. paul's, are actually excelled themselves by manchester, which also has four aisles). the nave and the inner aisles are norman, the outer being geometrical; these were added to make room for the various chapels and shrines which were found necessary as the development of the church progressed. the base of the south-west tower is possibly of an earlier date than the remainder of the nave and the suggestion has been put forward that it forms part of the original monastery church of st. peter; the style of it is very rude and archaic. proceeding by the left-hand or north aisle we see first, close to the north door, the chapel of the baptist, which contains an unknown tomb and an ancient chest reputed to be over a thousand years old and to have been brought from selsey. following come the collins tomb and the arundel chantry containing the altar-tomb of richard fitz-alan and his countess. at the end of this aisle is an unknown female effigy conjectured to be maud of arundel ( ). some good modern stained glass will have been noticed in the nave. the pulpit, a memorial to dean hook, was designed by sir gilbert scott. the south aisle of the nave has the tomb of bishop arundel ( ), bishop durnford, and agnes cromwell and a brass to william bradbridge three times mayor of chichester ( ). in a spirit of ruthless improvement the beautiful old stone screen between nave and choir was removed in , and replaced by the present rood-screen in memory of archdeacon walker. the finely carved throne and stalls in the choir are also modern but are in excellent taste and keeping with the solemn norman stone which surrounds them. the east window was placed in , and it is no worse than other examples of this period. the north transept was for many years used as the parish church of st. peter. note the pictures by bernhardi of the english bishops; those after elizabeth were destroyed when the tower fell. on the west are the tombs of three bishops, grove ( ), king ( ) and carleton ( ). king was the defender of chichester during waller's attack and the latter described him as a "pragmatical malignant." the cathedral library is in this transept, entered from the north choir aisle. it contains several treasures, notably the service book of hermann, archbishop of cologne, once the property of cranmer and bearing his autograph. from this book the reformer adapted many phrases for the book of common prayer. there are several interesting relics from the stone coffins discovered under the choir in , including a papal absolution cross, an abraxas ring and a twelfth-century silver chalice and paten. these are displayed in a case by the wall. in the north choir aisle is a beautiful altar cloth in a glass case. we now pass the fine canopied tomb of bishop moleynes ( ). in the early english chapel at the end, dedicated to st. panthelon, is the modern tomb of bishop otter ( ). before entering this chapel note the stone built into the wall and known as "maudes heart." the screens separating the aisles from the presbytery are made of native sussex iron. we now return and cross to the south transept, on the north side of which is the tomb once supposed to be the shrine of st. richard de la wych, bishop ( ) but now definitely accepted as that of bishop stratford ( ). this tomb, with several others, was barbarously "restored" in the last century; near it may be seen the modern brass in memory of dean burgon ( ). the pictures on the west wall are by bernhardi and represent ceadwalla giving selsey to st. wilfrid and the confirmation made by henry viii to bishop sherborne. part of the transept is used as a consistory court. the sacristy is on the west side and on the east is st. catherine's chapel. in the wall of the aisle, proceeding east, note two slabs which are said to have been brought from selsey cathedral. the subjects are the raising of lazarus and the saviour meeting martha and mary. note between them the tomb of bishop sherborne ( ); near by is a memorial of dean hook ( ) also the coffin slabs of bishop neville ( ) and bersted ( ). [illustration: chichester palace and cathedral.] we now enter the transitional retro-choir; here is the altar tomb of bishop story ( ) who built chichester market cross, and of bishop day ( ). the columns of purbeck marble which grace this part of the cathedral are of great beauty. the screens of native iron have already been noticed, they are of simple but effective design. we pass the terminal chapel of the south aisle, dedicated to st. mary magdalene and restored in memory of dean cross, and enter the chapel of our lady, noting (left) the tombs of bishops hilary and ralph, and (right) bishop seffrid ii, the builder of the early english portions of the cathedial. this beautiful chapel was finished in the early fourteenth century and in the eighteenth was considered unworthy of repair and handed over to the duke of richmond, whose private property it for a long time became. the floor was raised to allow of a burial vault being constructed below, and the upper portion became the library. the restoration was resolved upon in as a memorial to bishop gilbert, and the then duke being in sympathy with the revived canons of good taste no opposition was encountered. it may be of interest to quote an anonymous correspondent in the _gentleman's magazine_ ( , part ii) which shows how the leaven was at work even then. "some ten years since a goth, by some untoward chain of circumstances, possessed sufficient influence with his brethren in the chapter to induce that body to whitewash the church, and by way of ornament, and with a view to compensate for the loss of the original paintings on the groining of the choir destroyed by the whitewash, the said gentleman had the archivolt mouldings and all the lines of the building which were in relief, tastefully coloured in yellow ochre. the name of the perpetrator of this outrage on good taste and good feeling it is unnecessary to add, as he will never plan or design any further embellishment to the cathedral, but if any of his coadjutors in the daubing and smearing line have survived him, and still possess influence, i tremble for the effects of the present repair. "the curious chantry of st. richard, an object of veneration among catholics even to our own days, and the elegant stone screen of the roodloft, have been literally plastered with whitewash, the rich sculptured bosses being converted into apparently unshapely lumps of chalk, and the flat spaces within the heads of the norman arches of the nave, which are sculptured with scales and flowers, are almost reduced to a plane surface.... the removal of this rubbish would be a work of time; it should be gradually and effectually performed arch by arch, or its removal may carry away with it many of the sculptures it may conceal. this will certainly be the case if any london architect, with a contractor at his heels, sets about a thorough repair to be completed in a given time.... "the more ancient injuries which the appearance of the cathedral had sustained were, in the first instance, occasioned by the erection of a breastwork in front of the triforium, which concealed the bases and half the shafts of the columns; this might now be easily removed as the object of its erection, to protect from accident the spectators of the ancient processions, has ceased to exist. since the reformation a great portion of the nave has been fitted up with pews, the congregation adjourning from the choir to the nave to hear the sermon. i need not point out the injury the nave sustains in appearance from this cause and many points of perspective, highly picturesque, which would arise from the singular duplication of the aisles of this church are entirely lost through the existence of the sermon place." on the south side of the nave is the entrance to the irregularly built cloisters; here are several monuments and a good view of the interesting details of the exterior of the cathedral. the bishop's palace is at the west end; it has an early english chapel in which is an interesting fresco of the virgin and child. at the south-east angle of the cloister is the chantry of st. faith dating from the early fourteenth century. [illustration: bell tower, chichester.] the bell tower, which is an unique feature of the cathedral, dates from the late fifteenth century; it was built to relieve the central tower of the main building from the weight of the eight bells, most of them ancient, with quaintly worded and spelt inscriptions. the arundel screen has been placed within the tower, but special permission must be obtained to see this. the old documents in the cathedral muniment room are quaint reading, especially in these post-war days; here are a few items taken at random from an old book of accounts:-- payd thomas the broderer for his labors in amendyng of dyverse cooppes vestments and other ornaments of the church workynge thereabouts by the space of iiii wyks after chrystmas vi s for hys comones so longe iiii s payd unto wolsey the masson for amendynge of the tumbe in our lady chapell that was broken uppe when the commissionars were here from the councell to serch the same xv d (this was possibly the shrine of st. richard.) payd to mother lee for apparellinge of xv mens albes xiiii d unto hyr for a dosen of childrens albes iiii d unto hyr for the makinge of a towell i d payd unto thomas nowye for pollynge and shavinge of the chorusters crounes for vi quarters ending at our ladye in lente viii s in lambart barnard the painter received an annual payment of £ s. d. for his works in the church "in arte suae facultate sua pictoria" (_sic_). this barnard was probably a relative of bernhardi. the surroundings of the cathedral on the south side are very pleasant and the second visit should be made by way of the canon lane gate in south street. on the right is the vicar's close and, farther on, the deanery ( ). the passage called st. richard's walk gives a particularly beautiful view of the cathedral. [illustration: chichester cross.] chichester cross is the next object of general interest. it was built by bishop story in and received rough treatment from waller's men. on the east side is a bronze bust of charles i. the clock was presented by dame elizabeth farringdon in as "an hourly memento of her goodwill to the city"; it has not, however, added to the beauty of the cross. the central column is surrounded by a stone seat which bears witness to the generations who have used it as a resting place. the stone lantern which crowns the whole dates from the eighteenth century. we may now proceed up north street, passing on the right st. olave's church. a quantity of roman materials have been found in the walls, and some authorities declare the south door to be actual roman work; it is undoubtedly the oldest building in the town. the council house is at the corner of lion street; here may be seen the pudens stone already described. at the end of lion street stands st. mary's hospital. this was originally a convent founded in ; for some unknown reason the nuns were evicted in the following century, since then it has been an almshouse, probably the oldest foundation of its kind in the county. it supports eight poor persons who live in tiny two-roomed dwellings round the sides of the great hall. at the end of this is the decorated chapel separated from the remainder of the building by an open screen. the main portion of the building is early english and a great deal of timber has been used in the construction. visitors should enter without waiting for permission, and one of the courteous ladies will, if required, show the chapel. the whole makes a quaint and pleasing picture, quite unique in its way. [illustration: st. mary's hospital, chichester.] we may continue along st. martin's lane northwards to the guildhall, no longer used as such. this was originally the chapel of the grey friars. it has a very fine early english window; the sedilia should also be seen. the building was for many years used as a court of justice; its future is still uncertain. the city walls are not far distant; though not continuous, considerable portions have been laid out as public promenades. they are for the most part constructed of flints and undoubtedly have a roman base. some lines of fortifications about a mile north of the walls, locally called the "broyles," are supposed to be roman works, possibly in connexion with the military station or garrison. returning to the city's centre at the cross, st. andrew's church in east street may be visited; this has a roman pavement at a depth of about five feet. the poet collins is buried within the church. note the slab on the outside wall which up to the present has kept its secret from archaeologists. a very interesting museum in south street contains a quantity of local finds. particular note should be made of the pottery removed from a british tomb at walberton; also of the curious old lantern called the "moon," formerly carried in municipal processions after dark. the "pallant," a corruption of palatinate, was once an ecclesiastical peculiar; it consists of four streets between south and east streets. in west street is the prebendal school at which selden commenced his education. this street has a very fine specimen of seventeenth-century architecture, built by wren and dated . there are several good old residences of about this date in south street. chapter x selsey and bosham chichester harbour ends just west of the town and close to the portsmouth high road at new fishbourne, a pleasant little place with a restored early english church. this may be said to be the north-western limit of the selsey peninsula, one of the most primitive corners of southern england. the few visitors who make use of the light railway to selsey have little or no knowledge of the lonely hamlets scattered over the wind-swept flats, in which many old customs linger and where the saxon dialect may be heard in all its purity. [illustration: the lowlands.] selsey--"seals' island"[ ]--was the scene of the first conversions to christianity in sussex and, for this reason, a semi-sacred land to the early mediaeval church in the south. [ ] two seals were seen on the west of the selsea peninsula in december, , and one of them was shot for preservation in a local museum. st. wilfrid's first visit was unpremeditated; he was shipwrecked while returning from a visit to france, where his consecration had taken place in a.d. . his reception was so hostile that after getting safely away he decided to return at some future date and convert the barbarians to more gentle ways. not for fifteen years did his opportunity come. then, despoiled of his northern bishopric, for wilfrid was a turbulent churchman, he came prepared, we must suppose, for the reception usually meted out to the saints in those days. the heathen saxons, however, were now in a different mood, for "no rain had fallen in that province for three years before his arrival, wherefore a dreadful famine ensued which cruelly destroyed the people.... it is reported that very often, forty or fifty men, being spent with want, would go together to some precipice, or to the sea-shore, and there hand in hand perish by the fall, or be swallowed-up by the waves." (ven. bede.) the efforts of the missionary saint met with success. the unprecedented sufferings of the people had been ignored by their tribal deities and the offer of a new faith was eagerly accepted. the king had been converted, possibly in secret, before this. the baptism of the leading chieftain was followed by the breaking of the terrible drought. the fruits of the woods came to feed the bodies of those who had accepted the food of the spirit, and "the king being made pious and gentle by god, granted him (wilfrid) his own town in which he lived, for a bishop's see, with lands of houses in selesie afterwards added thereto, to the holy new evangelist and baptist who opened to him and all his people the way of everlasting life, and there he founded a monastery for a resting-place for his assembled brothers, which even to this day belongs to his servants." (eddi's _life of bishop wilfrid_.) the monastery site was probably the same as that of the cathedral, now beneath the waves, about a mile east of the present selsey church. [illustration: fishbourne manor.] to explore the peninsula a start should be made at appledram, a small village close to chichester channel and about two miles south-east of the city; here is a fine early english church, on the south of which is an ancient farm-house, originally a tower built by one renan in the reign of edward ii. the king would not grant permission for its crenellation, renan thereupon disposed of most of the materials and they were used to build the campanile at chichester. footpaths lead across the meadows to donnington where is another early english church of but little interest. a mile away on the banks of the disused chichester and arundel canal is the strangely named "manhood end." this is a corruption of mainwood, and refers to the great forest which once stretched from the downs to the sea. a rather dull walk westwards past birdham to west itchenor, a remote little place on the shores of the creek, is amply repaid by the fine views northwards up the bosham channel, with the far-flung line of the downs beyond. (a ferry can be taken from here which would make a short cut to bosham or fishbourne practicable.) returning past the church with its interesting font, a footpath is taken to west wittering and its very fine transitional church, the most interesting ecclesiastical building in the selsey peninsula; note the two rude sculptures of the annunciation and resurrection at the ends of a canopied altar tomb; and a coffin lid with pastoral staff possibly of a "boy-bishop." we are now on that portion of the coast which approximates most nearly to the original spot, now beneath the waves, where the first colonists of sussex landed. [illustration: fishbourne church.] at east wittering a short distance away is an early english church with a norman door. this is not far from bracklesham bay, an adventurous excursion for selsey beach visitors who come here treasure hunting for fossils, of which large numbers repay careful search. to reach selsey "town" devious ways must be taken past earnley, which is surely the quietest and most remote hamlet in the kingdom, on the road from nowhere to nowhere; or we may, if impervious to fatigue, follow the beach all the way to selsey bill. the settlement is easily approached from chichester and the south coast line by the selsey tramway ( miles). the charm of the place, which consists in a great measure in its air of remoteness, is likely to be soon destroyed. pleasant bungalows, of a more solid type than usual, are springing up everywhere between the railway and the bill, though here we may still stand on the blunt-nosed end of sussex and watch the sun rise or set in the sea. it would be interesting to know if the quality of the buildings erected will enable them to last until the sea eventually disposes of selsey. the encroachment of the waves, especially on the eastern side of the bill, has been more rapid than on any other part of the coast, except perhaps certain parts of norfolk. the sea immediately east of selsey is called the "park"; this was actually a deer-park no longer ago than tudor times and in camden's day the foundations of selsey cathedral could be seen at low water. the transitional church was rebuilt in from the materials of the older church, two miles away at church norton, where the chancel still remains among its old mossy tombs. each stone and beam was placed in the same position on the new site. the old chancel at church norton contains a battered tomb to john lewes and his wife ( ). near-by is a mediaeval rectory, once a priory, dating from the fourteenth century, very quaint and picturesque. we now follow the line of the light railway. at sidlesham, the first halt, is a restored early english church containing a fine old chest. note the curious epitaphs within and also on the gravestones in the churchyard, and, not least, the queer names that accompany them:--"glue," "gravy," "earwicker" etc. from the station a footpath may be taken to pagham and what is left of the harbour of that name. here there was until late years a curious phenomenon known as the "hushing well." a rush of air would burst through the water in the harbour at the time of the incoming tide. the "well" was destroyed by draining operations which also caused the disappearance of large numbers of rare water fowl and aquatic insects, though the naturalist will still be repaid by a visit to this lonely coast and its immediate surroundings. a short time ago the sea made an entrance, but without reconstructing the old conditions. it is no longer practicable to walk along the coast to bognor. pagham church is an interesting early english building dedicated to st. thomas of canterbury and erected by a successor to st. augustine's chair. note a slab in the chancel with lombardic lettering and the old glass in the east window. the scanty remains of the episcopal palace may be seen southeast of the church. from hunston halt a walk of about a mile westwards leads to another remote and straggling village, north mundham. in the restored church is a saxon font and certain curious sculptures may be seen outside the door. from here it is only two miles to chichester, passing rumboldswyke church, which has interesting features, including roman brickwork in the chancel arch. the portsmouth road, in three miles from chichester, reaches walton, where a turning to the left leads in another mile to bosham, certainly the most interesting relic of the past in west sussex. bosham (pron. _bozam_) to-day seems existent solely in the interest of artists; it is certainly the most besketched place on the south coast and is rarely, in fine weather, without one or more easels on its quiet quay. the best loved hours of the day for the painting or sketching fraternity--those of low tide, when every boat lies at a different angle--will be the most unpopular for the ordinary visitor, who will be eager for the friendly smoke-scented parlour of the inn as a refuge from the flavour of the malodorous flats; at low tide bosham is certainly picturesque, at the full she is comely and clean. [illustration: bosham.] the harbour, from british, through roman, saxon and norman times to the later middle ages, was one of the principal entrances to and exits from this county. it was on several occasions harried by the danes and, as depicted on the bayeux tapestry, harold left here on that visit which was to have such dire consequences for himself and his line, and such untold results on the history of the nation-to-be. the great emperor of the north--knut--was a frequent visitor to the creek in his dragon-prowed barque. his palace, also the home of earl godwin and harold, is supposed to have been on the northeast of the church, where a moat is still in existence. it is here that the incident recorded in every school reader, the historic rebuke to sycophantic courtiers, is said to have taken place. the church is of venerable antiquity. the tower has certain indications which point to its being saxon work. the chancel arch may be still older in its base, and some authorities suggest that the lower portions are actually the remains of the basilica erected in the time of constantine, on the site of which the church now stands. the east portions of the chancel are early english and once formed the chapel of a college founded by william warlewaste, bishop of exeter ( ). note the figure in the north wall, said to be that of the daughter of knut who died here while on a visit to earl godwin. the effigy is, however, of much later date. the fine arcaded font is placed upon high steps against a column. at the east end of the south aisle the floor is raised over an early english crypt or charnel-house, the entrance to which is close to a canopied tomb. this tomb is that of herbert of bosham, secretary to becket, who wrote the _book of becket's martyrdom_. [illustration: bosham mill.] the church was restored in and during this work the most interesting discovery was made of the traditional burial place of knut's daughter. how often has a local tradition, accepted as fact by the peasant, but looked upon as an idle tale by his educated superior, proved to have more than a grain of truth in it and sometimes to be a very circumstantial record of actualities, and fully supported by antiquarian research. the exact position of the grave is shown by the figure of a danish raven painted upon a tile, and a stone slab with an inscription upon it placed by the children of bosham in . one of the ancient bells was stolen by danish pirates; the story goes that when half way to the open sea a storm arose which swamped the boat in consequence of the great weight of the metal on board. on high festivals of the church, a bosham man will tell you, its sound can be heard from the waves mingling with the chimes of the modern bells of the tower. as a matter of fact the echo of the peal, thrown back by the woods of west itchenor, is, in certain favourable conditions of the atmosphere, distinctly like a second chime, and might deceive a stranger into thinking that another church lay across the water. [illustration: bosham. the strand.] a most interesting fact recorded by the venerable bede is that when wilfrid of york came here in he found a religious house ruled by a monk named dicul. it was this monk who had converted king ethelwalch before wilfrid arrived. the existence of this tiny community in the midst of hostile tribes, over two hundred years after the extinction of christianity in the south, is a matter of high romance in the history of the faith in britain. there are two other isolated bits of sussex on the south of the high road to emsworth, the first containing the small hamlet of chidham with a beautiful little early english church; the next is occupied by west thorney. here is another church of the same period with a transitional tower and a norman font. this peninsula was until quite recently an island and the home of innumerable sea fowl. emsworth is almost entirely in hampshire and therefore outside our limits, but we can well make it the starting place for the last corner of seaward sussex unexplored. westbourne, one mile north of emsworth, has a fine transitional church with a large number of monuments and an imposing avenue of yews. at racton to the north-east is the well-known seamark tower used by mariners in the navigation of the channels of chichester harbour. the church has a monument to an ancestor of that colonel gunter who took part in the escape of charles ii. near by is lordington house, erected by the father of cardinal pole and said to be haunted by the ghost of that countess of salisbury who, when an old woman upwards of seventy, was beheaded by the order of henry viii, and caused the headman much trouble by refusing to place her head upon the block; an illustration by cruickshank depicts the executioner chasing the countess round the platform. [illustration: the western downs.] several roads lead north through beautiful country, covered by lonely and unfrequented woodlands, to the mardens. west marden is about five miles from emsworth and close to the hampshire border; all the four villages which bear this name are among the most primitive in southern england. at north marden is a plain unrestored norman church, the only one in the immediate vicinity which is worth a visit for its own sake. compton, a mile beyond west marden, has a transitional norman church partly rebuilt; this is close to lady holt park, a favourite retreat of pope; and up park, a fine expanse of woodland, where the carylls once lived; their estates were forfeited for their championship of the stuarts. the northern end of the park rises to the edge of the downs close to torberry hill, the last summit in sussex, though the traveller who is so inclined may, with much advantage to himself, penetrate into the lonely recesses of the hampshire hills, sacred to the shade of gilbert white, and, still within the probable limits of the _ancient_ kingdom of sussex, finish his travels at butser hill and petersfield. butser hill is feet above the sea, and therefore higher than any point of the range within sussex. this well-known summit is familiar to all travellers on the portsmouth road, from which it rises with imposing effect on the west of the pass beyond petersfield. here the south downs, so called, may be said to end. the chalk hills are continued right across hampshire, slowly diminishing in height until they are lost in the great plateau of salisbury plain in wiltshire. [illustration: harting.] between a fold of the hills lies picturesque harting in a most delightful situation; an ideal spot for a restful time away from twentieth-century conditions. the tourist, if amenable to the simple life, might well make a stay of a few days to explore the lovely country of which this village forms the centre. the finely placed early english cruciform church has several interesting monuments to members of former local families, including sixteenth century memorials of the cowper-coles. here is buried lord grey, who was connected with the rye house plot. notice the embroidery in the reredos, an unusual style; also the fine wooden roof and shorn pillars; the latter detract from the general effect of the interior and have been noticed in other downland churches on our route. quite close to the church are the old village stocks, undoubtedly placed in this position for the sake of convenience, the "court" in more remote districts having been held, in former times, in the church itself. harting was for a time the home of anthony trollope, and cardinal pole was rector here. there are few districts in england and certainly none south of the trent where old customs and queer legends persist with so much vitality as in these lonely combes and hollows. the effect of being out of the world is perhaps enhanced in these western downs by the ring fence of dark woods through which we have to pass to reach the bare, wind-swept solitudes and lonely hamlets within them. the northern escarpment and southern flanks of the hills are clothed in vast forests of beech which add that grandeur to the great ramparts of chalk which the eastern ranges lack. seen through the ever-shifting sea mists which creep up from the channel these heights take on an appearance of greater altitude and an added glamour of mystery. south-east of harting is the isolated beacon hill, once a semaphore station between portsmouth and london; but instead of taking at once to the heights, the pedestrian should first visit elsted up on its own little hill, and treyford a mile farther; both churches are ruined and deserted. a new church with a spire that forms a landmark for many miles, stands midway between the two and serves both. elsted has an inn from the doorway of which the traveller has a superb view of the downs. from treyford a bridle-path leads directly south to the summit of treyford hill, where are five barrows called "the devil's jumps." from here the track running along the top of the down will bring us in two miles to the bold spurs of linch down ( feet), the finest view-point on the western downs, the views over the weald being magnificent in all directions. a track will have been noticed on the west side of the summit, and a return should be made to this, and then by striking southwards through the westdean woods we eventually reach chilgrove. we might then climb the opposite spur and keep southwards until the ridge rises to the escarpment of bow hill, but the finest walk of all and the most fitting termination to our tour will be to keep to the rough road which runs down the valley south-east to welldown farm. here a road turns right and in a little over a mile drops to the romantically beautiful kingley vale. this vale is a cup-shaped hollow in the south side of bow hill; its steep sides are clothed in a sombre garb of yews and at the farther end of the combe is a solemn grove of these venerable trees amid which broad noon becomes a mystic twilight filled with the spirit of awe; a fitting place for the burial of warrior kings with wild, barbaric rite. tradition has it that many danish chieftains were here defeated and slain and that here beneath the yews they rest. but who shall say what other strange scenes these lonely deeps in the bosom of the hills have witnessed before saxon or dane replaced the celt; who in turn, for all his fierce and arrogant ways, went, by night, in fear and trembling of those spiteful little men he himself displaced, and whose vengeance or pitiful gratitude is perpetuated in the first romances of our childhood. though their living homes were in the primeval forests of the britain that was, their last long resting places were under the open skies on the summits of the wind-swept downs. many of the smooth green barrows that enclosed their remains have been ruthlessly rifled and desecrated by greed or curiosity. it is to be hoped that the votaries of this form of archaeological research have now discovered all that they desired to know, and that our far-off ancestors will be left to the peace we do not grudge our more immediate forefathers. appendix the sussex downs from end to end the following summary will suggest to the stranger how his time, if limited, could be so disposed as to take in the whole range with those villages which are essentially downland settlements and those which lie immediately at the foot of the escarpment. for this purpose the order of the book is reversed and the tourist should start at the western or hampshire end and finish his walk at beachy head. the enjoyment of this tour will of course be greatly enhanced if half the distance is traversed each day, thus doubling the time. [illustration: cowdray cottage.] st day. midhurst (angel inn) or cocking station via lynch down, beacon hill, to harting, miles (ship inn). nd day. harting to bow hill and kingley bottom via north and east marden, miles; on to west dean, singleton and cocking (inn), miles; or midhurst, miles. rd day. cocking by heyshott down and duncton beacon to east dean, miles (inn); on by burton down and bignor hill (stane street) to bignor, miles (inn); on to amberley, miles (inn). th day. amberley to rackham and kithurst hills; down to storrington (white horse inn), miles. by the main road to washington (inn) and wiston. ascend chanctonbury ring, miles; on to cissbury ring and over downs at steyning, miles (white horse). th day. steyning via bramber and upper beeding to trueleigh hill and devil's dyke, miles (inn); down to poynings, round newtimber hill to pyecombe and wolstonbury, thence by hill road to ditchling beacon, miles; on by edge of downs to mount harry and down to lewes, miles (white hart, crown, etc.) th day. lewes over cliffe hill and mount caburn to glynde and west firle, miles (inn); over firle beacon and along edge of downs to alfriston, miles (star inn); by lullington to windover hill ("long man of wilmington") down to jevington, miles (inn); up to willingdon hill and thence by eastern edge of downs all the way to beachy head, miles. eastbourne, miles. [illustration: sketch map of the roads from london to the downs.] appendix ii london to the south downs--the weald the writer of the preceding chapters has often been tempted to trespass outside the limits imposed upon him, and penetrate the woody fastnesses of the weald. in this separate section a short description will be given of some of the most characteristic scenes and interesting towns and villages between london and the coast. a certain proportion of the pleasure of a holiday is, or should be, obtained on the journey toward the goal. this is, of course, much more the case where road rather than rail is taken, and most of the routes to the south run through a lovely and varied countryside which will repay a leisurely mode of progression. to the writer there is no way of seeing england equal to doing that on foot; however, it would be unreasonable to expect every one to adopt this mode of travelling even if they were able, and these notes can easily be followed by motorist or cyclist without undue loss of time. london to lewes by westerham and maresfield this road keeps within kent until the boundary of sussex is reached, and runs via catford bromley and keston, climbing gradually to westerham hill, after which there is a steep and dangerous descent to the small town of westerham ( miles) pleasantly situated between the north downs and the sandy hills of the surrey weald. it is famous as the birthplace of wolfe, whose statue adorns the green, around which is grouped the quietly dignified assemblage of inns, shops and houses that are typical of this part of kent. the large and finely situated church also has a memorial to the local hero, who was born in the vicarage here and buried at greenwich. the road continues through pleasant country over crockham hill to edenbridge ( m.) on the small river eden. although the immediate surroundings are dull and featureless this is a good centre from which to explore the district eastwards to hever, penshurst, and tonbridge. one mile out of the town we bear left and, in another three, cross the kent water into sussex. in - / miles the road passes over the medway to hartfield ( - / m.) on the edge of ashdown forest. the early english church has a lych-gate dating from . inside may be seen three piscinas, one in an uncommon position near the south door. [a long mile east is withyam, with a perpendicular church famous for its monuments of the dorset family. only a gateway remains of the ancient buckhurst mansion, the greater part of the materials going to the erection of sackville college at east grinstead.] from hartfield we climb steadily towards the centre of the forest with occasional wide views between the close woods which line the northern slopes. [before reaching camp hill and near the summit, a path leads left to crowborough, which of late years has become suburban and a second haslemere. the beacon commands wide views, but the immediate surroundings have been spoilt.] we now drop towards maresfield with grand forward views over the weald to the south downs. maresfield ( m.) has a small decorated church with a norman window in the nave. note the ancient woodwork and restored oak porch, also two stoups, one within and the other outside the church. this was once an important "black country" centre. local names, such as "the forge" perpetuate the memory of this strange period in the history of sussex, which was at its busiest about , the last furnace being quenched in . "it is a strange thing to remember, when one is standing on the cold desolate hills about crowborough beacon, or in the glens of the tilgate forest--now the very picture of quiet, and rest, and loneliness--that this same sussex was once the iron mart of england. once, spotted over these hills and through these forests, there were forges that roared from morning till night, chimneys that sent up their smoke and their poisonous vapour from one year's end to another; cannon were cast ... where now there is no harsher voice than the tap of the woodpecker.... one cannot fancy the forests of st. leonards and ashdown, the wolverhampton of their age. but so it was; and not the least remarkable thing ... is the absence of traditions about the life and customs of the manufacturers so employed." (lower.) [from maresfield a round of about thirty miles could be made through the beautiful east sussex weald, rejoining the main road at uckfield. in two miles is buxted, which has an interesting early english church standing high amidst woods. in the decorated chancel is the brass of britellus avenel ( ) and j. de lewes ( ), by whom the church was founded. note the old muniment chest in the north aisle and the mortuary chapel of the earls of liverpool south of the chancel. not far from the church is "hog house," note the hog carved over the door and dated . the hogge family, ironmasters, once lived here. in was cast the first iron cannon made in this country. "master huggett and his man john, they did cast the first cannon." not far away is the one time cell of a hermit, carved out of the rock, and named "the vineyard." the road now winds through a remote country, which once resounded with the clangour of the forge, to hadlow down and butcher's cross and in seven miles reaches mayfield. the village street is according to coventry patmore the "sweetest in sussex." the half-timbered "middle house" nearly opposite the church is the best example of this style of architecture in the south, it is dated . lower house was built about . the fine perpendicular church is on the site of the traditional building erected by st. dunstan. this was made of wood, and the saint, finding that the orientation was not quite true, set his shoulder to the wall and pushed it straight! the visitor will note the fine effect of the raised chancel, the roof of which is composed of a one time gallery. note, among other objects, the old screen and choir stalls; a squint; font dated ; iron slabs in the nave to the sands ( and ); monument to t. aynscombe ( ); chandeliers; and curious east window; and, not least, the glorious view from the churchyard. the palace of the archbishops is now a convent: it was restored by pugin after being in a state of ruin for many years. certain portions may be seen at uncertain times. in the ancient dining-room are preserved the hammer, tongs and anvil of st. dunstan. the saint's well is in the garden. it was hereabouts that st. dunstan had his great tussle with the devil, holding the fiend by the nose with his tongs; eventually the evil one wrenched himself free; making an eight mile leap he cooled his nose in a pool of water, giving it for ever "a flavour of warm flat irons" and making the fortune of the future tunbridge wells. mayfield has another claim to a niche in history, not a quaint old tale like the above but a sombre fact:-- "next followed four, which suffered at mayfield, in sussex, the twenty-fourth of september , of whose names we find two recorded, and the other two we yet know not, and therefore, according to our register, hereunder they be specified, as we find them: john hart, thomas ravendale, a shoemaker and a carrier, which said four being at the place where they should suffer, after they had made their prayers, and were at the stake ready to abide the force of the fire, they constantly and joyfully yielded their lives for the testimony of the glorious gospel of jesus christ." (foxe.) the scenery hereabouts is distinctly of devonian character. rich and varied views reward the leisurely traveller who will make a side excursion to rotherfield, passing, halfway the conical argos hill crowned with a windmill. the village, though not so interesting as mayfield, is well placed and has a fine perpendicular church, the spire being a landmark for many miles. here is an east window by burne jones and several other good examples of modern stained glass which make fine splashes of colour in the old building. a quaint saying in reference to the handsome presence of the rotherfield women is that they have an "extra pair of ribs." the beautiful district between here and tunbridge wells deserves a chapter to itself. frant wadhurst and ticehurst belong more naturally to west kent than east sussex. these three beautiful villages and the glorious eridge park could be combined in this excursion by the traveller who has unlimited time. we may now follow the valley of the rother through scenery of much quiet beauty to burwash, - / miles from mayfield. here is an old church with a (possibly) saxon tower and an interesting iron slab inscribed "orate p annima johne colins," probably the oldest piece of local ironwork in existence. the outline of the village is eminently satisfying to the artist, especially the house called "rampyndens." burwash is connected with the rev. j. cocker egerton, to whom reference has already been made. from the natives of this particular district was gleaned that record of rustic humour which makes the sussex peasant depicted in his writings so real to those who know him. the village has lately become the home of rudyard kipling, who lives at "batemans," a beautiful old house in an adjacent valley surrounded by wooded hills. "puck of pooks hill" is said to have been inspired by the locality. brightling beacon, three miles farther, commands the finest prospect of the western weald, the immediate foreground being of great beauty. brightling church should also be seen. a return could now be made by way of heathfield, from brightling, passing cade street. here a monument commemorates the death of jack cade, who was shot by an arrow discharged by alexander iden, sheriff of kent, in . cade had been hiding at newick farm; gaining confidence he came out for a game of bowls and met his end while playing. heathfield _old_ village and church are off the main road to the left; our route passes the railway station and runs westwards to cross-in-hand and blackboys; this road is a succession of lovely views throughout the seven miles to framfield, where there is a tudor church. a short two miles more brings us to our main route at uckfield.] [illustration: middle house, mayfield.] uckfield ( - / m.) old church was pulled down in the early nineteenth century, and its successor is of no interest. an old stone house in front of the "king's head" was once the village lock-up. a picturesque outcrop of the hastings sandstone around a small lake forms a beauty spot of local fame: it is within the demesne of "the rocks" on the west of the town. [an alternative route to lewes could be taken from uckfield through the best part of the ouse valley; nearly half-way and on the right is isfield ("eyefield"), the church is interesting.] the road now bears south-east to high cross and then by halland to east hoathly ( - / m.). the church here has the pelham buckle as a dripstone. note the norman piscina. in five miles the little hamlet of horsebridge is reached. we are now in the cuckmere valley. [one mile short of this a round of four miles could be made via the dicker to mickleham priory and hailsham. the priory is now a farmhouse; the position of the chapel is shown by some arches built into the wall. the interior has a fine cowled fireplace and early english crypt. the gatehouse is the only complete portion of the priory buildings. permission must be obtained to view the interior.] the eastbourne road crosses the cuckmere and turns sharp to the right before reaching the railway. hailsham ( - / m.). the fine pinnacled tower of the church shows up well above the roofs of the old market town, which, however, has little to show the visitor and is not particularly picturesque. the immediate surroundings of the road are tame until we enter the woodlands, which surround the route almost to polegate ( - / m.). we now have fine views of the downs on our right front though willingdon to eastbourne ( m.). london to seaford by east grinstead and lewes this route follows the brighton road through croydon to purley ( - / m.). here we bear south-east and follow the eastbourne road through suburban but pleasant kenley and whyteleafe to caterham ( - / m.). the north downs are crossed between gravelly hill (water tower) and marden castle, followed by a long descent to godstone ( m.), built around a charming green with a fine old inn ("clayton arms") on the left. a lane at the side of the inn leads to the interesting church and almshouses. the direct road onwards, runs over tilburstow hill ( feet), but the better route bears left and passes godstone station, rejoining the old road at springfield ( m.). [at blindley heath a road bears left to lingfield, a pretty village with an interesting church, once collegiate. note misererie seats and choir screen (fifteenth century). tombs of the st, nd and rd lord cobhams and other interesting tombs and brasses.] [illustration: high street, east grinstead.] at fellbridge, just past the horley road, we enter sussex and, after a short rise and fall, arrive at east grinstead ( m.). this is one of the pleasantest towns of the weald, with many old houses here and there in the high street. the church, though of imposing appearance from a distance, is, on closer acquaintance, disappointing; the fabric dating from . note an iron tomb slab ( ). not far from the church is the jacobean sackville college. here the celebrated father neale was warden for twenty-five years. (in barely two miles from the centre of the town a lane leads over the railway to the right in / mile to the picturesque ruins of brambletye.) forest row ( m.), on the river medway. the road now climbs steadily between woods to wych cross ( m.). grand views south and west. this is one of the finest passes over the forest ridge and the peculiar characteristics of the hastings sands are here seen to the best advantage. these high sandy moors, covered with glorious stretches of bracken and heather, here and there clothed in dense growths of oak and beech, with occasional distinctive clumps of scots fir and beneath all a thick tangle of bramble, a perfect sanctuary of wild life, are more reminiscent of radnor or galloway than of the south country. [illustration: sackville college.] the right-hand road is taken at the fork and there follows a long coast down to danehill, where the lewes road bears left to sheffield green ( m.). [a road to the left would bring us in miles to fletching, where the forces of simon de montfort started on their march to mount harry and subsequent victory of lewes. the village is the centre of a delightful neighbourhood and is delightful in itself, not only for the charm of its surroundings, but for its quaint and attractive architecture of the humbler sort. the early english church has been well restored and beautified by the earl of sheffield, whose estate lies to the west. gibbon the historian lies in the sheffield mausoleum. note the old glass in the small lancet windows; this was buried in the churchyard during some forgotten trouble and discovered and replaced during the restoration. several old helmets and gauntlets with the crest of the nevill's are hung in the north transept. a small brass should be noticed; the inscription refers to a local worthy, p. devot, who took part in the cade rebellion.] sheffield park on the left is full of fine timber; at the end we cross the ouse and the railway and keep straight forward to chailey ( - / m.) with occasional views ahead of the lewes downs. passing chailey potteries on the left the road calls for no comment until we pass cooksbridge station and draw near the downs. offham ( m.). lewes ( m.). there is a choice of routes to seaford; that passing southease ( m.) enters newhaven and crosses the ouse there. the alternative road crosses the river in lewes, runs under mount caburn and going through beddingham ( - / m.) bears right. south heighton ( - / m.). seaford ( m.). the brighton road this classic fifty-two miles, the scene of many records in coaching, running, cycling and walking, is the shortest way from london to the sea, but not by any means the most interesting either for the lover of nature or the tourist of an antiquarian turn. distances are reckoned from westminster bridge ("big ben"). after kennington comes a two-mile ascent from brixton to streatham and then a fairly level stretch to croydon ( m.), whitgift hospital ( ), archbishop's palace, fine rebuilt church. we now enter the chalk country and pass through suburban purley to merstham ( m.). [reigate ( m. right). large perpendicular church. the town is pleasant and picturesque but rapidly becoming suburban.] the road drops between spurs of the north downs to redhill ( m.); a busy railway junction. thence over earlswood common. horley ( - / m.). interesting church; note yews in churchyard. lowfield heath. three miles from horley we pass into sussex and shortly reach crawley ( - / m.). decorated church. note the quaint lines on one of the roof beams. mark lemon lived at vine cottage in the village. [the tiny village of worth, south of the east grinstead road and nearly miles from crawley, should be visited for the sake of its unique saxon church, the only one remaining which is complete in its ground plan. notice the typical band of stones supported by pillars which runs round the building; also the curious double font; pulpit dated and ancient lych-gate. on the north side of the church is a "devil's door." the exorcized spirit passed out this way at the sacrament of baptism.] we now enter the forest zone. note the fine retrospect when approaching pease pottage ( - / m.). [on the left is tilgate forest, which is continued by worth forest, whence many lovely and lonely paths lead to horstead keynes and west hoathly, whose church has a land-mark spire visible for many miles. underneath the tower will be seen two iron grave slabs. within the church notice the geometrical windows and the triple sedilia. the village is picturesque and well placed, and the local "lion"--"great upon little," an effect of denudation, is well known. the village is much nearer the seaford road at wych cross, but from the present route we have the advantage of seven miles of woodland otherwise unexplored. on the right from pease pottage, in the recesses of st. leonard's forest, and two miles from the main route, is holmbush beacon tower. this should be visited for the sake of the magnificent woodland views; in the distance are the south downs visible from butser hill behind portsmouth to the hills surrounding lewes. hindhead, blackdown, leith hill, the north downs and the hampshire heights are all visible on a clear day. we are here in a remote district, the haunt of legend and folk-lore almost unequalled in the south. here st. leonard put an end to the career of a fierce and fiery dragon, but not before the saint was grievously wounded, and where his blood fell now grow the lilies of the valley, common here but nowhere else in the neighbourhood. headless horsemen, who have an unpleasant habit of sharing the benighted traveller's steed; witches and warlocks; white-ladies and were-wolves are in great plenty, and the normal inhabitants of the forest must have a fervent appreciation of the high noon and the hours of daylight.] the two miles south of pease pottage are the highest on the road culminating at handcross, feet ( - / m.). the road now descends the steep and dangerous handcross hill. [at the foot of the hill, half mile right, is slaugham ("slaffam") with a decorated church, old font and brasses.] bolney common ( - / m.) in lovely surroundings. the church has early norman, or as some authorities declare, saxon features. the norman south door, covered by a wooden porch dating from the eighteenth century, should be noticed. [cuckfield ("cookfield") miles left, amidst beautiful scenery, with a fine early english church commanding a glorious view. note monuments and handsome reredos. cuckfield place is the original of "rookwood," but has been "improved" out of its ancient character. the jacobean gate house still stands unrestored at the end of the avenue. close by is leigh pond, a fine sheet of water.] albourne green ( m.), for hurstpierpoint ( m.), beautiful views of the south downs which we now ascend to pyecombe ( - / m.). preston ( - / m.). brighton (front - / m.). the horsham road at kennington church we leave the brighton way and pass clapham common, tooting and merton to cheam ( - / m.) ewell and epsom ( - / m.) the downs and race-course are up to the left. ashtead. leatherhead ( - / m.). this little town has some picturesque streets, but is rapidly becoming suburban. the perpendicular church contains interesting windows. the scenery now greatly improves and becomes beautiful after passing mickleham, a pretty village with a transitional church. [illustration: causeway, horsham.] norbury park, on the right, is one of the most charming places in surrey. box hill ( feet), which may easily be ascended from the well-placed burford bridge hotel, is on the left. the road, river and rail run through a deep cleft in the north downs forming the mole valley and facing the sandstone hills of the weald. in the shallow depression between the two ranges lies dorking ( - / m.). the town is pleasant but has nothing of much interest for the visitor. it is for its fine situation from a scenic point of view and as a convenient headquarters from which to explore the best of surrey that it will be appreciated. the rebuilt parish church is imposing and stands on the site of the ancient roman stane street. we leave the town by south street and proceed to holmwood, from which leith hill may be visited, though there are more direct and much finer routes from dorking. capel ( - / m.). we are now in quiet wealden scenery and there is nothing of special interest until we cross the sussex boundary, about half a mile beyond the railway bridge. kingsfold ( - / m.). we now bear left and again - / miles farther by warnham pond, with memories of shelley. horsham ( m.). this prosperous and pleasant county centre makes a good halting place. the early english and perpendicular church is worth a visit, although practically rebuilt in the middle of the last century. the fine proportions and spacious and lofty interior will at once strike the visitor. notice the altar tomb of thomas de braose ( ), lord hoo ( ), eliz. delves ( ), and a brass of thomas clerke ( ). also the ancient font. the old "causeway," which leads to the church from carfax, as the centre of the town is called, should be more popular with artists than it is. the wonderful colour of some of the horsham roofs will be noticed; this is due to the local stone with which the older roofs are covered. it seems a pity from an aesthetic point of view that the quarries are no longer used. the great weight of the covering had another advantage, it made for sturdy building and honest workmanship. horsham no longer has the artificial importance of returning members to parliament (at one time, two; and as lately as one), but is now merged in the western division of sussex, of which district it shares with midhurst the position of chief agricultural and commercial centre. the town is also becoming residential as east grinstead, on the other side of the county, has already done. [illustration: pond street, petworth.] the shoreham road the high road from horsham skirts dene park, which is quite open and commands fine views of the town and the surrounding weald. to the right may be discerned the buildings of christ's hospital and southwater station ( - / m.). burrell arms ( - / m.). a halt must be made to view the scanty remains of knepp castle, a one time stronghold of the de braose family. close by is a beautiful lake, the largest sheet of water in the south of england. the road now bears south-east. to the right and close to the adur is west grinstead. the church, partly norman, should be seen. note the two naves. the old oak seats bear the names of the farms to whose occupants they have from time immemorial belonged. behind the altar of the north nave is an aumbry, and in the roof above is a cover once used for suspending the canopy over the host. there are several interesting monuments including two altar tombs in the burrell chantry with fine fifteenth century brasses. note the font, an old stone coffin, foliated lancets, fragments of old stained glass and some remains of ancient frescoes. the rectory is a good specimen of elizabethan building. west grinstead house, once the home of the carylls, friends of pope, "this verse to caryl, muse, is due," _rape of the lock_. the poem is said to have been written under the shade of "pope's oak" in the park. [cowfold, miles east, is chiefly remarkable for the carthusian monastery dedicated to st. hugh. its spire is a landmark for many miles. this has been the home of exiled french monks since . visitors are very courteously shown over the greater part of the building, which is of much interest and contains several venerated relics brought from the monastery of the grand chartreuse. the magnificent brass to nelond, prior of lewes, in the parish church should also be seen.] we now continue south-east and cross the railway to shoreham. the tall spire seen on the left is st. hugh's monastery (above). partridge green station ( - / m.), ashurst ( - / m.), with an early english church. at the top of every rise we are rewarded with glorious views of the downs crowned by chanctonbury ring. steyning ( - / m.). bramber ( - / m.). new shoreham ( - / m.). [illustration: steyning church.] the worthing road as above to the burrell arms. the route runs south and then south-west to dial post ( - / m.), and so with striking views ahead through ashington ( - / m.) to washington ( - / m.). findon ( m.). broadwater ( - / m.). worthing ( - / m.). the arundel--chichester road this route leaves the horsham road nearly two miles south of the village of kingsfold. warnham ( - / m.). the district is the scene of shelley's childhood and youth. the poet was born at field place, about - / miles south on the right of the road. broadbridge heath ( - / m.). five oaks ( m.). we now join the roman "stane street" from london bridge to chichester. billingshurst ( - / m.). norman and perpendicular church. note fine oak panelled ceiling. [across the adur valley, - / miles west is the interesting church at wisborough green. the situation is delightful and the antiquarian interest more than ordinary. kemble identifies the mound on which the church is built as being the site of a temple dedicated to woden (wisc or "wish"). restoration brought to light early norman (perhaps saxon) remains in this late norman church. the chancel is early english. notice the tower walls inside. there are some ancient frescoes, a stoup, and other interesting details.] adversane ( - / m.). pulborough ( m.). bury ( - / m.). arundel ( - / m.). _to chichester_ at - / m. past bury turn s.w. balls hut inn ( - / m.). chichester ( m.). the chichester road via guildford and midhurst this route follows the portsmouth road from westminster through wandsworth and over putney heath to kingston ( m.). here we bear left past the king's stone and then by way of the river bank through thames ditton to esher ( m.), then by the famous "ripley road" over fairmile common and through street cobham ( - / m.). ripley ( - / m.). guildford ( - / m.). a prosperous and good-looking old town in danger of becoming smug and suburban; the steep and picturesque high street, however, keeps its old time amenities. the ruins of the castle keep may be seen south of the high street. abbott's hospital ( ), the guildhall with projecting clock ( ); st. mary's church, norman and early english. note paintings in north chapel. st. nicholas' church has been mostly rebuilt. our road turns left just beyond the wey bridge and passes under the ruins of st. catherine's chapel on the left. at shalford ( - / m.), bear right to godalming ( - / m.) in the centre of a lovely country. here is a large cruciform church, norman and early english, with interesting brasses and pulpit. [illustration: north mill, midhurst.] milford ( m.). a long rise follows to brookstreet ( - / m.) and a dangerous drop just beyond. haslemere ( m.). although the scenery is very beautiful on all sides of this once remote hamlet, the late nineteenth century saw a colonization of the slopes of hindhead, with the attendant outbreak of red brick, which has almost completely spoilt the neighbourhood. branch excursions may be made towards the hampshire border and to chiddingfold country. we cross the sussex boundary one mile south of the town and are immediately in the lonely and very lovely blackdown country. a climb follows to kingsley marsh and a steep descent to fernhurst ( - / m.). [blackdown, the highest point in sussex ( feet) can be easily reached from here, the distance is about two miles in each direction with woodland most of the way. the view from the summit is magnificent in every direction. aldworth, where tennyson died, is on a spur of the hill slightly east of north.] henley ( - / m.). a picturesque hamlet below the road commanding magnificent views of blackdown. a steep descent, then a road through lovely woodlands brings us to midhurst ( m.). cocking ( m.). steep hills. west dean ( - / m.). chichester ( m.). railway routes london to eastbourne by oxted and heathfield only slow trains, with possible change of carriage, by this route; the eastbourne expresses run by three bridges and lewes. after croydon the long ascent between the northern slopes of the surrey downs extends to woldingham tunnel. wide views and retrospect of the downs. oxted ( m.) (church and village right). edenbridge ( m.). hever. cowden. the line crosses the kent water and enters sussex. ashurst (infant medway right). eridge ( - / m.) (a good centre from which to explore north-east sussex). rotherfield. mayfield (scenery reminiscent of devon). hailsham ( - / m.) for hurstmonceux. polegate. eastbourne ( m.). london to seaford by east grinstead and lewes (to oxted above.) lingfield (picturesque village and well-known racing headquarters.) west hoathly ( m.). (ashdown forest left). horsted keynes. newick. lewes ( - / m.). newhaven ( - / m.). seaford ( m.). london to brighton by redhill and three bridges this is the line of the fast expresses, and in the summer one of the busiest miles of railway in the kingdom. croydon. purley. merstham. redhill ( - / m.). express trains pass to the left of this station (fine views). horley. gatwick (race-course, right). a long climb over the forest ridge followed by a drop to the ouse viaduct (st. saviour's college, ardingley, left). hayward's heath ( - / m.) (a suburban growth). wivelsfield. burgess hill (ditchling beacon, left front). hassocks ( - / m.) (clayton tunnel). preston park. brighton ( - / m.). london to shoreham and worthing sutton ( m.) (an outlier of villadom). ewell. epsom ( - / m.). ashtead. leatherhead ( - / m.). the scenery rapidly improves and before reaching box hill station attains much beauty. dorking ( - / m.). holmwood ( - / m.) (leith hill, right, conspicuous by its tower). capel. horsham ( - / m.). christ's hospital (left). southwater. west grinstead (chanctonbury ring, right). henfield ( - / m.). the adur valley is followed to steyning and bramber. new shoreham ( - / m.). worthing ( - / m.). [illustration: knock hundred row, midhurst.] london to arundel and chichester (to horsham above.) billingshurst ( m.). pulborough (junction for an alternative route to chichester via midhurst). views (left) of the long escarpment of the downs. villages on the arun (right). amberley castle (left) and (exceedingly fine) arundel castle (right). arundel ( - / m.). ford. barnham. chichester ( - / m.). index adeliza, queen adur ainsworth, harrison albourne green albrin, de alciston aldrington aldworth alfred the great alfriston amberley anderida andredes weald angmering angmering park anne of cleves anne of cleves' house appledram apsleys ardingley argos hill arun, the arundel arundel church arundel park arundel bishop ashdown forest atherington babington conspirators bailiff's court house balsdean barlavington down barrymore bartelotts, the barton down beachy head beacon, the beacon hill beckett, thomas à beddingham beggar's bush berwick bexley hill bignor birdham birds, booth museum of billingshurst birling gap bishopstone blackboys black cap blackdown black wm. blake bognor bolingbroke bolney common borough hill bosham botolphs bow hill boxgrove box hill bracklesham bay bradford, john bramber brambletye braose, de brightling brighton broadbridge heath broadwater brotherhood hall browne, sir anthony browning, robert buncton chapel burrell arms burrel, sir wm. burwash butcher's cross butser hill buxted byworth cade, jack cade street campions, the capel cariloce, john de carylls, the castle goring catt, william chailey chanctonbury ring charles ii charles iii of spain charlotte, princess charlton charlton forest cheyney, sir thomas chichester chichester cathedral chidham chilgrove chiltern hills church norton chyngton cissa cissbury hill clapham clark, dr. cliffe cliffe hill clymping cobden, richard cocking cogidubnus cold waltham compton coombe cornwall, earl of cowdray park cowdray ruins cowfold cowper cowper-coles crawley cromwell, thomas cross in hand crowborough croydon cuckfield cuckmere haven cuckmere valley dane hill danny de la warr, lord devil's dyke dickens, charles dicker, the dicul ditchling ditchling beacon donnington dorking duncton beacon dunford house durrington chapel earnley eartham easebourne east blatchington eastbourne east dean, (east sussex) east dean, (west sussex) eastergate east grinstead east hoathly east lavington east wittering edburton edenbridge edward i edward iii edward vi egdean egerton, j. cocker egremont, lord elizabeth, queen ella ellman, john elsted emsworth epsom eridge ethelwalch, king evelyn, john falmer falsely, sir john farm hill fellbridge felpham fernhurst field place fiennes, roger de findon firle beacon fishbourne fittleworth fitz-alans fitzherbert, mrs. five oaks flaxman fletching ford forest ridge forest row framfield friston fulking geology of the downs george iv glynde godalming godstone godwin, earl goldstone, the goodwood goring goring, charles goring woods graffham greatham grey, lady jane grey, lord guildford gundrada hadlow down haia, robert de hailsham halland halnaker hampden park handcross hill hardham priory hares, the harold hartfield harting haslemere hassocks hayward's heath hayley heathfield heene henley henry iii henry viii hessel, phoebe heyshott high cross highdown hill high wood hiornes tower horsebridge horsham hotham holyoake houghton hove hunston huntingdon, william hurdis, james hurstmonceux hurtspierpoint huskisson, william iden, alexander iford isfield jackson, dean jefferies, richard jevington john, king john of gaunt johnson, doctor julius caesar kemp town keymer kingley vale kingsfold kingston kingston (surrey) knut lady holt park lamb, charles lamb inn, eastbourne lancing college leatherhead leicester, earl of leith hill leominster lewes lewes, battle of linch down lingfield litlington littlehampton littleton down long man of wilmington lordington house louis phillippe lullington lyminster magnus memorial maison dieu manhood end mardens, the maresfield martyrs memorial mascall, leonard matilda, queen maud, empress mayfield medway, river meeching place mickleham mickleham priory midhurst mid lavant millburgh house monceaux, waleran de montague, lord montiort, simon de montgomery, roger of mount caburn mount harry mowbray, thos. naylor, geo. neale, father newhaven newick farm newmarket hill new place, angmering new place, pulborough newtimber hill norfolk, duke of north stoke north mundham offham old mailing old place ouse ovingdean owen, sir david oxen oxted pagham palmer, sir edward palmer, sir thomas parham parham park parsons darbys hole patching payne, tom pease pottage pelham, sir nicholas pell, john petworth petworth house pevensey castle pevensey church piddinghoe plumpton pole, cardinal polegate poling pope portobello portslade portus adurni poynings preston preston, east and west puck church parlour pudens stone pulborough pyecombe rackham hill racton renan richard i richard ii richard king of the romans richmond, duke of ringmer ripley road roches hill rodmell roedean college roman ditch roman villa, bignor romans, king of romney rother, river rotherfield rottingdean rumboldswyke russel, doctor rustington sackville college salisbury, countess of salvington saxon down seaford seaford head selden, john selham selmeston selsey seven sisters sheep sheffield green shelley shelleys, the sherbourne, bishop shirley, sir hugh shoreham shoreham old sidney, sir philip sidlesham singleton slaugham slindon smuggling somerset hospital, petworth sompting south bersted southease southey, robert south lancing south mailing southover house south stoke southwick spencer, herbert st. andrew's, chichester st. andrew's, hove st. andrew's monastery st. anne's, lewes st. cuthman st. dunstan st. john's, lewes st. john's, sub castro st. leonard's forest st. mary's hospital, chichester st. michael's, lewes st. nicholas, brighton st. olaves, chichester st. pancras priory st. peter's, brighton st. philip neri, arundel st. richard of chichester st. thomas at cliffe st. wilfrid stanmer park stane street star inn, alfriston star inn, lewes stephen steyning stopham bridge stopham house storrington street sullington surrey downs sussex pad swanborough swanbourne lake swinburne tangmere tattersell, capt. telscombe thackeray tilburstow hill tilgate forest tillington torberry hill treyford trueleigh hill uckfield up park upper beeding up waltham walberton waller, general walton, isaac wannock glen warenne, de warlewaste, bishop warnham warre, de la wartling washington west dean, east sussex west dean, west sussex weald, the welldown farm wellington, duke of westbourne west dean, east sussex west ferring west firle west grinstead westham westhampnett west hoathly westerham west itchenor west lavington westmeston west, sir thomas west tarring west thorney west wittering wheatears white, gilbert wilberforce, samuel wilberforce, william william i willingdon wilmington wilmot, lord windmills wisborough green wiston withyam wlencing wolfe wolstonbury hill woodard, nicholas worth worth forest worthing wych cross yapton [illustration: cover art] ====================================================================== [frontispiece: the old town, hastings] a few old timbered houses, the two churches, one on each side of the slope, form, with the castle, the sum total of the tangible reminders of ancient days. (_see page _) ====================================================================== hastings and neighbourhood described by walter higgins painted by e. w. haslehust [illustration: title page] blackie and son limited london glasgow and bombay beautiful england bath and wells--bournemouth and christchurch--cambridge--canterbury--chester and the dee--the cornish riviera--dartmoor--dickens-land--the dukeries--the english lakes--exeter--folkestone and dover--hampton court--hastings and neighbourhood--hereford and the wye--the isle of wight--the new forest--norwich and the broads--oxford--the peak district--ripon and harrogate--scarborough--shakespeare-land--swanage and neighbourhood--the thames--warwick and leamington--the heart of wessex--winchester--windsor castle--york. beautiful scotland edinburgh--the shores of fife. beautiful ireland leinster--ulster--munster--connaught. beautiful switzerland lucerne--villars and champery--chamonix--lausanne and its environs. contents hastings pevensey and hurstmonceux battle abbey ecclesbourne and fairlight winchelsea rye bodiam list of illustrations the old town, hastings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _frontispiece_ hastings castle hastings and st. leonards from the castle st. leonards gardens pevensey castle the gateway, battle abbey fairlight glen the strand gate, winchelsea winchelsea church rye rye church bodiam castle [illustration: hastings headpiece] hastings hastings is the gateway into an enchanted garden. between the hills and the sea it lies--the most romantic province in this england of ours. scarcely a place in it seems to belong to this present: from end to end it is built up almost entirely of memories. the very repetition of the names--rye, winchelsea, pevensey, battle, bodiam, hurstmonceux--conjures up the past in all its magnificence and all its sadness. nowhere in so small a space shall you find so many monuments to the greatness of england's former days, to the imperishable glory of her people; nowhere in our coasts shall you find a stretch of land so crowded with the ghosts of dead men and dead empires. if for this alone, the territory, no matter how ill-favoured and unattractive, would be worth visiting and revisiting. but there is yet another call--that of the intrinsic beauty of the country-side. and the call here is insistent. hills and the sea; great folding downs and little valleys dropping fatness; immense stretches of lonely marsh and the nestling charms of copse-hidden villages; gentlest of streams slipping lazily through peacefullest of domains; wildest of breakers spending themselves at the base of steep tawny cliffs. thus is the land compact. one is always reminded of a passage from mark twain: "that beauty which is england is alone; it has no duplicate. it is made up of very simple details, just grass, and trees, and shrubs, and roads, and hedges, and gardens, and houses, and churches, and castles, and here and there a ruin, and over all a mellow dreamland of history. but its beauty is incomparable and all its own." and search where you will--north, south, east, west--nowhere can you come upon a spot to which these words might with greater fitness be applied; for this sequestered little area is the microcosm of england. despite its wilderness of bricks and mortar, hastings itself is, under certain conditions, a place by no means unbeautiful. possibly it is from the sea that it appears in happiest mood. one can take a boat on a high summer's morning, when the sun is shining gaily on its steep grass-capped cliffs, its fragment of castle ruin, its red and blue-grey roofs, when the sea is mazing away into every tint of emerald and sapphire. then it is a place fair to behold and pleasing to remember. or one can clamber to the top of the castle hill, and, janus-like, comprehend the town in its entirety--eastwards the old town and the past; westwards the modern watering-place and the future. then it is a place for soliloquy and moralizing. of the very early history of hastings we know practically nothing, save that it seems to have been for many years a place apart. shut off from the west by the invious flats of pevensey, then one vast network of lagoons: from the east by the greater marsh of romney; secluded on the north by the grey mystery of andredesweald, which in those days came as far south as the top of fairlight hill, the people experienced a certain splendid isolation. so much so, in fact, that in the early records it was quite customary to refer to them as a race apart, as distinct as either of their nearest neighbours, the jutes of kent or the saxons of sussex. "and all kent and sussex and hastings" was a phrase running easily from the pens of ancient chroniclers. no one knows their origin. there was a tribe of hastengi dwelling on the seaboard between the elbe and what is now denmark, having as a chieftain one haesten, a piratical dane, with whose name that of the town is often linked (erroneously, say some). in all probability, following on some raid rather more extensive and successful than usual, a party of these hastengi came by this district as an allotment, and chose to settle here, bringing over their families and herds. maybe thus the town was originated. one of their earliest tasks, doubtless, was the construction of a stronghold, either the strengthening of an existing british earthwork or the formation of an entirely new one. the conditions of life demanded that they should possess such a fortification, a place which should be at once the residence of the chief and a refuge for the people in time of danger. and thus it happened that ere long there came into existence the hastinga-ceastre, mention of which is made in the anglo-saxon chronicle in : "a little before that [the murder of beorn by sweyn] the men of hastinga-ceastre and thereabouts won two of his ships with two of their ships and slew all the men and brought the ships to sandwich to the king". but prior to the town must have attained to a considerable maritime strength and commercial eminence, for in athelstan founded a mint here. the site of this successful saxon town and harbour is a matter of conjecture; only the hurrying sea knows where it lies. history proper begins with the coming of the norman adventurer, although, singularly enough, that worthy paid little attention to the town. landing at pevensey on th september, , william made his way to hastinga-ceastre, which he occupied without much show of resistance (despite the picture of burning houses in the bayeux tapestry), for the ships had gone north with harold, and the folks around had neither the means nor the mind to fight. he stayed in the district a fortnight, scouring round for provisions and terrorizing the natives. during that time he set to work to build some sort of a castle, probably on or near the spot where the ancient camp had stood, and where later the castle proper eventually rose. this we gather from the bayeux tapestry, which depicts the digging and timbering of a makeshift stronghold. on th october william marched northwards to meet harold, and the famous battle of hastings, or senlac, was fought. thence onward the town seems to have had a very chequered career. previous to the coming of the normans the encroachments of the sea and the gradual silting up of the old harbour (wherever it was) had rendered necessary the laying down of a new town in a securer place, and in all probability the building of the town between the east and west cliffs was in that way begun--at a spot far to the south of the present old town, of course. the township thus commenced was the _new burgh_ afterwards mentioned in domesday book, and placed by william under the jurisdiction of his kinsman, robert, count of eu, and of the abbot of fécamp. the norman occupation heralded a period of prosperity, for everything was done by william to foster good relationship between the kingdom and the duchy. the continual passage of the monks between france and england, the importation of caen stone for the building of the abbey (done until similar stone was discovered near at hand), made for commercial growth and stimulated that shipbuilding industry which the proximity of andredesweald rendered possible. robert of eu at once replaced the hastily-formed wooden fortress by a small stone castle, and this was added to from time to time. and so the gradual progress went on till the days of the completion of the abbey in the reign of the red king: when hastings reached its heyday. not long, however, did it remain thus in the full flush of existence, for from the time of stephen onwards it began steadily to decay. why hastings ever was the premier port of the cinque ports confederacy it is difficult to say. there were, as the name suggests, five towns--hastings, sandwich, dover, romney, and hythe; and in addition there were winchelsea and rye, which differed merely in name, being called the antient towns. if hastings were ever the most successful of these, it soon yielded pride of place to its neighbour and rival, winchelsea. the sovereigns, especially the angevins, gradually transferred their attentions to the more easterly rivals, proffering no royal aid even when hastings suffered badly. slowly, therefore, but certainly, the town sank to an insignificant position, with just here and there a tiny patch of more glorious life; and it revived again only as a result of one of the vagaries of fashion. it was about that it took on its second lease of life, soon after the time when brighton emerged from the obscurity of a small fishing-village to form the fashionable watering-place. society doctors about that time discovered and began to recommend the advantages of sea-bathing; and, the vogue spreading, hastings began rapidly to extend. when the duke of wellington brought his wife hither in there were less than four thousand inhabitants; but little by little the cosy valley, where the old town had so long nestled, ceased to be big enough, so that the town overflowed its confines; and eventually the modern resort commenced to flourish, west of the castle hill--like a garish fungoid growth at the end of some fallen monarch of the forest. it was this modern development that excited the bitterness of charles lamb when he wrote his well-known tirade: "i love town or country; but this detestable cinque port is neither.... there is no sense of home at hastings. it is a place of fugitive resort, an heterogeneous assemblage of sea-mews and stockbrokers, amphitrites of the town, and misses that coquet with the ocean. if it were what it was in its primitive state, and what it ought to have remained, a fair, honest fishing-town, and no more, it were something--with a few straggling fishermen's huts scattered about, artless as its cliffs, and with their materials filched from them, it were something. i could abide to dwell with meshech, to assort with fisher-swains, and smugglers.... but it is the visitants from town, that come here to say that they have been here, with no more relish of the sea than a pond-perch or a dace might be supposed to have, that are my aversion.... what can they want here? what mean these scanty book-rooms--marine libraries as they entitle them--if the sea were, as they would have us believe, a book to read strange matter in? what are their foolish concert-rooms, if they come, as they would fain be thought to do, to listen to the music of the waves? all is false and hollow pretension. they come because it is the fashion, and to spoil the nature of the place." ====================================================================== [illustration: hastings castle] a fragment of the castle alone remains, grimly clinging to the edge of the cliff. (_see page _) ====================================================================== as we stroll about the streets of hastings of to-day, it is difficult, nay, it is impossible, to conjure up the past, to people these hills and dales with the ghosts of days long since gone. true, there is the castle ruin, grimly clinging to the edge of the cliff; else there is little but aggressive modernity. such haven as there is now gives cause rather for ridicule than pride. few, standing at the albert memorial, could ever conceive that here in this priory valley was at one time the great port, protected on the east by the castle hill, on the west by the white rock, and flushed from the north by the old roar river. well might our old sussex poet, james howell, sing: "thou old sea-town, crouching beneath the rocks like a strong lion waiting for his prey! where are thy river, harbour, and the docks in which the navy of old england lay? why didst thou slumber, when in pevensey bay the normans' mighty host profaned our soil, when thou, the cinque-port queen, didst hold the key which locked the sea-gates of this freedom-isle?" who, standing towards the south of the old town, where now are those black, bill-plastered structures famed as "the fishermen's huts", could call to mind a great wall with a gate and portcullis defending the town on the seaward side? yet a writer as late as could say: "hastings was formerly defended, towards the sea, by a wall, which extended from the castle cliff across the hollow in which the town lies, to the east cliff.... a very small portion of this wall still exists, and may be traced near the bourne's mouth, where there was a portcullis or gate; a considerable part of it is stated to have remained about forty years since." (william herbert, the unacknowledged author of "_the history and antiquities of the town and port of hastings_", by w. g. moss, draughtsman to h.r.h the duke of cambridge.) now all has gone. only the town remains much as before. the description penned in (_ibid._)--"the town consists principally of two streets, high street, and all saints street, each about half a mile in length, running parallel nearly north and south, and separated by a rivulet, called the bourne, which runs into hastings in a narrow and inconsiderable stream, and empties itself into the sea. these narrow streets are intersected by various smaller ones, or, more properly speaking, alleys, which contain the dwellings of the fishermen and other poor inhabitants of the place"--might well serve for the present day, save that the inconsiderable bourne has now entirely disappeared. for the rest, a few old timbered houses, the two churches, all saints and st. clements, one on each slope, form, with the castle, the sum total of the tangible reminders of ancient days. nor has the town many definite associations as far as personalities go. true, titus oates was baptized here in , when his father was rector of all saints, and was himself curate in ; but the town can scarcely be proud of him. one of the few old timbered houses in all saints street is pointed out as the home of the mother of sir cloudesley shovell, but the only evidence in support of the claim is the following extract (generally discredited) from de la prynne's diary: "i heard a gentleman say, who was in the ship with him six years ago, that as they were sailing over against the town of hastings in sussex, sir cloudesley called out: 'pilot, put near; i have a little business on shore.' they came to a little house--'come,' says he, 'my business is here; i came on purpose to see the good woman of this house.' upon which they knocked at the door, and out came a poor old woman, upon which sir cloudesley kissed her, and then, falling down on his knees, begged her blessing, and called her mother." coventry patmore and sir john moore both lived in the town for a time. otherwise the famous folk have for the most part been visitors. the duke of wellington, then major-general wellesley, came hither with his bride in , he being then in charge of some twelve thousand soldiers encamped near by. in august, , byron stayed for a period. "i have been renewing my acquaintance with my old friend ocean," he wrote, "and i find his bosom as pleasant a pillow for one's head in the morning as his daughters of paphos could be in the twilight. i have been swimming and eating turbot and smuggling neat brandies and silk handkerchiefs, and walking on cliffs and tumbling down hills, and making the most of the _dolce far niente_ of the last fortnight." thomas hood spent his honeymoon in the town about a decade later. garrick, while staying at east cliffe house, planted in the garden a slip from shakespeare's mulberry-tree. west of hastings, and now merging into it, is the town of st. leonards. it was founded in by a mr. burton, and took its name from the sixth-century hermit after whom the well-known forest and a number of churches round about were called. here, at st. leonards, thomas campbell, the poet, lived, and his well-known "address to the sea", commencing: "hail to thy face and odours, glorious sea!" was inspired by the view from this point. if ever the town needed a testimonial it could scarcely find better than the following passage from theodore hook: "from the meditation in which he was absorbed, jack [bragg] was roused upon his arrival at the splendid creation of modern art and industry, st. leonards, which perhaps affords one of the most beautiful proofs of individual taste, judgment and perseverance that our nation exhibits. under the superintendence of mr. burton, a desert has become a thickly peopled town. buildings of an extensive nature and most elegant character rear their heads where but lately the barren cliffs presented their sandy fronts to the storm and wave, and rippling stream and hanging groves adorn the vale which a few years since was a sterile and shrubless ravine." but perhaps the eulogy must not be taken too seriously. ====================================================================== [illustration: hastings and st. leonards from the castle] west of hastings, and now merging into it, is the town of st. leonards, "the splendid creation of modern art and industry. buildings of an extensive nature and most elegant character rear their heads where but lately the barren cliffs presented their sandy fronts to the storm and wave." (_see page _) ====================================================================== taken together, hastings and st. leonards form a typical modern watering-place,--with the quieter portion to the west, as is usual on the south coast. here, as an old guide book puts it, "every reasonable wish may be gratified, whether the object of the visitant be health or pleasure". and certainly the place does offer a fine selection of attractions. for your more strenuous visitor there are ample facilities for golf, tennis, swimming, &c.; for your ardent angler there is the unique combination of good deep-sea and river fishing; for your artist or photographer there are countless objects of beauty and historical interest. for those who are content merely to idle away the time amid beautiful surroundings there are the magnificent public gardens,--alexandra park, gensing gardens, and st. leonards gardens. few towns in england can boast so rich a possession as the park, with its lake, its woodland glades, its fine stretches of greenest turf, its indescribably beautiful flowers; and few municipalities realize so adequately the value of such a possession, if one may judge by the care bestowed upon it. ====================================================================== [illustration: st. leonards gardens] few towns in england can boast so rich a possession as the park, with its lake, woodland glades, and beautiful flowers. (_see page _) ====================================================================== however, the surroundings of hastings must still be its greatest asset. to quote once more the grandiloquent old guide book,--"the vicinity of the town abounds with delightful rides and walks; the pleasantness and diversified character of which it is impossible not to admire; and these are not only of a description superior, perhaps, to what are to be found in almost any other part of the coast, but so numerous as to afford that change which prevents the satiety arising from repetition". still farther west lies bexhill, a typically modern seaside resort. then follows a considerable stretch of meadow land, and at the other side the first of the romantic centres in this cradle of english history. pevensey and hurstmonceux in all this storied region there is no spot so rich in memories as pevensey (or pemsey, as it is called locally). before such ancient settlements as rye and winchelsea were dreamed of, while yet hastings was the merest collection of barbarian huts, pevensey, or rather its roman predecessor, anderida, was a fortified place with all the ebb and flow of a flourishing life. like winchelsea, it has seen great changes--not quite so tragic perhaps, but no less momentous--and like winchelsea, too, in its tide of fortune or disaster, it has been at the idle mercy of the fickle sea. where now--from the channel inland for three or four miles--stretches a wide plain, centuries ago the sea went on its way, reaching inland as far as hailsham, and leaving pevensey and other "eys"--horseye, chilleye, rickney--islanded in its midst. in those days pevensey served a double purpose: it was an island stronghold and a port--a gate to shut out and a gateway to welcome the alien mariner, according to his intentions and its own will. then the waters of the channel receded, and the puissant fortress, robbed of its vital strength, sprawled helplessly at the mercy of any philistine invader. it has had just this much of compensation: through its centuries of serviceable isolation it has seen real life as a castle--withstood sieges, beaten off marauding foes, taken sides in internal strife--and in that it has had the cry over the most of our sussex fortresses. originally a celtic stronghold, it became, by reason of its unique situation, the anderida of the romans, a fortified enclosure following roughly the shape of the knoll on which it stood. this was in the third century. two hundred years later, when the romans had departed and left behind an enervated british race, the invading saxons descended on the stronghold, put to death every briton they could find, and destroyed all traces of the roman settlement within the walls. for centuries after this the enclosure was unoccupied; but the port continued its activities, for we read that in the years and earl godwin and his sons, sweyn and harold, fell upon the place with sword and torch, and carried off many ships. but its real value as a castle site was only completely realized when, in september of the year , william the norman landed there with his hordes of mailed warriors. he straightway gave the derelict to his half-brother, robert of mortain, who proceeded to erect a norman fortress at the east end of the enclosure, using the strengthened roman walls as an outer line of defence. to this was added, two centuries later, a strong inner keep. since the time of the norman landing pevensey seems to have sustained at least four earnest sieges. the first took place in , when odo, bishop of bayeux, and supporter of robert of normandy, defended the castle against the red king: the second in , when the place was held for the empress matilda against king stephen; and in both of these cases the defenders were compelled by famine to surrender. the third important attack was that of , following the battle of lewes, when simon de montfort and the barons sought in vain to reduce a garrison of obstinate royalists. it was during this particular siege that the larger gap in the original roman wall was initiated. the fourth and last storming happened during the wars of the roses, when lady pelham, a stanch supporter of the lancastrian cause, successfully held out against a force of local followers of richard of york. after that the glory of the place departed, and it became a state prison, wherein were incarcerated such illustrious personages as edward, duke of york; james the first of scotland; and queen joan of navarre, wife of henry the fourth. from the days of the seventh henry onwards it gradually fell into decay; and its present dilapidated condition is due not so much to the violence of the sieges as to the habit of the local gentry of using the remains as a handy quarry for house-building purposes. for the presence of any remains at all our thanks are due to that much-reviled thing the spanish armada. in the year previous to the sailing of the fleet, orders were given for the complete restoration or total demolition of the castle. happily, in the general confusion of the time, the instructions seem to have been forgotten. pevensey now is one of the most picturesque spots in the south of england. the knoll on which it stands is sufficiently high to give the castle a dignified appearance, as it rises up out of the encompassing marshes; and yet there is none of that grim, forbidding aspect generally so noticeable about castles perched on an eminence. rather is there about these ivy-mantled walls an atmosphere of sunlit serenity quite out of keeping with the story of the place. around the little hill still stretch those amazing ancient roman walls, with but two considerable breaches. these walls for the most part fail to get the attention they deserve. visitors enter the little western gate and pass across the meadow--once the outer ward--and so come to the mediæval castle; but the outer walls are nearly a thousand years older and of transcendent interest. what magnificent masons those old romans were! and what a secret they must have possessed for the making of mortar and cement! in several places here the cement has endured through all these hundreds of years, while even the outer stones have crumbled away. at other points, too, the actual marks of the masons' tools are visible in the ancient mortar. ====================================================================== [illustration: pevensey castle from the meadows] through centuries of serviceable isolation it has seen real life as a castle--withstood sieges, beaten off marauding foes, and taken sides in internal strife. (_see page _) ====================================================================== at the eastern end of the enclosure is the castle itself, with a reed-grown moat on the northern and western sides. most of this ruin dates back only to the time of edward the first, for the original norman fabric suffered too many sieges to endure in any completeness. one of the great towers flanking the main gateway still stands, but the other, like the drawbridge, has long since disappeared; three others project from the wall at various intervals. inside, very little remains. fragmentary ruins reveal the original site of the keep: the extent of the chapel may be traced on the sward. but, for all the scarcity of definite relics, the place is one to linger in and conjure up the past, when these grass-grown spaces were instinct with a hurrying life, when the meadows where now the cattle browse were filled with anxious faces and beating hearts. pevensey can own to one famous son at least, andrew borde, a man of many parts. carthusian monk, physician to henry the eighth, litterateur, poor borde died a prisoner in the fleet prison in . he was one of those unfortunates who seem never to do or say the right thing at the right time. born at the vicarage early in the sixteenth century, he developed a turn for jesting, and it proved his undoing, for bishops and kings had not his lively wit, and failed lamentably to appreciate what was at once his gift and his failing. to his ready pen have been ascribed the immortal epic "tom thumb", and the oft-told "merry tales of the wise men of gotham"--the latter collected and put into literary form from the oral traditions of the country-side. just up under the eastern wall of the castle is the so-called mint house, where borde is reputed to have spent many of his days. it was an interesting old place, with its panelled walls and numerous passages; but it has now been rendered quite impossible by reason of its conversion into a glorified old curiosity shop with a heterogeneous collection of antiques. other delightful houses there are, too, in this double village of pevensey and westham, straggling away at either side of the castle--low, picturesque timbered dwellings, at once the delight and despair of would-be artists. at westham is a noble old church, the first built by the conqueror, with remnants of the original norman fabric still serving their purpose. striking east from the castle, the way out to hurstmonceux lies down through the village street, with the sea away to the right and the marsh to the left. all along the coast here stand the martello towers, monuments to the hysteria of a former day. poor cobbett, in his _rural rides_, could scarce find words bitter enough for these works. "to think that i should be destined to behold these monuments of the wisdom of pitt and dundas and perceval! good g--! here they are, piles of brick in a circular form about three hundred feet (guess) circumference at the base, about forty feet high, and about one hundred feet circumference at the top.... cannons were to be fired from the top of these things, in order to defend the country against the french jacobins! i think i could have counted along here upwards of thirty of these ridiculous things, which, i dare say, cost five, perhaps ten, thousand pounds each: and one of which was, i am told, _sold_ on the coast of sussex, the other day, for two hundred pounds...." some have now been dismantled, having been rendered useless or dangerous by the encroachments of the sea. here and there is to be found one providing habitation for a fisherman or a coastguard, or let out for the purpose of a summer residence to some more than usually enterprising holiday-maker. as soon as the water of pevensey haven is crossed, the way to hurstmonceux turns sharply to the north; and thence onward the road is a perfectly flat one, winding in and out across the levels with seeming aimlessness. ahead, visible nearly all the way, the castle nestles among the low hills that break sharply away from the flats, outposts of the uplands of that same sandstone forest ridge which presses on eastwards to form the cliffs beyond hastings. on either side, away to the distant hills, stretch the greenest of meadows, intersected by innumerable watercourses, with but a few stunted thorns and an occasional tuft of rushes to break the trackless level. here the soft-eyed sussex beasts browse knee-deep in luxuriant pasturage. it is a lonely spot, a place of drowsy solitude, where the plaintive call of the plover seems the most natural melody. yet, on a spring morning, when great white clouds ride across the clear blue sky, when the thorn is in bloom, and every ditch is brocaded with the gold of myriad kingcups, then, indeed, it is a place of indescribable sweetness. built at the time of the "last of the barons", hurstmonceux marked the transition in domestic architecture from the heavily-defended fortress to the comfortable and luxurious manor-house. as early as the reign of edward the third attempts had been made to combine the strength of massive masonry with the convenience of more sumptuous apartments, such castles as raglan and warwick leading the way. we have only to stroll round the present remains to find ample evidence of this double service. the great arched gateway and battlemented walls, the machicolated octagonal towers, the moat and drawbridge, the loopholes for cross-bows, the oeillets for the matchlock guns,--all witness to the one purpose; while the size and number of the windows in the dwelling-rooms quite well testify to the other. in these days the ruined castle is a place of great beauty. time has dealt less hardly with it than with some. the colour of the huge red-brick front has been softened down by wind and rain to a restful mellow tint in full harmony with the sombre green of the overhanging masses of ivy; and, though the broken walls with their towers and half-towers still have a martial air, they have lost much of their severity of outline. in the full flush of its being it was a magnificent structure. just inside the great gateway there was a courtyard, generally known as the "green court", surrounded by the cloisters. just beyond this stood the great dining-hall, a spacious chamber, feet long and wide, with massive timbered roof and tiled floor; and, opening from it, the pantry court, from which again a paved passage led to the garden. the east side of the castle included the principal dwelling-apartments,--the enormous drawing-room, where grinling gibbons's vine, a masterpiece of carving, spread its magnificence over the walls and ceiling; the chapel, extending up through the two stories; and, on the upper floor, the "ladies' bower" with its peculiar oriel window--a room wherein, tradition says, one of the fair daughters of hurstmonceux was starved to death in her twenty-first year. on the west were the domestic apartments, among them the great kitchen and bakehouse, with an oven in which, it was declared, a coach and horses might easily turn. on the upper floor, lighted by the open space of the green court, were the bethlehem chambers, otherwise the guest-rooms, and the green gallery, a room filled with pictures and hung with green cloth. one old writer speaks of these upper rooms as "sufficient to lodge a garrison"; and adequate provision would seem to have been necessary, for in its heyday hurstmonceux had many and illustrious visitors. everything seems to have been done on such a lavish scale that we are fully prepared for such interesting details as the record that at the marriage of grace naylor "butts of beer were left standing at the park gates for the refreshment of chance passers-by"; also that twenty old female retainers were kept constantly employed at the weeding and tidying of the green and other courtyards. for long it was a mere skeleton, at the mercy of nature and man. as late as horace walpole could write of it in a letter to his friend richard bentley: "it was built in the reign of henry vi, and is as perfect as the first day. it does not seem to have ever been quite finished, or at least that age was not arrived at the luxury of whitewash, for almost all the walls are in their native brick-hood." and yet, despite mr. walpole's assertions as to its continued perfectness, so soon after this as the castle was dismantled. the truth is: if the castle has escaped the general fate of this region and avoided the scourge of the invader, it has nevertheless suffered much at the hands of its friends. in the year mentioned the owner was a mrs. henrietta hare, ancestor of the author of _memorials of a quiet life_, a volume which deals very faithfully with this ancient fabric. this lady, desiring to use the materials for the construction of a new mansion on a higher site, called in the arch-vandal wyatt, and he (to quote augustus hare's _memorials_) "declared that the castle was in a hopeless state of dilapidation, though another authority had just affirmed that in all material points its condition was as good as on the day on which it was built.... the castle was unroofed.... a great sale was held in the park, whither the london brokers came in troops, and lived in an encampment of tents during the six weeks which the sale lasted. almost everything of value was then dispersed. mrs. hare and her husband afterwards resided at hurstmonceux place, the new house which wyatt was commissioned to build, and lived there in such extravagance that they always spent a thousand a year more than their income, large as it was, and annually sold a farm from the property to make up the deficiency. it was a proverb in the neighbourhood at that time that 'people might hunt either hares or foxes'." and thus it stood, a ruined shell, until comparatively recent years. the many curious staircases built in the thicknesses of the walls, the secret underground passages, and the general isolation on the edge of the marsh, all contrived to render the ruin an ideal rendezvous for smugglers and a suitable depository for their stores of contraband. now, fortunately, the castle is in the hands of one who, appreciating such a possession, is taking steps to prevent any further decay, and with a loving care and a sense of fitness is proceeding with the delicate task of necessary restoration. battle abbey to battle is the excursion of paramount interest from the popular point of view. the association with one of the most momentous events in the history of the land, the peculiar entertainment of standing on the actual ground where the battle took place and the "last of the english" fell, the intrinsic pleasure in the inspection of a ruin at once rich in memories and comely in setting,--all contrive to make it the pilgrimage into the country around. other ruins may surpass it in degree of preservation, in individual reminiscence, in charm of situation, but none, not even pevensey, can vie with the abbey in strength of appeal. it was erected on the actual place of the contest. on the eve of the battle, when the rival forces were assembled and ready for the shock of arms, william, in a sudden fit of piety--or nervousness--made a solemn vow that, should victory be his, he would found a mighty church, in token of his thankfulness for the divine intervention. and when it was all over, and the english had fallen, he quickly made good his promise. practical men came to him urging the unsuitable nature of the site, high up on the hill-side away from all water. rather would they build down there in the hollow, where the springs ever gushed forth freely. but not so william: the church should rise on the field of blood, and the high altar should mark the spot where his adversary had fallen. and for the matter of water: if that were lacking, well, wine should be more plentiful in the new abbey than water in other religious houses. thus came the venerable abbey of st. martin into existence. the story of the battle is perhaps the most fascinating in all our catalogue of worthy fights. when william landed on these shores harold was at york, recuperating after the superhuman efforts which culminated in the battle of stamford bridge, where he entirely defeated an invading force under harold haardrada and his own brother, tostig. he had marched two hundred miles or more to defeat one foe, and it was now necessary for him to carry out a still greater expedition to engage a second. he halted several days in the capital while the process of collecting troops from the midlands and the south went on. at last, on october the twelfth, he moved on to meet william. with him he took but a small army. had he waited just a short time longer (the delay would not have mattered, for william had no intention of leaving the coast) he could have gathered a force sufficiently large to overwhelm the invaders; but he made the common mistake of holding the enemy too cheaply. a series of forced marches commenced in the hopes of catching william unawares came to nought, owing to the vigilance of the duke's marauding bands. on the night of the thirteenth he arrived at the fatal hill, and pitched his camp on the site of the present town of battle. ====================================================================== [illustration: the gateway, battle abbey] the abbey was erected on the field of the battle of hastings. the gateway was added in to the work begun by william the conqueror. (_see page _) ====================================================================== harold apparently knew this part of sussex quite well, being the lord of several manors round about; and so his well-chosen ground does not surprise us. a long spur of upland here thrusts out boldly from the main mass of wooded hill-side, and commands a view over a wide stretch of rolling ground away to the sea. on a crest of this spur he ranged his army, with the mailed warriors in front forming a continuous shield-wall. the descriptions of the night before the battle--all from norman sources, by the way--make vastly interesting reading. albeit they vary in certain minor matters, they are in one accord concerning the characters of the rival armies--the drunken english and the pious normans. the former spent the night in one big carousal--dancing, singing, drinking immense quantities of liquor; the latter devoted their time to prayers and the confession of their sins. and yet, strange to say, the english seem to have been quite fit in the morning, for they put up a remarkably good fight. they held their own through the best part of the day, and in the end were defeated only by their own eagerness. hour after hour the normans surged up the hill, assailing the english position, and again and again were they driven back by the terrible battle-axes of their opponents. so well was harold's position chosen that they could make little impression; and it is fair to hazard that in the end they would have met with defeat, had not some of the less-disciplined troops forsaken their advantage and impetuously pursued the panic-stricken enemy into the valley below. here the conditions were different, and the sword was more than a match for the battle-axe and javelin, with the consequence that the rash english were badly cut up. william noticed this, and determined to try the "strategic retreat" on a larger scale. accordingly one wing--the western--was ordered to turn tail and retire as though in disorder. this they did. the english, lured on by their wily foes, readily gave up their more favourable position, and then, as before, the french turned and engaged them, while a wedge of cavalry inserted itself and harassed them in the rear. this descending movement had left open a considerable portion of the english line, and on this william concentrated the pick of his forces. but still the english fought on stubbornly. in one place they also saw the advantage of the feigned flight, and induced the french cavalry to charge into an unsuspected ravine, whence not a man escaped. as the shades of evening fell no one might say where the advantage lay: the english shield-wall was broken in places, but it still presented a formidable line; the french still pressed on eagerly. then to duke william came the great inspiration which turned the day, and won for him the battle and the crown. so far his archers had done little to justify their presence on the field. now william saw that if they were ordered to shoot their arrows high into the air these would descend with terrific force upon the heads of the foe, and work great execution. the command was carried out, and one of the first to fall was the english king himself, his right eye pierced by a shaft. with harold fell the english fortunes. his soldiers struggled on desperately till night closed down, but their valour was in vain, and after a day's continuous fighting the normans were left the victors of the field. building operations were duly commenced, and proceeded apace. the growing abbey was richly endowed, and its superior granted numerous and great privileges. not, however, till william had been dead some seven years was it finished. then for several centuries it enjoyed a flourishing existence, extending its scope and increasing its wealth. the great gateway was added in , and was the work of abbot retlyng. the income of the abbey was enormous, and the wanton generosity of the brothers made battle a happy hunting-ground for the pilgrims and vagabonds and ne'er-do-wells in the south-east of england. but its long years of prosperity proved its undoing, for slothful ease gave way to greater evils. the great place decayed in every sense, and when, in , henry's commissioners appeared at its gate, it was in a fit condition to be suppressed. layton, the chief commissioner, says of it: "so beggarly a house i never see, nor so filthy stuff. i will no s. for all the hangings in this house, as the bearer can tell you.... so many evil i never see, the stuff is like the persons"; and he further speaks of the inmates as "the worst that ever i see in all other places, whereat i see specially the blake sort of dyvellyshe monks". as we pass through the magnificent gateway, worthy indeed to guard the treasure within, our pleasure increases at every step, for though the ruins are but few and fragmentary they are enshrined in that most glorious of settings, a beautiful garden. the great church itself has long since disappeared, for sir anthony browne, to whom the place was given after the visit of the vandal commissioners, saw nothing of worth in it. just a fragment of the nave wall is pointed out in the woodyard at the back of the modern mansion, and a piece of the cloister arcading on the east side. but we can get a very good idea of its great size from the disposition of the ruins. the spot to which we turn with eagerness is the site of the high altar, the death-place of harold. it is a spot of beauty now, with its moss-grown stones, its ferns and greenery; and we would fain linger awhile to think on all the norman invasion brought, all its woes and its brightnesses; but the guide is inexorable: we must pass on with the flock of tourists to view the only considerable remain, the early english hall, generally known as the refectory. the walls of this stand roofless to the sky, with a lawn in place of a floor. below there are three fine vaulted chambers--one, the scriptorium, with a good geometrical window and a vaulted roof supported by graceful pillars. but after all we come away with no very clear idea of the place; and perhaps it is as well. instead, we have a vague, an impressionist picture of flowers and ruins, grey stones mantled with gorgeous blossoms; and over all a brooding serenity. the pedestrian's route, by which we may either come to battle or return, passes through hollington and crowhurst. at the latter place is one of the most famous yews in the country; at the former is the notorious "church in the wood". just why this little church should ever have attained to its present eminence as a goal of pilgrimage we fail utterly to comprehend. there is nothing remarkable about the edifice itself, either in the way of structure or ornaments; the graveyard is too crowded with the hideous monuments of parvenu strangers to be interesting; the approach is little more than commonplace. yet for all that, thousands come and go through the summer months, and on fine sundays the little sanctuary is packed to the door, doubtless to the entire satisfaction of the clergy. charles lamb discovered the place many years ago, when the surroundings were rather more favourable; and we should certainly give thanks, for the visit gave rise to an inimitable passage: "it is a very protestant loretto, and seems dropt by some angel for the use of the hermit, who was at once parishioner and a whole parish.... it is built to the text of 'two or three are assembled in my name'. it reminds me of the grain of mustard seed. if the glebe land is proportionate, it may yield two potatoes. tithes out of it could be no more split than a hair. its first fruits must be its last, for 'twould never produce a couple. it is truly the strait and narrow way, and few there be--of london visitants--that find it.... it is secure from earthquakes, not more from sanctity than size, for 'twould feel a mountain thrown upon it no more than a taper-worm would. go and see, but not without your spectacles." ecclesbourne and fairlight east of the old town is a stretch of cliffs several miles long, made up, like the forest ridge, of lower cretaceous rocks. several little wooded valleys extend from the high lands right down to the sea, and two of these have attained to a desirable celebrity under the names of ecclesbourne and fairlight glens. many folk, visiting these two spots in august, go away with a feeling of utter disappointment, for the grass is rusty and the place strewn with the indescribable litter of a myriad picnic-parties. but in the spring of the year, when the little watercourse at the bottom is at its fullest, when there are countless primroses beneath the fine old trees, when everything is green down to the water's edge, then do these glens deserve their reputations. ====================================================================== [illustration: fairlight glen] in the spring of the year, when the little watercourse is at its fullest, there are countless primroses beneath the fine old trees, and everything is green down to the water's edge. (_see page _) ====================================================================== in fairlight there are two famous spots--the dripping well and the lovers' seat. the well, situated at the northern end of the glen, shows a decided tendency to follow the custom of most local waters, but we can nevertheless get some idea of what a pretty little spot it must have been at its best. the lovers' seat is a little to the east, high up on the face of a steep, shrub-grown cliff. a large rock overhangs at the top, and beneath is a tiny platform, slowly disappearing. it is a fine place, especially on an early summer morning, when the air is athrob with the tumultuous melody of the birds in the glen below, and the sea birds wheel round the aerie--a place well fitted to stir even charles lamb to praise: "let me hear that you have clambered up to lovers' seat; it is as fine in that neighbourhood as juan fernandez, as lonely too, when the fishing-boats are not out; i have sat for hours staring upon a shipless sea. the salt sea is never so grand as when it is left to itself." of course it has a story: what similar romantic spot has not? doubt has been cast on the veracity; but such pretty tales certainly _ought_ to be true. east of the glen lies cliff end, where the brown sandstone cliffs dip down sharply once more to the level marshlands. the path thither meanders along the top of the cliffs, now approaching perilously near the edge to give a glimpse of some sweet little hanging dell with trees right down to the waves, now wandering inland a little through acres of bee-thronged gorse and heather. it is such a spot as richard jefferies loved: "all warmly lit with sunshine, deep under liquid sunshine like sands under the liquid sea, no harshness of man-made sound to break the isolation amid nature". once at cliff end we marvel, and yet offer up fervent thanks that it is not one of the "show places" of the district. the low rolling hills, having constituted the coast-line for half a dozen miles, at this point break away inland to form a delightful country-side. by so doing they enclose what was formerly a great lagoon or inland sea, having long arms, or fiords, running up into the different river-valleys of brede, tillingham, and rother. now the sea has gone, and there, in its place, stretch away acres upon acres of marshland, marked out like a piece of old patchwork by the countless watercourses--a place of stressless labour and contentment. as we stand at this place and gaze out eastwards upon those broad acres of sun-washed, wind-swept meadow-land, where now the cattle and sheep graze peacefully and the shepherd slumbers at his post, it is difficult to realize that here the fishermen once dropped their nets, and the ships of war rode majestically at anchor--ready at any moment to venture forth against marauding foes. yet winchelsea, which stands out in the distance--seeming one day miles away and another barely a stone's throw--and rye, a tiny town, perched on its little hill some three miles farther on, were each ports of the first magnitude--veritable cradles of the navy and the empire. from the cliff end here we have a choice of two routes: either we can proceed by road to icklesham, a place well worth a visit for the sake of its interesting old church, and then on to winchelsea; or, better still, we can tramp the few miles beside the old military canal, which serves to link up that town with the sea. this latter is certainly a delightful walk, and well worth the fatigue of an extended effort. as we drop down the slope, we note, on the lower ridges of the hills, pett, the insignificant village which has given its name to the level, or tongue of "polder", stretching away to rye, and extending eastwards into that greater flat, the romney marsh; and, farther on, guestling. not hastily, however, must guestling be passed by, for though the village is commonplace enough to the eye, the name is charged with ancient memories. originally the "guestling" was a sort of conference between the ports and distant fishing colonies such as yarmouth; but gradually it developed into a local parliament held to settle disputes among the folks of the rival fisher towns as to questions of rights and privileges. it met in the church itself, and possessed a speaker and something of the paraphernalia of full judicial power. here is what the good old jeake says about it in his ancient _history of the cinque ports_: "by the same name of _guestling_, is also a court called, that consisteth but of _part_ of the _ports_ and _two towns_, as suppose hastings, winchelsea, and rye, raised upon request of one of them; where by consent, and as by brotherly invitation, they appear to agree on something necessary to their respective towns." the old canal, like the martello towers, roused the scorn of cobbett: "here is a canal _to keep out the french_; for these armies who had so often crossed the rhine, and the danube, were to be kept back by a canal, made by pitt, thirty feet wide at the most". but despite cobbett's words it was no mean feat of military engineering for those days, as the following particulars, culled from horsfield, the old county historian, will show: "the military canal, which was cut, during the late war with france, as a protection to the lowlands in the eastern part of this county and the adjoining portion of the county of kent, by impeding the progress of an enemy, in the event of a landing on this shore, commences at cliffe end, in the parish of pett, and following the course of the rising ground, which skirts the extensive flat forming walland and romney marsh, crosses the roman road near hythe, and extends, in nearly a straight direction, along the coast to its termination at shorne cliffe, in kent; a distance of about twenty-three miles. its breadth is about twenty yards, and its depth three; with a raised bank or redan on the northern side to shelter the soldiery, and enable them to oppose the foe with greater advantage." now everything is changed; this monument of warlike stupidity has become a haunt of peace. thus has time effected another of its little travesties. following the reed-grown, bird-haunted waterway, we skirt the peninsula on which the town is perched, and come finally to the foot of the road which winds diagonally up to the strand gate. thus is the town entered by its most beautiful approach. winchelsea every spot in this delectable corner of england--pevensey, hurstmonceux, hastings itself, bodiam, rye--is redolent of the triumph of change; but winchelsea stands before us a perfect memorial to the futility of man's efforts against nature, a tangible reminder of the irony of time. this ancient town, perched, like rye, on a solitary hillock projecting into the midst of a vast plain, is, despite its years and its ruins, really a _new_ winchelsea. the old town--the city proper--a prosperous place of seven hundred householders and fifty odd inns, lies beneath the ever-changing sea, some two miles (some say, five) south-east of the present site. serious trouble began in with a great tempest, concerning which holinshed writes: "on the first day of october ( ) the moon, upon her change, appearing exceeding red and swelled, began to show tokens of the great tempest of wind that followed, which was so huge and mightie, both by land and sea, that the like had not been lightlie knowne, and seldome, or rather never heard of by men then alive. the sea forced contrarie to his natural course, flowed twice without ebbing, yielding such a rooring that the same was heard (not without great woonder) a farre distance from the shore.... at winchelsey, besides other hurt that was doone in bridges, milles, breakes, and banks, there were houses and some churches drowned with the high rising of the watercourse." not even then did the people give in; but from to neptune and other sovereign powers descended mightily on the poor old town, and its tragedy was completed when, during an utterly disastrous tempest, the whole district between pett and hythe was inundated. at this time edward the first was warden of the cinque ports, and the planning of the new town seems to have been to him and his associates a simple and congenial task. the present triangular plateau was chosen, falling precipitously on three sides, with its narrow end towards hastings; and the new town was projected and begun on truly magnificent lines. edward seems to have been quite a pioneer in the modern science of town-planning, for winchelsea, like several other towns set out by him, was given an oblong shape, and this was divided up into thirty-nine or forty squares by means of wide streets intersecting at right angles. on the north the town stood upon a cliff overhanging the brede fiord; on the east the land fell away precipitously to the sea itself. at the north-east and north-west corners of the plateau, roads were made down to the sea, with quays at the bottom of each, and great gates, the strand and ferry, at the top. at the land end yet another gate was built, the new, and the extremity protected by a moat and stone walls. a castle was built, and full provision made for the resumption of the commerce of the port. ====================================================================== [illustration: the strand gate, winchelsea] winchelsea stands upon a plateau, at the north-east and north-west corners of which roads were made down to the sea, with quays at the bottom of each, and great gates, the strand and ferry, at the top. (_see page _) ====================================================================== the various religious houses were reproduced as in the dead town, and ere long the lusty life of the old place began again in earnest. the town became self-supporting with its shipbuilding and fishing, and its galaxy of representative craftsmen, and offered a splendid channel for trade to and from the mainland. being a serviceable defensive port, it rehabilitated itself as a rendezvous for the navy, and combined with that importance the added attraction of being the best base on the coast for pirates. so well was the latter occupation organized that we read of one of the mayors of the town--one robert de battayle--being caught red-handed and summarily punished for acts of piracy. and what remains? very little. at the northern end certain of the spacious streets are inhabited but generally grass-grown. these show the original divisions and dimensions; but southwards and westwards the majestic squares have become merely green fields, until at last the boundaries have been lost altogether. ancient words of doom ring in our ears as we survey the scene: "thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof.... they shall be left altogether unto the fowls of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them." the church, or rather a certain portion of it, still stands, with a generous margin of green surrounding it, and within its walls the fine canopied tomb of gervase alard, admiral of the cinque ports. a short distance down the road, south-east of the church, is the mansion known as "the friars": in its beautiful grounds stands practically all that remains of the religious houses--the ivy-grown ruin of the chapel of the franciscan monastery. with this mansion and with the brothers weston, the rogues who dwelt in it, all lovers of thackeray's _denis duval_ will doubtless be familiar. the gates of the town still frown down on the approaching roads; but wall, castle, quays, all are gone, and the place is now, to use wesley's words, "that poor skeleton of ancient winchelsea". ====================================================================== [illustration: winchelsea church] the church, or a certain portion of it, still stands, with a generous margin of green surrounding it, and within its walls the fine canopied tomb of gervase alard, admiral of the cinque ports. (_see page _) ====================================================================== and small wonder too, for every hand has been against it. at the time of its building the black death made its appearance, destroying countless inhabitants and dispersing the craftsmen. the town was sacked by the french in , when three thousand entered with sword and torch. again, in , the same catastrophe occurred. in they visited once more, but did little damage. for by this time another enemy had set to work--the worst enemy of all. the sea, which in its inconstancy had made the new winchelsea at the expense of the old, was calmly receding and leaving the antient town high and dry, with a perpetually increasing bank of shingle in between. now, as we stand at the strand gate, and watch the sea away to the south, with its ever-changing pageant of azure and amethyst, and as we turn about and enter through the old gate to walk the grass-grown streets, we laugh at neptune's jest; but there is something tragic in the laughter. rye rye, as it stands, is the completest place in england. a little conical hill rises abruptly out of the encompassing marshes, and all around that little hill, wherever it can gain secure hold, clings the town. the tall houses rest tier upon tier, as if standing on tiptoe to get a better view of the approaching enemy; and the cobble-paved streets wind in and about, so that every available inch of space may be utilized for house or hanging garden. crowning it all rises the ancient church with its high red roofs and tower. ====================================================================== [illustration: rye] a conical hill rises abruptly out of the encompassing marshes, and all around that little hill, wherever it can gain secure hold, clings the town. (_see page _) ====================================================================== probably the best approach is from camber. we can tramp the three long dusty miles of the military road from winchelsea, catching just a glimpse of the massive, low-lying structure of camber castle on the other side of the stream; or else we can take the road to the right, and, sweeping seawards, come round to the castle itself, pausing a while to wander about these walls which have stood the rough usage of the south-westerly gale so well since the time of the eighth henry. leaving camber, the way across to rye is hazardous. so many waterways intersect the shingly meadows that by the time we come out at the right place an extraordinarily tortuous path has been followed. the history of rye is much akin to that of the sister town, a story of one long succession of struggles against the two enemies, the sea and the french. although the place was a natural stronghold by reason of its unique formation, yet, after a time, the necessity for artificial works was felt, and in the twelfth century a small tower, afterwards known as the ypres, was constructed near the top of the southward cliffs, a square structure of two stories with a circular turret at each angle. a few years afterwards, in the reign of richard the first, licence was granted for the building of a town wall; and still later, in the reign of edward the third, the fortifications were completed by the building of a gateway with portcullis at the north-east end of the town. these fortifications were rendered necessary by the _inning_ of the shallows which separated rye from the mainland, the sea having set to work, with the true ironic touch, depositing shingle where salt water was essential, and irrupting where it was most unwelcome. and, sure enough, as the one enemy did its worst, filling in the harbour and making access to the little hill more easy, so the other enemy took advantage of the facilities offered, and the raids of the french gradually became more frequent and more severe. in the fourteenth century things were parlous for the island town. when it was not the turn of winchelsea, rye suffered, and vice versa. they set upon the town in with no great success, but in they spoiled both hastings and rye. immediately after the death of edward they came again, and "within five hours brought it wholly into ashes, with the church that was there of a wonderful beauty, conveying away four of the richest of the towne and slaying sixty-six; left not above eight in the towne. forty-two hogsheads of wine they carried thence to the ships with the rest of their booty, and left the towne desolate." in the men of the cinque ports took some sort of revenge, according to the following interesting account in fuller's _worthies of england_: "may never french land on this shore, to the losse of the english! but if so sad an accident should happen, send them our sussexians no worse success than their ancestors of rye and winchelsey had, , in the reign of richard the second, when they embarked for normandy: for in the night they entered a town called peter's port, took all such prisoners who were able to pay ransome, and safely returned home without losse, and with much rich spoil; and amongst the rest they took out of the steeple the bells, and brought them into england, bells which the french had taken formerly from these towns, and which did afterwards ring the more merrily, restored to their proper place, with addition of much wealth to pay for the cost of their recovery." but their triumph was short-lived, for in the place was again burned, despite the wall. comparative quiet then reigned till , when the last and most terrible invasion occurred. then, according to jeake, rye was entirely burned, with the exception of the landgate, the walls of the parish church, ypres tower, and the so-called chapel of the carmelite friars in watchbell street. the town was devastated to such an extent that it was unable to furnish its quota of ships to the navy. then the sea encroached once more, and, washing away the cliffs on the east, destroyed the walls built under commission of richard the first; and such was the condition of the town that chaucer could write: "as many another town is payrid and y-lassid within these few years, as we mow se at eye lo, sirs, here fast by wynchelse and ry". folks discovered that by skilful artificial drainage they could assist the inning, and so obtain an additional field at the extremity of their rightly-acquired land. in we have defoe writing: "by digging ditches, and making drains there are now fields and meadows where antiently was nothing but water. by this means ships of but a middle size cannot come to any convenient distance near the town, whereas formerly the largest vessels, and even whole fleets together could anchor just by the rocks on which the town stands." but still, despite its struggles--perhaps by reason of them--rye has always managed to carry on. it has had its systole and diastole of success; but, unlike winchelsea, it has never given up the fight. periods there have been when every hand has seemed against it; but times there have been too--the commonwealth, for instance--when the town has enjoyed a compensating prosperity. it has fought for its existence, and it has survived; and there are no more apt words concerning the two antient towns than those of coventry patmore: "winchelsea is a town in a trance, a sunny dream of centuries ago, but rye is a bit of the old world living on in happy ignorance of the new". at winchelsea the church is the centre of everything: you cannot move a hundred yards without coming into sight of it. but you might walk round and about rye all day and not notice it. shut away at the top of the hill, behind and away from all the everyday business of life, in its isolation it somewhat resembles a cathedral. but there the resemblance stops: there is no cathedral atmosphere. true, there is a quiet in the square, but it is not the cold ghostly hush of the close or the cloister. instead, all is sunlight and warmth. the walls are grey, the buttresses are grey, the tombs are grey, but it is a warm familiar colour, at one with the red of the lichen-grown roofs, in full harmony with the surrounding mosaic of colour. ====================================================================== [illustration: rye church] rye church stands at the top of the hill, behind and away from all the everyday business of life. its walls are grey, but it is a warm familiar colour, at one with the red of the lichen-covered roofs. (_see page _) ====================================================================== just below the churchyard, in the south-east corner, the ypres (or, as it is called locally, the wipers) tower still stands, a squat, heavy-looking building, not altogether beautiful; and at the other end of the town the landgate, the sole survivor of the town's five portals. between these two, dotted about here and there in the winding, cobble-stoned streets, are buildings of great beauty, some unfortunately modernized on the outside. one is the old rubble-stone building in watchbell street, commonly known as the carmelite friary. it is an interesting specimen of a small mediæval hall with chambers below, but its association with the order is now pretty generally recognized as a mistake. steep little mermaid street--perhaps the most beautiful of all the quaint turnings--has two notable buildings, the old hospital and the mermaid inn. the hospital is a fine timbered structure with huge gables. the inn is a tudor building, surrounding a tiny court. little is to be seen from the road; but inside it is a charming old-world place, with latticed windows and massive oak beams, fine panelling and great fireplaces. in the stately red house at the head of the street mr. henry james for many years found inspiration for his wonderful studies of modern temperaments,--about as remote as possible from the atmosphere of the quaint little grass-grown street. perhaps the most interesting of all the buildings is the old flushing inn. it possesses some fine oakwork, but the greatest attraction is the quaint mural painting in imitation of tapestry, covering the whole of one wall, and dating from . in olden days the place was a popular rendezvous among gentlemen of the "free trade", for in the rear it possessed a courtyard which extended right to the edge of the cliff--at that point practically vertical and about sixty feet high--and it was a simple matter to beach a boat just below. in high street, almost facing the turning which leads up to the church, is a dark red-brick building of the seventeenth century: this is pocock's grammar school, which readers of thackeray will remember as the place where denis duval was sent to be educated. a little farther along we come to conduit hill, in which is situate the ancient monastery of the austin friars--a fair building, possessing that rare thing, flamboyant tracery. if the ghosts of the little brothers of bygone days ever return to their former haunts, they must be deeply grieved or intensely amused, for the building has been everything from a malt-house to a salvation army barracks. as we leave the town a flood of questions surges into the brain, perhaps never to be answered. why is it there is such an attraction about rye? why will men and women travel half across the world to see these crooked streets once more? why should the very mention of the name conjure up such haunting memories of the past? there is very little in the place that is actually old--a gateway, one or two houses, a small tower, a church--yet the impression is one of remotest antiquity. bodiam when in , following on other successful raids, the french descended on rye and sacked and fired the town, it became evident that hastings could no longer afford sufficient protection to that stretch of the coast, or to the important river valley leading thence inwards; and the necessity for another stronghold was immediately realized. thus did bodiam come into existence. it so happened that, at the moment when the defenceless condition of the rother became apparent, there had come into the district a knight well skilled in all the military arts, one edward dalyngrigge, a member of an old sussex family and brother to the sheriff of the county. dalyngrigge had spent many years in france, and taken part in numerous expeditions, some of them scarcely creditable. following a fierce but capable warrior, one ready for almost any emergency, he had learned not only the art of the soldier but also the science of the castellan. now, sir edward was married to elizabeth wardeux, the heiress of the manor of bodiam, and therefore possessed of the old moated manor-house some distance from the river. consequently, in virtue of the necessity of the times, sir edward had little difficulty in extracting the licence to build a suitable castle. ====================================================================== [illustration: bodiam castle] the castle is a ruin--a mere empty shell--but outwardly its towers and walls rise sheer from the lily-covered waters of the moat in a fine state of preservation. (_see page _) ====================================================================== the site selected was the left bank of the rother, at a spot some thirty feet above the level of the water. partly by excavation, partly by damming up, a great reservoir was constructed, feet from north to south and feet from east to west; and in the centre an island was left, a little over an acre in extent. on this island the castle was erected; and the basin was flooded from a little stream which the premeditating builder had previously diverted and dammed. northward the ground rose pretty steeply from the moat, a circumstance which seems to detract somewhat from the strength of the castle, till we remember that the planning and building were done in the days before artillery had become the deciding factor in warfare. southwards the ground fell away to the river, and because of this much doubt has been cast on the efficacy of the stronghold. it has been pointed out frequently that an investing army would have had little difficulty in piercing the bank of the basin; but there was no mediæval siege whereby its strength might have been tested. the castle was built in the form of a parallelogram, after the french model, with four strong curtain walls protected at the angles by boldly projecting round towers, feet high and in diameter. three of the curtain walls had intermediate square towers, while the fourth, that on the northern side, had a double tower flanking the great gateway. between this deep and well-protected portal and the land stood an octagonal platform on which was built an advance work, or barbican, the intervening spaces being bridged by drawbridges. thus was the way into the castle strongly held by a succession of defences. as we approach the castle now from any side, it is difficult to realize that it is a ruin--a mere empty shell. outwardly its towers and walls rise sheer from the lily-covered waters of the moat in a fine state of preservation: curtain walls, round towers, square towers, battlements,--all are there as in the days that were. true, the drawbridges are gone, and of the barbican only a fragment remains; but of the great donjon itself nothing appears to be missing until--until we cross the causeway where once the drawbridge rose and fell, and so come to the interior. then do we realize the antiquity of the place; for everything has crumbled to dust, leaving just here and there a suggestion of what has been--a window, a buttress, a fireplace. lines from lord thurlow's sonnet come to mind: "thou hast had thy prime, and thy full vigour, and the eating harms of age have robb'd thee of thy warlike charms, and placed thee here, an image in my rhyme; the owl now haunts thee, and oblivion's plant, the creeping ivy, has o'er-veil'd thy towers; and rother looking up with eye askant, recalling to his mind thy brighter hours, laments the time, when fair and elegant beauty first laugh'd from out thy joyous bowers". from the ruined fragments we mentally reconstruct the scene of the interior, the single courtyard in the centre, the two-story buildings all around with the chapel going up through both stories, and we note with astonishment the comparative convenience and comfort of the arrangements of the compact little fortalice. certainly bodiam (or bojum, as it is pronounced locally) is the most picturesque castle in the south, many say in the whole, of england. nestling in the little valley, surrounded by luxuriant greenery, it has not the impressive grandeur of the stronghold flaunting its strength at the head of some precipitous cliff, or bidding defiance to the hungry seas, but it has a beauty more at one with the spirit of sussex and the south. and yet, bodiam is a place of inviolate mystery. you can fall in love with its unique situation, with its delightful lily-covered, bird-haunted setting; you can be impressed by its note of artistic completeness; but always there is something of loneliness and horror about the place. its walls are grey, but not with the grey of other castles. it is a cold, pitiless grey, no matter how the sun shine, no matter how the water throw up again the quivering light. there is a shudder in the air on the blithest summer day. perhaps it is that places, no less than men, gradually take upon them a personality. if that is so, then surely bodiam has taken the personality of its old founder, dalyngrigge, a bleak enough man, if records speak truly, a man dark in deed and light of word. at bodiam we leave this enchanted garden; and as we go we begin to wonder that a place so rich in memories and in charm has no representative poet, or, indeed, school of poets. sussex in general seems to have been sadly neglected by our singers. kipling has probably sung most in her praises; but even for kipling the great chalk downs have always been sussex. and most of our other poets--habberton lulham, arthur f. bell, rosamund watson, wilfred scawen blunt--have followed in his steps. only occasionally has one ventured down into the marshlands and the low rolling hills and the little river valleys in quest of beauty. and yet beauty indescribable is here for the seeking. probably the poet who knows us best is ford maddox hueffer, whose volume, _the cinque ports_, contains some magnificent word-pictures of these happy little hills and dales, and whose novel, _the 'half moon'_, gives such a faithful picture of rye of ancient days. the following fragment from one of his poems gives the marsh in all its beauty: "up here, where the air's very clear, and the hills slope away nigh down to the bay, it is very like heaven.... "for the sea's wine-purple and lies half asleep in the sickle of the shore and, serene in the west, lion-like purple and brooding in the even, low hills lure the sun to rest. "very like heaven.... for the vast marsh dozes, and waving plough-lands and willowy closes creep and creep up the soft south steep; in the pallid north the grey and ghostly downs do fold away. and, spinning spider-threadlets down the sea, the sea-lights dance, and shake out a wavering radiance...." we close with a short passage from the volume on the cinque ports. it was written concerning the old military canal at winchelsea, but in its brooding spirit of contentment it applies but little less to the whole of this wonderful area. "nowhere is one so absolutely alone; but nowhere do inanimate things--the water plants and the lichens on the stiles--afford so much company. it must not be hurried through, or it is a dull, flat stretch. but linger and saunter through it, and you are caught by the heels in a moment. you will catch a malady of tranquillity--a kind of idle fever that will fall on you in distant places for years after. and one must needs be the better, in times of storm and stress, for that restful remembrance." boy woodburn by the same author: bob, son of battle the gentleman redcoat captain the royal road the brown mare [illustration: four-pound-the-second "look at that head-piece. he's all the while a-thinkin', that hoss is. that's the way he's bred."] boy woodburn a story of the sussex downs by alfred ollivant garden city new york doubleday, page & company copyright, , by doubleday, page & company all rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages including the scandinavian to the mother of laughter contents part i the girl and the foal book i old mat chapter page i. the trainer ii. boy shows her metal iii. goosey gander iv. the gypsy's mare v. across the downs vi. putnam's vii. ally sloper viii. the great beast book ii the watcher ix. patience longstaffe x. her daughter xi. brazil silver xii. the eton man xiii. boy in her eyrie xiv. old man badger xv. the three j's xvi. the fat man xvii. boy sees a vision xviii. two on the downs xix. cannibal's national xx. the paddock close book iii silver mug xxi. the berserker colt xxii. ragamuffin xxiii. the duke's hounds xxiv. the man with the gamp xxv. the black bird xxvi. jim silver goes to war xxvii. the fire in the dusk xxviii. the fat man goes under battle part ii the woman and the horse book iv the trial xxix. albert edward xxx. the bible class xxxi. god almighty's mustang xxxii. the fat man emerges xxxiii. the gallop xxxiv. the lover's quarrel book v monkey brand xxxv. the dancer's son xxxvi. monkey sulks xxxvii. the early bird xxxviii. ikey's own xxxix. the queen of kentucky xl. man and woman xli. the spider's web xlii. the doper xliii. the loose-box xliv. monkey brand gets the sack book vi mocassin xlv. aintree xlvi. the sefton arms xlvii. on the course xlviii. the star-spangled jacket xlix. the last card l. the fat man takes his ticket li. old mat on heaven and earth lii. putnam's once more part i the girl and the foal book i old mat chapter i the trainer the spring meeting at polefax was always old mat's day out. and it was part of the accepted order of things that he should come to the meeting driving in his american buggy behind the horse with which later in the day he meant to win the hunters' steeplechase. there were very few sporting men who remembered the day when mat had not been a leading figure in the racing world. for sixty years he had been training jumpers, and he looked as if he would continue to train them till the end of time. once it may be supposed he had been young mat, but he had been old mat now as long as most could recall. in all these years, indeed, he had changed very little. he trained his horses to-day at putnam's, the farm in the village of cuckmere, over the green billow of the downs, just as he had done in the beginning; and he trained the same kind of horses in the same kind of way, which was entirely different from that of other trainers. mat rarely had a good horse in his stable, and never a bad one. he kept his horses in old barns and farm-stables, turning them out on to the chalk downs in all seasons of the year with little shelter but the lee of a haystack or an occasional shed. "i don't keep my hosses in no 'ot-house," he would say. "a hoss wants a heart, not a hot-water bottle. he'll get it on the chalk, let him be." but if his horses were rough, they stood up and they stayed. and that was all he wanted: for mat never trained anything but jumpers. "flat racin' for flats," was a favourite saying of his. "'chasin' for class." and many of his wins have become historic; notably the grand national in the year of sedan--when merry andrew, who had three legs and one lung, so the story went, won for him by two lengths; and thirty years later cannibal's still more astounding victory in the same race, when monkey brand out-jockeyed chukkers childers, the american crack, in one of the most desperate set-to's in the annals of aintree. there is a famous caricature of mat leading in the winner on the first of these occasions. he looked then much as he does to-day--like humpty-dumpty of the nursery ballad; but he grew always more humpty-dumptyish with the years. his round red head, bald and shining, sat like a poached egg between the enormous spread of his shoulders. his neck, always short, grew shorter and finally disappeared; and his crisp, pink face had the air of one who finds breathing a perpetually increasing difficulty. in build mat was very short, and very broad; and his legs were so thin that it was no wonder they were somewhat bowed beneath their load. far back in the dark ages, when his body was more on a par with his legs, it was rumoured that mat had himself won hunt-races. "then my body went on, or rayther spread out," he would tell his intimates, "while me legs stayed where they was. so mat become a trainer 'stead of a jockey." and mat's legs were not the only part of him that had stayed as they were in those remote days. he wore the same clothes now as then; or if not the identical clothes, as many averred, clothes of the identical cut. younger trainers, who were fond of having their joke with the old man, would often inquire of him, "who's your tailor, mat?" to which the invariable answer in the familiar wheeze was, "he died reign o' william the fo'th, my son. don't you wish he'd lived to show _your_ snips how to cut a coat?" mat indeed was distinctly early victorian in his dress. he always wore a stock instead of a tie, and the felt hat with a flat top and broad-curled brim, which a rising young radical statesman, for whom mat had once trained, had imitated. he walked with a curious and characteristic lilt, as of a boy, rising on his toes as though reaching after heaven. and his eye underlined, as it were, the mischievous gaiety of his walk. it was a baffling eye: bright, blue, merry as a robin's and very shrewd; "the eye of a cherubim," mat once described it himself. when it turned on you, grave yet twinkling, you knew that it summed you up, saw through you, was aware of your wickedness, condoned it, pitied you, comforted you, and bade you rejoice in the world and its crooked ways. it was an innocent eye, a dewy eye, and yet a mighty knowing one. whether the owner of the eye was a saint or a sinner you could not affirm. therefore it bade you beware what you said, what you did, and not least, what you thought, while its mild yet radiant beams were turned upon you. one thing was quite certain: that blue eye had seen a great deal. more, it had enjoyed the seeing. and its owner had a way of wiping it as he ended some tale of rascality, successful or exposed, with his habitual cliché--"i wep a tear. i did reelly," which made you realize that the only tears it had in fact ever wept were in truth tears of suppressed laughter over the foolishness of mortals. it had never mourned over a lost sinner, though it had often winked over one. and it had profound and impenetrable reserves. and the trainer's ups and downs in life, if all the stories were true, had been amazing. at one time it was said that he was worth a cool £ , , and at another a minus quantity. but rich or poor, he never changed his life by an iota, jogging soberly along his appointed if somewhat tortuous way. old mat was nothing if not a character. and if he was by no means more scrupulous than the rest of his profession, he had certain steadfast virtues not always to be found in his brethren of the turf. he never drank, he never smoked, and, win or lose, he never swore. a great raconteur, his stories were most amusing and never obscene. and when late in life he married patience longstaffe, the daughter of the well-known preacher of _god-first_ farm on the north of the downs between lewes and cuckmere, nobody was much surprised. as mr. haggard, the vicar of cuckmere, said, "mat could always be expected to do the unexpected." that patience longstaffe, the puritan daughter of preacher joe, should marry the old trainer was a matter of amazement to all. but she did; and nobody had reason to think that she ever regretted it. patience longstaffe became in time ma woodburn, though she remained patience longstaffe still. mat and his ma had one daughter between them, known to all and sundry in the racing world as boy woodburn. chapter ii boy shows her metal the polefax meeting was small and friendly; never taken very seriously by the fraternity, and left almost entirely to local talent. old mat described it always as reg'lar old-fashioned. the countryside made of it an annual holiday and flocked to the fields under polefax beacon to see the horses and to enjoy old mat, who was the accepted centre-piece. the grand stand was formed of sussex wains drawn up end to end; and the paddock was just roped off. outside the ropes, at the foot of the huge green wave of the downs, were the merry-go-rounds, the cocoanut-shies and wagons of the gypsies; while under a group of elms the carts and carriages of the local farmers and gentry were drawn up. there, too, of course, was mat's american buggy, a spidery concern, made to the old man's design, seated like a double dog-cart, and looking amongst the solid carts and carriages that flanked it like a ghost amongst mortals. it was the most observed vehicle of them all, partly because of its unusual make and shape, and partly because that was the famous shay in which year after year mat drove over the downs from putnam's behind the horse with which he meant to win the hunters' steeplechase. that race, always the last item on the programme, and the most looked-for, was about to begin. the quality in the paddock were climbing to their places in the wagons. the voices of the bookies were raised vociferously. the crowd jostled about them, eager to back old mat's old horse, goosey gander. they believed in the old man's luck, they believed in the old man's horse, they believed in the old man's jockey, monkey brand, almost as famous locally as his master. a boy slipped into the paddock and began to bet surreptitiously behind the dressing-tent. he was fair, slight, and horsey. his stiff, tight choker, his horse-shoe pin, the cut of his breeches, his alert and wary air of a man of the world, all betrayed the racing-lad. from the corner of his mouth hung a cigarette waggishly a-rake; and his billycock had just the correct and knowing cock. he kept well under the lee of the tent; and if he was brazen, it was clear that he was sinning and fearful of discovery: for he had one eye always on the watch for the avenging angel who might swoop down on him at any moment. "what price, goosey gander?" he asked in a voice harsh and cracking. "give you threes," replied the bookie. "do it in dollars," replied the boy, with the magnificent sang-froid of one who goes to ruin as a man of blood should go. "and again?" asked the bookie. the answer was never forth-coming; for the avenging angel, not unexpected, swept down upon the sinner with flaming sword. she was in the shape of a girl about the lad's own age and size, fair as was he and slight, a flapper with a short thick straw-coloured plait. she came round the tent swift and terrible as a rapier, her steel-gray eyes flashing and fierce. such determination on so young a face the bookie thought he had never seen. for a moment he expected to see her strike her victim. and the boy apparently expected the same, for he cowered back, putting up his hands as though to ward off a blow. "got you, sonny," said the bookie, and bolted with a half-hearted grin. the girl never hesitated. she leapt upon her victim, keen and direct as a tigress. "give me that ticket!" she ordered in a deep bass voice whose earnestness was almost awful. the boy had recovered from his first shock. "it were only----" "give me that ticket!" reluctantly the lad obeyed. "spit out that cigarette!" again he obeyed. the girl put her broad flat heel on the chewed remnant and churned it into the mud. "any others?" "no, miss." "you have!--i'll search you." "only a packet o' woodbines, miss." she pocketed them remorselessly. "leave the paddock!" the boy went, slow and sullen. then he became aware of people watching beyond the ropes and recovered himself with a jerk. "yes, miss. very good, miss," he cried cheerfully, touched his hat, and began to run as on an errand. it was a pretty piece of bluff. boy woodburn, in spite of her anger, marked it down to the credit side of the lad's account. when he was collared, albert edward kept his head. that would help him one day when he was caught in a squeeze in a big race and had to jockey to get through. the roar from the crowd told her the race had started. she flashed back to the ropes, a slight figure, in simple blue serge, the radiant plait of her hair flapping as she ran. old mat, standing a little behind the crowd at the ropes, had watched the scene. "one o' my lads," he said in his mysterious wheeze to the big young man at his side. "'no smokin', swearin', or bettin' in _my_ stable!'--that's miss boy's rule. gets it from mar." the girl passed them swiftly and the old man hid his betting-book behind him. "well, boy, sossed him?" he asked innocently. "he's not the only one," retorted the girl. "o, i'm not bettin', boy," pleaded the old man in the whimsical whine which he adopted when addressing his daughter. "don't go and tell your mother that now. it wouldn't be right. reelly it wouldn't. i'm only makin' a note or two for mr. silver here." the girl was lost in the crowd by the ropes. "she'd ha' come and sossed me, too, only you was with me," wheezed the old man confidentially. "you stick close to me, there's a dear. you're like a putection to an old man. she won't do me no 'arm while you're by, de we." the other smiled. he was an upstanding young man, with the shoulders and the bearing of a soldier; and there was something large and slow and elemental about him. he wore white riding-breeches and tan-coloured boots. the blood polo-pony under the elms, with the little group of coachmen and grooms gathered in an admiring circle round him, was his: and those who had seen mat drive on to the course in the morning knew that the young man had ridden over the downs from putnam's with him. boy took her place at the ropes. the young man found himself standing at her side. he did not watch the race. that keen young face at his side, so self-contained and strong, absorbed him. once the girl looked up swiftly, and he was aware of her gray eyes, that flashed in his and were instantly withdrawn, to follow the bob of the heads of the jockeys lifting over a fence on the far side of the course. "lul-like my glasses?" he asked, with a slight stutter. "no," she said. "i can see." later she climbed on to the top of an upturned hamper. as the horses made the turn for home, he heard her draw her breath. "is he down?" he asked. "no," she said. "he's got 'em beat." "how do you know?" "he's begun to ride," replied the girl briefly. old mat was nibbling his pencil in the rear. "how's it going, boy?" he wheezed. "all right," replied the girl. "he's through now." the dirty green of the woodburn colours topped the last fence; and goosey gander came lolloping down the straight, his jockey, head on shoulder, wary to the end, easing him home. "that's a little bit o' better," said old mat comfortably, totting up his accounts. "by jove, he's a fine horseman!" cried the young man with boyish enthusiasm. "monkey brand!" said the girl, without emotion. "one of the has-beens, i should say." chapter iii goosey gander boy woodburn came leading the winner through the cheering crowd. it was old mat's horse, old mat's race; and they had all got a bit on. they were pleased with themselves, pleased with the horse, pleased with the jockey, who, perched up aloft on the great sweating bay, his hands still mechanically at work, his little dark face shining, chaffed his chaffers in the voice of a punchinello. "get off him, monkey," called a joker; "get off quick afore he falls to pieces. _do!_" "same as you do when i get talkin' to ye!" retorted the little jockey. there was a roar of laughter at the expense of the joker, who turned suddenly nasty. "who said chukkers?" he cried. there was an instant of silence, and then some groans. "not me," replied the little jockey grimly. a snigger rippled through the crowd. "what you done with your old friend this time, monkey?" somebody asked. "laid him out again lately?" "no such luck," the other answered. "he's beat it." "where is he then?" the little jockey tossed his head backward. "gone back to god's own country to find his birf certificate. no flowers by request." the reference was to the fact that monkey's old-time enemy, the vanquished of cannibal's national fifteen years before, chukkers, the greatest of cross-country riders, was an american citizen of uncertain origin. the thrust was received with a fresh outburst from the hilarious crowd. monkey brand's relations with his "old friend" were well known to all. the little jockey prepared to dismount. amid a burst of jeers and cheers, he threw his leg over his horse's withers, slipped to the ground, stripped off the saddle, and limped off to the weighing machine. old mat watched him go. "on his hoss, on his day," he muttered confidentially to the young man, "monkey brand can show his heels to most of 'em yet." "how old is he?" asked the other. the old trainer frowned and shook his head mysteriously. "you must never ask a jockey his age, no more than a woman," he said. "he come to me the year i was married, and that's twenty year since come michaelmas. and when he come he looked much just the very same as he do now. might ha' been any age atween ten and a hundred." he dropped his voice. "only way he shows his years--he ain't so fond of fallin' as he was. and i don't blame him. round about forty a man begins to get a bit brittle like." he lilted off after his jockey. goosey gander stood stripped of everything but his bridle, with dark flanks and lowered head reaching at his bit. he was a typical woodburn horse: a great upstanding bay, full of bone and quality. but he showed wear. a tube was in his throat, a leather-boot on each fore-leg, and he was bandaged to the hocks, both of which showed the serrated lines of the firing iron. the girl in front of him pulled his sweating ears. jim silver watched with admiration not untinged with awe her stern young face. she was entirely unconscious of his gaze, and unaware of the people thronging her. her whole spirit was concentrated on the dark and sweating head, trying to rub against her knees. the crowd pressed in upon her inconveniently. "give the lady a chance to breathe," cried the young man in his large and lazy voice. the crowd withdrew a little. "say, guv'nor!--do they call you tinee?" called one. "no; his name's silver," said another. "they calls you silver mug, don't they, mister?" "i believe so," replied the young man, unmoved. he was fair game: for he was very big, clearly good-humoured, spick and span to a fault, and a member of another class. they gathered with glee to the baiting. "that ain't because of his name, stoopid. that's because he's got a silver linin' to his mug, ain't it, sir?" "silver!--gold, you mean. 'e breathes gold, that bloke do, and then it settles on the roof of his jaw. say, blokey, open your mug and let's 'ave a peep. i'll put a penny in." * * * * * a little red ball was run up an improvised pole. old mat was waving. "all right," he called. the girl led goosey gander out of the paddock into the field at the back. women in parti-coloured shawls selling oranges, labourers, riff-raff, and children were gathered about the merry-go-rounds and cocoanut-shies, listening apathetically to the hoarse exhortations of the owners to come and try their luck. silver followed the girl thoughtfully. she led the winner past the side-shows toward the group of stately elms under which the carriages and carts were gathered. the ejected stable-lad, albert edward, now in his shirt-sleeves, came toward her, carrying a bucket. the girl rinsed out the old horse's mouth. then with swift, accustomed fingers she unlaced the leather-boots, and set to work to unwind a bandage. jim silver watched her attentively and then began clumsily on the other bandage. "no," she said. "like so," and taking it from him unwound it in a trice. the old horse shook himself. "go and fetch his rug from the buggy," ordered the girl, addressing albert. the lad went off. the young man took off his long-waisted gray coat and flung it over the horse's loins, lining down. boy's gray eyes softened. then she let go the horse's head, took the coat off swiftly, and as swiftly replaced it, lining upward. "thank-you," she said. she glanced over her shoulder. "will you lead him up and down, while i go and fetch his rug?" she said. "that kid'll be all day." "rather!" replied the young man, with the fervour of a child to whom a pony has been entrusted for the first time. the girl's neat slight blue-serge figure made off for the elms and the carriages. her back turned to the young man, the sternness left her face, and she smiled. a blue-and-black sheep-dog, shaggy as a bear, and as big, leashed to the wheel of the buggy, began to whimper and to whine with furious ecstasy. the big dog's big soul seemed to burst within him as the angel of the keys drew near. he had no tail to wag, so he wagged his whole body, putting back his ears, and laughing with his heart as he lifted his joyous face to his mistress. she rested her hand a moment on his head. "billy bluff," she said. "steady, you ass!--how can i loose you?--there!" she eased the spring of his leash. he was off with a bound, gambolling about her like a wave of the sea. albert was messing about the buggy in leisurely fashion. "hurry, albert!" came the deep voice. "yes, miss," replied the other, more leisurely than ever. "bring that clothes-brush along and brush mr. silver's coat when you've finished fooling," she said. then she took the rug from the buggy and went back to goosey gander. the young man in his pink shirt-sleeves, his baggy white breeches, and polo boots, was walking the old horse gravely up and down, talking to him. his back was to the girl, and she watched him with kind eyes. she was thinking how like he and goosey gander were: good big uns both, as her father would say; clean-bred, large-boned, great-hearted, quiet-mannered. but the man was just coming into his prime, while the horse was well past his. "hullo, bill, old boy," said the young man in his quiet voice. billy answered deeply. silver had only come to putnam's the night before for the first time, but he and billy bluff were friends already. boy woodburn noticed it with swift appreciation. in her young and entirely fallacious judgment there were few shrewder judges of character than big dog billy. she paused a moment, pretending to shift the rug on her arm. the group of three before her held her eye and pleased her mind. her face was full of beauty as she watched, the spirit peeping shyly forth. that horse, that man, that dog, so physically remote from each other, yet spiritually akin, filled her young heart with the same sense of satisfaction as did her familiar and well-beloved downs. she felt the goodness of them and rejoiced in it. all three were sound in body and in spirit, honest, healthy, and therefore happy as the good red earth from which they came. chapter iv the gypsy's mare monkey brand in a long drab coat came limping toward them, his saddle over his arm. "best put in, miss," he said. "mr. woodburn's comin'." the old man indeed was rolling slowly toward them, followed by the chaffing and expectant crowd to whom he paid no heed. his mouth was stuffed full of bank-notes, and he was absorbed in calculations made in a little book, and muttering to himself. "we'd best be moving," said the girl to her companion. she led the old horse away before the oncoming crowd. silver followed, with grave amusement in his face. he did not know whether he dared to laugh or not, and was too much afraid to try. the girl was aware of his embarrassment and became shy in her turn. she led the old horse up to the buggy. this was the tit-bit of the meeting, the last and by far the greatest event. everybody always waited for it. for was it not the grand finale of the jumping season? monkey brand stuffed his saddle away in the buggy, and pulled the harness out from beneath the seat. then he and albert began to harness goosey gander, while boy stood at the old horse's head. the crowd gathered round and began to chaff. "say, monkey, when you get that 'orse 'ome, shall you 'ave 'im for supper?--to finish the day like?" "they'll never get 'im 'ome. he's goin' to lay down and die when 'e strikes the road--ain't you, beauty? and i don't blame 'im neether." "he ain't though. they won't let him. that old 'orse has got to take the washin' round when he gets back to cuckmere this evenin'." goosey gander was harnessed now. old mat made slowly toward the buggy. the crowd, which had been popping off its feu-de-joie of jokes, steadied into silence to watch the old man climb to his seat. "someone to see you, mr. woodburn," came a voice in the silence. "indeed," panted the old man, his heavy shoulders rising and falling. "who's that?" there was a movement in the crowd, which parted. at the farther end of the lane thus made, a flashy young gypsy was seen, with a somnolent old mare on a halter. "there, mr. woodburn!" called the gypsy in a hoarse staccato voice. "there she is--your sort to the tick. black death blood. throw you a national winner and all." the old man cast his shrewd blue eye over the mare. she was old and rough as the halter that adorned her drooping head; but there was no mistaking her quality any more than that her one aim in life was to go to sleep. "yes, she's a lady all right," said the old man. "black death mare, sir," reiterated the gypsy. "out o' vendetta. carry the young lady a dream." "might ha' done twenty year ago," muttered the trainer. he took off his hat and made a floundering rush at the mare. she never so much as winked an eye, pursuing her undeviating purpose with a steadfastness worthy of a greater cause. old mat grunted. "look her over, boy," he said. the girl, who loved a bargain dearly as she loved a horse, was already walking round the mare. her father was in a complacent mood; and when he was happy he would do the romantic and foolish things the girl's soul loved. "like her, boy?" the old man asked. the girl pursued her critical survey, felt the mare's legs, looked into her mouth, lifted an eye-lid. the crowd, deeply interested, watched in silence. utterly absorbed in the work in hand, boy, as always, was unaware of them because she was entirely forgetful of herself. "yes," she said simply. the old man turned to the gypsy. "what ye want?" he asked. "she's yours for a tenner, sir." he stiffened his lips. boy walked sedately past her father. "pound a leg," she said quietly in his ear. "four pound," said the old man, firmly. "cash down--and accommodation." he rustled the bank-notes in his pocket. the gypsy frowned, and appeared to be engaged in a portentous spiritual struggle. then the clouds cleared suddenly. "done with you, sir!" he called, and hauled the old mare down the widening lane through the crowd. she came reluctantly, every inch of her resenting the necessity for motion. old mat paid out five sovereigns into the other's outstretched paw. "four sovereigns for the mare--and a half for the halter, and a little bit o' beer-money." the crowd cheered and the gypsy danced a jig. "you're a gentleman, mr. woodburn," he cried. "now i'll tell you somefin for yourself." he drew the old man aside and whispered in his ear, ending with an emphatic: "s'truth, sir!" the trainer grunted sceptically. "now, boy," he said. "there she is. take charge o' your cripple." the girl, her face alight with pleasure, took the halter of the lagging mare. old mat gathered the reins and mounted to his seat. monkey brand took his place at his master's side. boy got up behind, the halter in her hand. the trainer raised his whip. the buggy bumped over the grass, the old mare trailing behind with outstretched neck. the girl folded her arms and looked down her nose like a footman. silver, following on his pony, saw her face and chuckled suddenly. this stern girl had a sense of humour after all. * * * * * then the chaff became a cheer; and the polefax meeting was over. chapter v across the downs what old mat called his little bit of theayter--which his irreverent daughter was wont to describe with characteristic brutality as sheer swank--was quickly over. as soon as the buggy left the fields and bumped down into the pack-horse track which led up the shoulder of the downs, old mat halted. boy slipped down from her seat, and the old man and monkey brand followed more leisurely. silver dismounted, too. the little cavalcade wound slowly up the hill, skirting the steep side of a coombe that gathered the dusk in its huge green bowl until it brimmed with mystery. boy looked down into it and longed, as often before, that she had wings on which to float upon that soft and undulating sea of shadow. not seldom this desire was so strong upon her that she felt a certainty she _had_ wings, wings within her which she could not spread, but of the existence of which this insurgent desire was the irrefragable witness. the sides of the coombe were hung with beeches sheathed now in tenderest green; while from out of the emptiness beneath, the insistent and melancholy cry of lambs seemed to make the shadows quiver and touched a chord of wistfulness in the heart of the girl. the sun was already sinking behind the smooth ramparts of the hills and rose to meet them as they climbed, peering at them over the summit through the shaggy eyebrow of the gorse. boy walked beside the old mare, throwing every now and then swift and surreptitious glances at her new treasure. she was fearful lest the young man leading his pony on the foot-track at her side should think her a baby and over-keen. once only he spoke to her, and that clearly with the difficulty of the shy. "what shall you cuc-call her?" he asked. "i don't know," she answered. she longed to help him, but when the chance came she could only snub him. that was always the way with boy, when she was in touch with somebody she liked. old mat came unconsciously to the rescue. "why, four pound, o' course," he panted, labouring up the hill, his hands on his knees. "is she black death blood?" asked the young man. "yes, she's black death all right," answered the old man. "that's the old pocahontas strain. jumpers to a gee. you know. look at them gray hairs at the root of her tail--and that lazy, too! sluttin' along with her nose out and her tongue a-waggin'. they're all like that, black deaths are. if you was to let off a bomb under her belly, she wouldn't so much as switch her tail. couldn't be bothered. constitutions like hoxes, too." he paused to pant. "if what that feller said was o.k., why then she's worth money, too. only o' course it ain't. else he wouldn't ha' said it." on the top of the downs, facing the wind that blew straight from the sun sinking over newhaven into the sea, they paused to breathe. beneath them stretched the weald, and the great saucer of pevensey bay ringed about with a line of brown sand fringed with foam. northward was crowborough beacon, the ashdown forest ridge, and the hills about battle abbey. southward, and the way of the setting sun, the downs ran out in huge spurs, line behind line of them, into the shining splendour of the sea, to break off abruptly in the white cliffs of the seven sisters. the hills were bare and bleak in their austere yet rounded strength, stripped of trees, clothed only in resplendent gorse, here a squat haystack dumped upon a ridge against the sky, there a great patch of plough let into the green. "by jove!" cried the young man; and the girl thrilled to him because she felt he loved what was so much to her. "some space," panted the old man, climbing back to his seat, and tucking the rug around him. "room to stretch a hoss here; and somethin' for his windpipe better'n owlbridge's lung-tonic." boy said nothing but stood breathing deep and with quiet eyes. at her side was billy bluff, his shaggy hair blown back from his forehead and astrew across his face, lifting his nose as though to sniff the sunset. they jogged quietly along the crest of the hills, travelling always toward the sun, over the ancient pilgrim's way that runs from pevensey, by the holy well in cow gap, and the lamb on the hill at eastbourne, past the star at alfiriston along the top of the downs to that cathedral beyond the arun, once a chapel of wood, whence st. wilfrid set out to take the gospel from the coast to the heathen dwelling in the dark and savage andred's weald. the slope was with them; and goosey gander made his own pace, slipping along with smooth and easy stride. they followed the line of the telegraph poles, skirting steep coombes shrouded at the foot with beech woods, past round-eyed dew-ponds, at which cloaked shepherds were watering their flocks. once an encampment in the gorse caught their eyes. a yellow van, an ancient horse or two hobbled in the gorse-bushes, a patch of brown tent, and a whiff of blue smoke rising from an unseen fire, betrayed the nature of the squatters. the old man pointed them out with his whip. "there they are, the beauties," he said. "thought they wouldn't be fur. rogues and rasqueals, mr. silver!" he cried, twiddling his whip, and raising his voice to a sort of chant. "rogues and rasqueals on h'every side, layin' in wait for to take a little bit off you--same as the psalmist says. and it's no good talkin' to 'em. none whatebber." he dropped his voice to the old confidential note. "pinch the hair off the back o' your head while you're sleepin', they would. wonder who they sneaked _her_ off?" he turned his rogue-eye on the young man on the chestnut pony jogging at his side, winked, and made a movement with his elbow. "course if they was to claim her, i got her off of an old friend o' mine down in the west country," he said, raising his voice. "better still ireland as further away. yes, south of ireland--a'ter punchestown. he'd better be dead, too, my old friend--so he can't tell no tales and deny no stories." he elaborated his idea with glee, clapping his sides with his elbows. "yes, that's about it. i bought her in at the sale of the effects of an old friend o' mine, south of ireland--to help his widie. that's got it. good idee. very good idee. charity _and_ business--what they like. micky mahon, his name was. died o'--i must have it all pat on the tongue. what _did_ he die of, brand? you're an artful little feller, settin' there so smug and secret like a hen crocodile a-hatchin' h'out h'its h'egg." "lung-trouble's best, sir," replied the little jockey gravely. "i reck'n you can't go far with lung-trouble. see, we all dies o' shortness o' breath in the latter end. that _is_ lung-trouble in a manner o' speakin'." "lung-trouble's good," said the old man. "vairy good. you're a good little lad, brand. you help me in my hour o' need...." "father!" came the stern voice from the back seat. the old man began to flap with his elbows. "there she goes, givin' tongue! is that you, miss?" he called, in his half-humorous whimper. "you wasn't meant to hear that. your ears is altogether _too_ long--like that young lollypop hoss o' mine." they swung away off the crest of the downs and began to drop down the slope into the village of cuckmere lying beneath them in the valley among trees. the sun dipped into the sea as they turned with a noise of grinding wheels into the village street. the news of goosey gander's victory had preceded them and they drove slowly through little crowds of cheering children, between old flint cottages with tiled roofs, and gardens white with arabis and overspread with fig-trees. as they turned a corner, putnam's lay before them, a queen anne manor-house, homely, solid, snug, with low blue parapeted roof, standing a little back from the road, and buttressed by barns and stable-buildings. directly they came in sight of the windows of the farm the old man took his hat off his shining head, put it on the end of his whip, and began to twiddle it. the signal was instantly answered. a handkerchief was waved at a lower window. "there's mar!" mat said comfortably, easing into a walk. "one thing, she ain't dead. _that's_ a little bit o' better." he gave his plump body a half-turn and began again to whimper over his shoulder to the occupant of the back seat. "you wouldn't get your old dad into trouble, would you then, boy?--not by tellin' mar i done a lot o' things i never dreamed o' doin'. if you was to say i betted now you'd say what wasn't true, wouldn't you?--and you've often told me what come to annie nyas and sophia in the book, haven't you? a lesson to us all that was--to be took to 'eart, as the sayin' is. all i done was just this: an old friend come up to me--had a drop in him, must have had!--and he says: 'your old hoss won't win, mat,' he says, very insultifyin'. 'my old hoss _will_ win then,' i answers, polite as you please. 'de we,' i says, mindful o' mar. 'will you back your opinion?' says he, sneery. 'no,' i says, very firm. 'no; i never bets--cause o' you know.' 'oh, yes,' he says, 'i know you--and i know your master,' meaning mar." he swung round and addressed the young man riding on his right. "that's 'ow they go on at me all the time, mr. silver," he whined. "persecute me somethin' shockin' because o' me religion--for all the world as if i could help it." "it's not your religion," came the deep voice from the back seat. "it's mother's." "what's it matter whose religion it is if they martyrizes you for it at the stake?" wheezed the old man. he took up his tale anew. "so as i was sayin' he says to me, sam buckland do: 'man to man,' he says, 'i respeck you for stickin' to principles what you don't 'old, mat,' he says. 'and far be it from me to undermine a man's faith what he learned acrost his mother's knee,' he says. 'but see here,' he says; 'if that 'ole rockin'-hoss o' yours gets round the course i'll give you fi' pun for yourself; if a miracle happens and he gets a place i'll make it a tenner; and if all the other hosses takes and lays down and dies so as he wins outright, it's a pony to you.' and i says to him: 'as to my champion, mr. buckland,' i says, 'you're jealous of him and i don't blame you, seein' as he can roll faster nor any hoss o' yours can gallip. but if he _don't_ win,' i says, 'i'll give you fi' pun to buy yourself some manners with, fi' pun for your missus to get her a better 'usband, and fi' pun for that bald-faced, ewe-knecked, calf-kneed son of a laughin' jack-ass who calls you dad.' that's all that happened' boy. that's not bettin', is it? that's fair give-and-take. quite a different thing entirely. ask the clergee." they pulled up in the road. mrs. woodburn came slowly down the steps of the old manor-house to meet them. she was a tall woman, gray, rather gaunt, and perhaps twenty years younger than her husband. she wore a plain black dress, and there was about her a wonderful atmosphere of peace and dignity. nobody but mat would have dreamed of calling such a woman mar, and any other woman of the type but patience longstaffe would have resented the name. "i'm glad you won, dad," she said in a voice deep as her daughter's, but harsher, as though from wear. "and i hope you won fair." the old man, who had alighted, was passing the reins through the rings of the saddle. "there she goes!" he croaked in his protesting voice. "might just as well be on the crook--straight, i might, for all the credit i gets." mrs. woodburn kissed him and the girl, and ran a practised eye and hand down goosey gander's fore-legs. his wife might be a puritan, but mat was the first to admit that there was little about a horse he could teach her. "he got round all right, then, brand?" she said. "oh, yes, 'm," chirruped the little jockey. "it was light goin', so his pipe didn't trouble him; and he fenced like he was in paridise. i lay off a bit till they was all bust, then i come right away through 'em and spread-eagled the lot." the woman's hand, strong yet tender, passed down the old horse's flank. "i see you waled him," she said. "well, 'm, just a couple of taps like--to settle it," deprecated the other. "three fences from home i see i'd got the measure of 'em, and come away from the ruck with a rattle. then i easied him home." "you'd no call to take up your whip, brand," grumbled the old man. "he'd ha' won without that, and you'd a plenty in hand." "_i_ told him to come through and finish it if he got a chance," interposed boy from the back. the old man turned away with a grunt. "oh, _you_ told him, did you? course my instructions goes for nothin' if _you_ told him. there's _two_ masters in my stable, mr. silver, as you see--and neither of 'em's me." "mother!" called the girl. mrs. woodburn went round and looked at the old mare. "what d'you think of her?" asked boy, unable to disguise her keenness. "you've bought two," said the mother slowly. "d'you think so?" cried the girl. "sure," muttered the old man. "one thing, if they claim her, they can't claim her foal, too." he grunted in his wife's ear: "chap said she's in foal to berserker. likely tale, ain't it? howsoebber, if 'tain't true, don't make no matter; if 'tis, all the better. anyways, she might throw a winner, plea' gob in his goodness." mrs. woodburn held up a warning finger at him. "now, dad!" she said; then turned to her daughter. "turn her out in the paddock close for the present," she said. "and send one of the lads for mr. silver's pony." the girl led the old mare away into the yard. jim silver followed slowly. chapter vi putnam's in the days when putnam's had been a farm, the yard had always been deep in dung and litter. now it was cobbled and clean as a kitchen floor. all round it on three sides were old barns and cattle-sheds, transformed into rough but roomy loose-boxes. and the most casual observer could not have mistaken the nature of the place. for a clock stood above the main building; a chestnut crib-biter, looking out into the yard, had the top of his half door between his teeth and was wind-sucking with arched neck; while a flock of fan-tails strutted to and fro, flirting and foraging. a tortoise-shell cat crossed the yard leisurely. the cat was known as maudie. but it was a matter of dispute amongst those interested in the question whether she derived her name from maud allan, the dancer, or from mordecai, the jew. the dispute hung round the question whether old mat had christened her or ma. if she owed her name to old mat, then it was clear that it came from the dancer; if to ma, then from the old testament. billy bluff, entering the yard in an expectant bustle, made for maudie with a joyful flourish. maudie arched her back, spat, and passed on gingerly. whenever the pair met, and that was frequently, they went through the same pantomime, to the satisfaction of one of them at least. the bob-tail next made a dash at the fan-tails. these rose with a mighty splashing of wings, fluttered a yard above his head, and settled again unconcernedly. albert, who, true to his promise, had somehow got home before the rest of the party, was standing outside the door of the saddle-room. the other lads were gathered round him in respectful silence. albert was busy, but he was not engaged as usual in telling his admirers tall stories of the meeting and his own prowess in getting the blind side of mugs and dandy duds. he had a bit of chalk in his hand and was drawing on the door. there was no doubt the lad could draw. monkey brand indeed asserted that there were few things albert eddud could not do if he tried--"and the wusser the thing the better he does it." now he was drawing the head of a man with a huge and bulbous nose. boy caught a glimpse of it as she entered the yard, and recognised it in a flash. it was the face of the hero of a comic paper the lads took in: a paper of which she disapproved, although with her instinctive sense for government, she did not think it wise to suppress it. _ally sloper_ its name; its subject, ladies in bathing costume. albert, rapt in his labour, was working with the fury of the artist. he finished with a flourish. the lads crowded round to look. foremost amongst them were jerry, a youth with corrugated brow and profoundly sagacious air; and stanley, dark and sleek and heavy of face, in whom sloth and sleep and insolence seemed to war. jerry clearly should have been a philosopher, and stanley an emperor. monkey brand was in the habit of referring, not without bitterness, to the pair and albert as "them three." he believed them capable of anything, and was not far out in his belief. jerry, the thinker, planned the crimes; albert, the man of action, committed them; and stanley, the stupid, bore the blame and paid the price. when they were not at each other's throats, the three hung very close together. albert edward now thrust his friends aside. "half a mo'!" he cried, and scrawled in dashing hand beneath the portrait the legend: _ally slo's got a nose like our jose'. s._ albert stood back with folded arms to admire his masterpiece. the beauty of it over-awed his naturally irreverent spirit. "'ush!" he said. but a rude voice burst in on his silent rapture. "albert!" it called peremptorily. the artist turned round to see boy leading the old mare into the yard. "yes, miss." "take mr. silver's pony." "yes, miss." "jerry, put billy bluff on the chain. stanley, put that chestnut's muzzle on." she led the old mare to the gate that opened on the paddock close. silver followed her, and looking back saw monkey brand limp into the yard from the road, leading goosey gander. mat was on the other side of the old horse, walking thoughtfully, his whip over his shoulder, and muttering to himself, as was his way. goosey gander's head was framed fittingly between master and man. now he rubbed it against one and now against the other. they led him to the water-trough and stood over him as he drank with nibbling lips, shaking the oppressive collar from his shoulders. jim silver at the gate watched the little group with quiet content. the three seemed so perfectly at home together that between them was no need for words. * * * * * monkey brand was a cockney. he had been born in the river ward of hammersmith in that blind alley known to the police and the inhabitants as tiger bay. his father's ice-cream business never had any fascination for the lad; but from the first his spirit drew him to the long-eared shaggy mokes of certain of the neighbours. while the other urchins from the river ward spent their days in and out of the river dodging the coppers, at the draw-docks on chiswick mall, or down by the coal-wharves under the bridge, monkey's happiest hours were passed leading a coster's cart laden with green stuff up and down the alleys. when possible he slept with mary, the donkey he had in charge. she was fond of him, too; and the joes, who owned her, found that the long-eared lady, when in one of her stubborn moods, would give to the boy's persuasions what she refused to the big stick. to the joes monkey proved himself invaluable. he was industrious and reliable; and he had his reward when young joe jaunted across london for fish at billingsgate or greens at covent garden and took the lad with him. the great day of the boy's life came when the joes took him to epsom for the derby week. old joe, young joe's missus, and the kids, stowed away in the body of the cart; while young joe balanced on one shaft and monkey on the other. the party crossed barnes common in the small hours of the monday morning, and dossed on banstead downs that night. next day they joined the great stream of traffic rolling out of london epsomward. young joe, whose strength lay in his powers of sympathetic intuition, let monkey drive. and the urchin took his place with pride in that vast stream of char-à-bancs, 'buses, hansoms, and drags rolling southward; and no four-in-hand coachman of them all held up his hand to stay the following traffic, or twiddled his whip with lordlier dignity than the dark lad who sat on the shaft and drove mary up the hill on to the course. there for the first time young monkey saw thoroughbred horses. they were a revelation to the lad. he stood and gaped at their beauty. "don't 'alf shine neever!" he gasped. "i reck'n our mary couldn't 'old 'em." at the end of the week the joes returned to tiger bay without their coachman. "where's my monkey then?" cried his mother. "stayed along o' the 'orses," young joe answered, unharnessing. indeed there was but one walk in life for which the boy was fitted; and the fates had guided him into it young. * * * * * it was when he was nineteen that mat woodburn found him out. monkey had been left at the post in a steeplechase. old mat didn't follow the race. instead he watched the struggle between the lad and the young horse he was riding. monkey gave a masterly exhibition of patience and tact; and mat, then in his prime and always on the look-out for riding talent, watched it with grunts of pleasure. monkey won the battle and went sailing after the field he could not hope to catch, cantering in long after the other horses had got home and gone to bed, as his indignant owner expressed it. "fancy turn!" he said. "very pretty at islington. you don't ride for me no more." "very good, sir," said monkey, quite unperturbed. as he left the dressing-room mat met him. "lost your job, ain't you?" he said. "care to come to me? i'm mat woodburn." monkey grinned. "i know you, sir," he said. "yes, sir. thank you. i'm there." thus began that curious partnership between the two men which had endured twenty-five years. always master and man, the two had been singularly intimate from the start, and increasingly so. both had that elemental quality, somewhat remote from civilization and its standards, which you find amongst those who consort greatly with horses and cattle. both were simple and astonishingly shrewd. they loved a horse and understood him as did few: they loved a rogue and were the match for most. both had a wide knowledge of human nature, especially on its seamy side, based on a profound experience of life. monkey brand had never been quite in the front rank of cross-country riders. at no time had he emerged from the position of head-lad, nor apparently had he wished to do so. it may be that he lacked ambition, or was aware of his limitations. for his critics said that, consummate horseman though he was, he lacked the strength to hold his own consistently in the first flight. moreover, just at the one period of his career when it had seemed to the knowing that he might soar, the brilliant chukkers, then but a lad, had crossed the atlantic in the train of ikey aaronsohnn--to aid the cosmopolitan banker to achieve the end which was to become his consuming life-passion; and in a brief while had eclipsed absolutely and forever all his professional rivals. chapter vii ally sloper silver opened the gate into the paddock close. boy passed through, leading the old mare. "shall i take her?" asked the young man. "no, thank you," she answered. in the depths of her eyes there lurked a fugitive twinkle. so far the intercourse between herself and mr. silver had consisted in his offering to do things for her and in her refusing his offers. the paddock close stretched away before the girl in the evening light. on the hill half-a-dozen young horses stampeded in the dusk. an early swift screeched and swept above her. a great white owl swooped out of the wood and waved away up the hillside, hovering over the gorse. under the hedge a scattered troop of children were coming down the slope along the path that led past the little old church among the sycamores. boy led the mare up the hillside, her eyes on the flowing green of the hill. the young man followed in her wake, lazy almost as the old mare, who trailed reluctantly behind with clicking shoes. the dreams seemed to have possessed him, too. he did not speak; his eyes were downward; but he was aware all the time of that slight, slow-moving figure walking just in front of him. then something seemed to disturb the stillness and ruffle his brooding mind. it was a vague disease as of a coming sickness, and little more. he emerged from the land of quiet and looked about him, like a stag disturbed by a stalker while grazing. a man was blundering down the hillside toward them, an easel on his shoulder. as he came closer his face seemed strangely familiar to the young man. where had he seen it? then he recollected in a flash. it was the face albert had drawn in caricature on the stable-door--the face of ally sloper. silver found himself wondering whether the owner of the face was aware of his likeness, crude indeed though real, of his great protagonist. the fellow was incredibly slovenly. his hair was reddish and bushy about the jaw, and but for his eyes you might have mistaken him for a commonplace tramp. those eyes held you. they were sensitive, suffering, terrible with the terror of a baffled spirit seeking escape and finding none. in that coarse and bloated face they seemed pitifully out of place and crying continually to be released. indeed, there was something volcanic about the man, as of lava on the boil and ready at any moment to pour forth in destructive torrents. and surely there had been eruptions in the past with fatal consequences. now he waddled toward them with an unsavoury grin. "what luck?" he called, in a somewhat honied voice. "we won," replied boy briefly. she slipped the halter over the head of the old mare, who, too lazy to remove herself, began to graze where she stood. the artist stood above the girl, showing his broken and dirty teeth, his eyes devouring her. silver resented the familiarity of his gaze. "mr. silver, this is mr. joses," said the girl. the difference between the two men amused her: the one clean, keen, beautifully appointed, like a horse got up for a show, the other shaggy and sloppy as a farmyard beast. "very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir, i'm sure," grinned the artist, bowing elaborately. the other responded coldly. joses had not made a favourable impression on the young man. boy saw that at once; and it was not difficult to see. for silver showed his likes and dislikes much as billy bluff did. the girl wished with all her heart that she was standing behind him that she might see if the hair on the back of his neck had risen. a spirit of mischief overcame her. "mr. joses'll paint your horses for you," she said demurely. "delighted, i'm sure," laughed the artist. "thank you," said the young man, with a brevity the girl herself could not have surpassed. his shyness had left him, and with it his tendency to stammer. boy felt herself snubbed, and was nettled accordingly. "i'm going home by the wood," she said. "i'll come with you," said the artist. the two moved away down the hill together toward the wood that thrust like a spear into the heart of the paddock close. silver watched them with steady eyes. as usual he had been left. that swift and slimy artist-chap had chipped in while he was thinking what he should do. silver hated artists--not as the result of experience, for he had never met one in the flesh before, but from instinct, conviction, and knowledge of the race acquired from books. artists and poets: they were all alike--dirty beggars, all manners and no morals, who could talk the hind-leg off a she-ass. and silver, being dumb himself and very human, hated men who were articulate. he watched the pair walking away from him down the hillside. an ill-matched couple they seemed to him: the slight, strenuous girl, her plait of hair like a spear of gold between her shoulders, her slim black legs, and air of a cold flame; and that loose, fat thing who gave the young man the impression of a suet pudding that had taken to drink. the beast seemed disgustingly fatherly, too, rubbing shoulders with the girl, and fawning on her. silver sat down on a log and took out the cigarette-case, which was his habitual comforter. the old mare grazed beside him in the dusk, and he began to laugh as he looked at her. her laziness tickled and appealed to him. there was something great about it. she was indolent as was nature, and for the same reason--that she was aware of immense reserves of power on which she could fall back at any moment. a rabbit came out of the gorse to feed near by. the owl whooped and swooped and hovered behind her. the sea wind, fresh and crisp, came blowing up the valley; and the young stock, bursting with the ecstasy of life, thundered by in the dusk with downward heads and arched backs and far-flung heels. silver sat and smoked. there was a funny feeling at his heart. some vast, deep, silent-running river of life, of whose presence within him he had only become aware within the last few hours, had been thwarted for the moment, thrust back upon itself, and was tugging and tuzzling within him as it sought to pursue its majestic way toward the open sea. chapter viii the great beast joses had been haunting the village off and on for some time past. boy woodburn knew nothing of him except that monkey brand disliked him. herself she had been given no chance of forming an opinion till lately, when joses had asked permission of her father to paint some of the horses. old mat had given leave, and joses had gained the entrée to the stables. he had made the most of his chance, haunting the yard, dogged by monkey brand, who resented his presence, watched him jealously, and made things as uncomfortable and precarious for the artist as he could. joses, to do him justice, stuck to his self-imposed task with astonishing pertinacity in spite of opposition. he did not give up indeed until flaminetta, a lengthy mare with an astonishing reach, suddenly exploded without warning and missed his head with a steel-shod heel by a short foot. joses tumbled backward off his stool and crawled out of danger on his hands and knees with astonishing alacrity for so gross a man. monkey brand, an interested witness of the catastrophe, came limping up full of the tenderest solicitude. "oh, my, mr. joses!--my!" he cried. "i never knew her to do that afore. _ah, yer! what ye up to?_" joses, still on his hands and knees, looked up at the little jockey, his eyes aghast with anger and fear. "ginger!" he snorted. "you put it there." monkey brand eyed him with bland interest. "you know a wunnerful deal about 'orses for a hartist, mr. joses," he remarked, not troubling to deny the soft impeachment. joses got to his feet and began to talk volubly. monkey brand listened in respectful silence, waving to the lads to keep in the background. when the orator had finished, the little jockey went in to report to old mat. "he knows altogether too much that mr. joses do," he ended. the trainer nodded. "i guessed as much," he said. "i'll make inquiries." * * * * * two days later old mat called his head-lad into the office. he was in his socks and shut the door with precautions. mystery was the breath of life to both men, who were at heart but children. "seen joses lately?" began the old man cautiously. "not since then, sir," the other answered in the same tone. old mat went to the window and drew down the blind. there was nobody but maudie in the yard outside, and no human being within fifty yards. but such considerations must not come between the principal actors and the correct ritual for such occasions. "i was over at lewes yesterday," he panted huskily. "i see that tall inspector chap--him i put on to flaminetta for the sefton." monkey was all alert. "what did he say, sir?" "not much," muttered the other. "enough, though." monkey drooped his eyelids and tilted his chin. his face became a masterpiece of secrecy and cunning. old mat turned his lips inward. "i've warned him off," he said, "you might snout about a bit and rout out what he _is_ after." the other nodded. "monkey's the man, sir," he said, and stole away on tip-toe. * * * * * that evening the old trainer, driving through the village, came on the discomfited artist and drew up to have a word with him. "oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!" began the old man in his sympathetic wheeze. "this _is_ a bad job to be sure, mr. joses. so that long mare o' mine had a shot at your pore brain-box. when i heard, i wep' a tear, i did reelly." he shook a sorrowful head. "you mustn't come no more, though, mr. joses, you mustn't. if anything was to 'appen to you in my place i should never forgive meself. 'tain't so much the compensation to your widows and such. it's _here_"--he thumped his heart--"i'd feel it." joses began to make excuse, but the old man refused to be convinced. "rogues and rasqueals, mr. joses," he cried. "layin' pitchforks for yer feet--same as the psalmist says. hosses is much the very same as men. kilted cattle, as the sayin' is. once they turn agin' you your number's up. and they got _somefin'_ agin' you. no fault o' yours, i know--godly genelman like you. but where it is _there_ it is!" he sat in his buggy and wiped his dewy eye. "and there's the dorg, mr. joses. big dorg, too!" * * * * * joses, ejected from putnam's, as adam had been from paradise, might be the loser; but art certainly was not. for he painted abominably. even the lads jeered at his efforts, while old mat said: "i reck'n my old pony could do better than that, if i filled her tail with paint and she sat on it." but joses was not to be beaten so easily. meeting boy woodburn in the village street, he asked her if he might paint billy bluff. the girl, knowing billy's views on mr. joses, excused herself and her dog. joses walked down the village street with her, expostulating. mrs. haggard, the vicar's wife, an austere woman, with a jealously guardian eye for all the village maidens, met the pair and eyed the girl severely. later in the day she came on boy alone and stopped her. "do you know that man, joyce?" she asked. mrs. haggard was the one person in the world who called boy by her christian name. and she did it, as she did everything else, on principle. "not really," answered boy. "i don't like him," said mrs. haggard. "neither do i," answered the girl. "i'm glad to hear it," said the other. "he's _not_ a nice man." that evening mrs. haggard went to see mrs. woodburn and gave the trainer's wife some of her reasons--and they were good reasons, too--for thinking mr. joses _not_ a nice man. mrs. woodburn, who was in the judgment of the vicar's wife a good but curious woman, showed herself distressingly undistressed. "boy can look after herself, i guess," she said, a thought grimly. she reported later to mat what mrs. haggard had told her and what she had replied to mrs. haggard. old mat agreed. "she can bite all right," he said. "trust boy." * * * * * and boy, as she walked down the hillside on leaving mr. silver and the old mare, felt like biting. she was annoyed with mr. silver, annoyed with joses, and, above all, annoyed with herself. she had been mischievous, and now she was being punished for it. she did not like joses; and she _did_ like being alone in the wood at dusk. her companion walked too close to her; he laughed too much; she was aware of that haunted and haunting eye of his rolling at her continually; and he smelt of alcohol. also he would talk. "that's silver, is it?" he said familiarly, as they walked down the hill. "that's _mr._ silver," she retorted. his eye sought hers, questioning; but found nothing save a proud, cold face. "your dadda's training for him, isn't he?" continued the fat man. her dadda! the cheek of it! "i don't know." "he's a croesus, isn't he?" "he's _not_ a greaser," with warmth. joses laughed his unpleasant laughter. "a croesus, i said. rolling. he's the bank of brazil and uruguay." "i don't know," replied the girl. "i haven't asked." they had reached the stile into the wood. "good-night," she said. "i'll see you through the wood," the other answered. a moment she hesitated. should she after all go back by the field? if she did he would think she was afraid. and she was not, as she would show him. but she wished that billy bluff was with her. reluctantly at length she climbed the stile and walked through the dusk. he shambled at her side. "begun to bathe yet?" he asked. "no." "you let me know when you begin, and i'll come and paint you on the rocks." her eyes flashed up at his. "you won't!" she said fiercely. he edged in upon her, laughing sleekly. "saucy, is it?" he said. "keep off!" she cried. "wants taming, does it?" he wound his arm about her. "let me go!" she kicked his shins with her square-toed shoes. she kicked hard and hurt him. "you little devil!" he snorted. he pressed her to him, seeming to smother her, like an offensive blanket. his red beard brushed her forehead; his hot face crowded down on hers; and above all his great red nose protruded above her like an inflamed banana. mrs. haggard was fond of saying that joyce woodburn was like a wild animal. and in a way the vicar's wife was right. self-preservation was the first law of life for the girl as for every healthy young creature. and long and intimate contact with horses and dogs had made her swift and direct in action as were they. now when she felt herself in the clutches of the beast, and the greater death closing in upon her, she knew as little of doubts and scruples as any creature of the wilderness. that hateful breath was in her nostrils; those covetous eyes were close to hers; that inflamed and evil nose protruded over her in flaming invitation. she seized it in her gloved hand and wrenched it. the effect was immediate. joses squealed and clapped both hands to his damaged organ. "my----, you----!" he squeaked in the voice of a punch. the girl broke away and ran. she was swift and hard as a greyhound. for a moment the other stood, leaning over a bed of nettles, snorting and sniffing as the blood dripped from his nose. then he pursued. she heard him thundering behind her. it was like the pursuit of a fawn by a grizzly. she had only a hundred yards to go to the open; and as she fled with her head on her shoulder, and her plait flapping, feeling the strength in her limbs and the courage in her heart, she mocked her pursuer silently. that drink-sodden grampus catch her! her pride came toppling down about her. she tripped, wrenched her ankle, and knew that she was done. before her was a familiar tree she had often climbed, with a branch some six feet from the ground. she swung herself up. the great beast came snorting up. he was a dreadful sight. his nose was bleeding profusely, and the blood had mingled with his beard and moustache. he had lost his cap, and his head shimmered bald at her feet beneath wisps of hair. he seemed like a great vat full of spirit into which she had tossed a lighted match. "i got you, my beauty!" he panted in smothered and unnatural voice. he put his hands on the branch. she stamped on them with her heels: and she stamped hard. he swore, and drew from a leather sheath a wooden-handled knife such as danish fisher-folk use. she grasped the branch above her and swung in the air; but she could not swing forever thus. "i can wait," said the great beast beneath, laughing dreadfully. then there came the sound of a man singing some kind of boating-song. the voice was deep and drawing nearer. "_then we'll all swing together, steady from stroke to bow._" it was silver strolling home through the wood. boy heard him; so did joses, and withdrew into the dusk. the girl slipped down from the tree. the young man dawdled up, and looked at her with some surprise. "anything up?" he asked. "yes," said boy. "up a tree." she limped coldly away. he followed her. "are you lul-lame?" he asked, shy and anxious. "sprained my off-hind fetlock," she replied. book ii the watcher chapter ix patience longstaffe patience longstaffe was the only child of preacher joe, of god-first farm, on the way to lewes; and she was very like her father. he had been brought up a primitive methodist and had first heard the word at rehoboth, the little red brick place of worship of the sect on the outskirts of polefax; but being strong as he was original he had seceded from the church of his fathers early in life to the foundation methodists and started a little chapel of his own, which bore on its red side the inscription that gave the popular name to its founder's farm. the chapel was hidden away down a lane; but as you drove in to lewes along the old coach-road, with the downs bearing on your left shoulder, you could not mistake mr. longstaffe's farm: for a black barn on the roadside carried in huge letters the text, _seek ye first the kingdom of god._ to the cultivated and academic mind there might be something blatant and vulgar about so loud an invitation. but if its character estranged the carriage-folk, the man who had put it up had sought the kingdom himself, and had, if all was true, found it. joe longstaffe was by common consent a christian man, and not of that too general kind which excuses its foolishness and fatuity on the ground of its religion. the duke's agent disliked him for political reasons, but he would admit that the dissenter was the best farmer in the countryside; and the labourers would have added that he was also the best employer. the curious who walked over from lewes to attend the little chapel in which he held forth, found nothing remarkable in the big, gaunt man with the newgate fringe and clean-shaven lips, who looked like a scot but was sussex born and bred. joe longstaffe was not intellectual; his theology was such that even the salvation army shook their heads over it; he had read nothing but the bible and wesley's diary--and those with pain; he stuttered and stumbled grotesquely in his speech, and a clerical oxford don, who pilgrimaged from pevensey to hear him, remarked that the only thing he brought away from the meeting was the phrase, reiterated _ad nauseam_, "as i was sayin', as you might say." but there was one mark-worthy point about the congregation of the chapel; and the duke in his shrewd way was the first to note it. "nine out of ten of the people who attend are his own folk--his carters, shepherds, milk-maids, and the like. and they don't go for what they can get. now if i started a chapel--as i'm thinkin' of doin'--d'you think my people'd come? yes; if they thought they'd get the sack if they didn't." they went, indeed, these humble folk, because they couldn't help it. and they couldn't help it because there was a man in that chapel who drew them as surely as the north pole draws the magnetic needle. and he drew them because there was something in him that would not be denied, something that called to their tired and thirsting spirits, called and comforted. it was not possible to say what that something was; but this man had it, and it was very rare. and that tall daughter of his, who rarely smiled, and never grieved, who was always strong, quiet, and equable, going about her work regular as the seasons, possessed it, too. everybody, indeed, respected patience longstaffe, if few loved her. she was long past thirty, and people were beginning to say that she had dedicated herself to virginity, when to the amazement of all it was announced that she would marry mat woodburn, the trainer, twenty years her senior. the duke, of whose many failings lack of courage was not one, asked her boldly why she was doing it. her answer was as simple as herself. "he's a good man," she said. it was a new and somewhat surprising light on the character of old mat, but the duke accepted it without demur. "she's right," he said at the club at lewes. "mat's a rogue, but he's not a wrong 'un." and with his unequalled experience of both classes, the old peer had every right to speak. the vulgar-minded, who make the majority of every class in every country, thought that preacher joe would make trouble, and looked forward hopefully to a row. for at least a month after the announcement every drawing-room and public-house in south sussex was rife with malicious and sometimes amusing stories. the authors of them were doomed to disappointment. not only was mr. longstaffe quietly and obviously happy, but he and his son-in-law, who was but five years his junior, showed themselves to be unusually good friends. and there was no doubt the marriage was a success. the content on patience woodburn's face was evidence enough of that. how far the strange and apparently ill-assorted couple affected each other it was difficult to say. outwardly, at least, old mat remained old mat still, and patience, although she became ma woodburn, went her strong, still way much as before her marriage. bred on the land and loving it, inheriting a wonderful natural way with stock of every kind, she was from the first her husband's right hand, none the less real because unsuspected and to a great extent unseen. she was never known to attend so much as a point-to-point, but when a colt wasn't furnishing a-right, or a horse entered for a big event was not coming on as he should, it was ma who was sent for and ma who took the matter in hand. "i've nothing against horses and racing," she would say. "god meant 'em to race and jump, i reck'n. but i don't think he meant us to bet and beer over 'em." from the first she was a power in the putnam stable. except in a crisis she interfered little with the lads, but when they went sick or smashed themselves, she took them into her house and nursed them as though they were her own. if they were grateful they did not show it; but in times of stress some spirit whose presence you would never have suspected made itself suddenly and sweetly apparent. the bible class for the lads in her husband's employ she had started on the first sunday of her reign at putnam's. it was voluntary for those over fifteen; but all the lads attended--"to oblige." that class at the start had been the subject of untold jokes in the racing world. there had even been witticisms about it in the _pink un_ and other sporting papers. and when mat had been asked what he thought of it the story went that he had answered: "i winks at ut," adding, with a twinkle: "i winks at a lot--got to now." ma woodburn kept the class going for twenty years, until, indeed, her daughter was old enough to take it over from her. chapter x her daughter boy woodburn had been born to the apparently incongruous couple some years after their marriage. from the very beginning she had always been boy. mrs. haggard, who didn't quite approve of the name--and there were many things mrs. haggard didn't quite approve of--once inquired the origin of it. "i think it came," answered mrs. woodburn. and certainly nobody but the vicar's wife ever thought or spoke of the girl as joyce. she grew up in mrs. haggard's judgment quite uneducated. that lady, a good but somewhat officious creature, was genuinely distressed and made many protests. the protests were invariably met by mrs. woodburn imperturbably as always. "it's how my father was bred," she replied in that plain manner of hers, so plain indeed that conventional people sometimes complained of it as rude. "that's good enough for me." mrs. haggard carried her complaint to her husband, the vicar. "there was once a man called wordsworth, i believe," was all the answer of that enigmatic creature. "you're much of a pair, you and mrs. woodburn," snapped his wife as she left the room. "my dear, you flatter me," replied the quiet vicar. on the face of it, indeed, mrs. haggard had some ground for her anxiety about the girl. boy from the beginning was bred in the stables, lived in them, loved them. at four she began to ride astride and had never known a side-saddle or worn a habit all her life. she took to the pigskin as a duck to water; and at seven, monkey brand, then in his riding prime, gave her up. "she knows more'n me," he said, half in sorrow, half in pride, as his erstwhile pupil popped her pony over a sussex heave-gate. "got wings, she have." "look-a-there!" but the girl did not desert her first master. she would sit on a table in the saddle-room, swinging her legs, and shaking her fair locks as she listened bright-eyed while monkey, busy on leather with soap and sponge, told again the familiar story of cannibal's national. it was on her ninth birthday that, at the conclusion of the oft-told tale, she put a solemn question: "monkey brand!" "yes, minie." "do-you-think-i-could-win-with-the national?" "no sayin' but you might, min." the child's eyes became steel. she set her lips, and nodded her flaxen head with fierce determination. she never recurred to the matter, or mentioned it to others. but from that time forth to ride the national winner became her secret ambition, dwelt upon by day, dreamed over by night, her constant companion in the saddle, nursed secretly in the heart of her heart, and growing always as she grew. certainly she was a centaur if ever child was. to the girl indeed her pony was like a dog. she groomed him, fed him, took him to be shod, and scampered over the wide-strewn downs on him, sometimes bare-backed, sometimes on a numnah, hopping on and off him light as a bird and active as a kitten. mrs. woodburn let the child go largely her own way. "plenty of liberty to enjoy themselves----" that was the principle she had found successful in the stockyard and the gardens, and she tried it on boy without a tremor. old joe longstaffe on his death-bed confirmed the faith of his daughter in this matter of the education or non-education of the child. "don't meddle," he had said, "god'll grow in her--if you'll let him." patience woodburn never forgot her father's words and never had cause to regret that she had followed them. the girl, wayward though she might be at times, never gave her mother a moment's real anxiety. she was straight as a dart, strong as a young hawk, fearless as a lion, and free as the wind. her simplicity, her purity and strength made people afraid of her. in a crowd they always made way for her: for she was resolute with the almost ruthless resolution of one whose purpose is sure and conscience clean. "you feel," mr. haggard once said, "that--she's clear." he waved vaguely. "pity she's a little heathen," said mrs. haggard acridly. "she doesn't know her catechism," answered the mild vicar in his exasperatingly mild way. "is she any the worse?" "churchman!" snorted his outraged spouse. mrs. haggard's indictment was unfounded. the girl was fierce and swift, but she was not a heathen. mrs. woodburn had seen to that. sometimes she used to take the child to the children's services in the little old church on the edge of the paddock close. the girl enjoyed the services, and she loved mr. haggard; but when, during her grand-dad's lifetime, her mother gave the child her choice between the church and the little god-first chapel on the way to lewes, she always chose the latter. it may be that her choice was decided by the fact that she drove to the chapel and walked to the church; it may be that, dearly as she loved the vicar, she loved her grand-dad more; or it may be that the simplicity of the chapel, the austerity of the service, and the character of the congregation, all of a kind, close to earth, humble of heart, and russet in hue, attending there for no other reason than because they loved it, appealed to something profound and ineradicable in the spirit of this child bred amongst the austere and simple hills to which she knew herself so close. old mat was fond of saying that the girl's mother could do what she liked with her, and nobody else could do anything at all. "i don't try," he would add, "she puts the terror on to me, that gal do." and the old man was right. different as they were, there was a deep and mysterious sympathy between mother and daughter. and on that sympathy the mother's power was based. only once was her authority, based as it was upon the spirit, subject to breaking strain. when the girl was fourteen, mrs. woodburn decided to send her to the high school at lewes. old mat shook his head; mrs. haggard was delighted; the girl herself went about with pursed lips and frozen air. the vicar, meeting her in the village, stopped her. "what d'you think about it, boy?" he asked in his grave, kind way. "i shall go," blurted the girl. "but i shall win all the same." "win what?" asked the vicar. "_that_," said boy, and flashed on her way. when the day of parting came, word was sent round to the stables that nobody was to be in them at twelve o'clock. at that hour a slight cold figure crossed the yard swiftly, and entered the stables. the key was turned in the door. there was no sound from within, except the movement of the horses, to whom the girl was bidding good-bye. half an hour later the door was opened, and she came out, cold and frosty as she had entered. monkey brand, standing in the door of the saddle-room, keeping guard over the stable-lads lest they should peep and pry, saw her come. "she look very grim," he afterward reported to old mat. "keeps a stiff lip for a little 'un," whispered a lad peeping from behind the jockey's shoulder. monkey brand rounded on him. "if you'd 'alf her 'eart," he said, "you might be mistook for a man." for three weeks thereafter putnam's knew the girl no more; and it seemed that the soul had died out of the place. monkey brand moped, and swore the horses moped, too. "when i goes round my 'orses in the mornin' they look at me like so many bull-oxes askin' to be slaughtered," he said. "never see sich a sight. never!" old mat for once was glum. his eye lost its twinkle, and his walk its famous lilt. mr. haggard was genuinely sorry for the old man. "miss her, mr. woodburn?" he asked, stopping the trainer in the village street. "miss her!" cried the other. "mr. haggard, there's nothing about hell you can teach _me_. i knows it all." he waved a significant hand and walked away, his heart in his boots. of all the party at putnam's, mrs. woodburn only seemed undisturbed. unmoved by the gloom of those about her, glum looks, short answers, and the atmosphere of a november fog, she went about her business as before. boy's history during those weeks has never been written, and never will be. what she did, said, thought, and suffered during that time--and what others did, said, thought, and suffered because of her--none but the recording angel knows. the girl herself never referred to the point; but were reference made to it, she winced like a foal at the touch of the branding-iron. the episode happily lasted but three weeks. at the end of that time, on a saturday morning, one of the lads had ridden the fly-away filly over to lewes. there in the high street the girl swooped on him. "get off!" she ordered. the lad, who feared miss boy as he did the devil, obeyed with alacrity. "put me up!" boy ordered. again the lad obeyed, and the next thing he was aware of was the swish of the filly's thoroughbred tail as she disappeared round the corner of the street. an hour later the girl clattered into the yard at putnam's, the filly in a foam. monkey brand, a chamois leather in his hand, came running out. "miss boy!" he cried. there was an extraordinary air of suppressed excitement about the girl. she was white-hot and sparkling, yet cold. indeed, she gave the impression of a sea of emotions battling beneath a floor of ice. "i've got out," she said. panting, but fearless eyed, she went in to face her mother. mrs. woodburn did not seem surprised. she met her daughter's resistance with disarming quiet. "well, boy," she said, kissing the truant. "i'm not going back," panted the girl. her spirit fluttered furiously as that of an escaped bird who fears recapture. "i'm not going to send you back, my dear," replied the mother. the girl put her arms about her mother's neck in a moment of rare impulse. "oh, mother!" she sighed. she did not cry: boy woodburn was never known to cry. she did not faint. she very rarely fainted. but she trembled through and through. mrs. woodburn paid the necessary fees. the schoolmistress didn't ask to have the girl back. she admitted that she could make nothing of her. "stuck her toes in," said old mat. "and i don't blame her. can't see boy walkin' out two be two, and hand in hand." he shook his head. "mustn't put a blood filly in the cart, mar," he said. "she'll only kick the caboodlum to pieces." mrs. woodburn made one more effort to educate her daughter on conventional lines. she introduced a governess to putnam's. but after the girl had taken her mistress for a ride, the poor woman came to mrs. woodburn in tears and asked to leave. "i can't teach her the irregular verbs on horseback," she said. "and she won't learn any other way. directly i begin on them, she starts to gallop." mrs. woodburn accepted the governess's notice, and tried nothing further. "she must go her own way now," she said to mat. "it's the right way, mar," replied the old man comfortably. "i hope so," answered his wife. "she can read, and she can write, and she can 'rithmetik,'" continued the other. "what more d'you want with this 'ere education?" he went out, shaking his head. "i sha'n't wep no tear," he said. "that i sha'n't, even if she don't get round them wriggle-regular french worms mamsel talks of. roast beef o' old england for me." mrs. woodburn announced her decision to her daughter. "thank you, mother," said the girl quietly, and added: "it's no good--not for me." mrs. woodburn eyed her daughter. "you're a good maid, boy," she said. "that's the main." a month later the girl asked her mother if she might help with the lads' bible class. mrs. woodburn consented. a year later, when the girl was sixteen, mrs. woodburn asked her daughter if she would take the class alone. the girl thought it over for a month. then she said yes. in the interval she had passed through a spiritual crisis and made a great renunciation. she had resolved to put aside the dream that had dominated her inner life for seven years. chapter xi brazil silver boy woodburn's calling had thrown her from early youth into contact with eton men. indeed, in her experience the world was divided into eton men--and the rest. that was what the girl believed; and it was clearly what the eton men believed, too. boy herself belonged to the rest, and did not seem to regret it. the rest were infinite in number and variety; that was why she liked them so; for the infinite can know no limitations. it was not so with the other division of the human race. eton men, though almost equally numerous, were limited and stereotyped all to pattern. in the girl's judgment there were three types of them: the superior person, who treated her as if she was not; the bad ass, to whom she was a poor sort of joke; and the incorrigible creature, who made up to her as if she was a barmaid. that was her theory. and once the girl had formed a theory as the result of observation, she hated that theory to be upset. mr. silver displeased her because he blew her hypothesis to smithereens on his first appearance; for he was an eton man, yet clearly he did not come within any of the three known categories. at first the girl escaped from her intellectual dilemma by a simple and purely feminine wile--she refused to believe that he was an eton man. and even when it was proved to her that he had rowed in the eton boat she remained unconvinced. "need you be an eton man to be in the eton boat?" she inquired warily. mr. haggard, her informant, thought it probable, but added that he would inquire. it was not till she had known the young man some six months that she settled the question for herself by asking him point-blank if he had been at eton. "i believe so," he answered. that was his invariable answer to the question when put to him. now for once he elaborated on it a little. "mother wanted me to go," he added. "father didn't." "were you happy there?" asked the girl. the other's face lit up with the enthusiasm she liked in him so well. "was i not?" he said. * * * * * albert edward took all the credit to himself for the name of silver mug. albert always took all the credit for everything; but really he was by no means so original as he imagined. in fact, jim silver had been silver mug when albert was still a ragged little urchin asking for cigarette pictures from passing toffs outside brighton railway station. a lower boy at eton had originated the name. it was apt, and it stuck. jim silver in bromhead's was hugely rich, and he had a great, ugly, honest face. friends and enemies called him by the name; and he had a good few of both. the former loved him for the qualities the latter hated him for. the cads of the school chaffed surreptitiously about his birth. they said he was the grandson of an agricultural labourer and the son of a bank clerk; but only one of them, more caddish or more courageous than the rest, said so to his face. "i wouldn't mind if i was," said simple jim, and was cheered by his loyal little friends, lord amersham and others of the right kidney. his father never came to see him when he was at school. "i know why," sneered the enemy. "why, then?" flared jim. "he daren't. give the show away." after that the lad gave his enemy a sound hiding, and peace reigned. the bounders might say he was a bounder, but they had to admit that he could give and take punishment with the best. * * * * * he left eton absolutely unspoilt. a year before the lad quitted the school his father sent for him. "i didn't want you to go to eton, jim," he said. "i'm glad now. do you want to go on to oxford?" the boy thought; and when his reply came it was honest as himself. "all my friends are going," he said. "i should like it for that reason. but i don't know that i should get much out of it." "go for a year," said his father. "see what you make of it. if you're getting any good of it, you can go on. if not, we'll see." the boy did not leave the room. his interviews with his father were rare; and there was a question he had long wished to ask. now he blurted it out. "am i to go into the bank, father?" the old man blinked at his son over his spectacles, and then shoved back his chair. "what d'you want?" he asked. "i should like the army, or to farm," replied the son. mr. silver put down his paper. it was some time before he answered. "the bank's my life," he said at last. "you're my son. you may choose for yourself." he drummed with his fingers on the table; and jim left the room. * * * * * when the half-breeds, as lord amersham called them, jeered at silver as the son of an agricultural labourer there was a modicum of truth at the back of the lie. the boy came of a long line of yeoman-farmers in leicestershire, famous for generations for their stock and their integrity. jim silver's grandfather was the last of that line. he was a big man and big farmer, husbanding his wide acres wisely and well, breeding good stock, enjoying his day's hunting, but not making too much of it, touching his hat to his landlord, a familiar and imposing figure at all the agricultural shows in the midlands. his only son george was in his father's opinion a sport. certainly he was no true silver: that was obvious from his earliest years. he cared nothing for a horse, was a shamefully bad judge of a beast, had no feeling for the fields, never knew the real poetic thrill at the sight and smell of a yard knee deep in muck, and hated mud and rain. "more of a scholar," said his father regretfully. "all for books and studyin'." mr. silver, wise as are those who come into contact with nature at first hand, did not interfere with his son's queer predilections or attempt to stay his development on the lines of instinctive preference, aiding the boy indeed in every way to make the most of himself on the path he had chosen. thus he sent him to the grammar school at leicester. the boy went joyfully: for he was very modern. the town, the books, the people, the streets, the hum of business, the opening gates of knowledge, pleased and contented his insatiable young spirit. the father had the reward of his daring. george did famously and became in time captain of the school. the farmer attended prize-giving, and watched his son march up to the table time after time amidst the cheers of his school-fellows. "george has got the red rosette again, mr. silver," smiled the headmaster. "so i see," replied the farmer. "but the showring's one thing, work's another." and when pressed to send his son on to a university he refused. "he'll get an exhibition," urged the headmaster. the father was not impressed. "moderation in all things," he said, shaking a shrewd head. "edication as well. he's stood out long enough. time he began to 'arn." the headmaster's arguments were of no avail. "i'd got all the schooling i needed by then i was eleven. he's had till he's eighteen. if it's to be of any good to him it'll be good now," said mr. silver. to his surprise and secret pleasure his son backed him. he didn't want to go to a university. "it's not much use unless you're a classic," the boy said. "and i'm a mathematician." besides he had his own clear-cut views of what he wished to do. and those views were very strange. he wanted to go into a bank. "bank!" cried the amazed father. "set at a counter all day and calcalate sums?" the boy grinned behind his spectacles in his foolish way. "that's about it," he said. "well, i never!" cried the father. but true to his principles he let his son go his own way. indeed, he helped him to a clerkship in the great midland and birmingham joint stock bank, of which his landlord, sir evelyn merry, was chairman. "glad to get him," said the old baronet. "if he's half as good a man as his father he'll do well." the boy started at a local branch, and in a year was transferred to the central office at birmingham. there he spent his spare time attending evening classes. at the end of a year he held a certificate, was entitled to put certain letters after his name, and had written an article on bullion which appeared in the _banker's magazine_ and was translated into german. by the time he was thirty he was a manager, and ten years later he was one of the managing directors of the second biggest joint stock bank in the richest country in the world. and he did not stop there. george silver was a financier in the great style, and a superlatively honest one. he had the initiative, the knowledge, and above all the judgment that made some men call him the napoleon of threadneedle street. at forty-five he launched the union bank of brazil and uruguay; and to that colossal undertaking he devoted the last twenty-five years of his strenuous and successful life. in the city he was known thereafter as brazil silver. the bank was his passion and his life. when at fifty, to the astonishment of many, he married, the city merely said: "he must have an heir to carry on the bank." mrs. silver was a semi-aristocratic woman of limited intelligence, suppressed ambition, and sound limbs. it was the latter characteristic which won her a husband. he was not such a bad judge of make and shape as his father would have had the world believe; and as usual brazil silver's judgment proved good. in the appointed time his wife fulfilled her function, and gave him the son he asked of her. chapter xii the eton man jim silver grew up neither his father's son nor his mother's. "he's a throw-back--to his grandfather," said old sir evelyn. and in fact from the first the lad's soul hankered after the broad lands of leicestershire rather than the counting-house in threadneedle street. his happiest days were spent as a child on his grand-dad's farm, amid the great horses, and sweet-breathed kine, and golden stacks. "back to the land," as his grandfather was fond of saying, was the child's unspoken motto. the old man and his sturdy grandchild were rare intimates, and never so happy as when wandering together about the yards and farm-buildings and pastures, the child, silent and absorbed, as he clutched his grand-dad's big brown finger. the pair did not talk much: they were too content. but there was one often-repeated conversation which took place between them as they strolled. "what goin' to be when you grows up, jim?" "farmer." "what shall ye breed?" "shire-'osses." the child came back always from those prolonged visits with the sun on his cheeks, the strength in his limbs, and leicestershire broad upon his tongue; and he never understood why his mother cut his visits short on every imaginable pretext. at eton the lad's friends were almost all drawn from the families in whose blood, after generations of possession, the land and its belongings had become a real if somewhat perverted passion. they would sit on into the twilight in each other's studies and ramble on interminably and with the exaggerated wisdom of seventeen about the subject nearest to their youthful hearts. sometimes mr. bromhead would look in, grim and gray behind his spectacles. "talking horses as usual, jim, i suppose," he would say. "and dog, sir," corrected young amersham. "with an occasional shorthorn chucked in to tip the scale," added old sir evelyn's fair grandson. * * * * * when brazil silver died, the year his son was the heavy-weight in the oxford boat, he left a will which was in accordance with his life. every penny he had--and he had a good many, as the chancellor of the exchequer remarked in the house of commons--was tied up in the bank, and to remain there. it was all left to his son. "i can trust him to see to his mother," ran the will, written on half a sheet of paper, "and to any dependents. charities i loathe." the son was free to save anything he liked from his vast income, but the capital must stay in the bank. the old man made no condition that jim should enter the bank, and expressed no wish to that effect. his friends, therefore, speculated what jim would do. they might have spared themselves the trouble. he left oxford, in spite of the protests of the captain of the boat, who spent a vain but hectic week pointing out to the apostate the path of duty, which was also the path of glory, and went into the bank. his reasoning, as always, was simple and to the point. "the bank was my father's show," he said. "he made it, and left it to me to carry on. and i shall--to the best of my ability." with that capacity for dogged grind which distinguished him, he tried to render himself efficient, working early and late like any clerk. it was a well-nigh hopeless task. jim silver's head was sound if slow; but he had no aptitude for figures. "i'm worth two pound a week in the open market," he told his old house-master. "and i'm supposed to be bossing--that." and he brandished the latest report of the bank of which he was nominal chairman. notwithstanding obvious differences in many ways, jim inherited some of his father's characteristics. brazil silver, in spite of his success, had always remained in his personal life the simple farmer's son. indeed, it was said in the city that he never owned a dress-suit, and that when he had to attend city banquets he hired his butler's. when he died he left behind him none of the usual encumbrances. original in his private life as in finance, he had steadfastly refused to go the way of the world. he had never bought a great place in the country or a big house in town. he had never taken a scotch moor or a river in norway. in london he had a plain but perfectly appointed flat; and sometimes in the summer he took a house on the river or at st. helen's. in these respects jim followed faithfully in the steps of his father. he kept on the flat in town, worked in the city all the day, and spent much time of evenings at the eton mission in hackney wick. one small extravagance he attempted: he tried to buy from old sir evelyn the farm on which his fathers had lived and died for generations. the old gentleman, who would sooner have parted from his soul than from an acre of his inheritance, refused to sell. "i suppose the boy'll cut up rough now," grumbled the old baronet, who was fond of jim. "oh, no, he won't, grandfather," replied his grandson. "he's awfully decent." "we shall see," mumbled the old man; but he had shortly to admit that billy was right. jim silver, thwarted in his desire to acquire his grandfather's farm, rented a little hunting-box near by instead. there he kept his weight-carriers, and there during the hunting season he spent his week-ends and occasional holidays. since the days when he walked his grand-dad's farm as a child, his ambitions had changed in degree but not in kind. then he had proposed to devote his life to breeding shire-horses. now he meant, when once he had mastered his job, to devote his leisure to owning and breeding 'chasers. some time elapsed after his father's death before he let himself go in this respect. his sensitive conscience and high sense of duty gave him an uneasy mind in the matter. his father had disapproved of horses, or rather had been afraid of the turf and its consequences. it was a while before the son could assuage his qualms and feel himself free to go forward in the prosecution of his desire. his old house-master, still his father-confessor in spiritual distresses, finally dispelled the young man's doubts and launched him on his destined way. "be yourself," he said, "as your father was before you. he wouldn't farm--because he hadn't got it in him. what he had in him was banking. so like a wise man he banked. you've got it in you to breed steeplechase horses. so breed them. only--breed them better than any man ever bred them before." the young man's mind once finally resolved, nothing could stop him. and it was in the pursuit of his desire that he first came across mat woodburn. the old man and the young took to each other from the first. indeed, there was much in common between the two. both were simple of heart, children of nature, caring little for the world, and both believed with passionate conviction that an english thoroughbred was the crown and glory of god's creatures. "_he_ didn't make no mistake _that_ time," the old man was fond of saying with emphasis, to the amusement of mr. haggard and the annoyance of his wife. chapter xiii boy in her eyrie in the corner of the yard at putnam's was billy bluff's kennel. above the kennel, a broad ladder, much haunted by maudie, the free, who loved to sit on it and tantalize with her airs of liberty billy, the prisoner on his chain, led to the loft above the stable. it was a very ordinary loft in the roof, dusty, dark, with hay piled in one corner, a chaff-cutter, and trap-doors in the floor, through which the forage was thrust down into the mangers of the horses below. at the end of the loft was a wooden partition. behind the partition was the girl's room. she slept and lived up there over the stable at her own desire. it was less like being in a house: the girl felt herself her own mistress as she did not under the maternal roof; and most of all she was near the horses. "i keep two watch-dogs at my place," old mat would say. "billy bluff a-low and my little gal a-loft." boy loved to go to sleep to the sound of the rhythmical munching of the horses beneath, and to wake to the noise of them blowing their noses in the dawn. never a mouse moved in the stable at night but she was aware of it. and when a horse was training for a big event barely a night passed but in the small hours a white, bare-footed figure issued from the partition and came swiftly along the loft, disturbing rats and bats as she came, to lift a trap-door and look down with guardian eye on the hope of the stable dreaming unconsciously beneath. in her solitary eyrie up there the girl learned a great deal. elsie haggard, the vicar's daughter, or, as mrs. woodburn would say, with that touch of satire characteristic of her, the daughter of the vicar's wife, who was two years older than boy, and at college, once asked her if she wasn't afraid. "afraid!" asked the girl. "what of?" "i don't know," answered elsie. "it's so far from everybody." "i like being alone," replied the girl. "and there are the horses." elsie haggard shared her mother's concern for boy woodburn's soul. "and someone else," she said. "yes," replied the girl simply, almost brutally. "there's the lord." elsie haggard looked at her sharply, suspecting her of flippancy. nothing clearly was further from the girl's mind. her face was unusually soft, almost dreamy. "wherever there are horses and dogs and creatures he is, don't you think?" she said, quite unconscious that she was quoting inexactly a recently discovered saying dear to mr. haggard. "ye-es," answered elsie dubiously. "of course, they've got no souls." the dreamer vanished. "i don't agree," flashed the girl. elsie mounted on her high horse. "perhaps you know more about it than my father," she said. "he doesn't agree, either," retorted the girl mercilessly. she was right; and elsie knew it. the vicar's daughter made a lame recovery. theology was always her father's weak point. "or mother," she said. "your mother doesn't know much about a horse," said the girl slowly. "she knows about their souls," cried elsie triumphantly. "she can't if they haven't got them," retorted boy, with the brutal logic that distinguished her. * * * * * boy woodburn's room in the loft was characteristic of its owner. mr. haggard said it was full of light and little else. it was the room of a boy, not of a girl; of a soldier, and not an artist. the girl in truth had the limitations of her qualities. she was so near to nature that she had no need for art, and no understanding of it. the room knew neither carpet, curtain, nor blind. the sun, the wind, and not seldom the rain and snow were free of it. a small collapsible camp-bed, a copper basin and jug, an old chest, a corner cupboard--these constituted the furniture. the walls were whitewashed. three of them knew no pictures. on one was her hunting-crop, a cutting-whip, and a pair of spurs; beneath them a boot-jack and three pairs of soft riding-boots in various stages of wear. in the corner stood a tandem-whip. above the mantelpiece was one of the plates in which cannibal had run the national, framing a photograph of the ugliest horse that ever won at aintree--and the biggest, to judge from the size of the plate. beneath it was a picture of the good shepherd and the lost sheep, and a church almanac. on the mantelpiece were the photographs of her mother, her father, monkey brand in the putnam colours, and the passion play at oberammergau; while pinned above the clock was the one poem, other than certain hymns and psalms, that boy knew by heart. it was called _two on the downs_, and had been written by mr. haggard, when in the first vigour of youth he had come to take up his ministry in cuckmere thirty years since: two on the downs _climb ho! so we go up the hill to the sky, through the lane where the apple-blossoms blow and the lovers pass us by. let them laugh at you and me, let them if they dare! they're almost as bad maybe-- what do we care? halt ho! on the brow!-- o, the world is wide! and the wind and the waters blow and flow in the sun on every side. by the dew-pond windy-dark, take a gusty breath; the gorse in glory, the sunshine hoary upon the sea beneath._ _swing ho! bowing go, breathless with laughter and song, the wind in her wilful hair a-blow, swinging along, along. she and i, girl and boy, merrily arm in arm, the lark above us, and god to love us, and keep our hearts from harm. sing ho! so we go, over downs that are surging green, under the sky and the seas that lie silvery-strewn between_. one brilliant morning in early june, some two months after she had brought the gypsy's mare back to putnam's on the evening of the polefax meeting, boy rose early and stood humming the lines as she dressed, to a simple little tune she had composed for them. the words were in harmony with her mood and with the morning. in part they inspired, in part they determined her. as she began the song boy was wondering whether she should begin to bathe. her mind had resolved itself without effort as she ended. there had been a week of summer; the tide would be high, and only a day or two back a coastguard at the gap had told her that the water was warming fast. she went to the window and looked out over the vast green sweep of the paddock close running away up the gorse-crowned hillside that rose like a rampart at the back. it was early. the sun had risen, but the mist lay white as yet in the hollows and hung about the dripping trees. earth and sky and sea called her. the girl slipped into her riding-boots, put her jersey on, and over it her worn long-skirted coat, twisted her bathing gown and cap inside her towel, and walked across the loft, the old boards shaking beneath her swift feet. at the top of the ladder she paused a moment and looked down. the fan-tails strutted in the yard; maudie licked herself on the ladder just out of the reach of billy bluff, who, tossing on his chain, greeted the girl with a volley of yelps, yaps, howls of triumph, petition, expectation and joy. maudie, less pleased, rose coldly, and descended the ladder. she knew by experience what to expect when that slight figure came tripping down the ladder. the monster-without-manners would be let loose upon society. the monster-without-manners was kept in his place all through the night by a simple but admirable expedient which maudie did not profess to understand. as the sun peeped over the wall, two-legs appeared at the top of the ladder, and peace departed from the earth till the sun went down again, when the monster-without-manners resumed his proper place upon the chain. he did not know how to treat a lady, and was impervious to scratches that would have taught one less shaggy. he was rough, and no gentleman. maudie herself had the manners of an aristocrat of fiction. she walked through life, curling a contumelious lip, unshaken by the passions, aloof from the struggles, high above the emotions that stir and beset the creatures of the dust. in maudie's estimation billy bluff was a bounder. certainly he bounded, and like most bounders he conceived of himself quite falsely as a funny fellow. brooding on her grievances, maudie strolled thoughtfully across the yard, one eye always on her enemy, timing herself to be on the top of the wall just a second before the m.-w.-m. was free to bound. "shut up, you ass!" said the girl as she released the bob-tail. he was away with a roar, scattering the fan-tails, as he launched on his way to exchange jibes with maudie, languid, secure, and insolent on the top of the wall. the girl went to the saddle-room, took down her saddle and bridle, and turned into the stable. for once she was not the first. monkey brand was before her, standing at the head of a now familiar chestnut pony, waiting, saddled, on the pillar-reins. "is mr. silver down?" the girl asked, surprised. "yes, miss. came late last night. down for the week-end, i believe. he's goin' for a stretch before he looks at the 'orses," the little jockey informed her. "they're goin' to gallop make-way-there this morning." "are they?" said the girl sharply. it was rarely anything took place in the stable without her knowledge. and make-way-there, who was one of mr. silver's horses, was to run at the paris meeting two weeks hence. the girl, to hide her resentment, placed her hand on the pony's neck, hard as marble beneath a skin that was soft to the touch as a mole's. "ain't he a little clinker?" said monkey brand in hushed voice. "they say mr. silver refused £ for him at hurlingham. and he took champion at the poly pony show." the girl's hand travelled down the pony's neck with firm, strong, rhythmical stroke. "heart of oak!" she purred affectionately. ragamuffin, the old roan pony in the next stall, began to move, restless and irritable. "he's jealous, is old rags," smiled monkey. the girl went to the roan. "now, then, old man," she said. "old friends first." she saddled him and led him out into the yard. attached to the d's of the light saddle was a string forage bag such as cavalry soldiers carry. into it she stuffed her towel and all that it contained. monkey brand held the pony's head as she mounted. "how's the old mare?" she asked, gathering her reins. "four pound?" queried the jockey. "i didn't see her this morning as i come along, miss. she must ha' been layin' behind the trees. another week, i should say." "william!" called the girl, and rode through the gate into the paddock close. * * * * * since the polefax meeting silver had come and gone continually. his week-ends he spent frequently at putnam's, returning to london by the first train on monday morning. "he don't like the bank, and i don't blame him," said old mat. "i reck'n he'd like to be all the while in the saddle on the downs." "why does he stick to the bank?" the girl blurted out. it was the only question she had ever put about mr. silver. "because he's got to, my dear," replied the sagacious old man. "if he don't stick to the bank, the bank won't stick to him, i guess." in those months the girl had learned a good deal about mr. silver. he was different from the other men she knew. she had felt that at once on meeting him. she was shy with him and short; and it was rare for her to be shy with men. indeed, in her heart she knew that she was almost afraid of him. and she had never known herself afraid of a man before. that made her angry with him, though it was no fault of his. then she had resented the unconscious part he had played in the affair of the wood. she was sure he was laughing at her. and that good, plain, smileless face of his, and the very fact that he never referred to the incident, only made her the more suspicious. his awkward big-dog attempts at friendliness had been repulsed. she played the maudie to his billy bluff, and all would have been well but that he refused to get back upon her by bounding. instead, he apparently had come to the conclusion that she disliked him, and had withdrawn. that made her angrier still. now she had not even known that he was coming down last night. and worst and most unforgivable of all, she had not been told that make-way-there was to be galloped that morning. ragamuffin, the roan, was surprised when his mistress picked him up immediately she entered the paddock close and pushed him into a canter. chapter xiv old man badger ragamuffin was old, but his heart was good. directly his mistress asked him he snatched for his head and went away smooth and swift as a racing boat. boy pulled off to the right and made for the clump of trees half-way up the hill. the gypsy's mare was grazing by herself behind them. the girl steadied to a halt and watched her critically, calling billy bluff to heel. she didn't want the boisterous young dog to worry the old mare just now, and it was clear that four pound didn't want it either. as billy bluff skirmished about, she put back her ears and lowered her head with an irritable motion; but she was far too lazy to make the charge she threatened. the girl's inspection made, and conclusions drawn, she pursued her way up the hill, popped her pony over the low post and rails which fenced off the paddock close from the untamed downs, and walked leisurely over the brow, the gorse warm and smelling in the sun. beneath her a valley stretched away to the sea. there the cliff rose steeply to a lighthouse, standing on a bare summit; dipped, and rose again. in the hollow between the two hills a white coastguard station sentinelled the gap, across which the line of the sea stretched like a silver wire. nobody was yet astir save a ploughman driving a team of slow-moving oxen to the fields. to boy the beauty of the early morning lay in the fact that she had the hills and heavens and seas to herself, and could enjoy them in her own way without thought of interference from a world too frivolous, too feverish, and above all too loud, to understand. as she rode along, her young face was uplifted to catch the rivulets of song that came pouring down on her from the blue. she dropped down the hill, disturbing the rabbits busy in the dew, and bursting through the cables of gossamer that tried to stay her. a kestrel hovered over the gorse, and she marked a badger on the hillside shuffling home before man and his dogs began the old rowdy-dowdy game once more. happily billy bluff, who was always too much absorbed in the object immediately beneath his nose to take long views, did not see him. and the girl was glad. sport, in so far as it meant killing the creatures of the wilderness for pleasure, made no appeal to her. she had no desire whatever to see a fight between the badger and billy bluff. the badger had in her judgment many qualities. she respected his desire for freedom and determination to go his own way. also if the pair fought, the girl shrewdly suspected that billy bluff, big though he was, and bold as a lion, might be worsted. for billy, after all, was decadent according to the standards of the wilderness. he lived on a chain, protected by the police, and fed by hand. every man was not his enemy, and he had not to hunt for each meal or go without. billy bluff, however fine a fellow he might be in his own eyes, was a poor creature in that of warrior badger. civilization, if it had given him much of which the badger recked nothing, had also taken her toll of him. thinking vaguely thus, the girl once down the hill caught hold of ragamuffin and spun him along the valley between the hills till she came to the coastguard station, straggling like a flock of sheep across the gap. at the mouth of the gap was a familiar post. she slipped ragamuffin's rein over it, and ran down the steep, uneven way through the chalk cliff, her bob-tail baying at her side. right athwart the gap, peering into it, shining-eyed and splendid, lay the sea, calling her. "i'm coming!" her heart answered with a thrill, and she swooped toward it with a whoop and widespread arms. her feet crashed into the jolly shouting shingle, and she ploughed her way through it, to the rocks under the cliff which made her bathing tent. the tide was brimming and beautiful. it came welling up, curled and fell with a soft, delicious swish on the answering beach. calm and full, twinkling still through faint mists, its shining surface was ruffled faintly by a light-footed breeze. swift as a bird the girl, blue-clad now, came rushing out from her hiding-place, her fair hair bunched in a cap, the sea in her nostrils, and exaltation in her heart. this surely was heaven! a moment she hovered on the brink, testing the waters with a tentative foot. then with a sigh of content she trusted herself to the deep. it closed about her like the arms of a friend. she had not bathed since november, and it seemed to her the ocean welcomed her, clinging to her, lifting her, loving her, holding her close. she buried her face in it, rose dripping, shaking the water off her eyes and face and hair, and swam out to sea with long and steady strokes. she did not shout, she did not splash, she did not play the fool, and did not want to; rejoicing deeply in the quiet of her great friend, heart to heart and flesh to flesh, while the waters made music all about her. the first bath was for her a kind of sacrament. she drew from it the deep and tranquil exaltation that she supposed elsie haggard drew from communion. fifty yards out to sea she turned and trod water. billy bluff, the old ass, was fussing about on the edge of the tide, barking at her. "william!" called the head on the water. "come on!" billy fiddled and flirted and could not bring himself to make the plunge. boy watched him with amused resentment. it was his domesticity which was his undoing. old man badger on the hillside would never have dillied or dallied like that. "come on!" she ordered deeply. "or i'll come and lug you in." billy marked the imperious note in his young mistress's voice. he ran this way and that, excused himself, pranced, whined, whimpered, yapped, barked, tasted the water and didn't like it, tried a dip, and withdrew, and finally made the effort and shoved off. he swam rather low. his long, black back lay along the shining surface, his hair floating like seaweed on either side of him, while he left a little eddying wake behind him, as he pushed swiftly toward the girl. as he came nearer she splashed him and he barked joyfully. he made for her, to paw and sprawl upon her. she evaded him. awhile girl and dog sported together in the deep, happy and laughing as two children. then they raced for the shore. he reached it first and, a caricature of his usual shaggy self, ran up toward her clothes, flinging off showers of drops. "keep off, creature!" she ordered, her big voice emerging strangely from her wisp of dripping figure, as she walked delicately up the shingle. chapter xv the three j's old mat was fond of telling his intimates that monkey brand was fly. "he do love his little bit o' roguey-poguey," he would say with a twinkle. and it was the old man's opinion, often expressed, that weight for age monkey would beat the crooks at their own game every time. and when he set the little jockey to snout about and rout out the business of joses, he knew he was setting his head-lad a task after his heart. monkey brand had gone to work indeed with the tenacity and the tact that distinguished him. once on a line, he hunted it with the ruthlessness of a stoat. but this time, it seemed, he had met his match. if monkey was cunning as a fox, joses was wary as a lynx. the fat man watched the other's manoeuvres with eyes that did not disguise their amusement. he was always ready for a chat in which monkey liberally be-larded him with sirs, was obsequious and deferential; but he would never cross the door of a public-house, and never, as the little man reported, "let on." it was by a chance the seeker came on the clue at last. one evening he marked his victim down in the post office and followed him quietly. joses was at the counter sending a telegram. the postmistress, unable to read the code-address, had asked for enlightenment. "spavin," joses said; and the secret was out. for all the world knew that spavin was the code-address of the shady and successful trainer at dewhurst on the arunvale side of the downs. "who said jaggers?" came a little voice at his elbow. the fat man turned to find the jockey close behind him. "i did," he answered brazenly. monkey smiled the smile of a bottle-fed cherub. "'ow's my ole pal chukkers?" he piped. joses grinned. "just back," he said. "so i hears," answered the other. "been teachin' 'em tricks in horsetralia, ain't he? went there by way of god's country, same as per usual, huntin' fer black diamonds. what's he brought back this journey?--a pink-eyed broncho from the prairees bought for ten cents from a texas cow-puncher, and guaranteed to show the english plugs the way to move." joses wagged a shaggy head. if to retain a sense of humour is still to possess something of a soul, then the fat man was not entirely lost. "you love chukkers, don't you?" he said. "don't i love all dagos?" asked monkey. "sich a pretty little way with 'em they got. same as a baa-lamb in the meadow 'mong the buttercups." "then now i'll tell you something for yourself," said joses. "he loves all the english--owners, jockeys, and crowd. but he loves _you_ best." "never!" cried monkey, greatly moved. "then i'm the man what won the greaser's heart. it's too much." a few further inquiries, made by mat, put the thing beyond question. joses was watcher for jaggers, who trained for ikey aaronsohnn, for whom chukkers rode. in england, australia, and the americas, the three were always spoken of together as the three j's--jaggers, the jockey, and the jew. wherever horses raced their fame was great, and amongst the english at least it was evil and ominous. "rogues and rasqueals!" old mat would say with one of his deep sighs. "but whatebber should we do without 'em?" for putnam's the three j's had always possessed a particular interest. their stable was at dewhurst, just behind arunvah, at the other end of the south downs. and dewhurst had been for twenty years the centre of that campaign to lower the colours of the english thoroughbred, which ikey aaronsohnn had embarked upon in his unforgotten youth. the little levantine hailed from new york, hamburg, and london--especially the first two. a cosmopolitan banker, and genial rascal, he had, even in england, a host of friends, and deserved them. a man of ideals, and extremely tenacious, _objets d'art_ and steeplechase horses had been his twin passions from his childhood. he collected both with a judgment amounting to genius. and there were few experts in either kind who were not prepared to acknowledge him their master. the day when ikey, then young, sure of himself, and enthusiastic, had been called a "bloody little german jew" in the paddock at liverpool by a noble english sportsman, as he led his first winner home, had been forgotten by others but not by him. and when a year later the little man stood for white's club, on the strength of winning the international, and was black-balled, the die was cast. there was no doubt that ikey had his qualities. whether he was your friend or your enemy, he never forgot you; and he gave you cause to remember him. his memory was long; his temper not to be ruffled; his humour, in victory and defeat, invincible; his purse unfathomable. he was never known to be angry, impetuous, or bitter. and he never deviated from his aim. that aim, as he once told the new york yacht club, in words that were trumpeted across the world, was "to lick the english thoroughbred on his own ground, at his own game, all the time, and every way." what p. forilland had done for a previous generation of americans, when iroquois snatched the blue riband of the turf from the english and bore it across the atlantic, ikey meant to do some day at liverpool. "we've wopped 'em once on the flat, and we'll wop 'em yet across country," he once said at meadow brook. it was with this end in view that chukkers, then a kid-jockey from the west, had crossed the ocean in ikey's train, and first carried to victory the star-spangled jacket which for the past twenty years had caused such heart-burnings among the english owners, trainers, and jockeys, and such mingled enthusiasm and indignation in the uncertain-tempered english crowd. in that twenty years ikey, if he had never yet achieved his end and won the grand national with an other-than-english horse, had given the englishmen such a shaking as they had never experienced before. all over the world, wherever horses were bred, from the punjab to the pampas, and from the tenterfield ranges to old virginia, he had his scouts and his stud-farms. it was said that if a wall-eyed pack mule, carrying quartz in the nevadas, showed a disposition to gallop and jump he would be in ikey's stable in a fortnight, and, if he made good, at dewhurst within six months. it was, of course, with the walers that the little levantine came nearest his desire. he imported them into the old country on a scale never before dreamed of. some of them proved themselves great horses, the equals of the best the english could bring against them: all were good. and it was only by an act of god, as the enemy english declared, that boomerang, the king of them, had failed to win the national and consummate his owner's long-delayed end. but ikey, that merry little rogue, the cup of victory dashed from his lips, never for a moment lost heart. as he truly said, "if i haven't yet found the horse, i've found the jockey that can beat their best." and in time he would find the horse, too. he believed that. so did america. chapter xvi the fat man it was notorious that the three j's (or, to be more exact, ikey) not only had their scouts out all over the world, seeking what monkey brand called "black diamonds," but that they had their eyes everywhere in the old country, watching enemy stables. and joses was the eye that watched all the stables on the south downs from beachy head to the rother--and putnam's most of all. when tackled further on the subject by monkey brand, the tout admitted the fact without demur and even with pride. "yes," he swaggered. "i'm a commission agent. a very honourable profession, too." "not ha hartist at all?" queried monkey, chewing his quid. joses laughed and spread himself, throwing back his gingery curls. "i was at oxford," he said, "and i've all the tastes of a gentleman. art and poetry are my specialties--when my professional duties allow me time." the little dark jockey turned in his lips, eyeing the other with bland interest. "'ark to him!" he said. "don't he talk. learned the patter at oxford college, i expect." he turned on his lame leg. "anyway, we know now where we are, mr. moses joses." * * * * * after the incident in the post office joses dropped his easel and went about with field-glasses unashamed. to give him his due, there were few better watchers in the trade. a man of education and great natural ability, he was quite unscrupulous as to how he achieved his end. as chukkers said of him: "he gets there. never mind how." joses indeed was out early and late, and he was horribly alert. nobody knew when and where his fat body and brown face might not be turning up. "crawls around like a great red slug," said old mat; and it was seldom a horse did a big gallop but the fat man was there to see. the morning boy went for her first dip he was at the lighthouse on the cliff above the gap. whether he had slept there, or risen with the dawn, it was hard to say. the lighthouse marked the highest point in the neighbourhood, and was therefore useful for the watcher's purpose. from there with his glasses he could sweep the mare's back and the giant's shoulder and neighbouring ridges on which the horses of the stables in the district galloped. the paris meeting was the next big event; and ikey aaronsohnn's horse jackaroo--the waler chukkers had just brought back with him from the other side--was to make his first appearance at it. there was only one english horse of which the dewhurst stable had not the measure, and that was the putnam mare make-way-there. jaggers, in that curt, sub-acid way of his, had instructed joses to report on her form, and "to make no mistake about it." the tout had touched his hat and answered: "very good, sir." now it was well known that a man had to be up very early in every sense if he wanted to keep an eye on a putnam horse. mat woodburn might be old, but he was by no means sleepy; and joses could not afford to blunder. last night two telegrams had come to cuckmere: one was to silver from chukkers, and the other to joses from jaggers. they had been written at the same moment by the same man. and the one to joses ran-- _make-way-there to-morrow._ standing under the lee of the lighthouse, seeing while himself unseen, the tout kept his eyes to his glasses. little escaped him. he saw the badger moving on the hillside, and watched the girl on her pony come over the crest from putnam's, a slight figure black against the sky. he followed her as she dropped down the hill and scampered along the valley, marked her hang her pony's rein over the post, and disappear down the gap. joses closed his glasses. his face became a dirty red. it was as though the mud in him had been stirred by an obscene hand. in a moment a slight figure in a blue gown appeared from under the cliff and entered the sea. shoving his glasses into his pocket, joses began to shuffle down the hill toward the gap. the kittiwakes flashed and swept and hovered in the blue above him. the sea shone and twinkled far beneath. a great, brown-sailed barge lolled lazily by under the cliff. he was unaware of them, shuffling over the short, sweet-scented turf like some great human hog, snorting as he went, his eyes on that little bobbing black dot on the face of the waters beneath him. there was no cover. the turf lifted its calm face to the naked sky. and he crept along, crouching in himself, as though fearing detection from on high. the girl was in and out of the water again with astonishing speed. by the time the tout had reached the foot of the hill she was under the cliff again and out of sight. he peered over stealthily. there was nothing much to see but a dark blue gown spread on a rock to dry, and behind the rock the bob of a bathing cap. the gap was three hundred yards away. a sleepy coastguard had emerged from one of the cottages and was washing at a tub of rain water. where joses stood the cliff was low, scarcely twenty feet above the beach, and was not entirely precipitous. he pocketed his glasses and scrambled panting down to the beach. then he began to stalk the rock decorated with the bathing gown; and he did not look pretty. his hot red face perspired, and he panted as he crawled. it is hard to say what was in his heart, and better perhaps not to inquire. one thing only stood out clearly in his mind. he owed that girl behind the rock _two_; and joses rarely forgot to pay his debts. there was first the affair of the wood. he suffered pain and inconvenience still as the result of that incident, and the doctor told him that he might expect to continue to suffer it. and what mattered more, there was the sense of humiliation and the disfigurement. his nose, never a thing of beauty, was now a standing offence. the children ran from it, and joses was genuinely fond of children. the little daughter of mrs. boam, his landlady, jenny, once his friend, had now deserted him. and there was the matter of the young man, which he found it even harder to forgive. that young man was silver, and he was a mug. a mug was made to be drained; and joses had dreamed that to him would fall the draining of this singularly fine specimen of his class. his attachment to the firm of the three j's, based largely on fear, was not such but that he would break it at any moment could he do so with security and profit. he had known all about silver long before he had turned up at putnam's; it was part of his business to know about such young men. indeed, he had made an abortive, determined, and characteristically tortuous attempt to sweep the young man and his horses into jaggers's capacious net. silver indeed had hesitated awhile between the two stables. then he had met jaggers, and had decided at once--against dewhurst. when the game was finally lost, and it was known that putnam's had come out top again in the struggle that had lasted between the two stables for thirty years, the tout changed his method but never lost sight of his ideal; yearning over the rich young man as a mother yearns over a child. his dreams had been shattered finally in the wood a month back, and for that dêbâcle the girl behind the rock must be held responsible. chapter xvii boy sees a vision joses when in liquor was wont to boast that his memory was good, and he was right upon the whole. but on this occasion he had forgotten something, and that something was billy bluff. billy and joses had met before, as monkey brand had pointed out to mat, and had agreed to dislike each other. and when joses began his stalk, billy bluff started on a stalk of his own. boy woodburn, peeping between two rocks, watched with grim glee. her senses, quick as those of a wild creature, had warned her long ago of the great beast's approach. for joses to imagine he could take her by surprise was as though a beery bullock believed that he could catch a lark. the girl was almost sorry for the man: his fatness, his fatuity appealed to her pity. alert as a leopard, she was not in the least afraid of him. in the wood, true, he had caught her, but her downfall there she owed to a sprain. here in the open, in her riding things, she could run rings about her enemy. lying on her face behind the rock, she watched the little drama. billy bluff, wet still from the sea, his hair clinging about his ribs, and giving him the air of a heraldic griffin, crept on the puffing fat man and hurled at him with a roar. the assault was entirely unexpected. "you--bear!" blurted joses, the picturesque phrase popping out of him like a cork from a heady bottle of champagne. he struggled to his feet, picked up a stone, and slung it at the charging dog. billy bluff meant business; and it was well for his enemy that the stone struck him on the fore-paw. the blow steadied, but it did not stop, the dog. he gave a little gurgle and came again on three legs in silent fury. joses made for the cliff, where a fall had constituted a steep ramp. he scrambled up it, an avalanche of chalk slipping away from beneath his feet and half burying the pursuing dog. he panted up to the top of the ramp, and stood with his back to the cliff, looking down on his attacker. billy bluff could not make his footing good upon the shale. he lay at the foot of the cliff, one eye on his prey, licking his damaged paw, and swearing beneath his breath. and it was clear he did not mean to budge. joses turned his face to the cliff. he got his hands on the top, and lifting himself, could just peer over the edge of the cliff and see the green and the gorse beyond. unaided, he could do no more. happily help was at hand. a man on a chestnut pony was standing on the turf not twenty yards away. "give me a hand up, will you?" he panted. "that ---- of a dog!" the young man approached. "by all means," he said, in a deep, familiar voice. it was silver. joses did not mind that. he was not at all above taking a hand from an enemy in an emergency. and young silver seemed surprisingly kind. big men usually were. the young man got off his pony, came to the edge of the cliff, and gave the perspiring tout his hand. with a heave and a lurch joses scrambled to the top. how strong the fellow was! no horse would ever get away with _him_. "good of you," panted the fat man, rising to his feet. "not at all," replied silver. "it was less trouble to pull you up than to come down to you." there was a note in his quiet voice joses did not like. "what you mean?" he asked. "i'm going to give you a hiding," observed the other mildly. joses looked aghast at his rescuer and snorted. he shot forward his shaggy face, and the action seemed to depress his chest and obtrude his stomach. "whaffor?" he asked, in tones that betrayed the fact that such experiences were not entirely new to him. "i don't know," said silver in his exasperatingly lazy way. "i feel i'd rather like to." he seemed quietly amused, much more so than was joses. and he meant what he said. his clean, calm face, his mouth so determined and yet so mild, his steady eyes and the thrust of his jaw, all betrayed his resolution. "here, stow it!" stammered the fat man. "chuck the chaff. a gentleman!" "i'm not chaffing," said silver in a matter-of-fact way. "how d'you like it?" "what ye mean?" "will you put your hands up--or will you take it lying?" his pony's rein was over the young man's arm; and they were standing on the edge of the cliff. joses, weighing his chances with the swift and comprehending eye of fear, marked it greedily. silver was young, strong, an athlete; but he was handicapped. joses's cunning was returning to reinforce his doubtful heart. "that's heart of oak, isn't it?" he asked. "is it?" said the young man. "the model polo pony," continued joses. "refused £ for him at islington, didn't you? and i don't blame you. you're rich, we all know, mr. silver. £ 's no more to you than sixpence to me. but there's the pony! you can't replace him. pity if he got away here on the edge of the cliff and all." for the second time that morning joses's luck deserted him. "i'll hold your pony," said a deep voice from behind. the fat man turned. boy woodburn stood behind him. fresh from the sea, her hair in short, thick plaits of gold, dark and wet and bare; with the eyes of a sword and the colour of an apple-blossom; the brine upon her and the brown of wind and sun; in her breeches, boots, and jersey, her big dog straining on his lead, she looked like diana turned post-boy. "thank you," said the young man, handing over his pony. joses snorted. "call yourself a woman!" he cried. "i'm all right," answered the girl, seating herself critically on a mound, the pony in one hand, the dog in the other. "don't hit him over the heart," she advised out of some experience of race-course scraps. "there might be trouble." "i sha'n't hit him at all," replied the young man. he seized the fat man by the shoulder and spun him round. "i shall--_shake_ him, and--_punt_ him." the girl did not know what punting meant, but it sounded good and was not so bad to watch. silver was applying his knee to his victim with precision and power. the fat man's teeth seemed to rattle under the pounding shocks. the words came joggling out of him, and they were not pretty words. he struck backward with his arms and feet, wriggling to get his plump shoulders free; but he was helpless as a baby in the arms of a nurse. silver was strong. joses was right in that if in nothing else. "he's killing me!" he gasped. "fetch the coastguard!" "no, thank you," said the girl. the young man loosed his prey at last, and sent him spinning forward, projecting him with a kick. joses fell on his face, and stayed there fumbling, while he vomited oaths. "look out!" cried the girl sharply. "he's got a knife, and he'll use it." she was right. joses was busy with that wooden-handled sheath-knife of his. silver took a step forward. "ah, then!--would you?" he scolded, and hit the other a tap over the wrist with the handle of his hunting crop. joses yelped and dropped the knife. then he scrambled to his feet, wringing his hand. the brown of his face had turned a dirty livid. "i see what it is!" he cried. "assignation. and i spoiled the sport--what! you and the dandy toff. _him and me, beside the sea._ _quite_ unintentional, i assure you!" he bowed, cackling horribly. silver looked ugly. "now then!" he said, and advanced a pace. the girl put a staying hand upon him; and the tout shambled away toward the gap, muttering to himself. silver turned to his companion. he was breathing deep, but outwardly unmoved. "are you all right?" he asked. "yes," she said. "he knocked billy bluff out, but he didn't touch me. hold your paw, bill! it's nothing much. i shall put him on a wet bandage soaked in borax when i get home." a sound of hand-clapping and hoarse laughter ascended to them from the gap. joses had slipped ragamuffin's reins over the post, and was clapping his hands. then he took up a pebble and threw it at the roan. the old pony went off at a gallop and with trailing reins. boy watched him calmly. "i should have thought of that," she said. silver was starting off down the hill toward the mocking figure at the mouth of the gap; but the girl stopped him. "you get on and ride up the valley," she said. "ragamuffin'll stop to graze under the lighthouse; and you'll collar him there." silver hesitated. "what about you?" he asked. "i shall be all right," she answered. "i've got the legs of him." he mounted and went off at a canter, billy bluff pursuing him. the girl walked down toward the gap, looking ridiculously slight in her post-boy attire. joses had disappeared. as she came to the mouth of the gap and picked up her coat, her towel, and the tackle she had thrown down, she saw him. he was standing in the gap, between the white chalk walls, nursing his hand. she was glad he was down there. he would be safe at least from mr. silver. as she put on her coat she looked at him with calm, musing eyes. the spirit of action was laid to sleep in her. in its place a moving dream, welling up as it were out of time into eternity, possessed her slowly. these other-conscious moments, as mr. haggard called them, grew on the girl with the growing years. she was aware of them in others--in her mother, mr. haggard, her grand-dad--but hardly so in herself. they were of her, yet beyond her--mysterious invasions from she knew not where, gleams of eden from exile. at these times she saw men as trees walking and all created things as part and expression of a huge vague life of wonder and beauty without end. and now, as she looked at the man in the gap she said with quiet severity, as though addressing one of the lads at bible class: "you _are_ a naughty boy." he glanced up at her from his earth. she saw his eyes, and the suffering in them, and recognised them with a start. they were the eyes of a fox she had seen last season dug out of an earth to the screams of men and halloos of women, after a long run, that hounds might not be defrauded of blood. and she felt now as she had felt then. a passion of sympathy, a sea of furious indignation, boiled up within her. something pitifully forlorn about the man struck her to the heart. quite suddenly she felt sorry for him; sorry with the sorrow that has sent heroes and saints throughout the ages to persecution and death with joy, if only they may relieve by ever so little the sufferings of sinful humanity. boy woodburn was not a saint and was not a hero; but she was on the way to be a woman. the voice that was not hers spoke out of her deeps. "why did you do that?" she asked quietly. there was no anger in her tone or spirit; no sorrow, no surprise. she was curiously impersonal. the fox showed his teeth. "i'll do worse than that yet," he said. the girl found herself gulping. she looked at him through shining eyes. and as she did so it came in upon her that this degraded creature had once been beautiful. ruin as he was, there was still about him something tragic and forlorn as of a great moor over which a beaten host has retreated, leaving desolation in its wake. the man in the gap wrung his wrist. the girl took a step toward him. "may i look at it?" she said. he glanced up at her again, much as glances a dog which has had a licking and is uncertain whether the hand stretched out is that of an enemy or a friend. "likely," he snarled. "you'd bite." chapter xviii two on the downs silver came trotting up with ragamuffin trailing discontentedly behind. the old roan didn't really mind being caught, but he dearly loved to pretend he did. billy bluff, who had already forgotten his injury, limped along behind, busy and cheerful. both man and dog had on their faces the same jolly grin of health and happiness, the result of a sound conscience and still more a sound digestion. "he didn't take much catching," said the young man. "and billy bluff helped." boy looked at her dog. "i saw him helping," she said sternly. "you old scoundrel, you!" the young dog lay on the ground and gnawed his wounded paw complacently. he loved being scolded by his mistress when she was not too serious. the girl stuffed her towel and all it contained into the forage bag. "shall i give you a leg up?" asked silver. "it's all right," she answered. she mounted and rode alongside him. "where's our friend?" he asked. "gone to earth." "what!--down the gap?" he turned on her with that delightful eagerness which constantly revealed him to her as a boy in spite of that plain, grave face of his. "shall i draw him?" she shook her head gravely. "poor old thing," she said. he steadied instantly to her mood. "are you sorry for him?" he asked. boy looked away, shy and wary. "sometimes," she said. "he must have had a pig's time to be so rotten as that." it was a new view to the young man, and sobered him. "perhaps," he said doubtfully. he was thinking out the question in his slow way. "it may be his own fault," he said. "you make yourself, i think." "part," answered the girl. "and part you are made by your surroundings. that's the way with young stock anyhow. it's a bit how they are bred--the blood in them; and part the food they get, and the air and liberty and sun they're allowed." "i suppose so," said silver quietly. "certainly our friend's food don't seem to have suited him." the girl refused to be amused. "he's come down," she said. "mr. haggard says he was once a gentleman." "some time since, i should guess," replied silver. "what!" they were moving along a narrow cart-track that led across a fallow. he was riding behind her, his eyes on her back. the bathing cap had been stuffed away, and her hair, still dark from the sea, was bare to the sun. "i'm glad you came," she said casually over her shoulder. "i was just out for a canter before going to look at the horses," he answered. she nodded to where against the skyline a string of tall, thin-legged black creatures, each with a blob of jockey on his back, paraded solemnly against the sky. "see them!" she said. "on the mare's back." she watched them critically. "that's make-way-there--no. in the string. now she's playing up." she lifted her voice. "_don't pull at her, you little goat!_" "they're going to gallop her this morning, i believe," said silver. "you hear chukkers has let me down?" "no!" cried the girl keenly. "yes; he wired last night to say he couldn't ride for me at paris." if it was news to the girl, it was by no means unexpected, and she took the blow with philosophical calm. "that was certain once he knew we were training for you," she said. "i suppose dad's going to see who he'll give the ride to." "shall we canter?" said the young man. "i don't want to miss it." "that's all right," replied the girl. "father won't set 'em their work till i come." it was clear she wished to keep him walking at her side, and he was pleased. the incident on the cliff had brought them closer. for the first time the young man felt the warmth of the girl breaking through the barriers of her reserve. her eyes, when they met his, were friendly, even affectionate. it was his turn to be pleasantly shy. "d'you love them?" she asked. she felt somehow so much older than he that she was free to question him. "the horses?" he asked. "_rur-rather_," with that infectious enthusiasm of his. "you've got some pretty good ones," she told him. "d'you think so?" keenly. she nodded. "raw, but they'll come on. that's what you want." "any up to national form?" he asked. "make-way-there might be good enough in a season or two if she'll stay," she said. "you can never tell. she's only four off." they began to breast the slope of the mare's back. "i've only had one real ambition in life," he said confidentially. she looked at him. "what?" "to win the nun-national." she beamed on him friendly. "i used to have one," she said--"till last year: tremendously." "what's that?" "to ride the national winner." she peeped to see if he was mocking. he was sober as a judge. "you may yet." "not now." "why not?" he asked. "because it's against the national hunt rules?" "not that," she said with scorn. "i could get round their rotten rules if i wanted." "how?" he asked. she glanced at him warily. "eighteen months ago a lad came into our stable who was rather like me." he laughed merrily. "good for you!" he cried. "now put your idea into practise." she shook her head. "why not?" "i don't want to win the national now." "don't you?" she looked up into his face. "i'm too old," she said. "i've got to put my hair up this winter." the confidence once made frightened her. she broke into a canter, heart of oak striding at her side. the hill steepened against them just under the brow, and they came back into a walk. "if i was my own master i should farm and breed horses," said the young man. she glanced at him keenly. "aren't you your own master?" he shook his head. "i've got to stick to the desk." "d'you like it?" he looked away. "i shall never make a banker," he said. "you see, i'm no good at sums." he flicked at the turf with his thong. "now my father was a born financier. he could do that--and nothing much else. if there are no banks in heaven i'm afraid he'll be terribly bored. but i'm a farmer--or a fool; i'm not quite sure which. if my father had lived it might have been different. he might have entered me. but he died during my second year at oxford four years ago, and i had to buckle to and do the best i could for myself." "bad luck," said the girl. "it was, rather," admitted the young man. "but it gave me my head in one way. you see, father didn't approve of horses, though he was a farmer's son himself. he was afraid of the turf. but he was always very good to me. he let me hunt when i was a boy though he didn't like it." the young man laughed. "but when i grew big he was awfully pleased. 'you'll never make a jockey now,' he used to say. and i never shall." boy ran her eye approvingly over his loose, big-limbed figure. "you play polo, don't you?" she said. "i do, a bit," he admitted. "back for england, isn't it?" she asked. "this old pony did," silver answered. "and he used to take me along sometimes." "don't you play still?" she inquired. "i haven't this season, and i sha'n't again," he answered. "to play first-class polo you must be in the top of condition. and they keep my nose too close to the grindstone. besides, pup-polo's very jolly, but 'chasing's the thing!" they topped the brow. the crest of the downs swelled away before them like a great green carpet lifted by the wind. "there they are!" cried boy, beginning to canter. chapter xix cannibal's national old mat sat dumped in familiar attitude on a cob as full of corners and character as himself. the trainer was thumping mechanically with his heels, sucking at the knob of his ash-plant, his legs in trousers that had slipped up to show his gray socks, and his feet shod with elastic-sided boots. he glanced shrewdly at the pair as they rode up. "good morning, sir," he said, touching his hat. "so chukkers has chucked you." "so i believe," answered silver. "i wep' a tear when they tell me. i did reelly," said the old man, dabbing his eye. "he's goin' to ride ikey's jackaroo--that donkey-coloured waler he brought home from back o' sunday. that's what he's after." silver nodded. "i'm not altogether sorry," he said quietly. "and i'm not entirely surprised." "nor ain't i," replied mat, with faint irony. "not altogether somersaulted with surprise, as you might say. we knows chukkers, and chukkers knows us--de we." he dropped his voice. "monkey brand'll tell you a tale or two about his ole friend. you arst him one day when you gets him on the go." he raised his voice and began to thump the air with his fist. "rogues and rasqueals, mr. silver!" he cried in a kind of ecstasy. "emmin on you in--same as the psalmist says. but we got to love 'em all the same; else we'll nebber, nebber lead their liddle feet into the way." he coughed, wiped the back of his hand apologetically across his lips, and ended dryly: "not the three j's anyway!" * * * * * the horses were walking round the little group. tall, sheeted thoroughbreds, each with his lad perched like a bird on his back, they swung daintily over the turf, blowing their noses, swishing their long tails, miracles of strength and beauty. monkey brand led them on goosey gander, bandaged to the knees and hocks. albert followed him on make-way-there, a pretty bay, with a white star. the lad's lips were turned in, and his face was stiff with aspiration and desire. that morning he hoped to have his chance, and he purposed to make the most of it. jerry, the economist with the corrugated brow, followed him on a snake-necked chestnut. he sat up aloft, his shoulders square, his little legs clipping his mount, a napoleon of the saddle, pondering apparently the great things of life and death. in fact, he was cogitating whether if he smoked behind the lads' barn at nights it was likely that he would be caught out by miss boy. next came stanley, the stupid, surreptitiously nagging at the flashy black he rode. young stanley was in evil mood, and he meant his horse to know it. his dark and heavy face was full of injured dignity and spite. last night chukkers, just back from winning the australian national, had wired to say he couldn't keep his engagement to ride make-way-there at paris. monkey brand would not ride, as his leg had been troubling him again; and jerry had it that albert, who was make-way-there's lad, was to get the mount. stanley resented the suggestion. albert had never yet ridden in public, while he, stanley, had sported silk half-a-dozen times and had won over the sticks. "pull out, brand," grunted the old trainer. the little jockey yielded the lead to albert, and joined the group of watchers. the lads continued their patrol. "what's the going like on the top there, brand?" asked the old man. "not so bad, sir," the other answered. "tidy drop o dew, i reck'n." make-way-there, now she had the lead, showed a tendency to swagger. she bounced and tossed. the fair lad, swaying to the motions of his horse, rode the fretting creature patiently and well. "she's a bit okkud yet," said monkey, watching critically. "_woa, my lady. woa then._" "it's the condition comin' out of her," muttered mat. "she's all of a bubble. fret herself into a sweat. boy, you'd better take her. send her along five furlongs smart and bustle her a bit as she comes up the slope." "no," said the girl. the old man threw a swift glance at her. boy had stuck her toes in again. he knew all the symptoms of old and made no effort to overcome them. she was growing into a woman, boy was. that was the young man. a while back she cared not a rap for all the men in creation. the old man made a mental note for reference to ma. "albert can ride her," said the girl. "i want to see if he's coming on." jerry, the true prophet, winked; stanley jobbed the black in the mouth and kicked him; albert, his face firm and important, drew out. he had at least one of the qualities of a jockey--supreme self-confidence. "take her along at three-quarter speed till you get round them goss-bushes," growled old mat. "and when you feel the hill against you shove her for a furlong. don't ride her out. and no fancy pranks, mind." "and sit still," said the girl. "jerry, you take him along," continued the trainer. the lads made sundry guttural noises in their throats, leaned forward as though to whisper in their horses' ears, and stole easily away. a flash of swift feet, a diminishing thunder of hooves, and the pair made a broad sweep round the gorse-clump and came racing home. once the girl spoke. "keep your hands quiet," she ordered deeply. opposite them jerry took a pull, but albert and the mare went thundering past the watching group, the lad's fair head bowed over his horse's withers. he had her fairly extended, yet going well within herself, her head tucked into her chest. on the ridge behind them he steadied to a walk, jumped off, and led the mare, breathing deep and flinging the foam abroad, down to the party. "that's a little bit o' better," muttered the old man. "she can slip it. that lad'll ride yet, boy." "perhaps; but don't tell him so," said the girl sharply. she walked her pony across to the lad, and laid her hand on the mare's wet neck. "that's a little better to-day, albert," she said. "but you ought to steady a bit before you come." the boy touched his cap and rode arrogantly on to join the other lads. monkey brand saw the look upon his face. "once you knows you know nothin', you may learn somethin'," he said confidentially as the lad passed him. then he turned with a wink to silver and said _sotto-voce_: "they calls him boysie when he's crossed 'em. see he apes miss boy. he features her a bit, and he knows it. she's teaching him to ride, and he's picked up some of her tricks. course he ain't got her way with 'em. but he might make a tidy little 'orseman one o' these days, as i tells him, if so be he was to tumble on his head a nice few times and get the conceit knocked out of him." the lads continued their patrol. their knees were to their chins, and their hands thrust in front of them, a rein in each, almost as though they were about to pound a big drum with their fists. monkey nodded at them. "she rides long, miss boy do--old style, cavalry style, same as you yourself, sir. they've all got the monkey-up-a-stick seat." "don't you believe in it?" asked the young man. the other shook his head. he was himself a beautiful horseman of the tom cannon school; too beautiful, his critics sometimes said, to be entirely effective. "not for 'chasin," he said. "you can't lift a horse and squeeze him, unless you've got your legs curled right away round him. they ain't jockeys, as i tells 'em. they rides like poodle-dogs at a circus. there ought to be paper-'oops for em to jump through. no, sir. it may be chukkers, as i says, but it ain't 'orsemanship." the young man angled for the story that was waiting to be caught. "yet chukkers wins," he said. "he's headed the list for five seasons now." "he wins," said monkey grimly. "them as has rode against him knows 'ow." silver edged his pony up along the other. "you've ridden against him?" he inquired with cunning innocence. the little jockey's eyes became dreamy. "my ole pal chukkers," he mused. "him and me. yes, i've rode agin' him twenty year now. he was twelve first time we met, and i was turned twenty. the mexican kid they called him in them days. kid he was; but wise to the world?--not 'alf!" ... "was that his first race?" asked silver. "it was so, sir--this side. ikey'd just brought him across the puddle to ride that austrian mare, laria louisa. same old stunt it was then as now--_down the englishman, don't matter how._ yes, it was my first smell of the star-spangled jacket." "was that when you got your leg?" "no, sir. that was eight years later. boomerang's year. he was the first waler ikey brought over this side to do the trick. my! he were a proper great 'orse, too. i was riding chittabob--like a pony alongside him. at the canal turn chukkers ran me onto the rails." he told the tale slowly, rolling it in the mouth, as it were. "chukkers went on by himself. nobody near him. thought he'd done it that time. only where it was boomerang snap his leg at the last fence. yes, sir," mystically, "there's one above all right--sometimes, 'tall events." "and you?" said silver. the little jockey thrust out his left leg. "i was in 'orspital three months.... howsomever, it come out in the wash next year." "that was cannibal's year, wasn't it?" asked silver. "ah!" said monkey. "cannibal!--his name and his nature, too. he was a man-eater, that 'orse was. look like a camel and lep like a h'earthquake. it was just the very reverse that year. chukkers was on jezebel, chukkers was. she was a varmint little thing enough--syrian bred, i have 'eard 'em say. and he was out to win all right that journey. there was only us two in it when we come to beecher's brook second time round." he came a little closer. "so when we got to the canal turn i rides up alongside. 'that you, mr. childers?' i says, and bumps him. that shifted him for valentine's brook. there's a tidy drop there, sir, as you may remember. chukkers lost his stirrup, and was crawling about on her withers. i hove up alongside agin'. he saw me comin' and made a shockin' face. 'clear!' he screams, 'or i'll welt you across the ---- monkey mug!' and just then, blest if old cannibal didn't make another mistake and cannon into him agin'. that spilt him proper! oh, my, mr. silver!--my! and i sail 'ome alone. oh, he was a reg'lar outrageous 'orse, cannibal was." he dropped his voice. "when he come out of 'orspital of course he made a fuss about it, he and jaggers and jew-boy aaronsohnn. but of course i knew nothin' about it; nor did nobody else. see, they all knew chukkers. he'd tried it on 'em all one time or another. and i told the stewards i was very sorry the fall had gone to 'is 'ead. only little bertie butler--him with the squint, what won the sefton this year, you know--who'd been following chukkers--he says to me: 'next time you're goin' to play billiards with chukkers, mr. brand, tip us the wink, will you?'" chapter xx the paddock close the girl's voice broke in on them. "i'm going home now," she cried abruptly. "right," answered silver. "may i come along?" as he swung round, he saw the girl already jogging away. he pursued leisurely, anxious to talk about make-way-there, the paris meeting, and chukkers and monkey brand's gossip. but she flitted away in front of him. as he drew up to her she broke into a canter, and the young man took a pull. his intuitions, like those of most slow-brained men, were unusually swift and sure. it was as though nature, the dispenser of justice, to compensate him for an apparent dearth in one direction, had endowed him richly in another. "woa, my little lad, woa then!" he murmured as heart of oak bounced and fretted to catch the retreating roan. he realised that the girl had withdrawn within herself again. on the cliff, in the excitement of action, she had forgotten herself for the moment. now she was cold and shy once more, retreating behind her barriers, closing her visor. it was as though she had admitted him too close; and to recover herself must now swing to the other extreme. obedient to her will, he kept several lengths behind her. when she found he did not draw up alongside, she slackened her pace. he felt her resistance was dying down in answer to his non-resistance. she was shoving against emptiness, and getting no good from it. as they came to the crest of the downs and began the descent of the hill, boy dropped into a walk. below them the long roofs of putnam's showed, weathered among the sycamores. as the girl passed into the paddock close he was riding at her side again. the paddock close was a vast enclosure, fenced off from the downs, an ideal nursery and galloping ground for young stock. there was hill and valley; here and there a group of trees for shade in the dog-days; a great sheltered bottom fringed by a wood that ran out into the close like a peninsula; and the wall of the downs to give protection from the east. as they walked together down the hill, boy was looking about her. "where's the mare?" she asked. they were the first words she had spoken. "which mare?" asked silver "four pound." he glanced round. the young stock were standing lazily under the trees, swishing their tails, and stamping off the flies. but the old mare had forsaken her usual haunt. then far away on the edge of a bed of bracken in the bottom, something like a piece of brown paper caught his eye. it rose and fell and flapped in the wind. boy saw it, too, and darted off. "call billy bluff!" she cried over her shoulder; but billy had already trotted off to the yard to renew the pleasant task of tormenting maudie and the fan-tails. the girl made at a canter for the brown paper struggling on the edge of the bracken. as she came closer she raised a swift hand to steady the man pounding behind her. the brown paper was a new-born foal, woolly, dun of hue, swaying on uncertain legs. the little creature, with the mane and tail of a toy horse, looking supremely pathetic in its helplessness, wavered ridiculously in the wind. it was all knees and hocks, and fluffy tail that wriggled, and jelly-like eyes. its tall, thin legs were stuck out before and behind like those of a wooden horse. it stood like one dazed, staring blankly before it, absorbed in the new and surprising action of drawing breath through widespread nostrils; quavered and then collapsed, only to attempt to climb to its feet again. close beside her child lay the mother, her neck extended along the green, her eyes blood-shot. as the girl rode up, the old mare raised her gaunt, well-bred head and snorted, but made no effort to rise. boy dismounted. "hold ragamuffin, will you?" she said. silver, himself dismounted now, obeyed. boy knelt in the bracken and felt the mare's heart. the young man stood some distance off and watched her. "pretty bad, isn't she?" he said gravely. "go and tell mother, please," replied the girl, still on her knees. "and send one of the lads with a rug and a wheelbarrow." the young man walked away down the hillside, leading the two ponies. left alone, boy brushed away the flies that had settled in black clouds on the mare's face. the foal repeated its ungainly efforts, whimpering in a deep and muffled voice, like the wind in a cave. the urge of hunger was on it, and it did not understand why it was not satisfied. boy went to it, and thrust her thumbs into its soft and toothless mouth. the foal, entirely unafraid, sucked with quivering tail and such power that the girl thought her thumbs would be drawn off. the old mare whinnied, jealous, perhaps, of her usurped function. in another moment mrs. woodburn's tall and stately form came through the gate and laboured up the hill. she was wearing a white apron and carried a sheet in her hand. soon she stood beside her daughter, breathing deeply, and looking down upon the mare. "bad job, boy," she said. "have you brought a thermometer?" asked the girl. mrs. woodburn nodded, and inserted the instrument under the old mare's elbow, laying an experienced hand on her muzzle. "if she'd make an effort," she said in her slow way. "but she can't be bothered. that's black death." silver, looking ridiculously elegant in his shirt-sleeves and spotless breeches, came up the hill toward them, trundling a dingy stable barrow. behind him trotted a lad, trailing a rug. "we must just let her bide," said mrs. woodburn. "lay that sheet over her, george, to keep the flies off, and get a handful of sweet hay and put it under her nose to peck at it. you've brought the barrow, mr. silver. thank you." "can you lift the foal in?" asked boy. "i guess," answered the young man, stripping up sleeves in which the gold links shone. "oh! your poor clothes!" cried mrs. woodburn. "whatever would your mother say? put on my apron, do." the young man obeyed, gravely and without a touch of self-consciousness, binding the apron about his waist; and to boy at least he appeared, so clad, something quite other than ludicrous. "can you manage it, d'you think?" she asked in her serious way. "i guess," answered the young man. he blew elaborately on his hands, made belief to lick them, and bowed his back to the lifting. there were no weak spots in that young body. it was good all through. strong as he was tender, he gathered the little creature. a moment it sprawled helplessly in his arms, all legs and head. then he bundled it into the barrow. the old mare whinnied. "put the rug over her head so she can't see," said mrs. woodburn. the foal stood a moment in the barrow, then it collapsed, lying like a calf with a woolly tail, its long legs projecting over the side. silver grasped the handles of the barrow. "is it all right?" asked boy. "i guess," replied the young man, and trundled his load away down the hill. the girl walked beside the barrow, one hand steadying the foal, who reared an uncanny head. they passed through the yard, jolted noisily over the cobbles, and turned into a great cool loose-box, deep in moss-litter. "i'll go and get the bottle," said the girl. "george, just run and bring a couple of armfuls of litter-grass off the stack and pile it in that corner." when she returned with the bottle, the barrow was empty, and the foal lay quiet on a heap of brown grass in the corner. it whinnied and essayed to stand. "it's coming, honey," said boy in her deep, comforting voice. the foal sucked greedily and with quivering tail. from outside in the yard came the pleasant clatter of horses' feet on the cobbles. the string was returning. in another moment old mat was standing in the door of the loose-box, grunting to himself, as he watched the little group within. boy, in her long riding-coat, stood in the dim loose-box, her fair hair shining, tilting the bottle, while the foal, with lifted head and ecstatic tail, sucked. silver, still in his shirt-sleeves, watched with folded arms. "colt foal i see," grunted the old man. "that's a little bit o' better. four-pound-the-second, i suppose you'll call him." book iii silver mug chapter xxi the berserker colt on the morning that make-way-there had done his gallop old mat had noted that a change was coming over boy. she was ceasing to be a child, and was becoming a woman. he mentioned it to ma. "time she did," said the mother quietly. "she'll be seventeen in march." the girl herself was aware of strange happenings within her. more, she knew that the tall young man was responsible for them. a great new life, full of shadows and delicious dangers, was surging up in her heart, sweeping across the sands of her childhood, obliterating tide-marks, swinging her off her feet, and carrying her forward under bare stars toward the unknown. she fought against the invasion of this sea, struggling to find footing on the familiar bottom. that sea and mr. silver were intimately connected. sometimes, indeed, the girl could not distinguish one from the other. was it the sea which bore mr. silver in upon her resisting mind?--or was it mr. silver who trailed the sea after him like a cloud? her helplessness angered and humiliated her. she fought fiercely and in vain. that strong will of hers, which had never yet met its match, was impotent now. this thing, this sea, this man, crept in upon her like a mist, invading her very sanctuaries. she might close the doors and lock them--to no purpose. she was angry, excited, not entirely displeased. the change wrought in her swiftly. at least she had the sense that she was embarking on a great adventure; and her romantic spirit answered to the appeal. she became quieter and passed much time in her room alone. mr. silver kept knocking at the door in the loft which he had never entered; but she refused to open to him. to revenge herself she practised small brutalities upon him, which had no effect. he just withdrew and came again next day with his big-dog smile, quiet and persistent as a tide. shy he was, and singularly pertinacious. then his mother died. that seemed to boy unfair; but as she reasoned it out he could hardly be held responsible. they knew all about it at putnam's, because there was a paragraph in the paper about brazil silver's widow. the young man buried his mother on friday, and on saturday came down to putnam's for his usual week-end. boy asked her mother if he had spoken to her about his trouble. "no," said mrs. woodburn. "then he shall to me," said the girl, with determination. he should not bottle up his grief. that would be bad for him. the mother in the girl was emerging from the tom-boy very fast. on sunday evening she took him for a ride, and had her way, without a struggle. as they breasted the hill together, the young man told her all at some length. "was she much to you?" asked the girl keenly. her own mother was all the world to her. he shook his head. "oh! that's all right," replied the girl, relieved and yet resentful, "if you didn't care." "in some ways i'm glad for her sake," continued the young man. "she was always unhappy. you see she was ambitious. one of the disappointments of her life was that my father wouldn't take a peerage." "can't you be happy and ambitious?" asked boy, peeping at him in the wary way he loved. jim silver laughed and flicked his whip. "i doubt it," he said. "aren't you ambitious?" she inquired. he laughed his deep, tremendous laughter, turning on her the face she so rejoiced in. "i've told you my one ambition." "what's that?" "to breed a national winner." that brought them back to their favourite subject--four-pound-the-second and his future. * * * * * the foal kept the girl busy, for the old mare died, and boy had to bring up the little creature by hand. she didn't mind that, for the summer is the slack season in the jumping world. moreover, trouble taken for helpless young things was never anything but a delight to her. and fortune favoured her. for the queen of sheba, one of her nanny-goats, had lost her kids, and the milk was therefore available for the foal. boy fed him herself by day and night, sleeping in his loose-box for the first few weeks, she and billy bluff, who promised to be good. monkey brand, who had neither wife nor child of his own, and loved the girl with the doting passion of a nurse, wanted to share her watch, but his aid was abruptly refused. so the little jockey slept in the loft instead, to be near at hand, and would bring the girl a cup of tea after her vigil. once, in his mysterious way, he beckoned silver to follow him. the young man pursued him up the ladder, treading, of course, on maudie, who made the night hideous with her protests. up there in the darkness of the loft the little man stole with the motions of a conspirator to a far trap-door. he opened it gingerly and listened. from beneath came the sound of regular breathing. thrusting his lantern through the dark hole, he beckoned to silver, who looked down. in a corner of the loose-box, on a pile of horse rugs, slept boy, her mass of hair untamed now and spreading abroad like a fan of gold. beside her on the moss-litter lay billy bluff, curled and dreaming of the chase. and on a bed of bracken by the manger, his long legs tied up in knots, was the foal. silver peeped and instantly withdrew as one who has trespassed innocently. "pretty as a pictur, ain't it?" whispered the little jockey. "only don't go for to say i give her away. that'd be the end of monkey brand, that would." he swung the lantern so that the light flashed on the face of the sleeping girl. "that'll do," muttered the young man uneasily. "you'll wake her." "no, sir. she's fast," the other answered. "fair wore out. he wouldn't take the bottle yesterday, and she was up with him all night. i went down to her when it come light. only where it is she won't allow nobody to do nothin' for him only herself." he stole back to his lair in the straw at the far end of the loft. "that's the woman in her, sir," he said in his sagacious way. "must have her baby all to herself. nobody don't know nothin' about it only mother." four-pound-the-second after the first few perilous weeks throve amazingly. he ceased to be a pretty creature, pathetic in his helplessness, and grew into a gawky hobbledehoy, rough and rude and turbulent. old mat shook his head over the colt. "ugliest critter i ever set eyes on," he said, partly in earnest and partly to tease his daughter. "you'll see," said boy firmly. "if he's a berserk he's worth saving, surely," remarked silver. "berserker--black death. ought to be able to hop a bit." everybody at putnam's knew that the colt was the son of that famous sire, but nobody, except mat woodburn and monkey brand, knew how they knew it. "oh! if he's going to win the national--as i think he is, de we--he's worth a little trouble," replied the old man, winking at monkey brand. "d'you think he'll win the national?" cried the young man, simple as a child. "certain for sure," replied the other. "when 'e walks on to the course all the other hosses'll have a fit and fall down flat. and i don't blame 'em, neether." "father _thinks_ he's funny," said the girl with fine irony. "i ain't 'alf so funny as that young billy-goat o' yours, my dear," replied the old trainer, and lilted on his way. "it's his foster-ma he takes after. the spit of her, he be." as soon as the foal began to find his legs boy took him out into the paddock close, and later on to the downs. he followed like a dog, skirmishing with billy bluff up and down the great rounded hills. the bob-tail at first was inclined to be jealous. he thought the foal was a new kind of dog and a rival. then when he understood that after all the little creature was only an animal, on a different and a lower plane, to be patronised and bullied and ragged, he resumed his self-complacency. thoroughly human, a vulgar sense of superiority kept his temper sweet. he accepted four-pound-the-second as one to whom he might extend his patronage and his protection. and once this was understood the relations between the foal and the dog were established on a sound basis, while maudie watched with a sardonic smile. * * * * * that autumn the girl, the foal, and the dog roamed the hillside by the hour together in the cool of dawn and evening. and the colt became as handy as the goat he was alleged by his detractors to resemble. "go anywhere billy bluff does," said monkey brand. "climb the ladder to the loft soon as look at you." on these frequent excursions boy took her hunting-crop with her, and the long-flung lash often went curling round the legs of the unruly foal. early she broke him to halter, and when he became too turbulent for unbridled liberty she took him out on a long lounging rein. the downs about cuckmere, which lies half-way between lewes and beachy head, are lonely. apart from shepherds, you seldom meet on them anyone save a horseman or a watcher. but more than once the three came on joses on the hillside. since the moment she had marked him cowering in the gap like a hunted creature, boy had seen the tout with quite other eyes than of old. never afraid of him, from that time her aversion had turned to pity for one so hopelessly forlorn. whether joses felt the change or not, and reacted to it unconsciously, it was impossible to say. certainly he showed himself friendly, she thought, almost ashamed. at first she was not unnaturally suspicious, but soon the compassion in her heart overcame all else. one brilliant september evening she came upon him on the mare's back. the fat man pulled off his hat shyly. "you've put him on the chain, i see," he said, referring to the long rein. boy stopped. his face was less bloated, his appearance more tidy than of old. it was clear he had been drinking less. "what d'you think of him?" she asked. the tout threw a critical eye over the foal. there was no question that joses knew a thing or two about a horse. "ugly but likely," he said, with the deliberate air of a connoisseur. "what they call in france a _beau laid_." the girl demurred to the proposition. her foal was _not_ bow-legged. "his legs are all right," she said, somewhat tartly. "he's a bit _on_ the leg; but he's sure to be at that age." "how's he bred, d'you know?" asked the other thoughtfully. boy was on the alert in a moment. that was a stable secret, and not to be disclosed. "i'm not _quite_ sure," she answered truthfully. "we picked up the dam from a gypsy." the fat man nodded. he seemed to know all about it. indeed, it was his business to know all about such things. "she was a black death mare, that, no question," he said, and added slowly, his eye wandering over the colt: "looks to me like a berserk somehow." she had a feeling he was drawing her, and kept her face inscrutable in a way that did credit to the teaching of monkey brand. "if so, you've drawn a lucky number," continued the other. "such things happen, you know." boy moved on, and was aware that he was following her. she turned and saw his face. there was no mischief in the man, and fluttering in his eyes there was that look of a hunted animal she had noticed in the gap. she stopped at once. "what is it, mr. joses?" she asked. she felt that he was calling to her for help. "i beg your pardon, miss woodburn," he began. "yes, mr. joses." her deep voice was soft and encouraging as when she spoke to a sick creature or a child. those who knew only the resolute girl, who went her own way with an almost fierce determination, would have been astonished at her tenderness. "that little mistake of mine on the cliff," muttered the man. a great impulse of generosity flooded the girl's heart and coloured her cheek. "that's _quite_ all right," she said. it was clear he was not satisfied. his eyes wandered over heaven and earth, never meeting hers. "you've not said anything to the police about that?" "no!" she cried. "nor that gentleman?" "mr. silver?" "yes." "i'm _sure_ he hasn't." the other drew a deep breath. "it wouldn't help me any if he had," he said. he looked up into the deep sky, that was gathering the dusk, and still alive with the song of larks. "i wouldn't like to see 'em in a cage," he said quietly. "it wasn't meant. never!" * * * * * next saturday, when mr. silver came down, she told him of the incident. "you didn't say anything to the police, did you?" she asked anxiously. "no," he said. "i meant to, but i forgot." she repeated joses's remark about the cage. "he's been in the cage," she said quietly. "are you sure?" he asked. she nodded with set lips. "how d'you know?" "i saw it in his eyes." the young man was genuinely moved. "poor beggar!" he said. chapter xxii ragamuffin the little affair of joses was one of the many trifles that made for intimacy between the young man and the girl. in spite of herself boy found her opposition dying away. indeed, she could no more resist him than she could resist the elements. she might put her umbrella up, but that did not stop the rain. and if the rain chose to go on long enough, the umbrella would wear away. the choice lay with the rain and not with the umbrella. by the autumn boy had ceased even to pretend to be unfriendly. it was no use, and she was never much good at pretending. then with the fall of the leaves old ragamuffin began to tumble to pieces. she watched him closely for a week. then one october dawn, the mists hanging white in the hollows, she led him out to the edge of the wood before the lads were about. only monkey brand accompanied her. herself she held the old pony alongside the new-dug grave, talking to him, stroking his nose. monkey brand, of the steady hand and loving heart, did the rest. a quarter of an hour later the girl and the little jockey came back to the yard alone. she was carrying a halter in her hand and talking of four-pound-the-second. the lads watched her surreptitiously and with brimming eyes. albert, who prided himself on the hardness of his heart, wept and swore he hadn't. "i'll lay she feels it," blubbered stanley, who was not clever enough to conceal his tears. * * * * * when silver came down for the week-end, old mat told him what had happened. "that's the strength in her," he whispered. "just took and did it, she and monkey brand. never a word to her mother or me--before or since." but the young man noticed that the girl looked haggard, wistful, more spiritual than usual. he was shy of her, and she of him. when that evening she met him in the yard and said, "will you come and see?" he was amazed and touched. they stood together by the new-made grave under the wood. jim was far more moved than when his mother died. "dear old ragamuffin!" he said. she seemed to quaver in the dusk. "you mustn't," she said, in strained and muffled voice, and for a moment laid a finger on his arm. next day, as they were making their sunday round of the horses together, silver stopped at heart of oak's box. "i don't quite know what to be at with this poor old cormorant," he said, slow and cogitating. "i'm looking for a home for him. but there are no bidders. a bit too good a doer, i guess. eat 'em out of hearth and home." the girl's eyes flashed on his face and away again. "he's not old," she said, as her hand stroked the pony's neck. "well, he's like me," the young man replied. "he's older than he was." boy made a cursory inspection of the pony's mouth. "eleven off," she said. "that's too old to play polo." she believed it to be a lie, but she did not think she was sufficient an authority on the game to justify her in saying so. "anyway, i'm getting too heavy for him," silver went on. "joint too big for the dish, as they say. that fellow's more my sort, ain't you, old lad?" he nodded to the next loose-box, where his seventeen-hand hunter, banjo, stood, blowing at them through the bars. "what heart of oak wants is a nice light weight just to hack him about the downs and ease him down into the grave." that evening after supper jim silver sang. apart from the members of the eton mission clubs there were perhaps a dozen men in the world--eton men all, boating men most--who knew that he did "perform," to use their expression; and just two women--boy woodburn and her mother. old mat, to be sure, did not count, for he always slept through the "performance." the young man's repertoire consisted of two songs--_the place where the old horse died_ and _my old dutch_. with a good natural voice, entirely untrained, he sang with a deep and quiet feeling that made his friends affirm that once you had heard silver mug's-- _we've been together now for forty years, and it don't seem a day too much, there ain't a lady livin' in the land as i'd swop for my dear old dutch._ you would never listen to albert chevalier again. that, of course, was the just and admirable exaggeration of youth and friendship. but it was the fact that always after the young man had sung there was an unusually prolonged silence, and, as amersham once said, you felt as if you were in church. this evening, after he had finished, and mrs. woodburn had broken the silence with her quiet "thank you," the young man returned to the subject he had broached in the stable. silver indeed was nothing if not dogged, as the girl was beginning to find out. "i say, miss woodburn," he began in that casual way of his, "i wish you'd take charge of that old yellow moke o' mine." boy shook her head. he laughed and drew his chair beside her as she worked. not seldom now he doffed the puritan with her, and became easy, chaffing, almost gallant. amersham and his friends would have been amazed had they seen their sober jim silver so much at home with a lady. "oh, i say--why not?" he protested, boyish and chaffing. "he's too much of a handful for me," said the girl gravely, threading her needle against the light. he laughed, delighted, smacking his knee as he did when pleased, while even ma, who of wont turned a deaf ear on the young couple, smiled sedately. "i like that!" cried silver. "ha! ha! ho! ho! that's a good un." then he turned grave, almost lugubrious. "but of course if you won't have him i must do something to him. i'm too fond of the old fellow to let him rot." next morning, before he left for london, boy saw him from her window holding intimate communion with monkey brand in the paddock close beside the wood. when he had driven away, the girl descended from her eyrie and cross-examined the little jockey sharply. monkey looked secretive and mysterious even for him. "he's a very queer gentleman," was all he would say. "one o' them that's been to india without their 'ats, i should say. you know, miss?" he tapped his forehead. "melted a-top." "what did he _say_?" persisted the girl. "he said nobody was to exercise heart of oak only unless you wanted him. and he said he'd make up his mind next week." "make up his mind?" "that was the word, miss." "bring me the gun," ordered boy. the little man obeyed sulkily. "it'll be in my room," she said. "and it'll stay there." "very good, miss," replied the jockey, and winked to himself as the girl ascended the ladder. that evening, as old mat slept noisily by the fire with open mouth, the two women worked. mrs. woodburn every now and then lifted her eyes to her daughter's face and let them dwell there, as the sky dwells on a tree. "d'you like him, boy?" she asked at length, tranquilly. the girl for once was taken by surprise. she flushed a little and perhaps for the first time in her life fenced. "who, mother?" "mr. silver." "yes," said the girl. "he's like billy bluff--only less rowdy." chapter xxiii the duke's hounds silver's leicestershire friends were under the delusion that he was keeping his hunters at lewes. and so indeed he did till the hunting season began; and then he brought them over to putnam's. the duke's north-country stud-groom, who was in _the beehive_ at folkington, as they came along the road from lewes, ran out of the bar to have a look at them. "ma wud!" he whistled. "champion!" and mike rigg was right. silver's horses indeed were the one item of his personal expenditure on which the young man never spared his purse. he used to say with perfect truth that except for his stud he could live with joy on £ a week. but there was no man in england who had a rarer stud of weight-carriers. "big as blood elefunks," said monkey brand in the awed voice of a worshipper. "flip a couple o' ton across country singin' hallelooyah all the way." the duke, when first they appeared with his hounds at the covertside, shook his head over them: for jim silver came south with a formidable reputation as a thruster. "too classy for my country, silver," he said. "what d'you want with that sort of stuff down here?" "i didn't like to part with 'em, sir," replied the young man. "they've done me well in their time." "i don't want you young bloods from the shires down here," scolded the duke. "you'll be all over my hounds. this is an old man's country, ain't it, boy?" thunderbolt stood on his hind legs and pawed deliberately at the heavens. "they're big, your grace," answered the girl. "but mr. silver's bigger. he can hold them." "and you can hold him, my dear," said the duke. "keep him in your pocket, there's a good gal. now, joe, let's be moving on." the duke was fond of the girl. it was said, indeed, that he liked her better than anybody in the hunt. certainly he was never so happy as when showing her round his famous piggeries at raynor's, or talking goats to her at an agricultural show. boy on her side was one of the most regular followers of the duke's hounds; but, as she never tired of impressing on her friends, she hunted for professional reasons, and not for pleasure. indeed, she was honest as always when she declared that she did not care for hunting for its own sake. there was so much swank about it and so little business: oceans of gossip, flirting, swagger, and spite to every ounce of reality. moreover, her refined and puritan spirit revolted against the people who hunted: she thought of them all as bubbles, brilliant apparently, but liable to burst at any moment and leave nothing behind them but a taint of vulgarity. when hounds were running people saw little of silver and the girl, who were always well behind. "carrying on together," was the spiteful comment of those whom boy was wont to call in scorn "the ladies." but it was not true. the pair were not coffee-housing. boy was at her job, schooling her youngsters with incomparable patience, judgment, and decision; and jim silver, on those great fretting weight-carriers of his, was marking time and in attendance. the duke, when he got the pair alone, never tired of chaffing them. "i notice she always gives you the lead, silver," he mocked. "yes, sir," replied the young man. "she makes the hole, and i creep through it afterward." the couple were talked about, of course; and both were dimly aware of it. boy was used to being made the subject of gossip; and silver was almost as unconscious of and aloof from it as were the horses that he rode. the ladies, to whom he paid no attention, were indignant and resentful. "it can't be," they said; and--"i hate to see that chit making a fool of a nice man like that." the duke, whose ears were growing longer every day, heard them once and began to bellow suddenly in that disconcerting way of his. "it's all right!" he shouted. "you needn't be afraid. she won't have him." the ladies jeered secretly. to their minds the question was not whether the girl would have silver, but whether he would be mug enough to give her the chance. certainly the pair were drawing close. days together in the saddle, the risks and small adventures of the field, and by no means least those long hacks home at evening, not seldom in the dark, over the downs, a great wind blowing gustily under clear stars, did their sure, unconscious work. up to christmas the young man visited putnam's regularly. then he missed two successive week-ends. when he came again there was a cloud over him. it was so faint and far that nobody noticed it indeed but the girl. she was not deceived. as they rode home in the afternoon he was more silent than his wont. once or twice her eyes sought his. his brows were level and drawn down. there was resistance in his face. "are you worried?" she asked. his plain, strong face broke up, brightened and became beautiful. "yes," he said. "tell me." "it's the only thing that ever worries me." "what?" "the bank." "is it going wrong?" he laughed again. "i don't know," he said, and began to chuckle at himself. "that's the trouble. i can't get the hang of it. there's a screw loose somewhere. i'm like a man steering a ship who knows nothing about navigation." "it's all right if you do your best," said the girl, with the little preacher touch she inherited from her grand-dad. that note always caused an imp of mischief to bob up in the young man's heart. "hope so, de we," he said. she looked at him sharply. _she_ might censure her father, but she allowed that liberty to no one else. "what!" she said. jim silver took to instant flight. "none-nothing," he stammered. "only i'm afraid the pup-passengers won't think it's all right when they find themselves going to the bottom. they'll say, 'what business had you at the wheel if you can't steer?' and they'll be right, too." * * * * * with the new year the young man came no more for week-ends, and the reason was well known. the hunting-field is always a great place for gossip, for except at rare intervals there is little else to do. and with the duke's hounds the gossip was about mr. silver. the union bank of brazil and uruguay was known to be in difficulties, and boy hunted alone. "where's your life guardsman?" asked the duke. "guarding the bank, i believe, your grace." the duke grunted. "wants guarding from what i can hear of it," he blurted. "tell him it's no good," he shouted. "tell him to come out of it. it's no job for an honest man." "what isn't?" "bankin'." he muttered to himself. "there's only one thing an honest man can do, that's land. everything else you get dirty over. i'm not overclean myself, but i'm not as dirty as some of 'em." then there appeared paragraphs in the paper. the girl asked her father about them. he shook his head. "i don't understand it, my dear," he said. "and what's more, i don't believe mr. silver do himself. i see the accounts published in the paper. accordin' to them the bank had five millions in cash. you'd think you couldn't go very fur wrong with five millions in cash in the till." "perhaps a clerk's been taking some," said the girl eagerly. once, but only once, there had been a clerk at putnam's. the old man was not to be convinced. "take a tidy-sized clurk to go off with five million in his pocket," he said. "course i don't say he couldn't do it, gob 'elpin' 'im. only he'd be carryin' a lot o' dead weight, as the psalmist said. _too_ 'eavily penalised, i should say. no, my dear, 'tain't the clurk. 'tis the li'bilities." "what are the liabilities?" asked boy. "they're the devil, my dear," said the old man. "that's all i can tell you. land you in the lock-up soon as look at you." later that evening the girl went to call on her friend, mr. haggard. he was in his study among his books, and rose to greet her with that affectionate kindliness he reserved for her. "i want to know something, mr. haggard," said the girl in her determined way. he looked at her over his spectacles. "yes." "can they put you in prison if you lose your money?" "not if you lose it honestly," replied the vicar. one reason the girl liked him so much was that he never played the fool. the heavy horse-chaff with which the average englishman of the duke's type, in his elephantine efforts at gallantry, thinks it necessary to adorn his conversation, were not for him. "oh, he'll lose it honestly all right," cried the girl eagerly, unconscious of the fact that she was giving herself away, or careless of it. it was not hard for the other to gauge her mind. casually he turned over an evening paper. "i see there's good news about mr. silver's bank," he said. "it's weathered the storm." he pointed out to her a paragraph in the stop-press column. chapter xxiv the man with the gamp the good news was confirmed. that night a telegram came from mr. silver to say he was coming down next morning and asking them to meet him at lewes. "i knew he'd come if he could to-morrow," cried the girl. her mother looked at her. "it's your birthday, boy," she said. the girl's fair face flushed. "he doesn't know that," she said, on the defensive. "and you're not to tell. it's the last day of hunting. that's what i meant." she was indeed seventeen next day. and the sign of her womanhood was that when she came down in the morning her hair was bunched in a neat little coil at the back of her head. because of it she was shy and somewhat defiant. dressed for hunting in snowy shirt and long-skirted dark coat, she entered the parlour more swiftly than her wont, in her shoes and stockings, and carrying her riding-boots in her hand. her father's mild blue eye penetrated her secret at once. "that's a little bit o' better," he said. "it's _miss_ woodburn now." "now then, father," reproved mrs. woodburn. "oh, i knows my place, plea gob," mumbled the old man. "ought to arter all the trainin' you been at the pains to put me to." and he winked and chuckled and grunted over his porridge. "let me look at you, boy," said her mother, when the teasing old man had gone. the girl coloured faintly. her mother kissed her. "joyce," she said gravely, "you're a woman now." "am i, mother?" laughed the girl. "i feel like a boy sometimes still." she was gay with an unusual gaiety. her mother marked it with those observant eyes of hers. after the pair had read together, as their custom was, mrs. woodburn laid the bible down and took up her knitting. boy pulled on her boots before the fire. "i hope you won't marry out of your own class, boy," said mrs. woodburn at last quietly. "we're humble folk, as dad says." "i don't think i shall marry at all," replied the girl curtly. "i don't feel like it." the mother continued on her tranquil way. "when you marry, marry your own sort," she advised. boy was silent for a time. "isn't mr. silver our sort?" she asked at last, her eyes on her mother's. mrs. woodburn, for all her liberal mind, was of the older generation. "my dear," she said, "he's an eton man." "he's not like one," replied the girl shortly. "he's a gentleman." "my dear, eton men are gentlemen," reproved mrs. woodburn. "some," replied the girl. "the duke is." she added maliciously--"sometimes." * * * * * old mat, monkey brand, and albert started early for the meet. it was a long hour later before mother and daughter, waiting in the parlour, heard the steady clop-clop of a horse's feet and the crisp trundle of wheels on the road. in another moment the buggy had drawn up at the gate; goosey gander was stretching his neck, and jerry of the corrugated brow was touching his hat to the descending passenger. a tall, top-hatted figure, enfolded in long, shaggy gray frieze coat, came up the paved yard toward them between clouds of arabis. silver had changed in the train on the way down. he was booted, spurred, and above all radiant. mrs. woodburn went out on to the steps to meet him. the girl hid her hair behind her mother's stately figure. "so you've managed it!" smiled mrs. woodburn. "i was determined not to miss it," replied the young man, striding up the steps stiff in his top-boots. "miss woodburn, congratulations." "who told you?" cried boy, taken aback. "billy bluff, of course," replied the other. "caddish of him, wasn't it?" they went into the parlour. mrs. woodburn did not offer the traveller a drink for the simple reason that it never occurred to her to do so. "by jove! i _am_ late!" cried the young man, glancing at the clock. "there was a break-down at hayward's heath." he stripped off his ulster, and stood up in his pink coat, his baggy white breeches, and top-boots. in boy woodburn's judgment most men, so attired, looked supremely ridiculous. it was not so with mr. silver. it may be that his absolute lack of self-consciousness distracted attention from his costume. it may be that he was so real himself that he dominated his artificial habiliments. certainly his strong, clean face, his short, crisp hair, and pleasant, booming voice possessed and pleased the girl. "you'd better be off, or you'll have the duke down on you," said mrs. woodburn. "dad's gone an hour since," said boy. she led the way swiftly down long stone passages out into the yard. he followed, his eyes on that shining bunch of hair before him. the yard looked deserted. the fan-tails strutted vaingloriously; maudie lay in the sun on the stable wall; and billy bluff's kennel was empty. "hullo, where's bill?" cried the young man. "some idiot's let him off his chain," grumbled the girl. "just like them. a hunting morning." a great gray horse, led by little jerry, was feeling his way through the stable-door. banjo stood seventeen hands or over, but he was all quality. his long neck was hog-maned; and his roman nose and sober colour gave him an air of wisdom and experience which a somewhat frivolous character belied. young lollypop, a brown three-year-old, followed demurely behind. for all his sixteen hands, he looked a mere stripling beside the gray; but he was far too tall for the girl to mount without assistance. stanley went for a bucket, but before he could return silver had shot the girl into the saddle, and stood a moment looking up at her with eyes in which laughter and admiration mingled. the girl seemed so slight and yet so masterful on these great larruping thoroughbreds she always rode! young lollypop had the callow and awkward ways of a young giraffe, but, though only a three-year-old, he was sedate as an old maid and had the dignity of a churchwarden. his behaviour was an example to his flippant colleague. for banjo, directly he felt his master on his back, began to galumph about the yard with a clatter of hoofs among the injured fan-tails and to the discomfiture of maudie. "right!" grunted silver, settling into his saddle. "now, you old hog, you!" brown lollypop cocked his long ears and watched with pained disapproval the gambols of his elder. himself incorruptible, he was no doubt well pleased at heart that banjo's misconduct should throw up in high relief his own immaculate conduct. lollypop was in fact a bit of a prig. had he been a boy he would have been head of his school, a scholar of balliol, and president of the union at his university. the girl followed her leader through the gate, the brown horse stepping gingerly, swinging his tail, and feeling his bit, while banjo galumphed and grunted to the sound of a squeaking leather. the meet was at folkington green, at the foot of the downs on the edge of the low country. once in the road, silver and the girl turned their backs on the sea and made through the village. just outside it a familiar figure was waiting them on the road, apologetic and pleading. "i knew he would," said boy. "he started with father and got turned back. now he's waiting for us. _go back, you bad dog!_" "poor boy!--he wants a bit of a hunt, too," said the young man. "i'll hunt him!" cried the girl remorselessly, and proceeded to do so with vigour. it was some time before the dog was routed and they were free to pursue their way. "what's the time?" asked the girl. silver referred to his wrist-watch. "it's nearly half-past eleven." "we must trot," said boy. they trotted away, the brown horse and the gray side by side, the regular clap-clap of their feet sometimes overlapping and sometimes beating in unison, only to break eventually again, to the disappointment of the girl's attentive ear. it was the fashion amid the hunting folk to despise hacking along the road as so much waste of time. to the girl the steady tramp along the hard road was like the march of life. she would hack from covert to covert, one of a great cavalcade, men and women, with bobbing heads, their faces set all in the same direction, the sound of the horses' feet splashing all round her like a stream. she would flow along in the centre of that stream, unconscious of those about her, silent when addressed, absorbed in the only music for which she cared. the noise of banjo blowing his nose now brought her back to earth. she peeped at the face of the man on the big gray at her side. "had a bad time?" she asked warily. he turned to her, his face lit with the smile that took all the heaviness out of it. "worrying," he said. "well, you're through now," said the girl. "plea gob," he answered, "till next time. we'd have been in the cart but the bank of england stood by like a brick." their steady pace took them along. they were getting away from the hills, and the weald was opening before them. the sun shone on them, and the willows on either side the road declared that april was at hand. they eased down to a walk. silver opened his chest. "i feel like singing!" he cried. "sing then," said boy. in his quiet booming voice he sang a verse from _two on the downs_, which in their long hacks home of evening she had taught him-- _sing ho! so we go, over downs that are surging green under the sky and the seas that lie silvery-strewn between_. he finished and turned to her with a laugh and shining eyes. she glanced away, and on her face was that delicious wary look he loved so well, baffling and baffled, disturbing because disturbed, as when a little wind ruffles at evening a willow, exposing to the sky in spite of protest the silvery undersides of naked, shining leaves. jim silver edged across to her. "miss woodburn!" he said quietly. he held out a great gloved hand. boy looked resolutely between her horse's ears. "trot," she said. a few straggling foot-passengers, an occasional trap, a man on a bicycle, and some children pushing a perambulator, showed them they were drawing near their goal. about half a mile in front the road opened on to a green. there among trees they could see a gathering of men and horses. "good!" cried the young man. "they haven't moved off yet. shall we slow down?" "best get on, i think," replied the girl. a man in a slouch hat, carrying a gamp as untidy as himself, was walking before them down the middle of the road. "ass!" muttered the young man. "why can't he keep to one side?" boy shot ahead, silver took a pull. banjo made a fuss, took offence, then went striding hugely by, and shied off, splashing through a puddle. the brown waters rose and drenched the pedestrian. "thank _you!_" he called furiously after the horseman. banjo, as though frightened at his deed, tried a bolt. a horseman of unusual power, silver steadied the great horse and swung him across the road. there banjo sidled, yawed, and passaged, fretting to be after the brown. the young man, swinging to the motions of the tossing gray, raised his hand in that large and gracious way of his. "so sorry," he shouted back. the man with the gamp shuffled toward him. "of course it wasn't deliberate!" he cried. it was silver's turn to be angry. he gripped the gray, lifted him round like a polo pony, and drove him back to the angry man. "you don't think i'd do a thing like that on purpose!" he said, and saw for the first time that the man with the gamp was joses. "you didn't know it was me, of course," sneered the other, shaking with anger. "i did not," replied silver, calm and cold as joses was hot. "then i don't believe you," cried the tout. silver looked down at him. "i've said i'm sorry. i've no more to say," he remarked quietly. "haven't you?" cried the fat man. "i have, though." he made a snatch at banjo's rein. the gray reared, backed away into the ditch, collapsed there on his quarters, and recovered himself with the grunt and flounder of a hippopotamus emerging from a river. a little crowd was collecting swiftly, drawn by the hopes of a row. then there came the clatter of a horse's feet. boy was coming back to the group at a gallop. "i saw what happened," she said, her deep voice a little sharp. "your horse shied and splashed mr. joses." she appealed swiftly to him. "wasn't that it?" "yes," said silver coldly. "i splashed him by accident and apologised." "_and he turned nasty!_" the intervening voice was harsh and unfamiliar. silver turned to see a tall inspector of police sitting like a pillar of salt in a dog-cart, which had drawn up in the road. joses, who had seen him, too, began to shake, and more horrible still to laugh. "he was naturally a bit annoyed," said silver. the tall inspector was looking joses up and down. there was a dreadful air of domination about him. "if you're satisfied, sir, i say no more," said the inspector, reluctant as a dog to leave a bone. "i'm satisfied," replied silver. the inspector withdrew. the little knot of people who had gathered began to disperse. the young man and the girl trotted on their way. "most unfortunate," muttered silver. "most," boy answered. in joses's eyes she had seen again that look of the wild beast, caged and cowering. the young man felt censure in her voice. "well, i don't think it was my fault," he said, nettled. "i know it wasn't," she cried. "but--" "what?" "that inspector's way with him. like a slavedriver." "i know," said silver. "horrible." chapter xxv the black bird the last meet of the season was, as always, at folkington green, close enough to lewes to draw the townsfolk out on bicycles and in char-à-bancs. the morning was fine after rain, and there was a full attendance on the green under the swinging sign of _the beehive_. old mat sat by the muddy pond on his three-cornered cob. he was dressed, as always, in flat-topped hat, trousers, and elastic-sided boots; and he swung his legs mechanically against ichabod's hardened sides. about him was gathered the usual group of admiring ladies. they liked old mat as much as they disliked his daughter. "i don't come 'ere to 'unt," the old man was saying wearily; "i come 'ere to putest. yes, you can persecute me if you like, same as you do the fox, but if i live through it, as i 'ave before, i shall go 'ome to mar, and next time you comes out i shall be there givin' my witness, de we." his face was firm and nobly resolute. "crool, i calls it," he said. "such a lot of you, too. hosses and dogs, men and women, not to say perambylators. all on his back at once; and he'll beat the lot yet, you'll see. that's because he's got religion in him, little red fox has. his conscience is clear, same as mine." he looked about him. "now there's mr. haggard there be the elm. he thinks just the very same as me--only he ain't got the spirit in him to stand up and say so. i'd 'a' wep a tear--only i ain't got one." the duke in his hunting cap sat close by on his cobby chestnut, which looked as if it had come out of an old hunting print, and the hounds sprawled about it in the sunshine on the green. silver rode up to the duke, who greeted him ironically. "late as usual, silver," he said. "we've been waiting for you since christmas." "very good of you, sir," replied the young man. "i only came down from town this morning." "glad you could get away," grunted the duke. "hope you've done 'em down all right." silver walked his horse away across the green. the inspector, who had drawn up in the road, got down from his trap, and came toward silver. "i beg your pardon, sir," he said. "you've nothing against that chap?" he knew very well who silver was, and was obsequious accordingly. "nothing," said silver shortly. "excuse me, won't you, sir?" continued the inspector. "i wouldn't trouble you only we know him. he's been in trouble before. and we have to watch him. he's a bit funny in the temper. and when he's on the boil there's not a great deal he'll stop at." "i've nothing against him," repeated silver, and rode on to join monkey brand, who was nursing a youngster by the pond. the little jockey greeted him with a drop of one eyelid. "he's watchin' you, sir," he said quietly. "who is?" asked the young man. "joses, sir. through the window of _the beehive_." "never mind him," replied silver, keeping his broad scarlet back turned on the public-house and the face peering at him over the half-blind. "he's got some friends here," continued monkey, in the same hushed monotone. "that's why he's gone inside. that tall genelman you was talkin' with. very close they was at one time. too close in a manner o' speakin'. see, you can be _too_ close friends. then you gets to know too much about each other. then there's trouble and a kickin'-match." the duke waved his arm, and hounds moved off. horsemen, carriages, and pedestrians followed them in straggling procession. monkey brand and silver kept together. in front of them boy woodburn and albert edward rode side by side. viewed from the rear, they were ridiculously alike in shape and size and bearing. the little jockey pointed out the resemblance to his companion. he clucked and winked and joggled with his elbow. "not much atween 'em seen from behind, sir," he said. "how's he coming on?" asked silver. "why, not bad, sir," replied the jockey. "he's the pick of our bunch anyway. if he wasn't so puffed up wiv himself, he'd do." "i saw he did chukkers down at sandown in the international," said the young man. "he did, sir. he did so," replied the little man. "one more up to putnam's, that was." and he gave the story of how the putnam's lad had beaten the crack in the big race. it seemed that chukkers, who was riding jackaroo for ikey aaronsohnn, had thought he was well through, and was sitting down to idle home, when two fences from the finish albert edward, riding an any-price outsider, came up on his right out of the blue and challenged the star-spangled jacket. chukkers, who was on the favourite, with orders to win, had drawn his whip and ridden for his life. "'e could draw whip and draw blood, too," chuckled monkey brand. "but it weren't no manner o' good. took up his whip and stopped his 'orse. albert, 'e never stir. sat there and goes cluck-cluck and got home on the post. rode a pretty race, he did. miss boy was ever so please." "and what about chukkers?" asked jim. monkey brand sniggered. "he was foamin'-mad, bloody-yellin' all over the place. i was glad mrs. woodburn wasn't there to hear. jaggers had him out on the mat afore 'em all. said he'd been caught nappin'--by a boy with a face like a girl, too. putnam 'orse and all. that got ole chukkers' tail up. he made trouble in the weighin'-room. said albert had done him a dirty dish; but you can't go to the stewards on that. and albert he told miss boy--'i never done nothin' to him, only beat him.' and he told the truth that time if he never told it afore. 'never you mind,' says miss boy. 'you won and you'll win again--if your head don't get so swelled you can't get the weight. we all know chukkers,' says she, 'and jaggers, too.'" * * * * * the last day was never taken very seriously by the regular followers of the duke's hounds. all those to whom hunting was the one worthy occupation in life kept religiously aloof. "it's the people's day," they said. "they don't want us." to-day was no exception to the rule. before lunch hounds chopped a mangy fox outside prior's wood; and it was not till the afternoon was getting on that they found a rover lying out in a field of mangolds. he must have been a hill-fox, who had been caught raiding in the lowlands, for he made a straight point for the downs. there was the usual scurry. boy woodburn was, as always, the last away, with silver in close attendance. they threaded the ragged fringes of pedestrians, who still clung to the skirts of the horsemen, turned to the right through an open gate, and leisurely pursued the cavalcade disappearing furiously before them in the distance. the girl nursed her baby, who showed himself as unconcerned by the fuss and flurry of the vanguard as his young mistress; while banjo fretted and fumed to get away. they crossed a big grass field at a canter. lollypop was young and raw as a calf, and jim silver rode well behind, giving him and his rider plenty of room. before them was a low stake-and-bound with a drop on the far side. lollypop flopped along toward it like a boat in a swell, flapping his long ears, bridling, and pondering whether he would have it or not. on the whole, he thought he would. to lift over it would probably mean less trouble in the end than to fight the quiet and resolute creature who cooed so softly in his ears, and rode him with such iron resolution. moreover, he knew now as the result of experience that if it came to a struggle he would be worsted in the end if it took all day. it would certainly be less irksome, and more gracious, to get the thing behind you. to jump, and to pretend you liked it, was the generous and the politic thing to do. moreover, it was all in the direction of home and bran-mash; while there was banjo golly-woshing through the mud close behind him. and lollypop not only had to live up to his reputation and set his elder an example, which he loved to do, but he also wished to show the gray what he could do himself when he tried. the young horse had just made up his mind in the right way, cocked his ears, gathered himself, and passed the thrill to his responsive and expectant mistress, when a huge and black bird, vaster and far more hideous than anything the young horse had ever seen upon the downs, rose suddenly underneath his nose on the far side of the hedge, flapped its wings obscenely, spread them wide, and then twirled round insanely at astonishing speed. * * * * * joses, nursing his wounds, sat on in the parlour of _the beehive_ long after the cavalcade had moved off, and comforted himself in the usual way. when at length he rose with a drained tankard and paid his shot at the counter, he gave his views on society to the landlord in such coloured terms as genuinely to shock that worthy, who had been brought up respectably in the shadow of a duke. "they're patriots and imperialists, they are," said the fat man. "never think of themselves. they hunt the fox, and shoot the pheasant, and keep you and me under, not because they enjoy it and want all the fun to themselves. oh, no!--don't make that mistake. but because it's their bounden duty to god and man so to do!" the landlord gave him his change. "are you a socialist?" he asked. "no," laughed joses. "i'm a ---- aristocrat. you might know it from me language--let alone me looks. with a stake in the country, a pew in the church, and a seat in the house of mammon. goodbye! god bless our gracious king! and to hell with the rights of you and me!" he went out and made for the hills, churning his grievances into mud within him. he had walked for an hour across the fields, blind and deaf to all about him, when an insistent sound from the outer world penetrated the outworks of his disturbed spirit. he stopped and listened. hounds were running. yes. no. yes. that musical tow-row, passionate, terrible, and never-to-be-forgotten, was not to be mistaken. hounds were running, and they were coming in his direction at speed. joses, always something of a sportsman, came out of himself in his own despite. he hurried down a bridle-path toward the line of the hunt. before him, some fields away, he saw hounds toppling over a hedge like a breaker curling before it fell. there followed in line horsemen and horsewomen, singly, straggling, and in groups. joses stayed and watched them sweep by some distance from him. the mutter of horses' feet close at hand struck his ear. he turned and looked over the hedge. a man and a girl were cantering leisurely toward him. the man was on a gray, and it was clear from the way the girl handled her horse that he was young and uncertain of himself. an imp of malignant deviltry, born of spite and alcohol, bobbed up in joses's heart. he ducked behind the hedge, opened his umbrella suddenly, and twirled it overhead. lollypop's nerves were of the very best, but this was altogether too much for him. he refused suddenly and with a snort, whipped about, swift as a top, slid up, and collapsed on his side. boy was flung forward on her head and shoulder. a moment she stayed where she was on her hands and knees, clutching at the bridle. lollypop floundered to his feet, and tugged to get away, staring with wide-flung nostrils and trembling flanks at the hedge. the girl rose slowly to her feet. her hat was muddy and battered, and she looked before her foolishly and with dazed eyes. silver had galloped up and was on his feet in a minute at her side. "are you hurt?" he asked anxiously. "i'm all right," she replied sleepily. joses was peering over the hedge. it was difficult to say what was in those shining eyes of his. "nasty shy," he said. silver looked up. "i'm coming round to you in a minute, my friend," he said deeply. joses's face darkened. "why, you don't think it was deliberate?" he cackled. "i'll let you know what i think later," replied the young man. "you frighten me!" mocked the other, rumbling his dreadful laughter. "mind you tell your friends the police!" he added, and was gone. chapter xxvi jim silver goes to war boy was muddy, and her hat was dented and askew. the little creature looked strangely pathetic as she stood up alongside tall lollypop with the slimy flank. "i'll get on again now," she said, gathering her reins. "put me up, will you?" "no," answered silver. the tears sprang to the girl's eyes. "why not?" she asked fretfully, but for the first time since they had met she submitted to his will. jim took lollypop's rein and led both horses slowly toward the farm among apple trees at the end of the field. boy walked at his side. "it's silly to feel so funny," she laughed feebly. "take my arm," he said; but she refused. they came to the gate of the farm. "where are you going?" she asked. "in here." he gave a shout. a woman in a sunbonnet came to the door and stared. "is that you, miss woodburn?" she cried. "oh! _dear_ me!" "hullo, mrs. ticehurst," said the girl. "i've had a bit of a spill." "can miss woodburn come in and rest for a moment?" asked silver. "come in and rest!" cried the woman. "hark to him! think i'd turn a dog away like that--let alone miss joyce." "such a fuss!" protested the girl. the woman called to a yokel to come and take the horses. languidly the girl walked down the paved path between rank currant bushes, and entered the house. "here in the parlour, miss!" said the woman, kind and bustling. "i'd rather the kitchen, please," said boy. "cosier there." "very well, my dear. there's a fire there. and i'll get you a cup o' tea." when silver entered the house a little later he saw the girl comfortably established by the fire. he peeped in and withdrew quietly. "i'll be back in a minute," he said quietly to the woman. "i'm just going to have a look at the horses." in the yard he found the yokel trying in vain to induce banjo to enter a door that was too small for him. "all right," said the young man. "he won't fit." mounting, he rode out into the field. banjo knew his master meant business directly he was in the saddle, and answered instantaneously to the call, dropping the nonsense, and settling down to work sober as a bishop. the yokel watched the pair with admiration. there was such power about them both. the big man cantered across the field, put the gray at the fence, and cleared it without an effort. there was a slight drop into a bridle-lane. the man on the gray turned and cantered quietly along it. he jumped a low heave-gate and followed the track beyond. in the next field he saw his quarry, hunting along at a little dog-trot. joses seemed to have no fear of pursuit. jim silver stole up behind him, banjo, as though entering into the spirit of the pursuit, seeming to muffle the sound of his going. a hundred yards from his quarry the young man came with a rattle. joses turned, but it was too late. the lash curled round his plump carcase. silver swept on like a hailstorm, and pulled banjo up on his haunches. then he sat with white face and shining eyes, trailing his lash as he waited the assault. he had not long to wait. * * * * * boy sat by the fire in the kitchen and drank her tea, an alert little figure, her burnished hair neatly coiled, and hat beside her. it was clear she was entirely herself again. then silver stood in the door and smiled at her. he was very quiet and rather pale. the girl looked up at him suspiciously. "where've you been?" she asked. "with the horses," he answered. she was not to be deceived. "you've been having a hunt of your own," she said. "i hope you didn't find." he looked out of the window evasively. "scent poor to bad," he said slowly. by the time they mounted it was late in the afternoon, and the glory had departed from the day. they climbed the downs, and rode along the tops of them, their faces to the sea, speaking hardly at all, and walking all the while. this sudden and surprising contact with evil had taken the joy from their hearts and oppressed them like a shadow. once as they drew near home he spoke. "how are you?" he said. "i'm all right," she answered, and added, lifting her face to his in that frank and beautiful way of hers, "i don't think he meant it for me." "i'm not sure," replied silver. "i think he meant it for you," continued boy. "if so i should think a shade better of him," replied the other stubbornly. "i'm glad you didn't catch him," said the girl. she turned full face to him. "you _were_ angry." "i _was_ a bit put out, i think," answered the other. they dropped down the hill into the paddock close, graying faintly in the dusk. boy's high spirits were pouring back on her in merry little rivulets, all the readier to brim their banks for having been dammed so long. "come and see four-pound-the-second," she cried, and led away along the hillside at a trot. "how's he coming on?" asked the young man, jogging at her side, delighting in her returning life. "father thinks he's going to be a great horse," laughed the girl. "but he won't admit it to me, of course." "so he is, plea gob," said jim. boy looked at him severely. then she tapped him with her crop. "he may," she said. "you mayn't. and you mustn't mimic dad." he touched his forehead. at the bottom, not far from the place where the old mare had died, a rough thatched shed of tarred sleepers had been run up for the colt. "there he is!" said the girl. "by the wood," and called him. the yearling came, trotting proudly at first, and then breaking into an ungainly gallop. a gawky creature, with a coat like a bear's, he moved with the awkward grace of a puppy, slithering and slipping in the mud, yet always recovering himself with surprising speed and precision. boy dismounted, and silver followed her example. she held out her hand toward the colt. "come on, the boy!" she cooed. "billy bluff's not here to rag you." the colt came delicately with outstretched neck and wide nostrils, fearing for his liberty, yet poking out his nose toward the extended palm on which there lay a piece of bread. "looks as if he might make into something, don't you think?" said the girl. "lots of bone." "what colour's he going to be?" asked the young man. "black-brown with bay points. black-and-tan, mother calls him." "black-and-tan," said the young man. "that's berserk, isn't it?" "i believe so," replied the girl. "is that sure?" asked the young man. "father seems to think so," replied boy evasively. "monkey brand met the gypsy afterward, who pitched him a tale." "who's he belong to?" asked the young man. "me, of course," laughed boy. "i'll go shares with you!" said silver. "halve expenses and winnings. there's an offer now!" "right," she cried. they shook hands with laughter, and led their horses across the close. the girl edged off to the right. "we'll look in on old ragamuffin," she said. "i always used to give him an apple on my birthday." as they put the wood between them and the bottom, a man who had been lying in the shelter out of the wind came to the door and called to the colt. "whoa, little man!" he said. "whoa then!" chapter xxvii the fire in the dusk it was jerry who gave the alarm ten minutes later. he had been busy at his garden in the sloperies when he saw the smoke rise from the shelter on the hill, and rushed into the yard to say the shed was ablaze. boy and silver, after their leisurely walk home, had just entered the yard and surrendered their horses to two of the lads. the girl was releasing billy bluff from his chain, to maudie's open annoyance, when jerry panted in with his news. silver ran to the gate. "by jove, so it is!" he cried. he was in the saddle in a moment, but not so quickly as was the girl. she led him through the gate. together they galloped across the paddock close and made for the hill, billy bluff racing at their side. the lads ran heavily behind. the shed was belching smoke, and from the heather-thatch the flames were leaping in red flicker. "jolly blaze!" cried silver as he galloped. a sound of banging came from the heart of that cloud of smoke, and then the loud neigh of a frightened horse. the young man's face changed. "four pound's inside!" he cried. he stormed up the hill, and for the first time in his life banjo tasted steel. boy, too, had heard that muffled cry, and came shooting by the heavy-weight up the hill, lollypop well extended. "keep clear!" cried silver. "hold my horse!" he was off in a trice, and wading through the bellying smoke. the girl could see him dimly as he kicked at the door of the shed. it burst open. a vast shadow came hurtling through the fog. silver was sent hurling backward and sprawled on the hillside. he was on his feet in a moment. "that's all right," he panted, as he watched the colt career whinnying away, wreaths of smoke still clinging to his woolly coat. "he's not taken much harm." "i suppose he went in after we left," mused boy. "and then the wind banged the door." "i don't think the wind dropped that bar," said the young man. "and i doubt if it set the shelter alight." the shed was blazing merrily, the flames devouring the tarred wood with greed. jerry had seen a man leave the public path, cross the paddock, and enter the shed half an hour before. "what kind of a man?" asked silver. "trampy, sir," replied the lad. "he got smokin' in it out of the wind," said stanley, "and set it ablaze, and did a bolt." "after shutting the door behind him with the colt inside," commented silver. he searched the grass on the outskirts of the shed for footmarks. something glimmering in the dusk caught his eye. it was a wooden-handled sheath-knife. silver picked it up and showed it to the girl. she said nothing. "billy bluff!" called the young man. he shoved the knife under the dog's nose. "sik him out!" he called. "good dorg!" billy bluff skirmished round and went off up the hill at score. silver mounted and followed. the trail carried the dog up on to the downs. he pursued it at speed and unfaltering in the dusk. against the pale west, on the brow, the figure of a man soon came into view. billy bluff raced up and greeted the pedestrian effusively. silver, pounding up behind, found himself face to face with the vicar. the dog, his task completed to his own entire satisfaction, sought applause and sympathy from the horseman. "is that you, mr. haggard?" called the young man in the dusk. "yes; i came up to have a look at the sunset." "you haven't seen that man joses about?" "our lurid friend," said the vicar absently. "no; and i don't want to see him just now. it's all so quiet." boy, who had stayed behind to examine the colt, came cantering up. the dusk was drawing down apace, the earth dark about them, and seaward that window in the west pale and lovely. "wonderful!" said mr. haggard, dreamily, and repeated slowly and to himself-- _since i can never see your face, and never shake you by the hand, i send my soul through time and space to greet you. you will understand._ the riders turned away. neither spoke for a while. "mr. haggard's like mother," said the girl at last. "he's got _that_." she added: "i'm glad we met him. i was very angry." "aren't you now?" he asked. "yes," she said, "but in a different way. it's white now. it was red then." they rode slowly off the crest amid the gorse, the lights of putnam's burning far beneath them in the dusk. "give me that knife, please," she said. "no." "why not?" "i want it." "what for?" he didn't answer. "i know," she said. "to get him put away." "he deserves it," replied the young man doggedly. "if it had only been the shed now!--but--" "four pound," she said. "i know." her little hand came reaching toward him in the dusk. "give me that knife, please." he fenced with her. "don't you believe in punishment?" he asked. "i don't know." "not even for cruelty?" "i don't think you can stop cruelty by being cruel yourself." "wouldn't you give him in charge?" "yes," she said, "if i was sure they'd kill him. but they wouldn't. they'd only cage him. and i can't believe in the cage for anyone." she was breathing deeply. "here you are," said the young man. she laid her hand on his a moment. he grasped it, and drew toward her silently. the horses moved side by side down the hill, a few pale stars sprinkling the dull heavens, and somewhere behind, the glimmer of a young moon. they passed into the paddock close, stealing softly over the turf, the wood moving gently on their right in the darkness. he came looming up beside her. "boy," he said deeply. it was the first time he had dared. "yes," she answered, and her voice trembled ever so little. "will you share something besides four-pound-the-second?" "what?" "everything." the moon caught her. she turned full face to him; and her eyes were tender and brilliant as he had never known them. "d'you care for me?" she asked. "i love you," said silver. she squeezed his hand, but answered nothing. "d'you care for _me_?" he asked in his turn. she did not answer for some time. "i'm not going to marry you," she said at last. "why not?" he thought she gulped. "i'm not going to marry a gentleman." "why not?" again she paused. "it doesn't do." he lifted her little hand in his great gloved one and kissed it. "bless you, dear boy," was all he said. chapter xxviii the fat man goes under it was two days later that the girl met joses in the village street. she crossed to him swiftly, and she was white and sparkling. "here's your knife, mr. joses," she said, handing it him. there came into his eyes at once that hunted look. he put both hands behind him and bowed with his honeyed smile. "it's not mine, miss woodburn, thank you," he said. the girl was growing apace. a few months back she would have said "it is," and have dropped it at his feet. now she answered: "you may have it whenever you like to call for it," and passed on. a little farther down the street she met the vicar. on her face was that frosty look that mr. haggard said made him afraid. "well, boy?" he said. "good morning, mr. haggard," she answered, but she did not stop. that evening she called at the cottage where joses lodged and handed mrs. boam the knife done up in brown paper. "will you give this to mr. joses?" she said. the woman's apron was to her lips, and over it her frightened eyes peered at the girl. "he's gone, miss," she said. the girl was surprised. "gone?" she said. "where?" the woman nibbled her apron. "an hour since. the police come for him. i was makin' the tea." that strange tide of other-consciousness overwhelmed the girl. "are you fond of him?" asked the voice that used her as an instrument. the woman with the streaming eyes nodded over her apron. "our jenny love him," she said. end of part i battle it was old mat who was responsible for the arrest of joses on the charge of incendiarism. "i got to do me duty by the pore feller," he said quietly. "and will do, de we. same as the psalmist says. it's _because_ you love 'em you got to chastise of 'em. only where it is," he ended disconsolately, "don't somehow seem as they _can_ understand." the evidence was fairly plain. jerry had marked the tout late in the afternoon of the day in question cross the paddock close from the public park and enter the shed half an hour before the fire; while monkey brand, coming off the hill, on his return from the hunt, swore he had seen him emerge from the shed as flames broke from the thatched roof. it was growing dusk at the time, and the distance was considerable, as monkey admitted, but the little jockey maintained with restraint and emphasis that "he'd know that waddle anywheres." joses did not go undefended. the fact of his value to the three j's, if ever in doubt, was proved beyond question by the fact that they paid a good lawyer to keep him out of gaol. and it was notorious that the three j's never gave except where they got. indeed, one of the funniest scenes at the trial took place when ikey aaronsohnn, who it was said had returned post-haste from america for the purpose, jaggers, and chukkers, one after the other, stood up in the witness-box and gave evidence solemnly as to the character of the accused. "of course we know he _has_ made a little mistake in the past, pore chap," said jaggers, who looked like an austere stiggins. "but he's a _good_ man for all that." "a hopeful penitent," suggested the prosecuting counsel. "there's 'ope for all, i 'ope, sir," said jaggers, with quiet manliness. the case against the accused seemed black; but he met it with extraordinary courage and resource. he admitted that he had been in the shed at the time alleged. he said that he had gone there to smoke out of the wind, and admitted further that he _had_ set the shed on fire--by accident. when asked in court why, if he had set the shed on fire by accident, he had run away, his defence was simple and convincing. he said he was afraid. he'd been in trouble before. "and once you've been in trouble, the police know you, and you never get a chance. i got a panic, and i bolted--very foolishly." the defence evidently impressed both judge and jury. and had it been simply a question of setting fire to the shed the accused might have got off; but there was the further matter of four-pound-the-second. how did the yearling come to be in the shed? joses retorted that it was not for him to say; but he suggested that it had come on to rain, and that the colt had sought shelter from the storm. it was there that silver came in. the papers said, and said truly, that the young banker gave his evidence with obvious reluctance. "was the colt in the shed when you came up?" asked the prosecuting counsel. "yes." "was it raining?" "it was drizzling." "was the door shut?" "yes." "how was it shut?" "with a wooden latch." "that you lifted to let the colt out?" "yes." "could the wind have banged the door to?" "possibly." "could the latch have _fallen_ into its place?" "i don't know." "what d'you think?" "i doubt it." in cross-examination the aim of the counsel for the defence was to show that the evidence of the witness was unreliable because he was actuated by personal malevolence against the accused. "have you had words with the prisoner on more than one occasion?" "yes." "it was a word from you that put the police on to him in the first instance?" "it was _not_," with warmth. "you found a knife you believed to belong to the prisoner in the shed after the fire?" "outside the shed." "and you took the knife to the police?" "i did not." "where is the knife now?" "i don't know." "who did you give it to?" "miss woodburn." the girl was called. her evidence was very brief. mr. silver had given her the knife. she had taken it to the cottage where the prisoner lodged and handed it back to the woman there. to substantiate the charge that mr. silver was actuated by malice, the counsel for the defence called evidence to prove the scene that had taken place between the witness and the accused on the way to the meet. on this point the prisoner gave further evidence himself. "you met mr. silver later in the day?" "i did." "what happened?" "he rode at me and struck me." "what for?" "he said he'd show a ---- convict how to speak to a gentleman; and he'd get me put away." "was anybody present?" the accused laughed. "no fear! he waited till he got me alone." "what time was this?" "about two-thirty." "where?" "just outside prior's wood." mr. silver, recalled by the prosecuting counsel, was re-examined as to the facts alleged by joses. "did you strike the prisoner?" "i gave him one with the lash of my crop." "under what circumstances?" the witness explained. "did you say the words attributed to you?" "i did _not_." "did any words pass between you?" there was a pause. "after i struck him, while he was messing about with his knife, he said: 'i'll do time for you!'" "did you say anything?" there was another pause. "i said: 'what! more?'" in cross-examination the counsel for the defence asked the young banker what he meant when he said to the prisoner--"'what! more?'" silver was silent. "were you referring to the fact that the accused had been in trouble?" "yes." "and you're a sportsman?" no answer. "and a gentleman?" in his speech for the prosecution counsel pointed out that the motive for the crime--the one point in doubt--had been established. joses had been a little too clever and had established it himself. he had supplied the one missing link, and would be hung in a chain of his own making. the two men had come to words and blows. joses, smarting alike in body and mind, had trotted home and, beside himself with rage and a desire for revenge, had committed this most insensate and abominable crime. the jury found the prisoner guilty without leaving the box, and the judge, who described the crime as deliberate, malignant, and the work of a frustrated fiend, gave him a swinging sentence. part ii the woman and the horse book iv the trial chapter xxix albert edward four years had passed; but maudie had not changed or aged. she lay in the sun on a step on the ladder, languid, insolent, concerned only for herself. true the kennel beneath the ladder was empty now, and had a rusty and pathetic air as of long disuse; but the monster-without-manners was not dead, alas!--he had but changed his abode. now and for some years past the great unspeakable had shared a kennel with the four-legs-who-might-not-walk-alone; the one who there was all this foolish fuss about. there were many such four-legs about, each as a rule with a small two-legs in attendance or on top. as a whole, they were harmless. they lived and let live, and maudie asked no more. but the four-legs with whom the monster-without-manners had entered on a sinister intimacy had been corrupted by his companion. he bounded, too, upon occasion. and when he bounded he was so big that he seemed to fill the yard, sprawling here and there and everywhere, till the walls bulged and burst, to the grave inconvenience of maudie, the fan-tails, and all sober citizens; while the monster-without-manners _more suo_, encouraged him with coarse laughter. when the four-legs-who-might-not-walk-alone bounded in the yard, maudie retired indignantly and with the grand air to safety in the loft. she did not blame the four-legs. he was young, innocent, and the victim of the impossible m.-w.-m., who was still the villain of her piece and had not altered for the better with the years. maybe he bounded less; but on the other hand age had brought with it cunning. when putnam's only gentleman had brought her a saucer of milk the m.-w.-m. would approach with a great air of gallantry and high breeding, and deliberately thrusting his great foot into the saucer, would upset it. that was what the m.-w.-m. thought a joke. apart from maudie the yard was deserted now. the horses moved restlessly in their loose-boxes, but there was no bustle of shirt-sleeved urchins with buckets and pitchforks mucking them out. for it was sunday morning, and the lads were elsewhere. arrayed on the long-backed roofs the fan-tails sidled, cooed, and blinked in the sun. in a sycamore in the paddock close a hedge-sparrow raised its thin sweet song, and the celandine lifted a pale and fragile face under the beeches on the hillside. hope was everywhere except in maudie's heart, for february was already on the wane. the back door of the house opened, and mrs. woodburn, grayer than of old, stately and aproned, stood in it with a corn-measure in her hand, and tossed showers of golden grain for the fan-tails who came fluttering to her call. albert, busy on his chin with a shaving brush, peeped surreptitiously round the door of the saddle-room, and seeing ma opposite withdrew swiftly; but he kept the door ajar as though awaiting something he was determined not to miss. mrs. woodburn retired indoors, and a few minutes later there came the noisy clacking of a horse and cart entering the cobbled yard. instantly albert was all alert. he flung a towel about his neck and looked out. an ostler from lewes, known familiarly as cherry, had pulled up a dog-cart opposite the pump. the old horse stretched his neck, shook his collar from his sweating shoulders, and, breathing on the water in the trough, drank delicately. mr. silver descended from the cart. he marked the fair lad in the door of the saddle-room and greeted him in his large and leisurely way: "good morning, albert," he said. "morning, sir." "where are the other lads?" "where they ought to be, sir. in the lads' barn, waiting for miss boy." "and why aren't you there?" asked the young man, amused. albert, in fact, spent all his spare time of late shaving. indeed, he was in the habit of informing those he called his colleagues that unless he shaved three times a day he wasn't 'ardly decent. "i got to keep at it, sir," he confided now to mr. silver. "else i gets it from miss boy." "what d'you get from her?" asked the young man blandly. "a razor?" old cherry chuckled. "'e larders his chin and then scrapes the soap off," he said. "that amooses albert, that does." the insult left the lad cold; but that was less because the insult was a feeble one than because his mind was elsewhere. his eyes and whole attention were on the back of the departing toff. there was something fascinating to albert about that back this morning. he followed the young man with the interest and the undisguised admiration of a paris gamin watching an aristocrat go to the guillotine. as the long back disappeared round a corner, the lad turned to cherry and winked. "guts," he said. the ostler led the old horse with dripping muzzle away from the water-trough. the expression on his face seemed to suggest that the other was a vulgar fellow. "did he talk?" asked albert. "talk!" said cherry ironically. "to me? likely, ain't it? he talked all right. only he never let on." albert had picked up his towel, and was scrubbing away at his chin. "plucky little feller," he said. "you'd never know." "he takes his gruel all right," admitted the other surlily, unharnessing. "yes, we've learned him his lesson since he's been at putnam's," reflected albert. "'ow long's he been training here then?" asked cherry grudgingly, as he coiled the traces. "five year i've had him now," answered albert. "he come to me the spring afore four-pound-the-second was foaled." cherry led the old horse into the stable and put him into an empty stall. "---- shame i call it," he said. "a nice feller like that." albert watched him with folded arms. "i would, too," he said, "only it's sunday, and mar might hear." cherry smirked. "why ain't you at bible class then?" he asked grimly. the bible class at putnam's was a standing joke along the south downs from arunvale to beachy head. albert swaggered. "i'm not takin' it this morning," he said. "i'm givin 'em a serees of addresses on the 'igher life when the jumpin' season's over." the little ostler looked at his watch. "you'd better step it," he said, "you and your hired life. it's past eleben and the bells have stopped. if you ain't there before her, you'll get the stick, you will." albert moved slowly up the gangway behind the loose-boxes, unheeding the other's taunts. "i reck'n they've took a couple o' million off of him since christmas," he said, returning to the subject which he could not leave. "and i got to get it back for him." "indeed?" said cherry ironically. "'ow? tellin' lies and gettin' paid for 'em?" albert opened the door of a loose-box and pointed dramatically. cherry stared at the brown horse within. albert whistled softly and the horse turned his long neck and gazed at them with wise and quizzical eye. "ain't he a big un?" cried cherry, the note of irony dropping from his voice in spite of himself. billy bluff, who had been curled under the manger, came across the loose-box and sniffed the little ostler friendly. "'ullo, billy!" said the old man. "do you sleep in here?" "won't sleep nowhere else," answered albert. "and what's more, four pound won't sleep unless his pal's with him. they've always had this loose-box atween 'em from the start. miss boy used to sleep in here, too, when he was a foal." the youth dropped his swank, and became confidential and keen. "wonderful close friends, them two, you wouldn't believe. four pound had a cracked heel last autumn, and i used to bandage him at nights. he didn't like the bandages, and every night after i'd rugged him up and left him, billy'd take and unwind the lot. didn't you, billy?" he shut the door. "who's goin' to ride him?" asked cherry. "me or monkey," said albert. "'taint settled yet. will be this morning." he led along toward the saddle-room. "you got your work cut if you're goin' to beat _her_," said cherry. "no fear!" answered albert. "got the sunday paper? what are they layin'?" "sevens the favourite," replied the old ostler, producing it. "the rest any price." the youth glanced at the betting news. "sevens it is," he said. "price shortening. i suppose the stable's got all the money they want on her, and so they don't bother to tell no more lies." albert opened the saddle-room door. cherry passed in. the lad followed, and locked the door behind him. "now don't mind me," he said. "i'm busy." chapter xxx the bible class in the old days, when mat had been in his prime, there had not seldom been as many as a hundred horses on occasion billeted in and around putnam's. at that time mat had done a bit of dealing in addition to his training, and had kept hunters as well as 'chasers. the lads' barn, as it was called, was at the back of the old hunter-stables, somewhat removed from the yard, and opening on to the paddock close. it was big, black, with red-tiled roof, raftered, and ideal for its purpose; for it served as the lads' club, instituted by mrs. woodburn when first she came to live at putnam's. here in winter they had singsongs, dances, and entertainments; and in the summer they played games, read, and held their committee meetings. at one end was a mattress, a wooden horse, parallel bars and rings, and the ordinary appurtenances of a boys' club; at the other a raised platform, and on it a blackboard and harmonium. now some twenty lads were gathered in the barn, waiting for miss woodburn to take the bible class. to-day the girl for once was late. and the lads were glad. they had plenty to talk about this morning, and they welcomed an opportunity for misconduct at this time all the more because it rarely offered. there was a delicious relish about wrongdoing in the one hour a week devoted to seeking good and ensuing it. some of them were smoking, some playing cards. both acts were forbidden--the latter absolutely, the former in the main; for no lad under seventeen years was allowed to smoke in the putnam stable. the consequence was that the lads over the age limit bought and owned the cigarettes, and with fine capitalist instinct let them out to the youngsters at a farthing the puff. albert when under age had instituted the puff, and when over it had organized the tariff. by the puff-a-farthing method the cigarettes could not be confiscated, for they belonged only to those who had a prescriptive right to them, while the puffers, with a little cunning, were able to enjoy illicit smokes. jerry, the economist with the corrugated brow, and stanley the stupid, both with cigarettes in their mouths, were standing apart in lofty isolation, as befitted the fathers of the flock. a cherub-faced urchin, playing cards, and deep in his play, was humming abstractedly the chorus of a catchy song. stanley nudged his pal, strolled up behind the youth, and boxed his ears. the whistler rose and rubbed his ear, aggrieved. "what's that for?" he asked. stanley scowled down at him. "whistlin' that at putnam's o' sunday." "what were i whistlin' then?" asked the aggrieved urchin. "mocassin song," said the haughty stan. "now no more of it!" "i didn't know i were whistlin' it," replied the youth. "he whistles it in his dreams, alf does," explained a little pal. "it's got to his head." "he won't 'ave no 'ead to dream with if he mocassins us," retorted stan. the wrong righted, and order restored, stanley stalked majestically back to his pal with a wink. "where's albert then?" asked jerry. "he said he wasn't comin'." "he's been sayin' that every sunday these ten year past," answered jerry with the insolence of the ancient habitué. "ere, one o' you kids, fetch me a bit o' chalk. i 'ate to see you idlin' your time away, gamblin' and dicin', like the profligate son when he broke the bank at monte carlo." he mounted the platform. "while ginger's gettin' the chalk i'll ask you a question or two to testify your general knowledge." he took the cigarette out of his mouth, and wriggled his chin above his high collar. "who done mr. silver down?" he asked pontifically. there was a moment's silence. then a hand went up. "chukkers," piped the cherub-faced urchin. there was a jeer from the other lads, and even the proud stanley deigned to smile. "alf's got chukkers on the crumpet," jerry said sardonically. "if there was a nearthquake and they ask alf who done it, he'd say chukkers." "well, he's up to all sorts," retorted the wise cherub. jerry repeated his original question. "who done mr. silver down?" "jews," ventured a sporting youth. this answer met with more approval. "that's more like," said jerry. "now 'ow can he get back on 'em?" "bash 'em," suggested the sportsman, encouraged by his previous success. "he's bigger nor them, i'll lay." the lecturer on the platform lifted a protesting hand. "you mustn't bash 'em, boy jackson," he said. "tain't accordin' to religion--at least not the religion what i'm here to teach you. no," said the preacher of righteousness, "you mustn't bash 'em. that'd never do." "what then?" piped the cherub. "you must lay for him," answered the moralist. alf was on his feet in a trice. "at the canal turn," he chirped. "bump him off and then jump on the flat of his face." the moralist greeted the suggestion with warm approval. "one up to alfie!" he cried. "he'll make a jockey and a christian yet, alf will." ginger handed up a piece of chalk. jerry hushed his audience. "quiet now, _if_ you please," said he. he took the chalk and wrote up in sprawling letters on the board: _bible class._ _first question. what price four-pound-the-second, grand national?_ instantly there was a hub-bub, from which the words "hundred to one" came with insistent force. "hundred to one," said the lecturer. "thank you, genelmen." he proceeded to write. _second question. any takers?_ "yus," said the lofty stanley. "i'll do it in dollars--twice over." "thank _you_," said the scribe. _third question. what price mocassin?_ the name was received with groans. "sevens--if chukkers rides," cried the cherub. "tens if he don't." the answer was received with jeers. "chukkers _not_ ride!" "o' course he'll ride!" "he always has ridden her--here and in the states and in australia!" stanley finally deigned to descend from his heights to crush the youth. "they got a quarter of a million on god almighty's mustang, the three j's 'ave. think they'd trust anyone up only one of their fat selves? now then!" in the middle of the storm monkey brand, who had been waiting for the girl in the door, looked in. he saw the writing on the board and crossed the barn. monkey himself could neither read nor write, but he was well aware that anything written by the lads should be rubbed out at once. "who wrote this?" he asked. jerry, who on the other's entrance had descended swiftly from the platform, repeated the question. "who wrote this?" he asked authoritatively. "can't you 'ear mr. brand?" "albert, i reck'n," answered stanley, taking his cue from his pal. the door opened, and a girl stood on the threshold. "who said albert?" she asked. the lads turned. the young lady wore a long drab coat and had a fair pig-tail. she was like boy woodburn and yet unlike her: the figure much the same, the colouring identical. but if it was boy, the years had coarsened her and altered the expression in her eyes not for the better. with swift, decisive steps she made for the platform amid the suppressed giggles of the lads. jerry made way for her at once. the girl proceeded to rub out with the duster all the questions but the first. then she turned over the leaves of a bible, wetting her thumb for that purpose, seized the pointer, and took her stand by the blackboard. "the first question that arises h'out of h'our lesson to-day," she began quietly, "is this 'ere--'_what price four-pound-the-second?_' now think afore you answers, there's good little fellers." it was jerry who held up his hand. the girl pointed at him. "you there, jerry me boy." "depends on who rides him, mrs. chukkers," he said. there was a deadly silence. in it the girl let the handle of the pointer fall with the noise of a grounded rifle. "mrs. who?" she asked, fatally quiet. "chukkers, ma'am," answered the courteous jerry. "go on then," sneered the girl. "chukkers ain't married. nobody won't 'ave him." jerry had risen. "no, ma'am. that he ain't," said the polished little gentleman. "you're his mother--from sacramento. anyone could see that by the likeness. you're the spit of each other, if i might make so bold. and i'm sure," said the orator, "speakin' on be'alf of all present, meself included, we feel honoured by the presence in our umble midst of the mother of the famous 'orseman--chukkers childers." in the silence the speaker resumed his seat. the lady addressed was too busy to reply. she was taking off her drab coat, her picture hat, and her pig-tail, and she was spitting in her hands. soaping them together, she came to the edge of the platform. "shall i come down and give it you?" she asked. "or will you come up and fetch it?" "neever, thank you," said jerry, puffing imperturbably. albert jumped down. "you're for it, jerry," said stanley, glad it was his friend's turn this time. "not me," jerry replied. "no scrappin' sunday. miss boy's orders." albert, very white, was sparring all round his adversary's head. "chukkered me, did ye?" he said. "put 'em up then, or i'll spoil ye." the offence was the unforgiveable in the putnam stable, and the watching lads had every hope of a battle royal when a calm, deep voice stilled the storm. "that'll do," it said. the real boy entered. the dark blue of her dress showed off her fair colouring and hair. she was nearly twenty-one now and spiritually a woman, if she still retained the slight, sword-like figure of her girlhood days. her face was graver than of old and more quiet. the touch of almost aggressive resolution and defiance it once possessed had shaded off into something stiller and more impressive. there was less show of strength and more evidence of it. her roots were deeper, and she was therefore less moved by passing winds. something of her mother's calm had invaded her. she got her way just as of old, but she no longer had to battle for it now as then. or if she had to battle, the fight was invisible, and the victory fought and won in the unseen deeps of her being. "who's been smoking here?" the girl asked immediately on entering the barn. "me, miss," said jerry. monkey brand was fond of affirming that on the whole the lads told the truth to miss boy. but whether it was the girl's personality or her horsemanship that accounted for this departure from established rule it was hard to surmise. "you might leave that to jaggers's lads," said the girl. "surely we might keep this one hour in the week clean." mr. haggard had once said that the girl was a greek. he might have added--a greek with an evangelical tendency. for this sunday morning hour was no perfunctory exercise for her. it was a reality, looming always larger with the years, and on horseback, in the train, at stables, was perpetually recurring to the girl throughout the week. in the struggle between her father and her mother in her blood, the mother was winning the ascendancy. "i thought the rule was we might smoke if you was late, miss," said jerry, in the subdued voice he always adopted when speaking to his young mistress. "it's not the rule, jerry," the girl replied quietly, "as you're perfectly well aware. and even if it was the rule it would be bad manners. alfred, give me those cards." "what cards, miss?" "the cards you were playing with when i came in." the cherub produced a dingy pack. "they're only picture cards, miss," he said. the girl's gray eyes seemed to engulf the lad, friendly if a little stern. "have you been gambling?" she asked. "no, miss," with obvious truthfulness. "he's got nothin' to gamble with," jeered the brutal stanley. "his mother takes it all." the girl mounted swiftly on to the platform, saw the writing on the blackboard, and swept it away with a duster. then she turned to her little congregation, feeling their temper with sure and sensitive spirit. they were out of hand, and it was because she had been late through no fault of her own. the kitchenmaid had fainted, and boy had, of course, been sent for. there was one hope of steadying them. "we'll start with a hymn," she said, taking her seat at the harmonium. "get your hymn-books. what hymn shall we have? alfred, it's your turn, i think." alfred, after some hesitation, gave _the day thou gavest lord is ended_, amid the jealous murmurs of his friend. "that's a nevenin nymn, fat-'ead," cried jerry in a loud whisper. "i don't care if it is," answered alf stoutly. "it's nice." "'e likes it because it makes him cry," jeered stanley. the girl started to play, her back to the congregation. they sang two verses with round mouths, jerry and stanley shouting against each other aggressively and wagging their heads. the third verse went less well. there were interruptions. the voices grew ragged. jerry spoke; somebody whistled; and the singing ran away into giggles. boy swung round. the cause of the merriment was sufficiently obvious. a lop-eared belgian rabbit was hopping across the floor, entirely self-complacent and smug. as the sound of singing, which had covered him like a garment, died away in smothered titters, he sat up on his hind-legs and stared about him. the girl descended from the platform, caught the rabbit by the ears and suspended him. tame as a cow, he made no resistance. "who's is this hare?" she asked. "mrs. woodburn's, miss," answered jerry brightly. "that's abe lincoln. queen victoria's his wife. they lives together in a nutch." "how did he come in?" "through the window," said the muffled voice of albert from the back. "flow'd." the rabbit, which had been hanging placidly suspended, was now seized with spasms and began to twitch and contort violently. the reason was not far to seek. a red-eyed ferret, tied by a string to the foot of a chair, was making strenuous efforts to get at him. "who's is that ferret?" asked boy. "that genelman's," replied the voice from the back. the girl looked up and saw silver standing in the door. coldly she dismissed the class. "that'll do," she said. "you can all go now." the lads shuffled away, rejoicing. "there'll be no sing-song this evening," continued their cruel mistress. "jerry, put that rabbit back in the hutch you took it from. stanley, i don't want to see that ferret of yours at bible class again." the lads trooped out, injured and innocent. albert was left in his shirt-sleeves and without a collar. "what is it?" asked the girl. "can i 'ave me things, miss?" his face was stiff and impenetrable. she handed him the long drab coat on the platform. "and me 'at, miss." "is this yours?" "yes, miss." she passed him the picture-hat. albert received it with immobile face. "and me pig-tail." "you don't deserve it," said boy. silver approached. "put 'em on, will you?" he said. albert obeyed without demur and without a symptom of emotion. in a moment he had become a coarse caricature of his young mistress, ludicrously alike and yet worlds away. "not so bad," commented the young man. "you could act, albert?" "yes, sir," said albert, in whom diffidence was not a defect. the lad made for the door in his hat and pig-tail, and as though to manifest his quality gave a little coquettish flirt to the skirt of his coat as he went out. "you'll be wanted this morning, albert, you and brand," the girl called after him. "yes, miss." "mare's back. twelve-thirty. make-way-there and lollypop, trial horses. stanley and jerry know. silvertail for me." "yes, miss." he closed the door behind him. silver came toward the girl slowly and took her hand. "how are you, boy?" he asked. the girl laid her firm, cool little hand lightly on his and let it rest there. her eyes were soft in his, still and steady. she felt herself surrounded by his love as by a cloud, and dwelt in it with quiet enjoyment and content. it was a while before she answered. "i'm all right," she said. "you're through, aren't you?" "yes; i'm free." "that's right," she said. "the rest doesn't matter." together they went out into the sunshine of the paddock close. he stood a moment, filling his chest, and looking up toward the green wall of the downs. "let's go slow," he said. she accommodated herself to his stroll. "by jove," he said slowly. "it _is_ a delight to get down here again. and i don't feel anything's changed really." "nor has it _really_," replied the girl. chapter xxxi god almighty's mustang jim silver turned out of the yard into the office. as the young man entered, the old trainer sat dumped in his chair, rosy, bald, with innocent blue eyes, like a baby without a bib, waiting for its bottle. his round head was deeper between his shoulders than of old, and his pink face was strained and solicitous. some men said he was over eighty now. "well, sir," he wheezed, "i see you take it good and game." "no good crying over spilt milk," replied silver. the old trainer raised his hand as he settled in his seat. "don't tell me," he said. "it's them there li'bilities. i was always agin 'em. said so to boy four year back. 'cash in 'and's one thing,' i says. 'and li'bilities is another and totally different.'" he lifted a keen blue eye. "i understand from what mr. haggard tell me, you could ha' dodged 'em out o' some of it--only you was too straight." he held up a disapproving finger. "that's just where you done wrong, mr. silver. no good ever come o' bein' _too_ straight, as i often says to mar. you're only askin' for trouble--same as the psalmist says. and now you got to pay for it." "well, they're all satisfied now," laughed silver. "and so am i." "i should think they was," snorted mat woodburn. "i see 'em settin' round, swellin' and swellin', and rubbin' their fat paunches. think they'll keep a nag among the lot of 'em! not so much as a broken-down towel-hoss." silver stared out of the window. "i shall have to sell the horses," he said. the old man banged the table. "never!" he cried. "they've took a slice off o' you, and now you must take a bit off o' them. that mayn't be religion, but it's _right_ all right!" he rose and, kicking off his slippers, padded to the door and looked out. then he peeped out into the forsaken yard and half drew the curtain. silver, who loved the old man most when he was most mysterious, watched him with kind eyes that laughed. "i don't bet, mr. silver, as you know," began the other huskily, "except when it's a cert., because it's against _her_ principles." he looked round him and dropped his voice. "but i took a thousand to ten about fo'-pound-the-second at gatwick on saraday. told mar, too. and she never said no. look to me like a sign like." he blinked up at the young man. "you ain't clean'd out, sir, are you--not mopped up with the sponge?" he asked anxiously. "there'll be a few thousands left when it's finished, i guess," replied the other. the old man lifted on his stockinged toes. "put a thousand on," he whispered. "i'll do it for ye, so there's no talk. if he wins, thar's a hundred thousand back. if he don't, well, it's gone down the sink and h'up the spout same as its fathers afore it." the young man brimmed with quiet mirth. "will he win?" he asked. old mat swung his nose from side to side across his face in a way styled by those who knew him trunk-slinging. "he's up against something mighty big," said jim, nodding at the wall. on it was pinned a great coloured double-page picture from _the sporting and dramatic_ of the famous american mare mocassin. beside it were various cuttings from daily papers, recounting the romantic history of the popular favourite, and beneath the picture were three lines from the mocassin song-- _made in the mould, of old iroquois bold, mocassin, the queen of kentucky_. ikey indeed had found his horse at last; and she was american--old kentucky to the core. it was said that chukkers had discovered her on one of his trips home. certainly he had taken her across to australia, where she had launched on her career of unbroken triumph, carrying the star-spangled jacket to victory in every race in which she ran. then he had brought her home to england, her reputation already made, and growing hugely all the while, suddenly to overwhelm the world, when she crowned her victories on three continents by winning the grand national at liverpool--only to be disqualified for crossing amid one of the stormiest scenes in racing history. after that mocassin ceased to be a mare. she became a talisman, an oriflamme, a consecrated symbol. she was american--youthful, hopeful, not to be put upon by the old country, quietly resolute to have her rights. for the past twelve months indeed the great republic of the west had fixed her two hundred million eyes upon the star-spangled jacket across the sea in a stare so set as to be almost terrifying. true that for a quarter of a century now her sons had followed that jacket with sporadic interest. but since the affair at liverpool, that interest had become concentrated, passionate, intense. ikey with all his faults was an admirable citizen, beloved in his own country and not without cause, as universities and public bodies innumerable could testify. for twenty-five years it had been known that he had been trying for a goal. at last he had won it--and then john bull!... ya-as.... american horse--american owner--american jockey! sure.... brother jonathon turned in his lips. he did not blame john bull; he was not angry or resentful. but he was determined and above all ironical. then, when feeling was at its highest, the mocassin song had suddenly taken america by storm. sung first in the empire theatre on the broadway by abe gideon, the bark-blocks comedian, ten days after the mare's victory and defeat, it had raged through the land like a prairie fire. cattle-men on the mexican border sung it in the chaparral, and the lumber-camps by the great lakes echoed it at night. gramophones carried it up and down the continent from oyster bay to vancouver, and from frisco to new orleans. every street-boy whistled it, every organ ground it out. it hummed in the heads of senators in congress, and teased saints upon their knees. it carried the name and fame of mocassin to thousands of pious homes in which horses and racing had been anathema in the past, so that ministers from salem and quaker ladies from philadelphia could tell you over tea cups _sotto voce_ something of the romantic story of the mare from the cumberland. and that was not all. the song, raging through the land like a bush-fire, dying down here only to burst out in fresh vehemence elsewhere, leapt even oceans in its tempestuous course. the english sang it in their music-halls with fatuous self-complacency. indeed they, too, went mocassin-mad, and the mare who had once already humbled the old country in the dust, and would again, became the idol of the british empire. in shop-windows, on boardings, stamped on the packet of cigarettes you bought, the picture of the mare was met, until her keen mouse-head, her drooping quarters and great fore-hand, had been impressed on the mind of the english public as clearly as the features of lord kitchener. jonathon watched his brother across the atlantic with cynical amusement. honest john bull, now that he had something up against him that could beat his best, what did he do? admit defeat? not john! if the mare won in the coming struggle he claimed her as his own with tears of unctuous joy. if she was beaten--well, what else did you expect? america's feeling in the matter was summed up in the famous cartoon that appeared at christmas in _life_, where jonathon was seen shaking hands with john bull, the mare in the background, and saying: "i'll believe in you, john, but i'll watch you all the same." * * * * * "that's god almighty's mustang, chukkers up," said old mat. "the three j's think they done it this time. and to read the papers you'd guess they was right. she's a good mare, too--i will say that for her; quick as a kitten and the heart of a lion. you see her last year yourself at aintree, sir!" "i did," replied the young man, with deep enthusiasm. "wonderful! she didn't gallop and jump; she flowed and she flew." "that's it, sir," agreed the other. "won all the way. only chukkers must be a bit too clever o' course, and let her down by the dirty." the old man pursed his lips and nodded confidentially. "only one thing. my little fo'-pound's the daddy o' her." he sat down and began to draw on his elastic-sided boots with groans. "who's going to ride him?" asked silver. "that's where it is, sir," panted the old man. "who _is_ goin' to ride him. there's monkey brand down on his knees to me for the mount; and he don't go so bad with monkey brand--when he's that way inclined. but i don't know what to say." his efforts successfully ended, he lifted a round and crimson face. "see where it is, mr. silver; monkey brand's forty-five, and his ridin' days are pretty nigh over. he reckons he can just about win on fo'-pound and then retire. that's his notion. and ye see it ain't only that, but there's chukkers and the little bit o' bitterness. see it's been goin' on twenty year and it's all square now. chukkers broke monkey's pelvis for him boomerang's year, and monkey mixed up chukkers's inside cannibal's national. and there it's stood ever since. and monkey wants to get one up afore he takes off his jacket for good." silver was looking into the fire. "if monkey brand don't ride, what's the alternative?" he asked. "only one," replied the trainer. "albert. he's a honest hoss is fo'-pound-the-second, only that fussy as to who he has about him. that's the way with bottle-fed uns. they gets spoiled and gives 'emselves airs. albert's his lad, and monkey's been about him since he was a foal. sometimes he'll work for one, and sometimes for the other; and sometimes he won't for eether. one thing certain, he won't stir for no one else--only _her_, o' course. no muckin' about with _her_. it's just _click!_ and away." "pity she can't ride," said silver. "if she could ride i'd back him till all was blue," replied the old man. "no proposition in a hoss's skin that ever come out of yankee-doodle-land could see the way he'd go." "who rode him at lingfield?" asked jim. just after christmas mat had put the young horse into a two-mile steeplechase to give him a gallop in public. "albert," answered the old man. "rode him and rode him well. it was just touch and go through. would he or wouldn't he? when he was monkeyin' at the post i tell you i sweat, sir. see he'd never faced the starter afore. and i thought suppose he's the sort that'll do a good trial and chuck it when the money's on. he got well left at the post; but when he did get goin' he ran a great horse. it was heavy goin', and he fair revelled in it. 'reg'lar mudlark,' the papers called him. half-way round he'd caught his horses and went through 'em like a knife through butter, and he could ha' left 'em smilin'. but that lad, albert, he's got something better'n a sheep's head on his neck. took to his whip and flogg'd his boot a caution. oh, dear me!--fair sat down to it. all over the place, arms and legs, and such a face on him! and little fo'-pound he winks to 'isself and rolls 'ome at the top of his form just anyhow. 'alf a length the judges gave it, and a punishin' finish the papers called it. jaggers didn't see it, and chukkers wasn't ridin'. so there was nobody to tell no tales; an' they're puttin' him in at ten stone." "and the mare's got twelve-seven," said the young man meditatively. "twelve-three," said the trainer. "and she'll carry it, too. but i'll back my berserk against their iroquois any time o' day this side o' 'appy alleloojah land." the hacks were being led out into the yard with a pleasant clatter of feet, and boy was already mounted. "come and see for yourself," panted the old man. "i'm goin' to send him along to-day. see whether he can reelly get four mile without a fuss. i was only waitin' till you come." chapter xxxii the fat man emerges the old man, the young man, and the girl rode out of the yard into the paddock close. "where's billy bluff?" asked silver. he was on heart of oak, she high above him, perched like a bird on tall old silvertail, who looked like a spinster and was one. almost you expected her to look at you over spectacles and make an acrid comment on men or things. "in front with his friend," replied boy. "are you going to pace him?" asked jim. "i believe so," replied the girl casually. "dad's going to send him the full course to-day. jerry and i are to take him over the fences the first time round. and then stanley's to bring him along the flat the last two miles." they travelled up the public path past the church amid the sycamores. mat on his fast-walking cob rode in front, kicking his legs. boy and jim followed more soberly. she rode a little behind him that she might see his profile. suddenly he reined back and met her face, his own gleaming with laughter. at such moments he looked absurdly young. "i say, boy!" he began, dropping his voice. she snatched her eyes from his face, and then peeped at him warily. "what?" he drew up beside her. "i'm not a gentleman any more." she looked straight before her. her fine lips were firm and resisting, but about her eyes the light stole and rippled deliciously. "i'm not sure," she said, half to herself. he pressed up alongside her, lifting his face. "i'm not!" he cried. "i'm not!" eager as a boy in his protestations. "you can't chuck that up at me any more." boy refused to face him or to be convinced. "i don't," she said. "i don't believe in class. it's the man that matters." "hear, hear," he cried. "it's the man--not the money. i see it now. i haven't got tuppence to my name." she turned her eyes down on him, brushing aside his coquetry with the sweep of her steady gaze. "d'you mind?" she asked in her direct and simple way as they emerged on to the open downs. he sobered to her mood. "only in this way," he answered, "that it was my father's show, and i don't like to have let it down." the girl deliberated. "i don't see that you could have helped it," she said after a pause. "no, _i_ couldn't," he admitted. "_he_ could have. it was a one man show. and when the one man went it was bound to go in time. however, i've let nobody down but myself. and i don't care so much about the stuff." "no," she said. "you don't want all that. nobody does; and it's not good for you." preacher joe had bobbed up suddenly in his fair grand-daughter, as he did not seldom. she was deliciously unaware of the old man's presence at her side; but jim silver welcomed him as a familiar with lurking laughter. "thank you, sir," he said, and touched his hat. then he covered his daring swiftly. "except for the horses i wouldn't cuc-care a hang," he said loudly. "they were the only things mum-money gave me." gravely she peeped at him again. "shall you sell the lot?" "i shall sell the 'chasers," he answered. "all but one," she corrected. "which one?" she nodded up the hill. "the one you share with me." he laughed his resounding laughter. "i'll sell you my share," he said. "i won't buy," she answered firmly. "very well. then i'll sell to jaggers." boy tapped silvertail with such an increase of emphasis that the old mare snatched resentfully at her bit. "you won't," she cried with the old fierce, girlish note in her voice which so delighted him. "_after_ he's won the national," continued the young man calmly. "we'll see--_after_," replied boy. they passed out of the paddock close on to the downs. "how's he coming on?" asked jim. "monkey brand says he's streets better than cannibal," replied the girl. "we've never had anything to touch him in my time." this was one of few subjects on which the girl sometimes would flow. "of course he's young for a national horse--only five, and she's in her prime. but he's got the head of an old horse on the body of a young one. nothing flurries him--once you can get him going." "and the trouble is there's only one person who can get him going," mused the young man. "i don't know about that," she answered tartly. "he's only run the once in public. and that time he ran rings round his field. albert was riding--not me." they were nearing the brow. a man was labouring up the hill in front of them. old mat pulled up, and the pair jogged up alongside him. the trainer nodded quietly at the heavy figure in front. "he's out," he wheezed. "on to it pretty quick, too. heard we're goin' to gallop fo'-pound and he's come to see what he can see." the man drew to one side to let the riders pass. it was joses; and he had changed. there was less of the sow and more of the wolf about him than of old. his shaggy whiskers were touched with gray, and there was something hard and fierce about his face. the old inflamed and flabby look had been hammered out of him in the hard school from which he had just emerged. he eyed the riders as they passed. boy's grave eyes became graver and more self-contained. at once she was alert and had locked all her doors. in that firm, courageous face of hers there was no curiosity, no unkindness, and least of all no fear. the young man glancing at her thought he had never seen such strength manifest in any face; and it was not the strength that is based on hardness, for she was paler than her wont. then she spoke. her voice, deep as a bell and very quiet, surprised him in the silence. he had not expected it, and yet somehow it seemed to him beautifully appropriate. "good morning, mr. joses," said the voice, and that was all; but it wrought a miracle. "yes," growled the man in the wayside, "it wasn't you: it was silver." the young man's face flashed white. he pulled up instantaneously. "what's that?" he said. boy, riding on, called sharply over her shoulder: "come on, mr. silver!" reluctant as a dog to leave an enemy, the young man obeyed, and caught up the other two. "little bit o' bitter," muttered the old man. he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "i got him five year for himself," he went on querulously. "and now he ain't satisfied. no pleasin' some folk." chapter xxxiii the gallop on the mare's back a little group was awaiting the party. there was monkey brand, albert, and a sheeted horse, patrolling lazily up and down; while billy bluff lay on the ground hard by and gnawed his paw. ever since, years back, joses had struck the paw with a stone billy had bestowed a quite unfair amount of attention on it, spending all his spare time doctoring his favourite. there was nothing whatever the matter with it, but if he continued his attentions long enough there might be some day, and he would then be rewarded for his patient labours by having a real injury to mend. it was somewhat misty up there on the hill, though clear above; the sea was wrapt in a white blanket, and the coastguard station at the gap was invisible. a little remote from the others in body and spirit, jerry, deep in philosophic doubt, was walking lollypop up and down--lollypop, now a sage and rather superior veteran of seven; while on a mound hard by was stanley on the pretty make-way-there. the course was two miles round, running along the top of the hill over fences that looked stark and formidable in the gray. "strip him," grunted old mat. albert and monkey brand went swiftly to work. a great brown horse, gaunt and ugly as a mountain-goat, emerged. his legs were like palings; his ears long and wide apart, and there was something immensely masculine about him. he looked, with his great plain head, the embodiment of work and character: a piece of old furniture designed for use and not for ornament, massive, many-cornered, and shining from centuries of work and wear. that lean head of his, hollow above the eyes, and with a pendent upper lip, was so ugly as to be almost laughable; and his lazy and luminous eye looked out on the world with a drolling, almost satirical, air, as much as to say: "it's all a great bore, but it might well be worse." "a thundering great hoss," muttered old mat. "i don't know as ever i see his equal for power. cannibal stood as high, but he hadn't the girth on him. and cannibal was a man-eatin' mule, he was. savage you soon as look at you. i never went into his loose-box without a pitchfork. i seen him pull his jockey off by the toe of his boot afore now. but him!--he's a christian. a child could go in to him and climb on to his back by way of his hind-leg. look at them 'ocks," he continued in the low, musing voice of the mystic. "lift you over a house. and a head on him like a pippopotamus." jim silver's eyes followed the line of the horse's quarters. "he's come on a lot since christmas," he remarked. "he's less ragged than he was." "you could hang your hat on him yet, though," said the old man. "walk him round, brand." the little jockey, now in the saddle, obeyed. four-pound-the-second shook his head and, blowing his nose, strode round with that wonderful swing from the hocks which made mr. haggard once say that the horse walked like a highland regiment marching to the pipes. "he's on c springs," said mat, watching critically. "see where he puts his hind-feet--nigh a foot in front of the marks of his fore; and i don't know as i knows a knowin'er hoss. look at that head-piece. he's all the while a-thinkin', that hoss is. that's the way he's bred. if they're much with human beings they picks up our tricks, same as dogs. he'd take to drink, he would, only he ain't got the cash." boy had stripped off her long riding-coat and sat on the tall silvertail, a slight figure in breeches and boots, her white shirt fluttering in the wind, her face calm and resolute. mat kicked his pony forward. "four-mile spin and let him spread himself," he grunted. "i want to see him move to-day. and you, jerry, ride that lollypop out. he'll save himself if you'll let him. first time round over fences, boy. then you and jerry'll pull out and stanley'll pick up the running and take him round again over the flat. now!" boy and jerry set their horses going quietly. the girl's head was on her shoulder, watching if the horse she was to pace was coming along. he was thinking about it. monkey brand, handling him with the wonderful tact of a nurse with a delicate child, gathered the great horse quietly, clicking at him. four-pound-the-second broke into a reluctant canter. billy bluff began to romp and bark. the young horse had found the excuse he sought, swung away from his leader, and began to buck round in a circle, propping and plunging. "put the dog on the lead, albert," ordered the girl, trotting back. she and jerry tried again, cantering past the rebel, calling and coaxing. four-pound-the-second went marching round in a circle, champing at his bit, thrashing with his tail, and every now and then flinging a make-believe buck, as much as to say: "i could throw you if i would, but i won't, because i like you too much." monkey brand, wise and patient, humoured him. "let him take his time," called boy. "_steady, lad, steady!_" old mat watched grimly. "i thought as much," he muttered. "he ain't 'alf a little rogue. 'tain't temper, eether. he's the temper of a h'angel and the constitootion of a h'ox. it's that he just won't. for all the world like a great spoilt boy. he's _mischeevous_. he wants to give trouble because that amooses him. i've known him sulk in his gallop afore now because billy bluff wasn't up here to watch him. where it is to-day he wants _her_ to ride him. he don't care about nobody else when _she's_ about." boy had ridden back to the young horse. "steady him," she said quietly. "get up alongside him, jerry. now try and get him off the mark with me. all together. now!" the manoeuvre failed. lollypop and silvertail got well away, but the young horse merely pawed the air. monkey brand's face was set. "give me that whip, albert," he said between his teeth. "no," said the girl. "that's no good." old mat held up his hand. "he ain't for it," he said masterfully. "get off him, brand." the little jockey glanced at his master, saw he meant business, and slipped off the great horse, chagrin in every line of his face. albert, unbidden, had already gathered the reins in his hand and was preparing to mount. "no," said boy authoritatively. "albert, take silvertail." she slipped off the tall old mare. her father nodded approval. "she's right," he muttered. "never do to try albert when brand has failed." "chuck me up, brand," said the girl. the little jockey turned. "yes, miss." the girl had broken the blow for him, and he tossed her into the saddle with a will. she sat up there on the great horse, ordering her reins with masterful delicacy. jim silver's eyes dwelt tenderly upon her face. he longed to dismount and kiss the girl's hand. but all he said in matter-of-fact voice was: "you've got a lot in front of you." "it's like a glacier," replied boy. "she could slide on that shoulder," commented old mat. "like napoleon on the pyramids." the young horse began to sidle and plunge. "right!" said boy. "stand clear!" the little jockey jumped aside, and mounted silvertail. four-pound-the-second gave a great bound. the girl rode him as a yacht rides the sea, swinging easily to his motion, and talking to him the while. he sprawled around with tiny bucks and little grunts of joy, brimming over with energy. then, as if by magic, he steadied down and began to walk round with that tremendous swing of his, blowing his nose, and playing with his bit. david had swept his hand across his harp and the dark spirit had been charmed away. old mat nodded and said to himself: "where it is, is there it is." nobody else spoke. boy, in her white shirt, her hair radiant against the dull heavens, began to feel at her horse's mouth. monkey brand and jerry watched her closely. "keep walking in front of me," called the girl sharply. "and move with me." both obeyed, eyeing the girl over their shoulders, and slowly gathering way. then she spoke to her horse; and he stole away, easy and quiet as a tide, boy leaning forward, the two pacing horses, one on either side, leading him by half a length. "yes," commented old mat, as he slung his glasses round and adjusted them. "you'd think a little child could ride him be the look of it." the three rose at the first fence all together, the white shirt sandwiched between the dark jackets. jim silver felt a thrill at his heart. that thunder of hoofs moved him to his deeps. "gallops very wide behind," he remarked casually. "that's berserk, that is," muttered the old man, adjusting his glasses. "chucks the mud about a treat, don't he?" billy bluff was straining on his lead, whimpering to be after his big friend, while albert leaned back against the wind, holding him. the horses had settled to their gallop, their steady, rhythmical stride only varied as they rose at their fences, spread themselves, slid earthward and went away again with a steady roar of hoofs. the three kept well together till they swung for home, then the white shirt began to bob up against the sky a second before the dark bodies of the other two showed. "tailin' 'em off," muttered old mat. "ain't 'alf tuckin' into it, four-pound ain't." then lollypop began to lag, and jerry's arm was going. "stopped him dead," said silver. "and he's a good little two-mile hoss, too," replied old mat. another moment and the white shirt came over the last fence, the brown horse soaring like some great eagle. silvertail, clinging gamely to her leader, brushed through the fence and pecked heavily on landing. monkey punished her savagely. "ain't in a very pretty temper, monkey ain't," muttered old mat, as the little jockey pulled aside and slipped off. "now make-way-there'll take it up." the brown horse came thundering by, steady and strong, his little jockey collected as himself, lying out over her horse's neck. "the fences don't trouble her much," said silver, his voice calm and heart beating. "see, she's that strong," wheezed old mat confidentially. "you wouldn't think it, but there's eight stun o' that gal good. it's her bone's so big." the brown horse had swept past them, going wide of the fences for the second time round. make-way-there, who had been dancing on his toes away on the left as he waited for his cue, chimed in as four-pound-the-second came up alongside him. he settled down to his stride at once and took the lead. the brown horse, entirely undisturbed by this new rival, held on his mighty way. the two horses swung round the curve, on the outside of the fences, four-pound-the-second on the inside berth and close to the quarters of his leader. the horses dropped into a dip, but for some reason the echo of their hoofs came reverberating back to the watchers in ever-growing roar. when they emerged from the hollow and raced up the opposite slope they were still together. then they made for home. old mat had edged up alongside silver. "when he lays down to it, belly all along the ground!" he whispered, in the ecstasy of a connoisseur enjoying a masterpiece. "whew!--can't he streak!" cried albert. then a silence fell upon the watchers like a cloud. their hearts were full, their spirits fluttering against the bars of their prison-house. the horses dropped into a dip again, and only the heads and shoulders of the riders were seen surging forward, borne on the crest of a roaring avalanche of sound. as they came up the last hill with shooting feet and knees that buffeted the air, they were locked together, the little riders lying over the necks of their horses and watching each other jealously. in the silence there was something terrifying about the tumult of those swift, oncoming feet. the earth shook and trembled. even billy bluff was awed and quivering. jim silver never took his eyes off that little figure with the fluttering white shirt riding the crest of the oncoming storm and growing on him with such overwhelming speed. he dwelt with fascinated eyes upon the give-and-take of her little hands, the set of her shoulders, the swift turn of her head, as she watched the boy at her side. his will was firm, his heart high. she seemed to him so fair, so slight, and yet so consummately masterful, as to be something more than flesh and blood. a rare voice penetrated to his ears through the tumult. "that's a little bit o' better." "ain't it a cracker?" "hold that dog!" as they came along the flat, the two horses seemed neck and neck. the dark lad was riding a finish in approved style. then the girl stirred with her hands, and the great brown forged ahead. as the horses came past the watchers, make-way-there tailed off suddenly. four-pound-the-second thundered by like a brown torrent, the stroke of his hoofs making a mighty music. "gallops like a railway train," said a voice at silver's side. it was joses. the young man, lifted above himself, did not resent the other's presence at his side, did not wonder at it. indeed, it seemed to him quite natural. the wonder of infinite power made manifest in flesh rapt the beholders out of themselves. they stood bare-headed in the presence of the abiding miracle, made one by it. "can she hold him?" thought silver as the horse shot past them. and either he expressed his thoughts unconsciously in words, or as not seldom happens in moments of excitement, old mat read his unuttered thoughts. "she can hold him in a snaffle," he said. "she's the only one as can!" and in fact the young horse was coming back to his rider. she was swinging to steady him. at the top of the rise she turned him, dismounted, and loosed his girths. then she led him down the slope back to the group, an alert, fair figure, touched to glory by the gallop, the great horse blowing uproariously at her side, tossing his head and flinging the foam on to his chest and neck, looking like a huge, drenched dog wet from the sea. "pull at ye?" asked the old man. "he caught hold a bit as we came up the slope," answered boy. jim silver had dismounted and laid a hand on the horse's shining neck. "great," he said. the faint colour was in the girl's cheeks, and she was breathing deep as she peeped up at him with happy eyes. "he's not clumsy for a big horse, is he?" she said. "rug him up, albert, and lead him home. he's hit himself, i see--that off-fore fetlock. better put a boracic bandage on when you get him in." she put on her long coat and mounted silvertail. "yes, don't stand about," said her father; "or you'll have mar on to me." the three moved off the hill. stanley had already gone on with make-way-there, and albert followed with the young horse still snorting and blowing. billy bluff patrolled between his mistress and his friend, doing his best to keep the two parties together. monkey brand was left alone. "took it 'ard!" muttered old mat, jerking his head. "he'll be all right," said boy, glancing back. "give him time to get his second wind." the little jockey went back to pick up a plate make-way-there had dropped. joses strolled up to him with portentous brow. "turned you down!" he said. "you're not horseman enough for them, it seems." the little man gathered himself. he was very grim, curling his lips inward and whistling between his teeth as though to relieve inward pressure. "how long have you ridden for 'em?" asked the fat man. "twenty-five year," the other answered, with the quiet of one labouring under a great emotion. the other rumbled out his ironical laughter. "and now they chuck you," he said. "too old at forty. what?" the little man spat on the ground. "blast 'em," he said. "blast you. blast the lot. it's a bloody world." chapter xxxiv the lovers' quarrel boy did not appear at dinner. the midday meal, especially on sunday, she generally skipped. old mat, ma, and silver lunched together and in silence. the old trainer was absorbed in himself, and there was no question that he found himself exceedingly good company. his face became pink and his eye wet with the excellence of the joke he was brewing in his deeps. he slobbered over his food and spilt it. mrs. woodburn watched him with amused sympathy. "you've been up to something you shouldn't, dad," she said. "i know you." he held up a shaking hand in protest. "now don't you, mar!" he said. "i been to church--that's all i done. mr. haggard preach a booriffle sermon on the 'oly innocents. 'there's some is saints,' he says, and he looks full glare at me; 'and there's some as isn't.' and he looks at his missus. 'there's some as is where they ought to be sundays,' and he looks full glare at me. 'and there's some as isn't.' and he stares at the empty seat aside o' me. yes, my dear, you'll cop it on the crumpet to-morrow when he comes to see you, and you'll deserve it, too." after lunch, as the old man left the room, he beckoned mysteriously to silver, and toddled away down the passage with hunched shoulders to his sanctum. the young man followed him with amused eyes. he knew very well what was coming. once inside his office, mat closed the door in his most secretive way. "only one thing for it," he whispered hoarsely. "the gal must ride." silver stared out of the window. "but will she?" the old man messed with his papers. "she mayn't for me," he mumbled. "she might for someone--to help him out of a hole. i'll try her anyway. if she will i'll put a thousand on myself." * * * * * an hour later silver was smoking a cigarette in the darkness of the wainscoted dining room, when the door burst open. boy came in upon him swift and radiant. she was in her blue skirt and blouse again, and her hair was like a halo against the dark wainscoting. the glory of the gallop was still upon her. he rose to her, challenged and challenging. she crossed the room to him, and stood with her hand on the mantelpiece. she did not laugh, she did not even smile, but there was in her the deep and quiet ecstasy that causes the thorn to blossom in beauty after a winter of reserve. it seemed to him that she was swaying as a rose sways in a gale, yet anchored always to the earth in perfect self-possession. as always, she came straight to the point. "do you want me to ride him in the national?" she asked. "i don't mind," he answered nonchalantly. "have you backed him?" "not yet." "are you going to?" "i might--if i can get a hundred thousand to a thousand about him." her gray eyes searched him. not a corner of him but her questioning spirit ransacked it. "how much money have you got left?" "when all's squared? a few thousand, i believe." she looked into the fire, one little foot poised on the fender. he was provoking her. she felt it. "i could just about win on him," she said. "i think." "i'm not so sure," he answered. she became defiant in a flash. "one thing," she said, "i'm sure nobody else could." he followed up his advantage deliberately. "i'm not so sure," he said. her eyes sparkled frostily. she understood. he was furious because her father had spoken to her; resentful that in her hands should be the winning for him of a potential fortune. she would show him. "i might think of riding him perhaps," she said slowly, "on one condition." "what's that?" "that you don't bet on him." he rolled off into deep, ironical laughter. "done with you!" he cried, holding out his hand. she brushed it aside. "what i said was that i _might think_ of it," she said, and made for the door. he did not pursue. "oh, do!" he cried lazily. "do!" "i shall see," she answered. "i might and i might not. probably the latter." she went out with firm lips. "i see what it is!" he cried after her, still ironical. she turned about. "what?" "you're afraid of aintree." the girl, who in many matters was still a child, flared at once. "afraid of aintree!" she cried. "i'll show you whether i'm afraid of aintree or not!" she marched down the passage, pursued by his mocking laughter, and went out into the yard with nodding head and flashing eyes. then she walked to the gate and looked across the paddock close. mr. haggard was walking slowly up toward the church to take the children's service. on the public path by the stile were two figures engaged in conversation. she recognized them at once. they were joses and monkey brand. thoughtfully she crossed into the stable. it was sunday afternoon, and there was nobody about but maudie, who departed coldly on the entrance of the girl, suspecting trouble. maudie's suspicions were but too well-founded. the girl went straight to four-pound-the-second's loose-box and opened it. the monster-without-manners emerged and greeted his mistress with yawns. the brown horse with the tan muzzle shifted slowly toward her. she ran her eye over him, adjusted a bandage, and went out into the yard. billy accompanied her, for he always passed his sunday afternoons with his mistress. as she left the stable monkey brand was entering the yard. "what was joses saying, brand?" she asked sharply. the little man did not seem to see or hear her. but as he passed her, she thought he dropped an eyelid. then he limped swiftly on into the saddle-room. boy, balancing on the ladder, looked after him. then she went up into the loft, billy bluff at her heels trying with whimpers to thrust by that he might hold communion with fair maudie on the top rung. maudie watched the approaching feet with sullen and apathetic disdain. when they were almost on her she rose suddenly. the languid lady with the manners of a west-end drawing-room became the screaming fish-wife of wapping. she humped, swore, and scampered away to the loft, there to establish herself upon a cross-beam, where she was proof against assault. boy crossed the loft, entered her room, and closed the door. she glanced out of the window. joses was crossing the paddock close toward the cottage where he lodged. she watched him closely. he was going to try it on. she was sure of it. then she would try it on him; and she would show no mercy. she looked at herself in the glass, and smiled at what she saw. mr. silver's affront still clouded her face, and the thought of joses struck from the cloud a flash of lightning. suddenly an idea came to her. her eyes sparkled, and she laughed merrily. she let down her hair. it was short, fine, and thick; massy, mr. haggard called it. then she took a pair of scissors and began to snip. flakes of gold fell on the floor and strewed her feet. she stood as on a threshing-floor. as she worked, the boards of the loft sounded to the tramp of a heavy visitor. somebody knocked at the door. there came to the girl's eyes a look of amused defiance. "come in," she said, turning. mrs. woodburn stood in the door, grieved and grim. she saw her daughter's face framed in thickets of gold, and the splendid ruin on the floor. boy crossed to her mother and closed the door quietly behind her. then she led her mother to the bed, and sat down beside her. the old lady was breathing deeply, and not from the effort of the climb. the daughter's eyes, full of a tender curiosity, teasing and yet compassionate, searched her mother's face, in which there was no laughter. "are you going to, boy?" asked the old lady. "d'you want me not?" the mother nodded. "why not?" mrs. woodburn sighed. "i'd rather not," she said. "why not?" persisted boy. "it's against the rules." "is that all?" with scorn. "no." "then why not?" "it's dangerous." "dangerous!" flashed the girl. "so you think i'm a coward, too!" "i don't, i don't," pleaded the other. "but i don't want you to." boy put her hand on the old lady's knee. her mother and mr. haggard were the only two human beings to whom she ever demonstrated affection. "will you promise me?" said the mother. "no," answered boy. mrs. woodburn tried to rise, but the girl held her down. "sit down, mother, please. you never come and see me up here." her eyes devoured her mother's face hungrily and with unlaughing eyes. "kiss me, mother," she ordered. mrs. woodburn refrained. "kiss me, mother," sternly. the mother obeyed. "shall you?" she asked. "i shan't say," replied boy. she rose and went to the window. outside under the wood mr. silver, pipe in mouth, was sauntering round ragamuffin's grave. "he said i was afraid!" she muttered. * * * * * when her mother left the room, the girl went to the window. the gallop had kindled in her for the moment the flame of her old ambition; but the desire had died down swiftly as it had risen. boy knew now that she no longer really wanted to ride the grand national winner. she wanted something else--fiercely. cautiously she peeped out of the window. mr. silver, in that old green golf-jacket of his, that clung so finely to his clean shoulders, was prowling along the edge of the wood close to ragamuffin's grave, peeping for early nests. the girl remembered that it was st. valentine's--the day birds mate. she turned away. book v monkey brand chapter xxxv the dancer's son sebastian bach joses was the son of an artist of portuguese extraction. the artist was a waster and a wanderer. in his youth he mated with a marseillaise dancing-girl who had posed as his model. joses had been the result. the father shortly deserted the mother, who took to the music-hall stage. after a brief and somewhat lurid career on the halls in london and elsewhere she died. the lad had as little chance as a human being can have. as a boy, with the red-gold mass of hair he inherited from his mother, and a certain farouche air, he had been attractive, especially to women. clever, alert, and sensitive, brought up in a bohemian set, without money, or morals, or the steadying factor of position, he had early acquired all the tricks of the artist, the parasite, and the adventurer. he could play the guitar quite prettily, could sing a song, dabbled with pen and brush, and talked with considerable facility of poetry and art. an old-time admirer of his mother's, on whom that lady when dying had fathered the boy, paid for the lad's keep as a child. later, attracted by the boy's beauty, and secretly proud of his putative share in it, he had sent him to a college in a south coast watering place and afterward to oxford. there joses had swiftly worked his way into a vicious set of stupid rich men, morally his equals, intellectually his inferiors, but socially and economically vastly his superiors. they were all lads from public schools who desired above all to be thought men of the world. joses, on the other hand, was a man of the world who desired above all else to be taken for a public-school man. each of the two parties to the unwritten contract got what was desired from the other. joses had knocked about the continent; he knew the quartier latin, berlin night-life, and the darker haunts of naples. his rich allies kept horses, hunted, and raced. they learned a good deal that joses was ready to impart; and on his side he acquired from them some knowledge of the racing world and an entrée into it. his manners were good--rather too good; and the touch of the artist and the exotic appealed to the coarse and simple minds of his companions. he wore longish hair, softish collars, cultivated eccentricities and a slightly foreign accent; all of which things the _jeunesse dorée_ tolerated with a touch of patronage. and joses was quite content to be patronized so long as his patrons would pay. after two years at oxford his putative father died. joses went down perforce, leaving behind him many debts, a girl behind a bar who was fond of him, and a reputation as a brilliant rogue who might some day prove the poet of the sport of kings. equipped with the knowledge acquired at the ancient university, he went to london and there earned his living as a sporting journalist, attending race-meetings, adding to his income by betting, and performing certain unlovely services for the more vicious of his oxford friends. handicapped in many ways, he had at least this advantage over the bulk of his brother-men: that he was not hampered by scruples, principles, or tradition. at thirty his beauty was already on the wane. he was faded, fat, and tarnished; and already he was visibly going to pieces. the end, which had been preparing in the deeps for years, came suddenly. the story was an old one: that of one woman and two men. the three had driven back from ascot in a hansom together. there was supper, drink, and trouble at the lady's flat. the other man got a knife in him, and joses got five years. when he came out, he resumed his old haunts and earned a precarious living by watching. he was almost the only watcher who could write, and his eye for a horse's form was phenomenally good. it was in those days that he came into touch with his future employers. with an acute sense for those who could serve them, the three j's realised at once that this man was on a different level to that of other watchers. they financed him liberally, advanced him money, and held a cheque to which in a moment of aberration joses had signed ikey aaronsohnn's name. and he in his turn served them well if not faithfully. when chukkers rode the famous international that established him once and for all in a class by himself among cross-country riders, snatching an astounding victory on hooka-burra from lady golightly, his win and the way he rode his race was largely due to joses's report on the favourite's staying power. "she'll gallop three and three-quarter miles at top speed," he had said, "and then bust like a bladder. bustle her all the way, and yours'll beat her from the last fence." when joses was put away for incendiarism, the three j's missed him far more than they would have cared to admit. they had two bad seasons in succession, and a worse followed. at the end of the third chukkers, for the first time for seven years, no longer headed the list of winning jockeys. then ikey carried off his jockey to the states to break his luck. it was on this visit, at some old-fashioned meeting in the southern states, so the story went, chukkers discovered the mare from blue mounds. all the world knows to-day how she re-established her jockey's fame and made her own. when, after an unforgettable season in australia, he returned to england with the american mare, the pair had never been beaten. and in the old country they repeated the performance of australia. together they won the sefton, the international, and last of all the national. and though chukkers had been disqualified in the last race, his fame and hers had reached a pinnacle untouched by any horse or man in modern racing history. the star-spangled jacket led the world. * * * * * when joses came out of prison he journeyed down at once to dewhurst. jaggers and chukkers met him. it did not take the tout long to get a hang of the situation. the national was coming on in a few weeks. the mare had to win at all costs. since her victory and defeat at aintree in the previous march she had never run but once in public, and that time had scattered her field. jaggers had been laying her up in lavender all the winter for the great race, and she was now at the top of her form. they took joses round to her loose-box. just back from work she was stripped and sweating, swishing her tail, savaging her manger with arched neck, tramping to and fro on swift, uneasy feet as her lad laboured at her. so perfectly compact was she that the tout heard with surprise that she stood little short of sixteen hands. the length of her rein compensated for the shortness of her back, and her hocks and hind-quarters were those of a panther, lengthy and well let-down. the fat man ran his eye over her fair proportions. "she's beautiful," he mused. indeed, the excellence of her form spoke to the heart of the poet in him. he dwelt almost lovingly upon that astonishing fore-hand and the mouse-head with the wild eye that revealed the spirit burning within. as her lad withdrew from her a moment, she gave that familiar toss of the muzzle familiar to thousands, which made a poet say that she was fretting always to transcend the restraint of the flesh. "if she's as good as she looks," said joses, "she's good enough." "she's better," said the jockey with the high cheek-bones. he passed his hand along the mare's rein. it was said that chukkers had never cared for a horse in his life, and it was certain that many horses had hated chukkers. but it was common knowledge that he was fonder of the mare than he had ever been of any living creature. "she's got nothing up against her as i know of," said jaggers in his austere way. "there's moonlighter, the irishman, of course." "he can't stay," said chukkers briefly. "and gee-woa-there, the doncaster horse." "he can't gallop." "and kingfisher, the west country crack." "he beats himself jumpin'." "and that's about the lot--only the putnam horse," continued the trainer. "they think i know nothing about him. i know some, and i want to know more." "i'll settle that," said joses. the jockey was pulling the mare's ears thoughtfully. "you'd like to take a little bit of putnam's, i daresay?" he said. "i wouldn't mind if i did," replied the tout. "it was them done you down at the trial," continued the jockey. "old mat and his monkey and silver mug. the old gang." "regular conspiracy," said jaggers censoriously. "ought to be ashamed of themselves. doin' down a pore man like that." the three moved out into the yard. a little later trainer and jockey stood in the gate of the yard and watched joses shuffle away across the downs. "he's all right," said chukkers, sucking the ivory charm he always carried. "ain't 'alf bitter." "changed," smirked jaggers, "and for the better. they've done 'emselves no good, putnam's haven't, this journey." joses established his headquarters as of old at cuckmere, and he made no secret of his presence. nor would it have been of much avail had he attempted concealment. for the saturday before the trial gallop had brought mat woodburn a letter from miller, the station-clerk at arunvale, which was the station for dewhurst. the station-clerk had a feud of many years' standing with jaggers, and had moreover substantial reasons of his own for not wishing mocassin to win at aintree. along the line of the south downs to be against dewhurst was to be in with putnam's, and the telegraph line between arunvale and cuckmere could tell many interesting secrets of the relations between mat woodburn and the station-clerk. the letter in question informed old mat that joses had come straight from portland to dewhurst; that chukkers had come down from london by the eleven-twenty-seven; that ikey had been expected but had not turned up, and that the six-forty-two had taken joses on to cuckmere. after the trial gallop, and the meeting with the fat man on the hill, old mat showed the letter to silver. "he'll want watching, mr. joses will," he said. "he didn't look very pretty, did he?" said the young man. "yes," mused the old man. "a little job o' work for monkey, that'll be. he don't like chukkers, monkey don't." he pursed his lips and lifting an eye-lid looked at the other from beneath it. his blue eye was dreamy, dewy, and twinkling remotely through a mist. "rogues and rasqueals, mr. silver!" he said. "whatebber should we do without um?" chapter xxxvi monkey sulks on the sunday after the trial on the mare's back jerry went solemnly round the assembled lads before bible class, his hat in his hand and in the hat a couple of coppers. "what for?" asked alf, the cherub. the lads were used to what they called "levies" in the stable--sometimes for a new football or something for the club, sometimes for a pal who was in a hole. "mr. silver," answered jerry. "he's done us proud while he could. now it's our turn to do a bit for him." "is it as bad as all that?" asked alf, wide-eyed. "it's worse," said jerry, with dramatic restraint. the cherub peeped into the hat, fingering a tanner. he was genuinely concerned for mr. silver. "if i put in a tanner, how'll i know mr. silver'll get it?" he asked ingenuously. stanley jeered, and jerry shot his chin forward. "say, young alf," he said. "am i a genelman?--or ain't i?" "that ain't 'ardly for me to say, jerry," answered the cherub with delicate tact. then there might have been trouble but for the interference of the lordly albert. "don't you let him pinch nothin' off o' you, alf," he said. "mr. silver's all right." "what ye mean?" asked the indignant jerry. "ain't he broke then?" "he'll be a rich man again by then i done with him," answered albert loftily. "that's what i mean." "when will you be done with him then?" jeered jerry. "after the national," answered albert. "yes, my boy, you'll get your 'alf-dollar at christmas same as usual--if so be you deserves it." jerry sneered. "albert thinks _he's_ goin' to get the ride," he cried. "likely!--g-r-r-r!" albert was unmoved as a mountain and as coldly majestic. "i don't think. i knows," he said, folding his arms. "what do you know then?" "i knows what i knows," answered albert, in true sacerdotal style. "and i knows more'n them as don't know nothin'." albert did really know something, but he did not know more than anybody else. in those days, indeed, two facts were common property at putnam's. everybody knew them, and everybody liked to believe that nobody else did. the two facts were that albert was going to ride four-pound-the-second at aintree, and that mr. silver stood to get his money back upon the race. there was a third fact, too, that everybody knew. it was different from the other two in that not even albert pretended that he alone was aware of it. the third fact was that monkey brand was sulking. the lads knew it, the horses knew it, billy bluff knew it; maudie, who looked on monkey as her one true friend in the world, knew it; even the fan-tails in the yard had reason to suspect it. jim silver, who had a genuine regard for the little man, and was most reluctant to think evil of him or anyone, was aware of it, and unhappy accordingly. the only two who seemed not to know what was obvious to all the rest of the world were, of course, the two most concerned--old mat and his daughter. they were blind--deliberately so, silver sometimes thought. the young man became at length so disturbed that he ventured to suggest to the trainer that all was not well. the old man listened, his head a-cock, and his blue eyes sheathed. "i dessay," was all he said. "men is men accordin' to my experience of 'em." he added: "and monkies monkies. same as the psalmist said in his knowin' little way." beaten back here, the young man, dogged as always, approached boy in the matter. he was countered with an ice-cold monosyllable. "indeed," was all she said. the young man persisted in spite of his stutter. she flashed round on him. "so you think monkey's selling us?" she said. jim silver looked sheepish and sullen. but whether the girl's attitude was due to the fact that he was still in disgrace or to her resentment that he should be telling tales, he did not know. * * * * * the young man's affairs in london were almost wound up, and he was making his home at putnam's. about the place, early and late, he became aware that joses was haunting the barns and out-houses. more than once in the lengthening days he saw the fat man vanishing round a corner in the dusk. taking the bull by the horns, he spoke to monkey brand about it. "why not turn billy bluff loose after dark?" he suggested. monkey was stubborn. "can't be done, sir." "why not?" "can't leave four-pound's box, sir," the jockey answered, turning in his lips. "else the 'orse frets himself into a sweat." silver was dissatisfied. he was still more so when two days later after dark he came on two men in close communion in the lane at the back of the lads' barn. they were standing in the shadow of the barn out of the moon. but that his senses were alert, and his suspicions roused, he would not have detected them, for they hushed into sudden silence as he passed. he flashed an electric torch on to them. the two were joses and monkey brand. he was not surprised, nor, it seemed, were they. monkey brand touched his hat. "good-night, sir," he said cordially. "good-night," said silver coldly. "good-night, mr. joses!" the tout rumbled ironically. silver passed on into the yard, and the two were left together in the dark. "on the bubble," said joses. "i don't wonder, eether," answered monkey. "four-pound's got to win it for him." "hundred thousand, isn't it?" said the fat man. "that is it," said monkey. "guv'nor won't part for less." "what's that?" asked joses, stupefied. "silver!" answered monkey. "he's got to put a hundred thousand down, or he don't get her. old man's no mug." "don't get who?" asked the other. "minie," shortly. the fat man absorbed the news. "hundred thousand down," continued monkey. "that's the contrak--writ out in red ink on parchment. it's a fortune." joses was recovering himself. "it's nothing to what the mare'll carry all said," he mused. "american's bankin' on her to the last dollar, let alone the three j's.... there's more in it than money, too. there's pride and sentiment, the old animosities." he added after a pause--"half a million's a lot of money though. there'll be pickings, too--for those that deserve them." monkey moved restlessly. "i daresay," he said irritably. "not as it matters to me. not as nothin' matters to me now. work you to the bone while you can work, and scrap you when they've wore you out. it's a bloody world, as i've said afore." "come!" cried the fat man. "the game's not up. there's more masters than one in the world!" the little man was not to be consoled. "see where it is, mr. joses: i'm too old to start afresh." "have they sacked you then?" the other shook his head. "they'll keep me on till after the national. he's not everybody's 'orse, four-pound ain't. if they was to make a change now, he might go back on himself." the tout's breathing came a little quicker in the darkness. "d'you see to him?" "me and albert." "is albert goin' to ride him?" "don't you believe it?" mocked the little jockey. the tout drew closer. "who is, then?" monkey ducked his head and patted the back of it. "never!" cried joses. the other raised a deprecatory hand and turned away. "you know best, o' course, mr. joses," he said. "you've the run o' putnam's same as me. and you're an eddicated man from oxford college, where they knows all there is to know." he was limping away. joses hung on his heels. "steady on, old sport," he said. "d'you mean that?" monkey swung about. "see here, mr. joses," he whispered. "when a gal's out to win a man she'll do _funny_ things." the fat man breathed heavily. then he began to laugh. "and it's win the national or lose the man!" he said. "quite a romance!" chapter xxxvii the early bird next sunday found joses among the earliest and most attentive of the worshippers at church. boy woodburn entered later, walked slowly up the aisle, and took her place in the front pew. as she bowed her head in her hands, the fat man, watching with all his eyes, learned what he had come to learn. after service he waited outside. as he stood among the tomb-stones, the girl passed, not seeing him. "good morning, miss woodburn," he said ironically. she looked up suddenly, resentfully. his presence there clearly surprised and even startled the girl. she passed on without a word and with the faintest nod of acknowledgment. the fat man, with a chuckle, thought he could diagnose the cause of her annoyance. next morning he met boy in the village. she was wearing a close-fitting woollen cap, that covered her hair, and the collar of her coat was turned up. the collar of the girl's coat was always turned up now, he remarked sardonically, though the sun was gaining daily in power and the wind losing its nip. she sauntered past him, and seemed even ready for a chat. never slow to seize a chance, the fat man closed with her at once. "how goes it, miss woodburn?" he said. "very well, thank you." "so you're going to win the national?" "are we?" "he's good enough, isn't he?" the girl shrugged her shoulders. "who's going to ride him?" "albert, i suppose," replied the girl casually. "there's nobody else." "not monkey brand?" she shook her head. "too old," she said. "will he gallop for albert?" asked the other. "depends on his mood," replied the girl. the fat man laughed. "there's only one person he will gallop for--certain," he said. boy looked away. "who's that?" nonchalantly. joses bowed and smirked and became very gallant. flattery never moved the girl to anything but resentment. "thank you," she said. "pity you can't," pursued the other. "yes," she said. "i should have liked the ride." his roaming eye settled on her. "you'd have won, too," he said with assurance. "think so?" "i'm sure so," he answered. "you've only one against you." "perhaps," she admitted. "but the one's a caution." "a good big un'll always beat a good little un," said the fat man. "besides, he's a baby," replied the girl. "chances his fences too much." "sprawls a bit," admitted the other. "but he jumps so big it doesn't make much odds. and he gets away like a deer." * * * * * joses was now very much alert; and he had to be. for, as he reported to jaggers, putnam's gave away as little as a dead man in the dark. one thing, however, became clear as the time slipped away and the national drew ever nearer: that to the girl had been entrusted the winding up of the young horse, and albert was her henchman in the matter. monkey was the fat man's informant on the point. joses would never have believed the little jockey for a moment, but that his own eyes daily confirmed the report. the window of his room looked out over the paddock close, and every morning, before the world was astir, while the dew was still heavy on the grass, the earth reeking, and the mists thick in the coombes, the great sheeted horse, who marched like a highland regiment and looked like a mountain ram, was to be seen swinging up the hill on to the downs. there were two little figures always with him: one riding, one trotting at his side. seen across the close at that hour in the morning, there was no distinguishing between the two. both were slight, bare-headed, fair; and both were dressed much alike. so much might be seen, and little more at that distance. one morning, therefore, found joses established on the hill before the horse and his two attendants had arrived. he had no desire to be seen. he squirmed his way with many pants through the gorse to the edge of the gallop, adjusted his glasses, and watched the little group of three ascend the brow half a mile away. one of the two attendant sprites slung the other up on to the back of the phantom horse tossing against the sky. then without a thought of fuss the phantom settled to his stride and came down the slope, butting the mists away from his giant chest, the rhythmical beat of his hoofs rising to a terrifying roar as he gathered way. joses dropped on to his hands and huddled against the soaking ground as the pair came thundering by. he need not have feared detection: the rider's head was low over the horse's neck, the rider's face averted. all he saw was the back of a fair head, close-cropped. kneeling up, he turned his glasses once again on the little figure waiting now alone upon the brow. as he stared, he heard the quiet footfall of a horse climbing the hill behind him. he dropped his glasses and looked round. silver on heart of oak had come to a halt close by and was looking at him. "early bird," said the young man. "looking for worms, i suppose." joses grinned as he closed his glasses, and rising to his feet brushed his sopping knees. "yes," he said. "and finding 'em." chapter xxxviii ikey's own maudie was not the only one who had cause to complain that life at putnam's was changed now greatly for the worse. it all centred round that great, calm, munching creature in the loose-box, with the big blue dog curled underneath the manger. monkey brand was moody; old mat irritable; his daughter curt; silver puzzled, and mrs. woodburn perturbed. for once in her life that habitually tranquil lady was restless, and betrayed her trouble. the young man marked it and was genuinely sorry for her. she saw it and appealed to him. "mr. silver," she said, taking him suddenly, "is she going to ride?" the other met her with clearly honest eyes. "i don't know," he said. the old lady's distress was obvious. "mr. silver," she said, "please tell me. do _you_ want her to ride?" "no!" he cried, almost with indignation. "of course i don't. i've seen too many nationals." "have you asked her not to?" he grinned a little sheepishly. "the truth is i've annoyed her," he said. "and she's all spikes when i touch her." mrs. woodburn appealed to her husband, but got nothing out of him. "it's no good comin' to me, mar. i don't know nothin' at all about it," he said shortly. "she's trainin' the hoss. if i so much as looks at him i gets my nose bit off." the old lady's distress was such that at length the young man took his courage in his hands and approached the girl. "boy," he said, "are you going to ride him? _please_ tell me." the girl set her lips. "you think i'm afraid of aintree," she said deeply. "i don't," he pleaded. "i swear to you i don't." she was not to be appeased. "you do," she answered mercilessly. "you said you did." "if i ever did i was only chaffing." "i know why you don't want me to ride," she laughed hardly. "why?" "because then you'll be free to win your hundred thousand. that's all you care about. but you won't. if i don't ride him, he won't win. if i do, you can't bet." the young man was miserable. "hang my hundred thousand!" he cried. "as if i care a rap for that." he made a final appeal. "if i've done wrong, i can only say i'm most _awfully_ sorry, boy." "you've done _very_ wrong," replied the girl ruthlessly. "and when we've done wrong we've got to pay for it," added preacher joe. "damn him!" muttered the other. "_what!_" flashed the girl. "sorry," mumbled the young man, and fled with his tail between his legs. * * * * * that afternoon a telegram came for old mat. he showed it to silver. "that's from miller, the station-master at arunvale," he said. "they're goin' to gallop the mare. would you like to step over and see what you can make of her?" the young man agreed willingly. "no good my comin'," said mat. "but you might take monkey brand along--if he'll go." but the little jockey, when approached, refused. "why not?" asked silver, determined to save the little man's soul if it was to be saved. "i'm too fond o' monkey, sir," the other answered, his face inscrutable. "what d'you mean?" "why, sir, if they was to catch monkey in chukkers's country they'd flay him." "who would?" "the ikey's own." silver stared at him. "who are the ikey's own?" "they're _them!_" said monkey with emphasis. "that's what they are--and no mistake about it." _we are coming. uncle ikey, coming fifty million strong, for to see the haughty english don't do our ikey wrong._ "he slipped 'em over special last back-end. chose 'em for the job. bowery toughs; scrubs from colorado; old man o' the mountains; cattle-lifters from mexico; miners from the west; arizona sharps. don't matter who, only so long as they'll draw a gun on you soon as smile. come across the ocean to see fair play for the mare. they're campin' round her--rigiments of 'em. if a sparrer goes too near her, they lays it out. _no blanky hanky-panky this time_--that's their motter." the young man went alone. at arunvale the station-master beckoned him into the office. "it's right, sir," he said keenly. "chukkers and ikey come down this morning. two-thirty's the time accordin' to my information. i've got a trap waitin' for you outside. ginger harris'll drive you. he was a lad at putnam's one time o' day. now he keeps the three cocks by the bridge. he don't like jaggers any better than me. only lay low and mind your eye. arunvale's stiff with 'em." silver wished to know more, but he was not to be gratified. the station-clerk, as full of mystery as monkey brand himself, bustled him out of the office, finger to his lips. "trap's outside, sir," he whispered. "i won't come with you. there's eyes everywhere--tongues, too." outside was a gig, and in it sat a red-faced fly-man in a bottle-green coat and old top-hat, who made room for the young man at his side. they drove over the bridge through the town, up the steep, into the vast rolling park with the clumps of brown beech-woods that ran down to the river and the herds of red deer dotting the deep valleys. as they passed through the north gate of the park, ginger slowed down to a walk. "if i've time it right," he said, "she should be doin' her gallop while we walks along the ridge. don't show too keen, sir." a long sallow man sitting on the roadside at the edge of the wood eyed them. the driver nudged his companion. "one of 'em," he said. "ikey's own. know by the cut of 'em." "many about?" asked silver. "been all over us since christmas," answered the other. "cargo of 'em landed at liverpool bank 'oliday. all sorts. all chose for the job. stop at nothin'. if they suspicion you they move you on or put you out. they watch her same as if she was the queen of england. and i don't wonder. nobody knows the millions she'll carry." when they were well past the man at the roadside he whistled. there came an answering call from the wood in front. as they emerged on to the open downs, ginger pulled up short. "they've done us, sir," he said shortly. a hundred yards ahead of them a sheeted chestnut was coming toward them on the grass alongside the road. jim silver had only seen the waler mare once--on the occasion of her famous victory and defeat at aintree the previous year; but once seen mocassin was never forgotten. she came along at that swift, pattering walk of hers, her nose in the air, and ears twitching. "always the same," whispered ginger. "in a terrible hurry to get there." he had the true putnam feeling about jaggers; but that passion of devotion for the mare, which had inspired the english-speaking race for the past year, had not left him untouched. jim silver felt the little prosaic man thrilling at his side, and thrilled in his turn. he felt as he had felt when as a lower boy at eton the captain of the boats had spoken to him--a swimming in the eyes, a brimming of the heart, a gulping at the throat. "is that mocassin?" he called to the lad riding the mare. "that's the queen o' kentucky, sir," replied the other cockily. "never was beaten, and never will be--given fair play." "done your gallop?" "half an hour since." ginger drove on discreetly. on a knoll, three hundred yards away, four men were standing. "there they are!" said ginger. "pretty, ain't they?--specially chukkers. i don't know who that fat feller is along of 'em." but silver knew very well. chapter xxxix the queen of kentucky the little group on the knoll came off the grass on to the road, close in talk. jaggers was tall and attenuated. he had the look of a self-righteous ascetic, and dressed with puritanical austerity. no smile ever irradiated his gaunt face and remorseless eyes. his forehead was unusually high and white; his manners high, too; and if his morals were not white, his cravat, that was like a parson's, more than made up for the defect. it was not surprising then that among the fraternity he was known as his reverence, because his bearing gave the impression of a nonconformist minister about to conduct a teetotal campaign. chukkers, who was wearing the familiar jodhpores which he always affected, was quite a different type. a big man for a jockey, he rarely rode under eleven stone, though he carried never an ounce of flesh. sporting journalists were in the habit of referring to him as a samson in the saddle, so large of bone and square of build was he. his success, indeed, was largely due to his extraordinary strength. it was said that once in a moment of temper he had crushed a horse's ribs in, while it was an undeniable fact that he could make a horse squeal by the pressure of his legs. he was clearly a mongol, some said a chinaman by origin; and certainly his great bowed shins, his dirty complexion, his high cheek-bones, and that impassive oriental face of his, gave authority to the legend. when you met him you marked at once that his eyes were reluctant to catch yours; and when they did you saw two little gashes opening on sullen-twinkling muddy waters. the worst of us have our redeeming features. and chukkers with all his crude defects possessed at least one outstanding virtue--faithfulness--to the man who had made him. ikey had brought him as a lad into the country where he had made his name; ikey had given him his chance; to ikey for twenty-five years now he had stuck with unswerving devotion, in spite of temptation manifold, often-repeated, and aggravated. the relations between the two men were the subject of much gossip. they never talked of each other; and though often together, very rarely spoke. chukkers was never known to express admiration or affection or even respect for his master. but the bond between them was intimate and profound. it was notorious that the jockey would throw over the heir to the throne himself at the last moment to ride for the little levantine. and of late years it had been increasingly rare for him to sport any but the star-spangled jacket. ikey aaronsohnn, the third of the famous three, walked between the other two, as befitted the brain and purse of the concern. he was a typical levantine, semitic, even simian, small-featured, and dark. in his youth he must have been pretty, and there was still a certain charm about him. he had qualities, inherent and super-imposed, entirely lacking to his two colleagues. a man of education and some natural refinement, he had a delicious sense of humour which helped him to an enjoyment of life and such a genial appreciation of his own malpractices and those of others as to make him the best of company and far the most popular of the three j's. if chukkers was little more than an animal-riding animal, and jaggers an artistic fraud, ikey was a rascal of a highly differentiated and engaging type. a man of admirable tenacity he had clung for twenty-five years to the ideal which chukkers's discovery of mocassin two years since had brought within his grasp. the disqualification of the mare at liverpool last year after the great race had served only to whet his appetite and kindle his faith. a quarter of a century before he had set himself to find the horse that would beat the english thoroughbred at aintree. and in mocassin he had at last achieved his aim. * * * * * if a cloud of romance hung about the mare, veiling in part her past, some points at least stood out clear. it was known that her dam was a virginian mare of the stately kind which of late years has filled the eye in the sale-ring at newmarket and held its own between the flags. and piquancy was added by the fact, recorded in the kentucky stud-book, that the dam traced her origin direct to iroquois who in the derby of had lowered the english colours to the dust. again there was no doubt that the mare had been born in a yellow-pine shack in the cumberlands, on an old homestead--made familiar to millions in both continents by the picture papers--known as blue mounds, and owned by a quaker farmer who was himself the great-grandson of a pioneer friend, who in the last years of the eighteenth century had crossed the mountains with his family and flocks, like abraham of old, and had won for himself this clearing from the primeval forest, driving farther west its ancient denizens. so much, not even the arrogant english dared to dispute. but the rest was mystery. it was said that jaggers himself did not know who was mocassin's sire; and that ikey and chukkers, the only two who did, were so close that they never let on even to each other. true the english, with characteristic bluff, when they discovered that they had found their mistress in the mare, took it for granted that her sire was an imported english horse and even named him. but ikey and chukkers both denied the importation with emphasis. then there were those who traced her origin to a horse from the bombay arab stables. these swore they could detect the prophet's thumb on the mare's auburn neck. the waler school had many backers; and there were even a few cranks who suggested for the place of honour a curly-eared kathiawar horse. but the all-american school, dominant in the states and southern republic, maintained with truculence that a spanish stallion from the pampas was the only sire for god almighty's mustang. the wild horse theory, as it was called, appealed to popular sentiment, however remote from the fact, and helped to build the legend of the mare. and in support of the theory, it must be said that mocassin, in spite of her lovableness, had in her more of the jaguar than of the domestic cat, grown indolent, selfish, and fat through centuries of security and sleep. "wild as the wildman and sweet as the briar-rose," was the saying they had about her in the homestead where she was bred. * * * * * ikey got into his car and rolled away through the dust toward brighton. the other three men strolled back to the yard. "bar accidents, there's only one you've got to fear," said joses. "and that's the putnam horse," put in jaggers. "how's he comin' along?" asked the jockey. "great guns," the fat man replied. "think he's a berserk?" asked jaggers. "i know it," said joses. "stolen jump. the stable-lads let him out on that old man for a lark. he's the spit of the old horse, only bigger." "he must be a big un then," said jaggers. "he is," chukkers answered. "and he's in at ten stun. the mare's givin' him a ton o' weight. and weight is weight at liverpool." "she'll do it," said jaggers confidently. "i'll back my iroquois against their berserk--if berserk he is." "he's berserk," said chukkers doggedly. "a blind man at midnight could tell that from his fencing. goes at 'em like a lion. such a lift to him, too! is monkey brand goin' to ride him?" he asked joses. "no. turned down. too old." "then the lad as rode him at lingfield will," said chukkers. "sooner him than monkey anyway. if monkey couldn't win himself he'd see i didn't. ride me down and ram me. the lad wouldn't 'ave the nerve. face like a girl." "monkey ain't the only one," muttered joses. "silver's in it, too--up to the neck." when joses left to catch his train jaggers accompanied him across the yard. "yes," he said, "if she wins there'll be plenty for all." the tout hovered in the gate. "i'm glad to hear it," he said, with emphasis. "_very_ glad." jaggers threw up his head in that free, frank way of his. "what, joses?" he said. "you're not short?" "things aren't too flush with me, mr. jaggers," muttered the fat man. jaggers stared out over the downs. "if that putnam horse was not to start it would be worth a monkey to you," he said, cold and casual. the other shot a swift and surreptitious glance at him. jaggers had on his best pulpit air. "don't start," mused joses. "that's a tall order." the trainer picked his teeth. "a monkey's money," he said. the fat man sniggered. "it's worth money, too," he remarked. "give you a new start in a new country," continued jaggers. "quite the capitalist." joses's eyes wandered. "i don't say it mightn't fix it," he said at last cautiously. "but it'd mean cash. could you give me something on account?" his reverence was prepared. he took a leather case out of his pocket and handed over five bank-notes. "there's a pony," he said. "now i don't want to see you till after the race. you know me. me word's me bond. it's all out this time." with a proud and priestly air he strode back to the house. chapter xl man and woman silver and joses went back to cuckmere by the same train from brighton. the young man was well-established in a first-class smoker, and the train was about to start when the fat man came puffing along the platform. he was very hot; and out of his pocket bulged a brown paper parcel. the paper had burst and the head of a wooden mallet was exposed. silver, quiet in his corner, remarked that mallet. that night he took a round of the stable-buildings before he went to bed, as his custom had been of late. there was nobody stirring but maudie, meandering around like a ghost who did not feel well. he went to the back of the lads' barn, and looked across the paddock close. a light in the window of a cottage shone out solitary in the darkness. it was the cottage in which joses lived, and the light came from an upper window. silver strolled along the back of the stable-buildings toward it. under boy's window he paused, as was his wont. a light within showed that the girl was in her eyrie. then the light went out, and the window opened quietly. shyness overcame the young man. he moved away and went back to the corner in the saddle-room he had made his own--partly because he could smoke there undisturbed, and far more because it was directly under the girl's room, and he loved to hear her stirring above him. he lit his pipe, settled himself, and began to brood. the girl was still there--he could tell by the sound; and still at the window. a vague curiosity possessed him as to what attracted her. then she crossed the floor with that determined step of hers, and went along the loft, the planks betraying her. he heard her swift feet on the ladder, and coming down the gangway toward the saddle-room. in another moment she stood before him. a woolly cap was on her head, and a long muffler flung about her throat. it was clear that she was going out. he noticed with surprise that her race-glasses were slung over her shoulders. "i came for the electric torch," she remarked. he rose and pocketed it. "right," he said. "whither away?" "i don't want you," she answered. "i'm coming along, though." "you can't," coldly. "why not?" "i'm going spying." "good," he answered cheerfully. she led out into the night. he followed her. in the yard she paused again. "and spying's only for people like me," she continued daintily. "it's not work for the gentry." they were walking across the paddock close now under dim heavens toward the light in the cottage across the way. "i suppose not," he answered imperturbably. "i'm glad i'm not one." "oh, but you are," with quiet insistence. "your father could have been a peer. you've told us about it many a time." jim silver was roused. he surged up alongside the girl in the night, and pinched her arm above the elbow. "now look here, little woman!" he said. she released her arm. "not so loud," she ordered. "and don't creak so." they walked delicately in the darkness, the light guiding them, till they came to the ragged hedge at the foot of a long strip of cottage garden. the night was very warm, the blinds up, the windows wide. joses, in his shirt-sleeves, was busy within working at something. the girl watched awhile through her glasses and then withdrew quietly. "he's whittling at wooden pegs," she whispered, keen as a knife. "obviously." "what was that coil on the table?" "wire." "and the thing beside it?" "mallet." she glanced up at him in the dusk. "you're short," she said. the stables showed before them, long and black against the sky. they were nearly off the grass. in another moment their feet would take the cobbles with a noise. the girl paused and put her hand on her companion's arm. "thank you for coming," she said. the resistance died out of him at once. he stood breathing deeply at her side. she lifted her face to his. "mr. silver!" "sweetheart!" he loomed above her like a great shadow; and she felt his love beating all about her as with wings. "bend your head!" his face drew down to hers in the dusk. then his arms stole about her lithe body; and his laughter was in her ear soft as the cooing of a dove. "don't kiss me," she said. "you deserve it," he replied. her hands rested light as birds upon his shoulders; her eyes were steady in his, and very close. "d'you love me?" she asked, her voice so calm, so pure, somehow so like a singing star. he choked. "a bit--sometimes." "then i'll whisper you," she said. her beautiful little arms, wreathing about his neck, drew his ear to her lips. she whispered. he chuckled deeply. "good," he said, and added--"is that all?" she released him and withdrew. "for the present," she said. they entered the yard. the light of the great stable-lantern brought them back from the land of dreams. they cleared their throats and trod the cobbles aggressively. she went toward the ladder. he turned off for the house. "what time d'you take the hill?" he called. "six sharp." "right." "shall you be there?" she spoke from the door of the loft, at the top of the ladder. "might," he said, and was gone. chapter xli the spider's web it was monkey brand's cause of complaint against the young man that he was too simple; but if his suspicions were difficult to rouse, once roused they were not easily appeased. he was up and away next morning before even boy and albert were about. dressed in a sweater and gray flannel trousers, he swung up the hill. as he reached the summit he looked back and saw the brown horse and his attendant beginning the ascent. swiftly he walked along the gallop, his eyes everywhere, suspecting he knew not what. the gorse grew close and dark on either side the naked course. he watched it closely as he went, and the occasional shrill spurt of a bird betrayed movement in the covert--it might be of a weasel, a fox, or a man. the morning was chill and misty, the turf sodden and shining. at one spot the gorse marched in close-ranked upon the green until only a passage of some thirty yards was left. as he walked down the narrow way something flashed at his feet, and caught him smartly across the shin. he tripped and fell. a wire was stretched across the gallop some four inches above the ground. it was taut and stout, and shone like a gossamer in the mist. he rose and followed it. it ran right athwart the course and lost itself in the gorse on either side. silver searched and found the wire was bound about two wooden pegs that had been hammered into the earth. the pegs were so fast that his fall against the wire had not shifted them. he looked back along the way he had come. the horse had not yet made his appearance on the brow. bending over a peg, and bowing his back, the young man heaved, twisted, and lurched. it took him all his time to uproot it, but he did so at last. then he glanced up. four-pound-the-second had topped the brow half a mile away. silver took the peg and began to roll up the wire leisurely. as he did so he was aware of a man standing in the gorse on the other side of the gallop watching him. silver did not raise his eyes, but had no doubt as to the man's identity. it was the other who opened the conversation, coming out of the gorse on to the track. "that's an ugly bit of wire," he said. "now how did that get there, i wonder?" "spider spun it, i guess," answered the young man laconically. "what!" laughed the other. "gossamer is it?" "yes," said silver. "and not bad gossamer at that." he looked up suddenly. "where did you get it from?--the same place you bought the mallet in brighton?" the tout swaggered across the green. "see here, silver," he said. "none of that. you're not in the position to come it over me now you've joined the great company of gentlemen-adventurers. there's nothing in it since the bank broke. we both stand together on the common quicksands of economic insecurity." silver wound up the wire. "common quicksands of economic insecurity is good," he said deliberately. "distinctly good." "yes," replied the other. "i learned it at oxford, where i learned a lot besides. or to put it straight, we're both naked men now--stripped to the world. and i'm as good a man as you are." silver dropped the wire and advanced leisurely. "are you?" he said. "i doubt it. but we'll soon see." the fat man produced a mallet from behind his back. "no ---- nonsense," he snarled. "i thought you said we were both naked men," replied silver, folding his arms. "never mind what i said," the other answered. "keep your ---- distance, or i'll puddle you into a pulp." jim regarded the other with admiring eyes. "you learned more at oxford than i did," he said. "learned to express yourself at least. if i'd that command of language i'd be in the pulpit or in parliament to-morrow." there was the sound of a horse's feet behind them. boy was walking four-pound-the-second toward them. "good morning, miss woodburn," called joses cheerily. "so _you're_ up to-day." "yes," said the girl. "going to take him for a spin?" boy did not answer. "mr. joses has been doing the spinning this morning," interposed silver urbanely, holding up the wire. "oh," said the fat man. "i'll leave him to spin his yarn, miss woodburn. but don't you believe all he says. you'll hear the truth when i bring the case into court. he'll want all the money _you_ can win him by the time i've done with him." he disappeared down the hillside. the girl came close and leaned down over the shoulder of the great horse. "what is it?" she asked. jim silver showed her. "only this," he said. "right across the track." the girl took it as all in the day's work. "did you catch him at it?" she asked. "no; he was lying doggo near by--to watch results." she examined the wire. "he means business all right," she said. "we must look a bit lively. i'll have the track patrolled." "i shall patrol it," said jim. chapter xlii the doper in her darker moods maudie held that the world to-day only possessed one man who could take his place beside the knights of old; and that man, to be sure, was monkey brand. the lads teased or ignored her; the various four-legs were uncouth to a degree; and the monster-without-manners was, of course, just himself. therefore maudie passed all the time she could on the shoulder of putnam's only gentleman. perched up there, aloof, lofty, and disdainful, she would purr away like a kettle on the simmer. that evening she was enthroned in paradise, when joses shambled by. monkey brand, stroking her back as he stood at the gate of the yard exchanging greetings with the passers-by in the road, shook his head disapprovingly as joses passed. "mug's game, mr. joses," he said _sotto voce_. the fat man, who had not seen the jockey in the dusk, drew up short. "what's that?" he said keenly. "that wire business," continued the little man in the same monotonous undertone without moving his lips. "ought to be able to do a little better than that with an edication like yours. where's the good of oxford else?" joses came closer swiftly. "see here, monkey brand," he said. "do you mean business, or don't you?" the jockey's face was inscrutable. "i never said no to _good_ business yet," he answered. "this is good business all right," laughed the tout. "big money, and safe as houses." at the moment a voice called from the office. "comin,' sir," answered the little jockey. "_that's the gov'nor. back o' lads' barn. eight o'clock_," he whispered, and was gone. * * * * * joses kept the tryst, and went straight to the point. he had burned his boats now. "when do they box him to liverpool?" he asked. "monday," answered the other, who seemed very surly. "if you want to do anything, you must move sharp, mr. joses. it's here or nowhere, mind. you won't get no chance at aintree. too many cops around." "who's watching him at night?" "monkey." "does monkey ever nod?" the little man looked at the stars. "no sayin' but he might--if he was to took a drop o' soothin' syrup." "what about the dog?" "he could 'ave some soothin' syrup, too. 'elp him with his teethin'." the tout turned his back with a somewhat unnecessary regard for decency, produced a bank-note and flourished it. "what's that?" asked monkey. "little bit o' crumpled paper." "let's see it." "you may smell it. only don't touch." "will it drop to pieces?" joses swept away the other's appropriating hand. "might burn your fingers," he said. "that's what i'm thinking of. that's to buy you a bottle of mother siegel's soothing syrup. there's only one thing," he went on, brandishing the note in the moon. "looks a wistful little thing, don't you think? that's because he's lonely. he's left four little brothers and sisters same as himself at home. and he's pining for 'em to join him. and join him they will to-morrow night--if you'll let me in to his loose-box." jaggers at his best never looked more self-righteous than monkey brand as he made reply: "i couldn't let you into his loose-box, mr. joses," he said quietly. "wouldn't be right. only the door'll be on the latch, and if you choose to come in--why, who's to stop you?" "right," laughed the other. "i'm an artist, i am, as you may recall. i'd like to paint you in your sleep. study of innocence i should call it." he dropped away into the darkness. a whistle stopped him. the little jockey was limping after him. "say to-night," he said. "no," said the fat man. "to-morrow night. sunday night. that's the night for good deeds." * * * * * at ten that night jim silver escorted boy woodburn across the yard to the foot of the ladder. for a moment the two stood at the foot of the ladder in talk. then the girl disappeared into the loft. as silver turned away he was whistling. monkey brand, who was standing in the stable-door near by, lantern in hand, preparatory to taking up his watch in the young horse's box, coughed. silver turned and saw him. "good-night," he said. "yes, sir," said the little man, gazing up at the moon. "there _is_ some good in him after all. _some_ good in us all, i s'poses." jim silver approached him. he knew the little man well enough by now to know that he was always most round-about in his methods when he had something of importance to convey. "in who?" he asked. monkey looked surprised and somewhat resentful. "why, mr. joses, o' cos." "what's he done now?" asked the young man. monkey withdrew into the shadow of the door. "that," he said, producing the five-pound note. jim handled it. "what did he give you that for?" "why, for lookin' down me nose and sayin a-a men. the rest's to follow to-morrow midnight--five of 'em--if i'm a good boy, as i 'opes to be. goin' to drop into me lap same as manners from the ceilin' when moses was around--while i sleeps like a suckin' innocent." the young man thought. "have you told mr. woodburn?" "no, sir. i told no one--only you." "shall you tell the police?" "never!" cried monkey, genuinely indignant. "are i a copper's nark?" whether because of childhood memories, or for some other reason, the copper was still for monkey brand the enemy of the human race; and the little jockey had his own code of honour, to which he scrupulously adhered. "what shall you do?" asked jim. the jockey jerked his head mysteriously. then he limped away down the gangway, behind sleeping horses, into the loose-box at the end where stood four-pound-the-second. carefully he closed the door behind the young man and put his lantern down. "see, you thought i was on the crook, didn't you, sir?" he said ironically, pursing his eye-lids. "so you are," replied the young man. monkey wagged his head sententiously. "oh, i'm on the crook all right in a manner o' speakin'," he admitted. "only where it is, there's crooks and crooks. there's crooks that is on the straight--" "and there's straights that is on the crook," interposed jim. "as per item, monkey brand." * * * * * next morning silver went to see old mat in his office and opened to him a tale; but the trainer, who seemed very sleepy these days, refused to hear him. "i knows nothin' about nothin'," he said almost querulously, pursing his lips, and sheathing his eyes. "as to rogues and rasqueals, you knows my views by now, mr. silver. same as the psalmist's, as i've said afore. as for the rest, i'm an old man--older nor i can recollect. all i asks is to lay down and die quiet and peaceable with nothin' on me conscience only last night's cheese." chapter xliii the loose-box next night boy woodburn was unusually late to bed. sunday nights she always devoted to preparing the bible-lesson for next week. of old she had always retired to her room in the loft after supper on sunday to wrestle with her labours; but as her mother grew into years, the girl had adopted the habit of working in the parlour. on this sunday she worked on long after her father and mother had gone to bed, reading and making notes. once the door opened, and she was dimly aware of mr. silver standing in it. he departed quietly as he had come without a word, but her subconsciousness noted vaguely and with surprise that he was wearing a greatcoat and muffler as if he was going out. it was eleven o'clock when she closed her book and crossed the yard. under the ladder to the loft a door led to a woodshed at the end of the stable. as she went up the ladder she heard somebody moving in the shed. "who's that?" she asked sharply. there was no answer. she descended and tried the door. it was locked. "that's all right, boy," called a quiet voice. "it's only me." "mr. silver," she cried. "what on earth are you up to?" "after a rat." "a queer time to choose." "yes," he said. "he's a big 'un. i'm sitting for him." "good-night then," she called, and ran up the ladder, heralded by the swift and ghostly maudie. the trap-door over four-pound-the-second's box was open as always. she peeped down on to the back of the horse and monkey brand, busy by the light of his lantern, arranging a pile of horse-blankets in the corner on which to sleep. "where's billy bluff?" she asked. "just gone outside a minute, miss." four-pound-the-second moved restlessly. "give him some water," she directed, "and settle him down as soon as you can." "very good, miss," the little jockey answered. * * * * * it was an hour later that the stable-door clicked and joses entered. he was wearing rope-soled shoes, and he moved softly behind the long line of horses. in his slouch hat and loose cloak he looked like a stage conspirator. monkey brand was nodding on an upturned bucket. as the fat man entered the loose-box, the great horse turned a shining eye on him and whinnied. monkey blinked, stirred, and grunted: "'ello!" he smelt strongly of whiskey. the tout, unheeding him, produced a twitch. but monkey rose with heavy eyes and jerked it irritably out of the other's hand. "none o' that," he said. he nodded to the open trap-door overhead. "she sleeps up there, don't she?" whispered the fat man. "she never sleeps," muttered the other. "got the stuff?" he asked drowsily. joses produced a bottle from the pocket of his cloak. monkey looked around. "where's a blurry bucket?" he asked, and with faltering hands inverted the one on which he had been sitting. "put a drop of water in," urged the fat man. the little man obeyed, moving uncertainly. "is he dry?" asked joses. "i wish i'd only 'alf his thirst," drowsed the other. the fat man removed the cork from the bottle. monkey seized it rudely and sniffed it. "what is it?" he asked sullenly. "nothing to hurt him," said joses soothingly. "just take the shine out of him for a day or two." the jockey was so drunk that he needed humouring. the tout cursed his faulty judgment in having given the little man money to spend before the deed had been done. monkey let his heavy-lidded eyes rest on the other. he was breathing almost stertorously. then he pushed the bottle back toward joses. "i mush trush you," he said, "same as you trush me. you wouldn't deceive me, oxford genelman and all." "what d'you take me for?" answered joses. he poured the stuff into the bucket that monkey held. it was dark and sweet-smelling. four-pound-the-second sniffed with inflated nostrils. "hist!" cried monkey. "what's that?" "somebury at the door." "the door's all right. i locked it." "he's got a key." "who has?" "silver." "is he on the ramp?" "ain't he?" snorted monkey. "hundred thousand--and the gal." he added with a snort: "thought i were a copper's nark. good as told me so." joses stole down the gangway to the door. when he came back monkey was holding the bucket to four-pound-the-second, who was drinking noisily. "it was only the cat," he said. "i heard her scuttle." "don't it smell funny?" whispered monkey, swirling the bucket gently under the horse's muzzle. joses patted the drinking horse. "there's the beauty," he said. "suck it down. it'll give you pleasant dreams." four-pound-the-second had his fill by now and moved away. joses picked up his twitch and made for the door. monkey placed himself between the fat man and the exit, heavy-lidded, stertorous, and menacing. "one thing," he said. "what's that?" "them little bits o' paper there was some talk about." "oh, aye, i was forgettin' them." "was you, then? i wasn't," said monkey brutally. "dole 'em out." the fat man obeyed with a snigger; then shuffled softly down the passage and out. monkey brand heard him open the door and cross the yard. then a voice called: "hi at him!" there was a scurry of pursuing feet, a scuffle, and a yell. the jockey rushed out into the yard. joses was disappearing over the gate, flinging something behind him, and billy bluff was smothered in a cape which he was worrying. jim silver, racing across the yard, snatched the cape from the dog. a window flung open. boy looked out. "what is it?" she cried. "it's all right, miss," answered monkey. "no 'arm done." the girl came swiftly down the ladder in the moonlight. she was in her wrapper, her short hair massed. "is the horse all right?" she cried. "yes, miss." "where's billy bluff?" "there." silver turned his electric torch on to a far corner of the yard, where the dog was seen chewing a lump of meat. boy flung herself on him and tore it away. "hold him!" she cried to jim. "between your knees! force his mouth open! mind yourself now." she brought the stable-hose to bear upon the dog's extended mouth. he wrestled hugely in the grip of the young man's knees, gasping, spluttering, whining for mercy. but mercy there was none. the girl drenched him with the hose, and the man who was holding him. "go and get the tandem whip!" she cried. monkey ran. "now stand at the gates, both of you, and don't let him through." boy seized the whip and hunted the dog about the yard. he fled madly. for five minutes the girl pursued him remorselessly. then he was violently sick. "that's better," panted the girl. "bring that meat, brand." she led the way into four-pound-the-second's horse-box, followed by silver, torch in hand. "_he's_ not taken much harm," she said, patting the horse in her deliberate way. a delicious little figure she made in her striped pyjamas, her wrapper girt about her, her feet bare in shining black pumps, and her short hair thick and curling about her neck. suddenly she was aware of her companion and withdrew into herself as she felt him watching her. "sweetheart honey," he purred, reaching out tender hands toward her. she put up a warning finger. "there's no one looking," he answered her. "yes, there is." "who?" "four-pound." "he don't matter." "i'm not sure," she answered gravely. "he's a funny little look in his eye." he was making passes close to her face and throat. she restrained him. "wait," she said gently. he dropped his hands. "i shall go back to bed now," she continued. "you'd better turn in, too--now you've caught your rat." "i've cut off his tail anyway," laughed the young man, showing the cloak. swathed in her light wrapper, the little creature shuffled swiftly down the gangway behind the line of sleeping horses, her pumps, too big for her bare feet, clacking on the pavement. he followed her heavily, his eyes brimming laughter and delight. a few minutes later silver joined monkey brand in the loose-box. "good little try-on, sir," said the jockey busily. "funny smelling stuff though." removing a rug, he produced a bucket hidden beneath and held it to the other's nose. "chuck it down the drain," said the young man. "'alf a mo, sir," protested monkey brand. "let me fill me bottle first." he looked up at the young man with extraordinary cunning. "ever know'd a monkey get squiffy?" he asked confidentially. "no. nor me neever." chapter xliv monkey brand gets the sack joses was lying on his bed in the gray of dawn, looking curiously livid, when somebody whistled beneath his window. he rose and looked out. monkey was standing morosely in the garden underneath. the fat man beckoned him in, and returned to his bed. the little jockey entered. he was dark, sullen, dangerous. "well?" said the tout, lying in disarray upon the bed. "i thought you'd done a get-away," said monkey surlily. "i've been queer," answered the other. "has the stuff worked?" "worked!" cried the jockey, with smothered fury. "it's worked _my_ trick all right. never touched the 'orse. run through him like so much water. the chemist who made up that stuff doped you and not the 'orse--and done me." "what they done to you?" "took the cash off me, and give me the ---- boot instead." the tout considered. "he's fit, is he?" "fit?" snorted the little man. "he's throwin' back-somersaults in his box. that's all." "when do they box him for liverpool?" "twelve-fifteen train." joses gathered himself with difficulty. "see here, brand," he said. "are you straight?" "straight!" shouted monkey. "would i ha' sold the guv'nor i serve for twenty year if i wasn't straight." the fat man pulled on his boots. "never say die till you're dead," he said. "we must go north, too. there's the last card and we must play it." * * * * * nobody but those immediately concerned were at polefax station to see the local national horse boxed for liverpool. albert was there, and boy, her collar about her ears, and billy bluff looking unusually dejected. old mat, it was remarked by the porters, was not present; and monkey brand, it was also remarked, though at the station, took no part in the proceedings, huddling over the fire in the waiting-room, a desolate little figure of woe. as the young horse entered his box at a siding, the train from brighton came into the station. silver stepped out of it, a cloak over his arm. he did not join the little group busy about the box, but made for the solitary figure watching from the far end of the platform. "your cloak, mr. joses," he said pleasantly. "thank you," replied the fat man, cold and casual. "i shall want it at liverpool." "you left it behind you last night." "i did," admitted the other. "i was having a chat with monkey brand. and that brute of a dog came for me as i left." "the bottle you brought's in the pocket," continued silver. "good," said joses. "i hope there's something in it." "nothing now." "ah, shame! you shouldn't hold out false hopes." silver's chin became aggressive. "doping's a crime, mr. joses." "is that so, mr. silver?" "your attempt to dope that horse last night puts you within the grip of the law." "who says i attempted to dope him?" "i do." "any evidence to support your libellous statement?" "what about the notes you gave monkey brand?" the fat man laughed. "so monkey brand's implicated, is he?" he said. "he took money from me to settle your horse, and leaked when he was in liquor. that's the story, is it?" he lifted his voice. "d'you hear that, brand?" "i hear," came the little sodden voice from the waiting-room. "and i says nothing. there's one above'll see me right." joses shook his curls at silver. "won't wash," he said. "really it won't. what the lawyers call collusion. you didn't know i was trained for the bar, did you? another little surprise packet for you. come, mr. silver, you must do a little better than that--an old hand like you." the young man observed him with slow, admiring eyes. "joses," he said deliberately, "you're a clever rogue." the fat man's eye became almost genial. he looked warily round, and then came a step closer. "ain't i?" he whispered. silver, laughing gently, handed him his cloak. "here it is," he said. "i'm keeping the little bit of paper that was in the pocket." the other's pupils contracted. "what paper's that?" "the prescription of the dope mixture you handed in to burgess and williams, the brighton chemists, yesterday morning. they put their stamp on it and the date. i've just come back from a chat with them." the fat man watched the other as a rabbit watches a weasel. "are you going to peach?" he said. "i'll tell you after the national," replied the other. joses dropped his voice into his boots. "make it a monkey and i'll quit," he muttered. "she's worth it," he added cunningly. silver looked at him. the tout came a sudden step closer. "i _know_," he whispered. book vi mocassin chapter xlv aintree the grand national is always the great event of the chasing year. this year it was something more. as the american ambassador in england, speaking at the pilgrim's club a week before the race, said, it was an international affair fraught with possibilities for two great peoples, one in blood and tongue and history, whom an unhappy accident had parted for a moment in the past. the mare indeed was a magnet. at the time that england is loud with the voice of lambs, and the arabis in sussex gardens begins to attract the bees, she was drawing men to her from all the ends of the earth. they came hurrying across the seas in their thousands to see the hope of the young countries triumphant, and above all to compel fair play for their champion. indeed, there was an undeniable touch of defiance about the attitude of most of them. last year the old folks at home--god bless em!--john bull, the leariest of frank-spoken rogues!--had done her in. the mare had won and had been disqualified. those were the simple facts; and no casuistry by the cleverest of london lawyers could get away from them. on the question of chukkers and the bully boys, as the english cheap press called them, showed themselves eminently reasonable. as they said themselves not without grimness, "gee!--don't we know chukkers?--didn't we riz him? his father was a frisco chink, and his mother a mexican half-breed. you can tell us nothing about him we don't know. we admit it all. wipe it out. if she'd been ridden by the straightest feller that ever sat in the pigskin the result'd have been the same. are you going to give america best in your big race? is john bull a bleatin' baa-lamb?" and so _hands off and no hanky-panky_ was the war-chaunt of the young american bloods whom great cunarders vomited on to the docks at liverpool and p.-and-o.'s landed at tilbury to join the ikey's own, who had been on watch throughout the winter. * * * * * the national always takes place on the friday of aintree week. all the week special trains were running liverpool-ward from the ends of the british isles. london, glasgow, cardiff, and plymouth each sent their contingents speeding north on the same engrossing errand. all day and night people were turning out in their thousands, hanging over bridges, lining railway embankments, to see the great engines with the kangaroo bound to their buffer-plates coming through, yes, and cheering them. the boys in the corridor trains stood at the windows with folded arms, watched the waving crowds grimly, and winked at each other. they had a profound admiration for john bull's capacity for roguery, and an equally profound belief in their own ability to go one better. last year j.b. had bested them--and they thought all the better of him for it. this year they meant to get their own back--and a bit more. _we are coming, uncle ikey, we are coming millions strong, for to see the haughty english don't do our ikey wrong,_ they sang out of the windows with provocative enjoyment. the people waving on the embankments were in fact innocent of crime, committed or conceived. they had no champion of their own, and with a certain large simplicity they hailed as theirs the mare who had crossed the seas to trample on them. liverpool made holiday for the occasion. the corporation feasted its american visitors, while the big ship-owners gave a dance at the wellington rooms. the adelphi hotel was the headquarters of the beyond-the-seas folk, and it was full to overflowing. in the huge dining-room, where every year the waterloo cup dinner is held, there was an immense muster the night before the race. lord milburn, the prime minister, was there, with the mayor of liverpool on his left, and the american ambassador upon his right. one famous ex-president of the great republic was present, and many of the most distinguished citizens of the two countries; ikey aaronsohnn with his eternal twinkle, was there, and jaggers looking like a church of england bishop. chukkers alone was absent. and he was lying low upstairs, it was said, with one of ikey's own at his bedside, and another over his door, to see that no harm befell him before the great day dawned. america might not like the great jockey, but she meant him to ride her mare to victory. lord milburn, a somewhat ponderous gentleman, well-known with the quorn, a representative imperialist statesman, was at his best. and if his best was never very good, at least his references to mocassin brought down the house. "she is something moa than the best steeplechaser that ever looked through a bridle-ah," he announced in his somewhat portentous way. "she is--in my judgment--the realization of a dream. in her have met once more the two great streams of the anglo-saxon race. you have every right to be proud of hah; and so, i venture to say, have we. for we of the old country claim our share in the mare. she comes, i say, in the last resort--the last resort--of english thoroughbred stock. (cheers, counter-cheers.) and if she wins to-morrah--as she will (cheers), 'given fair play'" came a voice from the back. "_that_ she will get--(cheers and boos)--the people of this country will rejoice that another edifice has been laid to the mighty brick--ah of anglo-saxon fellowship on which the hope, and i think i may say, the happiness of the world depends." the evening ended, as the liverpool _herald_ reported, at two in the morning, when abe gideon, the bark-blocks comedian, was hoisted on to the table and sang the _mocassin song_ to a chorus that set the water in the docks rocking. chapter xlvi the sefton arms old mat never stopped in liverpool for the big race. that was partly because everybody else did, and partly because he always preferred the sefton arms upon the course. when his little daughter first took to accompanying her dad to the national she used to stay the night with a methodist cousin of her mother's and join her father on the course next morning. this time she refused point-blank to favour cousin agatha, and further refused to argue the matter. she was going with her father to the sefton arms. mrs. woodburn was genuinely distressed, so much so indeed that silver heard her hold forth for the first time in his knowledge of her on the modern mother's favourite theme--the daughter of to-day. old mat gave her little sympathy. "she's said she's goin', so goin' she is," he grunted matter-of-factly. "no argifyin's no good when she's said that. you might know that by now, mar." he added, to assuage his wife, that mr. silver was going to stop with them at the sefton arms. "he's better than some," said the old lady almost vengefully. "now then, mar-r-r!" cried the old man, "you're gettin' a reg'lar old woman, you are." when his wife had left the room in dudgeon: "it's silly," grunted the trainer. "'course she wants to be on the course. it's only in natur. it's her hoss, and her race. she ain't goin' to run no risks. and i don't blame her neether. there's only one way o' seein' a thing through as i've ever know'd, and that's seein' it through yourself." * * * * * mrs. woodburn's good-bye to her daughter was cold as it was wistful. at the garden-gate boy turned and waved. "cheer, mum!" she cried. her mother, standing austerely on the steps of the house, did not respond. "i shall be back on saturday," called the girl as she climbed into the buggy. * * * * * that was on the monday. on that day boy and albert and billy bluff took the young horse north, travelling all the way in his box. at euston it was evident something out of the way was forward. there was hardly a crowd at the station, but expectant folk were gathered here and there in knots and there were more police than usual about. the secret was soon out. jaggers, with the air of the grand inquisitor, appeared on the platform with his head-lad, rushton. the trainer entered into talk with a man whom albert informed his mistress was a cop in plain clothes. "place swarms with 'em," the youth whispered. "and ikey's own. they're takin' no chances." in fact, mocassin and her two stable-companions were travelling on the same train as the putnam horse. as albert remarked, not without complacency: "one thing. if there's a smash we're all in it." at aintree the crowd, which somehow always knows, had gathered to see the crack. they didn't see much but four chestnut legs and a long tail; but what they saw was enough to satisfy them. you could swaddle her like a corpse from muzzle to hocks, and from withers to fetlock, but the queen of kentucky's walk was not to be mistaken. and as she came out of her box on to the platform, treading daintily, the little gathering raised the familiar slogan that told she was betrayed. boy let the favourite get well away before she unboxed her horse. there was nobody about by then but a small urchin who jeered: "say, lydy! is yon what they call a camel-leopard?" the little party had the road to themselves, and passed unheeded. the billjim guard were escorting the favourite to the yard, and the crowd were escorting the billjims. when four-pound-the-second reached the yard with his three satellites twenty minutes later, the backwash of the crowd still eddied and swirled about the entrance. the policeman on the gate made a fuss about admitting billy bluff. but the head yard-man, who knew mat woodburn's daughter almost as well as he knew his own, interfered on her behalf. "he'll sleep in my horse's box," boy explained. "won't your horse sleep without him, miss?" grinned the yard-man. "not so well," answered the girl. "oh, let him in," said the other. "pity to spoil that horse's beauty sleep. might lose his looks." boy could never bring herself to titter at the jokes of those whom it was expedient to placate. happily albert was at hand to make amends, and he, to be sure, had no qualms of conscience. the little procession entered, billy bluff at the heels of the great horse, striking fire in the dusk from the cobbled yard. "he's to look after chukkers, i suppose," said the yard-man grimly, pleased at his own generosity, well satisfied with his wit, and fairly so with albert's tribute to it. "he's to look after my horse," said boy resolutely. "he looks he could look after himself, miss," replied the witty yard-man. "so he can, sir, with you to help him," said the swift and tactful albert. the yard-man, who could tell you stories of boomerang's national, and cannibal's victory, that not even monkey brand could surpass, knew of old the feeling between putnam's and the dewhurst stable, and had placed the boxes of the two horses far apart. * * * * * all through the week the excitement grew. the sefton arms was seething; the bar a slowly heaving mass of racing-men, jockeys, touts, habitués. once or twice there were rows between ikey's own--the yankee doodlers, as the local wits called them--and the english silver-ring bookies; and the cause of the quarrels was invariably the same--the treatment of the mare at last year's national. throughout the week boy went her quiet, strenuous way, unconscious of the commotion about her, or careless of it. jim silver escorted her to and from the yard. most people knew old mat's daughter and respected her; and those who did not, respected the grave-faced young giant who was her constant attendant. when the pair passed swiftly through the bar, an observer would have noticed that a hush fell on the drinkers, accompanied by surreptitious elbow-nudgings and significant winks. it was clear that the young couple were of secret interest to the dingy crowd. and in fact there were rumours afloat about them--sensational stories not a few about what they stood to win in love upon the race. monkey brand and joses were always drinking together in the bar as silver walked through. once he passed quite close to them. the little jockey's glassy eye rested meaninglessly on the young man's face and wandered away. when the other had moved on, he dropped his eyelid and muttered to his pal: "wants the ---- kybosh puttin' on him. good as called me a copper's nark." "hundred thousand in the pot," grinned the fat man. "and a dainty bit o' white meat. i don't blame him." he licked his lips. * * * * * there were few more familiar figures at the bar of the sefton arms at national time than that of monkey brand, and this year few more pathetic ones. it was soon bruited abroad that old mat and his head-lad had parted after more years of association than many cared to recall. and it was clear that the little man felt the rupture. he wandered morosely through the crowd in the train of his fat familiar like a lost soul outside the gates of paradise. usually a merry sprite, the life and soul of every group he joined, he was under the weather, as the saying went, and what was still more remarkable he showed it. everybody was aware of the facts, though nobody knew the story. the duke, who was genuinely fond of the little jockey, and full of vulgar curiosity, coming upon him two nights before the race, stopped him. "i'm sorry to hear you and mr. woodburn have parted after all these years, brand," he said in his gruff way. "thank you, your grace," said the little jockey, pinching his lips. the duke waited. nothing happened, but monkey poked his chin in the air, and swallowed. "i thought you were set for life," continued the duke slowly. "i thought so, too, your grace," answered the jockey. "but the human 'eart's a funny affair--very funny, as the sayin' is." long ago he had acquired the trick of moralizing from his old master. "what's the trouble, then?" grunted the duke. he was greatly curious and honestly concerned. "thought i were sellin' him," muttered monkey. the duke bent shaggy brows upon the little man. "were you?" he asked. for a moment the old merry monkey rose from the dead and twinkled. then he stiffened like a dead man, touched his hat, and turned away. the duke clung to him. he, too, had heard a story, and wished to know the rights and wrongs of it. "well, well," he said. "we must all hope the putnam horse wins--for mr. silver's sake. eh, what?" "yes, your grace," replied the uncommunicative monkey. the night before the race the duke, still hunting the trail tenaciously, stumbled, according to his own account, on old mat, and reported the substance of his interview with monkey in that ingenuous way of his, half simple, half brutal, and all with an astonishing _savoir-faire_ you would never have given him credit for. "one thing," he ended, "he ain't blackguardin' you." mat seemed lost in memories. "i wep' a tear. i did reely," he said at last. then he shook a sorrowful head. "i ain't one o' yer whitewings meself," he said. "not by no means. but he shock me, monkey do. he does reely." he dabbed his eye. "rogues and rasqueals, yer grace," he said. "all very well. but there is a limit, as the psalmist very proply remarked." the duke turned to go, his curiosity still unsatisfied. "where's boy?" he asked gruffly. "i've seen nothing of her this time." "she's kep' busy, your grace--nursin' the baby." "how is he?" "keeps a-crowin'," said the old man, "from all i hears of it." chapter xlvii on the course next morning was gray with gleams of sun: an ideal day, old hands said, for the great race of the year. mat found his way to the paddock early and alone. at aintree everything is known about the notables by everybody, and there were few more familiar figures than that of the old man with the broad shoulders, the pink face, and the difficulty in drawing breath. it was twenty odd years since cannibal had won the big race for him; and this year it was known that he had only come up to see the sport. true he had a horse running, down on the card as four-pound-the-second, brown gelding, five years old, green jacket and cap, ten stone; but he was an any-price outsider, only entered because for something like fifty years there had never been a national in which a putnam horse had not played a part. and rumour had it that four-pound was a rum un even for putnam's. as mat entered the paddock, he was looking round him--for his missing daughter, observers said. jaggers and ikey aaronsohnn marked him from afar and told off a couple of the boys to track him from a respectful distance. the old man's familiar figure, his queer clothes, and reputation as a character, drew others toward him. he lilted heavily across the paddock with a word to one, a nod to another, a wink for a third, talking all the time and breathing like a grampus, with a little crowd of tittering nondescripts swirling in his wake and hanging on his words. "don't 'ave nothin' to do wi' me. that's my adwice to you. i'm old mat. you oughter know that by this. no, i ain't goin' to walk round the course this year. as i says, the course don't change, but i does. if the course wants me to see it, it must walk round me. i've done the proper thing be the course this sixty year. now it's the course's turn. _good morning, mr. jaggers_. yes, i see him, and he see me--only he look the other way. pretty little thing, ain't he? reminds me of that foreign chap went on the religious ramp in italy. i seen his picture at mr. haggard's. savierollher, wasn't it? they burnt him; and i don't blame 'em. he was jaggers's father i _'ave_ 'eard. only you mustn't 'and it on, else you might get me into trouble." he crossed the course, looked at the water opposite the grand stand, and examined the first fence lugubriously. "time was i could ha' hop it off one foot," he said. "something's 'appened. must 'ave." then he returned to the paddock, passing a bookie with uplifted hand of protest. "get away from me, satan," he said. "don't tempt an old man what's never fell yet." "i know all about that, mr. woodburn," grinned the bookie. "i got my principles same as them as 'asn't," continued the old man, marching firmly on. "you go and tell that to the three j's, mr. buckland. there they are be the grand stand. no, when i gets back to mar there'll be nothin' to show her only a blank bettin' book." he stopped quite suddenly and dropped his voice to a whisper: "anything doin', mr. buckland?" his little following roared. "favourite fours. nothing else wanted, mr. woodburn," said the amused man. "it's just the day for the mare." "fours," said the old man. "price shorter nor ever i remember it since cloister's year. it's a cert. for the three j's. what about my little ride-a-cock-horse, mr. buckland?" the bookmaker referred to his card. "four-pound-the-second," he said. "give you forties." "forties!" guffawed old mat. "a young giraffe like him, dropped this spring in the sarah desert under a cocoanut shy. four _hundred_ and forties i thought you was goin' to say. 'ark to him!" he appealed to the delighted crowd. "offers me forties against my pantomime colt, and ain't ashamed of himself. i'd ha' left him at home in the menadgeree along o' the two-'eaded calf and the boy with blue hair if i'd known." "he's a powerful great horse, mr. woodburn," smiled the bookie. "hoss!" cried the outraged old man. "'ave you seen him? he ain't a hoss at all. he's a he-goat. only i've shave the top of him to took you all in. he's comin' on at the 'alls to-night after the race. goin' to sit on a stool and sing _the wop 'em opossum_, specially composed by me and mar for this occasion only." he lilted on his way. * * * * * by noon the paddock was filling, and the carriage enclosure becoming packed. people began to blacken the railway embankment, to gather in knots all round the course at likely places, to line the canal. in the crowd you could hear the dialects of every county in england mingling with accents of the young countries beyond the seas. at noon the duke and his party crossed the paddock. "you won't join us, mat?" he called. "i've got a saloon on the embankment." "no, sir, thank you," said the old man. "mat's corner in the grand stand'll find me at home as usual come three o'clock." the duke paused. he was still hunting the trail. "if you see boy before the race, tell her we'll be glad if she cares to join us." the trainer shook his head. "thank you kindly, your grace. she always goes to the stand by the canal turn when chukkers is riding." there was a chuckle from the bystanders. "he's ridin' this time' all right, from all i hear," said the duke grimly. "you're right, sir," answered the old man. "last night he was countin' his dead in his sleep. the policeman what was over his door to see no lady kidnap him for his looks heard him and tell me." the jockey, who was passing at the moment, stopped. "say it agin," he cried fiercely. the old trainer was face to face with one of the only two men in the world to whom he felt unkindly. "ain't once enough, then?" he asked tartly. the jockey walked on his way. "ah, you're an old man, mr. woodburn," he called back. "_you_ take advantage." "i may be old, but i am _white_," called the old man after him, his blue eye lighting. "oh, come, come!" cried the duke, delighted, as he hurried after his party. "where's mrs. woodburn?" chukkers joined the two j's, who were hobnobbing with some of ikey's own under the grand stand. monkey brand and joses stood together on the outskirts of the group. jaggers, austere as the mogul emperor, approached the tout. "you're a monkey down, joses," he said, cold and quiet. "the putnam horse is starting." the other smiled. "he's starting, sir," he said. "but he's not winning." jaggers blinked at him. "what d'you mean?" "i mean the race isn't lost yet, and mayn't be--even if the mare don't win." he moved away, and monkey followed him. jaggers joined his colleagues. "what did he say?" asked ikey in his eager yet wary way. the trainer told him. "thinks he knows something," muttered the little levantine, his brown face thoughtful. "kiddin' he do," grunted chukkers, sucking his charm. ikey looked after the retreating fat man. "he's collared monkey brand anyway," he said. "if monkey ain't collared him," retorted the jockey. the moods of the three men were various and characteristic: jaggers glum and uncertain, ikey confident, chukkers grim. "who's riding the putnam horse?" asked ikey. "albert edward," jaggers replied. chukkers removed his charm from his mouth. "i ain't afraid o' him," he said. "he's never rode this course afore. it'll size him up." "what's the price o' four-pound?" asked ikey. "forties," answered chukkers, biting home. the little levantine was surprised, as those simian eyebrows of his revealed. "forties!" he said. "i thought he was a hundred to one." "so he were a week since," answered chukkers surlily. "silver's been plankin' the dollars on." "ah, that ain't all," said jaggers gloomily. "the ring knows something. here, rushton, go and see what they're layin' four-pound." the head-lad went and returned immediately. "thirties offered, sir. no takers." jaggers shook his head. "i don't like it," he said. * * * * * all morning, carriages, coaches, silent-moving motorcars, char-à-bancs with rowdy parties, moke-carts, people on bicycles and afoot, streamed out of liverpool. by one o'clock people were taking their places in the grand stand. everywhere america was in the ascendant, good-humoured, a thought aggressive. phalanxes of the boys linked arm to arm were sweeping up and down the course, singing with genial turbulence _hands off and no hanky-panky._ to an impartial onlooker the attitude of the two great peoples toward each other was an interesting study. both were wary, ironical, provocative, and perfect tempered. they were as brothers, rivals in the arena, who having known each other from nursery days, cherish no romantic and sentimental regard for each other, are aware of each other's tricks, and watchful for them while still maintaining a certain measure of mutual respect and even affection. when the american crowd surged up and down the course roaring magnificently, _the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave,_ the counter-marching englishmen met them with the challenging, _the land of hope and glory the mother of the free._ with any other peoples rioting and bloodshed would have ensued. here, apart from an occasional cut-and-dry battle between two enthusiastic individuals in the fringes of the crowd, there was never any need for police interference. * * * * * there were two flat races before the national. the horses were gathering for the first when albert in his shirt sleeves bustled across the paddock. a whistle stopped him and he turned. "'ullo, mr. brand!" "where are you off to?" "i'm goin' to dress now." "you're early." "first race is starting." "how's the horse?" "keeps a-lingerin' along." "who's with him?" "mr. silver." the fat man chimed in: "where's the lady, then?" albert looked blank. "i ain't seen her," he said. "believe she's walking round the course." joses laughed. "i should have thought you'd have been the one to walk round the course," he said. "i been," replied the lad keenly. "and what d'you think of it?" asked monkey. the youth rubbed his stomach with the most delicate consideration. "pore albert," he said. "that's what i think. they're a yard through some of 'em. you clears 'em clean or--it's amen, so be it, good-bye to the totties, and no flowers by request." he bustled on his way. monkey nudged his mate. "keeps it up," he muttered. "proper," the other answered. * * * * * the second race was run and won. two o'clock came and went. the jockeys began to emerge from the dressing-room under the grand stand. monkey brand and joses watched the door. "where's green then?" muttered the tout, as the expected failed to show. "'ush!" said monkey at his elbow. the fat man turned. at the far side of the paddock, by the gate, the looked-for jockey had appeared out of nowhere. the green of his cap betrayed him, and the fact that old mat was in close conversation with him. he wore a long racing-coat, and his collar was turned up. indeed, apart from his peaked cap drawn down over his eyes and his spurs, little but coat was to be seen of him. "where did he spring from?" asked joses, and began to move toward the jockey. his companion stayed him suddenly. billy bluff, who had evaded the police, and dodged his way into the paddock, raced up to the jockey and began to squirm about him, half triumphant, half ashamed. the fat man stopped dead and stared, with his bulging eyes. "straight!" he cried, and smote his hands together. the jockey cut at the dog with his whip, and then the police came up and hunted him back into the road. at the moment the band struck up the national anthem, and the knowsley party, including the king, the american ambassador, and lord milburn, crossed the paddock swiftly toward lord derby's box. suddenly the strains of the band were drowned by an immense roar of cheering. mocassin was being led into the paddock. nothing could be seen of her. ikey's own had formed a close-linked phalanx about her. no englishman might penetrate that jealous barrier or help to form it. within its sacred circle the mare was being stripped and saddled. then there came another roar. chukkers was up in the star-spangled jacket. the famous jockey sat above the heads of the crowd, and indulged in the little piece of swagger he always permitted himself. very deliberately he tied the riband of his cap over the peak while the eyes of thousands watched him. as he did so the crowd about him stirred and parted. a girl passed through. it was the american ambassador's daughter. she handed the jockey a tricolour cockade, which he fixed gallantly in front of his cap. it was clear that he was in the best of humours, for he exchanged chaff with his admirers, adding a word to jaggers as he gathered his reins. settling in the saddle, he squeezed the mare. she reared a little as though to gratify the desire of those at the back for a peep at her. as she left the paddock and entered the course, the people rose to her _en masse_. storms of cheers greeted her and went bellowing round the course. the canal tossed them back to the grand stand, and the embankment was white with waving handkerchiefs. _mocassin! mocassin! mocassin!_ all eyes were on the mare, and the great brown horse, in the far corner of the paddock, was stripped, and his jockey astride, before half a dozen people were aware of his presence. by the time jaggers and ikey had observed him, he was on the move. the two j's, monkey brand and joses, crossed toward him, but there was no getting near that tumultuous earth-shaker in brown. jim silver was at his head, and, strong as the young man was, he had all his work cut out to hold the horse as he bounced across the paddock, scattering his crowd with far-reaching heels. "'ware horse!" rose the cry. "give him room!" "look out for his heels!" "steady the beauty!" plunging across the paddock, to the disturbance of everybody but the little jockey with the fair hair, who swung to his motions as a flower, fast in earth, swings to the wind, he tore out of the paddock amid the jeers and laughter of some and the curses of others. "smart!" said joses. "my eye!" answered monkey brand. * * * * * jim silver, panting after his run, joined old mat. the two made toward the grand stand. in front of them a middle-aged man, soberly dressed, and a tall girl were walking. "that's the american ambassador," muttered the old man as they passed. "come with lord derby's party. great scholar, they say. that's his daughter." the tall ambassador with the stoop paused to let the other couple go by. then he nodded at the young man's back. "mr. silver," he murmured in his daughter's ear. "and the old gentleman's _her_ father." the girl was alert at once. she, too, had heard the tales. "is it?" she cried. "where's she?" "i don't know," the other answered. "i _hope_ they win," said the girl--"in some ways." her father smiled. "you're no american," he scoffed. "you're a woman. that's all you are." chapter xlviii the star-spangled jacket as the two men took their places, the parade in front of the grand stand was in full swing. there was a big field: some thirty starters in all. the favourite, as the top weight, led them by at a walk. she was quite at her ease, yet on fire as always, snatching at her bit in characteristic style. chukkers rode her with long and easy rein, as though to show he trusted her. as she came by, the grand stand began to sing with one voice: _the maid of our mountains-- mocassin's her name! the speed of the panther; the heart of the flame; the belle of the blue ridge, the hope of the plain, the queen of kentucky, o, lift her again--_ chanted thus by tens of thousands of voices, singing round the course and up into the heavens, and culminating in the roaring slogan-- _mocassin! mocassin! mocassin!_ the simple song became for the moment clothed in vicarious majesty. jim silver felt the thrill of it, as did his companion. "mar'd like that," said old mat sentimentally. "she's same as me. she likes hymns." the object of the enthusiasm seemed unconscious of it. she came by at that swift pattering walk of hers--like a girl going marketing as her lovers said--amid the comments of her admirers. "she's all right, sure!" "don't she nip along?" "he looks grim, chukkers do." "yes; he's for it this time." "they've injected her--american style." "never!" "they have, my son. trust jaggers. can't leave it to nature. must always go one better." "ikey's got two other horses in." "which?" "there's old jackaroo--in the purple and gold, rushton riding." "which is the second dewhurst horse?" "this in the canary. flibberty-gibbet. little boy braithwaite." "he's only a nipper." "he can ride, though." "they're to nurse the crack through the squeeze." "she'll want nursing." "she's all right if she stands up till beecher's brook." "she'll stand up. trust chukkers." "he's got nothing to beat." "only moonlighter." "which _is_ the irish horse?" "the gray there. cerise and white." "flashy thing." "yes. he'll give no trouble though. three mile and a half is his limit." "here's gee-woa, the yorkshireman." "looks an old-fashioned sort." "he can jump a haystack and stay all day; but he can't get a move on." "if there's grief enough he might get home, though." "there's kingfisher. the west-country crack. bay and two white ducks." last but one came four-pound-the-second with his little fair jockey up. the horse was so big, and the jockey so small, that a laugh went up as the pair came by. "what's this in green, then?" "old mat's horse. four-pound-the-second. ten stun." "anything known of him?" "won a small race at lingfield." "who's riding?" "one o' the putnam lads. carries his prayer-book in his pocket. mar makes 'em--for luck!" "he can foot it." "i'd like to see a walkin'-race between that mare and the big un. what's his price?" he leaned over to the ring below and asked. "twenties," came the answer. jaggers heard and nudged ikey. the putnam horse marched by, blowing his nose, and in front of the grand stand gave a playful little buck as much as to say: "i would if i could, but i won't." then chukkers swung round and led the horses back to the starting-point. "only one thing i wish," muttered old mat in his companion's ear. "i wish there'd been rain in the night. twelve-stun-three'd steady miss mustang through the dirt." "our horse has got a little bit in hand," replied the young man. "you're right, sir," answered the other. the gossip came and went about the pair. neither heard nor indeed heeded it. the old man was easy, almost nonchalant; the young man quiet and self-contained. the horses drew up to the right, their backs to the grand stand, a long, swaying line of silken jackets shimmering in the sun. old mat's face became quietly radiant. "pretty, ain't it?" he said. "like a bed o' toolups swaying in the wind. i wish mar could see that. worst o' principles, they cuts you off so much." he raised his glasses. "where's chukkers? oh, i see. in the middle, and his buffer-hosses not too fur on eether side of him. that's lucky for chukkers. one thing, my little baa-lamb'll take a bit o' knockin' out." "where is he?" asked silver. "away on the right there," answered the old man. "doin' a cake-walk on the next hoss's toes." there was very little trouble at the post. the starter got his field away well together at the first drop of the flag. only one was left, and that was green. the great horse who had been sparring with the air as the flag fell came down from aloft and got going a long six lengths behind the field. neither he nor his rider seemed the least concerned. "that's my little beauty," muttered old mat. "he'll start his own time, he will. maybe to-day; maybe to-morrow; maybe not at all. one thing, though: he _has_ started." the brown horse was pulling out to the right to lie on the outside. the old trainer nodded approvingly. "that's right, my boy," he said. "you let 'em rattle 'emselves to bits, while you lays easy behind. there'll be plenty o' room in front in a moment or two." an old hand in a white top-hat just in front turned round. "that lad o' yours rides cunning, mr. woodburn," he said. "he's a fair card, he is," replied the old man enigmatically. "was it deliberate?" asked an ingenious youth. "who shall say, my son?" replied the old trainer. "only the grass-'opper what walketh the tiles by night--same as the psalmist says." the scramble and scrimmage at the first few fences resulted in plenty of grief. jockeys were rising from the ground and running off the course, and loose horses were pursuing their perilous way alone. behind the first flight, in the centre of the course, showed conspicuous the star-spangled jacket of the favourite. chukkers, too, was taking his time, running no risks, his eyes everywhere, calculating his chances, fending off dangers as they loomed up on him one after the other. he was drawing in to the rails on his left flank for security from cannoning horses. the first few fences behind him, the danger of a knock-out would be greatly lessened. till then it was most grave. chukkers was aware of it; so were the tens of thousands watching; so were his stable-mates. as chukkers crossed to the rails jackaroo, who lay in front on the inside, drew away to let the favourite up under his lee. flibberty-gibbet, on the other hand, the second dewhurst horse, had been bumped at the first fence, and pecked heavily on landing. little boy braithwaite in the canary jacket had been unshipped, and was scrambling about on his horse's neck. he lay now a distance behind. chukkers was signalling furiously with his elbow for the boy to come up on his right; and he had cause. for kingfisher, the west-country horse, riderless and with trailing reins, was careering alongside him like a rudderless ship in full sail. for two fences the loose horse and the favourite rose side by side; and the watchers held their breath. then the bay began to close in. chukkers turned and screamed over his shoulder. rushton on jackaroo still two lengths in front looked round and saw he could do nothing. little boy braithwaite, who had at last recovered his seat, came up like thunder on the quarters of the mare. the lad drove the filly at the loose horse and rammed him in the flank. a groan went up from the assembled thousands. "good boy!" roared the americans. "dead boy, ye mean," muttered old mat. "he's got it." horse and boy went down together in headlong ruin. flibberty-gibbet rose with difficulty and limped away with broken leg and nodding head. the boy rolled over on his face and lay still under the heavens, his canary jacket like a blob of mustard on the green. the women in the crowd caught their breath. "yes, he's done," muttered mat, "saved the three j's a quarter of a million, though." "but she's through," commented silver. "don't you believe it," grumbled the old man. the sacrifice, indeed, seemed to have been in vain. kingfisher staggered under the shock, recovered, and came sailing up once more, as it might have been deliberately, alongside the mare. chukkers leaned far out and slashed the oncoming bay across the face; and the crowds on the embankment and in the saloon-carriages on the railway heard distinctly the swish-swish of the falling whip. a groan of satisfaction went up from the taut onlookers. chukkers's action had cleared him. indeed he had killed two birds with one stone, and nearly a third. kingfisher shied away over the course and crossed the path of gee-woa, who was going steady on the right. both horses went down. surging along behind the yorkshireman, calm and unconcerned by the flurry and rush and confusion in front, came a great brown horse, the last of the galloping rout. he flew the ruin of men and horses broadcast before him on the grass, bounced twice, as old mat said, and cleared the fence in front with a foot to spare. "double!" roared the crowd, applauding horse and horseman alike. jim silver sighed. "nearly bounced you, mr. woodburn," said the white hat in front. "that lad of yours can ride." "bounce is the boy," answered the old man. "nothing like it. now there's more room." "where's miss woodburn?" asked the garrulous white hat. "in heaven, my lord, i 'opes," answered the other, wiping his eye. the old gentleman looked foolish and made a face. "oh, dear. i'm sorry. i hadn't heard." "no 'arm done, sir," replied the trainer gently. "these things will 'appen. seems we're most of us mortal when our time comes." he adjusted his glasses. "yes. mare's through now. layin' down to it nice." indeed, the troubles of the favourite were over for the present. either jackaroo was coming back to her, or she was coming up with the old horse. the star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold were together, the mare lying between the rails and her stable-companion. as the field swung left-handed and passed parallel to the grand stand on the far side of the course, the light-weights were still well together in front and bunched like a covey of partridges. then came the favourite and her stable-companion, rising fence for fence; after them a chain of stragglers; and bringing up the rear, rollicking along with his head in his chest, revelling in his work, the twenty-to-one outsider. "so far so good," said mat, "as the man said when he was 'alf-way through cuttin' his throat." the american contingent breathed afresh, and the bookies were looking glum. once over beecher's brook the first time round, with half the field down, the chance of a knock-out reduced, and gee-woa and kingfisher grazing peacefully under the embankment, the favourite's chances had greatly increased. true, the gray moonlighter in the cerise and white was in the lead and going like a snowstorm; but not a man among the tens of thousands on the course who did not know that four miles and a half was a mile too much for the irishman. "what price the favourite?" roared the boys. "threes," said the bookies, and gave them grudgingly. "they're settlin' down to it now," muttered old mat. "favourite's goin' strong. gallops like a engine, don't she? i like to see her." those who were watching through their glasses marked that a fence before the canal turn the star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold seemed to be taking council together. "goin' to turn on the tap now, you'll see," said the old man. he was right. chukkers, indeed, never varied the way he rode his races on the mare. in truth, part of his greatness as a jockey lay in the fact that he adapted his methods to his horse. very early in his connection with mocassin he had discovered the unfailing way to make the most of her. it was said of him that he always won his victories on her in the first half-mile. that was an exaggeration; but it was the fact that he invariably sat down to race at a time when other jockeys were just settling in their saddles. at liverpool he always began to ride the mare after valentine's brook first time round, and had beaten his field and won his race long before he began the second lap. as it chanced, too, the mare's fiery spirit suited exactly the daring temperament of the great horseman. the invincible couple waited behind till the ranks began to thin and then came through with the hurricane rush that had become famous. a consummate judge of pace, sure of himself, sure of his mount, chukkers never feared to wait in front; and the mare, indeed, was never happy elsewhere. once established in the pride of place, the fret and fever left her, she settled down to gallop and jump, and jump and gallop, steady as the gulf stream, strong as a spring-tide, till she had pounded her field to pieces. the thousands waiting for the mocassin rush were not disappointed. the turn for home once made, and valentine's brook with its fatal drop left behind, the mare and her stable-mate came away like arrows from the bow. she lay on the rails, her guardian angel hard on her right. jackaroo might be old, but he was still as good a two-miler as any in england. the pair caught their horses one after one and left them standing; and the roar of the multitude was like that of the sea as the defeated host melted away behind. at last only the irish horse refused to give place to the importunate pair. twice they challenged, and twice the gray shook them off. they came again; and for a while the star-spangled jacket, the purple and gold, the cerise and white, rose at their fences like one. the irish division were in screaming ecstasies. then the roar of new england, overwhelming all else, told that the mare was making good. moonlighter's jockey saw he was beaten for the moment at least and took a pull. as mocassin's swift bobbing head swung round the corner on to the straight, she was alone save for her stable-companion, and his work was done. "he's seen her through," muttered old mat. "now he can go home to bed." indeed, as jackaroo sprawled down the straight, still hanging to the quarters of the mare, he looked like a towel-rail on which wet clothes had been hung, and rushton had ceased to ride. the mare, fresh as the old horse was failing, came along in front of the grand stand, clipping the grass with that swift, rhythmical stroke of hers and little fretful snatch at the reins, neat and swift and strong as a startled deer. chukkers sat still and absorbed as a cat waiting over a mouse's hole. all eyes were on him. nothing else was seen. his race was won. last year's defeat had been avenged. america had made good. a roar as of an avalanche boomed and billowed about him. the thousands on the stands yelled, stamped and cooeyed. "hail, columbia!" bellowed the triumphant boys. "stand down, england!" "what price the yankee-doodlers?" "who gives the mustang best?" in that tumult of sound, individual voices were lost. the yells of the bookies were indistinguishable. men saw things through a mist, and more than one woman fainted. then through the terrific boom came the discordant blare of a megaphone, faint at first but swiftly overbearing the noise of the tempest. "watch it, ye ----!" it screamed. "he's catchin' ye!" it was the voice of jaggers. the thousands heard and hushed. they recognised the voice and the note of terror in it. chukkers heard, too, turned, and had a glimpse of a green jacket surging up wide on his right. there was the sound of a soughing wind as the crowd drew its breath. what was this great owl-like enemy swooping up out of nowhere? chukkers, his head on his shoulders, took the situation in. what he saw he didn't like. the mare was going strong beneath him, but the brown horse on his quarter was only beginning: so much his expert eye told him at a glance. four-pound-the-second was coming along like a cataract, easy as an eagle in flight; his great buffeting shoulders were sprayed with foam, his gaping nostrils drinking in oceans of air and spouting them out again with the rhythmical regularity of a steam-pump; and his little jockey sat on his back still as a mouse--a pale face, a gleam of fair hair, and two little brown fists that gave and took with each stride of the galloping horse. chukkers was not the only one who seized the situation. the bookies absorbed it in a flash--the outsider's form, the jockey's colours, the significance of both. it was old mat's horse--old mat who had sprung surprises on the ring so often in his time. rumour had always said that the horse was by berserker. then they had disbelieved. now--well, he looked it. suddenly the ring went mad. "six to four the favourite!" the bookies roared. "seven to four on the field!" the english, too, woke to the fact that they had a champion at last. a thirst for vengeance, after all they had endured at the hands of the contumelious foe, carried them away. they stood up and howled. the americans, who had seen the cup of victory brought to their lips and snatched away again, roused by the threat to their favourite, responded wrathfully. roar answered roar; new england thundered against old. chukkers, as always, had steadied the mare after her rush. now he changed his tactics to meet the new situation. as the horses made for the water, the mare on the rails, and the outsider wide on the right, chukkers began to nibble at her. the action was faint, yet most significant. "he ain't _ridin'_," muttered old mat, watching closely through his glasses--"not yet. i won't say that. but he's spinnin' her." indeed it was so. the crowd saw it; the boys, gnawing their thumbs, saw it; the bookies, red-faced from screaming, saw it, too. the crowd bellowed their comments. "she's held!" "the mare's beat!" "brown's only cantering!" "she's all out!" in all that riot of voices, and storm of tossing figures, two men kept calm. old mat was genial; silver still, his chest heaving beneath his folded arms. "like a hare and a greyhound," muttered the old man, apt as always. "got it all to themselves now," said silver. "and the best horse wins." "bar the dirty," suggested the trainer. the warning was timely. [illustration: aintree: plan of course] just before the water rushton pulled out suddenly right across the brown horse. it was a deliberate foul, ably executed. the crowd saw it and howled, and the bookmakers screamed at the offending jockey as he rode off the course into the paddock. "plucky little effort!" shouted old mat in silver's ear. "he deserved to pull it off." no harm, in fact, had been done. four-pound-the-second had missed jackaroo's quarters by half a length; but the big horse never faltered in his stride, charging on like a bull-buffalo, and rising at the water as the mare landed over it. the old man dropped his glasses, and settled back on his heels. "what next?" he said. "can't do much now, i guess," answered silver comfortably. old mat turned in his lips. "watch it, sir," he said. "there's millions in it." as the favourite and the outsider swept away for the second round in a pursuing roar, the width of the course lay between them. the mare hugged the rails; the brown horse swung wide on the right. "you're giving her plenty of room, mr. woodburn," said the white hat in front. "yes, my lord," mat answered. "'don't crowd her,' i says. 'she likes a lot o' room. so do chukkers.'" just clear of the course outside the rails, under the embankment, a little group of police made a dark blue knot about the stretcher on which boy braithwaite had been taken from the course. as the brown horse swept hard by the group a blob of yellow thrust up suddenly above the rails amid the blue. it was too much even for four-pound. he shied away and crashed into his fence. only his weight and the speed at which he was travelling carried him through. a soughing groan went up from the grand stand, changing to a roar, as the great horse, quick as a goat, recovered himself and settled unconcernedly to his stride again. "riz from the dead to do us in," muttered old mat. "now he's goin' 'ome again," as the blob of yellow collapsed once more. "p'raps he'll stop this time." "i think it was an accident," said silver. "i know them accidents," answered old mat. "there's more to come." for the moment it seemed to the watchers as if the mare was forging ahead; and the americans took heart once again. but the green jacket and the star-spangled rose at beecher's brook together; and the young horse, as though chastened by his escape, was fencing like a veteran. as the horses turned to the left at the corner, something white detached itself from the stragglers on the embankment and shot down the slope at the galloping horses like a scurry of foam. "dog this time," grunted old mat, watching through his glasses. "lurcher, big as a bull-calf." whatever it was, it missed its mark and flashed across the course just clear of the heels of the putnam horse. he went striding along, magnificently unmoved. old mat nodded grimly. "you can't upset my little fo'-pound--bar only risin's from the dead, which ain't 'ardly accordin' not under national hunt rules anyway," he said. "if a tiger was to lep in his backside and chaw him a nice piece, it wouldn't move _him_ any." many on the grand stand had not marked the incident. they were watching now with all their eyes for a more familiar sensation. chukkers was leaving the rails to swing for the canal turn. the englishmen and bookies, their hands to their mouths, were screaming exhortations, warnings, advice, to the little fair jockey far away. "canal turn!" "dirty dago!" "the old game!" "watch him, lad!" "his only chance!" "riding for the bump!" old mat paid no heed. "mouse bump a mountain," he grunted. "but chukkers won't get the chance." and it seemed he was right. the fence before the turn the brown horse was leading by a length and drawing steadily away, as the voices of the triumphant english and the faces of the americans proclaimed. mat stared through his glasses. "chukkers is talkin'," he announced. "and he's got somefin to talk about from all i can see of it." any danger there might have been had, in fact, been averted by the pressing tactics of the putnam jockey. the two horses came round the turn almost together, the inside berth having brought the mare level again. side by side they came over valentine's brook, moving together almost automatically, their fore-legs shooting out straight as a cascade, their jockeys swinging back together as though one; stride for stride they came along the green in a roar so steady and enduring that it seemed almost natural as a silence. old mat shut his glasses, clasped his hands behind him, and steadied on his feet. "now," he said comfortably. "ding-dong. 'ammer and tongs. 'ow i likes to see it." he peeped up at the young man, who did not seem to hear. silver stood unmoved by the uproar all around him, apparently unconscious of it. he was away, dwelling in a far city of pride on heights of snow. his spirit was in his eyes, and his eyes on that bobbing speck of green flowing swiftly toward him with sudden lurches and forward flings at the fences. all around him men were raging, cheering, and stamping. what the bookies were yelling nobody could hear; but it was clear from their faces that they believed the favourite was beat. and their faith was based upon reality, since chukkers for the first time in the history of the mare was using his whip. once it fell, and again, in terrible earnest. there was a gasp from the gathered multitudes as they saw and understood. that swift, relentless hand was sounding the knell of doom to the hopes of thousands. indeed, it was clear that chukkers was riding now as he had never ridden before. and the boy on the brown never moved. three fences from home chukkers rallied the mare and called on her for a final effort. game to the last drop, she answered him. but the outsider held his own without an effort. then the note of the thundering multitudes changed again with dramatic suddenness. hope, that had died away, and fear, that had vanished utterly, were a-wing once more. in the air they met and clashed tumultuously. america was soaring into the blue; england fluttering earthward again. and the cause was not far to seek. the boy on the brown was tiring. he was swaying in his saddle. a thousand glasses fixed on his face confirmed the impression. "nipper's beat for the distance!" came the cry. "brown horse wins! green jacket loses!" the grand stand saw it. chukkers saw it, too. his eyes were fixed on his rival's face like the talons of a vulture in his prey. they never stirred; they never lifted. he came pressing up alongside his enemy--insistent, clinging, ruthless as a stoat. silver could have screamed. that foul, insistent creature was the evil one pouring his poisonous suggestions into the ears of innocence, undoing her, fascinating her, thrusting in upon her virgin mind, invading the sanctuary, polluting the holy of holies, seizing it, obsessing it. and the emotion roused was not peculiar to the young man alone. it seemed to be contagious. swift as it was unseen, it ran from mind to mind, infecting all with a horror of fear and loathing. "he's swearing at him!" cried the white hat, aghast. "b---- shame!" shouted another. "tryin' to rattle the lad!" and a howl of indignation went up to the unheeding heavens. to silver it was no longer a race: it was the world-struggle, old as time--right against wrong, light against dark. he was watching it like god; and, like god, he could do nothing. his voice was lost in his throat. outwardly calm, he was dumb, tormented, and heaving like a sea in travail. a tumult of waters surged and trampled and foamed within him. then the nightmare passed. the boy on the brown rallied; and, it seemed, a fainting nation rallied with him. he steadied himself, sat still as a cloud for a moment, and then stirred deliberately and of set purpose. he was asking his horse the question. there was no doubt of the reply. four-pound shot to the front like a long-dammed stream. his vampire enemy clung for a desperate moment, and then faded away behind amid the groans of his maddened supporters and the acclamations of the triumphant englishmen. "got her dead to the world!" cried old mat, a note of battle resounding deeply through his voice. "what price putnam's now!" and he thumped the rail. but the end was not even yet. the great english horse came moving like a flood round the corner and swooped gloriously over the last fence. the roar that had held the air toppled away into a sound as of a world-avalanche, shot with screams. the jockey in green had pitched forward as his horse landed. he scrambled for a moment, and somehow wriggled back into his seat--short of his whip. the grand stand became a maelstrom. men were fighting, women fainting. the americans were screaming to chukkers to press; the english yelling to the nipper to ride--for the almighty's sake. the brown horse and his jockey came past the open ditch and down the straight in a hurricane that might not have been, so little did either heed it. the little jockey was far away, riding as in a death-swoon, his face silvery beneath his cap. his reins were in both hands, and he was stirring with them faintly as one who would ride a finish and cannot. "that's a little bit o' better," said old mat cheerfully, preparing to move. "my little fo'-pound'll see us 'ome." and indeed the young horse, with the judgment of a veteran who knows to a yard when he may shut up, had eased away into a canter, and broke into a trot as he passed the post. chapter xlix the last card chukkers was beaten out of sight. the oriental in him blurted to the top. he lost his head and his temper and began to butcher his mount. as he drove the mare down the run home, foaming and bloody, he was flaying her. the americans had all lost money, some of them fortunes: that didn't matter so much. their idol had been beaten fair and square: that mattered a great deal. but she was still their idol, and chukkers had butchered her before their eyes. and he was chukkers!--the greaser! they rose up in wrath like a vast, avenging cloud, and went raving over the barrier on to the course in tumultuous black flood. the ruck of beaten horses, bobbing home one by one, crashed into them. the mob, without regard for its shattered atoms, moved on like one. a roaring sea of humanity swung on its blind way. above the dark waters jockeys in silken jackets and on sweating thoroughbreds drifted to and fro like helpless butterflies. while in contrast to these many-coloured creatures of faerie, the great-coated and helmeted police in blue, on horses, hairy and solid as themselves, butted their way through the clamorous deeps, as they made for the rock round which the angry waves were breaking. they had their work cut out, and used their bludgeons with a will. round the man upon the beaten favourite the mob swirled and screamed like a hyena-pack at the kill. chukkers was a brute; but to do him justice he was not a coward. the high-cheeked mongolian, yellow with anger and chagrin, was using his whip without mercy. the hub-bub was as of a battle the most horrible, for there were women in it, screaming for blood. "lynch him!" came the roar. "pull him off!" "trample him!" "stick him with this!" monkey brand, who had suddenly come to life, had hold of the winner, sweating, amiable, entirely unmoved by the pandemonium around, and was leading him away into the paddock through the outskirts of the howling mob. the crowd was too maddened to pay attention to the little man and his great charge. those who were not bent on murdering chukkers were absorbed in watching those who were. old mat, trotting at silver's side, was chuckling and cooing to himself like a complacent baby, as the pair descended the grand stand and made for the paddock. "yes," he was saying, "my bankers'll be please--very please, they will. and good cause why. that's a hundud thousand quid, mr. silver, in my pocket--all a-jinglin' and a-tinglin'. 'ark to em!--like 'erald angels on the go." he paused, touched the other's arm, and panted huskily: "funny thing! a minute since it was in the h'air--ewaporated, as the sayin' is. now it's here--froze tight." he slapped his pocket. "makes the 'ead to think and the 'eart to rejoice, as the psalmist said on much a similar occasion. only we'd best not tell mar. wonderful woman, mar, mr. silver, and grows all the while more wonderfulerer. only where it is is--there it is." he lifted his rogue-eye to the young man's face and cried in an ecstasy of glee. "oh, how glorioushly does the wicked flourish--if only so be they'll keep their eyeballs skinned!" at the gate the white hat stopped him. "so you've got up on 'em again, mr. woodburn," he said. "congratulations, mr. silver." on the course the pair ran into monkey brand, leading the winner home. "here, sir!" he cried, seeming excited for the first time in his life. "all o.k. bit giddified like. that's all. take the horse. the three j's mean business, i tell ye. i must be moving." silver looked up at the little jockey perched aloft upon the brown. "all right?" he asked keenly. the other, whose peaked cap was drawn far over his eyes, nodded down through the tumult, saying no word. at the moment jaggers ran past, trying to get at his jockey. joses, slobbering at the mouth, was shouting in the trainer's ear. both men plunged into the vortex. "easy all!" came jaggers's priest-like voice. "give him a chance, boys. we aren't beat yet." "win, tie, or wrangle!" muttered old mat. "that's the three j's all right." the mounted police were shepherding chukkers off the course into the paddock. there was murder in his face. he swung about and showed his yellow fangs like a mobbed wolf at the pack baying at his heels. once inside the paddock he was just going to dismount, when jaggers, joses, and ikey aaronsohnn rushed at him and held him on. "stick to her!" screamed joses. the little group drifted past old mat and jim silver, who was holding the winner. four-pound-the second's jockey had already disappeared into the weighing-room. "ain't done yet," screamed the jockey vengefully as he passed. "you're never done," said silver quietly, as he stroked the muzzle of the reeking brown. "never could take a licking like a gentleman!" the jockey, beside himself, leaned out toward the other. "want it across the ---- mug, do ye, silver?" he yelled. "one way o' winnin'!" "come, then, mr. woodburn. this won't do!" cried jaggers austerely as he passed. "of course it won't," answered old mat. "dropped a rare packet among you, ain't you? think you're goin' to let that pass without tryin' on the dirty?" the white hat leaned down from the grand stand. "what's the trouble, mr. jaggers?" he cried. "miss woodburn rode the winner, my lord," answered the trainer at the top of his voice. the words ran like a flame along the top of the crowd. they leapt from mouth to mouth, out of the paddock, on to the course, and round it. and where they fell there was instant hush followed by a roar, in which a new note sounded: _all was not lost._ the americans, cast down to earth a moment since, rose like a wild-maned breaker towering before it falls in thunder and foam upon the beach. there was wrath still in their clamour; but their cry now was for justice and not for revenge. john bull had been at it again. the fair jockey was a girl. some had known it all along. others had guessed it from the first. all had been sure there would be hanky-panky. as they came shoving off the course into the paddock, and heaved about the weighing-room, the howl subdued into a buzz as of a swarm of angry bees. the thousands were waiting for a sign, and the growl that rose from them was broken only by groans, cat-calls, whistles, and vengeful bursts of _hands off and no hanky-panky!_ old mat, jim silver, and the great horse stood on the edge of the throng, quite unconcerned. many noticed them; not a few essayed enquiries. "is your jockey a gal, mr. woodburn?" "so they says," answered old mat. "where's miss woodburn then?" "inside, they tell me." he nodded to the door of the weighing-room, which opened at the moment. in it, above the crowd, appeared the jockey with the green jacket, his cap well over his eyes. there was an instant hush. then english and americans, bookies and backers, began to bawl against each other. "are you a gal?" screamed some one in the crowd. "no, i ain't," came the shrill, defiant answer. the voice did not satisfy the crowd. "take off your cap, miss!" yelled another. "let's see your face!" joses, who was standing by the steps that led up to the weighing-room, leapt on to them and snatched the cap from the jockey's head. he stood displayed before them, fair-haired, close-cropped, shy, and a little sullen. there was a moment's pause. then divergent voices shot heavenward and clashed against each other. "it is!" "it's her!" "that's miss woodburn!" "no, it ain't!" words were becoming blows, and there were altercations everywhere, when the clerk of the scales appeared on the steps and held up his hand for silence. "where _is_ miss woodburn?" he called. the words confirmed suspicion, and brought forth a roar of cheering from the americans. "here, sir!" panted a voice. monkey brand was forcing his way through the crowd, heralded by the police. behind him followed a slight figure in dark blue. "is that miss woodburn?" called the clerk. "yes," replied a deep voice. "here i am." "would you step up here?" the girl ran up the steps, and took her place by the little jockey. whoever else was disconcerted, it was not she. a sound that was not quite a groan rose from the watching crowd and died away. the girl gave her hand to the jockey. "well ridden, albert," she said, and in the silence her words were heard by thousands. the lad touched his forehead, and took her hand sheepishly. "thank you, miss," he answered. then the storm broke, and the bookies who had made millions over the defeat of the favourite led the roar. there was no mistaking the matter now. the boys had been sold again. the rougher elements amongst ikey's own sought a scape-goat. they found him in joses. chukkers came out of the weighing-room and deliberately struck the fat man. that started it: the crowd did the rest. old mat and jim silver waited on the outskirts of the hub-bub. the american ambassador and his tall dark daughter stood near by. "what stories they tell," said the great man in his gentle way. "don't they, sir?" answered old mat, wiping an innocent blue eye. "and they gets no better as the years go by. they saddens me and mar. they does reelly." boy woodburn, making her way through the crowd, joined the little group. "congratulations, miss woodburn," said the ambassador's daughter shyly. "the best horse won." the fair girl beamed on the dark. "thank you, miss whitney," she answered. "a good race. you were giving us a ton of weight." perhaps the girl was a little paler than her wont; but there was no touch of lyrical excitement about her. outwardly she was the least-moved person in the paddock. jim silver's eyes were shining down on her. "well," he said. she led away. he followed at her shoulder, the horse's bridle over his arm. "you've won your hundred thousand," she said. his eyes were wistful and smiling as they dwelt upon her figure that drooped a little. "hadn't a bean on," he said. she did not seem surprised. her hand was on the wet neck of the horse, her eyes on her hand. then she raised them to his, and they were shining with rainbow beauty. "i know you hadn't," she said. her hand touched his. * * * * * close by them a black mass was seething round something upon the ground. "that's joses," she said. "stop the worry, will you?--and send monkey brand to take the horse." jim silver turned. somewhere in the middle of that tossing mass was a human being. using his strength remorselessly, the young man broke his way through. by the time he reached the centre of the maelstrom the police had cleared a space round the fallen man. he lay panting in the mud, a desolate and dreadful figure, his waistcoat burst open, and shirt protruding, his shock of red hair a-loose on the ground. jim was not the first to get to the fallen man. monkey brand was already kneeling at his side, bottle in hand. "oh, my! mr. joses, my!" the little jockey was saying. "what you want is just a drop o' comfort out o' me bottle. open a little, and i'll pour." silver was just in time. "that'll do, brand," he said. "i'll see to this. give me the bottle. you go to miss boy." a doctor was called in and reported that the fat man's condition was serious. an ambulance was brought, and joses removed. silver saw it off the ground. as it came to the gate, chukkers, on his way to his motor, passed it. "he deserves all he's got," he said. "he's a bad un." "he's served you pretty well, anyway," answered jim angrily. chapter l the fat man takes his ticket in cuckmere, that quiet village between the weald and the sea, in which there was the normal amount of lying, thieving, drunkenness, low-living, back-biting, and slander, there dwelt two souls who had fought steadfastly and unobtrusively for twenty years to raise the moral and material standards of the community. one was the vicar of the parish, and the other mrs. woodburn. the two worked together for the common end unknown except to each other and those they helped. mr. haggard was something of a saint and something of a scholar. mrs. woodburn had been born among the people, knew them, their family histories, and failings; was wise, tolerant, and liberal alike in purse and judgment. her practical capacity made a good counterpoise to the other's benevolence and generous impetuosity. when the vicar was in trouble about a case, he always went to mrs. woodburn long before he went to the duke; and he rarely went in vain. the parlour at putnam's had seen much intimate communion between these two high and tranquil spirits over causes that were going ill and souls reluctant to be saved. the vicar always came to putnam's: mrs. woodburn never went to the vicarage. that was partly because the vicar's wife was a stout and strenuous churchwoman who cherished a genuine horror of what she called "chapel" as the most insidious and deadly foe of the spirit, and still more because mrs. haggard was a woman, and a jealous one at that. * * * * * it was a few days after the national that the vicar made one of his calls at putnam's. "what is it?" asked mrs. woodburn in her direct and simple way after the first greeting. she knew he never came except on business. "it's that wretched fellow joses," he answered. "he's been in some scrape at the national, i gather, and got himself knocked about. somehow he crawled back to his earth. i rather believe mr. silver paid his train-fare and saw him through." "is he dying?" asked mrs. woodburn. the vicar replied that the parish nurse thought he was in a very bad way. "is she seeing to him?" "she's doing what she can." "we'd better ask dr. pollock to go round and look at him," said mrs. woodburn. "don't you bother any more, mr. haggard. i'll see that the best is done." she telephoned to the polefax doctor. that afternoon he called at putnam's and made his report. "he's in a very bad way, mrs. woodburn," he said. "advanced arterial deterioration. and the condition is complicated by some deep-seated fear-complex." the doctor was young, up-to-date, and dabbling in psycho-therapy. "fear of death?" asked mrs. woodburn. "fear of life, i think," the other answered. "he wouldn't talk to me. and i can't, of course, attempt a mental analysis." mrs. woodburn had no notion what he meant, and believed, perhaps rightly, that he did not know himself. "he's been unfortunate," she said. "so i guessed," answered the young man. "he asked me who sent me, and when i told him said he'd be grateful if you'd call on him." "i'll go round." toward evening she called at the cottage. mrs. boam showed her up. joses lay on a bed under the slope of the roof, his head at the window so that he could look out. his face was faintly livid, and he breathed with difficulty. mrs. woodburn's heart went out to him at the first glance. "i'm sorry to see you like this, mr. joses," she said gently. "you wanted to see me?" "well," he answered, "it was _miss_ woodburn i wanted to see." he looked at her wistfully out of eyes that women had once held beautiful. "d'you think she'd come?" "i'm sure she will," the other answered reassuringly. joses lay with his mop of red hair like a dingy and graying aureole against the pillow. "d'you mind?" he asked. her eyes filled with kindness. he seemed to her so much a child. "what! her coming to see you here?" "yes." she smiled at him in her large and loving way. "of course i don't," she said, and added almost archly: "and if i did i'm not sure it would make much difference." he found himself laughing. she moved about the room, ordering it. then she returned to putnam's to seek her daughter. * * * * * after the national boy had emerged from the cloud which had long covered her. she returned home, radiant and impenitent. "i've been thinking things over," she said on the morning after her return. "and i'll forgive you, mother, for your lack of faith." "thank you, my dear," replied the other laconically. "this once," added boy firmly. "now, mind!" * * * * * mrs. woodburn now gave her daughter joses's message. the girl said nothing, but visited the cottage next morning. she stood in the door, firm and fresh, the colour in her hair, the bloom on her cheeks, and looked at that mass of decaying man upon the bed. "are you bad?" she asked, anxious as a child. "i suppose i'm not very good," he answered. she snatched her eyes away. "well, i congratulate you," he said at last, quietly. she sought for irony in his voice and eyes, and detected none. "what on?" "your victory." her face softened. "thank you." "you deserved to win," continued the other, with genuine admiration. "you rode a great race. i couldn't have believed a girl could have got the course if i hadn't seen it with my own eyes." his gaze met hers quite honestly. "you see i didn't count on the double fake. i knew you were going to ride as albert, but i'd quite forgotten the corollary--that albert might dress as you. that's where you beat me." the girl's chest was rising and falling. "mr. joses," she said, "i didn't ride the horse." his eyes sought hers, dissatisfied, and then wandered to the window. "well, well," he said. "we won't argue about it. anyway, you won." boy looked out of the window. "i _did_ try and deceive you into thinking i was going to ride," she said with a quake in her voice. "that was partly deviltry and partly to put you off. i thought if you believed you could get back on us _after_ the race you'd not try it on before. besides, i could never ride the course. three miles was my limit over fences at racing speed when i was at my best, and that's some years since." he was quite unconvinced. "i give you best, miss woodburn," he said. "but albert could never have ridden that race. never! it was a good win. and you deserved it. but it wasn't that i wanted to see you about." he looked round the little room. "it's not much of a place perhaps, you may think. but there's the window, and the sight of grass, and cows grazing and folks passing on the path. and in this house there's mrs. boam, and jenny, and the pussy-cat. i should miss it." he lifted those suffering eyes of his. "i don't want to pass what little time i've left in the cage." "but they won't hurt you now," cried boy. "they couldn't." the other laughed his dreadful laughter. "couldn't they?" he said. "you don't know 'em. it's the cat-and-mouse business all the time. i'm the mouse. i've been there." "but you've done nothing," said boy. joses moved his head on the pillow. "there's just one thing," he said, dropping his voice. "mr. silver's got a little bit of paper that might make trouble for me." "but he shall give it up!" cried the girl. "will he?" grunted the other. "of course he will. he's as kind as kind." joses shook a dubious head. "men are men," he said. "and when men get across each other they are tigers." "he's a tame one," said the girl. "i'll see to that." "he might be," muttered the other. "in the hands of the right tamer." boy went straight back to putnam's and discovered mr. silver smoking in the saddle-room. she told him what had passed. "i know," he said. "here it is." he produced the bit of paper. "i'll burn it," and he held it to the bowl of his pipe. "no!" cried the girl. "give it me." she took it straight back to the sick man. he lit a match and watched it burn with eyes that were almost covetous. "that's the last of 'em," he said. "now i shall die in the open like a gentleman." he was, in fact, dying very fast. it did not need dr. pollock's assurance to make the girl aware of that. she longed to help him. "would you like to see mr. haggard?" she asked awkwardly. he shook his head, amused. "he'd come the parson over me." "i don't think he would." "he couldn't help it if he was true to his cloth." "i'm not sure he is," said boy doubtfully. "you're the same," he said. she glanced up at him swiftly. his eyes were mischievous, almost roguish. "what d'you mean?" "you want me to repent." she coloured guiltily, and he laughed like a boy, delighted with his own cleverness. "there's one thing mr. haggard might do for me," he said. "lend me clutton brock's _shelley_, if he would. he's got it, i know." the girl made a mental note, wrinkling her brow. "shelley's _clutton brock_," she said. "i'll remember." she sat beside his bed. his eyes dwelt on her keen, earnest young face, and the blue eyes gazing thoughtfully out of the window. "you're a philistine," he said at last. "but you're clean. philistines are. that's the best of them." "what's a philistine?" she asked. he did not answer her. "you're the cleanest thing i've met," he continued. "there's a flame burning in you all the time that devours all your rubbish. mine accumulates and corrupts." "i don't like you to talk like that," said the girl, withdrawing. "there's only one thing that'll purge me," the other continued. "what's that?" "fire." the girl's eyes darkened. "are you afraid?" she asked swiftly. "of hell with a large h?" she nodded, and he laughed. "what i've had i've paid for across the counter and got the receipt stamped and signed by the almighty. no, it's not the fires of hell; it's the power of the old sun working on my vile body through the ages that'll renew me with beauty and youth in time. life's eternal, sure enough; but not on the lines the parsons tell us." a little later she rose to go. he detained her. "shall you come and see me again?" he asked her. she gave him a shy and brilliant smile. "rather," she said. "so'll mother." he kissed her hand, and there was beauty in his eyes. next day she called with the book from mr. haggard. dr. pollock was coming down the path. "he's out of pain," he said gravely. boy returned to putnam's and picked some violets. then she came back to the cottage. mrs. boam was weeping as she opened. "may i see him?" said the girl. "yes, miss," answered the other. "we shall miss him, jenny and me. he were that lovable." boy went upstairs and entered. joses was at peace: the dignity of death upon him. she laid the violets on his breast. chapter li old mat on heaven and earth when old mat returned home from liverpool he hung his hat on the peg and informed silver that he had undergone conversion--for good this time. "nebber no more," he announced solemnly. "i done with bettin'--now i got the cash. always promised mar i'd be god's good man soon as i could afford it. moreover, besides i might lose some o' what i made. and then i might have another backslide." he settled himself in his leather chair, drew his feet out of his slippers, and his pass-book out of his pocket. "it's cash spells conwersion, mr. silver," he panted. "i've often seen it in others, and now i knows it for meself. a noo-er, tru-er and bootifler h'outlook upon life, as mr. 'aggard said last sunday--hall the houtcome o' cash in 'and. yes, sir, if you wants to conwert the world, the way's clear--_pay cash down._ that's why these 'ere socialists are on the grow; because they talks common-sense. 'it's dollars as does it,' they says. 'give every chap a bankin'-account, and you'll see.' what's church h'up and h'answer to that? church says: 'it's all in conwersion. bank on conwersion. cash is but wrath and must that corrupts,' says the clergy. 'leave the cash to us,' they says. 'we'll see to that for you, while you keeps out o' temptation and saves your souls alive.'" when mrs. woodburn told the old man the news about joses, he received it gravely. "moved on, has he?" he said. "i'm sorry. i shall miss him. i always misses that sort. shouldn't feel at home like without some of them around. well, mar, we shall all meet in the yappy yappy land, plea gob in his goodness." he burst into a sort of chaunt, wagging his head, and beating time with his fist-- "_ho, won't that be jiy-ful? jam for the fythe-ful._ i wouldn't miss that meetin', mar, not for all the nuts on iceland's greasy mountains, the psalmist made the song about. i sees it all like in a wision." his eyes closed, and his hands and feet swam vaguely. "me and monkey o' the one side, and the three j's o' tother, pitchin' the tale a treat at tops of our voices." he opened his eyes slowly, ogled ma, tapped her knee, winked, and ended confidentially: "one thing, old dear. i'll lay they'll give putnam's best same there as here. now then!" chapter lii putnam's once more it was sunday morning at putnam's, and in maudie's estimation things were more _comme il faut_ than they had been for long past. about a fortnight since there had been trouble in the yard during the night, and after it, for some hours before he went away, the monster-without-manners had been subdued almost to gentlemanliness. then two of the fan-tails had been taken ill. maudie from the top of the ladder had watched their dying contortions with the cynical interest of a roman matron criticizing the death-agonies of a gladiator in the arena. when after staggering about the fan-tails turned over on their backs and flopped, maudie descended from her perch and toyed with them daintily during their last moments, finally carrying their corpses up into the loft. after that, maudie felt queer herself, and not only from the results of a stricken conscience. indeed, but for the urgent and instant ministrations of putnam's only gentleman she would have followed where the good fan-tails had gone. thereafter, for a space of a week, there had fallen on the yard a hallowed time of peace very different from the period of oppression and irritable energy which had preceded it. maudie attributed the change to the absence of the monster-without-manners who had departed quietly with the four-legs there was all the fuss about. true, both had now returned, but in chastened mood, the result perhaps of well-deserved affliction experienced in foreign lands. this morning things were much as of old. the fan-tails puffed and pouted and sidled on the roofs. across the paddock close came the sound of church-bells, and from the lads' barn the voices of the boys singing a hymn. the bible class was in full swing. all the lads were there but one. that one was albert. he stood in lofty isolation in the door of the stable, a cigarette in his mouth, his arms folded and his face stiff with the self-consciousness that had obsessed him since his ride in the national. jerry and stanley, once the friends of albert, and now his critics, swore that he never took that look off even when he went to bed. "wears it in his sleep," said jerry, "same as his pidgearmours." but the loftiest of us cannot live forever on the heights of make-believe. and albert, as he breathed the spring, and remembered that no one was by to see, relaxed, became himself, and began to warble not unmelodiously-- "_when the ruddy sun-shine beats the ruddy rain, then the ruddy sparrow 'gins to chirp again._" mr. silver came out of the house. albert straightway resumed his air of a roman emperor turned stable-boy. the other listened to the singing that came from the barn. "not inside, then, albert?" he said. "no, sir," answered the other. "i leave that to the lads." mr. silver looked at his watch. "you'd better do a bolt before miss boy catches you," he said. albert redoubled his frozen emperor mien. the other passed into the saddle-room; and albert revealed the bitterness of his soul to maudie on the ladder. "he's all right now," he told his confidante. "goin' to start the bank again, and all on what i won him. and all the return he can make is to insultify me. that's the way of 'em, that is." a door opened at the back, and a rush of sound emerged. the lads were tumbling out of the barn. boy woodburn came swiftly into the yard, her troop at her heels. she marked the truant in the door. "well, albert," she said. "we missed you." "he's too stuck up wiv 'isself to pray to gob any more," mocked jerry, stopping while the girl went on into the stable. "he thinks he can do it all on his own wivout no 'elp from no one," sneered stanley. "albert does." albert swaggered forward. "say!" he said to jerry. "was it you or me won the national?" "neever," answered jerry. "it was miss boy." "did she ride him, then?" asked albert. jerry shot his face forward. all the other lads were at his back. "she did then," he said. albert was white and blinking, but in complete control of himself. "who says so?" "everyone. you're a plucky fine actor and a mighty pore 'orseman, albert edward," continued the tormentor. albert was a lad of character. he had sworn to his mistress that if he won the race he would henceforth drop the boy and don the man. and the sign of his emancipation was to be that never again would he use his dukes except in self-defence. now in the hour of trial he was true to his word. happily the strain was relieved, for at the moment boy, scenting trouble, came out into the yard. monkey brand with her. albert approached her. "beg pardon, miss, was it you or me won the national?" he asked. "these 'ere genelmen say it was you." "it was neither," replied the girl. "it was four-pound-the-second. come in with me, albert. i want to change his bandages." she reëntered the stable. albert followed at a distance, slow and sullen. boy entered the loose-box, and billy bluff rose to greet her with a yawn. the door of the loose-box closed. the girl bent to her task. a hand was laid upon her shoulder. she looked up sharply. jim silver was standing above her, and the door was shut. "it's you, is it?" she said. he took her quivering life into his arms. "now," she sighed. she raised her lips, and he laid his own upon them. "again," she said with closed eyes. his own drank in her face. "you've been a patient old man," she whispered. "it was worth it," he answered. "i'll make it so," she said. "please god!" she added with delightful inconsequence. "i'm glad you didn't bet." the great brown horse turned his head and breathed on them. boy disengaged, patting her hair. "i'm glad you didn't bet," she repeated. "we shall have enough to farm on without that," he said. "and to breed a few 'chasers." her hand was moving up and down the horse's smooth, hard neck. "i don't want to breed 'chasers," she said. he laughed softly. "don't you?" "no," she said. "i'm tired of it. i'm like mother. it's all right when you're quite young. but it doesn't last--if you've got anything in you. it's froth." he nodded. "you're right," he said. "what shall we breed?" "shire horses," the girl replied. "great, strong, useful creatures that'll work all day and every day--" "bar sunday," he said. "remember grand-pa, please." "--without a fuss," she continued, ignoring his impertinence, "shifting trucks, drawing the plough, and carrying the wheat, and come home tired of evenings with wet coats and healthy appetites." "my old love," he said. "you're right, my dear, of course. but he's a beauty all the same." "he is that," replied boy, with a friendly slap. they left the loose-box, billy bluff attending them. monkey brand, his back ostentatiously toward them, was on watch at the door. he heard them coming down the gangway and turned shyly. then he touched his hat. the girl took his hand and shook it with a will. jim silver followed suit. "very please, miss, i'm sure," gulped the old jockey. the little man drew silver mysteriously aside. "only one thing, sir," he said. "that little mistake o' yours about the copper's nark. i'm goin' to forget _all_ about that now." "thank you, brand," answered jim earnestly. "we all make mistakes, don't we?" "that's right, sir," said monkey. "only that's a mistake i never made--and never would." some of the lads were still hanging about the yard. they knew, too. maudie knew. even the fan-tails, splashing in mid-air, were not deceived. albert came forward and ventured a shy and sullen word of congratulation. "that hundred thousand you won for me made it possible, no doubt," replied silver gravely. albert was still on his pinnacle. "very glad to 'elp in such a good cause, sir," he answered. "only one thing, if i might make so bold: i 'ope you won't forget young jerry's alf-dollar come christmas. means a lot to a little feller like that." the pair passed out into the paddock close. old mat and his missus were coming down the hill from church. the young couple strolled to meet them. "he's been making amends for what he did amiss at liverpool, dad has," said mrs. woodburn comfortably. mat lifted a dull eye to the blue. "yes," he said. "i put a sovereign in the plate. that should square the account, de we, accordin' to my reckonin'." he pursed his lips firmly, almost defiantly, as he looked the heavens in the face. a sudden shyness fell on the little group. then boy went to her mother, lifted the old lady's veil, and kissed her. "mother," she said. mrs. woodburn took jim silver's hand in both of hers, and kneaded it in just the way her daughter would do in moments of deep emotion. she said nothing, but her eyes were beautiful. old mat swallowed, touched his hat, and looked away. "that's a little bit o' better," he muttered to himself. * * * * * a minute later the old man was walking down the hill, mrs. woodburn on his arm. the young couple strolled on up the slope. boy looked across the paddock close to joses's window. mrs. boam was pulling up the blind, and the sun was pouring in splendid torrents on to the dead man within. the girl was glad. they came to the quiet church. "shall we go in?" she said. "let's," he answered. together they entered the silence and stood looking up toward the figure in the dim east window. mr. haggard, in his cassock, was arranging the narcissi on the altar. as he saw them, he turned and came slowly down the aisle in the quiet. for boy it was almost as if the figure in the window had come to life and was drawing near to her and jim. the end the country life press garden city, n.y. volume , chapter i. how gil carr heard a concert in spring. "too soon for sweet mace--a bunch for sweet mace," said gil carr as he bent down amongst the sedges to pick the bright blue scorpion grass, its delicate flowers relieved with yellow, "so she must have forget-me-not. i wonder whether she'll keep some when i'm far away." he stopped and smiled and listened, for the morning concert was beginning two hundred and fifty years ago, at four o'clock in the morning and down in a sussex valley near the sea. a long while since? nay, a mere instant of time in this world's life; and spite of all some writers say, and though we now have steam and electric current to our hand, two hundred and fifty years ago men thought and spoke the same--perhaps a little more roughly than they do now. there was the pleasant gurgle of water at gil carr's feet, and as he drew back from where the stream rippled and swirled, and a trout darted into sight, saw him, and flashed away beneath the shelter of a jutting stone, he paused beneath the spreading branches of the trees, half-closed his eyes, thought of sweet mace, and revelled, as young men of eight-and-twenty can who love to place one object in the chiefest spot of all they see. here is the site of gil carr's musings, for untouched nature shows little change. overhead there is a fabric of tenderest green leaves, laced with pearly cobweb and flashing threads of sunshine, which run in and out like sheaves of glorified asbestos, and weave the whole into a wondrous shelter beneath whose delicious dream-shadow one wanders in a haze of green. for nature's own colour is lavishly used to decorate this glorious amphitheatre for the first concert in spring, and there it is in every shade, from the sweet pale ash-green of the opening willow to the rich hue of the dogs' mercury and hemlock. green everywhere, for the delicate curtains of the trees are green, the carpet is verdant, and the banks that rise tier upon tier are of the richest velvet moss. there is no uniformity here, there are no rows of seats, but a grand confusion, upon which the eye lingers restfully and which it refuses to quit. lest there should be too much green, nature has been lavish with other colours. there rise up the fascines of osiers from the lowest part of the gurgling stream, light leafy smooth stems of a golden yellow; there are the oak boles creamy and grey with wondrous lichens; grey, silvery, and golden tassels hang from sallow, alder, and willow, and the carpet is dotted with delicious patches of tint. yonder, harmoniously blended with the green, is the purple of the wild hyacinth, amidst which, and dotting the carpet everywhere with its delicate sulphur stars, is the primrose, with the burnished bullion yellow of the celandine close by, amidst which, bending gracefully over, half modest, half vain, are the silver stars of the wood anemone, displaying their outer tints of delicate violet mauve. talk of violets too, there they are, not the scented sweets of earliest spring, but the larger, bluer, more plentiful _viola canina_, growing in patches with the purple orchids. colour? there is ample to relieve the greenest green, untiring though it be, and were brighter tints wanted they are here, such as put to shame the brightest gems of our greatest jewellers' shops. there they are, whenever the silvery arrows of the sun flash through the delicate leafage like a wondrous rain--there they are, bright, dazzling, flashing, and sparkling, the vivid transparent grouped rays of iris herself on every pearly drop of dew, lying waiting for the sun to gather it to his bosom, and feel the daily fire of his life-giving ray. nature has surpassed herself, and all is bright, while, bright though the decorations be, the most aesthetic critic could not find one that offends. there could be no want of finish where nature has worked, and here, where all harmonises to the eye, she has prepared, for the grand burst of harmony for the ear, that wondrous concert that surely begins on one particular undated morning in spring, when, as if moved by a single impulse, all bird-dom breaks forth into song--a song of praise so sweet and glorious that the heart seems to leap, ay, and does leap, back over the gulf of years, to feel as in childhood's days, before rust, canker, and the world's own wear had hardened it to what it is. there are no bills issued. if there were, they would say, "come early." if you do not, the loss is yours. there are no programmes, for the oratorio is nature's song of praise. as to tickets, they are _minus_ too, for the cost of entrance is the effort to drag yourself from the drowsy pillow. and seats? no, you must stand. lean here against this mossy old bole, and listen. nature, the great conductress of the orchestra, has arrived, and in a few moments she will raise her _baton_, and the concert will begin. rehearsal has been going on for weeks, and various artists have been tuning up. night after night, till quite dark, the thrush has piped; the robin has worked hard in a low subdued voice to recollect the plaintive little song he sang so well while the apples were gathered and the leaves turned to crimson and gold on the medlar tree; while every here and there, where the buds began to swell, the chaffinch--coelebs, the bachelor--in his pretty tinted suit of grey and green and neutral hues, seemed busy day by day carrying up little buckets of silver sound, and pouring them tinkling down amidst the leafless sprays. but this morning, rehearsal is over, and the concert is to begin--the full burst from every chorister, solo singer, and instrumentalist, many of whom have been practising since the first faint grey of dawn, when the blackbird first scattered the spray from the leaves, and darted, like a streak of black velvet following a point of fire, down amidst the hazel stubbs, crying "chink, chink," to the waking birds. hark! the company is all expectation for the concert to begin; there is the deep low humming buzz and murmur as of thousands speaking in a vasty hall. tell me it is the bees and other insects honey and pollen gathering amidst the willow blossoms if you will, but i prefer to dream of being in a grand amphitheatre with an oratorio about to commence, and the whim fits me as i stand and listen here, fancy stricken, weak, if you will, but with swelling heart, dew-moistened eyes, and so wondrous a feeling of rapture pervading every sense, that, forgetful of the bitter, biting past--the cruel winter and its aches and ails, the soul seems to rise in gratitude from its very being for the wondrous sense of joy it feels, and here in the sacred stillness of the early morn to cry, "thank god!" and compare the country with the town. tuning up still. there is the strange harsh, reedy, repeated, hautboy-like minor note of the wryneck--the cuckoo's mate not long arrived; the willow-wren jerks forth two notes from its piccolo; and the black bird, dropping its alarm note, begins to flute so softly and sweetly that it needs no programme to tell that the theme is love. up rises the lark, then, after a short chorus to sing his solo, a song of silver broken into seed, a song that the sweet bird seems to carry higher and higher, scattering as it goes, for the notes to fall here, there, and everywhere, to be wafted away by winds for the silver grains to fall into human beings' ears, where they take root and stay, never to be forgotten; for, though the possessor roam the wide world round, the song of the lark once heard is never lost. another soloist, the foreign musician from over the sea, with its mellow cuckoo note; and then comes an introduction from the orchestra, where the starlings wheeze and drum, and play castanets. there are strange effects, too, introduced by the great composer, harsh trumpet brays by the blue-barred jays, answered by gentle cooings from the doves, as if tyranny and love sang duets, and then a grand chorale rises as the thrush leaves off its stirring recitative. again a solo, morning though it be, and you say "the thrush." but no, those notes were somewhat like those of the great contralto _merulus_; but listen, they are sweeter far, and they are soprano, for it is philomel herself. hark! after those long-complaining notes there is a familiar "weep, weep, weep, chug-chug-chug-chug-chug!" the very orchestra seems hardly to breathe and not a chorister to move as this wondrous strain of richest melody goes rising, falling, thrilling the breast, till one breathes the sweet fresh balmy air in sobs, and drinks in the sweet draught of music--a drink for the gods till it is ended, and there are no dregs. here come the harsh notes, though, from the orchestra--a short sharp jerky recitative from the magpie, followed by the angry declamation of the jay, leading up to those little fiddlers the chaffinches, with their seconds, the finches of green, and the linnets on the outer edge. there is a short running chorus here, followed by a short chorale that is even slow and solemn, and then there is a pause--twelve bars rest--nature's _baton_ is suspended, and one seems to see the grand dame with her attendant train of nymphs, with flora and iris looking on. then come once more the soft long thrilling notes of the nightingale, reciting the song with which at night the grove will ring. it is recitative of inexpressible sweetness, and it leads up to the grand chorus, the great song of praise from thousands of birds' throats, beneath which seems to sigh like the murmur of the deepest pedal-pipes of an organ the low buzz of insect life, blending, supporting, and adding grandeur to that which is already great. it is the great spring chorus of the year, when every bird seems to sing his best, and vie with his fellow in the effort to produce the sweetest sounds. once heard never forgotten, it is a something that the greatest traveller will tell you cannot be surpassed, while there are millions year by year, who from neglect or compulsion fail to hear, though the concert is free to every one who will trouble himself to get a place and fill his heart with joy that is without a care. when is this concert? perhaps in april, perhaps in may. it is when the east wind ceases to dry, and the balmy south breathes sweetness over the awakened earth. it is indeed a "sensation" matchless in itself and particular to our land, though some such harmony must have greeted the senses of the first man when he opened his eyes to the flowers of the new-made earth, and drank in its sweets and joys. "my hands are hot," said gil carr, the adam of the little eden of a wilderness, as he thought upon his eve; and returning to the stream once more, he dipped the bunch of forget-me-nots beneath the gurgling current, afterwards wrapping the stems round with the broad leaf of a dock, and walked away trying to imitate the piping of the nightingale, and wondering how long it would be before the glow-worms would begin to light their lamps in the soft warm evenings; while he smiled as he thought of the signals they had made upon the sloping bank that stretched up to the hedge of hawthorn fronting mace's casement, where the pale white roses grew. volume , chapter ii. how the king's messenger sought roehurst pool in july, and what he saw. "sir thomas, and if i did not feel bound to carry out my royal master's commands, i'd go no further, but sit down here on this shady bank, and bask in the sunshine of your daughter's eyes. once more i say, is there any ending to this winding lane?" "patience, sir mark; pray have patience," said portly sir thomas beckley, baronet and justice of the peace, as he took off his sugar-loaf hat with its plume of cock's feathers, and wiped the great beads of perspiration from his pink brow. "patience; and pray do not stuff my daughter's head with courtly phrases, or you will make her vain." "patience? why, sir thomas, it is for her sake i am speaking. this lane has gone up and down, and in and out, and backwards and forwards, till my heart aches more than my legs to see her pretty little feet getting wedged between stones, and her face flushed with toil." "well, yes," said sir thomas, "the roads are rather bad down here in sussex." "bad, man? why, they are abominable. they are as if cursed by witches. in winter they must be sloughs and pits for unwary feet." "this is but a by-road, sir mark," said the baronet, pompously. "by-road, indeed! mistress anne, why did you not have the carriage?" "this lane was never meant for carriages, sir mark," cried sir thomas, hastily. "the last time i had it brought down here, my two stout horses dragged the fore wheels from the body." "the ruts are ready to drag my legs from my body, sir thomas; and, fiends and torture, what blocks! why, what rock is that?" "refuse or cinder from the iron forges, sir mark," replied the baronet, with the air of a guide. "in this district, sir, the finest iron is found in abundance just below the surface." "and you own a goodly portion of the land, sir thomas?" said sir mark, with an involuntary glance at the lady. "well, yes," replied the baronet with a round look of satisfaction; "i have a fair number of acres and some wide-spread forest land for timber and charcoal-burning should i care to smelt." "happy man," said sir mark. "'tis a pleasant life down here in these woods. but mistress anne, is it not dull in winter?" "oh, yes, sir mark, so dull; and we are shut in at times for weeks." "no wonder with such roads as these. sir thomas, have you no pity for your daughter's state?" "the weather has come in hot," said sir thomas, carefully taking off his plumed hat. "but we are just there now; shall we rest awhile?" "ay, that we will. mistress anne, here is a fallen tree with waving bracken and the shining leaves of the beech to shelter you from the sun. there, am i right--is that oak--are those bracken fronds?" "quite right," said the lady addressed, as, either from the action of her heart or the warmth of the sun, she blushed deeply, the red glow spreading up to the deep auburn, fuzzy hair that gathered over her freckled forehead. then carefully spreading her skirts she seated herself upon the fallen trunk of a huge oak that had been felled the previous winter, judging by the state of the chips that still lay around, the branches having been lopped, cut into short lengths, and piled into a long low stack. "ah, that is restful," said sir mark, smiling down at the lady, while the baronet glanced from one to the other, dabbed his face, and then pressed down the feather-stuffed breeches that puffed out his hips; also his best, put on in honour of his visitor from town, but evidently unpleasant wear in the hot and airless lane. "may i sit by thee, sweet--or at your feet?" whispered sir mark, with a glance at the angular oak-chips blackened by the action of the iron-impregnated water that sometimes rushed down the lane. for answer mistress anne uttered a shriek, rose quickly, and half threw herself in the young man's arms. "a snake--a viper--an adder," she cried, as, raising its head and uttering a low hiss, a reptile some two feet or so long glided from beneath the tree and disappeared amidst the rustling ferns. sir mark leslie, a rather handsome, imperious-looking young man, with somewhat effeminate features, showily dressed in russet velvet, with a short stiff frill around his neck, started back a step, and clapping his hand on his sword half drew it from its sheath; but, as a hearty, hoarse roar of laughter fell upon his ear, he flushed angrily, and thrust it back to turn upon the man who had dared to laugh at him, while the reptile made its way into a shallow rabbit-burrow in the steep overhanging bank. for the rugged little path, ill-made with dark-hued, furnace-cinder, ran here deep down between two water-worn banks that looked as if the earth had cracked asunder, leaving twin sides mottled with rugged stone and yellow sandbeds, upon whose shelving slopes ferns and brambles luxuriated, and trees flourished with roots half-aerial, half-buried in the soil. the sea-breeze might be sweeping the hills above, but down here there would be hardly a breath of air, while nature's train held revel far and near. freshly-turned sandy earth showed where the rabbits burrowed, high up in the soft bank the sandmartins had a colony, while night and morn the woodland was musical with the notes of blackbird and thrush, though the concert gil carr had listened to a month before was more subdued, and the nightingale kept his sweet lays till another year. just beyond where the little party had halted, the high bank displayed another rift, through which a faint track ran at right angles to the one they had pursued, apparently deep through the overhanging wood, for the way was darkened by the trees to a dim green-hued twilight, dashed and splashed and streaked with silver sunshine, which played like dazzling cobwebs amidst the sprays and twigs of hazel, dogwood, and hornbeam, or lay in glittering patches upon the clover-leaved woodsorrel, which carpeted the soil with velvet-green. it was from the corner of the bank which formed this side-track that the hoarse laughter came, and, turning sharply, sir mark gazed fiercely upon a rugged-looking mahogany-faced man, who seemed to have faced storm and sunshine where these slaves of nature work their worst. his scanty hair was grizzled, his beard rusty, half-grey, and unkempt; his hands were knotted and gnarled, and, saving his eyes, everything about him betokened wear and tear. they alone flashed, and brightly, from beneath his shaggy brows, as, leaning against the corner, he stood with crossed legs, one hand holding a little thick-stemmed, very small-bowled clay pipe, which he leisurely smoked, resting his elbow the while in his right hand. "who are you? how dare you look at me like that, you dog?" cried the young man imperiously. "who am i, my jack-a-dandy?" said the other, taking his pipe from his lips and emitting a thin fine thread of smoke. "that's no concern of thine. hey, halloa there! abel churr, ahoy!" a responsive shout came from out of the wood, and a thin, bent, cunning-looking man, with closely set, uneasy eyes, came quickly from amidst the hazels, which he parted with his hands, as he advanced. "here's what you are seeking, lad. you are just in time. a brave girt fellow for you." "where, where, mas' wat?" "he's just gone up yon bank into the bit of a coney-hole; and our gay saint george there was whipping out his skewer to pook the dragon, and save sir thomas's fair daughter from his fangs, when i laughed, and sent the steel back into his sheath." "let me pass you," said the new-comer eagerly, as stick in hand, and with a rabbit-skin wallet slung from his shoulder beneath his arm, he hastily came out into the lane, and, saluting the portly baronet and the lady, began to climb the bank. sir mark scowled at the smoker with a look full of resentment, but the latter replaced his pipe and gazed full at him with so keen and unblushing a stare that the young courtier was disconcerted. "coarse boor!" he muttered, turning away with a contemptuous shrug. "jack-a-dandy!" said the smoker to himself. then aloud, "a fine day, mas' beckley. save your worship, i beg pardon; it's sir thomas, now, is it not?" "yes, master wat kilby, it is," said the baronet, stiffly; and he coughed aloud, and gave the large cane he carried a thump on the ground as he turned to watch the proceedings of the new-comer. the lank rugged man took a step or two forward as well, to the great disgust of sir mark, who had held out his arm to the lady, to receive both her hands, as with an extensive display of alarm she stood shrinking away, while the thin, eager man went up the bank, pushing the branches and ferns aside with his stick, peering before him the while. there was something eminently foxy or weasel-like in his sharp, quick movements, giving him the aspect of one much accustomed to dealing with animal life as a trapper; and as he went on forcing his way through the tangled growth his actions formed sufficient attraction to cause all present to watch him intently. "i don't think he came out of yon hole, mas' churr," said the big man, emitting another puff of smoke, as if the weed he burned were precious. "pook him with your stick." "do you say it was a neddar, mas' kilby?" said the man in a harsh, husky voice; "or was it only a snake?" "an adder, mas' churr, and the bravest and biggest i've seen this year. that's the spot up yonder. by all the saints, i'd like to see him tackle one o' the girt fellows i've known out in the indian isles, long as a ship and big round as our mast." "travellers' snakes," said sir mark, contemptuously. "yes, my gay spark," said the old fellow, with his eyes lighting up and flashing; "or one of the great poisonous adders out in the west, with rattles in their tails, from whose bite a man dies in an hour." "pish!" ejaculated the young man; and then smiling encouragement to his companion, who was not in the least alarmed, he watched the thin man as he crept up to the rabbit-burrow, peered in, and then laid down his stick. "there's rats at times in these holes," he said, "and they'll get hold of your hands and bite rare sharp." going down upon his knees, he pressed back a few fronds of bracken, bent forward, thrust in his right hand, seized the little serpent by the tail, and drew it rapidly through his left hand, which closed round the creature's neck, then after stooping to raise his stick he brought the reptile down the bank, writhing and twining about his wrist. "don't--pray don't let him come near me!" cried the lady excitedly; and she clung to the young man's arm. "fear not," said the latter, with an encouraging smile, one which seemed to give her confidence, for she sighed, cast down her eyes, and then stood firm, as the adder-hunter took a knife from his pocket, and with a sly smile opened the gaping jaws, and showed the lookers-on the little keen poison-fangs lying flat down backwards on the roof of the viper's mouth, till he raised them up, ending by jerking them both out with the knife-point, and placing the reptile in his wallet. "you do something with them, churr, do you not?" said sir thomas, for his guests' behoof, for he knew by heart the whole of abel churr's career. "yes, worshipful sir," said churr, humbly: "the people come from far and near to get neddar's fat from me. it cures all kinds of ills in the skin, and heals the worst of cuts." "i wonder whether it would heal broken hearts," said the young man in a whisper, as his eyes met those of mistress anne, who cast hers down and blushed. "that will do, abel churr, that will do," said sir thomas, importantly; and the adder-hunter pulled the front of his hair humbly and slunk away; the big, grizzled man sat himself down on a ledge of the bank, pulled out flint and steel, and proceeded to fill and light his pipe; and, rested by the incident they had witnessed, the little party proceeded on their journey along the rugged lane. "now, frankly, sir thomas," said the young man, "how much farther is it?" "not five hundred yards, sir mark. there, you can see the furnace-smoke over yon clump of beeches, and just to the left, there--that light patch--that's roehurst pool." "and pray what has roehurst pool to do with master jeremiah cobbe, may i ask?" "to do with him, sir mark? why, it is a great piece of dammed-up water that sets his wheels in motion to make the tilt-hammers beat his iron, grind his charcoal, and blow his furnaces when he casts cannon. oh, it has everything to do with him, sir mark." "then he really has extensive works here?" "not so very large; not so very small; but he has many men at work for him getting the iron out of the hills, cutting down wood, making charcoal, and tending his furnaces. he is a busy man, sir mark." "yes?" said the visitor inquiringly; "and what does he do with his guns and powder when he makes them?" "i cannot say," replied the baronet; "only that they are shipped away, and go down the little river here out to sea in the same ship that brings him sulphur from sicily and chinese salt from the far east. that was one of the captain's men." "what captain? what men?" "that tall, stout fellow we talked with--wat kilby--he is the captain's head man--captain carr--culverin carr they call him here." "a fine, handsome, corsair-like fellow, with the look of a spaniard and the daring of a hero?" said the visitor mockingly. "yes," said the baronet quietly; "you have just described him, sir mark. his father, they say, went with sir walter raleigh on his ill-fated expedition. the son was in the same ship, and when old captain carr died he left his son to the care of his crew." "and they made the youth their captain," said mistress anne, with heightened colour. "yes," said sir thomas, "and he has been their captain ever since." "but," said sir mark curiously, "what are they--buccaneers--pirates?" "heaven knows," said sir thomas, giving a glance round. "there are matters, sir mark," he continued nervously, "that it is not always wise to discuss in a place where the very trees have ears." "absurd!" cried sir mark. "here, in his majesty's dominions, all men should be able to speak freely, and you excite my curiosity, sir thomas. please to bear in mind that i am his highness's representative," he continued stiffly, "sent here upon a special ambassage. reports have reached the court of a reckless buccaneering party, of the refuse and dregs of raleigh's freebooters, haunting the south coast; but i knew not that it was here in sussex." "for heaven's sake, sir mark," whispered the baronet, mopping his face, "be advised and say no more. the place here is haunted by them, and they do what pleases them best. i am a justice, sir mark, but my authority is set at naught. you heard that man kilby, how wanting in reverence he was? he is a sample of the rest, and i pray nightly when their ship sails from here that she may never return again." "a noble christian-like feeling," cried sir mark. "but, tut, tut, sir thomas, this must not be. rouse up, man. these knaves must be brought to book if they don't behave. have no fear, sir; a word from me to the king, and his majesty's wisdom would be brought to bear on the need of sweeping this place clear of such dregs." sir thomas was gazing uneasily around, while mistress anne seemed to cast off her mincing ways, and her eyes flashed eagerly as she drank in the young courtier's words. "i know his highness means well to all his subjects, sir mark," said the baronet, nervously. "i thank him for conferring upon me my title, and he has no more loyal subject in these parts; but pray, sir mark, do not be too eager to report all you see. we are very lonely here, and far from cities and their ways. there is no man in these parts, sir, who is not influenced by--by--" "captain culverin?" "hush--hush, pray, sir mark," whispered the baronet, and then to himself, "thank heaven we are here." "and is this the place?" said sir mark, standing pointing his moustache, as they emerged from the path upon the edge of a fine spreading sheet of water, embowered in noble woods and half covered with aquatic vegetation. in various parts clusters of water-fowl sat lightly on the glistening surface; mother-ducks sailed in safety with their downy broods in and out of the reedy water-lanes; coots and gallinules jerked themselves along the surface, while high in air a colony of black-headed gulls wheeled over the reeds, their breeding-place and sanctuary, safe from harm. here and there along the edges, where the water was shallow, gaunt grey herons stood knee-deep, making, from time to time, a dart with their javelin-bills; and so clear, so mirror-like, was the expanse, that the noble forest-trees upon the other side were reflected plainly in the depths. at the lower end stood a quaint, gable-ended house, and away to the right, where the waters were gathered together and rushed over a weir, were several long wooden buildings, with three or four roughly built of the sandstone of the district, two having massive chimneys, from which wreaths of pale blue smoke ascended into the soft summer air. it was a lovely spot, and seemed to be the abode of peace and plenty, more than one where dire engines of warfare were fashioned at the furnace-mouth, and that black thunder sand, whose flash means death and destruction, was mixed by begrimed men from ingredients that left alone were innocent and secure. for the gable-ended house was white with clustering roses; the bright lattice windows sparkled in the sunshine; and the water, as it ran over the weir, made silver sounds that lulled the senses, as they whispered music to the ear. stretching far along the edge of the great pool there was an extensive well-kept garden, rich with flowers, pleasant with its green lawn, and made glorious now with its abundant trees; while still further along the pool, nestling in a sheltered nook, shaded by tall trees and a mighty bank of sandstone rock, a patch of hops were rapidly nearing the tops of their poles as if climbing to get a peep at the field where the barley was springing rank and green, bridegroom and bride who should in the glowing october month be wedded well and breed strong ale. "a very paradise," continued sir mark eagerly; "and look, sir thomas, over yonder. who is the maiden? look! out there!" sir thomas glanced nervously at his daughter, whose cheeks were very red, and whose eyes flashed no longer a soft and timid light. "it is the founder's daughter, sir mark. sweet mace they call her here," and he wiped his forehead and gave his feather-padded breeches another hitch as he caught his daughter's eyes once more. "sweet mace!" said the king's messenger, inquiringly. "mace--nutmeg-- spice!" "nay, sir mark, it was her father's fancy, so they say. mace or meadow-sweet, it is the same: the creamy-scented blossom that grows beside the pool." "a forest fairy!" cried the young man, eagerly; "and the man, sir thomas?" "hush, pray, sir mark," whispered the baronet; "the water carries sound." "who is it, sir, i say?" cried the visitor, with an imperious stamp, as the object of his question turned his head. "it's he, himself, sir mark," groaned the wretched man, glancing helplessly at the speaker; "the man of whom we spake." "what! jeremiah cobbe?" "no; captain carr." volume , chapter iii. how jeremiah cobbe damned his majesty king james the first. sir mark leslie was too intent upon the scene before him, or he would have seen the face of mistress anne undergo a complete change. the soft simpering look of girlish meekness she had assumed had passed away, and, as her gaze lit on culverin carr, a light seemed to flash from her eyes--a bright beam of light, which darkened as she glanced at his companion in the boat to an angry glare. if ever face spoke love to one and changed on the instant to jealous hate, it was the countenance of anne beckley as she gazed. it all passed away directly, as she listened eagerly to sir mark. "why, she's fishing," he cried. "a fair diana, huntress of the lake. mistress anne, look at her, is she not beautiful?" "tastes differ, sir mark," said the lady, with a smile that hid her annoyance. "i have seen mace cobbe so often that i scarcely heed her looks." "but your eyes, mistress, never lit on a bonnier face than that of sweet mace." sir mark and mistress anne started with annoyance, to become aware of the fact that the grizzly old sailor, kilby, had followed them, and was standing with his back against a tree, his pipe still between his lips. "my good fellow, a little respect would not be out of place when you address a lady," said sir mark sharply, as he drew mistress anne's arm through his, and once more tried to look the old man down; but failing completely, he turned to gaze at the pool, forgetting his annoyance in the chase before him. for, standing up with one foot resting on the side of a little boat, which was propelled by the bronzed dark man who held the oars, head thrown back, lips slightly parted, and her soul seeming to animate her shapely face, was a young girl about eighteen, plainly clad in homely stuff; but with snowy lawn kerchief and cuffs, and a cap of the same confining her rich brown hair, she seemed to need no ornament or gay attire to make her brighter than she was, flushed with excitement and in the springtide of her youth. her face was burned slightly by the sun, which seemed to heighten the rich red in her cheek, and, as she came nearer to where he stood, the stranger's eyes flashed as he marked her white forehead, well-cut nose, and trembling nostrils, which expanded as their owner's breath came more quickly, while her lips parted more and more, showing her regular teeth. "steady, steady," cried her companion, as the girl raised her arm a little more, to gain greater power over the long elastic pole which did duty for a rod, now bending and quivering, as the great fish she had hooked darted here and there, and at times violently jerked the end. for there was no running line, the governor of the little skiff sending it here and there, as the fish tore through the water, even towing it at times as it made some furious dash. the skiff came nearer and nearer, for the great pike now darted right towards the shore, running onward towards where the group were standing, and then, finding the water shallow, leaping bodily out, to fall back with a tremendous splash, for it was a monster of its kind. then with another rush it made straight for the middle, where there were cool and shady depths beneath the water-lilies, amidst whose stout stems the strong line might be tangled and freedom found. but the effort was vain: with a quick turn of the oars the rower spun the skiff round, and urged it along, lessening the stress upon the young girl's wrists, and, evidently well accustomed to the management of a boat, hastening or slackening its speed by the guidance of the fishing-pole--whether it was heavily or lightly bent. the chase led the occupants of the boat far away, but sir mark did not stir. with one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, the other twisting the points of his moustache, he stood gazing after the boat with a red spot burning in either cheek. he seemed to have forgotten the existence of mistress anne, and started when she spoke. "you seem to admire our rustic beauty, sir mark," she said lightly, but with an uneasy look. "she is divine," he cried. "i mean, as a picture," he added hastily. "the surroundings are so good. and what a mighty luce she has hooked." "there are monsters in this pool," said sir thomas, mildly, for his ordinary pomposity disappeared in the presence of his distinguished guest. "there have been great luces here any time these two hundred years, and even before, when this was one of the fish-stews of the monks of roehurst. shall we go on, sir mark?" "ye-es," said the young man, with a slight hesitancy that did not escape the keen ears of mistress anne, whom, after a farewell glance at the distant boat, he tried to appease by a show of attention, though all the time his mind's eye was filled with the form of mace cobbe, whose simple grace and youthful beauty made anne beckley seem dowdy and commonplace in mien. as they went on along the edge of the great pool, where the forget-me-nots and brooklime made blue the shallows, while the roar of a furnace and the heavy throb of hammers began to make themselves heard, anne beckley stole a glance at the boat, saw that they had been seen by the rower, and turned at once eagerly to sir mark, upon whose arm she leaned as they talked, till they reached a little swing-bridge which spanned the narrow stream of water that rushed from the great pool down a channel formed between two walls of rough sandstone blocks. here the confined waters sparkled and foamed as they swept on towards a great water-wheel, which they slowly turned, the drops falling glittering like diamonds from the paddles and slimy spokes. just across the bridge was the large garden, lush with flowers, and surrounding the gabled house, from whose door now appeared a squarely-built, grey-haired man of fifty, to walk slowly towards the bridge, as if to meet the new-comers. "good day to you, sir thomas; a fair time, mistress anne," he said bluffly, as he met his visitors. "you are welcome to my poor home." "thank you, cobbe," said sir thomas, pompously, "but this is no visit. this noble gentleman comes to you as an ambassage from his gracious majesty king james, who condescends to remember that there are others in this part of his realm besides myself." "ha, ha, ha!" laughed cobbe; "his majesty has good cause to recollect you, sir thomas, for you paid him a thousand pounds for your rank." "i merely paid the customary fees, good master cobbe," exclaimed sir thomas, growing purple with annoyance. "they couldn't be customary, sir thomas, as the title is a new one; but we will not argue. come in and take a glass of muscadine, and some cakes of my daughter's make; mistress anne looks faint with heat; and then we can discuss this courtly gentleman's ambassage. ha, ha, ha! i guess what it is. his majesty is short of cash, and wants another thousand pounds. what do you say, sir thomas, shall i buy a baronetcy and become your neighbour? ha, ha, ha! sir jeremiah cobbe! what say you to that, mistress anne?" "this is no jesting matter, sir," exclaimed sir mark, sharply. "sir thomas--mistress anne--i must bid you adieu till evening. i will not ask you to enter here with me now, only thank you for your courtesy." "shall i send a serving-man to escort you back, sir mark?" said sir thomas, removing his hat, and making the cock's plumes _whish_, to show the bluff sussex yeoman how great a man he was about to receive into his house. for jeremiah cobbe seemed in nowise abashed, but rather disposed to look with amusement upon the airs and costume of his visitor. "no, sir thomas, i shall find my way," replied the other; and, respectfully saluting anne, who extended to him her hand as if they were about to dance a saraband upon the bridge, he escorted her and her father to the other side, and sir thomas walked pompously away. "now, master jeremiah cobbe," said sir mark, sharply, "if you will shew me into the house we will talk together." "as long as you like, sir," was the reply; and leading the way, after giving his hat a defiant cock on one side, jeremiah cobbe ushered his visitor into a large, low-ceiled room, panelled with oak, and whose lattice windows were deeply embayed. the place was plainly but well furnished, with open fireplace and dogs, and large fireback of sussex iron, the latter bearing the founder's name; and the visitor raised his eyebrows a little to find in place of the rough homeliness of a rustic house a handsome carpet from a turkish loom spread over the centre of the well-waxed and polished floor, a large venetian mirror at one end, venice glasses and a quaint timepiece on the great carved oak sideboard; and even the straight-backed, heavy oak chairs covered with brown turkey leather. over the high mantel-piece was a group of curious old arms, and in several places well-kept weapons hung against the panels, with curiosities from foreign lands, one tall cabinet being full of indian and china ware. masculine all this; but as sir mark's eye glanced quickly round he saw several traces of feminine occupation, for on a stand in one corner was a great china bowl full of rose-leaves, and in a vase a well-arranged nosegay of simple, old-fashioned flowers, the table it occupied being close beside a large tambour-frame with some design in progress. there was the odour of burnt tobacco in the room, doing battle with the fragrance from the garden, which floated in at the open window, where roses nodded and scattered their petals upon the broad oaken sill. there was a chair there too, and a basket of freshly-gathered currants shining like smooth rubies in their nest of leaves, and in an instant the visitor concluded that the deep bay by the casement opening upon the rich, old-fashioned garden, was the favourite seat of the girl he had seen engaged in fishing as they came along. "sit you down, sir," cried the bluff yeoman heartily, and, opening a cupboard in the wall, he took out a couple of venetian flasks, and some tall glasses of a pale green veined with threads of opal hue, placed them on the table, and with them a leaden box, and a couple of thick-stemmed pipes with tiny bowls. "now, sir," he continued, "that's old sherry sack, and that's metheglin of my daughter's make. here, janet," he shouted, "bring a big jug of ale from the second cask;" and in due time a good-looking, well-shaped girl bore in upon an old silver salver a battered flagon of clear ale, whose coolness was shown by the pearly dew rapidly deposited on the bright silver sides. "your good health, and welcome, sir," said the yeoman, lifting the great silver flagon, raising the lid with his thumb, and taking a hearty draught. "hah!" he ejaculated, drawing a long breath, as he set down the vessel. "i don't suppose you would care to drink our common ale, my own brewing, though, and strong. but you do not drink, sir. which shall it be?" and he stretched out his hand to push the flasks towards his guest. "business first, master cobbe," said sir mark haughtily, as, taking his sheathed sword from where it hung, he rested it across his knees; "i have somewhat to say." "will you smoke, then?" cried the sturdy yeoman, reaching his hand to the little pipes, and pushing the leaden box towards his guest. "i never smoke, sir; i agree with his majesty that it is an evil, noxious, and diabolical habit." "i do smoke, and i don't agree with his majesty," said cobbe, gruffly, as he proceeded to fill his pipe by means of a little silver stopper, for a child's finger would hardly have passed into the bowl. "i must request, sir, that you will refrain from smoking until i leave your house," said the visitor sternly. jeremiah cobbe's face grew red with anger, but he smothered his annoyance, laid down his pipe, took a fresh draught of ale, let the lid fall with a clink, and threw himself back in his chair. "go on then, sir," he cried. "i shall be glad to hear what business you have to settle with me. if it is for half-a-dozen culverins for his majesty's army, or by the good peter, i have it, he has got to know about my new howitzers, and he has sent to see. now, how the holy 'postle did he get to know about them?" "my good fellow, have the kindness to listen to me," said sir mark. "good fellow, eh!" cried cobbe, flushing again, and smiting the table with his fist. "but there, go on, sir, go on; you are a messenger to me from the king." "his majesty," said sir mark, leaning back in his chair, and half-closing his eyes, as he gazed imperiously at the other, "has had it brought to his knowledge that you, jeremiah cobbe, of roehurst, in the county of sussex." "right," said the other nodding. "--have for years past, and in divers manners, carried on here a forge for cannon castings." "i have, and of the best and toughest iron ever smelted in the south. his majesty never heard of one of my pieces bursting." "that you also carry on some works wherein, without leave or licence, you make largely that dangerous and deadly material known as gunpowder." "dangerous, and deadly too," chuckled the bluff yeoman, "if it gets into foolish hands. it's true enough, and my best dogwood charcoal makes the strongest powder to be had." "a material which his majesty holds in utter abhorrence and detestation, ever since his devilish and malignant enemies, aided and abetted by popish treasonable priests, essayed to destroy the houses of parliament and kill and slay his most sacred person." "no wonder, sir," chuckled cobbe. "enough to make any man abhor powder. but hark ye, _one_ barrel of mine would have been enough to shake the place about their ears." "that this cannon and this powder of your manufacture you have for years past regularly and by your own design sold, furnished, and supplied to his sacred majesty's enemies in various parts of the world. these treasonable practices he now wots of, at least by report, and i am his messenger to you, sir, to know if they are true. what have you to say?" "what have i to say, boy!" cried the cannon founder, flushing angrily as he leaned forward, set his elbows on the table, and gazed full at his visitor. "what have i to say? nothing at all. i do make cannons, and i do make powder, the best i can, and i sell them to those who'll buy. i offered to supply his majesty with guns of which he might be proud, and some jack-in-office refused my offer, so i sell them where i will." "to his majesty's enemies?" "hang his enemies; i know not who gets them when they are shipped away and i am paid." "you avow then, boldly, that you do supply these munitions of warfare to other than the king's liege subjects?" "avow, man, yes. i sell to who will give me a good price; and look here, my gaily-feathered young tom chick, this is not london city, and my house is not the court. don't speak to me as if i were one of your servants and hangers-on." "you are insolent, sir," cried sir mark angrily. "if i report all this and your treasonable words, the result may be a body of his majesty's soldiers despatched to raze your works to the ground, and march you back to london to take your trial." "let them come," cried the founder, now giving the fury he had pent up its full vent; "let them come, and i'll give them such a reception as will make your powder plot seem a trifle. why, do you know, my velvet and silken popinjay, that we have good men and true down here, enough to tickle the ears of as many of your fellows as you like to send." "silence, sir!" cried sir mark; "do you dare to set at naught the king's." "damn the king!" cried the founder furiously, "damn the king for a porridge-eating, witch-hunting old fool!" "insolent dog," cried sir mark. "what!" retorted the founder, "do you pull your blade on me? then you shall see that we have steel as well." sir mark had risen and drawn his sword, evidently with some mad idea that it was his duty to arrest this utterer of treason on the spot; but, with an activity of which he might not have been believed capable, jeremiah cobbe sprang to the side of the room, snatched a sword from the wall, drew, and crossed that of the young courtier. there was a harsh grating, a few quick thrusts and parries, as the open window was slightly darkened, and sir mark uttered a sharp cry, for his adversary's sword passed like lightning through his arm, and he staggered back, as an upbraiding voice exclaimed--"oh, father, father, what have you done?" volume , chapter iv. how sir mark stayed at the park house, and jeremiah cobbe delivered a homily on angling. it was mace's voice, as she ran into the room, pale with horror when she saw the red blood darken the russet velvet of the young man's sleeve. "done!" cried cobbe, "what do i always do, my girl? acted like the passionate old fool i am. poor boy!" he ejaculated, as the sword dropped from sir mark's hand, and white as mace's self the king's messenger sank fainting on his adversary's arm, to be lowered gently to the floor. "god knows, child, i'd give five hundred pounds to undo it all. he angered me, and drew, and the sight of the naked steel made the blood come into my eyes. poor boy--poor boy! a brave youth, though he fretted and strutted and bullied me so. that's better. hi, janet, some cold water. stop, child, don't rip his fine jacket or he'll break his heart. my faith on it, he'll think more of the holes in his velvet than in his skin. steady! hold him up a little, and i'll strip off his fine coat. that's it; now, a little more; never mind the drop of blood, it won't kill him." "i know, father," said mace, "but put away those swords;" and she held up the wounded man's head as her father cleverly removed the velvet doublet and turned up the fine white linen shirt, whose sleeve was stained with blood. the wound could now be seen, or rather wounds--two narrow clean cuts on either side of the fleshy part of the arm, from which the blood pretty freely welled. "now lay his head down again, my child. no: better not. here's janet. sake's girl! don't stand staring. put the basin here. some strips of linen. that's right, child," he continued, as mace snatched off her white kerchief and tore it up. "it weighs full thirty pounds," cried a hearty voice in the entry. "hey, hallo, what's wrong? a wounded man?" "ay!" cried the founder. "quick, gil, you are a good chirurgeon;" and the new-comer--to wit, mace's companion on the pool--strode in, went down on one knee, and without a word dipped a portion of the linen in the cold water, removed the blood, and with the skill of an adept made a couple of pads, and cleverly bound up the wound. "give him a little of the strong waters," he cried, and the founder hurriedly fetched a flask and held a glass to the wounded man's lips before the new-comer said briefly, "how was it?" "oh, he angered and drew on me, and we had a few passes," cried the founder. "my own fault, too." "it is a mere nothing," said the other. "why mace, my child, don't look so white. he is a soldier evidently, and he'll bear it like a man." "am i white, gil?" said the girl, looking up and smiling sadly, as she thought of how her life seemed cast among warlike weapons and their works. "i am not frightened, only troubled. father, dear, this is so sad." "it is, it is, my child. i'd have given half i have sooner than it should have happened. hush, he's coming to." for just then the injured man sighed, opened his eyes wonderingly, gazed upwards to see who supported him, and lowered his lids again, saying softly-- "the face of an angel: is this heaven?" "oh, no," cried the amateur surgeon, frowning slightly as he saw mace colour, "and if you were here sometimes, when friend cobbe is casting cannon, you'd think it was the other place. come, sir, let me help you up. it is a mere flesh wound, and will only smart." "thank you, i can rise," said sir mark, reddening, as he made an effort and rose without assistance; but the room seemed to swim round, and he staggered and would have fallen, had not his surgeon caught him by the uninjured arm, and helped him to a seat, letting him gently down into a half-reclining position. as he did so the eyes of the two young men met, and gilbert carr, as he gazed into those of his patient, felt a strange sense of mistrust pass over him like a foreboding of coming trouble; while on the other side, as the smooth young courtier looked into the bright, clear grey eyes, and scanned the dark, bronzed visage bending over him, he felt that they two would be enemies for a woman's sake. "that's it--that's better," said gilbert carr, quietly. "you need have no fear for the consequences, sir. it is a clean cut, and will soon heal in our pure, fresh air." "i thank you," said sir mark, rather stiffly; "i do not fear. madam, i grieve to have caused you this trouble," he continued, addressing mace, who stood close by. "nay, sir; pray do not say that. it is we who are grieved--my father." "ay, she's right," said cobbe, advancing. "my brave lad, i feel ashamed to face you after such a stroke." "ashamed!" said sir mark, with a quiet glance at mace; and then, seeing his advantage, he said, smiling as he held out his uninjured hand, "never be ashamed, sir, of so gallant a handling of your sword. they tell me in london i can fence, and that enemies who have fought make the best of friends." "you are a brave true gentleman, sir," cried the founder, wringing the outstretched hand; "and i humbly ask your forgiveness for my choler. i was hot and angry. there, god bless the king; and i beg his majesty's pardon for what i said." "it is granted," said sir mark, smiling faintly, "for he will never know." "now let me say a word," said gil, who had been uneasily looking on. "fever may come on if he is excited. take my advice, sir, lie back and go to sleep. mace--no, here is janet--fetch a pillow for this gentleman." the girl ran out, and returned bearing one of snowy hue, which gil adjusted beneath the wounded man's head. "now, sir, sleep for awhile, and you will be refreshed. your arm is all right. i have dressed many a sword-cut in my time." "thanks," said sir mark, faintly; "but some one will stay with me in the room?" he glanced at mace. "of course," said the founder. "mace, my child." "yes," said gil, quietly, "go away, mace; janet will stay and watch by this gentleman's side." mace glanced at him wonderingly, and janet coloured with pleasure as, frowning slightly, sir mark closed his eyes, and the girl half drew the blind, while, headed by the founder, after removing all traces of the conflict, gilbert carr and mace went softly out, and closed the door. "why do you look at me like that?" said mace, as they stood alone. "gil, do you doubt me?" "doubt you?" he said softly as he bent down and kissed her white forehead. "no, i could not, for you are not as other women are. i did not wish you, though, to be 'tendant to this spark from the court, for such he seems to be. nay, mace, i've no jealousy in me. but there is your pike," he added, pointing to the fish, a great fellow four feet long, which lay on the red bricks at their feet. "here is your father, and he'll tell us how the quarrel rose." "quarrel! it was not worth calling a quarrel," cried the founder, shortly. "it seems that some meddlesome fool has been telling them in london of my works, and this gentleman has been sent down to inspect the place. he vexed me, and said something about the king, which made me rap out an oath. he drew: i drew." "and our visitor went down," said gil carr, smiling. "well, master cobbe, there's not much harm done." "but i shall have to send over to the moat, gil, and tell sir thomas; he was here a piece back." "nay," said gil, "ill news flies apace, there is no need to hasten it. leave it to the gentleman himself." "perhaps you are right," returned the founder. "of course he will not be fit to leave for a day or two. mace, child, get the south chamber ready for our guest: let's try and make up for the ill that we have done." gilbert carr half-closed his eyes and stood silent till mace left the open hall, where they were standing, to prepare the chamber for the wounded man, when he replied to the founder's remark:-- "it depends so upon the man." "eh? how?" "well, if you had a scratch or pin-thrust like that you would go and see to the grinding of your last batch of powder. if i had it, i should." "well?" said the founder. "i should tie it up--tightly," replied gil, drily. "your guest there will make a month's illness of it for the sake of being petted by the women and nursed." "that's a pretty jealous kind of remark, captain gil," said the founder sharply. "i noticed how you took me up short when i bade mace stop in the room with the poor young man. come down here, i want to talk to you. we may as well say it now as at any other time. let's walk down to the empty furnace. no one will heed us there." "with all my heart," said gil, and, with a cloud gathering on his brow, he walked after the founder, along by the side of the rushing water, past the mill-wheel, and down to a good-sized stone building, beside which was a great pile of charcoal. "now, gil carr," said the founder, seating himself on the ledge of an open window, "i'm not going to quarrel." "that you are not," said the other, smiling frankly; "and if you did you are not going to fight, for i won't draw. one wounded man is enough for one day." "tut--tut--yes," cried the founder. "but now look here, captain gil--" "suppose we drop the captain, and let it be plain gil again, as it has been these many years. master cobbe, we are very old friends." "yes, yes, of course, gil, so we are," said the founder, looking annoyed and puzzled. "but now, look here, tell me why did you interfere when i was going to tell my child to sit in the room with that injured gentleman. come now, be frank." "i will," said gil, quietly. "it was because i did not think it seemly for her to stay and tend a man whose eyes had just openly bespoken admiration, and i thought that janet would do as well." "like your insolence," cried the choleric old man. "gently, master cobbe," said the other smiling; "too much powder again." "confound it, yes," he cried, calming down, but only to grow wroth the next moment, as he saw the smile upon his companion's face. "you are laughing at me, gil; and now, hark ye here, i think it is quite time we came to a proper understanding." "about mace?" said gil, quietly. "yes, about my child," said the founder. "i think so, too," said gil, calmly, but with the bronze hue of his cheek becoming a little more deeply tinted. "oh! you do," said the founder, with a peculiar hesitancy, now it had come to the point, and an aspect of being slightly in awe of the other and his calm, firm way--the peculiar quiet assertion of one born to and accustomed to command. "i do," said gil, gazing him full in the eyes; "and i am glad that you have opened a subject i wanted to discuss." "then it is soon done," said the founder; "and look here, gil, my dear lad, after the talk is over, we go back to our old positions as good friends, and it is to be as if we had never spoken." "have no fear," said gil, smiling; "as i told you, we shall not quarrel." "well, then, look here," said the founder, making a plunge at once into the subject. "gil carr, you are growing too intimate with my child." "indeed!" said gil, raising his eyebrows. "let me see, master cobbe: it is sixteen years since wat kilby brought me, a delicate boy of twelve, low from an attack of a fever caught in the western isles, and you and your good wife nursed me into strength." "yes, yes, quite true," said the founder, hastily. "poor rachel! poor rachel!" he muttered, and his face clouded. "if ever woman was meet for the kingdom of heaven when she died it was mace's mother--my second mother!" said gil, gravely. "amen to that!" said the founder. "thank you, gil--thank you--god bless you for those words," he continued, with his voice trembling; and he seized and wrung the young man's hand, which warmly pressed his in return. "mace was a child of four then, master cobbe," said gil, "and we have been like brother and sister ever since." "yes, yes, quite true," said the founder. "then why do you say that i am growing too intimate with your child?" "because," said the founder, laying his hand upon the young man's arm, "you are growing now less like brother and sister, and it is time it was stopped." "why?" said gil, gravely. "because, gil carr, the intimacy of two people like you might lead to feelings that end in marriage, and that could never be." "i do not see why not," said gil, quietly. "no," said the founder, "but i do! and now listen. i like you, gil, and i'm going to give you a bit of advice, both about this matter and your ship, for we are old friends, and i should not like you and yours to come to harm." "friends in home matters, but in business you always drove the hardest bargains with me that you could; and now you talk of locking mace away." "friends enough, all the same, my lad; and as to locking up my daughter from you, as you term it, if i in the future bid her always keep her room when you are home from sea and come up here, shall i not do right? would you have me bring her out to listen to the gallant words of every buccaneering captain who comes to my place, swaggering and swearing and drinking, till he wants a man on each side to see him safe away, lest he get into the mill-race or the dam. nay, captain gil carr--culverin carr, if you like!--times are altered now, for mace is a woman grown, and a girl no longer. so in the future i'll trade with you and be the best of friends, but there we'll stop." "now, master cobbe," said gil, with a quiet, grave smile, "when did you see me overcome by strong waters, or swaggering, or using oaths? fie! you make me worse than i am." jeremiah cobbe chuckled, and laid his finger good-humouredly upon the young man's breast. "it will not do, gil lad, so we need not argue. you are as good as most men; but see here, i have mace's future welfare to provide for, and, above all, her happiness. i've been weak and neglectful, perhaps, so far, but now i'm going to be hard as the iron in those guns. there's no harm done as yet, so let us stop in time, for we both wish the poor girl to be happy." "no harm?" said gil. "no: so we'll stop at once. think you i'm going to let a man like you fool the girl with fine words? you journey here, and you journey there, and you see saucy frenchwomen, bright-eyed spaniards, and dark-haired portingallo dames, and those of italy, and no one knows where beside. court them, my lad, and marry as many of them as you like. may be you have now a wife in every port, but you must e'en leave my little white moth alone. let her flitter and flutter about and be satisfied with the soft light of the moon and stars; i don't want her pretty wings singed in the fierce light of a thoughtless man's love." "amen!" said gil, softly. "amen, eh? why, gil, you are a fine fellow to give forth such a churchman's word as that so glibly and so pat. master peasegood would look fierce enough if he heard such an ungodly follower of belial as you beginning to preach." "in the name of all that's strange, master cobbe, what does this mean?" exclaimed gil. "i have been free of your house all these years, and now this sudden change has come over you, and you treat me thus scurvily. in the name of all the saints, speak out. what have i done?" "been hooked by father bonchurch, seemingly, and gone over to see the scarlet lady on the seven hills, to hear you swearing by the saints." "it is enough to make a man swear by anything, master cobbe, to meet with such treatment. come, speak out; how have i affronted you?" "well, if you will know, master gil, i looked out across the pool some little time back, and i saw a certain young man out there in my boat fishing. all at once he thrust his hand into a bucket of water, and seized a feckless gudgeon, which he deftly hooked, and then threw overboard for the pike to seize. and, as i looked, i saw a little hand taken and kissed, and i knew then that one captain culverin had hooked a second gudgeon as well, and that he might play with her for a time, as he watched her helpless struggles in his hot hands, and then he might throw her overboard too. then the scales fell from my eyes, and i saw that i had been a fool--one who had been so wrapped-up in his cannon-making that he had forgotten to watch what went on in his own house. gilbert carr, you have ceased to be a brother to my child, and have made hot love to her. come, confess." "confess!" cried gil, with his face lighting up; "i have nothing, sir, to confess. if you wish me to avow that i dearly love our little mace, i do with all my soul; and, god giving me strength, i will never do aught that shall make her shame that i love her. yes, master cobbe, love has grown stronger year by year; man's love--hot love if you will, and she has been to me my one hope--the hope that has kept me a better man than i should have been. come, be not hard upon me, master cobbe. you cannot mean that you disapprove of our love?" "i do disapprove of your love!" cried the founder angrily; "and i'll have no more of such childish babble." "but master cobbe--" "i'll hear no more, i say." "nay, master cobbe, this is unreasonable." "call it what you will; i say i'll have no more of it. you are not the man to make my child happy, and now we understand one another. mind, i forbid it." "you may forbid it, master cobbe," said gil quietly; "but i tell you frankly i cannot listen to your commands. matters have gone too far." "but they shall not have gone too far," cried the founder, flushing up, and stamping his foot with rage, "i'll hear no more. look ye here, captain gil, you're in a passion now, so let me see no more of you for seven days. then, perhaps, we can meet and talk calmly. meantime, go and think." as he said these words jeremiah cobbe, the founder of roehurst, went into his empty furnace-house, and gil carr walked slowly away to think of his dismissal--now, when a man whom he already looked upon as an enemy was in the place; and the young man's face darkened as imagination began to be busy, filling his mind full of strange fancies, strongly opposed to the words he had spoken but a short time since to mace as they parted at the house. volume , chapter v. how the founder set a trap to catch a lover. nature seems to have ordained that the stricken ones should seek solitude to find solace for their wounds. the deer injured by the shot of the hunter plunges into the depths of the forest, and the human being cut to the heart hides away from his kind to brood and think and wait until time shall soften the pain. so it was now with gil carr, for his steps led him slowly into the forest depths of the old weald, where, coming at length, by means of a cart-track, to an opening where the woodman's axe had been at work and a hollow blackened with dust and dotted with curious little fungi, showed where the charcoal burners had been busy, he seated himself upon a stump, and began to think over the past--of the days when a boy he had been his father's companion on shipboard, when he used to be shut down in the cabin below water-line when some attack was to be made upon a spanish ship or fort in the carib sea; of the love the stern, sun-browned, grizzled man bore him, and how he had been the rough sailors' plaything. then of that dreadful day when lying below half wandering with fever, when the air that came through the little cabin window seemed burning hot, he had felt his head throb, and listened to the noise of cannons, wondering whether they were real or only the fancies of his aching brain. of how he had at last with swimming head crawled from his berth and painfully climbed on deck, where his feet slid from under him, and he fell in a pool of blood, after which he crawled to pass, one after the other, half a score of dead and wounded men, to where a group was standing round one who lay upon the deck, dark with the shades of approaching death, and with his head supported by wat kilby, who was crying like a child. how plainly it all came back as he sat there in the forest shades, with the glowing sunbeams that flashed through the leaves and burnished the silvery-green of the great bracken fronds, seeming like the swords that glittered under the tropic sky, and the gleaming armour that the stout adventurers wore when they made way for him to crawl to his father's side. that pale, stern face lit up--how well he remembered it!--and one feeble hand was raised to be laid upon his head, as with his dying breath the smitten captain, one of elizabeth's adventurous spirits, who fought the spaniards under the english flag, half raised himself and cried-- "brave lads--god's will--this is your captain now!" and then, as he flung himself wildly upon his father's breast, there was a loud hurrah, for the fighting-men and crew flashed their swords over his head, and swore they would follow him to the death. over _his_ head, for he was alone upon the deck with the dead. how it all came back--his long illness--wat kilby's constant care--how he was brought home, and their ship ascended the little river--how he was taken to roehurst, to gradually win his way back to health and strength; and then there were the happy days he had spent with little mace as his playfellow till he rejoined the ship, and was hailed by those on board as their very captain, under whom nominally, but with wat kilby as their head, they had sailed to east and west, trading, fighting when spaniards were in the way, till he had really taken the helm, and led the unquiet spirits who had always chafed at the rule of james, their dislike culminating in hatred after they had joined in raleigh's luckless venture and returned. then had come a long time of quiet trading--the ship they sailed bearing to other shores year after year the produce of the roehurst forges, and bringing back the old founder's needs; sulphur from sicily or iceland; chinese salt, as they called it-- saltpetre--from the east. and now after all these years, when the captain's love for his little playmate had grown into the strong, absorbing passion of a man for the woman of his heart, he was suddenly called upon to give her up. the day wore on as gil sat there thinking! the wood-pigeons set up their mournful coo-coo, coo-coo, heedless of his presence; the blackbirds that swarmed in the low coppices, where the trees had been cut down, uttered their alarm-notes, and then came and hunted out the wild cherries close at hand; and at last, as here and there the bright lamps of the glow-worms were lit, the rabbits came out to frisk and feed, so still and thoughtful was the occupant of the glade. "no," he said at last, "i will not. my life has been, rough, but i cannot blame myself for that; and i will not. i cannot give her up. mace, my darling, if i knew that by never seeing you again i should add to your happiness, i would bear the suffering like a man. as it is, master cobbe, i must go against your will." he strode hastily away, with the wild creatures of the woods scattering right and left at his heavy tread, and, making straight for the gabled house, he began for the first time now to think upon its occupant. once or twice a pang shot through his breast as he thought of the gaily-dressed young officer made a welcome guest at the house whose door he was forbidden to enter; and he stopped short, with his teeth gritting together, and his brow knit, his mind agitated by the thoughts of what might be. it was very still, and the soft balmy summer night-air bore the sounds from far away, as with a faint, piercing, shrill cry the bats wheeled around the tree beneath whose dark shadow he stood; the night-hawk chased the moths in busy circle, and a great white-breasted owl floated softly by, turned and flew beneath the tree, but on seeing gil uttered a wild and thrilling shriek as it fled away, a sound in keeping with the words of gil carr, as he walked hastily on once more, exclaiming-- "i should slay him if he did." the object of his thoughts was sir mark leslie, then lying on a couch by the open window of his room, with the sweet scents of the garden floating in, and the soft, moist, warm night-air playing pleasantly upon his forehead. he, too, had his thoughts fixed upon mace, and, perhaps by a subtle influence, they were drawn, too, towards him whom he had seen as her companion in the boat, the man who had played surgeon, and in whose eyes he had seemed to read no friendly feeling towards himself. it must have been ten o'clock when gil came in sight of the gables standing up against the soft, clear summer sky. the occupants of the neighbouring cottages were asleep, and with the exception of the beetle's drone, and the baying of some bugle-mouthed beagle, all was so silent that the ripple and rush of the water in the stone channel seemed to rise and fall with almost painful force. there was a broad sloping bank some thirty or forty yards from the front of the house, and, taking off his hat, gil softly walked along by it for a little distance, stooping here and there to thrust his hand in among the long dew-wet grass, and place something in his hat. so occupied was he with his proceedings that he did not notice a figure seated beneath a tree nor heed the faint odour of tobacco which was nearly overpowered in the soft, sweet woodland scents that floated by. neither did he notice that a window was open in one of the gables, and that the founder was seated there, gazing out upon the summer sky. for, lover-like, gil carr was just then very blind, perhaps because the thoughts of mace cobbe filled his breast to the exclusion of everything else. turning then to his task, he walked back to the sloping bank, and softly placed the four glow-worms he had brought diamond-wise upon the grass, where the little creatures glimmered in the darkness like the signal-lights of a ship at sea. so thought gil carr, as he turned to look at them from a little distance, and then, softly walking to the little swing-bridge, he crossed it lightly in the darkness, and, leaping the fence, stood amongst the clustering roses waiting for the opening of a window ten feet above his head. he had not long to wait, for the signal had been seen, and before many moments had elapsed there was a slight grating noise and then a soft voice that made the young man's heart throb uttered the one word--"gil." "yes, dear, i am here," he replied, eagerly. "how foolish!" came next from overhead. "why, gil, you were with me this afternoon, and yet you play the love-sick swain beneath my window now." "i am sick with love, sweet; even unto death." "are you turning poet, gil?" "yes, for i seem to live in a sphere of poesy when i think of thee." "you foolish boy." "i am," he said. "would i could see thine eyes." "and that they were glow-worms," she said laughingly. "there, good-night, dear gil. it is late, and i must to bed. if you are my true love, come boldly to the house by day; such meetings as this become neither thee nor me." "stay awhile, sweet," he said. "what of your guest?" "poor fellow! i have not seen him since." gil sighed content. "there, i must fain go now, dear gil. good-night." "nay, nay! a moment longer," he cried. "why, gil," she cried, laughing musically, "one would think you were a lover forsaken and forlorn, condemned to stay away--forbidden the house." "i am." "what?" "i am, sweet; and condemned to stolen meetings." "why, gil?" she exclaimed; and in a low voice he told her all. meanwhile as gil's dark figure was seen approaching the house, the watcher at the open window drew back to ensure being unseen, and then proceeded to follow the young man's movements, ending by going to the far end of the room, taking down a curious old spanish matchlock from a couple of slings, and then opening an oaken cabinet, from which he took powder in a carved horn flask, and a small pouch of bullets, with which the piece was carefully charged. then the match was cautiously lit, and, approaching the window, the barrel was laid upon the sill, as he who carried it went down on one knee, and took a careful aim at the young man where he stood. "i could bring him down easily," muttered the watcher. "he shall not play with me and break her heart." "nay," he growled, the next minute, "it would be cowardly, and he is a brave strong lad. but he shall not trifle with either of us, and i will not have him here. "shall i fire?" he said, holding the heavy piece hesitatingly; and the long barrel shook in his hand. the hesitation was not for long. with a sigh of annoyance he placed the matchlock in the corner, and, going downstairs, he went out softly by the back, and came right round by the front of the house, as if meaning to interrupt the meeting now in progress, but instead of so doing he went down to the great mill-wheel, and crossed the water by means of its spokes and paddles. then stealing softly along by the far edge of the deep stream, he crossed it by the bridge, and by putting a long lever in motion swung the bridge right round, leaving the way perfectly open, so that any one coming from the house would, in place of going across the bridge, walk in the darkness right into the deep water, and, however strong a swimmer he might be, he would be carried down by the force of the stream right amidst the woodwork of the wheel, perhaps past it, and down into the lower fall amongst the rocks beneath. "he won't drown," muttered the founder; "and it will be a lesson to him--teach him that i don't mean play." walking softly back to the mill-wheel he crossed again, made his way into the house, and then to the window, where he once more took up his position, and began to watch the dimly-seen crossing, waiting to see the disturber, as he termed him, of his daughter's peace, fall headlong into the channel. hardly had he settled himself, though, to watch, when a change came over him. "no, hang it," he muttered, "it is a dirty, mean trick; and gil carr is too good a man to treat in such a way. i've been hard enough upon him, and there is no need for this. i'll go and put it back." the founder went down stairs once more, and out into the darkness with the full intent of replacing the bridge; but he was too late. before he could reach the rough framework by which he had crossed, there was a step away to the right, a cry, a tremendous splash, and, as for a few moments he stood paralysed by the rushing stream, he caught a glimpse of a white face amidst the black water, and then it disappeared. the founder's repentance seemed to have come too late, and his trap had apparently acted but too well. for the first time, perhaps, he realised that a man's chance of life in those rushing waters was very small. he had once helped to draw out the body of one who had been drowned in the great pool, and who had gradually been drawn down to get entangled in the mill-wheel, but he had never seen any one fall directly into the race, and he was startled at the velocity with which the figure passed. "my poor lad!" he groaned. "what have i done? of all the passionate fools!--" here he was interrupted by a couple of figures approaching out of the darkness, one on either side of the stream, and a voice that made him start exclaimed, "has he passed you?" setting a trap is one thing, catching the right bird you set it for quite another affair. in this case jeremiah cobbe had calculated pretty well, but he had not foreseen all the possibilities, and the consequence was that the man for whose benefit the bridge had been drawn aside had not fallen into the stream. for no sooner had the founder entered the house and closed the door than a tall, gaunt figure rose up from behind the thick hedge which sheltered the garden, and uttered a low peculiar signal, somewhat like the cry of a sea-bird. this he repeated twice without effect, and he was about to risk being heard in replacing the swing-bridge when a sound from another direction made him shrink back to his hiding-place, after giving another signal exactly like the seamew's cry. the sound he heard was a footstep, and the watcher knew in an instant that it was not gil's, both by its peculiarity and by its coming in a fresh direction from that in which he had heard the answer to his last signal. "it's cobbe come back to slew round the bridge," he muttered to himself, as he crouched down; and hardly had he uttered the remark than there was a slip, a loud ejaculation, and then a sharp cry and a splash. "then it wasn't cobbe," exclaimed the watcher, as he sprang up, and, repeating his signal, he soon heard his leader's footsteps hastily approaching. "don't try to cross," he said; "the bridge has gone and some one has fallen in. run to the wheel, or whoever it is will be there first, and take a dowser into the lower bole." gil ran along the side of the swift channel, and, directly after encountering the dimly-seen form of the founder, he exclaimed, "has he passed you?" "yes; quick," cried the old man, as he tried hard to recover from the shock he had received; "we may stop him by the wheel here. who was it?" "heaven knows," cried gil; "don't stop to talk." as he spoke he was already down on his knees beside the wheel, and made a snatch at something which was hitched on to one of the broad slimy paddles; but even as he stretched out his hand the shape glided away, and went over the fall with a shoot into the black water down below. "for god's sake, be quick," cried the founder, "or he'll be drowned, whoever he is. drop on to the stones below; the water is only a few inches deep at the side, and you may reach him as he comes up with the eddy." without a moment's hesitation gil lowered himself over the wood-piles, and dropped with a splash on to the water-worn pebbles below, where there was a broad shelf before the water went sheer down ten or a dozen feet into a hole caused by the washing of the heavy stream that fell from above. overhung as it was by willows, and enclosed by slimy piles and masses of fern-hung rock, it was a gruesome place, at mid-day, with the sun shining. by night its very aspect would have been enough to deter most men from venturing to plunge in. it, however, had no deterrent effect upon gil, who leaned forward, peering into the darkness, to see if he could reach the drowning man; but finding that he was swept away by the stream, and being drawn round by the eddy towards the falling torrent which came over in a sheet, he plunged boldly in, caught the first part of the drowning man's garments he could seize, and swam strongly towards the lower part of the waste water, where wat kilby was ready to give him a helping hand, half dragging him out, and at the same time whispering a few words in his ear. jeremiah cobbe was beside them directly, eagerly asking who it was they had saved. "it looks like your guest, master cobbe," said gil sourly. "there, he is not drowned, but coming-to fast. i'll leave you to take him home; and, perhaps, you had better tell him to keep in the house at night, as you have taken to the bad habit of setting traps to catch your friends." "not for my friends, gil carr, but for those who act like rats or other vermin, and steal round my place at ungodly hours," cried the founder angrily. "call it what you will, master cobbe," said gil, coldly, "i'll say good-night;" and without another word he walked away to change his wet garments, while the founder helped his half-drowned guest back to the house. volume , chapter vi. how wat kilby went wooing. sir mark's wound was of such a nature that, being a young and healthy man, it would soon have healed up; but his imprudence in leaving the house, and his immersion, gave matters so unfavourable a turn that next morning he was unable to leave his bed, and, on a messenger arriving from the moat with sir thomas beckley's inquiries how it was sir mark had not returned, he was sent back with the news of the young man's accident, nothing being mentioned about the sword-wound. the result was that gil, in the course of the morning, when he happened to be strolling in that direction, met sir thomas and his daughter on their way to roehurst, followed by a servant laden with a basket. mistress anne's face turned white, then rosy red, as she saw gil approach, and as her eyes met his they were full of reproach and angry resentment, which rapidly gave place to a girlish, half-playful manner as soon as sir thomas mentioned the cause of his visit. "a perilous accident has befallen my guest, captain carr," said the baronet, pompously--"sir mark leslie, a scottish gentleman, a special messenger from his majesty, who has come here on important business. he was nearly drowned last even, and is now ill abed. we have brought him some simples and medicaments of dame beckley's own preparation, and we hope soon to have him back." "oh, yes," said mistress anne, with a sigh, and a meaning look at gil. "he makes you a pleasant companion, mistress anne," said gil, quietly. "oh, yes," she cried; "he is delightful--so much court news--such polish; it is indeed a pleasure to meet a true gentleman down here." "which i am not, then," thought gil. "will nothing move him to jealousy?" said anne beckley to herself; and with her eyes flashing angrily, she laid her hand on her father's arm, and after a polite salutation they passed on. "poor girl!" said gil to himself. "i am not a vain man, but if she be not ogling, and cap-setting, and trying to draw me on at her apron-string, i am an ass. why," he continued, turning to gaze after the little party just as mistress anne turned her own head quickly to look after him, and, seeing that he was doing the same, snatched herself away as if in dudgeon--"one would think that she was trying to draw me on by her looks, and seeking to make me jealous of this gay lad from town. poor lass! it is labour in vain; and she would not cause me a pang if she married him to-morrow. what's that?" "that" was a slight rustling noise amongst the trees, followed by a "clink-clink-clink" of flint against steel; and striding out of the path and going in the direction of the sound gil came upon wat kilby, seated in a mossy nook, blowing at a spark in some tinder and holding his little pipe ready in his hand. "hollo, wat!" cried gil. the gaunt old fellow went on blowing without paying the slightest heed to the summons, then applied a rough match dipped in brimstone, whose end, on application to the glowing spark in the tinder, first melted, and then began to burn with a fluttering blue flame. this was soon communicated to the splint of wood, and the flame was then carefully held in a scarlet cap taken from wat's grizzly half-bald head for shelter from the soft summer breeze, while he held the bowl of his little pipe to it and solemnly puffed it alight, after which he rose from his knees, took up a sitting position with his back against an old beech, gazed up in the speaker's face and replied-- "hollo, skipper!" "i wanted to see you wat," said gil. "look here, old lad, how came you to be hanging about the house last night when you gave the signal?" "hah!" ejaculated wat, exhaling a thin puff of fine blue smoke and gazing straight before him through the sun-pleached foliage of the forest. "do you hear me?" cried gil, impatiently, as he stamped his heavy foot upon the moss. "hah!" ejaculated wat again. "i was there on the watch." "yes, yes; and what did you see?" "mas' cobbe come out soon after you had gone across the little bridge and pook it out of the way." "yes, yes; go on." "then i give you the signal two or three times before i could make you hear, and just then i heard another step and hid away, and 'fore i had time to do more--in he went. you know." "yes; but look here, wat, how came you to be there?" "i was there to save my skipper from being pooked," growled wat, slowly and between puffs of his pipe. "it was as if i had been sent on purpose." "it's a lie," cried gil, angrily. "wat, you are an old trickster and a cheat. how dare you try to deceive me?" "there," said wat, quietly addressing a beech pollard before him; "that's gratitude for watching over and saving him from being pooked." "of course you saved me from danger, just as any brave man would try to save another, and more especially one of a crew, his skipper. there is no merit attached to that. now look here, wat, confess, for i am sure i know." "i don't know about no confessing," growled wat; "you're a skipper, not a priest. s'pose i asked you what you were doing there? if the captain sets such an example, what can you 'spect of the crew?" gil twisted his moustache angrily, and then turned sharply on his follower. "you were not watching me?" "i arn't going to tell no lies. no." "you as good as say, then, that you were on the same errand as i?" "i arn't going to sail round no headlands when there's a port right in front. i arn't ashamed. yes, i were." "look here, wat kilby," said gil, after taking a step or two up and down in front of the old fellow, who calmly leaned back and gazed straight before him--"look here, wat kilby, you have been like a second father to me." "hah!" and then a puff of smoke. "and i would not willingly hurt your feelings." "hah!" "but i hold in great respect the people who dwell in yon house, and i will not have them in anywise annoyed." "then i wouldn't go coming the spanish don, under their windows o' nights," growled wat. "silence, sir," cried gil. as he spoke, the young man's face flushed with shame and mortification at being twitted with his amorous passages, but there was a look of command and an imperious tone in his voice that told of one accustomed to be obeyed, and the great lank muscular man, tanned and hardened by a life of exposure, shuffled uneasily in his seat and let his little pipe go out. "if it had been another man, wat," continued gil, "i should have given him a week in irons for daring to go near the place." "what! after his skipper set an example?" growled wat. "silence, sir," roared gil, catching the old fellow by the shoulder. "bah!" he continued, calming down, "why do you anger me, wat?" and he loosed his hold. "oh, haul away, young 'un," growled wat, with a grim smile, "you don't hurt me. i like to see what a sturdy young lion you've grown. that's your father, every inch of him, as did that. hah! he was a one." "let him rest, wat," cried gil impatiently. "my father would never have looked over an act of folly or disobedience. neither will i." "you never ordered me not to go," growled wat. "then i do now, sir! look here. what does it mean? are you not ashamed of yourself, carrying on these gallantries? there was that carib woman out at essequibo." "hah!" with a smokeless exhalation. "and the flat-nosed malayan in the eastern seas." "hah!" "and that chinese, yellow, moon-faced woman." "hah!" "and the black girl on the guinea coast." "hah!" "and that portingallo wench, and the spanish lass with the dark eyes, and that great greek, and a score beside." "hah! yes, skipper," said wat calmly, "i've got an ugly shell, but the core inside is very soft." "soft? yes." "but you're going back a many years, skipper." "i need," cried gil angrily. "a man of your age, too! why, wat, you're sixty, if you are a day!" "sixty-four," growled wat quietly, as he took out his flint and steel and screwed up his grim weather-beaten face. "then it's a disgrace to you!" "disgrace? what's being sixty-four got to do with it?" "why you're an old man, sir!" "old man? not i, captain. i'm as young as ever i was, and as fond of a pretty girl. i'm not old; and, if i was, i get fonder of 'em every year i live." "it is disgraceful, sir!" cried gil, angrily. "you ought to be thinking of your coffin instead of pretty girls." that touched wat home, and he sprang to his feet with the activity of a boy. "no, i oughtn't, skipper," he cried, excitedly. "and, look here, don't you say that there terrifying word to me again--i hate it. when it's all over, if you don't have me dropped overboard, just as i am, at sea, or even here at home in the little river, i'll come back and haunt you. coffin, indeed! talk about such trade as that! just as if i hadn't sailed round the world like a man." he reseated himself, and began once more to use his flint and steel, but this time viciously. "once for all then, wat, i will not have this sort of thing here. a man of your years hanging about after that great ugly dairy wench." "who did?" cried wat sharply. "nay, captain, never." "have i been mistaken, then?" cried gil, eagerly. "stop, though--you don't mean to say that you have been casting your ancient eyes on janet?" "why not?" cried wat, leaping up once more. "she's as pretty a creature as ever i set my ancient eyes, as you call 'em, on." "why, man, she's eighteen, and you are sixty-four." "all the better," cried wat. "janet it is, and i'm going to wed her." "does she know it?" "not quite, captain, not yet. look ye here, skipper, my poor old mother had a plum grow on a tree by the cottage wall, and when i was a boy i meant to have that plum. did i go and pick it right off and eat it there and then? nay, i set my eyes on that plum while it was young and green, and saw it grow day by day rounder and redder, and covered with soft down and riper purple, and more rich and plump, and at last, when i picked that plum, i had a hundred times more 'joyment than if i'd plucked it when i saw it first. that's what i'm doing with little janet, and that's what master peasegood calls a parabole." gil felt that he might just as well argue with a rock as with his rugged old follower, so he changed the subject. "when will the _golden fleece_ be fit for sea again?" "it'll be a month before they've got in the new keel, captain, and then she's got to be well overhauled." "it will be two months, then, before we can load up?" "ay, all that," was the reply. "go on getting in the meal and bacon. have it ready for placing in store. we must have everything ready there for putting on board." "ay, ay, skipper." "keep the men from going near. let there be no hanging about the valley on any pretence. see to that with those two last lads." "ay," growled wat. "the others can be trusted, of course." gil nodded, and walked away, while wat went on striking a light. "he's half afraid i should get in his way," growled the old fellow, "but he needn't be. much better be afraid of some one finding out the store. there's a new man come to live here, and a new cottage built. the place is getting too thick with people, and if we don't mind we shall be found out. who's yonder?" he continued, shading his eyes, and gazing through the wood. "churr and mother goodhugh. an' if we're ever found out, that churr's the man who will do it. and if--if--if--he--does--the captain--will--hang--him--at--th' yard-arm--sure--as--he's--a--sinful-- soul--hah!" there was a puff in lighting the pipe between each of these last words, ending with an expiration, after which wat kilby leaned back on the moss, half-closed his eyes, and lay watching the couple he had named as they stood talking in the wood. volume , chapter vii. how mistress anne sought a spell. the days passed swiftly on in the lonely little valley where jeremiah cobbe had cast his lot. the trees flourished, and the wondrous variety of wild-flowers, for which that part of the sussex weald has always been famed, succeeded each other, and made gay the banks and shaughs, while beneath the spreading oaks and beeches in the great forest the verdant carpet was always bright. the many streamlets went on carving their way through the yellow sandrock, and fell in a thousand tiny cascades, whose soft spray moistened the fronds of the luxuriant ferns. all was beautiful, for nature seemed there never to resent the fact that the ironmaster's workers delved ore from the hill-side, cut down the woods and burned them to charcoal, and then melted the iron to run in orange streams in the deftly-formed moulds for howitzer, culverin, or simple gun. there had been accidents, when, with a sudden roar, some powder-shed had blown up, blasting the herbage and leaves around; but a few showers and the bright hot sun soon restored all to its pristine state, and, embowered in trees, the works sent up their charcoal fumes without poisoning the air, or doing more harm than the saline breezes that swept over the hills from off the sea. mistress anne beckley, with sir thomas, and at times with dame beckley herself, was a constant attendant at the pool with simples and wonderful decoctions of camomile, agrimony, balm, and bitter cress, all of which the dame declared were certain to subdue the fever in sir mark's brain; but somehow they did not, and he lingered on at the pool-house, listening to the nightingales, gathering wild-flowers, refusing to see a leech, and declaring that he only wanted time. he was not confined to his bed, but lounged on couch and easy chair, or walked slowly in the garden, languid and pale, with his arm supported in a sling, receiving with a patient smile the sympathising glances of mistress anne, who fawned upon him and tenderly watched his every change. but he could not leave the pool-house, and shook his head sadly when, urged by his daughter, sir thomas protested that the invalid ought to be brought back to the moat. dame beckley's preparations did not seem to do the good she anticipated; still they did some, for, being composed of so much water and vegetable juices, they must have had beneficial effects upon the roses and other plants around his bedroom window--plants which the young courtier duly moistened from the vessel sent to him. otherwise fared the wine, for of that he partook liberally, as well as of jeremiah cobbe's strong drinks. it must have been from dissatisfaction with her mother's treatment of the patient that one day,--after a visit to the pool-house, in whose quiet cool parlour she had found sir mark lying back in an easy chair with a snowy pillow beneath his head, and with mace seated near reading to him at his wish from a little book of ballads written by one sir thomas wyatt,--mistress anne, instead of going straight back home, sent the serving-man, who was her guardian, to spend an hour with the men at the mill, and herself turned down a narrow winding track almost overgrown with bearbind, briony, and grass. "i hate her," she said to herself, as she set her teeth and drove her nails into her palms. "i saw--i saw her looking at me with triumph flashing out of her wicked eyes; and i'll kill her, i'll poison her, before she shall beat me again. if he would only get well--if he would only get well." a slight rustle on her left made her start, but it was only a blackbird bursting through the dense mass of tangled growth that rose like a vast hedge on either side of the winding track, from which the wanton brambles and lithe boughs kept thrusting across young shoots like friendly hands to grasp each other and join in claiming the rugged lane as their own by conquest's right. a little further on a snake that had been sunning itself on a stump raised its head, uttered a low hiss, and glided rapidly away amidst the dense undergrowth; while again, a few yards further on, she came upon a short thick adder, lying right in her path, and apparently very careless about leaving it. it was remarkable now that anne beckley displayed no fear of the wild animals she met. she had started at the blackbird's rustle, believing that she was watched, but on seeing the reptiles, now that there was no sir mark to whom she might cling for support, she broke off a slight hazel branch, and cut sharply at the adder where it lay; and as it raised its head and struck at her she cut it again and again till she had disabled it, and ended by crushing its head in the earth. then throwing aside her stick she hastened on, but the exertion had made her warm, and seating herself upon a mossy part of the bank she stayed to rest in the cool damp shade, beneath a great oak-tree. before she had been seated there many minutes she became aware of a slight movement in the grass, and, as she watched, a long lithe weasel bounded into sight, stopped, with its neck stretched up and head erect, watching her; but as she did not move the animal ran up the bank and crept down a mouse-hole, so small that it seemed impossible for it to have passed. there was something about that weasel that attracted anne, who remained watching the little hole, till all at once a mouse in an apparent state of collapse was thrust out, the neck and body of the weasel followed, and away the long thin creature bounded into the thick grass and disappeared. a minute later there came a robin to settle upon a twig, and watch her with its great round eyes, but the loud _chink-chink_ of a blackbird sent the robin away, and the orange-billed bird hopped down into the lane and began poking and peering about among the leaves till it secured a snail, in the dampest, darkest, spot, which unfortunate it bore into the path and hammered upon a stone till the shell was broken, when the soft-bodied snail was daintily picked out, swallowed, and the blackbird flew away. almost before mistress anne had noticed that the blackbird was gone, the robin came back to gaze at the intruder, with its head on one side, and then made a flit to where the leaves upon the moist bank had been disturbed by the blackbird. here the robin's quick eyes had spied out a large lobworm hastily making its escape, under the impression that there was danger below. this long worm the robin seized and bore, writhing and twining, in its bill to the path, where it set down its prize, but only to seize it again and give it a series of fierce nips from end to end, accompanying each nip with a sharp shake to stop the twining, which, however, was not entirely done, for when the little redbreast seized its victim by the head there was a slight undulating motion going on--a movement continued as the bird began rapidly to gulp it down. this feat seemed to fascinate mistress anne, who watched the last bit of tail disappear, the robin having succeeded in taking down a worm nearly twice its own length; such a feat, indeed, as a man would have accomplished had he made a meal of a serpent some ten or eleven feet long, swallowing it, writhing and twisting, whole. "how cruel nature is!" said mistress anne, in a low thoughtful voice, and as she spoke there was a strange light in her eyes. "everything for its own pleasure seems to kill what it wills. why should i not be cruel too?" she laughed then--a curious unpleasant laugh; and rising, the robin flitted away over the low undergrowth, apparently none the heavier for its meal, and there was a sharp rustle and a bound in the grass. mistress anne beckley seemed now to be too much occupied by her thoughts to pay much heed to the objects she passed as she walked slowly on. once more she said softly, "why should not i be cruel too?" then she laughed in a very unpleasant way, and half-closed her eyes. about a mile farther, and in a very solitary place by an opening in the sandstone rock that rose in front, she stopped before a low, thatched cottage, glanced to right and left hastily, and then opening the rough gate, passed between a couple of rows of old-fashioned flowers, pushed the door, and entered the low-ceiled, homely room, with its bricked floor and open fireplace, where, in spite of the heat, a few sticks of wood were smouldering between the firedogs. quite in the chimney-corner, and seated upon a stool so low that her chin was brought in close proximity to her knees, was a hard-featured gaunt woman of sixty, dressed in widow's weeds of a very homely kind, but scrupulously clean. the muslin kerchief and cap she wore were white as snow, and her grey hair was tidily smoothed back. but, in spite of her neat look, there was something repulsive about the woman's face--a look of low cunning that played about her thin lips, which were drawn in at the corners, while she had a habit of bringing her thick grey eyebrows down over her eyes so as almost to conceal them, though, as you looked at her, you felt that she was scrutinising you severely from behind the shaggy grey fringe, and judging you from a hidden point of view. she rose from her seat as mistress anne entered, and welcomed her with a smile, half defiant, half fawning. "i'm so glad to see thee again, dearie," she said, in a harsh voice. "what can i do for thee now?" "i don't know," cried the visitor, sharply; "but look here, mother goodhugh, mind this: my father is a justice, and if you play foul games with me i have only to complain to have you seized and punished as a witch." "me a witch, dearie? oh, fie! i never pretended to be, only helped you to a little of my knowledge when you came to me." "i believe your knowledge is all nonsense," cried the girl, angrily. "what good has it done?" "ah, it is impossible to say," replied the woman, looking furtively at her visitor; "and you may not have given him the potion at a lucky time. i know it was right, my dear," she added, in a low, mysterious whisper. "i gathered the herbs myself, and distilled them every one. you don't know: you can't tell. he may love you very dearly, and only be holding back from fear of your high place. was not your father made a titled man just then?" "yes," replied the visitor. "then that was it," cried the woman, triumphantly. "depend upon it, mistress, you have him safe." "but he is always with her--always, mother goodhugh; and when we meet he has only a contemptuous kind of laugh for me." "that means nothing, dearie. it may be only the man's spirit fighting against his heart. i can't think, lovey, but what you have him safe. how many times has he had the drink?" "nine." "and nine drops each time?" "yes, as nearly as i could drop them. my hand shook so." "ah," cried the woman, eagerly, "what did i tell thee? nine drops nine times dropped make eighty-one, and eight and one are nine." "yes," said anne beckley. "did i not warn thee that any mistake would spoil the spell?" "yes, but that could not matter." "ah, that is not for me to say," replied the woman. "but there, sit ye down, dearie, and i'll do what i can for you. if it wasn't that you love him i'd say to you let him go on in his terrifying ways, and wed her if he will. she belongs to an accursed race, and would bring him never good." "but she shan't marry him!" cried anne, with flashing eyes. "i hate her, mother goodhugh, and would sooner see her dead. she's a witch. i'm sure she's a witch." "and why are you sure, lovey?" "because--because--she bewitches men to her, and holds them by her side. i have tried, oh, so hard, but i cannot." "nay, child, nay, but you can, though not so strongly; for you do it by good, while she does it by ill." "but i can't, mother goodhugh," cried the girl, petulantly. "ah, but you do," said the woman, who began to walk up and down the brick floor, muttering and talking as if to herself. "she must, she must, for she is very beautiful and good. she has but to wish it over the nine drops to win the hearts of as many lovers as her heart desires." "but, mother goodhugh," whispered anne, whose heart was open enough to a little insidious flattery, "i did try so hard, and it seemed to do no good; and now a great officer has come to the moat, and he had to go down to the pool-house." "yes, yes, i know, i know," said mother goodhugh, "and she has witched him, too. yes; she sits with him and reads to him, and smiles softly in his face, and she'll win him to her ways, no doubt. but you don't care for that, child. let her win him, and it will settle the love, and leave brave, stout captain gil for you." "but i do care, mother;--i won't have it--i can't bear it. she does all this to spite me, and it drives me nearly mad. you must give me something that shall bring him back. oh, pray, pray, help me." "nay, nay, child, you threatened me just now, and talked of your father, and punishing me as a witch. ah, ah! i didn't deserve it." "that was only because i was peevish and fretful, mother goodhugh," cried the girl appealingly; "for it is so hard to find both the men of your heart go to her straight, and leave you behind as a thing of naught." "both the men--both?" cried mother goodhugh, with a hoarse chuckle, "go to, go to, wicked girl; will not one suffice?" "oh, yes, yes, i'd give up captain gil, mother, but i cannot bear to see this new one go over to her too. you must help me--you shall." "heyday, my dearie, what can i do? and besides, you laugh at my potions. i am not a witch, child, only a wise woman, who works hard to find out what herbs gathered at vital times can do. but i know nothing at all--nothing at all. try something mixed by good dame beckley, thy mother; she can distil you something, i'll warrant ye." "no, no, mother goodhugh; how can i tell her of my fainting heart, and my sighs for a loving man. fie! who tells her mother of such things? come, help me." "nay, child, it is of no use. go to some one else." "but you must help me, mother," cried the girl, appealingly. "nay, child, i cannot; and besides, to do what you will is costly. many's the long and weary time master abel churr has spent in watching to get for me the toadweed when it blossomed at midnight, just at the moment when its flowers opened, and before the dew had time to wet it once. and heavily have i paid him for the earliest shoots of dog's mercury, and the roots of the peavetch grown in a dripping rill. nay, child, i lose by thy coming here. go ask some one else to help thee. i can do no more." "yes, yes, you will help me, mother goodhugh," cried the girl, thrusting a small gold piece into her hand. "come, haste and prepare me something." "nay, child, i'm weary of it all," said mother goodhugh, making an offer to return the piece. "the toil to my brain is terrifying, and i lay awake o' nights after thinking of it all, and wondering whether it be wicked, and what's to become afterward of my sinful soul, for doing such things. suppose through helping you to your lovers i am kept from joining my poor dear husband who's now in heaven. ah, no, i'll have no more to do with thee." for answer anne beckley gave her foot an impatient stamp, and sought for and found a couple of silver crowns, which she added to the gold piece, and pressed into the old woman's hand, which closed upon them like a hawk's claw upon some tiny partridge chick; and a grim smile of satisfaction came upon her face. "well, well, well, i suppose i must, dearie; and if i go to perdition for it all you'll have to pay for getting me prayed for when i'm dead. now, then, what be i to do?" "give me the nine-drop distilment again, mother, and i will try it; but, if it fails this time, i'll never trust thee more. i'll, i'll--there, i'll have thee put in prison for a witch." "then not a drop will i give thee," cried the old woman, passionately. "go, get your own lovers as you can. ah! you cannot; for if i be punished as a witch i'll ill-wish you; i'll put such a spell upon you that men shall avoid you to the end of your days. you shall grow thin and old, and dry and yellow, and shall never know the joys of a pair of manly arms pressing you to a throbbing breast; you shall never taste the sweet kisses of love; and, instead of your lips pouting red and warm for more, they shall grow thin, and dry, and white, and cracked in your lonely, childless old age. i'll curse you--i'll--" "no, no, mother goodhugh, dear mother goodhugh," cried the girl, catching at her arm. "i did but jest. i'll never say word to a soul, but keep all your secrets, and you shall have money and presents from the moat; only help me, mother--only give me the means to win him." "him?--whom?" cried mother goodhugh, sharply. "sir mark," faltered anne, with her face growing crimson. "why not captain gil carr?" replied mother goodhugh. "but there," she continued, going into an inner room, and keeping on talking aloud till she returned with a little clumsily shaped phial, which she held with great care and reverence as she passed it to her visitor. "there, take care of it, child; every drop is worth a gold piece; but you have been disappointed, and i want to make thee happy." the visitor, while professing utter disbelief in such matters, snatched eagerly at the little phial, and hid it in her bosom. "now something else," she cried. "you are so close and hard to deal with. do something more." "what would you have me to do?" said the woman. "shall i tell you of your future?" "yes, yes," cried the girl. "sit on the stool then, there in the centre of the room," said the old woman; "and whatever you see or hear do not speak or move, or i would not answer for the consequences; it might be dumbness, or craziness, or even death." smiling scornfully, to hide a shudder, anne beckley did as she was bid; and as she seated herself the old woman closed and drew a rough curtain across the door, and over the little window, leaving only a few silver streaks of light to penetrate; and then, as there was utter silence as well, her visitor heard a voice that came apparently from a great distance say softly:-- "things to come--things of the future--things of the many years. i see a house in its bright garden burned up and destroyed, the blast of powder, and the shrieks of the wounded; and i see a church, with a wedding-party coming away, and the face of the man is hidden, but the garb is that of an officer, and the face of the maid is that of sir thomas beckley's child." the voice ceased, and mistress anne, whose eyes had been tightly closed, opened them again, and saw that the cottage was light once more, and that mother goodhugh was by her side. "whose face was it?" whispered the girl, half scornfully, half in awe. "the voice spake not," said the woman, solemnly. "come and see." anne beckley felt a slight shrinking, but she rose directly, and followed the old woman, who led her out at the back of the cottage, plunging directly into the thick forest, and leading her by an overgrown track farther and farther into its depths. every now and then the girl had to pause to free her dress from some briar or thorn which held her tightly, and for the most part she had to proceed at a slow walk, stooping the while to avoid the leaf-laden branches which in their wealth of summer foliage bowed down to bar her way. with intervals of stopping, anne beckley followed her guide for quite an hour, during which time the old woman had kept on, evidently following certain marks on trees which she carefully scanned. "i will go no further, mother," cried anne, throwing herself on a great mossy block of stone which overhung a tiny, trickling stream, and wiping her dewy forehead. "yes, you will, dearie," said the old woman, with a meaning smile. "you'd go further than this to meet your love. you are hot and tired now. come down here and have a drink." she dragged the branches aside with tender hand, and lightly bent back the tall bracken, so as to make a way for the girl, who rose wearily, and, following the old woman, found herself in a shady hollow between the rocks which rose far above her head, while at her feet lay a clear pool of cool delicious water, over which she bent, and was in the very act of dipping in her hand to fill her soft white palm, and drink, when she fancied she saw in the mirror-like surface the old woman's fingers extended to thrust her in, and in a flash she seemed to see her object, namely, to murder her for her money and trinkets. she started up, but only to see mother goodhugh smiling at her, and, ashamed of her fears, she drank, and turned to proceed. at the same time she felt, though, how completely she was at her companion's mercy. no one knew where she had come, or had seen her enter the cottage; and now in the depths of the forest, did the old woman wish her evil, the thick bushes and brambles would conceal her body, and the rapid growth soon hide all signs of footsteps that might be tracked. "now, lovey," said the old woman, "i am going to trust you to have sense to do as you are bid. you must shut your eyes tightly, and neither look nor speak till you hear his voice." "shall i hear it?" faltered anne. "yes, for sure," cried the old woman, imperiously. "now close your eyes and obey me in all i say. if you do not, i will not answer for what may happen." "i--i'll go back now. i am weary," faltered anne. "too late," cried the old woman, clutching her hand tightly. "shut your eyes. there, now not a word." anne obeyed to the letter, and for fully half-an-hour felt herself half dragged up and down rugged ground, past masses of stone, and through bushes; and more than once her fears nearly made her open her eyes. at last, when she could bear the suspense no longer, there was a pause, and mother goodhugh placed her hands upon her shoulders, pressed her down upon a block of stone, and whispered in her ear:-- "keep your eyes close; do not speak or move, and you will hear his steps ere long, and he will speak to thee." "in the flesh?" whispered the girl, hoarsely. "how can i tell in or out of the flesh, but he will come." "but who, mother goodhugh, who?" whispered the girl. "i know not. it may be captain gil: it may be the gallant at the pool: all i know and can tell is that the man who touches you--" "touches?" "yes, touches you, is or will be your lover. hush! not a word." anne half made a spring to rise, but something seemed to hold her back in her seat, and with palpitating heart she sat trembling as she heard a faint rustling noise indicating that mother goodhugh was going back into the forest; and, unable at last to combat the feeling of lonesomeness and dread, but at the same time unwilling to break what she felt was a spell by opening her eyes, she whispered hastily--"mother--mother, are you there?" she sank back the next moment bedewed with cold clammy perspiration, for there seemed to arise a strange low whispering of many voices, which passed, came back, and died away in the distance, leaving her in the midst of a silence that was profound. volume , chapter viii. how the spell began to work. it was terrible work to sit there in that profound silence, listening and wondering where she was; and at last it was with a feeling of relief that anne awoke to the fact that she must be out in the daylight; for suddenly the mournful caw of a rook passing far overhead fell upon her ear. then the place did not seem so solitary, for a wandering wind swept softly by her, stirring the leaves which rustled together, as it cooled her cheek, and soon after there was the pleasant chirp of a woodland bird, followed by the familiar little prattle of the yellow-hammer. she began now to realise that she must be in some deep ravine, one of the many that gashed the primeval forest, and felt half ready to laugh at her fears, as she uttered a short cough, which came back repeated strangely from the opposite wall of the rock. "frightened by an echo," she muttered, "and--oh, what a weak-pated fool am i, and how i do let that wicked old beldame play upon me. it is absurd. she has no such power as she pretends; and here have i let her bring me here to sit like a shallow-brained, love-sick girl, with my eyes shut, waiting to see my lover. eyes shut! how can i see my love. i'll open them. nay; there may be truth in the spell after all, and, if there is, why should i spoil it when i have gone so far. i wonder whether he will come. how my poor heart beats!" "coo--coo--oo--oo. coo--coo--coo--coo--coo--oo," came from somewhere far below. "that's a lover's cry," she said, half laughing, to herself; "but he will not come to me in the form of a dove, unless my heart's set on jupiter himself. how absurd i am." quite a quarter of an hour passed away, and still with a wonderful power over her desires she sat upon the piece of sandrock waiting for the fulfilment of mother goodhugh's promises. "i'll wait no longer," she cried at last, petulantly. "i cannot keep my eyes closed like this. where am i? how am i to find my way back home? oh, what a sorry idiot am i! i'll open my eyes at once, and put an end to this mystery. hark, what's that?" a low doleful wail was heard overhead, and as she listened it was repeated. "it was a seamew," she whispered, "and that wicked hag must have brought me nearer the shore. what's that?" she bent down a little, listening, for she fancied that she heard a voice, but the sound was not repeated. then there was a gentle rustle of a leaf, as if some rabbit had passed by, but still she kept her eyes closed, with a lingering faith that the old woman's words might prove true, and all the while her heart went throb throb against the flask containing the love philtre in her bosom. all silent as the grave once more, and she trembled as she heard her own voice. "i'll count a hundred," she whispered to herself, "and then--" she did not finish her sentence, but began slowly under her breath to count one, two, three, four, five, six, and so on right away, heedless of a faint rustle repeated again and again, close at hand, and she went on getting slower and slower in a disappointed manner, as she reluctantly felt that she must keep her word, and open her eyes; and at last it was, "ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, and--help, help, help! oh!" mistress anne's voice was smothered, and she felt herself tightly held by strong hands. for as she came to the end of her counting task, and sharply opened her eyes, it was to gaze at a broad handkerchief held by two brown hands, drawn tightly across the next moment and secured behind her head, while a second stifled her cries as it was tied over her mouth. "there, my little birdie," said a rough voice, "that will stop your singing for the present. if you can't breathe, give a kick, and we'll ease it off. there, there, don't struggle like that, or you'll rumple your plumage." "got her, lads?" said another voice. "got her, ah! i see her sitting on the stone there, fast asleep, crope up the bank, and off with my handkerchief, and clapped it over her eyes, while morgan covered her mouth." "what are you going to do with her?" "help her to old wat, i think," said the first voice. "he always wants a wife." "nay, lads; i shall keep her myself. steady, lass! it's no use to struggle." anne beckley's heart sank within her breast as she wondered into whose hands she had fallen, and she trembled so that she could scarcely stand. the conversation that ensued the next moment, though, served as a stimulus, and she waited with bated breath, and without struggling, as the principal speaker considered the question, holding her tightly the while by the arm. "where be going to take her?" said a fresh voice. "oh, up yonder," was the reply. "nay, nay; that won't do. the skipper won't stand these games, my lad." "the skipper!" those two words sent a thrill of hope through the heart of the girl as she asked herself could it be captain gil. "yes, yes; it must be," she thought directly after; and these were some of the rough, adventurous men of whom she heard whispers at the moat-- the crew of bold, daring fellows, who sailed round the world and braved all dangers, even laughing at the laws; for one of captain gil's men had been taken before her father for some offence, and when the worthy baronet was about to condemn him to fine and imprisonment, amercing him in coin as well as time, he had leaned forward and whispered that in the justice's ears which had made him reconsider the case and dismiss the prisoner in the end. it was into the hands of these men she had fallen she felt sure, and should captain gil find out what was done she knew she had nothing to fear, unless, finding her in his power, he should carry her off to his ship somewhere in the little river and bear her away to be a rover's bride. the silly little heart of anne beckley, full as it was of trouble, was ready to make room for this romantic notion, and she gave up all thought of resistance as her captors led her away, merely pointing to the bandage across her mouth, which half stifled her. "ah, you shall have that off, my dear, if you will not squeal," said the same voice; and the girl breathed more freely as the wrapper was taken away. "now, be careful how you come or you'll break your pretty neck, and then--curse it, here be the skipper." "what's this?" cried a well-known voice. "whom have you here? mistress anne beckley?" "oh, captain gil, save me--save me," cried the girl, stretching out her hands in the direction of the voice, and nestling close to him as his strong arm was thrown round her. "you dogs, how dare you?" roared gil, while, with a sense of indescribable joy, mistress anne held her head against his broad breast, heard the resonant utterances which seemed to echo in his chest, and listened to the firm, strong beating of his heart. she never for a moment thought of tearing away the bandage; but, when she did raise her fingers, gil's stout hand prisoned both of hers and held them tightly, where they stayed without resistance, nothing loth. "we couldn't help it, captain," said a voice. "i be coming along here, and i see my young mistress there seated on yon stone, with her head bent down, asleep." "mother goodhugh has spoken truth, then," whispered anne to herself; "i have not seen, but i have felt, and feel the touch of my future lord." "is this truth?" cried gil, gazing round at his men, who one and all shrank from his angry eye. "true, captain? it be true enough," was chorused. "jack bray then went softly behind her and clapped a kerchief over her eyes and mouth, and we were taking her yonder when you come." "but how came she here?" exclaimed gil, looking round at his men, who stared at one another, but made no reply till their leader angrily repeated his question. "don't know, captain," said the man anne had first heard speak; "she was sitting on yonder stone." "was no one near? but that will do. tell me one thing," he said aside to one of his men, "where were you coming from?" "we'd been down to the river, captain, and were on the look-out for mas' wat, when--" "that will do," said gil sternly. "now stand aside." as he spoke he placed his left arm round anne, and took her hand with his right. "let me lead you back to the path from which you have strayed, mistress beckley," he said. "you are quite safe now. nay--nay, let that bandage rest for awhile. the sight of these rough seamen here might startle you afresh," he added, as the late prisoner raised her hand that was at liberty to her face. she lowered it directly with a satisfied sigh, and, leaning heavily upon her protector's arm, she suffered him to lead her down what seemed to be a rugged slope, and then amidst trees and bushes, and up one ascent, down another, and all the while with the bandage upon her eyes, while gil looked down at her, half-puzzled, half-amused, and at times annoyed at the timid, trusting way in which she seemed to have thrown herself upon him. he was debating within himself as to whether he should ask her how she came to be where she was found, little thinking that she had been taken there almost as thoroughly blindfolded as she had been when brought away. but gilbert carr's heart told him plainly enough without vanity that he had been the attraction that had drawn her thither, and he bit his lip with vexation as he heard his companion sigh, and felt her hang more heavily upon his arm. finally he decided that he would say nothing upon the subject, but trust that she had made no discoveries, though he could not help arguing that if she had, and he gave her offence, he might find her an angry woman who would do him a serious ill. at last by many a devious track he had taken her to where the lane leading from the pool-house led through the scattered cottages of the workers at the furnaces and foundries towards the moat, and here gil paused. "that thick bandage must be hot and comfortless, mistress beckley," he said; "let me remove it now." "oh! no!" she cried quickly, "pray don't take it away. i feel quite safe with you, captain carr;" and she sighed again, and laid her other hand upon his. "but you are safe now," he said, smiling, "and close to the lane. there is nothing more to fear. my unmannerly lads shall be punished for all this." "no, no," she said softly, "don't punish them--for my sake. say you will forgive them. i beg--i entreat." "if it is your wish, the punishment shall not take place," he said. "there, let me remove the kerchief." anne would gladly have resisted, for it was very sweet to be so dependent on gil carr. he had been so gentle and kindly towards her that her heart was filled to bursting with hope that she would win him after all, though her siege had now lasted for months without avail, and she had been ready to raise it in favour of the new-comer, sir mark. she felt, though, that she might not be serving her cause by making any objections, and, resigning herself to her protector's will, she suffered him to remove the kerchief, but uttered a quick cry of pain, as she opened and then closed her eyes. "my poor girl," he cried, holding her tightly, as she clung to him, "are you injured? tell me; what is it?" "it is nothing," said anne, faintly; "a sudden pang--the intense light-- i shall be well anon." it did not occur to gil that the position he occupied was a strange one, if seen by a looker-on, for he was too much concerned by the apparent suffering of his charge, and, as her fright had been caused by his followers, he felt in duty bound to try and make up for their insolence by his consideration for her weakness. he stood, then, supporting her as she held her hands pressed to her aching eyes, and smiled encouragement as she at last looked timidly up at him with a very pitiful expression of countenance, and ended by catching his hand in hers in the excess of her gratitude for her deliverance, and kissing it passionately, as she burst into a storm of sobs and tears. "why, come, come, mistress timidity," he said, playfully, "where is your brave little heart? one would think i had been some brave hero of old, who had rescued you from an angry dragon, instead of a poor sea-captain, who did nothing but order some insolent mariners to--" gil stopped short, his eyes fixed, and a sense of the awkwardness of his position coming fully upon him, as at the distance of some twenty or thirty yards there passed mace cobbe, leading sir mark by the hand. he saw her only for a few moments, but he knew that mace had seen him too, and that anne beckley had followed the direction of his eyes, for he had felt her start, and a red glow had come upon her cheeks. in his angry excitement he felt ready to dash her from him, but his better feelings prevailed, and he stood with knitted brow thinking, while anne felt careless of having been seen by sir mark, since mace had seen her too, and reclining in her lover's arms. volume , chapter ix. how mother goodhugh played the part of shimei of old. "better, master cobbe; i am growing stronger," said sir mark, as he returned to the pool-house with his silent companion, for, after their encounter with gil and mistress anne, mace had not spoken a word. "that's well," said the bluff founder. "take a good long walk every day, my lad, and that will soon give you strength." "i will, master cobbe, and relieve you of so untoward a visitor as quickly as i can." "see here, my brave lad," said the founder, hastily; "no more of that. i am a hot-tempered, hasty man, ready to strike with staff or sword, but i am no niggard. you are my guest--a honoured, welcome guest--and when you go from the shelter of my roof it will be at your own wish, not mine. for look here, sir mark, i am a rough man, but pretty well to do." "but i impose upon you, master cobbe." "my dear lad, go on then, impose away. tut, tut, what folly! did you eat and drink at my table for ten years, i should never know or feel the cost. come along with me, and see in my shed here we are going to cast a big culverin. the furnace is ready mr tapping. you, being a man of war, will like to see." sir mark gave his assent, and, being to all appearances still very weak, he leaned heavily upon his stick, and they together crossed the interval between them and the large stone shed, from out of whose unglazed windows a vivid glow of light made itself plain, even in the afternoon sun. "ah, mother goodhugh, you here?" said the founder, quietly, as the owner of the name came along using a crutch-stick in good old witch-like fashion; and, thumping it down upon the ground, she stood leaning upon it with both hands, or raising it and pointing with it viciously as she began gesticulating and talking vehemently. "yes," she cried, "i be here; and i keep coming, and watching, and waiting for the day when the curse shall work. it is planted and growing, for i water it with my widow's tears, and, in due time, it will blossom and shower down seed upon you and your accursed house. ha! ha! ha! you think to escape it," she cried, with her voice increasing in shrillness, to attract the attention of the workpeople; "but mark my words--mark it all of you at the windows there--the great curse will overshadow him and his, and he will feel it sore, though he hopes to escape it all." "nay, good mother," said the founder mildly, and speaking in a sad, pitying voice, to the surprise of sir mark, who expected to see him burst into a passion. "nay, nay, i think to 'scape no share of my troubles, such as the good lord shall put upon me and mine." "the good lord!" cried mother goodhugh, shrilly; "the good devil you mean, who watches over thee and thy satanic plots and plans." "well, there, there, mother," said the founder, "go your way. i have company here to-day. you can come another time when i am alone, and curse me till you are hoarse," he added, with a twinkle of the eye. "nay, but i'll curse thee now," said the old woman excitedly, as her eyes glistened, her wrinkled cheeks flushed, and her grey hair seemed to stand right away from her temples. "let him hear me curse thee for an ungodly man with all his trade, a maker of devilish engines, and hellish thunder and lightning in barrels, in which he shall some day pass away in a storm of fire and smoke and brimstone fumes." "is she mad?" whispered sir mark, plucking the founder by the sleeve. "no," said the founder sadly. "poor soul; but she has had troubles enough to make her." "how dare you pity me, wretch, demon, hellhound?" cried the old woman. "murderer that you are, you shall yet suffer for your crimes." "let us walk on," whispered sir mark, as a group of smoke-begrimed workmen came out and gathered at the windows to listen. "nay, i'll let her say her say," replied the founder, grimly. "if i go, she will follow me, and cast cinders at me, like a she shimei, and i've got a big founding to make, my lad, which might come out badly if she stood in the window cursing me all in heaps." "what!" cried mother goodhugh, turning on sir mark. "you, do you think me mad? nay, though i might have been, through his sins. hear, young man, and judge between us. i was a prosperous, happy woman, with a loving husband and a dear son, who led a peaceful life till yon demon deluded both into coming and helping him in his devilish trade. i knew how it would be and prophesied to them that ill would come; but he fought against me, and gained them over. first my poor boy was brought home to me stiff and cold--stiff and cold, alas!--drowned in the pool, and swept beneath yon devil's engine of a wheel. a year later, and, with a rush and a whirlwind of fire, the great powder-barn was swept into the air with a roar of thunder. i heard it, and came running, for i knew ill had come, and i was in time to fall on my knees by the blackened corpse of my dead husband--scarred, torn, shocking to behold; and in my widowed agony i raised my hands to heaven to call down vengeance, and cursed his destroyer as i curse him now." "shame on you, mother goodhugh, shame!" cried a voice; and pale, and with eyes red with recent weeping, mace cobbe ran forward to throw one arm across her father's breast, and stand between him and the old woman, as if to shield him from her anger, as, advancing with upraised stick and her eyes flashing with excitement, she seemed no inapt representative of a modern sibyl. "ah, you here, young jezebel?" cried the woman, beside herself now, as she worked herself into a fierce rage. "listen, good people; listen once more, as i tell you that the day will come when jeremiah cobbe shall curse the hour when he was born, when he shall gaze down upon the blackened corpse of this his miserable spawn, even as i gazed upon the burned and fire-scarred body of my dear; and i tell you that the day shall come when in his misery and god-forgotten despair he shall hurl himself into yonder pool, and be swept down beneath his devilish wheel to be taken out dead--dead, do you hear?--as they drew out my boy." "oh, shame, mother goodhugh, shame!" cried mace again. "come away, father, come away." "nay, child," he said, calmly. "i'll face the storm like a man. it will be the sooner over." "never!" cried the old woman, with the foam gathering on her dry lips, as she rolled her red and bloodshot eyes. "i'll pursue you to your death. curse you! curse you!" "oh, shame, old woman," said sir mark, angrily. "think of your own end, and how curses come home to roost." "ah, yes," cried the old woman, turning upon him. "i had forgotten you, poor showy dunghill tom, in your feathers and spurs. you are to be caught, i suppose, for a husband for miss jezebel there. but keep away; go while your life is safe. there be death and destruction and misery there. flee from the wrath to come, for in wedding that dressed-up-doll you tie yourself to the cursed, and may die as well. hear me, good people, and judge between us; mark me that it will all come true." "shame on you, mother goodhugh," cried mace, with her pale cheeks flushing; "and judge between them, all of you," she said, addressing the little crowd of workmen and their wives who had gradually gathered round. "you all know how it was an accident when poor luke goodhugh fell into the pool, when fishing against my dear father's orders, and was drowned." "yes, yes, that be a true word, mistress," rose in chorus. "and how my dear father grieved when that sad explosion came which killed poor goodhugh, our best workman, through the folly of one who would smoke." "that be true enough. yes, it be true, mother goodhugh." "you know all that," cried mace, with her handsome young face lighting up more and more, ignorant the while of sir mark's admiring gaze. "you know all that," she repeated, "but you don't know that ever since that luckless day--" "there, there, child, enough said," cried the founder, as mother goodhugh stood muttering and mouthing in impotent malice at the speaker, who had robbed her of her audience for the time. "nay, father, dear, but they shall hear now," cried mace, speaking with energy, and her face flushing up with pride. "judge between them all of you, when i tell you that from that dreadful day my father's hand has always been open to this woman; his is the hand that has fed and clothed and sheltered her, when otherwise she must have gone forth a wanderer and a beggar upon the face of the earth." "tut, tut, child!" cried the founder; "be silent." "not yet, dear father," cried mace. "and for this," she continued, "while he has fed her with bread, and had his heart sore with pity for her solitary fate, she has never ceased to shower down curses on his head." "yes," cried the old woman, breaking in again, "gives me bread to smother my curses," and she shook her stick menacingly, "and i curse again. give me back my boy--give me back my dear. when he does that, i will take back my curses and ill-wishings to myself, and bury them beneath the earth. till then they will cling to him; and mark me, all, ill will come to this roof. it is builded on the sandrock," she cried, pointing to how the house stood in a niche of the scarped rock, which ran right behind the building, towering up with the broom and gorse and purple heather, dotting the open spaces where the pine and hornbeam ceased to grow, a pleasant-timbered gabled house, where it seemed, with its climbing roses and blushing flowers, that sorrow could never come--"it is builded on the sandrock, but it shall be rent asunder, and dissolve in flame, and smoke, and ruin, and destruction, and then-- then"--she cried hoarsely. "why then, mother goodhugh," said the founder, "we'll build it up afresh, for there's stone and timber enough about for a dozen such houses, and close at hand." "nay," cried the old woman, "nay," she croaked, for her voice had gone, and she spoke now in a hoarse whisper; "listen, all of you: the very stones of the ruins will be cursed, and all the trade, and no man shall lay hands upon them to build again, lest he be accursed himself." in spite of her brave true heart, mace felt a chill strike through her as the old woman walked hurriedly away, thumping her crutch-stick on the ground, and stopping to turn and shake it threateningly at the pool-house--even stopping by the gate to spit towards the door before she went on muttering and gesticulating, with her grey hood thrown back on her shoulders, her linen cap in her hand, and her hair streaming in the soft summer breeze, which came to the little crowd standing gazing after her as she went. "poor old girl!" cried the founder, with his face lighting up once more. "come, lads, the storm's over; back to work." the men looked at one another, and walked away with shaking head and pursed-up lip, while the women stole off in silence, to gather together at one of the cottages and talk over the wise woman's words. "poor souls!" cried the founder, cheerily; "they believe her to the bottom of their hearts. why, hey, here's master peasegood, to bear me out. i say, master peasegood, that if an old and ugly woman chooses to set up for a witch, and only curses hard enough, she'll find plenty to believe in her." "ay, and as you say, master cobbe, if she only curse hard enough, and only prophesy, like david danced, with all his might, some of the stones are sure to hit the mark. your servant, sir; mace, my pretty flower, how is it with you? bless you, my child, bless you!" this in a thick unctuous voice, as the speaker, an enormously fat, heavy man, in rather shabby clerical habiliments, rolled up to the group, and, taking mace in his arms, kissed her roundly on both her cheeks, while, to sir mark's hot indignation and surprise, the maiden laid her hands upon the parson's broad breast, and kissed him in return. "i was coming to pay my respects to you--sir mark leslie, i believe." the knight bowed stiffly, with his countenance full of displeasure. "sir thomas beckley told me of your illness, and begged me to call," continued master peasegood, whose heavy cheeks wabbled as he spoke. "aha, that's one of the privileges of being an old, an ugly, and a horribly fat man. i may kiss my pretty little mace here when and where i will. master cobbe," he continued, as he held and patted the maiden's soft white little hand, "if you do not place the key in these fingers, and bid our little blossom go fetch me a tankard of the coolest, brownest, beadiest ale in that rock-hewn cellar of thine, this man-mountain will lie down in the shade and faint. zooks, gentlemen, but the sun is hot." he took off his broad-brimmed soft hat, and wiped his brow as he looked at both in turn, while mace went off for the ale. "ay, it is hot, master peasegood; but it will be hotter in yonder directly. come and see the casting." "not i," said the new-comer: "i'll go and sit in the shady room, and hold discourse with fair little mace, and the ale. i shall stay to the next meal, so you need not hurry," he added, to sir mark's disgust. "you're welcome," said the founder. "how is the holy father? why didn't you bring him?" "out on the malignant! i've done with him," cried master peasegood, with much severity. "he's all purgatory and absolution and curse. ah, talk about cursing! so mother goodhugh has been at work again." "ay, with all her might." "hah! i like being cursed," said the parson, drawing a long breath. "i've been cursed more than any man living, sir," he continued, turning to sir mark. "ha, ha, ha, ha! see how i flourish upon it. i like being cursed." "but you don't like cursing," said the founder. "nay, not at all," said the parson. "well, i'll in to my draught of ale. go and get you dope, and come and join me," and, saluting sir mark, he, to that gentleman's great relief, rolled slowly towards the porch, while the founder led his guest through the low arched doorway into the furnace-house, whose interior was now aglow. mace awaited her stout visitor in the cool, shady parlour, with the silver flagon in her hands, then lifted the lid, and held it out to him with a smile. he took it, sniffed the aromatic scent, and raised it to his lips, with his eyes on mace, but set the vessel down again, and took the maiden's hands. "give me another kiss, child, before i defile my lips with strong liquor. hah," he added, after the salute, "that was as fresh as the touch of a dewy blossom at early morn. god's blessing be on the man who wins thy love, my child, and may he make thee a very, very happy wife. nay, nay, don't blush, child," he continued, patting the hand he still retained. "i am a confirmed old bachelor, and shall never wed; but i hold, as opposed to father brisdone--the devil take him!--that there is no purer and no holier thing in life than the love of a good man for a sweet, pure woman, unless it be the love of the woman for the man." "you do not drink your ale, master peasegood;" said mace, blushing, and looking pained. "nay, my child, that can rest, for now we are on this topic of love i want to talk to thee. come, come, look not so angered with me. you've grown a beautiful woman, mace: but i seem always to be looking at my pretty, prattling babe, who brought me flowers every sabbath day. ah! my child, time flies apace--_tempus edax rerum_, as father brisdone would say. but hearken to me, child, i am no father confessor, but if my little maybud did not open her sweet young heart to me 'twould grieve me sore." "oh, master peasegood," cried mace, enlacing her hands, and resting them on his shoulder, as he seated himself on a chair, which groaned beneath his weight, "i have not a thought that i would keep from thee." "i know thou hast not," he said. "so tell me--this courtly spark, has he said words of love?" "nay, master peasegood, but he sighs and gazes at me pensively, and lingers here as if he wished me to believe he was in love." "and you? what of this little heart? what think you of his gay clothes and courtly ways, and smooth manners and gentle words?" "i think him a good-looking, pleasant-spoken gentleman enough," said mace. "ah! that will do," cried the parson, smiling, as he gazed into the maiden's clear, bright eyes. "that will do, my rosebud; not a quiver of the eyelids; not a blush; not a trembling of the lips. faith, child, you've set my heart at ease. there, keep thine own fast locked till the good, true man shall come and knock, and ask for entrance. then, child, open it wide, and shut it, and lock him in, never to set him free." mace nodded and smiled. "that's only part of my errand, child; the other is about culverin carr, our bold captain. what of him? aha! does that prick?" he held the girl's hand tightly, for she turned half away, with a pained look in her face, and the tears rose to her eyes. "well, and ill," cried master peasegood, shaking his head. "what does it mean, child? you care for him, i think?" "i hardly know," sighed mace. "then you do," said master peasegood, nodding his big head. "there's no doubt about such matters, child. but tell me all--you may trust me-- does he know you like him?" "oh, yes," cried mace, "and my father has forbidden him to come to the house." "then he has good reason for it. jeremiah cobbe is hot, passionate, and excited enough to carry him to perdition, but he is just. now, look here, mace, do you think captain gil is the true, good man who should be locked up in your little heart?" "have--have you ill news of him?" faltered mace, who a few hours before would have scornfully rebutted any charge against the choice of her heart. "i am no tale-bearer, child," said the parson, sternly. "my mission is to make peace, not war. tell me, have you doubted friend gil's truth?" for answer mace sank upon her knees, and covered her face with her hands. "poor child, poor child!" muttered the parson, as he laid his hand upon her glossy hair. the next instant she had started with him to her feet, for there was a sharp crash as of some explosion, and, after a moment's pause, a bellowing, rumbling roar, which shook the building to its foundations, and then seemed to roll into the distance and die away. volume , chapter x. how tom croftly took his chastisement. sir mark felt in anything but the best of tempers upon finding how thoroughly at home the stout parson of roehurst was at the pool-house. he had taken a dislike to him from the first, and the idea of his sharing the table with them at the next meal filled him with disgust. however, with all a courtier's skill in hiding his own feelings, he smiled in reply to the founder's remarks, and tried to interest himself in the process before him. it needed little effort, for, as a soldier, he could readily appreciate the shape and make of a good piece of artillery; and, setting aside all thought of mace for the time being, he eagerly scanned the interior of the furnace-house. "what do you mean by all this, master cobbe?" he said, pleasantly. "i am sent down here to reprimand you, and give an ample report on what i see, and, after the first sharp encounter, i find you treat me as the best of friends. you give me your daughter's society; you talk to me of your works; and now you are about to show me the secrets of your trade." "and welcome," cried the founder, bluffly. "see all, learn all, and tell all, for i have nought to conceal. my powder is good, and my guns are good; but that is from skill, of which no one can rob me, or take away. any man can make powder or cast cannon, but few can do these things well. there, my lad, once for all, don't you shrink from making what report you will. you will not offend me. but come, we are about to begin." sir mark glanced round at the bright glow which lit up the whole place, and then at the furnace-mouth, from whose chinks a dazzling white light shone out, seeming to cut the darkness with long, thin rays, which struck the wall and the smoke-blackened, oaken beams that supported the roof, while it illumined the floor sufficiently to enable the visitor to see the dim figures of a couple of men, who were busy stooping over something in the middle of the building. this he felt was the mould, and into it he knew that ere long the furnace-door would be vomiting the molten metal in a dazzling state, so bright that his eyes would hardly be able to bear the glare. he did not speak, for the roar made by the vast bellows, whose air was burning away the impurities of the iron, was almost deafening, and he could see that a good deal of the work was earned on by signs. "a good time for a _tete-a-tete_ with little mace," he muttered, as he saw the founder slip off his doublet and roll the linen shirt up over his muscular arms. then the knight took the place pointed out to him as one likely to be out of harm's way, and watched with eager interest the busy scene around. now the furnace was being urged to greater heat, and the vivid flames and sparks rushed out into the sunshine; then the founder was seen to stand right in the intense glare, and evidently throw in some ingredient upon the molten metal which seemed to seethe and bubble, and rise in the furnace as if about to overflow, while dazzling flames of violet, orange, and silver-white danced over the molten mass, and formed, with the silvery scintillations, a scene that riveted the courtier's eye. as he gazed upon the weird-looking figures, half glowing in the light, half-hidden in the darkness, or others whose heads or bodies alone were seen in the strong glow of the furnaces, there was an unreality in the scene that sent a thrill through him. "i would that big-tongued jamie were here," he muttered, "coming upon it all by night and gazing in at yon window; he'd think he had come upon a demon's feast, and that the saints of pandemonium were cooking hell-broth for all the witches and wizards of the land." a shout from the founder roused him from his musings, and he shaded his eyes with his hands, and watched the furnace, whose light now grew more silvery every moment, and whose fluttering flames seemed to be more full of wondrous dyes. the light was sharper and more defined, and in the darkness below, where there were tiny points of light, shewing that there were crevices in the firebricks, sir mark could make out the figure of the founder standing with a great iron bar in his hands. suddenly a door was opened, and the founder was seen to be plunging the long bar into the molten metal, when once more vivid beams of light flashed out, mingled with coruscations of sparks, which darted here and there in fierce battle as if contending together, exploding with a loud crackling noise as they met. then once more the door was shut, and sir mark closed his eyes, which ached with the glare. the moment after he opened them to gaze upon the weird scene, as one after the other there came a series of loud strokes as of iron upon iron, and then from a bright star in the middle of the darkness, low down near the floor, a stream of pure liquid silver seemed to run, passing rapidly along the floor and suddenly disappearing. quicker and quicker it seemed to gush out, with dazzling flames dancing over it as it sped along. the whole building now was glorious with light, and seemed transformed; beams, rugged stone walls, flooring, all were glistening as if suddenly coated with silver and gold; and as, with parted lips and eager eyes, the founder's guest gazed upon the scene, and thought of how glorious was a cannon's birth, there was a sudden crash as if heaven and earth had come together; he was struck backwards, hurled as it were against the wall behind, and then, finding himself close to a window-opening, half fell, half dropped out into the open air to stagger away amidst the _debris_ of broken tiles and wood that had fallen around. he knew he was not hurt, but he felt confused and dazed as men from various parts ran up, women from the distant cottages came shrieking, and the occupants of the furnace-house, now roofless and smoking, staggered out panting and blackened, to look eagerly round at one another. "my father--where is my father?" cried mace, running up wild-eyed and pale. there was no reply, and, without a moment's hesitation, she ran over the broken fragments of stone and wood lying about, to the arched door, and stepped in amidst the blinding smoke and reeking steam. "stop! oh, stop," cried sir mark. "good heavens, men, she will lose her life." roused by his words, a couple of the men ran after the excited girl, but only reached the door as the founder came out looking blackened and half stunned, leaning upon his daughter's arm. "i can't see any one there," he cried, as soon as he was out, and he began looking round at his men. "are you all here, my lads?" the men gazed at one another as if for the first time it had occurred to them that they ought to count their number, and at last, as master peasegood repeated the question, out of breath with his exertions to get there, some one exclaimed: "we be all here, master." "then help me to a flagon of ale, mace," cried the founder. "but father, dear, you are hurt; you are burned. quick, some one, help get him to the house." "nay, nay, child, i'm not much hurt, and, as no one else is, loose my arm. where's that tom croftly?" "here i be, master," said a gruff voice, and a grim, half-naked man, with the chest of a giant, came trembling forward, wiping the reek and sweat from his brow. "you clumsy, bull-headed fool," roared the founder, dashing at him and delivering so sturdy a blow from his stalwart arm that the man staggered back, tried to recover himself, and then fell heavily, to sit up slowly the next moment, applying his hand to his cut forehead and gazing meditatively at the blood. "you bean't going to stand that, tom croftly," whispered one who was bending over him. "get up and pook him well, if you bean't a coward." the foundryman gazed in abel churr's foxy eyes, and shook his head. "nay, nay, the master's right enough, though he did hit hard. i ought to ha' looked after the trade." "what are you doing there, abel churr?" cried the ironfounder. "here, mace, lass, fetch me that ale." "what am i doing here, mas' cobbe?" said the adder-hunter, as mace ran off, satisfied now that her father was not hurt. "i heard the blowing up, and i knew some one would be burned, so i came. you'll want a bit of adder's fat for them burns, mas' cobbe." "out with thy trash!" cried the founder, angrily. "here, you tom croftly, rise up and i'll smite you down again." the great fellow began to rise slowly, with the obedience of a dog, but the parson interposed:-- "nay, nay, master cobbe; thou hast done enough beating." "the master's quite right," said the foundryman; "i ought to have looked after the trade." "right! yes, you dolt!" cried cobbe, angrily. "have i not told you all a hundred times that every mould must be quite dry? and here you let me run the iron into one that must be half full of water." "i see to it all two hours ago, master," said the foundryman; "and it was bravely dry, but i ought to have looked again, only somehow mother goodhugh coming put it out of my head." "and what did mother goodhugh come to you for?" said the founder, angrily. "she come to help me to something for my little one who's a bit weak this last month, master." "if you want to see mother goodhugh, you go to her," cried the founder. "but for a chance, half of us might be lying stiff and cold--nay, parson, stiff and hot, roasted and scalded, and cooked by the iron and steam. there, get to work and clear up, and we must have all put to rights again. tom croftly, you've put a hundred good pounds out of my pouch through not seeing to that mould." the great foundryman rose up now, nodding and shaking his head, while his master turned to his guest. "i never thought any more about you, sir mark," he said. "not hurt, i hope," he continued, taking the flagon from mace, and drawing up the lid with a clink; "here, take a draught of this." "more frightened than hurt," said sir mark, taking the flagon, bowing to mace, and raising it to his lips. "it was startling," said the founder, grimly. "i say, squire, you can put that in the report to his majesty. ha, ha, ha!" he continued, after a pull at the ale. "if he had been here he'd have thought all the witches in christendom had come about his ears, and here's mother goodhugh again." there was a buzz in the little crowd, as the old woman came near to climb upon a heap of furnace-cinder, and stand pointing to the disroofed shed, mouthing and grinning maliciously. "cursed," she cried; "cursed, all cursed. bide and rest, all of you, and see how all i say will be fulfilled. ha, ha, ha! how the wicked fall!" "nay, they don't," cried the founder, "or thou'd'st come down off that furnace-glass. get thee home for a foul venom-spitting toad," he added, angrily. "come, mace; come, sir mark, i can't contain myself to-day if she begins to play shimei and throw her stones." as he spoke, he took his daughter's hand, and walked away, leaving mother goodhugh gesticulating, talking to the workpeople, and prophesying evil against the house of cobbe. master peasegood stood listening to her for a few moments, and then turned to the knight. "as well try to stop a running stream, sir," he said, quietly. "if i dam it in one place it will break out elsewhere. she must run until she's dry:" and he followed the founder into the house. volume , chapter xi. how gil signalled in vain. gil carr proved to be a sorry companion to fair, weak, amorous mistress anne after the encounter with mace cobbe; but it troubled the maiden very little, for she was in a kind of ecstasy. she had gone, half doubting, to mother goodhugh, and the old dame's teachings had proved a great success. for long enough her heart had been set on bringing the captain to her feet, for there was something romantic and dashing in his career. to her he was a perfect hero of romance, and she dwelt in her privacy upon his exploits, of which she had often heard. then her jealous torments had been unbearable; and half in despair, half in harmony with her superstitious nature, she had had resort to the wise woman, and ended by abusing her for her want of success. the coming of sir mark had turned her thoughts into a different channel, and she felt ready to oust gil carr from her heart. then to her dismay she found even him gradually being drawn beneath mace's influence; but now all had turned in her favour: gil had wooed her, held her in his arms, and, better still, been seen in this position, while mace was with sir mark. "she may have him and welcome," cried anne, with her old passion for gil reviving moment by moment, as she felt now sure of gaining the dearest object of her heart. it was to her, then, nothing that gil seemed cold and distant when he parted from her near her father's house, that must needs be she felt as she warmly pressed his hand; and then with cheeks flushed with hope, and joy in her heart, she hurried home full of faith in mother goodhugh, and ready again to seek her aid. gil was in a very different frame of mind as he strode away, and had not gone far before he saw before him the broad proportions of parson peasegood, whom he remembered now to have seen crossing one of the fields as he was walking with mistress anne. "ah, master peasegood," he cried, glad of something to divert his thoughts for the time being. "well met. here is what i promised you." as he spoke he took from his pocket a couple of short, clay pipes, and a little linen bag. "use them with care, and don't become tobacco's slave." "i thank you, captain," said the stout parson. "i will become no slave, but since his majesty has written so much about the indian weed it has begotten an itching in my sinful soul to know what it is like." "i see," said gil, smiling. "well, that is indian weed from virginia. shred it up fine with your knife, press it into the pipe, and then hold to it a light, and draw the smoke through thy lips, swallow it if thou canst, and then drive it forth through thy nostrils." "hold there!" said the parson, with his eyes twinkling. "i've watched it all, my good lad. i've seen master wat kilby smoking away like one of friend cobbe's furnace-chimneys, and i've seen master cobbe himself lie back in his chair and fume and dream, and i would fain have tried myself, for how can i condemn the sin with a good conscience if i do not know how evil it may be?" "true, sir," said gil, laughing; "and we all have our weak points." "even to playing fast and loose with ladies' hearts, captain gil," said the parson, with a peculiar look. gil's eyes flashed as he turned sharply round and faced his companion, who was about to lay one of his fat hands upon his arm; but the young man felt so irritable and unfit to listen to the other's words that he drew back, ran up the bank, and plunged at once into the forest, crashing through the undergrowth until he struck a faint track, and then winding in and out through the dark arcades for a good hour till he reached a deep ravine, down whose bottom he made his way, along the border of a little stream which trickled over the huge masses of sandstone from pool to pool, each of which held its half-score of trout ready to dart beneath the overhanging stones and under the roots of trees, to their little havens of refuge, till the interrupter of their solitude had passed. after an hour's walking he came to a spot where the stream widened out a little, and he gave a nod of satisfaction as, fifty yards in front, he saw the tall gaunt form of wat kilby wading in the pools, and stooping down from time to time beneath the overhanging stony banks to thrust in his hand, and more than once retire it with a glistening speckled trout, which he thrust into a satchel hanging beneath his arm. the old fellow straightened his back and nodded, as the captain came up to seat himself upon a stone. "well, skipper," said wat, counting the trout through the canvas of his wallet. "well," said the other. "i am afraid some folk have found out the store." "not they," growled the old fellow. "how could they?" "i went up awhile ago, and saw half-a-dozen of the men with a lady whom they had found sitting on a stone in the narrows." "yes, i know," said wat. "you know?" "yes; i saw mother goodhugh take her up there with her eyes shut, and leave her on the stone." "you saw her?" "to be sure," growled the old fellow; "and i watched her till the lads come and took her, and you ran up." "and you didn't interfere?" "there was nothing to interfere about, skipper, and i thought it best for her to be frightened. keep her from going again." "did she go up higher?" "not a step." "nor mother goodhugh?" "not half a step." "why did she bring her there?" "hocus pocus. to scare her, to make her mutter charms or something. it was the out-of-the-way-est, ugliest place the old woman knew, so she took her there." "do you think that's the case?" "to be sure. mind you, i shouldn't be surprised if mother goodhugh did get to know about it, either hunting herself or through that long, lanky, lizardly fellow, abel churr." "if abel churr did find out, and tell tales, i'd hang him to the yard-arm of our ship." "and bless the world by so doing," said wat, grimly. "twenty-one," he added, softly. "what's twenty-one?" said gil, sharply. "one-and-twenty trout," replied wat, who had finished his counting. "hang your trout!" cried gil, impatiently. "no; hang abel churr," said wat; "for he's a lazy, sneaking, mischief-loving reptile. i'd like to put the rope around his neck." "now go," said gil, sharply. "see the lads and get them together. we'll have those stores up to-night." "the flour and all?" "everything. the sooner it is under cover the better. you can land all by the beeches at once, and to-night we'll get it up." "what time shall we begin?" "leave the river at twelve. it will be two before we get all to the store, and we can be back soon after three." wat nodded, and turned upon his heel; while gil sat down beneath a shady tree, where he dreamily went over his position with respect to mace, till evening was giving place to night, when he made his way back towards the foundry. as he rose and left the stone where he had been sitting thinking so long, there was a slight rustle close at hand, such as might have been made by a snake or a lizard; but it was caused by no reptile, for a human head rose slowly from out a clump of bracken, and, after waiting patiently and listening with all the caution of some wild animal, the head was lowered again. a low rustling noise followed, the grass and ferns quivering as something passed beneath them, and the track by which the owner of the head was slowly creeping away could be traced along the side of the ravine in the dim light, as if some hare or fox were cautiously working its way. quite half-a-mile was passed over in this wild-animal fashion before the bushes were parted, and abel churr rose up with a grim satisfied smile upon his face, to walk slowly away, rubbing his hands together, and evidently in high glee with something upon his mind. meanwhile, after waiting till the lights in the pool-house began to go out one by one, gil betook himself to his old tactics with the signal-sparks, for he argued that, after the serious result of master cobbe's last hindrance to his coming, the founder would try traps no more. the night was again close and heavy, and he had no difficulty in obtaining four glow-worms, whose bright tails shed their liquid golden light, as he carefully raised them, bore them to the bank, and placed them diamond-wise, as of old. then going cautiously to the edge of the river, he saw the bridge was in its place; crossed, listened, found all perfectly still, and went on to the open space beneath the projecting gable where mace's window looked out from its clustering roses. the light was out and the casement closed, and, though he waited, she made no sign. to have called to her or whistled would have been to give notice of his presence to the founder, who might in his choler open a window and fire upon him. he did, however, venture to throw up a few tiny pebbles, which rattled loudly upon the glass, but that was all. there was still no reply, not that mace had not seen the glow-worms nor heard the other signals, but she felt that she could not respond to him that night. her heart was sore within her, and, think of what she would, there ever before her was the little scene in the lane, with mistress anne leaning so lovingly upon gil, and in spite of all that had passed--words, protestations, and the like--there was always the feeling upon her that gil must have spoken tender words to anne beckley, or she would never have behaved to him as she did. then came other, older troubles, the thoughts of mother goodhugh and her curses on her father's trade--the trade that gave her many an aching heart--for living in that sylvan home it seemed so terrible and sad that all her father's works should be given to that one aim, the making of weapons of war, and the powder that should be used therein. great pieces of artillery cast and finished with such care--the black shiny grains of powder, and for what? solely to crush out life, to wage war, with misery, suffering, and pain. it seemed so terrible, and strange, and wrong, that those she loved should treat this trade so lightly, and readily distribute all that could be made. sweet mace sighed, for her spirits were low indeed, and the thoughts that had haunted her these many years, even from childhood, came stronger than ever. death, shadowy death, seemed to follow all her father's works, so that she asked herself was she not guilty in being there a participator as it were in all her father's acts, and whether she ought not to protest against his trade, and pray him to change his forges to the furtherance of a more peaceful end? close upon a couple of hours passed away, during which time mace's heart went out to her lover, for she could not control it; but she herself sat silently sobbing in the corner of her room behind the snowy window curtains, whence she could dimly see the figure of gil gazing up, the misty starry light of the summer night making it just visible, till tired out and heart-sick she saw it gradually melt away as he went back across the bridge to keep the appointment arranged with wat kilby. volume , chapter xii. how master peasegood entertained his friend. master joseph peasegood's little parsonage was a humble quiet spot, and accorded well with the moderate income he received as clerk of roehurst. there were four rooms, and the roof was thatched over the bedchamber casements, which looked like two bright eyes peering from beneath a pair of overhanging brows. there was a pretty garden, in which the parson often worked, sheltered from the lane by a thick hedge, beneath which was his favourite seat, where he sat and read, with a rustic table before him, and a cherry-tree overhead to shade him from the sun. it was a noble cherry-tree, that bore the blackest and juiciest of fruit, though the parson never ate it, the birds taking all the trouble off his hands. master peasegood was standing at his door, looking very red and warm, for he had been having a verbal encounter with mistress hilberry, his thin acid housekeeper and general servant in one. it began in this wise, the lady being, according to her own account, the most humble and unpresuming of women, but all the same taking upon herself to say things that a less unpresuming person would not have dared. "i don't say anything master," she had exclaimed sharply, "because it would be impertinence in me, but i can't help thinking that sir thomas and master cobbe, and all the principal people, will be annoyed to see you back-sliding in this way." "tut--tut--thou silly woman," said the parson. "father brisdone is a good and worthy man, and i may convert him to the right faith." "mind he does not convert thee, master," said the housekeeper. "these priests are as cunning as old sin. why, i know on good authority that he's made very welcome at the pool-house, and if they don't mind he'll carry 'em all to rome." "not this hot weather, poor things, i hope," said master peasegood. "it's warm enough here; i don't know what it would be there." "much hotter, i know," said the woman, meaningly, as she went on spreading the table with the requisites for a meal--cold pink bacon, a tempting loaf, rich yellow butter, and a couple of ale-horns, with other requisites for the evening repast. master peasegood had an angry reply upon his lips, but he wiped it off with his handkerchief, and walked to the window to see if his expected guest was on the way, while mistress hilberry went on talking. "they've seen the lights again, master peasegood." "tut, woman: fie on thee! how can you believe such things." "because i've seen them myself, sir," said the woman, tartly. "strange ungodly lights dancing up and down, and moving through the forest, and mistress croftly and others have seen them since." "marshy exhalations, luminous vapours, terrestrial lamps, mistress hilberry." "i daresay they be, sir," said the woman with asperity. "it don't matter to me what you call them, but they're spirits, and just a year ago, about this time, martin lee was struck down by one of them with a noise like thunder. he was an ailing man for a twelvemonth after, shivering regularly at times when he should have been sound and well." "yes, i dare say," said master peasegood. "hah! here he is." he waddled down to the garden-gate, to open it for a thin, pale, grey man in a priest's cassock, who grasped his hand warmly, and then with a scared, hunted look in his eye, which made him glance uneasily around, as if in search of danger, he accompanied master peasegood into the parlour, where mistress hilberry received them with a portentous sniff. "peace be with thee, my daughter," the new-comer said, softly; but mistress hilberry seemed disposed to declare war, for she snorted, turned on her heel, and left the room with a good deal of rustling and noise. the visitor looked pained as his eyes sought those of his host in an inquiring way. "only the weaker vessel," said master peasegood, laughing. "never heed her, father francis. she tells me thou wilt convert me, and i tell her i am going to convert thee. i'm glad to see you; but, ah!" he cried, holding up a warning finger, "thou hast been fasting over much. quelling the spirit in us is one thing, making the body weak and sick another. sit down, man, and fall to. we'll have a long and cosy evening, and discuss politics and the matters of the world." he placed a chair for his guest, smiling pleasantly upon him the while, and then a goodly jug of ale being brought in by mistress hilberry, the two clerical friends made a hearty meal, after father brisdone had blessed the food. "i ought not to eat this after your blessing," said master peasegood, laughing, "but i shall. and now, good father francis, before we shelve religious matters for the evening, tell me outright, now, have you been trying to win over my little woman yonder at the pool?" for answer, father francis held out his hand. "nor the captain?" "nay, not a word has passed my lips to him on the subject of religion." "then it is agreed that there is to be a good and honest truce between us. neither one nor the other is to play wolf round his neighbour's sheepfold." "brother joseph," said the guest, rising, taking a step forward, and laying his hands upon the other's broad shoulder, "shame has kept me silent heretofore. now, dear friend, i will confess." "forbidden subject," said master peasegood. "nay, nay, it is not. your suspicions were right. i was starving when you came to me, and the fastings were enforced. i could not dig, to beg i was ashamed. the few poor people of my faith i could not trouble; and it had come to this, that i felt ready to lie down and die in the land where once our church was wealthy, when i found that the age of miracles was, after all, not passed, for the last man of whom i could expect such a service brought me aid." "bah, stuff! sit down, man, and have some more bread and some of that good yellow butter. you'd have done as much for me;" and, half forcing his visitor into a chair, the host watched until he had made a hearty meal. "no more? well, then, mistress hilberry shall clear away, and then i have a surprise for thee." going to the door, and summoning the housekeeper, that lady quickly cleared the table, a lamp was lit, another jug of ale was placed upon the board, and then, as soon as they were alone, master joseph peasegood went to an old-fashioned cupboard, and tenderly taking out the pipes and bag of tobacco he had received from gil, he placed them on the table with a smile. "pipes? tobacco?" exclaimed father brisdone, drawing back his heavy chair. "yes; do they frighten thee?" said master peasegood. "you do not mean to smoke?" said father brisdone, earnestly. "i mean for both of us to smoke," said master peasegood. "would it not be a sin?" "nay, i think not; though our solomon jamie says it is. but how can we know whether we ought to forbid or no if we have not proved smoking to be a sin?" "a fallacious argument, brother joseph," said the father, smiling. "we ought, then, to rob and slay and covet, to try whether they are sins before we condemn?" "nay," said master peasegood, taking up a pipe, and beginning to open the little linen bag of weed, taking some out, and carefully shredding it with a knife. "those have all been proved to be sins. this has not." "if you wish, i will try it, then," said the father; and, as the tobacco was passed to him, he filled the little pipe before him, took the light provided by his friend, held it to the bowl, and puffed, while master joseph peasegood did the same. one little pipeful was smoked in silence, the ashes tapped from the bowl, and they smoked another pipeful, staring stolidly one at the other, as they sat on opposite sides of the table, till they had done, when there was a pause. "what do you think of it?" said master peasegood, who, after several paroxysms of coughing, had refrained from trying to swallow the smoke, and contented himself with taking it into his mouth, and puffing it out. "i feel more sick than sinful," said the father, quietly. "and you?" "i have a peculiar tightness of the brain, and a tendency to fancy i am as thin as thee, instead of as fat as i. father brisdone, in my present state, i think the greatest sin i should commit would be to go to my couch. wilt try another pipe?" "nay," said father brisdone, "i think two will suffice. king james must have felt like i when he wrote his work on this wondrous weed. it strikes me as strange that man should care to burn this herb when it is so medical in its effects." "ay, it is," said master peasegood. "it reminds me of my sensations when i was once prevailed upon by dame--nay, she was mistress beckley then, for sir thomas had not paid a thousand pounds for his title--by mistress beckley to drink of a wonderful decoction of hers, made of sundry simples--agrimony, rue, marshmallow, and dandelion. it has always been my custom to drink heartily, father brisdone, so i drank lustily from the silver mug in which it was placed. poor mug, it was an insult to the silver to put such villainous stuff therein. the very swine would have turned up their noses and screwed their tails; and i forsooth, for good manners' sake, gulped it down. here, father, drink some of this honest ale, and let us take the taste of the indian weed from our lips." he passed the big mug to his friend, and he drank and returned it to master peasegood, who quaffed most heartily; and then, with doleful visages, the two friends sat and gazed in each other's eyes. "i don't feel any better, father brisdone," said master peasegood at last. "if this be a sin, this smoking, it carries its own punishment. let us out into the open air." "yes," said his visitor, "the fresh night wind may revive us. but where got you this tobacco, did you say?" "from captain gil," replied master peasegood; and then, as they strolled out of the gate into the soft night-air, he continued, "my mind misgives me about that lad, father. what are we to do about him?" "warn him if he be in the way of ill, which i hope is not the case, for he is a brave, true lad, ready to help one of my faith in trouble. many is the fugitive he has taken across to peace and safety in his ship." "for which, were it known, he would be most surely hanged or shot." father brisdone sighed. "it is strange," he said, "that we should become such mends, master peasegood." "ay, it is strange," said the other; and feeling refreshed by the night-air they walked softly up and down conversing upon the political state of the country, the coming of king james's messenger, and his stay at the pool-house, till suddenly master peasegood drew his companion's attention to a sound. they were standing in a narrow path, running at right angles from a well-marked track; and as master peasegood spoke there was the snort of a horse and the rattle of harness, followed by much trampling; and, going a little forward, they could dimly see the figures of armed men by the light of lanterns which two of the horses carried at their head-stalls. "why, they are loaded with something, father," said the stout clerk. "and, good--" he was going to say "gracious," but the words were checked upon his lips as a couple of heavy blankets were thrown over his and father brisdone's heads and they were dragged heavily to the ground. volume , chapter xiii. how the forest spirits paid their debts. at the appointed time, captain gil made his way to where, some twenty strong, his crew were sitting and standing beneath a wide-spreading tree, with some forty horses grouped around, one and all heavily laden with sacks, barrels slung on either side, heavy boxes, and rolls of sailcloth. some of the men were smoking, some minding the horses, while others lolled about, half-asleep, upon the ground. if by chance any of the few rustic people, whose houses were scattered here and there, could have seen them in the shadow of the trees, they might very well have been excused for taking them for occupants of some nether region; while those whose horses did duty for the night, if they found them wet and weary, said nothing, but took it all as a matter of course, feeling as they did sure of encountering trouble if they made a stir, and being satisfied that their silence would be paid for in some indirect manner. farmer goodsell's team was taken several times over; and one morning he went into the stables to find the horses so weary and dirty that he swore he would stand it no longer, and fetched his wife to see. she held up her hands and opened her eyes wide. "it be witchcraft, jarge," she exclaimed. "nay--nay, girl," he cried; "it be somebody else's craft, and what's that on the bin?" mrs farmer goodsell took up a packet, opened, looked at it, and her eyes brightened as she ran to the light. "as fine a bit of silk as i ever see," she said, with sparkling eyes; "and look, what's this?" "indian weed, my lass--tobacky," said the farmer, with his face growing smooth. "hi! harry, feed these horses and give them a rub down." this was a sample of the treatment the owners received, so as the years glided on it grew to be the custom to say nothing whatever when horses were taken, for a present of some kind was certain to follow-- strangely-shaped flasks of strong waters, pieces of velvet from italy, curious bits of silk from india and china; and, for the use of horses taken from the pool-house, master cobbe, just when he had rather angrily told his daughter that he should keep the stable locked, found a heavy bale in the porch one morning, wet with dew, and on opening it he found himself the possessor of a soft carpet from the land of the turk. it was well known that some kind of secret business was carried on, but the more sage people shut their eyes and said nothing, while the weak talked of witches and the like, and laid the strange proceedings at mother goodhugh's door. for the greater the ignorance, the deeper the love of the mysterious and weird; and hence, with a monarch on the throne whose wisdom was developing itself in literary crusades against the sin of spiritual commerce, it was no wonder that when distorted verbal versions of the british solomon's utterances reached roehurst they should tend to strengthen the simple-minded people's belief in witchcraft and wise-womanry, evil spirits, and visions of the night. the appearance of gil amongst the resting men acted like magic. a few short orders, and without a word a couple of lanterns were lit, attached to the foremost horses, and, well-armed, silent, and watchful, the little party set off in single file right through the forest, wat kilby taking the lead and the captain walking with the rear. once or twice there were short halts to readjust some pack or tighten the ropes that slung some cask; but otherwise there was the quiet tread of the horses' hoofs and an occasional snort to break the silence of the night. not a man spoke save the gaunt old sailor wat, who gruffly gave an order or two, and perhaps changed the direction of the convoy. trees switched and rustled their branches as the heavy horseloads brushed against them; the wild animals of the wood scampered off at the sight of the dim lanterns; but they had been journeying on for quite an hour before a faint whistle placed wat kilby on the _qui vive_, when, seeing what was wrong, he and a couple more men stole off amongst the trees to get to the rear of those who were watching the strange file, and directly after the two clerks were struggling on the ground in utter darkness, while the horses passed on, and gil came abreast. "what is it?" he asked, in a low voice. "we've made a mistake, skipper," growled wat kilby. "it's the parson and the holy father." "what were they doing here?" "watching," growled wat. "pass on, every one," said gil, quietly. "i will speak to them. i'll join you at the mouth." the sound of the horses' hoofs was already dying away in the distance, and wat and his companions seemed to melt softly into the darkness, while, quietly going down on one knee, the captain drew off the rough pieces of cloth from the faces of the prostrate clerks, who, finding themselves at liberty, sat up. "i hope you are not hurt, father," said gil to father brisdone. "ah, my son, is it you?" was the reply. "nay, i am not hurt, though the men were rough." "but i am hurt," cried master peasegood, angrily. "i thought it was one of your games, captain gil carr. zounds, sir, sir thomas beckley shall know of it, and constables and fighting-men shall come and clear your nest of hornets away. zounds, father, if i were of your faith, i'd excommunicate him." "you are hasty, master peasegood," said gil, quietly. "do not rail at me. i have done nothing but set you at liberty." "but you had us seized." "nay, indeed, i knew nothing until i came upon you here, and i have set you at liberty. you are quite free; go in peace." "quite free; go in peace!" cried master peasegood. "zounds, sir, is this a free country--is this his majesty's high-way, or are you the lord of it all! i'll have it stopped." "nay, nay, master peasegood, you are angry, and you will stop nothing. you must have seen the forest spirits, and they interfered with you." "bah! away with thy trash." "ah, well, call it what you like. good-night, master peasegood; good-night, father brisdone; can i do anything for you? i must go. i shall tell the forest spirits that they need fear nothing from you, master peasegood. they must have thought they had captured the doughty knight sir mark. good-night." "the impudent dog! to compare my figure with that of a spindle of a knight. bah! tush! rubbish! come, father brisdone, we will get indoors; the night-air is unwholesome with these spirits about. but he's right; i shall say nothing, and i'm sure that nothing will fall from thee." the two friends turned and went back towards the parson's cottage, while gil hurried on to overtake his party of well-armed men. he was not long in reaching the last horse, and walked steadily by its side; he came to a halt in the dark ravine just below where mistress anne had been seated for so long upon the stone, and here a busy scene took place, the horses being rapidly unladen, and pack, chest, and barrel being carried or rolled along a shelf of rock beneath an overhanging ledge of sandstone, where the little gorge seemed to come to a sudden stop before branching out in a fresh direction. sentries had been placed at some distance along the only approach to the place; and while they kept guard one of the lanterns was carried in through a rift in the rock, and placed upon the block of stone, where it shed its rays upon the scene, lighting up a chamber that had evidently at some very remote time been cut from the rock, another communicating with it at the back; and here on shelf and ledge were piled up in picturesque confusion what seemed to be ships' stores, and a heterogeneous collection of barrels, bales and kegs. some evidently contained gunpowder, while others as certainly were filled with that more humble meal--flour. then there were rolls of sailcloth, coils of rope, racks of swords and pikes, and a couple of small pieces of artillery. there was no confusion: bale, keg, barrel, and box were carried in by the men in perfect silence, till the last load of the horses had been deposited, when wat kilby growled out an order, and four men put their shoulders to a huge mass of stone, which they rolled over twice, when it blocked up the low entrance to the cave; a few branches were carefully dragged back to lie athwart it, and the party once more set off as silently as they had come, but this time with the captain in front and wat kilby at his side. "you will have plenty of time on your hands for the next month," said the former; "you had better keep an eye on that fellow, abel churr. i have been thinking which would be best: to catch and threaten him--" "that's one way," said wat. "to bribe--" "two ways." "or to take no notice." "three ways." "if he gets in, which he could not do without help, he would only take a few odds and ends that we should never miss. the awkwardness would be another party knowing anything about the store when we are away. one might come back from a voyage to find the whole place wrecked." "what do you say to shutting him up for a month to bring him to his senses?" "would not do," said gil, as they trudged on through the forest. "take him off with us to sea?" "no, i would not do that." "hang him, then, out of the way," growled wat. "i'll bury him after, for he don't deserve such a christian burial as dropping over the side with a shot at his heels, to be standing up at the bottom of the sea ready to rise again." no more was said, and the strange, weird-looking train passed silently on through the forest till the cultivated land was neared, when, without a word, the strength of the party seemed to gradually diminish, a team of horses dropping behind here, a pair there, a single horse further on, till at last horses and men had all disappeared, and wat and the captain stood together in a moist-smelling glade, with the early morning air coming in gentle puffs, sometimes salt from the sea, with the faint, peculiar odour of decaying seaweed, sometimes sweetly-scented with the hay which farmers here and there were making for their winter store. "let abel churr rest," said the captain quietly. "i may find means of quieting his tongue." "i'd like to do it myself," growled wat, as they separated, but only for the latter to be called back. "have you been hanging about the pool-house lately, wat?" the great fellow shuffled about, and rubbed one ear. "you need not answer," said gil, quietly, and he walked away. volume , chapter xiv. how mother goodhugh cursed abel churr. the rocky ravine which looked in the darkness like the entrance to some mystic region had hardly been vacated by captain gil's crew, and the storehouse that he had formed in this stronghold of nature left to its solitude, before there was a curious rustling noise on high; a piece of bark fell to the ground; then a dry, dead twig; then the rustling was continued, and ceased for quite a quarter of an hour before it began again. this time it was commenced more loudly, and a branch of a tree overhead in the darkness quivered and jerked. "too--hoo--hoo--hoo--hoo--hoo--o--hoo--o--o--o--o!" cried an owl somewhere close at hand, when the noise suddenly ceased, and all was silent once more for a good half-hour. then the rustling was resumed, and in the dim starlight a figure was seen to descend a tree, rustling and scraping the bark till it reached the patch of soil in which the gnarled oak was rooted, and, thrusting aside the bushes, the figure made its way down to the trickling stream, which, after running apparently from the rock, coursed amongst the stones and ferns, half-hidden from the light of day, down the ravine bottom, to join some larger rivulet miles away. the dimly-seen figure crept cautiously along for some distance without venturing to stand erect, but at last, feeling apparently free from danger, it began to walk with less circumspection, though always in a flinching, animal-like fashion. day was breaking as it reached mother goodhugh's cottage, and after glancing up at the window, to be sure that the inmate was not stirring, the visitor crept up the bank opposite, and beneath a spreading fir-tree, where, curling itself up in an animal way, it went off to sleep. some three hours later mother goodhugh was partaking of her breakfast-- no simple meal, but one of substance, graced as it was with eggs and goodly bacon-rashers, gifts of foolish peasants' wives who came to consult her concerning sick pigs, failing poultry, and milk-dry cows-- the door was wide open, and the sparrows, after chirping about amongst the thatch, dropped down one by one, hopped right in, and kept picking up the crumbs the old woman threw from time to time upon the red brick floor. sometimes she made a sound with her lips which brought others down to partake of her bounty, much to the annoyance of an old one-eyed magpie, which hopped to and fro in a wicker-cage, and cried, "_chark_," and "_ha_, _ha_, _ha_!" the former being the nearest approach it ever got to charcoal, a word which, with brimstone and powder, mother goodhugh intended to form her pet's _repertoire_. the sparrows hopped in over the lintel, seized crumbs, and flew off over and over again. then there was a loud fluttering of wings, the birds departed, and abel churr entered, brushing off the fir-needles which clung to his hair and gaberdine. "just in time, mother," he chuckled. "here, i've brought you the toad weed picked at midnight, and here are stink-horns and toadstools, fit to brew the strongest charms you will. give me some breakfast." "shame upon thee, idler, for wanting to live on a lone widow's substance!" cried mother goodhugh. "don't i help thee to all kinds of trade to make the substance rich?" chuckled abel churr; "but wait a bit, mother, i've found a treasure-house; a store of riches; and i'm a made man. i know where to find all that i want from time to time. would'st like to share it?" "yes, yes," cried the old woman, eagerly; "what have you found, abel?" "help me to something to eat," he said, with a cunning smile, "and then i'll talk to thee." she hastened to put before him bread and milk, and eggs, and bacon, of which he freely partook, gazing at the hostess from time to time in a peculiar way, as if he had some further plan at heart. "you don't tell me what you've found," said mother goodhugh. "come, tell me, lad. you'll be happier for having some one to share it all." "found!" he cried, laughing; "i've learned that about captain culverin that he would kill me for knowing, did he find me out. ha, ha, ha! i shall be rich now, and can help thee back more than thou hast helped me to, mother goodhugh. where are the strong waters?" "i have none," said the woman sulkily. "it is a lie," he cried, sharply; and, rising, he stepped to the little chimney-piece, raised an old shell, and took out a key, which he held up, laughing. "nay, nay, give me the key," cried the old woman, making a dash to seize it; but with a savage thrust, more like a blow, he sent her staggering across the brick floor, to fall heavily, and lie for a few moments half stunned, while, chuckling with glee, churr opened a corner-cupboard and took out a quaint-looking black bottle, which he carried to the table. "coward--thief!" cried the old woman, as she struggled up; "thou shalt not have it;" and she ran to the table, when, with a malignant look, churr struck her heavily with the back of his hand, sending her against the wall, where she stood panting. "keep away, or i'll pook thee again," he cried, sourly. "drink it, if you dare," she cried, with flashing eyes. "it is poison of my own brewing. drink, and die then: coward, to strike me thus." abel churr's whole aspect changed; his yellow countenance looked haggard, and his hand shook, as he stared from the old woman's face to the bottle, and back again. "ha, ha, ha!" laughed mother goodhugh, seeing her power; "drink away, lad, drink. i'll see thee buried beneath some tree, and come and gather toadstools from off thy grave." churr set down the bottle upon the table, and, as he did so, his hands trembling visibly, mother goodhugh slowly sidled up, and was about to make a pounce upon the flask, when, with a cunning flash of the eye, churr forestalled her and snatched it up, laughing heartily as he took out the cork, and smelt the contents. "old mother of lies," he cried, chuckling. "i'll drink this poison all day long. hah!" he ejaculated, shaking the flask so that the spirit within gurgled. "hah!" he placed the vessel to his lips and drank savagely, while mother goodhugh stood glaring at him, with head stretched forward and fingers crooked like the claws of an animal about to spring. "here," he cried, pouring out a little of the spirit in a cup, and holding it to the old woman; "here, i will not take it all. drink, mother, drink." the old woman eagerly snatched up the cup and drained it. "that settles it. i thought so," he said, laughing, as he took another draught. "poor old mother goodhugh will be poisoned, too. old fool! to think thou could'st deceive me with such shallow tricks. there," he continued, after another draught, as he thrust in the cork, and placed the flask in his breast. "now i be going away." "help me that bottle," cried the old woman. "don't take away that flask. it is mine." "no more thine than mine," cried churr, turning round at her with a snarl. "haven't i for years helped you in getting together what you have; helped you to cheat and trick the silly, gaping fools about here with thy mummery? speak to me again as you did, and i'll go and tell them all of thy tricks, and jugglery, and putting water in the founder's moulds to blow them up, and let them see thee as a woman like themselves--old idiot that you be." "tell them," cried mother goodhugh, furiously, as she made an effort to tear the flask from him, but only to be driven back by another furious blow; "tell them, coward, and they will not believe thee. you mock at me--do you? you call my spells foolery. we shall see how you will fare, now that i curse thee, and tell thee that thou shalt not die upon a bed." "curse away, mother," he cried. "i have the strong waters." "they'll not believe thee; while, if i say the word, there are a dozen who would slay thee for injuring me, and leave thee to rot in the forest or die on a mixen." "say it then," he cried, with a malignant grin. "let them try if they dare." "we shall see," cried the old woman, stretching out one hand, and gazing fiercely at her confederate. "i do curse thee sleeping and waking. you have braved me, abel churr, and laughed at all my trade. now we shall see." "yes," he said, "now we shall see;" and, putting the bottle in his breast, he turned to the door. "i fear thy threats as much as i do thy poison. ha, ha, ha! poison--brave poison--good poison--poison for princes. mother, wouldn't you like to know what i have found out about captain gil?" "nay, keep thy knowledge," cried the old woman, fiercely. "i know it, too. you will not live to enjoy it. now, get thee gone." "what!" he said, jeeringly. "shall i not share my riches with thee, my dear old partner? shall we not join now in cheating and tricking some one better than the wretched village fools? i tell thee that captain gil is rich, and i have his secret: i have found his store." "and i tell thee, abel churr," cried the old woman, "that thou hast always been a villain, a brute, and a coward to me. if thou knowest aught of captain gil's secret, you will keep it, and share it with none. from this day i have neither truck nor trade with thee, so go thy way, and my curse go with thee. but take this to heart as thou goest: captain gil is a stern man, and if thou hast learned aught of his, and he knows it, look to thyself, or maybe thou'lt be sattled." abel churr uttered an impatient "pish!" and left the place full of his discovery. avoiding the cottages of the workpeople, he went round by the back of the pool, to where, like a lawn in the wood, lay a few acres of grass cut down for hay, a part of which had been stacked, the remainder lying out to dry, for a heavy rain had checked the carrying for a day or two. churr looked round, listened, made sure that the field was empty, and then started and looked timidly upwards as a jay uttered a loud harsh cry and flew towards the wood. then, crawling to the half-made stack, he climbed upon it, separated the soft, sweet-scented hay, took a draught of the spirit, corked the bottle and thrust it in the heap, and then, nestling down and drawing the hay over him, he was in a few moments fast asleep. volume , chapter xv. how abel churr bought a secret. that was a bitter as well as a momentous day for gil carr. in the course of the morning he made his way to the pool-house, determined to have a few words with jeremiah cobbe, and to talk calmly to him concerning mace and the future. he felt, too, that a little sympathy was due to the founder after the late accident at his works. he went straight to the house, for he had taken mace's words to heart, that he should go boldly to the place; but, on entering, he was only met by janet, who came after he had walked in according to old familiar custom, and rapped loudly at an inner door. janet came down, looking red-faced and guilty, from one of the upper chambers. "why, janet," he said, "the house is as quiet as if all were dead. where have you been, lass? why, that's thy mistress's kerchief on thy head!" the girl snatched it off, looking redder and more guilty than before, and hid it behind her. "i'd wager, janet, that thou hast been upstairs trying on thy mistress's finery. i'll tell her so." "nay, pray, captain gilbert," she cried, excitedly, "you would not make mischief between us. i did but--" "that's confession enough," said gil, laughing. "now, tell me where is thy master?" "down at the furnace-house, seeing to its being new-roofed, sir," replied the girl. "and thy--" gil stopped with beating heart, for he dared not for the moment ask the question--one that he felt he could himself answer. "one word though," he cried, "mistress janet. i have something to say about that pretty face of thine." "oh, captain carr," said the girl, blushing. "you must not talk to me like that. what would my mistress say?" "that i was doing right, child. harkye, you must not be showing that pretty face and those bright eyes to men who cannot become thy sweethearts." the girl's heart beat fast, and she looked up and looked down, began to plait her apron, dropped mace's kerchief, snatched it up, hid it behind her; then turning her head, with the pleasant flush of surprise deepening upon her neck. "why, janet," said gil, laughing, "you look as modest as if you were being courted." "oh, captain carr," she simpered, "you must not talk to me like that;" and the weak girl fell a-trembling, telling herself that now her mistress had taken to go a-walking with the handsome young knight staying at the house, captain culverin, the bold, handsome fellow, of whom every maiden far and near had spoken as a hero, had fallen in love with her. "not talk to thee, child," said gil, laughing. "look here, janet, i must be plain with thee." he looked at her in an amused way for a moment, and then, catching one of her hands, he took her chin between his finger and thumb, and raised her face so that he could gaze straight into her humid eyes. the tears stood beneath the lids, and in another moment she would have cast herself upon the captain's breast had not a word or two more dispelled her illusion. "i've known thee, janet, since thou wert a little toddler, to whom i gave sugar from the western isles; and for thy mistress's sake, janet, would not have harm befall thee. look you here, child, master wat kilby hangs about here to gratify his old eyes by casting them upon thy pretty shape and face. now, janet, have you ever given him encouragement?" "as if it was likely!" cried the girl, snatching herself away, and her whole aspect undergoing a transformation. "a girt, old, ugly man like that; i'd pook him if he dared touch me. such trade as that!" and she was flinging herself out of the hall when gil checked her by saying, sternly-- "stop, girl! i am glad of it, for wat kilby is no mate for thee. where is thy mistress?" "where should she be?" cried the girl, spitefully, and with flashing eyes she went on: "out in the forest reading love-songs to sir mark, same as she now does every day." she ran off to hide her tears, but not before she had seen how cruel a stab she had given her mistress's lover; and then, seeking her own chamber, she cried for long enough over her disappointment, and as much for sympathy for the brave young fellow whom she had, as she well knew, cut to the quick. gil stood biting his lips, as he thought over the girl's words. "no," he cried, "i won't believe it; mace is too good and true." he went out of the house to where the founder was directing his workpeople, who were busily laying massive oaken beams across the damaged building; and as gil came up the old man nodded, talked of ordinary things, and then excused himself on the plea of business in so marked a manner that gil could not but see that his presence was irksome, and soon afterwards left. he had hoped to have seen mace, but he felt that he could not wait there now, and in a purposeless way he turned off the beaten track, meaning to throw himself down in some dry, shady spot, and try and arrange his thoughts. as it happened, fate led him straight to an opening in the forest, where two paths met--a place where the founder's men had cut down the great oaks, leaving a clump of firs standing here and there, and beneath them was a mass of dry odorous pine-needles, the collection of many years. the old stumps left by the woodman's axe were pretty well overgrown with moss, grass, and the various wild-flowers of the wood; and altogether a better spot than this opening in the thick forest could hardly have been found for noonday dreamings. so thought sir mark, as he lay at mace's feet, while she, with the bright rays of sunshine darting through the thin needled foliage, to lose themselves in her glossy hair, sat on one of the old stumps, and read to him in a soft, sweet voice--one which to gil, as he came suddenly upon them, seemed softened and attuned to fall tenderly upon the invalid's ear. "he is well enough by now, i'll wager," muttered gil, as he walked straight up, to find that mace rose as soon as she saw him, coloured deeply, and greeted him in a cold and injured way. gil carr's hot blood danced through his veins, and, in his haste, he forgot to recall the last time they had met, when he was seen side by side with anne beckley; and, attributing mace's constrained manner to her vexation at being surprised with sir mark, he turned upon that gentleman fiercely, to find his glances returned with interest. for there was a look of triumph in the visitor's eye, and a contemptuous smile on his lip, both of which seemed to say to him, "there, you see you have no chance; i am all conquering, and the day is mine." very few words passed before mace, who feared a quarrel, said-- "will you return with me now, sir mark? the sun is growing hot, and my father will be waiting." he bowed in his most courtly manner, and, taking her hand, helped her over a fallen tree, and again across a rift in the earth, while gil, trembling with rage, disappointment, and mortification, stood gnawing his lip. "and this is woman's faith!" he cried, as he strode away. "oh, that my ship were fit for sea, or that i had something i could do." he stopped, thinking for a few minutes, and then walked away straight for the ravine, partly to pass the time, partly because he felt uneasy about his store; while, sad at heart, poor mace walked beside her companion, who sighed and never ceased to try and show her how hopelessly he was in love. it was very unfavourable for the progress of vegetation where gil carr strode over the ground, trampling down the tender forest herbage, tearing aside the young growth, and leaving a harsh track through the forest, till, getting nearer to his destination, he seemed to grow more careful, and ended by waking to the fact that any one might easily trace him by his trail. altering his mind then, he struck down beside one of the rivulets, and followed its course pretty closely to the river--a small enough stream, but one which at times carried a considerable depth of water. a mile along here brought him to a busy nook, where, around a goodly-sized vessel, a score of men were hard at work with hatchet and adze repairing and restoring plank and timber that had been torn and riven by the rocks and waves of a long cruise. it was only the hull, every bit of rigging having been removed to lighten her for the men at work; and seated upon a barrel, smoking, giving orders or directions, was wat kilby, who rose to make his report on seeing his skipper approach. gil did not stay long. he saw that his men were working hard, and that they were well provided for in the sheltered nook by the little river side, which he had made his vessel's port; and at last, as the evening was coming, entered the boarded hut which formed wat's home for the time, partook of a rough meal with him, gave him certain orders, and turned once more towards roehurst, meaning to go up the ravine on the way. he was weary with much walking, and low-spirited. what had been a pleasant sojourn ashore had become wearisome and full of pain, due, he felt, rightly or wrongly, to the coming of sir mark, the recollection of whom made his brows knit and his hands involuntarily clench. these thoughts stayed him in his course, and more than once he sat down thinking whether it would not be better to get away to one of the ports, and charter a small vessel for a trip, so as to occupy his mind. "and leave the field open to the enemy?" he cried, springing up. "nay, that's not like gil carr." with sundry plans in his head, then, he now went straight on, climbing up the rugged sides of the ravine, heedless of the growing darkness, and at last reaching the entrance to his store. his intention had been to glance at it, and make sure that it was all right, and then to go on to roehurst for the night, hoping to gain an interview with mace, and take her to task for her change, when he had spoken of himself. but as he reached the entrance his heart stood still, for his worst fears were confirmed. the retreat that he had taken such pains to keep a secret, and had shrouded with enough mystery to make the goings and comings of his men an object, not of curiosity amongst the simple superstitious people, but alarm, had been discovered, and by some one full enough of enterprise and daring to make his way inside. the first thing that struck his attention was a tall, stout fir-pole, which had evidently been used as a lever to dislodge the stone that stopped the entrance, and on going close up and peering in he could see a dim light burning upon one of the barrels, while a figure was down upon its knees hard at work opening a case. "the pitiful thief!" said gil, as a movement on the intruder's part let the light fall upon his face. "as i thought--abel churr. well, master churr," he muttered, as a hard look came over his face, "you have discovered a secret that should be paid for--with death--the due meed awarded to a thief." he drew his long, thin sword, and, holding it before him, stepped cautiously forward; but altering his mind, he thrust it back into the sheath with an impatient ejaculation, and once more peered over the stones between them at where the marauder was busily prising open the case. "the fool!" muttered gil; "if that candle burned down he would be blown to pieces. what cursed luck that he should have found us out." he took another step forward cautiously, to avoid being heard, lest churr should dash by and escape; but, once inside, the captain's person blocked the way, and stepping boldly forward, churr started up with a shrill cry, like some beast when tracked to its lair. "you dog!" cried gil, as he dashed at him, receiving, as he did so, a heavy blow from the iron bar with which the adder-hunter had been wrenching open the case. he staggered back, and churr was springing over him, but he was too late, for, recovering himself, gil seized him tightly, and a fierce struggle began. churr had sprung forward so sharply that gil carr was driven to the narrow platform beyond the stone, and the struggle took place outside the cave. but it was not of long duration, for churr was no match for the well-built, muscular young man, who, after wrestling with him here and there, ended by wrenching from him the iron bar, and they fell heavily on the narrow shelf of rock, from which, if either slipped, he would go down some forty feet perpendicular, and then crash through the bushes into the dark bed of the rivulet far below. "what--what are you going to do?" panted churr at last, as he was held half over the side. "to kill you, as i would any other thieving rat or vermin who came to steal. but tell me first who knows of this place beside you?" "no one, not a soul," howled churr. then, feeling that he had made a mistake, he added hastily, "only a few trusty friends." "the first words were the truth," said gil, sharply, as his hand sought his belt; "the last were added to make me afraid to kill you, lest others should come and be aware of the deed. abel churr, you have learned a secret, and you must have known the risk." "but i'll never tell, and i'll never come again. i'll never help it to a soul, or say a word about the trade." "never," said gil in a low stern voice. it was quite dark now, and the gloom of the ravine seemed heavier than ever as abel churr, who felt that his end was near, wrenched himself slightly round to gaze shudderingly into the depths below; and then as he fancied that he saw the flash of a knife in gil's disengaged hand, while the other held him tightly by the belt, he uttered a loud shriek, that was repeated from the rock in front, to die off in whispers as if the man condemned to death were already on his way to the unknown shore, and his voice could be heard farther and farther as he onward sped. volume , chapter xvi. how tom croftly had a holiday. the founder yielded one day to tom croftly's importunities and gave him a holiday, which also meant taking one for himself, and to thoroughly enjoy it they both got up early. tom croftly was first, reaching the pool-house before it was light, and just as the blackbirds had begun to hunt in the damp corners for slugs and snails. it was quite an hour later before the founder joined him, to find tom working away with the heavy old wheelbarrow and the manure-fork. "hallo, tom, you here?" said the founder, looking eastward, where the golden orange flecks told of the coming sun. "here? ay, been here this hour; most emptied the mixen, and got a brave girt bed made; but who's to work wi' such a tool as this?" and he held up the fork. "you, if you've any sense in your head," growled the founder, who was sleepy yet. "i've got some sense in my head," said tom croftly; "but no man can't work with a noo-fangled tool like that. i never see such a thing. it breaks a man's back. a fork ought to have three tines in it." "and i say it ought to have four," said the founder, tartly. "why, as soon as you started to fork dry stuff with the other it all began to tumble through. that new four-tined fork holds it." "ay, and 'most breaks a man's back," grumbled tom croftly. "falls through? why, of course it does. that's nat'ral, and as it should. it's the small as falls through, and you takes up all the crumbs after wi' a shovel. 'taint like having a holiday to work wi' a tool like that." "there, get on," said the founder, "and don't grumble. lend me the fork." he seized the implement, and loaded up the barrow easily and well, turning afterwards to his man, "there, you can't do better than that." "and where's your crumbs to finish off with at the top?" grumbled tom croftly. "we shan't get much of a cucumber-bed, you'll see." "look here, tom croftly, if you're going to grumble like this, we'll go back to the foundry-work." "nay, nay, master." "thou askedst for a holiday, and i said `yes,' and here it is." "and my garden wanted it badly, master." "yes; but i'm not going to holiday keep with a grumbler." "i'll never say another word, master, only that tool felt as if mother goodhugh had put a spell upon it. hoop! wup!" the two latter ejaculations were uttered by the founder's man, as he lifted the barrow-handles, and then pushed the barrow along over the dewy grass-paths to where the cucumber-bed was to be made. "mother goodhugh never put a spell on anything in her life," said the founder, stoutly, as he began to unload the barrow in a little square marked out by four strong pegs. "i dunno about that, master," said tom, rubbing his great bullet-head. "why, tom, tom, thou'rt never such a fool as to believe in ghosts, and sprites, and witches?" said the founder, arranging the stable manure carefully with the fork. "nay, nay, master. oh, no. i don't _believe_ in 'em, but it was curus that the mould should blow up in that terrifying way after mother goodhugh had been." "curious if it hadn't," cried the founder, patting down his work. "if tom croftly had given a look to the mould first, or if i had--as i ought to have done--there would have been no explosion." "nay, master, i think she ill-lucked the mould." "and i think she poured a pail of water in, my lad. why, tom, you're six feet one high." "six foot two and a half, master," said tom, in a self-satisfied manner. "and as strong as a horse." "ay, master, i am. i lifted our pony off his legs the other day." "and yet you're afraid of that poor half-daft old woman." "nay, nay, master; not _afeard_," said tom, stoutly. "i never felt afeard o' mother goodhugh yet; but you see, if she do happen like to be a witch, it be just as well to be civil to her like, and not do anything to make her curse one." "curses don't do any harm, tom, my lad," said the founder. "i hope they don't, master, for mother goodhugh do curse you a deal." "let her," said the founder. "shall i fetch they crumbs in a trug, master?" said tom, watching intently the formation of the cucumber-bed. "we will have the bed a deal higher yet, tom, and put the crumbs on the top, and a couple o' hills of nice warm earth a'top o' that. we must have some finer cucumbers this year than dame beckley grows up at the moat." the manufacture of the cucumber-bed went on, and tom croftly had the satisfaction of fetching the "crumbs" in a trug or truck-basket; after which, the founder and he had a long turn at the patch of hops, which had been growing rather wild and away from their poles. the wild ones were carefully twisted round the supports, and tied at intervals with rushes to keep them in place, after which, it being seven o'clock, the founder proposed breakfast, and led the way to the house. sir mark had accepted an invitation the previous day, after much protesting that he was still too weak and could hardly get about, and had gone to dine with sir thomas at the moat, and stay the next day over, so that mace felt herself free and forgetful of her troubles. she set aside the haunting thoughts of the fate of the weapons her father made, and devoted herself to domestic duties that had of late fallen to janet's lot. "morning, mistress!" cried tom, coming smiling in at the kitchen door, through which he could see mace with her sleeves rolled above her white elbows busily trying the new cakes that had been baked for breakfast. "good morning, tom," cried mace. "quick, janet, get out the cold bacon and draw a mug of ale." tom smiled broadly, as he took his place at the white, well-scrubbed table, for it was an understood thing that whenever tom croftly had a whole holiday, that is to say, had a cessation from foundry-work to go in the garden, he had his meals at the house. the founder's breakfast was ready, but he was called away, so mace remained busy about the kitchen, going in and out of the dairy where the golden butter lay in rolls, and the yellow cream was so thick in the broad pans that it went into wrinkles and crinkles, like an old woman's face when it was skimmed. the glorious sunshine came in at the open door, with the scent of the flowers, and the bees buzzed about the blossoms as they journeyed to and from their round-topped hives, while tom croftly took a long draught of ale, sighed, and then began work upon the new loaf and bacon. "this be a fine cut o' bacon, mistress," said he, as mace came near. "i am glad you like it, tom." "ay, i like the bacon, mistress, but this here knife's a wonder." "what, isn't it sharp, tom?" "sharp, mistress, bean't nothing to it. it be terrifying sharp, and it be as keen at the back as it be at the front, and that's what i don't like, for it's risky like at the corners o' your mouth, and when a man's mouth is already two sizes too large, it's a pity to cut it bigger." "take another, tom," said mace, placing one for him. "thanky, mistress, that's kindy of you," said tom. "eh, but you be grown into a flower. here, only t'other day, and i see thee balancing thyself on thy two pretty little pink legs, and couldn't get on wi' my work for watching thee--lest thou should fall." "you always were very kind to me, tom," said mace, smiling. "and always will be," said tom croftly; "for, mistress, it did my heart good to see thee stick up for the master again that old mother goodhugh." "poor weak woman!" said mace, sadly. "ay, poor weak old woman; but she's got a sore heart, mistress, like as--as--some one else have as i knows on." "who's that, tom?" said mace. "captain culverin carr," said tom, striking the table with the haft of the knife. "ah, i don't like dressed-up jay-birds from london." mace was silent, but she looked at their old workman with eyes that were half alarmed, half angry, and hearing her father's voice hurriedly left the kitchen. "ay, so his heart is sore," muttered tom croftly, after a glance round to see that he had not been heard. "if i thought that ill-wishing that london spark would keep him away from here, i'd give mother goodhugh my biggest couple o' ducks--that girt young 'un and his brother." tom croftly stopped and sighed for a long time over his bread and bacon before returning to the enjoyment of his holiday the founder did not join him, however, for a good half-hour longer, when mace was by his side. that was a golden day to both--a holiday indeed. no allusion was made to the departure of their visitor, neither was gil's name mentioned; but, as if some burden had been removed from both their hearts, they seemed to have made up their minds to have one day such as they had been accustomed to in what seemed like the olden times. with a straw hat to shade her bright face, mace was now looking on, while the raspberry canes that had broken loose were retied to their stakes, and then she held the knife as she had a score of times in childhood while the founder went down upon his knees to take the bindings off from some freshly-grafted trees, commenting upon his work, and boasting of its superiority over the grafting done at dame beckley's. then there were the cuttings of those curious plants to see to that gil had brought back from his last voyage, and they seemed to be progressing well, all but one that was being eaten by a grub. mace listened eagerly, thinking that her father would mention gil's name now, but he went on weeding out a few interlopers before he seemed to recall whence the cuttings came, and then he frowned and turned off to another part of the garden. the cloud passed away directly, and they were chatting merrily again or listening to tom croftly, who possessed a very long tongue, and had plenty to say. "lor', miss mace, look at my apple-trees, how they be a-hinging down a'ready!" cried tom croftly. "look at the girt big uns lumpeting all down the boughs. i'll have to put a strod under yon branch, or a wilt be breaking down." "they look lovely, tom. no scarcity this year." "not there, mistress. it all comes o' well wassailing the trees. if there's anything i like, its a good apple-howling in due season." "but you don't think it makes any difference, tom?" "not make any differ, mistress? why look at my trees this year." "oh, they are loaded enough, tom," said mace, smiling; "but would they not have borne as well without that noise the lads made on new year's eve?" "not they, mistress. i like the boys to come round to the orchards, and shout and go round the apple-trees in a ring," he said, stopping to hold his reaping-hook horizontally, and making a movement with his left hand, as if to complete the circle, while he closed his eyes and repeated the following doggerel, as if it were some sacred verse:-- `stand fast, root; bear well, top; pray the god send us a good howling crop. every twig apples big; every bough apples enow; hats full, caps full, full quarters sacks full.' "that's it, mistress; that brings the apples. there's a fine cluster o' little wild strawbries here," he cried, as he "brushed," as he called it, the thistles and nettles that were springing up under the orchard trees. "i'll bring a basket and pick them, tom," cried mace; and she ran quickly back to the house. "a swap soon gets dull, master," said tom, stopping to sharpen the broad-bladed reaping-hook he held, and gazing the while after mace. "eh, but it ought to be a girt and good man, master, who has young mistress for a wife. a king wouldn't be good enough for she." "right, tom," said the founder. "hallo, what's the matter?" he cried, as mace came running back in a state of great excitement. "the bees, father--a swarm." down went tom croftly's hook and whet-stone, and away he and the founder ran to where the bees were in full flight, a late colony, after hanging in a pocket-shaped cluster outside their straw dome for days, having at last persuaded their queen to start. it was a headlong flight, but not off and away, for as the founder and his man came up it was to find that the busy little insects were darting to and fro, as if bound to describe as many elongated diamonds as they could in the hot sunshine. there was a sharp angry buzzing hum in the air, and, after running into the kitchen, tom came back with a broken poker and the brass preserving-pan, which he belaboured wildly like a gong, evidently under the belief that the bees would be charmed or stunned into repose. "nothing like dinging 'em well, master," he cried, as the bees darted here and there. "they won't sting thee, mistress. there, look at the pretties!" he cried. "well done! what a cast, and as big as a may-day swarm." this was as he saw that the queen had settled upon a pendent branch of a young plum-tree, the workers clustering round and over and under, and clinging one to the other, till there was a great insect mass, which made the bough drop lower and lower till it nearly touched the ground. "that be the very place to have 'em, master," he cried. "now, mistress, thou'lt take them, won't thee? it's a fine girt swarm. ye marn't be afraid, and they won't hurt thee. i'll fetch a hive." he trotted off, leaving father and daughter watching the great mass of bees hanging some two feet from the ground; and soon after tom croftly returned with a clean hive, which he busily rubbed with sugar dissolved in beer, while he held a bee-board under his arm. "now, mistress, art ready?" he cried. "nay, tom, i'll take them myself," said the founder. "we mustn't have her stung." he took the hive from his man, placed it beneath the great ball of insects, and gave the branch a quick sharp shake, with the result that nearly all fell into the hive. another shake sent in the rest, so that it seemed as if they must be crushed or infuriated into stinging him to death; but, though some rose and buzzed around his head, he quietly placed the bee-board, handed to him by tom, over the open hive, deftly reversed it, placed it under the shade of the tree, and left it there for the insects to settle in their new home. the bees had been left but a few minutes, when, with his face lit up with smiles, the founder exclaimed, "why, mace, that's been a warm job. tom croftly would like a mug of ale to drink success to the swarm." "and you will have one, too, under the apple-tree, father; and--just one pipe." "get out!" cried the founder, "putting temptation in a weak man's way." but he went to the large seat under the old apple-tree, that spread its longest branches over the pool, and had just settled himself down as mace returned with his big silver tankard, pipe, and tobacco. "hah! that's prime!" he said, as he seated himself in an easier position, gazing through his half-closed eyes at his luxuriant garden and the glistening surface of the pool. "why, here comes the parson. hey there, master peasegood: just in time!" the stout clerk had seen the founder in his garden, and came panting up, his face seeming to grow broader as he neared the apple-tree. "hah!" he sighed, shaking hands as he sat down, "what weak creatures mortals are. here have i been murmuring against the heat, and the great burden of flesh i have to bear, and all the time there is rest and refreshment waiting to be offered to me. mace, my darling, if i were not a parson, i'd say by the hand of an angel. thanks, child, thanks! cobbe, here's thy good health, man. may'st thou never be as fat as i." he drank heartily and passed the flagon to the founder, who tapped the lid up and down as he said with a look of pride: "my own barley, parson--malted myself; my own hops--grew yonder; and the ale--brewed in my own tub. good as dame beckley's home-made wine, eh?" "don't talk about it, goodman," cried the parson, with a look of disgust. "come, thou hast raised a desire to take the taste out of my mouth that seemed to come in. give me the flagon once again." the founder passed the ale, and the visitor took another draught of so vigorous a kind that, after the operation, mace started off to refill the vessel. "ah!" sighed master peasegood, "the dreadful draughts that good, weak woman has presented me to drink are something terrible to think of:-- agrimony tea, balm wine, camomile tea, and a score more; but the worst of all is that dreadful juice of her sour well-squeezed grapes, that she calleth wine. master cobbe, will you kindly pass the ale, and methinks i'll take a pipe." the parson dined with them, and stayed on as if to supper; tom croftly enjoying the rest of his holiday his own way, which was in "terrifying weeds," as he called it, chopping away with a hoe at the luxuriance that sprang up in the moist, fertile garden. in the evening the seat beneath the apple-tree was occupied, and they sat and talked as the soft running murmur of the water came pleasantly to their ears, while mace, in the enjoyment of the pleasant hours, and forgetful of her love-troubles for the time, worked as long as she could see. sir mark was forgotten, and, in spite of one painful remembrance, gil's bronzed, handsome face filled her fancy as she listened to the whirr of the nightjar from the oak plantation, and from the bosky clumps away towards the ironstone hills the thrush's evening hymn; and then away and away for miles till the sweet songs sounded faint and died away. sweet halt in the journey of her life. sweet music of water and song-bird. sweet scent of rose and clematis climbing round the windows of the house. the very air laden with sweetness, so that mace asked herself why she had ever felt unhappy when she was surrounded by such joys. not one word or thought had for hours been given to sir mark, and he had, as it were, dropped out of her memory for the time, till, just as supper was ready, mace saw tom croftly making signs to her with the handle of his hoe. she rose, and left her father talking earnestly with the parson, to go to where the foundryman was standing waiting for her to come. "i've about terrified all them weeds, mistress," he said, "and i'm going home. the bees be all right, and i've had a rare fine day; but there be some'at as i want to say to thee, child, and i don't quite like to speak." "what is it, tom?" said mace. "is it any thing i can do for you?" "yes, mistress, it be; though i beant quite sattled in my mind whether i ought to tell'ee. did that there trug as i made you do, mistress?" "oh, capitally, tom. it just holds enough fruit for one day's picking." "that be right, mistress, and i be glad. i got the best 'ood i could. all alder 'ood, and well seasoned; and--" "you want me to do something for you, tom?" "well, yes, mistress. my pretty little mistress as i've knowed ever since thou couldst toddle. thou won't be hurt like and rate me if i speak?" "no, tom, i will not," said mace, wondering what his request would be. "then don't you be guiled into listening unto that fine london spark, mistress, for he's a bad 'un, fond o' wenching, and not good enough for thee." tom croftly did not wait for an answer to his prayer, but hurried away in a shamefaced fashion, leaving mace with her breast heaving and the colour burning in her cheeks. the tears rose to her eyes, and she seemed to awaken once more to the realities of the present, and, as if to complete the disillusioning of her heart, she heard the tramp of a horse, and as she rejoined her father she heard the stout parson say-- "hey, master cobbe, here comes thy gay visitor. i think i'll not stay supper. i'll say good-night. ah, mace, my child, you there? farewell, my darling. good-night." he rolled off, meeting sir mark by the bridge, as the latter caught sight of mace's dress through the trees, and effectually blocking the knight's way as he tried to be polite, till such time as mace had reached her room to sit for hours thinking of sir mark's return. then she found herself wondering what gil was doing, and whether she ought ever to give him a thought now as she recalled the scene which she had witnessed with mistress anne. volume , chapter xvii. how gil and sir mark measured swords. "a courtier," said sir mark, smiling, "well perhaps i am; but see how i have taken to this rustic, delicious life. i have felt like another man since i have been here." "indeed, sir mark," said mace gravely, as they stood a couple of evenings later in the founder's hayfield, where the stack now stood waiting for its crowning of straw. "yes, indeed," he cried. "look here; i have been with your men to-day and yesterday when they piled up this sweet-scented hay, and i am growing quite a farmer. i know that master cobbe was rather too hurried in getting it up, and that it reeks too much, and that if it were covered in now it would go bad." "indeed?" said mace, and speaking as if her thoughts were far away. "yes, indeed," he cried; "and i am growing wise in gun-casting and powder-making. i am learning day by day; but above all, sweet mace, i am learning how vain and hollow is the world to which i have belonged, and how happiness is not to be found there." "you are talking in riddles, sir mark," replied mace, dragging herself back as it were to listen to his words. "read my riddles, then," he cried, in a low tone, as he laid his hand upon her arm, and arrested her by the meadow-path. "mace, dearest, listen to me--but for a few moments. no, no; do not hasten--the evening is early yet, and where could be fitter place for what i would say than this sweetly-scented mead, where the soft evening breeze seems to whisper of that which fills my heart? mace, dearest, i love you with all my heart." "sir mark," she said, turning to look half wonderingly, half in anger, in his flushed face, "do you forget that you are my father's guest; that this is no place of gallantry, but that i, his simple, country-born child, am a mere rustic, and unfit for such as you?" "unfit!" he cried. "shame, when you are beautiful as the fairest woman of king james's court." "the evening is growing damp, sir mark," said mace coldly. "why are you so distant?" he whispered, trying to take her hand. "nay, nay, this is too bad, you must have seen, you must know, that i love you." "i have seen, sir, that it has pleased you to pass compliments, as seems to be a favourite habit of yours, and you, sir, must have seen that they caused me pain." "pain? when i'd give my right hand, my very life, to save you from a single pang! mace, you know why i have lingered here, even to getting in disgrace with my royal master, that i might be near you; and now for reward you grow cold as if we had never met before." "sir mark, i must return home." "yes, directly, sweet; but, mace, listen to me. you cannot, you will not, be so cold as this?" "sir mark," replied the girl, "does my father know that you meant to speak to me thus?" "pest on her particular ways," he muttered. then aloud, "no; but he shall know, if you wish it, sweet." "if i wish it, sir mark! i do wish it; and tell him at the same time what i tell you now, that i say i cannot listen to your words." he was so taken aback by her firmness that she swung open the gate and passed hastily along the road leading to the house, looking excited, tearful, and greatly agitated--a state of agitation increased as she encountered gil half-way, and knew that he must see her excited manner. "mace," he said, sternly, "i want a few words with you." "not now; not now," she said. "yes, now," he cried, angrily. "i cannot bear this coldness longer. you must, you shall, listen to me." "no, no," she cried; "another time." "why another time?" he said. "ah, i see," he cried, with jealous fury, for, glancing beyond her, he suddenly became aware of the figure of sir mark approaching them; and, turning a curious, inquiring look upon the girl, he glanced back at sir mark. "there is the reason, then. and it is for this gay court-bird that rough gilbert carr is thrown aside." had it been lighter he would not, in his then excited mood, have read aright the look of reproach in the poor girl's face as she hurried onward to hide the burning tears that flooded her eyes, and reached home to find father brisdone waiting by the garden-gate. "ah, my child," he said, saluting her; "a goodly evening. how sweet the wild-flowers smell! why, what is wrong? you seem in trouble." "yes, yes, father," she whispered, excitedly. "a sudden fear has assailed me. go down towards the meadow, follow them into the wood, if they have gone there; my heart tells of mischief." "they? who, child?" said the father, quickly. "sir mark--gilbert carr. i fear they will quarrel." "have they cause?" said the father, inquiringly. "here is master peasegood. he was to meet me. well met, brother joseph," he said, as the stout clerk waddled up. "leave it to us, dear child, and we will bring these mad boy's to their senses." "mad boys--senses!" cried master peasegood, mopping his face. "what is wrong? you don't mean that this sir mark and the captain--? oh fie, mace, my child, fie!" "master peasegood, if you have any feeling for me," cried mace, in hot indignation, "go and interpose before there is mischief done." "phew!" whistled the clerk. "brother brisdone, come along." it was time they started, especially as master peasegood's bravest pace was a very slow one, for no sooner had mace hurried away than, with his anger and jealousy completely mastering him, gil strode towards sir mark, who, on seeing him approach, far from attempting to avoid the meeting, leaned back against the gate, and stared at his rival with a cool exasperating mien. gilbert carr had been a fighting-man from the time he had first learned to handle a sword; he had also been in command of a ship in many a perilous time, and the result of his training had been to teach him the necessity of coolness in danger. this was a perilous time, and from old custom he began at once to master his excitement, and prepare himself for the encounter that he felt must take place. he was as hot and determined as ever, but he felt that he must gain the mastery over this court gallant, or he would never feel happy more. it would result in his increasing mace's displeasure perhaps, but in his cooler moments he might feel the deepest sorrow for having caused her pain. all the same, though, the thought came upon him that mace's name must be left out of the quarrel. it would be cruel in the extreme to have it known far and wide that he and this knight had fought about mace cobbe. it would be like a blow at her reputation, and, besides, whatever he might know in his heart of hearts, sir mark should not have the satisfaction of jeering at him as the successful lover. no, there should be some other cause for the fight that would ensue, and it was easy to find one. easier than gilbert carr expected, for sir mark, stung by disappointment and the cold manner in which mace had received his declaration, after he had, as he thought, carefully laid siege to and won her, was just in the humour to quarrel with a fly. from where he stood he had seen gil stop and speak to the maiden, and it seemed to him that she had sent gil on to chastise him for his insolence. "a confounded little rustic coquette!" he muttered; "and now she sends her bully to me. curse him, he thinks i am weak with illness and easily managed. let him mind, or i may deal differently with him to what i did with the old founder." as gil came nearer, asking himself how he should commence the quarrel, sir mark's rage was ready to master him, for he began to feel that all his courtly adulation had been thrown away; that the founder's daughter had listened in her calm, self-contained way, while he had fooled himself into the belief that he was moulding her, like soft wax, to his will; and all the time this carr held the key of her heart, and was preferred. "curse him, let him mind," he muttered. "i know one or two stoccatos that he can never have learned; and if i had him at my feet, run through the body, why it would be a service to king james, for the fellow is no better than a buccaneer." gil came steadily up, towards the gate, still at a loss what to say, when sir mark insolently faced him, drew himself up, and, staring from his crown to his feet and back again, said sharply,-- "were you sent to talk to me?" "no," said gil, sharply, "i was not." "oh!" replied sir mark, caressing his pointed beard; "i thought, perhaps, the young lady of--" "hold that prating tongue," cried gil, angrily, "or i may slit it, to teach it manners. i was not sent to talk to you, but i came to seek and know more of the man who has thought proper to settle himself down here. hark ye! my good knight and follower of king james, the solomon, the wise hater of tobacco, i want to know your business?" "let us see," replied sir mark, insolently. "are you authorised to inquire? recollect, fellow, that you are addressing one of his majesty's officers." "i authorise myself," said gil, quietly, as he fought hard to keep down his rage and be cool. "as for his majesty and his officers, tell him that down here in the south are some staunch men, who care no more for him, his laws, and his thick-tongued utterances, than they do for his messengers, however gaily they may be clad." "you know, i suppose, that i could have you seized, good fellow, and laid by the heels in prison till such time as it pleased his majesty to have you tried for sedition, and then hung or shot for the peace of his land." "a way that would seem most meet to you, i presume," said gil, quietly. "he is beside himself with rage, and yet trying to madden me, but i'll keep cool and urge him on," thought sir mark. "i shall strike him directly, if he talks to me like that," thought gil. "let me see," said sir mark, gazing at his rival with half-closed eyes; "i have pretty well mastered your life, my good fellow; and the country would be purified if you were away. you are one of raleigh's crew of buccanneering rufflers." "sir," cried gil, proudly, "i am the son of one of the band of brave men who went out with that injured knight, and who look with the most utter contempt upon the north-country faithless puppet who sent him to the block. pah; he and his followers stink in the nostrils of all good men and true. let me see," cried gil, seizing his opportunity, "by your broad speech, sir, you are one of the paltry, ragged scots who came south with solomon to seek a home." "you lie, you scurrilous knave," said sir mark, stung to the quick by this last; "i am the son of a gentleman, who knows how to avenge an insult." as he spoke he sprang forward and struck gil in the chest with the back of his hand. the blow was sharply given, and with all the young man's force; but gil did not budge an inch. this was what he sought, and, drawing back from the gate, he made way for the knight to pass. sir mark, evidently fearing treachery, drew his sword, but gil had no thought of foul play. "i make way for you, sir mark," he said, grimly. "walk on first, sir, while you can." sir mark started at the grim significance of his companion's words; and then, full of doubt in the other's honesty, he strode along a path pointed out by his rival, fighting hard to keep from looking back to see if he were in danger of a treacherous blow. "turn to the left, sir mark," said gil, suddenly; "i presume you do not wish our meeting to be interrupted, and it may be if we stay within the wood." "where would you go, then?" cried sir mark, sharply, for he felt his courage fail somewhat in the presence of a man who grew cooler each moment. "the lower furnace-house seems the likeliest spot to me," said gil, quickly. "it will be deserted at this hour; there will be a good light from the roasting ore, and the clash of our swords will be unheard. moreover, there will be a shorter distance to carry the body of the man who falls." sir mark shuddered, but he made no sign; and, following the direction pointed out by gil, the two young men came out of the wood below the wheel, crossed the stream by a plank bridge, and then, passing through two or three thick plantations, surrounding as many powder-sheds, they entered a wide stone building, whose floor was of furnace-cinder and charcoal; and, as they stood face to face, the place was far more light than the wood. without another word, gil divested himself of cap and doublet, drawing his sword, and throwing down belt and sheath, in all of which he was imitated by sir mark, who, now that he was face to face with the peril, seemed to lose a good deal of his nervousness, though the coolness of his enemy staggered him. "your sword, sir," said gil, holding out his hand; but sir mark shrank back, and stood upon his defence. "i merely wished to measure them," said gil, contemptuously, as he threw his own upon the charcoal floor. "measure them yourself." shamed by his rival's greater show of confidence, sir mark made an effort over his suspicious nature, picked up gil's sword, and, holding both by the blades as they flashed in the warm red glow of the furnace, he handed them to gil. "nay," he said; "measure them yourself." gil smiled as he took the weapons, laid the blades together, and finding his own to be fully three inches the longer, he handed it by the blade to sir mark. "that is not my weapon," said the latter, suspiciously. "give me my own sword, fellow." "not i," said gil; "mine is three inches longer in the blade, and i am not going to have it said that i killed thee by taking a foul advantage. we have no seconds, sir." sir mark hesitated for a few moments, and then, with the longer weapon, placed himself on guard with a good deal of the ceremony taught in the fencing-schools, while gil quietly crossed swords with him, and the fight began. it was a curious sight in that black-floored building, lit by the ruddy glow of the charcoal-furnace, whose illuminating powers sufficed to produce a ruddy twilight--nothing more--through which the figures of the contending men could be seen in rapid motion, as their flashing blades gritted edge against edge, and passes were rapidly exchanged. both fenced well, and at the end of a couple of minutes they fell back by mutual consent. no advantage had been obtained on either side. each of them had, however, fully awakened to the fact that he had no contemptible enemy to deal with; and as with recovered breath they crossed swords once more it was with increased caution, and pass and parry followed with each exerting all his skill. gil fought, in spite of his apparent calmness, with terrible fury, for he was face to face with the man whom he believed to have blasted his happiness, and three times over the keenly-pointed blade he held passed through his adversary's linen shirt, literally grazing the skin. on his own side in the dim light he had had enough to do to hold his own, for it was only by the most skilful fencing that he was able to throw aside sir mark's fierce thrusts, one of which inflicted a skin wound in his shoulder, and another grazed his hip. they pressed each other in turn to and fro near the furnace-mouth, where the man who faced it gained no advantage, for he was thrown up so distinctly to his adversary's view, and then back right into the gloomiest corner of the great building, where it was so dark that the danger was the same. the swords gritted and flashed once or twice, emitting faint sparks; the contending men's breath came thicker and faster as they strove on, the sweat in the heated place trickling down their faces in glittering beads; and the fight had grown furious as each, yielding to the fierce excitement of standing face to face with an enemy, strove with all his might to rob that foeman of his life. at last, being the stronger and more skilful with his weapon, gil drove his adversary back, step by step, delivering thrusts with lightning-like rapidity, every one as it succeeded the other being more feebly parried; and at last, with a strange sense of gratified passion in his breast, gil pressed him more sorely, as he felt that he was in his power, when, just as he felt that victory was his, the tables were turned, for sir mark's sword which he held snapped short off at the hilt, and it was only by stepping sharply back that gil saved his life. for, beside himself with fury, sir mark seized the opportunity, and aimed so deadly a thrust that it must have passed through his opponent's body. gil's rapid retrograde movement saved him, however, for the moment, though he tripped over the remains of a mould, and fell headlong at his adversary's feet. "slain in fair fight," cried sir mark, exultantly, as, leaping forward, he placed his foot upon his adversary's chest, and thrust at his throat. "not yet," cried gil, hoarsely. "i am a sailor." as he spoke he caught the descending blade in his hand, turned it aside, and it passed into the charcoal floor, while, before sir mark could repeat his thrust, he was sent staggering back as gil sprang to his feet. then, sharply striking aside a fresh thrust, gil closed with his adversary; there was a brief struggle; with one hand holding sir mark's sword-wrist, the other raised on high, he was about to strike with his short keen dagger, when a loud cry arrested him, and mace, followed by her father and his foreman croftly, ran in. "shame on thee, gilbert carr," cried mace, as she rushed between the adversaries. "is this thy conduct towards my father's guest?" "thy father's guest would have run me through, mistress," he said, curtly. "i did but fight for life." "i'll have no more of this," cried the founder, fiercely. "gilbert carr, there have been too much of thy swashbuckling ways." "nay, master cobbe, you are too hard upon me," said gil. "it was a fair fight, fairly provoked." "i'll not have my child made the prize for any fighting," cried the founder, hotly. "mace, this is your doing." "if gilbert carr made me the object for which his sword was bared," cried mace, coldly, "he might have left it in its sheath." "i have not deserved this at your hands, mace," whispered gil. "it is cruel, indeed." mace spoke not, but as she saw her lover's emotion she felt that she would rather bite out her tongue than say such words again. "i forbade you my place, gil carr," cried the founder. "you are no friend to me. sir mark is my guest, and an officer of the king, whom you have assailed, so get you gone ere the officers of justice lay you by the heels." "i fear no officers of justice," cried gil, angrily; "and i presume sir mark is too much of a gentleman to shelter himself behind their staves." "but you need fear them," cried the founder angrily. "what is this i hear of abel churr?" "what has he dared to tell?" cried gil, forgetting himself for the moment. "men with mute lips tell nought," said the founder. "where is abel churr?" "i know not," replied gil. "nay, but you should know," continued the founder, as master peasegood and father brisdone came panting in from an unsuccessful search. "tom croftly, tell what you heard. abel churr was an idle raff, but he was a man, and one of us here." as he spoke mace's countenance changed, and she drew nearer to gil. "i don't know much, master," said the foundryman slowly, "only that seven days ago i saw abel churr half drunken, and he was boasting that he knew a secret of the captain's there which would hang him if it was known." "he must have told you, too, father brisdone," said master peasegood, quickly. "abel churr did confess to me when i encountered him in the woods, brother peasegood, but the words uttered in confession are sacred. i cannot tell." "not if a man's character is at stake," cried master peasegood. "i'll soon end this," said the founder, as gil quietly replaced his doublet and took his sword from sir mark's hand. "gil carr, speak out like a man. where is abel churr?" "i do not know," replied gil, firmly. "had he some secret of yours?" gil paused for a moment, and his eyes encountered those of mace gazing at him in a beseeching way, when a change seemed to come over him, and he replied frankly-- "yes." "what was it?" "a secret that i wished to keep." "how did he find it out?" said the founder. "how do i know, sir? by creeping through the wood, and dogging my steps, i suppose." "when did you see him last?" said the founder. "a week ago." "where?" "in the woods," replied gil, who submitted to the examination as it were in obedience to mace's eyes. "and what passed there?" said the founder. "i'll tell you," replied gil. "i found him prying into my affairs, and i seized him." "and threatened him?" "yes; i swore i would hang him to the yard-arm of my ship if i caught him again." "yes--and then?" "then i let him go." "and since then?" "i have not seen him since." mace's eyes brightened with satisfaction, and gil, as he stood there alone, felt recompensed for much of the past, as it seemed to him that now he was in trouble she was turning to him. "sir thomas beckley must know this," cried the founder. "the suspicion is that abel churr has been foully dealt with, and that you, gilbert carr, are to blame." "and i say that whoever charges me with hurt to abel churr lies," cried gil, hotly. "the scoundrel had a secret of mine in his keeping, and i did threaten him, but i let him go when i had caught him robbing me, with such a warning that i felt he would never come again." there was truth in his bearing, but somehow there was only one present who believed him, as he stood there alone, while the founder said coldly, "gilbert carr, there's a dark suspicion hanging over thee. it may be that the deed was not done by thee, but by orders to thy men; but, anyway, it behoves thee to clear thyself by finding abel churr. till you can do that, come upon my premises no more. sir mark, we are a rough people here, and set at naught some of the laws, but we hold a man's life in good esteem. i shall see sir thomas, our justice, in the morning, and no stone will be left unturned to find this wretched man." "gilbert carr," said master peasegood, advancing; "speak out once more-- do you know aught of this wretched man?" "i have said all i know, master peasegood," replied gil, quietly. "i can say no more." "we must wait, master cobbe," said the parson. "seven days are but a short time. he will come back perhaps ere long." "i hope he will," said the founder, firmly. "gilbert carr, this is my land, and no place for thee." gil looked at him angrily, and then at mace, whose glance disarmed him once again. "as you will, master cobbe," he said. "some day perhaps you may regret this harshness to so old a friend. mace, as i am to be dismissed, good-bye till we meet again--in better times." he advanced and held out his hand, but sir mark, who was near her, interposed. "stand back, sir," he said; "no man with such a suspicion resting upon him shall touch mistress cobbe's hand." gil seized him by the shoulder, and with one swing hurled him aside. "your hand, mace cobbe," he said, holding out his own, in which she laid hers for a few moments, before hurrying to her father's side. a dead silence had fallen on the group, and as gil turned to go he felt that appearances were sadly against him, though it would be vain to say more then. striding across the foundry he made for the open door, angry even unto passion, but helpless under the pressure of opinion. he was not prepared for the fresh reverse that he encountered, as, after turning to exchange a fierce glance with sir mark, which said plainly enough, "we shall meet again," he was half startled by finding his way barred by mother goodhugh, who was standing in the doorway, full in the red light cast by the furnace. he drew back as the old woman moved her stick and stepped into the building. "is he to be screened?" she cried aloud. "i say, is he to be screened? your friend, master cobbe--the friend of your child--the man you mean to make your son. i say, is he to be screened?" "hold thy prate," cried the founder, angrily. "mother goodhugh, i am in no humour to listen to thee now." "nay, but thou shalt listen. i say is he to be screened? gil carr," she cried, turning upon him sharply, "where is abel churr?" "stand aside, woman," cried gil. "i know not." "but you do know," cried mother goodhugh. "he was my only friend, and i will have all brought to light. he went to follow you in the forest. you met him--speak, did you not meet him?" "i did," said gil sharply. "and you murdered him," cried the old woman. "ha, ha, ha! as i said--as i said; more care for the house of cobbe. the curses fall thick and fast. as i said, as i said. yes, get you gone, murderer, and you, good people, have the forest searched for the remains of his victim. he must be found--he must be found." gil turned upon her angrily, but he did not speak. he strode from the building, out into the summer night, hot and angry; and as he went along the lane he could hear the old woman's shrillest tone as she shouted after him; and even the hurrying water in the race towards the wheel seemed to repeat the word "murderer," in his ears. volume , chapter xviii. how a casement was opened. in the days which followed there was a diligent search for abel churr, in which gilbert carr's men joined hands with those of the founder, for reasons best known to gil; and every likely place in the forest was searched save the ravine leading to the cave entry, and that was gone over by gil's men alone. at times there might be one or two who felt disposed to give gil the credit of having made away with a man who had been a spy upon his actions, but very little was said on the matter, the common people, as a body, liking the captain and his men, whose return from a voyage was heartily welcomed, even though at times they were rather more than free. those who spoke out and sided with mother goodhugh received hints to keep their tongues more quiet, the hints being traceable to wat kilby; but there was but little need to speak. gil was too great a favourite; and when there was some talk (on the part of sir thomas beckley) of the captain being arrested and inquisitions made, sir thomas received so broad a hint from his daughter not to interfere with gil, and also from the captain's followers, to let matters rest, that he hastily obeyed. "i'm not going to blame thee, skipper," said wat kilby, one day when the heat of the search was over; "but wouldn't it have been better to have shut him up for a bit till we started, and then have taken him away?" the captain turned sharply round upon him. "look here, wat," he said; "do you believe that i have murdered abel churr?" "lord, no, lad, not murdered; that be too terrifying a word. pooked him--executed him for a spy--pooked him; and quite right too." "once for all," cried the captain, "let it be fully understood by you, and you can tell the men, that i caught abel churr in the store, and, after frightening him, i let him go, making him swear that he would never approach the place or divulge its position to a soul." "do you want me to tell the lads that?" said wat. "yes, of course." "nay, then i'm a mutineer. i'm not going to help 'em to such words as that." "why not?" "why not, skipper? because it would lower you in the eyes of every man of the crew. what! after the oath we swore, and after the way the boys have kept it, for you, our captain, to go and let loose a varmin who had broken in and was robbing you, perhaps hunting out the savings and trade every man has got stored up here? nay, captain, it would be degrading you in the eyes of all." "what would you have done, then?" "what would i have done?" said wat. "why, same as you did--killed him like the varmin he was, and buried him in the mixen or under the stones." "you really believe, then, that i killed this man in cold blood?" "why, of course, skipper; you couldn't do otherwise. as to a man and cold blood! bah! he was a rat, and he was caught. do you know how the lads searched the little valley?" "no." "crept through the wood, pooked the grass aside, and sat down and smoked," said wat with a chuckle. "then they did not properly search it?" "of course not," cried wat, gruffly. "you don't suppose they wanted to find that girt fox, do you?" "wat," cried the captain angrily, "you disobeyed my orders. that place shall be searched, and that at once." "what--and try to warm up the scent again, captain? nay, he's sattled, let sleeping dogs lie. the world's all the better for there being no abel churr; and the adders and things can have a chance of marrying and having families without being pulled out of their holes by the tail." as he spoke, the old sailor turned away, and gil walked to the cottage where he had his temporary home. that night on the dark bank in front of the pool-house four glow-worms shone out for the first time for weeks, and gil carr walked across the little swing-bridge towards the founder's garden. the sight of a few glow-worms on that bank might have been expected after the many that had been placed there at various times by gil, but they never stayed long, for the blackbird or thrush generally made a meal of them; and when, on that night, mace went up to her room, glancing out as was her custom before drawing the blind, she knew that before long there would be some one waiting beneath the casement, and her heart began to beat. she had not seen gil since the evening of his encounter with sir mark, and, truth to tell, she had watched night after night to see if he would try to see her, and sad of heart had gone to her sleepless couch without a sign. sir mark was still there, but was to leave in a day or two, having sent on his report of the works, and pleading ill-health as a reason for staying longer. but his conduct to her had changed. there was less of the sighing gallant in his manner, though he appeared pained by her coldness, and treated her with studied respect. the founder and he seemed to be growing firm friends, though mace with pain saw that the visitor was gaining an ascendancy over her father's actions that augured no future good. janet was with her in her room that night, and meaningly drew her attention to the tiny lights, but received so sharp a look for her pains that she ventured to say no more, and soon after left, the room to go and stand irresolutely in the passage, thinking. "he's there," she said, with malicious glee lighting up her eyes; "and he's forbidden to come. he played with me and tricked me, professing so much and then laughing at me, and telling me i was not to listen to old wat kilby. suppose i trick him." she paused, thinking for a few moments, and then slipping into a small room--half dressing-room, half bureau--she took a cloak and hood from a peg and slipped them on. meanwhile gil had passed softly into the garden, and stood waiting in the darkness of the summer night, to see if mace's looks towards him had any meaning, and he had not waited long before a faint click told him that the casement had been opened. "mace." "gil." "why have you come?" "because you were in trouble, gil, and i wished to say a word or two of comfort, and to ask you of abel churr." "i know what you would say," he said, softly. "am i guilty? is't not so?" "yes." he laughed gently as he strained his eyes to try and make out the outlines of her sweet face. "mace," he said, "it is like old times to be here again, and there is more light and hope in my heart than there has been for weeks. let me answer you with another question. if i were guilty, mace, should i be here?" "no," she said softly, as her hand stole down, white and soft, amongst the roses, to be seized and held to his breast. "but tell me, gil, with your own lips, that you are innocent; that this charge is not true, and i will believe you." "mace, child, so help me--" "stop," she whispered, hastily; "the man who loves me needs no oaths. tell me on your word, gil, as a gentleman, that you are guiltless, and i will believe." "there is my hand," he whispered; "place yours within it. there; does it burn?" "no," she whispered; "it is cool and soft." "yes," he said, quietly; "but if it were stained with abel churr's blood it would burn and flush at the touch of your innocent palm. if i said there had never been blood upon it, child, i should lie; but it has been the blood of an enemy, shed in fair fight; and as often," he added, with a laugh, "it has been my own. mace, you have never misjudged me, darling? tell me that you never believed me to be the assassin they would make me out." "never, gil." "thank god, then, that i was suspected." "what?" she cried, starting. "i say thank god that i was suspected." "why?" "because it has swept away the clouds between us, and turned your gentle heart to me because i was in pain and trouble: that is all." "is that all, gil? did i ever turn from thee?" she faltered. "yes," he said with a half-laugh, "you believed me false and trifling with mistress anne beckley, whom i had saved from the annoyance offered by my men; and i, poor silly-pated fool, believed you to care for that coxcomb sir mark, whom, thank heaven, you saved from an unkindly blow. yes, sweet, i have been a fool, a jealous, weak, but always loving fool. forgive me, for i must go." "forgive you, gil? will you forgive me my want of trust?" "with all my heart, sweet; and now i must leave you. mace, child, thou art my wife, or the wife of no man, come what may. if i stay from you it is because i would not anger thy father by these pitiful nightly visits. i love you too well, child, to come like this. perhaps in a week or two i shall be away across the seas, where night and day your face will be my hope; mace, your dear eyes will be the stars by which i steer. good-bye, sweet, good-bye." he held her hand tightly in his, and it clung to his in return. then placing his left hand on the heavy trellis, and a foot on the sill below her casement, he raised himself to a level with her face, and as he drew her to him lips touched lips for a brief moment, and then he lightly dropped back again, as a quick rustling noise, and a hasty exclamation, followed by steps, fell upon his ear. "i must go," he whispered, "for both our sakes. good-bye." "good-bye." plain, homely words; but they meant much as spoken then. turning once more to gaze up at the window, gil was walking rapidly the next moment towards the path, when a dark figure started up in his way. end of volume i. volume , chapter i. how janet was clasped in the wrong arms. a signal made with four glow-worms can be seen by many who happen to be gazing out into the darkness of the night. janet had seen them plainly, and, as it happened, so had the founder, who took down--and buckled on his sword, and then crept cautiously to sir mark's chamber. "are you awake?" he whispered. "yes, yes," cried sir mark, starting up with a cry; "is aught the matter?" "hush, man," whispered the founder, "or you'll alarm the house. one would think i had told thee that one was sotting spark to the powder-barrels in the cellar." "powder-barrels in the cellar?" said sir mark, in a hoarse whisper. "of course. where would'st have them for safety? tut, man, it is not guido fawkes who has come. he is here." "what, fawkes?" "nay, how dense thou art. up and dress quickly. he is in the garden, i'll wager, trying to keep tryst with my child. dress quickly, and bring thy sword. if he be not pricked to-night as a warning my name is not cobbe. i'll wait thee in the passage below." he slipped out on to the broad landing, and waited, when, to his surprise and rage, he saw a figure hooded and cloaked, glide down the stairs and out of the front door, which creaked lightly as the girl passed through. "curse her!" he muttered. "i could slay her at once, but i'll take her with him. pest on this fellow, how long he is!" he was completely out of patience when he heard the stairs creak, and sir mark crept softly down. "quick!" the founder cried, "or we shall be too late. now," he whispered, "go you and watch, sword in hand, by the bridge. you can manage without going in this time, while i search the garden. we'll trap him to-night. how dare he come?" the couple separated, and, each taking his apportioned part, gil carr's chance of escape seemed small indeed. he was beneath mace's window, and in another minute the founder, sword in hand, would have been upon him, had not a faint cry from another part of the garden drawn him aside to where, dimly enough, he could see mace's cloak and hood beside a tall dark figure. the founder stood watching for a few minutes, and, sooth to say, hesitating; for now it had come to a point, he was loth to injure gil, partly from a latent liking for him, partly because of his power amongst the people of the place. but the recollection of abel churr's disappearance made his heart grow stern, and, with the full determination to chastise gil for his insolence in coming to the house after being so sternly forbidden, he cautiously advanced to where the figures were standing. the catching of a rose-thorn in his doublet and the sharp rustle the twig gave in being released sufficed to alarm the wearer of the cloak, and she glided quickly down the garden-walk with her companion, disappearing from the founder's gaze; and, though he followed them cautiously, they must have gone down some side-path, for he could not see them again. "pest on them!" he muttered. "they knew i was on the watch." under this impression he crept cautiously back towards the house, expecting to see them there; but, though he waited some time, there was no sign, and he went down the garden again, which, fortunately for gil, was sufficiently extensive to allow of the meeting in progress going on unheard. the founder was not aware of the fact, but more than once in the darkness he was literally hunting the two figures, which kept gliding on before him, avoiding him almost by a miracle, till in sheer weariness and disgust he returned to where sir mark was impatiently watching near the bridge. "well! hast seen them?" he said. "nay," said the founder, "only once. we'll wait here and see if they come." the words had scarcely left his lips before he uttered an exclamation, and ran towards the house, just in time to catch a dark figure stealing towards the door. "quick!" he whispered to sir mark, who had followed him; and, half-carrying the captive within doors, the founder tore aside the hood, exclaiming against his daughter for her wanton ways. "what will sir mark think of you?" he cried angrily. "he will--why, curse the girl; it's janet!" janet it was, who on the spur of the moment had masqueraded as her mistress, gone down the garden, and with throbbing heart thrown herself as she believed in gil's way. for he suddenly seized her in his arms, and, though she uttered a faint cry and escaped, she took care not to go beyond his vision, but led him a will-o'-the-wisp kind of dance from walk to walk, till, thinking she had been sufficiently coy, she stopped short, quite out of breath, and allowed herself to be caught. he who captured her was sharper of eyesight, and, in spite of the cloak and hood, not for a moment deceived. he had made too much use of his eyes by night for them to play him false; and, as once more he caught the girl in his arms, he held her tightly, exclaiming-- "why, janet, you pretty little witch, have i caught thee at last?" the girl no sooner felt the rough face of her captor against hers than she struggled vigorously, though in vain. "why, it be mas' wat kilby," she panted. "wat kilby it is, my darling," he replied in an amorous growl. "who did you think it was?" "never mind," cried the girl; "loose me, you wicked old bear, or i'll shriek for help. there--quick--there's some one coming." it was so true that wat kilby relaxed his grip, all but that upon one of the girl's wrists, and this he held as together they hurried through the garden on tiptoe, janet, becoming more amiable, whispering her companion to go cautiously "for heaven's sake!" he obeyed her, and together they glided from path to path of the great bosky, tree-shadowed garden, literally hunted from place to place by the founder, until, finding that he had given up the quest, janet freed herself from the grasp of wat kilby and made for the door, quite satisfied with her escapade, and only thinking now of getting safely back. "a horrible old bear!" she muttered; and then her heart sank, for a figure she knew to be that of her master made at her, and she was caught by the wrist. meanwhile, wat kilby, who had followed at a short distance, muttering to himself, and calling janet "a coy little craft," "a tricksey little caravel," and half-a-dozen more suitable nautical terms expressive of her distant ways and tempting prettiness, suddenly became aware of the danger to his leader. for the founder at the end of a few minutes came out of the house with sir mark, and posted himself where he would be certain to encounter gil as he came away. "and then there might be mischief," growled the old sailor. "if the skipper went down, it would break little beauty's heart; so it would if he pricked her father. this is the second time i've saved him through being here. wonder whether he'll be ungrateful enough to turn upon me now for doing a bit o' gentle courting on my own account. "ho, ho, ho," he chuckled; "just as if a man could ever be too old to love a pretty girl. old women are old women, and not much account; but a staunch, sturdy, seasoned man, why he's like old oak, and makes the best o' building wood. now, then, where's the skipper? it's high time for us to be sheering off." he pretty well knew from former observations where to encounter gil; and, creeping cautiously amongst the bushes, he waited his time, and rose up before him as he was making for the bridge. "all right, skipper," he whispered. "breakers ahead! hard down, and let's get back the other way." gil knew wat too well to think that he would deceive him or be mistaken, and, placing himself under his guidance, he followed him to the back of the garden, where they leaped the fence, and at last reached the edge of the pool. "there's no other way to get back without being seen, skipper," whispered wat. "we must wade across here; and, if it gets too deep, try a swim. they're watching to pook us by the bridge." "who is watching?" whispered gil. "mas' cobbe and that dandy jack." "let them watch!" muttered gil, as he thought of his parting from mace that night; and with light heart, and a feeling of readiness to encounter anything for his young love's sake, the young man followed his companion into the cold, dark waters of the pool. volume , chapter ii. how sir mark showed his heart. "have i drunk some love potion?" muttered sir mark to himself very early the next morning, "or am i going back to my calf-love days? here have i enjoyed more conquests than any man at the court. i came down to the moat, and pretty mistress anne beckley throws herself into my arms; then i come on here to find myself regularly taken--trapped as it were. she does what she likes with me, even as she does with that bully, carr. i fight against it, and make myself worse. i declare i will think of her no more, but go back and swear allegiance to pretty red-haired mistress anne, when mace's eyes rise up before me, and turn me from my way. she is so calm and sweet, and seems so pure, that i am beaten." he walked up and down the old parlour, where janet was bringing in the various preparations for the breakfast, coquetting about till she caught his eye and smiled and looked down, throwing out invitation after invitation, when, as she passed close to him, he caught her in his arms and kissed her, easily overcoming the girl's faint opposition, and repeating the salute till she broke away and made off, leaving him smiling at his success. "why, there isn't a woman living that i could not win," he said to himself. "bah! what an idiot i am. what are the kisses of such a creature as that worth compared to the slightest smile of such a girl as mace? i am sick at heart!" he walked up and down again, and just then janet came back, mincing and blushing, and making a great pretence of being terribly alarmed, when, to her disgust, she found that sir mark was so abstracted that he paid not the slightest heed to her presence, but walked straight to the window, and stood gazing out into the garden. poor janet's face was a study as she rattled the breakfast-plates and knives, thumped dishes down upon the table, and coughed to take the visitor's attention, but all in vain. she had rapidly recovered from the snubbing administered by her master, and was congratulating herself upon her conquest, when now, all at once, when the visitor's last kiss was still wet upon her lips, he had turned away. janet tried in vain to take his attention, and ended by flouncing out of the old parlour, hot with indignant wrath. "no," mused sir mark, whose eyes were resting upon mace, where, sweet and fresh as the flowers she was picking, she wandered down one of the garden-walks; "the old man is wrong. she is not the girl to trifle. she is not the woman a man might make his mistress. it is all folly about their meetings. carr may play the spanish gallant beneath her window, but if any meeting has been held it has been with that gamesome, wanton jade--janet." "how beautiful she is!" he muttered, as, forgetful of janet's presence and the kisses he had taken, he gazed with kindling eyes at the gentle, pallid face, lit up with the consciousness of love for gil and of his truth. for there was a happy smile on mace's lip that morning, and her face, that had of late been pale, was now tinged with a tender peachy bloom. there was grace in her every movement, and mark leslie's heart beat fast. "no," he said, "she is too pure and innocent to become the mistress of any man. curse it all, no one could be such a villain as to wrong her," he cried, with a sudden access of morality that had not existed in his composition a few weeks back. "she is lovely enough to be the wife of any man. suppose that simple stuff gown and white linen kerchief, cap, and cuffs were exchanged for a rich brocade, with jewels in her hair, and round that soft, sweet neck, which would tempt a man to risk his salvation that he might clasp it. curse me, i wish i were one of the flowers she is plucking with those delicious fingers. what does it mean--has she bewitched me, or, as i say, has some love-philtre been at work?" "curse me, if i care what it is!" he cried at last, excitedly, as he still gazed through the casement at the unconscious girl. "she'd be a wife for a prince. her knowledge is wonderful; her mien purity and sweetness combined; her voice low and silvery, as if music had assisted at her birth. why not win her and wed her, and at once?" "humph!" he muttered. "why not? old cobbe must be as rich as any jew, whilst i am as poor as a beggar. he'd be glad enough to see her dame leslie--dame mace leslie. how provoking that i must go so soon, when i might have been making sure my position. never mind, it may not be too late. and, curse me, i'll do it, for she is lovely." "ah, sir mark, stolen glances at that jade?" said the founder, who had just entered the room unperceived, and who was watching curiously the interest taken by the young man in his daughter. "master cobbe!" exclaimed sir mark, loudly and angrily. "shame upon you, sir, to speak of your child like that." "she should behave more seemly, then," said the founder, gruffly. "more seemly!" cried sir mark. "look at her. did'st ever see one more sweet and pure of mien? see the candour and gentleness upon her brow and lip. you are wrong, master cobbe, you are wrong; my life upon it you wrong her by your suspicions of her interviews with carr." "do i?" said the founder, hotly. "let's have her in, then, and ask her. i grant that she is too truthful to lie." "nay, nay!" cried sir mark, excitedly; "i would not have her insulted by such suspicions. your daughter is a lady. it would be cruel." "odds life, man," cried the founder, half-amused by the other's earnestness. "whom have we here--the king's champion?" "the queen's, you should say, master cobbe," replied the other. "master cobbe, you do not understand your daughter's ways." "i understand my own," said the founder, gruffly, "and i made her. she's my own flesh and blood, sir mark. bah! i understand her whims and follies better than you." "nay!" cried sir mark. "you roused me up last night to come and be a witness of the truth of thy suspicions that sweet mistress mace held clandestine meetings with captain carr, though i would have wagered my life upon the suspicions being false." "thou did'st not say such a word last night," said the founder drily. "nay, how could i force my opinion upon you?" said sir mark. "i could only follow, and pray that you were wrong; and what did you show me for result, when you had, as you thought, forced me to be an unwilling witness of sweet mistress mace's shame?" "i saw no unwillingness," said the founder, drily; "i thought thou obeyed'st it with eager joy." "nay, but i was unwilling: and my alacrity was to have revenge upon the man who was searing my poor heart. and then what did you show me when you had made your capture? that wretched drab of a serving-girl." "am i?" muttered janet, who had half entered the room, and had heard his words. "well, i am wrong," growled the founder; "and i am glad of it. i'd give something to know that gil carr's visits had all been to see yon wench." "rely upon it they were, master cobbe. my life upon it they were," said sir mark, eagerly. "hah!" ejaculated the founder; "rely upon it, eh? and why, pray, sir mark, dost thou take so sudden an interest in my child?" "sudden, sir? nay, it is not sudden. from the first moment i saw mistress mace--" "thou loved'st her. of course; the old story that has been poured into silly maidens' ears from the beginning of the world. stop, sir, listen to me," he continued, as sir mark was about to speak. "i am not a learned theology man, like master peasegood or father brisdone, but, as you say, i'd wager my life that, when the serpent urged pretty little, innocent mistress eve to take the forbidden fruit, he gave her a lesson or two in the art of love, and upset her for the rest of her life." "maybe he did," said sir mark, smiling; "but the serpent was insincere, and i am no serpent." "how do i know that, young man?" said the founder, laying his hand upon the other's breast. "i've been thinking a good deal about your visit lately, and i will tell you flat that i have kept you here as a scarecrow." "a scarecrow?" "yes, to frighten off that marauding kite, gil carr, who was getting far too sweet upon my simple child." "scarecrow! serpent! nay, master cobbe, i am neither," cried sir mark, whose eyes had rested upon mace as her father spoke, and gained such an access of passion as they had lit bee-like on the honey-scented blossom that he was ready to speak out plainly now. "as i said before, how do i know that?" "because i tell you now, as a gentleman of his majesty king james's household, that i love mistress mace with all my heart." "and i tell thee flat again, sir mark, that, gentleman of his majesty king james's household though you be, i would sooner believe the words as coming from some simple gentleman of our parts." "what am i to say to you, then?" said sir mark, excitedly. "nothing at all," replied the founder, bluntly. "of course you love the girl--everyone does who sees her; but what of that?" "what of that? why, master cobbe, i would fain make her my dear wife." "thy wife? my little mace--my simple-hearted child, wife of a gay spark of a courtier--a knight of king james. nonsense, man; nonsense! trash!" "it does take thee by surprise, no doubt," said sir mark, with a little hauteur; "but it would not be the first time that a knight of my position had stooped to many a worthy yeoman's daughter." "thou'rt a modest youth," said the founder, with a dry chuckle; "and i suppose it would be a great stoop for the hawk to come down from on high to pick up my little dove. and to keep up this style of language, good sir mark, i suppose thy hawk's nest is very well feathered--thou art rich?" "well--no," said sir mark, hesitating; "not rich; but my position warrants my assuming to take a wife from the highest in the land." "so you come and pick my little tit," said the founder. "well, and a very good taste, sir mark. she is, as you say, a beautiful girl, and she will have fifteen thousand pounds down on her wedding-day for portion." "fifteen thousand pounds!" exclaimed sir mark. "and twice as much more--perhaps three times--when i die," said the founder, with a smile of self-satisfaction, which increased as he saw sir mark move his hand as he recovered from his surprise. "money is no object to me," he said; "i love mistress mace for her worth alone." "and you'd marry her without a penny." "ye-es, of course," cried sir mark; "give me your consent." "nay--nay, my lad, not i," said the founder. "my mace is no meet match for thee; and, as my guest, i ask you to say no foolish nonsense to the child. she has had silly notions enough put into her head by gil carr." "but that is all over now, master cobbe," cried sir mark. "i pray you give me your consent. i may be recalled to-day." "i am glad to hear it," said the founder. "you have been here too long, and i don't know, even now, that it is all over with gil carr. i'm not going to break my child's heart, and--hey-day, tit, child, what's wrong?" he cried, as, with a face white as ashes, and her eyes dilate with horror, mace ran quickly into the room followed by janet. "gil! father," she cried, hoarsely; and then, with a shudder, her eyes closed and her head sank upon his breast. "why, child, what now? has he dared? speak, wench," he cried, stamping his foot, as he turned upon the trembling serving-maid, "what is it?" "captain culverin, master," she whispered, trembling--"mas' wat kilby." "what of them, fool?" cried the founder, excitedly. "drowned, master--in the pool, and they're bringing their bodies now ashore!" volume , chapter iii. how wat kilby led the way. in his excitement the founder hastily laid mace on the couch and rushed out, when sir mark was about to run to the poor girl's side, to seize his opportunity, and press his lips to hers, but he was forestalled by janet, who, with flashing eyes, leaped between them to cry spitefully, "nay; and if thou must kiss aught, kiss me. thou can'st not want to kiss two maidens in one day." with an angry ejaculation sir mark turned aside and followed the founder, who was running along the side of the pool to where a group of his people were busy round a boat just drawn up close to the edge, with father brisdone and master peasegood in the midst, giving directions to the men who were lifting a couple of bodies towards a shed half-filled with soft dogwood charcoal. for it had been an awkward night with gil carr and his companion. they had plunged boldly into the pool, finding it at the side come up to mid-thigh, and the bottom sandy; but before they had cautiously proceeded far, taking care that the water did not splash, it became shallower, and gil asked old wat in a whisper whether they were not too near the shore. "no," was the reply; "i know the pool well; this shallow runs right across. i've seen the shoals of little fish sunning themselves here by the thousand till some evil-minded pirate of a luce has darted amongst them and scattered them like a silver fleet in the spanish main. you follow me, skipper, and let me lead thee for once in thy life." "you were disobeying my orders, wat," said gil, in a low whisper, as he followed his lieutenant. "what were you doing in master cobbe's garden?" "courting. thank god for the ability to court!" growled wat. "you dare to own it to my face!" "nay, thou'rt behind my back," growled wat; "but i own it all the same. where would'st have been if i had not said to myself, `there's that pretty little soul janet longing to see me once again, and as it's loving--night, and the skipper's courting the mistress, faith i'll go and court the maid?'" "after i had forbidden it, wat!" "i am a man, all a man, good captain gilbert carr, and i say thank god for the ability to love, and liking to taste sweet lips." "thou arrant old coxcomb," cried gil, angrily. "why thou art woman mad!" "i am, thank god!" said wat. "hah, skipper, what would the world be without women? bless their bright eyes, and red lips, and pretty prattling tongues--mind that hole, it's a bit deeper--i don't know whether i love best to be kissed or pooked by them." "you old fool!" "ay, to be sure, skipper, it's a man's nature to be a fool over a woman. it's nature's remedy to keep us from being too wise. as i was saying, i don't know which i like best. if she kisses and fondles you without a kick, why it's all sweet sugar and milk and honey, and i smack my lips. if she cries `kiss me not, old bear,' and struggles and pooks me, and pretends to tear out my eyes with the ends of her pretty fingers, and tugs my beard, and pulls out the hairs, why it is pickles and sharp sorrel-sauce, and hot peppers, and i smack my lips and like it all the same. ah, skipper, take all the women out of the world, and you may heave me overboard whenever you like!" "women will be thy ruin," said gil. "that's what mas' peasegood says, and then he went on at me for an hour as good as to say if ever i'm damned it will be for a woman's sake, bless her for it. mind, here's another hole here. zooks, i touched a big eel with my boot." "but once for all," said gil, "i will not have thee hanging like a chicken-thief about master cobbe's garden." "an' where would'st have been if i had not been here to-night, skipper? suppose the founder had come running at thee with his naked sword? the sight of a naked sword always was too much for thee, my lad. remember how i taught thee to fence, and you pook me your point the second time into my thigh. why, it would have been out sword and at him, and thou mightest have hurt the old boy." "old boy! he's fifteen years younger than you if a day, wat." "bah! years! what are years? he was born after i was, but look at us. i'm a younger man than he. a man's not old till he feels old, skipper; and when he feels old heave him overboard if he be a sailor. if he be a land-goer, dig a hole in his mother-earth and pack him up warm to sprout out and grow little boys for the future times. well, as i said, suppose you had pricked the old man or he had pricked thee?" "the better for me it seems," said gil, grimly. "it would be the high road to his favour. but are you sure you are right here? how dark it is!" "right? to be sure i am," growled wat; "right as i was to-night in having a bit of a talk with pretty janet, lad." "and that i forbid for the future," said gil, stopping with the water nearly up to his waist. "forbid away," grumbled wat, "but as long as my skipper goes amongst rocks wat kilby goes as well to watch over him the while." "then that settles it, wat," said gil; "i am going no more." "ho, ho, ho!--ho, ho, ho!" chuckled the old sailor. "sattles! what? have you and young mistress fallen out?" "hold your peace!" said gil, sharply; "and learn to obey my orders." "saints on earth, i'm like so much wax or stockholm pitch in his hands, and he does with me as he likes. it's a brave deal deeper here than i thought, skipper; wait till i have out my blade and feel my way a bit." he pulled out his sword, and began to sound with it in the darkness; but, save in the direction of the house and garden, the water seemed to grow deeper and deeper; and, after taking a step or two in different directions, the old fellow drew back and paused grumbling. "it's deeper than i thought," he said; "the water goes down above my head everywhere. let's wait a bit." "what for?" said gil, angrily. "do you think the pool will grow shallower? this comes of trusting another." "well, i thought i knowed the bearings," said wat. "what fools we'd look if it were daylight," said gil; "standing up to our middles." "chesties," said wat, correctively. "well, to our chests or chins, if you like," cried gil. "heaven be praised that it is so dark." "so don't say i," cried wat, softly; "for if it was not so dark i could see which way to steer." "do you mean to tell me, wat," whispered gil, in a low angry voice, "that you have persuaded me into trusting to your guidance, and that now you know nothing of the depth of the pool?" "i could have sworn as that little sandy reef ran right across to the other side." "and now there is deep water all round." "unless we go back." "confusion!" ejaculated gil. "am i to understand that you don't know the way at all?" "well, skipper," growled wat, "i won't say i don't know the bearings of the channels; but if you like to take the rudder i'll give up to you." this being tantamount to a declaration of his own want of knowledge, gil began cautiously to feel his way about, with the result that the first two steps he took placed him up to his chin in water, that would, he felt, be over his head at the next. dressed as he was, swimming was a most difficult task, the high, heavy boots he wore filling with water, and being sufficient to drag him down; and yet sooner or later he felt that he should be obliged to trust to his powers as a swimmer, and gave the hint to his companion. "be ready to swim, wat," he whispered. "no, no; there be no need to swim," was the response. "only hit the right place, and it won't reach above your boots." gil did not respond, but tried in various directions, always to find the water deepen; and at last he stood with it bubbling at his lips, and he knew that the next moment he must strike out. even now he could have made an effort to go back ashore in the direction of the house, but it might mean an encounter with the founder, and this was to be avoided at all hazards, for mace's sake; and after all, he thought, what was before them was nothing more than a good swim, for he never once realised the fact that there was danger in his position: it seemed more ludicrous than full of peril. he gave a glance round, and, having decided in his own mind where lay the shore they sought to reach, he uttered a low warning to wat, and tried to wade towards it. the second step rendered it necessary for him to swim, and striking out boldly he had gone a few yards before he turned his head to speak to wat. "this way," he whispered; but there was no response for a few moments, and then, with a hoarse blowing noise, the old sailor spluttered out, "why, i went right over my head." this added to the ridiculous side of the question, and, contenting himself with bidding wat keep close, gil swam on in the direction of the shore, making very slow progress, and now becoming aware for the first time of the difficulty of the task he had undertaken. wat was swimming close at hand, making a good deal of noise, but gil never thought for a moment that he would have any difficulty, and it was not until they had progressed slowly for about five minutes that the first intimation of danger came like a chill of dread. "can you touch bottom, skipper?" said the old fellow. "no," said gil, after a pause. "we are in deep water. why?" "because, if we can't directly, i shall drown!" "nonsense, man," whispered back gil. "swim slowly and steadily, and we shall soon reach the shore." there was no more said for a few moments, and then from old wat, in a low panting voice-- "skipper, i shan't never reach no shore; and this ain't even brackish water, let alone salt." "don't talk," said gil, sharply; "but swim, man, with a long steady stroke." "not even salt water," said wat hoarsely, as if he had not heard his leader's words. "drowned in a miserable pond." "will you hold your peace," whispered gil, "and swim on, man? who ever thinks of drowning at such a time as this?" "i'm nearly spent," said wat, hoarsely. "i didn't think it would be so deep." it was very hard work to keep himself afloat; and the knowledge that his old faithful companion and follower was losing heart robbed him of a good deal of the energy which he had left. but gil carr had been reared amongst dangers, and instead of beginning to lament that they were in such a condition, and praying or calling for help, he tried to rouse up more energy both in himself and his follower, though, as regarded the latter, with but little result, for he awoke more and more to the fact that wat's straggles were growing fainter each moment, and that unless he could aid him he was a drowning man. he stopped swimming away from him then, and taking a few strokes back, with his boots seeming to be made of lead, he tried to make out where wat was swimming, and only found him by the bubbling water which was just closing over his head. it required almost superhuman energy as, with a vigorous snatch, gil caught his follower by the beard and drew his face above water, holding him so while he drew breath. "no use--save yourself!" panted wat. "i'm spent, skipper--spent." "do as i bid you," cried gil, angrily. "turn over--your back--float-- that's well. now mind: leave me free. if you clutch my arms we shall both go down." as he spoke he tried hard to kick off his heavy boots, but they clung to his legs, and to have continued striving meant to sink. throwing himself upon his back then, and with one hand grasping wat kilby's hair, he once more struck out, gazing of necessity upwards at the starless sky, and feeling more and more that unless some miracle interposed in their favour they must both lose their lives. it was impossible to tell in what direction he was going when his every energy was directed to trying to keep them both afloat; and, strive to contain himself how he would, there was always the knowledge upon him that, moment by moment, he was growing weaker. for the water came more and more over his lips, thundered more heavily in his ears, and kept, as it were, forcing itself up his nostrils, burning, and strangling him, and causing such an intense desire to struggle with all his might for life, that, but for the disciplining of years and the power it had given him of mastering his own emotions, there would have been a minute's desperate struggling, a few agonised cries for help, and then the water would have closed over his head. the water that had risen at each stroke to his chin was now always above his lips, then above his nostrils, and it was only by frantic efforts that he recovered himself for a few moments; but directly after his heavy boots dragged him lower and lower, and with a gasping cry he gave one more tremendous stroke, when he felt his head forced in amongst a clump of reeds, and for the moment he could breathe. he lay with the back of his head in amongst the reeds for some minutes, not daring to move lest he should glide back into deep water, but even now the waves were rippling end playing in his ears. he could not stay long, however, like that, for he had wat kilby to think of; and throwing one arm back over the reeds he dragged himself more amongst them, and at the same time pulled wat close to his side. how it was done he never afterwards knew, only that he contrived somehow to rouse the old sailor sufficiently to once more take a little interest in life, and draw himself over and amongst the reeds. so far from being in safety, all they had gained was the power to breathe, for at the least movement the thin, whispering, water-grasses gave way, and their position was worse. "can you hear me speak, wat?" said gil at last, in a hoarse voice, as he felt that he was once more gaining breath. "ay, skipper," said the old fellow, faintly; "i be not dead yet." "can you draw yourself more amongst the reeds?" there was a few minutes' pause, and then wat said with a groan, "no, skipper. if i move, it means going below; there's nothing to hold on by." gil foresaw that this would be the reply, for on feeling cautiously round he could only come to the conclusion that they were half floating, half lying, among some nearly-submerged reeds, and that the slightest effort to better their condition meant the destruction of the frail support. "wait till you get your breath, wat, and then shout for help," said gil. "nay, i'll not call," was the hoarse reply. "do thou shout, skipper." "i order you to call, wat," was the half-angry reply; and, in obedience, wat uttered a hoarse hail from time to time, for his voice to go floating over the water, borne by the breeze away from the pool-house, and here the two men lay some three hundred yards from the garden, cold, benumbed, and gradually growing more helpless, while those who were nearest slept on hearing no cries, and in utter ignorance of the peril in which the two well-known adventurers lay. the hails uttered from time to time reached one or two of the cottages, but those who heard the sounds float from off the lake merely turned once in their beds, and thought of marsh spirits, or the night-walkers that had been seen from time to time, passing along the tracks; while the less superstitious said to one another, "captain culverin and his men be out to-night. what be in the wind now?" again and again did gil make an effort to find where they lay, and see if he could not reach the boat, and come back to his companion's help; but the darkness was made more intense by the thick mist which was heavier than ever. he was rested though, and had the nerve to make a bold effort, but those boots that clung to his legs far above his knees were like lead, and he dare hardly stir. try how he would, he was fain to conic to the conclusion that he must lie passive amongst those reeds, saying a few words to wat kilby from time to time, to encourage him; for the old man, sturdy as he was, seemed to have taken quite a fatalist view of their case. "wait for daylight, skipper?" he said, sadly. "no; i think it be morning that will have to wait for me, and i shan't answer to my number. the cold water be getting into my joints, and i be too stiff to move." to remain for long in their cramped and helpless situation seemed to gil at first impossible; but hour after hour glided away, and save the rippling of the water hardly a sound greeted the sufferers' ears. too numbed and helpless even to cry out for help, they lay waiting for morning, hardly hoping to see the dawn, for at any moment a slip would have sent them into deep water, to go down at once. sometimes a soft wind stirred the thick steamy mist upon the water and rustled the reeds above their heads; while, at intervals through the night, the cry of some coot or duck floated weirdly across the great pool, but, at last, all those things seemed to gil to be part of a confused dream, as he grew, more and more numbed and helpless. the water washed higher over his face, but he could not raise his head to avoid it, nor disturb the current of his thoughts, which were flowing placidly enough now, and quite unmingled with despair, along his life-course; and it seemed ridiculous to him that he, who had braved so many perils of the mighty sea, should perish on this pitiful pond. then he began to think of mace and her feelings when she heard of his death; and, with a sigh, he thought it seemed hard indeed that he should die now when he was so sure of her love. but he whispered a blessing upon her to the soft summer breeze, and thanked heaven that they had parted so happily that night. wat kilby had not spoken for hours, but lay there in a state of torpor, till suddenly he exclaimed:-- "you there, skipper?" "yes, wat." "i wouldn't care so much only--" there was a pause here. "only that i have got my bag of tobacco here in my pocket, and it be quite wet through." after that, there was utter silence. volume , chapter iv. how two went a-fishing, and what they caught. "you may argue, brother brisdone, till all is blue," said master peasegood, "but i maintain that what i say is right. now, look here; go back to the early days, and take your own apostle." "my own apostle?" said father brisdone, smiling, as they walked down the lane, soon after sunrise, one bearing a basket the other a bag. the heavy dew lay upon leaf and strand, and sparkled in the brilliant sunshine; birds sang and flitted from bough to bough, scattering the heavy drops from off each spray; and, as the two clerics had come out of the cottage after an early breakfast, they had stood breathing the soft pure air, and smiled back at smiling nature. "my own apostle?" said father brisdone. "yes, saint peter; the rock upon which your church is built. well, what was he--a fisherman?" "yes," said father brisdone, "before he took up his holy calling." "fisherman still, good brother. did he not become a fisher of men? depend upon it, brother, peter, if he had been down by the lake again, would have enjoyed a good pull at the net." "maybe, maybe," said the father, smiling. "well, let's grant it. now, i was a fisherman before i took to the cloth, and i have been a fisherman ever since, right or wrong; and i hold that there is very little wrong in providing a dinner." "i'll not argue with you," said father brisdone. "if all men were like you, brother peasegood, this would be a happier world." "wrong again!" cried master peasegood. "you see you force on an argument. if all men were like me, brother, it would be an unhappier world; for, look you, i'm too fat. i'm as big as three small men; and, if all were like me, we should be so crowding and elbowing each other that we should be quarrelling for want of room. ha, ha, ha!" and "ha, ha, ha," he laughed again, making the rocks and woodlands echo to his jovial mirth; the stray rabbits betrayed their whereabouts by showing their little white tails as they hopped into their holes; and snake and lizard upon sunny bank hurrying away to safety long before the footsteps could be heard. "there's something in fishing that seems to expand the heart," continued master peasegood to his willing hearer. "i never knew a man who was a good fisherman who was very wicked or brutal." "in other matters," said father brisdone, with a smile. "well, well, well, but the fish we catch are vile, cruel things, which persecute their smaller fellows. why, i've known a luce of twenty pounds seize and half swallow one of ten, and kill himself in the act. oh, no, brother, i have no pity for a great luce or pike; and, besides, see what they are when nicely treated, well cleaned, and stuffed, and buttered, and baked. ha, ha, ha! we have the advantage of you there, brother brisdone; we can be carnal-minded, and eat, and drink, and wive if we like. but come along and let's begin. i can sniff the water now, with its soft wreaths of mist floating around. we'll have the boat and set our lures, and fish for a couple of hours, and then take a brace of the finest to master cobbe, and beg some more breakfast for our pains." "but suppose we catch no fish?" "but we shall catch fish--more, perhaps, than you expect." the two friends trudged on, and, upon turning a corner of the narrow lane, came upon mother goodhugh, standing at the turning where sir mark had made his first acquaintance with wat kilby. "good morrow, mother goodhugh," said the stout parson. "save thee, my daughter," said father brisdone. "are you both going to curse the murderer of abel churr?" said mother goodhugh, sourly. "nay," said master peasegood; "and it would behove thee better, good woman, if thou did'st not sprinkle these curses of thine about with so liberal a hand. come along, father." "yes, go along," cried the old woman, maliciously; "time-servers and makers of friendship with the ungodly as you are. but you'll see, you'll live to see." "she's a terrible old woman," said master peasegood, with a curious smile upon his lip; "and she seems to make my fat go cold, like unto that of venison on an unwarmed dish. i've given her up, father, as a bad nut to crack. the worst of it is, that if i turn prophet my sayings are never fulfilled; while, when she raises her voice, her prophesyings come to pass, and the simple folks here believe in her more than in me. but thank goodness, here we are." three hundred paces brought them to the edge of the lake, over which the soft white mists were disappearing before the sun. the boat lay on the sandy beach, with a chain holding it fast to the trunk of an old willow; and, as soon as the basket and wallet had been laid in, master peasegood helped his friend to take his place. "i don't think i shall swamp the boat, brother brisdone," he said, laughing, as he sent the skiff well down in the water. "if i do, just you hold on tightly to my gown, for i'm too fat to sink." a hearty "ha, ha, ha!" floated across the lake as he finished his speech; and then, taking the little oars, he proceeded to paddle across for some distance before pausing and opening the large basket he had brought. the first thing taken out was a large can of water with a lid pierced with holes; and then from the bag were shaken out a dozen bladders, each tied round the centre with a string and a loop. from his basket master peasegood then brought out a dozen goodly hooks, whose points were stuck in a piece of cork, and whose strings were neatly tied in a bunch; and, as he took them off, one by one, each was baited with a fresh young gudgeon from the can, the string attached to one of the bladders, and this dropped overboard to float away. in a short time the whole of the hooks were baited, and the lake dotted with the bladders that floated here and there, borne by the breeze or tugged by the lively gudgeons. then, and then only, did master peasegood nearly upset the boat by leaning over the side to wash his hands, and smile at his companion. his smile was not perceived though, for father brisdone was sitting with one elbow upon his knee, his cheek upon his hand, gazing out and away at the soft landscape, with the pool-house and its works glorified by the morning sun. "now we'll sit and talk for awhile," said master peasegood, smiling jollily. "what do you say to a pleasant subject for discussion--say purgatory?" "because thou hast been putting these poor gudgeons into a state of misery, brother?" said father brisdone. "let the gudgeons rest," said master peasegood. "they have all gone overboard like so many finny jonahs, for the benefit of those on board this ship; and, if they are lucky, they will soon be safe in so many whales' insides. ha, ha, ha! master brisdone, i'm afraid i'm a very irreverent disciple. by all the saints, there goes one of the jonahs. see!" he pointed to where, just by a reed-bed towards which the bladder had drifted, there was a tremendous swirl in the water, and away it went skimming along at a rapid rate. "ha, yes, i suppose that will be a great fish," said father brisdone, sadly; "but i was thinking of the maiden at yon house--sweet little mace." "bless her!" said master peasegood. "amen," said his companion. "brother joseph, she is at a perilous age, and i do not think her father's to be trusted." "you mean with her future?" said master peasegood. "i fear so too. poor child, she needs a mother's counsel!" "think you she has a lover?" said father brisdone, quietly. "two fierce luces playing round the little gudgeon," cried master peasegood, excitedly. "one of them will snatch it up directly. nay, nay," he continued, reddening; "i meant no inference. i was thinking of yon bait. there it goes." he pointed to where a gudgeon had leaped several times out of the water to escape a couple of fierce pike, one of which seized it and bore it off. "lovers?" he continued. "yes, that courtly fellow from town is trying to win her, and so is gilbert carr." "and she?" "she loves culverin carr with all her pretty little soul, but he shall not have her unless--" "unless what?" "he mends his ways. she shall marry no scapegrace who plays fast and loose with women's hearts. he trifles with mistress anne beckley, and the silly girl is mad for him." "nay, i think you wrong him, brother. i believe in gil carr as a true gentleman at heart. i love the brave, bold youth." "i hope i do wrong him," said master peasegood. "he's a fine, handsome fellow, but i will not have my little white moth played with, and the tender down upon her winglets crushed by unholy hands." "why do you call her white moth?" said the father, dreamily. "it is a fancy of the people here, because she dresses in white; and they meet her, looking soft, and white, and ethereal, in the woody lanes at eventide where moths abound. ah, father brisdone, happy men are we who early marry ourselves to the church, and know nought of these fleshly troubles. yes, they call her the white moth; and between ourselves it's a glowworm that often comes wooing to her, and i fear his light will burn." father brisdone sighed. "ha, ha, ha! that's because another jonah has gone down," said master peasegood, pointing to a flying bladder. "nay," said the other sadly; "i sighed at your words about our being happier without these fleshly cares. i don't know--i don't know." "more do i," said master peasegood; "only that i'm very fatherly fond of little mace, and if i can stand between her and carr i will. now, brother, we'll chase that first great fish. suppose you take the oars." father brisdone obeyed, and master peasegood fitted a large hook to the end of a stout walking-staff, directing his friend the while as he urged the boat over the limpid water, making fish dart away here and there amongst the water-lilies and flags. they approached pretty near the bladder, and then away it went, showing that the great pike was well hooked, and now commenced a chase for some ten minutes, the captive always evading the great hook just as master peasegood was on the point of securing the string. the chase led them right away over the deepest part of the pool, and amidst various little islands of reeds growing on soft masses of decayed vegetation; the boat, when urged forward, passing easily amongst and over them, so lightly were they rooted in the soft vegetable fibre below. "now then, a good pull, brother, and we shall have him," whispered master peasegood. "he's a monster, but he is tired now. four good strokes and then hold up your oars, and let the skiff glide and i'll-- good god! what's that?--the other oar, man, pull!" the skiff spun round and was urged towards a clump of reeds, among which, and half covered by the water, were two ghastly faces, which settled down, gliding from their precarious hold, as the wave made by the skiff reached them. another moment and they would have been beyond reach, but master peasegood thrust his arm to the shoulder into the water, as he leaned over the side, and grasped the doublet of one man, thrusting in his hook and seizing the other, and then drawing both up to the sides of the boat, as it rustled amongst the reeds, but bringing the edge down so low that the water began to pour in over the side. "quick, brother, quick!" shouted master peasegood. "hang over the other side, or we are lost!" with a promptitude that might not have been expected from him, father brisdone threw himself to the other side of the skiff, and raised the endangered edge so that the water ceased to pour over the gunwale, while master peasegood deftly leaned sideways and dragged the first body he had secured round the stern of the boat. father brisdone saw what he intended, and, changing his position a little, just managed to catch the doublet, and the next minute the boat was well balanced, for one of the bodies was being held up on either side. "are--are they dead?" whispered father brisdone, in an awe-stricken voice. "poor lad--poor lad." "heaven only knows," cried master peasegood, as he changed his position and said, "give me hold of the poor boy--his collar--that's well. i've got this one the same. there, their heads are well above the water now, and i can hold them thus. now take the oars and row for life." "but can you hold them?" cried father brisdone, as he obeyed his companion, and gazed at him the while, seated with hands grasping the two men's collars, one on either side. "i hope so. oh, yes! they can't drag me out of the boat, but it would be madness to try and drag them in. row hard: never mind me." father brisdone bent to his task with a will, and in a fashion that showed how he had more than once handled an oar, while master peasegood braced himself up, and held on to his burdens as they dragged behind. "you see who they are?" he said, as the skiff gathered way, and the water rattled under her bows. "yes; one is the man of whom we talked." "and the other is old wat kilby. i'll never believe he is drowned," cried master peasegood. "he's born for quite another fate. pull steady and hard, man. if my arms are jerked out of the sockets i'll forgive thee. ohe--ahoy--hoi--oy," he shouted to a couple of men on the shore, and as they stopped to gaze others began to collect, so that by the time the side was reached there was plenty of willing aid, and hands ready to bear the two men into the charcoal-shed, where, by father brisdone's orders, blankets were fetched and stimulants, while, under his instructions, strong hands rubbed the icy limbs. this was continued for a time, and then the founder made a proposal, which was put into effect. "four of you, one to the corner of each blanket," he cried; "and run them down to the little furnace. we can lay them on the hot bricks there." "yes, quickly," cried father brisdone. "the very thing." it was done, and the genial heat and the friction liberally applied. at first no change took place, and the founder shook his head; while sir mark, as he gazed at the stern, handsome countenance of culverin carr, felt that a dangerous rival had been removed from his path. "we were too late, brother, were we not?" said master peasegood, sadly. "i'll tell thee, anon," was the reply, as, with cassock off and sleeves up, father brisdone was toiling away, with the perspiration streaming down his forehead. one hour--two hours passed, and still there was no sign of life. those who aided would have given up long before but for the father's example, led by which they worked manfully, till, to the great joy of the operator, there was a faint quivering about his patients' eyelids. encouraged by this, all worked the harder, to be rewarded by a sigh from gil, and a low growl from wat kilby, who now rapidly recovered consciousness, and startled all present by exclaiming:-- "who has taken my tobacco?" gil recovered more slowly, but he was soon able to speak; and the first person upon whom his eyes fell was sir mark, who seemed half fascinated by his gaze. a couple of hours later the two men were sufficiently revived to bear removal; and in a gruff way, as if the show of hospitality were forced upon him, master cobbe offered them the use of his house. gil's heart gave a leap of joy at the invitation, while sir mark's countenance grew black as night. it resumed, its former aspect, though, as he heard gil refuse, and merely request permission to stay where they were for a time, after which he said they would go their way. "i'd give something to know how those two came so near being drowned," said the founder, as he walked over the little bridge with sir mark. "i'd give something," said sir mark to himself, "if that meddling priest had left the scoundrel to die in peace. how i hate him, to be sure." meanwhile, mace, who had been upon her knees in her little chamber, praying with all her soul for her lover's life, had now changed her prayer to thanksgiving, and at last stood by the window, and exchanged a look with him, as she saw him walk slowly away, with wat kilby, whose pipe was lit, and who was smoking as if nothing whatever had been amiss. as to how the accident had occurred, that was the secret of the two sufferers, the guests that evening of master peasegood, whose luces were not sought for till the next morning, by which time three-parts had managed to get away, or rid themselves of their steel, leaving the floating bladders alone for the parson's crook. volume , chapter v. how sir mark visited dame beckley's garden of simples. in the course of the morning a mounted messenger came on to the pool-house with a despatch for sir mark, whose brow clouded as he read that it was a peremptory recall to town. he handed the despatch to the founder, who read it quietly, and returned it. "hah," he said, "then i am to lose my guest. i hope sir mark does not quarrel with my hospitality." "nay, but i do," said sir mark, petulantly. "you deny me the very one thing i ask." "and what is that?" said the founder. "your daughter's hand, master cobbe." "nay, nay, she's no mate for thee, my lad, so let that rest." "but i cannot,--i will not," cried sir mark. "but thou must, and thou shalt," said the founder. "now, what can i do to speed thee on thy journey?" "nothing," was the reply, "for sir thomas has sent a spare horse for my service. good master cobbe, hearken to me. come: you will accept me as your son-in-law of the future?" "go back to the fine madams of the court, my lad, and you'll forget my little lass in a week." "nay, by heaven, i never shall." "and we shall never see thee more." "you consent?" "no," said the founder, sternly. "good-bye, my lad, and i hope thou forgivest me the prick in the shoulder i gave thee." "forgive? i bless you for it," cried sir mark, enthusiastically; "and as to our never meeting again, why, man, i shall be back here ere a month has gone by." "harkye," cried the founder, laying his hand on the other's arm, "this can only be by some trick or other of thine in thy report. sir mark leslie, if thou play'st me false, look well to thyself." "play thee false, master cobbe! nay, i'll only play to win sweet mace-- and your money," he added to himself. "i shall be back, i tell you, and before long. now to make my adieux to your daughter." but mace returned for answer through janet that she was too ill to see sir mark; and the message was conveyed to him when he was alone. "and now, pretty janet, what's it to be," he said--"a kiss or this gold piece?" "both," said janet, promptly, as she held out hand and cheek. "there they are, then, and mind this, janet: help me in my suit to win thy mistress, and thou shalt have the handsomest gown thou canst choose, with a gilded stomacher like they wear at court." "shall i?" cried the girl, with sparkling eyes. "ay, and aught else you like to ask for. now, farewell." he printed another kiss on janet's rosy cheek and a few on her lips, and stayed some little time before he once more sought the founder, who had, however, gone to one of his sheds. here a farewell of anything but a friendly nature took place; and, forgetting to bestow any present on the workmen, sir mark mounted the horse awaiting him and rode away, to see what sort of a reception he should have from the pompous baronet and his child. sir mark had had his mind so set upon mace cobbe that, when at roehurst, he could think of nothing else, and his every thought on leaving the place was about how to get back from london with a good excuse for staying. "i must get the old fellow a big order for powder and cannon," he said, "and play my cards so that i have the commission to see the order executed, test the guns and the grains, and then i shall have the old man in my fingers. only let him accept the royal order, and i can work him. ha, ha, ha!" he laughed, "powder not of required strength; flaw in this gun; want of carrying power in that; failure in accuracy in another. why my dear father-in-law, thou wilt be at my mercy; and if i cannot work you to my ends, in spite of all independence and defiance, my name is not mark leslie." "why," he added, laughing, "if i failed in managing thee in any other way, master cobbe, i have only to hint to his majesty that here is a clever artificer who maketh strong powder, which he supplies to the papist, and i could have a score or two of men down to lay you by the heels. surely i could manage it all if driven to urge him very hard. but, there, i can get on better by driving him with a light hand. let me see, why war materials will be wanted for holland! tut, lad, it will be easy enough to do." he rode gently on, having a care to prevent his horse from setting his feet in the deeper holes; and now began a fresh set of thoughts, to wit, concerning mistress anne. "by bacchus and venus, and all the gods and goddesses who had to do with the making of love," he cried, "and am i to face that bright-eyed, ruddy-haired piece of tyranny? she was ready to fall in love with me at the first meeting, and here have i treated her and sir thomas most scurvily. how am i to behave? apologise, or take the high hand?" "the latter!" he cried, touching the fat horse he rode with the spur. "if i am humble, i shall be slighted. hang it, i will be courted, for i am from the court." he rode on through the pleasant woodlands, enjoying the sweet-scented breeze, but only for the agreeable sensations it afforded him; and, almost leaving the horse to follow its own bent, he at last came in sight of the stone pillars which supported the gates leading up to the moat. it was a spot that would have delighted poet or artist, that long, embowering avenue of trees, at the end of which stood the mossy pillars, each supporting an impossible monster, which seemed to be putting out its tongue derisively at the visitors to the old house. riding along the avenue and through the gates, sir mark passed a park-like stretch of grass, and then a belt of trees which almost hid the house, till he was close up to the old moat, from which it took its name; a broad, deep dyke of water that surrounded the building, bordered with a wide-spreading lawn of soft green turf, which was kept closely-shaven, and was dotted with spreading trees, and gnarled, rugged old hawthorns. this wide lawn ran from the edge of the moat to the ivy-grown walls of the quaint mansion, evidently the work, with its florid red brick, of some clever architect of henry vii's days. to a lover of the picturesque, the place was perfect, with its ivy-softened walls and buttresses, quaintly-shaped windows, shady corners, seats beneath hawthorns, and clipped yews that dotted the old pleasaunce; and nothing could have been more attractive than the wild garden formed by the great lawn, broken by mossy boles, which ran down to the great lily-dappled moat. sir mark drew rein upon the old stone bridge, and gazed around him for a while at the broad leaves floating on the dark, clear water, where some great carp every now and then thrust up its broad snout and with a loud smack sucked down a hapless fly. there was something very attractive about the place; the quaint red building seen amongst the oaks and firs; the dashes of colour here and there of dame beckley's flower-beds, many of which were rich with strange plants that gil carr had brought from foreign lands and given to mace for the garden at the pool-house, and of which dame beckley had begged or taken cuttings. there was an air of sleepy calmness about the old moat that had its effect upon sir mark, whose musings upon the bridge took something of this form. "i am in debt; i get more deeply so; and i can never recover myself, as my expenses increase, without wedding a rich wife. sir thomas beckley, baronet, cannot live for ever; and this would be a charming place for me to settle down to when i get middle-aged and stout, and have grown to care little for the court. "but then the lady! "hah!" he sighed, "it is the way of the world. if rustic mace, with her sweet beauty, had thrown herself at me, and dropped like a luscious fruit into my hands, i should have wearied of her in a week; but she is hard to reach so i strive the more; while mistress anne, here-- "hah! i will not be too rash. suppose i temporise, and am gentle and respectful by turns. even if i marry mace, there is no reason why i should scorn one who is nearly as fair. besides which, if master culverin is in favour, then a little revenge upon him by tasting the sweet lips of his other love would not come amiss. only i must be cautious, or i may go wrong. by bacchus! here is the lady herself!" he touched the flank of his horse, for just then he caught sight of the gay colours of mistress anne's brocaded gown, where she sat upon a rustic seat, reading beneath a shady tree, of course sublimely ignorant of sir mark's approach, as she had been watching for him ever since the messenger had left; and, though her eyes were fixed upon her book, she had read no words since she had seen him pause upon the bridge, and her heart went fluttering beneath its hard belaced cage. sir mark did not know it, but the lady who sat before him in the old pleasaunce, not far from the moat, had come to precisely the same determination as himself. could she win gil she would, for his dashing life of adventure always made him seem quite a hero of romance; but, failing gil, sir mark would do. so once more she determined to play a cautious waiting game of the two-strings-to-the-bow fashion; and, therefore, when sir mark leaped from the fat cob, sent by sir thomas by her special command, and approached her hat in hand, no stranger could possibly have imagined that there was such a place in the world as the pool-house, where dwelt sweet mace cobbe, to whose greater attractions sir mark had yielded, and stayed away. the handsome courtier from town might have just returned from a visit to the foundry after but a few hours' absence so smiling and pleasant was his reception beneath the trees. "by bacchus, she's a sensible girl after all," thought sir mark. "i may bring him to my knees yet," thought mistress anne; "and, if i do, i'll hold him till gil carr asks me to be his wife, and then--" a flash sped from her eye full of malicious glee, as, taking her hand once more _a la minuet_, sir mark led her up towards the house, where, well-schooled by his daughter, sir thomas squeezed his fat face into a smile, and declared he was glad to see his guest again. "your inspection has taken you a long time, sir mark," he said. "it has been a tedious task," was the reply; "and even now i have not done." "indeed?" said mistress anne. "nay," he replied; "it is quite possible that i may have to return within the month to continue my report." as he spoke he glanced furtively at mistress anne, to see what effect it would have upon her. to his satisfaction, she clapped her hands joyously. "i _am_ so glad," she cried, with childlike glee. then, as if ashamed of her outburst, she looked down and blushed, ending by glancing timidly at sir mark. "she's very charming, after all," he thought, as he smiled upon her. "poor girl, she can't help it, i suppose;" and he felt a pleasant glow of self-satisfaction and conceit run through his veins. "we see so little company," simpered anne. "really, you've seen very little of me," said sir mark. "but duty-- duty, sir thomas. i felt bound to stay there and keep matters well under my own eyes." "it must have been very tedious and tiresome," said anne, innocently; "but then, mace cobbe is very nice and pleasant, is she not?" sir mark looked sharply to the speaker to see if this was a venomed shaft, but mistress anne's eyes were as wide open as her face was vacant and smooth. "yes," he said, quickly; "a very pleasant, sensible girl. well educated, too." "yes," said anne, dreamily. "i like mace cobbe, only dear father and my mother don't quite approve of my making her an intimate." the faint "oh!" that escaped from sir thomas beckley's lips must have been caused by a twinge of gout, for he did not venture to speak when he caught his daughter's eye. "will you not come and see my mother, sir mark?" continued anne, sweetly. "she is down in her simple-garden, by the southern wall." "i shall be delighted," was the reply; and rising, he escorted the lady out through an open bay window, and along the closely-shaven lawn. "anne means to marry him," said sir thomas, gazing after his daughter, and rubbing his nose in a vexed manner. "what a smooth, soft puss it is! who'd think she had such claws?" "she's innocence itself," said sir mark to himself, as he twisted his moustache-points, and smiled down tenderly at his companion, who blushed and trembled and faltered when he spoke to her, as naturally as a simple-hearted girl who had been longing for his return. "by all the gods it would be much easier work to make up matters here!" "let me run on, and tell my mother you have come, sir mark," said anne, ingenuously. "nay, nay," said the guest, pressing the trembling little white hand he took; "i have not many hours to stay." "oh!" cried anne, gazing with piteous wide open eyes. "you are not going away to-day?" "in two hours' time, sweet, i must be on the road to london. must--i must." to give anne credit for her efforts, she tried very hard to squeeze two little tears out of the corners of her eyes; but they were obstinate, and refused to come. she heaved a deep sigh, though, and gazed sadly down at her little silk shoes, as they toddled over the short grass, her heels being packed up on the bases of a couple of inverted pyramids, which just allowed her toes to reach the ground. "poor child!" thought sir mark; and the desire was very strong upon him to just bend down and kiss her. but he resisted the temptation bravely, his strength of mind being fortified by the knowledge that they were well in sight of the latticed windows. a minute later, and they had to go through a narrow path, winding through and overarched by broad-leaved nut-stubbs, which formed quite a bower belaced with golden sunbeams, that seemed to fall in drops upon the enchanter's night-shade, the briony, and patches of long thick grass. "is this the way to the simple-garden, mistress anne?" he said, playing with the hand that lay upon his arm. "yes, sir mark," she faltered; "it is close at hand." it might have been a mile away as far as seeing what went on in the nutwalk was concerned; and feeling this, and a very tender sensation of pitying sorrow for the weak girl at his side, sir mark thought that to yield to the temptation would be only kindness, and an act that would solace the poor child, so he said with a sigh: "yes, mistress anne, i must away in a couple of hours." "so soon?" she whispered. "yes; so soon." and then somehow, sweet mistress anne, in her girlish innocency, thought not of resistance, as her companion drew her softly nearer and nearer to him, one of his arms passing round her slight waist, so that she hung upon it, with her head thrown slightly back. her veined lids drooped over her eyes, her lips were half parted to show her white teeth, and the lips themselves were red and moist as her soft perfumed breath. for she was very young, and did not know what it was to be taken in the arms of a man, saving upon such an occasion as that when gil had held her and half borne her along. it was quite natural, then, that when sir mark's lips drew nearer and pressed hers, at first so softly that a gnat would have hardly felt the touch, then harder, more closely, and ended by joining them tightly, that she should not shrink from the contact, but, though motionless, seem to passively return kiss for kiss--a score of kisses joined in one. this one might have lasted an hour or a moment--sir mark did not know. all he knew was that for the time being mace cobbe was forgotten, and that the kiss was very nice. in fact, it seemed to him that he was just in the middle of it when an excited voice broke it right in half by exclaiming-- "oh, my gracious!" looking up, he found himself face to face with dumpy, chubby dame beckley, staring vacantly astounded, in her spectacles and garden-gloves, her basket having dropped from her hand. "i--beg--i--" "oh, sir mark!" exclaimed the lady, angrily; and then, catching her daughter's eye, she went on in a trembling, fluttering way; "i never thought--i couldn't see--i really--oh, dear me; how do you do, sir mark? i--i--i am glad to see you back." he held out his hand, smiling in her face the while, and in her confusion dame beckley placed therein a little trowel, making him start. then, starting herself, she grew more confused, and snatched the trowel away, dropped it, and nearly struck her head against the visitor, as he stooped quickly to pick up the fallen tool. "i beg your pardon, sir mark," she stammered, as she finally succeeded in getting trowel and garden-gloves comfortably settled in the basket, a frown from her daughter hastening her pace. "sir mark was coming with me to see you in the simple-garden, mother," said mistress anne, calmly enough. "will you show him some of your choicest plants?" "oh, yes, child, if i--that is--bless me, i hardly know what i am saying. this way, sir mark, this way," and turning abruptly she led the little party down the garden. sir mark pressed mistress anne's hand, and gave her a meaning look and smile, but he was disconcerted to find his companion's face as innocent and guileless-looking as her limpid eyes. "confound it all," he muttered; "i must not trifle with her, or i shall break the poor girl's heart." "these are my simples, sir mark," said the dame, pointing to the various old-fashioned herbs growing beneath the shelter of a sunny wall; lavender, rosemary, rue, and balm; peppermint, spearmint, and lemon-thyme; pennyroyal, basil, and marigold; wall-hyssop; and sweet marjoram, borage, and dill, with a score more,--which she hastened to point out to hide her confusion. "that is agrimony, sir mark, for fevers, and that is the new long snake-rooted glycorice from spain, a fine thing for colds and burning throats. these are the echeverias for making up when there are scalds and burns, and applying cool to the place." "and what is that great long-leaved plant, madame?" said sir mark, showing an interest in what he saw. "the indian weed--tobacco, sir, and this is a strange new gourd from the same land; and this is a root that grows into curious floury lumps or balls, when underground. but maybe you have heard of them before we simple people in the country. it is the batata." "yes; i have heard of that, and tasted it too," said sir mark. "would you like to see my vines, sir mark?" said the lady, eagerly. "they are in the shelter of the old walls here, and i ripen my grapes, and make my wine, that you shall taste when we go in." "i thank you, madam, and shall be right glad." "here, too, is my woodsage, or germander," cried dame beckley, eagerly. "it is a fine bitter, with which we make our ale. i have tried to get cobbe at the pool to use it when he brews, but he is obstinate and headstrong, and will take the strange-smelling hop-nettle, which twines and runs up the stakes. maybe sir mark has seen the plantation there." "ay, that i have," said sir mark, smiling at anne, while her mother prattled on. "the founder has a goodly garden, but not like mine," said the little lady, proudly. "he never grows such apples as these, nor yet such berries or such plums. i have told him much and given him many seeds, but he is a headstrong and a hard man to teach." sir mark bowed. "i gave him the graft to place in his stock for the choice christmas pippins,--the noel beauty, sir mark,--or he would not have had a worthy apple in his garden. now, i prithee, come and see my bees." "perhaps sir mark would not care to see the bees, mother," said mistress anne, demurely; "he might get stung." "i should be too pleased to see them," said sir mark, eagerly; and he was led up this long walk, down that, between the closely-cropped yew-trees and the edges of box, all kept in wondrously-regular order, and the beds lush with many-coloured, sweet-scented plants, which grew in clusters luxuriant and strong. sir mark assumed a look of pleasure, and mistress anne was innocence itself; her eyes downcast and a trembling, hesitating expression in her countenance, though she plainly saw that sir mark was wearied out and longed to go in and rest. "there is the orchard, that sir mark has not yet seen," cried dame beckley, to her daughter's great delight, as she hung upon the visitor's arm. "but, ladies, i must be thinking of my journey back to town." "not without tasting our hospitality, sir mark," exclaimed dame beckley, apparently in answer to a signal from her child, and leading the way. so he was amply feasted and petted for the time, until, mounting horse once more, he rode over the bridge, and stopped to wave his hand before the trees hid mistress anne and her mother from view, with sir thomas in his feather-stuffed breeches and cock-tail hat. volume , chapter vi. how sweet mace asked for a cup of water. "quick, polly, my hat and cloak!" cried mistress anne, running up to her room, where her little handmaiden was seated at work. "then there is some truth in the old woman's philtres after all?" "yes, mistress, if you mean mother goodhugh's," cried the girl, who had caught the last words. "why? how? what do you know?" cried mistress anne. "why, mistress, everybody in love goes to her to get her help." "and who told thee i was in love, thou saucy slut?" cried anne angrily. "my handsome mistress's beautiful cheeks, that turned red when she knew sir mark leslie was coming, and her red, ripe lips, that spake his name. la, mistress, don't be angry with little me, for wishing to see thee with a handsome, gallant husband. but i shouldn't like though for him to be so fond of sweet mace down at the forge." "and who dare say he is?" cried mistress anne, angrily. "they say he be, mistress, and that he pooked captain culverin about her, and the captain was nearly drowned as well." "who told thee all this?" cried anne. "janet, who lives there, helped the news to me," replied the girl; "but sir mark would never bemean himself to marry such a creature as that mistress mace." "hold thy prating tongue," cried mistress anne; "and if i find thee talking about my affairs, girl, or what thou seest, sir thomas shall know." hastily tying on hat and cloak, she started for mother goodhugh's, polly, her apple-faced little maid, making a grimace as she left the room. "i shall talk as much as i like," said the girl, giving her head a toss; "mighty madam, as you be. tell sir thomas, and i'll tell what i see going on from this window, down in the nut-stubbs. ha, ha, ha! how my lady did stare." mistress anne lost no time in making her way across the fields and through the woods, to mother goodhugh's; finding the old woman seated at her door, watching her bees as they flew in and out from the straw-hives in her garden-patch. "ah, my dearie," she exclaimed; "you be come again?" "yes, mother," cried anne, trying, now to keep calm and cool. "what is this i hear about captain carr?" "captain carr be not for thee," cried the old woman, firing up; "he be a murderer--he has slain my best old friend, and if sir thomas, thy father, does not have him hung, he be no true man." "softly," said mistress anne; "softly, mother." "nay, i will go softly no more. but of thine own affairs, dearie, captain gil carr is cursed, with all he does. my words have brought him evil already, and thee good. sir mark, the handsome stranger, is to wed my handsome mistress. i sent him thee to-day." "you sent him?" "ah, child, mock away. i sent him on his way to london. tell me, if thou darest, that he did not say sweet things to thee? ay, thy face tells it. child, he be thine." "nay, mother," cried anne, who was thrown off her guard by the old woman's apparent knowledge; "he is coming back soon, and he will go to the foundry-house, and--and--" "mace cobbe? nay, child, nay; the game be thine own now. he and mace have nothing between them. he be thine if thou wilt have him." "how can you tell me that, mother?" "what!" cried the old woman, "have not i worked upon him night and day, till he and that girl are at odds? i say, child; the game be thine own." "mother," whispered anne, after a glance at the door, "i hardly believe in thy spells; but look, here is a golden piece for you. ten more shall be yours if you can make mace cobbe unpleasing in sir mark's eyes when he comes back. he is not half gained yet, but with your help he can be won." "make her unpleasing--her face?" said mother goodhugh, with a peculiar look. "hush! i want to know nothing--i will not know anything, mother goodhugh. only i say make her so that he shall care for her no more." "but how, child, how?" said the old woman, with a malicious grin. "do you want me to teach you your trade?" cried anne, sharply. "there, give me back my gold piece, and i'll go to one who can do my bidding." "nay," cried the old woman, sharply; "i'll do it; but if i get into trouble thou must stand by me with sir thomas." "what if they want to burn thee for a witch!" said mistress anne. "hush!" cried the old woman, "hush!" and she glanced hastily round, to see that they were not overheard. "don't speak like that; the people might hear thee. hist! some one is coming." mistress anne started up in alarm, as approaching footsteps were heard; and, obeying the old woman's pointing finger, she hid behind the blue-checked curtain, which shut off her bed, just as there was a tap on the door, and the innocent object of their machinations entered, basket in hand. "why, it be thou, child," cried the old woman, in an ill-used tone. "yes, mother; i've brought a few little things for thee." "nay, i want them not, nor none of thy trade," cried the old woman; "i want them not;" but her glistening eyes told another tale. "there, set them down there," she continued, pointing to a side-table. "suppose you open the basket and take them out yourself, mother," said mace, smiling with an ingenuous look that might have disarmed the crone's resentment; but it seemed to have a reverse action, as she rose muttering and scowling, half-snatched the basket, and carried it beyond the curtain, to empty it of its contents. as she did so, the old woman's eyes encountered those of mistress anne, and a peculiar meaning look passed from one to the other, as mace said aloud-- "i am thirsty with my walk, mother; can you give me a cup of water?" "yes, child, yes," cried the old woman, hastily; and one of her hands stole towards a shelf over mistress anne's head, as she made believe to go on emptying the basket by making its lid creak loudly. mistress anne's eyes followed the old woman's hand, and she saw the skinny fingers close upon a phial, which she hastily hid in her breast, and then once more the eyes of the pair behind the curtain met in a meaning way, and the face of the hiding girl grew ghastly pale. "wait a moment, child," grumbled mother goodhugh, "and i'll get thee a cup of water from the spring. there be thy basket, but bring no more such things to me; i hate them." "we'll see, mother," said mace, smiling, as taking a cup from a shelf the old woman hurried out of the cottage to where, out in the road by the side of the lane, a dipping-place for the clear, cool iron-impregnated water had been made. stooping down, after glancing right and left, she dipped the cup full of the clear water; and then, removing the cork from the little phial, she poured half its contents beneath the hand that covered the cup, recorked and hid the bottle, and then with an ugly smile about her lips returned to her visitor. "here, child," she said; "it be cool, and sweet, and pure. there be no curse in that;" and as she spoke she glanced involuntarily at the curtain, behind which anne beckley was listening, and, though no breeze penetrated the cottage, the hangings visibly shook as mace took the cup. poison, a decoction of some imaginary power, or merely the juice of a plant full of tannin, the effect was the same. mother goodhugh was too deeply intent on watching her last visitor and the curtain to pay any heed to the contents of the cup. she had dipped it full of the iron-impregnated water, and seen that it was clear as crystal before holding it in her left hand, with the fingers extended round the rim and her palm acting as a cover. the pouring in of the liquid of the phial, too, had been done in a hasty way, without more than a glance at what she was doing. to her surprise, then, as she handed the cup to her visitor, mace passed it back. "i asked you for a cup of cold water, mother," she said quietly, "and you gave me this!" mother goodhugh looked down at the cup to see that the limpid crystal water she had dipped had turned of a livid black; and, startled and convicted by the change, she gazed at it, then at the girl, and then back at the cup. "what did you put in it, mother?" said mace, quietly. "i--i--put anything in?" said the old woman, humbly; "what should i put in?" "some one or another of your silly mixtures," said mace, sternly. "why do you attempt to try them upon me?" "silly mixtures!" such a term applied to her philtres in the presence of one whom she wished for her own reasons to impress fully with her potency! a moment before the old woman was shivering and cowed; now her visitor's words roused up the spirit of opposition within her, and, with her eyes flaming defiance, she called upon her powers of well-matured dissimulation as she half shrieked:-- "i put in mixtures! go to, white witch that thou art. did i not see thee cast an evil eye on the drinking water, and turn it black? look here," she cried, seizing the cup, throwing out its contents, running to the spring, and returning with it full of clear fluid, "the water be bright and sweet. nay, nay; thou shalt not touch it," she cried, as mace stretched out her hand to take the cup--"i will have no more of thy juggling tricks here. out upon thee, witch--witch, who triest to win decent maidens' lovers to thy side. when the time comes that justice overtakes thee for thy wicked enchantments, my voice shall be raised to tell of all i know. go!--away with thee!--witch, witch!" she stood waving her hands and stick at her who had brought her help, and a malignant look of spite and suppressed glee overspread her face, as she laughingly hugged herself upon the clever way in which she had turned the tables upon her accuser. the girl's lips parted to speak; but finding her adversary become more voluble and ready, mace shrank away, staggered by the words of the old woman, who followed her to the door, and stood menacing her and shrieking threats as she hurried away with the words "witch, witch," ringing in her ears. there was no lack of common-sense in the founder's daughter, but for the moment she was startled by mother goodhugh's words. no more superstitious than the educated people of her days, a faint belief in the sin of witchcraft lingered in her mind; and she knew by rumour of the terrible fate that had been reserved for women accused of such dealings. for, from time to time, account of fiery executions had reached the remote hamlet, and she shuddered as these memories came back. to be accused of witchcraft by some malignant enemy meant placing the accused in a position wherein nothing she said would be believed; and, as she hurried homewards, mace's face was pale with anxiety and dread. this soon passed off, though, and she laughed at her childish terrors. "poor old thing, she is half mad," thought mace; and even then she began to think about the cup; coming rapidly to the right conclusion that mother goodhugh had placed some one or another of her decoctions in the water. "i'll go there no more," she said; "the old woman is dangerous, and to try to ward off her wishes by kindly acts seems to make things worse." she was, in spite of the encounter, light-hearted and glad; for though the accusation against gil troubled her, still she knew that he was innocent, and had hoped by propitiating mother goodhugh to get her in time to withdraw her words. that adventure had failed; but there was a change at home that made her heart leap. sir mark had gone, and an incubus seemed to have been removed from her heart as she felt that the old happy days would come again; and, laughing off the scene with mother goodhugh, she hastened on through the pleasant, sunlit glade, where the birds hardly fled at her approach. "there will be no spells here," she said, laughingly, as she turned aside; and, parting the bushes, climbed down amongst the ferny stones to where the water dropped into a natural basin, from which, with a cup improvised with a broad burdock leaf, she sipped the pure sparkling fluid and quenched her thirst, seating herself afterwards to rest upon one of the mossy stones, and gazing dreamily down the ravine, through which the water flowed beneath a canopy of luxuriant ferns. as she gazed, a kingfisher, till then motionless upon a twig, suddenly darted down into a pool, rose with something silvery in its beak, and fled along the narrow valley like a streak of azure drawn across the verdure by a spirit-hand, while soon after the white coverts of a blue bar-winged jay were seen as the shy bird peered at her with corvine curiosity and then uttered an excited "tchah--tchah!" and fled. mace thought not of kingfisher, jay, or the velvet-coated blackbird that came and perched so near to watch her intently, for she was considering whether sir mark would come back, and, if so, whether he would renew his suit. she was troubled, too, about her father, and his want of faith in gil. it had seemed as if in his heart he did not dislike the attentions paid to her by sir mark; and at last, with a sigh, she rose and continued her little journey. "time smooths away a good many difficulties," she said, half-laughing; "and, if it does not, i must fain follow the example of the virgin queen." to her surprise, before she was out of the wood she met her father, who rarely left the precincts of his own grounds, unless it was to visit ironstone pit, quarry, or the colliers busy charcoal-burning. he seemed to be examining her curiously as she came up to him, and laid her hand upon his arm. "where have you been, tit?" he asked. "to take mother goodhugh a chicken and a few little niceties, poor soul!" "for cursing thy father so bitterly?" "nay, father; to try and make the poor half-crazed soul more sensible." "and to pay her for muttering nonsense to please a silly girl. tit, i thought better of thee," he said. mace looked at him half-wounded, half-amused. "when did you know me guilty of such follies, father?" she asked. "never till now, when thy head was filled with love-nonsense by that scoundrel, gil." "father, you hurt me when you speak thus of gil," she cried sadly; "and when you doubt my truth." "thou hast been to mother goodhugh, like some silly wench, to ask her for love-charms; worse still, thou hast, the moment sir mark has gone, run off to keep tryst with a man i forbid thee to see." the pained look grew deeper in mace's eyes as she laid both her hands upon the broad chest of the founder, and gazed full in his eyes. "father, dear," she said, simply, "why should i go to bid a foolish old woman mutter silly spells, when i know that gil loves me with all his heart." "out upon his love. as he loves anno beckley, and every woman he meets. shame on thee, girl--for shame!" she smiled sadly as she still gazed up in his face. "you don't mean this, father, dear," she said. "you don't think i should be so silly as to go to mother goodhugh for what you say?" "i do," he cried, harshly. "and you don't in your heart think that i have been to see gil." "i tell thee, i do," he cried. "and what is more, you don't think your little girl would play you false." "what?" he cried, "has not gil been at thy window?" "yes, father," she said; "as he has scores of times when we were boy and girl together; but i have bidden him come no more. i never thought harm of it--only that it was pleasant folly," she added, dreamily. "out upon such folly!" he cried. "gil will not come again, and i shall try to see him no more, dear, till you bid us meet; and you do not believe that i should ever deceive you." "you turn me round your finger, child," he cried, catching her to his breast, and kissing her passionately. "no, no, no; i don't believe you went to that old woman for such trash, nor to meet gil carr. i know you couldn't deceive me, my darling; and if i am harsh to thee it is for thy good. ah! tit, tit, what a little witch thou art!" "don't, father!" she cried, starting from him with a cry of pain. "what is it, my bird? what have i done?" "you called me a witch," she said, with a slight shudder, but trying to laugh it off. "well! an' if i did?" he said, laughing. "it was foolish to mind," she said; "but mother goodhugh just now was angry with me, and called me witch, and uttered threats." "against thee?" cried the founder, angrily. "i say, then, let her curses return upon her own head, witch that she is herself. she shall go from roehurst before this time to-morrow." "nay, nay, father," cried mace, hastily; "don't visit her mad ravings upon her. let her rest. poor thing! she's crazed with grief. let her be--for my sake, let her be." "what, and let her some day bring evil upon us by her witcheries?" "what, and is my stout, brave father going to have faith in what yon silly woman says!" cried mace, laughing. "come, father, promise me you will not have her touched." "i'll promise thee anything, child," he said, smoothing her soft hair, and bending down to kiss her cheek. "anything, father?" she cried. "not quite, mace," he said with a sigh; "but anything that is for thy good;" and they walked on through the wood together, the old man smiling and loitering as his companion kept stooping to pick some bright flower, for it put him in mind of her childhood, when sweet mace and the wild flowers seemed each to belong to each. now it was the bright yellow meadow vetchling, now the brilliant orange-tinted lotus, and then long sprays of the purple-blossomed tufted vetch. further on they came to a sunny opening where the trees had been felled, and here was quite a forest garden, where mace paused, with the care that had shaded her face for days gone to leave it bright and childlike once more; while the founder smiled as he stood and watched her run from patch to patch, picking hastily and talking the while. "i won't be long, dear. oh, how beautiful the heath is; what lovely sprays!" then she ran to where the orange ragwort threw up its tufts of sun-like florets, picked golden-rod and saint john's wort; ran a few steps to where the wood betony raised a clump of purple-waving heads. these, with delicate grasses, pink robins, lavender scabious, and soft-foliaged golden-disked flea-bane, and hawkweed, made up a goodly nosegay. but still, there was more and more to add, for as she walked on it was by a clump of golden genista, each plant a bouquet in itself; bright pink starred centaury; and then farther along by a hollow, where the water lay in a dark pool, the quaint stars of the branch bur-reed, with abundance of forget-me-not, seemed to ask the picking. "oh, father!" she cried merrily, as she stopped at last, with a bunch of flowers as large as her fingers could grasp, "what a shame that i should keep thee thus!" "nay, nay, my child," he said, smiling, as he stroked one of her soft flushed cheeks; "it seems to do me good to see thee young again. it is like a rest on life's journey, and a pleasant halt where one can forget one's hurry and toil. mace, my pet," he said, seating himself among the heath upon a sandy bank, "i think i could give up everything, except my garden and my pipe and ale, if you and i could go on together always like this." "then let us go on like this, father," she cried, seating herself at his feet and resting her head against his knee. "why should we let trouble come between?" "because we can't help it, girl," he replied, laughing. "he's let in by that little mischief imp who comes unasked and holds open the door for t'other, and then the sorrows come. you know the boy i mean, tit; his name is love, and i s'pose it has always been the same." there came a curiously pained look in mace's eyes as she turned them quickly up to her father, then the woodland nosegay she had picked fell at her feet, and her head drooped down upon his knee. volume , chapter vii. how the big howitzer was fired. time glided on, and gil's ship was fast getting ready for sea. it was to be a good trip this season; and, as she approached completion, her freight was gradually accumulated, for, as in a quiet matter-of-fact way, the captain let the relations between him and mace stand in abeyance, the founder made some slight advances, and business arrangements were resumed. it would have been a serious matter for both if they had stood out, for gil formed almost the only channel through which jeremiah cobbe's productions were sold, and upon him depended the supply of two of the principal ingredients with which one of the founder's branches of industry was carried on. so gunpowder was made and ground. gil--though never asked to the house, nor making any attempt to see mace, and at their casual encounters meeting her quite as a friend--spent much of his time at the founder's works, superintending a casting, watching the purification of some batch of nitre that he had brought home, and, above all, helping at the trial of a newly-finished howitzer or culverin. the founder was pleased, for he told himself that the young people were growing sensible, and he became more friendly to gil, who at last, after sundry night journeys had been noted by the people about, found himself ready for another voyage. "when do you sail, then?" said the founder to him one morning. "i have thought of going to-morrow," was the reply; "but the tide hardly suits." "then put it off till the next day, my lad, and we'll have out the new piece to-morrow, and try her across the pool." "with all my heart," said gil, and the next morning he was busy and light-hearted at the foundry, with old wat kilby and half-a-dozen more, helping and superintending the mounting and dragging out of the great newly-finished piece of artillery, on which the founder for some time had been engaged. "she'll startle some of them," he said, as he patted the great piece on the breech, just as mace came up slowly, and saluted gil. "you shall have the first shot with her, tit," he said, as the idea occurred to him. "will it be safe to let her?" said gil, rather anxiously, as he saw mace shudder and shrink back. "safe? just as if one of my pieces could burst!" cried the founder, disdainfully. "the girt barrel be ready, mas' cobbe," said tom croftly, as he came up to announce that he had set up a great tub on a platform of planks on the other side of the pool. "we'll soon batter that down," cried the founder, as with a loud cheer the huge piece of artillery was dragged up to the end of the lake, facing the founder's house, the whole of the men turning out to see the first discharge. "you'll help me to load and train her?" said the founder, who was as excited over the trial as a boy. "ay, i'll help," cried gil, rolling up the sleeves of his doublet, and taking the lead at charging the monster; mace smiling as she looked on, and saw the strength he brought to bear, ramming the powder, lifting the great shot as if it were a child's ball, and then driving it home. "don't aim at the target till we get the charged shell," said the founder. "this is only a christening shot." "then we'll call the piece `mace the first,'" said gil, laughing. "that's her name, then," said the founder; "and she shall be the first of many maces. why are you aiming so low?" "i want to show you a shot of mine that i should use against a spaniard if i wished to sink her," said gil, smiling, as by means of wedges he depressed the muzzle of the piece. "but stop, man, the ball will go to the bottom of the pool, and i want you to hit yon ragged oak." "so i shall," cried gil, taking aim. "give me leave, and you shall see." "there," he said, when he had adjusted the piece to his satisfaction, "that will about do. now, wat, ready with that linstock. what are you looking at, man?" wat kilby, whose eyes had been fixed on janet staring out of the window, uttered a low growl, and lit the linstock. "now, master cobbe," cried gil, "do you feel satisfied that the piece is safe?" "my life upon it," cried the founder. "nay," said gil, gently; "it is thy child's life." the founder frowned, and was about to speak hastily, but he refrained. "thou art right, friend gil," he said; "but have no fear, the piece is made of my toughest stuff. come, my child, be ready with the linstock." gil's countenance betrayed his uneasiness; and, to give him confidence, mace let her eyes meet his, with a calm, loving look, as she mastered her dread and horror, took the burning linstock, and stood ready near the breech. there was a general rush to right and left as the lighted linstock was brought forward; only the founder, gil, and wat kilby, who handed the light, remaining, the latter coolly squatting down near the mouth of the piece to watch the course of the shot. the founder smiled grimly as he said to his child: "a little more to the right, my lass. i warrant she don't burst; but she'll kick like a castilian mule. now, captain, if you like to stand aside, there's no need for you to run a risk." gil smiled and nodded his head as he took a final glance along the piece to satisfy himself as to the direction in which it was laid. "there," he said. "i am quite ready; raise your arm a little, mace, and let the burning linstock fall softly on the touch-hole. now, master cobbe, give the word, please; when you will." "as i cry three," cried the founder--"ready--one, two, _three_." gil stood by the side of the piece, opposite to mace, watching her face as she stood firm and unflinching; and as she lowered the linstock he inwardly cried, "brave girl! she would face a peril that would kill any of less sterling mould." for, at the word "three," she let the linstock-end, with its burning slow match, touch lightly, exactly on the point where the priming lay. then there was a flash, a ball of white smoke, vomited from the howitzer's mouth, a deafening roar, and the great iron ball struck the water fifty yards away, rose, dipped again, and went on skipping along the surface of the water till it crossed the lake, and split the decaying oak to fragments, where it stood blasted on the further shore. a loud hurrah from the lookers-on told of their satisfaction; and the founder turned in admiration to the captain. "a wonderful shot," he said; "but how learned you that trick, friend gil? i thought we should never see the ball again." "from throwing stones," said gil, smiling. "if a stone should bound along the surface, why not a shot? that is the deadliest shot to my mind, master cobbe, that one could send at an enemy's ship, and it was bravely fired." "of course," said the founder, proudly. "if my child knew that i had made the powder, and my hands had designed and fashioned the piece, she felt she would have naught to fear. and now for a shell." "yes," said gil, thoughtfully; "now for a shell. you think your piece will fire one straight, master cobbe, as well as a mortar throws one in a half-circle through the air?" "i do," said the founder. "i lay my life on it." "then," said gil, "i'd like to try my plan at the same time." "what may that be, my lad?" "well, sir, it is this," said gil. "you load your piece, then you prepare your well-charged shell, with a piece of slow match in its eye." "yes." "and according to whether that is long or short, so is the time before it bursts the shell." "exactly, my lad." "and you light the fuse or match before you place it in the howitzer." "how else could you do it, my lad?" "that we will try," said gil. "i propose that you load the piece as you would a common gun, and then put in the shell with its fuse unlit." "why, that's no better than a shot," cried wat kilby. "nay, old lad, the powder would fire the match when the piece went off, and thus all the awkward preparation would be saved." "my faith, gil," said the founder, smiling, "it's a grand idea, and you shall try it; for if it succeeds there ought to be a big reward for the man who invents such a plan." "let's try, then," said gil, quietly; and, with wat kilby's help, the piece was recharged, a shell filled with powder, and, with its fuse towards the charge, rammed home. then the great piece was laid so that it commanded the broad tub set up as a mark. "i reckon," said gil, "that this shell should burst just about when it strikes that mark, which should be shattered to pieces; and, if an enemy's ship, or a fortress, terribly crippled by the effect." "good, my lad, it should," said the founder, smiling. without another word, gil carefully adjusted the piece; the linstock was again handed to mace, and, hiding a shudder, for her father's sake she once more fired the great gun, and after a few moments, as the roar rolled like thunder over the pool, the founder exclaimed-- "a failure, gil, a--" _crash_! from a mile away came the roar of the bursting shell, like an echo of the first shot. "a success, sir, a success; but we wanted a quarter the fuse," said gil, smiling. "it's glorious--it's grand!" cried the founder, excitedly. "gil, your hand--nay, we don't shake hands now. captain carr, you could make a name as the greatest gunner in our land. mace, my child, bravely fired. why, that shell must have struck the high rocks, where the new ironstone lies." "ay, it has," said wat kilby, who stood shading his eyes with his hand, as he gazed at the high precipitous rocks away behind the gabled house. "quick, there, another shot!" cried the founder. "mace, my child, art ready for another?" "nay, father," she said quietly, and with a pained look in her eyes; "you should try this time." "ay, lass, and i will," he cried, as he watched the sponging-out and reloading of the piece; while mace, who little recked in that shot of what she had done for her future, stood now a spectator, instead of an actor in the scene. the piece was soon ready, and this time the shell was prepared by gil himself, with a shorter fuse. "lay her so that the shell may burst over the great charcoal-heap by the corner of the wood," said the founder; and, after exercising a great deal of care, gil laid the piece quite to his satisfaction. "now try," he said. "ready!" "ready," cried the founder. "fire." the linstock was again applied; there was the same tremendous roar; the great piece leaped back several feet, and a few seconds later, _crash_! came the bursting of the shell once more, so near to the charcoal hill that the air was filled with the fragments that were scattered far. "a great success, gil; you have won a prize," cried the founder, "one of those that the world will talk of a century hence; but hey-day! what's this?" there was the quick trampling of horses' feet, and at the end of a few seconds two horsemen came tearing along the track at full speed, their riders having apparently lost all control over their steeds. the first kept his seat, and tugged hard at the bridle; but the second was well on his horse's neck, to which he clung with all his might, his red face and his thickly-padded feather breeches showing that it was sir thomas beckley, whose appearance was greeted by the founder with a roar of laughter. gil hardly glanced at him, for the happy sunshine of the past hours seemed to have been clouded, as the frightened horses stopped of their own accord, and he saw that the first arrival was sir mark, whose horse, like that of the baronet, had been startled by the bursting shell. volume , chapter viii. how sir mark's men came to grief. "confound you, fool," cried sir mark, leaping from his restive steed; and as he spoke his eyes rested upon gil. "have a care how you fire. your blundering nearly cost worshipful sir thomas beckley his life." gil met his eye with a cold stare of defiance that made the hot blood dance in the other's veins. "it was i who fired the shell, sir mark," said the founder, curtly; "and it were well when i am trying my pieces if visitors gave notice of their coming." "i came, sir, on the king's business," said sir mark, sharply; "and so ride where and when i will! i trust thou art not hurt, sir thomas." the worthy baronet felt for his hat, which was gone, and with it his sunday plume, as, evidently congratulating himself that he was safe on earth again and free of his frightened steed, he raised his fat eyelids a little wider, and gaped like a fish, opening his lips and shutting them without a sound. "see," he continued, "the worthy justice is hurt. i ask your pardon, mistress mace, but i was concerned for sir thomas. will you help me to lead him into the house--with your permission, master cobbe." "permission?" cried the founder. "there, sir, leave your ceremony in town when you come to see me. sir thomas, i am sorry our firing startled your good nag: come in and drink a cup of wine, and you'll be all right in a twinkling." sir thomas wanted to be dignified, and refuse, but at the same time he felt ready to give his ears for a glass of wine. he was shaken, bruised, and his nerve had gone; in fact he had given himself over for a dead man, when his horse stopped beside the group of workmen; so, sinking his dignity, he followed the founder across the little bridge and into the house, sir mark following, with mace, who knew that she must be at hand to play the hostess. just then a couple of sir mark's followers,--half soldiers, half servants,--cantered up, and, seeing at a glance that no harm was done, threw themselves from their horses, and, pitching the reins to the nearest workmen, strutted and stared about in a condescending way, as if the rusticity of the place and people was highly amusing to their london minds. gil leaned with his back against the gun, gazing after those who entered the house; and a feeling of bitterness came over him as he recalled the fact that the next day he sailed on a voyage that might take him three, four, or five months, and he would have to go and leave the woman he loved exposed to the persecutions of this man. he smiled as he glanced down at himself, at his loose shirt smeared and blackened with gunpowder, his bare arms and hands smirched with the same; and he compared himself with the gaily-attired officer who had alighted and entered the house, and not to his own advantage. "even his grooms cut a better figure," muttered gil. his musings were cut short by a growl from wat kilby. "how now, old bear!" he said, bitterly. "is thy head sore?" "it'll be somebody else's head sore directly," growled the old fellow, who had just been a witness of the fact that one of sir mark's followers had seen janet's bright face at the window, as she gazed admiringly at the showily-dressed new arrivals, and had kissed his hand to her--a compliment the pretty handmaiden was not slow to acknowledge. "now, wat, you must not heed such things," said gil. "what is the girl to thee?" "this much, skipper, that if he don't mind--there: if he affronts me i'll stuff him head first into the gun, as i be a sinful man." "silence, old fool!" cried gil, angrily. "the girl is nothing, and never will be, to thee. get me my doublet and cap, for the new babe is baptised and the visitors may all go home." "old fool, eh?" growled wat. "well, perhaps i be. never mind; it's pleasant to be an old fool if it be on account of a pretty woman." as he spoke he fetched his skipper's doublet and cap from the place where they had hung, and was turning with them to gil, who had stooped down by the edge of the pool, to wash off some of the tightly-clinging powder, when one of sir mark's followers walked up, and, rudely slapping gil on the shoulder, cried, "stop there, fellow; you have not done yet." "no," said the other, swaggering up; "you've fired for your pleasure; now, perhaps, you'll have to fire for ours." "my lads," said gil, quietly, "i am not in a quarrelling humour to-day. go to thy master, or maybe his livery may get sullied in the pool." "insolent!" cried one. "what does he mean?" cried the other. "stop, i say; keep your doublet off till sir mark gives you leave to put it on." he made a snatch at the garment wat was handing to his leader, wondering the while how gil could be so calm, but as the fellow snatched at the sleeve gil's open hand dealt him so tremendous a blow in the chest that he staggered backwards; and, as his companion leaped at gil to help his comrade, wat thrust out a foot and sent him sprawling on the ground. the two men leaped up, whipped out their swords, and made at gil, who half drew his own weapon, but thrust it back with a contemptuous "pish!" and, as the first man made a pass at him, he struck it aside with his open hand, closed with his assailant, disarmed him, and snapped his sword in two. the other was more cautious, but gil watched his opportunity, tore his sword from his hand, and served it the same. blind with rage, the two men drew their daggers, and made at him again; but by this time gil's men had closed round, and sir mark's followers were seized and disarmed. "what shall we do with them, captain?" said one of the sailors; but gil had walked away in disgust at the treatment he received from the founder, and the order came from wat kilby-- "pitch 'em overboard, my lads, into the pool." meanwhile, sir mark had entered the old parlour, and gladly, like sir thomas, availed himself of the founder's hospitality after a long, hot, and dusty ride. the exciting finish, too, had begotten thirst. he had a dozen gallant sayings to bestow upon mace, whose mind was full of the insult he had thrown at gil; and her heart beat with pleasure as she recalled her lover's calm sense of contempt for the gaily-dressed fly who had stung him in the breast. "this is not a bad glass of wine, master cobbe," said sir thomas, who was drinking his third. "i'm glad you like it," said the founder, who kept glancing at sir mark and his child in an uneasy way; "it's part of a cask brought me from the south of spain itself." "ah, yes," said the worthy justice; "it is not bad." "the days have seemed weeks since i have been away, mistress cobbe," whispered sir mark; "and i have tried so earnestly to come." "is it on business to my father?" said mace, who felt that she must say something, "that depends, sweet," he said in a low voice. "i come as a friend or as an enemy, as he will, and as the fair mistress mace may will. his majesty has charged me with a mission to master cobbe, that means--shall i speak plainly?" "if you please, sir mark," she replied. "i do not understand you else." "then i will speak out, even at the risk of offending--nay, i would say hurting, one who, i hope, is very glad to welcome me back." "you said you would speak plainly, sir mark," replied mace. "ay, and so i will," he said; "but surely i may prolong our discourse. think how many weary weeks it is since i heard thy voice." "you said you came as a friend, or as an enemy to my father, sir mark," replied mace, ignoring the compliment. "you must come as a friend when you enter his house and partake of his hospitality." "tush! how sharp the little rustic mind can be. nay, child; how did you know i meant to stay?" he added aloud. "from thy manner, sir mark." "then i trust it will be as a friend that i have come," he said, eagerly; "and that my stay here may be long, and bring great riches to your father's purse. it rests with him, or with thee, i hardly can tell which." "your words are strange, sir mark," said mace, who kept on talking, but with her thoughts far away, for the sounds of angry voices had fallen upon her ear, and she was trembling lest anything wrong should have arisen on account of gil. "nay, then, how can i speak otherwise?" whispered sir mark, as sir thomas prosed on with the founder, praising his wine, and condescending to drink deeply, for it was greatly to his taste--"how can i speak otherwise when i am so confused and stricken by thee? let me speak plainly, then." "see to thy men, sir mark," cried mace, hurrying to the open window; for just then came an angry buzz of voices, shouts mingled with laughter, and cries for help, in which sir mark's name was mingled. in two strides he was at the window. the next moment he had leaped out, just as there were a couple of splashes, and he saw, just where the race commenced, his two followers plunged into the pool. volume , chapter ix. how wat kilby was not ducked. men, when half-angry, are in their horseplay rather disposed to be brutal, and it was so here. sir mark's followers had made themselves exceedingly obnoxious to those of gil, and they had seen him defend himself against a furious attack before, treating his enemies with contempt, he had brushed them aside and walked away. there was a fine opportunity then to avenge the insult to their leader, and to teach the gaily-dressed strangers to be a little less important and condescending to the people amongst whom they had come. ever since the world began there has been the desire to dress up the frail tenement of clay in which our souls do dwell, and to make it bright and gaudy. in early days it was perhaps only a daub of red earth, the blue or purple stain of a berry or leaf, or a brightly-tinted feather from some wild bird's wing; and no sooner was the decoration donned than envy came upon the scene, mingled with dislike. possession could not be had of the gay adornment, but there was the satisfaction of seeing the bright colours fade, the daub of gaily-hued earth washed away by the same heavy rain that bedraggled the feather, and made its plumes stick to the shaft. this same feeling exists in a.d. as it did in the year +b.c., and no greater pleasure can be given to a rough mob than that of seeing some well-dressed individual come down into the mud. the followers of gilbert carr then felt a real annoyance at seeing these showily-dressed men vapouring about, and hence it was with sincere pleasure that they heard wat's order, one which they were not slow in putting into effect. four of the sturdy sailor-looking men seized the strangers on the instant; while the workpeople freely helped; and the result was that, in spite of struggles, cries, and piteous appeals, first one and then the other was plunged into the rushing water of the mill-race, and borne towards the turning wheel. as for wat kilby, he would have felt a grim satisfaction in seeing both swept through, over the fall into the deep hole beyond, where he would have helped to fish them out half-drowned; but there were plenty of workpeople present who would not allow matters to go to such an extremity, but were already about to lend aid as sir mark leaped out of the window, to be followed more deliberately by the founder through the door, sir thomas staying behind to have another glass of the very satisfactory wine. sir mark then was in time to see his two men carefully fished out, to stand staggering and dripping on the edge of the pool. "how was this?" he cried. "whose doing was it?" he repeated, stamping his foot angrily, and gazing round as his men sputtered, panted, and pressed the water out of their eyes. for answer there was a tremendous roar of laughter, which exasperated him the more, as he looked eagerly around for gil, or some one worthy of his steel. the founder was more successful, for on coming up and asking a similar question, gazing angrily the while at wat kilby, that individual uttered a low laugh. "this was thy doing!" the founder cried fiercely, as he scowled at the old sailor. "ay, and suppose it was, master cobbe. what then?" growled wat. "you dog! how dare you insult my guests?" he cried. "i'll have no more of thy ill-conditioned drunken ways. here, croftly, jenking, a dozen of you, serve this old brawler, here, the same. i will have him punished, sir mark, or my name is not cobbe." he turned to his guest, and then his sun-browned, rugged face became purple with fury, for, of all the group of his busy workmen about, not one stirred to do his bidding. "do you hear?" he roared, furiously. "in with that fellow there." wat kilby laughed, and seated himself on a block of stone, took out his pipe and flint and steel with exasperating calmness, and prepared to strike a light. still no one moved, and sir mark, who was irritated beyond endurance, called to his followers to throw wat in themselves. but the two men shivered and glanced towards their horses, so thoroughly had they been cowed by their wetting; and, seeing this, sir mark made at the old fellow himself. "up with you, boor," he cried, presenting his sword as if to prick the old fellow towards the water. wat ceased nicking the steel against the flint, blew at the tinder, lit his pipe, and puffed a cloud in the face of sir mark, as, rising suddenly, he towered over him, and looked down with a cool laugh. "put up thy sword, my fine fellow," he cried. "thou art not going to pook me, and there isn't a man here who would raise a finger to help thee. i gave my lads here orders to duck your men for insulting our captain, and they did it well. come away, boys, we are not wanted here." the great fellow's coolness seemed somehow to stagger sir mark, while the founder made no further attempt to interfere, as wat thrust his tobacco in one pocket, his flint and steel in the other; and, puffing away at his pipe, went slowly off, staring hard at the house for a glance at janet. then passing the great howitzer he gave it an affectionate slap upon the breech, and marched towards the forest. "in with you," cried sir mark to his followers; "in and get your garments dry. master cobbe, these men will have to be brought to book." he glanced round haughtily at the group of workpeople, who did not, however, seem much impressed either by him or his ways, for they merely nodded and whispered together, ending by broadly grinning at the figure cut by the two half-drowned men, who followed the founder into one of the stone furnace-sheds, where they were furnished with blankets to use as wrappers while their clothes were rapidly dried. sir thomas shortly after left on foot, alleging that he was too much hurt by the saddle to attempt to mount again; and his horse was ridden back for him by one of the founder's boys. the worthy baronet and justice reached home looking very hot and weary, to be met on the step by his daughter. "where is sir mark?" she cried. "my dear, i left him at the pool," replied sir thomas, feebly, for the attack made by his daughter was sharp. "left him there? did i not say thou wert to stay and bring him back?" "but, my dear--" "oh, out upon you!" cried mistress anne, stamping her foot in anger. "fie, father, fie; i try so hard to do justice to thy house, and welcome our guest back as becomes his rank. i try to let him see that he is the visitor of a baronet, and what do you do, my father, but slight him-- leave him to the care of these people at the foundry, for him to stay as he stayed before. it is a shame." poor sir thomas tried to put on his magisterial air, but failed dismally, as he always did when he tried to do battle with his child. he could frighten his different domestics till they trembled in awe of his presence; but his daughter seemed to have so great an influence over him that he was fain to open and shut his lips in fish-like muteness, and obey her to the very letter. it was a great relief to him then when mistress anne flounced out of the room, and he heard a door upstairs bang very loudly, being a signal that she had shut herself, angrily, in her own bower, as it was called by the maids. "poor child," he muttered; "i fear her heart is set on this young knight." "what's that you say?" exclaimed dame beckley, who had entered, and heard a part of his speech. "i say, i fear me that her heart is set upon this young knight, my dear." "tut--tut--tut. yes, i suppose so," replied the dame. "but the other day it was that captain gil." "ay, she's a headstrong girl," said the baronet; "and we shall have much trouble with her yet. how much she takes after my family, to be sure!" dame beckley glanced sidewise at her lord, but she did not speak; and then, hearing that sir mark had not returned, and that sir thomas did not know whether he would return, she fully divined how it was that the eruption of temper had taken place; and sighing, and wishing her daughter well wed, she retired to cull simples in the garden, and feel thankful that she had outgrown all such troubles of her own. volume , chapter x. how sir mark played his cards. there was news at the pool-house next day that culverin carr's ship had sailed; jeremiah cobbe hearing thereof from his man, tom croftly. "heaven send them a good voyage, master," said the workman. "i hear the girt ship went down the river at daybreak, and there's a brave deal of our work on board." "yes," said the founder, thoughtfully; and then he began thinking about gil. "he's gone off, poor boy, and without a word of good-bye. i was rough enough to him yesterday, and yet he showed me a plan that is a little fortune in itself. poor lad, i like him; but tut--tut; there, it can never be; mace is no mate for him, and i'm glad that he has gone." he was busying himself soon after in seeing the big howitzer dragged back to the shelter of a shed, so as to be free to talk to sir mark, who had intimated or rather ordered him to be ready for a conference at ten of the clock; and, in spite of his bluff independence, there was that in his guest's manner that made him rather uneasy, as much on his child's account as upon his own. "there's something behind," he said; "something i don't understand; and, though i could fight him well enough in a fair and open quarrel, when they get to their diplomacy and policy, and underhanded-behind-your-back ways, i'm done." the thoughts of the previous day's shell-firing, however, put sir mark out of his head; and he was thinking whether it would not be wise to have the howitzer out once more to try the same experiments, when sir mark, who had been waiting since breakfast to gain an interview with mace, and quite in vain, now joined him by the edge-stone of the race. for mace had had hard work to maintain her composure at the morning meal; having heard, as she had from janet only just before, that gil's ship had sailed. she was not satisfied with their parting, for she felt in her heart that he would be troubled at the presence of sir mark, whose inopportune return had, as it were, cast a shadow on gil's last day. "but he'll trust me," she said, with a satisfied smile; "and he may. there, i'll fret no more, for time will make all smooth, no doubt." as to sir mark, she felt that she must be very plain with him, and trust to his being enough of a gentleman to cease what would degenerate into persecution if continued in face of her declaration that she could not listen to his suit. so mace brightened up, and told herself that there was no need to be at all uneasy about their guest, setting him down as a vain coxcomb, without giving him the credit for being, to gain his own ends, unscrupulous to a degree. "ah, sir mark," exclaimed the founder, heartily; "i've seen thy two fellows, and a hearty breakfast has set them right. they are none the worse for their last night's dip." "bodily, perhaps not, master cobbe; but mentally i'll vow that they are very ill. my followers are soldiers and gentlemen, and cannot suffer so great an affront without some heed. those people with their leader will have to be hunted out of the place." "thou'lt want ships to limit them now," said the founder, drily; "for they are off to sea." "what! at sea? why, they were here but now." "but now?" "well, last even," said sir mark. "they cannot be gone." "tut, man. culverin carr and his men work by night, when such as we are asleep. they were at the mouth of the river, where the sea beats on the sand-bar, before you woke this morning, i'll be bound." "you seem to be well acquainted with their movements, master cobbe," said sir mark. "not i," was the reply. "when i've sold cargo to captain gil i ask no more except to have a written promise from him to pay me my money, which generally comes in sulphur and in chinese salt. i never inquire into his sailings or comings-in. it is as well not, and they're pretty secret over them, taking on board, sailing, and the like." "this is curious work, master cobbe, in his majesty's dominions. law and order seem to be held cheaply here. it was time something was done." "and yet, sir, we have gone on for years, offending none, and have found life very bearable," said the founder, warmly. "_we_ owe no man aught, and we ask no favours from any. but you had business to do with me, sir mark. shall we go in?" "no," said sir mark, "i'll say what i have to say out here." the founder softly rubbed his hands and wished that the great howitzer had not been replaced in the shed, for it might have been fired again, and its wonderful strength and carrying powers exhibited to the king's messenger. if he saw its value, and made good representations at court, that would be a large fortune for his child. he rubbed his hands again, smiling to himself the while, till he awoke suddenly to the fact that sir mark was watching, when he seemed suddenly to tighten himself up, and gazed back shrewdly at his companion, who smiled and said-- "i came back to you, master cobbe, armed with great powers by his majesty, to whom i have talked long and learnedly upon your works and knowledge of the arts and mysteries of making guns." "that is well, sir mark," said the founder, smiling. "and what said his majesty?" "he left in my hands the power and discretion to order of you--largely-- sundry munitions of war." "that is good," said the founder, rubbing his hands, as if the palms began to itch to feel the money. "hi was satisfied with the quality and workmanship." "i tell thee, sir mark, that the equals of my pieces are not to be found in this country, search where you will. i take such pains to have naught but the toughest iron, and as to finish--" "exactly, master cobbe," said the knight, smiling in a half-cynical manner; "but that is your view of the matter." "no man ever knew me to lie or to cheat in trading, sir mark," said the founder, hotly. "i will compare my pieces with those of any foundry in--" "yes, yes, exactly, master cobbe, exactly. but, hark ye, i have, as i tell thee, full authority to deal with thee, but everything depends upon my report." "try the report of the pieces themselves," said the founder, chuckling. "there, speak out, my lad. if it be a case of commission, say what you require, and i'll tell thee at once whether i'll pay or no." "do you wish to insult me, master cobbe?" said the knight, haughtily. "insult thee? no, my lad, not i. would it be any insult to offer thee a hundred or two for thine introduction?" "silence, man!" cried sir mark, angrily. "i am no dealer seeking a bribe, but one who would do you a good turn, if possible, at a very difficult time. you have enemies." "if successful, didst ever know a man without?" "and they have somehow given the king to understand that it was really you who supplied the conspirators with the powder for their deadly plot." "but i swear--" began the founder. "what good will that do, sir? an enemy swears against thee, and humours the king, who, so great is his hatred of such matters, lends willing ear to the charge, and would rather believe the treason of thee than not." "that's a pretty state of affairs!" cried the founder. "do you mean to tell me, sir mark, that the king would willingly believe an honest man guilty?" "his majesty gives much of his time to two subjects--that of witchcraft and that of schemes against his person. you know how deadly a plot was laid against him by his papist enemies?" "ay, i know all that; but--" "hear me out, master cobbe, then you shall speak to your heart's content. here is the case. it has been reported to his majesty that you are a great factor of deadly gunpowder; that you sell it largely to his majesty's enemies; and that at the present time you are receiving into your house a papist spy--one father brisdone, who is making arrangement for a fresh supply of powder for some new plan." "it's a lie!" roared the founder, striking his doubled fist in his opened hand. "now, look here, master ambassador, or whatever you call yourself, how comes his majesty to know aught about my powder and father brisdone? it strikes me, sir, that yours have been the lips that made the mischief." sir mark was taken aback by this outburst, but he recovered himself pretty quickly. "i will not take offence, neither will i argue with you upon such a point, master cobbe," he said, coldly. "let me ask you this--was mine the speech that gave evil report of thee to the king, which said evil report first brought me down?" "true!" exclaimed the founder. "i beg thy pardon, my lad. there is some busy meddling rascal, then, who tells tales of me and mine. well, all i say is, let him look to it. i would not be he for a something if we two stood together some night by the mill-pool." "you would not throw him in?" said sir mark. "no; but i might push him in, and leave him to get out how he could. but there, you can send word to his majesty that he has been deceived. certainly i sell powder to go abroad along with my guns--powder made of the softest dogwood charcoal we can burn." "yes," said sir mark; "i could, as you say, send word to his majesty that it is not so, but it would require backing up with stronger asseveration." "to be sure," said the founder; "and that you will make. you tell his majesty that i am the last man in the kingdom to do him harm." "why should i tell him this, master cobbe?" "why? why tell him?" said the blunt founder. "why? because it is the truth." sir mark smiled, and stood apparently thinking for a while before he spoke again. "master cobbe, i have the power to place in thy hands," he said at last, "the supplying of as many pieces of ordnance, and as much good, strong powder, as thou could'st make, for the use of his majesty's forces, in an expedition to be sent to holland. what say you; will you supply the guns?" "price, my lad, price? will his highness pay me well?" "i will undertake to say that he will, master cobbe; and, what is more, i can see that it is done. make your own fair, honest charge for the pieces and their food, and there will be no demur." "look here, sir mark," replied the founder, looking the speaker full in the face; "you turned angry when i talked of giving you a recompense for this order, and called it bribery. what does it all mean? thou would'st not do all this for naught." "is there no such thing as gratitude in the world, master cobbe?" "plenty, sir; but court gallants don't come spreading it out like beaten gold over a rough country work-master, unless they want to get something back." "you are witty at the expense of court gallants, as you call them, master cobbe," said sir mark, laughing. "tut, man, be not so dense. is it a surprise to you that i should have spent my time in london working hard on thy behalf? here was an order for ordnance going a-begging. what more natural for me to say than--here is honest jeremiah cobbe, who can make better pieces than his majesty will get elsewhere, and it will force him back into the king's esteem, instead of his lying under the stigma of being a traitor? what more likely for me to do than to get him the order?" "then, thou hast gotten me the order, eh, sir mark?" "nay, i have obtained for myself the power to give thee that order, master cobbe." "and at what price?" "tush, man, speak not of price," cried the other, eagerly. "what are prices to us? can you not see that our interests are one, and that i am working for myself as well as thee?" "nay," said the founder, bluntly; "i see it not." "you will not see it, master cobbe," said sir mark, smiling. "why, man, i have but one thought--for thy welfare." "indeed," said the founder, bluntly; "and why?" "why?" cried sir mark. "you ask me why, when you know so well that i would do aught for the father of the woman i love." "ah," said the founder, drily; "now we have got to it at last. so that mad wish of thine is not dead yet." "mad wish! why, master cobbe, for what do you take me?" "a very good hand at a bargain, sir mark. nay, nay, stop you, and let me speak, for you have had a goodly say. you come to me then, now, scorning all kinds of commission for the great order you have to bestow, but you say to me all the same--here is the order, give me thy daughter in return." "master cobbe!" "sir mark leslie! now, sir, what manner of man do you take me to be, that you offer me goodly orders in exchange for my own poor flesh and blood?" "no, no, master cobbe; you do not speak me fair." "i think i do, sir," replied the founder. "go, take thy great order elsewhere, i'll have none of it. my child weds some day a man of her own station, who is a suitable mate. i shall not take a bribe to give her to the first who tries to tempt me." "come, come, master cobbe, you are too hard. you know i love her." "yes; you say so, sir." "be not so hard, then. give me access to her." "access to her, man? you speak as if i locked her in her room. my child is free enough, and she will tell thee readily that she is no mate for sir mark leslie." "nay, nay, master cobbe!" "nay, nay, sir mark. there, sir, you are welcome to what my house affords while it pleases thee to stay, for i will not quarrel with thee; but let us have no more converse about such matters as these." "and the order, master cobbe, one that would bring thee thousands?" "take it elsewhere, sir; take it elsewhere. you are a very good, generous kind of devil, no doubt, but thy temptations will not succeed at so great a price." "bah!" ejaculated sir mark. "devil, forsooth! one would think, man, i asked for thy soul." "and what else dost ask for?" cried the founder, angrily, "but for the pure, sweet girl who is to me my very life and soul. there, i'll speak no more on it. i get angered, and i've had repentance enough for quarrelling with you once before, good guest. there, sir, as i said before, the house is open to you and to your men. take its hospitality; as to that order, make of it what you can." evidently growing hot and angry, the founder turned away to go and cool himself--so it seemed--in his hottest furnace, while sir mark stood watching him till he disappeared, with a smile upon his lips. "the old fellow is tougher than i thought," he said. "i expected the prospect of the money would have won his consent. well, it makes me feel a kind of respect for him after all, rough as he is. but stop a bit, master cobbe, you'll execute the king's order and make money by it. you'll give me sweet mace's hand, and sooner or later i'll have thy savings to the last penny to clear off my little debts, and enable my beautiful rustic wife to keep up such style as shall make the sneering dames at court think twice before they slight one who has beauty, power, and position." as he spoke, he glanced at an open window, where mace, trembling and excited, had been an unseen spectator of the meeting, standing far back in the room, and giving a sigh of relief as she saw her father stride angrily away. volume , chapter xi. how gil interrupted a discussion. there must be something very fascinating in the herb called tobacco, or else the reverend gentlemen, who had commenced taking it with distaste, would never have grown to be steady smokers; and, in spite of mistress hilberry's sour looks, met evening by evening to enjoy their pipes with the regularity of a clock. but so it was, and it grew to be quite a custom for master peasegood to welcome father brisdone daily, and lay his pipe ready to his hand when he seated himself at the table. "yes," said master peasegood, as they sat together; "our gay spark has come back, and he has had a long talk with jeremiah cobbe. he wants to have our little maiden's hand." "but he must not," cried father brisdone, excitedly. "better that she should enter some holy walls as the bride of christ." "humph!" ejaculated master peasegood; "i don't quite agree with you there, brother; but we will not argue. i am with you that he should not marry our little maiden. by the way, he let drop to friend cobbe something about you." "how know you this?" said the father. "why cobbe told me, to be sure." "under the seal of confession?" "seal of stuff!" cried master peasegood, testily. "i don't confess. he told me, and asked my advice, and i tell my most intimate friend. look here, brother. it seems they won't let thee alone." "indeed! and why?" "there's a rumour out that thou art down here to purchase powder for some new plot, and master cobbe is in a fine way about it." "and you? what did you say to him?" "told him he was a fool." "hah!" said father brisdone. "i was just in the humour," said master peasegood. "i am just in the humour now. why i'd rather marry the poor girl myself than see her handed over to that court pie." "and master cobbe--what says he?" "that he'd sooner see her in her grave." "poor girl, poor, sweet girl!" said father brisdone. "it must not be, brother. we must fight on the other side." "there'll be no need." "nay, but there will. yon spark is cunning and crafty, and he will work upon the old man till he consents. if they have designs against me, i may at any time be removed or have to flee. if this be so, i leave you to on that poor girl's side to the very last." "have you seen her lately?" "i was there four days since for a good and pleasant hour," said father brisdone, with a sigh. "nay," he said, smiling, "look not so suspiciously; i said no word on religion to her. what need was there when her breast is so pure and free from guile?" master peasegood stretched out his broad fat hand, and pressed that of his friend. "thank you, brother," he said, smiling. "it's strange how we have drifted together. i'll confess it; i've tried hard indirectly, and hoped to get thee over to our church." "not harder than i have tried indirectly with thee," said father brisdone, smiling. "ah, brother, why should we trouble ourselves about it when we are both journeying on the highway. you like to walk in boots, and i prefer sandals." "hah, yes," said master peasegood; "but then i do save my feet from the grit, and dust, and thorns of the way." "yes, but then i travel with shaven crown and cooler head than you in your thick flap hat." "yes, perhaps so. but there, there, why should we discourse about such matters?" "true, brother, when we are both hopeful that, in spite of contending dogma, we may reach the heavenly gate in company; and it strikes me," he added with a smile, "that if we do the good saint may give us both a welcoming smile." "brother," said master peasegood, leaning across the table, "if he had not one for you, i'd, i'd--bless me that i would--i'd take him to task about the fact." "take him to task!" "ay! remind him of a bit of weakness of his when a certain cock did crow." father brisdone looked up with a half-amused, half-sorrowful expression. then, with a sigh: "if the good saint had no welcome for my companion, and held the door open for me alone, i should feel that i had been mistaken all my life, join hands with my friend, and accompany him back." there was another hearty shake of the hand at this, and then the two friends sat and smoked in silence for a time. "look here, brother," said master peasegood, suddenly; "we both love and like to direct sweet mace, and leave another roaming about like a poor lost lamb. now, why don't you take up mistress anne beckley? she is young, and easily moulded." "nay," was the reply; "i'd rather you tried your hand. i shall not seek to make her a proselyte to our cause." master peasegood sat gazing at his friend for a while, and then exclaimed-- "the news i gave you does not seem to have much effect." "what news?" "that thou art a papist emissary, and come to purchase powder for a new plot." "heaven grant that such a bloody and atrocious crime be not again upon the way. it makes me shudder to think that men could have such ideas, and say that they are in the cause of the church." father brisdone spoke excitedly, and his pale face flushed as he rose and paced the room. "oh, brother, we live in bitter times when men can think a good and gracious god could smile down upon such crimes." "ah," said master peasegood, re-lighting his little pipe, "you are a bad catholic, and i no longer wonder that thou art left here by thy party." father brisdone looked back on him, and smiled. "the captain has sailed," said master peasegood. "yes; he asked me to keep a protecting eye over our child." "he did, did he? then i have a counter turn with him. why did he not ask me to play that part?" "because he knew thee of old, and that our child would be certain of thy protection." "ah!" said master peasegood, with a sigh; "that girl is a great strain upon my mind--bless her!" "ay, bless her!" said father brisdone, fervently. then, after a pause, "i may have to flee one of these days, for persecutions are sometimes very bitter against such as i. if i do go suddenly, you will remember all my words." "remember them! yes. but where should you go?" "throw myself upon the hands of captain carr, and trust to his generosity." "yes, if at home; but he has sailed." "there are the woods and rocky hills." "yes," said master peasegood! "and plenty of blackberries, and hips and haws, and cold night-dews, and damp ferns. bah, man, we can't live like hermits here in this christian land. this is not a place where a man can be happy in a hair-shirt and a scooped-out hole in the rock, with a handful of dates and a cup of water. my word, it would puzzle some of those early fathers to exist on such terms down here. but there, have no fear, there is not a man for miles round who would not give either of us a hiding-place and a regular meal if we were in need." "brother peasegood, you are a true friend," said father brisdone; "and i shall resign myself to thy advice, for i am weak, and i own that i shrink from the thought of martyrdom; for life is, after all, so very sweet." "of course it is, or it wouldn't be given to us. bah! when you meet with a man who talks much about the weariness and wretchedness of the world, depend upon it there is something wrong." father brisdone bowed his head. "i'm afraid i have a good deal of the evil one in me, brother," said master peasegood, helping himself to more tobacco. "see here, i try this herb to see what it is like, so that i may be able to follow out his majesty's wishes, and duly preach it down; and how do i find myself? why, tied neck and heels, and given over to the hands of the tempter." "ah, yes," said father brisdone, re-lighting his own pipe, "it is a soothing and seductive weed." "then again, about you? sir thomas at the moat twitted me again with our intimacy, as not becoming the parson of roehurst, and i told him i was converting you fast." "an untruth, brother peasegood." "yes; but it slipped out unawares. ah, brother francis, i'm afraid that i resemble the unjust steward, and am making friends with such as thou against the days when thy party has the ascendancy once more, and we protestants are of small account." father brisdone shook his head sadly. "nay," he said, "the day is gone; and, if it were not, thou art not the man to stand on the order of taking care of self. but was not that a step?" they ceased speaking, for it was plainly enough a step, and directly after the door was unceremoniously opened and a figure stood on the threshold. "gilbert carr!" cried master peasegood; "why i thought thee miles away." "and so i should be," was the reply; "but i could not go without first saying a few words." master peasegood rose from his chair, and made way for his fresh visitor to take a seat; but gil laid his hands upon the stout clerk's shoulders, and gently pressed him back. "sit still," he said; "i have not a minute to stay. i have come across from curtport, and must be back at daybreak, or my vessel will have to wait another tide." "have you a horse?" "no; i walked," said gil, smiling. "why, it is nearly thirty miles," said father brisdone. "quite," was the reply. "look here, master peasegood, i can speak before father brisdone, for he is a friend." "but first have bite and sup," cried master peasegood, essaying to rise. "i have both in my wallet here," said gil. "now, listen to me: i am uneasy about matters at the house by the pool." "and thou would'st have me watch over some one there?" said master peasegood. "yes," was the reply. "be easy in thy mind, then, lad, for it is done. not that i favour thee, or think well of thy suit, mind; but rely on my taking care of the little treasure there." "i am content, master peasegood," said gil, holding out his hand. "but you did not walk across country from curtpool to tell me this?" said master peasegood. "i did; and why not, master peasegood? there, my mission is ended, so good night to both." before either could reply he had passed out into the darkness, and they heard his steps die away in the distance. "a true-hearted, brave man!" said father brisdone, fervently. "heaven's blessing be upon him!" "heaven's blessing be upon him, by all means," said master peasegood drily; "and i hope it will do him good." "why do you speak so cynically of the young man?" "because i don't like him after all for our child, and he shall never have her with my consent." "poor girl! and yet she loves him." "he's not good enough man for her," growled master peasegood. "no man that i know is," replied father brisdone. "but, there, we cannot dislike him for his love for one so sweet and true. good night, brother; i must be for home. it grows late." "i'll see thee half-way back," cried master peasegood; and after a short walk with his friend he returned to his cottage, and was soon making the bed vibrate with his heavy breathing, which often degenerated into a snore. but he had not been sleeping many minutes before there was a loud pattering at the casement, one that was repeated again and again. "he gave them hailstones for rain," muttered master peasegood, in his sleep. patter, patter, patter again at the casement, when master peasegood started up, and the bed gave forth a dismal groan. patter, patter, patter at the window once more. "there's some one ill," said the stout clerk, and, rising hastily, while the bedstead emitted a sound like a sigh of relief, he threw on his old gown, went to the window and threw it open. "hallo!" he cried. "hallo, parson," came up out of the darkness in a deep growl. "what is it thou, old son of belial," said master peasegood, sourly, for he had been awakened from a pleasant sleep. "ay, wat kilby it is." "i thought thee with thy master, far at sea--safe enough, for thou'lt be hanged some day, wat kilby, and never drowned." "thou'rt a false prophet," growled wat kilby. "thou'rt a villainous old unbeliever, worse than a jew!" cried master peasegood, angrily. "i wish all thy country flock were as good as jews, parson." "i wish they were," said master peasegood, angrily. "and now why art thou here?" "we're at anchor. skipper's ashore." "he was here an hour ago, man." "eh? was he then? i must get me back. here, hold down thy hand; i've brought thee some tobacco. i know thou'rt converted, parson, and can smoke." "i'll come down, if i can convert thee, wat kilby." "convert me, master peasegood; why, what's amiss with me?" "amiss, thou wicked old reprobate? why thou'rt an open sinner, and never com'st to church." "eh, but i would if thou'dst let me smoke my pipe by the open door." "then you are repenting of your evil ways." "nay, i've nothing to repent of, but a love or two." "and spiriting away poor abel churr." "nay, parson, i never did; i wish i had," growled wat. "then that's as bad." "nay, parson, don't preach; i arn't a bad 'un after all. i always tries, and gets along pretty well for a time, but, just as i've got as perfect as can be, down comes the devil with a pretty girl, and then i'm done." "out upon thee, wat kilby, my cheeks burn with shame." "ay, it do make the cheeks burn, parson. but it always was so, parson, and that's the devil's way. he always did serve me so, and you may preach at me and preach, and preach, and preach, but unless you can preach all the pretty women off the earth, if you're right in what you say, i'm sartain to be burnt." "but you must resist the devil and he'll flee, wat kilby." "nay: not he, parson. he knows his man too well. there, it's all no good. reach down thy hand--got it. that's well." "thanks, wat kilby. man, it is a goodly offering of the precious weed." "thou and the king said it was devilish poison." "ah, um, yes; but my ideas are being modified, my man. and now what does this mean?" "well, you see, parson, it's all about a woman i have come." "is this a time man to speak about a wedding?" "yes, parson; when you have to go by orders." "well speak out quick, for the night is chill." "i will, parson. it's like this: i love pretty mistress janet at the pool." "for a grandchild, wat kilby?" "nay, master; for a wife. i wanted to get speech of her, but could not get me near. tell her, and keep thy eye on her as well, that wat kilby han't forgot, and will come back and wed her." "well man, well?" "and i ask thee, parson, not to wed her to any other man." "but man, how can i help--" "why, forbid it all, and i'll sattle down to be a better man and come to church when i be not at sea. sometimes i'll come and sit in the porch o' sunday afternoons. and now i must hasten to catch the skipper. tell her from me, parson, wat kilby will come and make her an honest woman, and be true; and now good night." "here, stop, you vile old sinner!" cried master peasegood, but he only heard old wat kilby striding rapidly away, and after listening for a few moments he closed the lattice with a slam. "the place gets worse the more i preach," he cried, angrily. "master and man. a nice charge, verily--but wat and that janet! my preaching must be stronger, yet. that wicked wench!" five minutes later master peasegood was fast asleep, and the casement-frames vibrated to his snore. volume , chapter xii. how the game went against master cobbe. a very different scene was enacting at the pool-house on that very evening. sir mark had spent the day mostly out of doors, and had sought out the founder, who, finding that he made no further allusions to his child, but turned the conversation to the works, readily showed him the busy tasks in progress, where, about a mile from the house, men were digging ironstone from out of a pit. then on the way back he pointed with pride to the deep hole in the face of a precipitous mass of stone, where the shell had torn for itself a place in which to explode, and then rent out the rock in splintered fragments, which lay about side by side with the pieces of iron of which the shell was composed. "does that hole go in far?" said sir mark, eyeing it curiously. "goodness knows," was the reply. "deep enough. that shot would destroy part of an enemy's stronghold, or drive in the side of a ship. but come, and you shall see them get ready a furnace for my next gun." sir mark followed, and watched the process as layers of ironstone were alternated with charcoal from a mighty heap that lay hard by. a visit to one of the powder-sheds came next, after sir mark had left outside his sword, dagger, and spurs. "are you not too particular?" he said, rather disdainfully. "not a bit," was the bluff reply. "would'st have his majesty's ambassador blown into fragments, like one of my shells? i am none too particular," he said, as he saw his companion shudder. "i have had so many accidents here that you must allow me to know what is best." after this sir mark seemed disposed to shirk the visit, but he made an effort, and walked through the place more manfully, looking with curious eyes at the dull black grains, or masses of composition in an unfinished state. "how would his majesty like a run through here?" said the founder, with a chuckle. "powder will always have an ill savour in his nostrils." it was with no little sense of relief that sir mark found himself outside, close by the shed where the great howitzer had been placed, and at his solicitation the founder readily consented to have the gun out once more, and with boyish eagerness devoted himself to test the powers of the piece and its bursting shells, when loaded after gil's own fashion. at last the founder and his guest had returned, partaken of the evening meal, which mace dispensed with the calmness of one whose heart was quite at rest; and finally she had retired to find occasion to take janet to task for being giggling and whispering in the shrubbery with one of sir mark's gaily-dressed men, for by dint of careful drying and smoothing, the traces of the plunge into the mill-race had been made to disappear. "now, master cobbe," said sir mark, "let us calmly and in friendly spirit talk over our affairs again. suppose you fill your glass." "that i will," said the founder; "and you do the same." "i'll drink with you and welcome," said sir mark, filling his glass, nodding, and then wetting his lips, while the founder took a hearty draught. "that's better," he said. "and now, sir, what is it to be--a good order for his majesty's troops?" "yes, and fortune for you master cobbe. this order will be but the introduction to many. why should you not be ordnance-master to his majesty?" "why, indeed, my lad," said the founder, composedly. "i should gain, of course, but the king would be no loser." "then why not have it so, master cobbe. come, i appeal to you--i plead to you. are you blind to your daughter's advantages? i am not a moneyed man, but i offer position and a title." "if i sell her to thee," said the founder, looking through the wine in his glass. "tush! why call things by such hard names? 'tis no sale--i love her dearly, and to help my cause i own that i do try to press upon thee by means of the interest i have at court." "what should i make by your order, sir mark?" said the founder, musingly. "how can i tell?" cried sir mark, eagerly. "what do i know of the profits? all i know is that i can give you an order for guns and ammunition, to the value of three thousand pounds, to be paid in hard coin. you shall supply as many of those great howitzers and shells as you can, and then take on more men and make others, for from what i have seen of the performance of those guns you have made both name and fortune." the founder sat gazing through his wine again, as if musing, and the visitor watched the play of his features with anxiety. "harkye, master cobbe," he whispered, "i offer marriage and a place at court for your child. of course i know that there has been some love-talk between her and this carr, as they call him, but he has sailed away, and what could be a better opportunity for my suit?" "but, suppose she loves this gilbert carr, sir mark?" "tush, man; a girl's fancy! she will forget him in a week. the sight of a wedding-dress would drive him out of her head. you but give me access to her and your aid, and, trust me, she will be a willing bride. there, it is settled, is it not?" "sir mark leslie," said the founder, sitting back in his chair; "if you could offer me ten times three thousand pounds in orders i would say the same. sir, i am a bluff south-country yeoman, and i would sooner become the meanest beggar that crawls than sell my poor child as i would chaffer away a gun. there, i'll listen to no more. stay, if you please; you are just as welcome. but i'll hear no more from you or any man upon this point." he gazed frankly into his guest's eye as sir mark's brow knit, and the young man strove hard to keep down the annoyance he felt at the rejection of his suit by this, in his eyes, common man. for some minutes neither spoke, and then sir mark began in a low husky voice. "master cobbe, i have come to you offering you friendship, and you reject it. i cannot be your enemy for your child's sake; but you compel me to bring force to bear." "force, sir, what force?" cried the founder angrily. "do you mean you'll carry her away? 'fore heaven i warn you that the lives of you and your servants would not be worth a snap of the fingers did you try such a thing. there are more men here in this neighbourhood than you think for, ready and willing to fight for her at word of mine." "no, master cobbe; the force i bring to bear is of another sort. mind, you bring me to this by your obstinate rejection of my suit. i now tell you that mace must and shall be my wife, and that you will give her to me." "indeed!" "yes," said sir mark, "and soon. listen: i hold the power here to seize upon this place in his majesty's name; to arrest you for high treason as the man who supplied his majesty's enemies, and as one who is now in league with papist emissaries. stop, sir, hear me out. you are leagued with one father brisdone, a notorious follower of spain; with a rough adventurer named carr, who is more pirate than trader. in fact, you and yours are attainted, and at a word from me ruin falls upon you all." "and you will do all this with two men whom the very boys who work for me would throw into the pool?" "i came in peace, with two men only, master cobbe; but a messenger would fetch twenty, fifty, or a hundred good swordsmen and harquebusiers to my side to seize your person, raze the works to the ground, and then--yes, then, master cobbe, your daughter would become an easy prize." "what you say is all false!" cried the founder, who sat aghast as he felt what a web the man before him had contrived to spread around. "false or true, i am no judge, master cobbe. i am here to execute the king's commands. the case is left in my hands to act as i see fit. if you prove a good subject of his majesty, and supply him with the ordnance, well. if you refuse, you stamp yourself a rebel, and as one guilty of high treason." "but i do not refuse, sir mark; i offer to supply his majesty." "you refuse the proposal of his servant." "did his majesty bid thee truck and bargain with me, making my child the price at which i should obtain this order?" said the founder, curtly. "his majesty bade me do what seemed the best," said sir mark; "so what is it to be, master cobbe--peace or war?" "war," cried the founder, angrily; and he brought his fist down heavily on the table. "as you will, master cobbe; but i warn you of your folly. you lose heavily in wealth and liberty, and you deprive your child of her natural protector, leaving her almost entirely at my mercy." "no," cried the founder, "not so. if by your lies and trickery i am snatched from her, there are two men who would take upon themselves the part of guardian. father brisdone would--" "be in prison or a fugitive," said sir mark, quietly. "then master peasegood would--" "be suspended from his office for evil dealing, and allowing himself to be won over to the papist cause." "then i'd trust gil carr, and bid him wed my child." "gilbert, otherwise culverin, carr's ship, when it returned, would by my orders be watched and seized, as a suspected vessel, and its captain and crew imprisoned to await their trial." "then sir thomas beckley, justice and just man, with all his faults, would protect my daughter." "sir thomas beckley might be called upon to seize the person of mistress mace cobbe, for divers malpractices, held in common with a woman here known as mother goodhugh, a notorious witch. his majesty has determined to put down and root out of his kingdom all those vile traffickers with the works of darkness, and has placed great power in the hands of the magistrates of this realm." "what!" cried the founder, half in anger, half-laughing. "my child a witch!" "i say not so, master cobbe; i only speak of the common report. both thy daughter and her maid have been regular visitors to this notorious woman, and by this they have exposed themselves to great risk; for to be attainted now of witchcraft, even of holding communion with the powers of darkness, may mean the stake." "curse thy quibbling, glib, plot-weaving ways?" cried the founder. "failing those i have named there is not a man, woman, or boy in roehurst who would not raise a hand for the white moth." "yes," said sir mark, quickly; "that is it. even that tells against her. she is known commonly as the white moth of roehurst; and there are those who whisper that she is a witch." "sir mark leslie!" cried the founder, who was white with anger, "i will not quarrel with thee again. i forgot myself once towards my guest; i hope to control myself now, but you try me sore." "it grieves me, master cobbe, and, though i speak this, it is not as an enemy but as a friend. i merely place my position before you, and say is it not better to avoid all this trouble, when instead the way is open to wealth and honour, and a peaceful old age?" "who and what are you?" cried the founder, passionately; "and why do you come to disturb my peaceful home?" "i am his majesty's servant, master cobbe. i came here at his command to investigate certain malpractices alleged against thee. i found them to be true, but i found here also a greater king than his majesty james the first. i found here that all-powerful monarch--love, and, vanquished by him, i suffered thy sword; i made reports that softened thy case; i returned from my mission with so goodly an account that the king gave me leave to offer thee honour and wealth if, in place of being of doubtful allegiance, thou becomest his faithful liege subject, and work for him as you have been accused of working for others. there, master cobbe, it is late, and thou art angry. think over it all; sleep on it; take time to consider. i am one who can wait; for, believe me, i would rather see thee honoured than know that a lingering imprisonment was sapping thy vital forces and bringing thee low. good night, master cobbe, good night." sir mark held out his hand, but it was not noticed; the founder sitting back in his stiff old-fashioned chair, and going over the words of his guest, who, with a peculiar smile, glanced at him mockingly, and slowly ascended to his chamber, leaving his host to sit thinking hour after hour, and at last to stumble off heavily to bed with the feeling upon him that he had been playing at some game with heavy stakes, and that the luck had been all upon the other side. volume , chapter xiii. how mistress anne was unquiet, and how the founder came to terms. the coming back of sir mark had the effect of driving mace to her room, where she stayed as much as possible. gil need have had no jealous fears, could he have read her heart, for her every thought was of him. seated at her window, looking over the pool, her eyes might be gazing at some azure kingfisher darting across the shallows, or seated on some twig, ready to plunge down and emerge from the water with the drops falling like glistening pearls from its sides, as it bore away a tiny silvery fish; or her pensive look be fixed upon the heron, so grey and lank of mien, standing motionless, deep in the water, amidst the varied aquatic growth, where it seemed at times to launch its long beak, like some javelin, at a luckless fish, to stab or seize it for its prey; or at even, when the soft wreaths of mist came floating over the pool, she watched the flight of the owl as it uttered its peculiar cry, and swept by so softly that it passed as noiselessly as a ghost, while the white moths flitted and danced amidst the roses round her casement by night, as the golden flies and gauzy-winged dragons darted and played about in the sun. by soft balmy day, or cool delicious dreamy night, mace sat at her window, watching and thinking, but it was always of the white sails of a ship, ever gliding farther and farther away. these thoughts formed her bright dreams, to which she turned when fancies about sir mark became obtrusive; for the days glided on, and he stayed, growing each hour more courtly and respectful to her. while he was bright and full of compliments she could fence with him, and turn away the points of his speeches, but now that he had become grave and earnest she was full of fears. a greater cause for fear though was the conduct of her father, who seemed to be giving way to their guest, though at times he broke out with his old independent ways, and appeared to be setting him at defiance. mace was puzzled, for she could not comprehend her father's manner. he had never been more tender and affectionate, but there was something behind which troubled her. sir mark left at last, to her great relief, and for the next fortnight she was as joyous as a bird, singing about the house, and in the highest of spirits, when, to her horror, the guest returned, accompanied by a dozen well-armed followers, who proved to be artisans, and began work the very next morning, assisting the founder's staff. then by degrees it leaked out that sir mark had brought a great order from the king for guns and their ammunition--an order that must lead to wealth for the founder, who was busy almost night and day. at the end of another week half-a-score more men arrived, to be distributed through the village, lodging with different workmen, whom they assisted during the day. they were nominally in the founder's service, and he paid them their weekly wage, but they looked to sir mark for guidance in all else saving the work at the foundry, and to master cobbe came plenty of complaints. for roehurst was no longer what it had been. sir mark's followers brought with them london ways, and an amount of freedom which the founder's men had on more than one occasion to resent; though certain maidens, notably janet, at the pool-house, and polly, the handmaid of mistress anne, thought that the place had never been so gay and bright before. and all the time the furnaces roared and made liquid the iron from the hills which had grown the wood-coal that supplied the heat, while careful moulds were made by the founder himself, who watched the casting of every piece. then powder was made in large quantities, and carefully stowed away in master cobbe's magazine, a cool, deep, stone cavern, half natural, half cut in the soft sand-rock. from being generally calm and peaceful, the place now grew to be like a busy hive. nearly every day mace shuddered as the casements rattled with the explosion of some great piece which was being tested, and in this part of the business sir mark took great interest himself. butts were made, and targets set up for practice, and one by one great black howitzers were turned out, considered perfect, and then placed aside ready for sending to london, or to one of the shipping-ports upon the coast. every now and then came a messenger from some one high in authority in the great city, and the despatch he bore was duly perused and replied to by sir mark; who passed the greater part of his time at the foundry, but paid occasional visits to the moat, where he was always most courteously received. there were cold grave looks for the young knight at the pool-house, but always smiles and side-long glances at the moat; but somehow the cold, grave looks only inflamed his passion, while the sight of mistress anne begat dislike. but she knew well enough how to play her part, and though after sir mark's departure polly had her ears well boxed for the first remark she made--dame beckley fled to her garden of simples to seek for peace, as if it were some cunning plant--and sir thomas blew out his cheeks, opened his eyes, and then went into his sanctum to study the king's work on witchcraft--the tremendous storms that arose never spread outside the precincts of the moat, and sir mark believed the lady to be simplicity and gentleness itself. these visits of sir mark brought wealth to one inhabitant of roehurst, to wit, mother goodhugh, who always received a visit from anne beckley directly after the visitor had left; when the old woman, who had been cunning enough to learn all the news of the place, was ready enough in pointing out how matters were working for her good. "don't be afraid, dearie," she said one day, after going through a good deal of mummery. "that spell seemed to point to the fact that captain gil was to be thy lord, but his terrible crime has changed all that, and sir mark will marry thee." "but he is always there!" cried anne. "well, child, is it not to be near to thee? don't you fear. ask thy maiden polly to question janet burger, and she will learn that mace and sir mark hardly meet, and when they do she be as cold as so much ice." "yes," said anne; "that is true enough." "and how did you know, dearie?" "i bade polly question janet." "then you see how right i am, my child. oh, yes; it will all work right. trust me, the gallant youth be only down here that he may be near to thee." a few days later anne beckley arrived at the cottage with flaming eyes. "mother goodhugh," she cried, "you failed before, but now you must try, and try well, to work some spell on that creature at the pool." "and why, child?" "because i hear it said that sir mark is going to marry her." "tchch! nonsense! what put that silly notion in thine head?" "it is true. it came from janet." "oh, pay no heed to her, my dearie. only trust to me and all will come right in the end." "but, mother," began anne, impatiently. "nay, nay, child, all you have to do is to wait and see. i promise thee again that thy gallant shall never wed jeremiah cobbe's child; and it will be well for her if she does not perish at the stake." anne beckley looked curiously at the old woman, who met her eyes with a malicious leer. "ay, ay," she said, laughing; "you're thinking some one else might perish there, but we keep our own secrets, child, and we shall not denounce one another. besides, our little spells are only innocent love affairs, and we keep our own counsel, dearie, only too well. ah, i shall be glad to see thee happily wedded to the man of thy choice, and then the present you make me will keep me to the end of my days." it was with a strange sense of uneasiness that the two women parted; anne biting one of her fingers as she told herself that she was an idiot to listen to the drivellings of that old woman, and yet feeling a curious superstitious dread of her, and belief that she could exercise some influence on her destiny. "let her mind, though," she muttered: "let her be careful how she behaves to me. i could denounce her as a witch, only she is very dangerous; but what did she mean by saying _we_ and _one another_? she dare not say i join with her." on the other side mother goodhugh watched her out of sight, and then entered her cottage, shaking her fist threateningly in the direction anne had taken, and a laugh of no very pleasant kind escaped her lips. "there are other philtres besides love-philtres, my dear," she said; "and if she thinks that she will crush me she will make a great mistake." mother goodhugh might laugh the words of janet to scorn, but that astute maiden had eyes and ears always on the _qui vive_ for fresh news. she gave a great deal of her attention to one or another of sir mark's followers, but all the same there was a willing smile for sir mark himself when he condescended to notice her, which was not seldom; and in spite of the freedom of her own temperament, and the liberality with which she would bestow a favour upon first one and then another, she was jealous enough in disposition to angrily resent sir mark's attentions to her mistress. hence it was that she was often on the watch, and always on the listen, with the result that by degrees she saw the founder after a hard fight gradually give way to the pressure brought to bear. for a long time mace could not believe it, but by degrees her eyes became opened to the fact that sir mark was daily getting more influence over her father. naturally avaricious, the founder could not withstand the temptations thrown in his way by his guest, who was diplomatic enough to be content with a little advance at a time. the founder held out for a while, and told himself that he would not submit to this upstart from court; but, as he went over again and again the position in which he stood, he could not help seeing how troublous might be the condition into which he could be brought by an enemy. at first he did not scruple to call his visitor an enemy, and a bitter enemy, but by degrees the thoughts of gaining thousands, of occupying the position of first ordnance-founder to the king, softened him, and the effect of sir mark's words was shown in his saying to himself that it was after all but a fair thing for a man in love to try all he could to win the object of his choice. it was the entry of the enemy into the outer works of the founder's fortress, and as sir mark quietly went on sapping and mining so did jeremiah cobbe give way. "i want to do the best i can for my child," he said to himself, one evening, as he stood watching the great wheel go round. "she must not listen to gil carr, for that would be destroying her young life, even if he should prove to be innocent. no, that would never do, and she is getting weaned from him. he's a fine fellow, but not good enough to be my darling's mate." then over his pipe at night he sat and considered, after sir mark had left him, their converse for the evening having probably been of the merits of iron or brass pieces, for the guest was cunning enough to see that with patience the besieged would fall. how would it be if he did give way? this sir mark was haughty, and over-bearing, and proud, but he was a gentleman, high in favour at court. he was poor certainly, but he could give his wife a great position. "and he was honest over it," said the founder, refilling his pipe; "i like him for that. he said he had no money. humph, perhaps he'd like to get hold of mine! well, and if he did he'd put me in the way of making more. first ordnance-founder to his majesty king james! "no--no--no!" he cried, rising to go to bed, "i'll not give way. it would be like selling her, and i love her too well for that." it was clever, the way in which sir mark flattered the founder's vanity. there might have been no mace in the world, only that he was courteous and reverent to her in the extreme when they met at meals, for he never mentioned her name, but followed the founder like a shadow, inquiring into the toughness of this iron and that, and delighting his dupe by laying aside his showy doublet to take part in the trial of some piece, to come away as besmirched with powder as gil himself. "there's stuff in the fellow," said the founder; "and i blame him for what is, after all, only his education." the fortress was beginning to give way. "courts have their peculiarities, and he, fresh from ordering and commanding, thought he could do as he liked with me. it was fine, too, the way he whipped out his sword when i damned the king." the founder laughed heartily, and wiped the tears out of his eyes, for he was again sitting alone before retiring for the night. "well, it was brave and true of him. a man who would risk his life like that for the honour of his master must be a noble gentleman at heart, and would make a good husband." he shook his head at that, and once more went to bed. the next night he was sitting alone again, indulging in his evening pipe. "poor little darling, it would bring some tears in her eyes if i did consent, and give her to him as his wife. _give_; yes, give! i would not sell her; but, after all, what a position for her! i think i should like it; and, after all, i am but mortal. why should i not wear velvet and a gold chain, and strut about as sir jeremiah cobbe, master of the king's ordnance?" he refilled his glass and pipe and smiled to himself, for the stones were getting very loose, and the walls of the outworks were tottering to their fall. "my darling, too, my lady--dame mace leslie. hang the honours for myself! i'd give something, though, to see my little maiden in her gay stomacher and fardingale, with jewel-studded coif, and lace ruff, go rustling into court, all abloom with her youth and beauty, the envy of everybody in the place." he sat and smoked as he pictured the scene. "god bless her!" he cried; "there wouldn't be one there who was her equal. my word, how they'd all gird as they feasted their eyes on the daughter of jeremiah cobbe! "pah! what idiots my old people were! jeremiah! what a name for a stout-hearted englishman! i think we did better in calling our darling mace. i don't know, though," he muttered; "it don't seem to go well with _dame_. "humph! i wonder what her poor mother would say, whether she would hold out as i have done." he sat on thinking till long past midnight, with the sapping and mining of sir. mark insidiously doing its work, though the founder heeded it not. "curse the money," he said; "i care not a jot for that, but am i doing right in standing like this in my darling's light? suppose i said yea to sir mark's proposal, and let him become her suitor? what then?" he sat and smoked out his pipe to the very ash, and then thought on as he sucked at the empty bowl:-- "ay, what then?" jeremiah cobbe sat there the long night through, and at early dawn only went up to his chamber, where, after a refreshing wash, he sat and thought again before going down, as the workers came from the various cottages to their daily toil. as he stood by one of the windows gazing out he saw his child in the garden culling flowers, and sir mark watching her, but he did not follow her, only went away with bent head, and stood leaning over the breech of a gun. the founder stayed thinking again for a little while, and then, drawing a long breath, he crossed the intervening space, clapped the young man on the shoulder, and held out his hand. "give me your word as a gentleman, sir mark, that your suit shall be in all kindliness and love,--that you will use no undue pressure, but wait patiently for my consent,--and--you understand?" "i promise," said sir mark, earnestly, as he laid his hand in that of the founder, fighting hard the while to keep down a triumphant look. hand clasped hand, and, as if moved by the same influence, the two parties to the unholy bargain glanced towards the house, at whose door stood mace, gazing at them with labouring, unquiet breast, for a greater trouble than that of her father's warlike weapons now assailed her heart. volume , chapter xiv. how sir mark put on the first chain. the founder was full of repentance, and felt that evening that he dared not meet his child's clear, searching gaze. "he's too much for me," he muttered. "he's managed to get over me when i've had more ale than's good for me, and when i've brought out the sherry sack. it's prime stuff, that dry, strong sherry, but it makes a man too easy, and he gives away more than he would when it's not in him. i'll be more careful. i won't take so much; and yet i don't know--it's very pleasant." he had gradually worked himself round to the belief that he was acting for the best, and then came the reaction, and he felt that he had sold his child for the sake of gain. nothing was said about his promises to sir mark, for, though he had gone into the house soon after with the express determination of speaking out frankly and imperatively his intentions, he shrank from the untoward task. "i'll take her down the garden, and have a quiet talk in the morning," he said; and when the morning came he put it off till eve, plunging heart and soul into the busy toil amongst his people, who, like some little colony, looked up to him as their patriarch and the supplier of their daily food. "the lads are pleased enough with this girt job, master," said tom croftly, wiping the grime and sweat from his forehead, as they stood by one of the roaring furnaces; and the founder came away smiling, but only for his smile to be chased away as he saw mother goodhugh going along the track, to stop and shake her stick in his direction as she seemed to be cursing him. "i never minded her and her curses before," he muttered; "but now they seem to worry me like. i haven't done right--i haven't done right; but i've given my word--i've given my word." he hurriedly made for another work-shed, glancing unquietly at the old woman as she trudged along, turning from time to time to look in his direction. "curse that old harridan!" he muttered; and then he stood thinking, perhaps for the first time in his life, that now he had, as it were, been unfaithful to his trust, mother goodhugh's evil wishes against his house might have some effect. "i don't care," he said; "it's for the best;" but as he said the words the remembrance of gil carr rose up before him, as if with reproach. "he should never have had her," he muttered. "it was impossible. the death of that poor fellow, churr, clings to him, say what one may. he may not have done the deed, but it was by his orders, and he is responsible for the sin." he bit his lips angrily even as these thoughts came to his mind, for they gave him no relief, and it seemed cowardly to harbour them in gil's absence, just by way of excuse for his present acts. then, too, go where he would, work hard as he might, his child's calm, reproachful gaze seemed to be ever before him. "she knows it already; i'm sure she knows it," he said to himself; and at last, harassed by his upbraiding thoughts, he became furious and irritable to a degree. the eve had passed, and the next morning, and the night, but still the founder did not speak. he told himself that he had but to say--"my child, sir mark is your future husband;" but he could not say those words, and at times he grew fiercely angry at his cowardice, for as the days glided by the task grew harder and harder, and he literally dared not speak. he had one satisfaction, though, and that made somewhat smoother the thorny way through which he was travelling, sir mark was gentleness itself towards mace. he never spoke one word that was not full of tender consideration towards her. his very looks, though full of admiration, were softened by respect; but she could read in them an air of proprietorship; and to her mind they seemed to say that he knew he was safe to win her if he only waited his time. those were not happy days at the pool-house, and mace, with many a bitter tear, wished herself back in the pleasant peaceful times of the past. the coming of sir mark's men had wrought a complete change in the place; there were quarrels of frequent occurrence on the score of gallantries, real or suspected, with husbands and brothers, rumours of which came to the young girl's ears; and, whenever she encountered mother goodhugh, the old woman had a malignant laugh for her, and a shaking finger that seemed to portend evil. then, in her despondent state of mind, janet became a constant source of trouble to her. she scolded, threatened to send her away, and even tried to keep her shut up in the house; but she might as well have tried to wrap up so much quicksilver in muslin as to keep back the wilful girl, for in return for bits of news and gossip carried to mother goodhugh, the old woman furnished janet with philtres that were to win her the hearts of any of the gay strangers she wished to enthral. "oh, janet, janet, where is your modesty?" cried her mistress. "who was that man you talked with? is it not the same i warned you about last night?" "no-o, mistress," said janet. "how can you be so shameless! night after night i have to blame you for your wilful ways." "yes, mistress," sobbed janet; "i'm a wicked, wicked girl, but men are so nice." "for shame! why not heed me when i speak to you for your good?" "i do, mistress," sobbed janet; "but these men they plague me so. i try, oh, so very hard, to be good, and i will be a better girl. i want to be good, and something always keeps trying to make me bad; but i will be better now." but janet grew worse, in spite of her promises of amendment. she wept and sobbed, and avowed that she was the wickedest girl under the sun, kissed her upbraiding mistress's hands with the full intent of leading a more modest life, and the next hour her vows were all forgotten, and she was listening to the soft whispers of some one or other of the soldierly men who hung about the place. so mace's days were not peaceful now, and matters at last became so unbearable as the time glided on that she determined to speak to her father, and ask him to let her leave home until his great work that troubled her so was done, and the unwelcome visitors were gone. for weeks she went about with the words on her lips, longing to say them, but she dared not on account of the shock she knew it would give her father, while he, restless and unquiet in her presence, kept back what he had to say. it was sir mark who brought father and daughter to an explanation. there had been a week of something like relief, for the visitor had been to london on business connected with the order, and on his return he had startled mace by a change in his mien in speaking to her as he had not spoken since his avowal of his love that evening by the meadow-gate. it was evening, and mace was seated alone in the big window, working, and glancing out from time to time at the pleasant garden, thinking that it did not look so bright and cheery as of old; when sir mark entered, and crossing the room stood close by her, gazing gently down with his hands clasped behind. she looked up at him in a timid way, and then shrank back in her chair. her first impulse was to run from the room, but she scouted the idea as one only fit for some weak girl; and, fighting hard to recover herself, she said the first words that came to her lips, angry with herself the next moment with what she had spoken. "mistress anne beckley was here with my lady this afternoon." "indeed!" he said, huskily, as he still gazed down. "mistress anne asked after your health, and bade me say that they missed you very much." "and you, what did you say?" he asked, softly. "i said you were busy with my father, watching over the trial of great pieces of ordnance and the making of powder," replied mace, who was fast recovering her calmness. "why did you not tell her i could not tear myself from the home where my every thought was centred; that i could not live away from her who was to be my wife? see, mace, dearest, i brought you this from town. it is to grace your sweet, white throat. there, i thought the pearls were beautiful, but they look poor and mean, after all." mace's hands nervously clasped sir mark's wrists as, with a quick movement, he brought them from behind him, and throwing a handsome string of pearls round her neck he clasped it there. if her suitor's wrists had burned her, she could not have snatched her hands away more quickly as she shrank back once more into her seat, gazing at him with so strange a look that the words he was about to utter failed on his lips, and he stood for a while gazing down at her in silence. "you are surprised," he said at last, smiling. "well, they were given clumsily, but you teach me to be humble and reverent before you, mace. i grow speechless in your presence, as with a kind of humble adoration, as i look forward to the day when you will be my wife." "your--wife!" she faltered. "yes," he cried, catching her by the hands to cover them with kisses, "my wife, whom i shall worship, and take away from this wild, secluded spot to shine like some jewel in king james's court." he dropped her hand, for he heard the founder's voice without, and left her sitting back--crouched, as it were, in her chair, cold and nerveless. she had expected this; she had looked hourly for its coming; but now that it had come it was like some fearful shock. "gil," she whispered, at last. "gil," as she felt like a bird in a fowler's net, "why are you not here?" his name seemed to give her back her strength, and, starting up, she caught sight of her white face in the glass. then her eyes fell upon the glistening ornament around her neck, and, feeling that it was like a chain that sir mark had placed there to secure her to him, she tore at it hastily, the string snapped, and the great lustrous pearls flew with a pattering noise about the floor as she hurried from the room, ran up to her chamber, and threw herself sobbing upon her knees. volume , chapter xv. how mace objected to her bargain. "am i a weak child?" cried mace at last, as she sprang up and wiped away her tears. "i will not sit still, and be sold like this. i cannot be forced to wed a man i hate, and i will not listen to his words. "when will gil come back?" she cried; and sitting down she tried to reckon up the number of weeks since he sailed, but her head was in a whirl; and even as she tried to think her hands burned, and she held them from her as if they had been polluted by the kisses they had received. then, with a feeling of horror, she thought of the possibility of gil having witnessed that scene--the clasping on of the necklace, the touch of the donor's hands, and the tears once more rushed to her eyes as she writhed at her helpless position. "i will go away to cousin ellice," she said; "i will go at once. father cannot know of sir mark's behaviour. i cannot, i will not, believe it," she cried, passionately. "i would not marry gil without his consent, but i cannot listen to this man. "why, one would think i was some weak girl such as we read of in the old ballad stories!" she cried, with a laugh that was more like a hysterical cry, and, hastily washing away the traces of her tears, she determined to make a bold effort to show sir mark that his case was hopeless, and descended to the parlour to gather up and restore the pearls. all thought of the jewels, though, was chased away by the sight of her father just seating himself for a rest and a smoke; and, smoothing her face, she went up to him, and stood by his side with her hands resting upon his shoulder. "are you tired, dear?" she said, passing her cool hand across his brow. "very, child," he replied, drawing her to him, so that she was seated upon his knee, with her head leaning against his cheek. "you work so hard now," she continued. "this great order makes you so busy." "yes," he said, laughing; "but it is for honour and wealth, child. it is a great thing, and sir mark as good as promises that i shall be master of ordnance to the king." "are sir mark's promises all to be believed?" said mace, quietly. "to be sure! yes, of course, child. he is a noble gentleman, of goodly birth, and when thou art his wife--" he stopped short, for the words he had been trying to say had suddenly slipped from his lips, and he was startled by the manner in which his child leaped from his side, to stand staring down at him with flashing eyes. "what is it?" he cried, in a clumsy, faltering manner. "what was that you said, father?" "i said when thou art sir mark's wife, and he takes thee to court." "i can never be sir mark leslie's wife." "tut! nonsense," cried the founder, working himself up into a passion; "why do you talk such rubbish as this? what do you know of wedlock? sir mark has asked for thy hand in honourable marriage. it is a great honour; and thou wilt be wed and praised at court, and become a great body. what could i wish better for my child?" "oh, father, what do you mean?" she cried, with his own angry spirit rising up within her. "mean?" he cried, rousing himself now, to finish the task that he had fought in vain for so long to begin. "i mean that sir mark is to be thy husband. he brings thee honour and me wealth. it is a great thing, child. living here as thou hast, such a position as that thou wilt occupy is a thing almost undreamed of. why, my darling," he said, trying to smile, "thou wilt ride in thy grand carriage, and have lackeys to follow thee, and be admired of all the court. zounds! but i shall be proud indeed!" "father," cried mace, piteously, "you do not mean all this!" "but i do!" he cried. "there, go to, silly child; it seems a trouble, but it will be all a joy. there, there: we need talk of it no more, for perhaps it will not be for months. i have given sir mark my promise, and thou wilt be his wife." mace stood gazing at him piteously. then throwing her arms round his neck she burst into a fit of sobbing. "no, no, dear father!" she cried, "i cannot, i cannot wed him. it would break my heart." "stuff!" he cried, caressing her; "what dost thou know of breaking hearts and such silly, girlish fancies? he brings thee jewels, and thou wilt have gay brocades. why, my sweet pet, thou wilt drive anne beckley mad with envy. mark me, she meant to wed sir mark herself." "father, dear," said mace, kissing him, and speaking in a low, appealing voice, "it is not like you to speak to your little girl like this. do i care to flaunt in gay clothes--to try and best anne beckley? have i any such ideas as these?" "no, no, child; may be not," he said, stroking her hair; "but--but--i'd like to see thee a grand dame." "would it make you happier, dear?" she replied, kissing him fondly as she nestled to his breast. "well, well, yes, of course," he said hastily. "nay, nay, father, dear, you would never, never be happy again if you sold me to that man." "sold!" he cried furiously, for that truthful word stung him to his heart. "how dare you say that, ungrateful girl that thou art? how dare you?" "because it is true," cried mace, drawing back from him to stand, white and angry, at bay. "father, you are trying to sell me to this man!" "it is a lie--a damned lie!" he cried furiously. "mace, thou hast been listening to that villain--that scoundrel--that murderer--gil carr, again." "it is no lie, father," she retorted, "and gil is no murderer--no villain--no scoundrel, but an honourable gentleman, as you know." "i know thou hast been carrying on with him again," cried the founder. "curse him!" he roared, bringing his hand down heavily upon the table, so that the glasses and pipes leaped again. "i have not," cried mace, angrily. "you said i should not, and i obeyed you, as i always have; but," she added proudly, "i told gil i would never be the wife of another man, and i never will." "have a care, madam, have a care!" cried the founder, who was beside himself with passion. "i am a true man, but an obstinate one. i said thou should'st not wed that wild buccaneering adventurer, and i'll keep my word." "father!" cried mace, as hotly, "i am thy daughter, and i can be obstinate too. i can keep my word. i will not wed gil, if you forbid it; but i will wed no other man." "curse the day he ever entered my house, and curse the day he ever enters it again! i have given sir mark leslie my word that thou shalt be his wife, and that word i'll keep. now, i have said it, and thou knowest what to expect. i've indulged and spoiled thee, till, like an ingrate, thou fliest in my face, and forgettest all thy duty. now go and learn what duty to a husband is." "no, no, no!" cried mace, casting off her angry fit, and flinging her arms round her father's neck. "forgive me, dear, i said words to you i repent of now." "then thou wilt meet him as thou shouldest, child?" "no, no, father, i cannot!" she cried, with a shudder; "i detest--i despise him. i do not wish to marry. let us go back to our old happy days, dear--as we were before this man came to trouble us. why do you wish to send your little girl away?" the founder was moved, and his arm involuntarily embraced the slight form, and drew it to his breast, while his brow grew rugged with emotion. at that moment he felt as if he would gladly have gone back to the calm old days of peace, and in his heart of hearts he wished that there was no such thing as love, or marrying and giving in marriage, on the earth. "there, there," he said softly, as he caressed and petted her as he would have done when she was a child. "there, little one, i want to do what is best for thee, to make thee happy." "let us stay as we are, then, father dear," she said, as she responded to his caresses. "no, no, child, it cannot be," he said. "i have given my word to sir mark, and he is to be thy husband, and that right soon." "no, no, father!" she cried; "you do not--you cannot mean it." "i do mean it, and it must be," he said firmly, as he rose, and she stepped back now, and stood gazing at him as, hastily pouring out and swallowing a glass of strong waters, he walked out of the room, leaving mace standing with hands clasped before her, gazing at vacancy, as she realised her terrible position, and asked herself what she should do. that night she crept up to her room in a dazed, stunned fashion, and sat gazing out of her window, watching the stars rise slowly from over the sea, as she wondered whether gil would come back and save her from the fate that threatened, where he was now, and whether she should ever look again with beating heart at their innocent little signal in the grassy bank--the four glow-worms' lights. where was he now? she asked herself. was he thinking of her as his ship sailed over the blue mediterranean? perhaps so; but would the time come when it would be a sin for her to think of him other than as a friend? with a shudder she told herself that such a time could never be, for she would sooner take the boat some night and let it drift far out over the deepest part of the pool, and there step over into the cold, black waters in search of the rest that she could not hope for here. and as she thought all this in a weary, despairing way, the founder sat in his own room, angry, troubled, and full of pity for his child; but all the same relieved of a heavy load, as he told himself that she knew now what was to be, and that she would soon grow happy and content. volume , chapter xvi. how sir mark knocked away two props. a week, a fortnight, a month glided by, as time will gallop on, when some unwished-for season is ahead. matters at the moat were as of old. sir thomas dispensed justice, dame beckley prepared simples, and mistress anne purchased love-philtres, vowing each time that this was the last, but still, in spite of her better judgment, keeping on, for gil was away, and might never come back, while sir mark was present and might be won. he came sometimes to the moat, and was very pleasant and courtly. he condescended to flirt with her a little, and filled her with hope that her vanity fed, as it grew dim on his departure. she was gentleness and innocence itself when he was present, but her eyes flashed when he left; and there was that in her looks which seemed to say that she would as readily poison him as give him cunning decoctions to win his love. these were no pleasant times for the people at the moat, for no sooner had the visitor departed, after regaling all present with accounts of how the gun-making went on, than anne's temper blazed forth--polly said like a blow-up at the pool--and for hours and hours sir thomas would not venture to leave his study, nor dame beckley her garden of herbs. for anne beckley had painted and patched, and worn her different brocades; she had tried tenderness, laughing looks, patience, and threatenings of mother goodhugh, all to no purpose; and her heart grew hot within her as she vowed vengeance against her rival. at the pool the busy works were in full swing, and the founder had good excuse for keeping away from his daughter; while sir mark, now that the ice was broken, left no opportunity unseized to hasten on his suit. progress he made none, but he did not complain. "the love will come after marriage," he said, laughingly, and as patiently kept on working for the future. to mace's horror he assumed a quiet tone of proprietorship over her, and on paying fresh visits to the metropolis he seemed to spare no expense in buying presents and necessaries for the wedding, which he assumed to be a matter of course, laughing at the girl's cold and distant behaviour, while he never failed to treat her with the most tender consideration. she made appeal after appeal to her father, but with the sole effect of angering him. for he had been long in making up his mind to give his consent, but when it was given the obstinacy of his nature made him deaf to all appeals; while, even had he been yielding, there was one at hand always ready to back up the weak part, as he by degrees gained so great an influence over the founder that, though the latter was ignorant of it, his will had been pretty well mastered by his guest, who dealt with him almost as he pleased. they were busy times, and the calls made upon his attention prevented the founder from paying much heed to his child's pale looks and restless mien. guns were finished, and dragged by heavy teams of horses through the sandy lanes to the little port, and there shipped along with casks of black-grained powder to go round to london or some other depot. there were heavy sums of money, too, paid into the founder's hands by sir mark, making the old man's eyes sparkle as, with a few well-turned words, the royal messenger told him of the satisfaction felt by ministers and king at the way in which the orders were being carried out. "you will be a great man, _father-in-law_," said sir mark, laying his hand on his shoulder. "work away, for i have placed matters in train for another order when this one is done. i don't see why my relative should not be rich." "thanks, my lad," said the founder, whose face softened. "go on, and remember this, that in turning a stream of gold into my pockets it is providing a great dam like yon pool to work thine own mill-wheel by-and-by." "i have thought that many times," said sir mark to himself. then aloud, "this order, you see, was all in good faith, and the money has been paid. i look now for my reward--payment in advance, before i bring in the next. when is our wedding to take place?" the founder looked grave for a few minutes, and then gazed full in sir mark's face. "there are no half measures with me, my lad," he said, laying his hand in sir mark's. "whenever you like. shall we say when the last gun is finished and--" "and payments made," said sir mark, smiling. "good! it shall be so. i start to-morrow for town, and from there i'll bring the moneys, and i hope the new order, along with presents and wedding ornaments for my darling. is it to be so?" "yes," replied the founder; and he turned sharply, for a low sigh had reached his ear, and he was just in time to see mace disappear from the door, which she was about to enter when she caught his words--words which sounded to her like a death-warrant, and which rang in her ears as she hurried to her chamber and locked herself within. there was a peculiar look upon mace cobbe's countenance as she sat gazing straight before her, thinking of her position. gil had been gone four months now, and might not return for a couple more; though, if he did, what could she do? she shuddered at the thought, and for a time was overcome. the next day, though, she was all feverish energy, and, setting off as if for a walk, she made for master peasegood's cottage, where, after a little hesitation, she plunged desperately into the matter in hand. "i have not been idle, my little one," said the stout clerk, "but have on more than one occasion roundly taken thy father to task about this matter." "yes, yes," said mace, excitedly, "and what did he say?" "bade me look after people's souls and let them look after their bodies themselves." "ay," said mace, with a sigh, "it is what he would say." "sir mark has been here to me about--about--" "the wedding?" said mace. "speak out, master peasegood, i am ready to hear aught of thee." "yes, my child. he came in his big commanding way to say that he should require me to be ready at a certain time." "yes, and you--what did you say?" "that i would sooner--" "speak! pray tell me," cried mace, passionately; "you torture me, you are so slow." "i said an unkindly thing, my child," replied master peasegood, sadly. "i said that i would rather read the burial service over thee than wed thee to such as he." "thank you, master peasegood!" she cried, eagerly. "and you will keep to that, for i cannot wed this man." "my child," said the stout parson, "i promised friend gil--for thy sake, not his--that i would be like a second father to thee, and i will; so come to me when thou art in trouble, and i will give thee counsel and aid." "but i am in trouble, master peasegood, and want thy counsel and aid." "here they are then, little one," he said. "go home and wait patiently. it is not thy wedding-day yet. who knows how this gay spark stands at court? at any hour he may be recalled, and all his matrimonial plans be knocked upon the head. fair mistress anne would give her ears to wed with him: and if she has set her mind upon it, mark me, she will likely enough take steps to stay his wedding you. there is many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, child, and maybe this trouble of thine will settle itself without action on our part. it will be time to take stringent steps on the eve of the wedding if nothing happens before, and something may. at all events he shall not wed thee in roehurst church while i am parson there. hah! who may these be?" there were steps at the door, and a sharp rapping, which the parson responded to himself, to find confronting him a stern, semi-military looking man in dark doublet, with two followers cut exactly upon his pattern. "master joseph peasegood, clerk of roehurst?" said the stern-looking man. "yes," said the parson; "i am that person, sir." "here is a paper of attachment for thy person, master peasegood. thou wilt with me at once to london." "i--go--to london--attachment--what for?" "i cannot answer thy question, sir," was the reply. "i am only executioner of this warrant. i believe it is something to do with popish practices. come, sir, i have a carriage waiting. the roads are bad, and we want to be going." "popish practices! i, of all men in the world! but my people--who will take charge of them?" "a reverend gentleman is on his way, sir," was the reply. master peasegood read the document, bowed his head, and hastened his few preparations, standing at last finally with mace's hand clasped in his. "tell father brisdone i commend thee to his charge, my child, and bid him from me take thee away from thy father's care sooner than let thee become the wife of this man. tell him, too, that i am puzzled about this seizure of my person. i know not what it means, unless it be for consorting with him." "i know, master peasegood," said mace, pressing his great hand. "you have an enemy who has done this thing." "ay, child, and who may that be?" "the man who asked a service of thee, which thou did'st refuse." "sir mark? yes, thou art right. good-bye, my child, good-bye." mace's heart sank as she saw the stout figure of her old friend go towards where a great lumbering, open vehicle was standing, and as it disappeared she felt that she had one friend the less. it was, then, with a mute feeling of despair that she turned down the narrow, winding lane to meet a little further on three men, who, at a short distance, seemed to be the same she had so lately seen depart. on a nearer approach, however, she found that it was their uniform, or livery, only that was the same. they looked at her curiously as they passed, and then a shiver ran through her as the thought struck home,--what was their object there? "father brisdone!" she ejaculated. "they have been after him." a cold feeling of despair crept over her as she read in all this the power of the man who sought to make her his wife. he was evidently at work insidiously removing her friends, to replace them with people of his own, and more than ever she felt how helpless her position had become. with her heart beating a slow, heavy, despairing throb, she passed on a rising piece of ground to gaze through the trees at a portion of the pool which lay gleaming in the sunshine; when her brow contracted strangely, and her eyes half closed, as sinister thoughts, like those of some temptation, came upon her. she was to be alone and friendless if father brisdone was taken away: her father had literally sold her to this man, and sooner than he should take her in his arms and call her wife she felt that she would seek for rest in the great pool. "pst! pst!" mace turned sharply, and, gazing in the direction from which the sound had come, she saw high up amidst the bushes on the bank the rusty cassock of him who had so lately been in her thoughts. "dear father!" she cried. "you there?" "hist, child, hist! don't look in my direction, but stoop, pick flowers, and talk to me as you bend down." "why are you there, father?" she said softly, as she obeyed his words. "it is the old story, child. i am one of a proscribed set of men now, and i have had warning from tom croftly that there are those here who seek to make me a prisoner." "yes, father, i have seen them." "then i must take to hiding, child. when gilbert carr's ship returns he will give me safe passage to france. till then i shall make my home in the iron-pits--the disused ones in the old beechwood." "where i'll bring thee food and covers, father," cried mace, who found relief from her own troubles in helping others. "nay, child, thou wilt be watched by one at the pool. tom croftly will bring me all i want, if thou givest it to him. he is trusty, and will bring any message or letter with faith and care. i shall be watching over thee still, though i am in the old hole of the rock. it is not the first time that i have had to hide for life and liberty. but hark here, my child, i have said come not. if matters occur that make it necessary for thee to flee thine home sooner than wed a man thou dost despise, come to me in the forest, and maybe together we may escape to where i can find thee a home with a holy sister, and rest and peace." "thanks, father, oh, thanks!" cried mace. "but listen: master peasegood has been taken away." "so soon? but i am not surprised. it is because he refused the same offer as i." "were you asked, father?" "nay, child, i was ordered; and that is the real reason why i am hunted down. hist! steps! go on." mace involuntarily walked on through the wood, bitterly lamenting that she should bring indirectly such misery upon those she esteemed, when a slight rustle in the bushes made her turn her head and utter a faint cry, as she was tightly clasped in sir mark leslie's arms. volume , chapter xvii. how mace made a promise. "i do not often exact my lover's fees," cried sir mark, kissing her passionately in spite of her struggles, while a feeling of horror half froze her, as she thought that this man must have heard the conversation with the father. in a few moments, though, she had freed herself, and stood panting before him, longing to look back, and straining to listen to every rustle of the leaves behind her, and yet not daring so to do, lest it should draw attention to the fugitive. "how silent you are," he said, laughing. "a stranger would think you feared me, and not that we were so soon to be man and wife. my darling, is it not time we grew less distant?" "let me pass, sir mark!" cried mace, hardly knowing what she did or said. "pass! no, little meadow-sweet. i will walk home with thee, proud and delighted to be thy champion and protector--the happiest man on earth." he talked on as he walked by her side, turning from time to time to gaze on her white face, as they neared the cluster of houses near the pool, and seeming pleased that first one head, and then another, should be turned to gaze after them as they went across the little bridge and into the porch. as soon as she could escape, mace hurried up to her own room, where she recovered a little from the agitation, as she thought of the father, and that there was one place to which she could flee in the event of matters coming to the worst. she had to plan, too, that certain necessaries should be sent to father brisdone, all of which relieved her of her terrible brooding thoughts, and the feeling that she was forsaken. helping another, and that so old a friend, was her solace, though she wept bitterly as she thought of how it was through her that he suffered. one thought, too, now dominated over the others, and that was, had sir mark heard her words? if he had, the father would be seized, and she sat thinking, longing to send him warning, but afraid, for she knew that, with all his smiling openness of countenance, sir mark's words that he spoke to her on their way back were true, for he had told her that he was jealous of her; that he trembled lest some one should rob him of his great joy, and that his men were compelled to be watchful; and often when she had seen a dark figure near her window at night she was sure it was not from objects of gallantry--that janet had not been waited for, but that the house was being guarded as if under military rule. it was with a sense of relief then that she saw sir mark's departure for london the next day, even though he told her, as he held her hand, that on his return he should claim it as his own. there would probably be a fortnight, in which time a change might come, as master peasegood had said, for sir mark might never be permitted to return. the freedom from his presence, though, brought little more liberty, for that very afternoon a quiet, smooth-faced, smiling man in clerical garb called at the pool-house, introducing himself as the minister who was temporarily to hold the cure of souls. mace shrank from him with fear and distrust, for in him she knew she was looking upon sir mark's creature, a spy upon her actions, and one who was to bind her fast to him with chains that could never be undone. she contrived to carry various articles down to croftly's cottage, but in doing that she found that she was watched, some or other of sir mark's men loitering about, apparently enjoying their idleness and freedom from their master's eye; while she soon awoke to the fact that even her visits to the gardens were noted, and that janet, her maid, had been bought over to the other side. she tried one more passionate appeal to her father, but he would not hear her; and after this she felt that she was thrown upon herself to make some desperate resolve, either to flee to father brisdone, or take a more terrible step, one which during the past few days she had learned to look upon almost without a shudder. the time seemed winged by magic as it glided by, and, trembling and excited, she knew that the hour had nearly come for sir mark's return. twice over messengers had arrived from him, in each case laden with presents, and bearing a letter full of words meant to be tender, but which excited her disgust. she had had to listen, also, to the fulsome adulation of master peasegood's successor, who, to her horror, contrived to get himself asked by the founder to stay at the house, where he became a spy and an incubus of which the poor girl seemed to be never rid. at length a last messenger arrived, bearing a fresh order to the founder, and requesting him to proceed with it at once, at the same time announcing sir mark's arrival on the morrow. that night mace sat at her window debating within herself as to what she should do. a last appeal to her father had been so met that she felt desperate, and a hair's pull one way or the other would have been sufficient to draw her aside. the question she asked herself was, whether she should flee to father brisdone now, or wait until the eve of the wedding, and she decided for the latter course, as, sobbing bitterly, she told herself there was escape for her still if the father had not been seized. the night was dark with the darkness of autumn, and as she sat at the open window, with her cheek upon her hand, she gazed out at the dark pool and listened to the murmur of the falling waters as they plashed musically amidst the stones and piles. suddenly, in the midst of her despairing thoughts, her hand dropped on the window-sill, and her eyes dilated as she gazed before her at the broad green bank across the race, where four points of light shone out diamond-wise as in the happy days of her young love. "gil," she cried below her breath, and her heart beat painfully as she gazed intently at the lights, which faded as quickly as they had appeared. was it fancy--a trick, or some treachery? there were no glow-worms now. it was long past the time when they shed their tiny lights, and the appearance, if it were not fancy, could only be some accidental resemblance which she had magnified in her excited state. it was nothing, she said, as a feeling of misery came over her, and the tears rose to her eyes as she wondered where gil could be, and whether he thought of her at that moment, when there was a slight rustle below, and she reached out of the window, as her name was uttered in a low, deep voice which she could not mistake. "mace!" "gil!" for answer a foot was placed upon the sill below. he sprang, and caught the mullion of her window, drew himself up and clung there, with both hands, as she flung her arms round his neck, and laid her face against his cheek. they were moments of ecstasy mingled with grief and pain, as in her delight at gil's return mace began to whisper to him of her terrible position. "i know all, sweet," he whispered back. "but hush, speak beneath your breath. you are watched at every turn, and it was only by setting two of my men to lead the spies upon a false scent that i could get to the window. oh, my darling, i could die now after this joyful meeting. i have not doubted of thy love--not much; but i did not know how thou mightest be forced." "oh! gil, gil, i am most miserable," she moaned. "i know it, sweet. father brisdone has told me all. but, there, you will listen to me now. mace, dearest, you will not wed this man?" "gil, i was thinking when you came to-night i'd make the pool my wedding-bed." "my own!" he whispered, as he longed to press her in his arms--the arms that clung painfully to the window-sill to keep his face on a level with hers. "i was so miserable i wished myself dead." "but now?" he asked. "now," she said, forgetting all timidity in her joy, as she clung more closely to him, "now i wish to live." "and you will go with me?" "what? leave my home--my father?" she said, half in amaze that he should propose such a thing, and with all a woman's inconsistency, though so few minutes before she had thought of fleeing to father brisdone to seek a home abroad. "yes, when it is no longer a home to thee, sweet. give me the name of husband, mace, my own old love. i have but moments to say it to thee. come with me now from this window. i have half a dozen men waiting. four shall help to guard you to our hiding-place while two go to the old iron-pits and fetch thence father brisdone. he shall wed us at once. or we will away to my boat in the little river and go down to my ship, where let even the king seek thee if he dare." "oh, gil--dear gil, i cannot!" she faltered. "quick," he whispered. "hold me tightly, sweet, for my arms are failing. look here, janet shall come if thou wilt." "nay, nay, she is false." "then come without her, sweet. come, and be my own wife, and let us laugh at this intruder, who would rob us both of a happy life." "no, no, no!" she faltered, as she clung to him. "i cannot come--i cannot come." "you do not trust me," he said. "oh! hush, hush, gil!" she moaned. "i do trust you, and love you with all my heart. i will die sooner than that man shall clasp me as his wife, but i cannot, cannot flee my home like this." "yes, yes, dearest, quick, you must decide," he whispered, as a faint chirp was heard. "i cannot, gil. my father--my poor father, i cannot leave him." "mace, dearest, you torture me and yourself. you will come." "nay, nay, i cannot." "what! will you stay to be this man's wife?" "no! sooner death," she cried. "he may not return." "he is on his way." "oh, no, no," she whispered, shuddering. "i could not be his wife. he may not come--a thousand things may happen. oh, gil, gil, do not tempt me to do wrong." "nay, nay, i'll not tempt thee, sweet. 'tis no temptation to say, `be my wife.' is it so sad a fate?" "gil--husband--thy wife or death's!" she sobbed, as she passionately kissed his sunburned face. "then you will come, sweet!" he cried. "quick, thy cloak and hood." "nay, gil, dearest gil, i cannot leave." "mace!" "do not reproach me," she said, sadly. "gil, dear gil, i love thee with all my heart, but i could not flee from here while hope remained." "and does it remain here?" he said, bitterly. "yes, dearest," she whispered. "my father may repent; sir mark may never return. while there is either of those to cling to, i could not go." "but, if they were gone, would you come? tell me quickly." there was a dead silence, during which the chirp, as of a bird, was once more heard. "there is something wrong, sweet, and i must go; but tell me, were both those hopes gone, would you come?" again there was silence, and then once more the chirp of the bird. "gil," whispered mace, with her lips to his ear, "i cannot leave my father while there is hope. if this fails me, on the eve of my wedding-day, come, and i will flee with thee to the great world's end." "seal it," he whispered. "gil!" "seal thy promise, sweet," he whispered. "my arms fail me; i cannot draw thee to my breast. kiss me, sweet wife, for my wife thou art." her lips slowly lowered themselves to his, rested there for long, and then were raised, as a thrill of joy shot through the young man's breast. "on the eve of the day appointed for the wedding, then, i will be here, to take thee away. father brisdone shall be on board my ship, the boat lie waiting, and there shall be good men and true to protect thee, love. you will not fail?" "i will not fail," she whispered. "there goes one hope," he said, as lights shone through the trees on the track beside the pool. "sir mark has come." mace uttered a faint cry. "nay, love, that should be a cry of joy," he whispered. "i go hence happy, for the prize is mine." her arms relaxed, and he dropped from the window, and stole cautiously away; but on every hand he found that some one was on the watch, and that sir mark's people, who were more able than he had expected, were at every turn. they had not seen him come, but partly from suspicion, partly because they half expected that the announcement of sir mark's return upon the following night might be merely a ruse to throw them off their guard, they were particularly watchful; and, as they had anticipated, so it happened, for there was their leader at the gate. a few blows and a struggle, and gil could easily have escaped, but that would have interfered with his plans; and hence he was doubly cautious, the result being that just as the horsemen bearing lights reached the house, gil had crept back and crouched beneath his mistress's window, unable to get unseen away. "gil," she whispered. "i am here, sweet. they will see me if you stay. go in, and close thy casement." "nay, nay," she whispered, agitatedly. "you will be taken--there will be blood shed. come--quick--in here till they are gone." with a bound gil reached the heavy window-sill, and drew himself up, got one arm over, then with a slight struggle he was half in, then leaped lightly down, and caught mace to his panting breast. "hush! for heaven's sake, hush!" she whispered as she clung to him, "you might be heard." "and if i were," he said fondly, "i should have blurred my darling's fame. mace, sweet wife, that i love thee thou shalt have no doubt. heaven bless thee, child. good night." before she could speak he had placed one foot on the sill and leaped out on to the grass, coming down so lightly that as she darted to the window she hardly heard his footfalls. there was a slight rustle though on her left, which must have been he; and then as she drew back there was the sound of low voices talking, and she became aware that they were those of her father and sir mark. she shrank away from the window with a shiver, for the voice of sir mark sounded hateful to her; but fear lest her lover should be heard drew her back, and she stood listening, but heard no sound to cause her dread. once more there was the chirp as of a bird, and then came an answering chirp as from off the water, after which all was silent, and she closed her window to sit down and wonder how gil had produced those tiny sparks of light, and then she knelt down and laid her cheek against her bed as she prayed with all her heart for forgiveness if she were wrong in feeling so joyous--so glad of soul that her lover had returned. for there was a delicious sense of ecstasy--of freedom from all pain-- pervading her. she was safe from sir mark and his machinations. he might take away master peasegood and father brisdone, but gil he dared not touch; and she closed her eyes and sighed content as she thought of her stout, brave lover--so strong, so manly, and so true. was it the same life, she asked herself, that she was living a few hours ago? it seemed impossible; and she rose at length so refreshed and calm that she was ready enough to answer when there was a step on the stairs, and her father's voice speaking. "art abed, lass?" he cried. "no, father." "then come down. sir mark would see thee and show thee the presents he has brought from london town." mace hesitated for a few moments, and, had it been the night before, she would have refused to go. this night she felt so at peace within herself that she was ready enough, and went down to read in the eyes of both that they were ignorant of gil's return, though she repented afterwards, and felt that she was playing a double part, as she listened to sir mark's adulation, and saw the rich presents he had purchased for his bride. it was while she was listening to his words that she suddenly recollected the necklace of pearls which she had scattered about the room where they were seated, and wondered where they had gone, for she had thought of them no more. at last, at a very late hour for the simple country-place, she was able to retire, and when she did, and received her father's customary kiss, the words he uttered we're few but they shot through her like a pang. for they were words of thanks for her less reserved demeanour towards sir mark; and, as the poor girl ascended once more to her room, it was with the feeling strong upon her that the second hope to which she had clung had just been swept away. volume , chapter xviii. how tom croftly spoke his mind. it was soon known in roehurst that captain culverin had returned from his voyage, and sir mark ground his teeth with rage as he heard the news. "the more need to get the matter over," he said to himself; and he had at once a long interview with the founder, one which set him more at ease, for it was decided then and there that the wedding should he that day week, and mace was summoned to hear her fate. she heard it without a word, and from that day forward went about the house like one in a dream, but with a strange feeling of excitement ever growing in her brain. wedding clothes lay about her room, and presents, but she hardly glanced at them. at one of her interviews with sir mark she had begged that she might be left much alone, and to her great relief this was accorded to her, and she waited for the eventful eve. she longed to visit father brisdone at his hiding-place in the old ironstone pit, but she dared not go, for whenever she set foot beyond the scattered houses she found either sir mark or a couple of his men following upon her track. she had this consolation, however, that gil was evidently in communication with the father, for he had promised to have him on board. at first she was all excitement to know whether sir mark had heard her speaking to him; but she felt sure at last that this had not been so, and so she waited. two or three times over her heart was in a flutter, for there were well-known voices about the place, as gil's men arrived escorting some dozens of the country-carts chartered to bear to the foundry-works load after load of dirty-looking saltpetre bags, and sacks of pure, pale yellow stone. these were dangerous times, for all were well-armed, and there was risk enough of encounters between the sailors and sir mark's men, for the former gazed with jealous eyes at the position taken by the latter amongst their old friends; while the latter, who knew of the treatment of two of their companions, longed for an open quarrel and a fight. but the orders were strict on both sides, gil making wat kilby scowl as he gave the most stern commands as to the behaviour of the men when in the little village; and so, day after day, loads and loads of the special commodities were landed and carried away, and gil made no effort to see his love or even speak. mace asked her trembling heart whether gil would know which was the wedding eve, as if he would not be sure; and so great was her desire to hear of the condition of father brisdone that she daily made a journey to tom croftly's cottage, where the news she heard was always good; and the father sent her messages to be of good cheer, for he was safe. these visits seemed to puzzle the followers of sir mark, who himself had his suspicions that they were made by appointment, and that she here made rendezvous with gil; but following her one day, the most he saw was a small basket of provisions and a little flask of wine, all of which he set down to charity, and walked back with her quite content. the unloading of gil's ship continued rapidly, and the followers of sir mark heard one or two mysterious communications about the strange processions that sometimes were seen in out-of-the-way parts at night, but their orders were to keep close to the pool-house, and no expeditions were made to see what the processions meant. in short, there was a lull in the little hamlet--the calm that precedes a storm--and women whispered that mother goodhugh had been foretelling that the time of evil for the house of cobbe was close at hand. sir mark seemed to be passing his time in busily superintending the despatch of the last piece that had been finished, after careful proof, and then in idling about the woods, or rowing upon the pool, while the preparations for the wedding still went on. once or twice he occupied himself with shooting the wild fowl with arquebus or cross-bow, but all the same his eyes and ears were attent to every change. now that the news must have reached the moat, he studiously avoided visiting there, for he half-laughingly wondered what anne beckley would say. jeremiah cobbe was of opinion that his intended son-in-law was trying to make friends with all the people about the place, so frequent were his visits from cot to cot; but this was not so, for he was busy trying to learn all he could about gil's whereabouts and habits; an inquisition in which he was aided by master tarpling, the temporary resident parson; but the total of their knowledge when added up amounted to _nil_. once or twice did the founder hesitate as to the course he was pursuing, but in his business encounters with gil he found him calm and stern, and it struck him that mace had of late grown resigned; so he let matters drift, fully aware though he was that sir mark would now have forced him to keep to his word should he have shown any disposition to draw back. "he'll make her a good husband," he said to himself. "she don't fancy it, perhaps, at first; but a father must be the best judge of what is for his child's happiness." he was down at one of his powder-sheds, busying himself, and thinking that the pool-house would soon be no longer the same, when he came upon croftly, who, on the strength of his old service, said what he pleased. "oh, look here, tom," said the founder, "thursday's to be the wedding-day; you ought to set the men to work getting ready something in honour of the event. it's a busy time, but i shall not take any notice if some of you stop to rig up a sort of arch." "rig up!" said tom crofty. "hadn't you better ask some of the captain's men? it's more in their way." "no, no," said the founder, hastily. "make an arch of green boughs and flowers, and that sort of thing. you know better than i do; go up to the village and bid the men get the case of viols, and let there be a dance--the girls will be pleased. tell the men they shall have their shilling and plenty of ale; and you can get some powder--a keg of coarse black--and the two little old guns, and fire 'em off. you can have what wood you like, too, for a bonfire at night. do the thing well, my lad, and take a holiday all of you. i'll find the ale." tom croftly took off his cap, and wiped his grimy brow with a blacker hand, as he seated himself on the bottom of an empty keg. "we had a girt meeting 'bout it in the 'ood last night, master," said croftly; "and talked it all over." "oh, you did?" said the founder, looking pleased. "well, and what did you settle?" "first find foremost, master, we sattled that we'd muffle the three bells up in the tower o' the church." "why, it's two miles away, man, and the sound wouldn't hardly be heard here." "and then we'd toll 'em all day long." "toll them?" cried the founder. "ay, master, for it be like to us as if young mistress had been put in her grave." "nonsense, my lad. she'll come back sometimes. and it's a happy day for her." "happy, eh, master?" said croftly roughly. "look here, you asked for this, so you may as well have it slap i' th' mooth. i talked to the boys, and they talked to me; and at last of all they, swore as they'd be damned, every man jack of 'em, if they didn't treat the whole thing as a fun'ral, and that, if any of sir mark's chaps tried to get up an ale shouting, they'd shove 'em in the pool." "but you musn't take it like that, tom," cried the founder. "it's very good of the lads to take on so about losing their young mistress, but you must rejoice. it's to be a happy day." "she looks like it, master," cried tom. "why her face be terrifying. where be her bright sperrits, and her sparkling eyes? don't you make a mistake about it, master. we don't take on about losing her, none of us, and we'd half bust every old gun on the place and raise such a girt bonfire as would set the country alight, if she was going to wed the man of her choice. but this gay fly-golding ladybird chap fro' london! ah, master, you be doing wrong, and that be what we all say." "you, tom croftly," roared the founder, angrily, as he writhed beneath the lash of his man's words, "how dare you speak to me like that?" "cause it be right," said croftly, stoutly. "haven't she and the captain been like two lovers ever since they was little children, and sent my heart in my mouth to see 'em playing so nigh the edge of the race?" "i will not listen to such insolence," cried the founder. "you, tom croftly, come for your wage on saturday night, and give up the cottage the week after." "and maybe you'll put william goodley in my place, eh?" said the foreman. "maybe i shall," cried the founder. "you ungrateful rascal!" "nay," said the foreman, "you need not trouble yourself, mas' bill goodley would not step into my shoes, nor another man in the place. and, just to show as i beant ungrateful as you say, i'll stop on." "stop on!" roared the founder. "ay, stop on. haven't you just took another good order? haven't you got all that 'ood ready for the colliers; and haven't you just got in a shipload of sulphur and chinese salt? lookye here, mas', you don't know, i s'pose, that if i left here every man and boy would go as well. no, master, we beant ungrateful, none of us; but we don't like to see our young mistress sold, and him as should have had her thrown over." "and pray who is that?" cried the founder. "captain culverin, mas'; that be the man she meant to have." "a wild adventurer--a man who murdered that wretch churr." "nay, master, there beant a man of us here who thinks that he did," said the workman, sturdily; "and if captain gil was here you wouldn't say it to he." "i am here, tom croftly," said gil, stepping into the big powder-shed, "and i thank you and your fellows for your good opinion. but take no notice of this. master cobbe here does not believe what he said." "but i do," cried the founder, furiously. "tom croftly," said gil, quietly, but with a flush in his cheek, "go, and leave me with master cobbe here. i want to talk with him." "all right, captain!" said the workman. "bah!" he added to himself, "if he be'd the lad i thought him, he'd make no more ado but upset the whole of this london trade, and carry young mistress off. i would." "now, gil carr," cried the founder, as soon as they were alone. "we've done our business. you've delivered all your cargo that i want, and you've been paid your money. wouldn't it have been more decent if you had kept away?" "perhaps so, master cobbe; but there are times when a man feels that he must speak. but, first of all, why do you rake up that wretched story about abel churr?" "because i believe it," cried the founder, angrily. "nay, you do not. you know i am innocent, or i should not dare to come to you now, and ask you by all you hold dear to give up this wretched business." "what wretched business?" cried the founder. "i mean this proposed marriage. listen to me, master cobbe. you have known me from a boy. i have been wayward and rough, perhaps, but fairly honest, for my love for mace has kept me a better man than i should have been." "what does all this mean, gil carr?" "it means, sir, that i make my last appeal to you before it is too late. i love mace dearly. give up this wedding and wait a year--two years-- any time you will, till you are satisfied i am innocent of the death of abel churr, and then give me your consent. don't condemn us both to a life of wretchedness and pain." gil had made his appeal at the wrong time. no matter when he had come, he would have met with a stern refusal; but now, when the founder was irritated beyond measure to find the echo of his own feelings in the breast of his very workmen, who, with true british sturdiness, refused to a man to take part in what they looked upon as the selling of his child, he was unable to contain himself, and the pent-up anger came pouring forth. "go!" he cried, white with rage, as he pointed to the entry. "go, ere i'm mad enough to strike. thou hast come now to try and breed fresh dissension--to try and raise my poor, foolish child in rebellion against me. i am not a man of blood, but, look you, your presence near my house from now till when this wedding has taken place will be the signal for my people, or those of sir mark, to use force." "but you will not let the wedding take place, master cobbe? for all our sakes, pause in time." "in time!" cried the founder; "what do you mean? there, no more." as he spoke he turned and hurried out of the powder-shed, and past two or three more, to enter at last one of the stone buildings, where the casting was carried on; but gil stuck to his heels, following him closely without noticing sir mark, who, on catching sight of him, raised a finger as a signal to one of his men. "you will not sell poor mace like this," cried gil, as the founder turned upon him as if at bay. "master cobbe, for both our sakes, pause while there is yet time." "out upon thee, gil carr; thou maddenest me!" cried the founder. "yet time? what do you mean by speaking to me like this? am i not my own master?" "yes," replied gil, humbly; "and this is why i appeal." "why you rebel against me, you should say," cried the founder, passionately. "what am i to understand that you mean by `yet time'?" "i mean before it is too late," said gil, speaking humbly and imploringly as he forced himself into making this last appeal, before venturing on an act that was repugnant to him, and which on calmer consideration he would have avoided for mace's sake. "gil carr!" cried the founder, furiously, "go thy way, and let me go mine. i will not be dictated to by the man who has come like a blight upon my threshold. like a treacherous adder, thou hast stung the hand that warmed thee back to life. coward--villain--thou could'st do nothing better than set thy snares to trap my weak child. now go, or--" he raised his hand and dropped it again. "for heaven's sake, listen to me!" cried gil, excitedly. "master cobbe, i would be an honourable gentleman for my father's sake, to thee and thine, but you drive me to despair." in his eagerness he caught the founder by the arm, but the latter turned upon him furiously, mad as he was with rage against himself as much as with the suppliant, whom he struck heavily across the face, and then strode away. gil staggered back as much from surprise as from the weight of the blow, and the blood in a hot flush of passion suffused his face. "for thy sake, darling," he said, calming down, "for thy sake. there, master cobbe, i have done my duty as a man; if blood be shed in what follows, i wash my hands of it; for 'fore god i swear, that if i fail in one way, i'd kill my darling at the altar before she should become that fellow's wife." "captain--quick--this way, captain!" cried a voice in a hasty whisper. "what is it, croftly?" "this way, skipper. here in at this furnace-mouth; it is open behind. follow me." "what for, man?" cried gil, sternly, as he saw the grimy face of croftly at the opening to one of the great brick smelting-furnaces now void and cold. "sir mark, with a dozen men be surrounding the place." gil's hand flew to his sword, but he let it fall. "nay," he said, "we must have the wisdom of the serpent here. we'll try that first, and if it fails--the sword." entering the furnace, then, croftly helped him into a black passage beyond, which let them pass between two vast stacks of charcoal to the rough track into the forest, which gil reached unseen, while sir mark, with a dozen men, searched the powder-sheds and furnaces in vain. volume , chapter xix. how mother goodhugh went to work. "thou wicked old hag," cried anne beckley, angrily, as she stood in mother goodhugh's cottage. "here have i, against my better sense, trusted to thee, and laid bare the secrets of my heart, and for what?" mother goodhugh smiled maliciously. "to make thee rich with gold pieces while thou hast done naught but mock at me and laugh." "nay, sweet mistress," said the old woman, "i smiled not at thee. i thought of what had passed." "and what had passed?" "thou hast not known thine own heart, and one day it has been set on captain culverin, and another day on the gay young knight of london." anne gave her foot an impatient stamp. "what is that to thee?" "naught, sweet mistress, with the beautiful eyes and lips. ah, would i were a man and young," said the wily old flatterer. "but it be much to spells. the spirits will not be mocked at. thou comest to me and sayest, `mix me powerful philtres that shall win sir mark's love', and, when thou dost administer it according to the form i gave, thy thoughts be all the while on culverin carr. how canst blame me if they do not act!" anne stamped on the floor again. "i don't care," she cried. "what did you promise me? was it not that i could win the love of either." "ay," said mother goodhugh; "and i worked hard; but mistress mace cobbe worked hard too, and had better luck." "don't mention her wretched name." "but i must, sweet child. how her beautiful eyes fire up and sparkle!" she said, as if to herself. "she be a white witch, and weaves powerful spells with her father's wealth. for his money helps her to buy costly things my pittance will not touch." "i have given thee crowns and pounds," cried anne. "all spent on thee and thy philtres," returned mother goodhugh. "then abel churr has been taken away through the tricks of that white witch mace, who has forced culverin carr to slay him, that i might not battle against her. ah, fair mistress anne, she be a potent witch." "then she shall be burned," cried anne beckley, savagely. "i have but to swear against her before my father, the justice, of her goings on, and she would be seized and pinioned and tortured." "and serve her duly," cried the old woman, with malicious glee. "even as i could have thee seized, mother goodhugh," cried anne, "if i so willed." "nay, but thou would'st not be so cruel to one who has served thee so well." "served me so well?" cried anne, fiercely. "what have you done?" "tried to win thee lovers," said mother goodhugh, whining. "ay, and gilbert carr treats me with scorn, and sir mark marries that thing--that creature, mace cobbe." "nay," cried the old woman, "it be not so." "but it is so," cried anne, "and i am scorned by both. i heard sir mark talking the wedding over with master peasegood, and it will be at the pool." "both scorned thee!" cried mother goodhugh, raising her hands; "and thou so beautiful to the eye, and i'll warrant me so sweet to the touch. she be a powerful witch indeed." "then i'll denounce her for one!" cried anne, passionately; and the old woman's face lit up with glee, but became serious directly after, as she grew thoughtful. "nay, child, it would be in vain." "but this marriage shall not be." "why not wed captain culverin?" "hideous old fool, i tell thee he scorns me!" cried the passionate woman. "he loves that wretched creature. i'll denounce her, that i will. i'd like to see her burn." "she deserves it, too, child; but it would be in vain. sir mark and his men and culverin carr and his men would defend her. she has witched them to her side." "but the wedding must not be." "nay, it shall not, then," cried the old woman. anne beckley walked up and down the little room for a few minutes, and then with an ugly look disfiguring her handsome, weak face, she stopped short before the old woman. "dost know how they served the old woman over at morbledon?" she said, with a malicious smile. "yes, yes," cried mother goodhugh, hastily; "i heard." "they tied her neck and heels, and threw her into the pond to see if she would swim." "yes, yes; the idiots and fools." "they nearly drowned her. eh? does that touch thee, mother goodhugh?" said mistress anne, maliciously, as she saw the old woman fall a-trembling. "yes, yes, yes. it was very cruel." "and then she was committed to prison on my father's warrant, and perchance she will be burned at the stake." "nay, nay, it be too horrible," said the old woman, whose face was now blanched with terror. "it is only what they'd do to thee, mother goodhugh, if i denounced thee for witches' practices." "then i'd denounce thee, too!" cried the old woman, turning upon her like the trampled worm. "and, if you did, who would believe thee, thou wrinkled, ugly, spiteful crone, who goest cursing through the village, and evil-eyeing all around? denounce me? ha, ha, ha!" cried the girl, throwing back her head as her eyes flashed, and she looked really handsome; "do i look like a witch?" "no, no, no, dearie, you are lovely as woman can be," cried the old crone. "then i'll get thee burned for deceiving me!" cried anne. "nay, child, nay," cried the old woman, piteously; "thou would'st not be so cruel." "i can, and i will," cried the girl, stamping her foot. "i have been a fool to listen to thee, and thou hast taken advantage of me to get my money, and laughed at my weakness because i was sick with love; but i'm not such a fool as to be unable to get revenge. mother goodhugh, i'd come to see thee burnt." "nay, nay," cried the old woman, grovelling on the floor before her; "don't talk so, dearie, it be too horrible." "a great stake and a chain, and faggots piled round thee, and the fire blazing, and mother goodhugh roasting. ha, ha, ha! it would be a gay revenge on an old witch." "nay, child, nay, but i be not a witch," cried the old woman, who seemed palsied with dread. "then why did'st profess to me that thou wast?" cried anne, striking her again and again, the old woman only cowering down as she received the blows, and piteously begging her tormentor not to denounce her. "thou deceived'st me scores of times, and i, fool that i was, listened, and was befooled more and more. now, hark ye, mother goodhugh, i have thee tight. thou canst not win their love for me, but thou can'st get me revenge. look here: stop that wedding." "i will, child; i will, dearie." "_you shall_!" cried anne. "mind this: i warn you. if that wedding takes place, and mace cobbe becomes dame leslie--" "yes, yes, yes!" cried the old woman. "i'll denounce thee as a witch, and laugh to scorn any accusations or railings against me; and i'll come and spit at thee as thou burnest at the stake." "oh!" half shrieked the old woman, tearing at her bosom as she heard the other's words, and felt their power. then, recovering herself, she began to fawn upon her visitor. "have no fear, dearie. the wedding shall not be. i can stay it--i can stay it. i have but to lift up my hand, and it is done." "i believe thee not!" cried anne, "but i warn thee. if that wedding takes place, pray to all thy familiars to save thee, or flee from here, for if not i'll have thee dragged to the stake and burned. thou knowest that i can," she said, as she turned to go. "yes, child--yes, dearie." "then remember!" anne went out of the cottage as she said the last words, and, as mother goodhugh thought of the atrocities that had been committed against weak old women who had professed some occult art, she shivered, and in imagination saw the flames rising round her withered limbs. "she could do it, she could do it," she cried piteously. "but i'll stop it: i'll stop it. the house is cursed, and the wedding shall not be; for i can stop it, and i will." left alone to her thoughts, mother goodhugh began to suffer from a fit of terror, which completely gained the mastery over her, as she recalled all that she knew about the terrible sentences passed upon reputed witches. there was something fascinating in being able to gain the fear of the common people, and to be looked up to as a kind of prophetess; but she avowed now that the price paid was very dear. she had won many triumphs, and been looked up to as a wise woman, but if she were denounced as a witch, those who had feared and paid her for her utterances would turn upon her, for she was ready to own how seldom her prophetic promises had come true. one in a hundred, however, was quite sufficient to keep up her character; and when there were failures there were always some side utterances that could be brought to bear to soften defeat or turn the matter to her advantage. and so for years she had managed to keep up the character of a wise woman, and amass no inconsiderable amount of the rustic people's savings, for there was always something upon which she could be consulted, and, in spite of her fears, she sat hugging herself upon her success as she thought of this. "what be i to do?" she muttered; "and how be i to go to cobbers house? if i go i shall be sent away. why be not abel churr here to help me?" in spite of her efforts to fight back her dread, the recollections of the death scenes she had heard described made her tremble, and, when a hasty step was heard outside, she rose with a cry of horror, and darted towards the inner chamber, but paused on the threshold, as she heard a woman's voice repeat her name. "mother goodhugh, mother goodhugh!" "yes; who be it?" she said, and, tottering to the door, she opened the latch with trembling hand to as it were admit a ray of light to her breast, for the visitor brought hope. it was janet. "well, child," she said, "and why have you come?" "don't ask me yet, mother," whispered the girl, hurrying in, and helping to close the door. "if mas' cobbe knew i be come here he would half kill me." "of course, of course, child! it be very wrong to come and visit poor mother goodhugh. aren't you afraid i should curse you, child?" "oh no, mother!" cried the girl, who, now that she was inside, recovered herself. "i want you to bless me." "ah, child, and how?" "oh, mother," giggled the girl, "you know. how do young women want to be blest?" "with a husband, eh, dearie?" said the old woman with a cunning leer, as she scanned janet's pretty, weak face, and thought about how her good fortune had played into her hands by sending her a tool with which, if she were skilful, she could work her ends. "but thou should'st not make me say it out loud, mother," said janet, with another giggle; "but, when there be so much courting and love-making up at home, how can a girl help thinking about such things?" "ay, truly, dear, how indeed! but why should not so bonnie a maiden win a husband, i should like to know." "what, as mistress mace?" said janet, pouting. "nay, as mistress janet," said the old woman, chuckling. "well, well, and who is it to be, and what can i tell thee?" "i want--i want to know--" "ay, ay, speak out, dearie." "i want to know," faltered janet, glancing at the door of the inner room and then at that of the entrance, "i want to know--oh, i daren't ask it," she said, turning red and pale by turns. "thou would'st know the name of thy husband." "ay, how could you tell that?" cried the simple girl. "such things be as plain to me as if they were written in a book. sit down there," she cried, pointing to a stool in the middle of the room. janet hesitated, but the old woman took up her crutch-handled stick and struck the floor imperiously, with the result that the girl took the seat, and mother goodhugh drew a rough circle round her as she stood behind the stool. "i want to go back now; i must go back now," said the girl, with trembling voice. "thou canst not go now until the spell is off," whispered mother goodhugh, as she thrust her hand into a capacious pocket and took out a ball of glass, lined inside with some white metal, which gave it the appearance of a convex mirror. "shall i see anything very dreadful, and will it pook me?" faltered the girl. "i hope not, but i cannot promise," said mother goodhugh. "sit quite still, and if anything dreadful comes i will answer for it that thou be not hurt much." janet's heart throbbed as she saw the old woman come before her and go down upon her knees, her face convulsed, and lips moving rapidly; then, holding the glass in both hands, her brow puckered as she gazed straight into it. "what be this i see?" she cried in a hoarse voice; "a dark, tall, sun-browned man with pointed beard, half soldier, half sailor, who looks upon thee with eyes full of scorn." "has he dark grey eyes, mother?" whispered janet, in an awe-stricken voice. "ay, child, and a dashing, roving look." "it be culverin carr," muttered the girl, pressing her hand to her throbbing heart. "and now i see an old rough, grey man, big, and harsh, and stark, who would wed thee, but i know him not, for he keeps his head away." "mas' wat kilby!" muttered janet, with a sigh. "and now i see another, who is at thy feet, child; a handsome man in silk and velvet, who looks prayerfully in thy face, and asks thee to let him love thee." "tell me more of him!" cried janet, eagerly. "i can see but little more, child, only that he has white hands with rings upon them, and a sword is hanging to his belt. he looks a handsome and a courtly youth, such as we have not in these parts here." "'tis sir mark," said janet to herself. "he looks love to thee, but a woman of thy size and shape steps in between thee, and tears him away." "what be she like?" cried janet. "i cannot see, child, for her head be turned away, but surely it be thee, from the turn of the head. how be this? thou tightest against thyself." "nay, 'tis mistress mace cobbe. let me look." "thou art right; it be thy young mistress; and see, the gallant tries to reach thee, and her hand be raised to strike, and--how strange!" "what be it, mother?" "the glass has grown dim, as if a black shadow had passed over it, and i can see no more. try thou, my child." "nay, nay, i dare not; it be too terrifying!" cried janet, thrusting back the crystal. "'tis better not," said the old woman. "it be dangerous at times. there, child, i can tell thee no more to-day." "but tell me, mother, what can i do? pray give me your help." "help, child! how can i help thee?" "it be all so true," whispered janet. "he loves me, and she has come between us, and i hate her. what shall i do?" "does she love him?" "i think so. i don't know." "what could i do to help her?" muttered mother goodhugh, as if communing with herself, but loud enough for the silly girl to hear. "i could give her a philtre that would turn her own love for this gallant to hate, and so comfort her poor suffering heart. see, child," she said aloud, "i will give thee a potion that thou shalt take a little at a time in every meal; and, at the end of a week, thou shalt feel so strong a hatred of this lover of thine that thou shalt feel perfect rest. will that do?" "no, no!" cried janet; "i don't want to--yes, yes!" she cried, as an idea seemed to flash across her brain, and mother goodhugh's eyes sparkled as she saw how well her plans would be carried out by the foolish girl who, she felt sure, would administer the drops to mace in place of to herself; and, going into the inner room, she remained away for some few minutes before returning to janet, and, pressing a little bottle in her hand-- "take that, child, but let no soul know whence thou hadst it." "trust me for that, mother," cried janet, joyously. "what shall i pay you?" "pay me, child!" cried the old woman. "nothing, dearie; i am no old money-getting witch, but a simple, decent woman, who does these things for love. there, dearie, give me a bonny kiss of those red lips, and go thy way; mother goodhugh will help thee again if thou should'st come." "but mother," said janet, glancing back at the door. "yes, child, yes?" "will this act quickly and soon?" "yes, child; why?" janet reddened and hesitated, while the old woman's eyes seemed to search her through and through. "speak to me at once, child. but just as thou wilt, i can read thy thoughts, i know," and she laughed maliciously. "oh, mother!" cried janet, bursting into tears. "i think thou hast been very wicked, janet." "nay, mother, i could not help it; i tried so hard to be good." "my duty should be to tell mas' jeremiah cobbe." "nay, nay, mother, he'd drive me hence, and mas' peasegood would make me stand out before all the people in the church. nay, good mother, give me something, pray. sir mark's stout followers be rude wicked men. and mas' wat kilby, too," she sobbed. "i've given thee that which will help thee--i can do no more," said mother goodhugh, sternly. "now thou'rt angered with me, mother," pouted the girl. "i wish i had not come and told thee, that i do." "tchah! she says, _fold me_," laughed the old woman, "when i knew as well as all the world will soon know, janet, an' thou do not use my philtre." janet turned pale. "pray forgive me, mother, i'll use the drops." "ay, go and use them, and through them win a husband, child. then all will be well." "yes, yes, mother!" cried janet, eagerly. "there, i forgive thee; but get thee a husband quick. kiss me, child. now go." the girl eagerly pressed her ripe red mouth to the pale and withered lips of the old woman, and then, after a glance outside to see that she was not watched, she hurried back towards the pool, while mother goodhugh stood looking after her, and softly rubbed her hands. "if aught should happen," she muttered, "the girl dare not speak, for i gave her the stuff to take herself. it would be her doing, and the wedding would not take place. but what would mistress anne beckley say?" she stood thinking for a few minutes before she spoke again. "nothing. she dare say nothing. but i be a witch, be i, madam? have a care, then, for thyself. if one of two people is to die, why should it be i? but we shall see, we shall see: there be time enough yet." end of volume ii. volume , chapter i. how the witch said there should be no wedding. "that mother goodhugh must have a care of herself," said sir thomas a day or two later; and anne let fall her work upon her knee to listen to her father's words. "and pray why?" said dame beckley, who was shaking up some strange infusion of herbs in a bottle. "i hear strange things of her," said sir thomas; "things that, as a justice, i shall be bound to stay." "and why?" said the dame, as she took out the stopper and had a long sniff at the contents of the bottle. "because they savour of witchcraft and the use of spells. his majesty has opened a stem commission against such dealings, and as one whom he has delighted to honour i feel bound to show my zeal." "fiddle-de-dee!" cried dame beckley; "show thy zeal by growing wiser, thomas. smell that!" as the dame held the bottle beneath her lord's nose, anne glided out of the room, and made her way towards mother goodhugh's cot, where she found the old woman ready to meet her with a suspicious look, and, with a feeling of gratified malice, told her of the words her father had let drop. "but you could stay him, dearie," said the old woman, with a look of terror which she could not conceal. "yes. but tell me--what have you done?" "wait, dearie, wait," whispered the old woman. "the wedding will never be." "but it takes place in four days!" cried anne. "sir mark actually dared to come over and tell my father." "and he told thee, dearie?" "nay, he told my mother, and she told me." "four days," said the old woman trembling; "four days. the time be short, but it will do. i tell thee the wedding will never be." "can i believe thee this time, mother goodhugh?" cried the girl excitedly. "give me thy word as a lady, that i shall not be ill-treated by thy father and his people, and i swear to you the wedding shall never be." "there is my hand," said anne; and, as the old woman held it, there was a strange look on the girl's face as she bent down and mother goodhugh whispered to her for a few minutes, after which she hurried from the cottage. "and they call me witch, and think me ready to do any evil!" she muttered as she gazed after the girl; "while that young, fairly-formed creature has a heart full of devilry such as never entered mine. but it must be done--it must be done." she sat brooding over her cold hearth till evening: and then, as soon as it was dark, put on her cloak, took her stick, and walked cautiously to the pool-house, where she succeeded in getting to the kitchen window unperceived, reaching in and touching janet on the shoulder with her stick as she sat nodding near it in her chair. the girl started, and as her eyes fell upon the face of the visitor her lips parted to utter a cry, but the peculiar look on the old woman's face seemed to fascinate her, and she sat back gazing at her as mother goodhugh climbed in at the casement, and stood by her side. "wh-what do you want?" faltered the girl. "i've come to see thee, dearie," said the old woman, smiling. "i want to know how you be getting on." "but you must not stay here!" cried janet, making an effort to recover herself. "if master knew he would drive me hence." "go and tell him, then, child," said mother goodhugh mockingly. "go and tell him that mother goodhugh has come to ask thee about thy love affairs, and the philtre she gave thee. what? you will not? he, he, he, he! what a strange girl you are." "but you must not stay!" cried janet in alarm. "if you were found here master would never forgive me." "he is sitting smoking and drinking in his parlour, dearie, and never comes this way after dark." "yes, yes, he does!" cried the girl; "he comes sometimes to go down to the powder-cellar with a lantern." "what, through that door?" said mother goodhugh, pointing. "nay, nay! that be the beer cellar. that be the way to the powder-cellar," she said, pointing to a massive door, down a couple of steps. "that be the first door, and there be another farther on at the end of the passage." "lawk adear!" said mother goodhugh, "and aren't you afraid, when they bring the stuff down?" "they never bring it through here," said the girl. "they let the little barrels down through a hole covered with a flat stone outside there amongst the trees, and master goes along with tom croftly to take it, in their slippers, and then comes back and locks it up." "ay, and i'll be bound to say always carries the keys in his pocket, eh!" "no," said the girl, shaking her head. "they hang on a nail in the passage by the door." "there, i don't want to know about the powder, dearie," cried mother goodhugh. "oh, the horrible stuff! i always begin to curse when i hear it mentioned, so we won't talk about it. i came to see you, and talk about love, and--" "but you mustn't stop, indeed you mustn't stop," whispered janet. "suppose mistress mace should come?" "but she won't come, dearie. she's in the corner of the parlour window with the handsome young spark from town." "how do you know?" cried janet. "how do i know, child! he-he-he! do you think there's anything i don't know? you came to me because i was the wise woman, eh?" "ye-es," faltered the girl. "well, didn't you expect me to be wise, child, eh?" janet shrank as far away from her as she could, and stared at her, round of eye and parted of mouth. "look here, dearie," whispered the old woman, "don't try to deceive me. i'm such a good friend, but such a bad enemy. you wouldn't like to make me angry, and set me cursing and ill-wishing you." "n-no," faltered janet, who began to be horribly frightened of the penetrating eyes that seemed to read her inmost thoughts. "no, of course you would not. how often dids't say mas' cobbe went down into the powder-cellar?" "only once a month," said the girl, "when they've finished working." "then he'll be going down directly?" "oh, no; they finished there last week, and it will be three weeks, just," faltered janet. "dear me, will it?" said the old woman. "but, as i was saying, it would be so horrible if i cursed you, though it is not me, my dear, but something in me that does it. it be an evil spirit," she whispered, "and i've known girls as handsome as you lose their round, red cheeks, and soft, smooth skin, and their eyes have grown sunken, and their foreheads wrinkled. it be very horrible, my dear, but i couldn't help it." janet tried to get up and go away, but her visitor's fierce, sharp eyes seemed to hold her back in her seat, a fact which mother goodhugh well knew and rejoiced in. it was the only pleasure the old woman had, and she felt at times like this how it recompensed her for the dread she felt of the stringent laws. a curious smile played round her thin lips, and janet shuddered as the old woman leaned forward till her face was close to that of her victim. "how is the love going on, dearie?" she whispered. "don't--ask--me," faltered the girl. "you didn't take the stuff, dearie, to give yourself ease?" "how--how did you know?" "how did i know? he-he-he!" laughed the old woman, with a cacchination that was enough to freeze the girl's blood. "i know, child, and you can't deceive me. why didn't you take it?" "i--i was afraid," stammered janet. "mary goodsell took some once, but it killed her and her baby too." "afraid? stuff! afraid to give yourself ease when mistress mace was torturing you by her love-makings with the fine spark who played with you, and pretended to love you." "he didn't pretend," said the girl, indignantly. "he did love me till she came between." "ah, yes, child, i suppose so; but she be a white witch and very strong, and she would come between and master him. she could lead him wherever she liked, and win him to love her with her spells. don't trouble your poor, dear heart about him any more, my child, but take the drops, and be happy." "i--i don't think i dare," faltered the girl. "dare? pish! child, you be too brave and handsome a girl not to dare. it be a pity, too, that she should have come between," said mother goodhugh, musingly. "ah! i have known cases where handsome, noble gentlemen have come down into country places and seen village girls, not so beautiful as thou, child, and married them, and taken them away; and a few years after they have come back looking fine ladies, with their diamonds, and jewels, and carriages, and servants." janet's eyes sparkled as this indirect piece of flattery went on. "i'll take it," she said hastily; "i'll take it." "take it? of course you will, dearie!" cried mother goodhugh; "and now look here, my child. i want something of thine to complete a little spell i have at work. thou hadst a ribbon round thy neck when thou earnest to me." "yes," said janet, "a red one; mas' wat kilby gave it to me." "nay, then, child, that will not do. i only want an inch cut from it by thy left hand; but if it be tainted by an old man's love it would not do. let me see. thou hast not anything given thee by the young court gallant?" "no," said the girl. then, with a hasty glance around, she whispered "i have a piece of lace he gave to mistress mace, and which she would not wear." "that will do, child; go, get me the tiniest scrap of that, and i will weave a spell that shall bring thee happiness and peace." janet rose and opened the door, and listened. "they be all in the room," she whispered, as she closed the door again. "that be well. be quick, child, and let me get out of this place." "thou wilt not move while i am gone." "nay, nay, child, not i; but harkye, leave the door ajar while thou art gone up stairs, so that if i hear a step that be not thine i may flee." janet looked doubtful for a moment, and then turned to go. "i need not bring the whole piece?" she whispered. "faith, no, child; i'll not rob you of it. the tiniest scrap be all i want. it must be something that the knight has touched." janet nodded, and slipped out of the room, but ere she reached the staircase mother goodhugh was at the passage door listening; and, as the last stair creaked beneath the weak girl's tread, the old woman had glided into the passage, peered about by the light of the rush-candle burning on a stand, and uttered a grunt of disappointment. the next moment, though, she saw what she wanted, in the shape of a couple of keys hanging high up, close to the ceiling; and, stepping on a chair, she just reached them, and, lightly crept back along the passage to sit down in the kitchen, panting from exertion and excitement combined. before she could compose herself janet was back, too much excited herself to notice the old woman's hurried breathings. "i've got it," she cried, producing a handsome piece of lace. "i must cut some off here. be quick; i be in such a fright for fear some one should come." "that will do, dearie," said the old woman, tearing off a scrap from one end. "there, put it away, and let me begone. take the drops, child, and give thyself ease. you don't care for such love as his." janet did not reply, but gladly opened the door to get rid of her unwelcome visitor, who stepped out into the dark night, and hurried away across the little bridge, and into the lane, where she turned to shake her stick at the peaceful-looking house, with its lighted windows. "now we shall see--now we shall see!" she cried. "two ways open, and my sayings coming to pass. there will be no wedding now." volume , chapter ii. how culverin cark sealed up the store. the autumn sun shone brightly down into the ravine that led up to the mouth of gil carr's store, and the steep sides were glorious with the bright berries that glistened amongst the changing leaves. where the briony, with its bronze green foliage, flung down its wreaths, there was cluster after cluster of orange scarlet fruit. the brambles hung down thorny strands black with rich ripeness that there was no hand to gather; and wherever a prickly holly, all glistening glossy green, had rooted in some crevice of the sand-rock, it was covered with yellow berries awaiting more kisses from the ardent sun before blushing scarlet for the christmas-tide. the ferns were beginning to be dappled on their dark green fronds with gorgeous dashes of orange and chrome, mingled with crimson, red as blood, and the dyes of the finger-leaved maple were nearly as bright. where the white tails of the rabbits could be seen disappearing as their owners heard a tramp of many feet, the dense small-leaved sloe-bushes, with their cruel thorns, showed many a row of tiny plums of the richest violet, dusted with a delicate pearly bloom. the late blossoms of the yellow rag-wort clustered amidst the purple heath, and glossy ivy hung in strands swinging in the hot sunshine with the tender tips just brushing the seeded grass self-turned into useless hay. hot, still, and breathless lay the ravine, with all its natural riches, ripe with the fullness of the season, and now resting, waiting the coming of the cold wintry winds, that, sweeping up from the sea, should heat and tear and bear away the brightness of the autumn and turn all to desolation and death. suddenly a velvety blackbird, with its orange bill and yellow-circled eyes, uttered its alarm-note and flew along like a streak of night away up and along the side of the ravine to the over-hanging woods. a chat that had been busy twittering its song over a golden clump of furze stopped half-way and dived amongst the purple heath, while a glistening lizard, that had half taken the alarm from the scattering rabbits, ran beneath the leaves. the steps in the distance grew plainer on the ear, and a greeny olive snake raised its head where it lay in a twirl upon a shelf of short, fine, sun-browned turf, darted its tongue out over its hard shiny jaws, and glided under the root of a tree, seeming to give warning of danger by its low hiss to an adder higher up the stony way, for the little viper condescended to raise its head where it lay like a scaly letter s upon the mossy stump of a hazel bush, round whose green, mouldering, gnarled stem were clustered, like chalices, so many thickly-veined fungi that looked as if roughly cast in orange-tinted deadened gold. the danger seemed to be far off, for the viper lay down its spade-shaped head once more, yawned, and seemed disposing itself for another sunny sleep, but had hardly arranged its tail to its satisfaction when--_rustle--tap_--something fell from above, and struck it sharply on the back. it was only a hazel nut that could hang no longer in its husk, but ripened into a soft warm brown, it had dried and dried till a leaf or two above it had ceased to give its shade, and then it had fallen like a warning upon the viper's back. a moment before and the little reptile was sluggishness itself; this blow, light as it was, seemed to galvanise it into life, for a quick spasm darted through it, there was a sharp wave, and the raised head was ready to strike, while the eyes, that had a moment before resembled dim oxidised silver, now glittered like tiny jewels, as the whole creature seemed to become the picture of malicious rage, and sought where to drive deep its poison-fangs. there was somehow a kind of resemblance between the little serpent and anne beckley, though there was no one by to see, as, failing an object at which to strike, the reptile seemed to consider that discretion was the better part of valour; and, slowly lowering its crest, it threw its body into a series of horizontal waves, and gradually disappeared beneath some tawny--golden bracken on the slope. the steps came nearer, and suddenly there was a movement on the edge of the cliff, high above the store, where a bronzed man took his place, evidently on the look-out. directly after another was seen scaling the side of the ravine to post himself on the slope over the entrance, while again another suddenly appeared amidst the furze on the green shoulder which overlooked the sloping downs. gil carr's men did not often visit the place by day, hence the precautions against being watched by some intruder. high up above the cavern, the gaunt figure of wat kilby suddenly showed against the sky. then he shrank down into a little depression half overgrown with trees, and soon after a thin, pale blueish vapour arose, and kept rising, as, pipe in mouth, the old sailor seated himself upon a block of stone to watch. meanwhile, up the bottom of the ravine, close down by where the clear stream wandered in its deep fern-hung mossy shades, a little party of some twenty men wound their way. every man seemed well-armed, and, with the exception of their leader, all appeared to be carrying a burden, either a small keg or a little chest, or a heavy packet, which they bore through the clustering bushes, which seemed to interlace their arms and try to stay them as they forced their way amongst the rocks. after climbing pretty close to the end, at a word from gil the loads were set down, arms laid aside, and by means of half a dozen pike-staves the great stone was rolled away. the men then waited while gil went in and lit a lanthorn, returning soon after to make a sign, when one by one they all lifted and bore in their loads, following their leader for some distance to where the dim light showed an inner cavern, whose sides and roof had evidently been roughly chiselled out by the hands of man. here the fresh additions to the stores of the place were neatly deposited, and the sailors sat down, while gil busied himself in examining a bale or two that seemed to have been gnawed by rats. "i wonder where the skipper shoved that spying fellow churr--him as we searched for?" said one of the men in a low voice to his nearest comrade. "further in, somewhere," was the reply; "i thought i could smell him just now." "that be rats," said the other; "i know them well enough. but does the place go in far?" "i believe you, my lad. i once went in ever so far with old wat and the skipper carrying lanterns." "did you?" said the other, eagerly; "and what be it like?" "like this here. all the same--hole after hole, with rough stone pillars to support it all, just as it must have been dug out." "bah! chap, this was never cut out," said the other. "it came natural like." "never cut out? come natural like? look here, my lad," said the sailor, rising and pointing to marks upon the wall that seemed to have been made with some rough tool. "yes, but anybody might have done that," said the younger man. "you can think what you like," said the other. "i'm telling you what the skipper told old wat, and you never knew him tell a lie. he said to old wat, `my father found the way rabbiting when a boy, and forgot all about it till he felt the want of a place to store things in unknown to other folk, and then he recollected this.' he said it was made by folks as lived underground hundreds of thousands of years ago." "oh?" said the other. "yes; and they dug first one and then another, as they wanted them, and grew bigger in numbers, and that it went right in farther than they'd ever been on account of the bad air." "same as down among the bilge in the ship's hold?" "that's so. the skipper's father was most stifled by it once when he tried to go right in." "but do they go right in?" the elder sailor struck the top of an empty barrel a sharp rap with the hilt of his sword, and the other's question was answered, for the sound went echoing into the distance till it died away. "it be a queer sort of place," said the other, with a half shudder. "hang me if i'd like to be boxed up here along with abel churr, if the skipper's stowed him there." "plenty of room and good water," said the other, pointing down to where the source of the stream outside ran trickling through the interstices of the stone, and formed tiny pools of limpid clearness. "ugh! the place smells damp and cold, and i should expect to come out, if i was shut up here, all over blue mould." "like a bit of ship's cheese, eh? come along: here's the skipper." "now, my lads!" cried gill, just then, "work with a will, plenty to do." he led the way, and the men followed him with a sense of relief out into the bright sunshine, where the ferns fringed the rough arch over the entrance to the hole. they glanced at the heaps of stores and the various shipping chandlery, spare sails and cordage, but all was so familiar that nothing excited their interest. just as they reached the outside there was a whistle from below, and gil uttered an impatient ejaculation. but hurrying a little distance down, he peered over a mass of rock, to see one of his men, who had been on sentry, leading a dark figure with bandaged eyes. "father brisdone!" said gil. "bring him along, my lad." going forward, he quickly undid the handkerchief and threw it aside. "i forgot to tell them, father," he said, holding out his hand; "there was no need with you." "i do not wish to pry into any of your secrets, my son, that you do not care to trust me with," said father brisdone, smiling as he took the young man's hand. "trust you, father? why, i'd trust you with anything. but you look weary and hot with your journey. sit down on yon stone: this is nature's parlour. here is something to eat. lockyer, a bottle of that wine from the case inside on the left. the cup too." leading the father to a nook by the side of the entry, he placed refreshments before him, and then said-- "now you shall see us lock up the house, for it may be a year before we return." "why should you show me?" said father brisdone, smiling. "why should i not show the man whom i have always looked upon as a trusty friend?" retorted gil. "now, my lads," he said, and, leaving the father's side, he soon had his men busy with spade and shovel. first of all the old stone was reared into its place. then smaller blocks were thrust in here and there, so as to completely wedge it in. then shovels of stones were thrown into fissures, and sods of earth, mingled with grass and heather, were carefully arranged; after which broad-fronded ferns, roots of rag-wort, grasses, and bramble roots were planted, dead leaves sprinkled here and there, and touch after touch given till nothing seemed left to be done but to pour water over the new earth to bind it together, and make the plants take root. "there," said gil to the father, as he stopped by him, hot and panting; "unless some spy has watched our work, that is safe enough, for in a week's time those things will be growing again." "yes, that will be secure enough," said the father, rising. "thanks, my son, i was indeed faint for want of food. and now, what next?" "next, father, you will accompany my man there on board. the little ship lies ready in the river; he will take you down in the skiff. if all's well we shall be with you soon after midnight, and then heaven send us favouring gales, for we shall drop down the river on the tide, and put to sea at once." "but no bloodshed, my son. for heaven's sake do not let the hand that leads your promised wife on board be red with the blood of a fellow-man." "father," said gil, sternly, "i am no cut-throat; i am no lover of the sword. i go to-night to fetch my wife, and i go with peace and love towards all; but if that man or his followers stand in my path to prevent us, they must take what follows, for i cannot trifle now." father brisdone sighed. "you know the consequences; if i do not get her away to-night, they are to be wed at eight o' the clock, and to stay that, there must be a deadly fray. trust me, father; and, if i can help it, no blood shall be shed." "i trust you, my son. go, and my blessing be with you. i shall make the little cabin a chapel, where i shall pass the time in prayer for your success." "and then, father, a chapel where you make her mine by ties that none can break." "amen, my son, amen!" said father brisdone; and they parted, the father to follow his guide down the valley, and gil to lead his men through one of the forest tracks in the direction of roehurst pool, wat and the other watchers closing in behind. the advance was made with caution to within a mile of the foundry, where, beneath a spreading oak, gil called a halt, and cast his eyes over his party of twenty sturdy, well-armed men, every one of whom could handle his weapon well. "that will do, my lads," he said in his quick, imperious way. "now lie down, and eat and rest. silence, every man; not a word above a whisper. goodsell, kingley, two hundred paces each of you along the track. a good look--out, and a quick whistle, if so much as a berry-hunting child approach." his orders were carried out, and then with the soft autumn evening rapidly drawing nigh, gil also went out through the forest to watch and listen for the approach of footsteps that might end in the discovery of his men. volume , chapter iii. how gil and his men drew sword. the hours glided slowly by, and the soft damp of night scented the forest with its peculiar odours,--of decaying leaves, swift-growing fungi, and mouldering wood. ever and again a leaf that had hung lightly by its dying stalk became so laden with dew that it fell pattering down with a noise that seemed startlingly loud in the silence of the time. borne on the sighing breeze that whispered through the branches above came, rising and falling, the rushing sound of falling water, as the swift stream dashed past the front of the founder's house, and hurried towards the huge wheel, but only to be turned aside to sweep with a sudden plunge into the lower hole. there was something very strange and hollow that night in the sound of the rushing stream; and, as gil stood leaning against a tree, the falling water seemed now distant, dying away in sighs; now close at hand, rolling down with a thunderous bass. if he had been asked why it affected him, he could not have said; but its deep notes sounded then like a portent of mishap. he remembered it afterwards so well, for every incident of that memorable evening seemed to be burned into his brain, and he had but to lean over the side of his ship and gaze away into the depths of air and sea to have all come vividly back as if the events were then taking place. hour after hour glided by and there was no interruption, nothing to disturb the solitude. from time to time gil walked back to the oak, but only to find his men well on the alert, and that the sentries had nothing to report. there was scarcely any talking, no drinking, and no smoking, for his people were in earnest to do everything possible to carry out their leader's plans. even wat kilby contented himself with sucking quietly at his empty pipe and glancing round at every man in turn to see that the rules were kept. hardly a word had passed between wat and his leader, for the old man was in dudgeon. he had had his shrewd suspicions that gil intended to carry off mace that night, and he had come to the conclusion that his duty was to take janet at the same time. to his anger and disgust, though, he found that this was strictly forbidden, and earlier in the day a sharp verbal contest had ensued. "why can't i take her abroad?" he growled. "you're going to have a priest, and i want a wife same as other men." "once for all, wat," said gil, sternly; "i will have no paltering with the work i have on hand. will you obey me and work to the end for my scheme?" "why, of course i will," grumbled the old fellow, "but i don't see why as--" "not another word!" cried gil. "but what i says is this, skipper: thou'st got a priest--" "silence, sir; how dare you!" roared gil; and the old man shrank away to pull out his little pipe, and begin sucking at it viciously, jerking his long body about, and acting generally as if he had a volcanic eruption going on within him, the safety-valve to which was an explosion of muttered words now and then, which escaped after a kind of quake that shook him like a spasm from top to toe. all the same, though, wat made no further resistance to his leader's will, but with the energy of a long tried, well-disciplined follower, he worked away at the various preparations, and was as obedient as a dog. as gil stood thinking in the wood, he once more went over his plans, wondering whether there would be an encounter with sir mark's followers, and then smiling grimly to himself, as he half wished there might be, and thought of how he would like once more to stand face to face with the man who was so nearly robbing him of her whom he had always looked upon as his very own. at last the time seemed to him to be a fitting one for the venture, and, giving the signal, his men started up from amongst the dewy herbage; there was the clink of arms and a rustling noise as all fell into their places; and, taking the head of his little force, gil gave his final orders, especially commanding silence, and made for the pool-house. gil's plans were well matured, and his followers fell into their respective places without confusion. arriving pretty close to the foundry, he posted them behind the smallest of the furnace-sheds, where the black shadow of night was blacker than in the open; and then, with wat at his elbow, he made for another shed, where he knew that a short stout ladder was kept. this was in its place, and wat was about to shoulder it, when in a low hoarse whisper the old fellow said:-- "you'll let me take her, too, skipper?" for answer gil turned angrily. "put that ladder down," he whispered; "and go back. send morris." "no, no, skipper," whispered the old fellow hastily. "let me go." "put down the ladder. go back, and send me a trustworthy man." "i'm the trust worthiest man you've got, skipper," growled wat, "only i was obliged to say a word for i feel as i ought to marry the girl now. you don't know what it is to be in love, skipper, or you would not treat me thus." "do you go, or stay?" said gil. "stay," said wat. "i shan't leave you, skipper, come what may. i've done. not another word about it will you hear from me." wat shouldered the ladder, and together the two men walked towards the water-run, and along it by the stones to the little bridge, which they softly crossed, and entered the garden. they paused to listen, but all was very still and dark. a more suitable night could not have been chosen for the adventure, and together they made for mace's window, where a dim light was burning. the end of the ladder rustled slightly as it was borne amongst the trees, and they again stopped to listen; but all was still, and so intense was the darkness now before moonrise--the moon that was to light the boat down the river to where the ship lay waiting--that they could see neither to the right nor the left, even the thick bushes under the window were in the gloom. would she fail him at this important time? gil's heart asked; but he crushed down the thought. no: she would come, he was sure of it, for she had promised him, and he felt no fear of her wanting in spirit for the enterprise. "no," he muttered; "she would go through fire and water to escape his touch alone, and she would dare more to be beside me." there was a thrill of joy at these thoughts, and he gazed anxiously at the window, waiting to see it opened, that he might raise the ladder and help her away. it must be the hour, he thought, but the next minute he set it down to impatience. "she will be to her time," he said. as if warned by an instinct of coming danger, gil carr drew his sword, and, resting the point upon the toe of his boot, stood leaning his hands upon the hilt, while wat placed the foot of the ladder on a flowerbed, and held the two sides, with his rusty-beard upon one of the spokes, thinking of how he wished they were going to carry off janet, and whether she would have been willing to come. "she did call me an old fool last time, and slapped my face," he muttered; "but that was only by way of showing how fond she was. ha! it be terrifying work having to deal with such an arbitrary skipper as ourn." gil still gazed at the window, thinking that if he had changed places with sir mark, and a dangerous foe had been in the field, a cordon of sentries would have been placed round the house for his love's protection; whilst sir mark was evidently sleeping luxuriously, and dreaming, perhaps, of possessing his fair young bride. "poor, befooled idiot!" said gil to himself; "i do not envy him his morrow's waking. why, if i--. pst! wat, your sword." his left hand involuntarily flew to the silver whistle that hung at his neck, while his sword was raised readily, and turned aside a pass that grazed his ribs. for in an instant the bushes around them seemed alive with armed men, who rose in obedience to a call, and made for gil and his old follower. wat was as much upon the alert as his leader, but he had not time to draw his sword. not that it mattered, for the short ladder became a very effective weapon in the emergency. raising it with both hands above his head, he poised it there for a moment, keeping it well ready, and then, darting it rapidly forward again and again, he drove it into the chests of three or four assailants, sending them crashing down amongst the bushes, as he kept them sufficiently distant to prevent them from reaching him with the points of their swords. as the first blade gritted against that of gil's, he placed the whistle to his lips, and its note rang out shrilly on the midnight air, to be answered by the rush of feet over the little wooden bridge as his men came running up; and now there was nothing left but for the defenders of the house to be beaten back, the place itself to be forced, and mace carried away. "swing the bridge!" cried a voice, which gil recognised as that of sir mark. "they're trapped now. hollo, there! lights, quick! surrender, you dogs, in the king's name." there was a creaking noise as the little bridge was swung round, and gil felt that, far from being in sleepy indolence and safety, sir mark had not only been well on the alert, but had cleverly made his plans according to his own lights to entrap his rival and his followers when they came, attracted, as he felt that they would be, by the bait within the founder's house. "poor fool!" muttered gil, "if he thinks he can take us here." for his men came running to his side to group round where he and wat were standing well at bay. volume , chapter iv. how the powder had its say. sir mark had not been alone in his suspicions, for the founder had had a half fancy come into his head that gil might make some effort to prevent the marriage; and after all he could not help feeling that he would not be sorry if this were done. now it had come so near he thought more than ever that he was doing wrong in giving his consent, for mace's distress seemed to be ever on the increase, and he dreaded losing his child. "but it's too late now," he muttered--"too late. matters must go on as they are, and it will be a grand and good thing for my little girl to become my lady--dame leslie, who will take her place at court with the finest of them there." "do you think our friend culverin will show himself at the wedding to-morrow?" sir mark said. "i cannot help thinking that he will," said the founder. "well, for my part," said sir mark, "i have a suspicion that we shall see him sooner--that he will make an effort to carry her off to-night." "nay!" cried the founder, flushing, "he would not dare." "i think he would," said sir mark, with a cunning smile. "why look, man, what easier? he has followers and a vessel. depend upon it, he will try to get our darling away to his ship." "if he dared to attempt such an outrage," cried the founder, half rising from his seat; and then, as if changing his mind, he sat back thoughtfully in his chair. "you would spit him, eh, master cobbe? a most worthy proceeding. but, look here, i have made my plans." "plans?" "yes. i have, as you know, six men here, all well-armed, and to do honour to my wedding a gentleman of his majesty's household, a friend of mine, will be here this evening, as soon as it is dusk, with eighteen fighting-men beside. these will come unseen, when i give the signal, and be placed in ambush in the garden. i shall plant two by the open bridge, and, if our friend comes, he and his men will walk into a trap, for the moment they are over, the bridge will be closed, and thus, you see, my dear father-in-law elect, i shall rid myself of an awkward rival, and his majesty of a band of buccaneers. "but there will be bloodshed, and on the eve of my child's wedding." "pish!" cried sir mark. "have no fear of that. once the rats are in the trap, and they will shriek for mercy, as such ruffians and bullies always do. my dear father-in-law, you shall have the pleasure of seeing the whole band tied two and two, and marched off, when the district will be cleared." "and my business ruined," said the founder. "trust me for that, old man," said sir mark, smiling. "you shall make culverins and howitzers for his majesty's troops to your heart's content, so have no fear. powder shall you manufacture, too, but we will not talk of that. did his majesty know that powder was stored upon your place, ay, ever so little, he would never be your friend. but how do you like my plans?" "not well," said the founder, gloomily. "i liked gil. you rob him of the woman he meant to be his wife. why take his liberty as well?" "master cobbe, this is wretched drivel," cried sir mark, laying his hand upon his shoulder. "what am i to think of it?" "what you will," said the founder, sullenly; "i like not my part at all." "and you will betray my plans?" said sir mark, angrily. "nay!" exclaimed the founder, sharply, as something of his old mien showed itself in his countenance. "sir mark leslie, i am a rough yeoman of the country, but i have something of the gentleman at my heart. you insult me by your suspicions. i gave you my word, and my hand upon it, that my child should be your wife, and i repent me of it now; but jeremiah cobbe is not the man to go back from his word, and, sooner than gil carr should forcibly carry her away, i'd take him myself, and deliver him into your hand." "i did but jest, father," said sir mark, grasping the founder's hand. "now, let us see something of pretty little mace for an hour, before i perfect my plans." janet was summoned, but she announced that her mistress was busy preparing things for her departure, and the girl hurried back to mace's room, to gloat over the silk dresses and presents that lay about. other messages were sent to mace in the course of the evening, but she refused to come, and at last, out of patience, as the soft autumn night began to fall, sir mark went out to finish his arrangements. "you are master, to-day, my lady," he muttered; "to-morrow i shall rule, and you'll know it too." had gil dared to post a man nearer to the house, he would have known of the preparations made to entrap him, though possibly they would not have kept him back. as it was he knew nothing of the well-armed soldiers who, punctual to the moment, marched across the bridge, and were rapidly disposed in suitable places by sir mark, who exhibited no mean generalship in his plans. then came the waiting, and sir mark stood listening with the founder by his side. "they'll not come," said the latter, impatiently, after a weary while. "hist! there is one," whispered sir mark, as a footstep cautiously crossed the bridge. "why it is a woman," said the founder. "a disguise," replied sir mark. "gil himself." "nay, it is mother goodhugh. i know her walk and her tap with her stick. the old hag! i'll go and turn her back. what does she want?" "bah! be silent, man; she comes to see the maids--fortune-telling, or to beg for something in the way of cakes or wine. i'll not have my plans spoiled now. hist! what's that?" it was a heavier foot this time, and unmistakeably gil and a companion had arrived. then followed the rustling of the ladder, the waiting, the signal whistle, and, when the bridge had been closed, sir mark's summons to surrender. lights flashed upon the dark scene as sir mark's command rang out, and gil saw that he and his men were far outnumbered. he stamped his foot impatiently, for, though he felt no fear of being beaten, the presence of these men might hinder the carrying out of his plans. "surrender, you dog!" roared sir mark again. "in the king's name, i say. shoot down every man who resists." a scornful roar of laughter was the response; and, as the heavy guns of the period were levelled, gil's men, lithe and active as wild cats, leaped at their bearers with their swords, dashing the guns up, so that the scattered volley that followed sent the bullets skyward, while man after man was knocked down by a blow or the recoil of the piece. then commenced a furious fight; sword clashed with sword; there were groans, oaths, and cries; and, as mace's casement was opened, its occupant gazed down, shuddering at the hideous, torch-lit scene in the trampled garden. "be ready with that ladder, wat," cried gil, hoarsely. "she must be got away now at any cost. hah! there is sir mark." as he uttered the words he sprang at his rival, who had recognised him at the same moment by the flickering light of one of the torches borne by a soldier, who held it on high as he tried to take aim at wat kilby with a wheel-lock pistol, from beneath mace's window. "surrender!" shouted sir mark. "quick, here, men, here!" "surrender yourself," roared gil, as with a rush he beat aside the other's guard, closed with him, and forced him down, where he lay with gil's knee at his throat. their leader's cry, though, brought half-a-dozen men to his side, and blade in hand they would have cut down gil had it not been for wat, whose orders had been to stay there with the ladder. raising this, he drove it with a crash against one man, who had raised his point, and was in the act of striking another, when sir mark recovered himself sufficiently to get at a dagger, which he would have plunged into his opponent, had he not felt himself scorched by a blinding glare, as he, gil, and wat and those by him were hurled headlong amongst the trampled bushes, and, before they could realise what had happened, there was a mighty roar, as if thunder had come from earth instead of sky, and then gone rolling across the pool, to die away in echoes amongst the hills. volume , chapter v. how the love philtre worked. if mother goodhugh had stood by while it was done, janet the weak would have taken the decoction placed in her hands; but, foolish as the girl was, she had her share of cunning. "if i give it to her and it does make her love turn to hatred, he must turn to me; and, if after all she cares more for captain carr, why even then it may turn right for me. does the old thing think i'd take the stuff? clever as she be, others be clever too. but how shall i give it to her?" janet took the little flask out of her bosom, which was her hiding-place for particular things--ribbons, scraps of lace, a scent-bottle wonderfully like one of mace's--and looked at it attentively. "a little every day," she said; and the next morning she poured a portion into a jug that stood for drinking purposes in her mistress's room. that afternoon mace went up to her bedroom with a bunch of flowers from the garden, which she placed in a shallow basin, and the contents of the jug were used to keep them alive! the same evening, finding the jug empty, janet refilled it, and again poured in a little of the contents of the flask. she had just completed her task when she heard mace's step upon the stairs, and in her haste to replace the stopper of the flask she let it fall upon the floor, where it broke; and she had only time to throw the broken glass out of the window, and drag a piece of carpet over the stain on the floor, before her mistress entered the room. janet escaped as soon as possible and sought refuge in the kitchen, from whence she stole round to the garden and picked up the broken bottle, then ran back, throwing the pieces into the water-race as she hurried along. "i dare say she will have taken enough," she said to herself, "and, if she has not, i'll try no more. i hate myself for doing it. poor girl, she looks more as if she was going to be buried than married." in fact, janet's heart was not very deeply touched, and she would have been ready to hand over her young affections to anybody a little more eligible than master wat kilby, who was rather too old for her taste. during these busy days, too, there was so much to take her attention, for she had all a girl's love and excitement in an approaching wedding. first and foremost there came a present to her from sir mark in the shape of what was to her a most handsome dress. "that's for thee, pretty janet," he said; "and when we come back from our wedding jaunt i'll bring thee a handsome husband as sure as i live. one kiss for it," he said; and he took it, and another and another. how many dozens he would have taken it is impossible to say, only the founder's step was heard, and janet fled with her dress by another way. "the spell be working somehow," she said to herself joyously. "may be he will turn her over yet, and marry me himself." she hurried up to her room to inspect her gown-piece, and smooth her ruffled hair. "oh, these men, how wicked they be!" she cried half-petulantly, as she gazed at her flushed cheeks in a damp-stained mirror. "i be handsomer than mistress pale-face down stairs," she cried, giving her head a toss. "fie on her! why does she not go and wed with captain culverin, and leave me sir mark." the gown-piece again took her attention, and she folded it in pleats and tucks, and draped herself in it, ending by doubling it over and over, and laying it flat beneath her bed. "i'll go see her presents now," she said; and she descended to mace's room to find the jug untouched. "perhaps shell never wear these gauds after all," muttered janet, as she went to the dressing-table and examined the presents sir mark had brought, rich jewels some of them, with laces and ribbons enough for a dozen weddings; but the white satin dress hanging across a chair was the great attraction for janet, with its puckers and folds, and great stomacher dotted with pearls. "it be brave!" she cried, as she went down upon her knees to gaze at it, and lay portions of the skirt across her arm, or feel its softness against her cheek. and so the time glided on till the eve of the wedding, when, pale and dark of eye with want of sleep, mace felt that the excitement was more than she could bear. it was very terrible, she told herself, and again and again she asked her conscience whether she was doing wisely in listening to gil's prayers. it was an act of disobedience to her father, whom she dearly loved, and yet she felt that she clung to her lover more. but even now she would, in obedience to her father's wishes, have refused gil and remained unwed. to be forced, though, to become the wife of one whom she utterly detested she felt was impossible, and she knew that she must go. she had no one to counsel, none to take her part; and she knelt down and sobbed bitterly as she thought of the mother who had been taken away so long ago. then rising from her knees, quite calm and peaceful at heart, she sat down in her sweet-scented old chamber waiting, for she told herself it was inevitable, and that time would soften her father's anger, and all be happiness once more. "he feels it is for my welfare," she said, "but he does not know poor gil." the whispered mention of gil's name sent a thrill through her, and, with a smile of hope and love upon her worn, pale face, she sat dreaming of him, and mentally praying that no mishap might accompany their flight. at last, feeling flushed and hot, she drank from the jug of water which janet had left unchanged. there was a peculiar taste in it, but her thoughts were too much occupied to pay much attention, and, taking her seat by the window, she sat, watching the darkness coming on of this the last day in her old home. how the old happy hours of the past came back to torture her with their recollections; and now she told herself it would have been better that she should have died young, in peace and innocency, ere she knew the bitter heart-grievings of the present. for in these last hours her breast was racked by contending emotions; the love of parent fought hard with the stronger, more engrossing love of the maiden for the man of her choice, but the latter won. agitated as she was, it seemed to her that she grew feverish and thirsty--a thirst she turned to the water-vessel more than once to assuage, but without effect; and at last, with a curious, excited sensation upon her, mingled with weariness, she went to the glass to find that her checks were flushed, and that there was a strange dilated look about her eyes, whose unusual lustre startled her. "i have had too little sleep lately," she said, with a sad smile, as she thought of the long, restless nights she had passed; and at last she threw herself upon the bed, and closed her eyes, just as a tap was heard upon the panel of the door. "come in, janet," she said, as she unclosed her eyes to gaze round at the confusion that reigned with half-packed garments, and upon a couch her wedding-dress, facing her like the flaccid shade of herself lying upon a bier. there was something very weird in that dress, and it seemed to influence her with thoughts of death which made her shudder. "i be come to try on the wedding robe again, mistress," said janet. "i did alter those strings and that fastening, and now it will fit you well." "that's kind of you, janet," said mace, drowsily. "thank you for all you have done. you will think kindly of me when i am gone?" "why, of course, mistress. but, there, dear heart alive, don't talk like that. why it be as if you was going to be buried. la! you ought to be as blithe as blithe." "should you be, janet?" said mace. "oh, my head--my head, it burns--it burns!" "la, mistress, yes; as joyous as a bird to wed with so handsome and courtly a man. art ill, mistress?" "sleepy, janet, sleepy." "there, then, let's get on the dress, and see how you look, and then you shall have a long sleep, and i'll see that no one disturbs you." "no, no," said mace, hoarsely. "i must not sleep, child--i will not sleep. try on the dress and go away. i shall sit by the open window." "la, mistress, thou'lt get the ager-shakes that come off the pool. i wouldn't sit by the open window to-night. come, get up, dear, and let me take off your gown. i'll unlace it, and now we'll have on the beautiful white robe. lovely, lovely!" and again, "lovely, lovely!" and then, "how beautiful you look!" and amidst it all strange reelings of the brain, her head throbbing and wild imaginings rushing through her mind. she was married and clasped in her lover's arms, and his kisses were showered on her lips, her veins tingled, a strange thrill ran through her nerves, but his kisses burned her face, her eyes, her head. and now it was not gil who clasped her in the ecstasy of love, but sir mark, and, in place of burning passion, she froze, her heart seemed to stand still, and she was numbed with horror as he approached his lips to hers. why did he laugh so with such a strange, silent, ghastly laugh? why did he press her so tightly to his breast? his arms hurt her, his breast was bony, and his laugh was lifeless. it was a frightful grin, and she could not tear herself away. it was not sir mark; it was a hideous skeleton, and she made a supreme effort to rid herself of the terrible vision that clasped her to its breast. at last it was gone, and she was dressed in her bridal robe. she was feverish and excited, and that was a kind of nightmare dream. there she was, then, before the big swing mirror, gay in satin and lace, and once more the exclamations of pleasure fell upon her ears. "how lovely! how lovely!" and again, "how beautiful you look!" the reflection in the mirror died away, for her eyes closed. she could not bear to look upon it longer, and, now that her eyes were shut, once more came the phantoms of her troubled, reeling brain. gil, sir mark, the hideous shape of death, all had her clasped in their arms in turn. she struggled in spirit, but her body was motionless; the brain was in full action, but muscle and nerve were inert. she could only lie there and suffer tortures so horrible that she felt that if they lasted she must go mad. then again she was gazing at herself in the great mirror, gay with satin and lace, and once more there was the round of horrors. how long was it to last? there was a lucid moment when she knew that she was seriously ill. some terrible ailment had seized her, and then came the recollection of the water like a flash through her reeling brain. was it poison? "how beautiful! it is lovely, lovely, lovely!" and there was the vision again of the satin gown. "i must be going mad," she thought; "but janet must not see. i will be firm and wait. i must send her away soon. let me see," she thought. "gil will be here at midnight. i am not too ill to go with him, and, when once away in peace, i shall soon be well. how absurd to think of poison. how beautiful i look. this fever seems to have given me my colour once again. poor fool! why should i masquerade like this, when i am never to wear these things? it is time i put them off and sent her away. my poor head, my poor head! how it burns and throbs and reels with pain." then again, the wedding with gil, and his hot kisses burning her face. no, it was sir mark; and then again the chilly horror of being seized by those arms and pressed nearer, nearer, to that hideous framework of ghastly bones, while the cold grinning teeth rested against her lips, and in place of kisses began to tear and rend her. now it was her fair young cheek, now her soft bosom; and at every contact it was the burning pain of ice that froze with a touch like heated iron. she strove to struggle, to call for help, but it was in vain. the hideous teeth were now meeting in her forehead, and a pang of agony ran through her brain. "gil, gil, help me, help!" she tried to say; and then there was the clash of arms, the firing of guns, the shouts of contending men--cries, oaths, shrieks, wails. what was it? was she really mad? had her sufferings robbed her of reason, or was she striving to rush from the room down the broad old staircase when that hideous rush of fire, and that crash of thunder, came to tear her away? was it madness, a dream, or was it--. her reeling senses seemed to leave her as she asked herself the final question, when she was stricken down, even as her lips uttered the question. was it death? volume , chapter vi. how gil brought the bride from the burning house. for a few moments gil's men and the followers of sir mark stood appalled by the effects of the explosion. fully one-half had been prostrated by the terrible blast that had swept the beautiful old garden, cutting down tree and shrub as level as if with a knife. some of the men lay groaning where they had been cast, burned, wounded, and disfigured; while those who were uninjured, of whichever side, seemed as if by mutual consent to consider their petty strife at an end in the face of so awful a catastrophe, and, sheathing their swords, stood looking at the ruined house before them, confused and unmanned by the shock. for to a man the explosion had so shaken them that a curious feeling of helplessness had succeeded to the energy they had displayed, and no one moved even to render assistance to the wounded. suddenly a loud voice shouted-- "run, my lads, run! there will be another explosion directly. it is a plot to blow up the place." this seemed to break the spell, and there was a rush of feet towards the closed bridge, when the founder's voice arose. "no, no," he cried; "there can be no other explosion. it was my store; i thought it safe; the powder has all--" he stopped speaking, and reeled and nearly fell to the earth, for he had received a blow from a falling beam; but he recovered himself sufficiently to point towards the house in an appealing way that no one understood. "halt there!" cried sir mark, who now rose to his feet, from where he had been thrown, "follow me some of you, quick, before it is too late." he might well add these last words, for, as the smoke rose like a heavy pall above the ruined house, it could be seen that, with the exception of a couple of the gables near where they stood, the place was shattered and nearly razed to the ground. there was a huge hole here, another cavernous rent there, and, piled above them, beams and rafters, blackened, smoking, and dotted with glowing embers, which began to sparkle as the portion of the house now standing burned furiously. there was no need for light, for wood had entered largely into the construction of the building, and the powder seemed to have prepared everything to burn. with a rush great tongues of fire leaped from the embayment of the fine old parlour, whose diamond panes flew crackling out, while the lead in which they were set trickled down in a silvery stream. the whole of the parlour glowed in a few seconds like a furnace, and directly after the fire sprang forth from the two rooms above, and then again from the little window in the pointed gable, which was soon being licked from gutter to the copper vane on its summit by the orange and golden flames. the rooms on either side rapidly followed, and soon the two gables that had remained after the explosion seemed wrapped in fire, which lit up the unscathed trees, and turned the lake as if into a pool of blood. as sir mark sprang forward, a dozen men ran to his side--gil's men, every one of them, for his own stood aloof; but as they went close up a rush of flame and smoke drove them back, scathing and scorching them so that it was impossible to face it. "a ladder--a ladder--fetch a ladder!" cried sir mark. the words were hardly uttered, before a couple of men picked up that which wat kilby had used as a weapon, and to which he still tightly clung, as he lay at some little distance, where he had been cast. this was dragged from him, and a couple of men reared it, by sir mark's directions, against the burning casement of mace's room. seizing the rounds sir mark climbed up, and reached the room, now all aglow, but as he felt the scorching flames, which were already burning the top of the short ladder, he rapidly descended and stood wringing his hands, while gil's men seized poles, fetched buckets from a shed, and began to obtain water from the race. "it is impossible! my poor girl! what shall i do?" moaned sir mark. then to the men nearest he shouted, his voice sounding shrill and strange amidst the roar and flutter of the flames, "there is a lady in yonder--a hundred golden pounds to the man who fetches her out." there was a murmur amongst the little crowd, but no one stirred, and he repeated his offer. "are you men to stand there and see her burned to death?" he cried. "two hundred pounds to the man who saves mistress mace cobbe." "damn your two hundred pound," cried a hoarse voice, as a great gaunt blackened figure crawled into the glow. "up the ladder, my lads, there be two women there." "old wat," cried the men, in a loud chorus of excitement, as the weird looking figure stretched out its hands, and seemed to grope blindly towards the ladder, but rolled down with a groan, utterly unable to make the attempt, having received some injury to the hip. "is there no man here who will try to save the helpless women?" cried sir mark. "that's right, my brave lad," he said, as one of gil's men took a hatchet from his belt and ran up the burning ladder. he seemed to beat back the flames with his hands, and bravely climbed in at the window, a roar of cheers following him, as he regularly leaped into the burning room. then there was a shower of sparks, a rush of flame, and, to the horror of all present, the brave fellow was seen to literally roll out of the parlour casement, blackened and burned, having fallen at once through the floor to the room below. "no one can be there and live," he gasped. "water, boys, water! i am burning: throw me in," he shrieked; and one of his companions deluged him with the contents of a bucket. "it is all over. how horrible--how horrible!" groaned sir mark. "quick lads, water, dash it in. who is that?" he started back almost in fear, as he saw gil stride forward, pick up the fallen axe, and seize the ladder to drag it from the burning casement. as he did so he staggered, for he was quite giddy yet from the blow he had received when the explosion cast him some twenty feet away; but he recovered directly, and, planting the ladder against the next window, he seemed to regain his strength, and dashed up axe in hand. there was a lusty cheer at this, and sir mark gnashed his teeth, as he wondered why he had not thought of going up to the next window, where the flames seemed to burn less furiously, though the next instant they were pouring out from the shattered window beneath, and making the long trailing strands of roses and woodbine writhe and twine as if in agony, as the flames licked them up, and then seemed to wreathe themselves around the figure of gilbert carr. with two vigorous blows, he dashed in the oaken divisions of the window, and as he struck the flames leaped into his face, wrapping round him; but he seemed to heed them not, for blow after blow fell, till he cleared the way, and then, leaving the burning ladder, he climbed right in, and a dead silence fell upon all present as he disappeared amidst the flames and smoke, which came rolling out more furiously than ever. no man spoke for a while, as the fire crackled, and the tiles on the old house slipped, and fell rattling down. the copper vane suddenly began to burn in the intense heat with a vivid blue light like some firework. the ladder, which had stood out dark against the flaming windows, gradually burned till rounds and sides were so much glowing charcoal, and a dull sense of horror chilled to inaction the spectators of the gallant deed. suddenly wat kilby raised himself up on his knees, supporting his injured body with one hand, and lifting the other to wave above his head. "his father's son!" he yelled, as the fire glistened in his wild eyes and blackened hairless face, for his grisly beard was scorched away--"his father's son--a carr!--a carr!--culverin for ever! fetch him out brave boys--a rescue--a rescue! forward boys--board!" as he yelled out these words, they seemed to electrify his followers, and with a shout the crew dashed to the burning house as if about to plunge in. there was no hesitation now, not a man flinched, but, leaping in through the lower burning window, the ladder fell in so many glowing fragments amidst the feet of the foremost, who disappeared for a few brief moments, and then re-appeared with gil carr, bearing out through the flames a figure that seemed to be clad in gold, so glistening and yellow seemed the satin dress, with its stomacher of pearls. the men drew back from him as gil bore his burden on towards what had once been the shady lawn of the garden, and laid it reverently down, tearing a handkerchief from his breast to cover the ghastly mutilation of the face, and then crushing out as he knelt the smouldering flames and sparks that had attacked the wedding-dress. "mace, my darling!" cried sir mark, passionately. "back!" cried gil, fiercely; "touch her not, upon your life." sir mark shrank away, appalled by the fierce gaze of the man who knelt there upon one knee, reverently arranging the garments round the dead, whom he had found comparatively untouched by the flames, but pinioned and crushed by a fallen beam. he heeded not his own sufferings, though those who stood by could see that the doublet he wore was falling from his breast in pieces; that the leather of his belt and boots had crumpled up in the intense heat; and that his hands and face were horribly scorched. "let me see her, let me see her," cried a harsh voice, and the little crowd parted to let wat kilby crawl forward. "is it janet? tell me, brave boys, is it my lass? the cursed powder has taken away my sight. tell me, brave boys, is it my little, bright, tricksy janet?" "no, no, no," moaned a piteous voice; "it is my child--my darling child. oh, mace, mace, joy of my poor old heart, has it come to this?" there was so piteous an appeal in these words--so intense, so terrible was the suffering they betokened--that the men drew back as the founder staggered to the side of the dead, let himself fall upon his knees, and there crouched with his hands clasped together in his lap, gazing helplessly down. the remains of the pool-house burned brightly still; the flames licked up rafter and beam; the red-hot tiles cracked and splintered and fell with a crash from time to time, sending up a whirlwind of sparks; and the blaze that lit up the pool and forest far and near made plain, as if seen by day, the piteous group on the old lawn. but no one heeded the fire now, or dreamed of there being danger of the flying embers setting light to one or other of the powder sheds. every thought was turned to the bereaved father; and as sir mark stood there, among his followers and the workpeople, one of the few unscathed by the fire, he found himself, bridegroom-elect although he had been, a person apparently of very secondary import, for next to jeremiah cobbe men and women gazed upon gil carr. just then the founder raised one of his trembling hands and stretched it out to reach the kerchief gil had so lovingly placed over the mutilated face, but the latter stayed him. "no, no," he said in a low voice, "for your own sake no. let us remember our darling as she was." the old man's hand closed upon the scorched palm, and then he laid the other upon it and held it, gazing piteously in the other's face. "right, gil," he said in a cracked voice. "right! let us remember _our_ darling as she was." there was a pause here, and a beam fell in the burning house, causing a whirlwind of sparks to rise. "forgive me, gil," continued the founder. "even if this hand did slay abel churr, the fire has purged it. brave boy--brave boy! i was very hard on both!" "over her who lies here i swear i am innocent of that man's blood," said gil softly; and then in a lower tone, "my darling--my darling--you believed my words." "and so do i, gil," cried the old man piteously. "oh, my child, my child! god in heaven, how have i sinned that i should suffer this?" a shudder ran through the crowd, so wild and piercing suddenly rose the old man's upbraiding cry, while like an echo to his words came a shrill, harsh voice from the direction of the ruins, where, on a heap of smouldering wood and stones, stood mother goodhugh, like a black silhouette against the flames. "woe to the wicked house! woe to the maker of deadly grains! woe to the caster of cannon and culverin and gun!" there was a dead silence, and then, amidst the crackling of the blazing wood and the fluttering of the flames, rose once more the voice of mother goodhugh, as she gesticulated and waved her stick. "what did i say? what did i foretell against this evil man and his house? did i not cry, it was cursed, and that the curse would fall? look at the wicked place! and now once more i raise up my voice, and tell thee that a curse will fall on him or her who touches stick or stone to try and raise it up again. let it burn--let it be level with the earth, and become a refuge for snakes and toads and unclean things. let no man try to build it up, or be he cursed as well." "silence, hag!" cried sir mark passionately. "nay," she cried, "i will not hold my peace. go thou, young man, and rejoice that thou art saved from to-morrow--saved from wedding to the daughter of one whom i had cursed. who doubts the power of mother goodhugh now? speak, jeremiah cobbe, did i not foretell the ruin of thy house?" "my poor child. my little love--where are thy pretty sayings now, where thy prattling ways? little mace--pretty little mace! how old is she to-day, mother?" said the founder, gazing at vacancy, with a smile, for the old woman's words had not reached his ears. "six, eh? six. why what a great age for my darling to have grown. gil, my boy, god bless thee, lad! you have grown stout and well again, and i look to thee to protect my little one from harm. there, you must love her; take thy little sister; keep her from the pool, and mind her pretty little feet don't stray near the water side. hey, boy, did'st ever see such bonny little feet, so white and pink, and pretty, it seems a sin to put them into leather shoes. be good to her, my brave stout lad, and some day-- who knows?--thou may'st perhaps like to make her thy own little wife. if thou dost, ha, ha, ha! she shall not disgrace thee, boy, for she shall be a very lady in her way." he looked round with a vacant smile, and nodded pleasantly at gil. "cursed! i tell thee--cursed!" cried mother goodhugh. "it has been a long time coming, but it has come at length. look how it smokes and burns. didst hear the noise the devilish powder made? ha! ha! ha! that which he made to destroy others has destroyed himself. burn, flames, burn!" she cried, waving her stick; "burn wood and stones, and burn until all is level with the dust!" the crowd stood round her at a respectful distance listening to her ravings, and had she been the wise woman she professed to be, she would have known where to stop and beat a hasty retreat, with a great increase, among the simple people, to her reputation. but it was not to be. just then, borne in a lumbering carriage that this time had brayed all the ruts, up came sir thomas beckley, with mistress anne and master peasegood. the old woman caught sight of anne beckley as she descended hastily from the carriage, and approached her with a malicious, triumphant look. just then the jealous girl caught sight of the prostrate body in its wedding-dress, and seemed petrified. "what did i say--what did i say?" cried a voice behind her, and turning she encountered mother goodhugh's malignant eyes. this was too much for anne, who crept shuddering away, when the burning house, the kneeling figure by the dead, the whole scene seemed to swim round her, and she would have fallen but for sir mark, who caught her in his arms. "oh, it is too dreadful--too dreadful!" she murmured, and closed her eyes. "master peasegood, will you take him to your house?" said gil. "poor soul! the shock has been too heavy for his brain." "eh! go with master peasegood? yes," said the founder smiling. "gil, brave lad, you'll see that my darling does not come to harm." gil bowed his head, and as the founder rose from his knees smiling and ready to accompany the parson, down whose cheeks the great tears coursed, mother goodhugh climbed on a heap of stones, waving her hands wildly as she saw her enemy pass. "woe to him; woe to his house!" she shrieked excitedly. "silence that vile witch's mouth," cried sir thomas. "a witch, a witch!" cried a voice; and wat kilby, who had dragged himself up once more upon his hands and knees, waved one hand again towards the burning ruins, which had just burst forth into fiercer flames. "a witch--a witch!" he yelled, "away with her, and let her burn." a shout rose from sir mark's followers, and, with a rush, they surrounded the old woman, who struck at them with her stick as she was seized. then, in spite of her shrieks and appeals, she was borne towards the burning ruins. the burning of a witch was so congenial an occupation, that, failing a great triumph over gil carr's crew, the followers of sir mark took to their task with such gusto that in another minute mother goodhugh would have been hurled into the flames. it was in anne beckley's power to save her by a quick appeal to sir mark; but she hesitated, for the thought flashed across her mind that, mother goodhugh dead, she would carry with her many secrets, and, above all, the greatest one, of how this terrible affair had been brought about. it might have been accident; but she had her doubts. sir thomas looked on in puzzled guise. he knew he ought to do or say something, but without his clerk he was generally at sea, while master peasegood, who might have given him good advice, had gone off, leading the stricken father to his home. it was gil who interfered, and none too soon. springing up from where he had knelt on one knee, he threw himself before the would-be executioners. "shame on you!" he cried; and the men stopped, short, while mother goodhugh struggled from them to throw herself on the earth and cling to gil's knees. "save, oh, save me!" she shrieked; "i cannot die." "what are you, that you interfere?" cried one of the men. "a witch--a witch--to the flames," cried wat kilby, in his harsh voice. "silence, old dog!" roared gil. "in with her, lads!" cried the first of the men, seizing mother goodhugh by the shoulder; but, as she shrieked with horror, the man went down from a blow given by gil's clenched hand, which the next moment sought his sword, to find it gone. with a shout, the others closed round gil, but this roused his own followers, who ran up and dragged mother goodhugh away. they faced sir mark's men, and, weapons being drawn, there was an imminent risk of a renewal of the fight, when sir thomas's fat voice was heard, sounding weak and tremulous, for the baronet was terribly alarmed. "stop! my good men," he cried; "you must not burn her until she has been tried. a woman suspected of witchcraft must--er--er--must--er--er--be taken before--er--er--the nearest justice of the peace--er--er--er--that is me, you see, and--" "escape without a word," whispered gil to the old woman. "i'll cover your flight." "bless thee for--" "keep thy blessings and thy curses," said gil, sternly. "go." mother goodhugh shrank trembling away, the village people and the workers opening to let her pass, while, when sir mark's men advanced to try and retake her, they were met by the swords of gil's crew. "don't; pray don't let them fight," whispered anne in agony. "is this a seemly time for a fresh encounter, sir mark?" said gil. "not if you give yourself up," was the reply. "i give up--to you?" said gil. "let who interferes with me and my men do so at his peril. this way, my lads," he cried. "there is a cloak behind yon shed. it was meant for thee, sweet," he whispered, as he bent down over the dead, "to keep thee from the cold;" and upon its being brought, the lifeless figure, in its wedding-dress, was reverently lifted and borne into tom croftly's house. sir mark concluded to engage in no further encounter that night, telling himself that he could easily take gil another time. so, calling off his men, he allowed him to superintend the removing of the lifeless girl, anne beckley now following trembling into the cottage, awe-stricken as she was at being in the presence of death, while, when at last day broke and the bright sun rose, it was upon a heap of ashes smouldering and smoking still. where the pleasant old garden had been alive with verdure, teeming fruit-trees, and autumn flowers, was a space of trampled blackened soil, while for fifty yards round the trees had been scorched and stripped not only of their leaves, but of every minor twig and spray. sir mark scowled angrily again and again at gil, and his men gave the sailors many a menacing look, as they took upon themselves the duty of keeping watch by the house where the poor girl lay. it was gil's men, too, who tried to search the ashes of the gabled house for the remains of poor janet, the only other occupant of the building; but the task was given up, on its being found that the intense heat had fused metal, and reduced the stones so that they crumbled at the touch. volume , chapter vii. how master peasegood preached wisdom. gil's ship, with father brisdone on board, after waiting in vain for its freight, grounded as the tide went down. the old priest, who had been on deck, leaning over the bulwarks gazing up the river for the boat that did not come, had been startled by a great flash of light which suddenly shot up above the hills, and then by a heavy clap as of thunder, followed shortly by a fierce glow in the sky, all of which told him only too plainly of some terrible catastrophe at the powder-works. he was not surprised, then, that the boat did not arrive till the long, weary night had passed away, and the bright sun shone once more upon the dancing waters, but even then noon was fast approaching before there was the measured dip of oars, and the boat came round a wooded point. he looked earnestly for mace, but, not seeing her, he sighed. "my eyes fail me a good deal now," he said; and, shading them with his hand, he stood watching till, as the boat neared the ship, he could see that she had four men lying in the stern sheets, and he concluded that there had been an encounter. "a bad augur," he said, sadly; "bloodshed on the eve of a wedding. poor boy though, there seems no chance of a wedding, for he has not won his love." his hands trembled as he stood at the gangway, while the boat was run up to the side and gil painfully climbed on board. "failed, my son?" cried father brisdone and here he stopped short as he saw the terrible look of anguish in the young man's eyes. "help my poor lads, father," he said sadly. "they have been lying hurt these many hours." one by one four injured men were hoisted on board, and laid beneath the shelter of a sail, while gil and the father attended to their injuries with rough but sensible surgery. there was a severe sword-wound and plenty of terrible burns, but the worst sufferer was poor wat kilby, whose face was blackened by the explosion, hair and beard burned off, and his thigh-bone broken. he was in a high fever and wandering when slung on board, turning angrily upon those who had helped him. "don't i tell you the poor lass is burning?" he cried. "this is your doing, skipper," he moaned. "you were always against it, and now you leave the poor lass to burn, and keep me here. father, this is the boy i watched over and brought up, and taught. this be the way he treats me now i am in trouble." it was with great difficulty that they could keep the poor old fellow sufficiently quiet to enable them to perform the necessary bandaging, but at last he sank into the heavy sleep of exhaustion; and gil, having satisfied himself that his injured men were cared for, saw to his own burns, gave orders for the ship to be floated up to her old berth on the next tide, and then returned to the pool. for the next seven days he was almost constantly at roehurst, in company with the stricken father, whom affliction seemed to have turned back to him as his only friend; and together they hung about the ruins, which still smouldered slightly, and crumbled more and more into a shapeless heap, overhung by a few masses of tottering wall. gil would have tried to persuade the old man to leave the spot, but that it had so terrible a fascination for him as well, and together they would sit hour after hour gazing at the ruins, and rebuilding the place mentally and occupying it as of old. the people of the sparsely inhabited district came to gaze at the wreck, and from far and near they gathered together two days after the fire, to see gil's men carry the flower-sprinkled bier from croftly's house to the little rustic churchyard two miles away, the men taking it in turns to bear her, four and four about. the place was densely crowded, thinly populated as was the country there, to see gil carr and the weak, broken founder, who seemed to have aged in one night to a venerable old man, walk hand in hand behind, and stand bareheaded while master peasegood read, and sobbed, and read, and finally letting fall his book, went down upon his knees in the soft earth, and prayed beside the grave. sir mark chafed more and more, but it was in vain. he was to have been chief actor in another scene; here he was completely set aside again, and gil carr had resumed his place. fortunately for sir mark, his old acquaintance sir thomas beckley came forward to offer his hospitality, and he took up his abode with him, feeling that he could not leave the place with his task undone, and in a bitter mood he received the attempts at consolation offered to him by anne, who, however, always kept very much aloof, playing the part of the injured woman, but promising herself a sharp revenge, if ever the king's messenger should again lay siege unto her heart. up to the day of the funeral the founder had been almost childish from the effects of the shock; but after that he seemed to have recovered himself, though he looked aged and bent, and changed to a remarkable degree. "i was very hard upon you, gil," he said to him one evening, as they stood leaning against one of the posts that had helped to support the swing bridge now completely swept away, and whose place was occupied by a couple of stout planks laid across the race. "i was very hard upon you, my lad, but, though i made that affair of abel churr's an excuse, i don't think i believed at heart that you did away with the poor wandering wretch." gil looked at him sadly, and bowed his head without speaking. "what are you going to do now, my lad?" continued the founder, gazing at him with a yearning look as one his lost child had loved. "to do?" said gil, in a low hopeless tone, "to do? what is there left to do, sir, but die?" "hush, my lad," said the founder, laying a trembling hand upon the young man's arm; "that is for me to say. i am old and stricken: the storm has torn one great branch from the trunk, and the old tree will slowly wither and die. you are young yet, and hope will come to you again as time goes on." "hush, for god's sake, hush!" cried gil, turning upon him almost fiercely; then, gazing round him in the gathering gloom of the evening, he let himself sink, upon his knees lower and lower, with his hands covering his face, as for the first time in the solitude of that blasted home he gave full vent to the pent-up agony that for days and days he had striven to hide. "hope," he groaned, "hope?" as his broad shoulders heaved and the despairing sobs tore their way from his weary breast. "he does not know what she was to me--he cannot tell how i loved her. mace, mace, my darling, would to god i were lying by thy side!" it had grown quite dark now, and the founder sank upon his knees in the black ashes to lay his hands upon the young man's head. "gil, my son," he whispered hoarsely, "forgive me, for i never knew your heart till now. in her name i ask you to forgive me for the wrong i would have done you both in tearing you apart. i thought i was doing right, but i am punished for my fault." "forgive you!" groaned gil, who, for the first time in his life, was quite unmanned. "yes, i forgive you, if there is aught to forgive." he pressed the old man's hand, as he rose after a time, weak and desolate, to sit down upon one of the stones cast from the main building by the blast. some distance away a couple of windows shed their feeble light, as if they were signals to mace to open her casement once again, and a groan rose to gil's lips as he thought of the past. then, like a wandering spirit, a white, filmy-looking owl swept by them, turned and came back once more, as if attracted by the blackened ruins, glided to and fro for a few minutes, and it seemed to the two men that it shrieked faintly just over the very centre of the ruined house before it glided away. gil sat watching the bird in a dreamy, hopeless way, and, as he gazed through the darkness, he felt that the place would become the home of such creatures. he was aroused from his reverie by the founder. "how did it happen, gil?" he said. he spoke in a low, hoarse voice, but his words sounded very plain in the silence of the autumn even. "how did it happen?" said gil, repeating his words. "yes, my boy, tell me all. i cannot believe that god would make that old woman with her curses his instrument to punish me." "i have little to tell," said gil. "i saw our darling again and again, begging that she would go with me; but she refused till she found it hopeless to move you, and that the wedding was to be." "yes, yes--go on," groaned the founder. "then she consented, and i made my plans." "yes, i see," replied the founder, "you were there with your men, and sir mark felt sure that you were coming. but yours was a mad revenge on him, and meant ruin and destruction to all." "i do not understand you," said gil, quietly. "did you think by blowing down part of the place to get her away in the confusion?" "blow down? the place?" said gil. "we had not a charge of powder with us. i left it all on board." "then it was the store below caught first," said the founder, musingly; "but how--how?" "i cannot tell," said gil. "wat kilby," exclaimed the founder, jumping at a cause for the terrible disaster; "he was smoking his tobacco by the entry, and must have thrown down the burning pipe." "nay, he did not smoke; he was by my side bearing a ladder." "are you speaking frankly to me, gil?" said the founder. "i prithee keep nothing back." "can you speak to me like that?" replied gil, in a grave, reproachful tone. "master cobbe, i have kept nothing back; i have added nothing to my story; i have only left out that there was the priest awaiting on board of my ship, to be our darling's companion until we were made man and wife." "forgive me, gil," said the founder. "i know now that you are keeping nothing back. but how could it have happened?" "a shot from one of sir mark's men's pieces must have gone through to your store of powder," said gil. "they did fire, but my men struck their pieces aside." the founder accepted this theory, and they sat in silence for a few moments, till they were interrupted by the approach of a great, dark figure, who seemed at last to make them out. "ah! friend cobbe," it said, in the thick rich tones of master peasegood, "i was seeking thee. come; the night-dew is falling, and it is time you were safely housed. ah! gil, my good lad, you here?" "yes," was the curt response. "master peasegood, hadst thou but done thy duty by her who was thy charge, these troubles might not have been." "reproach me not, good lad, i was taken away through sir mark's scurvy tricks and carried up to london. and there i was, day after day, half prisoner, half free. sometimes they'd let me fly a little bit, like a bird with a string at its leg. other times they'd keep me in, and never a word could i get to know of my offence." "not a legal prisoner, then?" "nay, lad, not at all. though, had i tried to flee i had been tied fast enough, i'll warrant. i took advantage of my freedom to see saint paul's, and should be sorry to preach there. i bought me though, as i had my money with me and the chance was good, six yards of cloth in paul's churchyard to make me a goodly cloak--four pounds sixteen it cost me--and seven yards of calamanko for a cassock; one pound four and sixpence that, besides a pound for a new hat, and six shillings for a lutestring hood for mistress hilberry. i lightened my pocket, gil, but i was heavy enough at heart." gil nodded. "i grew so hot of blood and angry at last with the way they kept me in, and the too free use i made of the most villainous ale, master cobbe, i ever put to my lips, that had i not been blooded freely by a chirurgeon, i should have been ill. it was not the proper time--the haemeroyal time, though close upon the full, but i let him take a good ten ounces from my veins, and felt a better man." "it would have been better, master peasegood, had you been here." "true, lad, but i was not my own ruler. that sir mark never trusted me. i had hard work to get free again, and hurried down to get to our darling's side. you saw me when i came--that night? sir thomas beckley overtook me, and he brought me on." gil bent his head, and held out his hand, which the other pressed. "when do you sail again?" said the parson. "i sail again? maybe never," said gil. "why should i sail?" "to give thyself occupation--work--toil-weary evening and restful night. up, man, and work. bear thy load bravely till heaven send the soft touch of time to make it lighter. thou art young; thy ship waits. go across the sea and do thy work. this is no place for thee." "why do you interfere with me, master peasegood?" cried gil, testily. "i am none of thy followers." "nay, my lad, thou art not; but i give thee good advice that my lips seemed urged to speak. go and toil, and sit not down sobbing like a fretful child." "man, you would madden me if i listened," cried gil. "nay, but thou shalt listen," said master peasegood, "and i will quell thy madness. thou hast received one terrible loss like a man; i would not have thee do it like a woman. then, too, master cobbe, when are these fires to be relit, and the wreathing curls of smoke to rise from each furnace chimney?" "never," said the founder sadly, "my energy has gone, and i am spent." "tut, tut, man; fie!" "what have i to live for?" cried the founder, as angry now as gil. "not for thyself," cried master peasegood. "not both of ye to indulge a moping selfish regret, but for others--for the memory of one dead. tut! man, those do not pay most respect to their dead who sit and sigh, and groan, and work themselves into fevers. gil carr, thy men call for thee to lead them in some seafaring adventure. jeremiah cobbe, thou hast got together here some fifty souls--workmen, their wives, and the children they have begotten. thou didst bring them to do thy work, and now the furnaces are cold, the busy wheel has ceased to turn, and thy workmen lean against the doorposts, and idle, and get out of trim. come, come! up, and be doing." "for whom?" cried the founder angrily, "for whom should i toil?" "not for thyself, but for thy people. nay, nay! don't take it ill, and think me unfeeling. to both of you i say it is your duty, and, in the name of yon sweet girl whom we all so dearly loved, i say keep her memory green in your heart of hearts, but cease unmanly repinings against fate." "ah! master peasegood," said the founder more gently, "thou hast never been a father." "had i been sweet mace's father could i have loved her better, jeremiah cobbe? have not mine eyes oft filled with tears at the memory of her sweet face; has not my voice choked, and have not my words failed when i have tried to speak, gil carr? tut, man, give me credit for loving her as well. thou hast felt sore against me because i tried to keep you two apart; but why was it, gil, why was it? had i not seen that which made me think thou would'st prove a faithless lover to her, poor child. give me your hand, man, my love for her was different to thine, but it was quite as deep." gil's hand was laid in the heavy palm of the parson of roehurst, and they joined in a close firm grip without another word. "when shall these fires be going again, master cobbe," continued the parson; "when shall the busy wheel turn plashing round? come, come, promise me that thy mourning shall not be quite out of bounds." the founder had turned his back, and remained gazing away from them at the blackened heap. "you will be up and doing, will you not, master cobbe?" continued the parson, urging him on. "come: for thy child's sake. would'st have this place left a ruin? come, promise me thou wilt." a deep sigh seemed to tear itself from the founder's breast, and he turned to gaze in the direction of his works. "thou art right, parson," he said; "it is not fair that the workmen i brought here to feed and furnish with hard labour should suffer for my sake. the fires shall be lit again." "ay, that's well," said master peasegood earnestly. "it will be glad news for many a heart. then i shall see the axe busy again as the leaves fall, and the glow of the charcoal fire in the woods; and meantime thy men will delve for iron, and the furnaces go roaring on. is it not so?" "yes." "bravely spoken, brave heart," said master peasegood; "and thou, gil carr, off to thy ship once more, and bear away her freight. come back to us laden with the pale yellow brimstone and the grey-white salt. tut, tut, tut, of what am i speaking?" he muttered, as gil shuddered. "you will go, my brave lad, eh?" "i suppose so: yes," said gil slowly; and the parson laid his hand upon the founder's shoulder once more. "and the dear old house, master cobbe? there is sandstone waiting in the quarry to be borne here, and thou hast oaken timber enough cut to build it up. when wilt begin to repair thy loss?" "never," cried the founder fiercely. "parson peasegood, i'll work and toil and invent and strive day and night to keep things going here, but it is for others' sake, not mine." "nay, nay, but the house must be restored." "never," cried the founder; "never, master peasegood; never, gil carr. i care nothing for the words of that reviling old woman and her curses. punishments come from heaven, not from hell, and, if she be a witch, 'tis devil's work she does; but no hand shall touch yon heap, neither stone nor ash shall be disturbed. the flowers may spring up again, and the grass will grow, but to touch it would be to me like disturbing my poor child's grave. our dear old home died with my darling. let them rest." he turned away and walked firmly across the planks towards the lane where tom croftly's cottage stood, followed by the parson and gil, who stepped back as the founder rapped upon the cottage door. "tom," he said, as the door was opened, and the light of a rush-candle shone upon his deeply-lined face, "go round to the men and bid them light the big furnace in the morning, and you see about the mixing up of another batch of powder." "hurray, master," cried the man. "give me my hat, wife. dal me! but that's good news again." "thou'lt go on making powder again--so soon?" said master peasegood, as the founder joined them, and they went down the lane. "yes," said the founder firmly. "gil, when thou com'st back, my lad, there will be some score barrels of the best and strongest make. i want to show people that an old hag's curses are as light as wind." "ay, and that a bad mishap is not to be taken as a judgment, because a would-be soothsayer says 'tis so," cried master peasegood. "thou'rt right, master cobbe. i thank heaven i spoke to you both as bravely as i did, for my heart misgave me all the while." the next morning the smoke rolled up once more from the furnace chimney. the great wheel turned and plashed as it shed showers of silver from its broad paddles and spokes; blackened men bore baskets of soft dogwood charcoal to be ground, and others shovelled up the pale yellow sulphur and the crystals of potash for mixing into powder once again. two heavy tumbrils jolted and blundered down the cinder-made lane to fetch great loads of ironstone from the pits in the woods whence it was dug, and then fierce furnaces were charged with layers of ore and charcoal ready for smelting, while the horses tugged at their loads in answer to the uncouth cries of the men. it was as if the people of roehurst had awakened from sleep, and all were rejoicing in the gladsome feeling of being once more at work after their enforced idleness, the change acting like a spur. there was shouting over the various works, and now and then some one burst forth into a song, some doleful love-ditty about a sweet young maiden, sung in a minor key. tom croftly was in his element once more, and after seeing the furnaces started and the men preparing the next batch of powder, he anxiously set his colliers to work to get him more coal. it was no sending down a set of blackened miners with their davy lamps crowding a cage that dropped slowly into the gas and choke-damp charged bowels of the earth, but the superintending of couples of men who attacked some cords of wood--long, low stackings of the loppings of the trees cut down the previous winter--and, clearing out a circular space, throwing out the earth all round, they set up a pole in the centre. then picking the branches that were some four feet long, they carefully began to build them round the centre pole, standing all on end, and going on round and round till a low circular stack was built, when the stout central pole was taken away, the space it occupied being filled with light brushwood, which was then set alight ready to communicate with the wood around, while the air running in through spaces left at the sides soon made a swift fire. this, however, was not allowed to burn fiercely, for old charcoal powder mixed with dry earth lay ready, and, after the stack had been covered with a litter of weeds, dry grass, and thin twigs from the fallen trees sufficient to keep it from falling through, the earth was shovelled on all over the stack wherever there was a sign of flame or thin smoke breaking forth, till at last the flames were stifled and the thick smoke rose only from the centre. "more loam on," cried tom croftly, who, spade in hand, danced excitedly round the charcoal pile like a grim black demon busy over some fiery task, and the men worked and watched, smothering the flames with more earth and water till not a gleam was seen, though all the while the fire was glowing fiercely and burning out the watery gases of the wood. and this went on night and day, the colliers having a shelter rigged up to keep off the night-air when they needed rest, this being called turn and turn, for, should there be no one ready to throw on shovels-full of loam when the fire began to work a way through, the burning would be spoiled. but there were no burnings spoiled with tom croftly, who, had the men been disposed to fail, would have been there to catch them lapsing and take the shovel in hand himself. so the charcoal burned its time, glowing slowly in the well-closed heat till by gentle testing here and there it was declared to be quite fit, when the earth was cleared away, water used liberally for quenching, and the erst flaming heap allowed to cool, the effect being that the branches of rough wood were turned into black clinking metallic-sounding charcoal, hard and brittle to the touch, and ready to fuse the ironstone or turn into potent powder in the mill. then by slow degrees the traces of the explosion were softened down, and a new bridge took the place of that which had been swept away. a fresh fence, too, was made of riven oak, and surrounded the ruined garden, so that master peasegood had hopes that the founder had re-considered his words. but he had not. the fence was there to protect the ruins from the feet of straying cattle. it was not needed to keep off the people of the little place, for they gazed upon it with awe, and whispered that it was haunted by the dead. and, when master peasegood asked thereof, the founder said his words stood firm. but this was when weeks had glided by, and gil carr's ship was tossing far away upon the sea. volume , chapter viii. how the beckley pullet ruled the roost. dame beckley was one of the happiest women under the sun, for she had scarcely a care. her sole idea of home management was obedience, and she obeyed her lord implicitly. next to him she yielded no little show of duty to her daughter, who ruled her with a rod of iron, which she changed for one of steel when dealing with her father. "well, my dear," said the dame, "speaking as a woman of the world, i must say i think it hardly becoming of us to keep sir mark here after his behaviour to us before. see how he slighted us. fancy a man who calls himself a courtier telling a lady of title that her camomile tea that she has made with her own hands--it was the number one, my dear, flavoured with balm--was no better than poison." "never mind the camomile tea, mother. i tell you i wish sir mark to be persuaded to stay." "ah, well, my dear, if you wish it, of course he shall be pressed. i'll tell him that you insisted--" "mother!" "la! my dear, what have i done now?" cried dame beckley. "you quite startle me when you stamp your feet and look like that." "how can you be so foolish, mother? go--go, and tell sir mark--insist upon his staying here." "well, my dear, and very proud he ought to be, i'm sure. why, when i was young, if a gentleman had--" "mother!" "there, there, my dear, i've done. i'll try and persuade sir mark to stay. i'm sure it would do him good, though i don't want him. it always seems to me that that terrible explosion sent a regular jar through what master furton, the queen's chirurgeon, called the absorbens. if he were my son, i should certainly make him take a spoonful of my conserve of elder night and morning, and drink agrimony tea three times a day. in cases where there is the slightest touch of fever there is nothing--bless the girl, why she has gone, when did she go out of the room?" mistress anne had gone away directly after her last imperious utterance of the word "mother," and walked straight to her father's room. she had left dame beckley busy over her herbal, and she now found her father also on study bent, his book being a kind of magistrates' _vade mecum_ of those days on the subject of witchcraft, and the author his majesty the king. "what are you reading, father?" she said, making him start as she came suddenly behind him and laid her hand upon his shoulder. "his majesty's book, my dear." "why?" "well, you see, my dear, it behoves me as a justice of the peace to be well informed of his majesty's views respecting the heinous sin of witchcraft, and to know how i should comport myself and deal with so foul a creature in case, at any future time--" "mother goodhugh should be brought before you?" "yes, exactly," said the baronet. "my dear anne, i'd give almost everything i possess for your clear discerning head." "never mind my head, father," she said, with a half-laugh; "i want to speak to you about more important things." "yes, my dear, certainly. but won't you sit down? you worry me when you tower over me so, and threaten, and preach at me. do sit down, child, pray." "nay, father, you can hear what i have to say without my seating myself." "yes, my dear," said sir thomas, humbly. "let mother goodhugh be, father." "but, my child, she is a most pestiferous witch." "for the present, father. for the present, let her be." "well, my dear, if you wish it, of course--" "i do wish it, father." "how odd, my dear, that you should come to say that, when i was studying up the matter." "i did not come to say that, father," said anne; "but to speak to you about our guest." "yes, my dear, he has been here now six weeks since that disaster." "seven weeks, father." "well, my child, seven weeks if you like; and he has sent back those soldier fellows and his own attendants, and seems to have settled himself down. i mean to tell him that he had better--" "stay here till his health is quite recovered, father." "nay, indeed, my child, after his grossly neglectful behaviour to us, i feel ready at any time to send him away." "but you will do no such thing, father. sir mark is your guest, and an important officer of his majesty." "an' if he had not been i should very soon--" "your good treatment of so important a gentleman may mean something in the future. it is always well, father, to have friends at court." "yes, yes, my child, but to leave us in so scurvy a way, and take up his abode with old cobbe." "that has nothing to do with the matter, father. ask him to stay." "but, anne, my child." "father, i insist upon your forcing him to stay." "force," said sir thomas; "ah, there'll be no need of that. the job will be to force him to go. but surely, child, thou'lt never think of setting thy cap at him after his engagement with the founder's child?" "i? set my cap! oh, father," she cried, with a weak giggle, "that is too good. i absolutely hate him." "then i'll tell him we wish him--" "to stay as long as he can, father. go at once." "but, my dear, he is going to-morrow. he told me so when he was on his way to the moat to fish, and i told him i was glad to hear it." "you told him that, father?" cried anne, with flashing eyes. "indeed i did," said sir thomas. "then go at once," cried anne, imperiously, "and bid him stay." "but it will be like eating my words, my child." "go eat them, then," cried the girl; "and quickly. say that you were but jesting." "and that you specially wished--" "no, father. are you mad? say what thou wilt, and canst; but mind this--sir mark must stay." sir thomas grumbled, but he had to go, and he went, and very easily persuaded sir mark to give up his project of leaving the moat next day, and so it came about that about an hour later, when mistress anne was wandering, book in hand, in the pleasaunce, beneath the sun-pleached trees, where the soft turf was dappled with sunshine and shade, she accidentally came upon sir mark, moody and thoughtful, busy over his favourite occupation of trying to persuade one of the ancient carp in the moat to swallow a hook concealed in a lump of paste, a lure of which the said carp fought exceedingly shy. if sir mark had been told a month before that he would become an angler--one of those patient beings who go and seat themselves on the banks of a piece of water and wait till a fish chooses to touch their bait--he would have laughed them to scorn. all the same, though, he had gone to sir thomas beckley's, very much shocked at the sudden termination of his matrimonial project, and had taken to his bed, where he stayed some days. he told himself that he was heart-broken; that he would never look upon woman's face again; that he would pay a pilgrimage yearly to mace's grave, and live and die a heart-broken anchorite. on the sixth day he arose and wrote a despatch concerning the state of jeremiah cobbe's manufactures, retiring certain proposals that he had made concerning the supply of guns and powder to his majesty's forces. later on he found that it would not be necessary to seize on captain carr, and later still followed the news that gil had left those parts. on the hearing of this he told himself that he could give full vent to his sorrow, which he did, taking at the same time a good deal of nutriment to counterbalance his sighs and tears. then, being a satisfactory moping pursuit for one so cut to the heart, he took to fishing week after week for the carp in the great moat; and after, on this particular day, trying in vain for one particularly heavy monster, he sighed very loudly--so loudly that it seemed to be echoed, and, looking sadly up, his eyes fell upon mistress anne, reading as she walked beneath the trees. it was but a momentary glance, for she turned away directly after, and he sighed again, for he foresaw an interview with another lady as dame beckley came bustling to his side. it was one way of showing his grief: a curious way of showing it; but every one has his peculiarities, and sir mark elected to dress himself more gorgeously than of old. sable had a prominent place in his costume, but it was largely relieved with gold lace and white linen, so that the angler who rose from his seat on the green bank of the old moat seemed, from the elegantly plumed hat to the shining rosetted shoes, more like one dressed for a ball or court gathering than a man prepared to land the slippery carp or wriggling eel. dame beckley was very nervous over her task, but she managed to acquit herself pretty well, and sir mark received her request that he should stay with a saddened smile that seemed to say all things were alike to him now. "if my presence will give you pleasure, madam," he said with a sigh, "i will stay, though you will find me sorry company, i fear." sir mark applied a delicate lace handkerchief to his eyes, and spread around a faint odour of musk, before applying a fresh lump of paste to his great hook, and casting it once more between the water-lilies. "plague on the man," said dame beckley to herself; "it is not a pleasure to me. i wish, though," she added musingly, "he would let me administer some of my simples. i could make him hearty and well." sir mark sighed again when he was left alone, and began to pity himself for his sufferings. somehow he did not feel much sorrow for the young life that had been so suddenly cut off. his sorrow was for him who was to have been a bridegroom, and who would have succeeded to a goodly property with his handsome wife. this was the more important to him, as his little patrimony had been pretty well squandered, and his tailor was an extensive creditor who was eager to be paid. "yes," he said, "i'll stay. poor woman, she wishes it, and, until my brain recovers from this dreadful shock, i am as well here as anywhere. besides, i cannot well go back till i see my way to obtain some money." just then a great carp came slowly sailing along through the deep clear water, and rose amongst the stems of the water-lilies, as if to get a better glance with its big round eyes at the gorgeous object in black velvet, puffed with white satin and laced with gold, seated so patiently upon the bank. "i begin to think now," said sir mark, as he gazed back at the carp, whose great round golden scales suggested coins, "that i have made a mistake. i might have had fair mistress anne." the carp glanced down for a moment at the lump of paste, and shook its tail at it, its head being too rigid. the bait was not to its taste, so it rose higher and stared with its great round expressionless eyes, while it gasped with its big thick lips. "two hundred pounds for wedding garments of my own," he said, gazing back at the carp. "twenty-five pounds for that new sword with the silver ornaments to the hilt, and five pounds for those white crane's plumes for my hat; and now they are useless. i cannot have them altered to wear now without spoiling them, and unless i marry soon that money is all thrown away." he sighed again very softly, for he was exceedingly sorry for himself, as he thought of the founder's thousands. "you are a lucky fellow," he continued, addressing the carp; "you always swim about clad in golden armour, and pay nothing for the show. true, i have not paid for mine, but i suppose that some day i shall be obliged." just then the carp smacked its lips as it thrust its nose above the water, gave its tail a lazy flap, and turned itself endwise so as to face sir mark, who gazed full at its fat gasping mouth, puffy eyes, and generally inane expression. "what becomes of the old beckleys?" said sir mark. "one might fancy that they all went to animate the bodies of the carp in this moat, for yon fish bears a wondrous resemblance to the baronet. i wonder whether he is as well clothed in golden scales. by all that's holy, here he is." for, unnoticed on the soft velvety grass, sir thomas beckley had come slowly up, looking in effect much more like the great carp than might have been considered possible, for his head was so charged with his daughter's mission that it seemed to force his mouth open, and his eyes from his head, while, as he came close up, he gasped two or three times, opening and shutting his lips without making a sound. "fishing, sir mark?" he said at last, for want of something better to say. "you have captured one, i suppose?" "no, sir thomas," said his guest with a sigh. "faith, an' i do not care to catch the poor things. i find in angling a change from dwelling on my sad thoughts. you never catch them, i suppose?" "no," was the reply, "i never do. my father once caught one." "indeed!" said sir mark, yawning, for it was a peculiarity of sir thomas beckley that he made everyone with whom he came into contact yawn. "yes," continued sir thomas. "it was during a very hot summer, and the moat was nearly dry. i remember it well." "you seem to have an excellent recollection, sir thomas." "i have, sir mark, i have," said the baronet pompously. "the great carp had somehow been left in a tiny pool whence he could not escape, so my father caught him." "but not with a hook, sir thomas--he did not angle." "marry, sir, but he did. he'd have gone in after it but for the mud, which would have sullied his trunk hose and velvet breeches of murrey colour, so he had a kitchen meat hook tied to a long pole, and caught the big fish fairly." "indeed, sir thomas? it must have been an exciting scene." "my father was a great man, sir mark." "great and rich, sir thomas?" "very, sir mark." "then i have been doing wrong," thought sir mark. "this old idiot here must have inherited all the old man's money, unless--. did your brothers much resemble him, sir thomas?" he said aloud. "brothers, sir? i never had a brother. i was an only child." "indeed! but i might have known. sir thomas, this is a fitting time to thank you for your hospitality. i may not have another chance before i go." "but you will not go yet, sir mark. i was about to press you to stay with us yet a while--till your health is more restored. you look pale and ill as yet, sir mark." "really, sir thomas? thanks for your kindly concern, but i must go and try to recover elsewhere. your good lady, dame beckley, has been trying to persuade me to stay, but i think my visit here has been too long already." "nay, nay," cried sir thomas, "we cannot spare you yet. you must think us very unfeeling if, after your terrible loss, you are not almost forced to stay here and recover. not a word more, sir mark, not a word." sir mark, however, endeavoured to put in several words, but was checked by his host, who left him afterwards, strutting away with a fat smile upon his countenance, and a belief in his heart that he had been doing some very hospitable act, mistress anne's commands being for the time entirely forgotten. "that is settled then," said sir mark, as he kneaded a fresh piece of paste for the carp. "perhaps in a few weeks i may find out some way of raising money, that is, when my heart has grown less sore." he threw out his bait, and then settled himself with his back against a tree, to take a quiet nap, when, in a sheltered nook, where four huge hawthorns formed a kind of bower, he once more saw mistress anne busily reading, and, thinking that he ought to tell her of his intention to stay, he rose to saunter to her side. volume , chapter ix. how master peasegood said his prayers and paid a visit. there was a deep, singular humming sound coming from the open window of master peasegood's cottage, and, as this noise passed through the big cherry-tree, it seemed to be broken up like a wind through a hedge, and to be somewhat softened. a stranger would not have known what it was, unless he had listened very attentively; and then he would have found that it was master peasegood saying his prayers. "sum--sum--sum--sum--sum--sum--sum--sum." it sounded like a gigantic bumble-bee. then a few distinct words. then "sum--sum--sum--sum--sum," again; and you would hear, "lead us not into temptation'--sum--sum-- sum--especially with strong ales--sum--sum--sum--sum--sum--oh! lord, i am so fleshly and so fat--sum--sum--sum--sum--i cannot do as i preach-- sum--sum--sum--sum--i am a sadly hardened and weak man, oh! lord--sum-- sum--sum--sum; but i try to live at peace, and do to others as i would they should do unto me--sum--sum--sum--sum--amen. mistress hilberry, i'm going out. bring me my ale." master peasegood was refreshed in mind, and proceeded to refresh himself in body, feeling at peace with the whole world, including mother goodhugh and all her works. mistress hilberry came in, looking sour, but, as her eyes lit on the jovial face before her, some of its amiability was reflected back upon her own; and, finally, as the stout parson drank up his great jug of ale with the heartiest of enjoyment, she almost smiled. "how thou dost take to thy ale!" she said. "ay, how naturally we do take to all bad habits, mistress hilberry; but a man cannot be perfect, and the possession of one wicked little devil may keep out seven devils, all much worse. i don't think it would be right to be quite good, mistress hilberry, so i take my ale." "if thou never take nothing worse, master," said mistress hilberry--who was in a good temper--"thou wilt do;" and she seized the empty vessel and went out. "hah!" sighed master peasegood, taking his pipe off the mantel-piece, and looking at it ruefully, "i talked to her about one little devil, and, lo! here is another. that makes two who possess me, if king jamie's right. i'll just have a little of the devilish weed before i go out. nay, resist the devil, and he will flee from thee. go, little devil, back to thy place, and let's see what our good protestant king does say." he put back the pipe, and took from his scantily-furnished shelves a copy of his majesty's counterblast against tobacco, seated himself comfortably, and began to read. master peasegood's countenance was a study: for what he read did not seem to agree with him. he frowned, he pursed up his lips, he nodded, he shook his head; and at last, after half-an-hour's study, he dashed the book down upon the floor, doubled his fist, and brought it heavily upon the table. "if this book had not been written by our sovereign lord, james the first, by the grace of god king of great britain, france, and ireland, as it says in the dedication to my bible--and what a thumping lie it is--i should say that it was the work of one of the silliest, most dunder-headed, and bumble-brained fools who ever walked god's earth. tchah, tchah, tchah, tchah. i don't believe the pipe's a little devil after all. "here! i must be off," he said, with a sigh. "there's work to be done. i'll go see my poor old friend cobbe, and try and comfort him in his trouble. "nay, i will not; it will be like running right into temptation. he'll bring out pipes and ale. "but he is in trouble sore, and i have not been of late. i must go-- "`into temptation.' "nay, it cannot be into temptation, for it is to do good works. the ale is not a devil of possession, after all. "mistress hilberry, i'm going down to jeremiah cobbe, if any one should call." "all right, master," she said; and the stout parson rolled out, and sauntered down to the cottage the founder occupied now. "ah! master cobbe," he cried, "i've been remiss in visiting you these last few weeks, but i'm glad to see thee look so well." "well? master peasegood," said the founder, sadly. "nay, i am not well. perhaps i am, though--perhaps i am. i have been busy lately, very busy. a goodly store of cannon and ammunition has been sent off to his majesty this past week." "ay, so i hear," said the parson. "but sit down, man. hey, mrs croftly, bring a flagon of ale and the pipes and tobacco. master peasegood will sit down here in the garden with me this evening." "that i will," was the hearty response. a table was placed on one side, and the two friends sat down, drank heartily to one another, and then filled, lit their pipes, and smoked in silence for awhile. "there's a nice view from here, master cobbe," said the parson at last. "ay, there is," said the founder; and a longing painful look came upon his deeply-lined face, as he thrust back his rough, white hair and sighed. "a very pretty view. you like this spot?" "yes," said the founder, slowly, as he pointed with the stem of his little pipe to an opening in the forest beyond the ruins of the pool-house. "do you see yon patch of rock where the martins have made their nests?" "surely, surely," said master peasegood. "there is a good-sized hole there, friend peasegood." "yes, i see," said master peasegood, nodding, "though my eyes are not what they were." "that place was made by the shell fired from my big howitzer when my poor girl applied the match." "poor child!" said master peasegood, sadly, and for some time the two men sat and smoked in silence. "shall you ever build up the house again, master cobbe?" said the parson at last. the founder turned upon him almost fiercely, and seemed about to utter some angry word; but he calmed down, took the parson's fat hand in his, shook it, and released it. "nay," he said, "let it rest; let it rest." "i did not want to hurt your feelings, master cobbe," said the parson; "but i thought it would be better for it and for thee. you must be growing richer than before." "yes; and what good is it?" said the founder, bitterly. "of what use is money to me? i only work and toil to keep my mind at rest. nay, nay, i cannot build the old place up; let it be. besides," he added dryly, "mother goodhugh says it is cursed." "hang mother goodhugh--or burn her," cried the parson impetuously. "a wicked, cursing, old hag. she had better mend her ways, or sir thomas will be laying her by the heels. he swore he would months ago, but i persuaded him not. she had been following and abusing mistress anne." "ay, poor soul--poor soul, she is mad from her grief, and it makes her curse. ah! parson, many's the time i could have gone about cursing too. poor soul--poor soul! let her rest." "i see you have been very busy with the garden again." "ay; it is getting to be what it was. the trees have shot forth once more, and the flowers bloom. she loved that garden, parson--dearly." "ay; and the old house too, master cobbe. build it up, man; build it up." "nay, not a stone. it is cursed--cursed." "bah! stuff, man. away with such folly. it is no more cursed than it is haunted, as the people say." the founder started, and gazed strangely at his friend. "do they say it is haunted?" "yes; such folly. two or three people have sworn to me that they have heard shrieks." "parson," said the founder hoarsely, as he laid his hand on the other's sleeve; "they are right; i once heard them too." "what?" said master peasegood, laughing, "the owls?" "nay, i should know the cry of an owl, man. it is not that. time after time i've stood there in the forest, and heard the wild cry just at dark when everything is still." "nay, nay," said master peasegood, "the dead don't cry for help, neither do the angels in heaven; and if there's truth in all we believe, man, our little mace's looking down upon us, an angel among god's best and dearest ones." the old man's head went down upon his hand at this, and he sat in silence for some time, while, with his eyes misty and dim, master peasegood leaned back in his chair, and smoked with all his might. the silence was broken by the founder holding out his hand to his visitor, and shaking it warmly. "thankye, parson, thankye," he said. "what you say ought to be true; and i hope she forgives me for my vanity and pride." "poor child! it was a mistake, master cobbe, but let it rest. they say our gay spark, sir mark, is going to comfort himself by wedding mistress anne." "ay? indeed?" said the founder. "i did hear something of the kind, but i paid little heed." "i hear it as a fact, master cobbe." "well, let him," said the founder. "he should be a rich man, too, by this time, for he has made money from me as well as i have from the king. don't talk of it, though; it makes me dwell upon the past." they smoked on for a time without speaking, and then, with a patient, piteous aspect in his face, the founder turned to his visitor. "i've been a wicked man, parson," he said. "so we all are," said master peasegood, bluffly. "i always sinned from a desire for the good things of this life. i love goodly food, and good ale, and good tobacco now; and i shall go on sinning to the end," he added, taking a hearty draught. "i have been harsh and hard, and i've not done my duty here, master peasegood; and these punishments have come upon me for my sins." "stuff, stuff!" cried master peasegood. "i won't sit and hear it. don't talk of your maker as if he were some petty, revengeful man like us, ready to visit every little weakness upon our heads with a misfortune, or to pay us for being good boys with a slice of bread and honey. out on such religious ideas as that, master cobbe, and think of your god as one who is great and good. bah! it aggravates me to hear and see people fall down and worship the ugly image they have set up in their hearts, one that every work of the creator gives the lie to for its falsity and cruel wrong. bear your burden, jeremiah cobbe, like a man. it is not in us to know the ins and outs of god's ways; and it is a wicked and impious sin for people to say this is a judgment, or that is a judgment, and to pretend to know what the all-seeing thinks and does. you say you've been a wicked man, master cobbe." "yes, yes," said the founder sadly; "and i have but one hope now, and that is that i may see my darling once again." "amen to that," said master peasegood; "but, as to your wickedness, i wish every man was as wicked, and hot-tempered, and true-hearted, and generous, and frank, and industrious, and forgiving as thou art, jeremiah cobbe; and--will you have that ale flagon filled again? much talking makes me dry." the founder smiled, and called for croftly's wife, who replenished the flagon, bobbed a curtsey to the parson, and re-entered the cottage. "i like you, jeremiah cobbe," continued master peasegood, after setting down the flagon with a satisfied sigh; "but don't be superstitious, man, like our sovereign master the king, who has written a book to hand down his wisdom to posterity." "indeed!" said the founder, whose thoughts were evidently far away. "yes, indeed," said master peasegood; "and it's all about witches and warlocks and the like. that piece of idiot spawn has gotten itself down here into sir thomas's hands; and, as i told thee, he was very near laying that foolish old woman mother goodhugh by the heels. now she hates me like poison, because i laugh at her and tell the people she is a half-crazed old crone. last time i saw her we quarrelled, for i told her she was a wretched old impostor, for cheating the poor people as she did. ha! ha! ha! and then she defied and cursed me, and said she'd go to father brisdone and turn roman catholic. i told her to go, and he'd curse her for cursing, for it is his trade, and she has no right to handle such tools at all." "poor weak woman," said the founder. "she is more to be pitied than blamed. i suppose she thinks in her heart that i am the cause of all her woes." "ay, poor soul, but it's partly vanity, friend cobbe. she likes to set up for a prophetess, a sort of diluted deborah, and to make the people believe in her. there, you must go and see her. if i go to her, being the good man of the parish, she will have naught to say to me. now, you being a wicked man, may have more influence than i." "i influence? nay, man; she'll fall a cursing if i go nigh her cot." "let her curse. her words won't hurt thee, man. go to her, and give her money--thou hast enough--bid her get away far enough from this place to somewhere safe; and when there, tell her to live a decent life and forget her silly trickstering and stuff. it's a fine opportunity for thee, jeremiah cobbe. it's just the sort of revenge thou lik'st to take on an enemy. go and pour coals of fire on her head, for i'm sure this place isn't safe for such as she." "would sir thomas imprison her?" said the founder. "sir thomas is so good and honest a justice of the peace, and so great a lover of the words of his majesty the king, who made him the baronet he is, that he would set up a stake, scatter dame beckley's dried simples and herbs around it, heap it with goodly faggots, and burn mother goodhugh for a witch while the roehurst people would look on." "thinkest thou this, master peasegood?" "i'm sure of it," said the parson, dashing down his pipe in his anger. "jeremiah cobbe, it makes me as mad as moses to see what fools the people are. we have just got rid of the superstitions of rome, sir, and we go at once and set up the golden calf of witchcraft, and worship it, from our ruler to the humblest peasant in his realm. by my word, master cobbe, an' i had had the two tables in my hands like the old prophet, i'd not have broken them on the rocks, but upon the thick-boned skulls of my erring folk." "not worship the idol--condemn it, master peasegood," said the founder, smiling. "well, but we believe it," cried the other. "out upon us all, but we are sorry-fools." "i'll go and do this thing, master peasegood," said the founder, after musing for a few minutes. "that's right; i knew thou would'st." "but maybe she will not go." "then take her, like the angels did lot of old, and thrust her out of the place. tell her roehurst will prove a sodom to her if she does not go, for i' faith she'll go to the flames, in spite of all i can do or say." "i'll go to her this very evening, master peasegood." "then i will go my way," cried the parson; and, paying one more attention to the flagon, he rose, shook hands, and left. volume , chapter x. how mother goodhugh fared ill at justice's hands. by chance it happened that anne beckley had extended her walk towards the woods and had strolled farther than she had intended. fate led her into the narrow lane where she had rested in gil carr's arms when mace and sir mark had been witnesses of the scene. she smiled now as she seated herself upon the bank, and thought of the changes that had taken place, for she was shortly to become mark leslie's wife. how the time had passed, she thought, and how cleverly she had won sir mark from his gloom and despondency to become at first grateful, then loving, and at last--so she believed--so infatuated with her, that she could do with him as she pleased. if some unkind friend had told her that her father's money and estates had anything to do with the match, she would have rejected the suggestion with scorn, and then gone to her mirror, to examine the sit of her ruffle, to give a slight touch to her painted cheeks, and perhaps add another ornamental patch to her chin. sir mark was in town now, preparing for the bridal, and anne's heart was joyful within her, as she thought of the coming ceremony. for years she had been dreaming of and hoping for wedlock, and at last she was to be a wife--a lady of title--dame anne leslie, and her eyes sparkled with the pleasure of the thought. the spot she had chosen for her reverie, though, brought up thoughts that made her sigh. there, close by where she was seated, gil carr had held her in his arms; and she sighed as she recalled how fondly she believed that she had loved him. and where was he now? a year had rolled by since he set sail, and no news of either him or his followers had reached roehurst since; and as she thought of this the events of that terrible time came crowding back. "poor mace!" she said, softly; "i am sorry i hated you so much; and poor gil carr, he was a proper youth. alack! what change one lives to see!" she felt half disposed to continue her walk, and go on as far as the pool-house; but a slight shudder ran through her nerves at the thought. somehow the ruins had a repelling influence upon her, and she shrank from going near, feeling that she had been to blame for what had taken place on that terrible night. "i don't think i'll go," she said softly; and she was about to rise and return, when she became aware that some one was standing close behind her, and, starting up, she found herself face to face with mother goodhugh, who had advanced as quietly as a cat. "mother goodhugh!" she cried in a startled voice. "yes, my dearie, it be mother goodhugh. what can i do for thee, my beauty bird?" "nothing, mother," replied anne sharply. "nothing, my dearie?" said the old woman laughing. "nay, surely you want some help of the poor old woman who works to help you. is it a new lover, my dear?" "i have told thee i do not want anything, mother," cried anne peevishly. "nay, then, come on to my cottage, where we can talk. thou has not been to see me for months and months." "nay, mother, i'll come no more. good day, i must get me home." "stay, child," cried mother goodhugh, clutching at her dress; "i want to talk to thee of him. come to my place." "loose me this instant, mother," cried mistress anne, indignantly. "how darest thou lay thy hands on me?" "only because we are sisters, dearie." "sisters?" "ay, dearie; don't we practise the art together. but hist, hist, come to my cottage and let us talk." "not a step will i go," cried anne, angrily. "nay, is it so? ah, she has gotten what she wanted by my help--a brave, fine husband, and now she throws me by." "cease thy talk about those childish follies. i am sick of them." "ay, child, yes; thou art sick of them now, but when thou wast hungry for thy love nothing was too good for mother goodhugh then." "out upon thee! did i not pay thee well for thy silly mummeries?" "pay me well?" cried mother goodhugh. "nay; what were a few paltry gold pieces for such a husband as i gained for thee?" "you gained for me?" cried anne, contemptuously. "ay, to be sure, i gained for thee, mistress; and now thou hast him safe i be thrown aside. not once hast thou been to me these many months." "i tell thee i have done with such follies," cried anne contemptuously. "i have paid thee, and there the matter ends." "oh, nay, mistress, it does not. thou hast thy lover, and so had poor mace cobbe, and the wedding was to be next day; but i prophesied that she should not have the man of thy choice, and what came to pass?" "mother goodhugh," said anne, turning pale, "if i thought thou had'st anything to do with that misfortune at the pool thou should'st be handed over to my father for punishment according to thy deserts." "and would she who helped me be punished too?" "if thou had'st accomplices, yes." "sweet mistress, then we will go to prison, thou and i, together, for we made our plans to stay the wedding of mace cobbe." "it is false; i had nothing to do with thy plans," cried anne excitedly. "had'st thou not better come to my cottage, mistress?" said mother goodhugh. "nay, i have done with thee and thy ways. i'll come there no more." "but thou wilt pay me for winning thee a husband." "pay thee?" cried anne contemptuously. "what should i pay thee?" "a hundred golden pounds, mistress," cried the old woman, whose eyes sparkled at the very mention of so much money. "a hundred pence," cried anne. "go, get you gone, old crone. i'll never part with a piece again for thy follies." "have a care, mistress," cried the old woman excitedly, for her anger was getting the better of her reason. "thou art not mark leslie's wife as yet, and some accident might happen to thee, too." "mother goodhugh," cried anne, "have a care. thou art a marked woman." "i will have a care, my dearie, that if i am to suffer, thou shalt suffer too. i can place thee in prison if i am touched, so beware-- beware." "vile old hag," cried anne angrily; "speak a word against me, and you shall bitterly repent it." "rue it, eh! we'll see; we'll see," cried the old woman, shaking her stick after the girl, as she hurried back, uneasy enough in her mind to suffer acutely, for mother goodhugh might throw obstacles in the way. she shuddered at the bare thought of what had happened on the eve of mace's wedding, but determined to risk all. "if she speaks, no one will believe her," cried anne laughing. "she shall be seized for a witch, and she dare not charge me with helping her, for if she did it would only be accusing herself, and that she dare not do. neither dare i let her be at liberty till i am dear mark's wife. after this she may do her worst." full of this intent--for now that the old woman had obtruded herself once more upon her path, she really feared her--anne hurried back towards the moat, feeling anything but secure while mother goodhugh was at liberty. her mind had been too much occupied of late during sir mark's long visits to trouble herself about the old woman, and whatever thought she had had of the terrible night at the pool-house had been gradually allowed to grow dull. the great thing had been that the wedding had been stayed, but, now that she thought the matter over, she felt sure that mother goodhugh had been guilty of some desperate deed; and to bring it home to herself--if the old woman would do such a thing for gain, might she not do it for revenge? anne shuddered and her brow grew cloudy as she felt that she could not set mother goodhugh aside as one that she need not fear. sir mark was not yet her husband, and what if some terrible catastrophe were to happen to prevent the wedding. "i should go mad," she muttered; and she paused to think whether it would be better to try a bribe. "she wants too much money, and if i did silence her now she would be pestering me with claims for more, and threaten and harass me. no, mother; you have opened the battle again, so now let us see which of us is the stronger." hurrying to her father's room lest her mind should change, anne had a long colloquy with him, introducing the subject of witchcraft incidentally. "sir mark tells me, father, that his majesty strongly approves of efforts being made to keep down witches in this country." "yes, my dear, so i heard sir mark say," replied sir thomas, putting on his carplike visage, and gaping and panting at his daughter, as his eyes stood out wide and round. "why should you not do something to commend yourself to the king?" "but what could i do, child?" said sir thomas. "true, there is nothing you could, unless you arrested mother goodhugh." "you forbad it once, but the very thing!" cried sir thomas, eagerly. "but she is not a witch," said anne, dubiously. "nay, my child, but, according to his majesty's book, she has all the signs of a witch in her." "indeed, father?" "yes, child, i have studied it all well, and can show you a dozen points wherein she answers to a witch. anne, my child, she shall be seized and examined." "i don't think i would, father. such women are sure to say more than is quite true, and spit their venom at random. better let her rest in peace." "nay, child, she shall be examined, and, if she says too much, she shall be gagged. i am not a man to be trifled with by a known and practised witch." next day mother goodhugh returned to her cottage from one of her many absences in the forest, full of bitterness against mistress anne. "does she think she be going to play with me?" muttered the old woman. "not she. i be not frightened of her threats now. let her speak if she dares. i could tell strange tales against her if i liked, and i'll be paid. one hundred golden pounds she shall give me, or she shall not marry him; nay, that she shall not. mother goodhugh is stronger than they think." she chuckled, as she walked sharply up and down the little room, shaking her stick and then thumping the end upon the floor. "nice tales could i tell. mistress anne beckley would look well as my companion, and ha-ha-ha! ho-ho-ho! what would the fine, gay, gallant sir mark say to his sweet if he knew of the tricks and plans she had carried out. there would be an end to the wedding, and she dare not speak. what do you want here?" "i came to see thee, mother goodhugh," said the founder, who had just raised the latch, and stood in the doorway. "to see me," cried the old woman, fiercely. "what! hast come to be cursed again? but no, no, no; go away, man, go away, away," she said hurriedly, as she fell a trembling. "i don't want thee here." "mother goodhugh," said the founder, sadly, "thou hast always looked upon me as an enemy." "yes, a bitter, cruel enemy," she cried, flinching from him. then, with a malignant grin, she added, "but thou hast had to suffer too, master cobbe, and to know what it is to gnaw thy heart with pain." "yes, yes, woman, i know all that," said the founder, hastily; "but let us not talk of the by-gone, but of the future." "what is my future to thee, mas' jeremiah cobbe?" cried the old woman, suspiciously. "go thy ways, and let me go mine." "i came to tell thee that there is danger for thee, mother goodhugh. they say that thou'rt a witch, and i came to bid thee go hence to some place where thou art not known." "who will harm me?" cried the old woman. "maybe sir thomas will have thee put in prison." "she daren't do it--she daren't do it," cried the old woman, fiercely. "i defy her--i defy her." "the law dare do a good deal, mother goodhugh," said the founder, sadly. "but take my advice: go from hence. i have ready for thee twenty gold pounds; they will keep thee for some time, and when they are gone i will give thee more. but go, and go at once, before it is too late." the old woman's fingers were held out crooked and trembling to grasp the money, her eyes twinkling with eagerness; but ere the founder could place the coins therein she seemed to make a tremendous effort over herself, and snatched back her hands. "nay," she cried, "i will not go. thou for one would'st get rid of me, and mistress anne hath sent thee, but i'll not be baulked of my revenge." "i came not from mistress anne, good mother. it was from a talk with master peasegood that i came to-day." "yes, yes, i know," cried the old woman exultingly, "from mas' peasegood, her friend. so i am to be sent away on a beggar's pittance, and forego my revenge. she be a clever girl, but she can't outwit me." "i understand not thy sayings, mother," said the founder, wearily; "i only bid thee get hence, for the sake of thy poor dead husband and thy boy." the founder said the words in all kindness, but they transformed mother goodhugh into a perfect fury; her eyes flashed, the foam stood upon her lips, and, mouthing and gibbering in impotent rage, she pointed to the door. "go," she shrieked at last, "and tell them who sent thee that mother goodhugh will stay in her place and defy them. bid mistress anne have a care, and tell her that if mother goodhugh stands at the stake it will be back to back with the mincing, painting, and patching madam who came and bade her curse and destroy her rival at the pool-house; who planned its destruction; who is a worse witch than i. tell her all this, for i'll stay and defy her. bid her do her worst." "silence, woman!" cried the founder, who gazed at her, horrified and startled at this outburst; "thou art mad." "mad? ay, mad, if thou wilt; but wait and see. tell her i'll stay-- tell her i'll stay and defy her. she don't know mother goodhugh yet, jeremiah cobbe; so wait and see." "i shall not have long to wait, then," said the founder, gloomily. "it is thy own fault, woman, and god forgive thee for thy cursing and thy lies." mother goodhugh had literally driven him from her room, to stand at the doorway fiercely gesticulating and threateningly waving her stick; but, as the founder spoke and drew back from her, a complete change came over the old woman: her eyes grew fixed, her jaw dropped, the stick fell from her hand, and she clung to the door-post, turning of a deadly white, for at that moment sir thomas beckley, looking red, important, and accompanied by the village constable, a couple of assistants with a cart, and some dozen or two of the people, came slowly to the door. the rustic constable held a document in his hand, which he tried to read to the woman, and dismally failed from want of erudition, even though prompted by sir thomas. he mumbled out, though, something about the heinous sin of witchcraft; and sovereign lord and king. then thrusting the document into his rough doublet, he caught the old woman by the wrist. "no, no," she shrieked in agony, all her defiance gone, as she found herself face to face with the horrible reality. "no, no, i will not go." "come, thou must, mother goodhugh," said the constable; "and i warn thee that if thou begin'st any cursing against me and my men it will be the worse for thee." "i will not go; i am innocent, sir thomas. pray, sir thomas, don't let him. a poor weak widow woman. pray, pray don't." "an anointed witch thou art," said the justice, pompously. "away with her." "nay, nay, sir thomas," cried the founder. "she is no witch; only a silly, half-mad creature." "yes, that he right," cried mother goodhugh, clinging frantically to one of the doorposts, "mad--mad with trouble, good sir thomas." "nay, woman, thy witchcrafts have stunk in my nostrils this many a day, and there is a long list of crimes for thee to expiate at the stake." "shame, sir thomas!" cried the founder, indignantly; "if any one has cause against her it is i." "yes, yes, good sir thomas, hear him. i have cursed him more than any. oh, pray, pray." "pray," cried the justice; "pray to thy familiars, woman! take her along." "this is monstrous," cried the founder, indignantly. "hold thy peace, master cobbe," said sir thomas, impatiently; "and if thou dost interfere it will be at thy peril. take her away, men, take her away." "no, no! no, no!" shrieked the horrified woman, before whose affrighted face the faggot and stake already loomed. "mas' cobbe, save me--for pity's sake, save me. i be not a witch. i only cursed in the naughtiness of my heart. help me, mas' cobbe; for thy dear child's sake, help me, and i'll tell thee all. i will not go. i will not go." the founder sprang forward to her help, but he was unarmed, and sir thomas drew his sword and placed himself before the prisoner. "i warn thee, master cobbe," he cried, "that this is a legal seizure. stand back, sir, stand back. quick, men, do your duty." it was a horrible scene, for the old woman clung to her door, and had to be literally torn away by the men, who, adding coarseness to the superstition of their superiors, felt no mercy for one whom they looked upon as being leagued with the powers of ill. and now that the wise woman's reign was over, and she was held to be harmless, those who had feared and sought counsel of her rose up to spit on the shivering form that was being dragged along the ground towards the tail of the cart. for we were a fine and manly race in the good old times, and those who represented us at roehurst made no scruple about reviling and kicking the quivering, helpless creature, who struggled hard as she was dragged by the wrists, her clothes torn, her hair dishevelled, and her old white face looking from one to the other for the help that none would give. "out upon the witch!" they shrieked and yelled, drowning the poor wretch's hoarse cries for mercy. "burn her! burn her!" rose in chorus; and the founder strove hard to reach her, but he was kept back by the increasing crowd, for the news that mother goodhugh was to be taken for a witch soon spread, and men, women, and children came panting up to join in execrating the helpless wretch. faint and exhausted, they bound her hands behind her back and her ankles tightly together, before, amidst tremendous shouting and yelling, she was lifted by four strong men, and literally thrown into, the cart, which was then set in motion, with sir thomas following behind with his sword drawn, and the people going before and crowding after, as the wheels sank down first on one side in the ruts, then on the other, revealing the wretched woman, who was now goaded to desperation, and had struggled up into a kneeling position, which she could hardly maintain for the rolling of the cart. every time she was nearly thrown down the crowd yelled with delight: and on some rustic genius throwing a clod of earth at her, his example was followed, and the poor wretch knelt there cowering from the shower of missiles sent into the cart. at last she contrived to get her wrists loosed from the ill-tied cords; and, holding the cart-side with one hand, she raised the other, and shrieked out anathema after anathema against her persecutors, uttering such horrible curses against them that the less bold shrank away and the stoutest began to quail. but mother goodhugh's reign of cursing was nearly at an end; for, as the founder indignantly watched the proceedings, a great lad close by him picked up and hurled a lump of sand-rock at the wretched creature, striking her full in the temple, and, amidst a shout of triumph, the miserable woman fell stunned and bleeding to the bottom of the cart. "that were a good hurl, master," cried the lout, with a broad grin. "yes," said the founder, fiercely, "and so was that!" as he spoke, he struck the great, broad-faced fellow straight in the cheek, and he rolled over into one of the cart-ruts, whilst the procession with mother goodhugh, fortunately insensible now to pain, turned a corner of the winding lane, and passed out of the founder's sight. volume , chapter xi. how roehurst kept fete for a wedding and a death. truly satan must have been reigning upon earth in full fig when it was found necessary to execute thirty of his disciples at one time in edinburgh. as for poor mrs hicks and her little daughter, aged nine, who were hanged at huntingdon in , they might have rejoiced at the opportunity of getting out of such a world of fools and ignorance. they must have been great sinners, though, for they had sold their souls to the devil, and--crowning atrocity!--they had raised a storm, and the recipe is handed down to posterity, for the _modus operandi_ was "pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap!" if for such a crime as this a tender child of nine could be punished with death in christian england in those salutary days, there can be no wonder that mother goodhugh's condemnation was pretty sure. she was the known witch of the neighbourhood, and those who had feared her, sought her help, and paid her, were among the first to give evidence against the repository of their secrets. jeremiah cobbe strove hard to save her, and so did master peasegood; but two men in an out-of-the-way part of england could not stem the tide of popular opinion, as it set strong against the wretched woman. in her rage and hate she strove to drag down mistress anne as well, but in so doing made a bitter enemy of one who was strong in court favour. for on hearing of the accusation sir mark lost no opportunity of fighting against "this notorious witch." but mother goodhugh was not condemned without ample test and trial, fallen as she had under the care of a famous witch-finder and judge of the day, who came down to the nearest town by royal command to investigate the case. the wretched woman was put through a course of torture. she suffered the pin test for the witch's mark. this failing, she next had her thumbs and toes tied together, she was wrapped in a sheet, and in the presence of plenty of spectators thrown into a pool. as a certain amount of air remained in the sheet, and the water was some time in penetrating it, the poor woman naturally enough floated, amidst the execrations of the crowd, among whom were some twenty or thirty of sir mark's men. none but a witch could float, so it was said; so after a final test, in which mother goodhugh failed to repeat the lord's prayer without hesitation, her trial proceeded, and she was condemned to be burnt at the stake in her own village a week after sentence. there was not much mercy shown in those days, and, though the fair rounded cheeks of anne beckley turned a little pale when sir mark brought her the news, they flushed directly after, for she felt that she would be freed from a persecutor who would give her no rest, and who might cause her trouble with her husband after the first few months of matrimonial life. besides, anne beckley argued with a shudder, the old woman had done strange things, and, with the superstition in her nature ready to accept it, she argued that if living she might curse her to her injury. true she might curse her now, but, as her accusations had been set aside as malicious, it was quite possible that her evil genius had deserted her as he did those who became unfortunate, and, as she had risked so much and gained only defiance, anne beckley determined to go on to the end. it was a strange mixture, but the preparations for the wedding of mistress anne beckley and for the execution of mother goodhugh went on side by side, in spite of the further efforts of master peasegood and the founder, who even went so far as to make a journey to london to seek the king's clemency. of course without avail. from his position as maker of his majesty's ordnance, master cobbe succeeded in getting an audience, to be received well, told that he was a good man, that his guns were strong, but that he knew naught of witchcraft. "read my book, master cobbe, read my book," said his majesty; and jeremiah cobbe had to bow himself out with the stout parson, who was perspiring with anger. "i'm a loyal and i hope religious man, master cobbe," said the latter excitedly; "i fear god and i honour the king; but all the same, master cobbe, i vow and declare that his majesty is the damnedest fool i ever saw, and may the lord forgive me for swearing." "yes," said the founder, sadly. "well, old friend, we have done all we can, so let us stay away till they have wreaked their silly vengeance on that poor, mad soul." "no, no, thank god!" said master peasegood, "they can only wreak it on her body, my friend, and as to staying here--nay, that must not be. i have no love for the weak old creature, who spent her time in mummery and silly cursing, but my place is by her side to ask forgiveness with her and a painless passage to the mercy-seat." "ay, parson, thou art right, and i'll join thee in thy prayer, for there should be mercy for one who men declare shall have her hellish flames before she dies." "i don't quite like that speech, master cobbe, but you mean quite right. now, good friend, take me to some hostel and give me ale, or i shall faint here by the way. nay, i'll not. it is choler. i'll be blooded instead, a good nine ounces, or i shall have a fit." they were stout, strong posts that were set up outside the moat gates to bear the arch of evergreens and flowers, but it was a stronger one in front of the cottage where mother goodhugh had spent her days, and, while men piled last year's faggots and heaped up charcoal taken from the founder's dogwood stacks, others cut down branches of yew and holly and gathered bundles of heather and golden gorse, and the preparations for the wedding feast went on. "ah, parson," cried sir mark, from the back of one of sir thomas's stout cobs, as he rode along beside fair mistress anne, who was mounted on a handsome jennet, "i have not seen thee for days. art ready to tie our nuptial knot?" "no, sir mark," said master peasegood, sternly. "i am going to pray beside the dying and the dead." "what does he mean--the insolent fool?" cried sir mark, angrily. "truth, love, i cannot tell," said mistress anne; but in her heart of hearts she felt a sickening sensation, and would have given anything that the execution or the coming wedding were to take place elsewhere. "as he will, sweetest," said sir mark, tenderly, and they rode on, receiving salutations from all they passed; "there are plenty of priests who will be glad to make us one; and only think, love--only two days now." anne beckley rode on in silence for some time, thinking. her betrothed laughed and chatted gaily, and truly they were a handsome pair; but the girl's heart was ill at ease, and at last, being bantered by sir mark upon her silence, she leaned towards him in a quiet glade of the forest, and, laying her hand upon his shoulder, offered her lips to his long clinging kiss. "i have a favour to ask, love," she said. "ask favours from now till night, and thou shalt have them all," he cried. "it is but one," faltered anne; "our wedding." "i would it were over," cried sir mark, eagerly; "but what of it, bright eyes?" "i like not the day," said anne, checking her horse's pace so that she could cling to her companion. "and why not?" he asked. "i like it not for my sake and thine," she said in a low tone. "let's hear the reason on thy part," said sir mark, laughing. "it is the day they burn that wicked woman; and it troubles me that we should go to church at such a time." "the day of a good deed, love," he said. "now the other, for my sake." "have you not thought," she said, pressing closer to him, heedless of the fact that they were watched. "i thought? yes, that it is the most blessed day in the calendar." "nay; but have you not thought what day it is?" "not i. saint somebody-or-another's--some christian martyr's, perhaps; and we'll give him a burnt sacrifice of bad witch to satisfy his manes." "mark, it is the anniversary of the day that was to have seen you a husband; me a broken-hearted girl." sir mark started and changed colour. he was troubled, for it seemed a bad augury that such a day should have been chosen, but he lightly put it aside. "never mind, love; it was an accident, and can make no difference now. besides, the matter is settled, and if we picked the days over we should find each the anniversary of some troubled time." anne beckley was disappointed, but she made no more objection, and they rode soon after through the avenue and over the bridge, beneath which the great carp gaped and stared with their big round eyes in unconscious imitation of their master, the wise dispenser of king james's justice, and keeper of the peace. volume , chapter xii. how mistress anne watched and feared. early morning, as bright and glowing autumn time as ever shone over the weald of sussex. the harvest was gathered in; the trees were heavy beneath the red and golden crop of apples, and in hedgerow and plantation the brown and cream-husked nuts peered out in clusters from the leafy stubs. there was a suspicion here and there of the coming fall, but only in bright touches of beauty--golds, and russets, and reds--bloody crimson, and orange scarlet, where the sun-kissed leaves yet burned beneath the caresses of the ardent god. the sky above was of the richest, purest blue, and the eye rested on naught but beauty, so long as it kept to nature, and not to art, for winding along the narrow lane towards roehurst was a procession of armed men, preceding and following a rough country tumbril, drawn by a clumsy horse. the load was apparently a heap of shabby garments, dropped in one corner of the cart. but the crowd that pressed upon the armed men, striving to get a glimpse of the interior of the vehicle, could see that the bundle of clothes in the cart moved slightly from time to time, lifting a thin white hand and letting it fall heavily once more; and as they buzzed, and talked, and shouted to one another, they made out further that there was a grey head raised from the heap, and a white, scared face looked round partly in wonder, partly seeking for pity, as its owner seemed to realise her position, and then crouched lower and lower as she heard shouts and voices crying out the words, "mother goodhugh! witch! the stake, the stake!" the escort took the pressure of the eager little crowd very good-humouredly, but had to keep waving the sight-seers back, or some would have been trampled beneath the horse's feet, and as it was the procession was greatly delayed. "i don't believe they'll burn her after all," said one rough specimen of a peasant to another. "nay, they will. stake be all ready, and faggots enough to burn a dozen such witches as old mother there." "i'll believe it when i see it, lad. see if she don't go off in a flash, or else make the rain come so as the faggots won't burn. nay, lad, she won't be done for yet. look there. did'st see her wicked old eyes glowering round when she raised her head? don't let her look at thee, or she'll put a curse in thy face." "ay, but she be a wicked looking one, and it will be a glad riddance for roehurst when she be gone, for she did naught but curse." "mas' cobbe ought to be glad to see her burnt, for she's cursed him oft enough, poor soul." "but why don't they make haste? i want to see the burning, and then get back to the wedding games." "oh, they won't wed till mother goodhugh's all in ash, lad. see, there be the bridegroom. he be going to see it done." "but what be they stopping for?" "don't know," said the other, climbing up the bank and holding on by the branch of a tree. "why, it be parson come, and he be getting into the cart with mother goodhugh. say, look there! he be gone down on his knees aside her, and takes her hand. look out, parson, as she don't fly at thee like a cat." but there was no cat-like spring in mother goodhugh, for torture and starvation had reduced her so that the little life left in her was likely to flutter away before the torch was placed to the faggots. as master peasegood laboriously clambered into the cart and knelt beside her, he took one of the poor wretch's wasted hands in his, and she raised her head to look up at him half-wonderingly, before letting it fall once more, and remaining apparently nerveless and flaccid, waiting for the end. the procession passed within fifty yards of the moat gate, where anne beckley was waiting--not to cry out in reviling tones against the wretched woman, but to see her pass, hidden awhile amidst the dense evergreens, and trembling lest she should be seen. anne beckley's heart beat fast as the procession came nearer and nearer, and she crouched down trembling as she fancied that mother goodhugh must see her; while the cold dew stood upon her brow as she waited for the curses the old woman would fling upon her head. but there was no curse hurled at her; there was the trampling of feet, and the buzz of many voices, beating hoofs, and grinding wheels coming nearer and nearer, till all appeared to stay close by, and anne's heart seemed to stop its pulse as well. she had come to see her enemy, and would gladly have witnessed the execution, only that she dared not express a wish so to do; and even now, so great was her trepidation, that in place of gazing at the broken, half-dead object in the cart, she shrank down lower and lower till the leaves completely sheltered her head. what were they stopping for? were they going to bring mother goodhugh there? no: there had been no stoppage at all; it was only her fancy. they were going slowly on, and that was master peasegood's voice praying beside the wretched creature so near her end. the buzzing and trampling seemed to grow louder and the grating of the wheels more defined, till it seemed to anne as if they would never pass away; but they grew fainter at last, and after some ten minutes of agony she hurried out of the clump of shrubs, and hastened to her room, too faint and heartsick to think of dressing for the ceremony to come. sir mark and his men would be at the execution she knew, and when he returned it would be a signal to her that her enemy was no more, and she told herself that she would be able to go to the little church with a lighter heart. in imagination she followed the procession to the narrow lane, and up to the front of mother goodhugh's cottage, where the great stake had been placed. she saw the wretched woman bound there, the faggots fired, and seemed to hear her shrieks as she waved her hands and wildly cursed those around. now she strained at the chain, and strove to tear it away as it grew red hot and burned into her thin white flesh, while the flames rose higher and higher, the faggots crackled, and she even fancied that she could hear the shouting of the people. how the smoke curled up, half suffocating her at times, and making her hang her head as if dead! then it was swept away, and the flames rose higher, half hiding the hideously contorted face with a ruddy lurid veil. the flames fluttered and danced, and seemed to anne as if rejoicing at their task of purifying the earth from the presence of a witch. then the smoke rose higher, till it formed a heavy canopy above the stake, while the flames played wildly on its lower surface. again the flames opened to reveal the figure of mother goodhugh. she had ceased to curse now, and with blackened, outstretched hands was appealing to her executioners to set her free. as she did so anne started forward with a wild cry. "it is too horrible--too horrible!" she shrieked. "father, father, save her before it is too late!" and then, overpowered by the imaginary scene she had conjured up, she tottered a step or two, and sank fainting upon the floor. volume , chapter xiii. how the witch-faggots were fired. the scene at the execution was different from that which anne beckley painted in her mind. the cart, with its helpless burden, went slowly on, bumping up and down through the ruts of the narrow lane, and the armed escort patiently bore the pressure of the increasing crowd. for every hamlet for ten or fifteen miles round had sent its occupants to see the double show, and every bank and hillock had its gazing faces; while, as the procession drew near to the stake, with its terrible adjuncts, the cart had some difficulty in getting through. the crowd gave way, however, to the escort, who pushed them back till a circle was made about the stake, in the midst of which stood sir thomas, sir mark, and the armed men. as the cart stopped, master peasegood descended, wiping his bare wet forehead, and stood gazing with pallid face as four of the men pressed forward and roughly lifted the condemned woman to the earth. "be gentle, men, be gentle," he cried, in tones of remonstrance. "it is a woman with whom ye have to deal." "a witch--a foul witch--thou mean'st," said one of the men; and there was a yell of execration from the crowd. "silence!" roared master peasegood, furiously. "are ye brute beasts, or men, women, and children? ah, master cobbe, are you there?" he cried. "can nothing be done to save this poor creature here?" "yes," said the founder, sternly. "i protest against this terrible outrage in our midst, and i call upon you, good people, to help me to stop it." there was a murmur in the crowd that gathered round; but it was the murmur of a hungry beast fearful of being robbed of its prey, and not a hand was raised to help the speaker. "master cobbe," cried sir mark, sternly, "if thou art not mad, hold thy peace, and let the king's commands be done." "water, water," gasped the wretched woman, looking appealingly round. "nay, jezebel, thou shalt have fire," said sir thomas. "it is more purifying than water for such as thou." there was a burst of laughter at the coarse jest, but master peasegood strode into the cottage, took a rough earthenware vessel, and, parting the crowd, filled the mug from the clear cold spring, and held it to the wretched woman's lips. she drank with avidity, and then pressed her thin white lips to the hand that held the vessel, while her eyes gave a grateful look at the face. "bless you," she said, in a hoarse whisper, and her lips kept moving quickly. "quick," cried sir mark; "we are wasting time," and four of the men seized and carried the trembling creature to the stake, where a chain was hanging ready to bind her fast. but as it happened there was the chain but no means of fastening it, and impatiently throwing it aside they bound her with a cart-rope so that she was upright, for her limbs refused their task, and she had to be held as the rope was twisted round. "mas' cobbe, mas' cobbe!" cried mother goodhugh, in a hoarse wail. "nay, go not nigh to her, master cobbe," cried sir thomas. "she will only curse thee again." for answer the founder, who could not tear himself from the spot, strode towards the stake. "i cannot save thee, mother goodhugh," he said, hoarsely. "nay, but thou did'st try," said the poor creature, piteously. "try and forgive me, mas' cobbe, for i be a wicked wretch. i have cursed thee, and the curse has fallen back on me. mace, thy child, be--" "stand aside, master cobbe," cried sir mark, imperiously. "now, knaves, do your work quickly. round with the faggots. pile them higher, man, the brushwood first and the charcoal last. quick, we are wasting time." the founder and master peasegood were thrust aside, and a part of the crowd pushed forward to help to build up from a stack at hand the brushwood and faggots round the wretched woman, who hung forward with drooping head, apparently insensible now from weakness and dread; and at last all was ready. a deep silence fell upon all. the morning sun shone more brightly than ever on the gay autumn woodlands, and the eager crowd that, open-mouthed and staring, awaited the fiery trial. "will she screech?" whispered one matron, who had brought a child in arms to see the show, and who kept handing her little one clusters of the great blackberries that grew so plentifully upon the banks, "because if she do i shouldn't like to stay and hear her cry aloud." "nay," said another, "she'll not squeal much; she'll take something to keep away the pains." "think she will?" "ay, that she will. she be an anointed witch. see how she lives. you never go to her place but there be meal in plenty, and sugar and bacon too. where do it come from, eh?" "nay, i d'now." "she makes it all with spells, and calls up plenty for what she wants. eh, but she be a clever one. i've met her o' nights in the forest, going crouching along; and one night john piper see her with a white sperrit, going along together hand in hand." "eh, did he? what did he say?" "he never said a word; he dare not; but went down flat upon his face, and laid there till she'd gone." "i'd ha' spoke to her if it had been me." "nay, thou wouldn't. it be too dreadful. maybe she'd ha' put a spell upon thee, and cursed thee like, and then thou'd ha' pined away like susan harron. you marn't speak to a witch when she be out o' nights." "but dost think she do conjure up meal, and sugar, and bacon?" "why, could she get 'em if she didn't?" "i don't believe about the white ghost." "eh, but it be true enough," said another. "why, i used to see the old witch go o' nights to dig about the pool-house, and mas' tom croftly said, when i telled him, that it was to get burned bones to make spells with. i see her night after night, when the stones was smoking still." "eh, she be witch enough," said another. "see how she said that the pool-house would be blown up some day, and never be builded again. i think she goes with one o' they owls, as flits about o' nights." "shouldn't wonder," said the woman with i the child; "and, if she do screech, see if it bean't just like they call." "she'll fly out o' the fire like one o' they, see if she don't, and her wings won't even be singed. i wonder whether she'll come back again, and live about here like an owl. if she do i shan't stay i' this neighb'rood to please nobody, so there." "nay, she won't fly away," said one who had not yet spoken. "she'll go down into the earth like, and underneath or into the rocks. frank goodsell told me he saw her go right into a solid piece o' rockstone one night as he crossed the forest--she was there one moment, and the next moment she was gone--and became so frighted that he ran away." "but he ought to ha' searched the place." "so he did next day, for he was 'shamed o' being scared by an old woman." "yes; and what did he see?" "solid stones, and not a hole big enough for a mouse to get into and hide. she just touched the rock with her stick, and it opened and she went in, and it shut up after her. that be a real witch, that be." "it be a terrifying thing to think of," said another. "only think of going into the earth and stopping for days, like a corpse." "nay, but she didn't do that?" "eh, but she did, for frank goodsell went every day to her cottage to see if she was there, pretending he wanted a charm for a pain in his wife's leg; and he had to go ten days before he found her back, and then she was as quiet and smiling as could be, only she looked white and very terrifying to see." "ah, lots of us wondered how she used to live. she'll be back there soon; you see, they'll never get her to burn; and, if they do, she'll harnt the place, and make it bad for everybody. i'm not going to throw a stone at her, poor soul." "poor soul, indeed, why she beant got one. she sold it to old what's-his-name long ago." "eh, but it be very horrid, said the woman with the child; and i half wish i had not come to see her burned to death." "she won't burn." "nay," said another, "it be very terrifying; but she'll be dead 'fore they burn her, if they don't be smart. think of it, though: mother goodhugh going to be burned for a witch." "i don't quite like the old woman to be burnt. how wist she looks!" said the young mother, as she stared at the preparations. "hold thy tongue, do," said another; "the country be better without her." "ay, it was time something was done now the holy father's gone, and parson peasegood won't do naught to exorcise the witch." "you went to him, didn't a?" "ay, i went to him and told him o' mother goodhugh's doings, and how she put a spell on our cow, and evil-wished neighbour lewin's boy." "what did he say?" "laughed at me and puffed smoke in my face. `go to,' says he, `for a fool. thou must get some one to sew some more buttons on thee. mother goodhugh be no witch.'" "did he say that?" "ay, that he did, and when betsy goodsell saw the white sperrit o' sweet mace, in the wood near the high rocks and went and asked parson to lay it, he got in such a rage that betsy had to go." "she should ha' took him an offering and then he would." "she did. she took him a two-pound lump o' the fresh butter from her cow after putting a lump o' salt i' the churn to keep out the witch, and told him what she wanted done, and he ups with the butter and throws it at her, and it stuck on the door-post till mistress hilberry come and took it off; and when she heard what was wanted she said parson ought to do it, and then he called her a silly fool." "what did she want parson to do?" "to do, why, to lay the spirit that kept walking uneasily night after night. ay, and it keeps walking now, as a dozen roehurst folk could tell, only they won't speak about it for fear of doing themselves ill." "what did betsy want him to do?" "why, just go and cut a piece o' turf off her grave about a hand-breadth long and a hand-breadth wide, and lay it on the holy table in the church, and after that be done the spirit rests and doesn't trouble people any more." "he might ha' done that," said the young mother. "i should say it would be wise to get a bit off mother goodhugh's grave by-and-by to keep her from walking." "eh, but you'll never find grass grow upon her grave, lass. it will always be black and scathed like." "nay, they'll never bury her in no grave. she'll be scattered in dust and ashes to the four winds o' heaven." "or the other place," said one of the women, sententiously, and then they all watched the preparations. "hush! look!" cried the young mother in an excited whisper; and a strange murmur ran through the crowd as, at a sign from sir thomas, whose florid face was blanched, and blotched with livid patches, a man ran into the cottage with a rough torch. master peasegood saw that the end had come, and, pressing against the pile of faggots which reached up round the victim's neck, he reached over one hand and touched her cheek. "courage, poor soul!" he cried earnestly. "pray with me for mercy in that other land." the wretched woman seemed to be brought back by the parson's voice, and she stared at him in a curiously dazed manner, her lips moving at last in a whisper that could not be heard. "pray with me, my poor soul--let us pray," cried master peasegood eagerly. "no," she said sharply. "it be too late. i want to do some good before i die." "and it is too late for that," said master peasegood to himself, as the excited murmur of the crowd went on. "no, not to do--to say something, master--and--and it seems all gone. yes; i know," she cried, striving hard to hold up her head, which fell back again heavily upon her chest. "no, i can't remember. yes, mace, come here, child. i'll give thee to thy father now." "poor soul, she wanders," muttered master peasegood. then aloud:--"try to pray with me, mother. try--one word." "yes, i was not a witch, master. it was only--where be jeremiah cobbe? here, let me tell him--quick." "he cannot reach thee now, poor soul. pray with me quickly. oh, father have--" "mace. here--quick, child, come. poor sweet--i had to fight hard to hate thee. my head--my head." master peasegood stretched out a hand to try and sustain the palsied head. "stand back, sir," cried sir mark fiercely; and he laid his hand upon master peasegood's arm, but the stout cleric shook him off. "back yourself, sir," he cried, "an' you would not singe your gaudy plumes. my place is here." sir mark stood back, for at that moment the smoking, flaming torch was thrust into the brushwood, which began to crackle and burn furiously, while a pillar of smoke rose high in the still autumn air, in company with a shriek from the women, some of whom turned away, while others covered their faces with their hands. the torch was thrust into the faggots again and again, four times in all, and at each thrust there was a burst of flame and a cloud of smoke; but master peasegood stirred not, though the flames licked his long black garb. the torch-bearer then rose up, and was in the act of thrusting his light right in the centre of the pile, when a strong hand seized it, wrenched it from his hand, and hurled it, as the man staggered back, full in the face of sir mark. a loud chirping whistle rang out at the same moment, and a score of the rough country fellows in long gaberdines, who had been so busy in helping, now took advantage of their forward position to seize the burning faggots and hurl them furiously at the armed men. almost before the crowd could realise what was taking place, the flaming brushwood was scattered far and wide, and amidst the smoke a tall, bronzed fellow was seen cutting mother goodhugh free. "take her, wat; she's as light as any child," he cried, in a clear voice. "lead on, we'll cover you." "down with them!" shouted sir mark, as he recovered from his astonishment; and, drawing his sword, he made a rush at the disturbers of the judicial tragedy. his first attempt, though, was unfortunate, for he fell over the prostrate body of master peasegood, who had been overset in the struggle; and his men hung back as they saw the rough-looking countrymen whip out the weapons they had concealed beneath their gaberdines, and form a bold front. there was ample room, for the crowd fled shrieking as the bright steel flashed before their eyes. they had gazed in a stupefied, puzzled manner at the disturbance of the faggot pile, and wondered whether it was part of the show or the result of witchcraft; but the bold rescue of the wretched woman they could understand, and they hastened to find safety in flight. sir mark was not long in recovering himself, and, calling to the armed men to follow, he pursued the retiring party, which retreated steadily along the narrow track, which, after it had passed mother goodhugh's, gradually assumed the nature of a forest footpath, and grew more rugged at every step. attempts were made to outflank the party, but the density of the forest rendered that impossible, and those who left the path lost ground, while sir mark found himself kept at bay by the rear-guard of the retreating men. "these are no countrymen," he muttered to himself, as he saw how steadily they kept up the retreat; and he was in the act of cheering on his little force to make a rush where the pathway opened a little, when cries from behind warned him that he was attacked in the rear. he bit his lip angrily as he found how cleverly his men were trapped, for it was evident enough that a portion of those he pursued had turned off to right or left, allowing him and his men to pass, and then closing up to attack, this rear movement being the signal for those in front to turn and make a desperate charge upon him and his london men. it was so sharp a surprise that, at the end of five minutes' cutting and thrusting, sir mark was down, faint and sick from a slash across the cheek, and his men had thrown up their weapons and fled helter-skelter through the forest, leaving the rescuers of mother goodhugh to proceed in peace. "single file, my lads, and away!" cried a well-known voice. "one of you relieve wat kilby, and change and change as you grow fagged. wat, go round by the lower stream. i'll come last and hide the trail." it required little hiding, for the men passed on and disturbed the herbage but slightly, while, after turning off to right and left in various narrow half-hidden tracks, their course could not have been discovered by the keenest eye, especially as one cut was made right across the forest. not a word was spoken, and the roughly-clad, brown-faced men went steadily on. their load was changed from time to time, and after a while a stoppage was made by a stream, where mother goodhugh's face was bathed, and the leader, whom it would have puzzled his best friends to have taken for gilbert carr, knelt beside her, and poured a few drops of spirits between her lips. "think she's burned, captain?" said a rough voice that could be none other than that of wat kilby. "no," was the reply, "but i fear we were too late. she will hardly live to our journey's end. forward, my lads, forward! did anyone see aught of master cobbe?" "i saw him turn away and go behind the cart," said one of the men. "he was not in the fight." "and master peasegood?" "i helped him up, captain, and he staggered to the bank, and sat down on a half-burned faggot." "then they are all right," said the captain, musingly. "wat, we shall have to be off to sea again at once. this affair will make the country too hot to hold us." "why did you do it then?" growled the old man, gruffly, as he limped along, his scarred face shining in the sun. "she was no good, and will only curse us for our pains." "well, wat," said the captain, sadly, "and if she does, we can bear another curse or too." "ay, or a hundred," was the reply. it was a hot walk, through the still woods and over streams and ravine-scored hills. the men, as they grew heated, stripped off their rough country saxon gaberdines, and appeared as light, active seamen of the time, one and all taking turns in carrying mother goodhugh, for whom a rough kind of hurdle had been hastily twisted together, and upon it she was laid. at last the little party was ascending one rugged side of the valley where anne beckley had been left to wait the coming of her lover; and after a weary climb the men all had a rest, seating themselves by the spring that gushed from the rocks where the ferns and mosses hung, and after tempering the clear fluid with spirit they began to smoke. "let her rest for a time," said gil; "there is no danger here. poor soul! a narrow escape from death." as he spoke he covered the wretched creature with a cloak, and placed a doubled gaberdine beneath hothead. he again trickled a few drops of spirits between the cracked white lips; and, after watching its effects, he rose from his knees, leaving wat kilby to fill his little pipe. "not much of a job after a twelvemonths' cruise," muttered wat, as he limped uneasily up and down, "but better than leaving the poor old lass to burn. she's too old and ugly, or she might have done; for i want a wife. bah! no. she wouldn't do. she's not the witch i want. eh! captain, did you call?" "yes," was the reply; and, on rising, the old lieutenant scrambled up to where gil, who looked bronzed and ten years older, stood pointing to the stones at the mouth of the store. "not been touched, eh, skipper?" said the old fellow. "no; not by anything more than a rabbit," said gil, in a grave, quiet voice. "get up the bars when the lads are rested. we shall have to stay here for the night." volume , chapter xiv. how wat kilby fired a train and mother goodhugh spoke. gil sat down beside the old woman and remained thinking of what had taken place during the past year. he had sailed away, reckless and heart-broken, caring little where he went, and, after discharging cargo in one of the spanish ports, he had taken in provisions, and, his men rather welcoming the change, he had made sail for the far east, touching at ceylon; then on to the eastern islands, the lands of spices and strange growths. it was an aimless voyage, but they took in small articles of cargo--silk here, rice there, and dye-woods; and then sailing further went north and east to china and japan, before the vessel's stem was turned once more for home. for a strange sense of longing had come over gil carr. months back he had felt that he could never see roehurst more. then came the change, with its longing void in his heart. night and day it was ever the same. there was the old place before his eyes, and a something tugging at his heartstrings to draw him back. the face of sweet mace seemed gazing appealingly in his as it asked him to come and save her. "save her--from what?" he cried passionately, as he paced up and down the little deck, looking wild-eyed and strange, while his men whispered the one to the other, and he set his teeth firmly and his eyes flashed with anger, for he knew they thought him mad. it was the work of a minute almost. they were sailing into a fresh port in japan, where they could see the strangely-dressed people staring at the new comers from the decks of their junks, when gil suddenly gave orders--he recalled it all--orders to 'bout ship, and they were obeyed without a word. it was not until they had been sailing on for days that wat kilby had come to him with the gruff question, "where to now, skipper?" "_home_!" was the single word spoken in reply; and then, as he stood gazing straight before him at the wide expanse of ocean, there arose from the crew a tremendous cheer. he recalled it all--how he had stood gazing there while order after order was given by wat kilby; how sail after sail had been set and the little vessel careened to the breeze; while ever before him, with a smile upon her face, the figure of mace seemed to stand waving him on. and so it had been during the homeward voyage. every sail the vessel would bear had been kept set, and she seemed to skim over the sea in fair weather, and to battle bravely in foul, to get back to the little river and her ancient moorings beneath the trees. he recalled telling himself that he was mad, for this was but another phase of his humour. but a short time back he was restless to get farther and farther away; now he had conjured up this phantasy to call him back--back to what? a bitter sob would struggle from his heart as he told himself it was to gaze again upon poor mace's grave. always there, sleeping or waking, never shut from his mental vision, that sweet, pale face smiling at him as the ship sped on; and only when forced by want of provisions did they enter port, till once more upon the tide the weather-beaten ship rode safely into the mouth of the little river. then the big boat was lowered and manned, a tow-rope run out, and the men pulled cheerily to keep the little vessel's head straight as she glided on up the fast narrowing stream, till the spars nearly touched the branches on either side, and her old moorings were made. wat kilby played the part of spy, and went ashore, for now that they were back the fancy that had floated before gil's eyes had been seen no more; and moody and despondent he had shrunk from leaving his ship. it was wat kilby then who made his way over the hills and through the forest to the village, and had borne back the news which stirred gil to action; and for mace's sake, as he said, he had determined to save poor old mother goodhugh from so horrible a fate. "she would have urged me to do it," he said to himself; and, making his plans, he had been successful; while there, half dead, the poor creature lay, with the adventurer sitting meditating by her side. "what shall i do now?" said gil to himself in a bitter tone. "set sail again, i suppose, for this sir mark, unless too busy with his wedding, will try to hunt us down. "well, let him come if he will," he added, wearily, and then rising. "now, my lads!" he cried, "to work." his men jumped up; and as he stood by, watching and thinking how in one year the ferns and wild plants set in the crevices had concealed the mouth of the store, iron bars and shovels were plied, the stones loosened and thrown aside, till at last only one large piece remained, and that had so tightly wedged itself in that it resisted all their efforts to dislodge it. "come boys," wat kilby cried, "have you left all your strength in the indies? lay to at it with a will. now, all together--heave ho!" as he spoke he brought his whole strength to bear upon it, but dropped the bar directly after, and stood shaking his head; for he had never recovered from the terrible burns and injuries he had received at the explosion--injuries that had left him for months a helpless invalid during the early part of the voyage, and a cripple for life. "skipper," he said, "i'm not quite so strong as i was, and my bones don't seem to be knit together as they were. it'll take some pounds o' mas' cobbe's best to lift that out." gil frowned, for the old man's speech brought up a host of painful recollections. "shall we get up some powder, skipper?" said wat. "and fire the barrels that are in the store?" said gil sternly. "nay," growled the old fellow; "we could hoist out that stone without reaching any that is in yonder: it is too far away." "get it then," said gil indifferently; and a couple of men were despatched to the ship, returning after some two or three hours with the keg, which they carried in turn. mother goodhugh had not moved, but lay in a kind of stupor with half-closed eyes, gil sitting near and dreaming over the past. a slight rustle near him made him gaze upwards once to see a rabbit scurry away from a hole beneath the great stone, and this he marked as suitable for laying the charge to lift away the mass. at last, the men came toiling up the steep ascent, and wat kilby busied himself in preparing a mine that should do what was required without further damage to the store. it was soon done--a train laid, and a fuse prepared. then mother goodhugh was carefully lifted and laid behind a corner of the rock, where harm could not befall her, and wat kilby stood ready to fire the fuse after seeing all the men were safe. "now, captain," he said, "as soon as you like." "stop a moment," said gil, thoughtfully, though all the time he was experiencing a fierce longing to enter the cave once more. "what for, captain?" said wat gruffly, as he puffed at his pipe. "the sound may be heard, and bring sir mark's fellows down." "nay," cried wat, "the noise will run down the valley and out to sea, my lad. they'll not hear it inland, i lay my life. bah! and if they did, what then? no one could find his way here without a guide." "go on, then," said gil quietly; and, drawing back to the shelter of a little recess, he stood watching the acts of wat kilby, a famous old gunner in his way, as, after puffing at his pipe to make it glow, he just touched the end of the fuse, laid the other end by the train, and limped coolly to the captain's side. from the rocky recess they could see the fuse sparkle and burn rapidly away, and listen to the buzz of the voices of the crew as they talked of the explosion; then a zigzag line of fire seemed to run along amongst the heather and ferns; there was a blinding flash, a thick white smoke, and, lastly, a heavy dull roar that rolled down the ravine, and the fall of masses of the splintered rock. the smoke rose slowly over the face of the cliff, showing the grey and blackened traces where the fire had blasted bush and tree; while, where the large block of sandstone had lain was now a dark opening, the rock having been lifted right away, reft in twain, and thrown some yards down the slope. "there, skipper," growled wat, as he limped along, and the men came up; "there be not a cask split inside i'll wager, and a few showers of rain will hide all the marks." gil nodded. "four of you bring the old woman along," he said. "we'll make her a bed inside. good god!" he was startled at what he saw, for the explosion seemed to have roused mother goodhugh, who came crawling painfully towards them to raise herself upon her knees and point, and struggle to speak. "yes, yes," she cried. "powder, powder--the cursed stuff. cobbe's work; cobbe's work. he slew my dear with it, and now--ha, ha, ha! i have brought it home to him. listen, boy, come here." gil stepped to her side, and she clutched at his wrist, and clung to it, as she turned her ashy, distorted face to him, but only for it to droop back upon her chest so that she gazed at him in a way that was horribly grotesque. "listen; do you hear. she wanted it stopped--that wedding--mistress anne--the jealous fool, and paid me for it all. i did--i stopped it. do you hear? i got the key--the powder-cellar, and laid a train--a long, long, train all the way to the cellar, and hid myself in the garden--there safe away. do you see? just down yonder," she panted, pointing to the part of the ravine from which she had crawled. "i did it--i did it. i waited hours and hours till you came by me--all of you, and began to fight with sir mark's men--and then i struck with my flint and steel--and the fire--ran along the ground--and the powder blew up as it did when i lost my dear, and--and--why is it daylight? why does the sun shine?" she continued, gazing wildly from one to the other. "she's daft," growled wat. "poor soul! they have frightened away her wits." "silence," cried gil. "let her speak." "who says i'm daft?" cried mother goodhugh, gathering strength. "i am not; but i know, i know. ha, ha, ha! i wanted to stop the wedding and make my words come true. it was a judgment, too, on mas' jeremiah cobbe, and i fired his powder-store." "she thinks it is a year ago," muttered gil, gazing at her with horror. "yes, yes. i've had my revenge," muttered the old woman, gazing round wildly, as she struggled to keep her head erect, "and burnt his place. he has paid me now for my dearies, whom he killed. poor souls! poor souls! one so white and cold when they drew him from the water; the other so blackened and so burned. but she was not so burned. poor child! poor child! poor child!" "mother goodhugh," cried gil hoarsely, "did you fire the pool-house?" "yes, yes, yes; the powder," gibbered the old woman, as she dragged her head up, and it once more fell back upon her chest. "i did it well; and now i'll forgive him. i'll curse mas' cobbe no more. i did it just now. you heard it roar. see, it has burned my hands--my hair, but never mind; i've had revenge." "then it was you who fired the powder there--that dreadful night," cried gil furiously, as he clutched the weak old creature by the throat. "yes, i did it," chuckled the old woman; then, throwing up her hands as if in pain--"but sweet mace--poor sweet mace--they thought it killed her, too. i hated her; and yet, no; she was very good and sweet. i saw him bring her out--yes, it was you--and laid her--dead upon the ground. yes, i saw; and she turned to a white spirit--yes, white spirit--and she comes to see me--no: does she?--i can't think--it was just now i got her out, and she has come to me ever since, so white and sad, and she looks at me always with her great soft eyes. poor child! poor girl! i've wept about her sore, for she was as good and gentle as mistress anne was bad." the spirit was in gil carr to strangle the old woman as she made her hideous confession, but her words of pity for sweet mace disarmed him, and he let her sink to the earth, where she crouched, gazing feebly from one to the other, and fighting hard to sustain her tottering head. "yes, yes, yes," she moaned piteously; "she comes looking so white and sad to ask me why i killed her, and it makes my heart so sore. but i shall bring her to her senses again some day, perhaps--some day. hush, hush! not a word. if you speak she goes again. there--there--look, look!" cried the old woman in a hoarse whisper, as, throwing one arm round gil's leg, she leaned her head against it, steadied herself, and pointed with her skinny fingers. "yes, there she be. poor child! poor child! mace, child, i did not mean to harm thee. wilt forgive me, dear? see! see!" as she pointed they glanced in the direction indicated by the old woman's finger, and gil uttered a cry, for in the dark, powder-riven entry to the store, and not a dozen yards away, stood a weird figure with long, flowing hair. the arms and shoulders were bare, and the white hands covered the face, giving it as it stood in the obscurity of the cave a spiritual look that made even the least superstitious of the party--gil himself--shudder, feeling that he was in the presence of a being of another world. volume , chapter xv. how culverin carr solved a problem. sweet mace stood motionless in the opening, a soft blue reek floating gently out from the store, as the damp air of the place was driven forth by a downward current through a fissure far in its depths; and this, as it surrounded the rescued prisoner, added to the unreality of the scene. for the figure was seen through a medium that rendered it unsubstantial in aspect, added to which the deadly whiteness of the brow and hands made it look unnatural to a degree. for some time no one spoke. the men grouped together, stared at the strange apparition in the cavern mouth, and wat kilby gazed from it to his leader and back, while the soft wind wafted the blue haze from the opening away from the motionless figure, and then enveloped it again, as if it were part and parcel of the subterranean abode, and it sought to draw its occupant back to its shades. mother goodhugh was the first to break the silence, as, crawling towards the place on hands and knees, she crouched at last at mace's feet, and lay there, panting. "she has come from the dead to fetch me," moaned the old woman, whose reason seemed to wander. "i know her. see how white, and cold, and strange she is. my child, my child, i killed thee, i killed thee; and now--now--have pity on me! have pity! i be not a witch." she grovelled lower and lower, clasping mace's bare, white feet, and laid her cheek against them, while, still keeping one hand across her eyes, the poor girl bent down slowly, and touched the crouching wretch. gil had remained motionless till now; but as he saw the figure move, his faith in its being supernatural was shaken, and with a loud cry he ran forward with outstretched hands. "mace," he cried, hoarsely, "speak to me, oh, speak!" he had not touched her, for in his surprise it seemed possible, after mother goodhugh's words, that the woman he loved had come back from the dead, but still his common sense revolted, while his eyes asserted that it was true. as he spoke mace rose upright again, but without removing her hand from her eyes, and gil saw that her long hair was grey as that of some venerable dame; that the slight garment she wore was ragged, and that her fingers were torn and bleeding fast. he could not tell what it meant; how she came to be there; but the idea of the supernatural was cleared away, and, making an effort over his slavish dread, he caught the disengaged hand in his. it was like ice, but his touch broke the spell, for, with a piteous cry, mace tottered and would have fallen had not gil caught her in his arms. she was deathly cold, and as he bore her to a spot where the soft turf was dotted with purple heather he saw that her eyelids were tightly closed, and her brow knit as if with pain; and, judging that the glow of sunshine caused her to suffer, he laid a kerchief across her eyes before clasping her icy hands and trickling a few drops of water between her lips. a host of confusing thoughts rushed through his brain, the only substantial one he could grasp being that mace must have gone to the cavern to seek him, and then have been shut in. but this idea was driven away on the instant by an older recollection, one which made him groan in the anguish of his heart. "my love is dead," he panted. "did not those hands lay her in her grave? god in heaven have mercy on me! am i going mad?" "skipper," whispered a voice at his side, and looking up he saw old wat standing with dilated eyes, pointing down at the insensible figure. "skipper," the old fellow whispered hoarsely, "we bean't cowards, but the old woman be a witch after all. come away, come away!" in his strange confusion of mind, gil was for the moment ready to accept this theory, and he gazed down at the weird figure beside him, and then at mother goodhugh, where she lay. was there really truth then in witchcraft, and had this old woman the power to recall the dead? he looked at the deathly white face, the white hair, then at the cave mouth, and the surroundings of the bright sunlit ravine, and his group of wonder-stricken men, and then his every-day common sense prevailed. it was no myth, no trick of witchcraft, but a living, breathing form. it was mace, the dead restored, his lost love, she whom he had mourned. how it was he did not know, neither could he stop to consider while she lay helpless by his side. mace lived again, and the mystery must rest. "wat," he cried, as like a flash of lightning the thought entered his brain. "the dead--the grave--it was janet who was killed." the old man shook his head, but gil paid no heed, for a low sigh had just escaped from mace's lips, and, bending down, he raised her head upon his arm, swept aside her long grey hair, and kissed her stony brow. it was enough for him that she lived--that she whom he had mourned was restored to him, and raising the kerchief slightly he gazed in silent wonderment at the fast-closed eyes. then he awoke to the fact that it was time for action, and not for wonder, and rousing himself he began to give orders. "quick, my lads," he cried; "make up a couch of the sailcloth in yonder, and carry in yon poor old creature. wat, have a fire lit, then cut some of the ling, and make another couch." their leader's words broke the spell that seemed to have charmed the men, who hurriedly obeyed, while gil strove hard to restore the icy frame he held to consciousness, trembling lest the shock had been too severe, and fighting hard to keep his brain from dwelling upon the mystery. "dead!" whispered a voice at his ear, and a pang shot through his breast as he gazed in horror at the face resting against his heart. "no!" he cried hoarsely. "dog! you lie." "no, no, skipper: the old witch--mother goodhugh. she be gone." "art sure?" cried gil, with a sigh of relief. "sartain, skipper. she was almost gone before." "heaven forgive her!" said gil, softly. "wat, lay her decently in the furthest part of the store till we can put her to rest. see that a couch is ready. poor sweet! she cannot bear the light." as he spoke, handling her as tenderly as if she had been an infant, gil rose up and bore the insensible girl into the store, where the state of the objects around told him plainly that she must have been a prisoner for months. in a few minutes' time he had her lying upon a bed of soft heather, softened with a sail and a couple of heavy cloaks for coverlids, as he sought to infuse warmth, and with it life. as evening came on, gil knelt beside the motionless figure upon the rough couch, in an agony of spirit, for, in spite of all his efforts, mace seemed to be slipping away from him once again. he had fancied that the marble coldness that had struck a chill to his heart was not so marked, but he could not be sure; and at last, after trickling spirits between the white lips, and trying all he could to promote warmth, he knelt there waiting despairingly for the result. the sun had descended beyond the hills, turning the far west into one blaze of mellow golden glory; there was a faint twittering from the linnets and finches that hung about the bushes on the steep slopes and crags; and on one rugged old hawthorn, whose roots were thrust amongst the rifts and crags of the sandstone, a solitary thrush was singing his evening hymn. as gil watched the face of her who lay there as rigid almost as if in death, it seemed to him that the soft sweet face that looked so smooth and young, and yet so old, was not so ashy white as a short time before; but directly after he realised the fact that the warm sunset flush was reflected into the store, and with a groan of despair he bent down and kissed the cold lips, and tried to breathe into the icy frame the vigour that throbbed and bounded in every nerve and vein of his own. but no: there was no movement, and at last, when wat kilby came softly up to say that one of the look-out men had encountered a roehurst founder, and learned from him that sir mark and mistress anne were married and gone away, and that there was no pursuit, gil bade him sternly begone, for he muttered: "the old wound is torn asunder, and i must seek for consolation with the dead." that she might live was gil's prayer; that, if a victim were needed to offer up to death, his own poor worthless life might be taken. for it was agony indeed. he had begun to carry his load of misery with patient resignation, and had been content to revisit the spots where so many happy hours had been spent; but to come back to this was more than he could bear. the warm glow of the setting sun died out, to leave all ashy grey, and in mute despair gil gazed down upon the white, rigid face before him. how cold she was, and how changed! her silver hair, as it lay dishevelled around, formed a soft halo about the placid face, for the contraction of the brow had passed away, and, with the fading of the light, the drawn and pained expression of the eyelids had given place to a peaceful look that inspired him with awe. while though at times he fancied that she breathed, it was so faintly that he could not be sure, the icy coldness seemed to increase. as the night drew on gil knew it was impossible to get help, and in his despair he felt that he could only wait and hope. his men, saving those who watched, contrived themselves a rough tent under the shelter of the over-hanging rock, and at last, as the fire they had made died out, gil knelt there alone with her who had been his boyhood's love, his manhood's deepest passion, and, feeling that she was gliding from him once again, he flung himself by her side, clasped the icy form to his breast, and sought by his despairing kisses to win from it some token of life. it was in vain, and the warmth he sought to impart fled from his own breast to receive back the icy chill from hers. the night stole on, and the soft whispers from the forest around were heard from time to time, or a withered leaf fell with a noise that was striking in the stillness around. sometimes an owl swept past the cavern's mouth on ghostly wing, making its presence known by its strange cry. the stars glittered and blinked and shed their soft light, while from time to time a faint breeze from the sea swept through the forest and up the glade, where it sighed and seemed to sob as it appeared to enter the cavern, and then fled shivering away. now and again some muttered word or uneasy motion on the part of one of the men could be heard, and at stated times the gaunt form of wat kilby was seen to go limping past, as he changed his sentries. then the hours slipped by, and gil still lay there clasping the senseless form to his breast--the form of the dead he told himself again and again, till utterly worn out with grief and despair a stupor more than a sleep fell upon him, and the present passed away. it was broad daylight, and a faint flush of the coming sunshine was reflected from the side of the ravine visible from where gil lay, while for a few moments he could not collect his thoughts. there was a strange buoyant feeling in his breast to which it had long been a stranger, and he lay wondering what it meant, till, like a flood, the recollection of the past night came upon him, and with a groan he turned his eyes to gaze upon the sweet, dead face of her he loved; but only to start up on his elbow, trembling with dread lest he should have been deceived. for it was no icy marble frame that he had clasped to his breast. the warm life-blood of his heart had seemed to communicate its vitality to her who lay insensible there, and sent the current of life, that month by month had grown more sluggish in its course, bounding through artery and vein once more; and, as he bent lower and lower, it was to feel mace's soft, warm breath upon his cheeks. he caught her hand in his and placed it on his breast. it was icy cold, but it was not deathly; and, when in a passion of thankfulness and joy he rained his kisses on brow and lips, the clammy, rigid feeling had quite passed away. he knew that she lived; but there was no reply to his caresses. asleep or in a strange stupor, he could not tell which; but as he released her she lay back motionless, save that her breast heaved softly, and her breathing was regular and slow. he spoke to her with his lips to her ear, but there was no reply; he raised her in his arms and gazed in her pale face, but still there was no response; and, trembling lest she should again slip from him, he softly laid her head upon the rough pillow and tried to think of some plan to fan the tiny spark of life into a warmer glow. rousing his followers, and regardless now of discovery, so that he could gain help, gil despatched wat kilby to roehurst, and others to the ship and the nearest town, the result being, that the same evening the insensible girl was carefully borne to croftly's cottage, near her ruined home. volume , chapter xvi. how sweet mace awakened on her wedding-day. a sensation of intense heat. then a feeling as if her head were on fire, followed by a terrible pain. how long this lasted mace never knew, but she lay there confused and troubled. one feeling, however, was dominant. it was very nearly the time when gil would be beneath the window, and she must take off that wedding-dress, and send her maid away. what a mockery it was, that dress, and how hot and clammy it seemed. she shuddered in one of her more lucid moments, as it struck her that it was like a winding-sheet, and she recalled that she had often wished herself dead. how dark it was, and how steaming and hot. drip, drip, drip, drip. the noise of dripping water, every drip seemed as if it struck upon her brain, and caused her suffering. why, it rained! well, what matter? what was rain to gil, who, in his frail ship, dared the greatest storms that blew? he would come, let the weather be what it might. then she seemed to be overcome with sleep, to awake once more with the pain less and her head clearer. drip, drip, drip. the rain still falling, and she felt, in a helpless way, that she must have been to sleep again, and began to wonder how long gil would be. it was still intensely dark, and very close and stifling, the heat seemed to be more than she could bear. how long would gil be? poor fellow, how cruelly he must have felt it to hear that she was to wed another, and--yes. why, had not janet taken off the wedding-dress before she lay down to sleep. how bad her head had been. she never remembered to have suffered such pains before; and then that terrible thirst! how horribly she had dreamed, too. she recollected now; a horrible dream. first, gil had clasped her in his arms; then it was not gil, but sir mark; and even now she shuddered at the thoughts of the grim shade which had come next. but it was a dream consequent upon the excitement she had gone through; and now she had awakened, and it must be time for gil to be beneath her window. she did not attempt to rise, for the strange feeling of stupor still held her, and she lay quite still, till the thought that she might have slept too long came and sent a thrill through her brain, and she started up to listen, becoming conscious of a strange, suffocating odour as of dank, hot mist. how black it was! she could not see the window, and, with the confused sensation of one waking in the darkness, she sat gazing about and listening. still that ceaseless drip, drip, drip, of water, but the gurgle of the water-pipe that went down by the side of the gable was not there, and it suddenly struck her that she could not hear the familiar rushing noise of the race, where the water hurried towards the wheel. she stretched out her hand to rise from the bed, and it touched something rough and hard, making her withdraw it, but only to stretch it forth again and find that she was touching wood and roughened stone. "where am i?" she said, softly; and as she spoke she made out tiny sparks of light. "gil's signals!" she cried. "but why does he show them now?" she tried to get off the bed, but no bed was there; and, after feeling about for a few minutes, she clasped her hands to her head. "what does this terrible silence mean?" she faltered. "where am i? where is gil?" there was the slow drip of the water for answer--nothing more; and she tried to recall the past. "i have been to sleep," she said, "heavily asleep: and yet i don't know." she tried to collect her thoughts, but seemed to grow more confused. "i must have been very ill," she said, at last. "and it began directly i had drunk of that water. but how long is it ago? and why is it so dark? where am i?" weak and prostrated by the terrible shock she had suffered, a curious sensation of stupor overcame her once more, and she crouched down to save herself from falling, as she dropped into a feverish sleep. when she awoke again her head was clearer, but she was terribly weak. it was dark as ever, but the suffocating feeling had gone, and she could no longer see the signal lights, but the peculiar drip, drip, of water was there. "i must have slept again long past the time when gil would come," she said, with a wild feeling of yearning for him; and now again she tried to make out where she was. "i must be mad!" she exclaimed in a despairing tone, and she started, for her voice seemed followed by a hollow whispering murmur, that sent a shudder through her frame. crouching down once more, she waited with eyes and ears on the strain, but still there was nothing to be seen, no sound to be heard but that ceaseless drip, drip of water that fell with a faint musical plash somewhere hard by. but her senses were gradually growing clearer, her perceptions more vivid, and she tried to make out what was the meaning of a peculiar heavy odour. "it is powder!" she exclaimed, with a shudder. "can there have been a mishap while i slept?" she paused, trying to think, and her senses grew clearer still. "yes, it is powder; there must have been an explosion;" and she recalled the strange, dank, pungent odour that she had often breathed when some accident had occurred. "but when? how could the powder have fired?" she tried hard to think it out: but her mind was still too confused, and in a helpless manner she groped her way in the direction of the dropping water, till she felt a splash upon her head, and, stooping down, plunged her hands into what seemed to be a deep, cold pool. with the avidity of one perishing from thirst, she scooped up the water and drank again and again, each draft she took seeming to infuse new life within her veins; and, at last satisfied, she tried to master the horrible feeling of dread that was overpowering her, and to make out her position. "let me go back," she said, forcing herself to the point. "i will not be alarmed at what is perhaps some trifling accident. now, then--i went to my bedroom to be ready when gil should come. i was feverish and thirsty, and i drank from the jug upon my table. then i grew worse, and janet came to try on my dress. i must have lain down and had some frightful dream. "yes, i remember it now: and i tried on the dress in a half-stupefied way. nay, it must have been janet as i lay half asleep, half mad-- "oh, god!" she moaned, "am i half mad now?" there was a hollow, echoing whisper, and she cowered there trembling for a time, but, recovering, she forced herself to go on. "i was lying there ill and quite asleep, and--yes--no--yes--i have some recollection of cries--a terrible shock--and--it must be--it must be." she pressed her hands to her head, and rocked herself to and fro, for her reason was on the verge of being shattered, so horrible were her thoughts. by degrees, though, she grew calmer, and she once more tried to unravel the mystery of the thick darkness around, and to carry this out she again drank from the pool. then her hands touched stones and timber; and at last, after a long struggle, she fully realised the facts. there could be no doubt of it, for she recognised again the peculiar odour of the powder. this had come while she slept, then, overwhelming her so suddenly that she had not awakened from the stupor in which she was plunged. the powder had exploded, and she must have fallen with the ruins down into the vault where her father had a store. she made a brave struggle against the feelings that seemed to bear down with overwhelming violence, ready to snatch her reason away, but she was only weak, and at last, with a burst of hysterical sobbing, she sank back completely overcome. it seemed as if the drugged sleep into which she had been plunged by mother goodhugh's distilments had returned, for her reason became overclouded, and then all was blank. it was like awakening once more in the utter darkness that she became conscious of the drip, drip, of the water from the roof, as it fell into the pool that lay somewhere near her feet. again she had to fight her way to a knowledge of her position; and now, with her head far clearer, she became fully conscious that this was no dream. the idea of death or madness grew weaker, while that which pointed to some terrible explosion and the destruction of the place gained better hold. the odour of the exploded gunpowder grew so faint as to be scarcely perceptible, but it was still there, and had she wanted further evidence she found it upon touching some of the stones, for her hands were damp and clammy with the reek that would have been black, for she was too well versed in her father's trade not to be certain upon such a point. there was relief even in this, for in spite of the horrors of her position, this common-sense knowledge relieved her mind of the morbid terrors that had been ready to sweep away her reason, and set her thinking of escape. the knowledge that she was literally buried alive was almost more than she could bear at times; but, us her brain grew clearer, hope began to dawn life a soft, pale ray amidst the real and mental blackness all around. there was no doubt now: the pool-house had been destroyed by a terrible explosion, either of the powder in the cellar stores or by some calamity outside; and, shivering with horror, she gave way for the moment to the superstitious belief that it was a judgment upon her for not having faith that the wedding would be put off. she smiled, though, directly after, at the absurdity of the idea, and began to wonder how those she loved had fared. gil? had he been near the place? and her father, what of him--was he safe? janet, too, poor girl! she hoped that no ill had overtaken her. then she shuddered, for the idea had come upon her that sir mark might have suffered, too, and be even now alive or dead within a few yards of where she lay. in spite of a great effort she could not keep from shrieking aloud at this idea. she crouched listening, almost expecting to hear step or word, and, in place of being ready to welcome them, she was prepared to turn and flee from what, instead of seeming like a companionship, bore the aspect to her of another frightful calamity. then, with her mind upon gil, and the feeling strong that those above must be making a search for her, she felt that she ought to make some efforts to let them know her whereabouts. she raised her voice, and cried loudly--"gil--father--help--i am here!" but there was no reply to her wild cry, no sound of iron bar or pick removing some heap of stones, and in spite of her efforts she could do no more than sob as if her heart would break. and now, as if to give her mental relief from the horrors that she had passed through, came long periods of sleep and dreams of happy times-- bright, sunny skies, the waving trees, and flowery meads. gil was with her, and they were fishing once more upon the lake. it seemed to be spring-time, the time of love and hope and joy; and in fancy she saw again the waving woods, the silvery bosom of the lake dotted with broad green leaves, waving sedges, and the silver and golden chalices of the lilies starting up from the water as if held out by some pixie's hand. there, too, were the distant hills, and the empurpled heathery waste, where the golden gorse grew so densely. the meadow with its waving grass ready for the scythe. the old garden lush with flowers and advancing fruit. its round-topped beehives, the pleasant sheltered seats and grassy walks; and then the bright scene seemed, dream-like, to fade away in the rich soft glow of evening, and she was once more at her window gazing, but blushing and happy with expectancy, for there, out on the far green bank, shone the signal lights of four glowworms, and directly after there was a noise, and a voice so deep and clear came up, making her heart beat as it uttered her name. yes, there it was; he called her; and with her hands pressed to her heaving bosom she answered him back-- "yes, yes, gil--love--i am here." she started up with straining eyes, so real did it seem, and then sank back sobbing bitterly, for it was but a dream. and so was this noise of falling stones and crackling wood, with the rush as of a mass of broken fragments that had crumbled down beside her--all a dream, from which after three weary days of pain she did not care to make the effort to rouse herself. for the pool-house had been destroyed, and she must be dead, even though mother goodhugh's voice had come to her, perhaps to curse. for that was mother goodhugh calling to her in this dream, bidding her rise and come forth, and live again, and then all was blank. blank to sweet mace, but no dream, for her cries had been heard by the old woman, as she haunted the ruins by night, picking out little objects of value, and toiling from the first to reach poor forgotten janet, an object that kept her busy, for she could not rest till that was done. the sixth night had come before she had been able to drag away a sufficiency of the _debris_ to reach the imprisoned girl. she had not dared to summon help from the dread she suffered lest sir mark's men should seize her once again; and when at last she succeeded in dragging the sufferer from her living tomb, and had laid her upon the ground hard by, there was none to see her in the grey of the early morning staggering with her burden to her lonely cottage in the lane. volume , chapter xvii. how mother goodhugh missed her revenge. "dead, and they've buried her!" cried the old woman, as she stood beside the bed, whereon she had lain mace. "dead, and they've buried her; and jeremiah cobbe can feel now what it be to lose one that he loves!" "let him feel it," she snarled, "let him feel it, and gnaw his heart for a time. i'll tell him naught." then she glanced uneasily at the door, and drew the curtain that screened her bed. "no one can see her now," she muttered. "i'll keep her as long as i can. she be weak and half-childish with what she has gone through. let her rest; but i'm glad she be not killed." a feeling of satisfaction glowed for a time in the old woman's heart, but it was mingled with annoyance that, after all, jeremiah cobbe would know rest, while she could never recall her dead. as the days glided by, to her surprise mother goodhugh found that mace did not recover. she partook of food mechanically when it was offered to her, but she did not speak, only looked vacantly about her, and seemed to be without even the power to think. "why should i lose my revenge?" thought the old woman. "why should i even let him think that she lives? it will be another to keep until he finds her out, and that may be months first, if she stops as she be now. but i can keep her easily," she said with a chuckle, "since corn grows on the moonbeams, and meal can be had for all my wants from out the earth." a month had gone by, and mace showed no sign of being roused from her dull, apathetic state. she made no attempt to move, but sat where she was placed, gazing straight before her, and never a word passed her lips. whether the old woman was by her or she was away on some errand, it was all the same, mace stayed where she was left, unseen by a soul, for since the explosion at the pool-house no one had cared to go near mother goodhugh, and but for her foresight she might have starved. but the old woman had a means of keeping body and soul together that people little dreamed of, for one day, while herb-gathering in the woodlands, far away behind the founder's house, she had kicked against a fragment of iron, which proved to be a portion of a shell; and, passing further in search of more, she came upon a hole in the sandstone rock beside the scarped mass that rose behind the pool-house. such a place had its interest for her; for, by the fragments of iron about and the blackened appearance of the rock, she could tell that it was the work of one of jeremiah cobbe's pieces of ordnance. parting the ferns and tangled growth with her stick, and muttering a curse or two upon him and his belongings, the old woman found that there was an opening large enough to pass through; and, investigating further, she could see that the great shell had broken through what was but a thin crust of rock, and that within there was a narrow passage-like opening, worn apparently by the waters of some ancient stream. another day she examined further, for the place interested her, and she penetrated some distance and returned. another time she came, and brought a lanthorn to search further, for anything bordering on mystery was valuable to her, ending, after winding in and out for some distance, by coming to the conclusion that this was the place of which abel churr had spoken--that she had long sought in vain, and that she knew gil carr's secret, having hit upon another entrance to his store. it was a long and tedious way in, but that mattered little to her; while, ignorant of the fact that he had been the means of breaking a way into his own treasure-house, gil carr duly, as he believed, sealed it up and set sail. here one night, when the fear was upon her that mace might be discovered at her cottage, and the malignant fit was stronger than usual, mother goodhugh brought the helpless girl. a touch of the hand was sufficient to lead her where her gaoler willed, and, docile as a child, mace accompanied her to what was hereafter to be her prison, whose dark shadows seemed to accord with her helpless state; and here she would sit and seem to doze away her life. it was a safe place, only visited by the old woman at night, and she found it easy to feed her prisoner from the ship-stores; but now and then a fit of remorse would seize upon her, and she would, on leaving the place, resolve to restore the poor girl to her home. a dozen times over she threw herself in jeremiah cobbe's way to tell him all, but the sight of the founder seemed to raise up gall and bitterness in her heart, and she went away chuckling and laughing. "let him suffer a little longer--a little longer," was her cry. "some day the girl will recover her senses, then i'll speak." but the time flew by, and sense was as it were dead in sweet mace's brain; while, having gone so far, mother goodhugh dreaded at last to bring her back. there were strange rumours afloat about her, and her position was not so safe as it had been of yore. so in utter fear she would fasten up her cottage and take refuge in gil's store for days together, dreading lest ill should befall her; but at the end of a week passed in this gloomy abode she would be ready to revile herself for her cowardice, and go back. at these times she was more than ever prepared to own that she could not restore mace to her father. "let him suffer, as i have done," she would cry again. "she can stay till gil carr comes back. let him take the poor stricken idiot if he will. i've had revenge, and a sweet one after all." in this spirit mother goodhugh would return to her cottage, and the tale of her evil doings grew longer, for there were those who said that she disappeared for days together--none knew where; and that she had always meal in plenty, while the miller swore none ever came from him, and that she was a witch indeed. volume , chapter xviii. how croftly cut the hay in the two-year stack. there was a great deal of talk about punishing those who had rescued mother goodhugh from the flames; but sir mark was away with his wife, and soon after his marriage, being somewhat of a favourite of the british solomon, he was appointed to a diplomatic post at one of the continental courts, and when sir thomas beckley took his first steps to vindicate the insult offered to the law he received so broad a hint that he might suffer bodily for his interference, that he quietly shut himself up in his old house, surrounded by the carp-haunted moat, and took walks upon its bank to give the gaping, staring fish a model that they might study for their benefit at will. in fact, the rescue of mother goodhugh was half forgotten in the news that was spread by the superstitious that by her subsequent death a spell had been broken, and sweet mace had been set free and had returned to life. for by degrees she was restored, but it was only by long and patient nursing. in the latter part of her imprisonment her faculties had become dulled, and the shock had produced a semi-torpid state that had its effect upon her mental powers, which were slow to recover their tone. gil was ever by her side, though she did not know him or her father; but, after a month's prostration, during which she had hardly left her couch, she began to fight her way very slowly back to strength. tender nursing prevailed, and, could her health, drunk in flagons of ale, have given it back sooner, master peasegood would have insured her the most robust of constitutions months before she was seated in the old garden, an object of curiosity to all who saw her, with the face of twenty and the silvery hair of three-score and ten. but the ashy pallor gave way to the returning hue of health, and the rigid, fixed features became softened and rounded. it was sweet mace's old face again by the next summer, all but a couple of deeply-marked lines in her forehead--lines of care and thought which still remained. the founder sighed even in his joy at her return, for still there was something wanting. "nay, gil," he said, sadly, "thou hast brought me back the body of my darling, but thou hast not brought the spirit. she smiles sadly and gazes at me when i speak, and that is all." "yes, that is all," groaned gil; "she knows me no longer." "poor lad, poor lad!" muttered master peasegood, who was present; and he drowned his sigh in a flagon of ale. "art going to rebuild the old house, now?" said the parson. "ay," said the founder, "and at once. i have my hopes that the sight of the old place, made as near like as can be, even to the trees, may do the poor child good, for she seems at her best when i take her round the garden." gil looked up curiously, for a thought had struck him; but he said nothing; and, on the founder proposing that they should go and see the men digging the foundations out, he walked with them to the old place. as they walked down to the garden, gil's mind ran a good deal upon the thought that had occurred to him, but he said nothing, and waited patiently for his opportunity. the visit was prolonged till towards evening, when, before returning, the founder walked down the narrow lane by the side of the pool towards the meadow where sir mark had made his first proposal to mace. the place was full of memories for gil, and he sighed as he thought of the bright sweet face he had encountered, and recalled his jealous feelings towards the man who had forced himself into the position of his rival. but his attention was taken up directly after by the founder, who, with a return of his old business briskness, thrust open the meadow gate, and pointed to the new, sweetly-scented stack of hay just formed. "what think you of that, master peasegood?" he said. "truly i am no judge of grass or hay, friend cobbe, unless it be metaphorically, and for simile's sake--grown up at noon, cut down at night,"--was the reply. "ask our gossip, tom croftly here." "ay, tom croftly is a good judge of grass and stock too, though he is only a founder." "i see not why a man may not be a judge of hay as well as iron," said master peasegood, as croftly drove a horse and rough tumbril through the gate, and along the track to where the old stack of hay stood, with a good quarter of it cut away, waiting the knife. "neither do i," said the founder, smiling as he thought of his own business. "you hear this, friend gil carr," said master peasegood; "why not give up thy roving ways, and settle down to help friend cobbe. there, lad, the good time is coming: the past forgotten; sweet little mace will be herself again; and master cobbe will be ready to take thee by the hand as son. faith, and how deftly tom croftly handles that great blade, and cuts the hay in squares. were i a fighting man, methinks that would be a good weapon to have in battle. heyday! what ails the man? does he want to break his neck?" for tom croftly suddenly threw up his hands, leaped some eight feet down into the meadow, and came up panting and with his forehead bedewed with sweat. his eyes were staring, and his countenance ghastly, while for a few moments he could not speak. "hast seen a ghost, tom croftly?" cried master peasegood with a hearty laugh. "close upon it, master," gasped croftly. "hey, master, but it be terrifying." "what is terrifying?" cried the founder. "that, that," panted the man. "lord forgive me; i didn't know what i did." "speak out, man, speak out," cried the founder, as the poor fellow began to tremble; and he clutched him by the arm, fearing that some new trouble had befallen his house. "i can't, yet, master, it be too terrifying," gasped croftly. "the lord forgive me for doing such a deed!" "less of that last, tom croftly, and more explanation," said master peasegood, sternly. "yes, mas' peasegood, i'll tell thee," gasped the poor fellow. "i sharpened up as usual--the big knife, you know--and went to cut the 'lowance for the horse and pony, when i couldn't have been looking; and he must have got up there to sleep." "he? who? what?" cried the founder. "it's not i as can say, master," stammered the poor fellow; "the knife went down hard, but i thrust the more, and then, taking up the truss of hay, his head rolled down." "what?" roared the founder. "heaven forgive me, master," cried croftly, sinking on his knees, "i've cut a man's head clean from his body." the founder and master peasegood stared at him aghast, as if believing he was mad, but the poor fellow was sane enough; and, on following him to the little stack, there was the horrible truth; but croftly was relieved on finding his knife had decapitated the dead, and not some sleeping man. "was he dead, then?" he faltered, in answer to a few words spoken by master peasegood. "dead, man! ay, months ago. heaven have mercy on us, it's a horrible thing." "you're right," said the founder, turning away with a shudder; "the poor wretch must have lain down when we were making the stack, and more hay have been thrown upon him. he must have been smothered." "some gipsy, perhaps," said master peasegood, whose broad face looked white. "here be a bottle by him," said tom croftly, lifting one from beside the body, "and here be a strap. why, master, master!" he cried, rising up with a scrap of clothing in his hand. "what is it, tom?" said the founder, shuddering. "come away, man, come away." "ay, i'll come away, mas' cobbe, but i've found out who it be." "you have?" cried master peasegood, excitedly, as the man opened and smelt the bottle. "ay, i have," said croftly. "that be strong waters in this bottle; and him as lay down," he continued, sagaciously, "i say, him as lay down upon that half-built stack was drunk, and the steam of the moist hay stifled him." "but who think you it was?" cried the founder. "him as was missed," cried croftly, triumphantly. "thank god!" cried master peasegood; "then gil was as innocent as the day." "innocent--as the day?" cried the founder, in a puzzled voice, as he looked from one to the other. "poor creature, how do you know? but i don't understand. some one who was missed? good god!" he cried, as a light flashed upon him, and he took a step or two up the short ladder by the stack, and then leaped down. "'tis abel churr!" volume , chapter xix. how gil carr lit the lamps of love. another year slipped by and gil's ship had made a couple more voyages with wat kilby at the helm, for culverin carr had stayed at home, the helper and adviser of jeremiah cobbe. the pool-house had risen again from its ashes, stone for stone, beam for beam, in spite of the bitter curse fulminated against those who should restore it. the aspect of age could not be given to the place, but it was a labour of love on the founder's part to consult with gil how they should get that clump of roses, that high cluster of clematis, and those bright flowers to grow beneath the window as of old. wealthy as he was, the founder could replace many things destroyed by the calamity that befel his house, and with so zealous a treatment it was wonderful how nearly they brought the new house in furniture and surroundings to resemble the old. at last they paused, feeling that there was nothing more to do, and the two strong men sat at the table in the big parlour, gazing the one into the other's face, as if to ask for hope and friendly assurance of success. for on the next day mace was to be brought to the new house, and they both felt that, if her mind were to be restored, they must see some symptoms in the change. the founder begged gil to help him bring his child home once more, but he bluntly refused. "nay," he said; "i will not come. take her thyself. thou art her father, and god speed thee in the task." it was a glorious summer day at the end of july, when the flowers were blooming, and the whole air was redolent with nature's sweetest scents. the pool was pure as crystal, and amidst the broad green leaves the silver chalices of the water-lilies swam upon the surface, where the herons waded, and the gorgeous kingfisher darted across the glassy mirror. in the old garden the flowers drooped their heads in the heat which quivered over the grassy meads, while the forest-trees were silent in the glowing sunshine. no leaf moved, no zephyr played in the dark shades, but lizard and glistening beetle darted here and there, where the sandstone peered out amidst the heaths and ferns. mace suffered herself to be led by her father from the cottage they had made their home; but she heeded not the faces at the window and door, nor heard the pitying words spoken concerning her by the workpeople who had eaten her father's bread for years. they watched her as the grey-headed founder led her across the bridge, and opened the garden gate; but she did not look. he spoke to her and pointed out her favourite trees, and then groaned in the anguish of his heart, for she made no reply. her soft, sweet eyes might have been blind; her tongue have never spoken; and her soft, pinky, shell-like ears have never heard a sound, for all the sign she gave; and the founder's heart sank low as he felt that his task of love had been labour in vain. and yet he would not despair; but, leading her in, he gently placed her in the recess by the open window with her work spread around as of old, and her roses nodding and flinging their odours into the pleasant room. no word, no look, no sign; and at last, in despair, the founder left her with her maid, and, bent of head and weary, trudged up to master peasegood's cot to tell of his disappointment over a friendly pipe. "yes," he said, at last; "it is all over, and i am going to try to be resigned." "nay," said the parson, "why say that? be resigned, man, come to you what may; but, after all this preparation, why give it up?" "because it is useless, master peasegood. her mind is dead." master peasegood refilled a pipe, and lit it to smoke for awhile in silence, while the founder gazed before him through the open window at the setting sun. "i could preach thee a long, long sermon on the subject of hope, master cobbe," said the parson at last; "but i will refrain. look here, man, and recollect what thou hast done. only to-day thou did'st take our sweet smitten flower back to the bed where it blossomed and grew so fair. it had been away in desert soil that had blighted it, and where it had grown wild and strange; and, lo! thou saidst `i will plant it back in the old sweet soil, and there shall be a miracle; it shall blossom in an instant as of old--in the twinkling of an eye.'" "yes, yes, i did--i did," cried the founder, sadly. "and it did not blossom a bit," said master peasegood bluntly. "jeremiah cobbe, that is all." "all!" cried the founder, blankly. "yes, all at present. wait, man; wait, and be reasonable. such a thing as thou askest of heaven must be the result of time, or some stronger power than thine. we have miracles enough now-a-days, for every work of god is miraculous; but we have no sacred conjuring tricks in common life. heaven forgive me if i am irreverent. i mean we have no such sudden changes as you expected here. tut, man, wait awhile and have some faith. i'd have more faith in a tender kiss and a loving word from gil, than in all that thou canst do. wait, mail, wait. maybe he is already working at that which proved a sorry failure in thy fatherly hands." "he refused to come," said the founder, sadly. "ay, with thee; but maybe he has stolen to her side now thou art here." "dost think so?" "nay, i know not; but fill thy pipe, man, and wait. i have faith that our darling was not restored to us for such a life in death as this. i' faith, friend cobbe, i pray nightly that i may see some merry little prattlers with the faces of gil and mace, softened and sweet, playing round our chairs as we grow more wrinkled and more old. heaven bless us! there's time enough yet. see here, man," he cried, rising and taking a curious flask and glasses from a corner cupboard, "here is some strange liquor sent me by father brisdone, a great man, now, in sunny france. he bids me wish him well when i drink thereof, and i do, and pray for his health and life. there," he continued as he filled the glasses, "here's father brisdone, and now here's culverin carr and his dear wife and children, bless them all." "all," said the founder, fervently, as he drained his glass of the potent liquor; and then, as the evening crept on apace and the stars came blinking out, the two friends sat and smoked, with the founder's heart growing cheery from the words and liquor of his firm old friend. it was as dark as a summer night knows how to be, when, after a final pipe, the founder rose to go. "nay, but i'll see thee home," said master peasegood; "and what is more, as it is early yet, i'll drink a flagon of ale and ask a blessing in the dear old--new--old--well, the to-be happy home;" and rising he strolled down the lane with his friend and across the bridge. the founder opened the gate and let his companion through with a strange sensation at his breast, and he was about to lead the way round to the door when master peasegood's hand was laid upon his shoulder, and with a hoarse sob he sank upon his knees, and buried his face in his hands, weeping like a child. it was almost dark when gil carr, who had seen the founder go, strolled slowly down towards the pool-house. he was heartsick and weary, and the soft, balmy, night-air seemed filled with depressing influences. another disappointment and another, and hope more distant still. the night mists were rising, and he smiled sadly as he glanced at the dark and dewy banks, and thought of the long-ago, when, with a love of the hidden and secret, he and mace had held stolen meetings, till she chided him and bade him come no more. "hah, but they were happy days," he sighed, as he walked on and on till he stood beside the wide-spreading pool, and thought of his narrow escape from death therein. then a few steps further, and he was by the rushing outlet where the water dashed under the little bridge and onward to the dripping wheel. "where are sir mark and his fair wife now?" he muttered, as with a faint smile he thought of the knight's plunge in the rushing stream, and his own to fish him out. again a few steps and he was across the bridge, leaning on the garden gate, and gazing sadly at the new casement that had replaced the old. yes, it was well done, and he thought of his many meetings, of his waiting that night to carry his love away; then of the fight, the explosion, and his scorching ordeal as he clambered in and bore out her whom he believed to be poor mace. sad thoughts--sweet thoughts--thoughts that almost unmanned him, so that when the moon rose, and he gazed still at the casement, he believed he was deceived, and that it was not mace there, but some trick of the imagination. there was the figure at the open window, and he was about to speak, but he checked himself, and stole away. hastily recrossing the bridge, he hurried along the lane, stooping gently here and there, and returning in a few minutes to bend over the tall bank facing the broad casement of the pool-house. in a moment after, diamond-wise, there shone forth from the dark grass four glowworms' lamps, the old love-signal of the past, and with beating heart--he knew not why--gil retraced his steps, crossed the bridge, entered the garden, and, with his hands trembling, made his way towards where he could dimly make out the pale, sweet face in the halo of silver hair. there was a rough, short ladder hard by, where tom croftly had helped to nail up the blossoming roses, close round sweet mace's panes; and gil seized these rough garden steps as he stopped beneath, gazing with all his soul at the face of her he loved. was it a dream, or was it honest truth? did he breathe and live and hear? was he blind, or was she leaning out towards him, with outstretched hands, as her dear voice whispered with all the passion of her old, old love, the one word--"gil?" "mace!" he cried, and with a bound he sprang to her side, to clasp her to his breast, as her own soft, round arms drew his face closer--closer to hers, and their lips met in one long, loving kiss. miracle? merely such a one as love might perform; and when--how much later no one knew--the founder and master peasegood came slowly up, they saw and heard enough to make the latter's heart swell with joy as the father sank upon his knees in thankfulness for the blessing that had come at last. the end. one woman: being the second part of a romance of sussex by alfred ollivant après a'voir souffert il faut souffrir encore london: george allen & unwin ltd. ruskin house, , museum street, w.c. first published in by the same author danny owd bob boy woodburn the gentleman the royal road the brown mare the next step the taming of john blunt two men to my country contents the carrier's cart part i deepening dusk i the hostel ii cow gap iii the watchman on the head iv alf v the creeping death vi the colonel learns a secret vii the man from the north viii the cherub ix the shadow of royal x bobs xi the russet-coated captain xii ruth wakes xiii nightmare xiv shadows xv the landlord xvi the grandmother xvii the challenge xviii a skirmish xix pitched battle xx the vanquished xxi thunder part ii troubled dawn xxii the betrayal xxiii the colonel faces defeat xxiv the pilgrims xxv red in the morning xxvi the avalanche moves xxvii the growing roar xxviii old town xxix follow your leader xxx the end of the world xxxi the colonel xxxii the day of judgment xxxiii beau-nez xxxiv the station xxxv in the evening xxxvi ruth faces the storm xxxvii mrs. lewknor xxxviii suspense xxxix the valley of decision xl victory and revenge the comforter the carrier's cart an old-fashioned carrier's cart, such as you may still meet on the roads of sussex, tilted, one-horsed, and moving at the leisurely pace of a bye-gone age, turned east at the turnpike, and made slowly along the lewes-beachbourne road under the northern scarp of the downs one evening of autumn in . in it, at the back of the driver, were a young man and a young woman, the only passengers, ensconced among hen-coops, flitches of bacon, and baskets of greens. they sat hand-in-hand. the woman was a noble creature, about her the majestic tranquillity of a great three-decker that comes to rest in sunset waters after its trafalgar. the man, but for a certain wistfulness about his eyes which betokened undue sensibility, was not remarkable. till he spoke you would have said he was a gentleman--that is to say if your eyes confined their scrutiny to his face and refused to see his hands, his boots, his clothes. when he spoke you would have recognised at once that he was sussex of the soil as, surely, was the woman beside him; though the speech of both was faintly marred with the all-pervading cockney accent of those who have passed beyond the village-green into the larger world of the england of to-day. both ca-a-ad musically enough; but less by far than the little carrier, whose round back blocked the view of the road, and the twitching ears of old mare jenny. for nearly fifty years, man and boy, isaac woolgar had travelled twice a day, six days a week, the road on which he was travelling now. he had seen the long-horns--those "black runts" so familiar to old-world sussex--give place to horses in the plough upon the hill; the horses in their turn supplanted on the road by motors; and men using the legs god had given them to trundle wheels instead of walk. undisturbed, he plodded on his way, accompanied always by the wires lifted on tall black poles, crowned with tiers of tiny porcelain chimney-pots unknown in his youth, which had linked lewes with beachbourne these forty years; and he would so plod until he died. the _star_ on the hill in old town, beachbourne, marked one end of his day's journey; and the equally ancient _lamb_, at aldwoldston, black-timbered and gabled too, marked the other. he had never been further "oop country," as he called it, than heathfield. lewes was the utmost term of his wanderings west, beau-nez east; while the sea at newhaven had bounded him on the south. within this tiny quadrilateral, which just about determined also the wanderings of an old dog-fox in abbot's wood, he had passed his life; and nothing now would ever induce him to pass the bounds he had allotted himself. to the man and woman in the cart old mus. woolgar had been a familiar figure from childhood. the little girl skipping by the market-cross in aldwoldston would stop to watch him start; the little boy would wait at billing's corner on the top of the hill to see him come along the new road past motcombe at the end of his journey. long before either had been aware of the other's existence the old carrier had served as an invisible link between them. now the two were married. ruth boam had become mrs. ernie caspar that afternoon in the cathedral-church of aldwoldston, on the mound among the ash-trees above parsons' tye and the long donkey-backed clergy-house that dates from the fourteenth century. it had been a very quiet wedding. the father and mother of the bride had stumped across from frogs' hall, at the foot of the village, ruth accompanying them, her little daughter in her arms. for the rest, dr. and mrs. trupp had come over from beachbourne with mr. pigott and his wife in the chocolate-bodied car driven by the bridegroom's brother. alf had not entered the church to see ernie married. he had mouched sullenly down to the river instead, and stood there during the service, his back to the church, looking across the brooks to old wind-hover's dun and shaven flank with eyes that did not see, and ears that refused to hear. after the ceremony the car-party returned to beachbourne by way of the sea--climbing high-'nd-over, to drop down into sea-ford, and home by birling gap and beau-nez. from the almost violent gesture with which alf had set his engines in motion and drawn out of the lane under the pollarded willows of parson's tye, he at least had been glad to turn his back on the scene. ruth and her husband had returned to frogs' hall with the old folk. later, as the sun began to lower behind black cap into the valley of the ouse, they went up river lane and picked up the carrier's cart by the market-cross. for the moment they were leaving little alice with her grandmother while they settled into the moot, old town, where ernie had found a cottage close to his work, not a quarter of a mile from the home of his father and mother in rectory walk. the carrier's cart moved slowly on under the telegraph wires on which the martins were already gathering: for it was september. now and then ernie raised the flap that made a little window in the side of the tilt, and looked out at the accompanying downs, mysterious in the evening. "they're still there," he announced comfortably, "and like to be yet a bit, i reckon." "they move much same pace as us doos, seems to me," said ruth. "we should get there afoor them yet though," answered ernie. "afoor the day of judgment we might, if so be we doosn't die o breathlessness first," the woman replied. "you'd like a car to yourself you would," chaffed ernie. "and alf drivin you." ruth turned in her lips. they moved leisurely forward, leaving folkington clustered about its village-green upon the right, passing the tea-gardens at wannock, and up the long pull to willingdon, standing among old gardens and pleasant fig-trees. once through the village the woods of hampden park green-bosomed upon the left, blocked out the marshes and the splendid vision of pevensey bay. now the road emerged from the shelter of hedges and elm-trees and flowed with a noble billowy motion between seas of corn that washed the foot of the downs and swept over rodmill to the outposts of beachbourne. between the road and the downs stood motcombe, islanded in the ruddy sea, amongst its elms and low piggeries. behind the farm, at the very foot of the hill, was huntsman's lodge where once, when both were boys, alf had betrayed his brother on the occasion of the looting of the walnut-tree. ern pointed out the spot to his bride and told the tale. ruth listened with grim understanding. "that's alf," she said. "mr. pigott lived there that time o day," ern continued. "one of the five manors of beachbourne, used to be--i've heard dad say. belonged to the salwyns of friston place over the hill--the clergy-folk. the farm's where the manor-house used to be; and the annual sheep-fair was held in a field outside from william the conqueror till a few years back." he pointed to one of a little row of villas on the left which looked over the allotment gardens to the downs. "that's where mr. pigott lives now. my school-master he were that time o day." "who's mr. pigott?" ruth asked. ernie rootled her with a friendly elbow. "my guv'nor, stoopid! manager of the southdown transport company. him that was at the wedding--with the beard. settin along o mrs. trupp." "oh, mr. _pigott_!" answered ruth. now that the strain of the last two years was over at last, she brimmed over with a demure naughtiness. "well, why couldn't you say so, then? you _are_ funny, men are." the cart climbed the steep hill to billing's corner and ernie looked down the familiar road to the rectory and even caught a peep of the back of his old home. then they turned down church street with its old-world fragrance of lavender and yesterday. on the left the parish-church, long-backed and massive-towered upon the kneb, brooded over the centuries it had seen come and go. "dad says the whole history of beachbourne's centred there," said ernie in awed voice. "steeped in it, he says." ernie, who had been leaning forward to peep at the archdeacon posed in the entrance of st. michael's, now dropped back suddenly, nudging his companion. a lean woman with white hair and wrathful black eyebrows, her complexion still delicate as a girl's, was coming up the hill. "mother," whispered ernie. it was ruth's turn to raise the flap and peer forth stealthily at the figure passing so close and so unconsciously on the pavement. so that was the woman who had opposed her marriage with such malevolent persistency! ruth observed her enemy with more curiosity than hostility, and received a passing impression of a fierce unhappy face. "she don't favour you no-ways," she said, as she relapsed into a corner. "where's dad though?" ernie shook his head. "he's never with her," he said. "i ca-a-n't call to mind as ever i've seen them out together, not the pair of them." "i'd ha liked him to have been at the wedding," murmured ruth a thought discontentedly. "and he'd ha liked it too, i'll lay," ernie answered. "only she'd never have let him." the cart stopped; and the two passengers descended at the old _star_ opposite the manor-house, which bore the plate of mr. william trupp, the famous surgeon. on the manor-house steps a tall somewhat cadaverous man was standing. he was so simply dressed as almost to be shabby; and his straw hat, tilted on the back of his head, disclosed a singularly fine forehead. there was something arresting about the man and his attitude: a delicious mixture of mischievous alertness and philosophical detachment. he might have been a mediæval scholar waiting at the door of his master; or a penitent seeking absolution; or, not least, a youth about to perpetrate a run-away knock. ernie across the road watched him with eyes in which affection and amusement mingled. then the door opened, and the scholar-penitent-youth was being greeted with glee by bess trupp. ernie turned to his wife. "my old colonel," he said confidentially. "what i was in india with. best colonel the hammer-men ever had--and that's saying something." "colonel lewknor, aren't it?" asked ruth. "that's him," said ernie keenly. "do you knaw him?" "he was over at auston last summer," answered ruth, "lecturin we got to fight germany or something. i went, but i didn't pay no heed to him. no account talk, i call that." together they dropped down borough lane and turned to the left along the moot where dwelt the workers of old town--a few in flint cottages set in gardens, rank with currant bushes, a record of the days, not so long ago, when corn flowed down both sides of water lane, making a lake of gold between the village on the hill and the sea-houses by the wish; and most in the new streets of little red houses that looked up, pathetically aware of their commonness, to the calm dignity of the old church upon the kneb above. at one of these latter ernie stopped and made believe to fumble with a key. ruth, who had not seen her new home, was thrilling quietly, as she had been throughout the journey, though determined not to betray her emotion to her mate. the door opened and they entered. a charming voice from the kitchen greeted them. "ah, there you are--punctual to the minute!" a woman, silver-haired and gracious, turned from deft busy-ness at the range. "oh, mrs. trupp!" cried ruth, looking about her. the table was laid already, and gay with flowers; the fire lit, the kettle on the boil, the supper ready. "it is kind," said ruth. "was this you and miss bess?" "perhaps we had a hand in it," laughed the other. "she couldn't be here, as she's got a meeting of her boy scouts. but she sent her best wishes. now i hand over the key to the master; and my responsibilities are over!" and she was gone with the delicious ripple of laughter ernie had loved from babyhood. ruth was now thirsting to explore her new home, but ernie insisted on supping first. this he did with malicious deliberation. when at length he was satisfied they went upstairs together, he leading the way. "this is our room!" he said with ill-disguised complacency, stepping aside. the bridal chamber was swept and garnished. in it were more flowers, bowls of them; and the furniture simple, solid, and very good, was of a character rarely found in houses of that class. ernie enjoyed the obvious pleasure of his bride as she touched and glanced and dipped like some large bird flitting gracefully from piece to piece. then she paused solemnly and looked about her. "reckon it must ha cost a tidy penny," she said. "it did," ernie answered. she cocked a soft brown eye at him. "could you afford it, ernie?" "i could not," said ernie, standing grimly and with folded arms. at the moment her eyes fell on a card tied to the bed-post on which was written: _from mr., mrs. and miss trupp_. ruth's eyes caressed the bed, and her fingers stroked the smooth wood. "it's like them," she said. "none o your cheap trash." "ah," answered ernie. "trust them. they're just all right, they are." before the looking-glass on the chest of drawers ruth now took off her hat. she was perhaps too simple, too natural, too near to earth to be shy at this the supreme moment of a woman's life. at least she was too wary to show it. "rich folks they have two little beds laid alongside, these days," she said, speaking from her experience as a maid. "i wouldn't think it was right myself. only you mustn't judge others." she added in her slow way, as she patted her hair--"i wouldn't feel prarperly married like only in a prarper two-bed." ernie drew down the blind. then he marched upon his bride deliberately and with remorseless eyes. suddenly she turned and met him with a swift and lovely smile, dropping her mask, and discovering herself to him in the surprising radiance of a moon that reveals its beauty after long obscurity. she laid her hands upon his shoulders in utter surrender. he gathered her gradually in his arms; and closing his eyes, dwelt on her lips with the slow and greedy passion of a bee, absorbed in absorption, and drinking deep in the cloistered seclusion of a fox-glove bell, "you're prarperly married all right," he said. "and you ca-a-n't get out of it--not no-ways." part i deepening dusk chapter i the hostel dr. trupp of beachbourne, as he was generally known--mr. trupp, to give him his correct title--was a genuinely great man. his father had been a book-seller in torquay; and he himself never lost the greater qualities of the class from which he sprang. he was very simple and very shrewd. science had not blunted the fine intuitions which his brusque manner half concealed. moreover, he trusted those intuitions perhaps unconsciously as do few men of his profession; and they rarely played him false. in early manhood his integrity, his sound common sense, and practical idealism had won for him the love of a singularly noble girl who might have married one of the best of her inevitably artificial class. later in life indeed evelyn trupp often would amuse her father and annoy her mother by affirming that she was far prouder of being the wife of mr. trupp of beachbourne than of having been miss moray of pole. and she had good cause. for her husband was no longer the country doctor at whom the county families had sniffed. he was "trupp of beachbourne," whose fame had spread, quietly it is true, from sussex, through england to the outer world. and if there was some difference of opinion as to whether mr. trupp had made beachbourne, or beachbourne had made him, there was no question that the growth of the town, and its deserved popularity as a health-resort was coincident with his residence there. at least the event justified the young surgeon's courage and originality in the choice of a site for his life-long campaign. indeed had he stayed in london it is certain that he would never have achieved the work he was able to consummate in the town girdled by the southern hills and washed by northern seas. and that work was no mean contribution to the welfare of the race. mr. trupp was a pioneer in the organized attack on perhaps the deadliest and most pertinacious enemy that threatens the supremacy of man--the tubercle bacillus. and his choice of a _point-d'appui_ from which to conduct his offensive was no small factor in his success. he was, moreover, one of the men who in the last years of the nineteenth century and the earlier years of this set himself to stem the tide of luxury which in his judgment was softening the spines of the younger generation. and the helpful buffets which gave him his name, and were responsible at least for some of his triumphs, were not the outcome of spasms of irritability but of a deliberate philosophy. for mr. trupp, despite his kind heart, never forgot that man with all his aspirations after heaven had but yesterday ceased to be an animal and still stood on the edge of the slough from which he had just emerged, up to his hocks in mud, the slime yet trickling from his shaggy sides. "don't give him sympathy," he would sometimes say to an astonished father. "what he wants is the big stick ... stop his allowance. he'll soon get well. necessity's the best doctor.... take her mother away from her. the mothers make half the invalids.... let her get up early in the morning and take the kitchen-maid tea in bed. _she's_ a useful citizen at all events." he saw his country, so he believed, sinking into a dropsical coma before his eyes, just for want of somebody to kick it awake; and the sight made him sick and fearful. often riding with his daughter of evenings after the day's work he would pause a moment beside the flag-staff on beau-nez and look north east across the waste of sea dull or shining at his feet. "can you hear him growling, bess?" he asked his companion once. "who?" "the brute." bess knew her father's ogre, and the common talk. "is germany the brute?" she asked. her father shook his head. "one of them," he answered. "wherever man is there the brute is--keep that in mind when you're married, my dear. and he's always sleeping after a gorge or ravenous before one. our brute's asleep now he's got his belly full. theirs"--nodding across the water--"is prowling for his prey." to mr. pigott he confided his belief that there was only one thing that could save england. "what's that?" asked the old school-master. "a bloody war," replied mr. trupp. many other men were saying the same thing, but few of his intellectual calibre, and none of his radical views. his own part in staying the rot that in his belief threatened to corrupt the country he loved with such a deep if critical love, was clear enough. it was the business of him and his colleagues to give the nation the health that made for character, just as it was that of the school-master to give them the character that made for health. and he tackled his side of national education with a will: the sun, the sea, the air being the assistants in whom he trusted. his old idea, cherished through a life-time, of an open-air hostel, where he could have under his immediate supervision children without their mothers, and wives without their husbands, sought always more urgently for expression as the years slipped by. it was not, however, till the twentieth century was well upon its way, that all the conditions necessary for the safe launching of his project were fulfilled. his chance came when colonel lewknor and his wife crossed his path on retirement from the sendee. rachel lewknor took up the old surgeon's plan with the fierce yet wary courage of her race. here was her chance, heaven-sent. thus and thus would she fulfil her cherished dream and make the money to send her grandson, toby, to eton like his father and grandfather before him. like most soldiers, she and the colonel were poor. all through their working lives any money they might have saved against old age they had invested in the education of their boy; stinting themselves in order to send young jock to his father's school and afterwards to start him in his father's regiment. on retirement therefore they had little but a pittance of a pension on which to live. the question of how to raise the capital to buy the site and build the hostel was therefore the most urgent of the earlier difficulties that beset mrs. lewknor. mr. trupp said frankly that he could lend the money and would do so at a pinch; but he made it clear that he would rather not. he, too, was starting his boy joe in the hammer-men, and like all civilians of those days had an exaggerated idea of the expenses of an officer in the army. moreover, he had determined that when the time and the man came bess should marry where she liked; and the question of money should not stand in her way. happily mrs. lewknor's problem solved itself as by miracle. alf caspar, who had his garage in the goffs at the foot of old town and, in spite of the continued protests of mrs. trupp and bess, still drove for mr. trupp (the old surgeon refusing steadfastly to keep a car of his own), had from the start evinced an almost prurient interest in the conception of the hostel. in the very earliest days when mr. trupp and mrs. lewknor talked it over as they drove through paradise, the beech-hangar between old town and meads, to visit the prospective site in cow gap, he would sit at his wheel manipulating his engine to ensure the maximum of silent running, his head screwed round and big left ear reaching back to lick up what was passing between the two occupants of the body of the car. later, when it had actually been decided to embark upon the scheme, he said to mr. trupp one day in his brightest manner: "should be a paying proposition, sir, with you behind it." the old surgeon eyed his chaffeur through his pince-nez shrewdly. "if you like to put £ , or so into it, alfred, you wouldn't do yourself any harm," he said. alf sheathed his eyes in that swift bird-like way of his, and tittered. "three thousand pounds!" he said. "me!" .... a few days later when mr. trupp called at the colonel's tiny villa in meads. mrs. lewknor ran out to him, eager as a girl. she had received from messrs. morgan and evans, the solicitors in terminus road, an offer of the sum required on behalf of a client on the security of a first mortgage. "it's a miracle!" she cried, her eyes sparkling like jewels. "or a ramp!" said the colonel from behind. "d'you know anything about the firm, trupp?" "i've known and employed em ever since i've been here," replied the old surgeon. "they're as old as beachbourne and a bit older. a lewes firm really, and they still have an office there. but as the balance of power shifted east they shifted with it." "they don't say who their client is," commented the colonel. "i'll ask em," the other answered. that afternoon he drove down to terminus road, and leaving alf in the car outside, entered the office. he and mr. morgan were old friends who might truly be accounted among the founders of modern beachbourne. "who's your client?" asked mr. trupp, gruff and grinning. "out with it!" mr. morgan shook his smooth grey head, humour and mystery lurking about his mouth and in his eyes. "wishes to remain anonymous," he said. "we're empowered to act on his behalf." he strolled to the window and peeped out, tilting on his toes to overlook the screen which obscured the lower half of it. what he saw seemed to amuse him, and his amusement seemed to re-act in its turn on mr. trupp. "is he a solid man?" asked the surgeon. "as a rock," came the voice from the window. the other seemed satisfied; the contract forthwith was signed; and mrs. lewknor bought her site. cow gap was an ideal spot for the hostel. it is carved out of the flank of beau-nez; the gorse-covered hill encircling it in huge green rampart that shelters it from the prevailing sou-west gales. embedded in the majestic bluff that terminates the long line of the south downs and juts out into the sea in the semblance of a lion asleep, head on his paws, it opens a broad green face to the sea and rising sun. the cliff here is very low, and the chalk-strewn beach, easy of access from above, is seldom outraged by skirmishers from the great army peopling the sands along the front towards the redoubt and the far crumbles. a spur of the hill shuts it off from the aristocratic quarter of the town, known as meads, which covers with gardened villas the east-ward foot-hills of beau-nez and ceases abruptly at the bottom of the duke's drive that sweeps up the head in graceful curves. in this secluded coombe, that welcomes the sun at dawn, at dusk holds the lingering shadows, and is flecked all day with the wings of passing sea-birds, after many months of delay and obstructions victoriously overcome, mrs. lewknor began to build her house of bricks and mortar in the spring of the year ruth and ernie caspar set out together to construct the future in a more enduring medium. the house, long and low, with balconies broad as streets, and windows everywhere to catch the light, rose layer by layer out of the turf on the edge of the cliff. all the summer and on into the autumn it was a-building. a white house with a red roof, plain yet picturesque, it might have been a coastguard station and was not. partaking of the character of the cliffs on which it stood and the green downs in which it was enclosed, it seemed a fitting tenant of the great coombe in which, apart from a pair of goal-posts under the steep of the hill at the back, it was the only evidence of the neighbourhood of man. mr. trupp watched the gradual realisation of the dream of a lifetime with the absorbed content of a child who observes the erection of a house of wooden bricks. and he was not alone. when at the end of the day's work alf now drove his employer, as he often did, to cow gap to study progress, he, too, would descend and poke and pry amid skeleton walls and crude dank passages with sharp eyes and sharper whispered questions to labourers, foreman, and even the architect. never a sunday passed but found him bustling across the golf-links before church, to ascend ladders, walk along precarious scaffoldings, and march with proprietory air and incredible swagger along the terraces of the newly laid-out gardens that patched with brown the green quilt of the coombe. once, on such a sunday visit, he climbed the hill at the back to obtain a bird's-eye view of the building. amid spurting whin-chats and shining gossamers, he climbed in the brilliant autumn morning till he had almost reached the crest. he was lost to the world and the beauty lavished all about him; his eyes shuttered to the whispered suggestions of the infinite; his heart closed to the revealing loveliness of earth, round-limbed and bare, as he revolved in the dark prison-house of self the treadmill of his insect projects. the sidesman of st. michael's, spruce, scented, oiled, in fancy waistcoat, with boots of glace kid, and waxed moustache, moving laboriously between sky and sea, was civilised man at the height of his imperfection and vain-glorious in his fatuous artificiality. suddenly a bare head and collarless stark neck blurted up out of a deep gorse-clump before him. "who goes there?" came a challenge, deep and formidable, as the roar of some jungle lord disturbed in his covert. alf collapsed as a soap-bubble, blown from a clay pipe and brilliant in the sunshine, bursts at the impact of an elemental prickle. he fled down the hill incontinently. the man who had barked, shoulder-deep in gorse, his eyes still flashing, turned to the woman squandered beneath him in luxurious splendour. native of the earth on which she lay, and kin to it as some long-limbed hind of the forest, she regarded him with amused content. the sudden battle-call of her male roused what there was of primitive in her, soothed, and flattered her womanhood. comfortably she fell back upon the sense of security it called up, delighting behind half-drawn lids in the surprising ferocity of her man. that roar of his, startling the silence like a trumpet-note, had spoken to her deeps. swiftly, and perhaps for the first time, she recognised what the man above her stood for in her life, and why one with whom she did not pretend to be in love so completely satisfied her most urgent present need. he was a break-water behind which she lay with furled sails after a hazardous voyage over uncharted deeps. outside was still the roar and batter of seas. the sound of guns booming overhead as she lay, stripped of her canvas, and rocking pleasantly in the inner waters, did not alarm, rather indeed lulled, her to sleep: for they spoke to her of protection at last. "who was it, ernie?" she murmured, raising a lazy head from the hands on which they were pillowed, the dark hair strewn about her like wind-slashed rain. the man turned, outraged still and bristling. "alf!" he snorted. "just bob me head over the hawth at him. that was enough--_quite_ enough! i knaw the colour of alf's liver." he stood above her with his air of a fighting male. she had never seen him like that before; and she regarded him critically and with approval. "ern," she called quietly, with a chuckle, deep and secret as the gurgle of water pouring from a long-throated jug; and with a faint movement of her hips she made room for him in the sand beside her. chapter ii cow gap honeymoons are not for the class that does the world's dirty work; but joy can be seized by the simple of heart even in the conditions we impose upon the poor. ernie caspar after his marriage with ruth boam settled down with his bride in old town to enjoy the fruits of victory. the young couple had been lucky to find a cottage in the moot; for even in those days accommodation for the working-class was as hard to find in beachbourne as elsewhere. the cottage, too, was appropriately situated for them in every way. it was close to the yard of the southdown transport company, where ernie's work lay; and at the bottom of borough lane, at the top of which was the manor-house, where lived mr. and mrs. trupp, who had seen ruth through her trouble, and had befriended ernie from his boyhood. "d'you remember that first time ever we rode up to old town together tarp o the bus?" asked ernie of his bride, one evening as they passed the great doctor's house on the way to beau-nez. "hap i do," ruth answered, amused at her lover's intense seriousness. "and do _you_ remember what i said to you?" insistently. "ne'er a word," answered ruth, casual and teasing--"only it was no-account talk. that's all i remember." "i pointed you out mr. trupp's house," ernie continued solemnly, "and i says to you--_he brought me into the world_, i says. _that's what he done_." the old roguish black-bird look, which after her winter of despair had been creeping slowly back to ruth's face in this new spring, gleamed sedately now. "i mind me now," she said. "leastwise i don't remember what you said, but i remembers what i answered." "what did you answer then?" asked ernie, suspiciously. "_he done well_, was what i says," answered the young woman gravely. "he did," replied ernie with exaggerated pomp. "and he done better to settle issalf at my door so i could be his friend if so be he ever gotten into trouble." "one thing i knaw," said ruth, serious in her turn now. "they're the two best friends e'er a workin woman had." "they are," ernie agreed. "and she's my god-mother." it was the fact in his life of which on the whole he was most proud and certainly the one for which he was least responsible. "and she aren't yours," he continued, puffed up and self-complacent. "and never will be." he added finally to curb her arrogance. "see she was dad's friend afore ever they married, eether of them." ruth checked her husband's snobbishness with a tap. "you _are_ grand," she said. close to the cottage of the young couple was the lovely old motcombe garden, public now, pierced by the bourne from which the town derives its name. the garden with its ancient dove-cot, ivy-crowned, its splendid weeping ashes, its ruined walls, compact of native flint and chalk, the skeletons of afore-time barns and byres, stands between the old parsonage house and older parish-church that crowns the kneb above and, with its massive tower, its squat shingled spire peculiar to sussex, set four-square to the winds of time, seems lost in a mist of memories. beyond the church, a few hundred yards further up the hill, at the back of billing's corner in rectory walk, ernie's parents still dwelt. anne caspar did not visit ruth. indeed, she ignored the presence of her daughter-in-law; but those steel-blue eyes of hers sought out and recognized in a hard flash the majestic peasant girl who now haunted church street at shopping hours as the woman who had married her son. ernie's mother was in fact one of those who make it a point of duty, as well as a pleasure, never to forgive. she had neither pardoned ruth for daring to be her daughter-in-law, nor forgotten her sin. and both offences were immeasurably accentuated by ruth's crime in establishing herself in the moot. "settlin on my door-step," she said. "brassy slut!" "just like her," her second son answered; and added with stealthy malice, "dad visits em. i seen im." alf, for all his acuteness, had never learned the simple lesson that his mother would not tolerate the slightest criticism of her old man. "and why shouldn't he?" she asked sharply. "isn't ern his own flesh-and-blood? _he's_ got a heart, dad has, if some as ought to ave aven't." "no reason at all," answered alf, looking down his nose. "why shouldn't he be thick in with her--and with her child for the matter of that? i see him walkin in the moot the other day near the quaker meeting-house hand-in-hand with little alice. pretty as a bible picture it struck me." anne caspar stared stonily. "who's little alice?" she asked. "her love-child," answered alf. "like your grand-child as you might say--only illegit o course." his mother breathed heavily. "is ern the father?" she asked at last in a sour flat voice. "not him!" jeered alf. "she's a rich man's cast-off, ruth is. made it worth ern's while. that's where it was. see, cash is cash in this world." anne laid back her ears as she rummaged among her memories, "i thought you told me," she began slowly, "as ern--" "never!" cried alf. "ern had nothin to do with it, who-ever had." "who was the father?" asked anne, not above a little feminine curiosity. alf shook his head cunningly. "ah," he said, "now you're askin!" and added after a moment's pause:-- "she was all-the-world's wench one time o day, your daughter was. that's all i can tell you." anne stirred a saucepan thoughtfully. she did not believe alf: for she knew that ernie was far too much his father's son to be bought disgracefully, and she remembered suddenly a suggestion that mr. pigott had lately thrown out to the effect that alf himself had not been altogether proof against the seductions of this seductive young woman his brother had won. it struck her now that there might be something in the story after all, unlikely as it seemed: for she remarked that alf always pursued his sister-in-law with the covert rancour and vindictiveness of the mean spirit which has met defeat. but however doubtful she might be in her own heart of alf's tale, the essential facts about ruth were not in dispute: her daughter-in-law was the mother of an illegitimate child and had settled down with that child not a quarter of a mile away. everybody knew the story, especially of course the neighbours she would least wish to know it--the archdeacon and lady augusta in the rectory across the way. for over thirty years anne had lived in her solid little blue-slated house, the ampelopsis running over its good red face, the tobacco plants sweet on summer evenings in the border round the neat and tidy lawn, holding her nose high, too high her enemies averred, and priding herself above all women on her respectability--and now! no wonder ernie, bringing home his bride and his disgrace, infuriated her. "shamin me afore em all!" she muttered time and again with sullen wrath to the pots and pans she banged about on the range. she never saw the offender now except on sundays when he came up to visit his father, which he did as regularly as in the days before his marriage. the ritual of these visits was always the same. ernie would come in at the front-door; she would give him a surly nod from the kitchen; he would say quietly--"hullo, mum!" and turn off into the study where his dad was awaiting him. the two, anne remarked with acrimony, grew always nearer and--what annoyed her most--talked always less. edward caspar was an old man now, in body if not in years; and on the occasion of ernie's visits father and son rarely strolled out to take the sun on the hill at the back or lounge in the elusive shade of paradise as in former days. they were content instead to sit together in the austere little study looking out on to the trees of the rectory, lely's famous _cavalier_, the first lord ravensrood, glancing down from the otherwise bare walls with wistful yet ironic eyes on his two remote descendants enjoying each other beneath in a suspicious communion of silence. thus anne always found the pair when she brought them their tea; and the mysterious intimacy between the two was all the more marked because of her husband's almost comical unawareness of his second son. the genuine resentment anne experienced in the matter of edward's unvarying attitude towards his two sons she visited, regardless of justice, upon alf. "might not be a son to your father the way you go on!" she said censoriously. "and what about him," cried alf, not without reason. "might not be a father to your son, seems to me." it would, however, have taken more than anne caspar's passionate indignation at the action of ernie and his bride in establishing themselves in the moot to cloud the lives of the newly-married couple. ern was now twenty-eight, and ruth four years younger. they had the present, which they enjoyed; they did not worry about the future; and the past inevitably buries itself in time. "we're young yet, as mr. trupp says," remarked ernie. "we've got it all afore us. life's not so bad for all they say. i got you: and you got me; and the rest don't matter." they were lying on beau-nez in the dusk above cow gap, listening to the long-drawn swish of the sea, going and coming with the tranquil rhythm that soothes the spirit of man, restless in time, with rumours of forgotten eternity. "and we both got little alice," murmured ruth, eyes resting on his with affectionate confidence, sure of his love for her and the child that was not his. "keep me cosy, ern," whispered the luxurious creature with a delicious mixture of entreaty and authority snuggling up against him. she was lying, her face lifted flower-wise to the moon that hung above her bubble-like and benignant, her eyes closed, her lips tilted to tempt the pollen-bearing bee, while about them the lovely laughter brimmed and dimpled. "i'll keep you cosy, my beauty," replied ernie, with the busy seriousness of the male intent on love. "i'll give you plenty beside little alice to think of afore i'm done with you. i'll learn _you_. don't you worrit. i know what _you_ want." "what then?" asked ruth, deep and satisfied. "why, basketfuls o babies--armfuls of em, like cowslips till you're fairly smothered, and spill em over the field because you can't hold em all." perhaps he was right. certainly after the battle and conflict of the last two years ruth felt spiritually lazy. she browsed and drowsed, content that ernie for the time being should master her. it was good for him, too, she saw, so long as he would do it, correcting his natural tendency to slackness; and she had little doubt that she could assume authority at will in the future, should it prove necessary. meanwhile that spirit of adventure which lurked in her; distinguished her from her class; and had already once led her into danger and catastrophe, was lulled to sleep for the moment. the hill at the back of cow gap is steep, and towards the crest the gorse grows thick and very high. in the heart of this covert, dense enough to satisfy the most jealous lovers, ernie had made a safe retreat. he had cut away the resisting gorse with a bill-hook, rooted up the stumps, stripped the turf and made a sleeping-place of sand brought up from the shore. in a rabbit-hole hard by, he hid a spirit-lamp and sundry stores of tea and biscuits; while mrs. trupp routed out from her coach-house an immense old carriage umbrella dating from pole days which, when unfurled, served to turn a shower. ruth and ernie called their hiding-place the ambush; for in it they could harbour, seeing all things, yet themselves unseen. and there, through that brilliant autumn, they would pass their week-ends, watching under-cliff, as the hostel was called, rising up out of the saucer of the coombe beneath them. they would leave little alice with a neighbour, and lock up the cottage in the moot, which ruth was swiftly transfiguring into a home. on saturday evenings, after a hard afternoon's work, stripping, papering, painting, making the old new and the dull bright, the pair would walk up church street, turn to the left at billing's corner, and dropping down love lane by the rectory, cross the golf links and mount the hill by the rabbit-walk that leads above paradise, past the dew-pond, on to the broad-strewn back of beau-nez. up there, surrounded by the dimming waters and billowing land, they would wait till the head was deserted by all save a tethered goat and watchful coastguard; till in the solitude and silence the stars whispered, and the darkening turf, grateful for the falling dew, responded sweetly to their pressing feet. then the young couple, taking hands, would leave the crest and find their way with beating hearts along the track that led through the covert to their couching-place, where none would disturb them except maybe a hunting stoat; and only the moon would peep at them under the shaggy eyebrow of the gorse as they rejoiced in their youth, their love, their life. and then at dawn when the sun glanced warily over the brim of the sea and none was yet astir save the kestrel hovering in the wind; and the pair of badgers--who with the amazing tenacity of their kind still tenanted the burrows of their ancestors within a quarter of a mile of the tents and tabernacles of man--rooted and sported clumsily on the dewy hillside beneath; they would rise and slip bare-foot down the hill, past the hostel, on to the deserted beach, there to become one with the living waters, misty and lapping, as at night they had entered into communion with earth and sky and the little creaking creatures of the dark. "this is life," ernie said on one such sabbath dawn, sinking into the waters with deep content. "wouldn't old dad just love this?" "if it were like this all the time!" ruth answered a thought wistfully as she floated with paddling hands, sea and sky, as it was in the beginning, enveloping her. "like music in church. just the peace that passeth understanding, as my miss caryll'd say." "ah," said ernie, speaking with the profound sagacity that not seldom marks the words of the foolish. "might be bad for us. if there was nothing to fight we'd all be like to go to sleep. that's what mr. trupp says." "some of us might," said ruth, the girl slyly peeping forth from her covering womanhood. "look at germany!" continued the wise man, surging closer. "look at what the colonel said the other night at the institute. we're the rabbits; and germany's the python, the colonel says." "that for germany!" answered ruth, splashing the water with the flat of her hand in the direction of the rising sun. "and she's all the while a-creepin--a-creepin--closer acrarst the sea," said ernie, edging nearer--"for to swallow us up!" and with a rush he engulfed her young body in his arms. chapter iii the watchman on the head on one of the last days of that brilliant october, just before the grey curtain of rains descended to blot out autumn fields and twinkling waters, colonel lewknor and his wife moved into the hostel. on that first evening mrs. lewknor came down the broad stair-case in "review order," as she called it, to celebrate the consummation of the first stage of her project, and found her husband standing at the sea-ward window of the hall, a mestophelian figure, holding back the curtain and peeping out. quietly she came and stood beside him, about her shoulders the scarlet cape a rajput princess had given her after lord curzon's durbar. the house, which was the solitary building in the great coombe, stood back some hundred yards from the cliff along which the coast-guard's path to beau-nez showed up white-dotted in the darkness. the colonel was staring out over the misty and muffled waters, mumbling to himself, as was his way. "we shall get a nice view from here, anyway," he said with his satyr-like chuckle. she laid her hand upon his shoulder. "of what?" she asked. "the landing," he replied. she rippled off into a delicious titter. after thirty years of married life her jocko was still for rachel lewknor the most entertaining of men. "you and mr. trupp!" she said. "a pair of you!" for the two men had drawn singularly close since the colonel on retirement had established himself in meads. the old soldier in truth came as something of a revelation to the great surgeon, who delighted in the other's philosophical mind, his freedom from the conventional limitations and prejudices of the officer-caste, his wide reading and ironical humour. on his evening ride one day about this time mr. trupp and bess came upon the colonel halted at the flag-staff on the top of the head, and gazing out over the wide-spread waters with solemn eyes, as though watching for a tidal wave to sweep up out of the east and overwhelm his country. mr. trupp knew that the old soldier was often at that spot in that attitude at that hour, a sentinel on guard at the uttermost end of the uttermost peninsula that jutted out into the channel; and he knew why. "well, is it coming?" the doctor growled, half serious, half chaffing. the colonel, standing with his hat off, his fine forehead and cadaverous face thrusting up into the blue, answered with quiet conviction. "it's coming all right." "it's been coming all my time," answered the other sardonically. "if it don't come soon i shall miss it. in the seventies it was russia. any fool, who wasn't a criminal or a traitor or both, could see that a clash was inevitable. two great races expanding at incredible speed in asia, etc., etc. then in the nineties it was france. any man in his right mind could see it. it was mathematically demonstrable. two great races expanding in africa, etc., etc.... and now it's germany..." he coughed and ended gruffly, "well, you may be right this time." "we were right about william the conqueror," said the colonel urbanely. "he came." "but that was some time ago, my daughter tells me," replied mr. trupp. "and you've been wrong every time since." bess giggled; and the colonel adjusted his field-glasses with delicate precision. "if you say it's going to rain and keep on saying it long enough you'll probably prove right in the end," he remarked. "it's dogged as does it in the realm of speculation as elsewhere in my experience." the old surgeon and his daughter turned their backs on the flagstaff and the solitary watchman beside it, and jogged towards the sunset red-strewn behind the white bluff of the seven sisters newhaven-way. two figures topped the brow of warren hill in front and came swiftly over the short turf towards them. it was saturday: ruth and ernie were on their way to their secret covert above cow gap as usual. "about your last week-end up here before the weather breaks, i should say," chaffed the old surgeon as he passed them. ernie laughed a little nervously. "yes, sir. just what i were a-sayin to ruth," he answered. he had thought his secret known to none. "well, i hope the police won't catch you," remarked the other with a grin as he rode on. "never!--not unless someone was to give us away, sir!" said ruth demurely, as she looked across the sea under lowered brows. bess called back reassuringly over her shoulder: "you're all right, ruth. i'll square mr. trupp." the riders struck duke's drive and dropped down into meads. "how happy ernie looks now!" said bess. "it's delightful to see him." "yes," replied her father--"too happy. he's going to sleep again--just what i told you. and when he's well away in the land of dreams _it_'ll pounce on him once more." that evening over his coffee mr. trupp returned to the subject, which was a favourite with him. "i always knew how it would be," he said with gloomy complacency. "of course," answered mrs. trupp, glancing mischievously at bess. "makes him too comfortable," the wise man continued. "fatal mistake. what he wants is an occasional flick with the whip to keep him up to the mark. we all do." it was not, indeed, in ruth's nature to use the whip or inspire the fear which few of us as yet are able to do without. and at present she did not bother much. for at first her beauty and spiritual power were quite enough to hold ernie. he found in her the comfort and the stay the tree finds in the earth it is rooted in. she was the element in which he lived and moved and had his being. she satisfied his body and his spirit as the sea satisfies the fish which dwells in it. she steadied him and that was what he needed. the marriage, indeed, proved as successful as are most. that is to say it was not a failure, in that both the contracting parties were on the whole the happier for it. certainly ern was: for there was no doubt that he was in love with ruth, nor that his love was real and enduring. ruth on her side was fond of ern, and grateful to him, if only because of little alice; although her feeling was more that of the mother for the child than of the woman for her mate. she was full of pity for him and occasionally unuttered resentment. that was inevitable because ern was weak. she had continually to prop him up, though she would rather have let him do the propping. and perhaps for her own growth it was good that she must give support rather than receive it. in a way she was not the ideal wife for ern: her strength was her weakness. she appeared almost too big of soul and tranquil of spirit. but there was another side of her, largely undeveloped, that had as yet only revealed itself in gleams, or rather, to be exact, in one lurid flash of lightning which had thrown her firmament into ghastly and twittering relief. her quiet was the hushed and crouching quiet of the young lilac in winter, lying secretly in wait for the touch of april sun, to leap forth from its covert in an amazing ecstasy of colour, fragrance, loveliness and power. for the time being ruth was glad to lie up, as a tigress in whelp, after long hunting, is content to harbour in the green darkness, drinking in draughts of refreshing through sleep, while her mate prowls out at dusk to find meat. but that would not last for ever. her life must be full and brimming over or her insatiable vitality and that all-devouring spirit of hers, reaching out like a creeper to embrace the world, might find outlet in mischief, innocent enough in the intention, and yet, as experience had already proved, catastrophic in its consequences. in her secret deeps, indeed, ruth was one to whom danger was the breath of life, although she was still unaware of it: an explorer and pioneer, gay and gallant, sailing her skiff over virgin oceans, reckless of the sunken reefs that might at any moment rip the bottom out of her frail craft. the outward sedateness of the sussex peasant was liable at any moment to sudden overthrow, as some chance spark caused the southern blood in her veins to leap and frolic into flame; and that castilian hidalgo, her remote ancestor, who lurked behind the arras of the centuries, called her away from the timid herd to some dear and desperate enterprise of romance. mrs. trupp alone was aware of this buccaneer quality hidden in the young woman's heart and undiscovered of the world. ruth's miss caryll had told her friend of it long ago when the girl was in her service at the dower-house, aldwoldston. "it's the spaniard in her," miss caryll had said. and when at the time of her distress ruth had told her story to the wife of the great surgeon who had succoured her, mrs. trupp, keen-eyed for all her gentleness, had more than once detected the flash of a sword in the murk of the tragedy. the girl had dared--and been defeated. she would dare again--until she found her conqueror: thus mrs. trupp envisaged the position. was ernie that man? chapter iv alf then a child lifted its tiny sail on the far horizon. its rippling approach across the flood-tides absorbed ruth and helped ernie: for he had in him much of his father's mysticism, and was one of those men who go through life rubbing their eyes as the angels start up from the dusty road, and they see miracles on every side where others only find the prosaic permutations and combinations of mud. and this particular miracle, taking place so deliberately beneath his roof, a miracle of which he was the unconscious agent, inspired and awed him. "makes you sweat to think of it," he said to a mate in the yard. "by then you've had half-a-dozen and got to keep em, you'll sweat less," retorted his friend, who had been married several years. mr. trupp looked after ruth. great man as he was now, he still attended faithfully those humble families who had supported him when first he had established himself in old town thirty years before, young, unknown, his presence fiercely resented by the older practitioners. when ruth's time came, ernie sat in the kitchen, shaken to the soul, and listening to the feet in the room above. it was a dirty night, howling, dark and slashed with rain. outside in the little dim street that ran below the kneb on which loomed the shadowy bulk of the parish-church, solid against the cloud-drift, stood the doctor's car. once ernie went to the rain-sluiced window and saw alf with his collar turned up crouching behind the wheel. ernie went out into the flapping night. "ere, alf!" he said hoarsely. "we can't go on like this. tain't in nature. after all, we're brothers." the two had not spoken since the one had possessed the woman the other had desired. alf now showed himself curiously complacent. "i am a christian all right," he confided to his brother; and added with the naïve self-satisfaction of the megalomaniac, as he shook hands: "i wish there was more like me, i do reelly." "come in, then," said ern, who was not listening. "i can't abear to see you out here such a night as this and all." alf came in. the two brothers sat over the fire in the kitchen, alf uplifted, his gaitered legs crossed. he looked about him brightly with that curious proprietory air of his. "you've a decent little crib here, ern, i see," he said. "none so bad," ernie answered briefly. "done it up nice too," the other continued. "did your landlord do that now?" "no; me and ruth atween us." "ah, he'll raise your rent against you." "like em," said ern. "they're all the same." somebody moved overhead. ern, stirred to his deeps, rose and stood, leaning his forehead on the mantel-piece, his ears aloft. "this is a bad job, ern," said alf--"a shockin bad job." "it's killin me," ern answered with the delicious egoism of the male at such moments. there was a lengthy silence. then alf spoke again--casually this time. "she never said nothin to you about no letter, did she?" "it's burned," replied ernie curtly. alf glanced at his brother sharply. then, satisfied that the other was in fact telling the truth, he resumed his study of the fire. "not as there was anythink in it there shouldn't have been," he said complacently. "you can ask anyone." he was silent for a time. then he continued confidentially, leaning forward a little--"when you see her tell her i'm safe. may be that'll ease her a bit." ernie came to himself and glowered. "what ye mean?" he asked. alf cocked his chin, knowing and mysteriously. "ah," he said. "you just tell her what i tell you--_alf won't let on; alf's safe_. just that. you'll see." there was a stir and a movement in the room above: then the howl of a woman in travail. ern was panting. silence succeeded the storm. then a tiny miaowing from the room above came down to them. alf started to his feet. "what's that?" he cried. "my child," answered ernie deeply, lifting a blind face to the ceiling. alf was afraid of many things; but most of all he feared children, and was brutal to them consequently, less from cruelty, as the unimaginative conceived, than in self-defence. and the younger the child the more he feared it. the presence in the house of this tiny creature, emerging suddenly into the world from the darkness of the beyond with its mute and mysterious message, terrified him. "here! i'm off!" he said. "this ain't the place for me," and he left the house precipitately. mrs. trupp of course went to visit the young mother. ruth in bed, nursing her babe, met her with a smile that was radiant yet wistful. "it's that different to last time," she said, and nodded at little alice playing with her beads at the foot of the bed. "see, she'd no one--only her mother ... and you ... and mr. trupp. they were all against her--poor lamb!--as if it was fault of her'n." she gasped, choking back a sob.--"this'n's got em all on her side." "that's all over now, ruth," said mrs. trupp gently. "i pray so, with all my heart i do," answered ruth. "you never knaw. seems to me some things are never over--not in this world anyways." she blinked back tears, drew her hand across her eyes, and flashed up bravely. "silly, ain't it?" she laughed. "only times it all come back so--what we went through, she and me. and not through any fault of mine--only foolishness like." ruth was one of those women who are a standing vindication of our civilisation and a challenge to all who indict it. she was up and about in an incredibly short time, the firmer in body and soul for her adventure. one morning alf came round quietly to see her. she was at the wash-tub, busy and bare-armed; and met him with eyes that were neither fearful nor defiant. "i'm not a-goin to hurt you, ruth," he began caressingly, with a characteristic lift of his chin. "i only come to say it's all right. you got nothink against me now and i'll forget all i know about you. a bargain's a bargain. and now you've done your bit i'll do mine." the announcement, so generous in its intention, did not seem to make the expected impression. "i am a gentleman," continued alf, leaning against the door-post. "always ave been. it's in me blood, see? can't help meself like even if i was to wish to." he started off on a favourite theme of his. "lord ravensrood--him that made that speech on the territorials the other night in the house of lords, he's my second cousin. i daresay if enough was to die i'd be lord ravensrood meself. often whiles i remember that. i'm not like the rest of them. i got blue blood running through me veins, as reverend spink says. you can tell that by the look of me. i'm not the one to take advantage." ruth, up to her elbows in soap-suds, lifted her face. "i'm not afraid o you, alf," she said quite simply. "now i got my ern." the announcement annoyed alf. he rolled his head resentfully. "no one as does right has anythink to fear from me," he said harshly. "it's only wrong-doers i'm a terror to. don't you believe what they tell you. so long as you keep yourself accordin and don't interfere with nobody, nobody won't interfere with you, my gurl." ruth mocked him daintily. "i'm not your girl," she said, soaping her beautifully moulded arms. "i'm ern's girl, and proud of it." her lovely eyes engaged his, teasing and tempting. "that's our room above--his and mine. it's cosy." "ah," said alf, smouldering. "i'd like to see it." "you can't do that," answered ruth gravely. "besides, there's nothing to see only the double-bed mrs. trupp gave us and the curtains to close it at night and that, so that no one shan't peep at what they should'nt." the touch of southern blood, wild and adventurous, which revealed itself in her swarthy colouring and black hair, stung her on to darings demure as they were provocative. alf, sour of eye, changed the subject. "yes, it's a nice little bit of a crib," he said, glancing round. "what might be your rent?" "more'n it ought to be," answered ruth. "that's a pity," said alf. "what's ern's money now?" "i shan't tell you." alf thrust his huge head forward with an evil grin. "i'll tell you," he said. "it's twenty-four, and that's the limit. pigott won't raise him no more. i know pigott." he gloated over his victim. "yes, old ern makes in the week what i'd make in a day if i was to do nothink only loll against the wall with me mouth open to catch the interest on me money that'd roll into it. and i'm makin all the time: for god's give me brains and i'm usin em. i'm not a-going to drive for somebody else all my life. i'm the comin man in this town--you ask my bankers. there's plenty doin _you_ don't know nothin of, and more to come. and i'm at the back of it!--i'm the man what makes things move--that's what i am!" he swelled like a little bull-frog. "i'm a gentleman--that's alf." he shot his face forward and wagged a finger at her. "and that's just the difference between ern and me. i'm in the position to live on me own money and never do a hand's turn for it: while ern has to sweat for his handful of coppers. and _then_ it ain't enough to keep his wife from the wash-tub. i'd like to see _my_ wife at that!--now then!" he folded his arms and struck an attitude. ruth soused and wrung and rinsed quite unmoved. "that aren't the only difference, alf," she said soothingly. "see, ern's got me. that makes up to him a lot, he says. he says he don't care nothing so long as he's got me to issalf, he says.... strawberries and cream and plenty of em, he calls me when he's got the curtains draw'd up there, and me a-settin on his knee." alf retreated, burning and baffled. she came to the door drying her arms, and pursued her victim with eyes in which the lightning played with laughter; as fastidious and dainty in her cruelty as a cat sporting with a mouse. a little way down the street he paused and turned. then he came back a pace or two stealthily. his face was mottled and he was tilting his chin, mysterious and confidential. "never hear e'er a word from the captain?" he asked, in a hushed voice. ruth flashed a terrible white and her bosom surged. "i do times," continued the tormentor, and bustled on his way with a malignant chuckle. chapter v the creeping death one evening at the club, mr. trupp asked the colonel what had happened to captain royal. "he went through the staff college, and now he's at the war office, i believe," the other answered curtly. "ever hear from him?" asked mr. trupp, warily. "no," said the colonel. "he's not a friend of mine." and to save himself and an old brother-officer for whom he had neither liking nor respect, he changed the conversation to the theme that haunted him. mr. trupp might chaff the colonel about his _idée fixe_, but he, too, like most men of his class, had the fear of germany constantly before his eyes and liked nothing better than to discuss the familiar topic with his friend over a cigar. "well, how are we getting on?" he asked encouragingly. "not so bad," the colonel answered through the smoke. "haldane's sent for haig from india." "who's haig?" puffed the other. "haig's a soldier who was at oxford," the colonel answered. "you didn't know there was such a variety, did you?" "never mind about oxford," grunted the great surgeon. "oxford turns out as many asses as any other institution so far as i can see. does he know his job? that's the point." "as well as you can expect a soldier to know it," replied the other, still in the ironic vein. "sound but slow's his reputation. he and haldane are the strongest combination there's been at the war office in my time." he added more seriously--"they ought to get a move on between 'em, if anybody can." "in time?" asked mr. trupp. the colonel, in spite of the recurrent waves of despair, which inundated him, was at heart an unrepentant optimist. "i don't see why not," he said. "bobs says germany can't strike till the kiel canal's open for battleships. that won't be till or so." the old doctor moved into the card-room with a cough. "gives you time to get on with your job, too, colonel," he said. "i wish you well. good-night." the colonel was retired now; but his brain was as active as ever, his heart as big, if his body was no longer so sure an instrument as it once had been. and lord roberts, when he asked his old comrade in arms to undertake work which he did not hesitate to describe as vital to the empire, knew that the man to whom he was appealing possessed _in excelsis_ the quality which has always made the british army the nursery of spirits who put the good of the service before their own advancement. the little old hero, like all great soldiers, had his favourite regiments, the result of association and experience; and it was well known that the hammer-men stood at the top of the list. fifty years before the date of this story they had sweated with him on the ridge before delhi; under his eyes had stormed the kashmir gate; with him had watched nicholson die. twenty years later they had gone up the kurrum with the young major-general, and made with him the famous march from kabul to kandahar. another twenty years and they were making the pace for the old field marshal in the great trek from paardeberg to bloemfontein. he knew most of the officers, some of them intimately. and on hearing that jocko lewknor had settled down at beachbourne wrote at once and asked him to become secretary of the local branch of the national service league, which existed to establish in england universal military training on the lines of switzerland's militia. the colonel made one of his rare trips to london and lunched at the rag with the leader who had been his hero ever since as a lad he had gone up the peiwar khotal with the first hammer-men at the order of bahadur bobs. the field marshal opened the colonel's eyes to the danger threatening the empire. "the one thing in our favour is this," he said, as they parted at the hall-door. "we've yet time." the colonel, inspired with new life, returned to beachbourne and told his wife. she listened with vivid interest. "you've got your work cut out, my jocko," she said. "and i shan't be able to help you much." "no," replied the colonel. "you must stick to the hostel. i'll plough my own furrow." forthwith he set to work with the quiet tenacity peculiar to him. from the start he made surprising headway, perhaps because he was so unlike the orthodox product of the barrack-square; and like his leader he eschewed the party politics he had always loathed. when he took up the work of the league he found it one of the many non-party organisations, run solely by the conservatives quartered in meads and old town, because, to do them justice, nobody else would lend a hand. liberalism, camped in mid-town about terminus road, was sullenly suspicious; labour, at the east-end, openly hostile. the opposition of liberalism, the colonel soon discovered, centred round the leader of nonconformity in the town, mr. geddes, the powerful presbyterian minister at st. andrew's; the resistance of labour, inchoate as yet and ineffective as the labour party from which it sprang, was far more difficult to tackle as being more vague and imponderable. in those days, always with the same end in view, the colonel spent much time in the east-end, winding his way into the heart of industrial democracy. he sloughed some old prejudices and learnt some new truths, especially the one most difficult for a man of his age and tradition to imbibe--that he knew almost nothing of modern england. often on sundays he would walk across from meads to sea-gate and spend his afternoon wandering in the recreation ground, gathering impressions on the day that labour tries to become articulate. on one such sunday afternoon he came on a large old gentleman in gold spectacles, fair linen, and roomy tailcoat, meandering on the edge of a dirty and tattered crowd who were eddying about a platform. the old gentleman seemed strangely out of place and delightfully unconscious of it; wandering about, large, benevolent and undisturbed, like a moon in a stormy sky. "well, mr. caspar," said the colonel quietly. "what do you make of it all?" the large soft man turned his mild gaze of a cow in calf on the lean tall one at his side. it was clear he had no notion who the speaker was; or that they had been at trinity together forty years before. "to me it's extraordinarily inspiring," he said with an earnestness that was almost ridiculous. "i feel the surge of the spirit beating behind the bars down here as i do nowhere else.... it fills me with an immense hope." the colonel, standing by the other like a stick beside a sack, sighed. "they fill _me_ with a fathomless despair," he said gently. "one wants to help them, but they won't let you." the other shook a slow head. "i don't look at it like that," he replied. "i go to them for help." the colonel made a little moue. "d'you get it?" he asked "i do," mr. caspar replied with startling conviction. the colonel moved sorrowfully upon his way. he was becoming a man of one idea--germany.... a few nights later, after supper, he strolled up beau-nez under a harvest-moon spreading silvery wings moth-like over earth and sea. he was full of his own thoughts, and and for once heavy, almost down-hearted, as he took up his familiar post of vigil beside the flagstaff on the head and looked out over the shining waters. the liberals were moving at last, it seemed. the great cry for dreadnoughts, more dreadnoughts, _we want eight! we won't wait!_ had gone up to the ears of government from millions of middle-class homes; but the working man still slept. would nothing rouse him to the terror that stalked by night across those quiet waters? ... the working man, who would have to bear the brunt of it when the trouble came.... the working man...? the head was deserted save for the familiar goat tethered outside the coast-guard station. the moon beamed down benignantly on the silver-sabled land, broad-bosomed about him, and the waters stirring far beneath him with a rustle like wind in corn. then he heard a movement at his back, and turned to see behind him, shabby, collarless, sheepish, the very working man of whom he had been thinking. the colonel regarded the mystic figure, gigantic in the moonlight, a type rather than an individual, with an interest that was half compassionate and half satirical. _yes. that was the feller! that was the chap who would take it in the neck! that man with the silly smile--god help him!_ "_come to look for it?_" he said to the shadow, half to himself--"_wiser than your kind?_" "_look for what, sir?_" "_the creeping death that's stealing across the sea to swallow you and yours._" the shadow sidled towards him. "is that you, sir?" a voice said. "i thought it were." the colonel emerged from his dream. "what, caspar!" he replied. "what are you doing up here at this time of night?" "just come up for a look round before turning in, me and my wife, sir," the other answered. "ruth," he called, "it's the colonel." a young woman with an orange scarf about her hair issued from the shadow of the coast-guard station and came forward slowly. "i've heard a lot about you from ern, sir," she said in a deep voice that hummed like a top in the silvery silence. "when you commanded his battalion in india and all." the colonel, standing in the dusk, listened with a deep content as to familiar music, the player unseen; and was aware that his senses were stirred by a beauty felt rather than seen...... then he dropped down the hill to the hostel twinkling solitary in the coombe beneath. "your friend caspar's married," he told his wife on joining her in the loggia. the little lady scoffed. "married!" she cried. "he's been married nearly a year. they spent their honeymoon on the hill at the back last autumn. i could see them from my room." "why ever didn't you tell me?" asked the colonel. "i'd have run em in for vagrancy." "no, you wouldn't," answered mrs. lewknor. "why not?" "because, my jocko, she's a peasant madonna. you couldn't stand up against her. no man could." "a powerful great creature from what i could see of her," the colonel admitted. "a bit of a handful for master ernie, i should guess." mrs. lewknor's fine face became firm. she thought she scented a challenge in the words and dropped her eyes to her work to hide the flash in them. "ernie'll hold her," she said. "he could hold any woman. he's a gentleman like his father before him." he reached a long arm across to her as he sat and raised her fingers to his lips. years ago a bird had flashed across the vision of his wife, coming and going, in and out of the darkness, like the sparrow of the saxon tale; but this had been no sparrow, rather a bird of paradise. the colonel knew that; and he knew that the fowler who had loosed the jewel-like bird was that baggy old gentleman who lived across the golf links in the little house that overlooked the rectory. he knew and understood: for years ago the same bird had flashed with radiant wings across the chamber of his life too, swiftly coming, swiftly going. chapter vi the colonel learns a secret if the colonel in his missionary efforts for the national service league made little impression on the masses in the east-end, he was astonishingly successful with such labour as existed in old town; which in political consciousness lagged fifty years behind its tumultuous neighbour on the edge of the levels, and retained far into this century much of the atmosphere of a country village. there the church was still a power politically, and the workers disorganised. the brewery in the moot and the southdown transport company were the sole employers of labour in the bulk; and mr. pigott the only stubborn opponent of the programme of the league. archdeacon willcocks backed the colonel with whole-hearted ferocity, and lent him the services of the reverend spink, who, flattered at working with a colonel d.s.o., showed himself keen and capable, and proposed to run the old town branch of the league in conjunction with the church of england's men's society. "i've got a first-rate secretary as a start," he told the colonel importantly. "who's that?" "caspar." "ernest caspar!" cried the colonel. "the old hammer-man!" "no, his brother. twice the man. alfred--mr. trupp's chauffeur." a few days later, when leaving the curate's lodgings, the colonel ran up against ernie in church street. "your brother's joined us," he said. "are you going to?" ernie's charming face became sullen at once. "i would, sir," he said. "only for that." "only for what?" "alf." "you won't join because your brother has!" grinned the colonel. ernie rolled a sheepish head. "it's my wife, sir," he muttered. "see, he persecutes her somethink shameful." next afternoon the colonel was crossing saffrons croft on his way to the manor-house for tea, when a majestic young woman, a baby in her arms, sauntering under the elms watching the cricket, smiled at him suddenly. he stopped, uncertain of her identity. "i'm mrs. caspar, sir," she explained. "we met you the other night on the head--ern and me." "oh, i know all about you!" replied the colonel, glancing at the baby who lifted to the sky a face like a sleeping rose. "my word!--she's a bonny un." "she grows, sir," replied ruth, cooing and contented. "we gets her all the air we can. so we come here with the children for a blow of the coolth most in general saraday afternoons. more air than in the moot." "where's caspar?" asked the colonel. "yonder under the ellums, sir, along with a friend. come about the classes or something i did hear." "the class-war?" asked the colonel grimly. "no, sir," answered ruth. "classes for learning you learning, i allow. man from the north, i yeard say. talks funny--foreign talk i call it." just then the colonel's glance fell on a child, slim as a daisy stalk, and with the healthy pallor of a wood-anemone, hiding behind ruth's skirt and peeping at the stranger with fearless blue eyes that seemed somehow strangely familiar. "and what's your name, little miss hide-away?" he asked, delighted. "little alice," the child replied, bold and delicate as a robin. the fact that the child was obviously some four years old while ernie had not been married half that time did not occur to the colonel as strange. he glanced at the young mother, noble in outline, and in her black and red beauty of the south so unlike the child. "she doesn't take after her mother and father," he said, with the reckless indiscretion of his sex. then he saw his mistake. ruth has run up signals of distress. ernie, who had now joined them, as always at his best in an emergency, came quickly to the rescue. "favours her grandmother, sir, i say," he remarked. "like my boy," commented the colonel, recovering himself. "i don't think anybody'd have taken our jock for his father's son when he joined us at pindi in --eh, caspar?" the two old hammer-men chatted over days in india. then the colonel went on up the hill, the eyes of the child still haunting him. the manor-house party were having tea on the lawn, under the laburnum, looking over the sunk fence on to saffrons croft beyond, when the colonel joined them. mrs. lewknor was already there; and young stanley bessemere, the conservative candidate for beachbourne east. he and bess were watching a little group of people gathered about a man who was standing on a bench in saffrons croft haranguing. "lend me your bird-glasses, miss trupp," said her companion eagerly. he stood up, a fine figure of a man, perfectly tailored, "yes," he said. "i thought so. it's my friend." "who's that?" asked the colonel. "our bright particular local star of socialism," the other answered. "the very latest thing from ruskin college. i thought he confined himself to the east-end, but i'm glad to find he gives you old towners a turn now and then, miss trupp. and i hope he won't forget you up at meads, colonel." "what's his name?" asked bess, amused. "burt," replied the other. "he comes from the north--and he's welcome to go back there to-morrow so far as i'm concerned." "you're from the north yourself, mr. bessemere," mrs. trupp reminded him. "i am," replied the young man, "and proud of it. but for political purposes, i prefer the south. that's why i'm a candidate for beachbourne east." a few minutes later he took his departure. the colonel watched him go with a sardonic grin. philosopher though he might be, he was not above certain of the prejudices common to his profession, and possessed in an almost exaggerated degree the army view of all politicians as the enemies of man at large and of the services in particular. bess was still observing through her glasses the little group about the man on the bench. "there's ruth!" she cried--"and ernie!" "listening to the orator?" asked the colonel, joining her. "not ruth!" answered bess with splendid scorn. "no orators for her, thank you!--she's listening to the baby. ernie can listen to him." the colonel took the glasses and saw ruth and ernie detach themselves from the knot of people and come slowly up the hill making for borough lane. "that really is a magnificent young woman of caspar's," he said to his host. "she's one in a million," replied the old surgeon. "william's always been in love with her," said his wife. "all the men are," added mrs. lewknor, with a provocative little nod at her husband. "where did he pick up his pearl?" asked the colonel. "i love that droning accent of hers. it's like the music of a rookery." "she can ca-a-a away with the best of them when she likes," chuckled bess. "you should hear her over the baby!" "an aldwolston girl," said mrs. trupp. "she's sussex to the core--with that spanish strain so many of them have." she added with extreme deliberation,--"she was at the hohenzollern for a bit one time o day, as we say in these parts." mrs. lewknor coloured faintly and looked at her feet. next to her jocko and his jock the regiment was the most sacred object in her world. but the harm was done. the secret she had guarded so long even from her husband was out. the word hohenzollern had, she saw, unlocked the door of the mystery for him. instantly the colonel recalled captain royal's stay at the hotel on the crumbles a few years before ... ernie caspar's service there ... the clash of the two men on the steps of the house where he was now having tea ... royal's sudden flight, and the rumours that had reached him of the reasons for it. the eyes which had looked at him a few minutes since in saffrons croft from beneath the fair brow of little alice were the eyes of his old adjutant. then mr. trupp's voice broke in upon his reverie. "ah," said the old surgeon, "i see you know." "and i'm glad you should," remarked mrs. trupp with the almost vindictive emphasis that at times characterised this so gentle woman. "everybody does, mother," bess interjected quietly... as the colonel and his wife walked home across the golf links he turned to her. "did you know that, rachel?" he inquired. she looked straight in front of her as she walked. "i did, my jocko ... mrs. trupp told me." the colonel mused. "what a change!--from royal to caspar!" he said. she glanced up at him. "you don't understand, jocko," she said quietly. "ruth was never royal's mistress. she was a maid on the third floor at the hohenzollern when he was there. he simply raped her and bolted." the colonel shrugged. "like the cad," he said. they walked on awhile. then the colonel said more to himself than to his companion, "i wonder if she's satisfied?" the little lady at his side made a grimace that suggested--"is any woman?" but all she said was, "she's a good woman." "she's come a cropper once," replied the colonel. "she was tripped," retorted the other almost tartly. "she didn't fall." chapter vii the man from the north a few days later, on a saturday afternoon, the colonel was sitting in the loggia of the hostel looking out over the sea when he saw two men coming down the shoulder of beau-nez along the coast-guard path. the tall man in black with flying coat-tails he recognised at once. it was mr. geddes, the one outstanding minister of the gospel in beachbourne: a scholar, yet in touch with his own times, eloquent and broad, with a more than local reputation as a liberal leader. his companion was a sturdy fellow in a cap, with curly black hair and a merry eye. the colonel, who never missed a chance, went out to waylay the pair. mr. geddes introduced his friend--mr. burt, who'd come down recently from mather and platt's in the north to act as foreman fitter at hewson and clarke's in the east-end. the colonel reached out a bony hand, which the other gripped fiercely. "i know you're both conspirators," he said with a wary smile. "what troubles are you hatching for me now?" mr. geddes laughed, and the engineer, surly a little from shyness and self-conscious as a school-boy, grinned. "mr. burt and i are both keen on education," said the minister. "he's been telling me of tawney's tutorial class at rochdale. we're hatching a branch of the w.e.a. down here. that's our only conspiracy." "what's the w.e.a.?" asked the colonel, always keen. "it's the democratic wing of the national service league," the engineer answered in broad lancashire--"workers' education association." the colonel nodded. "he's getting at me!" he said. "i'm always being shot at. will you both come in to tea and talk?--i should like you to meet my wife, burt. she'll take you on. she's a red-hot tory and a bonnie fighter." but mr. geddes had a committee, and--"a must get on with the revolution," said burt gravely. "what revolution's that?" asked the colonel. "the revolution that begun in --and that's been going on ever since; and will go on till we're through!" he said the last words with a kind of ferocity; and then burst into a sudden jovial roar as he saw the humour of his own ultra-seriousness. mrs. lewknor, who had been watching the interview from the loggia, called to her husband as he returned to the house. "who was that man with mr. geddes?" she asked. "stanley bessemere's friend," the colonel answered. "a red revolutionary from lancasheer--on the bubble; and a capital good fellow too, i should say." that evening the colonel rang up mr. geddes to ask about the engineer. "he's the new type of intellectual artizan," the minister informed him. "the russet-coated captain who knows what he's fighting for and loves what he knows. unless i'm mistaken he's going to play a considerable part in our east-end politics down here." he gave the other the engineer's address, adding with characteristic breadth, "it might be worth your while to follow him up perhaps, colonel." joe burt lodged in the east-end off pevensey road in the heart of the new and ever-growing industrial quarter of seagate, which was gradually transforming a rather suburban little town of villas with a fishing-station attached into a manufacturing city, oppressed with all the thronging problems of our century. there the colonel visited his new friend. burt was the first man of his type the old soldier, who had done most of his service in india, had met. the engineer himself, and even more the room in which he lived, with its obvious air of culture, was an eye-opener to the colonel. there was an old sideboard, beautifully kept, and on it a copper kettle and spirit lamp; a good carpet, decent curtains. on the walls were millais's _knight errant_, greiffenhagen's _man with a scythe_, and clausen's _girl at the gate_. but it was the books on a long deal plank that most amazed the old soldier; not so much the number of them but the quality. he stood in front of them and read their titles with grunts. alfred marshall's _principles of economics_ lolled up against the webbs' _industrial democracy_; bradley's lectures on the tragedies of shakespeare hobnobbed with gilbert murray's translations from euripides. few of the standard books on economics and industrial history, english or american, were missing. and the work of the modern creators in imaginative literature, wells, shaw, arnold bennett were mixed with _alton locke_, _daniel deronda_, _sybil_, and the essays of samuel butler and edward carpenter. "you're not married then?" said the colonel, throwing a glance round the well-appointed room. "yes, a am though," the engineer answered, his black-brown eyes twinkling. "a'm married to democracy. she's ma first loov and like to be ma last." "what you doing down south?" asked the colonel, tossing one leg over the other as he sat down to smoke. "coom to make trouble," replied the other. "good for you!" said the colonel. "hotting things up for our friend stan. well, he wants it. all the politicians do." his first visit to seagate lane was by no means his last: for the engineer's courage, his integrity, his aggressive tactics, delighted and amused the scholarly old soldier; but when he came to tackle his man seriously on the business of the national service league he found he could not move him an inch from the position he invariably took up: the army would be used by the government in the only war that matters--the industrial war; and therefore the army must not be strengthened. "if the army was used for the only purpose it ought to be used for--defence--a'd be with you. so'd the boolk of the workers. but it's not. they use it to croosh strikes!" and he brought his fist down on the table with a characteristic thump. "that's to croosh us!--for the strike's our only weapon, colonel." the power, the earnestness, even the savagery he displayed, amazed the other. here was a reality, an elemental force of which he had scarcely been aware. this was democracy incarnate. and whatever else he might think he could not but admire the sincerity and strength of it. but he always brought his opponent back to what was for him the only issue. "germany!" he said. "that's blooff!" replied the other. "they'll get the machine-guns for use against germany, and when they've got em they'll use them against us. that's the capitalists' game.--then there's the officers." "what about em?" said the colonel cheerfully. "they're harmless enough, poor devils." "tories to a man. coom from the capitalist class." "what if they do?" "the army does what the capitalist officer tells it. and he knows where his interest lies aw reet." "well, of course you know the british officer better than i do, burt," replied the colonel, nettled for once. his opponent was grimly pleased to have drawn blood. "in the next few years if things go as they look like goin we shall see," was his comment. "wait till we get a labour government in power!" the colonel knocked out his pipe. "well, burt, i'll say this," he remarked. "if we could get half the passion into our cause you do into yours, we should do." "we're fighting a reality, colonel," the other answered. "you're fighting a shadow, that's the difference." "i hope to god it may prove so!" said the colonel, as they shook hands. the two men thoroughly enjoyed their spars. and the battle was well matched: for the soldier of the old army and the soldier of the new were both scholars, well-read, logical, and fair-minded. on one of his visits the colonel found ernie caspar in the engineer's room standing before the book-shelf, handling the books. ernie showed himself a little shame-faced in the presence of his old commanding officer. "how do they compare to your father's, caspar?" asked the colonel, innocently unaware of the other's _mauvaise honte_ and the cause of it. "dad's got ne'er a book now, sir," ernie answered gruffly. "only just the bible, and wordsworth, and troward's lectures. not as he'd ever anythink like this--only carpenter. see, dad's not an economist. more of a philosopher and poet like." "i wish they were mine," said the colonel, turning over zimmeni's _greek commonwealth_. "they're all right if so be you can afford em," answered ernie shortly, almost sourly. "books are better'n beer, ernie," said joe burt, a thought maliciously; and added with the little touch of priggishness that is rarely absent from those who have acquired knowledge comparatively late in life--"they're the bread of life and source of power." "maybe," retorted ernie with a snort; "but they aren't the equal of wife and children, i'll lay." he left the room surlily. burt grinned at the colonel. "ern's one o the much-married uns," he said. "d'you know his wife?" the colonel asked. joe shook his bull-head. "nay," he said. "and don't wish to." "she's a fine woman all the same," replied the colonel. "happen so," the other answered. "all the more reason a should avoid her. they canna thole me, the women canna. and a don't blame em." "why can't they thole you?" asked the colonel curiously. "most labour leaders rise to power at the expense of their wives," the other explained. "they go on; but the wives stay where they are--at the wash-tub. the women see that; and they don't like it. and they're right." "what's the remedy?" "there's nobbut one." joe now not seldom honoured the colonel by relapsing into dialect when addressing him. "and that's for the labour leader to remain unmarried. they're the priests of democracy--or should be." "you'll never make a labour leader out of caspar," said the colonel genially. "i've tried to make an n.c.o. of him before now and failed." "a'm none so sure," joe said, and added with genuine concern: "he's on the wobble. might go up; might go down. anything might happen to yon lad now. he's just the age. but he's one o ma best pupils--if he'll nobbut work." "ah," said the colonel with interest. "so he's joined your class at st. andrew's hall, has he?" "yes," replied the other. "mr. chislehurst brought him along--the new curate in old town. d'ye know him?" "he's my cousin," replied the colonel. "i got him here. he'd been overworking in bermondsey--in connection with the oxford bermondsey mission." "oh, he's one of _them_!" cried the other. "that accounts for it. a know _them_. they were at oxford when a was at ruskin. they're jannock,--and so yoong with it. they think they're going to convert the church to christianity!" he chuckled. "in the course of history," remarked the colonel, "many churchmen have thought that. but the end of it's always been the same." "what's that?" asked the engineer. "that the church has converted them." chapter viii the cherub the advent of bobby chislehurst to old town made a considerable difference to bessie trupp. she was not at all in love with him and he only pleasantly so with her; but as she told her friend the colonel, "he's the first curate we've ever had in old town you can be like that with." "like that is good," said the colonel. "give me my tables. meet it is i write it down.--it says nothing and expresses everything." now if the clergy in old town with the exception of bess's pet antipathy, the reverend spink, were honest men worthy of respect, as everybody admitted, they were also old-fashioned; and bobby chislehurst was a new and disturbing element in their midst. shy and unassuming though he was, the views of the cherub, as the colonel called his cousin, when they became known, created something of a mild sensation in the citadel which had been held for conservatism against all comers by the archdeacon and his lady for nearly forty years. even mr. pigott was shocked. "he's a socialist!" he confided to mr. trupp at the bowling green committee. the old nonconformist had passed the happiest hours of a militant life in battle with the church as represented by his neighbour, the archdeacon, but of late it had been borne in upon him with increasing urgency that the time might come when church and chapel would have to join forces and present a common front against the hosts of socialism which he feared more than ever he had done the tory legions. but if the church was going socialist! ... and mr. chislehurst said it was... the new curate and bess trupp had much in common, especially boy scouts, their youth and the outstanding characteristic of their generation--a passionate interest and sympathy for their poorer neighbours. both spent laborious and happy hours in the moot, listening a great deal, learning much, even helping a little. bess, who had known most of the dwellers in the hollow under the kneb all her life, had of course her favourites whom she commended to the special care of bobby on his arrival; and first of these were the young caspars. she told him of edward caspar, her mother's old friend, scholar, dreamer, gentleman, with the blood of the beauregards in his veins, who had married the daughter of an ealing tobacconist, and lived in rectory walk; of anne caspar, the harsh and devoted tyrant; of the two sons of this inharmonious couple, and the antagonism between them from childhood; of alf's victory and ernie's enlistment in the army; his sojourn in india and return to old town some years since; and she gave him a brief outline of ruth's history, not mentioning royal's name but referring once or twice through set teeth to "that little beast." "who's that?" asked the cherub. "ernie's brother," she answered. "alfred, who drives for dad." "not the sidesman?" "yes." bobby looked surprised. "mr. spink," bess explained darkly. "he got him there." apart from bess's recommendation, mr. chislehurst's contact with ruth was soon established through little alice, who attended sunday school. ruth, moreover, called herself a church-woman, and was sedately proud of it, though the church had no apparent influence upon her life, and though she never attended services. on the latter point, the cherub, when he had rooted himself firmly in her regard, remonstrated. "see, i ca-a-n't, sir," said ruth simply. "why not?" asked bobby. "_he's_ always there," ruth answered enigmatically. bobby was puzzled and she saw it. "alf," she explained. "see, he wanted me same as ernie. only not to marry me. just for his fun like and then throw you over. that's alf, that is. there's the difference atween the two brothers." she regarded the young man before her with the lovely solicitude of the mother initiating a sensitive son into the cruelties of a world of which she has already had tragic experience. "men are like that, sir--some men." she added with tender delicacy, "only you wouldn't know it, not yet." the cherub might be innocent, but no man has lived and worked in the back-streets of bermondsey without learning some strange and ugly truths about life and human nature. "he's not worrying you now?" he asked anxiously. "nothing to talk on," answered ruth. "he wants me still, i allow. only he won't get me--not yet a bit anyways." she seemed quite casual about the danger that threatened her, bobby noticed; even, he thought, quietly enjoying it. that evening, when the cherub touched on the point to his colleague, mr. spink turned in his india-rubber lips. "it's an honour to be abused by a woman like that," he said. "she's a bad character--bad." "she's not that, i swear!" cried bobby warmly. "she may have exaggerated, or made a mistake, but bad she's not." "i believe i've been in the parish longer than you have, chislehurst," retorted the other crisply. "and presumably i know something about the people in it." "you've not been in as long as miss trupp," retorted bobby. "she's been here all her life." mr. spink puffed at his cigar with uplifted chin and smiled. "how's it getting on?" he asked. "pah!" muttered bobby--"cad!" and went out, rather white. that was not the end of the matter, however. a few days later joe burt and bobby had paused for a word at the _star_ corner when mr. spink and alf caspar came down church street together. "birds of a feather," said alf loudly, nudging his companion, just as they passed the standing couple. "that's not very courteous, caspar," called bobby quietly after him. mr. spink walked on with a smirk; but alf came back with hardly dissimulated truculence. "sorry you've been spreading this about me, mr. chislehurst," he said, his sour eyes blinking. "what?" asked the cherub, astonished. "dirt," alf retorted. "and i know where you got it from too." "i haven't," cried bobby with boyish indignation. "what d'you mean?" "i know you have though," retorted alf. "so it's no good denying it." he was about to move on with a sneer when joe burt struck in. "that's a foonny way to talk," he said. "_foonny_ it may be," mocked alf. "one thing i'll lay: it's not so _foonny_ as your lingo." the engineer shouldered a pace nearer. "throw a sneer, do you?" "ah," said alf, secure in the presence of the clergyman. "i know all about _you_." "coom to that," retorted the northerner, "i know a little about you. one o stan's pups, aren't you?" bobby moved on and alf at once followed suit. "you keep down in the east-end, my lad!" he called over his shoulder. "we don't want none of it in old town. nor we won't have it, neether." joe stood four-square at the cross-roads, bristling like a dog. "called yourself a socialist when yo were down, didn't you?" he shouted. "and then turned church and state when yo began to make. i know your sort!" he dropped down borough lane, hackles still up, on the way to meet ernie by appointment in the moot. at the corner he waited, one eye on ern's cottage, which he did not approach. then ruth's face peeped round her door, amused and malicious, to catch his dark head bobbing back into covert as he saw her. the two played _i spy_ thus most evenings to the amusement of one of them at least. "he's there," she told ernie in the kitchen--"waitin at the corner.--keeps a safe distance, don't he?--what's he feared on?" "you," answered ernie, and rose. ruth snorted. the reluctance to meet her of this man with the growing reputation as a fighter amused and provoked her. sometimes she chaffed with ernie about it; but a ripple of resentment ran always across her laughter. ern now excused his friend. "he's all for his politics," he said. "no time for women." "hap, he'll learn yet," answered ruth with a fierce little nod of her head. chapter ix the shadow of royal that evening alf called at bobby's lodgings and apologised frankly. "i know i said what i shouldn't, sir," he admitted. "but it fairly tortured me to see you along of a chap like that burt." "he's all right," said bobby coldly. alf smiled that sickly smile of his. "ah, you're innocent, mr. chislehurst," he said. "only wish i knew as little as you do." alf in fact was moving on and up again in his career; walking warily in consequence, and determined to do nothing that should endanger his position with the powers that be. this was the motive that inspired his apology to mr. chislehurst and caused him likewise to make approaches to his old schoolmaster, mr. pigott. the old nonconformist met the advances of his erstwhile pupil with genial brutality. "what's up now, alf?" he asked. "spreading the treacle to catch the flies. mind ye don't catch an hornet instead then!" the remark may have been made in innocence, but alf looked sharply at the speaker and retired in some disorder. his new stir of secret busyness was in fact bringing him into contact with unusual company, as mrs. trupp discovered by accident. one evening she had occasion to telephone on behalf of her husband to the garage. a voice that seemed familiar replied. "who's that?" she asked. the answer came back, sharp as an echo, "_who's that?_" "i'm mrs. trupp. i want to speak to alfred caspar." then the voice muttered and alfred took the receiver. later mrs. trupp told her husband of the incident. "i'm _certain_ it was captain royal," she said with emphasis. the old surgeon expressed no surprise. "i daresay," he said. "alf's raising money for some business scheme. he told me so." now if alf's attempts on ruth in the days between the birth of the child and her marriage to ernie were known to mrs. trupp, the connection of the little motor-engineer and royal was only suspected by her. a chance word of ruth's had put her on guard; and that was all. now with the swift natural intuition for the ways of evil-doers, which the innocent woman, once roused, so often reveals as by miracle, she flashed to a conclusion. "alf's blackmailing him!" she said positively. "i shouldn't be surprised," her husband answered calmly. his wife put her hand upon his shoulder. "how _can_ you employ a man like that, william?" she said, grave and grieved. it was an old point of dispute between them. now he took her hand and stroked it. "my dear," he said, "when a bacteriologist has had a unique specimen under the microscope for years he's not going to abandon it for a scruple." a few days later mrs. trupp was walking down borough lane past the _star_ when she saw alf and ruth cross each other on the pavement fifty yards in front. neither stopped, but alf shot a sidelong word in the woman's ear as he slid by serpent-wise. ruth marched on with a toss of her head, and mrs. trupp noted the furtive look in the eyes of her husband's chaffeur as he met her glance and passed, touching his cap. mindful of her conversation with her husband, she followed ruth home and boarded her instantly. "ruth," she asked, "i want to know something. you must tell me for your own good. alfred's got no hold over you?" ruth drew in her breath with the sound, almost a hiss, of a sword snatched from its scabbard. then slowly she relaxed. "he's not got the sway over me not now," she said in a still voice, with lowered eyes. "only thing he's the only one outside who knaws captain royal's the father of little alice." mrs. trupp eyed her under level brows. "oh, he does know that?" she said. ruth was pale. "yes, 'm," she said. "see alf used to drive him that summer at the hohenzollern." mrs. trupp was not entirely satisfied. "i don't see how alfred can hold his knowledge over you," she remarked. "not over me," answered ruth, raising her eyes. "over him." "over who?" "captain royal," said ruth; and added slowly--"and i'd be sorry for anyone alf got into his clutches--let alone her father." her dark eyes smouldered; her colour returned to her, swarthy and glowing; a gleam of teeth revealed itself between faintly parted lips. mrs. trupp not for the first time was aware of a secret love of battle and danger in this young englishwoman whose staid veins carried the wild blood of some remote ancestress who had danced in the orange groves of seville, watched the mediterranean blue flecked with the sails of barbary corsairs, and followed with passionate eyes the darings and devilries of her matador in the ring among the bulls of andalusia. mrs. trupp returned home, unquiet at heart, and with a sense that somehow she had been baffled. she knew ruth well enough now to understand how that young woman had fallen a prey to royal. it was not the element of class that had been her undoing, certainly not the factor of money: it was the soldier in the man who had seized the girl's imagination. and mrs. trupp, daughter herself of a line of famous soldiers, recognised that royal with all his faults, was a soldier, fine as a steel-blade, keen, thorough, searching. it was the hardness and sparkle and frost-like quality of this man with a soul like a sword which had set dancing the girl's hot spanish blood. royal was a warrior; and to that fact ruth owned her downfall. was ernie a warrior too? not for the first time she asked herself the question as she turned out of the moot into borough lane. and at the moment the man of whom she was thinking emerged from the yard of the transport company, dusty, draggled, negligent as always, and smiling at her with kind eyes--too kind, she sometimes thought. as she crossed the road to the manor-house joe burt passed her and gave his cap a surly hitch by way of salute. mrs. trupp responded pleasantly. her husband, she knew, respected the engineer. she herself had once heard him speak and had admired the fire and fearlessness in him. moreover, genuine aristocrat that she was, she followed with sympathy his lonely battle against the hosts of toryism in the east-end, none the less because she was herself a conservative by tradition and temperament. _that_ man was a warrior to be sure.... that evening the old surgeon dropped his paper and looked over his pince-nez at his wife and daughter. "my dears," he said, "i've some good news for you." "i know," replied bess, scornfully. "your lloyd george is coming down in january to speak on his iniquitous budget. i knew that, thank you!" "better even than that," her father answered. "alfred caspar's leaving me of his own accord." the girl tossed her skein of coloured silk to the ceiling with a splendid gesture. "chuck-_her_-up!" she cried. "do you hear, mother?" "i do," answered mrs. trupp severely. "better late than never." "and i'm losing the best chauffeur in east sussex," mr. trupp continued. alf, indeed, who had paddled his little canoe for so long and so successfully on the beachbourne mill-pond, was now about to launch a larger vessel on the ocean of the world in obedience to the urge of that ambition which, apart from a solitary lapse, had been the consuming passion of his life. unlike most men, however, who, as they become increasingly absorbed in their own affairs, tend to drop outside interests, he persisted loyally in old-time activities. whether it was that his insatiable desire for power forbade him to abandon any position, however modest, which afforded him scope; or that he felt it more necessary than ever now, in the interests of his expanding career, to maintain and if possible improve his relations with the church and state which exercised so potent a control in the sphere in which he proposed to operate; or that the genuinely honest workman in him refused to abandon a job to which he had once put his hand, it is the fact that he continued diligent in his office at st. michael's, and manifested even increased zeal in his labours for the national service league. alf, indeed, so distinguished himself by his services to the league that at the annual meeting at the town hall, he received public commendation both from the archdeacon and the colonel, who announced that "the admirable and indefatigable secretary of our old town branch, mr. alfred caspar, has agreed to become district convener." that meeting was a red-letter day in the history of the beachbourne national service league, for at it the colonel disclosed that lord roberts was coming down to speak. chapter x bobs the old field-marshal, wise and anxious as a great doctor, was sitting now at the bedside of the patient that was his country. his finger was on her pulse, his eye on the hourglass, the sands of which were running out; and he was listening always for the padding feet of that visitor whose knock on the door he expected momentarily. after south africa he had sheathed at last the sword which had not rested in its scabbard for fifty years; and from that moment his eyes were everywhere, watching, guiding, cherishing the movement to which he had given birth. he followed the activities and successes of colonel lewknor on the south coast with a close attention of which the old hammer-man knew nothing; and to show his appreciation of the colonel's labours, he volunteered to come down to beachbourne and address a meeting. the offer was greedily accepted. mrs. lewknor, who, now that the hostel was in full swing, was more free to interest herself in her husband's concerns, flung herself into the project with enthusiasm. and the colonel went to work with tact and resolution. on one point he was determined: this should not be a conservative demonstration, run by the tories of old town and meads. mr. glynde, a local squire, the member for beachbourne west, might be trusted to behave himself. but young stanley bessemere, who, as the colonel truly said, was for thrusting his toe into the crack of every door, would need watching--he and his cohorts of lady-workers. the committee took the town hall for the occasion, and arranged for the meeting to be at eight in the evening so that labour might attend if it would. the colonel journeyed down to the east-end to ask joe burt to take an official part in the reception; but the engineer refused, to the colonel's chagrin. "a shall coom though," said joe. "and bring your mates along," urged the colonel. "the old gentleman's worth seeing at all events. mr. geddes is coming." "i was going to soop with ernie caspar and his missus," replied the engineer, looking a little foolish. "and we were coomin along together afterwards." "ah," laughed the colonel, as he went out. "she's beat you!--i knew she would. back the woman!" joe grinned in the door. "yes," he said. "best get it over. that's my notion of it." bobs was still the most popular of englishmen, if no longer the figure of romance he had been in the eyes of the british public for a few minutes during the south african war. his name drew; and the town hall was pleasantly full without being packed. many came to see the old hero who cared little for his subject. amongst these was ruth caspar who at ernie's request for once had left her babes to the care of a friend. she stood at the back of the hall with her husband amongst her kind. mrs. trupp, passing, invited her to come forward; but ruth had spied alf at the platform end, a steward with a pink rosette, very smart, and deep in secret counsel with the reverend spink. joe burt, with critical bright eye everywhere, supported the wall next to her. the colonel, hurrying by, threw a friendly glance at him. "ah," he said, "so you've found each other." "yes, sir," replied ruth mischievously. "he's faced me at last, mr. burt has." "and none the worse for it, i hope," said the colonel. "that's not for me to say, sir," answered ruth, who was in gay mood. joe changed the subject awkwardly. "a see young bessemere's takin a prominent part in the proceedings," he said, nodding towards the platform. "he's two oughts above nothing, that young mon." "yes, young ass," replied the colonel cheerfully. "now if you'd come on the committee as i asked you, you'd be there to keep him in his place. you play into the hands of your enemy!" then bobby chislehurst stopped for a word with ruth and ernie and their friend. "coom, mr. chislehurst!" chaffed the engineer. "a'm surprised to see _you_ here. a thought you was a pacifist." "so i am," replied the other cheerily. "that's why i've come. i want to hear both sides." joe shook his bullet-head gravely. "there's nobbut two sides in life," he said. "right and wrong. which side is the church on?" then the little field-marshal came on to the platform with the swift and resolute walk of the old horse-gunner. he was nearly eighty now, but his figure was that of a youth, neat, slight, alert. ruth remarked with interest that the hero was bow-legged, which she did not intend her children to be. for the rest, his kindly face of a roman-nosed thoroughbred in training, his deep wrinkles, and close-cropped white hair, delighted her. the great soldier proved no orator; but his earnestness more than compensated for his lack of eloquence. after the meeting he came down into the body of the hall and held an informal reception. the colonel introduced mr. geddes, and left the two together while he edged his way down to joe burt. "well, what d'you think of him?" he asked. the engineer, his hands glued to the wall behind him, rocked to and fro. "a like him better than his opinions," he grinned. "you come along and have a word with him," urged the colonel. joe shook a wary head. "he's busy with church and state," he said, nodding down the hall. "he don't need labour." then ruth chimed in almost shrilly for once. "there's young alf shook hands with him!" "always shovin of issalf!" muttered ernie sourly. "he and reverend spink." the old field-marshal was now coming slowly down the hall with a word here and a handshake there. church and state, as joe had truly said, were pressing him. mrs. trupp, indeed, and mrs. lewknor were fighting a heavy rearguard action against the archdeacon and stanley bessemere and his cohorts, to cover the old soldier's retirement. as the column drifted past ernie and ruth the colonel stopped. "an old hammer-man, sir," he said. "and the mother of future hammer-men." lord roberts shook hands with ruth, and turned to ernie. "what battalion?" he asked in his high-pitched voice. "first, sir," answered ernie, rigid at attention, in a voice ruth had never heard before. "ah," said the old field-marshal. "they were with me in the march to kandahar. never shall i forget them!" he ran his eye shrewdly over the other. "are you keeping fit?" "pretty fair, considering, sir," answered ernie, relaxing suddenly as he had braced. "well, you'll be wanted soon," said bobs, and passed on. "how these men run to seed, directly they leave the service, lewknor!" he remarked to the colonel on the stairs. "now i daresay that fellow was a smart upstanding man when he was with you." ernie, thrilled at his adventure, went out into the cool night with ruth, quietly amused at his excitement, beside him. "didn't 'alf look, alf didn't, when he talked to you!" chuckled ruth. that was the main impression she had derived from the meeting, that and lord roberts's ears and the way they were stuck on to his head; but ernie's mind was still in tumult. "where's joe then?" he cried suddenly, and turned to see his pal still standing somewhat forlorn on the steps of the town hall. he whistled and beckoned furiously. "come on, joe!" he called. "just down to the wish and have a look at the sea." but the engineer shook his head and turned slowly away down grove road. "nay, a know when a'm not wanted," he called. "yoong lovers like to be alone." "sauce!" said ruth, marching on with a little smile. ernie rejoined her. "what d'you think of him?" he asked keenly. "o, i liked him," said ruth, cool and a trifle mischievous. "he's like a little bird--so alife like. and that tag of white beard to his chin like a billy-goat!--i did just want to pluck it!" she tittered and then recollected herself. "i didn't mean lord roberts, fat-ead," retorted ernie. "i meant joe." "o, that chap!" answered ruth casually. "i didn't pay much heed to him. there's a lot o nature to him, i should reckon. most in general there is--them black chaps, bull-built, wi curly tops to em." she drifted back to lord roberts and the meeting. "only all that about war!--i don't like that. don't seem right, not to my mind. there's a plenty enough troubles seems to me without them a-shoving great wars on top o you all for love." ernie felt that the occasion demanded a lecture and that he was pointed out as the man to give it. the chance, moreover, might not recur; and he must therefore make the most of it. he had this feeling less often perhaps than most men, and for that reason when he had it he had it strong. at the moment he was profoundly aware of the immense superiority of his sex; the political sagacity of man; his power of taking statesmanlike views denied apparently to woman. "and what if germany attacks us!" he asked censoriously. "take it laying down, i suppose!--spread yourself on the beach and let em tread on you as they land, so they don't wet their feet!" "germany won't interfere with you if you don't interfere with her, i reckon," ruth answered calmly. "it's just the same as neighbours in the street. you're friends or un-friends, accordin as you like." "what about mrs. ticehurst?" cried ernie, feeling victory was his for once. "you didn't interfere with her, did you? yet she tip the dust bin a-top o little alice over the back-wall--to show she loved you, i suppose." ruth tilted a knowing chin. "she aren't a neighbour, mrs. ticehurst aren't--not prarperly." they were relapsing into broad sussex as they always would when chaffing. "what are she then?" "she's a cat, sure-ly." the night air, the thronged and brilliant sky, the rare change, the little bit of holiday, inspired and stimulated her. the martha of much busyness had given place to the girl again. immersed in the splendid darkness, she was in a delicious mood, cool, provocative, ironical; as ernie had known her in that brief april of her life before captain royal had thrown a shadow across her path. he threaded his arm through hers. together they climbed the little wish hill on the sea-front. from the top, by the old martello tower, they looked across the sea, white beneath the moon. ernie's mood of high statesmanship had passed already. "i don't see this creeping death they talk on," he said discontentedly. "ah," ruth answered, sagacious in her turn. "hap it's there though." ernie turned on her. "i thart you just said..." "no, i didn't then," she answered with magnificent unconcern. "all i say is--war and that, what's it got to do wi' we?" as they came off the hill they met colonel and mrs. lewknor crossing madeira walk on their way home. "where's your friend?" asked the colonel. "gone back to his books and learning, sir, i reckon," replied ruth. "he don't want us." "ah, you scared him, mrs. caspar," chaffed the colonel. "scared him back to his revolution," commented mrs. lewknor. ruth laughed that deep silvery bell-like laughter of hers that seemed to make the night vibrate. "he'd take some scaring, i reckon, that chap would," she said. chapter xi the russet-coated captain joe burt had been born at rochdale of a mother whose favourite saying was: "with a rocking-chair and a piece o celery a lancasheer lass is aw reet." at eight, she had entered the mill, doffing. joe had entered the same mill at about the same age, doffing too. he worked bare-footed in the ring-room in the days when overlookers and jobbers carried straps and used them. when he was fifteen his mother died, and his father married again. "thoo can fend for self," his step-mother told him straightway, with the fine directness of the north. joe packed his worldly possessions in a chequered handkerchief, especially his greatest treasure--a sixpenny book bought off a second-hand bookstall at infinite cost to the buyer and called _the hundred best thoughts_. then he crossed the common at night, falling into a ditch on the way, to find the lodging-house woman who was to be his mother for the next ten years drinking her friday pint o beer. he was earning six shillings a week at the time in a bicycle-shop. later he entered a big engineering firm and, picking up knowledge as he went along, was a first-class fitter when he was through his time. those were the days when george barnes was secretary of the amalgamated society of engineers, and leading the great engineers' strike of the early nineties. labour was still under the heel of capital, but squealing freely. socialism, apart from a few thinkers, was the gospel of noisy and innocuous cranks; and advanced working-men still called themselves radicals. young joe woke up sooner than most to the fact that he was the slave of an environment that was slowly throttling him because it denied him opportunity to be himself--which is to say to grow. he discarded chapel for ever on finding that his step-mother was a regular worshipper at little bethel, and held in high esteem amongst the congregation. he read robert blatchford in the _clarion_, went to hear keir hardie, who with joey arch was dodging in and out of parliament during those years, heralds of the advancing storm, and took some part in founding the local branch of the newly-formed independent labour party. when his meditative spirit tired of the furious ragings of the labour movement of those early days, he would retire to the friends' meeting-house on the hill and ruminate there over the plain tablet set in the turf which marks appropriately the resting place of the greatest of modern quakers. the eyes of the intelligent young fitter were opening fast now; and the death of the head of his firm completed the process and gave him sight. "started from nothing. left £ , . bequeathed each of his servants £ for every year of service; but nothing for us as had made the money." joe was now a leading man in the local a.s.e. his society recognised his work and sent him in the early years of our century to ruskin college, oxford. the enemies of that institution are in the habit of saying that it spoils good mechanics to make bad labour leaders. the original aim of the college was to take men from the pit, the mill, the shop, pour into them light and learning in the rich atmosphere of the most ancient of our universities, and then return them whence they came to act amongst their fellows as lamps in the darkness and living witnesses of the redeeming power of education. the ideal, noble in itself, appealed to the public; but like many such ideals, it foundered on the invincible rock of human nature. the miners, weavers, and engineers, who were the students, after their year amid the towers and courts of oxford, showed little desire to return whence they came. rather they made their newly-acquired power an instrument to enable them to evade the suffocating conditions under which they were born; and who shall blame them? they became officials in labour bureaux, trade union leaders, secretaries of clubs, and sometimes the hangers-on of the wealthy supporters of the movement. burt was a shining exception to the rule. at the end of his academic year he returned to the very bench in the very shop he had left a year before, with enlarged vision, ordered mind, increased conviction; determined from that position to act as apostle to the gentiles of the old gospel in its new form. he was the not uncommon type of intellectual artisan of that day who held as the first article of his creed that no working-man ought to marry under the economic conditions that then prevailed; and that if nature and circumstance forced him to take a wife that he was not morally justified in having children. this attitude involving as it inevitably must a levy on the only capital that is of enduring value to a country--its youth--was thrust upon thoughtful workers, as joe was never tired of pointing out, by the patriotic class, who refused their employees the leisure, the security, the material standards of life necessary to modern man for his full development. joe practised what he preached, and was himself unmarried. apart, indeed, from an occasional fugitive physical connection as a youth with some passing girl, he had never fairly encountered a woman; never sought a woman; never, certainly, heard the call that refuses to be denied, spirit calling to spirit, flesh to flesh, was never even aware of his own deep need. women for him were still a weakness to be avoided. they were the necessaries of the feeble, an encumbrance to the strong. that was his view, the view of the crude boy. and he believed himself lucky to be numbered among the uncalled for he was in fact a sober fanatic, living as selflessly for his creed as ever did those first preachers of unscientific socialism, the apostles and martyrs of the first centuries of our era. even in the shop he had his little class of students, pouring the milk of the word into their ears as he set their machines, and the missionary spirit drove him always on to fresh enterprise. the movement, as he always called it, was well ablaze by the second decade of the century in the midlands and the north, but in the south it still only smouldered. and when hewson and clarke started their aeroplane department at beachbourne, and began to build machines for the government, joe burt, a first-rate mechanic, leapt at the chance offered him by the firm and crossed the thames with his books, his brains, his big heart, to carry the gospel of redemption by revolution to the men of sussex as centuries before, his spiritual ancestor, st. wilfrid, he too coming from the north, had done. in that strange land with its smooth-bosomed hills, its shining sea, its ca-a-ing speech, he found everything politically as he had expected. and yet it was in the despised south that he discovered the woman who was to rouse in him the fierce hunger of which till then he had been unaware except as an occasional crude physical need. as on saturday or sunday afternoons at the time the revelation was coming to him he roamed alone, moody and unmated, the rogue-man, amid the round-breasted hills he often paused to mark their resemblance to the woman who was rousing in his deeps new and terrible forces of which he had previously been unaware. in her majestic strength, her laughing tranquillity, even in her moods, grave or gay, the spirit mischievously playing hide-and-seek behind the smooth appearance, she was very much the daughter of the hills amid which she had been bred. ruth was as yet deliciously unaware of her danger. she was, indeed, unaware of any danger save that which haunts the down-sitting and up-rising of every working woman throughout the world--the abiding spectre of insecurity. she liked this big man, surly and self-conscious, and encouraged his visits. not seldom as she moved amid her cups and saucers in the back-ground of the kitchen, she would turn eye or ear to the powerful stranger with the rough eloquence sucking his pipe by the fire and holding forth to ernie on his favourite theme. it flattered her that he who notoriously disliked women should care to come and sit in her kitchen, lifting an occasional wary eyelid as he talked to look at her. and when she caught his glance he would scowl like a boy detected playing truant. "i shan't hurt you then, mr. burt," she assured him with the caressing tenderness that is mockery. his chin sunk on his chest. "a'm none that sure," he growled. ernie winked at ruth. "call him joe," he suggested. "then hap he'll be less frit." "wilta?" asked ruth, daintily mimicking the accent of her guest. "thoo's mockin a lad," muttered joe, delighted and relapsing into broader lancashire. "nay, ma lad," retorted ruth. "a dursena. a'm far ower scared." chapter xii ruth wakes apart from such occasional sallies ruth paid little attention to her husband's friend or, indeed, to anything outside her home. now that she had dropped her anchor in the quiet waters of love sheltered by law, and had her recovered self-respect to buttress her against the batterings of a wayward world, she was snug, even perhaps a little selfish with the self-absorption of the woman who is wrapped up in that extension of herself which is her home, her children, and the man who has given them her. after her stormy flight she had settled down in her nest, and seldom peeped over at the cat prowling beneath or at anybody, indeed, but the cock-bird bringing back a grub for supper; and him she peeped for pretty often. she was busy too with the unending busyness of the woman who is her own cook, housekeeper, parlourmaid, nurse and laundress. and happily for her she had the qualities that life demands of the woman who bears the world's burden--a magnificent physique to endure the wear and tear of it all, the invaluable capacity of getting on well with her neighbours, method in her house, tact with her husband, a way with her children. and there was no doubt that on the whole she was happy. the reaction from the _sturm-und-drang_ period before her marriage was passing but had not yet wholly passed. her spirit still slept after the hurricane. naturally a little indolent, and living freely and fully, if without passion, her nature flowed pleasantly through rich pastures along the channels grooved in earth by the age-long travail of the spirit. jenny and little ned followed susie, just a year between each child. ernie loved his children, especially always the last for the time being; but the element of wonder had vanished and with it much of the impetus that had kept him steady for so long. "how is it now?" asked his mate, on hearing of the birth of the boy. "o, it's all right," answered ernie, wagging his head. "only it ain't quite the same like. you gets used to it, as the sayin is." "and you'll get use-ter to it afore you're through, you'll see," his friend answered, not without a touch of triumphant bitterness. he liked others to suffer what he had suffered himself. as little by little the romance of wife and children began to lose its glamour, and the economic pressure steadily increased, the old weakness began at times to re-assert itself in ernie. he haunted the _star_ over much. joe burt chaffed him. "hitch your wagon to a star by all means, ern," he said. "but not that one." mr. pigott too cautioned him once or twice, alike as friend and employer. "family man now, you know, ernie," he said. the sinner was always disarming in his obviously sincere penitence. "i knaw i've unbuttoned a bit of late, sir," he admitted. "i'll brace up. i will and i can." and at the critical moment the fates, which seemed as fond of ernie as was everybody else, helped him. susie, his first-born, caught pneumonia. the shock stimulated ernie; as shock always did. the steel that was in him gleamed instantly through the rust. "say, we shan't lose her!" he asked mr. trupp in staccato voice. mr. trupp knew ernie, knew his weakness, knew human nature. "can't say," he muttered. "might not." ern went to the window and looked out on the square tower of the old church on the kneb above him. his eyes were bright and his uncollared neck seemed strangely long and thin. "she's got to live," he muttered defiantly. the doctor nodded grimly. the brute had pounced on ernie sleeping and was shaking him as a dog shakes a rat. mr. trupp, who had no intention of losing susie, was by no means sorry. "if it's got to be, it's got to be," said ruth, busy with poultices. "only it won't be if i can help it." she was calm and strong as ernie was fiercely resentful. that angered ernie, who was seeking someone to punish in his pain. when mr. trupp had left he turned on ruth. "you take it cool enough!" he said with a rare sneer. she looked at him, surprised. "well, where's the sense in wearin yourself into a fret?" answered ruth. "that doosn't help any as i can see." "ah, i knaw!" he said. "you needn't tell me." she put down the poultice and regarded him with eyes in which there was a thought of challenge. "what d'you knaw, ern?" there was something formidable about her very quiet. "what i do, then," he said, and turned his back on her. "if it was somebody else, we should soon see." she came to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and turned him so that she could read his face. he did not look at her. she turned slowly away, drawing in her breath as one who rouses reluctantly from sleep. "that's it, is it?" she said wearily. "i thart it'd come to that some day." just then little alice danced in from the street, delicate, pale sprite, with anemone-like health and beauty. "daddy-paddy!" she said, smiling up at him, as she twined her fingers into his. he bent and kissed her with unusual tenderness. "pray for our little sue, lal," he muttered. the child looked up at him with fearless eyes of forget-me-not blue. "i be," she said. he gave her a hand, and they went out together into motcombe garden: for they were the best of friends. ruth was left. in her heart she had always known that this would come: he would turn on her some day. and she did not blame him: she was too magnanimous. men were like that, men were. they couldn't help theirsalves. any one of them but ernie would have thrown her past up at her long before. she was more grateful for his past forbearance than resentful at his present vindictiveness. now that the blow, so long hovering above her in the dimness of sab-consciousness, had fallen she felt the pain of it, dulled indeed by the fact that she was already suffering profoundly on susie's account. but the impact braced her; and it was better so. there was no life without suffering and struggle. if you faced that fact with your eyes open, never luxuriating in the selfishness of make-believe, compelling your teeth to meet on the granite realities of life, then there would be no dreadful shock as you fell out of your warm bed and rosy dreams into an icy pool. ruth went back to her hum-drum toil. she had been dreaming. now she must awake. it was ernie who had roused her from that dangerous lethargy with a brutal slash across the face; and she was not ungrateful to him. when he returned an hour later with little alice she was unusually tender to him, though her eyes were rainwashed. he on his side was clearly ashamed and stiff accordingly. he said nothing; instead he was surly in self-defence. to make amends he sat up with the child that night and the next. "shall you save her, sir?" asked the scare-crow on the third morning. "i shan't," replied the doctor. "her mother may." next day when mr. trupp came he grunted the grunt, so familiar to his patients, that meant all was well. when the corner was turned ern did not apologise to ruth, though he longed to do so; nor did she ask it of him. to save himself without undergoing the humiliation of penance, and to satisfy that most easily appeased of human faculties, his conscience, he resorted to a trick ancient as man: he went to chapel. mr. pigott who had stood in that door at that hour in that frock-coat for forty years past, to greet alike the sinner and the saved, welcomed the lost sheep, who had not entered the fold for months. "i know what this means," he said, shaking hands. "you needn't tell me. i congratulate you. go in and give thanks." ern bustled in. "i shall come regular now, sir," he said. "i've had my lesson. you can count on me." "ah," said mr. pigott, and said no more. next sunday indeed he waited grimly and in vain for the prodigal. "soon eased off," he muttered, as he closed the door at last. "one with a very sandy soil." the manager of the southdown transport company went home that evening to the little house on the lewes road in unaccomodating mood. "_his_ trousers are coming down all right," he told his wife. "i've said it before, and i'll say it again. once you let go o god----" "god lets go o you," interposed mrs. pigott. "tit for tat." chapter xiii nightmare a few days later on his way back to the manor-house from visiting his little patient in the moot, the old surgeon met mr. pigott, who stopped to make enquiries. "she'll do now," said mr. trupp. "and that fellow?" "who?" "her father." mr. trupp looked at the windy sky, torn to shreds and tatters by the sou-west wind above the tower of the parish-church. "he wanted the big stick and he got it," he said. "if it came down on his shoulders once a week regularly for a year he'd be a man. steady pressure is what a fellow like that needs. and steady pressure is just what you don't get in a disorganised society such as ours." the old nonconformist held up a protesting hand. "you'd better go to germany straight off!" he cried. "that's the only place _you'd_ be happy in." mr. trupp grinned. "no need," he said, "germany's coming here. ask the colonel!" "ah!" scolded the other. "you and your colonels! you go and hear norman angell on the _great illusion_ at the town hall on friday. you go and hear a sensible man talk sense. that'll do you a bit of good. mr. geddes is going to take the chair." the old surgeon turned on his way, grinning still. "the colonel's squared mr. geddes," he said. "he's all right now." what mr. trupp told mr. pigott, more it is true in chaff than in earnest, was partially true at least. liberalism was giving way beneath the colonel's calculated assault. after lord roberts's visit to beachbourne the enemy dropped into the lines of the besiegers sometimes in single spies and sometimes in battalions. only mr. pigott held out stubbornly, and that less perhaps from conviction than from a sense of personal grievance against the colonel. for three solid years the pugnacious old nonconformist had been trying to fix a quarrel on the man he wished to make his enemy; but his adversary had eluded battle with grace and agility. that in itself happily afforded a good and unforgiveable cause of offence. "they won't fight, these soldiers!" he grumbled to his wife. "they leave that to you pacifists," replied the lady, brightly. "pack o poltroons!" scolded the old warrior. "one can respect the archdeacon at least because he has the courage of his opinions. but this chap!" yet if liberalism as a whole was finding grace at last, labour in the east-end remained obdurate, as only a mollusc can; and labour was gaining power for all men to see. in the general elections of , indeed, the two conservative candidates, stanley bessemere, east, and mr. glynde, west, romped home. the colonel was neither surprised nor deceived by the results of the elections. he knew now that in modern england in the towns at all events, among the rising generation, there were few conservative working men--though there were millions who might and in fact did vote for conservative candidates; and not many radicals--apart from a leaven of sturdy middle-aged survivors of the gladstonian age. the workers as a whole, it was clear, as they grew in class-consciousness, were swinging slow as a huge tide, and almost as unconscious, towards the left. but they were not articulate; they were not consistent; they changed their labels as they changed their clothes, and as yet they steadfastly refused to call themselves socialists. indeed, in spite of the local conservative victory, the outstanding political feature of the moment, apart from the always growing insurgency of woman, was the advance of labour, as the colonel and many other thoughtful observers noted. he began, moreover, to see that behind the froth, the foam, and arrant nonsense of the extreme section of the movement, there was gathering a solid body of political philosophy. the masses were becoming organised--an army, no longer a rabble; with staff, regimental officers, plan of campaign, and an always growing discipline. and, whether you agreed with it or not, there was no denying that the minority report of the poor law commission was a political portent. when joe burt came up to undercliff, as he sometimes did, to smoke and chat with the colonel, mrs. lewknor, a whole-hearted tory, would attack him on the tyranny of trade unions with magnificent fury. she made no impression on the engineer, stubborn as herself. "war is war; and discipline is discipline. and in war it's the best disciplined army that wins. a should have thought a soldier'd have realised that much. and this isna one o your _little_ wars, mind ye! this is the greatest war that ever was or will be. and we workers are fighting for our lives." "discipline is one thing and tyranny is quite another!" cried mrs. lewknor, with flashing eyes. the colonel, who delighted in these pitched battles, sat and sucked his pipe on the fringe of the hub-bub; only now and then turning the cooling hose of his irony on the combatants. "it is," he said in his detached way. "discipline is pressure you exert on somebody else. and tyranny is pressure exerted by somebody else upon you." and it was well he was present to introduce the leaven of humour into the dough of controversy, for mrs. lewknor found the engineer a maddening opponent. he was so cool, so logical, and above all so _dam_ provocative, as the little lady remarked with a snap of her still perfect teeth. he gave no quarter and asked none. "i don't like him," she said with immense firmness to the colonel after one of these encounters, standing in characteristic attitude, her skirt a little lifted, and one foot daintily poised on the fender-rail. "i don't trust him one inch." "he is a bit mad-doggy," the other said, entwining his long legs. "but he is genuine." then two significant incidents cast the shadow of coming events on the screen of time. in july, , germany sent the _panther_ to agadir. there ensued a sudden first-class political crisis; and a panic on every stock exchange in europe. even ernie was moved. this man who, in spite of joe burt's teaching, took as yet little more account of political happenings than does the field-mouse of the manoeuvres of the reaping machine that will shortly destroy its home, crossed the golf links one evening and walked through meads to find out what the colonel thought. "what's it going to be, sir?" he asked. the other refused to commit himself. "might be anything," he said. "looks a bit funny." "think the reservists will be called up?" the old soldier evinced a curious restrained keenness as of a restive horse desiring to charge a fence and yet uncertain of what it will find on the far side. the colonel, appraising him with the shrewd eyes of the man used to judging men, was satisfied. "i shouldn't be surprised," was all he would say. the old hammer-man walked away along the cliff in the direction of meads, and dropped down on to the golf links to go home by the ha-ha outside the duke's lodge. then he swung away under the elms of compton place road and turned into saffrons croft, where ruth and the children were to have met him. he looked about for them in vain. the cricketers were there as always, the idlers strolling from group to group, but no ruth. ernie who had been looking forward to a quiet half-hour's play with little alice and susie on the turf in the shade of the elms before bed-time felt himself thwarted and resentful. ruth as a rule was reliable; but of late, ever since his unkindness to her at the time of susie's illness, three weeks since, he had marked a change in her, subtle perhaps but real. true she denied him nothing; but unlike herself, she gave without generosity, coldly and as a duty. nursing his grievance, he dropped down the steep hill under the manor-house wall, past the greys, into church street. at the _star_ a little group was gossiping, heads together. as he crossed the road they turned and looked at him with curiosity and in silence. then a mate of his in the transport company called across, "sorry to hear this, ern." ernie, thinking the man referred to the probabilities that he would be called back to the army, and proud of his momentary fortuitous importance, shouted back with an air of appropriate nonchalance, "that's all right, guy. i wouldn't mind a spell with the old regiment again--that i wouldn't." at the foot of borough lane he met alf bustling along. his brother did not pause, but gave ernie a searching look as he passed and said, "watch it, ern!" ern experienced a strange qualm as he approached his home. the door was open; nobody was about; there was not a sound in the house--neither the accustomed chirp of the children, nor the voice and movements of their mother. the nightmare terrors that are wont to seize the sensitive at such times, especially if their conscience is haunted, laid hold of him. the emptiness, the silence appalled him. death, so it seemed to his imaginative mind, reigned where the life and warmth and pleasant human busyness the woman and her children create had formerly been. ever since that dark moment when he had let loose those foul and treacherous words, he had been uneasy in his mind; and yet, though usually the humblest of men, some stubborn imp of pride had possessed him and refused to allow him to express the contrition he genuinely felt. perhaps the very magnitude of his offence had prevented him from making just amends. ruth on her side had said nothing; but she had felt profoundly the wound he had inflicted on her heart. so much her silence and unusual reserve had told him. had he gone too far? had her resentment been deeper than he had divined? had he by his stupid brutality in a moment of animal panic and animal pain snapped the light chain that bound him to this woman he loved so dearly and knew so little? and none was more conscious than he how fragile was that chain. ruth had never been immersed in love for him: she had never pretended to be. he knew that. she had been an affectionate and most loyal friend; and that was all. on the threshold of his home he paused and stared down with the frightened snort of a horse suddenly aware of an abyss gaping at his feet. for the first time in his married life the instant sense of his insecurity, always present in his subconsciousness, leapt into the light of day. he gathered himself and marched upstairs as a man marches up the steps of the scaffold to pay the merited punishment for his crimes. then he heard a little noise. the door of the back room where the children, all but the baby, slept, was open. he peeped in. susie was there, and jenny with her. hope returned to him. they were sitting up in bed still in outdoor clothes. then he noticed that the baby's cot which stood of wont in the front room beside the big bed was here too. his sudden relief changed to anguish. he saw it all: _his_ children, the three of them, packed away together like fledgelings in a nest--for him to mother; and the mother-bird herself and _her_ child flown! and he had brought his punishment on to his own head! susie waved a rag-doll at him and giggled. "neddy seeps with susie!" she cried. "susie nurse him! mummy's gone with man!" brutally ernie burst into the bedroom. two people stood beside the bed--his wife and a man; one on either side of it. the man was joe burt; the woman ruth. on the bed between them lay little alice, wan as a lily, her eyes closed apparently in death. as he entered joe raised a hushing finger. "it's all right, ern. she isna dead," said the engineer, comfortably. ruth, who was the colour of the child on the bed, had turned to him and now wreathed her arms about him. "o ern!" she cried in choking voice. "i _am_ that glad you've come." for a moment she hung on him, dependent as he had never known her. then the child stirred, opened her eyes, saw ernie at the foot of the bed, and smiled. "daddy," came her sweet little voice. her eyes fell on joe; her lovely brow crumpled and she wailed, "don't want man." "that's me," said joe gently, and stole towards the door on tip-toe. ern followed him out. mr. trupp met them on the stairs. at the outer door joe gave a whispered account of what had happened. he had been crossing saffrons croft on the way up to see ernie, when he had noticed ruth and the children under the elms. little alice had seen him and come rushing through the players towards her friend. a cricket-ball had struck her on the forehead; and he had carried her home like a dead thing. outside the cottage they had met alf, and ruth had asked him to go for mr. trupp. ernie ran back upstairs. the old surgeon, bending over the child, gave him a reassuring glance. "the child's all right," he said. "see to the mother!" and nodded to ruth, who was holding on to the mantel-piece. she was swaying. ern gathered her to him. the whole of her weight seemed on him. his eyes hung on her face, pale beneath its dark crown as once, and only once, he had seen it before--that time she lay on the bed in royal's dressing-room on the dawn of her undoing. "ruth," he called quietly. slowly she returned to life, opening her eyes, and drawing her hand across them. "is that you, ern?" she sighed. "o, that's right. i come all over funny like. silly! i'm all right now." ernie lowered her into a chair. she sat a moment, gathering herself. then she looked up at him--and remembered. she had been caught. fear came over her, and she began to tremble. he bent and kissed her. "i'm sorry i said that, ruth," he whispered in her ear. a lovely light welled up into her eyes. at that moment she was nearer loving him than she had ever been. regardless of mr. trupp's presence, she put a hand on either of his shoulders, and regarded him steadfastly, a baffling look on her face. "dear ern!" she said. "only i'd liefer you didn't say it again. see, it _do_ hurt from you." chapter xiv shadows ern was not called up after all. the trap-door through which men had peered aghast into the fires of hell, closed suddenly as it had opened. only the clang of the stokers working in the darkness under the earth could still be heard day and night at their infernal busyness by any who paused and laid ear to the ground. england and the world breathed again. "touch and go," said mr. trupp, who felt like a man coming to the surface after a deep plunge. "dress rehearsal," said the colonel. "it'll never be so near again!" mr. pigott announced pontifically to his wife. "never!" "thank you," replied that lady. "may we take it from you?" when it was over the colonel found that the walls of jericho had fallen: the liberal citadel had been stormed. mr. geddes took the chair at a meeting at st. andrew's hall to discuss the programme of the league. "it looks as if you were right after all," the tall minister said to the colonel gravely. "pray heaven i'm not," the other answered in like tones. the second significant incident of this time, which occurred during a lull before the final flare-up of the long-drawn agadir crisis, had less happy results from the point of view of the old soldier. in august, suddenly and without warning, the railway-men came out. the colonel had been up to london for the night on the business of the league, and next morning had walked into victoria street station to find it in possession of the soldiers: men in khaki in full marching order, rifle, bayonet, and bandolier; sentries everywhere; and on the platform a union official in a blue badge urging the guard to come out. the guard, a heavy-shouldered middle-aged fellow, was stubbornly lumping along the platform on flat feet, swinging his lantern. "i've got a heart," he kept on reiterating. "i've got a wife and children to think of." "so've i," replied the official, dogging him. "it's because i am thinking of them that i'm out." "silly 'aound!" said a bystander "no, he ain't then!" retorted a second. "yes, he is!" chipped in a third. "makin trouble for isself and everybody else all round. calls isself the workers' friend!--hadgitator, i call him!" all the way down to beachbourne in the train the colonel marked pickets guarding bridges; a cavalry patrol with lances flashing from the green covert of a country lane; a battery on the march; armies on the move. joe burt's right, he reflected, it's war. "i never thought to see the like of that in england," said a fellow-traveller, eyes glued to the window. "makes you think," the colonel admitted. arrived home he found there was a call for special constables. that evening he went to the police station to sign on, and found many of the leading citizens of beachbourne there on like errand. bobby chislehurst, his open young face clouded for once, and disturbed, was pressing the point of view of the railway-men on stanley bessemere, who was listening with the amused indifference of the man who knows. "i'm afraid there is no doubt about it," the politician was saying, shaking the sagacious head of the embryo statesmen. "they're taking advantage of the international situation to try to better themselves." "but they say it's the government and the directors who are taking advantage of it to try and put them off--as they've been doing for years!" cried bobby, finely indignant. "i believe i know what i am talking about," replied the other, unmoved from the rock of his superiority. "i don't mind telling you that the european situation is still most precarious. the men know that, and they're trying to squeeze the government. i should like to think it wasn't so." then the archdeacon's voice loudly uplifted overwhelmed all others. "o, for an hour of the kaiser!--he'd deal with em. the one man left in europe--now my poor emperah's gone. lloyd george ... bowing the knee to baal ... traitors to their country ... want a lesson ... what can you expect?" he mouthed away grandiloquently in detached sentences to the air in general; and nobody paid any attention to him. near by, mr. pigott, red and ruffled, was asking what the army had to do with it?--who wanted the soldiers?--why not leave it to the civilians?--with a provocative glance at the colonel. then there was a noise of marching in the street, and a body of working-men drew up outside the door. "who are those fellows?" asked the archdeacon loudly. "workers from the east-end, old cock," shouted one of them as offensively through the door. "come to sign on as specials! and just as good a right here as you have...." the leader of the men in the street broke away from them and shouldered into the yard, battle in his eye. it was joe burt, who, as the colonel had once remarked, was sometimes a wise statesman, and sometimes a foaming demagogue. to-day he was the latter at his worst. "what did i tell yo?" he said to the colonel roughly. "bringin oop the army against us. royal engineers driving trains and all! it's a disgrace." the colonel reasoned with him. "but, my dear fellow, you can't have one section of the community holding up the country." "can't have it!" surly and savage. "yo've had five hundred dud plutocrats in the house of lords holding up the people for years past. did ye shout then? if they use direct action in their own interests why make a rout when , railway men come out for a living wage?--and _then_ you coom to the workers and ask them to strengthen the army the government'll use against them!--a wonder yo've the face!" he turned away, shaking. just then happily there was a diversion. the yard-door, which a policeman had shut, burst open; and a baggy old gentleman lumbered through it with the scared look of a bear lost in a busy thoroughfare and much the motions of one. holding on to his coat-tails like a keeper came ruth. she was panting, and a little dishevelled; in her arms was her baby, and her hat was a-wry. "he would come!" she said, almost in tears. "there was no stoppin him. so i had just to come along too." joe, aware that he had gone too far, and glad of the interruption, stepped up to ruth and took the baby from her arms. the distressed woman gave him a look of gratitude and began to pat and preen her hair. at this moment ernie burst into the yard. he was more alert than usual, and threw a swift, almost hostile, glance about him. then he saw ruth busy tidying herself, and relaxed. "caught him playing truant, didn't you, in saffrons croft?" he said. "the park-keeper tell me." ruth was recovering rapidly. "yes," she laughed. "i told him it was nothing to do with him--strikes and riots and bloodshed!--such an idea!" a baby began to wail; and ernie turned to see joe with little ned in his arms. "hallo! joe!" he chaffed. "_my_ baby, i think." he took his own child amid laughter, joe surrendering it reluctantly. just then edward caspar appeared in the door of the office. he looked at them over his spectacles and said quietly, as if to himself. "it's law as well. we must never forget that." the colonel turned to ernie. "what's he mean?" he asked low.--"law as well." ernie, dandling the baby, drew away into a corner where he would be out of earshot of the archdeacon. "it's a line of poetry, sir," he explained in hushed voice-- "_o, love that art remorseless law, so beautiful, so terrible._" "go on!" said the colonel, keenly. "go on!--i like that." but ernie only wagged a sheepish head. "that's all," he said reluctantly. "it never got beyond them two lines." he added with a shy twinkle--"that's dad, that is." a chocolate-bodied car stopped in the street opposite. out of it stepped mr. trupp. in it the colonel saw a lean woman with eyes the blue of steel, fierce black brows, and snow-white hair. she was peering hungrily out. "it's mother come after dad," ernie explained. "in mr. trupp's car. that's my brother driving." the old surgeon, crossing the yard, now met the run-agate emerging from the office and took him kindly by the arm. "no, no, mr. caspar," he scolded soothingly. "they don't want old fellows like you and me to do the bludgeon business. our sons'll do all that's necessary in that line." he packed the elderly truant away in the car. mr. caspar sat beside his wife, his hands folded on the handle of his umbrella, looking as determined as he knew how. mrs. caspar tucked a rug about his knees. ernie, who had followed his father out to the car, and exchanged a word with his brother sitting stiff as an idol, behind his wheel, now returned to the yard, grinning. "well!" said joe. ernie rolled his head. "asked alf if _he_ was goin to sign on?" he grinned. "is he?" asked the colonel ingenuously. ernie laughed harshly. "not alf!" he said. "he's a true christian, alf is, when there's scrapping on the tape..." at the club a few days later, when the trouble had blown over, the colonel asked mr. trupp if ernie was ill. "he seemed so slack," he said, with a genuine concern. "so he is," growled the old surgeon. "he wants the lash--that's all." "different from his brother," mused the colonel--"that chauffeur feller of yours. he's keen enough from what i can see." mr. trupp puffed at his cigar. "alf's ambitious," he said. "that's his spur. starting in a big way on his own now. sussex is going to blossom out into caspar's garages, he tells me. i'm going to put money in the company. some men draw money. alf's one." chapter xv the landlord alf's great scheme indeed was prospering. thwarted by the woman, and driven back upon himself, he had taken up the career of action at the point where he had left it to pursue an adventure that had brought him no profit and incredible bitterness. fortune had favoured him. just at the moment ruth had baffled him, another enemy of his, the red cross garage syndicate, which in the early days of his career had throttled him, came to grief. alf saw his chance, and flung himself into the new project with such characteristic energy as to drown the bitterness of sex-defeat. he had no difficulty in raising the necessary capital for the little syndicate he proposed to start. some he possessed himself; his bank was quite prepared to give him accommodation up to a point; and there was a third source he tapped with glee. that source was captain royal. alf was in a position to squeeze the captain; and he was not the man to forego an advantage, however acquired. royal put a fifth of his patrimony into the venture, and was by no means displeased to do so. thereby he became the principal shareholder in the concern, with a predominant voice in its affairs. that gave him the leverage against alf, which, with the instinct of a commander, he had seen to be necessary for the security of his future directly that young man showed a blackmailing tendency. moreover royal was not blind to the consideration that the new syndicate, under able management, bid fair to be a singularly profitable investment. backed then by royal and his bank, alf bought up certain of the garages of the defaulting company at knockout prices. thereafter, if he still coveted ruth, he was far too occupied to worry her; while she on her side, purged by the busyness and natural intercourse of married life of all the disabling morbidities that had their roots in a sense of outlawry and the forced restraint put upon a roused and powerful temperament, had completely lost her fear of him. ruth, surely, was changing rapidly now. at times in family life she assumed the reins not because she wished to, but because she must; and on occasion she even took the whip from the socket. ernie had, indeed, climbed a mountain peak and with unbelievable effort and tenacity won to the summit, which was herself. but then, instead of marching on to the assault of the peak which always lies beyond, he had sat down, stupidly content; with the inevitable consequence that he tended to slither down the mountain-side and lose all he had gained in growth and character by his hard achievement. the pair had been married four years now; and ruth knew that her house was built on sand. that comfortable sense of security which had accompanied the first years of her married life, affording her incalculable relief after the hazards which had preceded them, had long passed. dangers, less desperate perhaps in the appearance than in the days of her darkness, but none the less real, were careering up from the horizon over a murky sea like breakers, roaring and with wrathful manes, to overwhelm her. in particular the threat that haunts through life the working-woman of all lands and every race beset her increasingly. her man was always skirting now the bottomless pit of unemployment. one slip and he might be over the edge, hurtling heavily down into nothingness, and dragging with him her and the unconscious babes. the home, always poor, began to manifest the characteristics of its tenants, as homes will. when the young man came for the rent on monday mornings, ruth would open just a crack so that he might not see inside, herself peeping out of her door, wary as a woodland creature. apart from joe burt, whom she did not count, there was indeed only one visitor whom ruth now received gladly; and that was mr. edward caspar, whose blindness she could depend upon. there had grown up almost from the first a curious intimacy between the dreamy old gentleman, fastidious, scholarly, refined, and the young peasant woman whom destiny had made the mother of his grandchildren. nothing stood between them, not even the barrier of class. they understood each other as do the children of truth, even though the language they speak is not the same. the old man was particularly devoted to little alice. "she's like a water-sprite," he said,--"so fine and delicate." "she's different from ernie's," answered ruth simply. "i reck'n it was the suffering when i was carrying her." "she's a botticelli," mused the old man. "the others are michael angelos." ruth had no notion what he meant--that often happened; but she knew he meant something kind. "i'd ha said sue was more the bottled cherry kind, myself," she answered gently. her visitor came regularly every tuesday morning on the way to the quaker meeting-house, shuffling down borough lane past the _star_, his coat-tails floating behind him, his gold spectacles on his nose, with something of the absorbed and humming laziness of a great bee. ruth would hear the familiar knock at the door and open. the old man would sit in the kitchen for an hour by the latest baby's cot, saying nothing, the child playing with his little finger or listening to the ticking of the gold watch held to its ear. after he was gone ruth would always find a new shilling on the dresser. when she first told ernie about the shilling, he was surly and ashamed. "it's his tobacco money," he said gruffly. "you mustn't keep it." next tuesday she dutifully handed the coin back to the giver, "i don't like to take it, sir," she said. the old man was the grandfather of her children, but she gave him always, and quite naturally, the title of respect. he took it from her and laid it back on the dresser with the other he had brought. then he put his hand on her arm, and looked at her affectionately through dim spectacles. "you go to the other extreme," he said. "_you're_ too kind." after that she kept the money and she was glad of it too, for she was falling behind with her rent now. then one monday morning, the rent-collector making his weekly call, little brown book in hand, gave her a shock. he was a sprightly youth, cocky and curly, known among his intimates as chirpy; and with a jealously cherished reputation for a way with the ladies. "say, this is my last visit," he announced sentimentally, as he made his entry in the book, and poised his pencil behind his ear. "we can't part like this, can we?--you and me, after all these years. too cold like." he drew the back of his hand significantly across his mouth. ruth brushed his impertinence aside with the friendly insouciance which endeared her to young men. "got the sack for sauce, then?" she asked. chirpy shook his head ruefully. "mr. goldmann's sold the house." "over our heads!" cried ruth, aghast. she hated change, for change spelt the unknown, which in its turn meant danger. "seems so," the youth replied. "no fault o mine, i do assure you." he returned to his point. "anythink for albert?" ruth was thoroughly alarmed. even in those days cottages in old town were hard to come by. "who's our new landlord?" she asked. "mr. caspar, i heard say in the office." ruth felt instant relief. "mr. edward caspar?--o, _that's_ all right." "no; alf--of the garridges. him they call all-for-isself alfie!" ruth caught her breath. "thank you," she said, and closed the door swiftly. the youth was left titupping on the door-step, his nose against the panel like a seeking spaniel. within, ruth put her hand to her heart to stay its tumult. she was thankful ernie was not there to witness her emotion, for she felt like a rabbit in the burrow, the stoat hard on its heels. all her old terrors revived.... the new landlord soon paid his first visit, and ruth was ready for him. "you want to see round?" she asked, with the almost aggressive briskness of the woman who feels herself threatened. "yes, as your landlord i got the right of entry." he made the announcement portentously like an emperor dictating terms to a conquered people. ruth showed him dutifully round. he paid no attention to his property: his eyes were all for her; she did not look at him. then they went upstairs where it was dark. there was a closed door on the left. alf thrust it open without asking leave; but ruth barred his passage with an arm across the door. "what's that?" he asked, prying. "our room. you can't go in there. that's where my children was born." alf tilted his chin at her knowingly. "all but little alice," he reminded her. his eyes glittered in the dark. "does _he_ stand you anything for her?" he continued confidentially. "should do--a gentleman. now if you could get an affiliation order against him that'd be worth five or six bob a week to you. and that's money to a woman in your position--pay me my rent and all too. only pity is," he ended, thoughtfully, "can't be done. you and me know that if ern don't." ruth broke fiercely away. leisurely he followed her down the stairs with loud feet. he was greatly at his ease. his hat, which he had never taken off, was on the back of his big head. he was sucking a dirty pencil, and studying his rent-book, as he entered the kitchen. "you're a bit behind, i see," casually. "only two weeks," as coldly. "as yet." he swaggered to the door with a peculiar roll of his shoulders. "if you was to wish to wipe it off at any time you've only got to say the word. i might oblige." he stood with his back to her, looking out of the door, and humming. she was over against the range. "what's that?" she panted. standing on the threshold he turned and leered back at her out of half-closed eyes. she sneered magnificently. "ah, i knaw you," she said. "what's it all about?" he answered, cleaning his nails. "only a little bit of accommodation. no thin out o the way." "thank you. i knaw your accommodation," she answered deeply. "well," he retorted, picking his teeth. "there's no harm in it. what's the fuss about?" "i'll tell mr. trupp," ruth answered. "that's all." alf turned full face to her, jeering. "what's old trupp to me, then?" he cried. "i done with him. i done with em all. i'm me own master, i am--alfred caspar, hesquire, of caspar's garridges, company promoter. handlin me thousands as you handle coppers." he folded his arms, thrust out a leg, and looked the part majestically without a snigger. it was clear he was extraordinarily impressive to himself. ruth relaxed slowly, deliciously, like an ice-pack touched by the laughing kiss of spring. she eyed her enemy with the amused indifference of some big-boned thoroughbred mare courted by an amorous pony. "you're mad," she said. "that's the only why i don't slosh the sauce-pan over you. but i shall tell ern all the same. and he'll tell em all." "and who's goin to believe ern?" jeered her tormentor. "'old town toper,' they call him. fairly sodden." "not to say archdeacon willcocks and mr. chislehurst," continued ruth, calmly. alf shot his finger at her like a crook in a melodrama, looking along it as it might have been a pistol and loving his pose. "and would they believe _you_ against me? do you attend mass? are you a sidesman?" "i was confirmed church afore ever you was," retorted ruth with spirit. "i've as good a right to the sacraments, as you have then. and i'll take to em again if i'm druv to it--that i will!" something about this declaration tickled alf. the emperor was forgotten in the naughty urchin. "so long, then!" he tittered. "appy au-revoir! thank-ye for a pleasant chat. this day week you can look forward to. i'll collect me rent meself because i know you'd like me to." he turned, and as he was going out ran into a man who was entering. "now then!" said a surly voice. "who are you? o, it's _you_, is it?--i know all about you." "what you know o me?" asked alf, aggressively. "why, what a beauty you are." the two men eyed each other truculently. then joe barged through the door. the entrance cleared, alf went out, but as he passed on the pavement outside he beat a rat-tan on the window with insolent knuckles. joe leaped back to the door and scowled down the road at the back of the little chauffeur retreating at the trot. alf excelled physically in only one activity: he could run. the engineer returned to the kitchen, savage and smouldering. ruth, amused at the encounter, met him with kind eyes. there was in this man the quality of the ferocious male she loved. he marched up to her, his head low between his shoulders like a bull about to charge. "is yon lil snot after you?" he growled, almost menacing. she regarded him with astonishment, amused and yet defensive. "_you're_ not my husband, mr. burt," she cried. "_you've_ no grievance whoever has." the engineer retreated heavily. "hapen not," he answered, surly and with averted eyes. "a coom next though." she looked up, saw his face, and trembled faintly. he prowled to the door without a word, without a look. "won't you stop for ern?" she asked. "nay," he said, and went out. chapter xvi the grandmother ruth and her mother-in-law frequently met in the steep and curling streets of old town as they went about their business. they knew and tacitly ignored each other. but ernie's children were not to be ignored. they knocked eternally at their granny's heart. when of summer evenings their mother took her little brood to saffrons croft and sat with them beneath the elms, her latest baby in her arms, the others clouding her feet like giant daisies, anne caspar, limping by on flat feet with her string bag, would be wrung to the soul. she hungered for her grand-children, longed to feel their limbs, and see their bodies, to hold them in her lap, to bathe them, win their smiles, and hear their prattle. pride, which she mistook for principle, stood between her and happiness. ruth knew all that was passing in the elder woman's heart, and felt for the other a profound and disturbing sympathy. she had the best of it; and she knew that anne caspar, for all her pharisaic air of superiority, knew it too. ruth had learnt from mrs. trupp something of the elder woman's story. anne caspar too, it seemed, had loved out of her sphere; but she, unlike ruth, had achieved her man. had she been happy? that depended on whether she had brought happiness to her husband--ruth never doubted that. and ruth knew that she had not; and knew that anne caspar knew that she had not. moreover, all that ernie told her about his mother interested her curiously: the elder woman's pride, her loneliness, her passion for her old man. "alf's mother over again," ern told ruth, "with all her qualities only one--but it's the one that matters. he's a worker same as she is. he means to get on, same as she done. there's just this difference atween em: alf can't love; mother can--though it's only one." ... a week after his first visit alf appeared again on ruth's door-step. ruth opened to him with so bright a smile that he was for once taken completely by surprise. he had expected resistance and come armed to meet it. "come in, won't you?" she said. then he understood. she had thought better of her foolishness. "that's it, is it?" he said, licking his lips. "that's a good gurl." "yes," said ruth. "very pleased to see you, i'm sure." she was smarter than usual too, he noticed--to grace the occasion no doubt. and the plain brown dress, the hue of autumn leaves, with the tiny white frill at the collar, revealed the noble lines of her still youthful figure. the conqueror, breathing hard, entered the kitchen, to be greeted by a cultivated voice from the corner. "well, alfred," it said. alf, whose eyes had been on the floor, glanced up with a start. his father was sitting beside the cradle, beaming mildly on him through gold spectacles. "hullo, dad," said alf, surlily. this large ineffectual father of his had from childhood awed him. there was a mystery about even his mildness, his inefficiency, which alf had never understood and therefore feared. "i didn't expect to find you here." it seemed to alf that the bottle-imp was twinkling in the old man's eyes. alf remembered well the advent of that imp to the blue haunts he had never quitted since. that was during the years of ern's absence in india. now it struck him suddenly that his father, so seeming-innocent, so remote from the world, was in the joke against him. a glance at ruth, malicious and amused, confirmed his suspicion. "i'm glad you come and visit your sister sometimes, alfred," said the old man gently. "yes," purred ruth, "he comes reg'lar, alf do now--once a week. and all in the way of friendship as the savin is. see, he's our landlord now." "that's nice," continued the old man with the dewy innocence of a babe. "then he can let you off your rent if you get behind." "so he could," commented ruth, "if only he was to think of it. do you hear your dad, alf?" she paid the week's rent into his hand, coin by coin, before his father's eyes. then he turned and slouched out. "good-night, alf," ruth said, almost affectionately. "it 'as been nice seein you and all." determined to enjoy her triumph to the full, she followed him to the door. in the street he turned to meet her mocking glance, in which the cruelty gleamed like a half-sheathed sword. his own eyes were impudent and familiar as they engaged hers. "say, ruth, what's he after?" he asked, cautiously, in lowered voice. "who?" "that feller i caught you with the other night--when ern wasn't there. black-ugly. what's he after?" "same as you, hap." he sniggered feebly. "what's that?" "me." she stood before him; a peak armoured through the ages in eternal ice and challenging splendidly in the sun. he hoiked and spat and turned away. "brassy is it?" he said. "one thing, my lass, you been in trouble once, mind. i saved you then. but i mightn't be able to a second time." behind ruth's shoulder a dim face, bearded and spectacled, peered at him with the mild remorselessness of the moon. "alfred," said a voice, dreadful in its gentle austerity. when the old man said good-bye to ruth ten minutes later he kissed her for the first time. she smiled up at him gallantly. "it's all right, dad," she said, consolingly. "i'm not afraid o _him_ whatever else." it was the first time she had called him dad, and even now she did it unconsciously. edward caspar ambled home. he did not attempt to conceal from his wife where he went on tuesday mornings. indeed, as he soared on mysterious wings, he seemed to have lost all fear of the woman who had tyrannised over him for his own good so long. time, the unfailing arbitrator, had adjusted the balance between the two. and sometimes it seemed to mrs. trupp, observing quietly as she had done for thirty years, that in the continuous unconscious struggle that persists inevitably between every pair from the first mating till death, the victory in this case would be to the man intangible as air. that morning, as edward entered the house, his wife was standing in the kitchen before the range. anne caspar was white-haired now. her limbs had lost much of their comeliness, her motions their grace. she was sharp-boned and gaunt of body as she had always been of mind--not unlike a rusty sword. as the front-door opened, and the well-trained man sedulously wiped his boots upon the mat, she looked up over her spectacles, dropping her chin, grim and sardonic. "i know where you been, dad," she taunted. he stayed at the study-door, like a great pawing bear. then he answered suddenly and with a smile. "i've been in heaven." she slammed the door of the range; smiling, cruel, the school-girl who teases. "i know where your tobacco money goes, old dad," she continued. his mind was far too big and vague and mooning often to be able to encounter successfully the darts his wife occasionally shot into his large carcase. "he's a beautiful boy," was all he now made answer, as he disappeared. whether the wound he dealt was deliberately given in self-defence, or unconsciously because he had the power over her, his words stung anne caspar to the quick. she turned white, and sat down in the lonely kitchen her wrung old hands twisted in her lap, hugging her wound. then she recovered enough to take reprisals. "alf's their landlord, now," she cried after him, the snakes in her eyes darting dreadful laughter. edward caspar turned in the door. "anne," he said, "i wish you to pay ruth's rent in future out of the money my father left you." the voice was mild but there was a note of authority, firm if faint, running through it. anne rose grimly to her feet, thin as a stiletto, and almost as formidable. "that woman!" he nodded at her down the passage. "my daughter." anne turned full face. "d'you know she's had a love-child?" she shrilled, discordant as a squeaking wheel. the old gentleman, fumbling at the door of his study, dropped his bearded chin, and beamed at the angry woman, moonwise over his spectacles. "why shouldn't she?" he asked. there was something crisp, almost curt, in the interrogation. "but she's not respectable!" again he dropped his chin and seemed to gape blankly. "why should she be?" he asked. she heard the key turn, and knew that she was locked out for the night. later she crept in list-slippers to the door and knocked with the slow and solemn knuckles of fate, a calculated pause between each knock. "alf's going up, ern's going down," she said, nodding with grim relish. "_good_-night, old dad." next evening joe called at the cottage, to fetch ernie for the class. he arrived as he sometimes had done of late, a little before ernie was due home from the yard. at this hour the little ones had already been put to bed; and ruth would be alone with alice, between whom and the engineer there had sprung up a singular intimacy ever since the evening on which he had carried her home like a dead thing in his arms from saffrons croft. ruth had not seen him since his clash with alfred in the door; and he had obviously avoided her. now she thrilled faintly. was he in love with her?--she was not sure. he entered without speaking and took his seat as always before the fire, broad-spread and slightly huddled in his overcoat, chin on chest, staring into the fire. ruth, busy baking, her arms up to the elbow in dough, made her decision swiftly. she would meet him, face him, fight him. "well, joe," she said, not looking at him. it was the first time she had called him that. he peeped up at her, only his eyes moving, small, black-brown, and burning like a bear's. "that's better," he muttered. she flashed up at him. innocence and cunning, the schoolboy and the brute, pan and silenus fought, leered, and frolicked in his face. ruth dropped her gaze and kneaded very deliberately. yes ... it was so ... now she would help him; and she could hold him. she would transmute his passion into friendship. she would bridle her bull, ride him, tame him. it was dangerous, and she loved danger. it was sport; and she loved sport. it was an adventure after the heart of a daring woman. he was a fine man, too, and fierce, warrior and orator; worth conquering and subduing to her will. his quality of a fighting male called to her. she felt the challenge and answered it with singing blood. that laughing hidalgo who in elizabethan days had landed from his galleon in the darks at the haven to bring terror and romance to some sussex maid; that spaniard who lurked obscurely in her blood, gave her her swarthy colouring, her indolent magnificence and surprising quality, was stirring uneasily within her once again. she lifted her eyes from the froth of yeast and looked across at him, accepting battle--if he meant battle. and he did: there was no doubt of that. he sat there, hunched, silent, breathing heavily. then little alice slipped down from the kitchen table on which she had been sitting at her mother's side, danced across to her friend, and climbed up on his knee. ruth took her arms out of the bowl, white to the elbow with flour, came across to the pair, firm-faced, and deliberately removed the child. joe rose and went out. in the outer door he stumbled on a man half-hidden on the threshold. "that you, joe?" said ernie quietly. "there he is! alf--on the spy. see his head bob--there! at the bottom of borough lane--it's her he's after." joe peeped over his friend's shoulder, his bullet head thrust out like a dog who scents an enemy. "that sort; is he?" he muttered. "i'll after him!" chapter xvii the challenge joe burt had that passion for saving souls which is the hall-mark of the missionary in every age. had he been a child of the previous generation he would have become a minister in some humble denomination and done his fighting from the pulpit, bible in hand, amid the pot-banks of a black country township or the grimy streets of a struggling mining village in the north. as it was he appealed to the mass from the platform, and, a true fisher of men, flung his net about the individual in the class-room and at conferences. always seeking fresh fields to conquer, he had established a political footing now even in tory old town. he had opened a discussion at the institute, and actually given an address to the local church of england's men's society on robert owen and early english socialists; and he owed his triumph in the main to bobby chislehurst. it is not without a pang that we part from the most cherished of our prejudices, and as joe launched out into an always larger life it had come to him as something of a shock to find amongst the younger clergy some who preserved an attitude of firm and honest neutrality in the great battle to which he had pledged his life, and even a few, here and there, who took their stand on the side of the revolutionaries of the spirit. and such a one was bobby. because of that, the young curate, who was up and down all day amid the humble dwellers in the moot, innocent and happy as a child, was forgiven his solitary sin. for bobby was a scout-master, unashamed; and joe burt, like most of his battle-fellows of that date looked askance on the boy-scout movement as one of the many props of militarist toryism none the less effective because it was unavowed. the cherub, bold, almost blatant in sin, passed his happiest hours in a rakish sombrero, shorts, and a shirt bedizened with badges, tramping the downs at the head of the old town troop of devoted boy-scouts, lighting forbidden fires in the gorse, arguing with outraged farmers, camping in secluded coombes above the sea. up there on the hill, between sky and sea, joe burt, he too with his little flock of acolytes from the east-end, would sometimes meet the young shepherd on saturday afternoons, trudging along, in his hand a pole in place of a crook. "i forgive you mr. chislehurst, because i know you don't know what you're doing," he once said, gravely. "you're like the israelite--without guile." "the greatest of men have their little failings," giggled the sinner. the two men, besides their political sympathies, had another point in common: they meant to save ernie from himself. but joe was no longer single-eyed. he saw now in ernie two men--a potential recruit of value for the cause of labour, and the man who possessed the woman he loved. in the troubled heart of the engineer there began to be a confused conflict between the fisher of men and the covetous rival. ernie was entirely unconscious of the tumult in the bosom of his friend of which he was the innocent cause. not so ruth. she was rousing slowly now like a hind from her lair in the bracken, and sniffing the air at the approach of the antlered stranger. as he drew always nearer with stops and starts and dainty tread, and she became increasingly aware of his savage presence, his fierce intentions, she withdrew instinctively for protection towards her rightful lord. he grazed on the hill-side blind to his danger, blind to hers, blind to the presence of his enemy. ernie's indeed was that innocence, that simplicity, which rouses in the heart of primitive woman not respect but pity; and in the rose-bud of pity, unless it be virgin white, lurks always the canker of contempt and the worm of cruelty. sometimes of evenings, as ernie dozed before the fire in characteristic negligé, collarless, tie-less, somnolent as the cat, she watched him with growing resentment, comparing him to that other, so much the master of himself and his little world. "you _are_ slack," she said once, more to herself than him. "i got a right to be, i reck'n, a'ter my day's work," he answered sleepily. "joe's not like that," she answered, wetting her thread. "he's spry, he is. doos a long day's work too--and earns big money, joe do. brings home more'n twice as much what you do saraday--and no wife nor children neether." ernie looked up and blinked. for a moment she hoped and feared she had stung him to eruption. then he nodded off again. that was what annoyed ruth. he would not flare. he was like his father. but qualities a woman admires in an old man she may despise in her lover. as she retired upon him she felt him giving way behind her. she was seeking support and finding emptiness. and as that other, shaggy-maned and mighty, stole towards her with his air of a conqueror, trampling the heather under-foot, the inadequacy of her own mate forced itself upon her notice always more. ruth, now thirty, was in the full bloom of her passionate womanhood; drawing with her far-flung fragrance the pollen-bearing bee and drawn to him. the girl who had been seized and overthrown by a passing brigand was a woman now who looked life in the face with steadfast eyes and meant to have her share of the fruits of it. the old christian doctrines of patience, resignation, abnegation of the right to a full life, made no appeal to her. richly dowered herself, she would not brook a starved existence. she who was empty yearned for fulness. after her catastrophe, itself the consequence of daring, ern had come into her life and given her what she had needed most just then--rest, security, above all children. on that score she was satisfied now; and perhaps for that very reason her spirit was all the more a-thirst for adventure in other fields. she was one of those women who demand everything of life and are satisfied with nothing less. like many such her heart was full of children but her arms were empty. for her fulfilment she needed children and mate. some women were content with one, some with the other. great woman that she was, nothing less than both could satisfy her demands; and her emptiness irked her increasingly. ruth's in fact was the problem of the unconquered woman--a problem at least as common among married women who have sought absorption and found only dissatisfaction as amongst the unmarried. royal had seized her imagination for a moment; to ernie she had submitted. but that complete immersion in a man and his work which is for a full woman love, she had never experienced, and longed to experience. after five years of marriage ernie was still outside her, an accretion, a circumstance, a part of her environment, necessary perhaps as her clothes, but little more: for there was no purpose in his life. and then just at the moment her lack was making itself most felt, the man had come--a real man too, with a work; a pioneer, marching a-head, axe in hand, hewing a path-way through the forest, and calling to her with ever increasing insistency to come out to him and aid him in his enterprise. but always as she fingered in her dreams the bolts of the gate that, once opened, would leave her face to face with the importunate adventurer, there came swarming about her, unloosing her fingers as they closed upon the bolts, the children. and as one or other of them stirred or called out in sleep in the room above her, she would start, wake, and shake herself. yet even the pull of the children was not entirely in one direction. there were four of them now; and they were growing, while ernie's wages were standing still. that was one of the insistent factors of the situation. were they too to be starved? often in her dim kitchen she asked herself that question. for if in her dreams she was always the mate of a man, she was in fact, and before all things, the mother of children. who then was to save them and her?--ernie? who was now little more than a shadow, an irritating shadow, wavering in the background of her life? if so, god help them all.... one evening she was in the little back-yard taking down the washing, when she heard a man enter the kitchen. she paid no heed. if it was joe he could wait; if it was ernie she needn't bother. then she heard a second man enter, and instantly a male voice, harsh with challenge. she went in hastily. there was nobody in the kitchen; but ern was standing at the outer door. his back was to her, but she detected instantly in the hunch of his shoulders a rare combativeness. "you know me," he was growling to somebody outside. "none of it now!" he turned slowly, a dark look in his face which did not lighten when he saw her. "who was it, ern?" she asked. "alf," he answered curtly. that night as he sat opposite her she observed him warily as she worked and put to herself an astonishing question: was there another ernie?--an ernie asleep she had not succeeded in rousing? was the instrument sound and the fault in her, the player? a chance phrase of mrs. trupp's now recurred to her. "there's so much in ernie--if you can only get it out." the man opposite rose slowly, came slowly to her, bent slowly and kissed her. "i ask your pardon if i was rough with you this evening, ruth," he said. "but alf!--he fairly maddens me. i feel to him as you shouldn't feel to any human being, let alone your own brother. you know what he's after?" he continued. she stirred and coloured, as she lifted her eyes to his, dark with an unusual tenderness. "reckon so, ern," she said. he stood before the fire, for once almost handsome in his vehemence. "layin his smutty hands on you!" he said. that little scene, with its suggestion of passion suppressed, steadied ruth.... and it was time. that other was always drawing nearer. and as she felt his approach, the savage power of him, his fierce virility, and was conscious of the reality of the danger, she resolved to meet it and fend it off. he should save ernie instead of destroying her. and the way was clear. if this new intellectual life, the seeds of which the engineer had been sowing so patiently for so long in the unkempt garden of ernie's spirit became a reality for him, a part of himself, growing in such strength as to strangle the weeds of carelessness, he was saved--so much ruth saw. "once he was set alight to, all his rubbish'd go up in a flare, and he'd burn bright as aflame," she told the engineer once seizing her chance; and ended on the soft note of the turtle-dove--"there's just one could set him ablaze--and only one. and that's you, joe." at the moment joe was sitting before the fire in characteristic attitude, hands deep in his pockets, legs stretched out, the toes of his solid boots in the air. for a moment he did not answer. it was as though he had not heard. then he turned that slow, bull-like glare of his full on her. "a'm to save him that he may enjoy you--that's it, is it?" he said. "a'm to work ma own ruin." it was the first time he had openly declared himself. now that it had come she felt, like many another woman in such case, a sudden instant revulsion. her dreams blew away like mist at the discharge of cannon. she was left with a sense of shock as one who has fallen from a height. at the moment of impact she was ironing, and glad of it. baring her teeth unconsciously she pressed hard down on the iron with a little hiss. "you've no call to talk to me like that, joe. it's not right." deliberately he rose and turned his back. "a don't know much," he growled in his chest, "but a do know that then." her heart thumped against her ribs. "i thart you were straight, joe," she said. he warmed his hands at the blaze; and she knew he was grinning, and the nature of the grin. "a thought so maself till a found a wasn't," he answered. "no man knows what's in him till he's tried--that's ma notion of it. then he'll have a good few surprises, same as a've done. a man's a very funny thing when he's along of a woman he loves--that's ma experience." ruth trembled, and her hand swept to and fro with the graceful motions of a circling eagle over the child's frock she was ironing. "you make me feel real mean," she said. he kept a sturdy back to her. "then a make you feel just same gate as a feel maself." there was a pause. "you ought to marry, joe--a man like you with all that nature in you." "never--only if so be a can get the woman a want." she said with a gulp, "and i thart you was ern's friend!" he looked up at the ceiling. "so a am--trying to be." there was another silence. then the woman spoke again, this time with the hushed curiosity of a child. "are all men like that?" "the main of em, a reck'n." her hand swooped rhythmically; and there was the gentle accompanying thud of the iron taking the table and circling smoothly about its work. "my ern isn't." "your ern's got what he wants--and what a want too." boots brushing themselves on the mat outside made themselves heard. then the door opened. joe did not turn. "coom in, ern," he said. "just right. keep t' peace atween us. she and me gettin across each other as usual." chapter xviii a skirmish a few days later ernie came home immediately after work instead of repairing to the _star_. as he entered the room ruth saw there was something up. he was sober--terribly so. "i done it, ruth, old lass," he said. she knew at once. "got the sack?" she asked. he nodded. "i've no one to blame only meself," he said, disarming her, as he disarmed everyone by his christian quality. ruth did not reproach him: that was not her way. nor did she sit down and cry: she had expected the catastrophe too long. she took the boy from the cradle and opened her bodice. "you shan't suffer anyways," she said, half to herself, half to the child, and stared out of the window, babe at breast, rocking gently and with tapping foot. ern slouched out; and ruth was left alone, to face as best she could the spectre that haunts through life the path of the immense majority of the human race. she had watched its slinking approach for years. now with a patter of hushed feet, dreadful in the fury of its assault, it was on her. remorseless in attack as in pursuit it was hounding her and hers slowly down a dreary slope to a lingering death, of body and spirit alike, in that hungry morass, the name of which is unemployment. two days later when joe entered the cottage he found ruth for once sitting, listless. all the children were in bed, even little alice. he saw at once why. there was no fire, though it was january. "where's ern, then?" he asked. "lookin for work," ruth answered. joe stared, aghast. "is he out?" he asked. ruth rose and turned her shoulder to him. "yes. they've stood him off. and i don't blame em." "what for?" joe was genuinely concerned. "he didn't say. bad time, i reckon. only don't tell anyone, joe, for dear's sake, else they'll stop my credit at the shop--and i'll be done." her eyes filled and she bit her lip. "four of em," she said. "and nothing a week to do it on--let alone the rent" ... she might hush it up; but the news spread. alf, with his ears of a lynx, was one of the first to hear. for a moment he hovered in a dreadful state of trepidation. it was a year and a half since he had stalked his white heifer, bent on a kill, only to be scared away by the presence of that mysterious old man he had found at her side in the heart of the covert. but his lust was by no means dead because it had been for the time suppressed. ruth had baffled him; and alf had not forgotten it. ern possessed a beautiful woman he longed for; and alf had not forgiven him. perhaps because he had beaten down his desire for so long, it now rushed out ravening from its lair, and drove all else before it. throwing caution to the winds, he came stealing along like a stoat upon the trail, licking his lips, wary yet swift. first he made sure that ernie was out, looking for a job of work. then he came down the street. ruth met her enemy blithely and with taunting eyes. in battle she found a certain relief from the burthen of her distress. and here she knew was no question of pity or consideration. "monday's your morning, isn't it?" she said. "come along then, will you, alf? and you'll see what i got for you." alf shook a sorrowful head, studying his rent-book. "it can't go on," he said in the highly moral tone he loved to adopt. "it ain't right." he raised a pained face and looked away. "of course if you was to wish to wipe it off and start clean----" ruth was cold and smiling. she handled alf always with the caressing contempt with which a cat handles a mouse. "little bit of accommodation," she said. "no thank you, alf. i shouldn't feel that'd help me to start clean." "see ern's down and out," continued the tempter in his hushed and confidential voice. "nobody won't give him a job." ruth trembled slightly, though she was smiling still and self-contained. "you'll see to that now you're on high, won't you?" she said--"for my children's sake." "it'd be doin ern a good turn, too," alf went on in the same low monotone. "brotherly," said ruth. "but he mightn't see it that way." "he wouldn't mind," continued alf gently. "see he's all for joe burt and the classes now. says you're keeping him back. nothin but a burthen to him, he says. _her and her brats_, as he said last night at the institute. _don't give a chap a chance_." alf wagged his head. "course he shouldn't ha said it. i know that. told him so at the time afore them all. _tain't right_--i told him straight--_your own wife and all_." "my ern didn't say that, alf," ruth answered simply. his eyes came seeking hers furtively, and were gone instantly on meeting them. "then you won't do him a good turn?" ruth's fine eyes flashed and danced, irony, laughter, scorn, all crossing swords in their brown deeps. there were aspects of alf that genuinely amused her. "would you like to talk it over with him?" she asked. "and supposing i have?" "he'll be back in a moment," she said, sweet and bright. "i'll ask him." alf was silent, fumbling with his watch-chain. then he began again in the same hushed voice, and with the same averted face. "and there's another thing between us." his eyes were shut, and he was weaving to and fro like a snake in the love-dance. "sorry you're trying to make bad blood between me and my old dad," he said. "very sorry, ruth." "i aren't," ruth answered swiftly. "you was always un-friends from the cradle, you and dad. see he don't think you're right." she added a little stab of her own--"no one does. that's why they keep you on as sidesman, mr. chislehurst says. charity-like. they're sorry for you. so'm i." the words touched alf's vital spot--the conceit that was the most obvious symptom of his insanity. his face changed, but his voice remained as before, stealthy and insinuating. he came a little closer, and his eyes caressed her figure covetously. "you see i wouldn't annoy me, not too far, not if i was you, ruth. you can go too far even with a saint upon the cross." ruth put out the tip of her tongue daintily. "crook upon the cross, don't you mean, alf?" he brushed the irrelevancy aside, shooting his head across to hers. his face was ugly now, and glistening. with deliberate insolence he flicked a thumb and finger under her nose. "and i do know what i do know, and what nobody else don't know only you and me and the captin, my tuppenny tartlet." she was still and white, formidable in her very dumbness. he proceeded with quiet stealth. "see that letter i wrote you used to hold over against me before you married--that's destroyed now. and a good job, too, for it might have meant trouble for alfured. but it's gone! i _know_ that then. ern told me. he's a drunkard, old ern is; but he's not a liar. i will say that for my brother; i will stick up for him if it was ever so; i will fight old ern's battles for him." "as you're doin now," said ruth. alf grinned. "and the short of it all is just this, ruthie," he continued, and reaching forth a hand, tapped her upon the shoulder--"i got you, and you ain't got me. and i can squeeze the heart out of that great bosom o yours"--he opened and clenched his hand in pantomine--"if i don't get my way any time i like. so just you think it over! think o your children if you won't think of nothing else!" outside in the road he ran into joe, who gripped him. "what you come after?" asked the engineer ferociously. "after my rent," answered alf, shouting from fear. joe looked dangerous, but loosed his hold. "how much?" he asked, taking a bag from his pocket. "sixteen shilling. you can see for yourself." obliging with the obligingness of the man who is scared to death, alf produced his book. joe, lowering still, examined it. then he paid the money into the other's hand. that done he escorted alf policemanwise to the bottom of borough lane. "if a find you mouchin round here again a'll break your bloody little back across ma knee," he told the other, shouldering over him. "a mean it, sitha!" alf withdrew up the hill towards the _star_. at a safe distance he paused and called back confidentially, his face white and sneering, "quite the yard-dog, eh? bought her, ain't yer?" joe returned to the cottage and entered. at the head of the stairs a lovely little figure in a white gown that enfolded her hugely like a cloud, making billows about the woolly red slippers which had been bess trupp's christmas gift, smiled at him. "uncle joe," little alice chirped, "please tell mum i are ready." he ran up the stairs, gathered her in his arms, and bore her back to bed in the room where susie and jenny already slept. "hush!" she whispered, laying a tiny finger on his lips--"the little ones!" he tucked her up and kissed her. "you're the proper little mother, aren't you?" he whispered. in the kitchen he found ruth, a row of tin-tacks studding her lips, soling alice's boots. the glint of steel between her lips, and the inward curl of her lips, gave her a touch of unusual grimness. "always at it," he said. "yes," she answered between muffled lips. "got to be. snob this time. only the soles are rotten. it's like puttin nails into wet brown paper." she was suffering terribly--he felt it; and suppressed accordingly. but if her furnaces were damped down, he could hear the flames roaring behind closed doors; and her passion, which typified for him the sufferings of those innocent millions to the redemption of whom he had consecrated his life, moved him profoundly. he flung the bag on the table before her almost savagely. it jingled as it fell and squatted there, dowdy, and lackadaisical as a dumpling in a swoon. ruth eyed it, her lips still steel-studded. "how much?" she mumbled. "ten pound," he answered. "that's not what i mean." "what _do_ you mean, then?" "what's the price?" he glared at her; then thumped the table with a great fist. "nothin then!" he shouted. "what doest' take me for?" she munched her tin-tacks sardonically, regarding him. how sturdy he was, with his close curly black hair, and on his face the set and resolute look of the man approaching middle-age, who knows that he wants and how to win it! "a man, joe." he snorted sullenly. "better'n a no-man any road," he sneered. the words stung her. all the immense and tender motherliness of her nature rose up like a wave that curls in roaring majesty to a fall. she swept the tin-tacks from her mouth and met him, flashing and glorious. "see here, joe!" she cried, deep-voiced as a bloodhound. "ne'er a word against my ern! i won't have it." "_your_ ern!" she was white and heaving. "yes, my ern! he's down and out, and you take advantage to come up here behind his back and insult him--and me. you're the one to call anudder man a no-man, aren't you?" taking the bag of money she tossed it at him with a flinging scorn that was magnificent. "take your filth away--and yourself with it!" he went, humbled and ashamed. she watched him go--this sanguine, well-conditioned man, with his good boots, his sensible clothes, his air of solid prosperity. then she sat down, spent. her savagery had been largely defensive. like the brave soldier she was she had attacked to hide the weakness of her guard. she was sick at heart; worn out. these men ... first alf, then joe ... this champing boar, foam in the corner of his lips ... that red-eyed weasel squealing on the trail.... an hour later ern came home. she knew at once from the wan look of him that he had been tramping all day on an empty stomach. that, with all his faults, was ern. so long as there was a crumb in the cupboard she and the children should share it: he would tighten his belt. even now he just sat down, an obviously beaten man, and did not ask for a bite. what she had she put before him; and it was not much. "any luck, ern?" she asked with a touch of tenderness. sullenly he shook his head. "walked my bloody legs off on an empty belly, and got a mouthful of insults at the end of it," he muttered. "that's all i got. that's all they give the working man in old england. joe's right. sink the country! blast the bloody empire! that's all it's good for!" it was the first time he had ever used bad language in her presence. that gradual demoralisation which unemployment, however caused, and its consequences brings inevitably in its train was already showing its corrupt fruits. the tragedy of it moved her. "joe's been up," she said after a bit. "i met him," he answered. he was warmer after his meal, less sullen, and drew up his chair from habit before the fireless range. "he wants me to go north--to his folk. says his brother-in-law can find me a job. runs a motor-transport business in oldham." her back was to him at the moment. "does he?" she asked quietly. "what about me and my children?" "that's what i says to him." "what did he say?" "said he'd look after you and them." ruth was still as a mouse awaiting the cat's pounce. "and what did you say to that?" "told him to go to hell." ruth stirred again and resumed her quiet busyness. "alf's been up again," she told him. "messin round." chapter xix pitched battle mrs. trubb happened on ernie's mother next day in church street. the surgeon's wife, whenever she met mrs. edward caspar, acted always deliberately on the assumption, which she knew to be unfounded, that relations between ruth and her mother-in-law were normal. "it's a nuisance this about ernie," she now said. "such a worry for ruth." the hard woman with the snow-white hair and fierce black eye-brows made a little sardonic moue. "she's all right," she answered. "you needn't worry for her. there's a chap payin her rent." mrs. trupp changed colour. "i don't believe it," she said sharply. "you mayn't believe it," retorted the other sourly. "it's true all the same. alf's her landlord. he told me." mrs. trupp, greatly perturbed, reported the matter to her husband. he tackled alf, who at the moment was driving for his old employer again in the absence of the regular chauffeur. alf admitted readily enough that the charge against his sister-in-law was true. "that's it, sir," he said. "it's that chap burt. and he don't do what he done for nothin, i'll lay; a chap like that don't." he produced his book from his pocket, and held it out for the other to see, half turning away with becoming modesty. "i don't like it, sir--me own sister-in-law. and i've said so to reverend spink. makes talk, as they say. still it's no concern of mine." mrs. trupp, on hearing her husband's report, went down at once to see ruth and point out the extraordinary unwisdom of her action. ruth met her, fierce and formidable as mrs. trupp had never known her. "it's a lie," she said, deep and savage as a tigress. "it may be," mrs. trupp admitted. "but alfred did show mr. trupp his book. and the rent had been paid down to last monday. i think you should ask mr. burt." that evening when joe came up ruth straightway tackled him. she was so cold, so terrible, that the engineer was frightened, and lied. "not as i'd ha blamed you if you had," said ruth relaxing ever so little. "it's not your fault i'm put to it and shamed afore em all." the bitterness of the position in which ern had placed her was eating her heart away. that noon for the first time she had taken the three elder children to the public dinner for necessitous children at the school. anne caspar who had been there helping to serve had smirked. when joe saw that the weight of her anger was turned against ernie and not him, he admitted his fault. "a may ha done wrong," he said. "but a acted for the best. didn't want to see you in young alf's clutches." "you bide here," ruth said, "and keep house along o little alice. i'll be back in a minute." hatless and just as she was, she marched up to the manor-house. "you were right, 'm," she told mrs. trupp. "it were joe. he just tell me. only i didn't knaw nothin of it." "it'll never do for you to be in his debt, ruth," said the lady. "no," ruth admitted sullenly. mrs. trupp went to her escritoire and took out sixteen shillings. ruth took it. "thank-you," was all she said, and she said that coldly. then she returned home with the money and paid joe. an hour later ernie came in. ruth was standing at the table waiting him, cold, tall, and inexorable. "anything?" she asked. surly in self-defence, he shook his head and sat down. she gave him not so much as a crumb of sympathy. "no good settin down," she told him. "you ain't done yet. you'll take that clock down to goldmann's after dark, and you'll get sixteen shillings for it. if he won't give you that for it, you'll pop your own great coat." ernie stared at her. he was uncertain whether to show fight or not. "dad's clock?--what he give me when i married?" "yes. dad's clock." she regarded him with eyes in which resentment flamed sullenly. "can i feed six on the shilling a week he gives me--rent and all?" ernie went out and brought back the money. she took it without a word, and wrapping it up in a little bit of paper, left it at the manor-house. mrs. trupp, who was holding a council with bess and bobby chislehurst, unwrapped the packet and showed the money. "she's put something up the spout," said the sage bobby. the three talked the situation over. there was only one thing to be done. somebody must go round to mr. pigott and intercede for ernie. bobby was selected. "you'll get him round if anybody can," bess told her colleague encouragingly. bobby, shaking a dubious head, went. mr. pigott, like everybody else in old town, was devoted to the young curate; but he presented a firm face now to the other's entreaties. "every chance i've given him." he said, and scolded and growled as he paced to and fro in the little room looking across victoria drive on to the allotments. "he's a lost soul, is ernie caspar. that's my view, if you care for it." bobby retreated, not without hope, and bustled round to ruth. "you must go and see him!" he rapped out almost imperiously--"yourself--this evening--after work--at . --to the minute." he would be praying at that hour. ruth, who was fighting for her life now, went. mr. pigott, at the window, saw her coming. "here she comes," he murmured. "o dear me! you women, you know, you're the curse of my life. i'd be a good and happy man only for you." mrs pigott was giggling at his elbow. "she'll get round you, all right, my son," she said. "she'll roll you up in two ticks till you're just a little round ball of nothing in particular, and then gulp you down." "she won't!" the other answered truculently. "you don't know me!" and he swaggered masterfully away to meet the foe. mrs. pigott proved, of course, right. ruth's simplicity and beauty were altogether too much for the susceptible old man. he put up no real fight at all; but after a little bluff and bounce surrendered unconditionally with a good many loud words to salve his conscience and cover his defeat. "it's only postponing the evil day, i'm afraid," he said; but he agreed to take the sinner back at a lower wage to do a more menial job--if he'd come. "he'll come, sir," said ruth. "he's humble. i will say that for ern." "send him to me," said the old schoolmaster threateningly. "i'll dress him down. what he wants is to get religion." "he's got religion, sir," answered simple ruth. "only where it is it's no good to him." that evening, when ern entered, heavy once again with defeat, she told him the news. at the moment she was standing at the sink washing up, and did not even turn to face him. he made as though to approach her and then halted. something about her back forbade him. "it shan't happen again, ruth," he said. she met him remorseless as a rock of granite. "no, not till next time," she answered. he stood a moment eyeing her back hungrily. then he went out. he was hardly gone when his father lumbered into the kitchen. the old gentleman's eyes fell at once on the clock-deserted mantel-piece. "gone to be mended," he said to himself, and took out of his waistcoat pocket the huge old gold watch with a coat of arms on the back, beloved of the children, that had itself some fifteen years before made a romantic pilgrimage to mr. goldmann's in sea-gate. then he bustled to the cupboard where was the box containing a hammer and a few tools. he put a nail in the wall, hammered his thumb, sucked it with a good deal of slobber, but got the nail in at last. "without any help too," he said to himself, not without a touch of complacency as he hung the watch on it. ruth watched him with wistful affection. pleased with himself and his action, as is only the man who rarely uses his hands, he stood back and admired his work. "there!" he said. "didn't know i was a handy man, did you? it'll keep you going anyway till the clock comes back." he left more hurriedly than usual, and when he was gone ruth found two shillings on the mantel-piece. the old man's kindness and her own sense of humiliation were too much for ruth. she went out into the back-yard; and there joe found her, standing like a school-girl, her hands behind her, looking up at the church-tower. quietly he came to her and peeped round at her face, which was crumpled and furrowed, the tears pouring down. "i'd as lief give up all together for all the good it is," she gulped between her sobs. he put out his hand to gather her. she turned on him, her eyes smouldering and sullen beneath the water-floods. "ah, you, would you?" she snarled. as she faced him he saw that the brooch she usually wore at her throat was gone, and her neck, round and full, was exposed. she saw the direction of his eyes. "yes," she said, "that's gone too. i'll be lucky soon if i'm left the clothes i stand up in." he put out a sturdy finger and stroked her bare throat. she struck it aside with ferocity. "what _do_ you want then?" he asked. "you know what i want," she answered huskily. "what's that?" "a man--to make a home and keep the children." "well, here's one a-waitin." she flung him off and moved heavily into the kitchen. just then there was a tap at the window. it was little alice calling for her mother to come and tuck her up. chapter xx the vanquished when colonel and mrs. lewknor called at the manor-house a few days later, mrs. trupp told them what had happened. "burt paid her rent?" queried the colonel. "without her knowledge," said mrs. trupp. the colonel shrugged. "i'm afraid our friend ernie's a poor creature," he said. "wishy-washy! that's about the long and short of it." "and yet he's got it in him!" commented mrs. trupp. "that's what i say," remarked mrs. lewknor with a touch of aggressiveness. the little lady, with the fine loyalty that was her characteristic, never forgot whose son ernie was, nor her first meeting with him years before in hospital at jubbulpur. "he's got plenty in him; but she don't dig it out." "he got a good fright though, this time," said bess. "it may steady him." mr. trupp shot forth one of his short epigrams, solid and chunky as a blow from a hammer. "men won't till they must," he said. "it's must has been the making of man. he'll try when he's got to, and not a moment before." ten minutes later colonel and mrs. lewknor were walking down church street towards the station. just in front of them a woman and two men were marching a-breast. the woman was flanked by her comrades. "what a contrast those two men make," remarked the colonel. "that feller burt's like a bull!" "too like," retorted mrs. lewknor sharply. "give me the fellow who's like a gentleman." the colonel shook his head. "flame burns too feebly." "but it burns pure," snapped the little lady. both parties had reached the foot of the hill at the goffs when the woman in front swerved. it was the motion of the bird in flight suddenly aware of a man with a gun. she passed through the stile and fled swiftly across saffrons croft. the men with her, evidently taken by surprise, followed. only the colonel saw what had happened. a tall man, coming from the station, had turned into alf's garage. "royal," he said low to his companion. captain royal had come down to beachbourne to see alf caspar, who wanted more capital for his syndicate which was prospering amazingly. alf, indeed, now that he had established his garages in every important centre in east sussex, was starting a road-touring syndicate to exploit for visitors the hidden treasures of a country-side amazingly rich in historic memories for men of anglo-saxon blood. the syndicate was to begin operations with a flourish on the easter bank holiday, if the necessary licence could be obtained from the watch committee; and alf anticipated little real trouble in that matter. mrs. trupp and her daughter, who had never forgiven alf for being alf, watched the growing prosperity of the syndicate and its promoter with undisguised annoyance. "it beats me," said bess, "why people back the little beast. everybody knows all about him." next day as they rode down the valley towards birling gap, mr. trupp expounded to his daughter the secret of alf's success. "when you're as old as i am, my dear, and have had as long an experience as i have of this slip-shod world, you'll know that people will forgive almost anything to a man who gets things done and is reliable. alf drove me for nearly ten years tens of thousands of miles; and i never knew him to have a break-down on the road. why?--because he took trouble." alf, indeed, with all his amazing deficiencies, mental and moral, was a supremely honest workman. he never scamped a job, and was never satisfied with anything but the best. he was gloriously work-proud. a hard master, he was hardest on himself, as all the men in his yard knew. one and all they disliked him; one and all they respected him--because he could beat them at their own job. his work was his solitary passion, and he was an artist at it. here he was not even petty. good work, and a good workman, found in him their most wholehearted supporter. "that's a job!" he'd say to a mechanic. "i congratulate you." "you should know, mr. caspar," the man would answer, pleased and purring. for alf's reputation as the best motor-engineer in east sussex was well-established and well-earned. and because he was efficient and thorough the success of his syndicate was never in doubt. alf was on the way now, in truth, to becoming a rich man. yet he lived simply enough above his original garage in the goffs at the foot of old town. and from that eyrie, busy though he was, he still made time to watch with interest and pleasure his brother's trousers coming down and indeed to lend a helping hand in the process: for he worked secretly on his mother, who regarded ernie when he came to rectory walk to take his father out with eyes of increasing displeasure; for her eldest son was shabby and seedy almost now as in the days when he had been out of work after leaving the hohenzollern. the word failure was stamped upon him in letters few could mis-read. and anne caspar had for all those who fail, with one exception, that profound sense of exasperation and disgust which finds its outlet in the contemptuous pity that is for modern man the camouflaged expression of the cruelty inherent in his animal nature. it seemed that all the love in her--and there was love in her as surely there is in us all--was exhausted on her own old man. for the rest her attitude towards the fallen in the arena was always _thumbs down_--with perhaps an added zest of rancour and resentment because of the one she spared. "she has brought you low," she commented one evening to ernie in that pseudo-mystical voice, as of one talking in her sleep, from the covert of which some women hope to shoot their poisoned arrows with impunity. this time, however, she was not to escape just punishment. ernie flared. "who says she has then?" anne caspar had struck a spark of reality out of the moss-covered flint; and now--as had happened at rare intervals throughout his life--ernie made his mother suddenly afraid. "everyone," she said, lamely, trying vainly to cover her retreat. "ah," said ernie, nodding. "i knaw who, and i'll let him knaw it too." "best be cautious," replied his mother with a smirk. "he's your landlord now. and you're behind." ernie rose. "he may be my landlord," he cried. "but i'm the daddy o he yet." sullenly he returned to the house that was now for him no home: for the woman who had made it home was punishing not without just cause the man who had betrayed it. ruth was standing now like a rock in the tide-way, the passions of men beating about her, her children clinging to her, the grey sky of circumstance enfolding her. she had sought adventure and had found it. battle now was hers; but it was battle stripped of all romance. danger beset her; but it was wholly sordid. the battle was for bread--to feed her household; and soap--to keep her home and children clean. the danger was lest all the creeping diseases and hideous disabilities contingent upon penury, unknown even by name except in their grossest form to the millions whose lot it is to face and fight them day in, day out, should sap the powers of resistance of her and hers, and throw them on the scrap-heap at the mercy of man, the merciless. tragic was her dilemma. to ruth her home was everything because it meant the environment in which she must grow the souls and bodies of her children. and her home was threatened. that was the position, stark and terrible, which stared her in the eyes by day and night. the man provided her by the law had proved a no-man, as joe called it. he was a danger to the home of which he should have been the support. and while her own man had failed her, another, a true man as she believed, was offering to take upon his strong and capable shoulders the burthen ernie was letting fall. ruth agonised and well she might. for joe was pressing in upon her, overpowering her, hammering at her gate with always fiercer insistence. should she surrender?--should she open the gate of a citadel of which the garrison was starved and the ammunition all but spent?--should she fight on? through the muffled confusion and darkness of her mind, above the tumult of cries old and new besetting her, came always the still small voice, heard through the hubbub by reason of its very quiet, that said--fight. inherently spiritual as she was, ruth gave ear to it, putting forth the whole of her strength to meet the enemy, who was too much her friend, and overthrow him. yet she could not forget that she owed her position to ernie, since at every hour of every day she was being pricked by the ubiquitous pin of poverty. fighting now with her back to the wall, for her home and children, and stern because of it, she did not spare him. when ernie called her hard, as he was never tired of doing, she answered simply, "i got to be." "no need to bully a chap so then," ernie complained. "a'ter all i am a human being though i may be your husband." "you're not the only one i got to think of," replied ruth remorselessly. "and it's no good talking. i shan't forgive you till you've won back the position you lost when he sack you. half a dollar a week makes just the difference between can and can't to me. see, i can't goo to the wash-tub now as i could to make up one time o day when i'd only the one. so i must look to you. and if i look in vain you got to hear about it. i mean it, ernie," she continued. "i'm fairly up against it. there's no gettin round me this time. and if you won't think o me, you might think o the children. it's they who suffer." she had touched the spot this time. "steady with it then!" cried ernie angrily. "don't i think o you and the children?" "not as you should," answered ruth calmly. "not by no means. we should come first. four of them now--and twenty-two bob to keep em on. tain't in reason." she faced him with calm and resolute eyes. "and it mustn't happen again, ern," she said. "see, it's too much. nobody's fault but your own." ernie went out in sullen mood, and for the first time since the smash turned into the _star_. he had not been there many minutes when a navvy, clouded with liquor, leaned over and inquired friendly how his barstards were. ern set down his mug. "what's this then?" he asked, very still. the fellow leaned forward, leering, a great hand plaistered on either knee. "don't you know what a bloody barstard is?" he asked. he was too drunk to be afraid; too drunk to be accountable. ernie dealt with him as a doctor deals with a refractory invalid--patiently. "who's been sayin it?" he asked. "your own blood-brother--alf." ernie tossed off his half-pint, rose, and went out. he walked fast down the hill to the goffs. people marked him as he passed, and the look upon his face: he did not see them. alf was in his garage, talking to a man. the man wore a burberry and a jaeger hat, with a hackle stuck in the riband. there was something jaunty and sword-like about him. ern, as he drew rapidly closer, recognised him. it was captain royal. the conjunction of the two men at that moment turned his heart to steel. he was walking; but he seemed to himself to be sliding over the earth towards his enemies, swift and stealthy as a hunting panther. as he went he clutched his fists and knew that they were damp and very cold. when ernie was within a hundred yards of him royal, all unconscious of the presence of his enemy, swung out of the garage and walked off in his rapid, resolute way. alf went slowly up the steps into his office. he was grinning to himself. "'alf a mo then!" said ernie quietly, hard on his heels. "just a word with you, alf." alf turned, saw his brother crossing the yard, marked the danger-flare on his face, remembered it of old, and bolted incontinently, without shame, locking the house door behind him. ern hammered on the door. alf peeped out of an upper window, upset a jug of water over his brother, and in his panic fury flung the jug after it. it broke on ernie's head and crashed to pieces on the step. ernie, gasping, and bleeding from the head, staggered back into the road, half-stunned. then he began to tear off his sopping clothes and throw them down into the dust at his feet. his voice was quiet as his face, smeared with blood, was moved. "you've got to ave it!" he called up to his brother. "may as well come and ave it now as wait for it." there had been a big football match on the saffrons, and the crowd were just flocking away, in mood for a lark. the drenched and bleeding man stripping in the road, the broken crockery on the door-step, the white-faced fellow at the window, promised just the sensation they sought. joyfully they gathered to see. here was just the right finale pleasant saturday afternoon. "i'm your landlord!" screamed alf. "remember that! i'll make you pay for this!" "will you?" answered ernie, truculent and cool. "then i'll have my money's worth first." this heroic sentiment was loudly applauded by the crowd, who felt an added sympathy for ern now they knew he was attacking his landlord, one of a class loathed by all good men. just then joe burt emerged from the crowd and took the tumultuous figure of ernie in his arms. "coom, then!" he said. "this'll never do for a labour leader. this isna the highway you should be trampin along." the crowd protested. it was an exhilarating scene--better than the pictures, some opined. and here was a blighter, who talked funny talk, interfering. "just like these hem furriners," said an old man. "ca-a-n't let well a-be." then, happily, or unhappily, the police, who exist to spoil the people's fun, appeared on the scene. they made a little blue knot round ernie, who stood in the midst of them, stripped and dripping, with something of the forlorn look of a shorn ewe that has just been dipped. alf, secure now in the presence of the officers of the law, descended from his window and came down the steps of his house towards the growing crowd. a tall man joined him. the pair forced their way through the press to the police. "i'm captain royal," said the tall man, coldly. "i saw what happened." joe turned on the new-comer. his clothes, his class, a touch of insolence about his tone and bearing, roused all the combative instincts of the engineer. "you wasn't standin by then!" he said ferociously. "you only just come up. a saw you." the other ignored him, drawing a card from an elegant case. "here's my card," he said to the police. "if you want my evidence you'll know where to find me." joe boiled over. "that's the gentleman of england touch!" he sneered. "swear away a workin man's life for the price of half a pint, they would!" "ah! i know him!" muttered ernie, white still, and trembling. "enough of it now," growled a big policeman, making notes in his pocket-book. just then the crowd parted and a woman came through. a shawl was wrapped about her head and face. only her eyes were seen, dark under dark hair. a moment she stood surrounded by the four men who had desired or possessed her. then she put her hand on the shirt-sleeve of her husband. "ern," she said, and turned away. he followed her submissively through the crowd, slipping his shirt over his head. swiftly the woman walked away up the hill. her scarecrow, his trousers sopping and sagging about his boots, trudged behind. the crowd looked after them in silence. then joe broke away and followed at a distance. ruth looked back and saw him. "let us be, joe," she called. joe turned away. his eyes were full of tears. chapter xxi thunder the two brothers had to appear before the bench on monday. as it chanced mr. pigott, colonel lewknor and mr. trupp were the only magistrates present. ernie, who appeared with his head bandaged, admitted his mistake. "went to pass the time o day with my brother," he said. "and all he done was to lean out of the window and crash the crockery down on the roof o me head. did upset me a bit, i admit." "he meant murder all right," was alf's testimony, sullenly given. "he knows that." joe corroborated ernie's statement. he had been in the saffrons on saturday afternoon and had seen ernie coming down the hill from old town. having a message to give him he had started to meet him. ernie had gone up the steps of his brother's house; and as he did so, alf had leaned out of the upper window and thrown a jug down on his brother. alf's solicitor cross-examined the engineer at some length. "what were you doing on the saffrons?" "watching the football." "you were watching the football; and yet you saw caspar coming down church street?" "i did." "i suggest that you did nothing of the sort; and that you only appeared on the scene at the last moment." "well," retorted joe, good-humouredly. "a don't blame you for that. it's what you're paid to suggest." a witness who was to have given evidence for alf did not appear; and the bench agreed without retiring. neither of the brothers had been up before the magistrates before and both were let off with a caution, ernie having to pay costs. "_your_ tongue's altogether too long, alfred caspar," said mr. pigott, the chairman, and added--quite unjudicially--"always was. and _you're_ altogether too free with your fists, ernest caspar." ernie left the court rejoicing; for he knew he had escaped lightly. outside he waited to thank his friend for his support. "comin up along?" he coaxed. "nay, ma lad," retorted the engineer with the touch of brutality which not seldom now marked his intercourse with the other. "you must face the missus alone. reck'n a've done enough for one morning." ern went off down saffrons road in the direction of old town, crest-fallen as is the man whose little cocoon of self-defensive humbug has suddenly been cleft by a steel blade. joe marched away down grove road. alf caught him up. the little chauffeur was smiling that curds-and-whey smile of his. "say, burt!--you aren't half a liar, are you?" he whispered. joe grinned genially. "the church can't have it all to herself," he said. "leave a few of the lies to the laity." ern trudged back from the town hall, across saffrons croft, to the moot, in unenviable mood; for he was afraid, and he had cause. ruth was who standing in the door came stalking to meet him, holding little alice by the hand. ern slouched up with that admixture of bluff, lordly insouciance, and aggrieved innocence that is the honoured defence of dog and man alike on such occasions. "you've done us," she said almost vengefully. "what are i done then?" asked the accused, feigning abrupt indignation. ruth dismissed the child, and turned on ernie. "got us turn into the street--me and my babies," she answered, splendidly indignant. "a chap's been round arter the house, while you was up before the beaks settlin whether you were for lewes gaol or not. says alf's let it him a week from saraday, and we got to go. i wouldn't let him in." "ah," said ernie stubbornly, "don't you worry. alf's got to give us notice first. and he daren't do that." ruth was not to be appeased. "why daren't he, then?" she asked. "i'll tell you for why," answered ernie. "he's goin up before the watch committee come thursday to get his licence for his blessed touring syndicate. we've friends on that committee, good friends--mr. pigott, and the colonel, not to say mr. geddes; and alf knaws it. he ain't goin to do anythink to annoy them just now. knaws too much, alf do." ruth was not convinced. "we got no friends," she said sullenly. "we shall lose em all over this. o course we shall, and i don't blame em. a fair disgrace on both of you, i call it. you're lucky not to have to do a stretch. and as to alf, they've sack him from sidesman over it, and he'll never forgive us." they were walking slowly back to the cottage, the man hang-dog, the woman cold. outside the door she paused. "all i know is this," she said. "if you're out again through your own fault i'm done with it, and i'll tell you straight what i shall do, ern." she was very quiet. "what then?" "i shall leave you with your children and go away with mine." she stood with heaving bosom, immensely moved. "i ca-a'nt keep the lot. but i can keep one. and you know which one that'll be." ernie, the colour of dew, went indoors without a word. the rumour that alf had been dismissed from his position as sidesman at st. michael's, owing to the incident in the goffs, was not entirely true, but there was something in it. the archdeacon had his faults, but there was no more zealous guardian of the fair fame of the church and all things appertaining to her. alf's appearance before the magistrates was discussed at the weekly conference of the staff at the rectory. both mr. spink and bobby chislehurst were present. the former stoutly defended his protégé, and the archdeacon heard him out. then he turned to bobby. "what d'you say, chislehurst?" he asked. bobby, in fact, could say little. ernie had no scruples whatever in suggesting what was untrue to the magistrates, who when on the bench at all events were officials, and to be treated accordingly, but he would never lie to a man who had won his heart. he had, therefore, in answer to the cherub's request given an unvarnished account of what had occurred. bobby now repeated it reluctantly, but without modification. "exactly," said mr. spink. "there's not a tittle of evidence that alfred really did say what he's accused of saying. and he denies it, point-blank." "i think i'd better see him," said the archdeacon. alf came, sore and sulking. mottled and sour of eye, he stood before the archdeacon who flicked the lid of his snuff-box, and asked whether he had indeed made the remark attributed to him. "i never said nothing of the sort," answered alf warmly, almost rudely. "is it likely? me own sister-in-law and all! see here!" he produced his rent-book. "i'm her landlord. she's months behind. see for yourself! any other man only me'd have turned her out weeks ago. but, of course, she takes advantage. she would. she's that sort. i never said a word against her." "and there is plenty you could say," chimed in mr. spink, who had escorted his friend. "maybe there is," muttered alf. the archdeacon made a grimace. in the matter of sex indeed if in no other, he was and always had been a genuine aristocrat--sensitive, refined, fastidious. "two of them get soaking together in the _star_," continued alf. "then they start telling each other dirty stories and quarrellin. ern believes it all and comes and makes a fuss. mr. pigott's chairman on the bench. course he lays it all on me--mr. pigott would. ern can't do no wrong in his eyes--never could. won't listen to reason and blames me along of him--because i'm a churchman. see, he's never forgiven me leaving the chapel, mr. pigott hasn't; and that's the whole story." it was a good card to play; and it did its work. "it's a cleah case to my mind of more sinned against than sinning," said the archdeacon with a genuinely kind smile. "you had bad luck, caspar--but a good friend." he shook hands with both young men. "i wish you well and offer you my sympathy. i think you should go and have a word of explanation with our friend, mr. pigott, though." "yes, sir," said alf. "i'm goin now. i couldn't let it rest there." alf went straight on to interview the erring chairman in the little villa in victoria drive. the latter, summing up his old pupil with shrewd blue eye in which there was a hint of battle, refused to discuss the case or his judgment. "what's done is done," he said. "the law's the law and there's no goin back on it. you were lucky to get off so light; that's my notion of it." alf stood before him, hang-dog and resentful. "he'll kill me one of these days," he muttered. "little better than a bloody murderer." there was a moment's pause, marked by a snort from mr. pigott. then the jolly, cosy man, with his trim white beard and neat little paunch, rose and opened the window with some ostentation. "first time that word's ever crossed my threshold," he said. "and i've lived in this house ten year come michaelmas." he turned with dignity on the offender. "is that what they teach you in the church of england, then, alfred caspar?" he asked. "it wasn't what we taught you in the wesleyan chapel in which you was bred. never heard the like of it for language in all me life--never!" before everything else in life mr. pigott was a strong chapel-man; and in his judgment ern's weakness was as nothing to alf's apostasy. alf looked foolish and deprecatory. "i didn't mean in it the swearin way," he said--"not as ernest would have meant it. i never been in the army meself. i only meant he'll be the end o me one of these days. good as said he would in the _star_ saturday." mr. pigott turned away to hide the twinkle in his eye. he knew alf well, and his weakness. "he don't like you, i do believe," he admitted. "and he's a very funny fellow, ern, when his hackle's up." alf's eyes blinked as they held the floor. "and now," he said, "i suppose the watch committee'll not grant my licence for the road-touring syndicate when it comes up afore em on thursday. and i'll be a ruined man." "i shouldn't be surprised," answered mr. pigott, who was an alderman and a great man on the town council. alf was furious. he was so furious, indeed, that he did a thing he had not done for years: he took his trouble to his mother. "it's a regular plot," he said, "that's what it is. to get my licence stopped and ruin me. raised the money; ordered the buses; engaged the staff and all. and then they spring this on me!--it ain't ernie. i will say that for him. i know who's at the bottom of it." "who then?" asked his mother, faintly interested. "her ern keeps." mrs. caspar roused instantly. "isn't she married to him then?" she cried, peering over her spectacles. "is she?" sneered alf. "that's all." he leaned forward, his ugly face dreadful with a sneer. "do you know where she'd be if everyone had his rights?" "where then?" "lewes gaol." his message delivered, he sat back with a nod to watch its effect. "and she would be there too," continued alf, "only for me." "what do you mean?" mrs. caspar asked. "i mean," answered alf, "as i keep her out of prison by keepin me mouth shut." he dropped his voice. "and that ain't all. she's at it again ... her home's a knockin-shop.... all the young men.... the police ought to interfere.... i shall tell the archdeacon.... a kept woman.... that chap burt.... that's how ern makes good.... she makes the money he spends at the _star_.... and your grand-children brought up in that atmosphere!" he struck the table. "but i'm her landlord all the same; and i'll make her know it yet." anne caspar was genuinely disturbed not for the sake of ruth, but for that of the children. "you could never turn her out!" she said--"not your own sister-in-law and four children! look so bad and all--and you a sidesman too." alf snorted. "ah, couldn't i?" he said. "you never know what a man can do till he tries." that evening the colonel and mrs. lewknor walked over to the manor-house to discuss ern's latest misadventure. they found mr. pigott there clearly on the same errand; but the old nonconformist rose to go with faintly exaggerated dignity on seeing his would-be enemy. "there's only one thing'll save him now," he announced in his most dogmatic style. "what's that?" asked mrs. trupp. "h'a h'earthquake," the other answered. when the colonel and his wife left the manor-house half-an-hour later there were three people walking abreast down the hill before them, just as there had been on a previous occasion. now, as then, the centre of the three was ruth. now, as then, on her left was joe. but on her right instead of ern was little alice. the colonel pointed to the three. "i'll back caspar all the way," said mrs. lewknor firmly. "myself," replied the colonel shrewdly, "i'll back the winner." then he paused to read a placard which gave the latest news of the ulster campaign. part ii troubled dawn chapter xxii the betrayal the ulster campaign was moving forward now with something of the shabby and theatrical pomp of a travelling circus parading the outskirts of a sea-side town before a performance. a dromedary with an elongated upper lip, draped in the dirty trappings of a pseudo-oriental satrap, led the procession, savage and sulking. behind the dromedary came the mouldy elephant, the mangy bear, the fat woman exposing herself in tights on a gilt-edged roman chariot, the sham cow-boys with gaudy cummerbunds, and cockney accents, on untamed bronchos hired from the local livery stables, the horse that was alleged to have won the derby in a by-gone century, etc. and the spectators gaped on the pavement, uncertain whether to jeer or to applaud. as the campaign rolled on its way, the wiser conservatives shook their heads, openly maintaining that the whole business was a direct abnegation of everything for which their party had stood in history, while the liberals became increasingly restive: mr. geddes, uneasy at the inaction of the government, mr. geddes truculent to meet the truculence of the enemy. the only man who openly rejoiced was joe burt. "the tory reds have lit such a candle by god's grace in england as'll never be put out," he said to ernie. the engineer had always now a newspaper cutting in his waistcoat pocket, and a quotation pat upon his lips. "they're all shots for the locker in the only war that matters," he told the colonel. "and they'll all coom in handy one day. a paste em into a lil book nights: _tips for traitors; an ammunition magazine_, a call it." for him sir edward carson's famous confession of faith, _i despise the will of the people_--words joe had inscribed as motto on the cover of his ammunition magazine--gave the key to the whole movement. and he never met the colonel now but he discharged a broadside into the helpless body of his victim. it was not, however, till early in , just when his pursuit of ruth was at the hottest, that he woke to the fact that the tories were tampering with the army. that maddened joe. "if this goes on a shall go back to ma first love," he told ruth with a characteristic touch of impudence. "and a good job too," she answered tartly. "i don't want you." "and you can go back to your ernie," continued the engineer, glad to have got a rise. "i shan't go back to him," retorted ruth, "because i never left him." the statement was not wholly true: for if ruth had not left ernie, since the affair of the goffs she had according to her promise turned her back on him. when on the first opportunity that offered she had announced his fate to the offender, he had blinked, refused to understand, argued, insisted, coaxed--to no purpose. "you got to be a man afoor i marry you again," she told him coldly. "i'm no'hun of a no-man's woman." ernie at first refused to accept defeat. he became eloquent about his rights. "they're nothing to my wrongs," ruth answered briefly; and turned a deaf ear to all his pleas. thereafter ernie found himself glad to escape the home haunted by the woman he still loved, who tantalised and thwarted him. that was why when joe girded on his armour afresh and went forth to fight the old enemy in the new disguise, ernie accompanied him. the pair haunted unionist meetings, ernie quiescent, the other aggressive to rowdiness. young stanley bessemere, who had returned from ireland (where he now spent all his leisure caracoling on a war-horse at the distinguished tail of the caracoling captain smith) to address a series of gatherings in his constituency in justification of the ulster movement, and his own share in it, was the favoured target for his darts. joe followed him round from the east-end to meads, and from meads to old town, and even pursued him into the country. he acquired a well-earned reputation as a heckler, and was starred as dangerous by the tory bloods. mark that man! the word went round. joe knew it, and was only provoked to increased aggressiveness. "go on, ma lad!" he would roar from the back of the hall. "yon's the road to revolution aw reet!" there came a climax at a meeting in the institute, old town. joe at question time had proved himself unusually bland and provocative. the stewards had tried to put him out; and there had been a rough and tumble in the course of which somebody had hit the engineer a crack on the head from behind with the handle of a motor-car. joe dropped; and ernie stood over him in the ensuing scuffle. the news that there was trouble drew a little crowd. ruth, on her evening marketings in church street, looked in. she found joe sitting up against the wall, dazed; and ernie kneeling beside him and having words with stanley bessemere, who was strolling towards the door. "brought his troubles on his own head," said the young member casually. "hit a man from behind!" retorted ernie, quiet but rather white. "english, ain't it?" "it was your own brother, then!" volunteered an onlooker. joe rallied, rubbed his head, looked up, saw ruth and reassured her. "a'm maself," he said. he rose unsteadily on ernie's arm. "he must come home along of us," said ruth. "of course he must then," ernie answered with the asperity of the thwarted male. the night-air revived the wounded man. arrived at the cottage he sat in the kitchen, still a little stupid, but amused with his adventure. "they'd ha kicked me in stoomach when a was down only for you, ern," he said. "that's the gentlemen of england's notion of politics, that is." "you'd ha done the same by them, joe, if you'd the chance," answered ern. the other grinned. "a would that, by guy--and all for loov," he admitted. ruth brought him a hot drink. he sipped it, one eye still on his saviour. "i owe this to you, ern. here's to you!" "come to that, joe, i owe you something," ernie answered. "what's that then?" joe sat as a man with a stiff neck, screwing up his eye at the other. ern nodded significantly at ruth's back. "why that little bit o tiddley you done for me afore the beaks," he whispered. "that's nowt," answered joe sturdily. "what was it saul said to jonathan--_if a feller can't tiddle it a liddel bit for his pal, what the hell use is he?_--book o judges." ruth in the background watched the two men. it was as though she were weighing them in the balance. there was a touch of masterful tenderness about ern's handling of his damaged friend that surprised and pleased her. joe made an effort to get up. "a'd best be shiftin," he said. "never!" cried ern, authoritatively. "you'll bide the night along o us. she'll make you a bed on the couch here." "nay," said ruth. "you'll sleep in the bed along o ernie." joe eyed her. "where'll you sleep then?" he asked. "in the spare room," ruth answered, winking at ernie. there was no spare room; but she made up a shake-down for herself on the settle in the kitchen. ernie, after packing away the visitor upstairs, came down to help her. it also gave him an opportunity to ventilate his grievance. "one thing. it won't make much difference to me," he said. "your own fault," ruth answered remorselessly. "and you aren't the only one, though i know you think you are. men do ... we'd be out in the street now, the lot of us, only for joe telling lies for you." next morning she took her visitor breakfast in bed and kept him there till mr. trupp had come, who told joe he must not return to work for a week. the engineer got up that afternoon and was sitting in the kitchen still rather shaky, when alf, who had not fulfilled his threat and given ruth notice, called for the rent. ruth greeted him with unusual friendliness. "come in, won't you?" she said--"while i get the money." alf, who in some respects was simple almost as ernie, entered the trap to find joe, huddled in a chair and glowering murder at him. he tried to withdraw, but ruth stood between him and the door, twice his size, and with glittering eyes. "there's a friend of yours," she said. "saw him last night, at the meeting, didn't you?--i thart you'd be glad to meet him." alf quaked. "been in the wars then?" he said shakily. "what d'you know about it?" rumbled joe. "i don't know nothin," answered alf sharply, almost shrilly. just then little alice entered. alf took advantage of her entrance to establish his line of retreat. once set in the door with a clear run for the open his courage returned to him. "and what may be your name?" he asked the child with deliberate insolence. "alice caspar," she answered, staring wide-eyed. alf sneered. "that it ain't--i know," he said, and went out without his rent, and laughing horribly. little alice ran out again. "what's he mean?" asked joe. ruth regarded him with wary curiosity. "didn't ern never tell you then?" she asked. "never!" said joe. ruth was thoughtful. that was nice of ern--like ern--the gentleman in him coming out. that night she softened to him. he noticed it in a flash and approached her--only to be repulsed abruptly. "no," she said. "i don't care about you no more. you've lost me. that's where it is." "o, i beg pardon," answered ernie, quivering. "i thart we was married." "so we was one time o day, i believe," ruth answered. "and might be again yet. who knaws?" he stood over her as she composed herself for the night on the settle. "how long's that joe going to stop in my house?" he asked. "just as long as i like," she answered coolly. next day when joe came in for tea he found ruth sitting in the kitchen, nursing little alice, who was crying her heart out on her mother's shoulder. "they've been tormenting her at school," ruth explained. "it's alf." "i'll lay it is," muttered joe. "ern and me, we'll just go round when he comes back from work." ruth looked frightened. "don't tell ern for all's sake, joe!" she whispered. "why not then?" "he'd kill alf." joe's face betrayed his scepticism. "ah, you don't knaw ern, when he's mad," ruth warned him. an hour later ernie came home. he was still, suppressed, as often now. there was nobody in the kitchen but ruth. "where's your joe, then?" he asked. "he's left," ruth answered. ernie relaxed ever so little. "he might ha stopped to say good-bye," he muttered. ruth rose. "i got something to tell you, ern," she said. he turned on her abruptly. "it's little alice. they've been getting at her at school--_that!_--you knaw." ernie was breathing hard. "who split?" "alf. he told mrs. ticehurst--i see him; and she told the lot." ern went out slowly, and slowly up the stairs in the dark to the children's room. a little voice called--"daddy!" "i'm comin, sweet-heart," he answered tenderly. he felt his way to the child's bed, knelt beside it, and struck a match. a tear like a star twinkled on her cheek. she put out her little arms to him and clasped him round the neck. "daddy, you _are_ my daddy, aren't you?" she sobbed, her heart breaking in her voice. he laid his cheek against hers. both were wet. "of course i am," he answered, the water floods sounding in his throat. "i'm your daddy; and you're my darling. and if we got nobody else we got each other, ain't we?" ruth, in the dark at the foot of the stairs, heard, gave a great gulp, and crept back to the kitchen. chapter xxiii the colonel faces defeat the colonel, who throughout his life while making a great show of radical opinions in the mess for the benefit of his brother-officers had always voted quietly for the conservative party on the ground that they made upon the whole less of a hash of imperial affairs than their liberal opponents was profoundly troubled by the proceedings in ulster. "the beggars are undermining the _morale_ of ireland," he told mr. trupp. "and only those who've been quartered there know what that means." "if you said they were undermining the foundations of society i'd agree," the other answered. "geddes says they've poisoned the wells of civilisation, and he's about right." the presbyterian minister, indeed, usually so sane and moderate, had been roused to unusual vehemence by the general strike against the law engineered by the conservative leaders. "it's a reckless gamble in anarchy with the country's destiny at stake," he said. "and financed by german jews," added joe burt. as the campaign developed and the success of the unionists in tampering with the army became always more apparent, the criticisms of the two men intensified. they hung like wolves upon the flank of the colonel, pertinacious in pursuit, remorseless in attack. "you can't get away from the fact that the whole campaign is built on the power of the unionists to corrupt the officers of the army," said the minister. "without that the whole thing collapses." "and so far," chimed in joe, "a must say it looks as if they were building on a sure foundation." the colonel, outwardly gay, was inwardly miserable that his beloved service should be dragged in the mud. "what can you say to them?" he groaned to mr. trupp. "why," said the old surgeon brusquely, "tell em to tell their own rotten government to govern or get out. let em hang half a dozen politicians for treason, and shoot the same number of soldiers for sedition--and the thing's done." and the bitterness of it was that it looked increasingly as if the critics were right. the colonel came home one night from a rare visit to london in black despair. "the british officer never grows up," he complained to his wife. "he's a perfect baby." his long legs writhed themselves into knots, as he sucked at his pipe. "do you remember that charming little feller cherry dugdale, who commanded the borderers at umballa?" "the shikari?--rather." "he's joined the ulster volunteers as a private." mrs. lewknor chuckled. she was a covenanter sans phrase, fierce almost as the archdeacon and delighting in the embarrassments of the government. "just like him," she said. "little duck!" then came the crash. the commander-in-chief in ireland sent for general gough, commanding the rd cavalry brigade at the curragh, and asked him what his action would be in the event of the government giving him and his brigade the alternative of serving against ulster or resigning. gough forthwith called a conference of his officers, and seventy out of seventy-five signified their intention to resign. "we would rather not shoot irishmen," they said. on the evening after the news came through the colonel was walking down terminus road when he heard a provocative voice behind him. "what about it, colonel?" he turned to find joe burt at his heels. "what about what?" asked the colonel. "this mutiny of the officers at the curragh." the colonel affected a gaiety he by no means felt. "well, what's your view?" joe was enthusiastic. "why, it's the finest example of direct action ever seen in this coontry. and it's been given by the army officers!--that's what gets me." "what's direct action?" asked the colonel. the phrase in those days was unknown outside industrial circles. "a strike, and especially a strike for political purposes," answered joe. "general gough and his officers have struck to prevent home rule being placed on the statute book. what if a trade union had tried to hold up the coontry same road? it's what a've always said," the engineer continued, joyously aggressive. "the officers of the british army aren't to be trusted except when their own party's in power." the colonel walked on to the club. there he found young stanley bessemere, just back from ireland, sitting in a halo of cigar-smoke, the hero of an amused and admiring circle, recording his latest military exploits. "we've got the swine beat," he was saying confidently between puffs. "the army won't fight. and the government can do nothing." the colonel turned a vengeful eye upon him. "young man," he said, "are you aware that labour's watching you? labour's learning from you?" "labour be damned!" retorted the other with jovial brutality. "we'll deal with labour all right when we've got this lot of traitors out of office." "traitors!" called mr. trupp, harshly from his chair. "you talk of traitors!--you tories!--i voted for you at the last general election for the first time in my life on the sole ground of national defence. d'you think i or any self-respecting man would have done so if we'd known the jackanape tricks you'd be up to?" the two elderly men retired in dudgeon to the card-room. "there's only one thing the matter with ireland," grumbled the old surgeon. "and its always been the same thing." "what's that?" asked the colonel. "the english politician," replied the other--"ireland's curse." hard on the heels of the curragh affair came the landing of arms from krupp's, with the connivance, if not with the secret co-operation of the german government, at larne under the cover of the rebel army, mobilised for the purpose. the government wept a few patient tears over the outrage and did nothing. the colonel was irritated; mr. trupp almost vituperative. "geddes may say what he likes," remarked the former. "but i can't acquit the government. they're encouraging the beggars to play it up." "acquit them!" fulminated the old surgeon. "i'd impeach them on the spot. the law in abeyance! british ports seized under the guns of the british fleet! gangs of terrorists patrolling the roads and openly boasting they'll assassinate any officer of the crown who does his duty; and the episcopalian church blessing the lot! and the government does nothing. it's a national disgrace!" "it's all very well, mr. trupp," said mr. glynde, the senior member for the borough, who was present. "but ulster has a case, and we must consider it." "of course ulster has a case," the other answered sharply. "nobody but a fool denies it. i'm attacking the government, not ulster. let them restore law and order in ireland. that's their first job. when they've done that it'll be time enough to consider ulster's grievances. where's all this going to lead us?" "hell," said the colonel gloomily. he was, indeed, more miserable than he had ever been in his life. other old service men he met, who loathed the government, looked on with amused or spiteful complacency at the part the army was playing in the huge conspiracy against the crown. the colonel saw nothing but the shame of it, its possible consequences, and effect on opinion, domestic, imperial and european. he walked about as one in a maze: he could not understand. then mr. geddes came to see him. the tall minister was very grave; and there was no question what he came about--the army conspiracy. the colonel looked out of the window and twisted his long legs as he heard the other out. "dear little gough-y!" he murmured at the end. "the straightest thing that walks the earth." he felt curiously helpless, as he had felt throughout the campaign; unable to meet his adversaries except by the evasion and casuistical tricks his spirit loathed. mr. geddes rose. "well, colonel," he said. "i see no alternative but to resign my membership of the league. it's perfectly clear that if your scheme goes through it must be run by officers at the war office. and i'm afraid i must add that it seems equally clear now that it will be run for political purposes by men who put their party before their country." the colonel turned slowly round. "you've very kindly lent us st. andrew's hall for a meeting of the league next friday. do you cancel that?" he asked. "certainly not, colonel," answered the minister. "by all means hold your meeting. i shall be present, and i shall speak." ... it was not a happy meeting at st. andrew's hall, but it was a crowded one: for the vultures had sniffed the battle from afar. the liberals came in force, headed by mr. pigott; while joe burt led his wolves from the east-end. ernie was there, very quiet now as always, with ruth; and bobby chislehurst, seeing them, took his seat alongside. fighting with his back to the wall, and well aware of it, the colonel was at his very best: witty, persuasive, reasonable. what the national service league advocated was not aggression in any shape, but insurance. he sat down amid considerable and well-earned applause. then mr. geddes rose. he had joined the league after agadir, he said, after much perturbation and questioning of spirit, because he had been reluctantly convinced at last that the german menace was a reality. yet what was the position to-day? the conservative party, which had preached this menace for years, had been devoting the whole of its energies now for some time past to fomenting a civil war in ireland. they had gone so far as to arm a huge force that was in open rebellion against the crown with rifles and machine-guns from the very country which they affirmed was about to attack us. and more remarkable still certain generals at the war office--he wouldn't mention names-- "why not?" shouted mr. pigott. it was not expedient; but he had in his pocket a letter from mr. redmond giving the name of the general who was primarily responsible for the sedition among the officers of the army--a very highly placed officer indeed. "shame!" cried someone. he thought so too. and this general, who was in the somewhat anomalous position of being both technical military adviser to the rebel army in ulster and the trusted servant of the government at the war office, was a man who for years past, so he understood, had preached the doctrine that war with germany was inevitable, and had been for many years largely responsible for the preparation of our forces against attack from that quarter. to suggest that this officer and his colleagues were traitors was downright silly. what, then, was the only deduction a reasonable man could draw? the minister paused: why, that the german peril was not a reality. the conclusion was greeted with a howl of triumph from the wolves at the back. "hear! hear!" roared mr. pigott. joe burt had jumped up. "a'll tell you the whole truth about the german bogey!" he bawled. "it's a put-up game by the militarists to force conscription on the coontry for their own purposes. now you've got it straight!" as he sat down amid tumultuous applause at one end of the hall a figure on the platform bobbed up as it were automatically. it was alf. "am i not right in thinking that the gentleman at the back of the hall is about to pay a visit to germany?" he asked urbanely. "yes, you are!" shouted joe. "and a wish all the workin-men in england were comin too. that'd put the lid on the nonsense pretty sharp." then ensued something of a scene; the hub-bub pierced by alf's shrill scream, "_who's payin for your visit?_" the archdeacon, a most capable chairman, restored order; and mr. geddes concluded his speech on a note of quiet strength. when he finally sat down man after man got up and announced his intention of resigning his membership of the league. outside the hall the colonel stood out of the moon in the shadow of one of those trees which make the streets of beachbourne singular and lovely at all times of the year. his work of the last six years had been undone, and it was clear that he knew it. ruth, emerging from the hall, looked across at the forlorn old man standing like a dilapidated pillar amid the drift of the dissipating crowd. she had herself no understanding of the rights and wrongs of the controversy to which she had just listened; her sympathies were not enlisted by either side. only the human element, and the clash of personalities which had made itself apparent at the meeting, had interested her. but she realised that the tall figure across the road was the vanquished in the conflict; and her heart went out to him. "they aren't worth the worrit he takes over them," she said discontentedly. "let them have their war if they want it, i says. and when they've got it let those join in as likes it, and those as don't stay out. that's what i say.... a nice man like that, too--so gentle with it.... ought to be ashamed of emselves; some of em." then she saw mr. chislehurst cross the road to his cousin, and she was comforted. "he'll walk home with him.--come on, ernie." it was striking ten o'clock. ruth, who was in a hurry to get back to her babes, left in the charge of a neighbour, walked a-head. ernie, on the other hand, wished to saunter, enjoying the delicious freshness of the spring night. "steady on then!" he said. "that's the archdeacon in front, and mr. trupp and all." "i knaw that then," replied ruth with the asperity she kept for ernie alone. "well, you don't want to catch them up." they entered saffrons croft, which lay black or silver-blanched before them, peopled now only with tall trees. the groups of elms, thickening with blossoms, gathered the stars to their bosoms, and laid their shadows like patterns along the smooth sward. beyond the threadbare tapestry of trees rose the solid earth-work of the downs, upholding the brilliant night, encircling them as in a cup, and keeping off the hostile world. ernie felt their strength, their friendship, the immense and unfailing comfort of them. a great quiet was everywhere, brooding, blessed. the earth lay still as the happy dead, caressed by the moon. but behind the stillness the thrust and stir and aspiration of new life quickening in the darkness, seeking expression, made itself manifest. ernie was deliciously aware of that secret urge. he opened his senses to the rumour of it, and filled his being with the breath of this mysterious renaissance. he stopped and sniffed. "it's coming," he said. "i can smell it." "it's come more like," answered ruth. "the lilacs are out in the manor-garden, and the brown birds singing in the ellums fit to choke theirsalves." they walked on slowly across the turf. the lights of the manor-house twinkled at them friendly across the ha-ha. ernie's heart, which had been hardening of late to meet ruth's hardness, thawed at the touch of spring. the doors of his being opened and his love leapt forth in billows to surround her. the woman in front paused as if responding to that profound sub-conscious appeal. ern did not hurry his pace; but she stayed for him in a pool of darkness made by the elms. quietly he came up alongside. "ruth," he began, shy and stealthy as a boy-lover. she did not answer him, but the moon lay on her face, firm-set. "anything for me to-night?" he came in upon her with a quiet movement as of wings. she elbowed him off fiercely. "a-done!" she said. "you're not half-way through yet--nor near it." he pleaded, coaxing. "i am a man, ruth." she was adamant. "it's just what you are not," she retorted. he knew she was breathing deep; he did not know how near to tears she was. "you was one time o day--and you might be yet.--you got to work your ticket, my lad." he drew back. she walked on swiftly now, passing out of saffrons croft into the road. he followed at some distance down the hill past the greys to the _star_ corner. a man standing there pointed. he turned round to see joe pounding after him. "the tickets and badges coom to-night," the engineer explained. "a meant to have given you yours, as a did mr. geddes, at the meeting. but you got away. good night! friday! three o'clock sharp! don't forget." ruth had turned and was coming swiftly back towards them. "ain't you coming along then, joe?" she called after him. "not to-night, thank-you, ruth. a got to square up afore we go." "i am disappointed," said ruth disconsolately, and turned away down borough lane. ernie came up beside her quietly. "that night!" he said. "almost a pity you didn't stay where you was in bed and let joe take my place alongside you." "hap it's what i've thart myself times," ruth answered sentimentally. "only thing," continued ernie in that same strangely quiet voice, "joe wouldn't do it. d'is no fault of his'n. he is a man joe is; even if so be you're no'hun of a woman." the two turned into the house that once had been their home. chapter xxiv the pilgrims spring comes to beachbourne as it comes to no other city of earth, however fair; say those of her children who after long sojourning in other lands come home in the evenings of their days to sleep. the many-treed town that lies between the swell of the hills and the foam and sparkle of the sea sluicing deliciously the roan length of pevensey bay unveils her rounded bosom in the dawn of the year to the kind clear gaze of heaven and of those who to-day pass and repass along its windy ways. birds thrill and twitter in her streets. there earlier than elsewhere the arabis calls the bee, and the hedge-sparrow raises his thin sweet pipe to bid the hearts of men lift up: for winter is passed. chestnut and laburnum unfold a myriad lovely bannerets on slopes peopled with gardens and gay with crocuses and the laughter of children. the elms in saffrons croft, the beeches in paradise, stir in their sleep and wrap themselves about in dreamy raiment of mauve and emerald. the air is like white wine, the sky of diamonds; and the sea-winds come blowing over banks of tamarisk to purge and exhilarate. on the afternoon of such a day of such a spring in may, , at beachbourne station a little group waited outside the barrier that led to the departure platform. the group consisted of joe burt, ernie, and ruth. ruth was peeping through the bars on to the platform, at the far end of which was a solitary figure, waiting clearly, he too, for the lewes train, and very smart in a new blue coat with a velvet collar. "it's alf," she whispered, keen and mischievous to joe, "ain't arf smart and all." joe peered with her. "he's the proper little fat," said the engineer. "i'll get will dyson draw a special cartoon of him for the _leader_." ruth preened an imaginary moustache in mockery of her brother-in-law. "i'm the managing director of caspar's touring syndicate, i am, and don't you forget it!" she said with a smirk. "where's he off to now?" "brighton, i believe, with the colonel. some meeting of the league," replied ernie dully. just then mr. geddes joined them, and the four moved on to the platform. the train came in and alf disappeared into it. a few minutes later the colonel passed the barrier. he marked the little group on the platform and at once approached them. something unusual about the men struck him at once. all three had about them the generally degagé air of those on holiday bent. the minister wore a cap instead of the habitual wide-awake; and carried a rucksack on his back. joe swung a parcel by a string, and ernie had an old kit-bag slung across his shoulder. rucksack, parcel, and kit-bag were all distinguished by a red label. the colonel stalked the party from the rear and with manifold contortions of a giraffe-like neck contrived to read on the labels printed in large black letters, adult school peace party. then he speared the engineer under the fifth rib with the point of his stick. "well, what y'up to now?" he asked sepulchrally. "just off to berlin, colonel," cried the other with aggressive cheerfullness, "mr. geddes and i and this young gentleman"--thrusting the reluctant ernie forward--"one o your soldiers, who knows better now." the colonel began to shake hands all round with elaborate solemnity. "returning to your spiritual home while there is yet time, mr. geddes," he said gravely. "very wise, i think. you'll be happier there than in our militarist land, you pacifist gentlemen." the minister, who was in the best of spirits, laughed. the two men had not met since the affair of st. andrew's hall: and each was relieved at the open and friendly attitude of the other. "cheer up, colonel," he said. "it's only a ten-days' trip." they moved towards the train and ernie got in. mr. geddes was telling the colonel something of the origin and aims of the adult school union in general and of the peace party in particular. "how many of you are going?" asked the colonel. "round about a hundred," his informant answered--"working men and women mostly, from every county in england. most trades will be represented." they would be billeted in hamburg and berlin on people of their own class and their own ideals. and next year their visit would be returned in strength by their hosts of this year. "interesting," said the colonel. "but may i ask one question?--what good do you think you'll do?" "we hope it will do ourselves some good anyhow," joe answered in fine fighting mood. "get to know each other. draw the two peoples together. _nation to nation, land to land._ "stand oop on the seat, ernie, and sing em your little red-flag piece.--he sings that nice he do.--and i'll give you a bit of chocolate." ernie did not respond and the colonel came to his rescue. "well, i wish you luck," he sighed. "i wish all well-meaning idealists luck. but the facts of life are hard; and the idealists usually break their teeth on them.--now i must join my colleague." he moved on, catching up ruth who had prowled along the platform to see if alf was tucked safely away. the colonel had not seen his companion since her husband had been up before the bench. "well, how's he getting on?" he asked; and turned shrewdly to ruth. "have you been doing him down at home?" something suppressed about ernie had struck him. ruth dropped her eyelids suddenly. for a moment she was silent. then she flashed up at him swift brown eyes in which the lovely lights danced mischievously. "see i've hung him on the nail," she murmured warily; and nodded her head with the fierce determination of a child. "and i shan't take him off yet a bit. he's got to learn, ern has." she was in delicious mood, sportive, sprightly, as a young hunter mare turned out into may pastures after a hard season. they had come to alf's carriage. he had taken his seat in a corner and pretended not to see them. ruth tapped sharply at the window just opposite his face. "hullo, alf!" she called and fled. the little chauffeur rose and followed her swift and retreating figure down the platform. far down the train joe who was leaning out of a window exchanged words with her as she came up. "i don't like it, sir," alf said, low. "dirty business i call it. somebody ought to interfere if pore old ern won't." joe now looked along the train at him with a scowl. "ah, you!" came the engineer's scolding voice, loud yet low. "dirty tyke! drop it!" "well, between you she ought to be well looked after," muttered the colonel getting into the carriage. a fortnight later the colonel was being driven home by alf from a meeting of the league at battle. mrs. lewknor, whose hostel was thriving now, had stood him the drive and accompanied him. it was a perfect evening as they slid along over willingdon levels and entered the outskirts of the town. opposite the recreation ground alf slowed down and, slewing round, pointed. on a platform a man, bareheaded beneath the sky, was addressing a larger crowd than usually gathered at that spot on saturday evenings. "what is it?" asked mrs. lewknor. "the german party back," answered alf. "that's burt speaking, and mr. geddes alongside him." the engineer's voice, brazen from much bawling, and yet sounding strangely small and unreal under the immense arch of heaven, came to them across the open. "we've ate with em; we've lived with em; we've talked with em; and we can speak for em. i tell you _there can't be war and there won't be war with such a people_. it'd be the crime of cain. brothers we are; and brothers we remain. and not all the politicians and profiteers and soldiers can make us other." the colonel and mrs. lewknor got down and joined the crowd. as they did so the engineer, who had finished his harangue, was moving a resolution: that this meeting believes in the brotherhood of man and wishes well to germany. "i second that," said the colonel from the rear of the crowd. just then alf, who had left his car and followed the colonel, put a question. "did not lord roberts say in at manchester that germany would strike when her hour struck?" the man on the platform was so furious that he did not even rise from his chair to reply. "yes he did!" he shouted. "and he'd no business to! direct provocation it was." "will not germany's hour have struck when the kiel canal is open to dreadnoughts?" continued the inquisitor smoothly. "and is it not the fact that the canal is to be opened for this purpose in the next few days?" these questions were greeted with booings mingled with cheers. mr. geddes was rising to reply when joe burt leapt to his feet, roused and roaring. he said men had the choice between two masters--fear or faith?--which were we for?--were we the heirs of eternity, the children of the future, or the slaves and victims of the past? "for maself a've made ma choice. a'm not a christian in the ordinary sense: a don't attend church or chapel, like soom folk. but a believe we're all members one of another, and that the one prayer which matters--if said from the heart of men who believe in it and work for it--is _our father_: the father of jew and gentile, english and german. and ma recent visit to germany has confirmed me in ma faith in the people, although a couldna say as much for their rulers. look about you! what do you see?--the sons and daughters of god rotting away from tuberculosis in every slum in christendom, and the money and labour that should go to redeeming them spent on altar-cloths and armaments. altar-cloths and armaments! do your rulers never turn their thoughts and eyes to calvary? there are plenty of em in your midst and plenty to see on em if you want to." the engineer sat down. "muck!" said mrs. lewknor in her husband's ear. "i'm not sure," replied the colonel who had listened attentively; but he didn't wholely like it. joe had always been frothy; but of old beneath the froth there had been sound liquor. now somehow the colonel saw the froth but missed the liquor. to his subtle and critical mind it seemed that the speaker's fury was neither entirely simulated nor entirely real. habit was as much the motive of it as passion. it seemed to him the expression of an emotion once entirely genuine and now only partly so. an alloy had corrupted the once pure metal. he saw as clearly as a woman that joe was no longer living simply for one purpose. _turgid_ his wife had once called the engineer. for the first time the colonel realised the aptness of the epithet. then he noticed ruth on the fringe of the crowd. he was surprised: for it was a long march from old town, and neither ernie nor the children were with her. "come to be converted by the apostles of pacifism, mrs. caspar?" he chaffed. "no, sir," answered ruth simply, her eyes on the platform. "i just come along to hear joe. that's why i come." her face lighted suddenly, "there he is!" she cried. the engineer had jumped down from the platform and was making straight for her. ruth joined him; and the two went off together, rubbing shoulders. the colonel strolled back towards the car: he was thoughtful, even grave. mrs. lewknor met him with a little smile. "it's all right, jocko," she told him. "she's only playing with the man." the colonel shook his head. "she's put up the shutters, and said she's out--to her own husband. it's a dangerous game." "trust ruth," replied the other. "she knows her man." "perhaps," retorted the colonel. "does she know herself?" chapter xxv red in the morning joe burt's rhetoric might not affect the colonel greatly; but the impressions of mr. geddes, conveyed to him quietly a few days later in friendly conversation, were a different matter. the presbyterian minister was a scholar, broad-minded, open, honest. he had moreover finished his education at berlin university, and had, as the colonel knew, ever since his student days maintained touch with his german friends. mr. geddes had come home convinced that germany was not seeking a quarrel. "hamburg stands to lose by war," he told the colonel, "and hamburg knows it." "what about berlin?" the other asked. "berlin's militarist," the other admitted. "and berlin's watching ulster as a cat watches a mouse--you find that everywhere; professors, soldiers, men in the street, even my old host, papa schumacher, the carpenter, was agog about it.--was ulster in shetland?--was the ulster army black?--would it attack england?--well, our war office must know all about the stir there. and that makes me increasingly confident that something's happened to eliminate whatever german menace there may ever have been." "exactly what trupp was saying the other day," the colonel commented. "something's happened. you and i don't know what. you and i never do. bonar law and the rest of em wouldn't be working up a civil war on this scale unless they were certain germany was muzzled; and what's more the government wouldn't let em. the politicians may be fools, but they aren't lunatics." a few evenings after this talk as the colonel sat after supper in the loggia with his wife, overlooking the sea wandering white beneath the moon, he ruminated between puffs upon the political situation, domestic and international, with a growing sense of confidence at his heart. indeed there was much to confirm his hopes. the year had started with lloyd george's famous pronouncement that the relations between germany and england had never been brighter. then again there was the point trupp had made: the astonishing attitude of the unionist leaders, and the still more astonishing tolerance of the government. lastly, and far more significant from the old soldier's point of view, there was the action of mr. geddes's mystery-man who was no mystery-man at all. everybody on the outermost edge of affairs knew the name of the general in question. every porter at the military clubs could tell you who he was. asquith had never made any bones about it. redmond and dillon had named him to mr. geddes. yet if anybody could gauge the military situation on the continent it was surely the man who, as mr. geddes had truly pointed out, had specialized in co-ordinating our expeditionary force with the armies of france in the case of an attack by germany. there he was sitting at the war office, as he had sat for years past, in touch with the english cabinet, _lié_ with the french general staff, his ear at the telephone listening to every rumour in every camp in europe, and primed by a secret service so able that it had doped the public at home and every chancellery abroad to believe that it was the last word in official stupidity. this was the man who had thrown in his lot with the gang of speculating politicians who had embarked upon the campaign that had so undermined discipline in the commissioned ranks of the army that for the first time in history a british government could no longer trust its officers to do their duty without question. now no one could say this man was hot-headed; nobody could say he was a fool. moreover he was a distinguished soldier and to call his patriotism in question was simply ridiculous, as even geddes admitted. the colonel had throughout steadfastly refused to discuss with friend or foe the ethics of this officer's attitude, and its effect on the reputation of the army. but of one thing he was certain. no man in that officer's position of trust and responsibility would gamble with the destinies of his country--a gamble that might involve hundreds and thousands of innocent lives. his action might be reprehensible--many people did not hesitate to describe it in plainer terms; but he would never have taken it in view of its inevitable reaction on military and political opinion on the continent unless he had been certain that the german attack, which he of all men had preached for so long as inevitable, would not mature or would not mature as yet. what then was the only possible inference? "something had happened." the words his mind had been repeating uttered themselves aloud. "what's that, my jocko?" asked mrs. lewknor. the colonel stretched his long legs, took his pipe out of his mouth, and sighed. "if nothing has happened by christmas i shall resign the secretaryship of the league and return with joy to the garden and the history of the regiment." he rose in the brilliant dusk like a spectre. "come on, my lass!" he said. "i would a plan unfold." she took his arm and they strolled across the lawn past the hostel towards the solid darkness of the downs which enfolded them. the long white house stood still and solitary in the great coombe that brimmed with darkness and was crowned with multitudinous stars. washed by the moon, and warm with a suggestion of human busyness, the hostel seemed to be stirring in a happy sleep, as though conscious of the good work it was doing. mrs. lewknor paused to look at it, a sense of comfort at her heart. the children's beds out on the balcony could be seen; and the nurses moving in the rooms behind. groups of parents, down from london for the week-end, strolled the lawn. a few older patients still lounged in deck-chairs on the terrace, while from within the house came the sound of laughter and someone playing rag-time. the little lady regarded the work of her hands not without a just sense of satisfaction. the hostel was booming. it was well-established now and had long justified itself. she was doing good work and earning honest money. this year she would not only pay for the grandson's schooling, but she hoped at christmas to make a start in reducing the mortgage. "well," she said, "what about it now, doubting thomas?" "not so bad for a beginning," admitted the colonel. "who's going to send toby to eton?" asked the lady, cruelly triumphant. "and how?" "why, i am," replied the colonel brightly--"out of my pension of five bob a week minus income tax." hugging each other's arms, they climbed the bank to the vegetable garden, which six years before had been turned up by the plough from the turf which may have known the tread of caesar's legionaries. the raw oblong which had then patched the green with a lovely mauve was already peopled with trees and bushes, and rank with green stuff. the colonel paused and sniffed. "mrs. simpkins coming on ... i long to be back among my cabbages ... i bet if i took these orange pippins in hand myself i'd win first prize at the east sussex show.... that duffer, old lingfield--he's no good." they turned off into the yard where mrs. lewknor was erecting a garage, now nearly finished. the colonel paused and stared up at it. "my dear," he said, "i've got an idea. we'll dig the caspars out of that hole in old town and put them in the rooms above the garage. i'll take him on as gardener and odd-job man. he's a first-rate rough gardener. he was showing me and bobby his allotment only the other day. and as you know, the solitary ambition of my old age has been to have an old hammer-man about me." "and mine for you, my jocko," mused mrs. lewknor, far more wary than her impulsive husband. "there are only three rooms though, and she's got four children already and is still only thirty or so." the colonel rattled on, undismayed. "he'll be half a mile from the nearest pub here," he said. "yes," replied mrs. lewknor--"and further from the clutches of that burt man, who's twice as bad as any pub." "ha, ha!" jeered the colonel. "so you're coming round to my way of thinking at last, are you?" next evening, the colonel, eager always as a youth to consummate his purpose, bicycled with his wife through paradise to old town. at the corner opposite the rectory they met alf caspar, who was clearly in high feather. the colonel dismounted for a word with the convener of the league. "well, caspar," he said. "so you've got your licence from the watch committee, i hear." alf purred. "yes, sir. all o.k.--down to the men that'll blow the horn to give em a bit o music." "when do you start?" "bank holiday, sir. i was just coming up to tell mother we were through. last char-a-banc came this afternoon--smart as paint." the colonel and mrs. lewknor walked on towards church street. at billing's corner, waiting for the bus, was edward caspar. he was peering at a huge placard advertising expeditions by caspar's road-touring syndicate, to start on august rd. the colonel, mischievous as a child, must cross the road to his old trinity compeer. "your boy's getting on, mr. caspar," he observed quietly. the old man made a clucking like a disturbed hen. "dreadful," he said. "dreadful." mrs. lewknor laid two fingers on his arm. "mr. caspar," she said. he glanced down at her like a startled elephant. then he seemed to thrill as though a wind of the spirit was blowing through him. the roses of a forgotten youth bloomed for a moment in his mottled cheeks. an incredible delicacy and tenderness inspired the face of this flabby old man. "miss solomons!" he said, and lifting her little hand kissed it. the colonel withdrew discreetly; and in a moment his wife joined him, the lights dancing in her eyes. "pretty stiff!" grinned the colonel--"in the public street and all." they turned down borough lane by the _star_ and knocked ruth up. she was ironing and did not seem best pleased to see the visitors. neither did joe burt, who was sitting by the fire with little alice on his knees. the little lady ignored the engineer. "where are the other children?" she asked ruth pleasantly. "where they oughrer be," joe answered--"in bed." the colonel came to the rescue. "is caspar anywhere about?" he asked. "he's on his allotment, i reck'n," ruth answered coldly. "mr. burt joins him there most in general every evening." "yes," said joe, "and was on the road now when a was interfered with." he kissed little alice, put her down, and rose. "good evening, colonel." and he went out sullenly. mrs. lewknor, aware that negotiations had not opened auspiciously, now broached her project. ruth, steadily ironing, never lifted her eyes. she was clearly on the defensive, suspicious in her questions, evasive and noncommittal in her replies. the colonel became impatient. "mrs. caspar might accept our offer--to oblige," he said at last. ruth deliberately laid down her iron, and challenged him: she said nothing. mrs. lewknor felt the tension. "well, think it over, will you?" she said to ruth. "there's no hurry." she went out and the colonel followed. "that man's the biggest humbug unhung even for a labour man," snapped the little lady viciously. "preaching the kingdom of heaven on earth and then this!" "i'm not sure," replied the colonel, "not sure. i think he's much the same as most of us--an honest man who's run off the rails." they were bicycling slowly along victoria drive. on the far side of the allotments right under the wall of the downs, blue in the evening, a solitary figure was digging. "the out-cast," said the colonel. mrs. lewknor dismounted from her bicycle and began wheeling it along the unfenced earthen path between the gardens, towards the digger. ernie barely looked up, barely answered her salutation, wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand as he continued his labour. the lady retired along the way she had come. "there's something christ-like about the feller," said the colonel quietly as they reached the road. "yes," the little lady answered. "only he's brought his troubles on his own head." the colonel drew up in haste. "hullo," he said, and began to read a newspaper placard, for which class of literature he had a consuming passion. chapter xxvi the avalanche moves the placard, seen by the colonel, announced the opening of a new scene in the irish tragedy. the king had summoned a conference at buckingham palace in order if possible to find a solution of the difficulty. when the conference met the king opened it in person and, speaking as a man weighed down by anxiety, told the members that for weeks he had watched with deep misgivings the trend of events in ireland. "to-day the cry of civil war is on the lips of the most responsible of my people," he said; and had added, so mr. trupp told the colonel, in words not reported in the press, that the european situation was so ominous as imperatively to demand a solution of our domestic differences in order that the nation might present a solid front to the world. "and i bet he knows," ended the old surgeon, as he said good-bye on the steps of the manor-house. "i bet he does," replied the colonel. "thank god there's one man in the country who's above party politics." he climbed thoughtfully on to the top of the bus outside the _star_, and, as it chanced, found himself sitting beside ernie, who was deep in his paper and began to talk. "they ain't got it all their own way, then," he said, grimly. "i see the irish guards turned out and lined the rails and cheered redmond as he came down birdcage walk back from the conference." "i don't like it," replied the colonel gloomily. "rotten discipline. the army has no politics." "what about the officers at the curragh?" asked ernie almost aggressively. "they begun it. give the men a chance too." "two wrong things don't make a right," retorted the colonel sharply. ernie got down at the station without a word. was it an accident the colonel, sensitive as a girl, asked himself? was it a deliberate affront? what was the world coming to? that man an old hammer-man! one of bobby bermondsey yahoos wouldn't treat him so! indeed the avalanche was now sliding gradually down the mountain-side, gathering way as it went, to overwhelm the smiling villages sleeping peacefully in the valley. next day oppressed by imminent catastrophe, the colonel, climbing beau-nez in the afternoon to take up his habitual post of vigil by the flag-staff, found joe burt and mr. geddes already there. both men, he marked, greeted him almost sombrely. "it looks to me very serious," he said. "austria means to go for serbia, that's clear; and if she does russia isn't going to stand by and see serbia swallowed up. what d'you think, mr. geddes?" the other answered him on that note of suppressed indignation which characterised increasingly his utterance when he touched on this often discussed subject. "i think colonel, what i've thought all along," he answered: "that if we're in the eve of a european eruption the attitude of the officers of the british army is perfectly _inexplicable_." he was firm almost to ferocity. "hear! hear!" growed joe. "but they don't know, poor beggars!" cried the colonel, exasperated yet appealing. he felt as he had felt throughout the controversy that he was fighting with his hands tied behind his back. "do be just, mr. geddes. they are merely the playthings of the politicians. o, if you only knew the regimental officer as i know him! he's like that st. bernard dog over there by the coast-guard station--the most foolish and faithful creature on god's earth. smith pats him on the head and tells him he's a good dorg, and he'll straightway beg for the privilege of being allowed to die for smith. what's a poor ignorant devil of a regimental officer quartered at aldershot or the curragh or salisbury plain likely to know of the european situation?" the tall minister was not to be appeased. "ignorance seems to me a poor justification for insubordination in an army officer," he said. "and even if one is to accept that excuse for the regimental officers, one can't for a man like the director of military strategics, who is said to have specialised in war with germany. yet that is the man who has co-operated, to put it at the mildest, in arming a huge rebel force with guns from the very country he has always affirmed _we're bound to fight_. it's stabbing the empire in the back, neither more nor less." he was pale, almost dogmatic. then joe barged in, surly and brutal. "the whole truth is," he said, "that the officers of the british army to-day don't know how to spell the word duty. havelock did. gordon did. and all the world respected them accordingly. these men don't. they've put their party before their coontry as a've always said they would when the pinch came." the colonel was trembling slightly. "if the test comes," he said, "we shall see." "the test _has_ come," retorted the other savagely, "and we _have_ seen." the colonel walked swiftly away. in front of him half a mile from the flag-staff, he marked a man standing waist-deep in a clump of gorse. there was something so forlorn about the figure that the colonel approached, only to find that it was ernie, who on his side, seeing the other, quitted the ambush, and came slowly towards him. to the colonel the action seemed a cry of distress. all his resentment at the incident on the bus melted away in a great compassion. "she and me used to lay there week-ends when first we married," ern said dreamily, nodding towards the gorse he had just left. "and she and you will live _there_ for many happy years, i hope," replied the colonel warmly, pointing towards the garage in the coombe beneath them. ernie regarded him inquiringly. "what's that, sir?" "aren't you coming?" "where to?" "my garage?" ernie did not understand and the colonel explained. "didn't mrs. caspar tell you?" "ne'er a word," the other answered blankly. the colonel dropped down to carlisle road. there mr. trupp picked him up and drove him on to the club for tea. fresh news from ulster was just being ticked off on the tape. an hour or two before, a rebel unit, the east belfast regiment of volunteers, some , strong, armed with mausers imported from germany, and dragging machine-guns warm from krupp's, had marched through the streets of belfast. the police had cleared the way for the insurgents; and soldiers of the king, officers and men, had looked on with amusement. the colonel turned away. "roll up the map of empire!" he said. "we'd better send a deputation to lajput rai and the indian home rulers and beg them to spare us a few baboos to govern us. its an abdication of government." he went into the ante-room. there was stanley bessemere back from ulster once more. as usual he sat behind a huge cigar, retailing amidst roars of laughter to a sympathetic audience his exploits and those of his caracoling chief. the european situation had not overclouded him. "there's going to be a civil war and smith and i are going to be in it. we shall walk through the nationalists like so much paper. they've got no arms; and they've got no guts either." he laughed cheerily. "bad men. bad men." the colonel stood, an accusing figure in the door, and eyed the fair-haired giant with cold resentment. "you know kuhlmann from the german embassy is over with your people in belfast?" he asked. the other waved an airy cigar. "you can take it from me, my dear colonel, that he's not," he answered. "i'll take nothing of the sort from you," the colonel answered acridly. "he's there none the less because he's there incognito." the young man winced; and the colonel withdrew. "jove!" he said. "i'd just like to know how far these beggars have trafficked in treason with germany." "not at all," replied mr. trupp. "they've humbugged emselves into believing they're 'running great risks in a great cause,' as they say--or doing the dirty to make a party score, as you and i'd put it. that's all." the colonel walked home, oppressed. after supper, as he sat with his wife in the loggia, he told her of ruth's strange secretiveness in the matter of the garage. "there she is!" said mrs. lewknor quietly nodding over her work. ruth, indeed, was strolling slowly along the cliff from the direction of the meads in the gorgeous evening. opposite the hostel a track runs down to the beach beneath. at that point she paused as though waiting for somebody; and then disappeared from view. ten minutes later mrs. lewknor spoke again in the same hushed voice. "here's the other!" the colonel looked up. joe was coming rapidly along the cliff from the direction of beau-nez. he too disappeared down the way ruth had already taken. the colonel removed his glasses. "i shall give em a quarter of an hour to make emselves quite comfortable," he muttered "and then--" "spy," said mrs. lewknor. a moment later, anne, the parlour-maid, showed mr. alfred caspar on to the loggia. the face of the manager of caspar's syndicate was very long. alf, cherishing the simple faith that the colonel because he had been a soldier must be in the secrets certainly of the war office and possibly of the government, had come to ask what he thought of the european situation. the colonel was not reassuring, but he refused to commit himself. alf turned away almost sullenly. "see, it matters to me," he said. "i start bank holiday. don't want no wars interfering with my syndicate." "it matters to us all a bit," replied the colonel. alf departed aggrieved, and obviously suggesting that the colonel was to blame. he walked away with downward eyes. suddenly the colonel saw him pause, creep to the cliff-edge, and peep over. then he came back to the hostel in a stealthy bustle. "go and look for yourself then, sir, if you don't believe me!" he cried in the tone of one rebuffing an unjust accusation. "you're a magistrate. police ought to stop it i say. public 'arlotry i call it." the colonel's face became cold and very lofty. "no, caspar. i don't do that sort of thing," he said. alf, muttering excuses, departed. the colonel watched him walk along the dotted coast-guard track and disappear round the shoulder of the coombe. then he rose and strolled out to meet ernie who was approaching. as he did so he heard voices from the beach beneath him and peeped over. ruth, on her hands and knees amid the chalk boulders at the foot of the cliff, was smoothing the sand and spreading something on it. a few yards away joe was standing at the edge of the tide, which was almost high, flinging pebbles idly into the water. some earth dislodged from the colonel's feet and made a tiny land-slide. the woman on her hands and knees in the growing dusk beneath looked up and saw the man standing above her. she made no motion, kneeling there; facing him, fighting him, mocking him. "having a nice time together?" he asked genially. "just going to, thank-you kindly," ruth replied and resumed her occupation of sweeping with her hands. the colonel turned to find ernie standing beside him and burning his battle-flare. "lucky i see you coming, sir," he said, trembling still. "else i might ha done him a mischief." "who?" "alf. insultin her and me. met him just along back there in meads by the _ship_." "go easy, caspar," said the colonel quietly. "i remember that left-handed punch of yours of old. it's a good punch too; but keep it for the enemies of your country." ernie was hugging a big biscuit-box under his arm. "what you got there?" asked the other. ernie grinned a thought sheepishly. "it's joe's birthday," he said. "we are having a bit of a do under the cliff." he hovered a moment as though about to impart a confidence to the other; and then disappeared down the little track to the beach beneath at the trot, his shoulders back, and heels digging in, carrying a slither of chalk with him. "'come into my parlour,' said the spider to the fly," muttered the colonel as he turned into undercliff. "poor fly!" chapter xxvii the growing roar the avalanche, once started, was moving fast now. the irish nationalists who had lost faith in the power of the government and the will of the army to protect them, had decided at last to arm in view of the default of the law that they might resist invasion from the north-east. on the very day after the parade of insurrectionaries in belfast a famous irishman, soldier, sailor, statesman, man of letters, who in his young manhood had served throughout the long-drawn south african war the empire which had refused liberty to his country alone of all her colonies, and in the days to come, though now in his graying years, was to be the hero of one of the most desperate ventures of the great war, ran the little _asgarde_, her womb heavy with strange fruit, into howth harbour while the sunday bells peeled across the quiet waters, calling to church. the arms were landed and marched under nationalist escort towards dublin. the police and a company of king's own scottish borderers met the party and blocked the way. after a parley the nationalists dispersed and the soldiers marched back to dublin through a hostile demonstration. mobbed, pelted, provoked to the last degree, at bachelor's walk, on the quay, where owing to the threatening attitude of the crowd they had been halted, the men took the law into their own hands and fired without the order of their officer. three people were killed. the incident led to the first quarrel that had taken place between ernie and joe burt in a friendship now of some years standing. "massacre by the military," said joe. "that's what it is." the old soldier in ernie leapt to the alert. "well, what would you have had em do?" he cried hotly. "lay down and let emselves be kicked to death?" "if the soldiers want to shoot at all let em shoot the armed rebels," retorted joe. "let em shoot the lot, i says," answered ernie. "i'm sick of it. ireland! ireland! ireland all the time. no one's no time to think of poor old england. yet we've our troubles too, i reck'n." joe went out surlily without saying good-night. when he was gone, ruth who had been listening, looked up at ernie, a faint glow of amusement, interest, surprise, in her eyes. "first time ever i knaw'd you and joe get acrarst each other," she said. ernie, biting home on his pipe, did not meet her gaze. "first," he said. "not the last, may be." she put down dish-cloth and dish, came to him, and put her hand on his shoulder. "let me look at you, ern!" his jaw was set, almost formidable: he did not speak. "kiss me, ern," she said. for a moment his eyes hovered on her face. "d'you mean anything?" he asked. "not that," she answered and dropped her hand. "then to hell with you!" he cried with a kind of desperate savagery and thrust her brutally away. "sporting with a man!" he put on his cap and went out. in a few minutes he was back. paying no heed to her, he sat down at the kitchen-table and wrote a note, which he put on the mantel-piece. "you can give this to alf next time he comes round for the rent," he said. "what is it?" asked ruth. "notice," ern answered. "we're going to shift to the colonel's garage." ruth gave battle instantly. "who are?" she cried, facing him. he met her like a hedge of bayonets. "i am," he answered. "me and my children." the volley fired on bachelor's walk, as it echoed down the long valleys of the world, seemed to serve the purpose of joshua's trumpet. thereafter all the walls of civilisation began to crash down one after another with the roar of ruined firmaments. forty-eight hours later austria declared war. on thursday mr. asquith, speaking in a crowded and quiet house, proposed the postponement of the home rule bill. even the hotheads were sober now. stanley bessemere discarded his uniform of an ulster volunteer in haste, and turned up at the club in chastened mood. he was blatant still, a little furtive, notably less truculent. the martial refrain _smith and i_ had given place to the dulcet coo _we must all pull together_. "is he ashamed?" mrs. lewknor asked her husband, hushed herself, and perhaps a little guilty. "my dear," the colonel replied. "shame is not a word known to your politician. he's thoroughly frightened. all the politicians are. there're bluffing for all they're worth." on the saturday morning the colonel went to the club. the junior member for beachbourne, who was there, and for once uncertain of himself, showed himself childishly anxious to forget and forgive. "now look here, colonel!" he said, charming and bright. "if there's an almighty bust-up now, shall you _really_ blame it all on ulster? honest injun!" the colonel met him with cold flippancy. "every little helps," he said. "a whisper'll start an avalanche, as any mountaineer could tell you." he took up the _nation_ of august st and began to read the editor's impassioned appeal to the country to stand out. the colonel read the article twice over. there could be no question of the white-hot sincerity of the writer, and none that he voiced the sentiments of an immense and honest section of the country. he put the paper down and walked home. "if we don't go in," he said calmly to his wife at luncheon, "all i can say is, that i shall turn my back on england for ever and go and hide my head for the rest of my days on the borders of thibet." in those last days of peace good men and true agonised in their various ways. few suffered more than the colonel; none but his wife knew the agony of his doubt. then mr. trupp telephoned to say that germany had sent an ultimatum to russia, and that france was mobilising. mr. cambon had interviewed the king. the government was still wavering. the colonel's course was evident. the little organisation for which he was responsible must express itself, if only in the shrill sharp voice of a mosquito. a meeting of the league must be convened. tingling with hope, doubt, fear, shame, he set off in the evening to interview alfred caspar. swiftly he crossed the golf-links and turned into saffrons croft. there he paused. it was one of those unforgettable evenings magnificently calm, which marked with triumphant irony the end of the world. the green park with its cluster of elms presented its usual appearance on a saturday afternoon. the honest thump of the ball upon the bat, so dear to english hearts, resounded on every side: the following cry--run it out! the groups of youths sprawling about the scorers, the lounging spectators. not a rumour of the coming storm had touched those serene hearts. close to him a bevy of women and children were playing a kind of rounders. the batter was a big young woman whom he recognised at once as ruth. one of the the fielders was little alice scudding about the surface of green on thin black legs like a water-beetle on a pond. then ernie saw him and came sauntering towards him, a child clinging solemnly to one finger of each hand. there was an air of strain about the old hammer-man, as of one waiting on the alert for a call, that distinguished him, so the colonel thought, from the gay throng. "what about it, sir?" he asked gravely. "it's coming, caspar," the colonel answered. "that's my belief." "and i shan't be sorry if it does," said ernie with a quiet vindictiveness. "shall you go?" asked the colonel. he knew the other's time as a reservist was up. "sha'n't i?" ernie answered with something like a snort. the colonel was not deceived. it was not the patriot, not the old soldier, who had uttered that cry of distress: it was the human being, bruised and suffering, and anxious to vent his pain in violence on something or somebody, no matter much who. "yes, sir, i shall go, if it's only as cook in the army service corps." the colonel shook his head. "if it comes," he said, "every fighting man'll be wanted in his right place. would you like to rejoin the old battalion at aldershot, if i can work it for you? then you'd go out with the expeditionary force." ernie's eyes gleamed. "ah, just wouldn't i?" he said. just then there was a shout from the players. ruth was out and retired. she came towards them, glowing, laughing, her fingers touching her hair to order. she was thirty now, but at that moment she did not look twenty-five. then she saw the colonel and deliberately turned away. susie and jenny pursued their mother. the colonel walked off through the groups of white-clad players towards alf's garage in the goffs. a tall man was standing at the gate on to southfields road, contemplating the english scene with austere gaze. it was royal--the man who would know. "you think it's going to be all right?" asked the colonel so keen as to forget his antipathy. "heaven only knows with this government," the other replied. "i've just been on the telephone. haldane's going back to the war office, they say." "thank god for it!" cried the colonel. his companion shrugged. "henry wilson's in touch with maxse and the conservative press," he said. "he's getting at the opposition. there's to be a meeting at lansdowne house to-night. h.w.'s going to ginger em." the colonel looked away. "and what are you doing down here?" he asked. "they sent me down to newhaven last night--embarkation. i'm off in two minutes." he jerked his head towards a racing car standing outside the garage, white with dust. "got to catch the o'clock at lewes, and be back at the war office at p.m. an all-night sitting, i expect." that austere gaze of his returned to the playing-fields. "little they know what they're in for," he said, as though to himself. for the first time the colonel found something admirable, almost comforting, in the hardness of his old adjutant. he followed the other's gaze and then said quietly, almost tenderly, as one breathing a secret in the ear of a dying man. "that's the child, royal--that one in the white frock and black legs running over by the elms. and that's her mother in the brown dress--the one waving. and there's her husband under the trees--that shabby feller." royal arched his fine eyebrows in faint surprise. "is she married?" he asked coolly. "yes," replied the colonel. "the feller who seduced her wouldn't do the straight thing by her." again the eyebrows spoke, this time with an added touch of sarcasm, almost of insolence. "how d'you know?" the colonel was roused. "well, did you?" he asked, with rare brutality. royal shrugged. then he turned slow and sombre eyes on the other. there was no anger in them, no hostility. "perhaps i shall make it up to them now, colonel," he said.... the colonel crossed the road to the garage. there was a stir of busyness about two of the new motor char-a-bancs of the touring syndicate. alf was moving amid it all in his shirt-sleeves, without collar or tie, his hands filthy. his moustache still waxed, and his hair parted down the middle and plastered, made an almost comic contrast to the rest of his appearance. but there was nothing comic about his expression. he looked like a dog sickening for rabies; ominous, surly, on the snarl. he did not seem to see the colonel, who tackled him at once, however, about the need for summoning a meeting of the league. "summon it yourself then," said alf. "i got something better to do than that. such an idea! coming botherin me just now. start on monday. ruin starin me in the face. who wants war? might ha done it on purpose to do me down." the colonel climbed the hill to the manor-house to sup with the trupps. two hours later, as he left the house, ernie caspar turned the corner of borough lane, and came towards him, lost in dreams. the colonel waited for him. there was about the old hammer-man that quality of forlornness which the colonel had noted in him so often of late. he took his place by the other's side. they walked down the hill together silently until they were clear of the houses, and saffrons croft lay broad-spread and fragrant upon their right. in the growing dusk the spirits of the two men drew together. then ernie spoke. "it's not joe, sir," he said. "he's all right, joe is." the colonel did not fence. "are you sure?" he asked with quiet emphasis. "certain sure," the other answered with astonishing vehemence. "it's ruth. she won't give me ne'er a chance." the colonel touched him in the dusk. "bad luck," he muttered. "she'll come round." it was an hour later and quite dark when he rounded the shoulder of beau-nez and turned into the great coombe, lit only by the windows of his own house shining out against beau-nez. walking briskly along the cliff, turning over eternally the question whether england would be true to herself, he was aware of somebody stumbling towards him, talking to himself, probably drunk. the colonel drew aside off the chalk-blazed path to let the other pass. "a don't know justly what to make on't," came a broad familiar accent. "why, it's fight or run away," replied the colonel, briskly. "no two twos about it." a sturdy figure loomed up alongside him. "then it's best run away, a reckon," answered the other, "afore worse comes on't. what d'you say, colonel?" the darkness drew the two men together with invisible bonds just as an hour before it had drawn the colonel and ernie. "what is it, burt?" asked the colonel, gently. he felt profoundly the need of this other human being standing over against him in the darkness, lonely, suffering, riven with conflicting desires. joe drew closer. he was sighing, a sigh that was almost a sob. then he spoke in the hushed and urgent mutter of a schoolboy making a confession. "it's this, colonel--man to man. hast ever been in love with a woman as you oughtn't to be?" not for the first time in these last months there was strong upon the colonel the sense that here before him was an honest man struggling in the toils prepared for him by nature--the lion with no mouse to gnaw him free. yet he was aware more strongly than ever before of that deep barrier of class which in this fundamental matter of sex makes itself more acutely felt than in any other. a man of quite unusual breadth of view, imagination, and sympathy, this was the one topic that some inner spirit of delicacy had always forbidden him to discuss except with his own kind. he was torn in two; and grateful to the kindly darkness that covered him. on the one hand were all the inhibitions imposed upon him by both natural delicacy and artificial yet real class-restraint; on the other there was his desire to help a man he genuinely liked. should he take the line of least resistance, the line of the snob and the coward? was it really the fact that because this man was not a gentleman he could not lay bare before him an experience that might save him? "yes," he said at last with the emphasis of the man who is forcing himself. there was a lengthy silence. "were you married?" "no," abruptly. "of course not." "was she?" "yes." "what happened?" "she wired me to come--in india--years ago." "did you go?" "no--thank god." the honest man in him added: "i never got the wire." again there was a pause. "are you glad?" "yes." "had she children." "no." the engineer breathed deep. "ah," he said. "i'd ha gone." "then you'd have done wrong." "happen so," stubbornly. "i'd ha gone though--knowing what i know now." "what's that?" "what loov is." the colonel paused. "she'd never have forgiven you," he said at last. "what for?" "for taking advantage of her hot fit." the arrow shot in the dark had clearly gone home. the colonel followed up his advantage. "is she in love with you?" "she's never said so." "but you think so?" "nay, a don't think so," the other answered with all the old violence. "a know it. a've nobbut to reach out ma hand to pluck the flower." his egotism annoyed the colonel. "seems to me," he said, "we shall all of us soon have something better to do than running round after each other's wives. seen the evening paper?" "nay, nor the morning for that matter." "and you a politician!" "a'm two men--same as most: politician and lover. now one's a-top; now t'other. it's a see-saw." "and the lover's on top now?" said the colonel. "yes," said the engineer, "and like to stay there too--blast him!" and he was gone in the darkness. chapter xxviii old town next day was sunday. the colonel waited on the cliff for his paper, which brought the expected news. the die was cast. germany had proclaimed martial law: she was already at war with russia; france had mobilised. "she's in it by now," he said to himself, as he walked across the golf-links towards old town. the threat of danger was arousing in every individual a passionate need for communication, for re-assurance, for the warmth and comfort of the crowd. the herd, about to be attacked, was drawing together. its out-posts were coming back at the trot, heads high, ears alert, snorting the alarm. even the rogue and outcast were seeking re-admission and finding it amid acclamation. the main body were packing in a square, heads to the danger, nostrils quivering, antlers ready. an enemy was a-foot just beyond the sky-line. he has not declared himself as yet. but the wind betrayed his presence; and the secret stir of the disturbed and fearful wilderness was evidence enough that the flesh-eater was abroad. the turf sprang deliciously beneath the colonel's feet. his youth seemed to have returned to him. he felt curiously braced and high of heart. once he paused to look about him. beyond the huge smooth bowl of the links with its neat greens and the little boxes of sand, its pleasant club-house, its evidence of a smooth and leisurely civilisation, paradise rippled at the touch of a light-foot breeze. the downs shimmered radiantly, their blemishes hidden in the mists of morning. on his right, beyond the ha-ha, the duke's lodge stood back in quiet dignity amid its beeches, typical of the england that was about to fade away like a cinema picture at a touch. a lark sang. the colonel lifted his face to the speck poised and thrilling in the blue. what a day to go to war on! was his thought. at the deserted club-house he dropped down into lovers' lane and climbed up towards old town between high flint walls, ivy-covered. as he emerged into rectory walk the archdeacon was coming out of his gate. he was in his glory. his faded eyes glittered like those of an old duellist about to engage, and confident of his victim. "i've been waiting this day for forty-five yeahs," he announced. the colonel was aware of the legend that in the archdeacon, then a lad at cambridge, had only been restrained from fighting for his hero, the emperor of the french, by a brutal father. "it certainly looks as if you might get back a bit of your own," he said wearily. the other's dreadful exaltation served only to depress him. "russia going at em one side and france the other." "and england!" cried the archdeacon. "you think we shall go in?" to the colonel's horror, the archdeacon took him by the arm. "can you doubt it?" he cried, rolling his eyes to see the impression he was making on the grocer in the door of the little corner-shop. "are we rotten to the heart?" they were walking down church street now, arm-in-arm, in the middle of the road. "the pity of it is," he cried in his staccato voice, "we've no emperah to lead us to-day. ah! there was a man!" he made a dramatic halt in mid-street. "_thank gahd for carson--what!_" he whispered. "and smith," said the colonel meekly. "let us give thanks for smith too-- _great in counsel, great in war, foremost captain of our time, rich in saving common sense, and, as the greatest only are, in his simplicity sublime._" they had reached the door of the parish-church. the archdeacon entered; and the colonel turned with relief to greet bobby chislehurst. the lad's open face was unusually grave. "there are sure to be pacifist demonstrations in london to-morrow," he began, blurting out his confidences like a a school-boy. "it's my day off. i shall go." "don't," said the colonel. "i must," the other replied. "it's all i can do." "bobby," said the colonel grimly. "this is my advice. if you go up to london at all wire to billy to come and meet you. he may be able to get an hour off, though i expect they're pretty busy at aldershot." billy was bobby's twin-brother and in the service. bobby winced. "yes," he said, "if billy goes, billy won't come back. i know billy." a few yards down the street the colonel met alf caspar in the stream of ascending church-goers. the little sidesman was dapper as usual: he wore a fawn coloured waist-coat, his moustache was waxed, his hair well-oiled; but his face was almost comically a-wry. he looked like the villain in a picture play about to burst into tears. directly he saw the colonel he roused to new and hectic life, crossing to him, entirely forgetful of their meeting on the previous evening. "is it war, sir?" he asked feverishly and with flickering eyes. "if we are ever to hold up our heads and look the world in the face again," the colonel answered. "but what's it got to do with us?" alf almost screamed. "let em fight it out among themselves if they want to, i says. stand aside--that's our part. that's the manly part. and then when it's all over slip in--" "and collar the loot," suggested the colonel. "and arbitrate atween em. if we don't there'll be nobody to do it, only us. i don't say it'll be easy to make the sacrifice o standing aside when you want to help your friends, of course you do. but i say we ought to do it, and let em say what they like--if it's right and it is right. take up the cross and face the shame--that's what i says. where's the good o being christians else, if you're going to throw it all overboard first time you're put to the test? we won't be the first, i says. what about the martyrs and them? didn't they go through it? not to talk o the expense! can we afford it? course we can't. who could? income tax at a shilling in the pound, and my petrol costing me another six-pence the can. and then ask us to sit down to a great war!" he poured out his arguments as a volcano in eruption pours out lava. the colonel listened. "you'd better give your views to your rector, i think," he remarked. alf's face turned ugly. "one thing," he said, with an ominously vicious nod, "if there is war i resign my position in the league--that's straight." "o dear!" said the colonel, and he turned into the manor-house. bess opened to him herself. "joe come?" he asked, knowing she was expecting her brother for the week-end. "no. a post-card instead. we don't quite know where he is." the colonel nodded. "leave stopped. sure to be." then mrs. trupp came down the stairs. about her was the purged and hallowed air of one who faces death without fear and yet without self-deception as to the price that must be paid. the colonel felt he was standing upon holy ground. mrs. trupp handed him a post-card. the postmark was dover. it ran: _all well. very busy._ "i think it'll be all right, don't you?" said mrs. trupp, raising wistful eyes to his. the mother in her longed for him to say _no_: the patriot _yes_. "it must be," replied bess, ferociously. "if it isn't joe will chuck the service. they all will. the pacifists can defend their own rotten country!" the colonel moved into the consulting-room, where mr. trupp was burrowing short-sightedly into his sunday paper. the old surgeon at least had no doubts. "we shall fight all right," he said comfortably. "we must. and must's the only man who matters in real life." the colonel felt immensely comforted. "but what a position my poor old party'd have been in now if our leaders hadn't queered the pitch!" he remarked. "_we told you so_! _we told you so_! how we _could_ have rubbed it in." "thank god you can't," replied the other grimly. "no party's got the chuckle over another. so there's some hope that we may act as a country for once." outside the manor-house the colonel met mr. pigott in his frock-coat on the way to chapel. the two men had never spoken for years past except to spar. now in the presence of the common fear they stopped, and then shook hands. mr. pigott was a brave man, but there was no doubt he was shaken to the roots. "my god, colonel!" he muttered. "it's _awful_." "it don't look too pleasant," the old soldier admitted. "but we can't go in!" cried the old nonconformist. "it's no affair of ours. who _are_ the serbs?" "it's go in or go under, i'm afraid," the other answered. "that's the alternative." he dropped down borough lane past the _star_. on the hill edward caspar ambling rapidly along with flying coat-tails caught him up. "well, mr. caspar, what do _you_ think about it?" asked the colonel. the old man emerged from his brown study and looked up with scared eyes through his gold spectacles. he did not recognise the questioner: he never did--but he answered eagerly, and with wonderful firmness. "it's love. it can't be anything else." "i don't know. war seems to me a funny sort of love," the colonel muttered. "what's that?" asked the other. "war," replied the colonel. "there's a great european war on." the old man, blind, puzzled, seeking, stopped dead. "war?" he said. "what war's that?" the colonel explained. "austria's gone to war with serbia. russia's chimed in. germany's having a go at russia. and france is rushing to the rescue of her ally. europe's ablaze from the bay of biscay to the caucasus." edward caspar blinked at the road as he absorbed the news. then he gathered himself and went droning down the hill at increased speed with the erratic purposefulness of a great bumble-bee. there was something lofty, almost majestic about his bearing. in a moment he had increased in spiritual stature; and he was trying to straighten his rounded shoulders. "it must work itself out," he said emphatically. "it's only an incident on the march. we mustn't lose our sense of proportion. we shall get there all the quicker in the end because of it." "we shall if we go this pace," muttered the colonel, pretending to pant as they turned into the moot. the quaker meeting-house lay just in front of them, a group of staid figures at the door. on their left was a row of cottages at the foot of the church-crowned kneb. the door of one of them was open, and in it stood ernie in his shirt-sleeves, towel in hand, scrubbing his head. a word passed between father and son; then the old man shuffled on his way. ernie turned in a flash to the colonel, who saw at once that here the miracle of sudden conversion had been at work. this man who for months past had been growing always graver and more pre-occupied was suddenly gay. a spring had been released; and a spirit had been tossed into the air. he seemed on the bubble, like an eager horse tugging at its bridle. now he held up a warning finger and moved down the road till he was out of ear-shot of his own cottage. "have you worked it, sir?" he asked. his question had reference to his conversation with the colonel in saffrons croft the evening before, and in his keenness he was oblivious of the fact that nothing could have been achieved in the few brief hours that had elapsed since their last meeting. "i've written," replied the colonel. "you'll be wanted. every man who can stand on his hind-legs will. that's what i came about: if you have to join up it'll punish your feet much less if you've done a bit of regular route-marching first. now i'm game to come along every evening and march with you. begin to-night. five to ten miles steady'd soon tell. what about it?" "i'm at it, sir!" cried ernie. "thank you kindly all the same. started last night after we'd read the news. there's a little bunch of us in old town--old sweats. marched to friston, we did. one hour's marching; ten minutes halt. auston to-night. we'll soon work into it." "that's the style," said the colonel. "are the other men keen?" ernie grinned. "oh, they're for it, if it's got to be," he said. "and burt?--seen him?" "no sir, not yet. but he's all right at heart, joe is. i'm expectin him round every minute." at the moment a thick-set man came swishing round the corner of borough lane on a bicycle. his shoulders were hunched, and he was pedalling furiously. the sweat shone on his face, which was red and set. it was clear that he had come far and fast. seeing the two men in the road he flung off his bicycle and drew up beside them at a little pattering run. out here under the beat of the sun the colonel hardly recognised in this solid fellow, dark with purpose, the wavering lover of the cliff last night. was the change wrought in this man as by magic typical of a like change in the heart of the country? the thought flashed into the colonel's mind and brought him relief. the engineer, who was heaving, came straight to his point without a word, without a greeting. "philip blackburn's coomin down on the rush to address a great stop-the-war meeting at the salvation army citadel this afternoon," he panted. "we must counter it. a'm racin round to warn the boys to roll up. you must be there, colonel, and you, ern, and all of you. it's all out this time, and no mistake." the door behind the colonel opened. he turned to find ruth standing in the door, drying her hands. joe paid no heed, already sprawling over his bicycle as he pushed it off. "what time?" she called after him. "two-thirty," he answered back, and was gone round the corner. "right," she yodled. "i'll be there." chapter xxix follow your leader philip blackburn's meeting had not been advertised, for it was only in the small hours of the morning that a motor-bicyclist scaring the hares and herons in the marshes, had brought the news from labour headquarters that p.b. was bearing the fiery cross to beachbourne in the course of a whirlwind pilgrimage of the southern counties. but the hall was crammed. philip blackburn was a sure draw at any time. a labour m.p. and stalwart of the independent labour party, it was often said that he was destined to be the robespierre of the new movement. certainly he was an incorruptible. a cripple from his youth, and a fanatic, with the face of a savonarola, in the house and on the platform he asked no quarter and gave none. half an hour later the dusty ford car which bore the fighting pacifist was signalled panting down stone cross hill over the levels: a half-hour the audience passed singing _god save the people_ and _the red flag_. a few minutes later he came limping on to the platform: a little man, of the black-coated proletariat obviously, with the face of a steel blade, keen and fine, and far-removed from the burly labour agitator, hoarse of voice, and raw of face, of a previous generation. his reception was impressively quiet. the man's personality, his courage, his errand, the occasion, awed even the most boisterous. he looked dead-beat, admitted as much, and apologised for being late. "you know where i come from (cheers) and where i'm bound for to-night. and you know what i've come about--_is it peace or war?_" and he launched straightway into that famous _follow-your-leader_ speech, the ghost of which in one form or another was to haunt the country, as the murdered albatross haunted the blood-guilty mariner, all through the war, and will haunt england for generations still after we are gone:-- the danger long-preached was on them at last. it must be faced and fought. they must take a leaf out of carson's book. the conservatives had shown the way: they must follow their leaders of the ruling class. they must dish the government if it proposed to betray the country just as the unionists had done--by persuading the army not to fight. they must undermine the _morale_ of the private soldiers--just as the tories had undermined that of the officers. they must have their agents in every barrack-room, their girls at every barrack-gate--just as the tories had done. the men must apply the sternest "disciplinary pressure" to scabs--just as the officers had done. they must stop recruiting--as garvin and the yellow press had advocated. the famous doctrine of "optional obedience," newly introduced into the army by tory casuists, must be carried to its logical conclusion. and if the worst came to the worst they must follow their leaders of the ruling class, arm, and "fight the fighters. _follow your leaders_--that is the word." he spoke with cold and bitter passion in almost a complete hush--a white-hot flame of a man burning straight and still on the altar of a packed cathedral. then he sank back into his chair, spent, his eyes closed, his face livid, his fine fingers twitching. he had achieved that rarest triumph of the orator: beaten his audience into silence. the colonel stood up against the wall at the back. peering over intervening heads he saw joe burt sitting in front. then a voice at his ear, subdued and deep and vibrating, floated out on the hush as it were on silver wings. "now, joe!" it said, like a courser urging on a greyhound. there was a faint stir in the stillness: the eyes of the orator on the platform opened. a chair scraped; the woman beside the colonel sighed. there was some sporadic cheering, and an undercurrent of groans. joe burt rose to his feet slowly and with something of the solemn dignity of one rising from the dead. everybody present knew him; nobody challenged his right to speak. a worker and a warrior, who had lived in the east-end for some years now, he had his following, and he had his enemies. the moderate men were for him, the extremists had long marked him down as suspect--in with the capitalists--too fond of the classy class. but they would hear him; for above all things he was that which the englishman loves best in friend or enemy--a fighter. standing there, thick-set and formidable as a bull, he began the speech of his life. "two wrongs don't make a right. because the officers have sold the pass, are the men to do the same?" "never!" came a shout from the back. it was ernie's voice. the colonel recognised it and thrilled. "we all know," continued the speaker, "that the gentry have put their coontry after their party. it's for the people to show them the true road, and put democracy before even their coontry." "hear! hear!" from philip blackburn. the speaker was growing to his task, growing as it grew. "this is a great spiritual issue. are we to save our lives to lose them? or lose them to save them? the people are in the valley of decision. god and the devil are standing on a mountain-top on either side the way crying--_who is on my side?_" his great voice went billowing through the hall, borne, it seemed, on some huge wind of the spirit. he was holding the audience, carrying them. the colonel felt it: the man with the closed eyelids in the chair on the platform felt it too. "jaures, the beloved leader of our cause in france, has already made his choice--the first man to fall for democracy. shall he lie alone?" it was a dramatic touch, and told. "a have chosen ma part," the speaker went on more quietly. "a loov ma coontry; but there's something greater even than the fate of the coontry hanging in the balance now. democracy's at stake!" a roar of applause greeted the remark. "it's the emperors agin the people!" this time the roar was pierced by a shrill scream, "what about russia?" the booming voice over-rode the interruption as a hurricane over-rides a blade of grass that stands in its track. "look at little serbia!--a handful of peasants standing up against a great militarist empire. look at belgium!--the most peaceful nation on god's earth about to be over-run by the kaiser's hordes. look at france, the mother of revolution, and the home of democracy!--could we forsake them now?" "never!" in a growing thunder. "if so we forsook our own ideals, betrayed our past, turned our back on our future. yea. the people must fight or perish." "he's got em," sobbed ruth, her handkerchief tight in her mouth. the colonel could feel her trembling. "the question to ma mind," continued the speaker, "is not whether we _should_ fight, but whether the officers of the army--who have failed us once, mind!--_will_ fight." the blow went home and hammered a few dissentients into silence. "if not then we must find our own officers--roosset-coated captains who know what they're fighting for, and love what they know." the words were lost in a hurricane of cheering. "and ma last word to you," ended the speaker, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth, "is much that of the great apostle--_stand and fight!_" he flung the words at his audience with a power and a conviction that were overwhelming. a great bell was tolling in the colonel's mind. "that's a great man," he found himself murmuring. "aye, that's joe," came the deep voice beside him. the heat, the crush, the tumult of sound, his own intense emotion proved almost too much for the colonel. he leaned against the wall with closed eyes, but there was joy in his heart. "done it," he muttered. "that was england speaking." then somebody led him out into the fresh air. "they're all right, sir," said a voice comfortably in his ear. "joe done the trick. grand he was." some of the labour extremists recognised him as he lolled against the wall, hat over his eyes, recalled his work for the national service league, and gathered round for the worry. "that's him.--militarist!--brought the trouble on us! he won't pay.--leaves that for us to do!--drunk as a lord!--on the blood of the workers." the colonel heard the words, but paid no heed. they fell on his mind like rain-drops on a sea which absorbs them unconsciously as it sways and drifts listlessly to and fro. then another voice, familiar this time, and strangely fierce, clashed with those of his would-be persecutors. "none of it now! want one for yourself, do you? stand back there! give him a chance to breathe! ought to be ashamed, some of you." the colonel opened his eyes to find ernie standing over him. "ah, caspar," he said faintly. then ruth came swiftly out of the dissipating crowd towards them. she was flashing, glorious, with tumultuous bosom. swept by her emotion she forgot for the moment the undeclared war that was raging between this lean old man and herself: she did not even notice his distress. "he's such a battler, joe is!" she cried. all that was combative in the colonel rose desperately to grip and fight the same qualities in her. "he's not the only one," he said feebly, and musing with a vacuous smile on the strange medley of vast world-tragedy and tiny domestic drama sank slowly into unconsciousness, ernie's arm about him, ernie's kind face anxious above him. "watch it, caspar!" he whispered. "danger!" he came round slowly to hear voices wrangling above him. "i had to come to the meeting. i promised joe," the woman was saying. "what about the children?" there was silence: then the man went on with a cold sneer. "little alice, i suppose. little alice got to do it all these days." "little alice is mine," the woman retorted. "if you're not satisfied with the way your--" the colonel sat up. "for god's sake!" he cried. chapter xxx the end of the world the next day was bank holiday; and such a holiday as no living man had known or would ever know again. half the world had already tumbled into hell; and the other half was poised breathless on the brink, awaiting the finger-push that should send it too roaring down to death. on that brilliant summer day nations crouched in the stubble like coveys of partridges beneath the shadow of some great hawk hovering far away in the blue. a silence like a cloud enveloped england. the tocsin was about to sound that was to call millions of rosy lads from their mothers, splendid youths from their girls, sober middle-aged men away from their accustomed place in church and chapel, from the office stool, from the warm companionable bed and the lovely music of children's voices, to strange destinies in unknown seas, on remote deserts, beside alien rivers; calling them in a voice that was not to be denied to lay their bones far from the village church-yard and the graves of innumerable ancestors, in rotting swamps, on sun-bleached mountains, with none to attend their obsequies save the nosing jackal and raw-necked vulture. early in the morning the colonel walked across to old town to see bobby chislehurst, and put the curb on him if possible; for the _daily citizen_ had come out with a full-page appeal to lovers of peace to attend an anti-war demonstration in trafalgar-square. on his way the colonel gleaned straws of news; and the gleaning was not hard. the most reserved were expansive; the most exclusive sociable. for the moment all barriers of class were down. by the time he had reached the _star_ he was _au courant_ with all the happenings, local and general. the archdeacon who, when he put his snuff-box aside, and took the gloves off, could be really moving, had from his hill thundered a magnificent call to arms--"purely pagan, of course." mr. trupp, whom he met, told the colonel, "but fine for all that." mr. geddes in the plain had answered back in an appeal which had moved many to tears on behalf of him, whose sad face on the cross looks down on this after the passion of a thousand years. the fleet had gone to war-stations; the territorials had been mobilised. haldane had returned to the war office. as the colonel dropped down the steep pitch to church-street, under the chesnuts of the manor-house garden, he met a couple of toddlers climbing the hill shepherded by an efficient little maiden of seven or eight, who smiled at him with familiar eyes. "hullo, little alice," he said. "where you off to so busily with your little flock?" "saffrons croft for the day--me and my little ones," she answered, not without a touch of self-importance. "i got the dinner here. dad and mother's taking baby a drive on the bus to see granny at auston." she turned and waved to her mother, who was standing at the top of borough lane with ernie, amongst a little group opposite the _star_, where was one of the char-a-bancs of the touring syndicate picking up passengers from the moot. the colonel walked down the hill towards them. ruth, seeing him approach, climbed to her place on the char-a-banc. ernie handed little ned to her, and then turned to meet the colonel. "givin alf the benefit," he said, with a grin. "backin the family and baptizin the bus. goin the long drive over the hill to friston and seaford; then up the valley to auston. dinner there. and home by hailsham and langney in the evening.--i wanted her to ask joe. but she wouldn't. fickle i call her." the colonel glanced up; but ruth steadfastly refused to meet his eye. "i suppose one wants the family to one-salf some-times, even a workin-woman doos," she muttered. and the colonel saw that ern had made his remark to show that the tension between him and his wife, so marked yesterday, had eased. "my wife's right," he thought. "caspar is a gentleman. blood _does_ tell." just then alf came down the steps of the manor-house opposite, looking smug and surly. he crossed the road to the char-a-banc and said a word to the driver. ruth leaned over, glad of the diversion. "ain't you comin along then, alf?" she asked quietly. "caspar's my name," the managing director answered, never lifting his eyes to his tormentor. the young woman bent down roguishly, disregarding ern's warning glances. "not to your own sister, alfie," she answered, demure and intimate. they were mostly old town folk on the char-a-banc, many from the moot; and they all tittered, even the driver. alf stood back in the road and said deliberately, searching with his eye the top of the bus. "where is he, then?" ern flashed round on him. "who?" alf sneered. "you!--you're only her husband!" and decamped swiftly. ernie did not move. he stood with folded arms, rather white, following his retreating brother with his eyes. then he said to the colonel quietly, "yes, sir. that's alf. now you know." "i'm beginning to," said the colonel. "and time too," came ruth's voice cold and quivering. in the cool of the evening the colonel walked down terminus road. outside the office of caspar's road-touring syndicate alf was standing, awaiting the return of his argosies. he was scanning the evening paper and still wore the injured and offended air of one who has a personal grievance against his creator and means to get his own back some day. "any news, sir?" he asked. the colonel stopped. "germany sent belgium an ultimatum last night demanding right of way. and the king of belgium took the field this morning." "then he ought to be shot," snarled alf. "provoking of em on, i call it." the colonel walked on to the east-end, his eyes about him, and heart rising. the country was facing the situation with dignity and composure. the streets were thronged. everywhere men and women gathered in knots and talked. there was no drunken-ness, no rioting, no jingo manifestations--and that though it was august bank holiday. the gravity of the situation had sobered all men. the colonel passed on into seagate to find the hero of sunday afternoon's battle. joe burt stood in his shirt-sleeves in the door of his lodgings with folded arms and cocked chin. his pipe was in his mouth and he was sucking at it fiercely with turned-in lips and inflated nostrils. the engineer was clearly on the defensive; the colonel saw it at once and knew why. on the main issue joe had proved fatally, irretrievably wrong. but he had been "on the platform" now for twenty years. in other words he was a politician, and in the colonel's view no politician ever admitted that he was wrong. to cover his retreat he would almost certainly resort to the correct tactical principle of a counter-offensive. "that was a great speech of yours, burt," the colonel began. the engineer sucked and puffed unmoved. "we must fight," he said. "there's no two ways about it. the emperors have asked for it; and they shall have it. no more crowned heads! we've had enoof o yon truck!" in his elemental mood accent had coarsened, phrase become colloquial. he took his pipe from his mouth. "sitha!--this'll be a fight to a finish atween the old order and the new--atween what you stand for and what a do." "and what do i stand for?" asked the colonel. "imperialism--capitalism--call it what you will. it's the domination of the workers by brute force." the colonel turned a quiet eye upon him. "is that fair?" he asked. the engineer stuffed his pipe back into his mouth. "happen not of you. of your class, yes." he felt he had been on dangerous ground and came off it. "_we_ shall fight because we must," he said. "what about you?" he was making a direct offensive now, and turned full face to his adversary. "us?" asked the colonel puzzled. "yes," retorted the other. "the officers of the army?--shall you fight?" the colonel looked away. joe eyed him shrewdly. "last time you were asked to, you refused," he remarked. "said you'd resign rather. one general said if there was war he'd fight against england. it was a piece in the _daily telegraph_. a've got it pasted in ma ammunition book. coom in and see!" the colonel did not move. "i think the officers will be there or thereabouts all right if the're wanted," he said. joe appeared slightly mollified. "well, you came out against the railway-men in ," he said. "a will say that for you. a wasn't sure you'd feel same gate when it coom to emperors." they strolled back together to pevensey road; and for the first time the colonel actively disliked the man at his side. that wind of the spirit which had blown through the engineer yesterday purging him of his dross had passed on into the darkness. to-day he was both politically dishonest and sexually unclean. in fact his life that had been rushing down the mountain like a spate with extraordinary speed and power, confined between narrow banks, just as it was emerging at the estuary into the sea had met suddenly the immense weight of the returning ocean-tide, advancing irresistible--to be swamped, diverted, turned back on itself. this man once so strong, of single purpose, and not to be deflected from it by any human power, was now spiritually for all his bluff a tumbling mass of worry and confusion and dirty yellow foam.... the pair had passed into the main thoroughfare. "what about that woman?" asked the colonel moodily. joe was chewing his pipe-stem. "what woman'll that be?" "why the one you were talking about to me on saturday night,--whether you should bolt with her or not." joe halted on the kerb-stone and regarded the traffic imperturbably. "a know nowt o no such woman," he said. the colonel glanced at him. just then he heard the sound of a horn and looking back saw one of the new motor-char-a-bancs of the touring syndicate returning crowded to the brim. a man stood on the step with a horn and tootled. ernie sat in front with ruth, the boy in her lap asleep against her breast. the colonel marked the strength and tranquillity of her pose, her arms clasped around the sleeping child. father, mother, and child were profoundly at peace; one with each other, so it seemed to him, one with life. joe took his pipe out of his mouth and pointed with the stem. "yon's her," he said, with stunning impudence. "i know that then," answered the colonel. "your own friend's wife." ernie who had seen joe waved and winked and nudged ruth. she could not or would not see. joe waved back casually. then he turned to the colonel with a silenus-like twinkle, his little black eyes of a bear glittering. "he'll have to go now," he said, gurgling like an amused baby. the colonel looked him in the eyes. "devil!" he said. the engineer peeped up at him with something of the chuckle of the young cuckoo. "ah, don't you talk, colonel! i'm not the only one." "what you mean?" fiercely. "what you told me saturday night." "i never betrayed my pal, whatever else." "you would ha done," remorselessly. "only you lost your nerve at the last moment. that's nothing to boast on." the man's brazen cynicism revolted the colonel. "ah, you don't know me," he muttered. "a know maself," the other answered. "and that's the same." the colonel felt as feels a man who watches the casual immoralities of a big and jolly dog. then he came to himself and broke away, firing a last shot over his shoulder. "i suppose you'll wait till he has gone," he sneered. "a doubt," the other answered, cool and impudent to the last. the colonel tramped home, sore at heart. opposite the wish he stumbled on mr. trupp, who brought him up with a jerk. "there's going to be a coalition government," the old surgeon told his friend. "lloyd george and the pacifists are leaving the cabinet; and smith and carson and bonar law coming in." just then stanley bessemere rushed by in a powerful car. he waved to the two men, neither of whom would see him. "you know what he's after?" said mr. trupp. "what?" asked the colonel. "spreading it round that haldane's holding up the expeditionary force." the colonel struck the ground. "my god!" he cried. "party politics even at this hour!" the other shrugged. "they've got to find a scape goat or take it in the neck themselves," he said. the colonel walked home in the twilight along the deserted brick-walk, under the tamarisk bank stirring gracefully in the evening breeze. at the extreme end of the bricks where a path climbs up a chalk-pit to holywell he came on a tall dark solitary figure looking out over the sea. it was mr. geddes. the old soldier approached him quietly and touched his arm. "well, mr. geddes," he said gently. "what you thinking of?" the tall man turned his fine face. "i was thinking about a carpenter," he said. "of nazareth?" "no, of berlin. of papa schumacher and that boy joseph, who was trying so hard to be an english sport--and black-eyed joanna and the old mutter." the colonel swallowed. "let's shake hands, geddes," he said. "with all my heart, colonel," the other answered. then the old soldier went up the slope laboriously, his hands upon his knees. his wife was waiting him on the cliff, a little figure, distinguished even in the dusk, about her shoulders the scarlet cape that had been the gift of a rajput princess. "i pray it will be all right," he said. "i pray so," the little lady answered. war meant ruin for her and the destruction of all her hopes for toby.--and her own jock!--but she never wavered. chapter xxxi the colonel that night sir edward grey made the historic speech, which swung the nation into line like one man, and launched great britain on the supreme adventure of her history. _the one bright spot in the situation is ireland._ redmond had followed in a speech which filled the colonel's eyes with tears and his heart with gladness as he read it next morning, so generous it was, so chivalrous. _i say to the government they may withdraw every one of their troops from ireland. ireland will be defended by her armed sons from invasion, and for that purpose catholics in the south will join the protestants in the north._ the colonel paced to and fro on his lawns, the paper flapping in his hand. not even the spectacle of carson, sulking in his tent, and answering never a word to his opponent's magnanimous appeal, could mar that vision splendid. all day long the colonel never left his garden, hovering round the telephone. anything might happen at any moment. then news came through. the government had sent germany an ultimatum. if she failed to give us an assurance before p.m. that she would not violate the neutrality of belgium, england would go to war. the colonel sighed his thankfulness. all day he quarter-decked up and down the loggia, zeiss glasses in hand. his telescope he arranged on the tripod on the lawn, and with it swept earth and sky and sea. towards evening he marked a bevy of men swing round the shoulder of the hill from meads into the coombe. they were in mufti, and not in military formation; but they marched, he noted, and kept some sort of order, moving rhythmically, restrained as a pack of hounds on the way to the meet, and yet with riot in their hearts. he turned the telescope full on them, marked ernie among them, and knew them forthwith for the reservists from old town training for _it_. a wave of emotion surged through him. he went down to the fence and stood there with folded arms, and high head, his sparse locks grey in the evening light, watching them go by. then he saluted. they saw the old soldier standing bare-headed at the fence, recognised him, and shouted a greeting. "good-evening, sir." "that's the style!" he cried gruffly. "getting down to it." then ernie broke away and came across the grass to him at the double, grinning broadly, and gay as a boy. "yes, sir. old town troop we call ourselves. long march to-night. through birling gap to the haven and home over windhover about midnight. what i stepped across to say, sir, was i'm thinkin ruth'd better stay where she is for the time being--if it's all the same to you, sir; and not move to the garage." "as you like," replied the colonel. "undercliff's the most exposed house in beachbourne--that's certain. if there's trouble from the sea we shall catch it; or if their zeppelins bomb the signalling station on the head some of it may come our way." ernie looked shy. "that little turn-up with alf in the road yesterday, sir," he said confidentially. "i was glad you was there." he came forward stealthily. "see, i know what you thought, sir. it's not joe after her. it's alf--always has been; from before we married. joe's all right." the colonel stared grimly over the sea. "i think you're wrong," he said. "then i know i'm not, sir," ernie flashed. the colonel returned to his watch. that night he did not go to bed. instead he sat up in his pyjamas in the corner-room that looked out over the sea, and on to beau-nez. if we went in the news would be flashed at once to the coastguard on the head; and the petty officer on duty up there had promised to signal it down to the house in the coombe beneath. the colonel watched and waited. the window was open. it was a still and brilliant night. he could hear the fall, and swish, and drone of the sea, rhythmical and recurrent, at the foot of the cliff. from the crest of the hill behind the house came the occasional tinkle of the canister-bell of some old wether of the flock. then the silence was disturbed by a growing tumult in the darkness. a squadron of destroyers was thrashing furiously round the head, not a light showing, close inshore, too, only an occasional smudge of white in the darkness revealing their position and the feather of foam they bore along like a plume before them. out of the darkness they came at a speed incredible, and into the darkness they were gone once more like a flash. the colonel breathed again. at least the navy was ready, thanks to churchill. was the army? he recalled a remark reported to him as having been made at a p.s.a. in the east-end some weeks since: that the army no longer trusted its officers, and the country no longer trusted its army. could it be true? his thoughts turned with passionate sympathy to gough and the simple regimental officers who had been lured by politicians into the dreadful business of the army conspiracy. but that other feller!--that yappin chap at the war office, who ought to have known better! ... away on the crest of beau-nez, humping a huge black back against the brilliant darkness, someone was swinging a lantern--once, twice. the colonel flashed his electric torch in answer. the gaunt figure at the window turned. "rachel," he said low, to the woman in the bed beneath him. "jocko," came the answering voice, quiet as his own. "we're going in." "thank god." in the darkness she reached up arms, white and trembling as a bride's, and drew him to her. he kissed her eyelids and found them wet. "i can't help it, jocko," she sobbed. "jock!" her boy was in india with the second battalion; but she knew very well that now the crash had come every battalion in the service would be flung into the furnace. the colonel went back to the window and she came to his side. his arm crept about her, and she trembled in the curve of it. a mild but ghastly beam, as of the moon, fell on them standing at the window. a battleship was playing its searchlight full on them. the cold wan beam roamed along the hill-side callous and impersonal, exposing every bush and scar. it fell on the white bluff of beau-nez and came creeping, like the fingers of a leper, along the cliff. just opposite the hostel, at the spot where the path ran down to the beach, it stayed, pointing as it were, at a little pillar of solid blackness erect on the cliff edge. the colonel caught his breath with a gasp. "don't look!" he cried sharply and snatched his wife away. as he did so the pillar broke up in two component parts, as though dissolved by the white encircling flood of light. a woman's stifled scream came through the open window. "joe!" then there was a slither of chalk as the pair stampeded down the path out of sight, and crashed into the beach beneath. the colonel let down the blind with a rattle. chapter xxxii the day of judgement ernie clattered into the kitchen at a busy trot, and stumbled upstairs without a word to his wife at the sink. there was such an air of stir and secret purposefulness about him that ruth followed him up to the bedroom. there she found him on his knees in a litter of things, packing a bundle frantically. a dish-cloth in her hand, she watched his efforts. "where away then?" she asked. "berlin this journey. hand me them socks!" her eyes leapt. "is it war?" "that's it." she sat down ghastly, wrapping her hands in her apron as if they had been mutilated and she wished to hide the stumps. men abuse the army when they are in it and take their discharge at the earliest possible moment; but when the call comes they down tools with avidity, and leaving the mill, the mine, the shunting yard, and the shop, they troop back to the colours with the lyrical enthusiasm of those who have re-discovered youth on the threshhold of middle-age. ern, you may be sure, was no exception to the rule. packing and unpacking his bundle on his knees, he was busy, happy, important. but there was no such desperate hurry after all: for he did not join the crowds which thronged the recruiting stations in those first days: he waited for the colonel to arrange matters so that he could join his old battalion at aldershot direct. ruth watched him with deep and jealously guarded eyes in which wistfulness and other disturbing emotions met and mingled. once only she put to him the master question. "what about us, ern?" he was standing at the time contemplating the patient and tormented bundle. "who?" "me and the children." "there's one above," said ernie. "he'll see to you." "he don't most in general not from what i've seen of it," answered ruth. "what if he don't?" there was a moment's pause. then ern dropped a word as a child may drop a stone in a well. "joe." ruth caught her breath. in those days ernie grew on her as a mountain looming out of the dawn-mist grows on the onlooker. joe did not even come to see her; and she was glad. for all his virility and bull-like quality, now that the day of battle had come, ern was proving spiritually the bigger man. and his very absorbtion in the new venture appealed to ruth even while it wounded. ern had been "called" as surely as clem woolgar, the bricklayer's labourer, her neighbour in the moot, who testified every sunday afternoon in a scarlet jersey at the _star_ corner to the clash of cymbals. clem it was true, spoke of his call as christ; to ernie it went by the name of country. in ruth's view the name might differ but the thing was the same. a voice had come to ern which had spoken to him as she had not, as the children had not. because of it he was a new man--"converted," as clem would say, prepared to forsake father and mother, and wife, and child, and follow, follow. england was calling; and he seemed deaf to every other voice. she seemed to have gone clean out of his life; but the children had not--she noticed it with a pang of jealousy and a throb of hope. for each of the remaining nights after dark, he went round their cots. she was not to know anything about that, she could see, from the stealthy way in which he stole upstairs when her back was supposed to be turned. but the noises in the room overhead, the murmur of his voice, the shuffling of his feet as he got up from the bedsides betrayed his every action. on the third night, as he rejoined her, she rose before him in the dusk, laying down her work. "anything for me too, ern," she asked humbly--"the mother of em?" "what d'you mean?" he asked almost fiercely. "d'you want me, ern?" he turned his back on her with an indifference that hurt far more than any brutality, because it signified so plainly that he did not care. "you're all right," he said enigmatically, and went out. he could ask anything of her now, and she would give him all, how gladly! but he asked nothing. in another way, too, he was torturing her. it was clear to her that he meant to do his duty by her and the children--to the last ounce; and nothing more. he cared for their material wants as he had never done before. all his spare moments he spent handying about the house, hammer in hand, nails in mouth, doing little jobs he had long promised to do and had forgotten; putting little ned's mail-cart to rights, screwing on a handle, setting a loose slate. she followed him about with wistful eyes, holding the hammer, steadying the ladder, and receiving in return a few off-hand words of thanks. she did not want words: she wanted him--himself. then news came through, and he was straightway full of mystery and bustle. "join at aldershot to-morrow. special train at two," he told ruth in the confidential whisper beloved of working-men. "don't say nothing to nobody." as though the news, if it reached the kaiser, would profoundly affect the movements of the german armies. that evening ernie went up to the manor-house to say good-bye. mrs. trupp was far more to him than his god-mother: she was a friend known to him from babyhood, allied to him by a thousand intimate ties, and trusted as he trusted no one else on earth, not even his dad. now he unbosomed to her the one matter that was worrying him on his departure--that he should be leaving ruth encumbered with debt. mrs. trupp met him with steady eyes. it was her first duty, the first duty of every man, woman and child in the nation to see that the fighting-men went off in good heart. "you needn't worry about ruth," she said, quietly. "she'll have the country behind her. all the soldiers' wives will." ernie shook his head doubtfully. "ah, i don't hold much by the country," he said. the lady's grave face, silver-crowned, twinkled into sudden mischievous life. she rippled off into the delicious laughter he loved so dearly. "i know who's been talking to you!" she cried. ernie grinned sheepishly. "who then?" "mr. burt." ernie admitted the charge. "if you don't trust the country, will you trust mr. trupp and me?" the other continued. ernie rose with a sigh of relief. "thank you kindly, 'm," he said. "that's what i come after." ernie went on to rectory walk, to find that his mother too had joined the crucified. in the maelstrom of emotion that in those tragic hours was tossing nations and individuals this way and that, the hard woman had been humbled at last. stripped to the soul, she saw herself a twig hurled about in the sea of circumstance she could no more control than a toy-boat a-float on the atlantic can order the tides. no longer an isolated atom hard and self-contained, she was one of a herd of bleating sheep being driven by a remorseless butcher to the slaughter-house. and the first question she put to him revealed the extent of the change that had been wrought in her. "what about ruth?" she asked. it was the only occasion on which his mother had named his wife to ern during his married life. "she's all right, mother," ernie replied. "she's plenty of friends." "mrs. trupp," jealously. "well, why don't ye say so? what about the children?" "they'll just stay with their mother," answered ernie. "i could have em here if she was to want to go out to work," anne said grudgingly; and must add, instigated by the devil who dogged her all her life--"your children, of course." ernie answered quite simply: "no, thank-you, mother," and continued with unconscious dignity--"they're all my children." a gleam of cruelty shone in his mother's eyes. "she's behind with her rent. you know that? and alf's short. he says he's dropped thousands over his syndicate. ruined in his country's cause, alf says." "if he's dropped thousands a few shillings more or less won't help him," said ernie curtly. "and yet he'll want em," anne pursued maliciously. "he was sayin so only last night. _every penny_, he said." "he may want," retorted ernie. "he won't get." his mother made a little grimace. "if alf wants a thing he usually gets it." ernie flashed white. "ah," he said. "we'll see what dad says." it was a new move in the family game, and unexpected. anne was completely taken a-back. she felt that ernie was not playing fair. there had always been an unwritten family law, inscribed by the mother on the minds of the two boys in suggestible infancy, that dad should be left outside all broils and controversies; that dad should be spared unpleasantness, and protected at any cost. she was shocked, almost to pleading. "you'd never tell him!" "he's the very one i would tell then!" retorted ernie, rejoicing in his newly-discovered vein of brutality. "only worry him," she coaxed. "he ain't the only one," ern answered. "i'm fairly up against it, too." grinning quietly at his victory, he turned down the passage to the study. his father was sitting in his favourite spot under the picture of his ancestor, watching the tree-tops blowing in the rectory garden opposite. the familiar brown-paper-clad new testament was on his knee. ernie marked at once that here was the one tranquil spirit he had met since the declaration of war. and this was not the calm of stagnation. rather it was the intense quiet of the wheel which revolves so swiftly that it appears to be still. he drew his chair beside his father's. "what d'you make of it all, dad?" he asked gently. the old man took his thumb out of his new testament, and laid his hand upon his son's. "_and behold there was a great earthquake,_" he quoted. "_for the angel of the lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door of the tomb._" ernie nodded thoughtfully. for the first time perhaps the awful solemnity of the drama in which he was about to play his part came home to him in all its overwhelming power. "yes, dad," he said deeply. "only i reck'n it took some rolling." the old man gripped and kneaded the hand in his just as ruth would do in moments of stress. "true, boy-lad," he answered. "but it had to be rolled away before the lord could rise." ernie assented. hand-in-hand they sat together for some while. then ernie rose to go. in the silence and dusk father and son stood together on the very spot where fourteen years before they had said good-bye on ernie's departure for the army. the edward caspar of those days was old now; and the boy of that date a matured man, scarred already by the wars of time. "it won't be easy rolling back the stone, boy-lad," said the old man. "but they that are for us are more than they that are against us." it was not often that ernie misunderstood his father; but he did now. "yes," he said. "and they say the italians are coming in too." "the whole world must come in," replied the other, his cheeks rosying faintly with an enthusiasm which made him tremble. "and we must all push together." he made a motion with his hand--"english and germans, russians and austrians, and roll it back, back, back! and topple it over into the abyss. and then the dawn will break on the risen lord." ernie went out into the passage. his mother in the kitchen was waiting for him. she looked almost forlorn, he noticed. "give me a kiss, ern," she pleaded in sullen voice that quavered a little. "don't let's part un-friends just now--you and me--after all, you're my first." ernie's eyes filled. he took her in his arms, this withered old woman, patted her on the back, kissed her white hair, her tired eyelids. "there!" he said. "i should knaw you arter all these years, mum. always making yourself twice the terror you are--and not meaning it." chapter xxxiii beau-nez he returned to the moot to find little alice crying in the door. a pathetic little shrimp of a creature she looked, huddled against the door-post, her face hidden, her shoulders quivering, her back to the hostile world. some children who had been mocking her drew away on ernie's approach. "what's up, lal?" he asked tenderly, bending over her. she would not look up. "it's nothing, daddy," she sobbed and crept away up the street, like a wounded animal. ernie went in. ruth was sitting alone in the kitchen forlorn and wistful as he had never known her. it was clear to him that the sorrow, whatever it might be, was shared by mother and daughter. he watched her quietly for a minute; then came to her. "what is it, mother?" he asked with unusual gentleness. his tone touched the spring of tears in her heart. she bit her lip. "its alf," she said with gasps. "he's been settin em on to her again... he's spiteful because the war's spoilt his syndicate... so he takes it out of her... they've been tormenting her... only she wouldn't tell you because she wanted your last day to be happy." ern went out, found little alice once again in the door, her pinafore still to her eyes, took her up in his arms and put her in her mother's lap. "love one another," he said huskily. "and don't forget me." then he went out again, burning his battle-flare. in half an hour he was back with joe burt. there was a strange hushed dignity about him as he entered the kitchen. he might have been a priest about to conduct a ceremony at the altar of the most high. joe lagged behind sullen and with downward eyes, twisting his cap. somehow he looked strangely common beside his friend. ruth, as she rose to meet the two men, was profoundly conscious of the contrast between them. "joe," said ernie, still and solemn, "i bequeath ruth to you..." in a flash the woman seized the situation. "--to have and to hold," she murmured quietly, her head down to stifle sobs and laughter. ernie with that love of ritual which characterises his class continued with the smile-less intensity of a child. "yes, to have and to hold ... her and her children ... for me ... till i return." joe was obviously staggered. his eyes roved the floor; his head weaved to and fro. "here, i didn't bargain for this," he muttered. ruth thrust out her hand almost sternly, as though to silence him. he took it grudgingly, and then ern's. "a suppose a'll do ma best," he said, and slouched out hasty as a schoolboy escaping from the schoolroom. when he was gone ruth laid both hands on ernie's shoulders and looked at him her eyes dazzled with laughter and tears. "you should never ha done it, ern!" she said. "never!" "there was nothing for it only that," ern answered sturdily. "it's a world of wolves. somebody must see to you while i'm away." she withdrew her hands and stood before him, defenceless now, humble, beautiful, appealing. "ern," she said with a little sob, "will you take me up along to the ambush--our last night and all?" he looked at her steadily. then he caught her hand. "all right, old lass," he said. they had not visited their couching-place that summer and the romance of old and intimate association was on them both now as they came to the tryst in the scented dusk. the gorse, unpruned, had grown over the track that led to the heart of the covert. ernie forced his way through, ruth following him, anchored jealously to his hand. behind her the bushes closed, blocking the way; and she was glad. her eyes were on the shoulders of her man, wistful still but triumphant; and she found herself smiling secretly as she marked how bride-like she felt, how warm and shy and tremulous. in this great hour the tides of her ebbing youth had returned with power and the desert bloomed afresh. the world-catastrophe had wrought a miracle. spring had quickened the stale summer air. here at the parched noon was a hint of dawn, dew-drenched and lovely. waist-deep in the dark covert, the man and woman stood on the summit of the hill, under the sky, the sea spread like a dulled shield beneath them. it was already nine o'clock; a perfect evening of that never-to-be-forgotten august. the sun had long gone down behind the seven sisters. in paradise a nightjar was thrumming harshly. below in the coombe the lights of undercliff began to twinkle. on the head brangwyn-like figures were moving heavily. a night-shift was working there behind windy flares, screened by tarpaulins from enemy eyes at sea. ernie knew what they were doing. "they're building a battery to protect the new wireless station against aircraft attack," he told ruth. "that dark thing in the road's a fire-engine to dowse the flares if a night attack's made." then above the noise of the navvies busy with pick and shovel, and the pleasant gargle of the night-jar, blended another sound. a hollow ominous rumbling like the voice of a great ghost laughing harshly in his grave came rolling across the sea out of the darkness. "guns," said ernie. "they're at it in the bight." ruth drew closer and took his arm. one finger was to her lips. she was a little bit afraid. he felt it, and pressed her arm. from the distance, muffled by the shoulder of the hill, came the hammer-hammer that would endure all night of the emergency gangs, rushed down in special trains from the north, to run up a huge camp in the great coombe at the end of rectory walk where of old lambs had often roused ernie as a lad on bleak march mornings by their forlorn music of spirits exiled and crying for home. he stood and looked and listened. "who'd ever ha beleft it'd ha come to this when we first lay out here six years ago?" he mused. "or now for that matter," answered ruth, her voice deep and hushed as the evening. "all so good and quiet as it looks." she pulled him down into the darkness of the covert. "d'is safer here, i reck'n," she said, and nuzzled up against him. ernie peeped though the gorse at the lights flickering on the head. "they ca-a-n't see us here," he said. "and a good job, too, i reck'n," answered ruth sedately, fingering her hair. ernie chuckled. "listen!" he said. they sat close in their ambush, walled about with prickly darkness, roofed in by the living night. beneath them the sea came and went, rose and fell, rhythmical and somnolent, as it had done in the days when badger and wolf and bear roamed the hill, with none to contest their sovereignty but the hoary old sea-eagle from the cliffs; as it might still do when man had long passed away. sounds ancient almost as the earth on which they lay, which had lulled them and millions of their forefathers to sleep, were crossed by others, new, man-made, discordant. down the road at the back of the covert, not a hundred yards away, came a sudden bustling phut-phut-phut. "despatch-rider," said ernie, peering. "light out and all. rushin it to birling gap. there's a company of territorials there, diggin emselves in behind barbed wire to guard the deep-sea cables." "the boy-scouts were layin out all day on the road to friston, mr. chislehurst told me," remarked ruth. "they took the number of every motor and motor-bike on the road to newhaven." she unloosed her hair that fell about her like a torrent of darkness. a huge beetle twanged by above them; and then in the covert close at hand there was a snuffling and grunting, so loud, so close, so portentous that ruth, creature of the earth though she was, was startled and paused in her undoing. "what-ever's that?" she asked, laying a hand on ernie. "hedge-pig, i allow." "sounds like it might be a wild boar routin and snoutin and carryin on," she laughed. ruth reclined on the bed of sand. the calm blessedness of night embraced her; and the stars lay on her face. she lifted her lips to them, seeming to draw them down with each breath, and blow them away again, babe-like. a dreamy amazement still possessed her. "who'd ever ha beleft it?" she said quietly. then she turned her face to him and laughed. "ernie!" she called. "whose are you now?" he said fiercely in her ear. she chuckled and gathered him to her bosom. he sighed his content. "that's better," he murmured. "now, never no more of it!" a great mate, ruth was a still greater mother; and this living, pulsing creature in her arms was her child, her first-born cub. in the stress and conflict of the last few years necessity had compelled her to discard the royal indolence that was her natural habit. the lioness in her, roused by conflict, had made her fierce and formidable in any battle. six months ago she had fought ernie--because he was weak; now she would shield him--because he was strong. jealously she pressed him to her. "they shan't get you, my lad," she said between her teeth. "i'll see to that." "i'm not afraid o them," answered ernie drowsily. "i knaw the germans. all you got to do is to say shoo!--and goo with your arms and they're off like rabbits from the garden." she thrust his head back till she saw it as a dim blob against the shining night; and looked up into his eyes, her own so close to his, so deep, so dear. "you're my soldier," she murmured in his ear. "i always knew you was." then she drew his face down to hers, till their lips met. "i got something to tell you, ern." now she leaned over him. the moon shone on the smooth sweep of her shoulders, rounded and luminous. "i only deceived you the once, ern," she whispered, her voice murmuring like a stream that issued from the slowly-heaving ocean of her chest. "afore we were married. he ne'er wrote me ne'er a letter." "i knew that then," muttered ernie, sleepily, his head beside her own. "it was madame," ruth continued. "she come over in a car and told the tale." her confession made she waited; but in a moment his breathing told her that he had fallen off to sleep. she stroked him rhythmically, just as she would her children when they were tired. he was going back to the regiment--to captain royal--to the unknown. she was not afraid for him--nor for herself--nor for the children. an immense peace had fallen on her. then all about her a murmur as of wings grew. there was a whispering patter as of rain upon the turf that ringed the covert; but no rain fell. through the patter came the tinkle of a bell. an immense flock of sheep was rippling dimly like a flood over the parched turf to the dew-pond by the old wall on the brow. the whisper grew louder, as though the rain had turned to hail. the flock was crossing the road. then there was almost a silence, and in the silence the leader ba-a-a-d. the flock had reached the waters of refreshing. ruth slept, strangely comforted. chapter xxxiv the station next day ernie was to join up. after dinner he kissed susie and jenny, gave them each a penny, and despatched them to play. hand in hand they stamped away to motcombe garden with clacking heels, roguish backward glances and merry tongues. then he asked ruth to go into the backyard. left alone with alice he lifted her on to the kitchen-table, took her hands in his, and looked gravely into her eyes. "i trust you to look after mother and the little ones when i'm gone, lal," he said. the little maid, swift and sympathetic as her mother, nodded at him, nibbling her handkerchief, her heart too full for words. then she raised her crumpled face, that at the moment was so like her mother's, for a last kiss, and as she wreathed her arms round his neck she whispered, "you are my daddy, aren't you, daddy?" "of course i am," he murmured, and lifted her down. she ran away swiftly, not trusting herself to look back. a moment later ruth entered the kitchen, slowly and with downcast eyes. he was standing before the fire, awaiting her. "ruth," he said quietly. "i've tried to do well by your child; i'll ask you to do the same by mine." she came to him and hung about his neck, riven with sobs, her head on his shoulder. "o ern!" she cried. "and is that your last word to me?" she lifted anguished eyes to him and clung to him. "i love them all just the same, only we been through so much together, she and me. that's where it is." his arms were about her and he was stroking her. "i knaw that then," he said, husky himself. "see, they got you and each other and all the world," ruth continued. "little alice got nobody only her mother." "and me," said ernie. she steadied and drew her hand across rain-blurred eyes. "ern," she said, deeply. "i do thank you for all your lovin kindness to that child. i've never forgot that all through--whatever it seemed." "she's mine just as well as yours," he answered, smiling and uncertain. "always has been. always will be." she pressed her lips on his with a passion that amazed him. then he took the boy from the cot and rocked him. the tears poured down his face. this, then, was war!--all his light-heartedness, his detachment, had gone. he was a husband and a father torn brutally away from the warmth and tenderness of the home that was so dear to him, to be tossed into the arena among wild beasts who not long since had been men just like himself, and would be men still but for the evil power of their masters to do by them as his masters had done by him. then he put the child back and turned to say good-bye to ruth. the passionate wife of a few minutes since had changed now into the mother parting from her schoolboy. she took him to her heart and hugged him. "you'll be back before you know," she told him, cooing, comforting, laughing through her tears. "they all say it'll be over soon, whatever else. a great war like this ca'an't go on. too much of it, like." "please god, so," said ernie. "it's going to be the beginning of a new life for me--for you--for all of us, as joe says.... god keep you till we meet again." then he walked swiftly down the street with swimming eyes. the neighbours, who were all fond of ern, stood in their doors and watched him solemnly. he was going into _it_. like as not they would never see him again. many of the women had handkerchieves to their lips, as they watched, and over the handkerchieves their eyes showed awed. some turned away, hands to their hearts. others munched their aprons and wept. a mysterious rumour in the deeps of them warned them of the horror that had him and them and the world in its grip. they could not understand, but they could feel. and this working man with the uncertain mouth and blurred eyes--this man whose walk, whose speech, whose coal-grimed face, and the smell even of his tarry clothes, was so familiar to them--was the symbol of it all. a big navvy came sheepishly out of the last house in the row and stopped him. it was the man who had insulted ernie in the _star_ six months before. "i ask your pardon, ern," he said. "i didn't mean what i said." ern shook hands. years before the two had been at school together under mr. pigott. "it wasn't you, reube," he said. "i knaw who spread the dung you rolled in." "i shan't be caught again," replied the other. "that's a sure thing." ern jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "keep an eye to her!" he whispered. "you may lay to it," the big man answered. at the corner a young girl of perhaps fifteen ran out suddenly, flung herself into his arms, kissed him, with blind face lifted to the sky, and was gone again. at the bottom of borough lane a troop of boy-scouts in slouch hats, knickers, and with staves, drawn up in order, saluted. a tiny boy in his mother's arms blew him shy kisses. just outside the yard of the transport company his mates, who had been waiting him, came out and shook him by the hand. most were very quiet. as he passed on the man among them he disliked most called for three cheers. a ragged noise was raised behind him. at the _star_ corner a beery patriot, wearing the south african medals, mug to his lips, hailed him. "gor bless the hammer-men!" he cried. "gor bless the old ridgiment!" and tried to lure ernie into the familiar bar-parlour. "not me, thank ye!" cried ernie stoutly. "this ain't a beano, my boy! this is war!" as he rounded the corner he glanced up at the sturdy old church with its tiny extinguisher spire, standing on the kneb behind him, four-square to the centuries, the symbol of the rough and ready england which at that moment was passing away, with its glories and its shames, into the limbo of history. at the station all that was most representative in beachbourne had gathered to see the reservists off. the mayor was there in his chain of office; the church militant in the person of the archdeacon; mr. glynde, the senior member for beachbourne, middle-aged, swarthy, his hair already white, making a marked contrast to his junior colleague, the fair-haired young giant, talking to the archdeacon. the old gentleman looked ghastly; his face colourless save for the shadows of death which emphasised his pallor. then he saw bobby chislehurst busy among the departing soldiers, and beckoned him austerely. "i thought you were a pacifist, chislehurst!" he said, his smile more kindly and less histrionic than usual. "so i am, sir," answered bobby, brightly. "but there are several of our men from the moot going off. it's not their fault they've got to go, poor beggars!" "their _fault_!" cried the archdeacon. "it's their privilege." he added less harshly, "we must all stand by the country now, chislehurst." "yes, sir," said bobby. "i shan't give the show away," and he bustled off. then the colonel stalked up. "well, archdeacon, what d'you make of it all?" he asked, curious as a child to gather impressions. the archdeacon drew himself up. "just retribution," he answered in voice that seemed to march. "if a nation will go a-whoring after false gods in the wilderness what can you expect? gahd does not forget." the colonel listened blankly, his long neck elongated like a questing schoolboy. "what you mean?" he asked. "welsh disestablishment bill," the other answered curtly. mr. trupp now entered the station, and the colonel, who though quiet outwardly, was in a condition of intense spiritual exaltation that made him restless as dough in which the yeast is working, joined his pal. he had cause for his emotion. the cabinet had stood. the country had closed its ranks in a way that was little short of a miracle. all men of all parties had rallied to the flag. in dublin the irish mob which had provoked the king's own scottish borderers to bloody retaliation, had turned out and cheered the battalion as it marched down to the transports for embarkation. "well, we're roused at last," said the colonel, as he looked round on that humming scene. "yes," answered mr. trupp. "it's taken a bash in the face to do it though." "should be interesting," commented the colonel, hiding his emotion behind an air of detachment. "an undisciplined horde of men who believe themselves to be free against a disciplined mass of slaves." just then mr. pigott approached. the old nonconformist had about him the air of a boy coming up to the desk to take his punishment. he was at once austere and chastened. "well, colonel," he said. "you were right." the colonel took the other's hand warmly. "not a bit of it!" he cried. "that's the one blessed thing about the whole situation. _we've all been wrong_. i believed in the german menace--till a month or two ago. and then...." "that's it," said mr. trupp. "we must all swing together, and a good job too. if there's any hanging done carson and bonar law, asquith and haldane, ramsay macdonald and snowden ought to grace the same gallows seems to me. and when we've hanged our leaders for letting us in we must hang ourselves for allowing them to let us in." the old surgeon had turned an awkward corner with the gruff tact peculiar to him; and mr. pigott at least was grateful to him. "you've heard carson's committed suicide?" he said. "shot himself this morning on st. stephen's green." "not a bit of it," replied the colonel. "he's far too busy holding up recruiting in ulster while he haggles for his terms, to do anything so patriotic." "besides why should he?" interposed a harsh and jeering voice. "treason's all right if you're rich and powerful. jim larkin got six months a year ago for sedition and inciting to violence. what'll these chaps get for provoking the greatest war that ever was or will be? i'll tell ye, _fat jobs_. where'll they be at the end of the war? under the sod alongside the millions of innocent men who've had to pay the price of their mistakes? no fear! they'll be boolgin money, oozin smiles, fat with power, and big-bellied wi feedin on the carcases of better men." it was joe burt who had come up with mr. geddes. the colonel, giving his shoulder to the engineer, turned to the tall minister, who was stiff, a little self-conscious, and very grave. possessed of a far deeper mind than mr. pigott, mr. geddes was still haunted by doubts. were we wholly in the right? the colonel, intuitive as a girl, recognised the other's distress, and guessed the cause of it. "well, mr. geddes," he said gently. "evil has triumphed for the moment at least." "yes," replied the other. "liebknecht's shot, they say." "all honour to him!" said the colonel. "he was the one man of the lot who stood to his guns when the pinch came. all the rest of the social democrats stampeded at the first shot." joe burt edged up again. like mr. pigott he had made his decision irrevocably and far sooner than the old nonconformist; but there was a vengeful background still to his thoughts. he refused to forget. "i hear the generals are in uproarious spirits," he said. "one of them," answered the colonel quietly. "they won't pay the price," continued joe. "they'll make--trust them. _there's_ the man they'll leave to take the punishment they've brought on the coontry." he nodded to ernie who was busy with some mates extracting chocolates from a penny-in-the-slot-machine. the colonel's eye glittered. he had spied stanley bessemere doing, indeed over-doing, the hearty amongst the men by the barrier. "after all it's nothing to what we owe our friend there and the politicians," he said brightly, and made towards his victim, with an almost mincing motion. since the declaration of war his solitary relief from intolerable anxieties had been baiting the junior member for the borough. he left him no peace, hanging like a gadfly on his flank. at the club, in the street, on committees at the town-hall there rose up to haunt the young man this inexorable spectre with the death's head, the courteous voice, and the glittering smile. "ah, bessemere!" he said gently. "here still!--i heard you had enlisted, you and smith." the other broke away and, seeing ernie close by, shook hands with him. the move was unfortunately countered by joe burt. "you've shook 'ands with mr. caspar five times since i've been here," he remarked tartly. "can't you give somebody else a turn now?" just then, mercifully, mr. trupp rolled up, coughing. summer or winter made no difference to the great man's cold, which was always with him, and lovingly cherished; but he liked to mark the change between the two seasons by exchanging the long woollen muffler of winter for a silken wrapper in which he swaddled his neck in the summer months. "good luck, ernie," he said in his brief way, his eyes shrewd and sweet behind his pince-nez. "keep an eye to ruth, won't you, sir?" said ernie in his most confidential manner. "we'll do our best," replied the other hoarsely. "here's mr. pigott. quite a jingo these days." "who isn't?" the old school-master answered with an attempt at the familiar truculence. "well, you look like it, ern." he added almost with admiration. "quite a changed man." then the colonel joined the little group. "coming along sir?" asked ernie keenly. "no luck," replied the other gloomily. "too old at sixty... what about that brother of yours?" ern's face darkened. "ah, i ain't seen him," he said. "there he is by the bookstall," muttered mr. pigott. "envying the men who are going to fight his battles! i know him." alf, indeed, who had clearly recovered from the first shock of war, was very much to the fore, modest, fervent, the unassuming patriot. now he approached his brother with a mixture of wariness and manly frankness. "will you shake 'ands, ernest?" he asked. "i will _not_," said ern. "it was you who done the dirty on our lal." "never!" cried alf and came a step closer. "i'll tell you who it were." he nodded stealthily in the direction of joe. "that's the chap that's out to spoil your home. wrecker i call him. i tell you what, ern," he whispered. "i'll watch out against him for you while you are away so you don't suffer." "i thank you," said ern, unmoved. just then joe came up, took him by the arm, and bustled him off to the departure platform. "you'll be late else, ma lad," said the engineer. chapter xxxv in the evening the archdeacon and his sidesman walked back to old town from the station together. mr. trupp and mr. pigott followed behind. "the archdeacon lags a bit," said the former. "yes," answered the other. "and i don't wonder. this war'll be the end of him yet. you heard about last night?" the veteran had sallied out at midnight with an electric torch and the reverend spink to deal with spies who had been signalling from the top of the downs. unhappily the stalker had himself been stalked by another patriot bent on the same errand. the two old gentlemen had arrested each other by the dew-pond on warren hill; and report had it that words and worse had passed between the two. in the small hours of the morning anne caspar, hearing voices, had risen and seen from her window the archdeacon stalking down the road, dusty, draggled, his curate trotting with sullen barks at the heels of his chief. the archdeacon had no prisoner, but he had lumbago, a scratch or two, and an indignant sense that his curate had proved both disloyal and inefficient. the two had parted at the rectory gate wrathfully, the reverend spink offering his resignation. opposite his garage in the golfs, alf now said goodbye to his rector, and crossed the road with an almost aggressively sprightly air. mr. trupp noticed it. "what about him and his touring syndicate?" he asked. "he's all right," answered mr. pigott. "trust him for that. artful isn't in it with alf. called his drivers together on the declaration of war, and made em a speech. said he knew where they wanted to be--where he wanted to be himself: in the fighting line. he'd be the last to stand between them and their duty. he wouldn't keep them to their contract. the motor transport was crying for them--five bob a day and glory galore. all he could do was to say god bless you and wish he could go himself--only his responsibilities...." mr. trupp grinned. "did they swallow it down?" he asked. "like best butter," said mr. pigott. "he's got the tongue. he twisted em. parliament's the place for alf." "ah!" committed the other. "we're only beginning. this war'll find us all out too before we're through." ... alf turned into his yard. a little group of broken down old men were waiting him there. "who are you?" he asked fiercely. "what you want?" "we've come on behalf of the cleaners, sir," said the spokesman, in the uncertain voice of the half-starved. "what about us?--the army don't want us." the group tittered a feeble deprecatory titter. "h'every man for himself in these days!" cried alf, brief and brisk. "i'm not the charity organisation society." the old man, a-quaver in voice and body, doddered forward, touching his hat. undersized and shrunken through starvation during infancy, and brutal usage throughout his growing years, he was an example of the great principle we christians have enforced and maintained throughout the centuries: that the world's hardest work should be done by the weakest. tip, as he was called, had been a coal-porter till at fifty-five he dislocated his shoulder shifting loads too heavy for him. thereafter he was partially disabled, a casualty of the industrial war, and to be treated as such. "would you give us a week's money or notice, sir?" he said now in his shaking voice. "did i take you on by the week?" asked alf ferociously. "no, sir; by the day." "then what ye talking about?--ain't i paid you up?" "you paid us up, sir. only we got to live." "very well then. there's the house at the top of the hill for such as you. ain't that good enough? this is a christian country, this is." alf was half-way up the steps to his office, and he pointed in the direction of the work-house. a curious tawny glow lit the old man's eyes. his lips closed over his gums. "bloody bastille," he muttered. alf heard him and ran down the steps. he was still with the stillness of the born bully. "none of that now," he said quietly. "no filthy language in my yard! and no loiterin eether!--off you go or i send for the police. the country's got something better to think of than you and your likes, i reckon, just now." he stood in the gate of the yard with the cold domineering air of the warder in charge of convicts. the cleaners shambled away like a herd of mangy donkeys past work and turned out on waste land to die at their leisure. they were broken men all, old and infirm, drawn from the dregs of that reserve of labour on which the capitalist system has been built. they belonged to no union; they were incapable of organisation and therefore of defence against the predatory class ... "we got no bloody country, men like us ain't." "nor no bloody christ." "the rich got him too." "same as they got everythink else" ... the last of them gone, alf skipped up the steps into his office. he was not afraid of them, was not even depressed by their uncalled-for consideration of themselves. indeed he was extraordinarily uplifted. his great scheme had, it is true, been brought low--through no omission on his part; but he had got out with a squeeze after a dreadful period of panic fury, and now experienced the lyrical exhilaration of the man who has escaped by his own exertions from sudden unexpected death. he had unloaded his drivers on the army; and sold his buses to the government. the only big creditor was captain royal, and alf could afford to laugh at him. besides captain royal would be off to the war--and might not come back. moreover, unless he was much mistaken, the war meant all manner of chances of which the man with his eyes open would take full advantage: world convulsions always did. meanwhile he had the garages on which he could rebuild his original edifice at any moment, add to it, alter it as opportunity offered. the war would not last for ever; but it would un-make businesses and devour men--some of them his rivals. while they were away at the front he would be quietly, ceaselessly strengthening his position at home. and when peace came, as it must some day, he would be ready to reap where he had sown in enterprise and industry. on his way up to old town that evening he met the reverend spink and asked him how long the franco-prussian war had lasted. the curate still had the ruffled and resentful air of a fighting cockerel who has a grievance against the referee. lady augusta, indeed, had passed a busy morning smoothing his plumage and inducing him to withdraw his resignation. his meeting with alf served as further balm to his wounded spirit; for above all else the reverend spink loved to be appealed to as a scholar. now he answered alf with a learned frown, "six months. it began at the same date as this. they were in paris by january." "as long as that!" said alf surprised. "looks as if they'd be quicker this time!" a thought struck him. he turned down borough lane, and went to call on ruth. she was at home, alone in the kitchen, her babes in bed. he did not enter, but stood in the door awhile before she was aware of him, watching her with sugary and secretive smile. then he chirped. she looked up, saw him; and the light faded out of her face. "so ern's gone to the wars," he said. "you'll be a bit lonely like o nights, the evenings drawing in and all. say, i might drop in on you when i got the time. i'm not so busy, as i was. likely i'll be goin back to drive for mr. trupp now." she rose, formidable as a lioness at bay in the mouth of her cave. "out of it!" she ordered, and flung an imperious hand towards the door. alf fled incontinently. a navvy, who had been watching him from a door opposite, shouldered heavily across the street to meet him. he was a very big man with a very small head, dressed in corduroys; of the type you still meet in the pages of punch but seldom in real life. his hands were deep in his pockets, and he said quietly without so much as removing his pipe. "stow the bloody truck then!" alf paused, astonished. then he thought the other must have mistaken his man in the dusk. "here! d'you know who you're talkin to?" he asked. the navvy showed himself quite undisturbed. "oughter," he said, "seein you and me was dragg'd oop same school togedder along o mr. pigott back yarnderr. you're alf caspar, and i be reuben deadman. there's an old saying these paarts you may have heard--_when there isn't a deadman in lewes gaol you may knaw the end o't world's at hand_. i've not been in maself, not yet. when i goos i'll goo for to swing--for you--for old times sake; let alone the dirty dish you done old tip and them this arternoon." alf walked up the hill, breathing heavily and with mottled face. the bubble of his exaltation had burst. he felt a curious sinking away within him, as though he were walking on cold damp clouds which were letting him through. the war was changing things already, and not to his liking. three weeks ago who'd have talked to the managing director of caspar's syndicate like that? brooding on his troubles, he ran into joe burt who was coming swiftly round the corner of borough lane, brooding too. alf darted nimbly back. joe stood with lowered head, glaring at his enemy. then he thought better of it and turned on his way. alf, standing in the middle of the road with jeering eyes, called after him furtively. "want her all to yourself, don't you?" joe marched on unheeding to the cottage alf had just left. ruth must have been awaiting him: for he entered at once without knocking. chapter xxxvi ruth faces the storm that night as the colonel sat on the loggia chewing his pipe, long after mrs. lewknor had retired, he was aware of a pillar of blackness, erect against the dull sea and star-lit sky, on the edge of the cliff, at the very spot where he had seen it on the night of the declaration of war. electric torch in hand, he stole out on the pair. oblivious of all things save each other, they remained locked in each other's arms. he flashed the torch full in their faces. "o, joe!" came a familiar voice. the colonel was taken a-back. "that you, anne?" he muttered. "yes, sir," his parlour-maid answered. "me and my joe. he come up to say goodbye. joining up to-morrow, he is." the colonel mumbled something about spies, and apologised. "no harm done, sir," laughed anne, quietly. "it's nothing to some of them. turn their search-light full glare on you just when you don't want, and never a by-your-leave--same as they done war-night! _if that's war_, i says to joe, _better ha done with it afore you begin_, i says." the colonel retired indoors, doubly humiliated: he had made a fool of himself before his own parlour-maid, and in his mind he had gravely wronged ruth caspar. next day he started off for old town to find out if there was any way by which he could make amends to his own conscience and, unknown to her, to the woman he had maligned. she met him with kind eyes, a little wistful. "we're all friends now, sir," she said, as she shook hands. "got to be, i reckon." if it is true, as is said to-day, that old men make wars and young men pay for them, it is also true that the mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts of the young men bear their share of the burthen. ruth was left with four children and a debt. she faced the situation as hundreds of thousands of women up and down europe in like case were doing at that moment--quiet, courageous, uncomplaining as an animal under the blows that life, the inexplicable, rained upon her. one thought constantly recurred to her. in her first tragedy she had stood alone against the world. now there were millions undergoing the same experience. and she derived from that thought comfort denied to others. there were no complications about her economic situation. that at least was very simple. she owed several weeks' rent, had debts outstanding to the tune of several shillings--mostly boots for the children; and a little cash in coppers in hand. two nights after ernie's departure, alf came round for his back-rent. he came stealthily, ruth noticed; and she knew why. public opinion in the moot, which might at any moment find explosive self-expression through the fists of reuben deadman, was against him. it was against all landlords. ern moreover was still a hero in the eyes of the moot and would remain so for several days yet; and ruth received the consideration due to the wife of such. alf was dogged, with downcast eyes. there was no nonsense, no persiflage about him. he went straight to the point. "i come for my money," he said. ruth rallied him maliciously. "money!" she cried, feigning surprise. "i thart it was accommodation you was a'ter." "and i mean to have it," alf continued sullenly. "even a landlord's got to live these times. i got to have it or you got to go. that's straight." ruth had her back to the wall. "ah, you must have that out with the government," she said coolly. "it's got nothing to do with me." "government!" cried alf sharply. "what's the government got to do with it." "they're passin some law to protect the women and children of them that's joined up," ruth answered. "who said so?" "the colonel." "anyway it's not passed yet." "no," retorted ruth. "so you'd best wait till it is. make you look a bit funny like to turn me out, and put some one else in, and then have to turn them out and put me back again, say in a fortnight, and all out o your own pocket. not to talk o the bit of feeling, and them and me taking damages off o you as like as not, i should say." that evening ruth went up to see mr. pigott. the manager said he would pay her half ern's wages while the war lasted; and he paid her the first instalment then and there. "will the government do anything for the women and children sir?" she asked. mr. pigott shook his grizzled head. as the years went by he had an always diminishing faith in the power and will of governments to right wrongs. "the old chapel's the thing," he would say. ruth put the same question to mr. trupp whom she met on her way home to the moot. "they will if they're made to," the doctor answered, and as he saw the young woman's face fall, he added more sympathetically, "they're trying to do something locally. i don't know what'll come of it. keep in touch with mrs. trupp. she'll let you know. i believe there's to be a meeting at the town hall." he rolled on, grumbling and grousing to himself. call ourselves a civilised country, and leave the women and children to take their luck! chaos--as usual! ... chaos backed and justified by cant! ... would cant organise society? ... would cant feed the women and children? ... would cant take the place of scientific method? ... ruth went home with her eleven shillings and sixpence and an aching heart, to find that little alice had already arranged her brood in their bibs around the tea-table, and was only waiting for mother to come and tilt the kettle which she might not touch. the other fledgelings hammered noisily on the table with their spoons. "my dears," she said, as she went round the table, kissing the rosy faces uplifted to hers. "what is it, mum?" asked little alice, who had something of her mother's quick sympathy and power of intuition. "is daddy shotted at the war?" "not yet, my pretty," her mother answered. "it's only nothing you can understand. now help me get the tea." next day brought a lawyer's letter giving her notice to quit. that evening ruth took the letter up to the manor-house. the maid told her mr. and mrs. trupp had just started off to a meeting at the town hall. "something to do with the women and children, i believe," she added. "prince o wales's fund or something." ruth turned down the steps disconsolate. just then she saw joe burt getting off the motor-bus opposite the _star_. she had not seen him since he had come up on the evening of ern's departure to give her the latest news of her husband. now he came striding towards her, blowing into her life with the vigour of kingsley's wild nor'-easter. at the moment the politician was on top--she noted it with thankful heart. "coom on, ma lass!" he said. "you're the very one i'm after. we want you. we want em all. you got to coom along o me to this meeting." "but i aren't got my hat, joe!" pleaded ruth, amused yet deprecating. the engineer would take no excuses. "your children are worth more'n your hat, i reck'n," he said. "coom on!--coom on!--no time to be lost!" and in a moment she was walking briskly at his side down the hill up which he had just come. the strength, the resolution, the certainty of her companion swept all her clouds away and renewed her faith. she told him of the notice she had received. "all the better," he said. "another trump for us to play. don't you worrit. the labour party in parliament's disappointed all its supporters so far, but it's going to justify itself at last. one thing. they can't trample on us this time, the fats canna. we're too well organised." they walked down the hill together. at the stile opposite the drill hall where six months before she had rescued ernie, drenched and dripping, from the police, they turned off into saffrons croft in the direction of the town hall. joe, as he trod the grass beneath his feet, became sombre, silent. the woman sweeping along at his side, her shawl about her head, felt his change of mood. the other was coming to the top again--the one she feared. she was right. the other it was who spoke surlily and growling, out of his deeps, like the voice of a yard-dog from his kennel. "well, what's it going to be?" her heart galloped but she met him gaily. "what you mean, joe?" "you know what i mean," bearing down on her remorselessly. she made a half halt. "o joe!" "aye, you may o joe me! that wunna better it." "and after what you promised him solemn that night and all." he answered moodily. "he forced me to it. took advantage. shouldn't ha done it. springin it on me without a word. that's not the game." ruth turned on him. "you're the one to talk, aren't you?" she said, flashing the corner of an eye at him. "playing the game prarper, you are?" he barged ahead, sullen as a bull and as obstinate. "a don't know; and a don't care. a know what a want and a know a'm going to get it." she met him light as a rapier thrust. "i thart you was a man, joe." "better'n a no-man anyway." she stopped dead and faced him. "where's my no-man now then?" she cried. "and where are you?" that time she had planted her dart home. he glared at her savage, sullen, and with lowered head. "thou doesna say a'm a coward?" slowly she answered, "i'm none so sure.--ern's my soldier, ern is." he gripped her arm. "i'll go home," she said, curt as the cut of a whip. he relaxed. "nay," he answered. "if we're to fight for your children yo mun help." she threw off his arm with a gesture of easy dignity. then they walked on again together down saffrons road towards the town hall. chapter xxxvii mrs. lewknor the town hall was crowded. the mayor, who was in the chair, had spoken on behalf of the prince of wales's fund and announced that subscriptions would be received by the town clerk. thereafter an indescribable orgie of patriotism had taken place. red-necked men outbid fat women. the bids mounted; the bidders grew fiercer; the cheers waxed. and all the while a little group of trade unionists at the back of the hall kept up a dismal chaunt-- we don't want charity, we won't have charity. then a little dapper figure in the blue of a chauffeur rose in the body of the hall. "i'm only a workin chauffeur," he said, wagging his big head, "but i got a conscience, and i got a country. and i'm not ashamed of em eether. i can't do much bein only a worker as you might say. but i can do me bit. put me down for fifty guineas, please, mr. town-clerk." he sat down modestly amidst loud applause. "who's that?" whispered the colonel on the platform. "trupp's chauffeur," the archdeacon, who had a black patch over his eye, answered with a swagger--"my sidesman, alfred caspar. not so bad for a working-man?" he cackled hilariously. then a voice from lancashire, resonant and jarring, came burring across the hall. "mr. chairman, are you aware that alfred caspar is turning his sister-in-law out of his house with four children." alf leapt to his feet. "it's a lie!" he cried. a big young woman sitting just in front of joe rose on subdued wings. she was bare-headed, be-shawled, a dark madonna of english village-life. "yes, you are, alf," she said, and sat down quietly as she had risen. there was a dramatic silence. then the archdeacon started to his feet and pointed with accusing claw like a witch-doctor smelling out a victim. "i know that woman!" he cawed raucously. a lady sitting in the front row just under the platform rose. "so do i," she said. it was mrs. trupp, and her voice, still and pure, fell on the heated air like a drop of delicious rain. she sat down again. the archdeacon too had resumed his seat, very high and mighty; and bobby chislehurst was whispering in his ear from behind. the colonel had risen now, calm and courteous as always, in the suppressed excitement. "am i not right in thinking that mrs. caspar is the wife of an old hammer-man who joined up at once on the declaration of war and is at this moment somewhere in france fighting our battles for us?" the question was greeted with a storm of applause from the back of the hall. "good old colonel!" some one called. "mr. chairman, d'you mean to accept that man's cheque?" shouted joe. "yes or no?" in the uproar that followed, alf rose again, white and leering. "i'd not have spoken if i'd known i was to be set upon like this afore em all for offering a bit of help to me country. as to my character and that, i believe i'm pretty well beknown for a patriot in beachbourne." "as to patriotism, old cock," called joe, "didn't you sack your cleaners without notice on the declaration of war?" "no, i didn't then!" shouted alf with the exaggerated ferocity of the man who knows his only chance is to pose as righteously indignant. the retort was greeted with a howl of _tip_! there was a movement at the back of the hall; and suddenly an old man was lifted on the shoulders of the trade unionists there. yellow, fang-less, creased, he looked, poised on high above the crowd against the white background of wall, something between a mummy and a monkey. as always he wore no tie; but he had donned a collar for the occasion, and this had sprung open and made two dingy ass-like ears on either side of his head. "did he sack you, tip?" called joe. "yes, he did," came the quivering old voice. "turned us off at a day. told us to go to the bastille; and said he'd put the police on us." the tremulous old voice made people turn their heads. they saw the strange figure lifted above them. some tittered. the ripple of titters enraged the men at the back of the hall. "see what you've made of him!" thundered joe. "and then jeer! ... shame!" "shame!" screamed a bitter man. "do the fats know shame?" "some of em do," said a quiet voice. it was true too. mrs. trupp was looking pale and miserable in the front-row, so was the colonel on the platform, bobby chislehurst and others. the titterers, indeed, howled into silence by the storm of indignation their action had aroused, wore themselves the accusing air of those who hope thereby to fix the blame for their mistake on others. in the silence a baggy old gentleman rose in the body of the hall, slewed round with difficulty, and mooned above his spectacles at the strange idol seated on men's shoulders behind him. "_and he was lifted up_," he said in a musing voice more to himself than to anybody else. the phrase, audible to many, seemed to spread a silence about it as a stone dropped in a calm pond creates an ever-broadening ripple. in the silence old tip slid gently to the ground and was lost once more amid the crowd of those who had raised him for a brief moment into fleeting eminence. the meeting broke up. outside the hall stood mr. trupp's car, alf at the wheel: for the old surgeon's regular chauffeur had been called up. mrs. trupp, coming down the steps, went up to ruth who was standing on the pavement. "so glad you spoke up, ruth," she said, and pressed her hand. "come on!" said mr. trupp. "we'll give you a lift home, ruth." alf was looking green. the two women got in, and the old surgeon followed them. he was grinning, mrs. trupp quietly malicious, and ruth amused. the people on the pavement and streaming out of the hall saw and were caught by the humour of the situation, as their eyes and comments showed. then colonel lewknor made his way to the car. "just a word, mrs. caspar!" he said. "things are squaring up. mrs. lewknor's taking the women and children in hand. could you come and see her one morning at under-cliff?" the hostel that mrs. lewknor had built upon the cliff boomed from the start. it was full to over-flowing, winter and summer; and eton was in sight for toby when war was declared. then things changed apace. beachbourne, for at least a thousand years before william the norman landed at pevensey on his great adventure, had been looked on as the likeliest spot for enemy invasion from the continent. frenzied parents therefore wired for their children to be sent inland at once; others wrote charming letters cancelling rooms taken weeks before. in ten days the house was empty; and on the eleventh the mortgagee intimated his intention to fore-close. it was a staggering blow. the colonel, with that uncannie cat-like intuition of his she knew so well, prowled in, looked at her with kind eyes, as she sat in her little room the fatal letter in her hand, and went out again. throughout it had been her scheme, not his, her responsibility, her success; and now it was her failure. then mr. trupp was shown in, looking most unmilitary in his uniform of a colonel of the royal army medical corps. "it's all right," he said gruffly. "i know. morgan and evans rang me up and told me. unprofessional perhaps, but these are funny times. i let you in. you built the hostel at my request. i shall take over the mortgage." "i couldn't let you," answered the little lady. "you won't be asked," replied the other. "i ought to have done it from the start; but it wasn't very convenient then. it's all right now." the old man didn't say that the reason it was all right was because he was quietly convinced in his own mind that his boy joe would need no provision now. just then the colonel entered, looking self-conscious. he seemed to know all about it, as indeed he had every right to do, seeing that mr. trupp had informed him at length on the telephone half an hour before. "you know who the mortgagee is?" he asked. "who?" said both at once. the colonel on tiptoe led them out into the hall, and showed them through a narrow window alf sitting at his wheel, looking very funny. "our friend of the scene in the town hall yesterday," he whispered. "when i went to the bank yesterday to insure the house against bombardment, the clerk looked surprised and said--_you know it's already insured_. i said--_who by_? he turned up a ledger and showed me the name." mr. trupp got into his car, wrapping himself round with much circumstance. "to morgan and evans," he said to alf. in the solicitors' office he produced his cheque-book. "i've been seeing mrs. lewknor," he said. "i'll pay off your client now and take over the mortgage myself." he wrote a cheque then and there, and made it out to alfred caspar, who was forthwith called in. "i'm paying you off your mortgage, alf," he said. "give me a receipt, will you?" alf with the curious simplicity that often threw his cunning into relief signed the receipt quite unabashed and with evident relief. "see, i need the money, sir," he said gravely, as he wiped the pen on his sleeve. "the syndicate's let me in--o, you wouldn't believe! and i got to meet me creditors somehow." "well, you've got the money now," answered mr. trupp. "but i'm afraid you've made an enemy. and that seems to me a bit of a pity just now." "colonel lewknor?" snorted alf. "i ain't afraid o him!" "i don't know," said mr. trupp. "it's the day of the soldier." that evening, after the day's work, alf was summoned to his employer's study. mrs. trupp was leaving it as he entered. "i've been thinking things over, alfred," said the old man. "there's no particular reason why you shouldn't drive for me for the present if you like--until you're wanted out there. but i shall want you to destroy this." he handed his chauffeur ruth's notice to quit. alf tore the paper up without demur. "that's all right, sir," he said cheerfully. "that was a mistake. i understood the army service corps was taking over my garage; and i should want a roof over my head to sleep under." he went back to his car. another moment, and the door of the manor-house opened. ruth emerged briskly and gave him a bright nod. "can't stop now, alf," she said. "i'm off to see mrs. lewknor. see you again later." "that's right," alf answered. "she's on the committee for seeing to the married women ain't she?--them and their _lawful_ children. reverend spink's on it too." he stressed the epithet faintly. a moment ruth looked him austerely in the eyes. then she turned up the hill with a nod. she understood. there was danger a-foot again. the matter of the hostel settled, mrs. lewknor, before everything an imperialist, and not of the too common platform kind, was free to serve. and she had not far to look for an opening. the mayor summoned a meeting in his parlour to consider the situation of the families of soldiers called to the colours. mrs. lewknor was by common consent appointed honorary secretary of the association formed; and was given by her committee a fairly free discretion to meet the immediate situation. nearly sixty, but still active as a cat, she set to work with a will. her sitting room at undercliff she turned into an office. her mornings she gave to interviewing applicants and her afternoons to visiting. ruth caspar was one of the first to apply. the little slight jewish lady with her immense experience of life greeted the beautiful peasant woman who had never yet over-stepped the boundaries of sussex with a brilliant smile. "there's not much i want to know about you," she said. "we belong to the same regiment. just one or two questions that i may fill up this form." how many children had mrs. caspar. "three, 'm ... and a fourth." mrs. lewknor waited. "little alice," continued ruth, downcast and pale beneath her swarthiness. "before i were married." mrs. lewknor wrote on apparently unconcerned. she knew all about little alice, had seen her once, and had recognised her at a glance as royal's child, the child for which, with her passionate love for the regiment, she felt herself in part responsible. on the same occasion she had seen ruth's other babies and their grandfather with them--that troubadour who forty years before had swept the harp of her life to sudden and elusive music. "i think that'll be all right now, ruth," she said with a re-assuring look. "i'm going to call you that now if i may. i'll come round and let you know directly i know myself." ruth retired with haunted eyes. she guessed rather than knew the forces that were gathering against her, and the strength of them. outside in the porch she met lady augusta with her mane of thick bobbed white hair and rosy face; and on the cliff, as she walked home, other ladies of the committee and the reverend spink. how hard they looked and how complacent! ... mrs. lewknor put the case before her committee, telling them just as much as she thought it good for them to know. there was of course the inevitable trouble about little alice. "we don't even know for certain that she is the child of the man the mother afterwards married," objected lady augusta willcocks in her worst manner. "she mayn't be a soldier's child at all." mrs. lewknor turned in her lips. "our business surely is to support the women and children while the men are away fighting our battles," she said. "need we form ourselves into a private enquiry office?" asked mrs. trupp quietly. the old lady's eyes flashed. mrs. trupp of course didn't care. mrs. trupp never went to church. "putting a premium on immorality!" she cried with bitter laughter--"as usual." "we must look a little into character surely, mrs. lewknor," said a honied virgin from st. michael's. "i'll go bail for this woman's character," answered mrs. lewknor, flashing in her turn. "i believe she _is_ more respectable than she used to be," said a dull spinster with a dogged eye. "_damn_ respectability," thought mrs. lewknor, but she said, "are we to deprive this child of bread in the name of respectability? whatever else she is she's a child of the empire." then the reverend spink spoke. he and lady augusta willcocks were there to represent the point of view of the church. he spoke quietly, his eyes down, and lips compressed, mock-meekly aware of the dramatic significance of his words. "perhaps i ought to tell the committee that the man this woman is now living with is not her husband." the silence that greeted this announcement was all that the reverend gentleman could have desired. it was only broken by the loud triumphant cry of the lady augusta willcocks. "then all _four_ children are illegitimate!" "oh, that _would_ be joyful!" cried mrs. lewknor with a little titter. it was the great moment of the reverend spink's life. "she married some yeahs ago," he continued, so well-pleased with the cumulative effect of the impression he was making, as even to venture an imitation of the archdeacon's accent. "and her husband is still alive." mrs. lewknor challenged swiftly. "where did she marry?" she asked, lest another question should be asked first: for the honour of the regiment was involved. "at the registrar's office, lewes." "when?" "september th, ." the man had his story pat enough to be sure. "who told you?" asked mrs. lewknor aggressively. mr. spink pursed his lips. "i have it on reliable information." "i know your authority, i think," said mrs. trupp quietly. "did you check it?" asked mrs. lewknor. "it was unnecessary," replied the curate insolently. "i can trust my authority. but if you doubt me you can check it yourself." "i shall of course," retorted the little lady. then the chairman interposed. "it looks like a case for the police," he said. "certainly," lady augusta rapped out. "it's very serious," said the chairman. "for somebody," retorted mrs. lewknor. by common consent the case was adjourned. the reverend spink retired to old town. the fierce hostility of mrs. lewknor, and the no less formidable resistance of mrs. trupp, made the curate uneasy. after dark he went round to alf caspar's garage. "you're sure of your facts?" he asked. "dead cert," said alf. "drove em there meself." "and the date?" "marked it down at the time, sir.... i can show it you in me ledger. always make a note of me engagements. you never know when it mayn't come in handy." he went down to his office, followed by the curate, and was proceeding to take a bulky folio down from the shelf, when the telephone bell rang. it was mr. trupp to say the car would be wanted at four to-morrow afternoon. "is it a long run, sir?" asked alf. "no," came the answer. "lewes--mrs. trupp." alf determined to send a man and not drive himself. chapter xxxviii suspense ruth walked home across the golf links, at her heart the agony of the beaten vixen who, crawling across a ploughed field still far from her earth, glances round to see a white wave of hounds breaking over the fence at her brush. at billing's corner she nearly ran into her mother-in-law. for the first time anne paused deliberately to address her. "that you, mrs. caspar?" she said, and looked away a sour smirk on her face. at the moment, beautiful old woman though she was, with her porcelain complexion of a girl, her snow-white hair, and broad-splashed dark brows, there was a suggestion of alf about her--ruth noticed it at once and was afraid. "they're puttin away all the chance children the mothers can't support in there," the elder woman said casually, nodding at the blue roofs of the old cavalry barracks at the back of rectory walk that was now the work-house. "to save expense, i suppose--the war or something. if you didn't want yours to go i might take my son's children off your hands. then you could go out and char for her." ruth sickened. "no, thank-you, mrs. caspar," she said. just then a nurse came by pushing a wicker spinal chair in which were a host of red-cloaked babies packed tight as fledgelings in a nest. behind them trooped, two by two and with clattering heels, a score of elder children from the work-house, all in the same straw hats, the same little capes. ruth glanced at them as she had often done before. those children, she remarked with ironic bitterness, were well-soaped, wonderfully so, well-groomed, well-fed, with short hogged hair, and stout boots; but she noted about them all, in spite of their apparent material prosperity, the air of spiritual discontent which is the hallmark, all the world over, of children who know nothing of a mother's jealous and discriminating care. "the not-wanteds," said anne. "they'll put yours along with them, i suppose." ruth shook. then she lifted up her eyes and saw help coming. old mr. caspar was bundling down the road towards her, crowding on all sail and waving his umbrella as though to tell her that he had seen her mute s.o.s. anne drew away. "there's my husband," she said. "yes," answered ruth, "that's dad," and walked away down church street, trembling still but faintly relieved that she had planted her pin in the heart of her enemy before disengaging. she reached home and turned the key behind her. that vague enemy, named _they_, who haunts each one of us through life, was hard on her heels. she was in her earth at last; but _they_ could dig her out. before now she had seen them do it on windhover, with halloos, the men and women standing round with long-lashed cruel whips to prevent escape. she had seen them throw the wriggling vixen to the pack ... and the worry ... and the huntsman standing amid a foam of leaping hounds, screaming horribly and brandishing above his head a bloody rag that a few minutes since had been a warm and breathing creature. horrible--but true ... that was the world. she knew it of old; and could almost have thanked that hard old woman with eyes the blue of steel who had just reminded her of what _they_ and life were compact. then she noted there was silence in the house. what if in her absence _they_ had kidnapped her child--little alice, born in agony of flesh and spirit, so different from those other babies, the heirs of ease and security; little alice, the child for whom she had fought and suffered and endured alone. it was her they were after: ruth never doubted that. she had seen it in lady augusta's eyes, as she passed her in the porch of the hostel; in the downward glances of those other members of the committee she had met upon the cliff; in the voice and bearing of her mother-in-law. she rushed upstairs. alice, busiest of little mothers, had tucked the other three away in bed a little before their time because she wanted to do it all alone and without her mother's help. now she was turning down her own bed. her aim successfully achieved she was free to bestow on her mother a happy smile. ruth swept her up in her arms, and bore her away into her own room, devouring her with passionate eyes. "you shall sleep along o me place o daddy," she said, and kissed her hungrily. "what about susie and jenny, mum?" asked the child. "we'll leave the door open so we can hear," answered ruth, remarking even then the child's thoughtfulness. "see, daddy wants you to take care o mother." alice gave a quick nod of understanding. next morning ruth refused to let her go to school with the others, would not let her leave the house. "you'll stay along with me," she said, fierce for once. at eleven o'clock there came a knock. ruth hustled the child out into the backyard, shoved her into the coal-shed, turned the key on her, and locked the backdoor. then she went very quietly not to the front-door but to the window, opening it a crack with the utmost stealth. kneeling she listened. whoever was at the door was very quiet, not a man. if it had been he would have spat by now, or sworn. "who is it? she asked. "mrs. lewknor," came the reply. ruth opened. the little lady entered, and followed into the kitchen. "is it all right, 'm?" asked ruth anxiously. "it's going to be," replied the other, firm and confident. "you've got your marriage-certificate if we should want it?" ruth sighed her relief. "o yes, 'm. i got my lines all right. they're in the tin box under the bed." she was running upstairs to fetch them when the other stayed her. "there's just one thing," said mrs. lewknor gravely. "it would help mrs. trupp and me very much, if you could give us some sort of idea where you were on september th, --if you can throw your mind back all that great way." "i was with _him_!" ruth answered in a flash. she was fighting for her best-beloved: everything must be sacrificed to save her--even royal. "it was _the day_!" she panted. "it were the first time ever i was in a car--that's one why i remember: alf drove us." "d'you happen to remember at all where you went?" tentatively. "all wheres," ruth answered. "hailsham--heathfield. i hardly rithely knaws the names. we'd tea at lewes--i remembers that." mrs. lewknor raised her keen eyes. "you don't remember where you had tea?" ruth shook her head, slowly. "i can't justly remember where. see lewes is such a tarrabul great city these days--nigh as big as beachbourne, i reck'n. it was over the registrar's for births and deaths and such like--i remember that along o the plate at the door." mrs. lewknor rose, her fine eyes sparkling. "that's splendid, ruth!" she said. "all i wanted." all that afternoon ruth waited behind locked doors--she did not know what for; she only knew that _they_ were prowling about watching their chance. she had drawn the curtains across the windows though the sun was still high in the heaven, and sat in the darkness, longing for ernie as she never would have believed she could have longed for him. every now and then little alice came in a tip-toe from the backyard to visit her. the child thought her mother had one of her rare head-aches, and was solicitous accordingly. about three o'clock ruth crept upstairs and peeped through her window. it was as she had thought. alf was there, strolling up and down the pavement opposite, watching the house. then he saw her, half-hidden though she was, crossed the street briskly and knocked. she went down at once to give him battle. he met her with his sly smile, insolently sure of himself. "police come yet?" he asked. she banged the door in his face; and the bang brought her strange relief. with mocking knuckles he rapped on the window on to the street as he withdrew. after that nobody came but the children back from school. ruth packed them off to bed early. she wanted to be alone with little alice. in the kitchen she waited on in the dark. then she heard solid familiar feet tramping down the pavement towards her cottage. she knew whose feet they were, and knew their errand. the hour of decision had come. one way or the other it must be. in the confusion and uncertainty only one thing was clear to her. there was a way--and a price to be paid; if she took it. joe knocked. ruth slipped to her knees. she did not pray consciously. kneeling on the stone-slabs, her face uplifted in the darkness, her hands pale on the windsor chair before her, she opened wide the portals of her heart to the voice of the spirit, if such voice there were. and there was. it came to her from above in the silence and the dusk. ruth knew it so well, that still small voice with the gurgle in it. it was susie laughing in her sleep. chapter xxxix the valley of decision the answer she had sought had been given her. comforted and strengthened she rose, went to the door and unlocked it. joe had strolled a yard or two down the street. she did not call him, but retired to await him in the kitchen, leaving the door a-jar. in a few minutes his feet approached slowly. she heard him brush his boots in the passage, and turn the key of the outer door behind him. then he entered. an immense change had been wrought in him since last they had met. the bull-moose of saffrons croft had given place to a man, humbled, solemn, quiet, the heir of ages of self-discipline and the amassed spiritual treasure of a world-old civilisation. he stood afar off, with downward eyes. then he held out both arms to her. "ruth, a've come to claim thee--or say good-bye." she gripped the mantelpiece but did not answer. her head was down, her eyes closed. "then it's goodbye, joe," she said in a voice so small that she hardly recognised it herself. he dropped his hands, darkening. "and who'll keep thee and children now ern's gone?" a note of harshness had crept into his voice. she murmured something about the government. he laughed at her hardly. "the government! what's government ever done for the workers? _they_ make wars: the workers pay for em. that law's old as the capitalist system. what did government do for women and children time o south africa?--left em to the mercy o god and the ruling class. if your children are to trust for bread to the government, heaven help em!" ruth knew that it was true. she remembered south africa. in those days there had been a neighbour of theirs at aldwoldston, the wife of a ploughman, a woman with six children, whose husband had been called up. ruth had only been a girl then; but she remembered that woman, and that woman's children, and her home, and that woman's face. "there's the ladies," she said feebly. joe jeered. "you know the ladies. so do i. might as lief look for help to the church straight off." "there's one above." "aye, there's one above. and he stays there too and don't fash himself over them below--not over you and me and our class any road." his tone that had been mocking became suddenly serious. "nay, there's nobbut one thing now atween you and them and work-house." she peeped, faintly inquisitive. "what's that?" "the arm of a lancasheer lad." there came into her eyes the tenderness tinged with irony of the woman amused at the eternal egoism of the male. he noted the change in her, thought she had relaxed, and came in upon her, instantly, appealing now-- "coom and live with me, brother and sister, the lot of you ... a swear to thee a wunna touch thee." she laughed at him, low and tender. "never do, joe--never!" shaking her head and swallowing. "why not then?" "there's far over much nature in us--two valiant great chaps like you and me be." then little alice entered and went to joe, who put a sheltering arm about her. "her and me and you!" he said huskily to ruth. "us three against the world! laugh at em then!" ruth motioned to the child to go on up to bed. she went; and the two striving creatures were left alone once more. "ern bequeathed thee to me." "aye, but he didn't rithely knaw you, and he didn't rithely knaw me eether." he caught at the straw. "then you do loov me?" she shook her head, and the tears from her long lashes starred her cheek. "nay, joe: ern's my man--always was and always will be." he stood before her, firm on his feet, and solid as a rock, his fists clenched, his eyes on her, brilliant, dark, and kindly. she felt the thrill of him, his solidity, his sincerity, above all his strength, and thrilled to him again. "a'm the mon for thee," he said. she did not answer. in her ears was the roar of cataracts. "thoo dursena say me nay." the words came from far off, from another world. wavering like a flame in the wind, she heard but could make no reply. "thoo canna." then a voice spoke through her, a voice that was not hers, coming from far away over waste seas, a voice she had never heard before and did not recognise. "i can--lord jesus helpin me." at that the mists began to float away. she saw more clearly now. the worst perhaps was over. "you want a mon with a purpose in his life." ah, how well he knew her! "a mon who knows what he wants to do and means to do it.--and you must have it or dee. the bairns arena enough for a woman like you." he was putting forth the whole of his huge strength to overwhelm her: she was aware of it and of her own weakness. "a've got a purpose. you can help me fulfill it--none else, only you. time was a thought a could go on alone. you learnt me better. a canna. god didna make mon that way--not _this_ mon any gate. mon needs woman for his work. a need you." quietly she was gathering her forces. "ern's my man, joe," she repeated. "i need him; and none other." baffled for the moment, her assailant paused in his assault. "and has ern got a purpose in his life?" "he has now." "what's that then?" "what you said at the citadel that sunday--the war, and what it stands for." "the war won't last for ever. what when that's over?" "he'll come back a made man." he regarded her with a kind of sardonic pity. "he'll never coom back--never." she lifted her eyes to his, steadfast and tender. "hap he'll not, joe. if so be he doosn't, i shan't grudge him. a soldier in a soldier's grave. liefer that than he should linger here now. he's such a battler, ern is. that's why i love him." he took the blows she dealt him, unflinching. "you don't loov, ern." "i'm learning to." his lips curled in scorn. "you don't know what loov is. see here!--this is loov." he tapped his outspread palm, as often when lecturing. "ern's ma familiar friend--has been for years. he trusts me--look at what he did that last night. and sitha! a'm a mon men do trust. that's ma reputation--earned too. a never sold a pal yet, big or little. and now--a'll betray ma own mate behind his back; ma mate that's gone fightin ma battles in the cause for which a've lived twenty years; ma mate that trusts me--and all for the sake of loov." the great fellow was trembling himself now. "am a a rotter?--you know a'm none. am a a mon? you know a am. the measure o ma sin is the measure o ma loov. judge for yourself." he was battening down the furnace behind steel-doors; but she could hear the roar of the flames. "that's loov. a'll lose all to win all; and a've more than most to lose. a'll lose ma life to save ma soul--and that's you. are you for it?--was a time a thought nowt o women: now a think o nought but the one woman.... now then!--take it or leave it!--choose your path!--will you throw a loov like that away--the loov of a mon--for what?--a chap you don't trust, a chap you can't respect, a chap who's let you and the children down and will again, a chap you're never like to see again--a feeble feckless sot, and son of a sot--" she put both hands to her ears. he wrenched them fiercely aside and held them. she stood before him, her hands imprisoned in his, her eyes shut, on her face the look of one awaiting the blows about to rain down in her defencelessness. "i may ha doubted him once, joe. but i knaw him better now. may he forgive me--and you too; all the wrong i done you both. i knaw him, and myself, better than i did a while back. and now he's won me, i'll never loose him, _never_." she spoke with a passion which convinced even that stubborn lover. he drew back, and she knew from the sound of his breathing that she had beaten him. "then you was playin wi me?" he brooded over her, sullen and smouldering. she put out her hands to him with something of the appeal of a child. "hap a while back when you called me so strong i _did_ answer you--more'n i should--not knawin you cared so much, joe. and may be i thart if ernie saw there was anudder man around hap it'd ginger him jealous and help us along. i was fighting for my home ... and my children ... and for him, joe.... and when a woman's fighting..." she broke off and gasped. he met her remorselessly. "then yo've chosen ... it's goodbye." she laid her hands upon his shoulders. "but not like that.--kiss me, joe." she lifted her face. slowly he dropped his hands upon her arms. and as they stood thus, entwined, the window opened quickly from outside, the curtains parted, and a voice low at first and rising to a horrible scream shrilled, "caught em at it!--_mr. spink_.--come and see for yourself then! _mr. spink_." chapter xl victory and revenge in the fury of his excitement alf thrust his head and shoulders far into the room. "got you this time!" he screamed to joe, his face distorted with hate. "_mr. spink!_" he cried to somebody who must have been near by. the engineer made a grab at him and seized him by the head. "got _you_, ye mean!" he bellowed and jerked the other bodily into the room. "ah, ye dirty spyin tyke!--i'll learn you!" he heaved his enemy from his knees to his feet and closed with him. the struggle was that of a parrot in the clutch of a tiger. joe carried his enemy to the door and slung him out head first. alf brought up with a bang against a big car which had just drawn up outside. a little lady sat in it. "will you get out of my way, please?" she said coldly to the man sprawling on his hands and knees in the dust at her feet, as she proceeded to descend. the prostrate man raised his eyes and blinked. the lady passed him by as she might have passed a dead puppy lying in the road. joe crossed the path and examined with a certain detached interest, the door of the car against which alf's head had crashed. "why, yo've made quite a dent in your nice car," he said. "pity." and he walked away down the street after mr. spink who was retiring discreetly round the corner. mrs. lewknor entered the cottage. ruth was sitting in the kitchen, her hands in her lap, dazed. the lady went over to her. "it's all right, ruth," she said gently in the other's ear. slowly ruth recovered and poured the tale of the last twenty-four hours into the ear of her friend. it was the cruelty of her mother-in-law more than anything else that troubled her: for it was to her significant of the attitude of the world. "that's her!" she said. "and that's them!--and that's how it is!" mrs. lewknor comforted her; but ruth refused to be comforted. "ah, you don't know em," she said. "but i been through it, me and little alice. see i'm alone again now ernie's gone. and so they got me. and they know it and take advantage--and mrs. caspar, that sly and cruel, she leads em on." "i think perhaps she's not as bad as she likes to make herself out," mrs. lewknor answered. she opened her bag, took out a letter, and put it in ruth's hand. it was from anne caspar, angular as the writer in phrase alike and penmanship, and in the pseudo-business vein of the daughter of the ealing tobacconist. _dear madam,--if your committee can help mrs. caspar in the moot, board for herself and four children, i will pay rent of same._ _yours faithfully, anne caspar._ later just as twilight began to fall ruth went up to rectory walk. anne was standing on the patch of lawn in front of the little house amid her tobacco plants, sweet-scented in the dusk, a shawl drawn tight about her gaunt shoulders. ruth halted on the path outside. "i do thank you, mrs. caspar," she said, deep and quivering. the elder woman did not look at her, did not invite her in. she tugged at the ends of her shawl and sniffed the evening with her peculiar smirk. "must have a roof over them, i suppose," she said. "even in war-time." the visit of mrs. trupp and mrs. lewknor to the registrar at lewes had proved entirely satisfactory. no marriage had taken place on the day in question, so examination disclosed. mrs. lewknor reported as much to her husband on her return home that evening. the colonel grinned the grin of an ogre about to take his evening meal of well-cooked children. "we must twist master alf's tail," he said; "and not forget we owe him one ourselves." at the next committee meeting, which the colonel attended, there was heavy fighting between the army and the church; and after it even graver trouble between alf and the reverend spink. "it's not only my reputation," cried the indignant curate. "it's the credit of the church you've shaken." "i know nothing only the facts," retorted alf doggedly--"if they're any good to you. i drove them there meself-- th september, , four o'clock of a saturday afternoon and a bit foggy like. you can see it in the entry-book for yourself. they went into the registrar's office single, and they walked out double, half-an-hour later. i see em myself, and you can't get away from the facts of your eyes, not even a clergyman can't." alf was additionally embittered because he felt that the curate had left him disgracefully in the lurch in the incident of the moot. the reverend spink on his side--somewhat dubious in his heart of the part he had played on the fringe of that affair--felt that by taking the strong and righteous line now he was vindicating himself in his own eyes at least for any short-comings then. "i shall report the whole thing to the archdeacon," he said. "it's a scandal. he'll deal with you." "report it then!" snapped alf. "if the church don't want me, neether don't i want the church." the war was killing the archdeacon, as mr. trupp had said it must. the flames of his indomitable energy were devouring the old gentleman for all the world to see. he was going down to his grave, as he would have wished, to the roll of drums and roar of artillery. thus when the reverend spink went up to the rectory to report on the delinquencies of the sidesman, he found his chief in bed and obviously spent. the old gentleman made a pathetic figure attempting to maintain his dignity in a night-gown obviously too small for him, which served to emphasize his failing mortality. his face was ghastly save for a faint dis-colouration about one eye; but he was playing his part royally still. his bitterest enemy must have admired his courage; his severest critic might have wept, so pitiful was the old man's make-believe. on a table at his side were all the pathetic little properties that made the man. there was his snuff-box; there the filigree chain; a scent-bottle; a rosary; a missal. on his bed was the silver-mounted ebony cane; and beneath his pillow, artfully concealed to show, the butt-end of his pistol. over his head was the photograph of a man whom the curate recognised instantly as sir edward carson; and beneath the photograph was an illuminated text which on closer scrutiny turned out to be the solemn league and covenant. facing the great unionist leader on the opposite wall was the emperor of the french. the likeness between the two famous imperialists was curiously marked; and they seemed aware of it, staring across the room at each other over the body of their prostrate admirer with intimacy, understanding, mutual admiration. almost you expected them to wink at each other--a knowing wink. mr. spink now told his chief the whole story as it affected alf. much of it the archdeacon had already heard from his wife. "i'd better see him," he now said grimly. and the archdeacon was not the only one who wanted to see alf just then. that afternoon, just as he was starting out with the car, he was called up on the telephone. the director of recruiting wished to see him at the town hall--to-morrow-- a.m., sharp. the voice was peremptory and somehow familiar. alf was perturbed. what was up now? "who is the director of recruiting here?" he asked mr. trupp a few minutes later. "colonel lewknor," the old surgeon answered. "just appointed. all you young men of military age come under him now." alf winced. the colonel's office was in the town hall, and one of the first men to come and sign on there was joe burt. the colonel, as he took in the engineer, saw at once that the hurricane which was devastating the world had wrought its will upon this man too. the joe burt he had originally known four years ago stood before him once again, surly, shy, and twinkling. "good luck to you," said the colonel as they shook hands. "and try to be an honest man. you were meant to be, you know." "a'm as honest as soom and honester than most, a reckon," the engineer answered dogged as a badgered schoolboy. the colonel essayed to look austere. "you'd better go before you get into worse trouble," he said. joe went out, grinning. "ah, a'm not the only one," he mumbled. outside in the passage he met alf, and paused amazed. "you goin to enlist!" he roared. "never!" and marched on, his laughter rollicking down the corridor like a huge wind. alf entered the colonel's office delicately: he had reasons of his own to fear everything that wore khaki. the colonel sat at his desk like a death's head, a trail of faded medal-ribands running across his khaki chest. he was thin, spectral, almost cadaverous. but his voice was gentle, as always; his manner as always, most courteous. nothing could be more remote from the truculence of the army manner of tradition. he was the spider talking to the fly. "i'm afraid this is a very serious matter, mr. caspar," he began; and it was a favourite opening of his. "it seems you've been taking away the character of the wife of a member of his majesty's forces now in france..." the interview lasted some time, and it was the colonel who did the talking. "and now i won't detain you further, mr. caspar," he said at the end. "my clerk in the next room will take all your particulars for our index card register, so that we needn't bother you again when conscription comes." "conscription!" cried alf, changing colour. "yes," replied the colonel. "there's been no public announcement yet. but there's no reason you shouldn't know it's coming. it's got to." alf went out as a man goes to execution. he returned to his now almost deserted garage to find there a note from the archdeacon asking him to be good enough to call at the rectory that afternoon. alf stood at the window and looked out with dull eyes. now that the earth which three weeks since had felt so solid beneath his feet was crumbling away beneath him, he needed the backing of the church more than ever; and for all his brave words to mr. spink, he was determined not to relinquish his position in it without a fight. that afternoon he walked slowly up the hill to the rectory. outside the white gate he stood in the road under the sycamore trees, gathering courage to make the plunge. if was five o'clock. a man got off the bus at billing's corner and came down the road towards him. alf was aware of him, but did not at first see who he was. "not gone yet then?" said the man. "no," alf answered. "got about as far as you--and that ain't very far." "i'm on the way," answered joe. "going up to the camp in summerdown now; and join up this evening." "ah," said alf. "i'll believe it when i see it." swag on back, joe tramped sturdily on towards the downs. alf watched him. then a gate clicked; and edward caspar came blundering down the road. alf in his loneliness was drawn towards him. "good evening, father," he said. the old gentleman blinked vaguely through his spectacles, and answered most courteously, "good evening, mr. er-um-ah!" and rolled on down the road. so his own father didn't know him! overhead an aeroplane buzzed by. from the coombe came the eternal noise of the hammers as the great camp there took shape. along summerdown road at the end of rectory walk a long convoy of army service corps wagons with mule-teams trailed by. a big motor passed him. in it was stanley bessemere and three staff-officers with red bands round their caps. they were very pleased with themselves and their cigars. the member for beachbourne west did not see his supporter. then there sounded the tramp of martial feet. it was saturday afternoon. the old town company of volunteers, middle-aged men for the most part, known to alf from childhood, was marching by on the way to drill on the downs. a fierce short man was in charge. three rough chevrons had been sewn on to his sleeve to mark his rank as sergeant; and he wore a belt tightly buckled about his ample waist. all carried dummy rifles. "left-right, left-right," called the sergeant in the voice of a drill-instructor of the guards. "mark time in front! forward! dressing by your left!" it was mr. pigott. alf's eyes followed the little party up the road. then they fell on his home covered with ampelopsis just beginning to turn. his mother was at the window, looking at him. whether it was that the glass distorted her face, or that his own vision was clouded, it seemed to alf that she was mocking him. then she drew down the blind as though to shut him out--his own mother. alf shivered. a young woman coming from billing's corner crossed the road to him. "well, alf," she said gaily, "you're getting em all against you!" alf raised his eyes to hers, and they were the eyes of the rabbit in the burrow with the stoat hard upon its heels. "yes," he said more to himself than her. "reckon i'm done." * * * * * the comforter ruth passed down the lane towards the golf links, the laughter sparkling in her brown eyes. she was merry, malicious, mischievously prim. then suddenly, as at the shutting of a door, her mood changed. something warm and large and tremulous surged up unbidden out of the ocean-deeps of her. to her own amazement she found herself sorry for the forlorn little figure with the eyes haunting and haunted, she had left standing in the road outside the rectory gate. a sense of the dramatic vicissitudes of life caught her by the throat. three weeks ago that little man had been conquering the world with a swagger, the master of circumstance, over-riding destiny, sweeping obstacles aside, a domineer, with all the attributes of his kind--brutal, blatant, sure of himself, indifferent to others, scornful of the humble. now he stood there at the cross-roads like some old tramp of the world, uncertain which way to turn--a mouse tossed overboard in mid-atlantic by the cook's boy, the sport of tides and breakers, swimming round and round with ghastly eyes in ever-shortening circle. the tempest which had all the world in grip, which had snatched ernie from her arms, and hurled him across the seas, which had set millions of men to killing and being killed, had caught this insignificant gnat too, flying with such a fuss and buzz of wings under ominous skies, and then swaggered on its great way indifferent to the tiny creature it had crushed. ruth crossed the links, almost deserted now, and walked along over the crisp smooth turf, her eyes on the township of yellow huts rising out of the green in the great coombe across summerdown road. then she was aware of mr. chislehurst coming swiftly towards her beside the ha-ha of the duke's lodge. he looked, ruth noticed at once, less harassed than he had done since the outbreak of war. "i am glad i've met you, mrs. caspar," he began with the old boyish enthusiasm. "i'm off to-morrow and wasn't sure i should have time to come round and say goodbye to you and the babes." ruth stared. "_you're_ never going out there, sir!" "only as military chaplain." ruth refused to believe. "but i thart you was against war and all that." "so i am," bobby answered gravely. he looked away towards paradise. "but i feel our lord is there, or nowhere--just now." ruth felt profoundly moved. the young man's words, his action, brought home to her with a sudden pang, as not even the departure of ernie had done, the change that had rushed upon the world. ruth looked at the smooth young face before her, brown and goodly, with all the hope and promise of the future radiant in it. a passionate desire to take the boy in her arms, to shield him, to cry--you _shan't!_ came over her. then she gulped and said, "goodbye, sir," and moved on rapidly. passing through meads, she turned the shoulder of the hill, and walked along the cliff, till she came to the long low house in the coombe. it had a strangely deserted air, no spinal chairs and perambulators on the terrace, no nurses on the lawns, no beds on the balconies. all that busyness of quiet recreation which had been going on here for some years past had been brought to a sudden halt. mrs. lewknor came out to her and the two women sat a while on the terrace, talking. they had drawn very close in these few days, the regiment an ever-present bond between them. the husband of one was "out there" with the st battalion; the son of the other was racing home with the nd battalion in the indian contingent. mrs. lewknor felt a comfortable sense that once the two battalions were aligned on the west front all would be well. "then let em all come!" the little lady said in her heart with almost vindictive glee. as ruth left she saw the colonel in khaki, returning from his office. he came stalking along the cliff, his head on his left shoulder, looking seawards. there was about the gaunt old man that air of austere exaltation which had marked him from the moment of the outbreak of war. in his ears, indeed, ever since that hour, there had sounded a steady note, deep and pulsing like the throb of an engine--the heart of england beating on, beating eternally, tireless, true, from generation to generation. and for one brief moment he had doubted her--might god forgive him! ruth asked him how recruiting was going. "well," replied the colonel. "they're flocking in--men of all ages, classes, and creeds. i shipped off burt this morning; and he's forty. wanted to join the hammer-men or manchesters with his friend tawney; but i said _no: every man his own job_, and sent him off to the flying folk as air-mechanic. he's joining up at newhaven to-night, and in a week he'll be out there." ruth asked if there was any news of the expeditionary force. "they're landed all right," the colonel replied. "we should soon hear more. our battalion's with the fourth division. if you go up on the head you can see the transports crossing from newhaven with the stuff." "think it'll be all right, sir?" asked ruth. "if we can stop their first rush," the colonel answered. "every day tells. we can't be too thankful for liége, though namur's a nasty knock." ruth looked across the sea. "i wish we could do something for em," she said wistfully. "we can," answered the colonel sharply, almost sternly. the old soldier took off his cap and stood there bare-headed on the edge of the white cliff, the wisps of silver hair lifting in the evening breeze. "may the god of our fathers be with them in the day of battle!" he prayed, and added with quiet assurance as he covered again--"he will too." then he asked the woman at his side if she had heard from her husband. ruth dropped her eyes, sudden and secretive as a child. "ern's all right, i reckon," she said casually. in fact a letter from him on the eve of sailing lay unopened in her pocket. she was treasuring it jealously, as a child treasures a sweet, to devour it with due ritual at the appointed hour in the appropriate place. ten minutes later she was standing waist-deep in the gorse of the ambush looking about her. far away a silver-bellied air-ship was patrolling leisurely somewhere over the rother valley; and once she heard a loud explosion seawards and knew it for a mine. like a hind on the fell-side she stood up there, sniffing the wind. behind her on the far horizon was a forest fire. she could smell it, see the glow of it, and the rumour of its coming was all a-round her: overhead the whistle and pipe of birds hard-driven, while under-foot the heather was alive with the stealthy migration of the under-world--adder and weasel, snake and hare, flying from the torment to come. but for her as yet the conflagration devouring the world was but an ominous red glare across the water. she breathed freely: for she had shaken off her immediate enemy--the hunter. then she looked up and saw a man coming over the brow of warren hill towards her. she dropped as though shot. _he_ was at her heels again. face down, flat on the earth, she lay panting in her form. and as she crouched there, listening to the thumping of her own heart, she was aware of another sound that came rollicking down to her, born on the wind. the hunter was laughing, that huge gusty laughter of his she knew so well. had he tracked her down? she heard his feet approaching on the turf. was the earth trembling at the touch of them or was it the beating of her own heart that shook it? prone on the ground, spying through the roots of the gorse, she could see those feet--those solid familiar boots that had dangled so often before her fire; and the bottoms of the trousers, frayed at the edges and rather short, betraying the absence of a woman's care. was it her he was after? no: he passed, still rollicking. he was not mocking her: he was tossing off his chest in cascades of giant laughter the seas that had so long threatened to overwhelm him, tossing them off into the blue in showers of spray. _i am free once more_! that was what his laughter said. she sat up: she knelt: warily she peeped over the green wall. his back was moving solidly away in the evening, his back with the swag on it. he reached the flag-staff and dropped away down into hodcombe, that lies between beau-nez and the belle-tout light-house. she watched him till only his round dark head was visible. then that too disappeared. she rose and filled her chest as the breeze slowly fills the sails of a ship that has long hovered uncertainly in stays. he too was gone--into _it_. that other was gone--like the rest--and the past with him. how queer it all was! and how differently each man had met the huge tidal wave that had swept the whole world off its feet! joe, paddling in the muddy shallows, had been caught up, and was swimming easily now on the crest of it. alf, snatched up unawares as he grubbed for bait upon the flats, had been tumbled over and over like a pebble, smashed down upon the remorseless beach, and drawn back with a sickening scream by the undersuck into the murderous riot of it. last of all, ern, asleep and snoring under the sunny sea-wall, had risen suddenly, girded on his strength, and waded out to meet it with rejoicing heart. dear ern! sinking down into the harbourage of this deep and quiet covert where, under the stars, all his children, conceived in ecstasy, had come to her, she took out his letter, opened it, and began to read. it was dated _in the train_, and began full of affection for her and the children. "now we made it up i don't mind what comes. i feel like it was a new beginning. there's a lot of married men joined up feel the very same. i feel uplifted like and that whatever comes nothing can ever come atween us no more really. even when it was dark i felt that--that it wasn't _really real_ between us--only a shadow like that would surely pass away--as it has passed away--thank god for his great mercies." there followed love and kisses to all the children and especially little alice, underlined, and fraternal greetings to old joe. "we shall push em back where they belong all right, i expect. and if we don't i shall send for him to lend a shove. he's all right, old joe is. there's not many of em i'd trust, but you can trust him. i knew that all along." the letter finished, "it's an end and a beginning, as old dad says. and whatever else _that's_ finished, and i don't care." it was true too. she folded the letter and slipped it in her bosom. the second volume of her life had ended, and ended well. the sudden hand of destiny had reached forth to save her, to save the children, to save ernie, to save joe. had she ever wavered?--who shall say?--perhaps she could not say herself. she cast her mind back over her married life. six years in september since she and ern had ridden back to old town in isaac woolgar's cart. six years of struggle, worry, and deep joy. she was thankful for them, thankful for the crowding babes, and most of all, she sometimes thought, thankful for ernie ... his unfailing love and solicitude for little alice! she could never be grateful enough to him for that. dear ern:--so affectionate, so always loveable. she regretted nothing, not even his weakness now. because of his weakness strength had come to her, growth, and the consummation of deep unconscious desire. had she been too hard on him?--a great voice of comfort, the voice of ernie, so it seemed to her, only swollen to gigantic proportions, till the sound of it was like the sound of the sou-west wind billowing through the beach-tops in paradise, surged up within her crying no. then she turned back to the first volume of her life, completed now so many years ago. for the second time she had been left thus, man-less, a new life quickening within her. but what a difference between then and now! then the fierce thief of her virginity had stolen away in the night, leaving her to meet the consequences, alone, an outcast, the hand of all men against her; and she recalled now with a shudder the afternoon on which she had gone forth to the crumbles and there amid the jeers of the remorseless sea had faced the situation. now it was true her accustomed mate had been snatched from her side; but the world was behind her. she was marching with the hosts, a mighty concourse, one of them, and uplifted on their songs. she had nothing to fear, much to be thankful for. how calm she felt, how strong, how confident of herself, above all of ernie! his punishment had made him and completed her own life. she had won her man and in winning him had won herself. and she would never lose him now. his pain, her pain, had been worth while. smiles were in her eyes as she recalled the fuss that he had made--his struggles, his temper, his wiles of a naughty and thwarted child; and tears where she recalled the anguish of his time of purgation. and yet because of his suffering he had been strong when the day of battle came, and he would be strong. she had no doubt of that. and it was all over now. rising she stood up and looked about her, absorbing the down-land, familiar and beloved from childhood. the sky, grey now and mottled, drooped about her quietly with the soft wings of a mothering bird settling soft-breasted on her nest. the good green earth, firm beneath her feet, lifted her up into the quiet refuge of that welcoming bosom, lifted her to meet it like a wave gently swelling. so it had always been: so it always would be. this earth she knew and loved so well was not alien, it was not hostile; rather it was flesh of her flesh and soul of her soul. it gave her strength and comfort. her bosom rose and fell in time, so it seemed to her, with the rise and fall of the breast of this virgin-mother, whose goodness she assimilated through heart and eyes and nostrils. she felt utterly at home. all sense of separation, of dissent, had left her. absorbed she stood, and absorbing. these woman-bodied hills, sparsely clad in rags of gorse that served only to enhance their loveliness, brought her solace and content as did nothing else. so it had always been: so it always would be. the beauty and wonder of them rolled in upon her in waves of sound-less music, sluicing over the sands of her life in foaming sheets of hyacinth, drowning the resentment, filling and fulfilling her with the grand harmony of life. sometimes down in the moot, amid the worry, and the tumult, and the exasperations, she became empty, a discord, a desert. then she would get away for an hour among the hills and her parched spirit found instant refreshment. she brimmed again. the quiet, the comfort, the deep abiding wonder of it all came back to her; even the words which she always associated with it--_i am the resurrection and the life_. since ernie's departure the comforter had come thus to her with renewed power; as if knowing her need and resolute to fortify her in the hour of her ordeal. standing there upon the brow, ernie's letter lying like his hand upon her breast in the old dear way, she gazed across the waters, dimming in the dusk, and sent out her heart towards him, strong and pulsing as the sun's rays at dawn seen by some mountaineer from his native peak. she could shield him so that no evil thing could come nigh him. she had no fear for him and was amazed at her own triumphant faith. established on the rock herself, earth in earth, spirit in spirit, invincibly secure, she had him safe in her keeping, safe, aye safe as his child quickening in the warm and sheltered darkness of her womb. headley bros., ashford, kent, & devonshire st., e.c. .