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 ITHE HOUSE OF BROKEN DREAMS 
 
 A MEMORY
 
 The House of 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 <*A ^Memory 
 
 By 
 
 Kathleen Watson 
 
 The Author of " Litanies of Life " 
 
 George Robertson & Company 
 
 Proprietary Limited 
 
 Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane
 
 STACK ANNEX 
 
 BEATRICE 
 
 r, or far, 
 Here, or beyond ! " 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 September, 1908.
 
 The House of Broken Dreams 
 
 From an Australian Garden 
 
 IT was in the morning, towards noontide, 
 when you came. The dawn flushed across 
 a beauteous world where soft airs blew ; 
 the breath of violets was everywhere ; 
 crystal dewdrops sparkled on the lawn ; 
 the birds sang in merry chorus from the 
 bougainvillea outside our window. And 
 it was, oh, how heavenly dear and glad 
 the day ! 
 
 Soft footsteps moved in the shadowy 
 room, kind hands fulfilled their gentle 
 ofHces, and presently your little lonely 
 cry rang out, the cry of the firstborn, 
 whose music is for the mother's heart
 
 The House of 
 
 alone. A passion of welcome greeted 
 you, and I think your little rosy body 
 must have felt the warmer for that 
 enfolding atmosphere of love. How do 
 those tiny creatures manage whose arrival 
 is considered a catastrophe of the direst 
 kind, who are held against no mother's 
 milky breast, who, directly the occasion 
 comes, are transplanted to some alien 
 soil, to wither or perchance to thrive 
 the misery of their ineffective entrance 
 notwithstanding ? 
 
 At the first blush, it seems as if only 
 the divinest care and love can keep these 
 frail blossoms alive at all, as if the first 
 breath of untoward wind would blow their 
 tiny lamp of life for ever out, as if an 
 ungentle thought even would suffice to 
 slay them. But the slums of Europe 
 and America, the deserts of Africa, the
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 bazaars of Asia, have another tale to tell : 
 and the wail of babies who cannot die, 
 yet whom no one wants to love or care 
 for, is heard the whole world over. 
 
 But you, Mine, the room was full of 
 sweet whispers at your coming, and the 
 burden of them all was this : " Lift up 
 your heart, lift up your heart, LIFT UP 
 YOUR HEART." And other joys were as 
 though they had not been, other griefs 
 too, in the wondrous, unnameable bliss 
 of having you. 
 
 " The babe by its mother 
 
 Lies bathed in joy, 
 Glide its hours uncounted 
 
 The sun is its toy ; 
 Shines the peace of all being, 
 
 Without cloud, in its eyes, 
 And the sum of the world 
 
 In soft miniature lies." 
 
 And those baby days that seemed so
 
 The House of 
 
 long in the actual passing, looking back 
 upon them, one can only see the cruel 
 swiftness with which they fled. Soon 
 that early bloom is lost : bitterly soon 
 the baby is the child, the child the boy, 
 the boy the youth, the youth the man. 
 There were things that I wanted to but 
 did not tell you, you were such a child. 
 And lo ! when I thought again to speak 
 them, Mine, you were old, too old to 
 hear. A woman cannot tell her boy 
 brave things too soon : if from laziness, 
 ennui, disinclination, or any other cause, 
 she puts the doing of this simple duty 
 off, her loss is only equal to what her 
 gain would have been had she reversed 
 her method. 
 
 All of which reminds me somehow of 
 that little bald baby-head of yours where 
 the curls were so long in growing. Yet
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 when they came and clustered round it, 
 waxing beautiful and strong, so soon we 
 had to cut them off at the brink where 
 babyhood and boyhood meet. In those 
 days I used to think I would record 
 those of your tiny sayings that seemed 
 most of value in a little book kept for 
 the purpose. But the book was never 
 written. For you did not savour of the 
 infant prodigy : your remarks were merely 
 sweet, honest, common as the daylight. 
 Stars and flowers and fairies were the 
 shrines before which your baby soul 
 prostrated itself most fervently : a little 
 later on, fluffy kittens, beautiful ladies 
 of high degree, bright clothes, ponies, 
 all had their turns of preference and 
 passionate devotion. 
 
 I notice how many women are fearful 
 and over-anxious about the appearance of
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 their children : how they spend golden 
 hours starching, ironing, fashioning their 
 little garments and gain thereby the name 
 of excellent good mother ; but how it 
 would never for a moment occur to 
 them to toil less at material objects and 
 guide the tiny mind to the contemplation 
 of things fairer than mud pies, of an 
 earth and heaven tender with romance 
 and story. Blessed indeed the woman 
 whose fingers are worn for her children's 
 sake ; but blessed with a special blessing, 
 she who called them out to find fairies' 
 homes in the mosses soft and cool, the 
 faces of friends in the stars so deep and 
 bright, brave thoughts in the flowers of 
 tender hues.
 
 I HAVE heard it said how much finer a 
 thing is peace than happiness. To me 
 there was never peace like that of your 
 babyhood. I have only to be again in 
 memory in that firelit room where you 
 lay gurgling on my knee, with the silver 
 kettle bubbling and the kitten purring 
 to the murmur of the flames and the 
 apotheosis of peace is there. Or in the 
 garden where you slept with the violets 
 breathing perfume round you, and the 
 leaves and blossoms as they fell without 
 sound about your hammock. Were I to 
 live a thousand lives I should never know 
 a deeper peace than that of those wondrous 
 hours. At the time I did not know it,
 
 The House of 
 
 but now, on looking back, it is as though 
 one had come from a strange wilderness 
 to an oasis fair beyond dreams or words, 
 and that the great Commander had there 
 called " Halt ! " while all the forces of 
 life stood still, marvelling much at the 
 tenderness of those pleasant places where 
 the leaves of the trees were indeed for the 
 healing of the nations. 
 
 The shadow fell when you were five 
 years old and your father went away. 
 The pain that followed, each could 
 hardly have borne had it not been for 
 the other. How we loved him, you 
 and I ! When he was some months 
 gone a letter came from him to the 
 effect that he would not come back 
 again ... as in peace, so in pain we 
 were together, you and I, alone, in- 
 separable, understanding with a perfect 
 
 8
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 understanding, babyhood and mother- 
 hood consoling one another as they two 
 ever and only can. 
 
 But even at this distance of time and 
 place I find I cannot write of these things. 
 My pen, it might slip from my control. 
 I have as little desire to be discursive 
 on this point as I have to be morbid 
 or hysterical. Agony of soul is a 
 terrible factor in life, as real as sun- 
 shine or as rain, and for the bearing of 
 it each one must in patience and in 
 silence fashion his own equipment. There 
 are agonies which no sympathy can reach, 
 just as there are sicknesses beyond the 
 care and cure of mortal surgeon. 
 
 Was it at this time, my darling, that 
 the garden ways grew suddenly so solemn, 
 the wild winds harsher, the falling of the 
 leaves so hopeless ? How often, then,
 
 The House of 
 
 your little hand without a word sought 
 mine and clung there closely till the heart 
 of me was almost persuaded to sing again ! 
 So the menace of the years grew fainter, 
 and the sound of your little running feet 
 would arouse one from dreams where 
 only desolation was. I never liked to 
 think of unkindness or injustice coming 
 near you. All ahead lay the awakening 
 to strife and manhood and bitter days : 
 now was this heavenly sheltered span of 
 childhood, of deep, unbroken calms, of 
 innocence and perpetual wondering by 
 and by the hardness to be endured, the 
 untoward influences to be reckoned with, 
 the illusions one by one to part from. 
 
 " Mother, T am thy little son 
 
 Why dost thou sigh ? 
 Hush ! for the shadow of the years 
 Stoopeth more nigh ! 
 
 10
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 Mother, I am thy little son 
 
 The night comes on apace, 
 When all God's waiting stars shall smile 
 
 On me in thy embrace. 
 
 Oh, hush thee! I see black starless night! 
 
 OA, fou/ds't thou slip away 
 Now, by the hawthorn hedge of Death 
 
 And get to God by <Day!" 
 
 II
 
 WHAT a little boy you were for stones ! 
 Froissart, Robin Hood, King Arthur's 
 Knights it was all one to you if only 
 from the safe shelter of home and 
 mother's arms you could look into the 
 wild, bright eyes of danger and dare as 
 the heroes did of long ago. Strangely 
 enough, even then it was always the 
 little mother who was to be protected 
 from dangers, seen and unseen, and the 
 greatest games of all were those in which 
 a lion or a tiger was to rush out at her, 
 and you with your tin sword at hand to 
 slay it gloriously. How near those dear 
 days seem ! The shadows on the grass, 
 the thrush upon the peach-tree, the very 
 
 12
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 oranges gleaming gold amid the sombre 
 foliage, they are close enough for me to 
 touch them. The murmur of the sweet 
 wind brushing over fruit and flower, the 
 scent of the freesias and the violet, the 
 gladness of the sunlight on the garden 
 ways, they are mine to-day as ever they 
 were then. 
 
 We stood at the gate of Gethsemane, 
 you and I and Susan, on the day we 
 left our garden where the velvet lawns 
 lay like a sweet green secret with tower- 
 ing shrubs and creepers and dainty flowers 
 growing thickly all around, hiding it from 
 the world beyond ; a beautiful reserve, 
 enclosing so fair a thing within, a 
 mystery with a rose at the heart of it. 
 
 Economy, that not unkindly step- 
 mother, bade us do this thing. I wanted 
 to have plenty of money for your educa-
 
 The House of 
 
 tion later on. I wanted to see the wide 
 world with you. I wanted to be by your 
 side when first your eyes should open to 
 the stories, the stones and skies of other 
 lands. Should you choose some special 
 service or calling for you own, I wanted 
 not to have you go down or fail for 
 lack of means as so many have done 
 before. Where one arrives at last who 
 started with the proverbial penny in his 
 fist, a thousand others are swallowed up 
 for all time in the cruelties and chances 
 of the game. I wanted to take no risks 
 in this which was my life to me. God 
 alone may know if I was right or wrong. 
 To this end we let our home upon the 
 plains for a term of years, and in obedi- 
 ence to a doctor's wish came to a highland 
 place where a little cottage was, set high 
 upon a hill.
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 Nor hedge nor gate was there. The 
 garden ran into the wild, open, aromatic 
 bush. All the little world, if it was so 
 minded, could gaze at the open curtained 
 windows by day and note at night in 
 which room a light shone and in which 
 darkness held possession. In three days' 
 time the use and purpose of every one of 
 the five rooms was known to the entire 
 village. The utter lack of privacy at first 
 staggered us, then amused us ; finally we 
 accepted, even welcomed it, and presently 
 forgot to sigh for the deep solitudes and 
 silences of the ways of our home below. 
 We too grew interested in the busy life 
 that went on, without haste, without rest, 
 around us : the woodcutter at work upon 
 a giant tree ; the big wagons drawing up 
 at the " store " ; the widow Crozier prun- 
 ing and tying up her long rows of currant
 
 The House of 
 
 and raspberry bushes with such beautiful 
 precision and despatch ; Jones the car- 
 penter adding two rooms to his bush 
 abode in anticipation of the coming of 
 his bride ; Miss Franks, the lonely elderly 
 teacher of music and other accomplish- 
 ments, doing her chores by stealth when 
 the pupils were away. And then the 
 things of the wild world itself the little 
 lark of summer soaring from the lowly 
 grasses to the clouds, the velvet button 
 of the first mushroom in the dewy fields 
 of morning, the first cluster of coral fern 
 in the gully, the first blackberry ripe and 
 shining on the hedgerow how we watched 
 and waited and sang for joy when at last 
 we found them ! 
 
 And so little by little, more and more, 
 we grew to love our life. 
 
 Twenty miles distant from our village, 
 
 16
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 which crowns the top of a range of lofty 
 hills that sweep round in a crescent, lies 
 the capital city of the State. In the day- 
 time, when storms or golden glories of leaf 
 and valley fill the distance between these 
 two, no sign, save occasionally that of a 
 thin grey veil, is vouchsafed to the dwellers 
 on the heights of the city, warm and palpi- 
 tating far below : but at night, when dark- 
 ness rolls in like a mighty tide to fill the 
 gulf between, long chains of lights gleam 
 like jewels on the far horizon and speak 
 in no uncertain voice to those of the high- 
 lying places. This consolation of the 
 darkness, this mystic link between the 
 clamour of man's world and the peace 
 of that of God's, rarely fail either to 
 touch the heart or inspire the mind. 
 One falls to wondering if in the day- 
 time they of the city, when they look
 
 The House of 
 
 from some point of vantage on to these 
 far green hills which at night are hidden 
 from their sight, feel also the interest, 
 longing, curiosity, which possess us of 
 the remoter places as night by night we 
 watch the beacons of the city flashing 
 forth. 
 
 For you and me this was a picture 
 we never tired of. You used to climb 
 on a chair and stand behind me with 
 your arms around my neck, and together 
 we would look through the miles of 
 velvet gloom whose extremest edge would 
 suddenly be patterned in wondrous, vivid, 
 quivering points of gold. Then we would 
 turn to each other and smile in wordless 
 happiness ; for all the pictures of the day 
 were never quite as this one of the night 
 so full of mystery, enchantment, pro- 
 mise, and surprise. What was down there 
 
 18
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 under those serene and steadfast lamps, by 
 that distant altar spread with glowing 
 tapers for the nightly sacrifice ? Was 
 it little children weeping for a mother 
 gone before ? Was it little flower girls 
 aching, footsore, and very short of pence ? 
 Was it a birthday feast, with cakes and 
 presents and games of glorious report ? 
 Was it a letter which said that a father 
 long away was coming home again ? Oh ! 
 the stories being told under the lamps 
 down there each night a new one, each 
 night the old ones over again. 
 
 And yet for all the stories which the 
 stones of cities could unfold, these silent 
 places by the eucalyptus forests and the 
 springs which sparkle down the fern- 
 crowned gullies surely they are the fit 
 setting for the austerer realities of man- 
 kind. The wind among the tree-tops
 
 The House of 
 
 is their dirge ; the glory of leaf and 
 sky and shade their anthem holy ; the 
 wattle gold of spring, the later pageant 
 of fruit and flower, their march triumphal ; 
 the snows, the winter snows, the kindly 
 pall that hides and hushes, that covers all 
 at last so fairly. 
 
 Thus, with love at the hearth, music 
 in the room, the wilderness without gay 
 with flowers, life went not uncomforted 
 or brokenly altogether. The very names 
 around us smelt well and were good to 
 speak Olinda, Sassafras, Dandenong, 
 Ferntree Gully. To drive over the hills 
 down into Paradise Valley, through miles 
 of blossoming orchards and giant ferns, 
 past Aura, Emerald, Cockatoo and Gem- 
 brook, set indeed as a diamond by the 
 crystal waters, was a lesson in the study 
 
 20
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 of words such as is not learned in the 
 schools of men. What memories were to 
 be yours, to take with you into the busy 
 world of cities, when the time was ripe, 
 what store of freshness and delight to keep 
 your heart from fainting ever ! For those 
 were the days when you loved every 
 minute of your life. 
 
 Oh ! little cottage, set high upon the 
 hill, how true indeed it is that the 
 greater part of service is never paid for. 
 I can pay for the tiny rent of you, but 
 not for the peace and love that sheltered 
 under your steep red roof and spoke from 
 your honest face. I have watched you 
 from every side and never a corner of you 
 that was not good to see. In the star- 
 shine, with the sparkling silent snows 
 folding you round and round, you move 
 my heart to issues that may not be 
 
 21
 
 The House of 
 
 spoken. In the radiant stillness of those 
 summer mornings, newborn of joy and 
 dew and colour indescribable, it still is 
 all the world to me to know that in 
 the distance you are- there, dainty within 
 and dear without, ready for shelter or for 
 shade, the fairy stronghold which has our 
 joint lives in its keeping. In the evening, 
 as I walk abroad, when the wide world 
 sleeps so softly and the music of choirs 
 invisible melts over the mountain tops, 
 when littlenesses fade away, life is supreme, 
 and pain for a little while lies lost in 
 bliss even so, I love to turn from my 
 vantage point and see you dimly in the 
 moonlight or the starshine there. Suddenly 
 I know that I must run, run back to the 
 shelter of your walls as though to some 
 loved open arms, and listen to my little 
 boy breathing there, a music sweeter than 
 
 22
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 that of all the spheres. For human things 
 are so terribly dear and hold with a magic 
 and a might that the merely spiritual may 
 hardly know. 
 
 Two years after we made our home 
 upon the hill-top a cruel summer-end 
 scourged the land for miles around. 
 The heat was as a fierce hidden monster 
 whom no one can go forth and do battle 
 with, but who from some mysterious am- 
 bush sits and laughs at the miseries he 
 sows around. For three weeks day 
 followed night and night day without 
 the least tempering of the brazen glow. 
 Water was scarce, food and sleep nearly 
 impossible, nerves at a tension, and sick- 
 ness rife. But out of distress came health. 
 The common trouble brought a host of 
 common kindnesses in its train. Surely 
 
 2 3
 
 The House of 
 
 never were people so generous and full 
 of sympathy before, and worthily you 
 took your place among the smaller 
 helpers there. Early in the morning, 
 with a broad-brimmed hat on your head, 
 you used to run down to the spring in 
 the gully with a large can to fill for 
 Miss Franks, who was prostrate. Then 
 you would carry the newspaper and her 
 letters to her, and after breakfast run 
 through the bush to the schoolhouse, a 
 mile away, for your lessons. 
 
 On one of these days we arranged 
 that after school you should go out of 
 your way to bring home some honey, 
 for Susan to make honey scones where- 
 with to tempt our difficult appetites. 
 
 It was about four of the afternoon. 
 I was sewing in the airless room, with 
 blinds drawn against the relentless glare,
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 awaiting your home-coming. I remember 
 that a great longing had hold of me to 
 have you back. It was so blindly, cruelly 
 hot that I was afraid for my little boy that 
 some injury might happen to him. Every 
 few minutes I laid down my work and 
 stepped out on the verandah and stood 
 in the fierce blazing silence looking 
 down the path by which you should 
 come. Not a cloud moved : not a leaf 
 stirred. Nothing in nature whispered that 
 the hour would soon be " dumb with un- 
 told calamity." Suddenly it all seemed 
 to happen in a flash I heard children 
 shouting, running, men dashing by, a wild 
 fear in their breathless, broken words. 
 " Fire ! Fire ! The bush is on fire ! " 
 
 For a moment the world reeled 
 around me ; then with a cry to Susan 
 I flew towards the furnace through 
 
 2 5
 
 The House of 
 
 which I knew that you would pass. 
 I seem to remember people crying 
 " Stop ! " The air was heavy with 
 smoke which stung one's eyes cruelly : 
 the roar and crackling of the fire was 
 like the thunder of waves on an iron 
 shore. I saw and heard these things 
 dimly, as in a mist ; all the time the 
 only thing I really saw was your des- 
 pairing little body caught in this trap 
 of flame and death. At present the 
 path was just clear, but the meeting of 
 the fiery arch overhead would only be 
 a matter of a few minutes. Giants of 
 the forest, hoary with the memories of 
 centuries, died royally that day, their 
 burning arms outstretched in unavailing 
 prayer or protest. A spark blew towards 
 me, and in a twinkling the light muslin 
 gown I wore was all ablaze. I had to 
 
 26
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 stop and tear it from me and the 
 thought that I should die before I 
 found you froze my heart within me. 
 I tried to call you, but no sound came. 
 Hares, rabbits, lizards, things innumer- 
 able, tortured and distraught, rushed 
 before me. Once a great black snake 
 hissed defiance almost at my feet. A 
 few steps farther and the rest of my 
 clothing was on fire. I tore every 
 vestige from me, yet did not know, or 
 knowing did not care, that I was 
 naked, naked from crown to sole. 
 Sparks, driven by the hot gale, fell 
 continually on my bare flesh and stung 
 me to a frenzy of fear that I should 
 die before I found you. 
 
 Indeed, in those moments I tasted 
 death, and the bitterness of it would be 
 unbelievable to those who were never 
 
 27
 
 The House of 
 
 in like case. My life, lit up with 
 love down the days gone by and for 
 those to come, was to be mine no 
 more, but in this fiery furnace was to 
 go out like a spent spark. Though 
 if only I might not die till I had 
 found you ! I think the passion of that 
 prayer must have pierced the floor of 
 heaven and flown at last to the heart 
 of the Most High. It is the second 
 prayer of my life which has been 
 answered in heavenly measure. 
 
 For suddenly you were there in the 
 pathway, crying, " Mother, oh, mother 
 dear ! " . . . And your face and your 
 eyes were the face and the eyes of your 
 father. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Not a hurt came near you on that 
 dreadful day, but for long weeks after- 
 
 28
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 wards I had to lie down helplessly 
 with my hands and arms swathed in 
 bandages : though no one could have 
 died, I think, with devotion such as 
 yours to keep them living. We had 
 a trained nurse from the city, and 
 Sister Nora, as her name was, made 
 the cottage gay from dawn till eve with 
 her badinage, slang, and dear Irish ways. 
 She used to look at you quizzically, 
 then exclaim grandly 
 
 " Oh, you, Eric John Calendar, with 
 your wondering eyes, your proud mouth, 
 and your merry heart ! What is the secret 
 of you then ? For I will swear there is 
 a secret, and if my kingdom was worth 
 a twopenny, yes, a twopenny marble, 
 you should have it, and welcome, for 
 the telling." Then you would grow rosy 
 and run away from her in shy amaze. 
 
 29
 
 The House of 
 
 Or it would be myself on whom the 
 light of her eyes would fall in gay and 
 tender questioning 
 
 " Listen ! " she said one evening as we 
 sat alone. " There is something on your 
 mind these days, not the big troubles of 
 which one does not speak, but one of 
 the little horrid corroding things that 
 fret and fret and fret. Oh, don't I know 
 them ! The atmosphere of the sick- 
 room is so confoundedly conducive to 
 their growth." 
 
 " Witch ! Fairy ! Sprite ! " 
 
 " Not one of them. Just Nora, Sister 
 Nora." 
 
 "Yes; it's such a stupid little thing 
 too, really not a thing to waste words 
 over at all." 
 
 " But they always are. Don't I know 
 them ! " 
 
 30
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 "Yet, as you say, against my will, as 
 I lie here, I think of it and it frets me. 
 It was on that dreadful day. I think it 
 is the reason why I hate to speak of 
 that day at all. You remember, I met 
 Eric near the edge of the blazing wood. 
 There was no going back by the way 
 I had come : it was like a river of fire 
 in full tide, so we fled towards the 
 schoolhouse. As we dashed from the 
 burning bush into the open road where 
 safety was at last, a man, the school- 
 master, was standing at the playground 
 fence. He stared at us both without 
 understanding for a minute. Then he 
 said : * Come in quickly, I see how it 
 is with you.' And as I made to pass in 
 at the little gate, he whispered, so low 
 that I feel sure Eric did not hear : ' Oh, 
 you beauty, you beauty ! ' With that
 
 The House of 
 
 I cowered to the ground and fell faint- 
 ing by the fence. Eric dashed off to 
 get a sheet which was hanging from a 
 line close by and he hid my nakedness. 
 But I trust and think he did not hear 
 the insult which scorched deeper than 
 flame into the burnt body. That is all, 
 dear nurse. Such a little silly tale. But 
 it hurts ! " 
 
 "Tell me. If you had not gone that 
 day for Eric through the wood, would 
 he have come home to you through 
 the fire?" 
 
 " So it seems straight through the 
 fire. He was just making up his mind 
 for the plunge. Of course he did not 
 know how bad it was farther on, but 
 he was coming through." 
 
 " And would have been inevitably 
 caught in the burning trap and killed?" 
 
 3 2
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 " Inevitably, yes. It seems so." 
 
 " Then never let the thought of what 
 you told me just now hurt you for a 
 moment's space again. Thank God 
 instead that you had a child for whose 
 sake, not only your body, but your soul 
 was scorched. So many women would 
 die for their child who have not even 
 one to live for." 
 
 " Nora ! Sister Nora ! I love your 
 voice : it is kind as the night itself. 
 And the thing it says is best of all." 
 
 " Ah ! yes. But I cannot let you off 
 your gruel. Really I cannot. ' Re- 
 member, Nurse, the strength must be 
 thoroughly maintained ' can't you hear 
 him saying it ? " 
 
 And her mimicry was never in better 
 form. 
 
 Afterwards she wheeled me out to see 
 
 33
 
 The House of 
 
 the starshine on the wattle, which was 
 all in bloom around us, so that I might, 
 as she said, go to sleep on quiet thoughts 
 and a tender vision. 
 
 You were there, deep in that nightly 
 story-book of yours, the starry sky. 
 
 " There must be a birthday feast 
 among the angels to-night," said Sister 
 Nora. " Look at the candles that are 
 lit." 
 
 " A candle for every year. What a 
 terribly old angel it must be ! " you 
 sighed. 
 
 " I will never try my tongue at 
 poetry again," flashed Nora. " It is 
 always the same : when my real self 
 for a moment escapes me, it is 
 instantly crushed." 
 
 That slow, bewildered smile grew on 
 your face, the smile of a child who 
 
 34
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 wonders why its elders use so many 
 needless words. It always seems to me 
 a dearer thing than the smile of instant 
 comprehension that comes with later 
 years. 
 
 That night we thought we were in 
 Eden, so rich with calm and fragrance 
 it was, underneath the faint- white jewel- 
 sewn sky, in that high green garden 
 among the gold dust of the silver 
 wattle. For the fire had spared one 
 side of the mount entirely. 
 
 A mountain, a garden, and a home 
 it is the trinity more to be desired of 
 the children of men than much fine 
 gold. 
 
 By this time we had built a fence 
 round our home. Suddenly in the 
 gloom of the bush a step sounded and 
 the latch of the gate was lifted. " It 
 
 35
 
 The House of 
 
 is the schoolmaster," you said, and I 
 remember that you came at once to my 
 chair, as we remember little things some- 
 times when the larger ones have slipped 
 from our ken for ever. 
 
 Nora hastened down the path to meet 
 him. " Yes ? " she questioned. 
 
 " Good evening. It is Mrs. Calendar 
 I want to see. I hear she is nearly 
 quite well again. I have no time in the 
 day to call." 
 
 " Mrs. Calendar is almost convalescent, 
 but she cannot see any strangers yet. 
 She has not recovered from the shock. 
 I am . very sorry." 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, waving Nurse aside, 
 "just a few words, surely, just a hand- 
 shake ! There she is on the verandah 
 with her boy, is she not?" 
 
 " Yes, she is there, but I cannot let
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 you see her. Indeed, I am very sorry. 
 It will be some time before she will be 
 able to see strangers." 
 
 And Nora, it seems, smiled her most 
 brilliant smile, and stood with arms 
 akimbo in the little path. They 
 measured glances for a moment in the 
 gloom. Then the schoolmaster said 
 curtly 
 
 " Ah, well ! To him who waits ! 
 Kindly give Mrs. Calendar my sym- 
 pathy and best regards. Good evening." 
 
 And sister Nora, coming thoughtfully 
 and slowly up the path, remarked softly 
 with a sigh after the latch had fallen 
 
 " There goes another of the men who 
 will never marry me. There is such a 
 vast procession of them now." 
 
 37
 
 I NOTICE how often people, and those 
 not in special agony of soul or body, 
 carelessly say they wish the day were 
 done. There is no beauty, it would seem, 
 in the blue hours as they shine, then 
 softly go out one by one for all time ; 
 their passing is a matter for thanksgiv- 
 ing ; work and worry and the fret of 
 mean things are so heavy and so 
 close that nothing else is seen or felt, 
 and the whisper of the world falls on 
 unheeding or impatient ears. 
 
 I am glad now to think that I do 
 not remember, then, a single day at the 
 end of which we smiled that it was 
 done. Each day, maybe, had its sob
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 deep down within the heart, but the dear 
 fact that we were alive and well and 
 that we had each other laid lesser long- 
 ings low. A poet says in fair words 
 what the multitude dimly and dumbly 
 feels without quite knowing it. Our 
 prayer in those days was perhaps 
 
 " Teach us delight in simple things 
 And mirth that has no bitter springs, 
 Forgiveness free of evil done 
 And love to all men 'neath the sun ! " 
 
 A passion for astronomy, a fierce hatred 
 of cruelty, an absorbing delight in 
 gardening were points that no one who 
 knew you could for a moment have 
 missed. I do not know if these are 
 boyish or manly qualities. I am afraid, 
 perhaps, they are not quite. Boys love 
 to pull off flies' wings and cut worms 
 
 39
 
 The House of 
 
 in two, stars and clouds do not trouble 
 them in the least, and gardening is 
 "jolly rotten work." My plea would be 
 that when we are natural surely then 
 we are best. Why should a little boy 
 hurt insects because most boys do, when 
 all his instincts are set in another way ? 
 To see a horse or a dog ill-treated 
 spelt hours of misery for you ; to watch 
 the moon climbing over the hilltop, 
 threading her delicate way through the 
 fleecy clouds and up the starry steep, 
 and to learn something of her story 
 and her work, was what you never tired 
 of ; to see the fronds and tassels of the 
 new ferns bursting through the snow, 
 the green promise of the harvest shim- 
 mering over the torn and tortured earth, 
 and the tiny seeds of your own sowing 
 unfolding at last into little gems of 
 
 40
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 grace and colour, inspired in you the 
 same ecstasy of gladness that parties, 
 pantomimes, and picnics do in other boys, 
 I fancy. But, O Mine, if after all 
 theirs was the more excellent way ! 
 
 Sometimes I thought you brought 
 home a solemn little face from school. 
 But we told each other everything : 
 there could be no small trouble not 
 known to me. One such day I asked 
 you if the world went well with you. 
 Gradually I gathered that it was the 
 schoolmaster who harassed your little 
 life in some inexplicable way, so intan- 
 gibly, so imperceptibly, that until directly 
 questioned you could not have given 
 voice or form to the matter. He would 
 blame or bully without any reason ; 
 with even less he would on occasion 
 praise and flatter, and this, it seems, was
 
 The House of 
 
 harder to bear than that. In fact, he 
 singled you out especially for small 
 pricks and attentions of one kind or 
 another according to the mood or whim 
 of the moment. And I, whose every 
 effort was to the end that your mind 
 should be steeped in just a.nd comely 
 ways, I had no weapon in all my armoury 
 wherewith to fight this elusive hidden 
 foe. 
 
 " Oh, mother dear, as if it mattered ! 
 Why did you get it out of me like 
 that ? I suppose I must pay some 
 little bit for all the jolly times. He 
 can't touch Saturdays or Sundays or the 
 holidays. Oh, mother, just let him 
 rip ! " 
 
 I remembered the different times when 
 the schoolmaster had called and how on 
 one pretext or another I had invariably
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 excused myself from seeing him. These 
 little poor things, do they mean, after 
 all, so much in life? 
 
 " The next time he calls, Eric, he 
 must come in," I told you. 
 
 "No such beactly thing, mother! I'd 
 have to be extra civil to him then, and 
 all my gorge gets up at the thought of 
 him inside here with us even for a 
 second. He has a brazen cheek to 
 call at all where he must see he's 
 thoroughly not wanted." 
 
 " Dear, if he is fit to teach you he 
 is fit to come inside the house. I 
 really never thought of it like this." 
 
 " No, and never do again. Do you 
 think our jolly evenings are ever going 
 to be made discontented on his rotten 
 account ? " 
 
 " Eric ! " 
 
 43
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 " Mother ! " 
 
 Then the room rang with our laughter, 
 and alas ! we were unashamed. The 
 little sin was sweet. We enjoyed it with 
 something of the wild and fearful joy 
 that trembles in a child's heart when he 
 holds a stolen flower or pear. Have 
 you quite forgotten, Mine ? 
 
 44
 
 ERIC, In this record of the years, 
 which in some far distant day your 
 children's eyes may see, I have made no 
 mention of Susan, Susan who was with 
 us always, in good fortune and in poor, 
 Susan of whom it would be hard to say 
 how much she loved us, thought for us, 
 and did for us, she who knew nothing 
 of books and " learning," but vastly 
 much of men, women, babies, and the 
 things of the home. You could only 
 have been ten or eleven years old when, 
 by reason of her constancy, you chris- 
 tened her the polar star " of whose true- 
 fixed and resting quality there is no 
 fellow in the firmament." 
 
 45
 
 The House of 
 
 When you are a grown man I think 
 you will remember what a wonder of 
 self-training she was. Friendly but not 
 familiar, following us in everything and 
 everywhere with a perfect allegiance, 
 never under any circumstances sympathis- 
 ing with herself, not given to chattering ; 
 when a smile could do instead of a 
 word, the smile was always there. 
 
 You and I, who continually read dear 
 things together, do you remember, one 
 day, how we met those words of Dante 
 
 "Yea, thou shalt learn how salt his food who 
 
 fares 
 
 Upon another's bread, how steep his path 
 Who treadeth up and down another's stairs ? " 
 
 We were in the garden. It was a 
 Sunday morning and the world was full 
 of peace and sunshine. Susan was with-
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 in, busying with the meal, and as we 
 read we halted to think each the same 
 thought. That by any token that kind 
 and loyal soul should find her food 
 salt or an inch of the path steep be- 
 cause of us was not to be borne indeed. 
 
 The colour, depth, and inspiration 
 that may be in the written word ! The 
 lines fashioned long ago by a master- 
 hand in an old Italian city came winging 
 their way across ocean, desert, forest, 
 field, to a bush-garden of Australia and 
 floated round, transmuted into living 
 gold, in the sunshine of a far country. 
 
 For thirteen years and more her feet 
 had gone to and fro unweariedly for us 
 were we careless of her loving-kind- 
 ness ? We hardly thought so, but there 
 might be things, one could never tell. 
 
 " Mother ! " you cried to me, your 
 
 47
 
 The House of 
 
 dear boy's face instinct with eagerness 
 and joy, " let her come in and have 
 all her meals with us. Often when I 
 go through to the kitchen, she's sitting 
 with a cup of tea over the fire, and 
 when I ask her where her dinner is, she 
 says she doesn't feel like any. I'll bet 
 you she's thinking of her dead husband 
 and child or some rotten business like 
 that. Oh, mother, do ! Dear old Polar 
 (tell those little children this was your 
 name for her) with us at every meal 
 it'll be just the shiny shilling ! " 
 
 Thenceforth Susan's snowy cap and 
 interested smile at one end of the table 
 were the daily order, and her appetite 
 improved so much that she grew quite 
 anxious for the contours of her comfort- 
 able figure, and declared at times that 
 nothing but her own kitchen would 
 
 48
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 reduce her to respectable proportions 
 again. 
 
 " But, ah me ! a meal with flowers, 
 fine linen, and the loved one, made the 
 hour sunny even if the sky was grey," 
 was Susan's little epigram, she whose 
 only learning was of the heart and eye, 
 who in agony and tenderness had buried 
 all her dead. 
 
 u Look, Susan," I said to her one 
 morning after breakfast, as she and I 
 sat lingering alone between the sunshine 
 and the fireglow, " if Mr. Smart, the 
 schoolmaster, calls again, just let him 
 in." 
 
 " What ! him ? " she queried, not well 
 pleased. 
 
 This, of course, was my fault, so 
 unconsciously do we colour each other's 
 lives and thoughts, though I hardly 
 
 49
 
 The House of 
 
 remember having mentioned his name to 
 her before. 
 
 " It appears he has been behaving in 
 an odd sort of way to Eric possibly 
 because he hasn't been invited inside. It 
 is a nuisance, but we have to do these things. 
 We should have done this one before." 
 
 She smiled dubiously but said no more. 
 
 " Susan, we have to be careful, living as 
 we do so much together and alone, not to 
 drift too far away from the normal point 
 of view." 
 
 " And what may that be, please 
 ma'am ? " 
 
 " Well, we mustn't seem to avoid 
 people, we mustn't build a hedge of 
 aloofness round about ourselves. We 
 might begin to think we were better than 
 our fellows, and disaster lies that way, as 
 you would be the first to see. Perhaps 
 
 5
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 that is why big men in books talk about 
 the splendour of the normal and the 
 commonplace." 
 
 " I don't see that you're called upon to 
 have that man inside if you don't want to, 
 not for all the fine words in the world ; 
 no, I don't." 
 
 " Susan, but I do believe you're right. 
 Not for the sake of the words, then, silly 
 words, nor for the sake of the matter 
 insignificant matter after all but for 
 Eric's sake. 
 
 Her eyes shone suspiciously. 
 
 " For Master Eric's sake. Why, 
 ma'am, of course. What was we think- 
 ing about in the dear Lord's name, 
 what was we thinking about ? " 
 
 ***** 
 
 I have met and heard of numberless 
 women striving to keep young-hearted
 
 The House of 
 
 and young-looking for their lover's or 
 their husband's sake, and sometimes I 
 wonder, "Are there as many who try to 
 do this for their child's sake ? " I shiver 
 at the thought that when you are twenty- 
 two I shall be forty-four and so on. 
 How many times we have discussed this 
 situation together in its serious and its 
 tragic aspects ! At fifty I shall be so 
 terribly old that all the time you can 
 spare from work is presumably to be 
 used in wheeling me from post to post in 
 a bath-chair. 
 
 For me to say, " Eric, how big you 
 are ! Do run away. I want to be young 
 for a few moments," was to touch the top 
 note of such irony as we ever practised 
 though, indeed, I hear that irony (the 
 real sort) and porridge are the two best 
 ingredients on which to rear a family.
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 " Tell us the story of the mother who 
 was a bally rotter, dear ! " you would say 
 when we were skirting the shores of these 
 subjects. 
 
 And Susan would echo you without 
 shame : " Yes, please, ma'am, will you ? 
 I like it fine." 
 
 " But, Susan, did you hear what he 
 said ? No one who is a mother must 
 ever be called that." 
 
 " But she was, dear," you persisted. 
 
 Here it is then, in black and white, 
 as short as may be, the story of a little 
 French boy the trinket child they called 
 him. He was the only child of a wealthy 
 beautiful young Parisian mother, and for six 
 years he was part of her daily programme, 
 much as her coiffeur, her jeweller, her 
 horses what you will. His point lace 
 collars, his plumed hats, his satin suits, 
 
 53
 
 The House of 
 
 his shoes with their buckles of Rhinestone 
 diamonds, were the subjects of as careful 
 discussion and decision as her own toilets 
 were. When he was eighteen months old 
 gloves were made to his measure. In his 
 fifth year he went to innumerable children's 
 fancy balls, appearing variously as a tiny 
 Henri III., as a magyar, as an Italian 
 peasant, as an abbe of the time of Louis 
 XV. In his sixth year the portrait 
 painter of the day made a wonderful 
 study of him, which was hung in the 
 Salon. It was called " The White 
 Child." 
 
 On a white bearskin stood the child 
 with white silk draperies behind. He 
 was clad in a white velvet suit, white 
 shoes, and a large white felt hat 
 with a cygnet's plume. He held a 
 bunch of white lilies in one hand while 
 
 54
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 the other rested on a large white Syrian 
 hound. 
 
 " Poor little ass ! " would come from 
 your corner, with Susan nodding approval 
 from hers. 
 
 The public went mad over this orgy of 
 white, describing it as the supreme inspira- 
 tion of genius, the painter received the 
 cross of the Legion of Honour, and the 
 young mother was in an ecstasy. Every- 
 where that it was possible to do so she 
 took her child : in streets, shops, houses, 
 at race meetings, public gatherings of all 
 kinds, " first nights " even, people turned 
 round exclaiming : " Ah, look ! there he 
 is, the White Child with his mother." 
 Curiously enough, the White Child was 
 never heard to laugh, and his smile was 
 the rarest and some said the strangest 
 thing seen. 
 
 55
 
 The House of 
 
 But he had reached the top of baby 
 triumph ; his little world was to ring 
 with his baby name no more. Suddenly, 
 one season, his small, bored, blase face 
 disappeared from the scene. It was 
 noised abroad that he was growing fast, 
 and was in the hands of a tutor. With 
 the limelight no longer on him, he seems 
 to have passed out of ken. But a few 
 years later a sallow-faced, disconsolate 
 schoolboy, at home for the week-end 
 leave, sat alone in the great dining-room 
 (his mother was not partial to schoolboys, 
 and as a rule dined out on Saturdays 
 and Sundays), before a multitude of 
 untasted courses, looking at the picture 
 of The White Child in its shining 
 frame. 
 
 " Ah ! but she really did care for 
 me then, I think," he said aloud. . . .
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 "And the butler" this, very gently, 
 from Susan. 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course. And the butler 
 slipped noiselessly from the room." 
 
 57
 
 My ERIC, I come now to a page which 
 I fain would not write at all. It is 
 another of the things of which we do not 
 speak either to Susan or to one another, 
 unless by a random word in the rarest 
 moment. And then a look, a flash of 
 understanding that says more than all the 
 words of all the world, and it is hushed 
 again to silence. And my heart shivers, 
 dear, to write of it. At the pity of it the 
 blue day weeps and the night is full of 
 terror. 
 
 One quiet shining noontide in the late 
 spring, when for all its peace the air was 
 charged with an indescribable freshness 
 and vitality later on I remember wonder-
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 ing dimly at myself that I should take 
 heed of its beauty I said to Susan that 
 I would go by the little path, as we always 
 called it, through the bush to meet you as 
 you came back for dinner. 
 
 Looking down through the long green 
 vista with the golden tassels of the wattle 
 embroidering the way on either hand, I 
 stood still, thinking idly what a royal 
 road to learning that sweet path made for 
 the boy who ran along it every morning 
 with his light heart and his heavy satchel. 
 
 Suddenly in the distance I saw some 
 boys running. They were coming in my 
 direction, but when they saw me they 
 stopped. There were three of them, or it 
 may have been four. Dick Cleeve, your 
 chum, was there. I walked on slowly, 
 wondering rather to see them, for I 
 thought they lunched at the schoolhouse. 
 
 59
 
 The House of 
 
 When I reached them I was puzzled, 
 they looked so solemn and confused. 
 The other boys gave Dick a nudge. 
 Dick looked at me with his beautiful 
 dog's eyes as though he were asking 
 pardon. Every moment is burnt on my 
 brain in letters that no waters of forget- 
 fulness can wash away. 
 
 " Mrs. Calendar," he said, " Eric has 
 killed Albert Ross ! " 
 
 Albert Ross yes, of course; the bully, 
 the boy who used to pinch the little 
 boys till their arms were black if they 
 did not hand over the choicest bits of 
 their luncheon bags to him Albert Ross, 
 who made a little boy sit on an ants' 
 nest till he was stung so cruelly that 
 his small life was for a time despaired 
 of Albert Ross yes, of course, Eric 
 has 
 
 60
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 "What?" I stumbled. "Tell me, 
 Dick, again." 
 
 " Albert Ross's dog had eaten up all 
 his lunch, so to punish it he tied it up 
 and held a lighted match to its nose. 
 When Eric heard the dog shrieking 
 he rushed up and said ' Stop that this 
 instant ! ' but Albert only grinned and lit 
 another match, and then Eric went for 
 him, and at the first blow Albert's head 
 struck the corner of the wall, and he fell, 
 and he's dead." 
 
 I ran on blindly by the same way 
 by which three years before I had run 
 through living fire to find you. This 
 
 O O J 
 
 time it was an icy fear, a nameless dread, 
 that held me, a feeling as of drowning 
 waves that were closing in to suffocate 
 and strangle. Oh, my dear, my little 
 boy ! What was it that they said ? 
 
 61
 
 The House of 
 
 As I reached the schoolhouse road two 
 men were coming towards me carrying 
 something on a shutter, with a white 
 cloth over it. 
 
 Had Albert Ross a mother too ? 
 Mary, pity women ! 
 
 " 'Twas fair enough, I fancy," said 
 one of the men. 
 
 " All the same," said the other, " the 
 chap what done it ought to get a 
 few years in a reformatory to steady 
 him down, and learn him not to take 
 the blessed law into his hands like 
 this." 
 
 I held my breath and glanced at him. 
 His face was long, thin, narrow, and a 
 fringe of ragged beard grew round it. 
 I thought his eyes were cruel, but per- 
 haps it was not so. I have not seen 
 him since, but sometimes in stern sleep- 
 
 62
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 less nights, when winds are wild, his face 
 haunts me. 
 
 At the gate the schoolmaster met me. 
 
 " Something very dreadful has hap- 
 pened, Mrs. Calendar. You have already 
 heard ? " 
 
 " Yes, I know. Where is Eric ? " 
 
 "In my room, under lock and key." 
 
 " Under lock and key ? " 
 
 " Until the constable arrives. Then 
 the matter will be no longer in my 
 hands." 
 
 " I do not understand. It was purely 
 an accident, an awful one but still an 
 accident. Let me see .Eric, let me see 
 him quickly." 
 
 " Well, I hardly know. I almost think 
 it would be best to wait until the trooper 
 arrives. They have telephoned for him. 
 He is in the valley to-day."
 
 The House of 
 
 " Mr. Smart, let me see my boy. He 
 is not a prisoner. Indeed, I must see 
 my boy." 
 
 He looked hard and long at me, and 
 then he said deliberately 
 
 " I am not sure if we are exactly 
 friends, Mrs. Calendar, you and I. One 
 stretches a point sometimes for a 
 friend." 
 
 Susan never pities herself, has never 
 done so, I should say, for even one 
 luxurious hour. The world has always 
 seemed to her so full of things and 
 people wanting all the pity she has to 
 give. Somehow in these dread moments 
 I thought of her. 
 
 "Tell me, Mr. Smart for I don't 
 seem to remember or to know has 
 Albert Ross a mother and father 
 living ? " 
 
 64
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 " No, he is an orphan. He lives with 
 his grandmother, to whom, as a matter 
 of fact, he has been no end of a nuisance. 
 And now, Mrs. Calendar, as to my ques- 
 tion are we friends ? " 
 
 " I have so few friends, Mr. Smart. 
 I don't make new ones. Perhaps it is 
 that I live so much for my boy. Will 
 you take me to him now ? " 
 
 He smiled and flicked an insect from 
 his coat. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Calendar, you must 
 see " he began. 
 
 But at that moment the lattice of an 
 upper chamber was flung out, a boy 
 settled himself for a spring, and before 
 I could call out to stop you, you were 
 on the ground, and a second later, sorely 
 shaken, but unhurt and unafraid, in my 
 arms.
 
 The House of 
 
 " How dare you ! " blazed Mr. Smart 
 in a storm of wrath, " how dare you ! " 
 
 " I was not on parole, sir," you 
 answered, standing up straight and very 
 white before him. " I saw my mother 
 and I knew that if I could I must get 
 to her. If you will let me have a few 
 words alone with her, I will go back to 
 the room and give you my word not to 
 stir from it until allowed. But I want 
 a few words with my mother first." 
 
 Mr. Smart no longer blazed, instead 
 he sneered. 
 
 " I should advise you, young Calendar, 
 for your own welfare in this matter, to 
 behave circumspectly to me. And as for 
 this most interesting filial exhibition, I 
 will ask your mother and yourself to 
 both go inside and I will see what lati- 
 tude can be allowed " 
 
 66
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 We followed him into a deserted class- 
 room and sat down together at one of 
 the chipped and ink-stained desks. 
 There was a knock at the outer door, 
 and the sound of voices, and reluctantly 
 he left us alone at last. 
 
 Oh, my dear, your face, so white and 
 brave and full of woe, shall I remember 
 it always ? Did we speak a great deal ? 
 I think not. Those broken little whispers, 
 so much to us, so senseless to all the 
 world besides ! 
 
 The gaily-coloured maps upon the 
 walls, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, 
 how wide the world, how narrow for 
 you and me ! The print of the Shep- 
 herd carrying a lamb in His arms across 
 the dangers of the ford . . . Good 
 Shepherd, carry, too, my child ! 
 
 " Poor Ross ! Poor little dog ! . . . 
 
 67
 
 The House of 
 
 Will they let me come home to you, 
 to-night ? Oh, mother, mother, if they 
 don't ! " 
 
 And to see the iron entering for the 
 first time into a young soul it is easier 
 to look on sudden death than that. 
 
 " Dear old Polar, mother ! Whatever 
 will she say ? Don't let her hear it from 
 any one but you. Don't stop here, dar- 
 ling, with these horrid men about. Hark, 
 there's another ! Is it the trooper, I 
 wonder ? He's a decent sort, anyhow. 
 But I hate you being here, darling. Go 
 home and let Polar take care of you till 
 I can come . . . oh, mother, they won't 
 . . . they can't ! . . ." 
 
 And then they took you from me. 
 
 Before going back to Susan I sped 
 across the fields to where the grand- 
 mother of Albert Ross lived. She met me 
 
 68
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 with a hailstorm of abuse. Her violence 
 was one of the terrible things whose 
 memory one never loses. Her grief was 
 drowned in rage. The dead boy lay 
 hardly cold, but it was compensation, not 
 sympathy, for which she clamoured. 
 
 "Ay, talk! What's that? Talk 
 won't drive the plough for 'e. Talk 
 won't fetch the cow in and milk un for 
 'e, will it ? You can talk with your lips 
 but you'll 'ave to pay with your 'ands 
 your 'ands full ! D'ye 'ear ? You and 
 your fine gentleman son. Let 'im come 
 'long 'ere I'll 'ave the blood out of 
 'im ! " And then she screamed at me 
 again, and for a moment I thought she 
 was going to strike me. 
 
 How wild a place the world seemed 
 then ! Was it the solitary pink haw- 
 thorn standing in glory like a vision of 
 
 69
 
 The House of 
 
 the dawn on the edge of the bush, was 
 it the little crisp snow-strewn clouds 
 tossed on the heavenly blue ? I thought 
 they mocked at me as I fled to Susan 
 across the bitter summer fields. 
 
 And in Susan's agony I lost for a 
 while my own. With such a love she 
 loved you, Mine. 
 
 A sweet note sounded for a moment 
 through the misery of the day. Miss 
 Franks rushed in between two lessons to 
 tell us that if a good word was wanted 
 for Eric Calendar she was prepared to 
 say he was the dearest lad, the bravest 
 and the straightest that ever flew a kite, 
 robbed an orchard, or adored his mother. 
 And Susan and I no longer wondered 
 why we had always loved the little shy, 
 proud lady of the eyes that danced with 
 fun, the mouth that drooped with pain. 
 
 70
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 Late in that awful afternoon a knock 
 sounded at the door, which Susan hurried 
 to open. It was the schoolmaster, Mr. 
 Smart, she came to tell me. I nodded 
 that he might come in, for words seemed 
 choked within me. 
 
 " Mrs. Calendar," he said, looking 
 slowly around him, and then at me, 
 " what a very, what a particularly 
 pleasant room ! Yes," he continued, 
 " the window set high in the wall, 
 and the wide sill inside what lovely 
 hyacinths a particularly pleasant room ! " 
 He moved across the floor : " Ah, the 
 big open fireplace, too ! The comfort 
 of it ! I can picture it in the winter 
 with the logs hissing and glowing and 
 the firelight shining on the books what 
 a multitude ! And you and your boy. 
 Just you two, is it ? Always alone. No
 
 The House of 
 
 room for a friend. It would be dull 
 without the boy, though, Mrs. Calendar, 
 eh ? " 
 
 At that I lifted my eyes and measured 
 him, and a dull rage burnt within me, 
 and the unclean things that may lie in 
 life's way were spread in all their cruelty 
 and ugliness before me. And I hid my 
 agony deep lest he should see it. " Mr. 
 Smart," I said, " I thought you were 
 come to me with news of my child. If 
 it is not so I will go at once myself to 
 where he is. I must see him again 
 before the evening. I must hear if there 
 is anything on earth to be done to get 
 him back to-night." 
 
 "Well, yes, there is one thing, the thing 
 I came to tell you of. But, O woman, 
 jumping at her conclusions with no reason; 
 unfair, impatient, lovely woman, the same 
 
 72
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 everywhere and at all times. Try to 
 possess your soul in patience, for it is a 
 thing you cannot do yourself. I only, I 
 alone, can do it." 
 
 " I am too perplexed, Mr. Smart. Sus- 
 pense has made me all numb and dull. 
 Explain it, will you?" 
 
 " Explain what ? " 
 
 " This thing which only you can do." 
 
 " Mrs. Calendar, it is this way. The 
 justices of the peace, at the request of 
 the constable whom you interviewed this 
 morning, have decided to let your boy 
 return to you to-night (on the under- 
 standing, of course, that he is to be present 
 at the inquest to-morrow) subject to my 
 giving them a report which shall seem 
 sufficiently favourable to them, of your 
 son's conduct and general character at 
 school." 
 
 73
 
 The House of 
 
 " You have done it, Mr. Smart ? He 
 is even now on his way home ? " 
 
 " I have not done it, Mrs. Calendar." 
 
 " You have not ? You won't delay 
 doing it a minute longer, will you ? Did 
 you want to see me first ? Oh, don't mind 
 me. Is it a written report you are to 
 send in ? Look, here are pens and paper. 
 Will you do it now, at once ? " 
 
 " In the event of my report being un- 
 favourable, your son will remain to-night 
 in custody. And, though perhaps I need 
 not say it, yet the finding of the coroner to- 
 morrow will almost certainly be influenced 
 by what I may or may not have to say." 
 
 There was silence between us for a full 
 minute, while I thought my heart would 
 burst its bounds for beating. And I 
 wondered how I still could hide my terror 
 and my grief. 
 
 74
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 " Mr. Mr. Smart you are not 
 going to give an unfavourable account of 
 Eric ? You could not." 
 
 He smiled horribly. 
 
 " Suppose I were to say that the colour 
 of my report depended on Eric's mother. 
 What then, eh ? " 
 
 " On me ! But how ? Oh, Mr. Smart, 
 have pity ! Tell me what you mean. Tell 
 me all you mean. And tell me quickly." 
 
 " Quickly, is it ? Well, I do not see 
 that I am called upon to unduly exert 
 myself for a boy whose mother has flouted 
 me consistently for some time past, who 
 has ignored my friendly advances, my 
 wishes for an acquaintance that should 
 ripen into friendship possibly into 
 something deeper. Ah ! I beg of you. 
 You look so white and shocked. 
 Surely " 
 
 75
 
 The House of 
 
 "Mr. Smart, I pray that I do not know 
 what you mean. . . . There is a little boy 
 in the township three miles away. Is it a 
 prison or a police cell he is in? I can 
 think of nothing, see nothing but his face 
 as it was when he left me this morning. 
 Is it a word from you that can let him 
 out ? Mr. Smart, I am not a widow. 
 Eric's father is not dead. Am I to take 
 it that you can but will not help me in 
 this extremity, or that you can and 
 will ? " 
 
 " Dear me, dear me ! You are not a 
 widow ! Well, well ! Are you . . . but 
 we will leave it at that. Don't go away. 
 Mrs. Calendar, if you are willing to receive 
 me as a friend into your little home circle, 
 whenever I choose to call, then, in less 
 than two hours, your boy shall be in your 
 arms again. These young people never
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 know their luck. But I must have a dis- 
 tinct understanding on the subject. One's 
 word of honour is a vague sort of 
 thing. I will write out two papers one 
 for you to sign, the other to hand in to 
 the justice of the peace. It is such a little 
 thing I ask of you : in common charity 
 you should grant it me : and in return 
 I give you ah ! only you yourself can 
 know the worth of what I give you in 
 return. Is it not so ? Yes. Are the 
 pens and papers here? We need delay 
 no longer now." 
 
 He sat at the writing-table and began 
 writing quickly without pause or pity. 
 Suddenly he swerved round on his chair 
 to me. 
 
 " Mrs. Calendar, you will not be leaving 
 the neighbourhood by any chance in the 
 near future ? " he inquired. 
 
 77
 
 The House of 
 
 Such an idea had not come to me, whose 
 tortured brain moved slowly, or could 
 hold but one thought or wish, but as he 
 spoke a vision of fair days and freedom 
 far away swam before my eyes. 
 
 " Because, on reflection, before writing 
 the other paper on behalf of your son I 
 must first have your promise, signed, 
 that you will stay on here for a year at 
 least, or no, let us say a couple of 
 years. By that time I shall hope to 
 be quit of the place myself. Oh, it 
 means nothing, Mrs. Calendar just a little 
 whim of mine. If you very much desire 
 to leave before the term expires, I have 
 no doubt we can arrange it in perfect 
 amity together ? Will you put your name 
 here ? You hesitate ? And the captive in 
 the valley languishing in captivity : the 
 sensitive child-heart beating under the
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 shadow of the prison walls. Ah ! no, I 
 thought not. Thank you. Hurrah ! You 
 may rely on me to see the matter through 
 for you." Here he waved his arms 
 dramatically and laughed aloud. In 
 another moment he was gone. 
 
 At his going Susan ran in. I told her 
 a little, a very little, of what had passed, 
 for I was sick with the ignominy of it all. 
 But Susan hears more than is merely spoken. 
 
 " My lamb ! my lamb ! " she said, fold- 
 ing me to the bruised heart which was 
 never yet too tired to heed another's woe. 
 And she comforted me as I would comfort 
 you, my own. 
 
 With strained ears and eyes we sat 
 waiting through the gloom, hardly daring 
 to speak aloud lest we might miss the first 
 sound of your coming feet. 
 
 79
 
 The House of 
 
 Once she whispered, " Storm to-day but 
 peace to-morrow, dearie, a long peace and 
 a fine." 
 
 And I whispered back : " Susan, do you 
 call to mind those evenings when Eric 
 would be asleep in the corner of my room, 
 you would be knitting and dreaming in 
 the kitchen, and I would be sitting idly in 
 the big chair beyond the porch ? " 
 
 " Yes, and when I brought your milk 
 up you would say, 'Susan, just sniff, every- 
 thing is so sweet.' ' 
 
 "Yes, all the bush scents rising as the 
 dew fell." 
 
 " And the stars getting brighter every 
 minute." 
 
 " And the moonlight, perhaps ! " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, like as if it was washing 
 the dear world, washing all the weariness 
 and stains away." 
 
 80
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 "Ah, yes, Susan. And singing the 
 slumber-song which only it can sing." 
 
 " Singing it to the living in their homes 
 and the dead in their graves." 
 
 " Hark, Susan ! was that anything ? . . . 
 It was only good to be alone because you 
 and Eric were so close. But such a peace 
 was there, a peace that you could touch 
 and hold and nestle up against. If some 
 day I could touch the hem of such a peace 
 again ! Say that some day you think we 
 shall, just that I may hear you say it." 
 
 " Dearie, of course, of course we shall. 
 Such little, little things they are, the years 
 that seem so long." 
 
 About eight o'clock of the evening rain 
 fell. The splash of heavy drops upon the 
 leaves called us both outside : at first it 
 was like the sound of some one running. 
 
 G 81
 
 The House of 
 
 "Susan, if he comes through the bush ! 
 It is so dark and he has to pass that old 
 woman's cottage. But it is quicker far 
 than the road." 
 
 " Then he'll come that way, bless him ! " 
 
 " If I could be sure ! But there are 
 two paths even through the bush." 
 
 " My dearie, your place is to sit still on 
 that hard stool called Patience. He might 
 come by the road in some one's trap. And 
 whenever he comes his mother must be 
 here for him, ay, and his old Polar too ! " 
 
 The rain fell more heavily the steady, 
 soaking rain we loved to listen to together, 
 you and I : the night grew black as pitch, 
 and I envied the skies that they could 
 weep so well, and the night that told its 
 heaviness aloud. 
 
 " Come in, my dearie. I will build a 
 fire in the living-room. How he will love 
 
 82
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 it, my bonnie boy ! And you, you look 
 him out some dry, soft clothes and we 
 will get them warm. And we'll get some 
 chocolate ready and hot toast. Oh, but 
 there's just a power of things to be 
 done ! " 
 
 Wasn't she beautiful, dear, our Susan ? I 
 can hear her now, calling back to me from 
 the porch, " And there's his silkworms, 
 they haven't had fresh leaves since the 
 morning ; why, he'll just be scolding the 
 life out of me when he does come ! " 
 
 At last, all breathless, wet, and roadworn, 
 you came, and it was as though I held you 
 in my arms from the dead. 
 
 I seem to remember Susan hovering 
 round to fulfil her lowly offices of love, 
 and being much disturbed when you told 
 her you could neither sleep nor go to bed. 
 In the end she left us before the bright
 
 The House of 
 
 purring fire she had built. She put out 
 all the lights but one and we sat there to- 
 gether in the gentle glow, you curled up 
 on the lounge with your head in my lap. 
 If I could smooth the trouble from that 
 small, damp, aching head that carried 
 heavily for the first time the burden of its 
 thirteen years ! But even a child must 
 dree his weird. And we could not find at 
 first the courage to speak of what the 
 morrow might still bring forth. 
 
 Long after, when the short summer 
 night was far spent, you slept at last with 
 your hand in mine. Little dear hand, held 
 so still and closely through the dark hours, 
 a day must come, an appointed day, when 
 our hands can never touch each other's 
 any more. Before the blackness of that 
 time if each have only love to remember 
 of the other it will be well indeed : in the 
 
 84
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 desolation of that day what solace for the 
 one who is left behind to know that 
 the 'other never found love wanting or 
 knocked at the door in vain. 
 
 Daybreak crept slowly in, and it sud- 
 denly grew very cold. I dared not stir 
 lest I should wake you. But soon, as an 
 angel of the dawn, came Susan, and after a 
 dumb greeting, I signalled to her to bring 
 a covering for you. Then without a 
 sound her nimble fingers were busy at the 
 fire, and soon she had hot tea ready and 
 was lifting it to my lips herself, and a 
 sweet sense of peace and healing trembled 
 through the room. She brought her Bible 
 and sat down on a low chair by the fire, 
 anxiously watching where every now and 
 then you moaned and shivered in your 
 sleep. She did not read, but big tears 
 rolled presently down her cheeks. Then she 
 
 85
 
 The House of 
 
 hid her face in her hands, and I am sure 
 she prayed those little formless, wordless 
 prayers perhaps, that still go up in count- 
 less hosts on the wings of faith to the 
 highest heaven, and are as real as love, or 
 hope, or misery itself. I noticed that the 
 blue marker you worked for her as a little 
 child was in its place at the Sermon on the 
 Mount, and soon she raised her bent head 
 and opened the Book at the loved spot 
 where she always reads as though for the 
 first time 
 
 " Blessed are they that mourn, for they 
 shall be comforted. Blessed are the pure 
 in heart, for they shall see God." 
 
 " My lamb ! my lamb !" she murmured 
 once when you turned restlessly, and they 
 were the only words she spoke. 
 
 Promise of a fair and friendly morning 
 shone through the hill-top mists and 
 
 86
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 began to dance its way shyly into the 
 room, and the shrill singing of the birds 
 made me fear for that fitful sleep of yours. 
 A lark rose up and made wild, sweet music 
 overhead. Ah ! but I would have had him 
 mute as Susan and myself. 
 
 When you woke, you started from my 
 arms without seeing me, and stretched 
 towards Susan, who was on the low chair 
 near you. 
 
 " Polar," you said drowsily, " what is 
 it ? Is it to-day or yesterday ? " 
 
 She folded you to her with a divine 
 tenderness as though she would soothe 
 every hurt and terror, and then she said 
 
 " Why, it's a soldier's day, that's what 
 it is ! And if your soul is sorrowful, my 
 lamb, sorrowful even unto death, still you 
 must stand up and face it as a soldier does, 
 and endure hardness, just as you would a
 
 The House of 
 
 broken limb, or a burnt hand, or what not 
 else besides." 
 
 ** Oh, Polar, I remember ! Where's 
 mother ? " 
 
 An hour or two later we all three drove 
 to the courthouse in the valley. It was a 
 noble way arched over with eucalyptus and 
 blackwood trees, while giant tree-ferns shot 
 up straight and tall as palms from the 
 gullies, till one felt bathed, as it were, in a 
 green shower of tenderness. Parrots of 
 gleaming tints flashed and screamed about 
 us, the dew still sparkled on the old 
 brown road, and the wild, fresh scent of 
 the undergrowth rose up like incense on 
 the crystal air. We breathed deeply, and 
 some of the sweet riot of it all must have 
 stirred our souls to a good courage, for 
 fears and misgivings, like childish things, 
 
 88
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 were put away. Till once, near the end of 
 the road, rounding a turn, we caught a 
 glimpse of the courthouse below and the 
 crowd already gathered outside. You 
 grew very white under your schoolboy's 
 tan, and for a moment I thought you 
 would flinch from the ordeal. But Susan 
 knew better. Looking around her slowly 
 and then at you, she whispered 
 
 " Just as fine and fair and clear as the 
 morning, so will my boy be to-day ! 
 Something inside that never tells me 
 wrong tells me that." 
 
 " Polar, I'm in a mortal funk. But no 
 one else is going to know it. Take care 
 of mother, all the time. You shall have 
 the silk dress and the lace collar some day, 
 Polar, just the same." 
 
 The fairy gifts, the dreams of Susan's 
 innocent heart, but which were to be hers 
 
 89 -
 
 The House of 
 
 to have and hold on one understanding, 
 from one soul, at one cost only even 
 should she wait a score of years for them : 
 the secret between herself and you of 
 which I only knew the outer fringe and 
 which was never referred to except in the 
 supremest or the most unguarded moment. 
 Will you remember always the court- 
 house room on that August morning, 
 Mine ? How they took you from us to 
 stand by the table on which the dead boy 
 lay ? How the little wind rustled in 
 and caught the edges of the cover which 
 was laid over him, and how the trooper 
 secured the corners with stones at last ? 
 How Dick Cleeve and another boy gave 
 evidence as eye-witnesses of what had 
 passed ? The ring of Dick's voice when 
 the coroner asked him if you and Albert 
 Ross were bad friends before the fatal 
 
 90
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 morning, and he answered, " Eric Calen- 
 dar has no time for a bully, sir, but 
 once when Ross caught his foot in a 
 rabbit trap young Calendar spent three- 
 quarters of an hour trying to get it 
 out for him," and the kindly coroner 
 nodding, "That will do. You may step 
 down now, Cleeve." 
 
 Most of all I shall remember the look 
 on your face when the schoolmaster came 
 forward and gave evidence in your 
 favour certainly, but given with a reserve, 
 a peculiar hesitation, an air which said that 
 he knew so much more than he chose to 
 speak, a subtle implication, incomprehen- 
 sible and amazing, that he was keeping 
 back part of the truth, and that, for your 
 sake entirely or for mine. 
 
 Under the sting of it your face flushed 
 and your eyes were set upon him with a
 
 The House of 
 
 strange stare. To outsiders I do not 
 know how much was apparent, but to us, 
 unduly sensitive and highly strung, perhaps, 
 as we were, it was as though he held the 
 balance of the scales of life and death in 
 his hands, and that though he intended for 
 his own purpose that life should be yours, 
 yet he wanted to impress on us how easily, 
 through his agency, death or its equivalent 
 might be yours instead. 
 
 And you stared at him, puzzled, vaguely 
 annoyed, not understanding, as though he 
 spoke in a tongue that was only half 
 familiar 
 
 " Is this boy of a pugnacious disposition 
 as a rule ? " 
 
 The schoolmaster did not answer at 
 once. He assumed an air of deep 
 thought, which resolved itself into a 
 pained expression 
 
 92
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 "Well, no, I should not say he was 
 of a pugnacious disposition," he answered 
 slowly, emphasising the adjective, and 
 giving a curious sort of impression that 
 if you weren't just that, you were some- 
 thing else as bad or worse. 
 
 And thus he continued his evidence. 
 
 But on the rough hour and our strained 
 souls, like dew on desert sands, fell 
 presently the voice of the coroner 
 
 " There is no case whatever to go be- 
 fore a jury. This regrettable occurrence 
 was purely an accident. And let the 
 awfulness of it be a warning to Eric 
 Calendar not to use his fists on mere 
 impulse so freely again. Calendar, you 
 may rejoin your mother." 
 
 An attempt to applaud this decision was 
 instantly hushed. 
 
 93
 
 The House of 
 
 Late in the dark evening, when we 
 reached home, Susan insisted on our both 
 going at once to bed. You came to me 
 from your little room that opened out of 
 mine, and your dear sleepy eyes were full 
 of trouble. 
 
 " Mother, was it an accident ? For I 
 meant to go for him all I knew. When I 
 saw him put the match to that poor little 
 beggar's nose, I felt a rage inside me, the 
 sort of rage that does make you kill. Am 
 I really what they call a ? " 
 
 " Dear, listen ! You meant to hurt 
 him as he was hurting that little dog. 
 You did not mean that he should never 
 see the fields or skies again, nor play with 
 his playmates any more. No thought of 
 killing was for a moment in your mind. 
 Perhaps you should only have thought 
 of saving the dog without harming its 
 
 94
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 torturer. I cannot say it is too hard 
 for me. I dare not praise you ; but re- 
 member, dearest, that I have not blamed 
 you, not once for a tiny second. And now 
 you must be brave with yourself, not for 
 my sake, not for Polar 's, but for your own. 
 You must not whine over yourself, or ex- 
 aggerate what you did in your own eyes. 
 You know you had no thought to kill. 
 You know that in that one wild moment 
 your only thought was to fight for some- 
 thing that was helpless against its agony. 
 You must not let your heart be troubled 
 for the deed, but for the pitiful ending that 
 it had. All your life long that will be a 
 trouble to you, Mine, but because of it 
 you need look no one in the face less 
 fairly than before. Do you quite see, 
 now ? " 
 
 And as we whispered thus together, 
 
 95
 
 The House of 
 
 locked as lovers in each other's arms, 
 bold steps came up the little sanded 
 path, and a sharp knock sounded on 
 the door. Ah, those steps that knock ! 
 I have heard them since continually, and 
 never once without feeling that a nail 
 was being driven into my living flesh. 
 
 We stared breathlessly at one another 
 as we heard Susan saying, in a voice 
 not quite her own 
 
 " No, I cannot let you in. The 
 mistress and Master Eric have gone to 
 bed. I will therefore wish you good- 
 night, sir." 
 
 " Wait a minute. Let me see, it 
 is Sunday to-morrow. Tell Mrs. Cal- 
 endar I will be round after Evensong." 
 
 Without answering, Susan quietly shut 
 the door. Very slowly she came to our
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 room, she whose feet sped so swiftly 
 when they brought the tidings of peace 
 or gladness. 
 
 " That man ! And he says he's com- 
 ing to-morrow evening again." 
 
 I looked at her and then at you and 
 saw that in both your minds calamity 
 could clearly go no farther, and then 
 remembered that it was I who had done 
 this thing. 
 
 " Listen Susan, and you, Eric, too. 
 This man must be allowed to come in, 
 within reason, when he calls. Had I 
 not promised that, you would have spent 
 last night, Eric, in the watchhouse in 
 the valley, and to-day he would quite 
 recklessly have manufactured dishonest 
 evidence against you. It was the only 
 way, my darling, the only way as I 
 thought for you and for me. Directly 
 
 H 97
 
 The House of 
 
 I saw that the coroner was that kindly 
 old doctor who had healed me of my 
 burns, and that Miss Franks was waiting 
 there to proclaim your praises to all who 
 cared to hear, I could have cried aloud 
 thinking that after all we might have 
 managed without his help. But there 
 was always the awful chance that if he 
 had distorted things or tried to damage 
 you, it might have had a result we 
 cannot even think of. And what 
 was I that I did not dare to run 
 this risk ? A coward, an idiot beyond 
 words ! . . . Oh, you dears, but I was ! 
 And the penalty is now and here to 
 pay, and only you and Susan can help 
 me to pay it at all only you and 
 Susan." 
 
 And I looked from one to the 
 other of you, knowing well that your 
 
 98
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 love would not snap at the strain, yet 
 dreading with a nameless dread what I 
 might see pictured on your faces. But 
 Susan, who if she cannot bear another's 
 burden will not add to it by a feather- 
 weight, murmured : u We II see to it 
 for you, darling, never fear, and now 
 go to bed, sleep sweetly and sleep long, 
 even till the morning." While you, what 
 was it that you said, while fun rode 
 high over grief for a moment in your 
 eyes : "I dare not praise you ; but 
 remember, dearest, that I shall not once 
 for a tiny second blame you ! " 
 
 And we slept for fourteen hours. 
 
 99
 
 IT must be nearly three years now since 
 that long sleep of ours. Sometimes in 
 dreaming moments I have thought of 
 it as a parting of the ways, that tiny 
 span of deep forgetfulness, severing the 
 tender ache of the life that went before 
 from the dull fret and misery of the 
 life that followed after it. 
 
 For we paid the penalty required of 
 us, paid it to the uttermost farthing. 
 
 I say " we," since on that dolorous 
 way not one smart was mine alone to 
 suffer, but the common lot of us all. 
 Oh, dear souls, generous and patient 
 beyond words to say, but for you both 
 how insecure and frail might the end 
 
 100
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 have been. But with you, the untried 
 and the tried, always loyally at my side, 
 the ugliness of the way took on a higher 
 quality of expiation : through you some 
 ineffable influence would breathe out on 
 the weary hour and lift it from mean- 
 ness into finer places of discipline and 
 mercy and control. 
 
 So few souls ever penetrated beneath 
 the veil of our life together, yours and 
 mine and Susan's. Its very reserve 
 and loneliness were to us its sweet- 
 ness : but the faults that might be 
 born of qualities such as these often 
 shone out and faced me gravely on 
 the day's horizon. Because our lives 
 were sequestered I knew well no gloom 
 must touch them. Solitude need never 
 mean desolation, nor seclusion selfishness. 
 Reserve need not spell morbidity, nor 
 
 101
 
 The House of 
 
 a life apart be a life aloof. For us, 
 it was the more needful to steep our 
 lives in sunshine of the spirit in pro- 
 portion as worldly gaieties refrained from 
 us, for where sunshine is there can no 
 stagnation be. And this I knew was 
 the insidious foe to whom no quarter 
 must be shown. 
 
 Enter, then, into this cloistered life of 
 ours, which worshipped at the altar of 
 peace instead of that of popularity, a 
 cruel crawling thing which reared its 
 head and struck at our joy, sapped 
 our strength, poisoned the sweet waters 
 of silence and all delight for us, and 
 drenched in misery scores of gentle 
 hours which may never be again. And 
 now and again in mutiny of heart 
 at this ordering of things I used to 
 think that if redemption lay alone that 
 
 102
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 way, then might we go unredeemed for 
 ever. 
 
 In the morning we would wake to 
 health and laughter and the crystal beauty 
 of the mountainside, and suddenly the 
 thought of what might come with evening 
 would hush our gladness and strike us 
 dumb. We, who had loved it more 
 than well, grew to dread the twi- 
 light time that brings dreams and peace 
 and rest to dusty pilgrim feet and the 
 songs of dear unspoken words. We 
 sat no longer on the verandah by 
 the porch to watch the passing of 
 the afterglow, because we feared to see 
 this thing coming to us like a calamity 
 through the dusk. We felt better able 
 to meet that mocking smile in the 
 shadows of the room than underneath 
 the vastness of the sky. In the room 
 
 103
 
 The House of 
 
 one could shelter now and then behind 
 a lamp, a book, a piece of work : by 
 dint of managing one could evade in 
 little nameless ways the derision with 
 which the very air was charged. No 
 dulness or lack of response on our part 
 for a moment troubled him. I would 
 often wonder from my heart how a man 
 could willingly choose to spend such futile 
 hours, evening after evening, how he 
 could deliberately assume the role of 
 the unwanted, unwelcomed guest, of 
 what fibrous tissue such a man could 
 be, what generalship, what true vocation 
 in the world he must have missed, clad, 
 as he was, in relentlessness as in a gar- 
 ment, regardless utterly of the distaste 
 or pain of those against whom his plans 
 were laid. 
 
 Often I let my mind go far afield 
 
 104
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 in speculations such as these, finding in 
 them relief against the terror of the 
 thought that he was there in the room 
 to see us, to see me, to vex our help- 
 less souls as nothing in the world besides 
 could vex them. 
 
 About this time some of the boyishness 
 left your face, and a grave look grew 
 there in its stead, a touch of haughtiness, 
 sometimes almost of disdain, and I seem 
 to see that your life long that little mark 
 will unconsciously be there. It was 
 not there when your face was turned 
 to Susan or myself or to the face of 
 a friend : but in silence or before 
 strangers, before the world at large, it 
 was unmistakably and continually there, 
 the impress of the environment breath- 
 ing from those hostile hours. 
 
 And I, dear, no prayers of mine, no 
 
 105
 
 The House of 
 
 kisses, nor all my tears can move that 
 mark away. It is no more the little 
 grief of childhood that a word can heal. 
 Time, the master artist, and Sorrow, his 
 servant, carved it there, and the work 
 of these defies the touch of mortal hand. 
 But, oh, for the little face as the sun 
 first shone upon it ! 
 
 After a while I arranged that you 
 should no longer do your evening work 
 in the room with us, but in a small 
 room adjoining, and that Susan and I 
 together, with what grace and patience 
 we could, should receive the school- 
 master. 
 
 Mr. Smart's annoyance at Susan being 
 always with us was expressed in various 
 ways continually. But on this point I 
 was adamant ; and Susan, undaunted by 
 
 106
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 words, looks, or manner, did not once 
 leave me during these hours. What 
 they meant for her of indescribable 
 weariness I can never know. What to 
 me they would have been without her 
 I can only dimly think. Sometimes this 
 strange man, concerning whose mental 
 balance I wondered constantly, would 
 enter the cottage and sit for two hours 
 saying scarcely as many words. This 
 only happened rarely, and was to punish 
 us unduly for we knew not what, but 
 the memory of the almost unbearable 
 tension is white-hot still. Sometimes 
 I escaped into your room for a few 
 moments on the pretext of helping you 
 with your work. How we rushed at 
 each other then ! What smiles, what 
 whispers, what warnings with fingers on 
 our lips ! It was " Hush ! hush ! " for all 
 
 107
 
 The House of 
 
 the world like two children snatching 
 a stolen interview from an austere power, 
 and enjoying every second of it with a 
 fearful joy. It was the little light of 
 laughter that lies hidden in the black 
 heart of tragedy or was it perhaps the 
 bitter drop distilled from comedy whose 
 tears are never far below ? Who knows 
 and who shall care? It was our moment, 
 ours, bought at a price, and of worth 
 accordingly. But if we tarried overlong 
 at such a time together, a heavy tramp 
 began up and down the floor of the 
 room beyond, which was my cue to go 
 back without more ado. For once when 
 I overstayed the limit, this strange des- 
 pot walked to the door of the living 
 room and called out 
 
 " Mrs. Calendar, play the game, I 
 say ; I came to see you, not Mrs. Susan, 
 
 108
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 and here you have left me alone with 
 Mrs. Susan for nearly ten minutes ! " 
 
 It was so extraordinary, so ridiculous, 
 that a nervous flippancy took hold of 
 me as I left you and your books 
 behind me 
 
 " Mr. Smart ! But you make me 
 think of Bernard Shaw when he said, 
 ' Dear me ! how men do exaggerate the 
 difference between one woman and 
 another.' " 
 
 "Shaw!" he muttered, "Shaw? The 
 first time you have mentioned a friend's 
 name to me. Let us have more of him. 
 Where does he live ? What does he 
 do ? " 
 
 " Did I claim him for a friend, Mr. 
 Smart ? . . . Can it be ? ... Ah, well, 
 he lives away on a little island and has 
 a rough time of it very often." 
 
 109
 
 The House of 
 
 " A little island ! What the devil is 
 he a lighthouse keeper ? " 
 
 11 Mr. Smart ! But you have said it 
 truly ; a lighthouse keeper. How could 
 you guess all at once like that ? He 
 keeps such a wonderful beacon flaring, I 
 forget the candle-power something enor- 
 mous. But they say it varies." 
 
 " Varies ! What stuff women will swal- 
 low, to be sure ! They should never talk 
 on technical things at all. What's the 
 name of the island ? Where is it ? " 
 
 " Mr. Smart, that would be telling 
 everything ! But the rocks, the danger 
 rocks over which the beacon flares, are 
 called the Cant Rocks. Don't they men- 
 sion them in the school geographies ? " 
 
 " The Cant Rocks ! That I'll swear 
 they don't, nor in any atlas either, unless 
 I'm much mistaken. And I'll match 
 
 no
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 my coast-line knowledge against any 
 
 man's." 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Smart, maps are not what 
 they used to be, it seems to me," I said 
 lamely, looking wearily at the old clock 
 in the corner. 
 
 If he had had the least saving grace 
 of culture, spirit, savoir-vivre, world- 
 knowledge, I think I could have dealt 
 more gently in my mind with his colos- 
 sal affronts. But the perfect example of 
 everything a man should not be was to 
 be found in this village schoolmaster. 
 Bigoted, selfish, cruel, possessed of an 
 unconquerable will, yet training it ap- 
 parently merely to ignoble ends, I used 
 often to try and find out where would be 
 in him the divine spark which is some- 
 where still aglow in the murkiest human 
 
 in
 
 The House of 
 
 soul. Had he an old mother some- 
 where, a father who turned to him for 
 sympathy or succour ? No. It appeared 
 he was an only child, and that his parents 
 had died in his youth. He had no hobby. 
 He did not even smoke. Nature awokt 
 no answering chord of joy. He lov< 
 the life of cities, and cursed the necessity 
 that drove him to the wilderness. 
 Mathematics, geometry, and the exact 
 sciences were the things in which he ex- 
 celled, and was indeed a brilliant student 
 and teacher. 
 
 Added to this was his pride in Aus- 
 tralia. The light of the world, the salt 
 of the earth, the country to be desired, 
 beloved of all was Australia. Other lands 
 and nations existed only as the butt 
 against which the true Australian sendf 
 out his shafts of sarcasm, the objects oq 
 
 112
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 which he sharpens his intelligence, the 
 audience, inglorious if immense, on whose 
 account he is able to present himself with 
 compliments continually, thanking God 
 that neither he, his wares, his climate, his 
 History, his horizon, are as they or theirs. 
 
 When he referred to his coast-line 
 knowledge, I knew that it was the Aus- 
 tralian coast-line only that was in his 
 mind. Once when I ventured to suggest 
 that but for the mighty name of the 
 Motherland of whom he thought and 
 spoke such little things, he would not 
 be able to walk in any sort of peace or 
 freedom in his own land, he retorted 
 
 " Rubbish, my dear lady ; insular rub- 
 bish, all on a par with the jingle about 
 the ships, the men, and the money too. 
 Why, when it came to the point of 
 >oints, it was Australia that set out to 
 
 i 113
 
 The House of 
 
 help your mighty Motherland in her hour 
 of need and danger, when she couldn't 
 hold her own against a few ragged Boers. 
 Yes. Australia that helped you, not you 
 Australia. Always remember that ! " 
 
 This was the insufferable stuff we were 
 often forced to listen to for an hour at 
 a time. This was the man to whom was 
 entrusted the care of the minds of little 
 children, that he should fill them with 
 fine ideals of patriotism, service, reverence, 
 with spirited traditions and splendid 
 loyalty the things not written down on 
 the school programme, but which the 
 born teacher knows to be of even more 
 account than they. 
 
 But against all this the discipline for 
 us of his presence was perhaps invaluable. 
 Though our blood boiled we never quar- 
 relled. If we flinched he did not see 
 
 114
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 it. We went through intolerable hours 
 holding on to our composure as to a 
 jewel which no one in the world might 
 snatch away. 
 
 Just before the account between us was 
 settled, in the very last week of our 
 life in the hillside cottage, he came upon 
 me alone one noontide hour where I sat 
 reading under the mimosa-trees by the 
 creek. 
 
 " Don't look so ridiculously startled. 
 I'm not a beast of prey," he said angrily. 
 " I think as a well, yes, as a friend of 
 such long standing, I am entitled, before 
 we part for a little while, to a few more 
 particulars of your private life. You once 
 began a confidence, confession what the 
 deuce was it ? You must know that I 
 have certain intentions with regard to 
 yourself ... ah, my dear lady, did you 
 
 "5
 
 The House of 
 
 think you had done with me ? Under- 
 stand that you will never have done with 
 me, never. Did you really think that 
 because the terms of that paltry little 
 bargain were fulfilled, that you were going 
 to wipe me out of your life as a boy 
 wipes a sum from his slate ? Really, for 
 a woman not a fool, you are uncommonly 
 foolish. Understand for all time, that, 
 visible or invisible, I am there, in the 
 heart of your life. I have perhaps only 
 had one very strong wish in my own, 
 and according as to how you help me to 
 realise it, so shall peace or misery be 
 yours. Now, what have you to say ? 
 Is it to be peace, peace with honour, 
 peace without but anyhow, at any rate, 
 peace at last ? " 
 
 He came towards me, a sort of mad- 
 ness gleaming in his eyes. I was faint 
 
 116
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 with terror. The trees swam round, the 
 sparkle of the stream made me sick to see. 
 Suddenly a blackbird began to sing in 
 the coppice. It was like no birdsong I 
 have heard before or since. 
 
 "World without end, 
 World without end, 
 Fear nothing ever, 
 Fear nothing ever," 
 
 it seemed to sing. And with the music 
 I knew that danger there was none, and 
 that such as it was I had come once more 
 into my own. I think I said " Hush ! " 
 that we might listen to the falling of 
 those liquid pearls on the drowsy hour. 
 And strangely enough, he was quiet, 
 listening, and the wildness went out of 
 his look, and as I slowly moved to go 
 he walked off in the other direction, 
 muttering something as he went. 
 
 117
 
 The House of 
 
 Oh, little bird, does no intelligence 
 direct your heavenly outpouring ? Is 
 neither soul nor mind behind ? Is it the 
 instinct without the insight of the artist, 
 nothing but the careless rapture of the 
 beating life within, nothing but the pas- 
 sion of the shining hour? 
 
 Even so, little bird, you fought my 
 fight and won it, and there is nothing 
 I can do for you. 
 
 But now those days are done. And 
 at this distance of time and space, such 
 a little distance yet of either, we cannot 
 realise that we are free. We walk deli- 
 cately, so to speak, through the soft 
 places and the zephyr airs of our free- 
 dom. We whisper to Joy that her 
 footsteps must go, oh ! so lightly, so 
 tenderly and carefully, lest indeed she 
 
 118
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 wake up Pain again from where he slum- 
 bers for a little while. 
 
 Dear Joy, take care, take care ! 
 
 Sometimes in the gentle moods which 
 come with the snapping of a strain, I 
 take myself to task and wonder if less 
 dignity and more sympathy on our part 
 towards the offender would have answered 
 better if it were possible to have pointed 
 out a finer way to an understanding so 
 ignoble. It is idle wondering, for they 
 are done, those strange and sombre days, 
 and the new life shines to the far hori- 
 zon with love and hope and work most 
 wonderful. 
 
 But, little Joy, go lightly. Oh, take 
 care ! 
 
 119
 
 TO-DAY the city hems us in. Glamour, 
 hurry, noise, a heavy air or airlessness 
 are now our portion. Unconscious, care- 
 less glances are all we get to-day. In 
 the country never so rare a passer-by 
 whose look is not intimate, interested, 
 even if hostility lies below. Here a 
 thousand eyes brush you idly with their 
 unseeing glance. A bird, a butterfly, a 
 bee, would be of infinitely more account 
 than you. And with what delight we 
 adjust ourselves to this new proportion, 
 and think what great, good fun it is to 
 be one of a city crowd, to come and go 
 unknown, unremembered, and unseen ! 
 Ah, the kindly city, we think, Susan 
 
 1 20
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 and I, where no one tears your life out 
 of your heart till you can see its very 
 shadows reflected on the faces of those 
 who come towards you ! 
 
 The cathedral from whence the music 
 of consolation rolls out into the mean- 
 ness and the squalor of the streets the 
 cathedral inside whose great doors you 
 may find a place and bow your head in 
 misery, in adoration, in protest, or in 
 pleading, and no one knows, or cares, 
 or wonders whether you are there, or 
 why ; to gain or give, to love or lose, 
 to remember or forget. 
 
 The dear glory of it, we say, Susan 
 and I. 
 
 But Susan is jealous too sometimes 
 for the pleasant country, the country 
 where her dear ones lie who now are 
 dead. When days are lifeless with the 
 
 121
 
 The House of 
 
 heat, and the night a heaviness hard to 
 bear, she murmurs 
 
 " Ay, up there along the ridge, by 
 the cornfields in the moonlight, my, but 
 the air will be good to-night ! " And 
 we sniff it together, that far-off fragrant 
 air, with the chill dash in it that heartens 
 and inspires. 
 
 Or it may be that we are idly stirring 
 ice into our drinking water to make it 
 speak of crystal springs upon the hills 
 and she will say 
 
 " Bless me ! City life ! What a make- 
 believe it is . . . But before she can 
 finish two boyish arms are flung round 
 her and a glad voice says 
 
 " Buck up, Polar ! What's the good 
 of having a grand name if you don't 
 live up to it ? Book here for the North 
 Pole. No reduction on a return. Oh, 
 
 122
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 Dick, she's pricked me with her magnetic 
 needle. And that is how women play 
 the game." 
 
 For Dick is staying with us, Dick 
 Cleeve of the honest eyes and bonnie 
 ways innumerable. And the wisdom of 
 two boys is continually being pitted 
 against the maturer soberness of Susan 
 and myself, who know and think our- 
 selves quite smart for knowing that 
 it is youth that keeps age young, and 
 youth perhaps alone. 
 
 Eric is to take up the study of 
 meteorology in all its branches, with a 
 view to adopting it as a profession later 
 on. He is taking a special course at 
 the University, and promising things are 
 whispered to me of his genius in the 
 line he has chosen so early, and without 
 change or faltering, to make his own. 
 
 123
 
 The House of 
 
 In the skilful use of instruments he has 
 not been, for his age, surpassed ; and his 
 eager interest in the least astronomical 
 search or study has already been noted 
 down. 
 
 Professor Langrishe, the chief, is 
 making an improved, specially fitted kite, 
 to fly from high altitudes in order to 
 take cloud temperatures, and in his 
 efforts he tells me that he has more 
 than once been helped by suggestions 
 from Eric, whose whole heart is with 
 the master in his work. 
 
 Eric's Mecca now is the Lick Ob- 
 servatory. To worship some day at that 
 distant Californian shrine, to watch with 
 those who watch in that lofty, lonely 
 Temple of Science, where the " mighty 
 glass keeps its great, steady eye for 
 ever fixed on heaven for earth's sake " 
 
 124
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 this is the longing of his young 
 life. 
 
 Soon after Albert Ross was killed 
 I let the grandmother understand that 
 I would pay her a sum of a hundred 
 pounds yearly for five years. I heard 
 that the grandmother bears her loss 
 with quite exemplary cheerfulness, although 
 I feel it is ignoble of me to set this 
 down. Especially as the old lady rages 
 no more, but sends me a pair of chickens 
 twice a year by way of receipt, when 
 we sit down to a curious meal, where 
 we feel that because hilarity is out of 
 place, we are secretly consumed with a 
 wild desire for inconsequent mirth. 
 
 I mention the fact of this money 
 being paid merely to add what a strain 
 it is upon our little income, and how 
 it means that we must live with thrift 
 
 125
 
 The House of 
 
 by our side ; that we may not travel, 
 and that we must shut our eyes to 
 many sweetnesses for yet awhile. 
 
 Although all the money in the world 
 cannot atone for a life, yet in this case 
 I have wondered if I acted perhaps too 
 impulsively. At the time I thought the 
 denial necessary on our part to enable 
 me to keep the promise would be an 
 excellent discipline ; and I also wanted 
 no shadow of misgiving to grow up 
 with Eric that he had destroyed an 
 old woman's prop and mainstay without 
 redress. But it means that boyish plans 
 and boyish dreams must be sternly laid 
 aside till the time is meet again for their 
 consideration. 
 
 None the less are they dear little 
 days, the days of these five lean years, 
 when there is no money for travel. So 
 
 126
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 we see to it that inside the home all 
 is gay and fair and lovely ; and some- 
 times I ask myself, or Susan, Are we 
 really poor, or are we only playing at 
 being so ? And Susan says, emphatically, 
 the latter, and we are grave again, for 
 real poverty is a thing of so much 
 anguish that we may not speak lightly 
 of it. It is perhaps on the same plane 
 of tragedy as desertion, death, dishonour, 
 and things whose memory one keeps 
 folded in one's heart for ever, hardly 
 daring to speak of them or drag them 
 into the light of day, lest their terrible 
 bitterness rise up and slay the very 
 heart in whose silent keeping they lost 
 their sting. 
 
 " Susan, tell me truly, indeed," I said 
 to her, towards the end of a busy day, 
 as we stood together on an upstairs 
 
 127
 
 The House of 
 
 balcony, waiting for Eric to come home, 
 " but you would never call our life 
 monotonous, would you ? " 
 
 " Ah, my lamb ! " she said, and there 
 are times when Susan calls me a lamb, 
 that I feel so tall and proud and any- 
 thing but lamblike : " life is never mono- 
 tonous to hearts that ache." 
 
 On the face of this, does it seem 
 strange if little Joy, dancing up and 
 down the house with her fairy footsteps, 
 and going never so delicately too, 
 managed none the less to arouse the 
 wrath of Pain, where he lay crouching 
 restlessly without the gate ? But this 
 time it was not in his mind to maim 
 or shatter with his blow ; pin-pricks, 
 little stabs of irritation, the canker that 
 robs the day of its bloom, were all he 
 thought to take from his sorry quiver. 
 
 128
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 " That minx, Joy, she goes too 
 easily. I will affright her that she walk 
 more warily," one could almost hear him 
 saying. 
 
 A week ago, at lunch-time, Eric ran 
 home full of a happy excitement, and 
 before I could ask him anything the 
 words came tumbling from him 
 
 " Mother, isn't it ripping r Langrishe 
 has invited me to his little seaside show 
 for Easter. We're to camp out in tents 
 as the cottage isn't big enough for every- 
 body. And it's deep-sea fishing all the 
 time. And we're going to take obser- 
 vations at noon. And he's coming here 
 to ask you if I may go. Be sure you wear 
 the white dress, darling, and that neck- 
 lace with the blue stones. He's dying to 
 see Polar too, he says." 
 
 K 129
 
 The House of 
 
 The professor came, and with him a 
 beautiful presence and atmosphere were 
 in the room, and I recognised at once 
 that here was indeed a man whom a boy 
 might take for leader, master, friend, 
 and be prouder of it than of most 
 achievements. 
 
 He was very quiet. Dignity and kind- 
 liness joined forces in him. There was 
 a fine air of race about him too, the 
 indefinable air of one who belongs by 
 right of birth, tradition, training, to the 
 ruling classes, the subtle, inalienable air 
 which education, legislation, and all the 
 arts of the world can neither give nor 
 take away. His smile was, perhaps, more 
 humorous than his actual speech, and 
 many of his remarks were turned with a 
 quite old-fashioned grace and chivalry. 
 
 " I came, I believe, to congratulate you 
 
 130
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 on your son, Mrs. Calendar," he said 
 before he went away, " and to ask you 
 if I might steal him for a day or two. 
 But I leave congratulating your son on 
 his mother, and wishing I could steal 
 them both. The mothers of the famous 
 men to be, they are not met with every 
 day, you know." 
 
 He had a boundless belief in Eric 
 and in Eric's future, almost as boundless 
 as my own ; he had as well a way of 
 inspiring one with the most cheerful 
 and courageous confidence in one's self. 
 Indeed, for some time after he left, I was 
 sunning myself under the impression 
 that I was an important and fairly 
 charming person ; while as for Susan, 
 whose fairy cake he tasted and praised 
 in two or three magnetic words, she 
 was mightily uplifted too.
 
 The House of 
 
 At the first blush it seemed to me as if 
 this man belonged in reality to a rarer, a 
 more courtly world than the one in 
 which he actually moved. But I was 
 glad, proudly and profoundly, that at 
 the shrine of Science he had laid the 
 firstfruits and the service of his life. 
 For, after all, the life serene, the un- 
 ruffled life, is there. 
 
 Rightly or wrongly, Susan and I 
 flattered ourselves that we knew almost 
 at once of what human texture and 
 material men were made. We thought 
 to detect with any connoisseur of human 
 kind, a coarse from a fine material, a 
 loose weaving from a close, the stuff 
 that soon wears thin from the stuff that 
 is good to the last. 
 
 "And if the dear Lord pleases, we 
 never want to come nigh a piece of 
 
 132
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 shoddy again," said Susan to me as we 
 talked on such matters one evening in 
 the gloaming. We were quite gay, for 
 the morrow that was to bring back Eric 
 was close at hand, and his daily letters 
 had been songs of joy hidden under the 
 schoolboy's terse, expressive slang. 
 
 Suddenly something stirred in the 
 passage, and before we had time to 
 muster our wits, Mr. Smart, the country 
 schoolmaster, stood in the doorway. We 
 gasped and stared at him without a word. 
 
 " Always still the same faithful two ! " 
 he protested. " Pardon my unceremonious 
 entry. The door was open and I couldn't 
 see a knocker. But such an old friend, 
 what does he want with knockers, do I 
 hear you say ? Ah, well, you know, 
 between even the best of friends there is 
 an etiquette to be preserved."
 
 The House of 
 
 We stared at him, speechless, frozen, 
 desperate. I was sure that he was mad. 
 I tried to say the word beneath my 
 breath to Susan, but she was too far off 
 to hear. 
 
 "What!" he declared. "Did I take 
 you by surprise ? Not altogether ! You 
 surely knew that sooner or later, some 
 day, I should come ? " 
 
 At that Susan was stung to speech. 
 
 " Sir," she said, rising to confront him 
 with a gorgeous dignity, " you have made 
 a bad mistake. The mistress receives no 
 visitors. Had you rung the bell I should 
 not have admitted you. I must therefore 
 ask you at once to take your leave." 
 
 " Calm yourself, Mrs. Duenna," he 
 said, waving her off as if she were a fly. 
 " I only take it from your mistress herself 
 that she receives no visitors. I am here 
 
 134
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 to-night to listen to her voice again, not, 
 if you will pardon me, to yours." 
 
 His mocking voice sent anger and 
 loathing surging through me. In the 
 midst of it all I remembered that there are 
 people in the world who boast that they 
 find humour in everything. Do they see 
 the humour of it when their child lies 
 dead before their eyes, I wondered dully, 
 stupidly, helplessly, without cause or reason. 
 
 "Yes. You have made a bad mistake. 
 Will you be so good as to leave the 
 house at once ? " I said, echoing Susan 
 with a wildly beating heart. 
 
 " Now why ? Just why ? " he jeered. 
 
 "Because, as you have heard, I receive 
 no visitors. But I am not aware that I 
 should give you any reason for my wishes. 
 You were at no time a friend of mine, nor 
 ever could be."
 
 The House of 
 
 " Have you so soon forgotten, madam, 
 your hour of fear and agony when your 
 son was being detained, and my word alone 
 was wanting to send him speeding back to 
 you ? Have you so soon forgotten ! " 
 
 " Mr. Smart, I forget nothing. Has it 
 ever struck you that you traded perhaps 
 on that fear and agony ? Anyhow, a 
 bargain was struck between us. The 
 terms of it were kept faithfully to the 
 last letter. Is there really another thing 
 to say ? " 
 
 " You kept the letter, yes, but not the 
 spirit of your promise. And I maintain 
 that that part of the bargain is yet to 
 be fulfilled by you, also that it wants 
 a lifetime of friendly expression on your 
 part before we are really quits." 
 
 To such an amazing assertion there was 
 no answer in the world. The only thing 
 
 136
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 to do was to try and shift this abnormal 
 creature from the terrible fy suis, fy reste 
 kind of attitude he had assumed. 
 
 "Mr. Smart, you will kindly go at once. 
 You must excuse me, but I will leave the 
 room. Susan will show you out." 
 
 As I moved towards the door he darted 
 forward and barred my outgoing. 
 
 " Listen, my dear fine lady ! You 
 receive no visitors, is it ? How about the 
 man who called the other evening and 
 stayed for nearly two hours ? Did you 
 leave the room for him so abruptly ? Was 
 the position of the door pointed out to 
 him on his arrival ? If so, his protest was 
 a lengthy one what ? " 
 
 This he actually said, and with such 
 an air of malice, triumph, and coarseness, 
 that one's very soul shivered before him. 
 Only a man could cope with one like this, 
 
 137
 
 The House of 
 
 and we were two women, forlorn and 
 lone. 
 
 It must have been nearly an hour that 
 he stayed on, asking questions, referring 
 to other days, covering us with insults that 
 were the more insulting for the thin veil 
 in which he thought well to wrap them. 
 At last, tired out perhaps before our silent 
 scorn, he went. 
 
 " Till we meet again ! " he cried, 
 saluting us profoundly " it may be 
 soon, it may be beggarly long. But always 
 till we meet again. In the meantime, 
 be assured of my deep and constant 
 interest." 
 
 Susan barred and locked the door, and 
 we heard his defiant laugh outside as he 
 stood for a moment in the porch. She 
 saw to it that all the windows on the 
 ground floor were secured, and then stood 
 
 138
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 by the kitchen table looking at me with a 
 great trouble in her eyes. 
 
 " The dirty bit of shoddy ! " I heard 
 her muttering, she whose lips opened only 
 on such gentle words. 
 
 " Is he mad, I wonder, Susan ? " I asked 
 her ; " he must be mad." 
 
 " Surely an evil spirit dwells with 
 him," she said ; " and we, who were 
 all so happy in our nest and the likes 
 of him to come creeping along like a 
 snake in the grass, and up and hissing 
 at us." 
 
 " Susan, Eric must not know." 
 
 " I think, my lamb, he must." 
 
 " Oh, Susan, no ! He might do some- 
 thing in his rage that would bring 
 publicity upon us." 
 
 " I think the only way to deal with a 
 man like that is to meet him on his 
 
 '39
 
 The House of 
 
 own ground, to cow him as he tries 
 hard to cow us." 
 
 " Susan, do you mean a police-court, 
 the newspapers, a warrant for arrest, the 
 gossip of the neighbours and all these 
 intolerable things ? Besides, what could 
 we say ? There is no law against petty 
 malice and persecution, is there ? To 
 think that he began years ago when 
 Eric was a child at school ; and we are 
 not done with him yet." 
 
 " No, we are not done with him yet." 
 
 " Susan, so ominous, so prophetic you 
 sound ! Say that you don't think he's 
 going to have us watched, followed, 
 spied upon, do you ? " 
 
 " My lamb, for years and years your 
 courage has been so high. It's not 
 going to droop before a man, a thing 
 like that. And Eric's shoulders are 
 
 140
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 broad enough now to carry some of his 
 mother's troubles when they come. 
 That is why I do say that he should 
 know." 
 
 " Susan, he must have a quiet mind 
 for this work of his, such a quiet 
 mind." 
 
 " For work the quiet mind, for life 
 the courageous soul. Please God, he 
 has them both." 
 
 " Susan, I think we shall tell him 
 after all. You always know the best, 
 oh, witch that you are ! " 
 
 " Not that, just one who cares and 
 cares always." 
 
 " You dear ! . . . How happy we 
 were, we three ! Then this man comes 
 and our fairy castle falls in ruins to the 
 ground. We must build it again and 
 keep it with so much care. Can we 
 
 141
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 live behind bolts and bars though and 
 never murmur ? " 
 
 " We shan't even try, I expect. 
 Malice, maybe, is like love and laughs 
 at bars and bolts. We in our turn 
 must laugh at malice. Or, if that is not 
 possible, then we shall face it as we 
 have always faced the hours that were 
 not easy." 
 
 And in Susan's eyes comes the deep 
 quiet brooding look which is hers when 
 she hears the rustle of angels' wings. 
 
 142
 
 I FIND that I am writing of, instead 
 of to my boy. I set out, at first, to 
 keep a passing record of the years rather 
 than the days of our solitary lives. So 
 little happens on the days, but the years 
 have a tale to tell, it almost seems. I 
 began with the idea that the record 
 would be some day Eric's to keep for 
 love's sake, for guidance, for remem- 
 brance. Latterly I have come to think 
 of it as a sort of tribute to Susan, a 
 frail memorial of her faithfulness and care, 
 mine to write and Eric's to read. She 
 sees me now and again at my pages, and 
 always as she does a great content 
 shines in her eyes. But of the pages 
 
 H3
 
 The House of 
 
 themselves, though they lie loose on the 
 open desk, she never sees a line, nor 
 would she, though they lay there a dozen 
 years. And it is doubtful if I shall 
 ever offer her a sight of them, for it is 
 love, not praise, which makes real to 
 her those splendid words 
 
 " The air of paradise did fan the house, 
 And angels offic'd all." 
 
 Praise confuses her, distresses her, one 
 would almost say, but love love brings 
 no burden with it. 
 
 So she thinks it is a book I am 
 writing, a book, she is sure, which will 
 make the busy world stop for a moment 
 and weep the while it reads or laugh, 
 yes, she is sure it will laugh too, some- 
 times, so little she knows and yet so 
 much, the dear, who thinks such brave 
 
 144
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 things of me, that now and again 1 
 bless her passionately in my mind and 
 almost begin to think them too myself. 
 
 But when she sits in the same room 
 where I in my corner am at my pages, 
 I notice that she wears her silk apron 
 and only works at her finest work. 
 Once when I asked her about some 
 other work which I knew she wanted to 
 get done, she said 
 
 " No, my lamb, not just here, not 
 just now. My needle can't do coarse 
 work while your pen's doing that. I 
 don't know how 'tis, but my needle 
 when it's doing its best work seems 
 somehow to keep step with your pen, 
 the best stitches and the best words side 
 by side in the room as 'twere." 
 
 What poignancy of pathos, little pen 
 of mine, was in those words to us !
 
 The House of 
 
 You and I, we know know how far we 
 fall short of the silk apron, the fine 
 stitches, and the sainted presence there. 
 Weep inky tears, little pen, at your 
 futile struggles to match those stitches, 
 patient, symmetrical and clean, whilst I, 
 taking all my severity in my hands, 
 say, " Susan, you have paralysed us 
 both, my pen and me. We can never 
 do another stroke." 
 
 But " Hush ! " is all she answers, and 
 smiles, and shakes her head. 
 
 One of the moments of my life was 
 at this time on the evening of Eric's 
 home-coming from his holiday with his 
 professor. The meeting after the first 
 parting from one's child, what else on 
 earth is like it? How good it is for 
 the mother to hold her boy close to 
 
 146
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 her, and know that only within the home 
 are arms opened wide to him. 
 
 Soon, terribly soon, other arms will 
 stretch towards him, wanton arms, vam- 
 pire arms, syren arms, and how will he 
 know that their embrace is more cruel 
 than death ? How will he know to 
 wait for the arms of love, faithful and 
 undefiled ? Will he have to pay a 
 heavy price before he learns that the 
 true liberty is to be master of one's self? 
 
 Susan has no fear for him. She says 
 that his instincts will be his guide. 
 And I pray to the God in whom she 
 trusts that she is right. But the things 
 that he must learn, not from his mother, 
 but from life and the world, they are 
 those whose contemplation makes her 
 heart ache, makes her prize every 
 moment of the blissful guileless present, 
 
 H7
 
 The House of 
 
 moments that no terror of the future 
 can snatch away. 
 
 I follow the lectures of Dr. Emil 
 Reich with as much interest as those 
 ladies of a weary aristocracy in the far- 
 off city. Much of what he says is 
 merely exquisite absurdity, but hidden 
 away in this gauze-like texture are all 
 sorts of tender truths and bits of fine 
 philosophy. He has a weighty thing to 
 say on the training of soldiers, and I, 
 at least, like to think that he said it in 
 perfect good faith and seriousness 
 
 " The man who has had the most 
 cuddling, the most kisses, and the most 
 of a mother's love and tenderness, that 
 is the man who will make a great hero. 
 It is the women who make the men. 
 The man who has not had all this will 
 get tired of a battlefield in half an 
 
 148
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 hour. . . . Heroes are men who have 
 been loved by their mothers, kissed by 
 them to any extent. It is not enough 
 for some to have a kiss now and again : 
 they should be kissed continually, five 
 hundred, five thousand kisses : and on 
 the battlefield he will kill five thousand 
 of his enemies." 
 
 I am rather glad that the pronouns 
 are not mine, but I am proud to echo 
 the sentiment in every fibre. 
 
 Professor Lahgrishe wrote to me the 
 other day, suggesting that Eric should 
 join the University Corps of Mounted 
 Cadets and go into training as soon as 
 possible. The value of this as a set-off 
 to close scientific study could not be over- 
 rated, he told me. Also that every lad 
 must know how to care for a horse and 
 use a rifle, not for purposes of attack 
 
 149
 
 The House of 
 
 but for those of defence. He had an 
 unsurpassable way of inspiring boys with 
 love of country. When Eric came to 
 me with shining eyes and flushed cheeks, 
 saying, " Mother, do you know that there 
 are thousands of miles of coastline quite 
 unprotected round Australia ? And if 
 you don't call that a mouldy shame, 
 what on earth do you call it ? " then I 
 knew that Dr. Reich was right and that 
 much love had not spoilt my boy ; I 
 knew that his master and professor was 
 right, and that he must have the training 
 without which patriotism itself is help- 
 less in the hour of danger ; I knew that 
 it was only I who was wrong, and 
 perhaps Susan with me (for sin in that 
 dear company is lost in grace), that we 
 could not still the aching of our hearts 
 
 at what we knew not. 
 
 ^X 
 
 150
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 Without self-discipline, self-sacrifice of 
 some definite kind or another, race deca- 
 dence so soon sets in, the Professor 
 explained to Eric on his holiday. 
 Also how military training afforded a 
 splendid scope for the acquiring and the 
 practice of these traits. After that, of 
 course, no argument was needed. What 
 was needed, though, was a uniform, a 
 rifle, a pony and accoutrements. 
 
 The professor insisted on providing 
 the pony himself. Having no child of 
 his own to present to the State, at least 
 let him give the hire of a pony to 
 some one else's child, he begged, and 
 with such kindly determination, that we 
 found ourselves wishing that we could 
 receive but half as beautifully as he 
 gave. 
 
 We held out both hands to this
 
 The House of 
 
 Friendship that came unasked, unsought, 
 into our lives. No reluctance or mis- 
 giving for a moment was in our mind, 
 we who were wont to shun strangers as 
 alien hosts. Until this Friendship came 
 we hardly knew that it was what we 
 had unconsciously been craving for. 
 Some one to encourage and uplift, 
 some one to bring a sense of gaiety, 
 intimacy, comradeship, alertness into the 
 house, some one that was in touch with 
 everything inspiring and interesting in 
 modern life, everything fine in that 
 other life of the spirit. To welcome 
 him, the doors and windows of our souls 
 opened wide, and a shining flood of 
 sympathy and understanding swept 
 through the corridors and chambers : and 
 one knew with joy that those souls were 
 shy to death and solitary no more. 
 
 152
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 But we paid the price paid it in 
 little coins of anxiety, nervousness, anger, 
 reproach, the small change of life's large 
 dread and the orderings of doom. 
 
 One morning, as we sat at breakfast, 
 Susan got up to bring in the post. 
 Eric, as usual, forestalled her, and laid 
 a letter by my plate. " Only one, dar- 
 ling, and such a size. It might be an 
 invitation to a show." 
 
 I opened it and read 
 
 " And SO) the day of the new friend is 
 here ? Surely, he who wipes the child's 
 nose kisses the mother's face. Eh, what ? " 
 
 It was unsigned. I read it two or 
 three times, bewildered, before the 
 identity of the writer flashed into my 
 mind. I was troubled as to whether I 
 should show it to Eric and Susan, but 
 Eric seemed waiting for whatever news 
 
 153
 
 The House of 
 
 might be, and I, taking the line of least 
 resistance, I suppose, put the letter first 
 into Susan's hand and then into his. 
 
 Susan caught her breath, and scorn 
 lit a fire in her eyes. She had been 
 quicker than I to know who had done 
 this thing. Eric read it first to him- 
 self, and then aloud 
 
 " Why, that's Smart's dirty fist ! I 
 thought he was dead, buried, and cre- 
 mated as far as we were concerned. 
 Mother, how dare he, the sneak ? How 
 can I find out where he is and punch 
 his ass's head for him ? " 
 
 Thereupon we told him for the first 
 time of that evening visit, and he was 
 white with anger, and so still, that the 
 sound of his reckless schoolboy vocabu- 
 lary would have been music in my ear. 
 
 " Eric," I said, " I have an idea that
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 this is just what he wants you to 
 punch his head, as you call it, or some 
 such thing. He tries to provoke Susan 
 and me to wrath so that you may take 
 up the cudgels on our behalf. If he 
 can only induce you to attack him, he 
 will call on the law to avenge him. Or, 
 more probably, as an alternative, he will 
 come cringing here with some unwhole- 
 some bargain in his brain as before that 
 other time, you remember? For our 
 sakes, Eric, don't give him this chance. 
 Don't, dear ! He has followed us from 
 the wilderness to the city, it seems ; he 
 either spies on us himself, or uses 
 another. Yet nowhere and never in the 
 wide world can he hurt us now, unless 
 in some strange way we ourselves give him 
 the means to do so. That is just what we 
 are not going to do, Eric, isn't it ? "
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 An hour later he gave me his pro- 
 mise, steadily, sadly, reluctantly. As he 
 swung out of the house to his day of 
 patient work, he turned his puzzled eyes 
 upon me, and, frowning, said 
 
 " Little mother, dear, learning how to 
 defend your country's a simple job ; but 
 learning how to defend your home's no 
 end of a bally business ! " 
 
 , 5 6
 
 " SUSAN," I said, one morning, " I 
 have been thinking till my head aches, 
 and I do believe that the only place 
 left where we can lay ourselves down in 
 peace is on a ship at sea. To live 
 between the waves and the sky and to 
 know that nothing from the land can 
 touch us. Would that be the divinest 
 freedom at last, do you think ? You 
 look so wise, I believe you know of a 
 better place still." 
 
 " Oh, no, my dearie, not that. But 
 what was it that you used to sing 
 
 ' Then stay at home, my heart, and rest, 
 Home-keeping hearts are happiest.' 
 
 157
 
 The House of 
 
 And Master Eric's studies. No ship at 
 sea even would be to him what his 
 University is just now. We wouldn't 
 let a worm frighten us out of our 
 home, anyhow. Often, though, I hear 
 the country ways a-calling. Do you, 
 too, my lamb ? " 
 
 Her faded, work-worn hands sought 
 mine. Tears trembled in her clear, kind 
 eyes. Life is now and then to Susan a 
 sob that must be stifled in a smile. 
 And she hears the country ways a- 
 calling. 
 
 In cities it is what she calls the 
 nakedness of the land that bewilders 
 her. Not the earth that brings forth 
 streets, shops, statues, and great public 
 buildings, but the earth that brings forth 
 orchards, forests, cornfields, meadows, 
 valleys of deep calm and pleasantness 
 
 158
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 there is the earth to which her heart 
 inclines. 
 
 And no surer pledge could be given 
 of what the nameless torture of those 
 last two years upon the hilltop was to 
 her and me than in the rush of joy 
 with which we fled from beauteous ways 
 and the things that belonged unto our 
 peace, and turned to walk the weary 
 streets of cities as those who trod the 
 fields Elysian. 
 
 And, now, what is it of those fields 
 Elysian ? 
 
 It is that their comfort is for us no 
 more. In their sweet grasses a snake 
 lies coiled. Poison floats in the fine 
 air. Cruelty lurks in the sunlit ways 
 down which one's heart for a little space 
 sang as one went. Freedom is lost in 
 fear, gladness drowned in apprehension, 
 
 '59
 
 The House of 
 
 and the fields Elysian are the weary 
 streets of cities yet again. 
 
 Sometimes, quite suddenly, we come 
 upon it, upon him, as we turn the 
 corner of a street. If Eric is with me, 
 terror gets strangely hold of me, terror 
 lest he fail to rule his spirit or bridle 
 his hot scorn. If I am alone, I thank 
 God that it is so, and pass quickly on 
 along the busy streets, glad of the con- 
 tact of my fellow-creatures in whose 
 debt I seem so singularly at these 
 moments. Sometimes for two months 
 we do not see his face, and a hope that 
 we dare hardly whisper to each other 
 begins to softly move within us until 
 once more, it may be as we leave a 
 church, a theatre, a railway-station, what 
 not, that pitiless presence is there, watch- 
 ing, noting, preying, the embodiment, the 
 
 1 60
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 portent of all that is inhuman and in- 
 exorable. 
 
 For there is no pretence of the im- 
 possible now, no delusion with regard 
 to a friendship that is without the pale, 
 an acquaintance even that is beyond the 
 limits of consideration. That sardonic 
 smile is a declaration of war. Those 
 eyes say : " Good ! Since you have 
 chosen war let it be." And in case 
 there should be any mistake, an un- 
 signed letter comes ever and again to 
 confirm the other tokens. Some shaft, 
 some stab, whose insolence is baser even 
 than its cruelty, is sent in an envelope 
 which one always opens because it is 
 never twice addressed in quite the same 
 handwriting or way. 
 
 Plainer than ever before it is to me 
 that one must not let even a constant 
 
 M 161
 
 The House of 
 
 fret or fear take up an undue propor- 
 tion of one's care. In the well-ordered 
 days of the elect, whoever and wherever 
 they may be, the troubled heart and the 
 spirit stirred with intuition of harm, 
 these lesser woes without the dignity 
 and majesty of grief surely they are 
 banished to a far perspective, and 
 allowed no place in the foreground of 
 their lives. 
 
 And so it must be too with us. 
 
 It is the song of the Uplifted Heart 
 that we shall sing. 
 
 Work, the world, after all how un- 
 obscure and beautiful they are. 
 
 " Health and a day ! " What more 
 can rulers of empires have ? 
 
 The bliss that through love is ours. 
 
 The felicity that only attainment 
 brings. 
 
 162
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 The paths that are on the high hills ; 
 the fields that ripen to their harvest 
 and stretch away to the shadows of the 
 friendly forests. 
 
 Honest lives pressing forward to the 
 mark. 
 
 It is of these, my heart, that we shall 
 sing and come into our own with joy 
 again. 
 
 163
 
 ONCE more and the mountains are our 
 home. 
 
 I see that four years have gone since last 
 this little record of our lives was written 
 down quiet, busy years, that if they held 
 pin-pricks of poison held no less deep 
 draughts of peace ; years that for the rest 
 have no history, that yet, it may be, of 
 all the years that run, are instinct with the 
 whisperings of fate, the furnishing, wise or 
 fruitless, for the encounters still to be. 
 
 Oh, my dear, my Bambino, my Little 
 One always, how beautiful you have 
 grown ! 
 
 As you stood against the skyline this 
 morning over on the mountain side, with 
 
 164
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 your rifle on your shoulder, looking in- 
 tently for quite a space at I know not 
 what, I, watching from the plateau here, 
 fell to adoring that unconscious fine air 
 with which you carry your bare score of 
 years. 
 
 Life is so lovely that in my little book 
 I must write it down. 
 
 If I could capture this hour as it really 
 is, and imprison it in a few magic words as 
 a musician does the liquid notes of a bird, 
 or a painter the summer wind stirring a 
 cornfield ! 
 
 But the shining ethereal delicacy of it 
 all, the rare deep silence, the aloofness of 
 these timeless heights, alone the Sonnet of 
 the Master could show their praises forth. 
 
 We are here, solitary, on the top of our 
 island world. To the north-east, some 
 sixty miles away, the peak of Kosciusko
 
 The House of 
 
 sparkles, higher than we are by two 
 thousand feet. But here is the roof. 
 Kosciusko is but a chimney, rising from 
 a distant slope of the roof. Here we can 
 fare forth for days together, remote, alone, 
 always on the top of the island world. 
 
 Oh, beautiful boy of mine, whose grave 
 eyes smile as they meet mine (and more 
 than ever when they see a love-word on 
 my lips), very well you did down there 
 in the world of men and schools, to be 
 sent before you were twenty to make 
 observations and have charge of this 
 isolated meteorological station on the 
 Australian Alps. It is a beginning, a 
 livelihood, work after your heart of hearts, 
 and is bound to lead, if worthily fulfilled, 
 to things of consequence later on. 
 
 One sorrow here is ours. Susan cannot 
 be with us. She came in the beginning 
 
 1 66
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 and installed us with all the little tricks 
 of comfort that she knows so well. She 
 gloried in the cloistered life and the en- 
 raptured air, but presently her breathing 
 grew difficult ; the altitude then seemed to 
 bring on heart trouble ; she had fits of 
 dizziness and sickness, and with bitter 
 grief she learnt that she could not stay. 
 Her misgiving at leaving us, to me was full 
 of pathos. She only tarries here at all, I 
 sometimes think, to watch over you and 
 me, and she cannot believe that things will 
 still go well with us unless she is close at 
 hand to shut the door on every untoward 
 wind that blows. 
 
 She refused to be comforted when I told 
 her that contrary winds could never touch 
 us here. But now she keeps our rooms in 
 the city fair and fine for us and takes care 
 of all the things we love but could not 
 
 167
 
 The House of 
 
 transport to these distant places. Twice 
 every year we go there to her when you 
 deliver your reports in person at the State 
 Observatory. 
 
 And Sister Nora, of the merry heart, 
 who refuses continual " offers," then 
 wonders wildly why she is not married like 
 nearly everybody else, in the intervals be- 
 tween her cases, makes those rooms her 
 home, and things have thus arranged 
 themselves with a fitness that leaves little 
 wanting. 
 
 When Susan had to go we tried a little 
 maid from the valley township forty miles 
 away. For a week and a half she pined 
 and fretted terribly. Nothing could com- 
 fort her or stand to her in the stead of 
 the nine brothers and sisters all huddled 
 together in two tiny rooms. The great 
 solitudes hurt her. She thrilled with fear 
 
 168
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 at the silence, at the sweeping mists that 
 rolled in like the waves of the sea, hiding 
 heaven and earth and wrapping us in velvet 
 folds of mystery from dawn till eve. Once 
 at the twilight we found her sobbing out 
 her heart on the neck of a friendly nanny- 
 goat. Not even your cheerful " Ara- 
 minta ! By all the stars ! " could still 
 such sorrow. So we sent her down again 
 before the winter snows cut us off from 
 the world, and since then have been 
 bold to make no more experiments, but 
 live alone. And for the loveliness of my 
 life I thank God continually. 
 
 So still one's soul grows here, so quiet 
 one's mind. All things seem strangely 
 possible. Trivialities drop away. The 
 things which do not matter and which 
 yet encumber one so in cities are here 
 quite lost count of. 
 
 169
 
 The House of 
 
 How well we love it, you and I, Mine ! 
 Oh, but we love it. Not the world where 
 men and women quarrel and let their 
 hearts grow worn out and ugly with 
 jealousy and meanness; but the dear 
 world where it seems that such things 
 do not come : where all the music is the 
 whirr of tiny wings stirring through the 
 shimmer of the blue when noon is high : 
 where the tender grasses wave, and the 
 stars make a lighted temple of the high 
 hills and the sweet winds a holy incense 
 in its midst. 
 
 That Fate, whose favours lie so lightly 
 on us, should have chosen us for this life 
 there is the delicious wonder of it day by 
 day. 
 
 Ninety per cent, of people, if they were 
 stationed here, would, I suppose, count 
 their lives as dead, lost, useless, benumbed. 
 
 170
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 Like little Araminta, terror itself would 
 take hold of them. It seems odd indeed 
 that Fate singled out no one of these, but 
 sent here you and me. 
 
 But if Susan read these lines, I know 
 that she would say, " Not Fate, my lamb, 
 not Fate. Professor Langrishe and the 
 Lord ! " 
 
 Ah, Susan, when the decree of destiny 
 joins hands for a breathing space with 
 one's own passionate longings and instincts, 
 the life blest and beautiful is there, and 
 you, who understand so well, you will 
 gainsay me not. 
 
 What time city folk are sleeping fast 
 after their work or play, or pouring out 
 from theatres, shows, and the halls of 
 dance and song, then for Eric and myself 
 it is perhaps the hour to step from the 
 cottage on .to the plateau into the icy 
 
 171
 
 The House of 
 
 silence of a frozen moonlit world. Below 
 us, into the shining distance, stretch the 
 hills, fold on fold, like petrified waves ; 
 and around them cluster the forests of 
 snowy gums, dead and leafless, in close 
 serried ranks, vast phantom armies, waiting 
 a word of command that is never spoken. 
 When I see them in the moonlight, stand- 
 ing stiff and straight for miles, ghostly 
 sentinels about the mountain keeps, they 
 seem part of some spirit-world, and a soft 
 sense of mystery broods around with only 
 friendliness and healing in its issues. 
 
 Gentle are the influences, then, that 
 hover round the roughly-built instrument- 
 shed at one end of the terrace or plateau 
 to which we make our way when night 
 work must be done. In these hours I am 
 nearly always outside with Eric, for it 
 may be an instrument to be held or ad- 
 
 172
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 justed, notes to be written quickly down, 
 observations to be made with the cloud- 
 mirror or one of the many things for 
 which two are better than one. 
 
 My pride rises high when Eric says at 
 supper time something to this effect : 
 " Little Nancy Calendar, how about the 
 Lunar Alps to-night ? When the moon 
 is well up, soon after midnight, I want 
 to have another shot at measuring those 
 heights along the great valley. But mind, 
 no rising with the dawn to-morrow ! " 
 
 Or it may be that we arc out in the 
 great dim silent world where ice-crystals 
 are forming and the only sound is the 
 cracking of a twig in the hoar frost, and 
 our study is of that immensity of stars, 
 that radiant belt girdling all the sky, called 
 the Milky Way. And as we wander back 
 to the books and the blazing logs and our
 
 The House of 
 
 waiting beds, Eric may say with his most 
 ridiculous air, " Little Nancy Calendar ! I 
 do believe her soul is sighing for the city 
 fleshpots after all. She's tired of living 
 in the clouds ! " 
 
 Then the deep, untroubled sleep of the 
 mountains and the glad rising to another 
 day, which one knows is going to be 
 rich in interest and full enough of 
 work to keep it sound. For here is no 
 monotony. 
 
 Estimating the force of the wind, 
 recording the hours of sunshine, calcu- 
 lating the dew-point, ascertaining the 
 temperatures of air and earth all these 
 things and many more have to be entered 
 in the daily register, the thermometers cor- 
 rected and tested, the measure of rain or 
 snow taken, and above all, cloud forma- 
 tion to be studied and reported on, this 
 
 174
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 being a special feature of the work of the 
 station. 
 
 I, who love books so well, I never 
 thought to read the stories there can be 
 in sky and clouds, the pictured stories too. 
 Perhaps the moon is riding in a frosty 
 sky, when light clouds float up from no- 
 where and veil her glory, making it fairer 
 still. Then, coquettishly, she fastens round 
 her her coloured rings, the Lunar Corona, 
 as Eric tells me carefully to say, violet, 
 silver, orange, amethyst ; and she smiles 
 at us, who, here below, say that her heart 
 is dead, her fires extinct, her valleys void 
 and tenantless. Or the thunderclouds that 
 break and shiver into shreds on these 
 mountain tops, from their massive turrets 
 to their gloomy dungeons, black tragedies 
 of the air, full of passion and grim des- 
 peration, fling their bitterness across the 
 
 175
 
 The House of 
 
 heavens. At last, when all their anger has 
 sobbed itself out, the light falls aslant; 
 deep cloud shadows, bright-edged perhaps, 
 lie on the hills, and we know that at even- 
 tide there will be peace, and that the things 
 which are not seen are the things eternal. 
 
 We walk for miles and never know that 
 we have walked a yard, so light is the air 
 in these high-lying places. When the 
 food supply is low, Eric takes his gun and 
 shoots a rabbit or a hare, or very occasion- 
 ally a small moorland bird. Rather than 
 trap our dinner, we would go hungry for 
 a week. There is a flock of goats belong- 
 ing to the place ; all the milk we have is 
 goat's milk, and the tinkle of the bells on 
 their necks is in perfect tune with the 
 monastic atmosphere that impregnates 
 everything around. 
 
 I cannot say whether I love best the 
 
 176
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 winter or the summer here. Both are 
 beautiful beyond compare. In the winter, 
 perhaps for nearly five months we neither 
 get a letter nor see one fellow-creature, and 
 our anxiety is for Susan always. In the 
 summer every fortnight bring us a mes- 
 sage or a word, and things are well with us 
 indeed. But when the snows melt and the 
 first packets reach us from the far-off" 
 world, then indeed we are like two chil- 
 dren for excitement and for fun. 
 
 I remember at one of these seasons 
 I was reading in the ingle-nook by the 
 fire. Eric had just finished a paper 
 on some astronomical question and his 
 abstraction had not quite faded away. 
 
 " Listen ! " I told him. " Down in the 
 world a new thing has been born since 
 you and I were there. They call it a 
 Suffragette." 
 
 N I 77
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 " A new star, did you say ? What are 
 her dimensions ? What hemisphere is she 
 swinging over ? Has she come to stay ? " 
 
 "God bless her ! It seems so," I said, 
 when I could speak again. 
 
 178
 
 IT is the summer now, the summer when, 
 if I write at all, I seem as if I must 
 dip my pen in gold in the liquid 
 gold, the peace, the dew of the hopes 
 and memories that are born upon the 
 mountains. 
 
 Astronomy smiles kindly, they say, at 
 poetry. So Eric smiles on me. 
 
 The angels held high festival and there 
 was a banquet last night in heaven. The 
 sky was full of stars, a network of jewels 
 on a ground of filmiest blue. Here and 
 there little clouds of silver muslin 
 brushed softly across the azure. Eric 
 was working outside, faithful and sleep- 
 less, watching the nebulas in the region 
 
 179
 
 The House of 
 
 of the Southern Cross. Where I see 
 only a white shimmer of glory, his eye, 
 trained to the finer spectroscopy, is 
 exploring the glittering suns of un- 
 suspected worlds and star clusters. I left 
 him alone with his instruments, but sat 
 outside on the terrace in case he might 
 be wanting me. When his work was 
 done he closed the door of the shed 
 and threw himself beside me on the 
 short crisp turf. 
 
 In the dim light I saw his face, with 
 the tense expression which silent en- 
 thusiasm inspires, and I knew that he 
 had been in heaven reading the secrets 
 that are " writ in the jewelled cypher 
 of the sky." 
 
 I wondered if something new had 
 come within his range, but forbore to 
 speak, remembering how far spent was 
 
 1 80
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 the night and how deep must be his 
 weariness. His head was on my lap 
 and my fingers rested idly on his hair. 
 Presently I knew that he had fallen fast 
 asleep. 
 
 With a bound I was back in the years 
 that had gone. It was a troubled little 
 head that took its sleep in my arms, for 
 a schoolmate lay dead, and it was my 
 boy who had brought this thing to pass. 
 Susan was with me then, tending the fire 
 and reading words of mercy and under- 
 standing from her Book of Books. For 
 some moments life grew dark and piteous 
 again on that terrace under the high 
 stars, and I wished that Susan were with 
 me still. 
 
 What seemed a point of light kept 
 dancing very far away in some hollow. 
 It would vanish, then flash again. I 
 
 181
 
 The House of 
 
 watched it till it stopped altogether, 
 vaguely troubled, until I remembered 
 that it was perhaps what they call the 
 Will o' the Wisp, or some such marsh- 
 land token, for of human agency I knew 
 that it could scarcely be. 
 
 The short-lived night wore on. The 
 waiting world grew slowly white, and a 
 tenderness like nothing I have known 
 before was in the air. With a thrill I 
 understood that the dawn was close, and 
 feared that in the warm splendour my 
 boy would wake. A poet might have 
 sung in chosen words to that lustrous 
 radiancy to come veiled and delicately 
 along the margin of the mountains : but 
 a mother, what can a mother do ? She 
 is blest indeed if she can think, as 
 I thought then, how good it is to be 
 alone with her child, in some tabernacle 
 
 182
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 lifted high above the world, where only 
 peace and love do enter in. 
 
 Kids were born to four of our nanny- 
 goats last week. Two of the little things 
 have been snatched up by hawks already, 
 and the disconsolate mothers refuse to 
 browse or rest, but languish sadly. This 
 havoc has been going on for some time. 
 Eric and I watch those hawks, a pair, 
 circling round and round in the still, 
 pearl-white sky. He proposes that we 
 shall walk by a trackless way over the 
 ridge, down into one of the fastnesses 
 where perhaps their eyrie is, for he is 
 going to shoot them if he can get a 
 decent aim. 
 
 "And that's much too good for them," 
 he says, remembering the bodies of the 
 slain goats which it has sometimes been 
 
 183
 
 The House of 
 
 our lot to find, with their eyes and tongues 
 pecked out, and the life not yet quite 
 gone. 
 
 I love the trackless ways upon the 
 mountains. I always fall to thinking of 
 those pioneers in every land who left the 
 open road for the wilderness of virgin 
 solitudes, and with torn feet and bleeding 
 hands went out to meet the doom that 
 crouches in the fearful, hidden ways. But 
 for those strong hearts in the van, where 
 would be to-day the sweetness of the 
 tracks they left behind, the worn tracks 
 along whose sides the grass is tender, 
 flowers spring up, and homes cluster ? 
 But for them the lights would not be 
 shining in the little windows and the 
 children playing without fear in the 
 clearings now. 
 
 And as they suffered then, so it is 
 
 184
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 written down that they must suffer too, 
 who, in the world of men and cities, get 
 beyond the outposts of tradition and con- 
 vention. How bleak for them the way, 
 how hard the stones, how bitter the 
 pointed finger, the averted look, the dull 
 lack of understanding ! But, who shall 
 say ? from the seeds of their despair 
 may spring forth fruit a thousandfold. 
 ***** 
 We went by the trackless ways, Eric 
 and I, this afternoon. We walked along 
 the ridge on either side of which the 
 island-world slopes down, on the north 
 to the warm, on the south to the frozen 
 seas. We wandered into shady hollows 
 where mosses and ferns cluster gloriously 
 together, and the leaves of the snowy 
 gums rustle and sparkle in the breeze. 
 We looked into abysses and wild, mys- 
 
 185
 
 The House of 
 
 terious depths where the gloom was as 
 darkness visible. We saw a black 
 buzzard circling round, and presently 
 heard him drop with a scream on some 
 unfortunate lizard, snake, or field-mouse : 
 but of the hawks and their strongholds 
 we saw no sign at all. 
 
 As we went we talked of our high 
 hopes, of the time when we shall start 
 for California to see the spangled skies 
 through the glass whose greatness and 
 whose fame is noised abroad through all 
 the world. 
 
 " But, Eric," I told him, " I've been 
 thinking that you and Professor Langrishe 
 shall go together. His heart is set on this 
 holiday. Susan and I will wait for you 
 at home and write you letters and think 
 of you every minute of the time." 
 
 " Not so, little Nancy Calendar, not so ! 
 
 186
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 You and Susan shall come and dwell like 
 ladies of high degree among the pink and 
 silver blossoms of the orchard villages that 
 nestle in the canyons, while Langrishe 
 and I pursue our pilgrimage a few miles 
 further on to the temple where Science 
 is equipped for her work and for her 
 labour as she ought to be but near 
 each other, always, little mother, while 
 we can." 
 
 We were resting against a boulder, 
 scarcely a mile from home, and with our 
 terrace in full view across the gorge, when 
 Eric got up and took out the small field- 
 glasses which he always carries with him 
 on his walks abroad. After gazing 
 through them intently for some minutes 
 he handed them to me. 
 
 " Look," he said, " away over about 
 four or five miles, by that sort of thicket
 
 The House of 
 
 at the bottom of the St. Bernard crags, 
 do you see anything ? 
 
 I looked long at the point he signified. 
 
 " Surely," I told him, " isn't it smoke, 
 a tiny column of smoke ? " 
 
 He took the glasses back from me 
 and looked again. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " smoke it is. Who 
 the deuce can be camped there unless it's 
 some old sundowner considerably off the 
 track." 
 
 " Ah I " I remembered, " it would be 
 there, or just about, that I thought I 
 saw a light or lantern swinging in the 
 darkness, when you fell asleep by me on 
 the terrace, the night before last." 
 
 " You did ? And you didn't tell me ? " 
 
 " It was so far away, I couldn't be sure. 
 Besides, I really never thought of it again 
 till now." 
 
 188
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 " By Jove ! a murderer, fleeing from 
 justice, could dodge pursuit for no end 
 of time among these wilds if he only 
 knew a thing or two, couldn't he ? " 
 
 " Eric ! how horrible ! " I cried, shiver- 
 ing. He flung his arm around me. 
 
 " Little mother," he laughed, " it's 
 just occurred to me that what we take 
 for smoke may perhaps be steam. For 
 there's not the faintest sign of a tent or 
 swag, or human being. It may be the 
 bed of a morass drying up, or there may 
 be a hot spring down there. Simply 
 great. The Saint's Spring miracles 
 while you wait. Anyhow, we'll go 
 down in a day or two and explore the 
 mystery for ourselves." 
 
 And so, laughing, running, vastly 
 satisfied, we set our steps towards home. 
 
 189
 
 The House of 
 
 All yesterday the mists embraced us, 
 invested us with a thousand dear caresses, 
 encompassed us with a wordless softness, 
 a quiet that never could be spoken. 
 Though we were able to look for neither 
 the hawks nor the sainted spring, we 
 were not idle : we were absorbed in 
 flying our kite and taking cloud tempera- 
 tures at different heights. We got most 
 interesting results, and Eric said it was 
 a day such as he had long been waiting 
 for. This morning the mists are with 
 us still ; but they show signs of lifting, 
 and there is promise of a gorgeous 
 day. 
 
 Have you ever looked through the 
 open window of a mountain cottage on to 
 a world of mist and cloud where you 
 can see nothing, not even the roses on 
 the lawn or the lilac at the gate ? A 
 
 190
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 melancholy sweetness is everywhere, and 
 in the stillness you could hear a leaf 
 drop. You begin to wonder are you of 
 or in the world at all, and then there 
 comes a sadness which does not hurt, a 
 sadness to which you open wide the door 
 of your heart. Suddenly, piercing the 
 silver shroud, comes the note of a lark, 
 flying high into the hidden heaven and 
 singing gloriously as he flies. So, an 
 hour ago, it was with us. Ah ! but life 
 is good. 
 
 I seem to remember a morning once 
 before like this. But then I wanted the 
 little bird to stay his song while my boy 
 slept yet a while. But now I hear him, 
 that same boy, grown so tall and fair 
 and good to look at, and he is calling 
 joyously 
 
 " Come out, little mother mine, come 
 
 191
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 out ! The clouds are scattering all to 
 pieces, and you'll never in your life see 
 a finer thing than the way the mountains 
 are shining out and shaping. ..." 
 
 192
 
 SUSAN has brought my book and pens 
 and laid them on the table. 
 
 " Write, my lamb," she bids me " if 
 only just a little, write. There's nothing 
 else to do. And the hours won't seem 
 so long. I shall bring my fine sewing. 
 Then the night comes soon again." 
 
 She looks so frail and old. There is 
 nothing I would not do to please her if 
 I could. But this to write does she 
 quite know what she says ? 
 
 Where had I got to ? What was it ? 
 That it was good for us to be there, 
 my boy and I ? Ah ! that life was good ? 
 I wrote that I ? 
 
 I remember. Yes. He called to me, 
 o 193
 
 The House of 
 
 and I went out to the splendour of that 
 awful morning and waited while the 
 world grew calm and radiant for the 
 sacrifice. As we stood together on the 
 terrace, we noticed once more the two 
 hawks circling overhead, hungry for their 
 prey after long tarrying in the mists and 
 clouds. 
 
 Eric ran for his rifle. " Look, dear," 
 he called to me, " I'm not going far, 
 only to the other side of those boulders. 
 I have an idea that with patience I shall 
 get a decent aim." 
 
 As I watched alone, Mr. Smart, the 
 schoolmaster, arising from nowhere, yet 
 seeming to come from behind the cot- 
 tage, walked towards me. I suppose it 
 was the horror, the shock that was in 
 my look, that angered him, for he said 
 " Did you think, indeed, that you had 
 
 194
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 done with me ? Didn't you understand 
 that you never will have done with 
 me ? " then flung a foul word at me, 
 and in his madness shouted it yet again. 
 At the sound of his coming Eric rushed 
 forward, heard the word, levelled his 
 rifle, and shot the man dead almost at 
 my feet. 
 
 We knelt down to feel his pulse and 
 heart, flew inside for brandy, but knew 
 in a few moments that what was done 
 could never be undone or changed for 
 ever. We lifted him inside, a burden 
 terrible to bear, straightened his limbs, 
 folded his hands, and left him lying in 
 the strange chill peace. 
 
 Then Eric came and knelt by me, 
 and his face was as I have never seen 
 it before. 
 
 195
 
 The House of 
 
 " Oh, little mother-love, what have I 
 done to you ! " he said. 
 
 " No, no. I to you, darling, I to 
 you." 
 
 And for an hour, locked in each 
 other's arms, it was all we said. 
 
 I sometimes, now, think that was our 
 last goodbye. But it is a thought that 
 strangles. I may not think it, yet 
 continually I do. 
 
 How frail and old she looks, Susan, 
 sitting by the window there ! She has 
 not worked a single stitch. Her fine 
 sewing is wet with tears. 
 
 ***** 
 
 That was yesterday. Little book, what 
 mockery it is for me to sit and fill 
 your clean pages now, in these quickly- 
 flying days when Eric John Calendar 
 lies in the city gaol, less than a mile 
 
 196
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 from here, awaiting his trial for the 
 wilful murder of Thomas Smart, school- 
 master my Eric, honest, clean as day- 
 light, down whose path the Future 
 beckoned shiningly, till Fate stepped in 
 and with one mocking blow laid all 
 that fair fame in the dust. 
 
 And I see Justice pointing its finger 
 towards the dead. His life, such as it 
 was, was dear to him too, perhaps, and 
 in one moment it was torn from his 
 body, which now cries aloud for ven- 
 geance. And the last words are among 
 the truest that he spoke : " Did you 
 think, indeed, that you had done with 
 me. Understand that you will never 
 have done with me." How right he 
 was ! His is the victory which endures. 
 
 After that hour upon the mountain, 
 the hour which all the world cannot 
 
 197
 
 The House of 
 
 take away, we wondered, Eric and I, 
 what we must do. 
 
 " Shall we die now, together, Eric ? " 
 I asked him. " Will you shoot me and 
 then yourself? We are both quite 
 ready." 
 
 His beautiful face flushed, and I think 
 tears swam in his troubled eyes. 
 
 " Little mother," he said slowly, 
 " that is too easy a way too easy 
 both for you and me." 
 
 After that I did not speak the wild 
 thoughts that held me from moment to 
 moment as to how we could cover up 
 this fearsome thing, but listened while 
 he said 
 
 'I shall ride down now to the tele- 
 phone station, dear. The old mare will 
 do it within three hours. I shall merely 
 say that something untoward has hap- 
 
 198
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 pened, and get them to send up a 
 mounted constable or sergeant of police 
 with a conveyance. Then I shall at 
 once ride back here to you . . . and 
 . . . and ... we must prepare to go 
 down again all together. But you'll be 
 alone, little mother-love, for six hours. 
 There's no other way. Sit on the ter- 
 race, dear. I shall be back before the 
 sun sets." 
 
 I watched him ride away. He kept 
 turning back to me. Oh, my love, my 
 love ! 
 
 Before the sun went down he came 
 again. He told me that he had taken 
 the bridle track, and that the others, 
 with a pair-horse drag, would be up 
 within the hour. He said that he had 
 wired to Susan to expect us, to expect 
 me, on the morrow. Arm in arm we 
 
 199
 
 The House of 
 
 went to feed the old mare, who would 
 now be turned out to grass. We said 
 goodbye to the goats, and gave the last 
 lettuces to our favourite ones. We 
 then went to the instrument shed and 
 looked together at the instruments fine, 
 costly, delicate, and true. Some of them 
 were his own. Should we take them 
 with us to that world we had forgotten 
 so far below the stars ? Neither asked 
 the question, but once he whispered 
 
 "Just my spectroscope . . . and . . . 
 the micrometer, I think, do you ? " 
 
 It was that he was still my little 
 child ; once more it was the toy he 
 loved, the toy that went with him to 
 bed and lay all night folded in his 
 arm. But just beyond, lay the dead, 
 calling for the vengeance which is justice. 
 
 Coming slowly up the green turf way 
 
 200
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 we heard the drag, the horses labouring 
 after their toil of nineteen miles. All 
 the anguish of this present was driven 
 home to me in the first glimpse of 
 those white-hel meted officers. 
 
 Before Eric went to meet them he 
 said : " Never be afraid, dear. It was 
 all gloriously worth while. And just one 
 last promise while we are alone together. 
 That word he said you are not to tell 
 it ever. It is never to be spoken. Say 
 that he insulted you, insulted both of 
 us, causelessly and grievously. I can 
 bear anything on earth but hearing that 
 word passed from lip to lip in a court 
 of justice. And it won't make a scrap 
 of difference to the issue, not a scrap. 
 Promise me, dear mother-love, who more 
 than understands." 
 
 201
 
 The House of 
 
 Last night, at ten o'clock, Eric was 
 sentenced to death. 
 
 There are three weeks, they tell me ; 
 three weeks and two days. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Six of those days have gone. It is 
 the night-time, when we cannot sleep, 
 Susan and I. The old, she says for her- 
 self, want so little sleep, " but you, my 
 lamb," she adds, " must have it or you 
 will fail." So she takes me to the table 
 where the little book and pens are wait- 
 ing, for she thinks my help lies there. 
 But if I cannot pull down prison gates 
 and walls and save my own, how then 
 can I write ? 
 
 The lawyers, Professor Langrishe, and 
 Eric's student comrades, are working like 
 giants on his behalf. They tell me that 
 I can do nothing, nothing but try to 
 
 202
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 comfort him when I am allowed to see 
 him through the iron grille. They tell 
 me that everything that can be done or 
 thought of is being done. They tell me 
 that I can do nothing. 
 
 In his summing-up, the judge, with 
 that clear sanity which falls so dully 
 on the sense of those at bay, dwelt on 
 the idea that fists, not a rifle, would 
 have more than sufficed : from the fact 
 that the rifle was used rather than the 
 fist he drew the deduction that murder 
 rather than punishment was the object. 
 With a refinement of cruelty that seems 
 hardly credible, he also dwelt on the 
 fact that it was not the first, but the 
 second, time in Eric's life that much the 
 same thing had happened. Eric, than 
 whom a gentler lad the sun never shone 
 on, was, for the ends of justice, I 
 
 203
 
 The House of 
 
 suppose, or to make out a case for the 
 Crown, subtly shown to be of quite 
 another temper. 
 
 In other lands, in other times, he 
 would have been acclaimed a hero for 
 the deed. But here and now, because 
 he arose in his haste to defend his 
 mother, he must die the death. 
 
 When you were a little boy, maybe 
 I should not have read to you, as I 
 did, those fine bright pages of the 
 heroes who avenged their womenkind 
 at the point of the sword without first 
 thinking if it meant their own death 
 too. I should not have fed your mind 
 on brave chronicles without end, where 
 knights and saints only lived to defend 
 their own you, who would go out 
 with your baby sword and look in dim 
 leafy ways for the lion that was prowl- 
 
 204
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 ing round to eat up Susan and me, and 
 were never glad till you had slain it, 
 and we, who loved that baby bravery 
 so ! 
 
 Without a word to any one, I went 
 to the Governor who is to consider the 
 sentence in Council. I hardly know how 
 I got to him or what I said when there. 
 I begged till I was faint and voiceless. 
 He kept on saying that he must be 
 guided by his ministers. Yet he seems 
 almost as if he would be kind. . . . 
 ***** 
 The summer is dying and it is airless 
 all around. But it mocks one less than 
 the sweet shades of woodland trees might 
 do. We hardly speak, these days, Susan 
 and I. Sometimes I sit on the floor 
 with my head on her lap as Eric used 
 
 '205
 
 The House of 
 
 to sit with his on mine. Or she rests 
 leaning against the sill, while her 
 agonised eyes strain always towards 
 where he waits. She has been once to 
 see him, but she may not go again. 
 
 " Dear Polar ! " he whispered, before 
 they parted. " Dear Polar ! So much 
 more than all the angels you are to her 
 and me," . . . and then said nothing else. 
 
 She and I were standing at the open 
 window of an upper room. From the 
 street below warm, ill-smelling exhala- 
 tions floated up ; the cracked asphalt 
 bubbled on the pavement ; motors 
 rushed and puffed along ; a little organ- 
 grinder with a monkey on his shoulder 
 turned his handle and kept his merry 
 eyes upon us. Susan threw him a coin 
 and his smile was for another house at 
 once. 
 
 206
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 At last we heard them, the newsboys, 
 crying out the evening news 
 
 Tersia Quieter. 
 
 Decision of the Council in the Mountain 
 Murder. 
 
 Remarkable Scoring at Christchurch. 
 
 Can hearts stand still and the body 
 live ? I held her in my arms, for she 
 seemed to be tottering. We tried to 
 shut our ears to the screaming of the 
 boys. But at this moment the Professor 
 ran up the steps from the street. Straight 
 to us he came, where we stood by the 
 window. The news he had hastened so 
 to tell he did not tell it. Then, I 
 think it was, we knew. 
 
 Presently, we heard him, saying 
 hoarsely 
 
 "There have been three reprieves 
 
 207
 
 The House of 
 
 following quickly on each other lately. 
 It seems it is against the public good 
 to grant another. In my heart of hearts, 
 I believe this is why Eric goes." 
 
 There is an agony so deep and still 
 one wonders, is it peace ? 
 
 I may see him once more, they tell 
 me. Just I, alone. After Saturday, he 
 may look on no earthly face again 
 unless it is the governor's, the chaplain's, 
 or the warder's. 
 
 I know that there is nothing nothing 
 to be done. I see that huge machinery 
 of the law, like a Juggernaut advancing 
 slowly, steadily, to crush us. I know 
 that nothing, that no one, can stop it 
 now. On Tuesday morning at the 
 stroke of ten we must lie down to be 
 broken underneath it. The might and 
 
 208
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 majesty of Imperial Law, they cannot 
 change their course for Eric and for 
 me. And this is Friday. 
 
 From the beginning Fate has been 
 too strong for us. How strangely she 
 has worked for our undoing ! We have 
 been her sport, her playthings, born to 
 be broken on her wheel. 
 
 When life was beautiful beyond words 
 for us, the sword was hanging overhead 
 to slay, though we never dreamed of it. 
 
 Three death sentences one after the 
 other are cancelled. 
 
 A boy holds a lighted match to a 
 dog's nose on a school playground nine 
 years ago. 
 
 A man by a schoolhouse fence sees 
 my wretched body, from which I have 
 torn the burning clothes. 
 
 On frail pegs such as these Fate hangs 
 
 p 209
 
 The House of 
 
 the decrees that crush and grind and 
 stupefy for ever. 
 
 Had I only died when my child was 
 born ! But I was fain to live, that I 
 might guard and care for him as never 
 child before was guarded. And, at 
 bottom, it is I who have brought him 
 to the pass where now he lies. I ! And 
 one sits still and lives. 
 
 When he was a baby, there were 
 verses that once I read, that kept ring- 
 ing for days afterwards about me. Then 
 I forgot them ; but now, after all the 
 long while, I hear them again 
 
 " Oh, couldst thou slip away, 
 Now by the hawthorn hedge of 'Death, 
 And get to God by day /" 
 
 It was a mother not blind to life's 
 black terror, as I was then a mother 
 si'nging to her babe. 
 
 210
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 But it is Susan who is distraught, at 
 bay with all life, for the first time in 
 her own. 
 
 For the first time she is powerless to 
 help. Before, in her anguish, she helped 
 her dearest down the steep path of death ; 
 she held their twitching, clammy hands 
 in hers and bade their fear be not afraid. 
 But now there is nothing she can do. 
 Her passionate prayers fall back upon 
 her heart. The God who might have 
 heard them and shown such heavenly 
 mercy but where is He ? 
 
 Ah, Susan, you can only draw the 
 curtains of the desolate room, so that 
 the great sky mocks us no more with 
 its crowd of stars into whose bright 
 eyes my boy's eyes look no longer. 
 
 I shall not see him again. My eyes, 
 
 21 I
 
 The House of 
 
 that must look on a thousand thousand 
 faces yet before they close, may not 
 see his again for ever. I went to him 
 on Saturday. There are things, little 
 book, that I cannot tell you, though I 
 sometimes feel you are a living thing, 
 part of myself, so much of my agony 
 has dropped on your white leaves and 
 stained them as with blood. Joy ? Was 
 joy laid down, with frightened fingers 
 too ? Yes. It is true, little book. 
 There were joy and peace surpassing 
 knowledge. Sometimes I think we ran 
 back into those dear green fields that 
 we might spring the better into the 
 black abyss waiting ever on the further 
 side. I do not know, and it does 
 not matter now. 
 
 To-night Susan and I keep watch by 
 the dying, whom yet we cannot see or 
 
 212
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 touch or whisper one last word to. 
 You shall hold his letter, the letter that 
 was brought to me by hand this evening, 
 and then, little book, you shall hold no 
 more, 
 
 213
 
 H.M. PRISON, 
 
 Monday, September ^th. 
 
 MOTHER, The Governor has just been 
 in. He says that I can spend the morning 
 in writing undisturbed to you. Also he 
 has said that not a word of the letter 
 shall be made public, and that it shall 
 be delivered to you personally by special 
 messenger during the day. He looked 
 very troubled. And Johnson, the 
 warder, sitting at the other end of the 
 cell, with his face turned away from 
 me, seems as much put out as if I 
 belonged to him. Johnson is a very 
 decent sort, and now and then, later on, 
 darling, I should like you to see him. 
 
 214
 
 House of Broken Dreams 
 
 There might be things you could do for 
 him or his. His wife is dead. The 
 eldest boy has a taste for mechanics. 
 And the little girl of thirteen keeps 
 the house spick and span, mothers the 
 children and the rest. It is very hot. 
 You are so near to me, as I write, that 
 I can almost hear your heart beating. 
 All this day I should like to be a little 
 boy with you again the little boy you 
 were never weary of or angry with. Oh, 
 mother, what days they were ! How 
 well the world went then ! 
 
 " Angel of heaven ! " I used to call 
 to you, " angel of heaven, come out 
 and see the first primrose ! " Do you 
 remember ? 
 
 But of course you do. Angel of 
 heaven you were to that little boy, and 
 a thousand things besides that he never 
 
 215
 
 has and never will tell you now. How 
 you taught him to love flowers, trees, 
 horses, dogs, stars, birds, books, fields, 
 everything that was wise or pleasant, 
 and to hate all cruel things and mean. 
 And if you had him at your knees 
 again you would teach him just the same ; 
 and if life were as it was before, he would 
 do as he has done and be lying still where 
 now he is. 
 
 It is no use my telling you not to 
 grieve everlastingly, is it, dear ? Every 
 day at ten in the morning, wherever you 
 may be, I see you being crucified afresh for 
 me. On the top of that, can I tell you 
 to travel, to go to the mountains where 
 your healing was before ? You and I, 
 who know each other's souls so well, 
 needless things shall not be said between 
 us now. 
 
 216
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 When Susan came the other day to 
 take leave of me, I did notice, dear, 
 how trembling, how aged, she has gone. 
 This grief is killing her. She has taken 
 care of you and me since I can first 
 remember things. The time has come 
 now for you to take care of her. I 
 leave her in your charge. And I know 
 that I can ask nothing of you that you 
 will not do for me in measure running 
 over. 
 
 You were always such a comforter. 
 The rare essence, the genius of comfort, 
 was yours. Such a gift, little mother 
 mine, you must not let it die for want 
 of using. All the more, because no 
 comfort can avail you now, I want you 
 to comfort others in that splendid way 
 of yours, as perhaps they never were 
 comforted before. 
 
 217
 
 The House of 
 
 I want you to go to those beastly 
 slums and find out here and there little 
 children whose lives are being undone 
 by continual torture of one sort or 
 another. And I want you to take them 
 to your heart till theirs grow strong and 
 glad again. Susan thinks that this thing 
 to come will kill you. 
 
 " Master Eric, dear, I do fear so for 
 my lamb yonder," she sobbed the other 
 morning. 
 
 Darling, she is not going to fear for 
 you. No one is going to fear for my 
 mother, high-hearted lady that she is. 
 
 " Behold the fir-trees, how unswerved they are ! 
 Shall I bear myself less royally than they ? " 
 
 There is all my legacy to you, those 
 little lines. In my shame and in your 
 
 218
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 agony, for I must die but you must 
 live, are we expiating some far-off sin 
 in one of our race for which the final 
 coin has never yet been paid ? Heavy 
 things are on my soul and I see how 
 meet it is that I should die, but you, 
 my sinless dear, you too are called upon 
 to pay the price. To know your agony, 
 and that it is I who have laid your high 
 heart in the dust, all the bitterness of 
 death is there. But if I know that all 
 is going to be well with you the bitter- 
 ness will be clean wiped out. And 
 something tells me that I shall know, 
 through the sympathy which makes us 
 one, that things are going with you as 
 I want them to. I shall hear you whisper- 
 ing : " Eric, Eric ! Yes, yes. Just as 
 you say ! " At the last minute, dear, 
 I shall hear just that and nothing else. 
 
 219
 
 The House of 
 
 There are no end of things I want 
 you to do for Dick Cleeve. I needn't 
 tell them to you one by one. You know 
 them, as you know everything. That is 
 where those little beggars in the slums 
 will have a show at last. You always 
 know so divinely. I was sorry for Dick 
 from the start : it was such a rotten 
 home life, his. And Miss Franks ? 
 Will you see to her too, dearest, because 
 (I feel a beast to put it this way) she 
 does care for me very much. All the 
 big joys have passed her by I should say, 
 shouldn't you? But, by Jove, she does 
 hold out both hands to the little ones. 
 And we love her for it, don't we ? 
 
 Then there's Nora, Sister Nora. 
 Really, mother, I was in love with her 
 once, probably am still for there's never 
 been any one else, as they say in books 
 
 220
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 or city streets. But I was too many years 
 on the wrong side of her, and she grinned 
 brutally when she first saw me in long 
 trousers. No, it would never have done. 
 I have an idea that you will be a friend of 
 friends to her. And she worships the 
 hem of your dress, which is a good 
 foundation on her side. Langrishe knows 
 that I want him to have all my books 
 and instruments and drawings and private 
 notes. If you or he ever come across 
 a fellow quite hard up and keen on the 
 same things that I was keen on you'll 
 give him a hand, won't you ? 
 
 While here, it has come home to me so 
 strongly what really fine things law and 
 order are. No nation can live without 
 them ; and in the skies too, stars, planets, 
 meteors, all the heavenly host, they move 
 in beautiful obedience to hidden principles 
 
 221
 
 The House of 
 
 and powers. I offended against the law. 
 I took a life. I am not, unless for your 
 sake, regretting that I took it, but this I 
 do say, that having taken it, I must pay 
 the penalty without flinching. And you 
 with me, dear, with me always. This is 
 where it hurts, that I cannot pay alone. 
 
 Do you remember, when I was a little 
 chap on your knees, how I used to wish 
 and wish that if ever we had to die at all, 
 we might both die on the same day ? 
 And now it has come to this. So much 
 of you will die with me to-morrow morn- 
 ing, but what is left, maimed though it is, 
 I want it to be a thing of splendid 
 consolation for others in the shadow. 
 
 Do you remember, on the mountains, 
 how sometimes we would think that there 
 we could stretch no hand directly to any 
 forlorn little brother or sister ? The 
 
 222
 
 Broken Dreams 
 
 mountains, mother ! The things we felt 
 and thought and learned there ! It was 
 there that we said goodbye not in this 
 cell, on this paper ; but there, where 
 my little mother's arms were so tight and 
 sweet around me. The only thing that 
 matters now, dear, is to be strong and 
 lovely right up to the end. Perhaps it 
 comes sooner than you think, mother- 
 love of mine. 
 
 ERIC. 
 
 P.S. Kiss Polar for me, often. 
 
 223
 
 Ube (Bresbam press, 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, 
 WOKING AND LONDON.
 
 University of California 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 305 De Neve Drive " " *~"
 
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