Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Form L-l
 
 This book is DUE on last date stamped below 
 
 NOV 7 1923 
 
 > V 
 
 * 19S4 
 
 JAN 3 1924 
 R 1 192i 
 
 SEP 2 9 1924 g , 
 OCT 1 1924 t 
 NOV 1 1924 
 JAN f 1925 
 
 JA,. - 1 
 
 
 
 MAR : 1925' 
 MAR 3 1925 
 
 APR l ' 
 
 APH 29 
 
 * 
 
 3132S 
 
 -.25 
 
 I 925 
 
 OCT 1 4 1925 
 
 AUG 2 1 
 
 FEB28 
 
 JAM* 
 
 NOV 

 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 VILLA RUBEIN, nd Other Storie* 
 THE ISLAND PHARISEES 
 THE MAN OF PROPERTY 
 THE COUNTRY HOUSE 
 FRATERNITY 
 THE PATRICIAN 
 THE DARK FLOWER 
 THE FREELANDS 
 
 A COMMENTARY 
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY 
 
 THE LITTLE MAN, mod oth.r stir 
 
 A SHEAF 
 
 PLAYS: FIRST SERIES 
 
 and Separately 
 THE SILVER BOX 
 JOY 
 STRIFE 
 
 PLAYS: SECOND SERIES 
 
 runt firpafauly 
 THE ELDEST SON 
 THE LITTLE DREAM 
 JUSTICE 
 
 PLAYS: THIRD SERIES 
 
 and Separately 
 THE FUGITIVE 
 THE PIGEON 
 THE MOB 
 
 A BIT O' LOVE 
 
 MOODS, SONGS, AND DOGGERELS 
 MEMORIES. Illustrated
 
 A MOTLEY
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN GALSWORTHY 
 
 2957 
 
 7* t*4 * > 
 ' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1917
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published June, 1910 
 
 First Impression, June, 1910 
 
 Second Impression, August, 1910 
 
 Third Impression, October, 1910 
 
 Fourth Impression, December, 1910 
 
 Fifth Impression, November, 1912 
 
 Sixth Impression, November. 1914 
 
 Seventh Impression, June, 1916 
 Eighth Impression, January, 1917
 
 \ *>vw 
 
 Vi 
 
 TO 
 E. V. LUCAS
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 THE stories, studies, and impressions, which make 
 up this volume, bear dates ranging from 1899 to 
 1910. "A Portrait" and "The Japanese Quince" 
 appear for the first time. For permission to reprint 
 others I thank the Editors of the English Review, 
 Englishwoman, Nation, Speaker, Outlook, Sketch, 
 T.P.'s Weekly, and Westminster Gazette. 
 
 LONDON: April 15, 19x0.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 A PORTRAIT .......... 
 
 A FISHER OF MEN ........ 
 
 THE PRISONER ..... 
 
 COURAGE 
 THE MEETING 
 
 THE PACK ....... .... 
 
 COMPENSATION ......... 
 
 1ft<\ 
 JOY OF LIFE ......... 
 
 BEL COLORE .......... 1( * 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE ......... 
 
 THE KINGS .......... 115 
 
 117 
 APOTHEOSIS ......... 
 
 THE WORKERS ......... 123 
 
 A MILLER OF DEE ........ 131 
 
 140 
 A PARTING ..........
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A BEAST OF BURDEN 151 
 
 THE LIME TREE 155 
 
 THE NEIGHBOURS ......... 163 
 
 THE RUNAGATES 175 
 
 A REVERSION TO TYPE 183 
 
 A WOMAN 193 
 
 THE "CODGER" 203 
 
 FOR EVER 211 
 
 THE CONSUMMATION 223 
 
 THE CHOICE 235 
 
 THE JAPANESE QUINCE , 247 
 
 ONCE MORE 255 
 
 DELIGHT 271
 
 A MOTLEY
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 IT is at the age of eighty that I picture 
 him, without the vestige of a stoop, rather 
 above middle height, of very well-proportioned 
 figure, whose flatness of back and easy move- 
 ments were the admiration of all who saw 
 them. His iron-grey eyes had lost none of 
 their colour, they were set-in deep, so that 
 their upper lids were invisible, and had a 
 peculiar questioning directness, apt to change 
 suddenly into twinkles. His head was of fine 
 shape one did not suspect that it required a 
 specially made hat, being a size larger than 
 almost any other head; it was framed in very 
 silky silvery hair, brushed in an arch across his 
 forehead, and falling in becoming curves over 
 the tips of his ears; and he wore always a full 
 white beard and moustaches, which concealed 
 a jaw and chin of great determination cleft by 
 a dimple. His nose had been broken in his 
 early boyhood; it was the nose of a thinker, 
 
 1
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 broad and of noticeable shape. The colour of 
 his cheeks was a fine dry brown; his brow very 
 capacious, both wide and high, and endowed 
 with a singular serenity. But it was the bal- 
 ance and poise of his head which commanded 
 so much attention. In a theatre, church, 
 concert-hall, there was never any head so fine 
 as his, for the silvery hair and beard lent to 
 its massiveness a curious grace and delicacy. 
 
 The owner of that head could not but be 
 endowed with force, sagacity, humour, and 
 the sense of justice. It expressed, indeed, his 
 essential quality equanimity; for there were 
 two men in him he of the chin and jaw, a 
 man of action and tenacity, and he of the nose 
 and brow, the man of speculation and imper- 
 sonality; yet these two were so curiously bal- 
 anced and blended that there was no harsh 
 ungraceful conflict. And what made this 
 equanimity so memorable was the fact that 
 both his power of action and his power of spec- 
 ulation were of high quality. He was not a 
 commonplace person content with a little of 
 both. He wanted and had wanted through- 
 out life, if ore may judge by records, a good 
 
 2
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 deal of both, ever demanding with one half of 
 him strong and continuous action, and with 
 the other half, high and clean thought and 
 behaviour. The desire for the best both in 
 material and spiritual things remained with 
 him through life. He felt things deeply; 
 and but for his strange balance, and a yearn- 
 ing for inward peace which never seems to 
 have deserted him, his ship might well have 
 gone down in tragedy. 
 
 To those who had watched that journey, his 
 voyage through life seemed favourable, always 
 on the top of the weather. He had worked 
 hard, and he had played hard, but never too 
 hard. And though one might often see him 
 irritated, I think no one ever saw him bored. 
 He perceived a joke quicker than most of us; 
 he was never eccentric, yet fundamentally in- 
 dependent of other people's opinions, and per- 
 haps a little unconscious that there were bet- 
 ter men than he. Not that he was conceited, 
 for of this quality, so closely allied to stupid- 
 ity and humbug, he had about as much as 
 the babe unborn. He was, indeed, a natural 
 foe to anaemia in any of its forms, just as he 
 
 3
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 was instinctively hostile to gross bull-beef men 
 and women. The words, "a bullying chap," 
 were used by him as crushing dispraise. I 
 can recall him now in his chair after dinner, 
 listening to one, who, puffing his cigarette, is 
 letting himself go on a stream of robustious, 
 rather swaggering complacencies; with what 
 a comprehending straight look he regards the 
 speaker, not scornful, not sarcastic, but sim- 
 ply, as it were, saying: "No, my young buck, 
 for all your fine full-blooded talk, and all your 
 red face, you are what I see you to be, and 
 you will do what I tell you to do!" Such 
 men had no chance with him when it came to 
 the tug of war; he laid his will on them as if 
 they had been children. 
 
 He was that rather rare thing, a pure-blooded 
 Englishman; having no strain of Scotch, 
 Welsh, Irish, or foreign blood in his pedigree 
 for four hundred years at least. He sprang 
 from a long line of farmers intermarrying with 
 their kind in the most southern corner of Dev- 
 onshire, and it is probable that Norse and 
 British blood were combined in him in a high 
 state of equality. Even in the actual situation 
 
 4
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 of his place of origin, the principle of balance 
 had been maintained, for the old farmhouse 
 from which his grandfather had emerged had 
 been perched close to the cliff. Thus, to the 
 making of him had gone land and sea, the 
 Norseman and the Celt. 
 
 Articled to the Law at the age of sixteen by 
 his father, a Plymouth merchant, whose small 
 ancient ships traded to the Mediterranean in 
 fruits, leather, and wines, he had come to Lon- 
 don, and at the earliest possible date (as was 
 the habit with men in those times) had been 
 entered on the rolls as a solicitor. Often has 
 he told me of the dinner he gave in honour of 
 that event. "I was a thread-paper, then," he 
 would say (indeed, he never became fat), 
 "We began with a barrel of oysters." About 
 that and other festivities of his youth, there 
 was all the rich and rollicking flavour of the 
 days of Pickwick. He was practically depen- 
 dent on his own exertions from the time he 
 began to practise his profession, and it was 
 characteristic of him that he never seems to 
 have been hard pressed for money. The in- 
 herent sanity and moderation of his instincts 
 
 5
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 preserved him, one imagines, from the financial 
 ups and downs of most young men, for there 
 was no niggardliness in him, and a certain 
 breadth of conception characterised his money 
 affairs throughout" life. It was rather by the 
 laws of gravity, therefore, whereby money ju- 
 diciously employed attracts money, and the 
 fact that he lived in that moneymaker's Golden 
 Age, the nineteenth century, that he had long 
 been (at the age of eighty) a wealthy man. 
 Money was to him the symbol of a well-spent, 
 well-ordered life, provocative of warmth in his 
 heart because he loved his children, and was 
 careful of them to a fault. He did not marry 
 till he was forty-five, but his feeling for the 
 future of his family manifested itself with the 
 birth of his first child. Selecting a fair and 
 high locality, not too far away from London, he 
 set himself at once to make a country place, 
 where the little things should have fresh air, 
 new milk, and all the fruits of the earth, home- 
 grown round them. Quite wonderful was the 
 forethought he lavished on that house and little 
 estate stretching down the side of a hill, with 
 its walled gardens, pasture, corn-land and cop- 
 
 6
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 pice. All was solid, and of the best, from the 
 low four-square red brick house with its con- 
 crete terrace and French windows, to the 
 cow-houses down by the coppice. From the 
 oak trees, hundreds of years old, on the lawns, 
 to the peach trees just planted along the south 
 sunny walls. But here too, there was no dis- 
 play for the sake of it, and no extravagance. 
 Everything was at hand, from home-baked 
 bread, to mushrooms wild and tame; from 
 the stables with their squat clock-tower, to 
 pigsties; from roses that won all the local 
 prizes, to bluebells; but nothing redundant 
 or pretentious. 
 
 The place was an endless pleasure to him, 
 who to the last preserved his power of taking 
 interest, not only in great, but in little things. 
 Each small triumph over difficulty the secur- 
 ing of hot water in such a quarter, the better 
 lighting of another, the rescue of the nectarines 
 from wasps, the quality of his Alderney cows, 
 the encouragement of rooks afforded him 
 as much simple and sincere satisfaction as 
 every little victory he achieved in his pro- 
 fession, or in the life of the Companies which 
 
 7
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 he directed. But with all his shrewd practical 
 sense, and almost naive pleasure in material 
 advantage, he combined a very real spiritual 
 life of his own. Nor was there anything as- 
 cetic in that inner life. It was mellow as the 
 music of Mozart, his most beloved composer; 
 Art and Nature, both had their part in it. 
 He was, for instance, very fond of opera, but 
 only when it could be called 'grand'; and it 
 grieved him that opera was no longer what it 
 had been, yet was it secretly a grave satis- 
 faction that he had known those classical 
 glories denied to the present generation. He 
 loved indeed almost all classical music, but 
 (besides Mozart) especially Beethoven, Gluck, 
 and Meyerbeer, whom he insisted (no less than 
 Herbert Spencer) on considering a great com- 
 poser. Wagner he tried very hard to appreciate 
 and, after visiting Bayreuth, even persuaded 
 himself that he had succeeded, though he 
 never ceased to point out the great difference 
 that existed between this person and Mozart. 
 He loved the Old Masters of painting, having 
 for favourites amongst the Italians: Rafael, 
 Correggio, Titian, Tintoretto; and amongst 
 
 8
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 Englishmen Reynolds and Romney. On the 
 other hand, he regarded Hogarth and Rubens 
 as coarse, but Vandyke he very much admired, 
 because of his beautiful painting of hands, the 
 hall-mark, he would maintain, of an artist's 
 quality. I cannot remember his feeling about 
 Rembrandt, but Turner he certainly distrusted 
 as extravagant. Botticelli and the earlier mas- 
 ters he had not as yet quite learned to relish; 
 and Impressionism, including Whistler, never 
 really made conquest of his taste, though he 
 always resolutely kept his mind open to what 
 was modern feeling himself young at heart. 
 
 Once on a spring day, getting over a stile, I 
 remember him saying : 
 
 " Eighty! I can't believe it. Seems very 
 queer. I don't feel it. Eighty!" And, point- 
 ing to a blackbird that was singing, he added: 
 "That takes the years off you!" His love 
 of Nature was very intimate, simple, and un- 
 conscious. I can see him standing by the 
 pond of a summer evening watching the great 
 flocks of starlings that visited those fields; 
 or, with his head a little to one side, listening 
 rapturously to a skylark. He would contem- 
 
 9
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 plate, too, with a sort of serene passion, sunset 
 effects, and every kind of view. 
 
 But his greatest joy in life had been his long 
 summer holidays, in Italy or among the Alps, 
 and his memory was a perfect storehouse of 
 peaks, passes, and arrivals at Italian inns. He 
 had been a great walker, and, as an old man, 
 was still very active. I can remember him on 
 horseback at the age of sixty, though he had 
 never been a sportsman not being in the way 
 of hunting, having insufficient patience for 
 fishing, and preferring to spend such time as 
 he might have had for shooting, in communing 
 with his beloved mountains. His love for all 
 kinds of beauty, indeed, was strangely potent; 
 and perhaps the more natural and deep for its 
 innocence of all tradition and formal culture. 
 He got it, I think, from his mother, of whom 
 he always spoke with reverence as "the most 
 beautiful woman in the Three Towns." Yes, 
 his love of beauty was a sensuous, warm glow 
 pervading the whole of him, secretly separat- 
 ing him from the majority of his associates. 
 A pretty face, a beautiful figure, a mellow 
 tune, the sight of dancing, a blackbird's song, 
 
 10
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 the moon behind a poplar tree, starry nights, 
 sweet scents, and the language of Shakespeare 
 all these moved him deeply, the more per- 
 haps because he had never learned to express 
 his feelings. His attempts at literature in- 
 deed were strangely naive and stilted; his 
 verse, in the comic vein, rather good; but all, 
 as it were, like his period, ashamed to express 
 any intimate feeling except in classical lan- 
 guage. Yet his literary tastes were catholic; 
 Milton was his favourite poet, Byron he also 
 admired; Browning he did not care for; his 
 favourite novelist was George Eliot, and, curi- 
 ously enough in later life Turgenev. I well 
 remember when the translated volumes of that 
 author were coming out, how he would ask for 
 another of those yellow books. He did not 
 know why he liked them, with all those "crack- 
 jaw" Russian names; but assuredly it was be- 
 cause they were written by one who worshipped 
 beauty. 
 
 The works of Dickens and Thackeray he 
 read with appreciation, on the whole, finding 
 the first perhaps a little too grotesque, and the 
 second a little too satiric. Scott, Trollope, 
 
 11
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Marryat, Blackmore, Hardy, and Mark Twain 
 also pleased him; but Meredith he thought 
 too "misty." 
 
 A great theatre-goer all his life, he was very 
 lukewarm towards modern actors, comparing 
 them adversely with those constellations of 
 the past, Edmund and Charles Kean, Charlie 
 Mathews, Farren, Power, "little Robson," and 
 Helen Faucit. He was, however, a great lover 
 of Kate Vaughan's dancing; an illustration 
 of the equanimity of one who had formed his 
 taste on Taglioni. 
 
 Irving he would only accept in Louis XL, 
 The Bells, and, I think, Charles L, and for his 
 mannerisms he had a great aversion. There 
 was something of the old grand manner about 
 his theatre habits. He attended with the 
 very best and thinnest lavender kid gloves on 
 his hands, which he would hold up rather high 
 and clap together at the end of an act which 
 pleased him; even, on memorable occasions, 
 adding the word "Bravo." He never went 
 out before the end of a play, however vehe- 
 mently he might call it "poor stuff," which, 
 to be quite honest, he did about nine times out 
 
 12
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 of ten. And he was ever ready to try again, 
 having a sort of touching confidence in an art 
 which had betrayed him so often. His opera 
 hats were notable, usually of such age as to 
 have lost shape, and surely the largest in Lon- 
 don. Indeed, his dress was less varied than 
 that of any man I have ever seen ; but always 
 neat and well-cut, for he went habitually to 
 the best shops, and without eccentricity of any 
 kind. He carried a repeating gold watch and 
 thin round gold chain which passed, smooth 
 and sinuous as a little snake, through a small 
 black seal with a bird on it; and he never 
 abandoned very well made side-spring boots 
 with cork soles, greatly resenting the way 
 other boots dirtied his hands, which were thin 
 and brown with long polished nails, and blue 
 veins outstanding. For reading only, he wore 
 tortoise-shell eyeglasses, which he would perch 
 low down on the bridge of his nose, so that he 
 could look over them, for his eyes were very 
 long-sighted. He was extremely fastidious in 
 his linen, and all personal matters, yet im- 
 patient of being mollycoddled, or in any way 
 over-valeted. Even on the finest days, he 
 
 13
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 carried an umbrella, the ferrule of which, from 
 his habit of stumping it on the pavement, had 
 a worn and harassed look, and was rarely more 
 than half present. 
 
 Having been a Conservative Liberal in poli- 
 tics till well past sixty, it was not until Dis- 
 raeli's time that he became a Liberal Conser- 
 vative. This was curious, for he always spoke 
 doubtfully of "Dizzy," and even breathed the 
 word " humbug" in connection with him. 
 Probably he was offended by what he termed 
 "the extravagance" in Dizzy's rival. For 
 the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Salisbury 
 he had respect without enthusiasm; and con- 
 ceived for John Bright a great admiration as 
 soon as he was dead. But on the whole the 
 politician who had most attracted him had 
 been Palmerston, because if memory serves- 
 he had in such admirable degree the faculty of 
 "astonishing their weak nerves." For, though 
 never a Jingo, and in later days both cautious 
 and sane in his Imperialism, he had all a 
 Briton's essential deep-rooted distrust of the 
 foreigner. He felt that they were not quite 
 safe, not quite sound, and must from time to 
 
 14
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 time be made to feel this. Born two years 
 after the battle of Waterloo, he had inherited a 
 certain high pride of island birth. And yet in 
 one case, where he was for years in close con- 
 tact with a foreigner he conceived for him so 
 grave a respect, that it was quite amusing to 
 watch the discomfiture of his traditional dis- 
 trust. It was often a matter of wonder amongst 
 those who knew him that a man of his ability 
 and judgment had never even sought to make 
 his mark in public affairs. Of the several rea- 
 sons for this, the chief was, undoubtedly, the 
 extraordinary balance of his temperament. To 
 attain pre-eminence in any definite department 
 of life would have warped and stunted too 
 many of his instincts, removed too many of his 
 interests; and so he never specialised in any- 
 thing. He was quite unambitious, always tak- 
 ing the lead in whatever field he happened to 
 be, by virtue of his great capacity and will- 
 power, but never pushing himself, and appar- 
 ently without any life-aim, but that of leading 
 a sane, moderate, and harmonious existence. 
 
 And it is for this that he remains written on 
 the national page, as the type of a lost and 
 
 15
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 golden time, when life to each man seemed 
 worth living for its own sake, without thought 
 of its meaning as a whole, or much speculation 
 as to its end. There was something classical, 
 measured, and mellow in his march adown the 
 years, as if he had been god-mothered by Har- 
 mony. And yet, though he said his prayers and 
 went to church, he could not fairly have been 
 called a religious man; for at the time when 
 he formed his religious habits, "religion" had 
 as yet received no shocks, and reigned trium- 
 phant over an unconscious nation whose spirit 
 was sleeping; and when "religion," disturbed 
 to its foundations, began to die, and people all 
 round him were just becoming religious enough 
 to renounce the beliefs they no longer held, 
 he was too old to change, and continued to 
 employ the mechanism of a creed which had 
 never really been vital to him. He was in 
 essence pagan: All was right with his world! 
 His love was absorbed by Nature, and his 
 wonder by the Great Starry Scheme he felt 
 all around. This was God to him; for it was 
 ever in the presence of the stars that he was 
 most moved to a sense of divine order. Look- 
 
 16
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 ing up at those tremulous cold companions he 
 seemed more reverent, and awed, than ever he 
 was in the face of creeds or his fellow man. 
 Whether stirred by the sheer beauty of Night, 
 or by its dark immensity swarming with those 
 glittering worlds, he would stand silent, and 
 then, perhaps, say wistfully: "What little 
 bits of things we are! Poor little wretches!" 
 Yes, it was then that he really worshipped, 
 adoring the great wonders of Eternity. No 
 one ever heard him talk with conviction of a 
 future life. He was far too self-reliant to ac- 
 cept what he was told, save by his own inner 
 voice; and that did not speak to him with 
 certainty. In fact, as he grew old, to be un- 
 certain of all such high things was part of his 
 real religion; it seemed to him, I think, im- 
 pertinent to pretend to intimate knowledge of 
 what was so much bigger than himself. But 
 neither his conventional creed, nor that awed 
 uncertainty which was his real religion were 
 ever out of hand; they jogged smoothly on in 
 double harness, driven and guided by a su- 
 premer power his reverence for Life. He ab- 
 horred fanatirsni. In this he truly mirrored 
 
 17
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 the spirit of that great peacefully expanding 
 river, the Victorian Era, which began when he 
 came of age. And yet, in speaking before him 
 of deep or abstract things, it was not safe to 
 reckon without his criticism, which would 
 sometimes make powerfully shrewd deductions 
 out of the sheer logical insight of a nature 
 neither fundamentally concerned with other 
 worlds, nor brought up to the ways of dis- 
 cussion. He was pre-eminently the son of a 
 time between two ages a past age of old, 
 unquestioning faith in Authority; a future 
 age of new faith, already born but not yet 
 grown. Still sheltering in the shade of the 
 old tree which was severed at the roots and 
 toppling, he never, I think, clearly saw- 
 though he may have had glimpses that men, 
 like children whose mother has departed from 
 their home, were slowly being forced to trust 
 in, and be good to, themselves and to one 
 another, and so to form out of their necessity, 
 desperately, unconsciously, their new great 
 belief in Humanity. Yes, he was the son of 
 a time between two ages the product of an era 
 without real faith an individualist to the core. 
 
 18
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 His attitude towards the poor, for instance, 
 was essentially that of man to man. Save 
 that he could not tolerate impostors, (one of 
 his favourite words), and saw through them 
 with almost startling rapidity, he was com- 
 passionate to any who had fallen on evil for- 
 tune, and especially to those who had been in 
 any way connected with him. But in these 
 almonary transactions he was always particu- 
 larly secretive, as if rather doubting their 
 sagacity, and the wisdom of allowing them to 
 become known himself making up and de- 
 spatching the parcels of old clothes, and rather 
 surreptitiously producing such coins and writ- 
 ing such cheques as were necessary. But "the 
 poor," in bulk, were always to him the concern 
 of the Poor Law pure and simple, and in no 
 sense of the individual citizen. It was the same 
 with malefactors, he might pity as well as con- 
 demn them, but the idea that the society to 
 which he and they belonged was in any way 
 responsible for them, would never have oc- 
 curred to him. His sense of justice, like that 
 of his period, was fundamentally based on 
 the notion that every man had started with 
 
 19
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 equal, or at all events, with quite sufficient op- 
 portunities, and must be judged as if he had. 
 But, indeed, it was not the custom in his day 
 to concern oneself with problems outside one's 
 own class. Within that class, and in all mat- 
 ters domestic, no man was ever born with a 
 nicer sense of justice. It was never overridden 
 by his affections; very seldom, and that with 
 a certain charming naivete, by his interests. 
 This sense of justice, however, in no way pre- 
 vented him from being loved; for, in spite of a 
 temper apt to take fire, flare up, and quickly 
 die down again, he was one of the most love- 
 able of men. There was not an ounce of 
 dourness or asperity in his composition. His 
 laughter was of a most infectious kind, singu- 
 larly spontaneous and delightful, resembling 
 the laughter of a child. The change which a 
 joke wrought in the aspect of his large, dig- 
 nified, and rather noble face, was disconcert- 
 ing. It became wrinkled, or, as it were, crum- 
 pled; and such a twinkling overcame his eyes 
 as was frequently only to be extinguished by 
 moisture. "That's rich!" was his favourite 
 expression to describe what had tickled him; 
 
 20
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 for he had preserved the use of Devonshire 
 expressions, bringing them forth, from an in- 
 timate pet drawer of memory, and lingering 
 over them with real gusto. He still loved, too, 
 such Devonshire dishes of his boyhood, as 
 "junket" and "toad in the hole"; and one of 
 his favourite memories was that of the meals 
 snatched at the old coaching Inn at Exeter, 
 while they changed the horses of the Plymouth 
 to the London coach. Twenty-four hours at 
 ten miles an hour, without even a break! 
 Glorious drive! Glorious the joints of beef, 
 the cherry brandy! Glorious the old stage 
 coachman, a "monstrous fat chap" who at 
 that time ruled the road! 
 
 In the City, where his office was situate, 
 he was wont, though at all times a very moder- 
 ate eater, to frequent substantial, old-fashioned 
 hostelries such as Roche's, Pirn's, or Birch's, 
 in preference to newer and more pretentious 
 places of refreshment. He had a remarkable 
 palate too, and though he drank very little, 
 was, in his prime, considered as fine a judge 
 of wine as any in London. Of tea he was par- 
 ticularly fond, and always consumed the very 
 
 21
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 best Indian, made with extreme care, main- 
 taining that the Chinese variety was only fit 
 for persons of no taste. 
 
 He had little liking for his profession, believ- 
 ing it to be beneath him, and that Heaven 
 had intended him for an advocate; in which 
 he was probably right, for his masterful acu- 
 men could not have failed to assure him a 
 foremost position at the Bar. And in him, I 
 think, it is certain that a great Judge was lost 
 to the State. Despite this contempt for what 
 he called the "pettifogging" character of his 
 occupation, he always inspired profound re- 
 spect in his clients; and among the sharehold- 
 ers of his Companies, of which he directed 
 several, his integrity and judgment stood so 
 high that he was enabled to pursue successfully 
 a line of policy often too comprehensive, and 
 far-seeing for the temper of the times. The 
 reposeful dignity, and courage, of his head and 
 figure when facing an awkward General Meet- 
 ing could hardly have been exceeded. He sat, 
 as it were, remote from its gusty temper, 
 quietly determining its course. 
 
 Truly memorable were his conflicts with the 
 22
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 only other man of his calibre on those Boards, 
 and I cannot remember that he was ever beaten. 
 He was at once the quicker tempered and 
 more cautious. And if he had not the other's 
 stoicism and iron nerve, he saw further into the 
 matter in hand, was more unremitting in his 
 effort, equally tenacious of purpose, and more 
 magnetic. In fact, he had a way with him. 
 
 But, after all said, it was in his dealings with 
 children that the best and sweetest side of his 
 personality was manifested. With them he 
 became completely tender, inexhaustibly in- 
 terested in their interests, absurdly patient, 
 and as careful as a mother. No child ever 
 resisted him, or even dreamed of doing so. 
 From the first moment they loved his white 
 hair and beard, his " feathers" as one little 
 thing called them. They liked the touch of 
 his thin hand, which was never wet or cold; 
 and, holding to it, were always ready to walk 
 with him wandering with complete unanim- 
 ity, not knowing quite where or for what 
 reason. How often have I not watched him 
 starting out on that high adventure with his 
 grandson, his face turned gravely down tow- 
 
 23
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 ards a smaller face turned not quite so gravely 
 up; and heard their voices tremendously con- 
 cerned with all the things they might be going 
 to do together! How often have I not seen 
 them coming back, tired as cats, but still con- 
 cerned about what was next going to happen! 
 And children were always willing to play 
 cricket with him because he bowled to them 
 very slowly, pitching up what he called "three- 
 quarter " balls, and himself always getting 
 "out" almost before he went in. For, though 
 he became in his later years a great connoisseur 
 of cricket, spending many days at Lord's or 
 the Oval, choosing our play of the very highest 
 class, and quite impatient of the Eton and 
 Harrow Match, he still performed in a some- 
 what rococo fashion, as of a man taught in 
 the late twenties of the last century, and hav- 
 ing occasion to revive that knowledge about 
 1895. He bent his back knee, and played with 
 a perfectly crooked bat, to the end that when 
 he did hit the ball, which was not too often, it 
 invariably climbed the air. There was, too, 
 about his batting, a certain vein of recklessness 
 or bravado, somewhat out of keeping with his 
 24
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 general character, so that, as has been said, he 
 was never in too long. And when he got out 
 he would pitch the bat down as if he were 
 annoyed, which would hugely please his grand- 
 son, showing of course that he had been trying 
 his very best, as indeed, he generally had. 
 But his bowling was extremely impressive, 
 being effected with very bent knees, and a 
 general air of first putting the ball to the eye, 
 as if he were playing bowls; in this way he 
 would go on and on giving the boy "an innings," 
 and getting much too hot. In fielding he 
 never could remember on the spur of the mo- 
 ment whether it was his knees or his feet that 
 he ought to close; and this, in combination 
 with a habit of bending rather cautiously, 
 because he was liable to lumbago, detracted 
 somewhat from his brilliance; but when the 
 ball was once in his hands, it was most exciting 
 impossible to tell whether he would throw 
 it at the running batsman, the wicket, or the 
 bowler, according as the game appeared to him 
 at the moment to be double wicket, single 
 wicket, or rounders. He had lived in days 
 when games were not the be-all and end-all 
 
 25
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 of existence, and had never acquired a proper 
 seriousness in such matters. Those who passed 
 from cricket with him to cricket in the cold 
 wide world found a change for which at first 
 they were unable to account. But even more 
 fascinating to children than his way of play- 
 ing cricket was his perfect identification with 
 whatever might be the matter in hand. The 
 examination of a shell, the listening to the 
 voice of the sea imprisoned in it, the making 
 of a cocked hat out of the Times newspaper, 
 the doing up of little buttons, the feeding of 
 pigeons with crumbs, the holding fast of a 
 tiny leg while walking beside a pony, all these 
 things absorbed him completely, so that no 
 visible trace was left of the man whose judg- 
 ment on affairs was admirable and profound. 
 Nor, whatever the provocation, could he ever 
 bring himself to point the moral of anything 
 to a child, having that utter toleration of their 
 foibles which only comes from a natural and 
 perfectly unconscious love of being with them. 
 His face, habitually tranquil, wore in their 
 presence a mellow look of almost devil-may- 
 care serenity. 
 
 26
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 Their sayings, too, he treasured, as though 
 they were pearls. First poems, such as: 
 
 I sorr a worm, 
 
 It was half-ly dead; 
 I took a great spud 
 
 And speared through his head 
 
 were to him of singular fair promise. Their 
 diagnoses of character, moreover, especially 
 after visiting a circus, filled him with pure 
 rapture, and he would frequently repeat this 
 one: 
 
 "Father, is Uncle a clever man?" 
 
 "H'm! well yes, certainly." 
 
 "I never seen no specimens. He can't bal- 
 ance a pole on his nose, for instance." 
 
 To the declining benison of their prayers, 
 from their "darling father and mother," to 
 "all poor people who are in distress," he loved 
 to listen, not so much for the sentiments ex- 
 pressed, as because, in their little nightgowns, 
 they looked so sweet, and were so round-about 
 in their way of getting to work. 
 
 Yes, children were of all living things his 
 chosen friends, and they knew it. 
 
 27
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 But in his long life he made singularly few 
 fast friendships with grown-up people, and, 
 as far as I know, no enemies. For there was 
 in him, despite his geniality, a very strong 
 vein of fastidiousness, and such essential deep 
 love of domination, that he found, perhaps, few 
 men of his own age and standing to whom he 
 did not feel natively superior. His most real 
 and lifelong friendship was for a certain very 
 big man with a profound hatred of humbug 
 and a streak of "the desperate character" in 
 him. They held each other in the highest 
 esteem, or, as they would probably have put it, 
 swore by one another; the one grumbling at, 
 but reverencing, the other's high and resolute 
 equanimity; the other deploring and admiring 
 the one's deep and generous recklessness. The 
 expressions: "Just like John, the careful fel- 
 low!" "Just like Sil, reckless beggar!" were 
 always on their lips; for like all their genera- 
 tion they were sparing of encomium; and great, 
 indeed, must have been their emotion before 
 they would show their feelings. Dear as they 
 were to each other's hearts, they never talked 
 together of spiritual things, they never spoke 
 
 28
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 in generalities, but gravely smoking their 
 cigars, discussed their acquaintances, invest- 
 ments, wine, their nephews and grandchildren; 
 and the affairs of the State condemning the 
 advertising fashion in which everything was 
 now done. Once in a way they would tell a 
 story but they knew each other's stories too 
 well; once in a way quote a line of Byron, 
 Shakespeare, or Milton; or whistle to each 
 other, inharmoniously, a bar or two from some 
 song that Grisi, Mario, or Jenny Lind had sung. 
 Once in a way memories of the heyday of their 
 youth, those far-off golden hours, stealing over 
 them, they would sit silent, with their grave 
 steady eyes following the little rings of bluish 
 smoke. . . . Yes, for all their lack of demon- 
 stration, they loved each other well. 
 
 I seem still to see the subject of this por- 
 trait standing at his friend's funeral one bleak 
 November day, the pale autumn sunlight fall- 
 ing on the silver of his uncovered head a little 
 bowed, and on his grave face, for once so sad. 
 I hear the tones of his voice, still full and steady; 
 and from the soul in his eyes, looking, as it 
 were, through and through those forms of death 
 
 29
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 to some deep conclusion of his own, I know how 
 big and sane and sweet he was. 
 
 His breed is dying now, it has nearly gone. 
 But as I remember him with that great quiet 
 forehead, with his tenderness, and his glance 
 which travelled to the heart of what it rested 
 on, I despair of seeing his like again. For, 
 with him there seems to me to have passed 
 away a principle, a golden rule of life, nay, 
 gpiore, a spirit the soul of Balance. It has 
 stolen away, as in the early morning the stars 
 steal out of the sky. He knew its tranquil 
 secret, and where he is, there must it still be 
 hovering. 
 
 1910.
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 LONG ago it is, now, that I used to see 
 him issue from the rectory, followed 
 by his dogs, an Irish and a fox terrier. He 
 would cross to the churchyard, and, at the 
 gate, stand looking over the Cornish upland?- 
 of his cure of souls, toward the sea, distant 
 nearly a mile. About his black thin figure 
 there was one bright spot, a little gold cross, 
 dangling on his vest. His eyes at such mo- 
 ments were like the eyes of fishermen, watching 
 from the cliffs for pilchards to come by; but 
 as this fisher of men marked the grey roofs 
 covered with yellow lichen where his human 
 fishes dwelt, red stains would come into his 
 meagre cheeks. His lips would move, and he 
 would turn abruptly in at the gate over which 
 was written: "This is the Gate of Heaven." 
 
 A certain green spot within that church- 
 yard was kept clear of grave-stones, which 
 thickly covered all the rest of the ground. 
 
 31
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 He never I believe failed to look at it, and 
 think: "I will keep that corner free. I will 
 not be buried amongst men who refuse their 
 God!" 
 
 For this was his misfortune, which, like a 
 creeping fate, had come on him year by year 
 throughout his twenty years of rectorship. 
 It had eaten into his heart, as is the way with 
 troubles which a man cannot understand. In 
 plain words, his catch of souls had dwindled 
 season by season till, from three hundred when 
 he was first presented to the living, it barely 
 numbered forty. Sunday after Sunday he had 
 conducted his three services. Twice a week 
 from the old pulpit, scanning through the 
 church twilight that ever scantier flock of faces, 
 he had in his dry, spasmodic voice whose 
 harsh tones, no doubt, were music to himself 
 pronounced this conduct blessed, and that 
 accursed, in accordance with his creed. Week 
 after week he had told us all the sinfulness of 
 not attending God's House, of not observing 
 the Lord's Day. He had respected every 
 proper ritual and ceremony; never refusing 
 baptism even to the illegitimate, nor burial 
 
 32
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 to any but such as took their own lives; join- 
 ing in marriage with a certain exceptional 
 alacrity those whose conduct had caused scan- 
 dal in the village. His face had been set, too, 
 against irreverence; no one, I remember, 
 might come to his church in flannel trousers. 
 
 Yet his flock had slowly diminished! Liv- 
 ing, unmarried, in the neglected rectory, with 
 his dogs, an old housekeeper, and a canary, he 
 seemed to have no interests, such as shooting, 
 or fishing, to take him away from his parish 
 duties; he asked nothing better than to enter 
 the houses and lives of his parishioners; and 
 as he passed their doors spare, black, and 
 clean-shaven he could often be seen to stop, 
 make, as it were, a minatory gesture, and walk 
 on with his hungry eyes fixed straight before 
 him. Year by year, to encourage them, he 
 printed privately and distributed documents 
 containing phrases such as these: "It were 
 better for him that a mill-stone were hanged 
 about his neck, and he were cast into the sea." 
 "But the fearful and unbelieving shall have 
 their part in the lake which burneth with fire 
 and brimstone." When he wrote them, his 
 
 33
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 eyes I fancy flared, as though watching such 
 penalties in process of infliction. Had not his 
 parishioners in justice merited those fates? 
 
 If, in his walks, he came across a truant, 
 some fisherman or farmer, he would always 
 stop, with his eyes fastened on the culprit's 
 face: 
 
 "You don't come to church now; how's 
 that?" 
 
 Like true Cornishmen, hoping to avoid 
 unpleasantness, they would offer some polite 
 excuse: They didn't knaw ezactly, zur the 
 missus 'ad been ailin' ; there was always some- 
 thin' like that! This temporising with 
 the devil never failed to make the rector's eyes 
 blaze, or to elicit from him a short dry laugh: 
 "You don't know what you're saying, man! 
 You must be mad to think you can save your 
 soul that way! This is a Christian country!" 
 
 Yet never after one of these encounters did 
 he see the face of that parishioner in his church 
 again. "Let un wait!" they would murmur, 
 "tidden likely we'm gwine to his church t'be 
 spoke to like dogs!" 
 
 But, indeed, had they been dogs, the rector 
 34
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 would not have spoken to them like that. To 
 dogs his conduct was invariably gentle. He 
 might be seen sometimes beside a field of 
 standing corn, where the heads of his two 
 terriers could be marked spasmodically emerg- 
 ing above the golden stalks, as they hunted a 
 covey of partridges or brood of young pheasants 
 which they had scented. His harsh voice could 
 be heard calling them: "Jim, Jim! Pat, 
 Pat! To heel, you rascals!" But when they 
 came out, their tongues lolling ecstatically, he 
 only stooped and shook his finger at them, 
 and they would lick his hand, or rub themselves 
 against his trousers, confident that he would 
 never strike them. With every animal, with 
 every bird and insect he was like this, so gentle 
 that they trusted him completely. He could 
 often be surprised sitting on a high slate stile, 
 or standing in a dip of the wide road between 
 banks of gorse and bramble, with his head, in 
 its wide hat, rather to one side, while a bull- 
 finch or hedge-sparrow on a branch, not three 
 feet off, would be telling him its little tale. 
 Before going for a walk he would sweep his 
 field-glass over the pale-gold landscape of corn- 
 
 35
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 field, scorched pasturage and sand-dune, to see 
 if any horse seemed needing water, or sheep 
 were lying on its back. He was an avowed 
 enemy, too, of traps and gins, and whenever he 
 met with one, took pains to ensure its catching 
 nothing. Such consistent tenderness to dumb 
 animals was perhaps due to a desire to take 
 their side against farmers who would not come 
 to church; but more, I think, to the feeling 
 that the poor things had no souls, that they 
 were here to-day and gone to-morrow they 
 could not be saved and must be treated with 
 compassion, unlike those men with immortal 
 spirits entrusted by God specially to his care, 
 for whose wanton disobedience no punishment, 
 perhaps, could be too harsh. It was as if, by 
 endowing him with Her authority over other 
 men, the Church had divided him into two. 
 
 For the view he took of life was very simple, 
 undisturbed by any sense of irony, unspoiled by 
 curiosity, or desire to link effect with cause, or 
 indeed, to admit the necessity of cause at all. 
 At some fixed date God had made the earth of 
 matter; this matter He had divided into the 
 inanimate and the animate, unconnected with 
 
 36
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 each other; animate matter He had again 
 divided into men, and animals; in men He 
 had placed souls, making them in His own 
 image. Men again He had divided into the 
 Church and other men; and for the govern- 
 ment and improvement of these other men 
 God had passed Himself into His Church. 
 That Church again had passed herself into her 
 ministers. Thus, on the Church's minister 
 placed by Providence beyond the fear of being 
 in the wrong there had been enjoined the 
 bounden duty of instructing, ruling, and sav- 
 ing at all costs, the souls of men. 
 
 This was why, I think, when he encountered 
 in the simple folk committed to his charge a 
 strange dumb democratic spirit, a wayward 
 feeling that the Universe was indivisible, that 
 power had not devolved, but had evolved, that 
 things were relative, not absolute, and so forth 
 expressed in their simple way, he had ex- 
 perienced from the first a gnawing irritation 
 which, like a worm, seemed to have cankered 
 his heart. Gradually one had seen this canker 
 stealing out into his face and body, into his 
 eyes and voice, into the very gestures of his 
 
 37
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 lean arms and hands. His whole form gave 
 the impression of a dark tree withered and 
 eaten by some desiccating wind, like the stiff 
 oaks of his Cornish upland, gnarled and riven 
 by the Atlantic gales. 
 
 Night and day in the worn old rectory, with 
 its red conservatory, he must have brooded 
 over the wrong done him by his people, in 
 depriving him of his just due, the power to save 
 their souls. It was as though an officer, gagged 
 and bound at the head of his company, should 
 have been forced to watch them manoeuvring 
 without him. He was like a school-master 
 tied to his desk amongst the pandemonium 
 of his scholars. His failure was a fact strange 
 and intolerable to him, inexplicable, tragic a 
 fact mured up in the mystery which each 
 man's blindness to the nature of his own spirit 
 wraps round his relations with his fellow be- 
 ings. He could not doubt that, bereaved by 
 their own wilful conduct of his ministrations, 
 of the Church in fact, and, through the Church, 
 of God, his parishioners were given up to dam- 
 nation. If they were thus given up to damna- 
 tion, he, their proper pastor their rightful 
 
 38
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 leader, the symbol of the Church, that is of 
 God was but a barren, withered thing. This 
 thought he could not bear. Unable to see 
 himself as others saw him, he searched to find 
 excuses for them. He found none; for he 
 knew that he had preached no narrow doctrines 
 cursed with the bigotry which he recognised 
 in the Romish or Nonconformist faiths. The 
 doctrines and dogmas he was appointed to 
 administer were of the due and necessary 
 breadth, no more, no less. He was scrupulous, 
 even against his own personal feeling, to ob- 
 serve the letter of the encyclicals. Thus, 
 nothing in the matter of his teaching could 
 account for the gradual defection of his flock. 
 Nor in the manner of it could he detect any- 
 thing that seemed to himself unjustified. Yet, 
 as the tide ebbed from the base of the grey 
 cliffs, so, without haste, with deadly certainty, 
 the tide ebbed from his church. What could 
 he, then, believe but that his parishioners 
 meant to be personally offensive to himself? 
 
 In the school-house, at the post office, on 
 the green, at choir practice, or on the way to 
 service, wherever he met them, one could see 
 
 39
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 that he was perpetually detecting small slights 
 or incivilities. He had come, I think, almost 
 to imagine that these people, who never came 
 to church, fixed the hours of their births and 
 deaths and marriages maliciously, that they 
 might mock at the inconvenience caused to 
 one who neither could, nor would, refuse to do 
 his duty. It was blasphemy they were com- 
 mitting. In avoiding God's church, yet re- 
 quiring such services of His minister, they 
 were making God their servant. 
 
 One could find him any evening in his study, 
 his chin resting on his hand, the oil-lamp flar- 
 ing slightly, his dogs curled up beside him, 
 and the cloth cover drawn over the cage of his 
 canary so that the little creature should not 
 suffer from the light. Almost the first words 
 he spoke would show how ceaselessly he 
 brooded. " Nothing," he would say, "ever 
 prospers in this village; I've started this and 
 that! Look at the football club, look at the 
 Bible class all no good! With people such 
 as these, wanting in all reverence, humility, 
 and love of discipline! You have not had the 
 dealings with them that I have!" 
 40
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 In truth his dealings with them had become 
 notorious throughout the district. A peti- 
 tion, privately subscribed, and presented to 
 the bishop for his removal had, of course, met 
 with failure. A rector could not be removed 
 from his living for any reason it had been 
 purchased for him by his father. Nor could 
 his position as minister be interfered with on 
 any such excuse as that of the mere personal 
 dislike of his parishioners as well, indeed, 
 seek by petition to remove the Church herself. 
 The knowledge of his unassailable position 
 found expression among his parishioners in 
 dogged looks, and the words: "Well, we don' 
 trouble!" 
 
 It was in the twentieth year of his rectorship 
 that a slight collision with the parish council 
 drew from him this letter: "It is my duty to 
 record my intention to attend no more meet- 
 ings, for I cannot, as a Christian, continue to 
 meet those who obstinately refuse to come to 
 church." 
 
 It was then late September, and the harvest 
 festival had been appointed for the following 
 Sunday. The week passed, but the farmers 
 
 41
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 had provided no offerings for the decoration 
 of the church; the fishermen too, accustomed 
 by an old tradition in that parish to supply 
 some purchased fruit in lieu of their shining 
 fishes, sent nothing. The boycott had obvi- 
 ously been preconcerted. 
 
 But when the rector stepped that Sunday 
 into the pulpit the church was fuller than it 
 had. been for many years. Men and women 
 who had long ceased to attend, had come, 
 possessed evidently by an itch to see how 
 "th' old man" would take it. The eyes of 
 the farmers and fishermen, hardened by the 
 elements, had in them a grim humorous curi- 
 osity, such as one may remark in the eyes of 
 a ring of men round some poor wretch, whom, 
 moved by a crude sense of justice, they have 
 baited into the loss of dignity. Their faces, 
 with hardly an exception, seemed to say: 
 "Sir, we were given neither hand nor voice in 
 the choosing of you. From the first day you 
 showed us the cloven hoof. We have never 
 wanted you. If we must have you, let us at 
 all events get some sport out of you!" 
 
 The rector's white figure rising from the dark 
 42
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 pulpit received without movement the shafts 
 of all our glances; his own deep : set hunger- 
 ing eyes were fixed on the Bible in his hand. 
 He gave out his text: "The kindly fruits of 
 
 the earth, in due season " 
 
 His voice strangely smooth and low that 
 morning, I remember began discoursing of 
 the beneficence and kindliness of God, who 
 had allowed the earth to provide men year by 
 year with food, according to their needs. It 
 was as though the mellow sentiment of that 
 season of fruition had fallen on his exiled 
 spirit. But presently he paused, and lean- 
 ing forward, looked man by man, woman by 
 woman, at us all. Those eyes now had in them 
 the peculiar flare which we knew so well. His 
 voice rose again: "And how have you met 
 this benefaction, my brethren, how have you 
 shown your gratitude to God, embodied in His 
 Church and in me, Her appointed representa- 
 tive? Do you think, then, that God will let 
 you insult Him with impunity? Do you think 
 in your foolish pride that God will suffer you 
 unpunished to place this conspired slight on 
 Him? If you imagine this, you are woefully 
 
 43
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 mistaken. I know the depths of your re- 
 bellious hearts; I read them like this Book. 
 You seek, you have always sought, to set my 
 authority at defiance a wayward and dis- 
 obedient generation. But let me tell you: 
 God, who has set His Holy Church over you, 
 is a just and strong God; as a kind master 
 chastises his dogs for their own good, so will 
 He chastise you. You have sought to drive 
 me out from among you " and from his pale 
 twisting lips, through the hush, there came a 
 sound like a laugh "to drive the Church, 
 to drive God Himself, away! You could not 
 have made a grosser error. Do you think 
 that we, in solemn charge of your salvation, 
 are to be moved by such puerile rebellion? 
 Not so! God has appointed us, to God alone 
 we are accountable. Not if every man and 
 woman in the parish, aye, and every child, 
 deserted this church, would I recoil one step 
 from my duty, or resign my charge! As well 
 imagine, forsooth, that your great Church is 
 some poor man-elected leader, subject to your 
 whims, and to be deposed as the fancy takes 
 you! Do you conceive the nature of the 
 
 44
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 Church and of my office to be so mean and 
 petty that I am to feed you with the food you 
 wish me to feed you with, to lead you into 
 such fields as you dictate? No! my brethren, 
 you have not that power! Is the shepherd 
 elected by the sheep? Listen then to the 
 truth, or to your peril be it ! The Church is a 
 rock set up by God amongst the shifting sands 
 of life. It comes from Heaven, not from this 
 miserable earth. Its mission is to command, 
 yours to obey. If the last man in this Christian 
 country proved a rebel and a traitor, the Church 
 and her ministers would stand immovable, as 
 I stand here, firm in my sacred resolve to save 
 your souls. Go down on your knees, and beg 
 God to forgive you for the wanton insult you 
 have offered Him! . . . Hymn 266: 'Lead, 
 kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom!' 
 
 Through the grey aisles, where so great a 
 silence reigned, the notes of the organ rose. 
 The first verse of that hymn was sung only by 
 the choir and a few women's voices; then one 
 by one the men joined in. Our voices swelled 
 into a shout louder than we had ever heard in 
 the little church before a mutinous, harsh, 
 
 45
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 roaring sound, as though, in the words of that 
 gentle hymn, each one of this grim congrega- 
 tion were pouring out all the resentment in his 
 heart. The roar emerging through the open 
 door must have startled the passing tourists, 
 and the geese in the neighbouring farmyard. 
 It ended with a groan like the long-drawn sob 
 of a wave sucking back. 
 
 In the village all the next week little except 
 this sermon was discussed. Farmers and fish- 
 ermen are men of the world. The conditions 
 of their lives, which are guarded only by their 
 own unremitting efforts, which are backed by 
 no authority save their own courage in the long 
 struggle with land and sea, gives them a cer- 
 tain deep philosophy. Amongst the fishermen 
 there was one white-bearded old fellow who 
 even seemed to see a deep significance in the 
 rector's sermon. "Mun putts hisseF above 
 us, like the Czar o' Roossia," he said, " 'tes the 
 sperrit o' the thing that's wrong. Talk o' 
 lovin' kindness, there's none 'bout the Church, 
 'sfar's I can see, 'tes all: 'Du this, or ye'll be 
 blasted!' This man he's a regular chip o' 
 the old block!" He spoke, indeed, as though 
 
 46
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 the rector's attitude towards them were a 
 symbol of the Church's attitude to men. 
 Among the farmers such analogies were veiled 
 by the expression of simpler thoughts: 
 
 "Yu med tak' a 'arse to the watter, yu can't 
 mak' un drink!" 
 
 "Whu wants mun, savin' our souls! Let 
 mun save's own!" 
 
 "We'm not gude enough to listen to his 
 prachin', I rackon!" 
 
 It was before a congregation consisting of his 
 clerk, two tourists, three old women, one of 
 them stone deaf, and four little girls, that the 
 unfortunate man stood next Sunday morning. 
 
 Late that same wild and windy afternoon a 
 jeering rumour spread down in the village: 
 "TV old man's up to Tresellyn 'Igh Cliff, 
 talkin' to the watters!" 
 
 A crowd soon gathered, eager for the least 
 sensation that should break monotony. Be- 
 yond the combe, above the grey roofs of the 
 fishing village, Tresellyn High Cliff rises ab- 
 ruptly. At the top, on the very edge, the tiny 
 black shape of a man could be seen standing 
 
 47
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 with his arms raised above his head. Now 
 he kneeled, then stood motionless for many 
 minutes with hands outstretched; while be- 
 hind him, the white and brown specks of his 
 two terriers were visible, couched along the 
 short grass. Suddenly he could be seen gesticu- 
 lating wildly, and the speck shapes of the dogs 
 leaping up, and cowering again as if terrified 
 at their master's conduct. 
 
 For two hours this fantastic show was wit- 
 nessed by the villagers with gloating gravity. 
 The general verdict was: "Th' old man's 
 carryin' on praaperly." But very gradually 
 the sight of that tiny black figure appealing 
 to his God the God of his Church militant 
 which lived by domination roused the super- 
 stition of men who themselves were living in 
 primitive conflict with the elements. They 
 could not but appreciate what was so in keep- 
 ing with the vengeful spirit of a fighting race. 
 One could see that they even began to be 
 afraid. Then a great burst of rain, sweeping 
 from the sea, smothered all sight of him. 
 
 Early next morning the news spread that 
 the rector had been found in his arm-chair, 
 
 48
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 
 
 the two dogs at his feet, and the canary perched 
 on his dead hand. His clothes were unchanged 
 and wet, as if he had sunk into that chair, and 
 passed away, from sheer exhaustion. The 
 body of "the poor unfortunate gentleman" 
 the old housekeeper told me was huddled and 
 shrunk together; his chin rested on the little 
 gold cross dangling on his vest. 
 
 They buried him in that green spot, apart 
 from his parishioners, which he had selected 
 for his grave, placing on the tombstone these 
 words: 
 
 HIC JACET 
 W 
 
 PASTOR ECCLESLE BRITANNIOE 
 " GOD IS LOVE " 
 
 1908. 
 
 49
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 ON a fine day of early summer in a London 
 garden, before the birds had lost their 
 Spring song, or the trees dropped their last 
 blossoms, our friend said suddenly: 
 
 "Why! there's a goldfinch!" Blackbirds 
 there were, and thrushes, and tits in plenty, an 
 owl at night, and a Christopher Columbus of a 
 cuckoo, who solemnly, once a year, mistook 
 this green island of trees for the main lands of 
 Kent and Surrey, but a goldfinch never! 
 
 "I hear it over there!" he said again, and, 
 getting up, he walked towards the house. 
 
 When he came back, our friend sat down 
 again, and observed: 
 
 "I didn't know that you kept a cage-bird!" 
 We admitted that our cook had a canary. 
 
 "A mule!" he remarked, very shortly. 
 
 Some strong feeling had evidently been 
 aroused in him that neither of us could under- 
 stand. 
 
 51
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Suddenly he burst out: 
 
 "I can't bear things in cages; animals, 
 birds, or men. I hate to see or think of them." 
 And looking at us angrily, as though we had 
 taken an advantage in drawing from him this 
 confession, he went on quickly: 
 
 "I was staying in a German town some 
 years ago, with a friend who was making in- 
 quiries into social matters. He asked me one 
 day to go over a prison with him. I had never 
 seen one, then, and I agreed. It was just such 
 a day as this a perfectly clear sky, and there 
 was that cool, dancing sparkle on everything 
 that you only see in some parts of Germany. 
 This prison, which stood in the middle of the 
 town, was one of those shaped like a star, that 
 have been built over there on the plan of Pen- 
 tonville. The system, they told us, was the 
 same that you might have seen working here 
 many years ago. The Germans were then, and 
 still, no doubt, are, infatuated with the idea of 
 muring their prisoners up in complete solitude. 
 But it was a new toy to them then, and they 
 were enjoying it with that sort of fanatical 
 thoroughness which the Germans give to every- 
 
 52
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 thing they take up. I don't want to describe 
 this prison, or what we saw in it; as far as an 
 institution run on such dreadful lines can be, 
 it was, I daresay, well-managed; the Gover- 
 nor, at all events, impressed me favourably. 
 I'll simply tell you of the one thing which I 
 shall never forget, because it symbolised to me 
 for ever the caging of all creatures, animal or 
 human, great or small." 
 
 Our friend paused; then, with an added 
 irritation in his voice, as though aware of doing 
 violence to his natural reserve, he went on: 
 
 "We had been all over the grizzly place 
 when the Governor asked my friend whether 
 he would like to see one or two of the 'life' 
 prisoners. 
 
 " 'I will show you one/ he said, 'who has 
 been here twenty-seven years. He is, you will 
 understand' I remember his very words 
 'a little worn by his long confinement.' While 
 we were going towards this prisoner's cell, they 
 told us his story. He had been a cabinet- 
 maker's assistant, and when still quite a boy, 
 joined a gang of burglars to rob his own em- 
 ployer. Surprised during the robbery, he had 
 
 53
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 blindly struck out, and killed his employer 
 on the spot. He was sentenced to death, but, 
 on the intervention of some Royalty who had 
 been upset by the sight of corpses, I believe 
 at the battle of Sadowa, his sentence was com- 
 muted to imprisonment for life. 
 
 "When we entered his cell he was standing 
 perfectly still, gazing at his work. He looked 
 quite sixty, though he could not have been 
 more than forty-six a bent, trembling ruin 
 of a figure, covered by a drab-coloured apron. 
 His face had the mealy hue and texture of all 
 prisoners' faces. He seemed to have no feat- 
 ures; his cheeks were hollow; his eyes large, 
 but, looking back, I can't remember their 
 colour if, indeed, they had colour in them at 
 all. As we passed in, one by one, through the 
 iron door, he took off his round cap, drab- 
 coloured too, like everything about him, show- 
 ing his dusty, nearly bald head, with a few 
 short grey hairs on end, and stood in an at- 
 titude of 'attention,' humbly staring at us. 
 He was like an owl surprised by daylight. 
 Have you ever seen a little child ill for the 
 first time full of bewilderment at its own suf- 
 
 54
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 fering? His face was like that, but so ex- 
 traordinarily gentle! We had seen many of 
 the prisoners, and he was the only one that 
 had that awful gentleness. The sound of his 
 voice, too: l Ja, Herr Direktor nein, Herr 
 Direktar!' soft and despairing I remember it 
 now there was not a breath of will-power 
 left." Our friend paused, frowning in his 
 effort to re-create the scene. "He held hi his 
 hand," he went on presently, "a sheet of stiff 
 paper, on which he had been transcribing the 
 New Testament in letters from a code of 
 writing for the deaf and dumb. When he 
 passed his thin fingers over the type to show 
 us how easily the deaf and dumb could read it, 
 you could see that his hands were dusty like a 
 miller's. There was nothing in the cell to pro- 
 duce that dust, and in my belief it was not 
 dust on his hands, but some excretion from 
 that human plant running to seed. When he 
 held the sheet of paper up, too, it trembled like 
 the wing of an insect. One of us asked, who 
 invented the system he was working at, men- 
 tioning some name. 'Nein, nein,' he said, and 
 he stood shivering with eagerness to recollect 
 
 55
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 the right name. At last he drooped his head, 
 and mumbled out: 'Ah, Herr Direktor, ich 
 kann nicht!' Then all of a sudden the name 
 came bursting from his lips. At that mo- 
 ment, for the first time, he actually looked like 
 a man. I never before then realised the value 
 of freedom; the real meaning of our relations 
 with other human beings; the necessity for the 
 mind's being burnished from minute to minute 
 by sights and sounds, by the need for remem- 
 bering and using what we remember. This 
 fellow, you see, had no use for memory in his 
 life; he was like a plant placed where no dew 
 can possibly fall on it. To watch that look pass 
 over his face at the mere remembrance of a 
 name was like catching sight of a tiny scrap of 
 green leaf left in the heart of a withered shrub. 
 Man, I tell you, is wonderful the most endur- 
 ing creature that has ever been produced!" 
 Our friend rose, and began pacing up and down. 
 "His world was not a large one; about four- 
 teen feet by eight. He'd lived in it for twenty- 
 seven years, without a mouse even for a friend. 
 They do things thoroughly in prisons. Think 
 of the tremendous vital force that must go to 
 
 56
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 the making of the human organism, for a man 
 to live through that. . . . What do you im- 
 agine," he went on, turning to us suddenly, 
 "kept even a remnant of his reason alive? 
 Well, I'll tell you: While we were still look- 
 ing at his 'deaf and dumb' writing, he sud- 
 denly handed us a piece of wood about the 
 size of a large photograph. It was the picture 
 of a young girl, seated in the very centre of a 
 garden, with bright-coloured flowers in her 
 hand; in the background was a narrow, twist- 
 ing stream with some rushes, and a queer 
 bird, rather like a raven, standing on the bank. 
 And by the side of the girl a tree with large 
 hanging fruits, strangely symmetrical, unlike 
 any tree that ever grew, yet with something 
 in it that is in all trees, a look as if they had 
 spirits, and were the friends of man. The 
 girl was staring straight at us with perfectly 
 round, blue eyes, and the flowers she held in 
 her hand seemed also to stare at us. The 
 whole picture, it appeared to me, was full of 
 what shall I say? a kind of wonder. It had 
 all the crude colour and drawing of an early 
 Italian painting, the same look of difficulty 
 
 57
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 conquered by sheer devotion. One of us 
 asked him if he had learnt to draw before his 
 imprisonment; but the poor fellow misunder- 
 stood the question. "Nein, nein," he said, 
 "the Herr Direktor knows I had no model. 
 It is a fancy picture!" And the smile he gave 
 us would have made a devil weep! He had 
 put into that picture all that his soul longed 
 for woman, flowers, birds, trees, blue sky, 
 running water; and all the wonder of his spirit 
 that he was cut off from them. He had been 
 at work on it, they said, for eighteen years, 
 destroying and repeating, until he had pro- 
 duced this, the hundredth version. It was a 
 masterpiece. Yes, there he had been for twenty- 
 seven years, condemned for life to this living 
 death without scent, sight, hearing, or touch 
 of any natural object, without even the mem- 
 ory of them, evolving from his starved soul 
 this vision of a young girl with eyes full of 
 wonder, and flowers in her hand. It's the 
 greatest triumph of the human spirit, and the 
 greatest testimony to the power of Art that I 
 have ever seen." 
 
 Our friend uttered a short laugh: "So 
 58
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 thick-skinned, however, is a man's mind that 
 I didn't even then grasp the agony of that 
 man's life. But I did later. I happened to 
 see his eyes as he was trying to answer some 
 question of the Governor's about his health. 
 To my dying day I shall never forget them. 
 They were incarnate tragedy all those eter- 
 nities of solitude and silence he had lived 
 through, all the eternities he had still to live 
 through before they buried him in the grave- 
 yard outside, were staring out of them. They 
 had more sheer pitiful misery in them than 
 all the eyes put together of all the free men 
 I've ever seen. I couldn't stand the sight of 
 them, and hurried out of the cell. I felt then, 
 and ever since, what they say the Russians feel 
 for all their lapses into savagery the sacred- 
 ness of suffering. I felt that we ought all of us 
 to have bowed down before him; that I, 
 though I was free and righteous, was a charla- 
 tan and sinner in the face of that living cruci- 
 fixion. Whatever crime he had committed I 
 don't care what it was that poor lost creature 
 had been so sinned against that I was as dirt 
 beneath his feet. When I think of him there 
 
 59
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 still, for all I know I feel a sort of frenzy rising 
 in me against my own kind. I feel the miser- 
 able aching of all the caged creatures in the 
 world." 
 
 Our friend turned his head away, and for 
 quite a minute did not speak. "On our 
 way back, I remember," he said at last, "we 
 drove through the Stadt Park. There, it was 
 free and light enough; every kind of tree 
 limes, copper beeches, oaks, sycamores, poplars, 
 birches, and apple trees in blossom, were giving 
 out their scent; every branch and leaf was 
 glistening with happiness. The place was full 
 of birds, the symbols of freedom, fluttering 
 about, singing their loudest in the sun. Yes, 
 it was all enchanted ground. /And I well re- 
 member thinking that in the whole range of 
 Nature only men and spiders torture other 
 creatures in that long-drawn-out kind of way; 
 and only men do it in cold blood to their own 
 species./ So far as I know that's a fact of nat- 
 ural history; and I can tell you that to see, 
 once for all, as I did, in that man's eyes, its 
 unutterable misery, is never to feel the same 
 towards your own kind again. That night I 
 
 60
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 sat in a cafe window, listening to the music, the 
 talk, the laughter, watching the people pass in 
 the street shop-folk, soldiers, merchants, offi- 
 cials, priests, beggars, aristocrats, women of 
 pleasure, and the light streaming out from the 
 windows, and the leaves just moving against 
 the most wonderful, dark blue sky. But I 
 saw and heard nothing of it all. I only saw the 
 gentle, mealy-coloured face of that poor fellow, 
 his eyes, and his dusty, trembling hands, and 
 I saw the picture that he had painted there in 
 hell. I've seen it ever since, whenever I see 
 or hear of any sort of solitary caged creature." 
 Our friend ceased speaking, and very soon 
 after he rose, excused himself, and went away. 
 
 1909.
 
 COURAGE 
 
 AT that time (said Ferrand) I was in pov- 
 erty. Not the kind of poverty that 
 goes without dinner, but the sort that goes 
 without breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and ex- 
 ists as it can on bread and tobacco. I lived 
 in one of those fourpenny lodging-houses, 
 Westminster way. Three, five, seven beds in 
 a room; if you pay regularly, you keep your 
 own bed; if not, they put some one else there 
 who will certainly leave you a memento of 
 himself. It's not the foreigners' quarter; they 
 are nearly all English, and drunkards. Three- 
 quarters of them don't eat can't; they have 
 no capacity for solid food. They drink and 
 drink. They're not worth wasting your money 
 on cab-runners, newspaper-boys, sellers of 
 laces, and what you call sandwichmen; three- 
 fourths of them brutalised beyond the power 
 of recovery. What can you expect? They 
 just live to scrape enough together to keep 
 
 63
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 their souls in their bodies; they have no time 
 or strength to think of anything but that. 
 They come back at night and fall asleep and 
 how dead that sleep is! No, they never eat 
 just a bit of bread; the rest is drink! 
 
 There used to come to that house a little 
 Frenchman, with a yellow, crow's-footed face; 
 not old either, about thirty. But his life had 
 been hard no one comes to these houses if 
 life is soft; especially no Frenchman; a French- 
 man hates to leave his country. He came to 
 shave us charged a penny; most of us for- 
 got to pay him, so that in all he shaved about 
 three for a penny. He went to others of these 
 houses this gave him his income he kept 
 the little shop next door, too, but he never 
 sold anything. How he worked! He also 
 went to one of your Public Institutions; this 
 was not so profitable, for there he was paid a 
 penny for ten shaves. He used to say to me, 
 moving his tired fingers like little yellow 
 sticks: "Pff! I slave! To gain a penny, 
 friend, I'm spending fourpence. What would 
 you have? One must nourish oneself to have 
 the strength to shave ten people for a penny." 
 
 64
 
 COURAGE 
 
 He was like an ant, running round and round 
 in his little hole, without any chance but just 
 to live; and always in hopes of saving enough 
 to take him back to France, and set him up 
 there. We had a liking for each other. He 
 was the only one, in fact except a sandwich- 
 man who had been an actor, and was very in- 
 telligent, when he wasn't drunk the only one 
 in all that warren who had ideas. He was 
 fond of pleasure and loved his music-hall 
 must have gone at least twice a year, and was 
 always talking of it. He had little knowledge 
 of its joys, it's true hadn't the money for that, 
 but his intentions were good. He used to keep 
 me till the last, and shave me slowly. 
 
 "This rests me," he would say. It was 
 amusement for me, too, for I had got into the 
 habit of going for days without opening my 
 lips. It's only a man here and there one can 
 talk with; the rest only laugh; you seem to 
 them a fool, a freak something that should 
 be put into a cage or tied by the leg. 
 
 "Yes," the little man would say, "when I 
 came here first I thought I should soon go 
 back, but now I'm not so sure. I'm losing my 
 
 65
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 illusions. Money has wings, but it's not to 
 me it flies. Believe me, friend, I am shaving 
 my soul into these specimens. And how 
 unhappy they are, poor creatures; how they 
 must suffer! Drink! you say. Yes, that 
 saves them they get a little happiness from 
 that. Unfortunately, I haven't the constitu- 
 tion for it here." And he would show me 
 where he had no constitution. "You, too, 
 comrade, you don't seem to be in luck; but 
 then, you're young. Ah, well, faut etre philo- 
 sophe but imagine what kind of a game it is 
 in this climate, especially if you come from the 
 South!" 
 
 When I went away, which was as soon as I 
 had nothing left to pawn, he gave me money 
 there's no question of lending in those houses: 
 if a man parts with money he gives it; and 
 lucky if he's not robbed into the bargain. 
 There are fellows there who watch for a new 
 pair of shoes, or a good overcoat, profit by their 
 wakefulness as soon as the other is asleep, and 
 promptly disappear. There's no morality in 
 the face of destitution it needs a man of iron, 
 and these are men of straw. But one thing 
 
 66
 
 COURAGE 
 
 I will say of the low English they are not 
 bloodthirsty, like the low French and Italians. 
 
 Well, I got a job as fireman on a steamer, 
 made a tour tramping, and six months later I 
 was back again. The first morning I saw the 
 Frenchman. It was shaving-day; he was more 
 like an ant than ever, working away with all 
 his legs and arms; a little yellower, and per- 
 haps more wrinkled. 
 
 "Ah!" he called out to me in French, 
 "there you are back again. I knew you'd 
 come. Wait till Fve finished with this speci- 
 men I've a lot to talk about." 
 
 We went into the kitchen, a big stone-floored 
 room, with tables for eating and sat down 
 by the fire. It was January, but, summer or 
 winter, there's always a fire burning in that 
 kitchen. 
 
 "So," he said, "you have come back? No 
 luck? Eh! Patience! A few more days won't 
 kill you at your age. What fogs, though! 
 You see, I'm still here, but my comrade, 
 Pigon, is dead. You remember him the big 
 man with black hair who had the shop down 
 the street. Amiable fellow, good friend to 
 
 67
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 me; and married. Fine woman his wife a 
 little ripe, seeing she has had children, but of 
 good family. He died suddenly of heart dis- 
 ease. Wait a bit; I'll tell you about that. . . . 
 
 "It was not long after you went away, one 
 fine day in October, when I had just finished 
 with these specimens here, and was taking my 
 coffee in the shop, and thinking of that poor 
 Pigon dead then just three days when pom! 
 comes a knock, and there is Madame Pigon! 
 Very calm a woman of good family, well 
 brought up, well made fine woman. But 
 the cheeks pale, and the eyes so red, poor 
 soul. 
 
 " 'Well, Madame/ I asked her, 'what can I 
 do for you?' 
 
 "It seems this poor Pigon died bankrupt; 
 there was not a cent in the shop. He was two 
 days in his grave, and the bailiffs in already. 
 
 " 'Ah, Monsieur!' she says to me, 'what 
 am I to do?' 
 
 " 'Wait a bit, Madame!' I get my hat and 
 go back to the shop with her. 
 
 "What a scene! Two bailiffs, who would 
 have been the better for a shave, sitting in a 
 
 68
 
 COURAGE 
 
 shop before the basins; and everywhere, ma 
 foi, everywhere, children! Tk! Tk! A little 
 girl of ten, very like her mother; two little 
 boys with little trousers, and one with nothing 
 but a chemise; and others two, quite small, 
 all rolling on the floor; and what a horrible 
 noise! all crying, all but the little girl, fit to 
 break themselves in two. The bailiffs seemed 
 perplexed. It was enough to make one weep! 
 Seven! and some quite small! That poor 
 Pigon, I had no idea! 
 
 "The bailiffs behaved very well. 
 
 " 'Well/ said the biggest, 'you can have 
 four-and-twenty hours to find this money; my 
 mate can camp out here in the shop we don't 
 want to be hard on you'/ 
 
 "I helped Madame to soothe the children. 
 
 " 'If I had the money/ I said, 'it should be 
 at your service, Madame in each well-born 
 heart there should exist humanity; but I 
 have no money. Try and think whether you 
 have no friends to help you.' 
 
 " 'Monsieur/ she answered, 'I have none. 
 Have I had time to make friends I, with 
 seven children?' 
 
 69
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 " 'But in France, Madame?' 
 
 " 'None, Monsieur. I have quarrelled with 
 my family; and reflect it is now seven years 
 since we came to England, and then only be- 
 cause no one would help us.' That seemed 
 to me bad, but what could I do? I could only 
 say 
 
 " 'Hope always, Madame trust in me!' 
 
 "I went away. All day long I thought how 
 calm she was magnificent! And I kept say- 
 ing to myself: 'Come, tap your head! tap 
 your head! Something must be done!' But 
 nothing came. 
 
 "The next morning it was my day to go 
 to that sacred Institution, and I started off 
 still thinking what on earth could be done for 
 the poor woman; it was as if the little ones had 
 got hold of my legs and were dragging at me. 
 I arrived late, and, to make up time, I shaved 
 them as I have never shaved them; a hot 
 morning I perspired! Ten for a penny! Ten 
 for a penny! I thought of that, and of the 
 poor woman. At last I finished and sat down. 
 I thought to myself: 'It's too strong! Why 
 do you do it? It's stupid! You are wasting 
 
 70
 
 COURAGE 
 
 yourself!' And then, my idea came to me! 
 I asked for the manager. 
 
 " l Monsieur/ I said, 'it is impossible for 
 me to come here again.' 
 
 " 'What do you mean?' says he. 
 
 " 'I have had enough of your "ten for a 
 penny" I am going to get married; I can't 
 afford to come here any longer. I lose too 
 much flesh for the money.' 
 
 " 'What?' he says, ' you're a lucky man if 
 you can afford to throw away your money 
 like this!' 
 
 " 'Throw away my money! Pardon, Mon- 
 sieur, but look at me' I was still very hot 
 'for every penny I make I lose threepence, 
 not counting the boot leather to and fro. 
 While I was still a bachelor, Monsieur, it was 
 my own affair I could afford these extrava- 
 gances; but now it must finish I have the 
 honour, Monsieur!' 
 
 "I left him, and walked away. I went to 
 the Pigons' shop. The bailiff was still there 
 Pfui ! He must have been smoking all the time. 
 
 " 'I can't give them much longer,' he said 
 to me. 
 
 71
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 " 'It is of no importance/ I replied; and I 
 knocked, and went in to the back room. 
 
 "The children were playing in the corner, 
 that little girl, a heart of gold, watching them 
 like a mother; and Madame at the table with a 
 pair of old black gloves on her hands. My 
 friend, I have never seen such a face calm, 
 but so pale, so frightfully discouraged, so 
 overwhelmed. One would say she was waiting 
 for her death. It was bad, it was bad with 
 the winter coming on! 
 
 " 'Good morning, Madame/ I said. 'What 
 news? Have you been able to arrange any- 
 thing?' 
 
 " 'No, Monsieur. And you?' 
 
 " 'No!' And I looked at her again a fine 
 woman; ah! a fine woman. 
 
 " 'But/ I said, 'an idea has come to me this 
 morning. Now, what would you say if I asked 
 you to marry me? It might possibly be 
 better than nothing.' 
 
 "She regarded me with her black eyes, and 
 answered 
 
 " 'But willingly, Monsieur!' and then, com- 
 rade, but not till then, she cried." 
 
 72
 
 COURAGE 
 
 The little Frenchman stopped, and stared 
 at me hard. 
 
 "H'm!" I said at last, "you have courage!" 
 
 He looked at me again; his eyes were 
 troubled, as if I had paid him a bad compli- 
 ment. 
 
 "You think so?" he said at last, and I 
 saw that the thought was gnawing at him, 
 as if I had turned the light on some desperate, 
 dark feeling in his heart. 
 
 "Yes!" he said, taking his time, while his 
 good yellow face wrinkled and wrinkled, and 
 each wrinkle seemed to darken: "I was afraid 
 of it even when I did it. Seven children!" 
 Once more he looked at me: "And since! 
 sometimes sometimes I could " he broke 
 off, then burst out again: 
 
 "Life is hard! What would you have? 
 I knew her husband. Could I leave her to 
 the streets?" 
 
 1904. 
 
 73
 
 THE MEETING 
 
 WALKING one day in Kensington Gar- 
 dens, I strolled into the enclosure of 
 the tea kiosque and sat down on the side shel- 
 tered from the east, where fashionable people 
 never go. 
 
 The new-fledged leaves were swinging in 
 a breeze that kept stealing up in puffs under 
 the half-bare branches; sparrows and pigeons 
 hunted on the grass for crumbs; and all the 
 biscuit-coloured chairs and little round-topped 
 marble tripods, with thick inverted cups and 
 solitary bowls of sugar, were sending out their 
 somewhat bleak invitation. A few of these 
 tables were occupied; at one sat a pale, thin 
 child in an enormous white hat, in the company 
 of a cheery little red-cross nurse and a lady 
 in grey, whose pathetic, half-thankful eyes 
 betokened a struggling convalescence; at an- 
 other, two ladies Americans, perhaps with 
 pleasant, keen, brown faces, were munching 
 
 75
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 rolls; at a third, an old square man, bald 
 and grey, sat smoking. At short intervals, like 
 the very heart's cry of that Spring day, came 
 the scream of the peacocks from across the 
 water. 
 
 Presently there strolled along the gravel 
 space from right to left a young man in a 
 fashionable cut-away coat, shining top-hat, 
 and patent boots, swinging a cane. His face 
 was fresh and high-coloured, with little twisted 
 dark moustaches, and bold, bright eyes. He 
 walked like an athlete, whose legs and loins 
 are hard with muscle; and he looked about him 
 with exaggerated nonchalance. But under his 
 swagger I detected expectation, anxiety, de- 
 fiance. He re-passed, evidently looking for 
 some one, and I lost sight of him. 
 
 But presently he came back, and this time he 
 had her with him. Oh! She was a pretty 
 soul, with her veil, and her flower-like face 
 behind it, and her quick glances to left and 
 right; and her little put-on air of perfect 
 ease, of perfect how shall we call it? justifi- 
 cation. And yet behind all this, too, was 
 a subtle mixture of feelings of dainty dis- 
 
 76
 
 THE MEETING 
 
 pleasure at her own position, of unholy satis- 
 faction, of desire not to be caught. And he? 
 How changed! His eyes, no longer bold and 
 uneasy, were full of humble delight, of defer- 
 ential worship; his look of animal nonchalance 
 was gone. 
 
 Choosing a table not far from mine, which 
 had, as it were, a certain strategic value, he 
 drew her chair back for her, and down they sat. 
 I could not hear their talk, but I could watch 
 them, and knew as well as if they had told me 
 in so many words that this was their first 
 stolen meeting. That first meeting, which 
 must not be seen, or rather the first meeting that 
 both felt must not be seen a very different 
 thing. They had stepped in their own minds 
 over the unmarked boundary of convention. It 
 was a moment that had perhaps been months 
 in coming, the preliminary moment that in 
 each love affair comes only once, and makes all 
 the after poignancy so easy. 
 
 Their eyes told the whole story hers rest- 
 lessly watchful of all around, with sudden 
 clingings to his; and his, with their attempt at 
 composure, and obvious devotion. And it was 
 77
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 psychologically amusing to see the difference 
 between the woman and the man. In the 
 midst of the stolen joy she had her eye on the 
 world, instinctively deferring to its opinion, 
 owning, so to speak, that she was in the wrong; 
 while he was only concerned with striving not 
 to lower himself in his own estimation by look- 
 ing ridiculous. His deference to the world's 
 opinion had gone by the board, now that he 
 was looking into her eyes. 
 
 "D n the world!" he said to himself; 
 while she, still watching the world as a cat 
 watches some bullying dog, knew she need not 
 trouble about looking ridiculous she would 
 never look that. And when their eyes met, 
 and could not for a moment tear themselves 
 apart, it gave one an ache in the heart, the 
 ache that the cry of the peacock brings, or the 
 first Spring scent of the sycamores. 
 
 And I began wondering. The inevitable 
 life of their love, just flowering like the trees, 
 the inevitable life with its budding, and blos- 
 som, and decay, started up before me. Were 
 they those exceptional people that falsify all 
 expectation and prove the rule? Not they! 
 
 78
 
 THE MEETING 
 
 They were just the pair of lovers, the man and 
 woman, clean, and vigorous, and young, with 
 the Spring in their blood fresh-run, as they 
 say of the salmon, and as certain to drift back 
 to the sea at the appointed time. On that 
 couple bending their heads together, morals 
 and prophecies were as little likely to take 
 effect as a sleet shower on the inevitable march 
 of Spring. 
 
 I thought of what was in store for him, the 
 hours of waiting, with his heart in his mouth, 
 tortured by not knowing whether she would 
 come, or why she did not come. And for 
 her the hours of doubt: "Does he really love 
 me? He cannot really love me!" The stolen 
 meetings, whose rapture has gone almost as 
 soon as come, in thought of the parting; the 
 partings themselves the tearing asunder of 
 eyes, the terrible blank emptiness in the heart; 
 and the beginning of waiting again. And then 
 for her, the surreptitious terrors and delights 
 of the "post," that one particular delivery 
 agreed on for safety; the excuses for going out, 
 for secrecy, for solitude. And for him, the 
 journeys past the house after dark to see the 
 
 79
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 lights in the windows, to judge from them 
 what was going on; and the cold perspirations, 
 and furies of jealousy and terror; the hours of 
 hard walking to drive away the fit; the hours 
 of sleepless desire. 
 
 And then the hour, the inevitable hour of 
 some stolen day on the river, or under the 
 sheltering cover of a wood; and that face of 
 hers on the journey home, and his offer to 
 commit suicide, to relieve her of his presence; 
 and the hard-wrung promise to meet once 
 more. And the next meeting, the countless 
 procession of meetings. The fierce delights, 
 the utter lassitudes and always like the ground 
 bass of an accompaniment, the endless subter- 
 fuge. And then the slow gradual process of 
 cooling the beginning of excuses, the perpet- 
 ual weaving of self- justification; the solemn 
 and logical self-apologies; the finding of flaws 
 in each other, humiliating oaths and protesta- 
 tions; and finally the day when she did not 
 come, or he did not come. And then the let- 
 ters; the sudden rapprochement, and the still 
 more sudden end. 
 
 It all came before the mind, like the scenes 
 80
 
 THE MEETING 
 
 of a cinematograph; but beneath the table I 
 saw their hands steal together, and solemn 
 prophetic visions vanished. Wisdom, and 
 knowledge, and the rest, what were they all to 
 that caress! 
 
 So, getting up, I left them there, and walked 
 away under the chestnut trees, with the cry of 
 the peacock following. 
 
 1904.
 
 THE PACK 
 
 "TFS only," said H., "when men run in 
 J. packs that they lose their sense of de- 
 cency. At least that's my experience. Indi- 
 vidual man I'm not speaking of savages 
 is more given to generosity than meanness, 
 rarely brutal, inclines in fact to be a gentleman. 
 It's when you add three or four more to him 
 that his sense of decency, his sense of personal 
 responsibility, his private standards, go by the 
 board. I am not at all sure that he does not 
 become the victim of a certain infectious fever. 
 Something physical takes place, I fancy . . . 
 I happen to be a trustee, with three others, 
 and we do a deal of cheeseparing in the year, 
 which as private individuals we should never 
 dream of." 
 
 "That's hardly a fair example," said D., 
 "but on the whole, I quite agree. Single 
 man is not an angel, collective man is a bit 
 of a brute." 
 
 83
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 The discussion was carried on for several 
 minutes, and then P., who had not yet spoken, 
 said: "They say a pinch of illustration is 
 worth a pound of argument. When I was at 
 the 'Varsity there was a man at the same 
 college with me called Chalkcroft, the son of a 
 high ecclesiastic, a perfectly harmless, well- 
 mannered individual, who had the misfortune 
 to be a Radical, or, as some even thought, a 
 Socialist anyway, he wore a turn-down col- 
 lar, a green tie, took part in Union debates on 
 the shady side, and no part in college festivi- 
 ties. He was, in fact, a "smug" a man, as 
 you know, who, through some accident of his 
 early environment, incomprehensibly fails to 
 adopt the proper view of life. He was never 
 drunk, not even pleasantly, played no games 
 connected with a ball, was believed to be 
 afraid of a horse or a woman, took his exercise 
 in long walks with a man from another college, 
 or solitarily in a skiff upon the river; he also 
 read books, and was prepared to discuss ab- 
 stract propositions. Thus, in one way or an- 
 other he disgusted almost every self-respecting 
 under-graduate. Don't imagine, of course, that 
 
 84
 
 THE PACK 
 
 his case was unusual; we had many such at 
 
 M in my time; but about this Chalkcroft 
 
 there was an unjustifiable composure, a quiet 
 sarcasm, which made him conspicuously in- 
 tolerable. He was thought to be a "bit above 
 himself," or, rather, he did not seem conscious, 
 as any proper "smug" should, that he was a 
 bit below his fellows; on the contrary, his 
 figure, which was slim, and slightly stooping, 
 passed in and about college with serene assur- 
 ance; his pale face with its traces of reprehen- 
 sible whisker, wore a faint smile above his de- 
 tested green tie; besides, he showed no signs 
 of that poverty which is, of course, some justi- 
 fication to "smugs" for their lack of conformity. 
 And as a matter of fact, he was not poor, but 
 had some of the best rooms in college, which 
 was ever a remembered grievance against him. 
 For these reasons, then," went on P., "it 
 was decided one evening to bring him to trial. 
 This salutary custom had originated in the 
 mind of a third year man named Jefferies, a 
 dark person with a kind of elephant-like un- 
 wieldiness in his nose and walk, a biting, witty 
 tongue, and very small eyes with a lecherous 
 
 85
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 expression. He is now a Scottish baronet. 
 This gentleman in his cups had quite a pretty 
 malice, and a sense of the dignity of the law. 
 Wandering of a night in the quadrangles, he 
 never had any difficulty in gathering a troop 
 of fellows in search of distraction, or animated 
 by public and other spirits; and, with them 
 whooping and crowing at his heels, it was his 
 beneficial practice to enter the rooms of any 
 person, who for good and sufficient reasons 
 merited trial, and thereupon to conduct the 
 same with all the ceremony due to the dispen- 
 sation of British justice. I had attended one of 
 these trials before, on a chuckle-headed youth 
 whose buffoonery was really offensive. The 
 ceremony was funny enough, nor did the youth 
 seem to mind, grinning from ear to ear, and 
 ejaculating continually, 'Oh! I say, Jefferies!' 
 "The occasion of which I am going to speak 
 now was a different sort of affair altogether. 
 We found the man Chalkcroft at home, read- 
 ing before his fire by the light of three candles. 
 The room was panelled in black oak, and the 
 yellow candle flames barely lit up the darkness 
 as we came whooping in. 
 
 86
 
 THE PACK 
 
 " 'Chalkcroft/ said Jefferies, 'we are going 
 to try you.' Chalkcroft stood up and looked 
 at us. He was in a Norfolk jacket, with his 
 customary green tie, and his face was pale. 
 
 "He answered: 'Yes, Jefferies? You for- 
 got to knock/ 
 
 "Jefferies put out his finger and thumb and 
 delicately plucked Chalkcroft's tie from out of 
 his waistcoat. 
 
 " 'You wear a green tie, sir/ he said. 
 
 "Chalkcroft went the colour of the ashes in 
 the grate; then, slowly, a white-hot glow came 
 into his cheeks. 
 
 " 'Don't look at me, sir/ said Jefferies; 
 'look at the jury!' and he waved his hand at 
 us. 'We are going to try you for ' He speci- 
 fied an incident of a scabrous character which 
 served as the charge on all such humorous 
 occasions, and was likely to be peculiarly offen- 
 sive to 'smugs' who are usually, as you know, 
 what is called 'pi.' 
 
 "We yelped, guffawed, and settled our- 
 selves in chairs; Jefferies perched himself on a 
 table and slowly swung his thin legs; he always 
 wore very tight trousers. His little black eyes 
 
 87
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 gleamed greedily above his unwieldy nose. 
 Chalkcroft remained standing. 
 
 "It was then/' pursued P., "that I had my 
 first qualm. The fellow was so still and pale 
 and unmoved; he looked at me, and, when 
 I tried to stare back, his eyes passed me over, 
 quiet and contemptuous. And I remember 
 thinking: 'Why are we all here we are not a 
 bit the kind of men to do this sort of thing?' 
 And really we were not. With the exception 
 of Jefferies, who was, no doubt, at times in- 
 habited by a devil, and one Anderson, a little 
 man in a long coat, with a red nose and very 
 long arms, always half-drunk a sort of des- 
 perate character, and long since, of course, a 
 schoolmaster there wasn't one of us, who, left 
 to himself, would have entered another man's 
 rooms unbidden (however unpopular he might 
 be, however much of a 'smug'), and insulted 
 him to his face. There was Beal, a very fair, 
 rather good-looking man, with bowed legs and 
 no expression to speak of, known as Boshy 
 Beal; Dunsdale, a heavy, long-faced, freckled 
 person, prominent in every college disturbance, 
 but with a reputation for respectability; Hor- 
 88
 
 THE PACK 
 
 den (called Jos), a big, clean-cut Kentish man 
 with nice eyes, and fists like hammers; Stick- 
 land, fussy, with mild habits; Sevenoax, now 
 in the House of Lords; little Holingbroke, the 
 cox; and my old schoolfellow, Fosdyke, whose 
 dignity even then would certainly have forbid- 
 den his presence had he not previously dined. 
 Thus, as you see, we were all or nearly all from 
 the 'best' schools in the country, in the 'best' 
 
 set at M , and naturally, as individuals, 
 
 quite oh! quite incapable of an ungentle- 
 manlike act. 
 
 "Jefferies appointed Anderson gaoler, Duns- 
 dale Public Prosecutor, no one counsel for the 
 defence, the rest of us jury, himself judge, and 
 opened the trial. He was, as I have said, a 
 witty young man, and, dangling his legs, fasten- 
 ing his malevolent black eyes on Chalkcroft, he 
 usurped the functions of us all. The nature of 
 the charge precludes me from recounting to 
 you the details of the trial, and, in fact, I have 
 forgotten them, but as if he were standing here 
 before us, I remember, in the dim glow of 
 those three candles, Chalkcroft's pale, unmoved, 
 ironic face; his unvarying, 'Yes, Jefferies'; 
 
 89
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 his one remonstrance: 'Are you a gentleman, 
 Jefferies?' and our insane laughter at the an- 
 swer: 'No, sir, a by-our-Lady judge.' As if 
 he were standing here before us I remember 
 the expression on his face at the question: 
 'Prisoner, are you guilty yes or no?' the long 
 pause, the slow, sarcastic: 'As you like, Jef- 
 feries.' As if he were standing here before us 
 I remember his calm and his contempt. He 
 was sentenced to drink a tumbler of his own 
 port without stopping; whether the sentence 
 was carried out I cannot tell you; for with 
 one or two more I slipped away. 
 
 "The next morning I had such a sense of 
 discomfort that I could not rest till I had sent 
 Chalkcroft a letter of apology. I caught sight 
 of him in the afternoon walking across the 
 quad, with his usual pale assurance, and in the 
 evening I received his answer. It contained, 
 at the end, this sentence: 'I feel sure you 
 would not have come if it hadn't been for the 
 others.' It has occurred to me since that he 
 may have said the same thing to us all for 
 anything I know, we may all of us have writ- 
 ten." 
 
 90
 
 THE PACK 
 
 There was a silence. Then H. said: "The 
 Pack! Ah! What second-hand devil is it 
 that gets into us when we run in packs?" 
 
 1905. 
 
 91
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 IF, as you say (said Ferrand), there is com- 
 pensation in this life for everything, do 
 tell me where it comes in here. 
 
 Two years ago I was interpreter to an hotel 
 in Ostend, and spent many hours on the Plage 
 waiting for the steamers to bring sheep to my 
 slaughter. There was a young man about, 
 that year, who had a stall of cheap jewellery; 
 I don't know his name, for among us he was 
 called Tchuk-Tchuk; but I knew him for we 
 interpreters know everybody. He came from 
 Southern Italy and called himself an Italian, 
 but by birth he was probably an Algerian Jew; 
 an intelligent boy, who knew that, except in 
 England, it is far from profitable to be a Jew 
 in these days. After seeing his nose and his 
 beautiful head of frizzy hair, however, there 
 was little more to be said on the subject. His 
 clothes had been given him by an English 
 tourist a pair of flannel trousers, an old 
 
 93
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 frock coat, a bowler hat. Incongruous? Yes, 
 but think, how cheap! The only thing that 
 looked natural to him was his tie; he had un- 
 sewn the ends and wore it without a collar. 
 He was little and thin, which was not surpris- 
 ing, for all he ate a day was half a pound of 
 bread, or its equivalent in macaroni, with a 
 little piece of cheese, and on a feast day a bit 
 of sausage. In those clothes, which were made 
 for a fat man, he had the appearance of a scare- 
 crow with a fine, large head. These " Italians" 
 are the Chinese of the West. -The conditions 
 of life down there being impossible, they are 
 driven out like locusts or the old inhabitants 
 of Central Asia a regular invasion. In every 
 country they have a kind of Society which 
 helps them to make a start. When once pro- 
 vided with organs, jewellery, or whatever their 
 profession, they live on nothing, drink nothing, 
 spend no money. Smoke? Yes, they smoke; 
 but you have to give them the tobacco. Some- 
 times they bring their women; more often they 
 come alone they make money more quickly 
 without. The end they have in view is to 
 scrape together a treasure of two or three 
 
 94
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 hundred pounds and go back to Italy rich men. 
 If you're accustomed to the Italian at home, 
 it will astonish you to see how he works when 
 he's out of his own country, and how provident 
 he is a regular Chinaman. Tchuk-Tchuk was 
 alone, and he worked like a slave. He was at 
 his stand, day in, day out; if the sun burned, 
 if there was a gale; he was often wet through, 
 but no one could pass without receiving a smile 
 from his teeth and a hand stretched out with 
 some gimcrack or other. He always tried to 
 impress the women, with whom he did most of 
 his business especially the cocotterie. Ah! 
 how he looked at them with his great eyes! 
 Temperamentally, I dare say, he was vicious 
 enough; but, as you know, it costs money to 
 be vicious, and he spent no money. His ex- 
 penses were twopence a day for food and four- 
 pence for his bed in a cafe full of other birds of 
 his feather sixpence a day, three shillings and 
 sixpence a week. No other sort of human 
 creature can keep this up long. My minimum 
 is tenpence, which is not a bed of roses; but, 
 then, I can't do without tobacco (to a man in 
 extreme poverty a single vice is indispensable). 
 
 95
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 But these " Italians" do without even that. 
 Tchuk-Tchuk sold; not very hard work, you 
 say? Try it for half an hour; try and sell 
 something good and Tchuk-Tchuk's things 
 were rubbish flash coral jewellery, Italian 
 enamels made up into pins and brooches, cellu- 
 loid gimcracks. In the evenings I've often seen 
 him doze off from sheer fatigue, but always 
 with his eyes half-open, like a cat. His soul 
 was in his stall; he watched everything but 
 only to sell his precious goods, for nothing in- 
 terested him; he despised all the world around 
 him the people, the sea, the amusements; 
 they were ridiculous and foreign. He had his 
 stall, and he lived to sell. He was like a man 
 shut up in a box with not a pleasure, not a 
 sympathy, nothing wherewith to touch this 
 strange world in which he found himself. 
 
 "I'm of the South," he would say to me, 
 jerking his head at the sea; "it's hard there. 
 Over there I got a girl. She wouldn't be 
 sorry to see me again; not too sorry! Over 
 there one starves; name of a Saint," (he chose 
 this form of oath, no doubt, because it sounded 
 Christian), "it's hard there!" 
 
 96
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 I am not sentimental about Tchuk-Tchuk; 
 he was an egoist to the bottom of his soul, but 
 that did not in the least prevent his suffering 
 for the want of his South, for the want of his 
 sunshine, and his girl the greater the egoism 
 the greater the suffering. He craved like a 
 dumb animal; but, as he remarked, "Over 
 there one starves!" Naturally he had not 
 waited for that. He had his hopes. "Wait 
 a bit!" he used to say. "Last year I was in 
 Brussels. Bad business! At the end they 
 take away all my money for the Society, and 
 give me this stall. This is all right I make 
 some money this season." 
 
 He had many clients among "women of 
 morals," who had an eye for his beautiful head 
 of hair, who know, too, that life is not all 
 roses; and there was something pathetic in the 
 persistency of Tchuk-Tchuk and the way his 
 clothes hung about him like sacks; nor was he 
 bad-looking, with his great black eyes and his 
 slim, dirty hands. 
 
 One wet day I came on the Estacade when 
 hardly a soul was there. Tchuk-Tchuk had 
 covered his stall with a piece of old tarpaulin. 
 He was smoking a long cigar. 
 
 97
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 "Aha! Tchuk-Tchuk," I said, "smoking?" 
 
 "Yes," says he, " it's good!" 
 
 "Why not smoke every day, you miser; it 
 
 ould comfort you when you're hungry." 
 
 He shook his head. "Costs money," says 
 ne. "This one cost me nothing. A kind of 
 an individual gave it me a red-faced English- 
 man said he couldn't smoke it. He knew 
 nothing, the idiot this is good, I tell you!" 
 
 But it was Tchuk-Tchuk who knew nothing 
 he had been too long without the means of 
 knowledge. It was interesting to see the way 
 he ate, drank, inhaled, and soaked up that 
 rank cigar a true revel of sensuality. 
 
 The end of the season came, and all of us 
 birds who prey on the visitors were getting 
 ready to fly; but I stayed on, because I like 
 the place the gay-coloured houses, the smell 
 of fish in the port, the good air, the long green 
 seas, the dunes; there's something of it all in 
 my blood, and I'm always sorry to leave. But 
 after the season is over as Tchuk-Tchuk 
 would say "Name of a saint one starves 
 over there!" 
 
 One evening, at the very end, when there 
 were scarcely twenty visitors in the place, I 
 98
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 went as usual to a certain cafe, with two com- 
 partments, where every one comes whose way 
 of living is dubious bullies, comedians, off- 
 colour actresses, women of morals, " Turks," 
 "Italians," " Greeks" all such, in fact, as 
 play the game of stealing a regular rag-shop 
 of cheats and gentlemen of industry very 
 interesting people, with whom I am well 
 acquainted. Nearly every one had gone; so 
 that evening there were but few of us in the 
 restaurant, and in the inner room three Ital- 
 ians only. I passed into that. 
 
 Presently in came Tchuk-Tchuk, the first 
 time I had ever seen him in a place where one 
 could spend a little money. How thin he was, 
 with his little body and his great head! One 
 would have said he hadn't eaten for a week. 
 A week? A year! Down he sat, and called 
 for a bottle of wine; and at once he began to 
 chatter and snap his fingers. 
 
 "Ha, ha!" says one of the Italians; "look 
 at Tchuk-Tchuk. What a nightingale he has 
 become all of a sudden. Come, Tchuk-Tchuk, 
 give us some of your wine, seeing you're in 
 luck!" 
 
 99
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Tchuk-Tchuk gave us of his wine, and 
 ordered another bottle. 
 
 "Ho, ho!" says another Italian, "must have 
 buried his family, this companion!" We 
 drank Tchuk-Tchuk faster than all. Do you 
 know that sort of thirst, when you drink just 
 to give you the feeling of having blood in 
 the veins at all? Most people in that state 
 can't stop they drink themselves dead drunk. 
 Tchuk-Tchuk was not like that. He was care- 
 ful, as always, looking to his future. Oh! he 
 kept his heart in hand; but in such cases a 
 little goes a long way; he became cheerful it 
 doesn't take much to make an Italian cheerful 
 who has been living for months on water and 
 half-rations of bread and macaroni. It was 
 evident, too, that he had reason to feel gay. 
 He sang and laughed, and the other Italians 
 sang and laughed with him. One of them 
 said: "It seems our Tchuk-Tchuk has been 
 doing good business. Come, Tchuk-Tchuk, 
 tell us what you have made this season!" 
 
 But Tchuk-Tchuk only shook his head. 
 
 "Eh!" said the Italian, "the shy bird. It 
 ought to be something good. As for me, 
 100
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 comrades, honestly, five hundred francs is all 
 I've made not a centime more and the half 
 of that goes to the patron." 
 
 And each of them began talking of his gains, 
 except Tchuk-Tchuk, who showed his teeth, 
 and kept silence. 
 
 "Come, Tchuk-Tchuk," said one, "don't 
 be a bandit a little frankness!" 
 
 "He won't beat my sixteen hundred!" 
 said another. 
 
 "Name of a Saint!" said Tchuk-Tchuk 
 suddenly, "what do you say to four thousand?" 
 
 But we all laughed. 
 
 "La, la!" said one, "he mocks us!" 
 
 Tchuk-Tchuk opened the front of his old 
 frock-coat. 
 
 "Look!" he cried, and he pulled out four 
 bills each for a thousand francs. How we 
 stared! 
 
 "See," said he, "what it is to be careful I 
 spend nothing every cent is here! Now I 
 go home I get my girl; wish me good jour- 
 ney!" He set to work again to snap his fingers. 
 
 We stayed some time and drank another 
 bottle, Tchuk-Tchuk paying. When we parted 
 101
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 nobody was helpless, only, as I say, Tchuk- 
 Tchuk on the road to the stars, as one is after 
 a six months' fast. The next morning I was 
 drinking a "bock" in the same cafe, for there 
 was nothing else to do, when all of a sudden 
 who should come running in but this same 
 Tchuk-Tchuk! Ah! but he was no longer on 
 the road to the stars. He flung himself down 
 at the table, with his head between his hands, 
 and the tears rolled down his cheeks. 
 
 "They've robbed me," he cried, "robbed 
 me of every sou; robbed me while I slept. 
 I had it here, under my pillow; I slept on it; 
 it's gone every sou!" He beat his breast. 
 
 "Come, Tchuk-Tchuk," said I, "from under 
 your pillow? That's not possible!" 
 
 "How do I know?" he groaned; "it's 
 gone, I tell you all my money, all my money. 
 I was heavy with the wine " All he could 
 do was to repeat again and again "All my 
 money, all my money!" 
 
 "Have you been to the police?" 
 
 He had been to the police. I tried to con- 
 sole him, but without much effect, as you may 
 imagine. The boy was beside himself. 
 102
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 The police did nothing why should they? 
 If he had been a Rothschild it would have been 
 different, but seeing he was only a poor devil 
 of an Italian who had lost his all ! 
 
 Tchuk-Tchuk had sold his stall, his stock, 
 everything he had, the day before, so he had 
 not even the money for a ticket to Brussels. 
 He was obliged to walk. He started and to 
 this day I see him starting, with his little hard 
 hat on his beautiful black hair, and the unsewn 
 ends of his tie. His face was like the face of 
 the Devil thrown out of Eden! 
 
 What became of him I cannot say, but I do 
 not see too clearly in all this the compensation 
 of which you have been speaking. 
 
 And Ferrand was silent. 
 
 1904. 
 
 103
 
 JOY OF LIFE 
 
 IT was in the neighbourhood of Berkeley 
 Square, and I had come out of a drawing- 
 room, warm, scented and full of " portable 
 property." The hall door was closed behind 
 me, the East wind caught me in the face, and 
 I walked into a child. 
 
 She may have been five years old. With a 
 scanty red petticoat widespread over her 
 humped-up knees, she was sitting on the pave- 
 ment and beating it with a bit of withered 
 branch decorated with three or four brown 
 leaves. In time to the beating she chanted a 
 song. Blackish-brown curls hung all about her 
 round, smutty little face; the remains of a hat 
 rested beside her on the pavement; and two 
 reckless, little black devils looked out of her 
 eyes. 
 
 She was so delightful a contrast to the 
 "portable property" that it was impossible 
 not to stare at her. 
 
 105
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 So I went down the street crabwise. 
 
 She knew I was going crabwise, she knew the 
 position of the "bobby" at the corner, she 
 knew everything all round her. And when she 
 saw me vanishing she began to flirt with me. 
 She put her head on one side like a terrier ask- 
 ing for cake, and looked up through her tangle 
 of curls. She smiled I smiled, and went round 
 the corner. There was a little patter of hob- 
 nails, and she came round the corner. If she 
 was queer on the ground, she was queerer on 
 her feet; she had clapped her hat the last 
 bit of a large girl's hat on the back of her 
 head; her short, red petticoat gaped, her bare 
 brown legs were thrust into a woman's boots. 
 She shuffled along behind, beating the railings 
 with her branch. Sometimes she ranged up 
 alongside, shot a shy glance at my top-hat, 
 and fell back again. 
 
 People passed and stared at her, but she 
 paid no attention. 
 
 In Oxford Street we stopped and held a 
 conversation. It began and ended thus: 
 
 " Would you like some sweets?" I left her 
 sucking a sixpence, staring after me with her 
 106
 
 JOY OF LIFE 
 
 great black eyes, and beating a shop window 
 with her branch. 
 
 But when I looked round again she was danc- 
 ing to a barrel-organ with some other children, 
 her petticoat a little red teetotum in the 
 crowded street. 
 
 1899. 
 
 107
 
 BEL COLORE 
 
 ON one side of the road, a grove of olives; 
 on the other a rose-hung villa, maize- 
 coloured, with faded shutters, and a vanished 
 name on the gate. In front, a tall palm lurch- 
 ing unpruned out of tangled shrubs; at the 
 side, a crimson garment on a line. The disha- 
 bille of an eternal siesta! 
 
 Overhead the sky sapphire, with a western 
 blaze of gold; the breeze rustling in the palm 
 leaves; a goat's bell tinkling, a scent of burn- 
 ing wood, the croaking of frogs. 
 
 In a tarnished cage, at a second story win- 
 dow, a parrot, with a yellow head, nasally 
 chanting: "Niculi ni-co-la!" 
 
 Three children pass, and lift their faces. 
 The sun throws a glow under their hats. They 
 call: "Scratch-a-Poll, poll!" The eldest, a 
 fair-haired English boy, lingers, and as he 
 looks, a young girl with cheeks like poppies 
 and eyes like jet, with a short red dress and 
 109
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 bushy black-brown hair, comes out, and stands 
 in the doorway. He wavers, snatches at his 
 hat, blushes and stands still. She walks off, 
 swinging in her rounded hand a little strap- 
 full of books. She turns her head for just a 
 second. Her voice rings out clear; repeating 
 what she has heard, like her own parrot: 
 
 "Go to bed im-me-diate-lee you naugh-tee 
 lee-tie bambino"; and laughing a mocking 
 little laugh. 
 
 The boy hangs his head, clutches his hat, 
 breaks into a run. The little girl moves sun- 
 wards, swaying her hips demurely like a grown 
 woman. She looks with half-closed eyes 
 straight at the road in front of her; and slowly 
 her grave little figure, symbol of the South's 
 languor, cruelty, and love, fades to a crimson 
 stain on the line of the dusty road. 
 
 1899. 
 
 110
 
 A PILGRIMAGE 
 
 I SAW them from the top of a Hammersmith 
 'bus, sitting on the smart white door- 
 step of a house opposite the Albert Memorial. 
 It was a very hot, bright day; the cabs and 
 carriages of the fashionable were streaming by, 
 and people loitered in the sunshine, while these 
 three small pilgrims sat on that doorstep. 
 
 The biggest, a boy of six, held on his slippery 
 lap a baby with a huge head and an aspect of 
 measles, whose fist, like a lump of paste, was 
 thrust into its cheek, whose eyes were screwed 
 up, whose feet emerged limply from the bundle 
 of its body. And now and then the boy heaved 
 it up, and looked into its face. 
 i A girl, younger than the boy, with a fair, 
 patient, dirty little face, and large circles 
 round her eyes, in a short loose frock of faded 
 blue, which showed her little bare knees, 
 leaned against the doorpost; she had no hat, 
 and was fast asleep. The boy himself stared 
 111
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 before him with big brown eyes. His hair was 
 dark and his ears projected; his clothes were 
 decent, but dusty from head to foot. His 
 eyes were those of people who get through the 
 day somehow, and are very tired at the end. 
 I spoke to him. 
 
 "Is that your sister?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "A friend!" 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 "My brother." 
 
 "Where do you live?" 
 
 "Regent's Pawk." 
 
 "How did you get as far as this?" 
 
 "Came to see Albert Mermorial." 
 
 "Are you very tired?" 
 
 No answer. 
 
 "Here's a shilling; now you can go home in 
 a 'bus." 
 
 No answer, no smile; but a grubby hand 
 closing over the shilling. 
 
 "Do you know how much that is?" 
 
 His face twinkled with contempt; he heaved 
 his brother slowly. 
 
 112
 
 A PILGRIMAGE 
 
 "Twelve pennies." 
 
 Glancing back I saw him holding his brother 
 very tight, and stirring up his "friend" with 
 his boot to look at the shilling. 
 
 1900. 
 
 113
 
 THE KINGS 
 
 LONDON sun has robbed the leaves of 
 freshness. No watercart passes. My 
 dog pants with the heat, his tongue lolling 
 from his dripping mouth. No traffic in this 
 quiet backwater, with its steep ascent, its 
 studios, its stables, its trees. 
 
 In the road, before a high house, stands a 
 flushed and ragged woman clutching some 
 sprigs of lavender, and on the curbstone sits 
 another. Out of her dirty rag of shawl peeps 
 the weazened little face of a baby, sucking at 
 the twisted, ragged rubber of an unclean empty 
 bottle. This baby is staring out at the world 
 so vast, so full of heat and dust and hunger 
 with eyes that seem full of knowledge. This 
 baby has found out all there is to know. Its 
 eyes are patient, close to the lean breast of her 
 whose eyes also are patient. 
 
 "My sister poor thing an* her little byby. 
 'Er 'usband's left her. We've walked from 
 115
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Brighton, so 'elp me! Gawd love you, sir, 
 buy a sprig o' lavender!" 
 
 Two feet from the street dust and dirt, the 
 mother and the baby look up. 
 
 "Gawd love you, sir, buy a sprig o' laven- 
 der!" 
 
 Of lavender! . . . 
 
 In the hall of the high house the sun dances 
 through the chinks of the blinds; in that 
 dancing, shadowy light, people glide, and 
 whisper, and smile. 
 
 Upstairs, where everything is cool, a new 
 mother lies in her white bed. By her feet the 
 nurse stands, with the new baby in her arms, 
 fat, sleek, cowled like a bishop; round him are 
 faces, awed and delighted, wondering at this 
 snug atom in its speckless wool and dimity. 
 
 A sound; all tremble! 
 
 The clock ticks, the nurse's shoes patter, 
 the hum of worship rises. With the evening 
 drifts in the scent of limes; and on the pillows 
 of her white bed the mother is smiling. 
 
 King out there in the heat King in here in 
 the cool You have come into your Kingdoms ] 
 
 1904. 
 
 116
 
 APOTHEOSIS 
 
 "AH! now that's good!" said the bald 
 
 2\. man in the stalls, and the misanthropic 
 man beside him hiccoughed. 
 
 "Ha, ha!" roared the stout man with the 
 eyeglass. 
 
 "I say!" remarked the fourth man naively. 
 
 On the stage of the "Paradise," an elephant 
 had been turned on its back and enclosed in a 
 plush frame. 
 
 "Look at his eye!" laughed the bald man: 
 "Ha, ha!" 
 
 All four looked. The inverted elephant's 
 tiny eye the only moving thing in that grey 
 mass travelled in a quest among the audience, 
 then fixed a stoic gleam on his forelegs raised 
 in the air like pillars. A world to itself, that 
 eye a little wild world apart in all this 
 theatre, domed with gold, starred with lamps, 
 thronged with faces turned all in one direction. 
 
 "Ha, ha! Look at his eye!" The ele- 
 117
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 phant's eye had travelled round again, and the 
 naive man murmured: 
 
 "I say, it's awfully funny!" 
 
 "Most intelligent animals!" the stout man 
 said, adjusting his eyeglass. 
 
 "Do you suppose," asked the naive man, 
 "that it's done by kindness?" 
 
 The bald man squeezed his opera hat. 
 
 "Impossible to tell!" he said. "Look at 
 the beggar's trunk!" 
 
 The elephant, tired of hanging his trunk 
 towards the audience, had curled it on his 
 chest. 
 
 "Like a bloated caterpillar!" murmured 
 the misanthropic man. 
 
 Two anxious-looking Persian cats, and two 
 red-breasted parrots with thin gilt chains 
 fastened to their legs appeared from different 
 quarters, and perched one on each foot of the 
 inverted elephant. 
 
 "Pretty smart that!" the bald man said. 
 
 After one furtive moment, the cats and par- 
 rots had begun to leap from foot to foot; the 
 upturned elephant rolled his little eye, and 
 writhed his trunk. 
 
 118
 
 APOTHEOSIS 
 
 "Now, I call that wonderful!" the bald 
 man cried; "so intelligent!" 
 
 "I knew a cat once," complained the mis- 
 anthropic man, "as intelligent as a human 
 beinM" 
 
 "Come, come!" said the stout man. 
 
 "What price that!" the bald man eagerly 
 interrupted. 
 
 The elephant had raised his trunk with a 
 parrot on its tip, and slowly held it out to the 
 audience. 
 
 "Not bad!" the stout man cried. "Ha, ha!" 
 
 "Any cats almost," insisted the misanthrope, 
 "are as intelligent as human bein's!" 
 
 "What!" the stout man said, "d'you tell 
 me a lot of cats would appreciate a thing like 
 this d'you tell me a lot of cats would see 
 anything funny in that elephant?" 
 
 The bald man broke in: "I admire the 
 training; shows what can be done with deter- 
 mination wants a strong will to get cats and 
 parrots to work together." 
 
 "Yes, by Jove!" the stout man said. "I 
 like a good animal show. I'm fond of animals 
 myself. Some people don't seem to care a 
 119
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 kick about 'em. Funny-looking beast on his 
 back an elephant!" 
 
 "Do you think he likes it?" mused the 
 naive man. 
 
 The cats and parrots had vanished now, and 
 a single little kitten, faintly mewing, came 
 and curled itself up in the great beast's mouth. 
 
 "I say!" the misanthrope remarked with 
 sudden interest, "how jolly natural! What a 
 little ripper, eh?" and he too applauded. 
 
 The elephant's tiny eye seemed to inquire 
 the meaning of that cheer. 
 
 "So much for the intelligence of cats!" 
 the stout man said. "Where'd you have got 
 your baby to go fooling round in an elephant's 
 mouth?" 
 
 "That proves nothing," the misanthrope 
 replied; "all I meant about cats was, that 
 people are fools, mostly!" 
 
 The showman now removed the kitten, and 
 standing on the elephant's chest, blew kisses 
 to the audience. Then, summoning the trunk 
 to him, he placed a lighted cigarette in its tip. 
 
 "Bravo!" the bald man cried; "now that's 
 what I call really clever! Bravo!" 
 120
 
 APOTHEOSIS 
 
 "I tell you what," the stout man said: 
 "I've been watching him and he don't like it." 
 
 "Don't like what?" the misanthrope en- 
 quired. 
 
 "Very few animals can stand smoke," the 
 stout man said. "I had a pony once, though, 
 that would snuff it up like fun." 
 
 The elephant replaced the cigarette between 
 the showman's lips; a shiver ran through his 
 huge frame. 
 
 "Look at his eye now!" the bald man said. 
 "It's really damn funny, isn't it?" 
 
 "Well!" yawned the misanthrope. "Fve 
 had about enough of this footy elephant!" 
 
 And as if in accordance with that sentiment, 
 the showman began a little hastily unloosening 
 the bands of the plush frame; and suddenly 
 the creature trumpeted. 
 
 "He's asking to be let up," the stout man 
 wheezed; "I don't care what you say, I call 
 it doosid good. It's all so natural. Some 
 fellows," he added in an irritated voice, "don't 
 care a curse for animals!" 
 
 "Looks to me as if he'd turned sulky," the 
 bald man said. "See his eye now!" 
 121
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 "Yes!" the stout man answered, "that's 
 where animals will fail; they've got no sense 
 of humour. See that elephant's eye; for all 
 it's deuced clever, it's got no sense of humour!" 
 
 And that little eye that round wild little 
 world apart, with its quick, mournful roll, 
 seemed answering, "Alas! no sense of hu- 
 mour!" 
 
 "I can't help wondering whether they like 
 it," the na'ive man murmured, as though loth 
 to harbour doubts about a sight he had so 
 much enjoyed. 
 
 "Like it? Of course they like it! They're 
 most intelligent!" said the stout man, drop- 
 ping his eyeglass, as the curtain fell. "A 
 show of this sort is what I call the apoth 
 apotheosis of intelligence. It's not every one 
 can appreciate it, or every animal can stand it. 
 There's pigs now," he added, staring absently 
 around him with his eyeglass, "and donkeys ! 
 What price them!" 
 
 1903. 
 
 122
 
 THE WORKERS 
 
 THE little, squat, dark houses with snow- 
 sprinkled roofs, having windows like 
 the blurred eyes of old people, ran curving 
 away from the thoroughfare. Built so long 
 ago that they seemed as the ghosts of departed 
 dwellings, they harboured countless workers, 
 who could be seen plying their needles by the 
 afternoon light, gleaming yellowish under a 
 snow-laden sky. Indeed, in some windows 
 tallow candles were already burning. 
 
 Unlike the doors of the shiftless, these street 
 doors, to which clung the memory of paint, 
 were religiously closed, and it was necessary 
 to tap before one could enter. The woman 
 who opened the last of those doors was about 
 fifty-five years of age, and dressed in very 
 crumpled clothes as of one always sitting down, 
 with a face dissected by deep furrows so that 
 no two features seemed to belong to one an- 
 other. She held in one hand a threaded needle, 
 123
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 in the other a pair of trousers, to which she 
 had been adding the accessories demanded 
 by our civilisation. One had never seen her 
 without a pair of trousers in her hand, because 
 she could only manage to supply them with 
 decency at the rate of seven or eight pairs a 
 day, working twelve hours. For each pair she 
 received seven farthings, and used nearly one 
 farthing's worth of cotton; and this gave her 
 an income, in good times, of six to seven 
 shillings a week. But some weeks there were 
 no trousers to be had, and then it was neces- 
 sary to live on the memory of those which had 
 been, together with a little sum put by from 
 weeks when trousers were more plentiful. De- 
 ducting two shillings and threepence for rent of 
 the little back room, there was therefore, on an 
 average, about two shillings and ninepence 
 left for the sustenance of herself and husband, 
 who was fortunately a cripple, and somewhat 
 indifferent whether he ate or not. And look- 
 ing at her face, so furrowed, and at her figure, 
 of which there was not much, one could well 
 understand that she, too, had long established 
 within her such internal economy as was suit- 
 124
 
 THE WORKERS 
 
 able to one who had been "in trousers" twenty- 
 seven years, and, since her husband's accident 
 fifteen years before, in trousers only, finding 
 her own cotton. 
 
 Her face was long and narrow, her eyes grey, 
 and they looked at one as though they knew 
 she ought to ask whether anything could be 
 done for her, and knew, too, that she would 
 not. 
 
 She spoke, indeed, very little except about 
 her trousers. Oh! they were so common! so 
 paltry, no quality at all ! And lately they had 
 been giving her boys' knickerbockers. She 
 had "no patience" with them, which took 
 every bit as much cotton, and brought you 
 less money. In old days it had been a better 
 class of trouser altogether, but now there 
 seemed no heart in them no heart at all! 
 And they were so irregular! But you couldn't 
 blame the woman who had them of the tailors, 
 and gave them out she let you have as many 
 as she could, and only got a farthing a pair for 
 herself. So there it was! 
 
 A bed which had neither legs, nor clothes 
 that could be recognised as clothes, took up 
 125
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 the greater part of the little room, which was 
 fuller of rags, charred pans, chipped crockery, 
 and trousers, than any room of its size ever 
 seen. On this bed a black cat with a white nose 
 was sleeping. Bits of broken wooden boxes 
 were heaped up, waiting to feed the small fire. 
 And on the wall by the side of this fire hung 
 the ghost of a toasting fork. Very lonely and 
 thin was that wispy piece of iron, as though 
 for many days it had lacked bread. Hooked 
 to the wall, with its prongs turned upwards, 
 it was like the black shrivelled husk of an arm 
 and hand, asking for more with its spidery 
 fingers. 
 
 Its owners were seated with their backs to 
 it; she just under the tightly-closed window, 
 so as to use as long as possible a kind of light 
 for which she had not to pay; and her husband 
 with his crippled leg almost in the fire. He 
 was a man with a round, white face, a little grey 
 moustache curving down like a parrot's beak, 
 and round whitish eyes. In his aged and 
 unbuttoned suit of grey, with his head held 
 rather to one side, he looked like a parrot a 
 bird clinging to its perch, with one grey leg 
 126
 
 THE WORKERS 
 
 shortened and crumpled against the other. 
 He talked, too, in a toneless, equable voice, 
 looking sideways at the fire, above the rims of 
 dim spectacles, and now and then smiling 
 with a peculiar disenchanted patience. 
 
 No he said it was no use to complain; 
 did no good! Things had been like this for 
 years, and so, he had no doubt, they always 
 would be. There had never been much in 
 trousers; not this common sort that anybody'd 
 wear, as you might say. Though he'd never 
 seen anybody wearing such things; and where 
 they went to he didn't know out of England, 
 he should think. Yes, he had been a carman; 
 run over by a dray. Oh! yes, they had given 
 him something four bob a week; but the 
 old man had died and the four bob had died 
 too. Still, there he was, sixty years old not 
 so very bad for his age. She couldn't get 
 through half the work but for him holding the 
 things for her, and pressing them, and one 
 thing and another not up to much, of course 
 but he could do all that! 
 
 With those words he raised his right hand, 
 which clasped a pair of linings, and there 
 127
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 passed between his whitish eyes and the grey 
 eyes of his wife one of those looks which people 
 who have long lived together give each other. 
 It had no obvious gleam of affection, but just 
 the matter-of-fact mutual faith of two creatures 
 who from year's end to year's end can never 
 be out of arm's length of one another. For, as 
 he said, they were not much of goers-out, 
 though he did get out once in a way when the 
 weather was fine, and she had to go out to 
 get her work and come back again. His eyes, 
 travelling round the chaotic, grimy little room, 
 which was as much the whole world to them as 
 ever was his cell to a prisoner, rested on the 
 cat, coiled up on the ragged bedclothes. Oh, 
 yes! The cat. There she was, always asleep. 
 She was a bit of company. They didn't see 
 much company; kept themselves to them- 
 selves. Low neighbourhood people very fun- 
 ny! Yes, there was nice enough buildings 
 round the corner. But you had to be in a good 
 position to live in them. Seven-and-six a 
 week and pay it sharp. Not but what they 
 weren't sharp after their rent here! Just a 
 working man their landlord who'd got to 
 128
 
 THE WORKERS 
 
 pay his rent himself, so what could you expect? 
 A little spurt of work just now, of course, ow- 
 ing to Christmas. Soon drop down again to 
 nothing afterwards oh, yes! 
 
 Smiling his strange smile, as of a man almost 
 amused at what Fate had devised for him, he 
 reached down and fed the fire with a piece of 
 broken box; then resumed his upright posture, 
 with his head bent a little to one side so that it 
 favoured his withered leg. They were talking, 
 he had heard said, about doing something for 
 trousers. But what could you do for things like 
 these, at half-a-crown a pair? People must 
 have 'em, so you'd got to make 'em. There 
 you were, and there you would be! She went 
 and heard them talk. They talked very well, 
 she said. It was intellectual for her to go. 
 He couldn't go himself, owing to his leg. He'd 
 like to hear them talk. Oh, yes! And he was 
 silent, staring sideways at the fire, as though 
 in the thin crackle of the flames attacking the 
 fresh piece of wood, he were hearing the echo 
 of that talk from which he was cut off. "Lor 
 bless you!" he said suddenly, "they'll do noth- 
 ing! Can't!" And, stretching out his dirty 
 129
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 hand he took from his wife's lap a pair of 
 trousers, and held it up. "Look at 'em! Why, 
 you can see right through 'em, linings and all. 
 Who's goin' to pay more than 'alf-a-crown for 
 that? Where they go to I can't think. Who 
 wears 'em? Some Institution I should say. 
 They talk, but dear me, they'll never do any- 
 thing so long as there's thousands, like us, 
 glad to work for what we can get. Best not 
 to think about it, I say." 
 
 And laying the trousers back on his wife's 
 lap, he resumed his sidelong stare into the fire. 
 
 The snow-laden sky seemed to have drawn 
 nearer, so little light was there in the room; 
 and there was no sound, as though the last 
 word had been spoken, and the fire exhausted. 
 In that motionless and soundless twilight the 
 toasting fork on the wall alone seemed to be 
 alive, with its thin, tortured prongs asking for 
 that for which those two had never asked. 
 
 1909. 
 
 130
 
 A MILLER OF DEE 
 
 MACCREEDY was respectable, but an 
 outcast in his village. 
 
 There was nothing against him; on the con- 
 trary, he held the post of ferry-man to the peo- 
 ple of the Manor, and nightly explained in the 
 bar-parlour that if he had not looked sharp 
 after his rights he would have been a salaried 
 servant: "At a fixed wage, ye'll understand, 
 without a chance to turn an honest penny." 
 
 He turned the honest pennies by exacting 
 sixpenny ferry tolls from every person who 
 was not a member of the Manor family. His 
 doctrine, preached nightly, was that the gentry 
 were banded to destroy the rights of the poor; 
 yet, in spite of this, which should have con- 
 ferred on him popularity, he was subtly and 
 mysteriously felt to be a spiritual alien. No 
 one ever heard him object to this unwritten, 
 unspoken verdict; no one knew, in fact, 
 whether he was aware of it. On still evenings 
 131
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 he could be seen sitting in his boat in the 
 Manor pool, under the high-wooded cliff, as if 
 brooding over secret wrongs. He was a singer, 
 too, with a single song, "The Miller of Dee," 
 which he gave on all occasions; the effort of 
 producing it lent his mouth a ludicrous twist 
 under his whitey-brown moustache. People on 
 the Manor terrace above could hear him sing 
 it at night in an extraordinarily flat voice, as 
 he crossed the river back to his cottage below. 
 
 No one knew quite where he came from, 
 though some mentioned Ireland; others held 
 a Scotch theory; and one man, who had an 
 imagination, believed him to be of Icelandic 
 origin. This mystery rankled in the breast of 
 the village the village of white cottages, with 
 its soft, perpetual crown of smoke, and its hard 
 north-country tongue. MacCreedy was close 
 about money, too no one knew whether he 
 had much money or little. 
 
 Early one spring he petitioned for a holiday, 
 and disappeared for a month. He returned 
 with a wife, a young anaemic girl, speaking in 
 a Southern accent. A rather interesting creat- 
 ure, this wife of MacCreedy, very silent, and 
 132
 
 A MILLER OF DEE 
 
 with a manner that was unconsciously, and, as 
 it were, ironically submissive. 
 
 On May mornings her slender figure, which 
 looked as if it might suddenly snap off at the 
 waist, might be seen in the garden, hanging 
 clothes out to dry, or stooping above the 
 vegetables; while MacCreedy watched her in 
 a possessive manner from the cottage door- 
 way. Perhaps she symbolised victory to him, 
 a victory over his loneliness; perhaps he only 
 looked on her as more money in his stocking. 
 She made no friends, for she was MacCreedy's 
 wife, and a Southerner; moreover, MacCreedy 
 did not want her to make friends. When he 
 was out it was she who would pull the ferry- 
 boat over, and, after landing the passengers, 
 remain motionless, bowed over her sculls, 
 staring after them, as though loth to lose the 
 sound of their footsteps; then she would pull 
 slowly back across the swirl of silver-brown 
 water, and, tying up the boat, stand with her 
 hand shading her eyes. MacCreedy still went 
 to the "public" at nights, but he never spoke 
 of his wife, and it was noticed that he stared 
 hard with his pug's eyes at any one who asked 
 133
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 after her. It was as though he suspected the 
 village of wanting to take her from him. The 
 same instinct that made him bury his money 
 in a stocking bid him bury his wife. Nobody 
 gave him anything, none should touch his 
 property! 
 
 Summer ripened, flushed full, and passed; 
 the fall began. The river came down ruddy 
 with leaves, and often in the autumn damp 
 the village was lost in its soft mist of smoke. 
 MacCreedy became less and less garrulous, he 
 came to the " public" seldom, and in the 
 middle of his drink would put his glass down, 
 and leave, as though he had forgotten some- 
 thing. People said that Mrs. MacCreedy looked 
 unhappy; she ceased to attend church on 
 Sundays. MacCreedy himself had never at- 
 tended. 
 
 One day it was announced in the village that 
 Mrs. MacCreedy's mother was ill that Mrs. 
 MacCreedy had gone away to nurse her; and, 
 in fact, her figure was no more seen about the 
 cottage garden beneath the cliff. It became 
 usual to ask MacCreedy about his mother-in- 
 law, for the question seemed to annoy him. 
 134
 
 A MILLER OF DEE 
 
 He would turn his head, give a vicious tug at 
 the sculls, and answer, "Oh! aye, a wee bit 
 better!" 
 
 Tired perhaps of answering this question, 
 he gave up going to the "public" altogether, 
 and every evening, when the shadows of the 
 woods were closing thick on the water, he 
 could be seen staring over the side of his boat 
 moored in the deep backwater below his cot- 
 tage; the sound of his favourite song was heard 
 no more. People said: "He misses his wife!" 
 and for the first time since he had been amongst 
 them, a feeling for him almost amounting to 
 warmth grew up in the village. 
 
 Early one morning, however, the under- 
 keeper, who had an old-time grudge against 
 MacCreedy, after an hour of patient toil, 
 fished Mrs. MacCreedy up from the bottom of 
 the backwater. She was neatly sewn in a sack, 
 weighted with stones, and her face was black. 
 They charged MacCreedy, who wept, and said 
 nothing. He was removed to the County gaol. 
 
 At his trial he remained dumb, and was 
 found guilty. It was proved among other 
 things that Mrs. MacCreedy had no mother. 
 135
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 While he was waiting to be hanged, he asked 
 for the chaplain, and made the following state- 
 ment: 
 
 "Parson," said he, "I'm not caring what 
 ye have to say ye will get plenty of chance to 
 talk when I'm gone. It's not to you I'm 
 speaking, nor to anybody in particular I'm 
 just lonely here; it's a luxury to me to see a 
 face that's not that gravy-eyed old warder's. 
 I don't believe ye're any better than me, but 
 if I did, what then? It's meself I've got to 
 make me peace with. Man, d'ye think I'd 
 have kept me independence if I'd ha' believed 
 the likes of ye? They never had a good word 
 for me down there, gentry as bad as the rest 
 the pack of fools! And why didn't they have 
 a good word for me? Just because I'm an 
 independent man. They'll tell ye that I was 
 close; stingy they'll call it and why was I 
 close? Because I knew they were all against 
 me. Why should I give 'em anything? They 
 were all waitin' to take it from me! They'll 
 say I set no store by my wife; but that's a 
 lie, parson why, she was all I had! As sure 
 as I'm speaking to ye, if I hadn't done what 
 136
 
 A MILLER OF DEE 
 
 I did I'd have lost her. I was for guessing it 
 all the autumn. I'm not one of those bodies 
 that won't look a thing in the face; ye can't 
 hoodwink me with palaver. I put it to ye, if 
 ye had a diamond, wouldn't ye a sight sooner 
 pitch it into the sea, than have it stolen? Ye 
 know ye would! Well, she's just dead; and 
 so'll I be when they squeeze the life out of 
 me. Parson, don't ye go and blabber about 
 her doin' wrong. She never did wrong; hadn't 
 the time to. I wouldn't have ye take away 
 her reputation when I'm gone and can't defend 
 her. But there was, aye! the certainty that 
 she would 'a done it; 'twas coming, d'ye 
 see? Aye! but I was bound to lose her; and 
 I'll tell ye how I made sure. 
 
 " 'Twas one day nigh the end of October; 
 I emptied the ferry till, and I said to my wife: 
 'Jenny,' I said, 'ye'll do the ferry work to-day; 
 I'm away to the town for a suit o' clothes. 
 Ye will take care/ I said, 'that no one sneaks 
 over without paying ye his proper saxpence.' 
 
 " 'Very well, MacCreedy,' she says. With 
 that I put some bread and meat in a bit of 
 paper, and had her ferry me across. Well, I 
 137
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 went away up the road till I thought she would 
 have got back; and then I turned round and 
 came softly down again to the watter; but 
 there she was, still sitting where I'd left her. 
 I was put aback by that, parson; ye know 
 what it is when your plans get upset. 'Jenny,' 
 I said to her, as if I came for the very purpose, 
 'ye'll look sharp after them fares?' 
 
 " 'Yes,' she says, 'MacCreedy.' And with 
 that she turns the boat round. Well, presently 
 I came down again, and hid in some bushes on 
 the bank, and all day I stayed there watching. 
 Have ye ever watched a rabbit trap? She 
 put four people across the river, and every 
 time I saw them pay her. But late in the 
 afternoon that man the devil himself, the 
 same I was lookin' after came down and 
 called out 'Ferry!' My wife she brought the 
 ferry over, and I watched her close when he 
 stepped in. I saw them talking in the boat, 
 and I saw him take her hands when he left it. 
 There was nothing more to see, for he went 
 away. I waited till evening, then out I crept 
 and called 'Ferry!' My wife came down she 
 was aye ready and fetched me across. The 
 138
 
 A MILLER OF DEE 
 
 first thing I did was to go to the till and take 
 out four saxpences. 'Oh/ I said, ' Jenny, 
 ye've had four fares then?' 
 
 " 'Yes/ she said, 'just four/ 
 
 " 'Sure?' I said. 
 
 " 'Sure/ she said, 'MacCreedy. 7 
 
 "Have ye ever seen the eyes of a rabbit 
 when the fox is nigh her? 
 
 "I asked her who they were, and when she 
 told me the names of the first four, and never 
 another name, I knew I'd lost her. She got to 
 bed presently, and after she was in bed I 
 waited, sitting by the fire. The question I 
 put to meself was this: 'Will I let them have 
 her? Will I let them tak' her away?' The 
 sweat ran off me. I thought maybe she'd 
 forgotten to name him, but there was her 
 eyes; and then, where was his saxpence? In 
 this life, parson, there's some things ye cannot 
 get over. 
 
 " 'No/ I said to meself, 'either ye've took 
 up with him, or else ye're goin' to tak' up with 
 him, or ye'd ha' had his saxpence.' I felt my- 
 self heavier than lead. 'Ye'd ha' had his sax- 
 pence/ I said to meself; 'ther's no gettin' 
 139
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 over that.' I would have ye know that my 
 wife was an obedient woman, she aye did what 
 she was told, an' if it hadn't been for a vera 
 good reason she'd ha' had his saxpence; there's 
 no manner of doubt about it. I'm not one of 
 those weak-minded bodies who believe that 
 marriages are sacred; I 'm an independent 
 man. What I say is, every man for himself, 
 an' every woman too, and the less of cant the 
 better. I don't want ye to have the chance to 
 take away me reputation when I'm gone, with 
 any such foolish talk. 'Twasn't the marriage; 
 'twas just the notion of their stealing her. I 
 never owed any man of them a penny, or a 
 good turn him least of all; and was I to see 
 them steal her and leave me bare? Just as 
 they'd ha' stolen my saxpences; the very money 
 out of me pocket, if I'd ha' let them. I ask ye, 
 was I to do that? Was I to see meself going 
 back to loneliness before me own eyes? 'No,' 
 I said to meself; 'keep yourselves to yourselves, 
 I'll keep meself to mine!' I went and took a 
 look at her asleep, and I could fancy her with a 
 smile as if she were glad to ha' done with me 
 going off with him to those others up at the 
 140
 
 A MILLER OF DEE 
 
 village to make a mock of me. I thought, 
 'Ye've got to do something, MacCreedy, or 
 ye'll just be helping them to steal her from 
 yerself.' But what could I do? I'm a man 
 that looks things through and through, and 
 sees what's logical. There was only one logic 
 to this; but, parson, I cried while I was putting 
 the pillow to her face. She struggled very 
 little, poor thing she was aye an obedient 
 woman. I sewed her body up in a sack, and 
 all the time I thought: 'There goes Mac- 
 Greedy!' But I cannot say that I regretted it 
 exactly. Human nature's no so very simple. 
 'Twas the hanging about the spot after, that 
 was the ruin of me; if ye've got things valuable 
 hidden up, ye're bound to hang around them, 
 ye feel so lonely." 
 
 On the morning of his execution MacCreedy 
 ate a good breakfast, and made a wan attempt 
 to sing himself his favourite song: 
 
 "I care for nobody no, not I, 
 And nobody cares for mel" 
 
 1903. 
 
 141
 
 A PARTING 
 
 WHEN one is walking languidly under 
 those trees where a few gold leaves 
 are still hanging, and the scent of brown dry- 
 ing leaves underfoot, and the sweet, pungent 
 scent of leaf bonfires is in the air, and the 
 pursuing rustle of one's dog padding amongst 
 leaf-mortality steals along close behind; then 
 the beauty, and the pale, lingering sunshine, 
 and the sadness are almost more than one can 
 bear. It is all a wistful incarnation of the 
 ghost that will sometimes visit even the sanest 
 soul, with the words: Death! And then? 
 
 On such a day there is no refuge. It does 
 not seem worth while to take interest in a 
 world touched with mortality, it is even im- 
 possible to differentiate between the prosper- 
 ous and the unfortunate; for the pleasures and 
 pains of the body, riches and destitution, seem 
 like twin sisters in the presence of that rustling 
 of dead leaves. The pale candles of life are 
 flickering, waiting to resign, and join darkness. 
 143
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 On such a day the sky is the greatest com- 
 fort a man can have; for though he feels 
 terribly that it will never part, and let his eyes 
 peer on and on till they see the top of eternity, 
 still it is high, free, has a semblance of immor- 
 tality, and perhaps is made up of all the spirit 
 breath that has abandoned dead leaves and 
 the corpses of men. 
 
 On such a day, when love, like a discouraged 
 bird, moves her wings faintly, it is well to stand 
 still, and look long at the sky. The haunting 
 scents, the pursuing rustle, may then for a 
 brief while become deserters; for up there it 
 seems as though the wings of Harmony were 
 still moving. 
 
 It was on such a day that in Kensington 
 Gardens I saw the parting of two poor souls. 
 They had been sitting side by side in the dim 
 alley of chestnut trees which leads down past 
 the Speke monument to the Serpentine a 
 tall, burly, bearded man, and a white wisp of 
 a girl. There was nothing in any way remark- 
 able about them; the man just an ordinary 
 business type, the girl, probably, a governess. 
 And they sat so motionless, talking in such low 
 144
 
 A PARTING 
 
 voices, that I had quite forgotten them; for 
 on that day, the tide of interest in one's fellow 
 creatures was at low ebb. But suddenly I 
 became conscious that they had risen. Half- 
 hidden by the trunk of the chestnut tree, 
 whose few broad leaves were so like hands 
 stretched out to the pale sunlight, they stood 
 close together, indifferent to my presence; 
 and there was that in the way they were look- 
 ing at each other which made one's heart ache. 
 Deep down in the eyes of both, life was surely 
 dying dying quietly as ever were leaves just 
 about to fall. And I knew, as certainly as 
 though all their little history had been made 
 plain, that this was a last meeting. Some fatal 
 force was severing them, and though neither 
 confessed, both knew that it was for ever. 
 
 "And you'll write to me?" 
 
 "And when I come back?" 
 
 But the words were spoken as though all 
 words had the same lack of meaning to two 
 desperate hearts each trying to comfort the 
 other. From their talk it was clear that they 
 were not man and wife, but it was certain too, 
 by the way they touched and looked at one 
 145
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 another, that this was the parting of those who 
 had been lovers; the least of their looks and 
 touches was full of passion, quivering, alive. 
 The girl had a little gold crucifix bound on her 
 breast, and while the man talked, his thick 
 fingers kept playing with it, turning it over and 
 over, evidently without knowing what they 
 were handling. She wore, too, a narrow band 
 of ruby-coloured velvet at her neck; and when 
 he stroked it, her eyes, of that pale blue the 
 colour of flax flowers, darkened as if with de- 
 light. Her face, which was rather foreign- 
 looking, with its high cheek-bones and ashen 
 hair, had something of the wilted whiteness of 
 a flower, turned up to him, and her hands, 
 stroking and twisting at his sleeves, could no 
 more keep still than her rapid, whispering 
 voice with its little un-English accent. And 
 he that burly fellow it was queer to see the 
 twitching and quivering of his face, as though 
 all the memories common to these two were 
 trying to break through the thick mask of his 
 flesh. 
 
 It must have been something very fateful 
 to drag them apart in the full tide of their 
 146
 
 A PARTING 
 
 passion; or was this perhaps only one more 
 of those most pitiful of all episodes, when the 
 twin grim facts of money and reputation have 
 tramped in on love? It was hard to tell 
 which was the stronger emotion on those faces 
 so close to one another, pity for self, or pity 
 for the other heart, about to be left lonely, 
 to be bereft of its little share of immortality. 
 
 And then, without even a glance round to 
 see if any one were looking, they clung together. 
 There could they felt be no doing that in 
 the street or at the railway station; but here, 
 in shadow, under trees that knew well enough 
 what partings were like, with no one to see 
 them except one indifferent stranger and a 
 spaniel dog stirring the dead leaves with its 
 long, black nose here they could try once 
 again to forget. 
 
 Whatever their poor story commonplace 
 and little noble in the world's eye they, thus 
 clinging together, in their love and in the 
 presence of its death, were symbolic of that 
 autumn day, touched with mortality, when 
 all things seemed to love, and yet lose love, 
 and pass out into nothingness. There was no 
 147
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 statue in all those Gardens like this dark, pitiful 
 group of two blotted into each other's arms, 
 trying for a last moment to crush sorrow to 
 death within the prison of their joined lips. 
 
 But when that kiss was over what then? 
 Would they have courage to turn and walk 
 different ways, leaving their hearts hanging 
 here in the air, framed by the sparse, wan 
 leaves, and taking away, instead, within each 
 of them a little hollow of rustling sound? 
 
 They had not that courage. They went 
 together, their arms listless, the man trying to 
 bear himself indifferently, the girl crying ever 
 so quietly. And as they came nearer and 
 nearer to the Gate, they walked always slower, 
 till they had passed through it, and stood still 
 on the edge of the pavement. And as though, 
 indeed, they had left their hearts clinging in 
 the air of the Gardens, evermore to haunt 
 under those trees, they hardly even touched 
 one another, but with one long, pitiful look, 
 parted. 
 
 The sky had changed. It was still high, but 
 as grey as a dove's wing; sunless, compounded 
 of unshed tears. And a little cold, talking 
 148
 
 A PARTING 
 
 wind had risen, so that when a leaf fell, it fled 
 away, turned over, fluttered, and dropped. 
 In this wind people hurried as though it were 
 telling them things they wished not to hear; 
 and the numbers of little birds balancing on 
 the bared boughs seemed very silent; one 
 could not tell whether they were happy. 
 
 In the alley of chestnut trees I tried to find 
 the place where those two hearts had been left. 
 The wind had blown over; it was lost in the 
 wilderness of grey air. But though I could 
 not see it, I knew it was there, that kiss for ever 
 imprinted on the pale sunlight. And I hunted 
 for it, desiring its warmth on this day that was 
 like the death of love. I could not find it, and 
 slowly walked home, the chill scents dying 
 round me, the pursuing rustle of my dog, 
 padding in leaf-mortality, creeping along be- 
 hind. 
 
 1909. 
 
 149
 
 A BEAST OF BURDEN 
 
 I WAS sitting, on a winter afternoon, in a sec- 
 ond-class compartment of the Paris train. 
 There was one empty seat, and presently a 
 French sailor got in and filled it, carrying his 
 luggage in a bundle a heavy, thick young 
 fellow, bolster-like in his dark blue clothes, 
 and round cap with a dark-red fuzzy ball. 
 He sat humped forward with a fist on either 
 of his thighs; and his leathery, shaven face, as 
 of an ugly and neglected child, so motionless, 
 that there seemed no activity at all in his brain. 
 Suddenly he coughed, long, almost silently, be- 
 hind his hand. 
 
 The train started; we settled down to sleep 
 or read, but the sailor sat motionless, coughing 
 now and then his smothered, wheezing cough. 
 
 At Amiens, a collector looked at our tickets, 
 and demanded from the sailor the difference 
 between a second and third class fare. He 
 fumbled it slowly, sadly, out of an old leather 
 purse. 
 
 151
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Again we started, but as though this inci- 
 dent had broken up his stoicism, the sailor 
 stirred and spoke to me in French. He talked 
 in a turgid, Flemish accent, not easy to under- 
 stand, and at the end of every phrase dropped 
 his lower lip as though he had spoken his last 
 word. He was on his way it seemed from 
 Dunkerque to join his ship at Cherbourg; and 
 this had been the last train he could catch, to 
 be in time. He had left his widowed mother 
 without money, so that to pay this extra fare 
 seemed terrible to him. For eighteen months 
 he had been on foreign service for eighteen 
 days he had been at home; and he was now 
 going back, to serve the remainder of his time 
 on the China station. His brother had been 
 killed by the Japanese, accidentally, being 
 taken for a Russian. His father had been 
 drowned off Iceland, in the summer fishing. 
 
 "C'est me qui a une mere, c'est me qui est 
 seul a la maison. C'est elle qui n'a pas le sou." 
 
 It was his only perfect sentence, and, as he 
 
 finished it, he spat. Then, seeing from the 
 
 faces of the company that this was not the 
 
 thing to do, he smeared it over with a slow, 
 
 152
 
 A BEAST OF BURDEN 
 
 gritting movement of his foot. Looking up at 
 me with his little, deep-set eyes, he then said: 
 "C'est me qui est malade," and slowly: "C'est 
 mauvais pour les malades I'climat en Chine?" 
 
 I tried to reassure him, but he shook his head; 
 and after a long pause, said again: "C'est me 
 qui a une mere, c'est me gui est seul a la maison. 
 C'est elle qui n'a pas le sou." Tell me his 
 eyes seemed to ask, why are these things so? 
 Why have I a mother who depends on me alone, 
 when I am being sent away to die? 
 
 He rubbed his fists on his rounded thighs, 
 then rested them; and so, humped forward 
 over his outspread arms, sat silent, staring in 
 front of him with deep, dark, tiny eyes. He 
 troubled me with no further speech; he had 
 relieved his soul. And, presently, like a dumb, 
 herded beast, patient, mute, carrying his load, 
 he left me at the terminus; but it was long 
 before I lost the memory of his face and of that 
 chant of his: "C'est me qui est seul a la mai- 
 son. . . C'est me qui a une mere. C'est ette 
 qui n'a pas le sou!" 
 
 1905. 
 
 153
 
 THE LIME TREE 
 
 I WAS lying on a bank one July afternoon 
 close to a large lime tree. The bees were 
 busy among her long, drooping, honey-coloured 
 blossoms; the wind was fluttering all her 
 leaves, swaying her boughs, and drifting her 
 scent towards me. And I was thinking, as I 
 watched her, of the Hindu theory of Art how, 
 according to that theory, her external shape 
 was of no significance to the artist, and all 
 that mattered was the idea of "tree," only 
 to be realised by long and devoted contem- 
 plation. For some minutes I myself tried to 
 contemplate her, gazing through her green- 
 clothed branches to see if I could indeed see 
 her spirit; then, as is the habit in Western 
 minds, my thoughts went wandering off, 
 chasing each other like the little buff or blue 
 butterflies that were all round me skimming 
 between the spikes of grass and the soft tops 
 of the clover. 
 
 155
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 There were some red cattle in the field be- 
 yond, and they too distracted my attention, 
 and in the distance a line of moorland, with a 
 pile of stones, like the figure of a man on the 
 hillside. But presently my gaze came back 
 to the lime tree. She was in a tumult now; 
 the wind had entered her heart, and her shiver- 
 ing gust of emotion was such that one could not 
 choose but look at her. It was the passion 
 one sees when bees are swarming a fierce, 
 humming swirl of movement, as though she 
 had suddenly gone mad with life and love. 
 But soon this tumult died away; she was once 
 more a perfumed, gracious, delicately alluring 
 tree. 
 
 "Ah!" I thought, "when will you reveal 
 your soul to me? Are you 'the essential tree' 
 when you are cool and sweet, vaguely seduc- 
 tive, as now, or when you are being whirled in 
 the arms of the wind and seem so furiously 
 alive? When shall I see your very spirit?" 
 
 And again my thoughts went straying. 
 This time they did not race like the butterflies, 
 but drifted drowsily, as the black bumble- 
 bees were drifting among the foxgloves and 
 156
 
 THE LIME TREE 
 
 purple vetches. And slowly the sweetness of 
 that lime tree seemed to gather round and 
 imprison my senses, taking all strength from 
 the wings of meditation, and dragging my head 
 lower and lower to the grass. The uncanny, 
 twilight state half sleep sweetest of all mo- 
 ments in life, when the world is still with you, 
 yet moonlight-coloured with the coming fan- 
 tasy of dreams, wrapped me as in the folds of 
 a swoon. 
 
 And suddenly I saw lying close to me yet 
 separated by a gulf of nothingness, which was 
 soft and cool to the touch of my face and 
 hands a woman, with amber-coloured hair 
 falling over her breast and over creamy flowers 
 growing stiffly round her, as might asphodels. 
 Her fingers held a big black bee to her neck. 
 Her body, though nearly hidden by those stiff, 
 tall flowers, seemed very lovely; but it was 
 her face that was so wonderful and sweet. It 
 was a perfect oval, and so dear and tender as 
 to make one's heart throb. The lips were 
 faintly smiling, and beneath the eyebrows 
 arched and delicate her eyes looked at me. 
 Never were such velvety and dark and dewy 
 157
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 eyes! All round her were falling innumerable 
 petals of the very faintest pink and honey 
 colours; but her eyes kept stealing between 
 them and fixing themselves on mine. There 
 was at one corner of her mouth a tiny tuck or 
 dimple, as might cling to the lips of a child 
 when some one has been rough with her; and 
 one ear, lying close to a great buttercup, was 
 coloured by it, and looked like a little golden 
 shell. The petals as they fluttered down were 
 stirred by her breath, which seemed to me 
 visible, of a silver hue, and full of strange, soft 
 music. 
 
 Her eyes so shone with love, that I tried to 
 raise myself and go to her. But I could not; 
 and each time I failed there came into them 
 such mournfulness, that I almost cried out. 
 Yet, in spite of this mournful look, her lips 
 continued to smile, and her form quivered all 
 over amongst the tall, creamy, asphodel-like 
 flowers; the hand which held the great black 
 bee to her neck never ceased to stroke the 
 creature with a finger that was like a moon- 
 beam, so pale was it and long and soft. 
 
 And I thought: "She shall be loved as no 
 158
 
 THE LIME TREE 
 
 woman was ever loved by man! It is she that 
 I have looked for all my life ! " For so it seemed 
 tome! 
 
 But the more I tried to raise myself and go 
 to her, the less could I. And yet I felt, that 
 if I could but reach her, I should faint with 
 the sheer delight of it, and never more come to 
 life and reason; and this I earnestly desired 
 to do. 
 
 While I was thus looking and longing, a 
 grey bird with a narrow tail, somewhat like a 
 cuckoo, swept down, and, lodging in the crook 
 of her bare arm, stared into her face with 
 bright round eyes. And there sprang up in my 
 heart burning jealousy that it should be so 
 close to her, and I so far. The little shivers 
 that passed down her bare arm, the colour of 
 pearl, seemed to be caressing this bird, as the 
 moonbeam of her finger was caressing the bee 
 against her neck. I could see very well that 
 these two creatures, so close to her heart, were 
 happy; and the jealousy grew and grew in 
 me, till with all my might I threw myself 
 towards her; but the nothingness between us 
 resisted me, and I fell back exhausted. 
 159
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Then I saw her lift the finger, which caressed 
 the bee; curving it towards herself, she looked 
 at me; and on her lips there came the sweetest 
 and strangest of all smiles. Seeing her smile 
 thus I struggled desperately against the cold, 
 smooth nothingness, and while I struggled I 
 saw her quiver and writhe as though she too 
 wanted to come to me. Her breast heaved, her 
 eyes grew deeper, darker; they filled with 
 glistening moisture, and seemed to entreat me. 
 I tried to cry out to her, "I am coming!" 
 But the words were pressed back into my lips 
 by that chill, smooth nothingness, and slowly 
 I saw her eyes grow mournful and wan, and 
 her limbs cease quivering. Then, straining 
 with a furious strength that I never thought to 
 have had against the colourless, impalpable 
 barrier, I crept forward inch by inch; and as 
 I came nearer and nearer to her, I saw her 
 eyes liven again, and begin to glow sweet and 
 warm as the sun through heather honey or 
 burnt wine; shivers ran through her limbs, a 
 lock of her hair floated towards me, and there 
 was such love in her face as no mortal has ever 
 seen. The great, black bee, too, left her neck, 
 160
 
 THE LIME TREE 
 
 and flying poised within an inch of it, let forth 
 from his wings the gentlest imaginable hum- 
 ming; even the bird on her arm, unafraid, 
 moved its head up and down towards me, and 
 fastened its soft, black eyes on my face as 
 though aware that this was the moment of my 
 triumph. I stretched out to her my arms, and 
 at the touch of them she laughed. No sound 
 that ever man heard was so tender as that 
 laugh. Her hair brushed my lips; a drift of 
 perfume smothered me. I sank into a delicious 
 darkness, losing all sense of everything, as if I 
 had been drowned. . . . 
 
 A lime-blossom loosened by the bees and 
 the wind, had drifted across my lips; its scent 
 was in my nostrils. There was nothing before 
 me but the fields and the moor, and, close by, 
 the lime tree. I looked at her. She seemed 
 to me far away, coldly fair, formal in her green 
 beflowered garb; but, for all that, I knew that, 
 in my dream, I had seen and touched her soul. 
 
 1909. 
 
 161
 
 THE NEIGHBOURS 
 
 IN the remote country, Nature, at first sight 
 so serene, so simple, will soon intrude on 
 her observer a strange discomfort; a feeling 
 that some familiar spirit haunts the old lanes, 
 rocks, wasteland, and trees, and has the power 
 to twist all living things around into some 
 special shape befitting its genius. 
 
 When moonlight floods the patch of moor- 
 land about the centre of the triangle between 
 the little towns of Hartland, Torrington, and 
 Holsworthy, a pagan spirit steals forth through 
 the wan gorse; gliding round the stems of 
 the lonely, gibbet-like fir-trees, peeping out 
 amongst the reeds of the white marsh. That 
 spirit has the eyes of a borderer, who perceives 
 in every man a possible foe. And in fact, this 
 high corner of the land has remained border 
 to this day, where the masterful, acquisitive 
 invader from the North dwells side by side 
 with the unstable, proud, quick-blooded Celt- 
 Iberian. 
 
 163
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 In two cottages crowning some fallow land 
 two families used to live side by side. That 
 long white dwelling seemed all one, till the 
 eye, peering through the sweet-brier which 
 smothered the right-hand half, perceived the 
 rude, weather-beaten presentment of a Run- 
 ning Horse, denoting the presence of intoxicat- 
 ing liquors; and in a window of the left-hand 
 half, that strange conglomeration of edibles 
 and shoe-leather which proclaims the one shop 
 of a primitive hamlet. 
 
 These married couples were by name Sand- 
 ford at the eastern, and Leman at the western 
 end; and he who saw them for the first time 
 thought : ' ' What splendid-looking people ! ' ' 
 
 They were all four above the average height, 
 and all four as straight as darts. The inn- 
 keeper, Sandford, was a massive man, stolid, 
 grave, light-eyed, with big fair moustaches, 
 who might have stepped straight out of some 
 Norseman's galley. Leman was lean and lathy, 
 a regular Celt, with an amiable, shadowy, 
 humorous face. The two women were as 
 different as the men. Mrs. Sandford's fair, 
 almost transparent cheeks coloured easily, her 
 .164
 
 THE NEIGHBOURS 
 
 eyes were grey, her hair pale brown; Mrs. 
 Leman's hair was of a lustreless jet-black, her 
 eyes the colour of a peaty stream, and her 
 cheeks had the close creamy texture of old 
 ivory. 
 
 Those accustomed to their appearance soon 
 noted the qualifications of their splendour. In 
 Sandford, whom neither sun nor wind ever 
 tanned, there was a look as if nothing would 
 ever turn him from acquisition of what he had 
 set his heart on; his eyes had the idealism 
 of the worshipper of property, ever marching 
 towards a heaven of great possessions. Fol- 
 lowed by his cowering spaniel, he walked to 
 his fields (for he farmed as well as kept the inn) 
 with a tread that seemed to shake the lanes, 
 disengaging an air of such heavy and com- 
 plete insulation that even the birds were still. 
 He rarely spoke. He was not popular. He 
 was feared, no one quite knew why. 
 
 On Mrs. Sandford, for all her pink and 
 white, sometimes girlish look, he had set the 
 mark of his slow, heavy domination. Her 
 voice was seldom heard. Once in a while, 
 however, her reserve would yield to garrulity, 
 165
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 as of water flowing through a broken dam. 
 In these outbursts she usually spoke of her 
 neighbours the Lemans, deploring the state 
 of their marital relations. "A woman/' she 
 would say, "must give way to a man sometimes: 
 I've had to give way to Sandford myself, I 
 have." Her lips, from long compression, had 
 become thin as the edge of a teacup; all her 
 character seemed to have been driven down 
 below the surface of her long, china-white face. 
 She had not broken, but she had chipped; 
 her edges had become jagged, sharp. The 
 consciousness, that she herself had been beaten 
 to the earth, seemed to inspire in her that 
 waspish feeling towards Mrs. Leman "a 
 woman with a proud temper," as she would 
 say in her almost lady-like voice; "a woman 
 who's never bowed down to a man that's 
 what she'll tell you herself. 'Tisn't the drink 
 that makes Leman behave so mad, 'tis because 
 she won't give way to him. We're glad to sell 
 drink to any one we can, of course; but 'tisn't 
 that what's makin' Leman so queer. 'Tis her." 
 Leman, whose long figure was often to be 
 Been seated on the wooden bench of his neigh- 
 166
 
 THE NEIGHBOURS 
 
 hour's stone-flagged little inn, had, indeed, 
 begun to have the soaked look and scent 
 of a man never quite drunk, and hardly ever 
 sober. He spoke slowly, his tongue seemed 
 thickening; he no longer worked; his humor- 
 ous, amiable face had grown hangdog and 
 clouded. All the village knew of his passionate 
 outbreaks, and bursts of desperate weeping; 
 and of two occasions when Sandford had been 
 compelled to wrest a razor from him. People 
 took a morbid interest in this rapid deteriora- 
 tion, speaking of it with misgiving and relish, 
 unanimous in their opinion that "summat'd 
 'appen about that; the drink wer duin' for 
 George Leman, that it wer, praaperly!" 
 
 But Sandford that blond, ashy-looking 
 Teuton was not easy of approach, and no 
 one cared to remonstrate with him; his taci- 
 turnity was too impressive, too impenetra- 
 ble. Mrs. Leman, too, never complained. 
 To see this black-haired woman, with her 
 stoical, alluring face, come out for a breath of 
 air, and stand in the sunlight, her baby in her 
 arms, was to have looked on a very woman of 
 the Britons. In conquering races the men, 
 167
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 they say, are superior to the women, in con- 
 quered races, the women to the men. She 
 was certainly superior to Leman. That wom- 
 an might be bent and mangled, she could 
 not be broken; her pride was too simple, too 
 much a physical part of her. No one ever 
 saw a word pass between her and Sandford. 
 It was almost as if the old racial feelings of 
 this borderland were pursuing in these two 
 their unending conflict. For there they lived, 
 side by side under the long, thatched roof, 
 this great primitive, invading male, and that 
 black-haired, lithe-limbed woman of older 
 race, avoiding each other, never speaking as 
 much too much for their own mates as they 
 were, perhaps, worthy of each other. 
 
 In this lonely parish, houses stood far apart, 
 yet news travelled down the May-scented lanes 
 and over the whin-covered moor with a strange 
 speed; blown perhaps by the west wind, 
 whispered by the pagan genius of the place in 
 his wanderings, or conveyed by small boys on 
 large farm horses. 
 
 On Whit-Monday it was known that Leman 
 had been drinking all Sunday; for he had been 
 168
 
 THE NEIGHBOURS 
 
 heard on Sunday night shouting out that his 
 wife had robbed him, and that her children 
 were not his. All next day he was seen sitting 
 in the bar of the inn soaking steadily. Yet on 
 Tuesday morning Mrs. Leman was serving in 
 her shop as usual a really noble figure, with 
 that lustreless black hair of hers very silent, 
 and ever sweetening her eyes to her customers. 
 Mrs. Sandford, in one of her bursts of garrulity, 
 complained bitterly of the way her neighbours 
 had "gone on" the night before. But un- 
 moved, ashy, stolid as ever, Sandford worked 
 in the most stony of his fields. 
 
 That hot, magnificent day wore to its end; 
 a night of extraordinary beauty fell. In the 
 gold moonlight the shadows of the lime-tree 
 leaves lay, blacker than any velvet, piled one 
 on the other at the foot of the little green. 
 It was very warm. A cuckoo called on till 
 nearly midnight. A great number of little 
 moths were out; and the two broad meadows 
 which fell away from the hamlet down to the 
 stream were clothed in a glamorous haze of 
 their own moonlit buttercups. Where that 
 marvellous moonlight spread out across the 
 169
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 moor it was all pale witchery; only the three 
 pine-trees had strength to resist the wan gold 
 of their fair visitor, and brooded over the scene 
 like the ghosts of three great gallows. The 
 long white dwelling of "the neighbours," 
 bathed in that vibrating glow, seemed to be 
 exuding a refulgence of its own. Beyond the 
 stream a night- jar hunted, whose fluttering 
 harsh call tore the garment of the scent-laden 
 still air. It was long before sleep folded her 
 wings. 
 
 A little past twelve o'clock there was the 
 sound of a double shot. By five o'clock next 
 morning the news had already travelled far; 
 and before seven, quite a concourse had gath- 
 ered to watch two mounted constables take 
 Leman on Sandford's pony to Bideford gaol. 
 The dead bodies of Sandford and Mrs. Leman 
 lay so report ran in the locked bedroom at 
 Leman's end of the neighbours' house. Mrs. 
 Sandford, in a state of collapse, was being 
 nursed at a neighbouring cottage. The Leman 
 children had been taken to the Rectory. Alone 
 of the dwellers in those two cottages, Sand- 
 ford's spaniel sat in a gleam of early sunlight 
 170
 
 THE NEIGHBOURS 
 
 under the eastern porch, with her nose fixed 
 to the crack beneath the door. 
 
 It was vaguely known that Leman had 
 "done for 'em"; of the how, the why, the 
 when, all was conjecture. Nor was it till the 
 assizes that the story of that night was made 
 plain, from Leman's own evidence, read from 
 a dirty piece of paper: 
 
 "I, George Leman, make this confession 
 so help me God! When I came up to bed 
 that evening, I was far gone in liquor and so 
 had been for two days off and on, which Sand- 
 ford knows. My wife was in bed. I went 
 up, and I said to her: 'Get up!' I said; 'do 
 what I tell you for once!' 'I will not!' she 
 said. So I pulled the bedclothes off her. 
 When I saw her all white like that, with her 
 black hair, it turned me queer, and I ran 
 downstairs and got my gun, and loaded it. 
 When I came upstairs again, she was against 
 the door. I pushed, and she pushed back. 
 She didn't call out, or say one word but 
 pushed; she was never one to be afraid. I 
 was the stronger, and I pushed-in the door. 
 She stood up against the bed, defying me with 
 171
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 her mouth tight shut, the way she had; and 
 I put up my gun to shoot her. It was then 
 that Sandford came running up the stairs and 
 knocked the gun out of my hand with his 
 stick. He hit me a blow over the heart with 
 his fist, and I fell down against the wall, and 
 couldn't move. And he said: 'Keep quiet!' 
 he said, 'you dog!' Then he looked at her. 
 'And as for you,' he said, 'you bring it on 
 yourself! You can't bow down, can't you? 
 Til bow you down for once!' And he took 
 and raised his stick. But he didn't strike her, 
 he just looked at her in her nightdress, which 
 was torn at the shoulders, and her black hair 
 ragged. She never said a word, but smiled at 
 him. Then he caught hold of her by the arms, 
 and they stood there. I saw her eyes; they 
 were as black as two sloes. He seemed to go 
 all weak of a sudden, and white as the wall. 
 It was like as they were struggling which was 
 the better of them, meaning to come to one 
 another at the end. I saw what was in them as 
 clear as I see this paper. I got up and crept 
 round, and I took the gun and pointed it, and 
 pulled the triggers one after the other, and 
 172
 
 THE NEIGHBOURS 
 
 they fell dead, first him, then her; they fell 
 quietly, neither of them made a noise. I 
 went out, and lay down on the grass. They 
 found me there when they came to take me. 
 This is all I have to write, but it is true that I 
 was far gone in liquor, which I had of him . . ." 
 
 1909. 
 
 173
 
 THE RUNAGATES 
 
 EVERYTHING was still. It was sun- 
 down, there was not the faintest breeze 
 to stir the warm, sleepy air. 
 
 Along the straggling street, the light lay 
 soft on whitewashed houses, rounding the 
 angles, and tingeing the walls, roofs, doorways 
 with a faint, lustrous pink. In the open space 
 by the Chapel of Ease, or at the doors of shops 
 and houses were figures lolling, or gossiping 
 drowsily in the soft, Devonshire drawl. 
 
 In front of the Inn sprawled a spaniel pup, 
 all head and legs, playing with its own ears, 
 and gaping helplessly at the children who ran 
 out of by-streets, chased each other \azily, 
 and disappeared. An old man in fustian, with 
 a bushy projecting beard, leaned heavily on 
 a stick against the wall, turning to mutter 
 sleepily to some one within. There was a 
 faint, distant cawing of rooks, a smell of bacon 
 and old hay, of burning wood, of honeysuckle. 
 175
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Then on the nodding village came the sound 
 of van-wheels, and with it a kind of stir and 
 rustle. 
 
 That sound of wheels grew louder, then 
 ceased; opposite the Chapel of Ease stood a 
 gypsy van, cavernous, black, weather-stained, 
 with baskets, strings of onions, pans, a tiny 
 blue thread of rising smoke, a smell of old 
 clothes. 
 
 The horse stood where it was stopped, 
 without movement, drooping its tired head; 
 by its side a gypsy girl stretched herself, rest- 
 ing on one leg, with her hands at the back of 
 her head, where the light played tricks with 
 her blue-black hair, giving it the colour of 
 bronze. 
 
 Lithe as a snake, she glanced from side to 
 side with dark eyes, hitching at her skirt, and 
 settling a dingy scarf across her chest. Her 
 angular features had the oblique cat-like cast 
 of her race. 
 
 A broad old man with iren-grey hair and 
 coppery visage leaned ever the shaft, and 
 talked to some one inside. 
 
 The stir and rustle began again. 
 176
 
 THE RUNAGATES 
 
 Children were running out of houses, shops, 
 alleys, everywhere boys and girls. In white 
 frocks, coloured frocks, with clean faces, and 
 dirty faces; hustling each other on, then 
 standing quite still. 
 
 Their hands were clasped in each others', 
 their mouths wide open. They stood in a 
 half-ring, many-coloured, hushed, a yard or 
 two from the van, shuffling up the dust with 
 their feet, whispering. Sometimes they would 
 break a little, as if for flight, then close up 
 nearer. An old woman, with thick hair and 
 hooked nose, emerged from the van with a 
 baby in her arms. A little girl clutching at 
 her dress hid behind her. Continual quivers 
 of sound like the trembling of telegraph wires 
 ran through the ring of children. 
 
 The old woman put the baby into the man's 
 arms, lifted the child to the front of the van, 
 and moved away, talking quickly to the girl in 
 a low voice. Their figures disappeared amongst 
 the houses, and the ring of children sagged 
 nearer to the van; fingers began to creep out, 
 and point; on the outskirts boys took little 
 runs to and fro. 
 
 177
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Slowly the pink flush died out of the light, 
 forms took harder outlines; a faint humming 
 of gnats began; and suddenly the sound of 
 voices broke forth, high-pitched in argu- 
 ment. 
 
 The old fellow against the Inn wall spat over 
 the bush of his beard, stretched, called in an 
 angry mutter, and stumped away, leaning on 
 his stick; the spaniel puppy retreated uneasily 
 into the Inn, uttering shrill barks over its 
 shoulder; people came out of doorways, stared 
 at the van, and turning on their heels abruptly 
 vanished. That foreign thing which had come 
 into the village, had brought with it changes 
 as subtle as the play of light. 
 
 The old gypsy stood with his arms leaning 
 on the shaft, whistling and rilling a pipe; 
 over against him on the edge of the driving 
 board, sat the child and the baby, flaxen- 
 haired mites with sunburnt faces; both were 
 silent as dolls, and had something doll-like 
 in their looks, as if set out for inspection. 
 
 So the ring of children seemed to think, 
 nudging one another and whispering; one 
 or two of the elder girls stretched out their 
 178
 
 THE RUNAGATES 
 
 hands to the baby, and drew them back with 
 frightened giggles. 
 
 The boys began to play familiarity had 
 bred contempt in them already; but the girls 
 stood fascinated, their yellow heads bobbing 
 and twisting, their fingers beckoning or point- 
 ing. 
 
 The light was softening again, becoming 
 greyer, mysterious; things lost certainty in 
 the gloom, receded and wavered; the fitful 
 glimmer of a window lamp grew steady. 
 
 The old gypsy's voice began, clear and per- 
 suasive, talking to the children. Up the street 
 a concertina had started "Rule Britannia" in 
 polka time; there were sounds of scuffling and 
 dancing; two voices were raised in the court- 
 yard of the Inn. 
 
 A cart came rattling out between the dim 
 houses. A dog barked; the voices of the 
 boys at play grew shriller; there broke out 
 the wailing of a baby, and the skirl of a con- 
 certina rising and falling. A woman came out 
 scolding, and dragged two of the girls away: 
 
 "What d'yu want with gypsies then? Yu 
 pair o' fules." 
 
 179
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 A group of men surged in a doorway, volu- 
 ble, laughing; their faces mere blurs, and the 
 bowls of their pipes glowing and sending forth 
 a splutter of sparks. Across the bluish dark- 
 ness the house-lamps threw out their fan- 
 shaped gleams. In one of them the heads of 
 the old gypsy and the two children were out- 
 lined ruddy and gold-coloured against the 
 grim cavern of the van. 
 
 Then, as if starting from the earth, the forms 
 of the two women reappeared; the old gypsy 
 withdrew his arms from the shaft, there was a 
 confused mutter, a rapid stir, a girl's uneasy 
 laugh; the old horse gave a jerk forward 
 the van moved. In front, dragging at the 
 horse's bridle, the bent figure of the gypsy girl 
 slipped, dark and noiseless, into the night; 
 with a heavy rumbling the black van disap- 
 peared. 
 
 There was a sound like a sigh in the street, 
 a patter of footsteps. A man yawned slowly, 
 another called: 
 
 "Yu mind that ther', wull'ee?" 
 
 A pipe was knocked out against wood with 
 a sharp tap. 
 
 180
 
 THE RUNAGATES 
 
 "Waal, mebbe yure raight. Tis main 'ot 
 zurely gude avenin'." 
 
 "Gude naight, Wellium." 
 
 "Gude naight." 
 
 "Yule tak' the ole 'arse then?" 
 
 "That's as mebbe waal, gude naight." 
 
 "Gude naight/' 
 
 The sound of voices and receding footsteps 
 yielded to a hush, soft and deep as the black- 
 ness of the harvest night. The scent of the 
 freshening earth filled all the drowsy air; a 
 faint breeze like the passing of a spirit went 
 shivering through the village. 
 
 A dim form stood noiseless in the street, 
 listening to the concertina drawling out the 
 last notes of "Home, Sweet Home." One 
 by one the fan-shaped splashes flickered off 
 the walls; blackness took their place. 
 
 1900. 
 
 181
 
 A REVERSION TO TYPE 
 
 TT7E sat smoking after dinner in a coun- 
 VV try house. Some one was saying: 
 "They're either too conceited, too much in 
 earnest, too much after advertisement, too 
 effeminate, or too dirty I never found liter- 
 ary men amusing." 
 
 There was a murmur of approval, till a sallow 
 man who had not spoken all the evening, ex- 
 cept to ask for matches, emerged from the 
 shadow of his chair . . . 
 
 "You're wrong," he said. "The most di- 
 verting thing I ever came across was in con- 
 nection with two literary men. It happened 
 some years ago at an Italian inn, in a place 
 where there were ruins. I was travelling 
 
 with poor B , and at that inn we came 
 
 across a literary man, a regular Classicist, 
 looking up items for an historical romance. 
 He was very good company a prosperous, 
 clever, satirical creature, who wore a mous- 
 183
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 tache, and thought it wicked not to change for 
 dinner. In spite of this he had his limitations 
 but we all have them, even we sitting here. 
 This inn was a queer place at a crossing of 
 two roads in the midst of brown hills with 
 blistered eucalyptus trees throwing ragged 
 shadows on it, and two old boar-spears fas- 
 tened up over the door. We were the only peo- 
 ple there, and it was very hot. We used to 
 dine outside the entrance, in the shade of the 
 eucalyptus trees. There was a wonderful tap 
 of wine; and after toiling over ruins in the 
 sun all day, we used to punish it the Classi- 
 cist especially; it sharpened his wit and thick- 
 ened his tongue. He was a man of culture, 
 great believer in physical sports, and knew all 
 about everybody's ancestors was, himself, 
 fifteen degrees removed from a murderer of 
 Thomas A'Becket, and a friend of the cham- 
 pion tennis-player. We got on very well; 
 he was quite amusing and affable. 
 
 "It was about sunset on the fourth evening 
 
 when the other literary person turned up. He 
 
 came just as we were going to dinner a long, 
 
 weedy fellow, slouching in under a knapsack, 
 
 184
 
 A REVERSION TO TYPE 
 
 covered with dust, in a battered 'larrikin' hat, 
 unshaved, with eyes as keen as sword-points, 
 a lot of hair, and an emotional mouth, like a 
 girl's. He sprawled down on a bench close to 
 our table, unslung his pack, and appeared to 
 lose himself in the sunset. When our host 
 came out with the soup, he asked for wine and 
 
 a bed. B suggested that he should join 
 
 us; he accepted, and sat down forthwith. I 
 
 sat at one end, B opposite; this fellow 
 
 and the Classicist, who wore a smoking jacket, 
 and smelt tremendously of soap, faced each 
 other. From the first moment it was a case 
 of 'two of a trade.' The moment their eyes 
 met, ironical smiles began wandering about 
 their mouths. There was little enough talk 
 till we had broached our third bottle. The 
 Classicist was a noble drinker; this wild man 
 of the ways a nobler, or perhaps more thirsty. 
 I remember the first words they exchanged. 
 The Classicist, in his superior, thick, satirical 
 voice, was deploring 'the unmanly tricks' in- 
 troduced nowadays into swordsmanship, to 
 the detriment of its dignity and grace. 
 " 'It would be interesting to know, sir/ 
 185
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 said the other, 'when you're fighting for life, 
 what is the good of those "tickle points of 
 niceness"?' The Classicist looked at him: 
 " 'You would wish, I should imagine, to "play 
 the game," sir?' 
 
 " 'With my enemy's sword through the 
 middle of me?' 
 
 "The Classicist answered: 'I should have 
 thought it a matter of "good form"; how- 
 ever, if you don't feel that of course ' 
 
 " 'I have not the good fortune to be a 
 swordsman; but if I were, I should be con- 
 cerned to express my soul with the point of 
 my sword, not with attitudes.' 
 
 " 'Noble aspiration!' 
 
 " 'Just as I drink off at a draught this most 
 excellent wine.' 
 
 " 'Evidently you are not concerned with 
 flavour? ' 
 
 " 'Its flavour, sir, is the feeling it gives me 
 Burn Academy, and all its works!' 
 
 "The Classicist turned to me elaborately 
 and asked: 
 
 " 'Do you know young D , the author 
 
 of ? You ought to; there's no d d 
 
 186
 
 A REVERSION TO TYPE 
 
 nonsense about him. 1 The man on the other 
 side of the table laid his soiled hand on his 
 soiled chest. 'A hit. I feel honoured.' 
 
 "The Classicist continued his remarks. 'No 
 "expressions of soul" and that sort of thing 
 about D !' 
 
 " 'Oh! happy D !' murmured our vis- 
 itor. 'And is the happy D an artist in his 
 
 writings? ' 
 
 "The Classicist turned and rent him. 'He's 
 a public school man, sir, and a gentleman, 
 which, in my humble opinion, is much bet- 
 ter.' 
 
 "The newcomer drank. 'That is very in- 
 teresting. I must read D . Has he given 
 
 us any information about the inner meaning 
 of life in public schools?' 
 
 " 'No, sir, he is not a prig.' 
 
 " 'Indeed! He must have English blood 
 in him, this gentleman!' 
 
 " 'He knows the meaning of "good form" 
 anyway.' 
 
 "Our visitor clutched his glass and shook it 
 in the air. 'Sir,' he said, 'with all my heart, 
 with all my blood, I revolt against those words 
 187
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 "good form"; I revolt against the commercial 
 snobbery that underlies them; I revolt against 
 the meanness and the Pharisaism of them; I 
 
 revolt ' and still he went on shaking his 
 
 glass and saying 'I revolt.' 
 
 "The Classicist ironically murmured: 'Sparge 
 rosas! Inania verba!' 
 
 " 'No, sir; "winged words," that I will 
 drive home with my last breath/ 
 
 "The Classicist smiled: 'An Emotional/ he 
 began, 'an Emotional . . .' 
 
 "Gentlemen, it was time to interfere, so I 
 upset the bottle. The wine streamed across 
 the table. We ordered more. Darkness had 
 gathered; the moon was rising; over the door 
 the reflections of those old boar-spears branched 
 sharp and long on the pale wall; they had an 
 uncanny look, like cross-bones. How those 
 two fellows disliked each other! Whole cen- 
 turies of antagonism glared out of their eyes. 
 They seemed to sum up in some mysterious 
 way all that's significant and opposed in the 
 artist and the man of action. It was exceed- 
 ingly funny. They were both learned pigs. 
 But the ancestors of the one might from time 
 188
 
 A REVERSION TO TYPE 
 
 immemorable have been burning and stamping 
 on the other, and the ancestors of the other 
 stabbing desperately up at the one. One rep- 
 resented a decent well-fed spirit of satisfac- 
 tion with things as they are, and the other a 
 ravening shade, whom centuries of starvation 
 had engrained with strife. For all I know they 
 may both have been the sons of chemists. 
 But anyway, some instinct made each recog- 
 nise the other as typical of what he had most 
 cause to hate. Very obscure the reasons of 
 such things very obscure everything to do 
 with origins! 
 
 "We ordered another bottle. Any other 
 two men, having discovered such hostility, 
 would have held their tongues; these couldn't 
 I have noticed it with members of their pro- 
 fession. The Emotionalist proposed a toast: 
 'I give you/ he said, 'the country most im- 
 mersed in the slough of commercialism, the 
 country that suffocates truth in its cradle with 
 the smell of money, the country of snobs and 
 stockjobbers!' He drank his own toast with 
 enthusiasm; needless to say, nobody else did. 
 The Classicist showed the first signs of excite- 
 189
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 ment. 'I give you/ he responded, 'the whip- 
 ping of all high-falutin' upstarts!' 
 
 " 'Good!' replied the other; 'I drink that 
 too!' It again became necessary to upset 
 something a glass this time. Presently we 
 tumbled somehow on the subject of the Sagas. 
 Gentlemen, the Sagas were deep in the affec- 
 tions of both those fellows; and nothing could 
 have better roused their hostility to boiling- 
 point than this common affection. You could 
 see it by their faces. To the one a Saga was 
 the quintessence of sport, of manly valour, and 
 aristocratic tyranny; to the other something 
 lawless and beautiful, freedom in a mist of 
 primitive emotions, a will-o'-the-wisp hover- 
 ing over bogs, a draught of blood and wine. 
 
 "Have you ever noticed two men discussing 
 a picture, a book, a person, which one loves 
 and the other hates? What happens? In- 
 difference or mutual contempt nothing more. 
 But let them chance on that which each loves; 
 then you may cry 'havoc!* 
 
 "We left our chairs, and stood about, and 
 in the moonlight those creatures talked. First 
 one went to the table and drained his glass, 
 190
 
 A REVERSION TO TYPE 
 
 then the other. Their words were as bitter 
 as bitter, they kept closing and hastily recoil- 
 ing. They were like two men defending the 
 honour of some woman who belonged to both 
 of them a priceless possession, which neither 
 would abandon to the other. So, in the age of 
 Sagas, a forbear of the one, some wild heath- 
 man, may have hewn a lord in sunder; or, in 
 a foray, the other's ancestor trodden into the 
 earth a turbulent churl. It was being done 
 over again that evening with words by two 
 
 lights of our high civilisation. B went to 
 
 sleep. I woke him, and we left them disput- 
 ing in the moonlight. 
 
 "And now, gentlemen, I come to the divert- 
 ing part of my story. It may have been a 
 quarter, it may have been half an hour after 
 
 B and I had retired, when the landlord 
 
 came to call us. 
 
 "There, in a pool of moonlight, shadows, 
 blood, and wine, they lay they had carved 
 each other up with the boar-spears. 
 
 "The Classicist was quite dead, with a 
 sneer on his face; the Emotionalist still lived, 
 with a gash right through his chest. There 
 191
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 was nothing to be learnt from him, however; 
 before his death he fixed his eyes on me. I 
 bent, thinking to hear words of remorse or 
 terror. But all he said was: 
 
 " 'The snob!' and died. 
 
 "They took alarm at the inn and wanted to 
 smother it up. They called it fever. Well, 
 gentlemen, so it was: the ineradicable fever 
 of type. A good many years ago. You must 
 have seen it in the papers. . . ." 
 
 The sallow man was silent. 
 
 1901. 
 
 192
 
 A WOMAN 
 
 A TRAVELLER was writing to his friend: 
 2\. . . . "We were sitting on the stoep. 
 Above the pines the long line of Table Moun- 
 tain was like a violet shadow two shades deeper 
 than the sky. We had no light except the 
 'Cross,' and a swarm of other stars; it was a 
 rare night, dark crystal. 
 
 " There had been a dance, and the girls had 
 gone to bed; all the shutters were closed, the 
 old house against our backs looked very silent, 
 and flat, and long. Only the door was open, 
 and we sat round it. The sparks from our 
 pipes writhed about in the air, or, falling on to 
 the stoep expired like the words dropping from 
 our mouths. You know the kind of talk. In 
 the morning we had played cricket amongst 
 the trees a hit into the vineyards, 'five and 
 out' girls and all. In the afternoon we had 
 played tennis, on a half-made court the girls 
 too. In the evening we had danced. Some 
 193
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 had hitched up, and departed. Some had 
 gone to bed. We four were left, and old Juno, 
 the pointer, with her head on her paws, and 
 her nose wrinkling at the squeaking of some 
 tiny beast in the darkness. Little Byng, with 
 his waistcoat unbuttoned, was sitting quite 
 square above his parted legs; round-faced 
 little man, no neck to speak of, straw-coloured 
 hair, and eyes without lashes, just like a dis- 
 sipated egg. You know him, Billy Byng, 
 best-hearted little man, they say, in Cape 
 Colony. Young Sanley married to one of 
 the Detwell girls, sleeping a healthy sleep 
 already indoors such a neat, smooth chap; 
 great Scott! yes, and how commonplace! with 
 his pale moustache, and his high white fore- 
 head, and his slim nose, and his well-cut 
 clothes, and his tidy made-up tie. And our 
 host you know him; a little too alert, a little 
 too dark, a little too everything, but a right 
 good fellow; engaged to the other Detwell 
 girl, who was perhaps thinking of him, and 
 perhaps wasn't, in her bed just over our heads. 
 Well, we were talking; profaning things a bit; 
 not much, you know, couldn't lay claim to 
 194
 
 A WOMAN 
 
 original profanity; just tarbrushing the sur- 
 face. We were all a bit bored, rather sleepy, 
 and accordingly, just a little too jovial. Even 
 Juno, who's at least as wise as any human, 
 was pondering somewhat gloomily over her 
 master's intention of taking us to shoot pheas- 
 ants at daybreak 'before it was too hot.' 
 We had been there before; we knew it that 
 pheasant shooting, up stony slopes in a tangle 
 of cover, with the chance of a couple of shots, 
 at most, producing one disembowelled bird. 
 Every now and then one of us would get up, 
 walk to the edge of the stoep, stare into the 
 dark vineyard, stretch as if he were going to 
 make a move, and after all yield to our host's: 
 'Just one more, boys!' 
 
 "All of a sudden young Sanley murmured: 
 
 " 'I heard footsteps/ 
 
 " 'Some nigger,' said our host. 
 
 "And then at the far end of the stoep a 
 woman appeared, walked straight into our 
 midst, and sat down. It was pretty startling, 
 and absurd. Little Byng seemed absolutely 
 transfixed, he blinked his lashless eyes, and 
 seemed to twitch all over his face. San- 
 195
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 ley got very pale and nervously tapped the 
 table. Our host alone kept the use of his 
 tongue. 
 
 " 'Corrie!' he said. 
 
 " 'Why not? Give me a drink, Jack Allen.' 
 
 "Our host in a kind of surreptitious way/ 
 poured brandy into a glass and added seltzer. 
 
 "The woman held out her hand for it, and 
 as she tilted her chin to drink, the cloak fell 
 from her shoulders, and we could see her neck 
 and arms gleaming, out of her evening dress. 
 
 "'Thanks!' she said; 'I wanted that.' 
 Then she bent over the table and leaned her 
 face on her hand. Well, no one spoke, and we 
 all cast secret looks back at the house. Sanley 
 reached out his hand quietly and drew the 
 door to. 
 
 "The woman said: 
 
 " f l saw the bowls of your pipes, and heard 
 your voices. You're not too lively now.' 
 
 "Her voice wasn't loud; but it sounded 
 wilfully coarsened. Her lips were slightly 
 parted above her forefinger crooked across her 
 chin. Her nostrils seemed to broaden as she 
 looked at us, in a sort of distrustful way. She 
 196
 
 A WOMAN 
 
 wore no hat, and her hair was like a little black 
 patch of the night over her brow. Her eyes; 
 how can I describe them? They seemed to 
 see everything, and to see nothing. They were 
 BO intent, and mournful, and defiant; hard, if 
 you like, tragic, too. I remembered, now, where 
 I had met her though I hadn't been ten days 
 in the Colony at the supper party of a man 
 called Brown, after the theatre; very vulgar 
 and noisy. 
 
 "The most notorious woman in Cape Town! 
 Her house had been pointed out to me, too, 
 just at the corner of the Malay quarter; a 
 little house, painted mauve, with large, red 
 flowers starring its front. 
 
 "The most notorious woman in Cape Town! 
 I looked at our host. He was biting his fingers. 
 At Byng. His mouth was a little open, as if 
 he were about to make a very sage remark. 
 Sanley struck me as looking altogether too 
 pitiably decent. 
 
 "Our host broke the silence. 
 
 " 'How? Where? Eh! What?' 
 
 " 'Staying down there at Charlie Lennard's; 
 what a beast! Oh! what a beast!' 
 197
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 "Her eyes rested, wistfully it seemed to me, 
 on each of us in turn. 
 
 " 'It's a beautiful night, isn't it?' she said. 
 
 "Little Byng kicked out his foot, as if he 
 would have sent something sprawling, and 
 began stuttering out: 
 
 " 'I beg pardon I beg pardon/ I saw 
 the old pointer thrust her nose against the 
 woman's knees. Something moved, back in 
 the house; we all looked round with a start. 
 Then the woman began to laugh, almost 
 noiselessly, as though she had an unholy 
 understanding of our minds, as if she would 
 never leave off. I saw Sanley tear at his hair, 
 and stealthily smooth it down again. Our 
 host frowned horribly, and thrust his hands 
 so deep into his pockets, that it seemed to me 
 they must go through the linings. Little Byng 
 almost bounded up and down in his chair. 
 Then just as suddenly, the woman stopped 
 laughing; there was dead silence. You could 
 only hear the squeaking of the tiny beast. 
 At last the woman said: 
 
 " 'Doesn't it smell good to-night; it's quiet, 
 too. . . . Here! let me have another drink!' 
 198
 
 A WOMAN 
 
 She took the glass our host held out: 'Your 
 very good health/ she said, 'my respectable 
 friends!' 
 
 "Our host suddenly resumed his seat, crossed 
 his arms and sighed. A pitiful little noise he 
 made of it. 
 
 " 'I'm not going to hurt you,' she said, 'I 
 wouldn't hurt a fly to-night It smells like 
 home. Look!' She held out the edge of her 
 skirts to us. 'Dew! I'm dripping; isn't it 
 sweet?' 
 
 "Her voice had lost all coarseness it might 
 have been your mother or sister speaking; 
 it was ever so queer, and little Byng sputtered 
 out: 'Too bad! too bad!' but whether to 
 her, or of her, or to us no one knew. 
 
 " 'I've walked miles to-night,' she said. 
 'Haven't had such a walk since I was a girl.' 
 There was a kind of tone in her voice that hurt 
 me horribly; and suddenly young Sanley rose. 
 
 " 'Excuse me, Allen!' he stammered: 'it's 
 very late. Going to turn in?' I caught the 
 gleam of his eyes on the woman. 
 
 " 'Oh! are you going?' she said. There 
 was a sort of regret, a sort of something inno- 
 199
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 cent and unconscious in her voice, that seemed 
 regularly to pierce a bag of venom in that 
 smooth young man. 
 
 " 'Madam, I am. May I ask why you came 
 
 here? My wife ' He stopped, groped for 
 
 the door, pulled it open, smiled his mean tidy 
 smile and vanished. 
 
 "The woman had risen, and she gave a sort 
 of laugh. 
 
 " 'His wife! Oh! Well, I wish her happi- 
 ness. Ah! my God! I do wish her happiness 
 I do; and yours, Jack Allen; and yours, if 
 you have one. Billy Byng, you remember me 
 you remember when I first to-night, I 
 
 thought I thought ' She hid her face. 
 
 One by one we slunk off the stoep, and left her, 
 sobbing her heart out before the house. 
 
 "God knows what she was thinking of! 
 God knows what sort of things lurk round us, 
 and leap out thank Heaven! not often 
 from the darkness, as that did! 
 
 "I crept back later to the edge of the vine- 
 yard. 
 
 "There she was still, and, beside her, little 
 Byng, with his toes turned out, bending over 
 200
 
 A WOMAN 
 
 her fingers. Then I saw him draw them under 
 his arm; pat them with his other hand and 
 gazing up at the sky, lead her gently out into 
 the darkness." . . 
 
 1900. 
 
 201
 
 THE "CODGER" 
 
 IF ever there were a personality in petti- 
 coats, this was he. His petticoats were 
 nine inches long, but what he lacked in petti- 
 coats he made up in personality. On board 
 the ship he was known by the name of the 
 "Codger." Why? Man does not know un- 
 less that he walked very wide behind, had a 
 bunchy appearance, and an air of pugnac- 
 ity. His name was Ferdinand, but his par- 
 ents called him "baby"; and we called him 
 the "Codger." 
 
 We sailed westwards two months to the 
 Cape; for the most part we made fair weather, 
 and in fair weather he was let loose upon the 
 deck, to stagger by, or stand between one's 
 legs. You looked him over, he looked you 
 over in return, and it was certain that his 
 estimate was no more flattering than your 
 own; you could not get the better of the 
 "Codger." 
 
 203
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Instead of gambling on the ship's run, it 
 was the daily custom to gamble on how many 
 times he would cry in the course of the day. 
 The lowest ticket was numbered ten, and the 
 highest forty. One hot, calm day, when there 
 was nothing else for him to do, the number 
 thirty-seven won; in rough weather, low 
 numbers took the prize he liked watching 
 the big waves, and lived contentedly in the 
 scuppers, into which he continually rolled. 
 He refused to weep when he was hurt; he 
 wept from temper, or a sense of his own im- 
 portance. He was a "fine" boy, and cele- 
 brated his third birthday during the voyage. 
 Old "Andy," the sailmaker, was prepared to 
 wager that he would "whip" his brother 
 Freddie, who was rising five. 
 
 He did not talk much, the "Codger," he 
 kept his lungs for other things; nor was he, 
 as far as we could see, "a beggar to think"; 
 but we were proud of him, hungering to match 
 him against any child of his age and weight, 
 if such an one could be found. 
 
 If a person looked at him, to take stock, at 
 the top he discovered a stiff mop of golden- 
 204
 
 THE "CODGER" 
 
 brown curls like a number of small, fat cork- 
 screws, a broad forehead ornamented with 
 tumblebumps, a pair of defiant grey eyes, 
 stout, rosy cheeks, a snub nose, a genially 
 thick, red mouth wide open, some teeth, a 
 double chin, plenty of freckles, and an expres- 
 sion of devil-may-care resentment; below, he 
 found a bundle, blue or holland-coloured, and 
 a pair of fat and well-scarred legs. I never saw 
 him afraid of anything; I never saw him do- 
 cile; his mother doted on him, while he led his 
 father, a small man, the life of a dog; he was 
 frequently chastised, with as much effect as 
 if one had chastised a leg of mutton. On 
 occasions that surpassed he was handed over to 
 the grey-whiskered, thick-lipped Captain, and 
 smacked in solemn conclave, from which or- 
 deal he would emerge rather sore, but a greater 
 personality than ever. He rarely kept his 
 feet for more than two minutes at a time, and 
 he would bang with his fists the deck or any- 
 thing that tripped him up. Indeed, when he 
 was not pleased, he was a terror. In common 
 with the other children he took his meals with 
 us at the long dining-table that stretched down 
 205
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 the centre of the saloon like a multiplied iron- 
 ing board. And a fine, free feeder he was! 
 What did not go into his mouth went over his 
 shoulder or into his neighbour's lap. He sat 
 between his nurse, an acidulated, red-haired 
 person, and the second mate, the only being 
 he respected. It was indeed quite remarkable 
 to see the influence that fellow had over the 
 "Codger"; there was nothing he could not do 
 with him. The "Codger" knew that he too 
 had been a "Codger" in his time, they were 
 doubtless hall-marked to each other like free- 
 masons. Yes, the second mate was Emperor 
 of the "Codger"; he could even induce him to 
 eat sago pudding, beyond which man's power 
 cannot go. This second mate was bluff and 
 young, with a ruddy face, and a fair moustache; 
 and he would sit silent, next to the "Codger," 
 grave as a judge, and, when the latter went 
 astray, tap him on the head with a dessert 
 spoon. It was, then, instructive to watch the 
 "Codger," brought up all standing, gaze with 
 an expression of resigned astonishment at the 
 third brass button on the mate's coat. There 
 was much quiet fun at that end of the table. 
 ' 206
 
 THE "CODGER" 
 
 But we never considered that the "Codger" 
 truckled to the second mate; if he crawled 
 about after him on his hands and knees, it was 
 merely felt that it gave tone to the second mate, 
 making him one man in a ship's company; 
 so that we became proud of him. 
 
 One day, coming on deck, I saw the bare- 
 legged "Codger," a stout wisp of holland 
 clothes, swimming, as it seemed, up the mizen- 
 rigging. Below him the second mate, with his 
 hand twisted securely in the middle of the wisp, 
 mounted, slowly, steadily. The "Codger" was 
 crowing, the second mate smiling, and down 
 below stood the acidulated nurse. 
 
 We owed many things to the "Codger"; 
 he was a medium for speculation, a thing to 
 argue about, the whetstone of our tongues, 
 the source of groans, a cause for laughter; in 
 calm or in storm, running free, or while sails 
 flapped, his personality was immovable, a 
 thing of specific gravity, a little bit of ballast. 
 To this day I remember how, in the tail of 
 a cyclone round the "Leeuwin," when the ship 
 was groaning, one's cabin chaos, one's heart in 
 one's boots, the sound, surmounting the gale, 
 207
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 of the "Codger" being smacked in the next 
 cabin came and soothed one with a sense of 
 home and the eternal fitness of things . . . 
 
 He must be grown up now, pursuing some 
 path of life open to "codgers" in commerce, 
 Church or State, and radiating that atmosphere 
 of calm insuperable "tuskiness" peculiar to 
 his breed. 
 
 In any walk abroad he may be seen, on any 
 journey, in almost every office, on some Benches, 
 in many pulpits, drays, and ships with his 
 teeth bared as it were for the seizing of the 
 next matter in hand; very stolid, cheerful, 
 ready to bite, and seldom biting; with his 
 hair a little rumpled, a slight roll in his gait, 
 and his full grey eye staring you out of coun- 
 tenance. Jolly companion, hearty friend, good 
 slow enemy and fighter, quite incapable of 
 seeing the thumbs of the spectators turned 
 down on him; or of understanding how he 
 can possibly be subject-matter for a smile. 
 
 One of the old breed, almost Dutch; find- 
 ing his facts as large as life, and hating an 
 idea like poison. 
 
 Long may he roll with us in the old barque 
 208
 
 THE "CODGER" 
 
 on the great voyage over the green seas of 
 history. For while we have him, Fate will 
 never enter us at Lloyd's: "Lost," for fear 
 that he should rise from the waves, and star- 
 ing at Her fixedly with his blue eye, call Her 
 liar; being damp and angry, and having re- 
 fused to see that he was drowned. 
 
 1900.
 
 FOR EVER 
 
 THERE came the sound of singing from 
 the forepart of the emigrant train, of 
 patriotic songs in half-drunken voices. The 
 guards consulted their watches; the great Pad- 
 dington clock recorded fourteen minutes of a 
 new day. 
 
 The carpenter looked at me. 
 
 "It'sh too bad of them/' he said. 
 
 The hand of the clock crept towards the 
 quarter, the guards began closing the doors, 
 the carpenter climbed back into his carriage; 
 his pale, round face wore a very blank and 
 dismal look. 
 
 "I'll 'ave to go alone, it seems," he said. 
 
 Suddenly, at the end of the long platform, 
 a little crowd of men and women appeared, 
 running. The soldier first, then Henry Augus- 
 tus, very white and out of breath; they scram- 
 bled in as the train began to move. 
 
 "All along," said Henry Augustus, "o* 
 what we calls a glass n' trouble, sir." 
 211
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 The train gathered speed; the waving caps 
 of the soldiers' pals, the face of Henry Augus- 
 tus's wife, the red hat of her woman friend, 
 faded from our gaze. The carpenter did not 
 look back he had no one to look back for. 
 
 When, after that night in the train, I went 
 to look at the three "out o' works" at Chester 
 Station, they were already sitting up; the 
 soldier and the carpenter back to the engine, 
 Henry Augustus opposite, perfuming the air 
 with his clay pipe. The soldier pointed to 
 the carpenter, and said with a cheerful smile: 
 "All right, sir, our friend's been lookin' after 
 us." 
 
 The carpenter smiled weakly; an odour of 
 whisky was wafted from him. 
 
 "I been bio win' the fog-horn of the steamer 
 all night," said Henry Augustus; his eyes, 
 with the little red rings round the edges of the 
 iris, looked quite dead in the early light; his 
 fish-white face was contorted in a grin; he 
 pointed his pipe at the carriage window: 
 "Wot price Canada, now?" 
 
 It had been bitterly cold that night; the 
 snow was drifted thick and soft into the hollows 
 212
 
 FOR EVER 
 
 along the line; on the roofs of the houses at 
 Port Sunlight it was like white thatching with 
 blunted ends; there was the hush, too, in the 
 air that comes only with heavy snow; and 
 above it all a wonderful, thick, soft, icy sky, 
 torn into opal shreds by the sun. 
 
 Half an hour later we had run into Birken- 
 head, and were filing down to the ferry amongst 
 the crowd of quiet emigrants. The carpenter 
 in his long coat, carrying a brown rug and his 
 straw tool-bag, sewn up with string, walked 
 in front with a solemn air, as though his legs 
 had been tied on to his somewhat protruding 
 stomach, and he knew that he must move 
 them carefully. He stared ahead with round, 
 blue eyes, above his flabby cheeks, exhaling at 
 every step the perfume of his night's debauch. 
 By my side came the soldier, thrusting his face 
 a little forward, prematurely grizzled, high- 
 coloured, high-cheekboned, with eyes that 
 from staring at great spaces and at death had 
 acquired a peculiar glittering light. Behind, 
 his lips raised jeeringly above his blackened 
 teeth, with his coat unbuttoned and his tie 
 screwed round under the flap collar of his 
 213
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 flannel shirt, lurched Henry Augustus, at his 
 care-for-nobody gait. 
 
 A quarter of a mile away, on the grey, 
 gleaming water, was the bulky one-funnelled 
 steamer, with shreds of the night's snow-wrap 
 still clinging to her. 
 
 Articulating his words with difficulty, the 
 carpenter spoke: 
 
 "Well, she'll 'ave us in an hour or two." 
 
 We turned to look at the inanimate monster 
 so soon to swallow up those hundreds on hun- 
 dreds of men; and, from behind, the voice of 
 Henry Augustus added: 
 
 "It's to be 'oped we'll never 'ave to be 
 brought 'ome again." 
 
 We crossed the river and set off into the 
 town for breakfast, the carpenter and I in front. 
 
 "It all seems like a dream to me," he said; 
 and the odour of his whisky enveloped me like 
 a blessing. The door, the passage, the stair- 
 case, the one small dining-room of the little 
 hotel were all crowded with emigrants; bearded 
 men, boys, women, babies, sitting round the 
 one long table, or leaning against the walls, 
 waiting for their turns. 
 214
 
 FOR EVER 
 
 A spectacled woman of middle age, with an 
 absent expression and infrequent smiles, was 
 pouring tea out of a huge tin can into coarse, 
 round cups; she gave orders in a sour voice 
 to two small, red-cheeked slaveys, who bore up 
 and down plates of eggs and bacon. Neither 
 round the long table nor in the passage nor 
 on the stairs was there any sound of talking. 
 An uncanny patience, a long strange silence 
 brooded over all; the loud crying of a baby, 
 the continual rattle of the plates alone broke 
 that silence. There was no room for us all to 
 sit together, but Henry Augustus and I found 
 places side by side. We were served with 
 plates of eggs and bacon, slices of stale bread, 
 cuts of pallid butter, cups of washy tea. Henry 
 Augustus took knife and fork, set them akim- 
 bo to his plate, poured half the contents of a 
 vinegar bottle over his eggs, for a long time 
 neither ate nor spake, then suddenly began: 
 
 "I'm a-going to do what I can out there; 
 and if I get on I'm goin' to send you such a 
 letter as'll open your eyes a bit. You don't 
 know my character I've got a bad name, but 
 a lot o' the black that's on me's a-comin' off." 
 215
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 He breathed hard; and his breath, that smelt 
 like the breath of a furnace, smoked in little 
 puffs from his mouth, as though in truth there 
 were a fire alight within him; then slowly he 
 began to eat. 
 
 "No, sir/' he repeated in a surlier voice, 
 "you don't know me. I never turned my 
 back on a chance yet. I'm a-goin' for ever," 
 he gave me a strange, slow look out of his 
 dead eyes. 
 
 The carpenter came up. "We can't get a 
 smell of anything over there," he said queru- 
 lously. The spectacled woman turned on him 
 at once: "Your turn'll come in a minute." 
 The carpenter went meekly back to his seat, 
 fixing his eyes before him and manoeuvring his 
 legs with care. The baby that had been shaken 
 into silence again began to cry. A boy in a 
 half-bred livery, with a Pompeian face, came 
 in suddenly and announced that the "break" 
 for the landing-stage was at the door. 
 
 Some of the emigrants got up; their places 
 were at once taken by others. 
 
 "I'm a man that mixes with men," began 
 Henry Augustus again, slowly masticating ba- 
 216
 
 FOR EVER 
 
 con, with his eyes fixed on his plate; "but I've 
 brought up my children to answer to that/' 
 he held up his black-nailed finger. "I'm re- 
 spected as a father all through Netting Dale, 
 I am. An' all what my wife'll tell you about 
 black eyes and cut throats, well my letter'll 
 throw another light on that." He made a 
 movement of the fork in his hand, and looked 
 at me, as though with those words he had re- 
 lieved his soul. "They'll 'ave to bring me back 
 dead if they wants to; I'm a-goin' for ever, and 
 I 'ope where I'm goin' I'll get more to eat than 
 wot I've been gettin' 'ere." He grinned, and 
 in a lighter vein began to tell me of occasions 
 on which he had been bolder than other men. 
 On the far side of the room the carpenter and 
 soldier were devouring their breakfast at a 
 tremendous rate. 
 
 The Pompeian boy returned. "Any more 
 for the 'break'?" he said in his squeaky voice. 
 We four went out and took the last three 
 places. The carpenter was obliged to stand, 
 holding to the roof. A little town urchin ran 
 along behind, bare-footed, through the snow. 
 Henry Augustus jerked his thumb: "A pair o' 
 217
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 boots wouldn't come amiss to 'im," he said; 
 and all the drive he went on cracking jokes in a 
 thick voice, but no one else joined in. 
 
 The tender put off just as we arrived, and, 
 standing in the slush at the edge of the shelter- 
 shed, we waited a long time for her return. 
 The sun was shining; along the riverside small 
 boats were outlined white in thick bright snow, 
 and every now and then a gull swooped out of 
 the icy sky and swept alone above the wide 
 grey river. 
 
 The knots of emigrants kept multiplying 
 round us. There was no animation, no hurry, 
 no eagerness, no grief. A strange long patience 
 was on them all. One man alone, a bearded 
 Irishman, seemed to have a grievance, which 
 he vented from time to time in a hard, creaking 
 voice. Close to us a grey-haired father stood 
 quite silent beside his stolid, insensible, red- 
 cheeked boy. Behind them a family were 
 gathered in a little circle round a young woman 
 with a baby; and seated under the shed two 
 comely, black-eyed girls, in patched black 
 skirts, with their mittened hands in their laps, 
 were staring sulkily before them. 
 218
 
 FOR EVER 
 
 The carpenter began asking us conundrums. 
 The soldier said with a laugh, "You don't seem 
 very low!" The carpenter answered, "Must 
 'ave something to keep our spirits up." Henry 
 Augustus joined in; he knew as many conun- 
 drums as the carpenter, but the carpenter's 
 were of better quality. The soldier remained 
 silent, turning his eyes from side to side; the 
 expression on his face was that of a man whose 
 thoughts are far away; he stood a little apart, 
 only now and then joining in our laughter. 
 
 "And what's mortar do between bricks?" 
 asked the carpenter. 
 
 "Sticks 'em together," replied Henry Au- 
 gustus. 
 
 "Wrong," said the carpenter; "keeps 'em 
 apart!" 
 
 Out on the water puffs of steam wreathed 
 out along the ship's side; the tender was start- 
 ing back towards us. The crowd of emigrants 
 thickened, but still there was neither hurry, 
 eagerness, nor grief; only two youths, close to us 
 on the right, began to chaff each other coarsely. 
 
 The grey-haired father said to his boy: 
 "Take your place, Jo." 
 219
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Faster came the carpenter's conundrums, 
 as though he were^ pouring forth his swan 
 song before for ever being dumb. Faster came 
 Henry Augustus's thick retorts. The soldier's 
 eyes turned faster from side to side, but still 
 they seemed to look at nothing. They saw, 
 perhaps, four small children in Industrial 
 Schools, and a wife who was "on the streets." 
 They saw that London which he had scoured 
 for work, its lights flaring on the open stalls, 
 its long close rows of houses shut against him, 
 its parks where he had flung him down to rest. 
 And yet from side to side the eyes turned as 
 though greedy of this last look before for ever 
 they lost sight. A fine sleet had begun to fall. 
 
 Suddenly Henry Augustus said in his jeering 
 voice: " 'Ere she comes." 
 
 The carpenter gazed at me and smiled; 
 there was moisture in his eyes, and behind 
 that moisture the very soul of him seemed to 
 be looking forth. The soldier caught my hand 
 in a feverish grip. Henry Augustus glanced 
 slowly round with his dead-fish eyes. "Leavin' 
 old England, for ever," he said. 
 
 There was a minute for hurried handshakes, 
 220
 
 FOR EVER 
 
 then one behind the other they took their 
 places. So closely packed, so many hundreds, 
 so silent long were they passing the ticket 
 inspector on the plank. No hurry, no eager- 
 ness, no animation, no grief; the long strange 
 patience on them all. 
 
 The tender whistled, and, one by one, those 
 hundreds of faces turned in the sunlight and 
 the sleet towards the shore. No joy, no grief, 
 no cry, no cheer; in that weird silence they 
 slipped away. 
 
 1906. 
 
 221
 
 THE CONSUMMATION 
 
 ABOUT 1889 there lived in London a man 
 named Harrison, of an amiable and per- 
 verse disposition. One morning, at Charing 
 Cross Station, a lady in whom he was inter- 
 ested said to him: 
 
 "But Mr. Harrison, why don't you write? 
 You are just the person!" 
 
 Harrison saw that he was, and at the end of 
 two years had produced eleven short stories, 
 with two of which he was not particularly 
 pleased, but as he naturally did not like to 
 waste them, he put them with the others and 
 sent them all to a publisher. In the course of 
 time he received from the publisher a letter 
 saying that for a certain consideration or com- 
 mission he would be prepared to undertake 
 the risk of publishing these stories upon Har- 
 rison's incurring all the expenses. This pleased 
 Harrison who, feeling that no time should be 
 wasted in making his "work" public, wrote 
 223
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 desiring the publisher to put the matter in 
 hand. The publisher replied to this with an 
 estimate and an agreement, to which Harrison 
 responded with a cheque. The publisher an- 
 swered at once with a polite letter, suggesting 
 that for Harrison's advantage a certain addi- 
 tional sum should be spent on advertisements. 
 Harrison saw the point of this directly, and 
 replied with another cheque knowing that 
 between gentlemen there could be no question 
 of money. 
 
 In due time the book appeared. It was 
 called "In the Track of the Stars," by Cuth- 
 bert Harrison; and within a fortnight Harrison 
 began to receive reviews. He read them with 
 an extraordinary pleasure, for they were full 
 of discriminating flattery. One asked if he 
 were a " Lancelot in disguise." Two Liberal 
 papers described the stories as masterpieces; 
 one compared them to the best things in Poe 
 and de Maupassant; and another called him 
 a second Rudyard Kipling. He was greatly 
 encouraged, but, being by nature modest, he 
 merely wrote to the publisher inquiring what 
 he thought of a second edition. His publisher 
 224
 
 THE CONSUMMATION 
 
 replied with an estimate, mentioning casually 
 that he had already sold about four hundred 
 copies. Harrison referred to his cheque book 
 and saw that the first edition had been a 
 thousand copies. He replied, therefore, that 
 he would wait. He waited, and at the end of 
 six months wrote again. The publisher re- 
 plied that he had now sold four hundred and 
 three copies, but that, as Mr. Harrison had at 
 present an unknown name, he did not advise a 
 second edition: there was no market for short 
 stories. These had, however, been so well re- 
 ceived that he recommended Mr. Harrison to 
 write a long story. The book was without 
 doubt a success, so far as a book of short stories 
 could ever be a success. ... He sent Harri- 
 son a small cheque, and a large number of re- 
 views which Harrison had already received. 
 
 Harrison decided not to have a second edi- 
 tion, but to rest upon his succes d'estime. All 
 his relations were extremely pleased, and almost 
 immediately he started writing his long story. 
 Now it happened that among Harrison's friends 
 was a man of genius, who sent Harrison a letter. 
 
 "I had no idea," he said, "that you could 
 225
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 write like this; of course, my dear fellow, the 
 stories are not 'done'; there is no doubt 
 about it, they are not 'done.' But you have 
 plenty of time; you are young, and I see that 
 you can do things. Come down here and 
 let us have a talk about what you are at now." 
 
 On receiving this Harrison wasted no time, 
 but went down. The man of genius, over a 
 jug of claret-cup, on a summer's afternoon, 
 pointed out how the stories were not "done." 
 
 "They show a feeling for outside drama," 
 said he, "but there is none of the real drama 
 of psychology." 
 
 Harrison showed him his reviews. He left 
 the man of genius on the following day with a 
 certain sensation of soreness. In the course 
 of a few weeks, however, the soreness wore off, 
 and the words of the man of genius began to 
 bear fruit, and at the end of two months 
 Harrison wrote: 
 
 "You are quite right the stories were not 
 'done/ I think, however, that I am now on 
 the right path." 
 
 At the end of another year, after submitting 
 it once or twice to the man of genius, he fin- 
 226
 
 THE CONSUMMATION 
 
 ished his second book, and called it "John 
 Endacott." About this time he left off allud- 
 ing to his "work" and began to call his writ- 
 ings "stuff." 
 
 He sent it to the publisher with the request 
 that he would consider its publication on a 
 royalty. In rather more than the ordinary 
 course of time the publisher replied, that in 
 his opinion (a lay one) "John Endacott" 
 didn't quite fulfil the remarkable promise of 
 Mr. Harrison's first book; and, to show Har- 
 rison his perfect honesty, he enclosed an ex- 
 tract from the "reader's" opinion, which 
 stated that Mr. Harrison had "fallen between 
 the stools of art and the British public." 
 Much against the publisher's personal feelings, 
 therefore, the publisher considered that he 
 could only undertake the risk in the then bad 
 condition of trade if Mr. Harrison would 
 guarantee the expenses. 
 
 Harrison hardened his heart, and replied 
 that he was not prepared to guarantee the 
 expenses. Upon which the publisher returned 
 his manuscript, saying that in his opinion (a 
 lay one) Mr. Harrison was taking the wrong 
 227
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 turning, which he (the publisher) greatly re- 
 gretted, for he had much appreciated the 
 pleasant relations which had always existed 
 between them. 
 
 Harrison sent the book to a younger pub- 
 lisher who accepted it on a postponed royalty. 
 It appeared. 
 
 At the end of three weeks Harrison began 
 to receive reviews. They were mixed. One 
 complained that there was not enough plot; 
 another, fortunately by the same post, that 
 there was too much plot. The general ten- 
 dency was to regret that the author of "In 
 the Track of the Stars" had not fulfilled the 
 hopes raised by his first book, in which he had 
 shown such promise of completely hitting the 
 public taste. This might have depressed Har- 
 rison had he not received a letter from the 
 man of genius couched in these terms: 
 
 "My dear fellow, I am more pleased than I 
 can say. I am now more than ever convinced 
 that you can do things." 
 
 Harrison at once began a third book. 
 
 Owing to the unfortunate postponement of 
 his royalty he did not receive anything from 
 228
 
 THE CONSUMMATION 
 
 his second book. The publisher sold three 
 hundred copies. During the period (eighteen 
 months) that he was writing his third book 
 the man of genius introduced Harrison to a 
 critic, with the words: "You may rely on 
 his judgment; the beggar is infallible." 
 
 While to the critic he said: "I tell you, this 
 fellow can do things." 
 
 The critic was good to Harrison, who, as 
 before said, was of an amiable disposition. 
 
 When he had finished his third book he dedi- 
 cated it to the man of genius and called it 
 "Summer." 
 
 "My dear fellow," wrote the man of genius, 
 when he received his copy, "it is good! There 
 is no more to be said about it; it is good! 
 I read it with indescribable pleasure." 
 
 On the same day Harrison received a letter 
 from the critic which contained the following: 
 "Yes, it's undoubtedly an advance. It's not 
 quite Art, but it's a great advance!" 
 
 Harrison was considerably encouraged. The 
 
 same publisher brought out the book, and 
 
 sold quite two hundred copies; but he wrote 
 
 rather dolefully to Harrison, saying that the 
 
 229
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 public demand seemed "almost exhausted." 
 Recognising the fact that comparisons are odi- 
 ous, Harrison refrained from comparing the 
 sale of the book with that of "In the Track 
 of the Stars," in which he had shown such 
 promise of "completely hitting the public 
 taste." Indeed, about this time he began to 
 have dreams of abandoning the sources of his 
 private income and living the true literary life. 
 He had not many reviews, and began his fourth 
 book. 
 
 He was two years writing this "work," 
 which he called "A Lost Man" and dedicated 
 to the critic. He sent a presentation copy to 
 the man of genius, from whom he received an 
 almost immediate reply: 
 
 "My dear fellow, it is amazing, really amaz- 
 ing how you progress! Who would ever im- 
 agine you were the same man that wrote 'In 
 the Track of the Stars'? yet I pique my- 
 self on the fact that even in your first book 
 I spotted that you could do things. Ah! 
 I wish I could write like you! 'A Lost Man' 
 is wonderfully good." 
 
 The man of genius was quite sincere in these 
 230
 
 THE CONSUMMATION 
 
 remarks, which he wrote after perusing the 
 first six chapters. He never, indeed, actually 
 finished reading the book he felt so tired, 
 as if Harrison had exhausted him but he 
 always alluded to it as "wonderfully good," 
 just as if he really had finished it. 
 
 Harrison sent another copy to the critic, 
 who wrote a genuinely warm letter, saying 
 that he, Harrison, had "achieved" it at last. 
 "This," he said, "is art. I doubt if you will 
 ever do anything better than this. ... I 
 crown you." 
 
 Harrison at once commenced his fifth book. 
 
 He was more than three years upon this new 
 "work," and called it "A Pilgrimage." There 
 was a good deal of difficulty in getting it pub- 
 lished. Two days after it appeared, however, 
 the critic wrote to Harrison: "I cannot tell 
 you," he said, "how very good I think your 
 new book. It is perhaps stronger than 'A 
 Lost Man/ perhaps more original. If any- 
 thing it is too I have not finished it yet, but 
 I've written off at once to let you know." 
 
 As a matter of fact, he never finished the 
 
 book. He could not it was too ! "It's 
 
 231
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 wonderfully good," he said, however, to his 
 wife, and he made her read it. 
 
 Meanwhile, the man of genius wired saying: 
 "Am going to write to you about your book. 
 Positively am, but have lumbago and cannot 
 hold pen." 
 
 Harrison never received any letter, but the 
 critic received one saying: "Can you read it? 
 7 can't. Altogether over 'done.' ' 
 
 Harrison was elated. His new publisher 
 was not. He wrote in a peevish strain, saying 
 there was absolutely no sale. Mr. Harrison 
 must take care what he was doing or he would 
 exhaust his public, and enclosing a solitary 
 review, which said amongst other things: 
 "This book may be very fine art, too fine 
 altogether. We found it dull." 
 
 Harrison went abroad, and began his sixth 
 book. He named it "The Consummation," 
 and worked at it in hermit-like solitude; in it, 
 for the first time, he satisfied himself. He 
 wrote it, as it were, with his heart's blood, 
 with an almost bitter delight. And he often 
 smiled to himself as he thought how with his 
 first book he had so nearly hit the public taste; 
 232
 
 THE CONSUMMATION 
 
 and how of his fourth the critic had said: 
 "This is art. I doubt if you will ever do any- 
 thing better than this." How far away they 
 seemed! Ah! this book was indeed the " con- 
 summation" devoutly to be wished. 
 
 In the course of time he returned to Eng- 
 land and took a cottage at Hampstead, and 
 there he finished the book. The day after it 
 was finished he took the manuscript and, going 
 to a secluded spot on the top of the Heath, lay 
 down on the grass to read it quietly through. 
 He read three chapters, and, putting the 
 remainder down, sat with his head buried in 
 his hands. 
 
 "Yes," he thought, "I have done it at last. 
 It is good, wonderfully good!" and for two 
 hours he sat like that, with his head in his 
 hands. He had indeed exhausted his public. 
 It was too good he could not read it himself! 
 
 Returning to his cottage, he placed the man- 
 uscript in a drawer. He never wrote another 
 word. 
 
 1904. 
 
 233
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 SOME years ago in Chelsea there used to 
 stand at the crossing of a street leading 
 to the Embankment an old man whose living 
 was derived from the cleanliness of boots. In 
 the intervals of plying his broom he could 
 generally be seen seated on an upturned 
 wooden box, talking to an Irish terrier, who 
 belonged to a house near by, and had taken 
 a fancy to him. He was a Cornishman by 
 birth, had been a plumber by trade, and was a 
 cheerful, independent old fellow with ruddy 
 cheeks, grey hair and beard, and little, bright, 
 rather watery, grey eyes. But he was a great 
 sufferer from a variety of ailments. He had 
 gout, and some trouble in his side, and feet 
 that were like barometers in their suscep- 
 tibility to weather. Of all these matters he 
 would speak to us in a very impersonal and 
 uncomplaining way, diagnosing himself, as it 
 were, for the benefit of his listeners. He was, 
 235
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 it seems, alone in the world, not having of course 
 at that time anything to look forward to in 
 the way of a pension, nor, one fancies, very 
 much to look back on except the death of his 
 near relatives and the decline of the plumbing 
 trade. It had declined him for years, but, 
 even before a long illness ousted him in favour 
 of younger men, he had felt very severely the 
 palpable difference in things. In old days 
 plumbing had been a quiet, steady business, 
 in which you were apparently "on your own, 
 and knew where you were"; but latterly "you 
 had just had to do what the builders told you, 
 and of course they weren't going to make al- 
 lowances; if you couldn't do the job as fast as 
 a young man out you went, and there you 
 were." This long illness and the death of his 
 wife coming close together (and sweeping away 
 the last of his savings), had determined him 
 therefore to buy a broom and seek for other 
 occupation. To sweep a crossing was not a 
 profession that he himself would have chosen 
 before all others, still it was "better than the 
 'house and you were your own master." The 
 climate in those days not being the most suit- 
 236
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 able for a business which necessitated constant 
 exposure to all elements but that of fire, his 
 ailments were proportionally active; but the 
 one remarkable feature of his perpetual illness 
 was that he was always "better" than he had 
 been. We could not at times help thinking that 
 this continual crescendo of good health should 
 have gradually raised him to a pinnacle of 
 paramount robustness; and it was with a 
 certain disappointment, in the face of his as- 
 surances, that we watched him getting, on the 
 contrary, slowly stiffer and feebler, and noted 
 the sure increase of the egg-like deposits, which 
 he would proudly have us remark, about his 
 wrists and fingers. 
 
 He was so entirely fixed and certain that he 
 was " going in the river" before he went "in 
 the 'house," that one hesitated to suggest that 
 the time was at hand when he should cease to 
 expose himself all day and every day. He 
 had evidently pondered long and with a cer- 
 tain deep philosophy on this particular subject, 
 and fortified himself by hearsay. 
 
 "The 'house ain't for a man that respects 
 himself," he would remark. And, since that 
 237
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 was his conviction, such as respected them- 
 selves could not very well beg him to act 
 against it. At the same time, it became in- 
 creasingly difficult to pass him without won- 
 dering how much longer it would be before 
 he finally sought shelter in the element of 
 water, which was so apt to pour down on him 
 day by day. 
 
 It is uncertain whether he discussed this 
 matter of the river versus the 'house with the 
 dog, to whom he was always talking; but that 
 they shared a certain fellow feeling on the 
 subject of exposure and advancing age is more 
 than probable; for as he would point out: 
 The poor old feller's teeth were going; and 
 the stiffness across his loins was always worse 
 when it was wet. In fact, he was afraid that 
 the old dog was gettin' old! And the dog 
 would sit patiently for an hour at a time looking 
 up at him, trying to find out, perhaps, from his 
 friend's face what a dog should do, when the 
 enemy weighed on him till he could no longer 
 tolerate himself, not knowing, of course, that 
 kindly humans would see to it that he did not 
 suffer more than a dog could bear. On his 
 238
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 face with its grizzled muzzle and rheumy eyes, 
 thus turned up, there was never a sign of 
 debate, it was full of confidence that, what- 
 ever decision his friend came to, in this mo- 
 mentous question between the river and the 
 'house, would be all right, perfectly satisfac- 
 tory in every way to dogs and men. 
 
 One very rainy summer, our old friend in a 
 burst of confidence disclosed the wish of his 
 heart. It was that he might be suffered to 
 go down once more to Fowey in Cornwall, 
 where he had been born, but had not been for 
 fifty years. By some means or other the money 
 was procured for this enterprise, and he was 
 enabled to set off by excursion train for a 
 fortnight's holiday. He was observed the 
 day before his start talking at great length to 
 the dog, and feeding it out of a paper bag with 
 caraway-seed biscuits. A letter was received 
 from him during his absence, observing cer- 
 tain strange laws of caligraphy, and beginning 
 "Honnured Sir and Lady." It was full of an 
 almost passionate description of a regatta, of 
 a certain " Joe Petherick" who had remem- 
 bered him, of the "luvly weather" and other 
 239
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 sources of his great happiness; and ended 
 " Yours truley obedient." On the fifteenth 
 day he was back at his corner seated on his 
 box in the pouring rain, saying that he was "a 
 different man, ten years younger, and ready 
 to 'go' now, any day"; nor could anything 
 dissuade him from the theory that Heaven had 
 made a special lodgment in our persons on his 
 behalf. But only four days later, the sun 
 being for once in the heavens, he was so long 
 in answering a salutation that we feared he 
 had been visited by some kind of stroke; his 
 old face had lost colour, it seemed stiff, and 
 his eyes had almost disappeared. 
 
 Inquiry elicited from him the information 
 that he was better than he had been, but that 
 the dog was dead. They had put it away 
 while he had been gone, and he was afraid that 
 he should miss the "faithful old feller." 
 
 "He was very good to me," he said; "always 
 came for a bit of bread or biscuit. And he was 
 company to me; I never knew such a sensible 
 creature." He seemed to think that the dog 
 must have pined during his absence, and that 
 this had accelerated his end by making his 
 240
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 owners think he was more decrepit than he 
 really was. 
 
 The death of the dog, and the cold damp 
 autumn that year, told heavily on the old man, 
 but it was not till mid-November that he was 
 noted one morning absent from his post. As 
 he did not reappear his lodging was sought out. 
 It was in a humble street, but the house was 
 neat and clean, and the landlady seemed a good, 
 rough woman. She informed us that our old 
 friend was laid up "with pleurisy and the 
 gouty rheumatics"; that by rights, of course, 
 he ought to be in the infirmary, but she didn't 
 like to turn him out, though where she would 
 get her rent from she didn't know, to say 
 nothing of his food, because she couldn't let 
 him starve while there he was cryin' out with 
 the pain, and no one but herself to turn a hand 
 to him, with his door open at the top of the 
 house, where he could holler for her if he 
 wanted. An awful independent old feller, too, 
 or else she wouldn't hesitate, for that was 
 where he ought to be, and no mistake, not 
 having a soul in the world to close his eyes, 
 and that's what it would come to, though she 
 241
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 would never be surprised if he got up and went 
 out tomorrow, he was that stubborn! 
 
 Leaving her to the avocations which we 
 had interrupted by coming in, we went up- 
 stairs. 
 
 The door of the back room at the top was, 
 as indeed she had led us to suppose, open; 
 and through it the sound of our old friend's 
 voice could be heard, travelling forth: 
 
 "0 Lord God, that took the dog from me, 
 and gave me this here rheumatics, help me to 
 keep a stiff and contrite heart. I am an old 
 man, Lord God, and I am not one to go 
 into that place. So God give me a stiff heart, 
 and I will remember you in my prayers, for 
 that's about all I can do now, God. I have 
 been a good one in my time, O Lord, and 
 cannot remember doing harm to any man for 
 a long while now, and I have tried to keep 
 upsides with it; so, good Lord, remember and 
 do not forget me, now that I am down, a-lying 
 here all day, and the rent goin' on. For ever 
 and ever, Lord, Amen." 
 
 We allowed a little time to pass before we 
 went in, unwilling that he should think we had 
 242
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 overheard that prayer. He was lying in a 
 small dingy bed, with a medicine bottle and 
 glass beside him on an old tin trunk. There 
 was no fire. 
 
 He was it seemed better than he had 
 been; the doctor's stuff was doing him good. 
 
 Certain arrangements were made for his 
 benefit, and in less than three weeks he was 
 back again at his corner. 
 
 In the spring of the following year we went 
 abroad and were absent several months. He 
 was no longer at his post when at last we came 
 back, and a policeman informed us that he 
 had not been there for some weeks. We made 
 a second pilgrimage to his lodgings. The 
 house had changed hands. The new landlady 
 was a thin, anxious-looking young woman, 
 who spoke in a thin, anxious voice. Yes, the 
 old man had been taken very ill double 
 pneumonia and heart disease, she thought. 
 Anyway, she couldn't have the worry and 
 responsibility of him, let alone her rent. She 
 had had the doctor, and had him taken off. 
 Yes, it had upset him a bit; he would never 
 have gone if he'd had his choice; but of course 
 243
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 she had her living to get. She had his bits 
 of things locked up all right; he owed her a 
 little rent. In her opinion he'd never come out 
 again. She was very sorry for him, too, he'd 
 given no trouble till he was took ill. 
 
 Following up her information we repaired 
 with heavy hearts to the 'house, which he had 
 so often declared he would never enter. Hav- 
 ing ascertained the number of his ward we 
 mounted the beautifully clean stairs. In the 
 fifth of a row of beds, our old friend was 
 lying, apparently asleep. But watching him 
 carefully, we saw that his lips, deep sunk 
 between his frosty moustache and beard, were 
 continually moving. 
 
 "He's not asleep," said the nurse; "he'll 
 lie like that all the time. He frets." 
 
 At the sound of his name, he had opened 
 his eyes, which, though paler and smaller and 
 more rheumy, were still almost bright. He 
 fixed them on us with a peculiar stare, as much 
 as to say: "You've taken an advantage of 
 me, rinding me here." We could hardly bear 
 that look, and hurriedly asked him how he was. 
 He tried to raise himself and answered huskily 
 244
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 that he was better than he had been. We 
 begged him not to exert himself, and told him 
 how it was that we had been away, and so 
 forth. He seemed to pay no attention, but 
 suddenly said: "I'm in here; I don't mean 
 to stay, I'll be goin' out in a day or two." 
 We tried to confirm that theory, but the ex- 
 pression of his eyes seemed to take away our 
 power of comfort, and make us ashamed of 
 looking at him. He beckoned us closer. 
 
 "If I'd a had the use of my legs," he whis- 
 pered, "they'd never have had me. I'd a-gone 
 in the river first. But I don't mean to stay 
 I'm goin' back home." 
 
 The nurse told us, however, that this was 
 out of the question; he was still very ill. 
 
 Four days later we went again to see him. 
 He was no longer there. He had gone home. 
 They had buried him that morning. 
 
 1910. 
 
 245
 
 THE JAPANESE QUINCE 
 
 A3 Mr. Nilson, well known in the City, 
 opened the window of his dressing- 
 room on Campden Hill, he experienced a pecu- 
 liar sweetish sensation in the back of his 
 throat, and a feeling of emptiness just under 
 his fifth rib. Hooking the window back, he 
 noticed that a little tree in the Square Gar- 
 dens had come out in blossom, and that the 
 thermometer stood at sixty. "Perfect morn- 
 ing," he thought; "Spring at last!" 
 
 Resuming some meditations on the price of 
 Tintos, he took up an ivory-backed hand-glass 
 and scrutinised his face. His firm, well- 
 coloured cheeks, with their neat brown mous- 
 taches, and his round, well-opened, clear grey 
 eyes, wore a reassuring appearance of good 
 health. Putting on his black frock coat, he 
 went downstairs. 
 
 In the dining-room his morning paper was 
 laid out on the sideboard. Mr. Nilson had 
 247
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 scarcely taken it in his hand when he again 
 became aware of that queer feeling. Some- 
 what concerned, he went to the French win- 
 dow and descended the scrolled iron steps 
 into the fresh air. A cuckoo clock struck eight. 
 
 "Half an hour to breakfast," he thought; 
 "I'll take a turn in the Gardens." 
 
 He had them to himself, and proceeded to 
 pace the circular path with his morning paper 
 clasped behind him. He had scarcely made 
 two revolutions, however, when it was borne 
 in on him that, instead of going away in the 
 fresh air, the feeling had increased. He drew 
 several deep breaths, having heard deep breath- 
 ing recommended by his wife's doctor; but 
 they augmented rather than diminished the 
 sensation as of some sweetish liquor in course 
 within him, together with a faint aching just 
 above his heart. Running over what he had 
 eaten the night before, he could recollect no 
 unusual dish, and it occurred to him that it 
 might possibly be some smell affecting him. 
 But he could detect nothing except a faint 
 sweet lemony scent, rather agreeable than 
 otherwise, which evidently emanated from the 
 24$
 
 bushes budding in the sunshine. He was on 
 the point of resuming his promenade, when 
 a blackbird close by burst into song, and, 
 looking up, Mr. Nilson saw at a distance of 
 perhaps five yards a little tree, in the heart of 
 whose branches the bird was perched. He 
 stood staring curiously at this tree, recognising 
 it for that which he had noticed from his 
 window. It was covered with young blossoms, 
 pink and white, and little bright green leaves 
 both round and spikey; and on all this blossom 
 and these leaves the sunlight glistened. Mr. 
 Nilson smiled; the little tree was so alive and 
 pretty! And instead of passing on, he stayed 
 there smiling at the tree. 
 
 "Morning like this!" he thought; "and 
 here I am the only person in the Square who 
 
 has the to come out and !" But he had 
 
 no sooner conceived this thought, than he saw 
 quite near him a man with his hands behind 
 him, who was also staring up and smiling at 
 the little tree. Rather taken aback, Mr. Nilson 
 ceased to smile, and looked furtively at the 
 stranger. It was his next-door neighbour, 
 Mr. Tandram, well known in the City, who 
 249
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 had occupied the adjoining house for some 
 five years. Mr. Nilson perceived at once the 
 awkwardness of his position, for, being married, 
 they had not yet had occasion to speak to one 
 another. Doubtful as to his proper conduct, 
 he decided at last to murmur: "Fine morn- 
 ing!" and was passing on, when Mr. Tandram 
 answered: "Beautiful, for the time of year!" 
 Detecting a slight nervousness in his neigh- 
 bour's voice, Mr. Nilson was emboldened to 
 regard him openly. He was of about Mr. 
 Nilson's own height, with firm, well-coloured 
 cheeks, neat brown moustaches, and round, 
 well-opened, clear grey eyes; and he was wear- 
 ing a black frock coat. Mr. Nilson noticed that 
 he had his morning paper clasped behind him 
 as he looked up at the little tree. And, visited 
 somehow by the feeling that he had been caught 
 out, he said abruptly: 
 
 "Er can you give me the name of that 
 tree?" 
 
 Mr. Tandram answered: 
 
 "I was about to ask you that," and stepped 
 towards it. Mr. Nilson also approached the 
 tree. 
 
 250
 
 THE JAPANESE QUINCE 
 
 "Sure to have its name on, I should think," 
 he said. 
 
 Mr. Tandram was the first to see the little 
 label, close to where the blackbird had been 
 sitting. He read it out. 
 
 " Japanese quince!" 
 
 "Ah! " said Mr. Nilson, "thought so. 
 Early flowerers." 
 
 "Very," assented Mr. Tandram, and added: 
 "Quite a feelin' in the air to-day." 
 
 Mr. Nilson nodded. 
 
 "It was a blackbird singin'," he said. 
 
 "Blackbirds," answered Mr. Tandram, "I 
 prefer them to thrushes myself; more body in 
 the note." And he looked at Mr. Nilson in 
 an almost friendly way. 
 
 "Quite," murmured Mr. Nilson. "These 
 exotics, they don't bear fruit. Pretty blos- 
 som!" and he again glanced up at the blos- 
 som, thinking: "Nice fellow, this, I rather 
 like him." 
 
 Mr. Tandram also gazed up at the blossom. 
 
 And the little tree, as if appreciating their 
 
 attention, quivered and glowed. From a 
 
 distance, the blackbird gave a loud, clear call. 
 
 251
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 Mr. Nilson dropped his eyes. It struck him 
 suddenly that Mr. Tandram looked a little 
 foolish; and, as if he had seen himself, he said: 
 "I must be going in. Good morning!" 
 
 A shade passed over Mr. Tandram's face, 
 as if he, too, had suddenly noticed something 
 about Mr. Nilson. 
 
 "Good morning," he replied, and clasping 
 their journals to their backs they separated. 
 
 Mr. Nilson retraced his steps towards his 
 garden window, walking slowly so as to avoid 
 arriving at the same time as his neighbour. 
 Having seen Mr. Tandram mount his scrolled 
 iron steps, he ascended his own in turn. On 
 the top step he paused. 
 
 With the slanting Spring sunlight darting 
 and quivering into it, the Japanese quince 
 seemed more living than a tree. The blackbird 
 had returned to it, and was chanting out his 
 heart. 
 
 Mr. Nilson sighed; again he felt that queer 
 sensation, that chokey feeling in his throat. 
 
 The sound of a cough or sigh attracted his 
 attention. There, in the shadow of his French 
 window, stood Mr. Tandram, also looking 
 252
 
 THE JAPANESE QUINCE 
 
 forth across the Gardens at the little quince 
 
 tree. 
 
 Unaccountably upset, Mr. Nilson turned 
 abruptly into the house, and opened his morn- 
 ing paper. 
 
 1910. 
 
 253
 
 ONCE MORE 
 
 AWAKENED by the tiny kicks of her 
 2~\. baby, she straightened his limbs on her 
 breast, and lay staring up at the dirty ceiling. 
 The first light of the March morning, through 
 a window which had but a ragged piece of 
 muslin over the lower half, spread its pale 
 glimmer in the little room. It was, like all the 
 little back rooms of that street, deserted by 
 Hope; neither was there anything in it of 
 beauty or of value except the remains of her 
 stock of violets in the round brown-wicker 
 basket. 
 
 Soothed by the warmth of her chest and 
 arms the baby was sleeping again, with his 
 down-covered tiny head snuggled into the hol- 
 low of her neck; and, just above that head, 
 the mother's face was like that of a little 
 sphynx. 
 
 Two days before, her husband had left her, 
 saying that he was not coming back, but this 
 255
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 had not dismayed her, for with the strange wis- 
 dom of those who begin to suffer young, she had 
 long ago measured her chances with and with- 
 out him. She made more than he did in their 
 profession of flower-selling, because sometimes 
 a "toff" gave her a fancy price, touched per- 
 haps by the sight of her tired, pretty face, and 
 young figure bent sideways by the weight of 
 her baby. Yes, he took more money off her 
 than she did off him; besides, he had left her 
 twice before in the same way, and twice come 
 back. The feeling in her heart was due to 
 another discovery. Last evening, going home 
 dead-tired, she had seen him on an omnibus 
 with his arm round a woman's waist. At that 
 sight a flame had leaped up in her; burdened 
 with baby and basket, she had run after the 
 'bus; but it went too fast for her, she was soon 
 left behind. And long, huddled over her fire, 
 she had sat, seeing him with that other woman. 
 And when the fire went out, getting into bed, 
 had lain sleepless, still seeing, and hearing, and 
 shivering with the cold. So, that was where 
 he went! Was she going to put up with it 
 any more? Thus she lay brooding, avoiding 
 256
 
 ONCE MORE 
 
 all extravagance, matter-of-fact, sphynx-like, 
 even in thought. 
 
 The room grew light; she got up, went to 
 the little cracked mirror, and looked long at 
 her face. If she had ever known that she was 
 pretty, the life she led with her boy-husband, 
 sometimes ill-treated, always scantily clothed, 
 and more or less in want, had bereft her of this 
 knowledge. The woman round whose waist 
 she had seen his arm looked well-fed and had 
 feathers in her hat. And in that mirror she 
 tried desperately to find something which 
 might weigh against those full cheeks and those 
 feathers. But she seemed to herself all eyes, 
 there was no colour in her cheeks; she seemed 
 sad to herself. Turning from that glass of 
 little comfort, she lit the fire, and taking up 
 her baby, sat down to feed it. With her bare 
 feet to the flame, and feeling the movement of 
 the baby's lips against her, she had the first 
 sensation of warmth since the omnibus had 
 passed her. To her, striving so hard but so 
 unconsciously for any thought that would 
 assuage her jealousy, there came a recollection 
 that was almost pleasant. Last evening a 
 257
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 "toff," entering his garden gate, had bought 
 from her a single bunch of violets for half-a- 
 crown. Why had he smiled, and given her that 
 half-crown? With each tug of the baby's lips, 
 the sensation of warmth grew, and with it 
 began to be mingled a feeling of excitement. 
 He would not have looked at her so long, 
 would not have smiled unless he had thought 
 her pretty! But suddenly the baby's lips 
 ceased to move; the feeling of excitement 
 died. Wrapping the little thing in her shawl, 
 she laid him back on the bed; then, heating a 
 little water, began to wash with unwonted care. 
 She had a passionate desire to make herself 
 finer than that woman with feathers in her hat. 
 No "toff" would have smiled at her, even 
 though she had not had to pawn her clothes. 
 Her little brain, frozen with brooding, flaming 
 with jealousy, ran riot amongst clothes. There 
 hung on two nails driven into the wall all 
 her wardrobe a ragged skirt, torn jersey, and 
 black straw hat. She put on her one under- 
 garment, and went up to them. Looking at 
 those dim clothes, she was vaguely conscious 
 of the irony in things. Three weeks ago she 
 258
 
 ONCE MORE 
 
 had "put away" her best suit for four shillings 
 and sixpence, to renew her husband's stock 
 of flowers, which rain had ruined. She had 
 pawned her attractions to give him the chance 
 to go after that woman! From the secret 
 place where she kept her wealth, from those 
 many pawn-tickets, she selected one, and put 
 it between her teeth; then, from a broken 
 cup, where, under a ragged cloth, she stored 
 her money, she took the "toff's" half-crown, 
 and five pennies. It was all she had, and the 
 week's rent was owing. She looked round 
 the room; her blankets were in pawn; there 
 was nothing left except her shawl. It was a 
 thick shawl, good for eighteen-pence. With 
 interest threepence, she would still need four- 
 pence to redeem her suit. She went to her 
 flower-basket and lifted the piece of dirty 
 sacking. The bunches were withered. In 
 her rage and disturbance overnight she had 
 forgotten to damp them. She sat down on 
 her bed, and for full quarter of an hour stayed 
 there unmoving, more like a little sphynx than 
 ever, with her short, ivory-coloured face, black 
 eyes, straight brows and closed red lips. Sud- 
 259
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 denly she got up; took off her undergarment 
 and examined it. There were no holes! Wrap- 
 ping it tightly in her shawl, she put on skirt and 
 jersey, pinned her hat to her black hair, took 
 pawn-ticket and her money, and went down 
 the dirty stairs, out into the cold. 
 
 She made her way to the small shop which 
 was the centre of her universe. No one was 
 there, for the door had only just been opened; 
 and she waited, stolid, amongst those innumer- 
 able goods, each one of which had been brought 
 there wrapped in the stuff of human life. The 
 proprietor caught sight of her presently through 
 the glass of the inner door. He was a dark, 
 strong man, and his quick eye, which had in it 
 a sort of cringing hardness, instantly marked 
 her shawl. 
 
 "I've had that before, I think, eighteen- 
 pence, ain't it?" From its recesses he took 
 the undergarment. He looked at this critically; 
 it was very plain, thick, and had no frills, but 
 it was strangely new. "Sixpence on that, 
 'alfpenny off for the washing." Then, as if 
 something in the nature of this transaction 
 had moved him, he added: "Let you off the 
 260
 
 ONCE MORE 
 
 washing." She silently held out to him her 
 small rough hand, with her money and the 
 pawn-ticket. He scrutinised both, and said: 
 "I see; that'll be tuppence I owe you on the 
 deal." 
 
 With the twopence and her suit, she jour- 
 neyed home. She put on the suit over her 
 skirt and jersey, for the sake of the warmth, 
 and because that woman had full cheeks; 
 stood for some minutes smoothing her hair 
 and rubbing her face, goose-fleshed with the 
 cold; then, leaving her baby with the woman 
 on the ground floor, she went out towards the 
 road where the omnibus had passed. Her 
 heart was dry with longing to meet that wom- 
 an; to be avenged on her, and him. All 
 the morning she walked up and down. Now 
 and again a youth stopped her, and tried to 
 enter into conversation; but he soon desisted, 
 as if something in her face had withered his 
 good intentions. With the twopence she 
 bought a sausage-roll, ate it, went home, fed 
 her baby, and again came out. It was now 
 afternoon, but she still wandered up and down, 
 always driven on by that longing; and every 
 261
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 now and then smiling up at some man. What 
 she thought to gain by these smiles cannot be 
 told, for no one could have answered them, 
 so mirthless were they; and yet they gave her 
 a queer dead pleasure, as if she felt that they 
 ministered to her vengeance. A strong wind 
 drove the clouds over a clear blue sky, and in 
 this wind the buds and few crocuses in the 
 gardens were trembling. In some of the 
 Squares, too, pigeons were cooing; and all 
 the people seemed hurrying with happiness. 
 But for that young wife, for ever walking 
 and loitering down the long road where the 
 omnibus had passed, Spring travelled the air 
 in vain. 
 
 At five o'clock, moved by yet another ob- 
 scure impulse of her longing for revenge, she 
 branched off her beat to the white house where 
 she had seen the "toff" enter last evening. 
 She hesitated long before ringing the bell, 
 and then very stolidly asked to see "the 
 gentleman," in a voice a little thick and hoarse 
 from the many colds she caught selling her 
 flowers. While the maid went to see if this 
 were possible, she waited in the hall. There 
 262
 
 ONCE MORE 
 
 was a mirror there; but she did not look at 
 herself, standing quite still with her eyes fixed 
 on the ground. 
 
 She was shown into a room, lighter, warmer, 
 more strange than any room she had ever been 
 in; giving her a feeling as though a plateful 
 of Christmas pudding, soft, dark, and rich, had 
 been placed before her. The walls were white 
 and the woodwork white, and there were 
 brown velvet curtains, and gold frames round 
 the pictures. 
 
 She went in smiling, as at the men in the 
 street. But the smile faded from her lips at 
 once. On a sofa was a lady in a white dress; 
 and she wished to turn and go away, for she 
 felt at once that they must know she had no 
 undergarment beneath her new suit. The 
 gentleman asked her to sit down. She sat 
 down, therefore; and in answer to questions, 
 told them that her stock was spoiled, that she 
 owed a week's rent, that her husband had left 
 her and the baby! But even while speaking, 
 she felt that this was not what she had come 
 to say. They seemed to ask the questions over 
 and over again, as if they did not understand 
 263
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 her. And she told them suddenly that her 
 husband had gone with another woman. When 
 she said that, the lady made soft sounds, 
 as if she understood and was sorry. She re- 
 counted then how she had seen them pass 
 her on the omnibus; and noticed what pretty 
 small ears the lady had. The gentleman was 
 afraid he did not know what could be done 
 for her: Did she wish to leave her husband? 
 She answered quickly: "I couldn't stay with 
 him now, of course." And the lady murmured: 
 "No, no; of course not." What then the 
 gentleman said did she propose to do? She 
 remained silent, staring at the carpet. It 
 seemed to her suddenly that they were think- 
 ing: "She's come for money." The gentle- 
 man took out a sovereign, and said: "Will 
 that be any good to you?" She made a little 
 bob, and took the sovereign, clutching it very 
 tight. It seemed to her that they wanted her 
 to go away. She got up, therefore, and went 
 to the door. The gentleman went with her; 
 and as he opened the front door he smiled. 
 She did not smile back, for she saw that he 
 had only meant to be kind, yesterday. And 
 264
 
 ONCE MORE 
 
 this hurt her, as if suddenly there had slipped 
 away from her part of her revenge. 
 
 She went home, still clutching the unchanged 
 sovereign; so weak and faint that she could 
 hardly feed her baby. She made up her fire 
 and sat down beside it. It was past six, and 
 nearly dark. Twice before, he had come back 
 on the third day, about this time. If he were 
 to come back now! 
 
 She crouched nearer to the fire. It grew 
 quite dark. She looked at her baby; he was 
 asleep, with his tiny fists crumpled against 
 his cheeks. She made up the fire, and went 
 back to her beat along the road where the 
 omnibus had passed. 
 
 Two or three men stopped her, but she no 
 longer smiled at them, and they soon sheered 
 off. It was very clear, very cold; but she 
 did not feel the cold. Her eyes were fastened 
 on those great vans of warmth, the motor 
 omnibuses. Long before each had borne its 
 burden close, her eyes had begun searching. 
 Long after they had rumbled by, her gaze 
 followed them from under the brim of her 
 black straw hat. But that for which she was 
 265
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 looking never appeared. In the midst of the 
 roar and the sudden hushes, of the stir and 
 confusion of lamplight and shadow, the stir 
 and confusion and blackness in her own heart, 
 she thought of her baby, and hurried away. 
 He was still sleeping, the fire still alight. 
 Without undressing, she crept into bed, ex- 
 hausted. If she was like a little sphynx awake, 
 she was more so than ever under the mystery 
 of sleep, with her black lashes resting on her 
 cheeks, and her lips just parted. In her 
 dreams she twisted her hands and moaned. 
 She woke at midnight. 
 
 By the light of the still live fire she saw her 
 husband moving past the foot of the bed. He 
 neither spoke, nor looked at her, but sat down 
 before the fire, and began to take off his boots. 
 The sight of that domestic act roused her to 
 fury. So he could come in when he liked 
 after going where he had gone, after being 
 
 what he had been, the ! But no fierce 
 
 sound came; she could form no word bad 
 enough to call him by. After three days 
 after what she had seen after all her waiting 
 and walking and suffering taking off his 
 26G
 
 ONCE MORE 
 
 boots! Stealthily she raised herself in bed, the 
 better to watch that act. If she had opened her 
 mouth it would have been to utter a scream; 
 no lesser cry could have relieved her heart. 
 And still he neither spoke nor looked at her. 
 She saw him slide down off the wooden chair, 
 as if he would creep right into the fire. And 
 
 she thought: Let him burn, the ! A vile 
 
 word clung in her brain and would not come 
 forth. She could just see his figure hunched 
 now all in a heap, she could hear his teeth chat- 
 tering, and the sound gave her pleasure. Then 
 he was quite silent, and she, too, held her 
 breath. Was he asleep? The thought of this 
 sleep, while she lay there consumed wilh rage, 
 was too much for her. She uttered a little 
 furious sound. He did not look up, but his 
 foot moved, and a loosened cinder fell; there 
 was again silence. She began creeping to the 
 foot of the bed. Crouching there, with loins 
 curved, and her face bent down between her 
 stretched-out arms, she was close above his 
 huddled figure; so close that with her hands 
 she could have seized and twisted back his 
 head. In fancy she was already doing this, 
 267
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 putting her eyes close to his, setting her teeth 
 in his forehead so vividly that she had the 
 taste of blood in her mouth. Suddenly she 
 recoiled, burying her face between her arms, 
 on the ragged bed coverlet. For some minutes 
 she stayed thus, crouched like a wild cat on a 
 branch. There was a dreadful sore feeling 
 within her. She was thinking of the first 
 night they had come home to that room; 
 she was remembering his kisses. Something 
 clicked in her throat. She no longer wished to 
 tear and bite, and she raised her face. He 
 had not stirred. She could just see the outline 
 of his cheek and chin; beardless, of a boy, 
 utterly still, as if dead. She felt cold, and 
 afraid. What was this silence? She could 
 not even hear him breathe. She slid down on 
 the floor. His eyes were open, very colourless, 
 staring at the dying fire; his cheeks were hol- 
 low, his lips seemed to have no blood in them. 
 But they moved, shivering desperately. So 
 he was not dead! Only frozen and starved as 
 he had been when he came back to her those 
 two other times. The mask of her face let 
 nothing be seen of her thoughts and feelings, 
 268
 
 ONCE MORE 
 
 but her teeth bit into her lower lip. So this 
 was how he had come back to her once more! 
 The last of the fuel in the grate suddenly 
 flickered into flame. He turned his head 
 towards her. By the light of that feeble fire 
 his eyes were like the eyes of her baby; they 
 seemed to ask her for something; they looked 
 so helpless; all his shuddering form seemed 
 helpless. He muttered something; but his 
 shivering choked the words, so that all that 
 came to her was a sound such as her baby 
 made. And at that sound something in her 
 heart gave way; she pulled his head down on 
 her breast, and with all her strength clutched 
 him to her. And as the fire died, she still 
 held him there, rocking him and sobbing, and 
 once more trying to give him of the warmth 
 of her little body. 
 
 1910. 
 
 269
 
 DELIGHT 
 
 I WAS taken by a friend one afternoon to a 
 theatre. When the curtain was raised, 
 the stage was perfectly empty save for tall 
 grey curtains which enclosed it on all sides, 
 and presently through the thick folds of those 
 curtains children came dancing in, singly, 
 or in pairs, till a whole troop of ten or twelve 
 were assembled. They were all girls; none, I 
 think, more than fourteen years old, one or 
 two certainly not more than eight. They wore 
 but little clothing, their legs, feet and arms 
 being quite bare. Their hair, too, was unbound; 
 and their faces, grave and smiling, were so 
 utterly dear and joyful, that in looking on them 
 one felt transported to some Garden of Hes- 
 perides, where self was not, and the spirit 
 floated in pure ether. Some of these children 
 were fair and rounded, others dark and elf- 
 like; but one and all looked entirely happy, 
 and quite unself-conscious, giving no impression 
 271
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 of artifice, though they had evidently had the 
 highest and most careful training. Each flight 
 and whirling movement seemed conceived there 
 and then out of the joy of being dancing 
 had surely never been a labour to them, either 
 in rehearsal or performance. There was no 
 tiptoeing and posturing, no hopeless muscular 
 achievement; all was rhythm, music, light, 
 air, and above all things, happiness. Smiles 
 and love had gone to the fashioning of their 
 performance; and smiles and love shone from 
 every one of their faces and from the clever 
 white turnings of their limbs. 
 
 Amongst them though all were delightful 
 there were two who especially riveted my 
 attention. The first of these two was the tall- 
 est of all the children, a dark thin girl, in 
 whose every expression and movement there 
 was a kind of grave, fiery love. 
 
 During one of the many dances, it fell to her 
 to be the pursuer of a fair child, whose move- 
 ments had a very strange soft charm; and 
 this chase, which was like the hovering of a 
 dragon-fly round some water-lily, or the woo- 
 ing of a moonbeam by the June night, had in 
 272
 
 DELIGHT 
 
 it a most magical sweet passion. That dark, 
 tender huntress, so full of fire and yearning, 
 had the queerest power of symbolising all long- 
 ing, and moving one's heart. In her, pursuing 
 her white love with such wistful fervour, and 
 ever arrested at the very moment of conquest, 
 one seemed to see the great secret force that 
 hunts through the world, on and on, tragically 
 unresting, immortally sweet. 
 
 The other child who particularly enchanted 
 me was the smallest but one, a brown-haired 
 fairy crowned with a half-moon of white 
 flowers, who wore a scanty little rose-petal- 
 coloured shift that floated about her in the 
 most delightful fashion. She danced as never 
 child danced. Every inch of her small head 
 and body was full of the sacred fire of motion; 
 and in her little pas seul she seemed to be the 
 very spirit of movement. One felt that Joy 
 had flown down, and was inhabiting there; 
 one heard the rippling of Joy's laughter. And, 
 indeed, through all the theatre had risen a 
 rustling and whispering; and sudden bursts 
 of laughing rapture. 
 
 I looked at my friend; he was trying stealth- 
 273
 
 A MOTLEY 
 
 ily to remove something from his eyes with a 
 finger. And to myself the stage seemed very 
 misty, and all things in the world lovable; 
 as though that dancing fairy had touched 
 them with tender fire, and made them golden. 
 God knows where she got that power of 
 bringing joy to our dry hearts: God knows 
 how Jong she will keep it! But that little 
 flying Love had in her the quality that lies in 
 deep colour, in music, in the wind, and the 
 sun, and in certain great works of art the 
 power to set the heart free from every barrier, 
 and flood it with delight. 
 
 1910. 
 
 274
 
 A 000 666 445 
 
 N BRANCH, 
 
 UNJx OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 LIBRARY, 
 
 , L .OS ANGELES, CALIF.