JEROME K.JEROME 
 
THEY AND I 
 
HE SIGHED WHEN HE SAW OUR KITCHEN" 
 
 (Page 176) 
 
THEY AND I 
 
 BY 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME 
 
 Author of "Three Men in a Boa'/^Hle 
 Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," "Second 
 Thoughts of an Idle FiMquf"> t fc. I ■ 
 
 FRONTISPIECE BY E. A. POUCHER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1909 
 
J5t 
 t 
 
 Copyright, 1909, by 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 Published, September, 1909 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 " It is not a large house," I said. " We don't 
 want a large house. Two spare "bedrooms, and 
 the little three-cornered place you see, 'marked 
 there on the plan, next to the bathroom and which 
 will just do for a bachelor, will be all we shall 
 require: at all events for the present. Later on, 
 if I ever get rich we can throw out a wing. The 
 kitchen I shall have to break to your mother 
 gently. Whatever the original architect could 
 have been thinking of " 
 
 "Never mind the kitchen," said Dick; "what 
 about the billiard-room?" 
 
 The way children nowadays will interrupt a 
 parent is nothing short of a national disgrace. I 
 also wish Dick would not sit on the table, swinging 
 his legs. It is not respectful. " Why, when I 
 was a boy," as I said to him, " I should as soon 
 have thought of sitting on a table, interrupting 
 
 my father " 
 
 " What's this thing in the middle of the hall, 
 that looks like a grating?" demanded Robina. 
 
 1.0 
 
2 THEY AND I 
 
 " She means the stairs," explained Dick. 
 
 " Then why don't they look like stairs," com- 
 mented Robina. 
 
 "They do," replied Dick, "to people with 
 sense." 
 
 ; ' They don't," persisted Robina, " they look 
 like a gratmg." -Robina, with the plan spread out 
 across her knee, was sitting balanced on the arm 
 of an easy chair. Really, I hardly see the use of 
 buying chairs for these people. Nobody seems to 
 know what they are for — except it be one or an- 
 other of the dogs. Perches are all they want. 
 
 " If we threw the drawing-room into the hall 
 and could do away with the stairs," thought Ro- 
 bina, " we should be able to give a dance now and 
 then." 
 
 " Perhaps," I suggested " you would like to 
 clear out the house altogether, leaving nothing but 
 the four bare walls. That would give us still 
 more room, that would. For just living in we 
 could fix up a shed in the garden; or " 
 
 "I'm talking seriously," said Robina; "what's 
 the good of a drawing-room? One only wants it 
 to show the sort of people into that one wishes 
 hadn't come. They'd sit about, looking miser- 
 
THEY AND I 3 
 
 able, just as well anywhere else. If we could 
 only get rid of the stairs " 
 
 " Oh, of course! we could get rid of the stairs," 
 I agreed. " It would be a bit awkward at first, 
 when we wanted to go to bed. But I daresay 
 we should get used to it. We could have a ladder 
 and climb up to our rooms through the windows. 
 Or we might adopt the Norwegian method and 
 have the stairs outside." 
 
 " I wish you would be sensible," said Robin. 
 
 " I am trying to be," I explained; " and I am 
 also trying to put a little sense into you. At 
 present you are crazy about dancing. If you had 
 your way, you would turn the house into a dancing 
 saloon with primitive sleeping-accommodation at- 
 tached. It will last six months, your dancing 
 craze. Then you will want the house transformed 
 into a swimming-bath, or a skating-rink, or cleared 
 out for hockey. My idea may be conventional. I 
 don't expect you to sympathise with it. My no- 
 tion is just an ordinary Christian house, not a gym- 
 nasium. There are going to be bedrooms in this 
 house, and there's going to be a staircase leading 
 to them. It may strike you as sordid, but there 
 is also going to be a kitchen: though why when 
 
4 THEY AND I 
 
 building the house they should have put the 
 kitchen " 
 
 11 Don't forget the billiard-room," said Dick. 
 
 " If you thought more of your future career, 
 and less about billiards," Robin pointed out to 
 him, " perhaps you'd get through your Littlego 
 in the course of the next few years. If Pa only 
 had sense — I mean if he wasn't so absurdly in- 
 dulgent wherever you are concerned, he would 
 not have a billiard-table in the house." 
 
 " You talk like that," retorted Dick, " merely 
 because you can't play." 
 
 " I can beat you, anyhow," retorted Robin. 
 
 11 Once," admitted Dick — " once in six weeks." 
 
 II Twice," corrected Robin. 
 
 " You don't play," Dick explained to her; " you 
 just whack round and trust to Providence." 
 
 II I don't whack round," said Robin; " I always 
 aim at something. When you try and it doesn't 
 come off, you say it's 'hard luck'; and when I 
 try and it does come off, you say it's fluking. So 
 like a man." 
 
 " You both of you," I said, " attach too much 
 importance to the score. When you try for a 
 cannon off the white and hit it on the wrong side 
 
THEY AND I 5 
 
 and send it into a pocket, and your own ball 
 travels on and makes a losing hazard off the red, 
 instead of being vexed with yourselves " 
 
 " If you get a really good table, governor," 
 said Dick, " I'll teach you billiards." 
 
 I do believe Dick really thinks he can play. It 
 is the same with golf. Beginners are invariably 
 lucky. "I think I shall like it," they tell you; 
 " I seem to have the game in me, if you under- 
 stand." 
 
 There is a friend of mine, an old sea-captain. 
 He is the sort of man that when the three balls 
 are lying in a straight line, tucked up under the 
 cushion, looks pleased; because then he knows 
 he can make a cannon and leave the red just 
 where he wants it. An Irish youngster named 
 Malooney, a college chum of Dick's, was staying 
 with us; and the afternoon being wet, the Captain 
 said he would explain it to Malooney, how a 
 young man might practise billiards without any 
 danger of cutting the cloth. He taught him how 
 to hold the cue, and he told him how 
 to make a bridge. Malooney was grateful, and 
 worked for about an hour. He did not show 
 much promise. He is a powerfully built young 
 
6 THEY AND I 
 
 man, and he didn't seem able to get it into his 
 head that he wasn't playing cricket. Whenever 
 he hit a little low the result was generally lost 
 ball. To save time — and damage to furniture — 
 Dick and I fielded for him. Dick stood at long- 
 stop, and I was short slip. It was dangerous 
 work, however, and when Dick had caught him 
 out twice running, we agreed that we had won, 
 and took him in to tea. In the evening — none 
 of the rest of us being keen to try our luck a 
 second time — the Captain said, that just for the 
 joke of the thing, he would give Malooney eighty- 
 five and play him a hundred up. To confess the 
 truth, I find no particular fun myself in playing 
 billiards with the Captain. The game consists, 
 as far as I am concerned, in walking round the 
 table throwing him back the balls, and saying 
 "Good I" By the time my turn comes I don't 
 seem to care what happens; everything seems 
 against me. He is a kind old gentleman and he 
 means well, but the tone in which he says " Hard 
 lines ! " whenever I miss an easy stroke irritates 
 me. I feel I'd like to throw the balls at his head 
 and fling the table out of the window. I suppose 
 it is that I am in a fretful state of mind, but the 
 
THEY AND I 7 
 
 mere way in which he chalks his cue aggravates 
 me. He carries his own chalk in his waistcoat 
 pocket — as if our chalk wasn't good enough for 
 him — and when he has finished chalking, he 
 smooths the tip round with his finger and thumb 
 and taps the cue against the table. " Oh ! go on 
 with the game," I want to say to him; " don't be 
 so full of tricks." 
 
 The Captain led off with a miss in baulk. 
 Malooney gripped his cue, drew in a deep breath, 
 and let fly. The result was ten: a cannon and 
 all three balls in the same pocket. As a matter 
 of fact he made the cannon twice; but the second 
 time, as we explained to him, of course did not 
 count. 
 
 "Good beginning!" said the Captain. 
 
 Malooney seemed pleased with himself, and 
 took off his coat. 
 
 Malooney's ball missed the red on its first jour- 
 ney up the table by about a foot, but found it later 
 on and sent it into a pocket. 
 
 " Ninety-nine plays nothing," said Dick, who 
 was marking. " Better make it a hundred and 
 fifty, hadn't we, Captain?" 
 
 " Well, I'd like to get in a shot," said the Cap- 
 
8 THEY AND I 
 
 tain, " before the game is over. Perhaps we had 
 better make it a hundred and fifty, if Mr. Ma- 
 looney has no objection." 
 
 " Whatever you think right, sir," said Rory 
 Malooney. 
 
 Malooney finished his break for twenty-two, 
 leaving himself hanging over the middle pocket 
 and the red tucked up in baulk. 
 
 " Nothing plays a hundred and eight," said 
 Dick. 
 
 "When I want the score," said the Captain, 
 " I'll ask for it." 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir," said Dick. 
 
 " I hate a noisy game," said the Captain. 
 
 The Captain, making up his mind without much 
 waste of time, sent his ball under the cushion, six 
 inches outside baulk. 
 
 " What will I do here? " asked Malooney. 
 
 11 1 don't know what you will do," said the 
 Captain; " I'm waiting to see." 
 
 Owing to the position of the ball, Malooney 
 was unable to employ his whole strength. All 
 he did that turn was to pocket the Captain's ball 
 and leave himself under the bottom cushion, four 
 inches from the red. The Captain said a nautical 
 
THEY AND I 9 
 
 word, and gave another miss. Malooney squared 
 up to the balls for the third time. They flew be- 
 fore him, panic-stricken. They banged against 
 one another, came back and hit one another again 
 for no reason whatever. The red, in particular, 
 Malooney had succeeded apparently in frighten- 
 ing out of its wits. It is a stupid ball, generally 
 speaking, our red — its one idea to get under a 
 cushion and watch the game. With Malooney it 
 soon found it was safe nowhere on the table. Its 
 only hope was pockets. I may have been mis- 
 taken, my eye may have been deceived by the 
 rapidity of the play, but it seemed to me that 
 the red never waited to be hit. When it saw 
 Malooney's ball coming for it at the rate of forty 
 miles an hour, it just made for the nearest pocket. 
 It rushed round the table looking for pockets. 
 If, in its excitement, it passed an empty pocket, 
 it turned back and crawled in. There were times 
 when in its terror it jumped the table and took 
 shelter under the sofa or behind the sideboard. 
 One began to feel sorry for the red. 
 
 The Captain had scored a legitimate thirty- 
 eight, and Malooney had given him twenty-four, 
 when it really seemed as if the Captain's chance 
 
io THEY AND I 
 
 had come. I could have scored myself as the balls 
 were then. 
 
 " Sixty-two plays one hundred and twenty-eight. 
 Now then, Captain, game in your hands," said 
 Dick. 
 
 We gathered round. The children left their 
 play. It was a pretty picture: the bright young 
 faces, eager with expectation, the old worn veteran 
 squinting down his cue, as if afraid that watching 
 Malooney's play might have given it the squirms. 
 
 " Now follow this," I whispered to Malooney. 
 " Don't notice merely what he does, but try and 
 understand why he does it. Any fool — after a 
 little practice, that is — can hit a ball. But why 
 do you hit it? What happens after you've hit 
 it? What " 
 
 " Hush," said Dick. 
 
 The Captain drew his cue back and gently 
 pushed it forward. 
 
 " Pretty stroke," I whispered to Malooney; 
 " now, that's the sort " 
 
 I offer, by way of explanation, that the Captain 
 by this time was probably too full of bottled-up 
 language to be master of his nerves. The ball 
 travelled slowly past the red. Dick said after- 
 
THEY AND I n 
 
 wards that you couldn't have put so much as a 
 sheet of paper between them. It comforts a man, 
 sometimes, when you tell him this; and at other 
 times it only makes him madder. It travelled on 
 and passed the white — you could have put quite 
 a lot of paper between it and the white — and 
 dropped with a contented thud into the top left- 
 hand pocket. 
 
 " Why does he do that? " Malooney whispered. 
 Malooney has a singularly hearty whisper. 
 
 Dick and I got the women and children out 
 of the room as quickly as we could, but of course 
 Veronica managed to tumble over something on 
 the way — Veronica would find something to tum- 
 ble over in the desert of Sahara; and a few days 
 later I overheard expressions, scorching their way 
 through the nursery door, that made my hair 
 rise up. I entered, and found Veronica standing 
 on the table. Jumbo was sitting upon the music 
 stool. The poor dog himself was looking scared, 
 though he must have heard a bit of language in 
 his time, one way and another. 
 
 " Veronica," I said, " are you not ashamed of 
 yourself? You wicked child, how dare you " 
 
 " It's all right," said Veronica. " I don't really 
 
i2 THEY AND I 
 
 mean any harm. He's a sailor, and I have to talk 
 to him like that, else he don't know he's being 
 talked to." 
 
 I pay hard-working, conscientious ladies to 
 teach this child things right and proper for her 
 to know. They tell her clever things that Julius 
 Caesar said; observations made by Marcus Au- 
 relius that, pondered over, might help her to be- 
 come a beautiful character. She complains that it 
 produces a strange buzzy feeling in her head; and 
 her mother argues that perhaps her brain is of 
 the creative order, not intended to remember much 
 — thinks that perhaps she is going to be some- 
 thing. A good round-dozen oaths the Captain 
 must have let fly before Dick and I succeeded in 
 rolling her out of the room. She had only heard 
 them once, yet, so far as I could judge, she had got 
 them letter perfect. 
 
 The Captain, now no longer under the neces- 
 sity of employing all his energies to suppress his 
 natural instincts, gradually recovered form, and 
 eventually the game stood at one hundred and 
 forty-nine all. Malooney to play. The Captain 
 had left the balls in a position that would have 
 disheartened any other opponent than Malooney. 
 
THEY AND I 13 
 
 To any other opponent than Malooney the Cap- 
 tain would have offered irritating sympathy. 
 " Afraid the balls are not rolling well for you 
 to-night," the Captain would have said; or, 
 " Sorry, sir, I don't seem to have left you very 
 much." To-night the Captain wasn't feeling 
 playful. 
 
 " Well, if he scores off thatl " said Dick. 
 
 11 Short of locking up the balls and turning out 
 the lights, I don't myself see how one is going to 
 stop him," sighed the Captain. 
 
 The Captain's ball was in hand. Malooney 
 went for the red and hit — perhaps it would be 
 more correct to say, frightened — it into a pocket. 
 Malooney's ball, with the table to itself, then 
 gave a solo performance, and ended up by break- 
 ing a window. It was what the lawyers call a 
 nice point. What was the effect upon the score? 
 
 Malooney argued that, seeing he had pocketed 
 the red before his own ball left the table, his three 
 should be counted first, and that therefore he had 
 won. Dick maintained that a ball that had ended 
 up in a flower-bed couldn't be deemed to have 
 scored anything. The Captain declined to assist. 
 He said that, although he had been playing bil- 
 
i 4 THEY AND I 
 
 liards for upwards of forty years, the incident 
 was new to him. My own feeling was that of 
 thankfulness that we had got through the game 
 without anybody being really injured. We agreed 
 that the person to decide the point would be the 
 editor of The Field. 
 
 It remains still undecided. The Captain came 
 into my study the next morning. He said: " If 
 you haven't written that letter to The Field, don't 
 mention my name. They knew me on The Field. 
 I would rather it did not get about that I have 
 been playing with a man who cannot keep his 
 ball within the four walls of a billiard-room." 
 
 " Well," I answered, " I know most of the fel- 
 lows on The Field myself. They don't often get 
 hold of anything novel in the way of a story. 
 When they do, they are apt to harp upon it. My 
 idea was to keep my own name out of it alto- 
 gether." 
 
 " It is not a point likely to crop up often," 
 said the Captain. " I'd let it rest if I were 
 you." 
 
 I should like to have had it settled. In the end, 
 I wrote the editor a careful letter, in a disguised 
 hand, giving a false name and address. But if 
 
THEY AND I 15 
 
 any answer ever appeared I must have missed 
 it. 
 
 Myself I have a sort of consciousness that some- 
 where inside me there is quite a good player, if 
 only I could persuade him to come out. He is 
 shy, that is all. He does not seem able to play 
 when people are looking on. The shots he misses 
 when people are looking on would give you a 
 wrong idea of him. When nobody is about, a 
 prettier game you do not often see. If some folks 
 who fancy themselves could see me when there 
 is nobody about, it might take the conceit out of 
 them. Only once I played up to what I feel is 
 my real form, and then it led to argument. I 
 was staying at an hotel in Switzerland, and the 
 second evening a pleasant-spoken young fellow, 
 who said he had read all my books — later, he 
 appeared surprised on learning I had written 
 more than two — asked me if I would care to play 
 a hundred up. We played even, and I payed for 
 the table. The next evening he said he thought 
 it would make a better game if he gave me forty 
 and I broke. It was a fairly close finish, and af- 
 terwards he suggested that I should put down my 
 name for the handicap they were arranging. 
 
1 6 THEY AND I 
 
 " I am afraid," I answered " that I hardly play 
 well enough. Just a quiet game with you is one 
 thing; but in a handicap with a crowd looking 
 on " 
 
 "I should not let that trouble you," he said; 
 " there are some here who play worse than you — 
 just one or two. It passes the evening." 
 
 It was merely a friendly affair. I paid my 
 twenty marks, and was given plus a hundred. 
 I drew for my first game a chatty type of 
 man, who started minus twenty. We neither of 
 us did much for the first five minutes, and then I 
 made a break of forty-four. 
 
 There was not a fluke in it from beginning to 
 end. I was never more astonished in my life. 
 It seemed to me it was the cue was doing it. 
 
 Minus Twenty was even more astonished. I 
 heard him as I passed: 
 
 "Who handicapped this man?" he asked. 
 
 11 1 did," responded the pleasant-spoken young- 
 ster. 
 
 " Oh," said Minus Twenty — " friend of yours, 
 I presume? " 
 
 There are evenings that seem to belong to you. 
 We finished that two hundred and fifty under 
 
THEY AND I 17 
 
 the three-quarters of an hour. I explained to 
 Minus Twenty — he was plus sixty-three at the 
 end — that my play that night had been excep- 
 tional. He said that he had heard of cases simi- 
 lar. I left him talking volubly to the committee. 
 He was not a nice man at all. 
 
 After that I did not care to win; and that of 
 course was fatal. The less I tried, the more 
 impossible it seemed for me to do wrong. I was 
 left in at the last with a man from another hotel. 
 But for that I am convinced I should have car- 
 ried off the handicap. Our hotel didn't, anyhow, 
 want the other hotel to win. So they gathered 
 round me, and offered me sound advice, and 
 begged me to be careful; with the natural result 
 that I went back to my usual form quite sud- 
 denly. 
 
 Never before or since have I played as I played 
 that week. But it showed me what I could do. 
 I shall get a new table, with proper pockets this 
 time. There is something wrong about our 
 pockets. The balls go into them and then come 
 out again. You would think they had seen some- 
 thing there to frighten them. They come out 
 trembling and hold on to the cushion. 
 
1 8 THEY AND I 
 
 I shall also get a new red ball. I fancy it must 
 be a very old ball, our red. It seems to me to be 
 always tired. 
 
 " The billiard-room," I said to Dick, " I see 
 my way to easily enough. Adding another ten feet 
 to what is now the dairy will give us twenty- 
 eight by twenty. I am hopeful that will be suffi- 
 cient even for your friend Malooney. The draw- 
 ing-room is too small to be of any use. I may 
 decide — as Robina has suggested — to 'throw it 
 into the hall.' But the stairs will remain. For 
 dancing, private theatricals — things to keep you 
 children out of mischief — I have an idea that 
 I will explain to you fully later on. The 
 kitchen " 
 
 " Can I have a room to myself? " asked Veron- 
 ica. 
 
 Veronica was sitting on the floor, staring into 
 the fire, her chin supported by her hand. Veron- 
 ica, in those rare moments when she is resting 
 from her troubles, wears a holy, far-away expres- 
 sion apt to mislead the stranger. Governesses, 
 new to her, have their doubts whether on these 
 occasions they are justified in dragging her back 
 to discuss mere dates and tables. Poets who are 
 
THEY AND I 19 
 
 friends of mine, coming unexpectedly upon Veron- 
 ica standing by the window, gazing upward at 
 the evening star, have thought it was a vision, 
 until they got closer and found that she was suck- 
 ing peppermints. 
 
 " I should so like to have a room all to myself," 
 added Veronica. 
 
 " It would be a room! " commented Robin. 
 
 " It wouldn't have your hairpins sticking up all 
 over the bed, anyhow," murmured Veronica 
 dreamily. 
 
 " I like that! " said Robin; " why—" 
 
 " You're harder than I am," said Veronica. 
 
 " I should wish you to have a room, Veronica," 
 I said. " My fear is that in place of one untidy 
 bedroom in the house — a room that makes me 
 shudder every time I see it through the open door; 
 and the door, in spite of all I can say, generally 
 is wide open " 
 
 " I'm not untidy," said Robin, " not really. 
 I know where everything is in the dark — if peo- 
 ple would only leave them alone." 
 
 " You are. You're about the most untidy girl 
 I know," said Dick. 
 
 "I'm not," said Robin; "you don't see other 
 
20 THEY AND I 
 
 girls' rooms. Look at yours at Cambridge. Ma- 
 looney told us you'd had a fire, and we all be- 
 lieved him at first." 
 
 " When a man's working " said Dick. 
 
 II He must have an orderly place to work in," 
 suggested Robin. 
 
 Dick sighed. " It's never any good talking to 
 you," said Dick. " You don't even see your own 
 faults." 
 
 "I can," said Robin; "I see them more than 
 any one. All I claim is justice." 
 
 " Show me, Veronica," I said, " that you are 
 worthy to possess a room. At present you ap- 
 pear to regard the whole house as your room. I 
 find your gaiters on the croquet lawn. A por- 
 tion of your costume — an article that anyone pos- 
 sessed of the true feelings of a lady would desire 
 to keep hidden from the world — is discovered 
 waving from the staircase window." 
 
 II I put it out to be mended," explained Veron- 
 ica. 
 
 11 You opened the door and flung it out. I told 
 you of it at the time," said Robin. " You do 
 the same with your boots." 
 
THEY AND I 21 
 
 " You are too high-spirited for your size," 
 explained Dick to her. "Try to be less dash- 
 ing." 
 
 " I could also wish, Veronica," I continued, 
 " that you shed your back comb less easily, or at 
 least that you knew when you had shed it. As 
 for your gloves — well, hunting your gloves has 
 come to be our leading winter sport." 
 
 " People look in such funny places for them," 
 said Veronica. 
 
 " Granted. But be just, Veronica," I pleaded. 
 " Admit that it is in funny places we occasionally 
 find them. When looking for your things one 
 learns, Veronica, never to despair. So long as 
 there remains a corner unexplored inside or out- 
 side the house, within the half-mile radius, hope 
 need not be abandoned." 
 
 Veronica was still gazing dreamily into the fire. 
 
 " I suppose," said Veronica, " it's reditty." 
 
 "It's what?" I said. 
 
 " She means heredity," suggested Dick — 
 "cheeky young beggar! I wonder you let her 
 talk to you the way she does." 
 
 " Besides," added Robin, " as I am always 
 
22 THEY AND I 
 
 explaining to you, Pa is a literary man. With 
 him it is part of his temperament." 
 
 " It's hard on us children," said Veronica. 
 
 We were all agreed — with the exception of 
 Veronica — that it was time Veronica went to bed. 
 As chairman I took it upon myself to closure the 
 debate. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 " Do you mean, Governor, that you have actually 
 bought the house? " demanded Dick, " or are we 
 only talking about it? " 
 
 11 This time, Dick," I answered, " I have done 
 it." 
 
 Dick looked serious. " Is it what you 
 wanted? " he asked. 
 
 "No, Dick," I replied, "it is not what I 
 wanted. I wanted an old-fashioned, picturesque, 
 rambling sort of a place, all gables and ivy and 
 oriel windows." 
 
 "You are mixing things up," Dick inter- 
 rupted, " gables and oriel windows don't go to- 
 gether." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Dick," I corrected him, 
 " in the house I wanted, they do. It is the style 
 of house you find in the Christmas number. I 
 have never seen it anywhere else, but I took a 
 fancy to it from the first. It is not too far from 
 the church, and it lights up well at night. ' One 
 of these days,' I used to say to myself when a 
 
 23 
 
24 THEY AND I 
 
 boy, ' I'll be a clever man and live in a house just 
 like that.' It was my dream." 
 
 "And what is this place like?" demanded 
 Robin, " this place you have bought." 
 
 " The agent," I explained, " claims for it that 
 it is capable of improvement. I asked him to 
 what school of architecture he would say it be- 
 longed; he said he thought that it must have been 
 a local school, and pointed out — what seems to 
 be the truth — that nowadays they do not build 
 such houses." 
 
 "Near to the river?" demanded Dick. 
 
 " Well, by the road," I answered, " I daresay 
 it may be a couple of miles." 
 
 "And by the shortest way?" questioned Dick. 
 
 "That is the shortest way," I explained; 
 " there's a prettier way through the woods, but 
 that is about three miles and a half." 
 
 " But we had decided it was to be near the 
 river," said Robin. 
 
 " We also decided," I replied, " that it was to 
 be on sandy soil, with a southwest aspect. Only 
 one thing in this house has a southwest aspect 
 and that's the back door. I asked the agent about 
 the sand. He advised me, if I wanted it in any 
 
THEY AND I 25 
 
 quantity, to get an estimate from the Railway 
 Company. I wanted it on a hill. It is on a hill, 
 with a bigger hill in front of it. I didn't want 
 that other hill. I wanted an uninterrupted view 
 of the southern half of England. I wanted to 
 take people out on the step, and cram them with 
 stories about our being able on clear days to see 
 the Bristol Channel. They might not have be- 
 lieved me, but without that hill I could have stuck 
 to it, and they could not have been certain — not 
 dead certain — I was lying. 
 
 " Personally, I should have liked a house where 
 something had happened. I should have liked, 
 myself, a blood-stain — not a fussy blood-stain, 
 a neat unobtrusive blood-stain that would have 
 been content, most of its time, to remain hidden 
 under the mat, shown only occasionally as a treat 
 to visitors. I had hopes even of a ghost. I don't 
 mean one of those noisy ghosts that doesn't seem 
 to know it is dead. A lady ghost would have been 
 my fancy, a gentle ghost with quiet, pretty ways. 
 This house — well it is such a sensible-looking 
 house, that is my chief objection to it. It has 
 got an echo. If you go to the end of the garden 
 and shout at it very loudly, it answers you back. 
 
26 THEY AND I 
 
 This is the only bit of fun you can have with it. 
 Even then it answers you in such a tone you 
 feel it thinks the whole thing silly — is doing it 
 merely to humour you. It is one of those houses 
 that always seems to be thinking of its rates and 
 taxes." 
 
 "Any reason at all for your having brought 
 it?" asked Dick. 
 
 " Yes, Dick," I answered. " We are all of us 
 tired of this suburb. We want to live in the 
 country and be good. To live in the country with 
 any comfort it is necessary to have a house there. 
 This being admitted, it follows we must either 
 build a house or buy one. I would rather not 
 build a house. Talboys built himself a house. 
 You know Talboys. When I first met him, be- 
 fore he started building, he was a cheerful soul 
 with a kindly word for everyone. The builder 
 assures him that in another twenty years, when 
 the colour has had time to tone down, his house 
 will be a picture. At present it makes him bilious, 
 the mere sight of it. Year by year, they tell him, 
 as the dampness wears itself away, he will suffer 
 less and less from rheumatism, ague, and lum- 
 bago. He has a hedge round the garden; it is 
 
THEY AND I 27 
 
 eighteen inches high. To keep the boys out he 
 has put up barbed-wire fencing. But wire fenc- 
 ing affords no real privacy. When the Talboys 
 are taking coffee on the lawn, there is generally 
 a crowd from the village watching them. There 
 are trees in the garden; you know they are trees 
 — there is a label tied to each one telling you what 
 sort of a tree it is. For the moment there is a 
 similarity about them. Thirty years hence, Tal- 
 boys estimates, they will afford him shade and 
 comfort; but by that time he hopes to be dead. I 
 want a house that has got over all its troubles; 
 I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing 
 up a young and inexperienced house." 
 
 11 But why this particular house? " urged Robin, 
 " if, as you say, it is not the house you wanted." 
 
 " Because, my dear girl," I answered, " it is 
 less unlike the house I wanted than other houses 
 I have seen. When we are young we make up 
 our minds to try and get what we want ; when we 
 have arrived at years of discretion we decide to 
 try and want what we can get. It saves time. 
 During the last two years I have seen about sixty 
 houses, and out of the lot there was only one that 
 was really the house I wanted. Hitherto I have 
 
28 THEY AND I 
 
 kept the story to myself. Even now, thinking 
 about it irritates me. It was not an agent who 
 told me of it. I met a man by chance in a railway 
 carriage. He had a black eye. If ever I meet 
 him again I'll give him another. He accounted 
 for it by explaining that he had had trouble with 
 a golf ball, and at the time I believed him. I 
 mentioned to him in conversation I was looking 
 for a house. He described this place to me, and 
 it seemed to me hours before the train stopped at 
 a station. When it did I got out and took the 
 next train back. I did not even wait for lunch. 
 I had my bicycle with me, and I went straight 
 there. It was — well, it was the house I wanted. 
 If it had vanished suddenly, and I had found my- 
 self in bed, the whole thing would have seemed 
 more reasonable. The proprietor opened the door 
 to me himself. He had the bearing of a retired 
 military man. It was afterwards I learnt he was 
 the proprietor. 
 
 11 1 said, ' Good afternoon; if it is not troubling 
 you, I would like to look over the house.' We 
 were standing in the oak-panelled hall. I no- 
 ticed the carved staircase about which the man in 
 the train had told me, also the Tudor fireplaces. 
 
THEY AND I 29 
 
 That is all I had time to notice. The next mo- 
 ment I was lying on my back in the middle of the 
 gravel with the door shut. I looked up. I saw 
 the old maniac's head sticking out of a little win- 
 dow. It was an evil face. He had a gun in his 
 hand. 
 
 " ' I'm going to count twenty,' he said. ' If 
 you are not the other side of the gate by then, I 
 shoot.' 
 
 " I ran over the figures myself on my way to 
 the gate. I made it eighteen. 
 
 " I had an hour to wait for the train. I talked 
 the matter over with the station-master. 
 
 11 ' Yes,' he said, ' there'll be trouble up there 
 one of these days.' 
 
 " I said, ' It seems to me to have begun.' 
 
 " He said, ' It's the Indian sun. It gets into 
 their heads. We have one or two in the neigh- 
 bourhood. They are quiet enough till something 
 happens.' 
 
 "'If I'd been two seconds longer,' I said, 'I 
 believe he'd have done it.' 
 
 " ' It's a taking house,' said the station-master; 
 1 not too big and not too little. It's the sort o£ 
 house people seem to be looking for,' 
 
30 THEY AND I 
 
 " ' I don't envy,' I said, ' the next person that 
 finds it.' 
 
 " ' He settled himself down here,' said the sta- 
 tion-master, ' about ten years ago. Since then, if 
 one person has offered to take the house off his 
 hands, I suppose a thousand have. At first he 
 would laugh at them good-temperedly — explain 
 to them that his idea was to live there himself, in 
 peace and quietness, till he died. Two out of 
 every three of them would express their willing- 
 ness to wait for that, and suggest some arrange- 
 ment by which they might enter into possession, 
 say a week after the funeral. The last few months 
 it has been worse than ever. I reckon you're about 
 the eighth that has been up there this week, and 
 to-day only Thursday. There's something to be 
 said, you know, for the old man.' " 
 
 11 And did he? " asked Dick, " did he shoot the 
 next party that came along? " 
 
 '" Don't be so silly, Dick," said Robin; "it's 
 a story. Tell us another, Pa." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean, Robina, by a 
 story," I said. " If you mean to imply " 
 
 Robina said she didn't; but I know quite well 
 she did. Because I am an author, and have to tell 
 
THEY AND I 31 
 
 stories for my living, people think I don't know 
 any truth. It is vexing enough to be doubted 
 when one is exaggerating; to have sneers flung at 
 one by one's kith and kin when one is struggling 
 to confine one's self to bald, bare narrative — well, 
 where .is the inducement to be truthful? There 
 are times when I almost say to myself that I will 
 never tell the truth again. 
 
 " As it happens," I said, " the story is true, in 
 many places. I pass over your indifference to the 
 risk I ran; though a nice girl at the point where 
 the gun was mentioned would have expressed 
 alarm. Anyhow, at the end you might have said 
 something more sympathetic than merely, ' Tell 
 us another.' He did not shoot the next party that 
 arrived, for the reason that the very next day 
 his wife, alarmed at what had happened, went 
 up to London and consulted an expert — none too 
 soon, as it turned out. The poor old fellow died 
 six months later in a private lunatic asylum; I 
 had it from the station-master on passing through 
 the junction again this spring. The house fell 
 into the possession of his nephew, who is living 
 in it now. He is a youngish man with a large 
 family, and people have learnt that the place is 
 
32 THEY AND I 
 
 not for sale. It seems to me rather a sad story. 
 The Indian sun, as the station-master thinks, may- 
 have started the trouble; but the end was undoubt- 
 edly hastened by the annoyance to which the un- 
 fortunate gentleman had been subjected; and I 
 myself might have been shot. The only thing 
 that comforts me is thinking of that fool's black 
 eye — the fool that sent me there." 
 
 11 And none of the other houses," suggested 
 Dick, " were any good at all? " 
 
 " There were drawbacks, Dick," I explained. 
 "There was a house in Essex; it was one of the 
 first your mother and I inspected. I nearly shed 
 tears of joy when I read the advertisement. It 
 had once been a priory. Queen Elizabeth had 
 slept there on her way to Greenwich. A photo- 
 graph of the house accompanied the advertise- 
 ment. I should not have believed the thing had 
 it been a picture. It was under twelve miles from 
 Charing Cross. The owner, it was stated, was 
 open to offers." 
 
 " All humbug, I suppose," suggested Dick. 
 
 "The advertisement, if anything," I replied, 
 " had under-estimated the attractiveness of that 
 house. All I blame the advertisement for is that 
 
THEY AND I 33 
 
 it did not mention other things. It did not men- 
 tion, for instance, that since Queen Elizabeth's 
 time the neighbourhood had changed. It did not 
 mention that the entrance was between a public 
 house one side of the gate and a fried-fish shop 
 on the other; that the Great Eastern Railway 
 Company had established a goods depot at the 
 bottom of the garden; that the drawing-room win- 
 dows looked out on extensive chemical works, 
 and the dining-room windows, which were round 
 the corner, on a stonemason's yard. The house 
 itself was a dream." 
 
 " But what is the sense of it? " demanded Dick. 
 "What do house agents think is the good of 
 it? Do they think people likely to take a house 
 after reading the advertisement without ever go- 
 ing to see it? " 
 
 " I asked an agent once that very question," 
 I replied. " He said they did it first and foremost 
 to keep up the spirits of the owner — the man who 
 wanted to sell the house. He said that when a 
 man was trying to part with a house he had to 
 listen to so much abuse of it from people who 
 came to see it that if somebody did not stick up 
 for the house — say all that could be said for it, 
 
34 THEY AND I 
 
 and gloss over its defects — he would end by be- 
 coming so ashamed of it he would want to give 
 it away, or blow it up with dynamite. He said 
 that reading the advertisement in the agent's cata- 
 logue was the only thing that reconciled him to 
 being the owner of the house. He said one client 
 of his had been trying to sell his house for years 
 — until one day in the office he read by chance the 
 agent's description of it. Upon which he went 
 straight home, took down the board, and has 
 lived there contentedly ever since. From that 
 point of view there is reason in the system; but 
 for the house-hunter it works badly. 
 
 " One agent sent me a day's journey to see a 
 house standing in the middle of a brickfield, with 
 a view of the Grand Junction Canal. I asked 
 him where was the river he had mentioned. He 
 explained it was the other side of the canal, but 
 on a lower level; that was the only reason why 
 from the house you couldn't see it. I asked him 
 for his picturesque scenery. He explained it was 
 farther on, round the bend. He seemed to think 
 me unreasonable, expecting to find everything I 
 wanted just outside the front door. He suggested 
 my shutting out the brickfield — if I didn't like 
 
THEY AND I 35 
 
 the brickfield — with trees. He suggested the 
 eucalyptus-tree. He said it was a rapid grower. 
 He also told me that it yielded gum. 
 
 " Another house I travelled down in Dorset- 
 shire to see. It contained, according to the ad- 
 vertisement, ' perhaps the most perfect specimen 
 of Norman arch extant in Southern England.' 
 It was to be found mentioned in Dugdale, and 
 dated from the thirteenth century. I don't quite 
 know what I expected. I argued to myself that 
 there must have been ruffians of only moderate 
 means even in those days. Here and there some 
 robber baron who had struck a poor line of coun- 
 try would have had to be content with a homely 
 little castle. A few such, hidden away in unfre- 
 quented districts, had escaped destruction. More 
 civilised descendants had adapted them to later 
 requirements. I had in my mind, before the train 
 reached Dorchester, something between a minia- 
 ture Tower of London and a mediaeval edition 
 of Ann Hathaway's cottage at Stratford. I pic- 
 tured dungeons and a drawbridge, perhaps a se- 
 cret passage. Lamchick has a secret passage, 
 leading from behind a sort of portrait in the din- 
 ing-room to the back of the kitchen chimney. They 
 
36 THEY AND I 
 
 use it for a linen closet. It seems to me a pity. 
 Of course originally it went on farther. The 
 vicar, who is a bit of an antiquarian, believes it 
 comes out somewhere in the churchyard. I tell 
 Lamchick he ought to have it opened up, but 
 his wife doesn't want it touched. She seems to 
 think it just right as it is. I have always had a 
 fancy for a secret passage. I decided I would 
 have the drawbridge repaired and made practica- 
 ble. Flanked on each side with flowers in tubs, 
 it would have been a novel and picturesque ap- 
 proach." 
 
 "Was there a drawbridge?" asked Dick. 
 
 " There was no drawbridge," I explained. 
 " The entrance to the house was through what 
 the caretaker called the conservatory. It was not 
 the sort of house that goes with a drawbridge." 
 
 "Then what about the Norman arches?" 
 argued Dick. 
 
 "Not arches," I corrected him; "Arch. The 
 Norman arch was downstairs in the kitchen. It 
 was the kitchen, that had been built in the thir- 
 teenth century — and had not had much done to 
 it since, apparently. Originally, I should say, it 
 had been the torture chamber; it gave you that 
 
THEY AND I 37 
 
 idea. I think your mother would have raised 
 objections to the kitchen — anyhow, when she came 
 to think of the cook. It would have been neces- 
 sary to put it to the woman before engaging her: 
 
 " ' You don't mind cooking in a dungeon in 
 the dark, do you ? ' 
 
 " Some cooks would. The rest of the house 
 was what I should describe as present-day mixed 
 style. The last tenant but one had thrown out 
 a bathroom in corrugated iron. 
 
 " Then there was a house in Berkshire that I 
 took your mother to see, with a trout stream 
 running through the grounds. I imagined my- 
 self going out after lunch, catching trout for din- 
 ner; inviting swagger friends down to 'my little 
 place in Berkshire ' for a few days' trout-fishing. 
 There is a man I once knew who is now a baro- 
 net. He used to be keen on fishing. I thought 
 maybe I'd get him. It would have looked well 
 in the Literary Gossip column : ' Among the 
 other distinguished guests ' — you know the sort 
 of thing. I had the paragraph ready in my mind. 
 The wonder is I didn't buy a rod." 
 
 "Wasn't there any trout stream?" questioned 
 Robin. 
 
38 THEY AND I 
 
 "There was a stream," I answered; "if any- 
 thing, too much stream. The stream was the 
 first thing your mother noticed. She noticed it 
 a quarter of an hour before we came to it — be- 
 fore we knew it was the stream. We drove back 
 to the town, and she bought a smelling-bottle, 
 the larger size. 
 
 " It gave your mother a headache, that stream, 
 and made me mad. The agent's office was op- 
 posite the station. I allowed myself half an hour 
 on my way back to tell him what I thought of 
 him, and then I missed the train. I could have 
 got it in if he had let me talk all the time, but he 
 would interrupt. He said it was the people at the 
 paper-mill — that he had spoken to them about it 
 more than once; he seemed to think sympathy 
 was all I wanted. He assured me, on his word 
 as a house-agent, that it had once been a trout 
 stream. The fact was historical. Isaac Walton 
 had fished there — -that was prior to the paper mill. 
 He thought a collection of trout, male and female, 
 might be bought and placed in it; preference 
 being given to some hardy breed of trout, accus- 
 tomed to roughing it. I told him I wasn't look- 
 ing for a place where I could play at being Noah; 
 
THEY AND I 39; 
 
 and left him, as I explained to him, with the in- 
 tention of going straight to my solicitors and in- 
 stituting proceedings against him for talking like 
 a fool; and he put on his hat and went across to 
 his solicitors to commence proceedings against me 
 for libel. 
 
 11 1 suppose that, with myself, he thought bet- 
 ter of it in the end. But I'm tired of having my 
 life turned into one perpetual first of April. This 
 house that I have bought is not my heart's desire, 
 but about it there are possibilities. We will put 
 in lattice windows, and fuss-up the chimneys. 
 Maybe we will let in a tablet over the front door, 
 with a date — 1553 always looks well: it is a pic- 
 turesque figure, the old-fashioned five. By the 
 time we have done with it — for all practical pur- 
 poses — it will be a Tudor manor-house. I have 
 always wanted an old Tudor manor-house. There 
 is no reason, so far as I can see, why there should 
 not be stories connected with this house. Why 
 should not we have a room in which Somebody 
 once slept? We won't have Queen Elizabeth. 
 I'm tired of Queen Elizabeth. Besides, I don't 
 believe she'd have been nice. Why not Queen 
 Anne? A quiet, gentle old lady from all ac- 
 
4 o THEY AND I 
 
 counts, who would not have given trouble. Or, 
 better still, Shakespeare. He was constantly to 
 and fro between London and Stratford. It would 
 not have been so very much out of his way. ' The 
 room where Shakespeare slept ! ' Why, it's a 
 new idea. Nobody ever seems to have thought 
 of Shakespeare. There is the four-post bedstead. 
 Your mother never liked it. She will insist, it 
 harbours things. We might hang the wall with 
 scenes from his plays, and have a bust of the old 
 gentleman himself over the door. If I'm left 
 alone and not worried, I'll probably end by be- 
 lieving that he really did sleep there." 
 
 "What about cupboards?" suggested Dick. 
 " The Little Mother will clamour for cupboards." 
 
 It is unexplainable, the average woman's pas- 
 sion for cupboards. In heaven, her first request, 
 I am sure, is always, " Can I have a cupboard?" 
 She would keep her husband and children in cup- 
 boards if she had her way: that would be her idea 
 of the perfect home, everybody wrapped up with 
 a piece of camphor in his or her own proper cup- 
 board. I knew a woman once who was happy — 
 for a woman. She lived in a house with twenty- 
 nine cupboards: I think it must have been built 
 
THEY AND I 41 
 
 by a woman. They were spacious cupboards, 
 many of them, with doors in no way different from 
 other doors. Visitors would wish each other good- 
 night and disappear with their candles into cup- 
 boards, staggering out backwards the next mo- 
 ment, looking scared. One poor gentleman, this 
 woman's husband told me, having to go down- 
 stairs again for something he had forgotten, and 
 unable on his return to strike anything else but 
 cupboards, lost heart and finished up the night 
 in a cupboard. At breakfast-time guests would 
 hurry down, and burst open cupboard doors with 
 a cheery " Good-morning." When that woman 
 was out, nobody in that house ever knew where 
 anything was; and when she came home she her- 
 self only knew where it ought to have been. Yet 
 once, when one of those twenty-nine cupboards 
 had to be cleared out temporarily for repairs, she 
 never smiled, her husband told me, for more than 
 three weeks — not till the workmen were out of 
 the house, and that cupboard in working order 
 again. She said it was so confusing, having no- 
 where to put her things. 
 
 The average woman does not want a house, 
 in the ordinary sense of the word. What she 
 
42 THEY AND I 
 
 wants is something made by a genii. You have 
 found, as you think, the ideal house. You show 
 her the Adam's fireplace in the drawing-room. 
 You tap the wainscoting of the hall with your 
 umbrella: "Oak," you impress upon her, "all 
 oak." You draw her attention to the view: you 
 tell her the local legend. By fixing her head 
 against the window-pane she can see the tree on 
 which the man was hanged. You dwell upon 
 the sun-dial; you mention for a second time the 
 Adam's fireplace. 
 
 11 It's all very nice," she answers, " but where 
 are the children going to sleep?" 
 
 It is so disheartening. 
 
 If it isn't the children, it's the water. She 
 wants water — wants to know where it comes from. 
 You show her where it comes from. 
 
 " What, out of that nasty place ! " she ex- 
 claims. 
 
 She is equally dissatisfied whether it be drawn 
 from a well, or whether it be water that has fallen 
 from heaven and been stored in tanks. She has 
 no faith in Nature's water. A woman never 
 believes that water can be good that does not 
 come from a water-works. Her idea appears to 
 
THEY AND I 43 
 
 be that the Company makes it fresh every morn- 
 ing from some old family recipe. 
 
 If you do succeed in reconciling her to the 
 water, then she feels sure that the chimneys smoke; 
 they look as if they smoked. Why — as you tell 
 her — the chimneys are the best part of the house. 
 You take her outside and make her look at them. 
 They are genuine sixteenth-century chimneys, with 
 carving on them. They couldn't smoke. They 
 wouldn't do anything inartistic. She says she only 
 hopes you are right, and suggests cowls, if they 
 do. 
 
 After that she wants to see the kitchen — where's 
 the kitchen? You don't know where it is. You 
 don't bother about the kitchen. There must be a 
 kitchen of course. You proceed to search for the 
 kitchen. When you find it she is worried because 
 it is the opposite end of the house to the dining- 
 room. You point out to her the advantage of 
 being away from the smell of the cooking. At 
 that she gets personal : tells you that you are the 
 first to grumble when the dinner is cold; and in 
 her madness accuses the whole male sex of being 
 impractical. The mere sight of an empty house 
 makes a woman fretful. 
 
44 THEY AND I 
 
 Of course the stove is wrong. The kitchen 
 stove always is wrong. You promise she shall 
 have a new one. Six months later she will want 
 the old one back again: but it would be cruel to 
 tell her this. The promise of that new stove 
 comforts her. The woman never loses hope that 
 one day it will come — the all-satisfying kitchen 
 stove, the stove of her girlish dreams. 
 
 The question of the stove settled, you imagine 
 . you have silenced all opposition. At once she be- 
 gins to talk about things that nobody but a woman 
 or a sanitary inspector can talk about without 
 blushing. 
 
 It calls for tact, getting a woman into a new 
 house. She is nervous, suspicious. 
 
 11 1 am glad, my dear Dick," I answered; " that 
 you have mentioned cupboards. It is with cup- 
 boards that I am hoping to lure your mother. 
 The cupboards, from her point of view, will be 
 the one bright spot; there are fourteen of them. 
 I am trusting to cupboards to tide me over many 
 things. I shall want you to come with me, Dick. 
 Whenever your mother begins a sentence with 
 ' But now to be practical, dear,' I want you to 
 murmur something about cupboards — not irritat- 
 
THEY AND I 45 
 
 ingly as if it had been prearranged: have a little 
 gumption." 
 
 "Will there be room for a tennis court?" de- 
 manded Dick. 
 
 " An excellent tennis court already exists," I in- 
 formed him. " I have also purchased the ad- 
 joining paddock. We shall be able to keep our 
 own cow. Maybe we'll breed horses." 
 
 "We might have a croquet lawn," suggested 
 Robin. 
 
 " We might easily have a croquet lawn," I 
 agreed. " On a full-sized lawn I believe Veron- 
 ica might be taught to play. There are natures 
 that demand space. On a full-sized lawn, pro- 
 tected by a stout iron border, less time might be 
 wasted exploring the surrounding scenery for 
 Veronica's lost ball." 
 
 " No chance of a golf links anywhere in the 
 neighbourhood?" feared Dick. 
 
 " I am not so sure," I answered. " Barely a 
 mile away there is a pretty piece of gorse land 
 that appears to be no good to anyone. I dare- 
 say for a reasonable offer " 
 
 " I say, when will this show be ready? " inter- 
 rupted Dick. 
 
46 THEY AND I 
 
 " I propose beginning the alterations at once," 
 I explained. " By luck there happens to be a 
 gamekeeper's cottage vacant and within distance. 
 The agent is going to get me the use of it for a 
 year — a primitive little place, but charmingly situ- 
 ated on the edge of a wood. I shall furnish a 
 couple of rooms; and for part of every week I 
 shall make a point of being down there, superin- 
 tending. I have always been considered good at 
 superintending. My poor father used to say it 
 was the only work I seemed to take an interest in. 
 By being on the spot to hurry everybody on I 
 hope to have the ' show,' as you term it, ready by 
 the spring." 
 
 " I shall never marry," said Robin. 
 
 " Don't be so easily discouraged," advised Dick; 
 "you are still young." 
 
 " I don't ever want to get married," continued 
 Robin. " I should only quarrel with my husband, 
 if I did. And Dick will never do anything — not 
 with his head." 
 
 " Forgive me if I am dull," I pleaded, " but 
 what is the connection between this house, your 
 quarrels with your husband if you ever get one, 
 and Dick's head?" 
 
THEY AND I 47 
 
 By way of explanation, Robin sprang to the 
 ground, and before he could stop her had flung 
 her arms around Dick's neck. 
 
 " We can't help it, Dick dear," she told him. 
 " Clever parents always have duffing children. 
 But we'll be of some use in the world, after all, 
 you and I." 
 
 The idea was that Dick, when he had finished 
 failing in examinations, should go out to Canada 
 and start a farm, taking Robin with him. They 
 would breed cattle, and gallop over the prairies, 
 and camp out in the primeval forest, and slide 
 about on snow-shoes, and carry canoes on their 
 backs, and shoot rapids, and stalk things — so far 
 as I could gather, have a sort of everlasting Buf- 
 falo-Bill's show all to themselves. How and 
 when the farm work was to get itself done was 
 not at all clear. The Little Mother and myself 
 were to end our days with them. We were to sit 
 about in the sun for a time, and then pass peace- 
 fully away. Robin shed a few tears at this point, 
 but regained her spirits, thinking of Veronica who 
 was to be lured out on a visit and married to some 
 true-hearted yeoman : which is not at present Ver- 
 onica's ambition. Veronica's conviction is that 
 
4 8 THEY AND I 
 
 she would look well in a coronet: her own idea is 
 something in the ducal line. Robina talked for 
 about ten minutes. By the time she had done 
 she had persuaded Dick that life in the back- 
 woods of Canada had been his dream from in- 
 fancy. She is that sort of girl. 
 
 I tried talking reason, but talking to Robin 
 when she has got a notion in her head is like try- 
 ing to fix a halter on a two-year-old colt. This 
 tumble-down, six-roomed cottage was to be the 
 saving of the family. An ecstatic look transfig- 
 ured Robina's face even as she spoke of it. You 
 might have fancied it a shrine. Robina would do 
 the cooking. Robina would rise early and milk 
 the cow, and gather the morning egg. We would 
 lead the simple life, learn to fend for ourselves. 
 It would be so good for Veronica. The higher 
 education could wait; let the higher ideals have a 
 chance. Veronica would make the beds, dust the 
 rooms. In the evening Veronica, her little basket 
 by her side, would sit and sew while I talked, tell- 
 ing them things, and Robina moved softly to and 
 fro about her work, the household fairy. The 
 Little Mother, whenever strong enough, would 
 come to us. We would hover round her, tending 
 her with loving hands. The English farmer 
 
THEY AND I 49 
 
 must know something, in spite of all that is said. 
 Dick could arrange for lessons in practical farm- 
 ing. She did not say it crudely; but hinted that, 
 surrounded by example, even I might come to 
 take an interest in honest labour, might end by 
 learning to do something useful. 
 
 Robina talked, I should say, for a quarter of 
 an hour. By the time she had done, it appeared 
 to me rather a beautiful idea. Dick's vacation 
 had just commenced. For the next three months 
 there would be nothing else for him to do but — < 
 to employ his own expressive phrase — " rot 
 round." In any event, it would be keeping him 
 out of mischief. Veronica's governess was leav- 
 ing. Veronica's governess generally does leave 
 at the end of about a year. I think sometimes 
 of advertising for a lady without a conscience. 
 At the end of a year, they explain to me that 
 their conscience will not allow them to remain 
 longer; they do not feel they are earning their 
 salary. It is not that the child is not a dear child, 
 it is not that she is stupid. Simply it is — as a 
 German lady to whom Dick had been giving what 
 he called finishing lessons in English, once put it 
 — that she does not seem to be " taking any." 
 Her mother's idea is that it is " sinking in." 
 
$o THEY AND I 
 
 Perhaps if we allowed Veronica to lie fallow for 
 a while, something might show itself. Robina, 
 speaking for herself, held that a period of quiet 
 usefulness, away from the society of other silly 
 girls and sillier boys, would result in her becoming 
 a sensible woman. It is not often that Robina's 
 yearnings take this direction: to thwart them, 
 when they did, seemed wrong. 
 
 We had some difficulty with the Little Mother. 
 That these three babies of hers will ever be men 
 and women capable of running a six-roomed cot- 
 tage appears to the Little Mother in the light of 
 a fantastic dream. I explained to her that I 
 should be there, at all events for two or three 
 days in every week, to give an eye to things. Even 
 that did not content her. She gave way eventually 
 on Robina's solemn undertaking that she should 
 be telegraphed for the first time Veronica coughed. 
 
 On Monday we packed a one-horse van with 
 what we deemed essential. Dick and Robina 
 rode their bicycles. Veronica, supported by as- 
 sorted bedding, made herself comfortable upon 
 the tail-board. I followed down by train on the 
 Wednesday afternoon. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 It was the cow that woke me the first morning. 
 I did not know it was our cow — not at the time. 
 I didn't know we had a cow. I looked at my 
 watch; it was half-past two. I thought maybe 
 she would go to sleep again, but her idea was that 
 the day had begun. I went to the window, the 
 moon was at the full. She was standing by the 
 gate, her head inside the garden; I took it her 
 anxiety was lest we might miss any of it. Her 
 neck was stretched out straight, her eyes towards 
 the sky; which gave to her the appearance of a 
 long-eared alligator. I have never had much to 
 do with cows. I don't know how you talk to 
 them. I told her to " be quiet," and to " lie 
 down " ; and made a pretence to throw a boot at 
 her. It seemed to cheer her, having an audience; 
 she added half a dozen extra notes. I never knew 
 before a cow had so much in her. There is a 
 thing one sometimes meets with in the suburbs 
 — or one used to; I do not know whether it is 
 still extant, but when I was a boy it was quite 
 
 51 
 
52 THEY AND I 
 
 common. It has a hurdy-gurdy fixed to its waist 
 and a drum strapped on behind, a row of pipes 
 hanging from its face, and bells and clappers 
 from most of its other joints. It plays them all 
 at once, and smiles. This cow reminded me of 
 it — with organ effects added. She didn't smile; 
 there was that to be said in her favour. 
 
 I hoped that if I made believe to be asleep she 
 would get discouraged. So I closed the window 
 ostentatiously, and went back to bed. But it only 
 had the effect of putting her on her mettle. " He 
 did not care for that last," I imagined her saying 
 to herself, " I wasn't at my best. There wasn't 
 feeling enough in it." She kept it up for about 
 half an hour, and then the gate against which, I 
 suppose, she had been leaning, gave way with a 
 crash. That frightened her, and I heard her gal- 
 lop off across the field. I was on the point of doz- 
 ing off again when a pair of pigeons settled on the 
 window-sill and began to coo. It is a pretty sound 
 when you are in the mood for it. I wrote a poem 
 once — a simple thing, but instinct with longing 
 « — while sitting under a tree and listening to the 
 cooing of a pigeon. But that was in the after- 
 noon. My only longing now was for a gun. 
 
THEY AND I 53 
 
 Three times I got out of bed and " shoo'd " them 
 away. The third time I remained by the window 
 till I had got it firmly into their heads that I really 
 did not want them. My behaviour on the former 
 two occasions they had evidently judged to be 
 mere playfulness. I had just got back to bed 
 again when an owl began to screech. That is 
 another sound I used to think attractive— so 
 weird, so mysterious. It is Swinburne, I think, 
 who says that you never get the desired one and 
 the time and the place all right together. If the 
 beloved one is with you, it is the wrong place or 
 at the wrong time; and if the time and the place 
 happen to be right, then it is the party that is 
 wrong. The owl was all right : I like owls. The 
 place was all right. He had struck the wrong 
 time, that was all. Eleven o'clock at night, when 
 you can't see him, and naturally feel that you want 
 to, is the proper time for an owl. Perched on 
 the roof of a cowshed in the early dawn he looks 
 silly. He clung there, flapping his wings and 
 screeching at the top of his voice. What it was 
 he wanted I am sure I don't know; and anyhow 
 it didn't seem the way to get it. He came to this 
 conclusion himself at the end of twenty minutes, 
 
54 THEY AND I 
 
 and shut himself up and went home. I thought 
 I was going to have at last some peace, when a 
 corn-crake — a creature upon whom Nature has be- 
 stowed a song like to the tearing of calico-sheets 
 mingled with the sharpening of saws — settled 
 somewhere in the garden and set to work to praise 
 its Maker according to its lights. I have a friend, 
 a poet who lives just off the Strand, and spends 
 his evenings at the Garrick Club. He writes 
 occasional verse for the evening papers, and talks 
 about the " silent country, drowsy with the weight 
 of languors." One of these times I'll lure him 
 down for a Saturday to Monday and let him find 
 out what the country really is — let him hear it. 
 He is becoming too much of a dreamer: it will 
 do him good, wake him up a bit. The corn- 
 crake after a while stopped quite suddenly with 
 a jerk and for the next five minutes there was 
 silence. 
 
 " If this continues for another five," I said to 
 myself, " I'll be asleep." I felt it coming over 
 me. I had hardly murmured the words when 
 the cow turned up again. I should say she had 
 been somewhere and had had a drink. She was 
 in better voice than ever. 
 
THEY AND I 55 
 
 It occurred to me that this would be an op- 
 portunity to make a few notes on the sunrise. 
 The literary man is looked to for occasional de- 
 scription of the sunrise. The earnest reader who 
 has heard about this sunrise thirsts for full par- 
 ticulars. Myself, for purposes of observation, I 
 have generally chosen December or the early part 
 of January. But one never knows. Maybe one 
 of these days I'll want a summer sunrise, with 
 birds and dew-besprinkled flowers: it goes well 
 with the rustic heroine, the miller's daughter, or 
 the girl who brings up chickens and has dreams. 
 I met a brother author once at seven o'clock in 
 the morning in Kensington Gardens. He looked 
 half asleep and so disagreeable that I hesitated for 
 a while to speak to him: he is a man that as a 
 rule breakfasts at eleven. But I summoned my 
 courage and accosted him. 
 
 " This is early for you," I said. 
 
 " It's early for any one but a born fool," he 
 answered. 
 
 "What's the matter?" I asked. "Can't you 
 sleep?" 
 
 "Can't I sleep?" he retorted indignantly. 
 " Why, I daren't sit down upon a seat, I daren't 
 
56 THEY AND I 
 
 lean up against a tree. If I did I'd be asleep in 
 half a second." 
 
 " What's the idea? " I persisted. " Been read- 
 ing Smiles's ' Self-Help and the Secret of Suc- 
 cess '? Don't be absurd," I advised him. " You'll 
 be going to Sunday school next and keeping a diary. 
 You have left it too late : we don't reform at forty. 
 Go home and go to bed." I could see he was 
 doing himself no good. 
 
 " I'm going to bed," he answered, " I'm going 
 to bed for a month when I've finished this con- 
 founded novel that I'm on. Take my advice," 
 he said — he laid his hand upon my shoulder — 
 "never choose a colonial girl for your heroine. 
 At our age it is simple madness. 
 
 " She's a fine girl," he continued, " and good. 
 Has a heart of gold. She's wearing me to a 
 shadow. I wanted something fresh and uncon- 
 ventional. I didn't grasp what it was going to 
 do. She's the girl that gets up early in the morn- 
 ing and rides bare-back — the horse, I mean of 
 course; don't be so silly. Over in New South 
 Wales it didn't matter. I threw in the usual 
 local colour — the eucalyptus-tree and the kanga- 
 roo — and let her ride. It is now that she is over 
 
THEY AND I 57 
 
 here in London that I wish I had never thought 
 of her. She gets up at five and wanders about 
 the silent city. That means, of course, that I have 
 to get up at five in order to record her impres- 
 sions. I have walked six miles this morning. 
 First to St. Paul's Cathedral; she likes it when 
 there's nobody about. You'd think it wasn't big 
 enough for her to see if anybody else was in the 
 street. She thinks of it as of a mother watching 
 over her sleeping children; she's full of all that 
 sort of thing. And from there to Westminster 
 Bridge. She sits on the parapet and reads Words- 
 worth, till the policeman turns her off. This is 
 another of her favourite spots." He indicated 
 with a look of concentrated disgust the avenue 
 where we were standing. " This is where she 
 likes to finish up. She comes here to listen to a 
 blackbird." 
 
 11 Well, you are through with it now," I said 
 to console him. " You've done it; and it's over." 
 
 " Through with it! " he laughed bitterly. " I'm 
 just beginning it. There's the entire East End 
 to be done yet: she's got to meet a fellow there 
 as big a crank as herself. And walking isn't the 
 worst. She's going to have a horse; you can 
 
58 THEY AND I 
 
 guess what that means. Hyde Park will be no 
 good to her. She'll find out Richmond and 
 Ham Common. I've got to describe the scenery 
 and the mad joy of the thing." 
 
 " Can't you imagine it? " I suggested. 
 
 " I'm going to imagine all the enjoyable part 
 of it," he answered. " I must have a ground- 
 work to go upon. She's got to have feelings 
 come to her upon this horse. You can't enter 
 into a rider's feelings when you've almost for- 
 gotten which side of the horse you get up." 
 
 I walked with him to the Serpentine. I had 
 been wondering how it was he had grown stout 
 so suddenly. He had a bath towel round him un- 
 derneath his coat. 
 
 " It'll give me my death of cold, I know it 
 will," he chattered while unlacing his boots. 
 
 " Can't you leave it till the summer-time," I 
 suggested, " and take her to Ostend? " 
 
 " It wouldn't be unconventional," he growled. 
 " She wouldn't take an interest in it." 
 
 II But do they allow ladies to bathe in the 
 Serpentine?" I persisted. 
 
 " It won't be the Serpentine," he explained. 
 " It's going to be the Thames at Greenwich. But 
 
THEY AND I 59 
 
 it must be the same sort of feeling. She's got to 
 tell them all about it during a lunch in Queen's 
 Gate, and shock them all. That's all she does it 
 for, in my opinion." 
 
 He emerged a mottled blue. I helped him 
 into his clothes, and he was fortunate enough to 
 find an early cab. The book appeared at Christ- 
 mas. The critics agreed that the heroine was a 
 delightful creation. Some of them said they would 
 like to have known her. 
 
 Remembering my poor friend, it occurred to 
 me that by going out now and making a few 
 notes about the morning, I might be saving my- 
 self trouble later on. I slipped on a few things 
 — nothing elaborate — put a notebook *in my 
 pocket, opened the door and went down. 
 
 Perhaps it would be more correct to say 
 " opened the door and was down." It was my 
 own fault, I admit. We had talked this thing 
 over before going to bed, and I myself had im- 
 pressed upon Veronica the need for caution. The 
 architect of the country cottage does not waste 
 space. He dispenses with landings; the bedroom 
 door opens on to the top stair. It does not do to 
 walk out of your bedroom, for the reason there is 
 
6o THEY AND I 
 
 nothing outside to walk on. I had said to Veron- 
 ica, pointing out this fact to her: 
 
 " Now don't, in the morning, come bursting 
 out of the room in your usual volcanic style, be- 
 cause if you do there will be trouble. As you 
 perceive, there is no landing. The stairs com- 
 mence at once ; they are steep, and they lead down 
 to a brick floor. Open the door quietly, look 
 where you are going, and step carefully." 
 
 Dick had added his advice to mine. " I did 
 that myself the first morning," Dick had said. 
 " I stepped straight out of the bedroom into the 
 kitchen ; and I can tell you, it hurts. You be care- 
 ful, young 'un. This cottage doesn't lend itself to 
 dash." - 
 
 Robina had fallen down with a tray in her 
 hand. She said that never should she forget the 
 horror of that moment, when, sitting on the 
 kitchen floor, she had cried to Dick — her own 
 voice sounding to her as if it came from some- 
 where quite far off: "Is it broken? Tell me the 
 truth. Is it broken anywhere?" and Dick had 
 replied: "Broken! why, it's smashed to atoms. 
 What did you expect?" Robina had asked the 
 question with reference to her head, while Dick 
 
THEY AND I 61 
 
 had thought she was alluding to the teapot. In 
 that moment, had said Robina, her whole life had 
 passed before her. She let Veronica feel the 
 bump. 
 
 Veronica was disappointed with the bump, hav- 
 ing expected something bigger, but had promised 
 to be careful. We had all agreed that if in spite 
 of our warnings she forgot, and came blundering 
 down in the morning, it would serve her right. It 
 was thinking of all this that, as I lay upon the 
 floor, made me feel angry with everybody. I hate 
 people who can sleep through noises that wake 
 me up. Why was I the only person in the house 
 to be disturbed? Dick's room was round the 
 corner; there was some excuse for him. But 
 Robina and Veronica's window looked straight 
 down upon the cow. If Robina and Veronica were 
 not a couple of logs, the cow would have aroused 
 them. We should have discussed the matter with 
 the door ajar. Robina would have said, "What- 
 ever you do, be careful of the stairs, Pa," and I 
 should have remembered. The modern child ap- 
 pears to me to have no feeling for its parent. 
 
 I picked myself up and started for the door. 
 The cow continued bellowing steadily. My whole 
 
62 THEY AND I 
 
 anxiety was to get to her quickly and to hit her. 
 But the door took more finding than I could have 
 believed possible. The shutters were closed and 
 the whole place was in pitch darkness. The idea 
 had been to furnish this cottage only with things 
 that were absolutely necessary, but the room ap- 
 peared to me to be overcrowded. There was a 
 milking-stool, which is a thing made purposely 
 heavy so that it may not be easily upset. If I 
 tumbled over it once I tumbled over it a dozen 
 times. I got hold of it at last and carried it about 
 with me. I thought I would use it to hit the cow 
 — that is, when I had found the front door. I 
 knew it led out of the parlour, but could not recol- 
 lect its exact position. I argued that if I kept 
 along the wall I would be bound to come to it. I 
 found the wall, and set off full of hope. I suppose 
 the explanation was that, without knowing it, I 
 must have started with the door — not the front 
 door, the other door, leading into the kitchen. I 
 crept along, carefully feeling my way, and struck 
 quite new things altogether — things I had no 
 recollection of and that hit me in fresh places. I 
 climbed over what I presumed to be a beer-barrel 
 and landed among bottles ; there were dozens upon 
 
THEY AND I 63 
 
 dozens of them. To get away from these bottles 
 I had to leave the wall; but I found it again, as 
 I thought, and I felt along it for another half a 
 dozen yards or so and then came again upon bot- 
 tles: the room appeared to be paved with bottles. 
 A little farther on I rolled over another beer- 
 barrel: as a matter of fact it was the same beer- 
 barrel, but I did not know this. At the time it 
 seemed to me that Robina had made up her mind 
 to run a public-house. I found the milking-stool 
 again and started afresh, and before I had gone 
 a dozen steps was in among bottles again. Later 
 on, in the broad daylight, it was easy enough to 
 understand what had happened. I had been care- 
 fully feeling my way round and round a screen. I 
 got so sick of these bottles and so tired of rolling 
 over these everlasting beer-barrels, that I aban- 
 doned the wall and plunged bodily into space. 
 
 I had barely started, when, looking up, I saw 
 the sky above me : a star was twinkling just above 
 my head. Had I been wide awake, and had the 
 cow stopped bellowing for just one minute, I 
 would have guessed that somehow or another I 
 had got into a chimney. But as things w T ere, the 
 wonder and the mystery of it all appalled me. 
 
64 THEY AND I 
 
 " Alice's Adventures in Wonderland " would have 
 appeared to me, at that moment, in the nature of 
 a guide to travellers. Had a rocking-horse or a 
 lobster suddenly appeared to me I should have 
 sat and talked to it; and if it had not answered 
 me I should have thought it sulky and been hurt. 
 I took a step forward and the star disappeared, 
 just as if somebody had blown it out. I was not 
 surprised in the least. I was expecting anything 
 to happen. 
 
 I found the door and it opened quite easily. A 
 wood was in front of me. I couldn't see any cow 
 anywhere, but I still heard her. It all seemed 
 quite natural. I would wander into the wood; 
 most likely I would meet her there, and she would 
 be smoking a pipe. In all probability she would 
 know some poetry. 
 
 With the fresh air my senses gradually came 
 back to me, and I began to understand why it 
 was I could not see the cow. The reason was 
 that the house was between us. By some mys- 
 terious process I had been discharged into the 
 back garden. I still had the milking-stool in my 
 hand, but the cow no longer troubled me. Let 
 her see if she could wake Veronica by merely bel- 
 
THEY AND I 6$ 
 
 lowing outside the door; it was more than I had 
 ever been able to do. 
 
 I sat down on the stool and opened my note- 
 book. I headed the page: " Sunrise in July: ob- 
 servations and emotions," and I wrote down at 
 once, lest I should forget it, that towards three 
 o'clock a faint light is discernible, and added that 
 this light gets stronger as the time goes on. 
 
 It sounded footling even to myself, but I had 
 been reading a novel of the realistic school that 
 had been greatly praised for its actuality. There 
 is a demand in some quarters for this class of ob- 
 servation. I likewise made a note that the pigeon 
 and the corn-crake appear to be among the earliest 
 of Nature's children to welcome the coming day; 
 and added that the screech-owl may be heard, per- 
 haps at its best, by any one caring to rise for the 
 purpose, some quarter of an hour before the dawn. 
 That was all I could think of just then. As re- 
 gards emotions I did not seem to have any. 
 
 I lit a pipe and waited for the sun. The sky 
 in front of me was tinged with a faint pink. 
 Every moment it flushed a deeper red. I maintain 
 that any one, not an expert, would have said that 
 was the portion of the horizon on which to keep 
 
66 THEY AND I 
 
 one's eye. I kept my eye upon it, but no sun ap- 
 peared. I lit another pipe. The sky in front of 
 me was now a blaze of glory. I scribbled a few 
 lines, likening the scattered clouds to brides blush- 
 ing at the approach of the bridegroom. That 
 would have been all right if later on they hadn't 
 begun to turn green : it seemed the wrong colour 
 for a bride. Later on still they went yellow, and 
 that spoilt the simile past hope. One cannot wax 
 poetical about a bride who at the approach of 
 the bridegroom turns first green and then yellow: 
 you can only feel sorry for her. I waited some 
 more. The sky in front of me grew paler every 
 moment. I began to fear that something had hap- 
 pened to that sun. If I hadn't known so much 
 astronomy I should have said that he had changed 
 his mind and had gone back again. I rose with 
 the idea of seeing into things. He had been up 
 apparently for hours; he had got up at the back 
 of me. It seemed to be nobody's fault. I put 
 my pipe into my pocket and strolled round to the 
 front. The cow was still there; she was pleased 
 to see me, and started bellowing again. 
 
 I heard a sound of whistling. It proceeded 
 from a farmer's boy. I hailed him, and he 
 
THEY AND I 67 
 
 climbed a gate and came to me across the field. 
 He was a cheerful youth. He nodded to the 
 cow and hoped she had had a good night: he 
 pronounced it " nihet." 
 
 "You know the cow?" I said. 
 
 "Well," he explained, "we don't precisely 
 move in the sime set. Sort o' business relytion- 
 ship more like — if you understand me?" 
 
 Something about this boy was worrying me. 
 He did not seem like a real farmer's boy. But 
 then nothing seemed quite real this morning. My 
 feeling was to let things go. 
 
 " Whose cow is it? " I asked. 
 
 He stared at me. 
 
 " I want to know to whom it belongs," I said. 
 " I want to restore it to him." 
 
 " Excuse me," said the boy, " but where do 
 you live? " 
 
 He was making me cross. " Where do I 
 live?" I retored. "Why, in this cottage. You 
 don't think I've got up early and come from a dis- 
 tance to listen to this cow? Don't talk so much. 
 Do you know whose cow it is, or don't you? " 
 
 " It's your cow," said the boy. 
 
 It was my turn to stare. 
 
68 THEY AND I 
 
 " But I haven't got a cow," I told him. 
 
 " Yus you have," he persisted; "you've got 
 that cow." 
 
 She had stopped bellowing for a moment. She 
 was not the cow I felt I could ever take a pride 
 in. At some time or another, quite recently, she 
 must have sat down in some mud. 
 
 " How did I get her? " I demanded. 
 
 " The young lydy," explained the boy, " she 
 came rahnd to our plice on Tuesday " 
 
 I began to see light. " An excitable young 
 lady — talks very fast — never waits for the an- 
 swer? " 
 
 " With jolly fine eyes," added the boy approv- 
 ingly. 
 
 "And she ordered a cow?" 
 
 " Didn't seem to 'ave strength enough to live 
 another dy withahut it." 
 
 " Any stipulation made concerning the price of 
 the cow? " 
 
 "Any what?" 
 
 " The young lady with the eyes — did she think 
 to ask the price of the cow? " 
 
 " No sordid details was entered into, so far as 
 I could 'ear," replied the boy. 
 
THEY AND I 69 
 
 They would not have been — by Robina. 
 
 11 Any hint let fall as to what the cow was 
 wanted for? " 
 
 " The lydy gives us to understand," said the 
 boy, " that fresh milk was 'er idea." 
 
 That surprised me : that was thoughful of Ro- 
 bina. " And this is the cow? " 
 
 " I towed her rahnd last night. I didn't knock 
 at the door and tell yer abaht 'er, cos, to be frank 
 with yer, there wasn't anybody in." 
 
 11 What is she bellowing for? " I asked. 
 
 11 Well," said the boy, " it's only a theory, o' 
 course, but I should sy, from the look of 'er, that 
 she wanted to be milked." 
 
 11 But it started bellowing at half-past two," I 
 argued. " It doesn't expect to be milked at half- 
 past two, does it? " 
 
 11 Meself," said the boy, " I've given up look- 
 ing for sense in cows." 
 
 In some unaccountable way this boy was hyp- 
 notising me. Everything had suddenly become 
 out of place. The cow had suddenly become ab- 
 surd; she ought to have been a milk-can. The 
 wood struck me as neglected : there ought to have 
 been notice-boards about, " Keep off the Grass," 
 
70 THEY AND I 
 
 " Smoking Strictly Prohibited " ; there wasn't a 
 seat to be seen. The cottage had surely got itself 
 there by accident: where was the street? The 
 birds were all out of their cages; everything was 
 upside down. 
 
 "Are you a real farmer's boy?" I asked him. 
 
 " O' course I am," he answered. " What do 
 yer tike me for — a hartist in disguise?" 
 
 It came to me. "What is your name?" 
 
 " 'Enery — 'Enery 'Opkins." 
 
 11 Where were you born? " 
 
 " Camden Tahn." 
 
 Here was a nice beginning to a rural life! 
 What place could be the country while this boy 
 Hopkins was about? He would have given to the 
 Garden of Eden the atmosphere of an outlying 
 suburb. 
 
 " Do you want to earn an occasional shilling? " 
 I put it to him. 
 
 " I'd rather it come reggler," said Hopkins. 
 " Better for me kerrickter." 
 
 "You drop that Cockney accent and, learn 
 Berkshire, and I'll give you half a sovereign when 
 you can talk it," I promised him. " Don't for 
 instance, say ' ain't,' " I explained to him. " Say 
 
THEY AND I 71 
 
 I bain't.' Don't say ' The young lydy, she came 
 rahnd to our plice ' ; say * The missy, 'er coomed 
 down; 'er coomed, and 'er ses to the maister, 'er 
 ses . . .' That's the sort of thing I want to 
 surround myself with here. When you informed 
 me that the cow was mine, you should have said: 
 
 * Whoi, 'er be your cow, surelie 'er be.' ' 
 
 "Sure it's Berkshire?" demanded Hopkins. 
 
 II You're confident about it? " There is a type that 
 is by nature suspicious. 
 
 " It may not be Berkshire pure and undefined," 
 I admitted. " It is what in literature we term 
 
 * dialect.' It does for most places outside the 
 twelve-mile radius. The object is to convey a 
 feeling of rustic simplicity. Anyhow, it isn't Cam- 
 den Town." 
 
 I started him with a shilling then and there to 
 encourage him. He promised to come round in 
 the evening for one or two books, written by 
 friends of mine, that I reckoned would be of help 
 to him; and I returned to the cottage and set to 
 work to rouse Robina. Her tone was apologetic. 
 She had got the notion into her head that I had 
 been calling her for quite a long time. I explained 
 that this was not the case. 
 
72 THEY AND I 
 
 "How funny!" she answered. "I said to 
 Veronica more than an hour ago : ' I'm sure that's 
 Pa calling us.' I suppose I must have been dream- 
 ing." 
 
 11 Well, don't dream any more," I suggested. 
 11 Come down and see to this confounded cow of 
 yours." 
 
 "Oh," said Veronica, "has it come?" 
 
 " It has come," I told her. " As a matter of 
 fact, it has been here some time. It ought to have 
 been milked four hours ago, according to its own 
 idea." 
 
 Robina said she would be down in a minute. 
 
 She was down in twenty-five, which was sooner 
 than I had expected. She brought Veronica with 
 her. She said she would have been down sooner 
 if she had not waited for Veronica. It appeared 
 that this was just precisely what Veronica had 
 been telling her. I was feeling irritable. I had 
 been up half a day, and hadn't had my breakfast. 
 
 " Don't stand there arguing," I told them. 
 " For goodness' sake let's get to work and milk 
 this cow. We shall have the poor creature dying 
 on our hands if we're not careful." 
 
 Robina was wandering round the room. 
 
THEY AND I 73 
 
 " You haven't come across a milking-stool any- 
 where, have you, Pa?" asked Robina. 
 
 " I have come across your milking-stool, I esti- 
 mate, some thirteen times," I told her. I fetched 
 it from where I had left it, and gave it to her; and 
 we filed out in procession; Veronica with a gal- 
 vanised iron bucket bringing up the rear. 
 
 The problem that was forcing itself upon my 
 mind was: did Robina know how to milk a cow? 
 Robina, I argued, the idea once in her mind, 
 would immediately have ordered a cow, clamour- 
 ing for it — as Hopkins had picturesquely ex- 
 pressed it — as though she had not strength to live 
 another day without a cow. Her next proceeding 
 would have been to buy a milking-stool, this one 
 she had selected, ornamented with a rough draw- 
 ing of a cow in poker work: a little too solid for 
 my taste, but one that I should say would wear 
 well. The pail she had not as yet had time to see 
 about. This galvanised bucket we were using was, 
 I took it, a temporary makeshift. When Robina 
 had leisure she would go into the town and pur- 
 chase something at an art store. That, to com- 
 plete the scheme, she would have done well to 
 have taken a few practical lessons in milking 
 
74 THEY AND I 
 
 would come to her, as an inspiration, with the ar- 
 rival of the cow. I noticed that Robina's steps 
 as we approached the cow were less elastic. Just 
 outside the cow Robina halted. 
 
 " I suppose," said Robina, " there's only one 
 way of milking a cow? " 
 
 " There may be fancy ways," I answered, 
 " necessary to you if later on you think of enter- 
 ing a competition. This morning, seeing we are 
 late, I shouldn't worry too much about style. If 
 I were you, this morning I should adopt the or- 
 dinary unimaginative method, and aim only at 
 results." 
 
 Robina sat down and placed her bucket under- 
 neath the cow. 
 
 "I suppose," said Robina, " it doesn't matter 
 which — which one I begin with?" 
 
 It was perfectly plain she hadn't the least no- 
 tion how to milk a cow. I told her so, adding 
 comments. Now and then a little fatherly talk 
 does good. As a rule I have to work myself up 
 for these occasions. This morning I was feeling 
 fairly fit: things had conspired to this end. I 
 put before Robina the aims and privileges of the 
 household fairy as they appeared, not to her, but 
 
THEY AND I 75 
 
 to me. I also confided to Veronica the result of 
 many weeks' reflections concerning her and her be- 
 haviour. I also told them both what I thought 
 about Dick. I do this sort of thing once every 
 six months: it has an excellent effect for about 
 three days. 
 
 Robina wiped away her tears, and seized the 
 first one that came to her hand. The cow, with- 
 out saying a word, kicked over the empty bucket, 
 and walked away, disgust expressed in every hair 
 of her body. Robina, crying quietly, followed 
 her. By patting her on her neck, and letting her 
 wipe her nose on my coat — which seemed to com- 
 fort her^I persuaded her to keep still while Ro- 
 bina worked for ten minutes at high pressure. The 
 result was about a glassful and a half, the cow's 
 capacity, to all appearance, being by this time 
 some five or six gallons. 
 
 Robina broke down, and acknowledged she had 
 been a wicked girl. If the cow died, so she said, 
 she should never forgive herself. Veronica at 
 this burst into tears also; and the cow, whether 
 moved afresh by her own troubles or by theirs, 
 commenced again to bellow. I was fortunately 
 able to find an elderly labourer smoking a pipe 
 
76 THEY AND I 
 
 and eating bacon underneath a tree; and with 
 him I bargained that for a shilling a day he should 
 milk the cow till further notice. 
 
 We left him busy, and returned to the cottage. 
 Dick met us at the door with a cheery " Good 
 morning." He wanted to know if we had heard 
 the storm. He also wanted to know when break- 
 fast would be ready. Robina thought that happy 
 event would be shortly after he had boiled the 
 kettle and made the tea and fried the bacon, 
 while Veronica was laying the table. 
 
 "But I thought " 
 
 Robina said that if he dared to mention the 
 word " household-fairy " she would box his ears, 
 and go straight up to bed, and leave everybody 
 to do everything. She said she meant it. 
 
 Dick has one virtue: it is philosophy. " Come 
 on, young 'un," said Dick to Veronica. " Trouble 
 is good for us all." 
 
 " Some of us," said Veronica, " it makes bitter." 
 
 We sat down to breakfast at eight-thirty. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Our architect arrived on Friday afternoon, or 
 rather, his assistant. 
 
 I felt from the first I was going to like him. 
 He is shy, and that, of course, makes him appear 
 awkward. But, as I explained to Robina, it is 
 the shy young men who, generally speaking, turn 
 out best : few men could have been more painfully 
 shy up to twenty-five than myself. 
 
 Robina said that was different: in the case of 
 an author it did not matter. Robina's attitude 
 towards the literary profession would not annoy 
 me so much were it not typical. To be a literary 
 man is, in Robina's opinion, to be a licensed idiot. 
 It was only a week or two ago that I overheard 
 from my study window a conversation between 
 Veronica and Robina upon this very point. Ver- 
 onica's eye had caught something lying on the 
 grass. I could not myself see what it was, in con- 
 sequence of an intervening laurel bush. Veronica 
 stooped down and examined it with care. The 
 next instant, uttering a piercing whoop, she leapt 
 
 77 
 
78 THEY AND I 
 
 into the air; then, clapping her hands, began to 
 dance. Her face was radiant with a holy joy. 
 Robina, passing near, stopped and demanded ex- 
 planation. 
 
 "Pa's tennis racquet!" shouted Veronica — 
 Veronica never sees the use of talking in an or- 
 dinary tone of voice when shouting will do just 
 as well. She continued clapping her hands and 
 taking little bounds into the air. 
 
 "Well, what are you going on like that for? " 
 asked Robina. " It hasn't bit you, has it?" 
 
 " It's been out all night in the wet," shouted 
 Veronica. " He forgot to bring it in." 
 
 " You wicked child ! " said Robina severely. 
 " It's nothing to be pleased about." 
 
 "Yes, it is," explained Veronica. "I thought 
 at first it was mine. Oh, wouldn't there have 
 been a talk about it, if it had been! Oh, my! 
 wouldn't there have been a row!" She settled 
 down to a steady rhythmic dance, suggestive of a 
 Greek chorus expressing satisfaction with the 
 gods. 
 
 Robina seized her by the shoulders and shook 
 her back into herself. " If it had been yours," 
 
THEY AND I 79 
 
 said Robina, " you would deserve to have been 
 sent to bed." 
 
 " Well, then, why don't he go to bed? " argued 
 Veronica. 
 
 Robina took her by the arm and walked her 
 up and down just underneath my window. I 
 listened, because the conversation interested me. 
 
 " Pa, as I am always explaining to you," said 
 Robina, " is a literary man. He cannot help for- 
 getting things." 
 
 " Well, I can't help forgetting things," insisted 
 Veronica. 
 
 "You find it hard," explained Robina kindly; 
 " but if you keep on trying you will succeed. You 
 will get more thoughtful. I used to be forgetful 
 and do foolish things once, when I was a little 
 
 girl." 
 
 " Good thing for us if we was all literary," sug- 
 gested Veronica. 
 
 " If we ' were ' all literary," Robina corrected 
 her. " But you see we are not. You and I and 
 Dick, we are just ordinary mortals. We must try 
 and think, and be sensible. In the same way, when 
 Pa gets excited and raves — I mean, seems to rave 
 
80 THEY AND I 
 
 — It's the literary temperament. He can't help 
 it." 
 
 " Can't you help doing anything when you are 
 literary?" asked Veronica. 
 
 " There's a good deal you can't help," answered 
 Robina. " It isn't fair to judge them by the or- 
 dinary standard." 
 
 They drifted towards the kitchen garden — it 
 was the time of strawberries — and the remainder 
 of the talk I lost. I noticed that for some days 
 afterwards Veronica displayed a tendency to shut- 
 ting herself up in the schoolroom with a copy- 
 book, and that lead pencils had a way of disap- 
 pearing from my desk. One in particular that 
 had suited me I determined if possible to recover. 
 A subtle instinct guided me to Veronica's sanctum. 
 I found her thoughtfully sucking it. She explained 
 to me that she was writing a little play. 
 
 11 You get things from your father, don't 
 you? " she inquired of me. 
 
 "You do," I admitted; "but you ought not 
 to take them without asking. I am always telling 
 you of it. That pencil is the only one I can write 
 with." 
 
 " I didn't mean the pencil," explained Veronica. 
 
THEY AND I 81 
 
 " I was wondering if I had got your literary tem- 
 per." 
 
 It is puzzling when you come to think of it, 
 this estimate accorded by the general public to 
 the litterateur. It stands to reason that the man 
 who writes books, explaining everything and put- 
 ting everybody right, must be himself an excep- 
 tionally clever man; else how could he do it! 
 The thing is pure logic. Yet to listen to Robina 
 and her like you might think we had not sense 
 enough to run ourselves, as the saying is — let alone 
 running the universe. If I would let her, Robina 
 would sit and give me information by the 
 hour. 
 
 11 The ordinary girl . . ." Robina will be- 
 gin, with the air of a University Extension Lec- 
 turer. 
 
 It is so exasperating. As if I did not know all 
 there is to be known about girls! Why, it is my 
 business. I point this out to Robina. 
 
 " Yes, I know," Robina will answer sweetly. 
 " But I was meaning the real girl." 
 
 It would make not the slightest difference were 
 I even quite a high-class literary man — Robina 
 thinks I am: she is a dear child. Were I Shake- 
 
82 THEY AND I 
 
 speare himself, and could I in consequence say to 
 her: " Methinks, child, the creator of Ophelia 
 and Juliet, and Rosamund and Beatrice, must 
 surely know something about girls," Robina would 
 still make answer: 
 
 " Of course, Pa, dear. Everybody knows how 
 clever you are. But I was thinking for the mo- 
 ment of real girls." 
 
 I wonder to myself sometimes, Is literature to 
 the general reader ever anything more than a fairy 
 tale? We write with our heart's blood, as we 
 put it. We ask our conscience, Is it right thus 
 to lay bare the secrets of our souls? The general 
 reader does not grasp that we are writing with our 
 heart's blood: to him it is just ink. He does not 
 believe we are laying bare the secrets of our souls: 
 he takes it we are just pretending. " Once upon 
 a time there lived a girl named Angelina who 
 loved a party by the name of Edwin." He imag- 
 ines — he, the general reader — when we tell him 
 all the wonderful thoughts that were inside An- 
 gelina, that it was we who put them there. He 
 does not know, he will not try to understand, that 
 Angelina is in reality more real than is Miss Jones, 
 who rides up every morning in the 'bus with him, 
 
THEY. AND I 83 
 
 and has a pretty knack of rendering conversation 
 about the weather novel and suggestive. As a 
 boy I won some popularity among my schoolmates 
 as a teller of stories. One afternoon to a small 
 collection with whom I was homing across Re- 
 gent's Park, I told the story of a beautiful 
 Princess. But she was not the ordinary Princess. 
 She would not behave as a Princess should. I 
 could not help it. The others heard only my 
 voice, but I was listening to the wind. She thought 
 she loved the Prince — until he had wounded the 
 Dragon unto death and had carried her away into 
 the wood. Then, while the Prince lay sleeping, 
 she heard the Dragon calling to her in its pain, 
 and crept back to where it lay bleeding, and put 
 her arms about its scaly neck and kissed it; and 
 that healed it. I was hoping myself that at this 
 point it would turn into a prince itself, but it 
 didn't; it just remained a dragon — so the wind 
 said. Yet the Princess loved it: it wasn't half a 
 bad dragon, when you knew it. I could not tell 
 them what became of the Prince : the wind didn't 
 seem to care a hang about the Prince. 
 
 Myself, I liked the story, but Hocker, who was 
 a Fifth Form boy, voicing our little public, said it 
 
84 THEY, AND I 
 
 was rot, so far, and that I had got to hurry up 
 and finish things rightly. 
 
 " But that is all," I told them. 
 
 41 No, it isn't," said Hocker. " She's got to 
 marry the Prince in the end. He'll have to kill 
 the Dragon again; and mind he does it properly 
 this time. Whoever heard of a Princess leaving a 
 Prince for a Dragon 1 " 
 
 11 But she wasn't the ordinary sort of Princess," 
 I argued. 
 
 " Then she's got to be," criticised Hocker. 
 " Don't you give yourself so many airs. You 
 make her marry the Prince, and be slippy about 
 it. I've got to catch the four-fifteen from Chalk 
 Farm station." 
 
 " But she didn't," I persisted obstinately. " She 
 married the Dragon and lived happy ever after- 
 wards." 
 
 Hocker adopted sterner measures. He seized 
 my arm and twisted it behind me. 
 
 "She married who?" demanded Hocker: 
 grammar was not Hocker's strong point. 
 
 " The Dragon," I growled. 
 
 " She married who? " repeated Hocker. 
 
 " The Dragon," I whined. 
 
THEY AND I 85 
 
 " She married who? " for the third time urged 
 Hocker. 
 
 Hocker was strong, and the tears were forcing 
 themselves into my eyes in spite of me. So the 
 Princess in return for healing the Dragon made 
 it promise to reform. It went back with her to 
 the Prince, and made itself generally useful to 
 both of them for the rest of the tour. And the 
 Prince took the Princess home with him and mar- 
 ried her; and the Dragon died and was buried. 
 The others liked the story better, but I hated it; 
 and the wind sighed and died away. 
 
 The little crowd becomes the reading public, 
 and Hocker grows into an editor; he twists my 
 arm in other ways. Some are brave, so the crowd 
 kicks them and scurries off to catch the four- 
 fifteen. But most of us, I fear, are slaves to 
 Hocker. Then, after a while, the wind grows 
 sulky and will not tell us stories any more, and we 
 have to make them up out of our own heads. Per- 
 haps it is just as well. What were doors and win- 
 dows made for but to keep out the wind. 
 
 He is a dangerous fellow, this wandering Wind; 
 he leads me astray. I was talking about our 
 architect. 
 
86 THEY AND I 
 
 He made a bad start, so far as Robina was 
 concerned, by coming in at the back door. Ro- 
 bina, in a big apron, was washing up. He apolo- 
 gised for having blundered into the kitchen, and 
 offered to go out again and work round to the 
 front. Robina replied, with unnecessary seventy 
 as I thought, that an architect, if any one, might 
 have known the difference between the right side 
 of a house and the wrong; but presumed that 
 youth and inexperience could always be pleaded 
 as excuse for stupidity. I cannot myself see why 
 Robina should have been so much annoyed. 
 Labour, as Robina had been explaining to Ver- 
 onica only a few hours before, exalts a woman. 
 In olden days, ladies — the highest in the land — ■ 
 were proud, not ashamed, of their ability to per- 
 form domestic duties. This, later on, I pointed 
 out to Robina. Her answer was that in olden 
 days you didn't have chits of boys going about, 
 calling themselves architects, and opening back 
 doors without knocking; or if they did knock, 
 knocking so that nobody on earth could hear them. 
 
 Robina wiped her hands on the towel behind 
 the door, and brought him into the front room, 
 where she announced him, coldly, as " The young 
 
THEY AND I 87 
 
 man from the architect's office." He explained — 
 but quite modestly — that he was not exactly 
 Messrs. Spreight's young man, but an architect 
 himself, a junior member of the firm. To make 
 it clear he produced his card, which was that of 
 Mr. Archibald T. Bute, F.R.I.B.A. Practically 
 speaking, all this was unnecessary. Through the 
 open door I had, of course, heard every word; 
 and old Spreight had told me of his intention to 
 send me one of his most promising assistants, who 
 would be able to devote himself entirely to my 
 work. I put matters right by introducing him 
 formally to Robina. They bowed to one another 
 rather stiffly. Robina said that if he would excuse 
 her she would return to her work; and he an- 
 swered " Charmed," and also that he didn't mean 
 it. As I have tried to get it into Robina's head, 
 the young fellow was confused. He had meant — 
 it was self-evident — that he was charmed at being 
 introduced to her, not at her desire to return to 
 the kitchen. But Robina appears to have taken 
 a dislike to him. 
 
 I gave him a cigar, and we started for the house. 
 It lies just a mile from this cottage, the other side 
 of the wood. One excellent trait in him I soon 
 
88 THEY AND I 
 
 discovered — he Is intelligent without Knowing 
 everything. 
 
 I confess it to my shame, but the young man 
 who knows everything has come to pall upon me. 
 According to Emerson, this is a proof of my own 
 intellectual feebleness. The strong man, intel- 
 lectually, cultivates the society of his superiors. 
 He wants to get on, he wants to learn things. If 
 I loved knowledge as one should, I would have 
 no one but young men about me. There was a 
 friend of Dick's, a gentleman from Rugby. At 
 one time he had hopes of me; I felt he had. But 
 he was too impatient. He tried to bring me on 
 too quickly. You must take into consideration 
 natural capacity. After listening to him for an 
 hour or two my mind would wander. I could 
 not help it. The careless laughter of uninformed 
 middle-aged gentlemen and ladies would creep to 
 me from the croquet lawn or from the billiard- 
 room. I longed to be among them. Sometimes 
 I would battle with my lower nature. What did 
 they know? What could they tell me? More 
 often I would succumb. There were occasions 
 when I used to get up and go away from him, 
 quite suddenly. 
 
THEY AND I 89 
 
 I talked with young Bute during our walk about 
 domestic architecture in general. He said he 
 should describe the present tendency in domestic 
 architecture as towards corners. The desire of 
 the British public was to go into a corner and 
 live. A lady for whose husband his firm had 
 lately built a house in Surrey had propounded to 
 him a problem in connection with this point. She 
 agreed it was a charming house; no house in 
 Surrey had more corners, and that was saying 
 much. But she could not see how for the future 
 she was going to bring up her children. She was 
 a humanely minded lady. Hitherto she had pun- 
 ished them, when needful, by putting them in the 
 corner; the shame of it had always exercised upon 
 them a salutary effect. But in the new house cor- 
 ners are reckoned the prime parts of every room. 
 It is the honoured guest who is sent into the cor- 
 ner. The father has a corner sacred to himself, 
 with high up above his head a complicated cup- 
 board, wherein with the help of a step-ladder, he 
 may keep his pipes and his tobacco, and thus by 
 slow degrees cure himself of the habit of smoking. 
 The mother likewise has her corner, where stands 
 her spinning wheel, in case the idea comes to her 
 
90 THEY AND I 
 
 to weave sheets and underclothing. It also has a 
 book-shelf supporting thirteen volumes, arranged 
 in a sloping position to look natural; the last one 
 maintained at its angle of forty-five degrees by a 
 ginger-jar in old blue Nankin. You are not sup- 
 posed to touch them, because that would disar- 
 range them. Besides which, fooling about, you 
 might upset the ginger-jar. The consequence of 
 all this is the corner is no longer disgraceful. The 
 parent can no more say to the erring child: 
 
 "You wicked boy! Go into the cosy corner 
 this very minute ! " 
 
 In the house of the future the place of punish- 
 ment will have to be the middle of the room. 
 The angry mother will exclaim: 
 
 " Don't you answer me, you saucy minxl You 
 go straight into the middle of the room, and don't 
 you dare to come out of it till I tell you ! " 
 
 The difficulty with the artistic house is finding 
 the right people to put into it. In the picture 
 the artistic room never has anybody in it. There 
 is a strip of art emboidery upon the table, together 
 with a bowl of roses. Upon the ancient high- 
 backed settee lies an item of fancy work, unfin- 
 ished — just as she left it. In the "study" an 
 
THEY AND I 91 
 
 open book, face downwards, has been left on a 
 chair. It is the last book he was reading — it has 
 never been disturbed. A pipe of quaint design is 
 cold upon the lintel of the lattice window. No 
 one will ever smoke that pipe again: it must have 
 been difficult to smoke at any time. The sight of 
 the artistic room, as depicted in the furniture cata- 
 logue, always brings tears to my eyes. People 
 once inhabited these rooms, read there those old 
 volumes bound in vellum, smoked — or tried to 
 smoke — these impracticable pipes; white hands, 
 that some one maybe had loved to kiss, once flut- 
 tered among the folds of these unfinished antima- 
 cassars, or Berlin wool-work slippers, and went 
 away, leaving the thing about. 
 
 One takes it that the people who once occupied 
 these artistic rooms are now all dead. This was 
 their " Dining-Room." They sat on those artistic 
 chairs. They could hardly have used the dinner 
 service set out upon the Elizabethan dresser, be- 
 cause that would have left the dresser bare: one 
 assumes they had an extra service for use, or else 
 that they took their meals in the kitchen. The 
 " Entrance Hall " is a singularly chaste apartment. 
 There is no necessity for a door-mat: people with 
 
92 THEY AND I 
 
 muddy boots, it is to be presumed, were sent round 
 to the back. A riding-cloak, the relic apparently 
 of a highwayman, hangs behind the door. It is 
 the sort of cloak you would expect to find there — 
 a decorative cloak. An umbrella or a waterproof 
 cape would be fatal to the whole effect. 
 
 Now and again the illustrator of the artistic 
 room will permit a young girl to come and sit 
 there. But she has to be a very carefully selected 
 girl. To begin with, she has got to look and 
 dress as though she had been born at least three 
 hundred years ago. She has got to have those 
 sort of clothes, and she has got to have her hair 
 done just that way. 
 
 She has got to look sad; a cheerful girl in the 
 artistic room would jar one's artistic sense. One 
 imagines the artist consulting with the proud pos- 
 sessor of the house. 
 
 " You haven't got such a thing as a miserable 
 daughter, have you? Some fairly good-looking 
 girl who has been crossed in love, or is misunder- 
 stood. Because, if so, you might dress her up in 
 something out of the local museum and send her 
 along. A little thing like that gives versimilitude 
 to a design." 
 
THEY AND I 93 
 
 She must not touch anything. All she may do 
 is to read a book — not really read it, that would 
 suggest too much life and movement: she sits 
 with the book in her lap and gazes into the fire, 
 if it happens to be the dining-room : or out of the 
 window if it happens to be a morning-room, and 
 the architect wishes to call attention to the win- 
 dow-seat. Nothing of the male species, as far as 
 I have been able to ascertain, has ever entered 
 these rooms. I once thought I had found a man 
 who had been allowed into his own " Smoking- 
 Den," but on closer examination it turned out 
 he was only a portrait. 
 
 Sometimes one is given " Vistas." Doors stand 
 open, and you can see right away through " The 
 Nook" into the garden. There is never a living 
 soul about the place. The whole family has been 
 sent out for a walk or locked up in the cellars. 
 This strikes you as odd until you come to think the 
 matter out. The modern man and woman is not 
 artistic. I am not artistic — not what I call 
 really artistic. I don't go well with Gobelin tapes- 
 try and warming-pans. I feel I don't. Robina 
 is not artistic, not in that sense. I tried her once 
 with a harpsichord I picked up cheap in Wardour 
 
94 THEY AND I 
 
 Street and a reproduction of a Roman stool. The 
 thing was an utter failure. A cottage piano, with 
 a photo-frame and a fern upon it is what the soul 
 cries out for in connection with Robina. Dick is 
 not artistic. Dick does not go with peacock's 
 feathers and guitars. I can see Dick with a single 
 peacock's feather at St. Gile's Fair, when the bull- 
 dogs are not looking; but the decorative panel of 
 peacock's feathers is too much for him. I can 
 imagine him with a banjo — but a guitar decorated 
 with pink ribbons! To begin with he is not 
 dressed for it. Unless a family be prepared to 
 make themselves up as troubadours or cavaliers 
 and to talk blank verse, I don't see how they can 
 expect to be happy living in these fifteenth-century 
 houses. The modern family — the old man in 
 baggy trousers and a frock-coat he could not but- 
 ton if he tried to; the mother of figure distinctly 
 Victorian; the boys in flannel suits and collars up 
 to their ears; the girls in motor caps — are as in- 
 congruous in these mediaeval dwellings as a party 
 of Cook's tourists drinking bottled beer in the 
 streets of Pompeii. 
 
 The designer of " The Artistic Home" is right 
 in keeping to still life. In the artistic home — to 
 
THEY AND I 95 
 
 paraphrase Dr. Watts — every prospect pleases 
 and only man is inartistic. In the picture, the 
 artistic bedroom, " in apple green, the bedstead 
 of cherry-wood, with a touch of turkey-red through- 
 out the draperies," is charming. It need hardly 
 be said the bed is empty. Put a man or woman 
 in that cherry-wood bed — I don't care how artistic 
 they may think themselves — the charm would be 
 gone. The really artistic party, one supposes, has 
 a little room behind, where he sleeps and dresses 
 himself. He peeps in at the door of this artistic 
 bedroom, maybe occasionally enters to change the 
 roses. 
 
 Imagine the artistic nursery five minutes after 
 the real child has been let loose in it. I know a 
 lady who once spent hundreds of pounds on an 
 artistic nursery. She showed it to her friends with 
 pride. The children were allowed in there on Sun- 
 day afternoons. I did an equally silly thing my- 
 self not long ago. Lured by a furniture catalogue, 
 I started Robina in a boudoir. I gave it to her as 
 a birthday present. We have both regretted it 
 ever since. Robina reckons she could have had 
 a bicycle, a diamond bracelet, and a mandoline, 
 and I should have saved money. I did the thing 
 
96 THEY AND I 
 
 well. I told the furniture people I wanted it just 
 as it stood in the picture: " Design for bedroom 
 and boudoir combined, suitable for young girl, in 
 teak with sparrow blue hangings." We had 
 everything: the antique fire arrangements that 
 a vestal virgin might possibly have understood; 
 the candlesticks, that were pictures in themselves, 
 until we tried to put candles in them ; the book-case 
 and writing-desk combined, that wasn't big enough 
 to write on, and out of which it was impossible 
 to get a book until you had abandoned the idea 
 of writing and had closed the cover; the enclosed 
 washstand, that shut down and looked like an old 
 bureau, with the inevitable bowl of flowers upon 
 it that had to be taken off and put on the floor 
 whenever you wanted to use the thing as a wash- 
 stand; the toilet table, with its cunning little glass, 
 just big enough to see your nose in; the bedstead, 
 hidden away behind the " thinking corner," where 
 the girl couldn't get at it to make it. A prettier 
 room you could not have imagined, till Robina 
 started sleeping in it. I think she tried. Girl 
 friends of hers, to whom she had bragged about 
 it, would drop in and ask to be allowed to see it. 
 Robina would say, "Wait a minute," and would 
 
THEY AND I 97 
 
 run up and slam the door; and we would hear her 
 for the next half-hour or so rushing round open- 
 ing and shutting drawers and dragging things 
 about. By the time it was a boudoir again she 
 was exhausted and irritable. She wants now to 
 give it up to Veronica, but Veronica objects to the 
 position, which is between the bathroom and my 
 study. Her idea is a room more removed, where 
 she would be able to shut herself in and do her 
 work, as she explains, without fear of interrup- 
 tion. 
 
 Young Bute told me that a friend of his, a well- 
 to-do young fellow, who lived in Piccadilly, had 
 had the whim to make his flat the reproduction 
 of a Roman villa. There were of course no fires, 
 the rooms were warmed by hot air from the 
 kitchen. They had a cheerless aspect on a Novem- 
 ber afternoon, and nobody knew exactly where to 
 sit. Light was obtained in the evening from Gre- 
 cian lamps, which made it easy to understand 
 why the ancient Athenians, as a rule, went to bed 
 early. You dined sprawling on a couch. This 
 was no doubt practicable when you took your plate 
 into your hand and fed yourself with your fingers; 
 but with a knife and fork the meal had all the 
 
98 THEY AND I 
 
 advantages of a hot picnic. You did not feel 
 luxurious or even wicked: you only felt nervous 
 about your clothes. The thing lacked complete- 
 ness. He could not expect his friends to come 
 to him in Roman togas, and even his own man 
 declined firmly to wear the costume of a Roman 
 slave. The compromise was unsatisfactory, even 
 from the purely pictorial point of view. You can- 
 not be a Roman patrician of the time of An- 
 toninus when you happen to live at Piccadilly at 
 the opening of the twentieth century. All you can 
 do is to make your friends uncomfortable and spoil 
 their dinner for them. Young Bute said that, so 
 far as he was concerned, he would always rather 
 have spent the evening with his little nephews and 
 nieces, playing at horses; it seemed to him a more 
 sensible game. 
 
 Young Bute said that, speaking as an architect, 
 he of course admired the ancient masterpieces of 
 his art. He admired the Erechtherum at Athens; 
 but Spurgeon's Tabernacle in the Old Kent Road 
 built upon the same model would have irritated 
 him. For a Grecian temple you wanted Grecian 
 skies and Grecian girls. He said that, even as it 
 was, Westminister Abbey in the season was an eye- 
 
THEY AND I 99 
 
 sore to him. The Dean and Choir in their white 
 surplices passed muster, but the congregation in 
 its black frock-coats and Paris hats gave him the 
 same sense of incongruity as would a banquet of 
 barefooted friars in the dining-hall of the Can- 
 non Street Hotel. 
 
 It struck me there was sense in what he said. 
 I decided not to mention my idea of carving 1553 
 above the front door. 
 
 He said he could not understand this passion 
 of the modern house-builder for playing at being 
 a Crusader or a Canterbury Pilgrim. A retired 
 Berlin boot-maker of his acquaintance had built 
 himself a miniature Roman Castle near Heidel- 
 berg. They played billiards in the dungeon, and 
 let off fireworks on the Kaiser's birthday from 
 the roof of the watch-tower. 
 
 Another acquaintance of his, a draper at Hollo- 
 way, had built himself a moated grange. The 
 moat was supplied from the water-works under 
 special arrangement, and all the electric lights 
 were imitation candles. He had done the thing 
 thoroughly. He had even designed a haunted 
 chamber in blue, and a miniature chapel, which 
 he used as a telephone closet. Young Bute had 
 
ioo THEY AND I 
 
 been invited down there for the shooting in the 
 autumn. He said he could not be sure whether 
 he was doing right or wrong, but his intention was 
 to provide himself with a bow and arrows. 
 
 A change was coming over this young man. We 
 had talked on other subjects and he had been 
 shy and deferential. On this matter of bricks and 
 mortar he spoke as one explaining things. 
 
 I ventured to say a few words in favour of the 
 Tudor house. The Tudor house, he argued, was 
 a fit and proper residence for the Tudor citizen — 
 for the man whose wife rode behind him on a 
 pack-saddle, who conducted his correspondence by 
 the help of a moss-trooper. The Tudor fireplace 
 was designed for folks to whom coal was unknown, 
 and who left their smoking to their chimneys. A 
 house that looked ridiculous with a motor-car be- 
 fore the door, where the electric bell jarred upon 
 one's sense of fitness every time one hard it, was 
 out of date, he maintained. 
 
 " For you, sir," he continued, " a twentieth-cen- 
 tury writer, to build yourself a Tudor House 
 would be as absurd as for Ben Jonson to have 
 planned himself a Norman Castle with a torture- 
 chamber underneath the wine-cellar, and the fire- 
 
THEY AND 1 iQi 
 
 place in the middle of the dining-hall.. : His fel- 
 low cronies of the Mermaid would have thought 
 him stark, staring mad." 
 
 There was reason in what he was saying. I 
 decided not to mention my idea of altering the 
 chimneys and fixing up imitation gables, especially 
 as young Bute seemed pleased with the house, 
 which by this time we had reached. 
 
 " Now, that is a good house," said young Bute. 
 " That is a house where a man in a frock-coat and 
 trousers can sit down and not feel himself a 
 stranger from another age. It was built for a 
 man who wore a frock-coat and trousers — on week- 
 days, maybe gaiters and a shooting-coat. You can 
 enjoy a game of billiards in that house without 
 the feeling that comes to you when playing tennis 
 in the shadow of the Pyramids." 
 
 We entered and I put before him my notions — 
 such of them as I felt he would approve. We 
 were some time about the business, and when we 
 looked at our watches young Bute's last train to 
 town had gone. There still remained much to 
 talk about, and I suggested he should return with 
 me to the cottage and take his luck. I could sleep 
 with Dick and he could have my room. I told 
 
102 THEY AND I 
 
 him about the cow, but he said he was a practised 
 sleeper and would be delighted, if I could lend him 
 a night-shirt, and if I thought Miss Robina would 
 not be put out. I assured him that it would be a 
 good thing for Robina; the unexpected guest 
 would be a useful lesson to her in housekeeping. 
 Besides, as I pointed out to him, it didn't really 
 matter even if Robina were put out. 
 
 " Not to you, sir, perhaps," he answered with 
 a smile. " It is not with you that she will be in- 
 dignant." 
 
 " That will be all right, my boy," I told him; 
 M I take all responsibility." 
 
 " And I shall get all the blame," he laughed. 
 
 But, as I pointed out to him, it really didn't 
 matter whom Robina blamed. We talked about 
 women generally on our way back. I told him — 
 impressing upon him there was no need for it to 
 go farther — that I personally had come to the 
 conclusion that the best way to deal with women 
 was to treat them all as children. He agreed it 
 might be a good method, but wanted to know 
 what you did when they treated you as a child. 
 
 I know a most delightful couple: they have been 
 married nearly twenty years, and both will assure 
 
THEY AND I 103 
 
 you that an angry word has never passed between 
 them. He calls her his " Little One," although 
 she must be quite six inches taller than himself, 
 and is never tired of patting her hand or pinching 
 her ear. They asked her once in the drawing- 
 room — so the Little Mother tells me — her recipe 
 for domestic bliss. She said the mistake most 
 women made was taking men too seriously. 
 
 "They are just overgrown children, that's all 
 they are, poor dears," she laughed. 
 
 There are two kinds of love: there is the love 
 that kneels and looks upward, and the love that 
 looks down and pats. For durability I am pre- 
 pared to back the latter. 
 
 The architect had died out of young Bute; he 
 was again a shy young man during our walk back 
 to the cottage. My hand was on the latch when 
 he stayed me. 
 
 "Isn't this the back door again, sir?" he en- 
 quired. 
 
 It was the back door; I had not noticed it. 
 
 11 Hadn't we better go round to the front, sir, 
 don't you think?" he said. 
 
 " It doesn't matter " I began. 
 
 But he had disappeared. So I followed him, 
 
io 4 THEY AND I 
 
 and we entered by the front. Robina was stand- 
 ing by the table, peeling potatoes. 
 
 11 1 have brought Mr. Bute back with me," I 
 explained. "He is going to stop the night." 
 
 Robina said: "If ever I go to live in a cot- 
 tage again it will have one door." She took her 
 potatoes with her and went upstairs. 
 
 11 1 do hope she isn't put out," said young 
 Bute. 
 
 " Don't worry yourself," I comforted him. 
 " Of course she isn't put out. Besides, I don't 
 care if she is. She's got to get used to being put 
 out; it's part of the lesson of life." 
 
 I took him upstairs, meaning to show him his 
 bedroom and take my own things out of it. The 
 doors of the two bedrooms were opposite one 
 another. I made a mistake and opened the wrong 
 door. Robina, still peeling potatoes, was sitting 
 on the bed. 
 
 I explained we had made a mistake. Robina 
 said it was of no consequence whatever, and tak- 
 ing the potatoes with her, went downstairs again. 
 Looking out of the window, I saw her making 
 towards the wood. She was taking the potatoes 
 with her. 
 
THEY AND I 105 
 
 " I do wish we hadn't opened the door of the 
 wrong room," groaned young Bute. 
 
 " What a worrying chap you are ! " I said to 
 him. " Look at the thing from the humorous 
 point of view. It's funny when you come to think 
 of it. Wherever the poor girl goes, trying to 
 peel her potatoes in peace and quietness, we burst 
 in upon her. What we ought to do now is to take 
 a walk in the wood. It is a pretty wood. We 
 might say we had come to pick wild flowers." 
 
 But I could not persuade him. He said he had 
 letters to write, and, if I would allow him, would 
 remain in his room till dinner was ready. 
 
 Dick and Veronica came in a little later. Dick 
 had been to see Mr. St. Leonard to arrange about 
 lessons in farming. He said he thought I should 
 like the old man, who wasn't a bit like a farmer. 
 He had brought Veronica back in one of her good 
 moods, she having met there and fallen in love 
 with a donkey. Dick confided to me that, with- 
 out committing himself, he had hinted to Veronica 
 that if she would remain good for quite a long 
 while I might be induced to buy it for her. It 
 was a sturdy little animal, and could be made use- 
 ful. Anyhow, it would give Veronica an object 
 
106 THEY AND I 
 
 in life — something to strive for — which was just 
 what she wanted. He is a thoughtful lad at times, 
 is Dick. 
 
 The dinner was more successful than I had 
 hoped for. Robina gave us a melon as a hors 
 d'amvre, followed by sardines and a fowl, with 
 potatoes and vegetable marrow. Her cooking 
 surprised me. I had warned young Bute that it 
 might be necessary to regard this dinner rather as 
 a joke than as an evening meal, and was prepared 
 myself to extract amusement from it rather than 
 nourishment. My disappointment was agreeable. 
 One can always imagine a comic dinner. 
 
 I dined once with a newly married couple who 
 had just returned from their honeymoon. We 
 ought to have sat down at eight o'clock; we sat 
 down instead at half-past ten. The cook had 
 started drinking in the morning; by seven o'clock 
 she was speechless. The wife, giving up hope at 
 a quarter to eight, had cooked the dinner herself. 
 The other guests were sympathised with, but all 
 I got was congratulation. 
 
 " He'll write something so funny about this din- 
 ner," they said. 
 
 You might have thought the cook had got drunk 
 
THEY AND I 107 
 
 on purpose to oblige me. I have never been able 
 to write anything funny about that dinner; it de- 
 presses me to this day, merely thinking of it. 
 
 We finished up with a cold trifle and some ex- 
 cellent coffee that Robina brewed over a lamp on 
 the table while Dick and Veronica cleared away. 
 It was one of the jolliest little dinners I have ever 
 eaten; and, if Robina's figures are to be trusted, 
 cost exactly six-and-fourpence for the five of us. 
 There being no servants about, we talked freely 
 and enjoyed ourselves. I began once at a dinner 
 to tell a good story about a Scotchman, when my 
 host silenced me with a look. He is a kindly man, 
 and had heard the story before. He explained to 
 me afterwards, over the walnuts, that his parlour- 
 maid was Scotch and rather touchy. The talk 
 fell into the discussion of Home Rule, and again 
 our host silenced us. It seemed his butler was an 
 Irishman and a violent Parnellite. Some people 
 can talk as though servants were mere machines, 
 but to me they are human beings, and their pres- 
 ence hampers me. I know my guests have not 
 heard the story before, and from one's own flesh 
 and blood one expects a certain amount of sacri- 
 fice. But I feel so sorry for the housemaid who 
 
108 THEY AND I 
 
 is waiting; she must have heard it a dozen times. 
 I really cannot inflict it upon her again. 
 
 After dinner we pushed the table into a corner, 
 and Dick extracted a sort of waltz from Robina's 
 mandoline. It is years since I danced; but Veron- 
 ica said she would rather dance with me any day 
 than with some of the " lumps " you were given 
 to drag round by the dancing-mistress. I have 
 half a mind to take it up again. After all, a man 
 is only as old as he feels. 
 
 Young Bute, it turned out, was a capital dancer, 
 and could even reverse, which in a room fourteen 
 feet square is of advantage. Robina confided to 
 me after he was gone that while he was dancing 
 she could just tolerate him. I cannot myself see 
 rhyme or reason in Robina's objection to him. 
 He is not handsome, but he is good-looking, as 
 boys go, and has a pleasant smile. Robina says it 
 is his smile that maddens her. Dick agrees with 
 me that there is sense in him; and Veronica, not 
 given to loose praise, considers his performance 
 of a Red Indian, both dead and alive, the finest 
 piece of acting she has ever encountered. We 
 wound up the evening with a little singing. The 
 extent of Dick's repertoire surprised me ; evidently 
 
THEY AND I 109 
 
 he has not been so idle at Cambridge as it seemed. 
 Young Bute has a baritone voice of some richness. 
 We remembered at quarter-past eleven that Veron- 
 ica ought to have gone to bed at eight. We were 
 all of us surprised at the lateness of the hour. 
 
 " Why can't we always live in a cottage and do 
 just as we like? I'm sure it's much jollier," 
 Veronica put it to me as I kissed her good-night. 
 
 " Because we are idiots, most of us, Veronica," 
 I answered. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 I started the next morning to call upon St. 
 Leonard. Near to the house I encountered young 
 Hopkins on a horse. He was waving a pitchfork 
 over his head and reciting " The Charge of the 
 Light Brigade." The horse looked amused. He 
 told me I should find " the gov'nor " up by the 
 stables. St. Leonard is not an " old man." Dick 
 must have seen him in a bad light. I should de- 
 scribe him as about the prime of life, a little older 
 than myself, but nothing to speak of. Dick was 
 right, however, in saying he was not like a farmer. 
 To begin with, " Hubert St. Leonard " does not 
 sound like a farmer. One can imagine a man with 
 a name like that writing a book about farming, 
 having theories on this subject. But in the ordi- 
 nary course of nature things would not grow for 
 him. He does not look like a farmer. One can- 
 not precisely say what it is, but there is that about 
 a farmer that tells you he is a farmer. The farmer 
 has a way of leaning over a gate. There are not 
 many ways of leaning over a gate. I have tried 
 
THEY AND I in 
 
 all I could think of, but it was never quite the 
 right way. It has to be in the blood. A farmer 
 has a way of standing on one leg and looking at a 
 thing that isn't there. It sounds simple, but there 
 is knack in it. The farmer is not surprised it is 
 not there. He never expected it to be there. It 
 is one of those things that ought to be, and is 
 not. The farmer's life is full of such. Suffering 
 reduced to a science is what the farmer stands for. 
 All his life he is the good man struggling against 
 adversity. Nothing his way comes right. This 
 does not seem to be his planet. Providence means 
 well, but she does not understand farming. She 
 is doing her best, he supposes; that she is a born 
 muddler is not her fault. If Providence could 
 only step down for a month or two and take a 
 few lessons in practical farming, things might be 
 better; but this being out of the question there is 
 nothing more to be said. From conversation with 
 farmers one conjures up a picture of Providence 
 as a well-intentioned amateur, put into a position 
 for which she is utterly unsuited. 
 
 " Rain," says Providence, " they are wanting 
 rain. What did I do with that rain ? " 
 
 She finds the rain and starts it, and is pleased 
 
ii2 THEY AND I 
 
 with herself until some Wandering Spirit pauses 
 on his way and asks her sarcastically what she 
 thinks she's doing. 
 
 " Raining," explains Providence. " They wanted 
 rain — farmers, you know, those sort of people." 
 
 " They won't want anything for long," retorts 
 the Spirit. " They'll be drowned in their beds be- 
 fore you've done with them." 
 
 "Don't say that!" says Providence. 
 
 " Well, have a look for yourself if you won't 
 believe me," says the Spirit. " You've spoilt that 
 harvest again, you've ruined all the fruit, and you 
 are rotting even the turnips. Don't you ever learn 
 by experience?" 
 
 " It is so difficult," says Providence, " to regu- 
 late these things just right." 
 
 " So it seems — for you," retorts the Spirit. 
 " Anyhow, I should not rain any more, if I were 
 you. If you must, at least give them time to build 
 another ark." And the Wandering Spirit con- 
 tinues on his way. 
 
 " The place does look a bit wet, now I come to 
 notice it," says Providence, peeping down over 
 the edge of her star. "Better turn on the fine 
 weather, I suppose." 
 
THEY AND I 113 
 
 She starts what 6he calls " set fair," and feel- 
 ing now that she is something like a Providence, 
 composes herself for a doze. She is startled out 
 of her sleep by the return of the Wandering Spirit. 
 
 " Been down there again? " she asks him pleas- 
 antly. 
 
 "Just come back," explains the Wandering 
 Spirit. 
 
 "Pretty spot, isn't it?" says- Providence. 
 " Things nice and dry down there now, aren't 
 they?" 
 
 "You've hit it," he answers. "Dry is the 
 word. The rivers are dried up, the wells are dried 
 up, the cattle are dying, the grass is all withered. 
 As for the harvest, there won't be any harvest for 
 the next two years! Oh, yes, things are dry 
 enough." 
 
 One imagines Providence bursting into tears. 
 " But you suggested yourself a little fine weather." 
 
 " I know I did," answers the Spirit. " I didn't 
 suggest a six months' drought with the thermom- 
 eter at a hundred and twenty in the shade. Doesn't 
 seem to me that you've got any sense at all." 
 
 " I do wish this job had been given to someone 
 else," says Providence. 
 
ii4 THEY AND I 
 
 " Yes, and you are not the only one to wish It," 
 retorts the Spirit unfeelingly. 
 
 " I do my best," urges Providence, wiping her 
 eyes with her wings. " I am not fitted for it." 
 
 11 A truer word you never uttered," retorts the 
 Spirit. 
 
 " I try — nobody could try harder," wails Provi- 
 dence, " Everything I do seems to be wrong." 
 
 " What you want," say the Spirit, " is less en- 
 thusiasm and a little common-sense in place of it. 
 You get excited, and then you lose your head. 
 When you do send rain, ten to one you send it 
 when it isn't wanted. You keep back your sun- 
 shine — just as a duffer at whist keeps back his 
 trumps — until it is no good, and then you deal it 
 out all at once." 
 
 " I'll try again," said Providence. " I'll try 
 quite hard this time." 
 
 "You've been trying again," retorts the Spirit 
 unsympathetically, " ever since I have known you. 
 It is not that you do not try. It is that you have 
 not got the hang of things. Why don't you get 
 yourself an almanack?" 
 
 The Wandering Spirit takes his leave. Provi- 
 dence tells herself she really must get that al- 
 
THEY AND I 115 
 
 manack. She ties a knot in her handkerchief. It 
 is not her fault: she was made like it. She forgets 
 altogether for what reason she tied that knot. 
 Thinks it was to remind her to send frosts in May, 
 or Scotch mists in August. She is not sure which, 
 so sends both. The farmer has ceased even to be 
 angry with her — recognises that affliction and sor- 
 row are good for his immortal soul, and pursues 
 his way in calmness to the Bankruptcy Court. 
 
 Hubert St. Leonard, of Windrush Bottom 
 Farm, I found to be a worried-looking gentleman. 
 He taps his weather-glass and hopes and fears, 
 not knowing as yet that all things have been or- 
 dered for his ill. It will be years before his spirit 
 is attuned to that attitude of tranquil despair es- 
 sential to the farmer: one feels it. He is tall and 
 thin, with a sensitive, mobile face, and a curious 
 trick of taking his head every now and again be- 
 tween his hands, as if to be sure it is still there. 
 When I met him he was on the point of starting 
 for his round, so I walked with him. He told 
 me that he had not always been a farmer. Till a 
 few years ago he had been a stockbroker. But 
 he had always hated his office; and having saved 
 a little, had determined when he came to forty, 
 
n6 THEY AND I 
 
 to enjoy the rare luxury of living his own life. I 
 asked him if he found that farming paid. He 
 said: 
 
 " As in everything else, it depends upon the 
 price you put upon yourself. Now, as a casual 
 observer, what wage per annum would you say 
 I was worth? " 
 
 It was an awkward question. 
 
 " You are afraid that if you spoke candidly you 
 would offend me," he suggested. " Very well. 
 For the purpose of explaining my theory let us 
 take, instead, your own case. I have read all 
 your books, and I like them. Speaking as an ad- 
 mirer, I should estimate you at five hundred a 
 year. You, perhaps, make two thousand, and 
 consider yourself worth five." 
 
 The whimsical smile with which he accompanied 
 the speech disarmed me. 
 
 "What we most of us do," he continued, "is 
 to over-capitalise ourselves. John Smith, honestly 
 worth a hundred a year, claims to be worth two. 
 Result: difficulty of earning dividend, over-work, 
 over-worry, constant fear of being wound up. 
 Now, there is that about your work that suggests 
 to me you would be happier earning five hundred 
 
THEY AND I 117 
 
 a year than you ever will be earning two thou- 
 sand. To pay your dividend — to earn your two 
 thousand — you have to do work that brings you 
 no pleasure in doing. Content with five hundred, 
 you could afford to do only that work that does 
 give you pleasure. This is not a perfect world, 
 we must remember. In the perfect world the 
 thinker would be worth more than the mere 
 jester. In the perfect world the farmer would be 
 worth more than the stockbroker. In making the 
 exchange I had to write myself down. I earn 
 less money, but get more enjoyment out of life. 
 I used to be able to afford champagne, but my 
 liver was always wrong and I dared not drink it. 
 Now I cannot afford champagne, but I enjoy my 
 beer. That is my theory, that we are all of us 
 entitled to payment according to our market value, 
 neither more nor less. You can take it all in cash. 
 I used to. Or you can take less cash and more 
 fun : that is what I am getting now." 
 
 " It is delightful," I said, " to meet with a phi- 
 losopher. One hears about them, of course; but I 
 had got it into my mind they were all dead." 
 
 " People laugh at philosophy," he said. " I 
 never could understand why. It is the science of 
 
n8 THEY AND I 
 
 living a free, peaceful, happy existence. I would 
 give half my remaining years to be a philosopher." 
 
 11 1 am not laughing at philosophy," I said. " I 
 honestly thought you were a philosopher. I 
 judged so from the way you talked." 
 
 "Talked! " he retorted. "Anybody can talk. 
 As you have just said, I talk like a philosopher." 
 
 " But you not only talk," I insisted, " you be- 
 have like a philosopher. Sacrificing your income 
 to the joy of living your own life ! It is the act of a 
 philosopher." 
 
 I wanted to keep him in good humour. I had 
 three things to talk to him about: the cow, the 
 donkey, and Dick. 
 
 "No, it wasn't," he answered. "A philos- 
 opher would have remained a stockbroker and 
 been just as happy. Philosophy does not depend 
 upon environment. You put the philosopher down 
 anywhere. It is all the same to him, he takes his 
 philosophy with him. You can suddenly tell him 
 he is an emperor, or give him penal servitude for 
 life. He goes on being a philosopher just as if 
 nothing had happened. We have an old Tom cat. 
 The children lead it an awful life. It does not 
 seem to matter to the cat. They shut it up in the 
 
THEX AND I 119 
 
 piano: their idea is that it will make a noise and 
 frighten someone. It doesn't make a noise; it 
 goes to sleep. When an hour later someone opens 
 the piano, the poor thing is lying there stretched 
 out upon the keyboard purring to itself. They 
 dress it up in the baby's clothes and take it out in 
 the perambulator: it lies there perfectly contented 
 looking round at the scenery — takes in the fresh 
 air. They haul it about by its tail. You would 
 think, to watch it swinging gently to and fro head 
 downwards, that it was grateful to them for giv- 
 ing it a new sensation. Apparently it looks on 
 everything that comes its way as helpful experi- 
 ence. It lost a leg last winter in a trap: it goes 
 about quite cheerfully on three. Seems to be 
 rather pleased, if anything, at having lost the 
 fourth — saves washing. Now, he is your true 
 philosopher, that cat; never minds what happens 
 to him, and is equally contented if it doesn't." 
 
 I found myself becoming fretful. I know a man 
 with whom it is impossible to disagree. Men at 
 the Club — new-comers — have been lured into tak- 
 ing bets that they could on any topic under the 
 sun find themselves out of sympathy with him. 
 They have denounced Mr. Lloyd George as a 
 
120 THEY AND I 
 
 traitor to his country. This man has risen and 
 shaken them by the hand, words being too weak 
 to express his admiration of their outspoken fear- 
 lessness. You might have thought them Nihilists 
 denouncing the Russian Government from the 
 steps of the Kremlin at Moscow. They have, in 
 the next breath, abused Mr. Balfour in terms 
 transgressing the law of slander. He has almost 
 fallen on their necks. It has transpired that the 
 one dream of his life was to hear Mr. Balfour 
 abused. I have talked to him myself for a quar- 
 ter of an hour, and gathered that at heart he was 
 a peace-at-any-price man, strongly in favour of 
 Conscription, a vehement Republican, with a deep- 
 rooted contempt for the working classes. It is not 
 bad sport to collect half a dozen and talk round 
 him. At such times he 6uggests the family dog 
 that six people from different parts of the house 
 are calling to at the same time. He wants to go 
 to them all at once. 
 
 I felt I had got to understand this man, or he 
 would worry me. 
 
 " We are going to be neighbours," I said, " and 
 I am inclined to think I shall like you. That is, 
 if I can get to know you. You commence by en- 
 
THEY AND I 121 
 
 thusing on philosophy : I hasten to agree with you. 
 It is a noble science. When my youngest daugh- 
 ter has grown up, when the other one has learnt 
 a little sense, when Dick is off my hands, and 
 the British public has come to appreciate good 
 literature, I am hoping to be a bit of a philosopher 
 myself. But before I can explain to you my views 
 you have already changed your own, and are liken- 
 ing the philosopher to an old tom-cat that seems 
 to be weak in his head. Soberly now, what are 
 you?" 
 
 " A fool," he answered promptly; "a most un- 
 fortunate fool. I have the mind of a philosopher 
 coupled to an intensely irritable temperament. 
 My philosophy teaches me to be ashamed of my 
 irritability, and my irritability makes my philoso- 
 phy appear to be arrant nonsense to myself. The 
 philosopher in me tells me it does not matter when 
 the twins fall down the wishing-well. It is not 
 a deep well. It is not the first time they have 
 fallen into it: it will not be the last. Such things 
 pass: the philosopher only smiles. The man in 
 me calls the philosopher a blithering idiot for 
 saying it does not matter when it does matter. 
 Men have to be called away from their work to 
 
122 THEY AND I 
 
 haul them out. We all of us get wet. I get wet 
 and excited, and that always starts my liver. The 
 children's clothes are utterly spoilt. Confound 
 them," — the blood was mounting to his head — 
 " they never care to go near the well except they 
 are dressed in their best clothes. On other days 
 they will stop indoors and read Foxe's ' Book of 
 Martyrs.' There is something uncanny about 
 twins. What is it? Why should twins be worse 
 than other children? The ordinary child is not 
 an angel, Heaven knows. Take these boots of 
 mine. Look at them; I have had them for over 
 two years. I tramp ten miles day in them; they 
 have been soaked through a hundred times. You 
 buy a boy a pair of boots " 
 
 " Why don't you cover over the well? " I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "There you are again," he replied. "The 
 philosopher in me — the sensible man — says, 
 ' What is the good of the well? It is nothing but 
 mud and rubbish. Something is always falling 
 into it — if it isn't the children it's the pigs. Why 
 not do away with it? ' " 
 
 " Seems to be sound advice," I commented. 
 
 " It is," he agreed. " No man alive has more 
 
THEY AND I 123 
 
 sound common-sense than I have, if only I were 
 capable of listening to myself. Do you know why 
 I don't brick in that well? Because my wife told 
 me I would have to. It was the first thing she 
 said when she saw it. She says it again every 
 time anything falls into it. ' If only you would 
 take my advice ' — you know the sort of thing. 
 Nobody irritates me more than the person who 
 says, 'I told you so.' It's a picturesque old ruin: 
 it used to be haunted. That's all been knocked 
 on the head since we came. What self-respecting 
 nymph can haunt a well into which children and 
 pigs are forever flopping?" 
 
 He laughed; but before I could join him he 
 was angry again. " Why should I block up an 
 historic well, that is an ornament to the garden, 
 because a pack of fools can't keep a gate shut? 
 As for the children, what they want is a thorough 
 good whipping, and one of these days " 
 
 A voice crying to us to stop interrupted him. 
 
 " Am on my round. Can't come," he shouted. 
 
 " But you must," explained the voice. 
 
 He turned so quickly that he almost ran me 
 over. " Bother and confound them all ! " he said. 
 " Why don't they keep to the time-table? There's 
 
i2 4 THEY AND I 
 
 no system in this place. That is what ruins farm- 
 ing — want of system." 
 
 He went on grumbling as he walked. I fol- 
 lowed him. Halfway across the field we met the 
 owner of the voice. She was a pleasant-looking 
 lass, not exactly pretty — not the sort of a girl one 
 turns to look at in a crowd — yet, having seen her, 
 it was agreeable to continue looking at her. St. 
 Leonard introduced me to her as his eldest daugh- 
 ter, Janie, and explained to her that behind the 
 study door, if only she would take the trouble to 
 look, she would find a time-table 
 
 "According to which," replied Miss Janie, with 
 a smile, " you ought at the present moment to be 
 in the rick-yard, which is just where I want 
 you." 
 
 " What time is it? " he asked, feeling his waist- 
 coat for a watch that appeared not to be there. 
 
 " Quarter to eleven," I told him. 
 
 He took his head between his hands. " Good 
 God!" he cried, "you don't say that!" 
 
 The new binder, Miss Janie told us, had just 
 arrived. She was anxious her father should see 
 it was in working order before the men went back. 
 " Otherwise," so she argued, " old Wilkins will 
 
THEY AND I 125 
 
 persist it was all right when he delivered it, and 
 we shall have no remedy." 
 We turned towards the house. 
 "Speaking of the practical," I said, "there 
 were three things I came to talk to you about. 
 First and foremost, that cow." 
 
 "Ah, yes, the cow," said St. Leonard. He 
 turned to his daughter. " It was Maud, was it 
 not?" 
 
 " No," she answered, " it was Susie." 
 
 " It is one," I said, " that bellows most all night 
 and three parts of the day. Your boy Hopkins 
 thinks maybe she's fretting." 
 
 "Poor soul!" said St. Leonard. "We only 
 took her calf away from her — when did we take 
 her calf away from her? " he asked of Janie. 
 
 " On Thursday morning," returned Janie; "the 
 day we sent her over." 
 
 "They feel it so at first," said St. Leonard sym- 
 pathetically. 
 
 "It sounds a brutal sentiment," I said, "but 
 I was wondering if by any chance you happened 
 to have by you one that didn't feel it quite so 
 much. I suppose among cows there is no class 
 that corresponds to what we term our ' Smart 
 
126 THEY, AND I 
 
 Set ' — cows that don't really care for their calves, 
 that are glad to get away from them? " 
 
 Miss Janie smiled. When she smiled, you felt 
 you would do much to see her smile again. 
 
 " But why not keep it up at your house in the 
 paddock," she suggested, " and have the milk 
 brought down? There is an excellent cowshed, 
 and it is only a mile away." 
 
 It struck me there was sense in this idea. I 
 had not thought of that. I asked St. Leonard 
 what I owed him for the cow. He asked Miss 
 Janie, and she said sixteen pounds. I had been 
 warned that in doing business with farmers it 
 would be necessary always to bargain; but there 
 was that about Miss Janie's tone telling me that 
 when she said sixteen pounds she meant sixteen 
 pounds. I began to see a brighter side to Hubert 
 St. Leonard's career as a farmer. 
 
 "Very well," I said; "we will regard the cow 
 as settled." 
 
 I made a note : " Cow, sixteen pounds. Have 
 the cowshed got ready, and buy one of those big 
 cans on wheels." 
 
 "You don't happen to want milk?" I put it 
 to Miss Janie. " Susie seems to be good for 
 
THEY AND I 127 
 
 about five gallons a day. I'm afraid if we drink 
 it all ourselves we'll get too fat." 
 
 "At twopence halfpenny a quart, delivered at 
 the house, as much as you like," replied Miss 
 Janie. 
 
 I made a note of that also. " Happen to know 
 a useful boy?" I asked Miss Janie. 
 
 "What about young Hopkins," suggested her 
 father. 
 
 "The only male thing on this farm — with the 
 exception of yourself, of course, father dear — that 
 has got any sense," said Miss Janie. " He can't 
 have Hopkins." 
 
 " The only fault I have to find with Hopkins," 
 said St. Leonard, " is that he talks too much." 
 
 " Personally," I said, " I should prefer a coun- 
 try lad. I have come down here to be in the 
 country. With Hopkins around, I don't somehow 
 feel it is the country. I might imagine it a garden 
 city: that is as near as Hopkins would allow me to 
 get. I should like myself something more sug- 
 gestive of rural simplicity." 
 
 " I think I know the sort of thing you mean," 
 smiled Miss Janie. " Are you fairly good-tem- 
 pered?" 
 
128 THEY AND I 
 
 " I can generally," I answered, " confine myself 
 to sarcasm. It pleases me, and as far as I have 
 been able to notice, does neither harm nor good 
 to any one else." 
 
 " I'll send you up a boy," promised Miss Janie. 
 
 I thanked her. " And now we come to the don- 
 key." 
 
 " Nathaniel," explained Miss Janie, in answer 
 to her father's look of inquiry. "We don't really 
 want it." 
 
 " Janie," said Mr. St. Leonard in a tone of 
 authority, " I insist upon being honest." 
 
 " I was going to be honest," retorted Miss Janie, 
 offended. 
 
 " My daughter Veronica has given me to under- 
 stand," I said, " that if I buy her this donkey 
 it will be, for her, the commencement of a new 
 and better life. I do not attach undue importance 
 to the bargain, but one never knows. The in- 
 fluences that make for reformation in human char- 
 acter are subtle and unexpected. Anyhow, it 
 doesn't seem right to throw a chance away. Added 
 to which, it has occurred to me that a donkey 
 might be useful in the garden." 
 
 " He has lived at my expense for upwards of 
 
THEY AND I 129 
 
 two years," replied St. Leonard. " I cannot my- 
 self see any moral improvement he has brought 
 into my family. What effect he may have upon 
 your children, I cannot say. But when you talk 
 
 about his being useful in a garden " 
 
 " He draws a cart," interrupted Miss Janie. 
 " So long as some one walks beside him feeding 
 him with carrots. We tried fixing the carrot on 
 a pole six inches beyond his reach. That works 
 all right in the picture : it starts this donkey kick- 
 ing. 
 
 " You know yourself," he continued with grow- 
 ing indignation, " the very last time your mother 
 took him out she used up all her carrots getting 
 there, with the result that he and the cart had to 
 be hauled home behind a trolley." 
 
 We had reached the yard. Nathaniel was 
 standing with his head stretched out above the 
 closed half of his stable door. I noticed points of 
 resemblance between him and Veronica herself: 
 there was about him a like suggestion of resigna- 
 tion, of suffering virtue misunderstood; his eye 
 had the same wistful, yearning expression with 
 which Veronica will stand before the window gaz- 
 ing out upon the purple sunset, while people are 
 
130 THEY AND I 
 
 calling to her from distant parts of the house to 
 come and put her things away. Miss Janie, bend- 
 ing over him, asked him to kiss her. He complied, 
 but with a gentle, reproachful look that seemed to 
 say, " Why call me back again to earth?" 
 
 It made me mad with him. I was wrong in 
 thinking Miss Janie not a pretty girl. Hers is 
 that type of beauty that escapes attention by its 
 own perfection. It is the eccentric, the discordant, 
 that arrests the roving eye. To harmony one has 
 to attune oneself. 
 
 " I believe," said Miss Janie, as she drew away, 
 wiping her cheek, " one could teach that donkey 
 anything." 
 
 Apparently she regarded willingness to kiss her 
 as indication of exceptional amiability. 
 
 " Except to work," commented her father. 
 " I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. " If you 
 take that donkey off my hands and promise not 
 to send it back again, why, you can have it." 
 
 " For nothing," demanded Janie woefully. 
 
 " For nothing," insisted her father. " And if 
 I have any argument, I'll throw in the cart." 
 
 Miss Janie sighed and shrugged her shoulders. 
 It was arranged that Hopkins should deliver 
 
THEY AND I 131 
 
 Nathaniel into my keeping some time the next day. 
 Hopkins, it appeared, was the only person on the 
 farm who could make the donkey go. 
 
 "I don't know what it is," said St. Leonard, 
 " but he has a way with him." 
 
 11 And now," I said, " there remains but Dick." 
 
 "The lad I saw yesterday?" suggested St. 
 Leonard. " Good-looking young fellow." 
 
 " He is a nice boy," I said. " I don't really 
 think I know a nicer boy than Dick; and clever, 
 when you come to understand him. There is only 
 one fault I have to find with Dick : I don't seem 
 able to get him to work." 
 
 Miss Janie was smiling. I asked her why. 
 
 " I was thinking," she answered, " how close 
 the resemblance appears to be between him and 
 Nathaniel." 
 
 It was true. I had not thought of it. 
 
 " The mistake," said St. Leonard, " is with our- 
 selves. We assume every boy to have the soul 
 of a professor, and every girl a genius for music. 
 We pack off our sons to cram themselves with 
 Greek and Latin, and put our daughters down to 
 strum at the piano. Nine times out of ten it is 
 sheer waste of time. They sent me to Cambridge, 
 
132 THEY AND I 
 
 and said I was lazy. I was not lazy. I was not 
 intended by nature for a Senior Wrangler. I did 
 not see the good of being a Senior Wrangler. 
 Who wants a world of Senior Wranglers? Then 
 why start every young man trying? I wanted to 
 be a farmer. If intelligent lads were taught farm- 
 ing as a business, farming would pay. In the 
 name of common-sense " 
 
 11 1 am inclined to agree with you," I inter- 
 rupted him. " I would rather see Dick a good 
 farmer than a third-rate barrister, anyhow. He 
 thinks he could take an interest in farming. There 
 are ten weeks before he need go back to Cam- 
 bridge, sufficient time for the experiment. Will 
 you take him as a pupil ? " 
 
 St. Leonard grasped his head between his hands 
 and held it firmly. " If I consent," he said, " I 
 must insist on being honest." 
 
 I saw the woefulness again in Janie's eyes. 
 
 " I think," I said, " it is my turn to be honest. 
 I have got the donkey for nothing; I insist on 
 paying for Dick. They are waiting for you in 
 the rick-yard. I will settle the terms with Miss 
 Janie." 
 
 He regarded us both suspiciously. 
 
THEY AND I 133 
 
 "I will promise to be honest," laughed Miss 
 Janie. 
 
 "If it's more than I'm worth," he said, "I'll 
 
 send him home again. My theory is " 
 
 He stumbled over a pig which, according to the 
 time-table, ought not to have been there. They 
 went off hurriedly together, the pig leading, both 
 screaming. 
 
 Miss Janie said she would show me the short 
 cut across the fields; we could talk as we went. 
 We walked in silence for a while. 
 
 " You must not think," she said, " I like being 
 the one to do all the haggling. I feel a little sore 
 about it very often. But somebody, of course, 
 must do it; and as for father, poor dear " 
 
 I looked at her. Hers is the beauty to which 
 a touch of sadness adds a charm. 
 
 "How old are you?" I asked her. 
 
 "Twenty," she answered, "next birthday." 
 
 " I judged you to be older," I said. 
 
 " Most people do," she answered. 
 
 " My daughter Robina," I said, " is just the 
 same age — according to years ; and Dick is twenty- 
 one. I hope you will be friends with them. They 
 have got sense, both of them. It comes out every 
 
134 THEY AND I 
 
 now and again and surprises you. Veronica, I 
 think, is nine. I am not sure how Veronica is go- 
 ing to turn out. Sometimes things happen that 
 make us think she has a beautiful character, and 
 then for quite long periods she seems to lose it 
 altogether. The Little Mother — I don't know 
 why we always call her Little Mother — will not 
 join us until things are more ship-shape. She does 
 not like to be thought an invalid, and if we have 
 her about anywhere near work that has to be done, 
 and are not always watching her, she gets at it and 
 tires herself." 
 
 "I am glad we are going to be neighbours," 
 said Miss Janie. " There are ten of us alto- 
 gether. Father, I am sure, you will like; clever 
 men always like father. Mother's day is Friday. 
 As a rule it is the only day no one ever calls." 
 She laughed. The cloud had vanished. " They 
 come on other days and find us all in our old 
 clothes. On Friday afternoon we sit in state and 
 nobody comes near us, and we have to eat the 
 cakes ourselves. It makes her so cross. You will 
 try and remember Fridays, won't you?" 
 
 I made a note of it then and there. 
 
 II I am the eldest," she continued, " as I think 
 
THEY AND I 135 
 
 father told you. Harry and Jack came next; but 
 Jack is in Canada and Harry died, so there is 
 somewhat of a gap between me and the rest. 
 Bertie is twelve and Ted eleven; they are home 
 just now for the holidays. Sally is eight, and then 
 there come the twins. People don't half believe 
 the tales that are told about twins, but I am sure 
 there is no need to exaggerate. They are only six, 
 but they have a sense of humour you would hardly 
 credit. One is a boy, and the other a girl. They 
 are always changing clothes, and we are never quite 
 sure which is which. Wilfrid gets sent to bed be- 
 cause Winnie has not practised her scales, and 
 Winnie is given syrup of squills because Wilfrid 
 has been eating green gooseberries. Last spring 
 Winnie had the measles. When the doctor came 
 on the fifth day he was as pleased as punch; he 
 said it was the quickest cure he had ever known, 
 and that really there was no reason why she might 
 not get up. We had our suspicions, and they were 
 right. Winnie was hiding in the cupboard, 
 wrapped up in a blanket. They don't seem to 
 mind what trouble they get into, provided it isn't 
 their own. The only safe plan, unless you happen 
 to catch them red-handed, is to divide the punish- 
 
136 THEY. AND I 
 
 ment between them, and leave them to settle ac- 
 counts between themselves afterwards. Algy is 
 four; till last year he was always called the baby. 
 Now, of course, there is no excuse; but the name 
 still clings to him in spite of his indignant protesta- 
 tions. Father called upstairs to him the other day : 
 1 Baby, bring me down my gaiters.' He walked 
 straight up to the cradle and woke up the baby. 
 1 Get up,' I heard him say — I was just outside the 
 door — 'and take your father down his gaiters. 
 Don't you hear him calling you?' He is a droll 
 little fellow. Father took him to Oxford last Sat- 
 urday. He is small for his age. The ticket-col- 
 lector, quite contented, threw hirri a glance, and 
 merely as a matter of form asked if he was under 
 three. ' No,' he shouted before father could re- 
 ply; 'I 'sists on being honest. I'se four.' It is 
 father's pet phrase." 
 
 "What view do you take of the exchange," 
 I asked her, " from stockbroking with its larger 
 income to farming with its smaller? " 
 
 "Perhaps it was selfish," she answered, "but 
 I am afraid I rather encouraged father. It seems 
 to me mean, making your living out of work that 
 does no good to any one. I hate the bargaining, 
 
THEY AND I 137 
 
 but the farming itself I love. Of course, it means 
 having only one evening dress a year, and making 
 that myself. But even when I had a lot I always 
 preferred wearing the one that I thought suited me 
 the best. As for the children, they are as healthy as 
 young savages, and everything they want to make 
 them happy is just outside the door. The boys 
 won't go to college; but seeing they will have to 
 earn their own living, that, perhaps, is just as well. 
 It is mother, poor dear, that worries so." She 
 laughed again. " Her favourite walk is to the 
 workhouse. She came back quite excited the other 
 day because she had heard the Guardians intend 
 to try the experiment of building separate houses 
 for old married couples. She is convinced she and 
 father are going to end their days there." 
 
 " You, as the business partner," I asked her, 
 " are hopeful that the farm will pay? " 
 
 "Oh, yes," she answered, " it will pay all right 
 — it does pay, for the matter of that. We live 
 on it and live comfortably. But, of course, I can 
 see mother's point of view, with seven young chil- 
 dren to bring up. And it is not only that." She 
 stopped herself abruptly. " Oh, well," she con- 
 tinued with a laugh, "you have got to know us. 
 
138 THEY AND I 
 
 Father is trying. He loves experiments, and a 
 woman hates experiments. Last year it was bare 
 feet. I daresay it is healthier. But children who 
 have been about in bare feet all the morning — well, 
 it isn't pleasant when they sit down to lunch; I 
 don't care what you say. You can't be always 
 washing. He is so unpractical. He was quite 
 angry with mother and myself because we wouldn't. 
 And a man in bare feet looks so ridicu- 
 lous. This summer it is short hair and no hats; 
 and Sally had such pretty hair. Next year it will 
 be sabots or turbans — something or other suggest- 
 ing the idea that we've lately escaped from a fair. 
 On Mondays and Thursdays we talk French. We 
 have got a French nurse; and those are the only 
 days in the week she doesn't understand a word 
 that's said to her. We can none of us understand 
 father, and that makes him furious. He won't say 
 it in English; he makes a note of it, meaning to 
 tell us on Thursdays and Fridays, and then, of 
 course, he forgets, and wonders why we haven't 
 done it. He's the dearest fellow alive. When I 
 think of him as a big boy, then he is charming, 
 and if he really were only a big boy there are times 
 when I would shake him and feel better for it." 
 
THEY AND I 139 
 
 She laughed again. I wanted her to go on talk- 
 ing, because her laugh was so delightful. But we 
 had reached the road, and she said she must go 
 back: there were so many things she had to do. 
 
 "We have not settled about Dick," I reminded 
 
 her. 
 
 " Mother took rather a liking to him," she 
 
 murmured. 
 
 "If Dick could make a living," I said, "by 
 getting people to like him, I should not be so 
 anxious about his future — lazy young devil ! " 
 
 " He has promised to work hard if you let him 
 take up farming," said Miss Janie. 
 
 " He has been talking to you? " I said. 
 
 She admitted it. 
 
 " He will begin well," I said. " I know him. 
 In a month he will have tired of it, and be clam- 
 ouring to do something else." 
 
 " I shall be very disappointed in him if he does," 
 she said. 
 
 " I will tell him that," I said, " it may help. 
 People don't like other people to be disappointed 
 in them." 
 
 " I would rather you didn't," she said. " You 
 could say that father will be disappointed in him. 
 
140 THEY AND I 
 
 Father formed rather a good opinion of him, I 
 know." 
 
 " I will tell him," I suggested, " that we shall 
 all be disappointed in him." 
 
 She agreed to that, and we parted. I remem- 
 bered, when she was gone, that after all we had 
 not settled terms. 
 
 Dick overtook me a little way from home. 
 
 " I have settled your business," I told him. 
 
 " It's awfully good of you," said Dick. 
 
 " Mind," I continued, " it's on the understand- 
 ing that you throw yourself into the thing and 
 work hard. If you don't, I shall be disappointed 
 in you, I tell you so frankly." 
 
 "That's all right, Governor," he answered 
 cheerfully. " Don't you worry." 
 
 " Mr. St. Leonard will also be disappointed in 
 you, Dick," I informed him. "He has formed a 
 very high opinion of you. Don't give him cause to 
 change it." 
 
 " I'll get on all right with him," answered Dick. 
 "Jolly old duffer, ain't he?" 
 
 " Miss Janie will also be disappointed in you," 
 I added. 
 
 "Did she say that?" he asked. 
 
THEY AND I 141 
 
 "She mentioned it casually," I explained: 
 " though now I come to think of it she asked me 
 not to say so. What she wanted me to impress 
 upon you was that her father would be disap- 
 pointed in you." 
 
 Dick walked beside me in silence for a while. 
 
 " Sorry I've been a worry to vou, dad," he said 
 at last. 
 
 11 Glad to hear you say so," I replied, 
 
 " I'm going to turn over a new leaf, dad," he 
 said. " I'm going to work hard." 
 
 "About time," I said. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 We had cold bacon for lunch that day. There 
 was not much of it. I took it to be the bacon we 
 had not eaten for breakfast. But on a clean dish 
 with parsley it looked rather neat. It did not sug- 
 gest, however, a lunch for four people, two of 
 whom had been out all the morning in the open 
 air. There was some excuse for Dick. 
 
 "I never heard before," said Dick, "of cold 
 fried bacon as a hors d'ceuvre." 
 
 " It is not a hors d'oeuvre." explained Robina. 
 "It is all there is for lunch." She spoke in the 
 quiet, passionless voice of one who has done with 
 all human emotion. She added that she should not 
 be requiring any herself, she having lunched al- 
 ready. 
 
 Veronica, conveying by her tone and bearing 
 the impression of something midway between a 
 perfect lady and a Christian martyr, observed that 
 she also had lunched. 
 
 "Wish I had," growled Dick. 
 
 I gave him a warning kick. I could see he 
 142 
 
THEY AND I 143 
 
 was on the way to getting himself into trouble. 
 As I explained to him afterwards, a woman is 
 most dangerous when at her meekest. A man, 
 when he feels his temper rising, takes every op- 
 portunity of letting it escape. Trouble at such 
 times he welcomes. A broken boot-lace, or a shirt 
 without a button, is to him then as water in the 
 desert. An only collar-stud that will disappear 
 as if by magic from between his thumb and finger 
 and vanish apparently into thin air is a piece of 
 good fortune sent on these occasions only to those 
 whom the gods love. By the time he has waddled 
 on his hands and knees twice round the room, 
 broken the boot-jack raking with it underneath 
 the wardrobe, been bumped and slapped and 
 kicked by every piece of furniture that the room 
 contains, and ended up by stepping on that stud 
 and treading it flat, he has not a bitter or an 
 angry thought left in him. All that remains of 
 him is sweet and peaceful. He fastens his collar 
 with a safety-pin 5 , humming an old song the while. 
 Failing the gifts of Providence, the children — if 
 in health — can generally be depended upon to af- 
 ford him an opening. Sooner or later one or an- 
 other of them will do something that no child, 
 
144 THEY AND I 
 
 when he was a boy, would have dared — or dreamed 
 of daring — to even so much as think of doing. 
 The child, conveying by expression that the world, 
 it is glad to say, is slowly but steadily growing in 
 sense, and pity it is that old-fashioned folks can't 
 bustle up and keep abreast of it, points out that 
 firstly it has not done this thing, that for various 
 reasons — a few only of which need be dwelt upon 
 — it is impossible it could have done this thing; 
 that secondly it has been expressly requested to do 
 this thing, that wishful always to give satisfaction, 
 it has — at sacrifice of all its own ideas — gone out 
 of its way to do this thing; that thirdly it can't 
 help doing this thing, strive against fate as it will. 
 He says he does not want to hear what the child 
 has got to say on the subject — nor on any other 
 subject, neither then nor at any other time. He 
 says there's going to be a new departure in this 
 house, and that things all round are going to be 
 very different. He suddenly remembers every 
 rule and regulation he has made during the past 
 ten years for the guidance of everybody, and that 
 everybody, himself included, has forgotten. He 
 tries to talk about them all at once, in haste lest 
 he should forget them again. By the time he has 
 
THEY AND I 145 
 
 succeeded in getting himself, if nobody else, to un- 
 derstand himself, the children are swarming round 
 his knees extracting from him promises that in his 
 sober moments he will be sorry that he made. 
 
 I knew a woman — a wise and good woman she 
 was — who when she noticed that her husband's 
 temper was causing him annoyance, took pains to 
 help him to get rid of it. To relieve his sufferings 
 I have known her to search the house for a last 
 month's morning paper and, ironing it smooth, lay 
 it warm and neatly folded on his breakfast plate. 
 
 " One thing in this world to be thankful for, at 
 all events, and that is that we don't live in Ditch- 
 ley-in-the-Marsh," he would growl ten minutes 
 later from the other side of it. 
 
 "Sounds a bit damp," the good woman would 
 reply. 
 
 II Damp ! " he would grunt, " who minds a bit 
 of damp 1 Good for you. Makes us Englishmen 
 what we are. Being murdered in one's bed about 
 once a week is what I should object to." 
 
 " Do they do much of that sort of thing down 
 there?" the good woman would inquire. 
 
 " Seems to be the chief industry of the place. 
 Do you mean to say you don't remember that 
 
146 THEY AND I 
 
 old maiden lady being murdered by her own gar- 
 dener and buried in the fowl-run? You women! 
 you take no interest in public affairs." 
 
 11 1 do remember something about it, now you 
 mention it, dear," the good woman would confess. 
 " Always seems such an innocent type of man, a 
 gardener." 
 
 11 Seems to be a special breed of them at Ditch- 
 ley-in-the-Marsh," he answers. " Here again last 
 Monday," he continues, reading with growing in- 
 terest. " Almost the same case — even to the prun- 
 ing knife. Yes, hanged if he doesn't! — buries her 
 in the fowl-run. This is most extraordinary." 
 
 " It must be the initiative instinct asserting it* 
 self," suggests the good woman. "As you, dear, 
 have so often pointed out, one crime makes an- 
 other." 
 
 "I have always said so," he agrees; "it has 
 always been a theory of mine." 
 
 He folds the paper over. " Dull dogs, these 
 political chaps ! " he says. " Here's the Duke of 
 Devonshire, speaking last night at Hackney, begins 
 by telling a funny story he says he has just heard 
 about a parrot. Why, it's the same story some- 
 body told a month ago; I remember reading it. 
 
THEY AND I 147 
 
 Yes — upon my soul — word for word, I'd swear to 
 it. Shows you the sort of men we're governed 
 by." 
 
 11 You can't expect every one, dear, to possess 
 your repertoire," the good woman remarks. 
 
 11 Needn't say he's just heard it that afternoon, 
 anyhow," responds the good man. 
 
 He turns to another column. " What the devil ! 
 Am I going off my head?" He pounces on the 
 eldest boy. "When was the Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge Boat-race?" he fiercely demands. 
 
 "The Oxford and Cambridge Boat-race!" re- 
 peats the astonished youth. " Why, it's over. 
 You took us all to see it, last month. The Satur- 
 day before " 
 
 The conversation for the next ten minutes he 
 conducts himself, unaided. At the end he is tired, 
 maybe a trifle hoarse. But all his bad temper is 
 gone. His sorrow is there was not sufficient of it. 
 He could have done with more. 
 
 Woman knows nothing of simple mechanics. A 
 woman thinks you can get rid of steam by boxing 
 it up and sitting on the safety-valve. 
 
 " Feeling as I do this morning, that I'd like to 
 wring everybody's neck for them," the average 
 
148 THEY AND I 
 
 woman argues to herself; "my proper course — I 
 see it clearly — is to creep about the house, asking 
 of every one that has the time to spare to trample 
 on me." 
 
 She coaxes you to tell her of her faults. When 
 you have finished she asks for more — reminds you 
 of one or two you had missed out. She wonders 
 why it is that she is always wrong. There must 
 be a reason for it; if only she could discover it. 
 She wonders how it is that people can put up with 
 her — thinks it so good of them. 
 
 At last, of course, the explosion happens. The 
 awkward thing is that neither she herself nor any 
 one else knows when it is coming. A husband 
 cornered me one evening in the club. It evidently 
 did him good to talk. He told me that finding 
 his wife that morning in one of her rare listening 
 moods, he had seized the opportunity to mention 
 one or two matters in connection with the house 
 he would like to have altered ; that was, if she had 
 no objection. She had — quite pleasantly — re- 
 minded him the house was his, that he was master 
 there. She added that any wish of his of course 
 was law to her. 
 
 He was a young and inexperienced husband; it 
 
THEY AND I 149 
 
 seemed to him a hopeful opening. He spoke of 
 quite a lot of things — things about which he felt 
 that he was right and she was wrong. She went 
 and fetched a quire of paper, and borrowed his 
 pencil and wrote them down. 
 
 Later on, going through his letters in the study, 
 he found an unexpected cheque; and ran upstairs 
 and asked her if she would not like to come out 
 with him and get herself a new hat. 
 
 11 1 could have understood it," he moaned, " if 
 she had dropped on me while I was — well, I sup- 
 pose, you might say lecturing her. She had lis- 
 tened to it like a lamb — hadn't opened her mouth 
 except to say ' yes, dear,' or ' no, dear.' Then, 
 when I only asked her if she'd like a new hat, she 
 goes suddenly raving mad. I never saw a woman 
 go so mad." 
 
 I doubt if there be anything in nature quite as 
 unexpected as a woman's temper, unless it be tum- 
 bling into a hole. I told all this to Dick. I have 
 told it him before. One of these days he will 
 know it. 
 
 II You are right to be angry with me," Robina 
 replied meekly; " there is no excuse for me. The 
 whole thing is the result of my own folly." 
 
150 THEY AND I 
 
 Her pathetic humility should have appealed to 
 him. He can be sympathetic, when he isn't hun- 
 gry. Just then he happened to be hungry. 
 
 11 1 left you making a pie," he said. " It looked 
 to me a fair-sized pie. There was a duck on the 
 table, with a cauliflower and potatoes; Veronica 
 was up to her elbows in peas. It made me hungry 
 merely passing through the kitchen. I wouldn't 
 have anything to eat in the town for fear of spoil- 
 ing my appetite. Where is it all? You don't 
 mean to say that you and Veronica have eaten the 
 whole blessed lot! " 
 
 There is one thing — she admits it herself — that 
 exhausts Veronica's patience : it is unjust suspicion. 
 
 " Do I look as if I'd eaten anything for hours 
 and hours? " Veronica demanded. "You can feel 
 my waist-band if you don't believe me." 
 
 " You said just now you had had your lunch," 
 Dick argued. 
 
 " I know I did," Veronica admitted. " One 
 minute you are told that it is wicked to tell lies; 
 the next " 
 
 ' Veronica ! " Robina interrupted threateningly. 
 
 " It's easy for you," retorted Veronica. " You 
 are not a growing child. You don't feel it." 
 
THEY AND I 151 
 
 " The least you can do," said Robina, " is to 
 keep silence." 
 
 " What's the good," said Veronica — not with- 
 out reason. " You'll tell them when I've gone to 
 bed, and can't put in a word for myself. Every- 
 thing is always my fault. I wish sometimes that I 
 was dead." 
 
 "That I were dead," I calmly corrected her. 
 " The verb ' to wish,' implying uncertainty, 
 should always be followed by the conditional 
 mood." 
 
 " You ought," said Robina, " to be thankful to 
 Providence that you're not dead," 
 
 " People are sorry when you're dead," said Ver- 
 onica. 
 
 " I suppose there's some bread-and-cheese in 
 the house," suggested Dick. 
 
 " The baker for some reason or another, has 
 not called this morning," Robina answered sweetly. 
 "Neither, unfortunately, has the grocer. Every- 
 thing there is to eat in the house you see upon 
 the table." 
 
 "Accidents will happen," I said. "The philos- 
 opher — as our friend St. Leonard would tell us — 
 only smiles." 
 
152 THEY AND I 
 
 11 1 could smile," said Dick, " if it were his 
 lunch." 
 
 " Cultivate," I said, " a sense of humour. From 
 a humourous point of view this lunch is rather 
 good." 
 
 11 Did you have anything to eat at the St. Leon- 
 ard's? " he asked. 
 
 "Just a glass or so of beer and a sandwich or 
 two," I admitted. " They brought it out to us 
 while we were talking in the yard. To tell the 
 truth, I was feeling rather peckish." 
 
 Dick made no answer, but continued to chew 
 bacon-rind. Nothing I could say seemed to cheer 
 him. I thought I would try religion. 
 
 " A dinner of herbs — the sentiment applies 
 equally to lunch — and contentment therewith is 
 better," I said, " than a stalled ox." 
 
 V Don't talk about oxen," he interrupted fret- 
 fully. "I feel I could just eat one — a plump 
 one." 
 
 There is a man I know. I confess he irritates 
 me. His argument is that you should always rise 
 from a meal feeling hungry. As I once explained 
 to him, you cannot rise from a meal feeling hun- 
 gry without sitting down to a meal feeling hungry; 
 
THEY AND I 153 
 
 which means, of course, that you are always hun- 
 gry. He agreed with me. He said that was the 
 idea — always ready. 
 
 " Most people," he said, " rise from a meal 
 feeling no more interest in their food. That was 
 a mental attitude injurious to digestion. Keep it 
 always interested; that was the proper way to treat 
 it." 
 
 " By * it' you mean . . .?"Isaid. 
 
 " Of course," he answered; "I'm talking about 
 it." 
 
 " Now I myself," he explained — " I rise from 
 breakfast feeling eager for my lunch. I get up 
 from my lunch looking forward to my dinner. I 
 go to bed just ready for my breakfast." 
 
 Cheerful expectancy, he said, was a wonderful 
 aid to digestion. " I call myself," he said, " a 
 cheerful feeder." 
 
 "You don't seem to me," I said, "to be any- 
 thing else. You talk like a tadpole. Haven't you 
 any other interest in life? What about home, 
 and patriotism, and Shakespeare — all those sort of 
 things? Why not give it a square meal, and si- 
 lence it for an hour or two; leave yourself free to 
 think of something else." 
 
154 THEY AND I 
 
 " How can you think of anything," he argued, 
 " when your stomach's out of order? " 
 
 " How can you think of anything," I argued, 
 " when it takes you all your time to keep it in or- 
 der? You are not a man; you are a nurse to your 
 own stomach." We were growing excited, both of 
 us, forgetting our natural refinement. " You don't 
 get even your one afternoon a week. You are 
 healthy enough, I admit it. So are the convicts at 
 Portland. They never suffer from indigestion. I 
 knew a doctor once who prescribed for a patient 
 two years' penal servitude as the only thing likely 
 to do him permanent good. Your stomach won't 
 let you smoke. It won't let you drink — not when 
 you are thirsty. It allows you a glass of Apenta 
 water at times when you don't want it, assuming 
 there could ever be a time when you did want it. 
 You are deprived of your natural victuals, and 
 made to live upon prepared food, as though you 
 were some sort of a prize chicken. You are sent 
 to bed at eleven, and dressed in hygienic clothing 
 that makes no pretence to fit you. Talk of being 
 hen-pecked! Why, the mildest husband living 
 would run away or drown himself, rather than 
 
THEY AND I 155 
 
 remain tied for the rest of his existence to your 
 stomach." 
 
 " It is easy to sneer," he said. 
 
 " I am not sneering," I said; "I am sympathis- 
 ing with you." 
 
 He said he did not want any sympathy. He 
 said if only I would give up over-eating and drink- 
 ing myself, it would surprise me how bright and 
 intelligent I should become. 
 
 I thought this man might be of use to us on 
 the present occasion. Accordingly I spoke of him 
 and his theory. Dick seemed impressed. 
 
 "Nice sort of man? " he asked. 
 
 "An earnest man," I replied. "He practises 
 what he preaches, and whether because, or in spite 
 of it, the fact remains that a chirpier soul I am 
 sure does not exist." 
 
 " Married? " demanded Dick. 
 
 " A single man," I answered. " In all things 
 an idealist. He has told me he will never marry 
 until he can find his ideal woman." 
 
 "What about Robina here!" suggested Dick. 
 " Seem to have been made for one another." 
 
 Robina smiled. It was a wan, pathetic smile. 
 
156 THEY AND I 
 
 "Even he,'* thought Robina, "would want his 
 beans cooked to time, and to feel that a reasonable 
 supply of nuts was always in the house. We in- 
 competent women never ought to marry." 
 
 We had finished the bacon. Dick said he would 
 take a stroll into the town. Robina suggested he 
 might take Veronica with him, that perhaps a bun 
 and a glass of milk would do the child no harm. 
 
 Veronica for a wonder seemed to know where 
 all her things were. Before Dick had filled his 
 pipe she was ready dressed and waiting for him. 
 Robina said she would give them a list of things 
 they might bring back with them. She also asked 
 Dick to get together a plumber, a carpenter, a 
 bricklayer, a glazier, and a civil engineer, and to 
 see to it that they started off at once. She thought 
 that among them they might be able to do all that 
 was temporarily necessary, but the great thing was 
 that the work should be commenced without delay. 
 
 "Why, what on earth's the matter, old girl?" 
 asked Dick. " Have you had an accident? " 
 
 Then it was that Robina exploded. I had been 
 wondering when it would happen. To Dick's as- 
 tonishment it happened then. 
 
 Yes, she answered, there had been an accident. 
 
THEY AND I 157 
 
 Did he suppose that seven scrimp scraps of bacon 
 was her notion of a lunch between four hungry 
 persons? Did he, judging from himself, imagine 
 that our family yielded only lunatics? Was it 
 kind — was it courteous to his parents, to the 
 mother he pretended to love, to his father whose 
 grey hairs he was by his general behaviour bring- 
 ing down in sorrow to the grave — to assume with- 
 out further inquiry that their eldest daughter was 
 an imbecile? (My hair, by the by, is not grey. 
 There may be a suggestion of greyness here and 
 there, the natural result of deep thinking. To de- 
 scribe it in the lump as grey is to show lack of 
 observation. And at forty-eight — or a trifle over 
 . — one is not going down into the grave, not 
 straight down. Robina when excited uses exagger- 
 ated language. I did not, however, interrupt her; 
 she meant well. Added to which, interrupting 
 Robina, when — to use her own expression — she 
 is tired of being a worm, is like trying to stop 
 a cyclone with an umbrella.) Had his attention 
 been less concentrated on the guzzling of cold 
 bacon (he had only had four mouthfuls, poor 
 fellow) — had he noticed the sweet patient child 
 starving before his very eyes (this referred to 
 
158 THEY AND I 
 
 Veronica) — his poor elder sister, worn out with 
 work and worry, pining for nourishment herself, 
 it might have occurred to even his intelligence 
 that there had been an accident. The sefishness, 
 the egotism of men it was that staggered, over- 
 whelmed Robina, when she came to think of it. 
 
 Robina paused. Not for want of material, I 
 judged, so much as want of breath. Veronica per- 
 formed a useful service by seizing the moment to 
 express a hope that it was not early-closing day. 
 Robina felt a conviction that it was: it would be 
 just like Dick to stand there dawdling in a corner 
 till it was too late to do anything. 
 
 " I have been trying to get out of this corner 
 for the last five minutes," explained Dick, with 
 that angelic smile of his that I confess is irritating. 
 11 If you have done talking, and will give me an 
 opening, I will go." 
 
 Robina told him that she had done talking. She 
 gave him her reasons for having done talking. If 
 talking to him would be of any use she would often 
 have felt it her duty to talk to him, not only with 
 regard to his stupidity and selfishness and general 
 aggravatingness, but with reference to his char- 
 acter as a whole. Her excuse for not talking to 
 
THEY AND I 159 
 
 him was the crushing conviction of the hopeless- 
 ness of ever effecting any improvement in him. 
 Were it otherwise 
 
 " Seriously speaking," said Dick, now escaped 
 from his corner, "something, I take it, has gone 
 wrong with the stove, and you want a sort of gen- 
 eral smith." 
 
 He opened the kitchen door and looked in. 
 
 "Great Scott!" he said. "What was it— an 
 earthquake? " 
 
 I looked in over his shoulder. 
 
 "But it could not have been an earthquake," 
 I said. " We should have felt it." 
 
 " It is not an earthquake," explained Robina. 
 " It is your youngest daughter's notion of making 
 herself useful." 
 
 Robina spoke severely. I felt for the moment 
 as if I had done it all myself. I had an uncle 
 who used to talk like that. " Your aunt," he 
 would say, regarding me with a reproachful eye, 
 " your aunt can be, when she likes, the most try- 
 ing woman to live with I have ever known." It 
 would depress me for days. I would wonder 
 whether I ought to speak to her about it, or 
 whether I should be doing only harm. 
 
160 THEY AND I 
 
 "But how did she do it?" I demanded. "It 
 is impossible that a mere child — where is the 
 child?" 
 
 The parlour contained but Robina. I hurried 
 to the door; Dick was already half across the field. 
 Veronica I could not see. 
 
 11 We are making haste," Dick shouted back, 
 " in case it is early-closing day." 
 
 " I want Veronica 1 " I shouted. 
 
 "What?" shouted Dick. 
 
 "Veronica! " I shouted with my hands to my 
 mouth. 
 
 " Yes ! " shouted Dick. " She's on ahead." 
 
 It was useless screaming any more. He was 
 now climbing the stile. 
 
 " They always take each other's part, those 
 two," sighed Robina. 
 
 "Yes, and you are just as bad," I told her; 
 "if he doesn't, you do. And then if it's you, 
 they take your part. And you take his part. And 
 he takes both your parts. And between you all 
 I am just getting tired of bringing any of you up." 
 (Which is the truth.) "How did this thing hap- 
 pen?" 
 
 " I had got everything finished," answered Ro- 
 
THEY AND I 161 
 
 bina. "The duck was in the oven with the pie; 
 the peas and potatoes were boiling nicely. I was 
 feeling hot, and I thought I could trust Veronica 
 to watch the things for a while. She promised not 
 to play King Alfred." 
 
 "What's that?" I asked. 
 
 "You know," said Robina— " King Alfred and 
 the cakes. I left her one afternoon last year when 
 we were on the houseboat to watch some buns. 
 When I came back she was sitting in front of the 
 fire, wrapped up in the tablecloth, with Dick's 
 banjo on her knees and a cardboad crown upon her 
 head. The buns were all burnt to a cinder. As I 
 told her, if I had known what she wanted to be 
 up to I could have given her some extra bits of 
 dough to make believe with. But oh, no! if you 
 please, that would not have suited her at all. It 
 was their being real buns, and my being real mad, 
 that was the best part of the game. She is an un- 
 canny child." 
 
 "What was the game this time? " I asked with 
 interest. 
 
 " I don't think it was intended for a game — 
 not at first," answered Robina. " I went into the 
 wood to pick some flowers for the table. I was 
 
1 62 THEY AND I 
 
 on my way back, still at some distance from the 
 house, when I heard quite a loud report. I took it 
 for a gun, and wondered what any one would be 
 shooting in July. It must be rabbits, I thought. 
 Rabbits never seem to have any time at all to them- 
 selves, poor things. And in consequence I did not 
 hurry myself. It must have been about twenty 
 minutes later when I came in sight of the house. 
 Veronica was in the garden deep in confabulation 
 with an awful-looking boy, dressed in nothing but 
 rags. His face and hands were almost black. You 
 never saw such an object. They both seemed very 
 excited. Veronica came to meet me; and with a 
 face as serious as mine is now, stood there and 
 told me the most bare-faced pack of lies you ever 
 heard. She said that a few minutes after I had 
 gone, robbers had come out of the wood — she 
 talked about them as though there had been hun- 
 dreds — and had with the most awful threats de- 
 manded to be admitted into the house. Why they 
 had not lifted the latch and walked in, she did not 
 explain. It appeared this cottage was their secret 
 rendezvous, where all their treasure lies hidden. 
 Veronica would not let them in, but shouted for 
 help : and immediately this awful-looking boy, to 
 
THEY AND I 163 
 
 whom she introduced me as ' Sir Robert ' some- 
 thing or another, had appeared upon the scene; 
 and then and there had followed — well, I have not 
 the patience to tell you the whole of the rigmarole 
 they had concocted. The upshot of it was that 
 the robbers, defeated in their attempt to get into 
 the house, had fired a secret mine, which had ex- 
 ploded in the kitchen. If I did not believe them 
 I could go into the kitchen and see for myself. 
 Say what I would, that is the story they both stuck 
 to. It was not till I had talked to Veronica for 
 a quarter of an hour, and had told her that you 
 would most certainly communicate with the police, 
 and that she would have to convince a judge and 
 jury of the truth of her story, that I got any sense 
 at all out of her." 
 
 "What was the sense you did get out of her?" 
 I asked. 
 
 II Well, I am not sure even now that it is the 
 truth," said Robina — " the child does not seem to 
 possess a proper conscience. What she will grow 
 up like, if something does not happen to change 
 her, it is awful to think." 
 
 II I don't want to appear a hustler," I said, 
 " and maybe I am mistaken in the actual time, but 
 
1 64 THEY AND I 
 
 it feels to me like hours since I asked you how 
 the catastrophe really occurred." 
 
 11 1 am telling you," explained Robina, hurt. 
 11 She was in the kitchen yesterday when I men- 
 tioned to Harry's mother, who had looked in to 
 help me wash up, that the kitchen chimney smoked : 
 and then she said " 
 
 "Who said?" I asked. 
 
 "Why, she did," answered Robina, "Harry's 
 mother. She said that very often a pennyworth 
 of gunpowder " 
 
 " Now at last we have begun," I said. " From 
 this point I may be able to help you, and we will 
 get on. At the word ' gunpowder ' Veronica 
 pricked up her ears. The thing by its very nature 
 would appeal to Veronica's sympathies. She went 
 to bed dreaming of gunpowder. Left in solitude 
 before the kitchen fire, other maidens might have 
 seen pictured in the glowing coals, princes, car- 
 riages, and balls. Veronica saw visions of gun- 
 powder. Who knows? — perhaps even she one day 
 will have gunpowder of her own! She looks up 
 from her reverie: a fairy godmamma in the dis- 
 guise of a small boy — it was a small boy, was it 
 not?" 
 
THEY AND I 165 
 
 " Rather a nice little boy, he gave me the idea 
 of having been, originally," answered Robina; 
 "the child, I should say, of well-to-do parents. 
 He was dressed in a little Lord Fauntleroy suit — 
 or rather, he had been." 
 
 "Did Veronica know who he was — anything 
 about him? " I asked. 
 
 " Nothing that I could get out of her," replied 
 Robina. "You know her way — how she chums 
 on with anybody and everybody. As I told her, 
 if she had been attending to her duties instead 
 of staring out of the window, she would not have 
 seen him. He happened to be crossing the field 
 just at the time." 
 
 " A boy born to ill-luck, evidently," I observed. 
 " To Veronica of course he seemed like the answer 
 to a prayer. A boy would surely know where gun- 
 powder could be culled." 
 
 " They must have got a pound of it from 
 somewhere," said Robina, "judging from the 
 result." 
 
 " Any notion where they got it from? " I asked. 
 
 " No," explained Robina. " All Veronica can 
 
 say is that he told her he knew where he could 
 
 get some, and was gone about ten minutes. Of 
 
1 66 THEY AND I 
 
 course they must have stolen it — even that did 
 not seem to trouble her." 
 
 "It came to her as a gift from the gods, Ro- 
 bina," I explained. "I remember how I myself 
 used to feel about these things, at ten. To have 
 inquired further would have seemed to her im- 
 pious. How was it they were not both killed? " 
 
 "Providence," was Robina's suggestion: it 
 seemed to be the only one possible. " They lifted 
 off one of the saucepans and just dropped the 
 thing in — fortunately wrapped up in a brown pa- 
 per parcel, which gave them both time to get out 
 of the house. At least Veronica got clear off. 
 For a change it was not she who fell over the mat, 
 it was the boy." 
 
 I looked again into the kitchen; then I re- 
 turned and put my hands on Robina's shoulders. 
 " It is a most amusing incident — as it has turned 
 out," I said. 
 
 "It might have turned out rather seriously," 
 thought Robina. 
 
 " It might," I agreed: " she might be lying up- 
 stairs." 
 
 II She is a wicked, heartless child," said Robina; 
 " she ought to be punished." 
 
THEY AND I 167 
 
 I lent Robina my handkerchief; she never has 
 one of her own. 
 
 " She is going to be punished," I said; " I will 
 think of something." 
 
 "And so ought I," said Robina; "it was my 
 fault, leaving her, knowing what's she's like. I 
 might have murdered her. She doesn't care. She's 
 stuffing herself with cakes at this very moment." 
 
 " They will probably give her indigestion," I 
 said. " I hope they do." 
 
 "Why didn't you have better children?" 
 sobbed Robina; "we are none of us any good to 
 
 you." 
 
 " .You are not the children I wanted, I confess," 
 I answered. 
 
 "That's a nice kind thing to say!" retorted 
 Robina indignantly. 
 
 " I wanted such charming children," I ex- 
 plained — " my idea of charming children: the chil- 
 dren I had imagined for myself. Even as babies 
 you disappointed me." 
 
 Robina looked astonished. 
 
 "You, Robina, were the most disappointing," 
 I complained. " Dick was a boy. One does not 
 calculate upon boy angels; and by the time Ver- 
 
1 68 THEY AND I 
 
 onica arrived I had got more used to things. But 
 
 I was so excited when you came. The Little 
 Mother and I would steal at night into the nurs- 
 ery. { Isn't it wonderful,' the Little Mother 
 would whisper, ' to think it all lies hidden there : 
 the little tiresome child, the sweetheart they will 
 one day take away from us, the wife, the mother? ' 
 
 I I am glad it is a girl,' I would whisper; ' I shall 
 be able to watch her grow into womanhood. Most 
 of the girls one comes across in books strike one 
 as not perhaps quite true to life. It will give me 
 such an advantage having a girl of my own. I 
 shall keep a note-book, with a lock and key, de- 
 voted to her.' " 
 
 "Did you?" asked Robina. 
 
 "I put it away," I answered; "there were but 
 a few pages written on. It came to me quite early 
 in life that you were not going to be the model 
 heroine. I was looking for the picture baby, the 
 clean, thoughtful baby, with its magical, mystical 
 smile. I wrote poetry about you, Robina, but you 
 would slobber and howl. Your little nose was al- 
 ways having to be wiped, and somehow the poetry 
 did not seem to fit you. You were at your best 
 when you were asleep, but you would not even 
 
THEY AND I 169 
 
 sleep when It was expected of you. I think, Ro- 
 bina, that the fellows who draw the pictures for 
 the comic journals of the man in his night-shirt 
 with the squalling baby in his arms must all be 
 single men. The married man sees only sadness 
 in the design. It is not the mere discomfort. If 
 the little creature were ill or in pain we should not 
 think of that. It is the reflection that we, who 
 meant so well, have brought into the world just 
 an ordinary fretful human creature with a nasty 
 temper of its own: that is the tragedy, Robina. 
 And then you grew into a little girl. I wanted the 
 soulful little girl with the fathomless eyes, who 
 would steal to me at twilight and question me con- 
 cerning life's conundrums." 
 
 " But I used to ask you questions," grumbled 
 Robina, " and you would tell me not to be silly." 
 
 "Don't you understand, Robina? " I answered. 
 " I am not blaming you, I am blaming myself. 
 We are like children who plant seeds in a gar- 
 den, and then are angry with the flowers because 
 they are not what we expected. You were a dear 
 little girl; I see that now, looking back. But not 
 the little girl I had in my mind. So I missed you, 
 thinking of the little girl you were not. We do 
 
170 THEY AND I 
 
 that all our lives, Robina. We are always looking 
 for the flowers that do not grow, passing by, 
 trampling underfoot, the blossoms round about us. 
 It was the same with Dick. I wanted a naughty 
 boy. Well, Dick was naughty, no one can say 
 that he was not. But it was not my naughtiness. 
 I was prepared for his robbing orchards. I rather 
 hoped he would rob orchards. All the high- 
 spirited boys in books rob orchards, and become 
 great men. But there were not any orchards handy. 
 We happened to be living in Chelsea at the time 
 he ought to have been robbing orchards: that, of 
 course, was my fault. I did not think of that. 
 He stole a bicycle that a lady had left outside the 
 tea-room in Battersea Park, he and another boy, 
 the son of a common barber, who shaved people 
 for three-halfpence. I am a Republican in theory, 
 but it grieved me that a son of mine could be 
 drawn to such companionship. They contrived to 
 keep it for a week — till the police found it one 
 night, artfully hidden behind bushes. Logically, 
 I do not see why stealing apples should be noble 
 and stealing bicycles should be mean, but it struck 
 me that way at the time. It was not the particu- 
 lar steal I had been hoping for. 
 
THEY AND I 171 
 
 "I wanted him wild; the hero of the book was 
 ever in his college days a wild young man. Well, 
 he was wild. It cost me three hundred pounds 
 to keep that breach of promise case out of Court; 
 I had never imagined a breach of promise case. 
 Then he got drunk, and bonneted a bishop in 
 mistake for a ' bull-dog.' I didn't mind the 
 bishop. That by itself would have been whole- 
 some fun. But to think that a son of mine should 
 have been drunk! " 
 
 " He has never been drunk since," pleaded Ro- 
 bina. "He had only three glasses of champagne 
 and a liqueur : it was the liqueur — he was not used 
 to it. He got into the wrong set. You cannot in 
 college belong to the wild set without getting 
 drunk occasionally." 
 
 " Perhaps not," I admitted. " In the book the 
 wild young man drinks without ever getting drunk. 
 Maybe there is a difference between life and the 
 book. In the book you enjoy your fun, but con- 
 trive somehow to escape the licking: in life the 
 licking is the only thing sure. It was the wild 
 young man of fiction I was looking for, who, a 
 fortnight before the exam., ties a wet towel round 
 his head, drinks strong tea, and passes easily with 
 
172 THEY AND I 
 
 honours. He tried the wet towel, he tells me. It 
 never would keep in its place. Added to which it 
 gave him neuralgia ; while the strong tea gave him 
 indigestion. I used to picture myself the proud, 
 indulgent father lecturing him for his wildness — 
 turning away at some point in the middle of my 
 tirade to hide a smile. There was never any smile 
 to hide. I feel that he has behaved disgracefully, 
 wasting his time and my money." 
 
 " He is going to turn over a new leaf," said 
 Robina : " I am sure he will make an excellent 
 farmer." 
 
 "I did not want a farmer," I explained; "I 
 wanted a Prime Minister. Children, Robina, are 
 very disappointing. Veronica is all wrong. I 
 like a mischievous child. I like reading stories of 
 mischievous children : they amuse me. But not the 
 child who puts a pound of gunpowder into a red- 
 hot fire, and escapes with her life by a miracle." 
 
 "And yet, I daresay," suggested Robina, " that 
 if one put it into a book — I mean that if you put 
 it into a book, it would read amusingly." 
 
 11 Likely enough," I agreed. " Other people's 
 troubles can always be amusing. As it is, I shall 
 be in a state of anxiety for the next six months, 
 wondering, every moment that she is out of my 
 
THEY AND I 173 
 
 sight, what new devilment she is up to. The Lit- 
 tle Mother will be worried out of her life, unless 
 we can keep it from her." 
 
 11 Children will be children," murmured Robina, 
 meaning to be comforting. 
 
 "That is what I am complaining of, Robina. 
 We are always hoping that ours won't be. She 
 is full of faults, Veronica, and they are not always 
 nice faults. She is lazy — lazy is not the word 
 for it." 
 
 " She is lazy," Robina was compelled to admit. 
 
 " There are other faults she might have had and 
 welcome," I pointed out; "faults I could have 
 taken an interest in and liked her all the better for. 
 You children are so obstinate. You will choose 
 your own faults. Veronica is not truthful always. 
 I wanted a family of little George Washingtons, 
 who could not tell a lie. Veronica can. To get 
 herself out of trouble — and provided there is any 
 hope of anybody believing her — she does." 
 
 " We all of us used to when we were young," 
 Robina maintained; " Dick used to, I used to. It 
 is a common fault with children." 
 
 " I know it is," I answered. " I did not want a 
 child with common faults. I wanted something 
 all my own. I wanted you, Robina, to be my 
 
174 THEY AND I 
 
 ideal daughter. I had a girl in my mind that I 
 am sure would have been charming. You are not 
 a bit like her. I don't say she was perfect, she 
 had her failings, but they were such delightful 
 failings — much better than yours, Robina. She 
 had a temper — a woman without a temper is in- 
 sipid; but it was that kind of temper that made 
 you love her all the more. Yours doesn't, Robina. 
 I wish you had not been in such a hurry, and had 
 left me to arrange your temper for you. We should 
 all of us have preferred mine. It had all the at- 
 tractions of a temper without the drawbacks of the 
 ordinary temper." 
 
 "Couldn't use it up, I suppose, for yourself, 
 Pa?" suggested Robina. 
 
 " It was a lady's temper," I explained. " Be- 
 sides," as I asked her, "what is wrong with the 
 one I have? " 
 
 " Nothing," answered Robina. Yet her tone 
 conveyed doubt. " It seems to me sometimes that 
 an older temper would suit you better, that was 
 all." 
 
 " You have hinted as much before, Robina," I 
 remarked, " not only with reference to my temper, 
 but with reference to things generally. One would 
 
THEY AND I 175 
 
 think that you were dissatisfied with me because I 
 am too young." 
 
 "Not in years perhaps," replied Robina, "but 
 — well, you know what I mean. One wants one's 
 father to be always great and dignified." 
 
 "We cannot change our ego," I explained to 
 her. " Some daughters would appreciate a father 
 youthful enough in temperament to sympathise 
 with and to indulge them. The solemn old fogey 
 you have in your mind would have brought you up 
 very differently. Let me tell you that, my girl. 
 You would not have liked him, if you had had 
 him." 
 
 " Perhaps not," Robina agreed. " You are aw- 
 fully good in some ways." 
 
 "What we have got to do in this world, Ro- 
 bina," I said, " is to take people as they are, and 
 make the best of them. We cannot expect every- 
 body to be just as we would have them, and maybe 
 we should not like them any better if they were. 
 Don't bother yourself about how much nicer they 
 might be ; think how nice they are." 
 
 Robina said she would try. I have hopes of 
 making Robina a sensible woman. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 DiciC and Veronica returned laden with parcels. 
 They explained that " Daddy Slee," as it appeared 
 he was generally called, a local builder of renown, 
 was following in his pony-cart, and was kindly 
 bringing the bulkier things with him. 
 
 11 1 tried to hustle him," said Dick, " but com- 
 ing up after he had washed himself and had his 
 tea seemed to be his idea of hustling. He has 
 got the reputation of being an honest old Johnny, 
 slow but sure ; the others, they tell me, are slower. 
 I thought you might care, later on, to talk to him 
 about the house." 
 
 Veronica took off her things and put them away, 
 each one in its proper place. She said, if no one 
 wanted her, she would read a chapter of " The 
 Vicar of Wakefield," and retired upstairs. Ro- 
 bina and I had an egg with our tea; Mr. Slee ar- 
 rived as we had finished, and I took him straight 
 into the kitchen. He was a large man, with a 
 dreamy expression and a habit of sighing. He 
 sighed when he saw our kitchen. 
 
 176 
 
THEY AND I 177 
 
 " There's four days' work for three men here," 
 he said, "and you'll want a new stove. Lord I 
 what trouble children can be 1 " 
 
 Robina agreed with him. 
 
 " Meanwhile," she demanded, " how am I to 
 cook?" 
 
 "Myself, missie," sighed Mr. Slee, "I don't 
 see how you are going to cook." 
 
 " We'll all have to tramp home again," thought 
 Dick. 
 
 "And tell Little Mother the reason, and 
 frighten her out of her life ! " retorted Robina in- 
 dignantly. 
 
 Robina had other ideas. Mr. Slee departed, 
 promising that work should be commenced at 
 seven o'clock on Monday morning. Robina, the 
 door closed, began to talk. 
 
 "Let Pa have a sandwich," said Robina, "and 
 catch the six-fifteen." 
 
 " We might all have a sandwich," suggested 
 Dick; " I could do with one myself." 
 
 "Pa can explain," said Robina, "that he has 
 been called back to town on business. That will 
 account for everything, and Little Mother will 
 not be alarmed." 
 
178 THEY AND I 
 
 11 She won't believe that business has brought 
 him back at nine o'clock on a Saturday night," 
 argued Dick; " you think that Little Mother hasn't 
 any sense. She'll see there's something up, and 
 ask a hundred questions. You know what she is." 
 
 " Pa," said Robina, " will have time while in 
 the train to think out something plausible: that's 
 where Pa is clever. With Pa off my hands I 
 shan't mind. We three can live on cold ham and 
 things like that. By Thursday we will be all 
 right, and then he can come down again." 
 
 I pointed out to Robina, kindly but firmly, the 
 utter absurdity of her idea. How could I leave 
 them, three helpless children, with no one to look 
 after them? What would the Little Mother say? 
 What might not Veronica be up to in my absence? 
 There were other things to be considered. The 
 donkey might arrive at any moment — no responsi- 
 ble person there to receive him — to see to it that 
 his simple wants would be provided for. I should 
 have to interview Mr. St. Leonard again to fix up 
 final details as regarded Dick. Who was going to 
 look after the cow about to be separated from 
 us? Young Bute would be down again with plans. 
 Who was going to take him over the house, ex- 
 
THEY AND I 179 
 
 plain things to him intelligibly? The new boy 
 might turn up — this simple son of the soil Miss 
 Janie had promised to dig out and send along. 
 He would talk Berkshire. Who would there 
 be to understand him — to reply to him in dialect? 
 What was the use of her being impetuous and 
 talking nonsense? 
 
 She went on cutting sandwiches. She said they 
 were not helpless children. She said if she and 
 Dick at forty-two hadn't grit enough to run a six- 
 roomed cottage it was time they learned. 
 "Who's forty-two?" I demanded. 
 "We are," explained Robina, " Dick and I— be- 
 tween us. We shall be forty-two next birthday. 
 Nearly your own age." 
 
 11 Veronica," she continued, " for the next few 
 days won't be a child at all. She knows nothing 
 of the happy medium. She is either herself or 
 she goes to the opposite extreme, and tries to be 
 an angel. Till about the end of the week it will 
 be like living with a vision. As for the donkey, 
 we'll try and make him feel as much as home as if 
 you were here. 
 
 11 I don't mean to be rude, Pa," Robina ex- 
 plained, " but from the way you put it you evi- 
 
180 THEY AND I 
 
 dently regard yourself as the only one among 
 us capable of interesting him. I take it he won't 
 mind for a night or two sharing the shed with 
 the cow. If he looks shocked at the suggestion, 
 Dick can knock up a partition. I'd rather for 
 the present, till you come down again, the cow 
 stopped where she was. She helps to wake me in 
 the morning. You may reckon you have settled 
 everything as far as Dick is concerned. If you 
 talk to St. Leonard again for an hour it will be 
 about the future of the Yellow Races or the pos- 
 sibility of life in Jupiter. If you mention terms he 
 will be insulted, and if he won't let you then you 
 will be insulted, and the whole thing will be off. 
 Let me talk to Janie. We've both of us got sense. 
 As for Mr. Bute, I know all your ideas about the 
 house, and I shan't listen to any of his silly argu- 
 ments. What that young man wants is someone 
 to tell him what he's got to do, and then let there 
 be an end of it. And the sooner that handy boy 
 turns up the better. I don't mind what he talks. 
 All I want him to do is to clean knives and fetch 
 water and chop wood. At the worst I'll get that 
 home to him by pantomime. For conversation 
 he can wait till you come down." 
 
THEY AND I 181 
 
 That is the gist of what she said. It didn't run 
 exactly as I have put it down. There were points 
 at which I interrupted, but Robina never lis- 
 tens; she just talks on, and at the end she assumes 
 that, as a matter of course, you have come round 
 to her point of view, and persuading her that you 
 haven't means beginning the whole thing over 
 again. 
 
 She said I hadn't time to talk, and that she 
 would write and tell me everything. Dick also 
 said he would write and tell me everything; and 
 that if I felt moved to send them down a hamper 
 — the sort of thing that, left to themselves, Fort- 
 num & Mason would put together for a good-class 
 picnic, say, for six persons — I might rely upon it 
 that nothing would be wasted. 
 
 Veronica, by my desire, walked with me to the 
 end of the lane. I talked to her very seriously. 
 Her difficulty was that she had not been blown up. 
 Had she been blown up, then she would have 
 known herself she had done wrong. In the book 
 it is the disobedient child that is tossed by the bull. 
 The child that has been sent with the little basket 
 to visit the sick aunt may be right in the bull's 
 way. That is a bit of bad luck for the bull. The 
 
1 82 THEY AND I 
 
 poor bull is compelled to waste valuable time work- 
 ing round carefully, so as not to upset the basket. 
 If the wicked child had sense (which in the book 
 does not happen), it would, while the bull was 
 dodging to get past the good child, seize the 
 opportunity to move itself quickly. The wicked 
 child never looks round, but pegs along steadily; 
 and when the bull arrives it is sure to be in the 
 most convenient position for receiving moral les- 
 sons. The good child, whatever its weight, crosses 
 the ice in safety. The bad child may turn the 
 scale at two stone lighter; the ice will have none of 
 him. " Don't you talk to me about relative pres- 
 sure to the square inch," says the indignant ice. 
 " You were unkind to your little baby brother the 
 week before last: in you go." Veronica's argu- 
 ment, temperately and courteously expressed, I 
 admit, came practically to this: 
 
 11 1 may have acted without sufficient knowledge 
 to guide me. My education has not, perhaps, on 
 the whole, been ordered wisely. Subjects that I 
 feel will never be of the slightest interest or con- 
 sequence to me have been insisted upon with almost 
 tiresome reiteration. Matters that should be use- 
 ful and helpful to me — gunpowder, to take but 
 
THEY AND I 183 
 
 one example — I have been left In ignorance con- 
 cerning. About all that I say nothing; people 
 have done their best according to their lights, no 
 doubt. When, however, we come to purity of 
 motives, singleness of intention, then, I maintain, 
 I am above reproach. The proof of this is that 
 Providence has bestowed upon me the seal of its 
 approval : I was not blown up. Had my conduct 
 been open to censure — as in certain quarters has 
 been suggested — should I be walking besides you 
 now, undamaged — not a hair turned, as the saying 
 is? No. Discriminating Fate — that is, if any 
 reliance at all is to be placed on literature for the 
 young — would have made it her business that at 
 least I was included in the debris. Instead, what 
 do we notice ! — a shattered chimney, a ruined 
 stove, broken windows, a wreckage of household 
 utensils; I, alone of all things, miraculously pre- 
 served. I do not wish to press the point offen- 
 sively, but really it would almost seem that it must 
 be you three — you, my dear parent, upon whom 
 will fall the bill for repairs; Dick, apt to attach 
 too much importance, maybe, to his victuals, and 
 who for the next few days will be compelled to 
 exist chiefly on tinned goods; Robina, by nature 
 
1 84 THEY AND I 
 
 of a worrying disposition, certain till things get 
 straight again to be next door to off her head — 
 who must, by reason of conduct into which I do 
 not enquire, have merited chastisement at the 
 hands of Providence. The moral lesson would 
 certainly appear to be between you three. I — it 
 grows clear to me — have been throughout but the 
 innocent instrument." 
 
 Admit the premiss that to be virtuous is to es- 
 cape whipping, the argument is logical. I felt 
 that left uncombated it might lead us into yet fur- 
 ther trouble. 
 
 " Veronica," I said, " the time has come to re- 
 veal to you a secret: literature is not always a 
 safe guide to life." 
 
 " You mean " said Veronica. 
 
 " I mean," I said, " that the writer of books is, 
 generally speaking, an exceptionally moral man. 
 That is what leads him astray: he is too good. 
 This world does not come up to his ideas. It is 
 not the world as he would have made it himself. 
 To satisfy his craving for morality he sets to work 
 to make a world of his own. It is not this world. 
 It is not a bit like this world. In a world as it 
 should be, Veronica, you would undoubtedly have 
 
THEY AND I 185 
 
 been blown up — if not altogether, at all events par- 
 tially. What you have to do, Veronica, is, with a 
 full heart, to praise Heaven that this is not a per- 
 fect world. If it were I doubt very much, Veron- 
 ica, your being here. That you are here happy 
 and thriving proves that all is not as it should be. 
 The bull of this world, feeling he wants to toss 
 somebody, does not sit upon himself, so to speak, 
 till the wicked child comes by. He takes the first 
 child that turns up, and thanks God for it. A 
 hundred to one it is the best child for miles 
 around. The bull does not care. He spoils that 
 pattern child. He'd spoil a bishop, feeling as he 
 does that morning. Your little friend in the vel- 
 vet suit who did get himself blown up, at all 
 
 events as regards the suit Which of you was 
 
 it that thought of that gunpowder, you or he?" 
 
 Veronica claimed that the inspiration had been 
 hers. 
 
 " I can easily believe it. And was he anxious 
 to steal the gunpowder and put it on the fire, or 
 did he have to be persuaded?" 
 
 Veronica admitted that in the qualities of a first- 
 class hero he was wanting. Not till it had been 
 suggested to him that he must at heart be a cow- 
 
1 86 THEY AND I 
 
 ardy cowardy custard had he been moved to take 
 a hand in the enterprise. 
 
 " A lad, clearly," I continued, " that left 
 to himself would be a comfort to his friends. And 
 the story of the robbers — your invention or 
 his?" 
 
 Veronica was generously of opinion that he 
 might have thought of it had he not been chiefly 
 concerned at the moment with the idea of getting 
 home to his mother. As it was, the clothing with 
 romance of incidents otherwise bald and unin- 
 teresting had fallen upon her. 
 
 II The good child of the story. The fact stands 
 out at every point. His one failing an amiable 
 weakness. Do you not see it for yourself, Veron- 
 ica? In the book, you, not he, would have tum- 
 bled over the mat. In this wicked world it is the 
 wicked who prosper. He, the innocent, the vir- 
 tuous, is torn to rags. You, the villain of the 
 story, escape." 
 
 "I see," said Veronica; "then whenever noth- 
 ing happens to you that means that you're a wrong 
 W 
 
 II I don't go so far as to say that, Veronica. 
 And I wish you wouldn't use slang. Dick is a 
 
THEY AND I 187 
 
 man, and a man — well, never mind about a man. 
 You, Veronica, must never forget that you're a 
 lady. Justice must not be looked for in this world. 
 Sometimes the wicked get what they deserve. 
 More often they don't. There seems to be no 
 rule. Follow the dictates of your conscience, Ve- 
 ronica, and blow — I mean be indifferent to the 
 consequences. Sometimes you'll come out all 
 right, and sometimes you won't. But the beautiful 
 sensation will always be with you : I did right. 
 Things have turned out unfortunately: but that's 
 not my fault. Nobody can blame me." 
 
 " But they do," said Veronica, " they blame you 
 just as if you'd meant to go and do it." 
 
 11 It does not matter, Veronica," I pointed out, 
 "the opinion of the world. The good man dis- 
 regards it.'' 
 
 " But they send you to bed," persisted Veron- 
 ica. 
 
 " Let them," I said. " What is bed so long as 
 the voice of the inward Monitor consoles us with 
 the reflection " 
 
 " But it don't," interrupted Veronica; " it makes 
 you feel all the madder. It does, really." 
 
 " It oughtn't to," I told her. 
 
1 88 THEY AND I 
 
 " Then why does it? " argued Veronica. " Why 
 don't it do what it ought to? " 
 
 The trouble about arguing with children is that 
 they will argue too. 
 
 "Life's a difficult problem, Veronica," I al- 
 lowed. " Things are not as they ought to be, I 
 admit. But one must not despair. Something's 
 got to be done." 
 
 " It's jolly hard on some of us," said Veronica. 
 " Strive as you may, you can't please everyone. 
 And if you just as much as stand up for yourself, 
 oh, crikey ! " 
 
 " The duty of the grown-up person, Veronica," 
 I said, " is to bring up the child in the way that 
 it should go. It isn't easy work, and occasionally 
 irritability may creep in." 
 
 " There's such a lot of 'em at it," grumbled 
 Veronica. "There are times, between 'em all, 
 when you don't know whether you're standing on 
 your head or your heels." 
 
 " They mean well, Veronica," I said. " When 
 I was a little boy I used to think just as you do. 
 But now " 
 
 "Did you ever get into rows?" interrupted 
 Veronica. 
 
THEY AND I 189 
 
 "Did I ever? — was never out of them, so far 
 as I can recollect. If it wasn't one thing, then 
 it was another." 
 
 "And didn't it make you wild?" enquired 
 Veronica, " when first of all they'd ask what you'd 
 got to say and why you'd done it, and then, when 
 you tried to explain things to them, wouldn't listen 
 to you?" 
 
 "What used to irritate me most, Veronica," I 
 replied — " I can remember it so well — was when 
 they talked steadily for half an hour themselves, 
 and then, when I would attempt with one sentence 
 to put them right about the thing, turn round and 
 bully-rag me for being argumentative." 
 
 " If they would only listen," agreed Veronica, 
 " you might get them to grasp things. But no, 
 they talk and talk, till at the end they don't know 
 what they are talking about themselves, and then 
 they pretend it's your fault for having made them 
 tired." 
 
 " I know," I said, " they always end up like 
 that. ' I am tired of talking to you,' they say — 
 as if we were not tired of listening to them ! " 
 
 " And then when you think," said Veronica, 
 " they say you oughtn't to think. And if you don't 
 
i 9 o THEY AND I 
 
 think, and let it out by accident, then they say, 
 'Why don't you think? ' It don't seem as though 
 we could do right. It makes one almost despair." 
 
 " And it isn't even as if they were always right 
 themselves," I pointed out to her. "When they 
 knock over a glass it is, 'Who put that glass 
 there?' You'd think that somebody had put it 
 there on purpose and made it invisible. They are 
 not expected to see a glass six inches in front of 
 their nose, in the place where the glass ought to 
 be. The way they talk you'd suppose that a glass 
 had no business on a table. If I broke it, then it 
 was always, ' Clumsy little devil ! ought to have his 
 dinner in the nursery.' If they mislay their things 
 and can't find them, it's, ' Who's been interfering 
 with my things? Who's been in here rummaging 
 about?' Then when they find it they want to 
 know indignantly who put it there. If I could 
 not find a thing, for the simple reason that some- 
 body had taken it away and put it somewhere 
 else, then wherever they had put it was the right 
 place for it, and I was a little idiot for not know- 
 ing it." 
 
 " And of course you mustn't say anything," 
 commented Veronica. "Oh, no! If they do 
 
THEY AND I 191 
 
 something silly and you just point it out to them, 
 then there is always a reason for it that you 
 wouldn't understand. Oh, yes ! And if you make 
 just the slightest mistake, like what is natural to 
 all of us, that is because you are wicked and un- 
 feeling and don't want to be anything else." 
 
 " I will tell you what we will do, Veronica," I 
 said; "we'll write a book. You shall help me. 
 And in it the children shall be the wise and good 
 people who never make mistakes, and they shall 
 boss the show — you know what I mean — look 
 after the grown-up people and bring them up 
 properly. And everything the grown-up people 
 do, or don't do, will be wrong." 
 
 Veronica clapped her hands. " No, will you, 
 really?" she said. "Oh, do." 
 
 11 1 will really," I answered. " We will call it 
 a moral tale for parents; and all the children will 
 buy it and give it to their fathers and mothers and 
 such-like folks for their bithdays, with writing on 
 the title-page, 'From Johnny, or Jenny, to dear 
 Papa, or to dear Aunty, with every good wish for 
 his or her improvement ! ' " 
 
 "Do you think they will read it?" doubted 
 Veronica. 
 
192 THEY AND I 
 
 11 We will put in it something shocking," I sug- 
 gested, " and get some paper to denounce it as 
 a disgrace to English literature. And if that 
 won't do it we will say it is a translation from 
 the Russian. The children shall stop at home 
 and arrange what to have for dinner, and the 
 grown-up people shall be sent to school. We will 
 start them off each morning with a little satchel. 
 They shall be made to read ' Grimm's Fairy Tales ' 
 in the original German, with notes; and learn 
 ' Old Mother Hubbard ' by heart and explain the 
 grammar." 
 
 " And go to bed early," suggested Veronica. 
 
 " We will have them all in bed by eight o'clock, 
 Veronica, and they will go cheerfully, as if they 
 liked it, or we will know the reason why. We 
 will make them say their prayers. Between our- 
 selves, Veronica, I don't believe they always do. 
 And no reading in bed, and no final glass of 
 whisky toddy, or any nonsense of that sort. An 
 Abernethy biscuit and perhaps if they are good a 
 jujube, and then 'Good-night,' and down with 
 their head on the pillow. And no calling out, and 
 no pretending they have got a pain in their tummy 
 and creeping downstairs in their nightshirts and 
 
THEY AND I 193 
 
 clamouring for brandy. We will be up to all their 
 tricks." 
 
 " And they'll have to take their medicine," Ve- 
 ronica remembered. 
 
 "The slightest suggestion of sulkiness, the first 
 
 intimation that they are not enjoying themselves, 
 
 will mean cod liver oil in a tablespoon, Veronica." 
 
 "And we will ask them why they never use 
 
 their common-sense," chirped Veronica. 
 
 "That will be our trouble, Veronica; that they 
 won't have any sense of any sort — not what we 
 shall deem sense. But, nevertheless, we will be 
 just. We will always give them a reason why 
 they have got to do everything they don't want to 
 do, and nothing that they want to do. They won't 
 understand it and they won't agree that it is a rea- 
 son; but they will keep that to themselves, if they 
 are wise." 
 
 "And of course they must not argue," Veronica 
 insisted. 
 
 " If they answer back, Veronica, that will show 
 they are cursed with an argumentative tempera- 
 ment which must be rooted out at any cost," I 
 agreed; " and if they don't say anything, that will 
 prove them possessed of a surly disposition which 
 
194 THEY AND I 
 
 must be checked at once, before it develops into 
 
 a vice." 
 
 11 And whatever we do to them we will tell them 
 it's for their own good," Veronica chortled. 
 
 " Of course it will be for their own good," I 
 answered. "That will be our chief pleasure — 
 making them good and happy. It won't be their 
 pleasure, but that will be owing to their igno- 
 
 rance." 
 
 " They will be grateful to us later on," gurgled 
 Veronica. 
 
 " With that assurance we will comfort them 
 from time to time," I answered. "We will be 
 good to them in all ways. We will let them play 
 games — not stupid games, golf and croquet, that 
 do you no good and lead only to language and dis- 
 pute — but bears and wolves and whales; educa- 
 tional sort of games that will aid them in acquiring 
 knowledge of natural history. We will show them 
 how to play Pirates and Red Indians and Ogres 
 — sensible play that will help them to develop their 
 imaginative faculties. That is why grown-up 
 people are so dull; they are never made to think. 
 But now and then," I continued, " we will let them 
 play their own games, say on Wednesday and Sat- 
 
THEY AND I 195 
 
 urday afternoons. We will invite other grown- 
 ups to come to tea with them, and let them flirt 
 in the garden, or if wet make love in the dining- 
 room, till nurse comes for them. But we, of 
 course, must choose their friends for them — nice, 
 well-behaved ladies and gentlemen, the parents 
 of respectable children; because left to themselves 
 — well, you know what they are ! They would just 
 as likely fall in love with quite undesirable people 
 — men and women we could not think of having 
 about the house. We will select for them com- 
 panions we feel sure will be the most suitable for 
 them; and if they don't like them — if Uncle Wil- 
 liam says he can't bear the girl we have invited 
 up to love him — that he positively hates her, we 
 will tell him that it is only his wilful temper, and 
 that he's got to like her, because she's good for 
 him; and don't let us have any of his fretfulness. 
 And if Grandmamma pouts and says she won't 
 love old man Jones merely because he's got a red 
 nose, or a glass eye, or some silly reason of that 
 sort, we will say to her: 'All right, my lady, you 
 will play with Mr. Jones and be nice to him, 
 or you will spend the afternoon putting your room 
 tidy; make up your mind.' We will let them 
 
196 THEY AND I 
 
 marry (on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons), 
 and play at keeping house. And if they quarrel 
 we will shake them and take the babies away from 
 them, and lock them up in drawers, and tell them 
 they shan't have them again till they are good." 
 
 " And the more they try to be good, the more 
 it will turn out that they ain't been good," Veron- 
 ica reflected. 
 
 " Their goodness and their badness will depend 
 upon us in more senses than one, Veronica," I 
 explained. " When Consols are down, when the 
 east wind has touched up our liver, they will be 
 surprised how bad they are." 
 
 " And they mustn't ever forget what they've 
 ever been once told," crowed Veronica. " We 
 mustn't have to tell 'em the same thing over and 
 over again, like we was talking to brick walls." 
 
 " And if we meant to tell them and forgot to 
 tell them," I added, " we will tell them that they 
 ought not to want us to tell them a simple thing 
 like that, as if they were mere babies. We must 
 remember all these points." 
 
 "And if they grumble we'll tell them that's cos 
 they don't know how happy they are. And we'll 
 tell them how good we used to be when I 
 
THEY AND I 197 
 
 say, don't you miss your train, or I shall get into a 
 row." 
 
 "Great Scott! I'd forgotten all about that 
 train, Veronica," I admitted. 
 
 " Better run," suggested Veronica. 
 
 It sounded good advice. 
 
 " Keep on thinking about that book," shouted 
 Veronica. 
 
 " Make a note of things as they occur to you," 
 I shouted back. 
 
 " What shall we call it? " Veronica screamed. 
 
 " ' Why the Man in the Moon looks sat 
 upon,' " I shrieked. 
 
 When I turned again she was sitting on the top 
 rail of the stile conducting an imaginary orchestra 
 with one of her own shoes. The six-fifteen was 
 fortunately twenty minutes late. 
 
 I thought it best to tell Ethelbertha the truth; 
 that things had gone wrong with the kitchen 
 stove. 
 
 "Let me know the worst," she said. "Is 
 Veronica hurt?" 
 
 " The worst," I said, " is that I shall have to 
 pay for a new range. Why, when anything goes 
 
198 THEY AND I 
 
 amiss, poor Veronica should be assumed as a mat- 
 ter of course to be in it, appears to me unjust." 
 
 " You are sure she's all right? " persisted Ethel- 
 bertha. 
 
 " Honest Injun — confound those children and 
 their slang — I mean positively," I answered. The 
 Little Mother looked relieved. 
 
 I told her all the trouble we had had in con- 
 nection with the cow. Her sympathies were chiefly 
 with the cow. I told her I had hopes of Robina's 
 developing into a sensible woman. We talked 
 quite a deal about Robina. We agreed that be- 
 tween us we had accomplished something rather 
 clever. 
 
 " I must get back as soon as I can," I said. " I 
 don't want young Bute getting wrong ideas into 
 his head." 
 
 "Who is young Bute?" she asked. 
 
 " The architect," I explained. 
 
 "I thought he was an old man," said Ethel- 
 bertha. 
 
 II Old Spreight is old enough," I said. " Young 
 Bute is one of his young men; but he understands 
 his work, and seems intelligent." 
 
 "What's he like?" she asked. 
 
THEY AND I 199 
 
 11 Personally, an exceedingly nice young fellow. 
 There's a good deal of sense in him. I like a boy 
 who listens." 
 
 "Good-looking?" she asked. 
 
 " Not objectionably so," I replied. " A pleas- 
 ant face — particularly when he smiles." 
 
 " Is he married? " she asked. 
 
 11 Really, it did not occur to me to ask him," 
 I admitted. " How curious you women are ! No, 
 I don't think so. I should say not." 
 
 "Why don't you think so? " she demanded. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. He doesn't give you the 
 idea of a married man. You'll like him. Seems 
 so fond of his sister." 
 
 " Shall we be seeing much of him?" she asked. 
 
 " A goodish deal," I answered. " I expect he 
 will be going down on Monday. Very annoying, 
 this stove business." 
 
 "What is the use of his being there without 
 you?" Ethelbertha wanted to know. 
 
 "Oh, he'll potter round," I suggested, "and 
 take measurements. Dick will be about to explain 
 things to him. Or, if he isn't, there's Robina — 
 awkward thing is, Robina seems to have taken a 
 dislike to him." 
 
200 THEY AND I 
 
 "Why has she taken a dislike to him?" asked 
 Ethelbertha. 
 
 " Oh, because he mistook the back of the house 
 for the front, or the front of the house for the 
 back," I explained; "I forget which now. Says 
 it's his smile that irritates her. She owns herself 
 there's no real reason." 
 
 "When will you be going down again?" 
 Ethelbertha asked. 
 
 " On Thursday next," I told her ; " stove or 
 no stove." 
 
 She said she would come with me. She felt the 
 change would do her good, and promised not to 
 do anything when she got there. And then I told 
 her all that I had done for Dick. 
 
 " The ordinary farmer," I pointed out to her, 
 " is so often a haphazard type of man with no 
 ideas. If successful, it is by reason of a natural 
 instinct which cannot be taught. St. Leonard has 
 studied the theory of the thing. From him Dick 
 will learn all that can be learnt about farming. 
 The selection, I felt, demanded careful judgment." 
 
 "But will Dick stick to it?" Ethelbertha won- 
 dered. 
 
 "There, again," I pointed out to her, "the 
 
THEY AND I 201 
 
 choice was one calling for exceptional foresight. 
 The old man — as a matter of fact, he isn't old at 
 all; can't be very much older than myself; I don't 
 know why they all call him the old man — has 
 formed a high opinion of Dick. His daughter 
 told me so, and I have taken care to let Dick know 
 it. The boy will not care to disappoint him. 
 Her mother " 
 
 "Whose mother?" interrupted Ethelbertha. 
 
 "Janie's mother, Mrs. St. Leonard," I ex- 
 plained. " She also has formed a good opinion 
 of him. The children like him. Janie told me 
 so." 
 
 "She seems to do a goodish deal of talking, 
 this Miss Janie," remarked Ethelbertha. 
 
 " You will like her," I said. " She is a charm- 
 ing girl — so sensible, and good, and unselfish, 
 and " 
 
 "Who told you all this about her?" inter- 
 rupted Ethelbertha. 
 
 " You can see it for yourself," I answered. 
 " The mother appears to be a nonentity, and St. 
 Leonard himself — well, he is not a business man. 
 It is Janie who manages everything — keeps every- 
 lg going. 
 
202 THEY AND I 
 
 "What is she like?" asked Ethelbertha. 
 
 " I am telling you," I said. " She is so practi- 
 cal, and yet at the same time " 
 
 " In appearance, I mean," explained Ethel- 
 bertha. 
 
 " How you women," I said, " do worry about 
 mere looks! What does it matter? If you want 
 to know, it is that sort of face that grows upon 
 you. At first you do not notice how beautiful 
 it is, but later when you come to look into 
 it " 
 
 11 And has she also formed a high opinion of 
 Dick?" interrupted Ethelbertha. 
 
 " She will be disappointed in him," I said, " if 
 he does not work hard and stick to it. They will 
 all be disappointed in him." 
 
 "What's it got to do with them?" demanded 
 Ethelbertha. 
 
 11 I'm not thinking about them," I said. " What 
 I look at is " 
 
 " I don't like her," said Ethelbertha. " I don't 
 like any of them." 
 
 11 But " She didn't seem to be listening. 
 
 "I know that class of man," she said; "and 
 the wife appears, if anything, to be worse. As 
 for the girl " 
 
THEY AND I 203 
 
 " When you come to know them," I said. 
 
 She said she didn't want to know them. She 
 wanted to go down on Monday, early. 
 
 I got her to see — it took some little time — the 
 disadvantages of this. We should only be add- 
 ing to Robina's troubles; and change of plan now 
 would unsettle Dick's mind. 
 
 " He has promised to write me," I said, " and 
 tell me the result of his first day's experience. Let 
 us wait and hear what he says." 
 
 She said that whatever could have possessed 
 her to let me take those poor unfortunate children 
 away from her, and muddle up everything without 
 her, was a mystery to herself. She hoped that, at 
 least, I had done nothing irrevocable in the case 
 of Veronica. 
 
 " Veronica," I said, " is really wishful, I think, 
 to improve. I have bought her a donkey." 
 
 "A what? " exclaimed Ethelbertha. 
 
 "A donkey," I repeated. "The child took a 
 fancy to it, and we all agreed it might help to 
 steady her — give her a sense of responsibility." 
 
 " I somehow felt you hadn't overlooked Veron- 
 ica," said Ethelbertha. 
 
 I thought it best to change the conversation. 
 She seemed in a fretful mood. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Robina's letter was dated Monday evening, and 
 reached us Tuesday morning. 
 
 "I hope you caught your train," she wrote. 
 "Veronica did not get back till half-past six. 
 She informed me that you and she had found a 
 good deal to talk about, and that ' one thing had 
 led to another.' She is a quaint young imp, but 
 I think your lecture must have done her good. 
 Her present attitude is that of gentle forbearance 
 to all around her — not without its dignity. She 
 has not snorted once, and at times is really help- 
 ful. I have given her an empty scribbling diary 
 we found in your desk, and most of her spare time 
 she remains shut up with it in the bedroom. She 
 tells me you and she are writing a book together. 
 I asked her what about, She waved me aside with 
 the assurance that I would know ' all in good 
 time,' and that it was going to do good. I caught 
 sight of just the title-page last night. It was lying 
 open on the dressing table: 'Why the Man in 
 the Moon looks sat upon.' It sounds like a title 
 
 204 
 
THEY AND I 205 
 
 of yours. But I would not look further, though 
 tempted. She has drawn a picture underneath. 
 It is really not bad. The old gentleman really 
 does look sat upon, and intensely disgusted. 
 
 '"'Sir Robert' — his name being Theodore, 
 which doesn't seem to suit him — turns out to be 
 the only son of a widow, a Mrs. Foy, our next- 
 door neighbour to the south. We met her coming 
 out of church on Sunday morning. She was still 
 crying. Dick took Veronica on ahead, and I 
 walked part of the way home with them. Her 
 grandfather, it appears, was killed many years 
 ago by the bursting of a boiler; and she is haunted, 
 poor lady, by the conviction that Theodore is the 
 inheritor of an hereditary tendency to getting him- 
 self blown up. She attaches no blame to us, see- 
 ing in Saturday's catastrophe only the hand of 
 the Family Curse. I tried to comfort her with 
 the idea that the Curse having spent itself upon a 
 futile effort, nothing further need now be feared 
 from it; but she persists in taking the gloomier 
 view that in wrecking our kitchen, Theodore's 
 1 Doom,' as she calls it, was merely indulging in 
 a sort of dress rehearsal; the finishing performance 
 may be relied upon to follow. It sounds ridicu- 
 
206 THEY AND I 
 
 lous, but the poor woman was so desperately in 
 earnest that when an unlucky urchin, coming out of 
 a cottage we were passing, tripped on the doorstep 
 and let fall a jug, we both screamed at the same 
 time, and were equally surprised to find ' Sir Rob- 
 ert ' still between us and all in one piece. I 
 thought it foolish to discuss all this before the 
 child himself, but did not like to stop her. As a 
 result, he regards himself evidently as the chosen 
 foe of Heaven, and is not, unnaturally, proud of 
 himself. She called here this (Monday) after- 
 noon to leave cards; and, at her request, I showed 
 her the kitchen and the mat over which he had 
 stumbled. She seemed surprised that the ' Doom ' 
 had let slip so favourable a chance of accom- 
 plishing its business, and gathered from the fact 
 added cause for anxiety. Evidently something 
 much more thorough is in store for Master Theo- 
 dore. It was only half a pound of gunpowder, 
 she told me. Doctor Smallboy's gardener had 
 bought it for the purpose of raising the stump 
 of an old elm-tree, and had left it for a moment 
 on the grass while he had returned to the house 
 for more brown paper. She seemed pleased with 
 the gardener, who, as she said, might, if dishon- 
 
THEY AND I 207 
 
 estly inclined, have charged her for a pound. I 
 wanted to pay for — at all events — our share, but 
 she would not take a penny. Her late lamented 
 grandfather she regards as the person responsible 
 for the entire incident, and perhaps it may be as 
 well not to disturb her view. Had I suggested it, 
 I feel sure she would have seen the justice of her 
 providing us with a new kitchen range. 
 
 " Wildly exaggerated accounts of the affair are 
 flying round the neighbourhood; and my chief fear 
 is that Veronica may discover she is a local 
 celebrity. Your sudden disappearance is supposed 
 to have been heavenward. An old farm labourer 
 who saw you pass on your way to the station speaks 
 of you as ' the ghost of the poor gentleman him- 
 self; and fragments of clothing found anywhere 
 within a radius of two miles are being preserved, 
 I am told, as specimens of your remains. Boots 
 would appear to have been your chief apparel. 
 Seven pairs have already been collected from the 
 surrounding ditches. Among the more public- 
 spirited there is talk of using you to start a local 
 museum." 
 
 These first three paragraphs I did not read to 
 
208 THEY AND I 
 
 Ethelbertha. Fortunately they just filled the first 
 sheet, which I took an opportunity of slipping 
 into my pocket unobserved. 
 
 "The new boy arrived on Sunday morning," 
 she continued. " His name — if I have got it right 
 — is William. Anyhow, that is the nearest I can 
 get to it. His other name, if any, I must leave to 
 you to extract from him yourself. It may be 
 Berkshire that he talks, but it sounds more like 
 barking. Please excuse the pun; but I have just 
 been talking to him for half an hour, trying to 
 make him understand that I want him to go home, 
 and maybe, as a result, I am feeling a little hysteri- 
 cal. Anything more rural I cannot imagine. But 
 he is anxious to learn, and a fairly wide field is in 
 front of him. I caught him after our breakfast 
 on Sunday calmly throwing everything left over 
 on to the dust-heap. I pointed out to him the 
 wickedness of wasting nourishing food, and im- 
 pressed upon him that the proper place for vic- 
 tuals was inside us. He never answers. He stands 
 stock still, with his mouth as wide open as it will 
 go — which is saying a good deal — and one trusts 
 that one's words are entering into him. All Sun- 
 
THEY AND I 209 
 
 day afternoon he was struggling valiantly against 
 an almost supernatural sleepiness. After tea he 
 got worse, and I began to think he would be no 
 use to me. We none of us ate much supper; and 
 Dick, who appears able to understand him, helped 
 him to carry the things out. I heard them talking, 
 and then Dick came back and closed the door be- 
 hind him. ' He wants to know,' said Dick, ' if 
 he can leave the corned beef over till to-morrow. 
 Because, if he eats it all to-night, he doesn't think 
 he will be able to walk home.' 
 
 "Veronica takes great interest in him. She 
 has evidently a motherly side to her character, 
 for which we none of us have given her credit. 
 She says she is sure there is good in him. She 
 sits beside him while he chops wood, and tells him 
 carefully selected stories, calculated, she argues, 
 to develop his intelligence. She is careful, more- 
 over, not to hurt his feelings by any display of 
 superiority. ' Of course, anyone leading a useful 
 life, such as yours,' I overheard her saying to him 
 this morning, ' don't naturally get much time for 
 reading. I've nothing else to do, you see, 'cept to 
 improve myself.' 
 
 " The donkey arrived this afternoon while I 
 
210 THEY AND I 
 
 was out — galloping, I am given to understand, 
 with 'Opkins on his back. There seems to be some 
 secret between those two. We have tried him 
 with hay, and we have tried him with thistles; 
 but he seems to prefer bread-and-butter. I have 
 not been able as yet to find out whether he takes 
 tea or coffee in the morning. But he is an animal 
 that evidently knows his own mind, and fortu- 
 nately both are in the house. We are putting him 
 up for to-night with the cow, who greeted him at 
 first with enthusiasm and wanted to adopt him, 
 but has grown cold to him since on discovering 
 that he is not a calf. I have been trying to make 
 friends with her, but she is so very unresponsive. 
 She doesn't seem to want anything but grass, and 
 prefers to get that for herself. She doesn't seem 
 to want to be happy ever again. 
 
 " A funny thing happened in church. I was 
 forgetting to tell you. The St. Leonards occupy 
 two pews at the opposite end from the door. 
 They were all there when we arrived, with the 
 exception of the old gentleman himself. He came 
 in just before the ' Dearly Beloved,' when every- 
 body was standing up. A running fire of sup- 
 pressed titters followed him up the aisle, and some 
 
THEY AND I 211 
 
 of the people laughed outright. I could see no 
 reason why. He looked a dignified old gentle- 
 man in his grey hair and tightly buttoned frock 
 coat, which gives him a somewhat military ap- 
 pearance. But when he came level with our pew 
 I understood. Hurrying back from his morning 
 round, and with no one there to superintend him, 
 the dear old absent-minded thing had forgotten to 
 change his breeches. From a little above the knee 
 upward he was a perfect Christian; but his legs 
 were just those of a disreputable sinner. 
 
 " 'What's the joke? ' he whispered to me as he 
 passed — I was in a corner seat. ' Have I missed 
 it?' 
 
 " We called round on them after lunch, and at 
 once I was appealed to for my decision. 
 
 " ' Now, here's a plain sensible girl,' exclaimed 
 the old gentleman the moment I entered the room. 
 (You will notice I put no comma after ' plain.' 
 I am taking it he did not intend one. You can 
 employ one adjective to qualify another, can't 
 you?) ' And I will put it to her, What difference 
 can it make to the Almighty whether I go to 
 church in trousers or in breeches?' 
 
 " ' I do not see,' retorted Mrs. St. Leonard 
 
212 THEY AND I 
 
 somewhat coldly, ' that Miss Robina is in any bet- 
 ter position than myself to speak with authority 
 on the views of the Almighty ' — which I felt was 
 true. ' If it makes no difference to the Almighty, 
 then why not, for my sake, trousers ? ' 
 
 11 ' The essential thing,' he persisted, ' is a con- 
 trite heart.' He was getting very cross. 
 
 " ' It may just as well be dressed respectably,' 
 was his wife's opinion. He left the room, slam- 
 ming the door. 
 
 " I do like Janie the more and more I see of 
 her. I do hope she will let me get real chums 
 with her. She does me so much good." (I read 
 that bit twice over to Ethelbertha, pretending I 
 had lost the place.) " I suppose it is having rather 
 a silly mother and unpractical father that has made 
 her so capable. If you and Little Mother had 
 been proper sort of parents I might have been 
 quite a decent sort of girl. But it's too late finding 
 fault with you now. I suppose I must put up with 
 you. She works so hard, and is so unselfish. But 
 she is not like some good people, who make you 
 feel it is hopeless your trying to be good. She 
 gets cross and impatient; and then she laughs at 
 herself, and gets right again that way. Poor Mrs. 
 
THEY AND I 213 
 
 St. Leonard! I cannot help feeling sorry for her. 
 She would have been so happy as the wife of a 
 really respectable City man, who would have gone 
 off every morning with a flower in his buttonhole 
 and have worn a white waistcoat on Sundays. I 
 don't believe what they say: that husbands and 
 wives should be the opposite of one another. Mr. 
 St. Leonard ought to have married a brainy 
 woman, who would have discussed philosophy with 
 him, and have been just as happy drinking beer 
 out of a teacup: you know the sort I mean. If 
 ever I marry it will be a short-tempered man who 
 loves music and is a good dancer; and if I find 
 out too late he's clever I'll run away from him. 
 
 " Dick has not yet come home — nearly eight 
 o'clock. Veronica is supposed to be in bed, but 
 I can hear things falling. Poor boy! I expect 
 he'll be tired; but to-day is an exception. Three 
 hundred sheep have had to be brought all the way 
 from Ilsley, and must be ' herded ' — I fancy it is 
 called — before anybody can think of supper. I 
 saw to it that he had a good dinner. 
 
 " And now to come to business. Young Bute 
 has been here all day, and has only just left. He 
 is coming down again on Friday — which, by the 
 
2i 4 THEY AND I 
 
 way, don't forget is Mrs. St. Leonard's ' At 
 Home' day. She hopes she may then have the 
 pleasure of making your acquaintance, and thinks 
 that possibly there may be present one or two 
 people we may like to know. From which I 
 gather that half the neighbourhood has been spe- 
 cially invited to meet you. So mind you bring a 
 frock-coat; and if Little Mother can put her hand 
 easily on my pink muslin with the spots — it is either 
 in my wardrobe or else in the bottom drawer in 
 Veronica's room, if it isn't in the cardboard box 
 underneath mother's bed — you might slip it into 
 your bag. But whatever you do don't crush it. 
 The sash I feel sure mother put away somewhere 
 herself. He sees no reason — I'm talking now 
 about young Bute, — if you approve his plans, why 
 work should not be commenced immediately. 
 Shall I write old Slee to meet you at the house on 
 Friday? From all accounts I don't think you'll 
 do better. He is on the spot, and they say he is 
 most reasonable. But you have to get estimates, 
 don't you? He suggests — Mr. Bute, I mean — ■ 
 throwing what used to be the dairy into the pas- 
 sage, which will make a hall big enough for any- 
 thing. We might even give a dance in it, he 
 
THEY AND I 215 
 
 thinks. But all this you will be able to discuss with 
 him on Friday. He has evidently taken a great 
 deal of pains, and some of his suggestions sound 
 sensible. But of course he must fully understand 
 that it is what we want, not what he thinks, that 
 is important. I told him you said I could have my 
 room exactly as I liked it myself, and I have ex- 
 plained to him my ideas. He seemed at first to 
 be under the impression that I didn't know what 
 I was talking about, so I made it quite clear to 
 him that I did, with the result that he has con- 
 sented to carry out my instructions, on condition 
 that I put them down in black and white — which 
 I think just as well, as then there can be no excuse 
 afterwards for argument. I like him better than 
 I did the first time. About everything else he can 
 be fairly amiable. It is when he talks about 
 ' frontal elevations ' and ' ground plans ' that he 
 irritates me. Tell Little Mother that I'll write 
 her to-morrow. Couldn't she come down with 
 you on Friday? Everything will be ship-shape 
 
 by then; and " 
 
 The remainder was of a nature more private. 
 She concluded with a postscript, which also I did 
 not read to Ethelbertha. 
 
2i6 THEY AND I 
 
 u Thought I had finished telling you everything, 
 when quite a stylish rat-tat sounded on the door. 
 I placed an old straw hat of Dick's in a promi- 
 nent position, called loudly to an imaginary ' John ' 
 not to go without the letters, and then opened it. 
 He turned out to be the local reporter. I need 
 not have been alarmed. He was much the more 
 nervous of the two, and was so full of excuses that 
 had I not come to his rescue I believe he would 
 have gone away forgetting what he'd come for. 
 Nothing save an overwhelming sense of duty to 
 the Public (with a capital P) could have induced 
 him to inflict himself upon me. Could I give him 
 a few details which would enable him to set ru- 
 mour right? I immediately saw visions of head- 
 lines : ' Domestic Tragedy ! ' ' Eminent Author 
 blown up by his own Daughter! ' ' Once Happy 
 Home now a Mere Wreck ! ' It seemed to me 
 our only plan was to enlist this amiable young man 
 upon our side; I hope I did not overdo it. My 
 idea was to convey the impression that one glance 
 at him had convinced me he was the best and 
 noblest of mankind; that I felt I could rely upon 
 his wit and courage to save us from a notoriety that, 
 so far as I was concerned, would sadden my whole 
 
THEY AND I 217 
 
 life; and that if he did so eternal gratitude and 
 admiration would be the least I could lay at his 
 feet. I can be nice when I try. People have said 
 so. We parted with only a pressure of the hand, 
 and I hope he won't get into trouble, but I feel 
 The Berkshire Courier is going to be deprived of 
 its prey. Dick has just come in. He promises 
 to talk when he has finished eating." 
 
 Dick's letter, for which Ethelbertha seemed to 
 be strangely impatient, reached us on Wednesday 
 morning. 
 
 11 If ever you want to find out, Dad, what hard 
 work really means, you try farming," wrote Dick; 
 " and yet I believe you would like it. Hasn't some 
 old Johnny somewhere described it as the poetry 
 of the ploughshare? Why did we ever take to 
 bothering about anything else — shutting ourselves 
 up in stuffy offices, worrying ourselves to death 
 about a lot of rubbish that isn't any good to any- 
 body? I wish I could put it properly, Dad; you 
 would see just what I mean. Why don't we live 
 in simply-built houses and get most everything we 
 want out of the land: which we easily could? You 
 take a dozen poor devils away from walking be- 
 
218 THEY AND I 
 
 hind the plough and put them down into coal- 
 mines, and set them running about half-naked 
 among a lot of roaring furnaces, and between them 
 they turn out a machine that does the ploughing 
 for them. What is the sense of it? Of course 
 some things are useful. I would like a motor- 
 car, and railways and steamboats all right; but it 
 seems to me that half the fiddle-faddles we fancy 
 we want we'd be just as well, if not better, with- 
 out, and there would be all that time and energy 
 to spare for the sort of things that everybody 
 ought to have. It's everywhere just like it was at 
 school. They kept us so hard at it, studying 
 Greek roots, we hadn't time to learn English 
 grammar. Look at young Dennis Yewbury. He's 
 got two thousand acres up in Scotland. He could 
 lead a jolly life turning the place into some real 
 use. Instead of which he lets it all run to waste 
 for nothing but to breed a few hundred birds 
 that wouldn't keep a single family alive; while 
 he works from morning till night at humbugging 
 people in a beastly hole in the City, just to fill his 
 house with a host of silly gimcracks and dress up 
 himself and his women-folk like peacocks. Of 
 course we would always want clever chaps like you 
 
THEY AND I 219 
 
 to tell us stories ; and doctors we couldn't do with- 
 out, though I guess if we were leading sensible 
 lives we'd be able to get along with about half of 
 them. It seems to me that what we want is a com- 
 fortable home, enough to eat and drink, and a few 
 fal-lal sort of things to make the girls look pretty; 
 and that all the rest is rot. We would all of us 
 have time then to think and play a bit, and if we 
 were all working fairly at something really useful 
 and were contented with our own share, there'd 
 be enough for everybody. 
 
 "I suppose this is all nonsense, but I wish it 
 wasn't. Anyway, it's what I mean to do myself, 
 and I'm awfully much obliged to you, Dad, for 
 giving me this chance. You've hit the right nail 
 on the head this time. Farming was what I was 
 meant for; I feel it. I would have hated being 
 a barrister, setting people by the ears and making 
 my living out of other people's troubles. Being 
 a farmer you feel that in doing good to yourself 
 you are doing good all round. Miss Janie agrees 
 with all I say. I think she is one of the most 
 sensible girls I have ever come across, and Robin 
 likes her awfully. So is the old man: he's a brick. 
 I think he has taken a liking to me, and I know 
 
220 THEY AND I 
 
 I have to him. He's the dearest old fellow imagin- 
 able. The very turnips he seems to think of as 
 though they were so many rows of little children. 
 And he makes you see the inside of things. Take 
 fields now, for instance. I used to think a field 
 was just a field. You scraped it about and planted 
 it with seeds, and everything else depended on 
 the weather. Why, Dad, it's alive! There are 
 good fields that want to get on — that are grate- 
 ful for everything you do for them, and take a 
 pride in themselves. And there are brutes of fields 
 that you feel you want to kick. You can waste a 
 hundred pounds' worth of manure on them, and 
 it only makes them more stupid than they were 
 before. One of our fields — a wizened-looking 
 eleven-acre strip, bordering the Fyfield road — he 
 has christened Mrs. Gummidge: it seems to feel 
 everything more than any other field. From what- 
 ever point of the compass the wind blows that field 
 gets the most harm from it. You would think 
 to look at it after a storm that there hadn't been 
 any rain in any other field — that that particular 
 field must have got it all ; while two days' sunshine 
 has the effect upon it that a six weeks' drought 
 would on any other field. His theory (he must 
 
THEY AND I 221 
 
 have a theory to account for everything; it com- 
 forts him. He has just hit upon a theory that 
 explains why twins are born with twice as much 
 original sin as other children, and doesn't seem to 
 mind now what they do) is that each odd corner 
 of the earth has gained a character of its own from 
 the spirits of the countless dead men buried in its 
 bosom. ' Robbers and thieves,' he will say, kick- 
 ing the sod of some field all stones and thistles; 
 * silly fighting men who thought God built the 
 world merely to give them the fun of knocking 
 it about. Look at them, the fools! stones and 
 thistles — thistles and stones: that is their notion 
 of a field.' Or, leaning over the gate of some 
 field of rich-smelling soil, he will stretch out his 
 arms as though to caress it : ' Brave lads ! ' he will 
 say; 'kindly honest fellows who loved the poor 
 peasant folk.' I fancy he has not got much sense 
 of humour; or if he has, it is a humour he leaves 
 you to find out for yourself. One does not feel 
 one wants to laugh, listening even to his most 
 whimsical ideas ; and anyhow it is a fact that of two 
 fields quite close to one another, one will be worth 
 ten pounds an acre and the other dear at half a 
 crown, and there seems to be nothing to explain it. 
 
222 THEY AND I 
 
 We have a seven-acre patch just halfway up the 
 hill. He says he never passes it without taking 
 off his hat to it. Whatever you put in it does 
 well; while other fields, try them with what you 
 will, it is always the very thing they did not want. 
 You might fancy them fractious children, always 
 crying for the other child's bun. There is really 
 no reason for its being such a good field, except 
 its own pluck. It faces the east, and the wood 
 for half the day hides it from the sun; but it makes 
 the best of everything, and even on the greyest 
 day it seems to be smiling at you. ' Some happy- 
 hearted Mother Thing — a singer of love songs 
 the while she toiled,' he will have it, must lie sleep- 
 ing there. By-the-by, what a jolly field Janie would 
 makel Don't you think so, Dad? 
 
 "What the dickens, Dad, have you done to 
 Veronica? She wanders about everywhere with 
 an exercise book in her hand, and when you say 
 anything to her, instead of answering you back, 
 she sits plump down wherever she is and writes 
 for all she's worth. She won't say what she's up 
 to. She says it's a private matter between you 
 and her, and that later on things are going to be 
 seen in their true light. I told her this morning 
 
THEY AND I 223 
 
 what I thought of her for forgetting to feed the 
 donkey. I was prepared, of course, for a hundred 
 explanations: First, that she had meant to feed 
 the donkey; secondly, that it wasn't her place to 
 feed the donkey; thirdly, that the donkey would 
 have been fed if circumstances over which she had 
 no control had not arisen rendering it impossible 
 for her to feed the donkey; fourthly, that the 
 morning wasn't the proper time to feed the don- 
 key, and so on. Instead of which out she whips 
 this ridiculous book and asks me if I would mind 
 saying it over again. 
 
 " I keep forgetting to ask Janie what it is he 
 has been accustomed to. We have tried him with 
 thistles, and we've tried him with hay. The this- 
 tles he scratches himself against; but for the hay 
 he appears to have no use whatever. Robin thinks 
 his idea is to save us trouble. We are not to get 
 in anything especially for him — whatever we may 
 happen to be having ourselves he will put up with. 
 Bread-and-butter cut thick, or a slice of cake with 
 an apple seems to be his notion of a light lunch; 
 and for drink he fancies tea out of a slop-basin 
 with two knobs of sugar and plenty of milk. Robin 
 says it's waste of time taking his meals out to him. 
 
224 THEY AND I 
 
 She says she is going to train him to come in 
 when he hears the gong. We use the alarm clock 
 at present for a gong. I don't know what I shall 
 do when the cow goes away. She wakes me every 
 morning punctually at half-past four, but I'm in 
 a blue funk that one of these days she will over- 
 sleep herself. It is one of those clocks you read 
 about. You wrote something very funny about 
 one once yourself, but I always thought you had 
 invented it. I bought it because they said it was 
 an extra loud one, and so it is. The thing that's 
 wrong about it is that, do what you will, you can't 
 get it to go off before six o'clock in the morning. 
 I set it on Sunday evening for half-past four — we 
 farmers do have to work, I can tell you. But it's 
 worth it. I had no idea that the world was so 
 beautiful. There is a light you never see at any 
 other time, and the whole air seems to be full of 
 fluttering song. You feel — but you must get up 
 and come out with me, Dad. I can't describe it. 
 If it hadn't been for the good old cow, Lord 
 knows what time I'd have been up. The clock 
 went off at half-past four in the afternoon, just 
 as they were sitting down to tea, and frightened 
 them all out of their skins. We have fiddled 
 
THEY AND I 225 
 
 about with it all we know, but there's no getting 
 it to do anything between six p. m. and six a. m. 
 Anything you want of it in the daytime it is quite 
 agreeable to. But it seems to have fixed its own 
 working hours, and isn't going to be bustled out 
 of its proper rest. I got so mad with it myself 
 I wanted to pitch it out of the window, but Robin 
 thought we ought to keep it until you came, that 
 perhaps you might be able to do something with it 
 — writing something about it, she means. I said 
 I thought alarm clocks were pretty well played out 
 by this time; but, as she says, there is always a 
 new generation coming along to whom almost 
 everything must be fresh. Anyhow, the con- 
 founded thing cost seven and six, and seems to be 
 no good for anything else. 
 
 "Whatever was it that you really did say to 
 Robin about her room? Young Bute came 
 round to me on Monday quite upset about it. He 
 says it is going to be all windows, and will look, 
 when finished, like an incorrect copy of the Eddy- 
 stone lighthouse. He says there will be no place 
 for the bed, and if there is to be a fireplace at 
 all it will have to be in the cupboard, and that the 
 only way, so far as he can see, of her getting in 
 
226 THEY AND I 
 
 and out of it will be by a door through the bath- 
 room. She said that you said she could have it 
 entirely to her own idea, and that he was just to 
 carry out her instructions; but, as he points out, 
 you can't have a room in a house as if the rest of 
 the house wasn't there; even if it is your own 
 room. Nobody, it seems, will be able to have a 
 bath without first talking it over with her, and ar- 
 ranging a time mutually convenient. I told him I 
 was sure you never meant him to do anything ab- 
 surd ; and that his best plan would be to go straight 
 back to her, explain to her that she'd been talking 
 like a silly goat — he could have put it politely, of 
 course — and that he wasn't going to pay any at- 
 tention to her. You might have thought I had 
 suggested his walking into a den of lions and pull- 
 ing all their tails. I don't know what Robin has 
 done to him, but he seems frightened of her. I 
 had to promise that I would talk to her. He'd 
 better have done it himself. I only told her just 
 what he said, and off she went in one of her 
 tantrums. You know her style: If she liked to 
 live in a room where she could see to do her hair 
 that was no business of his, and if he couldn't 
 design a plain, simple bedroom that wasn't going 
 
THEY AND I 227 
 
 to look ridiculous and make her the laughing-stock 
 of all the neighbourhood then the Royal Institute 
 of British Architects must have strange notions 
 of the sort of person entitled to go about the 
 country building houses; that if he thought the 
 proper place for a fire was in a cupboard, she 
 didn't ; that his duty was to carry out the instruc- 
 tions of his employers, and if he imagined for a 
 moment she was going to consent to remain shut 
 up in her room till everybody in the house had 
 finished bathing it would be better for us to se- 
 cure the services of somebody possessed of a little 
 common-sense; that next time she met him she 
 would certainly tell him what she thought of him, 
 also that she should certainly decline to hold any 
 further communication with him again; that she 
 doesn't want a bedroom now of any sort — per- 
 haps she may be permitted a shakedown in the 
 pantry, or perhaps Veronica will allow her an oc- 
 casional night's rest with her, and if not it doesn't 
 matter. You'll have to talk to her yourself. I'm 
 not going to say any more. 
 
 11 Don't forget that Friday is the St. Leonard's 
 1 At Home ' day. I've promised Janie that you 
 shall be there in all your best clothes. (Don't 
 
228 THEY AND I 
 
 tell her I'm calling her Janie. It might offend 
 her. But nobody calls her Miss St. Leonard.) 
 Everybody is coming, and all the children are hav- 
 ing their hair washed. You will have it all your 
 own way down here. There's no other celebrity 
 till you get to Boss Croker, the Tammany man, 
 the other side of Ilsley Downs. Artists they don't 
 count. The rumour was all round the place last 
 week that you were here incognito in the person of 
 a dismal-looking Johnny, staying at the ' Fisher- 
 man's Retreat,' who used to sit all day in a punt up 
 the backwater drinking whiskey. It made me 
 rather mad when I saw him. I suppose it was the 
 whiskey that suggested the idea to them. They 
 have got the notion in these parts that a literary 
 man is a sort of inspired tramp. A Mrs. Jagger- 
 swade — or some such name — whom I met here on 
 Sunday and who is coming on Friday, took me 
 aside and asked me ' what sort of things ' you said 
 when you talked? She said she felt sure it would 
 be so clever, and, herself, she was looking forward 
 to it; but would I — 'quite between oruselves' — 
 advise her to bring the children. 
 
 " I say, you will have to talk seriously to Ve- 
 ronica. Country life seems to agree with her. 
 
THEY AND I 229 
 
 She's taken to poaching already — she and the 
 twins. It was the one sin that hitherto they had 
 never committed, and I fancy the old man was 
 feeling proud of this. Luckily I caught them com- 
 ing home — with ten dead rabbits strung on a pole, 
 the twins carrying it between them on their shoul- 
 ders, suggesting the picture of the spies returning 
 from the promised land with that bunch of grapes 
 — Veronica scouting on ahead with, every ten 
 yards, her ear to the ground, listening for hostile 
 footsteps. The thing that troubled her most was 
 that she hadn't heard me coming; she seemed to 
 fear that something had gone wrong with the 
 laws of Nature. They had found the whole col- 
 lection hanging from a tree, and had persuaded 
 themselves that Providence must have been ex- 
 pecting them. I insisted on their going back with 
 me and showing me the tree, much to their disgust. 
 And fortunately the keeper wasn't about — they 
 are men that love making a row. I talked some 
 fine moral sentiment to her. But she says you 
 have told her that it doesn't matter whether you 
 are good or bad, things happen to you just the 
 same; and this being so she feels she may as well 
 enjoy herself. I asked her why she never seemed 
 
2 3 o THEY AND I 
 
 to enjoy herself being good — I believe if I'd al- 
 ways had a kid to bring up I'd have been a model 
 chap myself by this time. Her answer was that 
 she supposed she was born bad. I pointed out to 
 her that was a reflection on you and Little Mother; 
 and she answered she guessed she must be a 
 1 throw-back.' Old Slee's got a dog that ought to 
 have been a fox-terrier, but isn't, and he seems to 
 have been explaining things to her. 
 
 " A thing that will trouble you down here, Dad, 
 is the cruelty of the country. They catch these 
 poor little wretches in traps, leaving them some- 
 times for days suffering what must be to them 
 nothing short of agony — to say nothing of the 
 terror and the hunger. I tried putting my finger 
 in one of the beastly things and keeping it there 
 for just two minutes by my watch. It seemed 
 like twenty. The pain grows more intense with 
 every second, and I'm not a soft, as you know. 
 I've lain half an hour with a broken leg, and that 
 wasn't as bad. One hears the little creatures 
 screaming, but cannot find them. Of course when 
 one draws near they keep silent. It makes one 
 quite dislike country people. They are so callous. 
 When you speak to them about it they only grin. 
 
THEY AND I 231 
 
 Janie goes nearly mad about it. Mr. St. Leonard 
 tried to get the clergyman to say something on 
 the subject, but he answered that he thought it 
 better ' for the Church to confine herself to the 
 accomplishment of her own great mission.' Ass. 
 
 " Bring Little Mother down ; we want to show 
 her oft on Friday. And make her put on some- 
 thing pretty. Ask her if she's got that lilac thing 
 with lace she wore at Cambridge for the May 
 Week the year before last. Tell her not to be 
 silly; it wasn't a bit too young. Nash said she 
 looked like something out of an old picture, and 
 he's going to be an artist. Don't let her dress 
 herself. She doesn't understand it. And will you 
 get me a gun " 
 
 The remainder of the letter was taken up with 
 instructions concerning the gun. It seemed a com- 
 plicated sort of gun. I wished I hadn't read 
 about the gun to Ethelbertha. It made her nerv- 
 ous for the rest of the day. 
 
 Veronica's letter followed on Thursday morn- 
 ing. I read it going down in the train. In trans- 
 scribing I have thought it better, as regards the 
 spelling, to adopt the more conventional forms. 
 
232 THEY AND I 
 
 " You will be pleased to hear," Veronica wrote, 
 " that we are all quite well. Robin works very 
 hard. But I think it does her good. And of 
 course I help her. All I can. I am glad she has 
 got a boy. To do the washing-up. I think that 
 was too much for her. It used to make her cross. 
 One cannot blame her. It is trying work. And 
 it makes you mucky. He is a good boy. But has 
 been neglected. So doesn't know much. I am 
 teaching him grammar. He says ' you was ' and 
 ' her be.' But is getting better. He says he 
 went to school. But they couldn't have taken 
 any trouble with him. Could they? The system, 
 I suppose, was rotten. Robina says I mustn't over- 
 do it. Because you want him to talk Berkshire. 
 So I propose confining our attention to the ele- 
 mentary rules. He had never heard of Robinson 
 Crusoe. What a life! We went to church on 
 Sunday. I could not find my gloves. And Ro- 
 bina was waxey. But Mr. St. Leonard came with- 
 out his trousers. Which was worse. We found 
 them in the evening. The little boy that blew up 
 our stove was there with his mother. But I didn't 
 speak to her. He's got a doom. That's what 
 made him blow it up. He couldn't help it. So 
 
THEY AND I 233 
 
 you see it wasn't my fault. After all. His grand- 
 father was blown up. And he's going to be blown 
 up again. Later on. But he is very brave. And 
 is going to make a will. I like all the St. Leonards 
 very much. We went there to tea on Sunday. 
 And Mr. St. Leonard said I was bright. I think 
 Miss Janie very beautiful. And so does Dick. 
 She makes me think of angels. So she does Dick. 
 And he says she is so kind to her little brothers 
 and sisters. It is a good sign. I think she ought 
 to marry Dick. It would steady him. He works 
 very hard. But I think it does him good. We 
 have breakfast at seven. And I lay the table. 
 It is very beautiful in the morning. When you 
 are once up. Mrs. St. Leonard has twins. They 
 are a great anxiety to her. But she would not part 
 from them. She has had much trouble. And is 
 sometimes very sad. I like the girl best. Her 
 name is Winnie. She is more like a boy. His 
 name is Wilfrid. But sometimes they change 
 clothes. Then you're done. They are only nearly 
 seven. But they know a lot. They are going to 
 teach me swimming. Is it not kind of them? 
 The two older boys are at home for their holi- 
 days. But they give themselves a lot of airs. And 
 
234 THEY AND I 
 
 they called me a flapper. I told him he'd be sorry. 
 When he was a man. Because perhaps I'd grow 
 up beautiful. And then he'd fall in love with me. 
 But he said he wouldn't. So I let him see what I 
 thought of him. The little girl is very nice. She 
 is about my own age. Her name is Sally. We 
 are going to write a play. But we shan't let Bertie 
 act in it. Unless he turns over a new leaf. I'm 
 going to be a princess that doesn't know it. But 
 only feels it. And she's going to be a wicked witch. 
 What wants me to marry her son. What's a 
 sight. But I won't, because I'd rather die first. 
 And am in love with a swineherd. That is a 
 genius. Only nobody suspects it. I wear a crown 
 in the last act. And everybody rejoices. Except 
 her. I think it will be good. We have nearly 
 finished the first act. She writes very well. And 
 has a sense of atmosphere. And I tell her what 
 to say. Miss Janie is going to make me a dress 
 with a train. And gold spangles. And Robina 
 is going to lend me her blue necklace. Anything 
 will do of course for the old witch. So it won't 
 be much trouble to any one. Mr. Bute is going 
 to paint us some scenery. And we are going to 
 invite everybody. He is very nice. Robina says 
 
THEY AND I 235 
 
 he thinks too much of himself. By a long chalk. 
 But she is very critical where men are concerned. 
 She admits it. She says she can't help it. I find 
 him very affable. And so does Dick. We think 
 Robina will get over it. And he has promised 
 not to be angry with her. Because I have told 
 him that she does not mean it. It is only her way. 
 She says she feels it is unjust of her. Because 
 really he is rather charming. I told him that. 
 And he said I was a dear little girl. He is going 
 to get me a real crown. Robina says he has nice 
 eyes. I told him that. And he laughed. There 
 is a gentleman comes here that I think is in love 
 with Robina. But I shouldn't say anything to her 
 about it. If I was you. She is very snappy about 
 it. He is not handsome. But he looks good. He 
 writes for the papers. But I don't think he is 
 rich. And Robina is very nice to him. Until he's 
 gone. Then she gets mad. It all began with the 
 explosion. So perhaps it was fate. He is going 
 to keep it out of the papers. As much as he can. 
 But of course he owes a duty to the public. I am 
 going to decline to see him. I think it better. Mr. 
 Slee says everything will be in apple-pie order to- 
 morrow. So you can come down. And we are 
 
236 THEY AND I 
 
 going to have Irish stew. And roley-poley pud- 
 ding. It will be a change. He is very nice. And 
 says he was always in trouble himself when he 
 was a little boy. It's all experience. We are all 
 going on Friday to a party at Mr. St. Leonard's. 
 And you have got to come too. Robina says I 
 can wear my new frock. But we can't find the 
 sash. It is very strange. Because I remember 
 having seen it. You didn't take it for anything, 
 did you? We shall have to get a new one, I sup- 
 pose. It is very annoying. My new shoes have 
 also not worn well. And they ought to have. Be- 
 cause Robina says they were expensive. The don- 
 key has come. And he is sweet. He eats out of 
 my hand. And lets me kiss him. But he won't 
 go. He goes a little when you shout at him. 
 Very loud. Me and Robina went for a drive yes- 
 terday after tea. And Dick ran beside. And 
 shouted. But he got hoarse. And then he 
 wouldn't go no more. And Robina did not like it. 
 Because Dick shouted swear words. He says they 
 come naturally to you when you shout. And Ro- 
 bina said it was horrible. And that people would 
 hear him. So we got out. And pushed him home. 
 But he is very strong. And we were all very tired. 
 
THEY AND I 237 
 
 And Robina says she hates him. Dick is going to 
 give Mr. 'Opkins half a crown. To tell him how 
 he makes him go. Because Mr. 'Opkins makes 
 him gallop. Robina says it must be hypnotism. 
 But Dick thinks it might be something simpler. I 
 think Mr. 'Opkins very nice. He says you prom- 
 ised to lend him a book. What would help him to 
 talk like a real country boy. So I have let him a 
 book about a window. By Mr. Barrie. What 
 came to see us last year. It has a lot of funny 
 words in it. And he is going to learn them up. 
 But he don't know what they mean. No more do 
 I. I have written a lot of the book. It promises 
 to be very interesting. It is all a dream. He is 
 just the ordinary grown-up father. Neither better 
 nor worse. And he goes up and up. It is a pleas- 
 ant sensation. Till he reaches the moon. And 
 there everything is different. It is the children 
 that know everything. And are always right. 
 And the grown-ups have to do all what they tell 
 them. They are kind but firm. It is very good 
 for him. And when he wakes up he is a better 
 man. I put down everything that occurs to me. 
 Like you suggested. There is quite a lot of it. 
 And it makes you see how unjustly children are 
 
238 THEY AND I 
 
 treated. They said I was to feed the donkey. 
 Because it was my donkey. And I fed him. And 
 there wasn't enough supper for Dick. And Dick 
 said I was an idiot. And Robina said I wasn't 
 to feed him. And in the morning there wasn't 
 anything to feed him on. Because he won't eat 
 anything but bread-and-butter. And the baker 
 hadn't come. And he wasn't there. Because the 
 man that comes to milk the cow had left the door 
 open. And I was distracted. And Dick asked 
 had I fed him. And of course I hadn't fed him. 
 And lord how Dick talked. Never waited to 
 hear anything, mind you. I let him talk. But it 
 just shows you. We are all very happy. But shall 
 be pleased to see you. Once again. The pepper- 
 mint creams down here are not good. And are 
 very dear. Compared with London prices. Isn't 
 this a good letter? You said I was to always write 
 just as I thought. So I'm doing it. I think that's 
 all." 
 
 I read selections from this letter aloud to Ethel- 
 bertha. She said she was glad she had decided to 
 come down with me. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Had all things gone as ordered, our arrival at 
 the St. Leonards on Friday afternoon would have 
 been imposing. It was our entrance, so to speak, 
 upon the local stage; and Robina had decided it 
 was a case where small economies ought not to be 
 considered. The livery stable proprietor had sug- 
 gested a brougham, but that would have neces- 
 sitated one of us riding outside. I explained to 
 Robina that, in the country, this was usual; and 
 Robina had replied that much depended upon first 
 impressions. Dick would, in all probability, claim 
 the place for himself, and, the moment we were 
 started, stick a pipe in his mouth. She selected 
 an open landau of quite an extraordinary size, 
 painted yellow. It looked to me an object more 
 appropriate to a Lord Mayor's show than to the 
 requirements of a Christian family; but Robina 
 seemed touchy on the subject, and I said no more. 
 It certainly was roomy. Old Glossop had turned 
 it out well, with a pair of greys — seventeen hands, 
 I judged them. The only thing that seemed 
 
 239 
 
2 4 o THEY AND I 
 
 wrong was the coachman. I can't explain why, 
 but he struck me as the class of youth one associ- 
 ates with a milk-cart. 
 
 We set out at a gentle trot. Veronica, who had 
 been in trouble most of the morning, sat stiffly on 
 the extreme edge of her seat, clothed in the atti- 
 tude of one dead to the world; Dick, in lavender 
 gloves that Robina had thoughfully bought for 
 him, next to her. Ethelbertha, Robina, and my- 
 self sat perched on the back seat; to have leaned 
 back would have been to lie down. Ethelbertha, 
 having made up her mind she was going to dislike 
 the whole family of the St. Leonards, seemed dis- 
 inclined for conversation. Myself I had forgotten 
 my cigar-case. I have tried the St. Leonard cigar. 
 He does not smoke himself, but keeps a box for 
 his friends. He tells me he fancies men are smok- 
 ing cigars less than formerly. I did not see how 
 I was going to get a smoke for the next three 
 hours. Nothing annoys me more than being bus- 
 tled and made to forget things. Robina, who has 
 recently changed her views on the subject of 
 freckles, shared a parasol with her mother. They 
 had to hold it almost horizontally in front of them, 
 and this obscured their view. I could not myself 
 
THEY AND I 241 
 
 understand why people smiled as we went by. 
 Apart from the carriage, which they must have 
 seen before, we were not, I should have said, an 
 exhilarating spectacle. A party of cyclists laughed 
 outright. Robina said there was one thing we 
 should have to be careful about, living in the 
 country, and that was that the strong air and the 
 loneliness combined didn't sap our intellect. She 
 said she had noticed it — the tendency of country 
 people to become prematurely silly. I did not 
 share her fears, as I had by this time divined what 
 it was that was amusing folks. Dick had discov- 
 ered behind the cushions — remnant of some recent 
 wedding, one supposes — a large and tastefully 
 bound Book of Common Prayer. He and Ver- 
 onica sat holding it between them. Looking at 
 their faces one could almost hear the organ peal- 
 ing. 
 
 Dick kept one eye on the parasol; and when, on 
 passing into shade it was lowered, he and Veronica 
 were watching with rapt ecstasy the flight of swal- 
 lows. Robina said she should tell Mr. Glossop 
 of the insults to which respectable people were sub- 
 ject when riding in his carriage. She thought he 
 ought to take steps to prevent it. She likewise 
 
242 THEY AND I 
 
 suggested that the four of us, leaving the Little 
 Mother in the carnage, should walk up the hill. 
 Ethelbertha said that she herself would like a 
 walk. She had been balancing herself on the edge 
 of a cushion with her feet dangling for two miles, 
 and was tired. She herself would have preferred 
 a carriage made for ordinary-sized people. Our 
 coachman called attention to the heat of the after- 
 noon and the length of the hill, and recommended 
 our remaining where we were; but his advice was 
 dismissed as exhibiting want of feeling. Robina 
 is, perhaps, a trifle oversympathetic where animals 
 are concerned. I remember, when they were chil- 
 dren, her banging Dick over the head with the 
 nursery bellows because he would not agree to talk 
 in a whisper for fear of waking the cat. You can, 
 of course, overdo kindness to animals, but it is a 
 fault on the right side; and, as a rule, I do not 
 discourage her. Veronica was allowed to remain, 
 owing to her bad knee. It is a most unfortunate 
 affliction. It comes on quite suddenly. There is 
 nothing to be seen ; but the child's face while she is 
 suffering from it would move a heart of stone. It 
 had been troubling her, so it appeared, all the 
 morning; but she had said nothing, not wishing to 
 
THEY AND I 243 
 
 alarm her mother. Ethelbertha, who thinks it 
 may be hereditary — she herself having an aunt 
 who had suffered from contracted ligament — fixed 
 her up as comfortably as the pain would permit 
 with cushions in the centre of the back seat; and 
 the rest of us toiled after the carriage. 
 
 I should not like to say for certain that horses 
 have a sense of humour, but I sometimes think 
 they must. I had a horse years ago who used to 
 take delight in teasing girls. I can describe it no 
 other way. He would pick out a girl a quarter of 
 a mile off; always some haughty, well-dressed girl 
 who was feeling pleased with herself. As we ap- 
 proached he would eye her with horror and aston- 
 ishment. It was too marked to escape notice. A 
 hundred yards off he would be walking sideways, 
 backing away from her; I would see the poor 
 lady growing scarlet with the insult and annoy- 
 ance of it. Opposite to her, he would shy the en- 
 tire width of the road, and make pretence to bolt. 
 Looking back I would see her vainly appealing to 
 surrounding nature for a looking-glass to see what 
 it was that had gone wrong with her. 
 
 " What is the matter with me," she would be 
 crying to herself, " that the very beasts of the field 
 
244 THEY AND I 
 
 should shun me? Do they take me for a golly- 
 wog? " 
 
 Halfway up the hill, the off-side grey turned his 
 head and looked at us. We were about a couple 
 of hundred yards behind; it was a hot and dusty 
 day. He whispered to the near-side grey, and the 
 near-side grey turned and looked at us also. I 
 knew what was coming. I've been played the same 
 trick before. I shouted to the boy, but it was too 
 late. They took the rest of the hill at a gallop 
 and disappeared over the brow. Had there been 
 an experienced coachman behind them, I should 
 not have worried. Dick told his mother not to be 
 alarmed, and started off at fifteen miles an hour. I 
 calculated I was doing about ten, which for a gen- 
 tleman past his first youth, in a frock suit designed 
 to disguise rather than give play to the figure, I 
 consider creditable. Robina, undecided whether 
 to go on ahead with Dick or remain to assist her 
 mother, wasted vigour by running from one to the 
 other. Ethelbertha's one hope was that she might 
 reach the wreckage in time to receive Veronica's 
 last wishes. 
 
 It was in this order that we arrived at the St. 
 Leonards'. Veronica, under an awning, sipping 
 
THEY AND I 245 
 
 iced sherbet, appeared to be the centre of the 
 party. She was recounting her experiences with a 
 modesty that had already won all hearts. The rest 
 of us, she had explained, had preferred walking, 
 and would arrive later. She was evidently pleased 
 to see me, and volunteered the information that 
 the greys, to all seeming, had enjoyed their gallop. 
 
 I sent Dick back to break the good news to his 
 mother. Young Bute said he would go too. He 
 said he was fresher than Dick, and would get there 
 first. As a matter of history he did, and was im- 
 mediately sorry that he had. 
 
 This is not a well-ordered world, or it would 
 not be our good deeds that would so often get us 
 into trouble. Robina's insistence on our walking 
 up the hill had been prompted by tender feeling 
 for dumb animals: a virtuous emotion that surely 
 the angels should have blessed. The result had 
 been to bring down upon her suffering and re- 
 proach. It is not often that Ethelbertha loses her 
 temper. When she does she makes use of the oc- 
 casion to perform what one might describe as a 
 mental spring-cleaning. All loose odds and ends 
 of temper that may be lying about in her mind — 
 any scrap of indignation that has been reposing 
 
246 THEY AND I 
 
 peacefully, half forgotten, in a corner of her brain, 
 she ferrets out and brushes into the general heap. 
 Small annoyances of the year before last — little 
 things she hadn't noticed at the time — incidents in 
 your past life that, so far as you are concerned, 
 present themselves as dim visions connected maybe 
 with some previous existence, she whisks triumph- 
 antly into her pan. The method has its advan- 
 tages. It leaves her, swept and garnished, with- 
 out a scrap of ill-feeling towards any living soul. 
 For quite a long period after one of these explo- 
 sions it is impossible to get a cross word out of her. 
 One has to wait sometimes for months. But while 
 the clearing up is in progress the atmosphere round 
 about is disturbing. The element of the whole 
 thing is its comprehensive swiftness. Before they 
 had reached the summit of the hill, Robina had 
 acquired a tolerably complete idea of all she had 
 done wrong since Christmas twelvemonth: the 
 present afternoon's proceedings — including as they 
 did the almost certain sacrificing of a sister to a 
 violent death, together with the probable destruc- 
 tion of a father, no longer of an age to trifle with 
 apoplexy — being but a fit and proper complement 
 to what had gone before. It would be long, as 
 
THEY AND I 247 
 
 Robina herself that evening bitterly declared, be- 
 fore she would again give ear to the promptings 
 of her better nature. 
 
 To take next the sad case of Archibald Bute: 
 his sole desire had been to relieve, at the earliest 
 moment possible, the anxieties of a sister and a 
 mother. Robina's new hat, not intended for sport, 
 had broken away from its fastenings. With it, it 
 had brought down her hair. There is a harmless 
 contrivance for building up the female hair called, 
 I am told, a pad. It can be made of combings, 
 and then, of course, is literally the girl's own hair. 
 He came upon Robina at the moment when, re- 
 tracing her steps and with her back towards him, 
 she was looking for it. With his usual luck, he 
 was the first to find it. Ethelbertha thanked him 
 for his information concerning Veronica, but 
 seemed chiefly anxious to push on and convince 
 herself that it was true. She took Dick's arm, 
 and left Robina to follow on with Bute. 
 
 As I explained to him afterwards, had he 
 stopped to ask my advice I should have counselled 
 his leaving the job to Dick, who, after all, was 
 only thirty seconds behind him. As regarded him- 
 self, I should have suggested his taking a walk in 
 
248 THEY AND I 
 
 the opposite direction, returning, say, In half an 
 hour, and pretending to have just arrived. By 
 that time Robina, with the assistance of Janie's 
 brush and comb, and possibly her powder-puff, 
 would have been feeling herself again. He would 
 have listened sympathetically to an account of the 
 affair from Robina herself — her version, in which 
 she would have appeared to advantage. Give her 
 time, and she has a sense of humour. She would 
 have made it bright and whimsical. Without as- 
 serting it in so many words, she would have con- 
 veyed the impression — I know her way — that she 
 alone, throughout the whole commotion, had re- 
 mained calm and helpful. " Dear old Dick " and 
 " Poor dear papa " — I can hear her saying it — 
 would have supplied the low comedy, and Ve- 
 ronica, alluded to with affection free from senti- 
 mentality, would have furnished the dramatic in- 
 terest. It is not that Robina intends to mislead, 
 but she has the artistic instinct. It would have 
 made quite a charming story; Robina always the 
 central figure. She would have enjoyed telling it, 
 and would have been pleased with the person lis- 
 tening. All this — which would have been the re- 
 ward of subterfuge — he had missed. Virtuous 
 
THEY AND I 249 
 
 intention had gained for him nothing but a few 
 scattered observations from Robina concerning 
 himself, the probable object of his Creator in 
 fashioning him — his relation to the scheme of 
 things in general: observations all of which he had 
 felt to be unjust. 
 
 We compared experiences over a pipe that same 
 evening; and he told me of a friend of his, a law 
 student, who had shared diggings with him in 
 Edinburgh. A kinder-hearted young man, Bute 
 felt sure, could never have breathed; nor one with 
 a tenderer, more chivalrous regard for women; 
 and the misery this brought him, to say nothing of 
 the irritation caused to quite a number of respect- 
 able people, could hardly be imagined, so young 
 Bute assured me, by any one not personally ac- 
 quainted with the parties. It was the plain and 
 snappy girl, and the less attractive type of old 
 maid, for whom he felt the most sorrow. He 
 could not help thinking of all they had missed, and 
 were likely to go on missing; the rapture — surely 
 the woman's birthright — of feeling herself adored, 
 anyhow once in her life; the delight of seeing the 
 lover's eye light up at her coming. Had he been 
 a Mormon he would have married them all. They 
 
2 5 o THEY AND I 
 
 too — the neglected that none had invited to the 
 feast of love — they also should know the joys of 
 home, feel the sweet comfort of a husband's arm. 
 Being a Christian, his power for good was limited. 
 But at least he could lift from them the despairing 
 conviction that they were outside the pale of the 
 masculine affection. Not one of them, so far as 
 he could help it, but should be able to say : 
 
 11 1 — even I had a lover once. No, dear, we 
 never married. It was one of those spiritual 
 loves; a formal engagement with a ring would 
 have spoiled it — coarsened it. No; it was just 
 a beautiful thing that came into my life and passed 
 away again, leaving behind it a fragrance that has 
 sweetened all my days." 
 
 That is how he imagined they would talk about 
 it, years afterwards, to the little niece or nephew, 
 asking artless questions — how they would feel 
 about it themselves. Whether law circles are 
 peculiarly rich in unattractive spinsters, or whether 
 it merely happened to be an exceptional season 
 for them, Bute could not say; but certain it was 
 that the number of sour-faced girls and fretful 
 old maids in excess of the demand seemed to be 
 greater than usual that winter in Edinburgh, with 
 
THEY AND I 251 
 
 the result that young Hapgood had a busy time 
 of it. He made love to them, not obtrusively, 
 which might have laid them open to ridicule — 
 many of them were old enough to have been 
 his mother — but more by insinuation, by subtle 
 suggestion. His feelings, so they gathered, were 
 too deep for words; but the adoring eyes with 
 which he would follow their every movement, the 
 rapt ecstasy with which he would drink in their 
 lightest remark about the weather, the tone of 
 almost reverential awe with which he would 
 inquire of them concerning their lesser ailments — 
 all conveyed to their sympathetic observation the 
 message that he dared not tell. He had no 
 favourites. Sufficient it was that a woman should 
 be unpleasant, for him to pour out at her feet 
 the simulated passion of a lifetime. He sent 
 them presents — nothing expensive — wrapped in 
 pleasing pretence of anonymity; valentines care- 
 fully selected for their compromising character. 
 One carroty-headed old maid with warts he had 
 kissed upon the brow. 
 
 All this he did out of his great pity for them. 
 It was a beautiful idea, but it worked badly. 
 They did not understand — never got the hang 
 
252 THEY AND I 
 
 of the thing: not one of them. They thought 
 he was really gone on them. For a time his 
 elusiveness, his backwardness in coming to the 
 point, they attributed to a fit and proper fear of 
 his fate; but as the months went by the feeling 
 of each one was that he was carrying the appre- 
 hension of his own unworthiness too far. They 
 gave him encouragement, provided for him 
 "openings," till the wonder grew upon them 
 how any woman ever did get married. At the 
 end of their resources, they consulted bosom 
 friends. In several instances the bosom friend 
 turned out to be the bosom friend of more 
 than one of them. The bosom friends began 
 to take a hand in it. Some of them came to 
 him with quite a little list, insisting — playfully 
 at first — on his making up his mind what he 
 was going to take and what he was going to 
 leave; offering, as reward for prompt decision, 
 to make things as easy for him as possible with 
 the remainder of the column. 
 
 It was then he saw that his good intentions 
 were likely to end in catastrophe. He would 
 not tell the truth: that the whole scheme had 
 been conceived out of charity towards all ill- 
 
THEY AND I 253 
 
 constructed or dilapidated ladies; that personally 
 he didn't care a hang for any of them; had only 
 taken them on, vulgarly speaking, to give them 
 a treat, and because nobody else would. That 
 wasn't going to be a golden memory, colouring 
 their otherwise drab existence. He explained 
 that it was not love — not the love that alone 
 would justify a man's asking of a woman that 
 she should give herself to him for life — that he 
 felt and always should feel for them, but merely 
 admiration and deep esteem; and seventeen of 
 them thought that would be sufficient to start 
 with, and offered to change the rest. 
 
 The truth had to come out. Friends who 
 knew his noble nature could not sit by and hear 
 him denounced as a heartless and eccentric prof- 
 ligate. Ladies whose beauty and popularity 
 were beyond dispute thought it a touching and 
 tender thing for him to have done; but every 
 woman to whom he had ever addressed a kind 
 word wanted to wring his neck. 
 
 He did the most sensible thing he could, under 
 all the circumstances; changed his address to 
 Aberdeen, where he had an aunt living. But 
 the story followed him. No woman would be 
 
254 THEY AND I 
 
 seen speaking to him. One admiring glance from 
 Hapgood would send the prettiest girls home 
 weeping to their mothers. Later on he fell in 
 love — hopelessly, madly in love. But he dared 
 not tell her — dared not let a living soul guess 
 it. That was the only way he could show it. 
 It is not sufficient, in this world, to want to do 
 good ! there's got to be a knack about it. 
 
 There was a man I met in Colorado, one 
 Christmas-time. I was on a lecturing tour. His 
 idea was to send a loving greeting to his wife 
 in New York. He had been married nineteen 
 years, and this was the first time he had been 
 separated from his family on Christmas Day. 
 He pictured them round the table in the little 
 far-away New England parlour; his wife, his 
 sister-in-law, Uncle Silas, Cousin Jane, Jack and 
 Willy, and golden-haired Lena. They would be 
 just sitting down to dinner, talking about him, 
 most likely, wishing he were among them. 
 They were a nice family and all fond of him. 
 What joy it would give them to know that he 
 was safe and sound; to hear the very tones of 
 his loved voice speaking to them ! Modern 
 science has made possible these miracles. True, 
 
THEY AND I 255 
 
 the long-distance telephone would cost him five 
 dollars; but what is five dollars weighed against 
 the privilege of wafting happiness to an entire 
 family on Christmas Day! We had just come 
 back from a walk. He slammed the money down, 
 and laughed aloud at the thought of the surprise 
 he was about to give them all. 
 
 The telephone bell rang out clear and distinct 
 at the precise moment when his wife, with knife 
 and fork in hand, was preparing to carve the 
 turkey. She was a nervous lady, and twice that 
 week had dreamed that she had seen her husband 
 without being able to get to him. On the first 
 occasion she had seen him enter a dry-goods 
 store in Broadway, and hastening across the road 
 had followed him in. He was hardly a dozen 
 yards in front of her, but before she could over- 
 take him all the young lady assistants had rushed 
 from behind their counters and, forming a circle 
 round her, had refused to let her pass, which in 
 her dream had irritated her considerably. On 
 the next occasion he had boarded a Brooklyn 
 car in which she was returning home. She had 
 tried to attract his attention with her umbrella, 
 but he did not seem to see her; and every 
 
256 THEY AND I 
 
 time she rose to go across to him the car gave 
 a jerk and bumped her back into her seat. When 
 she did get over to him it was not her husband 
 at all, but the gentleman out of the Quaker 
 Oats advertisement. She went to the telephone, 
 feeling — as she said herself afterwards — all of a 
 tremble. 
 
 That you could speak from Colorado to New 
 York she would not then have believed had you 
 told her. The thing was in its early stages, 
 which may also have accounted for the voice 
 reaching her strange and broken. I was standing 
 beside him while he spoke. We were in the 
 vestibule of the Savoy Hotel at Colorado 
 Springs. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, 
 which would be about seven in New York. He 
 told her he was safe and well, and that she was 
 not to fret about him. He told her he had been 
 that morning for a walk in the Garden of the 
 Gods, which is the name given to the local park; 
 they do that sort of thing in Colorado. Also that 
 he had drunk from the silicial springs abounding in 
 that favoured land. I am not sure that " silicial " 
 was the correct word. He was not sure himself: 
 added to which he pronounced it badly. What- 
 
THEY AND I 257 
 
 ever they were, he assured her they had done him 
 good. He sent a special message to his Cousin Jane 
 — a maiden lady of means — to the effect that she 
 could rely upon seeing him soon. She was a touchy 
 old lady, and liked to be singled out for special 
 attention. He made the usual kind inquiries about 
 everybody, sent them all his blessing, and only 
 wished they could be with him in this delectable 
 land where it seemed to be always sunshine and 
 balmy breezes. He could have said more, but his 
 time being up the telephone people switched him 
 off ; and feeling he had done a good and thoughtful 
 deed, he suggested a game of billiards. 
 
 Could he have been a witness of events at the 
 other end of the wire, his condition would have 
 been one of less self-complacence. Long before 
 the end of the first sentence his wife had come to 
 the conclusion that this was a message from the 
 dead. Why through a telephone did not greatly 
 worry her. It seemed as reasonable a medium as 
 any other she had ever heard of — indeed, a trifle 
 more so. Later, when she was able to review the 
 matter calmly, it afforded her some consolation to 
 reflect that things might have been worse. That 
 " garden," together with the " silicial springs " — 
 
258 THEY AND I 
 
 which she took to be " celestial," there was not 
 much difference the way he pronounced it- — was 
 distinctly reassuring. The " eternal sunshine " 
 and the " balmy breezes " likewise agreed with her 
 knowledge of heavenly topography as derived 
 from the Congregational Hymn-Book. That he 
 should have needed to inquire concerning the 
 health of herself and the children had puzzled 
 her. The only explanation was that they didn't 
 know everything, not even up There — may be, not 
 the new-comers. She had answered as coherently 
 as her state of distraction would permit, and had 
 then dropped limply to the floor. It was the sound 
 of her falling against the umbrella-stand and up- 
 setting it that brought them all trooping out from 
 the dining-room. 
 
 It took her some time to get the thing home 
 to them; and when she had finished, her brother 
 Silas, acting on the impulse of the moment, rang 
 up the Exchange, with some vague idea of getting 
 into communication with St. Peter and obtaining 
 further particulars, but recollected himself in time 
 to explain to the " hulloa girl " that he had made 
 a mistake. 
 
 The eldest boy, a practical youth, pointed out, 
 
THEY AND I 259 
 
 very sen.sibly, that nothing could be gained by 
 their not going on with their dinner, but was bit- 
 terly reproached for being able to think of any 
 form of enjoyment at a moment when his poor 
 dear father was in heaven. It reminded his 
 mother of the special message to Cousin Jane, who 
 up to that moment had been playing the part of 
 comforter. With the collapse of Cousin Jane, 
 dramatic in its suddenness, conversation disap- 
 peared. At nine o'clock the entire family went 
 dinnerless to bed. 
 
 The eldest boy — as I have said, a practical 
 youth — had the sense to get up early the next 
 morning and send a wire, which brought the glad 
 news back to them that their beloved one was not 
 in heaven, but was still in Colorado. But the only 
 reward my friend got for all his tender thought- 
 fulness was the vehement injunction never for the 
 remainder of his life to play such a fool's trick 
 again. 
 
 There were other cases I could have recited 
 showing the ill recompense that so often overtakes 
 the virtuous action; but, as I explained to Bute, it 
 would have saddened me to dwell upon the theme. 
 
 It was quite a large party assembled at the St. 
 
260 THEY AND I 
 
 Leonards', including one or two country people; 
 and I should have liked, myself, to have made a 
 better entrance. A large lady with a very small 
 voice seemed to be under the impression that I 
 had arranged the whole business on purpose. She 
 said it was " so dramatic." One good thing came 
 out of it : Janie in her quiet, quick way saw to it 
 that Ethelbertha and Robina slipped into the 
 house unnoticed by way of the dairy. When they 
 joined the other guests, half an hour later, they 
 had had a cup of tea and a rest, and were feeling 
 calm and cool, with their hair nicely done; and 
 Ethelbertha remarked to Robina on the way home 
 what a comfort it must be to Mrs. St. Leonard to 
 have a daughter so capable, one who knew just the 
 right thing to do, and did it without making a 
 fuss and a disturbance. 
 
 Every one was very nice. Of course we made 
 the usual mistake: they talked to me about books 
 and plays, and I gave them my views on agricul- 
 ture and cub-hunting. I'm not quite sure what 
 fool it was who described a bore as a man who 
 talked about himself. As a matter of fact it is 
 the only subject the average man knows sufficiently 
 well to make interesting. There's a man I know; 
 
THEY AND I 261 
 
 he makes a fortune out of a patent food for 
 infants. He began life as a dairy farmer, and hit 
 upon it quite by accident. When he talks about 
 the humours of company promoting and the tricks 
 of the advertising agent he is amusing. I have 
 sat at his table, when he was a bachelor, and 
 listened to him by the hour with enjoyment. The 
 mistake he made was marrying a broad-minded, 
 cultured woman, who ruined him — conversation- 
 ally, I mean. He is now well-informed and tire- 
 some on most topics. That is why actors and 
 actresses are always such delightful company: they 
 are not ashamed to talk about themselves. I 
 remember a dinner-party once: our host was one 
 of the best-known barristers in London. A famous 
 lady novelist sat on his right, and a scientist of 
 world-wide reputation had the place of honour 
 next our hostess, who herself had written a history 
 of the struggle for nationality in South America 
 that serves as an authority to all the Foreign 
 Offices of Europe. Among the remaining guests 
 were a bishop, the editor-in-chief of a London 
 daily newspaper, a man who knew the interior of 
 China as well as most men know their own club, a 
 Russian revolutionist just escaped from Siberia, 
 
262 THEY AND 1 
 
 a leading dramatist, a Cabinet Minister, and a 
 poet whose name is a household word wherever the 
 English tongue is spoken. And for two hours we 
 sat and listened to a wicked-looking little woman 
 who from the boards of a Bowery music-hall had 
 worked her way up to the position of a star in 
 musical comedy. Education, as she observed her- 
 self without regret, had not been compulsory 
 throughout the waterside district of Chicago in her 
 young days; and, compelled to earn her own living 
 from the age of thirteen, opportunity for supplying 
 the original deficiency had been wanting. But she 
 knew her subject, which was Herself — her experi- 
 ences, her reminiscences: and had sense enough to 
 stick to it. Until the moment when she took " the 
 liberty of chipping in," to use her own expression, 
 the amount of twaddle talked had been appalling. 
 The bishop had told us all he had learnt about 
 China during a visit to San Francisco, while the 
 man who had spent the last twenty years of his 
 life in the country was busy explaining his views 
 on the subject of the English drama. Our hostess 
 had been endeavouring to make the scientist feel 
 at home by talking to him about radium. The 
 dramatist had explained at some length his views 
 
THEY AND I 263 
 
 of the crisis in Russia. The poet had quite spoilt 
 his dinner trying to suggest to the Cabinet Min- 
 ister new sources of taxation. The Russian revo- 
 lutionist had told us what ought to have been a 
 funny story about a duck; and the lady novelist 
 and the Cabinet Minister had discussed Christian 
 Science for a quarter of an hour, each under the 
 mistaken impression that the other one was a 
 believer in it. The editor had been explaining the 
 attitude of the Church towards the new Theology; 
 and our host, one of the wittiest men at the Bar, 
 had been talking chiefly to the butler. The relief 
 of listening to anybody talking about something 
 they knew was like finding a match-box to a man 
 who has been barking his shins in the dark. For 
 the rest of the dinner we clung to her. 
 
 I could have made myself quite interesting to 
 these good squires and farmers talking to them 
 about theatres and the literary celebrities I have 
 met! and they could have told me dog stories and 
 given me useful information as to the working of 
 the Small Holdings Act. They said some very 
 charming things about my books — mostly to the 
 effect that they read and enjoyed them when feel- 
 ing ill or suffering from mental collapse. I gath- 
 
264 THEY AND I 
 
 ered that had they always continued in a healthy 
 state of mind and body it would not have occurred 
 to them to read me. One man assured me I had 
 saved his life. It was his brain, he told me. He 
 had been so upset by something that had happened 
 to him that he had almost lost his reason. There 
 were times when he could not even remember his 
 own name; his mind seemed an absolute blank. 
 And then one day by chance — or Providence, or 
 whatever you choose to call it — he had taken up a 
 book of mine. It was the only thing he had been 
 able to read for months and months ! And now, 
 whenever he felt himself run down — his brain 
 like a squeezed orange (that was his simile) — 
 he would put everything else aside and read a 
 book of mine — any one: it didn't matter which. 
 I suppose one ought to be glad that one has saved 
 somebody's life; but I should like to have the 
 choosing of them myself. 
 
 I am not sure that Ethelbertha is going to like 
 Mrs. St. Leonard; and I don't think Mrs. St. 
 Leonard will much like Ethelbertha. I have gath- 
 ered that Mrs. St. Leonard doesn't like anybody 
 much — except, of course, when it is her duty. She 
 does not seem to have the time. Man is born to 
 
THEY AND I 265 
 
 trouble, and it is not bad philosophy to get oneself 
 accustomed to the feeling. But Mrs. St. Leonard 
 has given herself up to the pursuit of trouble to the 
 exclusion of all other interests in life. She appears 
 to regard it as the only calling worthy a Chris- 
 tian woman. I found her alone one afternoon. 
 Her manner was preoccupied; I asked if I could 
 be of any assistance. 
 
 "No," she answered, "I am merely trying to 
 think what it can be that has been worrying me all 
 the morning. It has clean gone out of my head." 
 
 She remembered it a little later with a glad 
 sigh. 
 
 St. Leonard himself, Ethelbertha thinks charm- 
 ing. We are to go again on Sunday for her to see 
 the children. Three or four people we met I fancy 
 we shall be able to fit in with. We left at half-past 
 six, and took Bute back with us to supper. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 " She's a good woman," said Robina. 
 
 "Who's a good woman? " I asked. 
 
 "He's trying, I expect; although he is an old 
 dear: to live with, I mean," continued Robina, 
 addressing apparently the rising moon. "And 
 then there are all those children." 
 
 " You are thinking of Mrs. St. Leonard," I 
 suggested. 
 
 " There seems no way of making her happy," 
 explained Robina. " On Thursday I went round 
 early in the morning to help Janie pack the baskets 
 for the picnic. It was her own idea, the picnic." 
 
 " Speaking of picnics," I said. 
 
 " You might have thought," went on Robina, 
 " that she was dressing for her own funeral. She 
 said she knew she was going to catch her death of 
 cold, sitting on the wet grass. Something told 
 her. I reminded her it hadn't rained for three 
 weeks, and that everything was as dry as a bone, 
 but she said that made no difference to grass. 
 There is always a moisture in grass, and that 
 
 266 
 
THEY AND I 267 
 
 cushions and all that only helped to draw it out. 
 Not that it mattered. The end had to come, and 
 so long as the others were happy — you know her 
 style. Nobody ever thought of her. She was to 
 be dragged here, dragged there. She talked about 
 herself as if she were some sacred image. It got 
 upon my nerves at last, so that I persuaded Janie 
 to let me offer to stop at home with her. I wasn't 
 too keen about going myself; not by that 
 time." 
 
 11 ' When our desires leave us,' says Roche- 
 foucauld," I remarked, " 'we pride ourselves upon 
 our virtue in having overcome them.' ' 
 
 "Well, it was her fault, anyhow," retorted 
 Robina ; " and I didn't make a virtue of it. I told 
 her I'd just as soon not go, and that I felt sure 
 the others would be all right without her, so that 
 there was no need for her to be dragged anywhere. 
 And then she burst into tears." 
 
 " She said," I suggested, " that it was hard on 
 her to have children who could wish to go to a 
 picnic and leave their mother at home; that it was 
 little enough enjoyment she had in her life, 
 heaven knows; that if there was one thing she had 
 been looking forward to it was this day's outing; 
 
268 THEY AND I 
 
 but still, of course, if everybody would be happier 
 without her " 
 
 "Something of the sort," admitted Robina; 
 "only there was a lot of it. We had to all fuss 
 round her, and swear that without her it wouldn't 
 be worth calling a picnic. She brightened up on 
 the way home." 
 
 The screech-owl in the yew-tree emitted a 
 blood-curdling scream. He perches there each 
 evening on the extreme end of the longest bough. 
 Dimly outlined against the night, he has the ap- 
 pearance of a friendly hobgoblin. But I wish he 
 didn't fancy himself as a vocalist. It is against 
 his own interests, I am sure, if he only knew it. 
 That American college yell of his must have the 
 effect of sending every living thing within half a 
 mile back into its hole. Maybe it is a provision 
 of nature for clearing off the very old mice who 
 have become stone deaf and would otherwise be 
 a burden on their relatives. The others, unless out 
 for suicide, must, one thinks, be tolerably safe. 
 Ethelbertha is persuaded he is a sign of death ; but 
 seeing there isn't a square quarter of a mile in this 
 county without its scheech-owl, there can hardly 
 by this time be a resident that an Assurance Society 
 
THEY AND I 269 
 
 would look at. Veronica likes him. She even 
 likes his screech. I found her under the tree the 
 other night, wrapped up in a shawl, trying to 
 learn it. As if one of them were not enough! It 
 made me quite cross with her. Besides, it wasn't 
 a bit like it, as I told her. She said it was better 
 than I could do, anyhow; and I was idiot enough 
 to take up the challenge. It makes me angry now, 
 when I think of it: a respectable, middle-aged 
 literary man, standing under a yew-tree trying to 
 screech like an owl. And the bird was silly 
 enough to encourage us. 
 
 " She was a charming girl," I said, " seven- 
 and-twenty years ago, when St. Leonard fell in 
 love with her. She had those dark, dreamy eyes 
 so suggestive of veiled mysteries; and her lips 
 must have looked bewitching when they pouted. 
 I expect they often did. They do so still ; but the 
 pout of a woman of forty-six no longer fascinates. 
 To a pretty girl of nineteen a spice of temper, an 
 illogical unreasonableness, are added attractions: 
 the scratch of a blue-eyed kitten only tempts us to 
 tease her the more. Young Hubert St. Leonard — 
 he had curly brown hair, with a pretty trick of 
 blushing, and was going to conquer the world — 
 
270 THEY AND I 
 
 found her fretfulness, her very selfishness ador- 
 able : and told her so, kneeling before her, gazing 
 into her bewildering eyes — only he called it way- 
 wardness, her imperiousness; begged her for his 
 sake to be more capricious. Told her how beau- 
 tiful she looked when displeased. So, no doubt, she 
 did — at nineteen." 
 
 "He didn't tell you all that, did he?" de- 
 manded Robina. 
 
 " Not a word," I reassured her, " except that 
 she was acknowledged by all authorities to have 
 been the most beautiful girl in Turnbridge Wells, 
 and that her father had been ruined by a rascally 
 solicitor. No, I was merely, to use the phrase of 
 the French police courts, ' reconstructing the 
 crime.' " 
 
 " It may be all wrong," grumbled Robina. 
 
 "It may be," I agreed. "But why? Does it 
 strike you as improbable?" 
 
 We were sitting in the porch, waiting for Dick 
 to come by the white path across the field. 
 
 " No," answered Robina. " It all sounds very 
 probable. I wish it didn't." 
 
 " You must remember," I continued, " that I 
 am an old playgoer. I have sat out so many of 
 
THEY AND I 271 
 
 this world's dramas. It is as easy to reconstruct 
 them backwards as forwards. We are witnessing 
 the last act of the St. Leonard drama: that un- 
 satisfactory last act that merely fills out time after 
 the play is ended! The intermediate acts were 
 probably more exciting, containing ' passionate 
 scenes' played with much earnestness; chiefly 
 for the amusement of the servants. But the first 
 act, with the Kentish lanes and woods for a back- 
 cloth, must have been charming. Here was the 
 devout lover she had heard of, dreamed of. It is 
 delightful to be regarded as perfection — not ab- 
 solute perfection, for that might put a strain upon 
 us to live up to, but as so near perfection that to 
 be more perfect would just spoil it. The spots 
 upon us, that unappreciative friends and relations 
 would magnify into blemishes, seen in their true 
 light: artistic shading relieving a faultlessness that 
 might otherwise prove too glaring. Dear Hubert 
 found her excellent just as she was in every detail. 
 It would have been a crime against Love for her 
 to seek to change herself." 
 
 "Well, then, it was his fault," argued Robina. 
 " If he was silly enough to like her faults, and 
 encourage her in them " 
 
272 THEY AND I 
 
 " What could he have done," I asked, " even 
 if he had seen them? A lover does not point out 
 his mistress's shortcomings to her." 
 
 " Much the more sensible plan if he did," in- 
 sisted Robina. "Then if she cared for him she 
 could set to work to cure herself." 
 
 "You would like it?" I said; "you would 
 appreciate it in your own case? Can you imagine 
 young Bute — ■ — ? " 
 
 "Why young Bute?" demanded Robina; 
 " what's he got to do with it? " 
 
 "Nothing," I answered; "except that he hap- 
 pens to be the first male creature you have ever 
 come across since you were six that you haven't 
 flirted with." 
 
 "I don't flirt with them," said Robina; "I 
 merely try to be nice to them." 
 
 " With the exception of young Bute," I per- 
 sisted. 
 
 " He irritates me," Robina explained. 
 
 " I was reading," I said, " the other day, an 
 account of the marriage customs prevailing among 
 the Lower Caucasians. The lover takes his stand 
 beneath his lady's window, and, having attracted 
 her attention, proceeds to sing. And if she seems 
 
THEY AND I 273 
 
 to like it — if she listens to it without getting mad, 
 that means she doesn't want him. But if she gets 
 upset about it — slams down the window and walks 
 away, then it's all right. I think it's the Lower 
 Caucasians." 
 
 "Must be a very silly people," said Robina; 
 " I suppose a pail of water would be the highest 
 proof of her affection he could hope for." 
 
 "A complex being, man," I agreed. " We will 
 call him X. Can you imagine young X coming 
 to you and saying: ' My dear Robina, you have 
 many excellent qualities. You can be amiable — 
 so long as you are having your own way in every- 
 thing; but thwarted you can be just horrid. You 
 are very kind — to those who are willing for you to 
 be kind to them in your own way, which is not 
 always their way. You can be quite unselfish — 
 when you happen to be in an unselfish mood, which 
 is far from frequent. You are capable and clever, 
 but, like most capable and clever people, impatient 
 and domineering; highly energetic when not feel- 
 ing lazy; ready to forgive the moment your tem- 
 per is exhausted. You are generous and frank, 
 but if your object could only be gained through 
 meanness or deceit you would not hesitate a 
 
274 THEY AND I 
 
 moment longer than was necessary to convince 
 yourself that the circumstances justified the means. 
 You are sympathetic, tender-hearted, and have 
 a fine sense of justice; but I can see that tongue 
 of yours, if not carefully watched, wearing de- 
 cidedly shrewish. You have any amount of grit. 
 A man might go tiger-hunting with you — with no 
 one better; but you are obstinate, conceited, and 
 exacting. In short, to sum you up, you have all 
 the makings in you of an ideal wife combined 
 with faults sufficient to make a Socrates regret 
 he'd ever married you.' " 
 
 " Yes, I would ! " said Robina, springing to 
 her feet. I could not see her face, but I knew 
 there was the look upon it that made Primgate 
 want to paint her as Joan of Arc; only it would 
 never stop long enough. " I'd love him for talk- 
 ing like that. And I'd respect him. If he was 
 that sort of man, I'd pray God to help me to be 
 the sort of woman he wanted me to be. I'd try. 
 I'd try all day long. I would! " 
 
 " I wonder," I said. Robina had surprised me. 
 I admit it. I thought I knew the sex better. 
 
 "Any girl would," said Robina. "He'd be 
 worth it." 
 
THEY AND I 275 
 
 " It would be a new idea," I mused. " Gott 
 in Himmel! what a new world might it not 
 create ! " The fancy began to take hold of me. 
 " Love no longer blind. Love refusing any more 
 to be the poor blind fool — sport of gods and men. 
 Love no longer passion's slave. His bonds 
 broken, the senseless bandage flung aside. Love 
 helping life instead of muddling it. Marriage, 
 the foundation of civilisation, no longer reared 
 upon the sands of lies and illusions, but grappled 
 to the rock of truth — reality. Have you ever 
 read 'Tom Jones'?" I said. 
 
 "No," answered Robina; "I've always heard 
 it wasn't a nice book." 
 
 " It isn't," I said. " Man isn't a nice animal, 
 not all of him. Nor woman either. There's a 
 deal of the beast in man. What can you expect? 
 Till a few paltry thousands of years ago he was 
 a beast, fighting with other beasts, his fellow 
 denizens of the woods and caves; watching for 
 his prey, crouched in the long grass of the river's 
 bank, tearing it with claws and teeth, growling as 
 he ate. So he lived and died through the dim 
 unnamed ages, transmitting his beast's blood, his 
 bestial instincts, to his offspring, growing ever 
 
276 THEY AND I 
 
 stronger, fiercer, from generation to generation, 
 while the rocks piled up their strata and the 
 oceans shaped their beds. Moses! Why, Lord 
 Rothschild's great-grandfather, a few score times 
 removed, must have known Moses, talked with 
 him. Babylon! It is a modern city, fallen into 
 disuse for the moment, owing to alteration of 
 traffic routes. History! it is a tale of to-day. 
 Man was crawling about the world on all fours, 
 learning to be an animal for millions of years 
 before the secret of his birth was whispered to 
 him. It is only during the last few centuries 
 that he has been trying to be a man. Our modern 
 morality! Why, compared with the teachings 
 of nature, it is but a few days old. What do you 
 expect? That he shall forget the lessons of the 
 eons at the bidding of the hours? " 
 
 "Then you advise me to read 'Tom Jones?'" 
 said Robina. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I do. I should not if I 
 thought you were still a child, knowing only blind 
 trust, or blind terror. The sun is not extinguished 
 because occasionally obscured by mist; the scent 
 of the rose is not dead because of the worm in the 
 leaf. A healthy rose can afford a few worms — 
 
THEY AND I 277 
 
 has got to, anyhow. All men are not Tom 
 Joneses. The standard of masculine behaviour 
 continues to go up: many of us make fine efforts 
 to conform to it, and some of us succeed. But 
 the Tom Jones is there in all of us who are not 
 anaemic or consumptive. And there's no sense 
 at all in getting cross with us about it, because 
 we cannot help it. We are doing our best. In 
 another hundred thousand years or so, provided 
 all goes well, we shall be the perfect man. And 
 seeing our early training, I flatter myself that, 
 up to the present, we have done remarkably 
 well." 
 
 "Nothing like being satisfied with oneself," 
 said Robina. 
 
 "I'm not satisfied," I said; "I'm only hopeful. 
 But it irritates me when I hear people talk as 
 though man had been born a white-souled angel 
 and was making supernatural efforts to become 
 a sinner. That seems to me the way to dis- 
 courage him. What he wants is bucking up; 
 somebody to say to him, ' Bravo ! why, this is 
 splendid! Just think, my boy, what you were, 
 and that not so very long ago — an unwashed, 
 hairy savage; your law that of the jungle, your 
 
278 THEY AND I 
 
 morals those of the rabbit-warren. Now look at 
 yourself — dressed in your little shiny hat, your 
 trousers neatly creased, walking with your wife 
 to church on Sunday ! Keep on — that's all you've 
 got to do. In a few more centuries your own 
 mother Nature won't know you.' 
 
 "You women," I continued; "why, a handful 
 of years ago we bought and sold you, kept you 
 in cages, took the stick to you when you were not 
 spry in doing what you were told. Did you ever 
 read the history of Patient Griselda?" 
 
 "Yes," said Robina, "I have." I gathered 
 from her tone that the Joan of Arc expression 
 had departed. Had Primgate wanted to paint 
 her at that particular moment I should have sug- 
 gested Katherine — during the earlier stages — 
 listening to a curtain lecture from Petruchio. 
 " Are you suggesting that all women should take 
 her for a model? " 
 
 " No," I said, " Im not. Though were we 
 living in Chaucer's time I might; and you would 
 not think it even silly. What I'm impressing 
 upon you is that the human race has yet a little 
 way to travel before the average man can be re- 
 garded as an up-to-date edition of King Arthur — 
 
THEY AND I 279 
 
 the King Arthur of the poetical legend, I mean 
 Don't be too impatient with him." 
 
 " Thinking what a beast he has been ought to 
 make him impatient himself with himself," con- 
 sidered Robina. " He ought to be feeling so 
 ashamed of himself as to be willing to do any- 
 thing." 
 
 The owl in the old yew screamed, whether with 
 indignation or amusement I cannot tell. 
 
 " And woman," I said, " had the power been 
 hers, would she have used it to sweeter purpose? 
 Where is your evidence? Your Cleopatras, 
 Pompadours, Jazebels; your Catherines of Russia, 
 late Empresses of China; your Faustines of all 
 ages and all climes; your Mother Brownriggs; 
 your Lucretia Borgias, Salomes — I could weary 
 you with names. Your Roman task-mistresses; 
 your drivers of lodging-house slaveys; your 
 ladies who whipped their pages to death in the 
 Middle Ages; your modern dames of fashion, 
 decked with the plumage of the tortured grove. 
 There have been other women also — noble women, 
 their names like beacon-lights studding the dark 
 waste of history. So there have been noble men 
 — saints, martyrs, heroes. The sex-line divides 
 
280 THEY AND I 
 
 us physically, not morally. Woman has been 
 man's accomplice in too many crimes to claim to 
 be his judge. ' Male and female created He 
 them ' — like and like, for good and evil." 
 
 By good fortune I found a loose match. I 
 lighted a fresh cigar. 
 
 " Dick, I suppose, is the average man," said 
 Robina. 
 
 11 Most of us are," I said, " when we are at 
 home. Carlyle was the average man in the little 
 front parlour in Cheyne Row, though, to hear 
 fools talk, you might think no married couple out- 
 side literary circles had ever been known to ex- 
 change a cross look. So was Oliver Cromwell in 
 his own palace with the door shut. Mrs. Crom- 
 well must have thought him monstrous silly, 
 placing sticky sweetmeats for his guests to sit on 
 — told him so, most likely. A cheery, kindly 
 man, notwithstanding, though given to moods. 
 He and Mrs. Cromwell seem to have rubbed 
 along, on the whole, pretty well together. Old 
 Sam Johnson — great, God-fearing, lovable, can- 
 tankerous old brute! Life with him, in a small 
 house on a limited income, must have had its ups 
 and downs. Milton and Frederick the Great 
 
THEY AND I 281 
 
 were, one hopes, a little below the average. Did 
 their best, no doubt; lacked understanding. Not 
 so easy as it looks, living up to the standard of 
 the average man. Very clever people, in partic- 
 ular, find it tiring." 
 
 11 1 shall never marry," said Robina. " At 
 least, I hope I shan't" 
 
 "Why 'hope'?" I asked. 
 
 " Because I hope I shall never be idiot 
 enough," she answered. " I see it all so clearly. 
 I wish I didn't. Love! it's only an ugly thing 
 with a pretty name. It will not be me that he 
 will fall in love with. He will not know me until 
 it is too late. How can he? It will be merely 
 with the outside of me — my pink-and-white skin, 
 my rounded arms. I feel it sometimes when I see 
 men looking at me, and it makes me mad. And 
 at other times the admiration in their eyes pleases 
 me. And that makes me madder still." 
 
 The moon had slipped behind the wood. She 
 had risen, and, leaning against the porch, was 
 standing with her hands clasped. I fancy she had 
 forgotten me. She seemed to be talking to the 
 night. 
 
 " It's only a trick of Nature to make fools 
 
282 THEY AND I 
 
 of us," she said. " He will tell me I am all 
 the world to him; that his love will outlive the 
 stars — will believe it himself at the time, poor 
 fellow ! He will call me a hundred pretty names, 
 will kiss my feet and hands. And if I'm fool 
 enough to listen to him, it may last" — she 
 laughed ; it was rather an ugly laugh — " six 
 months; with luck perhaps a year, if I'm careful 
 not to go out in the east wind and come home with 
 a red nose, and never let him catch me in curl 
 papers. It will not be me that he will want : only 
 my youth, and the novelty of me, and the mystery. 
 And when that is gone " 
 
 She turned to me. It was a strange face I saw 
 then in the pale light, quite a fierce little face. 
 She laid her hands upon my shoulders, and I felt 
 them cold. "What comes when it is dead?" 
 she said. "What follows? You must know. 
 Tell me. I want the truth." 
 
 Her vehemence had arisen so suddenly. The 
 little girl I had set out to talk with was no longer 
 there. To my bewilderment, it was a woman that 
 was questioning me. 
 
 I drew her down beside me. But the childish 
 face was still stern. 
 
THEY AND I 283 
 
 "I want the truth," she said; so that I an- 
 swered very gravely: 
 
 "When the passion is passed; when the glory 
 and the wonder of Desire — Nature's eternal 
 ritual of marriage, solemnising, sanctifying it to 
 her commands — is ended; then, sooner or later, 
 some grey dawn finds you wandering bewildered 
 in once familiar places, seeking vainly the lost 
 palace of youth's dreams; when Love's frenzy is 
 faded, like the fragrance of the blossom, like the 
 splendour of the dawn; there will remain to you, 
 just what was there before — no more, no less. 
 If passion was all you had to give to one another, 
 God help you. You have had your hour of mad- 
 ness. It is finished. If greed of praise and 
 worship was your price — well, you have had your 
 payment. The bargain is complete. If mere 
 hope to be made happy was your lure, one pities 
 you. We do not make each other happy. Hap- 
 piness is the gift of the gods, not of man. The 
 secret lies within you, not without. What re- 
 mains to you will depend not upon what you 
 thought, but upon what you are. If behind the 
 lover there was the man — behind the impossible 
 goddess of his love-sick brain some honest, 
 
284 THEY AND I 
 
 human woman, then life lies not behind you, but 
 before you. 
 
 " Life is giving, not getting. That is the 
 mistake we most of us set out with. It is the 
 work that is the joy, not the wages! the game, 
 not the score. The lover's delight is to yield, 
 not to claim. The crown of motherhood is pain. 
 To serve the State at cost of ease and leisure; 
 to spend his thought and labour upon a hundred 
 schemes, is the man's ambition. Life is doing, 
 not having. It is to gain the peak the climber 
 strives, not to possess it. Fools marry thinking 
 what they are going to get out of it: good store 
 of joys and pleasure, opportunities for self-in- 
 dulgence, eternal soft caresses — the wages of the 
 wanton. The rewards of marriage are toil, duty, 
 responsibility — manhood, womanhood. Love's 
 baby talk you will have outgrown. You will no 
 longer be his ' Goddess,' ' Angel,' ' Popsy 
 Wopsy,' ' Queen of his heart.' There are finer 
 names than these: wife, mother, priestess in the 
 temple of humanity. Marriage is renunciation, 
 the sacrifice of Self upon the altar of the race. 
 * A trick of nature,' you call it. Perhaps. But 
 
THEY AND I 285 
 
 a trick of Nature compelling you to surrender 
 yourself to the purposes of God." 
 
 I fancy we must have sat in silence for quite 
 a long while; for the moon, creeping upward 
 past the wood, had flooded the fields again with 
 light before Robina spoke. 
 
 " Then all love is needless," she said, " we 
 could do better without it, choose with more dis- 
 cretion. If it is only something that worries us 
 for a little while and then passes, what is the 
 sense of it? " 
 
 " You could ask the same question of Life 
 itself," I said; "'something that worries us for 
 a little while, then passes.' Perhaps the ' worry,' 
 as you call it, has its uses. Volcanic upheavals 
 are necessary to the making of a world. With- 
 out them the ground would remain rock-bound, 
 unfitted for its purposes. That explosion of 
 Youth's pent-up forces that we term Love serves 
 to the making of man and woman. It does not 
 die, it takes new shape. The blossom fades as 
 the fruit forms. The passion passes to give 
 place to peace. The trembling lover has become 
 the helper, the comforter, the husband." 
 
286 THEY AND I 
 
 "But the failures," Robina persisted; "I do 
 not mean the silly or the wicked people; but the 
 people who begin by really loving one another, 
 only to end in disliking — almost hating one an- 
 other. How do they get there?" 
 
 " Sit down," I said, " and I will tell you a 
 story. 
 
 " Once upon a time there was a girl, and a boy 
 who loved her. She was a clever, brilliant girl, 
 and she had the face of an angel. They lived 
 near to one another, seeing each other almost 
 daily. But the boy, awed by the difference of 
 their social position, kept his secret, as he thought, 
 to himself; dreaming, as youth will, of the day 
 when fame and wealth would bridge the gulf 
 between them. The kind look in her eyes, the 
 occasional seeming pressure of her hand, he al- 
 lowed to feed his hopes; and on the morning of 
 his departure for London an incident occurred 
 that changed his vague imaginings to set re- 
 solve. He had sent on his scanty baggage by 
 the carrier, intending to walk the three miles to 
 the station. It was early in the morning, and he 
 had not expected to meet a soul. But a mile 
 from the village he overtook her. She was read- 
 
THEY AND I 287 
 
 ing a book, but she made no pretence that the 
 meeting was accidental, leaving him to form what 
 conclusions he would. She walked with him some 
 distance, and he told her of his plans and hopes; 
 and she answered him quite simply that she should 
 always remember him, always be more glad than 
 she could tell to hear of his success. Near the 
 end of the lane they parted, she wishing him in 
 that low sweet woman's voice of hers all things 
 good. He turned, a little farther on, and found 
 that she had also turned. She waved her hand 
 to him, smiling. And through the long day's 
 journey and through many days to come there 
 remained with him that picture of her, bringing 
 with it the scent of the pine-woods: her white 
 hand waving to him, her sweet eyes smiling wist- 
 fully. 
 
 " But fame and fortune are not won so quickly 
 as boys dream, nor is life as easy to live bravely as 
 it looks in visions. It was nearly twenty years 
 before they met again. Neither had married. 
 Her people were dead and she was living alone; 
 and to him the world at last had opened her 
 doors. She Was still beautiful. A gracious, gen- 
 tle lady she had grown; clothed with that soft 
 
288 THEY AND I 
 
 sweet dignity that Time bestows upon rare wo- 
 men, rendering them fairer with the years. 
 
 " To the man it seemed a miracle. The dream 
 of those early days came back to him. Surely 
 there was nothing now to separate them. Noth- 
 ing had changed but the years, bringing to them 
 both wider sympathies, calmer, more enduring 
 emotions. She welcomed him again with the old 
 kind smile, a warmer pressure of the hand; and, 
 allowing a little time to pass for courtesy's sake, 
 he told her what was the truth : that he had never 
 ceased to love her, never ceased to keep the vision 
 of her fair pure face before him, his ideal of all 
 that man could find of help in womanhood. And 
 her answer, until years later he read the explana- 
 tion, remained a mystery to him. She told him 
 that she loved him, that she had never loved any 
 other man and never should; that his love, for 
 so long as he chose to give it to her, she should 
 always prize as the greatest gift of her life. But 
 with that she prayed him to remain content. 
 
 11 He thought perhaps it was a touch of wo- 
 man's pride, of hurt dignity that he had kept 
 silent so long, not trusting her; that perhaps as 
 time went by she would change her mind. But 
 
THEY AND I 289 
 
 she never did; and after a while, finding that his 
 persistence only pained her, he accepted the situ- 
 ation. She was not the type of woman about 
 whom people talk scandal, nor would it have 
 troubled her much had they done so. Able now 
 to work where he would, he took a house in a 
 neighbouring village, where for the best part of 
 the year he lived, near to her. And to the end 
 they remained lovers." 
 
 11 1 think I understand," said Robina. " I will 
 tell you afterwards if I am wrong." 
 
 " I told the story to a woman many years ago," 
 I said, " and she also thought she understood. 
 But she was only half right." 
 
 11 We will see," said Robina. " Go on." 
 
 11 She left a letter, to be given to him after her 
 death, in case he survived her; if not, to be 
 burned unopened. In it she told him her reason, 
 or rather her reasons, for having refused him. It 
 was an odd letter. The ' reasons ' sounded so 
 pitiably insufficient. Until one took the pains to 
 examine them in the cold light of experience. 
 And then her letter struck one, not as foolish, 
 but as one of the grimmest commentaries upon 
 marriage that perhaps had ever been penned. 
 
290 THEY AND I 
 
 "It was because she had wished always to 
 remain his ideal; to keep their love for one an- 
 other to the end, untarnished; to be his true help- 
 meet in all things, that she had refused to marry 
 him. 
 
 " Had he spoken that morning she had waited 
 for him in the lane — she had half hoped, half 
 feared it — she might have given her promise: 
 1 For Youth,' so she wrote, ' always dreams it 
 can find a new way.' She thanked God that he 
 had not. 
 
 " ' Sooner or later,' so ran the letter, c you would 
 have learned, Dear, that I was neither saint nor 
 angel; but just a woman — such a tiresome, incon- 
 sistent creature; she would have exasperated you 
 — full of a thousand follies and irritabilities that 
 would have marred for you all that was good in 
 her. I wanted you to have of me only what was 
 worthy, and this seemed the only way. Counting 
 the hours to your coming, hating the pain of your 
 going, I could always give to you my best. The 
 ugly words, the whims and frets that poison 
 speech — they could wait; it was my lover's hour. 
 
 " ' And you, Dear, were always so tender, so 
 gay. You brought me joy with both your hands. 
 
THEY AND I 291 
 
 Would it have been the same, had you been my 
 husband? How could it? There were times, 
 even as it was, when you vexed me. Forgive me, 
 Dear, I mean it was my fault — ways of thought 
 and action that did not fit in with my ways, that 
 I was not large-minded enough to pass over. As 
 my lover, they were but as spots upon the sun. 
 It was easy to control the momentary irritation 
 that they caused me. Time was too precious for 
 even a moment of estrangement. As my husband, 
 the jarring note would have been continuous, 
 would have widened into discord. You see, Dear, 
 I was not great enough to love all of you. I 
 remember, as a child, how indignant I always felt 
 with God when my nurse told me He would not 
 love me because I was naughty, that He only 
 loved good children. It seemed such a poor sort 
 of love, that. Yet that is precisely how we men 
 and women do love; taking only what gives us 
 pleasure, repaying the rest with anger. There 
 would have arisen the unkind words that can never 
 be recalled; the ugly silences; the gradual with- 
 drawing from one another. I dared not face it. 
 " ' It was not all selfishness. Truthfully I can 
 say I thought more of you than of myself. I 
 
292 THEY AND I 
 
 wanted to keep the shadows of life away from 
 you. We men and women are like the flowers. 
 It is in sunshine that we come to our best. You 
 were my hero. I wanted you to be great. I 
 wanted you to be surrounded by lovely dreams. 
 I wanted your love to be a thing holy, helpful 
 to you.' 
 
 " It was a long letter. I have given you the 
 gist of it." 
 
 Again there was a silence between us. 
 
 "You think she did right?" asked Robina. 
 
 "I cannot say," I answered; "there are no 
 rules for Life, only for the individual." 
 
 " I have read it somewhere," said Robina — 
 "where was it? — 4 Love suffers all things, and 
 rejoices.' " 
 
 " Maybe in old Thomas a Kempis. I am not 
 sure," I said. 
 
 " It seems to me," said Robina, " that the ex- 
 planation lies in that one sentence of hers : ' I was 
 not great enough to love all of you.' " 
 
 " It seems to me," I said, " that the whole art 
 of marriage is the art of getting on with the 
 other fellow. It means patience, self-control, for- 
 bearance. It means the laying aside of our self- 
 
THEY AND I 293 
 
 conceit and admitting to ourselves that, judged 
 by eyes less partial than our own, there may be 
 much in us that is objectionable, that calls for 
 alteration. It means toleration for views and 
 opinions diametrically opposed to our most cher- 
 ished convictions. It means, of necessity, the 
 abandonment of many habits and indulgences 
 that however trivial have grown to be important 
 to us. It means the shaping of our own desires 
 to the needs of others; the acceptance often of 
 surroundings and conditions personally distasteful 
 to us. It means affection deep and strong enough 
 to bear away the ugly things of life — its quarrels, 
 wrongs, misunderstandings — swiftly and silently 
 into the sea of forgetfulness. It means courage, 
 good humour, common-sense." 
 
 "That is what I am saying," explained Robina. 
 " It means loving him even when he's naughty." 
 
 Dick came across the fields. Robina rose and 
 slipped into the house. 
 
 " You are looking mighty solemn, Dad," said 
 Dick. 
 
 "Thinking of Life, Dick," I confessed. "Of 
 the meaning and the explanation of it." 
 
 " Yes, it's a problem, Life," admitted Dick. 
 
294 THEY AND I 
 
 "A bit of a teaser," I agreed. 
 
 We smoked in silence for a while. 
 
 " Loving a good woman must be a tremendous 
 help to a man," said Dick. 
 
 He looked very handsome, very gallant, his 
 boyish face flashing challenge to the Fates. 
 
 11 Tremendous, Dick," I agreed. 
 
 Robina called to him that his supper was ready. 
 He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and followed 
 her into the house. Their laughing voices came 
 to me broken through the half-closed doors. From 
 the night around me rose a strange low murmur. 
 It seemed to me as though above the silence I 
 heard the far-off music of the Mills of God. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 I fancy Veronica is going to be an authoress. 
 Her mother thinks this may account for many 
 things about her that have been troubling us. The 
 story never got far. It was laid aside for the 
 more alluring work of play-writing, and appar- 
 ently forgotten. I came across the copy-book 
 containing her "Rough Notes" the other day. 
 There is a decided flavour about them. I tran- 
 scribe selections; the spelling, as before, being 
 my own. 
 
 "The scene is laid in the Moon. But every- 
 thing is just the same as down here. With one 
 exception. The children rule. The grown-ups 
 do not like it. But they cannot help it. Some- 
 thing has happened to them. They don't know 
 what. And the world is as it used to be. In 
 the sweet old story books. Before sin came. There 
 are fairies that dance o' nights. And witches. 
 That lure you. And then turn you into things. 
 And a dragon who lives in a cave. And springs 
 out at people. And eats them. So that you have 
 
 295 
 
2 9 6 THEY AND I 
 
 to be careful. And all the animals talk. And 
 there are giants. And lots of magic. And it is 
 the children who know everything. And what 
 to do for it. And they have to teach the grown- 
 ups. And the grown-ups don't believe half of it. 
 And are far too fond of arguing. Which is a sore 
 trial to the children. But they have patience, and 
 are just. 
 
 " Of course the grown-ups have to go to school. 
 They have much to learn. Poor things! And 
 they hate it. They take no interest in fairy lore. 
 And what would happen to them if they got 
 wrecked on a Desert Island they don't seem to 
 care. And then there are languages. What they 
 will need when they come to be children. And 
 have to talk to all the animals. And magic. 
 Which is deep. And they hate it. And say it is 
 rot. They are full of tricks. One catches them 
 reading trashy novels. Under the desk. All 
 about love. Which is wasting their children's 
 money. And God knows it is hard enough to 
 earn. But the children are not angry with them. 
 Remembering how they felt themselves. When 
 they were grown up. Only firm. 
 
 "The children give them plenty of holidays. 
 
THEY AND I 297 
 
 Because holidays are good for every one. They 
 freshen you up. But the grown-ups are very 
 stupid. And do not care for sensible games. Such 
 as Indians. And Pirates. What would sharpen 
 their faculties. And so fit them for the future. 
 They only care to play with a ball. Which is of 
 no help. To the stern realities of life. Or talk. 
 Lord, how they talk! 
 
 " There is one grown-up. Who is very clever. 
 He can talk about everything. But it leads to 
 nothing. He spoils the party. So they send him 
 to bed. And there are two grown-ups. A male 
 and a female. And they talk love. All the time. 
 Even on fine days. Which is maudlin. But the 
 children are patient with them. Knowing it takes 
 all sorts. To make a world. And trusting they 
 will grow out of it. And of course there 
 are grown-ups who are good. And a comfort to 
 their children. 
 
 "And everything the children like is good. 
 And wholesome. And everything the grown-ups 
 like is bad for them. And they mustn't have it. 
 They clamour for tea and coffee. What under- 
 mines their nervous system. And waste their 
 money in the tuck shop. Upon chops. And 
 
298 THEY AND I 
 
 turtle soup. And the children have to put them 
 to bed. And give them pills. Till they feel 
 better. 
 
 11 There is a little girl named Prue. Who lives 
 with a little boy named Simon. They mean well. 
 But haven't much sense. They have two grown- 
 ups. A male and a female. Named Peter and 
 Martha. Respectively. They are just the ordi- 
 nary grown-ups. Neither better nor worse. And 
 much might be done with them. By kindness. 
 But Prue and Simon go the wrong way to work. 
 It is blame, blame all day long. But as for praise. 
 Oh, never! 
 
 " One summer's day Prue and Simon take Peter 
 for a walk. In the country. And they meet a 
 cow. And they think this a good opportunity. 
 To test Peter's knowledge. Of languages. So 
 they tell him to talk to the cow. And he talks to 
 the cow. And the cow don't understand him. And 
 he don't understand the cow. And they are mad 
 with him. ' What's the use,' they say, ' of our pay- 
 ing expensive fees. To have you taught the lan- 
 guage. By a first-class cow. And when you come 
 out into the country. You can't talk it.' And 
 he says he did talk it. But they will not listen 
 
THEY AND I 299 
 
 to him. But go on raving. And in the end it 
 turns out. // was a Jersey cow! What talked a 
 dialect. So of course he couldn't understand it. 
 But did they apologise? Oh, dear, no. 
 
 "Another time. One morning at breakfast. 
 Martha didn't like her raspberry vinegar. So she 
 didn't drink it. And Simon came into the nurs- 
 ery. And he saw that Martha hadn't drunk her 
 raspberry vinegar. And he asked her why. And 
 she said she didn't like it. Because it was nasty. 
 And he said it wasn't nasty. And that she ought 
 to like it. And how it was shocking. The way 
 grown-ups nowadays grumbled. At good whole- 
 some food. Provided for them by their too-in- 
 dulgent children. And how when he was a grown- 
 up. He would never have dared. And so on. 
 All in the usual style. And to prove it wasn't 
 nasty. He poured himself out a cupful. And 
 drank it off. In a gulp. And he said it was de- 
 licious. And turned pale. And left the room. 
 
 "And Prue came into the nursery. And she 
 saw that Martha hadn't drunk her raspberry vin- 
 egar. And she asked her why. And Martha 
 told her how she didn't like it. Because it was 
 nasty. And Prue told her she ought to be ashamed 
 
3 oo THEY AND I 
 
 of herself. For not liking it. Because it was 
 good for her. And really very nice. And any- 
 how she'd got to like it. And not get stuffing her- 
 self up with messy tea and coffee. Because she 
 wouldn't have it. And there was an end of it. 
 And so on. And to prove it was all right. She 
 poured herself out a cupful. And drank it off. 
 In a gulp. And she said there was nothing wrong 
 with it. Nothing whatever. And turned pale. 
 And left the room. 
 
 " And it wasn't raspberry vinegar. But just 
 red ink. What had got put into the raspberry 
 vinegar decanter. By an oversight. And they 
 needn't have been ill at all. // only they had 
 listened. To poor old Martha. But no. That 
 was their fixed idea. That grown-ups hadn't any 
 sense. At all. What is a mistake. As one per- 
 ceives." 
 
 Other characters had been sketched, some of 
 them to be abandoned after a few bold touches: 
 the difficulty of avoiding too close a portraiture 
 to the living original having apparently proved 
 irksome. Against one such, evidently an attempt 
 to help Dick see himself in his true colours, I 
 find this marginal note in pencil: "Better not. 
 
THEY AND I 301 
 
 Might make him ratty." Opposite to another — 
 obviously of Mrs. St. Leonard, and with instinct 
 for alliteration — is scribbled: "Too terribly true. 
 She'd twig it." 
 
 Another character is that of a gent: "With a 
 certain gift. For telling stories. Some of them 
 not bad." A promising party, on the whole. In- 
 deed, one might say, judging from description, a 
 quite rational person : " When not on the rantan. 
 But inconsistent." He is the grown-up of a little 
 girl: "Not beautiful. But strangely attractive. 
 Whom we will call Enid." One gathers that if 
 all the children had been Enids, then surely the 
 last word in worlds had been said. She has only 
 this one grown-up of her very own ; but she makes 
 it her business to adopt and reform all the incor- 
 rigible old folk the other children have despaired 
 of. It is all done by kindness. " She is ever 
 patient. And just." Prominent among her numer- 
 ous protegees is a military man, an elderly 
 colonel; until she took him in hand, the awful 
 example of what a grown-up might easily become, 
 left to the care of incompetent infants. He defies 
 his own child, a virtuous youth, but " Lacking 
 in sympathy"; is rude to his little nephews and 
 
302 THEY AND I 
 
 nieces; a holy terror to his governess. He uses 
 wicked words, picked up from retired pirates. 
 " Of course without understanding. Their terri- 
 ble significance." He steals the Indian's fire- 
 water. "What few can partake of. With im- 
 punity." Certainly not the Colonel. " Can this 
 be he! This gibbering wreck! " He hides cigars 
 in a hollow tree, and smokes on the sly. He plays 
 truant. Lures other old gentlemen away from 
 their lessons to join him. They are discovered in 
 the woods, in a cave, playing whist for sixpenny 
 points. 
 
 Does Enid storm and bullyrag; threaten that if 
 ever she catches him so much as looking at a card 
 again she will go straight out and tell the dragon, 
 who will in his turn be so shocked that in all 
 probability he will decide on coming back with 
 her to kill and eat the Colonel on the spot? No. 
 " Such are not her methods." Instead she smiles: 
 "Indulgently." She says it is only natural for 
 grown-ups to like playing cards. She is not angry 
 with him. And there is no need for him to run 
 away and hide in a nasty damp cave. " She her- 
 self will play whist with him." The effect upon 
 the Colonel is immediate: he bursts into tears. 
 
THEY AND I 303 
 
 She plays whist with him in the garden: "After 
 school hours. When he has been good." Double 
 dummy, one presumes. One leaves the Colonel, 
 in the end, cured of his passion for whist. 
 Whether as the consequence of her play or her 
 influence the " Rough Notes " give no indication. 
 In the play, I am inclined to think, Veronica 
 received assistance. The house had got itself fin- 
 ished early in September. Young Bute has cer- 
 tainly done wonders. We performed it in the 
 empty billiard-room, followed by a one-act piece 
 of my own. The occasion did duty as a house- 
 warming. We had quite a crowd, and ended up 
 with a dance. Everybody seemed to enjoy them- 
 selves, except young Bertie St. Leonard, who 
 played the Prince, and could not get out of his 
 helmet in time for supper. It was a good helmet, 
 but had been fastened clumsily; and inexperienced 
 people trying to help had only succeeded in jamb- 
 ing all the screws. Not only wouldn't it come off, 
 it would not even open for a drink. All thought 
 it an excellent joke, with the exception of young 
 Herbert St. Leonard. Our Mayor, a cheerful 
 little man and very popular, said that it ought to 
 be sent to Punch. The local reporter reminded 
 
3 04 THEY AND I 
 
 him that the late John Leech had already made 
 use of precisely the same incident for a comic 
 illustration, afterwards remembering that it was 
 not Leech, but the late Phil May. He seemed 
 to think this ended the matter. St. Leonard and 
 the Vicar, who are rival authorities upon the sub- 
 ject, fell into an argument upon armour in gen- 
 eral, with special reference to the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. Each used the boy's head to confirm his 
 own theory, passing it triumphantly from one to 
 the other. We had to send off young Hopkins in 
 the donkey-cart for the blacksmith. I have found 
 out, by the way, how it is young Hopkins makes 
 our donkey go. Young Hopkins argues it is far 
 less brutal than whacking him, especially after ex- 
 perience has proved that he evidently does not 
 know why you are whacking him. I am not at all 
 sure the boy is not right. 
 
 Janie played the Fairy Godmamma in a white 
 wig and panniers. She will make a beautiful old 
 lady. The white hair gives her the one thing 
 that she lacks : distinction. I found myself glanc- 
 ing apprehensively round the room wishing we 
 had not invited so many eligible bachelors. Dick 
 is making me anxious. The sense of his own un- 
 
THEY AND I 305 
 
 worthiness, which has come to him quite suddenly, 
 and apparently with all the shock of a new discov- 
 ery, has completely unnerved him. It is a healthy 
 sentiment, and does him good. But I do not want 
 it carried to the length of losing her. The thought 
 of what he might one day bring home has been a 
 nightmare to me ever since he left school. I sup- 
 pose it is to most fathers. Especially if one thinks 
 of the women one loved oneself when in the early 
 twenties. A large pale-faced girl, who served in 
 a bun-shop in the Strand, is the first I can recol- 
 lect. How I trembled when by chance her hand 
 touched mine ! I cannot recall a single attraction 
 about her except her size, yet for nearly six months 
 I lunched off pastry and mineral waters merely to 
 be near her. To this very day an attack of indi- 
 gestion will always create her image in my mind. 
 Another was a thin, sallow girl, but with magnifi- 
 cent eyes, I met one afternoon in the South Ken- 
 sington Museum. She was a brainless, vixenish 
 girl, but the memory of her eyes would always 
 draw me back to her. More than two-thirds of 
 our time together we spent in violent quarrels; 
 and all my hopes of eternity I would have given 
 to make her my companion for life. But for 
 
306 THEY AND I 
 
 Luck, in the shape of a well-to-do cab proprietor, 
 as great an idiot as myself, I might have done it. 
 The third was a chorus girl : on the whole, the best 
 of the bunch. Her father was a coachman, and 
 she had ten brothers and sisters, most of them do- 
 ing well in the service. And she was succeeded — 
 if I have the order correct — by the ex-wife of a 
 solicitor, a sprightly lady; according to her own 
 account the victim of complicated injustice. I dare 
 say there were others, if I took the time to think; 
 but not one of them can I remember without re- 
 turning thanks to Providence for having lost her. 
 What is one to do? There are days in springtime 
 when a young man ought not to be allowed outside 
 the house. Thank Heaven and Convention it is 
 not the girls who propose! Few women, who 
 would choose the right moment to put their hands 
 upon a young man's shoulders, and, looking into 
 his eyes, ask him to marry them next week, would 
 receive No for an answer. It is only our shyness 
 that saves us. A wise friend of mine, who has 
 observed much, would have all those marrying 
 under five-and-twenty divorced by automatic 
 effluxion of time at forty, leaving a few who had 
 chosen satisfactorily to be reunited if they wished: 
 
THEY AND I 307 
 
 his argument being that to condemn grown men 
 and women to abide by the choice of inexperienced 
 boys and girls is unjust and absurd. There were 
 nice girls I could have fallen in love with. They 
 never occurred to me. It would seem as if a 
 man had to learn taste in women as in all other 
 things, namely, by education. Here and there 
 may exist the born connoisseur. But with most of 
 us our first instincts are towards vulgarity. It is 
 Barrie, I think, who says that if only there were 
 silly women enough to go round, good women 
 would never get a look in. It is certainly remark- 
 able, the number of sweet old maids one meets. 
 Almost as remarkable as the number of stupid, 
 cross-grained wives. As I tell Dick, I have no 
 desire for a daughter-in-law of whom he feels 
 himself worthy. If he can't do better than that 
 he had best remain single. Janie and he, if I 
 know anything of life, are just suited for one an- 
 other. Helpful people take their happiness in 
 helping. I knew just such another, once : a sweet, 
 industrious, sensible girl. She made the mistake 
 of marrying a thoroughly good man. There was 
 nothing for her to do. She ended by losing all in- 
 terest in him, devoting herself to a Home in the 
 
3 o8 THEY AND I 
 
 East End for the reformation of newsboys. It 
 was a pitiful waste : so many women would have 
 been glad of him; while to the ordinary sinful 
 man she would have been a life-long comfort. I 
 must have a serious talk to Dick. I shall point 
 out what a good thing it will be for her. I can 
 see Dick keeping her busy and contented for the 
 rest of her days. 
 
 Veronica played the Princess, with little boy 
 Foy — " Sir Robert of the Curse " as her page. 
 Anything more dignified has, I should say, rarely 
 been seen upon the English stage. Among her 
 wedding presents were: Two Votes for Women, 
 presented by the local fire brigade; a Flying Ma- 
 chine of " proved stability. Might be used as a 
 bathing tent"; a National Theatre, "with Cold 
 Water Douche in Basement for reception of Eng- 
 lish Dramatists " ; Recipe for building a Navy, 
 without paying for it, " Gift of that great Finan- 
 cial Expert, Sir Hocus Pocus " ; one Conscientious 
 Income Taxpayer, " has been driven by a Lady " ; 
 two Socialists in agreement as to what it means, 
 " smaller one slightly damaged " ; one Contented 
 Farmer, "Babylonian Period"; and one extra- 
 sized bottle, "Solution of the Servant Problem." 
 
THEY AND I 309 
 
 Dick played the " Dragon without a Tail." 
 We had to make him without a tail owing to the 
 smallness of the stage. He had once had a tail. 
 But that was a long story: added to which there 
 was not time to tell it. Little Sallie St. Leonard 
 played his wife, and Robina was his mother-in- 
 law. So much depends upon one's mood. What 
 an ocean of boredom might be saved if science 
 could but give us a barometer foretelling us our 
 changes of temperament! How much more to 
 our comfort we could plan our lives, knowing that 
 on Monday, say, we should be feeling frivolous; 
 on Saturday " dull to bad-tempered." 
 
 I took a man once to see The Private Secretary. 
 I began by enjoying myself, and ended by feeling 
 ashamed of myself and vexed with the scheme of 
 creation. That authors should write such plays, 
 that actors should be willing to degrade our com- 
 mon nature by appearing in them was explainable, 
 he supposed, by the law of supply and demand. 
 What he could not understand was how the pub- 
 lic could contrive to extract amusement from them. 
 What was there funny in seeing a poor gentle- 
 man shut up in a box? Why should everybody 
 roar with laughter when he asked for a bun? 
 
310 THEY AND I 
 
 People asked for buns every day — people in rail- 
 way refreshment rooms, in aerated bread shops. 
 Where was the joke? A month later I found 
 myself by chance occupying a seat just behind him 
 at the pantomime. The low comedian was bath- 
 ing a baby, and tears of merriment were rolling 
 down his cheeks. To me the whole business 
 seemed painful and revolting. We were being 
 asked to find delight in the spectacle of a father 
 scouring down an infant of tender years with a 
 scrubbing brush. How women — many of them 
 mothers — could remain through such an exhibi- 
 tion without rising in protest appeared to me an 
 argument against female suffrage. A lady en- 
 tered, the wife, so the programme informed me, 
 of a Baron ! All I can say is that a more vulgar, 
 less prepossessing female I never wish to meet. I 
 even doubted her sobriety. She sat down plump 
 upon the baby. She must have been a woman ris- 
 ing sixteen stone, and for one minute fifteen sec- 
 onds by my watch the whole house rocked with 
 laughter. That the thing was only a stage prop- 
 erty I felt was no excuse. The humour — heaven 
 save the mark! — lay in the supposition that what 
 we were witnessing was the agony and death — for 
 
THEY AND I 311 
 
 no child could have survived that woman's weight 
 — of a real baby. Had I been able to tap myself 
 beforehand I should have learned that on that 
 particular Saturday I was going to be " set- 
 serious." Instead of booking a seat for the pan- 
 tomime I should have gone to a lecture on Egyp- 
 tian pottery which was being given by a friend of 
 mine at the London Library, and have had a good 
 time. 
 
 Children could tap their parents, warn each 
 other that father was " going down " ; that mother 
 next week was likely to be " gusty." Children 
 themselves might hang out their little barometers. 
 I remember a rainy day in a country house during 
 the Christmas holidays. We had among us a 
 Member of Parliament: a man of sunny disposi- 
 tion, extremely fond of children. He said it was 
 awfully hard lines on the little beggars cooped up 
 in a nursery; and borrowing his host's motor- 
 coat, pretended he was a bear. He plodded round 
 on his hands and knees and growled a good deal, 
 and the children sat on the sofa and watched him. 
 But they didn't seem to be enjoying it, not much; 
 and after a quarter of an hour or so he noticed 
 this himself. He thought it was, maybe, that they 
 
3 12 THEY AND I 
 
 were tired of bears, and fancied that a whale 
 might rouse them. He turned the table upside 
 down and placed the children in it on three chairs, 
 explaining to them that they were shipwrecked 
 sailors on a raft, and that they must be careful the 
 whale did not get underneath it and upset them. 
 He draped a sheet over the towel-horse to repre- 
 sent an iceberg, and rolled himself up in a mack- 
 intosh and flopped about the floor on his stomach, 
 butting his head occasionally against the table in 
 order to suggest to them their danger. The atti- 
 tude of the children still remained that of polite 
 spectators. True, the youngest boy did make the 
 suggestion of borrowing the kitchen toasting-fork, 
 and employing it as a harpoon; but even this ap- 
 peared to be the outcome rather of a desire to 
 please than of any warmer interest; and, the 
 whale objecting, the idea fell through. After that 
 he climbed up on the dresser and announced to 
 them that he was an orang-outang. They watched 
 him break a soup-tureen, and then the eldest boy, 
 stepping out into the middle of the room, held 
 up his arm, and the Member of Parliament, some- 
 what surprised, sat down on the dresser and lis- 
 tened. 
 
THEY AND I 313 
 
 " Please, sir," said the eldest boy, " we're aw- 
 fully sorry. It's awfully good of you, sir. But 
 somehow we're not feeling in the mood for wild 
 beasts this afternoon." 
 
 The Member of Parliament brought them 
 down into the drawing-room, where we had music; 
 and the children, at their own request, were al- 
 lowed to sing hymns. The next day they came of 
 their own accord, and asked the Member of Par- 
 liament to play at beasts with them; but it seemed 
 he had letters to write. 
 
 There are times when jokes about mothers-in- 
 law strike me as lacking both in taste and fresh- 
 ness. On this particular evening they came to 
 me bringing with them all the fragrance of the 
 days that are no more. The first play I ever saw 
 dealt with the subject of the mother-in-law — the 
 " Problem " I think it was called in those days. 
 The occasion was an amateur performance given 
 in aid of the local Ragged School. A cousin of 
 mine, lately married, played the wife; and my 
 aunt, I remember, got up and walked out in the 
 middle of the second act. Robina, in spectacles 
 and an early Victorian bonnet, reminded me of 
 her. Young Bute played a comic cabman. It was 
 
3 i4 THEY AND I 
 
 at the old Haymarket, in Buckstone's time, that I 
 first met the cabman of art and literature. Dear 
 bibulous, becoated creature, with ever-wrathful 
 outstretched palm and husky " 'Ere ! Wot's this? " 
 How good it was to see him once again ! I felt 
 I wanted to climb over the footlights and shake 
 him by the hand. The twins played a couple of 
 Young Turks, much concerned about their con- 
 stitutions; and made quite a hit with a topical duet 
 to the refrain: "And so you see The reason he Is 
 not the Boss for us." We all agreed it was a 
 pun worthy of Tom Hood himself. The Vicar 
 thought he had heard it before, but this seemed 
 improbable. There was a unanimous call for 
 Author, giving rise to sounds of discussion be- 
 hind the curtain. Eventually the whole company 
 appeared, with Veronica in the centre. I had 
 noticed throughout that the centre of the stage 
 appeared to be Veronica's favourite spot. I can 
 see the makings of a leading actress in Veronica. 
 In my own piece, which followed, Robina and 
 Bute played a young married couple who do not 
 know how to quarrel. It has always struck me 
 how much more satisfactorily people quarrel on 
 the stage than in real life. On the stage the man, 
 
THEY AND I 315 
 
 having made up his mind to have it out, enters 
 and closes the door. He lights a cigarette; if not 
 a teetotaller mixes himself a brandy-and-soda. His 
 wife all this time is careful to remain silent. Quite 
 evident it is that he is preparing for her benefit 
 something unpleasant, and chatter might disturb 
 him. To fill up the time she toys with a novel or 
 touches softly the keys of the piano until he is 
 quite comfortable and ready to begin. He glides 
 into his subject with the studied calm of one with 
 all the afternoon before him. She listens to him 
 in rapt attention. She does not dream of inter- 
 rupting him; would scorn the suggestion of chip- 
 ping in with any little notion of her own likely to 
 disarrange his train of thought. All she does 
 when he pauses, as occasionally he has to for the 
 purpose of taking breath, is to come to his assist- 
 ance with short encouraging remarks : such, for 
 instance, as " Well." " You think that." " And 
 if I did?" Her object seems to be to help him 
 on. " Go on," she says from time to time, bit- 
 terly. And he goes on. Towards the end, when 
 he shows signs of easing up, she puts it to him as 
 one sportsman to another: Is he quite finished? 
 Is that all? Sometimes it isn't. As often as not 
 
3 i6 THEY AND I, 
 
 he has been saving the pick of the basket for the 
 last. 
 
 "No," he says, "that is not all. There is 
 something else ! " 
 
 That is quite enough for her. That is all she 
 wanted to know. She merely asked in case there 
 might be. As it appears there is, she re-settles 
 herself in her chair and is again all ears. 
 
 When it does come — when he is quite sure there 
 is nothing he has forgotten, no little point that he 
 has overlooked, she rises. 
 
 " I have listened patiently," she begins, " to all 
 that you have said." (The devil himself could 
 not deny this. " Patience " hardly seems the 
 word. "Enthusiastically" she might almost have 
 said.) "Now" — with rising inflection — "you 
 listen to me." 
 
 The stage husband — always the gentleman — 
 bows; stiffly maybe, but quite politely; and pre- 
 pares in his turn to occupy the role of dumb but 
 dignified defendant. To emphasise the coming 
 change in their positions, the lady most probably 
 crosses over to what has hitherto been his side of 
 the stage; while he, starting at the same moment, 
 and passing her about the centre, settles himself 
 
THEY AND I 317 
 
 down in what must be regarded as the listener's 
 end of the room. We then have the whole story- 
 over again from her point of view; and this time 
 it is the gentleman who would bite off his tongue 
 rather than make a retort calculated to put the 
 lady off. 
 
 In the end it is the party who is in the right that 
 conquers. Off the stage this is more or less of a 
 toss-up; on the stage, never. If justice be with 
 the husband, then it is his voice that, gradually 
 growing louder and louder, rings at last triumph- 
 ant through the house. The lady sees herself that 
 she has been to blame, and wonders why it did not 
 occur to her before — is grateful for the revelation, 
 and asks to be forgiven. If, on the other hand, 
 it was the husband who was at fault, then it is the 
 lady who will be found eventually occupying the 
 centre of the stage; the miserable husband who, 
 morally speaking, will be trying to get under the 
 table. 
 
 Now, in real life things don't happen quite like 
 this. What the quarrel in real life suffers from 
 is want of system. There is no order, no settled 
 plan. There is much too much go-as-you-please 
 about the quarrel in real life, and the result is 
 
3 1 8- THEY AND I, 
 
 naturally pure muddle. The man, turning things 
 over in the morning while shaving, makes up his 
 mind to have this matter out and have done with 
 it. He knows exactly what he is going to say. 
 He repeats it to himself at intervals during the 
 day. He will first say This, and then he will go 
 on to That; while he is about it he will perhaps 
 mention the Other. He reckons it will take him 
 a quarter of an hour. Which will just give him 
 time to dress for dinner. 
 
 After it is over, and he looks at his watch, he 
 finds it has taken him longer than that. Added 
 to which he has said next to nothing — next to 
 nothing, that is, of what he meant to say. It 
 went wrong from the very start. As a matter of 
 fact there wasn't any start. He entered the 
 room and closed the door. That is as far as he 
 got. The cigarette he never even lighted. There 
 ought to have been a box of matches on the man- 
 telpiece behind the photo-frame. And of course 
 there were none there. For her to fly into a tem- 
 per merely because he reminded her that he had 
 spoken about this very matter at least a hundred 
 times before, and accuse him of going about his 
 own house " stealing " his own matches was posi- 
 
THEY AND I 319 
 
 tively laughable. They had quarrelled for about 
 five minutes over those wretched matches, and 
 then for another ten because he said that women 
 had no sense of humour, and she wanted to know 
 how he knew. After that there had cropped up 
 the last quarter's gas-bill, and that by a process 
 still mysterious to him had led them into the sub- 
 ject of his behaviour on the night of the Hockey 
 Club dance. By an effort of almost supernatural 
 self-control he had contrived at length to introduce 
 the subject he had come home half an hour earlier 
 than usual on purpose to discuss. It didn't in- 
 terest her in the least. What she was full of by 
 this time was a girl named Arabella Jones. She 
 got in quite a lot while he was vainly trying to re- 
 member where he had last seen the damned girl. 
 He had just succeeded in getting back to his own 
 topic when the Cuddiford girl from next door 
 dashed in without a hat to borrow a tuning-fork. 
 It had been quite a business finding the tuning- 
 fork, and when she was gone they had to begin all 
 over again. They had quarrelled about the draw- 
 ing-room carpet; about his sister Florrie's birth- 
 day present; and the way he drove the motor-car. 
 It had taken them over an hour and a half, and 
 
3 20 THEY AND I 
 
 rather than waste the tickets for the theatre, they 
 had gone without their dinner. The matter 
 of the cold chisel still remained to be thrashed 
 out. 
 
 It occurred to me that through the medium 
 of the drama I might show how the domestic 
 quarrel could so easily be improved. Adolphus 
 Goodbody, a worthy young man deeply attached 
 to his wife, feels nevertheless that the dinners she 
 is inflicting upon him are threatening with perma- 
 nent damage his digestive system. He determines, 
 come what may, to insist upon a change. Alvira 
 Goodbody, a charming girl, admiring and devoted 
 to her husband, is notwithstanding a trifle en tete, 
 especially when her domestic arrangements hap- 
 pen to be the theme of discussion. Adolphus, his 
 courage screwed to the sticking-point, broaches 
 the difficult subject; and for the first half of the act 
 my aim was to picture the progress of the human 
 quarrel, not as it should be, but as it is. They 
 never reach the cook. The first mention of the 
 word "dinner" reminds Elvira (quick to per- 
 ceive that argument is brewing, and alive to the 
 advantage of getting in first) that twice the month 
 before he had dined out, not returning till the 
 
THEY AND I 3 21 
 
 small hours of the morning. What she wants to 
 know is where this sort of thing is going to end? 
 If the purpose of Freemasonry is the ruin of the 
 home and the desertion of women, then all she has 
 to say — it turns out to be quite a good deal. 
 Adolphus, when able to get in a word, suggests 
 that eleven o'clock at the latest can hardly be 
 described as the "small hours of the morning"; 
 the fault with women is that they never will con- 
 fine themselves to the simple truth. From that 
 point onwards, as can be imagined, the scene al- 
 most wrote itself. They have passed through all 
 the customary stages, and are planning, with ex- 
 aggerated calm, arrangements for the separation 
 which each now feels to be inevitable, when a 
 knock comes to the front door, and there enters a 
 mutual friend. 
 
 Their hasty attempts to cover up the traces of 
 mental disorder with which the atmosphere is 
 strewed do not deceive him. There has been, let 
 us say, a ripple on the waters of perfect agree- 
 ment. Come! What was it all about? 
 
 " About ! " They look from one to the other. 
 Surely it would be simpler to tell him what it 
 had not been about. It had been about the par- 
 
322 THEY AND I 
 
 rot, about her want of punctuality, about his 
 using the butter-knife for the marmalade, about 
 a pair of slippers he had lost at Christmas, about 
 the education question, and her dressmaker's bill, 
 and his friend George, and the next-door dog 
 
 The mutual friend cuts short the catalogue. 
 Clearly there is nothing for it but to begin the 
 quarrel all over again; and this time, if they will 
 put themselves into his hands, he feels sure he 
 can promise victory to whichever one is in the 
 right. 
 
 Elvira — she has a sweet, impulsive nature — 
 throws her arms around him : that is all she wants. 
 If only Adolphus could be brought to see! Adol- 
 phus grips him by the hand. If only Elvira would 
 listen to sense. 
 
 The mutual friend — he is an old stage-manager 
 — arranges the scene: Elvira in easy-chair by fire 
 with crochet. Enter Adolphus. He lights a cig- 
 arette; flings the match on the floor; with his 
 hands in his pockets paces up and down the room; 
 kicks a footstool out of his way. 
 
 " Tell me when I am to begin," says Elvira. 
 
 The mutual friend promises to give her the 
 right cue. 
 
THEY AND I 323 
 
 Adolphus comes to a halt in the centre of the 
 room. 
 
 " I am sorry, my dear," he says, " but there is 
 something I must say to you — something that may 
 not be altogether pleasant for you to hear." 
 
 To which Elvira, still crocheting, replies, " Oh, 
 indeed. And pray what may that be? " 
 
 This was not Elvira's own idea. Springing 
 from her chair, she had got as far as: "Look 
 here. If you have come home early merely for 
 
 the purpose of making a row " before the 
 
 mutual friend could stop her. The mutual friend 
 was firm. Only by exacting strict obedience could 
 he guarantee a successful issue. What she had 
 got to say was, " Oh, indeed. Etcetera." The 
 mutual friend had need of all his tact to prevent 
 its becoming a quarrel of three. 
 
 Adolphus, allowed to proceed, explained that 
 the subject about which he wished to speak was 
 the subject of dinner. The mutual friend this 
 time was beforehand. Elvira's retort to that was: 
 "Dinner! You complain of the dinners I pro- 
 vide for you?" enabling him to reply, "Yes, 
 madam, I do complain," and to give reasons. It 
 seemed to Elvira that the mutual friend had lost 
 
3 2 4 THEY AND I 
 
 his senses. To tell her to "wait"; that "her 
 time would come "; of what use was that! Half 
 of what she wanted to say would be gone out of 
 her head. Adolphus brought to a conclusion his 
 criticism of Elvira's kitchen; and then Elvira, 
 incapable of restraining herself further, rose ma- 
 jestically. 
 
 The mutual friend was saved the trouble of 
 suppressing Adolphus. Until Elvira had finished 
 Adolphus never got an opening. He grumbled 
 at their dinners. He! who can dine night after 
 night with his precious Freemasons. Does he 
 think she likes them any better? She, doomed to 
 stay at home and eat them. What does he take 
 her for? An ostrich? Whose fault is it that they 
 keep an incompetent cook too old to learn and 
 too obstinate to want to? Whose old family serv- 
 ant was she? Not Elvira's. It has been to please 
 Adolphus that she has suffered the woman. And 
 this is her reward. This! She breaks down. 
 Adolphus is astonished and troubled. Personally 
 he never liked the woman. Faithful she may 
 have been, but a cook never. His own idea, had 
 he been consulted, would have been a small pen- 
 sion. Elvira falls upon his neck. Why did he 
 
THEY AND I 325 
 
 not say so before? Adolphus presses her to his 
 bosom. If only he had known! They promise 
 the mutual friend never to quarrel again without 
 his assistance. 
 
 The acting all round was quite good. Our 
 curate, who is a bachelor, said it taught a lesson. 
 Veronica had tears in her eyes. She whispered to 
 me that she thought it beautiful. There is more in 
 Veronica than people think. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 I AM sorry the house is finished. There is a 
 proverb : " Fools build houses for wise men to 
 live in." It depends upon what you are after. 
 The fool gets the fun, and the wise men the bricks 
 and mortar. I remember a whimsical story I 
 picked up at the bookstall of the Gare de Lyon. 
 I read it between Paris and Fontainebleau many 
 years ago. Three friends, youthful Bohemians, 
 smoking their pipes after the meagre dinner of a 
 cheap restaurant in the Latin Quarter, fell to 
 thinking of their poverty, of the long and bitter 
 struggle that lay before them. 
 
 " My themes are so original," sighed the Mu- 
 sician. " It will take me a year of fete days to 
 teach the public to understand them, even if ever 
 I do succeed. And meanwhile I shall live un- 
 known, neglected; watching the men without 
 ideals passing me by in the race, splashed with the 
 mud from their carriage-wheels as I beat the pave- 
 ments with worn shoes. It is really a most unjust 
 world." 
 
 326 
 
THEY AND I 327 
 
 " An abominable world," agreed the Poet. 
 11 But think of me ! My case is far harder than 
 yours. Your gift lies within you. Mine is to 
 translate what lies around me; and that, for so 
 far ahead as I can see, will always be the shadow 
 side of life. To develop my genius to its fullest 
 I need the sunshine of existence. My soul is be- 
 ing starved for lack of the beautiful things of life. 
 A little of the wealth that vulgar people waste 
 would make a great poet for France. It is not 
 only of myself that I am thinking." 
 
 The Painter laughed. " I cannot soar to your 
 heights," he said. " Frankly speaking, it is my- 
 self that chiefly appeals to me. Why not? I give 
 the world Beauty, and in return what does it give 
 me? This dingy restaurant, where I eat ill-fla- 
 voured food off hideous platters, a foul garret giv- 
 ing on to chimney-pots. After long years of ill- 
 requited labour I may — as others have before me 
 — come into my kingdom: possess my studio in 
 the Champs Elysees, my fine house at Neuilly; 
 but the prospect of the intervening period, I con- 
 fess, appalls me." 
 
 Absorbed in themselves, they had not noticed 
 that a stranger, seated at a neighbouring table, 
 
328 THEY AND I 
 
 had been listening with attention. He rose and, 
 apologising with easy grace for intrusion into a 
 conversation he could hardly have avoided over- 
 hearing, requested permission to be of service. 
 The restaurant was dimly lighted; the three 
 friends on entering had chosen its obscurest cor- 
 ner. The Stranger appeared to be well-dressed; 
 his voice and bearing suggested the man of affairs; 
 his face — what feeble light there was being behind 
 him — remained in shadow. 
 
 The three friends eyed him furtively: possibly 
 some rich but eccentric patron of the arts; not 
 beyond the bounds of speculation that he was 
 acquainted with their work, had read the Poet's 
 verses in one of the minor magazines, had stum- 
 bled upon some sketch of the Painter's while bar- 
 gain-hunting among the dealers of the Quartier 
 St. Antoine, been struck with the beauty of the 
 Composer's Nocturne in F heard at some student's 
 concert; having made inquiries concerning their 
 haunts, had chosen this method of introducing 
 himself. The young men made room for him 
 with feelings of hope mingled with curiosity. The 
 affable Stranger called for liqueurs, and handed 
 
THEY AND I 329 
 
 round his cigar case. And almost his first words 
 brought them joy. 
 
 " Before we go further," said the smiling 
 Stranger, "it is my pleasure to inform you that 
 all three of you are destined to become great." 
 
 The liqueurs to their unaccustomed palates were 
 proving potent. The Stranger's cigars were sin- 
 gularly aromatic. It seemed the most reasonable 
 thing in the world that the Stranger should be thus 
 able to foretell to them their future. 
 
 " Fame, fortune will be yours," continued the 
 agreeable Stranger. " All things delightful will 
 be to your hand: the adoration of women, the 
 honour of men, the incense of Society, joys spir- 
 itual and material, beauteous surroundings, choice 
 foods, all luxury and ease, the world your pleasure- 
 ground." 
 
 The stained walls of the dingy restaurant were 
 fading into space before the young men's eyes. 
 They saw themselves as gods walking in the gar- 
 den of their hearts' desires. 
 
 " But, alas," went on the Stranger — and with 
 the first note of his changed voice the visions van- 
 ished, the dingy walls came back — " these things 
 
330 THEY AND I 
 
 take time. You will, all three, be well past mid- 
 dle-age before you will reap the just reward of 
 your toil and talents. Meanwhile — " the sympa- 
 thetic Stranger shrugged his shoulders — " it is 
 the old story: genius spending its youth battling 
 for recognition against indifference, ridicule, envy; 
 the spirit crushed by its sordid environment, the 
 drab monotony of narrow days. There will be 
 winter nights when you will tramp the streets, 
 cold, hungry, forlorn ; summer days when you will 
 hide in your attics, ashamed of the sunlight on 
 your ragged garments; chill dawns when you will 
 watch wild-eyed the sufferings of those you love, 
 helpless by reason of your poverty to alleviate 
 their pain." 
 
 The Stranger paused while the ancient waiter 
 replenished the empty glasses. The three friends 
 drank in silence. 
 
 " I propose," said the Stranger, with a pleasant 
 laugh, "that we pass over this customary period 
 of probation — that we skip the intervening years 
 — arrive at once at our true destination." 
 
 The Stranger, leaning back in his chair, re- 
 garded the three friends with a smile they felt 
 rather than saw. And something about the 
 
THEY AND I 331 
 
 Stranger — they could not have told themselves 
 what — made all things possible. 
 
 " A quite simple matter," the Stranger assured 
 them. " A little sleep and a forgetting, and the 
 years lie behind us. Come, gentlemen. Have I 
 your consent? " 
 
 It seemed a question hardly needing answer. 
 To escape at one stride the long, weary struggle; 
 to enter without fighting into victory ! The young 
 men looked at one another. And each one, think- 
 ing of his gain, bartered the battle for the spoil. 
 
 It seemed to them that suddenly the lights went 
 out; and a darkness like a rushing wind swept past 
 them, filled with many sounds. And then for- 
 getfulness. And then the coming back of light. 
 
 They were seated at a table, glittering with sil- 
 ver and dainty chinaware, to which the red wine 
 in Venetian goblets, the varied fruits and flowers, 
 gave colour. The room, furnished too gorgeously 
 for taste, they judged to be a private cabinet in 
 one of the great restaurants. Of such interiors 
 they had occasionally caught glimpses through 
 open windows on summer nights. It was softly 
 illuminated by shaded lamps. The Stranger's 
 face was still in shadow. But what surprised each 
 
332 THEY AND I 
 
 of the three most, was to observe opposite him two 
 more or less bald-headed gentlemen of somewhat 
 flabby appearance, whose features, however, in 
 some mysterious way appeared familiar. The 
 Stranger had his wine-glass raised in his hand. 
 
 " Our dear Paul," the Stranger was saying, 
 44 has declined, with his customary modesty, any 
 public recognition of his triumph. He will not 
 refuse three old friends the privilege of offering 
 him their heartiest congratulations. Gentlemen, 
 I drink not only to our dear Paul, but to the French 
 Academy, which in honouring him has honoured 
 France." 
 
 The Stranger, rising from his chair, turned his 
 piercing eyes — the only part of him that could be 
 clearly seen — upon the astonished Poet. The two 
 elderly gentlemen opposite, evidently as bewil- 
 dered as Paul himself, taking their cue from the 
 Stranger, drained their glasses. Still following 
 the Stranger's lead, leant each across the table and 
 shook him warmly by the hand. 
 
 11 1 beg pardon," said the Poet, " but really I 
 am afraid I must have been asleep. Would it 
 sound rude to you " — he addressed himself to the 
 Stranger : the faces of the elderly gentlemen oppo- 
 
THEY AND I 333 
 
 site did not suggest their being of much assistance 
 to him — " if I asked you where I was? " 
 
 Again there flickered across the Stranger's face 
 the smile that was felt rather than seen. " You 
 are in a private room of the Cafe Pretali," he an- 
 swered. " We are met this evening to celebrate 
 your recent elevation into the company of the Im- 
 mortals." 
 
 "Oh," said the Poet, "thank you." 
 
 "The Academy," continued the Stranger, "is 
 always a little late in these affairs. Myself, I 
 could have wished your election had taken place 
 ten years ago, when all France — all France that 
 counts, that is — was talking of you. At fifty- 
 three " — the Stranger touched lightly with his 
 fingers the Poet's fat hand — " one does not write 
 as when the sap was running up, instead of 
 down." 
 
 Slowly, memory of the dingy cafe in the Rue 
 St. Louis, of the strange happening that took 
 place there that night when he was young, crept 
 back into the Poet's brain. 
 
 " Would you mind," said the Poet, " would 
 it be troubling you too much to tell me something 
 of what has occurred to me?" 
 
334 THEY AND I 
 
 "Not in the least," responded the agreeable 
 Stranger. " Your career has been most interesting 
 — for the first few years chiefly to yourself. You 
 married Marguerite. You remember Margue- 
 rite?" 
 
 The Poet remembered her. 
 
 "A mad thing to do, so most people would 
 have said," continued the Stranger. " You had 
 not a sou between you. But, myself, I think you 
 were justified. Youth comes to us but once. And 
 at twenty-five our business is to live. Undoubtedly 
 the marriage helped you. You lived an idyllic ex- 
 istence, for a time, in a tumble-down cottage at 
 Suresnes, with a garden that went down to the 
 river. Poor, of course you were; poor as church 
 mice. But who fears poverty when hope and love 
 are singing on the bough! I really think quite 
 your best work was done during those years at Su- 
 resnes. Ah, the sweetness, the tenderness of it! 
 There has been nothing like it in French poetry. 
 It made no mark at the time; but ten years later 
 the public went mad about it. She was dead 
 then. Poor child, it had been a hard struggle. 
 And, as you may remember, she was always frag- 
 ile. Yet even in her death I think she helped 
 
THEY AND I 335 
 
 you. There entered a new note into your poetry, 
 a depth that had hitherto been wanting. It was 
 the best thing that ever came to you, your love 
 for Marguerite." 
 
 The Stranger refilled his glass, and passed the 
 decanter. But the Poet left the wine unheeded. 
 
 " And then, ah, yes, then followed that excur- 
 sion into politics. Those scathing articles you 
 wrote for La Liberte! It is hardly an exaggera- 
 tion to say that they altered the whole aspect 
 of French political thought. Those wonderful 
 speeches you made during your election campaign 
 at Angers. How the people worshipped you! 
 You might have carried your portfolio had you 
 persisted. But you poets are such restless fellows. 
 And after all, I dare say you have really accom- 
 plished more by your plays. You remember — no, 
 of course, how could you? — the first night of La 
 Conqucte. Shall I ever forget it! I have always 
 reckoned that the crown of your career. Your 
 marriage with Madame Deschenelle — I do not 
 think it was for the public good. Poor Deschen- 
 elle's millions — is it not so? Poetry and millions 
 interfere with one another. But a thousand par- 
 dons, my dear Paul. You have done so much. It 
 
336 THEY AND I 
 
 is only right you should now be taking your ease. 
 Your work, is finished." 
 
 The Poet does not answer. Sits staring before 
 him with eyes turned inward. The Painter, the 
 Musician: what did the years bring to them? The 
 Stranger tells them also of all that they have lost: 
 of the griefs and sorrows, of the hopes and fears 
 they have never tasted, of their tears that ended 
 in laughter, of the pain that gave sweetness to joy, 
 of the triumphs that came to them in the days be- 
 fore triumph had lost its savour, of the loves 
 and the longings and fervours they would never 
 know. All was ended. The Stranger had given 
 them what he had promised, what they had de- 
 sired: the gain without the getting. 
 
 Then they break out. 
 
 " What is it to me," cries the Painter, " that I 
 wake to find myself wearing the gold medal of 
 the Salon, robbed of the memory of all by which 
 it was earned? " 
 
 The Stranger points out to him that he is illog- 
 ical; such memories would have included long 
 vistas of meagre dinners in dingy restaurants, of 
 attic studios, of a life the chief part of which had 
 been passed amid ugly surroundings. It was to 
 
THEY AND I 337 
 
 escape from all such that he had clamoured. The 
 Poet is silent. 
 
 " I asked but for recognition," cries the Musi- 
 cian, "that men might listen to me; not for my 
 music to be taken from me in exchange for the 
 recompense of a successful tradesman. My in- 
 spiration is burnt out; I feel it. The music that 
 once filled my soul is mute." 
 
 " It was born of the strife and anguish," the 
 Stranger tells him, " of the loves that died, of 
 the hopes that faded, of the beating of youth's 
 wings against the bars of sorrow, of the glory and 
 madness and torment called Life, of the struggle 
 you shrank from facing." 
 
 The Poet takes up the tale. 
 
 " You have robbed us of Life," he cries. " You 
 tell us of dead lips whose kisses we have never 
 felt, of songs of victory sung to our deaf ears. 
 You have taken our fires, you have left us but the 
 ashes." 
 
 "The fires that scorch and sear," the Stranger 
 adds, "the lips that cried in their pain, the victory 
 bought of wounds. 
 
 " It is not yet too late," the Stranger tells them. 
 "All this can be but a troubled dream, growing 
 
338 THEY AND I 
 
 fainter with each waking moment. Will you buy 
 back your Youth at the cost of ease? Will you 
 buy back Life at the price of tears?" 
 
 They cry with one voice, " Give us back our 
 Youth with its burdens, and a heart to bear them ! 
 Give us back Life with its mingled bitter and 
 sweet ! " 
 
 Then suddenly the Stranger stands revealed 
 before them. They see that he is Life — Life born 
 of battle, Life made strong by endeavour, Life 
 learning song from suffering. 
 
 There follows more talk; which struck me, when 
 I read the story, as a mistake; for all that he tells 
 them they have now learnt: that life to be en- 
 joyed must be lived; that victory to be sweet must 
 be won. 
 
 They awake in the dingy cafe in the Rue St. 
 Louis. The ancient waiter is piling up the chairs 
 preparatory to closing the shutters. The Poet 
 draws forth his small handful of coins; asks what 
 is to pay. " Nothing," the waiter answers. A 
 stranger who sat with them and talked awhile 
 before they fell asleep has paid the bill. They 
 look at one another, but no one speaks. 
 
 The streets are empty. A thin rain is falling. 
 
THEY AND I 339 
 
 They turn up the collars of their coats; strike 
 out into the night. And as their footsteps echo 
 on the glistening pavement it comes to each of 
 them that they are walking with a new, brave 
 step. 
 
 I feel sorry for Dick — for the tens of thou- 
 sands of happy, healthy, cared-for lads of whom 
 Dick is the type. There must be millions of 
 youngsters in the world who have never known 
 hunger, except as an appetiser to their dinner; 
 who have never felt what it is to be tired, without 
 the knowledge that a comfortable bed was await- 
 ing them. 
 
 To the well-to-do man or woman life is one 
 perpetual nursery. They are wakened in the 
 morning — not too early, not till the nursery has 
 been swept out and made ready, and the fire 
 lighted — awakened gently with a cup of tea to 
 give them strength and courage for this great 
 business of getting up — awakened with whispered 
 words, lest any sudden start should make their 
 little heads ache — the blinds carefully arranged 
 to exclude the naughty sun, which otherwise might 
 shine into their little eyes and make them fretful. 
 The water, with the nasty chill off, is put ready 
 
34Q THEY AND I 
 
 for them; they wash their little hands and faces, 
 all by themselves! Then they are shaved and 
 have their hair done; their little hands are mani- 
 cured, their little corns cut for them. When they 
 are neat and clean, they toddle in to breakfast; 
 they are shown into their little chairs, their little 
 napkins handed to them; the nice food that is so 
 good for them is put upon their little plates; the 
 drink is poured out for them into their cups. If 
 they want to play, there is the day nursery. They 
 have only to tell kind nurse what game it is they 
 fancy. The toys are at once brought out. The 
 little gun is put into their hand; the little horse is 
 dragged forth from its corner, their little feet care- 
 fully placed in the stirrups. The little ball and bat 
 is taken from its box. 
 
 Or they will take the air, as the wise doctor 
 has ordered. The little carriage will be ready in 
 five minutes; the nice warm cloak is buttoned 
 round them, the footstool placed beneath their 
 feet, the cushion at their back. 
 
 The day is done. The games have been played; 
 the toys have been taken from their tired hands, 
 put back into the cupboard. The food that is so 
 good for them, that makes them strong little men 
 
THEY AND I 341 
 
 and women has all been eaten. They have been 
 dressed for going out into the pretty Park, un- 
 dressed and dressed again for going out to tea 
 with the little boys and girls next door; undressed 
 and dressed again for the party. They have read 
 their little book, have seen a little play, have 
 looked at pretty pictures. The kind gentleman 
 with the long hair has played the piano to them. 
 They have danced. Their little feet are really 
 quite tired. The footman brings them home. 
 They are put into their little nighties. The can- 
 dle is blown out, the nursery door is softly 
 closed. 
 
 Now and again some restless little man, weary- 
 ing of the snug nursery, will run out past the 
 garden gate, and down the long white road; will 
 find the North Pole or, failing that, the South 
 Pole, or where the Nile rises, or how it feels to 
 fly; will climb the Mountains of the Moon — do 
 anything, go anywhere to escape from Nurse Civ- 
 ilisation's everlasting apron strings. 
 
 Or some queer little woman, wondering where 
 the people come from, will run and run till she 
 comes to the great town, watch in wonder the 
 strange folk that sweat and groan — the peaceful 
 
342 THEY AND I 
 
 nursery, with the toys, the pretty frocks never 
 quite the same again to her. 
 
 But to the nineteen-twentieths of the well-to-do 
 the world beyond the nursery is an unknown land. 
 Terrible things occur out there to little men and 
 women who have no pretty nursery to live in. 
 People push and shove you about, will even tread 
 on your toes if you are not careful. Out there is 
 no kind, strong Nurse Bank Balance to hold one's 
 little hand, and see that no harm comes to one. 
 Out there, one has to fight one's own battles. 
 Often one is cold and hungry, out there. One has 
 to fend for oneself, out there; earn one's dinner be- 
 fore one eats it, never quite sure of the week after 
 next. Terrible things take place, out there : strain 
 and contest and fierce endeavour; the ways are 
 full of danger and surprises; folk go up, folk 
 go down; you have to set your teeth and fight. 
 Well-to-do little men and women shudder. Draw 
 down the nursery blinds. 
 
 Robina had a little dog. It led the usual dog's 
 life : slept in a basket on an eiderdown cushion, 
 sheltered from any chance draught by silk cur- 
 tains; its milk warmed and sweetened; its cosy 
 chair reserved for it, in winter, near the fire; in 
 
THEY AND I 343 
 
 summer, where the sun might reach it; its three 
 meals a day that a gourmet might have eaten 
 gladly; its very fleas taken off its hands. 
 
 And twice a year still extra care was needed, 
 lest it should wantonly fling aside its days arid 
 nights of luxurious ease, claim its small share of 
 the passion and pain that go to the making of 
 dogs and men. For twice a year there came a 
 wind, salt with the brine of earth's ceaseless tides, 
 whispering to it of a wondrous land whose sharp- 
 est stones are sweeter than the silken cushions of 
 all the world without. 
 
 One winter's night there was great commotion. 
 Babette was nowhere to be found. We were liv- 
 ing in the country, miles away from everywhere. 
 "Babette, Babette," cried poor frenzied Robina; 
 and for answer came only the laughter of the 
 wind, pausing in his game of romps with the snow- 
 flakes. 
 
 Next morning an old woman from the town 
 four miles away brought back Babette at the end 
 of a string. Oh, such a soaked, bedraggled Ba- 
 bette! The old woman had found her crouching 
 in a doorway, a bewildered little heap of palpi- 
 tating femininity; and, reading the address upon 
 
344 THEY AND I 
 
 her collar, and may be scenting a not impossible 
 reward, had thought she might as well earn it for 
 herself. 
 
 Robina was shocked, disgusted. To think that 
 Babette — dainty, petted, spoilt Babette — should 
 have chosen of her own accord to go down into 
 the mud and darkness of the vulgar town; to leave 
 her curtained eiderdown to tramp the streets like 
 any drab! Robina, to whom Babette had hith- 
 erto been the ideal dog, moved away to hide her 
 tears of vexation. The old dame smiled. She 
 had borne her good man eleven, so she told us. 
 It had been a hard struggle, and some had gone 
 down, and some were dead; but some, thank God, 
 were doing well. 
 
 The old dame wished us good-day; but as she 
 turned to go an impulse seized her. She crossed 
 to where Babette, ashamed, yet half defiant, sat 
 a wet, woeful little image on the hearthrug, 
 stooped and lifted the little creature in her thin, 
 worn arms. 
 
 " It's trouble you've brought yourself," said 
 the old dame. " You couldn't help it, could 
 you?" 
 
 Babette's little pink tongue stole out. 
 
THEY AND I 345 
 
 " We understand, we know — we Mothers," 
 — they seemed to be saying to one another. 
 And so the two kissed. 
 
 I think the terrace will be my favourite spot. 
 Ethelbertha thinks, too, that on sunny days she 
 will like to sit there. From it, through an open- 
 ing I have made in the trees, I can see the cottage 
 just a mile away at the edge of the wood. Young 
 Bute tells me it is the very place he has been look- 
 ing for. Most of his time, of course, he has to 
 pass in town, but his Fridays to Mondays he likes 
 to spend in the country. May be I shall hand it 
 over to him. St. Leonard's chimneys we can also 
 see above the trees. Dick tells me he has quite 
 made up his mind to become a farmer. He thinks 
 it would be a good plan, for a beginning, to go 
 into partnership with St. Leonard. It is not 
 unlikely that St. Leonard's restless temperament 
 may prompt him eventually to tire of farming. 
 He has a brother in Canada doing well in the lum- 
 ber business, and St. Leonard often talks of the 
 advantages of the colonies to a man who is bring- 
 ing up a large family. I shall be sorry to lose 
 him as a neighbour; though I see the advantages, 
 
346 THEY AND I 
 
 under certain possibilities, of Mrs. St. Leonard's 
 address being Manitoba. 
 
 Veronica also thinks the terrace may come to be 
 her favourite resting-place. 
 
 "I suppose," said Veronica, "that if anything 
 was to happen to Robina, everything would fall 
 on me." 
 
 " It would be a change, Veronica," I suggested. 
 " Hitherto it is you who have done most of the 
 falling." 
 
 " Suppose I've got to see about growing up," 
 said Veronica. 
 
 THE END 
 
«TTY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 RENEWALS ONLY— TEL. NO. 642-3405 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 APR 2 4 1969 ^6 
 RECEIVED 
 
 LOAN Q&*r 
 
 APR 1 W > \ 5 
 
 *?«-*- 
 
 74 j 
 
1)531)10 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY