THE NOVELS OF 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
 THE OLD WIVES' TALE 
 HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND 
 WHOM GOD HATH JOINED 
 /;REDAND PROFANE LOVE 
 A GREAT MAN 
 
 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 A MAN FROM THE NORTH
 
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 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
 
 " Therefore, although it be a history 
 Homely and rude, I will relate the amt 
 For the delight of a few natural hearts."
 
 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'THE OLD WIVES' TALE," "HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND, 
 "WHOM GOD HATH JOINED," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 MGMX
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1902, BT 
 McCLURE, PHILLIPS A CO. 
 
 Published, February, 1903, R
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 WITH AFFECTION AND ADMIRATION 
 TO 
 
 HERBERT SHARPE 
 AN ARTIST 
 
 WHOSE INDIVIDUALITY AND ACHIEVEMENT 
 HAVE CONTINUALLY INSPIRED ME 
 
 2040500
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. THE KINDLING OF LOVE, 1 
 
 II. THE MISER'S DAUOHTKB, .... 20 
 
 III. THE BIRTHDAY, ....'... 31 
 
 IV. A VISIT, 53 
 
 V. THE REVIVAL, 66 
 
 VI. WILLIE, 79 
 
 VII. THE SEWING MEETING 102 
 
 VIII. ON THE BANK, 128 
 
 IX. THE TREAT, 162 
 
 X. THE ISLE 175 
 
 XI. THE DOWNFALL, 217 
 
 XII. AT THE PRIORY 256 
 
 XIII. THE BAZAAR 282 
 
 XIV. END OF A SIMPLE SOUL, ...... 295
 
 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
 
 I: THE KINDLING OF LOVE 
 
 THE yard was all silent and empty under the burning 
 afternoon heat, which had made its asphalt springy 
 like turf, when suddenly the children threw them- 
 selves out of the great doors at either end of the Sunday- 
 school boys from the right, girls from the left in two 
 howling, impetuous streams, that widened, eddied, inter- 
 mingled, and formed backwaters until the whole quadrangle 
 was full of clamour and movement. Many of the scholars 
 carried prize-books bound in vivid tints, and proudly ex- 
 hibited these volumes to their companions and to the teach- 
 ers, who, tall, languid, and condescending, soon began to 
 appear amid the restless throng. Near the left-hand door 
 a little girl of twelve years, dressed in a cream-coloured 
 frock, with a wide and heavy straw hat, stood quietly kick- 
 ing her foal-like legs against the wall. She was one of those 
 who had won a prize, and once or twice she took the treas- 
 ure from under her arm to glance at its frontispiece with a 
 vague smile of satisfaction. For a time her bright eyes 
 were fixed expectantly on the doorway; then they would 
 wander, and she started to count the windows of the vari- 
 ous Connexional buildings which on three sides enclosed 
 the yard chapel, school, lecture-hall, and chapel-keeper's 
 house. Most of the children had already squeezed through 
 the narrow iron gate into the street beyond, where a steam- 
 car was rumbling and clattering up Duck Bank, attended
 
 by its immense shadow. The teachers remained a little be- 
 hind. Gradually dropping the pedagogic pose, and happy 
 in the virtuous sensation of duty accomplished, they forgot 
 the frets and fatigues of the day, and grew amiably viva- 
 cious among themselves. With an instinctive mutual com- 
 placency the two sexes mixed again after separation. 
 Greetings and pleasantries were exchanged, and intimate 
 conversations begun ; and then, dividing into small familiar 
 groups, the young men and women slowly followed their 
 pupils out of the gate. The chapel-keeper, who always 
 had an injured expression, left the white step of his resi- 
 dence, and, walking with official dignity across the yard, 
 drew down the side-windows of the chapel one after another. 
 As he approached the little solitary girl in his course he 
 gave her a reluctant acid recognition ; then he returned to 
 his hearth. Agnes was alone. 
 
 "Well, young lady?" 
 
 She looked round with a jump, and blushed, smiling and 
 screwing up her little shoulders, when she recognised the 
 two men who were coming towards her from the door of 
 the lecture-hall. The one who had called out was Henry 
 Mynors, morning superintendent of the Sunday-school and 
 conductor of the men's Bible-class held in the lecture-hall 
 on Sunday afternoons. The other was William Price, 
 usually styled Willie Price, secretary of the same Bible- 
 class, and son of Titus Price, the afternoon superintendent. 
 
 " I'm sure you don't deserve that prke. Let me see if 
 it isn't too good for you." Mynors smiled playfully down 
 upon Agnes Tellwright as he idly turned the leaves of the
 
 THE KINDLING OF LOVE 3 
 
 book which she handed to him. " Now, do you deserve it? 
 Tell me honestly." 
 
 She scrutinised those sparkling and vehement black eyes 
 with the fearless calm of infancy. " Yes, I do," she an- 
 swered in her high, thin voice, having at length decided 
 within herself that Mr. Mynors was joking. 
 
 " Then I suppose you must have it," he admitted, with a 
 fine air of giving way. 
 
 As Agnes took the volume from him she thought how 
 perfect a man Mr. Mynors was. His eyes, so kind and 
 sincere, and that mysterious, delicious, inexpressible some- 
 thing which dwelt behind his eyes ; these constituted an ideal 
 for her. 
 
 Willie Price stood somewhat apart, grinning, and pull- 
 ing a thin honey-coloured moustache. He was at the un- 
 couth, disjointed age, twenty-one, and nine years younger 
 than Henry Mynors. Despite a continual effort after ease 
 of manner, he was often sheepish and self-conscious, even, 
 as now, when he could discover no reason for such a condi- 
 tion of mind. But Agnes liked him too. His simple, pale 
 blue eyes had a wistfulness which made her feel towards 
 him as she felt towards her doll when she happened to find 
 it lying neglected on the floor. 
 
 " Your big sister isn't out of school yet ? " Mynors re- 
 marked. 
 
 Agnes shook her head. " I've been waiting ever so 
 long," she said plaintively. 
 
 At that moment a grey-haired woman, with a benevolent 
 but rather pinched face, emerged with much briskness from
 
 4 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 the girls' door. This was Mrs. Sutton, a distant relative of 
 Mynors' his mother had been her second cousin. The men 
 raised their hats. 
 
 " I've just been down to make sure of some of you slip- 
 pery folks for the sewing-meeting," she said, shaking hands 
 with Mynors, and including both him and Willie Price in 
 an embracing maternal smile. She was short-sighted and 
 did not perceive Agnes, who had fallen back. 
 
 " Had a good class this afternoon, Henry? " Mrs. Sut- 
 ton's breathing was short and quick. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, " very good indeed." 
 
 " You're doing a grand work." 
 
 " We had over seventy present," he added. 
 
 " Eh ! " she said, " I make nothing of numbers, Henry. 
 1 meant a good class. Doesn't it say Where two or three 
 are gathered together . . . ? But I must be getting on. 
 The horse will be restless. I've to go up to Hillport before 
 tea. Mrs. Clayton Vernon is ill." 
 
 Scarcely having stopped in her active course, Mrs. Sut- 
 ton drew the men along with her down the yard, she and 
 Mynors in rapid talk : Willie Price fell a little to the rear, 
 his big hands halfway into his pockets and his eyes diffi- 
 dently roving. It appeared as though he could not find 
 courage to take a share in the conversation, yet was anxious 
 to convince himself of his right to do so. 
 
 Mynors helped Mrs. Sutton into her carriage, which had 
 been drawn up outside the gate of the school-yard. Only 
 two families of the Bursley Wesleyan Methodists kept a 
 carriage, the Suttons and the Clayton Vernons. The latter,
 
 boasting lineage and a large house in the aristocratic sub- 
 urb of Hillport, gave to the society monetary aid and a 
 gracious condescension. But though indubitably above the 
 operation of any unwritten sumptuary law, even the Clay- 
 ton Vernons ventured only in wet weather to bring their 
 carriage to chapel. Yet Mrs. Sutton, who was a plain 
 woman, might with impunity use her equipage on Sundays. 
 This license granted by Connexional opinion was due to the 
 fact that she so obviously regarded her carriage, not as a 
 carriage, but as a contrivance on four wheels for enabling 
 an infirm creature to move rapidly from place to place. 
 When she got into it she had exactly the air of a doctor on 
 his rounds. Mrs. Sutton's bodily frame had long ago 
 proved inadequate to the ceaseless demands of a spirit in- 
 defatigably altruistic, and her continuance in activity was 
 a notable illustration of the dominion of mind over matter. 
 Her husband, a potter's valuer and commission agent, 
 made money with facility in that lucrative vocation, and 
 his wife's charities were famous, notwithstanding her at- 
 tempts to hide them. Neither husband or wife had allowed 
 riches to put a factitious gloss upon their primal sim- 
 plicity. They were as they were, save that Mr. Sutton had 
 joined the Five Towns Field Club and acquired some of the 
 habits of an archaeologist. The influence of wealth on man- 
 ners was to be observed only in their daughter Beatrice, 
 who, while favouring her mother, dressed at considerable 
 expense, and at intervals gave much time to the arts of 
 music and painting. 
 
 Agnes watched the carriage drive away, and then turned
 
 6 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 to look up the stairs within the school doorway. She sighed, 
 scowled, and sighed again, murmured something to her- 
 self, and finally began to read her book. 
 
 " Not come out yet ? " Mynors was at her side once more, 
 alone this time. 
 
 " No, not yet," said Agnes, wearied. " Yes. Here she 
 is. Anna, what ages you've been ! " 
 
 Anna Tellwright stood motionless for a second in the 
 shadow of the doorway. She was tall, but not unusually 
 so, and sturdily built up. Her figure, though the bust was 
 a little flat, had the lenient curves of absolute maturity. 
 Anna had been a woman since seventeen, and she was now 
 on the eve of her twenty-first birthday. She wore a plain, 
 home-made light frock checked with brown and edged with 
 brown velvet, thin cotton gloves of cream colour, and a 
 broad straw hat like her sister's. Her grave face, owing to 
 the prominence of the cheek-bones and the width of the jaw, 
 had a slight angularity ; the lips were thin, the brown eyes 
 rather large, the eyebrows level, the nose fine and delicate; 
 the ears could scarcely be seen for the dark brown hair 
 which was brushed diagonally across the temples, leaving 
 of the forehead only a pale triangle. It seemed a face for 
 the cloister, austere in contour, fervent in expression, the 
 severity of it mollified by that resigned and spiritual mel- 
 ancholy peculiar to women who, through the error of des- 
 tiny, have been born into a wrong environment. 
 
 As if charmed forward by Mynors' compelling eyes, 
 Anna stepped into the sunlight, at the same time putting 
 up her parasol. " How calm and stately she is," he thought,
 
 THE KINDLING OF LOVE 7 
 
 as she gave him her cool hand and murmured a reply to his 
 salutation. But even his aquiline gaze could not surprise 
 the secrets of that concealing breast: this was one of the 
 three great tumultuous moments of her life she realised 
 for the first time that she was loved. 
 
 " You are late this afternoon, Miss Tellwright," Mynors 
 began, with the easy inflections of a man well accustomed 
 to prominence in the society of women. Little Agnes 
 seized Anna's left arm, silently holding up the prize, and 
 Anna nodded appreciation. 
 
 " Yes," she said as they walked across the yard, " one of 
 my girls has been doing wrong. She stole a Bible from an- 
 other girl, so of course I had to mention it to the superin- 
 tendent. Mr. Price gave her a long lecture, and now she is 
 waiting upstairs till he is ready to go with her to her 
 home and talk to her parents. He says she must be 
 dismissed." 
 
 " Dismissed ! " 
 
 Anna's look flashed a grateful response to him. By the 
 least possible emphasis he had expressed a complete dis- 
 agreement with his senior colleague which etiquette for- 
 bade him to utter in words. 
 
 " I think it's a very great pity," Anna said firmly. " I 
 rather like the girl," she ventured in haste ; " you might 
 speak to Mr. Price about it." 
 
 " If he mentions it to me." 
 
 " Yes, I meant that. Mr. Price said if it had been any- 
 thing else but a Bible " 
 
 " Um ! " he murmured, very low, but she caught the sig-
 
 8 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 nificance of his intonation. They did not glance at each 
 other: it was unnecessary. Anna felt that comfortable 
 easement of spirit which springs from the recognition of 
 another spirit capable of understanding without explana- 
 tions and of sympathising without a phrase. Under that 
 calm mask a strange and sweet satisfaction thrilled through 
 her as her precious instinct of common sense rarest of good 
 qualities, and pining always for fellowship found a com- 
 panion in his own. She had dreaded the overtures which 
 for a fortnight past she had foreseen were inevitably to 
 come from Mynors: he was a stranger, whom she merely 
 respected. Now in a sudden disclosure she knew him and 
 liked him. The dire apprehension of those formal " ad- 
 vances " which she had watched other men make to other 
 women faded away. It was at once a release and a reas- 
 surance. 
 
 They were passing through the gate, Agnes skipping 
 round her sister's skirts, when Willie Price reappeared from 
 the direction of the chapel. 
 
 "Forgotten something?" Mynors inquired of him 
 blandly. 
 
 " Ye-es," he stammered, clumsily raising his hat to Anna. 
 She thought of him exactly as Agnes had done. He hesi- 
 tated for a fraction of time, and then went up to the yard 
 towards the lecture-hall. 
 
 " Agnes has been showing me her prize," said Mynors, 
 as the three stood together outside the gate. " I ask her if 
 she thinks she really deserves it, and she says she does. 
 What do you think, Miss Big Sister? "
 
 THE KINDLING OF LOVE 9 
 
 Anna gave the little girl an affectionate smile of com- 
 prehension. " What is it called, dear ? " 
 
 " ' Janey's Sacrifice or the Spool of Cotton, and other 
 stories for children,' " Agnes read out in a monotone : then 
 she clutched Anna's elbow and aimed a whisper at her ear. 
 
 " Very well, dear," Anna answered aloud, " but we must 
 be back by a quarter-past four." And turning to Mynors : 
 " Agnes wants to go up to the Park to hear the band 
 play." 
 
 " I'm going up there, too," he said. " Come along, 
 Agnes, take my arm and show me the way." Shyly Agnes 
 left her sister's side and put a pink finger into Mynors' 
 hand. 
 
 Moor Road, which climbs over the ridge to the mining 
 village of Moorthorne and passes the new park on its way, 
 was crowded with people going up to criticise and enjoy 
 this latest outcome of municipal enterprise in Bursley: 
 sedate elders of the borough who smiled grimly to see one 
 another on Sunday afternoon in that undignified, idly curi- 
 ous throng; white-skinned potters, and miners with the 
 swarthy pallor of subterranean toil; untidy Sabbath loaf- 
 ers whom neither church nor chapel could entice, and the 
 primly-clad respectable, who had not only clothes, but a 
 separate deportment for the seventh day ; housewives whose 
 pale faces, as of prisoners free only for a while, showed a 
 naive and timorous pleasure in the unusual diversion; 
 young women made glorious by richly-coloured stuffs and 
 carrying themselves with the defiant independence of good 
 wages earned in warehouse or painting-shop; youths op-
 
 10 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 pressed by stiff new clothes bought at Whitsuntide, in 
 which the bright necktie and the nosegay revealed a thou- 
 sand secret aspirations; young children running and yell- 
 ing with the marvellous energy of their years; here and 
 there a small well-dressed group, whose studious repudia- 
 tion of the crowd betrayed a conscious eminence of rank; 
 louts, drunkards, idiots, beggars, waifs, outcasts, and every 
 oddity of the town : all were more or less under the influence 
 of a new excitement, and all, with the same face of pleased 
 expectancy, looked towards the spot where, half-way up the 
 hill, a denser mass of sightseers indicated the grand en- 
 trance to the Park. 
 
 " What stacks of folks ! " Agnes exclaimed. " It's like 
 going to a football match." 
 
 " Do you go to football matches, Agnes ? " Mynors asked. 
 The child gave a giggle. 
 
 Anna was relieved when these two began to chatter. She 
 had at once, by a firm natural impulse, subdued the agita- 
 tion which seized her when she found Mynors waiting with 
 such an obvious intention at the school door; she had con- 
 versed with him in tones of quiet ease ; his attitude had even 
 enabled her in a few moments to establish a pleasant famili- 
 arity with him. Nevertheless, as they joined the stream of 
 people in Moor Road, she longed to be at home, in her 
 kitchen, in order to examine herself and the new situation 
 thus created by Mynors. And yet also she was glad that 
 she must remain at his side, but it was fluttered joy that his 
 presence gave her, too strange for immediate apprecia- 
 tion. As her eye, without directly looking at him, em-
 
 THE KINDLING OP LOVE 11 
 
 braced the suave and admirable male creature within its 
 field of vision, she became aware that he was quite inscrut- 
 able to her. What were his inmost thoughts, his ideals, the 
 histories of his heart? Surely it was impossible that she 
 should ever know these secrets! He and she: they were 
 utterly foreign to each other. So the primary dissonances 
 of sex vibrated within her, and her own feelings puzzled 
 her. Still, there was an instant pleasure, delightful, if dis- 
 turbing and inexplicable. And also there was a sensation 
 of triumph, which, though she tried to scorn it, she could 
 not banish. That a man and a woman should saunter to- 
 gether on that road was nothing; but the circumstance ac- 
 quired tremendous importance when the man happened to 
 be Henry Mynors and the woman Anna Tellwright. My- 
 nors handsome, dark, accomplished, exemplary, and pros- 
 perous had walked for ten years circumspect and un- 
 scathed amid the glances of a whole legion of maids. As 
 for Anna, the peculiarity of her position had always marked 
 her for special attention : ever since her father settled in 
 Bursley, she had felt herself to be the object of an interest 
 in which awe and pity were equally mingled. She guessed 
 that the fact of her going to the Park with Mynors that 
 afternoon would pass swiftly from mouth to mouth like the 
 rumour of a decisive event. She had no friends; her in- 
 nate reserve had been misinterpreted, and she was not popu- 
 lar among the Wesleyan community. Many people would 
 say, and more would think, that it was her money which 
 was drawing Mynors from the narrow path of his celibate 
 discretion. She could imagine all the innuendos, the ex-
 
 12 ANNA OP THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 pressive nods, the pursing of lips, the lifting of shoulders 
 and of eyebrows. " Money '11 do owt " : that was the prov- 
 erb. But she cared not. She had the just and unshakeable 
 self-esteem which is fundamental in all strong and right- 
 eous natures ; and she knew beyond the possibility of doubt 
 that, though Mynors might have no incurable aversion to a 
 fortune, she herself, the spirit and body of her, had been 
 the sole awakener of his desire. 
 
 By a common instinct, Mynors and Anna made little 
 Agnes the centre of attraction. Mynors continued to tease 
 her, and Agnes, growing courageous, began to retort. She 
 was now walking between them, and the other two smiled to 
 each other at the child's sayings over her head, interchang- 
 ing thus messages too subtle and delicate for the coarse 
 medium of words. 
 
 As they approached the Park the bandstand came into 
 sight over the railway cutting, and they could hear the 
 music of " The Emperor's Hymn." The crude, brazen 
 sounds were tempered in their passage through the warm, 
 still air, and fell gently on the ear in soft waves, quicken- 
 ing every heart to unaccustomed emotions. Children leaped 
 forward, and old people unconsciously assumed a lightsome 
 vigour. 
 
 The Park rose in terraces from the railway station to a 
 street of small villas almost on the ridge of the hill. From 
 its gilded gates to its smallest geranium-slips it was brand- 
 new, and most of it was red. The keeper's house, the band- 
 stand, the kiosks, the balustrades, the shelters all these 
 assailed the eye with a uniform redness of brick and tile
 
 THE KINDLING OF LOVE 13 
 
 which nullified the pallid greens of the turf and the frail 
 trees. The immense crowd, in order to circulate, moved 
 along in tight processions, inspecting, one after another, 
 the various features of which they had read full descrip- 
 tions in the " Staffordshire Signal " waterfall, grotto, 
 lake, swans, boat, seats, faience, statues and scanning 
 with interest the names of the donors so clearly inscribed on 
 such objects of art and craft as, from divers motives, had 
 been presented to the town by its citizens. Mynors, as he 
 manoeuvred a way for the two girls through the main ave- 
 nue up to the topmost terrace, gravely judged each thing 
 upon its merits, approving this, condemning that. In de- 
 ciding that under all the circumstances the Park made a 
 very creditable appearance, he only reflected the best local 
 opinion. The town was proud of its achievement, and it 
 had the right to be ; for, though this narrow pleasuance was 
 in itself unlovely, it symbolised the first faint renascence of 
 the longing for beauty in a district long given up to un- 
 redeemed ugliness. 
 
 At length, Mynors having encountered many acquaint- 
 ances, they got past the bandstand and stood on the highest 
 terrace, which was almost deserted. Beneath them, in front, 
 stretched a maze of roofs, dominated by the gold angel of 
 the Town Hall spire. Bursley, the ancient home of the 
 potter, has an antiquity of a thousand years. It lies towards 
 the north end of an extensive valley, which must have been 
 one of the fairest spots in Alfred's England, but which is 
 now defaced by the activities of a quarter of a million of 
 people.
 
 14 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Five contiguous towns Turnhill, Bursley, Hanbridge, 
 Knype, and Longshaw united by a single winding 
 thoroughfare some eight miles in length, have inundated 
 the valley like a succession of great lakes. Of these five Bur- 
 sley is the mother, but Hanbridge is the largest. They 
 are mean and forbidding of aspect sombre, hard-featured, 
 uncouth ; and the vaporous poison of their ovens and chim- 
 neys has soiled and shrivelled the surrounding country till 
 there is no village lane within a league but what offers a 
 gaunt and ludicrous travesty of rural charms. Nothing 
 could be more prosaic than the huddled, red-brown streets ; 
 nothing more seemingly remote from romance. Yet be it 
 said that romance is even here the romance which, for 
 those who have an eye to perceive it, ever dwells amid the 
 seats of industrial manufacture, softening the coarseness, 
 transfiguring the squalor, of these mighty alchemic opera- 
 tions. Look down into the valley from this terrace-height 
 where love is kindling, embrace the whole smoke-girt amphi- 
 theatre in a glance, and it may be that you will suddenly 
 comprehend the secret and superb significance of the vast 
 Doing which goes forward below. Because they seldom 
 think, the townsmen take shame when indicted for having 
 disfigured half a county in order to live. They have not 
 understood that this disfigurement is merely an episode in 
 the unending warfare of man and nature, and calls for no 
 contrition. 
 
 Here, indeed, is nature repaid for some of her no- 
 torious cruelties. She imperiously bids man sustain and 
 reproduce himself, and this is one of the places where in the
 
 THE KINDLING OF LOVE 15 
 
 very act of obedience he wounds and maltreats her. Out 
 beyond the municipal confines, where the subsidiary indus- 
 tries of coal and iron prosper amid a wreck of verdure, the 
 struggle is grim, appalling, heroic so ruthless is his havoc 
 of her, so indomitable her ceaseless recuperation. On the 
 one side is a wresting from nature's own bowels of the means 
 to waste her; on the other, an undismayed, enduring forti- 
 tude. The grass grows ; though it is not green, it grows. 
 In the very heart of the valley, hedged about with furnaces, 
 a farm still stands, and at harvest -time the sooty sheaves 
 are gathered in. 
 
 The band stopped playing. A whole population was 
 idle in the Park, and it seemed, in the fierce calm of the sun- 
 light, that of all the strenuous weekday vitality of the dis- 
 trict only a murmurous hush remained. But everywhere on 
 the horizon, and nearer, furnaces cast their heavy smoke 
 across the borders of the sky : the Doing was never sus- 
 pended. 
 
 " Mr. Mynors," said Agnes, still holding his hand, when 
 they had been silent a moment, " when do these furnaces go 
 out?" 
 
 " They don't go out," he answered, " unless there is a 
 strike. It costs hundreds and hundreds of pounds to light 
 them again." 
 
 " Does it ? " she said vaguely. " Father says it's smoke 
 that stops my gilliflowers from growing." 
 
 Mynors turned to Anna. " Your father seems the pic- 
 ture of health. I saw him out this morning at a quarter to 
 seven, as brisk as a boy. What a constitution ! "
 
 16 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Yes," Anna replied, " he is always up at six." 
 
 " But you aren't, I suppose? " 
 
 " Yes, I too." 
 
 " And me too," Agnes interjected. 
 
 " And how does Bursley compare with Hanbridge ? " My- 
 nors continued. Anna paused before replying. 
 
 " I like it better," she said. " At first last year I 
 thought I shouldn't." 
 
 " By the way, your father used to preach in Hanbridge 
 circuit " 
 
 " That was years ago," she said quickly. 
 
 " But why won't he preach here ? I dare say you know 
 that we are rather short of local preachers good ones, 
 that is." 
 
 " I can't say why father doesn't preach now." Anna 
 flushed as she spoke. " You had better ask him that." 
 
 " Well, I will do," he laughed. " I am coming to see him 
 soon perhaps one night this week." 
 
 Anna looked at Henry Mynors as he uttered the aston- 
 ishing words. The Tellwrights had been in Bursley a year, 
 but no visitor had crossed their doorsteps except the min- 
 ister, once, and such poor defaulters as came, full of excuse 
 and obsequious conciliation, to pay rent overdue. 
 
 "Business, I suppose?" she said, and prayed that he 
 might not be intending to make a mere call of ceremony. 
 
 " Yes, business," he answered lightly. " But you will be 
 in?" 
 
 " I am always in," she said. She wondered what the busi- 
 ness could be, and felt relieved to know that his visit would
 
 THE KINDLING OF LOVE 17 
 
 have at least some assigned pretext ; but already her heart 
 beat with apprehensive perturbation at the thought of his 
 presence in their household. 
 
 " See ! " said Agnes, whose eyes were everywhere. 
 " There's Miss Sutton." 
 
 Both Mynors and Anna looked sharply round. Beatrice 
 Sutton was coming towards them along the terrace. Sty- 
 lishly clad in a dress of pink muslin, with harmonious hat, 
 gloves, and sunshade, she made an agreeable and rather 
 effective picture, despite her plain, round face and stoutish 
 figure. She had the air of being a leader. Grafted on to 
 the original simple honesty of her eyes there was the un- 
 consciously-acquired arrogance of one who had always been 
 accustomed to deference. Socially, Beatrice had no peer 
 among the young women who were active in the Wesleyan 
 Sunday-school. Beatrice had been used to teach in the 
 afternoon school, but she had recently advanced her labours 
 from the afternoon to the morning, in response to a hint 
 that, if she did so, the force of her influence and example 
 might lessen the chronic dearth of morning teachers. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, Miss Tellwright," Beatrice said as she 
 came up. " So you have come to look at the Park." 
 
 " Yes," said Anna, and then stopped awkwardly. In the 
 tone of each there was an obscure constraint, and some- 
 thing in Mynors' smile of salute to Beatrice showed that he 
 too shared it. 
 
 " Seen you before," Beatrice said to him familiarly, with- 
 out taking his hand; then she bent down and kissed 
 Agnes.
 
 18 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 "What are you doing here, mademoiselle?" Mynors 
 asked her. 
 
 " Father's just down below, near the lake. He caught 
 sight of you, and sent me up to say that you were to be 
 sure to come in to supper to-night. You will, won't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, thanks. I had meant to." 
 
 Anna knew that they were related, and also that Mynors 
 was constantly at the Suttons' house, but the close intimacy 
 between these two came nevertheless like a shock to her. 
 She could not conquer a certain resentment of it, however 
 absurd such a feeling might seem to her intelligence. And 
 this attitude extended not only to the intimacy, but to Bea- 
 trice's handsome clothes and facile urbanity, which by con- 
 trast emphasised her own poor little frock and tongue-tied 
 manner. The mere existence of Beatrice so near to Mynors 
 was like an affront to her. Yet at heart, and even while 
 admiring this shining daughter of success, she was con- 
 scious within herself of a fundamental superiority. The 
 soul of her condescended to the soul of the other one. 
 
 They began to discuss the Park. 
 
 " Papa says it will send up the value of that land over 
 there enormously," said Beatrice, pointing with her rib- 
 boned sunshade to some building plots which lay to the 
 north, high up the hill. " Mr. Tellwright owns most of 
 that, doesn't he ? " she added to Anna. 
 
 " I dare say he does," said Anna. It was torture to her 
 to refer to her father's possessions. 
 
 " Of course it will be covered with streets in a few months. 
 Will he build himself, or will he sell it? "
 
 THE KINDLING OF LOVE 19 
 
 " I haven't the least idea," Anna answered, with an 
 effort after gaiety of tone, and then turned aside to look 
 at the crowd. There, close against the bandstand, stood 
 her father, a short, stout, ruddy, middle-aged man in a 
 shabby brown suit. He recognised her, stared fixedly, and 
 nodded with his grotesque and ambiguous grin. Then he 
 sidled off towards the entrance of the Park. None of the 
 others had seen him. 
 
 " Agnes, dear," she said abruptly, " we must go now, 
 or we shall be late for tea." 
 
 As the two women said good-bye their eyes met, and in 
 the brief second of that encounter each tried to wring from 
 the other the true answer to a question which lay unuttered 
 in her heart. Then, having bidden adieu to Mynors, whose 
 parting glance sang its own song to her, Anna took Agnes 
 by the hand and left him and Beatrice together.
 
 II: THE MISER'S DAUGHTER 
 
 AJNA sat in the bay window of the front parlour, her 
 accustomed place on Sunday evenings in summer, 
 and watched Mr. Tellwright and Agnes disappear 
 down the slope of Trafalgar Road on their way to chapel. 
 Trafalgar Road is the long thoroughfare which, under 
 many aliases, runs through the Five Towns from end to end, 
 uniting them as a river might unite them. Ephraim Tell- 
 wright could remember the time when this part of it was 
 a country lane, flanked by meadows and market gardens. 
 Now it was a street of houses up to and beyond Bleakridge, 
 where the Tellwrights lived; on the other side of the hill 
 the houses came only in patches until the far-stetching 
 borders of Hanbridge were reached. Within the municipal 
 limits Bleakridge was the pleasantest quarter of Bursley 
 Hillport, abode of the highest fashion, had its own gov- 
 ernment and authority and to reside " at the top of Tra- 
 falgar Road " was still the final ambition of many citi- 
 zens, though the natural growth of the town had robbed 
 Bleakridge of some of that exclusive distinction which it 
 once possessed. Trafalgar Road, in its journey to Bleak- 
 ridge from the centre of the town, underwent certain 
 changes of character. First came a succession of manu- 
 factories and small shops; then, at the beginning of the 
 rise, a quarter of a mile of superior cottages; and lastly, 
 on the brow, occurred the houses of the comfortable-de- 
 
 20
 
 THE MISER'S DAUGHTER % 21 
 
 tached, semi-detached, and in terraces, with rentals from 
 251. to 601. a year. The Tellrights lived in Manor Terrace 
 (the name being a last reminder of the great farmstead 
 which formerly occupied the western hillside) : their house, 
 of light yellow brick, was two-storied, with a long narrow 
 garden behind, and the rent 30Z. Exactly opposite was 
 an antique red mansion, standing back in its own ground 
 home of the Mynors family for two generations, but now 
 a school, the Mynors family being extinct in the district 
 save for one member. Somewhat higher up, still on the 
 opposite side to Manor Terrace, came an imposing row of 
 four new houses, said to be the best planned and best built 
 in the town, each erected separately and occupied by its 
 owner. The nearest of these four was Councillor Sutton's, 
 valued at 601. a year. Lower down, below Manor Terrace 
 and on the same side, lived the Wesleyan superintendent 
 minister, the vicar of St. Luke's Church, an alderman, and 
 a doctor. 
 
 It was nearly six o'clock. The sun shone, but gentlier ; 
 and the earth lay cooling in the mild, pensive effulgence 
 of a summer evening. Even the onrush of the steam-car, 
 as it swept with a gay load of passengers to Hanbridge, 
 seemed to be chastened; the bell of the Roman Catholic 
 chapel sounded like the bell of some village church heard 
 in the distance; the quick, but sober, tramp of the chapel- 
 goers fell peacefully on the ear. The sense of calm in- 
 creased, and, steeped in this meditative calm, Anna from the 
 open window gazed idly down the perspective of the road, 
 which ended a mile away in the dim concave forms of ovens
 
 22 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 suffused in a pale mist. A book from the Free Library lay 
 on her lap; she could not read it. She was conscious of 
 nothing save the quiet enchantment of reverie. Her mind, 
 stimulated by the emotions of the afternoon, broke the fet- 
 ters of habitual self-discipline, and ranged voluptuously 
 free over the whole field of recollection and anticipation. 
 To remember, to hope: that was sufficient joy. 
 
 In the dissolving views of her own past, from which the 
 rigour and pain seemed to have mysteriously departed, the 
 chief figure was always her father that sinister and for- 
 midable individuality, whom her mind hated, but her heart 
 disobediently loved. Ephraim Tellwright * was one of the 
 most extraordinary and most mysterious men in the Five 
 Towns. The outer facts of his career were known to all, 
 for his riches made him notorious ; but of the secret and inti- 
 mate man none knew anything except Anna, and what little 
 Anna knew had come to her by divination rather than dis- 
 cernment. A native of Hanbridge, he had inherited a small 
 fortune from his father, who was a prominent Wesleyan 
 Methodist. At thirty, owing mainly to investments in 
 property which his calling of potter's valuer had helped him 
 to choose with advantage, he was worth twenty thousand 
 pounds, and he lived in lodgings on a total expenditure of 
 about a hundred a year. When he was thirty-five he sud- 
 denly married, without any perceptible public wooing, the 
 daughter of a wood merchant at Oldcastle, and shortly after 
 the marriage his wife inherited from her father a sum of 
 
 * Tellwright =ti}e-vrrlglit, a name specially characteristic of, and pos- 
 sibly originating in, this clay-manufacturing district.
 
 THE MISER'S DAUGHTER 23 
 
 eighteen thousand pounds. The pair lived narrowly in 
 a small house up at Pireford, between Hanbridge and Old- 
 castle. They visited no one, and were never seen together 
 except on Sundays. She was a rosy-cheeked, very unassum- 
 ing and simple woman, who smiled easily and talked with 
 difficulty, and for the rest lived apparently a servile life of 
 satisfaction and content. After five years Anna was born, 
 and in another five years Mrs. Tellwright died of erysipelas. 
 The widower engaged a housekeeper ; otherwise his existence 
 proceeded without change. No stranger visited the house, 
 the housekeeper never gossiped ; but tales will spread, and 
 people fell into the habit of regarding Tellwright's child 
 and his housekeeper with commiseration. 
 
 During all this period he was what is termed " a good 
 Wesleyan," preaching and teaching, and spending him- 
 self in the various activities of Hanbridge chapel. For 
 many years he had been circuit treasurer. Among Anna's 
 earliest memories was a picture of her father arriving late 
 for supper one Sunday night in autumn after an anniver- 
 sary service, and pouring out on the white table-cloth the 
 contents of numerous chamois-leather money-bags. She re- 
 called the surprising dexterity with which he counted the 
 coins, the peculiar smell of the bags, and her mother's bland 
 exclamation, " Eh, Ephraim ! " Tellwright belonged by 
 birth to the Old Guard of Methodism; there was in his 
 family a tradition of holy valour for the pure doctrine : 
 his father, a Bursley man, had fought in the fight which 
 preceded the famous Primitive Methodist Secession of 1808 
 at Bursley, and had also borne a notable part in the Warren
 
 24 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 affrays of '28, and the disastrous trouble of the Fly-Sheets 
 in '49, when Methodism lost a hundred thousand members. 
 As for Ephraim, he expounded the mystery of the Atone- 
 ment in village conventicles and grew garrulous with God 
 at prayer-meetings in the big Bethesda chapel ; but he did 
 these things as routine, without skill and without enthu- 
 siasm, because they gave him an unassailable position within 
 the central group of the society. He was not, in fact, much 
 smitten with either the doctrinal or the spiritual side of 
 Methodism. His chief interest lay in those fiscal schemes 
 of organisation without whose aid no religious propaganda 
 can possibly succeed. It was in the finance of salvation 
 that he rose supreme the interminable alternation of debt- 
 raising and new liability which provides a lasting excite- 
 ment for Nonconformists. In the negotiation of mort- 
 gages, the artful arrangement of the incidence of collec- 
 tions, the manufacture of special appeals, the planning of 
 anniversaries and of mighty revivals, he was an undisputed 
 leader. To him the circuit was a " going concern," and 
 he kept it in motion, serving the Lord in committee and 
 over statements of account. The minister by his pleading 
 might bring sinners to the penitent form, but it was 
 Ephraim Tellwright who reduced the cost per head of souls 
 saved, and so widened the frontiers of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven. 
 
 Three years after the death of his first wife it was ru- 
 moured that he would marry again, and that his choice had 
 fallen on a young orphan girl, thirty years his junior, who 
 " assisted " at the stationer's shop where he bought his daily
 
 THE MISER'S DAUGHTER 25 
 
 newspaper. The rumour was well-founded. Anna, then 
 eight years of age, vividly remembered the home-coming of 
 the pale wife, and her own sturdy attempts to explain, 
 excuse, or assuage to this wistful and fragile creature the 
 implacable harshness of her father's temper. Agnes was 
 born within a year, and the pale girl died of puerperal fever. 
 In that year lay a whole tragedy, which could not have been 
 more poignant in its perfection if the year had been a thou- 
 sand years. Ephraim promptly re-engaged the old house- 
 keeper, a course which filled Anna with secret childish revolt, 
 for Anna was now nine, and accomplished in all domesticity. 
 In another seven years the housekeeper died, a gaunt grey 
 ruin, and Anna at sixteen became mistress of the house- 
 hold, with a small sister to cherish and control. About 
 this time Anna began to perceive that her father was 
 generally regarded as a man of great wealth, having 
 few rivals in the entire region of the Five Towns. 
 Definite knowledge, however, she had none; he never 
 spoke of his affairs; she knew only that he possessed 
 houses and other property in various places, that he 
 always turned first to the money article in the newspaper, 
 and that long envelopes arrived for him by post almost 
 daily. But she had once heard the surmise that he was 
 worth sixty thousand of his own, apart from the fortune 
 of his first wife, Anna's mother. Nevertheless, it did not 
 occur to her to think of her father, in plain terms, as a miser, 
 until one day she happened to read in the " Staffordshire 
 Signal " some particulars of the last will and testament of 
 William Wilbraham, J. P., who had just died. Mr. Wil-
 
 26 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 braham had been a famous magnate and benefactor of the 
 Five Towns ; his revered name was in every mouth ; he had 
 a fine seat, Hillport House, at Hillport; and his superb 
 horses were constantly seen, winged and nervous, in the 
 streets of Bursley and Hanbridge. The " Signal " said 
 that the net value of his estate was sworn at fifty-nine thou- 
 sand pounds. This single fact added a definite and start- 
 ling significance to figures which had previously conveyed 
 nothing to Anna except an idea of vastness. The crude 
 contrast between the things of Hillport House and the 
 things of the six-roomed abode in Manor Terrace gave food 
 for reflection, silent but profound. 
 
 Tellwright had long ago retired from business, and three 
 years after the housekeeper died he retired, practically, from 
 religious work, to the grave detriment of the Hanbridge 
 circuit. In reply to sorrowful and pained questioners, he 
 said merely that he was getting old and needed rest, and 
 that there ought to be plenty of younger men to fill his 
 shoes. He gave up everything except his pew in the chapel. 
 The circuit was astounded by this sudden defection of a 
 class-leader, a local preacher, and an officer. It was an 
 inexplicable fall from grace. Yet the solution of the prob- 
 lem was quite simple. Ephraim had lost interest in his re- 
 ligious avocations; they had ceased to amuse him, the old 
 ardour had cooled. The phenomenon is a common enough 
 experience with men who have passed their fiftieth year 
 men, too, who began with the true and sacred zeal which 
 Tellwright never felt. The difference in Tellwright's case 
 was that, characteristically, he at once j'ielded to the new
 
 27 
 
 instinct, caring naught for public opinion. Soon after- 
 wards, having purchased a lot of cottage-property in Burs- 
 ley, he decided to migrate to the town of his fathers. He 
 had more than one reason for doing so, but perhaps the chief 
 was that he found the atmosphere of Hanbridge Wesleyan 
 chapel rather uncongenial. The exodus from it was his 
 silent and malicious retort to a silent rebuke. 
 
 He appeared now to grow younger, discarding in some 
 measure a certain morose taciturnity which had hitherto 
 marked his demeanour. He went amiably about in the man- 
 ner of a veteran determined to enjoy the brief existence of 
 life's winter. His stout, stiff, deliberate yet alert figure 
 became a familiar object to Bursley: that ruddy face, with 
 its small blue eyes, smooth upper lip, and short grey beard 
 under the smooth chin, seemed to pervade the streets, offer- 
 ing everywhere the conundrum of its vague smile. Though 
 no friend ever crossed his doorstep, he had dozens of ac- 
 quaintances of the footpath. He was not, however, a facile 
 talker, and he seldom gave an opinion ; nor were his remarks 
 often noticeably shrewd. He existed within himself, unre- 
 vealed. To the crowd, of course, he was a marvellous 
 legend, and moving always in the glory of that legend he 
 received their wondering awe an awe tinged with con- 
 tempt for his lack of ostentation and public splendour. 
 Commercial men with whom he had transacted business liked 
 to discuss his abilities, thus disseminating that solid respect 
 for him which had sprung from a personal experience of 
 those abilities, and which not even the shabbiness of his 
 clothes could weaken.
 
 28 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Anna was disturbed by the arrival at the front door of 
 the milk-girl. Alternately with her father, she stayed at 
 home on Sunday evenings, partly to receive the evening 
 milk and partly to guard the house. The Persian cat with 
 one ear preceded her to the door as soon as he heard the 
 clatter of the can. The stout little milk-girl dispensed one 
 pint of milk into Anna's jug, and spilt an eleemosynary 
 supply on the step for the cat. " He does like it fresh, 
 miss," said the milk-girl, smiling at the greedy cat, and 
 then, with a " Lovely evenin'," departed down the street, 
 one fat red arm stretched horizontally out to balance the 
 weight of the can in the other. Anna leaned idly against 
 the doorpost, waiting while the cat finished, until at length 
 the swaying figure of the milk-girl disappeared in the dip 
 of the road. Suddenly she darted within, shutting the door, 
 and stood on the hall-mat in a startled attitude of dismay. 
 She had caught sight of Henry Mynors in the distance, 
 approaching the house. At that moment the kitchen clock 
 struck seven, and Mynors, according to the rule of a life- 
 time, should have been in his place in the " orchestra " (or, 
 as some term it, the " singing-seat " ) of the chapel, where 
 he was an admired baritone. Anna dared not conjecture 
 what impulse had led him into this extraordinary, incredi- 
 ble deviation. She dared not conjecture, but despite her- 
 self she knew, and the knowledge shocked her sensitive and 
 peremptory conscience. Her heart began to beat rapidly ; 
 she was in distress. Aware that her father and sister had 
 left her alone, did he mean to call? It was absolutely im- 
 possible, yet she feared it, and blushed, all solitary there
 
 THE MISER'S DAUGHTER 29 
 
 in the passage, for shame. Now she heard his sharp, de- 
 cided footsteps, and through the glazed panels of the door 
 she could see the outline of his form. He stopped ; his hand 
 was on the gate, and she ceased to breathe. He pushed 
 the gate open, and then, at the whisper of some blessed 
 angel, he closed it again and continued his way up the street. 
 . . . After a few moments Anna carried the milk into 
 the kitchen, and stood by the dresser, moveless, each muscle 
 braced in the intensity of profound contemplation. Grad- 
 ually the tears rose to her eyes and fell; they were the 
 tincture of a strange and mystic joy, too poignant to be 
 endured. As it were under compulsion she ran outside, and 
 down the garden path to the low wall which looked over the 
 grey fields of the valley up to Hillport. Exactly opposite, 
 a mile and a half away, on the ridge, was Hillport Church, 
 dark and clear against the orange sky. To the right, and 
 nearer, lay the central masses of the town, tier on tier of 
 richly-coloured ovens and chimneys. Along the field-paths 
 couples moved slowly. All was quiescent, languorous, beau- 
 tiful in the glow of the sun's stately declension. Anna 
 put her arms on the wall. Far more impressively than in 
 the afternoon she realised that this was the end of one 
 epoch in her career and the beginning of another. En- 
 thralled by austere traditions and that stern conscience of 
 hers, she had never permitted herself to dream of the pos- 
 sibility of an escape from the parental servitude. She had 
 never looked beyond the horizons of her present world, but 
 had sought spiritual satisfaction in the ideas of duty and 
 sacrifice. The worst tyrannies of her father never dulled
 
 30 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 the sense of her duty to him; and, without perhaps being 
 aware of it, she had rather despised love and the dalliance 
 of the sexes. In her attitude towards such things there had 
 been not only a little contempt, but also some disapproval, 
 as though man were destined for higher ends. Now she 
 saw, in a quick revelation, that it was the lovers, and not 
 she, who had the right to scorn. She saw how miserably 
 narrow, tepid, and trickling the stream of her life had been, 
 and had threatened to be. Now it gushed forth warm, 
 impetuous, and full, opening out new and delicious vistas. 
 She lived ; and she was finding the sight to see, the courage 
 to enjoy. Now, as she leaned over the wall, she would not 
 have cared if Henry Mynors indeed had called that night. 
 She perceived something splendid and free in his abandon- 
 ment of habit and discretion at the bidding of a desire. To 
 be the magnet which could draw that pattern and exemplar 
 "of seemliness from the strict orbit of virtuous custom ! It 
 was she, the miser's shabby daughter, who had caused this 
 amazing phenomenon. The thought intoxicated her. 
 Without the support of the wall she might have fallen. In 
 a sort of trance she murmured these words : " He loves me." 
 
 This was Anna Tellwright, the ascetic, the prosaic, the 
 impassive. 
 
 After an interval which to her was as much like a minute 
 as a century, she went back into the house. As she entered 
 by the kitchen she heard an impatient knocking at the front 
 door. 
 
 " At last," said her father grimly, when she opened the 
 door. In two words he had resumed his terrible sway over
 
 THE MISER'S DAUGHTER 31 
 
 her. Agnes looked timidly from one to the other and 
 slipped past them into the house. 
 
 " I was in the garden," Anna explained. " Have you 
 been here long ? " She tried to smile apologetically. 
 
 " Only about a quarter of an hour," he answered, with a 
 grimness still more portentous. 
 
 " He won't speak again to-night," she thought fearfully. 
 But she was mistaken. After he had carefully hung his 
 best hat on the hat-rack, he turned towards her, and said, 
 with a queer smile: 
 
 " Ye've been day-dreaming, eh, Sis? " 
 
 " Sis " was her pet name, used often by Agnes, but by 
 her father only at the very rarest intervals. She was 
 staggered at this change of front, so unaccountable in this 
 man, who, when she had unwittingly annoyed him, was ca- 
 pable of keeping an awful silence for days together. What 
 did he know? What had those old eyes seen? 
 
 " I forgot," she stammered, gathering herself together 
 happily, " I forgot the time." She felt that after all there 
 was a bond between them which nothing could break the 
 tie of blood. They were father and daughter, united by 
 sympathies obscure, but fundamental. Kissing was not in 
 the Tellwright blood, but she had a fleeting wish to hug the 
 tyrant.
 
 Ill: THE BIRTHDAY 
 
 THE next morning there was no outward sign that 
 anything unusual had occurred. As the clock in the 
 kitchen struck eight Anna carried to the back parlour 
 a tray on which were a dish of bacon and a coffee-pot. 
 Breakfast was already laid for three. She threw a house- 
 keeper's glance over the table, and called : " Father ! " Mr. 
 Tellwright was resetting some encaustic tiles in the lobby. 
 He came in, coatless, and, dropping a trowel on the hearth, 
 sat down at the end of the table nearest the fireplace. Anna 
 sat opposite to him, and poured out the coffee. 
 
 On the dish were six pieces of bacon. He put one piece 
 on a plate, and set it carefully in front of Agnes's vacant 
 chair, two he passed to Anna, three he kept for himself - 
 
 " Where's Agnes ? " he enquired. 
 
 " Coming she's finishing her arithmetic." 
 
 In the middle of the table was an unaccustomed small 
 jug containing gilliflowers. Mr. Tellwright noticed it 
 instantly. 
 
 " What an we gotten here? " he said, indicating the jug. 
 
 " Agnes gave me them first thing when she got up. She's 
 grown them herself, you know," Anna said, and then added : 
 " It's my birthday." 
 
 " Ay ! " he exclaimed, with a trace of satire in his voice. 
 " Thou'rt a woman now, lass." 
 
 83
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 33 
 
 No further remark on that matter was made during the 
 meal. 
 
 Agnes ran in, all pinafore and legs. With a toss 
 backwards of her light golden hair she slipped silently into 
 her seat, cautiously glancing at the master of the house. 
 Then she began to stir her coffee. 
 
 " Now, young woman," Tellwright said curtly. 
 
 She looked a startled interrogative. 
 
 " Were waiting," he explained. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Agnes, confused. " I thought you'd said 
 it. * God sanctify this food to our use and us to His ser- 
 vice for Christ's sake, Amen.' " 
 
 The breakfast proceeded in silence. Breakiast at eight, 
 dinner at noon, tea at four, supper at eight: all the meals 
 in this house occurred with absolute precision and sameness. 
 Mr. Tellwright seldom spoke, and his example imposed 
 silence on the girls, who felt as nuns feel when assisting at 
 some grave, but monotonous and perfunctory rite. The 
 room was not a cheerful one in the morning, since the win- 
 dow was small and the aspect westerly. Besides the table 
 and three horse-hair chairs, the furniture consisted of an 
 arm-chair, a bent-wood rocking chair, and a sewing-ma- 
 chine. A fatigued Brussels carpet covered the floor. Over 
 the mantelpiece was an engraving of " The Light of the 
 World," in a frame of polished brown wood. On the other 
 walls were some family photographs in black frames. A two- 
 light chandelier hung from the ceiling, weighed down on 
 one side by a patent gas-saving mantle and a glass shade; 
 over this the ceiling was deeply discoloured. On either side
 
 34 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 of the chimney-breast were cupboards about three feet high ; 
 some cardboard boxes, a work-basket, and Agnes's school 
 books lay on the tops of these cupboards. On the window- 
 sill was a pot of mignonette in a saucer. The window was 
 wide open, and flies buzzed to and fro, constantly rebound- 
 ing from the window panes with terrible thuds. In the 
 blue-paved yard beyond the cat was licking himself in the 
 sunlight with an air of being wholly absorbed in his task. 
 
 Mr. Tellwright demanded a second and last cup of 
 coffee, and having drunk it pushed away his plate as a sign 
 that he had finished. Then he took from the mantelpiece 
 at his right hand a bundle of letters and opened them 
 methodically. When he had arranged the correspondence 
 in a flattened pile, he put on his steel-rimmed spectacles 
 and began to read. 
 
 " Can I return thanks, father? " Agnes asked, and he 
 nodded, looking at her fixedly over his spectacles. 
 
 " Thank God for our good breakfast, Amen." 
 
 In two minutes the table was cleared, and Mr. Tellwright 
 was alone. As he read laboriously through communications 
 from solicitors, secretaries of companies, and tenants, he 
 could hear his daughters talking together in the kitchen. 
 Anna was washing the breakfast things while Agnes wiped. 
 Then there were flying steps across the yard: Agnes had 
 gone to school. 
 
 After he had mastered his correspondence, Mr. Tellwright 
 took up the trowel again and finished the tile-setting in the 
 lobby. Then he resumed his coat, and, gathering together 
 the letters from the table in the back parlour, went into
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 35 
 
 the front parlour and shut the door. This room was his 
 office. The principal things in it were an old oak bureau 
 and an oak desk-chair which had come to him from his 
 first wife's father ; on the walls were some sombre landscapes 
 in oil, received from the same source; there was no carpet 
 on the floor, and only one other chair. A safe stood in the 
 corner opposite the door. On the mantelpiece were some 
 books Woodfall's " Landlord and Tenant," Jordan's 
 " Guide to Company Law," Whitaker's Almanac, and a 
 Gazetteer of the Five Towns. Several wire files, loaded 
 with papers, hung from the mantelpiece. With the ex- 
 ception of a mahogany what-not with a Bible on it, which 
 stood in front of the window, there was nothing else what- 
 ever in the room. He sat down to the bureau and opened 
 it, and took from one of the pigeonholes a packet of various 
 documents : these he examined one by one, from time to time 
 referring to a list. Then he unlocked the safe and ex- 
 tracted from it another bundle of documents which had evi- 
 dently been placed ready. With these in his hand, he 
 opened the door, and called out : 
 
 " Anna." 
 
 " Yes, father " ; her voice came from the kitchen. 
 
 " I want ye." 
 
 " In a minute. I'm peeling potatoes." 
 
 When she came in, she found him seated at the bureau 
 as usual. He did not look round. 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 She stood there in her print dress and white apron, full 
 in the eye of the sun, waiting for him. She could not
 
 36 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 guess what she had been summoned for. As a rule, she 
 never saw her father between breakfast and dinner. At 
 length he turned. 
 
 " Anna," he said in his harsh, abrupt tones, and then 
 stopped for a moment before continuing. His thick, short 
 fingers held the list which he had previously been consulting. 
 She waited in bewilderment. " It's your birthday, ye told 
 me. I hadna' forgotten. Ye're of age to-day, and there's 
 summat for ye. Your mother had a fortune of her own, 
 and under your grandfeyther's will it comes to you when 
 you're twenty-one. I'm th' trustee. Your mother had 
 eighteen thousand pounds i' Government stock." He laid 
 a slight sneering emphasis on the last two words. " That 
 was near twenty-five year ago. I've nigh on trebled it for 
 ye, what wi' good investments and interest accumulating. 
 Thou'rt worth " here he changed to the second personal 
 singular, a habit with him " thou'rt worth this day as 
 near fifty thousand as makes no matter, Anna. And that's 
 a tidy bit." 
 
 " Fifty thousand pounds! " she exclaimed, aghast. 
 
 " Ay, lass." 
 
 She tried to speak calmly. " Do you mean it's mine, 
 father?" 
 
 " It's thine, under thy grandfeyther's will haven't I 
 told thee? I'm bound by law for to give it to thee this day, 
 and thou mun give me a receipt in due form for the secu- 
 rities. Here they are, and here's the list. Tak' the list, 
 Anna, and read it to me while I check off." 
 
 She mechanically took the blue paper and read :
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 37 
 
 " Toft End Colliery and Brickworks Limited, five hun- 
 dred shares of ten pounds." 
 
 " They paid ten per cent, last year," he said, " and with 
 coal up as it is they'll pay fiftane this. Let's see what 
 thy arithmetic is worth, lass. How much is fiftane per 
 cent, on five thousand pun ? " 
 
 " Seven hundred and fifty pounds," she said, getting the 
 correct answer by a superhuman effort worthy of that occa- 
 sion. 
 
 "Right," said her father, pleased. "Recollect that's 
 more till two pun a day. Go on." 
 
 " North Staffordshire Railway Company ordinary stock, 
 ten thousand and two hundred pounds." 
 
 " Right. Th' owd North Stafford's getting up i' the 
 world. It '11 be a five per cent, line yet. Then thou mun 
 sell out." 
 
 She had only a vague idea of his meaning, and continued : 
 " Five Towns Waterworks Company Limited consolidated 
 stock, eight thousand five hundred pounds." 
 
 " That's a tit-bit, lass," he interjected, looking absently 
 over his spectacles at something outside in the road. " You 
 canna' pick that up on shardrucks." 
 
 " Norris's Brewery Limited, six hundred ordinary shares 
 of ten pounds." 
 
 " Twenty per cent.," said the old man. " Twenty 
 per cent, regular." He made no attempt to conceal 
 his pride in these investments. And he had the right 
 to be proud of them. They were the finest in the 
 market, the aristocracy of investments, based on commer-
 
 38 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 cial enterprises of which every business man in the Five 
 Towns knew the entire soundness. They conferred dis- 
 tinction on the possessor, like a great picture or a rare 
 volume. They stifled all questions and insinuations. Put 
 before any jury of the Five Towns as evidence of character, 
 they would almost have exculpated a murderer. 
 
 Anna continued reading the list, which seemed endless: 
 long before she had reached the last item her brain was a 
 menagerie of monstrous figures. The list included, besides 
 all sorts of shares English and American, sundry properties 
 in the Five Towns, and among these was the earthenware 
 manufactory in Edward Street occupied by Titus Price, the 
 Sunday-school superintendent. Anna was a little alarmed 
 to find herself the owner of this works; she knew that her 
 father had had some difficult moments with Titus Price, 
 and that the property was not without grave disadvantages. 
 
 " That's all? " Tellwright asked, at length. 
 
 " That's all." 
 
 " Total face value," he went on, " as I value it, forty- 
 eight thousand and fifty pounds, producing a net annual 
 income of three thousand two hundred and ninety pounds 
 or thereabouts. There's not many in this district as 'as 
 gotten that to their names, Anna no, nor half that let 
 'em be who they will." 
 
 Anna had sensations such as a child might have who has 
 received a traction-engine to play with in a back-yard. 
 " What am I to do with it? " she asked plaintively. 
 
 " Do wi' it? " he repeated, and stood up and faced her, 
 putting his lips together : " Do wi' it, did ye say ? "
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 39 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Tak' care on it, my girl. Tak' care on it. And re- 
 member it's thine. Thou mun sign this list, and all these 
 transfers and fal-fals, and then thou mun go to th' Bank, 
 and tell Mester Lovatt I've sent thee. There's four hun- 
 dred pound there. He'll give thee a cheque-book. I've 
 told him all about it. Thou'lt have thy own account, and 
 be sure thou keeps it straight." 
 
 " I shan't know a bit what to do, father, and so it's no 
 use talking," she said quietly. 
 
 " I'll learn ye," he replied. " Here, tak' th' pen, and 
 let's have thy signature." 
 
 She signed her name many times and put her finger on 
 many seals. Then Tellwright gathered up everything 
 into a bundle, and gave it to her to hold. 
 
 " That's the lot," he said. " Have ye gotten 'em ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 They both smiled self-consciously. As for Tellwright, 
 he was evidently impressed by the grandeur of this superb 
 renunciation on his part. " Shall I keep 'em for ye? " 
 
 " Yes, please." 
 
 " Then give 'em me." 
 
 He took back all the documents. 
 
 " When shall I call at the Bank, father? 
 
 " Better call this afternoon afore three, mind ye." 
 
 " Very well. But I shan't know what to do." 
 
 " You've gotten a tongue i' that noddle of yours, haven't 
 ye ? " he said. " Now go and get along wi' them po- 
 tatoes."
 
 40 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Anna returned to the kitchen. She felt no elation or fer- 
 ment of any kind ; she had not begun to realise the signifi- 
 cance of what had occurred. Like the soldier whom a bullet 
 has struck, she only knew vaguely that something had oc- 
 curred. She peeled the potatoes with more than her usual 
 thrifty care; the peel was so thin as to be almost trans- 
 parent. It seemed to her that she could not arrange or 
 examine her emotions until after she had met Henry Mynors 
 again. More than anything else she wished to see him: it 
 was as if out of the mere sight of him something definite 
 might emerge; as if, when her eyes had rested on him, and 
 not before, she might perceive some simple solution of 
 the problems which she obscurely discerned ahead of 
 her. 
 
 During dinner a boy brought a note for her father. He 
 read it, snorted, and threw it across the table to Anna. 
 
 " Here," he said, " that's your affair." 
 
 The letter was from Titus Price : it said that he was sorry 
 to be compelled to break his promise, but it was quite impos- 
 sible for him to pay twenty pounds on account of rent that 
 day. He would endeavour to pay at least twenty pounds 
 in a week's time. 
 
 " You'd better call there, after you've been to th' Bank," 
 said Tellwright, " and get summat out of him, if it's only 
 ten pun." 
 
 " Must I go to Edward Street? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What am I to say ? I've never been there before." 
 
 " Well, it's high time as ye began to look after your
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 41 
 
 own property. You mun see owd Price, and tell him ye 
 cannot accept any excuses." 
 
 " How much does he owe." 
 
 " He owes ye a hundred and twenty-five pun altogether 
 he's five quarters in arrear." 
 
 " A hundred and ! Well, I never ! " Anna was 
 
 aghast. The sum appeared larger to her than all the thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands which she had received in the 
 morning. She reflected that the weekly bills of the house- 
 hold amounted to about a sovereign, and that the total of 
 this debt of Price's would therefore keep them in food for 
 two years. The idea of being in debt was abhorrent to her. 
 She could not conceive how a man who was in debt could 
 sleep at nights. " Mr. Price ought to be ashamed of him- 
 self," she said warmly. " I'm sure he's quite able to pay." 
 The image of the sleek and stout superintendent of the 
 Sunday-school, arrayed in his rich, almost voluptuous, 
 broadcloth, offended her profoundly. That he, debtor and 
 promise-breaker, should have the effrontery to pray for 
 the souls of children, to chastise their petty furtive crimes, 
 was nearly incredible. 
 
 " Oh! Price is all right," her father remarked, with an 
 apparent benignity which surprised her. " He'll pay when 
 he can." 
 
 " I think it's a shame," she repeated emphatically. 
 
 Agnes looked with a mystified air from one to the other, 
 instinctively divining that something very extraordinary 
 had happened during her absence at school. 
 
 " Ye mun'na be too hard, Anna," said Tellwright. " Sup-
 
 42 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 posing ye sold owd Titus up? When then? D'ye reckon 
 ye'd get a tenant for them ramshackle works? A thou- 
 sand pound spent would'na 'tice a tenant. That Edward 
 Street property was one o' ye grandfeyther's specs; 
 'twere none o' mine. You'd best tak' what ye can 
 get." 
 
 Anna felt a little ashamed of herself, not because of 
 her bad policy, but because she saw that Mr. Price might 
 have been handicapped by the faults of her property. 
 
 That afternoon it was a shy and timid Anna who swung 
 back the heavy polished and glazed portals of the Bursley 
 branch of the Birmingham, Sheffield and District Bank, the 
 opulent and spacious erection which stands commandingly 
 at the top of St. Luke's Square. She looked about her 
 across broad counters, enormous ledgers, and rows of bent 
 heads, and wondered whom she should address. Then a 
 bearded gentleman, who was weighing gold in a balance, 
 caught sight of her: he slid the gold into a drawer, and 
 whisked round the end of the counter with a celerity which 
 was, at any rate, not born of practice, for he, the cashier, 
 had not done such a thing for years. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, Miss Tcllwright." 
 
 " Good-afternoon. I 
 
 " May I trouble you to step into the manager's room ? " 
 and he drew her forward, while every clerk's eye watched. 
 Anna tried not to blush, but she could feel the red mount- 
 ing even to her temples. 
 
 " Delightful weather we're having. But of course we've 
 the right to expect it at this time of year," He opened
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 43 
 
 a door on the glass of which was painted " Manager," and 
 bowed. " Mr. Lovatt Miss Tellwright." 
 
 Mr. Lovatt greeted his new customer with a formal and 
 rather fatigued politeness, and invited her to sit in a large 
 leather armchair in front of a large table ; on this table lay 
 a large open book. Anna had once in her life been to the 
 dentist's; this interview reminded her of that experience. 
 
 " Your father told me I might expect you to-day," said 
 Mr. Lovatt in his high-pitched, perfunctory tones. Rich- 
 ard Lovatt was probably the most influential man in Burs- 
 ley. Every Saturday morning he irrigated the whole town 
 with fertilising gold. By a single negative he could have 
 ruined scores of upright merchants and manufacturers. 
 He had only to stop a man in the street and murmur, " By 
 
 the way, your overdraft ," in order to spread discord 
 
 and desolation through a refined and pious home. His 
 estimate of human nature was falsified by no common illu- 
 sions; he had the impassive and frosty gaze of a criminal 
 judge. Many men deemed they had cause to hate him, 
 but no one did hate him : all recognised that he was set far 
 above hatred. 
 
 " Kindly sign your full name here," he said, pointing to 
 a spot on the large open page of the book, " and your 
 ordinary signature, which you will attach to cheques, 
 here." 
 
 Anna wrote, but in doing so she became aware that she 
 had no ordinary signature; she was obliged to invent one. 
 
 " Do you wish to draw anything out now ? There is 
 already a credit of four hundred and twenty pounds in your
 
 44 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 favour," said Mr. Lovatt, after he had handed her a 
 cheque-book, a deposit-book, and a pass-book. 
 
 " Oh, no, thank you," Anna answered quickly. She 
 keenly desired some money, but she well knew that courage 
 would fail her to demand it without her father's consent; 
 moreover, she was in a whirl of uncertainty as to the uses 
 of the three books, though Mr. Lovatt had expounded them 
 severally to her in simple language. 
 
 " Good-day, Miss Tellwright." 
 
 " Good-day." 
 
 " My compliments to your father." 
 
 His final glance said half cynically, half in pity : " You 
 are nai've and unspoilt now, but these eyes will see yours 
 harden like the rest. Wretched victim of gold, you are 
 only one in a procession, after all." 
 
 Outside, Anna thought that everyone had been very 
 agreeable to her. Her complacency increased at a bound. 
 She no longer felt ashamed of her shabby cotton dress. 
 She surmised that people would find it convenient to ignore 
 any difference which might exist between her costume and 
 that of other girls. 
 
 She went on to Edward Street, a short steep thorough- 
 fare at the eastern extremity of the town, leading into a 
 rough road across unoccupied land dotted with the mouths of 
 abandoned pits : this road climbed up to Toft End, a mean 
 annex of the town, about half a mile east of Bleakridge. 
 From Toft End, lying on the highest hill in the district, 
 one had a panoramic view of Hanbridge and Bursley, with 
 Hillport to the west, and all the moorland and mining vil-
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 45 
 
 lages to the north and northeast. Titus Price and his son 
 lived in what had once been a farmhouse at Toft End; 
 every morning and evening they traversed the desolate and 
 featureless grey road between their dwelling and the 
 works. 
 
 Anna had never been in Edward Street before. It was 
 a miserable quarter two rows of blackened infinitesimal 
 cottages, and her manufactory at the end a frontier post 
 of the town. Price's works was small, old-fashioned, and 
 out of repair one of those properties which are forlorn 
 from the beginning, which bring despair into the hearts of 
 a succession of owners, and which, being ultimately de- 
 serted, seem to stand forever in pitiable ruin. The arched 
 entrance for carts into the yard was at the top of the steep- 
 est rise of the street, when it might as well have been at 
 the bottom ; and this was but one example of the architect's 
 fine disregard for the principle of economy in working 
 that principle to which, in the scheming of manufactories, 
 everything else is now so strictly subordinated. Ephraim 
 Tellwright used to say (but not to Titus Price) that the 
 situation of that archway cost five pounds a year in 
 horseflesh, and that five pounds was the interest on a 
 hundred. The place was badly located, badly planned, 
 and badly constructed. Its faults defied improvement. 
 Titus Price remained in it only because he was chained 
 there by arrears of rent ; Tellwright hesitated to sell it only 
 because the rent was a hundred a year, and the whole free- 
 hold would not have fetched eight hundred. He promised 
 repairs in exchange for payment of arrears which he knew
 
 46 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 would never be paid, and his policy was to squeeze the last 
 penny out of Price without forcing him into bankruptcy. 
 Such was the predicament when Anna assumed ownership. 
 As she surveyed the irregular and huddled frontage from 
 the opposite side of the street, her first feeling was one of 
 depression at the broken and dirty panes of the windows. 
 A man in shirt-sleeves was standing on the weighing plat- 
 form under the archway ; his back was towards her, but she 
 could see the smoke issuing in puffs from his pipe. She 
 crossed the road. Hearing her footfalls, the man turned 
 round: it was Titus Price himself. He was wearing an 
 apron, but no cap ; the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, 
 exposing forearms covered with auburn hair. His puffed, 
 heavy face, and general bigness and untidiness, gave the 
 idea of a vast and torpid male slattern. Anna was 
 astounded by the contrast between the Titus of Sunday 
 and the Titus of Monday : a single glance compelled her to 
 readjust all her notions of the man. She stammered a 
 greeting, and he replied, and then they were both silent for 
 a moment: in the pause Mr. Price thrust his pipe between 
 apron and waistcoat. 
 
 " Come inside, Miss Tellwright," he said, with a sickly, 
 conciliatory smile. " Come into the office, will ye? " 
 
 She followed him without a word through the archway. 
 To the right was an open door into the packing-house, where 
 a man, surrounded by straw, was packing basins in a crate : 
 with swift, precise movements, twisting straw between basin 
 and basin, he forced piles of ware into a space inconceivably 
 small. Mr. Price lingered to watch him for a few seconds,
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 47 
 
 and passed on. They were in the yard, a small quadrangle 
 paved with black, greasy mud. In one corner a load of 
 coal had been cast ; in another lay a heap of broken saggars. 
 Decrepit doorways led to the various " shops " on the 
 ground floor ; those on the upper floor were reached by nar- 
 row wooden stairs, which seemed to cling insecurely to the 
 exterior walls. Up one of these stairways Mr. Price 
 climbed with heavy, elephantine movements: Anna pru- 
 dently waited till he had reached the top before beginning 
 to ascend. He pushed open a flimsy door, and with a nod 
 bade her enter. The office was a long, narrow room, the 
 dirtiest that Anna had ever seen. If such was the condi- 
 tion of the master's quarters, she thought, what must the 
 workshops be like? The ceiling, which bulged downwards, 
 was as black as the floor, which sank away in the middle 
 till it was hollow like a saucer. The revolution of an 
 engine somewhere below shook everything with a periodic 
 muffled thud. A greyish light came through one small 
 window. By the window was a large double desk, with 
 chairs facing each other. One of these chairs was occupied 
 by Willie Price. The youth did not observe at first that 
 another person had come in with his father. He was cast- 
 ing up figures in an account book, and murmuring numbers 
 to himself. He wore an office coat, short at the wrists and 
 torn at the elbows, and a battered felt hat was thrust far 
 back over his head, so that the brim rested on his dirty collar. 
 He turned round at length, and, on seeing Anna, blushed 
 brilliant crimson, and rose, scraping the legs of his chair 
 horridly across the floor. Tall, thin, and ungainly in every
 
 48 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 motion, he had the look of a ninny : it was the fact that at 
 school all the boys by a common instinct had combined to 
 tease him, and that on the works the young paintresses con- 
 tinually made private sport of him. Anna, however, had 
 not the least impulse to mock him in her thoughts. For 
 her there was nothing in his blue eyes but simplicity and 
 good intentions. Beside him she felt old, sagacious, 
 crafty ; it seemed to her that someone ought to shield that 
 transparent and confiding soul from his father and the in- 
 triguing world. 
 
 He spoke to her and lifted his hat, holding it afterwards 
 in his great bony hand. 
 
 " Get down to th' entry, Will," said his father, and 
 Willie, with an apologetic sort of cough, slipped silently 
 away through the door. 
 
 " Sit down, Miss Tellwright," said old Price, and she 
 took the windsor chair that had been occupied by Willie. 
 Her tenant fell into the seat opposite a leathern chair from 
 which the stuffing had exuded, and with one of its arms 
 broken. " I hear as ye father is going into partnership 
 with young Mynors Henry Mynors." 
 
 Anna started at this surprising item of news, which was 
 entirely fresh to her. " Father has said nothing to me 
 about it," she replied coldly. 
 
 " Oh ! Happen I've said too much. If so, you'll excuse 
 me, miss. A smart fellow, Mynors. Now you should see 
 his little works : not very much bigger than this, but there's 
 everything you can think of there all the latest machin- 
 ery and dodges, and not over-rented, I'm told. The big-
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 49 
 
 gest fool i' Bursley couldn't help but make money there. 
 This 'ere works 'ere, Miss Tellwright, wants mendin' with a 
 new 'un." 
 
 " It looks very dirty, I must say," said Anna. 
 
 " Dirty ! " he laughed a short, acrid laugh " I sup- 
 pose you've called about the rent." 
 
 " Yes, father asked me to call." 
 
 " Let me see, this place belongs to you i' your own right, 
 doesn't it, miss ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Anna. " It's mine from my grandfather, 
 you know." 
 
 " Ah ! Well, I'm sorry for to tell ye as I can't pay any- 
 thing now no, not a cent. But I'll pay twenty pounds 
 in a week. Tell ye father I'll pay twenty pounds in a 
 week." 
 
 " That's what you said last week," Anna remarked, with 
 more brusqueness than she had intended. At first she was 
 fearful at her own temerity in thus addressing a superin- 
 tendent of the Sunday-school; then, as nothing happened, 
 she felt reassured, and strong in the justice of her position. 
 
 " Yes," he admitted obsequiously. " But I've been 
 disappointed. One of our best customers put us off, to tell 
 ye the truth. Money's tight, very tight. It's got to be 
 give and take in these days, as ye father knows. And 
 I may as well speak plain to ye, Miss Tellwright. We 
 canna' stay here; we shall be compelled to give ye notice. 
 What's amiss with this bank* is that it wants pullin' down." 
 He went off into a rapid enumeration of ninety and nine 
 * Bank = manufactory.
 
 50 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 alterations and repairs that must be done without the loss 
 of a moment, and concluded : " You tell ye father what I've 
 told ye, and say as I'll send up twenty pounds next week. 
 I can't pay anything now; I've nothing by me at all." 
 
 " Father said particularly I was to be sure and get some- 
 thing on account." There was a flinty hardness in her 
 tone which astonished herself perhaps more than Titus 
 Price. A long pause followed, and then Mr. Price drew a 
 breath, seeming to nerve himself to a tremendous sacrificial 
 deed. 
 
 " I tell ye what I'll do. I'll give ye ten pounds now, 
 and I'll do what I can next week. I'll do what I can. 
 There!" 
 
 " Thank you," said Anna. She was amazed at her suc- 
 cess. 
 
 He unlocked the desk, and his head disappeared under the 
 lifted lid. Anna gazed through the window. Like many 
 women, and not a few men, in the Five Towns, she was 
 wholly ignorant of the staple manufacture. The interior 
 of a works was almost as strange to her as it would have 
 been to a farm-hand from Sussex. A girl came out of a 
 door on the opposite side of the quadrangle: the creature 
 was clothed in clayey rags, and carried on her right shoul- 
 der a board laden with biscuit* cups. She began to mount 
 one of the wooden stairways, and as she did so the board, 
 six feet in length, swayed alarmingly to and fro. Anna 
 expected to see it fall with a destructive crash, but the girl 
 went up in safety, and with a nonchalant jerk of the shoul- 
 * Biscuit = a term applied to ware which has been fired only once.
 
 THE BIRTHDAY 51 
 
 der aimed the end of the board through another door and 
 vanished from sight. To Anna it was a thrilling feat, but 
 she noticed that a man who stood in the yard did not even 
 turn his head to watch it. Mr. Price recalled her to the 
 business of her errand. 
 
 " Here's two fives," he said, shutting down the desk with 
 the sigh of a crocodile. 
 
 " Liar ! You said you had nothing ! " her unspoken 
 thought ran, and at the same instant the Sunday-school and 
 everything connected with it grievously sank in her estima- 
 tion ; she contrasted this scene with that on the previous 
 day with the peccant schoolgirl: it was an hour of disillu- 
 sion. Taking the notes, she gave a receipt and rose to go. 
 
 " Tell ye father " it seemed to Anna that this phrase 
 was always on his lips " tell ye father he must come down 
 and look at the state this place is in," said Mr. Price, en- 
 heartened by the heroic payment of ten pounds. Anna said 
 nothing; she thought a fire would do more good than any- 
 thing else to the foul, squalid buildings : the passing fancy 
 coincided with Mr. Price's secret and most intense desire. 
 
 Outside she saw Willie Price superintending the lifting 
 of a crate on to a railway lorry. After twirling in the air, 
 the crate sank safely into the waggon. Young Price was 
 perspiring. 
 
 " Warm afternoon, Miss Tellwright," he called to her 
 as she passed, with his pleasant, bashful smile. She gave an 
 affirmative. Then he came to her, still smiling, his face full 
 of an intention to say something, however insignificant,
 
 62 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " I suppose you'll be at the special teachers' meeting 
 to-morrow night," he remarked. 
 
 " I hope to be," she said. That was all : William had 
 achieved his small-talk: they parted. 
 
 " So father and Mr. Mynors are going into partnership," 
 she kept saying to herself on the way home.
 
 IV: A VISIT 
 
 THE Special Teachers' Meeting to which Willie 
 Price had referred was one of the final preliminaries 
 to a Revival that is, a revival of godliness and 
 Christian grace about to be undertaken by the Wesleyan 
 Methodist Society in Bursley. Its object was to arrange 
 for a personal visitation of the parents of Sunday-school 
 scholars in their homes. Hitherto Anna had felt but little 
 interest in the Revival : it had several times been brought in- 
 directly before her notice, but she had regarded it as a phe- 
 omenon which recurred at intervals in the cycle of religious 
 activity, and as not in any way affecting herself. The 
 gradual centring of public interest, however that mysteri- 
 ous movement which, defying analysis, gathers force as it 
 proceeds, and ends by coercing the most indifferent had 
 already modified her attitude towards this forthcoming 
 event. It got about that the preacher who had been en- 
 gaged, a specialist in revivals, was a man of miraculous 
 powers: the number of souls which he had snatched from 
 eternal torment was precisely stated, and it amounted to tens 
 of thousands. He played the cornet to the glory of God, 
 and his cornet was of silver : his more distant past had been 
 ineffably wicked, and the faint rumour of that dead wicked- 
 ness clung to his name like a piquant odour. As Anna 
 walked up Trafalgar Road from Price's she observed that 
 the hoardings had been billed with great posters announc- 
 
 53
 
 54 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 ing the Revival and the revivalist, who was to commence his 
 work on Friday night. 
 
 During tea Mr. Tellwright interrupted his perusal of the 
 evening " Signal " to give utterance to a rather remark- 
 able speech. 
 
 " Bless us ! " he said. " Th' old trumpeter '11 turn the 
 town upside down ! " 
 
 " Do you mean the revivalist, father ? " Anna asked. 
 
 " Ay ! " 
 
 " He's a beautiful man," Agnes exclaimed with enthus- 
 iasm. " Our teacher showed us his portrait after school 
 this afternoon. I never saw such a beautiful man." 
 
 Her father gazed hard at the child for an instant, cup in 
 hand, and then turned to Anna with a slightly sardonic 
 air. 
 
 " What are you doing i' this Revival, Anna? " 
 
 " Nothing," she said. " Only there's a teachers' meet- 
 ing about it to-morrow night, and I have to go to that. 
 Young Mr. Price mentioned it to me specially to-day." 
 
 A pause followed. 
 
 " Didst get anything out o' Price? " Tellwright asked. 
 
 " Yes ; he gave me ten pounds. He wants you to go and 
 look over the works says they're falling to pieces." 
 
 " Cheque, I reckon ? " 
 
 She corrected the surmise. 
 
 " Better give me them notes, Anna," he said after tea. 
 " I'm going to th' Bank i' th' morning, and I'll pay 'em in 
 to your account." 
 
 There was no reason why she should not have suggested
 
 A VISIT 55 
 
 the propriety of keeping at least one of the notes for her 
 private use. But she dared not. She had never had any 
 money of her own, not a penny; and the effective posses- 
 sion of five pounds seemed far too audacious a dream. She 
 hesitated to imagine her father's reply to such a request, 
 even to frame the request to herself. The thing, viewed 
 close, was utterly impossible. And when she relinquished 
 the notes she also, without being asked, gave up her cheque- 
 book, deposit-book, and pass-book. She did this while 
 ardently desiring to refrain from doing it, as it were under 
 the compulsion of an invincible instinct. Afterwards she 
 felt more at ease, as though some disturbing question had 
 been settled once and for all. 
 
 During the whole of that evening she timorously ex- 
 pected Mynors, saying to herself, however, that he certainly 
 would not call before Thursday. On Tuesday evening she 
 started early for the teachers' meeting. Her intention was 
 to arrive among the first and to choose a seat in obscurity, 
 since she knew well that every eye would be upon her. She 
 was divided between the desire to see Mynors and the de- 
 sire to avoid the ordeal of being seen by her colleagues in 
 his presence. She trembled lest she should be incapable of 
 commanding her mien so as to appear unconscious of this 
 inspection by curious eyes. 
 
 The meeting was held in a large class-room, furnished 
 with wooden seats, a chair, and a small table. On the grey 
 distempered walls hung a few Biblical cartoons depicting 
 scenes in the life of Joseph and his brethren but without 
 reference to Potiphar's wife. From the whitewashed ceil-
 
 56 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 ing depended a T-shaped gas-fitting, one burner of which 
 showed a glimmer, though the sun had not yet set. The 
 evening was oppressively warm, and through the wide-open 
 window came the faint effluvium of populous cottages and 
 the distant, but raucous, cries of children at play. When 
 Anna entered a group of young men were talking eagerly 
 round the table ; among these was Willie Price, who greeted 
 her. No others had come: she sat down in a corner by the 
 door, invisible except from within the room. Gradually the 
 place began to fill. Then at last Mynors entered: Anna 
 recognised his authoritative step before she saw him. He 
 walked quickly to the chair in front of the table, and, in- 
 cluding all in a friendly and generous smile, said that in 
 the absence of Mr. Titus Price it fell to him to take the 
 chair : he was glad that so many had made a point of being 
 present. Everyone sat down. He gave out a hymn, and 
 led the singing himself, attacking the first note with an as- 
 surance born of practice. Then he prayed, and as he 
 prayed Anna gazed at him intently. He was standing up, 
 the ends of his fingers pressed against the top of the table. 
 Very carefully dressed as usual, he wore a brilliant new red 
 necktie, and a gardenia in his button-hole. He seemed 
 happy, wholesome, earnest, and unaffected. He had the 
 elasticity of youth with the firm wisdom of age. And it was 
 as if he had never been younger and would never grow 
 older, remaining always at just thirty and in his prime. 
 Incomparable to the rest, he was clearly born to lead. He 
 fulfilled his functions with tact, grace, and dignity. In 
 such an affair as this present he disclosed the attributes of
 
 A VISIT 57 
 
 the skilled workman, whose easy and exact movements are a 
 joy and wonder to the beholder. And behind all was the 
 man, his excellent and strong nature, his kindliness, his sin- 
 cerity. Yes, to Anna, Mynors was perfect that night; the 
 reality of him exceeded her dreamy meditations. Fearful 
 on the brink of an ecstatic bliss, she could scarcely believe 
 that from the enticements of a thousand women this para- 
 gon had been preserved for her. Like most of us, she 
 lacked the high courage to grasp happiness boldly and with- 
 out apprehension; she had not learnt that nothing is too 
 good to be true. 
 
 Mynors' prayer was a cogent appeal for the success of 
 the Revival. He knew what he wanted, and confidently 
 asked for it, approaching God with humility but with self- 
 respect. The prayer was punctuated by Amens from vari- 
 ous parts of the room. The atmosphere became suddenly 
 fervent, emotional, and devout. Here was lofty endeavour, 
 idealism, a burning spirituality ; and not all the pettinesses 
 unavoidable in such an organisation as a Sunday-school 
 could hide the difference between this impassioned altruism 
 and the ignoble selfishness of the worldly. Anna felt, as she 
 had often felt before, but more acutely now, that she ex- 
 isted only on the fringe of the Methodist society. She had 
 not been converted ; technically she was a lost creature : the 
 converted knew it, and in some subtle way their bearing 
 towards her, and others in her case, always showed that they 
 knew it. 
 
 Why did she teach? Not from the impulse of re- 
 ligious zeal. Why was she allowed to have charge of a
 
 58 
 
 class of immortal souls? The blind could not lead the 
 blind, nor the lost save the lost. These considerations 
 troubled her. Conscience pricked, accusing her of a con- 
 tinual pretence. The role of professing Christian, through 
 false shame, had seemed distasteful to her: she had said 
 that she could never stand up and say " I am for Christ," 
 without being uncomfortable. But now she was ashamed 
 of her inability to profess Christ. She could conceive her- 
 self proud and happy in the very part which formerly she 
 had despised. It was these believers, workers, exhorters, 
 wrestlers with Satan, who had the right to disdain; not 
 she. 
 
 At that moment, as if divining her thoughts, Mynors 
 prayed for those among them who were not converted. She 
 blushed, and when the prayer was finished she feared lest 
 every eye might seek hers in enquiry ; but no one seemed to 
 notice her. 
 
 Mynors sat down, and, seated, began to explain the ar- 
 rangements for the Revival. He made it plain that prayers 
 without industry would not achieve success. His remarks 
 revealed the fact that underneath the broad religious struc- 
 ture of the enterprise, and supporting it, there was a basis 
 of individual diplomacy and solicitation. The town had 
 been mapped out into districts, and each of these was being 
 importuned, as at an election : by the thoroughness and in- 
 stancy of this canvass, quite as much as by the intensity of 
 prayerful desire, would Christ conquer. The affair was a 
 campaign before it was a prostration at the Throne of 
 Grace. He spoke of the children, saying that in connection
 
 A VISIT 59 
 
 with these they, the teachers, had at once the highest priv- 
 ilege and the most sacred responsibility. He told of a 
 special service for the children, and the need of visiting 
 them in their homes and inviting the parents also to this 
 feast of God. He wished every teacher during to-morrow 
 and the next day and the next day to go through the list of 
 his or her scholars' names, and call, if possible, at every 
 house. There must be no shirking. " Will you ladies do 
 that? " he exclaimed with an appealing, serious smile. 
 " Will you, Miss Dickinson ? Will you, Miss Machin ? Will 
 
 you, Mrs. Salt? Will you, Miss Sutton? Will you " 
 
 Until at last it came: " Will you, Miss Tellwright? " " I 
 will," she answered, with averted eyes. " Thank you. 
 Thank you all." 
 
 Some others spoke, hopefully, enthusiastically, and one 
 or two prayed. Then Mynors rose : " May the blessing of 
 God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost rest upon us 
 now and for ever." " Amen," someone ejaculated. The 
 meeting was over. 
 
 Anna passed rapidly out of the door, down the Quad- 
 rangle, and into Trafalgar Road. She was the first to 
 leave, daring not to stay in the room a moment. She had 
 seen him ; he had not altered since Sunday ; there was no dis- 
 illusion, but a deepening of the original impression. 
 Caught up by the soaring of his spirit, her spirit lifted, and 
 she was conscious of vague, but intense, longing skyward. 
 She could not reason or think in that dizzying hour, but 
 she made resolutions which had no verbal form, yielding 
 eagerly to his influence and his appeal. Not till she had
 
 60 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 reached the bottom of Duck Bank and was breasting the 
 first rise towards Bleakridge did her pace slacken. Then a 
 voice called to her from behind. She recognised it, and 
 turned sharply beneath the shock. Mynors raised his hat 
 and greeted her. 
 
 " I'm coming to see your father," he said. 
 
 " Yes ? " she said, and gave him her hand. 
 
 " It was a very satisfactory meeting to-night," he began, 
 and in a moment they were talking seriously of the Re- 
 vival. With the most oblique delicacy, the most perfect 
 assumption of equality between them, he allowed her to 
 perceive his genuine and profound anxiety for her spirit- 
 ual welfare. The atmosphere of the meeting was still 
 round about him, the divine fire still uncooled. " I hope 
 you will come to the first service on Friday night," he 
 pleaded. 
 
 " I must," she replied. " Oh, yes ! I shall come." 
 
 " That is good," he said. " I particularly wanted your 
 promise." 
 
 They were at the door of the house. Agnes, obviously 
 expectant and excited, answered the bell. With an effort 
 Anna and Mynors passed into a lighter mood. 
 
 " Father said you were coming, Mr. Mynors," said 
 Agnes, and, turning to Anna, " I've set supper all my- 
 self." 
 
 " Have you ? " Mynors laughed. " Capital ! You must 
 let me give you a kiss for that." He bent down and kissed 
 her, she holding up her face to his with no reluctance. 
 Anna looked on, smiling.
 
 A VISIT 61 
 
 Mr. Tellwright sat near the window of the back parlour, 
 reading the paper. Twilight was at hand. He lowered 
 his head as Mynors entered with Agnes in train, so as to 
 see over his spectacles, which were half-way down his 
 nose. 
 
 " How d'ye do, Mr. Mynors? I was just going to be- 
 gin my supper. I don't wait, you know," and he glanced 
 at the table. 
 
 " Quite right," said Mynors, " so long as you wouldn't 
 eat it all. Would he have eaten it all, Agnes, do you think ?" 
 Agnes pressed her head against Mynors' arm and laughed 
 shyly. The old man sardonically chuckled. 
 
 Anna, who was still in the passage, wondered what could 
 be on the table. If it was only the usual morsel of cheese 
 she felt that she should expire of mortification. She peeped : 
 the cheese was at one end, and at the other a joint of beef, 
 scarcely touched. 
 
 " Nay, nay," said Tellwright, as if he had been engaged 
 some seconds upon the joke, " I'd have saved ye the 
 bone." 
 
 Anna went upstairs to take off her hat, and immediately 
 Agnes flew after her. The child was breathless with 
 news. 
 
 " Oh, Anna ! As soon as you'd gone out father told me 
 that Mr. Mynors was coming for supper. Did you know 
 before?" 
 
 " Not till Mr. Mynors told me, dear." It was character- 
 istic of her father to say nothing until the last mo- 
 ment.
 
 62 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Yes, and he told me to put an extra plate, and I asked 
 him if I had better put the beef on the table, and first he 
 said ' No,' cross you know and then he said I could 
 please myself, so I put it on. Why has Mr. Mynors come, 
 Anna? " 
 
 " How should I know? Some business between him and 
 father, I expect." 
 
 " It's very queer," said Agnes positively, with the 
 child's aptitude for looking a fact squarely in the 
 face. 
 
 "Why ' queer'?" 
 
 " You know it is, Anna," she frowned, and then breaking 
 into a joyous smile. "But isn't he nice? I think he's 
 lovely." " 
 
 " Yes," Anna assented coldly. 
 
 " But really?" Agnes persisted. 
 
 Anna brushed her hair and determined not to put on the 
 apron which she usually wore in the house. 
 
 "Am I tidy, Anna?" 
 
 " Yes. Run downstairs now. I'm coming directly." 
 
 " I want to wait for you," Agnes pouted. 
 
 " Very well, dear." 
 
 They entered the parlour together, and Henry Mynors 
 jumped up from his chair, and would not sit at table until 
 they were seated. Then Mr. Tellwright carved the beef 5 
 giving each of them a very small piece, and taking only 
 cheese for himself. Agnes handed the water- jug and the 
 bread. Mynors talked about nothing in especial, but he 
 talked and laughed the whole time; he even made the old
 
 A VISIT 63 
 
 man laugh, by a comical phrase aimed at Agnes's mad pas- 
 sion for gilliflowers. He seemed not to have detected any 
 shortcomings in the table appointments the coarse cloth 
 and plates, the chipped tumblers, the pewter cruet, and the 
 stumpy knives which caused anguish in the heart of the 
 housewife. He might have sat at such a table every night 
 of his life. 
 
 " May I trouble you for a little more beef? " he asked 
 presently, and Anna fancied a shade of mischief in his tone 
 as he thus forced the old man into a tardy hospitality. 
 " Thanks. And a morsel of fat." 
 
 She wondered whether he guessed that she was worth 
 fifty thousand pounds, and her father worth perhaps 
 more. 
 
 But on the whole Anna enjoyed the meal. She was sorry 
 when they had finished and Agnes had thanked God for the 
 beef. It was not without considerable reluctance that she 
 rose and left the side of the man whose arm she could have 
 touched at any time during the previous twenty minutes. 
 She had felt happy and perturbed in being so near to him, 
 so intimate and free; already she knew his face by heart. 
 The two girls carried the plates and dishes into the kitchen, 
 Agnes making the last journey with the tablecloth, which 
 Mynors had assisted her to fold. 
 
 " Shut the door, Agnes," said the old man, getting up 
 to light the gas. It was an order of dismissal to both his 
 daughters. " Let me light that," Mynors exclaimed, and 
 the gas was lighted before Mr. Tellwright had struck a 
 match. Mynors turned on the full force of gas. Then
 
 64 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Mr. Tellwright carefully lowered it. The summer 
 quarter's gas-bill at that house did not exceed five shil- 
 lings. 
 
 Through the open windows of the kitchen and parlour, 
 Anna could hear the voices of the two men in conversation, 
 Mynors' vivacious and changeful, her father's monotonous, 
 curt, and heavy. Once she caught the old man's hard dry 
 chuckle. The washing-up was done, Agnes had accom- 
 plished her home-lessons; the grandfather's clock chimed 
 the half-hour after nine. 
 
 " You must go to bed, Agnes." 
 
 " Mustn't I say good-night to him ? " 
 
 " No, I will say good-night for you." 
 
 " Don't forget to. I shall ask you in the morning." 
 
 The regular sound of talk still came from the parlour. 
 A full moon passed along the cloudless sky. By its light 
 and that of a glimmer of gas, Anna sat cleaning silver, or 
 rather nickel, at the kitchen table. The spoons and forks 
 were already clean, but she felt compelled to busy herself 
 with something. At length the talk stopped and she heard 
 the scraping of chair-legs. Should she return to the par- 
 lour? Or should she ? Even while she hesitated, the 
 
 kitchen door opened. 
 
 " Excuse me coming in here," said Mynors. " I wanted 
 to say good-night to you." 
 
 She sprang up and he took her hand. Could he feel the 
 agitation of that hand? 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night." He said it again.
 
 A VISIT 65 
 
 " And Agnes wished me to say good-night to you for 
 her." 
 
 " Did she? " He smiled ; till then his face had been seri- 
 ous. " You won't forget Friday ? " 
 
 " As if I could ! " she murmured after he had gone.
 
 V: THE REVIVAL 
 
 ANA spent the afternoons in visiting two following 
 the houses of her school-children. She had no talent 
 for such work, which demands the vocal rather than 
 the meditative temperament, and the apparent futility of 
 her labours would have disgusted and disheartened her, had 
 she not been sustained and urged forward by the still active 
 influence of Mynors and the teachers' meeting. There were 
 fifteen names in her class-book, and she went to each house, 
 except four whose tenants were impeccable Wesleyan fam- 
 ilies and would have considered themselves insulted by a 
 quasi-didactic visit from an upstart like Anna. Of the 
 eleven, some parents were rude to her; others begged, and 
 she had nothing to give ; others made perfunctory promises ; 
 only two seemed to regard her as anything but a somewhat 
 tiresome impertinence. The fault was doubtless her own. 
 Nevertheless she found joy in the uncongenial and ill-per- 
 formed task the cold, fierce joy of the nun in her pen- 
 ance. When it was done she said " I have done it," as one 
 who had sworn to do it come what might, yet without quite 
 expecting to succeed. 
 
 On the Friday afternoon, during tea, a boy brought up a 
 large foolscap packet addressed to Mr. Tellwright. " From 
 Mr. Mynors," the boy said. Tellwright opened it leisurely 
 after the boy had gone, and took out some sheets covered 
 with figures which he carefully examined. " Anna," lid 
 
 66
 
 THE REVIVAL 67 
 
 said, as she was clearing away the tea-things, " I understand 
 thou'rt going to the Revival meeting to-night. I shall have 
 a message as thou mun give to Mr. Mynors." 
 
 When she went upstairs to dress, she saw the Suttons' 
 landau standing outside their house on the opposite side of 
 the road. Mrs. Sutton came down the front steps and got 
 into her carriage, and was followed by a little restless, nerv- 
 ous, alert man who carried in his hand a black case of pecu- 
 liar form. " The revivalist ! " Anna exclaimed, remem- 
 bering that he was to stay with the Suttons during the Re- 
 vival week. Then this was the renowned crusader, and the 
 case held his renowned cornet! The carriage drove off 
 down Trafalgar Road, and Anna could see that the little 
 man was talking vehemently and incessantly to Mrs. Sutton, 
 who listened with evident interest; at the same time the 
 man's eyes were everywhere, absorbing all details of the 
 street and houses with unquenchable curiosity. 
 
 " What is the message for Mr. Mynors, father? " she 
 asked in the parlour, putting on her cotton gloves. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, and then paused. " Shut th' door, lass." 
 
 She shut it, not knowing what this cautiousness fore- 
 shadowed. Agnes was in the kitchen. 
 
 " It's o' this'n," Tellwright began. " Young Mynors 
 wants a partner wi' a couple o' thousand pounds, and he 
 come to me. Ye understand; 'tis what they call a sleeping 
 partner he's after. He'll give a third share in his concern 
 for two thousand pound now. I've looked into it and there's 
 money in it. He's no fool and he's gotten hold of a good 
 thing. He sent me up his stock-taking and balance sheet
 
 68 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 to-day, and I've been o'er the place mysen. I'm telling 
 thee this, lass, because I have na' two thousand o' my own 
 idle just now, and I thought as thou might happen like th' 
 investment." 
 
 " But, father " 
 
 " Listen. I know as there's only four hundred o' thine 
 in th' Bank now, but next week '11 see the beginning o' July 
 and dividends coming in. I've reckoned as ye'll have nigh 
 on fourteen hundred i' dividends and interests, and I can 
 lend ye a couple o' hundred in case o' necessity. It's a rare 
 chance ; thou's best tak' it." 
 
 " Of course, if you think it's all right, father, that's 
 enough," she said without animation. 
 
 " Am' na I telling thee I think it's all right? " he re- 
 marked sharply. " You mun tell Mynors as I say it's satis- 
 factory. Tell him that, see? I say it's satisfactory. I 
 shall want for to see him later on. He told me he couldna' 
 come up any night next week, so ask him to make it the week 
 after. There's no hurry. Dunna' forget." 
 
 What surprised Anna most in the affair was that Henry 
 Mynors should have been able to tempt her father into a 
 speculation. Ephraim Tellwright the investor was usually 
 as shy as a well-fed trout, and this capture of him by a 
 youngster only two years established in business might 
 fairly be regarded as a prodigious feat. It was indeed the 
 highest distinction of Mynors' commercial career. Henry 
 was so prominently active in the Wesleyan Society that the 
 members of that society, especially the women, were apt to 
 ignore the other side of his individuality. They knew him
 
 THE REVIVAL 69 
 
 supreme as a religious worker ; they did not realise the like- 
 lihood of his becoming supreme in the staple manufacture. 
 Left an orphan at seventeen, Mynors belonged to a family 
 now otherwise extinct in the Five Towns one of those fam- 
 ilies which by virtue of numbers, variety, and personal 
 force seem to permeate a whole district, to be a calculable 
 item of it, an essential part of its identity. The elders of 
 the Mynors blood had once occupied the red house opposite 
 Tellwright's, now used as a school, and had there reared 
 many children: the school building was still known as 
 " Mynors's " by old-fashioned people. Then the parents 
 died in middle age: one daughter married in the North, 
 another in the South ; a third went to China as a missionary 
 and died of fever ; the eldest son died ; the second had van- 
 ished into Canada and was reported a scapegrace ; the third 
 was a sea-captain. Henry (the youngest) alone was left, 
 and of all the family Henry was the only one to be con- 
 nected with the earthenware trade. There was no inherited 
 money, and during ten years he had worked for a large 
 firm in Turnhill, as clerk, as traveller, and last as manager, 
 living always quietly in lodgings. In the fulness of time 
 he gave notice to leave, was offered a partnership, and re- 
 fused it. Taking a newly erected manufactory in Bursley 
 near the canal, he started in business for himself, and it 
 became known that, at the age of twenty-eight, he had 
 saved fifteen hundred pounds. Equally expert in the laby- 
 rinths of manufacture and in the niceties of the markets 
 (he was reckoned a peerless traveller), Mynors inevitably 
 flourished. His order-books were filled and flowing over at
 
 70 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 remunerative prices, and insufficiency of capital was the sole 
 peril to which he was exposed. By the raising of a finger 
 he could have had a dozen working and moneyed partners, 
 but he had no desire for a working partner. What he 
 wanted was a capitalist who had confidence in him, Mynors. 
 In Ephraim Tellwright he found the man. Whether it 
 was by instinct, good luck, or skilful diplomacy that My- 
 nors secured this invaluable prize no one could positively 
 say, and perhaps even he himself could not have catalogued 
 all the obscure motives that had guided him to the shrewd 
 miser of Manor Terrace. 
 
 Anna had meant to reach chapel before the commence- 
 ment of the meeting, but the interview with her father 
 threw her late. As she entered the porch an officer told her 
 that the body of the chapel was quite full and that she 
 should go into the gallery, where a few seats were left near 
 the choir. She obeyed: pew-holders had no rights at that 
 service. 
 
 The scene in the auditorium astonished her, effect- 
 ually putting an end to the worldly preoccupation caused 
 by her father's news. The historic chapel was crowded 
 almost in every part, and the congregation impressed, ex- 
 cited, eager sang the opening hymn with unprecedented 
 vigour and sincerity; above the rest could be heard the 
 trained voices of a large choir, and even the choir, usually 
 perfunctory, seemed to share the general fervour. In the 
 vast mahogany pulpit the Reverend Reginald Banks, the 
 superintendent minister, a stout pale-faced man with pen- 
 dent cheeks and cold grey eyes, stood impassively regard-
 
 THE REVIVAL 71 
 
 ing the assemblage, and by his side was the revivalist, a 
 mannikin in comparison with his colleague; on the broad 
 balustrade of the pulpit lay the cornet. The fiery and in- 
 quisitive eyes of the revivalist probed into the furthest 
 corners of the chapel; apparently no detail of any single 
 face or of the florid decoration escaped him, and as Anna 
 crept into a small empty pew next to the east wall she felt 
 that she too had been separately observed. Mr. Banks gave 
 out the last verse of the hymn, and simultaneously with the 
 leading chord from the organ the revivalist seized his cornet 
 and joined the melody. Massive, yet exultant, the tones 
 rose clear over the mighty volume of vocal sound, an in- 
 citement to victorious effort. The effect was instant: an 
 ecstatic tremor seemed to pass through the congregation, 
 like wind through ripe corn, and at the close of the hymn 
 it was not until the revivalist had put down his cornet that 
 the people resumed their seats. Amid the frou-frou of 
 dresses and subdued clearing of throats, Mr. Banks retired 
 softly to the back of the pulpit, and the revivalist, mount- 
 ing a stool, suddenly dominated the congregation. His 
 glance swept masterfully across the chapel and round the 
 gallery. He raised one hand with the stilling action of a 
 mesmerist, and the people, either kneeling or inclined 
 against the front of the pews, hid their faces from those 
 eyes. It was as though the man had in a moment measured 
 their iniquities and had courageously resolved to inter- 
 cede for them with God, but was not very sanguine as 
 to the result. Everyone except the organist, who was 
 searching his tune-book for the next tune, seemed to feel
 
 72 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 humbled, bitterly ashamed, as it were caught in the act of 
 sin. There was a solemn and terrible pause. 
 
 Then the revivalist began : 
 
 " Behold us, O dread God, suppliants for thy 
 mercy " 
 
 His voice was rich and full, but at the same time sharp 
 and decisive. The burning eyes were shut tight, and Anna, 
 who had a profile view of his face, saw that every muscle of 
 it was drawn tense. The man possessed an extraordinary 
 histrionic gift, and he used it with imagination. He had two 
 audiences, God and the congregation. God was not more 
 distant from him than the congregation, or less real to 
 him, or less a heart to be influenced. Declamatory and full 
 of effects carefully calculated a work of art, in fact 
 his appeal showed no error of discretion in its approach to 
 the Eternal. There was no minimising of committed sin, 
 nor yet an insincere and grovelling self-accusation. A ty- 
 rant could not have taken offence at its tone, which seemed 
 to pacify God while rendering the human audience still 
 more contrite. The conclusion of the catalogue of wicked- 
 ness and swift confident turn to Christ's cross was marvel- 
 lously impressive. The congregation burst out into sighs, 
 groans, blessings, and Amens; and the pillars of distant 
 rural conventicles, who had travelled from the confines of 
 the circuit to its centre in order to partake of this spiritual 
 excitation, began to feel that they would not be disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 " Let the Holy Ghost descend upon us now," the revival- 
 ist pleaded with restrained passion; and then, opening his
 
 THE REVIVAL 73 
 
 eyes and looking at the clock in front of the gallery, he re- 
 peated, " Now, now, at twenty-one minutes past seven." 
 Then his eyes, without shifting, seemed to ignore the clock, 
 to gaze through it into some unworldly dimension, and he 
 murmured in a soft dramatic whisper : " I see the Divine 
 Dove " 
 
 The doors, closed during prayer, were opened, and more 
 people entered. A youth came into Anna's pew. 
 
 The superintendent minister gave out another hymn, 
 and when this was finished the revivalist, who had been rest- 
 ing in a chair, came forward again. " Friends and fellow- 
 sinners," he said, " a lot of you, fools that you are, have 
 come here to-night to hear me play my cornet. Well, you 
 have heard me. I have played the cornet, and I will play it 
 again. I would play it on my head if by so doing I could 
 bring sinners to Christ. I have been called a mountebank. 
 I am one. I glory in it. I am God's mountebank, doing 
 God's precious business in my own way. But God's pre- 
 cious business cannot be carried on, even by a mountebank, 
 without money, and there will be a collection towards the 
 expenses of the Revival. During the collection we will 
 sing ' Rock of Ages,' and you shall hear my cornet again. 
 If you feel willing to give us your sixpences, give ; but if 
 you resent a collection," here he adopted a tone of fero- 
 cious sarcasm, " keep your miserable sixpences and get six- 
 penny-worth of miserable enjoyment out of them else- 
 where." 
 
 As the meeting proceeded, submitting itself more and 
 more to the imperious hypnotism of the revivalist, Anna
 
 74 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 gradually became oppressed by a vague sensation which was 
 partly sorrow and partly an inexplicable dull anger anger 
 at her own penitence. She felt as if everything was wrong 
 and could never by any possibility be righted. After two 
 exhortations, from the minister and the revivalist, and an- 
 other hymn, the revivalist once more prayed, and as he did 
 so Anna looked stealthily about in a sick, preoccupied way. 
 The youth at her side stared glumly in front of him. In 
 the orchestra Henry Mynors was whispering to the organ- 
 ist. Down in the body of the chapel the atmosphere was 
 electric, perilous, overcharged with spiritual emotion. She 
 was glad she was not down there. The voice of the re- 
 vivalist ceased, but he kept the attitude of supplication. 
 Sobs were heard in various quarters, and here and there an 
 elder of the chapel could be seen talking quietly to some 
 convicted sinner. The revivalist began softly to sing 
 " Jesu, lover of my soul," and most of the congregation, 
 standing up, joined him; but the sinners stricken of the 
 Spirit remained abjectly bent, tortured by conscience, 
 pulled this way by Christ and that by Satan. A few rose 
 and went to the Communion rails, there to kneel in the 
 sight of all. Mr. Banks descended from the pulpit and 
 opening the wicket which led to the Communion table spoke 
 to these over the rails, reassuringly, as a nurse to a child. 
 Other sinners, desirous of fuller and more intimate guid- 
 ance, passed down the aisles and so into the preacher's ves- 
 try at the eastern end of the chapel, and were followed 
 thither by class-leaders and other proved servants of God: 
 among these last were Titus Price and Mr. Sutton.
 
 THE REVIVAL 76 
 
 " The blood of Christ atones," said the revivalist sol- 
 emnly, at the end of the hymn. " The spirit of Christ is 
 working among us. Let us engage in private prayer. Let 
 us drive the devil out of this chapel." 
 
 More sighs and groans followed. Then someone cried 
 out in sharp, shrill tones, " Praise Him " ; and another 
 cried, " Praise Him " ; and an old woman's quavering voice 
 sang the words, " I know that my Redeemer liveth." Anna 
 was in despair at her own predicament, and the sense of 
 sin was not more strong than the sense of being confused 
 and publicly shamed. A man opened the pew-door, and 
 sitting down by the youth's side began to talk with him. 
 It was Henry Mynors. Anna looked steadily away at the 
 wall, fearful lest he should address her too. Presently the 
 youth got up with a frenzied gesture and walked out ,of 
 the gallery, followed by Mynors. In a moment she saw the 
 youth stepping awkwardly along the aisle beneath, towards 
 the inquiry room, his head forward and the lower lip hang- 
 ing as though he were sulky. 
 
 Anna was now in the profoundest misery. The weight 
 of her sins, of her ingratitude to God, lay on her like a 
 physical and intolerable load, and she lost all feeling of 
 shame, as a seasick voyager loses shame after an hour of 
 nausea. She knew then that she could no longer go on 
 living as aforetime. She shuddered at the thought of her 
 tremendous responsibility to Agnes Agnes who took her 
 for perfection. She recollected all her sins individually 
 lies, sloth, envy, vanity, even theft in her infancy. She 
 heaped up all the wickedness of a lifetime, hysterically
 
 76 ANNA OP THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 augmented it, and found a horrid pleasure in the exaggera- 
 tion. Her virtuous acts shrank into nothingness. 
 
 A man, and then another, emerged from the vestry door 
 with beaming, happy face. These were saved; they had 
 yielded to Christ's persuasive invitation. Anna tried to 
 imagine herself converted, or in the process of being con- 
 verted. She could not. She could only sit moveless, dull, 
 and abject. She did not stir, even when the congregation 
 rose for another hymn. In what did conversion consist? 
 Was it to say the words, " I believe " ? She repeated to 
 herself softly, " I believe ; I believe." But nothing hap- 
 pened. Of course she believed. She had never doubted, 
 nor dreamed of doubting, that Jesus died on the Cross to 
 save her soul her soul from eternal damnation. She was 
 probably unaware that any person in Christendom had 
 doubted that fact so fundamental to her. What, then, was 
 lacking? What was belief? What was faith? 
 
 A venerable class-leader came from the vestry, and, 
 slowly climbing the pulpit stairs, whispered in the ear of the 
 revivalist. The latter faced the congregation with a cry 
 of joy. " Lord," he exclaimed, " we bless Thee that sev- 
 enteen souls have found Thee! Lord, let the full crop be 
 gathered, for the fields are white unto harvest." There was 
 an exuberant chorus of praise to God. 
 
 The door of the pew was opened gently, and Anna 
 started to see Mrs. Sutton at her side. She at once guessed 
 that Mynors had sent to her this angel of consolation. 
 
 " Are you near the light, dear Anna? " Mrs. Sutton be- 
 gan.
 
 THE REVIVAL 77 
 
 Anna.searched for an answer. She now sat huddled up 
 in the corner of the pew, her face partially turned towards 
 Mrs. Sutton, who looked mildly into her eyes. " I don't 
 know," Anna stammered, feeling like a naughty school- 
 girl. A doubt whether the whole affair was not after all 
 absurd flashed through her, and was gone. 
 
 " But it is quite simple," said Mrs. Sutton. " I cannot 
 tell you anything that you do not know. Cast out pride. 
 Cast out pride that is it. Nothing but earthly pride pre- 
 vents you from realising the saving power of Christ. You 
 are afraid, Anna, afraid to be humble. Be brave. It is 
 so simple, so easy. If one will but submit." 
 
 Anna said nothing, had nothing to say, was conscious 
 of nothing save excessive discomfort. 
 
 " Where do you feel your difficulty to be? " asked Mrs. 
 Sutton. 
 
 " I don't know," she answered wearily. 
 
 " The happiness that awaits you is unspeakable. I have 
 followed Christ for nearly fifty years, and my happiness 
 increases daily. Sometimes I do not know how to contain 
 it all. It surges above all the trials and disappointments 
 of this world. Oh, Anna, if you will but believe ! " 
 
 The aging woman's thin, distinguished face, crowned 
 with abundant grey hair, glistened with love and compas- 
 sion, and as Anna's eyes rested upon it Anna felt that there 
 was something tangible, something to lay hold on. 
 
 " I think I do believe," she said weakly. 
 
 " You ' think ' ? Are you sure ? Are you not deceiving 
 yourself? Belief is not ( with the lips: it is with the heart."
 
 78 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 There was a pause. Mr. Banks could be heard praying. 
 
 " I will go home," Anna whispered at length, " and think 
 it out for myself." 
 
 " Do, my dear girl, and God will help you." 
 
 Mrs. Sutton bent and kissed Anna affectionately, and 
 then hurried away to offer her ministrations elsewhere. As 
 Anna left the chapel, she encountered the chapel-keeper 
 pacing regularly to and fro across the length of the broad 
 steps. In the porch was a notice that cabinet photographs 
 of the revivalist could be purchased on application, at one 
 shilling each.
 
 VI: WILLIE 
 
 A r NA closed the bedroom door softly; through the 
 open window came the tones of Cauldon church clock, 
 famous for their sonority and richness, announcing 
 eleven. Agnes lay asleep under the blue-and-white counter- 
 pane, on the side of the bed next the wall, the bed-clothes 
 pushed down and disclosing the upper half of her night- 
 gowned figure. She slept in absolute repose, with flushed 
 cheek and every muscle lax, her hair by some chance drawn 
 in a perfect straight line diagonally across the pillow. 
 Anna glanced at her sister, the image of physical inno- 
 cence and childish security, and then, depositing the candle, 
 went to the window and looked out. 
 
 The bedroom was over the kitchen and faced south. The 
 moon was hidden by clouds, but clear stretches of sky 
 showed thick-studded clusters of stars brightly winking. 
 To the far right across the fields the silhouette of Hillport 
 Church could just be discerned on the ridge. In front, sev- 
 eral miles away, the blast-furnaces of Cauldon Bar Iron- 
 works shot up vast wreaths of yellow flame with canopies of 
 tinted smoke. Still more distant were a thousand other 
 lights crowning chimney and kiln, and nearer, on the waste 
 lands west of Bleakridge, long fields of burning ironstone 
 glowed with all the strange colours of decadence. The 
 entire landscape was illuminated and transformed by these 
 unique pyrotechnics of labour, atoning for its grime, and 
 
 79
 
 80 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 dull, weird sounds, as of the breathings and sighings of 
 gigantic nocturnal creatures, filled the enchanted air. It 
 was a romantic scene, a romantic summer night, balmy, 
 delicate, and wrapped in meditation. But Anna saw noth- 
 ing there save the repulsive evidences of manufacture, had 
 never seen anything else. 
 
 She was still horribly, acutely miserable, exhausted by 
 the fruitless search for some solution of the enigma of sin 
 her sin in particular and of redemption. She had cogi- 
 tated in a vain circle until she was no longer capable of 
 reasoned ideas. She gazed at the stars and into the illimit- 
 able spaces beyond them, and thought of life and its incon- 
 ceivable littleness, as millions had done before in the presence 
 of that same firmament. Then, after a time, her brain re- 
 sumed its nightmare-like task. She began to probe herself 
 anew. Would it have availed if she had walked publicly 
 to the penitential form at the Communion-rail, and, ranging 
 herself with the working men and women, proved by that 
 overt deed the sincerity of her contrition? She wished 
 ardently that she had done so, yet knew well that such an act 
 would always be impossible for her, even though the evasion 
 of it meant eternal torture. Undoubtedly, as Mrs. Sutton 
 had implied, she was proud, stiff-necked, obstinate in 
 iniquity. 
 
 Agnes stirred slightly in her sleep, and Anna, aroused, 
 dropped the blind, turned towards the room and began to 
 undress, slowly, with reflective pauses. Her melancholy 
 became grim, sardonic; if she was doomed to destruction, 
 so let it be. Suddenly, half-clad, she knelt down and
 
 WILLIE 81 
 
 prayed, prayed that pride might be cast out, burying her 
 face in the coverlet and caging the passionate effusion in 
 a whisper lest Agnes should be disturbed. Having prayed, 
 she still knelt quiescent; her eyes were dry and burning. 
 The last car thundered up the road, shaking the house, and 
 she rose, finished undressing, blew out the candle, and 
 slipped into bed by Agnes's side. 
 
 She could not sleep, did not attempt to sleep, but aban- 
 doned herself meekly to despair. Her thoughts covered 
 again the interminable round, and again, and yet, again. 
 In the twilight of the brief summer night her accustomed 
 eyes could distinguish every object in the room, all the bits 
 of furniture which had been brought from Hanbridge and 
 with which she had been familiar since her memory began : 
 everything appeared mean, despicable, cheerless ; there was 
 nothing to inspire. She dreamed impossibly of a high 
 spirituality which should metamorphose all, change her life, 
 lend glamour to the most pitiful surroundings, ennoble the 
 most ignominious burdens a spirituality never to be 
 hers. 
 
 At any rate she would tell her father in the morning 
 that she was convicted of sin, and, however hopelessly, seek- 
 ing salvation ; she would tell both her father and Agnes at 
 breakfast. The task would be difficult, but she swore to do 
 it. So resolved, she endeavoured to sleep, and did sleep 
 uneasily for a short period. When she woke the great 
 business of the dawn had begun. She left the bed, and 
 drawing up the blind looked forth. The furnace fires were 
 paling; a few milky clouds sailed in the vast pallid blue.
 
 82 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 It was cool just then, and she shivered. She went to the 
 glass, and examined her face carefully, but it gave no signs 
 whatever of the inward warfare. She saw her plain and 
 mended night-gown. Suppose she were married to Mynors ! 
 Suppose he lay asleep in the bed where Agnes lay asleep! 
 Involuntarily she glanced at Agnes to certify that the child 
 and none else was indeed there, and got into bed hurriedly 
 and hid herself because she was ashamed to have had such 
 a fancy. But she continued to think of Mynors. She 
 envied him for his cheerfulness, his joy, his goodness, his 
 dignity, his tact, his sex. She envied every man. Even 
 in the sphere of religion, men were not fettered like women. 
 No man, she thought, would acquiesce in the futility to 
 which she was already half resigned; a man would either 
 wring salvation from the heavenly powers or race gloriously 
 to hell. Mynors Mynors was a god ! 
 
 She recollected her resolution to speak to her father and 
 Agnes at breakfast, and shudderingly confirmed it, but less 
 stoutly than before. Then an announcement made by Mr. 
 Banks in chapel on the previous evening presented itself, 
 as though she was listening to it for the first time. It was 
 the announcement of a prayer-meeting for workers in the 
 Revival, to be held that (Saturday) morning at seven 
 o'clock. She instantly decided to go to the meeting, and 
 the decision seemed to give her new hope. Perhaps there 
 she might find peace. On that faint expectancy she fell 
 asleep again and did not wake till half-past six, after her 
 usual hour. She heard noises in the yard ; it was her father 
 going towards the garden with a wheelbarrow. She dressed
 
 WILLIE 83 
 
 quickly, and when she had pinned on her hat she woke 
 Agnes. 
 
 " Going out, Sis ? " the child asked sleepily, seeing her 
 attire. 
 
 " Yes, dear. I'm going to the seven o'clock prayer-meet- 
 ing. And you must get breakfast. You can can't you ? " 
 
 The child assented, glad of the chance. 
 
 " But what are you going to the prayer-meeting for? " 
 
 Anna hesitated. Why not confess? No. " I must 
 go," she said quietly at length. " I shall be back before 
 eight." 
 
 *' Does father know? " Agnes enquired apprehensively. 
 
 " No, dear." 
 
 Anna shut the door quickly, went softly downstairs and 
 along the passage, and crept into the street like a thief. 
 
 Men and women and boys and girls were on their way to 
 work, with hurried, clattering steps, some munching thick 
 pieces of bread as they went, all self-centred, apparently 
 morose and not quite awake. The dust lay thick in the 
 arid gutters, and in drifts across the pavement, as the night- 
 wind had blown it. Vehicular traffic had not begun, and 
 blinds were still drawn ; and though the footpaths were busy 
 the street had a deserted and forlorn aspect. Anna walked 
 hastily down the road, avoiding the glances of such as 
 looked at her, but peering furtively at the faces of those 
 who ignored her. All seemed callous hoggishly careless 
 of the everlasting verities. At first it appeared strange 
 to her that the potent revival in the Wesleyan chapel had 
 produced no effect on these preoccupied people. Bursley,
 
 84 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 then, continued its dull and even course. She wondered 
 whether any of them guessed that she was going to the 
 prayer-meeting and secretly sneered at her therefor. 
 
 When she had climbed Duck Bank she found, to her sur- 
 prise, that the doors of the chapel were fast closed, though it 
 was ten minutes past seven. Was there to be no prayer- 
 meeting? A momentary sensation of relief flashed through 
 her, and then she saw that the gate of the school-yard was 
 open. She should have known that early morning prayers 
 were never offered up in the chapel, but in the lecture-hall. 
 She crossed the quadrangle with beating heart, feeling now 
 that she had embarked on a frightful enterprise. The door 
 of the lecture-hall was ajar ; she pushed it and went in. At 
 the other end of the hall a meagre handful of worshippers 
 were collected, and on the raised platform stood Mr. Banks, 
 vapid, perfunctory, and fatigued. He gave out a verse, 
 and pitched the tune too high, but the singers with a 
 heroic effort accomplished the verse without breaking down. 
 The singing was thin and feeble, and the eagerness of one 
 or two voices seemed strained, as though with a determina- 
 tion to make the best of things. Mynors was not present, 
 and Anna did not know whether to be sorry or glad of this. 
 She recognised that, save herself, all present were old be- 
 lievers, tried warriors of the Lord. There was only one 
 other woman, Miss Sarah Vodrey, an aged spinster who kept 
 house for Titus Price and his son, and found her sole diver- 
 sion in the variety of her religious experiences. Before 
 the hymn was finished a young man joined the assembly; it 
 was the youth who had sat near Anna on the previous night ;
 
 WILLIE 86 
 
 an ecstatic and naive bliss shone from his face. In his 
 prayer the minister drew the attention of the Deity to the 
 fact that, although a score or more of souls had been in- 
 gathered at the first service, the Methodists of Bursley were 
 by no means satisfied. They wanted more; they wanted 
 the whole of Bursley ; and they would be content with no 
 less. He begged that their earnest work might not be 
 shamed before the world by a partial success. In conclu- 
 sion he sought the blessing of God on the revivalist and 
 asked that this tireless enthusiast might be led to husband 
 his strength: at which there was a fervent Amen. 
 
 Several men prayed, and a pause ensued, all still kneel- 
 ing. 
 
 Then the minister said in a tone of oily politeness: 
 
 "Will a sister pray?" 
 
 Another pause followed. 
 
 " Sister Tellwright? " 
 
 Anna would have welcomed death and damnation. She 
 clasped her hands tightly, and longed for the endless moment 
 to pass. At last Sarah Vodrey gave a preliminary cough. 
 Miss Vodrey was always happy to pray aloud, and her in- 
 vocations usually began with the same phrase : " Lord, 
 we thank Thee that this day finds us with our bodies out 
 of the grave and our souls out of hell." 
 
 Afterwards the minister gave out another hymn, and as 
 soon as the singing commenced Anna slipped away. Once 
 in the yard, she breathed a sigh of relief. Peace at the 
 prayer-meeting? It was like coming out of prison. Peace 
 was farther off than ever. Nay, she had actually forgot-
 
 86 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 ten her soul in the sensations of shame and discomfort. 
 She had contrived only to make herself ridiculous, and per- 
 haps the pious at their breakfast-tables would discuss her 
 and her father, and their money, and the queer life they 
 led. 
 
 If Mynors had but been present ! 
 
 She walked out into the street. It was twenty minutes 
 to eight by the town-hall clock. The last workman's car 
 of the morning was just leaving Bursley: it was packed 
 inside and outside, and the conductor hung insecurely on 
 the step. At the gates of the manufactory opposite the 
 chapel, a man in a white smock stood placidly smoking a 
 pipe. A prayer-meeting was a little thing, a trifle in the 
 immense and regular activity of the town: this thought 
 necessarily occurred to Anna. She hurried homewards, 
 wondering what her father would say about that morning's 
 unusual excursion. A couple of hundred yards distant 
 from home she saw, to her astonishment, Agnes emerging 
 from the front door of the house. The child ran rapidly 
 down the street, not observing Anna till they were close 
 upon each other. 
 
 " Oh, Anna ! You forgot to buy the bacon yesterday. 
 There isn't a scrap, and father's fearfully angry. He gave 
 me sixpence, and I'm going down to Leal's to get some as 
 quick as ever I can." 
 
 It was a thunderbolt to Anna, this seemingly petty mis- 
 adventure. As she entered the house she felt a tear on 
 her cheek. She was ashamed to weep, but she wept. 
 This, after the fiasco of the prayer-meeting, was a climax
 
 WILLIE 87 
 
 of woe ; it overtopped and extinguished all the rest ; her soul 
 was nothing to her now. She quickly took off her hat and 
 ran to the kitchen. Agnes had put the breakfast-things 
 on the tray ready for setting ; the bread was cut, the coffee 
 portioned into the jug; the fire burned bright, and the 
 kettle sang. Anna took the cloth from the drawer in the 
 oak dresser, and went to the parlour to lay the table. Mr. 
 Tellwright was at the end of the garden, pointing the wall, 
 his back to the house. The table set, Anna observed that the 
 room was only partly dusted; there was a duster on the 
 mantelpiece; she seized it to finish, and at that moment 
 the kitchen clock struck eight. Simultaneously Mr. Tell- 
 wright dropped his trowel, and came towards the house. 
 She doggedly dusted one chair, and then, turning coward, 
 fled away upstairs ; the kitchen was barred to her, since her 
 father would enter by the kitchen door. 
 
 She had forgotten to buy bacon, and breakfast would 
 be late: it was a calamity unique in her experience! She 
 stood at the door of her bedroom, and waited, vehemently, 
 for Agnes's return. At last the child raced breathlessly 
 in ; Anna flew to meet her. With incredible speed the bacon 
 was whipped out of its wrapper, and Anna picked up the 
 knife. At the first stroke she cut herself, and Agnes was 
 obliged to bind her finger with rag. The clock struck the 
 half-hour like a knell. It was twenty minutes to nine, 
 forty minutes behind time, when the two girls hurried into 
 the parlour, Anna bearing the bacon and hot plates, Agnes 
 the bread and coffee. Mr. Tellwright sat upright and 
 ferocious in his chair, the image of offence and wrath. In-
 
 88 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 stead of reading his letters he had fed full of this ineffable 
 grievance. The meal began in a desolating silence. The 
 male creature's terrible displeasure permeated the whole 
 room like an ether, invisible, but carrying vibrations to the 
 heart. Then, when he had eaten one piece of bacon, and 
 cut his envelopes, the miser began to empty himself of 
 some of his anger in stormy tones that might have up- 
 rooted trees. Anna ought to feel thoroughly ashamed. He 
 could not imagine what she had been thinking of. Why 
 didn't she tell him she was going to the prayer-meeting? 
 Why did she go to the prayer-meeting, disarranging the 
 whole household? How came she to forget the bacon? It 
 was gross carelessness. A pretty example to her little sis- 
 ter! The fact was that since her birthday she had gotten 
 above hersen. She was careless and extravagant. Look 
 how thick the bacon was cut. He should not stand it much 
 longer. And her finger all red, and the blood dropping on 
 the cloth : a nice sight at a meal ! Go and tie it up again. 
 
 Without a word she left the room to obey. Of course 
 she had no defence. Agnes, her tears falling, pecked her 
 food timidly like a bird, not daring to stir from her chair, 
 even to assist at the finger. 
 
 " What did Mr. Mynors say ? " Tellwright enquired 
 fiercely when Anna had come back into the room. 
 
 " Mr. Mynors ? " she murmured, at a loss, but vaguely 
 apprehending further trouble. 
 
 "Did ye see him?" 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 " Did ye give him my message? "
 
 WILLIE 89 
 
 " I forgot it." God in heaven ! She had forgotten the 
 message ! 
 
 With a devastating grunt Mr. Tellwright walked speech- 
 less out of the room. The girls cleared the table, exchang- 
 ing sympathy with a single mute glance. Anna's one satis- 
 faction was that, even if she had remembered the message, 
 she could not possibly have delivered it. 
 
 Ephraim Tellwright stayed in the front parlour till half- 
 past ten o'clock, unseen but felt, like an angry god behind 
 a cloud. The consciousness that he was there, unappeased 
 and dangerous, remained uppermost in the minds of the 
 two girls during the morning. At half -past ten he opened 
 the door. 
 
 " Agnes ! " he commanded, and Agnes ran to him from 
 the kitchen with the speed of propitiation. 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 " Take this note down to Price's, and don't wait for an 
 answer." 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 She was back in twenty minutes. Anna was sweeping 
 the lobby. 
 
 " If Mr. Mynors calls while I'm out, you mun tell him 
 to wait," Mr. Tellwright said to Agnes, pointedly ignoring 
 Anna's presence. Then, having brushed his greenish hat 
 on his sleeve he went off towards town to buy meat and 
 vegetables. He always did Saturday's marketing himself. 
 At the butcher's and in the St. Luke's covered market he 
 was a familiar and redoubtable figure. Among the sales- 
 people who stood the market was a wrinkled, hardy old
 
 90 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 potato-woman from the other side of Moorthorne : every 
 Saturday the miser bested her in their higgling-match, and 
 nearly every Saturday she scornfully threw at him the same 
 joke: " Get thee along to th' post-office, Mester Terrick:* 
 happen they'll give thee sixpenn'orth o' stamps for five- 
 pence ha'penny." He seldom failed to laugh heartily at 
 this. 
 
 At dinner the girls could perceive that the shadow of 
 his displeasure had slightly lifted, though he kept a frown- 
 ing silence. Expert in all the symptoms of his moods, they 
 knew that in a few hours he would begin to talk again, at 
 first in monosyllables, and then in short detached sentences. 
 An intimation of relief diffused itself through the house 
 like a hint of spring in February. 
 
 These domestic upheavals followed always the same 
 course, and Anna had learnt to suffer the later stages of 
 them with calmness and even with impassivity. Henry 
 Mynors had not called. She supposed that her father had 
 expected him to call for the answer which she had forgot- 
 ten to give him, and she had a hope that he would come in 
 the afternoon: once again she had the idea that something 
 definite and satisfactory might result if she could only see 
 him that she might, as it were, gather inspiration from 
 the mere sight of his face. After dinner, while the girls 
 were washing the dinner things in the scullery, Agnes's 
 quick ear caught the sound of voices in the parlour. They 
 listened. Mynors had come. Mr. Tellwright must have 
 seen him from the front window and opened the door to 
 him before he could ring. 
 
 * Terrick: a corruption of Tellwright.
 
 WILLIE 91 
 
 " It's him," said Agnes, excited. 
 
 " Who? " Anna asked self-consciously. 
 
 " Mr. Mynors, of course," said the child sharply, mak- 
 ing it quite plain that this affectation could not impose on 
 her for a single instant. 
 
 " Anna ! " It was Mr. Tellwright's summons, through 
 the parlour window. She dried her hands, doffed her 
 apron, and went to the parlour, animated by a thousand 
 fears and expectations. Why was she to be included in 
 the colloquy? 
 
 Mynors rose at her entrance and greeted her with con- 
 spicuous deference, a deference which made her feel 
 ashamed. 
 
 " Hum ! " the old man growled, but he was obviously 
 content. " I gave Anna a message for ye yesterday, Mr. 
 Mynors, but her forgot to deliver it, wench-like. Ye might 
 ha' been saved th' trouble o' calling. Now as ye're here, 
 I've summat for tell ye. It '11 be Anna's money as '11 go 
 into that concern o' yours. I've none by me; in fact, I'm 
 a'most fast for brass, but her '11 have as near two thou- 
 sand as makes no matter in a month's time, and her says 
 her '11 go in wi' you on th' strength o' my recommenda- 
 tion." 
 
 This speech was evidently a perfect surprise for Henry 
 Mynors. For a moment he seemed to be at a loss; then 
 his face gave candid expression to a feeling of intense 
 pleasure. 
 
 " You know all about this business then, Miss Mynors ? " 
 
 She blushed. " Father has told me something about it."
 
 92 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " And you are willing to be my partner ? " 
 
 " Nay, I did na' say that," Tellwright interrupted. 
 " It '11 be Anna's money, but i' my name." 
 
 " I see," said Mynors gravely. " But if it is Miss 
 Anna's money, why should not she be the partner? " He 
 offered one of his courtly diplomatic smiles. 
 
 " Oh but " Anna began in deprecation. 
 
 Tellwright laughed. " Ay ! " he said, " Why not? It 
 '11 be experience for th' lass." 
 
 " Just so," said Mynors. 
 
 Anna stood silent, like a child who is being talked about. 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " Would you care for that arrangement, Miss Tell- 
 wright ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " she said. 
 
 " I shall try to justify your confidence. I needn't say 
 that I think you and your father will have no reason to be 
 disappointed. Two thousand pounds is of course only a 
 
 trifle to you, but it is a great deal to me, and and " 
 
 He hesitated. Anna did not surmise that he was too much 
 moved by the sight of her and the situation to continue, 
 but this was the fact. 
 
 " There's nobbut one point, Mr. Mynors," Tellwright 
 said bluntly, " and that's the interest on th' capital, as 
 must be deducted before reckoning profits. Us must have 
 six per cent." 
 
 " But I thought we had settled it at five," said Mynors 
 with sudden firmness. 
 
 " We 'n settled as you shall have five on your fifteen
 
 WILLIE 93 
 
 hundred," the miser replied with imperturbable audacity, 
 " but us mun have our six." 
 
 " I certainly thought we had thrashed that out fully, 
 and agreed that the interest should be the same on each 
 side." Mynors was alert and defensive. 
 
 " Nay, young man. Us mun have our six. We're tak- 
 kin' a risk." 
 
 Mynors pressed his lips together. He was taken at a 
 disadvantage. Mr. Tellwright, with unscrupulous clever- 
 ness, had utilised the effect on Mynors of his daughter's 
 presence to regain a position from which the younger man 
 had definitely ousted him a few days before. Mynors was 
 annoyed, but he gave no sign of his annoyance. 
 
 " Very well," he said at length, with a private smile at 
 Anna, to indicate that it was out of regard for her that he 
 yielded. 
 
 Mr. Tellwright made no pretence of concealing his sat- 
 isfaction. He, too, smiled at Anna sardonically: the last 
 vestige of the morning's irritation vanished in a glow of 
 triumph. 
 
 " I'm afraid I must go," said Mynors, looking at his 
 watch. " There is a service at chapel at three. Our re- 
 vivalist came down with Mrs. Sutton to look over the works 
 this morning, and I told him I should be at his service. 
 So I must. You coming, Mr. Tellwright? " 
 
 " Nay, my lad. I'm 'owd enough to leave it to young 
 uns." 
 
 Anna forced her courage to the verge of rashness, 
 moved by a swift impulse.
 
 94 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Will you wait one minute? " she said to Mynors. " I 
 am going to the service. If I'm late back, father, Agnes 
 will see to the tea. Don't wait for me." She looked him 
 straight in the face. It was one of the bravest acts of her 
 life. After the episode of breakfast, to suggest a pro- 
 cedure which might entail any risk upon another meal was 
 absolutely heroic. Tellwright glanced away from his 
 daughter, and at Mynors. Anna hurried upstairs. 
 
 " Who's thy lawyer, Mr. Mynors ? " Tellwright asked. 
 
 " Dane," said Mynors. 
 
 " That '11 be convenient. Dane does my bit o' business, 
 too. I'll see him, and make a bargain wi' him for th' part- 
 nership deed. He always works by contract for me. I've 
 no patience wi' six-and-eightpences." 
 
 Mynors assented. 
 
 " You must come down some afternoon and look over the 
 works," he said to Anna as they were walking down Tra- 
 falgar Road towards chapel. 
 
 " I should like to," Anna replied. " I've never been 
 over a works in my life." 
 
 " No? You are going to be a partner in the best works 
 of its size in Bursley," Mynors said enthusiastically. 
 
 " I'm glad of that," she smiled, " for I do believe I own 
 the worst." 
 
 " What Price's, do you mean ? " 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed, and seemed to be thinking. " I 
 wasn't sure whether that belonged to you or your father. 
 I'm afraid it isn't quite the best of properties. But per-
 
 WILLIE 95 
 
 haps I'd better say nothing about that. We had a grand 
 meeting last night. Our little cornet-player quite lived up 
 to his reputation, don't you think? " 
 
 " Quite," she said faintly. 
 
 " You enjoyed the meeting? " 
 
 " No," she blurted out, dismayed, but resolute to be 
 honest. 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 " But you were at the early prayer-meeting this morn- 
 ing, I hear." 
 
 She said nothing while they took a dozen paces, and then 
 murmured, " Yes." 
 
 Their eyes met for a second, hers full of trouble. 
 
 " Perhaps," he said at length, " perhaps excuse me 
 saying this but you may be expecting too much " 
 
 "Well? " She encouraged him, prepared now to finish 
 what had been begun. 
 
 " I mean," he said earnestly, " that I we cannot 
 promise you any sudden change of feeling, any sudden re- 
 lief and certainty, such as some people experience. At 
 least, I never had it. What is called conversion can happen 
 in various ways. It is a question of living, of constant 
 endeavour, with the example of Christ always before us. 
 It need not always be a sudden wrench, you know, from the 
 world. Perhaps you have been expecting too much," he 
 repeated, as though offering balm with that phrase. 
 
 She thanked him sincerely, but not with her lips, only 
 with the heart. He had revealed to her an avenue of re- 
 lease from a situation which had seemed on all sides fatally
 
 96 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 closed. She sprang eagerly towards it. She realised 
 afresh how frightful was the dilemma from which there 
 was now a hope of escape, and she was grateful accord- 
 ingly. Before, she had not dared steadily to face its ter- 
 rors. She wondered that even her father's displeasure or 
 the project of the partnership had been able to divert her 
 from the plight of her soul. Putting these mundane things 
 firmly behind her, she concentrated the activities of her 
 brain on that idea of Christ-like living, day by day, hour 
 by hour, of a gradual aspiration towards Christ and 
 thereby an ultimate arrival at the state of being saved. 
 This she thought she might accomplish; this gave oppor- 
 tunity of immediate effort, dispensing with the necessity 
 of an impossible violent spiritual metamorphosis. They 
 did not speak again until they had reached the gates of 
 the chapel, when Mynors, who had to enter the choir from 
 the back, bade her a quiet adieu. Anna enjoyed the serv- 
 ice, which passed smoothly and uneventfully. At a Re- 
 vival, night is the time of ecstasy and fervour and salva- 
 tion; in the afternoon one must be content with prepara- 
 tory praise and prayer. 
 
 That evening, while father and daughters sat in the par- 
 lour after supper, there was a ring at the door. Agnes 
 ran to open, and found Willie Price. It had begun to rain, 
 and the visitor, his jacket-collar turned up, was wet and 
 draggled. Agnes left him on the mat and ran back to the 
 parlour. 
 
 " Young Mr. Price wants to see you, father." 
 Tellwright motioned to her to shut the door.
 
 WILLIE 97 
 
 " You'd best see him, Anna," he said. " It's none my 
 business." 
 
 " But what has he come about, father? " 
 
 " That note as I sent down this morning. I told owd 
 Titus as he mun pay us twenty pun' on Monday morning 
 certain, or us should distrain. Them as can pay ten pun, 
 especially in bank notes, can pay twenty pun, and thirty." 
 
 " And suppose he says he can't ? " 
 
 " Tell him he must. I've figured it out and changed my 
 mind about that works. Owd Titus isna' done for yet, 
 though he's getting on that road. Us can screw another 
 fifty out o' him ; that '11 only leave six months' rent owing ; 
 then us can turn him out. He'll go bankrupt ; us can claim 
 for our rent afore th' other creditors, and us '11 have a 
 hundred or a hundred and twenty in hand towards doing 
 the owd place up a bit for a new tenant." 
 
 " Make him bankrupt, father ? " Anna exclaimed. It 
 was the only part of the ingenious scheme which she had 
 understood. 
 
 " Ay ! " he said laconically. 
 
 " But " (Would Christ have driven Titus Price 
 
 into the bankruptcy court?) 
 
 " If he pays, well and good." 
 
 " Hadn't you better see Mr. William, father? " 
 
 " Whose property is it, mine or thine? " Tellwright 
 growled. His good humour was still precarious, insecurely 
 re-established, and Anna obediently left the room. After 
 all, she said to herself, a debt is a debt, and honest people 
 pay what they owe.
 
 98 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 It was in an uncomplaisant tone that Anna invited Willie 
 Price to the front parlour: nervousness always made her 
 seem harsh, and moreover she had not the trick of hiding 
 firmness under suavity. 
 
 " Will you come this way, Mr. Price? " 
 
 " Yes," he said with ingratiating, eager compliance. 
 Dusk was falling, and the room in shadow. She forgot 
 to ask him to take a chair, so they both stood up during the 
 interview. 
 
 " A grand meeting we had last night," he began, twist- 
 ing his hat. " I saw you there, Miss Tellwright." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Yes. There was a splendid muster of teachers. I 
 wanted to be at the prayer-meeting this morning, but 
 couldn't get away. Did you happen to go, Miss Tell- 
 wright?" 
 
 She saw that he knew she had been present, and gave him 
 another curt monosyllable. She would have liked to be 
 kind to him, to reassure him, to make him happy and com- 
 fortable, so ludicrous and touching were his efforts after 
 a social urbanity which should appease; but, just as 
 much as he, she was unskilled in the subtle arts of con- 
 verse. 
 
 " Yes," he continued, " and I was anxious to be at to- 
 night's meeting, but the dad asked me to come up here. 
 He said I'd better." That term, "the dad," uttered in 
 William's slow, drawling voice, seemed to show Titus 
 Price in a new light to Anna, as a human creature loved, not 
 as a mere gross physical organism : the effect was quite sur-
 
 WILLIE 99 
 
 prising. William went on : " Can I see your father, Miss 
 Tellwright?" 
 
 " Is it about the rent? " 
 
 " Yes," he said. 
 
 " Well, if you will tell me " 
 
 " Oh ! I beg pardon," he said quickly. " Of course I 
 know it's your property, but I thought Mr. Tellwright 
 always saw after it for you. It was he that wrote that 
 letter this morning, wasn't it? " 
 
 " Yes," Anna replied. She did not explain the situation. 
 
 " You insist on another twenty pounds on Monday ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 " We paid ten last Monday." 
 
 " But there is still over a hundred owing." 
 
 " I know, but oh, Miss Tellwright, you mustn't be hard 
 on us. Trade's bad." 
 
 " It says in the ' Signal ' that trade is improving," she 
 interrupted sharply. 
 
 " Does it? " he said. " But look at prices; they're cut 
 till there's no profit left. I assure you, Miss Tellwright, 
 my father and me are having a hard struggle. Every- 
 thing's against us, and the works in particular, as you 
 know." 
 
 His tone was so earnest, so pathetic, that tears of com- 
 passion almost rose to her eyes as she looked at those simple 
 nai've blue eyes of his. His lanky figure and clumsily-fit- 
 ting clothes, his feeble placatory smile, the twitching move- 
 ments of his long hands, all contributed to the effect of 
 his defencelessness. She thought of the text : " Blessed are
 
 100 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 the meek," and saw in a flash the deep truth of it. Here 
 were she and her father, rich, powerful, autocratic; and 
 there were Willie Price and his father, commercial hares 
 hunted by hounds of creditors, hares that turned in plain- 
 tive appeal to those greedy jaws for mercy. An yet, she, 
 a hound, envied at that moment the hares. Blessed are the 
 meek, blessed are the failures, blessed are the stupid, for 
 they, unknown to themselves, have a grace which is denied 
 to the haughty, the successful, and the wise. The very re- 
 pulsiveness of old Titus, his underhand methods, his insin- 
 cerities, only served to increase her sympathy for the pair. 
 How could Titus help being himself any more than Henry 
 Mynors could help being himself? And that idea led her 
 to think of the prospective partnership, destined by every 
 favourable sign to brilliant success, and to contrast it with 
 the ignoble and forlorn undertaking in Edward Street. 
 
 She tried to discover some method of soothing the young 
 man's fears, of being considerate to him without injuring 
 her father's scheme. 
 
 " If you will pay what you owe," she said, " we will spend 
 it all, every penny, on improving the works." 
 
 " Miss Tellwright," he answered with fatal emphasis, 
 " we cannot pay." 
 
 Ah! She wished to follow Christ day by day, hour by 
 hour constantly to endeavour after saintlinesss. What 
 was she to do? Left to herself, she might have said in 
 a burst of impulsive generosity, " I forgive you all arrears. 
 Start afresh." But her father had to be reckoned 
 with.
 
 WILLIE 101 
 
 " How much do you think you can pay on Monday ? " 
 she asked coldly. 
 
 At that moment her father entered the room. His first 
 act was to light the gas. Willie Price's eyes blinked at 
 the glare, as though he were trembling before the antici- 
 pated decree of this implacable old man. Anna's heart 
 beat with sympathetic apprehension. Tellwright shook 
 hands grimly with the youth, who restated hurriedly what 
 he had said to Anna. 
 
 " It's o' this'n,' the old man began with finality, and 
 stopped. Anna caught a glance from him dismissing her. 
 She went out in silence. On the Monday Titus Price paid 
 another twenty pounds.
 
 VII: THE SEWING MEETING 
 
 ON an afternoon ten days later, Mr. Button's coach- 
 man, Barrett by name, arrived at Ephraim Tell- 
 wright's back-door with a note. The Tellwrights 
 were having tea. The note could be seen in his enormous 
 hand, and Agnes went out. 
 
 " An answer, if you please, miss," he said to her, touch- 
 ing his hat, and giving a pull to the leathern belt which, 
 surrounding his waist, alone seemed to hold his frame to- 
 gether. Agnes, much impressed, took the note. She had 
 never before seen that resplendent automaton apart from 
 the equipage which he directed. Always afterwards, Bar- 
 rett formally saluted her in the streets, affording her thus, 
 every time, a thrilling moment of delicious joy. 
 
 " A letter, and there's an answer, and he's waiting," she 
 cried, running into the parlour. 
 
 " Less row ! " said her father. " Here, give it me." 
 
 "It's for Miss Tellwright that's Anna, isn't it? Oh! 
 Scent ! " She put the grey envelope to her nose like a 
 flower. 
 
 Anna, secretly as excited as her sister, opened the note 
 and read : " Lansdowne House, Wednesday. Dear Miss 
 Tellwright, Mother gives tea to the Sunday-school Sew- 
 ing Meeting here to-morrow. Will you give us the pleas- 
 ure of your company? I do not think you haye been to 
 any of the S. S. S. meetings yet, but we should all be glad 
 
 102
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 103 
 
 to see you and to have your assistance. Everyone is work- 
 ing very hard for the Autumn Bazaar, and mother has set 
 her mind on the Sunday-school stall being the best. Do 
 come, will you? Excuse this short notice. Yours 
 sincerely, BEATRICE SUTTON. P.S. We begin at 
 3.30." 
 
 " They want me to go to their sewing meeting to-mor- 
 row," she explained timidly to her father, pushing the note 
 towards him across the table. " Must I go, father? " 
 
 " What dost ask me for? Please thysen. I've nowt do 
 wi' it." 
 
 " I don't want to go " 
 
 " Oh ! Sis, do go," Agnes pleaded. 
 
 " Perhaps I'd better," she agreed, but with the misgiv- 
 ings of diffidence. " I haven't a rag to wear. I really 
 must have a new dress, father, at once." 
 
 " Hast forgotten as that there coachman's waiting? " 
 he remarked curtly. 
 
 " Shall I run and tell him you'll go? " Agnes suggested. 
 " It '11 be splendid for you." 
 
 " Don't be silly, dear. I must write." 
 
 " Well, write then," said the child energetically. " I'll 
 get you the ink and paper." She flew about and hovered 
 over Anna while the answer to the invitation was being 
 written. Anna made her reply as short and simple as pos- 
 sible, and then tendered it for her father's inspection. 
 "Will that do?" 
 
 He pretended to be nonchalant, but in fact he was some- 
 what interested.
 
 104 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Thou's forgotten to put th' date in," was all his com- 
 ment, and he threw the note back. 
 
 " I've put Wednesday." 
 
 " That's not the date." 
 
 " Does it matter? Beatrice Sutton only puts Wednes- 
 day." 
 
 His response was to walk out of the room. 
 
 " Is he vexed ? " Agnes asked anxiously. There had 
 been a whole week of almost perfect amenity. 
 
 The next day at half-past three Anna, having put on her 
 best clothes, was ready to start. She had seen almost 
 nothing of social life, and the prospect of taking part in 
 this entertainment at the Suttons' filled her with trepida- 
 tion. Should she arrive early, in which case she would 
 have to talk more, or late, in which case there would be the 
 ordeal of entering a crowded room? She could not decide. 
 She went into her father's bedroom, whose window over- 
 looked Trafalgar Road, and saw from behind a curtain 
 that small groups of ladies were continually passing up the 
 street to disappear into Alderman Sutton's house. Most 
 of the women she recognised ; others she knew but vaguely 
 by sight. Then the stream ceased, and suddenly she heard 
 the kitchen clock strike four. She ran downstairs 
 Agnes, swollen by importance, was carrying her father's 
 tea into the parlour- and hastened out by the back way. 
 In another moment she was at the Suttons' front-door. A 
 servant in black alpaca, with white wristbands, cap, stream- 
 ers, and embroidered apron (each article a dernier cri from
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 105 
 
 Bostock's great shop at Hanbridge), asked her in a sub- 
 dued and respectful tone to step within. Externally there 
 had been no sign of the unusual, but once inside the house 
 Anna found it a humming hive of activity. Women laden 
 with stuffs and implements were crossing the picture-hung 
 hall, their footsteps noiseless on the thick rugs which lay 
 about in rich confusion. On either hand was an open door, 
 and from each door came the sound of many eager voices. 
 Beyond these doors a broad staircase rose majestically to un- 
 seen heights, closing the vista of the hall. As the servant 
 was demanding Anna's name, Beatrice Sutton, radiant and 
 gorgeous, came with a rush out of the room to the left, the 
 dining-room, and, taking her by both hands, kissed her. 
 
 " My dear, we thought you were never coming. Every- 
 one's here, except the men, of course. Come along up- 
 stairs and take your things off. I'm so glad you've kept 
 your promise." 
 
 " Did you think I should break it? " said Anna, as they 
 ascended the easy gradient of the stairs. 
 
 " Oh, no, my dear ! But you're such a shy little bird." 
 
 The conception of herself as a shy little bird amused 
 Anna. By a curious chain of ideas she came to wonder 
 who could clean those stairs the better, she or this gay and 
 flitting butterfly in a pale green tea-gown. Beatrice led 
 the way to a large bedroom, crammed with furniture and 
 knick-knacks. There were three mirrors in this spacious 
 apartment one in the wardrobe, a cheval-glass, and a 
 third over the mantelpiece; the frame of the last was bor- 
 dered with photographs.
 
 106 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " This is my room," said Beatrice. " Will you put your 
 things on the bed? " The bed was already laden with hats, 
 bonnets, jackets, and wraps. 
 
 " I hope your mother won't give me anything fancy to 
 do," Anna said. " I'm no good at anything except plain 
 sewing." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right," Beatrice answered carelessly. 
 " It's all plain sewing." She drew a cardboard box from 
 her pocket, and offered it to Anna. " Here, have one." 
 They were choclate creams. 
 
 " Thanks," said Anna, taking one. Aren't they 
 very expensive? I've never seen any like these be- 
 fore." 
 
 " Oh ! Just ordinary. Four shillings a pound. Papa 
 buys them for me: I simply dote on them. I love to eat 
 them in bed, if I can't sleep." Beatrice made these state- 
 ments with her mouth full. " Don't you adore chocolates? " 
 she added. 
 
 " I don't know," Anna lamely replied. " Yes, I like 
 them." She only adored her sister, and perhaps God; and 
 this was the first time she had tasted chocolate. 
 
 " I couldn't live without them," said Beatrice. " Your 
 hair is lovely. I never saw such a brown. What wash do 
 you use ? " 
 
 " Wash ? " Anna repeated. 
 
 " Yes, don't you put anything on it? " 
 
 " No, never." 
 
 " Well ! Take care you don't lose it, that's all. Now, 
 will you come and have just a peep at my studio where I
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 107 
 
 paint, you know? I'd like you to see it before we go 
 down." 
 
 They proceeded to a small room on the second floor, with 
 a sloping ceiling and a dormer window. 
 
 " I'm obliged to have this room," Beatrice explained, 
 " because it's the only one in the house with a north light, 
 and of course you can't do without that. How do you 
 like it?" 
 
 Anna said that she liked it very much. 
 
 The walls of the room were hung with various odd cur- 
 tains of Eastern design. Attached somehow to these cur- 
 tains some coloured plates, bits of pewter, and a few fans 
 were hung high in apparently precarious suspense. Lower 
 down on the walls were pictures and sketches, chiefly un- 
 framed, of flowers, fishes, loaves of bread, candlesticks, 
 mugs, oranges and tea-trays. On an immense easel in the 
 middle of the room was an unfinished portrait of a man. 
 
 " Who's that? " Anna asked, ignorant of those rules of 
 caution which are observed by the practised frequenter of 
 studios. 
 
 "Don't you know?" Beatrice exclaimed, shocked. 
 " That's papa ; I'm doing his portrait ; he sits in that chair 
 there. The silly old master at the school won't let me draw 
 from life yet he keeps me to the antique so I said to 
 myself I would study the living model at home. I'm dread- 
 fully in earnest about it, you know I really am. Mother 
 says I work far too long up here." 
 
 Anna was unable to perceive that the picture bore any 
 resemblance to Alderman Button, except in the matter of
 
 108 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 the aldermanic robe, which she could now trace beneath the 
 portrait's neck. The studies on the wall pleased her much 
 better. Their realism amazed her. One could make out 
 not only that here, for instance, was a fish there was no 
 doubt that it was a halibut; the solid roundness of the 
 oranges and the glitter on the tea-trays seemed miracu- 
 lously achieved. " Have you actually done all these ? " she 
 asked, in genuine admiration. " I think they're splendid." 
 
 " Oh, yes, they're all mine ; they're only still-life stud- 
 ies," Beatrice said contemptuously of them, but she was 
 nevertheless flattered. 
 
 " I see now that that is Mr. Sutton," Anna said, point- 
 ing to the easel-picture. 
 
 " Yes, it's pa right enough. But I'm sure I'm boring 
 you. Let's go down now, or perhaps we shall catch it from 
 mother." 
 
 As Anna, in the wake of Beatrice, entered the drawing- 
 room, a dozen or more women glanced at her with keen curi- 
 osity, and the even flow of conversation ceased for a mo- 
 ment, to be immediately resumed. In the centre of the 
 room, with her back to the fire-place, Mrs. Sutton was seated 
 at a square table, cutting out. Although the afternoon 
 was warm, she had a white woollen wrap over her shoulders ; 
 for the rest she was attired in plain black silk, with a large 
 stuff apron containing a pocket for scissors and chalk. 
 She jumped up with the activity of which Beatrice had in- 
 herited a part, and greeted Anna, kissing her heartily. 
 
 " How are you, my dear? So pleased you have come." 
 The time-worn phrases came from her thin, nervous lips
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 109 
 
 full of a sincere and kindly welcome. Her wrinkled face 
 broke into a warm, life-giving smile. " Beatrice, find Miss 
 Anna a chair." There were two chairs in the bay of the 
 window, and one of them was occupied by Miss Dickinson, 
 whom Anna slightly knew. The other, being empty, was 
 assigned to the late-comer. 
 
 " Now you want something to do, I suppose," said 
 Beatrice. 
 
 " Please." 
 
 " Mother, let Miss Tellwright have something to get on 
 with at once. She has a lot of time to make up." 
 
 Mrs. Sutton, who had sat down again, smiled across at 
 Anna. " Let me see, now, what can we give her? " 
 
 " There's several of those boys' nightgowns ready 
 tacked," said Miss Dickinson, who was stitching at a boy's 
 nightgown. " Here's one half -finished," and she picked 
 up an inchoate garment from the floor. " Perhaps Miss 
 Tellwright wouldn't mind finishing it." 
 
 " Yes, I will do my best at it," said Anna. 
 
 The thoughtless girl had arrived at the sewing meeting 
 without needles or thimbles or scissors, but one lady or an- 
 other supplied these deficiencies, and soon she was at work. 
 She stitched her best and her hardest, with head bent, and 
 all her wits concentrated on the task. Most of the others 
 seemed to be doing likewise, though not to the detriment of 
 conversation. Beatrice sank down on a stool near her 
 mother, and, threading a needle with coloured silk, took up 
 a long piece of elaborate embroidery. 
 
 The general subjects of talk were the Revival, now over,
 
 110 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 with a superb record of seventy saved souls, the school- 
 treat shortly to occur, the summer holidays, the fashions, 
 and the change of ministers which would take place in 
 August. The talkers were the wives and daughters of 
 tradesmen and small manufacturers, together with a few 
 girls of a somewhat lower status, employed in shops : it was 
 for the sake of these latter that the sewing meeting was 
 always fixed for the weekly half-holiday. The splendour 
 of Mrs. Button's drawing-room was a little dazzling to most 
 of the guests, and Mrs. Sutton herself seemed scarcely of 
 a piece with it. The fact was that the luxury of the abode 
 was mainly due to Alderman Sutton's inability to refuse 
 anything to his daughter, whose tastes lay in the direction 
 of rich draperies, large or quaint chairs, occasional tables, 
 dwarf screens, hand-painted mirrors, and an opulence of 
 bric-a-brac. The hand of Beatrice might be perceived 
 everywhere, even in the position of the piano, whose back, 
 adorned with carelessly-flung silks and photographs, was 
 turned away from the wall. The pictures on the wall had 
 been acquired gradually by Mr. Sutton at auction sales: 
 it was commonly held that he had an excellent taste in pic- 
 tures, and that his daughter's aptitude for the arts came 
 from him, and not from her mother. The gilt clock and 
 side pieces on the mantelpiece were also peculiarly Mr. Sut- 
 ton's, having been publicly presented to him by the direct- 
 ors of a local building society of which he had been chair- 
 man for many years. 
 
 Less intimidated by all this unexampled luxury than she 
 was reassured by the atmosphere of combined and homely
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 111 
 
 effort, the lowliness of several of her companions, and the 
 kind, simple face of Mrs. Sutton, Anna quickly began to 
 feel at ease. She paused in her work, and, glancing around 
 her, happened to catch the eye of Miss Dickinson, who 
 offered a remark about the weather. Miss Dickinson was 
 head-assistant at a draper's in St. Luke's Square, and a 
 pillar of the Sunday-school, which Sunday by Sunday and 
 year by year had watched her develop from a rosy-cheeked 
 girl into a confirmed spinster with sallow and warted face. 
 Miss Dickinson supported her mother, and was a pattern 
 to her sex. She was lovable, but had never been loved. She 
 would have made an admirable wife and mother, but fate 
 had decided that this material was to be wasted. Miss 
 Dickinson found compensation for the rigour of destiny 
 in gossip as innocent as indiscreet. It was said that she 
 had a tongue. 
 
 " I hear," said Miss Dickinson, lowering her contralto 
 voice to a confidential tone, " that you are going into part- 
 nership with Mr. Mynors, Miss Tellwright." 
 
 The suddenness of the attack took Anna by surprise. 
 Her first defensive impulse was boldly to deny the state- 
 ment, or at the least to say that it was premature. A fort- 
 night ago, under similar circumstances, she would not have 
 hesitated to do so. But for more than a week Anna had 
 been " leading a new life," which chiefly meant a meticulous 
 avoidance of the sins of speech. Never to deviate from the 
 truth, never to utter an unkind or a thoughtless word, under 
 whatever provocation: these were two of her self-imposed 
 rules. " Yes," she answered Miss Dickinson, " I am."
 
 112 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Rather a novelty, isn't it? " Miss Dickinson smiled 
 amiably. 
 
 " I don't know," said Anna. " It's only a business ar- 
 rangement; father arranged it. Really I have nothing to 
 do with it, and I had no idea that people were talking 
 about it." 
 
 " Oh ! Of course 7 should never breathe a syllable," 
 Miss Dickinson said with emphasis. " I make a practice 
 of never talking about other people's affairs. I always 
 find that best, don't you? But I happened to hear it men- 
 tioned in the shop." 
 
 " It's very funny how things get abroad, isn't it? " said 
 Anna. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," Miss Dickinson concurred. " Mr. Mynors 
 hasn't been to our sewing meetings for quite a long time, 
 but I expect he'll turn up to-day." 
 
 Anna took thought. " Is this a sort of special meet- 
 ing, then ? " 
 
 " Oh, not at all. But we all of us said just now, while 
 you were upstairs, that he would be sure to come," Miss 
 Dickinson's features, skilful in innuendo, conveyed that 
 which was too delicate for utterance. Anna said nothing. 
 
 " You see a good deal of him at your house, don't you ? " 
 Miss Dickinson continued. 
 
 " He comes sometimes to see father on business," Anna 
 replied sharply, breaking one of her rules. 
 
 " Oh ! Of course I meant that. You didn't suppose I 
 meant anything else, did you ? " Miss Dickinson smiled 
 pleasantly. She was thirty-five years of age. Twenty of
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 113 
 
 those years had passed in a desolating routine; she had ex- 
 isted in the midst of life and never lived; she knew no finer 
 joy than that which she at that moment experienced. 
 
 Again Anna offered no reply. The door opened, and 
 every eye was centred on the stately Mrs. Clayton Vernon, 
 who, with Mrs. Banks, the minister's wife, was in charge 
 of the other half of the sewing party in the dining-room. 
 Mrs. Clayton Vernon had heroic proportions, a nose which 
 everyone admitted to be aristocratic, exquisite tact, and the 
 calm consciousness of social superiority. In Bursley she 
 was a great lady ; her instincts were those of a great lady ; 
 and she would have been a great lady no matter to what 
 sphere her God had called her. She had abundant 
 white hair, and wore a flowered purple silk, in the antique 
 taste. 
 
 " Beatrice, my dear," she began, " you have deserted 
 us." 
 
 " Have I, Mrs. Vernon ? " the girl answered with invol- 
 untary deference. " I was just coming in." 
 
 " Well, I am sent as a deputation from the other room 
 to ask you to sing something." 
 
 " I'm very busy, Mrs. Vernon. I shall never get this 
 mantel-cloth finished in time." 
 
 " We shall all work better for a little music," Mrs. Clay- 
 ton Vernon urged. " Your voice is a precious gift, and 
 should be used for the benefit of all. We entreat, my dear 
 girl." 
 
 Beatrice arose from the footstool and dropped her em- 
 broidery.
 
 114 
 
 "Thank you," said Mrs. Clayton Vernon. "If both 
 doors are left open we shall hear nicely." 
 
 " What would you like? " Beatrice asked. 
 
 " I once heard you sing 'Nazareth,' and I shall never 
 forget it. Sing that. It will do us all good." 
 
 Mrs. Clayton Vernon departed with the large movement 
 of an argosy, and Beatrice sat down to the piano and re- 
 moved her bracelets. " The accompaniment is simply 
 frightful towards the end," she said, looking at Anna with 
 a grimace. " Excuse mistakes." 
 
 During the song, Mrs. Sutton beckoned with her finger 
 to Anna to come and occupy the stool vacated by Beatrice. 
 Glad to leave the vicinity of Miss Dickinson, Anna obeyed, 
 creeping on tiptoe across the intervening space. " I 
 thought I would like to have you near me, my dear," she 
 whispered maternally. When Beatrice had sung the song 
 and somehow executed that accompaniment which has ter- 
 rorised whole multitudes of drawing-room pianists, there 
 was a great deal of applause from both rooms. Mrs. Sut- 
 ton bent down and whispered in Anna's ear : " Her voice 
 has been very well trained, has it not?" "Yes, very," 
 Anna replied. But, though " Nazareth " had seemed to 
 her wonderful, she had neither understood it nor enjoyed it. 
 She tried to like it, but the effect of it on her was bizarre 
 rather than pleasing. 
 
 Shortly after half-past five the gong sounded for tea, 
 and the ladies, bidden by Mrs. Sutton, unanimously 
 thronged into the hall and towards a room at the back of 
 the house. Beatrice came and took Anna by the arm. As
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 115 
 
 they were crossing the hall there was a ring at the door. 
 " There's father and Mr. Banks, too," Beatrice ex- 
 claimed, opening to them. Everyone in the vicinity, ani- 
 mated suddenly by this appearance of the male sex, turned 
 with welcoming smiles. " A greeting to you all," the min- 
 ister ejaculated with formal suavity as he removed his low 
 hat. The Alderman beamed a rather absent-minded good- 
 will on the entire company, and said : " Well ! I see we're 
 just in time for tea." Then he kissed his daughter, and 
 she accepted from him his hat and stick. " Miss Tell- 
 wright, pa," Beatrice said, drawing Anna forward: he 
 shook hands with her heartily, emerging for a moment 
 from the benignant dream in which he seemed usually to 
 exist. 
 
 That air of being rapt by some inward vision, common 
 in very old men, probably signified nothing in the case of 
 William Sutton: it was a habitual pose into which he had 
 perhaps unconsciously fallen. But people connected it 
 with his humble archaeological, geological, and zoological 
 hobbies, which had sprung from his membership of the 
 Five Towns Field Club, and which most of his acquaint- 
 ances regarded with amiable secret disdain. At a school- 
 treat once, held at a popular rural resort, he had taken 
 some of the teachers to a cave, and pointing out the wave- 
 like formation of its roof, had told them that this particular 
 phenomenon had actually been caused by waves of the sea. 
 The discovery, valid enough and perfectly substantiated by 
 an enquiry into the levels, was extremely creditable to the 
 amateur geologist, but it seriously impaired his reputation
 
 116 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 among the Wesley an community as a shrewd man of the 
 world. Few believed the statement, or even tried to believe 
 it, and nearly all thenceforth looked on him as a man who 
 must be humoured in his harmless hallucinations and in- 
 explicable curiosities. On the other hand, the collection of 
 arrowheads, Roman pottery, fossils, and birds' eggs which 
 he had given to the Museum in the Wedgwood Institution 
 was always viewed with municipal pride. 
 
 The tea-room opened by a large French window into a 
 conservatory, and a table was laid down the whole length 
 of the room and the conservatory. Mr. Sutton sat at one 
 end and the minister at the other, but neither Mrs. Sutton 
 nor Beatrice occupied a distinctive place. The ancient 
 clumsy custom of having tea-urns on the table itself had 
 been abolished by Beatrice, who had read in a paper that 
 carving was now never done at table, but by a neatly- 
 dressed parlour-maid at the sideboard. Consequently the 
 tea-urns were exiled to the sideboard, and the tea dispensed 
 by a couple of maids. Thus, as Beatrice had explained 
 to her mother, the hostess was left free to devote herself 
 to the social arts. The board was richly spread with fancy 
 breads and cakes, jams of Mrs. Sutton's own celebrated 
 preserving, diverse sandwiches compiled by Beatrice, and 
 one or two large examples of the famous Bursley pork-pie. 
 Numerous as the company was, several chairs remained 
 empty after everyone was seated. Anna found herself 
 again next to Miss Dickinson, and five places from the min- 
 ister, in the conservatory. Beatrice and her mother were 
 higher up, in the room. Grace was sung, by request of
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 117 
 
 Mrs. Sutton. At first, silence prevailed among the guests, 
 and the enquiries of the maids about milk and sugar were 
 almost painfully audible. Then Mr. Banks, glancing up 
 the long vista of the table and pretending to descry some 
 object in the distance, called out: 
 
 " Worthy host, I doubt not you are there, but I can 
 only see you with the eye of faith." 
 
 At this all laughed, and a natural ease was established. 
 The minister and Mrs. Clayton Vernon, who sat on his 
 right, exchanged badinage on the merits and demerits 
 of pork-pies, and their neighbours formed an appreciative 
 audience. Then there was a sharp ring at the front door, 
 and one of the maids went out. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you ? " Miss Dickinson whispered to Anna. 
 
 "What?" asked Anna. 
 
 " That he would come to-day Mr. Mynors, I mean." 
 
 " Who can that be? " Mrs. Button's voice was heard 
 from the room. 
 
 " I dare say it's Henry, mother," Beatrice answered. 
 
 Mynors entered, joyous and self-possessed, a white rose 
 in his coat : he shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Sutton, sent 
 a greeting down the table to Mr. Banks and Mrs. Clayton 
 Vernon, and offered a general apology for being late. 
 
 " Sit here," said Beatrice to him sharply, indicating a 
 chair between Mrs. Banks and herself. " Mrs. Banks has 
 a word to say to you about the singing of that anthem last 
 Sunday." 
 
 Mynors made some laughing rejoinder, and the voices 
 sank so that Anna could not catch what was said.
 
 118 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " That's a new frock that Miss Sutton is wearing to- 
 day," Miss Dickinson remarked in an undertone. 
 
 " It looks new," Anna agreed. 
 
 "Do you like it?" 
 
 "Yes. Don't you?" 
 
 " Hum ! Yes. It was made at Brunt's at Hanbridge. 
 It's quite the fashion to go there now," said Miss Dickin- 
 son, and added almost inaudibly, " She's put it on for 
 Mr. Mynors. You saw how she saved that chair for him." 
 
 Anna made no reply. 
 
 " Did you know they were engaged once? " Miss Dickin- 
 son resumed. 
 
 " No," said Anna. 
 
 " At least people said they were. It was all over the 
 town oh ! let me see, three years ago." 
 
 " I had not heard," said Anna. 
 
 During the rest of the meal she said little. On some 
 natures Miss Dickinson's gossip had the effect of bringing 
 them to silence. Anna had not seen Mynors since the 
 previous Sunday, and now she was apparently unperceived 
 by him. He talked gaily with Beatrice and Mrs. Banks: 
 that group was a centre of animation. Anna envied their 
 ease of manner, their smooth and sparkling flow of conver- 
 sation. She had the sensation of feeling vulgar, clumsy, 
 tongue-tied; Mynors and Beatrice possessed something 
 which she would never possess. So they had been engaged ! 
 But had they? Or was it an idle rumour, manufactured 
 by one who spent her life in such creations? Anna was 
 conscious of misgivings. She had despised Beatrice once,
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 119 
 
 but now it seemed that, after all, Beatrice was the natural 
 equal of Henry Mynors. Was it more likely that Mynors 
 or she, Anna, should be mistaken in Beatrice? That 
 Beatrice had generous instincts she was sure. Anna lost 
 confidence in herself; she felt humbled, out-of -place, and 
 shamed. 
 
 " If our hostess and the company will kindly excuse me," 
 said the minister with a pompous air, looking at his watch, 
 " I must go. I have an important appointment, or an 
 appointment which some people think is important." 
 
 He got up and made various adieux. The elaborate 
 meal, complex with fifty dainties, each of which had to be 
 savoured, was not nearly over. The parson stopped in his 
 course up the room to speak with Mrs. Sutton. After he 
 had shaken hands with her, he caught the admired violet 
 eyes of his slim wife, a lady of independent fortune whom 
 the wives of circuit stewards found it difficult to please in 
 the matter of furniture, and who, despite her forty years, 
 still kept something of the pose of a spoiled beauty. As 
 a minister's spouse this languishing, but impeccable and 
 invariably correct, dame was unique even in the experience 
 of Mrs. Clayton Vernon. 
 
 " Shall you not be home early, Rex ? " she asked in the 
 tone of a young wife lounging amid the delicate odours 
 of a boudoir. 
 
 " My love," he replied with the stern fixity of a histrionic 
 martyr, " did you ever know me have a free evening? " 
 
 The Alderman accompanied his pastor to the door. 
 
 After tea Mynors was one of the first to leave the room,
 
 120 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 and Anna one of the last, but he accosted her in the hall, 
 on the way back to the drawing-room, and asked how she 
 was, and how Agnes was, with such deference and sincerity 
 of regard for herself and everything that was hers that 
 she could not fail to be impressed. Her sense of humilia- 
 tion and of uncertainty was effaced by a single word, a 
 single glance. Uplifted by a delicious reassurance, she 
 passed into the drawing-room, expecting him to follow: 
 strange to say, he did not do so. Work was resumed, but 
 with less ardour than before. It was in fact impossible to 
 be strenuously diligent after one of Mrs. Sutton's teas, and 
 in every heart, save those which beat over the most perfect 
 and vigorous digestive organs, there was a feeling of re- 
 pentance. The building society's clock on the mantelpiece 
 intoned seven: all expressed surprise at the lateness of the 
 hour, and Mrs. Clayton Vernon, pleading fatigue after her 
 recent indisposition, quietly departed. As soon as she had 
 gone, Anna said to Mrs. Sutton that she too must go. 
 
 " Why, my dear? " Mrs. Sutton asked. 
 
 " I shall be needed at home," Anna replied. 
 
 " Ah ! In that case I will come upstairs with you, 
 my dear," said Mrs. Sutton. 
 
 When they were in the bedroom, Mrs. Sutton suddenly 
 clasped her hand. " How is it with you, dear Anna? " she 
 said, gazing anxiously into the girl's eyes. Anna knew 
 what she meant, but made no answer. " Is it well? " the 
 earnest old woman asked. 
 
 " I hope so," said Anna, averting her eyes. " I am try- 
 ing."
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 121 
 
 Mrs. Sutton kissed her almost passionately. " Ah ! my 
 dear," she exclaimed with an impulsive gesture, " I am 
 glad, so glad. I did so want to have a word with you. 
 You must * lean hard,' as Miss Havergal says. ' Lean 
 hard ' on Him. Do not be afraid." And then, changing 
 her tone : " You are looking pale, Anna. You want a holi- 
 day. We shall be going to the Isle of Man in August or 
 September. Would your father let you come with us ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Anna. She knew, however, that he 
 would not. Nevertheless the suggestion gave her much 
 pleasure. 
 
 " We must see about that later," said Mrs. Sutton, and 
 they went downstairs. 
 
 " I must say good-bye to Beatrice. Where is she ? " 
 Anna said in the hall. One of the servants directed them 
 to the dining-room. The Alderman and Henry Mynors 
 were looking together at a large photogravure of Sant's 
 " The Soul's Awakening," which Mr. Sutton had recently 
 bought, and Beatrice was exhibiting her embroidery to a 
 group of ladies: sundry stitchers were scattered about, in- 
 cluding Miss Dickinson. 
 
 " It is a great picture a picture that makes you think," 
 Henry was saying seriously, and the Alderman, feeling as 
 the artist might have felt, was obviously flattered by this 
 sagacious praise. 
 
 Anna said good-night to Miss Dickinson and then to 
 Beatrice. Mynors, hearing the words, turned round. 
 " Well, I must go. Good-evening," he said suddenly to the 
 astonished Alderman.
 
 122 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " What? Now? " the latter enquired, scarcely pleased 
 to find that Mynors could tear himself away from the pic- 
 ture with so little difficulty. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Mynors," said Anna. 
 
 " If I may, I will walk down with you," Mynors imper- 
 turbaHy answered. 
 
 It was one of those dramatic moments which arrive with- 
 out the slightest warning. The gleam of joyous satisfac- 
 tion in Miss Dickinson's eyes showed that she alone had 
 foreseen this declaration. For a declaration it was, and a 
 formal declaration. Mynors stood there calm, confident 
 with masculine superiority, and his glance seemed to say 
 to those swiftly alert women, whose faces could not disguise 
 a thrilling excitation : " Yes. Let all know that I, Henry 
 Mynors, the desired of all, am honourably captive to this 
 shy and perfect creature, who is blushing because I have 
 said what I have said." Even the Alderman forgot his 
 photogravure. Beatrice hurriedly resumed her explanation 
 of the embroidery. 
 
 " How did you like the sewing meeting? " Mynors asked 
 Anna when they were on the pavement. 
 
 Anna paused. " I think Mrs. Sutton is simply a splen- 
 did woman," she said enthusiastically. 
 
 When, in a moment too far short, they reached Tell- 
 wright's house, Mynors, obeying a mutual wish to which 
 neither had given expression, followed Anna up the side 
 entry, and so into the yard, where they lingered for a few 
 seconds. Old Tellwright could be seen at the extremity
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 123 
 
 of the long narrow garden a garden which consisted chiefly 
 of a grass-plot sown with clothes-props and a narrow 
 bordering of flower-beds without flowers. Agnes was 
 invisible. The kitchen-door stood ajar, and as this was 
 the sole means of ingress from the yard, Anna, hum- 
 ming an air, pushed it open and entered, Mynors in 
 her wake. They stood on the threshold, happy, hesi- 
 tating, confused, and looked at the kitchen as at some- 
 thing they had not seen before. Anna's kitchen 
 was the only satisfactory apartment in the house. Its 
 furniture included a dresser of the simple and dignified 
 kind which is now assiduously collected by amateurs of 
 old oak. It had four long narrow shelves holding plates 
 and saucers; the cups were hung in a row on small brass 
 hooks screwed into the fronts of the shelves. Below the 
 shelves were three drawers in a line, with brass handles, and 
 below the drawers was a large recess which held stone jars, 
 a copper preserving-saucepan, and other receptacles. Sev- 
 enty years of continuous polishing by a dynasty of priest- 
 esses of cleanliness had given to this dresser a rich ripe tone 
 which the cleverest trade-trickster could not have imitated. 
 In it was reflected the conscientious labour of generations. 
 It had a soft and assuaged appearance, as though it had 
 never been new and could never have been new. All its 
 corners and edges had long lost the asperities of manufac- 
 ture, and its smooth surfaces were marked by slight hollows 
 similar in spirit to those worn by the naked feet of pilgrims 
 into the marble steps of a shrine. The flat portion over 
 the drawers was scarred with hundreds of scratches, and
 
 124 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 yet even all these seemed to be incredibly ancient, and in 
 some distant past to have partaken of the mellowness of 
 the whole. The dark woodwork formed an admirable 
 background for the crockery on the shelves, and a few of 
 the old plates, hand-painted according to some vanished 
 secret in pigments which time could only improve, had the 
 look of relationship by birth to the dresser. There must 
 still be thousands of exactly similar dressers in the kitchens 
 of the people, but they are gradually being transferred 
 to the dining-rooms of curiosity -hunters. To Anna this 
 piece of furniture, which would have made the most taci- 
 turn collector vocal with joy, was merely " the dresser." 
 She had always lamented that it contained no cupboard. 
 In front of the fireless range was'an old steel kitchen fender 
 with heavy fire-irons. It had in the middle of its flat top 
 a circular lodgment for saucepans, but on this polished 
 disc no saucepan was ever placed. The fender was perhaps 
 as old as the dresser, and the profound depths of its polish 
 served to mitigate somewhat the newness of the patent coal- 
 economising range which Tellwright had had put in when 
 he took the house. On the high mantelpiece were four 
 tall brass candlesticks which, like the dresser, were silently 
 awaiting their apotheosis at the hands of some collector. 
 Beside these were two or three common mustard tins, pol- 
 ished to counterfeit silver, containing spices ; also an aban- 
 doned coffee-mill and two flat-irons. A grandfather's 
 clock, of oak to match the dresser, stood to the left of the 
 fireplace; it had a very large white dial with a grinning 
 face in the centre. Though it would only run for twenty-
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 125 
 
 four hours, its leisured movement seemed to have the cer- 
 tainty of a natural law, especially to Agnes, for Mr. Tell- 
 wright never forgot to wind it before going to bed. Under 
 the window was a plain deal table, with white top and 
 stained legs. Two Windsor chairs completed the catalogue 
 of furniture. The glistening floor was of red and black 
 tiles, and in front of the fender lay a list hearthrug, made 
 by attaching innumerable bits of black cloth to a canvas 
 base. On the painted walls were several grocers' almanacs, 
 depicting sailors in the arms of lovers, children crossing 
 brooks, or monks swelling themselves with Gargantuan 
 repasts. Everything in this kitchen was absolutely bright 
 and spotless, as clean as a cat in pattens, except the ceiling, 
 darkened by fumes of gas. Everything was in perfect 
 order, and had the humanised air of use and occupation 
 which nothing but use and occupation can impart to sense- 
 less objects. It was a kitchen where, in the housewife's 
 phrase, you might eat off the floor, and to any Bursley 
 matron it would have constituted the highest possible certifi- 
 cate of Anna's character, not only as housewife, but as elder 
 sister for in her absence Agnes had washed the tea-things 
 and put them away. 
 
 " This is the nicest room, I know," said Mynors at length. 
 
 " Whatever do you mean ? " Anna smiled, incapable, of 
 course, of seeing the place with his eye. 
 
 " I mean there is nothing to beat a clean straight 
 kitchen," Mynors replied, " and there never will be. It 
 wants only the mistress in a white apron to make it com- 
 plete. Do you know, when I came in here the other night,
 
 126 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 and you were sitting at the table there, I thought the place 
 was like a picture." 
 
 " How funny ! " said Anna, puzzled but well satisfied. 
 " But won't you come into the parlour ? " 
 
 The Persian with one ear met them in the lobby, his tail 
 flying, but cautiously sidled upstairs at sight of Mynors. 
 When Anna opened the door of the parlour she saw Agnes 
 seated at the table over her lessons, frowning and preoccu- 
 pied. Tears were in her eyes. 
 
 " Why, what's the matter, Agnes ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 "Oh! Go away," said the child crossly. "Don't 
 bother." 
 
 " But what's the matter? You're crying." 
 
 " No, I'm not. I'm doing my sums, and I can't get it 
 can't " The child burst into tears just as Mynors en- 
 tered. His presence was a complete surprise to her. She 
 hid her face in her pinafore, ashamed to be thus caught. 
 
 " Where is it ? " said Mynors. " Where is this sum that 
 won't come right? " He picked up the slate and examined 
 it while Agnes was finding herself again. " Practice ! " 
 he exclaimed. " Has Agnes got as far as practice ? " She 
 gave him an instant's glance and murmured " Yes." Be- 
 fore she could shelter her face he had kissed her. Anna 
 was enchanted by his manner, and as for Agnes, she sur- 
 rendered happily to him at once. He worked the sum, and 
 she copied the figures into her exercise-book. Anna sat and 
 watched. 
 
 " Now I must go," said Mynors. 
 
 " But surely you'll stay and see father," Anna urged.
 
 THE SEWING MEETING 127 
 
 " No. I really had not meant to call. Good-night, 
 Agnes." In a moment he was gone out of the room and 
 the house. It was as if, in obedience to a sudden impulse, 
 he had forcibly torn himself away. 
 
 " Was he at the sewing meeting? " Agnes asked, adding 
 in parenthesis, " I never dreamt he was here, and I was 
 frightfully vexed. I felt such a baby." 
 
 " Yes. At least, he came for tea." 
 
 " Why did he call here like that? " 
 
 "How can I tell?" Anna said. The child looked at 
 her. 
 
 "It's awfully queer, isn't it?" she said slowly. "Tell 
 me all about the sewing meeting. Did they have cakes or 
 was it a plain tea ? And did you go into Beatrice Button's 
 bedroom? "
 
 VIII: ON THE BANK 
 
 A<JNA began to receive her July interest and dividends. 
 During a fortnight remittances, varying from a few 
 pounds to a few hundreds of pounds, arrived by 
 post almost daily. They were all addressed to her, 
 since the securities now stood in her own name; and upon 
 her, under the miser's superintendence, fell the new task 
 of entering them in a book and paying them into the Bank. 
 This mysterious begetting of money by money a strange 
 process continually going forward for her benefit, in 
 various parts of the world, far and near, by means of ac- 
 tivities of which she was completely ignorant and would 
 always be completely ignorant bewildered her and gave 
 her a feeling of its unreality. The elaborate mechanism 
 by which capital yields interest without suffering diminu- 
 tion from its original bulk is one of the commonest phe- 
 nomena of modern life, and one of the least understood. 
 Many capitalists never grasp it, nor experience the slightest 
 curiosity about it until the mechanism through some defect 
 ceases to revolve. Tellwright was of these; for him the 
 interval between the outlay of capital and the receipt of 
 interest was nothing but an efflux of time : he planted capital 
 as a gardener plants rhubarb, tolerably certain of a particu- 
 lar result, but not dwelling even in thought on that which is 
 hidden. The productivity of capital was to him the great- 
 est achievement of social progress indeed, the social 
 
 128
 
 ON THE BANK 129 
 
 organism justified its existence by that achievement; noth- 
 ing could be more equitable than this productivity, nothing 
 more natural. He would as soon have enquired into it as 
 Agnes would have enquired into the ticking of the grand- 
 father's clock. But to Anna, who had some imagination, 
 and whose imagination had been stirred by recent events, 
 the arrivals of moneys out of space, unearned, unasked, 
 was a disturbing experience, affecting her as a conjuring 
 trick affects a child, whose sensations hesitate between 
 pleasure and apprehension. Practically, Anna could not 
 believe that she was rich; and in fact she was not rich 
 she was merely a fixed point through which moneys that she 
 was unable to arrest passed with the rapidity of trains. 
 If money is a token, Anna was denied the satisfaction of 
 fingering even the token : drafts and cheques were all that 
 she touched (touched only to abandon) the doubly tan- 
 talising and insubstantial tokens of a token. She wanted 
 to test the actuality of this apparent dream by handling 
 coin and causing it to vanish over counters and into the 
 palms of the necessitous. And moreover, quite apart from 
 this curiosity, she really needed money for pressing require- 
 ments of Agnes and herself. They had yet had no new 
 summer clothes, and Whitsuntide, the time prescribed by 
 custom for the refurnishing of wardrobes, was long since 
 past. The intercourse with Henry Mynors, the visit to the 
 Suttons, had revealed to her more plainly than ever the in- 
 tolerable shortcomings of her wardrobe, and similar imper- 
 fections. She was more painfully awake to these, and yet, 
 by an unhappy paradox, she was even less in a position to
 
 130 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 remedy them than in previous years. For now, she pos- 
 sessed her own fortune; to ask her father's bounty was 
 therefore, she divined, a surg way of inviting a rebuff. 
 But, even if she had dared, she might not use the income 
 that was privately hers, for was not every penny of it 
 already allocated to the partnership with Mynors? So it 
 happened that she never once mentioned the matter to her 
 father; she lacked the courage, since by whatever avenue 
 she approached it circumstances would add an illogical and 
 adventitious force to the brutal snubs which he invariably 
 dealt out when petitioned for money. To demand his 
 money, having fifty thousand of her own ! To spend her 
 own in the face of that agreement with Mynors ! She 
 could too easily guess his bitter and humiliating retorts to 
 either proposition, and she kept silence, comforting herself 
 with timid visions of a far distant future. The balance 
 at the bank crept up to sixteen hundred pounds. The 
 deed of partnership was drawn; her father pored over the 
 blue draft, and several times Mynors called and the two 
 men discussed it together. Then one morning her father 
 summoned her into the front parlour, and handed to her 
 a piece of parchment on which she dimly deciphered her 
 own name coupled with that of Henry Mynors, in large 
 letters. 
 
 " You mun sign, seal, and deliver this," he said, putting 
 a pen in her hand. 
 
 She sat down obediently to write, but he stopped her with 
 a scornful gesture. 
 
 " Thou'lt sign blind then, eh ? Just like a woman ! "
 
 ON THE BANK 131 
 
 " I left it to you," she said. 
 
 " Left it to me ! Read it." 
 
 She read through the deed, and after she had accom- 
 plished the feat one fact only stood clear in her mind, that 
 the partnership was for seven years, a period extensible by 
 consent of both parties to fourteen or twenty-one years. 
 Then she affixed her signature, the pen moving awkwardly 
 over the rough surface of the parchment. 
 
 " Now put thy finger on that bit 'o wax, and say : ' I 
 deliver this as my act and deed.' ' 
 
 " I deliver this as my act and deed." 
 
 The old man signed as witness. " Soon as I give this 
 to Lawyer Dane," he remarked, " thou'rt bound, willy- 
 nilly. Law's law, and thou'rt bound." 
 
 On the following day she had to sign a cheque which 
 reduced her bank-balance to about three pounds. Perhaps 
 it was the knowledge of this reduction that led Ephraim 
 Tellwright to resume at once and with fresh rigour his 
 new policy of " squeezing the last penny " out of Titus 
 Price (despite the fact that the latter had already achieved 
 the incredible by paying thirty pounds in little more than 
 a month), thus causing the catastrophe which soon after- 
 wards befell. What methods her father was adopting Anna 
 did not know, since he said no word to her about the matter : 
 she only knew that Agnes had twice been dispatched with 
 notes to Edward Street. One day, about noon, a clay-soiled 
 urchin brought a letter addressed to herself; she guessed 
 that it was some appeal for mercy from the Prices, and 
 wished that her father had been at home. The old man
 
 132 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 was away for the whole day, attending a sale of property at 
 Axe, the agricultural town in the north of the county, lo- 
 cally styled " the metropolis of the moorlands." Anna 
 read : " My dear Miss Tellwright, Now that our partner- 
 ship is an accomplished fact, will you not come and look 
 over the works? I should much like you to do so. I shall 
 be passing your house this afternoon about two, and will 
 call on the chance of being able to take you down with me 
 to the works. If you are unable to come no harm will be 
 done, and some other day can be arranged; but of course 
 I shall be disappointed. Believe me, yours most sincerely, 
 HY. MYNORS." 
 
 She was charmed with the idea to her so audacious and 
 relieved that the note was not after all from Titus or Willie 
 Price: but again she had to regret that her father was not 
 at home. He would be capable of thinking and saying that 
 the projected expedition was a truancy, contrived to occur 
 in his absence. He might grumble at the house being left 
 without a keeper. Moreover, according to a tacit law, she 
 never departed from the fixed routine of her existence with- 
 out first obtaining Ephraim's approval, or at least being 
 sure that such a departure would not make him violently 
 angry. She wondered whether Mynors knew that her 
 father was away, and, if so, whether he had chosen that 
 afternoon purposely. She did not care that Mynors should 
 call for her it made the visit seem so formal; and as in 
 order to reach the works, down at Shawport, by the canal- 
 side, they would necessarily go through the middle of the 
 town, she foresaw infinite gossip and rumour as one result.
 
 ON THE BANK 133 
 
 Already, she knew, the names of herself and Mynors were 
 everywhere coupled, and she could not even enter a shop 
 without being made aware, more or less delicately, that she 
 was an object of piquant curiosity. A woman is pro- 
 foundly interesting to women at two periods only before 
 she is betrothed and before she becomes the mother of her 
 firstborn. Anna was in the first period; her life did not 
 comprise the second. 
 
 When Agnes came home to dinner from school, Anna said 
 nothing of Mynors' note until they had begun to wash up 
 the dinner-things, when she suggested that Agnes should 
 finish this operation alone. 
 
 " Yes," said Agnes, ever compliant. " But why? " 
 
 " I'm going out, and I must get ready." 
 
 " Going out ? And shall you leave the house all empty ? 
 What will father say ? Where are you going to ? " 
 
 Agnes's tendency to anticipate the worst, and never to 
 blink their father's tyranny, always annoyed Anna, and she 
 answered rather curtly : " I'm going to the works Mr. 
 Mynors' works. He's sent word he wants me to." She 
 despised herself for wishing to hide anything, and added, 
 " He will call here for me about two o'clock." 
 
 " Mr. Mynors ! How splendid ! " And then Agnes's 
 face fell somewhat. " I suppose he won't call before two? 
 If he doesn't I shall be gone to school." 
 
 " Do you want to see him ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! I don't want to see him. But I sup- 
 pose you'll be out a long time, and he'll bring you 
 back."
 
 134 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Of course he won't, you silly girl. And I shan't be out 
 long. I shall be back for tea." 
 
 Anna ran upstairs to dress. At ten minutes to two she 
 was ready. Agnes usually left at a quarter to two, but 
 the child had not yet gone. At fire minutes to two, Anna 
 called downstairs to her to ask her when she meant to de- 
 part. 
 
 " I'm just going now," Agnes shouted back. She opened 
 the front door and then returned to the foot of the stairs. 
 " Anna, if I meet him down the road, shall I tell him you're 
 ready waiting for him? " 
 
 " Certainly not. Whatever are you dreaming of? " the 
 elder sister reproved. " Besides, he isn't coming from the 
 town." 
 
 "Oh! All right. Good-bye." And the child at last 
 went. 
 
 It was something after two every siren and hooter had 
 long since finished the summons to work when Mynors rang 
 the bell. Anna was still upstairs. She examined herself 
 in the glass, and then descended slowly. 
 
 " Good-afternoon," he said. " I see you are ready to 
 come. I'm very glad. I hope I haven't inconvenienced 
 you, but just this afternoon seemed to be a good opportunity 
 for you to see the works, and you know you ought to see it. 
 Father in?" 
 
 " No," she said. " I shall leave the house to take care 
 of itself. Do you want to see him? " 
 
 " Not specially," he replied. " I think we have settled 
 everything."
 
 ON THE BANK 135 
 
 She banged the door behind her, and they started. As 
 he held open the gate for her exit, she could not ignore the 
 look of passionate admiration on his face. It was a look 
 disconcerting by its mere intensity. The man could con- 
 trol his tongue, but not his eyes. His demeanour, as she 
 viewed it, aggravated her self -consciousness as they braved 
 the streets. But she was happy in her perturbation. When 
 they reached Duck Bank Mynors asked her whether they 
 should go through the market-place or along King Street, 
 by the bottom of St. Luke's Square. " By the market- 
 place," she said. The shop where Miss Dickinson was em- 
 ployed was at the bottom of St. Luke's Square, and all the 
 eyes of the market-place were preferable to the chance of 
 those eyes. 
 
 Probably no one in the Five Towns takes a conscious pride 
 in the antiquity of the potter's craft, nor in its unique and 
 intimate relation to human life, alike civilised and uncivil- 
 ised. Man hardened clay into a bowl before he spun flax 
 and made a garment, and the last lone man will want an 
 earthen vessel after he has abandoned his ruined house for a 
 cave, and his woven rags for an animal's skin. This su- 
 premacy of the most ancient of crafts is in the secret nature 
 of things, and cannot be explained. History begins long 
 after the period when Bursley was first the central seat of 
 that honoured manufacture: it is the central seat still 
 " the mother of the Five Towns," in our local phrase and 
 though the townsmen, absorbed in a strenuous daily strug- 
 gle, may forget their heirship to an unbroken tradition of
 
 136 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 countless centuries, the seal of their venerable calling is upon 
 their foreheads. If no other relic of an immemorial past 
 is to be seen in these modernised sordid streets, there is at 
 least the living legacy of that extraordinary kinship between 
 workman and work, that instinctive mastery of clay, which 
 the past has bestowed upon the present. The horse is less 
 to the Arab than clay is to the Bursley man. He exists in 
 it and by it ; it fills his lungs and blanches his cheek ; it keeps 
 him alive and it kills him. His fingers close round it as 
 round the hand of a friend. He knows all its tricks and 
 latitudes ; when to coax and when to force it, when to rely 
 an it and when to distrust it. The weavers of Lancashire 
 tiftve dubbed him with an obscene epithet on account of it, 
 jm epithet whose hasty use has led to many a fight, but 
 nothing could be more illuminatively descriptive than that 
 epithet, which names his vocation in terms of another voca- 
 tion. A dozen decades of applied science have of course re- 
 sulted in the interposition of elaborate machinery between 
 the clay and the man ; but no great vulgar handicraft has 
 lost less of the human than potting. Clay is always clay, 
 and the steam-driven contrivance that will mould a basin 
 while a man sits and watches has yet to be invented. More- 
 over, if in some coarser process the hands are superseded, 
 the number of processes has been multiplied tenfold: the 
 ware in which six men formerly collaborated is now pro- 
 duced by sixty ; and thtis, in one sense, the touch of finger 
 on clay is more pervasive than ever before. 
 
 Mynors* works was acknowledged to be one of the best, 
 of its sizej in the district a model three-oven bank, and it
 
 ON THE BANK 137 
 
 must be remembered that of the hundreds of banks in the 
 Five Towns the vast majority are small, like this: the large 
 manufactory with its corps of jacket-men,* one of whom is 
 detached to show visitors round so much of the works as it 
 is deemed advisable for them to see, is the exception. My- 
 nors paid three hundred pounds a year in rent, and pro- 
 duced nearly three hundred pounds' worth of work a week. 
 He was his own manager, and there was only one jacket- 
 man on the place, a clerk at eighteen shillings. He em- 
 ployed about a hundred hands, and devoted all his ingenu- 
 ity to prevent that wastage which is at once the easiest to 
 overlook and the most difficult to check, the wastage of 
 labour. No pains were spared to keep all departments in 
 full and regular activity, and owing to his judicious firm- 
 ness the feast of St. Monday, that canker eternally eating 
 at the root of the prosperity of the Five Towns, was less 
 religiously observed on his bank than perhaps anywhere else 
 in Bursley. He had realised that when a workshop stands 
 empty the employer has not only ceased to make money, but 
 has begun to lose it. The architect of " Providence Works " 
 (Providence stands godfather to many commercial enter- 
 prises in the Five Towns) knew his business and the busi- 
 ness of the potter, and he had designed the works with a view 
 to the strictest economy of labour. The various shops were 
 so arranged that in the course of its metamorphosis the clay 
 travelled naturally in a circle from the slip-house by the 
 
 * Jacket-man: the artisan's satiric term for anyone who does not work 
 in shirtsleeves, who is not actually a producer, such as a clerk or a 
 pretentious foreman.
 
 138 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 canal to the packing-house by the canal : there was no carry- 
 ing to and fro. The steam installation was complete : steam 
 once generated had no respite; after it had exhausted it- 
 self in vitalising fifty machines, it was killed by inches in 
 order to dry the unfired ware and warm the dinners of the 
 workpeople. 
 
 Henry took Anna to the canal-entrance, because the build- 
 ings looked best from that side. 
 
 " Now how much is a crate worth? " she asked, pointing 
 to a crate which was being swung on a crane direct from the 
 packing-house into a boat. 
 
 " That? " Mynors answered. " A crateful of ware may be 
 worth anything. At Minton's I have seen a crate worth 
 three hundred pounds. But that one there is only worth 
 eight or nine pounds. You see you and I make cheap 
 stuff." 
 
 " But don't you make any really good pots are they 
 all cheap ? " 
 
 " All cheap," he said. 
 
 " I suppose that's business ? " He detected a note of re- 
 gret in her voice. 
 
 " I don't know," he said, with the slightest impatient 
 warmth. " We make the stuff as good as we can for the 
 money. We supply what everyone wants. Don't you think 
 it's better to please a thousand folks than to please ten? 
 I like to feel that my ware is used all over the country and 
 the colonies. I would sooner do as I do than make swagger 
 ware for a handful of rich people." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " she exclaimed, eagerly accepting the point of
 
 ON THE BANK 139 
 
 view, " I quite agree with you." She had never heard him in 
 that vein before, and was struck by his enthusiasm. And 
 Mynors was in fact always very enthusiastic concerning the 
 virtues of the general markets. He had no sympathy with 
 specialities, artistic or otherwise. He found his satisfac- 
 tion in honestly meeting the popular taste. He was born to 
 be a manufacturer of cheap goods on a colossal scale. He 
 could dream of fifty ovens, and his ambition blinded him to 
 the present absurdity of talking about a three-oven bank 
 spreading its productions all over the country and the col- 
 onies ; it did not occur to him that there were yet scarcely 
 enough plates to go round. 
 
 " I suppose we had better start at the start," he said, 
 leading the way to the slip-house. He did not need to be 
 told that Anna was perfectly ignorant of the craft of pot- 
 tery, and that every detail of it, so stale to him, would ac- 
 quire freshness under her naive and enquiring gaze. 
 
 In the slip-house begins the long manipulation which 
 transforms raw porous friable clay into the moulded, deco- 
 rated, and glazed vessel. The large whitewashed place was 
 occupied by ungainly machines and receptacles through 
 which the four sorts of clay used in a common " body " 
 ball clay, China clay, flint clay, and stone clay were com- 
 pelled to pass before they became a white putty-like mix- 
 ture meet for shaping by human hands. The blunger 
 crushed the clay, the sifter extracted the iron from it by 
 means of a magnet, the press expelled the water, and the 
 pug-mill expelled the air. From the last reluctant mouth 
 slowly emerged a solid stream nearly a foot in diameter,
 
 140 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 like a huge white snake. Already the clay had acquired 
 the uniformity characteristic of a manufactured product. 
 
 Anna moved to touch the bolts of the enormous twenty- 
 four-chambered press. 
 
 " Don't stand there," said Mynors. " The pressure is 
 tremendous, and if the thing were to burst " 
 
 She fled hastily. " But isn't it dangerous for the work- 
 men ? " she asked. 
 
 Eli Machin, the engineman, the oldest employee on the 
 works, a moneyed man and the pattern of reliability, al- 
 lowed a vague smile to flit across his face at this remark. 
 He had ascended from the engine-house below in order to 
 exhibit the tricks of the various machines, and that done he 
 disappeared. Anna was awed by the sensation of being 
 surrounded by terrific forces always straining for release 
 and held in check by the power of a single will. 
 
 " Come and see a plate made : that is one of the simplest 
 things, and the batting-machine is worth looking at," said 
 Mynors, and they went into the nearest shop, a hot interior 
 in the shape of four corridors round a solid square middle. 
 Here men and women were working side by side, the women 
 subordinate to the men. All were preoccupied, wrapped up 
 in their respective operations, and there was the sound of 
 irregular whirring movements from every part of the big 
 room. The air was laden with a whitish dust, and clay was 
 omnipresent on the floor, the walls, the benches, the win- 
 dows, on clothes, hands, and faces. It was in this shop, 
 where both hollowware pressers and flat pressers were busy 
 as only craftsmen on piecework can be busy, that more than
 
 ON THE BANK 141 
 
 anywhere else clay was to be seen " in the hand of the pot- 
 ter." Near the door a stout man with a good-humoured 
 face flung some clay on to a revolving disc, and even as 
 Anna passed a jar sprang into existence. One instant the 
 clay was an amorphous mass, the next it was a vessel per- 
 fectly circular, of a prescribed width and a prescribed 
 depth ; the fat and apparently clumsy fingers of the crafts- 
 man had seemed to lose themselves in the clay for a frac- 
 tion of time, and the miracle was accomplished. The man 
 threw these vessels with the rapidity of a Roman candle 
 throwing off coloured stars, and one woman was kept busy 
 in supplying him with material and relieving his bench of 
 the finished articles. Mynors drew Anna along to the bat- 
 ting-machines for plate-makers, at that period rather a nov- 
 elty and the latest invention of the dead genius whose brain 
 has reconstituted a whole industry on new lines. Confronted 
 with a piece of clay, the batting-machine descended upon it 
 with the ferocity of a wild animal, worried it, stretched it, 
 smoothed it into the width and thickness of a plate, and then 
 desisted of itself and waited inactive for the flat presser to 
 remove its victim to his more exact shaping machine. Sev- 
 eral men were producing plates, but their rapid labours 
 seemed less astonishing than the preliminary feat of the 
 batting-machine. All the ware, as it was moulded, disap- 
 peared into the vast cupboards occupying the centre of the 
 shop, where Mynors showed Anna innumerable rows of 
 shelves full of pots in process of steam-drying. Neither 
 time nor space nor material was wasted in this ant-heap of 
 industry. In order to move to and fro, the women were
 
 142 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 compelled to insinuate themselves past the stationary bodies 
 of the men. Anna marvelled at the careless accuracy with 
 which they fed the batting-machines with lumps precisely 
 calculated to form a plate of a given diameter. Everyone 
 exerted himself as though the salvation of the world hung 
 on the production of so much stuff by a certain hour ; dust, 
 heat, and the presence of a stranger were alike unheeded in 
 the mad creative passion. 
 
 " Now," said Mynors the cicerone, opening another door 
 which gave into the yard, " when all that stuff is dried and 
 fettled smoothed, you know it goes into the biscuit oven : 
 that's the first firing. There's the biscuit oven, but we can't 
 inspect it because it's just being drawn." 
 
 He pointed to the oven near by, in whose dark interior 
 the forms of men, naked to the waist, could dimly be seen 
 struggling with the weight of saggars* full of ware. It 
 seemed like some release of martyrs, this unpacking of the 
 immense oven, which, after being flooded with a sea of flame 
 for fifty-four hours, had cooled for two days, and was yet 
 hotter than the Equator. The inertness and pallor of the 
 saggars seemed to be the physical result of their fiery trial, 
 and one wondered that they should have survived the trial. 
 Mynors went into the place adjoining the oven and brought 
 back a plate out of an open saggar ; it was still quite warm. 
 It had the matt surface of a biscuit, and adhered slightly to 
 the fingers : it was now a " crook " ; it had exchanged mal- 
 leability for brittleness, and nothing mortal could undo what 
 
 * Saggars: large oval receptacles of coarse clay, in which the ware is 
 placed for tiring.
 
 ON THE BANK 143 
 
 the fire had done. Mynors took the plate with him to the 
 biscuit-warehouse, a long room where one was forced to 
 keep to narrow alleys amid parterres of pots. A solitary 
 biscuit-warehouseman was examining the ware, in order to 
 determine the remuneration of the pressers. 
 
 They climbed a flight of stairs to the printing-shop, 
 where, by means of copperplates, printing-presses, mineral 
 colours, and transfer-papers, most of the decoration was 
 done. The room was filled by a little crowd of people 
 oldish men, women, and girls, divided into printers, cutters, 
 trans ferrers, and apprentices. Each interminably repeated 
 some trifling process, and every article passed through a 
 succession of hands until at length it was washed in a tank 
 and rose dripping therefrom with its ornament of flowers 
 and scrolls fully revealed. The room smelt of oil and flannel 
 and humanity ; the atmosphere was more languid, more like 
 that of a family party, than in the pressers' shop: the old 
 women looked stern and shrewish, the pretty young women 
 pert and defiant, the younger girls meek. The few men 
 seemed out of place. By what trick had they crept into the 
 very centre of that mass of femineity? It seemed wrong, 
 scandalous that they should remain. Contiguous with the 
 printing-shop was the painting-shop, in which the labours 
 of the former were taken to a finish by the brush of the 
 paintress, who filled in outlines with flat colour, and thus 
 converted mechanical printing into handiwork. The paint- 
 resses form the noblesse of the banks. Their task is a light 
 one, demanding deftness first of all; they have delicate fin- 
 gers, and enjoy a general reputation for beauty: the wages
 
 144 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 they earn may be estimated from their finery on Sundays. 
 They come to business in cloth jackets, carrying dinner in 
 little satchels ; in the shop they wear white aprons, and look 
 startlingly neat and tidy. Across the benches over which 
 they bend their coquettish heads gossip flies and returns 
 like a shuttle; they are the source of a thousand intrigues, 
 and one or other of them is continually getting married or 
 omitting to get married. On the bank they constitute " the 
 sex." An infinitesimal proportion of them, from among the 
 branch known as ground-layers, die of lead-poisoning a 
 fact which adds pathos to their frivolous charm. In a sub- 
 sidiary room off the painting-shop a single girl was seated 
 at a revolving table actuated by a treadle. She was doing 
 the " band-and-line " on the rims of saucers. Mynors and 
 Anna watched her as with her left hand she flicked saucer 
 after saucer into the exact centre of the table, moved the 
 treadle, and, holding a brush firmly against the rim of the 
 piece, produced with infallible exactitude the band and the 
 line. She was a brunette, about twenty-eight: she had a 
 calm, vacuously contemplative face; but God alone knew 
 whether she thought. Her work represented the summit of 
 monotony ; the regularity of it hypnotised the observer, and 
 Mynors himself was impressed by this stupendous phe- 
 nomenon of absolute sameness, involuntarily assuming 
 towards it the attitude of a showman. 
 
 " She earns as much as eighteen shillings a week some- 
 times," he whispered. 
 
 " May I try ? " Anna timidly asked of a sudden, curiou* 
 to experience what the trick was like.
 
 ON THE BANK 145 
 
 " Certainly," said Mynors, in eager assent. " Priscilla, 
 let this lady have your seat a moment, please." 
 
 The girl got up, smiling politely. Anna took her place. 
 
 " Here, try on this," said Mynors, putting on the table 
 the plate which he still carried. 
 
 " Take a full brush," the paintress suggested, not at- 
 tempting to hide her amusement at Anna's unaccustomed 
 efforts. " Now push the treadle. There ! It isn't in the 
 middle yet. Now ! " 
 
 Anna produced a most creditable band, and a trembling 
 but passable line, and rose, flushed with the small triumph. 
 
 " You have the gift," said Mynors ; and the paintress 
 respectfully applauded. 
 
 " I felt I could do it," Anna responded. " My mother's 
 mother was a paintress, and it must be in the blood." 
 
 Mynors smiled indulgently. They descended again to 
 the ground floor, and following the course of manufacture 
 came to the " hardening-on " kiln, a minor oven where for 
 twelve hours the oil is burnt out of the colour in decorated 
 ware. A huge, jolly man in shirt and trousers, with an 
 enormous apron, was in the act of drawing the kiln, assisted 
 by two thin boys. He nodded a greeting to Mynors and ex- 
 claimed, " Warm ! " The kiln was nearly emptied. As 
 Anna stopped at the door, the man addressed her. 
 
 " Step inside, miss, and try it." 
 
 " No, thanks ! " she laughed. 
 
 " Come now," he insisted, as if despising this hesitation. 
 
 " An ounce of experience " The two boys grinned and 
 
 wiped their foreheads with their bare skeleton-like arms.
 
 146 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Anna, challenged by the man's look, walked quickly into the 
 kiln. A blasting heat seemed to assault her on every side, 
 driving her back; it was incredible that any human being 
 could support such a temperature. 
 
 " There ! " said the jovial man, apparently summing her 
 up with his bright, quizzical eyes. " You know summat as 
 you didn't know afore, miss. Come along, lads," he added 
 with brisk heartiness to the boys, and the drawing of the 
 kiln proceeded. 
 
 Next came the dipping-house, where a middle-aged 
 woman, enveloped in a protective garment from head to 
 foot, was dipping jugs into a vat of lead-glaze, a boy as- 
 sisting her. The woman's hands were covered with the grey 
 slimy glaze. She alone of all the employees appeared to be 
 cool. 
 
 " That is the last stage but one," said Mynors. " There 
 is only the glost-firing," and they passed out into the yard 
 once more. One of the glost-ovens was empty ; they entered 
 it and peered into the lofty inner chamber, which seemed 
 like the cold crater of an exhausted volcano, or like a vault, 
 or like the ruined seat of some forgotten activity. The 
 other oven was firing, and Anna could only look at its ex- 
 terior, catching glimpses of the red glow at its twelve 
 mouths, and guess at the Tophet within, where the lead was 
 being fused into glass. 
 
 " Now for the glost-warehouse, and you will have seen 
 all," said Mynors, " except the mould-shop, and that doesn't 
 matter." 
 
 The warehouse was the largest place on the works, a room
 
 ON THE BANK 147 
 
 sixty feet long and twenty broad, low, whitewashed, bare, 
 and clean. Piles of ware occupied the whole of the walls 
 and of the immense floor-space, but there was no trace here 
 of the soilure and untidiness incident to manufacture; all 
 processes were at one end, clay vanished into crock : and the 
 calmness and the whiteness atoned for the disorder, noise, 
 and squalor which had preceded. Here was a sample of the 
 total and final achievement towards which the thousands of 
 small, disjointed efforts that Anna had witnessed were 
 directed. And it seemed a miraculous, almost impossible, 
 result ; so definite, precise, and regular after a series of acts 
 apparently variable, inexact, and casual ; so unhuman after 
 all that intensely human labour ; so vast in comparison with 
 the minuteness of the separate endeavours. As Anna looked, 
 for instance, at a pile of tea-sets, she found it difficult even 
 to conceive that, a fortnight or so before, they had been 
 nothing but lumps of dirty clay. No stage of the manu- 
 facture was incredible by itself, but the result was incredible. 
 It was the result that appealed to the imagination, authen- 
 ticating the adage that fools and children should never see 
 anything till it is done. 
 
 Anna pondered over the organising power, the fore- 
 thought, the wide vision, and the sheer ingenuity and clever- 
 ness which were implied by the contents of this warehouse. 
 " What brains ! " she thought, of Mynors ; " what quan- 
 tities of all sorts of things he must know ! " It was a humble 
 and deeply-felt admiration. 
 
 Her spoken words gave no clue to her thoughts. " You 
 seem to make a fine lot of tea-sets," she remarked.
 
 148 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Oh, no ! " he said carelessly. " These few that you see 
 here are a special order. I don't go in much for tea-sets: 
 they don't pay; we lose fifteen per cent, of the pieces in 
 making. It's toilet-ware that pays, and that is our leading 
 line." He waved an arm vaguely towards rows and rows 
 of ewers and basins in the distance. They walked to the end 
 of the warehouse, glancing at everything. 
 
 "See here," said Mynors, "isn't that pretty?" He 
 pointed through the last window to a view of the canal, 
 which could be seen thence in perspective, finishing in a 
 curve. On one side, close to the water's edge, was a ruined 
 and fragmentary building, its rich browns reflected in the 
 smooth surface of the canal. On the other side were a few 
 grim, grey trees bordering the towpath. Down the vista 
 moved a boat steered by a woman in a large mob-cap. 
 " Isn't that picturesque ? " he said. 
 
 " Very," Anna assented willingly. " It's really quite 
 strange, such a scene right in the middle of Bursley." 
 
 " Oh ! There are others," he said. " But I always take 
 a peep at that whenever I come into the warehouse." 
 
 " I wonder you find time to notice it with all this place 
 to see after," she said. " It's a splendid works ! " 
 
 " It will do to be going on with," he answered, satis- 
 fied. " I'm very glad you've been down. You must come 
 again. I can see you would be interested in it, and there 
 are plenty of things you haven't looked at yet, you know." 
 
 He smiled at her. They were alone in the warehouse. 
 
 " Yes," she said ; " I expect so. Well, I must go, at once ; 
 I'm afraid it's very late now. Thank you for showing me
 
 ON THE BANK 149 
 
 round, and explaining, and I'm frightfully stupid and 
 ignorant. Good-bye." 
 
 Vapid and trite phrases : what unimaginable messages the 
 hearer heard in you ! 
 
 Anna held out her hand, and he seized it almost convul- 
 sively, his incendiary eyes fastened on her face. 
 
 " I must see you out," he said, dropping that ungloved 
 hand. 
 
 It was ten o'clock that night before Ephraim Tellwright 
 returned home from Axe. He appeared to be in a bad tem- 
 per. Agnes had gone to bed. His supper of bread-and- 
 cheese and water was waiting for him, and Anna sat at the 
 table while he consumed it. He ate in silence, somewhat hun- 
 grily, and she did not deem the moment propitious for tell- 
 ing him about her visit to Mynors' works. 
 
 " Has Titus Price sent up? " he asked at length, gulping 
 down the last of the water. 
 
 "Sent up?" 
 
 " Yes. Art fond, lass ? I told him as he mun send up 
 some more o' thy rent to-day twenty-five pun. He's not 
 sent?" 
 
 " I don't know," she said timidly. " I was out this after- 
 noon." 
 
 "Out, wast?" 
 
 " Mr. Mynors sent word to ask me to go down and look 
 over the works; so I went. I thought it would be all 
 right." 
 
 " Well, it was'na all right. And I'd like to know what 
 business thou hast gadding out, as soon as my back's turned.
 
 150 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 How can I tell whether Price sent up or not? And what's 
 more, thou know's as th' house hadn't ought to be left." 
 
 " I'm sorry," she said pleasantly, with a determination to 
 be meek and dutiful. 
 
 He grunted. " Happen he didna' send. And if he did, 
 and found th' house locked up, he should ha' sent again. 
 Bring me th' inkpot, and I'll write a note as Agnes must 
 take when her goes to school to-morrow morning." 
 
 Anna obeyed. " They'll never be able to pay twenty- 
 five pounds, father," she ventured. " They've paid thirty 
 already, you know." 
 
 " Less gab," he said shortly, taking up the pen. " Here 
 write it thysen." He threw the pen towards her. " Tell 
 Titus if he doesn't pay five-and-twenty this wik, us '11 put 
 bailiffs in." 
 
 " Won't it come better from you, father? " she pleaded. 
 
 " Whose property is it ? " The laconic question was final. 
 She knew she must obey, and began to write. But, realising 
 that she would perforce meet both Titus Price and Willie 
 on Sunday, she merely demanded the money, omitting the 
 threat. Her hand trembled as she passed the note to him to 
 read. 
 
 "Will that do?" 
 
 His reply was to tear the paper across. " Put down 
 what I tell ye," he ordered, " and don't let's have any more 
 paper wasted." Then he dictated a letter which was an 
 ultimatum in three lines. " Sign it," he said. 
 
 She signed it, weeping. She could see the wistful re- 
 proach in Willie Price's eyes.
 
 ON THE BANK 151 
 
 " I suppose," her father said, when she bade him " Good- 
 night," " I suppose if I had'na asked, I should ha' heard 
 nowt o' this gadding-about wi' Mynors ? " 
 
 " I was going to tell you I had been to the works, father," 
 she said. 
 
 " Going to ! " That was his final blow, and having de- 
 livered it, he loosed his victim. " Get to bed," he said. 
 
 She went upstairs, resolutely read her Bible, and reso- 
 lutely prayed.
 
 IX: THE TREAT 
 
 THIS surly and terrorising ferocity of Tellwright's 
 was as instinctive as the growl and spring of a beast 
 of prey. He never considered his attitude towards 
 the women of his household as an unusual phenomenon which 
 needed justification, or as being in the least abnormal. The 
 women of a household were the natural victims of their 
 master : in his experience it had always been so. In his ex- 
 perience the master had always, by universal consent, pos- 
 sessed certain rights over the self-respect, the happiness, and 
 the peace of the defenceless souls set under him rights as 
 unquestioned as those exercised by Ivan the Terrible. Such 
 rights were rooted in the secret nature of things. It was 
 futile to discuss them, because their necessity and their pro- 
 priety were equally obvious. Tellwright would not have 
 been angry with any man who impugned them: he would 
 merely have regarded the fellow as a crank and a born fool, 
 on whom logic or indignation would be entirely wasted. He 
 did as his father and uncles had done. He still thought of 
 his father as a grim customer, infinitely more redoubtable 
 than himself. He really believed that parents spoiled their 
 children nowadays: to be knocked down by a single blow 
 was one of the punishments of his own generation. He 
 could recall the fearful timidity of his mother's eyes without 
 a trace of compassion. His treatment of his daughters was 
 no part of a system, nor obedient to any defined principles, 
 
 152
 
 THE TREAT 153 
 
 nor the expression of a brutal disposition, nor the result of 
 gradually-acquired habit. It came to him like eating, and 
 like parsimony. He belonged to the great and powerful 
 class of house-tyrants, the backbone of the British nation, 
 whose views on income-tax cause ministries to tremble. If 
 you had talked to him of the domestic graces of life, your 
 words would have conveyed to him no meaning. If you had 
 indicted him for simple, unprovoked rudeness, he would have 
 grinned, well knowing that, as the King can do no wrong, so 
 a man cannot be rude in his own house. If you had told him 
 that he inflicted purposeless misery not only on others, but 
 4011 himself, he would have grinned again, vaguely aware 
 that he had not tried to be happy, and rather despising hap- 
 piness as a sort of childish gewgaw. He had, in fact, never 
 been happy at home : he had never known that expansion of 
 the spirit which is called joy ; he existed continually under a 
 grievance. The atmosphere of Manor Terrace afflicted him, 
 too, with a melancholy gloom him, who had created it. 
 Had he been capable of self-analysis, he would have dis- 
 covered that his heart lightened whenever he left the house, 
 and grew dark whenever he returned ; but he was incapable 
 of the feat. His case, like every similar case, was irremedi- 
 able. 
 
 The next morning his preposterous displeasure lay like a 
 curse on the house; Anna was silent, and Agnes moved on 
 timid feet. In the afternoon Willie Price called in answer 
 to the note. The miser was in the garden, and Agnes at 
 school. Willie's craven and fawning humility was inex- 
 pressibly touching and shameful to Anna. She longed to
 
 154 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 say to him, as he stood hesitant and confused in the parlour : 
 " Go in peace. Forget this despicable rent. It sickens me 
 to see you so." She foresaw, as the effect of her father's 
 vindictive pursuit of her tenants, an interminable succession 
 of these mortifying interviews. 
 
 " You're rather hard on us," Willie Price began, using 
 the old phrases, but in a tone of forced and propitiatory 
 cheerfulness, as though he feared to bring down a storm of 
 anger, which should ruin all. " You'll not deny that we've 
 been doing our best." 
 
 " The rent is due, you know, Mr. William," she replied, 
 blushing. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " he said quickly. " I don't deny that. I 
 admit that. I did you happen to see Mr. Tellwright's 
 postscript to your letter? " 
 
 " No," she answered, without thinking. 
 
 He drew the letter, soiled and creased, from his pocket, 
 and displayed it to her. At the foot of the page she read, in 
 Ephraim's thick and clumsy characters : " P. S. This is 
 final." 
 
 " My father," said Willie, " was a little put about. He 
 said he'd never received such a letter before in the whole of 
 his business career. It isn't as if " 
 
 " I needn't tell you," she interrupted, with a sudden de- 
 termination to get to the worst without more suspense, " that 
 of course I am in father's hands." 
 
 " Oh ! Of course, Miss Tellwright ; we quite understand 
 that quite. It's just a matter of business. We owe a 
 debt and we must pay it. All we want is time." He smiled
 
 THE TREAT 165 
 
 piteously at her, his blue eyes full of appeal. She was 
 obliged to gaze at the floor. 
 
 " Yes," she said, tapping her foot on the rug. " But 
 father means what he says." She looked up at him again, 
 trying to soften her words by means of something more 
 subtle than a smile. 
 
 " He means what he says," Willie agreed ; " and I admire 
 him for it." 
 
 The obsequious, truckling lie was odious to her. 
 
 " Perhaps I could see him," he ventured. 
 
 " I wish you would," Anna said sincerely. " Father, 
 you're wanted," she called curtly through the win- 
 dow. 
 
 " I've got a proposal to make to him," Price continued, 
 while they awaited the presence of the miser, " and I can't 
 hardly think he'll refuse it." 
 
 " Well, young sir," Tellwright said blandly, with an air 
 almost insinuating, as he entered. Willie Price, the simple- 
 ton, was deceived by it, and, taking courage, adopted 
 another line of defence. He thought the miser was a little 
 ashamed of his postscript. 
 
 "About your note, Mr. Tellwright; I was just telling 
 Miss Tellwright that my father said he had never received 
 such a letter in the whole of his business career." The 
 youth assumed a discreet indignation. 
 
 " Thy feyther's had dozens o' such letters, lad," the miser 
 said with cold emphasis, " or my name's not Tellwright. 
 Dunna tell me as Titus Price's never heard of a bumbailiff 
 afore."
 
 156 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Willie was crushed at a blow, and obliged to retreat. He 
 smiled painfully. " Come, Mr. Tellwright. Don't talk 
 like that. All we want is time." 
 
 " Time is money," said Tellwright, " and if us give you 
 time us give you money. 'Stead o' that, it's you as mun 
 give us money. That's right reason." 
 
 Willie laughed with difficulty. " See here, Mr. Tell- 
 wright. To cut a long story short, it's like this. You 
 ask for twenty-five pounds. I've got in my pocket a bill 
 of exchange drawn by us on Mr. Sutton and endorsed by 
 him, for thirty pounds, payable in three months. Will you 
 take that? Remember it's for thirty, and you only ask 
 for twenty-five." 
 
 " So Mr. Sutton has dealings with ye, eh ? " Tellwright 
 remarked. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " Willie answered proudly. " He buys off us 
 regularly. We've done business for years." 
 
 " And pays i' bills at three months, eh? " The miser 
 grinned. 
 
 " Sometimes," said Willie. 
 
 " Let's see it," said the miser. 
 
 "What the bill?" 
 
 " Ay ! " 
 
 " Oh ! The bill's all right." Willie took it from his 
 pocket, and opening out the blue paper, gave it to old Tell- 
 wright. Anna perceived the anxiety on the youth's face. 
 He flushed and his hand trembled. She dared not speak, 
 but she wished to tell him to be at ease. She knew from 
 infallible signs that her father would take the bill. Ephraim
 
 THE TREAT 157 
 
 gazed at the stamped paper as at something strange and 
 unprecedented in his experience. 
 
 " Father would want you not to negotiate that bill," said 
 Willie. " The fact is, we promised Mr. Sutton that that 
 particular bill should not leave our hands unless it was 
 absolutely necessary. So father would like you not to dis- 
 count it, and he will redeem it before it matures. You quite 
 understand we don't care to offend an old customer like 
 Mr. Sutton." 
 
 " Then this bit o' paper's worth nowt for welly* three 
 months? " the old man said, with an affectation of bewil- 
 dered simplicity. 
 
 Happily inspired for once, Willie made no answer, but 
 put the question : " Will you take it ? " 
 
 " Ay ! Us '11 tak' it," said Tellwright, " though it is 
 but a promise." He was well pleased. 
 
 Young Price's face showed his relief. It was now evident 
 that he had been passing through an ordeal. Anna guessed 
 that perhaps everything had depended on the acceptance by 
 Tellwright of that bill. Had he refused it, Prices, she 
 thought, might have come to sudden disaster. She felt 
 glad and disburdened for the moment; but immediately it 
 occurred to her that her father would not rest satisfied for 
 long; a few weeks, and he would give another turn to the 
 screw. 
 
 The Tellwrights were destined to have other visitors that 
 afternoon. Agnes, coming from school, was accompanied 
 by a lady. Anna, who was setting the tea-table, saw a 
 * Welly, nearly.
 
 158 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 double shadow pass the window, and heard voices. She ran 
 into the kitchen, and found Mrs. Sutton seated on a chair, 
 breathing quickly. 
 
 " You'll excuse me coming in so unceremoniously, Anna," 
 she said, after having kissed her heartily. " But Agnes 
 said that she always came in by the back way, so I came that 
 way too. Now I'm resting a minute. I've had to walk 
 to-day. Our horse has gone lame." 
 
 This kind heart radiated a heavenly good will, even in the 
 most ordinary phrases. Anna began to expand at once. 
 
 " Now do come into the parlour," she said, " and let me 
 make you comfortable." 
 
 " Just a minute, my dear," Mrs. Sutton begged, fanning 
 herself with her handkerchief. " Agnes's legs are so long." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Sutton," Agnes protested, laughing, " how 
 can you ? I could scarcely keep up with you ! " 
 
 " Well, my dear, I never could walk slowly. I'm one of 
 them that go till they drop. It's very silly." She smiled, 
 and the two girls smiled happily in return. 
 
 " Agnes," said the housewife, " set another cup and 
 saucer and plate." Agnes threw down her hat and satchel . 
 of books, eager to show hospitality. 
 
 " It still keeps very warm," Anna remarked, as Mrs. Sut- 
 ton was silent. 
 
 " It's beautifully cool here," said Mrs. Sutton. " I see 
 you've got your kitchen like a new pin, Anna, if you'll ex- 
 cuse me saying so. Henry was very enthusiastic about this 
 kitchen the other night, at our house." 
 
 "What! Mr. Mynors? " Anna reddened to the eyes.
 
 THE TREAT 159 
 
 " Yes, my dear ; and he's a very particular young man, 
 you know." 
 
 The kettle conveniently boiled at that moment, and Anna 
 went to the range to make the tea. 
 
 " Tea is all ready, Mrs. Sutton," she said at length. " I'm 
 sure you could do with a cup." 
 
 "That I could," said Mrs. Sutton. "It's what I've 
 come for." 
 
 " We have tea at four. Father will be glad to see you." 
 The clock struck, and they went into the parlour, Anna, 
 carrying the tea-pot and the hot-water jug. Agnes had 
 preceded them. The old man was sitting expectant in his 
 chair. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Tellwright," said the visitor, " you see I've 
 called to see you, and to beg a cup of tea. I overtook Agnes 
 coming home from school overtook her, mind me, at my 
 age ! " Ephraim rose slowly and shook hands. 
 
 " You're welcome," he said curtly, but with a kindliness 
 that amazed Anna. She was unaware that in past days he 
 had known Mrs. Sutton as a young and charming girl, a 
 vision that had stirred poetic ideas in hundreds of prosaic 
 breasts, Tellwright's included. There was scarcely a mid- 
 dle-aged male Wesley an in Bursley and Hanbridge who had 
 not a peculiar regard for Mrs. Sutton, and who did not 
 think that he alone truly appreciated her. 
 
 " What an' you bin tiring yourself with this afternoon ? " 
 he asked, when they had begun tea, and Mrs. Sutton had 
 refused a second piece of bread-and-butter. 
 
 " What have I been doing? I've been seeing to some in-
 
 160 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 side repairs to the superintendent's house. Be thankful you 
 aren't a circuit-steward's wife, Anna." 
 
 " Why, does she have to see to the repairs of the minister's 
 house? " Anna asked, surprised. 
 
 " I should just think she does. She has to stand between 
 the minister's wife and the funds of the society. And Mrs. 
 Reginald Banks has been used to the very best of every- 
 thing. She's just a bit exacting, though I must say she's 
 willing enough to spend her own money too. She wants 
 a new boiler in the scullery now, and I'm sure her boiler 
 is a great deal better than ours. But we must try to please 
 her. She isn't used to us rough folks and our ways. Mr. 
 Banks said to me this afternoon that he tried always to shield 
 her from the worries of this world." She smiled almost 
 imperceptibly. 
 
 There was a ring at the bell, and Agnes, much perturbed 
 by the august arrival, let in Mr. Banks himself. 
 
 " Shall I enter, my little dear? " said Mr. Banks. " Your 
 father, your sister, in ? " 
 
 " It ne'er rains but it pours," said Tellwright, who had 
 caught the minister's voice. 
 
 " Speak of angels " said Mrs. Sutton, laughing 
 
 quietly. 
 
 The minister came grandly into the parlour. " Ah ! 
 How do you do, brother Tellwright, and you, Miss Tell- 
 wright? Mrs. Sutton, we two seem happily fated to meet 
 this afternoon. Don't let me disturb you, I beg I cannot 
 stay. My time is very limited. I wish I could call oftener, 
 brother Tellwright; but really the new regime leaves no
 
 THE TREAT 161 
 
 time for pastoral visits. I was saying to my wife only this 
 morning that I haven't had a free afternoon for a month." 
 He accepted a cup of tea. 
 
 " Us'n having a tea-party this afternoon," said Tell- 
 wright quasi-priva.te]y to Mrs. Sutton. 
 
 " And now," the minister resumed, " I've come to beg. 
 The special fund, you know, Mr. Tellwright, to clear off 
 the debt on the new school-buildings. I referred to it from 
 the pulpit last Sabbath. It's not in my province to go 
 round begging, but someone must do it." 
 
 " Well, for me, I'm beforehand with you, Mr. Banks," 
 said Mrs. Sutton, " for it's on that very errand that I've 
 called to see Mr. Tellwright this afternoon. His name is on 
 my list." 
 
 " Ah ! Then I leave our brother to your superior per- 
 suasions." 
 
 " Come, Mr. Tellwright," said Mrs. Sutton, " you're be- 
 tween two fires, and you'll get no mercy. What will you 
 give? " 
 
 The miser foresaw a probable discomfiture, and sought 
 for some means of escape. 
 
 " What are others giving ? " he asked 
 
 " My husband is giving fifty pounds, and you could buy 
 him up, lock, stock, arid barrel." 
 
 " Nay, nay ! " said Tellwright, aghast at this sum. He 
 had underrated the importance of the Building Fund. 
 
 " And I," said the parson solemnly, " I have but fifty 
 pounds in the world, but I am giving twenty to this 
 fund."
 
 162 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Then you're giving too much," said Tellwright with 
 quick brusqueness. " You canna' afford it." 
 
 " The Lord will provide," said the parson. 
 
 " Happen He will, happen not. It's as well you've got- 
 ten a rich wife, Mr. Banks." 
 
 The parson's dignity was obviously wounded, and Anna 
 wondered timidly what would occur next. Mrs. Sutton in- 
 terposed. " Come now, Mr. Tellwright," she said again, 
 " to the point : what will you give ? " 
 
 " I'll think it over and let you hear," said Ephraim. 
 
 " Oh, no ! That won't do at all, will it, Mr. Banks? I, 
 at any rate, am not going away without a definite promise. 
 As an old and good Wesleyan, of course you will feel it your 
 duty to be generous with us." 
 
 " You used to be a pillar of the Hanbridge circuit was 
 it not so? " said Mr. Banks to the miser, recovering himself. 
 
 " So they used to say," Tellwright replied grimly. 
 " That was because I cleared 'em of debt in ten years. But 
 they've slipped into th' ditch again sin' I left 'em." 
 
 " But, if I am right, you do not meet* with us," the min- 
 ister pursued imperturbably. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " My own class is at three on Saturdays," said the minis- 
 ter. " I should be glad to see you." 
 
 " I tell you what I'll do," said the miser to Mrs. Sutton. 
 " Titus Price is a big man at th' Sunday School. I'll give 
 as much as he gives to th' school buildings. That's fair." 
 
 * Meet: meet in class a gathering for the exchange of religious coun- 
 sel and experience.
 
 THE TREAT 163 
 
 " Do you know what Mr. Price is giving? " Mrs. Sutton 
 asked the minister. 
 
 " I saw Mr. Price yesterday. He is giving twenty-five 
 pounds." 
 
 " Very well, that's a bargain," said Mrs. Sutton, who 
 had succeeded beyond her expectations. 
 
 Ephraim was the dupe of his own scheming. He had 
 made sure that Price's contribution would be a small one. 
 This ostentatious munificence on the part of the beggared 
 Titus filled him with secret anger. He determined to de- 
 mand more rent at a very early date. 
 
 " I'll put you down for twenty-five pounds as a first sub- 
 scription," said the minister, taking out a pocket-book. 
 " Perhaps you will give Mrs. Sutton or myself the cheque 
 to-day?" 
 
 " Has Mr. Price paid ? " the miser asked warily. 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " Then come to me when he has." Ephraim perceived 
 the way of escape. 
 
 When the minister was gone, as Mrs. Sutton seemed 
 in no hurry to depart, Anna and Agnes cleared the 
 table. 
 
 " I've just been telling your father, Anna," said Mrs. 
 Sutton, when Anna returned to the room, " that Mr. Sutton 
 and myself and Beatrice are going to the Isle of Man soon 
 for a fortnight or so, and we should very much like you 
 to come with us." 
 
 Anna's heart began to beat violently, though she knew 
 there was no hope for her. This, then, doubtless, was the
 
 164 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 main object of Mrs. Button's visit! "Oh, but I couldn't, 
 really ! " said Anna, scarcely knowing what she did say. 
 
 " Why not? " asked Mrs. Sutton. 
 
 " Well the house." 
 
 " The house? Agnes could see to what little housekeep- 
 ing your father would want. The schools will break up 
 next week." 
 
 " What do these young folks want holidays for? " Tell- 
 wright inquired with philosophic gruffness. " I never had 
 one. And what's more, I wouldn't thank ye for one. I'll 
 pig on at Bursley. When ye've gotten a roof of your own, 
 where's the sense o' going elsewhere and pigging? " 
 
 " But we really want Anna to go," Mrs. Sutton went on. 
 " Beatrice is very anxious about it. Beatrice is very short 
 of suitable friends." 
 
 " I should na' ha' thought it," said Tellwright. " Her 
 seems to know everyone." 
 
 " But she is," Mrs. Sutton insisted. 
 
 " I think as you'd better leave Anna out this year," said 
 the miser stubbornly. 
 
 Anna wished profoundly that Mrs. Sutton would abandon 
 the futile attempt. Then she perceived that the visitor was 
 signalling to her to leave the room. Anna obeyed, going 
 into the kitchen to give an eye to Agnes, who was washing 
 up. 
 
 " It's all right," said Mrs. Sutton contentedly, when 
 Anna returned to the parlour. " Your father has consented 
 to your going with us. It is very kind of him, for I'm sure 
 he'll miss you."
 
 THE TREAT 165 
 
 Anna sat down, limp, speechless. She could not believe 
 the news. 
 
 " You are awfully good," she said to Mrs. Sutton in the 
 lobby, as the latter was leaving the house. " I'm ever so 
 grateful you can't think." And she threw her arms round 
 Mrs. Sutton's neck. 
 
 Agnes ran up to say good-bye. 
 
 Mrs. Sutton kissed the child. " Agnes will be the little 
 housekeeper, eh ? " The little housekeeper was almost as 
 pleased at the prospect of housekeeping as if she, too, had 
 been going to the Isle of Man. " You'll both be at the 
 school-treat next Tuesday, I suppose," Mrs. Sutton said, 
 holding Agnes by the hand. Agnes glanced at her sister 
 in enquiry. 
 
 " I don't know," Anna replied. " We shall see." 
 
 The truth was that, not caring to ask her father for the 
 money for the tickets, she had given no thought to the 
 school-treat. 
 
 " Did I tell you that Henry Mynors will most likely come 
 with us to the Isle of Man? " said Mrs. Sutton from the 
 gate. 
 
 Anna retired to her bedroom to savour an astounding 
 happiness in quietude. At supper the miser was in a mood 
 not unbenevolent. She expected a reaction the next morn- 
 ing, but Ephraim, strange to say, remained innocuous. 
 She ventured to ask him for the money for the treat tickets, 
 two shillings. He made no immediate reply. Half an 
 hour afterwards, he ejaculated: " What i' th' name o' for- 
 tune dost thee want wi' school-treats ? "
 
 166 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " It's Agnes," she answered ; " of course Agnes can't go 
 alone." 
 
 In the end he threw down a florin. He became perilous 
 for the rest of the day, but the florin was an indisputable 
 fact in Anna's pocket. 
 
 The school-treat was held in a twelve-acre field near 
 Sneyd, the seat of a marquis, and a Saturday afternoon 
 resort very popular in the Five Towns. The children were 
 formed at noon on Duck Bank into a procession, which 
 marched to the railway station to the singing of " Shall 
 we gather at the river? " Thence a special train car- 
 ried them, in seething compartments, excited and strident, 
 to Sneyd, where the procession was re-formed along a coun- ' 
 try road. There had been two sharp showers in the morn- 
 ing, and the vacillating sky threatened more rain; but be- 
 cause the sun had shone dazzlingly at eleven o'clock all the 
 women and girls, too easily tempted by the glory of the 
 moment, blossomed forth in pale blouses and parasols. The 
 chattering crowd, bright and defenceless as flowers, made 
 at Sneyd a picture at once gay and pathetic. It had rained 
 there at half-past twelve; the roads were wet; and among 
 the 250 children and 30 teachers there were less than a score 
 umbrellas. 
 
 The excursion was theoretically in charge of Titus 
 Price, the Senior Superintendent, but this dignitary had 
 failed to arrive on Duck Bunk, and Mynors had taken 
 his place. In the train Anna heard that someone had seen 
 Mr. Price, wearing a large grey wideawake, leap into the 
 guard's van at the very instant of departure. He had not
 
 THE TREAT 167 
 
 been at school on the previous Sunday, and Anna was some- 
 what perturbed at the prospect of meeting the man who had 
 defined her letter to him as unique in the whole of his busi- 
 ness career. She caught a glimpse of the grey wideawake 
 on the platform at Sneyd, and steered her own scholars so 
 as to avoid its vicinity. But on the march to the field Titus 
 reviewed the procession, and she was obliged to meet his eyes 
 and return his salutation. The look of the man was a shock 
 to her. He seemed thinner, nervous, restless, preoccupied, 
 and terribly careworn ; except the new brilliant hat, all his 
 summer clothes were soiled and shabby. It was as though 
 he had forced himself, out of regard for appearances, to 
 attend the fete, but had left his thoughts in Edward Street. 
 His uneasy and hollow cheerfulness was painful to watch. 
 Anna realised the intensity of the crisis through which Mr. 
 Price was passing. She perceived in a single glance, more 
 clearly than she could have done after a hundred interviews 
 with the young and unresponsible William however dis- 
 tressing these might be that Titus must for weeks have 
 been engaged in a truly frightful struggle. His face was 
 a proof of the tragic sincerity of William's appeals to her- 
 self and to her father. That Price should have contrived 
 to pay seventy pounds of rent in a little more than a month 
 seemed to her, imperfectly acquainted alike with Ephraim's 
 ruthless compulsions and with the financial jugglery often 
 practiced by hard-pressed debtors, to be an almost miracu- 
 lous effort after honesty. Her conscience smote her for con- 
 niving at what she now saw to be a persecution. She felt 
 as sorry for Titus as she had felt for his son. The obese
 
 168 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 man, with his reputation in rags about him, was acutely 
 wistful in her eyes, as a child might have been. 
 
 A carriage rolled by, raising the dust in places where 
 the strong sun had already dried the road. It was Mr. Sut- 
 ton's landau, driven by Barrett. Beatrice, in white, sat 
 solitary amid cushions, while two large hampers occupied 
 most of the coachman's box. The carriage seemed to move 
 with lordly ease and rapidity, and the teachers, already 
 weary and fretted by the endless pranks of the children, 
 bitterly envied the enthroned maiden who nodded and smiled 
 to them with such charming condescension. It was a social 
 triumph for Beatrice. She disappeared ahead like a god- 
 dess in a cloud, and scarcely a woman who saw her from the 
 humble level of the roadway but would have married a satyr 
 to be able to do as Beatrice did. Later, when the field was 
 reached, and the children, bursting through the gate, had 
 spread like a flood over the daisied grass, the landau was to 
 be seen drawn up near the refreshment tent ; Barrett was un- 
 packing the hampers, which contained delicate creamy con- 
 fectionery for the teachers' tea; Beatrice explained that 
 these were her mother's gift, and that she had driven down 
 in order to preserve the fragile pasties from the risks of 
 a railway journey. Gratitude became vocal, and Beatrice's 
 success was perfected. 
 
 Then the more conscientious teachers set themselves seri- 
 ously to the task of amusing the smaller children, and the 
 smaller children consented to be amused according to the 
 recipes appointed by long custom for school-treats. Many 
 round-games, which invariably comprised singing or kissing,
 
 THE TREAT 169 
 
 being thus annually resuscitated by elderly people from the 
 deeps of memory, were preserved for a posterity which other- 
 wise would never have known them. Among these was 
 Bobby-Bingo. For twenty-five years Titus Price had 
 played at Bobby-Bingo with the infant classes at the school- 
 treat, and this year he was bound by the expectations of all 
 to continue the practice. Another diversion which he 
 always took care to organise was the three-legged race for 
 boys. Also, he usually joined in the tut-ball, a quaint 
 game, which owes its surprising longevity to the fact that it 
 is equally proper for both sexes. Within half an hour the 
 treat was in full career; football, cricket, rounders, tick, 
 leap-frog, prison-bars, and round games, transformed the 
 field into a vast arena of complicated struggles and emula- 
 tions. All were occupied, except a few of the women and 
 older girls, who strolled languidly about in the role of spec- 
 tators. The sun shone generously on scores of vivid and 
 frail toilettes, and parasols made slowly-moving hemispheres 
 of glowing colour against the rich green of the grass. All 
 around were yellow cornfields, and meadows where cows of a 
 burnished brown indolently meditated upon the phenomena 
 of a school-treat. Every hedge and ditch and gate and 
 stile was in that ideal condition of plenary correctness which 
 denotes that a great landowner is exhibiting the beauties of 
 scientific farming for the behoof of his villagers. The sky, 
 of an intense blue, was a sea in which large white clouds 
 sailed gently but capriciously ; on the northern horizon a low 
 range of smoke marked the sinister region of the Five 
 Towns.
 
 170 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Will you come and help with the bags and cups ? " 
 Henry Mynors asked Anna. She was standing by herself, 
 watching Agnes at play with some other girls. Mynors had 
 evidently walked across to her from the refreshment tent, 
 which was at the opposite extremity of the field. In her 
 eyes he was once more the exemplar of style. His suit of 
 grey flannel, his white straw hat, became him to admiration. 
 He stood at ease with his hands in his coat-pockets, and 
 smiled contentedly. 
 
 " After all," he said, " the tea is the principal thing, and, 
 although it wants two hours to tea-time yet, it's as well to 
 be beforehand." 
 
 " I should like something to do," Anna replied. 
 
 " How are you ? " he said familiarly, after this abrupt 
 opening, and then shook hands. They traversed the field 
 together, with many deviations to avoid trespassing upon 
 areas of play. 
 
 The flapping refreshment-tent seemed to be full of piles 
 of baskets and piles of bags and piles of cups, which the 
 contractor had brought in a waggon. Some teachers were 
 already beginning to put the paper bags into the baskets ; 
 each bag contained bread-and-butter, currant ca'ke, an 
 Eccles-cake, and a Bath-bun. At the far end of the tent 
 Beatrice Sutton was arranging her dainties on a small tres- 
 tle-table. 
 
 " Come along quick, Anna," she exclaimed," and taste my 
 tarts, and tell me what you think of them. I do hope the 
 good people will enjoy them." And then, turning to My- 
 nors, " Hello ! Are you seeing after the bags and things ?
 
 THE TREAT 171 
 
 I thought that was always William Price's favourite 
 job!" 
 
 " So it is," said Mynors. " But, unfortunately, he isn't 
 here to-day." 
 
 " How's that, pray ? I never knew him miss a school- 
 treat before." 
 
 " Mr. Price told me they couldn't both be away from the 
 works just now. Very busy, I suppose." 
 
 " Well, William would have been more use than his father, 
 anyhow." 
 
 " Hush, hush ! " Mynors murmured with a subdued laugh. 
 
 Beatrice was in one of her " downright " moods, as she 
 herself called them. 
 
 Mynors' arrangements for the prompt distribution of tea 
 at the appointed hour were very minute, and involved a 
 considerable amount of back-bending and manual labour. 
 But, though they were enlivened by frequent intervals of 
 gossip, and by excursions into the field to observe this and 
 that amusing sight, all was finished half an hour before 
 time. 
 
 " I will go and warn Mr. Price," said Mynors. " He is 
 quite capable of forgetting the clock." Mynors left the 
 tent, and proceeded to the scene of an athletic meeting, at 
 which Titus Price, in shirt-sleeves, was distributing prizes 
 of sixpences and pennies. The famous three-legged race had 
 just been run. Anna followed at a saunter, and shortly 
 afterwards Beatrice overtook her. 
 
 " The great Titus looks better than he did when he came 
 on the field," Beatrice remarked. And indeed the superin-
 
 172 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 tendent had put on quite a merry appearance flushed, ex- 
 cited, and jocular in his elephantine way it seemed as if 
 he had not a care in the world. The boys crowded appre- 
 ciatively round him. But this was his last hour of joy. 
 
 " Why ! Willie Price is here," Anna exclaimed, perceiv- 
 ing William in the fringe of the crowd. The lanky fellow 
 stood hesitatingly, his left hand busy with his moustache. 
 
 " So he is," said Beatrice. " I wonder what that 
 means." 
 
 Titus had not observed the newcomer, but Henry Mynors 
 saw William, and exchanged a few words with him. Then 
 Mr. Mynors advanced into the crowd and spoke to Mr. Price, 
 who glanced quickly round at his son. The girls, at a dis- 
 tance of forty yards, could discern the swift change in the 
 man's demeanour. In a second he had reverted to the de- 
 plorable Titus of three hours ago. He elbowed his way 
 roughly to William, getting into his coat as he went. The 
 pair talked, William glanced at his watch, and in another 
 moment they were leaving the field. Henry Mynors had to 
 finish the prize distribution. So much Anna and Beatrice 
 plainly saw. Others, too, had not been blind to this sudden 
 and dramatic departure. It aroused universal comment 
 among the teachers. 
 
 " Something must be wrong at Price's works," Beatrice 
 said, " and Willie has had to fetch his papa." This was 
 the conclusion of all the gossips. Beatrice added : " Dad 
 has mentioned Price's several times lately, now I think of it." 
 
 Anna grew extremely self-conscious and uncomfortable. 
 She felt as though all were saying of her : " There goes the
 
 THE TREAT 173 
 
 oppressor of the poor ! " She was fairly sure, however, that 
 her father was not responsible for this particular incident. 
 There must, then, be other implacable creditors. She had 
 been thoroughly enjoying the afternoon, but now her pleas- 
 ure ceased. 
 
 The treat ended disastrously. In the middle of the chil- 
 dren's meal, while yet the enormous double-handled tea-cans 
 were being carried up and down the thirsty rows, and the 
 boys were causing their bags to explode with appalling 
 detonations, it began to rain sharply. The fickle sun with- 
 drew his splendour from the toilettes, and was seen no more 
 for a week afterwards. " It's come at last," ejaculated My- 
 nors, who had watched the sky with anxiety for an hour 
 previously. He mobilised the children and ranked them 
 under a row of elms. The teachers, running to the tent for 
 their own tea, said to one another that the shower could only 
 be a brief one. The wish was father to the thought, for they 
 were a little ashamed to be under cover while their charges 
 precariously sheltered beneath dripping trees yet there 
 was nothing else to be done ; the men took turns in the rain 
 to keep the children in their places. The sky was com- 
 pletely overcast. " It's set in for a wet evening, and so we 
 may as well make the best of it," Beatrice said grimly, and 
 she sent the landau home empty. She was right. A forlorn 
 and disgusted snake of a procession crawled through pud- 
 dles to the station. The platform resounded with sneezes. 
 None but a dressmaker could have discovered a silver lining 
 to that black and all-pervading cloud which had ruined so 
 many dozens of fair costumes. Anna, melancholy and taci-
 
 174 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 turn, exerted herself to minimise the discomfort of her 
 scholars. A word from Mynors would have been balm to 
 her ; but Mynors, the general of a routed army, was parley- 
 ing by telephone with the traffic-manager of the railway 
 for the expediting of the special train.
 
 X: THE ISLE 
 
 BOUT this time Anna was not seeing very much of 
 Henry Mynors. At twenty a man is rash in love, and 
 "again, perhaps, at fifty; a man of middle-age enam- 
 oured of a young girl is capable of sublime follies. But the 
 man of thirty who loves for the first time is usually the em- 
 bodiment of cautious discretion. He does not fall in love 
 with a violent descent, but rather lets himself gently down, 
 continually testing the rope. His social value, especially 
 if he have achieved worldly success, is at its highest, and, 
 without conceit, he is aware of it. He has lost many illu- 
 sions concerning women ; he has seen more than one friend 
 wrecked in the sea of foolish marriage; he knows the joys 
 of a bachelor's freedom, without having wearied of them; 
 he perceives risks where the youth perceives only ecstasy, 
 and the oldster only a blissful release from solitude. In- 
 stead of searching, he is sought for; accordingly he is 
 selfish and exacting. All these things combine to tranquil- 
 lize passion at thirty. Mynors was in love with Anna, and 
 his love had its ardent moments; but in the main it was a 
 temperate affection, an affection that walked circumspectly, 
 with its eyes open, careful of its dignity, too proud to seem 
 in a hurry ; if, by impulse, it chanced now and then to leap 
 forward, the involuntary movement was mastered and 
 checked. Mynors called at Manor Terrace once a week, 
 never on the same day of the week, not without discussing 
 
 175
 
 176 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 business with the miser. Occasionally he accompanied Anna 
 from school or chapel. Such methods were precisely to 
 Anna's taste. Like him, she loved prudence and decorum, 
 preferring to make haste slowly. Since the Revival they 
 had only once talked together intimately ; on that sole oc- 
 casion Henry had suggested to her that she might care to 
 join Mrs. Sutton's class, which met on Monday nights; she 
 accepted the hint with pleasure, and found a well of spirit- 
 ual inspiration in Mrs. Sutton's modest and simple, yet fer- 
 vent, homilies. Mynors was not guilty of blowing both hot 
 and cold. She was sure of him. She waited calmly for 
 events, existing, as her habit was, in the future. 
 
 The future, then, meant the Isle of Man. Anna dreamed 
 of an enchanted isle and hours of unimaginable rapture. 
 For a whole week after Mrs. Sutton had won Ephraim's 
 consent, her vision never stooped to practical details. Then 
 Beatrice called to see her ; it was the morning after the treat, 
 and Anna was brushing her muddy frock ; she wore a large 
 white apron, and held a clothes-brush in her hand as she 
 opened the door. 
 
 " You're busy ? " said Beatrice. 
 
 " Yes," said Anna, " but come in. Come into the kitchen 
 do you mind ? " 
 
 Beatrice was covered from neck to heel with a long mack- 
 intosh, which she threw off when entering the kitchen. 
 
 " Anyone else in the house? " she asked. 
 
 " No," said Anna, smiling, as Beatrice seated herself, with 
 a sigh of content, on the table. 
 
 " Well, let's talk, then." Beatrice drew from her pocket
 
 THE ISLE 177 
 
 the indispensable chocolates and offered them to Anna. " I 
 say, wasn't last night perfectly awful? Henry got wet 
 through in the end, and mother made him stop at our house, 
 as he was at the trouble to take me home. Did you see him 
 go down this morning? " 
 
 " No ; why ? " said Anna stiffly. 
 
 " Oh no reason. Only I thought perhaps you did. I 
 simply can't tell you how glad I am that you're coming with 
 us to the Isle of Man ; we shall have rare fun. We go every 
 year, you know to Port Erin, a lovely little fishing village. 
 All the fishermen know us there. Last year Henry hired a 
 yacht for the fortnight, and we all went mackerel-fishing, 
 every day; except sometimes pa. Now and then pa had a 
 tendency to go fiddling in caves and things. I do hope it 
 will be fine weather again by then, don't you? " 
 
 " I am looking forward to it, I can tell you," Anna said. 
 " What day are we supposed to start ? " 
 
 " Saturday week." 
 
 " So soon ? " Anna was surprised at the proximity of the 
 event. 
 
 " Yes ; and quite late enough, too. We should start 
 earlier, only the dad always makes out he can't. Men al- 
 ways pretend to be so frightfully busy, and I believe it's 
 all put on." Beatrice continued to chat about the holiday, 
 and then of a sudden she asked : " What are you going to 
 wear? " 
 
 " Wear ! " Anna repeated ; and then added, with hesita- 
 tion : " I suppose one will want some new clothes ? " 
 
 " Well, just a few ! Now let me advise you. Take a blue
 
 178 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 serge skirt. Sea-water won't harm it, and if it's dark 
 enough it will look well to any mortal blouse. Secondly, 
 you can't have too many blouses; they're always useful at 
 the seaside. Plain straw-hats are my tip. A coat for 
 nights, and thick boots. There ! Of course no one ever 
 dresses at Port Erin. It isn't like Llandudno, and all that 
 sort of thing. You don't have to meet your young man on 
 the pier, because there isn't a pier." 
 
 There was a pause. Anna did not know what to say. 
 At length she ventured : " I'm not much for clothes, as I 
 dare say you've noticed." 
 
 " I think you always look nice, my dear," Beatrice re- 
 sponded. Nothing was said as to Anna's wealth, no refer- 
 ence made as to the discrepancy between that and the style 
 of her garments. By a fiction, there was supposed to be no 
 discrepancy. 
 
 " Do you make your own frocks ? " Beatrice asked, 
 later. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do you know I thought you did. But they do you 
 great credit. There's few people can make a plain frock 
 look decent." 
 
 This conversation brought Anna with a shock to the level 
 of the earth. She perceived only too well a point which 
 she had not hitherto fairly faced in her idyllic meditations : 
 that her father was still a factor in the case. Since Mrs. 
 Sutton's visit both Anna and the miser avoided the subject 
 of the holiday. " You can't have too many blouses." Did 
 Beatrice, then, have blouses by the dozen? A coat, a serge
 
 THE ISLE 179 
 
 skirt, straw hats (how many?) the catalogue frightened 
 her. She began to suspect that she would not be able to 
 go to the Isle of Man. 
 
 " About me going with Suttons to the Isle of Man ? " 
 she accosted her father, in the afternoon, outwardly calm, 
 but with secret trembling. 
 
 " Well ? " he exclaimed savagely. 
 
 " I shall want some money a little." She would have 
 given much not to have added that " little," but it came out 
 of itself. 
 
 " It's a waste o' time and money that's what I call it. 
 I can't think why Suttons asked ye. Ye aren't ill, are ye? " 
 His savagery changed to sullenness. 
 
 " No, father ; but as it's arranged, I suppose I shall have 
 to go." 
 
 " Well, I'm none so set up with the idea mysen." 
 
 " Sha'n't you be all right with Agnes ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! 7 shall be all right. / don't want much. 7've 
 no fads and fal-lals. How long art going to be away? " 
 
 " I don't know. Didn't Mrs. Sutton tell you? You ar- 
 ranged it." 
 
 " That I didna'. Her said nowt to me." 
 
 " Well, anyhow I shall want some clothes." 
 
 "What for? Art naked?" 
 
 " I must have some money." Her voice shook. She was 
 getting near tears. 
 
 " Well, thou's gotten thy own money, hast na' ? " 
 
 " All I want is that you shall let me have some of my own 
 money. There's forty odd pounds now in the bank."
 
 180 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Oh ! " he repeated, sneering, " all ye want is as I shall 
 let thee have some o* thy own money. And there's forty odd 
 pound i' the bank. Oh!" 
 
 " Will you give me my cheque-book out of the bureau ? 
 And I'll draw a cheque ; I know how to." She had conquered 
 the instinct to cry, and unwillingly her tones became some- 
 what peremptory. Ephraim seized the chance. 
 
 " No. I won't give ye the cheque-book out o' th' bureau," 
 he said flatly. " And I'll thank ye for less sauce." 
 
 That finished the episode. Proudly she took an oath with 
 herself not to re-open the question, and resolved to write a 
 note to Mrs. Sutton, saying that on consideration she found 
 it impossible to go to the Isle of Man. 
 
 The next morning there came to Anna a letter from the 
 secretary of a limited company, enclosing a post-office order 
 for ten pounds. Some weeks previously her father had dis- 
 covered an error of that amount in the deduction of income- 
 tax from the dividend paid by this company, and had in- 
 structed Anna to demand the sum. She had obeyed, and 
 then forgotten the affair. Here was the answer. Desperate 
 at the thought of missing the holiday, she cashed the order, 
 bought and made her clothes in secret, and then, two days 
 before the arranged date for departure, told her father what 
 she had done. He was enraged ; but since his anger was too 
 illogical to be rendered effectively coherent in words, he had 
 the wit to keep silence. With bitterness Anna reflected that 
 she owed her holiday to the merest accident for if the re- 
 mittance had arrived a little earlier or a little later, or in 
 the form of a cheque, she could not have utilised it.
 
 THE ISLE 181 
 
 It was an incredible day, the following Saturday, a warm 
 and benign day of earliest autumn. The Suttons, in a 
 hired cab, called for Anna at half-past eight, on the way to 
 the main-line station at Shawport. Anna's tin box was flung 
 on to the roof of the cab amid the trunks and portmanteaux 
 already there. 
 
 " Why should not Agnes ride with us to the station ? " 
 Beatrice suggested. 
 
 " Nay, nay ; there's no room," said Tellwright, who stood 
 at the door, impelled by an unacknowledged awe of Mrs. 
 Sutton thus to give official sanction to Anna's departure. 
 
 " Yes, yes," Mrs. Sutton exclaimed. " Let the little 
 thing come, Mr. Tellwright." 
 
 Agnes, far more excited than any of the rest, seized her 
 straw hat, and slipping the elastic under her small chin, 
 sprang into the cab, and found a haven between Mr. Sutton's 
 short, fat legs. The driver drew his whip smartly across 
 the aged neck of the cream mare. They were off. What 
 a rumbling, jolting, delicious journey, down the first hill, 
 up Duck Bank, through the market-place, and down the 
 steep declivity of Oldcastle Street ! Silent and shy, Agnes 
 smiled ecstatically at the others. Anna answered remarks 
 in a dream. She was conscious only of present happiness 
 and happy expectation. All bitterness had disappeared. 
 At least thirty thousand Bursley folk were not going to the 
 Isle of Man that day their preoccupied and cheerless faces 
 swam in a continuous stream past the cab window and 
 Anna sympathised with every unit of them. Her spirit 
 overflowed with universal compassion. What haste and ex-
 
 182 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 quisite confusion at the station ! The train was signalled, 
 and the porter, crossing the line with the luggage, ran his 
 truck perilously under the very buffers of the incoming 
 engine. Mynors was awaiting them, admirably attired as 
 a tourist. He had got the tickets, and secured a private 
 compartment in the through-coach for Liverpool; and he 
 found time to arrange with the cabman to drive Agnes home 
 on the box-seat. Certainly there was none like Mynors. 
 From the footboard of the carriage Anna bent down to 
 kiss Agnes. The child had been laughing and chattering. 
 Suddenly, as Anna's lips touched hers, she burst into tears, 
 sobbed passionately as though overtaken by some terrible 
 and unexpected misfortune. Tears stood also in Anna's 
 eyes. The sisters had never been parted before. 
 
 " Poor little thing ! " Mrs. Sutton murmured ; and Bea- 
 trice told her father to give Agnes a shilling to buy chocor 
 lates at Stevenson's in St. Luke's Square, that being 
 the best shop. The shilling fell between the footboard and 
 the platform. A scream from Beatrice ! The attendant 
 porter promised to rescue the shilling in due course. The 
 engine whistled, the silver-mounted guard asserted his au- 
 thority, Mynors leaped in, and amid laughter and tears the 
 brief and unique joy of Anna's life began. 
 
 In a moment, so it seemed, the train was thundering 
 through the mile of solid rock which ends at Lime Street 
 Station, Liverpool. Thenceforward, till she fell asleep that 
 night, Anna existed in a state of blissful bewilderment, 
 stupefied by an overdose of novel and wondrous sensations. 
 They lunched in amazing magnificence at the Bear's Paw,
 
 THE ISLE 183 
 
 and then walked through the crowded and prodigious streets 
 to Prince's landing-stage. The luggage had disappeared by 
 some mysterious agency Mynors said that they would find 
 it safe at Douglas ; but Anna could not banish the fear that 
 her tin box had gone forever. 
 
 The great, wavy river, churned by thousands of keels; 
 the monstrous steamer the " Mona's Isle " whose side 
 rose like solid wall out of the water ; the vistas of its decks ; 
 its vast saloons, story under story, solid and palatial (could 
 all this float ? ) ; its high bridge ; its hawsers as thick as trees ; 
 its funnels like sloping towers; the multitudes of passen- 
 gers ; the whistles, hoots, cries ; the far-stretching panorama 
 of wharves and docks ; the squat ferry-craft carrying horses 
 and carts, and no one looking twice at the feat it was all 
 too much, too astonishing, too lovely. She had not guessed 
 at this. 
 
 " They call Liverpool the slum of Europe," said My- 
 nors. 
 
 " How can you ! " she exclaimed, shocked. 
 
 Beatrice, seeing her radiant and rapt face, walked to and 
 fro with Anna, proud of the effect produced on her friend's 
 inexperience by these sights. One might have thought that 
 Beatrice had built Liverpool and created its trade by her 
 own efforts. 
 
 Suddenly the landing-stage and all the people on it moved 
 away bodily from the ship ; there was green water between ; 
 a tremor like that of an earthquake ran along the deck; 
 handkerchiefs were waved. The voyage had commenced. 
 Mynors found chairs for all the Suttons, and tucked them
 
 184 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 up on the lee-side of a deck-house ; but Anna did not stir. 
 They passed New Brighton, Seaforth, and the Crosby and 
 Formby lightships. 
 
 " Come and view the ship," said Mynors, at her side. 
 " Suppose we go round and inspect things a bit? " 
 
 " It's a very big one, isn't it ? " she asked. 
 
 " Pretty big," he said ; " of course not as big as the At- 
 lantic liners I wonder we didn't meet one in the river 
 but still pretty big. Three hundred and twenty feet over 
 all. I sailed on her last year on her maiden voyage. She 
 was packed, and the weather very bad." 
 
 " Will it be rough to-day? " Anna inquired timidly. 
 
 " Not if it keeps like this," he laughed. " You don't 
 feel queer, do you? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! It's as firm as a house. No one could be ill 
 with this." 
 
 " Couldn't they ? " he exclaimed. " Beatrice could be." 
 
 They descended into the ship, and he explained all its in- 
 ternal economy, with a knowledge that seemed to her ency- 
 clopaedic. They stayed a long time watching the engines, 
 so Titanic, ruthless, and deliberate ; even the smell of the oil 
 was pleasant to Anna. When they came on deck again the 
 ship was at sea. For the first time Anna beheld the ocean. 
 A strong breeze blew from prow to stern, yet the sea was 
 absolutely calm, the unruffled mirror of effulgent sunlight. 
 The steamer moved along on the waters, exultantly, leaving 
 behind it an endless track of white froth in the green, and 
 the shadow of its smoke. The sun, the salt breeze, the living 
 water, the proud gaiety of the ship, produced a feeling of
 
 THE ISLE 185 
 
 intense, inexplicable joy, a profound satisfaction with the 
 present, and a negligence of past and future. To exist 
 was enough, then. As Anna and Henry leaned over the 
 starboard quarter and watched the torrent of foam rush 
 madly and ceaselessly from under the paddle-box to be 
 swallowed up in the white wake, the spectacle of the wild tor- 
 rent almost hypnotised them, destroying thought and reason, 
 and all sense of their relation to other things. With diffi- 
 culty Anna raised her eyes, and perceived the dim receding 
 line of the Lancashire coast. 
 
 " Shall we get quite out of sight of land? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, for a little while, about half an hour or so. Just 
 as much out of sight of land as if we were in the middle of 
 the Atlantic." 
 
 " I can scarcely believe it." 
 
 "Believe what?" 
 
 " Oh ! The idea of that of being out of sight of land 
 nothing but sea." 
 
 When at last it occurred to them to reconnoitre the Sut- 
 tons, they found all three still in their deck-chairs, en- 
 wrapped and languid. Mr. Sutton and Beatrice were ap- 
 parently dozing. This part of the deck was occupied by 
 somnolent, basking figures. 
 
 " Don't wake them," Mrs. Sutton enjoined, whispering 
 out of her hood. Anna glanced curiously at Beatrice's yel- 
 low face. 
 
 " Go away, do," Beatrice exclaimed, opening her eyes 
 and shutting them again, wearily. 
 
 So they went away, and discovered two empty deck-
 
 186 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 chairs on the fore-deck. Anna was innocently vain of her 
 immunity from malaise. Mynors appeared to appoint him- 
 self little errands about the deck, returning frequently to his 
 chair. 
 
 " Look over there. Can you see anything? " 
 
 Anna ran to the rail, with the infantile idea of getting 
 nearer, and Mynors followed, laughing. What looked like 
 a small slate-coloured cloud lay on the horizon. 
 
 " I seem to see something," she said. 
 
 " That is the Isle of Man." 
 
 By insensible gradations the contours of the land grew 
 clearer in the afternoon haze. 
 
 " How far are we off now? " 
 
 " Perhaps twenty miles." 
 
 Twenty miles of uninterrupted flatness, and the ship 
 steadily invading that separating solitude, yard by yard, 
 furlong by furlong! The conception awed her. There, a 
 morsel in the waste of the deep, a speck under the infinite 
 sunlight, lay the island, mysterious, enticing, enchanted, a 
 glinting jewel on the sea's bosom, a remote entity fraught 
 with strange secrets. It was all unspeakable. 
 
 " Anna, you have covered yourself with glory," said Mrs. 
 Sutton, when they were in the diminutive and absurd train 
 which by breathless plunges annihilates the sixteen miles 
 between Douglas and Port Erin in sixty-five minutes. 
 
 " Have I? " she answered. " How? " 
 
 " By not being ill." 
 
 " That's always the beginner's luck," said Beatrice, pale
 
 THE ISLE 187 
 
 and dishevelled. They all relapsed into the silence of fa- 
 tigue. It was growing dusk when the train stopped at the 
 tiny terminus. The station was a hive of bustling activity, 
 the arrival of this train being the daily event at that end of 
 the world. Mynors and the Suttons were greeted familiarly 
 by several sailors, and one of these, Tom Kelly, a tall, 
 middle-aged man, with grey beard, small grey eyes, a 
 wrinkled skin of red mahogany, and an enormous fist, was 
 introduced to Anna. He raised his cap, and shook hands. 
 She was touched by the sad, kind look on his face, the mel- 
 ancholy impress of the sea. Then they drove to their lodg- 
 ing, and here again the party was welcomed as being old and 
 tried friends. A fire was burning in the parlour. Throw- 
 ing herself down in front of it, Mrs. Sutton breathed, " At 
 last ! Oh, for some tea." Through the window, Anna had 
 a glimpse of a deeply indented bay at the foot of cliffs below 
 them, with a bold headland to the right. Fishing vessels 
 with flat red sails seemed to hang undecided just outside 
 the bay. From cottage chimneys beneath the road blue 
 smoke softly ascended. 
 
 All went early to bed, for the weariness of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Sutton seemed to communicate itself to the three young 
 people, who might otherwise have gone forth into the vil- 
 lage in search of adventures. Anna and Beatrice shared a 
 room. Each inspected the other's clothes, and Beatrice made 
 Anna try on the new serge skirt. Through the thin wall 
 came the sound of Mr. and Mrs. Sutton talking, a high 
 voice, then a bass reply, in continual alternation. Bea- 
 trice said that these two always discussed the day's doings
 
 188 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 in such manner. In a few moments Beatrice was snoring; 
 she had the subdued, but steady and serious, snore charac- 
 teristic of some muscular men. Anna felt no inclination to 
 sleep. She lived again hour by hour through the day, and 
 beneath Beatrice's snore her ear caught the undertone of 
 the sea. 
 
 The next morning was as lovely as the last. It was Sun- 
 day, and every activity of the village was stilled. Sea and 
 land were equally folded in a sunlit calm. During breakfast 
 a meal abundant in fresh herrings, fresh eggs, and fresh 
 rolls, eaten with the window wide open Anna was puzzled 
 by the singular amenity of her friends to one another and 
 to her. They were as polite as though they had been 
 strangers ; they chatted amiably, were full of good will, and 
 as anxious to give happiness as to enjoy it. She thought at 
 first, so unusual was it to her as a feature of domestic pri- 
 vacy, that this demeanour was affected, or at any rate a 
 somewhat exaggerated punctilio due to her presence; but 
 she soon came to see that she was mistaken. After break- 
 fast Mr. Sutton suggested that they should attend the Wes- 
 leyan Chapel on the hill leading to the Chasms. Here they 
 met the sailors of the night before, arrayed now in marvel- 
 lous blue Melton coats with velveteen collars. Tom Kelly 
 walked back with them to the beach, and showed them the 
 yacht " Fay," which Mynors had arranged to hire for mack- 
 erel-fishing; it lay on the sand, speckless in new white paint. 
 All afternoon they dozed on the cliffs, doing nothing what- 
 ever, for this Sunday was tacitly regarded, not as part of 
 the holiday, but as a preparation for the holiday ; all felt
 
 THE ISLE 189 
 
 that the holiday, with its proper exertions and appointed 
 delights, would really begin on Monday morning. 
 
 " Let us go for a walk," said Mynors, after tea, to Bea- 
 trice and Anna. They stood at the gate of the lodging- 
 house. The old people were resting within. 
 
 " You two go," Beatrice replied, looking at Anna. " You 
 know I hate walking, Henry. I'll stop with mother and 
 dad." 
 
 Throughout the day Anna had been conscious of the fact 
 that all the Suttons showed a tendency, slight but percept- 
 ible, to treat Henry and herself as a pair desirous of oppor- 
 tunities for being alone together. She did not like it. She 
 flushed under the passing glance with which Beatrice accom- 
 panied the words : " You two go." Nevertheless, when My- 
 nors placidly remarked : " Very well," and his eyes sought 
 hers for a consent, she could not refuse it. One part of her 
 nature would have preferred to find an excuse for staying 
 at home ; but another, and a stronger, part insisted on seiz- 
 ing this offered joy. 
 
 They walked straight up out of the village towards the 
 high coast-range which stretches, peak after peak, from 
 Port Erin to Peel. The stony and devious lanes wound about 
 the bleak hillside, passing here and there small, solitary 
 cottages of whitewashed stone, with children, fowls, and 
 dogs at the doors, all embowered in huge fuchsia trees. 
 Presently they had surmounted the limit of habitation and 
 were on the naked flank of Bradda, following a narrow 
 track which crept upwards amid short mossy turf of the 
 most vivid green. Nothing seemed to flourish on this ex-
 
 190 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 posed height except bracken, sheep, and boulders that, from 
 a distance, resembled sheep; there was no tree, scarcely a 
 shrub; the immense contours, stark, grim, and unrelieved, 
 rose in melancholy and defiant majesty against the sky: the 
 hand of man could coax no harvest from these smooth, but 
 obdurate, slopes; they had never relented and they would 
 never relent. The spirit was braced by the thought that 
 here, to the furthest eternity of civilisations more and more 
 intricate, simple and strong souls would always find solace 
 and repose. 
 
 Mynors bore to the left for a while, striking across the 
 moor in the direction of the sea. Then he said : 
 
 " Look down, now." 
 
 The little bay lay like an oblong swimming-bath five 
 hundred feet below them. The surface of the water was like 
 glass; the strand, with its phalanx of boats drawn up in 
 Sabbath tidiness, glittered like marble in the dying light, 
 and over this marble black dots moved slowly to and fro; 
 behind the boats were the houses doll's houses each with 
 a curling wisp of smoke ; further away the railway and the 
 high-road ran out in a black and a white line to Port St. 
 Mary ; the sea, a pale grey, encompassed all ; the southern 
 sky had a faint sapphire tinge, rising to delicate azure. 
 The sight of this haven at rest, shut in by the restful sea 
 and by great moveless hills, a calm within a calm, aroused 
 profound emotion. 
 
 " It's lovely," said Anna, as they stood gazing. Tears 
 came to her eyes and hung there. She wondered that 
 scenery should cause tears, felt ashamed, and turned
 
 THE ISLE 191 
 
 her face so that Mynors should not see. But he had 
 seen. 
 
 " Shall we go on to the top? " he suggested, and they 
 set their faces northwards, to climb still higher. At length 
 they stood on the rocky summit of Bradda, seven hundred 
 feet from the sea. The Hill of the Night Watch lifted 
 above them to the north, but on east, south, and west, the 
 prospect was bounded only by the ocean. The coast-line 
 was revealed for thirty miles, from Peel to Castletown. Far 
 to the east was Castletown Bay, large, shallow, and inhos- 
 pitable, its floor strewn with a thousand unseen wrecks ; the 
 lighthouse at Scarlet Point flashed dimly in the dusk ; thence 
 the beach curved nearer in an immense arc, without a sign 
 of life, to the little cove of Port St. Mary, and jutted out 
 again into a tongue of land, at the end of which lay the Calf 
 of Man, with its single white cottage and cart-track. The 
 dangerous Calf Sound, where the vexed tide is forced to run 
 nine hours one way and three the other, seemed like a grey 
 ribbon, and the Chicken Rock like a tiny pencil on a vast 
 slate. Port Erin was hidden under their feet. They looked 
 westward. The darkening sky was a labyrinth of purple 
 and crimson scarves drawn pellucid, as though by the finger 
 of God, across a sheet of pure saffron. These decadent tints 
 of the sunset faded in every direction to the same soft azure 
 which filled the south, and one star twinkled in the illimit- 
 able field. Thirty miles off, on the horizon, could be dis- 
 cerned the Mourne Mountains of Ireland. 
 
 " See ! " Mynors exclaimed, touching her arm. 
 
 The huge disc of the moon was rising in the east, and as
 
 192 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 this mild lamp passed up the sky, the sense of universal 
 quiescence increased. Lovely, Anna had said. It was the 
 loveliest sight her eyes had ever beheld, a panorama of pure 
 beauty transcending all imagined visions. It overwhelmed 
 her, thrilled her to the heart, this revelation of the loveliness 
 of the world. Her thoughts went back to Hanbridge and 
 Bursley and her life there ; and all the remembered scenes, 
 bathed in the glow of a new ideal, seemed to lose their pain. 
 It was as if she had never been really unhappy, as if there 
 was no real unhappiness on the whole earth. She perceived 
 that the monotony, the austerity, the melancholy of her ex- 
 istence had been sweet and beautiful of its kind, and she re- 
 called, with a sort of rapture, hours of companionship with 
 the beloved Agnes, when her father was equable and pacific. 
 Nothing was ugly nor mean. Beauty was everywhere, in 
 everything. 
 
 In silence they began to descend, perforce walking quickly 
 because of the steep gradient. At the first cottage they saw 
 a little girl in a mob-cap, playing with two kittens. 
 
 " How like Agnes ! " Mynors said. 
 
 " Yes, I was just thinking so," Anna answered. 
 
 " I thought of her up on the hill," he continued. " She 
 will miss you, won't she? " 
 
 " I know she cried herself to sleep last night. You 
 mightn't guess it, but she is extremely sensitive." 
 
 " Not guess it? Why not? I am sure she is. Do you 
 know I am very fond of your sister. She's a simply de- 
 lightful child. And there's a lot in her, too. She's so 
 quick and bright, and somehow like a little woman."
 
 THE ISLE 193 
 
 " She's exactly like a woman sometimes," Anna agreed. 
 " Sometimes I fancy she's a great deal older than I am." 
 
 " Older than any of us," he corrected. 
 
 " I'm glad you like her," Anna said, content. " She 
 thinks all the world of you." And she added : " My word, 
 wouldn't she be vexed if she knew I had told you that ! " 
 
 This appreciation of Agnes brought them into closer in- 
 timacy, and they talked the more easily of other things. 
 
 " It will freeze to-night," Mynors said ; and then, sud- 
 denly looking at her in the twilight : " You are feeling 
 chill." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " she protested. 
 
 " But you are. Put this muffler round your neck." He 
 took a muffler from his pocket. 
 
 " Oh, no, really ! You will need it yourself." She drew 
 a little away from him, as if to avoid the muffler. 
 
 " Please take it." 
 
 She did so, and thanked him, tying it loosely and untidily 
 round her throat. That feeling of the untidiness of the 
 muffler, of its being something strange to her skin, some- 
 thing with the rough virtue of masculinity, which no one 
 could detect in the gloom, was in itself pleasant. 
 
 " I wager Mrs. Sutton has a good fire burning when we 
 get in," he said. 
 
 She thought with joyous anticipation of the warm, bright 
 sitting-room, the supper, and the vivacious, good-natured 
 conversation. Though the walk was nearly at an end, other 
 delights were in store. Of the holiday, thirteen complete 
 days yet remained, each to be happy as the one now clos-
 
 194 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 ing. It was an age ! At last they entered the human cosi- 
 ness of the village. As they walked up the steps of their 
 lodging, and he opened the door for her, she quickly dreAv 
 off the muffler and returned it to him with a word of thanks. 
 
 On Monday morning, when Beatrice and Anna came 
 downstairs, they found the breakfast odorously cooling on 
 the table, and nobody in the room. 
 
 " Where are they all, I wonder. Any letters ? " Beatrice 
 said. 
 
 " There's your mother, out on the front and Mr. My- 
 nors, too." 
 
 Beatrice threw up the window, and called : " Come along, 
 Henry; come along, mother. Everything's going cold." 
 
 " Is it? " Mynors cheerfully replied. " Come out here, 
 both of you, and begin the day properly with a dose of 
 ozone." 
 
 " I loathe cold bacon," said Beatrice, glancing at the 
 table, and they went out into the road, where Mrs. Sutton 
 kissed them with as much fervour as if they had arrived from 
 a long journey. 
 
 " You look pale, Anna," she remarked. 
 
 " Do I? " said Anna, " I don't feel pale." 
 
 " It's that long walk last night," Beatrice put in. 
 " Henry always goes too far." 
 
 " I don't " Anna began ; but at that moment Mr. 
 
 Sutton, lumbering and ponderous, joined the party. 
 
 " Henry," he said, without greeting anyone, " hast 
 noticed those half-finished houses down the road yonder by 
 the * Falcon ' ? I've been having a chat with Kelly, and he
 
 THE ISLE 195 
 
 tells me the fellow that was building them has gone bank- 
 rupt, and they're at a standstill. The receiver wants to 
 sell 'em. In fact Kelly says they're going cheap. I believe 
 they'd be a good spec." 
 
 " Eh, dear ! " Mrs. Button interrupted him. " Father, 
 I wish you would leave your specs alone when you're on your 
 holiday." 
 
 " Now, missis ! " he affectionately protested, and con- 
 tinued : " They're fairly well-built, seemingly, and the 
 rafters are on the roof. Anna," he turned to her quickly, 
 as if counting on her sympathy, " you must come with me 
 and look at 'em after breakfast. Happen they might suit 
 your father or you. I know your father's fond of a good 
 spec." 
 
 She assented with a ready smile. This was the beginning 
 of a fancy which the Alderman always afterwards showed 
 for Anna. 
 
 After breakfast, Mrs. Sutton, Beatrice, and Anna ar- 
 ranged to go shopping. 
 
 " Father brass," Mrs. Sutton ejaculated in two mono- 
 syllables to her husband. 
 
 " How much will content ye ? " he asked mildly. 
 
 " Give me five or ten pounds to go on with." 
 
 He opened the left-hand front pocket of his trousers 
 a pocket which fastened with a button; and leaning back 
 in the chair drew out a fat purse, and passed it to his wife 
 with a preoccupied air. She helped herself, and then Bea- 
 trice intercepted the purse and lightened it of half a sov- 
 ereign.
 
 196 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Pocket-money," Beatrice said ; " I'm ruined." 
 The Alderman's eyes requested Anna to observe how he 
 was robbed. At last the purse was safely buttoned up 
 again. 
 
 Mrs. Sutton's purchases of food at the three principal 
 shops of the village seemed startlingly profuse to Anna, 
 but gradually she became accustomed to the scale, and to 
 the amazing habit of always buying the very best of every- 
 thing, from beefsteak to grapes. Anna calculated that the 
 housekeeping could not cost less than six pounds a week for 
 the five. At Manor Terrace three people existed on a 
 pound. With her half-sovereign Beatrice bought a belt 
 and a pair of sand-shoes, and some cigarettes for Henry. 
 Mrs. Sutton bought a pipe with a nickel cap, such as is used 
 by sailors. When they returned to the house, Mr. Sutton 
 and Henry were smoking in the front. All five walked in 
 a row down to the harbour, the Alderman giving an arm 
 each to Beatrice and Anna. Near the " Falcon " the pro- 
 cession had to be stopped in order to view the unfinished 
 houses. Tom Kelly had a cabin partly excavated out of the 
 rock behind the little quay. Here they found him entangled 
 amid nets, sails, and oars. All crowded into the cabin and 
 shook hands with its owner, who remarked with severity on 
 their pallid faces, and insisted that a change of complexion 
 must be brought about. Mynors offered him his tobacco- 
 pouch, but on seeing the light colour of the tobacco he shook 
 his head and refused it, at the same time taking from 
 within his jersey a lump of something that resembled 
 leather.
 
 THE ISLE 197 
 
 " Give him this, Henry," Mrs. Sutton whispered, hand- 
 ing Mynors the pipe which she had bought. 
 
 " Mrs. Sutton wishes you to accept this," said Mynors. 
 
 " Eh, thank ye," he exclaimed. " There's a leddy that 
 knows my taste." He cut some shreds from his plug with 
 a clasp-knife and charged and lighted the pipe, filling the 
 cabin with asphyxiating fumes. 
 
 " I don't know how you can smoke such horrid, nasty 
 stuff," said Beatrice, coughing. 
 
 He laughed condescendingly at Beatrice's petulant man- 
 ner. " That stuff of Henry's is boy's tobacco," he said 
 shortly. 
 
 It was decided that they should go fishing in the " Fay." 
 There was a light southerly breeze, a cloudy sky, and smooth 
 water. Under charge of young Tom Kelly, a sheepish lad 
 of sixteen, with his father's smile, they all got into an incon- 
 ceivably small dinghy, loading it down till it was almost 
 awash. Old Tom himself helped Anna to embark, told her 
 where to tread, and forced her gently into a seat at the stern. 
 No one else seemed to be disturbed, but Anna was in a state 
 of desperate fear. She had never committed herself to a 
 boat before, and the little waves spat up against the sides in 
 a most alarming way as young Tom jerked the dinghy along 
 with the short sculls. She went white, and clung in silence 
 fiercely to the gunwale. In a few moments they were tied 
 up to the " Fay," which seemed very big and safe in com- 
 parison with the dinghy. They clambered on board, and 
 in the deep well of the two-ton yacht Anna contrived to col- 
 lect her wits. She was reassured by the painted legend in
 
 198 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 the well, " Licensed to carry eleven." Young Tom and 
 Henry busied themselves with ropes, and suddenly a huge 
 white sail began to ascend the mast ; it flapped like thunder 
 in the gentle breeze. Tom pulled up the anchor, curling 
 the chain round and round on the forward deck, and 
 then Anna noticed that, although the wind was scarcely 
 perceptible, they were gliding quickly past the embankment. 
 Henry was at the tiller. The next minute Tom had set the 
 jib, and by this time the " Fay " was approaching the break- 
 water at a great pace. There was no rolling or pitching, 
 but simply a smooth, swift progression over the calm sur- 
 face. Anna thought it the ideal of locomotion. As soon 
 as they were beyond the breakwater and the sails caught 
 the breeze from the Sound, the " Fay " lay over as if shot, 
 and a little column of green water flung itself on the lee 
 coaming of the well. Anna screamed as she saw the water 
 and felt the angle of the floor suddenly change, but when 
 everyone laughed, she laughed too. Henry, noticing the 
 whiteness of her knuckles as she gripped the coaming, ex- 
 plained the disconcerting phenomena. Anna tried to be at 
 ease, but she was not. She could not for a long time dismiss 
 the suspicion that all these people were foolishly Wind to a 
 peril which she alone had the sagacity to perceive. 
 
 They cruised about while Tom prepared the lines. The 
 short waves chopped cheerfully against the carvel sides of 
 the yacht ; the clouds were breaking at a hundred points ; the 
 sea grew lighter in tone ; gaiety was in the air ; no one could 
 possibly be indisposed in that innocuous weather. At 
 length the lines were ready, but Tom said the yacht was
 
 THE ISLE 199 
 
 making at least a knot too much for serious fishing, so Henry 
 took a reef in the mainsail, showing Anna how to tie the 
 short strings. The Alderman, lying on the fore-deck, was 
 placidly smoking. The lines were thrown out astern, and 
 Mrs. Sutton and Beatrice each took one. But they had no 
 success; young Tom said it was because the sun had ap- 
 peared. 
 
 " Caught anything? " Mr. Sutton inquired at intervals. 
 After a time he said : 
 
 " Suppose Anna and I have a try ? " 
 
 It was agreed. 
 
 " What must I do ? " asked Anna, brave now. 
 
 " You just hold the line so. And if you feel a little 
 jerk- jerk, that's a mackerel." These were the instructions 
 of Beatrice. Anna was becoming excited. She had not 
 held the line ten seconds before she cried out : 
 
 " I've got one." 
 
 " Nonsense," said Beatrice. " Everyone thinks at first 
 that the motion of the waves against the line is a fish." 
 
 " Well," said Henry, giving the tiller to young Tom. 
 " Let's haul in and see, anyway." Before doing so he held 
 the line for a moment, testing it, and winked at Anna. 
 While Anna and Henry were hauling in, the Alderman, 
 dropping his pipe, began also to haul in his own line with 
 great fury. 
 
 " Got one, father? " Mrs. Sutton asked. 
 
 "Ay!" 
 
 Both lines came in together, and on each was a pounder. 
 Anna saw- her fish gleam and flash like silver in the clear
 
 200 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 water as it neared the surface. Henry held the line short, 
 letting the mackerel plunge and jerk, and then seized and 
 unhooked the catch. 
 
 " How cruel ! " Anna cried, startled at the nearness of the 
 two fish as they sprang about in an old sugar-box at her 
 feet. Young Tom laughed loud at her exclamation. 
 " They cairn't feel, miss," he sniggered. Anna wondered 
 that a mouth so soft and kind could utter such heartless 
 words. 
 
 In an hour the united efforts of the party had caught 
 nine mackerel ; it was not a multitude, but the sun, in per- 
 fecting the weather, had spoilt the sport. Anna had ceased 
 to commiserate the captured fish. She was obliged, how- 
 ever, to avert her head when Tom cut some skin from the 
 side of one of the mackerel to provide fresh bait ; this device 
 seemed to her the extremest refinement of cruelty. Beatrice 
 grew ominously silent and inert, and Mrs. Sutton glanced 
 first at her daughter and then at her husband; the latter 
 nodded. 
 
 " We'd happen better be getting back, Henry," said the 
 Alderman. 
 
 The " Fay " swept home like a bird. They were at the 
 quay, and Kelly was dragging them one by one from the 
 black dinghy on to what the Alderman called terra-firma. 
 Henry had the fish on a string. 
 
 " How many did ye catch, Miss Tellwright ? " Kelly 
 asked benevolently. 
 
 " I caught four," Anna replied. Never before had she 
 felt so proud, elated, and boisterous. Never had the blood
 
 THE ISLE 201 
 
 so wildly danced in her veins. She looked at her short blue 
 skirt which showed three inches of ankle, put forward her 
 brown-shod foot like a vain coquette, and darted a covert 
 look at Henry. When he caught it she laughed instead of 
 blushing. 
 
 " Ye're doing well," Tom Kelly approved. " Ye'll make 
 a famous mackerel-fisher." 
 
 Five of the mackerel were given to young Tom. The 
 other four preceded a fowl in the menu of dinner. They 
 were called Anna's mackerel, and all the diners agreed that 
 better mackerel had never been lured out of the Irish sea. 
 
 In the afternoon the Alderman and his wife slept as usual, 
 Mr. Sutton with a bandanna handkerchief over his face. 
 The rest went out immediately ; the invitation of the sun and 
 the sea was far too persuasive to be resisted. 
 
 " I'm going to paint," said Beatrice, with a resolute mien. 
 " I want to paint Bradda Head frightfully. I tried last 
 year, but I got it too dark, somehow. I've improved since 
 then. What are you going to do? " 
 
 " We'll come and watch you," said Henry. 
 
 " Oh, no, you won't. At least you won't ; you're such 
 a critic. Anna can, if she likes." 
 
 " What ! And me be left all afternoon by myself ? " 
 
 " Well, suppose you go with him, Anna, just to keep 
 him from being bored ? " 
 
 Anna hesitated. Once more she had the uncomfortable 
 suspicion that Mynors and herself were being manoeuvred. 
 
 " Look here," said Mynors to Beatrice. " Have you de- 
 cided absolutely to paint? "
 
 202 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Absolutely." The finality of the answer seemed to 
 have a touch of resentment. 
 
 " Then " he turned to Anna " let's go and get that 
 dinghy and row about the bay. Eh? " 
 
 She could offer no rational objection, and they were soon 
 putting off from the jetty, impelled seaward by a mighty 
 push from Kelly's arm. It was very hot. Mynors wore 
 white flannels. He removed his coat, and turned up his 
 sleeves, showing thick, hairy arms. He sculled in a manner 
 almost dramatic, and the dinghy shot about like a water- 
 spider on a brook. Anna had nothing to do except to sit 
 still and enjoy. Everything was drowned in dazzling sun- 
 light, and both Henry and Anna could feel the process of 
 tanning on their faces. The bay shimmered with a million 
 diamond-points; it was impossible to keep the eyes open 
 without frowning, and soon Anna could see the beads of 
 sweat on Henry's crimson brow. 
 
 " Warm ? " she said. This was the first word of con- 
 versation. He merely smiled in reply. Presently they 
 were at the other side of the bay, in a cave whose sandy and 
 rock-strewn floor trembled clear under a fathom of blue 
 water. 
 
 They landed on a jutting rock; Henry pushed his 
 straw hat back, and wiped his forehead. " Glorious ! 
 glorious ! " he exclaimed. " Do you swim ? No ? You 
 should get Beatrice to teach you. I swam out here this 
 morning at seven o'clock. It was chilly enough then. Oh ! 
 I forgot, I told you at breakfast." 
 
 She could see him in the translucent water, swimming with
 
 THE ISLE 203 
 
 long, powerful strokes. Dozens of boats were moving lazily 
 in the bay, each with a cargo of parasols. 
 
 " There's a good deal of the sunshade afloat," he re- 
 marked. " Why haven't you got one ? You'll get as brown 
 as Tom Kelly." 
 
 " That's what I want," she said. 
 
 " Look at yourself in the water there," he said, pointing 
 to a little pool left on the top of the rock by the tide. She 
 did so, and saw two fiery cheeks, and a forehead divided by 
 a horizontal line into halves of white and of crimson; the 
 tip of the nose was blistered. 
 
 " Isn't it disgraceful? " he suggested. 
 
 " Why," she exclaimed, " they'll never know me when 
 I get home ! " 
 
 It was in such wise that they talked, endlessly exchanging 
 trifles of comment. Anna thought to herself : " Is this 
 Jove-making ? " It could not be, she decided ; but she in- 
 finitely preferred it so. She was content. She wished for 
 nothing better than this apparently frivolous and irrespon- 
 sible dalliance. She felt that if Mynors were to be tender, 
 sentimental, and serious, she should become wretchedly self- 
 conscious. 
 
 They re-embarked, and, skirting the shore, gradually 
 came round to the beach. Up above them, on the cliffs, they 
 could discern the industrious figure of Beatrice, with easel 
 and sketching-umbrella, and all the panoply of the earnest 
 amateur. 
 
 " Do you sketch ? " she asked him. 
 
 " Not I ! " he said scornfully.
 
 204 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Don't you believe in that sort of thing, then ? " 
 
 " It's all right for professional artists," he said ; " people 
 
 who can paint. But Well, I suppose it's harmless 
 
 for the amateurs finds them something to do." 
 
 " I wish I could paint, anyway," she retorted. 
 
 " I'm glad you can't," he insisted. 
 
 When they got back to the cliffs, towards tea-time, Bea- 
 trice was still painting, but in a new spot. She seemed 
 entirely absorbed in her work, and did not hear their ap- 
 proach. 
 
 " Let's creep up and surprise her," Mynors whispered. 
 " You go first, and put your hands over her eyes." 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Beatrice, blindfolded ; " how horrid 
 you are, Henry ! I know who it is I know who it is." 
 
 " You just don't, then," said Henry, now in front of 
 her. Anna removed her hands. 
 
 " Well, you told her to do it, I'm sure of that. And I 
 was getting on so splendidly ! I sha'n't do another stroke 
 now." 
 
 " That's right," said Henry. " You've wasted quite 
 enough time as it is." 
 
 Beatrice pouted. She was evidently annoyed with both 
 of them. She looked from one to the other, jealous of their 
 mutual understanding and agreement. Mr. and Mrs. Sut- 
 ton issued from the house, and the five stood chatting till 
 tea was ready ; but the shadow remained on Beatrice's face. 
 Mynors made several attempts to laugh it away, and at dusk 
 these two went for a stroll to Port St. Mary. They re- 
 turned in a state of deep intimacy. During supper Bea-
 
 THE ISLE 205 
 
 trice was consciously and elaborately angelic, and there was 
 that in her voice and eyes, when sometimes she addressed 
 Mynors, which almost persuaded Anna that he might once 
 have loved his cousin. At night, in the bedroom, Anna 
 imagined that she could detect in Beatrice's attitude the 
 least shade of condescension. She felt hurt, and despised 
 herself for feeling hurt. 
 
 So the days passed, without much variety, for the Suttons 
 were not addicted to excursions. Anna was profoundly 
 happy ; she had forgotten care. She agreed to every sug- 
 gestion for amusement; each moment had its pleasure, and 
 this pleasure was quite independent of the thing done; it 
 sprang from all activities and idlenesses. She was at spe- 
 cial pains to fraternise with Mr. Sutton. He made an in- 
 teresting companion, full of facts about strata, outcrops, 
 and breaks, his sole weakness being the habit of quoting 
 extremely sentimental scraps of verse when walking by the 
 seashore. He frankly enjoyed Anna's attention to him, 
 and took pride in her society. Mrs. Sutton, that simple 
 heart, devoted herself to the attainment of absolute quies- 
 cence. She had come for a rest, and she achieved her pur- 
 pose. Her kindliness became for the time passive instead of 
 active. Beatrice was a changing quantity in the domestic 
 equation. Plainly her parents had spoiled their only child, 
 and she had frequent fits of petulance, particularly with 
 Mynors ; but her energy and spirits atoned well for these. 
 As for Mynors, he behaved exactly as on the first Monday,. 
 He spent many hours alone with Anna (Beatrice appeared 
 to insist on leaving them together, even while showing a
 
 206 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 faint resentment at the loneliness thus entailed on herself) 
 and his attitude was such as Anna, ignorant of the ways 
 of brothers, deemed a brother might adopt. 
 
 On the second Monday an incident occurred. In the 
 afternoon Mr. Sutton had asked Beatrice to go with him 
 to Port St. Mary, and she had refused on the plea that the 
 light was of a suitable grey for painting. Mr. Sutton had 
 slipped off alone, unseen by Anna and Henry, who had 
 meant to accompany him in place of Beatrice. Before tea, 
 while Anna, Beatrice, and Henry were awaiting the meal 
 in the parlour, Mynors referred to the matter. 
 
 " I hope you've done some decent work this afternoon," 
 he said to Beatrice. 
 
 ** 1 haven't," she replied shortly ; " I haven't done a 
 stroke." 
 
 " But you said you were going to paint hard ! " 
 
 " Well, I didn't." 
 
 " Then why couldn't you have gone to Port St. Mary, 
 instead of breaking your fond father's heart by a refusal ? " 
 
 " He didn't want me, really." 
 
 Anna interjected: " I think he did, Bee." 
 
 " You know you're very self-willed, not to say selfish," 
 Mynors said. 
 
 " No, I'm not," Beatrice protested seriously. " Am I, 
 Anna?" 
 
 " Well " Anna tried to think of a diplomatic pro- 
 nouncement. Beatrice took offence at the hesitation. 
 
 " Oh ! You two are bound to agree, of course. You're 
 as thick as thieves."
 
 THE ISLE 207 
 
 She gazed steadily out of the window, and there was a 
 silence. Mynors' lip curled. 
 
 " Oh! There's the loveliest yacht just coming into the 
 bay," Beatrice cried suddenly, in a tone of affected enthu- 
 siasm. " I'm going out to sketch it." She snatched up her 
 hat and sketching-block, and ran hastily from the room. 
 The other two saw her sitting on the grass, sharpening a 
 pencil. The yacht, a large and luxurious craft, had evi- 
 dently come to anchor for the night. 
 
 Mrs. Sutton arrived from her bedroom, and then Mr. 
 Sutton also came in. Tea was served. Mynors called to 
 Beatrice through the window and received no reply. Then 
 Mrs. Sutton summoned her. 
 
 " Go on with your tea," Beatrice shouted, without turn- 
 ing her head. " Don't wait for me. I'm bound to finish 
 this now." 
 
 " Fetch her, Anna dear," said Mrs. Sutton after another 
 interval. Anna rose to obey, half-fearful. 
 
 "Aren't you coming in, Bee?" She stood by the 
 sketcher's side, and observed nothing but a few meaning- 
 less lines on the block. 
 
 " Didn't you hear what I said to mother ? " 
 
 Anna retired in discomfiture. 
 
 Tea was finished. They went out, but kept at a discreet 
 distance from the artist, who continued to use her pencil 
 until dusk had fallen. Then they returned to the sitting- 
 room, where a fire had been lighted, and Beatrice at length 
 followed. As the others sat in a circle round the fire, Bea- 
 trice, who occupied the sofa in solitude, gave a shiver.
 
 208 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Beatrice, you've taken cold," said her mother, " sitting 
 out there like that." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, mother what a fidget you are ! " 
 
 " A fidget I certainly am not, my darling, and that you 
 know very well. As you've had no tea, you shall have some 
 gruel at once, and go to bed and get warm." 
 
 " Oh, no, mother ! " But Mrs. Sutton was resolved, and 
 in half an hour she had taken Beatrice to bed and tucked 
 her up. 
 
 When Anna went to the bedroom Beatrice was awake. 
 
 " Can't you sleep ? " she inquired kindly. 
 
 " No," said Beatrice, in a feeble voice, " I'm restless, 
 somehow." 
 
 " I wonder if it is influenza," said Mrs. Sutton, on the 
 following morning, when she learnt from Anna that Beatrice 
 had had a bad night, and would take breakfast in bed. She 
 carried the invalid's food upstairs herself. " I hope it isn't 
 influenza," she said later. " The girl is very hot." 
 
 " You haven't a clinical thermometer? " Mynors sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " Go, see if you can buy one at the little chemist's," she 
 replied eagerly. In a few minutes he came back with the 
 instrument. 
 
 " She's at over a hundred," Mrs. Sutton reported, having 
 used the thermometer. " What do you say, father ? Shall 
 we send for a doctor? I'm not so set up with doctors as a 
 general rule," she added, as if in defence, to Anna. " I 
 brought Beatrice through measles and scarlet fever without 
 a doctor we never used to think of having a doctor in
 
 THE ISLE 209 
 
 those days for ordinary ailments; but influenza that's 
 different. Eh, I dread it ; you never know how it will end. 
 And poor Beatrice had such a bad attack last Martinmas." 
 
 " If you like, I'll run for a doctor now," said Mynors. 
 
 " Let be till to-morrow," the Alderman decided. " We'll 
 see how she goes on. Happen it's nothing but a cold." 
 
 " Yes," assented Mrs. Sutton ; " it's no use crying out 
 before you're hurt." 
 
 Anna was struck by the placidity with which they covered 
 their apprehension. Towards noon, Beatrice, who said that 
 she felt better, insisted on rising. A fire was lighted at once 
 in the parlour, and she sat in front of it till tea-time, when 
 she was obliged to go to bed again. On the Wednesday 
 morning, after a night which had been almost sleepless for 
 both the girls, her temperature stood at 103, and Henry 
 fetched the doctor, who pronounced it a case of influenza, 
 severe, demanding very careful treatment. Instantly the 
 normal movement of the household was changed. The sick- 
 room became a mysterious centre round which everything 
 revolved, and the parlour, without the alteration of a single 
 chair, took on a deserted, forlorn appearance. Meals were 
 eaten like the passover, with loins girded for any sudden 
 summons. Mrs. Sutton and Anna, as nurses, grew impor- 
 tant in the eyes of the men, who instinctively effaced them- 
 selves, existing only like messenger-boys whose business it 
 is to await a call. Yet there was no alarm, flurry, nor ex- 
 citement. In the evening the doctor returned. The pa- 
 tient's temperature had not fallen. It was part of the 
 treatment that a medicine should be administered every two
 
 210 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 hours with absolute regularity, and Mrs. Sutton said that 
 she should sit up through the night. 
 
 " I shall do that," said Anna. 
 
 " Nay, I won't hear of it," Mrs. Sutton replied, smiling. 
 
 But the three men (the doctor had remained to chat in 
 the parlour), recognising Anna's capacity and reliability, 
 and perhaps impressed also by her business-like appearance 
 as, arrayed in a white apron, she stood with firm lips before 
 them, gave a unanimous decision against Mrs. Sutton. 
 
 " We'st have you ill next, lass," said the Alderman to 
 his wife ; " and that '11 never do." 
 
 " Well," Mrs. Sutton surrendered, " if I can leave her to 
 anyone, it's Anna." 
 
 Mynors smiled appreciatively. 
 
 On the Thursday morning there was still no sign of re- 
 covery. The temperature was 104, and the patient slightly 
 delirious. Anna left the sickroom at eight o'clock to 'pre- 
 side at breakfast, and Mrs, Sutton took her place. 
 
 " You look tired, my dear," said the Alderman affection- 
 ately. 
 
 " I feel perfectly well," she replied with cheerfulness. 
 
 "And you aren't afraid of catching it? " Mynors asked. 
 
 " Afraid ? " she said ; " there's no fear of me catching it." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " I know, that's all. I'm never ill." 
 
 " That's the right way to keep well," the Alderman re- 
 marked. 
 
 The quiet admiration of these two men was very pleasant 
 to her. She felt that she had established herself forever in
 
 THE ISLE 211 
 
 their esteem. After breakfast, in obedience to them, she 
 slept for several hours on Mrs. Button's bed. In the after- 
 noon Beatrice was worse. The doctor called, and found her 
 temperature at 105. 
 
 " This can't last," he remarked briefly. 
 
 " Well, Doctor," Mr. Sutton said, " it's i' your hands." 
 
 " Nay," Mrs. Sutton murmured with a smile, " I've left 
 it with God. It's with Him." 
 
 This was the first and only word of religion, except grace 
 at table, that Anna heard from the Suttons during her stay 
 in the Isle of Man. She had feared lest vocal piety might 
 form a prominent feature of their daily life, but her fear 
 had proved groundless. She too, from reason rather than 
 instinct, had tried to pray for Beatrice's recovery. She 
 had, however, found much more satisfaction in the activity 
 of nursing. 
 
 Again that night she sat up, and on the Friday morning 
 Beatrice was better. At noon all immediate danger was 
 past ; the patient slept ; her temperature was almost correct. 
 Anna went to bed in the afternoon and slept soundly till 
 supper-time, when she awoke very hungry. For the first 
 time in three days Beatrice could be left alone. The other 
 four had supper together, cheerful and relieved after the 
 tension. 
 
 " She'll be as right as a trivet in a few days," said the 
 Alderman. 
 
 " A few weeks," said Mrs. Sutton. 
 
 " Of course," said Mynors, " you'll stay on here now ? " 
 
 " We shall stay until Beatrice is quite fit to travel," Mr.
 
 212 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Sutton answered. " I might have to run over to th' Five 
 Towns for a day or two middle of next week, but I can come 
 back immediately." 
 
 " Well, I must go to-morrow," Mynors sighed. 
 
 " Surely you can stay over Sunday, Henry? " 
 
 " No ; I've no one to take my place at school." 
 
 " And I must go to-morrow, too," said Anna suddenly. 
 
 " Fiddle-de-dee, Anna ! " the Alderman protested. 
 
 " I must," she insisted. " Father will expect me. You 
 know I came for a fortnight. Besides, there's Agnes." 
 
 " Agnes will be all right." 
 
 " I must go." They saw that she was fixed. 
 
 " Won't a short walk do you good ? " Mynors suggested 
 to her, with singular gravity, after supper. " You've not 
 been outside for two days." 
 
 She looked inquiringly at Mrs. Sutton. 
 
 " Yes, take her, Henry ; she'll sleep better for it. Eh, 
 Anna, but it's a shame to send you home with those rings 
 round your eyes." 
 
 She went upstairs for a jacket. Beatrice was awake. 
 
 " Anna," she exclaimed in a weak voice, without any pref- 
 ace, " I was awfully silly and cross the other afternoon, 
 before all this business. Just now, when you came into the 
 room. I was feeling quite ashamed." 
 
 " Oh ! Bee ! " she answered, bending over her, " what 
 nonsense ! Now go off to sleep at once." She was very 
 happy. Beatrice, victim of a temperament which had the 
 childishness and the impulsiveness of the artist without his 
 higher and sterner traits, sank back in facile content.
 
 THE ISLE 213 
 
 The night was still and very dark. When Anna and 
 Mynors got outside they could distinguish neither the sky 
 nor the sea ; but the faint, restless murmur of the sea came 
 up the cliffs. Only the lights of the houses disclosed the 
 direction of the road. 
 
 " Suppose we go down to the jetty, and then along as 
 far as the breakwater ? " he said, and she concurred. 
 " Won't you take my muffler again ? " h^ added, pulling 
 this ever-present article from his pocket. 
 
 " No, thanks," she said, almost coldly, " it's really quite 
 warm." She regarded the offer of the muffler as an indis- 
 cretion his sole indiscretion during their acquaintance. As 
 they walked down the hill to thdfcshore she thought how 
 Beatrice's illness had sharply interrupted their relations. 
 If she had come to the Isle of Man with a vague idea that 
 he would possibly propose to her, the expectation was disap- 
 pointed; but she felt no disappointment. She felt that 
 events had lifted her to a higher plane than that of love- 
 making. She was filled with the proud satisfaction of a 
 duty accomplished. She did not seek to minimise to herself 
 the fact that she had been of real value to her friends in 
 the last few days, had probably saved Mrs. Sutton from ill- 
 ness, had certainly laid them all under an obligation. Their 
 gratitude, unexpressed, but patent on each face, gave her 
 infinite pleasure. She had won their respect by the man- 
 ner in which she had risen to the height of an emergency 
 that demanded more than devotion. She had proved, not 
 merely to them, but to herself, that she could be calm under 
 stress, and could exert moral force when occasion needed.
 
 214 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Such were the joyous and exultant reflections which passed 
 through her brain unnaturally active in the factitious 
 wakefulness caused by excessive fatigue. She was in an 
 extremely nervous and excitable condition and never 
 guessed it, fancying indeed that her emotions were excep- 
 tionally tranquil that night. She had not begun to realise 
 the crisis through which she had just lived. 
 
 The uneven road to the ruined breakwater was quite 
 deserted. Having reached the limit of the path, they stood 
 side by side, solitary, silent, gazing at the black and gently 
 heaving surface of the sea. The eye was foiled by the in- 
 tense gloom; the ear could make nothing of the strange 
 night-noises of the bay and the ocean beyond ; but the im- 
 agination was stimulated by the appeal of all this mystery 
 and darkness. Never had the water seemed so wonderful, 
 terrible, and austere. 
 
 " We are going away to-morrow," he said at length. 
 
 Anna started and shook with apprehension at the tremor 
 in his voice. She had read that a woman was always well 
 warned by her instincts when a man meant to propose to her. 
 But here was the proposal imminent, and she had not sus- 
 pected. In a flash of insight she perceived that the very 
 event which had separated them for three days had also im- 
 pelled the lover forward in his course. It was the thought 
 of her vigils, her fortitude, her compassion, that had fanned 
 the flame. She was not surprised, only made uncomfortable, 
 when he took her hand. 
 
 " Anna," he said, " it's no use making a long story of 
 it. I'm tremendously in love with you; you know I am."
 
 THE ISLE 215 
 
 He stepped back, still holding her hand. She could say 
 nothing. 
 
 " Well? " he ventured. " Didn't you know? " 
 
 " I thought I thought," she murmured stupidly, " I 
 thought you liked me." 
 
 " I can't tell you how I admire you. Fm not going to 
 praise you to your face, but I simply never met anyone like 
 you. From the very first moment I saw you, it was the same. 
 
 It's something in your face, Anna Anna, will you be 
 
 my wife? " 
 
 The actual question was put in a precise, polite, some- 
 what conventional tone. To Anna he was never more him- 
 self than at that moment. 
 
 She could not speak ; she could not analyse her feelings ; 
 she could not even think. She was adrift. At last she stam- 
 mered : " We've only known each other " 
 
 " Oh, dear," he exclaimed masterfully, " what does that 
 matter? If it had been a dozen years instead of one, that 
 would have made no difference." She drew her hand timidly 
 away, but he took it again. She felt that he dominated 
 her, and would decide for her. " Say yes." 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 She saw pictures of her career as his wife, and resolved 
 that one of her first acts of her freedom should be to re- 
 lease Agnes from the more ignominious of her father's 
 tyrannies. 
 
 They walked home almost in silence. She was engaged, 
 then. Yet she experienced no new sensation. She felt as 
 she had felt on the way down, except that she was sorely
 
 216 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 perturbed. There was no ineffable rapture, no ecstatic 
 bliss. Suddenly the prospect of happiness swept over her 
 like a flood. 
 
 At the gate she wished to make a request to him, but 
 hesitated, because she could not bring herself to use his 
 Christian name. It was proper for her to use his Christian 
 name, however, and she would do so, or perish. 
 
 " Henry," she said, " don't tell anyone here." He 
 merely kissed her once more. She went straight upstairs.
 
 XI: THE DOWNFALL 
 
 IN order to catch the Liverpool steamer at Douglas it 
 was necessary to leave Port Erin at half -past six in the 
 morning. The freshness of the morning, and the smiles 
 of the Alderman and his wife as they waved God-speed from 
 the door-step, filled Anna with a serene content which she 
 certainly had not felt during the wakeful night. She for- 
 got, then, the hours passed with her conscience in realising 
 how serious and solemn a thing was this engagement, made 
 in an instant on the previous evening. All that remained 
 in her mind, as she and Henry walked quickly down the 
 road, was the tonic sensation of high resolves to be a worthy 
 wife. The duties, rather than the joys, of her condition, had 
 lain nearest her heart until that moment of setting out, giv- 
 ing her an anxious and almost worried mien which at break- 
 fast neither Henry nor the Suttons could quite understand. 
 But now the idea of duty ceased for a time to be paramount, 
 and she loosed herself to the pleasures of the day in store. 
 The harbour was full of low wandering mists, through 
 which the brown sails of the fishing-smacks played at hide- 
 and-seek. High above them the round forms of immense 
 clouds were still carrying the colours of sunrise. The gentle 
 salt wind on the cheek was like the touch of the life-giver. 
 It was impossible, on such a morning, not to exult in life, 
 not to laugh childishly from irrational glee, not to dismiss 
 the memory of grief and the apprehension of grief as mor- 
 
 217
 
 218 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 bid hallucinations. Mynors' face expressed the double 
 happiness of present and anticipated pleasure. He had 
 once again succeeded, he who never failed; and the voyage 
 back to England was for him a triumphal progress. Anna 
 responded eagerly to his mood. The day was an ecstasy, 
 a bright expanse unstained. To Anna in particular it was 
 a unique day, marking the apogee of her existence. In 
 the years that followed she could always return to it and say 
 to herself : " That day I was happy, foolishly, ignorantly, ' 
 but utterly. And all that I have since learnt cannot alter 
 it I was happy." 
 
 When they reached Shawport station a cab was waiting 
 for Anna. Unknown to her, Henry had ordered it by tele- 
 graph. This considerateness was of a piece, she thought, 
 with his masterly conduct of the entire journey on the 
 steamer, at Liverpool, in the train ; nothing that an ex- 
 perienced traveller could devise had been lacking to her 
 comfort. She got into the cab alone, while Mynors, fol- 
 lowed by a boy and his bag, walked to his rooms in Mount 
 Street. It had been arranged, at Anna's wish, that he 
 should not appear at Manor Terrace till supper-time. 
 Ephraim opened for her the door of her home. It seemed 
 to her that he was pleased. 
 
 " Well, father, here I am again, you see." 
 " Ay, lass." They shook hands, and she indicated to the 
 cabman where to deposit her tin box. She was glad and re- 
 lieved to be back. Nothing had changed, except herself, 
 and this absolute sameness was at once pleasant and pathetic 
 to her.
 
 THE DOWNFALL 219 
 
 " Where's Agnes? " she asked, smiling at her father. In 
 the glow of arrival she had a vague notion that her rela- 
 tions with him had been permanently softened by absence. 
 
 " I see thou's gotten into th' habit o' flitting about in 
 cabs," he said, without answering her question. 
 
 " Well, father," she said, smiling yet, " there was the 
 box. I couldn't carry the box." 
 
 " I reckon thou couldst ha* hired a lad to carry it for 
 sixpence." 
 
 She did not reply. The cabman had gone to his vehicle. 
 
 " Art'na going to pay th' cabby? " 
 
 " I've paid him, father." 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 She paused. " Eighteenpence, father." It was a lie ; 
 she had paid two shillings. 
 
 She went eagerly into the kitchen, and then into the par- 
 lour, where tea was set for one. Agnes was not there. 
 " Her's upstairs," Ephraim said, meeting Anna as she came 
 into the lobby again. She ran softly upstairs, and into 
 the bedroom. Agnes was replacing ornaments on the man- 
 telpiece with mathematical exactitude; under her arm was 
 a duster. The child turned, startled, and gave a little 
 shriek. 
 
 " Eh, I didn't know you'd come. How early you are ! " 
 
 They rushed towards each other, embraced, and kissed. 
 Anna was overcome by the pathos of her sister's loneliness 
 in that grim house for fourteen days, while she, the elder, 
 had been absorbed in selfish gaiety. The pale face, large, 
 melancholy eyes, and long, thin arms, were a silent accusa-
 
 220 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 tion. She wondered that she could ever have brought her- 
 self to leave Agnes even for a day. Sitting down on the 
 bed, she drew the child on her knee in a fury of love, and 
 kissed her again, weeping. Agnes cried too, from sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, dear Anna, I'm so glad you've come 
 back ! " She dried her eyes, and in quite a different tone of 
 voice asked : " Has Mr. My nors proposed to you ? " 
 
 Anna could not avoid a blush at this simple and astound- 
 ing query. She said : " Yes." It was the one word of which 
 she was capable, under the circumstances. That was not the 
 moment to tax Agnes with too much precocity and abrupt- 
 ness. 
 
 " You're engaged, then ? Oh, Anna, does it feel nice ? 
 It must. I knew you would be ! " 
 
 " How did you know, Agnes ? " 
 
 " I mean I knew he would ask you, some time. All the 
 girls at school knew too." 
 
 " I hope you didn't talk about it," said the elder sister. 
 
 " Oh, no! But they did ; they always talking about it." 
 
 " You never told me that." 
 
 " I I didn't like to. Anna, shall I have to call him 
 Henry now ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course. When we're married he will be your 
 brother-in-law." 
 
 " Shall you be married soon, Anna? " 
 
 " Not for a very long time." 
 
 " When you are shall I keep house alone? I can, you 
 know I shall never dare to call him Henry. But he's
 
 THE DOWNFALL 221 
 
 awfully nice; isn't he, Anna? Yes, when you are married, 
 I shall keep house here, but I shall come to see you every 
 day. Father will have to let me do that. Does father 
 know you're engaged ? " 
 
 " Not yet. And you mustn't say anything. Henry is 
 coming up for supper. And then father will be told." 
 
 " Did he kiss you, Anna ? " 
 
 "Who father?" 
 
 " No, silly ! Henry, of course I mean when he'd asked 
 you?" 
 
 " I think you are asking all the questions. Suppose I 
 ask you some now. How have you managed with father? 
 Has he been nice ? " 
 
 " Some days yes," said Agnes, after thinking a mo- 
 ment. " We have had some new cups and saucers up from 
 Mr. Mynors' works. And father has swept the kitchen 
 chimney. And, oh Anna ! I asked him to-day if I'd kept 
 house well, and he said * Pretty well,' and he gave me a 
 penny. Look! It's the first money I've ever had, you 
 know. I wanted you at nights, Anna and all the time, too. 
 I've been frightfully busy. I cleaned silvers all afternoon. 
 
 Anna, I have tried And I've got some tea for you. 
 
 I'll go down and make it. Now you mustn't come into the 
 kitchen. I'll bring it to you in the parlour." 
 
 " I had my tea at Crewe," Anna was about to say, but 
 refrained, in due course drinking the cup prepared by 
 Agnes. She felt passionately sorry for Agnes, too young 
 to feel the shadow which overhung her future. Anna would 
 marry into freedom, but Agnes would remain the serf.
 
 222 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Would Agnes marry ? Could she ? Would her father allow 
 it? Anna had noticed that in families the youngest, petted 
 in childhood, was often sacrificed in maturity. It was the 
 last maid who must keep her maidenhood, and, vicariously 
 filial, pay out of her own life the debt of all the rest. 
 
 " Mr. Mynors is coming up for supper to-night. He 
 wants to see you," Anna said to her father, as calmly as she 
 could. The miser grunted. But at eight o'clock, the hour 
 immutably fixed for supper, Henry had not arrived. The 
 meal proceeded, of course, without him. To Anna his ab- 
 sence was unaccountable and disturbing, for none could be 
 more punctilious than he in the matter of appointments. 
 She expected him every moment, but he did not appear. 
 Agnes, filled full of the great secret confided to her, was 
 more openly impatient than her sister. Neither of them 
 could talk, and a heavy silence fell upon the family group, 
 a silence which her father, on that particular evening of 
 Anna's return, resented. 
 
 " You dunna' tell us much," he remarked, when the sup- 
 per was finished. 
 
 She felt that the complaint was a just one. Even be- 
 fore supper, when nothing had occurred to preoccupy her, 
 she had spoken little. There had seemed so much to tell 
 at Port Erin, and now there seemed nothing to tell. She 
 ventured into a flaccid, perfunctory account of Beatrice's 
 illness, of the fishing, of the unfinished houses which had 
 caught the fancy of Mr. Sutton ; she said the sea had been 
 smooth, that they had had something to eat at Liverpool, 
 that the train for Crewe was very prompt; and then she
 
 THE DOWNFALL 223 
 
 could think of no more. Silence fell again. The supper- 
 things were cleared away and washed up. At a quarter-past 
 nine, Agnes, vainly begging permission to stay up in order 
 to see Mr. Mynors, was sent to bed, only partially comforted 
 by a clothes-brush, long-desired, which Anna had brought 
 for her as a present from the Isle of Man. 
 
 " Shall you tell father yourself, now Henry hasn't 
 come ? " the child asked Anna, who had gone upstairs to un- 
 pack her box. 
 
 " Yes," said Anna briefly. 
 
 " I wonder what he'll say," Agnes reflected, with that 
 habit, always annoying to Anna, of meeting trouble half- 
 way. 
 
 At/a quarter to ten Anna ceased to expect Mynors, and 
 finally braced herself to the ordeal of a solemn interview 
 with her father, well knowing that she dared not leave him 
 any longer in ignorance of her engagement. Already the 
 old man was locking and bolting the door; he had wound 
 up the kitchen clock. When he came back to the parlour 
 to extinguish the gas she was standing by the mantel- 
 piece. 
 
 " Father," she began, " I've something I must tell 
 you." 
 
 " Eh, what's that ye say ? " His hand was on the gas- 
 tap. He dropped it, examining her face curiously. 
 
 " Mr. Mynors has asked me to marry him ; he asked me 
 last night. We settled he should come up to-night to see 
 you I can't think why he hasn't. It must be something 
 very unexpected and important, or he'd have come." She
 
 224 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 trembled, her heart beat violently ; but the words were out, 
 and she thanked God. 
 
 " Asked ye to marry him, did he ? " The miser gazed at 
 her quizzically out of his small blue eyes. 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 "And what didst say?" 
 
 " I said I would." 
 
 " Oh ! Thou saidst thou wouldst ! I reckon it was 
 for thatten as thou must go gadding off to sea-side, 
 eh? " 
 
 " Father, I never dreamt of such a thing when Suttons 
 asked me to go. I do wish Henry " the cost of that 
 Christian name ! " had come. He quite meant to come to- 
 night." She could not help insisting on the propriety of 
 Henry's intentions. 
 
 " Then I am for be consulted, eh? " 
 
 " Of course, father." 
 
 " Ye've soon made it up, between ye." 
 
 His tone was, at the best, brusque ; but she breathed more 
 easily, divining instantly from his manner that he meant to 
 offer no violent objection to the engagement. She knew 
 that only tact was needed now. The miser had, indeed, 
 foreseen the possibility of this marriage for months past, 
 and had long since decided in his own mind that Henry 
 would make a satisfactory son-in-law. Ephraim had no 
 social ambitions with all his meanness, he was above them ; 
 he had nothing but contempt for rank, style, luxury, and 
 " the theory of what it is to be a lady and a gentleman." 
 Yet, by a curious contradiction, Henry's smartness of ap-
 
 THE DOWNFALL 225 
 
 pearance the smartness of an unrivalled commercial trav- 
 eller pleased him. He saw in Henry a young and sedate 
 man of remarkable shrewdness, a man who had saved money, 
 had made money for others, and was now making it for him- 
 self ; a man who could be trusted absolutely to perform that 
 feat of " getting on " ; a " safe " and profoundly respect- 
 able man, at the same time audacious and imperturbable. 
 He was well aware that Henry had really fallen in love with 
 Anna, but nothing would have convinced him that Anna's 
 money was not the primal cause of Henry's genuine passion 
 for Anna's self. 
 
 " You like Henry, don't you, father ? " Anna said. It was 
 a failure in the desired tact, for Ephraim had never been 
 known to admit that he liked anyone or anything. Such 
 natures are capable of nothing more positive than tolera- 
 tion. 
 
 " He's a hard-headed chap, and he knows the value o* 
 money. Ay ! that he does ; he knows which side his bread's 
 buttered on." A sinister emphasis marked the last sen- 
 tence. 
 
 Instead of remaining silent, Anna, in her nervousness, 
 committed another imprudence. " What do you mean, 
 father ? " she asked, pretending that she thought it im- 
 possible he could mean what he obviously did mean. 
 
 " Thou knows what I'm at, lass. Dost think he isna* 
 marrying thee for thy brass ? Dost think as he canna' make 
 a fine guess what thou'rt worth? But that wunna' bother 
 thee as long as thou'st hooked a good-looking chap." 
 
 "Father!"
 
 226 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Ay ! thou mayst bridle ; but it's true. Dunna' tell me." 
 Securely conscious of the perfect purity of Mynors' af- 
 fection, she was not in the least hurt. She even thought 
 that her father's attitude was not quite sincere, an attitude 
 partially due to mere wilful churlishness. " Henry has 
 never even mentioned money to me," she said mildly. 
 
 " Happen not ; he isna' such a fool as that." He paused, 
 and continued : " Thou'rt free to wed, for me. Lasses will 
 do it, I reckon, and thee among th' rest." She smiled, and 
 on that smile he suddenly turned out the gas. Anna was 
 glad that the colloquy had ended so well. Congratulations, 
 endearments, loving regard for her welfare : she had not ex- 
 pected these things, and was in no wise grieved by their 
 absence. Groping her way towards the lobby, she con- 
 sidered herself lucky, and only wished that nothing had 
 happened to keep Mynors away. She wanted to tell him 
 at once that h.r father had proved tractable. 
 
 The next morning, Tellwright, whose attendance at 
 chapel was losing the strictness of its old regularity, an- 
 nounced that he should stay at home. Sunday's dinner was 
 to be a cold repast, and so Anna and Agnes went to chapel. 
 Anna's thoughts were wholly occupied with the prospect of 
 seeing Mynors, and hearing the explanation of his absence 
 on Saturday night. 
 
 '' There he is ! " Agnes exclaimed loudly, as they were ap- 
 proaching the chapel. 
 
 " Agnes," said Anna, " when will you learn to behave 
 in the street? "
 
 THE DOWNFALL 227 
 
 Mynors stood at the chapel-gates ; he was evidently await- 
 ing them. He looked grave, almost sad. He raised his hat 
 and shook hands, with a particular friendliness for Agnes, 
 who was speculating whether he would kiss Anna, as his 
 betrothed, or herself, as being only a little girl, or both, 
 or neither of them. Her eyes already expressed a sort of 
 ownership in him. 
 
 " I should like to speak to you a moment," Henry said. 
 " Will you come into the school-yard ? " 
 
 " Agnes, you had better go straight into chapel," said 
 Anna. It was ignominious disaster to the child, but she 
 obeyed. 
 
 " I didn't give you up last night till nearly ten o'clock," 
 Anna remarked as they passed into the school-yard. She 
 was astonished to discover in herself an inclination to pout, 
 to play the offended fair one, because Mynors had failed in 
 his appointment. Contemptuously she crushed it. 
 
 " Have you heard about Mr. Price? " Mynors began. 
 
 " No. What about him ? Has anything happened ? " 
 
 " A very sad thing has happened. Yes " He 
 
 stopped, from emotion. " Our superintendent has com- 
 mitted suicide ! " 
 
 " Killed himself? " Anna gasped. 
 
 " He hanged himself yesterday afternoon at Edward 
 Street, in the slip-house, after the works were closed. Willie 
 had gone home, but he came back, when his father didn't 
 turn up for dinner, and found him. Mr. Price was quite 
 dead. He ran into my place to fetch me just as I was get- 
 ting my tea. That was why I never came last night."
 
 228 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Anna was speechless. 
 
 " I thought I would tell you myself," Henry resumed. 
 " It is an awful thing for the Sunday School, and the whole 
 society, too. He, a prominent Wesleyan, a worker among 
 us ! An awful thing ! " he repeated, dominated by the idea 
 of the blow thus dealt to the Methodist connexion by the 
 man now dead. 
 
 " Why did he do it? " Anna demanded curtly. 
 
 Mynors shrugged his shoulders, and ejaculated: " Busi- 
 ness troubles, I suppose; it couldn't be anything else. At 
 school this morning I simply announced that he was dead." 
 Henry's voice broke, but he added after a pause : " Young 
 Price bore himself splendidly last night." 
 
 Anna turned away in silence. " I shall come up for tea, 
 if I may," Henry said, and then they parted, he to the sing- 
 ing-seat, she to the portico of the chapel. People were talk- 
 ing in groups on the broad steps and in the vestibule. All 
 knew of the calamity, and had received from it a new inter- 
 est in life. The town was aroused as if from a lethargy. 
 Consternation and eager curiosity were on every face. 
 Those who arrived in ignorance of the event were informed 
 of it in impressive tones, and with intense satisfaction to 
 the informer; nothing of equal importance had happened 
 in the society for decades. Anna walked up the aisle to her 
 pew, filled with one thought : 
 
 " We drove him to it, father and I." 
 
 Her fear was that the miser had renewed his terrible in- 
 sistence during the previous fortnight. She forgot that she 
 had disliked the dead man, that he had always seemed to her
 
 THE DOWNFALL 229 
 
 mean, pietistic, and two-faced. She forgot that in pressing 
 him for rent many months overdue she and her father had 
 acted within their just rights acted as Price himself would 
 have acted in their place. She could think only of the 
 strain, the agony, the despair that must have preceded the 
 miserable tragedy. Old Price had atoned for all in one 
 sublime sin, the sole deed that could lend dignity and re- 
 pose to such a figure as his. Anna's feverish imagination 
 reconstituted the scene in the slip-house : she saw it as some- 
 thing grand, accusing, and unanswerable ; and she could not 
 dismiss a feeling of acute remorse that she should have been 
 engaged in pleasure at that very hour of death. Surely 
 some instinct should have warned her that the hare which 
 she had helped to hunt was at its last gasp ! 
 
 Mr. Sargent, the newly-appointed second minister, was 
 in the pulpit a little, earnest bachelor, who emphasised 
 every sentence with a continual tremor of the voice. 
 " Brethren," he said, after the second hymn and his tones 
 vibrated with a singular effect through the half-empty 
 building " before I proceed to my sermon I have one word 
 to say in reference to the awful event which is doubtless 
 uppermost in the minds of all of you. It is not for us to 
 judge the man who is now gone from us, ushered into the 
 dread presence of his Maker with the crime of self-murder 
 upon his soul. I say it is not for us to judge him. The 
 ways of the Almighty are past finding out. Therefore at 
 such a moment we may fitly humble ourselves before the 
 Throne, and while prostrate there let us intercede for the 
 poor young man who is left behind, bereft, and full of
 
 230 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 grief and shame. We will engage in silent prayer." He 
 lifted his hand, and closed his eyes, and the congregation 
 leaned forward against the fronts of the pews. The appeal- 
 ing face of Willie presented itself vividly to Anna. 
 
 " Who is it? " Agnes asked, in a whisper of apall- 
 ing distinctness. Anna frowned angrily, and gave no 
 reply. 
 
 While the last hymn was being sung, Anna signed to 
 Agnes that she wished to leave the chapel. Everyone would 
 be aware that she was among Price's creditors, and she 
 feared that, if she stayed till the end of the service some 
 chatterer might draw her into a distressing conversation. 
 The sisters went out, and Agnes's burning curiosity was at 
 length relieved. 
 
 " Mr. Price has hanged himself," Anna said to her father 
 when they reached home. 
 
 The miser looked through the window for a moment. " I 
 am na' surprised," he said. " Suicide's i' that blood. Ti- 
 tus's uncle 'Lijah tried to kill himself twice afore he died o' 
 gravel. Us'n have to do summat wi' Edward Street at 
 last." 
 
 She wanted to ask Ephraim if he had been demand- 
 ing more rent lately, but she could not find courage to 
 do so. 
 
 Agnes had to go to Sunday School alone that afternoon. 
 Without saying anything to her father, Anna decided to 
 stay at home. She spent the time in her bedroom, idle, pre- 
 occupied ; and did not come downstairs till half-past three. 
 Ephraim had gone out. Agnes presently returned, and
 
 THE DOWNFALL 231 
 
 then Henry came in with Mr. Tellwright. They were con- 
 versing amicably, and Anna knew that her engagement was 
 finally and satisfactorily settled. During tea no reference 
 was made to it, nor to the suicide. Mynors' demeanour was 
 quiet but cheerful. He had perfectly recovered from the 
 morning's agitation, and gave Ephraim and Agnes a viva- 
 cious account of the attractions of Port Erin. Anna noticed 
 the amusement in his eye when Agnes, reddening, said to 
 him : " Will you have some more bread-and-butter, Henry ? " 
 It seemed to be tacitly understood afterwards that Agnes 
 and her father would attend chapel, while Anna and Henry 
 kept house. No one was ingenious enough to detect an im- 
 propriety in the arrangement. For some obscure reason, 
 immediately upon the departure of the chapel-goers, Anna 
 went into the kitchen, rattled some plates, stroked her hair 
 mechanically, and then stole back again to the parlour. It 
 was a chilly evening, and instead of walking up and down 
 the strip of garden the betrothed lovers sat together under 
 the window. Anna wondered whether or not she was happy. 
 The presence of Mynors was, at any rate, marvellously 
 soothing. 
 
 " Did your father say anything about the Price affair ? " 
 he began, yielding at once to the powerful hypnotism of the 
 subject which fascinated the whole town that night, 
 and which Anna could bear neither to discuss nor to 
 ignore. 
 
 " Not much," she said, and repeated to him her father's 
 remark. 
 
 Mynors told her all he knew ; how Willie had discovered
 
 232 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 his father with his toes actually touching the floor, leaning 
 slightly forward, quite dead ; how he had then cut the rope 
 and fetched Mynors, who went with him to the police-sta- 
 tion ; how they had tied up the head of the corpse, and then 
 waited till night to wheel the body on a hand-cart from Ed- 
 ward Street to the mortuary chamber at the police-station ; 
 how the police had telephoned to the coroner, and settled at 
 once that the inquest should be held on Monday, in the 
 court-room at the town-hall ; and how quiet, self-contained, 
 and dignified Willie had been, surprising everyone by this 
 new-found manliness. It all seemed hideously real to Anna, 
 as Henry added detail to detail. 
 
 " I think I ought to tell you," she said very calmly, when 
 he had finished the recital, " that I I'm dreadfully upset 
 over it. I can't help thinking that I that father and I, 
 I mean are somehow partly responsible for this." 
 
 "For Price's death? How?" 
 
 " We have been so hard on him for his rent lately, you 
 know." 
 
 " My dearest girl ! What next ? " He took her hand in 
 his. " I assure you the idea is absurd. You've only got it 
 because you're so sensitive and high-strung. I undertake to 
 say Price was stuck fast everywhere everywhere hadn't 
 a chance." 
 
 " Me high-strung ! " she exclaimed. He kissed her lov- 
 ingly. But, beneath the feeling of reassurance, which by 
 superior force he had imposed on her, there lay a feeling 
 that she was treated like a frightened child who must be 
 tranquillised in the night. Nevertheless, she was grateful
 
 THE DOWNFALL 233 
 
 for his kindness, and when she went to bed she obtained 
 relief from the returning obsession of the suicide by making 
 anew her vows to him. 
 
 As a theatrical effect the death of Titus Price could 
 scarcely have been surpassed. The town was profoundly 
 moved by the spectacle of this abject, yet heroic, surrender 
 of all those pretences by means of which society contrives 
 to tolerate itself. Here was a man whom no one respected, 
 but everyone pretended to respect who knew that he 
 was respected by none, but pretended that he was re- 
 spected by all; whose whole career was made up of 
 dissimulations : religious, moral, and social. If any man 
 could have been trusted to continue the decent sham to 
 the end, and so preserve the general self-esteem, surely it 
 was this man. But no ! Suddenly abandoning all impost- 
 ure, he transgresses openly, brazenly; and, snatching a bit 
 of hemp cries : " Behold me ; this is real human nature, 
 this is the truth ; the rest was lies. I lied ; you lied. I con- 
 fess it, and you shall confess it." Such a thunderclap 
 shakes the very base of the microcosm. The young folk in 
 particular could with difficulty believe their ears. It seemed 
 incredible to them that Titus Price, the Methodist, the Sun- 
 day-school superintendent, the loud champion of the highest 
 virtues, should commit the sin of all sins murder. They 
 were dazed. The remembrance of his insincerity did 
 nothing to mitigate the blow. In their view it was perhaps 
 even worse that he had played false to his own falsity. The 
 elders were a little less disturbed. The event was not unique 
 in their experience. They had lived longer and felt these
 
 234 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 seismic shocks before. They could go back into the past 
 and find other cases where a swift impulse had shattered the 
 edifice of a lifetime. They knew that the history of fam- 
 ilies and of communities is crowded with disillusion. They 
 had discovered that character is changeless, irrepressible, 
 incurable. They were aware of the astonishing fact, which 
 takes at least thirty years to learn, that a Sunday-school 
 superintendent is a man. And the suicide of Titus Price, 
 when they had realised it, served but to confirm their most 
 secret and honest estimate of humanity, that estimate which 
 they never confided to a soul. The young folk thought 
 the Methodist Society shamed and branded by the tragic 
 incident, and imagined that years must elapse before it could 
 again hold up its head in the town. The old folk were wiser, 
 foreseeing with certainty that in only a few days this all- 
 engrossing phenomenon would lose its significance, and be 
 as though it had never been. 
 
 Even in two days, time had already begun its work, for 
 by Tuesday morning the interest of the affair on Sunday 
 at the highest pitch had waned so much that the thought 
 of the inquest was capable of reviving it. Although every- 
 one knew that the case presented no unusual features, and 
 that the coroner's inquiry would be nothing more than a 
 formal ceremony, the almost greedy curiosity of Methodist 
 circles lifted it to the level of a cause celebre. The court 
 was filled with irreproachable respectability when the cor- 
 oner drove into the town, and each animated face said to 
 its fellow : " So you're here, are you ? " Late comers of the 
 official world councillors, guardians of the poor, members
 
 THE DOWNFALL 235 
 
 of the school board, and one or two of their ladies were 
 forced to intrigue for room with the police and the town- 
 hall keeper, and, having succeeded, sank into their narrow 
 seats with a sigh of expectancy and triumph. Late comers 
 with less influence had to retire, and by a kind of sinister 
 fascination were kept wandering about the corridor before 
 they could decide to go home. The market-place was occu- 
 pied by hundreds of loafers, who seemed to find a mystic 
 satisfaction in beholding the coroner's dogcart and the ex- 
 terior of the building which now held the corpse. 
 
 It was by accident that Anna was in the town. She knew 
 that the inquest was to occur that morning, but had not 
 dreamed of attending it. When, however, she saw the stir 
 of excitement in the market-place, and the police guarding 
 the entrances of the town-hall, she walked directly across 
 the road, past the two officers at the east door, and into the 
 dark main corridor of the building, which was dotted with 
 small groups idly conversing. She was conscious of two 
 things: a vehement curiosity, and the existence somewhere 
 in the precincts of a dead body, unsightly, monstrous, calm, 
 silent, careless the insensible origin of all this simmering 
 ferment, which disgusted her even while she shared in it. 
 At a small door, half hidden by a curtain, she was startled 
 to see Mynors. 
 
 " You here ! " he exclaimed, as if painfully surprised, and 
 shook hands with a preoccupied air. " They are examin- 
 ing Willie. I came outside while he was in the witness- 
 box." 
 
 " Is the inquest going on in there? " she asked, pointing
 
 236 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 to the door. Each appeared to be concealing a certain 
 resentment against the other; but this appearance was due 
 only to nervous agitation. 
 
 A policeman down the corridor called : " Mr. Mynors, a 
 moment." Henry hurried away, answering Anna's ques- 
 tion as he went : " Yes, in there. That's the witnesses' and 
 jurors' door; but please don't go in. I don't like you to, 
 and it is sure to upset you." 
 
 She opened the door and went in. None said nay, and 
 she found a few inches of standing-room behind the jury- 
 box. A terrible stench nauseated her; the chamber was 
 crammed, and not a window open. There was silence in 
 the court no one seemed to be doing anything ; but at last 
 she perceived that the coroner, enthroned on the bench of 
 justice, was writing, in a book with blue leaves. In the 
 witness-box stood William Price, dressed in black, with kid 
 gloves, not lounging in an ungainly attitude, as might have 
 been expected, but perfectly erect ; he kept his eyes fixed on 
 the coroner's head. Sarah Vodrey, Price's aged house- 
 keeper, sat on a chair near the witness-box, weeping into a 
 black-bordered handkerchief; at intervals she raised her 
 small, wrinkled, red face, with its glistening, inflamed eyes, 
 and then buried it again in the handkerchief. The members 
 of the jury, whom Anna could see only in profile, shuffled 
 to and fro on their long, pew-like seats they were mostly 
 workingmen, shabbily clothed; but the foreman was Mr. 
 Leal, the provision dealer, a freemason, and a sidesman at 
 the parish church. The general public sat intent and vac- 
 uous; their minds gaped, if not their mouths; occasionally
 
 THE DOWNFALL 237 
 
 one whispered inaudibly to another; the jury, conscious of 
 an official status, exchanged remarks in a whisper cour- 
 ageously loud. Several tall policemen, helmet in hand, 
 stood in various corners of the room, and the coroner's offi- 
 cer sat near the witness-box to administer the oath. At 
 length the coroner lifted his head. He was rather a young 
 man, with a large, unintelligent face; he wore eyeglasses, 
 and his chin was covered with a short, wavy beard. His 
 manner showed that, while secretly proud of his supreme 
 position in that assemblage, he was deliberately trying to 
 make it appear that this exercise of judicial authority was 
 nothing to him, that in truth these eternal inquiries, which 
 interested others so deeply, were to him a weariness con- 
 scientiously endured. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Price," the coroner said blandly, and it was 
 plain that he was being ceremoniously polite to an inferior, 
 in obedience to the rules of good form, " I must ask you 
 some more questions. They may be inconvenient, even 
 painful ; but I am here simply as the instrument of the law, 
 and I must do my duty. And these gentlemen here," he 
 waved a hand in the direction of the jury, " must be told 
 the whole facts of the case. We know, of course, that the 
 deceased committed suicide that has been proved beyond 
 doubt ; but as I say, we have the right to know more." He 
 paused, well satisfied with the sound of his voice, and evi- 
 dently thinking that he had said something very weighty 
 and impressive. 
 
 " What do you want to know ? " Willie Price demanded, 
 his broad Five Towns speech contrasting with the Kensing-
 
 238 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Ionian accents of the coroner. The latter, who came origi- 
 nally from Manchester, was irritated by the brusque inter- 
 ruption; but he controlled his annoyance, at the same time 
 glancing at the public, as if to signify to them that he had 
 learnt not to take too seriously the unintentional rudeness 
 characteristic of their district. 
 
 " You say it was probably business troubles that caused 
 your late father to commit the rash act ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You are sure there was nothing else ? " 
 
 " What else could there be ? " 
 
 " Your late father was a widower? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Now as to these business troubles what were 
 they?" 
 
 " We were being pressed by creditors." 
 
 " Were you a partner with your late father? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Oh ! You were a partner with him ! " 
 
 The jury seemed surprised, and the coroner wrote again: 
 " What was your share in the business? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " You don't know? Surely that is rather singular? " 
 
 " My father took me in Co. not long since. We signed 
 a deed, but I forget what was in it. My place was princi- 
 pally on the bank, not in the office." 
 
 " And so you were being pressed by creditors ? " 
 
 " Yes. And we were behind with the rent." 
 
 " Was the landlord pressing you, too? "
 
 THE DOWNFALL 239 
 
 Anna lowered her eyes, fearful lest every head had turned 
 towards her. 
 
 " Not then ; he had been she, I mean." 
 
 " The landlord is a lady ? " Here the coroner faintly 
 smiled. " Then, as regards the landlord, the pressure was 
 less than it had been ? " 
 
 " Yes ; we had paid some rent, and settled some other 
 claims." 
 
 " Does it not seem strange ? " the coroner began, 
 
 with a suave air of suggesting an idea. 
 
 " If you must know," Willie surprisingly burst out, " I 
 believe it was the failure of a firm in London that owed us 
 money that caused father to hang himself." 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed the coroner. " When did you hear of 
 that failure?" 
 
 " By second post on Friday. Eleven in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " I think we have heard enough, Mr. Coroner," said Leal, 
 standing up in the jury-box. " We have decided on our 
 verdict." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Price," said the coroner, dismissing 
 Willie. He added, in a tone of icy severity to the foreman : 
 " I had concluded my examination of the witness." Then 
 he wrote further in his book. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen of the jury," the coroner resumed, hav- 
 ing first cleared his throat, " I think you will agree with 
 me that this is a peculiarly painful case. Yet at the same 
 time " 
 
 Anna hastened from the court as impulsively as she had
 
 240 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 entered it. She could think of nothing but the quiet, silent, 
 pitiful corpse ; and all this vapid mouthing exasperated her 
 beyond sufferance. 
 
 On the Thursday afternoon, Anna was sitting alone in 
 the house, with the Persian cat and a pile of stockings on 
 her knee, darning. Agnes had with sorrow returned to 
 school ; Ephraim was out. The bell sounded violently, and 
 Anna, thinking that perhaps for some reason her father had 
 chosen to enter by the front door, ran to open it. The vis- 
 itor was Willie Price ; he wore the new black suit which had 
 figured in the coroner's court. She invited him to the par- 
 lour and they both sat down, tongue-tied. Now that she 
 had learnt from his evidence given at the inquest that 
 Ephraim had not been pressing for rent during her absence 
 in the Isle of Man, she felt less like a criminal before Willie 
 than she would have felt without that assurance. But at the 
 best she was nervous, self-conscious, and shamed. She sup- 
 posed that he had called to make some arrangement with 
 reference to the tenure of the works, or, more probably, to 
 announce a bankruptcy and stoppage. 
 
 "Well, Miss Tellwright," Willie began, "I've buried 
 him. He's gone." 
 
 The simple and profound grief, and the restrained bitter- 
 ness against all the world, which were expressed in these 
 words the sole epitaph of Titus Price nearly made Anna 
 cry. She would have cried, if the cat had not opportunely 
 jumped on her knee again ; she controlled herself by dint of 
 stroking it. She sympathised with him more intensely in
 
 THE DOWNFALL 241 
 
 that first moment of his loneliness than she had ever sym- 
 pathised with anyone, even Agnes. She wished passionately 
 to shield, shelter, and comfort him, to do something, however 
 small, to diminish his sorrow and humiliation ; and this de- 
 spite his size, his ungainliness, his coarse features, his rough 
 voice, his lack of all the conventional refinements. A single 
 look from his guileless and timid eyes atoned for every 
 shortcoming. Yet she could scarcely open her mouth. She 
 knew not what to say. She had no phrases to soften the 
 frightful blow which Providence had dealt him. 
 
 " I'm very sorry," she said. " You must be relieved it's 
 all over." 
 
 If she could have been Mrs. Sutton for half an hour ! 
 But she was Anna, and her feelings could only find outlet 
 in her eyes. Happily young Price was of those meek ones 
 who know by instinct the language of the eyes. 
 
 " You've come up about the works, I suppose ? " she went 
 on. 
 
 " Yes," he said. " Is your father in ? I want to see 
 him very particular." 
 
 " He isn't in now," she replied : " but he will be back by 
 four o'clock." 
 
 " That's an hour. You don't know where he is ? " She 
 shook her head. " Well," he continued, " I must tell you, 
 then. I've come up to do it, and do it I must. I can't 
 come up again ; neither can I wait. You remember that 
 bill of exchange as we gave you some weeks back toward 
 rent?" 
 
 " Yes," she said. There was a pause. He stood up,
 
 and moved to the mantelpiece. Her gaze followed him 
 intently, but she had no idea what he was about to 
 say. 
 
 " It's forged, Miss Tellwright." He sat down again, 
 and seemed calmer, braver, ready to meet any conceivable 
 set of consequences. 
 
 " Forged ! " she repeated, not immediately grasping the 
 significance of the avowal. 
 
 " Mr. Sutton's name is forged on it. So I came to tell 
 your father ; but you'll do as well. I feel as if I should like 
 to tell you all about it," he said, smiling sadly. " Mr. 
 Sutton had really given us a bill for thirty pounds, but we'd 
 paid that away when Mr. Tellwright sent word down you 
 remember that he should put bailiffs in if he didn't have 
 twenty-five pounds next day. We were just turning the 
 corner then, father said to me. There was a goodish sum 
 due to us from a London firm in a month's time, and if we 
 could only hold out till then, father said he could see day- 
 light for us. But he knew as there'd be no getting round 
 Mr. Tellwright. So he had the idea of using Mr. Sutton's 
 name just temporary like. He sent me to the post-office 
 to buy a bill stamp, and he wrote out the bill all but the 
 name. ' You take this up to Tellwright's,' he says, ' and 
 ask 'em to take and hold it, and well redeem it, and that '11 
 be all right. No harm done there, Will ! ' he says. Then 
 he tries Sutton's name on the back of an envelope. It's an 
 easy signature, as you know ; but he couldn't do it. ' Here, 
 Will,' he says, ' my old hand shakes ; you have a go,' and 
 he gives me a letter of Sutton's to copy from. I did it easy
 
 THE DOWNFALL 243 
 
 enough after a try or two. ' That '11 be all right, Will,* 
 he says, and I put my hat on and brought the bill up here. 
 That's the truth, Miss Tellwright. It was the smash 
 of that London firm that finished my poor old father 
 off." 
 
 Her one feeling was the sense of being herself a culprit. 
 After all, it was her father's action, more than any- 
 thing else, that had led to the suicide, and he was her 
 agent. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Price," she said foolishly, " whatever shall you 
 do?" 
 
 " There's nothing to be done," he replied. " It was bound 
 to be. It's our luck. We'd no thought but what we should 
 bring you thirty pound in cash and get that bit of paper 
 back, and rip it up, and no one the worse. But we were 
 always unlucky, me and him. All you've got to do is just 
 to tell your father, and say I'm ready to go to the police- 
 station when he gives the word. It's a bad business, but 
 I'm ready for it." 
 
 " Can't we do something? " she naively inquired, with a 
 vision of a trial and sentence, and years of prison. 
 
 " Your father keeps the bill, r.oesn't he? Not you? " 
 
 " I could ask him to destroy it." 
 
 " He wouldn't," said Willie. " You'll excuse me saying 
 that, Miss Tellwright, but he wouldn't." 
 
 He rose as if to go, bitterly. As for Anna, she knew well 
 that her father would never permit the bill to be destroyed. 
 But at any cost she meant to comfort him then, to ease his 
 lot, to send him away less grievous than he came.
 
 244 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Listen ! " she said, standing up, and abandoning the 
 cat, " I will see what can be done. Yes. Something shall 
 be done something or other. I will come and see you 
 at the works to-morrow afternoon. You may rely on 
 me." 
 
 She saw hope brighten his eyes at the earnestness and 
 resolution of her tone, and she felt richly rewarded. He 
 never said another word, but gripped her hand with such 
 force that she flinched in pain. When he had gone, she 
 perceived clearly the dire dilemma ; but cared nothing, in the 
 first bliss of having reassured him. 
 
 During tea it occurred to her that as soon as Agnes had 
 gone to bed she would put the situation plainly before her 
 father, and, for the first and last time in life, assert herself. 
 She would tell him that the affair was, after all, entirely 
 her own, she would firmly demand possession of the bill of 
 exchange, and she would insist on it being destroyed. She 
 would point out to the old man that, her promise having 
 been given to Willie Price, no other course than this was 
 possible. In planning this night-surprise on her father's 
 obstinacy, she found argument after argument auspicious 
 of its success. The formidable tyrant was at last to meet 
 his equal, in force, in resolution, and in pugnacity. The 
 swiftness of her onrush would sweep him, for once, off his 
 feet. At whatever cost, she was bound to win, even though 
 victory resulted in eternal enmity between father and 
 daughter. She saw herself towering over him, morally, 
 with blazing eye and scornful nostril. And, thus meditat- 
 ing on the grandeur of her adventure, she fed her courage
 
 THE DOWNFALL 245 
 
 with indignation. By the act of death, Titus Price had 
 put her father forever in the wrong. His corpse accused 
 the miser, and Anna, incapable now of seeing aught save 
 the pathos of suicide, acquiesced in the accusation with all 
 the strength of her remorse. She did not reason she felt ; 
 reason was shrivelled up in the fire of emotion. She almost 
 trembled with the urgency of her desire to protect from 
 further shame the figure of Willie Price, so frank, simple, 
 innocent, and big; and to protect also the lifeless and dis- 
 honoured body of his parent. She reviewed the whole cir- 
 cumstances again and again, each time finding less excuse 
 for her father's implacable and fatal cruelty. 
 
 So her thoughts ran until the appointed hour of Agnes's 
 bedtime. It was always necessary to remind Agnes of that 
 hour ; left to herself, the child would have stayed up till the 
 very Day of Judgment. The clock struck, but Anna kept 
 silence. To utter the word " bedtime " to Agnes was to 
 open the attack on her father, and she felt as the conductor 
 of an opera feels before setting in motion a complicated 
 activity which may end in either triumph or an unspeakable 
 fiasco. The child was reading; Anna looked and looked 
 at her, and at length her lips were set for the phrase, 
 " Now, Agnes," when, suddenly, the old man forestalled 
 her: 
 
 " Is that wench going for sit here all night ? " he asked 
 of Anna menacingly. 
 
 Agnes shut her book and crept away. 
 
 This accident was the ruin of Anna's scheme. Her 
 father, always the favourite of circumstance, had by chance
 
 246 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 struck the first blow; ignorant of the battle that awaited 
 him, he had unwittingly won it by putting her in the wrong, 
 as Titus Price had put him in the wrong. She knew in a 
 flash that her enterprise was hopeless; she knew that her 
 father's position in regard to her was impregnable, that no 
 moral force, no consciousness of right, would avail to over- 
 throw that authority which she had herself made absolute 
 by a life-long submission. She knew that face to face with 
 her father she was, and would always be, a coward. And 
 now, instead of finding arguments for success, she found 
 arguments for failure. She divined all the retorts that he 
 would fling at her. What about Mr. Sutton in a sense the 
 victim of this fraud? It was not merely a matter of thirty 
 pounds. A man's name had been used. Was he, Ephraim 
 Tellwright, and she, his daughter, to connive at a felony? 
 The felony was done, and could not be undone. Were they 
 to render themselves liable, even in theory, to a criminal 
 prosecution? If Titus Price had killed himself, what of 
 that? If Willie Price was threatened with ruin, what of 
 that? Them as made the bed must lie on it. At the best, 
 and apart from any forgery, the Prices had swindled their 
 creditors; even in dying, old Price had been guilty of a 
 commercial swindle. And was the fact that father and son 
 between them had committed a direct and flagrant crime to 
 serve as an excuse for sympathising with the survivor? Why 
 was Anna so anxious to shield the forger ? What claim had 
 he? A forger was a forger, and that was the end 
 of it. 
 
 She went to bed without opening her mouth. Irresolute,
 
 THE DOWNFALL 247 
 
 shamed, and despairing, she tried to pray for guidance, 
 but she could bring no sincerity of appeal into this prayer ; 
 it seemed an empty form. Where, indeed, was her religion? 
 She was obliged to acknowledge that the fervour of her as- 
 pirations had been steadily cooling for weeks. She was 
 not a whit more a true Christian now than she had been 
 before the Revival; it appeared that she was incapable of 
 real religion, possibly one of those souls foreordained to 
 damnation. 
 
 This admission added to the general sense of fu- 
 tility, and increased her misery. She lay awake for 
 hours, confronting her deliberate promise to Willie Price. 
 Something shall be done. Rely on me. He was relying 
 on her, then. But on whom could she rely? To whom 
 could she turn ? It is significant that the idea of confiding 
 in Henry Mynors did not present itself for a single moment 
 as practical. Mynors had been kind to Willie in his trouble, 
 but Anna almost resented this kindness on account of the 
 condescending superiority which she thought she detected 
 therein. It was as though she had overheard Mynors say- 
 ing to himself : " Here is this poor, crushed worm. It is 
 my duty as a Christian to pity and succour him. I will 
 do so. I am a righteous man." The thought of anyone 
 stooping to Willie was hateful to her. She felt equal with 
 him, as a mother feels equal with her child when it cries and 
 she soothes it. And she felt, in another way, that he was 
 equal with her, as she thought of his sturdy and simple con- 
 fession, and of the loyal love in his voice when he spoke of 
 his father. She liked him for hurting her hand, and for
 
 248 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 refusing to snatch at the slender chance of her father's 
 clemency. She could never reveal Willie's sin, if it was a 
 sin, to Henry Mynors that symbol of correctness and of 
 success. She had fraternised with sinners, like Christ ; and, 
 with amazing injustice, she was capable of deeming Mynors 
 a Pharisee because she could not find fault with him, because 
 he lived and loved so impeccably and so triumphantly. 
 There was only one person from whom she could have asked 
 advice and help, and that wise and consoling heart was far 
 away in the Isle of Man. 
 
 "Why won't father give up the bill?" she demanded, 
 half-aloud, in sullen wrath. She could not frame the an- 
 swer in words, but nevertheless she knew it and felt it. Such 
 an act of grace would have been impossible to her father's 
 nature that was all. 
 
 Suddenly the expression of her face changed from utter 
 disgust into a bitter and proud smile. Without thinking 
 further, without daring to think, she rose out of bed and, 
 night-gowned and barefooted, crept with infinite precaution 
 downstairs. The oilcloth on the stairs froze her feet ; a cold 
 grey light, issuing through the glass square over the front 
 door, showed that dawn was beginning. The door of the 
 front-parlour was shut; she opened it gently, and went 
 within. Every object in the room was faintly visible, the 
 bureau, the chair, the files of papers, the pictures, the books 
 on the mantelshelf, and the safe in the corner. The bureau, 
 she knew, was never locked ; fear of their father had always 
 kept its privacy inviolate from Anna and Agnes, without 
 the aid of a key. As Anna stood in front of it, a shaking
 
 THE DOWNFALL 249 
 
 figure with hair hanging loose, she dimly remembered hav- 
 ing one day seen a blue paper among white in the pigeon- 
 holes. But if the bill was not there she vowed that she would 
 steal her father's keys while he slept, and force the safe. 
 She opened the bureau, and at once saw the edge of a blue 
 paper corresponding with her recollection. She pulled 
 it forth and scanned it. " Three months after date 
 pay to our order . . . Accepted payable, William 
 Sutton." 
 
 So here was the forgery, here the two words for which 
 Willie Price might have gone to prison ! What a trifle ! She 
 tore the flimsy document to bits, and crumpled the bits into 
 a little ball. How should she dispose of the ball? After 
 a moment's reflection she went into the kitchen, stretched on 
 tiptoe to reach the match-box from the high mantelpiece, 
 struck a match, and burnt the ball in the grate. Then, 
 with a restrained and sinister laugh, she ran softly 
 upstairs. 
 
 " What's the matter, Anna? " Agnes was sitting up in 
 bed, wide awake. 
 
 " Nothing ; go to sleep, and don't bother," Anna angrily 
 whispered. 
 
 Had she closed the lid of the bureau ? She was compelled 
 to return in order to make sure. Yes, it was closed. When 
 at length she lay in bed, breathless, her heart violently beat- 
 ing, her feet like icicles, she realised what she had done. 
 She had saved Willie Price, but she had ruined herself with 
 her father. M She knew well that he would never forgive 
 her.
 
 250 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 On the following afternoon she planned to hurry to Ed- 
 ward Street and back while Ephraim and Agnes were both 
 out of the house. But for some reason her father sat per- 
 sistently after dinner, conning a sale catalogue. At a 
 quarter to three he had not moved. She decided to go at 
 any risks. She put on her hat and jacket, and opened 
 the front door. He heard her. 
 
 " Anna ! " he called sharply. She obeyed the summons 
 in terror. " Art going out? " 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 " Where to? " 
 
 " Down town to buy some things." 
 
 " Seems thou'rt always buying." 
 
 That was all; he let her free. In an unworthy attempt 
 to appease her conscience she did in fact go first into the 
 town ; she bought some wool ; the trick was despicable. Then 
 she hastened to Edward Street. The decrepit works seemed 
 to have undergone no change. She had expected the busi- 
 ness would be suspended, and Willie Price alone on the bank ; 
 but manufacture was proceeding as usual. She went direct 
 to the office, fancying, as she climbed the stairs, that every 
 window of all the workshops was full of eyes to discern her 
 purpose. Without knocking, she pushed against the un- 
 latched door and entered. Willie was lolling in his father's 
 chair, gloomy, meditative, apparently idle. He was coat- 
 less, and wore a dirty apron ; a battered hat was at the back 
 of his head, and his great hands, which lay on the desk in 
 front of him, were soiled. He sprang up, flushing red, and 
 she shut the door; they were alone together.
 
 THE DOWNFALL 261 
 
 " I'm all in my dirt," he murmured apologetically. Sim- 
 ple and silly creature, to imagine that she cared for his 
 dirt! 
 
 " It's all right," she said ; " you needn't worry any more. 
 It's all right." They were glorious words for her, and her 
 face shone. 
 
 " What do you mean? " he asked gruffly. 
 
 " Why," she smiled, full of happiness, " I got that paper 
 and burnt it ! " 
 
 He looked at her exactly as if he had not understood. 
 " Does your father know ? " 
 
 She still smiled at him happily. " No ; but I 
 shall tell him this afternoon. It's all right. I've 
 burnt it." 
 
 He sank down in the chair, and, laying his head on the 
 desk, burst into sobbing tears. She stood over him, and 
 put a hand on the sleeve of his shirt. At that touch he 
 sobbed more violently. 
 
 " Mr. Price, what is it ? " She asked the question in a 
 calm, soothing tone. 
 
 He glanced up at her, his face wet, yet apparently not 
 shamed by the tears. She could not meet his gaze without 
 herself crying, and so she turned her head. " I was only 
 thinking," he stammered, " only thinking what an angel 
 you are." 
 
 Only the meek, the timid, the silent, can, in moments of 
 deep feeling, use this language of hyperbole without seem- 
 ing ridiculous. 
 
 He was her great child, and she knew that he worshipped
 
 252 
 
 her. Oh, ineffable power, that out of misfortune canst 
 create divine happiness ! 
 
 Later, he remarked in his ordinary tone : " I was expect- 
 ing your father here this afternoon about the lease. There 
 is to be a deed of arrangement with the creditors." 
 
 " My father ! " she exclaimed, and she bade him good- 
 bye. 
 
 As she passed under the archway she heard a familiar 
 voice : " I reckon I shall find young Mester Price in th' 
 office? " Ephraim, who had wandered into the packing- 
 house, turned and saw her through the doorway ; a second's 
 delay, and she would have escaped. She stood waiting the 
 storm, and then they walked out into the road together. 
 
 " Anna, what art doing here ? " 
 
 She did not know what to say. 
 
 " What art doing here? " he repeated coldly. 
 
 " Father, I was just going back home." 
 
 He hesitated an instant. " I'll go with thee," he said. 
 They walked to Manor Terrace in silence. They had tea 
 in silence; except that Agnes, with dreadful inopportune- 
 ness, continually worried her father for a definite promise 
 that she might leave school at Christmas. The idea was 
 preposterous; but Agnes, fired by her recent success as a 
 housekeeper, clung to it. Ignorant of her imminent danger, 
 and misinterpreting the signs of his face, she at last pushed 
 her insistence too far. 
 
 " Get to bed, this minute," he said, in a voice suddenly 
 terrible. She perceived her error then, but it was too lafe. 
 Looking wistfully at Anna, the child fled.
 
 THE DOWNFALL 253 
 
 ** I was told this morning, miss," Ephraim began, as soon 
 as Agnes was gone, " that young Price had bin seen coming 
 to this house 'ere yesterday afternoon. I thought as it was 
 strange as thoud'st said nowt about it to thy feyther; but 
 I never suspected as a daughter o' mine was up to any tricks. 
 There was a hang-dog look on thy face this afternoon when 
 I asked where thou wast going, but I didna' think thou wast 
 lying to me." 
 
 " I wasn't," she began, and stopped. 
 
 " Thou wast ! Now, what is it ? What's this carry- 
 ing-on between thee and Will Price? I'll have it out of 
 thee." 
 
 " There is no carrying-on, father." 
 
 "Then why hast thou gotten secrets? Why dost go 
 sneaking about to see him sneaking, creeping, like any 
 brazen moll ? " 
 
 The miser was wounded in the one spot where there re- 
 mained to him any sentiment capable of being wounded : his 
 faith in the irreproachable, absolute chastity, in thought 
 and deed, of his womankind. 
 
 " Willie Price came in here yesterday," Anna began, 
 white and calm, " to see you. But you weren't in. So he 
 saw me. He told me that bill of exchange, that blue paper, 
 for thirty pounds, was forged. He said he had forged 
 Mr. Button's name on it." She stopped, expecting the 
 thunder. 
 
 " Get on with thy tale," said Ephraim, breathing 
 loudly. 
 
 " He said he was ready to go to prison as soon as you
 
 254 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 gave the word. But I told him, ' No such thing ! ' I said 
 it must be settled quietly. I told him to leave it to me. He 
 was driven to the forgery, and I thought " 
 
 " Dost mean to say," the miser shouted, " as that blasted 
 scoundrel came here and told thee he'd forged a bill, and 
 thou told him to leave it to thee to settle ? " Without wait- 
 ing for an answer, he jumped up and strode to the door, 
 evidently with the intention of examining the forged docu- 
 ment for himself. 
 
 " It isn't there it isn't there ! " Anna called to him 
 wildly. 
 
 " What Isna' there?" 
 
 " The paper. I may as well tell you, father. I got up 
 early this morning and burnt it." 
 
 The man was staggered at this audacious and astounding 
 impiety. 
 
 " It was mine, really," she continued ; " and I 
 thought " 
 
 " Thou thought ! " 
 
 Agnes, upstairs, heard that passionate and consuming 
 roar. " Shame on thee, Anna Tellwright ! Shame on thee 
 for a shameless hussy ! A daughter o' mine, and just prom- 
 ised to another man ! Thou'rt an accomplice in forgery. 
 
 Thou sees the scamp on the sly ! Thou " He paused, 
 
 and then added, with furious scorn : " Shalt speak o' this 
 to Henry Mynors ? " 
 
 " I will tell him if you like," she said proudly. 
 
 " Look thee here ! " he hissed, " if thou breathes a word 
 o' this to Henry Mynors, or any other man, I'll cut thy
 
 THE DOWNFALL 255 
 
 tongue out. A daughter o* mine! If thou breathes a 
 word " 
 
 " I shall not, father." 
 
 It was finished ; grey with frightful anger, Ephraim left 
 the room.
 
 XII: AT THE PRIORY 
 
 SHE was not to be pardoned : the offence was too mon- 
 strous, daring, and final. At the same time, the un- 
 appeasable ire of the old man tended to weaken his 
 power over her. All her life she had been terrorised by the 
 fear of a wrath which had never reached the superlative de- 
 gree until that day. Now that she had seen and felt the 
 limit of his anger, she became aware that she could endure 
 it; the curse was heavy, and perhaps more irksome than 
 heavy, but she survived ; she continued to breathe, eat, drink, 
 and sleep ; her father's power stopped short of annihilation. 
 Here, too, was a satisfaction : that things could not be worse. 
 And still greater comfort lay in the fact that she had not 
 only accomplished the deliverance of Willie Price, but had 
 secured absolute secrecy concerning the episode. 
 
 The next day was Saturday, when, after breakfast, it was 
 Ephraim's custom to give Anna the weekly sovereign for 
 housekeeping. 
 
 " Here, Agnes," he said, turning in his armchair to face 
 the child, and drawing a sovereign from his waistcoat- 
 pocket, " take charge o' this, and mind ye make it go as far 
 as ye can." His tone conveyed a subsidiary message : " I 
 am terribly angry, but I am not angry with you. However, 
 behave yourself." 
 
 The child mechanically took the coin, scared by this proof 
 of an unprecedented domestic convulsion. Anna, with a 
 
 256
 
 AT THE PRIORY 257 
 
 tightening of the lips, rose and went into the kitchen. 
 Agnes followed, after a discreet interval, and in silence gave 
 up the sovereign. 
 
 " What is it all about, Anna? " she ventured to ask that 
 night. 
 
 " Never mind," said Anna curtly. 
 
 The question had needed some courage, for, at certain 
 times, Agnes would as easily have trifled with her father 
 as with Anna. From that moment, with the passive fatalism 
 characteristic of her years, Agnes* spirits began to rise 
 again to the normal level. She accepted the new situation, 
 and fitted herself into it with a child's adaptability. If 
 Anna naturally felt a slight resentment against this too im- 
 partial and apparently callous attitude on the part of the 
 child, she never showed it. 
 
 Nearly a week later Anna received a postcard from Bea- 
 trice announcing her complete recovery, and the immediate 
 return of her parents and herself to Bursley. That same 
 afternoon a cab encumbered with much luggage passed up 
 the street as Anna was fixing clean curtains in her father's 
 bedroom. Beatrice, on the look-out, waved a hand and 
 smiled, and Anna responded to the signals. She was glad 
 now that the Suttons had come back, though for several 
 days she had almost forgotten their existence. On the Sat- 
 urday afternoon, Mynors called. Anna was in the kitchen ; 
 she heard him scuffling with Agnes in the lobby, and then 
 talking to her father. Three times she had seen him since 
 her disgrace, and each time the secret bitterness of her soul, 
 despite conscientious effort to repress it, had marred the
 
 258 ANNA OP THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 meeting it had been plain, indeed, that she was profoundly 
 disturbed ; he had affected at first not to observe the change 
 in her, and she, anticipating his questions, hinted briefly 
 that the trouble was with her father, and had no reference 
 to himself, and that she preferred not to discuss it at all; 
 reassured, and too young in courtship yet to presume on a 
 lover's rights, he respected her wish, and endeavoured by 
 every art to restore her to equanimity. This time, as she 
 went to greet him in the parlour, she resolved that he should 
 see no more of the shadow. He noticed instantly the differ- 
 ence in her face. 
 
 " I've come to take you into Suttons' for tea and for 
 the evening," he said eagerly. " You must come. They 
 are very anxious to see you. I've told your father," he 
 added. Ephraim had vanished into his office. 
 
 " What did he say, Henry? " she asked timidly. 
 
 " He said you must please yourself, of course. Come 
 along, love. Mustn't she, Agnes? " 
 
 Agnes concurred, and said that she would get her father's 
 tea, and his supper too. 
 
 " You will come," he urged. She nodded, smiling 
 thoughtfully, and he kissed her, for the first time in front 
 of Agnes, who was filled with pride at this proof of their 
 confidence in her. 
 
 " I'm ready, Henry," Anna said, a quarter of an hour 
 later, and they went across to Suttons'. 
 
 " Anna, tell me all about it," Beatrice burst out when she 
 and Anna had fled to her bedroom. " I'm so glad. Do you 
 love him really truly? He's dreadfully fond of you.
 
 AT THE PRIORY 259 
 
 He told me so this morning ; we had quite a long chat in the 
 market. I think you're both very lucky, you know." She 
 kissed Anna effusively for the third time. Anna looked at 
 her, smiling but silent. 
 
 "Well?" Beatrice said. 
 
 " What do you want me to say ? " 
 
 " Oh ! You are the funniest girl, Anna, I ever met. 
 ' What do you want me to say,' indeed ! " Beatrice added 
 in a different tone : " Don't imagine this affair was the least 
 bit of a surprise to us. It wasn't. The fact is, Henry 
 had oh ! well, never mind. Do you know, mother and dad 
 used to think there was something between Henry and me. 
 But there wasn't, you know not really. I tell you that, 
 so that you won't be able to say you were kept in the dark. 
 When shall you be married, Anna? " 
 
 " I haven't the least idea," Anna replied, and began to 
 question Beatrice about her convalescence. 
 
 " I'm perfectly well," Beatrice said. " It's always the 
 same. If I catch anything I catch it bad and get it over 
 quickly." 
 
 " Now, how long are you two chatterboxes going to stay 
 here? " It was Mrs. Sutton who came into the room. " Bee, 
 you've got those sewing-meeting letters to write. Eh, 
 Anna, but I'm glad of this. You'll make him a good wife. 
 You two '11 just suit each other." 
 
 Anna could not but be impressed by this unaffected 
 joy of her friends in the engagement. Her spirits 
 rose, and once more she saw visions of future happiness. At 
 tea, Alderman Sutton added his felicitations to the rest, with
 
 260 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 that flattering air of intimate sympathy and comprehension 
 which some middle-aged men can adopt towards young 
 girls. The tea, made specially magnificent in honour of the 
 betrothal, was such a meal as could only have been com- 
 passed in Staffordshire or Yorkshire a high tea of the 
 last richness and excellence, exquisitely gracious to the 
 palate, but ruthless in its demands on the stomach. At 
 one end of the table, which glittered with silver, glass, and 
 Longshaw china, was a fowl which had been boiled for four 
 hours ; at the other, a hot pork-pie, islanded in liquor, which 
 might have satisfied a regiment. Between these two dishes 
 were all the delicacies which differentiate high tea from 
 tea, and on the quality of which the success of the meal 
 really depends; hot pikelets, hot crumpets, hot toast, sar- 
 dines with tomatoes, raisin-bread, currant-bread, seed-cake, 
 lettuce, home-made marmalade and home-made jams. The 
 repast occupied over an hour, and even then not a quarter 
 of the food was consumed. Surrounded by all that good 
 fare and good will, with the Alderman on her left, Henry 
 on her right, and a bright fire in front of her, Anna quickly 
 caught the gaiety of the others. She forgot everything 
 but the gladness of reunion, the joy of the moment, the 
 luxurious comfort of the house. Conversation was busy 
 with the doings of the Suttons at Port Erin after Anna and 
 Henry had left. A listener would have caught fragments 
 like this : " You know such-and-such a point. . . . No, 
 not there, over the hill. Well, we hired a carriage 
 and drove. . . . The weather was simply. . . . Tom 
 Kelly said he'd never. . . . And that little guard
 
 AT THE PRIORY 261 
 
 on the railway came all the way down to the steamer. 
 . . . Did you see anything in the * Signal * about 
 the actress being drowned? Oh! It was awfully sad. 
 We saw the corpse just after. . . . Beatrice, will you 
 hush? " 
 
 "Wasn't it terrible about Titus Price?" Beatrice ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " Eh, my ! " sighed Mrs. Sutton, glancing at Anna. 
 " You can never tell what's going to happen next. I'm 
 always afraid to go away for fear of something happen- 
 ing." 
 
 A silence followed. When tea was finished Beatrice was 
 taken away by her mother to write the letters concerning 
 the immediate resumption of sewing meetings, and for a 
 little time Anna was left in the drawing-room alone with the 
 two men, who began to talk about the affairs of the Prices. 
 It appeared that Mr. Sutton had been asked to become 
 trustee for the creditors under a deed of arrangement, and 
 that he had hopes of being able to sell the business as a 
 going concern. In the meantime it would need careful man- 
 agement. 
 
 " Will Willie Price manage it? " Anna inquired. The 
 question seemed to divert Henry and the Alderman, to af- 
 ford them a contemptuous and somewhat inimical amuse- 
 ment at the expense of Willie. 
 
 " No," said the Alderman quietly, but emphatically. 
 
 " Master William is fairly good on the works," said 
 Henry ; " but in the office, I imagine, he is worse than use- 
 less." 

 
 262 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Grieved and confused, Anna bent down and moved a has- 
 sock in order to hide her face. The attitude of these men 
 to Willie Price, that victim of circumstances and of his own 
 simplicity, wounded Anna inexpressibly. She perceived 
 that they could see in him only a defaulting debtor, that 
 his misfortune made no appeal to their charity. She won- 
 dered that men so warm-hearted and kind in some relations 
 could be so hard in others. 
 
 " I had a talk with your father at the creditors' meeting 
 yesterday," said the Alderman. " You won*t lose much. 
 Of course you've got a preferential claim for six months' 
 rent." 
 
 He said this reassuringly, as though it would give satis- 
 faction. Anna did not know what a preferential claim 
 might be, nor was she aware of any creditors' meeting. She 
 wished ardently that she might lose as much as possible 
 hundreds of pounds. She was relieved when Beatrice swept 
 in, her mother following. 
 
 " Now, your worship," said Beatrice to her father, 
 " seven stamps for these letters, please." Anna glanced 
 up inquiringly on hearing the form of address. " You 
 don't mean to say you didn't know that father is going to 
 be mayor this year? " Beatrice asked, as if shocked at this 
 ignorance of affairs. " Yes, it was all settled rather late, 
 wasn't it, dad? And the mayor-elect pretends not to care 
 much, but actually he is filled with pride, isn't he, dad? 
 As for the mayoress ? " 
 
 " Eh, Bee ! " Mrs. Sutton stopped her, smiling ; " you'll 
 tumble over that tongue of yours some day."
 
 AT THE PRIORY 263 
 
 " Mother said I wasn't to mention it," said Beatrice, " lest 
 you should think we were putting on airs." 
 
 " Nay, not I ! " Mrs. Sutton protested. " I said no such 
 thing. Anna knows us too well for that. But I'm not so 
 set up with this mayor business as some people will think 
 I am." 
 
 " Or as Beatrice is," Mynors added. 
 
 At half-past eight, and again at nine, Anna said that she 
 must go home ; but the Suttons, now frankly absorbed in the 
 topic of the mayoralty, their secret preoccupation, would 
 not spoil the confidential talk which had ensued by letting 
 the lovers depart. It was nearly half-past nine before Anna 
 and Henry stood on the pavement outside, and Beatrice, 
 after facetious farewells, had shut the door. 
 
 " Let us just walk round by the Manor Farm," Henry 
 pleaded. " It won't take more than a quarter of an hour 
 or so." 
 
 She agreed dutifully. The footpath ran at right angles 
 to Trafalgar Road, past a colliery whose engine-fires 
 glowed in the dark, moonless, autumn night, and then across 
 a field. They stood on a knoll near the old farmstead, that 
 extraordinary and pathetic survival of a vanished agricul- 
 ture. Immediately in front of them stretched acres of burn- 
 ing ironstone a vast tremulous carpet of flame woven in 
 red, purple, and strange greens. Beyond were the skeleton- 
 like silhouettes of pit-heads, and the solid forms of furnace 
 and chimney-shaft. In the distance a canal reflected the 
 gigantic illuminations of Cauldon Bar Ironworks. It was a 
 scene mysterious and romantic enough to kindle the raptures
 
 264 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 of love, but Anna felt cold, melancholy, and apprehensive 
 of vague sorrows. " Why am I so? " she asked herself, and 
 tried in vain to shake off the mood. 
 
 " What will Willie Price do if the business is sold ? " she 
 questioned Mynors suddenly. 
 
 " Surely," he said to soothe her, " you aren't still worry- 
 ing about that misfortune. I wish you had never gone 
 near the inquest ; the thing seems to have got on your 
 mind." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " she protested, with an air of cheerfulness. 
 " But I was just wondering." 
 
 " Well, Willie will have to do the best he can. Get 
 a place somewhere, I suppose. It won't be much, at the 
 best." 
 
 Had he guessed what perhaps hung on that answer, My- 
 nors might have given it in a tone less callous and perfunc- 
 tory. Could he have seen the tightening of her lips, he 
 might even afterwards have repaired his error by some vol- 
 untary assurance that Willie Price should be watched over 
 with a benevolent eye and protected with a strong arm. 
 But how was he to know that in misprizing Willie Price be- 
 fore her, he was misprizing the child to its mother? He 
 had done something for Willie Price, and considered that he 
 had done enough. His thoughts, moreover, were on other 
 matters. 
 
 " Do you remember that day we went up to the park ? " 
 he murmured fondly ; " that Sunday ? I have never told 
 you that that evening I came out of chapel after the first 
 hymn, when I noticed you weren't there, and walked up
 
 AT THE PRIORY 265 
 
 past your house. I couldn't help it. Something drew me. 
 I nearly called in to see you. Then I thought I had better 
 not." 
 
 " I saw you," she said calmly. His warmth made her 
 feel sad. " I saw you stop at the gate." 
 
 " You did? But you weren't at the window? " 
 
 " I saw you through the glass of the front door." Her 
 voice grew fainter, more reluctant. 
 
 " Then you were watching? " In the dark he seized her 
 with such violence, and kissed her so vehemently, that she 
 was startled out of herself. 
 
 " Oh, Henry ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " Call me Harry," he entreated, his arm still round her 
 waist ; " I want you to call me Harry. No one else does or 
 ever has done, and no one shall, now." 
 
 " Harry," she said deliberately, bracing her mind to a 
 positive determination. She must please him, and she said 
 it again : " Harry ; yes, it has a nice sound." 
 
 Ephraim sat reading the " Signal " in the parlour when 
 she arrived home at five minutes to ten. Imbued then with 
 ideas of duty, submission, and systematic kindliness, 
 she had an impulse to attempt a reconciliation with her 
 father. 
 
 " Good-night, father," she said ; " I hope I've not kept 
 you up." 
 
 He was deaf. 
 
 She went to bed resigned ; sad, but not gloomy. It was 
 not for nothing that during all her life she had been ac- 
 customed to infelicity. Experience had taught her this:
 
 266 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 to be the mistress of herself. She knew that she could face 
 any fact even the fact of her dispassionate frigidity under 
 Mynors' caresses. It was on the firm, almost rapturous 
 resolve to succour Willie Price, if need were, that she fell 
 asleep. 
 
 The engagement, which had hitherto been kept private, 
 became the theme of universal gossip immediately upon the 
 return of the Suttons from the Isle of Man. Two words 
 let fall by Beatrice in the St. Luke's covered market on 
 Saturday morning had increased and multiplied till the 
 whole town echoed with the news. Anna's private fortune 
 rose as high as a quarter of a million. As for Henry My- 
 nors, it was said that Henry Mynors knew what he was 
 about. After all, he was like the rest. Money, money ! Of 
 course it was inconceivable that a fine, prosperous figure of 
 a man, such as Mynors, would have made up to her, if she 
 had not been simply rolling in money. Well, there was one 
 thing to be said for young Mynors, he would put money to 
 good use; you might rely he would not hoard it up same 
 as it had been hoarded up. However, the more saved, the 
 more for young Mynors, so he needn't grumble. It was to 
 be hoped he would make her dress herself a bit better 
 though indeed it hadn't been her fault she went about so 
 shabby; the old skinflint would never allow her a penny of 
 her own. So tongues wagged. 
 
 The first Sunday was a tiresome ordeal for Anna, both 
 at school and at chapel. " Well, I never ! " seemed to be 
 written like a note of exclamation on every brow; the mo- 
 notony of the congratulations fatigued her as much as her
 
 AT THE PRIORY 267 
 
 involuntary efforts to grasp what each speaker had left un- 
 said of innuendo, malice, envy, or sycophany. Even the 
 people in the shops, during the next few days, could not 
 serve her without direct and curious reference to her private 
 affairs. The general opinion that she was a cold and blood- 
 less creature was strengthened by her attitude at this period. 
 But the apathy which she displayed was neither affected 
 nor due to an excessive diffidence. As she seemed, so she 
 felt. She often wondered what would have happened to her 
 if that vague " something " between Henry and Beatrice, 
 to which Beatrice had confessed, had ever taken definite 
 shape. 
 
 " Hancock came back from Lancashire last night," said 
 Mynors, when he arrived at Manor Terrace on the next 
 Saturday afternoon. Ephraim was in the room, and Henry, 
 evidently joyous and triumphant, addressed both him and 
 Anna. 
 
 " Is Hancock the commercial traveller? " Anna asked. 
 She knew that Hancock was the commercial traveller, but 
 she experienced a nervous compulsion to make idle remarks 
 in order to hide the breach of intercourse between her father 
 and herself. 
 
 "Yes," said Mynors; "he's had a magnificent jour- 
 ney." 
 
 " How much ? " asked the miser. 
 
 Henry named the amount of orders taken in a fortnight's 
 journey. 
 
 " Humph! " the miser ejaculated. " That's better than 
 a bat in the eye with a burnt stick." From him, this was
 
 268 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 the superlative of praise. " You're making good money at 
 that rate?" 
 
 " We are," said Mynors. 
 
 " That reminds me," Ephraim remarked gruffly. " When 
 dost think o' getting wed ? I'm not much for long engage- 
 ments, and so I tell ye." He threw a cold glance sideways 
 at Anna. The idea penetrated her heart like a stab : " He 
 wants to get me out of the house ! " 
 
 " Well," said Mynors, surprised at the question and 
 the tone, and, looking at Anna as if for an explanation : 
 " I had scarcely thought of that. What does Anna 
 say?" 
 
 " I don't know," she murmured ; and then, more bravely, 
 in a louder voice, and with a smile : " The sooner the better." 
 She thought, in her bitter and painful resentment : " If he 
 wants me to go, go I will." 
 
 Henry tactfully passed on to another phase of the sub- 
 ject: " I met Mr. Sutton yesterday, and he was telling me 
 of Price's house up at Toft End. It belonged to Mr. Price, 
 but of course it was mortgaged up to the hilt. The mort- 
 gagees have taken possession, and Mr. Sutton said it would 
 be to let cheap at Christmas. Of course Willie and old 
 Sarah Vodrey, the housekeeper, will clear out. I was think- 
 ing it might do for us. It's not a bad sort of house, or, 
 rather, it won't be when it's repaired." 
 
 " What will they ask for it ? " Ephraim inquired. 
 
 " Twenty-five or twenty-eight. It's a nice large house 
 four bedrooms, and a very good garden." 
 
 " Four bedrooms ! the miser exclaimed. " What dost
 
 AT THE PRIORY 269 
 
 want wi' four bedrooms? You'd have for keep a ser- 
 vant." 
 
 " Naturally we should keep a servant," Mynors said, with 
 calm politeness. 
 
 " You could get one o' them new houses up by th' park 
 for fifteen pounds as would do you well enough " ; the miser 
 protested against these dreams of extravagance. 
 
 " I don't care for that part of the town," said Mynors. 
 " It's too new for my taste." 
 
 After tea, when Henry and Anna went out for the Satur- 
 day evening stroll, Mynors suddenly suggested : " Why not 
 go up and look through that house of Price's ? " 
 
 " Won't it seem like turning them out if we happen to 
 take it? " she asked. 
 
 " Turning them out ! Willie is bound to leave it. What 
 use is it to him? Besides, it's in the hands of the mort- 
 gagees now. Why shouldn't we take it just as well as any- 
 one else, if it suits us ? " 
 
 Anna had no reply, and she surrendered herself placidly 
 enough to his will ; nevertheless she could not entirely ban- 
 ish a misgiving that Willie Price was again to be victim- 
 ised. Infinitely more disturbing than this illogical sensa- 
 tion, however, was the instinctive and sure knowledge, re- 
 vealed in a flash, that her father wished to be rid of her. So 
 implacable, then, was his animosity against her! Never, 
 never had she been so deeply hurt. The wound, in fact, was 
 so severe that at first she felt only a numbness that reduced 
 everything to unimportance, robbing her of volition. She 
 walked up to Toft End as if walking in her sleep.
 
 270 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 Price's house, sometimes called Priory House, in accord- 
 ance with a legend that a priory had once occupied the 
 site, stood in the middle of the mean and struggling suburb 
 of Toft End, which was flung up the hillside like a ragged 
 scarf. Built of red brick, towards the end of the eighteenth 
 century, double-fronted, with small, evenly disposed win- 
 dows, and a chimney stack at either side, it looked westward 
 over the town smoke towards a horizon of hills. It had a 
 long, narrow garden, which ran parallel with the road. Be- 
 hind it, adjoining, was a small, disused potworks, already 
 advanced in decay. On the north side, and enclosed by a brick 
 wall which surrounded also the garden, was a small orchard 
 of sterile and withered fruit-trees. In parts the wall had 
 crumbled under the assaults of generations of boys, and 
 from the orchard, through the gaps, could be seen an ex- 
 panse of grey-green field, with a few abandoned pit-shafts 
 scattered over it. These shafts, imperfectly protected by 
 ruinous masonry, presented an appearance strangely sin- 
 ister and forlorn, raising visions in the mind of dark and 
 mysterious depths peopled with miserable ghosts of those 
 who had toiled there in the days when to be a miner was to 
 be a slave. The whole place, house and garden, looked 
 ashamed and sad, with a shabby mournfulness acquired 
 gradually from its inmates during many years. But, never- 
 theless, the house was substantial, and the air on that height 
 fresh and pure. 
 
 Mynors rang in vain at the front door, and then they 
 walked round the house to the orchard, and discovered Sarah 
 Vodrey taking in clothes from a line a diminutive and
 
 AT THE PRIORY 271 
 
 wasted figure, with scanty, grey hair, a tiny face per- 
 manently soured, and bony hands contorted by rheu- 
 matism. 
 
 " My rheumatism's that bad," she said in response to 
 greetings, " I can scarce move about, and this house is a 
 regular barracks to keep clean. No ; Willie's not in. He's 
 at th' works, as usual Saturday like any other day. I'm 
 by myself here all day and every day. But I reckon us'n 
 be flitting soon, and me lived here eight-and-twenty year ! 
 Praise God, there's a mansion up there for me at last. And 
 not sorry shall I be when He calls." 
 
 " It must be very lonely for you, Miss Vodrey," said My- 
 nors. He knew exactly how to speak to this dame who 
 lived her life like a fly between two panes of glass, and who 
 could find room in her head for only three ideas, namely: 
 that God and herself were on terms of intimacy; that she 
 was, and had always been, indispensable to the Price family ; 
 and that her social status was far above that of a servant. 
 " It's a pity you never married," Mynors added. 
 
 " Me marry ! What would they ha' done without me ? 
 No, I'm none for marriage and never was. I'd be shamed 
 to be like some o' them spinsters down at chapel, always 
 hanging round chapel-yard on the off-chance of a service, 
 to catch that there young Mr. Sargent, the new minister. 
 It's a sign of a hard winter, Miss Terrick, when the hay 
 runs after the horse, that's what I say." 
 
 " Miss Tellwright and myself are in search of a house," 
 Mynors gently interrupted the flow, and gave her a peculiar 
 glance which she appreciated. " We heard you and Willie
 
 272 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 were going to leave here, and so we came up just to look over 
 the place, if it's quite convenient to you." 
 
 " Eh, I understand ye," she said ; " come in. But ye mun 
 tak' things as ye find 'em, Miss Terrick." 
 
 Dismal and unkempt, the interior of the house matched 
 the exterior. The carpets were threadbare, the discoloured 
 wall-papers hung loose on the walls, the ceilings were almost 
 black, the paint had nearly been rubbed away from the 
 woodwork; the exhausted furniture looked as though it 
 would fall to pieces in despair if compelled to face the 
 threatened ordeal of an auction-sale. But to Anna the 
 rooms were surprisingly large, and there seemed so many of 
 them ! It was as if she were exploring an immense abode, 
 like a castle, with odd chambers continually showing them- 
 selves in unexpected places. The upper story was even less 
 inviting than the ground-floor barer, more chill, utterly 
 comfortless. 
 
 " This is the best bedroom," said Miss Vodrey. " And a 
 rare big room, too ! It's not used now. He slept here. 
 Willie sleeps at back." 
 
 " A very nice room," Mynors agreed blandly, and meas- 
 ured it, as he had done all the others, with a two-foot, enter- 
 ing the figures in his pocketbook. 
 
 Anna's eye wandered uneasily across the room, with its 
 dismantled bed and decrepit mahogany suite. 
 
 " I'm glad he hanged himself at the works, and not here," 
 she thought. Then she looked out at the window. " What 
 a splendid view ! " she remarked to Mynors. 
 
 She saw that he had taken a fancy to the house. The
 
 AT THE PRIORY 273 
 
 sagacious fellow esteemed it, not as it was, but as it would 
 be, repapered, repainted, refurnished, the outer walls 
 pointed, the garden stocked; everything cleansed, bright- 
 ened, renewed. And there was indeed much to be said for 
 his fancy. The house was large, with plenty of ground; 
 the boundary wall secured that privacy which young hus- 
 bands and young wives instinctively demand; the outlook 
 was unlimited, the air the purest in the Five Towns. And 
 the rent was low, because the great majority of those who 
 could afford such a house would never deign to exist in a 
 quarter so poverty-stricken and unfashionable. 
 
 After leaving the house they continued their walk up the 
 hill, and then turned off to the left on the high-road from 
 Hanbridge to Moorthorne. The venerable, but not dignified 
 town lay below them, a huddled medley of brown brick under 
 a thick black cloud of smoke. The gold angel of the town- 
 hall gleamed in the evening light, and the dark, squat tower 
 of the parish church, sole relic of the past, stood out grim 
 and obdurate amid the featureless buildings which sur- 
 rounded it. To the north and east miles of moorland, de- 
 faced by collieries and murky hamlets, ran to the horizon. 
 Across the great field at their feet a figure slouched along, 
 past the abandoned pit-shafts. They both recognised the 
 man. 
 
 " There's Willie Price going home ! " said Mynors. 
 
 " He looks tired," she said. She was relieved that they 
 had not met him at the house. 
 
 " I say," Mynors began earnestly, after a pause, " why 
 shouldn't we get married soon, since the old gentleman seems
 
 274 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 rather to expect it ? He's been rather awkward lately, hasn't 
 he? " 
 
 This was the only reference made by Mynors to her 
 father's temper. She nodded. " How soon? " sb 
 asked. 
 
 " Well, I was just thinking. Suppose, for the sake of 
 argument, this house turns out all right. I couldn't get it 
 thoroughly done up much before the middle of January 
 couldn't begin till these people had moved. Suppose we said 
 early in February ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " 
 
 " Could you be ready by that time? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " she answered, " I could be ready." 
 
 " Well, why shouldn't we fix February, then ? " 
 
 " There's the question of Agnes," she said. 
 
 " Yes ; and there will always be the question of Agnes. 
 Your father will have to get a housekeeper. You and I 
 will be able to see after little Agnes, never fear." So, 
 with tenderness in his voice, he reassured her on that 
 point. 
 
 "Why not February?" she reflected. "Why not to- 
 morrow, as father wants me out of the house? " 
 
 It was agreed. 
 
 " I've taken the Priory, subject to your approval," 
 Henry said, less than a fortnight later. From that time 
 he invariably referred to the place as the Priory. 
 
 It was on the very night after this eager announcement 
 that the approaching tragedy came one step nearer. Bea-
 
 AT THE PRIORY 275 
 
 trice, in a modest evening-dress, with a white cloak ex- 
 cited, hurried, and important ran in to speak to -Anna. 
 The carriage was waiting outside. She and her father and 
 mother had to attend a very important dinner at the mayor's 
 house at Hillport, in connection with Mr. Button's impend- 
 ing mayoralty. Old Sarah Vodrey had just sent down a 
 girl to say that she was unwell, and would be grateful if 
 Mrs. Sutton or Beatrice would visit her. It was a most un- 
 reasonable time for such a summons, but Sarah was a 
 fidgety old crotchet, and knew how frightfully good-na- 
 tured Mrs. Sutton was. Would Anna mind going up 
 to Toft End? And would Anna come out to the car- 
 riage and personally assure Mrs. Sutton that old Sarah 
 should be attended to? If not, Beatrice was afraid 
 her mother would take it into her head to do something 
 stupid. 
 
 " It's very good of you, Anna," said Mrs. Sutton, when 
 Anna went outside with Beatrice. " But I think I'd better 
 go myself. The poor old thing may feel slighted if I don't, 
 and Beatrice can well take my place at this affair at Hill- 
 port, which I've no mind for." She was already half out of 
 the carriage. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind," said Anna firmly, pushing 
 her back. " I shall be delighted to go and do what I 
 can." 
 
 " That's right, Anna," said the Alderman from the dark- 
 ness of the carriage, where his shirt-front gleamed ; " Bee 
 said you'd go, and we're much obliged to ye." 
 
 " I expect it will be nothing," said Beatrice, as the vehicle
 
 276 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 drove off ; " Sarah has served mother this trick before 
 now." 
 
 As Anna opened the garden-gate of the Priory she dis- 
 cerned a figure amid the rank bushes, which had been al- 
 lowed to grow till they almost met across the narrow path 
 leading to the front door of the house. It was a thick and 
 mysterious night such a night as death chooses ; and Anna 
 jumped in vague terror at the apparition. 
 
 " Who's there? " said a voice sharply. 
 
 " It's me," said Anna. " Miss Vodrey sent down to ask 
 Mrs. Sutton to come up and see her, but Mrs. Sutton had 
 an engagement, so I came instead." 
 
 The figure moved forward; it was Willie Price. He 
 peered into her face, and she could see the mortal pallor of 
 his cheeks. 
 
 " Oh ! " he exclaimed, " it's Miss Tellwright, is it? Will 
 ye come in, Miss Tellwright? " 
 
 She followed him with beating heart, alarmed, appre- 
 hensive. The front door stood wide open, and at the far end 
 of the gloomy passage a faint light shone from the open 
 door of the kitchen. " This way," he said. In the large, 
 bare, stone-floored kitchen Sarah Vodrey sat limp and with 
 closed eyes in an old rocking-chair close to the fireless range. 
 The window, which gave on to the street, was open ; through 
 that window Sarah, in her extremity, had called the 
 child who ran down to Mrs. Sutton's. On the deal 
 table were a dirty cup and saucer, a tea-pot, bread, 
 butter, and a lighted candle sole illumination of the 
 Chamber.
 
 AT THE PRIORY 277 
 
 " I come home, and I find this," he said. 
 
 Daunted for a moment by the scene of misery, Anna could 
 say nothing. 
 
 " I find this," he repeated, as if accusing God of spite- 
 fulness ; and he lifted the candle to show the apparently in- 
 sensible form of the woman. Sarah's wrinkled and seamed 
 face had the flush of fever, and the features were drawn 
 into the expression of a terrible anxiety ; her hands hung 
 loose ; she breathed like a dog after a run. 
 
 " I wanted her to have the doctor yesterday," he said, 
 " but she wouldn't. Ever since you and Mr. Mynors called 
 she's been cleaning the house down. She said you'd happen 
 be coming again soon, and the place wasn't fit to be seen. 
 No use me arguing with her." 
 
 " You had better run for a doctor," Anna said. 
 
 " I was just going off when you came. She's been com- 
 plaining more of her rheumatism, and pain in her hips, 
 lately." 
 
 " Go now ; fetch Mr. Macpherson, and call at our house 
 and say I shall stay here all night. Wait a moment." See- 
 ing that he was exhausted from lack of food, she cut a thick 
 piece of bread-and-butter. " Eat this as you go," she 
 said. 
 
 " I can't eat ; it '11 choke me." 
 
 " Let it choke you," she said. " You've got to swallow 
 it." 
 
 Child of a hundred sorrows, he must be treated as a child. 
 As soon as Willie was gone she took off her hat and jacket, 
 and lit a lamp ; there was no gas in the kitchen.
 
 278 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " What's that light ? " the old woman asked peevishly, 
 rousing herself, and sitting up. " I doubt I'll be late with 
 Willie's tea. Eh, Miss Terrick, what's amiss ? " 
 
 " You're not quite well, Miss Vodrey," Anna answered. 
 " If you'll show me your room, I'll see you into bed." 
 Without giving her a moment for hesitation, Anna seized 
 the feeble creature under the arms, and so, coaxing, sup- 
 porting, carrying, got her to bed. At length she lay on the 
 narrow mattress, panting, exhausted. It was Sarah's final 
 effort. 
 
 Anna lit fires in the kitchen and in the bedroom, and when 
 Willie returned with Dr. Macpherson, water was boiling 
 and tea made. 
 
 " You'd better get a woman in," said the doctor curtly, 
 in the kitchen, when he had finished his examination of 
 Sarah. " Some neighbour for to-night, and I'll send a nurse 
 up from the cottage-hospital early to-morrow morning. 
 Not that it will be the least use. She must have been dying 
 for the last two days at least. She's got pericarditis and 
 pleurisy. She's breathing I don't know how many to the 
 minute, and her temperature is just about as high as it can 
 be. It all follows from rheumatism, and then taking cold. 
 Gross carelessness and neglect all through! I've no pa- 
 tience with such work." He turned angrily to Willie. " I 
 don't know what on earth you were thinking of, Mr. Price, 
 not to send for me earlier." 
 
 Willie, abashed and guilty, found nothing to say. His 
 eye had the meek wistf ulness of Holman Hunt's " Scape- 
 goat."
 
 AT THE PRIORY 279 
 
 " Mr. Price wanted her to have the doctor," said Anna, 
 defending him with warmth ; " but she wouldn't. He is 
 out at the works all day till late at night. How was he to 
 know how she was? She could walk about." 
 
 The tall doctor glanced at Anna in surprise, and at once 
 modified his tone. " Yes," he said, " that's the curious 
 thing. It passes me how she managed to get about. But 
 there is no knowing what an obstinate woman won't force 
 herself to do. I'll send the medicine up to-night, and come 
 along myself with the nurse early to-morrow. Meantime, 
 keep carefully to my instructions." 
 
 That night remains forever fixed in Anna's memory : the 
 grim rooms, echoing and shadowy; the countless journeys 
 up and down dark stairs and passages ; Willie sitting always 
 immovable in the kitchen, idle because there was nothing 
 for him to do; Sarah incessantly panting on the truckle- 
 bed; the hired woman from up the street, buxom, kindly, 
 useful, but fatuous in the endless monotony of her commis- 
 erations. 
 
 Towards morning, Sarah Vodrey gave sign of a desire to 
 talk. 
 
 " I've fought the fight," she murmured to Anna, who 
 alone was in the bedroom with her, " I've fought the fight ; 
 I've kept the faith. In that box there ye'll see a purse. 
 There's seventeen pound six in it. That will pay for the 
 funeral, and Willie must have what's over. There would 
 ha' been more for the lad, but he never paid me no wages 
 this two years past. I never troubled him." 
 
 " Don't tell Willie that," Anna said impetuously.
 
 280 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Eh, bless ye, no ! " said the dying drudge, and then 
 seemed to doze. 
 
 Anna went to the kitchen, and sent the woman upstairs. 
 
 " How is she ? " asked Willie, without stirring. Anna 
 shook her head. " Neither her nor me will be here much 
 longer, I'm thinking," he said, smiling wearily. 
 
 " What ? " she exclaimed, startled. 
 
 " Mr. Button has arranged to sell our business as a go- 
 ing-concern some people at Turnhill are buying it. I 
 shall go to Australia; there's no room for me here. The 
 creditors have promised to allow me twenty-five pounds, and 
 I can get an assisted passage. Bursley '11 know me no more. 
 But but I shall always remember you and what you've 
 done." 
 
 She longed to kneel at his feet, and to comfort him, and 
 to cry : " It is I who have ruined you driven your father 
 to cheating his servant, to crime, to suicide; driven you to 
 forgery, and turned you out of your house which your old 
 servant killed herself in making clean for me. I have 
 wronged you, and I love you like a mother because I have 
 wronged you and because I saved you from prison." 
 
 But she said nothing except : " Some of us will miss you." 
 
 The next day Sarah Vodrey died she who had never 
 lived save in the fetters of slavery and fanaticism. After 
 fifty years of ceaseless labour, she had gained the affection 
 of one person, and enough money to pay for her own fu- 
 neral. Willie Price took a cheap lodging with the woman 
 who had been called in on the night of Sarah's collapse. 
 Before Christmas he was to sail for Melbourne. The
 
 AT THE PRIORY 281 
 
 Priory, deserted, gave up its rickety furniture to a van 
 from Hanbridge, where, in an auction-room, the frail sticks 
 lost their identity in a medley of other sticks, and ceased 
 to be. Then the bricklayer, the plasterer, the painter, and 
 the paper-hanger, came to the Priory, and whistled and 
 sang in it. 
 
 j >
 
 XIII: THE BAZAAR 
 
 THE Wesleyan Bazaar, the greatest undertaking of 
 its kind ever known in Bursley, gradually became a 
 cloud which filled the entire social horizon. Mrs. 
 Sutton, organiser of the Sunday-school stall, pressed all her 
 friends into the service, and for a fortnight after the death 
 of Sarah Vodrey, Anna and even Agnes gave much of their 
 spare time to the work, which was carried on under pressure 
 increasing daily as the final moments approached. This 
 was well for Anna, in that it diverted her thoughts by keep- 
 ing her energies fully engaged. One morning, however, it 
 occurred to Mrs. Sutton to reflect that Anna, at such a 
 period of life, should be otherwise employed. Anna had 
 called at the Suttons' to deliver some finished garments. 
 
 " My dear," she said, " I am very much obliged to you 
 for all this industry. But I've been thinking that, as you 
 are to be married in February, you ought to be preparing 
 your things." 
 
 " My things ! " Anna repeated idly ; and then she remem- 
 bered Mynors' phrase, on the hill, " Can you be ready by 
 that time?" 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Sutton ; " but possibly you've been get- 
 ting forward with them on the quiet." 
 
 " Tell me," said Anna, with an air of interest ; " I've 
 meant to ask you before: Is it the bride's place to provide 
 all the house-linen, and that sort of thing? " 
 
 282
 
 THE BAZAAR 283 
 
 " It was in my day ; but those things alter so. The bride 
 took all the house-linen to her husband, and as many clothes 
 for herself as would last a year; that was the rule. We 
 used to stitch everything at home in those days every- 
 thing ; and we had what we called a ' bottom drawer ' to 
 store them in. As soon as a girl had passed her fifteenth 
 birthday, she began to sew for the * bottom drawer.' 
 But all those things change so, I dare say it's different 
 now." 
 
 " How much will it cost to buy everything, do you 
 think? " Anna asked. 
 
 Just then Beatrice entered the room. 
 
 " Beatrice, Anna is enquiring how much it will cost to 
 buy her trousseau, and the house-linen. What do you 
 say?" 
 
 " Oh ! " Beatrice replied, without any hesitation, " a 
 couple of hundred at least." 
 
 Mrs. Sutton, reading Anna's face, smiled reassuringly. 
 " Nonsense, Bee ! I dare say you could do it on a hundred 
 with care, Anna." 
 
 " Why should Anna want to do it with care? " Beatrice 
 asked curtly. 
 
 Anna went straight across the road to her father, and 
 asked him for a hundred pounds of her own money. She 
 had not spoken to him, save under necessity, since the even- 
 ing spent at the Suttons'. 
 
 " What's afoot now? " he questioned savagely. 
 
 " I must buy things for the wedding clothes and things, 
 father."
 
 284 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Ay ! clothes ! clothes ! What clothes dost want ? A few 
 pounds would cover them." 
 
 " There'll be all the linen for the house." 
 
 " Linen for It's none thy place for buy that." 
 
 " Yes, father, it is." 
 
 " I say it isna'," he shouted. 
 
 " But I've asked Mrs. Sutton, and she says it is." 
 
 " What business an' ye for go blabbing thy affairs all 
 over Bursley? I say it isna' thy place for buy the linen, 
 and let that be sufficient. Go and get dinner. It's nigh on 
 twelve now." 
 
 That evening, when Agnes had gone to bed, she resumed 
 the struggle. 
 
 " Father, I must have that hundred pounds. I really 
 must. I mean it." 
 
 " Thou means it! What? " 
 
 ** I mean I must have a hundred pounds." 
 
 " I'd advise thee to tak' care o' thy tongue, my lass. 
 Thou means it! " 
 
 " But you needn't give it me all at once," she pursued. 
 
 He gazed at her, glowering. 
 
 " I shanna' give it thee. It's Henry's place for buy th' 
 house-linen." 
 
 " Father, it isn't." Her voice broke, but only for an in- 
 stant. " I'm asking you for my own money. You seem 
 to want to make me miserable just before my wedding." 
 
 " I wish to God thou'dst never seen Henry Mynors. It's 
 given thee pride and made thee undutiful." 
 
 " I'm only asking you for my own money."
 
 THE BAZAAR 285 
 
 Her calm insistence maddened him. Jumping up from 
 his chair, he stamped out of the room, and she heard him 
 strike a match in his office. Presently he returned, and 
 threw angrily on to the table in front of her a cheque-book 
 and pass-book. The deposit-book she had always kept her- 
 self for convenience of paying into the bank. 
 
 " Here," he said scornfully, " tak' thy traps and ne'er 
 speak to me again. I wash my hands of ye. Tak' 'em and 
 do what ye'n a mind. Chuck thy money into th' cut* for 
 aught I care." 
 
 The next evening Henry came up. She observed that his 
 face had a grave look, but intent on her own difficulties she 
 did not remark on it, and proceeded at once to what she had 
 resolved to do. It was a cold night in November, yet the 
 miser, wrathfully sullen, chose to sit in his office without a 
 fire. Agnes was working sums in the kitchen. 
 
 " Henry," Anna began, " I've had a difficulty with 
 father, and I must tell you." 
 
 " Not about the wedding, I hope," he said. 
 
 " It was about money. Of course, Henry, I can't get 
 married without a lot of money." 
 
 " Why not? " he inquired. 
 
 " I've my own things to get," she said, " and I've all the 
 house-linen to buy." 
 
 "Oh! You buy the house-linen, do you?" She saw 
 that he was relieved by that information. 
 
 " Of course. Well, I told father I must have a hundred 
 pounds, and he wouldn't give it me. And when I stuck 
 to him he got angry you know he can't bear to see money 
 * Cut: canal.
 
 286 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 spent and at last he got a little savage and gave me my 
 bank-books, and said he'd have nothing more to do with my 
 money." 
 
 Henry's face broke into a laugh, and Anna was obliged 
 to smile. " Capital ! " he said. " Couldn't be better." 
 
 " I want you to tell me how much I've got in the bank," 
 she said. " I only know I'm always paying in odd 
 cheques." 
 
 He examined the three books. " A very tidy bit," he 
 said ; " something over two hundred and fifty pounds. So 
 you can draw cheques at your ease." 
 
 " Draw me a cheque for twenty pounds," she said ; and 
 then, while he wrote : " Henry, after we're married, I shall 
 want you to take charge of all this." 
 
 " Yes, of course ; I will do that, dear. But your money 
 will be yours. There ought to be a settlement on you. Still, 
 if your father says nothing, it is not for me to say any- 
 thing." 
 
 " Father will say nothing now," she said. " You've 
 never shown any interest in it, Henry ; but as we're talking 
 of money, I may as well tell you that father says I'm worth 
 fifty thousand pounds." 
 
 The man of business was astonished and enraptured be- 
 yond measure. His countenance shone with delight. 
 
 " Surely not ! " he protested formally. 
 
 " That's what father told me, and he made me read a list 
 of shares, and so on." 
 
 " We will go slow, to begin with," said Mynors solemnly. 
 He had not expected more than fifteen or twenty thousand
 
 THE BAZAAR 287 
 
 pounds, and even this sum had dazzled his imagination. He 
 was glad that he had only taken the house at Toft End on 
 a yearly tenancy. He now saw himself the dominant figure 
 in all the Five Towns. 
 
 Later in the evening he disclosed, perfunctorily, the mat- 
 ter which had been a serious weight on his mind when he 
 entered the house, but which this revelation of vast wealth 
 had diminished to a trifle. Titus Price had been the treas- 
 urer of the building fund which the bazaar was designed 
 to assist. Mynors had assumed the position of the dead 
 man, and that day, in going through the accounts, he had 
 discovered that a sum of fifty pounds was missing. 
 
 " It's a dreadful thing for Willie, if it gets about," he 
 said ; " a tale of that sort would follow him to Australia." 
 
 " Oh, Henry, it is ! " she exclaimed, sorrow-stricken ; 
 " but we mustn't let it get about. Let us pay the money 
 ourselves. You must enter it in the books and say nothing." 
 
 " That is impossible," he said firmly. " I can't alter the 
 accounts. At least I can't alter the bank-book and the 
 vouchers. The auditor would detect it in a minute. Be- 
 sides, I should not be doing my duty if I kept a thing like 
 this from the superintendent-minister. He, at any rate, 
 must know, and perhaps the stewards." 
 
 " But you can urge them to say nothing. Tell them 
 that you will make it good. I will write a cheque at 
 once." 
 
 " I had meant to find the fifty myself," he said. It was 
 a peddling sum to him now. 
 
 " Let me pay half, then," she asked.
 
 288 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " If you like," he urged, smiling faintly at her eagerness. 
 " The thing is bound to be kept quiet it would create such 
 a frightful scandal. Poor old chap ! " he added carelessly, 
 " I suppose he was hard run, and meant to put it back as 
 they all do mean." 
 
 But it was useless for Mynors to affect depression of 
 spirits, or mournful sympathy with the errors of a dead 
 sinner. The fifty thousand danced a jig in his brain that 
 night. 
 
 Anna was absorbed in contemplating the misfortune of 
 Willie Price. She prayed wildly that he might never learn 
 the full depth of his father's fall. The miserable robbery 
 of Sarah's wages was buried for evermore, and this new 
 delinquency, which all would regard as flagrant sacrilege, 
 must be buried also. A soul less loyal than Anna's might 
 have feared that Willie, a self-convicted forger, had been a 
 party to the embezzlement ; but Anna knew that it could not 
 be so. 
 
 It was characteristic of Mynors' cautious prudence that, 
 the first intoxication having passed, he made no further 
 reference of any kind to Anna's fortune. The arrange- 
 ments for their married life were planned on a scale which 
 ignored the fifty thousand pounds. For both their sakes he 
 wished to avoid all friction with the miser, at any rate until 
 his status as Anna's husband would enable him to enforce 
 her rights, if that should be necessary, with dignity and 
 effectiveness. He did not precisely anticipate trouble, but 
 the fact had not escaped him that Ephraim still held the 
 whole of Anna's securities. He was in no hurry to enlarge
 
 THE BAZAAR 289 
 
 his borders. He knew that there were twenty-four hours in 
 every day, three hundred and sixty-five days in every year, 
 and thirty good years of life still left to him ; and, therefore, 
 that there would be ample time, after the wedding, for the 
 execution of his purposes in regard to that fifty thousand 
 pounds. Meanwhile, he told Anna that he had set aside two 
 hundred pounds for the purchase of furniture for the 
 Priory a modest sum; but he judged it sufficient. His 
 method was to buy a piece at a time, always second-hand, 
 but always good. The bargain-hunt was up, and Anna 
 soon yielded to its mild satisfactions. In the matter of her 
 trousseau and the house-linen, Anna, having obtained the 
 needed money at so dear a cost found yet another ob- 
 stacle in the imminent bazaar, which occupied Mrs. Sutton 
 and Beatrice so completely that they could not contrive any 
 opportunity to assist her in shopping. It was decided be- 
 tween them that every article should be bought ready-made 
 and seamed, and that the first week of the New Year, if in- 
 deed Mrs. Sutton survived the bazaar, should be entirely and 
 absolutely devoted to Anna's business. 
 
 At nights, when she had leisure to think, Anna was aston- 
 ished, how, during the day, she had forgotten her preoccu- 
 pations in the activities precedent to the bazaar, or in choos- 
 ing furniture with Mynors. But she never slept without 
 thinking of Willie Price, and hoping that no further dis- 
 aster might overtake him. The incident of the embezzled 
 fifty pounds had been closed, and she had given a cheque 
 for twenty-five pounds to Mynors. He had acquainted the 
 minister with the facts, and Mr. Banks had decided that the
 
 290 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 two circuit stewards must be informed. Beyond these the 
 scandalous secret was not to go. But Anna wondered 
 whether a secret shared by five persons could long remain 
 a secret. 
 
 The bazaar was a triumphant and unparalleled success, 
 and, of the seven stalls, the Sunday-school stall stood first 
 each night in the nightly returns. The scene in the town- 
 hall, on the fourth and final night, a Saturday, was as 
 delirious and gay as a carnival. Four hundred and twenty 
 pounds had been raised up to tea-time, and it was the im- 
 passioned desire of everyone to achieve five hundred. The 
 price of admission had been reduced to threepence, in order 
 that the artisan might enter and spend his wages in an ex- 
 cellent cause. 
 
 The seven stalls, ranged round the room like so many 
 bowers of beauty, draped and frilled and floriated, and 
 still laden with countless articles of use and ornament, 
 were continually reinforced with purchasers by emissaries 
 canvassing the crowd which filled the middle of the paper- 
 strewn floor. The horse was not only taken to the water, 
 but compelled to drink ; and many a man who, outside, would 
 have laughed at the risk of being robbed, was robbed openly, 
 shamelessly, under the gaze of ministers and class-leaders. 
 Bouquets were sold at a shilling each, and at the refreshment 
 stall a glass of milk cost sixpence. The noise rivalled that 
 of a fair ; there was no quiet anywhere, save in the farthest 
 recess of each stall, where the lady in supreme charge of 
 it, like a spider in the middle of its web, watched customers 
 and cash-box with equal cupidity.
 
 THE BAZAAR 291 
 
 Mrs. Sutton, at seven o'clock, had not returned from tea, 
 and Anna and Beatrice, who managed the Sunday-school 
 stall in her absence, feared that she had at last succumbed 
 under the strain. But shortly afterwards she hurried back 
 breathless to her place. 
 
 " See that, Anna? It will be reckoned in our returns," 
 she said, exhibiting a piece of paper. It was Ephraim's 
 check for the twenty-five pounds promised months ago, but 
 on a condition which had not been fulfilled. 
 
 " She has the secret of persuading him," thought Anna. 
 " Why have I never found it ? " 
 
 Then Agnes, in a new white frock, came up with three 
 shillings, proceeds of bouquets. 
 
 " But you must take that to the flower-stall, my pet," 
 said Mrs. Sutton. 
 
 *' Can't I give it to you? " the child pleaded. " I want 
 your stall to be the best." 
 
 Mynors arrived next, with something concealed in tissue- 
 paper. He removed the paper, and showed, in a frame of 
 crimson plush, a common white plate decorated with a simple 
 band and line, and a monogram in the centre " A. T." 
 Anna blushed, recognising the plate which she had painted 
 that afternoon in July at Mynors' works. 
 
 " Can you sell this? " Mynors asked Mrs. Sutton. 
 
 " I'll try to," said Mrs. Sutton doubtfully not in the 
 secret. " What's it meant for? " 
 
 " Try to sell it to me," said Mynors. 
 
 " Well," she laughed, " what will you give? " 
 
 *' A couple of sovereigns."
 
 292 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " Make it guineas." 
 
 He paid the money, and requested Anna to keep the plate 
 for him. 
 
 At nine o'clock it was announced that, though raffling 
 was forbidden, the bazaar would be enlivened by an auction. 
 A licensed auctioneer was brought, and the sale commenced. 
 The auctioneer, however, failed to attune himself to the wild 
 spirit of the hour, and his professional efforts would have 
 resulted in a fiasco had not Mynors, perceiving the danger, 
 leaped to the platform and masterfully assumed the hammer. 
 Mynors surpassed himself in the kind of wit that amuses 
 an excited crowd, and the auction soon monopolised the at- 
 tention of the room ; it was always afterwards remembered 
 as the crowning success of the bazaar. The incredible man 
 took ten pounds in twenty minutes. During this episode 
 Anna, who had been left alone in the stall, first noticed Willie 
 Price in the room. His ship sailed on the Monday, but 
 steerage passengers had to be aboard on Sunday, and he 
 was saying good-bye to a few acquaintances. He seemed 
 quite cheerful, as he walked about with his hands in his 
 pockets, chatting with this one and that; it was the false 
 and hysterical gaiety that precedes a final separation. As 
 soon as he saw Anna he came towards her. 
 
 " Well, good-bye, Miss Tellwright," he said jauntily. 
 " I leave for Liverpool to-morrow morning. Wish me 
 luck." 
 
 Nothing more ; no word, no accent, to recall the terrible 
 but sublime past. 
 
 " I do," she answered. They shook hands. Others ap-
 
 THE BAZAAR 293 
 
 preaching, he drifted away. Her glance followed him like 
 a beneficent influence. 
 
 For three days she had carried in her pocket an envelope 
 containing a banknote for a hundred pounds, intending by 
 some device to force it on him as a parting gift. Now the 
 last chance was lost, and she had not even attempted this 
 difficult feat of charity. Such futility, she reflected, self- 
 scorning, was of a piece with her life. " He hasn't really 
 gone. He hasn't really gone," she kept repeating, and yet 
 knew well that he had gone. 
 
 " Do you know what they are saying, Anna ? " said Bea- 
 trice, when, after eleven o'clock, the bazaar was closed to 
 the public, and the stall-holders and their assistants were 
 preparing to depart, their movements hastened by the stern 
 aspect of the town-hall keeper. 
 
 " No. What ? " said Anna ; and in the same moment 
 guessed. 
 
 " They say that old Titus Price embezzled fifty pounds 
 from the building fund, and Henry made it up, privately, 
 so that there shouldn't be a scandal. Just fancy ! Do you 
 believe it ? " 
 
 The secret was abroad. She looked round the room, and 
 saw it in every face. 
 
 " Who says ? " Anna demanded fiercely. 
 
 " It's all over the place. Miss Dickinson told me." 
 
 " You will be glad to know, ladies," Mynors* voice sang 
 out from the platform, " that the total proceeds, so far as 
 we can calculate them now, exceed five hundred and twenty- 
 five pounds."
 
 294 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 There was clapping of hands, which died out sud- 
 denly. 
 
 " Now, Agnes," Anna called, " come along, quick ; you're 
 as white as a sheet. Good-night, Mrs. Sutton ; good-night, 
 Bee." 
 
 Mynors was still occupied on the platform. 
 
 The town-hall keeper extinguished some of the lights. 
 The bazaar was over.
 
 XIV: END OF A SIMPLE SOUL 
 
 THE next morning, at half-past seven, Anna was 
 standing in the garden-doorway of the Priory. The 
 sun had just risen, the air was cold; roof and pave- 
 ment were damp ; rain had fallen, and more was to fall. A 
 door opened higher up the street, and Willie Price came out, 
 carrying a small bag. He turned to speak to some person 
 within the house, and then stepped forward. As he passed 
 Anna she sprang forth. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried, " I had just come up here to see if the 
 workmen had locked up properly. We have some of our 
 new furniture in the house, you know." She was as red 
 as the sun over Hillport. 
 
 He glanced at her. " Have you heard ? " he asked 
 simply. 
 
 " About what ? " she whispered. 
 
 " About my poor old father." 
 
 " Yes. I was hoping hoping you would never 
 know." 
 
 By a common impulse they went into the garden of the 
 Priory, and he shut the door. 
 
 " Never know? " he repeated. " Oh! they took care to 
 tell me." 
 
 A silence followed. 
 
 "Is that your luggage?" she inquired. He lifted up 
 the handbag, and nodded. 
 
 295
 
 296 ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS 
 
 " All of it? " 
 
 " Yes," he said. " I'm only an emigrant." 
 
 " I've got a note here for you," she said. " I should 
 have posted it to the steamer ; but now you can take it your- 
 self. I want you not to read it till you get to Mel- 
 bourne." 
 
 " Very well," he said, and crumpled the proffered envelope 
 into his pocket. He was not thinking of the note at all. 
 Presently he asked : " Why didn't you tell me about my 
 father? If I had to hear it, I'd sooner have heard it from 
 you." 
 
 " You must try to forget it," she urged him. " You 
 are not your father." 
 
 " I wish I had never been born," he said. " I wish I'd 
 gone to prison." 
 
 Now was the moment when, if ever, the mother's influence 
 should be exerted. 
 
 " Be a man," she said softly. " I did the best I could 
 for you. I shall always think of you, in Australia, getting 
 on." 
 
 She put a hand on his shoulder. " Yes," she said again, 
 passionately : " I shall always remember you always." 
 
 The hand with which he touched her arm shook like an 
 old man's hand. As their eyes met in an intense and pain- 
 ful gaze, to her, at least, it was revealed that they were 
 lovers. What he had learnt in that instant can only be 
 guessed from his next action. . . . 
 
 Anna ran out of the garden into the street, and so home,
 
 END OF A SIMPLE SOUL 297 
 
 never looking behind to see if he pursued his way to the 
 station. 
 
 Some may argue that Anna, knowing she loved another 
 man, ought not to have married Mynors. But she did not 
 reason thus ; such a notion never even occurred to her. She 
 had promised to marry Mynors and she married him. 
 Nothing else was possible. She who had never failed in 
 duty did not fail then. She who had always submitted and 
 bowed the head, submitted and bowed the head then. She 
 had sucked in with her mother's milk the profound truth 
 that a woman's life is always a renunciation, greater or less. 
 Hers by chance was greater. Facing the future calmly and 
 genially, she took oath with herself to be a good wife to the 
 man whom, with all his excellences, she had never loved. 
 Her thoughts often dwelt lovingly on Willie Price, whom 
 she deemed to be pursuing in Australia an honourable and 
 successful career, quickened at the outset by her hundred 
 pounds. This vision of him was her stay. But neither she 
 nor anyone in the Five Towns or elsewhere ever heard of 
 Willie Price again. And well might none hear! The 
 abandoned pitshaft does not deliver up its secret. And so 
 the Bank of England is the richer by a hundred pounds 
 unclaimed, and the world the poorer by a simple and meek 
 soul stung to revolt only in its last hour. 
 
 THE END
 
 
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