THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 i
 
 PIERROT'S LIBRARY 
 IV 
 
 MY BROTHER
 
 FORTHCOMING VOLUME IN 
 PIERROTS LIBRARY 
 
 DEATH, THE KNIGHT, AND THE LADY. 
 By H. DE VERB STACPOOLE.
 
 MY 
 
 BROTHER 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 RAND McNALLY & CO. 
 1896
 
 Copyrighted in the United States 
 All rights reserved
 
 Bfflf 
 
 MY BROTHER 
 
 i 
 
 " No, no ; we must stick to the peacocks," 
 Lord Lusson said. "If they are a bit untidy, 
 they make up for it by completing the picture. 
 See that one on the terrace there, against the 
 red creepers the genius of pride and the 
 genius of colour. They realise life : the old 
 place wouldn't look the same without the 
 peacocks. And my mother was very fond 
 of them." 
 
 The young man, in a pleasant social 
 temper, strolled on the grass, a cigarette 
 between his fingers, a collie at his heels. 
 The gardener fell silent, having said his 
 ill word for the peacocks. Swallows made 
 magic lines in the sunny air : on a lake, set 
 amid trees and undergrowths, swans idled 
 perfectly ; the laughter of children came from 
 
 534759
 
 2 MY BROTHER 
 
 the home park, where the turkey-cocks, in 
 excess of vanity, were making themselves 
 ridiculous. Lord Lusson, catching sight 
 of an uncouth figure standing in a gap in 
 an old wall (that was embroidered with 
 beautiful things), made a somewhat irritable 
 gesture. 
 
 " Who is that man, Reid ? I have seen him 
 about the place several times of late. I came 
 upon him again yesterday in the rhododen- 
 dron walk in the Little Wood ; that seems 
 to be his favourite loafmg-ground. Who is 
 he?" 
 
 " It's the Prophet, my lord." 
 
 The figure disappeared. 
 
 " Is he a tramp ? " 
 
 " Not by profession, my lord, though his 
 manner of life comes near to the same thing. 
 He does odd jobs for the farmers and in the 
 small gentry's gardens when he's able. But 
 he has a damaged spine, or something, and 
 that keeps him from putting in a decent 
 man's work." 
 
 " He looks deformed. He is always alone 
 when I see him."
 
 MY BROTHER 3 
 
 " unless when there's children with 
 
 him," said Reid. 
 
 " Is he married ? " 
 
 The gardener (having a sense of humour) 
 smiled. " No, my lord, he's not got a wife 
 yet. Some women are not over particular, 
 but there's hardly a woman in Occlesby 
 who'd not draw the line at the Prophet." 
 
 " Has he a bad character then ? " 
 
 " I'd not say that of him, my lord. It's not 
 his character, but his feeble body and spirit 
 that's the obstacle. He's such a poor wreck 
 of a creature." 
 
 " Oh, quite so. Why is he called the 
 Prophet ? " 
 
 " The name grew up with him ; except for 
 his queer religious opinions, I can't say why. 
 He's not so old as he looks, because of his 
 beard, and those ancient eyes of his, and the 
 way he hobbles about on his big blackthorn. 
 I remember him a little lad, when nobody 
 could make head or tail of him ; his dullness 
 was beyond words. His mother's dead, and 
 there's always been a mystery who his father 
 was. He lives alone, and has done these
 
 4 MY BROTHER 
 
 many years, in a hut in a dell off the Alveton 
 Road. He made it himself, helped by some 
 Willie May, mostly that had regard for 
 his feckless loneliness. He has gipsies for 
 neighbours generally, unless when the chil- 
 dren go to see him. But nobody would 
 meddle with the Prophet." 
 
 " I suppose he lives by poaching ? " 
 
 The gardener shook his head. 
 
 " I doubt if he has the heart for a poacher, 
 my lord." 
 
 " But what is his name ? " 
 
 " Paul Penfold." 
 
 " Quite so." Lord Lusson moved up the 
 steps on to the terrace. " I shall be leaving in 
 a day or two, Reid," he said, turning, "and 
 of course you will see that everything goes 
 on all right here." 
 
 " Yes, my lord." 
 
 " There has been a little too much licence 
 of late ; people seem to imagine that this 
 place is kept up for their convenience. I 
 fancy my mother spoilt them but one likes 
 to feel sure of being alone sometimes. It is 
 time at least to put a stop to the abuse of the
 
 MY BROTHER 5 
 
 Little Wood ; the rhododendron walk has 
 been turned into a public thoroughfare. It 
 is nothing of the kind, and I shall have a 
 notice-board put up. Oh," he added, "you 
 might tell Anscombe to have these white 
 bantams fastened up ; they scratch and 
 cackle all day long, and keep coming into 
 the house. I found a couple roosting in the 
 hall last night, and there was a fine shindy 
 when I tried to catch them." 
 
 Reid said again, " Yes, my lord," and went 
 on to the gardens. Lord Lusson sat on an 
 old bench, among honeysuckle, and looked 
 at the peacocks through cigarette smoke ; 
 the collie rested its muzzle on his knee. The 
 peacocks minced down a grassy slope to the 
 water, and the white bantams made for the 
 home-park, bent on fare more satisfying than 
 grubs. But Lord Lusson sat with his thoughts 
 till the declining of the day.
 
 II 
 
 Now Paul, being of a peaceable spirit, made 
 no fuss of the matter, when, trudging home- 
 ward in the mid-afternoon (having neatly 
 trimmed the rectory lawn), he was hauled by 
 Andrew Isted into the Lusson Arms, and 
 bidden drink a glass of ale. He offered 
 thanks for the courtesy, and set the glass on 
 the bar counter, assuring the village gossips 
 that ale was a liquor that agreed not with the 
 temper of his stomach. 
 
 " Then it should," said the innkeeper, " or 
 your stomach's not proper English." 
 
 "You always was a horrible unpractical 
 chap, Prophet," Andrew Isted said. " And 
 what's to come of you, now the Little Wood's 
 been closed ? No more moony rambles there, 
 Prophet. My lord's put up a notice, new 
 painted on a white painted board, to keep 
 out all you dreamin wanderers and tramps.
 
 MY BROTHER 7 
 
 He's in a mighty fret about it, they 
 say." 
 
 " Thank God," said a big man, " I never 
 go by the rhododendron path myself, havin a 
 trap." 
 
 "Everybody's not got traps," said Paul, 
 " and if they had, some might think of them 
 that hadn't." Andrew Isted laughed. " It's 
 been in livin memory the short cut to Dan- 
 bridge," Pauradded, "and it's wrong, I do 
 think, for Lord Lusson to close it. I'd not 
 like, if I was a great high lord, to have my 
 name stained with oppression of the poor, 
 If it was in Danbridge, where there's them 
 that have a jealousy for the rights of common 
 folk, he'd not dare to do it." 
 
 " Look you now," said Woolven the sad- 
 dler, " that's downright rampant Radical 
 doctrine, and I'm not sure if it's not traitorous 
 to the law of the Constitution." 
 
 " Oh, but the Prophet never knows what 
 he says five minutes at a time," the innkeeper 
 growled. " He's muddled up here in his in- 
 tellect, like most that scorns good old English 
 ale."
 
 8 MY BROTHER 
 
 " There's nothing like ale for settlin a 
 man's political opinions," said the big man. 
 
 " Here's to their settlement," laughed 
 Andrew Isted. 
 
 " I'll tell you what, Prophet," said Woolven 
 the saddler, " if you wasn't a kind of Christian 
 in your own style, you'd have been a most 
 dreadful depraved Radical. I'm not sure," 
 gasped the saddler, " whether you'd not have 
 given your mind even to Socialism, or that 
 worse principle where they teach infernal 
 machines. You're just of that stamp, Pro- 
 phet, very like the colour of them that's un- 
 balanced in mind and shaky in fortunes. I 
 maintain, which I always have done, and 
 always will, whatever anybody may say, that 
 the Tory doctrine is the only doctrine that 
 falls in line with natur." 
 
 " My sentiments to a T," said the inn- 
 keeper. 
 
 " Mine," said the big man, " if they was 
 stronger expressed." 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," said Paul, going out at 
 the door, " Pll leave you to your agreements, 
 and walk up and see my lord's notice with
 
 MY BROTHER 9 
 
 my own eyes, more particular as the scent 
 of ale on a fine day makes me feel rather 
 giddy." 
 
 "Now I call that an abominable insult," 
 said the innkeeper. 
 
 " It shows the weakness of his head," said 
 the big man. 
 
 "I've never been decided whether he's 
 more a knave or a fool," said the saddler. 
 " There's points in his credit. The women 
 takes to him." 
 
 " H'm," said Andrew Isted. 
 
 "Oh, he's harmless enough," cried the 
 saddler. " I've never heard of him what I've 
 heard of you, Andrew. He's over low in his 
 health, with that broke back of his, to do 
 mischief either among the fair or in the 
 commonwealth, though I've a shrewd notion 
 the bee in his bonnet is just the sort that 
 wants to do it." 
 
 Paul sauntered up the hillside leisurely 
 to the Little Wood. A little child came to 
 him, and he took its hand, and prattled to it 
 with a marvellous gentleness and simplicity. 
 Paul held the secret that opened children's
 
 IO MY BROTHER 
 
 hearts. On the grassy sunlit road outside the 
 gate of the rhododendron path, a group of 
 little ones were lying down watching some- 
 thing intently. Paul moved up to them 
 cautiously, and saw that it was a baby toad. 
 " It's overcome by the sun," said he, and pick- 
 ing it up, put it in the ditch. " They don't 
 like much sun, the toads," said Paul. The 
 children gathered round him : one wee lassie, 
 with a head like the head of the child in 
 Titian's " Bacchus and Ariadne," wormed her 
 hand up his sleeve till it came to his elbow. 
 
 " Letty Tomsett," said Paul, " you're spyin 
 out how bony I've grown." 
 
 " I feels your funny bone," said Letty. 
 
 "Well, then, leave it alone," said Paul. 
 " You'll want to know next what I've had for 
 my dinner." 
 
 "What?" said Letty. 
 
 " I donno if I'll tell you, for your inquisi- 
 tiveness. Oh, my, and here's that impident 
 Teddy Barton up my other sleeve. I never 
 did see sich children for pullin a man in 
 pieces. I'm not a Punch and Judy show like 
 you saw in your Sunday school treat."
 
 MY BROTHER II 
 
 He sat down on the grass, and the children 
 scrambled over him. One little girl got 
 behind him, put her arms round his neck, 
 and began to blow in his ear. Another, 
 sitting on his foot, was doubled up with 
 laughter. 
 
 " What for do you always laugh so, Susan 
 Peacey, whenever you see me ? " Paul asked. 
 " One would think you was frightened of 
 me." 
 
 " I'm not frightened," Susan Peacey said. 
 
 " Then what for do you laugh ? " 
 
 " You're such a funny man." 
 
 "Me a funny man?" said Paul, opening 
 wide his eyes in counterfeit amazement : 
 whereat all the children laughed. " Dearie 
 me. There now, hear that wild language; 
 why, I thought I was the most solemn, long- 
 faced, terrible, grim man, like the ogre in 
 the fairy tale Oock ! " He made a fear- 
 some snap with his mouth. The children 
 screamed with laughter. 
 
 " Do it again," one said ; and they all cried, 
 41 Do it again ; do it again, Paul ! " 
 
 "No; I'll not do it again, for fear you
 
 12 MY BROTHER 
 
 might think of me after with that ugly face. 
 I'll tell you a nice story, and that'll be ever 
 so much better than being a ogre." 
 
 "Jack the Giant Killer!" said Teddy 
 Barton. 
 
 " No ; I'm not feelin like Jack to-day," 
 said Paul. " I'd not be able to enter on the 
 narrative with spirit." 
 
 "The old woman that lived in a shoe," 
 cried Susan Peacey. 
 
 "Well, I might deal with the old woman 
 in a finer sincerity. But you've heard it 
 before, and I donno if it's improvin to the 
 mind to be constant goin over the same 
 theme, when there's a doubt whether it's 
 founded on fact. I'll give you a Scripture 
 story instead, and you must remember it's 
 true, and not the kind of story for gigglin 
 purposes." 
 
 So he told them of Joseph and his 
 brethren ; and when he was done, " I wonder 
 why our mothers don't make coats like that 
 now," Teddy Barton said. 
 
 " It's because to keep you children from 
 bein vain, no doubt," said Paul, " which is a
 
 MY BROTHER 13 
 
 sad temptation, and one that opens the door 
 to almost every wrong." 
 
 A little boy made a grab at something in 
 the air. 
 
 " Don't touch it," said Paul ; " it's a spider 
 workin at its web. Just look how he's 
 doin it. Ssh stop your breath, Teddy. 
 Wonderful, wonderful. You must never kill 
 a spider, children ; it's bad luck to." 
 
 " But they're cruel themselves, and kill 
 flies and things," Teddy protested ; " so, if 
 you kill them, it only pays them out." 
 
 " That's true, so far," said Paul, " but it's no 
 argyment. We may wonder, as I offen do, 
 what the insects consider of our care of the 
 young birds in the spring, that's waitin for 
 a chance to wolf them up ; but it's not for 
 us to go behind sich mysteries. Everything 
 is in a perfect law, if we could but see it." 
 
 " Why can't we ? " Teddy asked. 
 
 " How should I know ? " said Paul. " God 
 made it, and never took none of us into His 
 confidence when He done it. But we do 
 know it couldn't have been better done, not 
 if all the men and women and children in the
 
 14 MY BROTHER 
 
 world includin that conceited big man 
 Teddy Barton had tried their hands at it." 
 
 Paul had forgotten for the time the purpose 
 of his walk to the Little Wood. But when 
 the children were gone, he went close to the 
 gate, and read the warning to trespassers 
 that was nailed to a tree. He stood regard- 
 ing it with a preoccupied air : yet with no 
 harsh feeling against the young man who 
 had had it put up there. And presently, as 
 he made his way westward along by the 
 wood, he searched mentally the Book of the 
 Prophet Ezekiel (for whose writings Paul 
 had a strong partiality) for words concerning 
 trespassers of another kind. He could not 
 recall anything from Ezekiel which just 
 suited the case : so his mind went burrowing 
 far and near in the Scriptures. But the 
 words somehow continued to baffle him. 
 " They're on my tongue," he said to himself: 
 " but I can't bring them in their true shape." 
 
 He stopped to look at a blue butterfly on 
 meadowsweet, and fell in a muse. "The 
 wise sad men," he thought, "dream of the 
 golden days, while the butterflies and the
 
 MY BROTHER 15 
 
 children live in them." He sighed. " It 
 makes a world of difference, and makes us 
 think that innocence is life, and knowledge 
 pain." 
 
 He went on. " I do feel," he said to him- 
 self, " I'd like a nice cup of tea." He stopped 
 again, looking towards the village. "Ay; 
 I'll go and ask Mrs May if she'll give me 
 a cup." He came off the road, and made his 
 way across the hillside back to the village. 
 
 In half-an-hour Paul (being slow of gait) 
 reached Mrs May's cottage. It stood off a 
 by-path, in a garden, and was a very humble 
 dwelling. There were two tiny windows and 
 a door in front, and on opening the door you 
 were at once in the living-room. Most of the 
 Occlesby cottages were after this pattern ; in 
 some, five or six children slept in one bed, 
 feet to feet. Never an autumn passed but 
 young men and young women died of con- 
 sumption. Others went forth, to Danbridge 
 and elsewhere, to seek their fortune, and came 
 home to die. The rents .were low ; and no- 
 body seemed to think that anybody was to 
 blame.
 
 16 MY BROTHER 
 
 Paul had begun again to search the Scrip- 
 tures in his head, but he gave this up on 
 arriving at Mrs May's cottage. " I'll look in 
 the concordance when I get home," he said 
 to himself. He tapped at the door, opened 
 it without being bidden, and entered.
 
 Ill 
 
 HE shut the door behind him, very softly ; 
 and having placed his blackthorn in a corner, 
 put his hat on the floor beside it, and then : 
 " Good day, Mrs May," said he. The elderly 
 woman seated on a stool by the fire looked 
 round at him with troubled eyes, but made 
 him no answer. Some one was weeping in 
 the bedroom. 
 
 Mrs May " 
 
 " Paul," she said, " I'm glad you've come." 
 She seemed not to wish to let him see her face. 
 
 The bedroom door was shut, and the 
 weeping was less violent after Paul entered 
 the living-room. There were now low sobs, 
 as though a person were lying with face hid 
 in bedclothes. Paul stood silent awhile. 
 
 " Mrs May " 
 
 "I'm glad you've come, Paul," she said 
 again. " Won't you sit down, Paul." 
 
 B *i
 
 1 8 MY BROTHER 
 
 The invitation lacked urgency ; but Paul 
 knew that he was welcome. This had been 
 to him a kind of second home ; Mrs May had 
 dressed his mother for burial. He sighed as 
 he took the chair opposite to her on the 
 hearth. Mrs May began to put bits of wood 
 on the fire. She was a worn, thin, weary 
 woman ; as she leaned towards the fire Paul's 
 gaze rested on her shoulders, and he saw how 
 the blades came out in sharp angular outline 
 under the small black shawl she was wearing. 
 In her hands and wrists, when he looked at 
 them, he read a pathos still more acute. She 
 stooped to blow the fire, and at that moment 
 Paul had a vision of a Figure kneeling in a 
 garden by the Syrian shore. The weeping 
 in the next room gave intensity to his inward 
 sight, a poignant note to his sympathy. 
 
 " You say you're glad I've come, Mrs May." 
 
 "Yes, Paul. It's about Lizzie." 
 
 Mrs May turned to him : hers was a long, 
 serious, sad face, full of the dignity of reticent 
 suffering : a face on which one might expect 
 to see a smile of gratitude when at last its 
 tired eyes should look on death.
 
 MY BROTHER ip 
 
 " Lizzie," Paul said. " About Lizzie. 
 What's she cryin for, Mrs May ? " 
 
 "Oh, Paul, can't you guess?" And the 
 mother looked into his eyes, and Paul, under- 
 standing, sat in a silence that was like par- 
 alysis of mental and physical faculties. Lizzie's 
 mother bowed her head before him, and there 
 was weeping in both rooms now. 
 
 Paul was so moved with compassion that 
 he could see only the blurred outline of a 
 woman for his tears. He glanced at the 
 inner door, then bent his head down to Mrs 
 May and whispered 
 
 " Lord Lusson ? " 
 
 " Yes, Paul. So she says " 
 
 " It's true ! " Paul said, raising his voice. 
 It's been in my mind, Mrs May, that wicked- 
 ness was bein done. He had the look of one 
 of the destroyers not a cruel man, deliberate- 
 like, mebbe, but flamin in the high pride of 
 life, drawin the weak and innocent to him. 
 But I never thought; it never came home 
 to me clear ; it was all a mystery when I 
 saw her yonder, in the rhododendron path, 
 runnin away as if she thought I was watchin
 
 20 MY BROTHER 
 
 her. I'd not do that; it was more a anxious- 
 ness, unknown even to my own heart. I 
 wondered never to see nobody with her in 
 the Little Wood, and how she avoided me, as 
 if I was a ill sight for a young girl. But 
 I've seen him there ; I've looked in his face 
 . . . God will deal with him. He's a great 
 high man above what we can do. But there's 
 justice before His throne, if there's none on 
 earth . . . O Lord, have mercy on the inno- 
 cent and the poor ! Don't let your lambs be 
 forsook ; we'll spread our sad news before you, 
 and our weak hands are held up, and we'd 
 hold them higher and cleaner but for our sins 
 . . . The Lord will deal with him ! " Paul 
 cried. 
 
 He slipped upon a sudden from his chair on 
 to his knees, and began to pray. He prayed as 
 Mrs May had never heard man pray; the vehe- 
 mence of his words and manner frightened her, 
 and she trembled as she sat watching him. She 
 could not understand all he said; it seemed to 
 her that much of it was in an unknown tongue. 
 He closed his eyes and clasped his great hard 
 hands, and his limbs shook as though he had
 
 MY BROTHER 21 
 
 lost control of them. He shouted out his 
 petition in a voice that was quite unlike the 
 voice of his ordinary conversation. He was 
 never still a moment while he prayed now 
 his folded hands were lifted up, now unclasped 
 as he knelt almost prostrate ; now his arms 
 were stretched forth as if to ward off the 
 attack of some invisible adversary ; and con- 
 tinually as he writhed, he prayed, till he was 
 overwhelmed by the violence of his emotion. 
 
 " Paul, Lizzie'll hear," Mrs May whispered. 
 She took hold of his arm to stay him, unable 
 longer to bear the sight of this. " Lizzie'll 
 hear, Paul. She's stopped cryin. She'll have 
 heard what you've said, Paul." 
 
 When he opened his eyes he was so ex- 
 hausted that he seemed to see nothing, and 
 was apparently incapable of rising. It was as 
 though his body and soul were parting. Mrs 
 May took a cup of water from the table, and 
 offered it to him, but he shook his head ; and 
 she, having helped him into his chair, wiped 
 with her handkerchief the sweat from his face. 
 
 "Paul, you're shakin all over. What's 
 come to you ? "
 
 22 MY BROTHER 
 
 " There's been an answer, Mrs May," 
 he said. 
 
 " What was it, Paul ? " she asked, more to 
 humour him than from belief that anything 
 supernatural had happened in her little room. 
 
 " The answer was, there's been wickedness 
 done, and sufferin must come I donno who 
 or what but somebody'll have to suffer. It 
 wasn't showed to me plain ; I couldn't have 
 bore it but there must be sufferin. This 
 that's been done must be washed out with 
 pain. I saw a red fiery flame, and that 
 means violence, more wrongdoin it might 
 mean mebbe to cover and hide up what's 
 been done . . . Nothin was clear as to that 
 . . . His ways is unsearchable and not to be 
 found out till our hearts is broke and sub- 
 dued. Ay, there's been sore wickedness, the 
 voice said, and the wrath must be appeased." 
 
 Mrs May crouched at the Prophet's feet, 
 holding his hand. 
 
 " Oh, Paul, Paul ! you say violence blood- 
 shed and it's that weighs heavy on me." 
 
 " Has it been done ? Has aught been done 
 to him? " Paul asked eagerly.
 
 MY BROTHER 23 
 
 " Not that I know of, Paul. But I fear for 
 what Willie might be tempted to do when 
 he's told about Lizzie. He loves her as 
 brothers don't often love their sisters. It's 
 beautiful to see the love and care he has for 
 her, and he's not differed any since he got 
 married and had children of his own. But 
 Willie's sich a headstrong passionate man, 
 there's no knowin what his passions may 
 lead him to when the shame of Lizzie's 
 trouble is upon him." 
 
 " He mustn't be told," Paul said. 
 
 " His wife suspects." 
 
 "Ah, women do first," Paul said. "But 
 you'll have to try to keep it from him till 
 Lord Lusson is far afield. I'm told he's 
 going to India soon, or some other foreign 
 land, and this'll have to be kept from Willie 
 till he's gone. His passionateness is not to 
 be trusted ; I saw him near kill a man once 
 because he said somethin out of the way to 
 his wife. He knocked him down, and when 
 he got up, lifted him off the ground and 
 threw him over a hedge. I was terrified for 
 the poor man's life, and went over to him and
 
 24 MY BROTHER 
 
 helped him on his way. Willie went off with 
 his wife, takin no notice. . . . And his love for 
 Lizzie has always, as you say, been beautiful 
 and proud, and I'd not wonder if it comes 
 near to unhingin his senses when he learns 
 the truth." Paul lowered his voice " Would 
 you suppose there's aught I could do for her, 
 Mrs May ? You're her mother ; and you've 
 been a kind and jealous mother, as I've 
 known, though it's been upon me at times 
 that Willie's pride in Lizzie might be a 
 stumblin-block to her. There's many of us 
 needs to be forgiven ; it's hard offen to say, 
 when we're wishful of doin what's right and 
 just, whether we're not makin hurt for them 
 that's the apple of our eye. But if I can 
 help in this mournful time, I hope you that's 
 Lizzie's mother will not be backward in sayin 
 what it may be." 
 
 " I'm thankful for your words, Paul. But 
 I can't think what can be done. I thought 
 of goin to see Lord Lusson " 
 
 " No, no," Paul said. " Mrs May Mrs May 
 you'll not let that man take her away ! " 
 
 " But what can we do without him, Paul ? "
 
 MY BROTHER 25 
 
 " We can be her friends, Mrs May. If he 
 takes her away, what'll be her life ? . . . No, 
 no, no, Mrs May, it's more charity to keep 
 her from him." 
 
 "Paul, Paul," Lizzie's mother cried, "it's 
 breakin my heart " 
 
 " Only as his wife," said Paul ; " only as his 
 lawful wife." 
 
 " But there's no hope he'll make her his 
 wife, Paul." 
 
 "Then there's no hope at all from him. 
 It's unpossible, Mrs May. If he was to take 
 her from her home, he'd not find her another 
 it's not in his nature to ; if he'd loved her 
 he'd have had more regard for her good name 
 and the peace and honour of you her mother, 
 and Willie her brother, and her kith and kin. 
 And then, unless her heart and spirit was to 
 break, she'd become blind to high things, and 
 that would be far worse than the finger of 
 scorn in Occlesby." 
 
 In the brief silence Paul's eyes again 
 wandered to the bedroom door. The sobbing 
 had ceased ; not the faintest sound came 
 from the room.
 
 26 MY BROTHER 
 
 " Mrs May, I don't want Lizzie to hear. 
 . . . Mrs May, would you think she'd marry 
 me? . . ." Paul held his breath awhile. 
 " You must have judged, Mrs May, that I've 
 loved her for years. I've thought at times 
 she might have guessed it herself, though I've 
 never spoke a word of love to her, not wish- 
 in to stop her happiness, and knowin how 
 pretty and clever she was, and like to be 
 sought for by a more presentable man. But 
 if it's different now ... I donno why . . . 
 mebbe it might be different to some. . . . 
 Mrs May, I hope you'll not think it of me, 
 that I'd presume in a time of trouble I'm 
 sure you'll not think that, Mrs May, bein 
 Lizzie's mother, and almost the only one 
 that understands me since you laid out my 
 mother for her grave. ..."
 
 IV 
 
 "PAUL," Lizzie's mother said, "I'd never 
 think it of you, that you'd take the advan- 
 tage of them in sorrow, whatever else I might 
 think." She wiped her eyes. " You've 
 showed me many a kindness, Paul, and 
 you've kept our garden neat and tidy since 
 poor father died, and you've borne in patient 
 silence many and many a unkind and mis- 
 respectful word from 'Lizzie, that she could 
 never have meant in the spirit of the 
 
 words " 
 
 " Ay, I'm sure of that, Mrs May." 
 "And I've heard her say of you, how good 
 you are, and your gentle ways have often 
 touched her, for all her light words to you. 
 It was not so long ago she said, if you was 
 like somebody else, with your nature, what 
 a fine man you'd be. But I spoke to her 
 about it once what you've said of lovin 
 
 27
 
 28 MY BROTHER 
 
 her; not sayin it came from you, but from 
 me and she told me, and I believe it came 
 from her heart, Paul, that she could never 
 marry you, even if she was to be a old 
 maid all her life." 
 
 Paul smiled strangely. 
 
 "Well, well," he said, "I daresay she's 
 right. A bonny proud lassie like her can't 
 be for sich as me, and it do make me look 
 presumptious on my part. Only, I thought 
 if she cared for me a little, or if there was 
 a feelin within her that she might learn to 
 care for me. . . . But I beg your humble 
 pardon, Mrs May, and Lizzie's likewise, for 
 havin said sich a thing at sich a time, when 
 you can't laugh at me." 
 
 " We'd not do that, Paul." 
 
 " No ; I don't believe you would, Mrs May ; 
 nor Lizzie neither, if she thought I was 
 serious. It's not many young ladies that 
 take me for serious at the best, and it offen 
 amuses me when -I'm alone to think how 
 much they see to laugh at in me. And it'll 
 always been a great comfortable remem- 
 brance to me, what you've said she's said
 
 MY BROTHER 2Q 
 
 about me, and her sayin it shows there's 
 good in her, or she'd never have tried to see 
 it in me. And I do hope no harm's been 
 done me mentionin this, Mrs May." 
 
 " No harm, Paul ; none at all. It was only 
 your goodness that made you take pity on 
 her." 
 
 Paul shook his head. " It's a wonder to 
 me," he said in a low voice, " what them that 
 are kind of heart do think of me. It makes 
 me feel more broken and helpless than harsh 
 words. Ah, there's more kindness in the 
 world than we offen think, when we're took 
 hold off by Giant Despair. Willie pays your 
 rent, do he not ? " Paul asked. 
 
 "And more than that," said Mrs May. 
 "The rent's half-a-crown a week, and ever 
 since his marriage, Willie's give me another 
 two shillin to keep the house with, he's sich 
 a horror of parish relief for his mother. 
 Lizzie, with her dress-makin, has done what 
 she could, but young girls wants things for 
 themselves that make a hole in what dress- 
 makin brings in. We've managed nicely up 
 to now ; though my mind " (Mrs May's lips
 
 30 MY BROTHER 
 
 quivered) " is not easy because I've not 
 watched over Lizzie as a mother should." 
 
 " I'd not say you've call to reproach your- 
 self on that account, Mrs May. It was to be 
 and the end's not yet. But it's very hard 
 and marvellous, this bitterness to come to 
 one so young and bright and free of spirit 
 and on you, and Willie, and his wife, and 
 your relations in Stanforth, for the worst of 
 wrongdoin is, we can never do it and only 
 suffer ourselves. It's the same with doin 
 good ; we're all in a family, and can't get 
 away from it. But we must stand by her, 
 and hope she'll live to lift up her face again 
 in smiles and gladness, for she's but a young 
 lassie yet not out of her teens Ay ; but a 
 child, and she looks a child, no more. . . . 
 Poor lassie, poor lassie. . . ." 
 
 Paul rose, and took his blackthorn and his 
 hat from the floor. 
 
 " It's in my mind, Mrs May, to go to this 
 young lord, and ask him to make sich amends 
 as a man should. He ought to be spoke to 
 before he goes away. But I'd not like to do 
 it if it was against Lizzie's wishes and yours."
 
 MY BROTHER 31 
 
 " I'll speak to her, Paul." Mrs May went 
 towards the bedroom door. " Lizzie," she 
 called softly. There was no answer. " Lizzie 
 here's Paul Penfold come to see you." Still 
 there was no sign. Paul held up his hand. 
 
 " Don't call again," he said. 
 
 He made for the door opening on to the 
 garden ; there, turning, with the door slightly 
 open, he said : " Mebbe she'll not wish to be 
 disturbed while she's restin. I'll come back 
 in the dusk, if you think there's aught she'd 
 like to say to me. Will you give her my. . . 
 love, Mrs May, and say I'm her friend, and 
 always at her biddin ? And God bless you, 
 Mrs May, and God bless and comfort Lizzie 
 
 He slowly pulled the door open and went 
 out, putting on his hat when he was in the 
 garden, as though he were leaving a hallowed 
 place. 
 
 He was limping down the garden when the 
 cottage door was opened again, and a young 
 girl, with soft brown eyes and plenteous 
 brown hair, stood on the threshold looking 
 after him. The girl was dressed modestly in
 
 32 MY BROTHER 
 
 black : attire which seemed sadly to harmonise 
 with the deep distress of her pretty oval face. 
 Her mother stood behind her, looking over 
 her shoulder. 
 
 " Call him back, "Lizzie." 
 
 The girl sighed, but did not speak. 
 
 " He's your true friend, Lizzie. You can 
 trust him." 
 
 " Paul . . ." 
 
 Paul looked back at once, and the girl 
 bowed her head, and began to weep afresh. 
 Her mother took her by the hand. 
 
 " Come in and sit by the fire, Lizzie." 
 
 They had gone from the doorway before 
 Paul got to it. He shut the door very care- 
 fully behind him. Lizzie was standing with 
 her elbows resting on the chimneypiece, her 
 face in her hands. She was weeping as one 
 who had wept till her strength was spent. 
 
 " Lizzie ! " Paul said. 
 
 She did not move as he approached the 
 fireplace. He stood behind her in an attitude 
 of reverence and humility. 
 
 " Lizzie," Mrs May said, " here's Paul come 
 back. Won't you speak to him ? "
 
 MY BROTHER 33 
 
 But the girl would not show her face. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " she cried, and sobbed. 
 
 Paul had put his hat on a chair, but now 
 he took it up again, and saying in a whisper, 
 "I'll come in the time of dusk, Mrs May," 
 returned to the door. 
 
 " He's goin away, Lizzie," Mrs May said. 
 " Surely you'll say a word to him ? " 
 
 But Lizzie wept the more. 
 
 " My dear lassie," Paul said, " you must 
 
 keep up your heart " He drew near to 
 
 her once more. He did not dare touch her; 
 but he rested his hand on the edge of the 
 mantelshelf, and looked upon her with a 
 hungry affection. " Lizzie, it's not in my 
 power to speak the thoughts of my heart. 
 But I'm your friend, Lizzie ay, you'll believe 
 that, my dear I'll always be your friend." 
 And then he went from the house, and down 
 the garden, and out on to the hilly road.
 
 V 
 
 PAUL, remembering that he had received 
 scant encouragement (and feeling, moreover, 
 a little shaky), did not return to Mrs May's 
 cottage in the evening. It was no way of 
 Paul's to be abroad of nights: sunset, as a 
 rule, drove him indoors, and sunrise awoke 
 him, as though he could hear it telling the 
 glory of God. So, in this still twilight of 
 pain, he shut himself up in his hut (that was 
 set remote among undergrowths on no-man's 
 land, where nightingales every June made the 
 air tingle with fiery song), and there meditated 
 what he should say when he stood face to 
 face with the destroyer of Lizzie's happiness. 
 And Paul, in his loneliness, had a vision 
 of the world's course, and the things men 
 do and leave undone. " It seems naught to 
 them that pass by," said he to himself. He 
 was very, very perplexed and heavy of heart. 
 
 34
 
 MY BROTHER 35 
 
 But Paul was not to be left alone with his 
 thoughts this evening ; for Willie May, going 
 homeward along the Alveton road after a 
 late job at a country house (Willie was a 
 carpenter, and accounted an honest work- 
 man), chanced to call at the Prophet's hut 
 not that Willie sought any favour of Paul, 
 or had suspicion of the trouble brooding over 
 the old home, but simply, so to say, for the 
 sake of calling. As became a strong man of 
 masterful temper, Paul's queer mode of life 
 interested Willie, and amused him. This sort 
 of hermit existence would never have suited 
 Willie, and he held the Prophet in open scorn 
 that he should stand to it year upon year, 
 without murmur. "You're a downright old 
 woman, Prophet," had he said over and over 
 again ; but few words harsher than that, for 
 there was sometimes an incomprehensible 
 something about Paul that made Willie pause 
 in his not ill-meant pleasantries to consider 
 himself. Nor was the rough giant angered 
 at this, as a small soul would have been. It 
 must be religion, he confessed to himself, 
 feeling at the same time that he would rather
 
 36 MY BROTHER 
 
 be as he was, and marvelling greatly why 
 good people should so often be weakly of 
 body. 
 
 The Prophet, when his visitor came stalk- 
 ing impetuously into the hut, turned up the 
 lamp and gave him hearty welcome. Willie 
 had a straw basket of carpenter's tools swung 
 over his shoulder, and this, in a kind of lord- 
 liness of superior might, he flung on the floor, 
 as he sat down on a wooden bench in that 
 corner of the hut where the Prophet had 
 lighted a stove to keep out the damp night 
 air. 
 
 " Hooh ! there's hardly room enough for 
 two decent-sized men like me and you 
 in a toadstool shanty like this," Willie said. 
 
 It was easy to believe that he was Lizzie's 
 brother. His mother's word stood for it that 
 he was the handsomest man in the village 
 (now his father was gone), and the claim was 
 not so extravagant as to be scoffed at in 
 Occlesby ; it was commonly admitted, indeed, 
 as touching other mothers' sons. The young 
 man, with his dark vivid eyes, strenuous 
 head, and muscular admirable limbs, was of
 
 MY BROTHER 37 
 
 the type that inspires the feminine imagina- 
 tion. His forehead hardly favoured him : a 
 subdued light gave it a vaguely noble outline, 
 but in the daytime could be seen hills and 
 hollows that recorded crude intelligence and 
 passions uncontrolled. Willie, in truth, would 
 have been rather ashamed of himself not to 
 be able to blaze forth when anything put him 
 out. Paul had knowledge of some of his 
 lawless doings, and in past years had feared 
 for what might have been ; but Willie's faults 
 (in Paul's estimate of good and evil) weighed 
 but as a feather in the balance with his 
 devotion to his mother and his deep love for 
 his sister, which yet did not cause him to 
 neglect his wife and children. There was 
 none like Lizzie, Willie seemed to think, said 
 Willie's wife. The sisters-in-law had never 
 fallen to open quarrelling as to the heights 
 and depths of their merits in Willie's eyes ; 
 though it probably needed small provocation 
 to rouse Mrs Willie to candour in this regard. 
 " If I was you, Prophet, I'd make the hut 
 bigger. You could soon knock that end out 
 and make more of it I'd be willin to give
 
 38 MY BROTHER 
 
 you a hand, so's to make some sense of the 
 job." 
 
 " Thank you, Willie. But it's big enough 
 for a wee bit of a man like me," said Paul, 
 with a humorous twinkle. He had an open 
 book on his knee, with a sheet of writing- 
 paper on it, covered with pencil marks (the 
 Prophet's handwriting was a thing to see); 
 and perceiving that Willie's eyes were grown 
 inquisitive regarding this writing, he closed 
 the book and laid it on one side. The writ- 
 ing was the heads of the pleadings which 
 Paul hoped to commit to memory, for use 
 when he should go to Lord Lusson ; and the 
 last words he had written down were, " When 
 lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin ; and 
 sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death :" 
 words which had a profound and awful mean- 
 ing for Paul, and, in the last extremity, he 
 was resolved to utter them solemnly in the 
 young lord's hearing, telling him where they 
 were to be found written for the warning of 
 such as he. 
 
 " What have you there, Prophet ? " Willie 
 asked, pointing to the closed book. "A
 
 MY BROTHER 39 
 
 love-letter hey? I do believe it's a love- 
 letter ! So you're goin in for a wife hey 
 like the rest of us common sinners that can't 
 live alone respectable. Ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 Paul took up the book (it was a Bible) and 
 put it under his arm with an evident anxiety 
 that caused Willie to make the hut shake 
 again before his explosions of laughter. 
 
 " It's a love-letter ! I'll be bound it's the 
 Prophet's first love-letter that's why he's so 
 scared for me to see it. Pooh," said Willie, 
 with a knowing wink and a grand wave of 
 his arm, " them things is nothing when you 
 get used to it. Nothing! I've writ scores 
 and scores in my time, and I daresay they're 
 more fuller of lies and rubbish than most 
 things in black and white." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder but what you re right, 
 Willie," Paul said with an abstracted air. 
 " But I can't speak from experience, not 
 havin writ them myself at sich a rate. 
 What's in this book is no love-letter, Willie ; 
 it's not in that style at all." He patted the 
 end of the book. " No ; this is a strong 
 argyment from the Word a kind of sermon.
 
 40 MY BROTHER 
 
 Yet not a sermon so much as a explanation ; 
 and it's only to be preached to one." 
 
 " That'll be a lively sort of religious service," 
 Willie laughed. " I'd like to be there in the 
 gallery, watchin the congregation's face. I 
 hope you'll spare their feelins, Prophet ! " 
 
 " Willie, Willie it's not the merry-hearted 
 matter you think. But then, you donno " 
 
 " What's that I donno ? Well, I must be 
 off," said Willie, picking up his tool-basket. 
 " Here, while I sit bletherin with you, the 
 wife's bein kept waitin for her supper. Good- 
 night, Prophet." 
 
 "Well, good-night, Willie," Paul said, "if 
 you can't stay a while longer. I do like your 
 company sometimes, Willie." 
 
 " Sometimes ! " 
 
 Paul smiled ; he felt a little aggrieved at 
 Willie's manner and the abrupt ending of 
 his visit, and this was meant as a terribly 
 severe sarcasm. He was moving to the door, 
 to open it for Willie (a thing Paul always 
 did for his visitors), when the carpenter took 
 him by the shoulders and gave him a good- 
 natured shaking.
 
 MY BROTHER 4! 
 
 " I'll pay you out for that, Prophet ! But, 
 lord, you are a man of skin and bone ! I 
 wonder you don't sell yourself to a rag- 
 shop " 
 
 " I'm not ragged, Willie ; you can't say 
 that of me, though I'll agree to it, I've no 
 mountains of fat to spare. But where's the 
 hole in my clothes you can set eyes on ? " 
 
 " Never mind, Prophet ; never mind ; it was 
 only my joke." 
 
 Willie got outside rather hurriedly; then, 
 wheeling round, and laughing a little self- 
 consciously, he held something above his 
 head. 
 
 " I've got your blackthorn, Prophet ! " 
 
 " Oh but you mustn't take it," Paul said 
 in a meek, persuasive tone. Willie, as he 
 backed himself from the hut, continued to 
 laugh in a forced, shamefaced way ; and Paul 
 felt glad that he did not seem to be proud 
 of his cunning in surreptitiously seizing the 
 walking-stick. " Now bring it back, that's a 
 good lad " for Willie kept moving away. 
 
 " It'll be all right, Prophet ! You'll get it 
 again when I'm tired of it. You're strong
 
 42 MY BROTHER 
 
 enough to do without a crutch at your time 
 of life ! " 
 
 " So are you, Willie." 
 
 " But I want it ; I said to myself, I must 
 have the Prophet's blackthorn, and now I've 
 got it fair and square ! " 
 
 " Not fair, Willie " 
 
 " Ha ! but you couldn't have stopped me 
 if you'd seen ! " 
 
 " Willie, I want my blackthorn. There's 
 not sich another in Occlesby " 
 
 " Ho ! " cried Willie, " there's carnal pride 
 in a man of religion. He's got the best, 
 and wants to keep it ! I'm ashamed of 
 you, Prophet ; you're as ungodly as the rest 
 of us ! " 
 
 "Willie, I want my blackthorn !" 
 
 "No, no, man ! It's far over good for you. 
 I'll keep it out of your temptation ; it would 
 sure to be your spiritual downfall ! " And 
 Willie disappeared under the trees. 
 
 Paul, standing in the doorway, looked out 
 upon the shadows. For some minutes he 
 waited and watched. But Willie did not 
 come back.
 
 MY BROTHER 43 
 
 " I never would have believed it of him, 
 that he'd do sich a thing," Paul said to him- 
 self sadly. He shut and barred the hut door, 
 and went back to his stove and the notes 
 of his sermon for one. He had turned up 
 the lamp in honour of Willie's visit : now 
 he lowered the flame, to save oil. "No," 
 he muttered as he opened the book and 
 spread out the sheet of writing-paper, " I 
 never would have thought it of Willie, if 
 anybody else had said it Never. And him 
 Lizzie's brother. . . ."
 
 VI 
 
 BUT soon, seated alone with his thoughts 
 (which were not always unpleasant com- 
 panions), Paul forgot all about his beloved 
 blackthorn, and fell into compassionate con- 
 cernment towards the sorrowing women in 
 the cottage down the hill. He kept the 
 "heads" of his appeal to Lord Lusson on 
 the open book on his knee, and held a 
 half-inch of grimy pencil in impressive 
 literary style between his thumb and fore- 
 finger ; but this was from mental preoccupa- 
 tion, for he made no addition to his notes. 
 He turned presently to the last chapter of 
 Ecclesiastes, that saddest piece of writing 
 (surely) in the world, and read it out loud 
 to himself, shaking his head solemnly as 
 he paused with his finger at this verse or 
 that The iteration of the word " broken " in 
 the verse beginning, " Or ever the silver cord 
 be loosed," had a significance for him, on this
 
 MY BROTHER 45 
 
 still night, such as it never seemed to have 
 had before. The fact that he did not under- 
 stand the chapter simply as a description 
 of old age, was evidence no doubt of the 
 poverty of Paul's mind. But then he was " no 
 scholar:" even Willie May, himself illiterate 
 enough, had a contempt for the Prophet's 
 reasoning powers ; and the critical faculty was 
 hardly a thing he would have cared to keep 
 alive. What he did understand was that the 
 chapter called him out of himself into a finer 
 harmony with suffering humanity; and as 
 he left the matter there, desiring to know no 
 more, you will perceive that he was a very 
 ignorant, simple fellow, and not at all a Bible 
 student of the schools. 
 
 There was little enough of beauty or of 
 luxury in the Prophet's hut. The coloured 
 texts on the walls would have set a cultured 
 theologian's teeth on edge. He slept at 
 nights and, he said, soundly, even when 
 storms raged on a hard straw mattress, 
 covered by a blanket (which was taken to 
 Mrs May every spring to be washed) and 
 an amazing patchwork counterpane of Paul's
 
 46 MY BROTHER 
 
 own making. Then he had a couple of plain 
 wood chairs : to one of which was fastened 
 with string an ancient cushion, this never 
 being used by Paul himself, but reserved for 
 the womenfolk who sometimes dropped in, 
 either from pity or curiosity, or both. The 
 bench near the stove was for strangers, 
 and many a travel-soiled wayfarer had been 
 entertained sumptuously in this secluded 
 abode among the trees. An old trunk con- 
 taining Paul's Sunday clothes and certain 
 other family heirlooms stood at the foot of 
 the bed : and ever since the marvels of this 
 trunk had been displayed on a memorable 
 occasion to an Occlesby youth of sarcastic 
 wit, it had been celebrated in the region 
 round about as the Prophet's pawnshop. No- 
 body, it was supposed, save this favoured 
 young man, had ever been privileged to peep 
 therein, and since he was of a somewhat 
 imaginative turn, and given to the study of 
 enthralling literature, it may be that Paul's 
 trunk was not really the astonishing treasure- 
 store reported. Nevertheless, he was an 
 untiring collector of trifles ; and when his
 
 MY BROTHER 47 
 
 friends laughed, and said, "Why, you can't 
 have no use for that, Prophet," he would make 
 answer in his quiet, smiling way : " Mebbe no, 
 mebbe aye. There's gener'ly a use for every- 
 thing if you keep it long enough." 
 
 Precious among Paul's treasures were his 
 books ; these half-score volumes, all of ven- 
 erable aspect, were set out in imposing array 
 between two slabs of varnished wood (a 
 Christmas gift, this bookcase, from Willie 
 May), which were fastened together with stout 
 cord, and hung from a gigantic nail which 
 Willie had driven into the wall near the stove, 
 so that the books might not get damp. Three 
 of the volumes were poetical Shakespeare, 
 Milton, and Cowper (the Prophet read Milton 
 oftenest) ; two gave the experiences of gentle- 
 men who had made famous names for them- 
 selves in the mission field ; and the others 
 were more or less religious in tone, including 
 a bulky volume of irregular numbers of that 
 interesting and improving periodical, "The 
 Holiness Testifier," price one half-penny 
 weekly. These honest and sober books 
 were held in affectionate regard by Paul for
 
 48 MY BROTHER 
 
 two reasons ; because they were founded 
 on fact, and if not founded on fact (he 
 had doubts about Shakespeare), then because 
 of their wisdom ; and because they had all 
 been handled, and some of them even read 
 in places, by his mother, whose memory 
 was to Paul one of the sweetest of the gifts of 
 life. She had not been a perfect woman, 
 and they said in Occlesby that her death 
 was a blessing to Paul, and a happy release 
 to herself; but she had become very beautiful 
 and blameless in the alchemy of his love and 
 gratitude, and he often walked and talked 
 with her still on dreamy evenings in the 
 Little Wood. Paul's Bible was never put in 
 the bookcase ; he kept it under his pillow. 
 In it was written, in ink now faded, " Sarah 
 Penfold." Penfold was his mother's " maiden 
 name." Another valued belonging was the 
 silver watch of very considerable dimensions 
 which Paul carried about with him in a deep 
 pocket in the inside of his waistcoat ; and 
 when, his chest beginning to ache owing to 
 his remaining so long in a bent position, he 
 now unbuttoned his waistcoat and drew up
 
 MY BROTHER 49 
 
 this substantial and eccentric timekeeper 
 from the depths, he was surprised to find 
 that it was past nine o'clock. He rose, 
 stretched himself, then turned up the lamp a 
 little, and took from the top of the stove a 
 coarse basin covered with a plate. This plate 
 being removed revealed a mess of porridge, 
 sluggishly bubbling. It kept on bubbling 
 after it was taken off the stove, as if the stuff 
 had life in it, a thing that awoke in Paul 
 almost daily wonderment. Drawing his 
 chair up to the small square table (another 
 of Willie May's presents), he stirred the 
 porridge with a wooden spoon, and was deep 
 in the enjoyment of his supper when he was 
 disturbed by an unusual occurrence. Some 
 one was calling his name from without. 
 
 "Paul!" 
 
 He had heard no noise till his name was 
 called. The voice sounded thick and gaspy, 
 as from the bowels of the earth. It was more 
 like a woman's voice than a man's, but the 
 Prophet could not feel sure as to the 
 speaker's sex. 
 
 " Paul ! Paul ! "
 
 50 MY BROTHER 
 
 This time the voice came clearer, and he 
 recognised it as that of Mrs May. He stood 
 up and looked about him ; his visitor was 
 plainly not at the door, and he failed, in the 
 surprise and abstraction that were upon him, 
 to identify her whereabouts. 
 
 " Paul Paul Paul Penfold ! " the voice 
 called out again in a kind of choking frenzy. 
 
 " Is that you, Mrs May?" said Paul, staring 
 nowhere in particular. 
 
 " Yes, Paul ! I'm here at the window. 
 Can't you see me, Paul ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay, I see you now, Mrs May." He 
 stepped across to the window, the blind of 
 which he had forgotten to pull down, and 
 stood there looking out at the white distracted 
 face disclosed faintly in the lamp-light. There 
 was a background of willows, and beyond 
 that, a dark purple sky, and one golden star. 
 
 "Paul, can I speak to you a minute, if 
 you're alone ? " 
 
 " To be sure ; to be sure, Mrs May. I'm all 
 alone." He motioned with his hand for her to 
 go to the door, and went and opened it. "Come 
 in, Mrs May, come in," he said reverentially.
 
 VII 
 
 HE stood on one side, and Lizzie's mother 
 glided into the hut as though she were some 
 conscience - stricken wretch escaping from 
 justice. She was dressed in black, and the 
 black shawl over her head was held to her 
 throat by ringers that were like the fingers of 
 one dead. Paul made haste to bring her the 
 cushioned chair, the chair of honour that 
 should be for Lizzie's mother more than for 
 the finest lady in the land ; and she sank down 
 on it, sighing, sighing, and pressed her hand 
 to her side. The expression of her face told 
 of anguish and grief of mind, and made Paul's 
 heart beat fast with sympathy and fear. He 
 shut and barred the door. 
 
 " Mrs May, it's Lizzie . . . Mrs May, you 
 look as if you'd seen a ghost ! " 
 
 He turned the other chair and sat before 
 her ; and as she did not speak, he leaned
 
 $2 MY BROTHER 
 
 towards her and just touched the hem of her 
 shawl, lifting it gently on his forefinger with a 
 significance of pity more profound than any 
 words that were possible to him. 
 
 " It's Lizzie, Mrs May. . . . She's left her 
 home . . ." 
 
 " No, Paul no. It's worse than that, Paul 
 . . . Lord Lusson's dead ! " 
 
 " Dead ! " Paul said. " Lord Lusson " 
 
 " Paul, Paul, Willie's took his life ! " Mrs 
 May murmured, and hid her face in her 
 shawl, shivering from head to foot. And 
 after that there could surely be no more 
 poignant silence than the silence which fell 
 on this little hut among the trees. 
 
 " Mrs May . . . Mrs May ..." Nothing 
 more could Paul say ; his mind was sus- 
 pended. But he began again to utter her 
 name, as if that were a comfort to him, and 
 to her, and his hands moved pathetically, like 
 one trying to find his way in the dark. And 
 then " Ay," he said strangely, " he was the 
 kind that would make darkness his secret 
 place. Mrs May, Mrs May I this is the 
 Lord's doin, and it's wonderful in our eyes,
 
 MY BROTHER 53 
 
 and past findin out. It's His answer, though 
 not as we thought, and there's to be more 
 sufferin. . . . His ways is not our ways, and 
 He's able to mend evil by seemin evil, and 
 make us run to Him for pity and mercy 
 . . . when the pavilions of the wicked 
 is broke down by the swift angel He 
 sends . . ." 
 
 "Oh, Paul, Paul! ... My Willie; my 
 poor Willie ! . . ." 
 
 The mother was not weeping : her soul was 
 drenched with tears, but her eyes were dry. 
 She showed her face a moment, and Paul 
 gazed upon her as if she were in a sickness 
 unto death. Then, as she bowed her head 
 almost to her knees, her thin gray hair fell 
 out from under the black shawl on to her 
 brow, and Paul smoothed it back with an in- 
 describable reverence. One white hair stuck 
 to his finger, and he took it off and laid it on 
 the Bible, a sacrifice of exquisite pain. He 
 closed his eyes a moment, and said to him- 
 self: " I donno what to do, but I'd be thank- 
 ful to share her burden." The sense of her 
 isolation, and of his, oppressed him, and made
 
 54 MY BROTHER 
 
 him feel how little after all one soul can do 
 for another. 
 
 "You say Lord Lusson's dead. But you're 
 sure, Mrs May ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes, Paul ! Willie took his life 
 only half an hour ago. He came back home 
 to tell me after he'd done it. And now he's 
 gone away, leavin his wife and children and 
 me for ever. ' You'll never see my face again 
 on this side the grave,' he told me . . ." 
 
 " It's unsearchable," said Paul. He took on 
 to his knee the basin containing the remains 
 of his supper, and began to stir the porridge 
 with the wooden spoon. " I'd look on it as a 
 favour, Mrs May," he said," and a honour to 
 my cookin, if you'd try a helpin of this. 
 You're not over strong at no time, and you've 
 suffered more than a woman should this day. 
 It's a supportin food, Mrs May, though not 
 dainty for every taste, I suppose ; and you 
 look as if you was in need of sustenance, if 
 you'll not take it amiss me sayin it." 
 
 He poured into the basin the rest of the 
 milk, which he had been saving for his break- 
 fast, and turned the spoon in an inviting way,
 
 MY BROTHER 55 
 
 saying : " If you'll try this, Mrs May, I'm 
 sure it'll nerve you wonderful ; it does me, 
 I know, when I feel a bit weak and wore. 
 It's the best I've to offer, and I've offen had 
 better in your house, where I've never lacked 
 for a supper or a cup of tea when I've been 
 in need of one." Mrs May did not speak, 
 and did not look up, and Paul rattled the 
 spoon gently on the rim of the basin to 
 attract her attention. "Mrs May, will you 
 not taste this fine porridge that's my own 
 makin ? It's been on the stove since 
 mornin, so there's no fear but it's proper 
 boiled." 
 
 But the mother of Lizzie and Willie shook 
 her head. 
 
 " I've no appetite left, Paul," she said. 
 
 " Just a mouthful ? " 
 
 " No, thank you, Paul." 
 
 " Then you'll take courage of heart, and 
 tell me what's happened. You see, though 
 I believe somethin's wrong, I can't hardly 
 bring myself to think as Willie's done what 
 you say. But if Lord Lusson's gone before 
 his Maker, I say, howsoever it came to pass,,
 
 56 MY BROTHER 
 
 it's the Lord's doin', Mrs May. But Willie 
 was here at dusk, on his way home from 
 work, frank and free and full of his big 
 laughter as ever, joking about my black- 
 thorn. . . . He took it for a lend ... ay, 
 ay; but it's always like that a laugh and 
 joke one minute, with sorrow and tears the 
 next. All this," said Paul, " comes to show 
 what poor things we are, and as helpless as 
 little children, nothin being worth, and 
 mysterious to ourselves. But Willie, how 
 did he get to hear of his sister ? He knew 
 nothing when he was here, or he'd have 
 behaved different. I was full of anxious 
 thoughts while he was talkin so cheerful, 
 knowin the passionate fierce man he is when 
 you cross him." 
 
 " Lord Lusson writ Lizzie a letter, that 
 came soon after you left this afternoon, and, 
 foolish like oh, I've not known what I've 
 been doin all day, Paul I left it on the 
 chimney-shelf after Lizzie'd given it to me 
 to read, and Willie comin in for a chat, 
 found it there, and read it before I could 
 stop him. Then he understood everything
 
 MY BROTHER 57 
 
 at once, and I hardly knew him for my own 
 son, for the change in his face, and the 
 shrunken look upon him. Oh, Paul, my 
 thought was, the shock of Lizzie's trouble 
 
 has broke down his mind ! " 
 
 " Very like, very like, Mrs May." 
 " And then he had one of his fits ot 
 passion, worse than I've ever seen him. I 
 was thankful "Lizzie was out . . . the wild 
 things he said. He wouldn't believe my 
 word she wasn't at home, and went to her 
 room to look, and came out shoutin like 
 a madman, she's gone to meet him in the 
 Little Wood, and ran out of the house. . . . 
 He came back, I donno how long after, 
 lookin wilder than before, and when he said 
 he'd killed Lord Lusson in the wood, I 
 pulled him to the window and looked at 
 his hands, and when there was no blood 
 on them, I said to him, no, no, Willie, you've 
 not done it, but he vowed he had, and said he 
 wasn't sorry he'd done it, and would do it again 
 if he was alive and cumberin the ground." 
 
 " Where was the place," Paul asked, " the 
 young man writ to "Lizzie to meet him ? "
 
 58 MY BROTHER 
 
 " The rhododendron walk." 
 
 "Then these secret meetin's is why he's 
 had it closed " 
 
 "She was to be there at half-past eight, 
 and it was when she was gone that Willie 
 came, and I've not seen her since. I suppose 
 she'll be wanderin about the place waitin 
 for him. . . . When Willie came back the 
 second time he only stayed a minute, to say 
 good-bye for the last time, and as soon as he 
 was gone I ran up the hill to tell you, for I 
 couldn't abide in the house for my thoughts, 
 with no light, the lamp havin run dry. . . ." 
 
 Paul took her hand. "You'll be of good 
 cheer, Mrs May. It's not positive certain 
 Willie's done this great sin. Did he say 
 aught how he done it ? " 
 
 "No, Paul. He only said it, then took 
 me in his arms and kissed me, like as he's 
 never done before, and said God bless you, 
 mother, but never a word of blessin or 
 cursin for 'Lizzie, and he'd never see me 
 again on this side of the grave, for he wasn't 
 going to disgrace his family by lettin them 
 hang him, . . "
 
 MY BROTHER 59 
 
 " Have you the letter Lord Lusson writ 
 to Lizzie?" 
 
 " Yes ; it's in my pocket." 
 
 " Would you care if I was to read it ? It 
 may help in my ideas." 
 
 Mrs May handed him the note. Paul, 
 being a little short-sighted, held it close to 
 the light. 
 
 " DEAR LIZZIE, Do you think you could 
 find time to run up to the rhododendron 
 walk about half-past eight to-night? I am 
 deeply grieved for you. But I hope you 
 will understand how foolish it is to take 
 this trouble so much to heart, and I assure 
 you I shall do all I can for you, and at any 
 rate, if you will keep quiet, and be the 
 sensible girl I believe you to be, you need 
 never want. I should like to call on you, 
 but think it best not to do so, as it might 
 create scandal, which I am anxious, as I 
 daresay you are, to avoid. But we can talk 
 the matter over quietly to-night, and arrange 
 what is best for you to do. You need have 
 no fear of being seen, as I have had the 
 rhododendron walk closed. Yours, L."
 
 60 MY BROTHER 
 
 The Prophet read the note a second time : 
 then shaking his head, laid it on Mrs May's 
 lap. 
 
 "I don't want it, Paul; best put it over 
 the lamp," she said, glancing affrightedly 
 about the hut. 
 
 " I think, for Lizzie's sake, you're in the 
 right," Paul said. " I'll burn it in the stove." 
 He lifted the lid and dropped the letter in 
 upon the red glow. "Now, it's my way of 
 thinkin," he added, "that somebody should 
 make speed to the rhododendron path, and 
 make sure what's happened. If Willie's 
 frighted himself away after only woundin 
 the young man, then he'll need doctor's 
 help, and if he's lying unsensible somewhere 
 off the path, 'Lizzie might never find him, 
 or know there'd been a quarrel, and he might 
 lie all night and perish for lack of timely aid. 
 I'm but a slow coach myself " 
 
 " Oh, Paul, I could never go there," Mrs 
 May broke in, misunderstanding him. 
 
 " I don't say you should, Mrs May. No, 
 no ; it's a man's work, if there was a proper 
 man to do it. I'm not commonly considered
 
 MY BROTHER 6l 
 
 sich, and I know I'm a sort of snail with its 
 house on its back when I'm on my legs, but 
 nevertheless I'm willin to go and see if 
 aught can be done." 
 
 "Will you, Paul? will you?" Mrs May 
 asked eagerly. 
 
 "Ay; this very minute." He hobbled to 
 the window and looked out. "There's the 
 moon full out, with a clean sweep for her 
 over the sky, so that'll be helpful. There's 
 always somethin to be thankful for," he 
 muttered. " We have our cross one minute, 
 heavy as lead, and then a power awakes, and 
 the burden's lighted." He turned to Mrs 
 May. " Now, we'll not talk any more about 
 this, makin sorrows out of mystery, thinkin 
 what may have happened, or what mayn't. 
 But you'll make for home, and I'll slip along 
 to the Little Wood, and however it may be, 
 bad news or good and I'm in the hopes of 
 good I'll come down to you before goin to 
 bed, and let you hear the truth of the matter." 
 He put on his hat and turned down the lamp ; 
 immediately, however, turning it up again. 
 " I'd almost forgot. You've no oil. See l\ere,
 
 62 MY BROTHER 
 
 take this can ; there's a plenty in my lamp ; I 
 filled it before I lighted it at dark, and I can 
 get some more in the mornin." 
 
 " I can't take the last of your oil, 
 Paul." 
 
 " Ay, ay ; you must. You'll see sich a 
 anger I'll get in if you don't ! Why, it's 
 unpossible for you to sit in the dark a night 
 like this and Lizzie may have returned 
 when you get home." 
 
 He wrapped the oil-can in paper, and Mrs 
 May concealed it under her shawl. 
 
 "You're always so kind, Paul." 
 
 " I donno about that," said the Prophet. 
 " It's a deal easier to do a little kindness, 
 than not, for them that's unhappy." 
 
 He opened the door. They went forth 
 into the calm, beautiful, moonlit night. Paul 
 left the hut door unlocked. 
 
 " It's almost like day," he said. " Them 
 with strong eyesight could read print in this 
 light. It's wonderful truly, the comfort in 
 this pleasant white light in the night-time. 
 There's nothin been forgot for us," said Paul. 
 " What we can't find for a peaceable life it's
 
 MY BROTHER 63 
 
 because we pass it by, like butterflies in their 
 crazy rushin over fields of flowers." 
 
 Paul slightly leading the way, they crossed 
 among the bracken lying between the hut 
 and the plantation, all the vegetation they 
 touched being wet with dew. They then 
 passed through the plantation, and so on to 
 the highroad. The sudden scampering of 
 some wild creature from its resting-place 
 so shook Mrs May, that she came to a stand- 
 still, and could not go on for some moments. 
 
 " Paul," she whispered, clinging to his arm, 
 " I feel as if the hand of death had been laid 
 on me this night." 
 
 "You mustn't let down your heart, Mrs 
 May," he said. 
 
 They reached the by-road which led down 
 to the widow's cottage. Willie's house was 
 nearer, higher up the hill, and Paul saw a 
 light shining there. But of this he made no 
 remark. 
 
 " This is your road, Mrs May, and you 
 must go home direct, and leave what's to be 
 done to me. If I was you, if Lizzie's come 
 home, I'd not tell her what Willie said ;
 
 64 MY BROTHER 
 
 there's no call to frighten the poor lass, and 
 if what Willie says is true, she's like enough 
 to hear of it as soon's needful." 
 
 " It'll break her heart and his wife's," 
 Mrs May murmured wearily. " Mine is broke 
 already." 
 
 " And as I said," continued Paul, " after 
 I've made search to satisfise me, I'll come 
 down and let you know how it may be with 
 the young man; and even if I don't make 
 no discovery, still I'll come. So you may 
 depend on me." 
 
 They stood together a moment, hand in 
 hand, the silent sad trees around them, the 
 gray dusty road under their feet, the white 
 moonlight upon them like a robe of pity. 
 
 " You'll try to be brave, Mrs May. And 
 if you'll remember where it says, ' I will never 
 leave thee nor forsake thee.' . . ." 
 
 "Yes, Paul" 
 
 Her hand was like ice ; his also was very 
 cold. She drew so near to him that her 
 shoulder touched his. Finally, their hands 
 fell apart, after a last pressure from Paul's 
 which made Mrs May feel as though a second
 
 MY BROTHER 65 
 
 son had been raised up to her as the solace 
 and protection of her old age. 
 
 " Mrs May, I could almost wish if it's not 
 a sin havin sich a wish that I was in Willie's 
 place this night. He's everythin to you, and 
 I'm of small account in Occlesby." And 
 when she looked into his eyes, Paul made 
 haste to add : 
 
 " I mean, I'd like to bear some part of the 
 burden that's fallen on you, Mrs May. I'm 
 so lonely, you see yet not lonely in one 
 way neither and if it was me that had done 
 it, whatever's been done, then the sufferin 
 would be less heavy on others, for nobody 
 would grieve much what the law would do 
 to me, a childless and motherless man." 
 
 "... Paul, Paul, you mustn't go to the 
 Little Wood to-night ! " Mrs May cried. 
 
 But Paul shook his head. " Ay, I'll go," he 
 said. 
 
 " No, no, no, Paul ! You mustn't go to the 
 Little Wood!" 
 
 She gripped hold of his hands, and ap- 
 peared to be falling down before him ; and 
 Paul, fearing that she might become too
 
 66 MY BROTHER 
 
 weak to go home alone, put his arms round 
 her, and held her as in a lover's embrace. 
 He kissed the black shawl that covered her 
 head. 
 
 " Ay, ay, I'll go, Mrs May," he said. " It 
 would be a happiness. . . . But I'm keepin 
 you in the cold. There, that oil-can's fell 
 my clumsy doin. No ; the cork's not come 
 out : I knocked it in firm for fear it should, 
 and spoil your clothes. . . . God be your 
 guidance, Mrs May " 
 
 And Lizzie's mother, drawing her shawl 
 over her poor wrecks of shoulders, glided 
 down the hill.
 
 VIII 
 
 THE Prophet, trudging along by the side of 
 the Little Wood, made for the rhododendron 
 path. He walked, considering his mission, 
 with even more than his usual deliberation ; 
 and the awkwardness of his gait was such, 
 that an impulsive hasty person swinging past 
 might have deemed him injured, or at least 
 sore of limb. The truth was, he missed his 
 stout and sure old friend the blackthorn 
 walking-stick to which Willie May had law- 
 lessly helped himself. In the moonlight it 
 was not so difficult to get along pretty safely. 
 But the broad belt of shadow, fancifully 
 pointed and frayed, that was at times cast 
 from the trees into the middle of the road, 
 was in places thrown right across the game 
 cover on Paul's left, and then, unaided by his 
 blackthorn, it was not so easy to make head- 
 way among the shadows, for the road had no 
 
 6j
 
 68 MY BROTHER 
 
 pathway, and was full of surprises in the way 
 of holes and cart ruts. And the peril of 
 these was increased by the impulse to keep 
 looking up to the sky, which was this night 
 so strong upon the Prophet. Every now and 
 then, even where the moonlight failed to 
 touch the ground, rabbits pattered across his 
 path, and at such times Paul would be sud- 
 denly recalled to himself, and remember that 
 he was tramping a more or less precarious 
 woodland road, where at any moment he 
 might be tripped up, and measure his length 
 on the ground. But these periods of clear 
 comprehension of his surroundings were 
 but momentary; and for most part of the 
 way, after leaving Lizzie's mother, his eyes 
 were fixed on the heavens. It may be that 
 he saw there more than was actually to be 
 seen : more than men customarily see, look- 
 ing skyward on a moonlit night with the 
 naked eye. He did not care so much for 
 the miracles of tranquil loveliness around 
 him, as for the signs and wonders which he 
 saw, or thought he saw, writ in the dark 
 purple sky. It may be (for the absolute
 
 MY BROTHER 69 
 
 thing cannot always be said of a man like 
 Paul) that the wondrous heavenly beauties he 
 beheld were to some extent the creations of 
 a pure heart and an imagination simple as a 
 child's. He had the gift of wonderment; 
 Paul never grew old, never understood the 
 mercilessness of the forces that make for 
 power. And being lamentably unscientific, 
 he was quite in the dark as to the physical 
 structure of this radiance overhead, this 
 stupendous purple arch with stars innumer- 
 able set in the midst thereof. He felt 
 humbly bewildered as to how it came to 
 pass that the stars should be of different 
 colours, some of bright shining gold, with 
 sprays of golden light shooting out all round 
 them ; some blue as the feathers under a 
 jay's wing ; some red like fire (these inspired 
 especial awe in the Prophet, making him 
 think of the wrath of God as Isaiah and 
 Jeremiah have written concerning it), and 
 others as white almost as the whiteness of 
 the moon how all this came to pass he 
 knew not, nor would have asked the wisest 
 man living. And the arrangement of the
 
 70 MY BROTHER 
 
 stars also caused him much silent perplexity 
 and awe-struck admiration. They were set 
 forth in many ways, in many forms; and 
 each star-shape, he did not doubt, had its own 
 spiritual meaning. Paul did not find it hard 
 to believe in the supernatural. 
 
 When he got to the gate opening on to 
 the rhododendron walk, and lifted the iron 
 latch, he found that the gate had been nailed 
 up. As he stood, thinking things, he per- 
 ceived the notice-board about trespassing 
 which Lord Lusson had had put up. Willie, 
 then, had made himself a trespasser : and 
 Paul was going to do likewise, yet without 
 any prickings of conscience. He was com- 
 pelled, the gate being hazardous to climb, 
 to force his way through the beech hedge. 
 
 He moved slowly into the interior of the 
 wood. It was darker here, and in the trem- 
 ulous light that came down through the 
 branches of the trees the huge rhododendrons 
 rose on either side of him like green-black 
 walls. It was as though he were walking in 
 a ravine. The pathway, in contrast with its 
 towering dark borders, showed like chalk
 
 MY BROTHER 71 
 
 covered with a thin layer of red soil. The 
 Prophet no longer looked heavenward : for 
 one thing, there was nothing to see but 
 gleams and broken patches of moonlight; 
 and now more terrestrial thoughts occupied 
 his mind. He walked almost noiselessly. 
 Not a leaf stirred : not a bird or other living 
 creature moved ; the silence was absolute. 
 Only the stars, seen for a moment at rare 
 intervals, the trees, and the gleams of moon- 
 light seemed to be conscious of his presence 
 in the wood ; for inanimate nature was not 
 beyond the frontier of Paul's charity. He 
 had advanced perhaps fifty yards, and was 
 still keeping to the path, when his foot struck 
 against something lying on the ground, and 
 stooping, he discovered with much surprise 
 and a certain mournful gladness, that this 
 was his own faithful blackthorn. He picked 
 it up and went on his way, saying to himself : 
 " Poor Willie ; poor Willie. . . ." 
 
 His steps were surer now, and he exercised 
 a greater vigilance. He made better use of 
 his ears than of his eyes. At places, such 
 was the darkness where the foliage was thick,
 
 72 MY BROTHER 
 
 he could scarce see farther than a yard or 
 two before him ; but at other times he could 
 make out the trunks of the trees, and oc- 
 casionally, where there were gaps in the 
 rhododendrons, he could see some consider- 
 able distance into the wood. Once a peculiar 
 rustling sound, as of someone moving with 
 difficulty through undergrowths, broke in 
 upon his hearing; and this brought Paul 
 to a sudden standstill. But though he stood 
 listening for a minute or two, the sound was 
 not repeated that he could hear, and he con- 
 cluded that it had not been caused by a 
 human being. It made him think of Lizzie; 
 but it seemed to him that she must have 
 gone home. He felt, indeed, that he was the 
 only living mortal in the wood about here. 
 
 When he had reached what he judged to 
 be the middle of the wood, he left the path 
 and went in under the trees. The dark- 
 ness was upon him heavier than ever now, 
 and his tread was soundless. He moved 
 about like his own shadow. This even 
 occurred to him that he was his own 
 shadow ; and he smiled at the fanciful notion.
 
 MY BROTHER 73 
 
 He went on and on. To a craven spirit it 
 might have been a fearsome quest ; but fear 
 the Prophet had none, of man, or devil, or 
 death. Yet there was a certain eagerness 
 upon him as he wandered about at random, 
 in apparent repose of mind, knowing not at 
 all where to look, where to go, but trusting 
 merely to chance ; and hoping that he might 
 have to search till daylight in vain. 
 
 He kept his eyes on the ground for most 
 part, and continued to move about in different 
 places. That was all he could do ; unless he 
 called upon Lord Lusson by name and this 
 Paul shrank from doing. He would be sure 
 to hear the faintest moan. At length he got 
 quite out of the way of the rhododendrons, 
 and could form no impression as to the part 
 of the wood into which he had wandered. 
 He guessed that he was getting nearer to 
 Lusson Place, the private grounds of which 
 came up to the Little Wood on the west, 
 where there was a venerable yew hedge. 
 Coming presently to a clump of under- 
 growths of singular formation, Paul no 
 longer felt vaguely lost, but knew that he
 
 74 MY BROTHER 
 
 was within a stone's throw of the gardens. 
 Here the trees did not congregate so thickly 
 together, the light of the moon being there- 
 fore let in more freely. Indeed, there was at 
 this spot a considerable irregular circle, which 
 was as clear to stand in as though one were 
 in the open country. Feeling a little tired 
 (his bed-time being long past), and perceiv- 
 ing the gray-mossed trunk of a larch lying 
 prone on the ground, the higher part of it 
 hidden among the underwood, Paul, saying 
 to himself, " I think I'll rest a while," sat him 
 down on the tree, and taking out his watch, 
 consulted its enormous dial. It wanted just 
 a minute to the quarter past ten. " I must 
 have been seeking in the wood for near an 
 hour," Paul reflected. He sighed, and let his 
 watch drop into the deep pocket again, re- 
 membering as he did this how Willie used to 
 call it the Prophet's turmit.
 
 IX 
 
 AND then suddenly he looked up, and with 
 set lips and fixed eyes, strained his sense of 
 hearing to an intenseness that was a new 
 experience in his uneventful life. But, if 
 noise there had been, the most perfect silence 
 again prevailed. "It was as like to the push- 
 ing aside of branches as I've ever heard," the 
 Prophet said to himself. " Ay, it was truly ; 
 though I suppose I must have been mis- 
 took." He got on to his feet, and was going 
 away, when a strange something, lying in the 
 shadow near the far end of the fallen larch, 
 arrested his attention. As he stood stock- 
 still, gazing at the dark uncertain thing on 
 the ground, a dread touched his heart that 
 seemed to make it stop beating and at that 
 moment he heard again, or fancied he heard, 
 the same sound as of the faint movement of 
 leaves and the cautious parting of low-hang- 
 
 75
 
 ?6 MY BROTHER 
 
 ing branches. But this noise, and the sus- 
 picion awakened by it, passed speedily from 
 his mind. His whole attention was concen- 
 trated with a dreadful fascination on the dark 
 object clothed with shadow. It appeared to 
 be a thing at once of life and of death, and it 
 made Paul feel that he was in the immediate 
 presence of the supernatural. At last he went 
 towards it. 
 
 "The Lord's will be done," he muttered 
 in awe for he stood by the body of Lord 
 Lusson, and knew that Willie May had done 
 the wicked deed he had said. 
 
 For a while Paul was threatened with some 
 sudden and mysterious malady that might 
 leave him grovelling on the sward, unable 
 to speak or act until the seizure had run 
 its course. He clenched his hands till the 
 nails sank into the palms, and by sheer force 
 of will kept off the incomprehensible prostra- 
 tion that had begun to creep in upon him. 
 This he did, not from fear of unconsciousness, 
 but for Lizzie's sake, and Willie's, and Willie's 
 mother ; knowing also that light is given to a 
 man whose way is hid. His blackthorn had
 
 MY BROTHER 77 
 
 fallen from his hand, and he did not take it 
 up. He went down on his knees beside the 
 young lord's body, and peered into its face. 
 " Lord Lusson . . . Lord Lusson " he 
 whispered, his lips almost touching the 
 dead man's ear. Then he laid his hands 
 upon the body, and found that it was cold, 
 and already growing rigid. It lay on its 
 right side, with its right arm across the tree, 
 the upper part of the body being slightly 
 raised from the ground by reason of its 
 having gone down over the tree almost at 
 the armpit The head was thrown back, 
 as in the agony of the last breath, and the 
 mouth and eyes were open. The left knee 
 was drawn up, as a man may lie idly in bed, 
 but the right leg, much to Paul's surprise, 
 was stretched forth straight as a spear upon 
 the ground. Paul could not doubt that death 
 had come to the young man with terrible 
 suddenness. 
 
 Ssh ! . . . There, once more, was that same 
 mysterious movement among the leaves ; and 
 the sound this time sent a cold shiver down 
 Paul's spine. He lifted his eyes quickly, and
 
 78 MY BROTHER 
 
 looked about him, and listened, and listened, 
 and thought to make sure by calling out to 
 ask if some one was watching him. But he 
 held his peace. No farther disturbance 
 reached his ears ; and his eyes fell again 
 upon the face of the man whom Lizzie's 
 brother had slain. It was an extraordinary 
 circumstance, to Paul's thinking, that no dis- 
 figurement should be visible. Certainly he 
 could only see the dead man's face indis- 
 tinctly ; and a handsome, strong, manly- 
 looking face it was, even in death. Yet 
 though he peered down close into it, and 
 even went so far as to put his fingers 
 reverently under the chin and turn the head 
 a little to the left, so as to examine the right 
 side of the face, he could discern no injury save 
 such as might have been caused by the fall 
 against the trunk of the tree. He tried 
 to close the lids of the poor staring 
 eyes, but they were stark, and would not 
 move. He touched the mouth and nostrils, 
 and held up his hand to see if there was 
 blood upon it, but there was none. Then 
 he laid his hand on the young man's hair
 
 MY BROTHER 79 
 
 . . . He wiped off the blood on his coat 
 sleeve. 
 
 After that, Paul sat on the larch close to the 
 corpse, pretty much (if one may say this) in 
 the manner of a dog keeping watch over a 
 wounded and unconscious master. His eyes 
 dwelt pityingly on the still face, that seemed 
 to be changing as he gazed. Now that he 
 knew the worst a great calm had come upon 
 him : he laid his hand on the cold brow and 
 kept it there for some moments, as if that were 
 all the sympathy he could offer. He recalled 
 the " notes " of the appeal he had intended to 
 make to the man whose glazed eyes now 
 stared out into darkness, and, in his unerring 
 charity, forgot the harsher words he had meant 
 to use, and remembered only the passages of 
 comfort and mercy. It seemed so piteously 
 tragic, the death of this proud-looking young 
 man in the spring-time of his days. " His 
 mother died when he was a boy," Paul said 
 to himself; "ay, I do remember him, a bonny, 
 bright laddie . . . And here's what he's found 
 life, a weaver's shuttle . . . He's suffered, and 
 there'll be more sufferin before all these mis-
 
 80 MY BROTHER 
 
 deeds is called out from the house-tops. 
 More besides him will have to travel the road 
 of pain. Son and daughter, a lone mother, 
 frail and friendless, bowed down and broken- 
 hearted ; a young wife and nest of pretty 
 little ones robbed of their bread-winner and 
 the protector of their youth and innocence for 
 the law, comin with its clock-work vengeance, 
 takes but little thought of the widow and the 
 orphan." Paul stroked compassionately the 
 fair hair. " Poor young man, poor young 
 man, his greatness was of small avail to him. 
 I donno he was worse than many another of 
 his kind, and lower only, it was to be; it 
 must have been writ against him, and he never 
 saw the writin. As the body suffers, he had 
 less of it at the last than is comin to them 
 that's left in the deluge of this wrath ; and 
 there's none to say but what he found more 
 mercy when he opened his eyes on the other 
 side than he thought to find. It would be a 
 awful thing," Paul reflected, " if the world's 
 mercy was all we had to go by." 
 
 And then, as the shadows beside the under- 
 growth seemed to be deepening, the unseem-
 
 MY BROTHER 8l 
 
 liness of allowing the dead man to lie 
 across the tree in this uncouth position 
 occurred to Paul. The body might become 
 stiffened in this dreadful posture, with its 
 knee drawn up and its arm flung out, and in 
 such case it could only with difficulty, and it 
 might be with mutilation even, be laid in its 
 coffin for Christian burial. Moreover, Paul 
 was moved with a desire to see the face more 
 distinctly than was possible while it was hid 
 in unfriendly gloom. 
 
 At no great distance, say twice a man's 
 length or so, from the spot where he kept 
 watch by Lord Lusson's body, the moonlight 
 spattered down clear on the sward, so clear 
 that the dew could be seen shining on the 
 grass. So Paul took hold of the body, under 
 the armpits, and pulled it off the tree. The 
 right arm, with a little pressure, went down 
 by the side, and supporting the shoulders 
 against his knees, Paul succeeded in forcing 
 the drawn leg straight as the other. He 
 tried once more to close the eyelids, but they 
 would not close. All this he did without a 
 shudder, because of his unconcern of death.
 
 82 MY BROTHER 
 
 Then, holding the body under the arms again, 
 he slowly, moving backwards, drew it over the 
 grass to the spot where the moonlight lay on 
 the grass. He did not pause till he got it 
 there : then, the corpse lying at full length 
 on its back, he knelt at its head with his face 
 over its face. Suddenly, from the under- 
 growth close by, came a cry that was terrible 
 to hear: a cry that seemed to pierce and 
 shiver the night through all the wood ; and 
 the next moment Lizzie May sprang into the 
 moonlit space, screaming out in an agony of 
 terror 
 
 " Paul Penfold ! Paul Penfold ! . . ." 
 The girl was as one bereft of reason. She 
 stood with her back to the torrent of white 
 light that poured down from the sky, so that 
 Paul, looking up at her, but remaining on his 
 knees, could not clearly see her face. But 
 he saw enough to feel assured that she knew 
 Lord Lusson was dead. He said no word. He 
 was almost as pale as the corpse at his knees. 
 "Paul Penfold! Paul Penfold ! You've 
 killed him ! You've killed him ! " Lizzie 
 screamed*
 
 MY BROTHER 83 
 
 She shrank back, uttering incoherent sounds, 
 and holding her hands in a helpless child-like 
 way before her, as though fearing that an 
 attack was to be made on her own life. And 
 when she got to the undergrowths, she sud- 
 denly turned and ran in among them, and 
 Paul could hear her forcing her way in 
 feverish haste through the branches. She 
 appeared to stumble once and fall, for there 
 was a short silence, but the branches rustled 
 and cracked again, and Paul could tell that 
 she was speeding towards Lusson Place. 
 Then, while he could still faintly distinguish 
 the panic-stricken girl's movements, there 
 was a sharp scream, as from physical pain, 
 and then perfect stillness fell on the wood. 
 
 Paul, thinking that she had fallen a second 
 time, and perhaps seriously hurt herself, rose 
 up as quickly as he could and hastened after 
 her. When he had gone some way among 
 the rank scrub, which here closed him in on 
 all sides, compelling him to use his hands 
 to clear a path for himself, he heard Lizzie 
 calling, " Help ! Help ! Lord Lusson's been 
 murdered by Paul Penfold ! . . ." as though
 
 84 MY BROTHER 
 
 she had become aware of his approach and 
 was in mortal terror. Paul continued to 
 follow ; but presently, getting out of the 
 scrub, and seeing nothing of Lizzie, he 
 stopped, and fell upon a profound bewilder- 
 ment of thought. 
 
 It was very dark, just where he stood, 
 darker than at any part of the wood he had 
 yet traversed. But beyond, in the direction 
 Lizzie had gone, he could discern a black 
 line like a wall, and judged this to be the 
 yew hedge which separated the gardens from 
 the Little Wood. If he went as far as this 
 hedge he would be able to see the roof of 
 the home of the Lussons shining in the 
 moonlight. He did not, however, advance. 
 He had become a prey to a species of palsy. 
 His limbs appeared to be failing him. He 
 put his rounded shoulders to the trunk of a 
 tree and leaned heavily thereon. " I wonder 
 if Lizzie's mother will keep silence," he 
 said to himself. " Nobody else knows, and 
 Willie's away, and Lizzie thinks I'm guilty, 
 
 and if Mrs May will keep silence " and, 
 
 his great soul seeming to overpower his
 
 MY BROTHER 85 
 
 weak and ill-formed body, his knees upon a 
 sudden went out before him, and he fell on 
 his face on the leafy soil, breathing as one 
 helpless and stunned. This condition lasted 
 some minutes ; and rising painfully, he again 
 leaned upon the tree. 
 
 He could now think more clearly. And 
 he knew that the supreme opportunity of his 
 love was come, and understanding this, he 
 felt quite humble, not heroic at all Paul had 
 none of the dramatic instinct which makes 
 heroism unbearable in obscurity and a 
 strange expression, that was something of a 
 smile and something of an indefinable shine, 
 came into his face. His eyes grew larger, 
 and brighter, and the lids did not move. 
 In a few minutes he would be surrounded 
 by angry and horrified men, who would seize 
 him, and call him murderer, and cast him 
 into prison. This he knew; and he knew 
 also that when they came for him he should 
 offer no resistance. " Shall not a man be 
 defiled for his brethren ? " Paul had seen 
 the Light, and it was for him to follow it, 
 whithersoever it might lead him.
 
 86 MY BROTHER 
 
 "And then," reasoned this peasant with 
 himself, " I'm but one, alone in the world, 
 and there's a-many that would suffer and be 
 put to shame if Willie was took a sister 
 as'll need a brother's watchful care, now 
 more than ever, a wife and little ones that 
 Willie loves dearer than his own life, I do 
 believe, for all his sinful violence, a worn 
 old mother that will droop and fret into her 
 grave if she's "robbed of his help and his 
 cheerin word in the declinin days of her 
 hard life. Nothin but misery and grief for 
 them all if Willie is took. But if another 
 . . . then they'd be able to keep their two 
 pretty little homes, and when Willie comes 
 back, the old ways would come again . . . 
 and if it was me, and I was offered up in 
 Willie's stead, there's nobody would grieve 
 much, except it was Mrs May, who's always 
 had a heart of pity for me. . . ." 
 
 And then there was a rushing confused 
 sound, and dark male figures appeared under 
 the trees. Paul held up his hand, but no one 
 immediately saw him. So he went forth 
 into the greater light to meet them.
 
 MY BROTHER 87 
 
 " Lord Lusson dead ! Paul Penfold mur- 
 dered him ! " one shouted in a voice of 
 horror. 
 
 And men closed in on Paul on all sides, 
 and he was seized and held fast with savage 
 hands, wild eyes peering into his face. 
 
 " Paul Penfold ! " 
 
 "Ay, it's me, Mister Reid," Paul said. 
 " And I hope, Mister Reid, you'll not let 
 your men ill-treat me, for I'm willin to go 
 with you quiet to 'the lock-up."
 
 X 
 
 Now Willie May, at the time of the arrest in 
 the Little Wood, was a league and more from 
 Occlesby. His escape from the neighbour- 
 hood, at an hour when most of the villagers 
 were shutting their doors on the night, and 
 while yet only his mother had been apprised 
 of what had happened, was not a difficult 
 matter. Had Willie got into an intricacy 
 with the officers of the law, the chances were 
 but slender that he would have got out of it. 
 If the horrible news of his violence had been 
 noised abroad earlier, and he had been sur- 
 prised, say in his mother's house or in his own 
 home, during the few minutes he lingered in 
 these places, he would have fought desper- 
 ately for liberty and life. But the struggle 
 would have been solely physical ; for Willie 
 was not at all a man of resourceful intellect, 
 and of the low cunning of innate criminality 
 he had none. 
 
 88
 
 MY BROTHER 89 
 
 The truth was, in the madness that pos- 
 sessed him, he had no regard whatever before 
 the event to the consequences of his appal- 
 ling deed. He was under the dominion of 
 elemental impulses, which dethroned reason 
 and trampled it under foot. Nevertheless, 
 when the frenzied man rushed to the Little 
 Wood to seek out the destroyer of his sister's 
 honour, he had some dim notion that he was 
 ascending the scaffold, prepared to die there 
 for Lizzie with a shout. And the instinct 
 which led him to confess to his mother, was 
 the same instinct which in the calmer hours 
 that were to come made him understand that 
 he had done wickedly, and deserved to suffer 
 therefor. His act of vengeance was the 
 monstrous abortion of a noble emotion. His 
 love for his sister had been whirled suddenly 
 to an unnatural height of idolatrous con- 
 templation ; and he did not pause to think 
 if indeed he had ever suspected that 
 idolatry is one of the most destructive and 
 remorseless forces in human experience. 
 
 When, after dealing the swift and furious 
 blow with Paul's blackthorn that ended Lord
 
 QO MY BROTHER 
 
 Lusson's life, Willie fled from the Little Wood 
 like one demented, he went first to his 
 mother's cottage, telling her, in impetuous 
 incoherent words of the hideous thing he 
 had done, closing her poor shrunken body 
 in his strong arms in the delirium of a love 
 on the threshold of death, she moaning and 
 shivering there as one whose last earthly 
 hope was gone and bidding her farewell, 
 left her on a chair almost more dead than 
 alive. The dreadful ordeal was over in a 
 moment. Lizzie's name had not been spoken, 
 Willie had not even lingered to caution his 
 mother to keep silence concerning the crime 
 he had committed. 
 
 Many gardens were strewn about in plea- 
 sant confusion at the back of the cottage 
 in which he and Lizzie were born ; and 
 Willie, going where he had no right to be 
 (there was a kind of lawlessness in the man's 
 blood), pushed his way hurriedly on to his 
 home. In impartial moments even the 
 neighbours were wont to say of Willie's 
 cottage and garden that it was the sweetest 
 place in all Occlesby. He was a man who
 
 MY BROTHER 9! 
 
 could neither love nor hate in moderation : 
 a man possessing an abundance of idols and 
 this sweet home, and the modest little wife 
 and healthy children that were set in it like 
 jewels, were of them. 
 
 His cottage was somewhat of the formation 
 of his mother's : that is to say, when you 
 opened the front door and went in, you stood 
 immediately in one of the two rooms of the 
 dwelling. When Willie softly entered, the 
 lamp (that had been put on the mantelshelf 
 out of the children's reach) was burning so 
 low that he could only see indistinctly 
 about the little room. He did not shut the 
 door behind him, knowing that he had not 
 come to stay : he pushed it till it stood 
 within an inch .or two of being closed. All 
 that was in the room he loved : he had made 
 most of the things with his own hands. It 
 so moved him. as he realised that he was 
 looking upon them for the last time that 
 he could scarce bear to keep open his eyes. 
 Susan, his wife, being somewhat poorly in 
 health, had taken advantage of Willie's 
 customary evening visit to his mother to
 
 92 MY BROTHER 
 
 slip into bed, and was already apparently 
 sound asleep, baby by her side. She and 
 Willie slept in the bed in the kitchen, the 
 four older children all boys, "steps and 
 stairs," as Granny May called them 
 occupying the big bed in the next room. 
 Baby also was a boy, and there was 
 no idol in Willie's heart like unto 
 this. 
 
 He stood looking at his wife. 
 
 " Susan," he whispered ; " are you asleep, 
 Susan ? " 
 
 His wife did not answer, did not move in 
 bed, where the lamplight just touched her 
 comely face ; and as, with bowed head 
 and drooping arms, Willie made his way 
 across the floor to the bed, he was like a 
 man breaking down from some secret and 
 incurable malady When he got to the bed, 
 he turned round suddenly, and fixed his 
 haggard eyes on the door. Not that he 
 had heard a noise not that he expected 
 to see someone there. No ; but because if 
 he had looked one moment longer upon the 
 faces of his sleeping wife and child he would
 
 MY BROTHER 93 
 
 have awakened them with the poignancy of 
 his grief. 
 
 Determining, with vain faith in his powers 
 of endurance, not to let his gaze wander to 
 the bed again, he sat down by the bare 
 table (that was scrubbed white as the driven 
 snow) standing in the middle of the room, 
 and cautiously opening a drawer, took there- 
 from a sheet of writing paper, and one of 
 those flat, large pencils which men of his 
 trade use in marking wood. The nerves 
 about his mouth were in commotion : his 
 hand was not at all steady. But he man- 
 aged to write, in such words as he could find, 
 what he had in his mind to say. 
 
 "DEAR SUSAN, more falt-fmding, and quarel- 
 ing at the shop, I am sike and tird, of it, and 
 the way thats been going on, I have started 
 to looke, for work I dont no whare, but I will 
 find it soe dont, frett dere Susan from youre 
 true, husban, WILLIE MAY." 
 
 (For full stops he put commas, and the 
 commas were very large, making the writing
 
 94 MY BROTHER 
 
 look as though every two or three words were 
 in parentheses.) 
 
 Now, Willie did not write this note because 
 he thought his wife would be deceived there- 
 by. He did not suppose that for a moment. 
 But he knew that if she were to awake, he 
 could not tell her the truth as he had told it 
 to his mother. He had not anticipated that 
 she would be asleep, and this pencilled note 
 contained the story he had made up in his 
 mind to tell her. He could not tear himself 
 away for ever without passing through the 
 sublime agony of farewell : that, though he 
 knew it not, was part of his atonement ; and 
 the wretched man had a vague notion that it 
 was incumbent on him to put into writing 
 the momentarily comforting lie which he had 
 resolved to utter to his wife with his lips. 
 
 Having written the letter, he took a fork 
 from the drawer, and leaving the sheet of 
 paper unfolded on the table, drove the fork 
 through it with silent pressure. This done 
 there was nothing else to do, could he have 
 nerved himself to immediate flight. But as 
 he rose from the table, standing up in the
 
 MY BROTHER 95 
 
 black maze of his despair, his throat so swollen 
 that he could only breathe with difficulty, an 
 impulse that would not be governed carried 
 his gaze once more to the bed, and then he 
 discovered that he was being watched by a pair 
 of wondering blue eyes set in a little golden 
 head that was just raised from out its warm 
 nest of bedclothes by mother's side. The 
 father, cringing and trembling, as though these 
 were the eyes of the All-seeing, advanced a 
 pace to the bed. Then he stopped, as in a 
 trance, took a step nearer, paused again 
 then, tearing out his agony as it were by the 
 roots, he wheeled round swiftly and faced the 
 table once more. 
 
 The sight of the note stung him ; he saw it 
 now in a different light, saw it as it was, a 
 cowardly mean falsehood ; he felt like a living 
 lie, an outcast, a murderer, in the midst of 
 these adorable things of his love. He feared 
 that he must go blind, or scream out, unless 
 he did something. So, averting his face from 
 the bed, he went to the mantelshelf, took 
 down the lamp with shaking hand, and passed 
 into the next room.
 
 96 MY BROTHER 
 
 Here he found his four boys all sound 
 asleep in bed : the bonniest, bravest boys in 
 Occlesby. And Willie, holding the lamp high 
 so that its light might not fall too strongly on 
 their eyelids, looked upon them for the last 
 time . . . Jim and Harry lying on their 
 backs with their knees like tiny pyramids 
 under the bedclothes : the faces of the other 
 two boys being partly hidden . . . little 
 Paul's brown leg hanging out over the edge 
 of the bed. Willie put it back and drew the 
 patchwork counterpane over it. Then he 
 kissed them all in their sleep, and stole 
 silently from the room. 
 
 But baby had been on the look-out for 
 father, having crawled away from mother's 
 side the better to accomplish that purpose ; 
 and Willie saw that the blue eyes were upon 
 him when he returned to the living-room, with 
 two fat little hands expectantly fighting the 
 air. There would have been a cry had he not 
 gone to the bed. So at least Willie told him- 
 self: though this may have been his uncon- 
 scious apology to himself for succumbing to 
 the weakness that caused him to tempt his
 
 MY BROTHER 97 
 
 fate. Placing the lamp on the table, he went 
 to the bed and leaned his hip on the edge 
 of it, near to the pillow. He incautiously 
 held his hand before baby's face, and baby 
 made haste to grip hold of the big hard 
 ringers, and before Willie comprehended what 
 was happening, the clever little chap was 
 standing up in bed and saying very plainly 
 that if father did not take him there would be 
 a row. So Willie lifted up the little one in 
 his arms, and baby had soon taken tight hold 
 of his rough black beard with one hand, while 
 the other, in accordance with baby's pretty 
 custom, began to worm its way among the 
 softer hairs down father's neck. And Willie, 
 whispering " Ssh, baby . . . don't wake 
 mumma ..." the words failing in a low sob, 
 pressed the golden head to his cheek. And 
 then baby, being quick of observation, became 
 concerned with a shining thing, like a rain- 
 drop, that had fallen on his hand, and smiling 
 and beginning to crow, held it up to let father 
 see. ,
 
 XI 
 
 THE murderer fled, with his home and his 
 mother, not his crime, uppermost in his mind. 
 He passed the night without sleep, or the 
 desire of sleep. Along heavy roads, over 
 grass and fallow fields, through woods and 
 plantations so he pushed on, a fugitive and 
 vagabond on the earth, his face towards the 
 uncertain liberty that was certain to be the 
 blackest slavery. 
 
 The sense of his personal loss overwhelmed 
 all comprehension of his frightful act. Lord 
 Lusson was dead but that seemed to be a 
 thing apart. Had it been in Willie's nature to 
 follow the lines of least resistance, he would 
 have gone to the nearest police-station 
 and given himself up. He tried to take 
 hold of his torment and cast it out by 
 sheer physical energy. He carried baby's 
 golden head against his cheek : but it was
 
 MY BROTHER 99 
 
 become lead now a dead child's head. 
 And when he recalled the last ordeal of the 
 farewell look at his sleeping wife, and her 
 drowsy murmuring of his name as he put 
 back baby by her side, he struck out at the 
 air like the madman he was, and cursed 
 himself, and cursed God, and let his heart 
 overflow with bitterness. 
 
 He came presently to this resolve : that he 
 would not let his thoughts dwell on the past. 
 He could not express to himself what it was 
 he meant, but he wanted to tear out his 
 memory and fling it under foot and grind it 
 to nothingness. He partially succeeded in this 
 on the first night of his wanderings. He 
 went on and on like a rushing wind. He 
 never once deliberately looked back, never 
 hesitated in his headlong flight, never let the 
 desire to restore memory touch him with 
 more strength than his sweating body was 
 touched by the shadows of night. 
 
 So he trudged till daybreak. Tiredness, 
 scarce recognised by him as such, began to 
 creep on him soon after he heard the early 
 cocks crowing in the cottagers' fowl-houses
 
 IOO MY BROTHER 
 
 and the farmyards past which he fled, barely 
 glancing at the shadowy buildings from appre- 
 hension that human eyes might be peering 
 out at him from the darkened windows. But 
 it was only when the dawn's rosy flush came 
 up upon the eastern horizon that his pace 
 perceptibly slackened. It was a beautiful 
 daybreak, but Willie saw little of its beauty 
 of the great black fan that appeared in the 
 east, against a background of purple light 
 that gradually changed and became brighter 
 and brighter of hue until all the sky, from the 
 hills almost to the zenith, blazed with a 
 splendour of opalescent light ; then the 
 mighty fan of cloud and vapour, which had 
 meanwhile been spreading itself wider and 
 wider at the wings, though the handle kept 
 shrinking and shrivelling before the burning 
 glory of the sun's approach, began to burst 
 and melt, and become formless ; and then 
 came a pageant of colour, a chaos of fantastic 
 shapes, and the triumphant red majesty of 
 day. The spirituality of the dawn had at 
 once solaced Willie and filled him with fear, for 
 day meant the scrutinizing eye of his fellows.
 
 MY BROTHER IOI 
 
 It seemed to him that, although already a long 
 way from home, somebody must recognise him, 
 or that he was bound to betray himself ; and 
 then would not the police be sending far and 
 near accounts of his personal appearance ? He 
 decided to disguise himself; but could think of 
 nothing more ingenious than the pulling of his 
 hat over his eyes, and an assumed awkward- 
 ness of gait. This awkwardness, indeed, was 
 not entirely a make-believe, for Willie, having 
 spent himself in the rapidity of his flight, was 
 beginning to feel footsore and sleepy. 
 
 About noon (when he knew not where he 
 was, nor dared to ask any of the wayfarers 
 that came in his path), he stole into an out- 
 house on the skirts of an apparently deserted 
 farmyard, and, while the sun was brightly 
 flooding the world without, he sank down on 
 some damp straw, and in few minutes was 
 sound asleep. A couple of hours later he 
 was rudely awakened by a bluff old gentleman, 
 with a riding-whip in his hand, and the 
 mantle of perfect health wrapped gloriously 
 about him, and ordered off the premises ; and 
 Willie obeyed without a word.
 
 IO2 MY BROTHER 
 
 He had taken with him neither food nor 
 money ; and he awoke so hungry that, after 
 pushing on for another half-dozen miles or so, 
 he was tempted to stop at the open door of 
 a roadside cottage, and (not caring to beg 
 straight out) asked the good woman of the 
 house whether she knew of any likely work 
 that he might apply for in the neighbourhood. 
 She knew of nothing ; work, she told him, 
 was hardly to be got in the district, and 
 several families had been shifting into other 
 countries. Before leaving the door, Willie, 
 his eyes averted in a hang-dog way, shuffled 
 significantly with his feet, looked down on 
 the ground, and mumbled something about 
 hard times signs of the demoralisation of 
 his manhood, that had set in lamentably 
 after his rousing by the hearty farmer and 
 the woman, taking compassion on the 
 haggard, travel-soiled man, who appeared to 
 have seen better days, brought him a glass 
 of milk and a bit of bread and cheese. 
 He felt doubly grateful for her kindness, 
 and because she had not forced him to ask 
 for it. He thanked her brokenly: drank
 
 MY BROTHER IO3 
 
 the milk; ate the bread and cheese as he 
 went. 
 
 In the dusk of the first day, while possessed 
 of a great longing for association of some sort 
 with his fellows, and being moreover dead 
 tired (as one not accustomed to much walk- 
 ing), he lingered about a wayside tavern, 
 where in the porch before the door peaceable 
 persons were gathered together in a kind of 
 awe, paying profound heed to the words of a 
 spruce old gentleman who had a newspaper 
 across his knees and a pair of spectacles high 
 up on his forehead. 
 
 " It was my impression," he was saying, 
 "there wasn't a Lord Lusson left in the 
 peerage book, till I read this in the paper. 
 My notion was the title had died out from 
 lack of birth in the proper family, in that line 
 where the peerage was lawful. But here it is 
 in black and white, in our neighbour county 
 too, the most atrocious, foul, dastardly mur- 
 der. It's not been equalled in my time since 
 that man murdered his two wives, one after 
 the other in succession, four years only be- 
 tween, in the old barn on the Pylstye."
 
 IO4 MY BROTHER 
 
 " My grandfather saw him in a cart in his 
 chains," one said. 
 
 " This murder is even more horrible in my 
 view," said the spruce old gentleman, " from 
 the lofty rank of the victim. It was done, 
 according to the paper, in the most sudden 
 and diabolical fashion. 'Death,' it says, 
 ' must have been instantaneous.' " 
 
 "That's what they say when a man's 
 hanged," another observed. 
 
 " Yes ; and it's what they'll say when this 
 miscreant assassin is hanged, though a quick 
 choking off is less than his deserts. There 
 ought to be some special punishment invented 
 for him. The blow, from the record, must 
 have been ferocious beyond credit. The fatal 
 place, as near as I can make out, was just 
 here. But I'll read you that part of the 
 account " 
 
 Willie heard no more. Stooping, and 
 rounding his shoulders as if to disfigure him- 
 self, he crept away from the tavern. Regain- 
 ing the high-road, he walked rapidly till 
 nightfall. 
 
 It was clear to him that all the countryside
 
 MY BROTHER IO5 
 
 was discussing his crime : a price would be 
 set on his head ; his liberty might at any 
 moment be at an end. And now he shunned 
 the villages, slunk past isolated cottages like 
 a thief; he would have died of starvation 
 rather than enter a town just then, his imma- 
 ture imagination not letting him understand 
 that a town would have been the safest place 
 for him. Memory returned, bringing its inde- 
 structible torments. He stumbled, in a blind- 
 ing paroxysm of grief, and fell on his knees 
 on the road in the darkness, and offered his 
 body and soul to Heaven, if only Heaven 
 would take them, and torture them for ever 
 in the furnace of atonement, yet spare his 
 wife, and his children, and his mother. He 
 got up and went on again ; and presently 
 passing a sheet of shining ebony, which he 
 knew to be water, the thought of self-destruc- 
 tion came to him, and he stopped a moment. 
 But Willie had been brought up in the Puritan 
 faith, and had the fear of the lake of un- 
 quenchable fire before his eyes. He hurried 
 on. 
 
 He would keep to his life yet awhile, hoping
 
 106 MY BROTHER 
 
 against hope that something might happen 
 a miracle sudden death by the visitation of 
 God so that his family and kinsfolk might 
 not have to walk sorrowfully to the end of 
 their days under the intolerable shame of his 
 death on the gallows. 
 
 He rested that night under a hedge. The 
 night was fine and clear, but very cold. From 
 the spot where he lay, his head on his arm, 
 he could see, down an indentation of the 
 fields, patches of feeble light. These he knew 
 to be the lights of houses, and they made him 
 wonder what Susan and his mother might be 
 doing. . . . 
 
 "And Prophet Penfold," said Willie to him- 
 self. " The Prophet '11 not turn his back on 
 them, I'm sure, whoever does." He could 
 not bear the sight of the far-away lights, and 
 held his face to the ground. " The Prophet '11 
 be awful upset, for I do know how he loves 
 my mother, as if she was his own, and he's 
 been like a older brother to the boys and to 
 me they run to him whenever he shows his 
 face. Poor Paul . . . what a strong calm 
 man he seems, back yonder in his hut,
 
 MY BROTHER IO? 
 
 wrapped up in his own ways and thoughts. 
 He'll find me in his Bible, I suppose, where 
 he seeks for most everything, and the words 
 to fit it. But he's a merciful man, and when 
 he speaks of me it'll not be over harsh, I do 
 believe 'specially not to Susan and mother."
 
 XII 
 
 WILLIE, after that, slept till near the time of 
 sunrise. And as he went along the road again 
 in the first gray waves of dawn he met a 
 country lad whistling gaily to himself. The 
 boy, when he caught sight of Willie, slipt off 
 the road and sallied past on the opposite 
 side of the hedge. He still whistled to him- 
 self, though his note was now somewhat 
 tremulously defiant. " What a object I must 
 look when even a boy is frightened to 
 pass me," Willie thought, and smiled grimly. 
 He stopped and called after the quavering 
 chanticleer in knickerbockers : " How long'll 
 it take me to walk to the coast ? " The boy 
 turning, moved backwards, and asked what 
 part of the coast he wanted to be at, and 
 when Willie said the seaport he'd forgot 
 the name the boy replied he didn't know 
 how far it might be by road to the place 
 
 108
 
 MY BROTHER ICX) 
 
 where the ships was, but the train fare was 
 four-an-eight there and back if you took a 
 return ticket. Willie thanked the lad, and 
 said that would just suit him. He walked all 
 that day, and slept part of the night under 
 a Scotch fir, so near to a gamekeeper's 
 house that he could hear the dogs barking. 
 A deep-mouthed baying made the fugitive 
 recall what he had read about the uses of 
 bloodhounds. 
 
 The next morning broke pleasantly. But 
 soon after sunrise, heavy vapours encom- 
 passed the sky, and the atmosphere became 
 strangely oppressive. The oppression in- 
 creased, and by noon Willie could scarce 
 drag himself along. His brain felt confused, 
 and an acute pain was in his brows. He 
 unbuttoned his coat and waistcoat, and 
 wished there was a breath of wind. Every- 
 thing even the sun and the clouds seemed 
 to be standing still. The trees looked like 
 figures drawn on the horizon : on a common 
 chickens waddled up to him, and immedi- 
 ately, seeing he had nothing to give, pros- 
 trated themselves on the parched grass ;
 
 1 10 MY BROTHER 
 
 a white cat with brown eyes, stretched in 
 a corner that had been scraped bare by 
 the fowls, did not budge as he passed ; 
 two horse-dealers slept among bracken, their 
 animals idly grazing ; cottage windows and 
 doors stood open, and the flowers looked 
 languid, and the birds were tame and familiar. 
 The stillness was beautiful, yet full of menace. 
 The sky, charged with sulphuric heaviness, 
 seemed to be closing down upon the earth to 
 smother it and all living things. 
 
 In the mid afternoon, Willie, the spiritual 
 principle within him grown tenuous and 
 urgent from the keen pangs of hunger and 
 keener mental disquiet, was haunted with the 
 strange fancy that he and the hangman were 
 the only two beings moving in the world. 
 This impression was intensified by his loneli- 
 ness and the wild and desolate country into 
 which he had wandered. He began to feel 
 the want of tobacco ; this punished him even 
 more, for a time, than the want of food; if 
 he had met a fellow- workman he would have 
 asked him for a morsel, and put it in his 
 mouth. A pinch of snuff would have been
 
 MY BROTHER III 
 
 a comfort. But for a long while he did not 
 come within speaking distance of a single 
 soul : nor did he see a dwelling to which he 
 cared to draw near. And now his feet were 
 like lead when he lifted them, and like fire 
 when he set them on the ground. He walked 
 on turf where he could find it, and this helped 
 him a little. There were intolerable pains 
 in his thighs, knees, and back, and he was 
 getting light-headed. Still he kept his face 
 towards the forest and the low-lying hills 
 that rose up before him in the south against 
 the sullen sky. The hills appeared to be 
 close at hand, but Willie knew that the light 
 was deceptive, and that many miles must be 
 traversed before he could seek the shelter of 
 the forest. When he had passed through the 
 forest, and got over the hills, he fancied that 
 the coast would be in sight. 
 
 His course for some while had been barren 
 and drear. But when he was within half-a- 
 dozen miles, as he judged, of the hills, he 
 fell into the way of pleasant and sheltering 
 places. In a lane which had obviously been 
 cut deeper and wider for the convenience of
 
 112 MY BROTHER 
 
 vehicular traffic, although it retained some 
 memorials of the beauty of its better days, a 
 green luxuriance falling over the red crumb- 
 ling earth on either side, and the scents of 
 vegetation and soil being in the air, Willie 
 was surprised, on going round a bend in the 
 lane, to see an extraordinary kind of man 
 floating down upon him. The man was 
 gazing heavenward : he was a very tall, gaunt 
 person, and came on noiselessly, in a swift, 
 impetuous, aerial fashion, like a spiritualised 
 being who had lost his way from space and 
 was panting and struggling to get back. He 
 carried a white umbrella, and this seemed 
 the only substantial thing about him. Willie 
 edged himself among the verdurous growths 
 to let the stranger pass. But he stopped, 
 and Willie stopped, and the pair looked in 
 each other's eyes a moment in silence. 
 
 " Eh ? " said the stranger ; though Willie 
 had said nothing. He was not at all afraid. 
 The face before him was very pale : the pallor 
 of idealism, and the hair-shirt, and the whip 
 of penance, and the hard bed with the pillow 
 of wood.
 
 MY BROTHER 113 
 
 "He's like the Prophet," Willie said to 
 himself: " but different." 
 
 " I hope you have not far to go," the man 
 said. " The storm will soon be upon us. 
 Look ! it will be a dreadful storm. And you 
 will find no shelter up there only the trees." 
 
 Willie mumbled something about the sea- 
 port. 
 
 " I want to be there before nightfall." 
 
 " Oh, but it is not that way at all. You 
 are quite out of your course. You must come 
 with me, and I will show you. Down here 
 there is a path across the fields, and that 
 takes you to the high road." 
 
 They went down the lane together ; 
 Willie hastening his pace to keep up with 
 his new friend. 
 
 " Have you walked far ? " 
 
 "Not so very far," Willie said. "It's a 
 tirin' day," he added quickly. 
 
 " Yes, we are all tired some of doing 
 nothing : some of doing too much ; some of 
 not knowing what to do. Humanity is cry- 
 ing out for rest, and at the same time growing 
 more and more afraid of it Aha ! "
 
 114 MY BROTHER 
 
 A Little Sister of the Poor passed in a 
 pony carriage : the stranger stopped, un- 
 covered his head, and bowed low as the 
 carriage went by. The Little Sister paid 
 no heed to him. " That's the difference," 
 thojught Willie ; " the Prophet would have 
 felt it, but never have done it, in that orna- 
 mental style." 
 
 They came to a stile leading to a footpath 
 across fields. 
 
 " This is your way," said the stranger. 
 " You seem weary, weary ! get a meal as 
 soon as you can." He closed both his hands 
 on Willie's. " I hope you will find some suit- 
 able work presently. Good-bye." He left 
 a sovereign in Willie's hand : rushing away 
 apparently to escape being thanked. Willie 
 held up the money incredulously in his palm, 
 and stood to watch the nervous eager figure 
 and the white umbrella swing out of sight. 
 He brushed something from his eyes as he 
 crossed the stile. 
 
 Half-an-hour's walking brought him to the 
 high-road ; and another half-hour to a coun- 
 try town, from which (this being market day)
 
 MY BROTHER 115 
 
 farmers' gigs and carts were rattling, the air 
 resounding with the laughter and merry con- 
 versation of the occupants. The sovereign 
 had somewhat fortified Willie's courage : 
 still he had no intention of entering the 
 town, though he was compelled, in his search 
 for a tobacco shop, to go on to its outskirts. 
 Here he came upon a sort of general grocery 
 store, which he entered with as much outward 
 unconcern as he could assume.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE shopman was standing behind the coun- 
 ter gossiping with an elderly gentleman of 
 benevolent aspect, who sat on a barrel, with 
 his hands folded plaintively across his 
 stomach. They paid hardly any heed to 
 Willie's entrance. The shopman held the 
 sovereign close to his watery eyes, and rang 
 it on the counter, and tested it between his 
 teeth. 
 
 " Of course, he'll be hanged when his 
 time comes," the benevolent gentleman was 
 saying. 
 
 " I should think they would hang him ! " 
 the shopman said. " It's as good as done : 
 it'll be a waste of money having high-priced 
 lawyers for him at his trial. He's confessed, 
 haven't he ?" 
 
 " Well, it amounts to that almost, though 
 in actual words he's not said he struck the 
 
 1x6
 
 MY BROTHER 117 
 
 blow. He offered to go with them when 
 he was caught in the wood, but when he was 
 charged at the lock-up he made no statement, 
 and he's had nothing to say since. Before 
 the magistrates he was dumb, and when he 
 was committed for trial at the assizes he 
 walked quietly from the dock, as if it was 
 a matter of less concern to him than to any- 
 body else, the paper says in the report where 
 his personal appearance is described. It's 
 perfectly clear in my mind they've got the 
 right man. If he was innocent he'd make a 
 fine uproar." 
 
 " He's a horrible ugly fellow, they say." 
 " So the paper makes out. Deformed or 
 something. I shouldn't wonder but what he's 
 of weak intellect. There's usually a twist 
 in the brains of criminals of that stamp, 
 though if the law was to take note of it, 
 none of us would be safe in our beds." 
 
 " Hang him without a trial, say I ; the fuss 
 that's made of such villains in the newspapers 
 only makes them worse, and tempts others 
 to do the same. I wish I was on the jury 
 that's to try him," said the shopman, hand-
 
 Il8 MY BROTHER 
 
 ing Willie his tobacco and clay pipe and 
 change. 
 
 " Has there been a murder done ? " Willie 
 asked. " I've not seen the newspapers." 
 
 " Lord Lusson's been murdered," said the 
 shopman pompously. 
 
 " And . . . somebody took up for it," said 
 Willie. 
 
 " Yes, they caught him almost in the very 
 act." 
 
 Willie filled his pipe mechanically. " What's 
 the name of the man they've got ? " He kept 
 his eyes on the pipe as he spoke. 
 
 " Paul Penfold," the shopman said. " He's 
 been before the magistrates for the last time 
 this morning, and they've sent him to the 
 assizes to be hanged." 
 
 The men looked a little surprised when 
 Willie suddenly fell against the counter. 
 
 " I've had a long tramp," he said. " I hope 
 I've not damaged your pots, sir, with 
 my clumsiness. Did you say the man's 
 confessed ? " 
 
 " Not in so many words. But he's the 
 murderer right enough. There's plenty of
 
 MY BROTHER 
 
 witnesses to hang him twice over and more. 
 The chief witness was the young woman 
 Elizabeth May, who saw the murderer drag- 
 ging Lord Lusson's body in the wood, to find 
 a place to hide it, and when she screamed and 
 ran away the scoundrel followed her and 
 would have murdered her the same, it's clear, 
 if he could have caught her. But lucky for 
 her, he's a cripple, and the young woman was 
 too fast for him. She gave the alarm, and 
 Lord Lusson's servants rushed into the wood 
 and captured him before he could make his 
 escape. He had the coolness to ask them not: 
 to ill-treat him, and it seems never a one laid 
 hands on him. They found the body, with 
 the marks on the ground across where he'd 
 been dragging it to hide it in the bushes, and 
 also they found the heavy blackthorn walking- 
 stick he had done the murder with. There 
 was blood on it, and two or three hairs out of 
 the poor murdered gentleman's head, where 
 the blow had been struck." 
 
 Willie sat on an orange box, and was 
 taking a long time to fill his pipe. He did 
 not speak. He sat in a doubled position, his
 
 120 MY BROTHER 
 
 face almost to his knees, his fingers senselessly 
 pulling the tobacco in pieces. 
 
 " Some doubt is felt as to the motive of the 
 crime," the gentleman on the barrel said. 
 " It couldn't have been robbery, seeing he 
 took nothing from the body." 
 
 " Oh, a woman's in it as usual," said the 
 shopman. " That Elizabeth May could tell a 
 queer story, I'll wager. She's a bad lot, I 
 daresay, and she'll have to own up when the 
 Crown counsel gets her in their clutches. It's 
 known she was carrying on with Lord Lusson, 
 and nobody doubts that's why she was in the 
 wood, in time to be a foremost witness. This 
 Penfold had a fancy for her, though she seems 
 to have given him no encouragement, and 
 when it became known to him what was 
 going on, he was filled with the mad rage 
 of jealousy. That's the theory of the prose- 
 cution, and the police can prove it easy. The 
 evidence is circumstantial so far : nobody saw 
 him strike the actual blow, though Elizabeth 
 May couldn't have been far off when it was 
 done " 
 
 " There now, there now," sighed the kind-
 
 MY BROTHER 121 
 
 hearted gentleman on the barrel. " What a 
 lesson for her as long as she lives." 
 
 "This Penfold had been seen prowling 
 about the wood, and Lord Lusson himself 
 complained of him being there without right. 
 He must have been watching and planning 
 his opportunity." 
 
 " Doubtless there were faults on both 
 sides," said the elderly gentleman. "The 
 girl is very pretty, and the paper says she 
 wept all the time she was giving her evidence. 
 Poor girl, poor girl, there's whispers she's not 
 seen the last of her sorrows yet. Her father's 
 dead, and it's said the murder has so preyed 
 on her poor old mother's mind that's she gone 
 quite crazy and has to be watched almost as 
 if she was a child." 
 
 Willie at last looked up. The shopman 
 stared at him, and then glanced at the gentle- 
 man on the barrel. Willie, smiling in a 
 strange way, began to draw at his pipe. He 
 sent forth enormous volumes of smoke, which 
 made the benevolent gentleman cough. 
 
 " Smoking's not over convenient in a shop," 
 the shopman reminded him.
 
 122 MY BROTHER 
 
 Willie did not seem to hear ; or hearing, 
 failed to understand. 
 
 " Paul Penfold ! " he muttered, gazing 
 through the doorway. " He'll be in Dan- 
 bridge gaol now " 
 
 " Yes, that's where they've got him safe," 
 said the shopman. " And they'll keep him 
 there till he's wanted to be buried in quick- 
 lime, so as not even the ashes of his bones 
 will be left in the soil. Then they'll cut the 
 first letters of his name in the wall over the 
 place, alongside the others, and that'll be 
 the last of him in this world. I once saw that 
 row of first letters of murderers' names on the 
 wall of Danbridge gaol, and it did seem as- 
 tonishing, to think that was all that was left 
 of them every scrap of their bodies wiped 
 clean out, as if they'd never been in existence. 
 It was hard to believe they ever had, though 
 there stood the record of their crimes, and 
 many more at the cross roads, even more 
 thoroughly forgot." 
 
 Willie rose and made for the door. 
 
 " Good day to you, gentlemen," he said 
 firmly enough.
 
 MY BROTHER 1 23 
 
 But on going out he stumbled, and went 
 down on his knees at the threshold of the 
 shop, his shoulder leaning a moment against 
 the doorpost. His pipe fell and broke ; he 
 seemed exhausted. The benevolent gentle- 
 man made haste to him, and taking him by 
 the arm, helped him to rise. 
 
 " You're not well, my man. You'd better 
 stay and rest a little. Shall I get you 
 another pipe?" 
 
 "Thank you, sir no," Willie said. "It 
 was the pipe that done it, I suppose ; I've 
 not had a smoke for so long." 
 
 He tightened himself up, smiled, said again, 
 " Good day to you, gentlemen," and went 
 away, turning his back upon the town.
 
 XIV 
 
 
 
 HE walked unsteadily, yet rapidly, burning 
 out the remnants of his nervous energy. 
 " Prophet Penfold took ! " he kept saying to 
 himself " Prophet Penfold goin to be 
 hanged ! " He turned up the first road he 
 came to that seemed to lead to the hills ; 
 still muttering the same words : " Prophet 
 Penfold took ! Prophet Penfold goin to be 
 hanged!" 
 
 The night was coming on, and coming with 
 it was a mystery of terror that made Willie's 
 heart quail, though he still kept going at a 
 feverish stumbling pace, still bent his face 
 toward the hills. Conflicting air currents, 
 charged with subtle sulphurous fumes, swept 
 and moaned about him like the hot breathing 
 of unseen creatures. As he mounted the 
 rising ground, higher and higher, the forest 
 he had previously seen came again in sight ;
 
 MY BROTHER 12$ 
 
 but it was now like an immense black cloud 
 that had lost its way from the skies and been 
 driven athwart the slopes of the hills. 
 
 Willie could hear a dull rumbling sound in 
 the direction of the town a sound as of 
 tumult in the streets there ; and he could hear 
 the voice of a man shouting anxiously far 
 away. A curlew was calling on the hills, 
 and its cry seemed to go echoing over all the 
 earth. Willie fancied that Paul in his cell 
 in Danbridge gaol must hear that cry ; must 
 hear that murmur from the town ; must hear 
 that man's voice calling as one in distress 
 over the fields. Frogs splashed in water by 
 the road side; the water was yellow and 
 turbid ; the air fell still one moment, and the 
 next was stirred with warm swishes of wind. 
 Willie knew well enough what these portents 
 meant ; but it never once occurred to him to 
 turn back. He would get to the coast that 
 night, or never. It might be never; the 
 paralysis of fatalism was creeping upon him ; 
 what way was there out of this ? " Prophet 
 Penfold took! Prophet Penfold goin to be 
 hanged ! " he continued to say to himself, as
 
 126 MY BROTHER 
 
 one who had forgotten all other words, all 
 other records of the past. 
 
 Then another thought cut its way through 
 his frenzied brain. He stopped, turned his 
 face to the town, and trembled from head to 
 foot. " I never said he was innocent I left 
 them to think he was guilty," he said to 
 himself audibly. But the moment after, he 
 was facing hillward again, and going on faster 
 than before. " When I get safe in a foreign 
 land, I'll write home and say I done it," he 
 promised himself. 
 
 He went on and on, and the night scowled 
 darker and darker upon him. His feet were 
 covered with wounds and sores. He was 
 walking literally in his own blood. 
 
 When the storm broke the darkness was 
 such as barely to allow of his seeing his hand 
 before him. He felt his way like a man 
 without sight. Now the lightning revealed 
 trees clustering about him ; now it seemed to 
 him as though he were reeling across some 
 vast and pathless moor. His mental faculties 
 became scarcely of any use to him : he had 
 periods as of intellectual annihilation ; the
 
 MY BROTHER 127 
 
 thunder seemed to crash all his brain away. 
 It was usually after the lightning had dazzled 
 his eyes and driven him back appalled, and 
 in the amazed silences after the thunder had 
 cracked and boomed across the pitch-black 
 heavens, that momentary gleams of conscious- 
 ness returned to him ; and once or twice in 
 such moments he lifted up his hands to the 
 sheets of rain that were driving down upon 
 him, and cried aloud : " Prophet, Prophet ! 
 I'll see you righted ! I'll see you righted, 
 Paul ! " Then his reason again failed, and 
 his brain became more bewildered than the 
 night itself, though the poor wretch went 
 forging onward, battling like some insensate 
 brute creature against the wind and rain ; 
 sometimes, when the lightning wrapped him 
 round as with a garment of fire, he stood 
 motionless, tranced, with eyes as of a dead 
 man, a man struck dead as he stood, and 
 then he would see things that were not in the 
 dark night, and would laugh, not loudly, not 
 defiantly, rather softly and musically indeed ; 
 the pathos-laugh that means, " I can't make 
 it out I'm dead beat " And the wind, as
 
 128 MY BROTHER 
 
 he laughed, whistled in his mouth, and pierced 
 his eyes, and played at hide and seek among 
 the wrinkles of the insane fixed smile on his 
 face. Then he would plunge forward again, 
 recklessly, deliriously, striking himself against 
 the storm always that, always facing the 
 gale in its angry teeth, slashing at the wind 
 and rain with his hands, the tempest tearing 
 the clothes from his benumbed and sodden 
 limbs, his beard and the hair of his bare head 
 (his hat had long since been lost) washed flat 
 against his skin. It was amazing that he 
 kept his feet so well. But once he went 
 crashing down on his face on stones and 
 mud ; and as he lay there motionless, the 
 storm screaming over him, it occurred to him, 
 in a vivid flash of consciousness, that if he 
 did not rise instantly he would never rise 
 again, but perish where he lay. The next 
 instant he was up on his knees, crying out 
 with remorseful vehemence : " Prophet ! Pro- 
 phet ! I'll see you righted ! It was me that 
 done it, and I'll see you righted ! " Then he 
 staggered to his feet, and went on once more 
 with the aimless recklessness of delirium. He
 
 MY BROTHER I 29 
 
 began now to feel that his heart was fail- 
 ing, and although he imagined that he was 
 about to fall over a precipice, he did not 
 stop. If death was before him, he would 
 advance to meet it. Death was behind him 
 also. 
 
 So the fourth hour passed. The thunder 
 and lightning ceased ; but the rain continued, 
 and the wind blew stronger and stronger. 
 Here and there stars appeared in the ravines 
 of the driving clouds, and low down in the 
 southern sky a huge, black, slow-moving 
 cloud-crag was tipped with the white radiance 
 of the hidden moon. Willie was still making 
 for the hills, for liberty, for the foreign land 
 where he would confess his crime and set 
 Prophet Penfold free, and himself be accounted 
 a murderer for all time to come in Occlesby, 
 and yet save Susan and the children and his 
 mother from the last unspeakable dishonour 
 of the scaffold. And Lizzie too : he allowed 
 himself to think of her now, for the first time 
 since his flight from home ; he choked as he 
 thought of her Lizzie, pretty Lizzie, poor, 
 poor Lizzie. " Ah, God, if you can't have 
 i
 
 I3O MY BROTHER 
 
 mercy on me, have some on poor Lizzie!" 
 But though Willie held to his way, and hoped 
 against hope, the night had come, and he felt 
 that at any moment he might fall again, and 
 for the last time. He was grown so weak 
 that his knees were thrust out before him, and 
 his chin rested on his chest as he dragged 
 himself along. He knew not at all where he 
 was, whether on a hill-side, or in a country 
 lane, or near a village, or in the midst of a 
 moor. He was too exhausted to lift his head 
 and look about him. He felt that he was 
 receding from life and sinking into the last 
 awful isolation of the soul. 
 
 Toward midnight he put his hand inside 
 his shirt against his heart ; for it was borne in 
 upon him that he would not live through the 
 night. " If I had a pencil and a bit of paper 
 I'd write it, to save Prophet Penfold," he said 
 to himself. But he had no pencil and no 
 paper, and the words were never written. 
 
 Soon after that, Willie fell heavily on the 
 wet and stony ground. Susan came to him ; 
 he saw his boys in bed ; his mother . . . and 
 Lizzie . . . and Prophet Penfold . . .
 
 MY BROTHER I$I 
 
 This was a very lonesome place where 
 Willie fell. And it was in the third hour after 
 sunrise, on a radiant morning, that some 
 children, on their way to school, came upon 
 the body of a man lying by the road-side. 
 The children did not think but that the man 
 was sleeping, or it might be " lazying " in the 
 warm sunshine. So, standing apart in excited 
 gigglement, each dared the other to go near 
 and see what the man was doing. "If he 
 should be tipsy," one little girl said, "the 
 cows will sniff him and perhaps bite his ear 
 off." And at this there was laughing and 
 clapping of hands; and a boy whispered, 
 "Let's throw stones at him and run"; and 
 another said, " But if he's broke his leg and 
 can't walk, like my dadda did at Christmas " ; 
 and, to make sure, two boys (the one waiting 
 till the other was ready, and both till a third 
 said " Fire ! ") threw stones at the man lying 
 by the road-side ; and when this was done all 
 the children scampered oft with merry shouts, 
 only looking back when they had got to a 
 turning in the road and were become breath- 
 less. But the man had not moved ; and one
 
 132 MY BROTHER 
 
 of the children said, " I'll tell mother, see if I 
 don't " ; and another saying, " I wonder if he's 
 a dead man," the others became frightened, 
 and, running on to school, told two men 
 working in a field what they had seen and 
 what they thought ; and the men went along 
 to the place where Willie lay, and turned him 
 over and looked on his face. 
 
 " Some poor fellow been on the tramp for 
 work, and perished in the storm," the rural 
 constable said when he came to take away 
 the body. They kept it a decent time, but 
 could find out nothing as to its identity. He 
 was not a man, from his clothes, to worry 
 much about. " Found dead," was the verdict 
 of the coroner's jury. And the parish author- 
 ities put Willie in an unnamed coffin, and 
 dropped him into a grave
 
 XV 
 
 " No, no ! You can't see him. It's against 
 the rules. Stand back, Mrs May ! " 
 
 The words were followed by a faint sound 
 at the entrance to the police-station, as of 
 persons being pushed away : then the voice 
 of Woolven the saddler, saying, " You'd best 
 go home with your daughter, Mrs May, and 
 I'll be company for you part of the way " ; and 
 then silence, the noise of the crowd leaving 
 the police-court sounding like a dull confusion 
 afar off, in some world Paul had once visited, 
 but had now left for ever behind. Paul heard 
 with a pained wonder this particular constable 
 speak in so harsh a tone, for he was a man of 
 kindly intention, and had gone beyond his 
 plain duty to show a furtive sympathy with 
 Paul since his imprisonment. But soon it 
 was made obvious that the constable had 
 been playing a part ; for two or three 
 
 133
 
 134 MY BROTHER 
 
 minutes later Paul heard him say hurriedly, 
 anxiously : 
 
 " Now's your chance, Mrs May ! Follow 
 me. Look sharp ! never mind your shawl 
 he's to be took to Danbridge by the five 
 train. You wait here, Miss May." 
 
 There was a hasty movement on the paved 
 corridor before the cells : the door of Paul's 
 cell was thrown open, and the constable, 
 looking in, said in a whisper, " Here's Mrs 
 May wants badly to see you, Penfold. But 
 it's against the rules, so be quick with what 
 you've to say." The constable stood on one 
 side, and Mrs May's frail, dark figure slid into 
 the cell. 
 
 She was not weeping: it was commonly 
 believed in Occlesby that she never wept 
 again from the moment she was told of 
 Paul's arrest for the murder of Lord Lusson. 
 Her face, in this grey prison light, expressed 
 a grief that made Paul cry out, " Mrs May ! 
 . Mrs May! . . ." And then he said, 
 " I'm so pleased to see you, Mrs May ; " and 
 muttered again brokenly, " Mrs May . . . 
 Mrs May . . . "
 
 MY BROTHER 135 
 
 " Paul," she whispered, "... Paul." 
 
 " Mrs May," he said, "... Mrs May . . ." 
 and pitifully held her hands, that were offered 
 to him shrinkingly from out her faded black 
 shawl. She sighed and shivered at his touch, 
 and seemed afraid to let her eyes meet his. 
 
 " Have you heard tidin's of Willie yet, Mrs 
 May?" 
 
 " No, Paul " with a hunted look. 
 
 " Nobody thinks " 
 
 " Oh, Paul . . ." 
 
 " Mrs May, Mrs May ! " he cried, " you 
 must be of good cheer, and Willie '11 come 
 back to you and Susan. Ay, ay, Willie's sure 
 to send you his whereabouts when he's found 
 the work he's gone to seek. You'll not grieve 
 so much, Mrs May, as if there was no hope, 
 if you think of that how Willie's comin 
 home presently, to be with you the same, 
 the breadwinner and comfort to you all." 
 Paul put his face so close to Mrs May's that 
 his beard touched her shoulder. " I've paid 
 much heed to what's been said to the magis- 
 trates, and it seems plain that nobody thinks 
 but what him goin' away on the same night
 
 136 MY BROTHER 
 
 was a chance, and there's no sort of suspicion, 
 as I can see, against him. Now, all you've 
 to do, Mrs May," he went on in a low voice, 
 "is to keep silence not a word to nobody 
 about you comin to see me that night ay 
 then Willie'll be restored to you, and he'll 
 be left to work out his repentance before God 
 rather than before man, which is far better. 
 But it depends on you, Mrs May, whether 
 you keep silence or no." He added earnestly, 
 " You can't think of the happiness that's fell 
 on me. I've never known sich a peace. It's 
 what passes understandin." 
 
 " Yes, Paul," Mrs May's despairing voice 
 said. " But what casts so deep a trouble on 
 me, Paul, is the thought of my silence 
 wicked and cruel to the innocent when I 
 should speak " 
 
 " Ay, I can enter in your feelins, Mrs May, 
 and see it's hard for you to bear. And I've 
 wished since I've been shut up here that I'd 
 known and you not known so's it would 
 have saved you from the sore trial and 
 conflict of sparin my lonely, useless life, or 
 offerin up the life of your own son "
 
 MY BROTHER 137 
 
 " Paul, Paul, my heart is broke my heart 
 is broke ! " 
 
 " No, no, Mrs May," Paul said, and folded 
 the shaking form in his arms. " No, no, Mrs 
 May, it's not come to that, I do hope. And 
 if your heart was to break, Mrs May, be sure 
 Him that's the merciful, and never broke the 
 reed drove to and fro in the wind, would 
 mend it more whole than ever for your bitter 
 trial, and the sake of a mother's love. Mebbe 
 I'm wrong, and I donno what others would 
 say, but I do believe, Mrs May, there's a call 
 far above the law, a order and peacefulness 
 that comes out of tryin to bear one another's 
 burdens, whether our enemies or our friends 
 ay, it's the way of life, that call, and in my 
 heart I do believe it's been give to you and 
 me." 
 
 The constable shuffled his feet : he was 
 standing at some distance from the cell ; 
 there were murmurs outside, of people wait- 
 ing to see the prisoner taken away, waiting 
 to hiss and howl at him. Paul, speaking more 
 cheerfully, said : " " And how's Susan and the 
 children ? I hope well. And Lizzie you've
 
 138 MY BROTHER 
 
 not said how Lizzie is in health, Mrs May. I 
 could hardly bear to look at her when she 
 was givin evidence against me. She did cry 
 bitter, poor lassie." 
 
 " Susan's only but poorly, Paul, thank you, 
 and the children is quieter, as if they partly 
 knew what had happened. They was con- 
 stant askin for you, till their mother stopped 
 them. . . . Oh, Paul, you'll not think no 
 worse of Lizzie for what she's said. She 
 thinks no other but what it's true." 
 
 " I could see that," Paul said ; " it was plain 
 they all was honest in what they said, and I 
 thought, as I listened to them, was it provi- 
 dential, the network of evidence gatherin 
 round me." 
 
 The constable came to the door and said 
 it was time for Mrs May to go. Paul led her 
 out of the cell. 
 
 " Now mind you give my love and regard 
 to all at home and kiss baby and the boys 
 for me that saucy Jimmy always wipes his 
 cheek when I kiss it like a boy that, not 
 to be thought a girl. Ay ; and tell them 
 I've somethin wonderful, truly very wonder-
 
 MY BROTHER 139 
 
 ful and rare, for each of them that behaves 
 himself and keeps a good boy while father's 
 away lookin for work somethin out of my 
 big box they call the Prophet's pawnshop, 
 the impident young rascals. Dearie me, how 
 I've loved them boys, the more fun they've 
 made of me ; I was thinkin of one of Harry's 
 impidences only last night, and had a good 
 laugh to myself. Bless those dear boys ! 
 and their father and mother, and grannie, 
 and Auntie Lizzie. Good-bye, Mrs May." 
 
 " Good-bye, Paul." 
 
 " Good-bye, Mrs May ! And tell Susan 
 whenever she frets, that Willie's sure to be 
 back soon, or send her a long kind letter 
 and mebbe he'll write to you first, or put a 
 note for you in Susan's letter and God bless 
 Willie " 
 
 The constable shut the cell door, and hur- 
 ried Mrs May away. An hour later, Paul, 
 handcuffed, and guarded by four constables, 
 was taken to the county gaol at Danbridge. 
 Woolven the saddler, at the Lusson Arms 
 that night, told the story of the howling of 
 the mob.
 
 XVI 
 
 PAUL (so that his spiritual welfare should 
 not be neglected) was taken the next morn- 
 ing before the prison chaplain. The chaplain 
 was seated on a high stool at a desk : he wore 
 eye-glasses, and was writing with a squeaking 
 quill pen in a big book. He glanced over 
 his eye-glasses at Paul, and went on with his 
 writing. He was a Mr Orme, a florid, hand- 
 some, obvious man, with good-natured blue 
 eyes, light brown hair (thinning on the 
 crown), and he was shaven so perfectly and 
 was so well groomed that he looked younger 
 than he really was. He was quite orthodox, 
 and quite healthy ; his candid friends said he 
 would have made an admirable country 
 gentleman, and the chaplain agreed with 
 them cordially. Paul noticed his splendid 
 shoulders, and thought of Willie May.
 
 MY BROTHER 141 
 
 " What are you ? " 
 
 " A Christian," said Paul. 
 
 " Oh, but that is rather indefinite." 
 
 " No, no," said Paul, " no, no. I'm in a 
 wonder, sir, you should say sich a thing." 
 
 This was not said rudely. The chaplain 
 put down his pen, folded his red strong 
 hands (the wrists had a thick coating of 
 yellowish hair), and looked steadily at the 
 prisoner. Then he turned over a page of the 
 book and read something. 
 
 " You're name is Penfold ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Quite so," said the chaplain. He 
 
 took up his pen again, but did not write. 
 Plainly he was at a loss what to make of 
 this extraordinary person, and as he had not 
 yet been tried, it would hardly have been 
 decorous to preach at him. The chaplain's 
 private admonitions usually ran, " You are 
 a very wicked man, and if you don't repent 
 you'll be damned in this world and the 
 next." He had used this formula so often 
 that it had come to have almost a humorous 
 sound in his own ears. His conscience had
 
 142 MY BROTHER 
 
 suggested that he should give it up ; but then 
 it was so comprehensive, and in most cases 
 so applicable. He felt, however, that some- 
 thing new was needed for the man who 
 stood charged with the murder of Viscount 
 Lusson. 
 
 " Is there anything you wish to say to 
 me?" 
 
 " Not that I know of, sir." 
 
 " I suppose you feel rather lonely " 
 
 " Oh, no, sir ; it's very quiet and peaceful 
 here. I felt most lonesome when I was in 
 the exercise yard a bit since. I donno why. 
 Mebbe it was the others that done it." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " They was all so sad and woebegone." 
 
 " So they should be ! This is a place of 
 sadness." The chaplain tapped on the book, 
 and twirled off his eye-glasses. " People are 
 not here to be happy. They are here be- 
 cause they are wicked, and if they don't 
 repent they will be damned in this world 
 and the next" 
 
 " Ay," said Paul, " ay." He sighed. " But 
 I've thought there's a different way to set
 
 MY BROTHER 143 
 
 about it. I donno that you could make 
 me love God by makin me hate my bro- 
 ther." 
 
 " Your brother ? " cried the chaplain. 
 " Have you a brother here ? " 
 
 The chaplain, as Paul looked at him in 
 silence, flushed. A strange, impersonal smile 
 was on Paul's face. He turned his eyes away 
 and gazed out of the window. 
 
 " There was men in the yard this mornin," 
 he said, "young men and old, that would 
 have broke down at the sound of one kind 
 word. I saw it in their faces, and I said to 
 myself, if the Lord was to pass by, what 
 would be the power He'd use ? " 
 
 " The power of love, doubtless," said the 
 chaplain. " But then they would presently 
 crucify Him again." 
 
 " Oh oh He'd not think the worse of 
 them for that," Paul cried, lifting up his hands, 
 an ecstatic look in his face. " He'd forgive 
 them, and be very, very sorry for them, 
 knowin they was only takin from Him 
 what was of no consequence, and that it 
 would break them down more than ever.
 
 144 MY BROTHER 
 
 I donno," said Paul, in a softer voice, " how 
 the world's to be subdued except in that way. 
 It's been tryin its own devices long enough, 
 and always it's cryin out, ' Now we're at the 
 door of perfection,' but the door never opens ; 
 and if you look into the heart of things, 
 what's been done that was worth doin ? I 
 donno, sir, what there can be in human life 
 to seek for, exceptin the wonderful things 
 of love. . . . But I doubt I doubt I'm 
 keepin you, sir," Paul added, turning 
 aside. He moved a little way round the 
 desk, and pointed out of the window. 
 " Is them pansies yours, sir ? I do miss 
 the flowers ; and what a comfort it would 
 be to have a cupful of them on my 
 table." 
 
 " H'm," coughed the chaplain. " Yes, my 
 man, those are my pansies ; but I'm afraid 
 the governor would not allow you to have 
 flowers in your cell." He smiled queerly at 
 the notion. " Still, I don't know ; you are an 
 untried prisoner, and I will speak to the 
 governor, if you like." 
 
 " No ; I wouldn't do that if I was you, sir.
 
 MY BROTHER 145 
 
 I don't wish to have no difference made in 
 my treatment." 
 
 The chaplain screwed up his eyebrows. 
 This was the oddest murderer he had ever 
 had through his hands. He said : 
 
 " Your friends, you know, can send in your 
 food." 
 
 " Thank you," replied Paul ; " but I've no 
 fault to find with the prison fare. It's simple 
 and wholesome, and as good as I've been used 
 to. But I do miss my tea. Poor Mrs May ! 
 she could make a nice cup of tea. And the 
 way she brewed it made me that selfish, many 
 a time I've gone and asked her for a cup when 
 I've had tea at home." 
 
 " Quite so," said the chaplain. " Now, I 
 must get on with my work. I will come and 
 see you." He thumped on the desk with a 
 ruler, and a warder came in and took Paul 
 away. 
 
 The chaplain went every day to Paul's cell 
 to have a chat with the strange being who 
 was so complete a puzzle to him. "They 
 ought to bring him in insane," he said to 
 himself ; " but I hardly think they will, in the
 
 146 MY BROTHER 
 
 circumstances. Nor, indeed, would it be 
 easy to prove ; and the Judge would make 
 short work of such a defence. And then the 
 poor fellow doesn't seem to care in the least 
 what becomes of him." So Mr Orme, in a 
 spirit of unimaginative inevitableness, settled 
 himself down to the conclusion that in a few 
 weeks he would be called on, in the usual 
 course of legal routine, to read the office for 
 the burial of the dead over Penfold's living 
 body. One day, having wrestled at close 
 quarters with the prisoner, touching the 
 meaning of the words, " I will have mercy, 
 and not sacrifice," the chaplain, who was 
 seated on the edge of the little table in the 
 cell, Paul sitting on the stool, rose on a 
 sudden, and said: 
 
 " Well, my man, I shall not come to see you 
 again unless you send for me." 
 
 " I hope you will come, sir," Paul said, 
 rising also. " It's very pleasant to hear your 
 voice, You mean so well, and I'd miss your 
 visits." 
 
 The chaplain had opened the door ; he 
 
 shut it again, and went back to Paul. 
 
 1
 
 MY BROTHER 147 
 
 " Tell me, now this light you are always 
 speaking of is it a thing that can be seen, 
 and have you seen it ? " 
 
 " I've seen it," said Paul ; " I've seen it." 
 
 " Tell me your experience." 
 
 "Ah, it's not to be told," Paul said. He 
 seemed to grow suddenly weak, and seated 
 himself again on the stool. " It's one of them 
 experiences," he went on, in a voice so sub- 
 dued that the chaplain had to bend to hear, 
 " as I should think even the angels only 
 understand imperfect. It's a call and a guid- 
 ance, and you feel you'll sink if you turn 
 your back on it. I've seen it very clear twice 
 lately " 
 
 " When ? " the chaplain incredulously 
 asked. 
 
 " I saw it that afternoon in Mrs May's 
 house, when she told me of Lizzie's trouble 
 ay, and I saw it again the same night, 
 clearer and brighter, in the Little Wood " 
 
 Paul looked up suddenly at the chaplain, 
 and stopped speaking. He set his lips, tried 
 to shake off his abstraction, and his eyes were 
 full of what the chaplain deemed to be terror.
 
 148 MY BROTHER 
 
 " He was on the point of confessing his guilt," 
 Mr Orme said to himself. He was grown 
 very pale, and went quickly to the door. 
 There he paused, and looked out to see if a 
 warder were near ; then turned impulsively, 
 and came back to the prisoner. 
 
 " My friend," he said, grasping Paul's hand 
 in a sympathy of which he was afterwards 
 ashamed "you might have said all this to 
 the stones. But I will not come again. It 
 is better that I should not come just yet." 
 And the chaplain hastened from the cell.
 
 XVII 
 
 \ 
 
 So Paul had lonely days before his trial. It 
 depressed him a little, that everyone should 
 seem to take his guilt for granted : yet he 
 would not have had it otherwise. 
 
 His cell had a little window high up 
 against the ceiling, with bars across it, 
 though it was so small that he could not 
 have made his escape even had the window 
 been without bars. From this window 
 he could see the changing sky by day, 
 and the purple-black heavens, lighted with 
 stars, by night. And he saw other beauti- 
 ful things that may not be written down 
 here. 
 
 Often he saw Lord Lusson's face as he 
 had seen it that night when the moon- 
 light glorified it in death in the Little 
 Wood ; often he saw Willie, and Susan, 
 and their children, and once, baby, whom 
 
 149
 
 MY BROTHER 
 
 Paul, loving all children, loved most, smiled 
 to him, and held out his tiny hands to 
 be taken all this in the blue and white 
 sky, or in the starlight, Paul saw ; and at 
 another time in the night, after his light had 
 been taken away, he saw Willie's baby under 
 great shining wings, baby smiling and crow- 
 ing, and Willie standing mournful beyond in 
 storm-rent darkness Willie, who would 
 come back to his wife and little ones, and 
 his careworn mother and friendless sister, 
 when peace had been made with the powers 
 of the world, when human justice had offered 
 up its sacrifice, not to God, but to its own 
 craven, faithless heart, taking the name of 
 the Lord in vain. But Paul's spirit was 
 untouched by bitterness. Once he saw 
 Lizzie, and was very sad because of the 
 darkness that was falling deeper and deeper 
 upon her, and rent his heart at the sight of 
 her sorrowful face, and bowed his head in 
 the loneliness of his cell and again, looking 
 up at her in his tranced state, his hands just 
 lifted from his knees as he sat on his prison 
 stool, he spoke to her words of comfort, as
 
 MY BROTHER 1$I 
 
 though her presence were a reality and not 
 the vision of his love. But he never turned 
 away his gaze from the face of Lizzie's 
 mother : no, no ; he always smiled as he 
 looked upon her, the sorely afflicted mother, 
 ageing so fast under the load of grief that 
 had fallen on her, under the terrible trial 
 of silence she was enduring for Willie's sake, 
 for Lizzie's sake, for the sake of Susan and the 
 children, for her own sake. Always when 
 he saw her white worn face in his visions, 
 her eyes seemed to have grown unnatural in 
 their absorbed wonder and fixity of mystery, 
 and they were set in a pitiful redness and 
 darkness, but the eyelids never moved, and 
 tears were never seen. 
 
 Paul was not a difficult prisoner to manage. 
 He gave no trouble, and made no complaint. 
 The weeks passed, and no one came to see 
 him. He did not murmur at this, remember- 
 ing how far Danbridge was from Occlesby, 
 and how poor were his friends. It was 
 whispered outside by the warders that he had 
 to be spoken to sometimes two or three times 
 before he understood what was said to him.
 
 152 MY BROTHER 
 
 One day, however, when the assizes drew 
 near, he was conducted through gloomy 
 corridors and staircases until he found him- 
 self in a narrow space with a white wall on 
 one side and a double row of large iron bars 
 on the other. Between the two rows of bars 
 stood a warder ; and in another narrow space 
 beyond the farthest row Paul could see two 
 women clutching at the bars and looking 
 through at him with tearful eyes. They 
 were poor women, friends of his in Occlesby, 
 and it had cost them many a hardship to 
 save enough money to pay their railway 
 fares to Danbridge to visit Paul in prison. 
 When the women saw him behind the great 
 iron bars, like a caged beast, they could 
 find no words to say to him : only, " Oh, 
 Paul, Paul ! " (said one), and, " Mister Pen- 
 fold, I never thought as how " (said the 
 
 other) ; and then the women began to cry. 
 They seemed to have really nothing to say 
 to him ; and presently, still weeping, they 
 were led away; and they went back to 
 Occlesby, saying, they'd seen the Prophet 
 in gaol, and how happy and contented he
 
 MY BROTHER 1 53 
 
 looked, but O what a change, so's they'd 
 hardly have known him again for the same 
 man, unless for his eyes, so shiny and pale 
 his face, and his clo'es hangin that slack about 
 his thin body. And after that, no one came 
 to see Paul till the day of his condemnation 
 by the law. 
 
 On November of that year the following 
 paragraph appeared in the newspapers : 
 
 " The deformed man, Paul Penfold, who 
 murdered Lord Lusson under circumstances 
 of peculiar brutality, in an unfrequented place 
 known as the Little Wood, near the village 
 of Occlesby, was yesterday, at Danbridge 
 assizes, found guilty of the crime, and duly 
 sentenced to death. There was practically 
 no defence, the accused simply stating when 
 charged that he had nothing to say. He 
 maintained a sullen demeanour throughout 
 the trial. When asked the usual question 
 why sentence should not be passed upon him, 
 the prisoner merely shook his head ; from the 
 first he had shown the utmost indifference to 
 his fate, even closing his eyes and appearing 
 to go to sleep in the dock. The supposition
 
 154 MY BROTHER 
 
 is that he was shamming insanity. He has a 
 crazy appearance, and it was proved that he 
 had all his life been a worthless character. 
 The Judge said he entirely concurred in the 
 verdict, and in passing sentence of death, 
 commented on the heinous nature of the 
 crime, holding out no hope of mercy. At the 
 solemn words, 'And may the Lord have 
 mercy on your soul,' the culprit's lips were 
 seen to move, and he is understood to have 
 muttered ' Amen,' this being the only sign of 
 contrition which he had evinced. A painful 
 sensation was caused in court when his 
 lordship assumed the black cap, an old 
 woman, who had been seated under the 
 gallery, near the dock, rising and calling out 
 hysterically, ' He's innocent ! He's innocent ! ' 
 The Judge sternly ordered her removal, and 
 she was led out of court in a fainting con- 
 dition. It transpired that she was the mother 
 of the young woman, Elizabeth May, whom 
 the culprit had been courting, and whose 
 intimacy with Lord Lusson was the motive of 
 the murder,"
 
 XVIII 
 
 So Paul was taken to the cell of the con- 
 demned. And the chaplain, visiting him 
 that same night, found him reading the 
 Psalms. He began to read aloud when the 
 chaplain came in. 
 
 " List to this, sir ; how you do find things 
 here for every hour. ' The sorrows of death 
 compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold 
 of me : I found trouble and sorrow. Then 
 called I upon the name of the Lord : O Lord, 
 I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is 
 the Lord, and righteous ; yea, our God is 
 merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple : 
 I was brought low, and He helped me. Re- 
 turn unto thy rest, O my soul ' " Paul raised 
 his voice at these words " for the Lord hath 
 dealt bountifully with thee. For Thou hast 
 delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from 
 tears, and my feet from fallin 
 
 '$5
 
 156 MY BROTHER 
 
 But this striking the chaplain as incon- 
 gruous, he began to speak about the convict's 
 spiritual condition. 
 
 " Have you been baptised ? " 
 
 " I donno," said Paul. 
 
 " Then you have not been confirmed ? " 
 
 "Not how you mean," said Paul, a smile 
 passing over his deep, trustful eyes. 
 
 " I think you ought to be baptised and con- 
 firmed. The Bishop is a good man ; I am 
 sure he would come to the prison for the 
 purpose." 
 
 " Ay, you mean well," said Paul, " but I 
 donno it's needful, and I'll not trouble the 
 Bishop. If you see him, he might be willin 
 to say a word for me in his prayers. He's a 
 good man, you say." He added, after a 
 thoughtful silence : " There's a kindness of 
 another sort I'd like to ask you, sir, and it's 
 this. Poor Mrs May is in sad distress her 
 son Willie bein so long in comin home, and 
 they're all so anxious because he's never 
 sent them a letter to say where he is or 
 what luck he's had and the kindness, sir, I'd 
 wish you to do, is to sell my hut by the side
 
 MY BROTHER 1 57 
 
 of the wood at home I mean Occlesby and 
 sell also the things that's in it, and take the 
 money to Mrs May, and ask her, if there's a 
 few shillin's to spare, to give them to Susan 
 that's Willie's wife to keep the home over 
 her head till Willie comes back. You'll do 
 me this strong favour, sir, I'm sure, after all 
 your kindness in bein so patient with me." 
 
 " Yes, willingly, Penfold. But what about 
 yourself ? You do not appear to be thinking 
 of yourself at all. You made no defence at 
 your trial, but let things go just anyhow. I 
 am told you would hold no communication 
 with the counsel who was named by the 
 Judge to defend you." 
 
 "He did make up a wonderful tale of it 
 out of his head," said Paul, "till I could 
 almost not bear to listen to him, so far he 
 wandered from the truth." 
 
 " And now, you know, my dear fellow, you 
 are in a very terrible position." 
 
 " For its terribleness, I donno," said Paul. 
 " It's a solemn thing to die, but it's not so 
 dark with me as you'd seem to think, sir. 
 I'm not without comfort No ; I'm not with-
 
 158 MY BROTHER 
 
 out comfort. What's a man's life, sir his 
 brief mortal life, that he should be frightened 
 of it bein changed ? ' Though He slay me, 
 yet will I love Him.' Mebbe you think the 
 suddenness of it will fright me, but it would 
 always be sudden, in the twinklin of a eye, 
 even if I was to die on my bed, or in a 
 country lane among the flowers, how I've 
 wished it to be, havin a deep yearnin to be 
 quite alone when the change comes. I'd never 
 have thought for the end to come where 
 there's only the eyes of strangers to look on. 
 But it's not for me to decide, and it don't 
 matter except for my own weakness. Oh, 
 Mr Chaplain, there's another point," urged 
 Paul, " in my call on your kindness. I do 
 remember I promised Willie's boys gifts out 
 of my trunk. They'll hold me as a break- 
 promiser if I forget them. It's my trunk 
 what they name, out of their high spirits and 
 warm-hearted ways, the Prophet's pawnshop. 
 Oh dearie me, them boys will miss me, I do 
 believe, and if they was to come in here, 
 you'd see how fond they are of me. There's 
 four of them, one named Paul, after me,
 
 MY BROTHER 159 
 
 though Willie laughed when his dear mother 
 said I might be his godfather, and wouldn't 
 hear tell of it, and besides the four, there's 
 baby, makin five . . . Five little helpless 
 children, and him not come back yet, nor 
 writ a word to say where he is ... But 
 
 Willie'll come back ay, I'll not doubt that; 
 
 and then the sweet home-nest will be builded 
 up again ; and even if he don't, the children 
 won't be forsook, for He always gathers up 
 the lambs in His arms . . . You'll pardon 
 me, sir, owin to my anxious mind ; and if 
 you'll take out five little gifts, whatever you 
 think most likely, from my trunk when you 
 go to have the things sold, the choice restin 
 with yourself, and take them to Willie's 
 children, I'll be deep obliged to you." 
 
 " I shall do so, certainly, Penfold. But, 
 my dear friend " 
 
 " And please say to each, except to baby, 
 who'd hardly understand at his small time of 
 life, ' This is from Paul's pawnshop, what he 
 promised Grannie May he'd send you, and 
 you must keep them in remembrance of him.' 
 And if also you'd think to tell them, sir, in
 
 160 MY BROTHER 
 
 your own words, how I hold them warm and 
 cosy in my heart, and have put them in my 
 prayers, and always will, and their father and 
 mother and Grannie May and dear Auntie 
 Lizzie they've always called her Liz, and no- 
 body could break them from it, because they 
 tried, sich is the domineerin way of children 
 and I donno how you could put it so's not 
 to offend their mother if she was by, but if you 
 could, sir, only a wee word in edgeways, to 
 ask them to try not to think ill of me, when 
 they grow up and understand, mebbe you'd 
 do it, and how thankful I'd be. I'd like you 
 to do it, because it's hard for grown-ups to 
 think well of you, and the good opinion ot 
 little children has always been sich a precious 
 thing to me . . ." 
 
 The chaplain felt no shame of his tears. 
 
 " Penfold," he said in a husky voice, " I can 
 make nothing of you." And presently, in a 
 kind of despair, he left the cell. 
 
 Mr Orme made no attempt to dispose 
 of the things in the hut by the wayside. 
 He thought at first that it would be hardly 
 decent to do so at least till after the execu-
 
 MY BROTHER l6l 
 
 tion of the criminal. He went, however, to 
 see the place, and found that the poor house- 
 hold gods were of so little value that it 
 would not have been worth while to sell 
 them. They might have been got rid of, to 
 morbid-minded persons, had a fuss been made 
 of the matter ; but Mr Orme was a gentleman. 
 So he selected five trifles from Paul's trunk 
 (the place had been ransacked by the police), 
 and locked up the hut. He conveyed the 
 condemned man's message with delicacy and 
 tact ; but the mother refused to allow her 
 children to touch the gifts. " He was no 
 relation of ours," said she, " and my husband 
 only let him come here out of pity. I never 
 liked the man." She was flushed and in- 
 dignant. She cast the things angrily on 
 one side, and Mr Orme had a suspicion that 
 so soon as his back was turned they would 
 be thrown on to the dust heap. He was not 
 altogether out of sympathy with Mrs Willie : 
 though on no account would he have re- 
 peated her hard saying to the convict. 
 
 The same evening he paid a visit to a rich 
 old lady who had from time to time helped 
 L
 
 1 62 MY BROTHER 
 
 him in the unknown ways of charity. He 
 explained the case in its superficial aspects 
 (which indeed was all he could do), and 
 received a sum of money for Mrs May. The 
 next day he went again to Occlesby, and 
 called at the widow's cottage. She was in 
 bed : her daughter ministering sadly to her 
 needs. The girl did not impress Mr Orme 
 favourably ; she was secretive, somewhat mor- 
 ose of manner, and showed a certain reluct- 
 ance to let the clergyman see her mother. 
 But in his forceful, hearty fashion he made his 
 way into the house, and carried a chair to 
 Mrs May's bedside. She was very weak and 
 depressed, he could see, but apparently was 
 not in pain. 
 
 " I'm not really ill, sir ; nothing ails me but 
 weakness, and I do believe I'd be better up, 
 in the fresh air. But Lizzie and Susan won't 
 hear of me leavin bed." 
 
 " Quite right," said Mr Orme. " Bed, I am 
 sure, is the best place for you, Mrs May." 
 
 " Everything's been goin wrong since 
 Willie went away," she murmured. " I do 
 wish he would come home."
 
 MY BROTHER 163 
 
 Her hands moved incessantly over the 
 counterpane : the feeble thin hands which had 
 interpreted to Paul so much of the pathos of 
 life ; and she kept glancing furtively at the 
 door. Almost every breath was a sigh. As 
 Mr Orme gave her the money he perceived 
 that she was concealing a piece of crumpled 
 newspaper in her hand. Watching her closely, 
 he could not resist the conclusion that she 
 was on the borderland of delirium. 
 
 " I'd never have thought " (she said ' sought ' 
 like a child) " of it myself. It came to Paul 
 first . . . But Willie will come back in time." 
 
 Her mind, he told himself, was "wander- 
 ing," as Mrs Willie had hinted. The expres- 
 sion of her eyes impressed him painfully. 
 
 " Oh, you must look on the bright side of 
 things, Mrs May. You have many kind 
 friends, you know. And I hope you will 
 soon be strong enough to be up and about as 
 usual." 
 
 " Never again," she said. " It's my death- 
 blow ; I feel it on me. But I'd never have 
 thought of it myself. It came to Paul first." 
 
 Mr Orme did not prolong his stay.
 
 1 64 MY BROTHER 
 
 " You must do as your daughter tells you," 
 he said, putting aside his chair. 
 
 "But she makes me keep in bed, and I 
 want to see the Queen. She's a good woman, 
 and has sons of her own, and if I was to tell 
 her private, I'm sure she'd have pity on me, 
 and on Willie and Paul, and all of us. Them 
 others don't know a mother's heart and the 
 cost of the word that should be spoke, but if 
 I could find the Queen and tell her in secret, 
 she'd know how to mend our troubles. I'd 
 write to her, only I don't know where she is, 
 and the others might open it. I was dreamin 
 all last night that she came in here, and sat 
 by my bed, O sich a kind face, and I told her, 
 and she took my hand and I saw the tears in 
 her eyes and when I said to her, ' Dear 
 Queen, Paul thought of it first, not me,' 
 she said, 'I'll make him a hero in my 
 kingdom ' " 
 
 " Quite so, quite so," said Mr Orme. 
 
 Lizzie followed the clergyman, when he was 
 leaving, to the outer door. 
 
 " I noticed," he said, " that your mother was 
 holding a piece of paper in her hand. She
 
 MY BROTHER 165 
 
 appeared to be desirous that I should not see 
 it. Do you know that she has it ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; it's a scrap she tore out of a 
 newspaper a neighbour brought in the place 
 where it gives the day and hour when Paul 
 Penfold is to be . . . hanged in Danbridge 
 gaol," Lizzie breathed, holding down her head. 
 
 " What is she doing with it ? " 
 
 " I can't think. She was very fond of him." 
 
 "So I should say. His dreadful position 
 seems to be preying on her mind. You ought 
 to get the piece of paper from her, and try to 
 make her forget it." 
 
 " I've tried, sir, but I can't make her give it 
 up. And she's always begging me to let her 
 put on her clothes and go and look for my 
 brother. Last night I found her out of bed 
 and made her go back. She said she wanted 
 to see the Queen. It's her mind, sir." 
 
 " Yes, of course ; and you must take great 
 care of her. I am very, very sorry," said the 
 chaplain. " Penfold wishes that you should 
 have his things. But I think it would be 
 more seemly to leave them where they are 
 till later. Here is the key."
 
 166 MY BROTHER 
 
 " I don't want it," said Lizzie, turning away. 
 " We'd not touch his things. We've not sunk 
 as low as that." 
 
 " Very well," said Mr Orme ; " I will keep 
 the key for the present" He added, as he 
 shook hands with the trembling girl, "You 
 must keep a constant watch on your poor 
 mother. There is no saying what she might 
 do in her delirious condition. I will send a 
 doctor from Danbridge, and will call again in 
 a day or two to see how she is getting on."
 
 XIX 
 
 A NIGHT of vehement stars and remote 
 silences : a surreptitious sullen dawn : then 
 angry skies, and a bitter northern wind 
 sweeping down on Danbridge gaol. Only a 
 few persons had come forth on this bleak 
 November morning to see the black flag 
 that should tell of the strangling of Paul 
 Penfold; others, in the town, would see it 
 from their windows at breakfast-time. The 
 people were gathered in twos and threes, in 
 large groups, and in shame-faced singles, on 
 the broad road in front of the gaol, and 
 Woolven the saddler and Andrew Isted were 
 of them. Woolven had never seen a black 
 flag go up, and being an old man, this might 
 be his last chance ; and Andrew Isted had 
 never missed one these twenty years, and 
 told gruesome tales at the Lusson Arms. So 
 they had borrowed a vehicle and driven out
 
 168 MY BROTHER 
 
 from Occlesby; and it was with pained sur- 
 prise that they discovered that Mrs May had 
 got to Danbridge gaol before them. 
 
 " Poor old woman, it's a grievous thing to 
 see her here, so wore out and forlorn," said 
 the saddler. " I'd not marvel but she's made 
 her escape from home in despite of her 
 daughter's care of her. See her there, 
 Andrew, scarce fit to stand. Bless my soul, 
 from her muddy draggled clothes she must 
 have been walkin through the whole night to 
 be here in time." 
 
 " It's a funny taste in a woman," Andrew 
 Isted said, "to want to see the black flag 
 hoist for the man she was fond of, too. 
 She must be out of her mind. I've heard 
 rumours." 
 
 " So've I. What a wreck she is ! " 
 
 " I'm willin to go along to that public," 
 said Andrew, " and fetch a drop of some- 
 thing to put a bit of life in her. She's more 
 dead than alive, from her appearance." 
 
 " Best wait till it's over; then we'll take her 
 back home in the trap," said Woolven. " I 
 do declare she's got a bunch of winter what-
 
 MY BROTHER 169 
 
 d'ye-call-'em daisies in her hand. She 
 must have gathered them in her son's garden, 
 for there's none in her own. They look as if 
 they'd been down in the slush." 
 
 " So she does the same," said Andrew. 
 
 Woolven looked at his watch. 
 
 " What d'ye make the right hour to be, 
 Andrew ? The trap joltin' has stopped 
 mine." 
 
 " Seven to eight." 
 
 "Late's that? Eh, time do fly though 
 I expect it's shorter over there than on this 
 side, where life is in our own hands, so to 
 to speak. You're sure it's to be done at 
 eight ? " 
 
 " Eight sharp; that's the fixed constitutional 
 hour, and they couldn't alter it except from 
 Act of Parliament." 
 
 " I've no doubt," said Woolven the saddler, 
 " but what it's held at one set hour to force 
 the nation to think of it all at once. It's a 
 horrible wide impression, and in one way it 
 ought to make the hanged man feel he's 
 plenty of company, though I hardly sup- 
 pose it does, seein the state of mind he's in."
 
 170 MY BROTHER 
 
 " The bell's been tollin for ten minutes or 
 more," said Andrew. " He'll hear it in his 
 cell." 
 
 " Sure enough to. They say he's as quiet 
 as a mouse, nearly always smilin he did 
 have a sweet sort of smile, I must say, for a 
 man of his class and what's more strange, 
 I've heard his deformity's left him, and he 
 walks now with a real gentleman-like, noble 
 air. I can't speak for the truth of it, though 
 it might be proved on the ground of miracle, 
 a thing not likely to happen in a gaol. But 
 what a state to be in, to sit listening to your 
 own funeral knell, then to hear the parson 
 read the Prayer Book over you, like they do 
 when the coffin is lowered. I do believe," 
 said the saddler, " it was the closin of the 
 rhododendron walk that made the last turn 
 in his senses. I've never felt confident in my 
 own mind he done it out of jealousy for 
 Lizzie. No, no ; he was touched up here, 
 from his mad notions of justice, if ever a man 
 was. It's been comin on him too ; why, I 
 do remember he never could tell the right 
 day of the week, whether the first, middle, or
 
 MY BROTHER I/I 
 
 end, and Sundays only came upon him by 
 instinct, like boys for the time of marbles 
 and kites. . . . Andrew, that bell do make 
 me feel bad. What's the hour by your watch 
 now, lad ? " 
 
 " Four to eight." Andrew held his watch 
 in his hand. 
 
 A profound awe had settled upon the 
 watchers ; few words were spoken, and these 
 in whispers. Certain women stood afar off 
 on the road where it wound into the town. 
 Only one woman was near; a woman unsexed 
 by sorrow ; a woman who had been a living 
 prayer since these sad things began. She 
 stood before the great barred gates of the 
 prison, holding up her handful of winter 
 daisies, as if this were her last peace-offering. 
 Her head was bare, and her thin white hair 
 was matted with rain. The ends of her black 
 shawl blew in the wind, like the signals of a 
 broken heart, in a world that had eyes to see 
 and saw not, and ears to hear and heard not. 
 None saw her face now, so near she was to 
 the gates. None heard her anguished suppli- 
 cation : " If only Willie would come back. .
 
 1/2 MY BROTHER 
 
 Paul, Paul. . . . Paul, Paul. ... I donno 
 what to do. . . ." And the bell tolled, 
 tolled ; and the last minutes fled ; and 
 Paul was handed over to the common hang- 
 man. . . . 
 
 A little child, its face and arms blue from 
 the cold, came up on the broad road, and 
 Woolven the saddler gave it a penny and sent 
 it home. The women farther down called it 
 to them, and hid it among them. A couple 
 of young fellows, pulsing with the greed of 
 life, got close to the high bare wall, and 
 listened. 
 
 " The scaffold's just over there," said one. 
 " I've seen it only a thing like a big well. 
 You'd never know unless you was told. Two 
 posts, and a bar across. He stands under 
 the bar on two folding doors, and when the 
 doors open down he goes, and then his head'll 
 be on a level where we're standing. I wish 
 there was a hole in this wall ! " 
 
 " So do I. He's as good as dead by 
 now, from fright, I daresay," said the 
 other. 
 
 " No ; they say he's rather game."
 
 MY BROTHER 1/3 
 
 "Andrew, lad," Woolven whispered, " what's 
 the clock now ? " 
 
 " Half a minute " 
 
 " Andrew, I'll take your arm ; I doubt I m 
 goin to be took ill. I do wish I'd never 
 come." 
 
 " Ssh ! " Andrew said. " There's a voice " 
 
 " What d'ye hear, Andrew ? " 
 
 " Only the voice. Like prayer. Haah ! 
 hear that ? The Lord have mercy on 
 him ! " 
 
 The voice on the other side of the wall 
 ceased. Another was vaguely audible, flung 
 on the screaming wind. The black flag 
 swished and bleated over the prison gates. 
 Woolven took off his hat, and for a moment 
 looked down to the ground. Andrew Isted 
 cleared his throat, and turned away his 
 eyes. The young men by the wall ran out 
 into the middle of the road to look at the 
 flag. 
 
 " Well, to be sure, a queer world," said 
 Andrew Isted, sighing. " Who'd have thought 
 this would be the end of Prophet Pen- 
 fold?"
 
 174 MY BROTHER 
 
 Woolven wiped his eyes with a red hand- 
 kerchief, caring not who should see him in 
 this weakness. " Nobody, lad, nobody. Not 
 one that knew Paul would ever have dreamt 
 it ! I almost feel as if another murder had 
 been done it's a kind of presentiment here ; " 
 he put his hand on his heart. " If it's not a 
 profane thought, Andrew," he added, gazing 
 upward, " I wonder what God is sayin to Paul 
 now? " 
 
 " Ah, that's a puzzler," said Andrew. " But 
 there's Mrs May gone right up to the gate. 
 What's she waiting for, I wonder ? " 
 
 " She don't seem to understand he's come 
 to his end," said Woolven. " What a heart- 
 breakin look she has. I'll go and ask her 
 to come away in our trap ; we'll make room 
 for her among the straw, where she'll get a 
 rest, and there's a rug to put over her. Why, 
 she's knockin at the gate. Andrew ! she's 
 fell on her knees " 
 
 The little gate set in the greater gate was 
 opened from within, and the chaplain stepped 
 sadly forth into the freer air. His eyes were 
 red, and he seemed to have lost his self-
 
 MY BROTHER 1/5 
 
 command. He uttered an exclamation, and 
 raised the widow from the ground. 
 
 " Mrs May, Mrs May you should not be 
 here on such a morning ! " 
 
 She gazed at him in stony hopelessness, 
 and held out her bunch of winter daisies. 
 
 " I'm looking for my boy Willie. I've 
 walked from Occlesby seekin him, in the 
 night for fear Lizzie'd find out I left my bed. 
 She don't know nobody knows but me. I 
 can't go home till I've found my Willie." 
 
 " Oh, you will find him of course," the 
 chaplain said kindly; scarce knowing what 
 to say. 
 
 He kept his arm about her : she was become 
 too exhausted to stand alone. She rubbed 
 her frozen hand up and down his sleeve ; 
 then placing her daisies upon his broad chest, 
 held her head on one side in a child-like 
 way to see the effect, and began to laugh 
 wonderfully. 
 
 " It was Paul thought of it first," she said ; 
 " I'd never have thought of it myself. I'm 
 that troubled in my mind, sir. . . . You're 
 his true friend, and if you'll give him these
 
 176 MY BROTHER 
 
 flowers, from Willie's garden. . . . Oh, if only 
 I could see the Queen. . . . But Willie'll set 
 everything to rights when he comes home. 
 He was always sich a good son to his mother, 
 as never was. . . ." 
 
 THE END 
 
 TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
 
 rams 
 
 BODLEIAN 
 LONDON' 
 
 CATALOGUE^PUBLICATIONS
 
 1896. 
 
 List of Books 
 
 IN 
 
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 JOHN I-ANE 9 
 
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