6
 
 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 A COMEDY WITH A STING
 
 BOOKS BY MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
 Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Open Country $1 .50 
 
 Halfway House $1.50 
 
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 The Road in Tuscany. Two Volumes, net $6.00 
 The Fool Errant $1.50
 
 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 A COMEDY WITH A STING 
 
 BY 
 
 MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
 
 '' . / ^ ' ' ' ' 
 
 J J. J 1 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK : : : : 1909
 
 Copyright, 1909, by 
 MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
 Published September, 1909 
 
 t c t t t I 

 
 L I 
 
 TO 
 
 THE LADY OF THE COUNTRY 
 
 M 
 
 -I 
 
 461913
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 Readers of this Book who may have made acquaint- 
 ance in "Halfway House, ^^ with my friend Mr. J. 
 Senhouse, are to be warned that the events there re- 
 lated took place between the years 1898- 1900, and 
 that what I have here to tell of him must be ascribed 
 to a date four years earlier. There is no relation 
 whatsoever between the two tales beyond the fact that 
 Mr. Senhouse -figures in both.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 I. 
 
 n. 
 in. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 VT. 
 
 vn. 
 vin. 
 
 EX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 xn. 
 xm. 
 
 XIV. 
 XV. 
 
 STATISTICS OF A RESPECTABLE FAMILY . 
 
 INTRODUCES THE GENTLEMAN GIPSY 
 
 OF COMMERCE WITH A DRYAD BY A POOL 
 
 BETWEEN BILL HILL AND GORSTON . 
 
 GREEK AND ITALIAN .... 
 
 HOW HE WENT HIS WAY .... 
 
 THE RETURN TO GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE 
 
 VOICE FROM THE OPEN IN JUSTIFICATION 
 
 VICKY'S CONCLUSIONS, AND THE FACTS . 
 
 SENHOUSE ON PAN AND THE NYMPHS 
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF MR. NEVILE INGRAM 
 
 THE SECRET OUT. SENHOUSE FROM CORNWALL 
 TO SANCHIA IN CHURCH . 
 
 MR. N. INGRAM ON THE POETS AND PHLLOSO 
 PHERS 
 
 SENHOUSE ON CIVILISATION 
 
 SANCHIA KISSES HANDS — AND IS HANDLED BY 
 THE WORLD 
 
 XVI. GORSTON — WITH A DIFFERENCE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 
 14 
 26 
 
 38 
 
 51 
 61 
 
 71 
 81 
 
 95 
 
 105 
 119 
 
 128 
 
 145 
 155 
 
 170 
 184
 
 X CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVn. MRS. PERCIVAL IS STAUNCH TO THE IDEA . 1 95 
 
 XVm. INGRAM URGES A " MODUS VIVENDI" . . 206 
 
 XIX. SENHOUSE FROM MOSED ALE. THE WOMAN'S ART 219 
 
 XX. THE PLAY QUICKENS AND RUNS UP TO A POINT 23 1 
 
 XXI. THE tramp's TESTAMENT 244 
 
 XXn. IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 25 1 
 
 XXm. IN THE LIBRARY 266 
 
 XXIV. BRIXTON AS A "LOCUS PENITENTI/E " . . 275 
 
 XXV. MR. SENHOUSE, HAVING SOWN, IS ENGAGED TO 
 
 REAP 286 
 
 XXVI. IN WHAT MANNER MR. SENHOUSE MADE SO 
 
 BOLD 301 
 
 XXVn. VALEDICTORY EPISTLE FROM THE OPEN COUNTRY 317
 
 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 A COMEDY WITH A STING
 
 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 STATISTICS OF A RESPECTABLE FAMILY 
 
 The name of Thomas Wei bore Percival was 
 soundly respected in the city of London. It stood for 
 a turnover of J&fteen thousand pounds, and a private 
 income of at least six thousand a year. It centred 
 in the person of a rosy-gilled, full-waistcoated gen- 
 tleman of middle life — Mr. Percival was five-and- 
 fifty and admitted it — to whom a joke was dear, and 
 not less dear because its scope and measurements 
 were accurately known. When Mr. Percival came 
 into Lomax's Bank, had said ''Morning, Wilkins — 
 growing weather!" to the grey- whiskered cashier, 
 and handed over his slip of green paper, a glance at 
 the back was the only formula. Then came, "How 
 will you take it, Mr. Percival?" and Wilkins had 
 his bundle of notes out and his finger wet before he 
 so much as looked at the figures. Mr. Percival's 
 invariable reply was, "How I can get it, my boy. 
 Honestly if possible — in these days." Such old cus- 
 toms die hard. 
 
 3
 
 4 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Blount and Percival had been the firm. East 
 India merchants they were, trading in the Poultry 
 for more than two generations of traffic; and so the 
 name stood now before the world of men, engraved 
 on well-rubbed brass. But everybody knew that 
 Tom Percival had married Kitty Blount, old Blount's 
 only child, and was now Blount and Percival in his 
 own pair of shoes. Snug Tom, they called him, with 
 a fine girl and a plum to himself; but always added 
 that he well deserved his luck. And still he stuck to 
 his desk, for all his whitening whiskers. Ten to five 
 saw him in the Poultry every day; a four-wheeled 
 cab brought him, and sometimes the brougham 
 would come to take him back; and passers-by saw 
 the flash of a white skirt in the doorway, and told 
 each other, "One of old Tom's pretty daughters 
 come for him." On Saturdays he left at two, and 
 never varied his year for more than a month in Au- 
 gust; but what was to happen by and by nobody 
 could tell, for he had daughters, and Mrs. Percival 
 was ambitious, and there were many who doubted 
 whether what had been good enough for Kitty Blount, 
 that strapping girl she had been, would be good 
 enough for Mrs. Percival, high-complexioned, high- 
 stepping lady of Great Cumberland Place. There 
 had been no sons of the marriage — five daughters, 
 but no son; and already Philippa, the eldest, was 
 married to a Mr. Tompsett-King, a West End solic- 
 itor with clients in the peerage, and accepted member- 
 ship of the Athenaeum. That, said the gossips, had 
 no look of the Poultry about it. And next we hear
 
 A RESPECTABLE FAMILY 5 
 
 of Hawise, the second daughter, engaged to a baronet 
 in the country. A baronet in the country — a county 
 family. The Poultry, on a stool at Sweeting's, shook 
 its head over Kitty Percival, and said, "Hard luck 
 on poor old Tom!" 
 
 And yet, if ever a man was happy in his offspring 
 it was this honest East India merchant. He adored 
 them all in various ways, and suited his worship to 
 each with a tact which you had not supposed him to 
 possess. He knew, and never shamed to say, that 
 they were "a cut above him," and often jogged his 
 knees (alone, before his smoking-room fire) in tri- 
 umph at the thought that, such as they were, he, 
 stout Tom Percival, had begotten them. He knew 
 also that each fair girl of them steered her own 
 separate course, each remote from each, each with a 
 purposeful jut to her sharp chin, each (as it dimly 
 appeared to him) with a definite beacon ahead of her 
 fine bright eyes. His adoration, then, was mingled 
 with respect. He respected Philippa's incisive scorn, 
 Hawise's calm, Melusine's reverie (she was a most 
 graceful girl, and danced beautifully), Vicky's dar- 
 ing and dash, and, above all things in earth or 
 heaven, little Sanchia's coaxing. While Sanchia was 
 a romp, her hair all tumbled about her face, I think 
 Mr. Percival's cup of happiness overbrimmed. She 
 had been a beautiful, healthy child, all roses and 
 roundness, and he had been eight years younger! — 
 still, as he expressed it, in his roaring forties. But 
 now we are in 1894, when Sanchia had had her hair
 
 6 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 up some three years, and he was five-and-fifty. San- 
 chia-Josepha — these romantic names! — was a young 
 lady of twenty, and would be out as soon as Hawise 
 was married to her Sir George — Sir George Pinwell, 
 Baronet, between you and me an insufferable blonde 
 person. And Sanchia, from a rosy coax, was turned 
 into a slim, thoughtful girl with grey and dreamy eyes 
 and a sad mouth. She was quiet now, and rather 
 mysterious, speaking little and (apparently) thinking 
 much. She went her own ways, having acquired (by 
 not claiming it) much more liberty than any of her 
 sisters had had. She was fond of Art, and used to 
 go to a school of painting; she was fond of reading 
 poetry (wherein she differed from her sister Melusine, 
 who said that she was) ; and she didn't get on with 
 her mother. Comfort and terror contended for her 
 father's soul as he pondered this. 
 
 There I have always been with her, I confess. I 
 never could myself get on with Mrs. Percival, who 
 seemed to me to be at once in arms against society 
 and its abject slave. Society, I used to fancy, beat 
 her black and blue; and she kissed the rod. Sir 
 George Pinwell treated her, for example, with such 
 deadly, cold insolence that I defy her not to have 
 known it — and of course no one knew it better; but 
 his name was balm to her lips ; she rolled it over her 
 tongue like a salve. She had pride and to spare, am- 
 bition and to spare ; but the two worked not together. 
 Her ambition ought to have been to win scope for 
 her pride. It was quite the other way. To help 
 her ambition she humiliated herself extremely — until
 
 A RESPECTABLE FAMILY 7 
 
 even her husband, honest man, saw into what sore 
 passes she was getting herself, and tried to rescue 
 her. "I should go slow, Mother; I should indeed," 
 he would say, or, "Damn the fellow" (this of Sir 
 George!); "I'll give him a piece of my mind one of 
 these days." But Mrs. Percival was incorrigible. 
 With a fierce temper of her own and a bitter tongue, 
 she feared nothing but public opinion. The good 
 esteem of her neighbours was absolutely necessary to 
 her; to get it she would school her temper and curb 
 her speech until she must have suffered the tortures 
 of the damned. And she had the knack of turning 
 her sufferings into virtues, as so many women have 
 it. She always got Percival's pity and had kept his 
 love by these means. As her daughter Vicky said, 
 "Mother gets herself into a hole and then looks like 
 an Early Christian." Her daughters judged her far 
 more shrewdly and with less ruth than her husband. 
 Philippa was in her confidence, and gave her the 
 most sympathy; but Melusine was her favourite, 
 because she was so lovely and so refined. Philippa 
 spoke her comforts; Melusine looked or sighed them 
 forth. Grace was in every long line and gentle curve 
 of this pensive beauty; her eyes spoke her fair mind, 
 but otherwise she had little conversation. She 
 danced, I have said, exquisitely, and yet she sat out 
 a great deal. She had many admirers, "quite a 
 court," her fond mother declared. 
 
 Hawise, at this time, stood very high in her re- 
 spect, for Hawise was doing very well for herself. 
 She was exceedingly handsome also, with her mother's
 
 8 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 high colouring and large blue eyes; she bade fair, 
 indeed, to emulate her mother's amplitude of charm 
 in other ways. There were those who called Hawise 
 Percival "Fatty." Her neck and bust were superb, 
 but her arms were certainly too big. She was not 
 very tall either. Her temperament was placid; she 
 could always be relied upon for a comfortable opin- 
 ion, and nearly always agreed with you. By Sir 
 George's wish she took daily horse-exercise with a 
 groom, and she did her best to please him by assuming 
 an interest in lawn-tennis and golf which she was far 
 from possessing. Naturally, she was inert. Her 
 mother used to warn her against it — a "besetting 
 sin." Her father could not value her judgment so 
 much as that of Philippa; but Philippa was married 
 and in Bryanston Square, and he found Hawise's 
 infinitely more comfortable. He had many a cosy 
 talk with her over his cigar before dinner, and used 
 to say of her apple-cheeks that they were as good as 
 a day in the country. 
 
 Victoria, Vicky as she always was, comes up next 
 for estimation, a merry girl, very pretty, not shrewish 
 as yet, though that was her danger. Her eyes, of the 
 family blue, shone black in the dusk, like black dia- 
 monds, or sapphires so dark as to be black. Her 
 nose was retrousse and piquant ; her lips smiled ; she 
 could be saucy. She was not really so flippant as 
 she seemed, for it was innocence which prompted her 
 to impossible utterances, and gave her hearers many a 
 panging ten minutes. She had a bright, inconsequent 
 way of probing you to the depths which you might
 
 A RESPECTABLE FAMILY 9 
 
 find charming, or might not. It depended very much 
 upon who was there also. There was a Fraiilein 
 Winkiewicz attached to the household, a grim Hun- 
 garian lady of great reminiscences. Never shall I for- 
 get what I suffered at a tea-party — a young people's 
 tea-party, of course — when Vicky asked her what it 
 felt like to be kissed by a man, — ''Not an uncle, you 
 know, or a cousin, or anybody of that kind, but a 
 strange man, who takes you in his arms and says, 
 Darling, you are all the world to me, and kisses you. 
 That sort, you know." This was terrible. Vicky, 
 it should be added, was always very much interested 
 in such questions and spared neither age nor sex in 
 her pursuit of information. She gathered, I fancy, 
 a great deal of experience one way and another be- 
 fore she finally accepted the hand and heart of Cap- 
 tain Sinclair. That, however, was not yet. That 
 must have been in '96, and we are now in the early 
 days of '94. 
 
 Sanchia, the youngest of these well-endowed girls, 
 was at this time as nearly without sex as a girl of 
 twenty may be. Her mother had kept her back de- 
 liberately, but the child must in any case have ri- 
 pened slowly. I think her mind developed faster 
 than her body. She — at twenty — saw nothing of 
 love, and thought nothing. It may be that she ac- 
 cepted it, like the budding of the trees, as a fact of 
 life, which came in its season. It interested her not 
 at all; and this made at once her distinction, her 
 charm, and her danger. For she shared to the full 
 the franchise of her remarkable family, and was
 
 lo OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 never ashamed of acting as she felt or saying what 
 she thought. Difl&cult she found it, always, to speak ; 
 but it was not in self-consciousness that the diflSiculty 
 lay. If she liked a person, or was touched by some- 
 thing said, she would give up her hand; except that 
 she had no motions that way, it might as well have 
 been her cheek. She was at once confiding and 
 reserved, at once extraordinarily frank and extraor- 
 dinarily reticent (for so young a girl) ; but her reser- 
 vations seemed often absurd and her confidences 
 astounding to bewildered youth of my sex. Bewil- 
 dered youth, agog for captures, panted after her, 
 baffled, faint, yet pursuing. At one hour blessed 
 beyond his hopes, at another chilled far beyond his 
 assured deserts, the marvel is that she went her even 
 way, untouched and unconscious. But she did — 
 with a devastating friendliness which was to beguile 
 a man in every way worthy of her affections, and 
 tumble her at last into the arms of another of a very 
 different stamp. That is the theme to which I pro- 
 pose to devote these pages, and it ought to be a 
 curious study. 
 
 Meantime, we have her now, slim and thoughtful, 
 rather pale, with something still of the childish 
 roundness of face which she had worn when her 
 father, eight years younger, could cuddle her to his 
 comfortable ribs, and call her his saucy Sancic, and his 
 love-apple. Her eyes were very large and extremely 
 lovely — blue-grey whites, black-ringed iris, large and 
 palpitating pupils, a deep and serious gaze. She 
 developed later — according to me — into the Beauty
 
 A RESPECTABLE FAMILY n 
 
 of the Family, though she was always pale. Un- 
 deniably she was her father's beloved. He respected 
 Hawise, admired Melusine from afar, and was afraid 
 of sparkling Vicky's audacious criticism. But to his 
 Sancie he could unfold his simple soul. She alone 
 bore with his little jokes: his "A Miss is as good as a 
 mile, hey? And here am I, with five Misses! Quite 
 a long walk for an elderly gentleman." It was San- 
 chia also who, to please him, egged him on, on 
 Michaelmas Day, to repeat his famous verse: 
 
 Of all fowls in the poultry-yard 
 The goose must be preferred ; 
 There's such a deal of nutriment 
 In that weak-minded bird. 
 
 Laugh she could not — she laughed rarely ; but it was 
 sweet to him to catch the answering beam from her 
 eyes, and her tender smile that met midway with his 
 and blew a kiss to it. 
 
 She used to sit with him in the smoking-room — on 
 his knee or on the arm of his chair — while he took his 
 nightcap of whisky-and-water and his last cigar. 
 She said little ; but often he told her of the doings at 
 the office, or what old Bob Etherington said, or what 
 old Jack Burmester. He had more household cares 
 for her ear than ever he had for his wife. In her thin 
 hands, upon her virgin lap, lay the destinies of many 
 a sharp young clerk. His heart glowed to feel her 
 charity, his head bowed to her cool judgment. And 
 when she had kissed his forehead and gone to bed, 
 often and often he would stand upright in the middle
 
 12 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 of the room, cigar in one hand and toddy in the 
 other, and shut his eyes and pray with all his might, 
 ''God bless my Sancie! God bless my girl! And 
 send her happy, for Christ's sake. Amen." 
 
 In such uncouth ways the good man bared him- 
 self before his gods. 
 
 It is only necessary to add to this chapter of par- 
 ticulars the following, which will place us squarely 
 at the opening of 1894. It was decided that Hawise 
 was to be married in June of this year, and that 
 Sanchia could accept the invitation of an old Lady 
 Mauleverer to spend some earlier weeks at Gorston, 
 her seat in the Eastern Midlands. Sanchia had been 
 to school, it seems, with Grace Mauleverer, who was 
 her ladyship's granddaughter, and now Mrs. Per- 
 cival felt that she was reaping the fruits of a diligent 
 sowing. Lady Pinwell was a good name for one 
 daughter to bear; Lady Mauleverer a good name 
 for the friend of another. The malicious say that 
 she kept a record of titled acquaintances which now 
 contained two baronets, a baronet's brother, and a 
 baronet's widow. Vicky's inference, rather, was 
 that Mamma collected baronets. And not city titles 
 either. Sir George Pinwell was county, and a crea- 
 tion of Charles II. Lady Mauleverer's husband, 
 the late Sir Giles, had been of a still older origin. 
 He claimed James I.; l)ut that had been disputed. 
 There had been a Mauleverer creation by that sov- 
 ereign, but it expired with the patentee's son. Charles 
 I. revived it in the person of a brother of the first
 
 A RESPECTABLE FAMILY 
 
 13 
 
 baronet's. The other name on her list — that of Sir 
 Carnaby Hodges — was a George III. title. The 
 family seat was in Gloucestershire, and was unfor- 
 tunately let — to a pork-butcher of Cheltenham. Sir 
 Carnaby, meantime, lived in lodgings in Brighton. 
 He had been a client of Septimus Tompsett-King's 
 for many years. The baronet's brother was Gerald 
 Scales, and most devoted to Melusine. Nothing could 
 be more chivalrous than his behaviour. His way of 
 looking at her across a room reminded Mrs. Percival 
 of the Marquis of Montrose. I don't know why. 
 
 Let us conceive then this prosperous family in 
 the spring of the year, when lilacs are a-flower in the 
 London squares, and the London skies are washed 
 pure every night by wholesome showers. In April 
 every Londoner takes thought for the morrow — 
 since the morrow is May. Mr. Percival therefore 
 will bethink him of his white hat, which must be 
 cleaned against next month, and Mrs. Percival of 
 drawing-rooms. Philippa Tompsett-King will have 
 plans for an Easter in Rome, Hawise for her trousseau. 
 Melusine and Vicky ride daily in the park with Mr. 
 Gerald Scales and others. About Sanchia's budding 
 breast the maid now pins breadths of white, that she 
 may be furnished with frocks for Gorston. In Mrs. 
 Percival's phrase, "She may meet anybody there." 
 The child must be presentable. She must look her 
 quality. Meantime in a rock-strewn glen, far from 
 the Marble Arch, the three Women, daughters of 
 Night, sit steadfast at their task.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 INTRODUCES THE GENTLEMAN GIPSY 
 
 John Maxwell Senhouse, at the age of thirty, 
 had travelled much of the habitable globe without 
 losing his zest for adventure. He was now in 
 England, with no immediate prospect of leaving 
 it; yet every morning he arose, and fronted the 
 day with heart-beats. That announces a habit of 
 mind so enviable as to be extraordinary; and such 
 indeed the man was. He would be extraordinary 
 to-day, was still more so in 1894, which is the date 
 at which we are here and now; in 1884, when he 
 began to live the life which suited him, he was most 
 extraordinary. 
 
 He was the only man I ever knew who was able 
 to behold in the rising of the sun a daily miracle. 
 Literally, I have seen him astounded, spell-bound 
 before that filling up of the sky with almost intoler- 
 able brightness, and that slow entrance of the King 
 of Life into the great dome, swept, garnished, and 
 made pure for his habitation. This simplicity of 
 mind in Mr. Senhouse was of a piece with his ex- 
 treme simplicity of habit. He had the knack of 
 reducing complexity into its elements, of drawing 
 order out of chaos. In his ways and words he be- 
 
 14
 
 THE GENTLEMAN GIPSY 
 
 IS 
 
 trayed himself — very nearly primitive man; prim- 
 itive man, let us say, who has learnt the comfort of 
 washing himself, and has got so far into civilisa- 
 tion as to be able to criticise those who don't wash. 
 He was, as a fact, a keener critic than you would 
 have supposed, and his absorbed eyes, which fol- 
 lowed so often his busy hands, took in you and 
 your little tricks and shifts together with a great 
 deal that was vastly more beautiful and curious — 
 and settled for you, off-hand, your place in the 
 scheme of things. He resolved you, in fact, into 
 your elements. Very unpleasant elements, too, 
 they seemed to be when, as might well happen, he 
 exhibited them to you, with a cheerful candour 
 which turned you cold, and seemed to have settled 
 it with the Supreme Arbiter that his analysis was 
 unimpeachable. Mostly you were driven to see 
 that it was. 
 
 He had theories about everything in nature and 
 society, and practised more of them than you would 
 have thought possible. There was nothing, he 
 said, in the civilised world — to call it so for the con- 
 venience of the moment — which he was not able 
 to go without*; and it is remarkable, really remark- 
 able, how closely he could justify that assertion. 
 A house, a bed, a coat, a shirt, money, tobacco, a 
 dinner, a Bible. He did without most of these 
 habitually, and any one of them at a pinch of a week 
 or so. I have known him since '82 or thereabouts, 
 and can swear that he has never had a roof of his 
 
 * He preferred, for instance, dry sand to soap.
 
 i6 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 own over his head. He does not need a bed, never 
 wears a coat if he can help it; and as for money, the 
 outside that it costs him to live is five shillings a 
 week, and the utmost that he cares to make by his 
 many arts is a hundred a year. What is over from 
 the bare cost of living he spends in plants. Gar- 
 dening is his passion, but he has no garden. His 
 passion is to turn all wild England into a garden. 
 To that he has devoted himself day and night. 
 A few years ago he was bribed into Germany to 
 pursue his hobby there. He received — or rather he 
 was promised — a handsome stipend. He did not, 
 as a matter of fact, receive it so, but it was held 
 over for him till the end of the term of years, and 
 handed to him in a lump. He returned it to the 
 Grand Ducal ofhcer, much to that worthy's con- 
 fusion. But that doesn't come in here at all. 
 
 The pages which follow, and the tale which they 
 unfold, are the work of this interesting fellow, and, 
 in a sense, the property of a lady already mentioned. 
 They both live at this hour, and for that reason their 
 names are not warrantable. John Maxwell Sen- 
 house, Sanchia-Josepha Percival — that is as near 
 to their names as I care to go. With this provision, 
 I have the consent of both parties to the publica- 
 tion of letters and this commentary upon them 
 which do them no discredit, and do not reveal an 
 intimacy of which they have any reason to be 
 ashamed. As to the story involved in their relations, 
 and how far it was conditioned by them — that is 
 another affair, to be judged by reader and compiler
 
 THE GENTLEMAN GIPSY 17 
 
 on the merits. It is unnecessary, perhaps, to add 
 that while the writer has my sympathy, I by no 
 means share all his opinions with him, and that I 
 have taken upon myself the responsibility of select- 
 ing what, out of his letters, I would print. The 
 correspondence as a whole is massive; some of it 
 is occasional; some relates to private affairs, and 
 some to the private affairs of other people. There 
 is a good deal of freedom used in dealing with the 
 names and deeds of persons much in the world's 
 eye. To publish names and comments together 
 might be scandalous; either without the other 
 would be stupid. So also with the tale — such tale 
 as lay in the relations of the eloquent, profuse, and 
 random writer of these letters with Miss Sanchia 
 Percival — I have no more, I believe, allowed my 
 selection to interfere with its course than I could 
 persuade it to sway its fortunes. It is a good tale, 
 as all true tales are, and may be read independently 
 of any correspondence. The reader who chooses 
 may skip the whole budget, and form his opinion 
 of the persons here treated, as he should, by their 
 actions, not by their words. 
 
 By way of introduction, however, to such tale 
 as there is, something must be said before it and 
 the letters within it can be left to speak for them- 
 selves. Their writer, when I knew him first (red- 
 hot and sizzling with theory), was the most cheerful 
 revolutionary you could conceive of. Anarchism — 
 for he signed himself Anarchist — on his showing, 
 was the best joke in the world. He would have
 
 i8 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 dethroned kings and obliterated their dynasties as 
 Isaac Walton would have had you impale worms 
 on your hooks, with the same tender nicety. "My 
 dear old chap," one might hear him say to a doomed 
 monarch, ''we've had a splendid time; but a game's 
 a game, and really yours is up. You perish for the 
 good of your so-called people, you know; upon my 
 honour, it's all right. Now this bomb is beautifully 
 timed. It'll be over before you can say knife. 
 Just you see." 
 
 That was the sort of impression he made upon 
 one in those early days; he was frightfully reason- 
 able and perfectly ridiculous. He was then at 
 Cambridge, King's his college, embroiled for ever 
 w^ith the dons — heading his examination papers, 
 *' Down with the bourgeois ! " or, '' Death to tyrants ! " * 
 — and yet for ever in their houses. It was the 
 women who would have him there; his manner 
 with women was perfect. He put them on his own 
 level, to begin with, and his level was high. He 
 neither flattered nor bullied, never told fibs, nor 
 paid compliments, nor posed for what he was not; 
 nor, so far as I can learn, did he ever make love. 
 Flirtation and he were contradictories, for, ridicu- 
 lously as he would put things, and do them, the most 
 ridiculous part of his performance was always that 
 he was perfectly serious. He was all for liberty 
 and equality, and very likely was waiting for the 
 ladies to begin. He would have seen no reason 
 whatever against that; and I can imagine him dis- 
 
 »This he used to call "sowing the seed."
 
 THE GENTLEMAN GIPSY 19 
 
 cussing a tender proposal from one of them with 
 the most devastating candour, lying on the hearth- 
 rug (his favourite place in the room) with his face 
 between his thin hands, and his black eyes glossy 
 with mystery. He was extraordinarily popular; 
 and when he was sent down for some outrageous 
 act or another — I forget exactly what it was, but 
 fancy it had something flagrant to do with the 
 Athanasian Creed — he spent the time of rustication 
 actually in Cambridge, in the house of a Fellow of 
 his college, as everybody knew perfectly well. They 
 dug a canoe out of a tree-trunk, the queer pair of them, 
 and navigated the Cam from Ashwell to Littleport. 
 
 He was a great reader but a fitful, an excellent 
 Grecian, and left the University without attempting 
 his degree. He had come, he said, to consider 
 the course of study prescribed an absurdity, and 
 the reward held out to be a foppery unworthy of 
 a serious man's time. Such a man, with that per- 
 suasive, irresistible smile of his, he solemnly pro- 
 claimed himself in a letter to the Vice-Chancellor — 
 or with what he fully intended to be solemnity. But 
 his manner of leaving Cambridge was so character- 
 istic that I cannot omit it, though I study to be brief. 
 
 It was simplicity itself. On a certain May 
 morning in the year 1885 he rose as usual, dressed 
 as usual in grey flannel trousers, white sweater, 
 and pair of nailed boots; breakfasted as usual 
 upon an egg and some coffee, and walked out of 
 his rooms, out of his college, out of Cambridge, 
 never to return.
 
 20 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 This was literally the manner of his going. The 
 only thing he took away with him, except the clothes 
 he stood in, was a holly stick. He never wore a 
 hat, and his bedmaker found all his loose change — 
 gold, silver, and copper — lying at random on his 
 dressing-table, and his cheque-book in a drawer. 
 The rest of his belongings, which were ordinary, 
 neither more necessary nor less various than the 
 common run — clothes, furniture, books, pipes, cor- 
 respondence, including the morning's post, which, I 
 am told, had not even been opened — he left every- 
 thing where it was, dropped it just then and there, 
 and vanished. Nor was anything heard of him in 
 England for two years, after a letter received by his 
 father, which had the postmark "Cracow" and the 
 date " 14th July," in which he said that he had 
 come to the sudden conviction of waste of time, 
 money, and opportunity, and must be excused from 
 indulging either the parental partiality or his own 
 proneness to luxury any longer. He had chosen 
 to come to Poland, he said, because nobody could 
 tell him anything about it except that it was, on the 
 whole, the most oppressed country in Europe. He 
 was uncertain of his return, and begged to assure 
 his correspondent that he was well, happy, self- 
 supporting, and his affectionate Jack. 
 
 His adventures in Poland, which led him cer- 
 tainly and expeditiously to Siberia, are no concern 
 of ours just now. He conspired, I believe, in Latin, 
 since he had not the tongue of the country; but, 
 being overheard and more or less understood, to
 
 THE GENTLEMAN GIPSY 21 
 
 Siberia he went, and was there lost sight of for a 
 year. How he escaped, whether by intervention 
 from home or his own address, doesn't now matter. 
 I know that he was in England in 1887, for I met 
 him in the autumn of that year in his father's house 
 in the Midlands, irredeemably enthusiastic in the 
 cause of absolute liberty, in touch with Tolstoy, Kro- 
 potkin, Stepniak, and half the dreamers of Europe; 
 a confinned wanderer, a sojourner in tents ; as much 
 artist, scribbler, desultory scholar as ever, but with 
 a new taste, which he had acquired in his exile 
 from a fellow-conscript, a taste for botany, which 
 became later on the ruling passion of his life. He 
 was more charming and more ridiculous than ever, 
 and, mentally, entirely naked and entirely un- 
 ashamed. To please his father — with whom he 
 was on the best of terms — he went into the counting- 
 house at Dingeley for six months; but in the spring 
 of '88 he was off again, none knew whither, though 
 it was discovered afterwards to have been the 
 Atlas, and after that never settled down in the 
 haunts of civilised man for more than a few weeks 
 at a time. 
 
 What could be said or done to him? He was 
 of full age, took nothing of his father's store, kept 
 himself entirely to his own satisfaction on his paint- 
 ing and journalism. Of the former I am not quali- 
 fied to speak. It was a very impressionistic, highly 
 poetical rendering of atmosphere and colour. If 
 Corot was not his master in the art, I am a dunce. 
 As to the other, he wrote pretty constantly for wild
 
 22 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 newspapers of which you and I hear nothing — 
 Dawn, The Fiery Cross, The Intransigeant, The 
 International — and now and then had a poem in 
 The Speaker, and now and then an article in a re- 
 view. To supply his wants, which were simple, 
 he lived in a tent of his own stitching, which he car- 
 ried about in a tilt-cart, drawn by a lean horse, 
 well called Rosinante. Everything he owned was 
 in this cart; and he seldom stayed in one place for 
 more than a week. Periodically he would vanish, 
 as the mood took him, and perhaps be heard of 
 in California, Colorado, the Caucasus, or Cash- 
 mere; but as he grew older and his passion for 
 naturalising foreign plants grew with him, he con- 
 fined himself more within the limits of our seas; 
 and his knowledge of England's recesses must 
 have equalled Cobbett's or Borrow's. He was hail- 
 fellow with all the gipsies, tinkers, horse-stealers, 
 and rascaille on the road, and with most of the 
 tramps. They all liked him consumedly, all trusted 
 him, but all called him Mr. John, or even Mr. 
 Senhouse. That was odd, because I am certain 
 he did not expect it of them. 
 
 Thus wandering, perpetually busy and inordi- 
 nately happy, one used to meet him in chance angles 
 and coigns of our islands, and more occasionally 
 still in or near the house of a friend: seldom in it, 
 for he nearly always begged leave to pitch his tent 
 in park or paddock, whence to come and go as he 
 pleased. It was during one of these temporary re- 
 turns to civilisation, as we call it (and how he used
 
 THE GENTLEMAN GIPSY 
 
 23 
 
 to declaim upon that!), that he became acquainted 
 with Sanchia Percival. It was in 1894. 
 
 Of Miss Percival I have said something already. 
 It will be seen that Senhouse's acquaintance with 
 her was in the middle period, that of her dawn, 
 when, as it were, her glory-to-be was palely shad- 
 owed forth from her. It lay brooding in her eyes, 
 was to be discovered, like a halo, about her broad 
 brows. She was getting Greek, but wasn't Greek 
 yet: a Greek baby, perhaps, a goddess still at the 
 breast. Her chin had already that roundness 
 which is the type's, but her mouth was not the 
 lovely feature it afterwards became. It still had 
 a pathetic droop; it was tremulous, very expressive 
 of doubt. All this I learned afterwards from my 
 friend on one or other of the rare occasions when he 
 could be led on to talk about her. He showed me, 
 in fact, a curious photograph, of which more in its 
 place. She hit him hard, I know. 
 
 They met, as you will see, in the country. She 
 went to stay with old Lady Mauleverer; he came 
 a few days later to a neighbour's house, that of 
 Roger Chamock, the Liberal Member for Graseby; 
 that is to say, he was allowed to be in Charnock's 
 park, encamped there, dining at the house when- 
 ever it suited his whim, but otherwise free as air. 
 Charnock and he had been at Rugby together, 
 though the Member had been in the Sixth and the 
 tramp his fag. But Charnock had been kind, and 
 a friendship had arisen and persisted. The rebel 
 was allowed to do as he liked up at Bill Hill.
 
 24 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 There was much intercourse between Gorston 
 Park, the Mauleverer stronghold, and Bill Hill, 
 which was Charnock's. Our man, whose high 
 spirits were not to be denied by any one who came 
 within a mile of them, had had them all under his 
 spell from the first. Charnock's boys adored him, 
 followed him about like a couple of spaniels. Even 
 Lady Mauleverer, who knew him of old, called him 
 a ''ridiculous creature," which, for her, was a term 
 of high endearment. He was a noticeable fellow, 
 unlike anybody else, very thin, very dark, saturnine, 
 looking taller than he really was. There was some- 
 thing elusive about him, which may have been the 
 effect of his piercing black eyes or of his furtive 
 smile. You could never tell whether he was chuck- 
 ling at you or with you ; he rarely laughed outright. 
 He had the look of a wild animal which seems 
 friendly and assured, but is ready at any instant 
 to dart into hiding. They used to call him the 
 Faun, and tease to be shown his ears. Bill Bote- 
 tort declared that he wore his hair long and let it 
 tumble about his brows to hide a fine pair of horns. 
 He was a wonderful talker; to see his sallow face 
 light up under the glow of his thought was to feel 
 as if the sun had burst through a great cloud. Like 
 all good talkers, he had fits of long and most 
 eloquent speechlessness. He would sit then with 
 his chin on his knees and bony hands clasped over 
 his shins, and look like a dead Viking crouched in 
 his cairn, vacant-eyed, fixed, astare — a silence, I 
 assure you, that could be felt. Add his strange,
 
 THE GENTLEMAN GIPSY 25 
 
 nocturnal prowUngs, during which he was supposed 
 to hold mysterious communion with the creatures 
 of darkness — bats, owls, badgers, otters, foxes — 
 and talk secrets with the plants, and you may guess 
 how he might have struck the imagination of young 
 Miss Sanchia-Josepha, a girl on the threshold of 
 womanhood, in the throes of her power to come. 
 At the end of a week, it will be related, they were 
 fast allies, at the end of a fortnight inseparable 
 companions, sketching together every day, and he 
 teaching her to read Greek out of the Anthology. 
 At the end of three weeks they were eternal friends, 
 and swore it to each other, no doubt, with the ap- 
 propriate ritual. That is where their correspondence 
 begins, at the end of that third week. I only have 
 his side of it — he destroyed her letters as they came — 
 and can only give selections, of course. It lasted 
 intensely for two years, with occasional breaks when 
 they saw each other, and was most voluminous. 
 Then it stopped, for reasons which are to be made 
 plain, and which, I shall add on my own account, 
 do the writers credit. A relationship had developed 
 which was not, and could hardly be again, the old 
 one. There was a third party intervening — that 
 also. The man broke it, the young woman accepted 
 his decision. They separated for many years, each 
 going a several way. 
 Now — after so much preamble — we can get on.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OF COMMERCE WITH A DRYAD BY A POOL 
 
 On a day in late April Mr. Senhouse was on his 
 way to Graseby in the Eastern Midlands, on a visit 
 to his friend the Liberal Member for that division 
 of the country, and was not far from his journey's 
 end. He had in fact entered the precincts of Churn 
 Forest, a noble belt of woodland incorporated long 
 ago (in the fine and free manner of our forefathers) 
 into the estates of about three great men. A Mau- 
 leverer had been one, and the predecessor in title 
 of Chamock, M.P., another. One side of the road 
 was the Gorston property, the other Bill Hill; tree- 
 ful forest all of it, showing deep and quiet recesses 
 of beech and bracken, interspersed by glades of oak 
 saplings, between whose tapering columns the light 
 lay elfin, and revealed to those who had the eyes to 
 see withal more inhabitants of the wild spaces than 
 common men may discern. Ye charm'd resorts of 
 woodfolk! He who traverses a forest with an eye 
 for timber, or a moorland musing on building sites, 
 will tell you that Pan is dead and the Nymphs no 
 more. That was not Mr. Senhousc's opinion, who 
 had the Witch of Atlas by heart. 
 
 26
 
 WITH A DRYAD BY A POOL 27 
 
 And Universal Pan, 'tis said, was there, 
 
 And though none saw him — through the adamant 
 
 Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air, 
 
 And through these living spirits, like a want, 
 
 He past out of his everlasting lair, 
 
 Where the quick heart of the old world doth pant. . . . 
 
 He had got so far when he pulled up his lean horse 
 with a slow tightening of the reins, and peered into 
 the shafted glade with narrowed eyes. The forest 
 held him, poet and painter. He saw, and lusted to 
 convey. "I could do it," he said between his teeth. 
 *'I could do something of it. It's sheer magic — 
 but it could be done. Corot would have done it 
 — did do it. Damn it — and I?" Then he began 
 again. 
 
 The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came 
 And the rude Kings of pastoral Garamant — 
 
 "Pastoral Garamant" — oh, thou diviner! 
 
 A lovely lady, garmented in light 
 From her own beauty ! 
 
 "And what are these oak shafts but garmented in 
 light? That's where the trouble's to be — they are 
 ensphered in Hght; and I come up with my bistres 
 and yellows! A fool with a paint-box; but here 
 goes." 
 
 His brushes were dabbling in colour as he grum- 
 bled and stared. He worked with water and a 
 block, drew in nothing, but slobbed on his tints 
 with quick precision, and muttered as he slobbed. 
 
 The slender, pale stems ran back in rows into
 
 28 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 blue space; their tops, tufted with buds, tinged 
 bright red, were printed upon the fleecy sky — amid- 
 ships lay a still pool, nearly black where water 
 showed, edged about with dead bracken and young 
 flags, and almost covered with flat lily leaves, with 
 here and there a bud half-opened — for the spring 
 of that year had been out of reason mild. 
 
 Mr. Senhouse worked diligently while his lean 
 horse cropped the herbage; and as he worked he 
 grumbled. "I must key up my trees, I must key 
 up my sky. ^ Dolce color d* oriental saphiro^ — oh, 
 heavens, what a blue! And the clouds, the clouds! 
 
 Pareva a me che nube ne coprisse 
 
 Lucida, spessa, solida e pulita, 
 
 Quasi adamante che lo sol ferisse. . . . 
 
 Painting's no good for this kind of thing; you must 
 have poetry . . . 'Garmented in light,' eh?" Then 
 he laughed outright at a memory — 
 
 "... And lumps neither alive nor dead, 
 Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed. . . . 
 
 Oh, an immortal game!" And then he said sud- 
 denly, ''Hulloa!" and then no more; but held his 
 breath and looked, a brush in his mouth, another 
 suspended in the air. 
 
 A young lady belted in a white frock had come 
 through the trees to the edge of the pool. She had 
 no hat on, and was bare-footed. Intent upon her 
 thoughts, she gazed deeply into the dark water, hold- 
 ing her skirts up out of the wet. It was evident that 
 she was looking at something in there which she
 
 WITH A DRYAD BY A POOL 29 
 
 had seen there before; for Senhouse noticed that 
 her eyes sought out at once the object of her search, 
 found it, and became intent. Besides that, he was 
 near enough to see that it was no admiration which 
 made her gaze so nearly. He fancied she was 
 frowning, that her brows were contracted, and be- 
 gan to wonder what on earth it could be that inter- 
 ested her so much. There was perplexity to be 
 seen in her face, hesitation also; she let her gown 
 drop, and meditating, pinched her lower lip in her 
 fingers. She made a charmingly graceful, slim 
 figure, herself so palely coloured, in that woodscape 
 of low tones. The sun's chance rays caught and 
 gleamed in her brown hair — of which she had quan- 
 tities, not so tidy as it ought to have been, gathered 
 together, apparently, in one loose twist and coiled 
 to lie over the nape of her neck. It looked as if it 
 had been caught up hastily out of respect to the near- 
 ness of the high road. His line from Shelley had 
 been apt: here was "a lovely lady garmented in 
 light," indeed. 
 
 Senhouse, thoroughly interested, watched her 
 closely, not altogether as painter or poet, to delight 
 in her slender lines, but with the simple curiosity 
 of a man who sees a game played by a player who 
 is unconscious of observation. He had studied 
 nature all his life, and knew very well that unless 
 you see an animal when the animal sees not you, 
 you don't see the animal at all. The truth applies, 
 ex hypothest, to men and maids. It is the despair 
 of the honest-minded among us that the presence
 
 30 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 of one sex destroys the simplicity of the other, nine 
 times out of ten. Now this girl was deep in her 
 play, and he wouldn't have disturbed her even if he 
 could: it was all much too.good to lose. 
 
 Her next action, however, gave him pause to 
 think. ''By Gad, is she going to bathe?" In 
 that case, he supposed, he must go, though it would 
 then have been further from his wish than ever. 
 But no! There was a third course. He must stop 
 her. He knew the pool well, and that it was at 
 least twenty feet deep in leaf-mould. Either the 
 lilies would pull her down, or she would go down 
 by nature. The water would be deadly cold — 
 but she couldn't possibly be so foolhardy as that! 
 
 She had picked up her skirt again and put one 
 foot forward till it was up to the instep in water. 
 He had seen her start at the unexpected cold, but 
 not withdraw her foot. On the contrary, she had 
 pushed it in to the ankle, and now stood poised on 
 one leg stirring the free foot gently to and fro. 
 Presently she deliberately pulled her clothes up 
 above her knees and took a step into the pond. 
 The quick bubbles foamed round her leg and broke 
 in yellow foam on the water. At that step only she 
 was immersed nearly to the knee. 
 
 This would never do. Scnhouse, barefooted him- 
 self (as he was whenever he was alone), quickly 
 descended from his perch and ran through the glade. 
 He was behind her before she was aware of him. 
 
 *'I beg your pardon," he said, ''but pray don't 
 go in much deeper. I know that pool well. It's
 
 WITH A DRYAD BY A POOL 31 
 
 fathomless in mud. That's why they do so splen- 
 didly, those things." 
 
 She had looked up at him directly he began to 
 speak — had turned him a slightly flushed face — 
 and had listened with perfect seriousness, not at all 
 startled or embarrassed. It had not occurred to her 
 to drop her skirt. Her eyes had not faltered or 
 flickered. They were grave, questioning, very blue 
 eyes. When he had said what he had to say, she 
 looked reflectively into the pool and then returned 
 to his face. 
 
 "I wanted to puU that weed off," she said. ''It's 
 strangling them." She was appealing, it seemed, 
 directly to his reason. 
 
 "Beastly stuff, I know it is," he replied, "but, 
 you see, it will strangle you if you go in. And that 
 wouldn't do at all." 
 
 New matter, not exclusive of hers. She considered 
 this, with her face once more turned to the water. 
 
 "What's to be done then?" she asked him by and 
 by. 
 
 Senhouse, always very ready to praise God, now 
 blessed His name for a girl who was only able to 
 think of one thing at a time. Her desires appealed 
 to him, also, strongly. 
 
 "I suppose," he said, "you want to get the weed 
 out badly." 
 
 She smiled slowly and whimsically, as if she had 
 a sense of humour. "I do," she said, "very badly. 
 I wanted to directly I saw it, but I couldn't then be- 
 cause there were people with me."
 
 32 
 
 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 "I'm people," said Senhouse, and made her smile 
 again. 
 
 "Yes, but mine were a different sort of people. 
 Besides, we had been out to lunch." Then she 
 slowly came out of the water and regarded her 
 blackened feet and legs with some dismay. 
 
 "It won't hurt you a bit," Senhouse said. "It's 
 beautiful stuff — pure oak-mould. The best in the 
 world." 
 
 She assured him with a glance that she didn't 
 mind it; but returned to the question of the pond. 
 Could it or could it not be ridded of crowsfoot and 
 duckweed? Senhouse, bending his mind to the 
 problem, thought that it could. "I'll tell you what 
 we could do," he said, "we could get at it on my 
 bed. But we shall get rather wet. Will you let 
 me do it for you?" 
 
 She had been startled at his proffer of his bed; 
 her eyes had opened very wide; but his suggestion 
 that he should do it alone drove everything else 
 out of her head. "Oh, certainly not," she told him. 
 "Of course I shall help you. But it's awfully kind 
 of you to do anything. Did you say your bed?" 
 
 "I did indeed, and I meant it. Shall I fetch it?" 
 
 She was exceedingly amused. It was pretty to 
 see her dancing eyes as she dared him fetch his bed. 
 
 But he fetched it for all that; a wooden trestle- 
 bed on legs that folded underneath. "It will make 
 an excellent raft, I fancy," he said, as he exhibited 
 its properties — and saw her enchanted. 
 
 They bickered a little over ways and means.
 
 WITH A DRYAD BY A POOL 33 
 
 She was all for adventuring in the raft, and he 
 wouldn't have that. "You'll go over, sure as a gun 
 — head first into thirty feet of mud. Now, do be 
 reasonable. After all, you know, it's my bed; and 
 I suppose a man may do what he likes with his own 
 bed." She had to admit that he could, and then 
 compromised. She was to stand as deep in water 
 as she dared and drag the weed in to shore. As a 
 reward she was to be allowed, at the close of the 
 job, to navigate the pool from end to end on the 
 raft — alone. This was agreed to, and preparations 
 began. Senhouse rolled up his flannel trousers as 
 high as they would go, and pushed up the sleeves of 
 his sweater. The young lady produced pins from 
 somewhere about her person, and holding them in 
 her mouth, proceeded to bind her raiment about her 
 middle, and to secure it there. Without a tremor 
 or visible flicker of self-consciousness she revealed 
 to this chance acquaintance as fine a pair of legs as 
 anybody could have to show. Not Artemis, high- 
 girt for the chase, could have bared finer or dared 
 more. The artist in our friend admired, and the 
 man was stirred. He dated his subjection from that 
 moment. 
 
 Thus accoutred, or unaccoutred, the pair set to 
 work; Senhouse riskily in the middle with a bill- 
 hook and crooked stick, she thigh-deep in the mud 
 with wifling arms and another crook of his immediate 
 cutting. In ten minutes they were wet to the skin 
 and as dirty as you please; but with every soil and 
 splash she showed more beautiful to his eyes. These
 
 34 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 contrasts enhanced her glow. Flushed and dis- 
 hevelled, exquisitely disarrayed, with her ardent eyes 
 and fierce yet easy motions, she stood for him 
 as the incarnation of all that is keen and lovely in 
 youth. *'A pard-hke spirit, beautiful and swift," 
 he thought of; and next, "She is a portion of the 
 loveliness which once she made more lovely." And 
 how she worked! As though a seraph of the fire 
 was urging her from within. 
 
 Then, when the task was almost done, there 
 came a rude interruption. Smothered laughing 
 from the wood, and then a boy's bold voice — "Got 
 you, Sanchia!" A boy, two boys, leapt out from 
 behind a tree — one flourishing a camera — and raced 
 down to the water's edge. 
 
 "What'll you give me; what'll you give me for 
 the photo?" cried one; and the other, "Well, you 
 are a beauty, I must say." Then both looked at the 
 raft, and after a moment of shock cheered Senhouse. 
 
 "Hurrah, it's Jack! Hulloa, Jack, how are you? 
 Have you come in your cart? And — oh, I say, do 
 let me go in that raft." He hugged himself, and 
 danced about. "I say! This is awful fun!" he 
 seriously told his brother. 
 
 Senhouse twinkled. "Neither of you touches it 
 until this lady has had her turn. I promised it 
 to her ages ago. But you'll have to try it, of course 
 — one at a time. I recommend you to toss up for 
 first shot. Meantime, I'm coming ashore." 
 
 He was watched with almost painful interest; 
 one of the lads was twittering with excitement.
 
 WITH A DRYAD BY A POOL 35 
 
 "Oh, I say, Sanchia, do look sharp," was all he 
 could say. The other was older and had time to 
 criticise his betters. "Well, I must say, of all the 
 
 beastly scarecrows I ever saw " That was as 
 
 near as he could get, and quite near enough. 
 
 But, "Dowser, my young friend," Senhouse ad- 
 monished him, "we've been performing deeds of 
 mercy at which it ill becomes you to jeer. We've 
 been visiting the sick in their affliction." 
 
 "Yes," said Dowser, who was a sharp lad, "that's 
 all very fine — but not keeping yourselves unspotted 
 from the world, I'll be shot." 
 
 Sanchia laughed outright, but Senhouse checked 
 by violence the guffaw he could have awarded. 
 
 "Dowser, you're getting pert," he said. "I've 
 seen you, after a football match, in a state to which 
 this is undriven snow. Instead of which you cheek 
 your betters. Go to. Dowser; Percy has first shot 
 at the raft." 
 
 "Oh, but, please " Sanchia began, and he 
 
 said, "Of course," and bowed her to the peril. She 
 stepped gingerly to its middle, balancing with her 
 hands; and to Dowser's "Bet you go in," replied 
 with a defiant grimace. "Hand me your stick, 
 please," she bade Senhouse, without turning her 
 head, and then canoed herseL^ across. The boys 
 ran capering round to meet her, and Senhouse 
 breathed again when he saw her touch land. While 
 the pair were urging a fierce career among the 
 lily-leaves and getting wetter than their wildest 
 dreams could have bade them hope to be, Miss
 
 36 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Sanchia, having unpinned her skirts, prepared to 
 make her farewells. 
 
 "It was awfully kind of you — and I'm afraid 
 you're very wet. And your bed — is it really your 
 bed?" 
 
 He reassured her. "It wasn't kind at all. I 
 love those sorts of things — and I'm not half so wet 
 as you are. And it is really my bed." 
 
 "Do you sleep — do you carry your ?" She 
 
 glanced over to the cart in the road and the crop- 
 ping white horse. Senhouse, darkling, smiled. 
 
 "I suppose you think it all very odd," he said. 
 "It doesn't seem at all odd to me. Quite the other 
 way, in fact. I hate indoors, and love outdoors. 
 So my indoors is your out. What you call creature 
 comforts are my extreme annoyance. That's all. 
 I've done it now for nearly ten years." 
 
 She watched his face as he talked, and then con- 
 sidered the matter. "It's very interesting. I don't 
 know why it should be odd." Then, with quick 
 interrogation, she asked him, "These boys knew 
 you. Are you a friend of theirs?" 
 
 He told her they were the sons of his host. "I'm 
 going to stay with Charnock. On my way now—* 
 that is, I was on my way before all these larks began. 
 And may I ask ?" 
 
 "I'm staying with Lady Mauleverer," she told 
 him, but didn't add her name. 
 
 He cared nothing for her names, having already 
 invented three or four of his own for her. "Oh, 
 that's all right," he said. "Then we shall meet,
 
 WITH A DRYAD BY A POOL 37 
 
 and you shall see all my arrangements. The bed 
 will be dry by then — besides, I'm independent of 
 beds. I use the ground mostly." 
 
 She absorbed this information through the eyes 
 — he had never seen any one with a more alimentary 
 gaze — and presently offered him her hand. Then 
 she went smoothly through the wood, and dis- 
 appeared among the oak-stems. 
 
 The two boys took it in turns to drive the white 
 horse, Senhouse stalking beside the cart with long 
 springing strides. It was difficult to get facts out 
 of them. "Oh, she's Sanchia, of course. Fright- 
 fully good sort," was Dowser's contribution; to 
 which Percy added, ''Staying with old Pussy-Cat 
 Mauleverer." Thus he alluded to the stately relict 
 of the late Sir Giles. 
 
 But Senhouse must have more. "Sanchia who, 
 you young raff?" 
 
 "Sanchia Percival, of course. Sanchia- Josepha 
 Percival is her name, England is her nation ; London 
 is her dwelling-place, and Christ is her salvation." 
 
 "Oh, shut up, Dowser, you silly ass," he was re- 
 proved by his brother. " That's profane, father says." 
 
 "I don't see why it should be profane," said 
 Senhouse, "if the facts are so." 
 
 To which the Dowser, who always had an an- 
 swer to everything, replied that of course the facts 
 were so, as she was jolly High Church. 
 
 And so they came to the park of Bill Hill and 
 pitched a camp.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BETWEEN BILL HILL AND GORSTON 
 
 Bill Hill, ''the seat," as local authorities are 
 fond of explaining, "of our genial and respected 
 Member, Roger Charnock, Esq.," is an imposing 
 pile in the Georgian taste, made hideous by continu- 
 ations and additions in stucco, modelled, it would 
 seem, upon the Pavilion of Brighton. That is to 
 say, the centre of the house is a tall rectangle, viv- 
 idly red, with a coping of white stone; added to 
 which are circular wings, two storeys in height, 
 turreted, crocketted, bedomed and bepinnacled, 
 spreading out embracing arms like those of the 
 Colonnade of Saint Peter's. The area which they 
 enclose is known as the Italian Gardens, and ends 
 in a parapeted terrace. Beyond that stretch "park- 
 like grounds," with some good trees clumped about, 
 and a small herd of fallow deer, which justify — yes, 
 they do justify — Mr. Charnock in believing himself 
 the owner of a deer-park. On the edge of that 
 the woods begin, and those are magnificent. Just 
 within the shelter of them, in an open glade, hidden 
 from sight of the windows of the house, Mr. Sen- 
 house (that unconscionable guest of Bill Hill) had 
 
 pitched his tent, tethered his horse, and hung out 
 
 38
 
 BILL HILL AND GORSTON 39 
 
 his sweater and trousers to dry. The Dowser (whose 
 name was really Roger, after his father) had 
 assisted cheerfully in the washing and wringing 
 of the miry garments, had stretched the line be- 
 tween tree and tree and pegged them up. But he 
 had remarked as he did so, "I say, I advise you to 
 take these down before the pater comes to see you, 
 or there'll be a holy row. He thinks bags are fright- 
 fully indecent." ''it 
 
 Senhouse took this grimly. "Doesn't he think 
 it more indecent to be without 'em?" he had asked. 
 
 The Dowser never laughed — boys don't, unless 
 somebody gets hurt by accident. When he was 
 amused he appeared to choke, and immediately began 
 to work at something with energy. 
 
 ''He thinks they're indecent when they're off 
 you. He likes 'em on you. Directly they're off 
 he loathes 'em. The pater's awfully rum." 
 
 "Everybody's rum, Dowser, except you and me," 
 Senhouse said, lighting his pipe. 
 
 The Dowser stared. "You!" he said. "You! 
 Good Lord, I should jolly well think you were rum." 
 He became confidential. "I say, I think I ought to 
 tell you. The pater thinks you're cracky, you 
 know." 
 
 Senhouse was deep in enjoyment of his pipe and 
 this youth. He nodded his head, revelling. "I'm 
 sure of it — dead certain — God bless him. Now, 
 would it surprise you to learn that I think him mad ? 
 Stark and staring?" 
 
 The Dowser said, very shortly, that he didn't
 
 40 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 see that at all, and changed the conversation. "I 
 think I ought to tell you," he began, and Senhouse 
 threw up his head and appealed to the skies, to 
 Dowser's confusion of face. ''Well, I do think 
 so," he pursued in a stately manner. "I fancy it's 
 important, but I may be wrong." 
 
 "Oh, go on. Dowser, go on," said Senhouse, "or 
 I shall die of you — in aromatic pain." 
 
 "It's just as you like, of course," the youth ex- 
 plained. "But as a matter of fact, Percy did take 
 a snap-shot of you and Sanchia in the pond — and 
 he's printing 'em now." Senhouse betrayed a 
 gleam in the eye. The lids narrowed, the pupils con- 
 tracted, but he sat as carven as a Red Indian. He 
 pulled three times at his pipe and swallowed all 
 the smoke. 
 
 "If Percy will give me a print of that photograph," 
 he said, "I shall present him with ten bob and my 
 blessing." 
 
 "He'd present you, as you call it, with fifty for 
 half-a-crown," said the Dowser with the utmost 
 scorn. "Ten bob! Why, it's absurd — besides, I 
 don't suppose you've got ten bob." 
 
 "I can earn it, you know. Dowser," said Sen- 
 house meekly, but with guile. 
 
 The Dowser and his brother were both going to 
 Eton that summer, and quite aware of the impor- 
 tance of the step. But they had not yet reached 
 the point of considering their firm friend Mr. Sen- 
 house otherwise than "splendid." They enjoyed
 
 BILL HILL AND GORSTON 41 
 
 every ounce of him, and every vagary which deso- 
 lated their father seemed to them still ^'a spiffing 
 game." That a man should sleep in a fur-lined 
 sack, wash his own trousers, tend his own horse, 
 cook his own cutlet, and peel his own potatoes — 
 and yet, mind you, be a gentleman — still opened up 
 to them possibilities of pleasure beyond the flights 
 of Mr. Henty, Mr. Stevenson, or Mr. Manville 
 Fenn. Frightfully exciting and frightfully con- 
 venient. Here, you see, was Robinson Crusoe 
 actually next door: next door! nay, in the park of 
 Bill Hill, adventuring daily, living from hand to 
 mouth — in a condition in which anything might 
 happen at any moment, calling for the use of stock- 
 ades, rifles, and plenty of ammunition. It was, 
 of course, a pity that he refused to shoot, because 
 obviously he would be — he must be (a chap like 
 that) — a splendid shot. But you can't have every- 
 thing; and to be the most exciting man in the world 
 — Robinson Crusoe and the Last of the Mohicans 
 combined — and a gentleman, did seem a combina- 
 tion of hazard and safety almost too good to be true. 
 Yet here he was, stockaded once more in the park, 
 and as ripping as ever — not a bit changed; not he! 
 It cannot be said that he appealed with equal 
 force to the prosperous father of these boys. Roger 
 Chamock, M.P. for Graseby, seated nobly in Bill 
 Hill, surv^eyed his guest-chambers and was an- 
 noyed with his friend. The house was far from 
 fuH; it had, in fact, besides the family, only his 
 noble brother-in-law, Lord William Botetort — for
 
 42 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Mr. Chamock had married blood — and Miss Dreen, 
 whom the boys (for reasons best known to themselves) 
 called Misdemeanour. Now, Lord William was very 
 urbane, and of course accepted men as he found 
 them, and Miss Dreen was very poor, and had to; 
 but it looked very odd — it must look so; and it 
 was uncomfortable that a woman like that should 
 see Senhouse come and go from a tent to the dinner- 
 table, and be so entirely at his ease and take every- 
 thing as a joke, and an excellent joke at that. And 
 of course there were the servants — oh, there were 
 times when Chamock (before the fire in his great 
 library) lifted up his hands in despair and let them 
 fall clattering to his sides. He must speak to Jack 
 seriously, take him aside. It was damnably awk- 
 ward — and the Pauncelows coming next week, and 
 very possibly the Badlesmeres, who were staying 
 at Critchford. If he could persuade Jack, now, 
 to put on a swallow-tail coat for dinner — or even 
 a black one; was that too much to ask of a man 
 who was staying with you? Surely not, surely not. 
 Other people did these things, and surely the ways 
 of decent society — ! And yet Mr. Chamock fur- 
 rowed in his whiskers, and turned desperately to 
 the fire, and said Pshaw ! and stretched out his arms 
 to their length — and knew in his heart that, much or 
 little, he should not ask it of Jack Senhouse. 
 
 The worst of Jack — and Chamock knew it — 
 was his undoubted ability. He could talk like the 
 Archangel Gabriel, and reason like a kind of Socra- 
 tes, with an infernal, insinuating, artless craft which
 
 BILL HILL AND GORSTON 
 
 43 
 
 landed you in a vital contradiction before you knew 
 where you were. He had the knack, impossible 
 to the good Chamock, of putting the things you did 
 as a matter of course in such a light as to make 
 them appear the acts of a maniac; and no man of 
 assured position, who does nothing (and makes a 
 point of doing nothing) which is not done in good 
 society, likes to be gibbeted to his guests, children, 
 butler, and household as a lunatic at large. Yet, 
 if you weren't mighty careful, that was just what 
 Jack did — and seemed entirely ruthless, too, when 
 he was fairly under way. Why didn't he go for 
 Bill Botetort, for instance ? What did he, Charnock, 
 do that Bill Botetort didn't do? And with much 
 more justification, too — for Bill Botetort was as 
 poor as a rat, and he, Chamock, could pay for his 
 little things. Damn it all, you know. Jack went too 
 far occasionally. The little things of Bill Botetort 
 were passed over — though he never paid for 'em — 
 and his, Charnock's, were put down as the deeds 
 of a lunatic. He was damned if he saw how the 
 point came in; but he knew, too well, just where 
 it came in and how confoundedly it hurt. All this, 
 you will allow, was rough on a man who tried to 
 do his duty by his motherless boys, and to serve his 
 country, and stick to the Newcastle programme, and 
 pay ready money for his little things. 
 
 And what an odd thing it was — he sat now, 
 nursing one well-clad leg upon the other — that old 
 Lady Mauleverer took Jack so well. The last
 
 44 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 person in the world, you'd have thought. But 
 when she came over the other day with Grace, and 
 that pretty Percival girl, the very first thing she said 
 when she was in the Hall was, "Where's the Roll- 
 ing Stone, Roger ? I beg you to produce the Scholar- 
 Gipsy." And old Jack called out from the case of 
 birds (where he was with the boys), *'Here I am, 
 my lady, still gathering no moss"; and down he 
 comes and shakes hands all round just like a chap 
 in decent clothes. And in a white sweater and 
 flannels — and in sandals — and (as anybody could 
 see) with not another stitch on him anywhere. And, 
 as you might say, he ran the whole place after that; 
 took them all off in a troop across the park — with 
 the boys racing in front like young Indians — and 
 turned out his whole kit for them to see. Bill 
 Botetort there too, as keen as mustard. If you'll 
 believe Charnock, there were things — garments — • 
 rags of sorts — hanging on a clothes-line. Upon his 
 soul, it was pretty stiff, you know, that. 
 
 Everything was dragged out — chafing-dish, ket- 
 tles, pots and pans, bed-clothes, sleeping-sack, 
 tom-cat, which he calls Mufti and pretends is a 
 familiar spirit — you can't help smiling at the fel- 
 low, you know, he's such a thundering ass — oh, 
 and a whole heap of oddments (his "library"! — 
 three old Dclphin classics and a Tom Jones and a 
 Shelley); and then a lot )f plants which he was 
 going to stick about in tne woods, if you'll believe 
 Charnock. Bill Botetort had been really excited 
 about that: you can always tell when he's inter-
 
 BILLIILL AND GORSTON 45 
 
 ested, because h twitches his ears; and old Lady 
 Mauleverer insisd on his spending a day in the 
 Gorston coverts-vhich are the best in the county 
 ■ — planting 'em. !harnock really didn't know what 
 her man would ay, to be called off his orchid- 
 houses for the w)le blessed day, sticking in snip- 
 pets of things froi South America in the woods. 
 
 But that wasi: all. Charnock admitted freely 
 
 that Jack was ai all-rounder. You never seemed 
 
 to get to the endof him. The little Percival girl 
 
 found out someho' that he painted in water-colours, 
 
 and then there vas no stopping her. Keen! 
 
 Why, her eyes sbne like sea-water in the sun. 
 
 And she hadn't a ^ord to say. She just stared and 
 
 swallowed his thirds one after another, as if she 
 
 was frightened of 'm. It was extraordinary. My 
 
 lady insisted on hmng one or two — and paid for 
 
 them down on th( nail. Thirty shillings apiece 
 
 she gave, and Jack pocketed the money, and said 
 
 to Percy (by the w,y), ''Now I can pay you that 
 
 ten bob I owe you.' He gave the girl a thing she 
 
 liked — a washy thing of the pool in Gorston Thicket 
 
 — an unfinished thing, evidently; but she seemed 
 
 extremely grateful ti) him; and the whole jaunt 
 
 ended up by my lady telling him he could come to 
 
 Gorston whenever he chose — "as you know very 
 
 well," she had put it — .xnd must see the girl's sketches. 
 
 He went there to tea { at afternoon, and Bill Bote- 
 
 tort with him, and of course the boys; and he didn't 
 
 turn up at Bill Hill again for at least three days. 
 
 Well, you know (Charnock put it to himself), to
 
 46 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 say the very least of it, that's a qieer sort of guest 
 for a man to have about. But "ack must be al- 
 lowed for, that was clear — and iter all, he had 
 begun this sort of thing before h( left Cambridge, 
 and the odds were that most people did allow for 
 him. It was impossible to help liking Jack, too 
 — quite impossible to be annoyed with him for 
 long. 
 
 And then Mr. Charnock, with ;i sigh, lit a fresh 
 cigar, and went out into the sun;ihine to interview 
 his head-keeper. 
 
 Meantime the unconscionable guest, for the first 
 time in his life (as he told himself) had centred 
 all his hopes of Heaven in the slim shape, pale face 
 and deep blue eyes of Miss Sanc!iia Percival. Thor- 
 ough-goer that he was, he set no bounds to his affair. 
 He loved her in the most romantic way, exulted 
 and triumphed in her beauty,, absorbed in ever- 
 growing wonder her still ways, /adventured (entirely 
 in vain) into the thickets of ther mind, pondered 
 every simple syllable she utter(|3d, and found grace 
 beyond the power of telling i^i every quick move- 
 ment of her thin hands. His| passion was wholly 
 contemplative; it was enough-] -more than enough — 
 for him to see and glory in) her. He would not 
 have revealed to her, for all/ the kingdoms of the 
 world, what he felt about he/*. He would as soon, 
 he said, seek the favours of ipiana of the Ephesians 
 as dare to expect one chargi'd look from her eyes. 
 *'Why," he cried, "more tliian half her unearthly
 
 BILL HILL AND GORSTON 47 
 
 beauty lies in her complete ignorance of it. The 
 simplicity with which she — Goddess bom — goes 
 about the common ways of life and with ardour 
 shares our silly aims has something in it of humil- 
 ity which fills my eyes with tears. Sheer thanks- 
 giving — sheer gratitude in me. I go about singing 
 Paean! She's Artemis the Bright come to earth 
 again. Artemis Einodie — Our Lady of the Ways. 
 She can only be served by song; no common speech 
 of ours is wholesome enough. She's Artemis Hym- 
 nia, to whom the crocus-vested Caryatides lift up 
 arms and voices in one strain. She's Mab, Queen 
 of Faery; she's, of course, the Lady of the Lake. I 
 believe the blue-bells bow their heads to her as she 
 walks the woods; and I know that the nightingale 
 is hushed as she passes, for fear he lose one waft 
 of her breath. But afterwards he throbs out in one 
 long gush of pride her presence and his hope of her 
 again. His throat is a melodious well, and my pen 
 can never run dry any more. Una donna pietosa, 
 e di novella etade — O Florentine, you never took 
 more glory from your lady's green eyes than I from 
 the sapphire deeps of mine! But you sang much 
 better, confound you. However, I shall have a 
 shot." And he did. If he sketched with Sanchia 
 all day, he rhymed with Erato all night. 
 
 She knew absolutely nothing of this — if it be 
 credible that a girl of twenty can spend her days 
 with a man ten years older and not see what is the 
 case with him. He, at least, would have sworn 
 his secret unguessed. It seemed to him the most
 
 48 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 beautiful thing (by far) about her that she accepted 
 his companionship with the simple satisfaction she 
 would take of every soul, male or female, who had 
 to give that which she stood in need of at the mo- 
 ment. So far as she was concerned, he met, or 
 flattered himself he met, her immediate wants. 
 She had many, but love was certainly not one. 
 She wanted guidance in her sketching, and his 
 was exactly that which she wanted most. She had 
 seen in a moment that he was a master in that art. 
 She wanted guidance in a world which was rapidly 
 becoming complex and baffling; and he could pare 
 off detail and accident so nearly that the straight 
 bold outline of conduct lay plain to be seen, stretch- 
 ing far and ahead of her like parallel lines of rail- 
 way over swamps. To talk with him was to be taken 
 on to a windy height and shown the w^orld of men 
 mapped out below you, accidentals blurred away, 
 only the salient things sharply defined. Sure of 
 this, she gave him her hand, and in the hollow of it 
 her soul. She could have told him anything and 
 everything; but his value to her lay just in this, that 
 one need tell him nothing — he seemed to under- 
 stand. Speech was always difficult to her, though 
 she thought much, and always (while the thought 
 remained unvoiced) in a set form of words. But 
 to him a hint was enough, even silence was enough, 
 and this made him invaluable to her. She could 
 not imagine, sometimes, how she had ever done 
 without him. There was not, I need hardly say, 
 the shadow of a feeling of love for him in her. She
 
 BILL HILL AND GORSTON 
 
 49 
 
 took him as a gift of God, as meat to one starving, 
 and said grace and filled herself. 
 
 And so she continued to take him, thanks to a 
 certain irresponsiveness with which she was en- 
 dowed, a certain insensibility to outside opinion 
 which she could assume at will. Her friend Grace 
 Mauleverer was two-and-tw^nty ; and at that age 
 two years is very much indeed. Grace Mauleverer, 
 through the eyes of two-and-twenty, saw what was 
 going on, and knew exactly what was the matter 
 with Jack Senhouse. With that unnecessary and 
 exaggerated caution which young ladies so cheer- 
 fully impress upon their bosom friends, she had felt 
 it her duty to give Sanchia what she was pleased 
 to call a hint. The hint had been imparted at the 
 hour of going to bed, when both girls were partially 
 disrobed, and both had their hair down. Sanchia 
 had, in all innocence, brought up the name of Sen- 
 house. *'No, I can't come," she had said, ''because 
 I'm going to sketch with Mr. Senhouse. He says 
 we're to take lunch, so I expect we shall." 
 
 It was then that Grace Mauleverer had said, "I 
 should take care, my dear." 
 
 Sanchia had looked up at herself in the glass, 
 before which she was stooped, brushing out her 
 hair. She had looked up at herself, and above 
 herself at her friend's intrigued face which was 
 behind her. Her eyes were wide open, and her 
 eyebrows steeply arched. "What on earth do you 
 mean?" she had asked. "What am I to take care 
 of?"
 
 50 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 ''My dear!" protested Miss Mauleverer, and 
 Sanchia had coloured. 
 
 "I don't know in the very least what you mean," 
 she had said. 
 
 Miss Mauleverer found this to be as it might 
 be. ''You are not going to tell me that you don't 
 know things." 
 
 "What things?" 
 
 "Oh, ordinary things. That Mr. Senhouse is at- 
 tracted, for example " 
 
 "Do you mean attracted by me?" 
 
 "Well, Sancie, I don't mean attracted by Granny." 
 
 Then Sanchia had made the baffling utterance, 
 "If he is, I don't see why he shouldn't be. He's 
 been awfully kind, if you mean that." 
 
 "But I don't mean that," said Miss Mauleverer — 
 "not the least in the world." 
 
 "Then," said Sanchia, "I don't know what you 
 can mean. And I think it's rather stupid to talk 
 about those things, anyhow. There are much more 
 exciting ones, quantities and quantities. He's going 
 to teach me Greek and Italian — and if that isn't ex- 
 citing, nothing can be." 
 
 "I'm sure it will be most exciting," Miss Mau- 
 leverer said, and compassionately kissed Sanchia. 
 She had done her duty and had been snubbed for 
 it; but the snubs of twenty are compliments to 
 twenty-two.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 GREEK AND ITALIAN 
 
 The love which filled Senhouse, heart and soul, 
 had very possibly a physical base, for if she had 
 not been caught playing Dryad, had not waded 
 thigh-deep in the pool, his senses might never have 
 been enthralled; but as it gained in volume and 
 mass it became more and more an affair of the in- 
 tellect. It was the glimpse he got into her mind, 
 the chance-caught vistas of mind-scape, so to speak, 
 rarer than any blue distance dreamed of by Claude; 
 it was these unspeakably fair gleams which en- 
 thralled his contemplation. He thought of her as a 
 hedged garden, where wild flowers were set in bor- 
 ders, and hinted the more fragrantly their native 
 simplicity for the trim pattern they were schooled 
 to fulfil. This was where she ravished him quite; 
 she was like a wood-nymph half- tamed, meek in a 
 stiff gown and belt, her quick feet in little narrow 
 shoes and stockings; her wild hair knotted behind 
 her head, her quick eyes recollected, her nimble 
 movements always curbed. And yet below bodice 
 and belt you could sense the heart beat faster for 
 the wild kiss of the wind on the cheek ; and you could 
 well believe that in woods, on airy summits of hills, 
 
 51
 
 52 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 in meadows by streams, in ploughlands after rain, 
 she was living a double life — within, the ears of 
 her heart alert to secret strains, magic calls, and 
 incitations to be free; outwardly, all her beautiful 
 body staidly disposed to the common world's ob- 
 servances. Here he saw her humble, and could 
 shed tears of pride in such condescension; there 
 he knew her indomitable, and could sing Te Deum 
 for her immortality. 
 
 This double nature of hers made him wary in 
 what he taught her. He was a man full to the 
 throat with theory. He was deliberately an An- 
 archist ; extremely a freethinker in religious matters, 
 though he had much more native piety in him than 
 any dogmatist. But he found her implicitly the 
 daughter of a sound old tory merchant, and of a 
 High Church, emotional mamma: here was the 
 fount of her incarnation (as he put it) ; here lay her 
 predestined road through our world; therefore he 
 held off politics and religion as long as he could. 
 Art, poetry, plant-lore, beast-lore, travel, and the 
 humours of mankind: he made these the staple of 
 his talk. 
 
 But as the golden days sped along, he found 
 that she was not inclined to take her surroundings 
 for granted. She betrayed curiosity about his man- 
 ner of life; wanted to know why he lived in a cart, 
 and why Mr. Charnock was so perturbed that he 
 should do it. Finding herself grouped with Mr. 
 Charnock, she was disposed to defend her positions, 
 though he had never attacked them. By and by,
 
 GREEK AND ITALIAN 53 
 
 growing bolder as she grew at ease, she began to 
 attack his positions. Did he go to church? Was 
 not one bound to communicate at least three times 
 a year (of which Easter to be one)? Did he not 
 think submission to authority a discipline? and so 
 on. Lover as he was, and a neck-or-nothing man 
 by temper, he was deeply touched; but he did not 
 attempt any reasoned defence. That which had 
 been abominable to him he found reasonable in her, 
 and even admirable. Therefore he went to church 
 with her on week-day mornings, and spent the hour 
 of the muttered sacrifice in a contemplative ecstasy. 
 Sanchia at prayer! Her folded knees, her folded 
 hands, her lovely bowed head, her touchings of the 
 breast (as the points of the Cross were illuminated 
 by her finger-tips) — here, it's to be owned, were the 
 objects of his adoration. Yet he had never been 
 nearer to the God of the English than in these 
 weeks, and he did not get much further away dur- 
 ing the years of which this book is to tell the tale. 
 She led him, you see, a willing captive to her hand — 
 that is, her outward, beautiful seeming led him so. 
 But her life was double, the Dryad thrilled within 
 her; and with the wood-girl she secretly was, the 
 faun in him sped fleetly in the Open Country. 
 
 As to her painting in water-colour, she was firm 
 to go on with it; and here the artist in him had to 
 contend with the lover. The tussling between this 
 pair was often grim, and was never fought to a 
 finish. Senhouse was inexorably artist — perfectly pos- 
 itive in his vision, secure in his technique, and scorn-
 
 54 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 ful, like all artists, of anything but absolute perfec- 
 tion. Now Sanchia had much of the temperament, 
 and all of the passion, which an artist must have; 
 but she had not the vision, and could never have 
 the audacity — that intrepidity of aim which cannot 
 possibly miss the mark. That he knew within the 
 first half-hour of work with her. She would never 
 paint, as he understood painting — never, never. 
 Again he was touched; again he felt that he loved 
 her the more wildly for her very limitations; and 
 again he laid violent hands upon himself ; and when 
 he wanted to cry out upon the weakness of her work, 
 lashed out upon some botching in his own. Here 
 was a safety-vent. He painted with her, himself, 
 always, and cut his stuff to ribbons in order that she 
 might learn something from it. I don't believe 
 that she ever saw through this ruse. He took end- 
 less pains that she should not. 
 
 But it was clean impossible that a man of his 
 sort should gag himself at every turn; and he did 
 not. In poetry he let himself go free. He read 
 her Shelley, Homer, Dante, the Anthology, and 
 himself. During those three weeks he wrote a son- 
 net about her every night, and read one to her every 
 morning. They professed to tell the praises of a 
 heathen divinity — the swift Goddess who delights 
 in arrows; and I should very much like to know 
 what she thought about them. I have no difficulty 
 in determining what Miss Grace Mauleverer would 
 have thought if she had been present; but she was
 
 GREEK AND ITALIAN 
 
 55 
 
 not. The morning reading always took place in 
 Gorston Woods on the way back from early church. 
 For Sanchia, it seems, fell into the practice of at- 
 tending the Communion service daily during her 
 three weeks at Gorston ; and Mr. Senhouse followed 
 her meekly, as led by a string. On the return, as 
 I say, he read her the sonnet of the previous night. 
 He wasn't, in my opinion, so good a poet that I 
 need present a specimen of his sonnets. Painting 
 was really his art. But he was well read in Greek, 
 Italian, and English literature, and exceedingly 
 sensitive to nuances of style. There was undoubt- 
 edly a touch of the austere grace of the Anthology 
 in what he did, something of Dante's naked sim- 
 plicity — that matter-of-fact statement of poetical 
 truth in the terms of literal truth — and more than a 
 little of Shelley's intoxicating eloquence. Perhaps 
 you may guess his quality from this criticism: if 
 you don't, I must present you with a verse or two 
 by and by. Anyhow, whether he was true poet or 
 mere versifier, he was an uncommon rhapsodist. 
 Over Shelley's Prometheus he poured out his praise 
 in a torrent. He called it the greatest blank verse 
 in the English language, and put Milton next; 
 then Keats, in the revised Hyperion; then Words- 
 worth, in Tintern Abbey. Tennyson he put last, 
 and refused to admit Browning into the company 
 at all. The Ring and the Book, even the best of it, 
 was much too lyrical, he said. Browning was a 
 singer, not a bard. The finest imaginative touch 
 in the whole of English poetry, by the way, he con-
 
 56 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 sidered to be Panthea's words in the Prometheus, 
 where lone says: 
 
 Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings, 
 
 and then Panthea* 
 
 Their shadows make 
 The space within my plumes more black than night. 
 
 He thundered this passage upon her, and she ab- 
 sorbed him palely, with her wondrous eyes rounded 
 upon him. "I tell you, Sanchia" — she was well 
 Sanchia, he Jack by this time — ** that's terrific, and 
 the mastery of it takes away the breath. It's one 
 thing to image these sea- women in the mind, gazing 
 there, half-immersed, at the foot of the tortured 
 giant's crag. One sees them as he did, looking up, 
 like cormorants deep in the sea, sideways and pon- 
 dering ; one sees the swirl of the green water, and the 
 spray run up the rock at every surge. But there's 
 more to do, since Shelley sees much more. There 
 are wings: oh, Heaven, 'the thunder of new wings.' 
 First they hear and then they see. 'These solid 
 mountains quiver with the sound'; and then you 
 
 have it: 
 
 Their shadows make 
 The space within my plumes more black than night. 
 
 Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord! Think of it! He's got 
 it all by that. Not only the huge impending shades, 
 sweeping over like a driven cloud — but don't you 
 see the wings of those who see what's coming? 
 'The space within my plumes'; that's the master- 
 stroke. Imagine those spaced plumes, please. Just
 
 GREEK AND ITALIAN 
 
 57 
 
 shut your eyes, and see the ragged, flaggy things." 
 Here he paused, and sat glooming, dark, oracular, 
 like a bald-eyed Sphinx in Egypt, for a space of 
 time. And then he seemed to despair of men, and 
 laughed it ofiF. "There's immortality assured in a 
 line like that, if anybody knew anything about it; 
 but of course nobody does. A man of old had been 
 accepted as a Seer, a woman as a Sibyl, for less than 
 that. But that's not our way. Some thousands 
 of besotted householders have read that over the 
 fire, and not one but does not take it for granted that 
 it was put there 'to round off the sentence.' But 
 Shelley knew. 'Thou shalt outlive the shadow of 
 our night.' Yes, my dear, he knew. So I suppose 
 it's all right." 
 
 He bewildered her, no doubt, but he excited her, 
 and interested her vastly. She grew mentally more 
 during those three May weeks than in three years 
 of Great Cumberland Place or of the High School, 
 where she had made friends with Grace Mauleverer. 
 Yet her growth, as he was glad to see, did but broaden 
 her base, not shift it. She had too much character 
 to relinquish the habits in which she had been 
 bred simply because she was being swept off her 
 feet and carried through the air on flights un- 
 dreamed of before. Instead of discarding her old 
 ideas, she made room for the new ones beside them, 
 and did not see, or care to find out, what incongruous 
 company they were keeping. She had a critical 
 faculty of her own, too, which she employed freely 
 when she found herself on terms with her volcanic
 
 58 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 friend. She began, as a pioneer, with the fringes 
 of him. She thought, for instance, that he smoked 
 too many cigarettes, and said so. He returned at 
 once to his pipes. She suggested next that he might 
 concede a dress coat to the stately company which 
 gathered at Bill Hill towards the end of his visit. 
 He admitted that he hadn't got one, but produced 
 a blue serge jacket, which looked black by lamp- 
 light, and went up to dine with the Badlesmeres 
 in a white shirt, black necktie, and this jacket. 
 These tributes to her power she received with a be- 
 coming absence of elation. If she was flattered she 
 did not let him know it. 
 
 I said that his love for her became speedily in- 
 tellectual, and I maintain that it did even though 
 temptations in quite another direction were very 
 strong. Sanchia had an absence of self-conscious- 
 ness, a simplicity and a directness which were very 
 dangerous. Her hand was his to hold whenever 
 he pleased; she never pretended that she was not 
 glad to see him, proud that she was his chosen 
 companion, that she knew more of his thoughts 
 and intentions than anybody at Gorston, or Bill 
 Hill either. When she was absorbed in work, or 
 thought, or reverie; when she was thrilling at his 
 eloquence or glowing under his influence, he might 
 have captured her hand, or her waist; to have 
 kissed her check or touched her hair would have 
 been a natural demonstration of his feelings which 
 would not have startled her in the least. He knew
 
 GREEK AND ITALIAN 59 
 
 that; he could see that she had not a glimmer of 
 sex about her; she had the mind, the pure passion, 
 the preoccupation of a boy. To kiss, to be kissed, 
 would have been nothing to her, as simple as eating 
 your dinner. It is not to be set down to his credit 
 that he respected her young confidence: he would 
 have been ashamed to be praised for that. It was 
 simply impossible for him to do anything else than 
 respect her. He would as soon have laid lover's 
 hands upon the Madonna. 
 
 And so passed in and out three weeks of May 
 1894 — weeks, for him, of glamour, enchantment, 
 and hidden choirs, and, for her, weeks of shyly 
 stirring thoughts, and of dawning wonder for her 
 young eyes. 
 
 As for Greek and Italian, you don't acquire a 
 smattering of these literatures in three weeks, 
 though you may be kindled. He gave her rhap- 
 sodies from each, stormed out choruses from the 
 Agamemnon and Seve7t against Thebes, paraphrased 
 Andromache's lament and Nausicaa's entertain- 
 ment of the travel-spent Ithacan; translated for 
 her the whole of the Vita Nuova, and guided her 
 faltering tongue through a canto or more of the 
 Purgatorio. And he made great play with the 
 Anthology, and proved to her eagerly, not without 
 a break in his voice, how near Landor got to it 
 with Rose Aylmer and other enchanting strains. 
 Here and there she got a perfumed snatch of the 
 rightful Hippocrene: Plato's Star gazer for one,
 
 6o OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 and that noble compliment of a nameless lover, 
 i. xliv. — 
 
 Sweet flowers for thee, my fragrant one, 
 The grace is theirs, not thine. 
 Fragrance from thee makes fragrant them. 
 As from thine eyes they shine. 
 
 A paraphrase at the best. But he avoided their 
 lovers' cries, and kept himself to their prayers. 
 Here, it must be owned, he was not so ingenuous 
 as he might have been. In their voices he praised 
 his own Hymnia; Artemis of the Haven was by 
 his side, touching him as he read; Artemis of the 
 Ways walked them with him. He had as many 
 names for her as a Catholic for the Virgin Mary, 
 and could justify them all out of the poets. 
 
 As to these, and their near relation to herself, 
 Sanchia was obtuse. But she got some fragrant 
 snatches from that nosegay of poets, and I think a 
 hazy kind of suspicion that a heathen Goddess, to 
 a heathen, meant a good deal more than a pretty 
 woman rather undressed. 
 
 And thus the day came when Mrs. Percival 
 summoned her to Great Cumberland Place, and 
 lessons in art were feverish, and readings in the 
 poets suffered lapse; and whole quarters of hours 
 passed with silence fallen upon the pair; and a last 
 sonnet to Hymnia was penned and recited; and 
 then an early morning hour struck when she stole 
 out alone through the dewy woodlands to bid her 
 friend good-bye.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 HOW HE WENT HIS WAY 
 
 In Gorston Thicket, among the glancing shafts of 
 young oaks, by the pool where first he had loved 
 her body's beauty, they stood to their farewells. 
 They were simple, and he dared to make them so. 
 For the first few minutes they were vowed silently. 
 The friends stood side by side: he had her hand, 
 she all his heart. 
 
 The lilies now starred the black water like a 
 galaxy. ''They have all opened their eyes wide 
 for the last of you," he said. 
 
 Her smile was rather rueful. ''No, it's for you. 
 You are the first to go. Perhaps I shall see them 
 again." 
 
 "Shall you? I wonder! I shall think of you 
 here." 
 
 She accepted that as a matter of course. "Yes, 
 think of me here. I shall come once more." 
 
 He gave a flick to the idea — turned it lightly 
 aside so that it shouldn't hit either of them as it 
 flew. "You will? Then that's a bargain. You 
 shall come for me and say a prayer to the Nymphs. 
 You believe in the Nymphs now, don't you?" 
 
 She had vague eyes, seeing but not seeing. "Yes, 
 
 6i
 
 62 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 I think I believe in them. It's difficult to help it 
 — as you explain them." 
 
 He looked about the woodland. "Here and now 
 one might believe anything. Personally, I believe 
 everything." 
 
 This she accepted. "I know you do. I begin 
 to understand it. I'm sure I believe more than I 
 did." 
 
 Now he looked at her like a teacher. ''Take it 
 from me. You can't believe too much. The ut- 
 most stretch of your believing could not hold a 
 fragment of the truth. This world is almost inex- 
 haustible, small as it is: but the wrappings of it, the 
 entourage^' — he stretched out his arms wide — " bound- 
 less! — incomprehensible!" He stopped, watching 
 her until she thrilled a response. "Yet here we are," 
 he went on, "you and I — alone in it. 'You and 
 I, sphered in solitude' — adventuring in, to see what 
 we may light upon. Oh, my dear, it's a wonderful 
 pilgrimage. I can never get over that feeling — 
 of inexhaustible adventure, of extreme possibility: 
 that we may learn a truth — at any moment — see 
 it flash out, white, blinding — and there we are, re- 
 warded, fed, drunken, and ready to begin again." 
 
 A shy, grateful glance rewarded him indeed, the 
 flutter of an answering smile, and her hand that 
 gave thanks for his, and nestled. "It's very wonder- 
 ful," she said; "it makes my heart beat. And it's 
 perfectly true. But " 
 
 "Wefl, my dear? Well ?" 
 
 "I feel it now, you know. I'm quite, quite
 
 HOW HE WENT HIS WAY 63 
 
 sure." A blue beam from her eyes pierced him. 
 "That's because of you. But I'm going home — 
 to London — and " Her high-arched brows re- 
 vealed the bleak prospect, but he could not admit 
 it bleak. 
 
 "London," he told her, "is the most romantic 
 place in the world. I don't know anything like 
 it for stimulating the sense. Think of those miles 
 of shut doors, blank windows! Think of what 
 may be behind any one of them — what prayers, 
 what watching for a sign, what love, what speech- 
 less misery, what beginnings, what endings! Oh, 
 no, no, Sanchia! you'll never faint in London." 
 
 She was very doubtful as she thought of Great 
 Cumberland Place and its mahogany and red- 
 flock papering, and Fraiilein Winkiewicz, that 
 stored and costive Hungarian. But she took cour- 
 age from his fire. "I shall try to look at it prop- 
 erly. I shall go on with my sketching — in Ken- 
 sington Gardens, perhaps." 
 
 He nodded quickly, smiling. "That's a great 
 place — full of magic. You'll see things there — and 
 may believe what you see. Pan and the Nymphs — 
 and fairies like wise children." 
 
 She leaned to him, looking away over the pool. 
 "Will you write to me?" 
 
 He laughed. "What do you think? What else 
 shall I do, do you suppose?" And then she looked 
 at him, and made his heart go faster. 
 
 "Don't tease me. I know you will." He let 
 go her hand — it had become very necessary.
 
 64 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 UTM 
 
 I'll bore you to death with my sermons," he 
 said briskly. 
 
 The great light that suddenly throbbed and 
 filled the wood, and the warmth that followed fast, 
 made them both look up. Upon the blue the oak- 
 crowns now were burning gold. Senhouse bowed 
 his head. "The sun is up," he said. 
 
 She bathed her face in the new day; she was 
 very serious. "Is this the end — or the beginning?" 
 
 "For me it's the beginning," said Senhouse. 
 "I think you'd better go to church." His heart 
 was wailing for her; he could hardly keep himself 
 in hand. 
 
 She looked at him. "Shall I go to church?" 
 
 He nodded shortly. "Yes. Go to church. Pray 
 for the pair of us. I can't come with you this time, 
 but the better part of me will be there." Then he 
 took her lax hand up and kissed the fingers of it. 
 
 " Good-bye, Queen Mab. The Gods bless us both." 
 
 Her eyes were wide and scared. Her lips were 
 pale. "I shall ask them to," she said. "Good- 
 bye." She turned and walked quickly through the 
 woodland, holding up her white skirt in her hand. 
 She never looked back. 
 
 When she was out of sight, Senhouse lifted up 
 his clenched right hand. "O God, never leave 
 her — this young Saint of Yours!" Thus he made 
 his prayer. Then, manlike, he swore. "I suppose 
 I'm a damned fool. I love her utterly. She's 
 straight out of Heaven — drifted upon mc like a 
 snowflake. And gone! — to her fate!"
 
 HOW HE WENT HIS WAY 65 
 
 For a time he stood, staring into the pool. There, 
 black and lucent, charged with its memories, it lay; 
 but he had not the courage to call them up. He 
 knew what madness lurked behind such an act, 
 and left the dangerous place. Reaching his piled- 
 up cart and patient beast, he heard the scouring of 
 hoofs at a gallop, and laughed. "Thank the Lord, 
 here comes my tonic." 
 
 Two ponies at a stretch, two white-jersied riders, 
 two windmill arms, and then — "Hulloa, old Jack! 
 Here we are!" They were almost upon him, and 
 pulled up with a showering of grit. 
 
 The Dowser claimed it. *'By a head, Percy — 
 you are a rotten rider. Now you owe me half-a- 
 crown, and you'll jolly well pay up." 
 
 "It was a dead heat, of course." Percy was 
 flushed and indignant. "Ask Jack. Jack, it was 
 a dead heat, wasn't it? Or did I really win?" 
 He looked at his brother with reproof. "I believe 
 I did, you know. That's why you claimed it 
 first." 
 
 "Oh, what a sickening lie! Chaps get flogged 
 for that. Don't they. Jack? It's rank form to 
 get licked and not take it. Any kid knows that — 
 except you." 
 
 Tonic for your left lovers! Senhouse gulped it 
 down, and felt the better for it. "Shut up, you 
 two, and escort me to the milestone. Of course 
 it was neck and neck. Now, gentlemen, please — 
 in skirmishing order. Percy goes on ahead and 
 looks out for the enemy. The convoy follows,
 
 66 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 and Dowser takes the rear. The enemy is very 
 active, gentlemen. Eyes skinned, I beg of you." 
 
 The boys were instantly pioneers. I wish I 
 could exhibit the infinite solemnity, the mature 
 cunning with which Percy made this confidence. 
 "I think I ought to tell you, Captain Senhouse, 
 that I believe I saw one of them as we joined you. 
 She was in white — and in that direction. And she 
 was retreating, having made observations." 
 
 ''It was only Sanchia, you ass!" cried Dow^ser. 
 "Going to church, of course." 
 
 "Oh, I know that quite well. Thanks awfully. 
 She was going to pray for our capture, of course." 
 
 "I don't think she need do that, somehow," said 
 Senhouse drily. Then he woke up. "Now, gentle- 
 men, for the honour of the flag; for Queen and 
 Country; for England, Home, and Beauty — Eyes 
 front! Forward!" 
 
 Dowser reined up and saluted, stiff as a rod; 
 Percy spurred forward, craning his neck; Sen- 
 house took his seat on the tilt-cart shaft, and the 
 convoy moved on. 
 
 The great game was played out to the very limits 
 of the enemy's country, which was agreed to end 
 at the second milestone. That would give them just 
 time to get back to breakfast, but only just. "Those 
 silly old Paddle-boats are still there, you see," Percy 
 had explained, condoning his apparent want of 
 heart. He referred to the Marquis and Marchioness 
 of Badlesmere, his uncle and aunt by the mother's 
 side. Therefore, at the second milestone, they de-
 
 HOW HE WENT HIS WAY 67 
 
 parted with many a whoop of defiance, and Sen- 
 house took up his journey the better for their rough 
 music. 
 
 He was happy, but sentimental — able to laugh 
 at himself and glory in his folly at the same time. 
 He rolled a cigarette and looked it over, whistling 
 softly. Then he smiled on one side of his face. 
 ''Now to please her — " and he threw it into the 
 ditch. '' God bless her! Oh, Heaven, how exquisite 
 she is!" But he could triumph in her now; he 
 was himself again. She was indeed a Revelation: 
 so steady a judgment, so confident, and so young! 
 That she was beautiful, and looked delicate, and 
 was not so, but added to the marvel she made up. 
 A woman — a girl — may be as lovely as a shell, and 
 as empty: it's when she informs a lovely mind that 
 she becomes a miracle. Sanchia had made a seer 
 of him. He passed men and women, wayfarers on 
 the road, and nodded back their greetings, and was 
 compassionate. "You poor, poor devil, who go 
 bent-backed to your work, and don't know Sanchia, 
 the wonder of the world!" A young butcher and 
 his lass drove briskly by, handfasted in a cart. "Ah, 
 you lucky couple, well for you that you haven't met 
 with her! You'd give it up in despair." It is to 
 be noted of him, as a constant characteristic, that 
 he was most flippant when his heart was bleeding. 
 In all his eloquence — if he was really serious — he 
 reached a point where he stopped dead, as if con- 
 scious of the futility of utterance, and turned him- 
 self off with a half-jest.
 
 68 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Anemones in a woody hollow caught his eye, 
 and he stopped his horse, and descended to pay 
 them his vow^s. They gleamed up from their dark 
 lacery of leaves. Her toes had been that colour — 
 rose and white — when she had drawn them fresh 
 from the water. Often and often he had wondered 
 at them, for she loved to bathe her feet. Water 
 seemed always irresistible to Sanchia; she seemed 
 to smell it out. That was natural. Artemis haunted 
 streams and rushy pools. She was the Lady of 
 the Lake. Lovely, pure, glowing, starry flowers! 
 They were hers by right, for, like them, she was 
 pale and fragile and shy — and yet very strong, and 
 could be bold when need was. And she was a Saint. 
 She left him to bow her head in a church. He shut 
 his eyes and could see her kneeling there, or look- 
 ing up at the Cross and candles over the altar. 
 She had prayed for him while he was larking with 
 the boys! God bless her always, anyhow! 
 
 After all, he was dignified above all men, in that 
 he alone could see what she was. Let him not 
 forget that. She went her ways among them and 
 their womenkind; she was Sanchia Percival, or 
 Sanchia, and not one of them knew what more she 
 was, or what lay shrouded, glowing under the veil, 
 but only he — he, Senhouse, who hadn't sixpence 
 to his name, and chose to sleep under a hedge. 
 This made him a great swell; he could not but 
 acknowledge that to himself. In one flash, when 
 she had stood in her white gown by the pool, he
 
 HOW HE WENT HIS WAY 69 
 
 had "discerned the God." That was a point in 
 his favour; that hfted him out of the ordinary run; 
 and he felt that he could go about his business the 
 better for it. He was pretty sure that he would 
 paint the better, write the better, teach the world of 
 slaves the better what dogs' lives they chose to lead. 
 But — ah, the world was empty! His heart ached; 
 there was wailing in his ears. He was alone, should 
 not see her till who knew when. And every shuffle 
 forward of Rosinante took him farther from his 
 glory and his stay. He had to smoke a pipe over 
 this, and talk with a couple of hedgers at their din- 
 ner in a ditch. ''Mr. John," they called him, 
 knowing him or his equipage by repute. With 
 them he munched his bread and cheese, and shared 
 his ale, while he discussed his whereabouts and his 
 whitherwards. He had nowhere in particular to 
 go; he was even less hampered than usual, for 
 you don't plant in May, but look rather to reap. 
 The Hunstanton road forked off, they told him, a 
 mile or so on, and he quickly chose for the sea, since 
 Artemis haunts the water. There would be a waft 
 of her there; that shiver of the little waves, that 
 cloud on the still surface, would hint at her silent 
 flitting. He explained this to his friends, who nodded 
 sagely, with a "So I've heard say," assuming the 
 Goddess to be a kind of water-fowl. "It's not so 
 much a bird, you know, as an Influence," he in- 
 sisted. One of the hedgers shifted his quid of 
 cheese and jerked his head. "You might put it 
 at that, sir, and not be much out."
 
 70 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 It was a long road to the shore; he did not get 
 there until close upon midnight, having no sense 
 whatever of time. There, finally, he sat brooding 
 over the curtained water under the stars, musing 
 upon vacancy, all the singing out of him, "he and 
 his pain together." 
 
 He had no desire to sleep, nor once considered 
 the possibility, but sat on, knees to chest, chin upon 
 them. His bony fingers clasped his shins, his 
 burning eyes were fixed upon a point of light far 
 out at sea. If he thought, he knew not his thought; 
 if he suffered, was unconscious of it. But when 
 the first shore bird called startlingly the warning, 
 and he saw the faint stirrings of light in the east, he 
 found himself wrangling out his reasons for the life 
 he led — putting them before her, justifying himself. 
 She, the sister of Apollo, like Apollo, was ''cloistered 
 for a reason"; but here was he adrift, shut out by 
 his own choice from the strongholds of men. His 
 brain fired and became feverishly alive; he knew 
 that he was eloquent, was certain he could get her 
 sympathies. His need was burning; he must have 
 her on his side. His world was empty indeed if 
 her slim figure came not to fill it. 
 
 With the first light he wrote her his first letter.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE RETURN TO GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE 
 
 Saddled horses were at the door when the 
 brougham arrived, bringing Sanchia home. Miss 
 Melusine and Miss Victoria were about to ride, 
 it was told. Down the stair they came, habited, 
 booted, hatted, and gloved proper. Vicky's *'Hul- 
 loa, Sancie, we're off," and Melusine's ''Darling, 
 how sweet to have you back," were also proper, 
 in the herald's way of speaking, Vicky's had glad- 
 ness behind the bare words, and Melusine's meant 
 nothing at all. But they were very charming, and 
 she looked lovely in her habit — like a swan. 
 
 Vicky lingered in the hall to whisper, ''Thank 
 Heaven, Pintail isn't coming. He's talking to 
 Hawise about his family. Look out, they're in 
 the drawing-room. Mamma's in the morning- 
 room, writing letters, of course." Then she looked 
 sharply at her little sister, "Did you have a good 
 time?" 
 
 Sanchia's answering beam was guarded. "Aw- 
 fully good," she said. "I really learned something,'* 
 
 "So did we," said Vicky — but Sanchia never 
 blenched — "from mamma. You had a marquis 
 there ! And a Lord William ! Really, very swagger. ' ' 
 
 71
 
 72 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Sanchia denied them. ''They weren't with us at 
 all. They were nearly two miles off. You had 
 to get to them through woods. And I only saw 
 them once; and all the marchioness said to me was, 
 'What perfect weather.'" 
 
 "But Lord William," Vicky persisted. "Mamma 
 said that he was greatly struck. I thought it was 
 a clear case." 
 
 Sanchia's lip curled back, in the Greek fashion. 
 "He's over forty, and blinks for three minutes be- 
 fore he speaks. It's a new way of stammering. 
 But he's quite a nice man." 
 
 Vicky paused, then flashed: "Who was your 
 favourite man?" 
 
 And then Melusine intervened with, "Darling, 
 shall we put ofT our ride? Wouldn't you rather?" 
 
 And what else could have been at once so charm- 
 ing and so effective? Vicky postponed her prob- 
 ings. 
 
 The morning-room revealed Mrs. Percival's in- 
 dustrious back and the vigorous squeaking of her 
 quill. It was not her habit to unbend to either of 
 her younger daughters. Philippa, Mrs. Tompsett- 
 King, was attended to because she had a way of 
 compelling attention; Hawise was to marry a bar- 
 onet; Melusine was the beloved: for the other two, 
 discipline must be maintained, the fine austerity of 
 a Christian home. But at Sanchia's near approach, 
 and "Here I am, mamma," the busy matron did 
 look up, and on the glowing cheek bestowed a peck 
 which told of a very cold nose, and seemed to give
 
 GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE 73 
 
 the He to her, "Well, my darling, welcome home!" 
 Slowly, then, Mrs. Percival wiped her pen and laid 
 it in its appointed place; she seemed deliberately to 
 prepare herself to be interested. Sanchia, seated be- 
 side the escritoire, yielded her hand to her mother's 
 pair, without enthusiasm. Her smile, poor child, 
 was perfunctory, and if her eyes showed confident, 
 why, they told fibs. 
 
 And how was dear Lady Mauleverer? Mrs. Per- 
 cival must be told. ''And Grace, dear, cheerful 
 Grace?" Sanchia must write a grateful letter. It 
 would be well to catch the five o'clock post. Mrs. 
 Percival herself would add a line if she might be 
 allowed. She loved all who loved her children. It 
 must have been agreeable at Gorston; the gardens 
 were famous; the Gorston orchids had a cachet all 
 their own. To meet such people as Lord and Lady 
 Badlesmere was a privilege; and the church, Mrs. 
 Percival understood, lay within the park. And good, 
 sound church teaching; a daily Eucharist! Excel- 
 lent, indeed. Lord William Botetort must have been 
 delightful. He had helped Sanchia with her sketch- 
 ing? No? Oh, that had been Mr. Senhouse! 
 Who was staying in the neighbourhood ? Lord Wil- 
 liam was, of course. Lord Badlesmere's brother, 
 and brother-in-law, consequently, of Mr. Charnock. 
 Lady Alexandra had been a very earnest church- 
 woman. Mrs. Percival had met her once or twice 
 on a Committee of the M.A.B.Y.S. The Mayhys, we 
 call it. 
 
 After this, as upon a flood long pent up, but now
 
 74 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 irresistible, came home confidences. "Sir George is 
 here — up for a Railway Bill — and is charming. Oh, 
 charmingl Chivalrous to a fault; it is a privilege to 
 converse with him. He dined with us last night. 
 Philippa and Septimus came, and that young Mr. 
 Chevenix: no one else. That rather difficult Mr. 
 Etherington, your father's old friend, came in after 
 dinner. Rather against my judgment — but, how- 
 ever — Philippa quite lost her heart to Sir George. 
 'One of our Conquerors,' he may well be called. 
 She dubbed him that as she left us last night: you 
 know her way. 'But you, dear lady, have led cap- 
 tivity captive,' he said. He kissed her hand. Our 
 Hawise is overflowing with happiness. They are in 
 the drawing-room." 
 
 Sanchia's plain way with such monologue was per- 
 haps too chilling. She swallowed it whole — like a 
 grey powder. Her mother occasionally had to com- 
 plain of her irresponsiveness. It was the child's only 
 weapon of defence against ennui, and against the 
 seed of something more serious which she could now 
 and again detect in her own heart. Was this sort 
 of thing — could it be — quackery? Horrible doubt; 
 unanswerable by a pious child. She was still baby 
 enough to nourish the belief that her parents were 
 above criticism; at any rate, she dreaded the im- 
 piety, and shirked the time when criticism must be 
 applied. Therefore what else could she do but hear 
 and not understand, see and refuse to believe? 
 Vicky — two years older — in her brisk tones said 
 dreadful things about mamma. She had said once
 
 GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE 75 
 
 that mamma loved two things in the world more than 
 all the others — the Lord, and a lord- Sanchia re- 
 membered now the surging heat that enwrapped her 
 at that saying. Her cheeks had felt scalding. But 
 Vicky never could resist a joke. 
 
 Her father's six o'clock greeting, ''Well, my puss, 
 well, my dear one — well, well, well!" his hug and 
 kisses, made amends for early chills, the shiver of 
 isolation felt by a stranded little divinity. A happy 
 hour succeeded — in his smoking-room — on his cush- 
 ioned, satisfactory knees, and wreathed in the blue 
 spirals of his cigar. "Now, my darling — all about 
 it," was the invitation, and she told him more than 
 she could tell to anybody else. In her charmed re- 
 lation Lord William never showed his noble head, 
 Lord and Lady Badlesmere were not. But there 
 was much of Percy and the Dowser, and much of 
 Mr. Senhouse. ''He's very extraordinary, you know, 
 papa; I think perhaps you would say he was too 
 extraordinary. I don't know. I've thought a great 
 deal about it. The tent, you know, and the cart. 
 It sounds the only possible way of living when he 
 talks about it; but — his people are quite rich. His 
 father has a coal mine somewhere; he always calls 
 him 'the Alderman' or the 'dear old coal merchant.' 
 But he's very fond of his father, I can see." 
 
 "I like him for that, Sancie. I've got a weakness 
 for that sort of thing." Mr. Percival stroked her 
 hair, and she lifted up her head and kissed him. 
 "But what the deuce does he live in a tent for?"
 
 76 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 "He says, you see, that four walls strangle him, 
 and " 
 
 "Yes, yes, chicken," Mr. Percival put in, "but a 
 tent's got walls, I suppose." 
 
 "Yes, but you can pull them down in a second, 
 and pack them in your cart, and be somewhere new 
 every night." 
 
 "God bless me!" from Mr. Percival; "that would 
 never suit me." 
 
 "Yes, it would, you see, because he says that the 
 great thing to avoid in this life is rootsy 
 
 Mr. Percival was dazed. "Roots, my love?" he 
 asked faintly. 
 
 "He calls it hamper sometimes. He says, there's 
 top hamper and bottom hamper, and that he doesn't 
 know which is worse — to be clogged about the head 
 or the feet. I do see what he means, but " 
 
 "There's a deal of 'but' about your Mr. Sen- 
 house, darling," said Mr. Percival; "but I like him 
 for liking his father. That must be Senhouse of 
 Dingeley Main. Coal merchant indeed! God bless 
 my soul, I wish I could be that sort of a coal mer- 
 chant. It's every penny of ten thousand a year. I 
 don't think your friend will have to live in a tent by 
 and by, Sancie." 
 
 "Oh, yes, he will, papa. He hasn't had any 
 money from his father for ten years, and never will. 
 He lives on five shillings a week — and earns it." 
 
 "Then he's a confounded fool, my dear," said Mr. 
 Percival with confidence. 
 
 ■He's the cleverest person I ever met," Sanchia 
 
 <<■
 
 GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE 77 
 
 returned, "and the kindest. You can say anything 
 to him — or nothing — and he understands. You 
 mustn't abuse him, dear one. You don't know how 
 he helped me. I think he's perfectly splendid." 
 
 It didn't take much to capture papa. He was so 
 easy that it was hardly fair. He caught her round 
 the waist and clasped her close. "My little girl, I'll 
 love him if you ask me to! I do love him for loving 
 my Sancie." 
 
 "I don't want you to love him, of course," she 
 told him, snuggled in his whiskers, "and I don't 
 think he does love me. But he's simply the kindest 
 and wisest person I ever met in my life." 
 
 "Kindest! Wisest! Oho!" said Mr. Percival, 
 pinching her ear. "And where do I come in at that 
 rate?" 
 
 "Dearest, you don't want to come in," said Miss 
 Sanchia; "you're there already." 
 
 Vicky's brisk entry, dressed for dinner, put an end 
 to confidences. "Hulloa, papa," she said. "You 
 dear old thing, you'll be late for Pintail. He's com- 
 ing to dinner again — to talk about his family. Isn't 
 it awful?" 
 
 "My dear," said Mr. Percival, "after all, he's 
 Hawise's affair." 
 
 "Hawise," said Vicky, " is hke a jelly-fish. Plodged 
 against his waistcoat. I don't believe she likes him 
 a bit. She sticks there by inertia, because she was 
 put there. Sancie will hate him." 
 
 Sanchia lifted her brows. "You seem to think 
 I've never seen the man. Of course I have. He
 
 78 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 thought I was twelve and gave me a skipping-rope. 
 It might have been a doll. I don't hate him at all. 
 I thought he was rather dreary; but I assure you he 
 doesn't exist — for me." 
 
 ''He doesn't want to," said Vicky. "He exists for 
 himself." 
 
 "Tut! you monkeys." Mr. Percival was beating 
 ash from his waistcoat. "I wonder you're not 
 ashamed of yourselves. He's a man of title and a 
 gentleman, and your mother esteems him. That 
 ought to be enough for the likes of you." 
 
 "He's mamma's third baronet," Vicky began; but 
 Mr. Percival was loyal. 
 
 "Ducky," he said, with a hand on Vicky's shoulder, 
 "don't talk like that. It won't do, my dear. It 
 don't sound very pretty." 
 
 Vicky was hushed. "I know it doesn't, papa — 
 but I can't help it." 
 
 "Oh, but we must, you know, we must indeed. 
 Now I must get into my swallow-tails." With that 
 he went, and Vicky admitted that papa was an angel. 
 Sanchia said nothing. What was the use? Of 
 course he was an angel. But mamma — after Lady 
 Mauleverer! And Sir George — after Jack! And, 
 oh — after Gorston Thicket, Great Cumberland 
 Place! 
 
 In the drawing-room Sir George Pinwell offered 
 her a nerveless hand, and a How-d'ye-do which was 
 directed to some remote corner of the room. He 
 neither saw her nor waited for her reply, but turned 
 with a deferential droop of the shoulders to what
 
 GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE 79 
 
 Mrs. Percival had been saying about the Bishop of 
 
 . He was a tall young man, with a round, pink 
 
 face, pale eyes set a fleur de tete, and an extremely 
 high-bridged, pointed nose. His moustache was like 
 a blonde cascade. He was apt to close his eyes when 
 he talked, and allow his eyelids to flicker over them 
 as if contact hurt them. In manner he was bland; 
 he never contradicted anything, but let it pass un- 
 challenged, as deplorable in taste. His opinions, 
 when he pronounced them, were grounded upon 
 taste, and were intended to be final. The gentle 
 Hawise seldom spoke to him, but occasionally glanced 
 up, with the softest, bluest eyes you ever saw in your 
 life. 
 
 He did talk, there's no doubt, about his family. 
 "Then, of course, there was Sir Marmaduke; I 
 ought not to pass him by. We like Sir Marmaduke 
 — we have a little cultus " 
 
 Vicky asked, ''What's a little cultus, George?" 
 from across the table; and he winced. 
 
 "A little private worship, shall I say? A little 
 veneration " His eyelids seemed most painful. 
 
 "That's like the Japanese, isn't it?" Vicky said 
 to Sanchia. " They worship their ancestors. I 
 think it's a jolly religion." 
 
 "You know the Badlesmeres, George, of course," 
 Mrs. Percival said bravely, meaning to break fresh 
 ground. "Sancjiia's been seeing something of them 
 at Gorston." 
 
 Sir George lifted his head, shut his eyes, and put 
 a finger between the points of his collar. "Badles-
 
 8o OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 mere I certainly know. Lady Badlesmere — I think 
 — not quite so well. I was at school with Badlesmere 
 — and another of them. I almost forget." 
 
 "It may have been Lord William — who was an- 
 other of Sanchia's neighbours," said Mrs. Percival. 
 
 Sir George flickered, then bowed. "Thank you. 
 It was. William Botetort." And Vicky nudged 
 Sanchia, and whispered, "There's a nuance for you." 
 She really was rather dreadful. 
 
 He returned to his family, for Hawise's advantage. 
 "Sir Marmaduke, you must know, fought for his 
 King at Naseby. It was — finely, I think — said of 
 him, upon one occasion " 
 
 And, seeing him now in secure possession of two 
 families, we may leave him expounding.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 VOICE FROM THE OPEN IN JUSTIFICATION 
 
 She got her letter before she left Gorston. It had 
 been in her pocket when she reached home, and had 
 often been read. She had not yet answered it, how- 
 ever, and did not in fact answer it for a week. She 
 was alw^s so reticent, even to herself, and so dis- 
 creet that one doesn't know how she took it. Signs 
 of hurt are visible in it to the experienced eye. The 
 pleasure he takes, for instance, in the use of her 
 name — that's one. Another is his plain anxiety to 
 prove to her his unconcern. Here, anyhow, it is for 
 the interested reader to judge. 
 
 12th May. 
 
 I am thirty miles away from you, Sanchia, en- 
 camped upon the edge of a glimmering marsh, await- 
 ing dawn to take up my bearings. All about me the 
 shore birds are piping their wild, sad music; most 
 melodious of them all, the curlew; how I love that 
 bird! You never heard the little owls, did you, at 
 San Gimignano: plaintive trebles fretting to each 
 other in the night ? They are said to be the souls of 
 two murdered lads, Rossellino and Primerano by 
 name. I am sure Pythagoras was right concerning 
 wild-fowl, and that the soul of my grand-dam may 
 
 8i
 
 82 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 fitly inhabit a bird. I forget whose moan the 
 Greeks heard in the curlew's cry : some robbed young 
 life's, no doubt. But I wander. 
 
 I wish to report, Sanchia, please, that I have 
 travelled since I left you at daybreak (yesterday), 
 with a long rest at noon, and am now going to bed 
 in my sack, for it's too dark yet, and I'm too sleepy, 
 to pitch a tent. Besides, it's close and steamy. I 
 think that I can smell the rain, as, saving your 
 presence (but I know you'll laugh), I have the knack 
 of doing. Perhaps you'll remember, please, that I 
 did it on the day of the Oulton picnic; and who 
 turned up a nose, and left a cloak behind, and would 
 have got a wet skin if it hadn't been for a masterful 
 Anarchist and his jacket? Saint Martin was beat 
 that time; for he divided his jacket, whereas — so 
 there's for you, pert maid. 
 
 Percy and the Dowser came pelting after me, and 
 took me on to the second milestone. We played 
 Pioneers through the enemy's country. Percy re- 
 ported you as having been seen on the way to church. 
 Keen as mustard, they were, to the very end. Did 
 you meet either of them, I wonder? No — of course 
 you didn't. You went home through the woods, like 
 a respectable Dryad, I know, 
 
 I meant to have told you, but had other things to 
 think about, that Charnock, after dinner, had drawn 
 me awfully aside, and, in a whisper which could have 
 been heard from Grascby to Colehampton, as good 
 as said what he thought about me and my deplorable 
 way of life. He's done that before often enough.
 
 VOICE FROM THE OPEN 83 
 
 This was what he called a "special appeal." He 
 looked what an ass he thought me. That I should 
 renounce six hundred a year (to begin with) and a 
 certain share in the colliery for wandering by the 
 hedgerows on what I can pick up! He had no words 
 to voice his thoughts. They lay too deep for tears 
 — or jeers — or swears. He said that Lady Badles- 
 mere had spoken about me; she thought it such a 
 pity. Poor old chap, with his Stake in the County, 
 and Vested Interests, and Seat in Parliament; with 
 his hounds and his horses at break of day, men- 
 servants (aJl touching their hats), maid-servants (all 
 bobbing), boys at Eton, family pew, — imagine how 
 he chafes. I tell you, I irritate him to madness; he 
 can't stand it. He's fond of me, too, you know, 
 which makes it worse; but he doesn't want to re- 
 member that I live. It's a tarnish on his prosperity. 
 It mildews his roses, and blights the hops that make 
 the beer by which he lives and fares softly. If I 
 argue with him, he foams at the mouth. So I 
 laughed at him, and made him give me a cigarette. 
 That soothed him. It had a gold tip, and was very 
 spluttery. You know the kind. Bond Street. He'll 
 be better now I'm gone. 
 
 So will you, my lady, perhaps. I think that — 
 once or twice — I scared you; indeed, I know that I 
 did. I've seen it in your eyebrows, and in your eyes 
 too. The grey goes lighter and the iris-rings con- 
 tract when you're really scared. I don't say that 
 you think me mad; I'll put it that, to you, I'm un- 
 accountable. You think it all rather a pity, and
 
 84 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 that it would really be more comfortable jf you 
 could be sure of me in a large stone box, with a 
 carriage-drive and entrance-lodge, and a tidy old 
 woman to bend her knees whenever she opens my 
 worship a gate. Hey? Confess, Sanchia, con- 
 fess. And then my painting should be a gentle- 
 manly amusement, not a livelihood — shouldn't it 
 now? Why should I sell my wits when I've got a 
 rich father and a family coal-mine? Why not put 
 on a black Melton coat and square-topped felt hat, 
 and go to church of a Sunday, like a Christian or an 
 ordinary man ? My dear, shall we reason together ? 
 Shall we have it out? I've told you all of it before 
 — by fits; but I feel your scare on me now, and can't 
 stand it at a distance. 
 
 Every man must seek salvation his own way. 
 That's all I'm doing, upon my honour. 
 
 Let's clear the air. What precisely do I mean by 
 salvation, or, for that matter, what do you mean by 
 it? (I'm talking of this world now, remember. 
 Perhaps I'll have a go at your reverence about the 
 I . other, some day.) Well, I'll tell you. According to 
 me, salvation in this world is the power of using every 
 faculty we have to the full — every available muscle 
 to the highest tension, every ounce of brain to the 
 last drop, every emotion to the piercing and swoon- 
 ing point, every sense to an acuteness so subtle that 
 you are able to feel the hairs on a moth's underwing, 
 separate the tones on a starling's neck, smell, like 
 a hare, the very breath of the com, see like a sea- 
 bird, hear like a stag. Those, with respect to Char-
 
 VOICE FROM THE OPEN 85 
 
 nock and his fellow-pundits at Westminster, or to 
 the Able Editors of Fleet Street, with their telephones 
 to their long ears, and their eyes on the latest intelli- 
 gence — those are the faculties which God has given 
 us to save ourselves withal. We are to replenish the 
 earth, I believe — but what for ? For the earth's ad- 
 vantage? Not at all, but for ours. (Personally, 
 mind you, I don't subscribe at all to the doctrine that 
 we are lords of creation. Why should we be ? The 
 little that I know about the beasts, and what I am 
 learning about the plants, suggest to me that they 
 have their salvation to work out by the side of us, 
 and that we can help each other a good deal more 
 than we do at present. I once saw a child playing 
 horses in a garden with a little dog. The dog was 
 the horse, and wore a halter of string over his muzzle; 
 she held the reins. They had a great run, and she 
 brought him back to his loose-box, undid the halter, 
 and set him to a wisp or two of hay. If you'll take 
 it from me, he buried his nose in it, and made be- 
 lieve to have his feed. Upon my honour, that's 
 true! All right; then don't tell me that we and the 
 beasts can't help each other any more. But you 
 won't, I know. It's old Chamock I'm doubtful 
 about, who blows birds to pieces with a gun.) 
 
 That was a digression. I was waiting for you to 
 admit that the full use of our faculties is our way of 
 temporal salvation: to think to the full, reason and 
 remember, to swell or uplift the heart, to walk and 
 run; to learn how to do things, make them, use them, 
 delight in them; to be alive in every fibre, and at all
 
 86 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 times; to be always alert, always awake, always at 
 the top of perfection, until we are wholesomely and 
 thankfully tired — and then, dear God, to sleep like 
 the dead! If we are things of body, mind, and 
 motion, as you'll allow, that must be salvation. 
 Very well, we agree so far — at least I hope we do; 
 for I give you fair warning, my friend, that in that 
 admission you have placed in my hands a most 
 powerful weapon. And don't you forget it! 
 
 Now then. If the use and perfecting of faculty 
 is salvation, liberty to learn is the only way of it. 
 We must be absolutely free, Sanchia. Salvation de- 
 mands it, our manhood expects it of us. We started, 
 mind you, free enough: all our hamper is of our 
 own making. But we've never been free since we 
 were turned out of Eden in the days before the Flood. 
 
 Consider old Charnock, Squire of Graseby — is he 
 free? God pity the poor, he's the veriest shackled 
 slave in this land of slaves. You are all slaves, you 
 know: your sublime Lady Maulcverer (who fancies 
 herself a slave-owner, bless her!) ; you, my poor dear 
 child, qualifying for your yoke; your respected Parson 
 Twisden (squire and parson by shifts) — all the lot 
 of you, Sanchia, but with a difference. Some of you 
 can't help yourselves. My lady was bought by the 
 late Sir Giles, who was himself a descendant of slaves 
 from the time of the biggest slave of them all, the 
 late William Conqueror; and she was sold by her 
 father to him for thirty (or thirty-two) pieces of an 
 escutcheon and a country-seat thrown in. And she 
 was a good girl in those days, and did as she was
 
 VOICE FROM THE OPEN 87 
 
 bid — besides, Sir Giles was a fine figure of a man, I 
 hear. You're a slave for the same reasons — good- 
 ness and girlhood. Why, you've only just been al- 
 lowed to put up your hair! And your Reverend 
 Twisden ? Well, he put his neck under the yoke of 
 the Church with great intention. It was deliberate; 
 he knew very well what he was doing ; I admire him 
 for it. He'd be the first to admit the slavery. Ser- 
 vice which is perfect freedom, he'd say. I don't 
 agree with him. According to me, we are all priests 
 for ever after the order of Melchisedek; but I'm a 
 sort of Quaker, you know — a pagan Quaker, or a 
 quaking Pagan, whichever you please. No! I don't 
 agree with him at all. I disapprove of your reverend 
 friend. But I respect him mightily, all the same — 
 and here's his very good health! 
 
 But old Roger Chamock, M.P., J.P., D.L. — out 
 upon the hobbled wretch ! He's done it himself from 
 the start, and has no one but himself to thank for it. 
 I've seen him at it all along, watched him from the 
 playground to the hulks — the gilded hulks in which 
 he now sweats. Rugby doesn't count, though he was 
 in the Sixth, and a swell. At Cambridge he was a 
 jolly chap (as he is now, confound him!), quite an 
 easy-going, God-bless-you kind of a man, with a 
 taste for prehistoric remains which might easily have 
 developed into a passion. He took a second in his- 
 tory, and was going off to Petersburg to study under 
 Vinogradoff. But what did he do instead ? Articled 
 himself to a brewer! and when his father died and 
 left him a thousand or two, what next but he must
 
 88 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 buy the brewer out? It was a rotten concern, I 
 believe, and he got it for a song. Well, that was the 
 end of him; he set to work to ''build up his fortune." 
 You might put it that he set to work to brick him- 
 self up in a great house. God help him now, he 
 was at it from dawn to midnight, slaving and driving 
 slaves. He starved himself, wouldn't look at the 
 pretty girl he was fond of, and who was fond of him 
 too ; took no days off, forgot his barrows and tumuli ; 
 thought of nothing but beer-shops and how he could 
 rope 'em in: a foreclosure here, an advance there, 
 here a little and there a little; nor did he rest until 
 he had every poor devil within a thirty mile of 
 Graseby under his arrogant old purple thumb. He 
 "got on," as they say; bought land; built little 
 painty villas for his dependents to rent of him; was 
 what they call a just landlord, which means that he 
 abated a man a fiver a year if he saw that by doing 
 so he would get a tenner out of him later on. Then 
 he married into the house of Badlesmere and be- 
 came one of the Salt of the Earth. Salt! Yes, in- 
 deed, an irritant poison. 
 
 What did he get? What was his price? I'll tell 
 you. He got a country-house five times too big for 
 any reasonable man, with as many rooms in it as 
 there are days in the month. He could have slept 
 in a new bed every night for three weeks if he had 
 pleased. And that did please him vastly. And he 
 got all the rest of his glories after that. J. P. came 
 next — easily; and they all followed — M.P., D.L., 
 M.F.H. They say he's to be sheriff this year.
 
 VOICE FROM THE OPEN 89 
 
 There are the Privy Council and a Peerage ahead of 
 old Roger: he's got his eye on 'em. Lord Graseby, 
 eh? Viscount, Earl, Marquis of Graseby, Duke 
 
 of I believe there's only one county left to be 
 
 duke of, and that Flint. Duke of Flint — and well 
 named, for a man petrified at the heart. Wicked 
 old Roger, whom I protest I still love, for all I chasten 
 him. 
 
 Now, do you see how the fellow's tied himself up — 
 like one of his own beer-shops? He has tied up 
 his morals absolutely. I don't mean in the cheap 
 sense that he can't live in splendour and ease unless 
 people get drunk. That's true, but refers to the 
 vulgar notion of morals, as meaning good morals. 
 (Morality doesn't mean good morals at all. It 
 means customs. Very bad customs may be very 
 good morals to some nations, and t'other way about. 
 The only really good morality, common to all people,} 
 consists in being true to yourself.) But I mean that' 
 he can't follow his own bent. He can't have a single 
 motion of the mind unless public opinion backs him 
 up. Hopeless! Can he punch a man's head? Of 
 course not: he'd be liable to appear before his own 
 bench. And he's chairman ! Can he lie down under 
 a hedge on a starry night in summer and sleep be- 
 neath the stars? An excellent custom, according to 
 me, but, bless you, the scandal! Can he walk down 
 Bond Street on a July noon with his coat off? Not 
 without a crowd at his heels, and Pve done it half- 
 a-dozen times. Can he delve? There's forty stal- 
 wart gardening men to know the reason why. Can
 
 90 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 he pass the time of day with a railway-guard, 'bus- 
 conductor, crossing-sweeper, gipsy-woman, all first- 
 rate authorities in their own arts? Not without 
 an apparatus of curtseyings, forelock-pullings, tip- 
 expectations, moppings and mowings which smother 
 his manhood up in a silly halo, pulled from the backs 
 of the might-be honest creatures he's with. Upon 
 my soul, Sanchia, did you ever dream of such 
 wretchedness as this? Cribbed, cabined, confined — 
 why, if the man plays golf, he must have another at 
 his heels to carry his toys about ! Why, if the man's 
 hungry, he must wait until two others have put on 
 plush breeches and brass-buttoned coats, and spread 
 the table, and called in Tomkins (the flap-cheeked, 
 elephant-eared Tomkins) to approve, and to tell him 
 heavily, "Luncheon is served, sir." 
 
 And then he'll have one tall fellow to fill his plate, 
 and another to take it away again; and neither of 
 them, for their lives, will dare give him anything to 
 drink when he's athirst, because, if they did, Tom- 
 kins would be drawing a hundred and fifty a year 
 and nothing to show for it. Oh, wretched, wretched, 
 hobbled, crippled, groping old Chamock! Now do 
 you see why I have renounced my patrimony, and 
 live at my ease, as my wits choose? Now do you 
 think me a madman? I vow to you, Queen Mab, 
 I think myself the second wisest man on earth. The 
 first wisest has been dead some years. His name 
 was Diogenes; and he was neither M.P., J. P., nor 
 D.L. Nor did he marry into the house of Badles- 
 mere.
 
 VOICE FROM THE OPEN 91 
 
 But he's happy, the old sand-blind rascal, you'll 
 tell me. I reply, of course the fellow's snug; and 
 as he has a superficies (the only thing left him which 
 he shares with me, I suppose), when you stroke him 
 he's pleased. His hunters and hounds stroke him, 
 no doubt; caps off from the lads, bobs from the 
 lasses, stroke him. There's a lot of pretty tickling 
 done when a great policeman holds up the traffic 
 from Victoria to Westminster Bridge, in order that 
 Chamock, M.P., may walk unhindered to the House. 
 Oh, yes, if you tickle him, he can still purr, I grant 
 you. If that's happiness, he's happy. 
 
 He tickles himself too, or gets his haberdasher to 
 tickle him. I was watching him the other day when 
 we were all there. You remember how you and I 
 got sick of the golfing talk and went off over the lake, 
 and pretended we were lost ? Well, before we broke 
 loose, after luncheon, on the terrace, I was watching 
 the old chap, with his fat cigar well alight, and his 
 coffee and old brandy (which are very bad for his 
 liver, and he knows it) at his elbow. I wonder if you 
 saw it all: I did — in a flash. There he sat, you 
 know, quite the prosperous, clean Englishman — a 
 great buck in his way — in his good clothes, neatest 
 boots, point device all over, absolutely nothing wrong. 
 His blue flannels! His small black satin tie under 
 the flawless collar; the pearl pin; the brown shoes! 
 Exquisite cut, those shoes, brogued, and with a sur- 
 face like old lacquer. His valet, he tells me, is 
 worth his weight in paper. Superb, prosperous 
 creature; tickling himself, and purring hard. It
 
 92 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 was his silk sock which was the crowning touch to 
 his happiness: I saw that — in a flash. Cornflower 
 blue, you may have noticed, with little gold threads 
 meandering up his calf. It fitted like a skin, showed 
 off his wicked old ankle to a nicety. The high light 
 came on the bone and gleamed like a satiny rose- 
 petal. Neatness, daintiness itself ! Strokable! You 
 couldn't help stroking it. I wanted to, myself. 
 That was his purring-point. 
 
 I saw him watch it, turn his foot about to catch 
 the light; then he pulled deeply at his cigar, sighed 
 his contentment, crossed his leg, and clasped that 
 jolly ankle — and purred and purred! No trace of 
 vulgar snobbery, mind. He didn't want any one 
 else to admire or envy. He's not low — not a bit. 
 No. He liked it to be there, to be sure of its per- 
 fectness, to feel that it was all of a piece with the rest 
 of him — with Bill Hill, with Grosvenor Gardens, the 
 House of Commons, with the horses in the loose- 
 boxes, and the great landau and silver-harnessed pair 
 of browns. It was a finishing-touch, a corner-stone, 
 bless him! So let us sing, Happy, happy, happy 
 Charnock! He's got his reward — worked hard and 
 ta'en his wages. Now let him order his tomb in St. 
 Praxed's Church and his life's work's done! No, 
 no ! I forgot the peerage. 
 
 Esau, being hungry as a hunter, sold his birth- 
 right for porridge. The thing was done in a minute; 
 he yielded to the passion of hunger, and was none 
 the worse, because a full meal doesn't root you for
 
 VOICE FROM THE OPEN 
 
 93 
 
 ever to the glebe. And his birthright — flocks and 
 herds and wives, mostly — was, if he had only known 
 it, a birth-wrong. He was really well out of it. But 
 Roger, if you'll forgive a vile pun, has bartered his 
 manhood for purrage — for a landau and pair, and 
 the rest; the girl he loved (such a nice girl too) for 
 a daughter of the house of Badlesmere, and the rest 
 of that; the teaching of his own sons for a deer-park 
 and pack of hounds; and his digestion for a great 
 table, three men-servants, and a French cook with a 
 temper. He had a brain, and has condescended it 
 to low cunning; he had sinews, and has coated them 
 with lard. He might have climbed the heights, and 
 he gets carried up in a landau. He might have made 
 his boys his friends; but he sends 'em to Eton, and 
 teaches 'em to look on him as a paymaster. He can 
 do nothing whatever that he has a mind to unless he 
 can coax his neighbours to admire him for doing it; 
 and the moment they carry their admiration to the 
 point of copying him, he wants to do something else, 
 and must coax 'em again. And you think I'm a mad- 
 man for not copying that way of life! You don't, 
 my dear; I won't believe it. I'm an angel of light 
 compared to old Roger. Upon my soul, I'm a 
 superior person, though I've only got three pairs of 
 trousers to my name. 
 
 The dawn is here and shames my rage. I ought 
 to thank God that I'm alive and free as air, instead 
 of blaspheming Him for letting other wretches live 
 also. The sun has risen out of the North Sea, and
 
 94 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 all the little eager waves of the Wash are on fire at 
 the edges. The air is wondrous mild — as tremulous 
 and close to tears as a convalescent child. I wish — 
 I wish — I wish that one dear child was here to watch 
 the pearly wonder of this dawn with me. No, I 
 don't; I swear I don't. It's not going to last ; it will 
 rain before eight o'clock, and I shall be squelching 
 through miry Norfolk on my way to Ely. But while 
 it lasts it's too awfully beautiful for words. A filmy 
 wonder: Aurora, new out of bed, wistful after her 
 dreams. (That's rather pretty.) 
 
 I shan't go to bed at all: it's too good. I shall 
 swim in the gilded sea while the coffee is a-making, 
 then paint what I can remember of this astounding 
 glory ; and then shove along through the soak to Ely. 
 There ought to be a letter for me there. Address 
 me *'care of Mrs. Webster, basket-maker." She 
 lives in a caravan, and smokes a pipe; but she's an 
 honest woman. She shaves twice a week. 
 
 Good-bye, Sanchia. Don't think me mad, and re- 
 member me in your prayers. 
 
 Leagues of marsh-cotton here — exquisite clouds of 
 burnt silver. And samphire — like wet emerald! 
 
 Her frugal little answer, when it came from Lon- 
 don, brought the tears to his eyes.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Vicky's conclusions, and the facts 
 
 The Percivals' was a busy household: from old 
 Tom (as his friends had him), lording it in The 
 Poultry, to young Sanchia, with her lover and her 
 opening mysteries, it was a household united only 
 in diversity. Mrs. Percival — for all her bustlings 
 out and in, writings of letters, interviewings of young 
 women with souls to be saved, and of curates very 
 ready to save them; her attendings of committees, 
 her afternoons, and her evening parties — would have 
 been the loudest to cry out upon such an accusation ; 
 she would have acclaimed her children's confidence 
 above all things in the world ; but the facts are that 
 every one of her children told her exactly what she 
 chose, and that she had, above all women bom, the 
 power of deluding herself. Thus she did not, and 
 could not if she would, examine the postman's daily 
 tribute; and yet she believed that every letter came 
 lo the house, so to speak, with a halfpenny stamp on 
 it. But this was absurd. Vicky's correspondence, 
 for example, was enormous — a pink, blue, Silurian 
 pile stood like a leaning tower by her plate every 
 morning. To see her scan, with splendid indif- 
 ference, each envelope back and front, consider, put 
 
 95
 
 96 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 aside, accept, reject, with pretty finger to pretty chin, 
 open, absorb, read forwards, backwards, across; 
 stifle a laugh, smother a yawn, smile darkly, guffaw 
 openly — was to see a robin on a lawn await the im- 
 mediate advent of a worm, and act accordingly, feed 
 or reject. Vicky wrote enormously, as she received, 
 and as openly, with a carelessness which was proof 
 against suspicion. Hawise, so far as one knew, 
 heard only from Sir George or some remote first 
 cousin of his with a hyphenated name and address 
 printed in bold black. Melusine had many foreign 
 correspondents — an Indian Civil Servant was known 
 to be one, and a ne'er-do-well in Colorado with one 
 lung was another. There had been an Italian dramatic 
 poet, but he had married and gone into an insurance 
 office. That dream was over. Sanchia's post was 
 never very large — but then she was the baby, as it 
 were, and had not, so far, many friends. One or 
 two school-mates kept her up — Grace Mauleverer, of 
 course — twice a year she heard from one of the Char- 
 nock boys, chiefly asking for postage-stamps; once 
 in a blue moon she got a letter which made Vicky 
 look sideways from her immense affair, and shut 
 considering eyes for two minutes; but that was all. 
 One gathers that her time was to come. Now, here 
 came bulky envelopes every few days, and the ques- 
 tion of the moment was, Had it come? "Had it, by 
 Jove?" Miss Vicky asked herself, for she was nothing 
 if not free of speech. 
 
 If there was little confidence between mother and 
 daughter, there was little more between sister and
 
 VICKY'S CONCLUSIONS 97 
 
 sister. Each had a character of her own, and each 
 chose to deploy it in her own way in face of the ad- 
 vancing world. To each her own affairs were of 
 absorbing interest, her own pursuit of the hour was 
 the Law of Being. Outwardly they were affectionate, 
 overflowing, unreserved ; yet it was a matter of strict 
 etiquette with every one of them, from the incisive, 
 married Philippa downwards, that confidences were 
 in the absolute discretion of the holder, and never to 
 be sought or peered after. 
 
 But one couldn't help being interested, of course, 
 and Vicky was highly curious about these letters of 
 Sancie's. They came from the country, it was clear, 
 because they only came in the mornings, and on 
 Mondays by the second post. Most certainly they 
 were from a man: look at the writing. And from 
 a casual sort of man: look how the stamps were 
 stuck on ! And yet from a queer sort of man : ''Miss 
 Sanchia-Josepha Percival" — Good Heavens! It oc- 
 curred to Vicky, first, that it was a clergyman, be- 
 cause a clergyman ought to be keen on the name of 
 Joseph. There had been a Saint Joseph, you see 
 — though she (Vicky) would have said that he was 
 the last saint a clergyman ought to have been in- 
 terested in. Such a peculiar position — but perhaps 
 that was it. She rejected the clergyman theory in 
 favour of a University don, and one sees the devolu- 
 tion of thought. A precise, academic kind of man; 
 and when you came to think of it, Sancie might easily 
 have captured a professor. She was so frightfully 
 serious about things, always wanted to know why
 
 gS OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 things were so. They love that, you know. At any 
 rate, Vicky knew. The don remained in possession 
 for nearly three weeks. Miss Sanchia-Josepha Per- 
 cival — with a hyphen ! — who else could possibly ? 
 
 And then came a letter one morning when Sancie, 
 with head bowed over the close writing, chuckled, 
 and laughed outright. The don collapsed like a 
 house of cards. They never made jokes. (That is 
 a great mistake, a too hasty generalisation of Vicky's.) 
 A new hypothesis reared itself out of the debris of 
 the Fellow of All-Souls (for he had been at that), a 
 shining, burning hypothesis, which held the field. 
 This was a desperate lover, rolling Sancie over the 
 tongue. He wsls frightfully in love, he couldn't have 
 enough of Sancie. He expended himself upon every 
 syllable of her — Miss Sanchia-Josepha Percival — 
 even a hyphen gave him a sensation. Darling little 
 Sancie! How awfully exciting! 
 
 Now, who was it? Not an Eton boy, of course, 
 who would put Miss S. Percival, as if her name had 
 been Sarah, like a cook. Besides, he wouldn't write 
 long letters like that. He'd ask for white mice, or 
 talk about a cricket-match and then — "Your affec- 
 tionate friend Dowser. P.S. You might write to 
 a chap." Vicky knew that kind too. That was 
 absurd. 
 
 It was, she finally decided. Lord William Bote- 
 tort, Sir George's friend William Botetort. It must 
 be, you see, for there was nobody else. Lord Badles- 
 mere was married — not that that made any differ- 
 ence, of course. In fact, they were often the worst.
 
 VICKY'S CONCLUSIONS 99 
 
 That was such a bore, because they were no good. 
 You always knew just how far they would go — and 
 then you got a letter to say that they must consider 
 your fair name above all things in the world, and 
 at whatever cost to themselves — and all that. But 
 Vicky somehow was clear that it couldn't be Lord 
 Badlesmere. He hadn't come up enough in conver- 
 sation. Sancie had never spoken his name unless 
 mamma simply dragged him in by the neck ; whereas 
 she had talked about Lord William of her own accord, 
 and had revelled in Sir George's ''William Botetort." 
 Vicky had not often seen Sancie so tickled. But of 
 course Sir George was gorgeous. The pity was that 
 Hawise was to be married so soon. One could go 
 to stay with them, but it would never be quite so 
 funny. 
 
 It was quite as funny in its way, though, to see 
 Vicky at the moment when her glowing hypothesis 
 shivered and went out. By that time — the middle of 
 June, a week before the Pinwell wedding, which 
 mamma insisted on having in the Portman Chapel — 
 the Portman Chapel! — because it was her parish 
 church (which it wasn't, you know: however, 
 mamma — ), by that time the visit to Gorston was 
 ancient history. Events moved quickly in Great 
 Cumberland Place; but Vicky made more than one 
 effort to recall it; and sitting on Sancie's bed one 
 day, when the child was sick and breakfasting there, 
 did succeed. A letter was in Sancie's hand, half 
 read. Here was Vicky's cue. She made a wide cast. 
 
 "Sancie, here's the very latest from the breakfast-
 
 lOO OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 room. Mamma has really surpassed herself. Lis- 
 ten. The John Chevenixes ask me to go to Hur- 
 lingham with them next Wednesday, — Wednesday 
 week, do you see?" Sanchia, vague-eyed, nodded. 
 
 "Don't look so distant, darling. Do attend. Of 
 course I say that I shall go — to papa, mind you, who 
 looks up from his paper, and nods at me, sweet old 
 thing. 'In your best becomes, Vicky, eh?' And 
 then mamma, if you please, mamma puts on a holy 
 expression, a 'For these and all Thy mercies' ex- 
 pression, and says — what do you think? That 
 Thursday is Hawise's wedding day, and that she 
 does think we might be all together the day before. 
 Isn't that a great one ? Isn't that as good as George's 
 'William Botetort'? It's really better, because it's 
 so frightfully crafty." 
 
 Sanchia lifted her eyebrows. "I don't think she 
 meant to be crafty. I think she felt like that — at 
 the moment!" 
 
 Vicky threw up her hands. "Well, there it is, 
 anyhow. It will be a heavy trial, that Wednesday. 
 Unless George is there, of course. Then we may 
 have some fun." She thought, remembered, and 
 exploded. "William Botetort!" Then she said, "I 
 suppose there really was such a person there. I sup- 
 pose George didn't fall into a pit. No, no, you're 
 not good enough for that." 
 
 "No," said Sanchia, "there really was such a 
 person." 
 
 The moment had come. "Was he nice?" asked 
 Vicky; and Sanchia, with that air of divine serious-
 
 VICKY'S CONCLUSIONS loi 
 
 ness, of flawless sincerity, crystal-clear, which made 
 her so lovely and so baffling at once, replied calmly, 
 "Yes, he was rather nice. He blinked before he 
 spoke — like a guinea-pig." 
 
 And there was the wreck of Lord William Botetort 
 — done with a turn of Sanchia's wrist. Vicky gave it 
 up. 
 
 But what Sanchia herself made of these letters of 
 hers must now be considered. 
 
 She took them seriously, with a sober elation in 
 the tribute which they certainly were. She took them 
 seriously though they often made her laugh outright, 
 for she had wit enough to see that her friend was 
 most in earnest when he least appeared so. They 
 contained, nearly all of them, highly contentious 
 matter, and she paid them the compliment of exam- 
 ining their propositions with all the brain she could 
 muster. Senhouse treated her absolutely as an 
 equal — when he didn't plainly put her up as his 
 superior. It is to her credit to say — as the fact is — 
 that she was more pleased by the first position as- 
 signed her than by the second. To be likened, 
 gravely, to a Greek Goddess puzzled her at first; 
 but it ended by stimulating her to high exertions. 
 Senhouse made no secret of his conviction that she 
 was a reincarnation of Artemis the Chaste and Fair. 
 He wrote of that as of a matter of course — too plain 
 to require elaboration. He never commented upon 
 it, but made it the basis of all his argument. As time 
 went on she partly believed him — I mean that she
 
 I02 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 quite believed in his seriousness, and did her best 
 to justify it. He told her frankly that to him she 
 was the holiest of women; and she wished to be 
 so. He implied beyond question that she was the 
 loveliest; and she hoped that she was. She went 
 so far as this, that she took thought (much more 
 than she had ever taken before) over her appear- 
 ance, because he wrote to her that, to him, it was so 
 exquisite. She became — as Vicky said — awfully par- 
 ticular about her gowns, and spent a good deal of 
 time over her hair, and her choice of soaps. Under 
 the spur from him she took immense pains with her 
 sketching, worked hard at it, and aimed for lessons 
 at the Slade School, with a studio, possibly, in the 
 future: why not Paris, indeed? And she read, by 
 his light, much poetry, belles lettres, Elia, Hazlitt, 
 Swift; by his advice eschewed Sterne; nibbled at 
 Dante, aspired to the Greek Grammar. So far he 
 did her great good, because she had a mind, which 
 he excited towards exercise. 
 
 But he stirred her curiosity too, and perhaps that 
 was not so well. He drew her on to examine institu- 
 tions which hitherto she had accepted as part of the 
 landscape. It was impossible, for instance, to cor- 
 respond with a man who called himself an Anarchist 
 without finding out what Anarchists really did de- 
 sire. And it was difficult to be satisfied on that 
 point without inquiry into papa's bi-annual toast of 
 "The Queen, God bless her," or into his frequent 
 grunt of satisfaction and "Thank your stars, my 
 dear, we've got a House of Lords." As if mamma,
 
 VICKY'S CONCLUSIONS 103 
 
 Vicky used to say, wouldn't do that without papa! 
 Sanchia began to read the newspaper for herself 
 about this time, and to puzzle, and to criticise, and 
 to give papa bad quarters of an hour over his before- 
 dinner cigar. Papa used to puff and blow and rub 
 his whiskers. "Well, well, that's all damned fine, 
 my chick — " and then he would withdraw the adjec- 
 tive as most-ungentlemanly. ''But you see, my love, 
 the country's got to be governed — and if we don't 
 respect the rights of property, where on earth are 
 we?" He would pat her shoulder. "One of these 
 days, when we've got chickens of our own to send 
 out into the world, we shall know more about the 
 rights of property than we do now." Thus papa. 
 But Jack said that there were no rights of property, 
 and that, if there were, property was so much bottom- 
 hamper. So Sanchia inquired into the foundations 
 of Society. 
 
 Then religion! Mamma, for instance, said that 
 Hawise must be married in her parish church. Well 
 now — must she? Did God expect it of Hawise, or 
 was it the State ? And who was the State anyhow ? 
 And — where was God ? A young Sanchia of twenty 
 years, her hair newly put up, and the seriousness 
 upon her of the hush before sunrise — what was she to 
 do, confronted by these questions ? What could she 
 do but inquire of her friend his view of God ? She 
 did it, with a very sober pen, and with lips pale and 
 compressed. She wrote her letter and dropped it 
 in the pillar-box; and as she walked back to the 
 house promised herself that she would not be swayed
 
 I04 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 by authority — even Jack's authority. Because, if 
 Jack said that she was Artemis, Jack must mean 
 that she was — what? It was very wonderful. 
 
 Senhouse's reply follows. It followed immedi- 
 ately.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 SENHOUSE ON PAN AND THE NYMPHS 
 
 Chanctonbury, 
 A White Morning. 
 
 Your letter — oh! 
 
 Thank you, Sanchia. 
 
 The postmistress at Steyning handed it me yes- 
 tere'en with a smile. " 'Tis from a leddy sim- 
 mingly," quod she. But *' Madam," said I, "'tis 
 from the lady" — and made her perfectly happy. 
 The moon rose full and orange over the shoulder 
 of Wolstonbury as I broke the seal. Halfway up 
 the borstal road, through the wood, I lit a match 
 and read till I burnt my fingers. When I was at 
 home, snug in the Ring, I read it all. A fair script, 
 Sanchia, guarded, temperate, extraordinarily Greek 
 (for you are Greek, you know; your mean is pure 
 gold — whereas I, for all my lore, remain an incur- 
 able Romantick. I prefer it with a k). I admire 
 what I can never attain — and so we grow; there's 
 no other way. 
 
 I shan't tell you how often I've read it, nor what 
 I've done with it. 
 
 Yes, I will, by George, lest you are tempted to 
 vanity. I've burned it with fire. I made one on the 
 lee side of the Ring, out of driftwood and bracken.
 
 io6 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 They might have seen it from Cissbury, and perhaps 
 they did. I put the document in a match-box, the 
 match-box in a crock, and when you were reduced 
 to fine silky black ash (such a pretty ash burned 
 Sanchia makes — glossy as a top-hat, and her writing 
 a deeper black upon the black) I took you on to the 
 barrow of some dead Briton and scattered you to the 
 four airts. Subtilised essence of Queen Mab now 
 permeates the Weald. Sussex thrills. 
 
 Your news is good. I'm glad you are hard at 
 work with your paint-box, and, as you say, learning 
 to do without me. There's a back-handed com- 
 pliment in that which I like from my only corre- 
 spondent. Also it shows that we can afford to tell 
 each other the truth, which is a full-faced compli- 
 ment indeed. When all's said, friendship has noth- 
 ing to do with greetings and partings — and this 
 island contains us both. You can always find me — 
 if you want to; or I can find yo2i, which is the same 
 thing, I believe. 
 
 Now to the point — which I like and don't like. 
 I knew you'd be at me one day or another: I've been 
 dreading it, and now it's come. Oh, but I must 
 dedicate myself "to the Maiden of the Country," 
 as Antipater of Sidon called the likes of you once. 
 And it so happens that a recent encounter comes pat 
 to the pen. Listen, then, Sanchia. . . . 
 
 I met a fool in the forest — or on the forest fringes, 
 as we may call Ditchling Heath. There, upon the 
 open heath as I lay, he came up and accosted me, 
 tract in hand.
 
 PAN AND THE NYMPHS 107 
 
 I was frying a mid-day rasher, always a nice busi- 
 ness with me. After the customary allusions to the 
 weather, which was perfect, he offered me his tract. 
 The title was Clean your Dirty Windows. He called 
 it ''my little book," but wasn't the author. He was 
 a fool all the same. 
 
 The effect of his tract — for, being very busy, I 
 asked him to give me a digest — was, that you could 
 not see God unless you cleaned your soul's windows. 
 He told me that, and I said, **0f course you can't." 
 He said, "There's more than that in my little book"; 
 and I replied, looking warily up from my frying-pan, 
 *'I'm sure there must be, because that's a platitude." 
 I was rather cropped with the man, and like him for 
 not being nettled. He said, ''Don't let me inter- 
 rupt your repast"; and I said that he wouldn't — and 
 would he share it? He declined, but still stood his 
 ground. I had nothing to say — and said it. He 
 didn't seem to be put about. 
 
 All was going well, when I was thoughtless enough 
 to pour some of my beer on the ground — a trick of 
 mine, as you know — and to explain it, upon inquiry 
 from him, as a libation to Pan and the Nymphs. 
 Like all dullards, incapable of laughter, he suspected 
 mockery where none assuredly was. He looked at 
 me, raising his eyebrows, and said sickly, "You 
 make a jest of these things?" By Heaven, but he 
 angered me. The arrogant rascal ! I fell upon him 
 tooth and claw, spared neither age (for he was no 
 younger than me) nor sex (and he was neuter). I 
 asked him roundly how he dared, as a gentleman and
 
 io8 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 a scholar, so talk of another religion, and that of such 
 a people? Preposterous in me! But I didn't see 
 why he should have the monopoly of attack. More- 
 over, I hadn't talked to a living soul for twenty-four 
 hours, and I supposed that his lived. 
 
 He tried the high horse, but I pulled him off it, 
 and we fought on foot. "Pray," said he, "do you 
 presume to declare yourself seriously an acceptor of 
 Greek mythology?" Ass that he was! But I had 
 to answer him according to his asininity. I observed 
 that he was forsaking the point of quarrel, which had 
 concerned my challenge of his temerity, not his of 
 mine. His had asked. Did I jest about religion ? I 
 put it to him that he ought to see the futility of his 
 question by the way I had framed mine. "If you, 
 good sir," I said, "are troubled with the possibility 
 of my worship of Pan and the Nymphs, why should 
 you resent it if I deplore yours of Wliomsoever it may 
 be?" I went on to assure him that I didn't deplore 
 it at all, but hinted that there were many millions in 
 this world of thinking men who would and did ; and 
 that some had gone to the bonfire and others had 
 drawn the sword solely because they deplored it. I 
 added that, as a matter of statistics, the majority of 
 his fellow-subjects in this empire deplored it pro- 
 foundly. We parted, I may tell you, better friends. 
 
 I said too much and talked like a prig, I know 
 — your letter, Sanchia, and the holy influences of this 
 place reprove me; but I loathe your glib precisian 
 like poison, and he angered me. For that matter, 
 the most intolerant man I ever knew, without excep-
 
 PAN AND THE NYMPHS 109 
 
 tion, was an uncle of mine, one Simon Battersby, 
 Esq., explicitly a Free Thinker. His glory was in 
 his freedom from dogma, and yet the old man was 
 bound and gagged by one. His dogma was, that it 
 was wicked to go to church; and if any one belong- 
 ing to him did it, he was morally shocked. The end 
 of him was this. All his children went High Church, 
 and one a Roman Catholic priest. He cut them, one 
 by one, out of his will; refused them, one by one, 
 his hospitality. Poor, horrible old galley-hand ! An- 
 other yoked slave for you to add to your collection. 
 
 I don't go to church often myself — unless I creep 
 in by your skirts — because I can't be so aware of 
 high God within four walls as I can out of doors; 
 yet I am very capable of believing that a common 
 symbol of moral direction and a common focussing- 
 point for the emotions are valuable things. I'll go 
 as far as that with their reverences. Take the roof 
 off your church or knock a wall down and I'm with 
 you directly. The God for me is old Terminus, a 
 Roman God. He alone of many, when the whole 
 Latin hierarchy were asked whether they would re- 
 sign their altars in favour of a new-comer, one Jove, 
 said that he would not. He was, you must know, a 
 three-cornered old post, who stood in the Forum and 
 served as a boundary. This made him extremely 
 important. So they had to give him an altar in the 
 Temple of Capitoline Jove, and as he insisted that 
 he could only be worshipped in the open air, were 
 forced to leave a hole in the roof for him. That's 
 why the Pantheon is open to the sky to this day.
 
 no OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Brave old Terminus! But give me the sky if I am 
 to see God. Wasn't it Wendell Holmes who said 
 that he didn't approve of growing oaks in flower- 
 pots? Wise man — making proverbs, like Polonius. 
 It's by no means that I mind the people — unless they 
 have their best clothes on, which they don't on week- 
 days. I think that a crowd really awed by a Presence 
 is a moving experience; and the emotion is catching. 
 You get that abroad, in Southern France (at the 
 Saintes-Maries, for instance), notably in Russia. 
 Once, in Moscow, I saw an ikon being exhibited to 
 the people: it's done once in a while. The Square 
 was packed, a sea of white faces (the Russians are 
 ghastly white, all like ghosts) — all turned one way. 
 Every eye fixed, every mouth open. The priests 
 came out, a gorgeous, absorbed throng of them; and 
 we all quivered. Then there was a hush like death, 
 while certain juggleries, bowings and signings were 
 doing among them. We all had our eyes intent upon 
 the Thing under a gold veil. The Thing was lifted 
 up, flashed naked for a minute. Every soul there 
 fell prone to the earth, myself included, I can tell 
 you; and the Spirit of God brooded over Moscow 
 for a space of time. Wonderful! If you want that 
 kind of thing, or anything like it, in our country, you 
 must go to the trooping of the colours on the Queen's 
 Birthday. It's all we have left of a national religion 
 — absolutely all. And a fine thing it is. 
 
 My own particular, personal thrill, to be got within 
 four walls, comes to me in a Cathedral (which must 
 be Anglican for the purpose), when they are singing
 
 PAN AND THE NYMPHS iii 
 
 evensong in a shut choir, and there's a handful of 
 people in the nave — a hushed tourist or so, some 
 faithful enthusiast whose day is made for him by 
 such ceremonial, and a sprinkling of holy women — 
 nurses, nuns, or whatever. You hear a mumbled 
 lesson, or guess at it; then there's a pause of prepara- 
 tion and suspense. Then, out of the grey stillness, 
 a boy's young voice goes spearing and trembling up ; 
 and you forget all about the shock-headed rogue in 
 his tumbled surplice, and believe for a few blessed 
 moments that he is quiring with the young-eyed 
 cherubim. So he is, and so may you be, while you 
 can believe it. And there's the secret out. 
 A poet said — 
 
 God first made man, and straightway man made God, 
 
 and spoke profound truth in his little chirpy para- 
 dox. That's why, for me, all religions are true, and 
 each religion false. Each of them will exclude all 
 the others — like the jealous Hebrews of old time, or 
 Mahomet with a Koran in one hand and a scimitar 
 in the other for nous autres; like our friend of Tarsus, 
 who has much to answer for; yes, my dear, and like 
 the Bradlaughs and Ingersolls of our day, or my 
 spluttering old Uncle Simon, who used to gnash his 
 wicked gums at the church-going bell, and stoke the 
 fires of a Gehenna of his own for the likes of your 
 brave and reverend Parson Twisden, and your own 
 dear obsequious head, bowed in a fair place to a fair 
 emblem of God the Father in God the Son. 
 
 I don't know that I ought to talk to you of these
 
 112 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 things. I never have yet, you'll allow. Nor would 
 I now if you hadn't asked me. And yet I'm deadly 
 serious over it, and in the vein; and you know that 
 I've too much respect for my own store of Poesy ever 
 to breathe a tarnish on yours. One is so contrived, 
 I think, that one can't hurt a soul without hurt- 
 ing one's own. Shall I go on? In all reverence, 
 I shall. 
 
 The indisputable fact, as I take it to be, that every 
 man must make God in his own image assures me 
 that every man also makes Him aright. I am pre- 
 pared to accept the handiwork of any honest man 
 who goes a-God-making. Others, of whom there 
 aren't so many as you might think, don't count. 
 Every man is honest, and every woman good, when 
 in love; and you can't make a God unless you love 
 him first. When you are in love, Sanchia, as I hope 
 you will be some day (and I there to rejoice in the 
 sight), all the loveliest things you ever dreamed of 
 or have distilled out of the million things you have 
 come up against will go into what you love. For 
 you won't love a man so much as the image you make 
 out of him and yourself; and so surely as you have 
 made your own God, so surely (Heaven be with you!) 
 you will make your lover. All that he will provide 
 will be a peg for you to hang your garlands and fair 
 draperies upon. The fairer your good thoughts, the 
 happier your good experiences, the nobler will he 
 show up for your bedecking of his pegship. He will 
 be your fairest work of art, Sanchia; and unless I'm 
 partial — which is absurd, of course — he ought to be
 
 PAN AND THE NYMPHS 113 
 
 a very goodly sight. I tell you, I want to see the 
 fellow. 
 
 If Religion is not that, then I am an ass. It's pure 
 Poetry, I believe; the best thing you can make, made 
 out of the best things you have collected, and passed 
 through your mind at its best. There are such a lot 
 of them too! The flush of dawn — there'll be a lot 
 of that still wonder in your God; the wrath of a 
 storm; music; the rhythm (endless, world without 
 end) of running water; children's voices; an old 
 man blessing a young one; a young man louting to 
 an old one (a beautiful thing); a windless evening 
 in autumn, when the sky is translucent violet, faint- 
 ing to white, and the moon rides out, colour of an 
 old coin; the sun on a brown hill; hares at play in 
 young corn; a mother cat in lazy ease (all her 
 troubles over), gravely watching her kittens, and 
 purring entire contentment ; any mother of any baby, 
 and any father of any fine young man ready to go 
 out into the world; any girl with her sweetheart, 
 any boy on his first adventure; day and night; rain; 
 spring sounds — lambs in the pasture, the cuckoo over 
 the copse; the sea asleep and the sea in a rage — out 
 of all these wonders, O Sanchia, you have made Him 
 you worship, and will one day make him you are to 
 cherish. There's no need to separate them, they are 
 indistinguishable. And well for us that it is so. 
 Who, what poet, do you suppose, first saw God in 
 the Sacrament? Why, a Greek of course, who saw 
 more in wine than a fermented liquor, and more in 
 wheaten bread than flour and water. "The earth
 
 114 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 and its store" went into those emblems. They re- 
 ceived, who did receive, more than a breakfast who 
 took that morning meal. The Greek was a meta- 
 physician as well as a poet; but he was more poet 
 than metaphysician. Plato used to deal with Good- 
 ness, Temperance, and Justice as if they were crystal 
 forms, cubes, or spheres to be weighed and handled ; 
 so did the rest of his race. The Word of God in- 
 carnate, under their conduct of the notion, was 
 to be got, whole and entire, in a flake of white 
 bread. 
 
 And who showed us God in the Mother and 
 Child? Why, the Romans, of course, who knew 
 by their need what a Mother was and what a Son 
 should be. They knew that there lay our tap-root 
 — for we are earthy of the earth: wife and child, 
 hearth and roof-tree, you know. You and I are 
 neither spouses nor parents, but I suppose we learned 
 the truth of that from our mothers' laps. 
 
 I don't think that we, as a race, have done Chris- 
 tianity much but harm. We might have been better 
 left to our Wotan, Fricka, and Frey, But Christ's 
 religion started as a pure Anarchy, and we've got it 
 down to a rigid Oligarchy. It started as pure Emo- 
 tion, and we've turned it into a code of Ethics. It 
 , was Poetry, we've made it sticky Prose. It was 
 ' everything in this world and the next ; it is now a 
 negligible thing here; and as to elsewhere, we are 
 beginning to be cautious how we believe in that. 
 Now, the moment you turn poetry into prose you 
 begin to tell lies. That's odd, but perfectly true.
 
 PAN AND THE NYMPHS 115 
 
 But we live in herds in these days; we huddle in 
 fenced cities, or round a great man's house; we 
 build ships of war and train hosts of young men how 
 to shoot each other in order that we may huddle 
 the snugger, and be sure that Hans, or Alphonse, 
 or Wilbur K. don't come and huddle here too. And 
 so religion has got socialised and become a national 
 affair. Hence the Trooping of Colours and many 
 honest tears. 
 
 Men will die for that sort of religion, too, and 
 kill their neighbours for not agreeing with them. 
 It becomes a question of patriotism, don't you see 
 — with this odd result, that if you want to see any 
 religion at its best nowadays, you must go into a 
 country where it isn't recognised. Those who have 
 it are on their mettle there. Look at the Catholics 
 with us in England, and try to realise what they 
 must have been like before the Reformation. Sleek 
 and stodgy. Look at the Protestants in Ireland. 
 As for our blessed fellow-countrymen, if you want 
 to see them truly religious, and meaning it from the 
 bottom of their hearts, go and see them at church 
 on the verandah of a Swiss hotel — in their black 
 coats and pressed trousers — all the women in gloves ; 
 and the curate, who was in knickerbockers on Sat- 
 urday and will be in them on Monday, saying, 
 ''Dearly beloved Brethren," in a throaty voice, 
 which, thank the Lord! he will lose all the rest of 
 the week. That's us, my dear, very nearly at our 
 absurd best, and how absurd it is I despair of show- 
 ing. If you want to see us at our very best, you
 
 ii6 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 must go, as I tell you, to the Trooping of the Col- 
 ours. 
 
 The Trooping of the Colours! And that silly 
 ass who thought that Pan was a joke of mine! I 
 hope I don't make such bad jokes as that. 
 
 Now, with those Colours in his mind, who dares 
 to say that Pan and the Nymphs are not? No 
 countryman, I'll go bail. Wlio said. Pan is dead? 
 Some fawning rogue who wanted to pay a compli- 
 ment. Pan dead! He is not dead, and will never 
 die. Wherever there's a noonday hush over the 
 Weald, wherever there's mystery in the forest, there 
 is Pan. Every far-sighted, unblinking old shep- 
 herd up here afield with his dog knows all about him, 
 though he'll never tell you anything of what he knows. 
 He hasn't got his name right, very likely; but he has 
 got Imn. Every oak tree hides a Dryad ; the Oreads 
 foot it on the heath, and the Nereids cling to the wet 
 rocks where the green water lips their backs and 
 surges up over their slippery shoulders. Surely, 
 in a world of wonders, there's room and to spare 
 for the Souls of Things, seen only by poets, but felt 
 by all country people. And what of Artemis? 
 Well, .you know what I think about her. So long 
 as youth is clean and quick and eager, so long will 
 Artemis the Bright fleet along the hill-tops — and 
 that will be for ever and ever, the Lord be praised! 
 People with souls know these things, and people 
 without souls don't count. They must be born again. 
 
 I sometimes think that the root of our disease 
 lies in our bloated bodies; and then I think that
 
 PAN AND THE NYMPHS 
 
 117 
 
 it's in our stifled mindfi. Really, I believe it's 
 much of a muchness. We deceive ourselves be- 
 cause we want to. We prefer lies, on the whole, 
 to truth. We like luxury so much that we are con- 
 tent to be bound hand and foot by it; we are such 
 slaves to sentiment that we would go to the stake 
 for things which are palpably false and absurd. In 
 a sense, you can't believe too much, and can't have 
 a too receptive mind. Who supposes that I decry 
 belief in the supernatural? Why, I hardly believe 
 in anything else. The supernatural only means 
 the soul of the natural — absolutely no more than 
 that. And who's ashamed to say that he believes in 
 miracles ? Miracles ! Why, everything is a miracle. 
 Life, Death, sunrise, the opening rose, the wind in 
 the pines. Is Art no miracle? Poetry? Dear 
 God! And if it be true, as your physic-monger 
 says it is, that Art and Poetry are the result of the 
 fermenting or not of certain alimentary juices, and 
 that the real question is one for the liver — then the 
 miracle is the more astounding. Pray, what does 
 it matter to the lover whether he cries out that his 
 heart or his liver is afire? The abiding glory, the 
 triumph and splendour of the world is that it is 
 afire. My dear, he who writes to you now knows 
 what he is talking about. He says, Believe all you 
 can, but tell yourself no lies. Never say that you 
 believe what you don't believe — or you'll come to 
 grief. But he must write no more. 
 
 Address me P.O., Petersfield. Farewell, Sanchia, 
 as the Anthology says, "ten thousand times."
 
 ii8 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Is there no Religion in this? ''To bristly- 
 haired Pan and the Nymphs of the farmstead, 
 Theodotus the shepherd lays this gift under the 
 rock, because they stayed him when very weary 
 under the parching summer, holding out to him 
 honey-sweet water in their hands."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF MR. NEVILE INGRAM 
 
 A YOUNG Mr. William Chevenix, smooth-faced, 
 flaxen, assured, and very friendly, was a buttress of 
 the Percival family, that is, of the younger mem- 
 bers of it, and was of quite remarkable convenience. 
 He could be reckoned upon, you see, to give and 
 take confidences, never to be impress^ unless im- 
 pressement were required of him, to be chaperon, 
 brother, cousin, or even uncle — whichever might 
 be proper to the occasion. He attended Philippa 
 Tompsett-King's drawing-room meetings, took Mel- 
 usine to picture-galleries and held her parasol and 
 catalogue for her, matched crewels for Hawise, and 
 was always game to stand Vicky a little dinner with 
 a music-hall afterwards. "Lectures at the Royal 
 Institution" these were called by a pardonable 
 euphemism. As he explained, If the Empire wasn't 
 a royal institution, he didn't know one when he saw 
 it. Similarly, the history of the Alhambra fully 
 justified its inclusion. He had taught Sanchia tip- 
 cat in his day, and met her at it with enthusiasm 
 until by mischance he broke the pince-nez of Frau- 
 lein Winkiewicz when that instrument was on duty. 
 Then tip-cat was succeeded by games of chance 
 
 119
 
 I20 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 with the cards. He was a very amiable, good- 
 tempered young man, rather slangy in conversation; 
 but Mr. Percival trusted him — which was much; 
 and Mrs. Percival respected him — which was more. 
 He was well-connected, and had an Aunt Maria, 
 who was Lady Maria Wenman. He had no other 
 occupation whatsoever. 
 
 Now, Mrs. Percival, her head (it may be) slightly 
 turned by the Pinwell-Percival wedding, which was 
 a great success, gave a dance in early July, and most 
 indulgently allowed Sanchia to attend it. Sanchia, 
 still in her twentieth year, was not yet "out," ac- 
 cording to Mrs. Percival's decree. Next year she 
 would be presented, all being well, and then might 
 be allowed to coruscate; but Hawise had married 
 brilliantly, and Sanchia's debut, after all, had been 
 at Gorston, and this was to be a very small dance. 
 Mr. Percival, I regret to have to record, called it a 
 "hop," until Vicky told him seriously that he really 
 must — not — do it. He said meekly, "Very well, 
 my dear; but hop it is; and hop you will until your 
 toes come through your stockings." And then he 
 pulled her ear, and Vicky kissed him, and all was well. 
 
 To this dance Mr. William Chcvenix offered to 
 bring a friend. Mclusinc and Vicky would have 
 accepted him gladly; but he had, as he said, "to 
 make it all right with the lady," beforehand. "Hope 
 you won't mind, Mrs. Percival; I do hope you won't 
 mind," he had said when he made his proposal. 
 Mrs. Percival had replied that she had no doubt it 
 would be delightful.
 
 MR. NEVILE INGRAM 121 
 
 But Chevenix had pursued his thought. "You 
 never know, you know, how a hostess will take 
 that kind of thing. There's Mrs. John, now — my 
 brother John's wife — look at her! Some will sweep 
 'em in like a dustman, and some are very sniffy. 
 Now you're not like either of those, Mrs. Percival. 
 That's the beauty of you. You say, Who's your 
 friend? Very properly." 
 
 Mrs. Percival had not said so; but she was cer- 
 tainly pleased to be thought capable of it, and still 
 more so to be well marked off from the dustman. 
 She now smiled and bowed, saying, "You are most 
 kind"; and she added, as was expected of her, 
 "And who is your young friend?" 
 
 Chevenix at once became apologetic, extenuat- 
 ing. "Well, you know, I don't suppose he's much 
 of a chap — for your set, you know. Not an intel- 
 lectual johnny by any manner of means. You 
 know what Eton and Sandhurst turn out. Turn 
 'em out by the round dozen, spin 'em off a lathe, 
 you might say, all of a piece. Master Nevile was 
 at Eton with me — didn't do much that I remem- 
 ber, except a sotihrette in Moliere in a Fourth of 
 June. Then he went to Sandhurst — they got him 
 into the Guides. Soldierin' was always his game 
 — pugnacious old chap he used to be. Well, then, 
 old Ingram, his governor, you know — Ingram of 
 Wanless, awfully set up about that; Ingram of 
 Wanless, and don't you forget it — that kind of line, 
 they take — old Ingram dies, you see, so Master 
 Nevile succeeds, and takes his seat, as they say — and
 
 122 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 there you practically are. Nevile Ingram, Esquire, 
 of Wanless Park, Felsboro' — that's the man." 
 
 He saw this sink in, then broke out querulously, 
 as if deploring his taste in friends, "I don't say 
 you'll like him, and I don't say you won't. No 
 Shakespeare and musical glasses about Nevile, you 
 know. Rich chap — well-bred and all that. Oh, 
 they're good people, those Ingrams, you know. 
 No connection with that lot in Duchess's Gate, 
 mind you. Soap-boilers they were: I happen to 
 know. The Wanless party's a different set alto- 
 gether. And a lively customer at a dance! He 
 can shake a leg, as they say. Ah, and you ought to 
 see him on a horse, Mrs. Percival. That's where 
 Nevile's at home. He's got a seat! Plays for the 
 Go-Betweens at Hurlingham. He's at it to-day, I 
 believe: he's mostly at it. Oh, he's not under a 
 bushel, you know — old Nevile. No, no. He's 
 well alight. What is it? Burning upwards to his 
 point of bliss, eh? I forget these things so. But 
 there he is, don't you know. And of course it's 
 just as you feel about it — it's exactly there. I take 
 the ofhce, as they say, from you — bring Master 
 Nevile — and then wash my hands. That's how I 
 look at him, you see." 
 
 Mrs. Percival accepted Mr. Ingram on these 
 testimonials and he came to the dance. 
 
 There were — by similar exertions on the part of 
 similar young gentlemen — a sufficiency of dancing 
 men, and there were some very pretty girls. But
 
 MR. NEVILE INGRAM 
 
 123 
 
 it did so happen that the Misses Percival were the 
 prettiest girls. They, as Mr. WiHiam Chevenix 
 confided to his friend Nevile Ingram, were "bad to 
 beat in that department." Melusine, glowing and 
 graceful, in pale blue; Vicky, sparkling like a dia- 
 mond, in Caroline-Testout pink; and Sanchia, slim 
 and faintly flushed, in white chiffon — with great 
 wide child's eyes in the face of a Goddess — were 
 three Graces not often to be matched. Old Mr. 
 Percival, who stood for the most part in the door- 
 way with his friend Etherington (of Copthall Court), 
 choked as he said more than once, ''Look at my 
 three, Bob, my boy, and show me three to match 
 'em — anywhere!" Mr. Etherington owned that he 
 could not. "Tom," he said, "I congratulate you, 
 and I envy you. Bravo, The Poultry! I only wish 
 I had three boys to pair off with 'em." But Mr. 
 Percival here shook his head, and was understood 
 by Bob very well to mean that that would never 
 have done. There had been Mrs. Percival to 
 reckon with there. In fine, the floor was good, the 
 music was good, the maidens were fair, the youths 
 were toward — and once more all was well. 
 
 Mr. Nevile Ingram of Wanless, having made 
 his bow and murmured his nothings to his hostess, 
 entered the room, and surveyed it and its treasures. 
 He was a wholesome-looking, confident, and clean- 
 cut young man of five foot ten or thereabouts, with 
 healthy, bright blue eyes and the bronzed cheeks 
 of a soldier. His head, whose hair was inclined
 
 124 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 to be reddish, was most smooth, and his coat gripped 
 his neck tighter than any man's present. He was 
 indeed faultlessly dressed, in clothes which were not 
 new, but looked as if they were: his collar gleamed 
 upon his tanned skin like snow in the sun. His 
 moustaches, which were not large, had been curled 
 with tongs, to leave his upper lip bare. That was 
 a pity because the lip itself curled back a little, with 
 an appearance of snarling. He looked you straight 
 in the face when he talked to you, and seemed to 
 take everything you said or did as a matter of course, 
 and not to be greatly interested in it. He played 
 the part of squire of dames languidly, as if it was an 
 effort, but always just in time, so that you had noth- 
 ing to complain of. His conversation was free and 
 confidential; yet he spoke clearly, as if the whole 
 world might overhear him for aught he cared. Pre- 
 sented to Mclusine, he bowed, smiled, and said, 
 "Greatly charmed." Then he asked, "Have you 
 a dance?" and made a note of it upon his shirt-cuff. 
 Melusine afterwards owned that he danced well, 
 extremely well ; but she thought that he wanted tact. 
 She couldn't explain herself: one felt it, she said. 
 
 Vicky sized him up at a glance as "good family 
 and vile temper," offered him a Lancers, decided 
 that she didn't want him, was very cool to him, 
 didn't listen to what he was saying. That he saw, 
 and ceased to speak. Then Vicky dropped him, 
 for Sanchia to pick up if .she chose. She had no 
 choice in the matter; but she was the only one left, 
 and he paid her his attentions.
 
 MR. NEVILE INGRAM 
 
 125 
 
 They danced twice, and sat out more than twice. 
 It was on the second of these retreats that she inter- 
 ested him; and that led to the others. Taking him 
 very simply, she talked about some of the thousand 
 things that occupied her mind, as if they must needs 
 have occupied his too. *She ended by impressing 
 him as a girl with character. When Chevenix 
 came to look for her, the time having come for what 
 he called "their romp round," he found her dis- 
 cussing education. ''Education — my hat!" he ex- 
 claimed. "Sancie, you're going it!" 
 
 She had been very much in earnest, using in- 
 cisive phrases, surveying life as a whole with a 
 calmness as astonishing as it should have been 
 pathetic. Nevile Ingram, with no eye for pathos, 
 had been gazing at her, drinking her beauty and 
 youth together — a heady mixture. But now she 
 blushed and became dumb, and next she beamed 
 and became a pretty girl, very ready for a ''romp 
 round." There is some virtue in the Chevenixes 
 of this world, after all; it may be there's a good 
 deal. 
 
 She had been enunciating the proposition that 
 nobody should be taught to read until he is fourteen 
 — "at least fourteen," had been her extreme allow- 
 ance. By that time, she judged, one's power of 
 seeing things and hearing them would be well 
 trained; one would have become aware of the 
 things worth knowing in the world — about plants 
 and animals, for instance, which one simply knew 
 nothing about as things were now. To all of
 
 126 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 which, dehvered with the clear utterance and pre- 
 cise conviction of a teacher, Mr. Ingram had re- 
 phed very simply, "By Gad, I believe you're right." 
 She had gone on to say that if you teach a child to 
 read at seven, or say eight, you merely glue his eyes 
 to a book — to book after book — for life. What he 
 learns, therefore, is what other people know about 
 the world ; and so it goes on — hearsay upon hearsay 
 — until, when you come to her, Sanchia's, genera- 
 tion, you are learning the transmitted reports of a 
 thousand years, and are perhaps no nearer the 
 facts than Plato was. To which Mr. Ingram, 
 again, had replied, "All I know is. Miss Percival, 
 that Fm no nearer." To himself — when Chevenix 
 had borne off the Sibyl for her romp — he added, 
 "Well, I'm damned." And again he said, "She's 
 a perfect beauty." This was at the buffet below, 
 whither he had descended, being, as he said, "off 
 dancing after such a go as that." 
 
 He had another "go" before the evening was 
 over, and plunged once more deeply into the mys- 
 teries of time and existence. Sanchia, having found 
 her tongue, was quickly kindled to eloquence. It 
 was not for Nevile Ingram to guess how this might 
 be; but I may explain, as the fact is, that a letter 
 from Senhousc lay in her bosom, the latest come, 
 not yet added to a guarded packet in her writing- 
 desk. 
 
 Mr. Ingram was not her only conquest. It was 
 at this dance — before she was out! — that Sergius
 
 MR. NEVILE INGRAM 127 
 
 Polschkin, the young pianist, saw her, led her to 
 dance, and said good-night to her with tears in his 
 eyes. ''Fluffy," was Vicky's name for him; and 
 Philippa called him the Meringue. We shall hear 
 more of both these gentlemen; but not just yet. 
 At the end of July the Percivals went out of town — 
 to Newquay for six weeks; and then Sanchia paid 
 a visit to her brother-in-law, Mr. Tompsett-King, 
 and her sister Philippa. They had taken a house 
 in North Wales, and had the Reverend Dr. Pruce 
 staying with them, the well-known Assyriologist. 
 I fancy that Mr. Ingram was there for a week, but 
 am not perfectly sure. Sanchia did not mention 
 him in her letters to Senhouse, which were regu- 
 larly maintained.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SECRET OUT. SENHOUSE FROM CORNWALL TO 
 SANCHIA IN CHURCH 
 
 I NOW propose to make a jump of some months, 
 though every time I approach the brink I hesitate. 
 There is much in the letters from the young girl's 
 lover, not yet so owned, which would be pleasant 
 reading, a good deal in the several deeds of the 
 pair which it seems injurious to Sanchia's candour 
 to pass over. What did she do at Plas Newydd, 
 for instance, walking the mountain slopes with 
 Nevile Ingram? Or may it have been with the 
 Rev. Dr. Pruce? One doesn't know: and Sen- 
 house didn't know either, for I find that she never 
 named either of these gentlemen in her letters. 
 She had plenty of other things to write about, what 
 she and Senhouse used to call ''real things" when 
 they waxed scornful over the proneness of their 
 kind to talk about ''people" rather than "ideas." 
 There's no doubt but that her letters were full, nor 
 that his answers were fuller. She was deeply in- 
 terested by this time in his scheme of life and con- 
 duct; and more than once we find her urging him 
 to continue his exposition — "whatever happens." 
 His replies laughed — she could hear him laugh 
 
 138
 
 THE SECRET OUT 129 
 
 across England. "Oh, never fear me, Queen 
 Mab! I'll preach you to death before I've done 
 with you," he tells her. 
 
 Meantime he is fast after a score of pleasurable 
 activities: he tells her of them. '^ Painting the 
 impossible (of course), conspiring with liberty- 
 mongers in divers tongues, writing an article on 
 Thoreau, mending the seat of my third-best (or 
 first- worst) pair of bags; there's for this 3rd of 
 July." He sends her three packed sheets from the 
 New Forest about horticulture, which he is coming 
 to consider as, "next to music," the most sensitive 
 of the fine arts. "Properly allied to architecture," 
 says he, "garden-making is as near as a man may 
 get to the divine functions. Music always ex- 
 cepted, mind you. That's our highest point of 
 transcendency; and it's very odd that one has to 
 be pretty near to what the base world calls a fool 
 to be any good at that. There's a sidelight on the 
 man at the street comer for you — or on the square- 
 faced man in the market-place, rather. ..." Read- 
 ing this, she may have thought of M. Serge 
 Polschkin, whom love ravaged so easily; but it's 
 more likely that she pondered Man than men. 
 
 When he finds himself in Vernditch Bottom in 
 October, Senhouse is in another vein. Sanchia is 
 in London again — "ninety miles away, as the 
 machinists reckon space"; but he would have her 
 remember that space is as much of a convention as 
 time. "So you may be as near me as you please. 
 Queen Mab; and the nearer the better, say I."
 
 I30 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 But he contradicts himself in the next paragraph, 
 which shows that time and space have worked 
 their witchery upon him. He writes of "a welter 
 across Hants and Surrey — and I see your eyes." 
 Before his next letter, dated in November from 
 Abbotsbury in Dorset, he has been with her in 
 London. The odd creature comes in his tilt-cart, 
 and picks up his "old moorings," as he calls them, 
 in that littered triangle in Battersea which can be 
 seen on your left hand as you go down to Brighton. 
 It lies between York Road and Clapham Junction, 
 if I am right. There are always caravans there, 
 owned by friends of his, no doubt. Thence he 
 made daily excursions into town, and saw his Muse, 
 his divine Mistress, as best he might. He saw her 
 at Roger Charnock's often. She dined in Grosvenor 
 Gardens, and once slept there. On that occasion 
 they sat up, talking and reading poetry (some of 
 it his own), examining sketches, half the night; 
 and he was able to tell her next day- -in Kensington 
 Gardens, in a white fog — of the magnificent walk 
 home he had had: London empty of feet, the great 
 blinking stars overhead, the touch of frost upon 
 their golden eyelashes, and (at about five o'clock 
 in the morning) "the fog-bank rolling up the river 
 on the tide and smothering the houses in white 
 silence. Extraordinary!" he cried, "to hear Big 
 Ben hushed down to a child's treble! I never went 
 to bed till seven — and had breakfast at nine." The 
 National Gallery was another trysting-place, and 
 the sculpture gallery of the British Museum. His
 
 THE SECRET OUT 131 
 
 Greek lore helped her there. But mostly he chose 
 to be with her in the open air: "I don't know you 
 without the wind on your cheeks. Since I saw 
 you first in Gorston Thicket, you and the West 
 Wind seem the same person to me." She received 
 this, as she received much of the sort, with a shy 
 glance of happy pride. He went as far as he dared 
 in her praise; but his reverence never let his heart 
 out of hand. She never got any harm from him, 
 and knew that she never could get any. Her con- 
 fidence in him, indeed, was one of the sharpest 
 trials he had to suffer. Honour to him that he 
 came through unstained, though he would have 
 been shocked at the proffer of it. 
 
 He saw nothing of her people, nor they of him. 
 For him they did not exist. She was a Goddess, 
 an incarnate Essence; she was Arcadian Artemis 
 gracing earth once more; how should she have 
 people? Neither for her did they exist during 
 that week, though she came and went among them, 
 out and in; and Vicky urged her chariot wheels 
 over gentlemen's hearts, and Melusine inclined her 
 head to what Mr. Gerald Scales had to say; and 
 my Lady Pinwell was in London for the autumn 
 session; and Mr. Nevile Ingram was expected at 
 Brown's Hotel. These things were not for a week 
 — a wonderful, uplifting week when the soles of her 
 young feet seemed to touch the planets as they 
 launched her into space. But it ended, as such weeks 
 must end. He went his wandering ways again, and 
 resumed his letters and reassumed his philosophy.
 
 132 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 He now writes of "our blissful se'nnight," and 
 then breaks off with a *'No more of that! I suffer, 
 you suffer, thought suffers, the Kingdom of God 
 on Earth suffers. There's a conjugation of a most 
 irregular verb, and all because the Apostle of 
 Freedom-in-a-Ditch turns flaneur for the sake of 
 a pair of deep-blue eyes. No, Queen Mab, no! 
 I'm happy to be over the hundred miles from the 
 centre of my System. Anything under that silly 
 figure seems to me next door — and then of course 
 I run in to say 'Good morning.'" "Why on earth 
 should I want to see you?" he cries in his next. 
 "Have I not the tongues of men and of angels, 
 pen in hand? Who gets such piercing answers as 
 I to my written catechisings ? I scorn the man 
 who depends upon lip-service, eye-service, or the 
 touched hand for his soul's daily bread. At least, 
 I hope I do." 
 
 Shortly after this I take up the tale with this, 
 my third selection from his letters. She has in- 
 vited him to be explicit, and he becomes so. The 
 secret is out, in more senses than one. 
 
 Land's End, Christmas Day. 
 
 A touch of frost in the air, enough to make it 
 brown at the edges; a deathly calm over the sea. 
 The surging of the main is as faint as a sleeper's 
 breath, just a rhythm of rise and fall. Out on the 
 smooth water flocks of sea-birds float, their heads 
 under their wings. Not a breath of air. I heard 
 the church bell of Saint Ives this morning dis-
 
 THE SECRET OUT 
 
 ^33 
 
 tinctly, calling the faithful to seven o'clock sacri- 
 fice. I could almost believe it was Saint Botolph's 
 calling you. Truly, I did think so, and grew ex- 
 cited and fantastic. I bowed the knee to the great 
 God Terminus, calculated the variation of the 
 clock between Marylebone and Marazion, and 
 followed your devotions faithfully from "Ye that 
 do truly and earnestly" to "The peace of God." 
 I'm a fool, you know, exulting in his foolishness. 
 
 And then I re-read your Christmas letter, which 
 I got yesterday, and perpended your questions — 
 such a string of them! What's my secret? Can 
 no one learn it? Am I to be the Second Wisest 
 Man on Earth, and is nobody to be the Wisest 
 Woman? Won't I tell you how I manage to be 
 happy ? What's my way of salvation ? Et cetera. 
 Et cetera. Et cetera. 
 
 Oh, it's ridiculous that it should be a secret at 
 all; it's humiliating that it should be hard to learn. 
 I'm ashamed of myself sometimes (when the old 
 time-serving Adam lifts up his bruised head and 
 gibbers at me) that I should be so happy and the 
 rest of the world so miserable; but then I sit up 
 and shake my fist at my countrymen, and rail at 
 them. "Blind, deaf, dumb brutes that ye are! 
 (Hear me reprove this generation.) All my shame 
 is for you. Clogged by filthy things about the 
 feet — your money, sham honour, sloth, vanity, 
 gluttony; clogged by sticky things about the heart, 
 and stodgy things about the head — your respect 
 for what is unvenerable in age, your fear of im-
 
 134 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 mortal youth, your misdoubt of your neighbour's 
 worthless judgment — how can I be other than 
 ashamed of you, who have but to straighten your 
 backs and lift your hands, and say. We are men, 
 to find out that you are so?" x\nd reflecting that 
 that, simply, is the conclusion of the whole matter, 
 such heat becomes absurd. The thing has but to 
 be stated, you would say. No, no. They don't 
 know it, because they won't. They have lived so 
 long on lies that they'd starve on truth. Well, 
 well, let 'em wallow, tied by the leg in their styes. 
 But if I were autocrat I'd make it penal for any 
 one to have more than a hundred and fifty a year; 
 and to him who could do on a hundred I'd resign 
 the throne as to the wisest of us. 
 
 The Many must change and pass as best they 
 can; but to you, who are of the Elect, asking me 
 how one is to be free, I'll tell you — there's only one 
 way. Whether you desire to be free to live at large 
 on this jolly green earth, or free to have your con- 
 versation in heaven, there's only one way. You 
 are free, really. All right then: act as if you were. 
 Drop all the rest; walk away from it into the Open 
 Country. Fields of England, Elysian fields — there 
 arc no hedges. Forsake all and go there. Take 
 nothing with you — nothing, nothing. Upon my 
 solemn word of honour, that^s all. 
 
 Why, take my own case. Here am I, ordinary 
 third son of ordinary English parents: father an 
 alderman, mother a clergyman's daughter, brothers 
 at the bar or the Stock Exchange (one at Lloyd's),
 
 THE SECRET OUT 
 
 135 
 
 sisters flirting with curates or going to mothers' 
 meetings; nothing more entirely of the staple to be 
 conceived; different, in fact, from my kindred only 
 in this, that I lead a free life while they are fast 
 bound in misery and iron. And I'll tell you the ins 
 and outs of it now — on this quiet morning, on this 
 quiet cliff, looking over that sleeping sea. You 
 are entitled to them, since you are become part of 
 them; you, Sanchia, with your quiet ways and 
 wondering, wonderful eyes. . . . 
 
 It was at Cambridge that I found out what a 
 fool I was teaching myself to be. From 1881 to 
 1884 (which was my third year) it had been gradu- 
 ally dawning upon me, I suppose, though it came 
 with a rush at the end. Before that I had been the 
 bird's-nesting schoolboy of conamon acquaintance. 
 True, I had always been fond of Greek and couldn't 
 help drawing — but that was literally all I was to 
 the good. 
 
 I don't know just how or why I found out what 
 I had to do, if I was to justify myself to myself. In 
 spite of myself I suppose that I was discovering 
 that everything you bought with money tied you 
 up, more or less, to that thing; and that the fun you 
 got out of the thing that you bought was as nothing 
 compared to the freedom you lost by getting it. 
 That must have been a cerebral process unawares; 
 but one morning, anyhow, I woke up outraged by the 
 ceiling of my room, shocked at the four walls of it. 
 I seemed to be strangling; I thought that they were 
 closing in upon me. Shades of the prison-house,
 
 136 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 'saith he! Yes, old Wordsworth, but the growing 
 boy don't know that they are there, and so they ain't; 
 but the growing man does. From that hour I panted 
 for breathing-room, and found that every blessed 
 thing I touched, and called mine, was so much 
 clog-and-hamper. The four walls of the Nine- 
 and-Thirty Articles seemed more deadly than brick 
 and mortar; and ahead of me I could see, yawning 
 like a grave, the black hull of Dingeley Main Col- 
 liery, where I was to toil in order to imprison my- 
 self yet more tightly; whither I was surely bound, one 
 of a manacled file of convicts, hounded on by the 
 shocking necessity of being ''settled down." Set- 
 tled down! Devilish formula, which condemns us, 
 generation after generation, to vegetate — and rot — 
 and rot! 
 
 I chucked everything, as you know. I walked 
 out, I disappeared. I walked, as a matter of fact, 
 to King's Lynn, and got there lateish. I found 
 a solemn-looking buster in an inn-yard ruminating 
 over an ostler at his horse, and jingling half-crowns 
 in his breeches pockets. That was the rhythm of 
 his life — "Property, property, property"; but he 
 was better than he seemed — had a kink in him 
 somewhere which saved him. We got talking. 
 He was a good sort, with a humorous twist on his 
 long face, and a good twinkle in his heavy eye. 
 Presently I said, "I'll tell you what. It's time for 
 dinner. I'll toss you who dines the other." He 
 looked at the ground, then at me — heavily. Then 
 he said with tremendous solemnity, "Done with
 
 THE SECRET OUT 
 
 137 
 
 you, codger." We tossed with one of his half- 
 crowns, three times, and I won. That was a friendly 
 turn (one of many) done me by Pan and the Nymphs, 
 or by Artemis Einodie, Our Lady of the Ways; for 
 I give you my word I hadn't a stiver nearer than 
 Cambridge. ''I've lost, it appears," says the chap. 
 I said, ''You've lost more than it appears, for I 
 lunched off a turnip." He was a sportsman, though, 
 and did the thing as well as could be. We sat talk- 
 ing till long past midnight; and I was his guest for 
 bed and breakfast. 
 
 Next day I was on the North Sea in a trawler, 
 working my way out — and infernally ill, by the 
 way. We were four days going over; but they 
 put me ashore in North Holland, and I tramped 
 to Alkmaar. 
 
 I nearly starved in that country — you see, I 
 didn't know the language; but the weather was 
 superb, and I got through all right into Germany. 
 There I knew I could get on, because I had things 
 to give them which they wanted. Germany is the 
 best country in Europe in which to go to market 
 with your knowledge. They really want it off you, 
 you see. I stayed in a little town called Wissening 
 for three months or so, at pedagogy. I gave lessons 
 in English and Greek, and earned nearly five pounds 
 one way and another. That gave me what I was 
 bound to have (and what I had at Cambridge too; 
 only I was on my mettle, don't you see, and wouldn't 
 send for anything. I wasn't going to communicate 
 with England until I could report that I was
 
 138 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 keeping myself) — I mean colours, and boards, and 
 some brushes, and all that. I got these in Berlin, 
 and pen and ink too; and then I set to work, and 
 have never had to look back. I've kept myself 
 ever since, and will take credit for this, moreover, 
 that I've been wise enough never to earn more 
 than I want, or to save anything. Directly you 
 do either of those things, say I, you drive a peg 
 through your foot into the ground, and you root. 
 Sick? Of course I've been sick, and mighty sorry 
 for myself. But I've skirmished through some- 
 how; and people have been very good. They 
 are, you know; nearly everybody is very good. 
 One of my maxims is that there are no such things 
 as nations; and another that every man is worth 
 shaking hands with for something or other. (I've 
 proved 'em both.) My worst time was in Siberia, 
 where a woman of no character whatever, accord- 
 ing to the wiseacres of this world, proved to me 
 that she had a great deal. Anna was her name — 
 Anna Marievna. She would have nourished me 
 with her blood, good soul, if she'd had any. But 
 blood was at famine prices: the Russians took 
 care of that. 
 
 All that was in '84-5; and here we are ten years 
 on, and I've been as happy as the days are long 
 ever since, and as free as a bird of the air. Look- 
 ing back on it, I'm surprised at two things only — 
 the deadliness of the disease and the simplicity of 
 the remedy. Why every mother's son of us don't 
 do it beats me altogether. Poverty, Temperance,
 
 THE SECRET OUT 139 
 
 and Simplicity — these three. But the greatest of 
 these is Poverty. That's what I and the Socialists 
 will have to fight about. They want everybody to 
 be rich, and I say they are aiming then at Murder 
 and Suicide. 
 
 If you come to think out, really, how you grow, 
 mentally, morally, and physically, you'll find that 
 you do it by wanting things. They are above you, 
 out of reach; you want them very badly; they 
 won't come to you ; so you grow until you can reach 
 them. Then — strange thing ! — when you have them, 
 when they are under your hand, you learn that 
 (without knowing it) you have been enjoying them 
 all the time you were growing after them — your 
 growth, in fact, consisting in that — and that conse- 
 quently you don't want them at all, but rather de- 
 sire, and must by all means have, those other things 
 up there, still higher and just out of reach. So you 
 go on craving, and go on growing and reaching up; 
 and up and up you grow until presently you find 
 yourself at the top of all your desires except one. 
 By that time you are too old to grow any more, 
 and only want to go to sleep. And behold! there 
 at the top sits friendly Death, with a warming-pan. 
 
 Broadly speaking, that's the process. And take 
 notice that there's no healthy condition, and no 
 happiness whatsoever, unless we do grow. No 
 happiness whatsoever, O Sanchia, unless we grow 
 every hour of our lives. That's as sure as Fate. 
 Think it out; knit your brows over it, and you'll 
 see.
 
 I40 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 That's the first thing to keep in your mind, my 
 dear, when you're about considering what you 
 want and how you're to get it. What you really 
 want out of life is ability to develop — to grow. 
 Now, it's plain enough, I hope, that you can't 
 want things which you've got already, or can get 
 in exchange for money or privilege; and that you 
 can't reach after things if some hireling is for ever 
 ready to put them in your lap. Consequently, if 
 you have money, or the privilege of class, being 
 born, as they profanely say, with a gold spoon in 
 your mouth, you can't be healthy, because you 
 can't grow. I hope that's a point in favour of 
 Destitution. It ought to be, to the candid mind. 
 
 I don't want to write a treatise; but I'm very 
 keen on all this — and anyhow it's your fault. The 
 next thing you want — and it's the same thing — is 
 to be happy. I should like to know who doesn't 
 want to be happy ? Now that, they say, is a relative 
 state. And yet it's not, you know. There's really 
 only one state of happiness, since Process and not 
 Rest is the law of this world, and that's Acquisition. 
 Possession isn't happiness at all. Possession is 
 static, Acquisition ecstatic. So long as this world 
 spins and wheels round the sun, so long shall we be 
 at our best when we conform, and spin on our own, 
 and wheel round the Sun of our Desire. To have 
 a thing cannot be blissful, but to have had it may 
 be, and to be about to have it exquisite joy. The 
 past should be lovely, and the future must be so. 
 The present (and there's no such thing really.
 
 THE SECRET OUT 
 
 141 
 
 Everything flows, said the Sage, and even as he said 
 it the moment had gone) — the present is merely a 
 breath: time for a flash of reminiscence or prepara- 
 tion, and then on you go. Present possession, 
 therefore, is a delusion; and if it were a real thing, 
 as some fools try so hard to make it, consciousness 
 of it would only be contentment — not happiness. 
 Contentment is a swinish thing. The man who is 
 content has done growing, and will immediately 
 begin to rot — like a bulb, unless you start him grow- 
 ing afresh. 
 
 Oh, take an illustration which comes pat just 
 
 now, while K and Co. are bellowing about our 
 
 greatness, and all-red maps of Europe. Heaven 
 about us, here's a confusion of thought — muddy 
 brainwork! Hear them befoul the "Little Eng- 
 enders, " my dear soul; by which term they are 
 pleased to refer to the Englander before the Em- 
 pire — the men, I'll trouble you, of the Armada and 
 the days before Waterloo. Drake a Little Englander, 
 Cromwefl, Wolfe and Moore and Wellington, Little 
 Englanders all. The heroes, according to these fel- 
 lows, are the men who Imve an Empire, not the men 
 who made it. It's heroic to possess a thing, eh? 
 Who will teach 'em to think straight? 
 
 To have an Empire is not heroic at all. To 
 have had one may be, to be getting one may be. 
 We were a race of heroes from Crecy to Waterloo, 
 but since then have been merely swine, grunting 
 our contentment and repletion. We may be heroes 
 again some day when we've done wallowing; but
 
 142 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 meantime persons who believe themselves patriots 
 are doing all they know to stave off that day by 
 heaping armaments and bluffing Europe. Heroes, 
 we! Why, we've got degeneration of the heart. 
 We're like Fat Women at a fair — at the best, curi- 
 ous, and rather disgusting. But all this is neither 
 here nor there. 
 
 And now, if you'll tell me how we are to grow, 
 or be happy, or get our faculties free unless we are 
 poor, I shall be very much obliged to you, and will 
 go back to the Dingeley Main Colliery to-morrow, 
 and wear a black coat, and pay taxes. But you 
 can't — and nobody can. 
 
 Mind, Body, and Estate, Poverty is the only 
 hope. Have nothing. 
 
 Have nothing — and you're thrown back on what 
 is inside you. That's your own, and all that's 
 worth having. 
 
 Have nothing — and the broad world is your fee. 
 
 Have nothing — and you're neither clogged about 
 the brain nor the feet. 
 
 Have nothing, and you have no looking-glass. 
 Without a looking-glass you don't know what you 
 look like; and if you don't know that, you cease 
 to wonder whether your neighbour sees you as 
 fine a fellow as you see yourself. Almost all our 
 troubles in England come from that: we are aw- 
 fully set up by the appearance we make to our- 
 selves, and miserably apprehensive of the conclu- 
 sions the rest are drawing of us. We daren't be
 
 THE SECRET OUT 143 
 
 ourselves, lest we be taken unawares, and Jones, 
 or Jones' man, see us with our armour off. Did 
 I ever tell you that I saw a Colonel of Light Horse 
 walk do\vn the Tornabuoni in Florence carrying 
 a fish in newspaper under his arm? I did it 
 though. Any country in Europe has more freedom 
 than ours. Why? Because it has fewer looking- 
 glasses. 
 
 "As having nothing, yet possessing all things." 
 I'm not very fond of the Levantine, but by George 
 he was right there. And of course he was a mag- 
 nificent sophist. 
 
 So now abide for you, Queen Mab, Poverty, 
 Temperance, Simplicity — these three. But the great- 
 est of these is Poverty. For if you are poor you 
 will find Temperance repay you; and since you 
 can't afford a looking-glass, you will remain as 
 simple as you are sweet. 
 
 By the bye, you mustn't take my short cut to 
 happiness, you know. Don't go off to King's 
 Lynn, there's a dear. It led me near to knavery, 
 I believe, when I tossed for a dinner. Keep you 
 to the high-road, dear one, and shed your baggage 
 by degrees. Ah, that broad high-road! If we 
 two could share poverty, and hear the stars bid us 
 good-night! If the great Open Country could be 
 seen for a goodly heritage by two pair of eyes, and 
 if two tongues could voice Nunc Dimittis at the 
 last milestone! We live by growing, say I? And 
 we are happy in aspiring? Yes, but to have had is 
 good too; and I, poverello, have had something,
 
 144 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Sanchia. Nay, nay, I have had good measure. 
 And so farewell. 
 
 Here's a text for you, not from the Anthology, 
 but from the learned Epictetus, an antick sage. 
 ''Think you," says he, "you can be a wise man, 
 and continue to eat and drink and be wrathful, 
 and take offences as you have been used? Nay, 
 but you must watch and labour, my man, and with- 
 draw yourself from your household, and be despised 
 by any serving-boy, and be quizzed by your neigh- 
 bours, and take the last place all the world over. 
 . . . Consider these things," he saith, "whether 
 you are willing at such a price to get Peace, Freedom, 
 and an Untroubled Spirit. And if you are not, then 
 attempt it not, nor, like a child, play now the phil- 
 osopher, then the tax-collector, then the orator, 
 then the Procurator of Caesar. For these things 
 agree not among themselves, and, good or bad, it 
 behoves you to be One Man. You should be per- 
 fecting your power over yourself, or over your out- 
 ward snugness; spending yourself on the life within 
 you, or on the life without. That is to say, you 
 must take your place either among Men or Swine." 
 
 A wise man that.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MR. N. INGRAM ON THE POETS AND 
 PHILOSOPHERS 
 
 Before that letter was written — a month before 
 — Mr. Nevile Ingram, that blue-eyed confident 
 young man, came to London from Wanless, and 
 installed himself at Brown's Hotel. His friend 
 Chevenix dined with him at the Coffee-Tree Club 
 and they went on afterwards to the Alhambra, and 
 elsewhere. I don't propose to trace the impress 
 of their neat pumps, but it's my duty to record a 
 snatch of their conversation at the Coffee-Tree. 
 
 Ingram, when the walnuts and port had been 
 reached, asked, "By the way, are your friends the 
 Percivals got back yet?" and Chevenix stared at 
 him. 
 
 ''Bless you, yes. Lord bless you, yes. Course 
 they are. Why, old Tom Percival's a city mag- 
 nate. How about the Mansion House?" And he 
 reflected. "Why, I don't suppose old Tom's missed 
 a Lord Mayor's Show for thirty years. I don't 
 suppose he's ever had more than a month's leave 
 since he got any leave at all. Bank Holidays and 
 Saturdays to Mondays are his game. And the 
 Lady's a better housekeeper than you'd take her 
 for. She'll not trust old Tom alone for more than 
 
 145
 
 146 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 six weeks — not she. Two months at the outside. 
 No, no. Mamma's a downy bird, a very downy 
 bird — and" — he spoke with sudden energy — "and 
 don't you forget it, Nevile." 
 
 Ingram flattened a walnut. "Why should I re- 
 member it?" he asked calmly, and Chevenix stared 
 anew and snorted. 
 
 "You're a cool fish, you know," he said. "I'll 
 do you that credit. You don't sing to one clear 
 piano in divers tones. Not you. You take a line, 
 I'm dashed." 
 
 Then Ingram drained his glass, and poured an- 
 other. "I met one of 'em — no, two of 'em, in Wales 
 in September. At the married sister's — a Mrs. 
 Something-King — sharp-tongued woman with an 
 owl of a husband." Chevenix was looking at him 
 narrowly, disregarding all this surplussage. 
 Then you met Sancie?" 
 
 That," said Ingram, "was exactly who I did 
 meet." 
 
 "Then," said Chevenix with conviction, "you 
 met the very pick of the basket." 
 
 Ingram nosed his port, then sipped it; then said, 
 "So I think." 
 
 It was now to be seen that Chevenix was agi- 
 tated. He crossed and rc-crosscd his leg, used his 
 finger-bowl, tied his napkin into a knot, said, "Damn 
 this pub. Why can't a man smoke when he's 
 done eating?" frowned, grew red in the face. 
 
 "Look here, Nevile," he said finally, "are you 
 going to call there?" 
 
 a <
 
 INGRAM ON THE POETS 147 
 
 Ingram said, "I think so. Why?" 
 
 Chevenix threw himself back, and said it was 
 infernally hot. The place, he said, was a ghastly 
 bakehouse. ''Have some more port," Ingram pro- 
 posed; but he replied, "Damn port," and called 
 for coffee and old brandy. 
 
 With these refections at hand he was revived, 
 and grew more deliberate in speech. 
 
 "Now, look here, Nevile, my boy," he began; 
 and Ingram did look there. "We must have no 
 hole-and-corner business over this. I like those 
 people. I've known 'em all my life. I like 'em 
 all, except the Lady and Philippa — and no one in 
 his senses could like them. But they're not your 
 sort, you know, not one bit they're not. They're 
 simple, jolly, plain people — who love their fun, and 
 are keen on all sorts of things that you've never 
 heard of. Poetry, good Lord! Shakespeare — and 
 Byron — and John Keats. Bless you, they're gone 
 on Keats. They think he was ripping. And I 
 daresay he was. But that's not your line of country 
 at all — no! nor Thoreau either, and Plato and 
 those kind of philosophical johnnies. WTiat's all 
 that to you? You want Ruff's Guide, you know— 
 and Soapy Sponge; good old Facey Rumford!" 
 He stopped, flushed and inspired. Ingram, star- 
 ing, sipped his port. 
 
 "Now take Sancie Percival," Chevenix went on. 
 "She's a baby, you know— in a way; and yet she's 
 got a head on her which — well, a head which — 
 beats a cock-fight, by George! There's a lot in
 
 148 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 front of that girl — I know there is. I can see it 
 all coming as plain as I can see you're taking too 
 much port. You always do, you silly old ass. 
 You always did." He shook his head. "I'm 
 awfully fond of Sancie. She's a queer young cus- 
 tomer — and as pretty as they can be made on this 
 planet, so far as my experience goes. Now look 
 here, Nevile" — and with his elbows on the table he 
 looked closely at his friend — "what are you up to?" 
 
 "Up to?" said Ingram. "Nothing." 
 
 "I hope not," said Chevenix, "with all my soul. 
 Because I don't forget — if you do — that it was I 
 who took you there — and made it all right with 
 the Lady — and" — he lowered his voice, but hissed 
 the words in his energy — "and never said a sylla- 
 ble about your private affairs either. Now what do 
 you make of that?" 
 
 Ingram looked bored. "I make nothing of it," 
 he said. "What can be made of it?" 
 
 "I'll tell you," said Chevenix, and struck the 
 table. "A clean breast can be made of it." 
 
 Ingram gloomed at the littered table. "Damn 
 her," he said. "God damn her." 
 
 Chevenix said, "Exactly." Then they went to 
 the Alhambra, and elsewhere. 
 
 I think that perhaps Mr. Chevenix did his friend 
 some injustice — I mean did some injustice to his 
 standing towards the poets and philosophers. I 
 am not prepared to admit that Ingram knew as 
 little about them, or cared as little, as did Mr. 
 Chevenix himself. I know that for the best part
 
 INGRAM ON THE POETS 149 
 
 of a month — before he went to Cairo for Christmas 
 — he spent a great deal of his time poring over the 
 Prometheus Unbound of Shelley, and that Vicky 
 Percival, home from a party in the quarter just be' 
 fore midnight, raised her eyebrows more than once. 
 
 "What! Still at it?" she used to say. ''You 
 two will make yourselves ill. It will all come out 
 in spots on your foreheads, and then Mr. Ingram 
 will dab on black plaster, and Sancie will powder 
 herself. It can't be worth it; no poetry could be. 
 Sancie, my dear, go to bed. Am I very late? Did 
 mamma say anything ? I did try to go, lots of times ; 
 but they said it would spoil everything." 
 
 Ingram used to say, "It's all right. Miss Vicky. 
 I made it all square for you. You can always leave 
 that to me." 
 
 Vicky would look at him with bright eyes, full, 
 however, of thought. "I should very much like 
 to know what can be left to you," she would say, 
 "and what can't." Then she would ask, "When 
 are you going to Cairo, by the way?" and his answer 
 would be, "Any moment." As she said, as Chevenix 
 had said, he was a very cool hand. 
 
 I don't know how far they got in the PrometJieus 
 during those autumn nights; but Ingram was cer- 
 tainly faithful to it — and of course the reading of 
 poetry does permit of excursions into fact, by way 
 of comment. He was very much interested in Pan- 
 thea's famous line — 
 
 Their shadows make 
 The space within my plumes more black than night,
 
 I50 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 directly he had had explained to him the extraor- 
 dinary imaginative force in them — the visualisation, 
 we may call it. "That's clever of you," he said, 
 "to see all that in it. I should never have thought 
 of that. It's awfully clever." 
 
 She explained honestly. "A friend of mine 
 pointed it out. Of course I should never have seen 
 it for myself. In fact, I had read Prometheus be- 
 fore, lots of times, and thought nothing of Panthea's 
 wings." 
 
 Ingram, at his favourite trick of looking at her 
 as if he was drinking her, here twisted his mouth. 
 "You've got lots of clever chaps about you, I ex- 
 pect," he said ruefully. "That's the worst of me. 
 I'm such a dunce. Now all these friends of yours 
 will be swells — poets and all that?" 
 
 "There's only one of them, you know," she said, 
 smiling. "I only know one poet." 
 
 " Oh, come," hesaid, "that's better than I thought." 
 She made no answer. His next speech was undoubt- 
 edly sincere. 
 
 "I'm very much in earnest, you know, about this 
 kind of thing. A man can be keen on poetry with- 
 out being a poet. I know I am. It does me a power 
 of good. It makes a better chap of me all round. 
 Thanks to you." 
 
 She corrected him. "Thanks to Shelley." 
 
 "No, to you," he insisted. "Where on earth 
 should I have been without you? Some filthy 
 hole! Killing tigers — or peacocks!" 
 
 "Mr. Senhouse," she said, "the Poet, thinks it
 
 INGRAM ON THE POETS 151 
 
 rather horrible to kill animals. He thinks it quite 
 horrible. He says we can't make them to save our 
 lives; we can only blow them to bits. That's what 
 he says." 
 
 ''He would, you know," Ingram said, and added 
 after a moment, "By George, and he's perfectly 
 right. A man's a butcher. It's sickening. But 
 you'll pull me through, Lliss Sancie. I never knew 
 what life was until I " 
 
 Sanchia said, "Let's go on — shall we?" She 
 covered her cheeks with her hands. 
 
 "We wiU," he agreed. "We'll stick to Shelley. 
 Now for the Furies. You be First Fury, I'll be 
 Second — and so on." And at it they went — to 
 "The struggling world, which slaves and tyrants 
 win." Then came some commentary upon slavery 
 and tyranny in general, some Anarchism out of 
 Senhouse's wallet, and the assurance from Ingram 
 that some forms of slavery suited him excellently, 
 and that some forms of tyrants could do as they 
 chose with him. "They have only to lift a little 
 finger — a very little finger indeed — to have me at 
 their feet." And then, opportunely, Mrs. Percival 
 came into the schoolroom and showed an interest 
 in the students. 
 
 Sanchia's own interest in Ingram, I am certain, 
 so far, was purely didactic. I am speaking of the 
 month before Christmas. He was most receptive; 
 she could practise on him what had been preached 
 to her, hand on her stores from Senhouse. In
 
 152 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 order to teach any one you must be able to formu- 
 late your own knowledge; there must be no hazi- 
 ness. She was a conduit, a most enthusiastic con- 
 duit: it was exquisite to her to feel the thrill of the 
 steady stream coursing through her mind. Having 
 an exact memory, she forgot nothing of what she 
 had been told, rehearsed it all copiously, and was 
 grateful to her pupil when he asked for more. He 
 had, of course, the wit to see that this was so, and to 
 make the most of his chances. Moreover, he was 
 honestly and explicitly in love with her. He didn't 
 conceal it for a moment — any more than did Sen- 
 house. She saw it, knew it without seeing — and 
 waived it. It was interesting, even flattering; but 
 she still had other things, more important things, 
 to think about and to do. If it is sweet to learn of a 
 friend, it is sweeter to teach a friend; and she had 
 persuaded herself that Ingram was a friend. 
 
 Gallant, noble, inspired young creature — the risks 
 she ran! Her confidence! Her intrepidity! But 
 one must face them in her honour and praise: they 
 are essential to the understanding of her martyrdom. 
 Her passion, if it was to come, was late in coming: 
 at this hour of hers Scnhouse was exactly right in 
 defining her as he did. The Virgin unconscious 
 of virginity, the Chaste by preoccupation. She was 
 that. There are, of course, two kinds of virgin. 
 There's the deliberate Virgin, to whom the state is 
 in itself holy, for whom Athena stands; and there is 
 the Virgin in fact, who has no thought of being other- 
 wise, who is concerned with one thing at a time.
 
 INGRAM ON THE POETS 153 
 
 who cannot pause in her wild quest to think, am I 
 holy, am I spotless ? On her brow Artemis of Arcady 
 lays a cooling hand, and teaches her the grace of 
 guarded lips. Senhouse knew this, and thanked 
 God to know it : but what of Mr, Ingram ? What of 
 Mr. Chevenix's friend of the Alhambra, and else- 
 where ? 
 
 I shall do him justice. He knew nothing of all 
 this, but he felt it — at present. He loved; was in 
 that early stage of the passion when the beloved is 
 a Revelation from Heaven, "half angel and half 
 bird." Something held him back — him, too, who 
 was not accustomed to refuse what came his way. 
 All time was before him, the time for wanting, the 
 time for fearing loss, and the time to claim and grasp. 
 Just now he basked — as a young man full of his 
 new virility will be contented in the sunshine, pres- 
 ently to be stirred by the glory and tingle of it to 
 scale mountains, hunt swiftly, to seize and kill, then 
 to eat and drink with healthy appetite. 
 
 But Ingram, withal a young man, had a good 
 deal of experience behind him. He had been his 
 own master through a long minority, and had been 
 of age eight years at least. With a fine income, 
 large estate, hearty appetite, and few scruples. Wan- 
 less had bowed down to him, London had been very 
 kind. That which he needed seemed so obviously 
 his due that he had been forced more than once by 
 an overpopulated world to look alive for his chances. 
 He had always had what he seriously wanted, but 
 had sometimes had to exert himself to get it. This
 
 154 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 made him wary. On the occasion of that Shelley 
 discussion to which I have just referred — or imme- 
 diately after it — he had advised with himself about 
 Sanchia's friend. Who was this? Was he possibly 
 — could he possibly — ? Difficult questions: he 
 turned the possibilities about. A close commen- 
 tator, this fellow: keen on poetry — which was first- 
 rate stuff, mind you, if you had the right sort of girl 
 to read with — a queer fish, too, with his notions about 
 shooting; a sort of anarchical fellow, what? Sen- 
 house by name. Who was this Senhouse? He 
 might have to be reckoned with at a pinch. But 
 on the whole — no! Ingram classified him loosely, 
 for convenience, as a "philosophical johnny," prob- 
 ably rather old. Eye-glasses and a bald head, he 
 thought, would meet the case. Put at that, he was 
 not dangerous. 
 And so much for John Maxwell Senhouse.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SENHOUSE ON CIVILISATION 
 
 Senhouse stayed out the winter at Land's End, 
 engaged in the absorbing pursuit of naturalising 
 Alpine plants upon the faces of rock there. Twice 
 a week, sometimes oftener, he wrote to Great Cum- 
 berland Place; once a week, sometimes less often, 
 he heard from it. He knows nothing, and would 
 care less than nothing, of Mr. Ingram's introduc- 
 tion to Poetry, but has much to tell Sanchia of this 
 work of his — of his failure in past years and hopes 
 for future. We read of Androsace lanuguinosa, 
 Draba aizotdes, of Lithospermum prostratuni (there's 
 to be a blue sheet of that), and of Ramondia pyre- 
 naica, *'that exquisite rosette of dark green and 
 mauve, of which I shall never have enough. Re- 
 joice with me. Queen of Flowers and Faery. I have 
 three — three! — self-sown plants of it, which will 
 flower in April. I must be here to see; and it would 
 be well that you were here also." His enthusiasm 
 over this growing passion for transforming England 
 by means of flowers goes well in hand with his social 
 schemes. He had, in fact, discovered his life-work. 
 "England a garden!" he cried out in a letter to 
 Sanchia, ''and Englishmen the gardeners! I'll die 
 
 for that war-shout. Isn't it finer than your All-red 
 
 155
 
 156 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 map, Kipling, Henley, and Co.? Oh, men, throw 
 down your big drums and concertinas ; forsake your 
 beanfeasts and city dinners ; take up your spades and 
 follow me! What is your bombast about, if not to 
 make this panting country more fat and less able to 
 move; its workmen richer and so more idle? Pah, 
 you dullards, what's worth having beside work?" 
 He turns to rend the opposite camp. "And you, 
 trades-unionists, with your eight hours' day — do you 
 know what you are about? You are slaying man- 
 hood, that's what you're doing. Every hour you 
 get docked off your work-time will be spent gaping 
 at a football match, or goading whippets to kill wired- 
 in rabbits. And what's the worth of a man glutted 
 with dead rabbits, or hoarse with ravings at the Oval ? 
 If he played his football I might have less to say. 
 But he don't. He pays hirelings to do it for him, 
 and eggs them on by bawling and cursing. Agitate 
 for the right to work longer hours, you blind bats, 
 you ; agitate for leave to work the flesh off your fin- 
 gers if you choose. Then at least you'll have got 
 freedom, though you die for it. Better die free, and 
 leave free men to follow you, than watch slaves play 
 your games for you — hey?" 
 
 He gets very wild over all this, and leads his young 
 Sanchia across a difficult country — with frequent 
 apologies, however. ''Queen Mab, forgive me, do. 
 I take you trapesing through the market-place and 
 soil your white robe in public mire. Shame upon 
 me! I might as well draw you into a gin-palace and 
 make you sit scared among the sodden men and blue-
 
 SENHOUSE ON CIVILISATION 157 
 
 nosed, trembling women there as lead you to ponder 
 these awful things. But you have a great soul, San- 
 chia, and can go where Beatrice went, I hope." 
 
 The letter which I print now is the outcome of 
 his social considerations. She must have asked 
 him to account for mankind at large. How, for 
 instance, did he square up his individualist con- 
 victions with the needs of a complicated society ? If 
 his was the only sane life, how was a populace to lead 
 it? He must have given some time to the answer, 
 which breaks a spell of silence. It is more carefully 
 written, less incoherent, less rhapsodical than usual. 
 
 Land's End, Early March. 
 
 That was a wholesome inquiry of yours, O Arte- 
 mis of the Haven {Xiiievln "KprefiL, says the Anthology, 
 and "to whom, O blessed one, all meshes have been 
 given"). To thee, my Blessed One, I give now the 
 rudderings of my thought, put through as fine a mesh 
 as I could compass. 
 
 It's vastly well, upon my word, that I should live 
 at my ease, and sleep under the stars, and go my 
 ways, owing no man anything. But I have asked 
 myself pretty often, as you ask me now. What of the 
 other thirty million poor devils who moil in cities 
 for their wives and offspring? What is to be done 
 with them? Can they not be helped to my tub and 
 crust and cup of cold water? Pertinent questions 
 of yours, most wise and holy lady — to which here's 
 a sketchy kind of an answer. They demand a 
 pamphlet, you know; but I spare you that.
 
 158 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 When you come to talk about people instead of 
 persons you are brought up against Society, and are 
 reminded of the fact, so conveniently forgotten, that 
 men have got now to be gregarious. I'm afraid that 
 condition is of too long standing to be quarrelled 
 with, even by me; but I don't doubt that the unit 
 was originally the family, and not the tribe. I sup- 
 pose we first began to herd and huddle to protect our 
 naked bodies against furry beasts, like wolves, and 
 that we then found out (having scored ofi; the wolves) 
 that a state of defence was a pretty jumping-off 
 ground for being offensive. I should like to know 
 in whose bodies reside the souls of the first palisadoed 
 lot who raided a neighbour's stake-fence. In this 
 our rascally island, I misdoubt. However, here we 
 are, a society, and a nation: a Great Power, Queen, 
 Lords and Commons, and all the rest of it — a vast 
 and piebald congregation, every member of which, 
 they assure me, has a soul to be saved and a body to 
 be washed. 
 
 I accept that, and go on to observe that these 
 things being so — rebus se hahentibus ut nunc, as the 
 Schoolman puts it — we must now talk, in the cur- 
 rent slang, about Civilisation. Civilisation is the 
 hope of the hour, so fixed a quantity that a chap 
 wrote of it the other day as if it was a disease. Civil- 
 isation, its Cause and Cure, was the name of his 
 treatise; and I believe he was perfectly serious. It 
 used to mean, in Bentham's day, 'Hhe greatest hap- 
 piness of the greatest number," which was modest 
 of Bentham. I think we have now screwed it up
 
 SENHOUSE ON CIVILISATION 159 
 
 to "greatest happiness of everybody," which is 
 pleonastic, because happiness is good enough for 
 anybody. You might as well talk of the ''greatest 
 whiteness" as of the "greatest happiness." But 
 sloppy phrases are characteristic of an age of news- 
 papers. Anyhow, what the newspapers call civilisa- 
 tion, you and I call salvation. 
 
 Are we civilised, by the way? Are we getting 
 civilised? Are we more civilised than the Greeks 
 were in Socrates' time ? Or the Romans in Cicero's ? 
 Or the Italians in Leonardo's? Or the English in 
 Sir T. More's? Are we more humane, you might 
 say? We are told so, I know; but between you 
 and me and the Atlantic, I doubt it profoundly. 
 Individually, we certainly are not; collectively, not 
 one atom. If we act individually like maniacs, as I've 
 been telling you we do, we act in the mass like the 
 hosts of Midian. Until war — to name but one pub- 
 lic vice — is spoken of in the terms we now use to 
 reprobate drunkenness, or gluttony, or the drug- 
 habit, I decline to recognise that we are civilised at 
 all. But, so far from that, we devastate the heathen; 
 we exhaust ourselves in armaments; we cause the 
 flower of our youth to perish for all-red maps; we 
 still teach diplomats to lie and politicians to cadge 
 for votes like the street-boys for coppers; we thieve 
 at large, brag the great year through, bluster, howl 
 at other people playing games for us; lift pious 
 hands (to a heaven we don't believe in) at our rival's 
 enormities; we cant and vapour — out upon us! and 
 what for? For two things only, Sanchia; for two
 
 i6o OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 things which are fatal to real civilisation — that money 
 may be easy and that labour may be saved. If you 
 will mention to me one public act of the last fifty 
 years which has not been directed to the acquisition 
 of money, or one mechanical invention which has 
 not aimed at the saving of labour, I'll throw up the 
 sponge and commence stockbroker. 
 
 Now, money, I say, is the one cause of slavery, 
 and work the one hope of salvation. Therefore 
 our civilisation, as they disastrously term it, is a 
 condition of acquiring slavery easily, and of obliter- 
 ating the hope of salvation. Pretty, isn't it, when 
 you take the clothes off? Happy state of things! 
 Noble ideals, shared by the Great Unionist Party 
 and the Great Liberal Party, turn and turn about. 
 There'll be a Great Labour Party one of these days, 
 bickering with the others for a share in these splendid 
 endeavours. It really might seem to you as if I 
 was joking; but I write with tears in my eyes — that 
 these things should be! 
 
 I don't want to labour my argument, but I must 
 repeat myself. Civilisation is a condition of freedom 
 to use your faculties to their fullest extent; and 
 your faculties are every power of mind and heart 
 and muscle and sense. Very well. Now I say that 
 every sovereign you put into a man's pocket seduces 
 him away from the use of his faculties, and every 
 machine you devise directly deprives him of one of 
 them — and then where are we? Why, here; that 
 what is true of a man is true of a million of men, and 
 that, so far from being more civilised than the Peri-
 
 SENHOUSE ON CIVILISATION i6l 
 
 clean Athenians, we are actually less so than the 
 neolithic dweller on the South Downs, who hacked 
 up the earth with a red deer's horn, and drove his 
 cattle to the dew-pond at sundown, and back again 
 into an enclosure banked against the wolves. And 
 that's very odd, because with art and poetry behind 
 us and before, we might by this time be like the Sons 
 of God. 
 
 I won't say any more about money, lest I be a 
 bore. I'll take Poverty for granted, as the only 
 hope of freedom and dignity, and have a shy at 
 machinery, which I am telling you decimates our 
 faculties. First we'll have a simple case. Suppose 
 that I, in the pursuit of my art, have learned how 
 exquisitely to point a lead-pencil; and next con- 
 ceive of some ingenious rascal who invents a ma- 
 chine, and sells it for a penny, which sharpens them 
 as well as I can. What happens? I am tempted 
 immediately to say, ''Prodigal that I am! What 
 hours of a short lifetime have I not wasted over 
 pencils! What grime have I not collected in my 
 finger-nails! Wliat soap not consumed!" Thus I 
 fall into the pit digged for me by that ungodly one, 
 and then and there lose the mystery, art, and craft 
 of pointing pencils. Thereby, and to that extent, 
 I have crippled my faculties of eye and hand and 
 judgment; thereby, and to that extent, those facul- 
 ties atrophy. Do you follow me ? Am I not right ? 
 Oh! of course I am. Now let's take a high flight: 
 paulb majora canamus. 
 
 Let's aim a shaft at the printing-press — that semi-
 
 1 62 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 divine institution. Before the devil inspired Guten- 
 berg to scheme for a statue in Maintz, Literature 
 was a sacred mystery, a kind of priesthood to which 
 a man came as through the fire, by the clean grace 
 of God. The poet or historian was a hierophant. 
 If poet, he sang his own song; if historian, spoke 
 his own tale. Literature, then, was twin-sister of 
 Music, addressed the soul through the ear. Words 
 were phrases, letters were notes. And more than 
 that, oh, much more than that! The hearers of 
 such literature, who were a thousandfold more than 
 the readers of it, had to get it by rote. *'By heart" 
 is a finer phrase; ah, they got it by heart, Sanchia, 
 as I have got you. That's to say, they were filled 
 with it, as the Apostles with the Holy Ghost; they 
 lived on it; it was permanent possession, not of a 
 great thing (oh, no, no!), but hy a great thing. The 
 fellows went their ways carrying a divine tenant, 
 inspired by him, driven by him to a flight. Imagine 
 the man who absorbed the Odyssey by these means! 
 Or the Purgatoriol Or got *'by heart" the great 
 choruses from the Agamemnon or the (Edipus ! I 
 can picture him following the rhapsodist from deme 
 to deme, or working it afoot from Athens to Corinth 
 to get more of ^schylus into his head. Is there 
 no use of faculty in all that? Isn't that the only 
 way of enlarging faculty, to sharpen every sense, 
 exercise every fibre ? It's so obvious that it's barely 
 worth while to ask the question. 
 
 Now, what has the printing-press done to ad- 
 vance the use of faculty? To begin with, it has
 
 SENHOUSE ON CIVILISATION 163 
 
 destroyed memory : a very useful performance ! 
 Next, it has cheapened poetry. It is now within a 
 man's power to buy Wordsworth for twopence — 
 and to value him accordingly. For when money 
 is your standard of value, a colourless diamond is 
 worth more than a sea-blue sapphire, and a ten- 
 guinea Encyclopaedia than Poesy out of a two-penny 
 box. That also is doing Literature a friendly turn, 
 I suppose. Next, it has destroyed the charming 
 art of caligraphy — very kindly. It has given us 
 rotten paper instead of fine parchment, so that the 
 things which we read and don't remember may 
 reasonably perish. It has turned Literature into a 
 kind of pictorial art instead of a musical ; for to one 
 man whose poetry is addressed to the ear there are 
 now a thousand (from Keats to Browning, and on 
 and on) who endeavour to hit you with it in the 
 eye. That's how we get ''scarlet pains" and "pur- 
 ple noons" into poetry; and 
 
 Perturb 
 With drip acerb, 
 
 and other flowers of speech. You don't get such 
 freaks in Homer or Dante; and Shakespeare, thank 
 God, lived too near the great free days to consider 
 readers before hearers. Besides, the playhouse 
 can never be infected with Gutenberg's poison. 
 Well, then, lastly, the printing-press has made the 
 newspaper possible; and if it had never done any- 
 thing else it should have earned everlasting infamy 
 for Gutenberg. These things that shameless ma-
 
 i64 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 chine of his has done, and not left a number of things 
 undone, which it would be tedious to mention. 
 Enough of it, and its brothers in iniquity, the rail- 
 way and the steam-plough and the automaton chess- 
 player. 
 
 Now let us get on a bit. Imagine England as 
 a nation solving its problems as I solved my own, 
 dropping everything, walking to freedom via King's 
 Lynn. How is that to be? 
 
 Well, you know, I feel pretty hopeful that some- 
 thing of the kind will come to pass. It won't be in 
 your time or mine. You will be a saint and I a 
 comic reminiscence long, long before. But it's 
 amusing to work it out; and there's this about it — 
 that within quite a short space, at any moment, a 
 handful of the Elect may — walk to King's Lynn. 
 The rest will wait — and they must. There's Social- 
 ism in their way: a powerful enemy to civilisation, 
 because it accepts the money standard and is sworn 
 ally of machinery. 
 
 We are in for a spell of Socialism. I see that 
 clearly. It is coming quite fast. Two more gen- 
 eral elections and the Socialists will be a great party. 
 
 It's so confoundedly plausible, you -see. It ac- 
 cepts such a lot of scurvy institutions as fixtures — 
 which really aren't fixtures at all. It's like a new 
 tenant coming into a house, saying to the old one, 
 "Oh, don't trouble to move that gas-stove, pray. 
 I can use it as a dressing-table." It has collared 
 the trades unions at the start by the prospects of 
 easy money and light work (why not say at once,
 
 SENHOUSE ON CIVILISATION 165 
 
 Easy drugs and cheap death-beds?). It will come 
 on by way of corporations, which will absorb private 
 enterprise; and the State, which will absorb the 
 corporations. Water, gas, old Charnock's beer, 
 my father's colliery, milk, trains, telegraphs, and 
 so on. The State will come to be the Whiteley of 
 England, the heads of Departments the shopwalkers. 
 We shall be forced by Act of Parliament to deal there. 
 From that to dispensing men's incomes, arranging 
 their marriages, allotting the number of their fam- 
 ily — these are easy steps. One sees all that. 
 
 This will be the most ghastly tyranny the world 
 has ever seen, for it will mean government by ex- 
 perts in the art of governing; government by theo- 
 rists who have left human nature out of the reckon- 
 ing. It will be awful — but I am sure it must be 
 faced, and believe that it will be tonic. 
 
 Tonic for this reason, that there will be a revolt, 
 since man is happily a choleric animal, and a ''pan- 
 thier when rouged." The old Adam will come 
 out of his new model-dwelling and wallow in the 
 gore of his brother man. Dismembered Fabians 
 will make miry the London streets; the President 
 of the Local Government Board and Chairman of 
 the London County Council will ride, roped to- 
 gether, in a tumbril to the Guillotine in Hyde Park 
 — and all will be well. 
 
 Then Anarchy, I hope; then Poverty, Temper- 
 ance, and Sincerity : redeimt Saturnia regna. There's 
 my Cumaean prophecy. Time enough, however, to 
 work out that little programme. We may safely
 
 1 66 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 leave it to our great-great-grandchildren. But to 
 that, I do trust and believe, we shall one day re- 
 turn — to the Golden Age once more. But it doesn't 
 seem to me possible that we can ever drink Liberty 
 at ease until we have gnawed the bitter crusts of 
 Tyranny. Socialism will give us those and to spare: 
 we shall never know the meaning of Freedom until 
 we've had it. 
 
 That's to say — after Congregationalism, which 
 sees the world as a society where everybody is rich, 
 and as idle as possible, we shall be ripe, I believe, 
 for Segregationalism, which desires that everybody 
 shall be poor, and earn his right to poverty. The 
 indispensable things to be learned, the absolute 
 conditions of any such return are in these axiomata: 
 
 (a) The End of Life is the full use of our powers. 
 
 (b) The use of Government is the securing of that 
 for every one. 
 
 (c) Education is the fitting of our children to 
 have it. 
 
 Once you get these things recognised as funda- 
 mental definitions, the rest follows orderly. 
 
 The world will be extraordinarily simple then. 
 Geography will no longer be divided into physical 
 and political. There won't be any politics, because 
 there won't be any WXi? — neither domestic (so 
 called), because the Family will be the unit, and 
 not the Nation, nor foreign, because there won't be 
 any foreigners. Wars will cease, because there will 
 be none with whom to war; strikes between Capital
 
 SENHOUSE ON CIVILISATION 167 
 
 and Labour, because the only Capital will he Labour. 
 The strife will be, rather, to be, if possible, poorer 
 than your neighbour. With nothing to tax, there 
 can be no taxes; with no machinery, nobody can 
 be out of work. Such terms as Peace, Progress, 
 and Prosperity will resume their meanings: Peace 
 will again mean peace of mind (since bodily peace 
 will be a condition of life itself), Progress the ad- 
 vance of human faculty. Prosperity the security of 
 the two first. All this is self-evident. 
 
 Religion, morals may be left to themselves, when 
 the family is the unit. Tribal religion becomes 
 an absurdity when the tribe disappears; personal 
 religion is all that counts — and we've talked about 
 that. So with morals. Dante and the Schoolmen, 
 who knew their long Italy broken up into ten score 
 of fenced nations, had to deal with morality public 
 and private; and the poor poet must needs fence 
 off compartments in hell to accommodate public 
 or private sinners. Thus, Thou shalt not steal, was 
 a sin if you robbed Vittorio ; but if you robbed your- 
 self it might be a virtue. We shan't say that in 
 Saturn's realm. To us insincerity will be the deadly 
 sin : the sins of to.-day will be ignorances to-morrow. 
 
 But you tell me that there must always be society 
 where there are men, women, and children, since 
 the children will grow up and fall in love, and the 
 men and women will have been in love already, and 
 be very capable of being so again. Family will stray 
 into family, you think — and of course it will. There'll 
 be Love to regulate ; and that is the one affair of our
 
 1 68 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 lives (so far as I can see) which won't fall in line be- 
 hind the fundamentals. Love is (with great respect 
 to divines, monks, doctors, and other bigwigs) the 
 one real, abiding, sincere business of our lives; the 
 root of Art, the principle of Poetry; the single human 
 passion which has the least chance of interfering 
 with money-making or idleness. It used to be said 
 that Religion and Ambition were passions of equal 
 force, but that no longer holds. Religion (as it was 
 then meant) has nearly gone, Ambition has already 
 gone, the way of all flesh. But Love endures, and 
 with it the world still labours towards happiness; 
 and Marriage (which is what it means) has got to 
 be faced. 
 
 But not by me, my dear, writing to you. I don't 
 think I can tell you what I think about that just yet. 
 I don't know that I can tell you at all — or ever. If 
 I find that I can, of course I will; or if I find that I 
 must. It seems to me that what my heart is full of 
 must by all means be poured into your lap, to receive 
 the benediction of your hands. I have to talk to 
 you, Sanchia, or die. 
 
 Oh, how are you going to read all this? And 
 how I should love to see you at it — your pondering, 
 sea- blue eyes, your wise, considering, doubtful smile! 
 Shall I ever again see you at anything with my bodily 
 eyes? Perhaps not — and Amen, anyhow. I live 
 upon what I can remember of you, and grow by 
 what I hope to remember. Good-bye, good-bye, 
 Sanchia. The day is drawing in. I must light a fire.
 
 SENHOUSE ON CIVILISATION 169 
 
 It has just struck one. Perhaps I'm quite wrong 
 in all this. Perhaps I ought to join a trades union 
 and agitate for a two hours' day. Or perhaps I 
 ought to be a Liberal member of Parliament and 
 have a country-house. Or would you say, an Im- 
 perialist, working for an all-red map of Africa and 
 a Cape-to-Cairo railway? Perhaps the end of all 
 Englishmen should be the preservation intact of 
 this great Empire, on which the sun never sets — or 
 never rises. Which is it? If so, be so good as to 
 tell me by return of post, and I withdraw all that 
 I have ever written to you. 
 
 Her answer to this was short and timid. He had 
 opened her eyes perhaps too wide. And yet she 
 must have them open soon. If he was not to talk 
 to her of marriage, for instance! Was it not cer- 
 tain that somebody else would? It was practically 
 certain. Therefore he must tell her what he thought 
 of that. She more than hinted at it; she almost 
 said it when she wrote, "I wish I could talk to you — 
 though I don't know how to do it. But you always 
 understand me, even if I say nothing. There are 
 all sorts of difficulties about one as one grows up. 
 I do want to know what you really think about some 
 of them." And then she adds, '* I am to be presented 
 next week. Rather foolish, but mamma insists. 
 And then I am 'out'! It's getting like Spring now. 
 I should like to be 'out' in quite another sense."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 SANCHIA KISSES HANDS — AND IS HANDLED 
 BY THE WORLD 
 
 It is true that Sanchia went to Court, and made 
 her curtsey to the Queen; for after the turn of the 
 year changes had taken place in the Percival house- 
 hold. Hawise, Lady Pinwell, being out of the way, 
 either in Pinwell or in Halkin Street as the case may 
 have required, her sister Melusine became engaged 
 to a Mr. Gerald Scales, who was brother to a baronet, 
 though, most unfortunately, not in any likelihood 
 of ** coming by his own," as Mrs. Percival put it. 
 There were many children born to Sir Timothy 
 Scales, of whom three were sons. But still it was 
 very well. Gerald — ''our dear Gerald — the soul 
 of chivalry," was a prosperous gentleman, and pros- 
 perous without efforts of his own; which is such a 
 hall-mark, which stamps you at once. Melusine 
 was fortunate — but with such a figure, with such 
 grace, who could wonder? "Dearest mamma," 
 the fair girl said, as she leaned her cheek to be kissed 
 or patted, ''how sweet you are to me. Between you 
 and Gerald I shall be spoilt." But Vicky said that 
 between mamma and Melusine and Gerald she 
 felt old-fashioned; so she cast her eyes about her 
 
 and did calculations in her pretty head. Mr. Pon- 
 
 170
 
 SANCHIA KISSES HANDS 171' 
 
 sonby Thome was much too old, of course; before 
 he could look at the menu he had to get out his pince- 
 nez, and then to wipe them, and then to have fearful 
 struggles with the chain. Besides, do you look at 
 the menu at all unless you're really old ? On the other 
 hand, Mr. Phipps — Mr. Frederick Apsley Phipps — 
 was too young. He got glossy about the eyes when 
 he shook hands, and never knew whether you were 
 going to shake hands with him or not, which was 
 such a bore. And even if you put a hyphen in and 
 called yourself Apsley-Phipps (which lots of people 
 did, and there was nothing in it) — even then Phipps 
 sounded like a pigeon with a cold. Phipps, Phipps! 
 You could hear the poor bird wheezing it. Oh, no, 
 he wouldn't do. Besides, Frederick was the name 
 for a fair-haired man, as everybody knew — blue eyes 
 and fair hair — no, not red hair like Mr. Ingram's, 
 Sancie's friend. Now Mr. Frederick Phipps was 
 very dark, and pale. On the whole she inclined to 
 Captain Sinclair, who had two beautiful names — 
 Cuthbert and Sinclair. And that was all. Vicky said 
 that you must either have one Christian name, or 
 three. Two was vulgar. 
 
 All these things being so, it was considered time 
 for Sanchia to take her place in society, and she 
 was duly presented at the end of March. She took 
 it with philosophy, was neither elated nor depressed ; 
 but I beg leave (with all respect to Mr. Senhouse's 
 feelings) to say that she contemplated herself more 
 than once in the dressmaker's cheval-glass, and 
 more than once or twice in her father's fond eyes
 
 172 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 with a good deal of quiet satisfaction. Vicky's 
 outspoken, "Why, my dear, you could go — per- 
 fectly well — without any stays at all," is the sort of 
 thing any girl will thrill to believe. And from Vicky, 
 too, whose figure was beyond reproach! Her hair 
 looked lovely, simply lovely, Vicky told her; and 
 the feathers gave her height, which she may have 
 wanted. Vicky thought she did. "You're fright- 
 fully severe, you know, frightfully chaste and all that 
 sort of thing; but an inch or two makes all the differ- 
 ence in the world." Sanchia laughed at her, but 
 I think she liked it. 
 
 She sent Senhouse her photograph, which showed 
 her stiff in her glories of plumes and satin. He ac- 
 knowledged it with pleasant irony. "My frozen 
 lady," he called her; "my saint in a feretory"; and 
 Nuestra SeTiora del Paso, Our Lady of the Proces- 
 sion. "I wonder very much at this moment," he 
 says, "about the Brauronion in Athens. That was 
 a great day, you know, for Artemis the Bright. 
 There were processions of unwedded girls in crocus- 
 coloured tunics; the tallest of them carried Artemis 
 herself, Artemis of Brauron; all the others — what 
 do you think? Little bears. Why little bears?. 
 Why, in the name of Glory, little bears? I can 
 answer that. Don't you know about Callisto, who 
 is now the Great Bear in the sky? Some day I'll 
 tell you. She had a lot to do with it. But what 
 led me on to this was the consideration whether they 
 decked the Goddess for the procession in feathers 
 and fal-lals and made her look as stiff and startled
 
 SANCHIA KISSES HANDS 173 
 
 at once as you look here. Your eyes, my dear one, 
 are quite round — like the O of Giotto. You look 
 as if you hadn't winked them for an hour. When 
 they fixed in the final feather and turned you to the 
 looking-glass, you said 'Oh!' and at that moment 
 the frost came down and stuck you at Oh! for ever. 
 It's charming, as the showman said, but it's not 
 Emily. . . . All the same, I wish I had been in the 
 Mall among the loafers to see you sedate beside 
 mamma, your plumed head nodding at the window; 
 all the crowd jostling to behold you, nudging each 
 other and saying, 'There's a little beauty.' Shrewd 
 judges those crowds of the Mall, I fancy. They 
 have a great deal of stored experience, you see, being 
 descendants of the fellows who saw your great- 
 grandmother go up to kiss the hand of Queen Char- 
 lotte or Queen Adelaide, as the case may have been." 
 He receives her accounts of subsequent gaieties 
 with relish — not a trace of grudging in any of his 
 letters; he was quite without the sense of property 
 in any person or thing. He asks after her ''swains," 
 as he calls them — her "young Mr. Dartrey," or her 
 "martial Ingram," or a musical acquaintance, a 
 M. Sergius Polschkin. With this gentleman, who 
 swims vigorously for a while in the correspondence, 
 he makes great play. He dubs him variously 
 Apollo, Apolloschkin, Apollo's kin, Apollo's skin, 
 and, by a sequence of ideas, Marsyas. He sends 
 him Russian greetings, affects to believe him a spy 
 of the autocracy come to entice him back to Siberia. 
 "Assure him that he shall have me," he bids her,
 
 174 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 "on condition that he puts me south of Lake Balkash. 
 That's where I want to look for irises. It will be 
 handy, too, between you and me, for Turkestan 
 — and Thibet, whither I shall certainly escape when 
 I've collected my roots. I have long wanted to 
 cross Thibet and see the Himalayas. But don't tell 
 Marsyas this, there's a dear." He's a lover; it's 
 obvious in every word; but he's a very gallant and 
 loyal lover. 
 
 Undoubtedly the time had come when Sanchia 
 swung into ken, and began to have her satellites, 
 revolving and fixed. I wish I could record them all 
 — there's humour to be got out of them — but it's 
 impossible. M. Polschkin, for instance, has been 
 described as swimming vigorously. He did more 
 than that; he splashed, and became rather a bore. 
 This young Russian, his emotions very near the 
 surface, emptied himself without disguise in froth 
 at her feet. Vicky, you remember, called him 
 Fluffy, detecting his frothiness; but it was all very 
 serious to him. He wanted Sanchia badly, and cared 
 not who knew it. In consequence, everybody knew 
 it. Vicky said it was really almost indecent to hear 
 him at the piano sing "/c/j Hebe dichl^^ in dreamy, 
 sighing half-tones, with glimmering eyes which did 
 not disdain the aid of tears. He would afterwards 
 stand fainting by the door and speak to anybody 
 about Sanchia. And as he spoke of her and his 
 desire he wept freely. At times he almost raved; 
 at times he scowled at her with folded arms. Nevile
 
 SANCHIA KISSES HANDS 175 
 
 Ingram once called him a damned fool, and he was 
 pleased, and struck his breast, and said fiercely, 
 **Yes, you are quite right — you, with your English 
 'anmiersledge. I am a dam fool — I am a love- 
 foolish, love-bedrunken man — what you call 'alf- 
 seas." ''That's what we call it," Ingram had re- 
 plied cheerfully, "and I advise you to keep your 
 hair on." Whereat M. Polschkin had gripped his 
 locks with both hands and howled like a wolf at 
 sundown. 
 
 She bore it — her first affair of the kind, remem- 
 ber, however absurd — exemplarily, as if it were a 
 specimen of the common lot of women; she bore 
 it to the extent even of not seeming to be aware. of the 
 ridiculous figure he made of her with his everlasting 
 postures. If you have ever seen one of those boxes 
 of puppets worked by sand, where a maiden in Swiss 
 costume stands with faintly twitching feet confronted 
 by a shepherd in knee-breeches jerking madly, you 
 will have some idea of the state of the case. No 
 cardboard girl of the Grisons twitched more delicately 
 than she; but there is this significant fact to be 
 noted: she dropped M. Polschkin out of her letters 
 to Senhouse, and he found his jokes about Marsyas 
 and Lake Balkash unechoed. She was, in fact, very 
 sick at heart over this silly business, and glad enough 
 to dismiss it from her memory. 
 
 Ingram's suit — if it was a suit — was far more 
 serious. He worked with infinite discretion, ad- 
 mirable patience: to Chevenix it was most serious. 
 "I can understand flirtations — most of 'em," he
 
 176 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 said, ''and I tumble to spoons like a partridge to 
 number fives, but this sort of thing beats the cocks." 
 He alluded to lectures at the Royal Institution — 
 real lectures there, not of the sort he chose for Vicky 
 — and by them who would extend University teaching 
 to South Kensington; he alluded to visits to the 
 British Museum, and to the spectacle of Ingram 
 immaculately dressed, carrying camp-stool and paint- 
 ing materials across the park in the early mornings. 
 And once he found the pair in a hansom on the 
 Embankment, ''moored up against the kerb," he 
 cried aghast, "like a bargee on Chelsea Beach," 
 painting mud and sea-gulls against a blood-red 
 West. His conclusion was that old Nevilehad "got 
 it bad," and that the thing must be stopped. The 
 worst of it was that Ingram was changed, and very 
 short with his friend. Invited by Chevenix to "have 
 it out" at the Coffee-Tree, he gruffly declined. 
 "Look here, William, my son," he had replied, "I 
 know what I'm doing, and ain't such a cad as you 
 think me. You may leave me alone, if you please." 
 
 Chevenix was very grave. "If any harm comes 
 out of this, Nevile," he said, "I'll never forgive 
 myself; but I shall lick you first." 
 
 Ingram levelled his eyes. "You shall," he said. 
 "You have my leave." 
 
 Thereafter followed public demonstrations and 
 private dances, Hurlingham, Private Views, and 
 what not, visible to the naked eye, and evening 
 communion in the schoolroom of Great Cumber- 
 land Place, when the lamp was lighted and the books
 
 SANCHIA KISSES HANDS 177 
 
 were got out, and the crowned young head and the 
 sleek cropped head were bent together over the 
 Vita Nuova, and sometimes hands touched between 
 the pages of the dictionary, and sometimes hand 
 folded over hand and stayed so. These phenom- 
 ena were, as Chevenix ruefully admitted to him- 
 self, "invisible at Greenwich"; and the sometime 
 cheerful youth was stricken with remorse. "I 
 can't keep it up; I can't, I can't," he told himself. 
 "Sancie's a darling — and I can't." He bore it, how- 
 ever, for another few weeks. 
 
 Vicky Percival, who loved and admired her 
 younger sister more, much more, than she would 
 have admitted, watched during these spring months, 
 with the appreciative eyes of Twenty-two, the do- 
 ings of Twenty. Appreciative yet careful eyes, for 
 as she said, "You never know — never. ^^ The rise 
 and dissolution in spume of poor M. Polschkin had 
 her entire approval; she confessed that Sancie's 
 handling of the youth had been masterly. "I 
 couldn't have done it better myself, mamma," she 
 said. "It's one of the most difficult things in the 
 world to let a man make a perfect fool of himself, 
 and pretend you don't care. Because, of course, 
 you do care — awfully." 
 
 "Sanchia," said Mrs. Percival, "has had the 
 education of a gentlewoman. At least, I take leave 
 to hope so. Fraulein is to be trusted." 
 
 "I do wish you wouldn't call Sancie names, 
 mamma," said Vicky. "You know — perfectly well 
 — that we're only called gentlewomen when we're
 
 178 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 decayed. There's an institution for them where 
 they sell comforters. Fraulein's a gentlewoman now 
 — if you like. Decayed — my word! But Sanciel 
 Really, you know, mamma, you're too hard on 
 Sancie sometimes. You don't like her, and " 
 
 Mrs. Percival's eyes were now shut. "Can a 
 woman's tender care — ?" she had begun; but 
 Vicky would have none of that. 
 
 "If it hasnH ceased, then," she said with vehe- 
 mence, "I wish you'd look after Mr. Ingram. I 
 loathe him." 
 
 Mrs. Percival opened her eyes. "Mr. Ingram?" 
 She was surprised. "You dislike Mr. Ingram? 
 He is one of the most earnest-minded young men 
 I know. He is full of tact, most anxious to improve 
 himself. I understand that Wanless is exquisite. 
 The gardens are a show place." 
 
 * ' The gardens, mamma ! ' ' cried Vicky. * ' I thought 
 we were talking about Sancie. You don't want her 
 to be a show place, do you?" 
 
 Mrs. Percival could stand a good deal from a 
 bold enemy, but now she was at bay. "I think 
 you forget yourself, my dear child," she said in a 
 very lofty manner. "If you have anything to tell 
 me, which is not mere abuse of your mother and 
 your mother's friends, I will listen to it. So far 
 you have been flippant — and unamusing. I must 
 ask you to let me get on with my letters. I have 
 a heavy morning before me." 
 
 "Very well, mamma," said Vicky, who must 
 have the last word. "I'll go. I fancy you may
 
 SANCHIA KISSES HANDS 179 
 
 have a heavier morning one of these days, but how- 
 
 ever " 
 
 It was difficult to talk to Sancie about her affairs, 
 because the child was so simple about them, and 
 had such powers of silence. "Like him? Of 
 course I do," she used to say. '' I like him very much. 
 And I don't understand you. What should he mean ? " 
 
 "Well," Vicky cried, "you don't suppose he 
 reads Dante with you because he wants to know 
 what it's all about!" 
 
 Sanchia, grave-eyed, said, "I certainly do suppose 
 it. That's why everybody reads Dante, I expect." 
 And then Vicky appealed to Heaven and Earth. 
 "But nobody reads Dante, my darling child! No- 
 body in the world but you! Absurd!" 
 
 "But Mr. Ingram reads it," Sanchia said with 
 arched brows. Really, Sancie was impossible. She 
 was exactly like mamma — in her way, of course; 
 she saw what she chose to see. 
 
 The Easter holidays came and went, and now we 
 were in May, and the season was upon us. The 
 John Chevenixes gave an evening party in Chester- 
 field Gardens, which was the greatest success. 
 Vicky knew that she was "all right," because Cap- 
 tain Sinclair said so — and looked it; and as for 
 Sancie, she was a tea-rose. Vicky, of course, had 
 her hands full ; what with Apsley Phipps, who was 
 "no good," but refused to see it, and Captain Sin- 
 clair, and a friend of his, a Major Scott, her hands
 
 i8o OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 were very full, but yet she had eyes everywhere, and 
 saw every dance that Sancie danced, and every dance 
 that she didn't, too. She herself only sat out one 
 — so stern was the sense of duty upon her — and that 
 one was with Bill Chevenix, who didn't count. A 
 momentous sitting-out it proved to be. More of it 
 in its place. 
 
 Sanchia was also sitting out — with Ingram. She 
 was sitting in the conservatory under a palm. There 
 had been a Chinese lantern swinging under the 
 branches, but Ingram, on a previous visit, had put 
 it out. ^'I hate those things, don't you?" he had 
 said, and taken no more notice of it. 
 
 She was sitting very quietly, with an elbow on 
 the arm of her chair; she was nursing her cheek. 
 Her free hand was in her lap, and the fan was swing- 
 ing in it, up and down. Ingram sat by her, elbows 
 to knees, and spoke in a hard, constrained voice. 
 
 "Whether I go or stay, I'm a better man for hav- 
 ing known you. I've got a chance. I've thought 
 more, felt more, learned more than I ever thought 
 possible. I don't know what it is about you — a high 
 head, a high heart, clear eyes — I don't understand 
 it at all. Where you get it — how you come to be — 
 right down out of Heaven, it seems to me — but there 
 it is — so much to the good. I take things as I find 
 'cm pretty much; I'm like that, always was. I 
 don't inquire, as a rule. But this is a wonderful 
 thing; I tell you fairly, I don't understand it. You 
 seem to light things up — from inside — somehow. 
 Poetry now! Poetry! We used to do literature at
 
 SANCHIA KISSES HANDS i8i 
 
 school. Used to get turned on to Lycidas, and — 
 let's get it right — Ode on Intimations of Immortality 
 derived from — no, no, I can't do it even now. What 
 a title for a poem, eh ? No, but what I mean is this. 
 You illuminate these things for me — they glow; I 
 can see inside. And they're splendid — they really 
 are splendid. I could go on for hours and hours. 
 I go home after those readings, you know, feeling 
 as if I had wings — sort of wings." He looked at her, 
 sitting there so still, so merged in wonder; he touched 
 her hand. ''You've done this for me," he said, 
 "and I'm much obliged to you. You don't know 
 what you've done, of course. I don't think I can 
 tell you. But I will tell you this. If I leave this 
 place, as I think I shall in about ten minutes, I 
 shall say as I go, 'Now let thy servant depart in 
 peace,' like they do in church. And I shall mean it. 
 And it won't be peace by any means; but I shall go." 
 
 He had her hand in his own, and it was very 
 still. From one heart to another fleeted silent eloquent 
 messengers, to and fro, passing and repassing each 
 other as they bore their news. Presently she said, 
 not moving, nor looking his way, "Why must you go ? " 
 
 He remained sunk in thouGjht. You could see 
 the muscles of his face twitching like telegraphic 
 needles. He was at a cross-road. 
 
 He jerked himself suddenly together; he picked 
 up her hand, stooped, and kissed it. "I'm going," 
 he said, "because I must. You've made a man of 
 me, which is more than my mother succeeded in 
 doing. God bless you, Sancie, and good-bye."
 
 1 82 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 He left her directly, and strode through the rooms, 
 looking neither right nor left. He passed Vicky 
 without seeing her white face, and gained his hat 
 and coat, and the night. 
 
 Vicky presently came breathless into the con- 
 servatory. 
 
 ''Sancie," she said, "I'm going. You must come 
 too." 
 
 Sanchia, without moving, said, "I'm quite ready." 
 Vicky watched her, breathing very fast. 
 
 "Look here, darling," she said, "has Mr. Ingram 
 gone?" 
 
 Her sister's woe-begone eyes gave her the answer. 
 Homes of injury they seemed, homes of reproach. 
 
 But Vicky's case was urgent. She must know 
 more. This was no time for reticence. 
 
 "Did he tell you why he went?" 
 
 "No," said Sanchia. "He said he must go." 
 
 "He told you nothing more?" 
 
 "No, nothing more." And then she grew white 
 and looked frightened. "Oh, Vicky," she said, 
 "let's go home." 
 
 She hardly spoke in the brougham, and Vicky, 
 relieved on the great question, did not press her. 
 The man was gone, anyhow! She acted with all 
 kindness; took Sanchia's hand, and kept it till they 
 were home; went upstairs with her, hovered, sug- 
 gested comforts of sorts, proposed herself as bed- 
 fellow. But Sanchia had recovered command of 
 her soul, and refused all such comforts. She locked
 
 SANCHIA KISSES HANDS 183 
 
 her heart up and pocketed the key; she smiled, and 
 was very cool. The cheek she gave to Vicky was 
 wholesome and fresh. ''Good-night, dear one," 
 she said. "I shall sleep like a top. I'm nearly 
 asleep now." So Vicky finally went, and Sanchia, 
 white in her dismay, unlocked her stricken young 
 heart and fondled it, nursing her wound. 
 
 ^o 
 
 Vicky knocked at the door of her mother's room, 
 and waited until it was opened by that bored lady. 
 ''Let me come in, mamma," she said; "I've got 
 something to tell you." She entered as she spoke. 
 
 "It's very inconvenient — " Mrs. Percival began. 
 
 "It is, mamma — most inconvenient. But it might 
 be worse — at least, I suppose so. I've come to tell 
 you that Mr. Ingram left the Chevenixes without 
 telling Sancie why. That's quite as well. And 
 now I'll tell you that he has a wife somewhere in 
 Sicily, and that there ought to have been a divorce, 
 but there hasn't been." 
 
 "Good Heavens!" said Mrs. Percival; "good 
 Heavens!" 
 
 "Occasionally Heaven is good," said Vicky. 
 "Better than we deserve. But I think that will do 
 for the present. The poor darling knows nothing 
 about it — and will get over it, I suppose. She's 
 been asked to Gorston, I happen to have found out. 
 I advise you to let her go there at once. Good- 
 night, mamma."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 GORSTON — WITH A DIFFERENCE 
 
 Knowing herself wounded, she sped to Gorston, 
 her hand clapped to her heart; but she had written 
 to Senhouse to say that she was going there in such 
 a way, with such omissions, as to reveal to him that 
 she wanted him. "I am going to Gorston," she 
 said, "but I suppose you won't be there this time. 
 I shall be glad to be away from London for a little, 
 to look at flowers, and sketch, and do other whole- 
 some things." That had been all, and more than 
 a lyrical outpouring could have been to one who had 
 a harp of his own. Early as she got there, she 
 learned of him as entrenched, and as she stood after 
 luncheon at the open French window, inhaling 
 peace and balm, behold him — the loose-limbed and 
 keen — with his flapping neckwear and sandalled 
 feet, swinging over the lawn, his welcome in his 
 eyes. She was very much moved when she gave 
 him her hand. ''Oh!" she murmured, "oh! how 
 lovely it is going to be." He had no more to say 
 — couldn't trust himself. 
 
 The Bill Hill household was abroad, playing golf 
 at Biarritz. Senhouse had, therefore, proposed him- 
 self to old Lady Mauleverer, who suffered him gladly. 
 
 184
 
 GORSTON AGAIN 185 
 
 "Certainly, you shall have the run of your teeth — 
 if you will accept of it," she had told him; "and 
 in any case the keepers have been informed that the 
 woods are to be saved. I suppose that will meet 
 your case. Pray let me see you when you arrive 
 in your gig." She received him with a semi-sincere 
 formality which he relished. She was in her usual 
 black silk — cut of 1840 — and white lace. "Well, 
 Master Vagabond, so you've come?" "So please 
 your ladyship — " "And how, my friend, have you 
 come?" asked her ladyship, who had filaments of 
 dead tongues about her still, ''Recte si possisl si 
 non — I suppose." Senhouse nodded, grinning. And 
 then, "Let us understand each other, my dear Sen- 
 house," said she. "Of course you know that she's 
 coming here?" He nodded again. "Yes, I know 
 she is." "Now," said my lady, "she's too young 
 for you, in my opinion, and much too respectable. 
 However, if she beguiles you into settling down into 
 common decency, I daresay her virtues may be 
 sacrificed. But that ought to be quite understood 
 beforehand. And will you tell me what you pro- 
 pose to do with her?" "Bless you," said Senhouse. 
 "I propose to make her as happy as possible. I 
 propose exactly what you propose. What do you 
 take me for ?" But the lady was not so to be evaded. 
 "That's nonsense, my dear man. You donH pro- 
 pose what I propose. You propose to make love 
 to her — that's what you propose." 
 
 "I propose to do nothing of the sort, with great 
 respect," Senhouse replied. "I believe I would
 
 1 86 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 sooner cut my foot off. I propose, on the contrary, 
 to conceal the facts, as I take them to be, that she's 
 an angel of light and myself unworthy to tie her shoe- 
 string. I propose to interest her in vastly more im- 
 portant things than the state of my liver — for they 
 tell me that love affects that organ, and not the heart, 
 as is popularly supposed. I read in her letters that 
 she is suffering from London sickness. She has 
 been danced too much, supped too often; she ha^ 
 heard too much chatter, and wonders if the real 
 world is still pulsing along — out here in the quiet 
 green places. Well, I propose to show her that it 
 does. I've been in your woods sixteen hours, and 
 this morning, before you were awake, I made friends 
 with a bitch-fox. I was introduced to the family 
 — four of them. She shall get to know them, too. 
 That'll be better for her than to talk of men about 
 town." 
 
 "I agree with you," said Lady Mauleverer, who 
 added after a moment, ''Don't make too much fuss 
 with her. You'll turn her head. She'll have to be 
 married some day." "Of course she will," says he, 
 "when she's found a hero." Lady Mauleverer made 
 him stay to dinner. 
 
 For the first day or so it seemed that the last 
 year's glamour was returned. Enchanting weather 
 worked its old spell. The recollected young lady 
 of fashion suffered a wood-change, the staid sheath 
 opened and the Dryad came forth, frcc-bosomed, 
 bare-footed, heedless, and untouched. The Gorston
 
 GORSTON AGAIN 187 
 
 oaks knew her; the Gorston beeches dappled her 
 with hght; she peered by the hly-pool and flushed 
 her remembered delight; she was abroad in the 
 morning dew, and in sober mood listened while he 
 talked to her in the charmed evening light. With 
 him, her excitement shining in her eyes and welling 
 from her parted lips, she made acquaintance with 
 the brown bitch-fox, who, reclining in luxurious 
 ease, demurely kept her staring yellow eyes upon 
 the furry bundles at her dugs, but allowed herself 
 to be caressed, and to have her treasures rifled one 
 by one; and stretched her legs out to the full, and 
 extended her claws to the compliments she received. 
 Sanchia, for that half hour, had but one desire in 
 her heart, to make a friend of this mother of foxes. 
 "Oh, do look at me, you darling; oh, please do! 
 You know I wouldn't hurt you for the world. You 
 know I wouldn't hurt you!" But Senhouse had to 
 explain. "She won't look at either of us. Not 
 she. After that first blank gaze of encounter, I 
 never knew a wild thing that would look at you 
 again. A dog will do it — and that's a sign. A 
 monkey does it — in the zoo — but not to see you, 
 mind. They look round about your eyes. They 
 pore over you as one gazes at the sky. To my mind, 
 that's a certainty that we and they aren't akin. 
 There must have come a gleam between us. But 
 there never has." "And there's none between us 
 and the sky either," said Sanchia softly. He 
 laughed. "No, no. We're not related. What's 
 worse — we can't get at flowers either, where there's
 
 1 88 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 much more reason to expect it. We woo and mate 
 and breed and nourish just in the same way — but 
 there it is. We in our cage, and they in theirs. 
 We may love and look and like, but we can't speak. 
 Our tongues are tied, my dear." "Are they?" 
 echoed Sanchia softly. ''Are they tied? I sup- 
 pose they are." 
 
 At that season of the opening year, when the 
 bird of love, darkling in covert, grieves musically 
 day and night, when in wood-bottoms the blue- 
 bells show like a skyey film shed upon earth, and 
 when every morning's soft wind renews the hope- 
 fulness of every evening's quiet, Senhouse spent 
 himself in the honour of his love. In the forest — 
 she seated with her camp-stool and drawing-block 
 — he would pad the spread beech-mast, where bright 
 green wood-sorrel, starred with its pencilled flowers, 
 is the only verdure in a russet sea, up and down, 
 up and down, hands deep in pockets, eyes rapt, or 
 restless, peering to inquire and to see; and he would 
 talk to her fast and fiercely of everything in Heaven 
 or beneath it. Men, women, beasts; thrones, do- 
 minions, and powers — yes, he spent himself in her 
 honour. For everything reduced itself to her denom- 
 ination; he did not pretend to see anything now 
 but in relation to her. He had no reticences about 
 his prime factor, did not conceal his utter love for 
 her. It would have been a hindrance to his tongue, 
 and absurd also. So the day dawned when he threw 
 all his chances at her feet. "I have no rights, and 
 plead none which are not every man's who has ever
 
 GORSTON AGAIN 189 
 
 met you. The right to love you, you can't deny me 
 — nor would you if you could. Liberty to walk in 
 the light you throw — liberty to aim at the high mark 
 you lift up. They belong to all the world — you 
 can't deny your divinity. The Queen might as 
 well refuse to be called Majesty. That thing's 
 not thinkable. And now let's see what you're mak- 
 ing of the bluebell bottom." He always broke off 
 in that fashion, never held to his note, lest she 
 might be tempted by pity to comfort him. She 
 heard him after this inconsequent fashion more 
 than once; he never gave her a chance of replying. 
 Sometimes she fancied that he didn't want her to 
 reply. 
 
 As of old, he charmed, interested, flattered, and 
 excited her. He opened vistas, he blew sweet air 
 into close recesses, he stimulated her pride and curi- 
 osity at once. But the heart of a child is a fitful 
 organ; and the wind bloweth as it listeth through 
 the strings. Some chord in hers was left unthrilled ; 
 there was no melodious response. That had been 
 blown through her and out of her by another eager 
 breath. She could listen only to that. 
 
 He discerned it, and resigned himself to the 
 honour that remained to him, barren though it was 
 to be — the honour high and open to love her only. 
 He called himself philosopher, but he was a wild 
 extremist in such a matter. Not Dante himself 
 transcendentalised his Beatrice to more ethereal 
 substance than he his Sanchia. Literally, towards 
 her at this hour he felt no drawings of his members:
 
 IQO OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 he craved no touch of her, neither of the hands nor 
 the Hps ; nor any long sight when her eyes were upon 
 his. To his extravagant fancy the fond gazing of 
 lovers seemed an unholy secret. As Moses covered 
 his eyes before the Bush, so he before her burning 
 youth. To him she had no parts, but was all a 
 glory of Essence, of wondrous pure Being. Had 
 she thawed by some sudden kindling and thrown 
 herself sobbing in his arms, I doubt whether, at 
 this hour, he would have dared to clasp her. As for 
 kissing — not for him, not for him, the frail marvel 
 of her lips. And yet he was a man, much of a man, 
 and had lived as a man must (if he is to find himself 
 so). Love's course was curbed; love's course was 
 to be — man's; but at this hour he saw her sexless, 
 "a lovely lady garmented in light." To such as 
 he was, one does not lay hands upon one's father 
 Parmenides, nor upon the Mother and Adoration 
 of the Christians. Artemis might kiss Endymion 
 if she pleased ; but Hippolytus went veiled when she 
 brought him to her Sanctuary to minister. 
 
 She never spoke of Ingram to him, though from 
 her broken hints of London ways and days he guessed 
 at Ingram's likes. She was talking once of the 
 difficulty of keeping simple up there in London. 
 "It's all right," she said, "if everybody's simple 
 too, and sees things as you do. But they're not, you 
 sec, and then you are made sorry. They are dread- 
 fully complicated. You get imposed upon, in a 
 way." He heard her miserably; avenues of horror
 
 GORSTON AGAIN 191 
 
 opened up for moments at a time; he had a vision 
 of her white and abandoned, shocked to the soul. 
 But his courage shut them down, and his loyalty 
 came up radiant. "Have no fear," he told her; 
 ''be yourself. Nothing can harm you then — noth- 
 ing whatsoever. With faith you can remove moun- 
 tains, they say — and that may be true. What is 
 certain is, that by sincerity you can stand through 
 earthquake and eclipse. I can't handle Goodness 
 like Plato, as if it were a sphere. I believe in Good- 
 ness as such, though I don't know its specific grav- 
 ity ; but what I do know about it is that when a wom- 
 an with it in her goes out to war against a man (say) 
 with the other raging in him, she always wins. Always, 
 always. The thing is adamant — absolutely devil- 
 proof. Take my word for it. Queen Mab." She 
 looked him her gratitude and rewarded him sevenfold. 
 But London, her responsibilities, or something, 
 had sobered her; she was not the Fairy Queen she 
 had been. He put it down to "growing pains," 
 shades of the prison house. She excused herself 
 from hearing poetry, for instance, even his poetry, 
 telling him that her mind wanted grinding. He was 
 to find her rougher material, something gritty. 
 Recognising the sanity of the choice, he overhauled 
 his tattered classics, rejected Thoreau and Marcus 
 Aurelius, that mild-mannered Caesar whom he 
 called Zeno in a frock-coat, and chose for Epictctus 
 himself. The extravagant common-sense of the 
 free slave was tonic, and yet harmless, since it was 
 quite impossible of attainment.
 
 192 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 "Seek not to have things happen as you choose 
 them, but rather choose tJtem to Imp pen as they do; 
 and so shall you live prosperously. . . . Lameness is 
 a hindrance of the leg, not of the willy 
 
 Glorious, immortal platitude! 
 
 "Oh, my Sanchia, grieving after I know not 
 what, listen now to this: ^But when shall I see 
 Athens again, a^id the Acropolis?^ Thus the pupil. 
 
 '"Wretched mayi,'' storms the sage, ^doth not that 
 satisfy thee which thou canst see every day? Hast 
 thou aught better to see, or greater, than the sun, moon, 
 stars, this earth, the sea? How should' st thou have 
 aught in common with Socrates, dying as he died, 
 living as he lived? Dost thou suppose him lament- 
 ing, or in a rage, because he should see such a man 
 no more, or such a woman? ^^^ 
 
 All unconscious how that shot might go, and 
 glowing with its magnificent simplicity, he could 
 never have told from his Sanchia's eyes, diligent 
 upon her painting, how short he had come of the 
 mark. Troubled little Sanchia ! Video meliora pro- 
 boque, deteriora sequor, might she say. 
 
 But Epictetus did very well, preventing search- 
 ings of heart. 
 
 Towards the end of the first week of her fort- 
 night the elation with which she had begun it died 
 down; she grew rather restless. Then she received 
 a letter from Ingram which asked for an interview. 
 He wrote, "It is a good deal to ask of you, I know. 
 I hope you will be able to agree, all the same. I
 
 GORSTON AGAIN 193 
 
 have seen your people, who were extremely kind. 
 I can't suppose that you will be less so." What 
 that might mean she did not understand, but she re- 
 plied favourably. She would be very glad to see 
 him, she said, and was returning on such and such 
 a day. Not an earlier day than she had first in- 
 tended ; she did not choose for that. Her plans were 
 respectable things in her eyes, not to be varied ex- 
 cept for extraordinary occasions. An access of 
 friendliness to Senhouse was the immediate result 
 of this correspondence. It was as if she felt herself 
 suddenly free to be natural; as a new convert to 
 Catholicism will permit himself liberties of speech, 
 and handle God more familiarly than before — from 
 the safe shelter of the pinfold. Thus our poor friend's 
 spell of bliss had a serene close. 
 
 As before, his going preceded hers. He was 
 for Mosedale in Cumberland, to look after his 
 gardening, or reap its fruits; and she saw him go. 
 But his reward had been bestowed upon him over- 
 night, when she had been very tender, given him 
 her hand, called him her friend. 
 
 And then he had said, *'If you mean what you 
 say — and I know that you do — I shall claim a 
 friend's wages." 
 
 I'll pay you — if I can," she told him. 
 T do think you should," he said. "Supposing 
 that I'm any use to you — supposing that I know a 
 thing or two about life, about you, which you don't 
 know — why, give me a chance to tell you what I 
 know. When you find yourself in a fix, send for me. 

 
 194 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 When you think I can be of use, do me the honour 
 of using me. Send for me at any hour of day or 
 night, and I come direct. I can always be found. 
 Charnock knows where I am — and so do you, I 
 fancy. I generally tell you when I write — and now 
 I always shall. You can't miss me possibly — and 
 you can make me singularly happy by doing that. 
 Even if I'm no real service to you, I think I'll ask 
 you for that promise. Put it that it'll be a real ser- 
 vice to me, and you'll be nearer the truth." She 
 was pleased, there's no doubt; yet slow to promise. 
 
 ''You know that I always tell you my troubles. 
 
 "No, I don't, my dear. I wish I did. I'm 
 pretty sure, indeed, that you don't." 
 
 Now, that couldn't be denied. He went on, 
 •''I haven't asked you to do that — and I shan't. 
 It would be insufferable to ask it, ridiculous to ex- 
 pect it. It's only when you think that I can be of 
 use. I leave you to judge. Willingly." 
 
 She said, ''Of course I should ask you then. Do 
 you want me to promise?" 
 
 He looked up at her. "I do, my dear." 
 
 She stooped and touched his forehead with her 
 lips. "Then I do promise," she told him, and he 
 was content — or believed that he was. 
 
 Their actual parting lacked the romance of last 
 year's. He deprived himself of that deliberately 
 — for her sake and his own. Besides, he wished 
 to keep undimmed the memory of her kiss. He 
 said his farewells at the front door, like a visitor,
 
 GORSTON AGAIN 195 
 
 and Lady Mauleverer, her arm within the girl's, 
 waved him the braver farewell. Sanchia did not 
 lift her hand, but looked her speeding. 
 
 Soon afterwards she went home to Great Cumber- 
 land Place.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 MRS. PERCIVAL IS STAUNCH TO THE IDEA 
 
 When Mr. William Chevenix came up to explain 
 himself in Great Cumberland Place, he found that 
 there was a good deal to explain. He was a simple 
 youth, for all that he was not so simple as he seemed; 
 but he quite appreciated the difficulty there may be 
 in accounting for a thing of the kind. Put it this 
 way: If it had never entered his head to refer to 
 Mr. Ingram's marriage, why did he open darkly of 
 it to Vicky in a retired corner? If it had always 
 been at the back of his mind from the beginning, 
 why had he kept it there so long ? The dilemma was 
 implied in every muscle of Mrs. Percival's stiff neck 
 and in every pucker of Mr. Percival's troubled face, 
 and was cause of great torment to Mr. Chevenix's 
 soul. 
 
 But as he writhed before his judges, the mere 
 instinct to find ease urged his wits, and he did suc- 
 ceed in rounding upon them. This was how he put 
 it. **Of course I've know Nevile for years — for 
 years and years. We were at the same dame- 
 school, you know, and went up to Eton the same 
 term. And of course I knew he was married, when 
 
 I'd been best man and all that, and had dined with 
 
 196
 
 MRS. PERCIVAL IS STAUNCH 197 
 
 him the night before, and drunk his health — which 
 was always first-class — and happiness, which I jolly 
 well knew he wouldn't get. Couldn't, you know, 
 with herl I admit all that; but what beats me now 
 is this. What's Nevile done in particular that 
 makes you so down on him? I give you my word, 
 that when I told Miss Vicky about it I'd forgotten 
 that she hadn't danced at the wedding. I vow that 
 I had. What I said was this. She had some flow- 
 ers on, d'ye see? Stephanotis. I said, snuffing the 
 air, ' You remind me of Claire ; she always wore that 
 stuff.' Miss Vicky pricks up her ears — oh, she's 
 sharp! I see that now. 'Who's Claire?' she says, 
 like a captain's bell; and I stare. 'Why, Mrs. 
 Nevile,' I say; ^you know.' Then I see how she 
 looks at me. 'Yes,' she says, 'I do know — at last.' 
 I assure you that's how it went. Now, you know, 
 I might have said that the very first time I spoke 
 about Nevile, and you wouldn't have thought any- 
 thing of it. And why do you now? What's he 
 done? Nothing that I know of. If he has, of 
 course I take the blame. But has he? That's the 
 point, you see, Mrs. Percival." 
 
 It was not the point, but he made it so in his need. 
 Nobody present could charge Ingram with any- 
 thing except a fondness for study in Sanchia's com- 
 pany — a fondness for study which she shared. No- 
 body in the household could charge him either, for 
 Vicky's surmises were based upon her unconcealed 
 dislike of the man. There was only one person, in 
 fact, who could have anything to say, and she, it
 
 198 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 was plain to Chevenix, and his enormous consola- 
 tion, could neither be asked to say it nor got to say 
 it. *' Sancie will stick to her friends, don't you fear," 
 the astute sufferer told himself. 
 
 The Percival pair saw the point quite well. Mr. 
 Percival, who had never made any charges against 
 his beloved, now grew very red in the face; Mrs. 
 Percival, who, perhaps, had made too many, moist- 
 ened her lips. 
 
 It was she who spoke first. '^I make no charges, 
 Mr. Chevenix; pray do not misunderstand me. 
 We have always been glad to receive your friend. 
 He has been welcome; I hope he is aware of that. But 
 it's as well to loiow where we stand. I gather that 
 Mrs. Ingram does not reside — is not at present in ^" 
 
 ''No, she doesn't," replied Mr. Chevenix. ''No,, 
 she isn't, and isn't likely to be. She lives in Sicily, 
 I believe — or she did." After a pause he thought it well 
 to say, with a final air, "She's no good, you know." 
 
 ''What do you mean by that, Chevenix?" asked 
 Mr. Percival, and added to his wife, "Must get to 
 the bottom of it, my dear." 
 
 Then Mr. Chevenix explained that his friend 
 Nevile's wife was separated from her husband, and 
 had left him within a year of marriage. As he 
 put it, Ingram was an injured man. "There were 
 faults on both sides, no doubt. Nevile's temper 
 is queer — oh, queer 1 And there were racketings, 
 I daresay — a man can't talk of these things very 
 well. But this I will say" — and his voice gained 
 clearness with confidence as it touched the moral
 
 MRS. PERCIVAL IS STAUNCH 199 
 
 heights — "that there was no doubt at all about 
 Mrs. Nevile — oh, none! She was a bad one. Not 
 only talked about, understand — Lord, no! It was 
 known, positively known. There was Charley — Oh, 
 one can't go into it!" No one wanted to go into 
 it less than troubled Mr. Percival, who said, "Let it 
 alone, Chevenix." 
 
 Chevenix was grateful. "Thanks!" he said, and 
 turned to his friend's virtues. "Mind you, Mrs. 
 Percival, it's to Nevile's credit, very greatly to his 
 credit, that he's made no fuss. He's been content 
 to abide by his bargain. He's said, 'I was a wrong- 
 headed young fool; but I won't make it worse by 
 dragging a woman through the mud.' And he 
 hasn't. He's allowanced her and let her rip — let 
 her alone, you know. Now," he added, looking 
 from one to the other for a sympathetic verdict, 
 "now, what's the worst thing Nevile's done since? 
 All he's done has been to get what he can out of what's 
 left. And you'll allow me to say, Mrs. Percival, 
 that if he's got the benefit of your society, you know, 
 he's done about the best thing there was to do." 
 
 He was a good advocate under the rack. Mrs. 
 Percival was certainly moved. Mr. Percival was not. 
 
 "That's all very well, Chevenix," he said heavily. 
 "I'm not one to be down on a man who's made a 
 fool of himself. But he mustn't make a fool of my 
 daughter. Because I call that making a knave of 
 himself — if you ask me." 
 
 Mrs. Percival was now shocked. Strung to en- 
 thusiasm by the candour of a Chevenix, she could
 
 200 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 not relish this city touch. It was under the goad 
 of her husband — so painfully, to her mind, the plain 
 British merchant — that she soared out of his reach 
 into an upper air. 
 
 She raised her head, she smiled; the light of 
 faith gleamed in her eyes. "I can trust my girls," 
 she said, thrilling — "i can trust my girls!" 
 
 Now how was poor Mr. Percival to contend that 
 she could not, without seeming to smirch the white 
 robe of his darling? He was left speechless by his 
 wife, just as she had been by Mr. Chevenix. 
 
 Mrs. Percival, it has been hinted, had, to an al- 
 most superhuman degree, the power of believing 
 what she wanted to believe. Her desires, aspira- 
 tions, whatever they were, seemed to come to her 
 with a divine sanction upon them, which made doubt 
 or denial impious. So, at least, she must have 
 entertained them. They lifted her to that serener 
 air where nothing was incredible, where, as she 
 would remind you. Faith is melted into Sight. Here 
 was a case exactly in point. She liked Mr. Ingram; 
 she respected his birth and begetting. He was 
 Ingram of Wanless; she respected his wealth and 
 standing; she admired all that he represented. 
 He was good style, good form, knew the right people, 
 and took as a matter of course things which to her 
 were matters of striving and contrivance. And she 
 loved her daughters, and loved them to love the 
 things which she thought loveworthy. If county 
 birth and long descent, if high education and the 
 service of one's country in arms, were not loveworthy,
 
 MRS. PERCIVAL IS STAUNCH 201 
 
 let her daughters hide beneath her wings until the 
 hawk-like shadow were passed over. But were 
 they not? Was not the young man a patrician by 
 every mark? Was not his very mating a sign of 
 that? His wife — deplorable, if you please — had 
 been a Pierpoint; she had been Claire Pierpoint. 
 Did not everybody know the Pierpoints? En- 
 tertainers of Royalty, familiars of the reigning house! 
 If these were not marks of distinction, let her daugh- 
 ters cower; but if they were — as were they not? — 
 let them show of what stuff they were made. Ever 
 pressing forward to the mark of our high calling! 
 When had she held back from that? And were 
 they not flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone ? Could 
 she dare think otherwise? or could she do other- 
 wise than lift her head at the mere hint? There- 
 fore she said, "I can trust my girls!" and smiled 
 mystically towards the cornice. 
 
 Enthusiasm is catching; Mr. William Chevenix 
 caught it. "That's stunning of you, Mrs. Percival. 
 I say, but that's fine, you know." He got up and 
 stood before her; she extended her hand to him, 
 both her hands. It was an emotional moment. 
 She gulped; her voice was broken. She said, ''My 
 darling is to be trusted. And who can say what 
 power there may not be in the pure mind of a Chris- 
 tian child?" To which Mr. Chevenix had no 
 more apt reply handy than, "By Jove, no!" 
 
 The consequence of this moving scene was that 
 Nevile Ingram, by invitation, paid Mrs. Percival
 
 202 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 a morning call, and was received in the morning- 
 room. He was in a sober mood, and spoke like a 
 gentleman. 
 
 "I don't attempt to excuse myself," he said; 
 "but it was a long time ago. If I have succeeded 
 in forgetting something of it, it's lucky for me. I 
 married her when I was one-and-twenty, and she 
 left me on my twenty-second birthday — on that very 
 day. One can't forget such things, of course, but 
 one does one's best. I was badly hit, you may 
 understand. I travelled a lot; went round the 
 world, twice to India, once to Central Africa; crossed 
 the Rockies, and all that kind of thing. I never 
 really settled down at Wanless till this time last 
 year — but now I mean to sit tight up there. One 
 has duties of sorts, you know. If I forgot what I 
 had hanging round my neck, you ought not to blame 
 me — it's been your fault, largely, and I'm grateful. 
 Your girls have opened my eyes — they've taught 
 me things which I never expected to know even the 
 outside of. Better things than hunting and globe- 
 trotting — sounder things than them. There's your 
 daughter Philippa, now — Mrs. Tompsett-King. She's 
 been a good angel to me — I hold to that — wonderful ! " 
 Mrs. Pcrcival, through a mist of tears, smiled gently 
 upon him, nodding her head. This was exactly 
 what she wanted. He continued the vein. 
 
 "I'm pretty lonely, you know. I was an only 
 child — and there ain't many Ingrams left, so far as 
 I know. I wanted sisters — and I've got 'em — 
 thanks to this house. That's all the harm I've done
 
 MRS. PERCIVAL IS STAUNCH 203 
 
 SO far, ma'am — upon my word of honour. Sisters! 
 That's it." 
 
 Sisters 1 Capacious word ! Mrs. Percival was 
 deeply moved. She wept — and she kissed Nevile 
 Ingram. There remained for him — at his own ex- 
 press desire — a short interview with Mr. Percival. 
 
 Here he took the line of least resistance, as indi- 
 cated by the merchant. 
 
 "Look here, Ingram," Mr. Percival had said, in- 
 specting the ash of his cigar. "My wife runs the 
 house, as I daresay you've noticed. And very well 
 she does it. It's not my department at all, and I 
 don't interfere. You've made her see your position, 
 I understand?" 
 
 "Quite, I hope," said Ingram. 
 
 Mr. Percival smoked on thoughtfully. "All right, 
 my boy," he said presently. "I've every confi- 
 dence in her judgment. That's of course." And 
 then he rose and stood before the fireplace. "But 
 listen to me for one moment. Sancie is away just 
 now, as perhaps you know." 
 
 Ingram nodded. He knew it perfectly well. 
 
 "She returns within a day or two — God bless 
 her! — and she's got to know about this. Mind 
 you that! She's got to be told it — somehow. And it 
 must be done in a way that don't frighten the child. 
 If she thinks there are ideas in our heads, she'll 
 get 'em in hers. And that will work the mischief." 
 
 Simple Mr. Percival had by this last speech of 
 his put himself completely into Ingram's hands. 
 
 "Excuse me," he said, "but I don't quite follow
 
 204 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 you. What idea you may have in your head I'm 
 not able to determine; but I can assure you that I. 
 have none in mine. Nor do I quite see what ideas 
 you assume to be there. 
 
 Mr. Percival turned to flick his ash into the 
 grate. ''Oh, quite so, quite so," he said with some 
 haste. ''Naturally — none. I thought I'd just caution 
 you." 
 
 "And you were perfectly right," said Ingram, 
 "if you had any caution to give me. I only wish 
 to explain that I am entirely unaware what sort of 
 ideas you are afraid of." After that Mr. Percival 
 found himself making much of Nevile Ingram — 
 smoothing him down, and all that sort of thing. 
 
 Mrs. Percival's staunchness to the Idea may be 
 commended. In its way it is rather fine. She was, 
 perhaps, a poet in this, that, to her, ideas stood for 
 things. But she got at them, or rather enclosed 
 them in a circle, the beginning and end of which was 
 exaltation. The notion that her daughters were to 
 be trusted was an uplifting one. Being exalted, she 
 said that she could trust them, and she did. Trust- 
 ing Ihem, she found herself exalted. Now to In- 
 gram, desires stood for reasons, just as to the lady 
 they stood for the fact. He wanted Sanchia more 
 than he had ever wanted anything — or believed that 
 he did: therefore he must have Sanchia. He 
 wanted her because her society and nearness made 
 him feel an honest man. Now it was reasonable 
 that a man should want to feel honest; therefore to
 
 MRS. PERCIVAL IS STAUNCH 205 
 
 want Sanchia was reasonable. That was how he 
 worked it out. It never occurred to him to con- 
 sider whether it was reasonable from Sanchia's side 
 that she should be wanted by a married man, or be 
 brought into a state where she should want one. 
 Such things never do occur to the Nevile Ingrams 
 of this world ; but I think he would have raised his 
 eyebrows if you had put it to him; and probably he 
 might have said, ''I suppose she don't want a fel- 
 low to go to the devil." This reminds one of the 
 protest of the spendthrift duke who was advised to 
 make a beginning of retrenchment by putting down 
 his pastry-cook. He also raised his eyebrows, and 
 said it was rather hard if a man couldn't have a bis- 
 cuit with his glass of sherr}-.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 INGRAM URGES A '' MODUS VIVENDI " 
 
 Sanchia came back to town, with her letter in 
 her bosom — her letter of appointment and promise. 
 So much tenderness she felt to be due to its occa- 
 sion, if not to its writer. That little scene at the 
 dance in Chesterfield Gardens had been like a sud- 
 den finger laid upon her heart. It had revealed to 
 her a sensitive point, it had produced an ache. Be- 
 fore that, she now realised, there must have been 
 inflammation. And with her cherishing hand upon 
 the wounded part she had explored the symptoms 
 and the area of that sweet disease — ever since it had 
 been shown to be a disease. 
 
 The household had shown her that. Vicky's 
 alternating fits of mysterious reticence and elabo- 
 rate protection; her "my poor darling," and her 
 non ragioniam'' di lor; all these hard upon Ingram's 
 flight — oh, yes, she was a stricken deer. 
 
 Stricken, she had fled to the Gorston thickets, and 
 in her friend's society had revelled in the sympathy 
 he would certainly have given her if she had chosen 
 to seek it of him. She had not chosen; but she 
 liked to know that it was there. Oddly enough, 
 
 she had never loved Senhouse so much as now, 
 
 206
 
 A "MODUS VIVENDI" 207 
 
 when she loved somebody else. He was a haven 
 indeed; she felt that it would be almost worth while 
 to suffer some grievous anguish for the comfort she 
 would get out of this splendid friend, who knew every- 
 thing without being told, and who (she knew) asked 
 nothing better than to help her. When he had 
 asked her for a promise — to send for him at need — 
 there had been no occasion whatever to hesitate. 
 She had hesitated because it was joy to her to play 
 with the doubt — which was no doubt — should she 
 or should she not? And then she had kissed him 
 very simply, because she knew that it would make 
 him happy, and to reward him for having been teased. 
 Yes, he was a possession ; she felt the riches of him, 
 safely funded in her heart. 
 
 But Ingram, Nevile Ingram — ah, that was a 
 different thing! Analysing herself as she travelled 
 homeward, alone in a railway carriage full of 
 people, she found that Nevile Ingram, like a rising 
 tide, had slowly lipped his way up and upwards in 
 her heart; and then, when her heart was brimming 
 with him, with a level onrush he had flowed into 
 all the creeks and channels of her being, until now 
 she seemed filled with him — filled to her finger- 
 and toe-tips. She needed not to picture him — 
 level-eyed, bronzed, alert, and sharp-chinned; the 
 mere feel of him permeating her was almost in- 
 tolerable pride. Without visualising, she could 
 know what his eyes demanded of her; without re- 
 calling it, she could tell what his nearness meant, 
 and why she had thrilled at the brush of his hand
 
 2o8 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 in the pages of the dictionary, or the strength of 
 his arm when, leaning over the book, her bosom 
 touched it. She brooded tenderly over his plain, 
 unvoiced desire. He loved her, he needed her; she 
 had found favour; she knew it because he had not 
 looked at her that night, but had spoken hardly, 
 and had left her sitting there alone. Analysing, 
 she felt the difference between Senhouse and In- 
 gram. One was a beacon into port; the other 
 dazzled her and made her faint. 
 
 She put it this way, loving to be exact. Suppose 
 she went with mamma to an evening party. They 
 go upstairs, shake hands, pass into the room. There 
 will be a sprinkling of people — women on settees, 
 men stooping over them, talking; perhaps a tall 
 woman by the window, and two men talking to her. 
 The eye sweeps all this up, and presently lights upon 
 Senhouse, standing near the fireplace, hands in 
 pockets, eyes piercing the opposite wall, vehemently 
 declaiming some wild doctrine or another which 
 might make you laugh if it didn't make you want to 
 cry. Well, her heart would rise at the sight; she 
 would say to herself, ''Hurrah! Jack's here." 
 And she would watch him with delight, quietly en- 
 joying him, and wait her turn, well knowing he would 
 come directly to her the moment he saw her. And 
 if anybody else were introduced to her, or obtruded 
 himself, it would be a bore because it might keep 
 Jack Senhouse away. But if Ingram, Nevile In- 
 gram, were there, she would know it before she got 
 upstairs. She would never look for him about the
 
 A "MODUS VIVENDI" 
 
 209 
 
 room; she wouldn't be able to see properly any one 
 in it. She would stand still and stupid, and feel 
 her heart beating, and be quite vague in her answers, 
 and in a stare. And then she would feel him com- 
 ing, and wait — and it would hurt, yes, hurt her, 
 that suspense, and yet be delicious. That was the 
 difference, exactly, between them. 
 
 And now there was to be a meeting for explana- 
 tion; and she neither knew nor cared what the ex- 
 planation was to be. Her only feeling was one of 
 high excitement. Her heart jumped whenever she 
 phrased it. A meeting for explanation. In twent}^- 
 four hours, in sixteen, in twelve — who knew? he 
 would come deliberately to explain himself. Nor 
 when she was at home again, and mamma, with 
 unusual demonstrativeness, had met her in the hall, 
 enfolded her, and proclaimed her strangely her dar- 
 ling; nor when her father had been — with equal 
 strangeness — constrained and fidgety in her society; 
 nor even when Vicky, having taken her upstairs, 
 shut the door, locked it, sat on the bed, folded her 
 arms and said with a snapping close, "Well, he's 
 married" — not even then had she felt the least bit 
 dismayed. He was coming to explain — in twenty- 
 four hours, in sixteen, twelve, at any minute. She 
 phrased it and her heart jumped like a trout. 
 
 But Vicky was astonished. "Who's married?" 
 Sancie had asked. 
 
 "Who, my dear! Why, your Nevile Ingram, of 
 course."
 
 2IO OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 It is perfectly true that this news surprised with- 
 out shocking her. Her affair lay in the realm of 
 pure idyll. She saw no connection between love and 
 marriage. 
 
 "Is he?" she asked. "He never told me. When 
 was it?" 
 
 Vicky was slightly damped. "Oh, ages ago, of 
 course. Years ago." 
 
 Sanchia moved about the room, finding her 
 things. "I expect he forgot to tell me. Do you 
 like her? What's she like?" Vicky drooped. 
 
 "I haven't the least idea. Of course she's not 
 about. She lives in Sicily and is a bad lot." 
 
 You could never get a rise out of Sancie; one 
 might have known that before. She said now, 
 half turning from the glass so that you saw one open 
 eye and arched eyebrow within the crook of her arm, 
 "Is she? How sickening for Mr. Ingram." It 
 was no use saying any more — but she said a little. 
 
 "Mamma says we ought to be kind to him be- 
 cause he's unhappy. She talks about being sisters. 
 I hope you like the prospect." 
 
 "I do rather," Sancie said, hair-pins in her mouth. 
 Then Vicky owned herself beaten, and was silent. 
 
 The explanation had to be waited for. Ingram 
 did not come to Great Cumberland Place for two 
 or three days, and when he did come it was at tea- 
 time when there were quite a number of people there. 
 He only stayed half an hour, and talked chiefly to 
 Mrs. Percival about the Fitz-Urses, whom he knew.
 
 A "MODUS VIVENDI" 211 
 
 it appeared, well. They were very recent acquaint- 
 ances of Mrs. Percival's; she found them charming. 
 Lady Fitz-Urse was, she thought, a strikingly ele- 
 gant woman. Ingram allowed her a good dress- 
 maker. 
 
 He was, however, quite at his ease, and drew 
 Sanchia into the conversation in the most natural 
 way in the world. He chaffed her about Dante or 
 some one of the sort, and included himself in the 
 mockery. ''Since you've been away, you know, 
 I've not opened him once. Oh yes, beg pardon! 
 I have. I got him down to look up something or 
 other — I forget what — and found this document." 
 He produced a slip of paper, opened and read it. 
 '''Don't forget: second person singular ends in i 
 — always; second person plural in e — always. 
 S.J. P.' Do you remember that?" he asked her. 
 She glowed and smiled. Of course she remem- 
 bered it. 
 
 "You see the force of fellowship and strife," he 
 went on drily — entirely for Mrs. Percival's educa- 
 tion — "Unless you're there to be scored off I don't 
 read poetry. Therefore my immortal part suffers 
 anyhow. If you're reading with me the Enemy in- 
 spires me to emulation; if you're not there I get no 
 poetry. So I'm doomed to go wrong anyhow. 
 That's hard lines, isn't it?" 
 
 "Very sad," said Mrs. Pcrcival, conscious that 
 all this was pleasant. "But I think Poetry will, in 
 time, influence you for good." 
 
 "One hopes so, of course, and one perseveres,"
 
 212 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 said Ingram; ''but Pegasus is a wayward mount. 
 Now, Turniptop, my new pony, is a daisy. Knows 
 the game better than I do. How would it be, by 
 the way, if you came and were introduced to him to- 
 morrow?" 
 
 Mrs. Percival said she should be charmed. He 
 turned to Sanchia. "D'you care to come too? 
 I'm bossing the Go-Betweens to-morrow. We play 
 the Gunners. It's rather a great occasion in its little 
 way." He always deprecated his deeds when they 
 were beyond cavil good. He was famous at polo. 
 
 Mrs. Percival promised for Sanchia, and took 
 her. It was a fine afternoon. 
 
 There was no doubt at all about Ingram on 
 horseback; he rode like a centaur. Inspired by 
 the daemon of the strife, there was a fierce decisive- 
 ness about the young man which made him seem 
 really great. He saw everything, shouted his com- 
 mands, and was obeyed by his wheeling field; be- 
 fore his stooping on-rush Gunners swerved and 
 missed. Twice he ran clean through the field, ir- 
 resistible, like an Angel of battle, like a Walkyr. 
 Sanchia sat at gaze with swelling heart. Glory of 
 battle! Glory of conquest! At this moment the 
 eloquence of Senhouse, though clearly breathed 
 through him by God, had availed him little. 
 
 Flushed, triumphant, masterful yet easy, he had 
 stood before her a moment in his long overcoat, 
 the sweat and dust of conflict still shining on his 
 face. " Good game, eh ? Good as Dante in its way. 
 Glad you liked it. Eh? Oh, no, I'm no better
 
 A "MODUS VIVENDI" 213 
 
 than the rest. Had more luck — and a wonderful 
 mount." That was all he had for her at the mo- 
 ment. But he returned anon, new-groomed, curled, 
 and anointed, bringing a friend with him, a Colonel 
 Wybrow, whom he presented to Mrs. Percival; 
 then said lightly to Sanchia, ''Come and be intro- 
 duced to Turniptop." She understood that her 
 time was at hand. 
 
 He led her to the trees without a word, threw a 
 coat on the grass, and said, "Let's sit and have 
 it out." She sat, obedient, and he, very deliberately 
 by her, pulled his trousers free at his knees, tilted 
 his hat back, clasped his hands across his shins, 
 looked at her narrowly, and began. 
 
 "Do you know why I bolted that night at the 
 Chevenixes'?" 
 
 She told him simply that she did not. 
 
 "Then I'll tell you in so many words," he said. 
 "I left you because I was getting too fond of you, 
 and I knew it wouldn't do." 
 
 There was nothing to say. He continued quer- 
 ulously. 
 
 "When I came of age, the very first thing I did 
 should have been the last thing. I fell in love with 
 a pretty girl, and married her in a month. Claire 
 Pierpoint she was — and I can't say anything about 
 her except this: she left me, of her own accord, on 
 my twenty-second birthday, and I've never seen her 
 since. The less said the better: I'll leave it at 
 that. . . , Now, of course, there were things I could 
 have done. I could have got a divorce all right:
 
 214 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 no trouble about that. But I didn't — and I shan't. 
 I owe her nothing that I can see, nothing at all — 
 and yet, you know, I owe myself something. Be- 
 cause I made a dire fool of myself nine years ago, 
 or whatever it was, I couldn't mend matters by 
 making an exhibition of myself before all London 
 — and I certainly can't do it now. It's too late, to 
 begin with, and — Anyhow, the less said about 
 such things the better — I'm sure you agree. Very 
 well. . . ." 
 
 She listened stilly so far, her eyes ranging the 
 dotted field; but now, at his ''very well," she turned 
 her looks to his face, and waited for what was to 
 come. There was no disguise about her; she was 
 very serious. Nor did she turn her eyes from him 
 while he told her the truth. 
 
 **I thought — when I'd got over the first shock of 
 the thing — that I could get along all right by my- 
 self. Mind you, I'd been mad about her — you can 
 see that. One doesn't romp into marriage in a 
 month unless one is pretty far gone. But that year 
 had been enough for me, I can assure you. Ghastly! 
 Oh, ghastly! I told myself that I had learned my 
 lesson, and could get more solid comfort out of the 
 world before me than out of any wedded joys, as I had 
 found them. So I went gaily off on my travels — and 
 had eight years of it . Then I came back, and saw you . ' ' 
 
 Even then she didn't waver. She still absorbed 
 him — his tanned face, his blue eyes, narrowed down 
 intensely, his moustache, curled back to show his 
 lip, his sharply-angled chin.
 
 A "MODUS VIVENDI" 215 
 
 "You opened my eyes to a world that all my 
 travels hadn't shown me. You gave me glimpses 
 of a life I'd never heard of before. Hopes! I be- 
 gan to have hopes — even of myself. Sordid, spotted, 
 powder-grimed, blood-spattered rascal that I was, 
 I had gleams of myself — clean, sweetened, charita- 
 ble-minded — oh, I can't explain it all. It was like 
 straying into a Cathedral in the dusk, and seeing 
 the candles ahead of you, and hearing a boy sing, 
 'Oh, for the wings of a dove.' . . . What do these 
 things mean to a chap like me? You can't tell — 
 and I can't tell you. You've got to live as I've 
 lived before you can guess; and you'll never do 
 that, Sancie, if you live to be a thousand. . . . 
 Now, do you wonder if I came to Great Cumber- 
 land Place — and came again — and again — and as 
 often as you'd have me? I can see that you don't 
 wonder — nor would anybody — not even that ass, 
 Bill Chevenix, who seems to think that because a 
 man is married he can't have the society of good 
 women. At that rate a good many of us will have 
 to go to the devil, it seems to me." 
 
 He took his eyes from hers, and stuck his face 
 between his hands. There was a pulsing, vibrating 
 silence, until Sanchia's hand touched one of his, 
 and he looked at her again and saw what he saw. 
 
 He groaned and turned away. ''Oh, Sancie, 
 Sancie, don't — for God's sake!" 
 
 Presently he resumed, having conquered him- 
 self. "I left you that night because I had begun 
 to feel that I couldn't do without you. I don't
 
 2i6 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 know how I got through the first day or two — I 
 don't, upon my soul; but I've done it, thank the 
 Lord, and now I'm all right again. That being 
 so, I've got a proposition to make to you. I sup- 
 pose you know that I respect you above all people 
 dead or alive — that I wouldn't hurt a hair of your 
 head. That you must know. So I'm going to ask 
 you not to send me to the devil. Don't do that." 
 
 He looked up at her and saw her face fixed, her 
 eyes dewy, a smile on her lips of pity for his foolish- 
 ness. That he should need to ask her to be gener- 
 ous! At that moment there was nothing she could 
 have refused him. He nodded and smiled his 
 understanding, touched, but did not take, to keep, 
 the hand she held out to him. He laid his upon it 
 for a moment, then resumed his clasp of his shins. 
 "I've had it out with your people. I said to 'em, 
 'Let me come and go like any other chap about the 
 house. Make a friend of me if I'm worth it — let me 
 make friends of you, anyhow,' They were awfully 
 good about it. I like your old governor: a good 
 sort. There's to be no humbug, you know. Just 
 companionship, a dinner now and again, or this sort 
 of beanfeast, or a cup of tea, or a theatre or so. That 
 will keep my head above water — just. And now 
 I'm going to ask the same thing of you. Don't cast 
 me off either. Don't think, because you know 
 what's the matter with me, that I'm going to be a 
 blackguard. Don't think, because I'm married, 
 that poetry's no good to the likes of me. I tell you, 
 it's all the world. I tell you I shall grow to be a
 
 A "MODUS VIVENDI" 217 
 
 man — and have a mind one of these days — a mind! 
 I don't say I shall ever be like your friend the Gentle- 
 man-Gipsy — no, no. I'm no artist, and I still go 
 on shooting birds and hunting foxes. You see, I 
 was brought up to it. But I'm growing, I feel I'm 
 growing; and if you'll make a bargain, Sancie, 
 there's my hand on it." 
 
 He was ready for it now. She gave him her 
 hand for this serious moment. She was inspired, 
 her heart like to burst. Very creditably, he broke 
 off into nonsense. 
 
 ''That's all right! By Gad, what a lot I've 
 talked. Who'd have thought the young man had 
 so much blood in him? Shakespeare! I say, may 
 I smoke a cigar? It'll cool me down, you know. 
 Have you had tea? You haven't! What a brute 
 I've been. Oh, don't tell me you don't want any 
 tea. A woman would want tea on the Day of Judg- 
 ment. I know as much of your sex as that, though 
 I'm by no means a learned Johnny. Come on — 
 let's go and forage for tea." She fell into his humour; 
 and, thinking of it afterwards, she believed that she 
 loved him more for this wild chatter than for all his 
 seriousness. She could see the effort behind it, and 
 respect it. 
 
 Thus did Mr. Ingram for himself, greatly. He 
 had counted, not in vain, upon the loyalty of women, 
 and had reckoned that not Mrs. Percival alone would 
 be loyal to the Idea. It shall be recorded to his 
 credit that he, too, was mainly loyal to it. He was
 
 2i8 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 studiously off-hand, cool and guarded. If he made 
 himself out to be blacker than he was, one can hardly 
 blame him. That was so plainly his line of country. 
 Sanchia was so plainly to be his guardian angel. 
 
 She took her duties seriously, dedicated herself 
 to them in her prayers. Divine pity took the place 
 of divine wonder. If she loved him now she didn't 
 know it, and would have died sooner than admit it 
 to herself. 
 
 Atop of all this she received a letter from Sen- 
 house, to which I devote a chapter. It clinched 
 her matter.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SENHOUSE FROM MOSEDALE. THE WOMAN'S ART 
 
 My friend's letters to his Beloved, all of which are 
 before me, alter unmistakably from the date of the 
 Gorston visit — the second Gorston visit. The change 
 is subtle, but it is there. They are no less ardent, ex- 
 plore no less the circumjacent universe; but they 
 seem not so confident, they have the air of one who 
 talks aloud in the dark to provide himself with as- 
 surance of a human note. It is not that he loves her 
 now, or that he is telling her so now : that must have 
 been obvious to her from the beginning. Nor is it, 
 on the other hand, that she loves him now. Far 
 from that, unhappy one, he knows pretty certainly 
 that she does not. He never assumes it, nor seems 
 concerned whether she does or doesn't. It is, rather, 
 that she knows of his love for her, and he of her 
 knowledge of it. He exults in his naked soul, dallies 
 with the fact of confession, revels in the wild pros- 
 pects thrown open to him by that, and (as will be 
 seen) is tempted further, and (for a moment) yields. 
 He recovers himself almost at once, and by a fine 
 effort takes over the command again. But I antici- 
 pate, in saying so much, what I have now to cite. 
 The following letter is dated '^Mosedale, 5th June," 
 
 and is the first he wrote her, or at any rate posted 
 
 219
 
 2 20 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 to her, after his Gorston farewell. Mosedale is the 
 "green valley in Wastdale," which was one of his 
 chosen camping-grounds. He had a wild garden 
 there upon the shoulders of the mountains, by which 
 it is kept inviolate: — 
 
 Mosedale, $th June. 
 The land laughs, but not so loud as I — nor so 
 long. All about Black Sail the white mist-wreaths 
 stream and fly; but not so fast, driven by the west 
 wind, as my thoughts, which my heart-beats urge. 
 Mosedale Beck is in foaming fettle, and some 
 Primula japonica, which I sowed there last year, 
 are a cloud of crimson, coral, and salmon-pink, 
 floating (as meseemeth) over a bed of lettuce-green. 
 There's a palette! The sun strikes all this blaze of 
 colour, and you think of Van Eyck's "Adoration of 
 the Lamb" — or you would if you were here. And 
 you are here, my Blessed One, as you are everywhere 
 with me. A pillar of fire by night, of white cloud 
 by day, in the glow of the fire, in the gleam of the 
 cloud I see your holy face; and as the brook mur- 
 murs its content with things as they are I hear your 
 low clear tones call me by my names of friend, 
 brother — ah, no more of that! Let me remember 
 how good it is to be alive on such a golden morning. 
 
 Now bloom white violets, now daffodils, 
 And on the windy uplands lilies blow; 
 Now breaks to flower my Flower, and fulfils 
 Valley and hillside with her rosy glow. 
 Meadows, in vain you laugh your idle grace! 
 What have ye that she hath not in her face?
 
 SENHOUSE FROM MOSEDALE 221 
 
 A long way after Meleager; but he never sang his 
 7]8t] \evKoLov OdWet more stoutly than I my jingle. 
 
 Why do lovers howl and rend their garments 
 when they are parted ? There's that same Meleager, 
 almost in the same breath, wailing apiraa-TaLl " She's 
 been taken from me," he raves ; "what beast could be 
 so cruel?" All because poor dear Heliodora went 
 back to town, to be taken out to parties by her 
 mamma, to have gilded youths about her in Hyde 
 Park, and quite a swarm of them buzzing over her 
 dance-card, and scribbling their initials all over it, 
 with little white pencils held most uncomfortably 
 in little white kids. You see, I know all about it, 
 and ain't jealous. No, no; I leave that to the God 
 of Moses and other uneasy despots — potentates who 
 have such a high opinion of themselves that they 
 are forced to have low ones of their ladies. I pro- 
 test, by the light I have, that it isn't at all necessary 
 for me to see you, though extremely so that I should 
 love you, and have what I have. Why, what should 
 I do with you that I have not done better already! 
 Watch you, touch your hand in a crowd, edge up 
 with Apollo and brisk Mr. Daftrey to take you out 
 a-dancing? No, by Hercules, but I do better with 
 you here. I see you, feel your nearness, know you 
 thrilling in the dusk. "Thou and I, sphered in 
 solitude" — thou and I! And that's better than to 
 spy after you in the Park; and as for dancing — why, 
 you are dancing with the daffodils here in Mose- 
 dale, and I play the tune on my pipe, like Daphnis 
 or some other son of Pan. Let Apollo caper in
 
 222 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Grosvenor Square and steer you in and out of the 
 throng; your soul, my soul, is here with me, treading 
 the Galaxy in a dance to no mortal music. How 
 am I to condescend to trivial intercourse with you 
 who have given me of your heart's communion? 
 Never, never, never. You and I have done im- 
 perishably. I surrender to your Dartreys and Polsch- 
 kins your temporary dwelling-place, much too good 
 for them though it be.* 
 
 That's the kind of lover you have. Queen Mab, 
 for so you have made him. He is very well content 
 that you should let your light shine on herded Lon- 
 don; though the light shine in darkness and the 
 darkness comprehend it not. Here and there will 
 be one who will be able to walk in your beam. 
 Dia Artemis, I praise the gods of the country for 
 what I have of you. 
 
 I am very well content, I say, to plod my country 
 ways and know you wielding your spells in town. 
 A great power is in your thin sweet hands, my 
 sweet; you are in the way of being a great artist. If 
 I take a professional view of your life and conversa- 
 tion you mustn't blame me; for, botcher though I 
 may be, I'm an artist myself, or no lover. And 
 perhaps you remember how we talked about Art in 
 the park, under the golden oaks, and how you re- 
 pined at having to give up your hopes of a studio; 
 
 'This should have caused Sanchia a pang — this belated utter- 
 ance. Poor M. Polschkin had been dismissed to his piano, and 
 forgotten long ago. And who is Mr. Dartrey? I know nothing 
 about him.
 
 SENHOUSE FROM MOSEDALE 
 
 223 
 
 and how I told you that painting wasn't the woman's 
 art, nor sculpture neither, nor poetry neither. Do 
 you? 
 
 Well, I stick to that. Rosa Bonheur wore trou- 
 sers, but couldn't paint any the better. Good soul, 
 she was no Rubens. George Eliot played the 
 Tenth Muse in St. John's Wood Road, or some- 
 where of the sort, and had a humour of her own for 
 which she had to pay — as none knew better than 
 she. Aurora Leigh wrote verses, and her great old 
 burning lover smothered her with incense, but didn't 
 make a poet of her for all that. He simply proved 
 what an artist she was in her own art — which no 
 man can touch. There's man's art, you know, and 
 woman's art; and though I love every stroke of 
 your brush, and know how sensitive it is, and how 
 patient, yet I see you an immortal artist without any 
 brushes at all, in a stuff more subtle than paint, more 
 shining than Pheidias's ivory and gold ; and I see the 
 crowd before your masterpiece hushed and still. 
 Some of them cover their eyes and others say their 
 prayers, and others laugh for mere joy of great work. 
 What do you say to that, little artist? Isn't that 
 an art worth your pains ? 
 
 It's an art so difficult, to be worked at under 
 conditions so confusing, that it's only one woman 
 in a thousand can succeed in it. Charm, as with 
 all arts, is at the bottom of it; I fear it must be 
 owned, too, that persuasion is an essential. But, 
 like every great form of Art, yours is didactic. It 
 teaches involuntarily virtue, temperance and holi-
 
 224 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 ness. Men and women come and behold it, and 
 go their ways the better for having seen it, the richer 
 for the experience, and the cleaner for purged emo- 
 tions; or, it may be, fired by its excellence to a gen- 
 erous rivalry, themselves to work for such high 
 ends. What can be better? If you can so work 
 upon your own delicate surface as to mould it close 
 to your noble soul, and impress it with your own 
 quality; if in the gallery of the world you can un- 
 veil yourself for a thousand pair of eyes to see, and 
 praise God for the grace to see — why, what an artist 
 you are, and what an audience you have! No 
 painter since this world began to spin had such a one, 
 no musician, no church-builder. Christopher Wren, 
 you may think, had a greater, thronging his great 
 dome on the hill ; but I tell you no. For you, as you 
 go your ways about the city, will every day pass 
 more people than Paul's would hold, and need not 
 pass one but will go on his road, unknowingly, the 
 better for the moment's nearness to you. Like a 
 whiff of thyme on a grassy down, like the breath of 
 violets from a bank, or of bean-flowers blown across 
 a dusty hedge, some gentle exhalation of your soul 
 sighed through your body will hint to the passion- 
 driven wretch things innocent and quiet. The blue 
 beam of your steadfast eyes may turn his own to 
 heaven; a chance-caught, low, sweet tone of your 
 voice may check clamour; an answer turn his wrath; 
 the mere hang of your clothes, so nearly will they 
 express your nature, may send him on his way hope- 
 ful and renewed. You can't know — it's none of
 
 SENHOUSE FROM MOSEDALE 225 
 
 your affair — how or to what end your art will tell. 
 All your business as artist is to work perfectly, to have 
 the vision and to get it down. 
 
 And what a material to work with — fine, moving, 
 breathing, quick-fluttering flesh! Infinitely more 
 elastic than painter's stuff; warm, tinged with life, 
 instinct with it; rhythmic, eloquent. You can be 
 picture, form, poem, symphony in one. You ad- 
 dress the mind through every sense. Every ges- 
 ture is charged, every throb can express, every word 
 be a phrase, every look a tone! Think of it, San- 
 chia, before you turn away. Think well whether 
 upon that exquisite medium you cannot impress 
 your best. 
 
 As I write, I fire from within, and see a vision 
 of a Woman to whom a whole world might bow 
 down. It's not for most women; I think it's for 
 very few; but there's no doubt about its possibility. 
 It's no harder for a w^oman to make herself a work 
 of supreme art than for a man to paint a "Las 
 Menirias" or write a Pere Goriot. But she must have 
 a genius for self-expression — and you have it. 
 
 The Ideal, since men first looked up to the heights, 
 has always been in the shape of a woman. Sex has 
 much to do with that, I don't doubt, for man has 
 been the maker, and has always dreamed of what 
 he can never be. Athene of the men of Attica, 
 Artemis of the Arcadians, Mary of the Christians 
 — it has always been so. The holiest thing of all, 
 the most mysterious, inaccessible, has worn the
 
 226 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 bounty of a beautiful woman, and God has spoken 
 through her eyes. Grey-blue eyes, ringed with dark, 
 for me. A slim and pliant form. A face of pure 
 oval faintly tinged with rose. A round and firm 
 chin, where character strikes sharply yet gently. 
 Pale lips drooping at the corners ever so little — for 
 sympathy, you know. That proud Greek bow is 
 too remote from our labour and sorrow. Broad 
 brows speaking candour and charity to the wise 
 and the wayward alike. An ardent mind, eager for 
 light; a habit so strong to purpose and action that 
 chastity is involved; and withal a glowing heart 
 which love will one day blow into a flame, and thus 
 fulfil the woman from the maid.^ Some day, 
 Sanchia, some day the woman will be fulfilled and 
 the work done. Then, like a priest who has con- 
 versed with mystery and been face to face with the 
 holiest, I shall stand up before the people on their 
 knees. Ite, missa est, I shall say — and bid the boy 
 blow out the altar candles. 
 
 A vision of life indeed rises up, and lifts me after 
 it. The shifts I am at to make my own little world 
 a simple, cleanly, wholesome place drop suddenly 
 off me like superfluous clothes. One is only driven 
 to wear them, mark you well, as screens against the 
 mire and bad smells of modern ways. Where the 
 treasure is there will the heart be also. Nothing 
 need vex him who has the treasure in his heart. 
 Life turns inwards, and keeps out the cold — as 
 
 'All that forms a portrait, happy and exact, of Sanchia Percival 
 as she was in 1894.
 
 SENHOUSE FROM MOSEDALE 227 
 
 gipsies turn their backs to the weather and spread 
 their hands to the crackhng logs. 
 
 Mine is a lonely way, you know, and often I am 
 forced to bawl my song, "The jolly life I lead," 
 for fear I should hear the undercurrent of misgiv- 
 ing, and listen for nothing else. So, like Figaro, I 
 make haste to laugh, and thus continue to delude 
 myself till, by and by, the mood passes, and I can 
 look up at the stars or the open sky, and know that 
 I am in tune with them. That's a great business 
 of ours, I assure you, to make a harmony. Listen 
 to the music of the spheres, and screw up to the pitch 
 they keep. There's our art for the conversion of 
 the world. For we all aim at that — no less; and 
 I with the rest. You know my gospel and won't 
 take it amiss for being somewhat musty. Poverty, 
 poverty, poverty! That's the cry, if you would be 
 rich, O son of man. But now, when I crave the 
 treasure of your golden heart, my saint, and sigh 
 sometimes that I may have to go without it, ain't I 
 the very inconsistent poor devil I complain of my 
 next-door neighbour for being? Of course I am. 
 Yet — oh, for the deep draught of your eyes I lately 
 had! Oh, to read the great trust in your long gaze! 
 Oh, for the assurance of your thrilled voice, and oh, 
 for the touch of your lips on my forehead! 
 
 I'm a recreant, I see. Farewell, Sanchia. 
 
 To say that she was moved by this perfervid let- 
 ter is to say little. She was inspired by it. Its ef- 
 fect — the effect of its passionate flattery — was to
 
 228 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 lift her nobly to an eminence — as it were some bold 
 promontory in a clearer air — whence, with a heart 
 full of pity, she could behold the infirm purposes 
 of men; their infirm purposes and ignorant, ig- 
 noble strivings. As she stood there, folding close 
 her wings, for fear she might soar out of range, she 
 pondered mankind, infinitely compassionate. Some 
 such effect upon her her friend's letters always pro- 
 duced, some such lifting, inspiring effect; but now, 
 when her heart was hardly her own, the exaltation 
 was shared; trailing in the wake of her beating 
 wings came Ingram, the bruised, the world-begrimed 
 ■Ingram: and she loved him ! and he loved her ! And 
 she could exercise upon him her "Woman's Art." 
 
 Was it, then, her work in the world to be lustral 
 water, to pour herself out, that he might wash and 
 be made whole? Was she to be an Influence? 
 Could she act so upon that self-accusing, dumbly- 
 struggling, tortured young hero of Hurlingham? 
 Here she sought in her bosom for her letter, and 
 read and re-read some passages: — 
 
 ^'Like a whiff of thyme on a grassy down, like the 
 breath of violets frojn a bank, . . . some gentle ex- 
 halation of your soul sighed through your body will 
 hint to the passion-driven wretch things innocent and 
 quiet. ^^ 
 
 If this were true — or half true — could there be 
 
 * 
 
 any question whether she should save Nevile In- 
 gram's soul alive? 
 
 " The blue beam of your steadfast eyes may turn 
 his own to heaven; a chance-caught, low, sweet tone
 
 SENHOUSE FROM MOSEDALE 229 
 
 of your voice may check clamour; an answer turn his 
 wrath; tJte mere hang of your clothes, so nearly will 
 they express your nature, may send hhn on his way 
 hopeful and renewed. ^^ 
 
 Hopeful and renewed! Was this her work in 
 the world? Could this be true, or even half true? 
 And did it make any difference, or vitiate her argu- 
 ment, that she trembled with the hope that it might 
 be true? 
 
 She had to ponder these things within herself. 
 No one could help her — save one. And he was in 
 Mosedale. 
 
 The irony of the situation in his regard will not 
 be lost upon the reader. Senhouse himself, a keen 
 humourist, had he known that his adoring praises 
 were to be turned to the service of another man, 
 could not have forborne a smile. It would have 
 been awry; but he would have realised the shrewd- 
 ness of the hit. Indeed, he did, since it was his 
 destiny to have it aimed. In her perplexity she 
 wrote to him. 
 
 She said very little ; but he was accustomed to read 
 between the lines of her stiff and wary letters. He 
 used to say that he read her, not by the words, but 
 by the throbbing of the lines. They wavered, he 
 said, flushed and paled like summer lightning as 
 he watched them. She wrote, "Your letter makes 
 me very proud, though it puzzles me too. I try to 
 believe what you tell me, but of course I know that 
 you are not a fair judge! It's very difficult some- 
 times to know what one ought to do, supposing one
 
 230 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 has any power of acting on other people. I wish 
 very much that I could talk to you of my affairs. 
 They get in such a tangle sometimes. I see what 
 you mean about the Woman's Art, and quite believe 
 that there may be such women. But when you tell 
 me that I can learn it, it makes me rather nervous. 
 It's a great responsibility. I want very much to do 
 right. You have given me great ideals, and I work 
 for them. But I'm rather disheartened just now. 
 When shall you be within reach of me? Your 
 perplexed Sanchia." 
 
 To this he immediately replied: ''I am coming 
 at once. In two days I shall see your eyes — and 
 then, if you please, never again."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE PLAY QUICKENS AND RUNS UP TO A POINT 
 
 The writer of that letter, Senhouse my friend, 
 scared out of his philosophy, made forced marches 
 from Wastdale to London, arriving there in mid- 
 June, the season at its height. Vicky Percival, in 
 gauzy draperies which showed her shining as the 
 moon in a cloud fleece, flitted (chiefly in hansoms 
 and seldom alone) from party to party. Hawise, 
 Lady Pinwell, gave dinners to Conservative states- 
 men and their wives; Philippa, Mrs. Tompsett- 
 King, had the Bishop of Seringapatam and Mrs. 
 Luff staying with her for a Congress. Melusine 
 and her mother were much occupied with trousseau 
 matters; and Mr. Gerald Scales stood outside many 
 a shop-door and smoked cigars. He was a stoutly 
 built, black-browed and rubicund young man, al- 
 ways well dressed — though his taste in clothes was 
 never mine. Mrs. Percival thought him vivid, and 
 would have you mark his strength of character. 
 Melusine (to her diary) called him Tristan: to his 
 friends he was Tubby — Tubby Scales. What sort 
 of appearance the lean figure, clad in white sweater 
 and grey flannel trousers, the swarthy, darkly- 
 smiling face and eyes of gipsy black of my even more 
 
 231
 
 232 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 salient friend may have made to these people — say, 
 in Bond Street of a fine afternoon — one can but guess. 
 Bill Chevenix, who chanced upon him once, reported 
 him to Vicky, all unknowing, as "an astonishing 
 sportsman," and supposed that he advertised some 
 rest-cure or crystal-gazer. This makes one fancy 
 that he had not yet — in those still early, vehement 
 years of his life — learned to accommodate himself to 
 the customs of society. Later on, he certainly did, 
 for I met him frequently in London in 1 900-1-2 and 
 saw nothing outlandish in his appearance. He had 
 a dress-coat (of the oldest, it's true) at that time, 
 and might have sat among his peers at the opera 
 without remark, though I believe he never did. He 
 used to say that you could only hear music prop- 
 erly alone or with musicians. Very naturally, then, 
 he chose for the gallery. But these are trifles: 
 certainly he would have been more entertaining to 
 Bill Chevenix than entertained by Bill. The point 
 is that there he was, and in no happy frame of mind, 
 getting such glimpses of his adorable Sanchia as 
 Mr. Ingram could spare him. 
 
 Now Mr. Ingram, at this hour, was deeply and 
 undisguisedly enamoured. He was frequently at 
 the point of not caring who knew it, and only pulled 
 up, I do believe, by the undoubted fact that when 
 Vicky showed that she knew it he cared very much 
 indeed. It was in Vicky's power to strike him with 
 chills; she had a level way of looking at him, su- 
 perbly disdainful — as a Goddess from her chariot 
 may have regarded some doomed, abandoned wretch
 
 THE PLAY QUICKENS 233 
 
 in a tragedy — which honestly made the young man 
 ashamed of himself. He used to stalk back to 
 Jermyn Street after such an encounter muttering 
 to himself and saying, By George he must pull up 
 a bit. And so he did for a dozen hours — at the end 
 of which the call would prove too strong for him, 
 and he would make vehement suit to Sanchia with 
 eyes and voice, and silence (which was the fiercest 
 way of all). He was nearly always with her: when 
 she walked alone in the mornings, she was not alone ; 
 in the afternoons, at a party, he would join her; he 
 read with her, evenings, and danced with her o'nights. 
 Now what hours of what days were left for the vol- 
 untary outcast in sweater and grey flannels revisit- 
 ing the glimpses of his moon ? 
 
 Sanchia, dumb before the world, very pale, grave- 
 eyed and careworn at this time, — careworn, poor 
 child, at a time when she had been better without a 
 thought, — did find some means to be kind to both 
 her lovers. To Senhouse she could never be any- 
 thing but loyal — if loyalty were any good to him. 
 The moment she knew of his coming she went to 
 see him in Grosvenor Gardens; she gave him the 
 whole of that morning, but refused to stay to lunch- 
 eon. Excusing herself by alleging a press of en- 
 gagements, she was swept away in a cab, and 
 as she fleeted up Park Lane you might have seen 
 in her wide eyes a light such as Senhouse had 
 never yet been able to put there. Yet she saw him 
 again the next day for an hour or so, and was able 
 to make, presently, a definite engagement for a
 
 234 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 visit to Kew, and tea on the grass, under the trees 
 there. 
 
 On such ghmpses, on such shadowy promises 
 he throve as best he might, and kept his love ahve. 
 He must have reahsed that his case was hopeless 
 — even if he had not done that before, when, at 
 Gorston, she called him her friend, or brother, and 
 had kissed his forehead. But I think that, drag- 
 ging his theories violently into the light, affirming 
 them loudly in his need and swearing that they held 
 water, he now told himself that, had other things 
 been equal (as God knew they were not), she could 
 never give herself to him — nor he ask it of her. If 
 there was any single condition of the affairs of this 
 world upon which he had not a very reasoned theory, 
 I should be glad to know it. Certainly marriage 
 was not that one. His theory of marriage, freely 
 declaimed, was that it was a wicked and detestable 
 institution by which women could still be put into 
 slavery and degradation. He thought that to make 
 a woman the property of a man was to insult her 
 more deeply than you injured her; it would have 
 been inconceivable to him that a man who loved, 
 who dared to love, Sanchia should have considered 
 the marrying of her. ''Read Leviticus," he used 
 to thunder at the dazed and well-dined Roger Char- 
 nock; ''read Leviticus, read Deuteronomy, you old 
 stock-keeper, if you would understand the marriage- 
 service! Read the Psalms of David. 'Happy is 
 the man that hath his quiverful ' ; that's the use of 
 the woman to him, that's the lodestone of his heart
 
 THE PLAY QUICKENS 235 
 
 — not her eyes, man, but her womb. And you tell 
 me that Dante, who saw all Hell and Heaven ranked 
 in Her honour, would better have yoked her with a 
 ring and made a drudge of her noble limbs, and let 
 her starry eyes grow dim in the service of his bed and 
 board ? And why ? That he might not be ashamed 
 before his enemies in the gate ! Oh, lord of the earth, 
 what sacrifice is too great for thy proper pride? 
 No, no. If you would make women free indeed, 
 he used to tell Charnock, with monitory forefinger, 
 you must cut the marriage-service out of your prayer- 
 book. They may then meet men on equal terms; 
 and the rest you may leave to them. The life of 
 a woman loveworthy should be one long courtship, 
 he vowed. No man is fit to touch a woman's hem, 
 in truth; what she gives him let him think himself 
 lucky to get; but at least, at the very least, let him 
 have the decency to own up to his fortune — not 
 swell from the wedding-day, and strut out of church, 
 a stock-keeper, a funded man; and thenceforward 
 go his lordly way, with a considering eye for this 
 trim shape and that rosy cheek, and a galliard leap 
 of the heart at the thought— "My wife (lately a 
 star) is now at home, busy about my hearth. I 
 have dined— and well; let me now take the case of 
 this pretty child, who (God pity her) sees me a fine 
 figure of a man. Hum, sweeting, shall we take a 
 turn?" And then he would rise his lean length 
 and hold shocked Charnock with his piercing eyes, 
 and say, *'God of Life and Love, Roger, do you ask 
 me to put myself in that stallion's shoes?" And
 
 236 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Charnock would stiffly reply, "I ought not to listen 
 to you, Jack. That's all I have to say." 
 
 This extravagant philosophy he now summoned 
 in his need — which was very sore. He told him- 
 self times and again, not only she did not love him, 
 not only did she probably love somebody else, but 
 that he loved her out of hope and measure and could 
 therefore never have her. And by dint of hammer- 
 ing the paradox into his head, day in, day out, he 
 came to accept it as a law of being, and was charming 
 to her. He slew his innermost self, he stifled love 
 and adopted friendship in his stead. He was with 
 her in Charnock's drawing-room, in picture-galleries, 
 in garden and park, whenever she would have him 
 there, and not by one glimmer of a hint did he let 
 her know what he had done in her honour. He was, 
 to all appearance, the man he had been when she 
 knew him first, eloquent, profuse, absurd, rhap- 
 sodising on this and that — poetry, politics, life and 
 death, the here and the hereafter. He made her 
 laugh, he made her tearful; he made her think, he 
 made her hope. He fortified her pride, inspired her 
 to courage; in a word, he gave her back herself into 
 her own hands again. She read herself in his eyes; 
 and though she was too reasonable to believe all 
 that she saw there, she was not proof against some- 
 thing of the flattering picture. She took it from 
 him that she had character and parts; that she 
 could think and ought to think. She understood 
 that she had a brain, and that many other people 
 had not — but only habits.
 
 THE PLAY QUICKENS 237 
 
 I repeat — his talk with her was hardly ever about 
 people, nearly always about things. Men were 
 Man to him, or Mankind; women were Woman. 
 Falling naturally into his way, it was so also with 
 her. Consequently Ingram rarely left her heart 
 by way of the tongue. Once or twice he had hovered, 
 as it were, at the gate, had been on her lips ; but the 
 moment had gone by; she had been swept forward 
 on the rush of her friend's discourse, and the young 
 man had retired. And yet it may well have been 
 that she was to see him that afternoon at a party, or 
 read poetry with him that evening, after tea, in Great 
 Cumberland Place. Sanchia was by nature re- 
 served, it's true, and preferred her own counsel; but 
 Senhouse, watching her like a terrier, knew very 
 well that she had something to tell him. 
 
 And so she had. She had realised that she was 
 drifting, she knew not whither — save that the stream 
 that bore her was very sweet, and the airs that wafted 
 her warm and fragrant. Music seemed to be in 
 them — eager, strong and hopeful, yet sometimes 
 rising sharp and high, with a hurt note, as if some 
 soul or another was adrift with her, adrift and voic- 
 ing pain. The question still came to her — came 
 and stared at her — Was she doing right? Right! 
 Alas, where now stood Right and Wrong? Or 
 where stood she, a daughter of the Church ? Stood 
 they, as once, on either side the confessional of the 
 Rev. Father Stephen Morony? Or stood they 
 boldly, rugged and naked, in the Open Country, 
 in sight of Pan and the Nymphs ? Here were ques-
 
 238 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 tions she would fain have put to Senhouse, which 
 she had not, so far, put to the Rev. Father Morony. 
 She was, you will have understood, the child of 
 churchgoing parents — of a father sturdily Anglican 
 and of a mother High Anglican. At eleven o'clock 
 on Sunday mornings she had been trained to go 
 with both parents to what Mr. Percival called Morn- 
 ing Prayer, and Mrs. Percival Mattins with Sermon. 
 Mr. Percival prayed into his hat without kneeling; 
 Mrs. Percival, having genuflected to the altar, signed 
 her bosom before she commended herself. But 
 before that silken, scented, and crowded ceremony 
 could take place, Sanchia with her mother had been 
 to a small, darkened and twinkling shrine and had 
 heard the Communion Ofiice on her knees, with 
 clasped hands and bowed head. Once a month she 
 received the Sacrament, once a month she confessed 
 to the Rev. Stephen Morony such sins as had oc- 
 curred to her the night before to be worthy his con- 
 sideration. This June, for the first time in her re- 
 membrance, she had omitted, not the night's reflec- 
 tion certainly, but the next day's rehearsal to a 
 priest. The Reverend Stephen Morony had not, 
 this June, called her his dear child, had not given 
 counsel or ghostly comfort. Here was a Crisis. She 
 was full young, and she was scared. Putting it 
 bluntly to herself, Plad she refrained (ah, and had 
 she not?) because she knew beforehand just what 
 this priest would say to her? Had she been a cow- 
 ard, and shirked her duty? Had she not? There 
 was only one escape from the certain answer, namely,
 
 THE PLAY QUICKENS 239 
 
 conviction (if she could by any means get it) that 
 Father Morony would have been wrong in his judg- 
 ment, and that Father Morony had no more absolu- 
 tion to bestow than any other temperate man of the 
 world. But if Father Morony were but a man of 
 the world, where were his Priest's Orders? Where, 
 oh, where was the Apostolic Succession? Where 
 were the Sacraments of the Church? Where was 
 Heaven upon Earth, and where, shrouded and 
 awful, was God? Oh, she might well complain, 
 oh, for the saner creed of Vicky, her sister, who used 
 to save up ''sins" until they got to be what she 
 called "a bore," and then cart them bodily to the 
 Reverend Father Morony and shoot them into his 
 confessional — and write that evening to the person 
 concerned, and say that she would always be a 
 friend, and always anxious about his welfare. No 
 such simple remedies were for Sanchia. The mo- 
 ment she doubted she must probe. 
 
 To discuss these things with her ardent, reason- 
 able friend would have been as easy as kissing — 
 if she could have brought herself to do it. But there 
 was always a difficulty — the difficulty a girl must feel 
 in talking to one man of another. Even that might 
 have been got over, had there not been another still 
 more hopeless obstacle in sight beyond. To talk of 
 Nevile Ingram, to own that she was in love, and loved, 
 must needs have led her to speak about his marriage, 
 his wife in Sicily, and her disorderly ways there. 
 And to do this — if she could bring herself to try — 
 would fetch her up at a point where she must imply
 
 240 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 what she had never ventured to imply even to her- 
 self. What, pray, had a v^icked vv^ife in Sicily to 
 do with her, Sanchia, in love in England? The 
 ground on which she stood, ostensibly, was solid, 
 honourable ground. Nevile was unhappy, lonely, 
 in danger of disaster, and she kept him out of harm's 
 way, soothed, strengthened, rejoiced him. If any 
 motive lay behind, connected somehow with his 
 wife in Sicily, could that be a good motive? At 
 this point she always shut her eyes, and moved her 
 pale lips in a sort of prayer. "I love him, I make 
 him happy — he needs me, he loves me" — some 
 such words, prayer by suspiration only. And after 
 so praying she put the question aside, and heard the 
 voices of the Sirens, and felt the steady swift sweet 
 tide carry her forward, and the fragrance, and the 
 hope; and so drifted on. She had Scnhouse's let- 
 ters, and fortified herself on those. He had told 
 her that she made God out of all her loveliest thoughts 
 — and made her beloved so also. He had told her 
 that her acts and words must be holy and whole- 
 some to all who came within her sensible distance. 
 He had told her that the one sin was insincerity, 
 and the great virtue poverty. He had told her that 
 all religions were true for those who truly held them. 
 The Reverend Stephen Morony, beaten off for the 
 time, faded from her sight — and she drifted on. 
 Then, on a fine Friday afternoon, walking with In- 
 gram across the Park, she saw Senhousc striding to 
 meet her. Here was her affair. She did not falter, 
 though her eyes grew rigid. She said to her com-
 
 THE PLAY QUICKENS 241 
 
 panion, ''This is my friend, Mr. Senhouse, coming. 
 I should like you to know him." 
 
 Ingram looked sharply forward. "Oh, that's 
 him, is it?" he said, then snapped his lips together, 
 and straightened himself. Senhouse had seen her 
 before she had become aware of him One could 
 guess that by the glaze over his black eyes, and the 
 smoulder below it. 
 
 But when he stopped before her all such symp- 
 toms of his case had disappeared. 
 
 ''You!" he said. "Wonderful! London's no 
 bigger than England after all." 
 
 Sanchia had her business before her. "I want 
 you to know Mr. Ingram," she said — and to In- 
 gram, "My friend Mr. Senhouse." The two men 
 shook hands, Ingram very stiff. But it was he who 
 said, "Very glad to meet you." 
 
 Senhouse returned his, "Thanks very much," 
 and began at once to talk — apparently in the mid- 
 dle of what he had been thinking of before. 
 
 "I've been looking at the rabbits in the enclosure 
 — bread-fed creatures, sleek and round as dormice. 
 You'd say there wasn't a fibre of the wild beast left 
 unswayed by the nursemaids and loungers. But 
 there is — and I'm elated. They've got some Jap- 
 anese iris in there — not nibbled down yet. It's be- 
 cause they're in wet ground, I discover. It was 
 very odd." 
 
 Ingram stared straight at this creature, so much 
 at ease, who should have been so uneasy; Sanchia's 
 eyes shone.
 
 242 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 "I watched one consider the case. Was it worth 
 wet feet? He bundled himself up to the edge of 
 the mire, and hunched himself, and thought it out. 
 He thought with his nostrils, you know. They 
 agitated like fans. Literally, he ventilated his ideas 
 — decided against it, and began to feed diligently 
 where he was, lest he should be tempted to reopen 
 the thing. They hate wet, you know; and yet 
 I've seen one swim. A stoat was after him." Then, 
 as if it struck him suddenly, he flashed Ingram 
 into the conversation. "Have you ever seen that?" 
 
 Ingram nodded sharply. "Yes, I've seen it. I 
 shot one once in a beck." 
 
 All Senhouse said was, "I hadn't a gun." He 
 allowed for Ingram's defiance, and rather liked 
 him for it. 
 
 But Sanchia said, "You wouldn't have shot it if 
 you had. You know you wouldn't." He looked 
 at her quickly and grinned. Ingram saw that. It 
 made him rather prickly. 
 
 Senhouse branched off on to pictures, and dis- 
 coursed for a few moments about a show he had 
 been to; then, finding that he and Sanchia were 
 getting learned, not to say technical, he broke off. 
 "Farewell," he said, "until to-morrow. Our en- 
 gagement stands?" 
 
 She said, "Of course. Grosvenor Gardens at 
 two." They parted without shaking hands, and 
 she saw him swing away over the Park. She little 
 knew what he carried with him. "God bless her! 
 God bless her always! ... It may be all right.
 
 THE PLAY QUICKENS 243 
 
 Anyhow, she's a Goddess, and can do no wrong. 
 And — God bless her always!" 
 
 He winced at the pain, and shut his eyes hard 
 more than once. "Courage! Face the Open, 
 young man!" He walked far into the night, he 
 knew not well whither. London was to see no 
 more of him for a season. 
 
 After he had fought his beasts, he wrote to her.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE tramp's testament 
 
 Chanctonbury Ring, A Wild Night. 
 
 All the hounds of heaven and hell are loose 
 about me to-night. The South-west has opened 
 wide his gates, and the wind-pack is abroad. But 
 their howling and the gnashing of their teeth can- 
 not drown the shrill music of my heart. This is 
 the song it sings — I have loved, I have loved — I 
 have told her that and let her go. Now I am alone 
 in the dark, with no companion but a dream. 
 
 She is not for me — she is too high. It were as 
 if one wooed a goddess. No, no, I have done well 
 to give her back her heart, to put away her thin 
 sweet hands, to look my last into her deep eyes, to 
 wait my last upon her sad lips. The work she has 
 to do, alone with her heart, is as nothing to the 
 wrong I dared to dream against her. She, Sanchia, 
 the tramp's mate — hedgerow-comrade of his dis- 
 ordered goings! Madman, what were you about? 
 
 Now the dream is over. It has gone as this great 
 storm will go. When the last tatters of the torn 
 clouds have flown their way before the gale, I shall 
 look out seaward to a white-rimmed sky, or over 
 the weald of Sussex to the blue Surrey hills; see 
 Hindhead like a broken knife-blade, and the long 
 
 244
 
 THE TRAMP'S TESTAMENT 245 
 
 ridge of Leith Hill shrouded in trees. The truce 
 of heaven will shine on all alike; the sun, rising 
 over Wolstonbury, will touch the spire of Cowfold, 
 and warm the grey and russet of old Wiston into 
 life. On me too will that peace descend, and I 
 shall tell myself that all is well. For Sanchia lives 
 her holy life, thou poor fool; and thou mayest love 
 her all thy fill, and take joy in her fair going, thank- 
 ing God for all that she has been to thee. Thou 
 hast had thy vision of Artemis the Chaste. Cour- 
 age, then; do thy work in the world. She is thy 
 friend for ever — is not this honour enough ? 
 I know well that it is. 
 
 Ask any woman you please which was the happi- 
 est time of her life, she will tell you — the year of her 
 betrothal. Ask any man, he will tell you — his 
 bachelor days. What do these things mean? It 
 is worth while finding out. That which should be 
 the perfecting of the nature of either, when the two 
 human hemispheres, as Plato puts it, are one round- 
 ed whole again, does not in either case result in hap- 
 piness. Contentment, possibly, but not happiness. 
 Marriage, then, is not the happy state. How then ? 
 
 It is not, and it cannot be, as it is now ordered; 
 for the notion of possession, of property once more, 
 has entered in and vitiated it. It has poisoned the 
 nature of man and degraded the conscience of 
 woman. Women are not, it may be, angels before 
 marriage ; it is certain that they should not be prop- 
 erty afterwards. But since, by virtue of a legal con-
 
 246 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 tract, they are technically so, a man is so made by 
 tradition and proneness to possess that he will con- 
 sider her so, even against his own judgment, even 
 despite his own honour ; and the moment he believes 
 himself secure of her he will cease to serve her. 
 Now, to love a woman, in my belief, is not only to 
 desire her. Much more it is to be allowed to serve 
 her. The better part of loving is the need to give, 
 not the desire to receive. In a perfect union of 
 hearts and bodies the rivalry is not who shall get, 
 but who shall spend the more. There should be 
 no end to that noble strife — nor will there be on the 
 woman's part; nor need there be on the man's, if 
 he is always to he blessed. Poisoned man is the bane 
 of marriage, not woman. It is natural to a woman 
 to mate, natural to a man to master. But unless we 
 curb that brute instinct in the man there can be no 
 real happiness for the woman. 
 
 As for me, I will never marry as the law now 
 stands. I will not enslave any woman. To put 
 into my hands legal instruments whereby I am 
 secure in her so long as she is worth my while, and 
 free of her the moment she does what it is my right, 
 as a man, to do; so to treat the woman in whose eyes 
 I have seen heaven, to whose heart I go for peace, is to 
 insult me by the supposition that I can so insult her. 
 I will never do it, Sanchia. I'll become a monk first. 
 
 What's to be done then? I have nothing heroic 
 to suggest. If I go maimed through life, an un- 
 rounded hemisphere, I'll hobble along, my con-
 
 THE TRAMP'S TESTAMENT 247 
 
 science clear, at least. And perhaps ''Patience and 
 shuffle the cards" is as good a roadside saw as any 
 other. There are signs that the accursed old sys- 
 tem is breaking up — signs on all sides. Reason- 
 able persons have long lifted their eyebrows, and 
 now are beginning to lift their voices. So the time 
 may be coming when they can lift up their hearts. 
 It won't be yet ; you and I may never see it. It was 
 expedient once, we read, that one man should die 
 for the people. It is doubtless necessary that there 
 should be frequent crucifixions. It seems to be 
 the way of the world. A man to whom the truth is 
 blazed as clear as noon goes out into the streets filled 
 to the lips with his revelation. Smug citizens avoid 
 him, put up their shutters, and lock their doors; 
 dogs bark at his heels ; the ribald gather ; one throws 
 a stone. Then comes the storm upon him, in the 
 which he falls, battered, bleeding, with glazed eyes. 
 There's an end of the blasphemer who dares to 
 question established order, who says that use and 
 wont are not sacred at all, but hoary in iniquity. 
 
 Having slain him, they learn that he was a god, 
 and his revelation a law of nature. Up goes a 
 statue, and his words are read as gospel. That's how 
 we get on in this quaint world, climbing to the stars 
 on the heaped bodies of our heroes and sages. It's 
 no use quarrelling with it. Whether I'm to trample 
 or be trampled, teach me, Sanchia, not to complain. 
 
 If I had been less certain of what honour and 
 conscience had to tell me, I had made you mine at
 
 248 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Gorston the other day — not by that kiss, you gave 
 me, but by others I should have given you. My 
 beautiful, ardent, noble, thrilled young creature, 
 visible incarnation of all that is clean and quick, I 
 can thank God that you have kissed me once, and 
 that I have done no more than receive that bene- 
 diction. They say that holy Artemis bent over 
 Endymion as he lay at Latmos. 'Tis her only 
 stooping: she never graced Hippolytus as highly, 
 another devotee. And Dante lived to walk the 
 dusty ways of hell, and see the live silver of the 
 spheres, having received the salutation of Beatrice. 
 She bowed to him, once, in the street. He never 
 felt chilly after that, nor complained of short rations. 
 God knows that I shall not. 
 
 The life I lead seems to be reasonable, because 
 it shirks nothing, concedes nothing, is useful, brings 
 me back and keeps me close to the real Good Things. 
 Did I ever tell you of a man I knew once, a man 
 called Thursfield, who had what they call mis- 
 fortunes? Such indeed they were. His children 
 grew up and went into the world; his wife tired of 
 him and went her ways also. He was left in middle 
 life with nothing but some thousands a year and a 
 house or two. Odd as one might think it, they didn't 
 satisfy him. He let them all go; I believe that he 
 endowed a charity with them — an almshouse of 
 sorts. I found him some two years ago in a hollow 
 of the Dorsetshire Downs, inhabiting a shepherd's 
 wooden hut, living mostly on what he could coax
 
 THE TRAMP'S TESTAMENT 249 
 
 out of the unthrifty soil. He quoted George Bor- 
 row to me: ''There's night and day, brother, both 
 sweet things; there's hkewise the wind on the 
 heath!" He called these the Good Things, and said 
 that they were good enough for him. The sun 
 the wind, the rain: I too find them excellent. And 
 if I want another stand-by or a stronghold to fly 
 to, I can lift up my eyes to the everlasting hills. 
 Black Sail will always shelter Mosedale, and in 
 Chanctonbury Ring I can still find Pan and the 
 Nymphs. 
 
 The storm dies down, the wet stars behold me. 
 Over the bones of dead Briton and dead Roman 
 the leaf-mould lies quiet, and out of them spring 
 old Goring's beeches. Dim through the dark I 
 can guess at the great-breasted downs, and hear 
 afar off the tinkle of the sheep-bells. Courage 
 comes back after a night with Pan at his fiercest; 
 the nymphs peer up from the borstal, or through 
 the holt; and here gleams a white shoulder, and 
 there weave white arms. The God of Nature is a 
 kindly soul. He likes us to have courage, and keep 
 good hearts. 
 
 Farewell, Sanchia, too dear for my possessing; 
 I leave you in the keeping of that benevolent one. 
 "For He shall give His Angels charge over thee, to 
 keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee 
 up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against 
 a stone." When next I write to you, or see your
 
 250 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 face, lover or not, you shall never know it. And 
 I'll come and pipe at your wedding when you bid 
 me. I have what I have, and am content. Lo, 
 the dawn is here! Farewell.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 
 
 It seems, then, that he had failed to keep tryst 
 with her; there had been no walk in Kew Gardens; 
 in that short interview in Hyde Park she had looked 
 her last upon one lover, as such. His letter from 
 Chanctonbury told her so much. Remained the 
 other. 
 
 Ingram remained, inseparable from her side. 
 Every look he gave her, every look he withheld, 
 the words he said, the words he didn't say, his curt, 
 sharp letters with neither beginning nor ending — 
 all told her that he must be reckoned with, and con- 
 firmed the hasty and continuous whisperings of her 
 own heart. She was so far gone in love with the 
 young man that Senhouse's adoring and desperate 
 cry scarce touched her at all. She was not pitiful 
 when she learned that he had come up with a ques- 
 tion on his lips and had not had the heart to put it; 
 she was not even touched by the fatuity of his reasons 
 for not putting it — as if his belief or non-belief in 
 marriage could have swayed her! Her, so deep in 
 love with a married man! Such gallant blindness 
 must have filled her eyes at any time but this. 
 
 She answered him kindly, affectionately. She 
 
 251
 
 252 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 wrote, "Dear friend, I hope that nothing will ever 
 persuade me that you are not that. Some day, 
 when I have time to think how much I owe you, 
 I will write to you about my debt. I can never 
 pay it, I know; but I don't think you v/ill want me 
 to. If you still care for the promise I made you at 
 Gorston I shall always hold to it. One of my 
 reasons for being soiTy that you couldn't come to 
 Kew was that I couldn't ask your advice. But per- 
 haps I shouldn't have had the courage. ... I am 
 sure you rate me too highly — of course you do. It 
 makes me nervous, and afraid of not coming up to 
 the standard. But you told me once that one ought 
 always to aim at things out of reach; so perhaps 
 I shall grow by degrees. Good-bye for the mo- 
 ment: they are waiting for me to go out. I shall 
 write again soon, and hope that you will. Sanchia." 
 
 In July matters swept swiftly to a climax. Love 
 is a voracious eater: the dainties of to-day are mere 
 food for to-morrow. By the middle of the month 
 it had come to this, that Ingram found himself un- 
 able to be with her alone, and that she, knowing his 
 pain, found it so sweet as to be almost irresistible. 
 The bare presence of each was trembling-matter to 
 the other. They would stand in assemblies, tongue- 
 tied, preoccupied, not daring to look — a locked pair, 
 convicted at a glance. Vicky Percival was scared 
 out of her wits, so much so that she did foolishly. 
 She railed, not to Sanchia, but to her mother. 
 
 Mrs. Percival, unfortunately, had taken a great
 
 IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 253 
 
 liking for Ingram. She admired all that he stood 
 for, we know; but she esteemed the man himself 
 for what he was. Accustomed as she had been to 
 deference in her household and circle of acquaint- 
 ance, she was now in the company of a person who 
 never deferred to anybody, but who, rather, took 
 her advice because it agreed with his own, and as- 
 sumed in seeking it that it would. This flattered 
 her. And as is always the case with women of the 
 sort, she found it impossible to believe evil of a 
 man of whom she so much desired to think highly. 
 Opposition, moreover, was never tolerable to her, 
 and opposition from any child of hers but Philippa 
 savoured of rebellion; and rebellion was a sin. 
 Therefore when Vicky railed, and rasped with her 
 tongue, Mrs. Percival hardened her heart against 
 Vicky; finally she told her to mind her own busi- 
 ness. ''You are accusing your sister — an inno- 
 cent, pure-minded child — of downright wickedness," 
 she told her. "I am forced to tell you that merely 
 to think of such things does you little credit. Blessed 
 are the pure in heart, my child. It is terrible to me 
 to have to understand that one of my children can 
 slander her younger sister." Mrs. Percival was 
 apt to be the victim of her own eloquence. She 
 mostly said more than she meant, and always too 
 much. "x\s for Nevile," she went on — she called 
 him Nevile nowadays — "he seems to me the model 
 of a Christian English gentleman, who does not 
 wear his heart upon his sleeve — ah — for daws to 
 peck at. When I think of what agonies of mind
 
 254 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 he must have undergone, of his manly forbearance, 
 and almost more than manly reticence, I feel towards 
 him as a mother to a son. I don't hesitate to tell 
 you so. I am really grieved that you, my daughter, 
 should have spoken as you have; and yet I had 
 rather bear the insinuations you have thought fit 
 to make against me, your mother, than — than — have 
 you think them. That is truly shocking to my 
 mind." 
 
 Vicky was not clear what this antithesis might 
 mean, and said so. Mrs. Percival, who felt herself 
 that there was something wrong with it, thereupon 
 grew downright angry. She reared her head like 
 a snake and struck sideways. "I will ask you to 
 respect my grey hairs, Victoria. I will ask you to 
 remember that, at present, you are under my roof. 
 When I find that you can do one or both of these 
 things I shall be prepared to talk with you; but not 
 until then. May I now resume my work? My 
 correspondence is heavy, and I cannot let it accumu- 
 late." Vicky retired, defeated. 
 
 And so we come to the events of the twenty-first 
 of July, and a crisis: earthquake and eclipse. 
 
 On the morning of that day there had been rid- 
 ing in the Row. Vicky and Sanchia had ridden; 
 Ingram had joined them, of course, and a Captain 
 Sinclair. Later on, when Bill Chcvcnix had hailed 
 them from the railings, Sanchia had waved her 
 hand and cantered past, followed by Ingram; but 
 Vicky had pulled up. 
 
 She had said to her cavalier, "I want to talk to
 
 IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 255 
 
 Mr. Chevenix a minute. I'll catch you up if you 
 walk." Then she had drawn rein at the railings 
 and she and Chevenix had exchanged glances. 
 
 "I say, you know!" was Chevenix's commen- 
 tary upon affairs. Vicky nodded. 
 
 **It's this sort of thing every day. I wish we 
 could talk about it. Could you come in this after- 
 noon? There are people to tea. Could you?" 
 
 Chevenix declared that he really couldn't. ''It's 
 no good my promising, you know. I've got a 
 dozen things I ought to do, and don't see a chance 
 of doing half of 'em. That's the worst of having 
 nothing to do, if you understand me; you always 
 do too much. Now this afternoon there's " 
 
 ''I can't wait," said Vicky, her eyes upon the 
 advancing Sinclair; "but I should like to see you. 
 Something must be done. I think mamma's mad." 
 
 "She always was, between you and me," Chevenix 
 said. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll drop in after 
 dinner on my way to Grosvenor Square. About 
 ten — eh? How would that do?" 
 
 Vicky shook her head. "We're going some- 
 where — I don't know where or when. It's almost 
 certain to be useless — but come all the same." She 
 reflected. "Yes, come," she said. "I'll be in — 
 anyhow." 
 
 Chevenix waved her off. "Right. I'm there. 
 Ten o'clock." 
 
 Before tea Vicky the untiring did contrive to say 
 a word to Sanchia, whose woe-begone aspect sug- 
 gested a crisis. "If you get a chance, I advise you
 
 256 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 to stop all this to-day. I'll make one for you if I 
 can. But, Sancie, it must be stopped." 
 
 "Must it?" Sancie echoed. "I suppose so." 
 
 "If you'd done it before, my dear," said the 
 wise and candid, "it would have been better for 
 everybody — including me. But even now you can 
 make it all right. It will be awful for you. Yet 
 — one does get over it quite quickly, you know." 
 Sanchia, however, did not look like that sort. 
 
 The tea-party was neither more nor less than a 
 sprinkling of dowagers in white gloves. Only one 
 man was present: Ingram. He, abating no jot of 
 his phlegm, brazened it out — so Vicky thought — 
 in an amazing way. His matter-of-fact talk — to 
 everybody but Sanchia — was precisely as usual; to 
 Mrs. Percival he was the observant, collected son 
 of the house — precisely as usual. But with Sanchia 
 he betrayed himself; he was constrained and ner- 
 vous; never looked at her, hardly addressed her 
 a word. His hand shook as he carried her a cup, 
 and she started violently when he came with it, lost 
 the thread of what she had been saying to a Mrs. 
 Somerset, turned white, then very red. Vicky 
 sickened at the little scene, and took care that it 
 shouldn't be repeated. 
 
 The women melted out by degrees, and then the 
 brougham came for Mrs. Percival, who was going 
 on an errand of mercy somewhere. She bustled 
 away upon her occasions, and left Ingram stand- 
 ing by the long window and Sanchia by the tea- 
 table, a love-lorn pair, and Vicky hovering between,
 
 IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 257 
 
 engaged with a belated arrival who had entered as 
 the hostess went out. She must be talked to, fed, 
 must have fresh tea, etc. All this Vicky had to see 
 to, since by now nervous tension had brought Sanchia 
 to speechless misery, and was setting Ingram at the 
 quicks of his finger-nails. He did not move from 
 his window or turn about. As for Sanchia, she 
 drooped where she stood, white and drawn. This 
 was a feverish ten minutes indeed : Vicky had never 
 hated a woman so much as this complacent Mrs. 
 Mate, one of those simple persons who spend the 
 whole resources of a call explaining why they have 
 made it. "And as I said to Mrs. Bruce, You see, if 
 I don't get over to Great Cumberland Place to-day, 
 I'm done for. Because we have something for every 
 afternoon for the next ten days, and there we are in 
 August, and of course we all fly away. So I cut her 
 short — such an old, old friend, I really thought, on 
 such a special occasion, there could be no harm in 
 that; and was rewarded by a peep at Mrs. Percival, 
 and a nice long talk with you, my dear. And your 
 sister — dear Sanchia — of courjse. But that you 
 should have made me a special brew — when I 
 hardly deserve a how-d'ye-do — I must tell Mrs. 
 Bruce about it — indeed I must." Ah, but she 
 went at last, and Vicky, having bundled her out, 
 now stood by the open door, wistfully looking from 
 her young sister to the man by the window — pitiful, 
 yet knowing it must be. Her eyes grew bright and 
 dewy; she knew all about it! But one has these 
 things to do, and must do them for oneself. Vicky,
 
 258 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 however, poising, doubted and felt her tears. San- 
 cie seemed to her so very young for this grim and 
 tearing business. Then she sighed and went softly 
 away, shutting the door behind her. I read that 
 sigh as a prayer of Vicky's. 
 
 They stood apart, each sphered in an emotional 
 veil, the man fighting his longing, and backing 
 from it inch by inch, the girl abandoned to her love, 
 the mystery, the wonder, the faint sweetness, and 
 the pain. Each sphered as in a veil; yet apart as 
 they stood, between them beat and flickered waves 
 of warm air, and what one felt the other was con- 
 scious of. Sanchia drooped and swayed. 
 
 She shut her eyes and wavered where she stood. 
 She rested one hand upon a table, the other hung 
 listless. There was no fight in her at all. What 
 must be would be, and such a death as this was 
 strangely sweet. But Ingram fought, as never in 
 his light-taken life; and he was being beaten, and 
 knew it, and was now telling himself that the thing 
 had to be. Every fibre of him wanted her, every 
 reason played him traitor, and told him salvation 
 lay her way. He saw nothing, realised nothing, 
 but that she was behind him, throbbing and swaying 
 there; that he had but to turn to her, and she was 
 his. 
 
 The room seemed to darken, the air to grow 
 thick and faint. The room swam and drew them 
 together. She put her hand up to her neck, fright- 
 ened; she stirred and shook the tea-things on the 
 table. Ingram turned, looked at her, and came and
 
 IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 259 
 
 stood by her. She moved her eyes before her head, 
 slowly, as if fascinated and drawn. Then she turned 
 her face full; their eyes met; darkness, a stifling 
 sense, a leap of the heart, and she was in his arms. 
 
 He held her fast there, but kept back his head 
 that he might see something of her. Her face was 
 hidden in his arm, but he saw her shoulders heave. 
 
 ''Oh, God," he said, ''Sancie, is this true?" 
 
 She lay close, not answering him for a while. 
 Then she said, her face hidden, "Is what true?" 
 
 He must have her answer, if he drained it from 
 her. "This — this — that you are here — and I — 
 that you are mine, Sancie?" 
 
 And now she looked up, and in her pale face 
 was a gleam of smiling, triumphant certainty. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "it's true. I can't help it. You 
 must be good to me." 
 
 He almost laughed at her. "Good! Good to 
 you! Oh, my dear !" 
 
 "I suppose I'm wicked," she said, with her eyes 
 vague and brows arched high. "I suppose I ought 
 not to love you so. But how am I to help myself? 
 And what ought I to do?" 
 
 "Love me for ever," he said, and met her lips. 
 
 The entry of a maid for the tea-things should 
 have given them prudence, and her exit, leaving 
 the door ajar, should have been noticed, but was 
 not. Ingram, in the floodtide of his triumph, and 
 Sanchia, in her wild surrender, had no eyes but for 
 one another, and no voice but that of the lips. Thus
 
 26o OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 it was that Philippa, Mrs. Tompsett-King, tallest, 
 boldest, deepest-bosomed of the Percivals, was ad- 
 mitted at the front door and entered the drawing- 
 room and found them one figure. Their lips were 
 locked; she was sighing her soul away upon his 
 breast. 
 
 **Oh, Melusine!" she cried out sharply, and then, 
 as they sprang apart and revealed themselves, "Ah, 
 it is Sanchia!" 
 
 "Yes," said Ingram, doing all that there was 
 now to do. '*Yes, Mrs. King, and it's my fault." 
 
 Mrs. Tompsett-King, who disliked to be called 
 Mrs. King, put on her most incisive manner. 
 
 "One supposes so. And, Mr. Ingram, to repair 
 your fault " 
 
 "Yes?" said Ingram, eyeing her resolutely. Phil- 
 ippa's answer was to look straight at the door and 
 then back to him. 
 
 "I can't leave it at that, you know," he said. 
 "But you and I need not discuss anything. I pro- 
 pose to wait until Airs. Percival returns." 
 
 "So do I," said Philippa. 
 
 Ingram turned to Sanchia, picked up her hand 
 and kissed it. "You're better out of this, my dear," 
 he said. Philippa sat in a straight-backed chair and 
 watched him openly. 
 
 Sanchia, very self-possessed, asked Ingram, "Do 
 you want me to go?" He nodded. 
 
 "Yes, go, my dear. I've got to see this through. 
 Your turn will come presently." Then she went 
 without another word.
 
 IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 261 
 
 Ingram turned upon Philippa, but the lady put 
 up her hand. ''Not a word, if you please. As 
 you hinted just now, rather broadly, this is no af- 
 fair of mine. It is not, so far as you are concerned. 
 I can't turn you out of another person's house, even 
 my mother's; but I think you understand that I 
 would if I could." 
 
 "I understand that perfectly," Ingram said. 
 "I'm sorry to be inconvenient, but it is absolutely 
 necessary for me to see Mrs. Percival — and Mr. 
 Percival." 
 
 Philippa looked him full in the face. "In case 
 you may decline to remove yourself at my mother's 
 request, I may as well tell you that my father is 
 dining in the city to-night, and can hardly be home 
 before ten. There will be no men in the house 
 until he returns. Therefore, if you wish to bully 
 women, you can do it with perfect safety until ten 
 o'clock — unless, indeed, my mother should send 
 for the police." 
 
 This speech gave Ingram some perplexity. He 
 felt every shrewd word of it, and it seemed to him 
 that the longer he stayed the worse it might prove 
 for Sanchia. He thought that he might have 
 tackled Mrs. Percival, had she been the intervener, 
 but that he would have a very poor chance with 
 her now. Yet the idea of leaving the house, and 
 Sanchia in it, alone to face her judges, was intolerable. 
 
 "You are not speaking very charitably, Mrs. 
 King," he said as civilly as he could; "I can hardly 
 believe that you mean all that. You must see that
 
 262 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 I have to explain myself, and at the earliest mo- 
 ment." 
 
 "How do you propose to explain yourself?" 
 asked Philippa squarely. 
 
 Ingram replied, "I think your mother must find 
 that out first." He stayed on, standing with his 
 back to the fireplace. No more was said. 
 
 Mrs. Percival's latchkey being heard, Philippa 
 rose at once and left the room. Ingram stood 
 doggedly his ground. After a terrible half-hour 
 of it somebody came into the room. Vicky was 
 before him. Ingram glowered at her. 
 
 "You had better go at once," she said. 
 
 "You know I can't do that," said Ingram. 
 
 "I beg that you will. You will make things 
 worse than they are — if they could be." 
 
 Ingram set his jaw. "I must see your mother 
 before I go." 
 
 "She refuses to see you. If you stop here I am 
 to send for a policeman." 
 
 "Send for him by all means," said Ingram. 
 Vicky rang the bell; and then he went downstairs. 
 In the hall Mrs. Percival stood, bitter, white, and 
 glittering. He should have been able to see, dis- 
 tracted as he was, that she was in that state of feel- 
 ing when anything he said must have been too 
 much. 
 
 But he began, "Mrs. Percival, in mere justice to 
 your daughter " 
 
 Mrs. Percival's eyelids glimmered. Her lips were
 
 IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 263 
 
 SO tight they almost disappeared, ''To which of 
 my daughters do you refer?" 
 
 ''Why, to Sanchia, of course," he said. 
 
 "I have no daughter of that name," said Mrs. 
 Percival, and then to a maid as she came into the 
 hall, "Parsons, the door." 
 
 At eleven o'clock came Chevenix, and was told 
 that Miss Victoria was in the drawing-room. She 
 met him with a blenched face. 
 
 "It's done," she said. "You're too late. It's 
 done and all found out. Philippa's here, and 
 mamma, of course, and papa too. They're at her 
 now in the library. Oh, poor little darling! Poor 
 dear little Sancie!" 
 
 Chevenix swore softly. "I'll kill Nevile," he 
 said. "Damn him! I'll kill him for this." 
 
 "You'll kill her if you do," Vicky said. "I don't 
 know her now. She'll never give him up." 
 
 "Oh, but — " Chevenix began; and Vicky ran 
 on with her tale. 
 
 "She came straight upstairs and told me about 
 it. She said, 'Nevile loves me, and we're engaged.' 
 I simply gaped at her, simply gaped. She said, 'I 
 know you don't understand me — but of course he's 
 not married at all. He's suffered dreadfully, and 
 I can be of use to him; and I mean to be. They 
 may cut me in pieces, of course. That's the only 
 way to stop me. I've made up my mind.' She 
 spoke quite quietly — she's the only cool person in 
 this house just now. She's not afraid of anybody,
 
 264 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 and went down to those three as if she was going to 
 a party. Oh, isn't it extraordinary to Hve with a 
 person all your hfe, and find out that you've known 
 nothing at all about them? She's a new person 
 — she's not Sancie at all. She's a kind of witch of 
 Atlas; she makes goose-flesh on you. You feel 
 her all down your spine. I was almost afraid — 
 afraid of Sancie!" 
 
 ''Good God," said Chevenix simply. 
 
 ''Papa, you know," Vicky told him, "is simply 
 raving mad. He loves Sancie much more than 
 any of us — and it seems to hurt him frightfully. 
 He's in an awful rage with her — that's the worst 
 of it. They all seem more angry with her than 
 with Nevile Ingram. I can't understand it — un- 
 less it is because she's so deadly cool about it. It's 
 really most extraordinary — that bit of a thing — 
 two years younger than me — and never the least 
 atom in love before (I'm certain of that. It's not 
 her way at all). Why, one has uncomfortable scenes, 
 you know, and is very unhappy for a bit. Of course 
 one is; but it all seems part of the thing — I mean, 
 you must expect to have a bad time when you've 
 had rather a good one. But Sancie isn't like that 
 at all. She's so serious; she always was very seri- 
 ous. She means to have her own way — somehow. 
 I can see it. No — I don't know what's to be done 
 — not the very least." 
 
 "I do," said Chevenix. "I shall go for the chap. 
 He's queer, you know — but he's not a rascal — 
 not altogether a rascal. He's been led away, you
 
 IN THE DRAWING-ROOM 265 
 
 know, Vicky — that's what it is. His feelings took 
 him unawares, don't you see. But he's not a rank 
 outsider, you know. You leave him to me. I'll 
 pack him out of the country in a week — if you can 
 hold on to Sancie." 
 
 Vicky shook her head. ''I believe she'd follow 
 him over the water. You've no idea what she's 
 like now." 
 
 Their talk gloomed and died down into dreary 
 silence. But they stayed on in the drawing-room, 
 saying little or nothing, listening for the library 
 door. At about half-past eleven it shut softly, 
 and Sanchia came upstairs. They heard the swish 
 of her silk petticoat. 
 
 Vicky darted out to meet her. ''Come in here, 
 dearest; do come to us. We're all friends here." 
 
 But Sanchia shook her head, and went upstairs. 
 ''She's like a ghost," Vicky said, "or as if she'd 
 just seen a dead person."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 IN THE LIBRARY 
 
 Upon his return from city revels at the early hour 
 of ten, Mr. Percival's mood of reverie, induced by 
 sound digestion, suffered a rough awakening. He 
 could not help contrasting the lights and hravas of 
 the feast, the pleasant drive home in the well-sprung 
 brougham — one arm luxuriously in the sling, the 
 half of an excellent cigar in his teeth, alimentation 
 happily at work and echoes of recently-heard opti- 
 mism still tingling in his ears; all that, with the pity 
 and terror of this home news. If he looked back 
 wistfully to the great bannered hall as his very home, 
 even to the cushioned carriage as a refuge, what 
 wonder ? 
 
 He had let himself in, after a cheery "Good- 
 night, Bakehouse, good-night to you!" — under his 
 arm snuggled the casket of sweetmeats for his daugh- 
 ters, in his mouth still the excellent cigar; and had 
 been met in full hall by those two pillars of his 
 house — that undoubted pillar, and that pillar by 
 arrogation — his wife and his eldest child, Philippa 
 Tompsett-King. ''Ha, my dear! Ha, Philippa! 
 here's the prodigal father come home," he had said. 
 ** Here's — " and then, seeing their tense faces, he 
 
 had stopped, faltering. "What's up? What's hap- 
 
 266
 
 IN THE LIBRARY 267 
 
 pened? Good God, Kitty, can't you tell me?" 
 He never called his wife Kitty except in moments 
 of panic. 
 
 Philippa, pillar still of his house by her own arro- 
 gation, respected by him but not loved, spoke. 
 "Mamma has had a great shock. I have remained 
 with her. Will you come into the library, papa? 
 We can speak about it there." 
 
 Mr. Percival had turned grey. "Don't torture 
 a man," he had said; and then, ignoring Philippa, 
 "Kitty, can't you tell me? Is it — are they ?" 
 
 Mrs. Percival struggled with her instinct for dra- 
 matic effect. It was on the tip of her tongue to say, 
 "I have lost a daughter," but some providence re- 
 strained her. "No one is ill," she said. "Come 
 into the library, papa." They called each other 
 papa and mamma now, rather than Tom and Kitty. 
 
 "Phew!" sighed the poor merchant. "What 
 the deuce is all this about?" They did their best, 
 these two apparitors, to make him sit to a table — 
 it had all been prepared, even to the family Bible. 
 But he showed them so horror-struck a face that 
 no ritual was insisted on. He was allowed to pad 
 about the room, his hands deep in his pockets. 
 
 Philippa gave him her story, which lost nothing 
 by plain recital. Her words were terribly simple. 
 She ended by saying that Ingram had proved him- 
 self bully as well as blackguard, and had only gone 
 when threatened with the policeman. Grey, worn, 
 and old on a sudden, he followed her hard lips with 
 his eyes, and pored upon her fine face as if spying
 
 268 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 out for a grain of pity there. He said not a word; 
 but he felt deep in his heart that he hated Phihppa. 
 Mrs. Percival then took up her parable. Bad 
 as Ingram was, or may have been (for she showed, 
 I think, even now a tendency to excuse his hot 
 blood), Sanchia's coolness was insufferably worse. 
 Her ''downright insolence," her deliberation, in- 
 difference to threats, adjurations, prayers, revealed 
 (she said) a state of ingrained wickedness she could 
 never have believed to be possible. She confessed 
 that she was at a loss, did not know at the moment 
 what to do; she was driven almost to confess that 
 this chit of a girl had been too many for her; and 
 in so confessing she betrayed, far more certainly than 
 her husband had betrayed to himself, that she hated 
 a daughter. Looking desperately from one to an- 
 other, he could see no mercy for him. 
 
 Tom Percival — old Tom, as they called him in 
 the city — was a simple-minded gentleman, not very 
 intelligent, depending for his welfare largely upon 
 the state of his stomach and the routine on which he 
 had been reared. He loved smiling faces, a well- 
 heaped board ; he loved the brisk outset to the morn- 
 ing's work, and the happy home-coming, the day 
 well done. He loved to be coaxed by pretty daugh- 
 ters, to have his knees climbed and whiskers pulled; 
 it was delightful to him to know that his pockets 
 were well-lined — that his nest was warm for his 
 brood. He believed that pretty girls had pretty 
 hearts and souls; there was something harsh and
 
 IN THE LIBRARY 269 
 
 jangling in the suggestion that they could ever jostle 
 in the world and lose their bloom. There were 
 bad girls, lost girls out there, no doubt: he could not 
 bear to think of them, and he never did. Now to 
 be told that his loveliest and dearest, his darling, 
 his youngest, had vice — that she was tousled, rubbed, 
 and smeared; that her sweet heart was hard in sin, 
 and her young eyes bold in it — to be told this by 
 anybody would have roused a fury of rage in him, 
 and given him, nevertheless, misery enough. To 
 be told so by his wife and eldest-born — by the wife 
 who ruled his house and the daughter who ruled his 
 wife — went near to making an old man of him, an 
 old, old man who could only whimper and wag his 
 silly hands. 
 
 This, in point of fact, is much what he did. He 
 could not digest the tale, didn't know whether he 
 ''believed" it or not. He was shocked to the soul, 
 his heart was sick. Sin and Sanchia! Vice and 
 his darling! He could not confront such images, 
 he dared not. He could have cursed these two 
 women whom he feared so much; in his weakness 
 he could have put his hands to his ears and let their 
 words sear the air over his head. What he actually 
 did was to appeal to them, falteringly and feebly, 
 to let him see Sancie — alone. 
 
 ''I can't understand — what's the meaning of all 
 this? Pho! My Sancie — Never, never! There's 
 been a dreadful mistake. You may have seen — I 
 don't know what you saw, some of you — but — oh, 
 you may depend upon it — a mistake. God help us
 
 27© OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 all! God have mercy upon us — for Christ's sake, 
 Amen! Philippa, my dear, I do think you — You 
 never understood the child, you knovi^. There's a 
 good deal in that — I'm bound to remember it. She 
 was too young for you — I think, perhaps, mamma 
 and I might — don't you know ? We're her parents, 
 
 my dear — and you've got duties " 
 
 *'My first duty seems to be to mamma," said 
 Philippa, "but of course if you both wish me to 
 
 go " 
 
 "I do not wish it," said Mrs. Percival. 
 
 The distracted man appealed to his wife. "Kitty, 
 if I could persuade you to give me — just twenty 
 minutes — I'm perfectly certain — I'll stake my name 
 on it, I could — We were always such chums, you 
 know, my dear. She always told me her little se- 
 crets — I'm certain you're wrong — I'm dead sure of it." 
 
 "Then you suppose us to be liars?" said Mrs. 
 Percival, no more than annoyed by his misery. 
 
 "No, my dear, no, no. Liars, indeed! How 
 you take me up! But I confess — my little Sancie! 
 Why, it's not to be thought of! Look here, my 
 dear, I wish you'd let me go up to her — I do indeed. 
 I've no doubt I can clear all this up — there's been 
 some shocking mistake " 
 
 Mrs. Perci^'al was now in a state of white fury 
 which he had been wise to have spared her and 
 himself. 
 
 "If you wish to deny me access to my daughter, 
 if you think me a slanderer, I should be glad for 
 you to say so openly. If you think that— 
 
 )»
 
 IN THE LIBRARY 271 
 
 Philippa laid a hand upon her arm. "Dear 
 mamma," she said, ''I am sure that papa did not 
 imply such terrible things." 
 
 Mr. Percival feebly waved his hands, and mut- 
 tered with his dry lips. No sound came. Then 
 Mrs. Percival, passing him swiftly, went upstairs 
 and unlocked Sanchia's door. "Your father will 
 speak to you," she said, and went down again im- 
 mediately. With that sure sense of dramatic fit- 
 ness, dramatic effect, which never deserted her, 
 she took her stand, erect beside her sterner daughter 
 (who did these things more naturally). The assess- 
 ing pair of women stood, one on each side of the 
 crippled man. He, prone before his troubles, leaned 
 his elbows on the table and covered his face. I 
 doubt if he prayed. 
 
 Sanchia came softly into the room, still in her 
 gown of white pique, her gown of a guilty afternoon. 
 She looked slight and perilously frail, with her 
 dead-white face and great vague eyes, a creature 
 almost diaphanous, through whom you might have 
 seen the heart throb and burn. But in truth she 
 was amazingly strong. Those pale lips of hers had 
 been sanctified, those unseeing eyes had seen their 
 salvation. So she faced her assize undismayed. 
 
 She came softly in and stood by the table, rest- 
 ing the fingers of one hand upon it. Her mother 
 and sister stood stiff as stone men in Egypt; Mrs. 
 Percival's eyelids flickered in her face; Mrs. Tomp- 
 sett-King's eyes stared wide before her into a florid 
 portrait of Mr. Percival as a Freemason. The poor
 
 272 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 merchant himself, unconsciously comic, peeped 
 through his fingers at his darling, saw her a ghost, 
 and with a shiver of miserable shock shut his eyes 
 tightly and pressed his hands upon them. 
 
 Sanchia spoke first, after all, in a voice carefully 
 level and quiet. 
 
 "Do you want to speak to me, papa?" 
 
 Mr. Percival groaned and looked up. He seemed 
 twenty years older, a silvery film showed on his chin. 
 
 "Oh, Sancie! Oh, my darling!" Then he roared 
 in his pain. "Speak to me — tell them they are 
 damned liars!" A spasm crossed Mrs. Percival's 
 rigid face; nothing moved Philippa's. 
 
 "But, papa, it's quite true. I do love Nevile. I 
 told him so." 
 
 Mr. Percival, with one of those sudden jerks of 
 the mind from certainty to incredulity, rounded 
 upon her. "But you can't, you know, my child! 
 It's preposterous — ! Never heard such stuff in 
 my life. How the devil can you love a man that's 
 married? These things ain't done, you know." 
 
 Sanchia smiled, as if she pitied him. "How can 
 I help it, papa? I do love him. Of course I love 
 him. He knows that I do." 
 
 Mr. Percival stretched his arms out. "But he's 
 married, child. Don't you see?" Sanchia's com- 
 passionate smiling moved Mrs. Tompsett-King to 
 be incisive. 
 
 "That appears to be the pleasurable part of it." 
 
 As the culprit still smiled, Mr. Percival frowned. 
 He cleared his throat. "Hum! Sancie, my dear,
 
 IN THE LIBRARY 273 
 
 this is a serious matter. It's not a thing to laugh at 
 — certainly not." 
 
 *'I wasn't laughing, papa," Sanchia said. "But 
 of course I'm happy about it." 
 
 "Happy!" cried the Bench in divers tones. She 
 waited, then spoke unmistakably her mind. 
 
 "I'm happy because I love him, and he knows 
 it; and because he loves me, and I know it. I never 
 thought I could be so happy as I am now." Mr. 
 Percival stared at the door, beyond speech, doubting 
 if he heard. Mrs. Percival took the stage. 
 
 "Do you wish to kill your father?" She fixed 
 Sanchia with her eyes, but Sanchia was unmoved, 
 because she was looking down. 
 
 "Why should papa be killed because I'm happy?" 
 she asked mildly. 
 
 Having taken the stage, one must continue there, 
 it seems. Mrs. Percival felt that one must. There- 
 fore she said, "You have broken my heart, Sanchia." 
 
 Sanchia now looked at her for the first time. 
 Her eyes were thoughtful. "Yours, mamma? I 
 think you do wish me to be unhappy. Papa's dificr- 
 ent." Philippa would have leapt into the fray, but 
 that Mrs. Percival put her hand out sideways and 
 gripped her wrist. 
 
 Sanchia turned to her father. "I think, if you 
 don't mind, papa, I'll go to bed. I'm rather tired 
 — and I can't explain everything now." 
 
 As Mr. Percival didn't move to look at her, she 
 said, "Good-night, papa," and went out. 
 
 When the two ladies had said what seemed fitting.
 
 274 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 and Mr. Percival was left alone with his wreckage, 
 the first thing his eyes took in was the gilded box of 
 bon-bons which the Greengrocers' hospitality had 
 heaped upon him. He had nursed it on his knee 
 as the brougham bowled him homewards; when he 
 had reached Oxford Circus he had taken it from 
 its wrappages so that he might the more easily 
 dazzle his Sancie's eyes when she came to him. 
 Now as he thought of those simple pleasures of the 
 evening, of those pretty hopes and promises, and 
 saw them again against the background of this 
 loss, he broke down and sobbed like a child.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 BRIXTON AS A *' LOCUS PENITENTI^" 
 
 This world is very old, and very small, and very 
 busy; it spins for its mere life, and whirls indus- 
 triously round the sun, though in Great Cumber- 
 land Place a Mrs. Percival takes to the stage and 
 declares that she has no daughter Sanchia, and a jolly 
 merchant grows old before his time, and a pretty 
 girl loses her heart with praise and thanksgiving 
 for the loss. In spite of earthquake and eclipse in 
 that well-found house on the 21st of July, the affairs 
 of the world went rumbling on. Summer lumbered 
 out towards autumnal cool mornings; leaves began 
 to fall in the Park. Mr. Percival attended Board 
 Meetings, and smoked cigars; Nevile Ingram, fault- 
 lessly dressed, stalked Saint- James's Street, and 
 passed his friends without knowing them, a blank 
 glare in his steel-blue eyes; Vicky rode in the Row, 
 esquired by Captain Sinclair and Major Scott; the 
 House of Commons knocked off its arrears and the 
 Law Courts theirs — Scotland in full sight; and 
 Sanchia Percival was teaching orphan children words 
 of one syllable in Acre Lane, Brixton. 
 
 How she got there — after what miserable alter- 
 cations, what hyperdramatic interviews with her 
 mother, what claspings and sunderings with her 
 
 27s
 
 276 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 fond old father — it were long to tell. Ingram, de- 
 nied her door, denied the door in The Poultry, 
 wrote her letter after letter, but in vain. They 
 were impounded by Mrs. Percival and returned, 
 addressed in a flowing hand. The really serious 
 impediment to compromise was this lady's sense of 
 drama. She had declared to Ingram that she had 
 no daughter Sanchia. From that moment it be- 
 came certain that she could have none. But by 
 this time — on general grounds — the girl's entire 
 family was against her. Melusine ignored her 
 peacefully; lifted her out of ken upon her fine eye- 
 brows. Hawise, deep in the country, was told 
 nothing, lest Sir George should be made ashamed. 
 Vicky, after exhausting herself in argument, washed 
 her hands of her sister, more in sorrow than in 
 anger. Even Chevenix, the tried friend, the close 
 ally, was compelled to tell her that nothing could 
 be done with a girl who had ideas of the sort. "It's 
 not to be thought of, Sancie. You can't ask it 
 of any one. I'm frightfully cut up — in a way it's 
 my fault. But you mustn't ask me to do anything, 
 you know. Upon my soul, I couldn't to save my 
 life. Nevile's been at me with letters over and 
 over again — but it's no use. I'm sorry to death, 
 old girl — but there you are. If I can't, I can't." 
 And he was firm. 
 
 She was practically a prisoner, without one 
 friendly face but her father's; and that was now 
 averted, purely in sorrow, for he was incapable of 
 anger against her. She could write no letters and
 
 A "LOCUS PENITENTI^E" 277 
 
 receive none. Neither her friend of the Open 
 Country nor her lover of the serried town could 
 serve her in her strait. All she could do — and 
 that she did — was to live on what she had: hasty 
 notes from Ingram — "Six on Tuesday; Shelley 
 and you." ''Do come to Hurlingham on Friday 
 — the Lady too if absolutely necessary." ''Wear 
 one of these on Monday night, and may I have all 
 the extras, please ? "—some soiled dance programmes, 
 some faded carnations, a little ring. She fed on 
 these; but for medicine she had a greater store; 
 letters, rambling, eloquent, aspiring, preposterous, 
 hopeful, adoring, from the Open Country. But 
 for them, she thought, her treadings would have 
 slipped. They only kept her head above the flood 
 in which she swirled. In them her course seemed 
 plain; by them she steered. 
 
 She proved, indeed, an apt pupil of the Philoso- 
 pher of Poverty. She was beggared, and happy to 
 know it; the poorer she was the richer she felt. 
 They had cut her off her lover, and she loved the 
 longer; they had locked her in her room; she 
 nursed him in her heart. With Ingram fast in there 
 she was proof against her mother's icy .stabs, her 
 poor old father's tears. Unearthly proof, she held 
 a level course. It came to be a matter of indiffer- 
 ence where they put her or what they did. A locked 
 door in Brixton? How was that worse than Great 
 Cumberland Place? Cousin Letitia? Could she 
 be more unnatural than mamma? She went to 
 Brixton quite simply and without any farewells, but
 
 278 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 one. She did contrive a whispered word to her 
 father. "Good-bye, darhng," she had said, her 
 arms round his neck. "I shall write to you, you 
 know, to the city, and you must answer." His 
 immediate answer had been a frantic embrace. 
 **God bless my precious, God give her to me again," 
 had been all he could say. She had pressed closely 
 to him, put her arms round his neck, and clung to 
 him. "Darling, don't cry; please, please, don't. 
 I'm not wicked at all, really. I'm trying to be 
 good." Poor Mr. Percival had begun again, the 
 old, interminable arguments. "You can't be good, 
 my dear, if you won't go to church or see a clergy- 
 man." Her smile was very pitiful and very kind. 
 "Darling, I can, and I shall be. Now, mind you 
 write to me." 
 
 At the last minute — most characteristically — he 
 had pushed an envelope into her hand. It con- 
 tained a banknote for fifty pounds. Emotion with 
 him most readily took that form. The only happy 
 moment of his burdened month had been when he 
 got that note from Wilkins at the bank. "How 
 will you take it, Mr. Percival?" he had been asked, 
 and had replied, quite unusually, "A fifty-pound 
 note, Wilkins, if you please. A clean one if you 
 have it." 
 
 Acre Lane, Brixton, contained the residence of 
 Cousin Letitia, Miss Letitia Blount, who cultivated 
 the theological virtues there, taught orphans, main- 
 tained herself, a maid, a canary, and a cat on three 
 hundred pounds a year. She was Mrs. Pcrcival's
 
 A "LOCUS PENITENTI^" 279 
 
 first cousin, had had an early disappointment in 
 love, which had turned her eyes to Evangelical 
 Truth, and was now, at the age of fifty-seven, one 
 of the gentlest and most charming of women. She 
 was slight, hollow-chested, and grey-haired; she 
 was tremulous, deprecating, and soft-voiced. She 
 hoped all things, believed all things, except the possi- 
 bility of evil. If sin, if crime, if clamour existed in 
 the world, it is certain that she must know nothing 
 of them if she were to live. It was said of her once 
 that Miss Blount supposed all children to be bom 
 spontaneously under gooseberry bushes; and that 
 if some were orphans (as her charges were), and 
 some were not, it must be because some were found 
 by happy ladies, and some by parochial inspectors. 
 The worst she could say of anything was that it 
 was not quite nice, the best of anybody that he was 
 a believing Christian. Upon Sanchia's consign- 
 ment to her care she had been given to understand 
 that something not quite nice had in fact been in 
 the wind; but the child, on arrival, saw very soon 
 that her cousin could not believe it, and must not 
 be allowed to suppose it. All must needs be for the 
 best with Cousin Letitia, since to her this was the 
 best world possible at present, a kind of forecourt 
 of the Second Temple. ''Darling child, I do hope 
 you will be happy," had been Miss Blount's greeting, 
 after an embrace. "Of course I shall. Cousin 
 Letitia," she had been told, "if you'll let me do 
 something." Miss Blount had referred to the or- 
 phans who were folded next door. "I'll teach
 
 28o OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 them spelling," Sanchia promised, ''if you don't 
 think I shall corrupt them." This had been in the 
 first ten minutes before she knew her Cousin Le- 
 titia; the scare with which the sarcasm was received 
 taught her better. ''Corrupt them, my dear! Oh, 
 how could that be possible?" Sanchia had kissed 
 her and apologised for a very bad joke. Miss 
 Blount, made aware of a joke, produced a smile, 
 and said that it was capital fun. Thus they came 
 to an understanding by force of which Sanchia's 
 private life and public conversation had no rela- 
 tion whatsoever to each other. 
 
 Outwardly she was the cheerful instructress of 
 a score of pale-faced, smartly-combed children, 
 feeder of a canary, tender of a cat. She made talk 
 with curates and district visitors, did woolwork in 
 the evenings, or sometimes read The Sunday at Home 
 aloud while her Cousin Letitia knitted comforters 
 for railwaymen. She did her hair smoothly, parted 
 it in the middle, dressed plainly, was always good- 
 tempered, and never showed depression. Miss 
 Blount called her her ray of sunshine, and wrote 
 long letters with a very fine pen to her cousin Kitty 
 Percival, which that lady seldom read to the end. 
 She gave no trouble, seldom wanted to go out be- 
 yond the garden, was never late for prayers or un- 
 ready for bed. One would have said of her that 
 the punctual performance of everyday duties was 
 her only happiness. Miss Blount, who saw in 
 method a clear forecast of our heavenly state, told 
 Mrs. Percival that dear Sanchia had only wanted
 
 A "LOCUS PENITENTI^" 281 
 
 work to prove herself a pattern to us all. "Her 
 very first words to me," she wrote, "were that I 
 must let her 'do something.' My good cousin 
 will forgive me if I remind her that to go about 
 doing good was the divine ensample set us in the 
 beginning." 
 
 Prayers over, good-night said, behind her chamber 
 door the other Sanchia glowed and stood revealed, 
 the priestess of Heavenly Aphrodite. Her splendid 
 state of Lover and Beloved, of chooser and chosen, 
 rayed out from her heart, till she stood up trans- 
 figured, glorified, and inspired. She had no un- 
 happiness, no misgivings; the glorious certainty of 
 her love made any doubt of her beloved an impossi- 
 ble impiety. Here alone in Brixton stood she, 
 Sanchia, loving, loving, loving; there alone in Lon- 
 don stood her Nevile, loving, loving. She faced the 
 window, carefully north-west, she stretched out her 
 arms, "I am yours, Nevile, yours, and you are mine." 
 What else mattered? "Though after my skin 
 worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see 
 God." 
 
 Transfigured by love as she was, she was also 
 translated. She became as gods, unconcerned with 
 the good and evil which temper and try the con- 
 sciences of men. The little customs of the world 
 seemed negligible to her now, lifted as she was to 
 heights beyond its atmosphere. In that star-strewn 
 space where now she soared men and women could 
 not breathe at all. How then could she but pity
 
 282 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 them? In such moods as these she used to write 
 to her devoted father, "I want to tell you about 
 Nevile and me, because I want you so much to see 
 exactly how we feel about it, and to show you that 
 we aren't so wicked as you think. We aren't 
 wicked at all, but simply love each other. ... I 
 don't understand how his being married can make 
 any difference at all. He doesn't love her, and will 
 never see her again. He doesn't injure her in any 
 way. In fact, it is very much the contrary, because 
 she has hurt him dreadfully. She must be a horri- 
 ble person. . . . You can only love one person at 
 a time, you see ; and what can it matter what person 
 you love so long as you are quite sure ? I shall never 
 be able to understand that it can be right to live 
 with a person you don't and can't love. That seems 
 to me just as wrong as not to live with a person whom 
 you do love, and who loves you. In each case you 
 would be doing harm to somebody, and that can't 
 possibly be right. No one thinks so." To such 
 impassioned reasoning as this The Poultry could only 
 reply with groans, and petitions to a darling child 
 not to disgrace us all. 
 
 How she raged! ''Disgrace you, papa dear!" 
 cried the fire-fraught priestess. ''How can my love 
 for Nevile be a disgrace? Nobody told Hawise 
 that it was disgraceful to love George, or Philippa 
 that she was wicked to love Septimus. Is it because 
 poor Nevile has been treated shamefully, and has 
 been unhappy for six or seven years that it's dis- 
 graceful ? Do you want him to go on being wretched
 
 A "LOCUS PENITENTI^" 283 
 
 all his life? Or do you mean me, papa? Is it dis- 
 graceful of me to be in love, or to want to make 
 Nevile happy? I simply don't understand you, 
 and I wish I did, because I'm sure you don't mean 
 that." What reply could The Poultry have but a 
 groan ? 
 
 But the world ran its course all the same. Au- 
 gust emptied London, and the Percival household 
 went to Cornwall for its holidays. At the end of 
 the month came Sanchia's birthday, her twenty- 
 first, and she proceeded to action. 
 
 She had written to Senhouse shortly after her 
 exile that she was staying with her cousin because 
 of trouble at home. A '^ difference of opinion," 
 she had called it, but had gone no nearer to the 
 facts. The letter, directed to the care of Mr. Char- 
 nock at Bill Hill, had been some while in finding 
 its consignee; he had replied to it at length with an 
 impersonal cheerfulness which had given her a slight 
 chill. She had been used to a more ardent service 
 from him, and missed its warmth. However, he 
 had said, "Don't fail to let me know how I can serve 
 you. You promised me that, and if I can put aside 
 all the promises I made to myself, you must leave 
 me yours for comfort. So, mind you, I shall rely 
 upon you." 
 
 To that she replied that she had not forgotten 
 her promise; *'in fact," she said, "I am rather near 
 asking your advice just now. I can't very well 
 write about it, but should like to see you before 
 long — when I have carried out what I intend to do."
 
 2S4 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 Before he could answer her she had taken her own 
 counsel and left her Cousin Letitia's sanctuary for 
 the vague. 
 
 Then she wrote to him from Beauchamp Place 
 to the following effect: — 
 
 "My dear Jack, I was sent to Brixton by my 
 parents because they thought I was being extremely 
 wicked; and I have left it now that I am of age be- 
 cause I should feel myself to be really wicked if I 
 stopped there any longer. I have written a long 
 letter to papa explaining everything, and shall go 
 to see him in the city directly he comes back. I 
 am going to support myself, exactly as you did, 
 and am learning type-writing, shorthand, and book- 
 keeping at a school in Chancery Lane. This is 
 my way of walking to King's Lynn. I hope you 
 won't disapprove of me. 
 
 ''You know how troublesome I find it to explain 
 things, so I won't try. I have been very unhappy 
 at times, and so I am now when I let myself get de- 
 pressed; but I am very busy, and it doesn't often 
 happen. If you were here you would understand 
 everything without any difficulty. Do you think 
 that you could come and see me? It would be 
 awfully nice of you. I don't quite know what to 
 do about a friend of mine. I think you met him 
 once. Mr. Nevile Ingram, his name is. Do you 
 remember, we met you in the Park, the day before 
 you left town? That was in June; and seems to 
 have been years ago. I haven't seen Mr. Ingram 
 since the 21st of July, a month before my twenty-
 
 A "LOCUS PENITENTI^" 285 
 
 first birthday." There was more, but nothing nearer 
 to the point, about which, in writing, she might have 
 circled for ever. But there was a postscript which 
 said, "Cousin Letitia was extremely kind to me; but 
 I felt that I could not possibly stay there after I was 
 old enough to act on my own judgment. It would 
 have been wrong to other people, as well as not fair 
 to me." 
 
 Senhouse telegraphed, "Coming to-morrow," and 
 she in fact found him waiting for her when she re- 
 turned from a visit to her father in the city. 
 
 That visit must be explained. Mrs. Percival, 
 on receipt of a letter from her Cousin Letitia, had 
 publicly cast Sanchia from her bosom. The family, 
 silent and scared, had heard her do it, and had ap- 
 parently acquiesced. Only Mr. Percival, the tor- 
 mented merchant, had found guile. For three days 
 he had borne about with him, and upon him, his 
 deceit. Then he had received a pre-arranged tele- 
 gram from his clerk calling him to the city. He 
 had gone up, unsuspected; and within six hours of 
 his leaving -home his Sanchia had been in his arms.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 MB.. SENHOUSE, HAVING SOWN, IS ENGAGED 
 
 TO REAP 
 
 She came in about half-past six, her books under 
 her arm. She was bright-eyed, clear-skinned, and 
 looked thoroughly self-sufficing. He saw in a mo- 
 ment that she did not fail of courage. Her eyes 
 danced at the sight of him; her hand was glad of 
 his. 
 
 "So this is King's Lynn!" said Senhouse, and she 
 nodded happily. 
 
 "King's Lynn. Mine! But on sixty pounds. 
 I am behind you there." 
 
 "Oho! Yes, you're a capitalist. But I think 
 it's as well on the whole. You remember that I 
 adjured you not to make the journey." 
 
 She was thinking now; the first elation had gone. 
 Now she had to make her actions good. 
 
 "Yes, of course I remember. I don't think I 
 ever intended to follow you literally; I'm sure I 
 didn't. But one gets forced into corners, and has 
 to take the best way out one can. Generally, I 
 suppose, there's only one way out of a comer." 
 
 "There are always two," Senhouse said, who was 
 
 watching her closely. " One is to stay in the corner." 
 
 That she admitted, not shirking his scrutiny. 
 
 286
 
 MR. SENHOUSE REAPS 287 
 
 "I know. Of course I thought of that. I believe 
 I have thought of everything." 
 
 He said gravely, "I am quite sure that you be- 
 Heve it." She showed him her gratitude, and at the 
 same time allowed for his scruples. 
 
 "You think I ought to have waited? It was 
 almost impossible — really. If you knew every- 
 thing " 
 
 He stopped her there. "Of course, I don't 
 know everything. Since your letter came I have 
 surmised at large. Will you let me put it bluntly. 
 Your complications are, no doubt, of the usual 
 kind?" 
 
 She was pinching her lip, her foot on the fender. 
 "No," she said, "not quite usual. At least, I think 
 not. N — Mr. Ingram is married." 
 
 He had not been ready. He was scared and 
 could not help showing it. Yet all his wits went 
 to work to hide his agitation. 
 
 "That's a complication, indeed. I hope you'll 
 think of everything — again." He saw that he must 
 keep his head at every cost. 
 
 Whatever he did with his, her head was now 
 high. There was no lip-pinching, no watching of 
 toes working in shoe-leather. Her eyes were those 
 of a dreamer, but her voice was very steady. 
 
 "When one feels as — when one knows what I 
 know — there is no need to think at all, in a sense. 
 But of course I have worked it all out — what it 
 means. My people don't understand — naturally. 
 They think me very wicked. Mamma says that
 
 288 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 I am not her daughter, and the others seem to agree 
 with her. Whatever happens it is quite certain 
 I can never go home again. Even papa thinks so. 
 I have just been with him. He was sweet to me 
 — as he always is. But he doesn't understand — as 
 you will." She looked to him now, by a sudden 
 twist of mood, like a child to its parent, confidently, 
 as of right. 
 
 There was no time to think of himself. She 
 needed everything he had to give. Everything he 
 had was hers ; but what had he which would serve ? 
 
 He kept silence, treading the room softly on feet 
 like a cat's, hands behind his back, and his head 
 bent forwards and sideways, like that of a bicyclist 
 riding through rain. He was not thinking, he was 
 incapable of that; but he was feeling, as never be- 
 fore in his life. She watched him from her place 
 by the fender, and presently, as he did not speak, 
 she herself took up the tale. 
 
 She began on a low fierce note, a speech which 
 ran from scorn to wailing, and so on to a long musi- 
 cal cry of pure passion, indescribably holy to him, 
 and touching. "She — ! To have love given her — 
 his love — his name — hateful, wicked, a devil, not a 
 woman. He was young when he married her — he 
 was as young as I am. But she took his love and 
 threw it away. In less than a year she left him — 
 with some one else — He has never seen her again 
 — for eight years — but he knows what she has done. 
 It has been torture to him; it has changed him. 
 He thought, until a little while ago, that he could
 
 MR. SENHOUSE REAPS 289 
 
 never be happy again. He hasn't told me what he 
 has done — to forget her and himself — but I know, 
 I know — of course I know how he has had to live." 
 
 He heard, he felt the trembling of her voice, and 
 knew that her whole frame was throbbing with her 
 passion. Look at her he dared not yet. Alas, for 
 her youth! That such as she should champion such 
 as Ingram must be. 
 
 "You told me once," she went on, ''that I might 
 live so — in such a way — as to be useful to other 
 people; you said that the Woman's Art was to ex- 
 press herself. You told me that I had it in me to 
 be such an artist. I don't think I dared believe it, 
 because I knew that you were always too kind to 
 me, and thought too highly of me. But then — 
 afterwards — I began to see, couldn't help seeing, 
 that I did make Nevile happier, and quieter. He 
 told me so, but I could see it without that. He 
 used to come and read with me — things which you 
 taught me to understand and to value. Things 
 that he used to do — that amused him once — bored 
 him afterwards. He used to accuse himself some- 
 times, and then tell me what he meant to do at 
 Wanless, where he lives — all his duties to his people 
 there. I couldn't help seeing that I had been some 
 use to him, and so I felt grateful to you for having 
 shown me what I could do. . . . He told me that he 
 had liked me from the very first; but I don't know 
 that I liked him until Christmas Day, when we went 
 to church, and received together. ..." 
 
 Senhouse too remembered a Christmas Day,
 
 290 
 
 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 when he in Cornwall watched her bowed head in 
 London, and followed every stave of her prayers. 
 
 "It was in the spring that he told me he must 
 leave me, and I couldn't understand what he meant. 
 I saw that he was unhappy about it, but I wasn't 
 — very — because I knew then that I liked him, and 
 guessed that he liked me. I saw you afterwards 
 and wanted to talk to you about it, but I couldn't 
 — for all sorts of reasons. . . . 
 
 "Then I came back to town, and he told me all 
 about it." 
 
 She stopped here, smiling pitifully. With such 
 great things behind — such splendours of sea and 
 sun-painted sky — to be concerned about so small a 
 thing as this of Nevile's entangled feet. Oh, how 
 absurd they were, who did not love! As if one 
 could not adore the miracle of twilight because of 
 a worm writhing on the ground ! 
 
 "My people, it seems, had known it before, and 
 thought nothing about it. They let him come to 
 see me just the same. That's what I don't under- 
 stand about mamma. She trusts you, and then, 
 suddenly, believes nothing you can say. But I 
 know now that she always hated me — though she 
 used to like Nevile — and now she hates him because 
 of me, I hope I shall never see her again. She 
 makes me shudder all over. I always shudder at 
 hatred and coldness. I'm afraid of her; she makes 
 me doubt God. But it makes no difference, of 
 course. One has one's duty so clear before one 
 sometimes — that no cruelty could possibly matter.
 
 MR. SENHOUSE REAPS 291 
 
 Papa's not at all like that. Papa loves me — and 
 I love him. I can't bear to hurt him — he knows 
 I can't. But if I can make Nevile hapj)y, and make 
 him good — how can I help myself?" 
 
 Before he could voice either his adoration or his 
 pain, she had entered into the tideway of her passion. 
 
 ''They say that I disgrace myself — but do I care 
 for that? I can help him, I can make him good — 
 he has told me so — I know it. Why do people love 
 each other — and have such beautiful thoughts, if 
 they are wicked ? Why is it that to be in love makes 
 you religious, happier in church than an)^where, 
 and interested in things which you don't notice at 
 all when you are just playing about in the world — 
 in society — and at parties and things like that? It's 
 not only my own case — it's Nevile's too. We like 
 the same things — simple, natural sort of things, 
 like saying prayers, and reading poetry, and — all 
 the things that you like. It makes us more like you, 
 you know; and no happiness we have got out of 
 society has ever been half so dear. I know, I know 
 what our lives would be — together. You told me 
 yourself that no harm could come to a good woman — 
 and I am not at all afraid of Nevile. How could I 
 be ? He loves me. And what does the world matter 
 to us if we have each other and feel like that ? What 
 can anything matter if your conscience is clear? 
 Nothing will ever make me believe that it's dis- 
 graceful to make a man happy and good. And I 
 can do that; he's told me so — and, besides, I know it." 
 
 She stopped suddenly, in full career. Beside this
 
 292 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 certainty, not to be voiced, all protestations and proofs 
 seemed vain. But though her tongue was still, the 
 jare which had urged and now checked it went beat- 
 ing through her, and made her beauty glow — with 
 an intensity at once warm and grave. To Senhouse, 
 loving her without hope or earthly desire, she seemed 
 a thing enskicd : a message, not a woman. It would 
 have been to him, at that moment, an impiety out 
 of all belief to question or to doubt. 
 
 Senhouse, a poet, loved her and saw her in heaven, 
 but Senhouse, the man of humours, recognised her 
 for a girl in love. Adoration strove in him with most 
 gentle pity; admiration with deadly fear. Igno- 
 rant, was she ? Fearing nothing because she noth- 
 ing knew? Maybe so: yet how noble was an igno- 
 rance like hers! Ah, how could he fail to see her 
 nobility, that would throw all to the winds for the 
 sake of a man ? And how could he fail to be afraid, 
 knowing the man? He had seen him but once, for 
 a few minutes, but had known him for what he was 
 at a glance. You walk the world's ways for a few 
 years, and meet Ingrams by the score. Your clam- 
 ative sort — born in the purple — your ask-and-have, 
 your lord-of-the-earth, to whom women, dogs, horses, 
 seats at feasts, acres and ease fall as a matter of 
 course. Was there anything in his visible world 
 which Ingram had seriously wanted and had not 
 had ? Nothing. Had he yet, any single time, seri- 
 ously wanted a thing worth having? Never once, 
 never once. Had he ever curbed a rage, stifled a 
 lust, smothered a need, that his neighbour's state
 
 MR. SENHOUSE REAPS 293 
 
 might be the more gracious? Not he. And was 
 this inspired creature, this pure embodiment, this 
 holy thing to be thrown out to him because he called 
 for it? Pity the poet, pity the man of humours. 
 
 No harm can ever come to a good woman. No; 
 but horrible hurt is done the world when such an 
 one is put in peril. The moral sense is shocked, 
 the standard falls; if the flag flies still it flies as a 
 braggart and a liar. Women, in his view, are so 
 infinitely higher in the moral scale than men, being 
 capable of lengths of enthusiasm and sacrifice which 
 men never even become aware of, that mere honour 
 is stultified if such a danger is allowed. The state 
 of a man becomes revolting if such a danger is possi- 
 ble. Apart from the pity of the thing, there was 
 that to be put from the man's side. Was it possible 
 that Ingram himself could suffer this exquisite crea- 
 ture, this Temple of Beauty, to become a vessel for 
 his common use, or a medicine for his disordered 
 soul ? The thing had but to be put to him, surely, 
 Senhouse felt, to be exhibited as monstrous offence. 
 
 He saw now in his bitterness what his own part 
 had been. He had seen her to be lovely and had 
 told her she was lovely ; he had known her for a saint 
 and inspired her to be saintly. She was now on 
 fire to be to Ingram all that she had been to him- 
 self. And how could he tell her, You have been a 
 Spirit of God to me, but can never be so to him? 
 He is not worthy of you, though I am worthy ? How 
 say that? He could have laughed aloud in his ag-
 
 294 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 ony as he put the question to himself. Yet the dilem- 
 ma was very real. He was to learn, it seems, that if you 
 tell a lady she is a Goddess it is not possible for you 
 afterwards to complain that she acts like a Goddess, 
 to whom "good" and "evil" are empty words, as 
 empty as "pity" and "terror" to a thunderstorm. 
 
 Here was the dilemma in the which he writhed: 
 Sanchia Percival walked a Goddess upon earth, or 
 she walked there a simple maid. If she walked a 
 Goddess,what had he to say against her deliberate pur- 
 pose ? If she did not, how had he been fool enough to 
 think so, or knave enough to tell her so ? Had he done 
 her reasonable honour by his testimonies, or had he 
 lured her on to dishonour and shipwreck ? You may 
 blame him if you must, pity him if you can. 
 
 I don't suggest that all these thoughts ran orderly 
 through his brain at this moment when, her speech 
 failing her, he stood by her side, her hand taken to 
 his lips, his eyes wistfully upon her bent head. 
 Rather, they had whirled and run riot in him through- 
 out her apology, not forming themselves into lines of 
 attack, but fighting him singly, out of ambushes, run- 
 ning in and stabbing where they found him exposed. 
 He felt, indeed, standing there hand-fasted, adoring 
 her youth, a singular fool; but her need was so much 
 greater than his plight that he could not afford to think 
 of anything but her. 
 
 Standing above her there, her caught-up hand to 
 his lips, his adoration spurred back his loyalty, and
 
 MR. SENHOUSE REAPS 295 
 
 his loyalty called up his faith. He now came to 
 see her courage so far above his own, the pupil so 
 high above the master, that he was ashamed of his 
 fears. No harm ever yet came to a good woman. 
 No, and here was a woman — woman ? a young girl, 
 rather, on the threshold — ready, unarmed, to prove 
 his words. All honour to her, even to mortal risk! 
 He was a Stoic by temper and training, to whom the 
 rubs of the world upon the body seemed as nothing 
 against the serenity of the soul. It would have been 
 rank disloyalty to doubt of her soul: must she not 
 then endanger her fair body ? 
 
 She looked up presently into his face; her far- 
 seeing, serious eyes sought deeply into his. "Well," 
 she said. "Speak to me. Tell me what you think." 
 
 He said, "I think now as I thought when I saw 
 you first, long ago. Do you remember the lily- 
 pond?" 
 
 Her thoughts had been far away from that, but 
 she turned them at once, remembered, and smiled. 
 "Yes, of course I do. But what did you think of 
 me then?" 
 
 "I saw you, in your white frock, setting your 
 foot into bottomless black. And I was afraid." 
 
 Hurt filled her eyes with tears, she withdrew her 
 hand. "I never thought you would speak to me 
 hke that." 
 
 He caught her hand again. "Don't turn away 
 from me. Think. What did I do?" 
 
 After a moment he saw the smile steal over her 
 lips. "You floated me on your raft — your bed."
 
 2q6 open country 
 
 He kissed what he held of her. "I must float 
 you again. I dare do nothing else." 
 
 ''Yes," she said. "I knew you would. But 
 you floated yourself too — on the pond. And it was 
 you who pulled most of the weeds off the lilies." 
 
 He laughed rather ruefully. "Did I? WeU, it's 
 a man's business to do most of the weeding — since 
 women bear the flowers. But the analogy won't 
 hold — we've got to the end of it. This time it is 
 you who must float." 
 
 She glowed, triumphant. "'Yes, I know. But 
 you win have to launch me." 
 
 "Ah, my dear, my dear," he said, "and then I 
 must stand and watch you from the shore." 
 
 Her mood was now merry. "You'll be like a 
 hen with a brood of ducklings — exactly." 
 
 "More exactly than you think," he told her. 
 
 "Dreadfully fussy with your wings, and poking 
 your head like a snake. You don't believe that I 
 can swim, you know — not in the least." 
 
 "Spare me, my dear," he said, with a wry smile. 
 But she was in a mood of little mercy. 
 
 "I don't see why I should. I think the hen on 
 the bank is an untrustful bird. You don't trust 
 me — your own pupil. You can't deny it." 
 
 "Queen Mab," he said, "sit down and let's have 
 it out. It isn't you I distrust, but the world you 
 live in. It's a grudging, uncharitable world. It's 
 not fit for the likes of you. Remember that it burned 
 Joan of Arc, and spat at Charlotte Corday as she 
 went to her death. Do you think it would aflow
 
 MR. SENHOUSE REAPS 
 
 297 
 
 for your gallantry, or put down your deeds to single- 
 ness of mind and a pure heart? Do you know 
 what would be said of you? Thank God you don't. 
 And you never shall if I can help it. These things 
 hurt, you know: the mud they throw may be clean 
 stuff — the whole earth is clean, as far as that goes 
 — but the act is brutal, the intention is vile, and 
 brutality and obscenity bruise and sear you. Per- 
 haps you are strong enough to hold your head high 
 against them all — I believe that you are — but your 
 heart must needs harden under the trial, and I 
 can't bear to think of it. You would be shocked 
 beyond repair. They would deny you common 
 civility, they would leer in your face ; you would be 
 denied your God in His Church. You say, These 
 things are nothing, and remind me that you make 
 your own God and your own lover. That's true — 
 but, my beloved, so does he — so does your Nevile 
 Ingram. He makes you too, out of what he has 
 and what he finds. How is he going to take ig- 
 nominy, ostracism? How is he going to take you, 
 who will get the worst of it — after our courteous 
 fashion? Don't think I am belittling him— how 
 could I think ill of a man who loves you ? I know 
 nothing of him but that; and God knows that's in 
 his favour. I am sure that you could weather the 
 gale — I wonder if he could, though. I judge what 
 you propose — personally — by what I think of mar- 
 riage. It's the act of common desire, man for maid, 
 maid for man, which is the Sacrament, not the Church 
 rite. I don't object to the Church rite as such. Of
 
 298 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 course I don't. It's the legal implication, and the 
 moral that I think so wicked. But, take it as you 
 will, there's the sanction of the Church, with use 
 and wont behind it. These things at present weigh 
 much with the world. Can you ask me, loving 3^ou 
 as I do, to put you so far in the wrong in the world's 
 eyes ? No, no, I couldn't do that. It's not possible. 
 I told you that I could never marry a woman that 
 I loved, because I feel that it would insult her. 
 That's my own feeling, and allow me to say that 
 though you had my whole soul at your feet — as 
 you have had — I would sooner let it lie there than 
 ask you to marry me, or to do anything else. Be- 
 cause I love you I must give up all hopes of you. 
 And so I did, long before you showed me that I 
 could have no hopes at all. That's true. But I 
 must ask you this plainly: Does Ingram think like 
 that? And do you? Would he not marry you to- 
 morrow if he could? Would you not marry him?" 
 He waited for her answer, and got it only from her 
 eyes. These, after a moment, were lifted to his own, 
 looked deeply into them, and gave him what he had 
 known before. 
 
 "You are the soul of truth," he said, "and have 
 answered me. I don't know that I need say any 
 more about that." 
 
 But she told him plainly that there was more 
 to say. "You have not answered me at all," she 
 told him. "Wc love each other, and he needs me. 
 I know that. Can I deny him what he needs?" 
 
 Senhouse was very grave. "I can't answer you.
 
 MR. SENHOUSE REAPS 
 
 299 
 
 I ought not to, in any case — but the fact is that I 
 can't do it. If he had put the question, I could 
 answer him — and so I shall, I believe." He had 
 added that, as if talking to himself; but it lifted 
 her head quickly. 
 
 "What do you mean? Do you mean that you 
 shall go to Wanless?" 
 
 "Is that where he lives? Yes, I think I shall." 
 
 She flushed all over, and her eyes grew bright. 
 "I don't think you ought to do that." 
 
 "I think," he said, "that I shall ask your leave 
 to go there." 
 
 She looked away, put her chin in her hand, and 
 thought intensely. Leaning so, she asked him 
 between her teeth, "What should you say to him 
 if you went there?" 
 
 "Very much," he replied, "what I have said to 
 you — only I should put it differently." 
 
 "He would be angry," she said. 
 
 "He would be rightly angry," said Senhouse. 
 "It would be insufferable, but I want to do it all the 
 same." 
 
 She tried coaxing first, very womanlike. "Why 
 should you put yourself in a false position for my 
 sake? Why should you let Nevile think you 
 
 a " 
 
 "A prig?" asked Senhouse. "A busybody? 
 My dear, that's my punishment. I've got to eat 
 my slice of pie." 
 
 "What do you mean?" she asked him, frowning. 
 
 "I've been an awful fool, you see," he told her.
 
 300 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 "I begged you not to walk to King's Lynn, and 
 thought that was enough. But it wasn't. I had 
 shown you the road too clearly. Now, so far as 
 I can, I have to get you back again." 
 
 She rose and looked down at him. She was very 
 pale. ''I ask you seriously not to go to Wanless. 
 There are many reasons " 
 
 "Don't I know that?" he said, shaking his head, 
 "There are hardly any reasons why I should. And 
 yet there is one." 
 
 She hesitated, and her colour came back. She 
 was now blushing. "I have one reason which 
 perhaps you won't understand. If you go there, 
 Nevile may think — might think — that you came 
 from me." 
 
 "I had thought of that, of course," he said. "I 
 can reassure you. He won't think so, because 
 now I see how far I have to go on my humiliating 
 road. I have to incur your anger. I have to lose 
 your affection." He couldn't bear to look at her. 
 "So be it! It's logical enough." 
 
 They were both in a high state of tension. Her 
 fluttering nostrils, her fixed eyes showed the strife 
 within her breast. "If you think fit to do what I 
 have begged you not to do — " she began to say, 
 and then she broke down. "Don't give me up," 
 she pleaded, and held out her hands. He, with a 
 short cry, was before her, and took them both. 
 
 "Oh, my blessed one," he said. "Now I can 
 go through Hell's gate for you." 
 
 He kissed her two hands, turned, and left her.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 IN WHAT MANNER MR. SENHOUSE MADE SO BOLD 
 
 He caught the night mail to Felsboro', and arrived 
 in that stone-built outpost of the hills at three 
 o'clock in the morning. Wanless Park was nine 
 miles distant, deep in the fells, they told him. He 
 trudged wet roads, gossamered sheep-tracks, skirted 
 ferny hollows or brimming becks, climbing steadily, 
 husbanding his breath. The exercise was grate- 
 ful, for his mind was ill at ease. He thought, as 
 he sat presently amid boulders on a height and 
 waited for the dawn, that if he wasn't a fool it couldn't 
 be for want of telling himself what a fool he was. 
 
 The laggard October sun came palely up and 
 made the mountain gloom more sensible. A great 
 blanket of fog hid the glen where Wanless lay, 
 folded between the breasts of the hills. The poet 
 in him was acold; the man of humours smiled 
 askance. ''Here's rue for you, Senhouse," he told 
 himself; ''your rhapsodies sevenfold back into 
 your bosom. Rhapsody incarnate, and her own 
 singer, she was — fired and ardent at her racing- 
 mark — ready to spring away at the word! 'Tiptoe 
 for a flight!' my gallant, dauntless one! Mon- 
 strous in me to doubt her — a shame to my own 
 
 301
 
 302 
 
 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 professions. Mine is the gran' rifiuto — she will 
 never shirk. I know that, and could worship her 
 for it. She's right, she's right — of course she's 
 right. She, Sanchia, arrayed in her white armour 
 of innocence — Innocence, O God, and twenty-one! 
 — against the prestige of this world. Safety, Sanc- 
 tion, the Uses of five thousand slavish years; Church 
 and World, Gods and Devils, priests and people, 
 home, law, order, Bible and prayer-book — rank 
 upon rank of them, crosses, eagles, flags, and stand- 
 ards up — against young Sanchia the white, armed 
 only with her heart on fire. What a battle — the 
 myriad against One — and I range with the hordes 
 against my saint! 
 
 "How shall we do, the myriad of us? Shall we 
 trample her out? Not so: we have a way more 
 excellent. We stare her cold — till she stare at us 
 again out of her frozen eyes, stark, stiff, her mouth 
 still open with that Oh! of her first shock. We 
 stare long and steadily, we spare no detail. Ah! 
 we say, *A wanton! curious!' We point her out 
 — mud-stains (of our own making) ; a tear in her 
 gown (we clawed her there) ; a brazen eye (whose 
 use we taught her); a flushed cheek (fresh from 
 our flouts) — ay, ay! a wanton indeed! Hold your 
 robe back, priest, lest she soil you. Use your 
 handkerchief, dear madam, cover your nose. Eyes 
 right, children, here's no sight for you. Gentle- 
 men, please, we will sing to the praise and glory of 
 God ^Thc Voice tJmt breathed o'er Eden.'' That's 
 how we do. It's a lingering death — that kind.
 
 MR. SENHOUSE MAKES BOLD 303 
 
 She defies us. Her Oh! is long coming; for at first, 
 look you, she laughs. God help us all, the child 
 is happy. What's her joy then? Service! She 
 thinks she is serving. 'He loves me,' she says, 'and 
 I love him. He needs me, and I give myself. I 
 can make him happy — I can make him good. He 
 told me so — and I know it.' Impiety, which is 
 worthy of death. She's a publican, she's a sinner. 
 Courage, ye hosts of man! Shut your New Testa- 
 ments — put 'em away. Stare on, point your fingers, 
 nudge each other, say, 'Look, look!' Look long 
 enough, nudge hard enough, mouth your scorn; 
 she'll gasp her little ' Oh ! ' presently, and freeze from 
 within — from the shocked heart to the parted lips. 
 There — what did I tell you? She's gone grey; her 
 lips are cold. Lot's wife! No, but she's a pillar of 
 ice — a frozen Oh! that was once a young girl in 
 love." 
 
 He had lashed himself to frenzy, ranging that 
 soaked mountain-top. Slowly, as he shook himself 
 free of his rage, the fog-bank parted and steamed 
 upwards. There below him, grey in the heavy 
 trees, he saw Wanless Hall and blue smoke from 
 more than one chimney. Terraced and trim be- 
 fore it the gardens ran down to Wan river, nobly 
 behind it lay Wanless Park — massed oaks and elms, 
 brackened glades, feeding deer, a herdsman cross- 
 ing the carriage-drive, his dog at his heels. 
 
 Senhouse counted the smoking chimneys. There 
 were three. "The kitchen, the hall, and, since the 
 morning's chilly, a fire in my young lord's dressing-
 
 304 
 
 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 room. What's the time? Eight o'clock, I put it. 
 He must have another two hours. I'll go and forage 
 for breakfast." 
 
 He descended into the valley road, got a hunch 
 from a cottage, and washed it down with burn water. 
 He smoked a pipe, two pipes. By that time the 
 poet was cool, and the man of humours could make 
 himself heard. 
 
 **We are both right — clearly. She is right to 
 be there — certainly right. I am right to be here, 
 at work against her. I could do nothing else. Is 
 she to put her foot into bottomless black, and I not 
 stop her? Why do I stop her? Because I fear the 
 black about her stainless white? Because I love 
 her white and should fear her black? Not so, for 
 it may easily be that black's as good a wear as white. 
 Que sgay-je? Your reason, Senhouse, is that the 
 world has laid it down, White's the wear for women. 
 It comes to that, my friend, wriggle as you will. 
 White's the wear for women; because, don't you 
 see, if they wear anything else, how's a man to know 
 what he's buying ? And where's commerce ? where's 
 property? Whose son is mine? Oh, you fool, you 
 fool! 
 
 ''Not so, however. If the world says. Women 
 must wear white, so long as the world is so, white 
 they must wear. Who is the man living who dares 
 put his darling in black? Not old Percival, the 
 fond merchant; not Senhouse, the fond lover. It 
 can't be: let the girl die first. So we must say if 
 we are to save our souls.
 
 MR. SENHOaSE MAKES BOLD 305 
 
 **Now, pray observe precisely what I am about 
 to do. I meet a man, whose type I know and 
 abhor. I say to him, 'Fellow, you are abominable 
 to me; but Sanchia loves you. You shall take 
 her for your misusings, you, who are not fit to 
 look at her footprint in the sand, you shall take 
 her, and make her wretched. It must be so, for 
 she loves you. But you shall only take her in such 
 a way that she can never escape from you but by 
 death; for so the world has decreed — that women 
 must wear white satin.' That's to be my pleading, 
 and it cannot be anything else. It's the pleading of 
 old Percival too. He and I, we agree, are on the 
 side of the Angels." The poet in him lifted clenched 
 hands to heaven. ''The Angels, O God!" The 
 man of humours dropped them limp to his sides. 
 "No more, my friend, no more. Eat your slice of 
 pie, and be done with it." 
 
 The man-servant stared at the strange visitor, 
 whose bright eyes only, and cool tones, proclaimed 
 the gentleman. Mr. Ingram was certainly at home 
 — and he would inquire. Had the gentleman a 
 card? The gentleman had no card. What name 
 might he say, then? Mr. Senhouse; Mr. John 
 Senhouse. Very good. 
 
 Report was duly carried into the breakfast room, 
 where Mr. Ingram was lighting a long cigar, that 
 • — yes, on the whole, yes — "a gentleman to see you, 
 sir. A Mr. Senhouse." 
 
 Ingram paused with the match flaring in his
 
 3o6 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 hand and looked sideways. Bu he Ht his cigar to 
 a glowing heart before he said anything. 
 
 Then, "Mr. Senhouse? Who's he, Jackson?" 
 
 Jackson couldn't say, sir; but thought a strange 
 gentleman, perhaps a foreign gentleman. He added 
 in excuse, "Very wild, sir." 
 
 "Wild, is he? All right, Jackson; I'll have a 
 go at him in here." 
 
 Jackson retired; Ingram rose and stood with 
 outstretched legs before the wood fire — the Eng- 
 lishman's fighting position. He raised his chin 
 that he might settle his hunting-stock, which he 
 wore instead of a colUir and tie. It w^as pale blue 
 in colour, manifold, fastened with a gold safety- 
 pin. For the rest of him, he was in breeches and 
 gaiters — breeches whose arching thighs were to the 
 thin knees like the curves of two crescent moons 
 set horns to horns; gaiters, than which none ever 
 came from Jermyn Street to make a pair of sturdy 
 calves more like mahogany bed-pillars. Thus he 
 waited, cigar in mouth, for Mr. Senhouse. As 
 for his face, he transformed that on the opening 
 of the door to a blanloiess common to his type of 
 host. 
 
 Senhouse, open at the neck and loose at the 
 knees, swung forward with his hand out. 
 
 "Good-morning, Mr. Ingram. You remember 
 me, perhaps." 
 
 Ingram slowly shook hands. "Yes, I think so. 
 How d'ye do? Beastly day!" 
 
 "The fog is lifting," Senhouse said. "You'll
 
 MR. SENHOUSE MAKES BOLD 307 
 
 have it hot here by noon." Ingram was looking 
 out of window. 
 
 "Hope so! Dare say you're right. Have you 
 breakfasted, by the way? Because, if not — " He 
 turned to the bell. 
 
 ''Thanks! Yes, I did. Don't get anything for 
 me." 
 
 Ingram was warming his hands, and still looked 
 very blank and bland. But he was at work, for 
 all that, as his question should have told the visitor. 
 
 "Came up by the night mail, I suppose?" 
 
 Senhouse, however, did not see it. "Yes," he 
 said. "It's a good one. A little too good. It 
 landed me at Felsboro' at three o'clock in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "Awful, I know," Ingram said, looking about 
 him at nothing in particular. "If you'd wired me 
 I'd have had you met." Then he struck out for 
 himself. "How did you leave Miss Percival?" he 
 asked, and looked straight at his man. 
 
 But he got nothing by his bold attack. Sen- 
 house, who never saw implications, always wel- 
 comed simplifications. He liked Ingram for being 
 direct. 
 
 "She seemed to me perfectly well. I haven't 
 seen her since that afternoon when I met her with 
 you." 
 
 "I remember," said Ingram. "Won't you sit 
 down? Perhaps you'll smoke?" 
 
 Senhouse accepted the cigarette-box, and sat 
 himself down. "You've made things easy for me —
 
 3o8 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 or easier," he said, ''by asking after Miss Percival. 
 We're great friends, you know." Ingram nodded, 
 but had nothing to say. Senhouse went on. 
 
 "We have been so for over two years. We met 
 in the house of a common friend, one Lady Maul- 
 everer. Miss Percival was interested in my affairs, 
 and perhaps I may say that I became interested in 
 hers. We have met occasionally, and corresponded 
 frequently. I used to help her with her water- 
 colours." 
 
 "I know," said Ingram; "and her poetry." 
 
 "And her poetry," Senhouse agreed. "One 
 doesn't often find girls of her age with a sense for 
 poetry, and when one does, one is apt to value their 
 acquaintance. Her feeling for it is instinctive. She 
 takes it in through the pores, and " 
 
 Ingram was stroking his buckskins. "I know," 
 he said slowly. "But I don't suppose you came 
 shooting up here to talk about poetry to me. Shall 
 we, do you think, come to the point?" 
 
 "Yes," Senhouse said. "I'm much obliged to 
 you once more. But it was necessary to make 
 you understand how she and I stood." 
 
 "And do you think you've done it?" Ingram 
 asked him, with another sharp look. 
 
 "Not yet," said Senhouse. "It is now my busi- 
 ness to tell you that I love her." He saw the flush 
 under the brown skin, and the cold gleam in the eyes. 
 
 "Have no concern for that," he went on. "I 
 saw long ago that I had no chances whatever against 
 yours. I contented myself as best I might, by tell-
 
 MR. SENHOUSE MAKES BOLD 309 
 
 ing her so from a distance. It has made no differ- 
 ence as to our friendship, thank goodness, and it 
 has made no difference to my love." 
 
 Ingram frowned. "Damn your love!" was in 
 his mind, but he said nothing. 
 
 *'Now," said Senhouse, leaning forward, "just 
 consider these facts in the light of what I've now 
 told you. Miss Percival, who was one-and-twenty 
 last month, has been cut out of her family's Bible, 
 by her mother, and, so far as I can learn, by her 
 sisters. Her father, a timid, affectionate old gentle- 
 man, daren't have her home, but sees her furtively 
 in the city. No doubt he would see that she didn't 
 want for actual money; but he's not supposed to 
 know where she is. In actual fact, nobody else 
 knows where she is but me. Why these difficulties 
 have befallen her you know better than I do. But 
 you'll allow me to say that they concern me very 
 much, and the more so as I'm powerless to help her. 
 I think you'll see how and why they concern me. I 
 think you'll probably see why I'm here. In order 
 that you might, I took leave to trouble you with my 
 private affairs." 
 
 Ingram did not reply at first. It was to be seen 
 that he was intensely annoyed, also that he was 
 tempted to lash out at this fellow, who, by every 
 word that he uttered, put himself more fatally in 
 his power. Power is a great snare to a man of this 
 sort. It's really rather creditable to him that he 
 restrained himself. He did so, of course, because he 
 wanted Sanchia's address.
 
 3 TO OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 As usual, he struck out for it. "Where is Miss 
 Percival at this moment?" 
 
 Senhouse, smihng darkly, replied, "She's in 
 London." 
 
 "You've told me that already," Ingram said 
 sharply. "I'm asking you her address in London." 
 
 "I know you are," Senhouse replied. "I don't 
 know, however, whether I've got the right to give 
 it you." Then they settled down to their work in 
 earnest. 
 
 "Does she know that you are here?" 
 
 "She knew yesterday that I intended to come." 
 
 "Do you mean that she sent you?" 
 
 "Far from that. She forbade me to come." 
 
 "Then you took upon yourself " 
 
 "I did. You would have done the same in my 
 place." 
 
 "I am not in your place, as you know very well. 
 We won't discuss these things, I think. I take it 
 that you refuse me her address?" 
 
 "You may take it that I'm not empowered to 
 give it you. I can get you her father's address in 
 the city." 
 
 "I won't trouble you, thanks. I have it." 
 
 "He has his daughter's address, you know," 
 Senhouse said, in deadly calm. 
 
 "Look here," said Ingram, "what do you want 
 with me here?" Senhouse absorbed him — seemed 
 to suck him dry. 
 
 "I want you — extraordinary as you may think 
 it — to marry Miss Percival."
 
 MR. SENHOUSE MAKES BOLD 311 
 
 Ingram jumped to his feet. ''This must end," 
 he said. '*I don't know you— you are taking a 
 liberty. My affairs are not yours, and I simply 
 decline to discuss them with you. Perhaps you'll 
 be good enough to understand that." 
 
 "I do understand it," Senhouse said. "I knew 
 before I came here what would happen. I must 
 ask you to be patient with me. Miss Percival " 
 
 "You shall leave her name out while you talk 
 to me," Ingram broke in. 
 
 Senhouse said, "How can I? We both love 
 her, and she loves you. She is in great trouble, 
 and has nothing but her inexperience to protect 
 her. Her inexperience, and me. Whatever it costs 
 me in the loss of your esteem, you can't expect me 
 to stand by and do nothing. I am her friend: you 
 know it as well as she knows it. Ver}^ well; now 
 listen to this. I undertake to tell you that if you 
 go to her father with your proposals of marriage 
 you'll be listened to; and more than that. The 
 whole of this disastrous business will settle itself 
 down. I'm certain of it. Now, in telling you that, 
 I take it that I'm giving you something which you 
 didn't know before. You ought to be obliged to 
 me for my interference in your affairs, though I 
 can see that you are not. I give you — deliberately 
 — a way out, to which, so far as I can see, you can't 
 possibly take exception. I don't sec any other plan 
 for you — short of 'leaving her alone." 
 
 Midway through this speech Ingram had sud- 
 denly changed his whole purpose, which had been
 
 312 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 distinctly to ring the bell and have the visitor shown 
 the door. Midway, however, he became attentive, 
 and as it went on he steadied himself. 
 
 He was now almost suave. "You have put the 
 thing, from your point of view, very fairly. I am 
 bound to say so. I don't know whether I can go 
 so far as to admit any obligation; but there's no 
 harm in owning up to the justification which you 
 possess — or which I suppose you possess." 
 
 "My justification," said Senhouse, "is simply 
 my regard for Miss Percival's welfare." 
 
 Ingram smiled. "Rather more than that, I 
 should have thought. You saw her yesterday, 
 you tell me?" 
 
 Senhouse nodded. 
 
 "And she wrote, no doubt, asking you to come 
 and see her?" 
 
 "I told you that we corresponded," Senhouse 
 said. 
 
 "Quite so. And I remember that you hadn't 
 seen her since June, when she introduced us." 
 
 "That's quite true." 
 
 "Then," said Ingram, one knee on a chair, and 
 his elbow on the knee, "then I may assume that, 
 yesterday, she told you, for the first time, how 
 things stood between herself and me?" 
 
 "Yes; you may assume that. She doesn't write 
 about them." 
 
 "She prefers to talk?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Now," said Ingram, "you have been talking
 
 MR. SENHOUSE MAKES BOLD 313 
 
 to me about my business, and I have admitted 
 your right, or, rather, what seems to you to be your 
 right. I wonder if you'll allow me to ask you this 
 question. What did Miss Percival propose to 
 do?" 
 
 Senhouse considered him and his smooth, ap- 
 parently direct question. He liked its directness, 
 but its smoothness puzzled him. His reply, finally, 
 was: "She proposed to do nothing but employ 
 herself." 
 
 Ingram commanded his patience. "You don't 
 quite understand me. She told you, I believe, 
 something — possibly everything — about our rela- 
 tions. My question was intended to be. What 
 did she propose to do in that business?" 
 
 "My answer again," Senhouse said, "is that she 
 proposed to do nothing. Surely you don't ask 
 me to believe that it's the lady's part — to make 
 proposals?" Without knowing it, by right instinct 
 merely, he had done his best for Sanchia. 
 
 Ingram, seeing that he was to get nothing to his 
 purpose by his questions, was now plainly fatigued. 
 It seemed to Senhouse his opportunity for an appeal. 
 He got up, and began to walk the floor. 
 
 "There's no one known to me with higher cour- 
 age than Sanchia. She has the divine fire in her; 
 it shines in every act of her life. And she has a 
 mind; she can think out her course, foresee it, and 
 live through every stage of it, and undergo every 
 stage's previsioned pain. To love such a woman
 
 314 
 
 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 as she must become is — must be — to be put on one's 
 mettle. You know — you can't have lived in her 
 society as you have, can't have commended yourself 
 to her, gained her confidence, and won her heart, 
 without being the greater man. You won't deny 
 it — I am certain that to every stave I sang in her 
 honour, you would sing a louder. Don't think I 
 grudge you your triumph; I declare that I could 
 give her to you with thanksgiving. If you'll have 
 me at your wedding, I shall come gaily. I should 
 be proud to be the friend of the man whom she 
 loved. He must be a better man than I am. I de- 
 sire, therefore, your friendship. It would not be 
 possible for me to suppose you would meditate a 
 wrong against her. If I did that, do you think I 
 should be here? I declare to you that I know 
 you incapable of it. When I told you that I hoped 
 you would marry her, I meant it with a whole heart. 
 She loves you and waits for you. She trusts you 
 utterly. God is my judge that I cannot do other- 
 wise. What she has been to me — a lamp, an in- 
 spiration — that and much more she will be to you. 
 Have no fear. She has said things to me of you 
 which you yourself may hardly expect to hear from 
 her. But you'll do better: she will live them; you'll 
 see her thoughts at work. Now, listen to this: 
 I'm perfectly serious. She has in her a capacity 
 for self-sacrifice which, to me, argues a Godhead. 
 Possibly all good women in love have the same: 
 probably they have. I have never been in love 
 with a good woman before, and shall never love
 
 MR. SENHOUSE MAKES BOLD 315 
 
 another. One reads of Antigone, and Iphigenia, 
 and others: great tales which we believe as we 
 read. Mr. Ingram, Sanchia will do what the poets 
 fabled. I read it yesterday in her steadfast eyes; 
 I heard it spoken calmly from her lips. If that 
 don't humble you, it humbled me. I went out from 
 her door a better fellow. If I never see her again, 
 never hear from her — these things I leave to her — 
 I shall be content. I have seen her face the world 
 in arms, and have grace enough to know my salva- 
 tion when it's before me." He stopped and looked 
 queerly about him — seemed to awake out of sleep. 
 "I don't know what I've been saying. You must 
 forgive me. I love her, you know." 
 
 Ingram was still suave. *'I know, I know. I 
 quite understand. I'm very much obliged to you 
 for coming — and for what you've said about my- 
 self. I don't speak so readily as you do, you know. 
 I know very well what I mean to do, and am con- 
 tent to leave my intentions in — in Miss — in her 
 hands, you know. I am glad we are to part — if we 
 must part — in this way. Very glad indeed. You 
 told me just now that you trusted me — may I ask 
 you to show it? I think that I should have her 
 address in London. I do indeed." 
 
 Senhouse looked at him. It was on the tip of 
 his tongue. Then he lifted his hands. "I can't 
 do it. I'm awfully sorry. She didn't authorise 
 me — No, no, don't ask me that. I should go 
 directly to her father's office, if I were you — with 
 your proposals. That's all I can say."
 
 3i6 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 "It's all you intend to say, anyhow," Ingram 
 said, highly chagrined. 
 
 "My dear sir," Senhouse protested, "it's all that 
 is possible." Ingram made no reply. They parted 
 amicably, Senhouse most unwilling to go; but In- 
 gram was determined to get rid of him. 
 
 Senhouse well away, he rang the hall bell. " Jack- 
 son," he said, "tell Ambrose to pack my things. 
 A lot of things. I'm going to London until further 
 notice. I shall go by the two o'clock train, so he'd 
 better look sharp. I shall want him, of course. 
 And Vickars had better take those horses back. 
 I shan't ride. That's all, Jackson." 
 
 Jackson retired, and the master of Wanless stood 
 in mid-hall, his hands deep in his breeches pockets. 
 
 "A damned, impudent, hardy rascal," he said 
 to himself. "A damned chap."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 VALEDICTORY EPISTLE FROM THE OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 On his return to London from Felsboro' my 
 stricken friend called at Beauchamp Place, but 
 failed to find his divinity. She was, no doubt, at 
 her school in Chancery Lane. 
 
 He was allowed into her room to write her a note, 
 and found it fragrant with her late presence. Her 
 writing-case, some pencils, a camel's-hair brush; 
 violets in a tumbler; the little Dante, the Shelley 
 which he had given her: on the mantelpiece a pho- 
 tograph of Ingram's light eyes, cropped head, and 
 jutting chin. There also, had he but seen it (but 
 he did not), was another reminiscence: Percy 
 Charnock's chance shot of herself dipped half in 
 the pool and of her servitor afloat on the bed-raft. 
 That he did not see — and it may have been well for 
 him, since the past was most past, as he knew, and 
 such sharp remembrance had best go with it. 
 
 He wrote his note : — 
 
 ''I have been, and returned. Forgive me that 
 I dared do no less, and have done so little. To- 
 morrow to fresh woods! Know me only for yours 
 my life long, to use where you can and how you 
 will. Charnock's house will always find me. I 
 
 317
 
 3i8 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 shall never be far from you; a part of you will al- 
 ways be with me. — J. S." 
 
 Then he went his way out into the Open, and 
 if he felt winter already in the wind, he had his 
 philosophy for a muffler. 
 
 He wrote to her no more, and heard nothing 
 from her through that winter. He plunged him- 
 self into his works; lost his taste for painting, but 
 wrote much — among other things, his Defence of 
 Anarchy^ which, I understand, made some stir in 
 the retired eddies of the European stream, and his 
 Braw'oniaji, a sequence of Sonnets, which made 
 no stir at all, anywhere. He began his gardening 
 upon a serious plan, using England itself for his 
 garden-plot — a work which was to cause some 
 mind-searching on the part of students of our 
 wilds and a good deal of commotion among game- 
 keepers, bailiffs, and coast-inspectors. He told 
 himself that his zest for living at large was gone; 
 he told himself so at frequent intervals. But he 
 made no advances to his father the Alderman, and 
 declined the amenities of Bifl Hill (warmed through- 
 out with hot air) in favour of a gipsy tent at the 
 covert's edge when the north-easters of February 
 were driving the snow down the glades, and the 
 ground was like ridged metal. 
 
 About the end of February he was in Wiltshire, 
 on the Dorsetshire border, using the hospitalities 
 of an appreciative peer. A great and ancient yew- 
 wood lies there in a hollow of the downs; a home
 
 VALEDICTORY EPISTLE 319 
 
 of mysterious peace. From its southern edge the 
 rolHng grass runs up Hke racing waves to Pentridge. 
 Barrow and tumulus, mist-pool and dyke are all the 
 features in the pale waste of grass: mere dimples 
 and scars in its grey immensity. Such as we are 
 in the starry field, such are our Hic-jacets on the 
 wrinkled earth. Crouching here, on the lee of the 
 great wood — a thousand years in whose sight are 
 but as yesterday — warming his thin hands at a fire 
 of drift, our friend looked out over the empty 
 world, and could still say, "I am made one with 
 Nature." 
 
 He watched steadily the faint light of the sun 
 upon the hills, saw now and then a hare bounce for 
 a few short yards, and then sit high on the watch, 
 with ears erect. Afar off, like a white blur upon 
 the dun, he guessed at a flock of sheep; and on the 
 horizon presently saw the gaunt and giant form of 
 a shepherd in a cloak. Keen-sighted as he was, 
 he saw the man's hands clasped on the head of his 
 staff, and at his feet his dog, like a black speck. 
 Nesting plovers wheeled and wailed; behind him 
 a robin shrilled for company. Nothing was astir 
 on this bare March evening ; but hidden in the stony 
 sods he knew the green sprouts were breathing, 
 The time is at hand; is always at hand. 
 
 What we can do is so little; our courage to do it 
 is so much. Courage is, in fact, our life — to tell 
 ourselves the truth, and to do it. Life is a lovely 
 thing when our hopes are high, but the secret is to 
 know it lovely and loveworthy when we have no
 
 320 OPEN COUNTRY 
 
 hopes at all, and see nothing before us but this dun 
 waste, this frost, this dumbness, and this eternal 
 death. So he lifted up his eyes unto the hills — to 
 Pentridgc the grey and old — and hailed them for 
 comrades. 
 
 Habit is strong; Use-and-Wont, behind whose 
 skirts we cower — like partridge-chicks when the 
 hawk wheels up into our sky — she, the old hen- 
 bird, can use her beak upon us when we choose 
 impudently for the Open Country. She had hit 
 him, Senhouse, only yesterday a sounding buffet 
 with her dusty wings, when a gamekeeper had de- 
 livered him a letter from the post-office at Sixpenny- 
 Handley which bore the postmark Felsboro', R.S.O., 
 and, opened, began, ''Wanless Hall, My dear Jack." 
 No need to look at the signature, "Yours ever, 
 Sanchia," to tell him its news. She had made her 
 great leap into the dark. That truth pealed in 
 his brain straight and hot from his heart. 
 
 He had kept vigil upon it all night in the deep 
 yew- wood. In the morning he had slept, and when 
 he awoke it sat at his head. During the day he had 
 roamed the hills, drifting like one of the peewits of 
 the grass, not voicing his griefs as they do, but griev- 
 ing internally, wailing at the heart. Now as he 
 sat and looked upon great Pentridge he was able to 
 tell himself the truth, and to do it. 
 
 The pang and ache of loss— they were his, and 
 must be. Deadly fear had been with him all night; 
 but now he could look on Pentridge and tell him- 
 self there was nothing to fear. No harm ever yet
 
 VALEDICTORY EPISTLE 321 
 
 fell on a good woman. He could say so now, and 
 believe it. 
 
 Do him the justice to believe that it had never 
 entered his mind to blame her. Blame her! What, 
 for an act of divine compassion, for a swift, un- 
 faltering act of love, sprung, as the love of God 
 springs from pure Pity! Ah, no indeed. He could 
 thank his Gods simply that his eyes had seen such 
 a flight as this of hers. The deed, and the way of 
 it, the swift, unerring way of it, seemed to him 
 miraculous in one born of a woman. His eyes filled 
 now with tears, but they were gentle. **0 God, be 
 with her always!" Resolute to scan the Open 
 Country with his prayer upon his lips, he thought to 
 see the sun-stream burn upon the hills. And as he 
 looked for it, it was there. 
 
 He wrote to her before dusk. "I wish you happy, 
 and believe that you will be so. You have been true 
 to yourself: there's no other way. Many have 
 done as you, Sanchia, but none, I believe, so simply, 
 with such singleness of heart. The Gods, of whose 
 company you are, keep you ! Yes, you will be happy, 
 my dear one; and I shall know it, and rejoice. 
 Farewell!" 
 
 THE END
 
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